Latest in H47's Nerd World

So far I am very intrigued by the new Guardians of the Galaxy thanks to this snipet

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Marvel NOW!, Full Episodes

But I'm STAYING hooked for Rocket Racoon & Groot!!!. My new fave comic bromance!
I'll be honest, I didn't know much about them, so I asked one of my coworkers for the low down. Apparently Groot drops his catchphrase because "sometimes it makes him bigger" SO of course I ask, "so does he just sit in the bathroom going 'groot groot groot grootgrootgroot' ?" We were unable to come up with a reasonable answer.
Great, now I need to put a half ent and a space marmet next to my psychopathic regenerator and my cajun gentlemen pyro thief.
Oh comics, you crazay.

I made some poor choices at the end of a 1 year hiatus D&D campaign. i.e. my characters running away when the sky opened up with demons and I did not realize the crazy sky giant lord and an older copper? bronze? Brass? were apparently hardcore enough to help seal the rift. SO I had to be like "my leyline drood is soooo attuned to the planet I realize there's still a chance and I come back" but I STILL had to leave before the final battle so I'll have to find out later what happened.
(You know it's your character when you start a sentence in the third person and slip into the first)
Otherwise, I threw two adult bronze dragons at my friday group. Managed to drop the caster but the monk and the monsterous barbarian who is "3-5 levels behind" didn't take anything close to "dangerous amounts of damage" and in inadvertent revenge, the caster kept dropping aoes on my kobold army that was put there for flavor, so I had to GM magic rez them so they could get up and begin worshiping the barbarian.
Yes, I know, Metallics are typically good aligned, and these two were, but in our setting morality lines are a lot more grey, PLUS I never said the PARTY was good aligned, did I? It has been a challenge, I assure you.

Also, I know I'm working on a musical because I wake up with the soundtrack playing in my head and it's would be annoying but it helps me remember the choreography so I can judge what needs tweaking.
I'm starting to wonder if working on anything creative inspires you because I wouldn't say it's particularly inspiring, yet, we're working on it, it should be awesome and fun. But I am getting the jones to work on different things and I find it in odd proximity to my newest project.

AND, yes, I am playing Majora's Mask. Because I have a problem. No, I am not playing Bioshock, even though we own it, no I'm not watching Serenity Finally because I watched all of Firefly but for some reason never got around to watching the movie, no I am not transcribing my musical to the word doc like it needs to be, because I have a 64 bit fantasy J-origin PROBLEM!
See yall after 3 days *Wink*

Vanilla Fun

As in "Vanilla World of Warcraft" no, not like . . .in the bedroom, although that is where my computer is . . . not for that, specifically . . .
But on to Wow.
As most of us know, on Tuesday Sep. 25th, The one race EVERYONE thought should have been in WoW, whether they wanted it or not FINALLY came to Azzeroth, after four expansions. I was on "the wows" that day and was delighted to discover SO MUCH of the content was available without the expansion proper, such as being able to roll Panderan (not as a monk though, that required the Xpac), and the new Pet Battle system.

So, of course, having never seriously played or owned a copy of Pokemon, or Digimon, Or Monster Rancher, I was instantly addicted to the Pet Battle system. (I also weakly justified it because of the vague potential to acquire a geode pet which, T1nk expressed that she wanted. although now I think you can't trade that one so I will have to farm it off Elementium, but, anyway). My buddy Moose was also on and was chatting with me a bit about the PokeWow, as I realized I had dinged the "Big City Pet Brawlin' - Horde" I saw the Alliance Version as well as the "Multicity" version and knew I had to do them!
So I told Moose to meet me and we flew off to Darnassus on our Horde Toons, ready for sneaky cross faction Capitol Poke-WoW. It was a blast, flying up into Darnassus, forgetting how to get to Exodar and then dying repeatedly because all the guards are 90 now, escaping a hunter in The Deeprun Tram by just hopping on the Tram even though I guess he thought he could take a raid spec'ed Tank & a PvP geared Frost Mage by himself, corpse dropping through IF where we REALIZED the guards had been buffed, and then corpse dropping through SW, avoiding ALL THE WARLOCKS ON THE SERVER (Ally side) and watching allies who DEFINITLY COULD(crazy, most recent season PvPgear) take me and moose not even realize we were only a few miles above them, waiting for the boat to Darn, then Exodar.
 It wasn't until the next day till Moose texted me while I was at work "Dude, we could have just done the battles on Alliance toons and gotten the achievement." To which I replied along the lines of, "yeah, that sounds right, but FUCK THAT! That would have been cheating"
Wich reminds me of a anecdote I often recite:
"Back in my day, we used to grind 15 hours in Winterspring, Uphill! With a 40% speed mount and a .05% drop rate. And we were happy for it! None of your silly cross-realm auto Queues. We had to WAIT for BG's & FIND PUG's and then you had to LIVE with the consequences of your actions and those of the idiots you grouped with CAUSE THEY WERE THERE! EVERYDAY, in Orgrimmar, on top of the bank, yelling about how they were the savior of the Horde and would lead us into victory against the disgusting alliance with their more attractive females, even though they weren't even max level and never really left the capitol city, nor was part of a Guild."
(For more, "ol' Man Ribeye" Rants . . . Hang out with me.)

Ol' RibeyeJack has hunted above his weight class on numerous occasions . . . Back when hunters had mana.

It was shortly after that text I realized a certain TYPE or feel of fun had left WoW, or had to be found, instead of an integral part of it. I have lamented certain changes in the past HERE, and there are a number of posts discussing other aspects of the game. Funny enough, I read a couple old posts and realized some of the information was no longer relevant due to many changes with different patches & expansions.
But here I talk about the power slip and the drop of the challenge curve.

Neutering of pets, where you don't have to go train others and then learn their abilities, no feeding, normalization where all pets are created equal, even more so NOW that you can spec whatevr pet you like the way you like. WHich I think is cool, but I like the idea of "hunting" and "tameing" and THEN if you like "re-training." Having played a hunter with a LOT of RP during Vanilla, and even on into today, these are small things I miss.
Bigger things it seems really began with what I've heard dubbed, and what I call, EZ-Patch, a few months before Lich King came out, when many things in Wow changed numerically. NPC's and mobs were nerfed and the amount of XP to get to 60 (cap was 70 at the time) was reduced at each level. At the time, the raiding guild I was with, was having serious issues pushing past certain content in a couple different Raids, but as soon as that patch hit, I was able to see a LARGE amount of content I thought we would spend a month or so on. And although it was very cool, it felt a bit cheapened, because I had hard won 2 peices of raiding gear and then with a couple nights of  rushed wipes, I had half a dozen more pieces of various tiers.
More recently with the achievements, titles, pets & mounts going cross-account. Once again, I like it in so far that certain things I want to be able to access no matter what toon I'm on, like ultra rare pets & mounts such as the Lil' T.K. & my Blizzard Blizzcon Bear mount. But with OTHER super-rare items, like Time-Lost Proto Drakes & Emerald Whelplings, a player puts in serious time and energy on one character, I think that's sort of a unique vanity that the character you accomplished it on should be able to sport, not just having a level 12 run around with a critter who's the same level as him.

We came out of the sea and strode through town, desolation in our wake. They killed one of our own attempting a quest that came too near their border, there mightiest(read: lvl 70's) then ran raids into our settlement. Our retribution was swift and sure.

It sort of feels like WoW evolved a lot like consoles did. I mean like how, when some of us were younger we played games on the NES or Sega, I'll even include PS1, and at those tween/adolescent years, those games were HARD. Then you go back to them almost a decade later, and realize, yeah! they were difficult. That's why there were cheats & bugs & game genies. But now, as consoles & the games have evolved, they are still hard, but it's no more "you need a lantern to get through there or you die because that should make sense to you. There is no sign post or multiple ways to light up the area" now the challenge is the AI, other players, more complex styles of play than just the inherent game itself in the form of achievements & awards.
The traditional way to do huge things in WoW was to get a 40 person raid together, and if you didn't have a massive guild, you had to find alternate ways to do things. Sometimes just for the shiggles of having done it. For example, I STILL need to get a 5 man together of level 20 somethings, corpse drop through SW and do Stockades, cause that's not cheating.

"Back in my day, Tarren Mill didn't even have ground! And we were thankful for that lack of floor!" Yay rendering bugs!

Well, I think I've made my point, but then again, I am really looking forward to this expansion because of the story promised by devs & designers, maybe some of that old flavor will creep back in. Time will tell.

Relevance!?

Quite frankly, I don't care, and I'm sure none of you do.
So, you ever have one of those really nice long vacations/weekends off, and don't seem to be able to get anything done? Yeah, I'm there. So, Imma talk about WoW.

Ribeye loves all the animals . . . ALL of them. Especially ones that have the proper animation for attacking flying mobs.

There are STILL very WIERD things going on in the hills north of Thunder Bluff on the way to Stonetalon. I can't find the screenshots right now, but if anyone cares, let me know, I'll find it. Last I checked, the rabbits were carrying axes in their mouths, most of them the size of gnomes, and they were one-shotting prairie dogs. Oh, and before that, the prarie dogs had on kaiser hats and were wielding rifles. And now that I look at the pic from that old link . . WHEN WE GONNA GET DUAL WIELD GUNS BLIZZ!?!?!?! Or, back int he day, Necrus & I would wax philosophical on how one would design a pole-arm/rifle and just have it fill up all three weapon slots, cool, right? Ah well.

It appears Mists will be one "small" expansion with numerous patches that are the "sequels/continuing storyline that the player will be taken through as war ravages Azzeroth once more, the War between it's peoples once more, not a "greater" enemy like in the past. I'm down, sounds immersive, and I'm fairly sure the rumor that there will be a Battle For Ogrimmar will result in Hellscreams dethroning, I am DOWN!
I'm always tempted to join a new beta, but I think I'll sit this one out as well.

Grue equips Mini Thor! It is super effective! Two ranged attacks FTW!

I've started heavy archeology, Pvping again and Moose has dragged me into some of the LFraids for some QUICK raids. Fun times, actually, gotta get that welfare gear! I am very scared at how well I am doing in PVP and raids. My dps is decent to good and as I continue to reforge/gem/chant my gear into fine tuning my dps can only improve.

As for PvP, I hadnt really gone into a BG since a few months after Cata hit. I think, two patches agoe? But, the bug up and bit me and I found myself in some BG's. AND I WAS OWNING EVERYTHING. I really cant explain it, and I'm not entirely bragging, I'm mostly sharing my amazement.

Manslayer goes for a swim . . . through the air . . . through Ogrimmar. Like ya do!

And of course, gettin mah raid  on has been good, flexing that teamwork muscle. Im actually looking to level a bunch of ttons all at the same time with Tink & other RL friends. Just ALL KINDS of WoW, all the time. Lets see if I have any fun WoW links . . . . I like this one and am working through the backlogs of the blog.

Hope that holds some of you over for now, more next week, maybe even a memorable if I get some time.

Memeorable: "Meme memee me"

This weeks MemeOrable is a 1 & 1/3 deal. Lets jump in, shall we?

An internet phenomenon from the ancient days of Flash, HOMESTAR RUNNER!!!!

My fiance loves it and used to follow it much more back in college. I like it but some of the humor falls short for me. I do love certain selections though, like . . .

Speaking of Trogdors, I used to know one in WoW, I know there is an actual mob named Trogdor, but this was a RL guy we would run dungeons with on occasion. (back in my day before them new fangled randoms) and I'm sad I no longer remember exactly what race or class he was as it was THAT LONG AGO (old timey wow player is old).

Another amusing anecdote is when I was playing some PvP in wow, and there was a player with a character named "Thecheat." I took note, was vaguely amused and went along trying to defend the farm (Arathi Basin). He helped save the zone a few times, but then, he did something infuriating, started fighting enemies out in the middle of the battleground as far away from any flag as you could possibly be. So, I called him on it:
"No thecheat, we had these flags installed so you can fight on and off the node, not so you can honor farm." And he replied: "meh mehh mememe meh." I then offered: "Come on, lets pour that into homestar's mt dew. I hear they have to pump your stomach if you drink that stuff." And several OTHER people in the raid were amused by the exchange.

Terrikahnia: Part 1

That is the name of the world I am currently running two concurrent Pathfinder games in. The main continent/human kingdom is called Greethelude, and has a late medieval/EARLY Renaissance (read: less than 12 NPC's over level 15 core classes). The adventures sort of top out at level 10 or so, but could be easily scaled up or down. For higher powered games I would lead the groups to different areas that I have not fully developed.

Its origins are actually from a failed forum RPG some acquaintances I met in high school attempted to start, called "Hellsent." Then later, as I fleshed out the world and recycled the original setting & plot I now borrow HEAVILY from one of my current WoW Guilds, "Lords of Ancient Sin" on Cenarius. Characters and characteristics of players have been translated to the universe for NPC's, and even some of the back story.

In Pathfinder the Cavalier is usually linked to an order, and one of my players chose the "Dragon" order in the book. For flavor, I reworked it for my universe and dubbed it "The Order of Schorl's Heart."

"Upon entering the Order you are granted the "Heart of Schorl" medallion.

Schorl was a female half elf Paladin who was the love of King Shakoo. Though they we're torn apart by scandal, Schorl continued to serve the kingdom and maintained her status as a beacon of light, protection and forgiveness to all.

The only order to openly recruit all genders, Men in the order are called "Consorts of Schorl" while Women are called "Schorl's Gaurd"

Derogatory terms for the men are "Schorl's Eunichs" and for the females they are either "Schorl's Busoms" or . . . "Consorts of Schorl"

King Grimmean Rules from the Northern city named Loas Keep. Generally he is a just and even headed king, though not a weakling, he did study magic more than the blade in his younger days and is still known to dabble when the restraints of court allow. Soledad "the Bear" or "Grimms Right Hand" is a well known Paladin, of the "Order of the Hammer & Shield," is a fierce protector of the kingdom and is a sight to behold. There are some unsavory rumors that "The Bear" and his Highness are more than just good friends but any mention of it in court has been met with swift disdain and lack of any solid evidence quells the conversation quickly, the offending party often falls out of everyone's favor.

A weeks ride to the south of Loas Keep brings you to Shakoo Ridge, the old capitol, and the first city of the Kingdom. Established as the "frontier fortress" as King Shakoo pushed his dominion into the north, It has become a dingy trading city where every sort of riffraff an be found. Ruled by a Duke openly, there seems to be an unofficial ruling body in the city known as "The Knaves." The thieves guild, the mysterious leader is referred to only as "Sirrah," recently they have had serious issues controlling the underbelly of the city figuratively and literally as another force has pushed them to the safety of their hold outs, the main of which is often heard referred to as "Home." To some of the more skilled and high profile "knaves" in the city, a person who goes by "M", who has sometimes signed certain correspondence as "MNBF" is said to be a shadow manifested to serve the will of Sirrah. He is often a contact and offers various jobs, contracts and orders. Never has he said it is the order of Sirrah, nor has he admitted to being a Knave to others, most can assume there is a close connection.

Another point of interest is the Temple of Tyr. Run by dark skinned clerics, it is known for it's laid back nature and it's strange acceptance of bards at all hours in its main hall of worship. The head Centurion is named Tyrone, and the High Priest is Klashaft Ngaulikahn, who goes by "shaft" for short.

One of the seedier taverns in town is called the Sickly Dragon, it has a fairly descriptive sign out front, and is known for its ability to be back to . . not clean, but normal, after almost any altercation form the night/morning before.

The Nightman, or the Captain of the city constabulary is a middle aged man who has not gone soft in the middle named Emilius Nolan Bartholomew Finch, and ensures that even though the Knaves run rampant through the city that citizens stay as safe as possible in such a city. And even though you may get your purse cut, your neck shouldn't, unless of course, you ran afoul of someone, in which case, accidents do happen. The recent shift in power has not let him sleep easy during the day, he's said to sleep almost from when he goes home to when his shift starts the next eve.

I'm not entirely sure If or when I post a part 2, but, if any of my players wish to take a test on any of this content I will possibly grant them some sort of boon, like XP, a feat. skill points in knowledge(not sure), or cool items.

Con-Flicts

[Warning!!! If you wish to use that hour of your life in a much more productive way, Do not read this post, wait for thurs/friday, The meme-orable should be chuckle worthy, I warned you.]

Alright H47ites, ready for a r4n7? To make up for it I will try my best to throw up memeorables and so forth up until 3rd 4 t3h nrrd next month (unless of course the Rapture comes Saturday, then we have bigger issues).

Alright! I work at a store in the bay area that sells blades. Specifically swords & knives. That's kinda what we're known for. We also sell airsoft guns, what I call "gothic kitch" which is mostly dragon, pixie & Egypt statues & fake skulls. A little bit of chess, some cool "high end alternative fashion" such as Lip Service, and neat jewelry from Alchemy Gothic. The thing we like to tell ourselves is that what sets us apart from everything is not only our eclectic & eccentric merchandise is our staff and expertise. If you're here you're either a friend of mine being nice and/or you find me witty/entertaining or are a mental masochist and find my ramblings painful, in a good way.

Yeah, the store is called Armor-Geddon.

We have been a vendor for about 3+ years at WonderCon slinging steel left and right. Although I don't pay too close attention to the numbers, our most constant sellers are fake weapons, like foam swords, plastic swords and wooden practice swords. As well as novelty butterfly items including trainers (dull, can not be sharpened), bottle openers, pens (Bali-Yo's, word up Spyderco!), and seatbelt cutter multi-tools. And third best sellers I'd say are goofy fake fantasy knives and knock off anime swords (as much as I love to promote copyright protection and licensed merchandise, they dont exist for these swords. We have licensed replicas of any sword we think will sell, but they often cost WAY too much for what they are and are even more difficult to track down, and this is from a guy who honestly believes $300 for a sword is a good price to pay). For a few years we've been doing this and never heard of any issue what so ever. sometimes we sell the occasional benchmade on the side since we bring a small display, but that is mostly because we know some customers from The City who love it when we come to Wondercon, we give them a little deal and they get a new blade from two companies they trust (Us & Benchmade) no harm. We card, we have procedures on how to handle items and we have 2 people in the booth (or 3) at all times watching the merch.

This year (Wondercon 2011) we roll into the Moscone center with all our display and merchandise for the weekend and get started with setup. Our store has PAID for two booths, checked in for the show, sold THE SAME ITEMS for AT LEAST two years previously with no complaints. We spend about SIX HOURS in the center, our booth is built, we are just putting the bulk of the blades up, and a gentleman in a suit comes up and asks to talk to our manager.

We are still investigating what exactly is going on, but the information I received from our manager was effectively, There is now a cap on the number of Blade Vendors at Wondercon, we are not on the list of allowed vendors, we were allowed to go about or business THIS YEAR, but it did NOT sound like we would be allowed to sell swords next year. Also, come Sunday morning of the show, we were asked to no longer sell PRACTICE butterfly items. From what my manager could tell me (I have not pressed on this particular subject, but some of you may know English is not her first language so sometimes it takes time to fully communicate ideas and concepts) there was no reason given to us as to why we could no longer sell these items.

Now, I hope in the future, definitely before next Wondercon, to have some more elaborate answers, but that is the tale of our Wondercon Conundrum so far.

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Fanime:
To anyone who really cares to stalk me, its fairly easy to deduce I currently live in Santa Clara county in California. I work in Cupertino, I attended San Jose State University, I do theatre all over the silicon Valley, and "MY" local Con is FANIME!

Because Wondercon had been going so well (in 2010) our store decided to try to branch out to other conventions. Fanime only made the most sense. Fanime 2010 I had done some scouting in the Exhibitors hall and saw about three vendors who had full blade displays and a few other exhibitors with a bunch of blades as part of a larger inventory. From my observations I felt we had a solid chance to make some money as well as, the most important thing in my opinion, to represent at "our(local)" con and let more of our local nerds know we exist.
As our main sellers are the practice weapons (foam, wood "plastic"), something I saw in short supply at the other vendors, I felt we would not encroach too much on the other booths market. As well as, from what I could tell, our store brings a larger supply of higher end weapons to shows than the other vendors had displayed. This would allow locals who wanted a high end item to know where they could acquire one if they wanted to spend all their cash at the con and then come by after their next paycheck/allowance date.
Additionally, perhaps they ARE biased, but I have yet to hear anything to the contrary, countless customers, a few mentions online, and informed opinions of people WHO WORK FANIME, our store has more approachable and knowledgeable staff, and as I said, we bring higher quality merchandise for our booth spread.

Anyway. November rolls around, the Fanime website has still not updated (as I understand is Fanime is all run by volunteers, so everyone gets some slack, just telling the story) but the dealer email is still the same so I shoot off an email. within the end of the month I receive an email telling us that there are too many weapons vendors already and that no more will be allowed. In November of 2010, and the website has not even updated for 2011. Okay, fine, perhaps the vendors are more on the ball than the IT department, perhaps there is a seniority to the vendors, fine. Perhaps we can work something out?

Besides, we are working on a collaborative effort with The Twilight Knights, a local martial Arts group who teach weapons classes every year at Fanime, to make special training weapons packages for their classes this year (see store for more details). We figure we might have an in (at that time).

Shortly after this rebuff, I rally the store and shoot off another email, the bulk of the email i sent read:

"That sounds fantastic, we will feel right at home then. We don't actually sell all that much steel at conventions and trade shows, the majority of our inventory and sales are comprised of collectible items (such as lightsabres and pop culture paraphernalia), Martial arts clothing . . ."

" . . . we hope to move a large amount of training items. Also, many of your own staff in the vendor hall in previous years, not to mention many con-goers in the area, have expressed joy over the last year (since Fanime 2010) at the idea that they will be attending Fanime and looking forward to some of deals we intend to offer as one of the newest vendors.

Although We do carry, and had hoped to bring along a few edged items of high quality and unique origin compared to the products other booths normally carry, we had not intended in bringing anywhere near 30% of our inventory as live weapons or "anime blades."

At this time we had only hoped to acquire a single booth space, our goal being dominantly to have representation at (in a local sense) "Our Con" and let the attendees at Fanime know they have a shop that is local that serves several needs that link into the fandom that the convention was based upon.

We can't wait to receive the vendor info for registration as it has not yet been placed on the website, but we have been studying the 2010 contract in hopes it will resemble this years."

Our store gets busy with Holiday season, I get busy with a show, Wondercon goes by (yes, this last one) I start getting nervous about Fanime because I STILL had not heard a reply one way or the other. So I shoot off another email, last week actually, this is the whole email, minus names & such:

"This is Armor-Geddon again with great concern as to our ability to procure a booth in the Exhibitors hall at this year's Fanime. We realize we are mere weeks away but still have hope to purchase a booth from which we may advertise ourselves as a local company to potential customers and revel in your festival of fandom.

Due to your last correspondence we received we are under the impression that you may have reservations allowing us to have a booth in the hall due to our most commonly perceived merchandise.

We also presumed our reply email might ease those conceptions and allow us begin the registration process but received no reply in the affirmative or the negative.

If it is the intent of the Fanime Exhibitor to have a certain cap on "weapons vendors," then we will respect that. However, does that exclude our shop if we dominantly carry; apparel, jewelry, fantasy statuettes, collectables, sample catalogs of items we carry in shop, or even provide a photo opportunity setup as not only has our store been described as a destination, we are proud to have award winning cosplayers working with us, at the booth? Of course we would like to be able to display some of our higher profile items (at the expense of the inability to sell them on-site), but, if necessary, we are willing to work on an item-by-item basis in order to ensure we are able to attend and that your hall reflects the type of exhibitors you wish to showcase.

Thanks to the convenience of our mutual locations, should the conversation be more complex than email correspondence allows, I would love to meet in person to discuss specifics and limitations, either at our storefront in Cupertino or at any convenient place for any relevant parties, within Santa Clara County.

Thank you again for your time, patience and understanding in this situation and I hope we can all come to terms that will benefit not only our respective organizations but for the most important parties, the fans."

I receive an email shortly thereafter, explaining that other sword vendors have complained in the past about the amount of OTHER SWORD VENDORS and that the Exhibitor hall will have a cap set, and that we are not the only weapons exhibitor to be rebuked.

At this point I am exhausted, and, because I was on the clock at work at the time, fighting an emotion I had not identified yet. I was simply keeping it suppressed to stay focused for our customers. I thought it was anger, but upon closer inspection of my feelings and opinions, I was actually depressed. Sad and disappointed that my favorite convention would reject a shop that loved it so.
+ + + + + + +
On a similar tangent, I have come to love Fanime, the same way I loved SJSU. The people, the events, the classes(programming) are all awesome, so much fun, you have a BLAST while you're there. However, the bureaucracy, the red tape, the rules and the management, are . . . . .
I don't want to use words like "suck," "bullshit," "Assholes," even though I know people who would readily scream these things. I think the words tedious and beleaguered would be the best. Before you start ragging on the Fanime heads, realize that no one is paying them (so that I know of) and they are doing the best they can on a show that has the capability to rival AX of old. Some of them we're just teens or undergrads in college when they took up their positions and have been dealing wiht the same crap, or new and terrible crap, each and every year to put on the biggest anime con in norcal (from what I know.) I don't personally know anyone higher up than "pass volunteers" so I can't say anything about anyone's character, but I DO KNOW that when an institution is run by "friends/fans" many people get jobs they may not be best suited for because someone either wanted a particular job or was given a title just to keep them occupied.

(NO! I AM NOT SAYING THIS ABOUT THE VENDOR HEAD SPECIFICALLY. This sort of thing could get out of hand, I am not accusing anyone in particular, I am making a broad assumption based on interactions I've had over half a decade of attendance at the Con and this is from interactions with ALL of the departments.)

These people become bored or tired of their job. Drama occurs and relationships are strained. Outside influences put pressure on your infrastructure and you have to deal with them and stay all cheery even though you wish to tell them to take a hike.
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So, now that you have ridden that ride with me, check this out, that makes no sense.
We have been, basically told "we don't care" by two of the biggest Norcal Con, but then, out of the universe, Wizard World calls US and asks us to come be vendors at Anaheim Comic Con. Like, a call a week to see if we're in or out. We went (see THIS post by T1nk for a vicarious recap) and it was a learning experience, I think we will attend next year, good juju.

And of course, we wanted to try Anime Expo. As soon as our manager called them they we're fairly enthusiastic to have us as vendors. We have got continual updates and been given great service so far. We have not yet decided if we will be vending at AX or the fledgling AM2, but in typical overenthusiastic fashion, I suggest our store can do both, at the same time.


So perhaps I should just let the bridges be and go with cons that actually want us? Is it wrong that I am so crushed to be rejected by cons that have nurtured and welcomed me in a professional and personal capacity? What is the proper response for an adult who wishes to be mature and professional? I am thankful to have a manager to make my decisions for me and also to have the great support of my fiance who ALWAYS brings a totally different perspective to these things from how I would want to proceed.

If anyone has ANY information or insight as to what is going on at Fanime or Wondercon, Off or On the record, I would love to hear from you @ " T3h . H4773r @ Gmail . com " (just take out the spaces). If you feel moved to help do something about it, perhaps we could get a petition or initiative together to present to Wondercon or Fanime and let them know what the fans, the attendees, the Perceived REASON these events are held, think and want from their event.

And for those of you who read this ENTIRE STUPID THING, thank you.

If you want to waste another hour of your life, possibly laughing your ass off if you play table top RPG's, here, perhaps these will soften the blow.

MOM! The Game Wont Let Me Play the Way I Want

Imma talk about some bullshit!

World of Warcraft: wait, don't get ahead of me, let me tell you.

Oh yeah, spoilers, yadda yadda, duh, get over it.

In Hyjal, at least twice, I was seriously annoyed. You're supposed to talk to this satyr who's been chained up for a few centuries and be like "nice Mr. evil man, I know your evil, but the twilight dudes gonna destroy the world, help please?" Im okay with that, sure, redeem people whateva. Then he's like "get me this stuff noob for no good reason." and my bullshit alarm goes off in my head, but fine, I gather this crap for him, and what happens?! exactly what you'd expect, the mats set him free and he cackles, now there's another boss in the new raid, I don't know this for sure, but that's the impression I get.

Then! I encounter this ancient who's on fire, he's all emo and shit cause he's a tree . . . on fire, I understand, but I kill the mobs attacking him an d I'm also a FROST MAGE!!! Fire? I fuck fire for breakfast. Yes, I said that. I'm standing there like, "Dude, Mr. McBranchhands, i got this," but NOOOOO, he's like, "take this seed it is the life giver," or some druidic shit like that, and I'm all bummed now. Thanks.

Fable III:

This is some bullshit in this game. At least in two everyone died in a way you had no control over, and the only complaint I had was the inability to kill reaver even though he totally deserved it. In three, everyone dies right in front of you and you cant stop it because its stupid cutscene bullshit. First there's that stupid choice between the citizens and your girlfriend and I'm all like "where's the option to stab my brother and become king?" but no. Then, I accidentally hit the fat noble trying to restore the bridge to the gypsy camp form two. I was down, I made the donation, accidentally had safe off and hit him, guard stopped me, I paid the fine, and then I tried to interact with tubby to play patty-cake with him, maybe dance, make him fell better, but no. no interaction option with Sir Lardo Funnybritches. THEN, the reaver event pissed me off to no end, but I'm like "my character doesn't know, whatever."

Then! They kill Mr. Mustache. My favorite character in the whole game except for Jasper (who they better not kill cause he's John Cleese and in the Sanctuary) gets fuckin shot in the head right in front of me public execution style, no attempts to rescue, stop or even acknowledge that this is not something my character would suffer easily. LAME!

And of course, shortly thereafter. Walter in the pit of stupid shadow doom where magic is not acknowledged except for the stupid shadow pit thing. I would NEVER have left Walter there, I would have fireman carried his chubby ass all the way across that desert, corpse or not.

So there.

LEEROY Vs. Freak Out

Why I think Jenkins is brilliant but the kid shoving a remote in his hole is not, yet knowing full well, both are fakes.

I'm sorry if I have shattered all of your illusions, but yes, both were revealed as fakes.
Leeroy, by any wow player who was playing hardcore in vanilla.
Freak out, by Tosh.0

Just to refresh your memory



Lemme think about this for a second,
I'm willing to argue, that the Leeroy video is from a much more honest place than the kid was. L. Jenkin's is obviously a video of WoW players, playing WoW, and displaying a common occurrence in Azzeroth and it's denizens one interacts with. I guess it's a bit of self sado-masochism, watching the thing that happens all the time and you can't avoid it, and for SOME REASON you keep raiding/pvping with this guy. Also, I think it has something to do with the fact that we've all been this guy at some point, or desperately want to be. I know I have often yelled "(CLASS) ROULETTE!" and ran straight into a pat of elites or a boss and hit my aggro drop button (FD. Vanish, whatev.) It's a thrill to scream a battle cry and rush into mobs, its exhilarating.

The freak out kid, nah. I don't like the idea of a kids who get sooooo worked up that they have break downs. Especially when two kids set up a scenario where they fake it in order to gain internet fame. I've seen/heard actual freak outs over WoW, it's very, very sad to me on many levels.

WOA! WOAH! woa. Wow.

Less than two and a half hours I was on WoW after the new big patch and I have already had my mind blown by the changes, gotten two achievements and started my Forsaken Hunter out of Deathknell and into level 6-8 territory.

And as I have said and will continue to say, "I'm FREAKIN out, man!"

So, ever since the first mutters of the huge changes to Azzeroth I have been cautious and vaguely ignorant and resentful of many of the changes.

BUT, I will have to concede that this is an excellent change in order to want me to play WoW again.
It almost feels like an alternate universe and I guess it kind of is considering the World is "new" but still very familiar.
I am VERY anxious to learn all the new nooks and crannies that have been placed. I also resolve to play ally side more in order to get "my full experience." More and more it dawns on me that I have been jipped half a game experience because of my "horde only" mentality. and while I will remain Horde Loyal in all disputes, I will make a conscious effort to experience as much ally side content as Horde.

However, being who I am, I will also shed a tear, raise a glass, pour out a drop from the bottle, for vanilla WoW. I will miss lvl 12 Gamon, painfully trekking across barrens with no mount or speed increase, getting ganked by a world dragon in azshara trying to get a stupid quest done, getting lost in 1k needles cause you cant find your way in all that brown/gray with nothing but pillars and walls around you. I will miss much, much more, and I honestly feel strange about the idea no one will ever experience that again.

What's In a Character Name!? Forsaken

How do you name your characters?

This segment will deal with naming conventions in various gaming situations.

This installment will go over WoW, Forsaken characters specifically.So, over the last sixish years I've named several undead Forsaken characters, as well as "justified" character names for others I know when using them in fan-fic situations.

My main guideline involves, when the corpse re-animates, or gains sentient will, the first utterance from its lips is it's name. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, many Forsaken keep the names they had in life, but many of them never left the lands of their pre-unliving experience, where many "adventuring" undead have much more obscure and unique monikers. EXAMPLES!

Rah'Tin: My Forsaken Forest Troll from the d20 system table-top RPG. Our DM at the time was my buddy Jubblea sand he allowed me to be very creative with this particular creation. My idea was that it would be a nice joke to have his name sound like "rotten" but when the "corpsetenders" dug him up, his lifeless lips breathed the sound and his first friend in unlife agreed "yes, you really are, aren't you?" So the name stuck.

Termenus: my mage main, you might have met him in the past. It comes from a weak push of breath with the tongue pressed to the upper teeth with the air moving the tongue out of the way and the mouth closing "Term." Then air through the nostrils (he was moving his new undead peices about, having been a caster in life, this was his focus) and continuing, produced a hissing sound (vital for many incantations and spells [draconic languages, D&D nerds anyone?] ) which gave him "en" and "oos."

Doohoohoohoom: A warlock name I have saved on a few servers should I ever decide to stack dots & more dots. This one is actually a result of his loss of lower jaw (at least on the original avatar I used) and because he has less verbal control expels more air than necessary when speaking.


You might have also noticed by know, a second, and even more important element of naming Forsaken WoW characters, a cool, dark, multi-level-meaning, name. My friend Jubble's character was named Necrus, an obvious allusion to "necro" or death. Termenus was derived from "terminal" or "terminus" meaning "the end." As well as with Doohoohoohoom, I have often taken a long breath to pronounce DOOOOOOOooooommmmm!!!! upon enemies in other gaming situations. This leads me to another example of names used, perhaps allusions to HOW these characters came into their un-living state.

Bellamuerte: My fiance's mage, obviously a romance language is great for unique and provocative names, but in RP terms, in one of the stories I have not yet confirmed with her (so it's not 'canon' so to speak) is that her character's cousin, Termenus, saw her in her newly returned state and proclaimed, "beautiful death, my cousin." And her freshly re-awakened mind took a liking to it and used an obscure language she knew to keep the moniker.

Gruetouched & Gruette: Warriors, this is an obvious nod to RPG's of old, where wandering about in the dark without a light source meant certain death. And so is the case with this name. The story is that these two were wandering about in the dark and SOMETHING, killed them to allow The Plague to take over OR even affected their change. So when asked of their origins by other undead, they chose to keep the honorific as their identifiers.



Finally: Something I haven't been able to do too much in "normal WoW" that I miss, is the REAL RP. Most Likely in the future I will bore you all with the Most elaborate RP never RP'ed in World of Warcraft. A glimpse of it is actually one Rogue and one Hunter Pet.

BillyBones: my Rogue who is under 40 and GM of my family guild, partly named for the "old Captain" from Treasure Island, but also, in life his name was William Schreckwind, brother to Asthemus (who would die and return as Necrus) and Twin to Maxwell (who would also die and become BlackMax, a rogue that Jubbles rolled).
also,
Blackmax: my hunter Ribeyejack's pet cat (Humar the Pridelord) named after the fore mentioned rogue.


And so, yet another peak into my H47, with RP, WoW, and The Forsaken in mind. I would also say these similar rules might be applied to some DeathKnights, but even as I type, I think there would be other factors to consider, so don't quote me.
as always, see you around Thw Warcrafting World, and Dark Lady Watch Over You!

Dieing to See Stockades

How to get anywhere in WoW. The art of the corpse drop!

Today's segment comes to you, thanks to the mind of my good friend Jubbles, who suggested I write about something we know a lot about, Dieing, and how to use it to your advantage in the Wide World of Azeroth.

Now, this is being written Pre-Cataclysm, but most of these guidelines are universal and I have not heard any major rumblings about if Blizzard will change death once Deathwing hits.

One thing I have always wanted to do in WoW (among, other things ) was to assemble a group and do the opposing factions lowbie instance. Thanks to dungeon finder, this is super easy and ally have done RFC and Hordies have rolled all over in Stockades. BUT, I would love to get a crew together of about level tewnty-ish, run down to STV, swim up the coast, and drop into Stockades, run it, and hearth out. Legit like.

Also, I had another companion, a "melee Lock," who ninjad an epic sword in ST long ago, who would bother me from time to time. I was out in Zangamarsh, finishing up the last quest there, that's about 66 right? And this kid, still not even 55, invites me to group and comes and finds me in the middle of a bunch of naga I had just cleared. He tells me that he has corpse drop explored, almost all of Outland before even hitting upper 50's. That he got a port around 50, and hasn't actually done a quest for two months.

So, the tips.

(Optional, because these feel a bit like cheating) Scout the target
Hit Wowhead , Thottbot , or even the excellent Wowwiki. Search it up, check the terrain, what kind of mobs are there, is it deep in enemy pvp territory (not that this is a deterrent, just good to have the info)? Then hop on your closest flight path.
Stock Up
Get yourself some pots (speed/health/stealth/water walk/water breathing) food, water for regen, make sure your hearth/ port mats are stocked and off cool down for when you achieve your target.

Do!:
Get Naked!

As many of us know, dieing means our gear takes a hit in durability, this is solved by taking it off as you are not killing anything (usually) your the one getting killed! Although do wear non-durability items, like off hand frills & tabards, and many of us like cloth hats, low repair bill, but the right combo means you die in style!

RUN!
Move out, your not going to get there standing naked at the FP, dive into the danger zone!

The 5 "D"s; Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive & Dodge!
This takes some practice but when you perfect the art it can prevent quite a few deaths, if you want to be VERY fastidious, practice in progressively higher level zones until you have it down. Basically, learn where aggro ranges on mobs are relative to your level and their level. This in turn feeds to scoping out clear areas between mobs. I love high mounds as that will often be enough to take you out of a threat range, or even along the side of a hill can keep you away from angry pats and gives you the distance from the large cat chomping on your tabard tails. Which actually leads into my next tip.

Location! Find a Good Plot.
So, you have a small army of kobolds behind you thumping away and you just ran into 30 more, your HP is dropping below 20% and at the rate they are hitting you, you have 2 more seconds of "aspect of the dazed" before your "feign death" becomes "method acting death." Find a good spot to die. You will need to run back to this spot and when you rez, take just as much time to check pats around you and which mobs are about, before you hit that "resurrect" button.

(warning: Crotchety old WoW player Rant)
Back in my day, we didn't have no, new fangled graveyards around every corner, or some zippidy do-da speed increase as ghost form. If that was your problem, you rolled Nelf, and many did. When we died, we had to walk all the way back across the zone, get back to our corpse, and by the time we'd walked back to our poor, outstretched forms all the mobs wed takin 2 minutes a piece to kill, had respawned. Whats the point of this rant? Well, dont complain about not having a graveyard close enough (except for BRM, that one is still silly) and suck it up and get walking, that's part of this seminar, your going to be walking around in that crazy gray-white world with that whooshing noise of "spirit wind" or whateverthehell it is (unless of course, you turn it off in the interface, but, well, that's no fun, unless of course, you're like me and are dead all the time).

Also Optional; Take a friend!
Nothing is more fun in WoW, than doing it grouped. Like many things in life and game-life, having a companion, even if that person isn't actually doing the crazy drops with you, maybe just some guildies in g-chat, can keep you company, share your triumphs, or, deride you for being silly and not asking for a high level escort.

Finally, but not cumulatively, take pictures! Pics or it didn't happen!















Happy Dropping!

Red, Black and Blue

Hello again Azzerothians, Termenus here, Lord of the Frost, Penguin King, Disciple of Vargoth, Incredible Tanking Mage, Of Stonard, and now . . . . Raid Leader!

You heard right, I too am a coordinator of increased repair bills as of last night night. I led half a dozen Lords and a few great Pick Ups into the Ruby Sanctum 10man Regular and we were almost victorious.

Yes, almost. And I am very proud of that. It is new content, It was my first real raid lead and it is equiv difficulty as 1st/2nd wing of ICC, clearing everything except the last boss is nothing to sneeze at.
True, had it been a raid full of Lords who are currently well into the final wing of 25 man ICC we would almost definitely have finished the whole thing in much quicker time, but . . . those guildies were IN 25 man ICC with our cousin guild. I had to find 2 PUG tanks and 2 PUG dps.
Then we had to tweak and refine our coordination together as a raid. Like I said, Pride.

On top of all this, I LOVE the new content. Its small, short and smart, like I like my women! All of the encounters have unique mechanics and skill checks are even more necessary than gear.

The first mini-boss gave us some serious issues as our initial OT was under geared, as well as I have heard from other players that it is a difficult fight on its own. After about 6 wipes (I know, I know) the OT aggreed to hop over to his raid healer, we found another OT and one of our dps PUGs who was of weak constitution dropped and was replaced by another Lord. The last pull, our OT dropped AGAIN, BUT our MT grabbed both "bosses" and we downed him.

"Second" mini-boss, has a fun aerial phase and a debuff dynamic that keeps things interesting, one shot her.

Even the trash kept us on our toes in RS10reg, as there are two large 5-mob pulls between the first two and 3rd mini-bosses. They have a "captain" 2 melee bruisers, and two caster mobs, we ended up having to separate them than single target dps switching from each tank's group. very clean, old school pull style. Great fun.

TANGENT!!
I have been noticing allot of other players commenting on my old school style of play. When I tank on my warrior I use alot of LOS (Line of Sight) pulls and I really want to use CC even though allot of dps nowadays just AoE and attacks whatever they want. I would mark mobs, but in Heroics and such, so many people know the fights so well and expect the tank to be flawless that it doesn't give one time to do these things. When I'm on Term I find myself wondering if we should CC on pulls that give us problems, but once more, everyone expects the tanks to be able to AOE tank and hold it while everyone else goes apeshit. For more on my thoughts about the ROLE of DPS, go HERE!

Back to the Raid:
3rd mini-boss is a bit of a trick and we got a little sloppy, but managed to one shot it. The communication was very good and everyone was on their toes on heals & damage focus.

Halion, the actual boss. After 5 minutes of attempting to explain the fight, which is a bit intricate, there are 3 phases but the third one combines the first two at the same time and you ALSO have to coordinate dps. We wiped twice, we had been at it for about 3 hours with no gear, only 3 badges. After the second wipe, I asked fro a ready check to see who wanted to call it a night and a fewe people voted out so we stopped there.

Here it is, Ruby Sanctum, all cleared except last boss.

If you end up in a lame group, this Raid could REALLY suck, I'm sure, but I know I will want to be running this instance every chance I get.

See you around the Worlds of Warcraft.
-Termenus

3rd 4 T3h NRRD: June '10

Yay for Nerdcore groups who break up after a few hits and are never heard from again! /sarcasm.

Need some truly dirty, undersexed, jerk, uncaring, X-Box masses mentality, nerd rap? Well here you go, I'm attempting to earn my content warning with this group.

Futuristic Sex Robotz! A geek super group with superb production and very professional end product. I rarely had issues with the artists being flat, off key or off tempo with the beats.

Apparently formed around questionable exploits involving a case of Keystone Ice, the group produced a few singles and a full album called Hotel Coral Essex and then disappeared into obscurity and I have not seen hind nor hair of them in a long time.

A lot of their content is abrasive, foul and unsavory. In general I enjoy it, but the cussing can be excessive and the situations obscene.
If your looking to blast this in the privacy of your own home, in your earphones, in your car wiht the windows rolled up, go for it. But they're NSFW and if your trying to spread the perception of nerds that we're groovy, awesome, non-overly violent, non-rapeing, non-murdering angst bags, then you might fail.
Otherwise, I do enjoy this music and can relate to it as an artistic outlet. It is very "born of" the gamer/deep internet culture.

For the parting salvo I will leave you with the first song I heard from them.

Know Your Role . . . in WoW: DPS

L2DPS, when your tank is not cookie cutter spec, when your healer isn't geared, why dps SHOULDN'T be a dime a dozen!

Hello again WoW enthusiasts. Termenus, your friendly neighborhood frostie mage-tank, here once more. Today I come to talk to you about something other than my love of frost, my hatred of A-holes, nor how there should be an "of Stonard" title for the number of times my raid members took my port without looking where they're clicking.

No. Today is for people who suck at dps. No, not people who have low damage or slow "deeps" as the kids have been using colloquially. T3h sk1llz, if you will. I have been dps from day one and although I am making forays into tanking and healing, my first toon was a hunter. You want to talk about managing aggroe, talk to a hunter player from pre-BC/post -mob stats- wow. (in early WoW your pet had the same stats as the mob you tamed, effectively having an equiv level mob for help, they fixed that later) You had to pay attention to your pets aggroe and how fast you were shooting, what crits you would hit. Have you ever heard of the "two growl/sunder rule" ? I sure have.

My entire "High End/Hard Core" career has been as a frost mage and for good reason. When I first rolled a mage (early/pre-BC) I recognized them as a fun nuke with a low aggroe rotation. This was a bonus to me as I had been an aggroe magnet on my hunter numerous times in old 5-mans. I had heard numerous horror stories of dps over-aggroeing and pulling the mob, getting mass healed by the healer, getting squished because you're not the friggin tank, then getting the healer killed . . . WIPE! I felt, as a vital part of a combat unit, that this was part of the job and managment of this sort of thing was necessary.

ITS NOT THAT HARD PEOPLE!!!

When I first started raiding we had the 3 second dps lag. As soon as the tank would pull, heals would keep em up, they would get aggroe (back when 25-mans meant 3+ tanks), then after 3 full seconds raid leaders would call for dps, and they would start in. Many of us who new each other very well, and were fairly high crit dps, would even start out slow before really laying into the boss. Personally, I would wand 3 times, frostbolt 3 times THEN I would pop CD's and roll on up the damage meter.

This was during BC when tanking was a bit different mechanic and too many crits meant aggro for you and your closest friends. Sylvanis forbid you got a string of 3 or more crits, the boss would turn, stomp you down and then move on to your closest relatives and ask them "why, dear Arthas, why would you crit that much in a raid situation, did he think he was in PvP? How did you raise this child?!" And then stomp them into a gooey pulp.

Now I will be the first to admit (when asked directly, no need to tip my hand) that my dps is not as high as other equivalently geared mages (fire & arcane are still higher output) BUT! I have been doing high end content with my guild for almost something like two years now and I am always a welcome raider, from fellow dps up to our GM. Why? Cause I know my class, I know my spec, I know the fights, I listen, and I know how to manage my aggroe. Whenever I mage tank, it's by choice, or someone else missed something.
More so now then ever before any idiot can power level to 80, farm gear for raiding up to the highest content, and go apeshit when the boss is pulled.
Most dps I encounter lately don't have any indication of letting the tank get aggroe. Due to the changes made by blizzard all the the new tank specs allow mediocre tanks to hold mobs while high damage output goes crazy.
That's nice and all, but dps needs to go go the other way. Many of us like to play in weird and different ways we should strive to excel in our roles, regardless of spec. When tanks and healers don't follow the standard specs groups bemoan them and drop them, if dps is poor they just let the other Dps pick up the slack. Ooh, sure, there are 2 more in the party and there are hundreds more waiting to get in. I call bullshit.
No, what I just said was true, but good dps know how to wait to let a tank gain threat before attacking. This allows the healer some time to get the rhythm of the pull and hopefully the dps wont take any excess damage. Or if the healer is the weak role, same. So many of us are so concerned with damage output optimization, proper rotation, and jumping to the top of the recount meter. That's nice and all, to have a huge epeen/wow-wang and to watch those crit numbers roll up the screen. BUT, to me these Are the sings of someone who has gear and a spec. Woohoo, you found Elitist Jerks and made it to 80.

Now really impress me. Play your role with class. Help your tank and heals. I like to use the joke "healbot" and "shieldbot/meatshield." But most of these digs are in jest and with comradeship. Lets stop being dpsbots and start being excellent damage roles. Enrage timers make us necessary but strategy fights require us to be superb, and very few fights are Patchwerk.


Sincerely,
Termenus; Lord Of Ancient Sin - Cenarius, Mage of the Grave Chill, Frost Imp, Mage Tank Extraordinare, Crusader, Ambassador, "of Stonard," Shadoweave Tailor, Goblin Engineer

Memeorables - MemeWoW 1

World of Warcraft: I am seriously addicted. If you didn't already know.

So, while I am STILL Working on S.G.I.S.Con IV postings, Here are just a few of the Video's that have influenced my Wow, Gaming, geek state of existence.

LEEEEEERROOYYY!!!!! JENKINS!

The battle cry heard over teamspeak for almost half a decade now. There is debate over how staged this was and "Leeroy" has become a pseudo-star-nerd but we've all been in this group, sometimes we're even Leeroy himself, and any time you inspire a CCG card and an achievement in the game itself, I'm sure you've cemented your place in WoW History.

WHAT!!??! TEH ! FAAHHHKK!!!???!?!?!?

Another video that gave me my first glimpse of high end content, Onyxia Raid Wipe on Vent. I have since been in many raidsand killed Ony a few times, and although I've never had a raid leader on vent melt down like this one, I think all WoWers can understand the frustration and rage. We may laugh, but a little part of our souls feel pain and anguish for this accented raider. Lets listen in, shall we?

WOOOO!!!! YEAAAHHH!!! IMMA WAND YOUUUU!!!

Lastly, a more recent video, I have since adapted this as my go to any time I have questions about rotation, technique or proper obscenities to use in vent.

Warmth for the Cold

Oh Hai guys! Termenus here again, be right down.

Last week I told you guys how I was hanging out on the Public Test Realms, testing the changes to frost spec.

While I was there I joined 3 different guilds, saw a ton of content, new and old, experienced a couple epic stories, and experienced true joy and yet nerdrage in all its WoW glory.

Result? I'm a Frosty, and I'm staying that way, baby!

While on Broxigar, the normal test realm, I randomly received a G-invite to a "meh" guild, and felt fairly safe as an anonymous person in a semi-non-asshole-non-hardcore Guild. I was running the new 5 man Instances
( Forge of Souls[FOS], Pit Of Saron[POS], Halls Of Reflection[HOR] and you need to be attuned to POS, from FOS, and then POS attunes you to HOR. PLUS!! theres a questline that gives you an "event" in HoR. Fun dungeons, great loot, but the attunement thing is gonna be a bit of a hassle so everyone will most likely run them all a ton of times, just to finish HoR once. You get to say Hi to Arthas[AGAIN], see Frostmourne up close and personal in HoR, and you get to spend quality time with the Lady of your faction through all 3[Jaina or Sylvanis])
I never finished HoR, it was disappointing, but I had other fish to fry . . . my damage output! Although some cool stuff did drop . . . .

(That sword is called "Seethe" yes, it's a caster main hand, Aint it cool?)

I specced frost, obviously, and the only enacted changes on the PTR I saw for frost were Deep Freeze and a Glyph for Frost Elementals. (yeah, no sign of a ice lance crit making frostbolts 1 second quicker to cast.) Deep Freeze, the last talent in the mage frost tree, will now do about 2k damage to targets "PERMANENTLY IMMUNE TO STUNS." That's who? Bosses! Yeah damage output increase.
Glyph of Eternal Water makes your water elemental permanent, like out all the time. The trade off is that with this glyph your water elemental loses its AoE freeze. A detriment to PvP in almost every ones opinion. Although that is more damage in pvp, 99% of frost mages rely on that mobile/extra freeze. On top of that, you're still locked down by how often you can summon him, so make sure your not zoning in and out of areas, porting, or dying or your cooldowns will be hurting. Blizz has made changes to elemental pets to make them more mana efficient and I was pleased with my new friends performance.
I even had the idea that maybe Deep Freeze could be a DoT. I like the idea of it "being so cold it burns." But then, Blizz doesn't pay me. And with the new perm. pet some people are saying that Frost is the new Lock. To be honest, I don't care anymore. We've been so underpowered in instances for so long I welcome any change.
Although the changes did not blast me to the top of the damage meter, I saw a definite improvement and feel these changes are an awesome step in the right direction, and I will take them over nothing. I HOPE Blizzard has a bit more in development, but I think I can stand this till Cataclysm.

So one night I jumped into a pugged ToC 10 man with some real jerks and some real pro's. We wiped a couple times on Gormok, no big, communication wipes, we got it together and moved to the worms, wiped a few times as our tanks had two different ideas as to how to tank the worms. lost a few people, gained a few people. We got through gromok, used all the B-rez's at the beginning of the worms, downed the worms with 3 dead, and Icehowl hit. 1 person died from the leftover damage of the worms and there weren't enough heals to keep the lock and the rogue alive, and the priest went into spirit healer. We we're down to me, a DK and shammy healer. Cause the priest had just died we we're all at max hp when Icehwol decided to charge me, he was down to 68%. We lived. the three of us managed to down that ugly beast. After Icehowl the raid fell apart, but not to worry!

A jumped into a Black Temple PuG (great idea, right? I know.) and met a fellow "character copy" player - Crim - an Orc Fury War rocking the purple banana helm! (you know, the new one from Ony. Its a green bobba fette wanna be but all they could afford was a football helmet with a purple dildo strapped to the top. Thats how I rememebr it anyway.) He recognized a kindred spirit in me as one who was looking to actually test the new content as a realistically geared player, not some OP l337 XBox live reject who cant get gear on live realms so you rolled a copy so you can feel like you accomplished something, GET A LIFE AND STOP BEING A DOUCHE BAG AND READ THE TRADE CHAT POST, DONT ASSUME!
( i was trying to get some enchants I'd been meaning to get on live. I tried asking EVERYONE ON THE SERVER WHO HAD A PREMADE CHARACTER WHO AUTOMATICALLY COME WITH EVERY ENCHANT IN THE GAME AND A SHIT TON OF MATS!!!, and all I got was "noob, u have enchanting, duh!" I even got into group with a guy, ported to Ogrimmar and he whispers me "I know what you do" I'm like, whuh? "piss off" he says, and puts ME!?!? on ignore!?!?)
Anyway, Crim and I saw each other in action and acknowledged our "pro" gaming style. He helped me get into - The Non Premades - a guild of, you guessed it, copy characters. Started by 2 interesting female characters, fairly sure they were legit females IRL. Cool people.

I saw an increased dps in my spec, so I came back to live realms. continued to be arcane for a day, literally, then respecced back to frost, and my dps increased by about 300. Familiarity, and devotion to the spec make a huge difference.

To all you people who think Frost can not raid, a dead mage does not put out damage, and a good, alive one, can help you get through the most difficult content. Most fights are strategy fights and require movement, survivability, and technique, not just to be a glass cannon, we do that, but most frosties I know, we do it, and make it look good. Its too bad we cant put out the same numbers as arcane. I respect good fire & arc mages, but this mage is staying frost, for everything.

Light for Frosties?

Hello, My name is Termenus, and I am frost mage(yes, I know, one is arcane spec, but let me explain). Since just before the reopening of the Dark Portal (less than a few months before Burning Crusade) I reawakened as a Forsaken and have been Frost ever since.

As far as putting the Hurt on some Alliance, us Fridgeomancers are more than adequate. I'm horrible at PVP so, I don't really care, so long as I have fun.

My issue for some time, has been damage output in PvInstances. (Raids, dungeons.)
Going back a few steps, until very recently, both my pvp and my pve spec, were TOTALLY frost. I just loved it. Faster casting, survivability and control of combat like none other. Honestly, If I had three more talent points I would love to just fill up the tree. I originally speced it for leveling and fell in love. It was FUN no matter what I was doing. Grinding, farming, 5-mans, raids, questing, world pvp, bg's, helping lowbies. I had "tanked" some old instances at lower levels and even managed to pull & survive fel reavers at lvl 56 while NPC's dropped it.

(WHA!!?? NORLY! I did it for a few friends, they were all very impressed. I was l337. You see, you stand near Thrallmar and wait for it to pat towards the caravan. You use frost barrier AND mana shield and tag it at max range w/ any instant spell. Then, you RUN! Turn around and run straight towards the group of mages and the large orc. Blink to get distance. You SHOULD be able to survive one hit as it breaks the bubbles. Then, ice block, let him thump on you till ice block wears down, and blink again immediately. Double bubble as you run straight into the group. hit cold snap if the group doesn't pull the Reaver right away and keep blinking/bubbling/Ice Block into thrallmar till NPC's pull him, and, watch the show. I used this trick to help my 70 S-priest friend get his kara key. Good times.)

I even raided with a couple guilds in BC, Kara, Mag, even a couple jumps into SSC & TK. Full frost, nobody said anything. The only complaints I got in raids were to not sheep the Healers when they got MC'd. I still believe polymorph should be castable on anyone at anytime, it is a passive aggressive heal. Those were happier times, simpler times, when demons were bad and we could kill all of them we wanted. Alli's stayed on there own damn side of Outland and you didn't have to like them, just not kill them inside Shatt.

Then, with the march upon Northrend, new abilities became available and FREE FIREBALLS!?!?! yes please! I hit 80 and started to get serious about some raiding again.
Two patches later, I'm starting to get into some SRZ BZNZ, Ulduar, ToC, Ony. And no shortage of WoW friends and even fellow mages have been asking/wondering/hinting/threatening, when I was going to respec Arcane for raids.

A fact of life right now for every frost mage is that you do crap for dps. Blizzard is VERY aware of this and did nothing for almost a year or more. I started doing serious research on output and optimization of talents. The truth is that frost puts out 30% less dps than all other raid mage specs. For allot of timed fights this doesn't cut it. On top of this I find it annoying that every spec dips into arcane for Torment the Weak, but whatever.

I respecced my pvp tree to what it is today to accommodate the TTW necessity and starting looking at arcane rotations. I wanted to be a HARD hardcore raider! even at the expense of my beloved, cold love.

So, less than two weeks ago, I made the change to Arcane (see? peer pressure kids). As I lamented my betrayal of the chilly path to my friends and guildies two of the champions of my demise decided to deride me by telling me tales of changes to come making Deep Freeze a pyroblast-like damaging spell. I dismissed them and spurned them for mocking me. But, they are reliable sources, and I had hope. So, I sought ought the information, and lo and behold, they were right. Assholes.

In the next patch, the one currently on the test realms, if a target is PERMANENTLY immune to freeze effects(Bosses), Deep freeze deals some set amount of damage. ALSO, there is a Major Mage Glyph that makes your water elemental permanent at the expense of his frost nova. (100% up time in raids, increasing dps. this COULD be a pvp buff, but almost every pvp frostie LIVES for that extra freeze) AS WELL AS, there are rumors of a change to frozen core that when ice lance crits, your frostbolt's casting time is reduced by 1 second. This is not likely to last or be useful. most of us frosties are already stacking haste and have a really short cast time for frostbolt, with a bloodlust and an icy veins, not to mention any other thousand haste enhancers, its probably going to be thumping against the GCD and becoming overkill.

SO! the first two are currently on the test realms and I have rolled to learn if my dps can become viable once more in raids.

Some people might complain that with a frost elemental up all the time, frosties have started to look like a lok. I call shenanigans, loks look like us. Jaina was there first. Frankly, Raid frost has been so gimped so long I'm not sure any of us care anymore. I approve, it changes the use of the elemental and is potentially a buff for raiding frosties. It also has become apparent that ooming out might be a problem for the pets and that has been worked with.

Deep Freeze as a big damage spell. I approve. Initially I had always wondered why it couldn't be a "cold DoT", you know, "so cold it BURNS!" anything that is permanently immune to stops/stuns. some might argue that's Fire's realm, or once again, a Lock's expertise. but, whatever, honestly. The mechanic is different and you have a very different skill set and raid role in your spell set. You CC differently, you drop aggro differently, you dps differently. I see no huge issues. I will be raiding and instancing on the test realms to see if the spell change & the elemental have a large enough impact to make frost viable again.

I'll report back with more after some raiding & 5-mans, maybe some pvp, on the PTR's and lets keep our cold, clammy, fingers crossed.

Termenus, The Incredible Tanking Mage, Frost Imp extraordinaire, Mage of the Grave Chill, Ambassador, Explorer, Crusader, Sergeant, of Sen'Jin(I'm a raptor whore). Shadoweave tailor, Goblin Engineer -Lords of Ancient Sin- Cenarius, U.S.