...my adoring fanbase deserves an update.
Uh, the Chargers won a playoff game! But Norv Turner still sucks, and some of the Chargers are classless (LT obviously being the exception to any bad thing I ever say about the Chargers... LT, please come to Denver).
But I didn't come here to tell you about that.
I post in several forums, very often. I post in a place called Barry's World, which is a collection of Counter-Strike clan rejects who found their own little corner of the Internet and crafted perhaps the next phase of Internet evolution: the "No being offended" rule. Seriously, once every forum figures this out, flamewars and trolling are over (or, more importantly, reduced to their comedic value without the venom).
I post on the World of Warcraft forums, the value of which, heh, is only for trolling and starting flamewars. Sometimes, it's fun to be childish, you just have to pick the right places and moments.
I post on my World of Warcraft guild forums, coordinating raid times, arena times, and sharing new tips on how to progress further into game content. If you don't know, with games like World of Warcraft, you can't beat the game by yourself like you could with Super Mario Bros. Arguably, you can't beat the game at all, but for the sake of comparison, to beat the WoW version of King Koopa, you need 24 other people to come with you and know what they're doing. Additionally, there are no warp pipes: these 24 needed to (essentially) be with you through levels 6-1 through 8-3, without skipping a step in between. SOOOO, communication is invaluable to "beat the game," and talking while you are actually playing doesn't always further that goal. So, I post on those forums too.
By the way, I split infinitives. Always. So does Jean-Luc Picard before every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you can find a better way to say "to boldly go" and still make it sound as cool without causing confusion with the meaning, please, instruct me. You will fail. But hopefully you will also learn to split your infinitives. Don't limit your language the way others have limited theirs. "To" is seperate. Use it to your advantage.
Back to the convoluted point: Oftentimes, I will post something rather lengthy on one of these forums, edit it a few times, then realize that no one who reads it is going to give two poops about what I wrote. Or, to be a little more clear, the content and style of my post is inappropriate for the maturity or attention span of the forum audience.
At the same time, I have this blog I haven't touched for a year.
So, I decided in the last ten minutes that, rather than simply erase those lengthy forums posts (or worse, post them in hopes of vibrant response), I will post them here for all of you (all two of you) to read. The content will not always be decipherable, but I tend to use analogies when I can, so maybe there will be something there that's worth reading. And maybe not. If nothing else, it will be a depository of thoughts I had on varied subjects... which is somewhat what a blog is supposed to be.
Did you get all that?
So, here's the most recent lengthy post that I decided NOT to post (cut short somewhat, once I realized I had no intention of actually posting this):
I played EQ2 for six months and raided the high end content (back when level 50 was the cap).
I loved the crafting. It was a lot of fun, but kind of broken because no one wanted to buy anything of the first three quality levels, and it was easy to make the best quality item, so those other items were sort of fluff. I'm generalizing, because quality level 2 items served a purpose, albeit a force-fed, unnecessary purpose.
Raiding was sort of bleh, with one exception: the Darathar fight. The rest of it, as I understood it, didn't require much coordination. I know Shade of Aran is an easy fight, but consider the stuff you have to know and do to stay alive. I don't remember anything as complicated as that in EQ2--and if it was, it was to compensate for glaring BUGS in the fight and not intended obstacles. Even Darathar is like a dumbed-down Nightbane: Stand behind his right foot, don't draw agro, heal up when he flies away (and Darathar didn't drop any adds on you). Having never played EQ1, but hearing about how complex it is, Darathar is an example of dumbed-down content.
Again, before you bash me, remember this was level 50 content. So much might have changed by now (for instance, there was NO pvp at that point).
The reason I left is my version of how SOE is basically beta-testing their live content through paid subscriptions and screwing the player over without good reason. I played a Troubadour, and I didn't know when I started, but basically I was a physical DPS buffbot. Everyone loved me and if I was on at the starting time, I was always selected for raids, because Rangers (who suck, btw) love to see their DPS go through the roof when a Troubadour is in the party.
Then the SOE "big change nerf" hit. Basically, SOE changed my character completely--instead of buffing physical DPS, I was buffing magic DPS. But Troubadours aren't casters, so I had no idea which of my new, revamped buffs were most beneficial to casters and which, though sounding cool, were broken and useless. Also, because I wasn't a caster, my buffs didn't do anything to buff ME, which killed my solo ability--I could still get some stuff done, but not nearly as easily as before. Put simply, it was like starting from zero, having to learn my character all over again. MY character, that I leveled to 50, starting out with zero knowledge. I might as well have just bought the character off of Ebay for how much I knew how to use it at that point.
So, I quit and didn't play anything else for a year and a half until TBC came out.
Maybe EQ2 has fixed the issues that made me quit, but I'm having way more fun in WoW than I ever did in EQ2. I'm not really going to analyze why, either.
