A quick peek into Diablo III

I'm talking about: Diablo III

I gave Diablo III a whirl during the Open Beta Weekend. I wasn’t able to play as much as I would have wanted–I was feeling somewhat ill for the most part during the weekend–but I was able to “beat” the beta and fight Leoric/The Skeleton King. I played mostly solo, but did try co-op play as well, and beat Leoric with Pia.

I haven’t played Diablo II in a looo~ong while, and World of Warcraft is my most recent RPG experience. As such, I did take a few minutes to reorient myself and stop hitting WASD keys. I played a bit with all of the classes, although I finished the beta with my class of preference, the Wizard. I really am more of a range sort of player; bashing things with the Barbarian is fun, but I get annoyed with all the running around because of knockbacks and the like.

On gameplay

I don’t know if they tuned the game easier for the beta, but it was fairly straightforward (and not as stressful as I remember Diablo II to be–but then I’d like to think I’m “better” at these games now than I was in college). Resource constraints are mostly forgettable except for the more intensive fights, when I’d need to use more of the skills and manage my resources (arcane power, mana, fury, etc) a bit better, and maybe down a potion or two. For the most part I don’t need to bring along so many potions–the random health globe drops is usually more than enough to keep me going between (and sometimes in the middle of) fights, although it can sometimes be a challenge getting to a health globe when you’re up against a crowd (accidental clicking on monsters instead of the ground, for example).

Graphics is smooth, and the storyline is solid: it feels fairly immersive, with interesting lore points along the way. I’m very impressed with how enduring Deckard Cain is ;) all those years plus a couple days in the crypts being hunted by Leoric’s guards, he’s got amazing luck ;) I like that the stash and gold is shared across your characters. I haven’t been able to test out the forging, but it looks very promising.

Co-op play is fun, although I was confused at first as to who was going to be doing the questing. There are prompts for started “events”, i.e. boss or mini-boss fights, but for the most part the quests can be done by either regardless of where they are in the storyline alone (I had a level 2 friend join me for level 5-ish quests–and he actually started the quest himself). I don’t fully understand how aggro works yet, exactly, although I’m guessing I’m complicating things too much and forcing the game into a more WoW perspective–but I can’t help but be worried when the boss is on me rather than the tanky monk, or if my demon hunter friend is getting beat on when I’m on my stocky barbarian.

I did miss WoW’s emotes ;) I missed jumping up and down with the spacebar, waving to the NPCs I meet, that sort of thing. Of course, I feel like this is one of those times where hardcore Diablo fans will turn their noses up at me for even thinking of /flirting with the NPCs ;)

On the classes

I played mostly with the wizard, which was sufficiently “blow-uppy” with pretty arcane spells of purple and blue and pink. I also like the arcane power gauge–such a pretty pink/purple globe with stars in it! I’m not entirely sure if the DPS stats on my one handers affect my spells, since I don’t swing the weapons myself, so I don’t exactly know if I should treat them as stat sticks like in WoW or actually care about the DPS numbers on them. I’ve yet to really discover how to use the skills: the Ray of Frost felt like a HUGE resource drain, I kept shooting my Arcane Orb where the mob wasn’t anymore, and the Shock Pulse felt a bit too random for me. Frost Nova and Wave of Force were useful to get away from enemies, unless I accidentally clicked on one of them.

The monk, to me, is like a “shiny” melee character. Quick hits and flashy effects can do that to you ;) She felt rather squishy though, and I’m not sure if I should be dual-wielding one-handers for more damage, or get a shield to get more block.

The opposite of that is the barbarian–pure force! I don’t mean to say there are no pretty badass effects with her hits, but she definitely felt quintessentially barbaric, which is good when you’re of that bent. Destruction, single hit kills, and the like are very satisfying when all you want to do is smash things.

I was a bit hesitant about playing the demon hunter, because back in D2, I rather sucked as the assassin. I suck at traps and kiting. But nevertheless, it was fun giving the demon hunter a whirl, although honestly, running around in heels that high? I think she felt a little overdone, but I’m sure lots of folks will want to play with someone looking very “badass”.

Last but not the least, the witch doctor was…interesting, and possibly the most amusing. I think she’s the squishiest at the start, but it felt quite hilarious throwing huge jugs of spiders around (though it felt a bit random, damage-wise).

Overall

I’m pretty excited with my quick peek into D3–it’s definitely whetted my appetite and I’m looking forward to the May 15 launch. I will probably stick with my wizard main class, but anything after that is fair game. I’ll admit feeling a bit nervous with my squishy class when going up against the main bosses (I suppose going through it the first time in a co-op is not exactly the best way to gain confidence!) but…bring it on!

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Delicious friends forever

Some of you might remember that I once talked about Echo Bazaar and their move to limit daily actions. That was my first post on Echo Bazaar, and it was unfortunate it ended up colliding with a change that I disagreed with, not just as a gamer but also as someone interested in online community/engagement dynamics.

Last last month, I received a direct message on @gamewhims (my gaming Twitter account) from @EchoBazaar, letting me know of the Festival of Endless Actions: two days in February where the daily action cap would be removed temporarily. I’d been thinking on and off about EBz for a bit before this, and this prompted me to check in and see what had changed.

(I would like to say that I looked at recent news and changes, to see if the reasons why I quit on principle before had been changed. I would like to say that, but honestly, after reading a few blog posts, I said, ah whatever, and jumped right back in. Ahem.)

And so I went back to Fallen London.

A not-so-new-face in Fallen London

Aside from the new content, which would have been a given since I had been out for more than a year by that time, there had been a couple changes. New mechanics, a “subscription” option, and subtle UI changes. For some reason, I had quite a bit of Fate–enough to become an Exceptional Friend–and so I gave that a shot. Exceptional Friends get two candles (or, 20 actions at a time) and double the daily action limit (50 to 100), as well as a few storylets in the House of Chimes. I wanted it more for the two candles, to be honest–I’m impatient.

And so, armed with a whopping 20 actions per sitting (cough), I went on my merry way in Fallen London. I had a blast during the Festival, as well. I ended up ‘shroom-hopping during the last day of the Festival (they extended it an extra day! woo!) and had a blast. I had to sleep, and I had to work (I know, both are for the weak, but what can I say, I have bills and health to consider), but it was fun.

Just earlier this week, though, I started to feel like, okay, so what now? What do I do with my actions? Back to a limited pool, I started feeling (again) that I needed to be really prudent about using them. During the festival, I gave almost everything a shot–did some of the older arcs to remember them, tried various paths even if they didn’t seem like the best idea. I discovered things. I wandered around Fallen London. But now–I only have so much! No, I should save them for things that count.

And so, last Tuesday, after exhausting my actions, I thought, meh. It’s probably time to go now and leave Fallen London again. Don’t get me wrong, I like strategizing the best and most efficient way to do things in the games that I play. But it just felt a touch alien in a world like Fallen London: sprawling and full of hidden mysteries, the unexpected and the exciting peeking just around the corner. I wanted to wander but I felt out of place strategizing my wandering for the most efficient returns. I mean, I already work out my day that way. Don’t tell me I have to do that here, too?

And then, barely an hour later, they announced they were doing away with the action cap. The actual change happened the next day, but when I first read their announcement, I didn’t understand it. Huhwhat? They’re having another Festival? Until eventually, it dawned on me–endless actions for good!

HUZZAH!

Forever and a day

Of course, it’s not all happy bunnies and rainbows. You do essentially have an action cap–with the refresh rate adjusted to one action every ten minutes, you have a max cap of 144 actions, if you played nonstop. It’s still a far cry from 50 actions, and definitely encourages people to keep coming back to the website as opposed to a full stop for the day once they’ve reached the cap.

I’d also like to commend the team in experimenting and giving endless actions a trial run. I’m impressed.

It feels like this has come full circle. Having played Echo Bazaar way back when there were no hard caps, and then to the time when there were hard caps, and back again–it’s such a sweet feeling, faintly nostalgic with a dash of exultation. The Echo Bazaar I fell in love with has come back.

Dust off your Neathglass Goggles and greet your Fairly Tame Sorrow-spider: it’s time to go a-wandering.

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Yet another blunder (A TeamLava rant)

Sometimes, I really am dumbfounded with some gaming outfits. I suppose I’ve never really had an opinion of TeamLava specifically, though I have tried almost all their “-Story” games and have spent money on gems. I’m currently an active player of Bakery Story, and have started out on Farm Story as well. I’ve toyed with the idea of reviving my Restaurant Story game, which is the next-highest level TeamLava game I have.

I enjoy the games, although Bakery Story is the most interesting for me. My bakery is called the Chocoberry Cafe, and I bake according to a theme: if a recipe has chocolates and berries (of any kind) in it, I make it. This means I always juggle between recipes that have long cook times, but higher yields, and recipes that are quick but have lower yields (except for Brownies and Blueberry Muffins, because they are too quick and I can’t afford to babysit the cafe). Given the theme of my bakery, it’s fairly important to me to keep the food stocked up and displayed on the counters. After all, the food is the reason why my cafe is named “Chocoberry Cafe”. They are part of my “decoration”, if you will. So whenever a food item dips to less than 5,000 plates, I could be in danger of “losing” that item, which is something I’d rather not happen. (It also messes up with whatever arrangement I already have with the food items, since you don’t really have any control where the food gets served once you serve it.)

Yesterday morning, I saw a message on my wall from one of my neighbors, saying that she was gifting brownies now (instead of the “standard” cappuccinos) due to changes in the game, and that they are now the highest-profit items. Dumbfounded, I went and looked it up–and it’s true.

This isn’t Kansas anymore

As early as January 17, players have noticed the change and have put forward their thoughts and complaints. TeamLava has responded only to say that the change is “to ensure that the game is enjoyable as possible — not just for current players, but new players as well…to balance out the game”. Based on what I’ve read, the changes that have happened include:

Normalizing selling price per food plate to 4 coins. This raises the profit for stuff like Brownies (initially selling for 1 coin per plate) and lowers it for stuff like Red Velvet Cake (initially 12 coins per plate, though I may be wrong–this used to be my biggest earner, though).
Lowering yield per bake. I have no comparison data for this, but it’s been reported.
Lowering cost of recipes to bake. This was communicated later on, but again, I have no comparison data.
Blocking the door to stockpile food does not stop sales now; there have been reports that once you unblock the door, the food that you should have sold while you were stockpiling all gets sold immediately.

These changes make counters harder to stock, whether you’re a new or older player. I’ve noticed this myself, but shrugged it off initially and thought maybe I was just imagining things. Less yield means that if I try making an item that takes a number of hours to make, if my baker stays open the whole time, by the time I get to serve these new food items, there is nothing on the counter anymore. Empty counters at any point of the game means unhappy customers, and unhappy customers bring your popularity down, and popularity affects the number of customers coming into your bakery (lower than the measly 30-or-so customers we’re already getting). I have some stuff stocked from before the change (now selling at a loss, since they were baked with a higher-priced recipe than now, and selling for much lower), but new players don’t have the 16 appliances I have: how are you supposed to keep counters stocked with only a handful of ovens that you’re limited to due to your low level? Why, spend $4.99 to buy gems to add one extra appliance, of course! Worse, you can’t even block the door to stockpile, now. The only way I got through those lower levels was to stockpile. I don’t see how this change will help new players.

These changes make it slower to earn money. I used to spend a lot of bake time and coins to bake the ones with high yield and high profit, because I knew that once that batch sells, I will have reached a coin goal and I can get x item, or expand, etc. as opposed to waiting and waiting and waiting for my lower (therefore slower) items to sell. And yes, the recipes cost lower to make: but you bake more (and therefore spend more) in order to keep your counters stocked, so the point is moot. I’ve noticed it’s harder to earn money: it’s been a while but I’m having a hard time trying to break 2M (for my 4M goal, which I need to expand) when I need to keep baking to keep food items on counters.

Also, it removes the strategy element: if everything is normalized, then it doesn’t really matter what item you bake. I enjoy just making the food items that fit the theme of my bakery, but I want to make other items too, but right now, I can’t afford to do that (time-wise) because wait, my Chocolate Cake is getting dangerously low, I need to stock up on that first. So I just never end up making these other items. It becomes mindless, which kids probably don’t really care about, but as an adult, it was part of the draw of the game. If I wanted a mindless game, there are a lot of action arcade games made for the iPhone, on other consoles. I’ll go play that instead.

And an extra dash of salt to wound:

No warning nor formal announcement on these changes. They were just rolled out and it was the users themselves who noted it and started asking questions, who are understandably confused and worried if there was a bug. They have responded with an official statement after a while, but continue to largely ignore the strong user sentiments on the changes. And other people have noted that TeamLava’s wording–that they have “legions of super-passionate fans” sound almost insulting. I don’t think it’s wise for TeamLava to ignore these “legions” of “super-passionate” gamers that they are alienating. New users are great, but those who TeamLava might classify as “super-passionate” are the ones dropping significant hard-earned cash for the game.

A time for all things to end

I do like spending cash now and then on freemium games–I just did recently with Bakery Story. Paying for stuff like gems is good because it supports these smaller game houses and I like thinking that I’m doing my bit to keep them going. I stopped Bakery Story for a while, but then had my account ported over to my new phone just to be able to keep going. But this is unacceptable. Poor communication with the community and user base, shady decisions that doesn’t look like it’s going to change–I’m not going to continue supporting games by a company who does this.

I’ve been thinking it’s time for a break–and maybe it really is time to say goodbye to TeamLava and the Story series. Goodbye, Chocoberry Cafe and my beloved chocolate fountain.

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Chibi Starcaller Tala

Two days ago, I decided to get artwork done for Tala, my discipline priest. And yesterday, it was finally done! :D

Diana (apricaught.tumbler.com) drew her for me, and she is such a cutie :D For those who don’t get the reference, “tala” is one of two (as far as I know) words in Tagalog for “star”. It is such a teenyboppery name, I know, but it suits her well as a space goat! ;)

And of course, now she has a use for those horrid ponds on her shoulders–a place to put soapy bubble liquid in!

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Ready, set, pull!

I have my two mains (don’t laugh) to 85 now, and decently geared: Tala has been raiding, and Eilonwyn good enough for heroics and maybe a Baradin Hold. Tala is discipline healer main spec, and shadow off-spec; while Eilonwyn is arcane and frost.

Earlier this week, I realized exactly what kind of play style suits me. Planning suits me. Pre-strategizing fights and what I do in them suits me. That’s now evident in the specs and type of play I like: I prefer PVE to PVP because I like being able to plan what to do and when, discipline healing is basically “pre-healing” by mitigating and absorbing damage, and arcane play style relies a lot on how well you plan and sync up your burn phases.

Say what?

This realization came about due to two things:

First, I ended up raiding at 5fps, because we had no healer cover for that night, and I did not realize that the Mumble overlays were wreaking havoc on my FPS (I realized after the raid. GG). I have never been more thankful of my mitigation that night: blind shielding+hasted Prayer of Healing can just about make it, although it won’t get one very far (overshooting mouse turns and running past stack points will get you killed, folks).

Second, I bit the bullet and changed Eilonwyn’s secondary spec to fire, because the number of frost instants just isn’t ideal for my latency. Initially, I thought that maybe since I was doing alright with my shadow priest spec, I can go fire now with its DOTs and all and work that out–right? WRONG.

It’s not like shadow priest dots, where you refresh them just before they run out, and cast other stuff on cooldown. I was even better with the mage frost spell priority, with its multiple instants; the problem I was having with fire is, how to align the goddamn DOTs for Combustion, y0. I set up my auras and everything, and I know I just need a bit more muscle memory to get it all down pat, but when you finally get the insta-Pyroblast and have the dot up there, Ignite or Living Bomb or freaking both might be down to, what, 2 seconds before they run out, but you need to hit combustion now now now!!. *dies*

Arcane is great for me. Arcane rewards the prepared: knowing when the best time to burn is, shifting your rotation according to your mana levels. It sucks for mobile fights, though, totally. Can we get Firestarter for arcane, please? On the move but hit less, maybe? Kthxbye.

So what now?

I’m a big believer in enjoying the game. It’s a game, you should play the way it’s fun for you. No one should ever feel forced to raid if they don’t feel like it, just because it’s “expected” of them. In the same way, I don’t want to play a spec I get a lot of frustration from (I think I’m a bit too obsessive-compulsive to hit Combustion while all three dots are not up). Sadly, arcane is the weakest mage DPS spec at the moment, and I don’t feel comfortable asking for a raid spot when I’m going with the weakest DPS spec. I know that arcane still puts out well for certain fights…but those fights are a minority. :/

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Tales of a gearing healing priest

Since Tala hit 85, I’ve been working out what items she needs from which bosses and reputations so she can get up to snuff on raiding. While probably everyone and their mother are 85 by now, I thought people who might have healing priest alts might find lists of “best” pre-raid spirit gear useful, as I would have.

Gearing for healing, I’m finding out, is a largely personal/individualistic in nature. If you don’t have enough spirit, get more spirit, but too much and you’re wasting it according to the content that you’re running. I don’t know what the gearing priorities are for holy either, but in general I am working with intellect upgrade is an upgrade as long as it has spirit, or sometimes a non-spirit item may be good enough for reforging (your mileage may vary).

So my list contains mostly spirit gear, with an option for a high-level non-spirit gear (if available), and haste/crit/mastery choices. I also added any BoEs or craftable items. I don’t include Valor-purchasable items, although any BoE pieces are available.

Head

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Je’Tze’s Sparkling Tiara	Bind on Equip
Haste	Mask of New Snow	2,200 JP
Mastery	Aurelian Mitre	Throne of the Tides
Non-spirit	Lightweight Bio-Optic Killshades	Engineering

Neck

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Quicksilver Amulet	Blackrock Caverns
Crit	Amulet of Tender Breath	Vortex Pinnacle
Mastery	Celadon Pendant	1,250 JP
Mastery	Acanthia’s Lost Pendant	Bind on Equip
Non-spirit, crit+mastery	Lightning Flash Pendant/Yellow Smoke Pendant	Tol Barad, exalted
Non-spirit, haste+mastery	Dorian’s Lost Necklace	Bind on Equip

Shoulder

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Crit	Summer Song Shoulderwraps	1,650 JP
Haste	Krystel Mantle	Blackrock Caverns
Mastery	Mantle of Loss	Shadowfang Keep

Back

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Crit	Azureborne Cloak	Grim Batol
Crit, less spirit	Springvale’s Cloak	Shadowfang Keep
Haste	Solar Wind Cloak	Halls of Origination
Non-spirit	Ritssyn’s Ruminous Drape	Bind on Equip

Chest

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Shadowforge’s Lightbound Smock or its heroic version	Bind on Equip
Crit	Musk Rose Robes	2,200 JP
Mastery	Anraphet’s Regalia	Halls of Origination
Non-spirit	Dizze’s Whirling Robe	Bind on Equip

Wrist

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Crit	Crimsonborne Bracers	Grim Batol
Mastery	Baron Ashbury’s Cuffs	Shadowfang Keep
Non-spirit	Bracers of the Dark Pool or its heroic version	Bind on Equip

Hands

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Woundsplicer Handwraps	Bind on Equip
Crit	Daughter’s Hands	Deadmines
Mastery	Gloves of Purification	1,650 JP
Haste	Dolomite Adorned Gloves	Stonecore
Non-spirit, crit+haste	Grips of the Failed Immortal	Bind on Equip
Non-spirit, haste+mastery	Flamebloom Gloves	Earthen Ring, exalted

Waist

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Mastery	Cord of the Raven Queen	Guardians of Hyjal
Haste	Belt of the Depths	Bind on Equip, Tailoring
Haste	Evelyn’s Belt	Lost City of the Tol’vir
Mastery	Belt of the Falling Rain	1,650 JP

Legs

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Leggings of Charity	2,200 JP
Crit	Leggings of Iridescent Clouds	Vortex Pinnacle
Crit	Sunderfury’s Sundries	Bind on Equip
Non-spirit, crit+haste	Breeches of Mended Nightmares	Bind on Equip, Tailoring
Non-spirit, crit+mastery	Flame-Ascended Pantaloons	Bind on Equip, Tailoring

Feet

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Slippers of Moving Waters	Bind on Equip
Crit	Boots of Lingering Sorrow	Shadowfang Keep
Mastery	Hekatic Slippers	Halls of Origination
Non-spirit, crit	Melodious Slippers	Bind on Equip
Non-spirit, haste	Desert Walker Sandals	Ramkahen, exalted

Finger

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Crit	Band of Life Energy	Halls of Origination
Crit, less spirit	Ring of Frozen Rain	The Vortex Pinnacle
Mastery	Kibble	Blackrock Caverns
Haste	Ring of the Great Whale	Bind on Equip
Mastery	Veneficial Band	Lost City of the Tol’vir
Non-spirit	Ring of the Boy Emperor	Archeology Bind to Account

Trinket

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Non-spirit, haste	Vibrant Alchemist Stone	Alchemy
Int, spirit chance/stack	Darkmoon Card: Tsunami	Bind on Equip
Non-spirit, mana storage	Tyrande’s Favorite Doll	Archeology, Bind to Account
Int, spirit chance	Tear of Blood	Stonecore
Spirit, int chance	Mandala of Stirring Patterns	Tol Barad, exalted
Spirit, haste chance	Rainsong	Bind on Equip
Spirit, spellpower chance	Sea Star	Throne of the Tides

Two-hand

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Mastery	Chelley’s Staff of Dark Mending or its heroic version	Bind on Equip
Crit	Staff of Ammunae	Archeology, Bind to Account
Haste	Soul Releaser	Halls of Origination
Mastery	Staff of Isolation	Shadowfang Keep
Non-spirit, crit+haste	Staff of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan	Archeology, Bind to Account

Main Hand

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Crit	Shimmering Morningstar	Tol Barad, revered
Mastery	Torturer’s Mercy	Blackrock Caverns
Haste	Scepter of Power	Halls of Origination
Mastery	Elementium Hammer	Bind on Equip, Blacksmithing

Off-hand

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Mastery	Heartbound Tome	Bind on Equip
Crit	Bioluminescent Lamp	Throne of the Tides
Haste	Divine Companion	Bind on Equip, Inscription
Haste	Apple-Bent Bough	950 JP
Mastery	Prophet’s Scepter	Stonecore

Ranged

Secondary stat	Name	Source
Haste	Wand of Untainted Power	Grim Batol
Non-spirit	Theresa’s Booklight and its heroic version	Bind on Equip

Hope this helps! :) I’m nearly there, thanks to a couple of really lucky guild runs. Hopefully soon I’ll be well-clothed enough to try raiding again!

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I play on a Mac

So I’ve been looking at a possible machine upgrade from my Macbook–and while it’s pretty set that it will be an iMac, I’ve been playing with the idea of getting an Air. I’m not very serious with that, but then we can all dream and drool, can’t we? ;)

While torturing myself with the Air, I looked for posts and reviews about the performance of World of Warcraft on Macbook Airs. I’ve seen a really good review last January about it which started my “serious” Air obsession–it looks like it was playing WoW better than my Macbook (I play on Low/custom settings, at 20-30fps)! It was a surprise, although it shouldn’t be: Airs have solid-state drives, and these new babies should certainly be more advanced than my 2-year-old Macbook.

Rcently, I went on another hunt to just see if anyone else had more to say about it, and came across a Battlenet post about it.

Look at how a shocking number of posters (maybe even the majority?) claim that the original poster was a troll.

Seriously, what? It’s devolved into a PC vs Mac war, which I suppose is rather inevitable, but honestly, the guy was just sharing his experience playing WoW on an Air! It’s definitely useful for other people. I get it, Macs are more expensive than built PCs, and they can get to 100+ fps or something. That’s fine, good for you.

But not everyone uses computers to primarily play games. I don’t. I want my machine to play the computer games I play well enough for my playstyle, but I am not going to buy a computer whose sole purpose is to play games.

I’ve built PCs before. I’ve pored over price charts and built CPUs accordingly. Oh, yes, they’re cheap and they’re powerful. But, uh, they were a pain, too. I’ve had hardware issues that required bringing it in for fixing once a year, at least. And being the “only techie” in the family, that meant I needed to do all the grunt work for that. And the ease of upgrading–oh my. I needed, just needed, to have that really cool new video card, a bigger memory, better drives…and so on and so forth.

I haven’t sent my Macbook in for repairs, ever. Oh yes, it’s expensive. My machine right now is running straight from the power socket because the battery is alarmingly bloated but I’m too much of a cheapskate to buy a new battery, because it’s expensive. It’s also difficult to almost impossible to get upgrades, but that’s fine with me–I don’t feel the need to get the biggest and the best anymore, because what I have works just nice.

And on the subject of “30 fps is unplayable”–really? I play on 20 fps in raids and I am doing very well. Unplayable is 7 fps. I’m a casual raider–I’m certainly not on par with the top raiders in the game, nor do I want to be, and unless I’m in that level, I don’t think 30 fps is going to gimp you so much. It’s not ideal, of course–ideal would be to have 60fps+ in Ultra–but I’m willing to make that trade off because World of Warcraft and other games is not the biggest part of my life, even if it’s big enough to warrant a dominant section of my blog.

I play on a Mac because it makes sense to me and what I use my computer for. I play on a Mac because I’m not someone to have multiple machines when one will do just fine, thankyouverymuch. I play on a Mac because specifications don’t matter to me as much as my experience of the output of those same specifications and the aesthetic, no-fuss quality of Macs.

You have your powerful, amazingly-modded computer. I have my Mac. To each his own.

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Renewed

Well, not exactly–I seldom use Renew as a discipline priest, but then calling this post “Shielded” isn’t really appropriate.

But yes, I’ve started playing again. :) As with most things, once you complain to The Internets things improve or change for the better ;) so I decided I’d give WoW another run. Instead of going straight for Eilonwyn though, I decided I’d go for levelling Tala, for a couple of reasons:

Arcane right now sucks for anything that needs DPS to be mobile and for multiple-target DPS, and I’d been feeling it as 84 in dungeons like Vortex Pinnacle. The mana required was also crazy. Maybe patch 4.0.6 will help with the latter for mana, but it seems the bigger problem is still there. My second option, frost, is bad for latency- and/or lag-challenged players, due to the number of instants you need to react to. I’ve never been able to get the hang of DoTting, which is why I’m not very keen on playing Fire, although it’s certainly the best if we’re talking about latency or lag spikes (your dots are still ticking even if you lag a bit).
I want to raid! I was watching kill videos last week, and I got caught up in the memories of raiding with my friends. Going with a healer does not only mean a better chance at a spot in a raid, but possibly faster gearing as well (shorter queue times).
This is very superficial, but I feel like I like “Starcaller Tala” more now because of her having a Filipino name, and a title that goes well with it ;)

So I decided, well, what the hell, I’ll see how Tala does. Right now I have a Shadow offspec (the Spirit to Hit conversion is fantastic!!) for questing, which is what I did when I started off. I was nervous about healing, because of the purported mana problems, of the difference in healing as discipline. It also meant I needed to change my bindings, which is HORRIBLE. As DPS, if you change your bindings, you do low DPS for a while until you get used to your bindings. As heals? I forget the binding for Penance and end up using the slow Greater Heal, someone will die.

Well, that’s what happened :( I fumbled along at Throne of the Tides (why!! why not in Blackrock Caverns where I know the fight better!!), wiped once, died another time a few seconds before the boss did.

I considered calling it for the night. It was too stressful. I had two spirit items ninjaed off me as well by the DPS, while I passed on the hit items (which were upgrades for my healing!), but I couldn’t be huffy because, well, I kind of sucked.

But, well, okay. I queued again and finished a couple quests while waiting, staying in my disc spec and just smiting. They take a while longer to die, but it wasn’t so bad. (I still remember the days of hitting frostbolt… waiting for the cast to finish, then hitting it again… then hitting it again… ah, the days when you didn’t know about spell queuing.)

Well, I finished two more dungeons that night (one was just the final boss) and I feel better about my healing now. There are still times when I think, omg what modifier is Penance again? but muscle memory is starting to kick in. In the last dungeon for that night, Blackrock Caverns, the tank and I actually finished Rom’ogg alone because the DPS did not move away from Rom’ogg after the chains, and they were all one-shot (they started listening to boss strat after that). Last night, dungeons also went well, no mishaps, although WoW inexplicably hung on me twice on trash packs–good thing the druid Tranquilitied <3

The leveling trek is crazy now, though :( I’m still rested, but two dungeons and I’m not yet at 50% to 83, with questing while queuing. Oh well, it’s plenty practice for more difficult dungeons…which I should be trying tomorrow :( (specifically, Stonecore and Vortex Pinnacle).

Good luck to me!

2 Comments

The deadly thing about gaming breaks

I haven’t been in Azeroth (or Outland, if you want to be thorough) in over a month*.

GASP! SHOCK HORROR! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

But yes, I haven’t. Eilonwyn is stuck at 84, and Talá hasn’t even started anywhere. I’ve said time and again to friends that yes, yes, I will log in tonight, alright already, sorry! and yet I have not gone online.

It’s not that I don’t miss the game, that is is not interesting to me anymore. I actually still check out the feeds I follow, and look at new stuff, and feel wistful at world firsts.

I do, but it’s kind of difficult to get back into the game after being out so long. This seems to be a common thing for a good number of people I know: take a long enough break, and suddenly it doesn’t feel as compelling to go online again. Some people say it’s because wow, I have a lot of free time now as opposed to when I was raiding full time! but it’s not that; I don’t think I’ve really done anything very significant with the “free time”.

It’s more about getting left behind. To be sure, I had no plans to take a break: I brought my gaming mouse with me on my vacation, and was looking forward to reaching 85 by Christmas. Maybe not geared up, but getting there. Sadly, I had not even been able to get my mouse out of my luggage! The two weeks without the game, stretching onward and onward…well, it’s not pretty. I’m still 84 while my friends and peers are likely kicking butt at raids; and I don’t begrudge them that, I don’t expect a raiding guild to wait around on people.

The 84-to-85 stretch, as well as the long hard trudge to get raiding-ready: HOW? Just, how? I started taking stock of the gear I needed, the reps I needed, arcanums and shoulder enchants, spending boatloads of gold for gems and materials, training up to max level professions for the perks. (I do not have the boatloads of gold, by the way. It would actually be a lot more fun if I had. Well, that’s what we always say, life is so much more fun if we have boatloads of moneys.) Just thinking about it, that long hard road…it’s not very fun, not when everyone else and their mother is raiding (literally). It’s a bit hard to stomach going from prime DPS to catcalls of “noob!” (Good-natured and all in jest and good fun, but it’s still not nice to hear.)

I don’t know when I’ll be coming back; I only know that I will, eventually. When I won’t feel too strongly about being left behind, and I can just carry on merrily and enjoy my largely solitary game, most likely.

*give or take a few days

5 Comments

The table is for you, too

Dear fellow DPS,

Hello. I am a mage, also known as The Vending Machine. You know I can chug out food and drinks for you guys, after all, you guys even request it of me randomly while I’m hanging out in Dalaran.

I bring down a table in every instance. It’s there, nice and shiny and floating magically. It also has an annoying shimmering sound whenever the table is there. You can’t miss it. You also can’t miss the clicky portal you just saw appear in front of you, too; you might have even helped summon it in from the Twisting Nether.

I expect you to take a stack or two of food, at least. Yes, even you, dear melee DPS who do not have blue bars. I expect you to take some stacks and EAT THE DAMN STRUDELS.

Why?

Because your poor healer is going OOM. I don’t care if you don’t have a blue bar and thus don’t need to drink. Strudels are also for eating. The healer needs to drink between pulls and YOU need to eat to TOP YOURSELF UP. Each time you stand there idly with 50% health while your healer drinks up, I want to smack you. Hard.

The table is for you, too.

Love,
Eilonwyn the mage

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