Fix WoW in Eleven Steps

(A post I made on the WoW forums that will probably be lost instantly)

I don't like you, and you don't like me. So let's just do this.



"PUG" doesn't need to stand for "Punched in the Jewels"

Mercs? Cross-realm instance groups? Maybe. All I know is that right now a good LBRS group should be colored orange.


Player Housing

Blizzard keeps saying they need time to "get it right". That's not the Guns Blazing, Original-Honor-System (aka Death by PvP) releasing Blizzard I know. If you get it wrong, so what? That's why God gives us expansion packs.


Player Shops or an Enhanced AH

If you can't sell things quickly they can't be sold (or bought). Other items glut and disappear regularly. It gets old.


Some Gnome Love

No Gnome Healers, no Gnomeland. Come on.


Useless Vendors

There are so many ways to get gear ... why can't vendors be one? Would it kill the game balance if every level 30 got cool shoulders from a vendor? I'm tired of every vendor being an ocean of whiteness.


Enchant Your Alts

I know this is a popular request. I know we won't get it. But still I ask.


Official PvE Rankings

PvE progress is a big deal in the forums. Is a big deal for those involved, and a big deal for everyone who raids.

Why can't Bliz make a big deal about it?


Expand the quest log at max level

The twenty quest limit is a great idea. You get enough room to get the quests for an area or three and you don't get overwhelmed. You can focus on a few areas and a few quests.

Until you get to 60, when completing quests is no longer an issue of focus. You do things when you find a group. You do harder things when you find a good group. And when you find a group you end up dropping quests and picking up other ones. Why?


I Forget what this One Was

But it was awesome. So I'll just make it "Fix the forum software so it doesn't hose posts when a session expires".


Epic Cooking

Where are my Core Wings? (With apologies to Pratchett) My Dwarven Throwing Biscuits?


Admit grouping is not a Panacea

A large number of people head to an instance and kill a boss, who drops loot for a small number of people. Inevitably, Drama ensues.

Why does there have to be Drama? There are a thousand ways to "cut out the middle man", and make loot a transaction between the player and Bliz, without a raid or instance leader interfering. Why not?

I own Heroes of Might and Magic V

I had to go to six stores but I finally found it.

The highlight were the two employees at the first store I visited, an ebgames.

Me : I'm looking for Heroes V, do you guys have it?
A : What game?
Me : Heroes V
B : Oh, that's right, Heroes IV I think it is.
Me : It would have come in today.
A : What is it again?
Me : Heroes V.
B : Yeah, I think it's Heroes IV.
A : (Checks on system, the same system that the guy looked at yesterday, and then told me they expected the game yesterday or today) I don't see it.
B : It might go by a subtitle, like that Warcraft game, "The Ice Age", I think it was.
Me : I don't know the subtitle, but it should be under "Heroes V"
A & B : Third Base!

After I installed Ubisoft's DirectX 9.0C (much better than my DirectX 9.0C, evidently), I was able to play. And it's fun. But the system requirements ... are rather high.

And these high system requirements gave me high expectations about the game.

But then there's the payoff. You actually feel like you are right there with a person that doesn't need to move their mouth to talk.

Speaking of technical enhancements, my compliments to the new Penny Arcade web page. It harnesses the Awesome Power of "Ruby on Rails" to hardly ever work.

The Final Hiatus

I really enjoy writing.

For most of my life I didn't. But in the past few years I have come around.

So, three or four months ago, I decided to give it a shot. I would start writing regularly.

And I did, sometimes more regularly than others. I am not a great writer, but with some work, I thought, I could become better.

Four months later, I don't know that I am better. I don't know that I ever wrote anything memorable, even to me.

But it's kind of irrelevant. My day job is coding. If I want to do something fun and productive in my free time that I could eventually turn into some spare cash, I can either write prose (with lackluster proficiency) or I can write code (with moderate proficiency).

Here's the thing : good coders are way more valuable than good writers. And in the time it would take my writing to go from bad to good, my coding could go from good to ... well, the amount of effort it would take to make me a good writer would, applied to coding, make me the best programmer in the world.

And being a good coder makes me better at my day job.

So, my serious attempts at writing are over. I think I'll still try to post at least one entry a week. Toodles.

Turmoil in the Middle East

The word "interesting" was first invented at a dinner party, as a polite way of describing the political state of the Middle East.

The latest barrel of laughs came courtesy of a series of cartoons published in a Danish newspaper which were, evidently, wildly heretical.

Embassies have been attacked. Buildings have been burned down. Businesses have been closed. People have been killed.

I think I'm on the same wavelength as many other bloggers when I say : why couldn't my blog have touched off all this violence?

Here's how it would work. I say something dangerously blasphemous, like "I bet Mohammed would really enjoy playing video games." Then there are riots and I go into hiding. And then I get a ten million dollar book deal and I blame all my problems on the US government. Everybody Wins.

My new tabletop game : BumKiller!

There's been a recent, worldwide rash of gang attacks on bums. Or, perhaps, a recent, worldwide rash of reporting of already frequent gang attacks on bums.

According to gamepolitics, people are quick to blame these beatings on videogames.

As always, there's one sticky wicket -- there isn't actually a game that allows you to get a gang of people together and beat defenseless homeless people to death.

Until Now.

I'd like to announce my new tabletop game, BumKiller!

What you need to play BumKiller! :
5 players
one six-sided die

The rules :
Every player rolls the die, and the player to the right of the highest roll is the "Bum". All the other players are the "Emo Teens".

The first "Emo Teen" that beats the "Bum" to death wins the game. You beat the bum by rolling the dice.

These are what the die rolls do :

1 - Swing at Bum and miss
2 - Swing at Bum and miss
3 - Swing at Bum and miss
4 - Swing at Bum and miss
5 - Swing at Bum and miss
6 - Listen to Emo and Die

So, now, everytime you hear about people beating a bum to death, remember, they are only doing it because I invented this game.

The Traitor

I tried blogging somewhere else today.

Behold!

My first day in City of Villains

The first hour or two of every new RTS is always painful. It takes a while to sort out the units, buildings and the commands.

You can jump right into action games and shooters. Instead of farting around in another blasted RTS tutorial, you can kill things right away.

Learning a new MMORPG's is the worst. It takes a couple days to even be able to play a new game.

I'm in the difficult, boring part of City of Villains right now.

For an added bonus, every time you start the game this updater runs first. And no matter how much I fool around with my router, it doesn't work very well. I eventually found a way on the forums to skip the updater on the forums. But without that, the game was unplayable.