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.

I will write a post tomorrow in place of this one.

James.

:::Update:::

So far I’m a liar.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Wow, it’s hard to believe quite so much time has elapsed since I last visited the left a note for the … 8 … people who still look at this on a regular cycle. Sorry about that. Things are a little hectic not least because University stuff literally appeared from nowhere and kicked me in the nuts but also because I made the fatal mistake of getting back into WoW when I’m at my busiest. Yay for that.

Two things today, I wanted to reflect on my recent WoW activity with a brief commentary on what I’ve been doing and how I feel about a few things including the levelling->Raiding transition and the other is a story over on the BBC about a poll they did on Radio 1 to discover the best game. Please do feel free to go read the top 10 so you are suitably horrified for the rest of this blog.

I’m going to assume you’ve read the results of the Radio 1 Games Poll and now know that Call of Duty 4 is the best game ever, a title coveted by many and seemingly reawarded every time a fad comes along.  I’m going to pass over the games I’m relatively happy with and just make a few comments regarding the fucked up entries:

• Grand Thef Auto IV (10): Are you fucking serious? This game was praised for it’s pretty nice engine but lambasted for it’s terrible gameplay, hateable characters and soul destroyingly dull plot. Are you actually serious? -_-
• Football Manager (2): Yes that’s right, FM is SECOND. The bricklayers and builders clearely voted en masse for this one. Sigh. I like sims! And I like football! And even I think FM is a bag of shite.
• Fifa 2009 (9): Yep, it’s Fifa. It’s like Fifa 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001 … but with exactly 1 more disappointment.
• Halo 3 (8): How did I know the OXM readership would listen to Radio 1?

Out of curiosity here are a few of the good games and where they placed:

• World of Warcraft – 4th
• Half Life 2 – 12th
• Deus Ex – 16th (Noticeably under Fallout 3)
• Pokemon Red/Blue – 18th
• Half Life 1 – 21st
• Command and Conquer

As you can see many of the truly good games ranked, probably appropriately considering that the Radio 1 listenership is quite young but at the same time: Who listens to the radio at the weekend? Predominantly people who are working one might assume. All those white-collar nerds (Like mahself) were probably raiding or trying to alt-boot DOS so they could check out a Microprose classic and did not even find out about the survey until they returned to work on Monday. Quite.

On the topic of raiding (See what I did there) my WoW activity has spiked now that I’ve dinged 80 on my Paladin. Around the 76 Mark I was loaned 500g by Rob to pick up my dual-spec and at the time I was levelling Prot and took off-spec Holy. Tbh, end game protadin is STRESSFUL. Although I generally know all the tacs wherever I’m going I frankly do not have the patience to deal with R-tards. When you’re tanking, it’s all a mile-a-minute and the shit can hit the fan quicker than you can reach for Holy Shield.

Holy is relatively tranquil. Amongst the peaceful sounds of Mik’s Scrolling Combat Text and the soothing glimmer effect that comes with flash of light it’s easy to forget you were fighting a reborn skeletal dragon. Although there is still an element of responsibility – After all I am responsible for whether you live or die – But it’s very much more of a supporting role calling any bonus tacs and pointing out any mistakes for people to improve on.

The Tank is the quarter-back and I’m the half-back. Obscure-American-Football-Reference.

Not long after I dinged 80 I was lucky enough to find myself in a heroic group with an extremely overgeared Prot Pally and a few of his Guild mates. That night we must’ve done 5 or 6 heroics in a row – Enough to come away with a new Epic shield. I accepted their invitation to join their guild and have been running heroics and raids with them ever since.

So far I’ve done OS10, Naxx 10 (All except Kel, they’ve downed him but people are making silly mistakes every time and I don’t join for the rerun) and heroics for most of the other instances. I’ve dinged Exhalted with the Argent Crusade (and got mahself a hat) and now over half my gear is epic 200 Item quality. No set pieces yet though, I passed on my only one since it was a fellow Holy paladin who was running in blues with me in my new Epic Spaulders that only dropped two bosses prior.

Since I dinged 80 and got some of my nice gear we’ve also been running old instances for giggles including Molten Core (2 resets in a row :>) and Onyxia. We also gave BWL a shot but I think some people are too undergeared for it, there were 6 of us which currently makes up: 80 Holy Pally, 80 Enh Shaman, 79 Feral Druid (tank), 72 DK,  72 Shaman, 66~ Mage.

My recommendation: Don’t go until you’ve got at least 3 overgeared top level people. i.e. If the druid could look after himself vs most of the mobs (and cover the Orb Nominee) and one person could be relied on to keep the adds off the boss then I think we’d be ok.

As is, both our attempts have killed the boss before the eggs could go down, and subsequent attempts included botched controls which lead to mass-conflag and a wipe. Going to let the Feral tank ding and get some nice heroic gear – After which I think we’ll be good to give it another shot. The DK is likely to be the next person to ding after which I think Mark will be trying to level his warrior (He’s in outland now, doing fucking well tbh) and Leslie has renewed her levelling effort and only has one or two levels to go until Northrend.

Fun Fun right? Anyway, I look forward to doing some heroics in the not to distant future that are entirely friend driven! We’ve already got 3 80s (assuming Jim dings today :>) which include a Tank and a Healer so we should be ok. Jim may need to invest some cash in premature enchants and gems to get his stats up though but for now we can certainly run some of the easy stuff.

Random tail-end update and gratz for getting this far: I’m coming down to Gosport next week but I will be busy for most of it. I can probably hang out once or twice but I’ve got important University stuff that I need to do. We shall have to meet up and spend hours in Burger King again Also WoW will be on the back burner this week as I prepare all my materials for coming to Gosport.

Enjoy yourself, and GL with levelling Mark.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

• First we travelled to Orgrimmar and released fireworks and much cake was had by all. 
   
• Next we took different routes and travelled to Stormwind – I not sucking at WoW was first there
   
• We headed for Stockades – For some of us it was a gruelling task. I got there with only one death
   
• After waiting for Mark for 20 minutes and killing nubs stupid enough to attach us, we obliterated Stockades.
   
• Next we headed for the Deeprun tram and travelled to ironforge.
   
• We got mugged more than once, but I set myself the goal of completing 1 lap around Ironforge.
   
• I discovered Improved Aura affects Crusader Aura
   
• Rob and I headed back into the Deeprun tram
   
• We evaded an angry level 80 Rogue
   
• We ran through Stormwind
   
• Down through the docks (Which are pretty awesome)
   
• Around the coast of Westfall
   
• Into Deadmines – Which we emptied out in about 3 Minutes
   
• Then Rob and I parted ways, I went to Silvermoon.
   
• Travelled back to the Belf starter zone and up to the Monument on the western cliff.
   
• I ate the last slice of my cake, where the game began for Liadrin

Sentimental Value

And that my friends, is how you should celebrate your ding

Regards,
James.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

I’m still around though and the best way to keep up with me is on Twitter in the mean time (See right).

Cheers,
JamesR.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Microsoft is a software vendor who sometimes get’s too big for their boots. They produce software and a few other bits and pieces (like the 360, for all the $ that has made them…). Their primary audience is people who got on board when they were the only viable platform and they continue to market directly at them, they also retain a huge market share over businesses (As it’s a standard prereq for working in IT whereas Apple s/w is not).

Apple is a hardware vendor at best and a gadget vendor at worst who have made their billions by using innovation produced elsewhere and being a reseller portal for it. That seems pessimistic but even should you disagree this isn’t my primary gripe anyway. They utilize current trends (and often set them) and laugh all the way to the bank with their brand premium which is affectionately known as Apple tax.

Microsoft thinks they rule the world but everyone more or less just laughs behind their back as their market shares slowly reduce in every market. User friendly linux distros (May as well read OSX) as well as Mac OS (May as well read linux distros) stealing their OS market is the big problem. They have had a bad 5 years with Vista being an overwhelming failure but XP (even with its faults) is still sturdy as a rock.

Now here is where I start to lose interest in Apple … They behave like a church and I’m 100% sure there are people who believe Steve Jobs is the second coming of Christ. Apple fans believe that Apple have and will never do any wrong; that OSX is the best thing Apple has ever produced and that using anything other than an iPod, iMac or iLife is pure nonsense. I know you are probably thinking that this is the fanboys not the company but Apple have created this culture and nursed it to become nothing but an exercise in milking the proverbial tit.

The second thing that I despise is that whilst the Apple culture is a fairly abominable group of narrow-minded individuals the people in their financial/pricing department are even worse. Just like any church you are required to mortgage great sums of time, money or energy (sometimes all three) just to be a ‘real’ member. In Mac culture there’s nothing wrong with using a 5 year old Mac but you are still inferior to the chap with a Macbook Air (even if your specs trump his). If your iPod has a mono-screen then I wouldn’t even get it out in public and God (read Steve Jobs) forbid … Should you get out a Non-3G iPhone.

I hate rabid fanboy’ism on both sides but supposed PC fanboy’ism is usually nothing but Mac hate. I hate Macs and I might say it but the false assumption from the other side of the fence is that I love Microsoft and I fucking don’t! If there was a working alternative that ran 90% of my software there is no way I would by another licence of Windows ever again. People can do everything they need to do on both systems, if not from an embedded stand point then from a Virtualization one.

You have to wonder what the Linux professionals think to all this … Laughing at your Apple tax and laughing at your faulty Windows installation, whilst they run a new Linux Distro with all the same features capable of emulating both and likely more efficiently. Ultimately if you think one platform is truly any better than another from a spec POV then you deserve what you get on those hate threads. Let’s all grow up and realise that there is no one-size fits all solution but also that you don’t just have to wear one.

Regards,
James.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Lets try it out… So recently I’ve been doing my jewelcrafting dailies before I go to work in the hopes of facillitating skill-ups (and leaving me one less daily to do [Fishing, Cooking]) and building myself a nice stack of usable epic gems. I dinged 75 and treated myself to the two figurines: Sapphire Owl and Emerald Boar. 

Each of these is pretty good but I treated myself last night and this morning by spending four of my Dalran Jewelcrafter’s Tokens (handily stored as Currency) on the Brilliant Dragon’s Eye Recipe and the two Dragon’s Eye gems I needed. 

I put both into my Sapphire Owl, which now grants me a heinous amount of Intellect altogether.

If you’re reading this can you do me a favour and post some WoW Head links in the comments and see if they work there to? 

Cheers,
James.

Gamer, Blogger, Student

James Reynolds

jamesr87[.at.]gmail.com

Why now? Because I love you? Not likely, because my boss isn’t in? Maybe, or because the coffee machine is borked and I need to do something to wake me up? That’s the deal.

This weekend has been absorbed almost entirely by World of Warcraft which was a bizarre sensation. I decided, for whatever sadistic reason, to level my fishing/cooking on my new Paladin main character. She now sits comfortably in the 380 bracket of cooking and the 280 Fishing. Not very good for a weekend right?

But I did finish Noblegarden at 4am on Saturday night. (Liadrin the Noble, bow down) I also levelled up twice to 66 and did a boat load of instance runs. Liadrin is in good shape after dropping Protection (I fear paladin tanking was a passing fancy) and taking up Ret as the Off-spec to Holy.

Over the weekend I also treated myself to a binge trip to HMV, I came out with:

• RocknRollas
• Some Tartan Extreme Anti-Fast Food thing…
• A Best of Oasis Album (Circus?)
• Royksopp Album
• Johnny Cash Album
• Fightstar’s New Album

This weekend is my Annniversary followed by a friend’s 21st followed by a Fightstar Gig.

Tis going to rock. [Oh, btw.]

Ciao,
JamesR.