- 20:50 Look what we're doing! I'm as surprised as you are! Truly! twitpic.com/tpkht #
- Previously, on Twitter...
-
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mysticalforest- December 16th, 1:30
- Death penalties
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- mysticalforest
- December 15th, 10:10
I approve of the following:We are also adding a few permanent benefits with this week’s patch. Soul Healing will be less expensive for characters of all levels, and we’re increasing the experience bonus that Energy of Repose bestows for levels 20–44.
Full story.
This is good news because expenses for soul healing, for me, have been the single biggest detriment to my progress in the game. Seriously. I have for example been wanting to buy a spellbook that I recently qualified for but it's far too expensive for me to buy.
What's worse is that sometimes when I go out to farm to vendor or auction things, I die, which means I end up losing money, being actually worse off than before I started farming.
Ugh.
In World of Warcraft you have to pay for repairs to your equipment, but the funds for this are actually reasonable. The more epic your gear the more it costs—but if you have epic gear then you're pulling in epic loots so really it's not that big a deal.
But in Aion, to recover my soul, I have to pay on the order of 1,600 kinnah per death, and the cost increases with each subsequent death you don't soul recover from. In WoW terms, that would be something like 500 gold for a 80th-level character—it's real money.
I've long held that there should be some death penalty but it should amount to halting your progress, not retarding it. The penalty for dropping dead is that you can't play the game, which I think is penalty enough. After all, you've shown up to play the game so shouldn't not being able to play the game be the harshest penalty of all?
For this reason, I would favor an end to repair costs in WoW and recovery to soul costs in Aion. In WoW you have to corpse quest to recover your body and in Aion you wake up back at your base, meaning you have to go all the way back out to where your quest was so it's rather like corpse questing.
Having cost associated with death erases progress. Yes, it's scaled to not be very much in WoW—but it adds up over time. Worse, in WoW, your equipment suffers even when you don't die, so you're bleeding coins every time you step out of a city. This isn't so bad, but it's bad when combined with death penalty.
Bleah. There shouldn't be anything that retards your progress, only things that halt it.
- Defensive play
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- mysticalforest
- December 15th, 9:44
bigfootcountry and I play a lot of SCRABBLE games on our iPhones, typically maintaining six concurrent games. Via iPhone is the perfect way to play, really. The game actually has push notification when a turn is played. Well done!
Anyway, since we're both writer/editors, we tend to be particularly defensive in our play, trying to leave, if possible, no opening for the other to exploit. We're paranoid like that. Often this practice leads to boards like this:
The fact that leaving no opening also screws the person who did it is not lost on us—but we don't let that stop us from stabbing each other from Hell's heart.
- WotC, WotC, WotC...
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- mysticalforest
- December 15th, 9:41
Why are you so poor at presenting and organizing your own information?
The latest are two things, both associated with Insider.
The Compendium is inferior to every other modern search mechanism in use today
Example: If you type the word "blind" into the search field, the word "blinded" should also be returned. It does not. To get the results of the condition, blinded, you actually have to type in the whole word in order to find it. That you can't find the whole word from a partial word search is frankly bewildering.
P.S. When you're using the Compendium there's no way to navigate back to Insider, but there is a link to subscribe to Insider. Of course if you're signed in using the Compendium, you're already a subscriber so that's awesome.
Dungeon hides useful information to the best of its ability
Say you need an adventure for your group. You go to Dungeon to find one because that's the entire purpose of the entity: Provide adventures. There's an archive of content and you can filter the archive by type, one of the types being adventures:
Here's where WotC adds its characteristic poke in the eye: You cannot filter the list of adventures by level. Yes. Welcome to having to manually visit each and every adventure one-by-one to read their description.
Here's the kicker: Not every description lists its own level:
So that means you have to actually download the adventure and read the description on its cover page:
But wait! Often the description on the website is taken verbatim from the description in the adventure itself, so if it doesn't say what level it's for on the website—it probably won't say what level it's for in the adventure either! Brilliant! Some adventures you will, I kid you not, have to scroll down to the first monster in order to guess what level the adventure is intended.
You will note in the screenshot above an icon saying "Heroic 1-10." Um. This is actually effectively useless information because the disparity between level 1 and 10 is rather significant. I couldn't run a 10th-level adventure for my 1 party, and I shouldn't run an 1 for my 10s. So what practical purpose does the icon serve? Ooh! I know! The answer is: None. I still have to carefully read through the text of the adventure understand the most basic information of all: What level is the adventure intended for.
WotC, why do you make it so hard?
- Previously, on Twitter...
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- mysticalforest
- December 15th, 1:30
- 08:23 @LyndiT Wow, that's you? We got nothing at all! The streets are bare. Crazy! #
- 08:53 @slowdumbshow Wrecked? From what? Did it snow near you? We got nothing a'tall 'round our house. Grass is green and streets are clean. :) #
- 08:57 @LyndiT Bananas! (crazy as) #
- 09:03 For our neighborhood: No Snowpocalypse. Everything is unremarkably normal. :) #Seattleweather #
- 16:36 So neither of us are Christian and in-lawed relatives are aware of this—so why do they keep sending cards that're completely Jesuse
d up? # - 17:48 Preparation has begin for tonight's #DnD session. Huzzah! :) Tonight, the gang faces slavers! And monsters! (Always with the monsters!) #
- 17:50 @MatthewWRossi 3 is when sun goes behind nearby houses. Have a whole other hour before it's sunsetty enough 2 have turn on all the lights. #
- 17:55 It's raining heavy. Glad it's not snow, all told. #
- 20:14 WotC, Jesus Christ. When searching the Compendium, "blind" should also return the result "blinded." Ye gods, WTH's going on over there? #DnD #
- 21:15 The dice
are slaves! #DnD twitpic.com/tl1ju # - 23:01 #DnD stop! We ran long trying to kill two umber hulks who were TOUGH and effective. Nevertheless, the slaves were freed! PC victory! :) #
- 23:40 Woohoo! The Armory app for iPhone is updated! A few new features incl. reputation, upgrades, and saved talent builds. #WoW #
- 23:56 Just read the Wallace & Gromit comic available for iPhone. Hee! It was just right. :) twitpic.com/tlfrr #
- 00:27 So who'd be interested in playing a one-shot Dragon Age RPG session using the sample characters and introductory adventure? Lemme know. #
- 00:29 @Pramas What's the official Dragon Age RPG hashtag? #DAORPG? #
- Previously, on Twitter...
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- mysticalforest
- December 14th, 1:30
- 07:40 @thebrassbunny You must be referring to religion. ;) #
- 08:02 Today's docket: Lunch then as much #WoW as I can fit in. Must have Emblems of Frost! @Abethany_Mage is 14/405 of them. #
- 08:18 @instanceshow When is the next episode? I don't see info on website or this feed... :( #
- 12:24 @mmsx Word on the street is that we •might• get snow here in Seattle. After all, it is just dipping below freezing! Barely! ;) #
- 13:01 It's snowing! It's snowing! #
- 23:58 So ... Dexter. I'm really not sure what to make of that. Honestly don't know if I like it or not. #
- 23:59 Right now, I'm leaning toward not. #
- Previously, on Twitter...
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- mysticalforest
- December 13th, 1:30
- 12:50 Our waitron's name is Cornelius. I keep wanting to ask him if he's been to the Forbidden Zone. #
- 19:50 At the NC Soft holiday party. There are noms! :) twitpic.com/tavj9 #
- 23:44 @Unicorness fell asleep on the couch & Ororo was flopped in front of the fireplace, also asleep. Quiet moments like that are my happiest. #
- 23:47 It's everything at once: Love and trust, most of all but also comfort, result of a day of adventure, home, peace, and more. Life = success. #
- So ... Pro-Evo
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- mysticalforest
- December 12th, 14:59
Yesterday I got this book in the mail, presumably unbidden. I had intended to mock it but I got the wind taken out of those sails by thinking about the true horror of what the book advances.
It takes 30 pages to get to its point, but the point is basically this: The universe (all energy within it, everything the universe is physically) is bound by a prime force and it's the role of humanity help the prime force evolve. Literally every action, subatomic or otherwise—even your own thoughts—are either pro-evolution or anti-evolution. Humans should then be pro-evo because that's within the harmony of the prime force. Whatever we think and do affects the universe at large so it's our responsibility as a part of the universe to help it—us—advance. If we do something anti-evo, that's disharmonious and negatively affects the universe.
Now this is all well and good and the book covers a lot of situations where one can be pro- or anti-evo. (Incidentally, everything in the world boils down to being either pro- or anti-evo, there's no middle ground.) It's pretty much a step-by-step guide to how you can live your life in a positive way and really there's nothing wrong with that. It's hard to mock someone whose thesis is be happy and don't harm others.
Surprisingly, this treatise on behavior address the question of whether there's a god by saying the question is moot. It says whether or not there is one doesn't affect the tenet that one should live a pro-evo (good) life. Well said.
But here's the problem...
The book spends its first 10 or so pages on physics, using physics to justify its argument that there is a prime force to the universe that binds everything, literally everything, inert or alive or conscious, together. The book says that our purpose is to help the universe along its way to its ultimate resolution, which is evidenced by the actions of physics on galaxies and stars and the like already.
But ... the universe is headed toward heat death. The ultimate goal of the universe, if it can be said to even have a goal, is to die out. So the most pro-evo thing we could do to speed the universe on its way would be to destroy all life on Earth and, if we could, plunge the planet into the farthest reaches of empty space.
When I brought this up, @Unicorness said I was mixing physics with philosophy. But the book uses physics as the cornerstone of its philosophy. It bases everything upon it. It says that what's happening in the universe shows us what we're to do on Earth.
Well, I adore the idea of being happy and helping others and not hurting anyone.
But I must admit I'm rather weak on the idea of hastening the universe's demise.
- Reminder: We're all going to die over the weekend
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- mysticalforest
- December 12th, 9:12
And by 'all' I mean Seattle-area residents...Temperatures have been freezing the past week in Washington, and now we could see some snow over the weekend.
Full story.
Friday, the temperature at Sea-Tac Airport hit a record low for the third day in a row, with 22 degrees breaking the record of 23 set for Dec. 11 in 1961.
[...]
"Things are still very cold and dry today, but things are going to change over the weekend," said KING 5 Weather Forecaster Lisa Van Cise. "Things are really going to pick up in the way of rain and some snow, especially Sunday night into Monday morning."
- Speaking of which
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- mysticalforest
- December 12th, 8:58
The previous post contained:Do you really find fulfillment in any of these things on Earth? I have done every drug and almost every other self-satisfying thing you can imagine. All it left me with was emptyness.
Then you're doing it wrong.
Here's the thing: There are happy people in the world. Perhaps its an extension of the self-persecuitive idea of original sin or something, I don't know, but whatever it is I'm pretty much sick and tired of the supposition that (A) all life is an unending string of pain and disappointment—and (B) that one can only be truly happy with religion (to name one example).
No. Wrong.
There are people who do find fulfillment in 'any of these things on Earth' and do not find life to be empty. One of the few downers in my life is people insisting that my life must be empty. It's not.
Why are you trying to harsh the buzz?
- Ha! Good one.
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- mysticalforest
- December 12th, 8:29
Through a very circuitous path I came across the following exchange in a forum. These are comments in response to a post about Christians evangelizing to atheists.Nobody likes it when you show up at their door. I get mormons and JWs just like everyone. I dont need points so thats not why I do it. My religion does tell me to, but thats not my primary motivation either. I respect your beliefs and recognize the strength one must have to get through this life unassisted. However, I just cant keep it to myself though you wish I would. Since people like me absolutely have to anyway, I will keep your don't do list in mind( except for the "dont do it" part) He can do many things for you Shawn. I am living proof. I have a question for you: Do you really find fulfillment in any of these things on Earth? I have done every drug and almost every other self-satisfying thing you can imagine. All it left me with was emptyness. If you really are truly satisfied and fulfilled, and have reached the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then I can't do anything for you. I would still be your friend, but wouldn't waste my time on telling you stuff you don't want to hear. It takes a stronger person than me to be an atheist, and I respect that. I used to think of atheist as like free-agents in pro sports, but your post makes sense in that you have thought it over and chosen atheist, instead of just being atheists by default. Do you guys vote for Obama mostly? Is that a dumb question?
in situ
"I just can't keep it to myself"
you know, replace "jesus" with "my genitals", and that's a crime. and that's how we feel about it. religion should be like your genitals. it's fine to enjoy them, it's fine to be proud of them, just keep them to yourself unless invited to share.
- Previously, on Twitter...
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- mysticalforest
- December 12th, 1:30
- 09:34 Weather person says there could be snow on Sunday. Let the Snowpocalypse Panix begin! #
- 11:45 I am once again locked in the eternal conflict: Desire to get up verses cat in lap. Why must cat always win? #
- 11:56 Re: Eternal conflict, cat has turned the brass keys: She is taking a bath. There is no defense or countermeasure to this unprovoked move. #
- 12:12 I can think of two movies that improve on the 2nd viewing. Watching 1 now: Solaris. It also has I think the best flirtation scene on film. #
- 13:33 @atisoka Picture! #<
/li> - 13:34 @slowdumbshow Heroes in a half shell! #
- 13:56 WTH? I just got this book free in the mail. First page & odd paragraphs read like a string of random crazy. twitpic.com/t3q58 #
- 13:58 I believe I shall read this at lunch tomorrow and have a •delightful• time mocking it. Thank you, whoever sent it! Looks like comedy gold! #
- Look what came free in the mail today
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- mysticalforest
- December 11th, 14:06
I don't know why I got it or who sent it but I do not care. After reading the first page and random paragraphs, I do fully believe that what I have in my hands is comedy gold, the kind that almost never comes around: Wholly unbidden crazy that doesn't ask, it demands that it be mocked. De. Mands.
I shall not shirk from the responsibility that has been thrust upon me. I shall read it. I shall mock it. I'll have the grandest time!
And if one of you sent me this: Thank you in advance!
P.S. See the crazy odd size of the book? Who makes a book that size? Crazy!
P.P.S. No, I will not research this book at all. Won't look it up on Google or the author or anything. I'm taking this the way it was intended: Cold!
- Previously, on Twitter...
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- mysticalforest
- December 11th, 1:30
- 12:34 I am awaiting the arrival of the grout person, who will grout. There will be much grouting. Maybe some sealing too. #
- 12:36 I bought the 99-cent Paranormal Activity comic for my iPhone. Ugh. Poor quality. Do NOT get it. Expectations low and •still• disappointing. #
- 13:23 Twitter seems unusually quiet today. That can only mean that there's a technological problem—no way are people •actually• this quiet. ;) #
- 14:25 Grout person is still here. Ugh! Complete ye job so I can go on my adventures in Azeroth! #
- 14:25 @ephealy You are not. #
- 14:26 @Owen_Stephens Jesus, spoilers why don't you!
j/k Hee! :) # - 15:26 My reflections on the past five years of #WoW: bit.ly/5eZmIV #
- 15:33 Ororo keeping vigilant after yowling at an orange tabby who DARED set paw on our patio. How DARE she! twitpic.com/szc8v #
- 21:06 #WoW played (@Abethany_Mage has details as usual). Now it's time for Fringe! #
- 21:18 I haz: Kitty (on lap), Doritos (for noms), fireplace (warm toes), Fringe (for scaries). #
- 21:19 And @Unicorness (for snuggles). :) #
- 23:01<
/em> Fringe was very well done—exceptionally creepy episode. And the best Dr. Bishop "Wow." ever. :) # - 00:19 @TheRouse Oh? Where at? I must've missed it. #
- It's been five years...
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 15:13
World of Warcraft enjoys its fifth anniversary now. It came out in November and I started playing the following March and haven't stopped since. This is surprising because when I first heard about it I was diametrically opposed to it. Pay every month to play a game? Completely ridiculous. However, it wasbigfootcountry who gave me and @Unicorness press passes to the game. After trying it out, we had each bought full copies and subscribed within two days of getting the pass.
I have so many good memories that I can't narrow it down to a single best, or even the most memorable. Too many too choose from. Easily World of Warcraft is my favorite computer game because I've not even remotely put as many hours into any other game, not even Civilization which I've been playing every iteration of since release and play virtually every night before bed.
And what's interesting to me is that I can be as satisfied logging in just for 10 minutes as I can playing for 10 hours straight (which I continue to do), or not logging in at all for 10 days. I absolutely love the game, love my characters, love the time I spend there, love the friends I've made, and love the overall experience. Certainly there have been frustrating, sad, and upsetting experiences, but there have been an order of magnitude more positive experiences, too many to count. I've been a guild member, a guild master, and completely anonymous. I've had lots of alts that I gave equal attention to, a core of three that were my favorite, and now one that's the love of my life. I've paid no attention at all to statistics, used gear only because of how it looked, and used Rawr to worry over the impact of cheap gems. I've done nothing but fish, I've master looted high-end instances, played the Auction House, used WoW as nothing more than a chat client doing absolutely nothing in the game at all, cut down elite monsters to see end-game content, and everything between.
All of it enormous, enormous and gratifying fun with friends both IRL and virtual, and with complete strangers too.
With the numerous MMORPGs out today (and coming) I often wonder if anything could replace World of Warcraft for me. Certainly. I'm not WoW do-or-die for life from mindless loyalty. I'm a gamer before anything else and if WoW were to disappear tomorrow I'd replace it with something else. But for me to enjoy it as much, such a game would have to rise to have the same ... feel. The overall combination of art direction, writing, and style of play that makes WoW such an attractive package.
Whenever I think about it, I think to myself that I'm enjoying WoW more than I ever have before. The thing is, this thought occurs to me all the time. Like, every month.
And it's true. Right now, I'm having a ball, just the time of my life. Never been happier in Azeroth.
So here's to you, World of Warcraft. You've enriched my life and I adore you.
And now, here's an image showing the World of Warcraft in numbers, sponsored by Business Management.
You'll want to keep clicking to get to the full-sized image:
- What an exciting, productive day it was...
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 14:17
You may recall from the Fall of the Lich King trailer the pedestal that Frostmourne uses.
Behold:
That's Abethany posing in the Lich King's chamber with Seethe, her new sword she acquired in The Forge of Souls. In addition, she also found the necklace Love's Prisoner in the Forge and the dagger Surgeon's Needle in the Pit of Saron.
She doesn't have a good off-hand item to go with Seethe so I got her the Ward of the Violet Citadel—again—after having disenchanted (out of desperation) the one previously bought.
So now her quest, gear-wise, is to acquire a better off-hand item to fully exploit the goodness of Seethe, such as the Shriveled Heart or, preferably, Scourgelord's Baton.
In other news, I found Icecrown Citadel to be very fun! Some really good design work there. They're just the right size, just the right amount of challenge, are interesting, and tie in really very well with the lore of the game. The best tie-in I've seen so far, I think.
But wait...
There's a quest item that drops within Icecrown Citadel that leads to a quest chain, "The Battered Hilt," whose reward is your choice of a very powerful weapon. For Abethany, the choice is clear: Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind.
Oh ... my yes...
- Two screenshots to share with you today
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 13:17
Later...
- Four minutes
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 12:58
Comedy Central now has an HD channel. Unfortunately, the two shows I watch on that network aren't recorded in HD—but the picture is an order of magnitude better because Comcast doesn't compress the HD channel as much as the SD channel, so it actually comes across clearly for the entire episode.
All to often both shows would show wildly obvious digital artifacts and the effects of compression. Not any more, at least so far.
But a new problem has come up: Scheduling. Inexplicably, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report start four minutes after scheduled. I watch the last four minutes of whatever's on before TDS and the last four minutes of TCR are cut off.
It turns out that I'm not really missing the last four minutes of The Colbert Report. I usually don't find his guests as interesting or the interviews as good as TDS.
But I still wished TDS started on time. That would be grand.
- Random
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 11:27
After "screaming" the closed captioning reads: "pandemonium ensuing."
That is awesome! The best closed captioning one's likely to find, I dare say.
Do you know why pandemonium is ensuing?
- Chrome is OFF the list
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- mysticalforest
- December 10th, 11:11
I use Safari as my main browser and love it—but I'm never one to overlook alternatives in case there's something better. Chrome came out (in beta) for Mac the other day (which I posted about). I used it as my main browser but it turned out to be a horrible experience with a worse UI and actual destructive behavior. The UI I talked about in my previous post.
Yesterday I bought the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game PDF but when I downloaded it, I couldn't decompress the file because it was corrupted. I downloaded it multiple times and to different locations, all with the same result.
I switched to Safari, downloaded the file, and Safari not only did not corrupt the file but it decompressed the file automagically and perfectly the first time. Wondrous!
Now that's what I like: Things that work, and work with elegance.
Chrome's the opposite. The UI is more complicated and it's actually destructive. Deleted.
