I can’t remember what triggered this, but I felt the need to put in my $0.02 about the ‘great’ JRPG/WRPG debate.

The main argument against JRPGs seems to be ‘They are stagnant, blah blah blah”. SO WHAT? The plot works, and the gameplay is fun. Ya’know? If you don’t like it, then whatever, don’t play them.

On the other hand, (my) argument against WRPGs is that they are stagnant too. ‘Moral Choices’ are boring as fuck. (Especially when the only choice is being ‘THE MOST GOOD’ or being ‘THE WORST THING EVER’.

Also, WRPGs don’t actually exist anymore. There is exactly 1 recent, blockbuster-ish RPG that has come out of a Western company in recent memory.

DARGON AGE.

And it kinda sucked a little. For everything they did right (the dialogue trees, character customization) THEY DECIDED TO TAKE OUT OF THE SEQUEL.

WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT FUCK BIOWARE YOU FUCKING DUMB IDIOTS.

And before you say ‘Mass Effect’! or ‘Fallout 3′! or ‘Oblivion’! or ‘World of Warcraft’!

None of those count.

ME is less of an RPG than it is a shooter, and the sequel is just a sub-par shooter with a large number of boring characters, one genuinely attractive (perhaps not physically, but whatever) character (who would only romance dudes, proving she was more lame than I thought), and about as much RPG as a Coke Zero has sugar.

Fallout 3 was in real time, or in VATS, and then spent mainly in real time.

Oblivion was a watered down Morrowind, with more action and less RPG.

WoW is a m-m-or-ph-guh. (Or MMORPG). RPGs are for a single dude (read: player; not wanting to get attacked by female gamers here) to enjoy on his lonesome. Or something. Apart from that though, it’s good.

That being said, they’re still good games. Just not really RPGs anymore.

Look at the moon in this picture. (It’s that ball thing that is above the cliffs just to the right of the center of the image) It appears to be cracked, no split, into several pieces. WHY DOES THIS NOT ALARM ANYBODY IN GAME?

Now, after Blizzard’s announcement that the RealID system is now going to be used on their forums, the community at large has gone (understandably) apeshit.

Here’s the thing. As much as I care about my privacy, and I care about the precedent it is setting for the future of gaming,  I don’t care.

I’m as afraid as anyone else about creepy stalkers and shit (I have enough trouble talking to people already, I don’t need any of that anxiety), and I do really care about how the negative stigma attached to gamers will affect my ability to get a job in a few years time, but for now, I can’t properly express my feelings on the issue.

To put it simply, (which I am known to do only when I really want to get a point across) RealID is going in a really bad direction, and I hope that this ‘social gaming’ fad remains as optional as it has been in the past.

Yeah, if you are incapable of reading, Hunter won the weighted /random. Like five times. Crikey.

Like why noblegarden isn’t on my radar this year (I’ll do it on an alt, however >_>)

EDIT: Whoops, part of the post came out as ???????s, have replaced it a romanised version of what was there.

I was going to do a joke today, but then I realized that I am my own joke! I didn’t have the forward planning to actually think of something good, so I give you….

Wait for it….

NOTHING!

No highly amusing anecdotes about how I made myself violently sick while playing as frost (actually, that was a fairly funny story), or about that one time I had to do some stuff, like single handedly do a whole bunch of stuff in SW for some holiday achievement, or something (that was actually rather lame), or about that one time I killed some alien dude with a wrench and some rockets (woah, wrong game).

This is of course, as you might of guessed, a RUSE. Or, a JOKE. Or, something else. A lie, perhaps?

I’ve spent the last week playing remakes of the greatest game of my childhood. Pokemon Soul Silver. A shining beacon of old school-ness in a sea of kinda dull DS-based Pokemon games. I mean, sure, there are better RPGs, but they are even more stupidly difficult (yeah, I didn’t remember how tough the pokemans could be either) and are for the PS2 (read they’re Persona 3/4) and this one has Eevee, or to be more specific, this one has FLAREON.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I have deleted my toons, and rolled a hunter, called Red, and have made him a BEAST POKEMON MASTER! With his adorable and strong lynx FLAREON!

…

nani desu ka ?

anata wa watashi wo shinji te i nai desu ka ?

Okay, that wasn’t fair. But really. I totally have. And stuff. It’s rad. I love having a pet, and traps and stuff.

Gotcha. :p

(Not so sure about the numbers, not being a huge raider myself, but I’m not exactly going to bother changing them)

This week’s Blog Azeroth Shared Topic is “What kind of Boss would you be?” – which is something that I went “Yeah, I could probably do that”, to. Therefore, I present to you…

M <Lord of the Twilight Realm>

The encounter is a long and arduous one, much like the Lich King encounter, but longer, and questionably harder.

The encounter takes place in a large room, which is hexagonal in shape. The walls and stuff come around to make it look like a big Gothic cathedral style room, complete with several stained glass windows, lit from behind by a purple light.

Phase 1

The fight begins by activating an orb in the middle of the room. M floats down from the ceiling, and lands in front of the wall opposite the entrance door (which closes when the orb is activated).

The first phase is a simple(ish) tank and spank affair, which will only require a single tank, as M has no cleaves, and his sword only hits for a mere 3k base damage (with a swing speed of 2.0 seconds). In addition, he has the following abilities.

Fireball No-cast time.
A fireball explodes in the targeted area (with 5 seconds to get out of the way) dealing 2000 – 3500 fire damage to all players within 15 yards of where it lands.

Arcane Blast 2 second cast time.
Deals 4000 – 6000 damage to the targeted player (the tank) this is interruptible.

Heal 5 second cast time.
M heals himself for 5,000,000. Will cast this every two minutes from when the encounter is engaged.

In addition, there is a single achievement for this Phase.

Phase 2

After the raid has dealt 17.5 Million points of damage to M, the encounter moves into the second Phase.

M instantly casts the ability Dark Wave knocking everyone in the raid onto their backs, and shattering all the walls of the room, leaving the players with a view of a purple-y abyss.

In this phase, two tanks are needed, as M has a number of abilities that deal damage to the two highest threat targets in this phase. He also gains another sword, and hits the two highest threat targets within melee range for 2k (2.5s swing, both swing at once) base damage each.

He uses the following abilities.

Dark Cut instant – 12 second cooldown
M deals 3k shadow damage to all targets in melee range in a 120 degree arc in front of his face.

Dark Bolts 2 second cast time – 8 second cooldown
M flings dark bolts at the two highest threat targets, dealing 2000 – 4000 shadow damage. Interruptible.

Aura of Despair
Every 30 seconds (except for the first one, which is 35 seconds after the beginning of the phase) M adds another stack of this to the raid, increasing shadow damage taken by 10% This fades at the beginning of  Phase 3.

Phase 2.5

After the raid has dealt another 7.5 million damage, M leaps away, forcing the raid to follow him across several smaller hexagonal platforms, to another large Hex. Then the raid re-enters Phase 2. After the raid deals another 7.5 million damage, the encounter moves on to Phase 3.

Phase 3

After leading the raid across another set of smaller platforms, M runs through a portal (more like a hole, the raid can just jump through) to the next arena. This ‘room’ looks like a city square, with a fountain in the middle. M uses the same abilities as in the first phase, but Heal has been replaced with Summon Shadow (see below) there is only one tank required for M in this phase, but the Off-tank will need to be on adds, probably.

Summon Shadow
Every 30 seconds, M casts this on a random player in the raid (think like the 1st boss in Forge of Souls, with the whole beam of doom and whatnot) knocking them down & dealing 3k shadow damage, and spawning a Shadow next to them. These are either Healer Shadows, Melee Shadows, or Caster Shadows, depending on the player beamed (the MT will not be targeted; if the OT is targeted, it’s a Melee one). Every 2 summons, the number of beamed players increases by one (so at 30s & 60s, 1 beam; at 90s & 120s, 2 beams, etc).

Phase 3.5

After dealing another 60 million damage to M, the raid transitions into the next sub- phase, where M can take no damage (he needs to be tanked though) and the DPSers need to collect 32 [Shards of Shadow] and throw them into the fountain in the middle of the ‘room’. In addition, M stops casting Summon Shadow on members of the raid, (but they start coming 4 every 15 seconds by themselves) when killed, the shadows drop the [Shards of Shadow] on the ground (like the harpoons with Skadi in Utgarde Pinnacle) to be picked up by the raid.

In addition, every 60 seconds, M enrages slightly, increasing the damage of his Melee hits, and Arcane Blast by 10%.

Phase 4

Once the 32nd shard has been thrown in the fountain, the whole world explodes (again) and the raid finds themselves falling down through the clouds. In this phase, M transforms into a massive dragon thing, and gains several new abilities. This stage of the fight is on a strict timer, as after 5 minutes, the raid will hit the ground, wiping them out.

M gets a generic breath attack, and cleaves, but otherwise is fairly simple. As the fight is in mid air, the players can move around as if they were swimming. On occasion, he also summons Kael style doom balls, that chase the raid, for 20 seconds.

Once the players deal another 60 million damage, he dies, and the players find themselves safely falling onto a platform, where a chest with their loot awaits.

Not that I’ve thought of that, and I’m getting hungry. I might think of some later though, who knows.

Achievements

Lord of Time
Kill the <Lord of the Twilight Realm> without letting himself heal himself in the first Phase of the encounter. (Is only awarded after the boss has died)

Free of Despair
Kill the <Lord of the Twilight Realm> without letting Aura of Despair reach 5 stacks. (Is only awarded after the boss has died)

Shadow Keeper
Prevent the <Lord of the Twilight Realm> from stealing the shadows of 40 group members.

Quicktime Killer
Kill the <Lord of the Twilight Realm> with more than 2 minutes left before your inevitable demise.

I wish I could do more, but I have other things to do (like eat, or something) will probably add some more (loot and achieves) later, and might sure up the math, too.

Now, technically, it is Wednesday, but to be fair, I’m using Tuesday in the sense of ‘Oh hai server maintenance’. So, while I wait for the server to retrieve my character list – and then try logging in, I’m going to blah out words like I am prone to doing on occasion.

So, first things first, I’ve been leveling the paladin. Or, as she prefers to be known, Iraia. She’s currently sitting at 74, and I’d like to get her to 80 soon(tm) which will be no later than next Tues/Wed but honestly, I’m expecting her to ding 80 on either Saturday or Sunday (probably Sunday). Then she has to do a bazillion heroics to get geared, I guess. She also needs to get herbing up. Either way, I’m not jumping out of my skin about it, which leads me to….

Pezty. Rogue, Human. Yes, I made an Alliance toon. This is no real surprise, as I have loved humans mechanically since forever, and they were the character I fell in love with when I started WoW (A human mage, to be exact). Anyway, she’s at 29 (where she’s been since mounts were at 30, because I can’t remember if the land mounts got changed in BC or early LK.

GRATUITOUS PICTURE (not really)

Catch you later, blog (I logged in about half way through writing this)

I’m sure that this post is going to be messy, but I was inspired after having some words with Rilgon about raiding & stuff. So, I present to you, the reasons I am a fail raider and the logical ways to stop them from applying.

1.

I’m woefully inexperienced. I have done, in WotLK, the four first wings of Naxx, OS twice (+0 & +1), Flame Leviathan, & ICC trash farming. That’s it. To be honest, this ‘inexperienced’ part of the equation is terribly self serving, in that it will make me too nervous to sign up (or inquire about) raids that we more or less have on farm (read: ToC-25) and even more nervous about my numbers in raids, but that’s a whole ‘nother section of fail.

How to fix it:

This is fairly easy – go do some raids. Of course, this means complying with my other ‘reasons of fail’ to a satisfactory standard.

2.

Numbers. I’m the sort of person, that wants to ‘pull above their weight’. When I go in as a DPS, I expect to be doing exactly 1/(number of DPSers) of the raids total DPS, and hopefully much more. My biggest problem, is that I have no real way to see what my numbers might be – without being in a raid. Now, I’ve been running some tests in Rawr, to get some reports on what my “theoretical maximum DPS” is.

Firstly, I try and get it to give me an accurate number for my DPS against a target dummy, It’s saying that for my basic AB to 4 stacks then Missile Barrage – I should do 3696.59 DPS. This is assuming no raid buffs, and now I will go and test it out for accuracy’s sake.

So, one test later, and I’m sitting at 3402.9 DPS, which is fairly close, considering lag, and the fact that I stuffed up the rot a few times. Doing a quick check of raid DPS, I’m projected to do about 4.5k DPS, which I’m not sure if I’m happy with – what should my DPS be like, for 25s?

3.

This is slightly not really at all to do with anything – go figure.

Okay, this isn’t really a reason, but I’m extremely self critical. I’m that rare DPS who thinks that it’s never the tank or healer’s fault, it’s always the DPSs fault. Because in this game, every fight becomes easier with more DPS.

Now this is a rather stupid stance to take – of course it’s the healer’s fault if half the raid dies to unavoidable damage – but what if half the raid had been eating extra ticks of whatever the avoidable damage is on that fight? Of course it’s the tanks fault if he’s not Defense capped, gets 2-shot, and wipes the raid.

But in the vast majority of cases, I will take the fail-burden, and attribute it to myself, and I’m not the kind of person who enjoys wiping. Especially when the only damage being dealt to the raid as a whole comes from people who are STUFFING UP THE ENCOUNTER. I might not play a healer, but I expect you NOT TO STAND IN SHIT. Gah, people are EXTREMELY STUPID. So I guess that comes to the real reason #3 – I don’t want to waste my evenings with a bunch of people who aren’t bringing their A game in regards to STANDING IN SHIT.

Seriously.

No excuse.

Ever.