Category: Uncategorised

The transfer between teams in the raiding guild has come through.  So Unferth gets benched from raiding and Korenwolf steps up to the plate to start tanking ICC25 content.  This isn’t because I don’t like healing.  Trees rock, the ability to run while healing large numbers of players for daft amounts of damage makes them possibly the most flexible healing class out there at the moment.

However.

I am fundamentally a control freak, and the place control freaks belong is going toe to toe with the boss.  It’s what we do.

Korenwolf (tankadin) has been prot pretty much since he could start shoving talent points in the tree, he and his soulmate and permanent offsider (a certain Holyadin) levelled together through the latter part of classic and all the way through BC and Wrath.  There is little which can stand in the way of the Paladin tag team, I round them up and keep their attention and she heals the hell out of me and whacks them to act as a mana pinata.  Between them they’ve hit all the 5-man content in Wrath, though with the gearing level it’s no longer team tincan, more like a wreckingball and the wrath 10man content is gradually falling to Team AB (as covered elsewhere on the blog).

I’m expecting higher repair bills (front and center taking melee all the time, it comes with the job), a degree of higher stress / pulse rate during pulls and putting the situational awareness I’ve developed back into proper use.  Not to say that tree healing with tank like awareness for “the bad” is not a good thing, completely the opposite.

So in short less healing news, more tanking news.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/feb/21/photographer-films-anti-terror-arrest

The message being, we don’t like you photographing things, we think you are a terrorist and we’ll demand information we have no right to and hold you in a cell for eight hours if you actually know your rights.

Here’s another which I missed at the time, dear gods, photographing a major landmark which gets photographed many times a day is a reason for a stop and search.

If there is one reason to vote against the main parties this is it, nuLab built up this mentality within the police and PCSOs and the Tories aren’t making any firm promises to deal with the problem.  They like the population to be that little bit afraid of the police, it makes us easier to deal with.  If you’re wary of taking photos just how likely is it you’ll go on a demo?

This is a worrying story, the short version is the school provided laptops for their students and installed various security / monitoring software.  Some of which I consider to be reasonable, though if you provide a laptop to a teen male and expect them not to go hunting on the net for stuff they shouldn’t be looking at then you’re in for a rough ride and providing that the monitoring of usage is clearly and loudly stated before the laptop is accepted with reminders on login then it’s clear and apparent that activity on the machine is not secure and not private.

Educating the students (minors one and all) on how to protect their privacy would be a good thing here, I wouldn’t necessarily trust my bank / utility / social networking passwords to a machine I consider to be little better than a keylogger but providing the information is in the open then the ground rules for the freely provided machine are understood.

However they appear to have put software on to enable the remote use of the webcam (and possibly the mic), it appears that they have been performing some proactive monitoring of the students.  Which has lead to one student being hauled up in front of the principle for “improper behaviour”.

So let’s summarise what is in the reports at the moment

• Laptops provided free (or at low cost)
• Laptops have traffic monitoring
• Laptops have webcam monitoring (doesn’t appear that this was advertised to the students)
• No reports from the school that the improper behaviour was related to the use of the laptop
• “Proactive” monitoring using the webcams
• Private activity in a private house is punished (no hint that the behaviour was illegal) at school

So in short, what the flying fuck were they thinking.  This is so close to 1984’s telescreens that we should all be worried, that there are people out there who think this is “right” or “normal” is terrifying.  Even if the activity was illegal this does not legitimise the monitoring of private individuals within their homes, if this stands does anyone seriously think it’ll end there.

Get the kids used to the monitoring, they’ll accept it as adults and accept it for their kids.

Remember, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.

If someone gives you a “free” laptop, make sure you cover the webcam with black tape.

• Guardian
• Bigbrotherwatch
• Boingboing
• AP

… actually it’s going nowhere.

So, firstly Blizz please stop redefining time such that “instant cast wild growth” means “five minutes from cast to spell”.  The 10 minutes stuck at the loading screen for ICC25 was fun, particularly listening to the fight going on without me.

Finally, work out what you’ve broken with the battlegroup database and fix the damm thing, it’s not only broken it’s been taken down the tip, shipped off, recycled and reused as cuddly toys

Don’t get me wrong, Wrath is excellent, the changes which have been announced for 3.3.3… neat, I can finally clear some of the pile of orbs, however.

Before you roll this out on the servers, please fix the fucking lag, being able to run from the monkeys at fraggle rock up to the refuge while still in combat with an invisible mob, while still trying to loot the first kill with no damage showing, then to drop dead… it sucks, it sucks harder than an electrolux.

Last night was the first time the new machine (Ragnaros) to enter a 25 man raid, as ever the non-raid addons were turned off but the graphics quality was kept just short of ultra.

5-man : 60fps
10-man : 60fps
25-man : 30fps

Next test, Wintergrasp

Only looking at the 10-man list.

• Naxx – Mostly cleared
• OS – Eight manned it
• EoE – Should have a look if only to get the achievement ticked off
• Ulduar – Cleared up to and including Crazy Cat lady
• Ulduar hardmodes – When we get bored 🙂
• Onyxia – Reckon we should have a look at her
• Trial – Once Ulduar is cleared?
• Trial heroic –
• Icecrown –
• Icecrown heroic –

A new machine makes. Until now I thought the new ICC stuff was pretty, damm fine graphics and all that. This was on the original machine, with all the graphics settings cranked right back to that I could achieve 10fps while raiding….

The new machine.. errr… wow… almost everything up to the max and I was still capped at 60fps in a guild 10-man run in Ulduar.

Forge of Souls… oh my gods it’s pretty….

Back in ICC tonight (with any luck)

The Buccaneers came, we saw and we kicked arse.

Anub’rekan went down first, one shot before the first swarm, thank you very much that’s five frosties.

Then.. Ulduar… Flame Leviathan, Ignis and Razorscale went down without a problem. The council gave us some fun but I think out of the 10 only three of us had seen the fight before and from experience on the raiding tree dialing in the mana usage on the healing is a critical part of the balancing act.

Kolagarn, hello Mr Loot bot, no you didn’t drop the trinket for the priest.

Crazy Cat Lady, thank you for dying, particularly after the god awful pull I did (kitties mashed me as I was out of line of sight), the bear stayed up long enough for a battle res to land on me and get RF running… then… I remember hitting, taunting and generally running around until she fell over.

Korenwolf finally managed to replace the shield from Culling, about time.

Bloody good effort for the Buccaneers, next on the agenda is the four watchers. They’ll be fun…

A week of highs, lows and missed raids. Wednesday was good progress, we mashed through the first four bosses without any problems, this little tree spent his time waving branches and running around like a loon. As is normal for trees. We got our first look at the "heal the dragon" boss, it’s an interesting fight which depends on the dragon healers getting into the portals, getting a green orb quickly and making sure that they get an orb within the last few seconds of the dream.

To misquote a (in)famous raid leader "many orb stacks, handle it!"

Friday was a washout thanks to work being hell and feeling rough.

Saturday raiding happened, the Council got nuked (though messy), and Putri mashed our faces some more, still felt like hell.

Missed the Sunday ICC10 raid thanks to spending most of the day either in bed or lying on the couch listening to B5.