Alamo is back!

For those who don't know who Alamo is he is a legend. Seriously.

Everything you need to know about Alamo


After some wonderfully funny posts, he dissapeared for a while. This morning, I found him again, just in time for Cattokissem!

ALAMO teech a CATTOKISSEM!

They even maek a new form just for this!!

ALAMO teech abowt the CATTOKISSEM!

HEY GUSY! So ALAMO is just hiburninatin and hafin sum dreem where him is all in sum green thing with floaty bits and elf and stuffs and then him is WAKE UP and heer they got a doragn gonna eat all the world! THIS is sum FANSY STUFF!

A Thing is all carzy now, so maybe alamo gonna rite a thing before hims brekfust, for babee durids and for peeple to understand what a DUIRD DO! So now, while hims all awake and stuffs, ALAMO gonna teech U about this whole stuff!

1) See, Kanye, him dont like a Bush, and Blizzard, they is dont liek a tree! So DURID aint got no more to be a tree. Alamo like a tree, but not when make a leef all over the carpet.

2) They make a new thing, with CAT and KISS! But mostly CAT dont kiss, just jump on a thing and KILL IT ALL DEAD!

4) But Crazed MOON DURID, is ok to make a kiss right on the ECLIPS!

5) But dont only kiss a cat, because u know: CAT IS 4 FITE!

6) So DURID gonna be so storng heer, maybe everbuddy gonna be a durid thees day!

7) We got a bare. Him is not nise bare because him is gonna eat a fase! Bares mostly like the taste of fase!

6) OK now a Bare, him like sum HEVY METAL! BARE GOTTA THRASH. Just liek a thing wares short and high top sneeker and shake long hare reeeely fast! But also, ware sum plug in an ear wen you make this THRASH, becawse it make a thing bleed!

7) Also, all bare make peeple go fast when him RORE!! This is good, because a bare is deseptively fast. A Fast BARE, this is danjerus BARE! Bare don't even allow in OLIMPIC, becawse wonse upon a time, a bare run a rase in OLIMPIC. Maybe he dosen't win, but everduddy win after, becawse a BARE EAT ALL OTHER RASE MEN! Don't rase a hungry bare, is what sumbuddy shuld tell peeple.

8) MOON DURID, O yes wow man! Moon Durid hang out with 70's rock band and now make a MUSH ROOM from a SECRET PLASE! Mushrooms make a thing ECPLOAD! Espeshully a brain, if u listen to a moon durid backwards, u hear some CARZY THING!

9) Everbuddy liek a LOLCAT, make a funny say with a cute picshure! But now, picshure is not so cute, becawse a DURID now haf a TROLLCAT! Troll is make a talk all liek YAH MON. Maybe when trollcat and moondurid make a party together, is nobuddy remember not nothin next day!

10) WOLF MAN can also make a durid. WOLF MAN DURID, O man Alamo dosen't even haf to wear hims hot topic tee shirt no more! Now got all WOLF and CAT and BARE and MUCHROOM and SEEL and stuff all in same plase!

11) MAYBE I MAEK TOO MANY NUMBER!

Again, Alamo, you are my hero.

I am disappointed again.

You would think, with how I express my displeasure at certain game directions or designs, that I wouldn't be playing Warcraft anymore. I mean, why play something that makes you mad? Yes, I am still sad they are changing tree form to a cooldown. And the direction of healing. I have already told my friends that I may have another two years left in the game before my degree requirements take up more time than allowed to be a raider, at which point I will either be seriously casual or quit out of jealously.

With that looming in my mind, I do want to make the most of my gaming time with quality over quanity. Which is why I get angry over certain announcements. Recently, however, the Real ID changes raised a dangerous red flag for me and I have already posted on the official forums expressing my distaste for this direction.

What I am referring to is the move to make our real names visible on the forums in a thinly veiled effort to inhibit trolling and flame wars. The other half of this reason is to be a cutting edge, Facebook-like environment. There are many reasons why this is a horrible idea.

I refer to this great post by a respected community member:

This bears mentioning again:

A bully will continue to be a bully, a troll will continue to be a troll. There is no way any logical train of thought can result in the assumption that an undesirable poster will decrease their undesirable activity when they are still provided a certain degree of separation from their intended target.

Arguments against providing real life names aside (which are valid) - [Cairneey] still remains as anonymous to me as [Joe Schmo] - and [Joe Schmo] knows this and will continue to act accordingly.

In short - there are no more repercussions for undesirable posters with this new system than there are now, given the above.

In fact, just as much would be accomplished if all forum posters were relegated to posting on one and only one character, with the option to show (but not post on) other characters on their account with the click of a button on their avatar.

There is no need to use real-life names, even if creating a larger social network is what is intended. If someone sees me on the forums and wishes to talk with me in game, there is already an avenue for that. If things go well and we mutually decide to ramp up our relationship to exchange personal information - including real-life names - there's already an avenue for that.

So the challenge, I guess, is explaining to everyone just how having real-life names will offer any improvement at all to the system already in place. 'Lifting the veil of anonymity' is not an argument and is hollow at best. Providing a more social environment is also not an argument, seeing as how we have the ability to do so right now - at our own pace and at our own discretion.

¸..• '¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.•' .•'¨¨)) Frejya -:¦:-
((¸¸.•' ...•' -:¦:-

This is right on the nose. This change is not about accountability, as there are no real repercussions to the abusers. The idea to use psychology in an effort to modify abusive behavious is commedable but is a weak solution. It may just inhibit constructive dialoge instead.

(edit for clarity)

Social Networking and MMO's are similar on the surface but are two different creatures. Both use the internet to connect people together in avenues they would otherwise not normally be connected. Both can enhance one's experiences with the other person, or degrade it depending on the cirumstances. But, and this is a key thing for me, WoW is a separate world for me. Sure, I place Facebook games with my Facebook friends. In that, it is akin to playing Warcraft with my Warcraft friends. The realms are separate. Which is why I have not opted to allow my game annoucments to be broadcasted on Facebook. It's bad enough I have Zynga games spam and my friends don't need to see the other stuff.

With Starcraft II, they are merging the two styles in a bold and an agressive way. We are seeing reminantes of that in WoW.

This has been in the works since May, and shame on me for not catching this sooner. This is taken from a USA today article on May 5th:

I would assume that the Facebook relationship would be used to draw more casual game players to Blizzard's games.

Absolutely. Our goal and vision in this partnership is to really to cross-populate the social networks and to easily find and add your friends from Facebook onto the new Battle.net service as the first step and extending it to other features in the future. … Later on, of course, we have lots of things we are talking about with Facebook. We haven't announced anything specific, but we have lots of ideas about ways to cross-populate and share data between the two services.

The line has to be drawn somewhere, but I am afraid I can't be sure who is holding the chalk.

Forums make my head hurt

While trolling through the forums this morning (WTB less unscheduled downtimes for my server, kthx), I ran across a debate on the importance of haste for 3.2.

I was curious about the thread though it seemed to derail from haste to Revitalize and its value on a raid. I must admit, I didn't think it was all that good, since the tooltip is misleading. But, I spec'd for it anyway after my DK friend suggested it.

It seems to be a good move. We run a rather melee heavy raid set up, with upwards of three DKs and three rogues/kitty druids. For our frost DK, Replenish gave almost 300 runic power, and for the yellow bar crowd it gave usually over 150 Energy. This pales in comparison to their innate abilities, but since they were getting HoTs anyway, it is free dps for them and no strain on me. A win-win scenario.

Not everyone will have the same results. It still pales next to Replenishment for mana gains, but that is nothing new. But to totally dismiss Revitalize altogether I think is an easy mistake. I know I was reluctant at first but I haven't regretted my choice to pick up since. I see it as added utility. If we were a caster heavy group, I could see the mana gains laughable at best, but with all the melee we bring, anything to boost their dps is a win in my book.

Say What?
What confused me in the thread was this comment (not posting the commentor's name):

...more haste will help you cast regrowth faster, which you will more than likely use more than nourish anyway

Huh? Since they glyphed Nourish, I rarely use Regrowth anymore. Now I am really wondering if I am missing something. There are some fights I use it for (Mimiron, Thorim) but I use it as I think it was originally intended to be- a long slow HoT. For me, its a preloaded hot when I know folks are going to be taking damage at some point, just not immediately. It is not my emergency heal. It is not my primary Tank heal. In Naxx and in my early heroic days Regrowth was my go to spell, but with my role as raid healing, I find other tools to use. My targets usually have a HoT on them (Rejuv or Wild Growth) and if I need to burst heal them, I use Nourish.

Ill drop my 1 point in imp barkskin and drop a point from natural perfection

I didn't think Imp Barkskin was that good, but I haven't done a lot of hard modes (just 10 man versions). I still see it as more of a pvp talent for where I am at in progression.


It depends on raid healing vs tank healing
To me, this is what makes the druid great right now. We have the chance to fill a couple different roles and perform them rather well. We are still jack of all trades in some areas, but to be able to make choices about the direction we want to take as healers puts us above the rest. I agree with some sentiments made that 3.2 will further streamline these directions.

Since I don't foresee my role changing in the future (especially with one of our shaman quitting the game), I will leave the tank healing to the Priest and Paladins. When we do 10 mans, my spec is flexible enough to get the job done, but MT healing will not be my primary job.

I do feel that Empowered Touch coupled with Tranquil Spirit and a handful of other talents will cause some tough choices to be made with tank healers, and Revitalize seems the best way to cut points in order to make the most of that role.