The Future of the Ogre

Im not going to stop blogging, before you even ask. Ive seen way too many blogs slow down, then the blogger comes on and spouts his excuses, and then the blog is silent forevar!

I promise you that if I quit blogging, Ill just ubruptly, and without warning, stop. I wouldent want to be like other people.

Anyway, back to what I am going to do, as opposed to what I am not. I am working on a self-hosted (sorta) wordpress platform for teh Ogre. Its going to be kindly donated to me by the fine folks at Raid Nazgrel. We will see if it works.

They already set it up for me, and I gleefully went into the admin section to play... And promptly broke it.

Im an Ogre, what can I say?

As for now, I am going to go ahead and post two more posts, one from the world of WoW, and the other from the world of DnD. Call it an apology for not posting. (Or, call it for what it is, soul-shattering guilt over not posting for too long.)

Twit! Nerf RNG-based EQ attacks, n00bs!

Seriously, Blizzard has no foresight at all, to not nerf earthquakes now risks the future stability of their game. I mean, sure, the chance is real low, and even when they do proc, they hardly ever do any damage, but they also cause a fear effect that cannot be dispelled, and sometimes, when they crit, they crit bad.

Blizzard needs to nerf earthquakes, or the class that uses them, the earth, to the ground, baby! Amirite? If they dont do this, I am going to reroll my life.

Things I see...

I am a seer, a oracle, I can see the future. Trust me, it works every time, without fail. Honestly, if I couldent see the future, do you really think I would claim to be able to? Or, perhaps I see the future, and know that my claim, though false, causes some good outcome for me or you. Point is, you should take everything I say as truth, if you dont, I cannot promise that what I say will actually come true. Blizzard released the 3.0.8 patch notes. In it, and the other rumblings of the blogosphere (the modern day chicken entrails,) I have seen the following bits that interest me, and therefore, you. These are in no particular order (or, are they?)

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Nine spells have had a bug-fix whereby the 'correct damage modifires will be applied to the spell based on the target's creature type.' This bug-fix was applied to four classes, Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Warlocks; however, only one class has a talent that increase their damage against spicific opponents, Paladins: Crusade will now interact properly with:

• Judgement of Blood
• Judgement of the Martyr
• Judgement of Command

Druids have no such talent, and yet Entangleing Roots got the same treatment, as did the Priest's Shadow Word: Pain, and the Warlock's Corruption, Haunt, Soul Siphon, and Unstable Affliction. As I said, I can see the future, and I see; nothing. All these spells changed because they all share similar coding. Could Blizzard introduce creature spicific damage bonuses in the future? Absolutely. Will they? Maybe, but these bug-fixes dont indicate that. Like Mystic Chicancery said, any assumption that this indicates anything is 'crazy talk.'

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Clams can now be opened while sitting (read, eating and drinking,) and while mounted (taxi or normal.) Some may scoff, and others even bitch about how other more important things should be fixed, but I always welcome 'quality-of-life' changes to the game.

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Apparently, we didnt unlearn the old Paladin talent, Precision. It has been hotfixed, along with several other talents that were removed/merged. Basically, Im loosing chance to hit; RAAAGE!

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The official patch notes were written by a 4 year old, or someone with no time at all. Here is what they said about Entangling Roots.

Entangling Roots: When determining if a new Entangling Roots should overwrite an old one, and will now calculate the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.

Now, it sounds like to me, that there are two parts to that. One, as I discussed above, is a big fix to another spell entirely that made sense there too. The other is one a friend of mine noticed. So, S, if your listening, I dont think you should be having a hard time re-rooting after 3.0.8! Yay!

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Lots of cool profession changes are incoming. Here is one that interested me.

Jessica Sellers, a new vendor in the Dalaran inscription shop, will sell most inscription inks for the cost of one Ink of the Sea. She also sells Snowfall Ink for multiple Inks of the Sea.

Inscription never made sense to me, because it doesent scale. Take Glyph of Spiritual Attunement, for a Paladin Tank, thats about as required as they come, aggree or not, but the point is, its a level 18 glyph. To make it, you have to have one Midnight Ink, and one Light Parchment, the Midnight Ink requires two Dusky Pigment, which you get from milling Mageroyal, Swiftthistle, Briarthorn, Bruiseweed, or Stranglekelp, all low level herbs. But the glyphs that are made are required at all levels of play. And because Glyphs are not permanent, anyone from level 18 to 80 may need a new Glyph of Spiritual Attunement at any time. This scaling schema makes no sense, and there is no corrolary to any other profession. Now, you will be able to use your Ink of the Sea (made from Azure Pigment, milled from Northrend Herbs) to trade down to the Inks you will need. No more requirement for you to go herbing all over this world and the next to get the proper pigments. Its a crappy solution to a stupid problem, but its a solution. Next up, Jewelcrafting, looks like we are getting our Brilliant Glass for WotLK, its called Icy Prism, and instead of 3 of each of the green gems, it will require 3 of the purple, blue, and green (color, not rarity) gems, and a Frozen Orb, early reports suggest it will drop at least 2 of the blue (quality, thats Autumn's Glow, Forest Emerald, Monarch Topaz, Scarlet Ruby, Sky Sapphire, and Twilight Opal) gems, and has a chance for a 3rd, is also has a small chance to drop a Dragon's Eye. I wonder what we are supposed to do with surpluses of the other three green gems. In Mining news, we will only have to tap the mine node once, instead of multiple times. Call it quality-of-life, ultimately, its better this way, but I do admit, I will miss being different than herbalism. (I suppose the secondary benefits of herbalism, mining, and skinning will have to do.)

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Im looking forward to 3.0.8, over all. Here is my prediction, someone will think that patch 3.0.8 sucks. Prove me wrong, I dare you.

The 'Good' WoW Player

As a new Blog Azeroth devotee, I am writing my first response to a shared topic. The question is, what is a good WoW player? To me, its actually elegantly simple. This may well come from a long time spent tanking, but its how I perceive it. To me, whenever I want to improve myself, it is so I can spend more attention on this one thing. What is it? Situational Awareness. WoW has a metric tonne of stuff going on, and that's when things are going according to plan! When a standard ton of do-do hits the industrial sized fan, you have to be aware of even more. If you are capable of cultivating this awareness, everything else, in my opinion, can be taught. The first step to solving a problem is to state the problem. If you have no situational awareness, you have no idea that there is even a problem. When I try to improve my skills, even something completely unrelated to my awareness of the game, (like trying to figure out which is most effective against one target, Crusader Strike or Divine Storm?) I do so so that I can spend more of my time devoted to perceiving the virtual environment, and widening my situational awareness. Players without this awareness are the type to stand in really bad spots, or they move when they shouldn't. But outside just positioning, they either blow their cooldowns to early or too late, or not at all, they might as well be machines. Obviously, some classes require this situational awareness more, and some less, but that doesn't mean one can do without. And before you ask, no amount of study of a strat can replace it. Because I value it so highly, it is why I cannot stand people who watch TV and play or even play other games while playing. Situational awareness, get some. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. Except GI-Joe is wrong, its the whole frikken battle!

Twit! Quit yer bitchin'

I forgot to post this yesterday. I post late at night, so I was posting in the very early Tuesday am hours, meaning this was Monday. Ding! And this post was directed to a particular person, you know who you are, mostly because you are my only reader... Did you sign up to Blog Azeroth yet? No? Quit beating the obese and get on it!

The Saga is over

At last, I have a working computer, a working copy of WoW, and my addons are (mostly) back up to snuff. Ive been quiet about my ordeal, but I think it is time for this story to be made public, but I warn you, some of the images and reenactments you are about to see may be distressing to some viewers. First, we have to cover the tragedy that started this whole thing in motion. You see, my computer broke. At the time, this reporter was unaware of the true scope of the tragedy. Some sources quoted me as saying there was magic smoke, other sources did not. What I really said, based on the remains was, "My god, their must have been smoke." At the time, I had no idea how right I was. You see, the English, jealous of my good teeth, stole my computer, and did evil things to it, only to return it later without my knowledge. (No doubt they were in league with the underpants gnomes, and that is how they got in and out so stealthily.) I wouldn't believe me either, but after long and extensive archival research, I was able to uncover this archival footage of the incident that day. Sadly, the massive loss of Bothan life could not be avoided, (they are too delicious.) It was either that, or this... And after the filming of that degrading piece of filth, my computer committed suicide. Either way, I blame Gnomes (underpants or otherwise.) From the point it became clear my computer was lost to me, I became distraught, despondent, and otherwise dis-something-a-whosit. My dear brother went out of his way, and bought me a whole new computer. There were some... http://inspiredogre.blogspot.com/2008/12/twit-i-am-so-mad.html, with the delivery, and though UPS delivered on time after all, I make no apologies for any of my words or actions. (Incidentally, you can totally blame me for the crappy "What can brown-and-bloody do for you?" ad campaign, I went a little overboard with the stabbing.) However, budgets being what they are, the video card I had was, less than suitable. But I did learn something. When the login-dragon laughs at you in 1 FPS, just don't log in, turn back around, and get a new video card. So, I did, and now, I am sitting high and happy, ready to play as soon as I get home this morning. ... ... ... ... ... ... DAMNIT!

Twit! The WoW Me.

I cannot seem to figure out a good way of displaying the pictures I made of my characters, so I will just display my main. And in case you missed em, (or are watching my feed,) here he is, a picture is worth 1000 words, which means they are worth... 50 of my words. I give you, Ludux. And here is my Death Knight, Luduex. And me as a mage, Luduz. And the token hunter, required for me to blog, Ludeul. (Careful, she has crabs.) Real post inc...