for realz!

Invite a Friend/Guildy to a group.

Convert Group to Raid.

Go into an Instance ( Stockades is good for this)

Leave group

Wait for "You are not in this group's instance, you will be teleported.. "

and Gone..   Free trip home.

Who needs mages? eh....

Disclaimer1: I am not responsible for any mobs you may incounter on the steps in Stockades.

Disclaimer2: I am not the original discoverer of this trick - I heard it from a Bob who heard it from jack who heard it from bill, and before that.....  But once apon a time I was Bob er.. um..  - Noob , who didn't know and maybe some of you don't either

Disclaimer3: I am not really a Bob

I was going to re-roll, but I decided to go back into the character I had always loved the most: my human rogue (Yes, yes, I know, true hardcore gamers roll Horde, but I never once claimed to be a "true hardcore gamer;" I'm just a dude who loves games.).  So if you're on the Kilrogg realm and run across a guy named Morgulis, then you have found me.

He's only level 31 now.  You see, it took me a while to find a character that I felt had real personality, and I only played this guy for the last few weeks of stint in the game.  I don't actually role-play mind you, but I like for my in-game characters to have a sense of self, and I could just imagine Morgulis being that kind of shifty, drunken, witty bastard who loves a good fight and lives for the next big score.  He was the first such character that I had rolled, so I stuck with him.  Hopefully, I'll ding 55 soon so that I can make a Death Knight by the time Wrath of the Lich King comes out (though I'm waiting to get that until I do score that PC, so I can experience it in all of its glory from the get-go).

Of course, since I believe in experiencing as much of a game as it has to offer, I also have rolled a dwarf hunter named Craizen (who I can also see having a lot of personality).  I never played as a dwarf, but I also liked them; drunken, ill-tempered good ol' boys that they are.

What I want to know, however, is how sad is it that playing this game again feels like, as Peter Cullen said of reprising his role as Optimus Prime for last year's awesome Transformers movie, "slipping into an old pair of very comfortable shoes that you haven't worn for a while?"

7-Eleven has apparently joined the horde (pun intended) of retail locations stating November 4, 2008 for the release date of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.  7-Eleven's date and price information (they have WotLK listed for $40USD) seems to jibe with more "traditional" game retailers such as Amazon and Gamestop.

While Blizzard has yet to confirm anything, this 7-Eleven news combined with Blizz's recent announcement that 3.02, the last content patch before the expansion, is en route "in the coming weeks" sort of harmony suggests that we might hear the sweet sweet sounds of dying Plaguelanders sooner rather than later.

We've decided to remove the titles for the Realm First Feats of Strength that are associated with reaching level 80. We've also removed the titles associated with the Realm First Feats of Strength associated with gaining 450 skill in the professions and secondary skill.

This is fantastic.  Whoever thought that it'd be a great idea to put in a title that only a handful of people could ever get should be kicked in the head.  This is one of the strengths for Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge system.

People have a chance of unlocking the titles, even if it does take a really long time.  Nothing is really limited to certain amounts of players, but rather everything is there for the taking.  Lord of the Rings Online is also like this.

Having the ability for anyone to achieve something is great.  "Epeens" aside, from a developer standpoint, the more you can give people the feeling that they can do anything and get anything... given enough time... the more subscription numbers you are likely to get.  Some people like to point out that the hardcore of the hardcore are the ones who provide the numbers.  I'll have to respectfully disagree.

El Sábado 28 y domingo 29 de junio de 2008 visité el Blizzard World Wide Invitational en el Hall 5 del centro de exposiciones Porte de Versailles en París, Francia.

Allí tuve la oportunidad de probar la beta de Warth of the Lich King y Starcraft 2, además de vivir ¡en exclusiva! la presentación mundial de Diablo 3 y un concierto de los Level 70 (ahora 80) Elite Tauren Chieftain.

Además, "clandestinamente" grabé con el teléfono unos comentarios de audio sobre lo que iba viendo al probar las betas de WotLK y SC2; aqui os dejo los enlaces para que podais oir mis disparates.

• Comentarios de audio probando WotLK
• Comentarios de audio probando Starcraft 2

Post dedicado a Carlos, Jonny y Sonia ¡gracias por dejarme ir con vosotros!

One of the local potentates there appeared to have been caught with his hand in the seed corn, which could have either been the literal truth or some sort of provincial euphemism, and the whole village was coming out to see justice done on a Saturday night like the final scene from The Wicker Man, though sans the goat, PETA entanglements being something we'd all rather avoid.

None of which directly explained why Bung had to be there, but off he went, leaving us with a group of four.

Not quite enough to go try Durnholde Keep again, especially since Bung was one of those who missed the quest update last week, so we would have to go run it again.

So we headed back to Shadowmoon Valley with our group for the evening:

69 Mage - Ula
70 Paladin - Vikund
70 Priest - Skronk
70 Warrior - Earlthecat

Our goal: Get Ula to level 70!

Which meant running through some quests.

We picked up some quests, eventually settling in with a series that ran through Legion Hold and the Death Forge.  After a while Earl called it a night but Skronk, Ula, and Vikund pressed on.

We ended up doing one of those really fun WoW quests.  The staple of quest lines may be deliver this, talk to so and so, and slay a certain number of creatures, but once in a while Blizzard actually comes up with way to make these things really fun.

Boy, doesn't that sound like a condemnation of the genre?  Once in a while we do something fun!

Anyway, this one, called "The Fel and the Furious" involved using controls to take over a fel reaver guardian then going on a rampage with it to destroy sixty Deathforge Infernals.  But you have to manage that before the guardian takes too much damage and you lose control of it.

Really, it was fun, whimsical, and it was a lot easier to destroy 60 infernals than you might imagine.

And, at the end of the quest, when we turned it in, we hit the magic moment:

Ula hit level 70!

And then WoW promptly locked up on her.

Actually, Quest Helper appeared to be the culprit, as Skronk also locked up at the same point with errors from that add on.  Vikund was not running it, so was spared and could take the screen shot.

The whole team was finally level 70.

Once Quest Helper was disabled and everybody was back online, we had to get back to Wildhammer Outpost to turn in the quest line.  Then Ula had to train and buy her flying mount.

Then it was flying lessons.

We all took off, then began to follow one another off and on, flying in formation for a bit, then peeling off to check something out.

Everything went fine until Ula went in to land at the horde outpost with Skronk and Vikund in tow.  Skronk got blown out of the air by one of the horde flying patrols while Ula and I made our escape.

We regrouped at one of the peaks overlooking the zone.

Being able to fly, even slowly (though Vikund gets a 20% speed bonus for himself and the group with the crusader aura) is really a lot of fun, eclipsing even the joy of fae glide in EverQuest II.

Earl was a bit short on gold when he hit 70, but we're close to being the airmobile permenant floating saturday night instance group.

And next week, perhaps, we can finish up with Durnholde Keep at last.

So I'm a little late and bbr pretty much beat me by a whole day but that's fine - I spent much of yesterday doing yet another complete revise of the plot through the entirety of Story Arc One of Beyond the Tree; this time cutting out a whole lot lof extraeneous material, moving some things around and generally just trying to improve story flow and character motivation through the whole onset. The plot as a whole may not be too important really, but the character interactions it creates are, and for them to be solid and have a reason, the story needs to be solid first.

I actually ended up entirely eliminating two planned supporting cast members entirely because I simply couldn't make them fit - It's a real pity to have to do so, both were interesting characters that could bring plenty to the group dynamic and would have - if they'd been included - essentially addressed the small matter that the cast of Beyond the Tree is - so far - all female. Trying to motivate their inclusion was shaky at best however and I'm a little worried about cast overload since Hani and Tiny will hog a whole lot of stage by default, too many people travelling with them would potentially devalue either that or the rest of the cast as they fight for screen time.

Don't worry though:l do have a remaining male supporting cast member left still, you just won't see him 'til Story Arc Two sometime ;)

So! Proposed Rogue changes, which can be found here or on bbr's post linked above!

I'm a tad less negative than bbr is to them - there's a few changes I'm kindof suspicious towards, some I can't really understand and some I don't plain like.. But there's also a few where I innately went oh my.. tanking potential: Huge!

I'm sad to see Shadowstep weakened (can no longer be used while rooted) seeing my huge, twisted love for the ability. But I'll have to live with it. Cloak of Shadows going up to a 1.5 minute cooldown is less than the 2 minute they first proposed, 2/2 Elusiveness will still take it down to the default one minute, so I'm not too fussed there personally, really. Master of Deception and Camouflage both going down to 3/3 rather than 5/5 does give me some more talent points to play with, though with all other changes I expect to need them - putting Relentless Strikes in Subtlety and making it 5/5 rather than 1/1 is .. interesting enough. Blizzard said they wanted it less essential, that certainly covers it.

5/5 Slaughter of the Shadows now also reducing Hemorrhage energy cost by 5 is.. noticeable. I'm starting to see the possibility for actually expanding Subtlety more than Combat for myself in Wrath, getting that and Honor among Thieves to mix in with the new and improved Setup to create essentially a combo point galore while tanking. If I have enough points for 5/5 Relentless Strikes to combine with it, I could possibly be drowning in combo points, which might be very handy for threat output.

Oh and Premeditation is down to 20 seconds from two minutes.I could open every pull with a deadly throw if I need to distract my tank target. Glee.

The change to Unfair Advantage is a source of envy however - strike back with your main hand every time you dodge? My the threat! Unfortunately, I can't get that without sacrificing the rest of my build. Sad, but oh well. I shall regard it from distance, with envy.

Oh and our misdirect apparently has a 30 second cooldown. Not sure what I'd use it for most of the time, though the paladin tank might be happy if I play nicely on some boss encounters rather than going RAWR let me tank! every so often, heh.

There's still things they haven't included yet - I'm curious about what they want to do with Lightning Reflexes. There's plenty of question marks just about everywhere still at this point, but.. well.. I'm permitting myself some degree of hope for my favoured combination of class and role.

Eve Endures

I continue to make progress in Eve, though I knew I'd be hitting a busy spot IRL, so I have queued a bunch of longer skills just in case I wasn't able to pay as much attention to Eve as I should.

After reading the comments to the Zero Punctuation, uh, review of Eve (thanks Wilhelm for linking it or I wouldn't have seen it), regarding needing to have a goal in Eve (specifically, your own goal as the game wont really provide you with one), it it occurred to me that I was in that slightly flat spot in Eve where you are not exactly without a goal, but rather in pursuit of a goal that will take some time and is, as ZP would say, "boring, boring, boring, boring."  I don't necessarily agree, and quite frankly, I'm glad the Eve will reward me (or at least not penalize me) for not playing it.

Design flaw or product feature (as the old joke goes)?  For an old man with a real life, I say product feature.

I'm currently in pursuit of two related goals-- getting my miner Hulk qualified and getting my mission runner/hauler Itty V skilled.  Both of which will take some time (around 30 days) to complete the level V skill training necessary.  Astrogeology V and Mining Barge V for the miner and Gallente Industrial V for the hauler.  So I'm about a month off for both of those to complete.

The Hulk is the gateway to all good things that require massive amounts of ISK, including a battleship, etc. so the immediate task is get skilled for the Hulk and knock down enough ISK in the intervening period to afford it and the required fittings.  Sticking with Eve requires a certain amount of discipline because time is just not negotiable.

So, eager as I am to progress, I wait.  With anticipation.

WoW Wasteland

Our WoW group, on the other hand, still has any number of instances left to do since we have all hit 70.  Life at 70, however, is less than fulfilling.  Try as I may to be enthused about the "opportunity" to do dailies or BGs or whatever, I just can't do it.

I logged on this weekend after our Saturday group session and it was all I could do to not pull my own head off when confronted with grinding dailies and other rep grinds.  The magic is gone gone gone.

On the WAR Path

Until now, I've managed to stay on the sidelines of the Warhammer discussion for a couple of good reasons-- first, I didn't get into the beta (not that I would necessarily have anything to say that hasn't been said about a thousand times), and second, I'm not genetically coded to view it as the Next Big Thing (tm).

Not that I'm not intrigued, I am, but I just haven't been swept away by the hype machine which, next to Conan, has been the most offputting PR campaign I've experienced in a while.  To be fair, SINCE Conan has come out (and it was revealed to have feet of clay), the EA/Mythic hype machine seems to have become more tempered, more realistic and maybe attempting to bring expectations in for a soft landing.

Marc Jacobs comments regarding the problems with the preview weekend gained him some substantial credibility points in my book.  Now that the shouting has stopped, I'm able to actually listen.  Amazing how that happens.

So, with the pre-order enabled Open Beta for WAR just a few days away, I find myself in the unenviable position of not having a pre-order box in hand.  Mrs. P and I found ourselves at Fry's this last weekend and alas, no pre-order boxes left!

That bodes well for launch I suspect, but I'm still left without an Open Beta option.  I suppose I could go digital download, but they always seem to fuck things up somehow.  I'm open to recommendations.  I've had bad experiences with Amazon in the past and have little faith in others, but what the hey.

Ultimately, I find myself actually looking forward to yet another launch of another virtual world that offers the potential of something a little bit different.  As many have said, you play the game your friends play, so I'm hoping that after nearly four years in WoW with a great group of friends that WAR might offer a sufficiently compelling and different experience to get our group sucked in.

Absent WAR, there is nothing on the horizon (*cough*Lich King*cough*) that I'm waiting for.  Without building expectations too much, WAR, please bring back the magic at least for a while.

Im talking about the Prada, and the Gucci of guilds..

I'll explain

When in my very recent tagless existance, and my almost 'omg I'm guildless' panic  - I went looking for a new tag by researching guilds on my server- and my first intial reaction was " I want a good tag over my head."

Define good:  Good reputation on the server, good progression,  Stable member base, no recent mass exodus's, solid server history
Translated:
I wanted a designer tag over my head.

So I knew I wouldn't fit into the top guild  with its Platinum inlaid, Diamond encrusted Guild Tabard, and fine Prada lines, and not even into the solid Gold Shiney guilds that hang around it
I had just come from a Semi precious stoned guild, the Amythests and Cubic Zirconia with its sights on the Rubys and Sapphires. We were along way off from the Platinum guild, but we were trying our hardest to get invited to all the right instances, and stomping on alot of bosses on the way.
Sunwell - Here we come.. Shiney.

I wanted a guild that could match my current gem quality.
but after being trodden on at the fashion show, cast aside with Spring water on my robe watching in horror as our lead models tripped up on the catwalk, taking the entire spring collection with them

I got to look at my blank Tabard in a new light. As much as part of me would like to be respected and admired - spoken about in awe. ( I pugged ZA with some members of the Platinum guild on our server and so was in their vent. In another channel I saw a server ledgend, and part of me wanted to say Hi! - rubbing shoulders with the 'rich and famous' ) being with people you like is alot more important then being in a popular guild.

My Old guild has currently 339 Members
175 level 70's
Warcraft Realms says that we had 190 Active characters
160 have logged in on the last 4 months
131 from the beginning of August

Some of these would be multiple Alts - but for a group that only has one 25 man raid active

What are the other people doing?

They are wearing the Tag of a designer raid guild

So now I'm wearing the Tag of an up and comming designer, maybe just out of design school, the designer wants to be more then a mass produced chain store guild- Nor does he want to be the guild that gets followed by the Paparazzi and put on pedestals . Its going to be a little know label, but the most important thing is that the people under that tag will have fun, enjoy their time, and greatful to be surrounded by friends.

I chose the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7 Quiet Point after reading many different reviews and comparing them to lots of other models. It sounds like they are by far the best bang-for-your-buck. People say they like them even better than the $300 Bose pair. They cost me $117. It is a lot for a pair of headphones... but then again my sanity is worth a lot to me.

I'll let you know how I like them when they show up. If I don't like them Amazon.com has a great return policy so I've got options.