Icepack anyone??

Well last night was both fun and exciting. I got to finally restart playing volleyball after 3 years and boy was it fun, until this morning that is, my arms hurt, my shoulders ache, my neck refuses to turn, my thighs are still recovering but my arms below the elbow are both red and hurting like hell. But it was fun.....yeeeaaah. So right about now I feel like the kid in the picture below, except that I'm having to work.

Besides that, my guild went into SSC again last night and got the Lurker down to 14%.......14 frikkin percent, and the reason we wiped....oh yea the beautiful reason was that the fishes respawned in the middle of the fight, which as far as I understand they are not supposed to. So when everyone jumped into the water during the spout....well...they never came back up. Plus it was late and we would have had to do a reclear of the trash again so we called it a night. Go Blizz Go.

Well hopefully next week we get him and I can post another yipee post. Till then have a good weekend.

Game Review: Turok

Every now and then comes along a game that shakes the very foundation of the genre for which it was made, it challenges the player base to expect more, the developer community to strive harder and the publishing houses to throw more money their way. Turok is not one of them. Its based of the Unreal 3 engine which has apparently been the hottest thing since the Beatles, every company lazy enough to not work to create their own engine(like Call of Duty 4, Uncharted Drake's Fortune) has gone forward and licensed(maybe not a bad decision) what can only be described as a beauty of an engine. However none of these companies has been able to fully utilize the engine to its potential and as a result everytime we expect a game to look as good as "Gears of War" or "Unreal Tournament 3" we come back dissapointed. Anyway to do a more in-depth analysis of the games components:

1)Gameplay: Fairly straightforward gameplay dynamics, though I found the dive somewhat inconsistent and realized that it expected a near perfectly angled joystick to do the dive, otherwise it would only result in a half-assed jump leaving the player very much vulnerable to whatever they hoped to avoid. Another notable flaw was that despite the amount of cover thrown at you, you couldn't use it like you could in "Gears of War" or other tactical shooters, this makes it more like a positional cover kinda situation. The cover was also not prone to destruction but that I can live with. There are a couple of quick time events thrown at you, but since they use the same button combinations, you begin to expect and execute them easily. Its also a gameplay element thats better to be rid of. The difficulty level isnt too high, the weapons are enjoyable, though for the most part you can use the same weapons through most situations unless forced to use something else based on the situation. On the whole a 5/10.

2)Graphics: As I mentioned earlier, this game is based off the Unreal 3 engine but that doesn't mean it delivers anything close to the level of detail that you see in Epic's titles. Even so it looks fairly good and on par with the current generation of games, just not next-gen.6/10

3)Sound: The game uses sounds as a primary technique to warn you of imminent dangers and lurking dinos/wolfpack members. It does a fair job of alerting you though sound isn't always an accurate indication of the direction they are in rather just a warning of their presence. It also is used well to indicate the presence of larger and more fearsome dinos like the T-rex and does a good job of intimidating the player with its presence.6/10

4)Environments: The environments aren't too varied, its "jungle", "more jungle", "wolfpack base" and "still more jungle". At a few moments it came close to giving the awe-inspiring expanse of "Jurassic Park", but those moments were fleeting and danger filled. So for the most part the player is destined to the dark or closed quarters combat. Not enough variety. 5/10

5)Multiplayer: Now I must confess that I didn't try its entire Multiplayer content, though the co-op mode intrigued me and I managed to coerce another friend of mine to try it out. It was possibly the most fun I had in the entire game, and there were just 3 levels of it. It was fun, the difficulty was ramped up somewhat (or maybe it is meant for 4 players and there fore is much easier that way), but on the whole it was thoroughly enjoyable. 7/10 (points lost because it only had 3 maps)

On the whole I would say its lucky to have been released at the time that it was because of a dearth of new games, allowing it an undistracted market. It would have been unlikely to sell much in a market filled with better games. It doesn't have much to offer and the storyline is basically a plot sketched together by what could only be a group of shit chucking apes with typewriters. What should have been a final boss encounter was simply a bunch of quick times events which can be one-shotted followed by the real boss who had inexplicably not killed you the first time around. The ending is cliched and the dialogue is barely acceptable. The voice acting is borderline ok. They even left out a punching bag guy who helped you in your training and reappears to deliver a sad one liner only to not been seen ever again leaving the player to wonder whether he simply died during the series of events or hes been spared to reappear in a sequel. Anyway its an ok game and I only recommend it for its multiplayer, the rest is only playable if you have nothing more to do.

Overall Score: 6/10

Making the leap

Aaah, the dreaded gquit. To some of us, more used to loyalty, this seems like a sin, specially in some cases where the guild in question that you are leaving has done nothing to make you wish to leave. I had a similar experience before I joined my current guild, except that I was going to lose some friends and gain some more. My guild had almost entirely broken up, to a point that at best there were 3-4 people online, and gquits happened all day, yet I was unwilling to type the command that would end my association with the guild, why....because the guild in itself....a faceless, selfless entity had only provided me with a home, a place to reconvene with my friends, a place where there was always someone who would greet me, despite however hard their day might have been. Infact it became so private that even whispers were no longer necessary, instead we would talk openly in gchat, but I knew that I wanted more (read raiding and more friends).

This is an important decision to make, what is it that one seeks that your current guild cannot provide, more friends to hang out with, raiding, loot ninjaing, griefing, PvP-ing.....there is always a guild to cater to your needs. I wanted a guild I could call home like my current guild, and also a place where there were more than 1-2 people online. I enjoy hanging out with guildies, running instances with them, group PvP-ing with them, raiding with them, these were the things my guild was unable to provide.

Therefore I went out seeking greener pastures for me and my 2 friends. In the end I found a gem of a guild, where I am still at, filled with wonderful people, and even managed to get one of my friends to come. I still feel sad my other friend didn't come, she was unwilling to submit an application for anything that was in a game. I wish she had reconsidered, even though we still stay in touch I miss seeing her name in gchat. Still, I made lots of new friends, frenemies and loot nemesis, but a full screen of friendly banter, a feeling of belonging which came with my new guild is irreplacable. Its a leap some of us have to make, but sometimes we jump into the fire, sometimes into a cool breeze.

Just look before you leap.

I am IMBA

Looks like my gear is all good and enchanted and gemmed and stuff. Nice gear score too eh =). Audit your gear by visiting Be IMBA.

PvP for the PvE Feral Tank?

I just finished reading another informative and interesting article over at Karthis's blog regarding gearing up after the Heavy Clefthoof Set for a feral druid. Being extremely knowledgeable in the itemization woes of feral druids, Karthis suggests an extremely PvE friendly path and one which for the most part I agree with, considering the fact that feral druids in general get the short end of the stick while PvP-ing.

But for those of us willing to jump into the unfriendly BGs and Arenas, there may be viable options for the feral tank there as well. Now from the viewpoint of a feral druid, what exactly are the stats we need to tank and tank well(Not in any particular order):

1) Stamina: We need it as do other tanks, its this very stat that ensures we can survive those hits. But for a feral druid they can do more and is also more important seeing how we are susceptible to crushing blows and hence need a bigger buffer of HP. Most PvP gear has loads of stamina because survivability is key in the brutal world that its made for.

2)Agility: Our only means of damage avoidance is dodge (or the passive miss chance inherent in the game). This means we can either fully avoid the damage or take it for what its worth, though usually our high armor means we mitigate more than other tanks. Most upper tier PvP gear has comparable agility to T4 gear.

3)Armor: Repeat after me "I am an armored bear!! Without my armor I am nothing", bears have the tendency to have ridiculous amounts of armor and are probably(or so I think) the only class capable of reaching the armor cap. This is another candy offered to us in lieu of us having to take crushing blows. PvP feral gear can be easily segregated by the usual green colored armor amount e.g.Vindicator's Dragonhide Boots , indicating that the piece of gear has unusually high armor for its level. With the multiplication factor that armor means more than plate.

4)Uncrittability: Without this don't even expect to have any decent guild accept you as a tank. If you aren't even uncrittable then you are an even bigger liability than a tank with lower stamina but uncrittable. TO become uncrittable there are 2 stats that a tank can use. The first is defense rating. For a feral druid with the appropriate talents, only 415 defense is required to be uncrittable, and seeing how 350 is achievable without gear, the last 75 is achieved through some trouble seeing how there is very little leather gear with +defense rating on it. So to achieve it using this stat, most druids need a combination of rings, cloaks, enchants and more stuff (think Earthwarden) to get a total of 156 defense rating. This is also the preferable method to become uncrittable seeing as to how defense rating also increases our chance to dodge. The other and usually more criticized route is through Resilience. Yes, this PvP only stat is the bridge that allows us to cross over once we lose the Heavy Clefthoof set. Its also a cheaper way to achieve uncrittability, since only 103 resilience is needed for 415 defense. Also seeing how resilience is available by the bucket load it makes for an easier task and frees up more room for stats like agility, stamina etc. Even with 2 pieces of S1 gear say shoulders and gloves, you get about 20 resil per piece and another 35 through the set bonus. That instantly puts you at 75 resil through 2 pieces of gear, leaving you to only secure 28 more to become crit immune or to pick up some defense gear.

5)Damage output: The higher the damage output, the more the threat, the more room there is for dps to go all out. As a tank during Gruuls, I regularly top the damage output amongst tanks, usually doing twice as much as the closest competitor. This allows the dps to open up faster and with more aplomb. Since most PvP gear is also concerned with damage output, there is usually hit rating, attack power, ignore armor like stats which help in achieving this. e.g.Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves

To examine my points via an example, I will compare the Vengeful Gladiator's Chest piece to the T4 Malorne chest piece which drops of Magtheridon.
Using the PvP chestpiece I:
lose 130 armor
lose 3 strength
lose 3 agility
gain 18 stamina
gain 9 intellect
gain 12 hit rating
gain 19 critical strike rating (0.86% chance to crit)
gain 26 resilience
lose a set bonus(maybe)

Seeing how the comparison stands, I am willing to trade in my Clefthoof chestpiece a little earlier seeing the ridiculous gain in stats I achieve. There are also some other merits to gearing up this way. Since most gear drops at the initial levels become minor to laughable upgrades, I can pass and help others gear up faster to open up access to more competitive raiding instances. On the whole pursuing PvP for the more inclined can surely be a worthwhile pursuit.

Thanks to Karthis for his invaluable information regarding Crit Immunity via the article "On Being Uncrittable".

Thoughts on Geekdom

Is it bad that after I saw this video on youtube about "Why a geek will steal your girlfriend in 2008"



all I could think of was "All your babes are belong to us"

W00T

So evidently I am excited....what about would make for a good question. Well for the last coupla weeks our guild has been doing exploratory excursions into SSC, we clear the trash upto both Hydross and 'The Lurker Below', and then we tend to engage 'The Lurker Below', albeit with no success so far, but we finally got a good rhythm on him last nite, and in all possibility hes going down pretty soon.

So anyway, the reason for my excitement has nothing to do with 'The Lurker Below', but rather the trash. You see the trash in SSC drops a lot of good epics, some of them are even great epics. But last nite one of them dropped the motherload as seen from the perspective of a druid.

It was all happy chit chattery on vent, when the ML said "Oh Argo, you are not gonna believe this", to which I responded "If you are playing with my heart, I will hate you forever", he linked the item I have always dreamed of, and followed it by stalling for a couple of minutes, each second I died a little bit inside, and was constantly telling myself to not have high hopes, that this was just a bad joke. Finally after much waiting I saw the most golden words in history "You have received loot [Wildfury Greatstaff]".

I finally had the best end-game tanking staff for druids, some may argue that Pillar of Ferocity is better, I dont think so, that staff has str instead of agility or dodge. I would gladly give up some stamina in favor of agility/dodge our sole means of damage avoidance. After the raid I got it enchanted with 35 agility, and now I'm a happy bear.



16342 HP unbuffed (Bear form) = win.There is one ML exalted with me for today.

Kara foh Kicks

So what do you do with a group of 10-12 players, mostly epicced out but with a slightly wonky(yes I said wonky....shoot me) class balance. As in disc priest, balance druid, no mage(by "no", I don't mean it as a spec, but simply the absence of one), and way too many hunters than can be good...well for most of us in Village Idiots it means we raid Kara....yay.

For most guilds in 25-man content, Kara is and should be on farm status, and easily 10-mannable with the added advantage of being a staging ground for quickly gearing up scrubs and alts alike, as well as badges. Sure 25-man loot is good, but badges, now they in enough numbers are looking as good as tiered loot. Infact I have for some time been looking at turning in my Heavy Clefthoof Leggings for something with more bang for the buck. I have the T4 leggings but the astounding loss in stamina definitely has been an unconvincing argument for me to make the switch. On the other hand the nearest replacement is miles away as well. But behold, patch 2.4 promises one of the best leggings available in the form of Tameless Breeches which not only augment my stamina but also add an equally considerable amount of agility (translate: Dodge and crit), and some more strength. Not only that there is a brilliant staff Staff of the Forest Lord , Ring Ring of the Stalwart Protector and gloves Handwraps of the Aggressor. Theres also the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess, but personally I prefer the Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic instead(and I recommend PvP simply for that alone, I think its better than T4 from Mag). All this for a measly 100-150 badges(ok not so measly), but still, giving access to such gear for something that can be done by even the majority of casuals makes the end-game more accessable.

Sure there are lots of folks far into the 25-man content, likely kicking Archie in the groin to make him both reel in pain and also to make him drop the huge satchel where hes hiding his goodies, who disagree. Why should the casual get such good gear for so tiny an effort? Why should their effort be marginalized due to casuals with similar gear? To them I say this(in the words of my GM)....sod off ya buggers. This game is dominated by the casual players, by casual I mean players with limited to no access to the end-game. Most of them are casual not as a result of lack of desire/knowledge/elitist views of most raiding guilds, but mostly because they lack the time and/or dedication to subject themselves to a regimented raiding schedule.

As a result even if they are part of a raiding guild, they will slowly get left behind in terms of gear and begin to feel even more and more left out. With this change Blizzard is basically welcoming them back, they can now have access to some of the end game level gear, but that doesn't take away from the raiders the fact that they have seen Kael at his strongest and kicked his whiny butt, creating such a big crater that it take a huge honking piece of crystal to close up the hole, and told him to inform Illidan that contrary to popular belief, they are prepared.

For now with casual effort one can atleast begin to see raiding content, and for raiders having trouble in SSC/TK, there are upgrades to be had to help them along without depending on the all-so-trusty drop chances. This may mean that there will be loads of scrubs with some of the best gear in the game, but does that change the fact that they still need another 24 idiots to down Gruul...nope. Raiders, These rewards can help plug in those holes in your gear that let you down, these rewards help gear friends up faster, to be able to raid with you more often, and these rewards make even the casuals happy. So go to Kara and farm the heck outta that place till Prince screams at your very mention, cause those badges are going to go a long way in your raiding progression.

So lets all just get along, else I have some crackers to stuff you guys with, I hear it goes well with your whine.

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary

A couple of wise men once said that and despite their inherent wisdom most of us continue to ignore the truth in those words. So how often is it that people want the rewards without the efforts? I would say given a choice, all the time, but those more grounded in reality realize that without putting forth the effort, no rewards are coming to you on their own accord. I too have felt the same way too often, in real-life my desire to get into a top rank MBA without working for it is probably one of my biggest ones, in game my desire to get my epic mount until very recently was the same. Though finally getting it taught me a lot.

I was until the beginning of Jan at about 500g and had been fluctuating around that number for quite a while, by quite a while I mean over 3 months. It seemed that all the money I made was lost on raids, enchants, gems etc. I had mentally decided that it was impossible to achieve both a constant raiding schedule interspersed with in-game moolah was never gonna happen. Yet a month later the picture is entirely different. I have my epic flight form, and over 1k in the bank, so what happened?

To put it bluntly I grew tired. Travel was slow and painful, grouping to do quests with my other guildies with epic flyers resulted in a lot of waiting on their part. Constant tells in gchat with other player's gold progress was beginning to break me until finally I decided I was gonna put in a couple of hours to do the dirty and grind/farm. And so it started, I asked a couple of friends about the best places to farm and began grinding while chatting most of the times on gchat. Some places were easy farming some were not, and market fluctuations constantly forced me to farm different things. One week it was cobra scales, another heavy clefthoof and a third it was primal fire.

But heres the deal, you aren't the only one aware of such farming spots, a lot of other people are, which results in competition, the most hateful of which is amongst members of your own faction. Why only them, well because they can clearly show you their displeasure and I like to stay on the good side of people, most of the times atleast. So after a while I decided that farming was not my thing. I was still only half way to my goal which meant giving up would be a sign of weakness. My farming also led to my constant whining on the gchat channel that this was hard work, almost to a point where I am sure people were wondering if I wasn't coercing them to pay me to shut up, despite that not being the case.

So unable to bring myself to farm and with lack of tolerance for my bickering, I sought alternate measures. It took me a while but it finally dawned on me that the one way to farm without competition (mostly anyways) was to do quests that I had left behind when I hit the big Seven-O. Infact I had left an entire zone (Netherstorm) to do with a friend, who ended up blowing through them anyway, so I got down to doing quests, and being heavily raid geared they were a breeze, even group quests. I could basically pull entire packs upon packs of mobs and down them with barely any health loss. It was so easy a ret pally could do it. Killing level 70+ elites which would normally been a crash course in "Hand over the money to my dead raid priest", turned into a fun and easy way to earn a buttload of cash. Not to mention selling all those quest rewards and DE-ing the random greens and auctioning the random blues. Towards the end people were constantly offering to fund my final leap, of which I took on one offer since questing with epic flight form is way too easy and faster.

Anyway it taught me that even the seemingly unattainable is far easier to do when you get started. Before I got started I had already decided that my ambitions were flawed and this would result in months over months of soul-crushing grinds, but that is no true. We often become pessimistic to avoid short term effort even if it may result in long term gain. The onus is on us(hehe) to define and establish our goals not simply through words but through effort. In the words of another wise man "Action expresses priorities." - M.K.Gandhi

p.s. Who says there is nothing to be learnt from video games =)

Overposting...sure, why not

I was reading an article on http://gizmodo.com/ which I thought I had to share with the rest of you folks. Its on the HD-DVD demise issue again, but sure is funny and packs in some sound advice....well mostly anyways.

A Consumer's Cheat Sheet to HD DVD's Death and Blu-ray's Victory

HD DVD is dead. Officially. That may mean a whole bunch for the early-adopter tech geek crowd that's been wading in the kiddie pool of technological bickering and backhandedness for years, but what does it mean for the average consumer with only a cursory interest in high-def DVDs?

Here's our cheat sheet Q&A for you to whip out if you ever have to explain the high-def format wars to your parents.

Q: I chose sides early in the HD DVD/Blu-ray shenanigans and unfortunately, made the right decision and supported HD DVD. What do I do now?

A: Try and sell your HD DVD player or Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on as fast as you can. Go list it on craigslist or eBay already. The mainstream hasn't heard about HD DVD's demise just yet, which means you can find some chump to buy your player and movies on the cheap. How soundly you
sleep at night is up to you.

Q: Really? You mean my player is useless? Won't there be any more movies released on HD DVD?

A: A few more releases that are already in the pipeline might trickle out in the next couple months, but just watch as all the studios abandon the format and go exclusively Blu-ray. You're better off
just selling off all your stuff unless you want to keep it around to win our retro Gizmodo tech contest of 2028.

Q: But what if I already have a gigantic HD DVD library?

A: It depends on how gigantic it is. If it's not too big, you can re-buy your library on Blu-ray. If it's huge, you might want to buy a combo player, like the one from LG, in order to ease your transition.
Either way, you're going to be out a bit of money. You might want to just shoot yourself in the face now and be done with it.

Q: I chose sides early in the HD DVD/Blu-ray shenanigans and chose Blu-ray. What do I do now?

A: Besides calling up your grandmother to rub it in her face, there's not much you need to do. Just sit and wait for your favorite movies to come out on Blu-ray.

Q: Right, but how long do I have to wait, exactly, before I can watch Batman Begins on my PlayStation 3?

A: Beats me. Now that Blu-ray is the de-facto format, the studios should be falling over themselves trying to remaster their already released HD DVD movies onto Blu-ray. If we had to guess, it'd
be within the year.

Q: OK, now that the war is "officially over," is it time for me to buy a Blu-ray player?

A: Maybe. It's still relatively early in the technology's lifespan, which means prices for Blu-ray players are still quite high when you compare it to the sub-$100 upscaling DVD players you can find at Wal-Mart. Plus, the BD library is incredibly thin when compared to DVD, so you might not be getting much use out of the player in your day-to-day movie watching. But if you really do want to get into
the HD game (and have an HDTV to back it up), it's finally safe to buy a player.

Q: So you're saying that I'm going to be paying more for these movies on Blu-ray? When will the prices drop to DVD levels?

A: That's tough to say. For example, Superman Returns is only $14.98 for the DVD version but $23.95for the Blu-ray version. It's going to take a few years yet for that 23 to drop to 14. If you had to force us to guess, we're going to say about three years. That's 2011.

Q: I don't buy movies, I rent them. When are Netflix and Blockbuster going to get in gear and stock a bunch of Blu-ray movies?

A: As soon as the major studios start releasing Blu-ray movies in bulk. If you recall the VHS to DVD transition, it took quite a while for VHS tapes to phase out, and this transition will be quite similar.
Again, if you forced us to guess, we'd have to say 2010.

Q: Screw it, I'm convinced. I'm going to go out and buy a player today. Which player should I buy?

A: Unless you're morally opposed to gaming or having a gaming device in your living room, you should go with the PlayStation 3. It's software-upgradeable, plus it's relatively cheap even when compared to standalone Blu-ray players. You even get a gaming system thrown in.

Q: Speaking of gaming, what if I already purchased an Xbox 360 and want to be able to watch Blu-ray movies? Will I have to buy a PS3?

A: Maybe not. Even though Microsoft backed HD DVD and released an HD DVD add-on, they weren't staking their entire console on the format (hence, the add-on). This means that Microsoft has a big minus in their column when comparing the 360 to the PS3 in terms of high-def DVD
playback. It's a hole they're going to want to patch up right away, so don't be surprised if you see a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 some time in the near future.

Q: Can you sum up what I, the average consumer, should do at this point in one sentence?

A: Wait one more year for the Blu-ray format to mature, for more titles to be released, and player prices to drop before jumping in.

Original post at :http://gizmodo.com/358219/a-consumers-cheat-sheet-to-hd-dvds-death-and-blurays-victory/

The End is Nigh

So while thinking of the topic to discuss today, a friend of mine pinged me to say this

This got me thinking all about the debate that had been raging for quite a while about which was the better format, which is better for the consumer....etc..etc. Jump to the present and its clear that it no longer matters which was the better format because ladies and gents,we have a winner. Sure its a more expensive technology and people complain about it being inferior to HD-DVD, but atleast now consumers can invest on a next-gen DVD format player and not lose. I am sure there are lots of people out there who are unhappy, but this will atleast allow a consolidation for the consumers and the manufacturers, and hopefully there should be enough models out there to rival the low costs of the HD-DVD players.

For me, I am a happy camper as is obvious from my excerpt with my friend, and as is he. For a darn good reason too, we both have a PS3, and as we all know that Sony played a huge gamble with selling the PS3 with a built in Blu-Ray player. This alone introduced a lot of homes to, voluntarily or not, this technology, and more often than not, defined their camp of choice. In the end this gambit payed off for us and for Sony, though there sure were a lot more things to attribute to their success, including their midnight deals that shook the HD-DVD camp in irrecoverable ways.

It also means I can expect all my favorite movies in Blu-Ray and watch them happily on my PS3.It means I no longer have to worry about whether or not I will get shafted by giant corporations,well atleast not in the immediate future. Infact I would suggest most people who want a Blu-Ray player to buy the PS3 instead, specially if they have an avid interest in gaming. Its one ofthe only, if not the only player which can be updated to the latest version of Blu-Ray specifications.(I may be using the wrong lingo, so forgive me if thats the case). It serves as an excellent gaming machine, and in the year to come, there are several big name titles, some of which are sure to become classics. It can also surf the web, and hence be used to download movies from the internet(note: I am not suggesting illegal downloads, there are legal means to download movies), and watch them right there on your PS3, or save them for future viewing. You can also set it up as a media center, photo viewer, music player.....etc..etc. Sure the Xbox 360 can do loads of these things too, but so far I dont see a Blu-Ray player in it, and to boot with a high failure rate I would keep miles away from the demonic machine and its red ring of death.

So for those of you who invested in the losing camp, I offer you my condolences. To those on the winning side, I offer my congratulations, and to those who have waited out this battle, now is the time, go witness the next generation of High Def DVD's. To those who are afraid of the high costs of Blu-Ray players, I can offer this example of my friend purchasing the PS3 for a mere 250$, sure he went through a bunch of rebates,but for the eagle eyed bargain hunters, such low prices are there for the taking. If I see any interest, I may post on how he got the deal.

Till next time....Ciao.

Doing that thing we do

So last night my guild and I went to do our routine inspection of Gruul's Cave and as usual finding it to not be as clean as expected, ended up spanking him and his cronies. One of our raid members theorized that the cave in was a result of Gruul's mom, who was apparently irritated by the noise being perpetuated by Gruul and his buddies and was simply asking them to quiet down while she watched the latest episode of Lost and pondered on how Walt had grown so big so fast.

Anyway, so we went in and were at an unusual lack of co-ordination, instead of our usual 1-shotting the place we took 2 wipes before taking down High King and 3 before successfully killing Gruul. It was unusual because we had most of our standard raid setup and raiders, but somehow it felt off, it could be a result of the last few weeks of raids getting cancelled due to Super Bowl, Valentine's Day and some folks quitting WoW to reconstruct whatever semblance of their life there is left to rebuild, but c'mon RL. Anyway thats a topic for another time.

It was a slightly disheartening evening too because I lost out on T4 shoulders for the millionth time, and this time to someone who has 2 other alts with T4 shoulders, and despite that individual claiming this to be his new main, it left much to be desired. Now in our guild, we have a non-DKP looting system, with basically everyone who can use the item rolls, and it is at the discrepency of the rollers to pass in favor of say tanks/healers. This is a result of our guild's fervent desire to stay away from the trap of becoming raiding centric.

Also our guild has a lot of level 70s, most of whom are not frequent raiders, and I have lost my T4 shoulders to first timers, despite having been there for each and every attempt by our guild. Which brings me to the thought that is plaguing me at the moment, At what point does a casual raiding guild need to pay attention to regular raiders over casual ones? Because last night when I saw the alt roll for the piece of loot, I initially refused to roll and only rolled at the insistance of my guild mates. I don't want to sound like a loot whore, but being one of the guild's main tanks, I am consistently pressed to increase my survivability and my lack of gear upgrades only makes it harder. I am infact geared mostly in badge reward gear, PvP gear, arena gear and rep reward gear with only 2 pieces of T4, trinket(Moroes) and my cloak from raids. I rarely ever find tank gear (being a feral druid), and since most of it comes from tiered armor I feel that at a point a guild needs to decide whether to continue gearing alts/casuals, since they too have a right to roll, or take a stance and gear the folks who are not only regular but also put in a lot more effort, but since that shows signs of a progression centered guild its unlikely in our case.

Also in our setup, as is inevitable, there are folks who don't take raiding seriously either, and as a result have unenchanted, ungemmed and sometimes green gear, which can make it even harder on the people who spend their time to enchant, gem and read up strats just so they can perform that much better, at that point is it still fair to follow the setup of roll for loot?

But all that ranting is simply an outlet. I love my guild and most of my guildies, even the cold hearted warrior who took my T4 shoulders, but sometimes I am left to wonder on whether whatever thing we do, we do right or wrong?

A sorry state of affairs (Movie Review: Jodha Akbar-Hindi)

So my saturday was probably not the best of its kind. I was unwittingly dragged through an itinerary who's complete details were not fully relayed to me until it was too late. What was supposed to be an enjoyable Chinese lunch, turned into a lunch followed by what can only be described as one of the most horrendous cinema experiences ever.



I was dragged through a movie called "Jodha Akbar", for the uninitiated, its a bollywood film with generous doses of songs and some of the worst on screen performances of your lives, and it will probably do well because it features some of the more famous actors out there who's presence alone with atone it in the eyes of the Indian masses for its decidedly bland story.
Its a period film which features, Akbar, the grand-daddy of one of the world's most famous emo men out there, Shah Jahan, for those who don't recognize the name, he's the Mughal emperor who was behind the construction of the 'Taj Mahal', one of the tentative '7 Wonders of the modern world', and if this movie is anything to go by, I don't blame the kid for being emo. Akbar is also the great-grand-daddy of Aurangzeb, who was probably the Indian equivalent of the 'Angry White Kid'.
Still the movie afforded me an insight into my friend's taste in movies, and also a bad sign. The movie's subject though was undoubtably not a bad one, for Akbar was probably one of the most powerful Mughal emperors who embraced and worked to bridge the gap between both the Hindu and the Muslim religions. He was a muslim emperor who showed an unusual resiliance towards the arguments of his own community and married a Hindu princess.
Anyhow, the movie was probably not the best way to portray his deeds and on the whole was a mish-mash of ideas and some of the more important details were thrown in too quickly, resulting in what can only be described as unwatchable for the most, though for the avid hindi movie buffs with both time and money.....maybe. 3/10

So why am I here

As an individual I am not particularly verbose/talkative most of the times, but when provided with a platform to speak a lot, apparently I do. In most recent months after joining my current guild(in WoW), I started posting a lot, much to the appreciation of some folks while apparently brewing disdain in the heart of others. Until this happened




Now of course Dali has some valid points there....I do smell weird, but going on to attacking my accent (some say I sound like Arnold, but c'mon when was the last time you heard an Indian guy make an even remotely close approximation of a big bulging body builder's Austrian accent....I call lies on that one), and as for spelling and grammar........I do beleive; I'm not to bad at that, myslef.

So seeing that he has called for a posting probation on the forums, a vote that will in all likelihood get ratified, I decided to build myself another platform to speak from and be even more unlikely in my choice of topics.....if that is even possible. So hope to hear more from me...a lot more.