Roundup
It snowed yesterday. I shoveled. Most of the new stuff has melted off by today. Blargle! Exercise, right?
I'm playing through Mass Effect 2 a third time, and more slowly. Having seen a renegade path, I have to say it plays out very similarly, but with points of stark contrast. Shoving someone out of a window instead of talking him down probably won't have any major repercussions. Capturing alien technology instead of destroying it, however, could have a huge impact on the future.
The game itself is pretty good, but I still find the largest impact from seeing what they carried across. Little people you may have helped or hindered in the first game showing up briefly in the second, and promise of similar in the third. That's what really makes you feel like you're having an impact on the setting.
We (only being three of us in the guild on at the time) finished Guild Wars: Nightfall last night. The end fight against Abaddon is probably the closest thing I've seen to the complexity of boss fights in WoW (not that all WoW bosses are complex/gimmicky). There are three anchor points (actually four, but two are together) where mobs spawn. As you kill the mobs, parts of Abaddon in the background are chained down. When you get all three points active, Abaddon is pulled down to where you can attack him directly for a bit until he breaks free. Rinse and repeat.
We had a little bit of a glitch where one of the mobs associated with one of the side points got pulled to the center point before dying. It kept respawning and activating the anchor point there, so one of Abaddon's arms remained free and the mobs kept respawning. I seemed to be the only person to realize the mechanical reason (someone else was saying we just had to kill them faster). When we finally got it pulled closer to the side anchor and killed it, it triggered the right thing and we got back underway as normal, but it took a few frustrating minutes longer than it should have.
In WoW, I finally broke down and bought the pattern for Boots of Kingly Upheaval. I was just going to have them made and save a primordial saronite, but with only two other Alliance people on-record in the official forum as being able to make those on the server, I decided to risk it myself. It's already worth it. With most of the materials farmable by me (albeit taking some work), the only real expense is the primordial saronites. One for the pattern, five to make. I sold my first set for enough gold to buy up another six PS's and still make a little profit. My second set's up for auction too, and if they don't sell, I just put them on myself and call it good. I'm looking forward to the leggings, but I need a higher level of rep for those yet.
Times listed are server (central) time, and from simple jotted notes, I didn't remember to mark everything.
- 8 pm: Official start time. Waiting on our second tank as other people trickle in.
- 8:32 pm: Starting in on Naxx for the weekly to kill Anub'Rekhan, first boss in the spider wing. One of our less-frequently-on level 80 characters is in the group and showing as "not eligible" for the quest, but says he doesn't have any of the weekly raid quests. Clearly misunderstanding, because he later reveals he has one for Flame Leviathan instead. Anub goes down quick, just before his first carrion swarm, and we move on.
There's a lot of trouble getting everyone into the right phase of Ulduar. The less-active player simply can't do it, but I'm not sure if that's user error or an actual limitation. Someone suggested it's because of the quest in his log, but I can't see why that would do it. In the end, he's swapped out for someone else.
- 9:30 pm: We finally get set to engage Auryaya. I have to admit, I'm frustrated at this point by the time delays, and my mood's not very good. Aury goes down without much difficulty.
- 10:00 pm: Trash cleared and the group engages Hodir. He was a stumbling block when we were doing this a couple months back. This time, he goes down. I don't think anyone died until after the boss did (darn DOTs), but we were not particularly close to doing the "speed kill" for the encounter.
- 10:30 pm: We're setting up for our second attempt on ToC10's Northrend Beasts, having falling apart on the second phase with the Jormungar. They really are the hardest part, and even I have a little trouble with all the details. But we succeed the second time and down Jaraxxus on our first try.
- 10:55 pm: We start on Faction Champions and get them down pretty cleanly, leaving the other two bosses in ToC for next week and flitting off to ICC.
- 11:35 pm: Starting on ICC trash. We manage to set off and kill the wards this time, as opposed to disabling the traps. 200 (give or take) more rep. Yay.
- 11:58 pm: We start up on Lord Marrowgar. Since they changed his aggro dump and the Strength of Wrynn is in effect, he's almost easy.
- 12:30 pm: We launched our first attack on Lady Deathwhisper. The weekly ICC quest involving her was active, so we tried that. We didn't do so well. Keeping one of the adds alive involves pulling away resources we need for the fight, I think. That said, our wipes seemed to have more to do with Death and Decay under the melee and annoying add boosting.
If people react immediately to the D&D, they don't die. Almost invariably, however, if it shows up under the melee group, we're going to lose one or two people. Lag might be a factor, but I'm more apt to blame slowness to respond to tunnel vision.
- 12:54 pm: I'm so frustrated I actually curse over Vent when our guild leader accidentally runs himself through the boss and gets killed while we're regrouping. I don't think anyone commented on my exclamation, and I don't think most people even realize the significance of it. But people wind down and we wrap up for the night.
Ironically, our guild leader was actually pretty happy at night's end. I was much more annoyed than usual. I'm not sure what else to say about that.
I'm playing through Mass Effect 2 a third time, and more slowly. Having seen a renegade path, I have to say it plays out very similarly, but with points of stark contrast. Shoving someone out of a window instead of talking him down probably won't have any major repercussions. Capturing alien technology instead of destroying it, however, could have a huge impact on the future.
The game itself is pretty good, but I still find the largest impact from seeing what they carried across. Little people you may have helped or hindered in the first game showing up briefly in the second, and promise of similar in the third. That's what really makes you feel like you're having an impact on the setting.
We (only being three of us in the guild on at the time) finished Guild Wars: Nightfall last night. The end fight against Abaddon is probably the closest thing I've seen to the complexity of boss fights in WoW (not that all WoW bosses are complex/gimmicky). There are three anchor points (actually four, but two are together) where mobs spawn. As you kill the mobs, parts of Abaddon in the background are chained down. When you get all three points active, Abaddon is pulled down to where you can attack him directly for a bit until he breaks free. Rinse and repeat.
We had a little bit of a glitch where one of the mobs associated with one of the side points got pulled to the center point before dying. It kept respawning and activating the anchor point there, so one of Abaddon's arms remained free and the mobs kept respawning. I seemed to be the only person to realize the mechanical reason (someone else was saying we just had to kill them faster). When we finally got it pulled closer to the side anchor and killed it, it triggered the right thing and we got back underway as normal, but it took a few frustrating minutes longer than it should have.
In WoW, I finally broke down and bought the pattern for Boots of Kingly Upheaval. I was just going to have them made and save a primordial saronite, but with only two other Alliance people on-record in the official forum as being able to make those on the server, I decided to risk it myself. It's already worth it. With most of the materials farmable by me (albeit taking some work), the only real expense is the primordial saronites. One for the pattern, five to make. I sold my first set for enough gold to buy up another six PS's and still make a little profit. My second set's up for auction too, and if they don't sell, I just put them on myself and call it good. I'm looking forward to the leggings, but I need a higher level of rep for those yet.
Times listed are server (central) time, and from simple jotted notes, I didn't remember to mark everything.
- 8 pm: Official start time. Waiting on our second tank as other people trickle in.
- 8:32 pm: Starting in on Naxx for the weekly to kill Anub'Rekhan, first boss in the spider wing. One of our less-frequently-on level 80 characters is in the group and showing as "not eligible" for the quest, but says he doesn't have any of the weekly raid quests. Clearly misunderstanding, because he later reveals he has one for Flame Leviathan instead. Anub goes down quick, just before his first carrion swarm, and we move on.
There's a lot of trouble getting everyone into the right phase of Ulduar. The less-active player simply can't do it, but I'm not sure if that's user error or an actual limitation. Someone suggested it's because of the quest in his log, but I can't see why that would do it. In the end, he's swapped out for someone else.
- 9:30 pm: We finally get set to engage Auryaya. I have to admit, I'm frustrated at this point by the time delays, and my mood's not very good. Aury goes down without much difficulty.
- 10:00 pm: Trash cleared and the group engages Hodir. He was a stumbling block when we were doing this a couple months back. This time, he goes down. I don't think anyone died until after the boss did (darn DOTs), but we were not particularly close to doing the "speed kill" for the encounter.
- 10:30 pm: We're setting up for our second attempt on ToC10's Northrend Beasts, having falling apart on the second phase with the Jormungar. They really are the hardest part, and even I have a little trouble with all the details. But we succeed the second time and down Jaraxxus on our first try.
- 10:55 pm: We start on Faction Champions and get them down pretty cleanly, leaving the other two bosses in ToC for next week and flitting off to ICC.
- 11:35 pm: Starting on ICC trash. We manage to set off and kill the wards this time, as opposed to disabling the traps. 200 (give or take) more rep. Yay.
- 11:58 pm: We start up on Lord Marrowgar. Since they changed his aggro dump and the Strength of Wrynn is in effect, he's almost easy.
- 12:30 pm: We launched our first attack on Lady Deathwhisper. The weekly ICC quest involving her was active, so we tried that. We didn't do so well. Keeping one of the adds alive involves pulling away resources we need for the fight, I think. That said, our wipes seemed to have more to do with Death and Decay under the melee and annoying add boosting.
If people react immediately to the D&D, they don't die. Almost invariably, however, if it shows up under the melee group, we're going to lose one or two people. Lag might be a factor, but I'm more apt to blame slowness to respond to tunnel vision.
- 12:54 pm: I'm so frustrated I actually curse over Vent when our guild leader accidentally runs himself through the boss and gets killed while we're regrouping. I don't think anyone commented on my exclamation, and I don't think most people even realize the significance of it. But people wind down and we wrap up for the night.
Ironically, our guild leader was actually pretty happy at night's end. I was much more annoyed than usual. I'm not sure what else to say about that.
*ear-waggles* I heard you...and was amused. Was interesting to hear something clearly emotional from Mr. Cool. Of course, by that time it was pretty clear we were done for the night.
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