The new 4.1 changes to the looting system pretty much render my most recent rant "Mortigan Gets Needy" as completely worthless. Not that it wasn't a completely worthless rant to begin with. But I'm too proud and stubborn to take it down and pretend like I never wrote it. So it stays, even though it's meaningless now.
I've mentally collected a few other rants, directed at healers, which don't warrant their own blog post, but are just PERFECT to tack onto an almost-apology. (I'm a Warlock. We don't apologize for anything. The paragraph above is as close as it gets.)
MESSAGE #1 To Healers:
Lately, I've been grouping with some shady, let-me-die “healers” in Heroics, and I find that I have to heal MYSELF at the most critical moments. Whether it’s consuming a healthstone, drinking one of my super awesome healing potions, using Lifeblood, or just flat running through a mage to get the mobs off of me, it seems I’m saving my OWN butt. I'm OK with that. I can help out here and there.
HOWEVER: When the fight is over, after Lifetapping to refill mana, when I start Harvest Souls to refill my health, DO NOT – I REPEAT – DO NOT – friggin finally toss a little heal at me to “top me off”. If you weren’t healing me when I was getting my face chewed off, you’d better not be giving me the little green swirly heal afterward, when I can easily get back to full health on my own. It pisses me off. Don’t go there. I swear I will set you on fire myself. Thank you. This has been a public service message.
MESSAGE #2 To Healers:
If I, in my infinite generosity as a Warlock, bestow upon you the grand honor of receiving my only Soulstone, so that you can instantly rez when necessary, you'd better APPRECIATE the fact that I don't get to rez myself, because I'm giving YOU that wonderful opportunity. So when we wipe, if you're one of those spineless healers that is going to quit the party at the first sign of trouble, you'd better at least have the decency to rez me before you run crying like a freshly spanked brat from the dungeon. I've seen too many healers lately pop my soulstone, look around sheepishly, and leave. I hope they build a whole new extra-deep pit in Hell just for you Soulstone Quitters who leave my corpse on the floor.
If you're not a healer, please forward these important messages to EVERY healer you know. It will help us all tremendously. Or at least me.
Mortigan of the Warm Hearted Helpful Advice
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mortigan Gets Needy
It's true. I'm becoming needy. I didn't use to be needy at all. Back in the golden years of Wrath Heroics, I'd almost never NEED anything. Even if it was an upgrade to what I already had, I was the proverbial good-guy:
"No, you take it. Really. I WANT you to have it. It would look better on you anyway. Really, go ahead. I'll get one next time. I picked up a gray rusted dagger worth 75 silver off of some trash, and it's all I really wanted in here - so enjoy!"
I would only NEED on an item when it was a seriously noticeable upgrade to a current item. And I'd only GREED in a group where everyone else was GREEDY. If someone wanted to Disenchant, I'd pass on everything.
Well, SCREW THAT. We're in Cataclysm now, baby!
The Dungeon Finder Tool is having a much larger impact on the game than most people realize. Let me run on this tangent for a minute, then I'll get back to being needy.
The Dungeon Finder Tool is changing the social dynamic radically. There is no longer a need to cultivate relationships, because grouping is no longer based on how well-connected you are. I used to be able to group instantly, because I had pugged so much that I had a long Friend list of potential Puggers, and I was on their list. I'd usually be in a group within SECONDS. These days, I log in, join a random heroic queue, and in about 20 minutes I'm thrown face first into a dungeon with complete strangers. (Last night's Halls of Origination was a FIASCO. The Huntard died on virtually EVERY major encounter. Don't get me started.)
It's also a major impact on guilds, as it becomes increasingly difficult to transition puggers into guildmates. I joined many of my previous guilds simply because I'd been getting picked up for Heroics and Raids so much that joining them permanently was a natural transition. These days, the people I pug with are not only outside of my guild, they're outside of my SERVER, so playing with them often enough to consider joining their guild is completely out.
And because of grouping with strangers who will never interact again, there is almost no chitty-chitty-chat-chat during the dungeon. Dead silence rules. Last night, my death-emotes about the frequently-dead Huntard were the only words in the chat window:
Mortigan says, 'Dibs on Huntard's Cloak! We'll roll for the rest of the gear!'
Mortigan starts to dig a grave for Huntard.
Mortigan says, 'Let's all bow our heads in a moment of silence for Huntard.'
Mortigan starts to rummage through Huntard's pockets. 'There's got to SOMETHING here worth selling!'
Lastly, it's even easier now to pug than put together a Guild group. I'd LOVE to group with the guild, but my online time is generally later than them, and everyone is generally busy doing different things. It's honestly easier to work on professions and gold-farming while in queue, than trying to manually get 4 other people to show up someplace. I think the ease of the Dungeon Finder is hurting guild grouping.
Now back to being needy. I'm pugging with people on other servers. People I will likely NEVER see again. So if people get pissy about me being needy, it really doesn't matter. Especially on the last boss. So these days, if something is even a little bit better than what I had, I'm going to NEED it. No, I don't NEED crap that I don't really need. But I'll have no more of that "Oh, you need it? Oh, OK, you can have it. I'm a nice guy." or "You plan to disenchant it? Sure, I needed the 20 gold I'd get for selling it, but hey, you plan to DISENCHANT it. Go for it!" Hell no. I need it, so I'm pressing NEED. Don't like it? Well, you can press NEED too, buddy. Best of luck to you.
One last thing. I don't disenchant, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't get an equal shot at items. You disenchant? That's great. But I shouldn't go home empty-handed so that you can scurry back to your server with piles of gear to disenchant. So if you're getting everything with your Disenchant option, I'm going to get EXTRA needy the further in we go. I know, I'm being crotchety. But these days, I really NEED stuff.
Mortigan of the Shiny New Gear
"No, you take it. Really. I WANT you to have it. It would look better on you anyway. Really, go ahead. I'll get one next time. I picked up a gray rusted dagger worth 75 silver off of some trash, and it's all I really wanted in here - so enjoy!"
I would only NEED on an item when it was a seriously noticeable upgrade to a current item. And I'd only GREED in a group where everyone else was GREEDY. If someone wanted to Disenchant, I'd pass on everything.
Well, SCREW THAT. We're in Cataclysm now, baby!
The Dungeon Finder Tool is having a much larger impact on the game than most people realize. Let me run on this tangent for a minute, then I'll get back to being needy.
The Dungeon Finder Tool is changing the social dynamic radically. There is no longer a need to cultivate relationships, because grouping is no longer based on how well-connected you are. I used to be able to group instantly, because I had pugged so much that I had a long Friend list of potential Puggers, and I was on their list. I'd usually be in a group within SECONDS. These days, I log in, join a random heroic queue, and in about 20 minutes I'm thrown face first into a dungeon with complete strangers. (Last night's Halls of Origination was a FIASCO. The Huntard died on virtually EVERY major encounter. Don't get me started.)
It's also a major impact on guilds, as it becomes increasingly difficult to transition puggers into guildmates. I joined many of my previous guilds simply because I'd been getting picked up for Heroics and Raids so much that joining them permanently was a natural transition. These days, the people I pug with are not only outside of my guild, they're outside of my SERVER, so playing with them often enough to consider joining their guild is completely out.
And because of grouping with strangers who will never interact again, there is almost no chitty-chitty-chat-chat during the dungeon. Dead silence rules. Last night, my death-emotes about the frequently-dead Huntard were the only words in the chat window:
Mortigan says, 'Dibs on Huntard's Cloak! We'll roll for the rest of the gear!'
Mortigan starts to dig a grave for Huntard.
Mortigan says, 'Let's all bow our heads in a moment of silence for Huntard.'
Mortigan starts to rummage through Huntard's pockets. 'There's got to SOMETHING here worth selling!'
Lastly, it's even easier now to pug than put together a Guild group. I'd LOVE to group with the guild, but my online time is generally later than them, and everyone is generally busy doing different things. It's honestly easier to work on professions and gold-farming while in queue, than trying to manually get 4 other people to show up someplace. I think the ease of the Dungeon Finder is hurting guild grouping.
Now back to being needy. I'm pugging with people on other servers. People I will likely NEVER see again. So if people get pissy about me being needy, it really doesn't matter. Especially on the last boss. So these days, if something is even a little bit better than what I had, I'm going to NEED it. No, I don't NEED crap that I don't really need. But I'll have no more of that "Oh, you need it? Oh, OK, you can have it. I'm a nice guy." or "You plan to disenchant it? Sure, I needed the 20 gold I'd get for selling it, but hey, you plan to DISENCHANT it. Go for it!" Hell no. I need it, so I'm pressing NEED. Don't like it? Well, you can press NEED too, buddy. Best of luck to you.
One last thing. I don't disenchant, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't get an equal shot at items. You disenchant? That's great. But I shouldn't go home empty-handed so that you can scurry back to your server with piles of gear to disenchant. So if you're getting everything with your Disenchant option, I'm going to get EXTRA needy the further in we go. I know, I'm being crotchety. But these days, I really NEED stuff.
Mortigan of the Shiny New Gear
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
My Back Pages
Mortigan's fur is about to turn grey. From old age. Because later this month, I'm turning 40. I always try to keep my personal life OUT of this blog, but the big Four-Oh-No is coming for me like Deathwing across Azeroth, and I find it hard to keep it from affecting EVERYTHING I'm doing right now.
I've never thought of myself as "too old" for video games. I was a kid when the video game craze started (yes, I was around when the local mall got its first arcade and we all crowded in to play Space Invaders and Pac-Man). I've played games off and on ever since. And for the most part, I've been oblivious to my ever-increasing age.
I clearly remember the first time I felt like I was growing old. I had been playing America's Army, and had just joined Team -=CSF=-. It meant "Combat Strike Force" or something like that. It was a solid team with players on almost every continent, and we were working our way up the PVP rankings. Our star player was a guy called "Gumpkiller" who was an unrelenting killing machine. If you went up against him, you were guaranteed dead. He'd sink 3 bullets into your head while you were still trying to mouse him into view. He knew every hiding hole, every strategy. He knew what you planned to do before you did. He was my hero. I wanted to learn to play JUST LIKE HIM. And when I logged into Ventrilo for the first time, he greeted me in a sweet, enthusiastic, high-pitched voice. The voice of a 10 year-old boy. I never saw it coming - Gumpkiller was a little KID. And later, when I ended up owning the practice server we used, and people would chip in to cover the cost, he'd send me $5 Money Orders scrawled in the large shaky letters of a child's handwriting. It was weird getting money from a kid's allowance - but everyone on the team was expected to chip in, and "keep your money, kid" didn't fly with the team.
I learned my lesson, though, and ever since then I take no one's age for granted. So when a character is constantly jumping and running in circles during buff time or between trash fights, I do NOT try to judge whether they're a little kid or just drunk. Could be either, but hopefully not both. The drunks usually self-identify, anyway: "I'm SOOO drunk!" Which I often think is purely a lie to cover obvious idiocy.
But the question still looms: "Am I getting too old to be playing video games?" And part me wonders how to draw that line. Should I poll kids under 18 and ask, "Would it creep you out to know that I'm 40?" or perhaps, "Which is creepier, playing with a 40 year old dude, or playing with a 25 year old dude pretending to be female?" On the latter question, my suspicion is that I'll come out the winner.
Overall, I have a very hard time believing that I'm too old. Maybe I just don't want to believe it. Maybe I NEED Azeroth. It's the one last piece of childhood fun that I get to cling to. It's my escape from this cubicle that has me so buried in work that I haven't been able to post or even tweet for several weeks now. Maybe it's the one thing that is keeping me from getting old. After all, what old person is half-way to their second piece of Valor gear? What old person goes in Heroic Shadowfang Keep and leaves with the Mantle of the Eastern Lords? What old person is now rocking 10K DPS in Heroics? Only young, cool people are Warlocks, right? I mean, Charlie Sheen is a friggin Warlock - is he old? Hell no! I've got tiger blood, dammit, and I SET THINGS ON FIRE. To hell with my 40th birthday, I'll burn it to the ground! MOAR FIRE!!!
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.
- Bob Dylan
Mortigan the Ageless
I've never thought of myself as "too old" for video games. I was a kid when the video game craze started (yes, I was around when the local mall got its first arcade and we all crowded in to play Space Invaders and Pac-Man). I've played games off and on ever since. And for the most part, I've been oblivious to my ever-increasing age.
I clearly remember the first time I felt like I was growing old. I had been playing America's Army, and had just joined Team -=CSF=-. It meant "Combat Strike Force" or something like that. It was a solid team with players on almost every continent, and we were working our way up the PVP rankings. Our star player was a guy called "Gumpkiller" who was an unrelenting killing machine. If you went up against him, you were guaranteed dead. He'd sink 3 bullets into your head while you were still trying to mouse him into view. He knew every hiding hole, every strategy. He knew what you planned to do before you did. He was my hero. I wanted to learn to play JUST LIKE HIM. And when I logged into Ventrilo for the first time, he greeted me in a sweet, enthusiastic, high-pitched voice. The voice of a 10 year-old boy. I never saw it coming - Gumpkiller was a little KID. And later, when I ended up owning the practice server we used, and people would chip in to cover the cost, he'd send me $5 Money Orders scrawled in the large shaky letters of a child's handwriting. It was weird getting money from a kid's allowance - but everyone on the team was expected to chip in, and "keep your money, kid" didn't fly with the team.
I learned my lesson, though, and ever since then I take no one's age for granted. So when a character is constantly jumping and running in circles during buff time or between trash fights, I do NOT try to judge whether they're a little kid or just drunk. Could be either, but hopefully not both. The drunks usually self-identify, anyway: "I'm SOOO drunk!" Which I often think is purely a lie to cover obvious idiocy.
But the question still looms: "Am I getting too old to be playing video games?" And part me wonders how to draw that line. Should I poll kids under 18 and ask, "Would it creep you out to know that I'm 40?" or perhaps, "Which is creepier, playing with a 40 year old dude, or playing with a 25 year old dude pretending to be female?" On the latter question, my suspicion is that I'll come out the winner.
Overall, I have a very hard time believing that I'm too old. Maybe I just don't want to believe it. Maybe I NEED Azeroth. It's the one last piece of childhood fun that I get to cling to. It's my escape from this cubicle that has me so buried in work that I haven't been able to post or even tweet for several weeks now. Maybe it's the one thing that is keeping me from getting old. After all, what old person is half-way to their second piece of Valor gear? What old person goes in Heroic Shadowfang Keep and leaves with the Mantle of the Eastern Lords? What old person is now rocking 10K DPS in Heroics? Only young, cool people are Warlocks, right? I mean, Charlie Sheen is a friggin Warlock - is he old? Hell no! I've got tiger blood, dammit, and I SET THINGS ON FIRE. To hell with my 40th birthday, I'll burn it to the ground! MOAR FIRE!!!
Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.
- Bob Dylan
Mortigan the Ageless
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