Dual-Spec, Tri-Spec, Quad-Spec.. argh

I usually don't write about other blog posts. Maybe I will do more of that, however, since I often can't think of original things to talk about. BigBearButt talked about how some Noob ranted about Dual Spec. The rant was very good and certainly made me think about it. Without going into detail, I'll just say that I'm starting to like the idea of dual-spec less and less. Miss Elf found some people complaining about dual-spec as well.. except this conversation begins with crying about the 1000g price tag for the privilege. *rolls eyes* Taffybag, Stompalina, and Half briefly discuss Dual-Spec in the RawrBitchRawr podcast which they did live for the first time (grats!). Floramel at Grimmtooth's Troops had something to say about Dual-Spec, as did Santyn from Lethal Shots. Now Hunters, Mages, Rogues, and Warlocks are single-purpose (DPS) classes, but that doesn't stop Perzyx (Crooked Bow) from writing about how he may use Dual-Spec to switch to and from a Survival build and Lassirra giving us her take on Wow Insider.

Ok, I think I got it out of my system. I'm feeling a tug in another direction. BTW, Eve Online players... after years and years of asking for it, we're finally going to get a skill queue. Might be time to fire up those inactive accounts.

Loot Rules

It's Tuesday and that means a naxx run with HiredGun. This run was supposed to be the group's first full clear in one night. Before it gets started tho, there's an announcement that loot rules are changed. Basically there are 2 tiers of members coming. "Raiders" and "Other". If you are of "Raider" status, you get 120 "loot points" to spend on items, "Other" get 100. When an item comes up for distribution, you private message the raid leader with your bid (minimum 10 loot points). Right away, you can see this isn't completely fair. Why should certain people start with more points? Because they show up every week? I dunno maybe this is normal procedure for most people, but I am of the beleif that when running a raid, everyone should have an equal shake.

Only main-specs can bid on an item. It's a blind auction, nobody knows what anyone else is bidding. Naturally, whoever makes the highest bid gets the item and the "loot points" are deducted from them. If there is a tie for the highest bids, those people roll to determine a winner. If nobody makes a bid on an item, it then directly goes to Off-spec, and people roll on the item. Whoever wins the off-spec roll gets the item without spending ANY loot points. Now here's the thing that annoys me about the off-spec thing... During this off-spec roll, if the item would have been good for your main-spec, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO ROLL ON IT. So if I'm a hunter, a mage, or a rogue, basically you'll never get an off-spec roll "free" item. Very unfair to the single purpose class I say. There were MANY off-spec rolls last night. Raid leader's response "oh well, if you let main-spec roll on it they'd never use their loot points." So f'in what? If someone is going to let off-spec roll with them on an item, they're taking a big chance that they're going to lose it rather then spend the 10 points they'd need with a bid. Just let them roll if that's what they want to do.

So why was this system put into place? Apparently last week there was some complaints about a somewhat-scrub mage taking 4 greed items and then winning his need roll on the KT mage ring. *shrug* I've personally never had a problem with the 1 Need, 1 T7 need, unlimited main-spec greed system. I guess some people do not like it tho when someone gets 3-4 items and then scores the nice KT loot as well. What does it really matter tho? The stuff the guy won with his greed items couldn't have set anyone back really that much? They always had the option to use their need on any of that stuff. Besides that, there are going to be days when the mage can't win anything on a roll. It all evens out.

What's happening is this... The very well-geared members of the raid (that perhaps only need an item from KT) don't want to have to roll against scrubs who still need stuff from the rest of the raid. So if you go into naxx knowing you need a drop from KT and nothing else, I can see why you like this system. Btw there was still a Pally last night who won *5* items in the run using these new rules, including an off-spec piece and a T7.5 item. Weren't the new rules supposed to prevent such a thing? Was this unfair? Guess not, since it wasn't competing with anything the raid leader was rolling on, and this Pally didn't have any points to spend on KT.

Is this system one you've seen before? It's not DKP, the points don't carry over to the next raid. Any thoughts?

Remember Find Treasure?

That quirky little dwarf racial ability... It could be used to show semi-rare spawned world treasure chests or quest items on the mini-map. It still exists in the game, but for some reason Blizzard has neglected to have it detect anything in Northrend. There are no world treasure chests to find. There are no quest items that it will detect. It's useless. Did the designers think it was OP? Did they just forget to tag certain quest items as "treasure?" I wonder if there are other racial abilities that became obsolete in WotLK.

Retro Friday - A much better game

Happy New Years 2006 from a the Demon Temple! =) This was me wielding my Demon Slayer sword quite effectively. The "best Demon graphics" were actually an older version of the demon graphics that they had put back in. Imagine that, going backwards to an older version of art because it was actually better. Yeah most of you probably look at this and think "man, the other demon graphics must have been REALLY bad" .. lol

Ultima Online was never really about it's graphic prowess. It was about meaningful online gameplay, of which it had no equal. Everything you did in the game seemed meaningful. Consdering it was the pioneer for popular online RPGs, it's amazing the game is still going. I miss it.

There are mounts, and then ...

There's this mount:

The Ashes of Al'ar is one of those mounts most people in the game never even see! The other day when we were doing Malygos I caught a glimse of this amazing bird-mount. It's owner, Lichshock was in the process of moving his guild to Cenarius. *shakes fist angrily at the Queue*

I'd love to get this mount but realistically will never be able to get one. Getting the people together to do it every week would be one thing, winning the roll the 1 or 2 times it dropped a year would be another.

Edit: I'm actually pleased that there are still items like this in the game. Everything should not be easily obtainable by anyone who thinks "I want one!" Things that are near impossible to get still have that "epic" quality about them, and this magnificent mount is certainly in that category.

The Heartmender Meta-Game

Yes, Love is no longer in the air. If you tried to get the "Fool for Love" meta-achievement you will probably remember the Heartmender part:

You basically had to use your Unbestowed Friendship Bracelets on other people who had their heart broken during a token of love turn-in. If you did this early on in the 5-day event, you'd probably have good success as many people were turning in their tokens. It was a target-rich environment for the menders. Near the end of the event, however, the game changed. Not as many people were turning their tokens in, but lots still had to get this achivement.

One strategy was to camp the guards near heavily populated areas like Ironforge bank/auction house. If you click on the picture to the right you can see that's exactly what people started to do. These aren't people turning in their tokens, they're waiting for a chance to mend someone's heart. This quickly turned somewhat ugly as many competed to get the "mend" in before the others who were camping. Chances to do so were becoming more and more rare.

Another strategy people started to employ was to have a friend help them. They'd both ride around on fast mounts, turning in massive amounts of tokens just to try and get heartbroken so their friend could do the mending. Fair enough, but I was going to try and get a piece of this as well. I started following around, weither I knew them or not, and started to mend them. When it came to someone helping out a friend, they didn't want me to be mending them, so once I did mend them they'd just stop for a bit, wait for me to leave, then continue on.

Time was running out on the event. 6AM on Monday was when things turned off, and if I didn't have the achivement done by then, I wasn't going to be able to complete it for another year. It became kind of a cat & mouse game. I ended up having to hide behind pillars and walls etc, then dashing in to mend before their friend could. I was at a disadvantage near the end, as they could usually get their mend in first. Once they ran into the King's chambers where there were many guards available, I was on equal footing. Spamming the friendship ring to mend was fine since we were already dismounted. (+15% run speed from Failsauce's unholy aura didn't hurt either) I got my last couple mends, thanked the person and went on my way.

I'm sure there was a little "hate" in the air, but hey I needed my achievements!!

5 days was not nearly enough time for this event. Besides a couple naxx's and work, I was basically humping this thing all weekend and was just barely able to get it done for my 3 level 80's. There was too much randomness., too much stress trying to get it done in time. At least there's a couple months before the next holiday event.

Retro Friday - Pre-TBC Elite Pet!

King Bangalash Tamed on 10/31/06?

This is an unedited picture taken on 10/31/06 of Darn seemingly owning King Bangalash as a real, elite pet. It was his pet, but this was some kind of display bug that happened at the Flight Path apon landing. It's interesting that the game knew what the original pet's name was even after it had been tamed.