Reflections From The Pond

Archive for the ‘Silly’ Category

Ah, yes, it seems I need help finding you, Master Glowergold.

Perhaps I need new glasses?

Or are you in stealth?

Oh wait, there you are!

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I noticed the other day as we ran a 20-man raid through the 25-man Ice Cream Citadel that I was talking slightly more than I usually do in a 25-man setting. I ascribed it to the smaller amount of people in the raid, but it got me thinking about what other Vent-affecting influences there could be – quite a few as it turned out.

So, I present to you, the Tessy function of Vent Time Spent Speaking:

Number of people in the raid or group

If I am in a group of two, like the times Jac and I spent trying to one-woman-one-man the world dragons or when we went around annihilating all the old world dungeons, there is generally a more or less constant dialogue between us. And a lot of laughs, which counts as speaking.

A party of five or a 10-man raid both fall into the same general category for me numberwise, and I think I generally do speak more than my share in these groupings.

25 people in a group though is too much to handle for me, I tend to hush up and only speak when I absolutely must, to ask a question for clarification or to shout out

I haven’t been to that many 40-man raids but at the few MC raids I did attend at the end of vanilla WoW I was always silent as a mouse and didn’t pipe up at all, only following orders and being totally awed by the flaming inferno beneath Blackrock Mountain. (I played a rogue back then, not a healer, in case you wondered how I could see anything at all.)

So, the relationship between how much I talk on Vent and the number of people in the group is not linear, but rather something like this:

 

As a side note writing this finally got me googling where that expression – vanilla WoW – came from and I found the following on Urban Dictionary:

It’s the original of something, like the original Ice Cream flavour. In computer games the original game is called classic or vanilla when the expansion comes out.

Makes sense, should have figured it out meself.

Familiarity with raid or group members

How well I know the other people in the group also affects how much I talk. If there are many of my friends around, I tend to be more relaxed and talk more, if I am in a group where most are strangers to me I am more quiet, especially if these strangers-to-me obviously not are strangers to each other.

I remember once my little warlock was in a Mount Hyjal raid at the end of TBC, run by a serious raid guild and I was invited by a friend in said guild. They chatted a lot, having fun in among all the raid leading instructions and the killing of things, but I just sat back and enjoyed their banter, not contributing myself.

Fluency in language and pronunciation

This is rather important part for me.

If it is an exclusively Swedish-speaking group I am much more relaxed and willing to speak than if I have to speak English.

I may write somewhat decent and intelligible English (hopefully) but when it comes to speaking it I tend to stutter and not find the words. Also I have problems pronouncing a few English words – can’t seem to wrap my tongue around some relatively simple words like ‘months’ (it’s the ‘ths’ part which kills me) or ‘runner’ (having a Swedish dialect which are pretty mean to ‘r’ sounds to start with), which makes me slightly reluctant to say them. Not that I off the top of my head can think of any raid-related situation where those words would come in handy, but still.

Both this and the factor above have the same distribution for me:

Difficulty of raid or whatever you are doing

Being a woman, it is assumed I can do many things at once. This is true.

Being a woman, it is also generally assumed I can run my mouth on auto-pilot, streaming words without any apparent thought behind them. This is to some extent true, but only when I also have my mind on auto-pilot and in those cases the “words” consist mostly of encouraging and non-committing sounds and does not really qualify as speaking.

Anyways, my multitasking ability is not always at the top notch and sometimes I rather prefer to not have to focus both on making sense and doing the right thing.

So, generally, the more things happening at the same time the quieter I turn.

 

Familiarity with raid mechanics

This is a bit of a joker, because at first glance I thought it was pretty much as the above, the more familiar with the raid mechanics you are the more brain capacity you can devote to talking.

But if I am really unfamiliar I am not quiet, I talk a lot, only it is not chit-chatting but in the form of questions and imperatives – Where is the portal? Tell me when to pop heroism! You are out of reach! I am out of reach! I am out of mana! Popping Mana Tide totem! I am dead! Want me to ankh? – all while figuratively (and sometimes literally) running around in circles trying to avoid Doing It Wrong.

Time of day/night

I don’t have a chattiness peak during the day but I definitely have a dip when the clock strikes midnight and my brain, conditioned after many years of getting up at six in the morning to shut down all non-essential functions at about this time, loses coherence and my words get that slight zzzz-quality.

I have on occasion been up playing WoW long into the small hours, but most of those times I have had some sort of chemical aids to help me stay awake – see the next factor – and the only time ever I can recall staying up til seven in the morning was in a Zul’Gurub pug back in those glorious vanilla days on my rogue where the raid turnover between bosses was about 25% so there was an awful lot of summoning and waiting for the new ones to show up involved.

Like I implied above, the time of day/night-factor often have a correlation with this next one:

Amount of wine and/or other alcoholic beverages consumed

I think this picture says all there is to say, actually:

 

  

The Equation

So, if we name the different factors thusly:

T = percentage of time spent actually speaking on Vent

and

n = number of people in group

m = familiarity with raid or group members

f = fluency in language and pronunciation

q = difficulty of raid

e = familiarity with raid mechanics

t = time of day/night

x = amount of alcohol consumed)

then I get the function

 T(Tessy) = T(n, m, f, q, e, t , x)

I will leave working out how all these factors factor together as an exercise for a rainy day :P

Note though that this personalized equation only attempts to describe the amount of my speaking, not the actual amount of useful information conveyed!

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I recently read the speculation  somewhere that in the not-so-far future WoW may be free to play, with the cash flowing in not from monthly payments but from in-game micro-transactions, people buying virtual stuff in game for real money.

And in a flash I saw it before me – why not skip the idea of even micro-transactions and base it all on adverts instead?

I am a huge fan of Spotify, the on-line music service.  After I was introduced to that year before last my old cd’s are gathering dust and my dl’d music faced the same fate.

I already had a small kitchen laptop and completed it with the cutest pair of loudspeakers ever,

 

 a black set of the JBL Spyro and I was set.  Got myself an Android phone recently, also the cutest ever but with a ridiculously long name, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro, and the Spotify icon is parked on the front screen of it.

Anyway, Spotify comes in different flavors. When I started out, you could choose between Premium and Free. Free was free to subscribe to but you had ad banners all over the interface and the music was interrupted ever so often for more ads. Premium cost 10 about Euros a month.

Naturally, I chose Premium.

Nowadays there are some more varieties of Spotify and more features, but that total lack of ads is what keeps me subscribing to the Premium variety.

But what if WoW were re-made to be like Spotify?

You could either do it my way then, the allergic-to-ads-way and dish out that 10+ Euros a month to keep your screen free from flashing adverts and your game sounds and chats free from interrupts, or you could play the game for free, your dragon-slaying put on hold while you looked at some messages from the sponsors, the fighting to be resumed after the break.

Would make for some fun moments, don’t you think?

Like, say, the tank in your FoS pug being freebie, suddenly frozen while the rest of you struggled to keep up while he was watching some actor talk about the amazing qualities of some diaper brand or the exquisite flavors of some coffe or other.

Or your little alt levelling on that pvp server when you hear the characteristic swoosh sound of a someone going stealth behind you and then Bam! Not from a dagger in your neck but from the ad pop-up filling up your screen.

Or perhaps they’d settle for a side banner constantly blaring out things you need to buy to be happy, slim, fit, whatever.

Crazy idea, I know, and I laughed at it. But with the apparent emerging fondness for crazy ideas at Blizzard’s, maybe the laugh will turn out to be on me.

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Dear Blizzard,

This year, I have been a very good big girl.

I have not used cheats or exploits (well, not after they were banned at least), I have patiently endured the lag and server crashes inflicted upon me and I have sometimes helped my guildies doing the daily random dungeon or the odd group quests, even if it meant having to fly across an entire continent to do so.

And I always say thank you, which is really nice and thus I deserve lots of presents in Cataclysm this year!

So, for Cataclysm I want the following:

1. More damaging totems

The Magma and Searing totem are lovely and I use them whenever possible, but what about my other schools of magic?

I want a Snowball totem pelting the enemy with icy snowballs, I want a Rubble totem doing the same with rocks, I want a Water Hose totem drenching them and a Wind funnel blowing them away.

2. More abilities linked to totems

The Fire Nova is a wonderful ability and I would like to see more of that.

I want to be able to emit a Healing Stream Nova from any Water totem for those emergency heals and why not get rid of the Mana Tide totem for a Mana Tide to be used on any water totem, I want a Blizzard Nova causing a localized snow storm, I want an Avalanche crushing my enemies and burying them under a shitload of rubble, I want a Twister lifting those opposing me high up in the air in a whirlwind of air, I want a Flood Nova of biblical proportions washing the earth clean of any filthy scum that stands in my way.

3. Totem Grenades

While I absolutely love my cool space totems, my little helpers and guardians, and pop them whenever and wherever I can, I would also absolutely love to be able to throw them like a grenade and place them exactly where I want them.

Imagine a Fire totem lobbed right into the midst of the enemy with a Nova going off there, imagine a Healing Stream totem landing in the melee with a Heal Nova pulling them back from certain death, imagine that Avalanche blocking the enemies from escaping from or coming closer to me and my fellow adventurers.

4. More elementals

I love and cherish my Earth elemental and my Fire too, but it should not be any harder summoning a Water or an Air elemental, right? The water elemental could conjure up geysers and the air elemental could conjure up a lightning storm!

5. Ghost Wolf to be an instant cast and usable indoors

In my everyday life I am constantly communicating with the spirits, be I outdoors or indoors. Mere walls do not hinder me seeing into the world of the spirits and should thus not hinder me entering it.

Oh, and make it instant cast while you are at it, when I enter the spirit world I do in instantaneously, like stepping through a doorway. I do not need to knock on the door and ask permission to enter.

6. Ghost Eagle

I want to be able to fly!

My Ghost Wolf form is for travelling and only travelling and surely there are eagles in the spirit world too? I can totally see myself soaring over the world in the guise of a spirit eagle.

I know you have been busy and I know you have already started to gift-wrap the Cataclysm pressies, but I’d be really happy if you would consider this wish-list of mine.

Anyway, I hope you like the milk and cookies I left out for you.

Love,

Larúe

PS: Please say hi to Mrs Blizzard.

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It is about time the gnome community is given due recognition! To facilitate this, the Gnome Rights Party – represented here by the guild Single Abstract Gnoun – gathered up for a Gnome Pride march to Ironforge to present King Magni Bronzebeard with a Gnome Rights Charter!

To proceed through the wintry landscape of Dun Morogh with dignity we practised forming an orderly line,

but as orderly lines were not in the charter we soon abandoned that line of though, thus we could proceed any which way we wanted.

Ironforge is huge and there are muchos interesting things to see, to examine, to avoid falling into,

to be aghast at (stepladders to be provided free of charge is a demand in the charter).

Other areas if research included how many gnomes can fit into the skeleton jaws of an old beast.

But fear not, these interesting old fossils did not deter the Gnome Pride Party from accomplishing our mission! We had an audience with the king,

and although he did not say either aye nor neigh to our demands, he accepted the Scroll of Gnomes Rights Charter (sorta) gracefully and we went on about our other businesses!

Like, what to do when you hit the Big City? Take a refreshing dip in a public ablutionary facility of course!

And when we were all clean and fresh again, what was the question everyone asked? Well. where’s the booze, of course!

And luckily the nearest boozer was not very far away!

After downing a few refreshing beverages of your choice it was time for us to go our separate ways once again, but before that we were gonna show the world gnomes are not to be taken lightly anymore by demonstrating on the steps of the IF bank!

Sadly, a lot of the world seem to think gnome punting still is acceptable behaviour, and that parking your big fat elekk on top of us was a hilarious move.

But us gnomes are small resourceful to say the least, and cunningly we snuck into the bank where the big beasts could not follow!

Turns out the big people still can find ways to be rude and try to obstruct the gnomes’ fight for equal heights rights and lower doorknobs, though, like popping a fire elemental in the midst of our formation…

Anyway, the Gnomes Right Party will undoubtedly prevail and soon we will have our own beloved city back again!

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Added: For more coverage on the Gnome Rights March check out

- There ain’t no Gnome like a blogger Gnome at Blueberry Totem.

- The SAN campaign for Gnome Rights part 1 and part 2 at Stories of WoW.

- The Events which shape us at I can do alts, me.

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…you’re staying here.

Jones, cat, survivor of the Nostromo, last seen on the Weyland-Yutani space station.

Location nowadays: unknown.

Or is it?

Look what I found in the Legerdemain Lounge in Dalaran:

I just hope the aliens won’t be lurking somewhere too…

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Gnomes are rather small, you know, and for some weird reason they have the largest mounts in all of WoW. Maybe they feel a subconscious need to compensate for something, but the fact remains, all gnomes manage to choose the largest of the flocks for their mounts so they can look down on the lesser races from their high saddle perches.

And the largest of all mounts is the mammoth. So a gnome on a mammoth must be pure win, right?

Paynne, the fearsome gnome warlock, recently found to her pleasant surprise that amongst her ambling meandering dungeon runs she had actually managed to scrape together a total of 317 Stone Keeper Shards.

And of course you all know what you can buy for a mere 300 such shards? That’s right, the Wintergrasp people sell a Black War Mammoth for that measly sum.

If you look closely you can see the blue-clad black-haired gnome in the saddle, and for those who can’t I will handily provide a close-up:

…and yet another one:

Who are you calling small?!?

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Cuddling, the Draenei hunter with the most beautiful pet in the world, is growing and recently she finished off a quest in Borean Tundra which awarded her a Gun!

Now, Cuddling is not a fan of guns really because of the loud sound they make, scaring every prey within a kilometer off once she presses that trigger. No, much to the annoyance of the resident hunters of her guild, she’ll take a silent deadly bow or possibly crossbow over a gun any day.

But this was a blue gun, and she was toting an old green crossbow which she had found lying in a ditch somewhere in Outland, so she set her doubts aside and woved to get a silencer asap, donned a pair of ear protectors, grabbed the gun from Thassarian’s clutches and threw her old crossbow out.

Only to find out that her Gun skill was the amazing 1/360.

So what’s a girl to do?

Well, she travelled to Ironforge, entered the Deeprun Tram and set about to single-handedly exterminate the entire rat population there.

Armed with her gun and cheap bullets she made a macro to speed up her shoot-out:

/target Deeprun Rat
/cast Autoattack

And the shooting started. As the rat kills numbered in tens and then hundreds, passengers arriving or leaving on the Tram had to detour around the rat corpses piling up, and some even stopped to admire her dedication to keep the rat infestation of the Deeprun Tram at bay, or possibly question her sanity.

“You really have a problem with rats, don’t you?”

It didn’t take her long to kill the 400+ rats needed to max her gun skill, and get a few Sword skillups as well from a ferocious rat or two coming to close.

But it is a bit too noisy for her liking, and she will keep her eyes out for a new bow or crossbow.

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One of my side projects lately have been exploring the DK starter area and the quest lines on my new DK Tessy (yes that is Tessy the Rogue, chief and undisputed leader of all my WoW chars, reborn as a Death Knight).

While many of the quests are of a repulsive nature there is one where you have to gather five ghouls and return them to Gothik the Harvester. You aquire the ghouls by unleashing a device on the poor miners inside the Havenshire mine, which turns them into ghouls.

But somehow, they don’t seem too upset about it.

Just look at that ghoul, just transformed from a living hard-working Scarlet miner into an undead abomination, and he looks at me with the happiest face ever and exclaims Mama!

Isn’t he the cutest ghoul ever?

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I recently took a flight from Fizzcrank Airstrip in Borean Tundra to Coldarra, going to clear out some very old quests from my quest log.

And you know what flight it was? It was an airplane.

Well, of course you know this.

Fizzcrank Airstrip has been in operation for a long time, and us immigrating Azerothians have been taking flights from there for almost a year now, and I think at least six of my flock of alts have been flying around in this area.

So it should not have been a surprise for me that flying out of Fizzcrank required you to be qualified to fly your own airplane!

Daissy, the gnome engineer, she knows how to do this, she even has her own noisy mechanical contraption she flies around in, but how anyone seriously can trust Jools, the daydreaming priest, to pilot a flying machine on her own is beyond me.

Granted, she usually has her head up in the clouds but having her whole corporeal head with attached body up there without anyone else being in charge of monitoring vital things like directions, altitude, wind speed and other aviatrixy stuff seems a bit hazardous to say the least.

And for those who think that there actually is someone else controlling the plane, let me ask you: Do you see anyone else in there? The cockpit’s barely large enough for Jools.

And for final evidence: Look who is steering!

Yes, that is Jools steering, hands firmly on the wheel! She is in control!

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(You don’t think it is anything similar to Maggie Simpson’s steering wheel do you? No, of course not!)

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