Personally I’d have told the blond to go F herself, but whatever…lol.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

I’ve been writing this blog for quite some time now and it’s seen it’s ups and downs.

From when it started off as an unknown site with less than 100 hits a day to when this site blew up up doing nearly 100k hits on its biggest days…  I’m still blown away by that.

But out of 5 years of hardcore gaming in WoW, this past year has been shaky at best.  And that has been reflected in my website as well.

So this is the time where I open up and share.  Some of this stuff has been mentioned, alluded to, or hinted at before.  And some not so much…  But instead of continuing to care about the sensibilities of those who have impacted me…

It’s story time.

Skeleton Jack in Gaming

I was introduced to “gaming” when I was 10 years old.  One day at summer camp one of my cabin mates started running a table top RPG named Gamma World and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Conventions, LARP’s, RPG’s, console gaming, boardgames, collectible card games, pc gaming, online gaming, lan parties, etc…  The list goes on and I’ve pretty much done it all.

So while it goes without saying, I’m saying it anyways.  I’m a gamer.  Always have been, always will be.

Skeleton Jack in World of Warcraft

A recap on my history in WoW for perspective.

Original WoW

I started playing WoW over 5 years ago.  I was a hardcore City of Heroes player converted over to the dark side by my Super Group (a guild)…

My first toon was Elorien, a Fury Warrior born to dps yet fated to tank by close minded idiots.  /facepalm

But even forced into a role that I didn’t want, I had a blast.  I got to clear Molten Core, Zul’Gurub, Black Wing Lair, Ahn’Qiraj 20 and 40, and even Naxx40 Spider Wing before BC released.

It was an amazing experience and I still have my old 8/8 T2 Wrath set on Elo with an Ashkandi!  I still smile just thinking about it. 

BC WoW

With BC and the release of Shaman to Alliance I swapped mains to Bigeasy, a Draenei Shaman.  I did PvP as Enhancement and PvE as Elemental.  And I lit shit up like a Christmas tree!!

I cleared all BC content, even killing Muru pre-nerf, and got to be part of a server rank 1 guild.  It was awesome!!

Ending BC knowing that I had actually done “everything”, including perhaps one of the most difficult boss encounters ever designed, still makes me feel proud to this day.

But at the end of BC I learned of Death Knights and Skeleton Jack’s rebirth was soon to come…

Skeleton Jack’s Birth

I remember when I was playing Ever Quest way back in the day…  I was the Karanas and I saw a system wide message from a GM named Skeleton Jack go out…  My exact thoughts were:

“OMFG!!  Coolest name ever…  One day, I’m going to have a character named Skeleton Jack!”

No, the name wasn’t chosen because I love A Nightmare Before Christmas.  Though I do <3 that movie for getting me to 2nd base with a girl for the first time as a teen close to 20 years ago, heh.

I chose that name because I saw someone else use it and thought it was the best thing since sex.  (kind of lands the idea better than saying ’sliced bread’ if you ask me)

Humorously enough it wasn’t until years later that I even made the connection that the GM probably took the name from the movie.  *sheepish grin*  Even I have blonde moments…

Skeleton Jack the Death Knight was my 3rd inception of SJ.

The first was as a NPC in my table top RPG campaign world.  Skeleton Jack was an intelligent undead skeleton created by an ancient lich named Al’Ren, an infamous prophet in our game world.

He went on to become one of the most beloved NPC’s by our players and has been used by multiple GM’s in our gaming circle.  He’s that cool.

The 2nd was as a Storm/Gravity Controller in City of Heroes.  Honestly this was a black mark on the name.  Even I can come up with bad ideas…

The 3rd was Skeleton Jack the Death Knight and my online persona here at http://www.skeletonjack.com/

LK WoW

LK would be the expansion that broke the camel’s back for me sadly.  Things were just never the same.

I quit WoW twice during this expansion.  And even though I’ve done pretty much all of the content in this expansion (shy of just H LK himself and the last dragon boss release), these past 2 years do not feel as amazing or as fantastic as myprevious years spent playing WoW…

So the natural question is, “Why?”

What went wrong with WoW for SJ?

At the top of the list I can think of 3 major turning points.  While other factors did play a part as well, these three things were the “nails in the coffin”.

Number 1: Guilds

I started off on the Bronzebeard US server and joined Category 5, a casual raiding guild, for almost 1 1/2 years.  But before BC released I went to Sleepless Knights and stayed there for 3 years.

From SK I joined Paragon for a while, until my new job forced me to look off server for a guild with different raid times.  That was when I joined Insurrection on Dath’remar US.

Insurrection then merged with Severed and formed Heretic just weeks after I joined, shortly before I quit WoW again…

Category 5

The GM of Cat5 gkicked me actually.  I didn’t quit.  I got booted.  I was very vocal about my displeasure with how poorly things were being run back then and the GM didn’t like that.

I caught multiple infractions where the officers had cheated on DKP, giving bonus DKP on their runs, and less than required on runs they didn’t go on.

Runs the GM went on would suddenly award items that could be sold for gold without spending DKP as well.  Meanwhile other runs that the GM was not on had to turn in all of those items to the guild bank…

The list went on regarding the shady things that were being done and I didn’t like it.  Also, apparently, the GM didn’t like me telling everyone about it…

In the end, being kicked from Cat5 was one of the best things to happen to me in WoW.

I wasn’t happy there, the officers didn’t really understand the mechanics on the class and talent structure (but then most people didn’t understand back then), and I was tired of tanking everything when I could out dps epic geared toons in my blue armor…

Two weeks later I joined SK and had a blast!

Sleepless Knights

Why SK you ask?

I was sitting in Ironforge in vanilla WoW in 8/8 T2 Wrath armor with a Maladath and a Buru shield without a guild tag.  I was in tell spam hell for 2 weeks.

Everyone was trying to recruit me and it was a pain in the ass honestly.  But this one guy from SK started talking to me one day and never said a word about recruiting…

He just chatted me up and asked me to join some pre-made BG’s with SK peeps.  I was down.  It was PvP…hello?!  I LOVE PVP!! 

A week later he mentioned I should app if interested, and I was.  SK was the only guild that just asked me to go out and have fun when everyone else just wanted to nab the untagged geared out tank…  That said a lot to me.

I loved being in SK, but don’t get me wrong.  It wasn’t all rainbows and bunnies…

Not that I like rainbows and bunnies being a Death Knight and all…  Uhm…  o.O

DEATH TO BUNNIES!!!!

Moving on…

I was originally recruited as a tank, but they had 4 tanks already who had been in the guild far longer than me.  So things didn’t start off too well at the beginning of BC.

I didn’t have the gear to dps, their DKP system didn’t support gearing out toons in off-spec gear, and I would get sat often due to too many tanks.  It was frustrating.

Later I was even pressured into taking dps gear even though I wasn’t being brought to dps.  Subsequently I couldn’t win any tank items because I got pushed so far back on DKP that SK actually restructured the entire DKP system to support off spec gearing.

Pretty awesome right?!

And that was where SK started showing how it could shine.  Their ability to adapt.

In addition to reworking the DKP system for the guild, they also supported me rerolling to Shaman and being a dps.

Finally!!  People online would let me fucking skill shit!!!  FINALLY!!!! It only required me giving up my main character to do so… *wry smirk*

The first two years rocked.  There were issues of course, but when is everything picture perfect?

SK became kind of my “online home”.  I looked forward to talk to my friends there, playing with them, and just hanging out.  It was a lot of fun.

But as with all things in life…things changed.  It started during Sunwell in BC, but didn’t become a problem until LK.

The GM of SK was taking on far too much responsibility and many of the old guard “core” members of the guild started falling to the wayside…

The officers in SK never really did all that much to begin with, and it only got worse.  I still don’t understand why they never put together a new Officer Core, but I wasn’t in charge…so no idea.

Regardless, this lead to our GM being stressed out to all hell and back again.  Which meant that a lot of things were not really being run well.

Don’t get me wrong.  Our GM had been running the guild for years and is one of the best GM’s I’ve ever met.

But when you pile enough crap on top of one person and they don’t get the assistance they need, they will begin to crumble under the stress…  It doesn’t matter how awesome they are.

Then add into that other issues…

I was saving DKP because I had no idea how to spend it with the new normal and heroic difficulty loot tables.  So my numbers dropped in meters while everyone else geared out and I banked my points.

So while my performance was there, I didn’t have the gear to back it when we were entering Ulduar Heroic content in my Naxx gear.

And I got judged on the basis of my new dps numbers in Ulduar.  My previous performance and history in the guild for the past 2 1/2 years didn’t seem to matter and that really pissed me off.

In addition to that there were several guild members “coming into power” whom I did not like, nor did they like me.  That didn’t exactly add to the “fun” factor of WoW.

SK was having a lot of turnover as well, with new members and new cliques.  Which only helped create divisions and fracturing that sense of community that had been there for so long that I loved.

It just didn’t feel like “home” anymore…

When I left SK I was number 1 on DKP and could have won multiple items and still stayed in the top 5.  I still left anyways and didn’t stick around for epics before I left.

Loot was never why I was in SK, but there were people who still thought that even after I left without using any of my DKP.  /sigh

Paragon

Paragon was the 2nd ranked guild on my server at the time and I knew some of their old members from way back in the day during original WoW.  So I figured why not join Paragon?  I liked them before…

Big mistake.

There are some exceptional people in Paragon from both sides of the coin.  Some of their members are very cool people.  And others are some of the best players I’ve ever met in WoW.  But that was not the standard, only the exception.

It was eye opening and shocking to me to see massive drop off in player skill and knowledge joining Paragon.  I was raiding with people where I knew more about their class than they did.

And spending nights wiping on encounters and struggling to learn tactics and strategies when I was used to my guild picking them up in just one or two attempts was painful at best.

This lead to me quitting WoW the first time during LK.  A lot of it was due to burnout from having played for so many years already and spending so many hours each week on both the game and my website.

But the shock of dropping down to such a lower standard of performance on top of everything else just made the game unbearable.

However a few months later after a much needed break I came back.  And with a fresh perspective drove right back in!

I adjusted/altered my mindset and got back into raiding on a more casual basis.  The people in Paragon were cool and they were still clearing nearly all of the in game content.  So I decided to stick it out.

So my routine was back, things were good, and I was enjoying the game.  What could go wrong?

Nothing.  Things went right!  I got the job I had been after for over a year…  Woot!! 

However the new job also meant new hours and no more raiding during prime time US hours…

Insurrection

I eventually realized I had to find a new server.  And Oceanic was looking like the best choice since it’s raid times were not ever during prime time US hours, which is when I work.

After some in depth research I settled on Insurrection.  And it was awesome!!

The people were awesome, the sense of community rocked, the skill level was amazing, and I felt like I had found the home that I had been missing for so long!

But the new found happiness was short lived.  After being in the guild for only 2-3 weeks they informed us that we were guild merging with Severed (Horde side) and transferring Horde side.  /facepalm

First off let me state up front that I told them in my application that I was *not* even looking at Horde guilds because I did not want to play Horde…  Fucking shoot me.

So there I am in a new new guild named Heretic.  Severed and Insurrection together, the two top ranked guilds on our server.  What could go wrong!?

Hmm…everything?

The new guild leadership was utter crap.  Within two weeks they had managed to alienate or lose a ton of players.

Among them were about 5 players who were quite possibly the best players I’ve ever met in WoW.  No seriously.  Like in the top 20 players I’ve ever met.  Among them, two of the best I’ve met at planning and designing strats for raid bosses and also the best healer, hands down,  I’ve ever seen in WoW.

How stupid do you have to be to not be on top of players like that in such a massive transition?  And that’s not even all of it.

The officers from both guilds had obviously not bothered sitting down and working out the differences between the two guilds until we were actually in raids.  So divergent instructions, strats, loot policies, and more were all becoming issues during raid time.

We had more people than we knew what to do with, and the methods of swapping people in and out were not working well.  Some of the best players I’ve ever met in WoW moved on or quit.  Major issues were not addressed.  There was no raid leader who actually did their homework and knew what we were getting into before we entered raids, etc…

It was a huge cup of flaming fail. (Read a big ol’ cup of shit set on fire and placed in front of your face…yum!)

And on top of all of that crap, then there was my sleep issue as well.

4 nights a week I was interrupting my sleep to make raid times.  It wasn’t possible to even get a full 6 hours of sleep before or after raids.  So 4 nights a week I was basically getting two long naps.

At first I didn’t think it’d be an issue.  However after several weeks I realized it was a HUGE issue!

I was grumpy and irritable, snapping over minor things.  The second time I snapped at someone in raid because of not getting enough sleep I realized that this wasn’t working any more.  Not even counting being irritable at work.  Which was far worse of a problem and had to be fixed.  End of story.

So what happened?  I just kind of walked away from WoW…

Number 2: Blizzard

But Blizzard is who makes WoW…how can they be the problem?  They made the game you love!

Yes.  And no.

In everything that follows you need to keep 2 things in mind. 
STOP SKIMMING AND READ THIS PART.

1) There is what I want from a game.

2) There is what Blizzard can change to make more money as a business.

I am aware that #2 is a driving force behind Blizzard’s decisions.  But as they make smart business moves to gain more consumers, they risk alienating those who loved what their product used to be (that’s me fyi).

Hardcore vs Casual

Who hasn’t heard some version of this debate, discussion, argument, yadda, yadda, yadda…

The definition of “hardcore” has sadly been diluted by this point.  Hardcore means so many different things to so many different people that you can’t actually stand on that one word anymore to describe an aspect of play style.

But the title “Hardcore vs Casual” does convey a rough idea of what I’m getting at here.

WoW is easy now.  It just is.

You can go look up on the web exactly what gear to pick, what spec to use, what rotation to follow, which mods to get, etc…

That aspect of discovery, personal testing, and player skill that would set the great players apart from the average players doesn’t exist anymore.

This isn’t just about the game, but also the community.  I would even be part of  that “problem” telling people exactly what to do without them having to discover it for themselves.

But that’s not all, it ties into the mechanics of the game as well.  Many class/spec rotations have moved towards “easy mode” where player skill level means far less so long as someone told you the proper rotation to follow…

/sigh

What is easy or difficult is subjective.  What’s easy to me may be ridiculously difficult to someone else.

But this is about me.  And WoW has moved to the casual market imo and has lost that more difficult and challenging aspect that made me love it so much!

But what about Heroic content?

What about it?  It’s fucking stupid and lazy.

Yes, from a business standpoint is sheer brilliance.

Blizzard can make encounters really difficult for the more skilled, or “hardcore”, players while still having easier versions of the same encounter for everyone else.  It’s genius!

They get to double dip, using the same resources for the 2 major factions in their player base.  They not only save money, but get to share their content with the entire player base.

I cannot fault this movement by Blizzard from a business perspective.  It’s like printing your own money.

But as far as me the player, it’s horseshit.  I don’t want to do encounters twice.  I don’t want to go into a raid learning encounters and doing it on normal and farm gear to then turn around and do it all over again on the same damn bosses, but just more difficult.

Do I have “STUPID” written on my forehead?  I already did those bosses.  Give me some new ones.

If I wanted to play through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell difficulties then I’d go play Diablo.  But I’m not.  I’m playing WoW.

And while Diablo makes that concept work really really well for some reason, it fails miserably in WoW.

Raid Content

Blizzard’s become really greedy if you ask me.  And since you’re reading this, you asked me.  It’s my personal opinion! 

They pushed out less raid content in LK than in BC (counting just bosses), and appear to have no plans to change this new model.  *shrug*

I always felt like I was working towards something new in BC that I wasn’t ready for yet.

But in LK I felt like I was always farming old content waiting for the next patch to release a new raid.  How is that fun?

Would you rather be working on content and know you have another raid waiting for you on the horizon?  Or would do you like to farm old content while you wait for the next raid to be released?  Fuck that.

5 Man Dungeons

5 man dungeons, something I love, are just meaningless and watered down shadows of their previous glory.

I love dungeon crawls!!  But all they are now are short, dumb, and annoying daily requirements in order to get my “insert correct name” badges…

The gear is meaningless, and that’s just fucking stupid.

If a boss can be skipped, just to get to the end of the instance boss quicker, then we do that.  Just so we can be done and get what we’re really after.  The quest reward.

How is that a good design?  It’s stupid.

I’m not saying 5man loot should be equal to raid loot.  But why not close?  Or comparable?

Blizzard is obviously aware of this concept, just look at the 3 5mans released with ICC.  Why not design tiered 5man dungeons in a similar fashion as those?

They drop loot that is better than some raid loot.  Why not design dungeons to follow the raid model?  Progression in both difficulty and reward?

The majority of 5man runs have nothing of value to offer you once you get into raiding (outside of trinkets, and that’s a totally different hell).  Note that the daily quest is what people actually value, or rather the reward.  The dungeon itself offers the player nothing on its own.

F&F Alpha/Beta

Yeah, I’m still fucking bitter about this one.

Blizzard:  Oh noes!!  Skeleton Jack?!  He writes a blog about WoW!  We can’t let him in, he might be bad!  Take him off the list.

Assholes…

Blizzard’s Target Audience

Long story short, it ain’t me.

They are revamping WoW for a new generation of players.

Cataclysm is just nice way of saying, “Hey a lot of our starting content for new players sucks.  We need to change this to remain a driving force in the MMO market.”

Smart decision again, don’t get me wrong.  But Blizzard’s new targets are not the old school gamer like myself who has been playing for years.  They are going after new blood.

For new players this was pretty much a necessity.  Low level WoW sucks.  But what about people who already play WoW?

I realize there is some small minority of players out there who enjoy leveling new toons up.  To you I say shut up and sit in the corner.  Disclaimer done with…

Who in the hell actually *likes* leveling a new toon?!

I’m not asking you who likes to have multiple alts, or play multiple toons in raids and pvp.  I am talking about the act of leveling itself.

Every person I’ve ever talked to about it tries to get through the leveling process as quickly as possible.  And if someone will power level them, they always say yes.

And I’m not referring to when you level a toon with a best friend, girlfriend, etc…  The fun aspect there is sharing experiences with someone close to you.

Don’t even try to pretend that “leveling” is fun.  It was spending that time with someone you cared about that made it fun.  It sure as hell wasn’t fun filling up blue bars with imaginary points that are holding you back from end game content.

So Blizzard is throwing tons of resources into development for leveling characters.  Again, smart business move for bringing in a wider audience of players.

But as a player I just see it as all of the resources, time, money, and development that could have gone into new raid content, bosses, armor graphics, pvp improvements, class balance, etc…

Sidebar Rant

Leveling in MMO’s is an antiquated mechanic that seriously needs to go the way of the Dodo.

That’s crazy right?  OMFG, no leveling?!!?  Who the hell cares about leveling?  Seriously.

Fantasy based MMO’s are not about leveling.  You level up to to max level so you can then actually play the “real” game.  What is referred to as “end game content”.

Developers talk about the 3 pillars of MMO’s: Exploration, Progression, and Combat.  So let’s talk about “Progression” shall we?

What is progression in a fantasy based MMO?  It’s gear ya stupid developers, not levels.  Bloody nut jobs.

All leveling does is teach you how to play the game.  Know what?  You could develop starting areas in a similar fashion to the Death Knight starting zone in order to teach players how to play their class.

The experience would be far richer, and you could then spend resources on the actual game that people play.

People have characters that have 100 days played, 200 days played, and more!!  And they probably spent 2-10 days played leveling up depending on their play style, tops.

Think of it from just the perspective of money.  Blizzard approached my raid content from that perspective.

Why spend so many resources on leveling up, when that usually accounts for only a minor fraction of a player’s play time?  It’s a waste of money.

And I tell you what.  If every class had their own starting area like Death Knights do, and the focus of these areas was to teach you how to play, people would far prefer that.

Number 3: Burnout?

That’s kind of a cop out honestly…  I don’t know if I have the words to properly express this because I can’t quantify this feeling exactly.

In any given week I probably spend 50+ hours on “fantasy/sci-fi”.  Whether it’s talking about gaming with friends, watching a movie/show in that genre, playing a video game, etc…

Whether most of that time was spent on WoW, or now on other topics, I still spend that time on fantasy and sci-fi.  So burnout isn’t right exactly…

WoW has stopped being Fun

There are things about WoW that are still a blast, like murdering people in PvP!! 

But for the most part WoW really has stopped being fun.

Part of what makes a MMO great is the people.  It’s about grouping with like minded individuals.  And I don’t have that right now.

Raid content has largely been a joke for this expansion, and that has always been my focus in WoW…

It’s just not fun…for lots of reasons really.  Some big, some small.  But when you add it all up, it translates into me not playing.

So what then SJ?

No idea!! 

I’ve started working on the 4th edition of the table top role playing game I wrote with a friend years ago (I wrote the 2nd and 3rd edition).  I’m hoping to start Alpha testing it with my gaming circle some time within the next 6 months.

Ironically the name of the RPG is rather iconic.  No, I’m not sharing. 

It’s just a hobby project for now, but if it works well I’m going to look into selling it down the road.

I’m gonna take a peek into DC Universe when it releases, but I don’t really expect to get hooked.  It’s got some nice toys, but it still looks like their developers missed the mark still…

That said, Star Wars the Old Republic has my eye for Spring of 2011!  That has serious potential to hook me!  We’ll see.

I’m keeping my website.

Moar postz?!!

Not sure.  I am going to continue paying for the site though to keep it under my name for any future endeavors.

I’ve been checking out some great games that I missed due to WoW though.

Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and others…  It’s been fun!

Hey SJ!!  Coming back for Cataclysm?

My initial response is no.  But you never know.

My biggest regret about not playing WoW is no more PvP…  I really, REALLY miss BG’s!  I could possibly get suckered back in by that…

But I’ve said I was quitting before, and sure enough I ended up right back where I started from.  So I’m not saying it this time.

I wish you guys the best though.  I really do.  It has been a fun ride, and the ups and downs only made it that much more enjoyable.

Suffer Well.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

So as you may have picked up on, I’ve been thinking about this website, gaming, writing, etc…  If you didn’t, and you’d have to be pretty slow not to, that’s the short version.

Some of my sources have been X-Play, Metacritic, Steam, Zero Punctuation, and various other sites regarding pc/console gaming, including random google results and youtube vids.

But whether it’s single player, multi-player, co-op, or MMO…  I’ve been trying to check it out.

This is relevant because I’ve been “out of the loop” with pc and console gaming due to my immersion in MMO gaming.  And a lot has changed.  Some for the good and some for the bad, but the gaming world is not as I left it.

Console Systems

I recently borrowed an X-Box 360 from a friend and found out that I have lost all console system skills.  I suck at controllers now…  >.<

I’ve been using mouse and keypad (yeah…keypad…I don’t even use the keyboard anymore) for *so* long that there are 6 year olds with more skill with a console controller than me.  *shakes head*

But there are also all of these new movements with the systems coming out as well as Sony and Microsoft attempt to capture the Wii audience…  /sigh

But that in essence has also set back the entire console market.  This is the time period where the big boys of the industry should be talking about new hardware, as far as systems are concerned.

Instead you’ve got this momentum towards movement controls, or even a complete lack on controls with the Microsoft option.

What am I talking about for those uninformed?

Kinect – you are the controller!  Think voice and motion controlled remote from hell.  As of now it sucks, but then it’s not even released yet.  That said, the potential applications look to revolutionize the future of not just console gaming, but home entertainment as well.

PS3 Move – hello ice cream cone controllers!  Looks like a revamped Wii controller system that just happens to be ugly as hell.  Considering the Wii and Kinect, it feels like PS3 is going to fall behind in the arms race…

PC Systems

While they far out perform consoles (when built properly) they have serious short comings in the modern day gaming world.

Many games coming out for consoles are poorly ported over to PC with tons of issues, bugs, problems, and lack of proper support.  And that doesn’t even count the fact that many games don’t ever get ported over to PC at all.

Yes, yes…I am aware that there are many games that never hit the console market.  Blizzard’s Diablo, Starcraft, and WoW are great examples.

But I find myself looking at more and more games out for consoles and thinking, “I really wish they had that on PC…”

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not going to be purchasing a console system.  But the thought, and regret, is there.

And while PC systems continue to expand their hardware to be more and more adaptive and powerful, there does not seem to be a movement (outside of 3D, and I’m getting sick of the failed attempts already) to think outside the box in regards to PC entertainment.

And that may, in the end, lead to PC gaming having issues in the next 10 years if they do not adapt to the growing console market.

Game Reviews

I’ve been looking into new and old games, trying to find stuff that I’d like to play.  And it’s getting frustrating as hell.  Game reviewers are not answering the questions that gamers need to know.  And it’s BS.

The vast majority of game reviews cover the basics of the game:

• Graphics
• Mechanics
• Single Player
• Multi-Player/Co-op
• Fun
• Story/Cohesion

Now these are important.  They are *very* important actually.  This is the core of what will make a game fun, or not fun.  But what about the peripheral issues that are just as important as those?

System Performance

No, I do not mean System Requirements.  I mean the actual performance.  If a game works well on the system it is reviewed upon (multi-platform games), it’s not always reviewed on another system where it won’t run as well and has issues.

And even with PC games, the reviews don’t get into the hard details.  How many people play WoW where it works great in small PvP and 5 mans, etc…  But then you put them in a 25man raid or Dalaran and their system crumbles under the pressure?

No one bothers to tell you what to expect the performance of the game to be if you’re not running the “ideal” system they used in testing/reviewing.

PC/Console Ported Games

Often a game is given glowing reviews, but the ported game issues are not covered at all.

Borderlands was almost unplayable for multi-player when released for PC.  You couldn’t host a game without being an IT tech, or spending 2+ hours changing ports and reading up on workarounds to host games.  And the DLC was seriously delayed for PC users.

Transformers has set controls that cannot be rebound.  You have to also find workarounds and edit files just to change your controls.  And it’s also been announced that DLC will never be released to PC users.

And that’s just 2 examples off of the top of my head.  Continuously sites will review a game from a limited perspective of one system, and not expound upon the repercussions of the game being ported over to a system it was not designed for leaving many customers, and readers, frustrated and angry.

Trust/Lack of Faith

You can’t really trust game reviewers.  While they are far more reliable than movie critics, who are stupid and moronic, you still have to take everything a game reviewer says with a grain of salt.

Larger companies, who have multiple reviewers, are by and large far more reliable.  They can have “specialists” if you will.

They won’t ever be forced to have a “sports game guy” do their review of the latest RPG.  So you have people who like specific genres doing the reviews of the genres they are interested in.  Now if only movie critics would do the same…

But there is still the “human factor”  Some people like, or dislike, things that everyone else doesn’t.  That’s when it’s time for checking multiple reviews.

Metacritic is a great resource because it consolidates multiple reviews into one score, and provides the links to the reviews in question.

But in the end, reviews tend to be lopsided and do not paint the larger picture.  Typically speaking, if you go out and read 5 different reviews you will learn new things from each one about a game.

Multi-player Problems

Whether it’s population, or peer to peer/dedicated server issues, multi-player issues are rarely covered in depth as they should be.

It is difficult to find out on many games, without purchasing it, whether it has P2P or dedicated servers.  And that’s a big deal.

And it’s also rarely mentioned that the lower game sales, or multi-player re-playability issues, could seriously impact your enjoyment of the game.  Why buy a game for multi-player when the multi-player is dead?  This has happened to me.

Summary

I find that many games require me to delve into forums, google searches, and various reviews to root out the problems and issues that I want to be aware of as a gamer.

I’m not finding a single reviewer (even the ones I love and am biased towards) who provides that resource.  And I keep asking one question.  “Why?”

These are things gamers want to know about.  It’s relevant and important.  So why in the hell does this stuff fall through the cracks?

The Future of Gaming

Sadly, I will bring this up to get it over with, 3D is in our future.  Especially with the new hand held “DS like” system coming from Nintendo.  The overwhelming reaction has been jaws dropping, with it doing full 3D without glasses.

And while this tech is nowhere near ready for multiple viewer televisions, it will likely impact the future goals and benchmarks set for game development.

Also I see Kinect from Microsoft changing the entire home entertainment movement.  True voice and motion controlled technology is becoming a reality that will enter the common household.

And before you scoff at the concept, imagine walking into a room and just giving a few short commands like this:

TV On

X-Box Netflicks Avatar

Play

In the future that will be possible, and so much more…  Saying 6 words and suddenly your system is running and playing a movie for you.  That’s pretty fricking cool if you ask me.

So what about PC’s?

They are already moving in the correct direction.  How many times have you seen, or heard about, systems that can directly stream content to your television?

But the true future is more in Microsoft’s hands than anyone else.  While you’d think Apple would be a part of this, their current direction lies more in the portable and hand held arena.

Microsoft is the only “big boy” that has their hands in both the PC and Console market atm.  So the bottom line is that until such a time where someone comes along to challenge them more seriously in the PC arena, I don’t think much will evolve.

Doing so would directly bite into the console market, and Apple has made no attempt yet to bring the PC and Home Entertainment Systems into a new melding of technology.  So why would Microsoft do anything that would cut into their console systems?  They wouldn’t.

Skeleton Jack’s Summary

So yeah…this is what I’ve been thinking about and reading up on.  Interesting stuff if you ask me, but then I wrote about it so that’s an easy guess to make. 

3D, motion/voice control (like Kinect), and a bridge between console and pc gaming is the future of gaming within the next 10 years if you ask me.

The one thing that has not been moved upon yet is that bridge.  But eventually it will be made.

If for no other reason than Microsoft finds a way to bridge the PC and X-Box as a multi-platform conglomeration with dedicated servers and home entertainment system merges which would make competition pale in comparison.

Such a merger, which would be closer to 5-10 years away at best, would demolish competition.

But eventually, something like that will be created to capitalize on the growing market desires discovered by companies like Valve who control Steam.  Gaming is moving more to a “customer service” industry, which is well overdue.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

So I popped on to MMO Champion and saw the new talent trees.  Of course I played with them some, so I figured why not share my tinkering?

Cataclysm Specs

Unholy

0/3/32

6 points free to spend as you like.  Bladed Armor, BCB, IIT, IUP are the likely point dumps for maximized dps.  But with such limited info still it’s hard to say which of those would eat your final points up.

Frost

0/32/6

3 points free to spend as you like.  You could argue to take the 3 points out of Virulence, but with the emphasis in blue posts regarding hit requirements in Cata it seems the most sound choice atm.

Blood

35/3/3

No points free.  Hopefully there will be further iteration on this spec.  It’s shy on points unlike Frost and Unholy and doesn’t currently meet the “design goal” like Frost and Unholy.

Comments

Part of Blood’s issue stems from the fact that there are 3 mandatory points in Frost and Unholy both that every spec will have to take.

Runic Empowerment 3/3 and Virulence 3/3 will be mandatory for every spec as they stand.  This is advantageous for Frost and Unholy, but detrimental to Blood.

As always, things will change, this stuff won’t hold, but it’s again an idea of how things are shaping up.

SJ Update

For those who read my last post and got a laugh, awesome!!

I re-read it today and laughed my ass off, heh.  Though I was quite unhappy at the time.  I keep thinking of Shadow trying to clean herself and I just laugh. 

So what have I been up to?  Delving into PC gaming!!  Interested?  I’m sharing even if you’re not!!  o.O  That’s me eying you up son!!

Steam

If you’ve never heard of it, and you have any interest in PC games at all, check it out.  Steam fucking rocks!

It’s basically a one stop shop for pc gaming needs.  You purchase games on Steam and download them to your PC.  While they do not carry all games, they carry a lot of them, sometimes even console only games.

The major advantage is that you can download the game after purchase and never have to deal with cd/dvd’s or registration codes.  It does it all for you.

Down side?  There’s some restriction on the total amount of PC’s you can use the games on.  Not sure what the count is, but I don’t go through a million computers or give these games to my friends.  So I’m golden.   Restrictions sit around the number of 5 PC’s typically from what I understand.

The had a sale over the 4th of July weekend with games discounted between 25% to 75%.  I picked up Mass Effect 2 for $23, Portal for $3, Borderlands + all 3 DLC for $20, etc…

That’s the other huge upside.  Unlike retailers they hold sales periodically which blow away retail prices.  So if you wanted a game, but didn’t wanna shell out the $50-$60 for it, Steam is a great place to watch and wait for the sales to hit.

G4TV and BBC America

I fucking LOVE G4TV!!  OMFG!

Well it’s got some seriously crappy shows on it like Cops and Cheaters, but it is the home of some of the greats like X-Play, The MMO Report, Ninja Warrior, and Attack of the Show.

And then there is BBC America, the home of Doctor Who and Being Human!  There’s some other solid shows there as well, but I *MUST* have BBCAM for those 2 shows!!

I recently moved, if some of you remember, and my stupid roomie Mythra had basic cable with only 22 channels.  You believe that crap?!  /wrists

So we finally got the cable flipped over with the 2 channel packages which have these two channels.  It was like $3/month for each package, which added like 20-40 channels?  There’s actually a few I’ll watch…maybe…

But seriously, being able to watch X-Play again every day it airs, plus catch AotS when I want to, and getting Doctor Who and Being Human back has made me seriously happy!

Mass Effect 2

Mass Effect 2 is eating my soul…nom nom nom…

Played it through once and followed the plot too quickly without fully understanding how your crew is affected…so they all died except the doctor because I waited too long…

But my landing crew survived 100% except for Jacob.  Whom I killed on purpose because he’s a lil whiny bitch that spews blood covered tapons and douche whenever he speaks.  Reminds me of Kaiden, or whatever his name was in ME1.  I killed his stupid ass too.  /approving nod

Anyways, I played through the first time as a Soldier and then the second now as an Infiltrator.  Well that’s not 100% true.  I found this mod/editor which allows you to change stuff.  You can use it to cheat, but I have avoided that.

What I have used however is the class change!!  INORITE!?!  So I’ve been swapping my classes back and forth trying them all without having to make brand new toons each time.  It’s pure win!!

It’s kind of fucked though…  Soldier and Infiltrator are really powerful, but the other classes are weak in comparison.  Especially once I tried the game on “Hardcore” setting.

I can attempt fights on Hardcore as a biotic (I’ve avoided Sentinel as I don’t like it) and just get monkey stomped over and over again.  If I do the same fight on Hardcore with Soldier or Infiltrator I knock it out in one attempt.  Not balanced…

Infiltrator is *amazing* btw!  I *heart* my Widow sniper rifle!  But once I get the specialized shotgun later I’ll be breaking out the Adept class again to try that out.

Portal

Bought it for $3.  Finished it (normal) in less than 2 hours…  Was it worth it?  Yes.  Really fun.

Will probably try the “advanced” maps later on, but I’m not as excited about that.  Portal is amazingly fun, but far too short.

Health

It’s better, but I need to get back to working out again.  My arm is no longer fucked up from moving (hurt it bad, strain or a pull or something) and I’ve not been sick in a while, excepting that debacle on the 5th.

So I’ve got no more excuses…  o.O

So you’re doing what exactly…

Basically I’ve been sitting down and relaxing some while trying to take care of me.

I don’t think I’ll be coming back to WoW as a full time raider so long as raiding requires me to not get a full uninterrupted 7 hours of sleep.  So that means no full time raiding for me with Heretic, probably now and ever.

Even if I want to raid full time with them down the road, eventually (whether it took a few weeks or months) I’d get to the point again of wanting to kill someone for sleep.

So with my current work schedule, raiding on an Oceanic server is out.  And raiding on a US server is out already…  /sigh

Beta

I’m still not in it…shocker.  If I get in, I will get some testing in and post thoughts, ideas, etc…

Cataclysm Release

I’m tempted to say no, I won’t be there for it.  But then I know me.  Most likely I will be sitting outside Game Stop yet again for the midnight release like the last 2 times.  *smirk*

Will I be the hardcore raider posting dps love like before?  Not sure.  As things stand, that just won’t be possible.

I am seriously considering coming back to WoW after 4.0 and doing the hardcore PvP thing for Cata, which would have far less time constraints.  But that is all up in the air for now.

Other Games/MMO’s?

Yes.  I will likely go check out Champions Online again at some point, though I doubt I will play longer than a month tops.

It’s got failings that I think it can’t ever overcome.  While I want to see the improvements they’ve made, I do not expect them to be enough to bring me back full time.

And next year there is the new Star Wars MMO.  That is looking really really good btw!

Here is the CGI trailer (not indicative of in game play).  You need to watch this!!

Rage

Don’t know if you guys heard about this game or know what E3 is.  E3 is a big deal in the gaming world fyi…

Rage, created by those guys who made such trivial and unknown games like Doom and Quake, is their newest project with a brand new game engine which may redefine the future of first person stylized games (not mmo’s).

If you are familiar with how many games use the Unreal engine as their basis, the new ID Tech 5 appears to be the beast defining a new age in game software.

SJ’s Games of 2011

What?  Yes!

These are the games I will end up playing next year:

• Diablo III
• Rage
• WoW: Cataclysm
• Star Wars MMO
• DC Universe

Skeleton Jack Posting

When I came back to posting after my sabbatical I said the posts would be intermittent at best.  That turned into 5-9 posts a week and hardcore raiding again.  While I gave more than I promised, I will not be maintaining that pace any longer.

It comes down to the most basic and simple of precepts.  I want to do more things that I have the hours in the day to achieve.

• Rewrite the Realms of Wonder table top RPG I created.
• Write a novel.
• Play a ton of PC games I really like.
• Play WoW.
• Write a blog.
• Watch movies I’m behind on.
• Create a new story and plot for a D20 campaign to run.
• Read books I’m way behind on.
• Work out again.
• Go find a social life and start dating again.  I’ve had enough time now since I had to break up with my fiance.
• You get the point…

It’s not a question of balance or order.  It’s just too much shit to do!

So what happens to the website and my writing?

I’d seriously consider working for another site, if it had a respectable and solid reputation, on an intermittent basis. Writing posts once a week or so, or simply focusing multiple posts during heavy content releases and backing off during slow periods.

But that would require me to find someone who wanted that, or for them to find me.

I also considered the video blog thing, doing a release once a week like other sites do.  I am a fan of the format and style of BFF and Tank Spot, for example.

And then there is the other side option of just doing intermittent posting on my site.  That would likely see spurts of crazy posting when content releases happen and I “get into” WoW.  And then fall off during lulls…

I think if I was just doing it for me at that point a large factor would be my happiness, or unhappiness, at having weird raid restrictions due to my work hours.

If it was for someone else, it’s easier to stick to a “job” and just crank out articles at a slower pace on set deadlines.  At least for me anyways…

I’ve also considered just posting every 1-2 weeks with “Mega Posts” of awesomeness.  Sometimes you’ll see me have 5+ posts in a month covering one topic. Instead I could crank out one mega posts every week to two weeks with wicked cool info about DK’s or WoW.

What else did I think about doing?  Oh, making this blog a “Skeleton Jack Blog” and not a “DK Blog”.  What does that mean?

Posting about gaming in general from my perspective, whether MMO or not.

No, becoming “yet another stupid gaming site” wouldn’t be the goal or design.  I’d be focusing on humor, interesting things about games, my experiences in games, etc…

The Answer

There isn’t one, which you could surmise had you just read all of that.  It’s up in the air still.

The only fact that is relevant is that I still *love* to write.  So that is a major influence in the final result.

What if you had a guild where you could get a full 7 hours+ sleep before or after raids, and still tackle top end heroic content?

I’d probably be posting about it and loving every second!! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Know when you’re having a bad day?  Well, it’s been a bad fucking day…

I got stuck at work for a 12 hour shift because someone took the day off for the 4th…  Yes, I’m totally happy that *you’re* off for the 4th while I’m at work for 12 hours…  Yay!!

For the intellectually deficient, that was sarcasm.  For those who got it anyways (most of you) you get nothing.

Moving on…

So I’m at work a lil past half way through the shift and I have to fart.  So I fart.  I’m by myself…why wouldn’t I?

And even if someone was there (excepting a cute chick) I’d have probably farted anyways.  Why do you even care?!

Now I don’t feel anything other than air.  Normal.  But it sounds weird…  Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.  That sick sloppy noise your ass can make.  Yup.

You’re welcome for that totally unnecessary and graphic image I just painted in your mind.

I stand up and notice that my seat is wet.  Yeah…it was that forceful it dispersed through my jeans without feeling it and even soaked through to the chair.

Fuck me.

Clean myself up, the chair, etc…  Start calling the roomie because I can’t leave work.  Repeatedly call the roomie.  No dice.

So I get stuck at work and can’t reach the roomie to get me some clothes…  I totally wanted to be at work today for 12 hours sitting in my own feces!!  Thank you forces of the universe!!

Come home many hours later, take a shower, get comfortable, eat, watch NCIS, and relax finally…

Yeah, you’d think the story ends there, but no.  My body had other ideas of a good time…

So I’m sitting there in my chair with my feet up, chilling, when suddenly my stomach heaves and I begin to vomit.

I manage to keep my mouth shut and nothing comes out!  “OMFG THANK GOD!!”

Stomach heaves again…

*SPLURT*

Vomit shoots out of my mouth as if it was a high pressure hose due to already having previous vomit in my cheeks.

Yeah, this really happened.

So I vomit all over myself, but not on the furniture.  Now you’d think a normal person would be stoked they didn’t get any on the furniture so that they wouldn’t have to clean it.

But no, my mind instead takes the route, “How the fucking hell did *that* happen?!  I missed everything except for me?!”  *shakes head*

Nope, I left out one detail.  While I was sitting there watching NCIS my cat Shadow was cuddled up on my lap.

So I vomited all over myself and my cat.

Yeah, I shit you not.  This was my day.

So I stand up and make for the bathroom to look down at my cat…

This is so fucking messed up.

She’s sitting there trying to lick the vomit off of her, but as she licks it she shakes her head and shudders visibly from tasting it.

So my poor cat is basically eating my vomit because she can’t figure out how to get it off of her.  /sigh

I stop immediately and pick her up and carry her to the tub.  Which initiates cat clawing and howling.

No, don’t claw me or howl in misery because I vomited all over you ya stupid cat.

Instead, howl and cry because I’m about to put you in water to get the vomit off of ya…  Jesus.

15 minutes later I’m clean and Shadow’s clean.

Poor thing is a long hair cat though, so she looks so pitiful all wet.

Now I’m up and awake and afraid to go to bed.

I’ve already shit diarrhea all over myself, vomited all over myself, and vomited all over my cat…

What the fuck is next?  If I go to bed am I gonna piss myself??!!?

Fucking hell…

Popping vitamins, some stomach stuff I have, and immodium.  Fuck today!

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

P.S.  FYI I am not fucking suffering well today.  In fact, today can go fuck itselt!  But hopefully my misery can afford you a smile or laughter at my expense.  I’d be fucking laughing my ass off if this happened to someone else.

No this wasn’t a gag.  This was really my day  I’m gonna go play a video game and murder pixels or something…

Relating to why you should read the post made today regarding my burnt out:

I’m taking a week off of from my website at least.  Not sure if longer…  Need to work out some things.  I don’t plan on logging in to approve comments, read anything, empty spam folders, etc…

So feel free to post comments and ask questions.  Please do so in fact.  Even if I quit posting on a longer term scale I’ll make sure to get in some comment answers and info up.

Just be aware it’s going to be at least a week before I decide to come back in and check everything out.

Again if you’re wondering what’s up, you need to read my post a few posts down.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

The best option I’ve seen to date for this purpose is the mod Tell Me When.  It’s simple, easy to use, light weight, and efficient.  You can’t ask for much more than that.

Tell Me When

This mods creates new frames that can be resized and moved to any position on your screen.

As you can see from this screen shot above of the Interface Addon control, you have up to eight frames which can have a variable amount of columns and rows.

The above screen shot is the 2nd stage of setup.  From the previous picture you can see that I turned off all of the other frames except for one.  The one that I kept has 2 rows and 7 columns.  More than enough for my needs!

Now to set up the buffs (or debuffs) you need to know the names of the specific buffs (not the item name).  If you’re not sure, search the item on WoW Head.  The comments usually have the buff names listed.

If you click on this 2nd pic and zoom in you can see there are 14 boxes.  I will start on the top row and count from left to right, then repeating the process on the bottom row.

First Row

Number 1:  A lit up Killing Machine icon from my KM talent.

Number 2:  A grayed out Killing Machine icon.  This is where I originally had KM set, but found it was easier to notice putting it one box to the left.

Instead of deleting it however, I set it to inactive so that I can use it later if I choose.  That is why it appears grayed out.

Number 3:  A lit up Unholy Strength icon from my FC weapon enchant.

Number 4:  A lit up Speed of the Valkyr icon from my DBW trinket.

Number 5:  A lit up Unholy Force icon from my SoV sigil.

Number 6:  Empty

Number 7:  Empty

Second Row

Number 8:  A lit up Freezing Fog icon from my Rime talent.

Number 9:  A grayed out Freezing Fog icon.  This is where I originally had FF set, but found it was easier to notice putting it one box to the left.

Instead of deleting it however, I set it to inactive so that I can use it later if I choose.  That is why it appears grayed out.

Number 10:  A lit up Paragon icon from my DC trinket.

Number 11:  A lit up Strength of the Taunka icon from my DBW trinket.

Number 12:  A lit up Frostforged Champion icon from my AV exalted ring.

Number 13:  A lit up Aim of the Iron Dwarves icon from my DBW trinket.

Number 14:  Empty

Options

This mod gives you a lot of options.  How you choose to use it is up to you.

Appearance: You can change the size of the frames and their position on your screen.

Timers: You can set up the mod to even have a “clock” style countdown for buffs.

Buffs: Can track buffs easily.

Debuffs: Can also track debuffs on you or your target.  Whether it’s a debuff placed on you by a boss, or tracking debuffs you placed on a target in PvP.

Cooldowns: Can display an icon when an ability or item becomes available and off of CD.

Focus Targets: Can let you know when a debuff falls off of your focus target.

TMW in Action

Here is just a limited scope view on what TMW will look like in combat.  Fully customized however, this mod can do so much more.

A special notation should be made for “troublesome” boss debuffs as well.  Is there a particular debuff a boss places on you that you’ve had difficulty noticing the boss mod warnings for?

Set up TMW to pop up an icon whenever it’s present on you.  Choose the location and size of the icon, and you’re good to go!

The above shows me with Killing Machine, Paragon, Strength of the Taunka, and Unholy Force buffs present.

The above shows me with Killing Machine, Freezing Fog, Paragon, Strength of the Valkyr, Unholy Force, and Frostforged Champion buffs present.

If you zoom in on the pictures you will see that the buff mod I use on the right hand of the screen shows multiple buffs present.

However only the buffs that I programmed into TMW show in the middle of the screen, making it very easy to see just the important ones.

If you look closely you can also see the circular “clock-like” count down on the icons showing when they will wear off.

A brand new buff is fully lit up, while the count down starts graying out the icon as it wears off.  Once it is fully grayed out, the buff duration has ended and the icon vanishes.

Why is this useful?!

Tracking your buffs and timing your use of buffs, cooldowns, and abilities can shift your dps by a margin of anywhere between 500 to 3000 dps dependent upon numerous variables of course.

That is not an exaggeration.

Frost

As Frost it is critical that you always know when KM and Rime have proc’ed in order for you to take the maximum benefit from those talents.

The same also goes for Raise Dead.  You need to cast this when you have the most buffs on you.

Unholy

As Unholy your Gargoyle damage can shift dramatically by using it when you have full buffs up and Heroism.

If you don’t know when the buffs are on you and cast Gargoyle when they’re down, then the dps gain from that spell drops significantly.

Minions

One shot pets have their stats set by your current stats at the time of casting.  So Raise Dead (non-Unholy), Summon Gargoyle, and Army of the Dead all fall into this category.

They’re not true pets like an Unholy ghoul.  They’re more like one shot minions.

If you have 5 temporary buffs on you when you cast Raise Dead or Summon Gargoyle, and then they fall off 5 seconds later, your summoned minions stay buffed.

Their stats are set at the time you cast them, based off of your own stats.  Or your AP and Haste more specifically.

Summation

This isn’t a guide on how to set up the mod, but it’s very easy to use.  Set it up in the Addon Interface first, and then type /tmw in chat when that is done.

You don’t have to use this specific mod, but you need to be using something like it.  Seriously.

You need some type of UI modification so that you are fully aware when temporary buffs are on you.  It will change your dps for the better.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Heya guys!!  Is it?  I don’t know anymore…

I *hated* Facebook (and MySpace as well for that matter)…

Come be my friend!!

Have you seen my wall!!

Hey I knew you in high school!!  Be my friend even though we never talk and I’ve no interest in trying to talk to you voice!!

YUCK!!  Stupid blathering idiots most of the time.  SHEEP I TELL YOU!!!  YOU PEOPLE ARE SHEEP!!! /grrr

So why do I have Facebook?  I got lured in years ago to create an account just to see pics of a girl from WoW.  You’d have done the same thing!  Don’t judge me!!

And that was it.  I never went back.

So what changed?  Turns out my guild is all over Facebook and a few people asked me what my account was…  Next thing you know I’m filling in crap and putting a pic up, etc…  /sigh

Now I have not once talked to WoW people through Facebook since doing this…  So I questioned myself,

“WTF DID I DO THIS FOR!!!  BAAHHHH!!!!  BAAAHHH!!!  I’M A SHEEP TOO!!!  BAAAHHH!!!”

(I actually do a wicked bleating noise imitating sheep in rl.  You’d lol if you heard me really say that, heh.)

And then!!  THEN!!!  High school people started stalking me…  Ugh.  Shoot me now?  Please?

I hate when people friend request you when you they were never even on a talking basis with you to begin with.  What?  Now 15 years later you want to be friends?  You don’t even f’ing know me!!  /facepalm

So what made me think, “This might not be so bad…”

First there was family.  I don’t have good relations with my family as they are a bunch of abusive, mentally deficient, !@#holes!!  But there are one or two gems (of which none are related by blood sadly).

So I’ve been talking to them recently, which I have not done in years.  Not since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.  That’s a plus in the “Not the devil” category…

And then today I’m in Facebook trying to get rid of some stupid auto alert for some event I got invited to that of course, I will never go to.  You *KNOW* what I’m talking about.

And there’s Eriss online.  Who is Eriss?  Read my About page ya ninnies!!  She’s why I’m here!  She got me to play WoW to begin with (and drug me kicking and screaming I might add…).

Her and I used to talk on the phone all the time.  She was, and is, a great friend.  So I saw her online and clicked on something (no idea what) and the next thing you know we’re IM’ing each other!!

Why is this a big deal?  She met a guy on an EU server.  Moved to England with her kids, married the guy, and had twins!!  INORITE?!!?! She’s happy as hell!  How awesome is that?!

So those phone calls are non-existent now (yes I have a Skype account and Vent, go away…).

We got to spend quit a bit of time talking and catching up.  It was really cool.

So Facebook may not be the devil after all…

What does this have to do with WoW other than WoW players are who got me to use this crap?  No clue! 

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

Heya guys!!  Today it’s time to talk about not only Summon Gargoyle, but minions as well.

What are minions?

Minions are any kind of temporary pet cast by yourself that do not, by definition, have a permanent duration:

• Summon Gargoyle
• Raise Dead (without Master of Ghouls)
• Army of the Dead
• Dancing Rune Weapon

Buffing Minions

You can’t do it.  End of story.

So why are buffs important you ask?  Good question!

Minions base stats are determined at the time when you summon them.  These stats are modified by your current stats at the time of cast.

So that means that if you cast a minion spell when you have no buffs up the minion will do less damage.  Whereas if you have buffs up, the minion will do significantly more damage.

Which Buffs Matter?

Just ones that affect your Attack Power and Haste.  That’s it.

Ideally you wait until you have Heroism and several proc’d buffs up from your gear before casting any minion.  Doing this will make a significant increase in your total dps.

So that’s it?

Yeah.  Pretty basic when you get down to it.

1. Minions stats are set in stone the moment they are cast.
2. Your current AP and Haste modify their stats.
3. Try to time Minion CD’s to coincide with maximum buffs always.

You should have a reliable method for tracking your buffs at all times.  See my addon category for mods relating to that.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…

So I was talking to one of my good friends about what the xpac blues are and it got me thinking about stuff.  Last night I had to take the night off of raiding due to some rl complications and that allowed me to relax and just chill some.

It was nice.  I picked up Mass Effect 2 finally from Steam for $23.99!  If you play other video games you should be checking out Steam right now.  They are having some amazing sales through the 4th.

But anyways, I had already prewritten like 7 posts for this week.  So excepting this post here, and the CATA NDA lift posts yesterday, I had nothing to write.

So I was kicking it back realizing I had 3 nights off of raiding and didn’t even have to work on a blog post for several days…and I felt this *HUGE* massive weight lift off of me…

That’s bad.

Not having to raid or work on the blog shouldn’t be a relief.  But it was.  So I wrote my friend trying to vent all of this and work it out and then decided to post about it.  Why?

Well it directly addresses what a lot of people think or feel in regards to “xpac blues” for one.  And also, it could impact my raiding and/or blogging.  So why not give a heads up on my thought process?

Skeleton Jack’s X-Pac Blues

Part of the issue…ok, almost the entire issue here is time and commitment.

Current Issues

1. 4 nights a week my sleep is interrupted to raid.  I have to take a nap before raid, then raid, and then only get 4-5 hours of sleep tops before work.  And I’m a 7-10 hour sleep kinda guy.  That is getting seriously fucking stressful.
2. I can’t do normal content with my guild on off nights.  I go to bed early on my 3 off nights due to #1, so I’m in bed by 9pm server time at latest.  Sometimes before 7pm.  So 10 mans, etc, are out of the question.
3. Writing my blog at the level that I do requires a *lot* of time.  I spend roughly 20 hours a week working on the blog and/or research about WoW.  Some of that does help me learn the game better, but I wouldn’t spend nearly as much time if it was just for myself.
4. Due to the weird schedule resulting from #1 I don’t get a lot of stuff done that I would normally.  Reading, writing, working out, etc…  I want to relax and stuff when I get home, so it becomes a pain to work anything else in besides WoW on those nights…

I’m a minor celebrity in a pool of 11 million people.  That’s cool and all.  But what does it get me?  Not a whole lot.

On the “rant” side of this it sucks having to prove myself to the new guild, not getting loot (I’ve been skipped constantly since this guild merger), getting weird ass sleep 4 nights a week, always writing posts and working on blog instead of doing other things, not having time to make for working out, going out, etc…

But then I think about CATA…  I would like to raid and experience the content…it looks amazing!!  And then I think about what would be required to make that happen.

Cutting everything out that I could (including blog) I’d still have to raid 4 nights a week with interrupted sleep for at least 1-2 months before we had all content down and could take a break.  And then with CATA release I’d have to start the pattern up again with 4 nights of interrupted sleep every week guaranteed.

So I keep coming back to that.  If I dropped the blog, dropped researching stuff, and just did more of a casual style of play with only 4 nights of raiding…  I still think of raiding with a cringe of dread.  So why?

Reasoning

The time constraint and the interrupted sleep is what I keep coming back to.  Raiding takes up 4 1/2 to 5 hours total.

Be online 30 min in advance, raid for 3 1/2 hours, and then miscellaneous stuff before and after where I’m involved with WoW or getting ready to be on for a few hours, so I’m not doing anything else.  4 1/2 is probably more accurate.  So 18 hours a week gone.

Due to sleeping before and after raid times, and wanting to relax some, that turns 4 nights a week into “dead zones” where nothing gets done due to personal preferences.

So my 3 nights left I can do stuff.  Sometimes I just sit there and think, “I’m not doing stuff when I’d do it normally because I’m making a commitment to a game…”

Don’t get me wrong…if it’s a hobby and you want to make the commitment then great!!  But I think I’m at a point where I only want to make that kind of commitment 1-2 nights a week, and no more.

And as to the blog…  That is such a weird love/hate relationship there.  I *LOVE* to write.  I love helping out my readers.  I like helping people.

I realized years ago that being a trainer or teacher of some kind would be something I would love to do so long as it did not involve being in a high school or elementary school.  No thanks to that there.  But I love to help people learn things and I love to write.  My blog is the *perfect* outlet for that desire!!

But then there is the *hate*.  Well, dislike is more apt.  I don’t really hate any part of it.  15-20 hours a week working on material to have it to where I can make 5-9 posts a week is a lot of fricking time.  Especially when combined with raiding…

So 18 hours of my week are spent raiding.  And then there’s another 15+ hours of my week invested in my blog and research.

And that doesn’t include time spent doing VoA, weekly raid quest, JC daily, random daily, and random BG’s…  So in actuality I spend 40-45 hours a week on WoW.

Fuck me.

No fucking wonder I’m burnt out on it.  All of that on top of working a 40 hour a week job where I’ve been having to pull some overtime on occasion (like this week).

The Fix

No fucking idea.  I’m cursing now on my site which just goes to show how at the end of my rope I am on this one.

New Guild?

Finding a top end guild (or even just a decent raiding guild at a lower level of play) that fits my work schedule is a pain in the ass.  I’ve already spent like 30-40 hours on that project.  I’m mostly limited to Oceanic guilds if I want to stay on a US server.

So finding a new guild doesn’t solve anything.  Heretic is a good guild and has some cool people in it.

The Blog?

So reduce writing on the blog or quit it entirely?  That doesn’t work.  I tried that.

What ends up happening is that if I’m playing WoW I inevitably get drawn back to “only make one or two posts a week…”  Next thing you know I’m pumping out 1 post a day again.

And that’s controlling myself!  I used to post between 12-20 times a week!  Especially when I’m excited about new stuff.  I did just 3 posts yesterday when I got stoked about CATA!!

Nowadays I force myself to just post one thing a day to help prevent burnout.  And even doing that it’s not working so well…

So even if I “quit” the blog, if I’m playing WoW I *know* myself.  I will end up right back here again posting about DK’s…  I can accept my own flaws and acknowledge them! 

Go Casual?

UGH!!  /scowl

*mutters angrily*  How do you play WoW casually?!!?  I. DO. NOT. GET. THAT!!

I mean, if you’re in a guild and you guys can’t progress…  Or you have kids or a business or a marriage or something…commitments to prevent you.  Or you don’t have the skill level…  If there are reasons then I get it!

But if you have lots of free time (which I do) and the skill and knowledge…  How do you look at these bosses in instances mocking you, teasing you with their epics like little tarts, without bringing down the pain!?!

I ask you!!  I do not know if I, personally, am capable of playing WoW casually.  Watching friends and guildies tackling content while I sit on the sidelines…  Not sure if that’s in me.

I considered coming back to WoW (when I quit before after playing for 5 years straight) for CATA just to be a PvP’er.  I’d do rated BG’s and maybe Arena.  And that’d be it.

*MAYBE* I could stomach that.  Not sure.

Quit WoW?

OMFG I WANT CATACLYSM!!!  O.O

I know…cake…eat it too…I get it.  I didn’t say this was “easy” for me. 

Facing the Truth

Really, what it all comes down to, is that I want two different things which are not possible at the same time.

I want to be in a top end raiding guild tackling the toughest content, but I only want to do it 1-2 nights a week tops.  GL there…won’t happen.

I want to write about WoW on my site, but I want the knowledge to magically pour out of my brain and on to the webs instantly!  But oh yeah…real life sets in.

Something is going to have to give is what it all comes down to.  Because I will not continue as is for more than another month tops.  It won’t happen.

As to what change that will be I’m not sure…

• Quit WoW entirely
• Take a break until CATA
• Stop writing on the blog
• Try to find a guild below my skill level that will take me on to just raid 1-2 nights a week
• Become a PvP’er for CATA and put raiding to the side

I don’t know…  But something will change in the future.

Advice

My friend suggested to me that she thinks I should just take a break for a while.  She knows how much I like WoW and my website.

But she also pointed out that being a hardcore WoW player and blog writer is like having two full time jobs and that it might be time to let part, or all, or WoW go.

Sadly I agree with all of her points and am just not sure what the solution is yet.

-Suffer Well Brothers and Sisters…