How New Parents Can Annoy Guildies

I am learning the hard way; and because I don’t want this to happen to you, I am sharing my trials and tribulations.

1. Tell them again and again and again if you ask to run any heroics, you would love to but if the baby wakes up you will have to leave.  (They freaking know you have a kid under the age of 5 months.  Just leave and then say you are sorry.  No details needed.  Of course if the house is burning down, it might be helpful to tell them, in case you can’t get to the phone to call for assistance.)
2. Talk about ANOTHER 500th cute (only to you at this point) story about how the baby blew a fart.
3. You attempt to resist but still fail,and talk about how adorable said child is at this moment while he sucks on his toes.  (Honestly, they don’t care. Especially if they don’t have children or under the age of 25.  The concept and awww factor is limited to those who are ready for kids, have them or love puppies)
4. Don’t try to run a heroic or raid with your partner, EVER. Even if the baby is asleep.  Both times Luis and I have attempted this, it has resulted in apologizes, emergency feedings and one-handed game play.
1. Talking about one-handed game play. It is totally possible to quest one-handed while cradling a sleeping baby in your other arm.  Tools needed:  An armed chair and a pillow for comfort.  Or in my husband case, one arm cradling while resting AJ on the Boppy pillow I used a total of three times during leave.
5. Limit the baby aggro jokes.  Again this falls into “while your world has changed mine has not” category for others.  They don’t need another reminder you have a little one.
6. Don’t put the wailing child on vent. 

This is our gaming Public Service Announcement for new parents.  What other tidbits do you want to share?

PS. I wonder if there is a new parents gaming support group? You know where child crazy gamers can annoy the shit out of EACH other instead of others.

PSA for Scammers

Hello Mr. Scammer:

I received one of your lovely emails this morning, and in an effort to assist you into duping more individuals for your heinous deeds, I have a few sugguestions:
First the positives.

• You managed to send it to the correct email account.  This may be because I was hacked a few months ago, and you guys have a swapping system going- don’t know- but good job!
• You managed to write Blizzard Entertainment as the sender without a misspelling!  Way to go to make it look legit.

Now let us look at the negative:

Subject: Battle.net Account Management

Blizzard Entertainment ✆

to me
show details 5:11 AM (5 hours ago)
world of warcraft: Cataclysm Beta Test Invitation!
(Really? You couldn’t capitalize World of Warcraft? It is a proper noun.)
Get those opt-ins ready for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta! (New paragraph, you want this to stand out! It is after all carrot you are dangling!)The sundering of Azeroth is nigh, and you don’t want to be left out in  the cold of Northrend when you could be enjoying the sun-drenched beaches on the goblin isle of Kezan.( Nice imagery, too bad you guys are a bunch of soul-leaching assholes) To ensure you’re opted-in and eligible as a  potential candidate, you’ll need a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account, have your current system specifications uploaded  to the Battle.net Beta Profile Settings page, and have expressed interest through the franchise-specific check boxes.(Um, seriously, you are like 5 months behind.  This message would have been much more effective when Blizzard was actually asking everyone to update their Beta Profiles.)
Get the Installer - Log in to your Battle.net account: (Link removed-good job here masking a legit looking address with your “take all your candles” site. )
** IMPORTANT ** To avoid graphical bugs and other technical issues, please ensure your video card drivers are up-to-date.
Enjoy the game!
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
(Blah, blah, blizzard address /wowindex/)  You guys did such a good job, just a few paragraph before, at least try  to hide your phishing site.

Overall, not the worst spam email I have encountered, but I would really work on trying to keep it consistent and current with the news.  You may return to your horrific practices. 
May murlocs eat your eyes, sewer scum.

CC Me Baby, Redux

 

Often when you are raging about something you missed from the past of WoW, it is easy to forget others have never seen what the hell you are whining about and to them it is moot.

Case in point.  A comment I received from my pal Jardal regarding my last post.

jardal said...

I never got to high level play until Wrath, but I gotta say... I like the idea of CC, but not how it has been done in the past.
In the past you brought a mage, a priest, or a hunter as your DPS cause... well... you needed CC. (or so I hear)
They're adding more CC to other classes, but I want ways to do these new instances without someone getting kicked because we have no CC.

 

First, thank you, Jardal for your comment.  You bring a valid point and hey, you got me to write another post! Win on both counts.

See, since I am thinking of this from the perspective of someone who had experienced the very phenomenon Jardal feared, I realized I may have not explained or expressed how CC would/could be in Cata.

I am not in the beta and thus can not give an accurate account, but I truly think what Jardal fears- people getting kicked or being denied to raid- is not going to happen.

During all of Vanilla Wow and most of Burning Crusade though, I would have agreed and often saw many people left out in the cold because they couldn't sap or sheep ( at the time the two more reliable forms of CC).

However, much like the homogenization we have experienced in Wrath, the same will apply to CC in Cata.  At the moment, every class has a form of CC.  Granted, some are more relatable, but each class will have something in their tool box they can bring.

When CC is needed, often you will need only a few at time and now, most of the CC spells affect more than one type of mob.  By the time Wrath came out the following have been given the classes (taken from WoWwiki, because I am lazy and they did a better job).  My comment is in bold.

Control Abilities can be re-applied an unlimited number of times, and take a mob effectively out of combat as long as the CCer wants to:

• Mage - Polymorph (beasts, critters and humanoids only)
• Hunter - Freezing Trap (most types of mob, requires good skill to chain trap-I believe you can no longer chain trap “cry”), Wyvern Sting (talent ability)
• Warlock - Banish (demons/elementals), Enslave Demon (demons only), Seduction (Pet ability, Humanoids only)
• Priest - Shackle Undead (undead only)
• Druid - Hibernate (beasts and dragonkin only), Entangling Roots (Usable indoor since Patch 3.0.2)
• Paladin - Repentance (humanoids, undead, dragonkin, giants and demons only)
• Shaman - Hex (humanoids and beasts only)

These Secondary CC Abilities can control a mob for some time, but either break easily, need frequent reapplication or have other restrictions which make their continued use impractical, and therefore cannot be generally used to take a mob out of combat indefinitely:

• Mage - Frost Nova and other frost spells
• Priest - Mind Control (humanoids only), Psychic Scream, Mind Soothe
• Rogue - Sap (humanoids only rank 1-3, Humanoids, Beasts, Demons and Dragonkin rank 4, cannot be applied in combat), Blind, and various stuns and stun-lock tactics
• Druid - Cyclone, Soothe Animal, and some stuns
• Paladin - Turn Evil (undead and demons only), some stuns
• Hunter - Pet's stun and various root/slow/stun shots
• Warlock - Fear
• Warrior - various stuns
• Death Knight - Chains of Ice

Now, from here to the release of Cata, we may see some changes to these spells, but I firmly believe no one will be excluded because they don’t bring a certain CC.  Just before the release of Wrath, with the addition of Repentance and druids being able to use Entangling Roots indoors, people were able to bring whatever toon they wanted to an instance or raid.  I am sure when everyone starts to use their CC spells again, it will be the same way.

Blizzard has shown us they really want us to ‘bring the player not the class’ and I don’t see that changing.

What do you guys think?  Anyone in the beta ready to say “Nay, they are screwing the pooch!” or “Yes, it is just like you are saying.”

CC Me, Baby

I am not a huge lover of change, but I adapt.  I accept and I move on.  Remember downraking?  There was a time in the past when I thought I couldn’t heal without doing it.  It was how I learned and now Blizz was taking it away from me! How would I survive!  I didn’t freak on the web, or in-game.  Most didn’t even know I had reservations. 

Like most things with WoW, and in life, you just have to wait and see.  I waited and when downraking died, I was surprised to feel only the slightest twinge of pain at its lost.

This includes a multitude of other things which have changed since WoW inception, such as raid sizes, daily quests, LFG, character transfers, faction transfers, etc.

My husband, Luis spend a couple of days freaking out over the new talent trees and such, with me just saying, “You have no idea how it is going to work in the big picture.  Wait for the game, then freak if your class still sucks.”

He finally understood when he heard it from others.  Now I have a small confession. 

I didn’t like Wrath of the Lich King.  Sure it brought some cool things, like phasing and LGF, and dual talents, but it took away something I thought I never would miss: Crowd Control.

As I drove to my sister-in-law’s house yesterday, Luis and I somehow got into the discussion and the nerd rage spiked. Good thing AJ was asleep. 

Crowd Control is important.  It brings another layer of difficulty to the game now sadly lacking.  I hate that I can go into an LFG pug and no one even speaks. It is just AOE pull after AOE pull.  There isn’t any finesse, any strategy, any real skill.  It is just button mashing at is finest, while eating a sandwich and watching The Bachelor.

A small part of me died the other day when I went into a group and did Repentance.  Someone asked me what spell was that and what did it do.

/Facepalm

What the hell!  When did we allow an entire expansion generation to go almost two years without even knowing what constitutes a CC spell and how it is used.

Another bit of my hunter pride whimpered when traps are only used in specific raid encounters.  Part of this change in CC philosophy killed my desire to play Bre.  I loved trapping.  There is a rush of knowing I was responsibility for a mob, dpsing and making sure the CC didn’t break.   It adds suspense, challenge and awareness. I was proud of my ability, only to have it voided by the game itself.

It made my heart sick.  And also removed some of my joy at playing. 

I have heard through out the time Wrath has been out, Blizzard is thinking of bring CC back.

Yes. Blizz. Do it. 

Make me CC. I beg you. I want it.  I want to know I can’t WTFPWN something just by grouping all the mobs together and spamming a couple of buttons.  I want to see saps, sheeps, shackles, banshed demons and  repented sinners; I want to see Oh Shit Death Grips done right, and awesome cyclones. I want to see frost traps and stuns.  I want to hear, “Hurry up! My sap is going to expire in 3 seconds.”

Bring it, Blizz, bring it.  We can handle the job. 

Yessss, Let that Muther F**ker Burn!

Now that I am a mother, this comic strip says it all.  More than ever I have a burning desire to kill shit and pvp!  Thanks to Kes for leading me to Complex Actions.

What Do Women Gamers Want?

On my reader today, an interesting article jumped out at me, Why Video Game Designers Are Missing The Mark With Women. I went on over and enjoyed what the author had to say.  Especially dealing with the armor/clothing on female characters.

This is not a new complaint.  It even has a Tvtrope.

Stop, from Stoppable Force, provided a great example:


 For a more extreme example check this one out: http://www.wowhead.com/item=29928#.

Seriously boys.  We get it. You like boobs and skin.  Normally, this doesn’t really annoy me, but when my dwarf paladin is running around Northern in skimpy chainmail, I really must question her intelligence.

However, as a gamer and a woman there were a few other points I wish she had brought up. Now my experience in gaming is a little different than the traditional gamer.  I am VERY picky when it comes to games, and often lose my interest in them just as fast.

Thus, I have only played a very limited number of games, and have seen my brother, father and husband play a bunch more.

Here is my criteria for a game to hold me attention. 

• Excellent characters and story
• Forcing the player to think about solutions
• Engaging world and playability

Which is what I think more women gamers want.

Games with brains.

Yeah, we like to think. We like psychology. We want to spend hours reading through text and getting into a story.  For many, games like KOTOR, Bioshock, Half-life, Halo, Mass Effect gives them the best of both world.

However, my favorite genre of games is not longer popular.

I am a huge fan of point-n-click adventure games.

During the late nineties there was a rush of “adventure” games, like The Longest Journey, Circle of Blood,  The Gabriel Knight series, and  Grim Fandango.  RPG’s are okay, but few are able to met these requirements. I have only played one in the last couple of years which has met these points:
Dragon Age, I love you.

These games all had great stories, memorable characters and were challenging.  They didn’t however involve jumping, fighting or trying to time a specific button to cause an effect.

I am not saying those game are not fun, obviously they are,  just not for me.  I am amazed I have played WoW so long because it does require me to do all those things.  However, the great thing about WoW is I don’t have to do this.  I can spend the whole day dancing in Dalaran if I want, or just pick herbs.  The freedom to spend my time anyway I choose, makes me want to tackle a hard instance or healing an impossible situation. 

I want a choice.  I want to be able to achieve the same result by multiple avenues. 

Basically, I want more games like those adventure games.  Games where you could take your time.  Games with mental challenges (if anyone played The Beast Within, you know what I mean when I say “cuckoo clock”) and fantastic stories.  I want real plots and twists.  I want characters I can invest my energy.  I want game control which won’t break my brain. Seriously, if I have to take a college course to figure out how to walk, something is broken.

Do that, and I am loyal. I will buy your stuff years after your last game.

Yes, Jane Jensen, I am looking at you.

What about you ladies in the interwebs? What do you look for in a game?  What brings you back for more? What would you like to see more?

Welcome Back!

*Clears her throat*

 I say it more to myself than anyone else. If anyone remembers I used to write a WoW blog a long time ago (in internet years, a year = 10 years), called Gun Loving Dwarf Chick.

A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally killed the site. Which I find very ironic, since the need to return to the site was increasing.

I tired to return to my old blogger site, but soon realized one of the reasons I stopped writing on my original site was due to my change of interests in toons and in game. Thus Game Loving Geek Chick was born.

This time around, we are going to keep it simple. A free site. No fancy plugins and time wasting on code. Going to write and post and that is it.

What to expect from this small space? Rambling on WoW mostly, any other games I may pick up and general geeky goodness I stumble across (this may translate into an unhealthy amount of i haz cheeseburger pics).

I hope you come for the beer and stay for the company!

*Hugs the interwebs*