Kurn’s Sunday (Monday) Brain Dump 14

Kurn / / blogging, gold, professions, ramblings

Well, it wasn’t entirely a boring week for me in WoW… I did stuff. And things!

Topic 1:

I livestreamed on YouTube for the first time in quite a while. I did about an hour of Scarlet Monestary runs for fun and profit and then healed on my pally.

It was interesting! I may do more healing in a livestream capacity this week, too.

Topic 2:

This expansion is going very differently than basically any other expansion. Kurn was first to level cap, which is the natural state of things, but then instead of Madrana (the paladin) or Beldinn (the shaman and farmer extraordinaire), my mage was second to 90. And then, this weekend, instead of either of the others dinging max level as the third 90, it was my druid. So weird. To be fair, the druid was 87, just like the shaman, but it’s just so much easier to farm herbs on the druid. And boy, did I farm. Not just herbs, though…

Topic 3:

And that brings me to what I really wanted to discuss here: pattern farming.

There I was, on the paladin, just minding my own business and doing a couple things here and there and I started finding these little things called Coalesced Light. Now, I’d seen these things before on Kurn, but hadn’t done the weekly quest with them for months.

And so Madrana was there, gathering them up all merrily… and gets a pattern. A tailoring pattern.

Like a good tailoring pattern.

And so I swapped to the druid to farm them A LOT, as well as gathering herbs. I got like one pattern and it wasn’t all that good. In fact, it was so cheap that I got my blacksmith to learn it.

Does ANYONE know how these work??? Is it like 1 pattern per toon per week?? 2 patterns per account per week? Or are all the patterns just that shitty in terms of drop rates? My elbow hurts from farming so much. And I didn’t even get the pattern I need on Madrana!

Any thoughts here? Would be super appreciated.

Thanks, gang!

Kurn’s Sunday Brain Dump 13

Kurn / / achievements, blogging, classic instances, classic loot, general, ramblings

I am, unfortunately, working this weekend, so this may be shortish. I’m not American, so working on July 4th didn’t bug me, but oof, I don’t like working weekends. Alas, it’s the nature of the career I’m in, so occasional weekend shifts are just something to expect and then deal with.

Topic 1:

I never have enough Azeroot, but that’s largely because I don’t farm anywhere near as much as I used to. So last night, I thought hey, let’s do a quick lap or two around Harandar on the druid. Maybe level him up to 88 since he’s so close, and get some more herbs.

Well, I ended up getting mostly Tranquility Bloom and Sanguithorn, but the fun thing I did was kill Annulus the Worldshaker. He had like 3.5 million health. But I saw him and I thought… well, I’m a tank, aren’t I? Let’s see how OP druids really are. (I mean, I’m sure I could have survived on a paladin, but probably not a warrior, so let’s see how the druid does.) So here’s a screenshot of my stats about halfway through the fight, which definitely took more than ten minutes.

So yeah, level 87, 143 ilvl, lots of cooldowns, and maybe halfway through the fight. Honestly, it wasn’t difficult, it was just long.

It went on so long that rarescanner or whatever it is alerted me about him again. I had been fighting him the whole time! 😂

Also, fun fact, he casts some sort of “sludge”, I think it is, at you, but it’s a movement speed debuff. It shouldn’t bother you too much if you don’t interrupt it. He does cast a couple of earthquake things, but you have plenty of time to get out of them if you are, you know, paying attention.

So that was fun. I like doing stupid things on my various toons.

Topic 2:

Still farming instances for transmog, still selling a few items every week. Certainly enough to make it worthwhile, even though I’m disenchanting so much. Actually, since Greater Eternal Essences are hovering anywhere between 18-24g each, it’s actually more worthwhile these days.

Topic 3:

The goal for this week is to use the WoW API to download my achievements and review them. The UI is crap for that, even the armory site is pretty gross in terms of the interface. So I’m gonna download them and present them in a way that doesn’t suck (locally on my own computer) and then see what I can do with them. What achievements are worthy of a Storytime with Kurn video? What achievements am I missing? What achievements do I want to … achieve?

What about you, folks? What are you up to in WoW this week?

Kurn’s Sunday Brain Dump 12

Kurn / / blogging, classic loot, ramblings

I had intended to post last Sunday. And then I had intended to post on Monday. And then I intended to post Tuesday.

And now it’s Sunday. Hi!

Before we get into my various thoughts, I went exploring in Uldaman for transmog-related shits and giggles.

Topic 1:

So I finally got around to doing some of Val and Naigtal. I had actually tried Naigtal first and then did not realize the portals changed around every week, so then I did chunks of Val. Now, I gotta say, Kurn is not super well geared. It’s not like he’s sitting around 200 ilvl or anything, but I think he was high 240s/low 250s. I think he’s now… ah, yes, 262. So that’s good. But it’s not the “recommended” ilvl for the “heroic tier” of the world.

So I scoffed at that and went out and yes, I did get my ass handed to me on occasion. But it was somewhat refreshing. I actually had to be careful. No charging in and AOEing All The Things. I used camo, recuperate, health potions, aspect of the turtle. It was good stuff. Got some hero crests, upgraded some things. I also love the blizzard in Val and god I wish it were snowing here in Montreal right now. It’s HOT and it’s only gonna get hotter and I hate it.

Topic 2:

My mage is my other 90 at the moment and for him, he is ilvl 210. So it was normal mode for him. I LAUGHED at how easy it felt compared to poking around on heroic mode. LAUGHED. Didn’t die at all. Also did not get a ton of gear and crests that were helpful, but that’s okay.

Do I like either of the zones? Meh.

Will I poke around at them every so often? Probably.

Topic 3:

I’ve been running the Old Scarlet Monastery for a couple weeks now, building up a… well, healthy is probably not the right word for it… perhaps unhealthy amount of items (mostly green, some blue) and recipes. And it’s finally starting to pay off. I collected like 70k from my normal bank toon on my own realm today! And I’ve had people buying stuff across a couple other realms. It’s been working out nicely. This is, of course, thanks to the inspiration from the guy who does the Bofades and Soktratez channels on YouTube. So thanks to him, whose name we don’t actually know. 😂

Bonus:

I’ve been off work since St. Jean Baptiste (June 24) and I go back on the 2nd of July, after Canada Day, so it’s been a nice respite from the daily grind. I took my nephew out on Saturday and we had awesome shenanigans, and I’ll do the same for his younger brother in a month or so. I am, how you say, le tired. I walked like 9km, all told! I do not walk a lot, so that was quite the shock to my system. 😅 But yeah, I haven’t gone anywhere. Tomorrow, I’m going to some gardens in the city with my partner, so that’ll be nice. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to this particular place before. Just gotta make sure to coat myself in sunscreen, lest I burn myself instantly upon the sun touching my skin. :) What about you folks? Doing anything interesting during the summer?

Kurn’s Sunday Brain Dump 11

Kurn / / blogging, general, gold, ramblings

Shockingly, I am posting this on a Sunday! Will wonders never cease?

I can’t believe it’s Sunday already and I have to go back to work tomorrow. We built the world wrong, gang. SIGH.

Topic 1:

I need a challenge of sorts to do. Please give me one.

I probably won’t continue with my Whelplocked challenge because it’s basically boring, which is something I’m realizing now. Did Kurn get the whelp or not? And how long does someone have to watch to see if Kurn got the whelp? Boring. So give me a challenge! Or many challenges and I’ll pick one! Please? Pretty please? I’ve got 7 days left on my current token, so I’m looking for something to do. (And I’m intrigued by “heroic” world stuff, but not sure if that’ll be enough to keep me interested.)

Topic 2:

Speaking of challenges, I started watching this guy doing two challenges simultaneously. He is trying to get 1 million gold (in cash) on a toon solely from what he gets out of Scarlet Monestary (on Sokratez) and 1 million gold (in cash) on a toon solely from what he gets out of Zul’Farrak (on Bofades). He’s about 11% of the way there on Bofades (the Troll druid) and maybe 8% (?) of the way there on Sokratez (the Worgen druid), but Sokratez has looted some sweet drops, so that challenge could be over any day now, if one of those sweet drops sells. Anyway, it’s SUPER interesting, so go check it out. Episodes out almost every day, each is about 10 minutes long.

For funsies, I’ve started running old-school SM armory and cath and have gotten some decent drops too. Nothing amazing, but hopefully some of this stuff will sell. I’ve got alts on other servers to help with that, too.

Topic 3: 

Anything you want me to talk about for Storytime? Perhaps one of these would be interesting to tell:

– The history of me and Majik

– The Night Kurn Drank Red Haterade

– Why I rolled Madrana (holy paladin)

Let me know!

 

    Missing data…!

    Kurn / / blogging, facepalm, general, ramblings

    Well, well, well. What do we have here? It’s a case of missing data.

    I could die of not surprise.

    So, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Sunwell Plateau on my hunter. And I recorded it, but the sound was unrecoverable, so I recorded a new video, which is here. In both videos, I noted that something was really messed up with my rep, because Kurn couldn’t wear the “of the Shattered Sun” title, despite being exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, and also the tabard (which required exalted to buy and wear!) didn’t show up in my tabard options for transmog.

    Doing other things at the time (like running Sunwell and narrating for you folks), I was like, whatever, I’ll figure it out later.

    Figured some of it out today, when I finally figured out how to open a real ticket and not some bug report that is just going to die quietly on a to-do list somewhere at Blizz HQ.

    First, I didn’t own a tabard of the Shattered Sun. Which is plainly horseshit. I ran around wearing that tabard for months! And apparently I don’t own the shields either? Also horseshit, because I used them for months (on Madrana) so like… wtf.

    So some of my items are legitimately missing outside of stuff that was yoinked from me during the Great Blizzard Bank Heist. It is possible that I tossed the tabard on Madrana, but I wouldn’t do that on Kurn. Kurn has an exceptional collection of tabards and shirts and I love them! And I wouldn’t just junk them!

    Anyway, ran up to the Shattered Sun staging grounds and got me a tabard. Madrana can now wear it and Kurn can transmog into it… but so can my dwarf shammy. Who is emphatically not exalted. So transmog doesn’t required rep? Interesting.

    Still, even with the tabard able to be selected, Kurn still can’t select the title, while Madrana can, and the shammy cannot (as intended).

    Folks, something happened to my data at some point!

    I have a missing tabard and a missing title on Kurn.

    Then, on Madrana, I have at least some missing items (like the Shattered Sun shields).

    Who knows what else I’m missing on those or my other characters?

    Am I pissed? No. I’m a little annoyed. BUT, I said to myself, this is what happens when you trust The System. Not only do they own everything, but they host everything, and that means you will lose data. Just like the Great Blizzard Bank Heist. Why? Because the people running the show can’t be bothered to back up data that’s lost. I honestly don’t care that I had to spend a whole 80 silver on a new tabard. I do still care that I had a couple of thousand of dragonscales I couldn’t farm back in less than a decade of running BWL weekly to skin Chromaggus. 52 weeks in a year, ten years, I could feasibly rebuild my ~2k of dragonscales of various colours. But why bother when they can all just vanish again when a patch goes out?

    When I returned to the game, I had three rules for myself:

    1) Don’t pay these people a dime of your money.

    2) Play and have fun. If you’re not having fun, stop playing.

    3) Never forget that your data is not your data. It’s their data.

    And on a related note, did you folks hear about the poor person who was (originally) permabanned after 20 years?

    Original YouTube video here

    Update here

    Basically, the individual wants to know what actions made Blizzard get out the big ol’ banhammer. He has no idea. He’s appealed several times and got his ban lowered to 6 months, but now is questioning why return to the game when the ban expires? Apparently “other players” reported him for various actions that can get you banned and he has absolutely no clue as to why that might have happened. All he wants to do is understand and then get the issue resolved. Of course, as usual, Blizzard isn’t giving any details.

    He’s decided to file consumer complaints. He’s based in Norway, but is originally from the US (I think) and has form letters linked for both countries’ consumer advocate organizations.

    In the US, this is typically the Better Business Bureau. However, Blizzard is not accredited with them, so any complaints probably don’t need to be handled. Still, Blizzard does respond to these:

    https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/irvine/profile/wholesale-video-games/blizzard-entertainment-inc-1126-13050668/complaints

    There are hundreds of pages just like this and that’s just the last three years. They have a 1 star rating pretty consistently throughout everything. It shows that Blizzard’s interests and ours (the players’) are not aligned.

    You play this game, it’s by their rules. They don’t have to do anything. They can gaslight you into next week with their vague and obscure references to logs and analyses. They can boot you off their servers never to be seen again with absolutely zero warning.

    Or, they can steal your bank.

    Or your shields.

    Or your tabard.

    Or your title.

    It’s all the same. Because we play on their servers, our data is theirs to manage (or mismanage) as they please. And that goes for bans that are upheld with no real proof as well as dealing with canned responses from shitty Customer “Support” people. (I’ve worked in support spaces for 12+ years and I would never treat a customer of mine as poorly as Blizzard has treated me, or thousands of others, in the past.)

    You want to play legitimately, you gotta play by their rules. No matter what they do to your characters, your inventory, your achievements, your reputation, your account.

    Just a reminder to us all.

    Kurn’s Sunday (Monday) Brain Dump 10

    Kurn / / blogging, ramblings

    Well, I ended up redoing the entire video I had talked about last week because of the audio glitch, which I found was an errant setting in OBS. So entirely my bad. Whoopsiedoodle. Anyways, here’s the new video.

    In other news…

    Topic 1:

    It was my birthday not long ago and my good buddy MajMaj (aka Merrymaker Majikmarine, aka Majik, aka fuckface) was kind enough to purchase me a Steam gift card and then recommended a couple of games to me. This past weekend, I bought two of them and one of them, Esoteric Ebb, is a really interesting RPG. (Its publisher is Raw Fury, which also does Blue Prince, as an aside.)

    The amount of lore/world building for EE is absolutely overwhelming, and I mean that in the best of ways. It made me think about how different WoW could be if it had focused on the true differences between the races of the Alliance or the races of the Horde, not to mention every faction out there. Like, imagine that we didn’t have the common languages. Or imagine that there are separate flight paths depending on how the different people we encounter decided to travel long distances? Or what if money was different? What if my gold was only good with the Alliance and, say, the goblins, but if I wanted to interact with… I don’t know, the Scryers, my gold was useless? I guess we get some of that lore with turn-in items, but I’m thinking of something beyond that.

    Topic 2:

    There’s no character alignment as far as I can tell in EE, but it makes me wish we had active alignments that we could alter with our actions in WoW. Like, Madrana? 100% Lawful Good. Kurn, too. (Me as well!) But maybe my ret pally (the grandbaby pally) is Lawful Neutral. Or Neutral Good? Lawful Evil? We could get benefits to each of the 9 alignments and it would be possible, across the course of many, many, many actions, to change your alignment, but it would be impossible to do within 30 days or something equally long so that you couldn’t cheese it/abuse it to your benefit.

    What D&D Alignment are you?

    Topic 3:

    Speaking of games, I have hardly touched WoW. Wondering if I really want to spend another 250k in gold to get another month, but I guess we’re getting a patch next week or something? I guess I’ll see if that’s any good and see if I’ll stick around for another month. Dangit, I keep meaning to reinstall Hardcore Classic too. Maybe I’ll try to do that this weekend. My weeks are so busy lately that it’s hard for me to do much in the evenings. Damn you, late-stage capitalism! <shakes fist>

    What should I tell a story about next time?

    Kurn’s Sunday (Monday) Brain Dump 9

    Kurn / / blogging

    I’m pretty annoyed. I did this whole video about my old guild and our BC raiding and then talked about what I knew about Sunwell Plateau… and the sound completely bugged out. Every half second, the sound on my voiceover would blip out for a tiny fraction of time, but it sounds awful. I’m going to probably keep the raw footage and then try to do a voiceover. We’ll see if I have time this week. That said, the Montreal Canadiens lost to the Carolina Hurricanes last Friday night, so I suddenly have more time on my hands. ;)

    Topic 1: Bored now

    I am so bored with WoW right now that I’m not even logging in for crafting orders. And I love crafting things! What is keeping you playing right now?

    Topic 2: Storytime with Kurn

    Video coming Soon, but I’m still pissed off that my audio was all whacked out. I need to troubleshoot that and then redo a voiceover. Grr. Argh.

    Topic 3: Favourite Race, Favourite Class

    Tell me about your favourite race in WoW and why it’s that race.

    Then tell me about your favourite class in WoW and why it’s that class.

    And tell me if you have any race/class combos that you adore.

    Male night elf hunter for me, for Kurn.

    Female human paladin for me, for Madrana.

    And then I am a sucker for male dwarves and their emotes and their casts. I have a lot of male dwarves. They may be my favourite race to play. But never for a hunter. I do not mind them as pallies, though! The Baby Paladin was a dwarf ’till like, Wrath content? I think? It’s been a while.

    I’m especially interested to know if anyone really favours the newer races and classes and why!

    And, as always, what do you want to hear me talk about next week, either on this blog or in Storytime with Kurn?

    Kurn’s Sunday (Monday) Brain Dump 8

    Kurn / / blogging, general, ramblings

    Brace yourselves — I actually opened WoW for more than auction stuff this week! hahaha!

    I’d been watching a video a few weeks ago about rare titles, and that video basically got me thinking about titles, and it also encouraged me to watch a video series about this one guy Barny on a Classic server and the title Scarab Lord.

    Scarab Lord is a wild title. The things necessary to get the title are absolutely bonkers.

    So I visited Silithus (old world version) on Kurn and recorded a little video which is the first of a series in which I tell a story or two. Or three. It’ll be called Storytime with Kurn. And so my first stories have to do with Scarab Lord and the Brood of Nozdormu and such.

    I may rerecord it because I think I rambled too much, so I need to rewatch it before I post it anywhere, and then potentially rerecord it, but expect it this week at my YouTube channel!

    ETA: Here’s the link, I didn’t rerecord it:

    Let me know what zones/dungeons/etc you want to hear my stories about. Anything from Vanilla to Cataclysm is valid.

    Haven’t done much else and don’t have a lot of thoughts today, but let me know what stories you want to hear, go subscribe to my YouTube channel, and I’ll do what I can to get stories up weekly-ish. :)

    Kurn’s Sunday Brain Dump 7

    Kurn / / apotheosis, general, raiding, ramblings

    Once again, didn’t do much to do with WoW this week. Part of it is the hockey playoffs. My team, the Montreal Canadiens, is still in the Stanley Cup playoffs as I write this. They may be eliminated Monday night, or they may move on to the third (of four) rounds. Who knows? It’s been a weird playoffs.

    The other part is a lack of motivation. I feel like there’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get anything in terms of gear, so I’m just… not doing a lot? Maybe?

    Still, as usual, I have things to say. :) (And I’ll note I started this entry on Sunday even though as I finish it, it’s now Monday. But I have Monday off for Victoria Day so I’m still going to pretend it’s Sunday.)

    Topic 1: The Old Days

    I had a former guildie, Aaza (hi Aaza!), comment on my last post. She’d wanted to know if I had a copy of our Illidan kill. That kill happened in, uh, like August or September of 2008. And I had it! I didn’t realize it was set to unlisted, so I set it to public and linked to it. (Thanks to Dayden for frapsing it and putting together the video!)

    That someone, from that old version of Apotheosis, wanted to see our Illidan kill, was kind of interesting to me. I’ve been feeling nostalgic recently. Not nostalgic enough to do all of that GMing/raiding/etc again, mind you! But nostalgic enough to feel as though some of the memories my guild and I had made together really meant something to people at the time. So to have Aaza pop in and be like “hi!!!” was really lovely, because it sort of validated that I hadn’t wasted my time back in Burning Crusade. (Or in Cata, for that matter.)

    Topic 2: I miss… something

    Growing up, I read. I read, I played video games, I called local bulletin board systems… and, of course, being a teenage girl, I talked on the phone a lot. But I never really had much interest in joining a sports team. I didn’t really feel the need. I got a lot of my social needs met just by hanging out with friends and stuff, and then dating, later on.

    But the school I’d gone to for eleven years of my life (grades 1-11!) had taught me a lot about teamwork and leadership. We were separated into different houses (yes, like Hogwart’s — and, btw, fuck JK Rowling for being a transphobic piece of shit!), and so we were forced to participate in teams to do with the houses for various things. Two of my closest friends from school weren’t in my grade. They were in the grade below me — and both were on my house. And we’re still close to this day. One of them is my RL Friend the Resto Druid I have mentioned dozens of times on this very blog!

    So when I joined Fated Heroes in, oh boy, like late 2005… I was kind of all-in. It was the first time I’d really been part of a team. And, naturally, I wanted to be helpful. Back then, I was in learning mode. I wanted to know everything about how the game worked. Absolutely everything. I think I reached my peak knowledge of the game in Wrath, when I learned about parry thrashes.

    We lost my brother to a rival guild, who was already actively raiding, while Fated Heroes was… fated to stand around a lot. ;) But I worked hard to bring information to the guild, put up a forum for us, dropped info for attunements, T0 gear drops, etc. And we slowly but surely got to the point where we raided. We never had 40 people in a raid (well, maybe once, but that wasn’t even all our guild) and we didn’t clear MC or kill Ony (do not get me started on the warrior who claimed to me he had like 3000 defense when, in fact, that was how much ARMOR he had), but we cleared all of ZG, including Jindo the Hexxar and such. And we did spawn Majordomo Executus in MC. And we did get Ony down to like, 20ish percent. It was just a rough time to get everyone used to raiding on these days at these times when most people had only joined for fun. Still, I pushed as much as I could. I got so many people attuned to everything way back then.

    Why?

    These people in Fated Heroes, they were my team. And if I knew one thing from my schooling, it was that the sum of the parts of a team are a greater force than the individual parts alone. I believed we could do anything we set our minds to doing.

    That was really my first taste of real teamwork in an environment where I cared about the result. If my house lost at floor hockey to another house during 7:45am inter-house games at school, I honestly didn’t care. But if my guild didn’t get Venoxis down? I cared. If my guild didn’t get Lucifron down? I cared. If people in my guild didn’t loot their goddamn Core Hounds? I very much cared. ;)

    So that’s the feeling I’m missing right now. I’m not super into any online communities right now. I’m not even really into any offline communities right now. I am missing a sense of belonging to a team. And I’m not sure where to get it.

    And it always makes me think about WoW, because WoW is the place in my life where I have put everything I had into running good teams. Whether it was the guild as a whole, just the healers, just the hunters, whatever. I gave it my all.

    I’m not saying I want to give my all to something, mind you. I don’t have the time or even the energy for that these days.

    But I do miss something team-like.

    Topic 3: Rabid end-stage capitalism will be the end of us all.

    Between billionaires and AI, I have come to the conclusion that we are not only fucked, we’re super fucked.

    Eat the rich. And if you can’t, tax them.

    For the first time in my entire life, I have wanted to be offline more than online lately. And you have to understand something about me — I have been terminally online forever. For decades. I started using the Internet in 1994. That’s over 30 years ago. And while I’ve certainly managed to create, you know, a life for myself, I work in tech, and I work remotely, and I have done so for the last decade. (another 2 years spent in an office at a startup here in Montreal, so 12 years in tech.)

    But the more I think about tech and the world and where it’s all going, the less I even want to sit down at my computer.

    Who would have thought that AI (and the billionaires, let’s not forget those motherfuckers) would be the thing to push me away from online? Who would have thought that something I’d always enjoyed thinking about (in a very “someday in the future” sense) would come to be and be one of the worst blights on humanity?

    Sometimes I do wish I could just live at my parents’ cottage for the rest of my days. Read. Canoe. Write. Even go swimming, occasionally, despite the fact that the lake is fed by mountain streams and is always bitterly cold.

    And yet, we have to at least play along with the capitalism that is eating us all alive, because we have to do things like pay for rent. And food. And everything else that comes with being a human in the early 21st century.

    It’s a major bummer.

    What are your thoughts, gang? What’s on your mind?

    Kurn’s Sunday Brain Dump 6

    Kurn / / blogging, ramblings

    I did sweet fuck all this week in WoW.

    And I didn’t really miss it.

    I had a short work week, spent time with loved ones, friends, family, read a book and a half in the last week, watched four hockey games and that meant no real time for video games.

    Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts on things. :)

    Topic 1: The WoW Store

    There’s a sale being advertised in the Blizzard launcher, for many (all?) of the Blizzard games. When you click on World of Warcraft, they are encouraging you to buy Midnight, but also a housing thing. “Cozy Treehouse Retreat Bundle”, which has some druid or panda themed housing stuff, including the externals. Only 7500 Hearthsteel!!! WHAT A DEAL, PEOPLE!!!! ahahaha. That is $92.50 CAD, and that’s before tax. That is more expensive than all but the epic version of the Midnight expansion.

    But wait, there’s more! You can get a “Blooming Arboon” mount, either “Blossomback” or “Amberback” for $32 CAD apiece. (I’m guessing that’s about $25 USD.)

    And if that’s not enough, they’re bribing you to buy a 6-month subscription ($97.99 CAD, pre-tax) in exchange for a flying mount in Retail and a pet in Classic. And if you buy a 12-month subscription ($195.98 CAD, pre-tax), you get an additional flying mount and ground mount in Retail and a flying mount in classic. Or some nonsense like that. You can read more about the offer here.

    Why at least a six-month subscription? Because that’s like $100 (CAD, maybe 70-75 USD) in their pockets immediately. It’s a very nice revenue bump. And why does that matter? It matters because the Microsoft fiscal year ends at the end of June. So the revenue bump helps the bottom line now, right before the end of the fiscal year, and then since it’s for 6 months, any money from those WoW subscribers between now and November is sort of like the icing on the cake. So if they buy Hearthsteel, or if they buy a mount, or a pet, or a character boost, or whatever. It’s above and beyond what they anticipated from you just having an ongoing subscription.

    Honestly, looking at the finance page at Yahoo about Microsoft makes me feel vaguely ill. Everything is basically in billions. The market value of Microsoft is approximately 4.1 trillion dollars.

    And they couldn’t be bothered to fix the guild bank issues.

    Or make sure a patch launches without game-breaking bugs.

    Or ensure that textures persist in housing.

    But they can take the time to come up with new art assets and sell them or bribe people into getting them, as long as they make a quick buck!

    It’s pretty gross.

    Topic 2: If I were rich…

    If I were very, very independently wealthy, there are several things I’d want to do right off the bat, most of which is caring for my family and friends. You know, pay off my brother and sister-in-law’s mortgage. Pay for private school for their kids. That sort of thing.

    But assuming I’d have a good chunk left over, I think I’d want to try to put together a small game dev company. Nothing huge, but a nice place to work, where everyone gets benefits, mostly flexible hours, work remotely, all that good stuff. I have a lot of ideas rattling around in my head and I am not talented enough to code everything, nor do I have the time to code everything. Because it would be a lot.

    And just looking at the Microsoft financials (even more info here), and knowing that they’re doing voluntary layoffs makes me feel even more ill. All of this means that they hope their numbers will go up.

    We are in late-stage capitalism and the numbers cannot always go up.

    I am tired of living in such a rabidly capitalist society, and I don’t even live in the USA (although anything they do affects us significantly). But in order to, you know, have a place to live, one needs to at least try to play the capitalism-numbers-go-up game. So if I could run a small game dev company, hire carefully, pay very well, and then get some kind of return because the games are good, then that would be awesome.

    Alas, I fear I will never be independently wealthy to the point of doing so. But it’s nice to dream about.

    Topic 3: Classic Dungeons

    I think Strat UD is my favourite of the Classic dungeons, but BRD is a close second, followed by LBRS as a close third. Strat is my favourite because of my multiple failed (and some successful!) 45-minute Baron runs. I just know it so well and have so many great memories of being in there.

    BRD might be closer to Stockholm Syndrome, given the number of times I’ve run Jailbreak or attuned someone to the core. But again, the memories made there are priceless to me.

    LBRS is a freaking labyrinth until it clicks. And once it clicks, you’ll never get lost again. Or, at least I never did. It was one of my first runs with my guild at the time and I was level 52 (? Maybe 53?) and I was level-pulling everything around us. Whoopsiedoodle. :D But I always enjoyed it. There was a ton to explore, lots of rare drops, lots of bosses, lots of tier 0 pieces to be had.

    What about you? What are your favourite Classic/Vanilla dungeons?