Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Brilliant but hard bloody work

Well, this is one of my biggest hiccups yet! About two months since my last post, 3 major international holidays and my own birthday have come and gone and I’m now riding some coursework deadlines…. Where does that leave this blog?

Well I’ll try is all I can say

Maybe the things I post will become much shorter and constitute primarily a few thoughts or links but I will certainly try to post a little more.

Since my last post I bought Arkham Horror and played a few games and enjoyed them, however it’s brutally heavy duty for the person generally in charge of running it which is inevitably me. I shall coax another few games out of it but will force the materials into the hands of the other(s) willing to pick up some of my slack.

I <3 BSG:BG

We actually picked up Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game to and have played about ten games … While we learned to play we were hammered as the humans but these days we find some careful control and fairly restrained cylons can lead to an easy game. It’s very easy to get crushed or breeze through depending on how bold or outrageous the cylon your opposed to are.

Hmmms. I like this game and will likely keep you informed.

I’ve also hammered Modern Warfare 2 and 100%’d it finishing many of the tougher challenges solo on veteran, I’m enjoying the online and I’ve prestiged once (and will likely continue to do so) but I feel like some of the prestige sacrifices are a bit overly savage. I’d make it so that you unlock more and more challenges, but not that they reset your progress of them but rather just lock off the weapons until the respective levels.

Anyway, that’s enough from me, hopefully you’ll see me soon.

Happy new year.

Regards,
James~

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

I identified a few likely candidates to pick up, pretty much all of which were destroyed by BGG’s various reviews, well except for one… In the original run up:

• Comuni
• Zombies!!!
• Battlestar Galactica
• Arkham Horror
• Risk 2210 (overpriced at like £40)
• Various Euro-pop games like Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride

Whilst the Euro-pop games are pretty much universally accepted as great classic games, we’ve played them electronically. Not to say I wouldn’t still love to play Seafarers of Catan or such derivates, but if I’m going to shell out between £20 and £40 for a board game (Anymore and I might as well buy that god damn £55-60 WoW one) BGG says I should hands-down get Arkham Horror.

That said, the BSG one has pretty good reviews but the format seems tired to me. It has dispelled some of the shroud of “Licence Meh” but still not enough for me to indulge this time around.

Tomorrow I think I shall price up Arkham Horror and convince myself to buy it.

That, or look online for a copy of Pandemic.

Regards,
James Reynolds.

Oh, and I haven’t played WoW for over a month. Sorry Focus.

Oh, and I should start a mailing list for anyone still crazy enough to be reading.

Further Reading:
Twilight Imperium
Agricola
Dungeon Lords
Power Grid
Pandemic
Puerto Rico

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Honestly though, two things have lead to a lapse in activity; I finished my work for Exrox and moved back to my home town ready for my final year of University and I’m playing a lot more WoW now. At some point in the not too distant future I’ll upload a few of my killshots which include – at last – a Yogg Saron and also my server first kill of Anub’Arak 10 man (and the looting of the awesome 10-man version of the Chieftain’s Caster mace).

In fact I’ve been away so long that I trialed for a guild, failed the trial, trialed for an even better guild and have now been accepted as  a full-time raider. Focus are a long-standing guild on Turalyon (EU) and I look forward to many successful endevours with them in the future … Even if they had registered over 150 wipes on Yogg and only 1 kill

But in all seriousness, I love this blog to death but at the moment I’m enjoying my time so damn much I just don’t float over here to tell you about it, so in case of huge silences again do drop me a line. I read all comments and emails that I get sent, so please do.

Lok’tar Ogar,
JamesR.

Oh, and I fucking hate Goblins and so does Mark :p

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Worlds Biggest Lolipop

Today is my last Friday working for this company and the work-load has ramped up so I apologize for falling behind yet again, it often feels like you sit down to spend five minutes of your day (on break I suppose) to write some notes about what you did recently, only to have the IT-equivalent of an Atomic-S**t- explosion take place just ten feet from you and the universe as we know it imploads.

There’s also the fact that I have to pack all my shit up over the next 7 days, 2 of which I’m raiding – 4 of which I’m working and at least one of which I’m hungover. Needless to say, my caffeine intake will spike and for once not because of some Rare-drop I convince myself I must have.

I suppose an Ulduar 25 update is in order, according to some sources (but not Rawr) I got what is thought to be the BiS Helm for a Holy Paladin. Needless to say I’m chuffed but also needless to say I’m very very poor now with only about 250g to my name. The item I got was the Ancient Iron Heume (What kind of a word is heume…) with the Intellect+Mana return proc Meta gem and a +16 Intellect yellow gem. It drops from the council, one of the bosses I don’t mind as much but generally causes grief because an interrupter slacks and the raid effectively gets shelled causing trouble for me.

I did see our 45,000+ Hit-point tank take a 58k hit yesterday, needless to say I was not amused and we wiped it up.

Later on I did some number crunching and decided to buy an Emblem of Conquest item and my choices were between the belt (28 Badges) and the neck (18). Both were nice upgrades but I let Rawr make the call for me and I upgraded the neck. I grabbed my Frozen Tear of Elune (omg lorelulz) and logged for the night.

We got both Hodir and Thorim down so Sunday evening is Freya and Mimiron. I think that makes it only 3 bosses before Yogg’saron which I will begrudgingly take part in. In the not to distant future I’m going to start combing my chat logs from WoW for some great anecdotes, so keep tuned in for that but until next time – Die safe.

Regards,
JamesR.

I’m a Healer, not your errand boy.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Mark does not approve of Loot Lag

So yesterday while I was *ahem* working away a friend of mine let me know that our Server hadn’t recovered from Extended maintenance and had so far over run by 2 hours. Not like I care really, I was at work and it has never been down as a returned home. Long gone are the years of 3 day maintenance cycles and daily refunds for lost time all of which were a hot spot on my server (Turalyon EU).

Roll on about 4pm our time and the same friend pops up and tells me that the server is back up but it really isn’t running well. As if Blizzard, rather than performing maintenance, had dragged our server kicking and screaming into the underpass before sodomizing it over and over again as it screams WHY DADDY WHY…

… I … Err … Count backwards from three and I’ll click my fingers and you will forget all of this.

Not terribly believing Mark I got home and logged in to the server to get on with my weekly VoA PUGs, sure the log in process took a while but ultimately I didn’t have any lag at all. Unless, you know, I went within 5 feet of a vendor. I have been playing World of Warcraft for a long time now, I’ve seen classes and races come and go and every single one of them has been overpowered for some period of time. I do genuinely remember a time when Turalyon was so laggy that you couldn’t play reliably for days and weeks at a time but this was shocking.

Just what happened during the maintenance cycle? It more or less resolved itself by the end of the day.

I recently got accepted on trial into one of the better guilds on our server with only Yogg Saron left to get down and I joined them rather laughably for DPS on the second to last boss (I forget his name, General something ) and have been tasked with hitting 25-mans as hard as I can in PUGs to try and fill a few of my gear needs, on Day 1 of this mission I landed my Holy T8 Legs in VoA 25.

Good first day.

Later on in the day having cleared out 2 Quarters and 2 Bosses of Naxx 10 (Mostly for badges, boots) I decided I was sick of wearing blue boots and there were only two places to get them – Raids and Crafting. The crafted plate caster boots are simply disastrous for a Paladin – They have no intellect on them and only mediocre other stats so I consulted the WoWHead comment database and threw together the mats for some craftable mail boots that are vastly superior.

I’m sure I’ll replace them quickly, as is always the way with loot you spend a lot of gold on, but it is the price you pay to be in the best gear. And congratulations to Mark on his first time in Naxx10 (Or any Raid?), he came in as our Off-tank as a Prot Warrior. Raid Buffed about 32k HP so you’re definitely getting there!

I’ll be in touch ;p

Regards,
JamesR.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Complete the title quote in the comments

One of my 52 Pride and Joys

I play too much WoW. Fact. Recently I’ve been setting myself little mini-tasks but generally doing very little to get my Healadin deeper into content … Until yesterday that is.

Recently I’ve been playing in the relative safety net that it the world of Heroics and 10 Mans PUGing OS10, Naxx10, VoA10 and any Heroic that Rob won’t go to and I’ve enjoyed it with the exception of EoE10 which Paladins just don’t seem designed to do.

Last night I decided that needed to change and I went to VoA25, Naxx 25 and OS25 and whilst Naxx 25 was a disaster it had nothing to do with me. I can comfortably heal in these settings and will out-strip most other Healadins only really finding contention amongst the Druids and Priests (Motherfucking Circle of Healing…).

Of course I got no loot, but a few Valor Badges won’t go amiss! I’m considering what to do at the moment about Guilds. I was expecting that the five of us with 80s in DoA would really come together to farm the shit out of heroics so that Mark would be ready to MT or OT at the least an OS10 PUG with us as a basis but that just hasn’t happened. At best I get 3 Heroics with 3 of us and at the worst I’m pugging every heroic on my own.

Ultimately though I don’t need anymore badges, my Paladin is PvE Holy and PvP ret so unless I want to collect a Ret DPS Set (I really don’t) or a Prot set (I’m happy to do so with scraps I get from OS rolls) the only thing left to spent tokens on is Heirlooms or the mount.

The point of getting fired up for heroics was to help drive Mark through the tough instances in a setting where he wouldn’t feel pressured and where someone won’t just whine-quit after the first wipe on Skaddi in UP but since that hasn’t happened we’re stuck with pugging people like the Hunter who pulled 750 DPS (less than Mark while tanking) and didn’t know what AoE was.

It’s really quite frustrating and at this rate it’ll be a long time before Mark has all the items he needs to be confident in Tanking (Even just Off-tanking) an OS10.

Who knows, I’ve got my 50 mount achievement now and I don’t really feel like grinding dailies at the moment (I will, but not many) so I’ll probably spend an increasing amount of my time trying to level my mage alt. Until the others are ready to actually put some effort in that is.

Regards,
JamesR.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Good Morning Twitterers! Today is the last day at Exrox for my housemate and work mate Mike. So it’s going to be a dull week for me! 12:47 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget

@Resuri88 You’ll do fine, don’t worry about it and just enjoy it  1:27 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to Resuri88

@Resuri88 We did 3 Heroics and 1 extra Boss in the end It was a painful, but valuable learning experience … For Mark anyway 1:33 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to Resuri88

This is a great set of Banksy work in the Bristol Museum, amusing statues: http://trunc.it/prqt 1:51 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget

@Resuri88 I just ran around and did a card for Mike :p2:33 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to Resuri88

@Resuri88 It’s a congratulations card :p 2:40 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to Resuri88

Best use of the Special Order Instructions for Takeaway Delivery ever? http://imgur.com/Ech6z.jpg 2:42 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget

@Resuri88 http://bit.ly/19kuJ 53:12 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget

@DowningStreet Here’s to hoping Sarkozy confronts brown on racial segregation 3:37 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to DowningStreet

@Mentazm P.S. Please stop making really bad Strategy Games and bring back the classic formula 6:42 AM Jul 6th from TwitterGadget in reply to Mentazm

Hmmm, this guy has a few PS2 Games …http://cache.gawker.com/ass… about 22 hours ago from TwitterGadget

Late in to work, no watch or phone … Good start to the dayabout 5 hours ago from TwitterGadget

Thunder and Lightning … Niceabout 3 hours ago from TwitterGadget

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

I really don’t have much to talk about, I picked up Star Wars the Force Unleashed and I thought it was an ok game, a pretty good engine but wasted on unimaginative content. AMG the same Boss with a different model, yet again … I would not recommend it for much more than £15 and that’s only if you get a hard-on over lightsaber battles.

I really cba to write this at the moment, I’ll come back after my coffee.

Regards,
JamesR.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Endangered Species

So yesterday a friend finally kicked my back-side and convinced me to check up on the 3.2 patch notes, in response to me asking if there were substantial paladin changes he ominously replied “Ohhh yes”.

It has come to Blizzard’s attention that Paladins are over-performing on the mana effeciency front with many high end players completing Ulduar encounters with intact mana supplies. Blizzard has sought to resolve this by reducing our overall mana-pool with 5% off the top of of Divine Intellect and halving the mana return of Illumination (Down to 30% from 60% of Base spell cost).

As hard as two pretty nasty changes are to swallow they do not come without good reason. Paladins have always been the heinously effecient healing class but we paid for that in a relatively poor array of healing tools. We have no castable HOT’s and one insant cast heal which is on a 6 second cooldown. In return for this reduction in effeciency it was off set by providing us with a new take of Sacred Shield and an arguably fixed version of Beacon of Light.

Sacred shield will now apply a HOT for the total amount healed by the flash of light that procs it which means a sizable increase in healing done especially on those bosses where managing to even cast the heal is the hardest part, i’m looking at you Heigan the Unclean! The Beacon of Light buff now means it heals on potential healing done and for up to 60 yards in range, a very nice adjustment to an already powerful spell and arguably further encourages Raid Leaders to utilize us for Raid healing but at the same time further establishes us as the tank-healer of choice.

Whilst nobody likes the nerf-bat it becomes especially hard to swallow when Blizzard clearly does not realise where Paladins are actually underperforming. Any situational fight that contains either elements of movement or cast-time delays hampers us more than any other class. We are left casting 1 instant every 6 seconds, 1 sacred shield and if we are lucky a flash of light. During a Malygos throw the equates to as much as 20k healing split 10k over at most 4 targets but realistically 3 in a scenario where the whole raid takes as much as 20,000 a head.

Druids, Priests and to a much lesser extent Shaman are all better suited for difficult situations and yet Paladins remain as useless in the Malygos fight as ever before. Here’s to hoping that changes in the not to distant future but for now I’ll enjoy healing both tanks in the Razuvious fight and hitting 7.5k Hp/s.

Remember; never drink and heal,
JamesR.

Liadrin the Noble of Turalyon

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Random Image is Random

Today I found out that I’m not a complete retard which brought with it a huge sigh of relief. My entry into the final year at University is now clear and I am safe to prepare my project in the knowledge it won’t be a waste of time.

Truth be told, the reason for the lack of posts is two-fold: It’s the summer and I like to relax incessantly and I’ve just plain been stressed out/too busy. Leslie has been staying with me now for about a week and before that I was grafting at the University to prove my worth.  Any time in between I spent progressing slowly, but surely, in WoW.

This blog and most of my other outlets have been starved of attention much like most media at this time of year. I recently answered the complaints of my current guild who hated the current Apathy of raiders not taking part.

It’s coming up to my fourth Anniversary in World of Warcraft and there is a regular activity pattern. Guild activity drops sharply during two periods of the year: The Summer and the Winter.

There are two obvious explanations for this, the weather is so damned nice why would you waste your time playing a computer game? The other is that Exams/School Holidays/Work Crunch times are typically around these periods of year adding to the stress, work load and apathy to all grown ups around the world.

This weekend I am down in Gosport again for a old-friend’s 22nd Birthday, I shall meet her new-born daughter for the first time.

Until then my friends, keep gaming and I shall see you for the Fire Festival.

Bring your Repair moneys,
James.