In the Jungle

Or: Why are people stupid?

So the other day I'm pretty much ecstatic because I've finally pieced together how to run Jungle Nocturne (and not die horribly), which is fantastic, because our team didn't really have a jungler before, and now it does, because I can accomplish that.

So yay. Got a runesheet running (ARP Marks & Quints, Armor Yellows, CDR Blues) for it, a mastery sheet, the whole nine.

And then we don't have a fifth, so we pick up this Nasus.

Now, I'm playing a jungler and the other team does not have one. So I innocently ask who's gonna take the 2v1 lane, since one of the characters who could feasably do it is a newbie I know who'd never even gone solo mid before.

She handled it beautifully.

The Nasus, on the other hand, raged a bit at me, because apparently learning to jungle makes me 'not a team player.'

I kind of take offense at that.

The entire reason I spent so much effort, and so many monster deaths, learning this shit is to make my goddamn team stronger. It pisses me off greatly that someone would say I'm 'not a team player' because I'm not in a lane.

But I'm just now getting into the ELO range where people even consider jungling, and it's not the most intuitive idea out there, so it occurred to me that not everyone understands why you want a jungler at all, much less why I'm angry the Nasus was angry.

Why does it help the team to have a jungler?

So, anyone who's played LoL before understands the idea of solo mid. The squishy carry goes there and farms minions to get a massive XP and gold lead on the rest of the team, so by endgame they're obliterating face right, left, and center.

Now, imagine if you could field two solo lanes, while a third member of the team accumulates almost that much XP basically unbothered for the first six or so levels.

Guess what: you can.

Now imagine that someone on your team can roam around to all lanes - because it is their job to do so - and violate anyone they get close to, then melt back into the forest before retaliation can happen. Terrifying, isn't it?

Guess what? You can have that, too!

Jungling provides a massive XP boost to 2-3 members of your team, while placing a certain pressure on the enemy team. It can force them to play defensively and hug their towers even when you're nowhere near them, and it can easily, easily boost your team to victory. On the other hand, the jungler can easily, easily fall behind on experience and has to be the single most attentive player on the map, since they're effectively invested in saving every lane that goes badly at all times. The jungler will cover lanes when one or both occupants need to go to base for whatever reason, and the jungler should also help out the support with warding, which means potentially lost gold.

In short, learning to jungle is one of the single best things you can do for your team apart from learning to tank or support (and kudos to a tank or support who can do the job well), and doing it well is probably the single most team-oriented thing you can do.

I'm a team player, goddammit.

( This guide here helped me immensely and will help just about any other jungler, though you'll have to adapt the specific skills to your needs.

Jungling to excess for the lulz:

Driving

TL;DR: Rant about people being stupid in cars. Typed Saturday. Still not dead. Woo, triumph.

Driving.

Who came up with this idea? Really? "Let's put two tons of fast-moving death in the hands of every irresponsible idiot who can answer a multiple choice test correctly. That'll end well!" Seriously.

"What? They're sixteen years old and their wee brains haven't yet fully developed (see 'coz that happens by the time you're twenty-five), so they're reckless and end up killing themselves and other people on the way to go get drunk at an underage party and/or on the way from getting drunk at an underage party? I don't understand how that could happen!" It's not that I don't have sympathy or anything, but seriously, this whole thing sounds like an accident (or several thousand) waiting to happen.

I bring this up because I have a half an hour drive to my work place, one-way, which means in practice I spend my share of time driving, which means I get to witness all kinds of stupid people behind the wheel. Especially since the people around here don't fully understand how to do the thing they're doing.

For an example: what the hell happened to signalling before changing lanes? I nearly got in a wreck today because this guy completely failed to signal that he was going to dive between me and the car in front of him. Not warning people what you're about to do is rarely a good thing, especially when it's going to be exceedingly dangerous to yourself and other people. Courting death in a major car accident on the highway is excessively dangerous, yes.

And this other guy, in a white van, did signal ... that he was going to drift across two lanes of traffic and nearly sideswipe me to get into my lane. Which is the only thing that kept me from getting into a wreck again, and that only because I deliberately gave him enough room to complete the lane change. I don't want to get crushed in a vehicular homicide, after all. This same fellow then went on to make a left turn from the wrong lane.

Am I the only person on the road who paid attention during driver's education?

Why are people stupid?

Gah.

4:04 AM (Error)

Logic not found.

So, this is something that is slowly driving me nuts, and that is, logically, there is no significance to be associated with strings of identical numbers, especially date/time stamps. There just isn't, really. So why does the brain latch onto them? Why does that pop up everywhere as something of significance?

Well, like a lot of other answers given: most writers are human, and most readers are human. Human brains are hard-wired toward pattern recognition and the easiest, most obvious pattern is 11:11 11/11/'11 (which happens once or twice per time zone this year, incidentally, depending on if you use military time or not.)

I latch most often onto a string of 1s, if it was non-obvious. 3:33 too.

Short, thumb-typed post because I'm going to enjoy the weekend with a minimum of stress. Delicious holiday pay and rest. Monday is a normal day off for me but hey, getting paid for nothing is kind of awesome.

Money is also kind of awesome.

Oh, two things: one, is anyone else weirded out by M's description (the yellow hoodie mostly) cropping up in the latest Marble Hornets? I'm aware most of the Mythos regards MH as Not Real But Entertaining And Probably Ruined Your Life, while The Tutorial gets an Is Real And Should Be Your First Stop, but it's still creepy.

Two: expect some gushing in the non-distant future about both Rift and League of Legends. That'd be because they're how I'm currently passing my free time. (My otherwise empty work hours are sort-of dedicated to this cross-stitch pattern I'm working on.)

Lastly, why the title? That's when I started this post, silly! ... It's raining again.

You All Meet In A Tavern

Or: But I don't even drink!

So, tavern-based roleplay. It's like a single's club for dark, brooding, sociopathic menaces to society. I haven't had to stoop to this in a while.

Tavern roleplay, like the aforementioned single's club, is a great way to meet people. The very nature of the place demands people attend. My very first experiences in roleplay, in fact, were through tavern RP - in ancient MSN chat rooms where typing speed determined victory - no lie! Nowadays, if your characters get into a violent conflict of interest and the other guy responds with a rapid-fire series of posts detailing the utterly one-sided victory he's just stolen from your battered corpse, you turn and walk away, slapping him with an /ignore so fast their head spins clean off.

At least, that's what I do.

So, anyway, there are some benefits to tavern RP, but there are some drawbacks as well. Like I mentioned up there in the subtitle (who reads those anyway?), the tavern just isn't the place for everybody. Raise your hand if, like me, you've never set foot in a bar for recreational purposes.

Now, put your hand down; you look kind of silly.

I imagine anyway. No, I really can't see you.

The point is, not every character is going to work well in a tavern. Shy characters and claustrophobes spring to mind. Honestly, would Loner McWoodsy - the high elven ranger so feral he understands his wolf companion better than other people - really spend much time in any civilized establishment at all? Really?

No, not really.

That's what I thought.

Not only that, but what about all these great warriors, mages, healers, and little kids? (I've seen it.) I'm reminded of the scene in the original Mass Effect where Shepard tells off General Septimus for acting like a drunkard instead of the proud military man he's supposed to be.

Assassins I can forgive, since they need a place to meet up with potential employers but ...

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if tavern RP is the only kind of RP you have on your server, there's a problem. And the problem is only highlighted, underscored, italicized, and in bold print when even that's nonextant.

So I moved servers. I'm quite content with the change.

Nothing else to report though.

Irrational

Can someone be said to be suffering from a crisis of (absence of) faith?

I think I have diagnosed a key problem with my psyche: I have significant difficulty with belief.

I have been raised as I think most Americans have, with an odd duality. At once we are told to believe only in the rational and quantifiable and logical, the hard data and concrete proofs in the world, yet then also we are told of Santa Claus, God, the Devil, tarot cards and Slender Men, and we are supposed to sort which of these are fiction from the facts.

I don't believe in God. Not really. I don't believe in God or Jesus, Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, Slender Man or the Devil himself.

But I also cannot so blithely discount myths and legends, magical and unquantifiable lines of reasoning, just because I have not personally experienced anything that counts as hard, logical proof. There is an incredibly large chunk of my mind that simply wants to believe in something ... more. Something beyond the dull mundane world of phone calls and little handheld computer-phones and sleeping peacefully in my blissful island of ignorance. Some part of me wants to get the chance to talk to Cthulhu, no matter how much it would shatter my mind. I think there's a very real desire to be special or important, and I think most humans experience it, and I think that's part of why we devise our little religions with us as the center point.

This inability to decide leads to an ... unease, we will go with unease. There is a schism in my personality, a hard line between a very serious, stony side which believes only in that which I can see and feel and touch, research and prove, and a more ... childlike innocence, a willingness to believe and an enchantment with the fantastic.

I love the idea of magic.

I hate the idea of magic.

No, I really don't want you to try and convert me to your religion. What really makes you think it's all that much better and more true than any of the hundreds of other lines of illogical thought? What makes you think that believing in an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent deity (who actually still gives a damn about humanity, not to say a reality that, being omniscient, he/she/it knows inside and out, from start to finish) that rules over everything is any more reasonable than believing in an omniscient, omnipresent deity that gives out material wealth to small children over the course of a given holiday season (be it the Easter Bunny's chocolate Cadbury Eggs or Santa Claus's gaily wrapped presents)?

Yes, I really do want you to try and convert me to your religion. There's a certain ... comfort ... to belief. There's a joy in feeling as though you are a small part of something larger than yourself. The idea of being a large part of that selfsame entity is intoxicating, if foolish. There's a wonderful relief to the idea that a man with a gun might not completely and utterly end your consciousness just because your brain - and all of your chemical, emotional responses - have been shut down. I only ask for the one thing no religion seems able to provide: proof that cannot be explained by any other means. Proof that does not rely upon confirmation bias and self-delusion.

There's a reason I identify as Agnostic but actually don't try to think about it too hard.

My head hurts.

Now excuse me while I go sleep with the lights still burning because I can't disbelieve in the Slender Man just because He's probably fake.

More Reasons to Dislike Level 58 DKs

So my last post was a rant about the PVE reasons DKs are evil.

Now for a different approach.

As you probably know, I'm an avid Roleplayer. It's interactive storytelling, basically, and it's intensely fun - when you do it right.

It is incredibly rare for Death Knights (especially level 58 Death Knights) to be doing it right.

I have a theory about that. It goes like this: in lore, Death Knights are incredibly powerful, and this is reflected by the class's starting level and array of skills. They are also the most triumphant anti-heroes of the piece. As a faction, they were more instrumental in defeating the Lich King than either the Horde or the Alliance, second only to the Argent Crusade for sheer, brutal effectiveness. Death Knights are damned - and also damned cool.

This combination of factors attracts young people with God complexes to the class. The high level is a cheat toward perceived power, even in roleplay. It's actually rather telling that even RP guilds often have a minimum level set for DKs well above their level 58 introduction into the wider World of Warcraft. The level also grants them access to a variety of clothing options. The cooler you look, the more powerful you are perceived to be, the theory goes, and since Death Knights are so fascinating and overpowered to begin with, as well as actually looking cool, Death Knight player characters generally end up not being cool after all.

To put it bluntly, ever level 58 DK I have seen roleplaying (with few notable exceptions) have done so poorly, and fall into one of three categories: the Death Knight godmoder, the Death Knight eRPer, and the "not-a-Death Knight" godmoder/eRPer.

And, since the death of the Lich King, Death Knights have stopped being particularly lore-relevant! The only thing we get about Death Knights post-Cataclysm is a little blurb about Thassarian and Koltira in WPL, which tells us that since their grand mission is up, most of them have pretty much just joined whatever faction they started out as ... maybe.

TL;DR: The Death Knight class tends to be just plain bad for RP, and bad roleplayers flock to it.

Need More Rage

Caution: This posting contains a RANT.

So, I think I've figured out why it is that back in the day, Warriors were the only tanks. That reason is rage.

I am right now enjoying my second ragequit ever, and have discovered that there is a hard limit to the number of people that can be vote-kicked from a group, period.

So I mentioned I have a pocket healer now. We've been trying to keep our levels together, and it is difficult, as I want to level while he's roleplaying, or on an alt - and vice-versa.

He's 56, while I just reached 58.

I think if either of us run BRD one more time we'll both go mad, so we agreed to queue for UBRS on a whim.

For nostalgia, he said.

I should note here that I am not a very nostalgic person, and I don't remember UBRS all that well. I was very much a noobish idiot-child back in Vanilla, so it's probable that either I was never allowed to come with, or I just wasn't paying UBRS the attention it deserved but nobody got hurt since I was just healing.

The first thing we see upon zoning in is a Death Knight who made me ashamed of my server.

He died on accident before I had a chance to save him: at level 58, he was wearing cloth, leather, and mail greens.

For those who have not yet experienced Death Knights, the World of Warcraft Hero class, let me explain, with relish. And also ketchup and mustard.

There is literally no reason for a level 58 Death Knight to be wearing sub-par gear.

The gear the class starts with (at level 55) is composed entirely of plate greens. It has reasonably optimal stats, and it is sufficient for a level 55 to get by until 60.

The gear they get on the way to level 58 and joining the rest of the population is blue and can last until level 70: everything, every single piece of gear a Death Knight sees from 58-69 is either a sidegrade or, at best, a very minor upgrade.

IF the unthinkable had happened and this poor sod had been hacked, he's only 58. Rerolling his Death Knight from scratch loses him almost nothing.

So, as soon as possible, we lose the useless DK. While we wait to kick him, one of the other DPS flat-out leaves.

We get two more DKs.

And they are both idiots.

Both of them Death Grip off of me, which is actually the least of their sins, although one of the more frustrating to deal with as a tank. One of them apparently has a grudge against the very idea of wearing a helm, so we have to talk him into putting his on. They seem to want to do the [Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!] JENKINS achievement, at-level for the instance, judging by the sheer number of eggs that ended up smashed before we ever reached the Father Flame event.

Neither of them are inclined to help me, so much as "wander off doing their own thing, which is, by necessity, in my general proximity."

The healer flat-out refuses to heal either of them, nor resurrect the first one to die (who promptly goes AFK for the rest of the instance). I can't blame him. As a matter of fact I pretty much just encourage his behavior - if there was any way for me to directly kill them, I would have done so myself.

By the third wipe, my pocket healer leaves, and I've /ignored three people before leaving, myself.

Thank you, level 58 Death Knights. You have so enriched my Warcraft experience.

An Ode to BRD

This is how it goes.

Twenty seconds in queue and a loading screen, then a groan. I'm here again.

Wait for everyone to get quests for a minute before the pull, where I nearly die to green mobs; the healer's DC'd abruptly. At least he comes back this time. It's a close thing.

Someone suggests a full clear, but everyone else just wants to skip straight to the end. Full Clear Guy leaves in a huff. We bicker briefly on whether to kill Bael'gar or the Inquisitor first, and all the new 55s are surprised when it isn't over after just the Inquisitor.

I'm lost again.

I get lost easily. I warn them up front, but they always act surprised that I'm fuzzy on how to get to the relic coffer room alone.

We don't have enough keys, anyway. Full Clear Guy shouldn't have left. We are slowly killing everything, backwards, including bosses even Full Clear Guy would have skipped.

At least it doesn't matter that I'm lost, now. As long as I keep our inexorable wave of death pointed at dwarves who are still alive, no one cares.

Ironically, skipping bosses has left us in a good position. We're killing the dwarves around the Ring of Law, having walked all the way back to the beginning on our circuitous murdering spree. It's still not quite enough, so after the spectators are dead, we jump down into the arena pit that is the Ring of Law proper.

Several bosses later, I've /ignored one of the DPS because he's just told one too many stupid penis jokes. It's a little surprising to note that he's from my server, but I smile a bit when I do it anyway. I've successfully made his queue a little bit longer.

All of the DPS die from standing in the fire on the second-to-last boss, as does the healer, and I'm left to finish the boss solo - which I do, successfully, seconds before keeling over, myself.

I stay dead at the healer's suggestion: he's not only my healer, he's my friend, and he knows I literally could not find my way back this far into the instance unaided. Besides, by the time I kill the boss, he's released and is somewhere near the Domicile as a stealthed kitty cat.

The DPS ignore the healer's suggestion, however, and somehow they end up dead. I hadn't thought we'd left enough dwarves alive to warrant such wholesale slaughter of our own group, but apparently we had. Once again, they release and run back, ignoring the healer who only wants to get this run done, he cries to me in whispers.

We end up disbanding before I even resurrect.

Thank you, BRD.

You have so enriched my Warcraft experience.