reading a Game of Thrones

and comparing it to the show, of course.

I do believe Tyrion means to call in his debts about the deception of his brother and wife eventually.

Dany is going to kick everyone’s butt with Mormont at her side.

Arya is going to make a great boy.

Where can i watch season two online? Netflix doesn’t have it. ):

Why i'm thinking about quitting WoW

Some things that i've read and seen recently have helped put things into perspective.

1. The game has lost its sense of adventure. Progression is meant to happen through getting better gear which enables you to tackle harder content. This better gear + content getting easier every couple of weeks nonsense is ridiculous. The content no longer has any meaning because if you wait a month or two it will be easy even if you don't upgrade your gear. Epic fail.
2. The culture is doing it wrong...mediocrity is praised while excellence is detested.
3. The hunter class still feels gutted and amputated.  My playing has suffered over the past two expansions and i no longer feel capable or skilled. Nothing makes sense anymore.
4. Garrosh is alive and the Horde is being destroyed...too close to real life for my taste.
5. I'm bored with it. Normally i adore doing heroics, but lately it feels like driving an ice pick through my skull. Scenarios are pointless (might be better with new patch, but i'm not holding my breath).
6. My net is insufficient (too slow) unless i'm home alone and very lucky.
7. Except my one friend, no one cares that i'm in the guild. I do not feel welcome, i don't know anyone except one guy from my original guild, there is no sense of camaraderie or belonging. All my attempts to socialize are ignored.
8. I am always broke in game. Many dailies seem too difficult (killing monkeys in two different zones being chiefly on my mind), take too long, and have very little reward.
9. I have no time to play. I work "part time" but it feels like it's full time and i am poor, exhausted, and feel like logging in is a waste of valuable time.
10. Professions seem more difficult and more expensive than ever. And with the new Harmony...it is incredibly difficult to even be able to craft.
11. Honor is incredibly hard to get now. I have gone into multiple bgs and have like 300 hp to my name. I have no idea where to buy new PVP gear and can't afford it anyway. It seems my old gear is now useless.
12. Pet battles are boring. The content i want to experience is unobtainable. Farming for whelps and mounts for years has been not nearly as successful as it feels like it should have been. I will never have enough gold to buy what i want off the BMAH.

I won't say that i'm quitting forever...i've tried to do that before but always come back. I am saying that there is zero incentive for me to keep playing right now. I don't even give a care about raiding in the current environment.  I never got to experience the last expansion's content really, at least not to my satisfaction, and the entire point is to spend time with people that i like and who like me. I wouldn't mind extreme soloing but it doesn't feel obtainable right now. Unless i find someone or ones to play with in an adult, respectful, fun manner...there is no reason for me to ever come back.  Blizzard has made it abundantly clear that they could care less about my opinion or experience (which has been horrible of late). So i am stepping away indefinitely. D3 and MoP both feel like duds and i feel cheated. I have a couple weeks of play payed up yet, so i'm sure i'll try out the new patch (haven't had the chance yet, i'm working 9-10 hour shifts), but i do not have high hopes for it.

first impressions

So today is the first day off i've had since Mists went live and so far i have mixed feelings.  Right now i can't even log in to the game because of some glitch with their log in servers, so that's frustrating.  I've been playing the game more than i should (i.e. staying up until 4 a.m. even though i have places to be at noon the next day) and so far i can't tell that i'm making much progress.

The first thing i wanted to do was level one of my 85s to 90.  Luinel has the best gear, and though i keep telling myself that hunters aren't my friend anymore...she is who i chose.  I am more excited about engineering than leatherworking or alchemy,   She's my highest level cook.  She's just the instinctive choice for me.  And she is proving to be easy to play...i love fervor, have considered trying out BM (probably won't happen), want to tame some new pets maybe...but there's a couple of things that are bothering me.

1. I can't tame the battle pets when i'm getting off the zeppelin.  So i get on an alt and start working on that for a while, because it's driving me bonkers that i can't tame this raccoon one in particular.  I don't understand why we didn't get a chance to play this early (i feel it would have made up for the lack of world event, in a way), and now it's really pissing me off.  I just want to lvl, and my most played character should be able to experience all of the content in a zone while she's lvling through it.
2. I feel like it's taking forever to ding 86.  This might be because i keep getting distracted by shiny, but so far i am not feeling immersed in Pandaria so much as claustrophobic.  When you get off the zeppelin you can't even go down to the beach, you're trapped on a cliff.  Then you're surrounded by mountains that you can't fly around, and paths never go straight, so you're running in circles on a mount that's slow as molasses after being used to flying everywhere.  I have to save Nazgrim's green butt AGAIN?!?  I was fine with it in Vashj'ir but now it's getting old.  I don't want him to be following me around forever and be treated like i'm the one following him around.  These quest chains...they seem easy, straightforward, i'm blowing through them, and i only get half a percent for turning one in.  WHY?!?  So i can do a twenty-quest chain and get 10% xp.  I notice that they changed the achievements to not reflect how many quests you've done in a zone but to reflect which chains/achievements are in the zone.  There's like 12 for the Jade Forest and i've only done two and i feel like blowing my brains out.  I feel like i've played eight hours there, that might not be accurate, but eight hours in a Stranglethorn Vale/Sholozar Basin hybrid is just horrific.  I finally got out from behind the mountain and found a temple hub that is mildly more interesting and allows me to finally interact with someone that isn't in a village with an uptight mayor that seems hostile to my presence.  Maybe that will help.
3. I don't even like Hellscream, why am i even on Pandaria?  Without a world event and no Theramore lore in game the cutscene was very jarring.  I know intellectually of course, but there's no explanation in game why we're suddenly attacking Theramore and Alliance ships.  Luinel apparently is too much of a peon to be let in on the plan.  If i were RPing this would be totally bogus.  Why is Luinel still doing his dirty work?  So the entire premise of this expansion is that we should be fighting against the other faction more (who gives a care) but that, oh no, we need to have more inner peace and fight less but it is good to fight if we have something worthwhile to fight for.  What?  Sure, but how does that apply to anything that's going on in game?  Why should i even want to be recruiting the Pandas when i don't even like the faction i'm fighting for anymore?  I mean i do, i love being a member of the Horde, but the Horde has already been fractured and needs to be healed or broken apart for good.  To me, the story should be getting rid of Hellscream already, because Sylvanas and Vol'Jin have both obviously been plotting as of the beginning of the last xpac (wrote a post on that a year ago).  So now they're just going to ignore that?  No payoff???  The entire premise for this expansion should be to get rid of Hellscream.  I want him to be the final xpac boss.  There, i said it. xD
4. We have come to an understanding with TPTB that most of the quests that we don't feel comfortable completing will eventually prove that our character is doing the right thing despite instructions.  I learned this very early (case in point, i disciplined Ralen and Melador, and they're still hanging out in Eversong Woods while i have explored two worlds).  But this is taking that really far and i'm starting to get worried.
5. There is any heirloom gear for 85-90?!?  I guess this is probably pretty normal, but right now it stinks.

So today the plan is to actually get on my Panda Monk for the first time.  The first thing i did when MoP went live was to make her and a Panda Mage but i haven't played either.  I've captured a lot of battle pets and gotten the core of my team to lvl 5-6.  Other than that continue to wade towards 86.  I'm 2/3 of the way through the level i think, and cannot wait to actually get into the lore and the game some more.  Hoping it's there...will write more in the near future.

the woman in the red dress

I've been hankering to do some sewing lately.  Some geek related sewing.  I explain more on my knit/sew/diy blog.

Stargates

I thought i would have written a post about this by now...but i have started to watch Stargate, and more recently, Stargate Atlantis.  I'm not really sure anymore why i even started watching Stargate Universe.  I vaguely remember seeing part of the second part of the pilot on TV and wanting to know what happened.  There were definitely actors that i know from other programs...Ming Na, Christopher McDonald, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Robert Carlyle.  It's not like i was a fan of any of them, but i was interested in seeing more.  In fact, i like how actors from other sci fi shows tend to show up (John de Lancie, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman, John Billingsley, Kevin Durand, Grace Park, Aaron Douglas, Tahmoh Penikett, and Alessandro Juliani, just to name a few...though some of these actors may have been on SG-1 before the show i know them from).  So i eventually made the effort to watch SGU.  There was so much i didn't fully understand, which show it came from, where it worked into the lore, and i still don't, but it made me interested enough to go back and try watching Stargate again.

I was never a fan of the Stargate film.  I don't think i could really understand what was going on, and didn't care for then-O'Neill and then-Jackson.  I know i tried watching the show on more than one occasion...but i have no idea what episodes i saw and decided that i didn't like.  So far, i only remember seeing one episode of the first season before...one that featured Teal'c hiding in an abandoned apartment building while sick.  So since watching SGU i had been considering going back to the beginning of Stargate and seeing if i could get into it now that i've aged a bit.  Plus there was a certain part of me that was nostalgic to see Richard Dean Anderson in something again (i really liked MacGuyver when i was a kid, though i hardly remember any of it now).

So i started with season one and have been working my way though from there.  I just finished season six.  I like the humor in these shows, and they have a certain predictability to them.  It's not that they're boring (well..sometimes they are), it's that i can figure things out, they follow a pattern that ends in a pleasing way.  No matter how bad things get you know that SG-1 will figure out a way to get out of the bind they're in.  And the humor...O'Neill's humor appeals to me in particular.  The writers', producers', whoever PTB, their sense of humor just leaves me in stitches from time to time.  And i would say that i hate the obligitory end-of-the-season flashback episode...except they have done some really original things with some of them.  Humorous and relationship-changing things.  And of course...the obligatory ship.  I want O'Neill and Carter to end up together.

As far as the content...okay, i'm a little tired of the Ancients stuff at the moment.  The whole "we're too impressive to die" and the "we're on a higher plane so we can't be bothered to help our grandchildren or any other innocents" tripe is getting to me (moreso now that i've started watching Atlantis).  From my pov, death isn't a bad thing, so i'm not sure that's a message that's good to send, but i know that i'm probably alone in this.  I want to know more about the Ancients, especially how it relates to SGU, but SG-1 just appeals to me more.  I like the characters on Atlantis, but the missions can be pretty lame.  SG-1 goes through phases, so SA might improve, but right now i just am tired of them being stranded (couldn't Earth have at least dialed to say hello/are you still there already?) and their prefer ship-in-a-bottle episodes usually.  The Wraith are cornier than the Goa'uld...dark in a different way, and i'm not sure i like it.  But the Ancients, if they were as wonderful as we are lead to believe in SGU, certainly seem too fallible.  Why doesn't the stupid city have solar panels or cold fusion or SOMETHING to recharge its batteries?

It's interesting, most of SG-1 happens/originates from Earth.  The crew visits a new planet every week (for varying lengths of time), but the show is centered around the secret facility.  Stargate Atlantis turns out to be the same way, set in a very static place (though it has a sense of mystery and hostility that doesn't exist on Earth.  SG-1 sometimes brings the danger home with them, but SA lives in the middle of the danger).  It wasn't until SGU, i guess, that they graduated to the Star Trek thing of actually flying around from planet to planet to explore the galaxy as a thing that is just as regular as using the stargate.

What i love about this show and its spinoffs is that they make fun of themselves, are not afraid of being nerdy/geeky, and blatantly so.  There is so much techno babble.  Now on SG-1 this works really well because Carter, Jackon, or Teal'c will brief O'Neill, who acts everyman/dumb, and has something amusing to say about it, and his heroism is so ordinary, he doesn't even act like it's a big thing, and i love that.  But it's not really working on Atlantis.  What is Weir a doctor of exactly?  She's not a scientist, she's not a medical doctor, she doesn't seem to be anything but an administrator.  There was this one episode where a (fake) Hammond tells her that she's not going to be in charge of the project anymore and she's shocked and i'm thinking...why?  What has she even contributed???  She's not a scientist, she looks at all the facts and makes a decision, but half the time that decision doesn't make sense and is overruled by Sheppard or ostensibly unforeseen circumstances.  She lacks credibility and her main function seems to be exposition and that's it.  I can't even ship her with Sheppard.  I kind of ship him with Teyla but not really.  I dig Teyla's outfits.  Now Teyla, she is a strong leader even while she retains her femininity.  But the show is really stolen by McKay for me (who i never would have thought that i would like when i first saw him on SG-1 and SGU).

Overall...i do like this series (and to a lesser extent its spinoffs).  I'm not going to say that it's my favorite, but it is definitely worth watching.  Right now SG-1 has ended on a high point for me and i can hardly wait to see the next season.  And of course i keep hoping that O'Neill and Carter will have more relationship development.  I can dream, can't i?  But what i like about the Stargate is how it takes old questions (to me, a long time sci fi addict) and turns them on their head to look at them a slightly different way.  It's more military than Star Trek, and i like how SG-1 in particular is unapologetic about it (though their guns are often very obvious, it's also closer to our current military reality, i'm sure).

The irony is that MacGuyver refuses to use guns.  I just finished the first season of MacGuyver and was surprised that i didn't remember any of the episodes.  Well, i remembered one line of one episode, but that was all i remembered about that episode.  So i guess i didn't start watching it at the beginning.  So far, the pilot has been my favorite episode.  It got a little better at the end of the season but i'm not really enjoying it all that much so far.  Maybe it gets better later on?  Maybe it's one of those shows that you can't really watch later on because it's so dated.  I felt very insulated from the Cold War as a child, only knew about it from War Games and one other kids film as i recall (the name of which escapes me at the moment), it did not feel real to me as a child at all.  But MacGuyver deals with it quite a bit.

One of the things i don't like about Mac is how he's kissing a new woman every other episode.  But i have realized something, partially because of who produced/created the show:  Terry Nation.  You know, the man who created the Daleks?  The reason Mac doesn't use a gun...is because he's the Doctor without a Tardis.  He seems to nearly-instantly travel around the planet, and he fights humans rather than aliens, but he's the Doctor, no doubt.  He uses what's on hand to save the day, rights wrongs, interacts well with children, the whole she-bang.  So i guess that when i was watching Mac as a kid what i was really doing was getting ready for the Doctor.  Does that mean that Richard Dean Anderson is my first Doctor?

well this is bogus

So, after a lengthy updating, "optimization", etc., i now have to download over half a GB.  The P2P download isn't working, so it's not going as quickly as it could.  I have subpar internet, which is why i made sure to download as soon as possible and well before patch day.  I guess it's too much to ask for TPTB to actually provide the entire download ahead of time.  At this rate...i'm not going to be playing WoW again for four days from what i figure.  I hope i'm doing the math wrong. /facepalm

ETA:  I did the math wrong.  I'm 1/4 through the download, so hopefully i'll be able to play tomorrow. I have the early shift unfortunately...though it does mean that i get off work earlier, it also means that i can't stay up late and play as soon as the download is complete.  Unless it speeds up and finishes in the next hour and a half. xD

the final hours before 5.0.4

I keep saying that i'm not going to play my hunter as my main anymore.  That never happens.  Oh, to be sure, i played my shaman a lot in Cata.  She dinged 85, she healed heroics, and even occasionally in a raid (very occasionally), but i still played Luinel the most...and it looks like that trend is likely to continue.  But i also leveled a druid to 82, another druid to 66, my original priest to 76, another priest to 63, and a new orc to 51 very quickly.  I haven't been faithfully playing most of these characters lately, but part of what was so amazing about all of this is that i've now played two Allies into Nagrand and that i only have heirlooms on one server.  I played a warrior to lvl 22 and actually enjoyed it...and discovered that i hate playing a paladin (and reinforced that i hate playing a dk).  It seems like i usually hate pure melee classes.  My rogue i used to enjoy but abandoned (i might return to her after getting my priest to 85) and my main druid has gone boomkin with occasional healing thrown in to change it up.  It's becoming easier and easier to level, some of the leveling experiences i once had are now lost forever, and my alts are getting to higher and higher levels.

My biggest focus has not been raiding in this expansion.  I really wanted to get Lui up to 100 mounts and i did manage that.  There are some mounts out there that i still haven't been able to obtain (a ultramarine battle tank, more drakes, a fire bird, etc.) i did get my violet proto-drake and the long-elusive polar bear.  I'm currently working on the companion pets now more than i used to, mostly from Wrath or older, and i know that there are a ton of Cata companions out there that i just haven't gotten around to yet.  Tonight i rounded out my engineering pet collection with the Tranquil Mechanical Yeti (did the quests to learn the schematic and farmed enough mats to make two, one to learn, one to sell).  I'm still working on the green, red, and black whelps and firefly off and on.  I'm gradually trying to get more of the Argent Tournie mounts and companions, too, but it's slow going and kind of tedious.

Which brings me to my companion pet team...i still don't know a lot about it, but i think i'm going to go with Azure Whelp, Snowshoe Rabbit (Run away!), and...i don't know, my Crawling Claw?  Little Fawn? (supposedly has decent heals)  Phoenix Hatchling? A mechanical/engineering pet?  It probably depends which character i'm on to a certain extent.  I don't plan to have only one team.

Anyways, right now i'm at 82/100 companions and i plan to get farther before MoP goes live.  Right now i am eager to see the changes that are coming down tomorrow and wish there were more happening right away.  No pet battles, no pandaren, no monks, no Theramore (at least i think that's what i read at WoWInsider).  I gave up on downloading the beta last night, uninstalled it all for the last time.  It had finally stopped the constant crashing but was way too slow to be practical. I'm ready for tomorrow (unless there will be additional patching coming down tomorrow), but it's going to be really weird not have a melee weapon on Lui.

What am i going to do when MoP comes down?  Roll a pandaren monk.  Probably roll another pandaren, i just haven't decided which class to go with.  I have a feeling that i'm going to like playing a panda a lot.  Anyways, i just wanted to check in.  Wish i didn't have to work tomorrow because i want to be online as soon as possible, which is probably ridiculous at this point, but i am excited even though the expansion isn't coming down yet.  Now if i could only sleep.

why we fight in pandaria and gotham

This past week i saw the new Mists of Pandaria cinematic and the Dark Knight Rises. I was thinking about MoP while i watched DKR. Let me just say...i'm not really a Batman fan. I like the new films a lot more than the old ones, but i don't love them by any stretch. They are dark compared to the Marvel comic films and Batman is too whiny for me. This one in particular is violent (per usual) but what i think really got to me was Bane's voice more than anything. He makes Darth Vader look like a kitten! Most of the time i had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, though. I must say that i was pretty happy about who he ended up with in the end.

biting the bullet

I was just out of town for nearly two weeks on vacation and didn't get to play much in the week leading up to the trip.  Well i have been semi-keeping up on WoWInsider but i haven't been playing nearly as much as i would like to.  But i have been excited about the Mists release date...which is later than i expected but still super soon.

So i know that i said i wasn't going to be paying for anything until the beta was fixed...but that was when i was really mad in May.  It's been ages now.  I'm over it (even though the people at Blizz were super unhelpful and in no way professional when they were cancellingmy tickets without even properly addressing them or trying to help at all) and am whipped.  I want to play a panda and i am excited about some of the hunter changes i've been reading about even if i still feel screwed over as a hunter and as a shaman.  It may be stupid but i paid for the digital edition (addition? lol) today.

I am fully aware at this juncture in my gaming career that i am probably going to regret doing this, but i'm sticking with the game at least until Christmas (at least, that's when i'm paid up to).  If they let me down, if they screw me over even more, so help me i am quitting for good.  But with much regret.  Yeah, don't quote me on that.  They own me, unfortunately.  Ho hum.

ETA:  Wow that sounded depressing.  I still love leveling.  I always miss old content from the good old days (well...BC, as i wasn't around during vanilla).  My issues are with the fact that i am on a low pop server that i love and have no wish to leave but that has been ravaged post-BC.  I can't find a guild where i fit and most of the people i used to hang with have left the game.  No one has room for me in their raids and i have been forced to become a more casual player than i'd really like.  Yes, i dream of not having to work and being able to play 24/7.  Actually, i would get bored of that very quickly, but to have that kind of time to be able to play, write, etc., would be completely awesome.  Unfortunately i have to work post-graduating from college for very obvious reasons.

As a frequenter of heroics i can tell you that i don't hate the content, i hate the fact that most PUG tanks are complete idiots and jerks (arrogance seeming to be a pre-requisite) and most dpsers are completely ignorant to the point of taking noob to new levels.  I was once a newb, i have always tried to help them as much as possible, but these people don't want to be helped.  They want to get through content as quickly as possible whereas most of the time i would much rather savor the experience.

There's something that's been lost...a sense of danger.  These kids just walk up to a boss and slap them across the nose.  I remember a time where it felt scary to enter new areas, where there was strength and safety in numbers.  Heck, i remember what it felt like to go to UC the first time (from SMC).  I ported, looked around at the locale, and freaked out.  I was sure that it had to be somewhere dangerous and my newb self did not feel prepared to handle it.  I don't think that i even had a pet yet.  Everything feels much safer now, smaller, contained, tamed.  I'm not sure that i like the direction that this x-pac is taking, but if Garrosh gets supplanted by Sylvanas or Vol'Jin then i will be okay, otherwise what the frak.

The only reason it makes sense (to me) to get rid of Thrall is so that the Horde will attack Theramore and that doesn't make any sense to me at all.  Wrong enemy entirely.  Jaina has been a friend to us, our ally/ambassador to the humans.  Why would you piss her off?  She's not the opposite of Sylvanas at all (though that's how she's been portrayed in certain raids/dungeons).  It's not that she isn't powerful...it's that she's a sleep dragon.  Only a fool would wake a dragon up on purpose.

Anyways...mixed feelings.  I don't like feeling that something i have been faithful to for years is thumbing their nose at me rather than being faithful back.  Maybe they don't care because they have a constant stream of incoming players, but the original base has thinned out enough without them actively trying to push us out.  So they better come through for me is all i'm saying.

Melancholia

I know this is an older film but i didn't see it until recently.  I didn't even hear of it until after it was no longer in theaters.  I love science fiction and i tend to appreciate disaster flicks.  I knew this movie was going to be different but i wasn't prepared for just how different.  The film is divided into three parts: artistic morphing photographs that foreshadow the rest of the film, a wedding reception, and what happens when Melancholia flies by.

Doesn't Play Well with Others

I have spent my entire life as a loner.  It's something i wonder about, how i got stuck in the corner and have never been able to find my way out.  It started about the time i went to preschool and seemed to just snowball from there.  I as socially awkward and/or inept.  I am always alone.  I seem to have missed a memo or a dozen about certain social niceties and rules that are inexplicably complex.  I alternate between wanting to do what others expect and, quite honestly, not giving a frak.  I have asked a couple of people to explain it to me, and they all unfortunately declined, but i quite frequently feel as if the entire universe has it out for me, as if they hate and barely tolerate me, as if no one likes me and everyone only wants to use me.

At school this was a simple assumption.  I had few friends to speak of, and most were hinding things from me.  Those people who were sometimes nice to me, sometimes not, always wanted something from me (for example, help with homework).  Between telling me to my face that i was fat, using me and then ignoring me, being rude when i refused to be used, it was all discouraging.  This is all completely separate from the psychologial anguish i went through in volleyball, band, and praise team at church.  But this has become the story of my life with work and college only becoming new variations on this theme.

On WoW, things have taken a slightly different form.  In BC, sometimes this was guildees wanting to be carried in dungeons/raids only to abandon us once they had better gear.  From Wrath onward it has taken a more painful route...younger men wanting to use me as a sympathetic ear about their problems, usually involving women, but not always.  These "men" generally still live at home, have little to no real responsibilitiy in RL, have more time online than they really need to have, and are better geared than i am.  They give me gifts that i do not ask for, gifts that do not mean a lot to them but seem extravagant to me.  And then they proceed to pull me down emotionally.  They spend all their available time with me for a while, then disappear.  The emotional toll of this is personally high.  It's not that i get too involved, it's that it's very draining and frustrating.  I don't know how to set good/healthy restrictions, i don't know how to handle them, i drown and then they cut and run.  The main reason i let them do it?  Because they are the only people who give a frak about me.  They're the only people who will help me or spend any time with me at all.  No other guildees gives a frak about me, i have no other friends, etc.  I hate it.

Right now i am most upset about Blizz and WoWInsider.  With Blizz, i pay for a service, it doesn't get delivered, i ask for help, i am ignored.  With WoWInsider i applied for a job and received no response...but even more i leave a Q4tQ and am ignored.  I comment on the Blizz forums and receive little to no response.  What response i receive is not helpful.

I hate being ignored.  I hate being alone.  And yet both are a perpetual state for me.  I did not choose this.  Everywhere i go, this is how i am treated, and it hurts.  It's frustrating.  It's exhausting.  And i feel like it permeates every area of my life, both RL and online, my writing, any online community i try to join, people use me and dump me, people shut me out and hurt me.  Everything is pain and there's never any gain, but without the pain there never will be any gain.  What the frak am i doing wrong?

more download fail

Yesterday when i got home from work the D3 downloader wouldn't work.  I got a little worried and immediately started to copy the files to my backup hard drive, something that i hadn't done in a while.  I thought my automatic backup would do it but for some reason it didn't.  Anyways, to make a long story short, i only got half of my ~95% download copied over before the downloader deleted all my progress and started again at zero.  I was back to 49%.  Overnight it only got up to 53% before crashing.

So this morning i tried transferring the downloader and my progress to my netbook...  I thought it might work better and maybe i could go to my aunt's house for an hour or two and download it with her super fast net.  Well the stupid downloader deleted what i had put on the netbook and started at zero again.

Really?  Am i going to have to download D3 illegally in order to use what i legally own?  Epic fail.

ETA:  Can it be illegal when i legally own it?  When the company that sold it to me refuses to provide me with a functioning product?

d3 annoyance, minecraft black hole

So as most of you probably know if you're reading this blog for the WoW updates, Diablo 3 finally went live eight days ago.  I have been trying to download D3 on and off since March 18.  Unfortunately the downloader doesn't quite work as well as it should.  The only thing i can figure is that it's meant to be a background downloader.  It never downloads at a speed that would prohibit one from doing other things online.  Over the course of the download i think that i have uploaded more than i have downloaded via the P2P and when i tried to download directly without P2P the download would be slowed to a trickle and quickly become non-existent at all.

I'm not sure that i'm upset about how slow things have been (much slower than if i were able to use my download accelerator) because i am sure that a lot of people have been trying to download it as the same time as me.  No, i'm annoyed that the downloader crashes constantly.  There's no error message, it just inexplicably decides to close itself rather than do its job.  If i set it up to download overnight then it will not even get through half a percent before crashing.  So i only got to 20% before last week because it slipped my mind after the first few nights of this nonsense.  It wasn't until about ten days ago that i started making a more concerted effort again.

But of course it isn't even enough to have the downloader running in the background while you're still using the computer.  That seemed to help, but around about 45-46% the dang downloader was so slow that i was sure there was something wrong with it, and it was closing itself nearly instantly.  So i got fed up and decided to see if there was a fix and/or new downloader on Sunday (May 20).  This is after trying to download for hours four days in a row and getting only 25% completed.  Perhaps this is because so many other people were trying to download at the same time, but i figured that i was being sly using the old downloader while other people would be using the new one.  No such luck.

So Sunday morning i downloaded the new launcher before church after discovering that my overnight download had gotten absolutely nowhere.  Wasn't i surprised when i discovered that the D3 launcher is broken just like the MoP beta launcher...it won't get past the "Updating Setup Files" window and the D3 "fix" that people were advocating was using the old downloader.  I was more than a little upset about this on Sunday.  I have personally known about this issue for a month (though it feels like twice that amount of time) and not only has Bizzard done absolutely nothing about it but they are basically shipping a product that they know isn't going to work.  That or ignoring their beta testers.

Now the common response to this on the forum was "you don't get to complain because you didn't pay for the game."  On the contrary, i am paying $120 as opposed to the $60 the rest of you are paying!  There is no way that i would have committed to playing WoW for an entire year without the Annual Pass guarantee of 1) "Free" copy of Diablo 3 and 2) Mists of Pandaria beta invite.  So far my $120 has gotten me absolutely nothing but broken promises.  This is $120 that i cannot even afford to be spending, and in reality it is an installment plan with four months of free WoW.  That is what i am paying for because of my loyalty to the game.  A game that i know doesn't ever really live up to its promises but that i cannot stand to stop playing because i love it so much anyway.

So instead of staring at "Updating Setup Files" perpetually i decided to stick with the old downloader and hope that the game will work when i'm finished and not have to be patched with the broken launcher.  I am going to be very upset if the game doesn't work after spending so much time restarting this downloader!  And it required me to find something to do on my computer while i was babysitting the downloader.

Basically i got sucked into the black hole that is Minecraft fairly recently and over the past three days i built my wolf pack (why are they always underfoot but only fight for me about half the time and get in the way when they are fighting?), wheat and pig farm, and underground home complete with adjacent lighthouse tower and moat defense system.  What's really pissing me off at the moment is that i seem to have lost experience somewhere (and i haven't died lately...) and there is a nearby dungeon or cave with lots of mobs in it that i cannot find anywhere.  So any time i am in my home there is the perpetual sound of water, zombies moaning, and skeletons clinking.  I got fed up with that last night.  I cannot tell which direction the sounds are coming from at all.  I think i'm going to build a basement next.  The irony about my cave home?  When i first found this cave a creeper blew me up and then i couldn't find it again before my game crashed and all my supplies and xp disappeared.

In my first Minecraft world i got to lvl 16 and stumbled upon a village.  I then found a shaft in the middle of the village that went down to lava and somehow got pushed in while a zombie was pushing me uphill.  I died, the game crashed, and when i went back the village and shaft were no more but one of my dogs was sitting in the middle of a new forest waiting for me to come back.  I was so upset that i deleted the entire world and started again.  I do have a cave near my spawn point for that world but i'm not really enjoying this world.  There seem to be more creepers in this version, ender men and iron are abundant, but i have yet to find redstone, gold, or diamond.  I found some clay but have yet to use it and have been thinking about taming an ocelot.  I play the game entirely too much...and secretly wish i could find a Chip's Challenge or Lego texture pack.

Anyways, if i am downloading while reading fic or playing Minecraft then the D3 downloader seems to be much less likely to close.  It still happens from time to time but it allows for downloading over greater lengths of time.  If i go afk to watch a movie in the next room for example the downloader will always close while i'm gone within the first 30-60 minutes.  If i'm on my computer it only happens once ever few hours.  But since Sunday i have gotten over the ~45% hump and am now over 90%.  By this evening i should be able to log into D3 only a week later than expected.  God willing.  I am so sick of Blizzard's stuff not working, it makes me sad.

an afternoon at the movies

I went to see the Avengers this afternoon (more on that after the cut).  There was about twenty minutes of previews in front of it.  I just want to say a few things.

Expendables 2 - I haven't seen the first one.  The only thing i could thing of when i saw van Damme was that he is a"maj" (i have no idea if that is how it's spelled, but think of the j in jacques and you have the pronunciation) in WoW.  I don't really care for Sly, and sadly Statham makes movies that are hit or miss, but can i just say...Bruce and Arnold in a smart car = epic win.  (Oh, and Chuck Norris with guns...kind of weird but i can get used to it, after all, he is a hunter.)

Prometheus - I have seen this preview about ten times (well...five or six) now and it still gets me so excited.  The musical "scream" at the end is just...breathtaking.  I know, some people might think it's annoying, but all it does is remind me of the old tagline from the original Alien films..."In space, no one can hear you scream."  And scream the characters do.

Amazing Spider-man - Whining Spider-boy is more like it.  But i cannot help but be intrigued by this preview.  And i hate that.  I always expected more from Peter than we were ever given, and i don't think a new actor in the role is going to help that.

Battleship - I hope this is good.  They've got Aslan and a wanna-be Dee (from BSG), can they make me care?

Dark Knight Rises - This was the first time i had seen this version of the preview.  I was pretty psyched by the end of it.  There was the obligatory "flash a few seconds of all your favorite characters" in it, but Cat Woman/Anne Hathaway...i'm really intrigued.  I wasn't sure that she could pull it off but i think that she's going to do better than Pfeiffer.  But who is this bad guy?  I don't think they even say his name in the trailer, or if they do it was too fast to catch.  I thought Riddler was going to be in this one?

BRAVE - Another new preview, the second or third one i've seen for this film, and every time i see one i am dying to see this film.  I actually cried today.  Billy Connolly is so funny and Kelly MacDonald...maybe it's just because i loved her so much in Decoy Bride, but i am falling more and more in love with the characters she plays.  I think she's finally coming into her own and i love how the accents are thicker than what's usual for Hollywood.  Scottish is so sexy.  I hope this isn't going to be a "marriage is horrible" thing (though i'd run away with her options, too) so much as a "be true to yourself" with "and your family" realized at the end.  Gingers ftw.

And Avengers...

i'm on fire!

Mount #103 - Spectral Wolf

Mount #104 - Swift Purple Raptor

Oh, and i finally succeeded at raid finder last night...Deathwing is dead!

I didn't think to take a screenshot until after the loots had been handed out.  All i got was some meh boots.  They were a slight upgrade.

More to come, i'm sure.  I'm starting to focus on companions some more and am working on mounts with a fervor.

Terrorpene

Terrorpene --> Tortuga

I've considered taming this guy in the past, but never bothered to try.  I had seen him up between 3-5 times in the past, and he didn't make my NPC Scan go off this visit, but i decided to see if he was up.  He was, so i flew to the nearest Stable, put away two pets, flew back, browsed some WoWhead comments, landed, tamed.  It wasn't difficult at all (i was expecting him to knock me back or rape my face or something.  Yes, he damages you while you're taming him, but at my ilvl it doesn't seem to matter.  He's unique because he leaves a trail of smoke in his wake and constantly sizzles (this one is a constant, somewhat annoying, somewhat cool sound).

I'm at 377 PvE and 383 PvP.  I don't think there's much in the way of upgrades for me outside DS.  Maybe there's something in the 4.3 heroics that refuses to drop.  A lousy trink upgrade and a boot upgrade for VP, maybe a cloak, but i'm mostly wearing 378.  I think i should try Raid Finder again but it puts fear in me...i hate getting frozen and constant disconnects in 25 mans.

Violet Proto-Drake!!!

Mount #102 - Violet Proto-Drake

received upon finishing Children's Week Achievements

I want to mention that i couldn't have done this without the help of my friend Reaper and his buddy Dassip.  Reaper and i were in bgs for about six hours trying to finish School of Hard Knocks, EotS being the hardest for me.  I am usually on D so when i'm the only person in the entire bg not in the center it was a little problematic.  I can't hold a tower and carry a flag at the same time. xD  Unless my friend brings it to me, of course.  But in the end we were in a group that seemed to have some idea how to win the bg, and i was on O when he captured the flag.  I capped it, people complained that it wasn't a good time to get it, and i proceeded to remain on D the rest of the EotS, which we finally won.

Mounts 100 and 101

Mount #100 - Swift Burgundy Wolf

(along with my new Tirisfal Batling)

Mount #101 - Red Dragonhawk

(with my Dragonhawk pet, Ruin, and my Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling)

Where's Anzu?

So tonight i received a bit of a shock.  I used The Last Relic of Argus and was teleported to Hellfire Peninsula.  So i thought "might as well kill Anzu."  So i flew over to Sethekk Halls and pwned nearly everything in sight, dinging exalted with Lower City in the process...my 35th exalted reputation incidentally.  What i found perplexing was the fact that Anzu was nowhere to be found.

Here Iorek and i are, hoping to see the Reins of the Raven Lord drop, but the old trash is there instead of Anzu.  What the Frak?

ETA:  Some other people have mentioned the same issue on WoWhead.  Their fix was to switch to Normal mode, then back to Heroic.  This worked for me.

No mount drop, grr.  I'm a gonna kill him...

Nearly there...

Mount #99 - Silvermoon Hawkstrider

back to Argent Tournament dailies...

 Mount #98, Great Golden Kodo

I've been doing a lot of archaeology lately but with no luck at getting mounts to proc.  In Kalimdor i usually have 4 night elf digs up (this is where i hang out usually because i want the Tol'vir mount, if not the fossil mount as well).  In the Eastern Kingdom all the digs are usually Troll, sometimes Dwarf.  The other night i was having a good run with Tol'vir digs showing up 2-3 times in a row, but my luck didn't hold and i'm currently working on the non-combat pet (Thing-like hand).  That's all well and good i suppose, but 150 pieces before i can get another project which, statistically speaking, is most likely to be that silly mosaic again.  For the record i have completed at least eight of those nelf music boxes.

I'll probably have another Argent Tournie mount tomorrow...the dailies are finally somewhat doable, but those commanders still give me trouble.  Still, i'm not pulling my hair out over the dueling, it's been long enough for me to stomach it again, so we'll see if i can stomach it long enough to get all of the mounts out of there...or at least some non-combat pets.  My friends did the bat-run in Kara without me so i never got that pet, and i really, really wanted it at the time.  I have no idea why.  But i could afford to do it right now, it's just that i really want that Violet Proto-Drake to be my hundredth mount.  I think i want that mount more than i want the dragonhawk.

Violet proto-drake, here I come

First off, I decided against collecting 500 eggs for a white plainstrider. After finishing the holiday's other achievements it simply felt too horrific to imagine.

Secondly, I have been having a horrible time getting the mop or d3 betas to download. Hopefully I have finally managed it with mop (it's downloading right now). I started a thread on the beta forum which really seems to be a glorified blog post at this point.

Thirdly, I am very eager for children's week. Can anyone guess why?

Beta invites!

Last night I was happy to discover that I had finally received a MoP beta invite. I downloaded Mists while working on my taxes (which normally would have been done a month or two ago) and watching some movies I rented from Red Box. Over the next few hours I was disappointed to run into numerous crashes.  So far as I can tell, I was never able to download more than the first 3%. There are similar reports of dls crashing at 10% at the forums so I'm pretty sure it's not just me and hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Last night I also received a D3 beta invite. I'm not sure why I was so surprised about this...there was never any guarantee of it, for one, and I was never invited to the wrath or cat invites...which was part of the reason it took me a while to come to cat, I think. I haven't tried installing D3 yet but from what I understand there are issues there right now, too.

I'll try to post some updates as soon as possible...assuming I can actually get the game to patch, of course.

ETA: After doing some research on the forums I have discovered in a blue post that "The Launcher is closely tied to Internet Explorer settings." Why??? Who uses IE in the 21st century? It's crap. No wonder the stupid Launcher doesn't work, I haven't updated IE in forever because it's optional and I don't use it. So guess what I'm downloading right now? An update for crap.

ETA2:My Launcher is currently at 5%!  I deleted everything again and tried a couple of different directories with a result of no download at all (0% for an extended period of time).  I have no idea whatsoever why it's working now.  I haven't restarted my computer to complete the crap update and i turned my Firewall and Anti-Virus off after my first attempt last night, so that isn't the issue (no matter what the blue post says).  It's inexplicable.  However, if i do run into the same issues as last night i am going to try to delete the "corrupted" file from now on instead of deleting everything and starting from scratch all over again.  I'm not sure i'm willing to edit .dll files in notepad but i do want to get this downloaded tonight...even if i won't have a chance to play it until tomorrow night because i'm opening at work in the morning.

Still waiting for a Mists beta invite

I was rather annoyed that i hadn't gotten an invite and then i realized that i hadn't set up my beta profile up.  Last xpac the stinking program never worked (it always had an error message and didn't sent my info to Blizz) but now my profile is up to date and maybe i can get an invite soon.  I can hope, right?  I hear that the monk lvling experience isn't polished yet but the Pandaren lvling zone is.  I can hardly wait to test some stuff out, whether it be rolling a panda or testing the new hunter skills.

Off to find some eggs...my strange trip is pretty close to the end i think.  Come children's holiday...

A Rose by any other name...

So i like to have character or pet names that say something about me.  I don't really roleplay but i do see my characters as a sort of extension of myself, perhaps upping a part of my personality that i don't really allow myself to fully display or explore.  Of course it's not really that deep but yeah, i put some thought into names when rolling a new character.  This often involves nonsense spelling variations or foreign words.  Sometimes  it's just a pop-culture reference (with my pets moreso than my toons). 

MoP and mount #97

Okay, so i've been reading the info on WoW Insider and i must admit that i'm pretty psyched about the new xpac.  I've been reading articles lately about how people generally play the race and class that fit their personality.  Well i really don't feel like i'm a blood elf.  I'm not a drug addict and i'm not model-thin and addicted to pretty things like pink.  In a way my personality probably fits better with the Alliance...only i totally can not bring myself to play Alliance.  I finally leveled two characters to 65ish (partially with the help of a friend and because he wanted to do it) but it just felt so wrong.

But reading about the Pandaren...they sound like oriental/asian Hobbits, and that sounds very much me.  I think i may be in love.  I cannot wait to roll a monk and may just have to roll other classes, too.  I wish i could play Horde and be friends with Koi-people, too.  But stampede sounds awesome, like the most exciting thing to happen for hunters in a long time.

In other news i used Raid Finder for the first time today (at the urging of an old guildee) and my net connection still cannot handle 25 man raids.  My graphic card didn't crash or anything, but i kept getting dced.  What bothers me is that this card can obviously handle good without overheating but the framerate is horrible.  I am not sure if this is because of my connection or addons, i really need to experiment more.  But it stinks to have a new card that still can't handle the content and let me see the vistas this game has to offer.

And now announcing the acquisition of mount #97...Drake of the West Wind.  I can't take a screenshot of it where i bought it because there are no flying mounts allowed anywhere in Tol Barad.  So i took some screenshots by the portal to TB in Org instead...graphics still turned down from trying to raid.

Three more to go.  I keep trying the usual places, have been fishing up a storm, but no luck so far.  I really want the arc Battle Tank and fishing Sea Turtle but at this point i just want the achievement to be done.  I don't think i'm going to be too picky about these last three mounts.  Well....picky enough to not go grind some more Argent Tournament rep. /shudder

soloing setbacks

Tried to solo Mag and Maly (same night as last post) but I barely made a dent. Kept getting heal aggro on Mag from fire mobs. I couldn't focus fire a caster down or Mag.  Maybe there's a mechanic that I'm missing? With Maly I would be doing fine (albeit very verrry slowly, hit it like you mean it) only to get hit by his breath or pull aggro with disengage and fd on cd. Considering an attempt at Naxx next.

easy peasy soloing

Soloed Problim earlier this week and Attumen was easier than ever.  My next soloing challenge, however slight, was to solo Ossirian.  This wasn't too bad, there really wasn't any point other than i saw that the Armory said that i had never killed him.  The irony?  He drops a head that starts a quest; as it turned out, i couldn't accept that quest because i had already completed it.

eta: It's been five days and the armory still says I've never downed Oss. I have no idea what is causing the error.

Extreme soloing...Vortex Pinnacle

As you may have noticed, my main goal on WoW right now is probably getting that 100th mount.  With four to go, the pickings are getting a little slim.  So today after i helped obtain a victory in Tol Barad and did those dailies i bought myself some new PvP boots and decided to try my hand at normal Vortex Pinnacle again.

I will never get a world first solo kill.  At the same time, i'm no stranger to running content alone.  I will try anything at least a couple of times (case in point, that annoying demon in HFP that and Colossi chain that require/d a group).  I have tried one manning and two manning both of those with varying results (depending on what class i'm playing).  I finished the Champion of the Naaru quest chain mostly alone (the bits that didn't require a group, and i think i 2-manned the last part with an acquaintance).  I have ground a lot of rep alone (or in PUGs).  I used to solo Strat for the mount run back in Wrath and have been soloing old raids more and more.

But solo a dungeon that is part of the current xpac?  That isn't possible, is it?  Well, as it turns out, maybe it is to a point.  My first attempt at soloing VP, i failed miserably.  Trying to down Grand Vizier Ertan was not working, let alone even getting to Altairus, which was my main goal.  I want that mount!  So i gave up, discouraged, but something in me just kept niggling.  I know that i'm rusty, haven't been playing every day for the past year, have taken breaks, etc., but surely i'm not that fail as a hunter?  This is my main we're talking about, the character that i've been playing for the better part of four (five?) years.  So i started doing some more research.  How can i down this drake without hacks?

Which is when i realized that i had made a very lame mistake.  See, i have a soloing/PvP build, but i was trying to solo Ertan in my PvE gear.  I think i only read this on one website out of about ten that Resilience (paired with Stamina) is the stat that makes or breaks your attempt to solo most instances.  In other words, wear PvP gear.  If there's no enrage timer then you're set, and enrage is usually not an issue at all when soloing old content as much as survival (when that's an issue xD).  It's easy to kill these bosses, but can you survive long enough to do it?  Luckily, i just so happened to have five pieces of PvP gear that i upgraded most of in anticipation of doing lots of Tol Barad...and because i just happened to be a little bored.  (In case you're curious, that's three pieces season 10, one piece season 9, and one piece season 11).  So today i grabbed some stuff off my alchemist alt and headed back into Vortex Pinnacle.

What i packed:
Mythical Healing Potion x7
Elixir of Mighty Fortitude x5
Dense Embersilk Bandages
Skewered Eel
one battle elixir that was a seasonal reward as i recall...it gave me attack power and growth?

Trash
Just ignore them.   Camouflage will get you past everything except those two Howling Gale orbs that you have to shoot at a couple of time...lest they throw you off the ledge.  You don't die, but you do get sent back to the beginning.  Which is an important time saver to be aware of when you're ready to reset the instance and go again.

Grand Viz
Truly is easy once you get the hang of it.  Keep your pet healed, stay away from tornadoes, use maybe one bandage, Chimera Shot whenever it's up.  I've read that you don't need a tank for this, i felt that i was taking too much damage if i held aggro.  Basically manage your aggro and watch where you're standing and be patient.  If you get hit by a lot of lightning, this is tough.  Downed three times today.

Altairus
So much going on here.  First off, this guide helped me so much, but it leaves a little out.  As you probably realize, you want to stay upwind as much as possible.  Disengage can help, but not as often as you'd like.  However, even more importantly, you have to deal with Chilling Breath.  This is one of those mechanics that is pretty much a non-issue if you can self heal or are in a group.  Why?  Because he randomly targets someone with it once every... 30s?...only, because you are alone, you get targeted every time.  (Note:  I cannot find any confirmation about how long you have between each Chilling Breath.)  So he will hit you with ~25k damage (in my gear) upwards of twice a minute.  With ~140k health i can only get hit 5.5 times unmitigated/unhealed before i will die.

Fortunately, Chilling Breath has a 2s cast time and there are three tactics you can use to survive it.  If you feign death soon enough (after he has started casting, before the cast is halfway through), he will hit your pet or give up instead (i'm not sure which, but it didn't hit me).  If you feign death too late, it will hit you for the full amount.  If you are glyphed for Raptor Strike and can dance in, hit him, dance back out (all while being mindful of which direction the wind has just turned or is about to turn), then you can negate 20% of that damage.  I tried using Aspect of the Wild on one of my attempts, but i couldn't tell that it helped appreciably.  Disengage does not help with this, he turns as you fly across the screen, his maw following your fleeing leap (not to mention this skill is better used to get upwind).

The only skill that makes you completely immune to Chilling Breath is a well timed Deterrence.  If it's up, he gives up until next time his cooldown is up.  Now, the aforementioned guide says you can use Deterrence twice... that's not strictly true if you are MM (which is the spec i based my solo/PvP spec off of courtesy of Warcraft Hunters Union).  A well placed Readiness will give you two Deterrences in a row and you will probably get a third when you need it most.  I would not want to do this fight without a health pot.  Chimera Shot and don't forget to use Rapid Fire.

Other than that, remember to heal your pet, try to get upwind as quickly as possible, but Chilling Breath is going to be the thing that hits you hardest.  If your pet dies or you want to reset... stay where you are.  Running away is not going to help, as if you run off the platform then he will hit you with lightning that's worth 2/3 of your health to begin with.  Feign death where you are (assuming that it's not on CD!) and he will despawn.  Then run off the platform and rez your baby.  I managed to get to him for the first time and after about 5-6 attempts i had gotten him down twice and used up my health pots so i decided to call it a day.

 As you can see, i'm using a bear for his damage reduction.  It's not a reduction of damage taken, rather of damage caused by all nearby enemies, not just what's done to the pet itself or by one enemy.  It has a short cooldown so it can always be up (assuming the focus is available).  It's 10% rather than 50%, but it's more consistent.  (Petopia ftw)  I may try a different pet in the future, but i anticipate this fight becoming much easier for me after a few more kills are under my belt.

Happy hunting!  And may the odd be...no wait.

not pink!

mount #96...Swift Lovebird
a perfect way to end Valentine's Day

BRAINS

SMC really gets decked out for LiitA. No, wait... SMC always looks like that.

FINALLY!!!

Gretta finally saw fit to put me out of my misery and bequeathed me my 95th mount... the White Polar Bear

I kid you not, i have been doing this daily ever since Wrath was a brand new xpac.  As soon as i got the cold flight training i attuned myself and set myself to the task.  I wanted to be able to ride Iorek.