25 months later.

That's how long it has been since my last blog post, way back when I'd decided to stop playing for good. Lo and behold, that didn't last. I'm sure nobody reads this anymore, but it can't hurt to post anyway. I've started playing again on my warrior, Bbqq, on Agrammar with a real life friend of mine. We joined a raiding guild a little bit ago and are casually doing 10 man raids now, such as TotC and ICC. The game has changed so much, CC in PvE pretty much doesn't exist. Marking something on a pull? Screw that. And who needs a full 10 guildies to run the hardest 10 man in the game? Pretty much nobody. In Vanilla WoW you didn't see people pugging naxx or even BWL, BC you didn't see people pugging BT or Sunwell. The whole game seems to have changed to appeal more to the casual, which doesn't really bother me, however to me I can't see a middle ground any more. I'm in a guild that does 10 mans on normal easy mode. They call us casual, even though we do them 4 nights a week for usually 5 hours a night. Sure we might not be the best guild, but we're not a casual guild.

I miss the people I used to play with, I don't know where a lot of them are, I've tried to get onto them, but I just lost contact with a lot of people, which has me really sad. If anyone reads this that knows someone I know, or that is someone I know, please talk to me, drop by on my new server, leave me a comment, just hit me up.

And welcome back.

Sunrise vs Sunset

For a change, a RL topic.

On the 19th/20th, I decided I was going to stay up all night. Not for any particular reason at the time, but at around 2am, it became apparent I was going to watch the sun rise. Now, I have never seen a sunrise before. Plenty of sunsets, and I'm the kind of guy that enjoys them. But I always figured sunrises would be a boring 'oh shit the suns up'. I left my house at 5:46am, the interwebs said the sunrise would be at around 5:54am. Plenty of time to get where I was going.

I have a terrible sense of direction, I knew where I was going. There's a park about 500 metres down the road from my house, however I didn't know where the sun was going to rise from. I didn't really even think about it until I got there. It had already started when I got there at around 5:49, and I couldn't see much of it until I climbed a tree to see over the houses.

It was by no means spectacular. I enjoyed it, it was great, but it didn't have the colour contrasts, and other things the sunset has. All the colours were between white/yellow/orange. As I sat in the tree, I considered the comparison you could have between sunsets and sunrises, and I've determined that even though sunsets look much better, I prefer the sunrise. Here's why:

For a sunrise, it requires some form of dedication to it. Especially for me. It's not very often that I'm awake and willing to move at 5:30am. Sunset on the other hand, look out your window at 7:30pm, and there it is. A sunrise gives me a sense of accomplishment in this way. I'm awake early, and prepared for what the day has for me.

A sunset feels like the ending of something. Generally it's obviously the daytime, but I feel it's something more. It's a closing of the day, farewelling the sun while you go about your final jobs for the night and prepare to sleep. A sunrise on the other hand is welcoming a new day, a fresh beginning, the start of something new. It seems like it's almost a half empty/half full argument, when a sunset occurs, you're leaving that day behind, sometimes because you wont want to think of it again.

While I began walking home (which I didn't want to do, but I said I would be home by 6:10), it began to rain. I don't normally enjoy walking in the rain, I don't hate it, but it's not something I'd purposely do. However, at this stage I was ready for anything the day could throw at me. The rain didn't bother me a bit, in fact, I encouraged it to continue, so I could feel the early morning water on my skin, and the smell of the fresh grass and rain in the air. I was prepared for anything.

It's 6:39am. I'm finished with my incoherent ramblings, and hope that what I wrote made sense to somebody. Please let me know your thoughts.

I am prepared for the day.

My feelings on the new x-pack.

I made a comic, it pretty much sums it all up.

How much is too much?

After transferring to Nagrand and joining up with what I suppose one might call 'hardcore' I've come to a few realisations.

I prefer being casual.

I love raiding, don't get me wrong, but when I can't go out with friends, can't play sports after school, can't do anything, because 24 other people I don't even know are depending on me to push 6 buttons for four hours, it really makes me think, 'How much is too much?'. I don't regret transferring. I'm learning new things, I'm actually making progress (Al'ar down tonight), and I'm having fun while I raid. But I'm trying out for a university football team on wednesday (nfl football), and I was actually worried for a bit because it would break my 100% attendance; then I thought about it more. I'm 17 years old. I shouldn't be spending 68 hours a week playing a game with nobody that I know from school or other shit.

You ask other 17/18 year olds how they spent those years, they'll probably say;

Studying hard
Partying with friends
Playing sports

What do I say?

Playing an online game.

I'm sick of putting everything else out of the way to play this, I'm failing 4/7 classes at school, I don't play any sports when I'm not forced to, and I go out with friends on average once or twice a month. I need to get my shit straight and instead of wasting my time doing this crap.

68 hours a week. Lets assume I worked for 68 hours a week instead of this shit, and got paid minimum wage for it. It's around $43,000. If I sold my account? I'd be lucky to get $1000. Have I enjoyed the time spent on this? Yeah, I have. But I think I could be doing better, bigger things.

A lot will come down to this football team, if I get on, my attendance will drop to 50%, which is below the minimum, so I may be kicked. But will I regret it?

Fuck no.

Leaving Alexstrasza.

It was a big decision for me, but I think I've made the right one. Here's the copy+paste of my forum post.

Goodbye.

I'll be server transferring as soon as I can find a guild which plays oceanic hours and will accept me.

For a year and a half, I've called this server home, whether it was on Jezzastipsy or Bbqq, or even Tynis my neglected rogue alt. I've decided it's time for me to move on and find a place where I can actually make raids and achieve things.

So here goes my long winded list.

Thanks Peace Keepers, for taking me in at 40 and helping me all the way to 60.
Thanks Zeal, for giving me my first taste of raiding and having a great atmosphere in general, never change.
Thanks Identity Crisis, for the epixx. Thanks for the friends, the great times and all the raiding experience you gave me.
Thanks Prom Kings, for taking me in when I came to horde side, and showing me the ropes of horde raiding.
Thanks Equinox, for my free King's Defender.
Thanks Onyx, for all of the fun times you've given me whether it was with or against you. This is the guild I will never, ever forget, and I hope soo much that wherever I go can come close to measuring up with the entertainment and fun I had with you all. Thanks for letting me show you warriors can be > pally tanks. :p

Now for the people. Sigh, I know alot of people, so please, I beg you don't get offended if I don't put you down, it just means that I'm not in that thinking zone currently. I might come and revisit this and post more as I think about it.

Craze: Thanks for everything you've ever done. You've always been helpful, whether it was explaining a boss strategy to me again in whispers, or telling me how I can increase the pace on my bowling. You're a great guy, and keep doing what you do.

Jagoex: It has always been great to talk to you, always been willing to talk to me about stuff that I find I can't talk to others about. You're easily in the top 5 warlocks I've ever known.

Knoxx: Your stories are awesome, I'm glad I have them recorded. You're always happy to listen to people, and helped ease concerns. You're a great asset to Onyx as an officer.

Robbert: I LOVE YOU MAN. I'll be back to talk to you, I promise. You're by far one of the best people I've ever met.

Scholle: I hate you. <3

Proscriptor: Man, you're an awesome guy. Always happy to listen to me talking !@@%, and help me out with things when I needed it. Thanks alot.

Sixis: I'm not sure what to say for you, but it doesn't matter, I'll still be around to talk to you on vent.

Zyphre: I know you don't play here any more, but I'm sure you still read. You're a cool guy, always had fun with you.

Worldwidekid: I don't care what others say, you're another of the most awesome people I've met in this game. Don't ever, EVER change the way you do things.

Nard: Keep looking for the 0/0/61 without shield slam man, we'll find it eventually.

Ram: Dude, ease up on the forums a bit. I love you and all, but you take a lot of stuff too far and there are times when you do need to just shut up and cool off before posting.

Mashed: Your voice still turns me on.

Vende: Much love man, you're one of the best rogues I've ever met, and you never cease to amaze me. Keep up the great work man.

Boney: Dude, you so got me suspended from school. Not cool. <3 Best mage I've ever met, and you're a great guy. Don't lose touch with me.

Majinn: I don't know what happened dude, but, whatever. You were a great pally.

Cheezeh: Dude, I love you man. Great healer, never let me down when I needed a hand or... other favors. Thanks.

Bevill: Didn't know you real well, but I know you were the best warrior I've known on alliance.

Bixxie: You were pretty cool, but could say stupid things without realising it. Watch out. ;)

Luma: WRU?! :(

Glum: Hope you're having fun with whatever you're doing now, you were always fun to hang out with and play with.

Elanna: Keep a tighter leash on phase, make him log on more. :p You're a good leader, but you need to take others advice and suggestions more often, you'd be surprised how many work out. :)

Neert: Same as knoxx, but watch those stairs. I'll never forget that.

Thats all I can think of for now, more will come to me later, but for now I have to keep organising my transfer.

Thanks for all the great times everyone, don't forget me, I know I wont you.

I'll drop by from time to time, but this is a goodbye for now from playing here.

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For anyone that actually reads my blog, I'll keep updating now and then, let you know what's going on. Thanks again for the great times.

Horde Raiding,

This isn't another repeat of everyone else trying to get everyone else to believe their opinion on the state of horde raiding on our server, in case the title mislead you.

For a while now I've been raiding on my cow, generally as a main tanking role, sometimes off tank. I am not by any lengths the best tank on horde, or the most geared, but for now I'm doing well for myself. Although I've noticed that the huge difference between raiding on my priest and warrior, is my latency. The latency itself doesn't change, but the ability of playing at my best does. On my priest I would cancel a mind flay 0.7 seconds before it finished itself, because I knew that my latency would make it so that the cast would allow it to do the last tick of damage before starting the new one right away. I would hit vampiric touch and spam sw:p because I knew it would go off before the global cooldown could catch up. But while I'm tanking, I've found that I cannot use my latency in any way at all, to my advantage. It's a massive disadvantage to me, because I'm usually playing at around 600ms. This means, when stance dancing a 2.0 second fear, I have 1.4 seconds reaction time + the global cooldown that's just finishing. It ends up giving me around a .4 second bracket to push the button. This makes it alot harder for me to tank than most others.

I believe that I do fairly well for myself, all things considered, I have around a 700-800 TPS output on boss fights, my gear's up to a good level for what I'm doing, with around 14500 health and 15200 armor unbuffed. After reading Jades post about dedication with raiding and such, I stopped to think about my frost resistance gear. Looking back at it now, I can really see who is dedicated not so much to raiding, but to helping others in the guild and helping to get gear to allow progression in general. I wont name any names, but a few people were a great help, putting in more effort than I did, even. But, the majority did nothing to help. It has also made me realise I didn't do so much to help others, as I should. So, I'm doing my best to rectify that and help out others to get what they need. I believe this is my strong point as a raider, I'm dedicated to get the job done, not in the sense that, as I said, I help others out. But I push myself to do my best and be my best at all times in raids. I try to be there early every time, I take potions for myself and even some for others. I wake up at 7am to go to progression raids where we generally spend a good portion of my sunday wiping repetitively.

I do this, not to help the guild, and I'll be the first to admit it, I'd do it for most guilds. But I do it because I enjoy raiding. The reason I didn't say I'd do it in all guilds, is because if I wasn't enjoying raiding with them, I wouldn't want to be there.

So in conclusion, buff Australian raiding, nerf the mats on resist gear, and for gods sake... Less stance dancing.

It's been a while.

Because I'm bored out of my goddamn mind, I may aswell start blabbing on about random shit like I always do.

It's been a while since I made an actual post that was informative in any way, actually, this could well be the first one. A lot has changed, over a month or two. I'm now in a new home, because Equinox had problems with me, apparently. However Onyx has taken to me well, and it generally seems like people are liking me.

I went away for two weeks. I realised how stupid a lot of American people really are.

One situation:

Random Guy: Hey, where are you from?
Me: I'm from Australia
Random Guy: Where's that?
Me: ...
Random Guy (to his friend): Where's Austria dude?
His friend: You mean Australia? That's where Steve Irwin was from!
Random Guy (back to me): Oh, where Steve lived?
Me: Yeah, actually, I live on the same road as him, real small country, everyone knows each other. We spent a lot of time together watching kangaroos hop down the street.

*I walk away*

Now honestly. I have no trust whatsoever in your education system. I did realise, although this may amaze you, the hygiene is much better there. Mainly in the bathrooms are the big differences, but I wont go into that.

I've had quite a few changes in my social life on WoW. I've gained some new friends, lost some old ones, but most importantly, developed on existing ones some more than others. All in all though, it seems like that's just how it works. In fact, I have little to no contact with any of the people I considered to be my friends when I first hit 70. Though, I think I have some friendships now, that wont leave me even if I was to stop playing.

Whatever.