digitaldiscipline ◾ *poke* [geek, WoW] (Reply)

I've finally gotten my hands on a cheap AGP video card (an R250 that I traded a Linux textbook to

analmuch for), and have been collating the rest of the various parts in the hardware staging area (read: on the futon in my office). The only pending part is a hard drive, and, to that end, I finally got around to putting the 300GB SATA drive I picked up cheap six weeks ago into my main box [Deviant], which will be replacing the current 120 and 200gb drives. one of those will end up in the CF box [as yet unnamed], and the other may replace the aging drive(s) in K's rig[1].

Once that's up and running, it'll get the CF devkit that came with the alarmingly thick book I picked up, so I can begin banging on the salient code-y bits to learn web app development (i'm sure shaky and my boss are sick of hearing me bitch about how much better it would be to have CF on our work server, since we're authorized for the full macromedia suite, and it would be a hell of a lot easier to interface with the nine bajillion goddamned access databases used around via a web front-end, as well as giving us a more robust solution as far as gathering data and presenting dynamic content.

shaky's been playing with the macromedia 8 suite this week, and it looks like there are some cool toys in there, too, but i've been up to my nipples in miscellaneous nuisance work, and haven't had a chance to get up to speed on it; instead, i get to interject blue-sky hypotheses, based on the recent acquisition of macromedia by adobe, and come up with ideas like, "sites could use this to dynamically generate PDF web pages for visitors, which, in addition to the Flash content, pretty much keeps anyone from stealing their content without a lot of work."

for those of you whose eyes just glazed over - "new toy, could help me earn more $$."

The joys of being a solo player in the low 40's are, uh. . . nonexistent. I've got a pile of quests that are too tough to tackle alone, and I can't easily drop them to take on new stuff without forfeiting the rewards that make doing them the whole point of the exercise. So, instead of dying alone at the hands of various forms of Stranglethorn Vale critters, zombies, or other minions, Pronfucious headed up to Scarlet Monastery to score some loot.

Yesterday's first group was well-intentioned but disorganized (myself as a damage-dealing priest, a pair of paladins, a warrior, and a hunter who didn't have a pet because he was trying to acquire a new one[2]). Minimal death ensued, and we took down Herrod [i got dick for loot, but a bit of xp, nothing exciting]. Pron is far and away the biggest damage-dealer, which means either a) I'm doing something wrong, or b) our warrior was asleep at the switch.

Towards the end, I recieve a /tell from someone saying, in effect, "Our group really needs a priest; I will blow you if you join us." When I finish the first run, the group breaks up, and I join the new crew.

Sil, this rivals your afk-warrior trek through Zul Farak for the title of "Worst Group Evar." In one corner, you have me, a priest who is built to kill first, heal later. But I can still heal moderately well when I throw on the right outfit. "Hellooooo, Nurse!" Heh.

No such luck. For those of you who don't play, there are some classes that don't have any skills that assist (buff) other party members, or do so only temporarily. I suddenly found myself with four of them - two warriors, and two rogues. These characters have -no- healing ability, except making and using bandages, and that's far from a given (also, bandages suck during combat).

Okay, I'm the healer. Then we discover that one of the rogues, at level 40, has -never- visited his class trainer to learn new skills, attacks, or anything. This is shit you do every two levels to make your character more powerful, for a nominal cost (by level 40, you'll have spent 10-15 gold pieces altogether if you're dilligently learning everything you can - this is not a substantial capital outlay). He doesn't have basic attacks or tactics that any sensible player takes for granted, which severely curtails his ability to effectively to, well, pretty much anything.

Suffice it to say, the brute squad runs pell-mell into the baddies, their tactics are nonexistent, and it's only with repeated applications of, "HEY, HEALER NEEDS SOME FUCKING MANA" that they recognize that they're going to die, repeatedly, if they don't clue up.

They don't clue up. The server reset around 10pm was almost a godsend, in that I didn't have to say, "Fuck y'all. ET Stone Home" while they were getting chewed up by a bunch of MOBs that by all rights shouldn't have stood a chance.

[1] Cleverly named "Kim's Machine," it currently sports a semi-elderly 40gb hard drive, as I recall; both drives being pulled from Deviant are of the WDD SE variety, sporting the 8mb buffer, which is definitely an upgrade in that department. The PITA there is migrating the windows installation data, since it's replacing her C:/ drive. Fun with transferring user profiles will undoubtedly ensue.

[2] My main character, Raafe, is a hunter. I understand the desire to have a pet cross-trained in the skills of other creature types. . . but, really, you shouldn't dismiss and abandon your pet until you're face-to-face with your next critter minion, because you've just done away with an extra source of dps and hit points the group can absorb. Especially when you're half a level from being at a point where you'll be able to obtain your desired pet.