Archive for March, 2008

This weekend I finished up the majority of the painting that was keeping me from WoW, so now I’ll be back to actually playing WoW instead of wishing I was playing WoW rather than putting pale sage green paint on the walls of my den. Of course, now that 2.4 is out, there’s all these dailies for me to try (ha!), and a new 5man to go into (maybe tonight), but I also would like to get back to leveling my pally and working on my mage. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while, at least not on a long-term basis. ::sigh::

But I did manage to get some WoW time in this weekend, mainly on Sunday. I started getting back into the groove of the daily grind, and wow, the hunter mana issue sucks. I’m already dreading the first raid back on Tuesday. After doing some of the dailies on Siana, I wandered off to the Moon Guard server to the latest project I’m in: About Last Night. Yep, another toon, this time, one that’s on an RP server. I’m doing something I haven’t done in a loooooong time (RP), on the Horde side (all my toons are Alliance), as a male Blood Elf priest (I play nothing but female characters, and mostly DPS). This… should be interesting. Right now, we’re all working on getting to the same level so that next weekend we have a full group ready to rock away. Now to remember to set up priest-y addons. ::makes notes for later::

Breana over at Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick posted about trying to find WoW players without getting The Look from people that don’t play. It came up in discussion in the bloggers’ chat room, and the idea of hand gestures came up. Me being me, my brain took a slightly different track…

Jon: there needs to be like a gesture or something
Nightravyn: like gang signs? ::grin::
Breana: hmmm….flapping arms are too strange
Nightravyn: have an overall WoW signal, then have one hand sign for Alliance, one for Horde.
Breana: lol
Nightravyn: I can see it now…
Breana: if we have two then they both need to be known so even members of the other faction can tell
a parade of flapping arms?
“are you suppose to be a chicken”
Nightravyn: “..sup.” “sup ::flashing hand sign::” “::flashes sign back then folllows with side::” “Filthy SCUM! ::beatdown::”
Breana: roffle
Nightravyn: “Sorry officer, but he’s HORDE!” “oh? what server? I might have ganked him…”

Since a whining bear isn’t a pretty sight (yes, I’m looking at you, Big Bear), here’s your notice that I’m afk a bit. I’m currently being forced out of game to deal with painting 4 rooms in my house, and that leaves little game time this week. Thank god the guild canceled raids for this week. With 2.4 dropping and my real life insanity, it’s been a little nuts. ^^; So yes, I’m away for at least two more days. Here’s hoping the painting gets done soon. I’m tired of the fumes, low odor or not. ::sigh::

Last night was guild ZA run.

Last night, I found my Mojo.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Listen, I know I didn’t see you on our usual day last week. I know I canceled on you on pretty short notice. However, I really was ill and under the Nyquil fog. I told you I wasn’t coming in good faith.

So meeting up with you last night, I foolishly expected things to be okay. I mean, I communicated. However, all I got from you for the first 30 minutes were rejections, snippy comebacks, early trap breaking, trap resistances, and just plain weird behavior. That’s not like you. I know you’re better than that. Granted, I will give you points for finally acting like your usual self towards the end of our evening. But really, was that prior 30 minute span of snit-fits the best way to handle things? The most mature way?

::sigh:: It really pains me to say this, but I think I might have to start seeing other bosses in other instances. I’ve talked to Void Reaver a couple of times and he’s quite the charmer. I mean, he drops T5! And those Greaves of his. Oh man. It’s enough to really turn this Hunter girl’s head.

Bottom line is this: unless you put more into this relationship than you did last night, I’m going to have to call off this relationship, because I don’t really see this going anywhere. I would like to say though, thank you for the shards. They were lovely and look great hanging in the guild bank.

Love,
Nightravyn

The Juicy Bear Burger recipe is coming in the 2.4 patch, whenever that comes out. Don’t worry, BBB I’m sure you’re safe… mostly. >.>

Just out of curiosity, though, how much per pound do you think Cassie would give?

Hi, my name is Nightravyn and I cheat on WoW. No, not cheat AT WoW. Read that again. And you know? I know I’m not the only one here that does it.

You’ve played WoW for 36 months straight. You’ve raided everything, including Hogger, at least 50 times. The devs call YOU for game input. What do you do now on those slow nights when you’re tired of 5-man runs against Black Temple? You quietly not log in and turn on… your XBox. Or PS3. Or Wii. Or, dare I say it, a different MMO. /faint

/fanning self Wooo okay that was a little freaky there, but it’s all good now.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: every so often, even the most hard core player will find a distraction that will make them at least consider not logging into WoW. For a lot of people, that can mean anything such as family obligations, work/school, or other real life Important Things. Those I don’t consider “cheating on WoW”. But then there are those other distractions: the PS3 your roommate just bought, the brand new Guitar Hero pack someone gave you for your birthday, and, yes, other MMOs. There’s everything out there from free MMOs and worlds like Second Life to WoW’s competitors (EQ2, LotRO). There’s a lot of shiny distractions out there in the world and new games are candy to the easily distracted.

I’ve had a couple of rough weeks with Real Life (gag), timing, and WoW. As a result, my WoW time’s been horribly limited, and in the case of last week, non-existent. At the same time, I wanted to get in even just 30 minutes of some sort of gaming. So out comes the PSP. After a while, the PSP wasn’t doing it, so out came the PS2 and the Katamari series. Then I was feeling better but not wanting to run into WoW just yet cos I have this laundry list of things that Must Be Done in WoW and, well, no time to do them if I’m falling asleep every 30 minutes. So out comes the demos of other MMOs and then some wandering around in Second Life. Yes, I kept my raiding going (when I wasn’t sick), but it wasn’t a “break” per se. I didn’t make a post to the guild saying “Hey guys, I’m taking a break for a bit!” I kept playing and enjoying my WoW time, but I wasn’t completely invested in it for a while. I was seeing other games on the side and keeping it very quiet.

Now I’m all better: rested, healthy and ready to get back into a deeper WoW “commitment”. All that, just in time for family to come into town this weekend and blow any daily quest grinding plans I had to hell. ::grin::

So, do you admit to cheating on WoW? Hmmmmm?

Yes! I’m alive again! Geez, I’d forgotten how bad the creeping crud is. Thanks for all the great replies to the pet names post. They made me giggle in between Nyquil-induced comas. Next on the Hunter hit list: stupid pet tricks! No, not really. But it sounded good. >.>

I pretty much missed all raiding last week. Well, no “pretty much” about it. I did miss all raiding. I’m hoping that I can get in some quality WoW time this week, maybe even do a daily or two. Might help, especially since I’m starting to get lean in the pockets again. Need more raid consumables!

“Attention readers. We apologize for any delay in your usual inane chatter from this site. At this time, the blogger has been sent out for a full reformat and reboot as she was behaving in an unusual manner. Everything should be back to normal within a few days.

“As a side note: to the residents at 325 Honor Hold Place, we apologize for the condition your shrubbery is in. We are relatively certain that Ms. Nightravyn was not in a clear frame of mind when she decided to trim them all into the shapes of sand gnomes then proceed to play leap frog with them before she set them on fire for “not following the rules”. A delivery truck from Darnassus Lawn Care will be arriving at your home shortly with replacement shrubbery and a bundt cake as our apology. Thank you for not suing.”

The office’s latest creeping crud caught me. BBS. /dies

Hello and welcome to “Serious Topic”. Feel free to wander off if “srs biznes” makes you itchy, but hope you read and explore more on this.

Network neutrality is a term that’s been floating around for a few years now. What is it? Wikipedia defines it as

a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. Precise definitions vary, but a broadband network free of restrictions on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, on the modes of communication allowed, that does not restrict content, sites, or platforms and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams would be considered neutral by most observers.

Real world translation and simplification? Net neutrality is a network where your ISP can’t prevent you from visiting YouTube anytime you want or downloading a 200mb trial for the latest MMO. In a network that is non-neutral, your ISP will determine what sites you can visit and when. Want to go to YouTube? Sure, between 11pm and 6am. Why? You didn’t pay for the “All-Access Premium Plus Expanded” package.

Want to see an extreme example of the new future if the ISPs manage to block legislation protecting a neutral network?

Want that? Yeah, me either. Yes, that’s the ‘OMGZpanic!” version, but there’s still a lot of truth in it. With a non-neutral network, gamers will be finding themselves paying higher rates to have that all-important lag-free access to the internet or flat out blocked from it.

Want a bit more in-depth discussion? Read this commentary. Tech reporters from all over have been commenting on this and urging their readers to take a stand. Boing Boing, a site that’s vocal about copyright fighting and net neutrality (along with the wonderful oddness that is society) has also been urging it’s readers to step forth and fight the ISPs. There’s an entire site devoted to keeping our networks free of tier systems and downgrading: SavetheInternet.com. Click over at their “about the coalition” section. It’s not just the ACLU that’s joined in. And then there’s the ECA or Entertainment Consumers Association. Not heard of them? It’s a group founded to help protect gamers’ rights to play what they want. Laughable? Not really. In a world where video games are being blamed for every killing and crime done by anyone under the age of 28, I personally like knowing there’s an organization out there working to ensure that I’m not stuck playing electronic versions of My Little Pony.

Bottom line is that the world has changed. Electronics that were unheard of even 40 years ago have become commonplace. Video games are no longer solely a single player affair. People meet and connect through the internet through gaming, VOIP, and YouTube. Censorship of the internet, whether through deliberate degradation of connections, a tiered service allowing different levels of connectivity, or outright blocking of certain activities (lawful uses of Bittorrent, large file transfer from freelance designers to clients, etc.), needs to be fought. So this is one more link I’ll be adding to the site after today. Until there is legislature protecting network neutrality, and the ISPs continue to fill the FCC meetings with their own people to prevent everyone else from speaking on behalf of a neutral network, it will stay up.