On Expectations

I wish I had an insightful quote to start this thing off, but sadly all I can think of is "I wish, I wish, I hadn't killed that fish"

The weird thing about interacting with people is that there is an anticipation or a preconception about who person A expects of person B. No matter if people have just met, or have known each other for a long time, your expectations are hastily put together and forced on someone else. I can walk down the street and see a dude in gangbanger clothes, and I can expect that he is probably someone I don't want to mess with, or he is peacocking to let everyone else around him know that he is.

This behavior is useful, because it helps our brains sort out the people who are dangerous, and the people whom we want to be associated with. Your brain can sort out all the things you come across in a day and tell you what to avoid. This can be useful, but I would argue that in the society of today this behavior is constantly on overdrive and is blind to the nuanced nature of how people express themselves.

I thought I was the person that Erin wanted to be with. I expected things to work going forward, given the fact that our relationship has been awesome in the past. She needs more than I am capable of giving, or want to give.

I either don't understand this, or it is a paradox which is incapable of a solution. I feel that she needs more attention from me, yet she wants time to herself. She want's to explore and go out and see things, yet I put myself in her hands to go wherever she wants and nothing comes of it. For now I am chalking it up to us not being right for eachother.

Things have not been right for a very long time. My trust of her has been slowly diminishing over time, and now it is at the point where I can't love her anymore because she hasn't given her love to me.

I just feel like a worthless lame nerd who spends far too much of his time playing video games with other nerds, children, and some people who aren't content with the accomplishment in their lives. People that seek absolution in a virtual world filled with weapons, armor, and dragons to ride on. Erin knew this about me going into our engagement, but perhaps she had the expectation that I would lose interest in this game eventually.

There was a time where I would have thrown it all away just to be with her. I would ask her if I needed to stop playing in order to spend more time with her, but the answer was always that she liked knowing that there would be time for her to have to herself. Now I know she would spend that time with the other men in her life. Fuck me for being such a stupid lame nerd.

I am a lame nerd though. It's who I am, and who I want to be. I like geeking out about math and science. I like playing video games. I have accomplished things in my life that I am proud of. I have a masters degree in EE, and I can sort of speak another language.

I know I am smart, funny and charming. I know that I am an asshole, jaded, and overall disappointed in a lot of the humans on the planet. I'm humble and softspoken. I really don't care about the human race as a whole, but I care deeply for the people I meet everyday. I would rather make one person happy who is local to me than feed a starving baby with aids in China, whether that is the cashier at the grocery store or my own mom.

Erin and I had expectations of each other going into this marriage that I guess the other person just couldn't meet. I expected a lot more from Erin in the bedroom, but I know now that she stopped being attracted to me a long time ago. I expected that she would follow through with her plans to go to law school, or get another job, or get healthy and in shape, or do all the things that she wants to do with her life. Things that I want to be a part of. All of these things that she wants for herself are things that I am unable to give her. We both want each other to be happy and we want to do whatever will make that other person happy. I can't give her the discipline that she needs to make herself happy, ergo I can't give her anything to make her happy.

Erin has been dependent on other people all her life. Well, dependent might not be the right word, but it seems that she has always had someone to rely on whether it be emotionally, monetarily, or what have you. Erin doesn't like who she is. She wants to be more like other people. She craves it. Gretchen is a wonderful lady, and a saint in my book, but Erin depends too much on her mom. Erin is afraid of the world, and every time things get fucked up, Gretchen will bear the load.

I am not trying to absolve myself from responsibility. Looking back, I would have pressed Erin more (ha) about her relationship with Mike, and Trevor, and Leo. I would have seen that Erin needs to explore and push boundaries, where I am content to be in the boundaries I have defined for myself, and simply explore them fully before finding new ones. Erin needs constant external stimulus. She sought these other men out and got what she was unable to get from me. It just really makes me feel inadequate. I have convinced myself that there has been some tomfoolery going on between her and at least one other.

Erin is bad in bed. Even when she is on top of her game, she still can't fully satisfy. Maybe I am just pissed off at her recent lay there and do nothing sack sessions, but I think this is valid. She is an incredibly selfish lover. Being intimate with someone is where I dest display my affections for someone. I want to make the other person feel loved and secure.

It all comes back to expectations. That primate instinct in my brain expected things that I did not communicate, and Erin's brain did the same thing. Now it comes down to brass tacks. Are we willing to give the other person what they need to proceed in this relationship? Based solely on the fact that Erin is unattracted to me speaks volumes. I could help her love herself and in time she could love me again, but that would take far too much time than I am willing to commit to someone I feel has taken me for granted.

I blame us both for this relationship falling apart. I blame her more than I blame myself, simply because Erin has not been honest with herself for a lot of the relationship. She clung to it, cursing me the whole time about why I couldn't be better, or why she didn't deserve me, or fooling herself that I was the stable rock that she needed when someone more flavor of the month would have been better. Erin has a lot of love for the people that she has been with in the past, and she still keeps that with her. I don't think I will be any different. Maybe someday she will have enough ex loves that she will finally decide to drop all her baggage with past men and love someone else truly. She needs to love herself.

Blizzard's Perfect (Shit)Storm

So, Blizzard announced this weekend that they are cutting previously announced features from Cataclysm; the most notable of these are Path of the Titans, and Guild Leveling/Currency. As I can recall, Path of the Titans was an alternate way to progress your toon once it hit the level cap other than doing PVE and PVP content, in addition to augmenting your character's stats and/or capabilities in PVE/PVP. This would intersect with the new Archeology secondary profession and let people get really into the lore of the warcraft universe.

Guild leveling would allow guilds to generate experience by doing raids, instances, battlegrounds, and achievements in order to make the guild a stronger entity. This would include a guild talent tree where points could be spent in order to increase proficiency at whatever the guild's goals were oriented towards.

These cuts feel like the removal of something that would make the game feel new and fresh again. Cataclysm seems like it is going to be more of the same. The developers are streamlining raiding with unified 10/25 raid ID lockouts, gear and talents are getting streamlined, and I don't see many new raid mechanics coming down the pipeline (but I could be wrong). A lot of the complexity, for better or worse, that exists right now is being taken out of the game.

I was really hoping that Path of the Titans would breathe some fresh air into the game and give the game something new to replace what is being removed. Even if it resembles a Farmville type (Do something, wait a bit, get reward, do something else) system, it would still be a little more fun than the current raiding environment. I am still pulling for Archaeology to add this type of randomness to a game that is getting more and more formulaic.

I can dig the new talent trees, but I still think they look too much like WOLK trees. I guess the huge shakeups from Vanilla -> BC -> WOLK in the talents have put me in a position to expect more. I might also be biased that I am comparing the trees that I play as alts and the Paladin tree might just get completely upended.

Behind all this it seems like Blizzard has overextended itself. It tried really hard to be all things to all people, and for that it has succeeded. Blizzard wants this game out by the end of the year, and it probably needed to cut what it did in order to make that deadline. The price that was paid was fun. I really think WoW is going to suffer from Activision syndrome this next expansion. They know what works, and they are going to keep milking that cow until the milk sucks. I fear that Cataclysm is going to drive off a lot of the veterans, and the WOLK babies are going to get what they have always gotten.

These cuts needed to happen. If the game goes for much longer without new life breathed into it, people are going to leave in droves. If we have to keep farming ICC until say march of next year and we ended up getting the Path and Guild features, I don't think the influx of people would offset how many people would leave. It is a numbers game at this point and they have too many people invested to take that chance. I would say that half the player has gear addiction and needs their fix.

The Cataclysm WoW population is going to be a cess pool of people of whiny jerks who are only in it to use each other to get better gear, pretty much what the LFD has become. I am leveling a bear druid through LFD and I have done dungeons where I nobody says a word throughout the entire thing. Everyone in the dungeon has shut down the higher functions of their brain and tries to get through it as quickly as possible, so they can get their gear.

This is a little tangential but it is an example of this behavior. Guitar Hero 1 was arguably the best game in the franchise in my opinion. It had personality, challenge and it was something fresh and new among all the platformers and sports games, and shooters. None of the music was licensed, it was all covers and they sounded good. I would argue that some of the appeal in the game was the covered music because it let the player get into the game more by knowing they weren't trying to be the stars who wrote the songs, they were just pretending. It didn't take itself too seriously, and it was a labor of love for the developers. All in it cost over 100 bucks to buy the thing and it still flew off shelves, cause it was something new and fun. Guitar hero today is just formulaic, homogenized and streamlined. Sound familiar?

The Big Crits crew are all amazing people, and right now it is because of them that I am probably going to keep playing. Getting H-LK down and getting people their drakes, no matter how futile it seems is what is driving me still.

Okay time for a nap for this old man. Gotta get my energy up to yell at those damn kids.

Healers in Cataclysm

It looks like Blizzard is going to give healers something to do rather than react to raid damage in Cataclysm. I am looking at the sneak peak at the released talent trees and I see some suspicious talents that convert damage into healing.

Priest:
Penitence (3 ranks) - Increases the critical effect chance of your Smite and Penance spells by 5/10/15%.
Atonement (3 ranks) - When you deal damage with Smite, you instantly heal a nearby low-health friendly target within 40 yards equal to 15/30/45% of the damage dealt.
Evangelism (2 ranks available) - When you cast Smite you gain Evangelism, increasing the damage done by your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 2/4% and reducing the mana cost of those spells by 3/6% for 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.
Archangel (1 rank available) - Consumes your Evangelism effects, instantly restoring 3% of your total mana and increasing your healing done by 3% for each stack. Also allows you to channel Penance while moving. Lasts 18 seconds.
Divine Accuracy (2 ranks available) - Increases the chance to hit with your Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova and Penance spells by 10/20%.

These might be aimed at PvP, but it looks like Priests might become shockadin types with a smart heal attatched. We will see, but this looks interesting in terms of the direction Blizzard is taking with Priests: heal when things are frantic, DPS when things are boring.

Shaman don't get as big a toolbox as Priests.

Shaman:

Focused Insight (5 ranks available) - After casting any shock spell, your next heal's mana cost is reduced by 15/30/45/60/75% of the cost of the shock spell, and its healing effectiveness is increased by 5/10/15/20/25%.

Druids also don't get the same breadth of tools as Priests.

Druid:

Fury of a Stormrage (3 points) - You have a 5/10/15% chance when you cast Nourish or Healing Touch to cause your next Wrath spell to be instant cast and cost no mana. Fury of Stormrage lasts for 8 seconds.

So, it looks to me like Blizzard is trying to make healing more dynamic in that you can heal and DPS at the same time either via boredom or skill. If two healers applicants look really evenly matched in their healing output, a little DPS could tip the scales in favor of the better player. The shaman shock mechanic looks a little weak sauce, but I'm sure it will get retuned, unless they adjust the coefficients on Shaman shock spells to make them hit a lot harder.

As an aside, it seems that all the released trees have a damage reduction talent in reach of all three specs. Is this a sign that raid damage will matter a lot more as healers fight to keep their blue bar at least partially filled?

The audacity of Earth

I have a plant outside my office. Well, I didn't put it there but since I have the closest proximity to it, I call dibs. It is starting to get pretty big, and it has been a while since the plant lady trimmed it. I am starting to hit it with my head as I walk to the get a drink, go to the bathroom, or go talk to my boss. The nerve. This plant had better learn a thing or two or I just might trim it myself.

If you are an inferior species, your choices are adapt or die. This plant better adapt and quick or it will lose a limb. I just might have to forbid it be watered as well. That will teach it a thing 'er two.

Heck, the planet itself had better watch it's step. Homo Sapiens are the dominant species now. We can dictate pretty much whatever we want to thanks to science and technology. We can extract food, heat, and whatever material need we can imagine out of the Earth. We have adapted, and we have grown dominant. For too long, people have been oppressed by the planet and have had to struggle and scrap for everything we have out of constant oppression. It's time the planet learned a thing er' two. It's Earth's turn to adapt or die.

Reckoning

Reckoning has gotten a very bad reputation since the days of BC, and especially after the first Reck bomb. Right now it is opposite of useful if you are a protection paladin, even if it was a 1 point talent. A white hit + seal proc is not a ton of damage or threat, and more white hits mean more parry opportunities for less threat and more incoming damage; granted there are like 2 bosses in ICC that parry haste, but I want to get away from that model and parrys should actually mean something in the future. Here is reckoning in it's current form:

Reckoning (5 talent points? WTF?!?)
Gives you a 2/4/6/8/10% chance after blocking or being hit by any damaging attack that the next 4 weapon swings within 8 sec will generate an additional attack.

Since reckoning is an offensive ability at it's core, it seems that it's proper place is in the Ret tree. I have grown fond of the 2PC T10 and I want to keep some randomness in the Ret Paladin rotation. Plus, Ghostcrawler and the dev team seem to be loving the idea of "Fun" abilities woven into our rotations based on procs and random crap that might happen in your rotation. In that spirit, I propose the new Reckoning:

Reckoning (3 talent points)
Your melee critical strikes have a 5%/10%/15% chance to allow you to cast a Hammer of Wrath within 10 seconds, but at twice the mana cost.

The mana cost thing is in there just to give the player a downside to the ability. If you spam it too much, you will run out of mana, or good players can regulate their mana and still have fun and do great DPS. It also allows the paladin some sort of ranged attack, potentially to keep pressure on a healer in PVP, or hit another target. Maybe even:

Improved Hammer of Wrath: (2 or 3 talent points based on balance)
Your Hammer of Wrath will now strike 1/2/3 additional targets within 15 yards, but each hit strikes at 75%/66%/50% damage.

Just something like this would add a lot of fun to the game for Ret pallies, and also potentially make the glyph a little more useful. For me especially, I like the randomness of an extra divine storm, but without the GCD locking that currently happens. Heck, right now Hammer of Wrath hardly makes it into my rotation due to it hitting like a rubber mallet. Come back and talk to me when it procs a seal.

I don't think this would make paladins overpowered again in PVP, although I wouldn't mind a little padding since I am terrible in Battlegrounds . It would also mix up PVE a lot in addition to filling in the flavor of this next expansion, "The Fun Button"

It also seems useful but optional. This wouldn't be terribly useful for single target fights. It also is very dangerous in the hands of a noob, as trash and heroics aren't going to be the AOE fests as Wrath is currently, and it will make the clcRET users have to think a little before mashing that next shiny button, which even I am guilty of most times.

I want to see dual spec become useful for Ret pallies as well. You have one spec for single target DPS, and one for utility/multiple target fights. If I want to tank or heal, there should be more of an opportunity cost involved than casting for 10 seconds. I should have to leave the instance, see the trainer, and buy glyphs.

P.S. Yes I saw the Tankspot post about fixed game mechanics. Yes I remember vividly the Reck bomb video. Yes I went half mast.

Ranty McRantrant

Crushadin said: "Jack quit... sry i didnt let you know."

I am not surprised in so many ways:

-Being a friend of an officer and apping to the guild for a raiding spot.
-Acting like a cock to me and others on the forums.
-Switching mains.
-Failing in every way on Herioc Dreamwalker.
-Vanishing without a trace.

My Gamer Bio

If you read this, and haven't seen the first episode of Big Crits go check it out: www.bigcrits.com

The featured raiders at Big Crits are all being asked to do a self bio to give people who watch the show an idea of who they are as gamers. I don't know whether this is to communicate to the viewers that the players are people, or to plunk down their phat gaming resume.

For some reason, gamers can be a very discerning breed when presented with a gamer peer. We immediately size them up based on their pedigree and/or gaming preferences. I have heard more of my share of gamers sneer when someone presents that they play Wii, Farmville, or whatever the casual flavor of the month is.

Gamers are gamers are gamers. Whether you grew up playing Magic: The Gathering, SNES, or frisbee golf, there is a spirit common to everyone one way or another that it is all about playing and having fun. If anyone wants to play, go play with em.

That being said, I want to share my bio.

As long as I can remember, there have been video games. Being a youngin' I can remember the allure of arcade games and knowing friends with these things called computers and Ataris. If I could manage to find a quarter, or get one from my parents, I think it found a home in the nearest arcade cabinet. The NES was my gateway drug: Super Mario 3, Megaman 2&3, Battletoads, then to the Sega Genesis, N64, and stopping at the PC Games, with a minor detour playing games on Macs (my dad is a little of an apple fanboy.)

My little brother and I were fiends at whatever game came our way. It's hard to say it but he is a much better gamer than me, even though I spend vastly more time playing than him. Any type of competetive game we played I think he won more than I did. Marathon deathmatches, Doom, Command and Conquer, Starcraft, Goldeneye 007; we hashed it out on em all, and any given day I think he could best me.

Consoles sparked my interest but PC games fueled the fire. I still game on consoles a bit, but there is nothing more satisfying than playing PC games on a rig you built yourself. Not only that, but Emulators and ROMs got me through many summers of boredom. I got caught up on SNES JRPGs, Super Metriod, and other games I missed by having a Sega as a kid. You can play a lot of free stuff that you can find if you look hard enough. Super Mario RPG was my unicorn though; I don't think I ever found a working ROM for many years, and when I finally found one, we were playing Baldur's Gate II and KOTOR, and it didn't quite stand up.

I remember resisting playing WoW for a very long time. I knew it would be fun and good, but the concept of paying a monthly fee to play a game seemed foreign to me; after all, I got through college playing cracked PC games because I was poor and had bandwidth. I started playing about a month or so after I split with my first fiancee, when some roommates of mine introduced me to it and hooked me up with a trial key. This was back in May 2006.

Saltycracker will be my first and only I think. I leveled him from 1-60 in around 15 days of playtime, but quickly got bored because there was not much to do for a retnoob at 60. BC came and I went Holy then Ret then Prot and cleared everything. Wrath came and I tanked and ansgted through T8, where I went back Ret and now roll my face with the best of em.

Being an electrical engineer I still dabble in consoles a bit, but I find more fun breaking them and modding them than actually playing some of the games. I gave my little brother a chipped Xbox with a ton of roms on it for christmas five years ago and he says it's the best gift he ever got; I had to replace the hard drive in it recently because it wore out. I currently live in Denver, Colorado and am extremely lucky to have a great friend and fiancee Erin. We are getting married in December in New Mexico.