For those of you who may have been living under a rock for, oh… um… a while now… Twitter is this micro-blogging thing that is all at once wonderful, inane, fantastic and stupid.  Basically, it allows you to type 140 characters about most everything you can think of.

Oh, you have a twitter already?  Well, then why aren’t you following me?

1.  You have to follow me to be able to see what I say.

I kinda got sick of my family stalking spying on following my every move over the internet.  I love them to bits, but some stuff they just DO NOT NEED TO KNOW.  So, I set my Twitter account to private.  Sure, it makes me a little harder to find.  It also cut back on the amount of spam followers I had though, which was awesome.

2.  Instant contact with me!

Want to ask me a totally random question, but don’t think it’s good enough for an email?  Just want to shoot the breeze?  Hello Twitter!  Ask me most anything, and you should get close to an instant response (unless I’m at work.  Or asleep.)

3.  You can totally do my bidding!

When I get stuck for blog posts… who do you think I turn to?  Twitter of course! (Speaking of which… Twitter based post incoming tomorrow)

4.  Get to know the ‘real Sar’

… because I’m not scary enough here, clearly.  Seriously – why are you all still reading this again?

If you haven’t joined Twitter, go visit here.  If you have, you can follow me here!  I approve new followers every day (when I have them to approve), so I’ll get to you quickly!

/cheers for random filler posts!

Related posts:

1. A Captainless Ship
2. Reader Participation Gimmick, Right Here

Pets.

For money.

Ho hum.

I can’t even really define what the mass reaction is.  I don’t think there is really a mass majority in one camp or another.  There isn’t even a majority in the ‘I don’t cares’.  But, I am sure it will be a massive success for Blizzard, who can not make enough money off us it seems.

Now, don’t get me wrong…  I’m not saying that I dislike this.  At first, I was all like:

ZOMG RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!  How DARE they make a pet where all you have to do is buy it?  That is the STUPIDEST thing ever!  Where is the fun?  Where is the reward?  Where is the OMG I FARMED FOR FRICKING HOURS AND I FINALLY GOT MY OOZELING AND OMG SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Instead, we have something akin to

“Hey… I think I have ten dollars left before I max out my credit card.  I am totally going to blow that cash on a set of pixels.  Yeah”

But then, well… I kinda got over it.

And then I had a thought.  Which led to another thought.  And another one.  Next thing you know…

Sar TV!  In which Sar seeks to educate you all about things which cost about $10.  And stuff.

NOTES ABOUT THE VIDEO:

- I misuse the word ‘exponentially’ once.  I was having a brain fart moment, it’s been a stressful week, give a girl a break!

- It’s blurry as all hell.

- If you were wondering, the cats’ names are Kamiko (the tabby) and Suki (the white fluffy one – pronounced Soo-key, because it’s NOT THE JAPANESE WORD).

- Yes, I have got a fat roll.  I blame the Chupa Chups.  And the coke.

- It’s been a while.  I’m out of practice.  And I was never much good anyway – just ask the trolls!

- Stupid microphone on camera hates me.  I suspect it’s because someone hasn’t actually installed the drivers or something *looks innocent*.  So, I have to wear my headset.  And yeah, I know, the sound quality sucks.

Related posts:

1. That suspicious New Addition To The Sidebar…
2. Greetings From the Whiny Mage!
3. Sar’s Big Adventure

I have reached the point where I know it’s going to be hard to keep the blog going.  Real life commitments, as well as (I’ll admit it) me spending money in other foolish ways – hello, holiday! – have meant that I just don’t have the money lying around to keep this place up.  However, as you all know, I vehemently refuse to advertise on this site.  Most people who have sent me emails about advertising here have tempted me, I will admit.  Offers of a hundred dollars straight up plus payment for click throughs did make me turn my head a little… until I saw they were from gold selling and account selling companies.

No way in HELL.  Not on my blog.

So, I went with the slightly more palatable option. A donate button.  I know that they don’t work very well (most people manage to scrape together a few dollars here and there over the course of a year from them), but I didn’t want to be promoting someone’s services on my blog.  That’s not what this place is about at all.

I just want to make it very clear: there is ZERO expectation for you to donate.

I know that sounds silly, right?  I’m not standing behind you pestering.  I’m not setting up some weird system where you can only see the content if you pay.  But I know that I, as a reader, sometimes feel obligated to donate money to things when there is a donate button there.  It’s like I feel like a cheapskate if I don’t.  Well… don’t feel that way.  If I can save even $5 through the use of a donate button, I’ll consider it a success.  Hell, even if I don’t raise anything, it’ll just sit there.

But anything you would like to chip in would be appreciated!  No pressure though.  Promise.

Related posts:

1. Sar’s Big Adventure
2. Everyone Needs A Side Project, Right?
3. Shared Topic – Penalty Systems and Entitlement In WoW

No related posts.

Hope to see you there!

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2. My Hell – A Week Living With A Mage

I read a couple of posts in my naughty ‘I’m going to sneak home from work for an hour because my Year 11’s made me feeling like killing myself’ break, and they really intrigued me.  I guess I’ll deal with them individually, and then get onto my opinion (and feel free to, you know, stop reading at that point, because I know you are all going to disagree with me here).

The first one was an awesome guest post by Mimetir on World of Matticus.  You really have to read it to get the full impact of its awesomeness, but this particular statement hit me hard

I think there is enough evidence to say that some players felt the unstated rules of WoW had been re-written overnight using pictures sketched with crayons. Other players felt that the rules were crystal clear for the first time.

The reaction to the dramatic changes in raiding has been very, well… let’s just say it’s certainly been divisive in all levels of the community. I think that best sums up what the effect has been.  There’s people out there who absolutely love it.  Then there’s people like me, who hate it so much that it almost induces them to quit the game.

Well, on the total flip side of myself, we have Larisa.  Now, from what I know of Larisa (and I have been reading her for a long while now), she isn’t usually the sort to rant.  I guess that’s what hooked me in straight away.  She basically took aim and blasted people like me front and centre!  It appears that Larisa really likes the new system, and gets very frustrated at people complaining that WoW is too ‘easy mode’ nowadays.  She also raised some excellent points.

1.  “What annoys me so much is that the loudest criticism comes from players who themselves are far from having cleared all the current raid content.”

Oh, whoops, that would totally be me!  Well, I’m not going to justify myself in this little space… hopefully the rest of my argument will speak for itself.

2.  “Well, I guess they find him [Yogg] too hard compared to the upgrades he offers. The wipe/gear quota isn’t favorable”

Well… the gear in Ulduar isn’t worth getting full stop.  I wouldn’t blame it on the wipe/gear ratio – I’d just blame it on the fact the gear was always a bit terrible, and I’d say there are a lot of people like myself who will SCREAM if they have to do Flame Leviathan, or Hodir, or General one more time.  Seriously. Snore.  Naxx gear is easy to get, but it doesn’t mean we will keep going there.  Hell, people don’t even take alts there that much anymore!  Last time I had fun in Ulduar?  10 man hardmodes.  But if you asked me to do those encounters again, I don’t think I could muster up any enthusiasm, hard mode or no.

3.  “I’ve praised the hardmodes before and I do it again: they’re there for us to be able to put the bar at exactly the level where we want it to be to get the kind of gaming experience we’re looking for.”

But it’s not.  I want my difficult raids to be new, exciting and fresh.  Killing a boss with a couple more adds, or a little less assistance, or on a timer just doesn’t cut it for me.  I remember in BC, I was always so excited downing a boss.  It was HUGE to see them die for the first time.  Now?  Blah.  Snore.  Even on hard mode it feels like ‘I just killed the tacky, slightly more difficult mode of a boss I’ve already killed’.  There is no exhilaration in hard mode raiding.  Fun?  Oh sure!  But, at the end of the day, the boss is dead, and I just don’t really care.

4.  “Is there anything at all preventing you from skipping the faceroller raids altogether and stick to hardmode Ulduar and heroic ToC? Nothing. Nothing at all”

Too bad most every guild starts out on normal.  Hey, if we all started out on hardmode, and never did easy, it would be great!  In what universe is a guild likely to do that though?  And, the more hardcore your guild, the more likely you are to have to do both, simply for the badge farming.

But the thing that really, REALLY gets me cranky?

This system bites people like myself on the ass.  Hey, yeah, of course there’s a personal reason why I hate it.

Blizzard have really killed the ‘Skilled, 2 nights a week’ guilds and players.  The people who don’t have the time to sink into hardcore raiding, and so are stuck doing easy modes.  It’s bloody hard to find a 2 nights a week, casual guild who will do hardmodes.  Sure, with ToC, it’s theoretically possible to fit both normal and hardmode in, but I am never all that fussed on running the same damn instance again to do hardmodes.  ToC just isn’t that fun, people! 

I can hear some of you snickering in the back ground now *pshaw… like you could get anywhere on 8 hours a week*.  Well, buddy, you can!  In BC, I was an 8 hour a week raider (at least in terms of ‘progression raiding’).  We started late in BC, and by the end, we were in Sunwell.  Sure, we only got to Felmyst, but hey, we were a Sunwell guild!  And EVERY boss that I downed through BC felt awesome.  Absolutely awesome.  In fact… that was the last time I heard mass cheering on Vent.

So, yeah, hardmodes might not be easy.  I just want to know whatever happened to challenging content that we didn’t have to clear on normal first.  And why people are so eager to jump down the throats of those of us who don’t like the new system – we aren’t giving you a hard time about your preferences, let us have ours!

P.S. – Larisa, I loved your post!  This was just easier than commenting and then blogging about it anyway.

Related posts:

1. When Your Guild breaks Your Heart
2. Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!: Ulduar 10 versus Zul’Aman
3. Badge Changes Can Bite My Butt

As pretty much all of you are no doubt aware, I am embarking on my first big trip at the end of the year, off to Japan, then Canada and the US.  In some ways, I am really looking forward to this holiday, but in other ways I am dreading it.

Why?

Well… I can say with 99.9% certainty that I will not have as much money as I would like.  That’s just a given.

I’m also a bit nervous about travelling on my own through the US and Canada.  Now, I know that it’s perfectly safe… I’m just more worried about the fact it’s all so unfamiliar to me.  I don’t have the first clue where I am going, what there is to do, or anything like that.  I think I’ll just be winging it.  Hell, I don’t even know where I’ll be staying yet… or how I’ll get from the airport to anywhere else.  I’ll probably just go with backpacker’s hostels, and if I can manage to scab free accommodation anywhere along the way, that’s a bonus.

I’m kinda hoping I can meet people along the way as well.  Of course, this all depends where I end up going.  And, for that, I am really looking for input from you guys.  After all, more of you would be familiar with places to go and what not than I would!

So, here’s the VERY vague itinerary I have planned.

28th December:  Fly out to Tokyo and meet my sister.  Crash at her place for free – huzzah!

30th December – 4th Jan: Ski trip in Japan with my sister, her boyfriend, and one of his mates.  I have a horrible feeling this will involve me rolling down hills, possibly breaking bones.

6th January: Fly from Tokyo to Vancouver.  Only a 9 hour flight I think, which is fairly tolerable all in all – that’s about how long it takes me to drive from my place to my parents’ anyway

…

…

…  Not sure what the hell I am doing from this point on, until

26th January: Fly out of LA back to Sydney.  Means I am spending Australia Day on a stinking plane.  What a rort.

Things I –think- I want to do:

• Is ice hockey even played at that time of year?… I would imagine it would be, being winter and all.  I figure, you should really see a game of ice hockey if you are going to Canada.
• I’d say skiing, but I am doing that in Japan.  And I probably couldn’t afford another ski trip.  And I think a ski trip would suck on your own.
• Go to Washington along the way, since, hell, I’ll probably have to go through there anyway!
• I’d consider a trip to Vegas, but again, Vegas sounds kinda lame on your own.  And I am really not sure how far away it is.
• Hit San Francisco… not sure why, but it sounds good.

So, I was wondering – what sort of things should most definitely be on my to-do list?  While I prefer cheap, since I am kinda broke, I am willing to spend a bit of cash where necessary.  If people also know some good, inexpensive places to stay along the way, well… that would rock as well.

And I have already vetoed hiring a car.  The weird backwards roads over there scare me too much!

No related posts.

Now, this space does not mean that I will be quitting writing here at Destructive Reach.  Saresa will always be my main, and I will write here just as much (and hopefully a little bit more) than I already do.  I just felt that this place was starting to get littered with Druidic stuff, and I didn’t like that much at all.  So, just as I started a RL blog to clear up a lot of the crap that was getting written here… I started a Druid blog to shoo that over to somewhere else as well.  Feel free to head on over and have a look around, but, be gentle – she is just learning the ropes after all!

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3. Open Letter to the Blogging Masses

1.  If you hate healing the people you hate, heal without glasses on.  Seriously… when the name plates are all fuzzy, everyone is equal. (Disclaimer – I take no responsibility for tank death if you use this method).  Of course, it’s just more fun to not heal the people you hate

2.  Drink a can of Coke for every person in the raid.  The caffeine levels will give you the sufficient amount of ‘jitter’ to click all over the place really fast.  Coffee also works.

3.  Listen to really LOUD ANGRY music.  Slow music = slow sloppy heals, so the faster the better!

4.  Ignore every bastard who tells you to heal them.  When they are dead, they’ll shut up, and you can focus better. Besides, all the chatter takes away from the music!

5.  Tell everyone that you decide who you are healing by throwing a dice.  It should keep them on their toes so they don’t take any extra damage.

6.  When all else fails, stand in the fire and heal yourself through it so you look good on the meters.  No one will notice, honestly.

7.  Healing is great for people who like to multitask.  As a Druid, I often /dance so I look like I’m doing something, then work on painting my toenails.  It generally works out that I can paint one toenail per Rejuv cast on someone.  I also got half way through Guitar Hero WHILE healing!

Using these 7 tricks, you will be well on your way to becoming the best healer EVAR.  You’ll also have glorious looking toenails, and will kick ass at Guitar Hero!

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2. Can never have too much of a good thing

Relevart’s prompting statement makes a much nicer introduction to the topic than –I- could ever think of, so let’s hop to it, shall we?

I know a few other bloggers have shown interest in the idea of player motivation and I absolutely love the idea of examining the concept of what makes us want to/need to/desire to play.

I thought a neat springboard for such a discussion would be that of the penalty system (or lack thereof, as you might see it) in WoW as well as the recent claims that Blizzard is caving to the casual players’ feeling of entitlement to see and subsequently conquer any and all content, regardless of capability or time.

I suggest these two because I think they are inherently linked at the core, with entitlement driving the penalty system and to a lesser degree, the inverse. However, I would not be opposed to separating out the most relevant topic in order to condense posts.

 

Now, way way WAY back in my salad days as a blogger, I think I did a big long honking series on what gets me into WoW, and, y’know, it probably still applies.  However, at that point I never really thought much about penalty systems and entitlement.  I was making my first forays into raiding, I never expected to have a great deal of success, and, well, the people in the hardcore guilds saw content A, I saw content B, and that’s all there was to it.  I never really griped about this, I never thought it was ‘unreasonable’ that I didn’t get to see Illidan (well, eventually I did, but that’s an entirely different tale).

Now, well… things have changed a lot.  The playerbase can quite easily see the vast majority of the content.  Most people I speak to say ‘Yeah, I’ve been in Ulduar.  I’ve done ToC.’  Sure, they may not have seen Yogg, or attempted ToGC, but they’ve been there.  Everyone gets to see the content at the level they choose to see it at, and everyone gets to enjoy the shiny bosses Blizzard has so thoughtfully provided for us.

As I type this, I find myself questioning why I do not like this aspect of the game.  It sounds fair, and nice, and wonderful that everyone has a shot at seeing the content.  At the same time though, I find it bizarre that people can not make the obvious link – when we all can see it and do it, it cheapens it in some strange little way.  You hear people scoffing ‘Is this the best Arthas can throw at us?’, ‘I hope Icecrown is harder, but I doubt it will be.’ ‘Arthas is half the villain Illidan was.’  And, yeah, yeah, hard modes are supposed to be an answer to this, but there isn’t the same satisfaction in downing a boss on hard mode than there is in downing a genuinely difficult boss for the first time.

I never had an issue with not being able to see all the content.  There is still a part of the playerbase which seems to feel the exact same way.  What ever happened to just enjoying what you were able to see, instead of demanding to see everything?  Yeah, I sound like a spoilt hard core raider ‘Muuuuum, the little kids are playing in the big kids pool… they’re ruining it!’, and I have been flamed and flamed again over it in the past, but I guess I just don’t understand where you are all coming from.  Or something.  Especially since, well, hello… I’m NOT a hardcore raider.  Hard modes?  Pshaw.  Hell, I’m often lucky to raid twice a week recently!

I guess as players we often feel entitled to do everything. “I pay my 15 dollars a month, just like those hard core guys!”.  We also feel entitled to be challenged “I pay my 15 dollars a month, just like those casuals!”  We also feel entitled to enjoy the game, to have things our way (even if others disagree), and to often be pushy, demanding, and annoying, just because we pay our 15 dollars a month.  A visit to the official forums is all you need to show you how entitled we all feel.  Hell, I have a ridiculous sense of entitlement myself.

As for penalty systems, well, as Syrana said… they don’t really exist anymore in the game.  Hell, they barely existed before.  I don’t think I can make much more comment on those than what she already has.  Although, I am glad in a way that we aren’t penalised more harshly, especially in the levelling days.  If I got my XP taken away, I would have just packed up my little red wagon and cried the whole way home when I first started playing WoW.

At the end of the day, I have nothing to say here that I haven’t said before.  The game feels dumbed down.  I am so worried that it will be even further dumbed down in the expansion.  By appealing to the lowest common denominator, we don’t all actually win, and I think that the way the game is now actually increases tension between the casual and the hardcore player base, and everyone caught in between.

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3. We Interrupt Your Scheduled WoW Post…