WAR. Oh yes.

Newbian raiding is over for Burning Crusade. We got Vashj ans Kael down multiple times which, for a casual raid, is quite an accomplishment. We took no fewer than 50 different people on 9 Vashj kills, which I suspect is either a record, or at least REALLY freaking uncommon. Regardless of its World Status, I doubt ANY other raid did this on Dark Iron.

So I doubt I'll see Illidan die. Oh well. Some folk will certainly go back into BT after hitting level 80 and go kick his ass. Warglaives will be the newe ashbringer.

Eh, we are stopping to get out the car for some reason. This trip is going to take 20 hours.
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Holy wowbreak

Well, it happened, I cancelled my accounts. It seems odd that I have to make that plural, but there you go. They are actually both paid up until early october, and hell, if the v3 patch gets pushed sometime after that I might just re-up to play with the new talents. Eh, who knows. I'll probably keep grinding my warlock at times, and lord knows I am going to need to farm up lots of old world herbs to level up inscripting.

But DAMN W:AR is fun as hell. It's hands down the best MMO PvP I've ever played. I'm playing a damn tank, and enjoying every minute of it. I am hard as hell to kill. Hard. As. Hell. Fights last longer than they do in WoW, even at a lowly level 8 (though the level cap is only 40). And, the best part, you can level up doing nothing but pvp. It's freaking great.

You should go get it. Next wednesday.
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Macro Heaven

OK, I multi-box, I'm an altaholic and I play on two computers sitting side by side.

I also swap out which toon is on which computer AND I use macros a lot.

And I find out today that:
"Macros and key bindings are now saved server-side so there is no longer a need to reconfigure them when logging in using another computer. "
http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_3.0.2#User_Interface

Can I just say:

Thank You Blizzard!

Now if it would just hurry up.

I'm still Thinking

Video games as a meditative practice ... yeah. It's a little out there but I'm still thinking about it. I'm not saying it's a GOOD meditative practice or even all that productive but ... with certain types of games (like arcade style or even shooters) there's a kind of auto-pilot trance state you can get into where your brain isn't worrying about all this shit it normally worries about.

No, that has nothing to do with WoW.

I did, however, tank a couple of Kara key-frag runs and then swap to a 5-man AQ20 on my 67 warlock. That's WoW related right?

How NOT to Gank...

...and still kill me.

Last night, I was running my first toon, my gnome warrior, and I was turning in a quest when a horde rode up and patiently waited for me to do my quest turn in.  Then when I was done, he /waved and I /waved back.  Then he /bowed and I realized he was asking me to fight.  He had 6 levels on me, but I decided it was cool and /bowed back.

Needless to say he annihilated me, but it was cool.  And in fact what annoys me is that about 90% of the way through killing me, a couple of alliance showed up and I had no way to tell them that I was cool with it before they jumped him.  Heck, I figured I would rez and we would go again.  I didn't yell at them after he fact, heck they were trying to help me, but I wish they hadn't run the horde guy off.  I was having fun despite dying.

Which is why I'm hesitant to transfer any of my toons to a PVE server, cause I'm sure I could have flagged, but it was even cooler because Mr. Horde last night didn't have to be cool about it, he just was.  While PVP servers allow people to be asshats and gank, they also allow for people to be very honorable, something I think is actually good about PVP servers.

This one is about WoW

Well, I finally managed to get my highest toon to 55 on my second account so I can have two PPHGDKs* per server. Now if only I and/or Skroo were able to have used the new refer a friend program, we could have level 60s in minutes, since he referred me and I referred my wife and my second account.

I'm not bitter, I'm actually just wondering if I should have bought my wife and I second and third accounts respectively. Though the 90 days limitation would probably have made it pointless.

That said, I wish they would give us the option to make extra toons at higher levels once we've reached a certain level. 1-70 gets long even for me, and I have yet to actually get one to 70.







*Pink Poofy Haired Gnome Death Knights, and yes, even if they don't give me pink, it's assumed.

Huh

It occurs to me that I just made three long posts to describe what is essentially a music festival.

Go me.
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Not WoW, part three

So what? I'm a believer in synchronicity. I don't know what it means, but I believe it exists. Concurrent with my weekend adventure in Real Life (but not the Real World), was the Penny Arcade Expo. Many of the people in what I tend to think of as my tribe are probably heading home from it now. PAX has likely turned into the biggest video game convnention in the country since the demise if E3. Pretty impressive considering it was started by two nerds who make a web comic.

So on the other side of the country, in Seattle, were My People gathered for their largest meeting of the keyboards. Gamers. What an odd lot we are. From the acne covered kid with coke bottle glasses, to the Bud swilling fistpounding frat boy who likes to frag "fags" in Halo. All of them hanging out, shooting each other with pixels, and oggling booth babes.

Given the choice (and honestly, the expense would have been roughly the same), I think I'd rather be here with the Boomers, Yuppies, and Hippies. At least for the weekend. A good chunk of Tribe Nerd would likely think me cookoo bananas for that. So it goes.

Why have I been thinking about this crap so much? Well, I've had time and, I am a lousy meditator. My brain never calms down. Also, with the exception of a couple of phone calls, I've barely talked in going on three days. One thing I notice whenever I spend a time not talking is that very little of what I say is very important. I've found most of what I've used my voice for (aside froim chanting) is social politeness. Thank you, excuse me, would you like me to move? Its rather startling to me how important these polite terms are. It probably keeps us from punching each other in the face regularly. But that's too much drift for even a poorly thought out and unproofed blog post (I KNEW there was a reason I stopped doing this years ago).

This time on my hands with a rushing brain put a question in my head: could video game playing be considered a meditative practice?

I believe, in certain cases, yes.
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Not WoW, part two

This folks in the office said my checkout time today is 1pm, but the sign in my room says I have to have all my stuff packed and out of the room by 9am, eh. I packed everything up and left it IN my room. The regular program goes until 2pm or so today, with a lot of extra stuff going well into the evening. I can't imagine they expected folks to just pile all their crap willy nilly around the center. some of these people brought a LOT of crap.

Speaking of crap. There are some things I will certainly bring next year, like herbal cough drops and a small bag of some kind to put Important Crap in (keys, wallet, phone). Maybe a travel mug so I can expand my coffee consumption to beyond the dining hall.

Soon after I got here my wife was helping me carry my crap up the hill to my room, and she observed all the Boomers here. By evening I could toss people into one of three catagories: Boomer, Yuppie, Hippie. I personaly don't fit in any of them. Though, to be fair, most of the people here probably don't think they do either.

The Boomers are the ex-hppies who consumed a pharmacy worth of chemicals in the 60s and 70s, thinking it was going to expand their minds and enlighten them, or something. They've been following this kind of stuff for a good chunk of their lives, and many of them seem to be the real deal. You can tell it isn't a fad for them, but a real devotional practice that has deepened with years of experience. You can see it right on their faces. They're ... happy.

Nice folks but, not my tribe.

The Yuppies are. Well I don't know that yuppie is the best word for them. Most of them are technically Boomers too but its best not to get TOO complicated. I'm trying to make Broad Generalizations About People I Don't Even Know. Best keep it simple eh? The Yuppies are, in large part, downstate women with too much disposable income and nothing to do. How many times did I overhear the answer to "where do you live?" as "Wes-Chess-Tah." Oy vey. And they won't ... Stop ... Talking. Susie from Bed-fahd's broker husband is going to have his jaw broken to correct an overbite because "he's so wrapped up in an ego phase. His ego is just really out there right now." Molly from Jersey finds "aruveyda is really good the bowel." Oy vey.

DEFINATELY not my tribe.

The Hippies are, well, hippies. They are the new kids who will probably be like the Boomers in 20 years. Right now they are very in to being different. Many of them are likely either the children of Boomers, or grew up in a Bible thumping home, or most likely come from childhoods where questions like god, existence, and the nature of the soul just ... weren't talked about. They are a little over eager to show how IN to it all they are.

Good kids. Not my tribe.

So, what then?
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Not WoW

I knew when I started this nonsense, I'd sooner or later start making posts that have nothing to do with WoW. Well, I guess it is sooner.

I have not been playing much. RL stuff has kept me out of every Newbian Archie hit and Black Temple for roughly a month. They have the front three of BT down! Sheesh!

People say 'RL stuff' and others frequently assume it's something bad. I am guilty of this myself. "I hope that RL stuff works out okay" isn't an uncommon phrase. The RL stuff I have been busy with is just that; I'm busy. Most of this summer has been pretty laid back. Usually we've got like 15 things schedualed to do every weekend in the summer. It's do this do that nonstop until work on Monday. I've enjoyed just being able to chill this year and do the things I'm supposed to get done on the weekends in my own sweet time. (Mostly)

This weekend I've been in what most folks in New York consider 'upstate,' but this Albany immigrant (I'm from Michigan (as are, strangely, many people I raid with)) can't see how anything only an inch north of NYC on a map can be considered 'up' in a state as big as NY. As far as I'm concerned, Upstate NY STARTS in Albany. So there.

So anyway, I'm at a retreat center BETWEEN Albany and NYC. It's a hippy dippy spiritual retreat type place with a fairly heavy Hindu focus (though there is a small Buddha statue behind where I'm sitting in the garden). This weekend is their yearly Kirtan retreat, and I am here. Kirtan is a hindu practice of chanting certain mantras in repetition. It is supposed to be more effective in groups of people, and I'd have to agree with that. Even setting aside cosmic or supernatural significance, the energy of 500 people in a room singing is amazing.

So I've been chanting the various revealed names for three days on and off, some times for two hours or more at a strech. Namah, Krishna, Ram, Gopala, Kali, Govinda, Shivaya, etc, etc, repeat, rinse, repeat; and I'm ready to back to the Real World.

Ah! I see what I did there.

I have referred to this retreat as an RL activity to folks I game. And now I'm calling the universe outside the Omega Institute the Real World, interesting.

Layers.

Onions.
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