*edit*

Then again…

I start to feel happy about the whole thing and say “well why not try a pug or two with Fran” – and asshat after asshat reminds me of why I quit pugs and WoW in the first place.  And the system says “hey your armor isn’t good enough for this other instance you were all going to do.”

“But then how do I get the good armor?” you say to the screen.

And the screen stares blankly back at you with its glow and you can almost hear a small voice in the background…as if the grunting from a large blizzard gorilla in the distance. You listen carefully and it says:

“Who cares…shove it up your bum”.

Oh yes…thats why I quit and went to Fallen Earth.  Go back to WoW? I think it’s time to lay down until the feeling goes away.

* close edit*

What put me in mind to add my own personal interjection into the work by our team are yesterdays posts by Syp over at Bio Break.  If you have not read them you should. They are about what seems to be a love/hate relationship with the new Dungeon Finder tool (something I have, in the past referred to as the “looking for abuse” tool). They are here and here.

As our listeners and readers know about us (at least about the “out front” part of those who make No Prisoners, No Mercy what it is – there are others but we won’t tell you who they are unless they want us to)…

Anyway, as they know, despite my perennial stance that Rob Pardo is both “The Man” and “In League with the devil” I had to be dragged kicking and screaming back to World of Warcraft (read Fran asked me so many times I relented).

Lately the “Dungeon Finder” tool seems to have changed its feelings about me. At first it was telling me “looking for anyone but you” (I could only surmise why and I may be wrong at this point). Lately however, whenever members of The Older Gamers (TOG) get together for a random heroic  things seem to go much better.  Why? I don’t know (maybe Rob Pardo listens to our podcast…I know other game publishers do I just don’t know about him).  All I can say is things seem to have changed around. (Heck I am even getting invites to Naxramus these days).

Syp may find that the dungeon finder tool makes him less timid. Me? I have never had a problem in those areas – usually I am too wrapped up in what is going on to notice the banter.  I am so busy with shot rotation and keeping tabs on my pet that I simply don’t have time to type comments and I am not sure how other people do (ToG uses ventrillo).

Ironically, the dungeon finder tool doesn’t break immersion for me.  I say ironically because using ventrillo always does. I just like being able to click two buttons and away I go…and gently placed right back where I started when it is all over. Anyone who has ever been through trying to organize a 40 person raid back in the days when Molten Core was the “it” place to be will find this feature a breath of fresh air.

Now as far as damage meters are concerned I have never used one and I never will.  If there is a built in damage meter somewhere I don’t want to know about it or how to use it. I completely agree with the quote from Syp:

“This is a pet peeve of mine from back in my TBC raiding days.  I simply, completely, totally and undeniably loathe damage meters.  I curse the day that the damage meter mod creator was ever born.  I would be completely fine if the mod would cause any computers using it to simultaneously melt down until their owners learned their lesson.” – Syp from BioBreak

In fact the whole “My epeen (or ebra in my case) is bigger than yours” and the gear snobbery is why I refuse to participate in a pug any more. Even in those instances when we have had to substitute in a fifth pug member it rarely seems to turn out well. 

But the one feature I really appreciate the most is the whole “vote to kick” feature.  My introduction came when a new tank joined our group (otherwise a ToG group) and, as was described in an earlier post, decided the best place to tank a boss was on top of the healer. After the expected wipe occurred (I can still see the boss running back toward my hunter in the last row) he initiated a vote to kick the healer. Isn’t it always the case…yup the healer is always at fault.

But for me, the high point of my return to the game was the addition of a spirit beast to my stable of pets.  After long periods of searching for one before I took a break there it was…just waiting there. No one else was around to try and kill it while I was taming it.  There was no race with another hunter to try and tame the beast first – Just me, the snow, and the spirit beast.

And that’s my two gold pieces worth.

Julie Whitefeather

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