"Your Anquish Nourishes me"

So today Blizzard will release the much anticipated 3.3 content patch. It will have new 5 man instances, a new raid instance for 10 and 25 man and new emblems to relish and acquire. Changes to the interface will include the new quest helper and Looking for Group.

As much as I want to be very excited for the new content, I am really looking forward to the LFG improvement. Currently, if I play my Tank, I have no issue getting into a group, people are always yelling for my assistance in trade or general chat, not the LFG channel of course, but still I am needed a lot. But as I have learned recently while trying to gear up my mage, damage dealing classes are a dime a dozen. I've been kicked from groups because people wanted to bring their guildie or friend, because they already have 2 mages or because they just don't like my gear score. However, this shall not be the case I hear with the new interface which is suppose to match players not only across their server, but other servers in their battle group. I hear lots of great things and I won't spoil too much in case fellow blogger, Br3ntbr0 over at ITG, wants to create a post about his recent adventures on the test server.

However, with all things that change, some things will remain the same. Meaning, the game will be more buggier, more competitive driven and will create lots of people who just want to grief others and not just on a PvP server, but on all servers. I discovered after creating a death knight on Jaedenar that players even in a guild will beg others for money no matter what server you are on. I can't believe someone playing a Death Knight would need 3g for repairs in the starting area, but apparently they do and needed to harass me for spare change.

UPDATE

I wrote this post early this morning in the hopes of having it finished by noon. Alas, work wouldn't allow it, but I've tried repeated since getting off work to log in and look at the new content. Apparently, that seems to be near impossible right now. As I'm typing this, even the main World of Warcraft website is down. So, it might be tomorrow evening before I get a chance to enjoy all the creamy goodness of this wonderful game breaking altering content patch.

Freshly minted 80

My Sweet lil' Gnome Mage, Gwion, is finally 80. Yaaaa....course, now I have to get him gear so I can pull his gear score up and avoid getting hit with Mohawk Grenades as I manage to figure out what spec is good for raiding and what is good for overall solo PvE and PvP. Being squishy toon, you have to think of all these things. I've also got to get several achievements done, so he can advance his tailoring and lots of Heroic instances to do for trash loot to get recipes for enchanting.

Man, Blizzard sure does know how to turn a perfectly great game in to a grindy little cash time sink, wouldn't you agree.

Been doing a lot of raiding with my Tankadin, Oakley. His Gear Score is over 5100 now which apparently is good for most 25 man raids. Not sure how that will work out once the new Ice Crown instances drop in 3.3, but I'm very happy with the guild I've chosen so everything should be peachy as they say in the south. I do need to get a set of nice retribution gear, but that will come as we advance forward and just do 10 man stuff for fun.

What else is there?

Well, picked up a few console games. Apparently, and I didn't know this till recently, but Toys R' Us is a great place to get games on the cheap. They usually have some kind of killer deal every other week. I recently picked up 3 games for the price of 2 and at 60.00 a pop, that's not bad. So, I got, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2. I've also managed to pick up God of War Collection and Left 4 Dead 2. But if you have me on your PSN or Xbox live friends list you'll see that I've not been on playing any of those lately. The reason for that is Dragon Age Origins and Torchlight, which I picked up for the PC. I wouldn't bore you with elation that I feel for both these game, since its been widely posted all over the net by now and I hate to be behind the times as it were.

I've got a great rant about PC vs. Console in my to edit file so I hope to have that out soon. It just seems that every time I have a great blog idea, someone else has done it or is regurgitating it from some gaming news source. I hate to be non relevant in this age of Twitter and Iphones. Not to mention the fact that I've been trying to fix my PC for the last month, but that too is another story to tell.

I'm Talking Games, Also!

I've joined a secret coalition of bloggers destine to bring gaming information and opinions to the masses, or at least to each other.

Oh, apparently it isn't very secret anymore. Well, no one really reads my blog so I guess the secret will be safe for a while anyway.

I'm Talking Games is the brain child or the finger of blame, however you want to see it, of br3ntbr0, formally of A Wall of Text, and Genda, The Grouchy Gamer and founder of Casualties of War. Others have joined the squad, including the controversial, Jobildo and a new blogger, to me at least, Kaldeem.

If your looking for more info and opinions on games from very detailed and opinionated bloggers then be sure to set your readers to I'm Talking Games.

Don't worry, I'll still be posting here about World of Warcraft and other things that interest my fancy.



Oh, btw as a side note, last night was my wife's birthday, no ages please. For some crazy reason, her favorite place to eat is Cracker Barrel, so after work we did some shopping and headed to our local restaurant. Well, we sat down and I took a gander at the people at the next table. I had to do a double take actually, because the group to my left included a man that looked just like Reverend Jesse Jackson. On my second look, the man caught me looking, smiled, extended a fist for the congratulatory Obama Fist bump and said hello to me and my wife.

As it turns out, that was in fact, the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Apparently, he was speaking at a local college and decided he needed a fix of home cooked food, which by the way included Greens, one of my favorite meals. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera, but if we did I'd be hesitant to even take his picture because he was trying to have a low key meal with friends and possibly family.

I have been very lucky. I've already met, Ret. General Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig and Iran Contra and Fox News commentator, Oli North, but I don't brag about that last one too much. I also met the lead singer of the 80's rock group, Survivor, but I don't even remember his name.

Now if I can only get Jessica Alba to come hang out with me.

The Guild Hall

Well, as mention some time back, I decided that the only way I was going to progress any further in WoW with my Tankadin, was to find a decent raiding guild. My first attempt at this endeavor failed terribly, so I went back to my old friends only guild to hang out and figure out what my next plan of advancement would be.

As stated in a previous post, I got invited, by someone I had met in game, to come raiding with his guild. Sure, I was a PuG, but I'd always had fun doing dungeons and such with this fellow, so I figured, I'd give raiding a try. It was a great success. Everyone liked my gear and was impressed that I had managed to get a good bit of it from badges and heroic dungeon crawls. They invited me full time into their guild. I accept after chatting with my friends and making sure that the new guild didn't raid on the night my friends and I would be hanging out together. One thing I learned from the previous experience, don't turn you back on friends, or burn any bridges. Because when you run away from home, you might end up coming back to stay when things get rough.

The new guild had not issues with me taking Wednesday night to hang with friends, as long as I didn't run any 25 man content, which, as I think I stated before, we are very very far from doing. So, I said yes and became a member of Tsunami on the Darkspear server.

Now, so far things have been, well, fantastic. I did some research, by watching videos on tankspot.com, for the raids we had planned, mostly 25 man Trial of the crusader and 25 man Onyxia. I made sure everyone of importance understood that it would be a learning curve for me, only because I hadn't seen the fights in person. Videos and strategies are fine, but if you've never been in a fight, you really don't know how you will react till your there. I just wanted them to know that I would probably screw up or be slow doing things required of me, but that if they were patient, I'd get it learned and we should excel from that point forward.

They did explain as much as they could, and with the assistance of the guild's main tank, a very nice Death Knight, I managed to get pretty far. We got most of the 25 man ToC done in one night and the next raid night we did 25 man Onyxia with out so much as a wipe. We then traveled into 10 man Ulduuar so we could get badges and gear for some who had just leveled up their alts. I've also son, 10 man Onyxia and 10 man Trial of Crusader and finished them as well. The loot system for the guild is via council. Now some would argue that a loot council is a bad thing, and normally, I would agree. Basically, a number of officer see what the loot items are, then they ask those who can use the item to link their current item to see if the gear is worth replacing. If so, they will either award it directly to the person needing the upgrade the most or make them roll for the item if its a upgrade for both.

The problem arises when people, who have played together for a very long time, tend to reward items to friends over strangers in the guild. Or in some odd cases if a friend of someone they dislike needs the item they'll reward it to someone else just to spite them. This does happen. Emotions can run high when it comes to the all mighty purple item that everyone must covet.

But in the case of this particular guild, they reward the item to the person who needs the item the most, because they understand that if they as a group want to advance, their members must have the right gear to do so. Since most of the tanks in the guild currently have fantastic gear, because they've been raiding end game content much longer than I have, they graciously pass on the gear so that I can upgrade and become a better guild tank. What this means is I've been getting really wonderful loot. I've gotten probably 4 or 5 pieces since I stated raiding with them 2 weeks ago. They aren't stingy with the gear at all.

Another great thing is they don't chastise people too harshly for making a mistake. The guild leader has been known to call out people who do start passing the blame around when a boss fight fails or things just don't go well and the raid wipes. The atmosphere is very casual, but yet business like. You have to be on your game, but if you make a mistake, no one remembers that, they only applaud you when things are done right. I've made mistakes I'm sure, but they are quicker to point out when I do something right as opposed to most other guilds I've raiding with who won't explain the fights and start yelling at you if you do something wrong. How can people expect others to stay in a guild very long when they have an off day and people are yelling at them? Its a game, not work or life threatening. There is no need to beat people up for making a mistake that they are pretty well aware of in the first place, because they made it. I'm sure they aren't jumping up and down, proud of themselves for wiping an entire raid of 25 people. Instead they probably feel bad and don't need any further pressure from a bunch of know it all's who just want someone to point the finger at and yell. It doesn't bolster any extra self confidence to do it right the second time, I can tell you.

Anyway, I'm having a blast. They are a super bunch of people who are more interested in finishing a dungeon for the bragging rights as opposed to getting tons of loot and badges for themselves. They just want to have fun and be competitive, which I greatly appreciate.

The problem is all this raiding and fun is making me miss a lot of sleep, especially since Borderlands has come out and I'm spending a lot of much needed sleep time playing it late into the morning hours.

Well, I'll speak more on this other great game in another post.

Look, if your unhappy with your current guild and think that all raiding guilds are the same, well don't. They aren't all the same and I'm sure you'll find a great fit eventually as well. Course, it took me 2 years of looking to finally find one that I'm hoping will last longer than the 2 years it took to find them.

It's Alive

Ok, I've been slack, in my defense, I have been so busy at work..... and playing Borderlands and Raiding in WoW. All of which I hope to chat about this weekend.

Don't give up on the dwarf.

On some good news. A friend got his WoW account hacked (not the good news) and with the diligence of some friends and guildies, the brought to the attention of an online GM, the account was quickly banned, to prevent the destruction of all my bud's hard work. It was on a weekend, so he had to wait till Monday to speak with Blizzard. After two days of talks, they returned the account back to him and was able to return all the stolen gear and the items taken from the guild bank.

Now, I know people complain about Blizzard and mainly about customer service, but I have to say, that no matter what horror stories others have had, I commend Blizzard's CS with quickly responding to the problem and the fast return of my friend's account and all his gear. I also want to remind people that play, beware of websites and mods that could potentially constant Keyloggers. Also, if you see odd behavior from a friends account, contact him directly to make sure it is him, if not, then make sure you bring it to the attention of guild officers, so they can limit guild bank access and put in a ticket to Blizzard. People say that GM's will not do anything from a ticket, but I have first hand proof that the best way to help your friend is to chat with an in game GM. At the least, he will be aware of the issue, especially if they person has stolen the account happens to be on.

I would also recommend getting one of Blizzard's authenticator. It is a hassle, but it will save you time and money later and it's only 7 dollars.

Jonas Sees In Color

I've mentioned that I work for a audio visual rental staging company. I work on the staging side. Basically, we provide audio visual equipment for large corporations who want to reach out and chat with their employees or share holders, you know those 1000 people intimate conversations. As a co worker describes it, "It's a rock and roll show without the band"

Well, yesterday, we set up lights and sound for a band, Jonas Sees in Color. We've been providing gear for their live shows for some time, but being on the video side of things, I've really not been involved. They are a bunch of really nice people, who helped us set up the entire rig and will probably be there this morning when we set up the sound. Not to famous to get their hands dirty, which was nice. Actually, after chatting with a few of them yesterday, I think that no matter what, they will stay humble and always remember the people that helped get them to the top.

The reason for all this fanfare is they recently got a record deal and are having a CD release party (at Greene street in Greensboro, NC, Friday October 9th around 9pm) to thank all their fans, which is pretty cool.

So if your looking for something to do in North Carolina tonight, come have a listen.

Oh, they did a video of our lighting guy, Jim Caddy, which I'm also going to share with you.

The FacePalm

I got a chance to do 25 man Trials of the Crusader, which is a very interesting raid. I hooked up with a healing buddy, Bigrichard, and his guild, Tsunami. Right now, its very late or rather early in the morning and I have work. But I did want to say, Wow!! What a difference in raiding style between the last few raiding guilds I've interacted with, Conclusion and Anubis. This guild looks promising, but I'll get more into that and their style of play in another post.

Let me just say that not all raiding guilds produce horrid people that would be better suited for working at the clinic of arguments. For those rude people, I'd recommend the crunchy frog. Still, I'm pretty happy with my progress and even though I've only stuck my head in the instance once, I managed to perform admirably, if I do say so myself.

Again, I'll relay more on this matter later.

It only proves the adage, Always look on the bright side of life.