Feral/Turkey Sketches

I spent some time stick-figure doodling various bears, kitties, and moonkin :D I hadn't really done many bears before, so they took a bit of time to settle into the style of my others.



I think Scythe will like the "WTF" cat.

Highlight: RNGesus

So, as several of my followers have been hoping, my guild picked up a moonkin. It resulted in the hoped-for development of a few turkey stick-figures making their way onto my blog (yay furby moonkin stick figures?).

It has also resulted in a new guildie-blogger, one who seems fond of MSPaint, picking lovingly on his guildies, enchanting offspec Lich King loot with "fiery-weapon," and chasing a raid leader around with a ball of shadowy Unbound Plague doom after we've killed the boss and failing to pass it off to him before dieing in a horrible kitty meltdown. I lol'd.

....in short, he's pretty awesome. I love my new turkey guildie, and happily share the leather spellpower gears with him. He even drew me a tree doodle today. So, if you'd like some laughs and a glimpse at the far more goofy side of Vortex, not to mention our heroic Putricide strat, go wander over to RNGesus.

BloodyScreen

When work becomes overwhelming, a game such as WoW provides a much-needed escape. I delight in the simple things, and enjoy a small change-up now and again to keep things fresh.

Last week, installing BloodyScreen did this for me. A very simple mod, it does nothing more than splatter your screen with blood on a crit.



Really, it's the simple things. It works on spells, it works in melee, and it's actually got quite a bit of customization available. Once you log in after installing the mod, just type /bs and it'll bring up the main menu panel; from there, I suggest resizing the drawing area where the mod is allowed to put splatters on your screen, and then setting up the individual preferences in regards to splat size and what numbers trigger it.


Above are my own preferences. I set the splatters to fade individually after 4 seconds as well, and then had each character run a 100-hit average via the mod to set the threshold on the crit numbers:


My rogue and feral see quite a few more splatters than I do as a resto druid, naturally, as HoTs don't really crit (yet). I haven't found it to be obtrusive, and honestly, whenever I see a little splatter from a moonfire crit as I'm bouncing around trash, it makes me grin like the silly (and possibly sadistic) girl at heart that I am.

Just make sure you don't choose conflicting red-splatter power auras graphics without giving them a noticeable animation to make them show over this mod ;)

Yarrr.

Linkage for a Busy Week

I have been utterly swamped this week with office work, house work, and outside projects. While it has been remarkably productive, it has also been quite exhausting, stressful, and time-consuming... as such, I've had little time to blog this week. I'm taking some time now to give myself a mental break before diving back into the thick of my work, and sharing with you a few links to things that have kept me sane through the mess.

• Puddle sharks.
  
• Keredria at ToL has a short discussion about gamers and their control over dreams, which I found fascinating.
• Vortex has almost gotten its full raiding roster their ICC drake mounts. We'll have to redo Sindragosa's all-you-can-eat achievement next week to finish us out, though, which means we're pushing back our heroic Lich King work for another week.
• Vortex is recruiting two melee dps (rogue, pally, or deathknight) if such players happen to read my blog and are interested in joining us for ten-strict raiding. We lost a couple of our melee due to outside commitments (my hubby included), and would like to get back up to a 14-raider roster.
  
• I've been amused by BRK's Cataclysm Alpha notes, which are posted in a completely non-spoiler (and non-NDA-breaking) kind of way. He posts his reactions to things over a night of play without leaking the details. The gist of them is that things are changing, and lots of things are currently broken... it *is* an alpha, after all!
• Murloc Parliament recently posted a long discussion on gaming and relationships: namely, addressing the "WoW widows" concern and how it is often treated differently from other hobbies, the "me-time," which in itself is a necessary part of any healthy relationship.
• A relatively short post by Dinear at Forever a Noob regarding the supposed "death of 25 man raids." The topic has simmered down, recently, after its initial burst of blogging activity; his post is a good summary of what the iLevel-equilization will mean for guilds.
• Graylo at Gray Matter had an excellent post on surviving as a moonkin in raids. The majority of the tips apply to resto druids as well.
• Disapproving Kayak.
• I have a mod that splatters my screen with blood when I meet a certain crit number. I'll link it later when I remember exactly what it is. It makes me happy.
  

Offtopic: Summer Classes

A quick rant under the guise of a quiz. Multiple Choice. Each question is worth 20 points.

1) A form tells you that you should submit it at least two weeks before the start of the semester. It is an important form that all of your students need information on before class can be held. What do you do?

• a) Submit at least two weeks before the semester starts.
• b) Submit the week before the semester starts.
• c) Submit the weekend before the semester starts.
• d) Submit the day before your class starts.
• e) Submit one hour before your class starts. Call the department angrily when it is not immediately processed.
  

2) A form only provides one drop-down menu for requesting times on a single day, and you wish to have multiple days in the week. There is a comment box that allows you to type in extra information. What do you do?

• a) Type in the additional times in the comment box.
• b) Ignore the comment box and submit two forms.
• c) Submit two forms, writing in the comment box "same class, two days."
• d) Submit two forms, writing in the comment box "lol I can't see a place to request two times."
• e) Panic and call the department's front desk during lunchtime, when they're understaffed because their student workers have gone home for the summer.
  

3) A form asks what semester you would like to request. What do you do?

• a) Request the semester you want.
• b) Leave it blank and assume they'll guess correctly.
  
• c) Request the wrong semester, and then blame the department when they get it "wrong," even though they have your form on record.

4) A form asks you to check a box if you wish to have a special condition occur. You would like to have that condition. What do you do?

• a) Check the box.
• b) Don't check the box, and then blame the department when they get it "wrong," even though they have your form on record.

5) The single staff member that is receiving and processing these forms works part-time and has a class this afternoon, yet you:

• a) Submit your request late.
• b) Submit the wrong information.
• c) Leave out information.
• d) Call the department when you don't get it processed immediately.
• e) All of the above, and then nitpick on an inconsequential typo in the response email.

/sigh. I want to go slay pixel monsters.

Mages vs Warlocks

While I have never played either caster dps class past level 30, I have a very clear idea of the differences between mages and warlocks based on my experiences with them.


General Disposition:

I may be a bit biased by the races of the locks and mages I am familiar with. But I'll go with it, because it's funny.



Mages: I'm a pretty blood elf! Like a flower!
Warlocks: I think my jaw fell off. I could use it to bludgeon you to death.


Spells:

Mages can make snowcones, heat up a mug of cocoa, and dazzle small children with pretty light shows. They also turn people into harmless sheep, and have a fun little feather-fall spell.

With traditional elements of fire, ice, and "innocent" arcane energy, their spells don't, in their base nature of power, really scream "evil."




Warlocks...
dazzle small children into oblivion.





No offense, locks, but I'm not going to ask you to babysit my mini-tree anytime soon.









Pets:

Mages have pets that look like they were fermented out of clouds and bubbles, like a misshapen balloon animal. They also have shiny, pretty bracelets.


Warlocks, meanwhile.... well, that imp may LOOK cute and chibi from its tinyness, but have you ever really looked at one up close? Really?

Click on the image to zoom in.

Do it.


....


Conclusion:

Thus, I believe that all mage gear should be adorned with rainbows and flowers, and warlock gear covered in skulls and the blood of their victims.




...that is all.