| The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown!

Healing IS an art, not a collection of mods! :P

Each dungeon or raid is going to be different because of the mix of the group you are running with, so even if the boss fights are the same, the dynamic will be different and the healing needs will be different for each situation.

Heroic Lich King dungeons even more so as the boss fights get nutty.

Each class is going to heal differently, and as I only have experience as a healin' priest, I know that Discipline and Holy were totally different ball games, and when running as a Shadow, I know that Droods and Shammies also have different healing schemes.

Mods of course help, but the FACT of the matter is that no mod can automate healz, broham!

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DISCLAIMER: The statements in the above blog post are fact and irrefutable. Any attempt to deny, dispute, or discourage belief in said claims will be considered an action worse than any ever performed by a terrorist and/or Hitler.

If you don't like the difficulty/loot changes they made in BC you definitely wouldn't like Lich King, and I assume Cataclysm will move in the same direction. PVE questing is noticeably easier in Lich King than vanilla/BC and the loot is still awesome. It is a good tradeoff for a streamlined game, but it does get a little silly when I only need a couple of my 25+ spells/powers to get through 95% of the quests.

Have you tried out Starcraft II? I always like the idea of those games so much, then play like 4 levels, totally suck and never play again. The mods people are coming out with though are pretty amazing though. Like FPSes and stuff like that.

| Allodin the Palodin returns?

Was reading some of the game changes. Streamlining the stat lines and armor bonuses has potential. The bonuses to spirit and mana regeneration will be improved which will make it a viable spec. This seems interesting, if they do it right. I would make a healer with +spirit instead of +int, since you would last much longer healing over time.

by the way, healing is not an art. Healing is downloading the right healing mod.

I hope they fix the game difficulty a bit though. In the burning crusade they whored out the magic items and saturated the AH with goods. It made level advancement much quicker and better for the casual gamer, but took a lot of the difficulties and fun out of the game.

| Hauser-craft? More like you're Hauser-craft

I hear you. You played that game pretty hard. Meanwhile my main still doesn't even have as many days /played as Ja-el did in his marathon 2 months. Yeah that meetup was awesome, I kept getting killed by alligators running through the effin' wetlands. I also have fond memories of my (first) retirement from the game when you and Ja-el ran me through Gnomeregan. You guys were like level 55 so you just punched everything to death.

I'm looking forward to trying the dungeon finder. That's one thing I've barely done so it should feel relatively fresh. And they are changing almost the entire 1-50 experience when cataclysm launches (don't need the expansion for that) so I'm looking forward to make a new dude at that point.

| world of warcraft? more like world of pffffft-craft

... I can't believe the thrill is gone but it's SO fucking gone for me. I had me some awesome times in WoW but the last few times I've loaded it up it's done nothing for me. Enjoy it fellas. I still remember one of our first meetups in Darkshore after just getting out of Elf-land. I think Eric and/or Jon having to run to Darkshore from human-land. That was such a great time :)

I've successfully pre-ordered games from Amazon with release day shipping and it's worked. The only time I hear about it being an issue for computer games is the risk of update servers being slammed and being unable to actually play on release day. If you buy it electronically through Blizz they're supposedly offering pre-loading (which most pre-release games on Steam offer) which means you can have the game downloaded and installed on your computer before release day and then be good to go at 12:01am or whatever.

Good luck with your project Elrick. I think you're gonna miss out on some joy and pain but hopefully you've got something great and creative in the works. If you change your mind mid-Nov you can always try the "Random Logline Generator" and see what you come up with:

RANDOM
"A large banjo player, a passive-aggressive cult leader, and a sleep-walking conductor plot to take over the world in virtual reality." Hmmm...

Hurry up with your overtime Dennish!

| WoW Tangggggg

Ha! Same here. Though I'm only sipping the juice from a baby sipping bottle. I read somewhere that prior to the release, they are going to have events leading to the expansion. Already I've felt small earthquakes while traveling around. I'll be on more ofter before the release just to see what they do.

Rude - thanks for the heads up on Deth Angle. I canceled my Amazon order and went to the Barnes and Noble by Del Amo Mall. I'm surprised they have so many games. They even had Agricola. Haven't played it yet though. The rules aren't written that well either. Not the worse, but I actually had to "school" focus to get through it. Or maybe my brain is just getting old and soft.

| Back on the Sauce

I'm back on the WoW-sauce.

Docnorvell is alive and well, being retooled with all that I have learned over the years NOT playing him and I want to get him to 80 before Cataclysm hits. Care to join me?

I have abandoned a few other characters I started recently to just get this guy to 80, I think he deserves it and it has been a long time coming.

I still have not done ANY dungeons from Burning Crusade so once this joker hits 80 I'm gonna try and dungeon my way through the levels with my Paladin, although I don't think I can handle tanking anymore; DPS is a science, Healing is an art, and Tanking is a job - I don't want to work two jobs unless I have too, thank you. Unless of course I am tanking for an all Action Team guild run... :)

I am also working on yet another secret Eric project that if it finds it's way to completion, I will let you all know, otherwise I'm burying it. The only downside to it is that it is going to probably make my NaNoWriMo attempt to write a novel in a month not happen. :( Go Rudy, go!

BTW, I'm trying the Amazon pre-order for Cataclysm that guarantee's launch day delivery, anyone have any luck with this?

This Minecraft stuff is pretty cool! Liked the article Rude. Maybe I'll give it a spin once I hit 80 with my main in WoW :((

That video with the guy's house lighting on fire was HILARIOUS. The wifey and I were just busting a gut watching it. It's got all the elements of humor:
- funny accent
- buildup (the guy is so tedious in the minute or so leading up to "the incident")
- escalation (the moment when the bookshelf lights on fire, just BLIP, and then he tries to put it out, and just keeps failling)
- simplicity (the wifey had never heard of the game before, but was instantly able to grasp the concept)
- harmless pain/humiliation ('cuz that house MUST have taken a while to build)

Anyway. Picked up the new Rock Band and a keyboard. I didn't really ever click to drums so I thought it'd be fun to learn a new instrument, and it is really fun! The interface is really weird, but after a few songs I was sort of starting to get a feel for what I'm doing. I'm no Viv Savage, though.

| Back to the Future

Back To The Future Game - 1st Episode Free

Tell Tale Games is offering the first episode of their upcomming Back To The Future adventure game for free. Can't pass that up! It doesn't ask for any credit card info, easy peasy. Sign up now and be able to d/l it when it comes out (soonish I think).

| FREE Music

***EDIT***
Here's the article on Epitaph: Epitaph
It's really good.

I got a bunch of free magazine subscriptions recently by visiting various promo sites and using fake info. SPIN is one of the magazines I've been getting and one of the recent issues had an article called "an oral history of Epitaph records". It's really cool - they interview bunch of the BR guys, Fat Mike, etc, and just talk about Epitaph. Anyways, the issue also includes a free Bad Religion Tribute Album (well, a link to it at least):

BR Tribute

Some of it's alright. Interesting takes on some classic jams. I wouldn't have paid money for it.

man, I'm watching live streams from Essen 2010 - it's so intersting! So many different games.

Essen 2010

This is one of my favorite Minecraft bits: house tour.

Pump: I will be sure to set aside those days too.

D>M>