Been Having a Few Bad Weeks

To misquote Darth Vader from Star Wars: A New Hope: "The Lag is strong in this one."

I was barely able to finish some of the dailies, but most of the time I simply can't take it anymore, log off and play Neverwinter Nights or C&C 3 instead. There has got to be a problem I overlooked somewhere for the lag to be this bad this long, right? Wrong - I've rechecked the connection, cleaned my WTF folder, ran anti-virus and anti-malware a couple of times and even shut off auto-update in hopes of making it go away. No such luck.

I'm left with the impression that it may have something to do with the US side data centre, but it's just a guess. Pretty soon, if situation does not improve, I may be forced not to renew my sub until Cataclysm (and my current sub expires this April 17th.).

Most of my adventurers aren't able to complete much of what they should - Aenur couldn't bring her devastating presence into Wintergrasp PvP... and during the times that she could, she did nothing more than stand like an idiot while that Fury Warrior cut her to pieces (ohaithar Mr. Lag, fancy meeting u here in WG). Aerhandor is six days behind in getting the Triumph needed for his leggings, and Aergor is barely leveling enough to make it to Northrend by the end of this month. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement - I was so frustrated that I almost wrecked my new keyboard in a fit.

Don't ask me how - I'm ashamed enough as it is.

So I won't be posting the weekly updates this time, even though there are a few tales that need telling. Suffice to say that my disappointment at the lag state far, far outweigh my desire to update the blog this week, for now.

Would You Pay to Play With A Girl?

Apparently there's a new topic flying around the WoW blogosphere, and it all seems to start from Pugnacious Priest's post here.

Out of curiosity (and a lot of boredom, since I'm at work and work is boring) I took a peek at her blog to see what the hullabaloo is all about - Klepsacovic was on the confession stand, Larisa was musing about her deadly curves - and after reading it, just can't understand it all.

I mean, here's a service being launched by a company, where players can sign up and for a fee play with a girl. I went, "Huh? Why do I have to pay for such a thing?"

Is it indicative of a sign of desperation among boy gamers? Is the stigma that boy gamers cannot bond with a girl that serious a corporation can come in and take advantage of it? Is this issue so dire that BD must step in and save the universe? Okay, maybe not that last part. But still, if you want to look between the lines, this speaks volume of the power of gaming industry - basically anything can be turned into profit.

Speaking for myself - I'm not signing up. I have a wife, a beautiful woman whom I courted and took to dinner and wooed under the moonlight (and sunlight) just to persuade her to spend the rest of her life with me. A wife, who for better or worse, still sat next to me when I'm doing my dailies and ask about the game sincerely even though her knowledge of WoW is equal to her knowledge in quantum slipstream technology (which is nil). That sincerity, to me, is worth more than knowing that someone is playing with you just because you paid her to.

Look at it strictly from a Goblin's point of view next: You pay real money for the experience of playing WoW with a girl. What did you spend? Real money. What did you get in return? Up to a couple of hours (depending on the money invested) of experience playing with a girl. Is there a tangible profit? If you're not raiding, you get some XP, a few tens of gold and some green items. Which is far more inferior than doing a single random heroic for half an hour or an hour of Tourney dailies. Gevlon would weep at this new foolishness of socials... maybe not, he'd probably set up the same service and milk those socials dry.

Now I would admit that there will be a few gamers out there who would purchase the service just to have fun with it. Maybe they'll giggle and laugh, have a few hours of fun and remember it as an episode in their life. But those that go back again and again and again just because they crave that sense of 'attachment' to someone definitely needs help.

The Good, The Bad... and teh darn Ugly

WoW-wise, there are days when you queue for randoms and got into a wonderful PuG, where everyone is nice and courteous and the run went smooth as silk, and by the end of the run everyone would be saying "Thanks for the awesome run" and "Excellent healing" or "Appreciate the run guys, see you later" and you'd be transported out with your loot, emblems and a warm feeling in your heart. Hell, maybe it's a commando run - silent, deadly, efficient, and you'd still leave with your sanity intact.

Then there are days when you seem to get the worst PuG. Tank or healer or someone bailed at instance start. Mismanagement of target priority and lost of aggro. The DPS who just wouldn't consider what he's doing when he jumps off the platform and dies, leaving the healer confused on how to rez him when we can't even see the body. And my personal favorite - "U dont noe wat ur doin!" from a scrub wearing blues and greens.

Yesterday however, I had the rare opportunity and misfortune to be in both a good PuG and an ugly PuG in one sitting.

Ugly PuG - I queued Aelyra up for a random heroic. It was her second or third random for the night after a successful previous run. As usual, right in the middle of her dailies the confirmation screen pops up, so she moved quickly to a safe location and hit Enter. Up came the loading screen for H HoS.

There was Aelyra the Hunter, a DK tank, a Mage and our healer (can't recall class, my bad). Then there's this Troll Rogue, let's call him Mr. D. So, after the initial hi and hello, DK tank asks if we're ready, then pulls when we've given him the green light. Trash packs went down nice and easy. Soon we were at the first boss, Krystallus. Now, in my experience I tend to die in about 75% of my encounters with him , due to his Shatter. So I was slightly apprehensive, but willing to give it a shot. We start, I pew-pewed, Krystallus roared, I pew-pe-KNOCKBACKSTUN SHATTER and I was dead besides our healer. Yeah, you heard me right - both me and healer was K.O-ed, leaving our DK tank, the Mage and Mr.D having a party with the boss man.

Amazingly, despite no heals (or maybe that's what I think) the DK tank continues to beat Krystallus down. Second Shatter, Mr. D bites the dust and I could only watch in growing horror at the unfolding carnage... wait, the DK is still at it!

Between him and the Mage, they managed to down Krystallus and saved the group from a complete disaster. By this time, the healer had run back and is starting to rez both me and Mr. D. (I hadn't released, yes I know it's bad, but I would've missed seeing our tank won the match). And immediately after being rezzed, Mr. D proclaimed, loudly and in caps - "STUPID DK USE UR DEATHSTRIKE U FAIL AT BEING TANK" or something very close to that. A moment of silence while Aelyra's recovering. Then Mr. D spoke up again - "Sry tat was my friend he thinks ur a fail tank and I do too".

Interesting - someone thinks the tank, who has successfully tanked the boss without the support of his healer and two of his DPS members, is being called a fail tank because of one DK skill? Then the DK spoke up: "I'm a Frost tank bub, I don't use Death Strike".

Mr. D apparently is not convinced. As the group moves towards the next trash pack he kept saying in party chat how the tank is a noob (actually he claimed his 'friend' is saying that, but he's concurring with every word the 'friend' says) and the tank kept defending himself. After hearing this going on for a few minutes, I spoke up, defending the tank and asking the now worked-up Mr. D to lay off. The argument actually escalated until we're right before the Maiden of Grief. Then the Mage DC'ed.

DK tank explains that he wants to wait a couple of minutes for the Mage, see if she's coming back or not. So to fill in the waiting gap, I typed a joking emote indicating Aelyra's charging like a mad Belf at the boss - and subsequently there was chaos as someone actually aggroed Maiden. The tank bailed during this period, we wiped... and Mr. D said to me, in perfect satisfaction - "Told u hes a fail tank". To be honest, I'm thinking my joke emote was wrongly interpreted by the tank as an actual attempt and being incensed by Mr. D's earlier picking on him, had decided this group is not worth it and bailed, leaving us to wipe. But seriously, I too had enough of Mr. D and dropped the group immediately - but not before saying to him: "He's a competent enough tank to live when some of us are eating the floor, matey."

Good PuG - It was quite late in the night, Aelyra had finished a few random heroics and by this time had enough Triumphs to buy her next T9 item. I was looking over the trade window, evaluating each gear and wondering which set piece I should prioritise when Rage (one of my guildie) asks in gchat if anyone is interested in running some heroics. I figured I may sign up for one so I can start stacking more emblems towards the next T9 item and said yes. Another guildie, Devastatior, also said yes. So there we are - two Hunters, a DPS DK, queued in Dungeon Finder.

Pretty soon (if you can call an average waiting period of 15 minutes 'soon') we were joined by a tank and healer, and got H DTK as our heroic. Initial buffing, a few short exchange, the Pally tank asks - the only time he's ever spoken in party chat, I found out later - "Rdy?". We said yes. So he starts the pull.

I was at first amused, then grew amazed, and finally was outright speechless when he pulls the first trash pack in that hallway, then move to the next (mind you, first pack is not yet dead) then the next, and the next... until we found that he's tanking the entire hallway's trash in one go. I had to resort to AoE-ing the whole group, then when he's done the same thing happened - chain-pulling the entire trash pack along the way and AoE-ing them down. Me and Rage were by this time full of amazement at this display of speed run. Managed to choke out a few strangled line in gchat too.

The only snag came during King Dred - I wasn't sure what happened, but Mr. Amazing Tank died during the fight and subsequently the group wiped. I think during the fear, he took serious beating and healer couldn't recover in time. It was at this time we discovered that he's only got 24k unbuffed health - only 2k more than Aenur. But again, he's shown that he can so tank - on the next try, King Dred goes down and the group continues the lightning run up to Tha'ronja. And win.

Mr. Amazing Tank leaves immediately after the boss dies, not even waiting for loot to be distributed. Since Rage wanted to do the Dra'kuru event, me and Devast waited until the end and had a quick discourse about that run. Rage was more contemplative than amazed, wondering if he could pull that stunt with his Druid tank.

Me? Well, I got the Triumphs out of this run - and not having any proper tank to work on, feel comfortable enough recording Mr. Amazing Tank (Poffa's was his name I think, can't recall his server) most memorable run with Aelyra.

Oh, and also - I got the T9 chest piece for Aelyra. Enchant it, gem it, and boom! Instant 100+ AP increase. I are happy nao =)

Jousting - Oh, How I Hate You So

As expected, Aelyra dinged Exalted with Silvermoon City last night after handing in her dailies. So now it's time to take the jousting test again. I wasn't apprehensive at that point - I had done the Grand Melee quest over and over before, and I know how the Argent Champion NPC fights. And even though the comp's saying 1k latency and 11 fps, I wasn't daunted - I've done jousts under worst conditions, so I figured, "Meh, let's get this over with."

Equipped the lance, mounted the Hawkstrider, and away to Squire Danny I go.

And got my butt handed to me in all three matches (the first attempt, plus two subsequent attempts).

At first I was amazed - how could this be? Since when did the Argent Champion became godlike at jousting? Or had my own skills atrophied? But on the fourth attempt, when I closely observe the fight, it became crystal clear. He was CHEATING!! There was no other way to explain it - He was charging and throwing Shield-Breakers at point-blank range, while my Shield-Breakers were screeching 'Target was too close'. His skill cooldowns were non-existant, he can basically use Charge, Shield-Breaker and Shield within half a second from one another. He had me down to half-health and no shields while he's barely scratched! I was incensed - time to call in the cavalry! A guildie, Roywen, answered my distress call and came in all ready to Shadowbolt and take names - but when the fight started, the Argent Champion automatically ended the match. Wha...?

Turns out Blizzard had re-tooled the fight so that any outside interference would disqualify the attempt.

I would hereby state my official stand on the matter - This quest should be rated poorly. Whoever implemented this is doing so without taking into account the lag on the player's side, the difference between NPC skill CDs and the player's, as well as being buggy enough (NPC ran all the way out of the ring during the fight and claim auto-victory) that you cannot find the 'fun' in it. Heck, you can't even use any of the innate strength of your class to win - you are fully limited to 3 basic skills on your mount.

As of now, Aelyra is stuck on The Valiant's Challenge... at least until I find out that the latency has dropped and the connection is stable enough for me to at least stand on equal lag ground with the blasted cheating Champion. Until then, I would have no choice but to lose every against him and hear his mocking voice saying:

"You are not good enough to become Champion. Come back after you have more training."

Hah - easy for you to say, cheater.

EDIT: Finally nailed the encounter with an unorthodox but highly effective tactic - which took almost 5 minutes for a single joust >.< I would not mention the tactic here, because it gives me more dishonor points than being AFK during a BG.