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Showing posts from June, 2009

Daniel Larison

This is why I added him to the blogroll. He writes for the American Conservative: Americanists believe that any statement from the President that fails to build up and anoint Mousavi as the preferred candidate is discouraging to Mousavi and his supporters, because they apparently cannot grasp that being our preferred candidate is to be tainted with suspicion of disloyalty to the nation. It is strange how nationalists often have the least awareness of the importance of the nationalism of another people. Many of the same silly people who couldn’t say enough about Hamas’ so-called “endorsement” of Obama as somehow indicative of his Israel policy views, as well as those who could not shut up about his warm reception in Europe, do not see how an American endorsement of a candidate in another country’s election might be viewed with similiar and perhaps even greater distaste by the people in that country. Good old fashioned hard-headed realism.

The new emblem system

Well, this has been done to death already, but I had a few thoughts: 1) I thought this would happen earlier. Heroics were getting deserted within a couple months of the Wrath launch, as there was no reason to run them. The solution Blizzard has landed upon is in fact what I would have done from the start--i.e., keep the lower tier raids and heroics one badge level below the cutting edge stuff, so that people will be able to get a bit of gear just from grinding. This was basically how it was in BC. For my part, I see this as a reason to keep people online and running stuff with their friends on off nights. As it is, for a top player or near top, there isn't much reason to get on when it isn't raid night. 2) Calling these " welfare epics " is missing the point. Blizzard has made the lower tier gear pretty easy to get in Wrath (Naxx), it's just now the gear has inflated a bit. Elite raiders will be rocking full tier 9 way before the 5-man grinders can get 8.5.

More thoughts on classic raids

The basic draw of the old world stuff for me is, I think, the story behind everything. I'm one of those gamers that (on my first toon anyway) read every quest description, marveled at the zones and the lore, and read up on a great deal of stuff. This is why I'm now leveling a Horde character--to see what I missed story-wise. When I play other RPGs or shooters I really like to poke around and see what kind of interesting nuggets of backstory I can find here and there. For example--Half-Life, where in the various games you can see the G-man (and a lot more) every once in a while if you explore a lot. (My favorite shooter series, by the way.) The thing about WoW lore is that it's not that great--B+ level fantasy, I'd say. It's got some great sub-plots (Tiron Fordring and the Ashbringer) and some lousy ones (Varian Wrynn), but the ability to be there and watch it all happen is really cool --it makes what would be a mediocre book into a near-transcendent experience

Classic raiding

Tobold has another post up that piqued my curiosity. He disdains the possibility of classic raiding guilds (apparently not aware that there are at least a couple classic guilds out there that refuse purchase of TBC or WotLK). He's probably right that the vast majority of players aren't very interested in raids where you don't get the latest and greatest gear. However, I think he discounts the power of nostalgia and history too much. Lots of people enjoy going into those old world raids (like me--I still have yet to make it into the Sunwell, to my eternal dismay). One of the interesting properties of WoW's constant updates is that raids and zones are systematically discarded, and the bleeding-edge population moves on, leaving the old zone basically empty. But my feeling poking around the old raids was the powerful pull of historical curiosity--I wanted to know what the classic raids were like, how the bosses worked, etc. And I had a great time doing it. The con

MMO combat

Tobold has an important post up about hypothetical combat systems for MMO games. I think he hits on most of the important parts, but perhaps underestimates how difficult it is to make a decent combat system. Execution is Blizzard's trademark, and a conservative combat system that functions perfectly will always be better than an innovative one with many bugs. But I think he's on to something. WoW will probably be considered the pinnacle of the hotkey style of combat, but with new technology, different styles will be brought forth. Check out Tobold's post--more later.

Sigh.

Politicians suck. We in America trust too much in the supreme leader of power--we would rather hand the reins over to someone else rather than yank the power back ourselves. Cause, well, it's hard , and a huge pain in the ass to go out and organize and build coalitions of Congresscritters and write letters, etc. It sucks. But we're learning now that no man can be trusted with the reins of the most powerful country on earth. Inevitably, he will fail us all. Power is a ratchet--no man will give up the power his predecessor gained for him. It must be wrenched back from his grasp.

Now that's spiritual

UPDATE: Comment win: "When I feel like shit. I watch this and replay it over and over again until I get this feeling and it becomes that much more harder to breathe because of epic reality check this video gives me." Reality check, indeed. Science rocks.

Solo-man

Recently, I've taken to soloing old-world raids since my guild is small and I usually can't play much during the evening when they're raiding. I did AQ20 all the way to the end, skipping a couple bosses, which was pretty easy. Often the trash is harder than the bosses, due to weird mechanics like eating you alive. (It's actually possible to solo those things as a tank paladin, you just have to stay at max range and hit exorcism and avenger's shield.) The Molten Core trash is fairly easy, and the temptation to skip it often leads you to pulling 5-6 mobs. The Firelords are among the worst, as they spawn an add that multiplies like bacteria if you don't kill it quick. Plus, they silence you for 20 seconds , locking me out of everything but Hammer of the Righteous. Core Hound packs are probably the most annoying trash, as all 5 or so have to die with in 10 seconds or they get rezzed by their brethren. I learned to not underestimate the power of the prote

TNC

Ta-Nehisi Coates has just been added to my blogroll. He's a big-time Atlantic blogger who also plays WoW . This one's a keeper: This is the sort of logic that leads people to complain that there is no white history month. It's my great nightmare that I, or my son, ever sound like that--smug, self-satisfied, unreflective, whiny and narcissistic. It's the sort of comment that betrays a man bereft of any deep interest in this country's history. But if you've never had to grapple with who you are in relation to other people, if you've never had to worry much about courting people who aren't like you, if you've never struggled with being politically correct, it's exactly the sort of thing you'd say. Check him out.

Identity

Honor's Code said something interesting the other day: Gevlon of Greedy Goblin - I don't agree with him philosophically, but I want to learn what I can from him to increase my own meager supply of WoW gold. I love how he wraps philosophy and his world view into nearly every post while still staying on topic. I would love to develop that skill more in my own blog. Honors himself often references the fact that he is a (presumably fundamentalist) Christian, and blogs occasionally about religious subjects. I don't begrudge him this, either, it's his blog of course, and he can do with it what he likes. (Actually, I highly recommend Honor's Code--he really knows his paladin tanking, and his latest series about working through Ulduar is excellent.) But wrapping your philosophy around everything you write has its downsides. Honors isn't an Andrew Sullivan -style introspective believer. He as a link to the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed , which I sincerely

Attitude

Larisa has another keeper over at the Inn, and it got me to thinking. It's very easy to become disillusioned in WoW. The late content tends be very repetitive, and one can get bored with grinding. Yet when I recall my first days in WoW, they were very nearly rapturous. Never had I seen a game so captivating or fun. Of course, part of that was massive feel of the world--who can forget the first time wandering into a high-level zone and aggroing a huge skull-level mob? Everything was fresh, new, and interesting. I think there's more to it than that. Back in n00b days, I didn't read the forums, I didn't read wow.com, I didn't check ElitistJerks, and I didn't read any blogs. Now, I wouldn't suggest stopping all that--for a good player, it's basically necessary to read up on your class--but too much forum surfing and so forth is a downer. Larisa had another post about this awhile back, but it's basically attributable to the amount of whining tha

It gets better

Remember that Mary Poppins video I linked to? Well, turns out there's a whole bunch more. I'm just going to link to this guy's YouTube channel, because it's great. I particularly enjoyed "Alohamora" and "Alice." Joyful stuff. Check it out.

Oprah sucks

What do you know, Newsweek wrote something worth reading--delivering Oprah a much-needed smackdown on her passive-aggressive promotion of "alternative" medicine and health. See here for more.

Excellent questions

Jack Balkin has some great points over at his site about the recent domestic terrorism and the GWOT: (1) Should the United States be able to hold Roeder [the Tiller murder suspect] without trial in order to prevent him from returning to society to kill more abortion providers? If we believe that Roeder and other domestic terrorists will plan further attacks on abortion providers and abortion clinics if we let them free, can we subject them to indefinite detention? (2) The Obama Administration is currently considering a national security court to make decisions about the detention of suspected terrorists, with the power to order continued preventive detention. Should this court be able to hear cases involving U.S. citizens, whether they are Muslim or Christian? (3) The U.S. government has argued that at least some terrorists should not be tried through the criminal process with its various Bill of Rights protections but instead can and should be tried through military commissions, whe

Police state watch

For fuck's sake. Other than creating an illusion of transparency and accountability, what's the point of having laws that purport to restrict what the Government can do if political officials just retroactively waive those laws whenever they want? What's the point of having a FOIA law if the Government will simply pass a new law exempting itself from FOIA's mandates any time it loses in court and wants to conceal evidence anyway? And what conceivable rationale is there for limiting the President's new secrecy powers to post-9/11 photographs? Given that anything which reflects poorly on our Government can be said to endanger our troops and American citizens, why stop here? Why not just have a general power of suppression whereby the President can keep any evidence secret as long as his Defense Secretary decrees that its disclosure will "endanger" the troops?

It gets worse

Over at Warlock Therapy , they've been hashing out the full extent of Ferarro's deception. A few amateur detectives looked have been looking at the caches, and Sarah Townsend herself turned up as well. Turns out, s/he also stole multiple posts from TechDarling , Ms. Townsend's location (Virginia and SoCal), and her motto--from her MySpace profile years ago. This has gotten clinical.