Author: Laura Highcove

Everybody Lies

Laura Highcove

It’s a common theme in House. A lot of issues with treatment come up because the patient lied about something, or withheld something else important. (Either way, it never turns into anything good for the patient.) It comes down to whether or not you can really ever know another person.

It’s common practice with everyone else to put up a front. You see what they want you to see, and nothing else. Maybe because of my own honesty I tend to believe that everyone else is honest. Not like every random person I meet, but after being around someone for a certain amount of time, and talking with them, and getting to ‘know’ them, I would think that I would know something of their real self.

Most recently, I got a bit of a shock about someone that had it not come from the source it came from, I never would have believed it. After starting this post several times in my head, I was going to keep names out of it, but after thinking about it, I see no reason to.

I play on the server Kael’thas, and always have. There has been a guild on the server for nearly as long as I can remember called <Redemption>. The GM and leader of this guild was a guy named Moneyus, who when BC came out switched his main to Muneyus.

Muney is a very good people person. He always dodged my questions of what he did IRL, but I always assumed he was some sort of councilor. He gave me lots of great advice when I was looking to improve my leadership as an officer of <OOB>. I was able to talk to him about problems I was having in the guild, get advice, that sort of thing.

He was one of the few people to garner respect server-wide. When he posted on the forums, people from outside his guild would attack trolls on his behalf. He could ask questions that would get other people pounded into the ground, and get real answers.

Back in December when <OOB> was struggling toward our first Kael kill, Muney said Redemption would be in BT come January. I believed they could do it, but it wasn’t meant to be. January came and went, and patch 2.4 came and went, and I still think they haven’t downed Kael.

And then I heard Muney was turning over GM of <Redemption>. He did it in the way I’ve seen suggested on the wow forums, where you leave the guild, or just leave an alt in to keep people from still relying on you once you’ve given away leadership. He even went so far as to transfer off the server. He said he was tired of raiding, and that he needed a break.

He’s now on Antonidas, in 3/4 T6.

Why do people insist on lying?

Character: Nabith

Laura Highcove

Nabith: Level 70 Night Elf Hunter (0/28/33)
Enchanting/Leatherworking

Name origin/meaning:
Nabith is an elf traveler I created for an interactive story. You can find her character page here. I modeled the in game character off of her (sans the height, which I couldn’t do much about.) and even had an owl pet named Siffy for her first 40 levels.

Reason created:
Matthew’s roommate in college, Dan, had a hunter in Havoc, and I spent many a night watching over his shoulder as they raided. Not only that but I loved all the different types of pets he had and would try out.

Key moments:
Discovering my bow did more damage than my melee.
Walking into Darnassus for the first time.
Realizing I could not complete [Relics of Wakening] at level 9 and grinding to level 10 to get my pet.
Spending the better part of a day trying to figure out how to fish and swim underwater.
Hopping on the boat and sailing to Menithil Harbor.
Discovering the auction house.
Going back to Wailing Caverns at level 40 to catch and train a blue level 20 wind serpent.
Realizing I did not have to feign death every 30 seconds in raid in order to not pull aggro.
Kiting Drakk in UBRS for the first time.
Getting Hyacinth Macaw for 25g.
Completing my epic bow quest.
Getting my first (and only) piece of tier 2.
Stepping through the Dark Portal.

Comments:
Because she was my first character, I didn’t know much at all about the game. I spent much of my time early on exploring every nook and cranny that I could find. She’s really the character that developed from an actual incompetent newbie to a skilled raider, because she is with whom I learned it all as well. I never really got into pvp, even though I have done it.

Currently:
She is my main raiding character, and very possibly will stay that way in the forseeable future. She has been BM for a long while, but is now trying out survival for the added raid buffs. I pretty much use her only for raiding and her professions on occasion.

Screenshots:
2006-03-13 – Moon: This is the first screenshot I have, and couldn’t have been taken more than a week after I first started playing the game. Despite Darkshore’s general ‘gloomy’ feel, I was still amazed by the scenery.
2006-03-17 – Skeleton: Took this screenshot because I was amused by the skeleton that was so far off the ground. In it you can see my default UI, my owl pet, Siffy, and my non-combat pet, as well as the fact that I was doing the “waste of time” quests that had you run all over Azeroth. But then I guess since I was new to the game, seeing new places was part of the fun.
2006-04-23 – Doorway: The exploits of the recently turned level 40, with a cat I was trying out from STV. I happened across the Dark Portal for the first time, and thought it was so cool.
2006-08-23 – Onyxia: Pretty sure I’m level 60 here. It was right after the patch that put Onyxia’s model in for the Masquerade quest instead of the little dragonkin, but before they moved the pvp generals out of this room. (I was probably pvping to get the 200g off my epic ground mount.) As you can see, my bars have filled out and the UI has changed slightly.
2006-09-08 – No, you get closer…: Even though I’ve done a ton of raiding since, this was my first experience with a end game end boss. Shows my leet raiding UI, and some of the old <Order of Bahamut> members. Still remember how we were all scared that getting any closer would pull Hakkar.
2006-10-21 – Tier 2: I wanted this helm so badly, that I set a crazy record (at the time) bidding on it to make sure it was mine. It’s one of the items I’ll never de.
2007-01-18 – On the other side: Two days after BC was released is when my copy finally came in the mail. This is the beginning of my exploits in Outland.

Counciled

Laura Highcove

We’d read the strats about how similar to the Maulgar fight, the Illidari Council was all about the pull, getting into position, and doing what had to be done. I don’t think I’ve ever used so many mana pots in my life, and when you hear the paladins start complaining about being oom…well suffice to say it was a lengthy fight.

Despite what other people think of this fight, I found it a great deal of fun. Of course my only job was misdirecting the pull and then running around after the paladin who is in a near constant state of motion due to all of the stuff we can’t stand in.

The fight was a lot of the same over and over. The kill attempt was not beautiful or perfect, but we all did what we needed to do. Also, it seemed that a lot fewer people died once we began calling out who was a poison target.

And at 1%, the stupid priest got off a heal, which stretched the fight on a bit more, but we held it together and finished them off.

Gratz to Lesia, Koho, and Allysa for their shiny new t6 pants. And to Kindasil, who’s giddier than a schoolgirl with his [Helm of the Illidari Shatterer].

And I had something a bit longer planned for this moment, but in light of…things, we’ll just leave it as: My Final Goal Accomplished. Now it’s just up to the guild how far we go.

Untitled

Laura Highcove

I’ve gone through most of my life wanting everyone around me to like me. I don’t like the thought of someone thinking badly of me. The only problem with that, is that it’s only possible with reasonable people. As soon as someone starts to not like you because of something unreasonable, there’s really not much you can do. I guess I was just lucky to be surrounded by reasonable people for so long.

Chalk it up as a life lesson.

On Raiding

Laura Highcove

I scared myself for a second this morning. I was thinking over the events of last nights raid, and how much of a pain it was, and how I hadn’t enjoyed it. And for a moment I thought I had lost my enjoyment of raiding. Suffice to say, I stopped to think what precisely it was about last night that I did not like:

1) That pull in front of Naj’entus. Every time I come up to it now, I have no clue whether we’re going to one shot it or wipe on it for an hour. I know we joke about it being a ‘hard boss’, but the general consensus is that outside of bosses, that is the hardest pull in the instance. Added to that, the fact that it’s right at the beginning of the raid, meaning a wipe on it effects the raid mentality for the rest of the night.

2) Supremus. I hate that boss with a burning passion. Partially because it’s seen as so easy a boss that people view it somewhat as a joke, when they really shouldn’t. Also because he picks you off slowly, so that you end up wasting a *huge* amount of time on any attempt that becomes a wipe, because it’s usually not clear until almost the end of his ridiculously long enrage timer that you won’t be able to down him that attempt.

3) Teron Gorefiend. Understanding the basics of my personality in that I really do want to try my best both to be helpful to those around me, and also to avoid ridicule, this boss was a major nightmare for me. Mainly that whether the raid lives or dies is set entirely upon my shoulders, in a way that it is clear that I messed up and how badly, with no way to practice. (The simulator is only but so good, and yes, I beat that many times.) The fact that I could feign death out of it doesn’t really help things, as I pretty much spend then entirety of the fight having to watch his cast bar to feign death. Last night was my first time doing it, though I didn’t pop my rattlegores until after the boss was dead. Which meant the raid had absolutely nothing better to do than watch me, with full knowledge that if I failed, they would be picked off by mobs they could not dps. Happily enough, it was easier than I could have imagined. I hope that this positive experience will make future attempts on this boss less stressful, but who knows, because it’s still better for me to fd out of a cast so I can continue dpsing.

And really, those are the worst things in the instance. Of course they are also the first things in the instance, which is why last night was just bad in general. RoS is not all that bad as long as we don’t have to teach new people important roles (ie holding fixates and kicking). Bloodboil, though stressful on healers isn’t really that bad for me. Shahraz is still a joke that just requires some situational awareness. And even Council seems like it won’t be that bad of a learn. I’m fairly certain we’ll have them down this weekend.

Raiding Day

Laura Highcove

So yesterday was Koi’s birthday. As a birthday present, he wanted to have a raiding marathon. As such those of us in a reasonable timezone were on at 11 server time. And after a MgT run to wait for a few more people, we headed out to Hyjal and cleared the place (sans Archi), earning some gems, three t6 tokens, and badges of justice for everyone.

Also, a special gratz to Rosalind who completely cleared himself out of dkp while in Hyjal.

At normal raiding time we went into Black Temple, (after all logging off to update Omen at the same time) one shot Bloodboil, then went and 2-shot Mother Shahraz. Oh, right, that was our first kill of her. And yeah, it’s about that underwhelming. Though I guess it was a nice change after all those horrible wipes on RoS. The video is just as underwhelming. (I’ll get it up sometime.)

However, gratz to Grianne, Azurmahn, and Lelaine on their respective t6 shoulders. (Yeah, we got one of each.) And Burdokva who got [Shadowmaster’s Boots].

So with an hour left we headed up to play with the final roadblock.

As for the misspelling, I fixed it but in truth I really didn’t give a rat’s behind. This boss exists as nothing more than a way to force you to spend extra time in the game using a mechanic that has nothing to do with skill, and everything to do with how much time you spent farming in one form or another.

Emo Boss

Laura Highcove

This boss is the embodiment of the emotions of our good friend Illidan. As such it’s not hard to understand exactly why it’s so emo. The guy [Illidan] made some poor choices in life, and even if he had the best intentions in mind to start, he is just seriously messed up now.

RoS also did an extremely good job of making us emo. This is the first boss I can say that we should have had down a week earlier. And not because it’s an easy boss/strat and people are just being stupid, but because it seemed like the game was conspiring against us. We worked through the first two phases, got them down pretty well last week, and then we had a rush of mass disconnects (like three people at the same time as soon as phase 2 started) and lag for people who never have trouble with lag.

We came back this week and one shot his multi-face.


There was a healing wand and some leather gloves. I don’t feel like looking up the links and such right now. /emo

Untitled

Laura Highcove

Anime I’m downloading:

Spice and Wolf
Clannad
Shugo Chara!
Rental Magica
Shion no Ou
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
Shakugan no Shana II
Gundam 00

Spice and Wolf is the tale of a traveling merchant, Lawrence, who makes a promise with a harvest god, a wolf named Horo (or Holo, those silly Japanese) to take her North, and their resulting journey.

Impression: Actually, this is one of my favorite series to date, and that took me totally by surprise. So much so that I was thinking of putting together a Horo costume for the upcoming con. Horo’s character is just amazingly well done. The chemistry between the two main characters is just perfect. All storylines revolve around being a merchant and buying and selling goods, but it never gets boring. My only regret is that it’s only 13 episodes long.

Clannad is the story of a high school delinquent, Tomoya, who in his free time starts helping out a lost looking girl, Nagisa, who wants to restart the school’s drama club but lacks the confidence to do so.

Impression: After Air, and attempting to watch a few other dating sim games, I was sort of turned off by the general classification. But I saw Dom’s review of Clannad on Megatokyo.com, and I decided to give it a shot. I’m very glad I did. Once again watching the relationship between the two main characters evolve is a joy, and the supporting characters are lively, friendly, and in general everyone just wants to help everyone else. Just stay away from the movie. Usually I like movies like this because they kind of take the plot and condense it, and you get a nice quick trip with the characters from the series, however, this movie sapped the life out of Nagisa. She didn’t feel like Nagisa at all, and I just hated it. Plus it puts the supporting characters into nothing more than brief cameo roles, which isn’t fair to them.

Shugo Chara! follows a girl, Amu, who is seen as ‘cool’ by everyone at her school, but who really just wants to fit in. She then finds a trio of guardian eggs that tell her she can be anything she wants to be.

Impression: Just a fun magical girl show with everything you’d expect from the love interest, the rival, the friends, the enemies who aren’t really so bad, and of course the magic.

Rental Magica is the story of a boy who inherits his father’s mage renting company, even though he knows nothing about being a mage himself. It follows the small company and its employees, as well as the young leader of an impressively powerful mage renting company who befriends them.

Impression: Having a lot of fun watching this series. It’s nothing that I would end up watching more than once, but it’s entertaining the first time through. Hm, I make it sound more underwhelming than it is, but I can’t go into much detail without spoilers.

Shion no Ou is about a young girl, Shion, who is unable to speak since seeing her parents murdered in front of her when she was a child. She grew up raised by her next door neighbors, while learning to play Sougi.

Impression: I figured it would try and be some sort of Hikaru no Go rip off, but the murder is front and center in the plot of the series. It also goes into a lot of detail about the differences between men and woman’s shogi. (I’m almost positive there was no such distinction in Hikaru no Go.) Shion is adorable, and she acts like a perfectly normal girl except for having to write things down to communicate. Plus she’s falling for a bishie, and we all know how much I like those.

Shakugan no Shana II is more of the same as the first season. Still good, but you’ll be lost without the first season. Gundam 00 is extremely underwhelming right now. I think I got through about seven episodes. I’m still downloading it, but saving it for when there’s nothing else to watch.

Dream of Reality

Laura Highcove

There is a certain intersection on the way to my fiancé’s parent’s house that we pass at least once whenever we travel up there. I have a very strong memory tied into that intersection, such that every time we pass it, no matter what else is going on, I remember this particular conversation.

SD is telling me about a book he read sometime in his past while we were waiting at a stoplight. It is a mystery book, in which a dog is a detective. He has a particular device on him that makes his inner thoughts audible, and in this way he communicates with humans. The particular scene he was describing to me is where the dog is trying to solve the mystery, and the clue he is currently looking at is a huge, complex painting. It has a whole bunch of things painted on it. And the dog is discussing how he came to ‘solve’ the painting to a girl. At first he was confused by the number of things on the painting, until he realized that anything that had the number zero on it meant absolutely nothing. Front and center in the painting are some of Jesus’ disciples, depicted with holy haloes around their heads. The dog says that the disciples really confused him until he realized that the haloes were actually zeroes, and as such they did not matter either.

We’ve gone past this intersection several times, and I have this memory, but only the most recent time we were there (Easter) did I actually bring it up with a: “Do you remember when…?”

And SD swears that, that conversation never happened, and he’s never heard of a book with any plot anything like that. The really strange thing is how tightly that memory is tied to that intersection. The only reasonable explanation (besides that SD has just somehow completely forgotten the book.) is that I dreamt the whole thing at sometime in the past, somehow choosing that intersection as where the dream took place, such that every time I pass it, I recall this memory. Not only that, but I remember it so vividly that there was no doubt in my mind that it had really happened until SD denies remembering it. Even now I’m more convinced that he just forgot than that I dreamt it.