Depends on your class. Maybe if you play something that Blizzard gives a crap about itemising properly, like prot warriors or healers, then yeah. But for "offspecs" that just happen to be major raiding specs (enh shammy for example) the badge loot is only very slightly behind BT/MH level, and a few pieces have no upgrades until Sunwell.
You... want the game to give you gear, so you stay at the same point in the progression curve even if you don't play?
All experience-based games, from Dungeons and Dragons to WoW, ever since you hit level 2 and realised your level 1 axe wasn't good enough any more, are built around you running the Red Queen's race. You level, your hitpoints go up, you hit harder, you attack higher level monsters that hit harder and have more hitpoints, and you still finish the fight on the same 70% health after 10 seconds every time, whether you're level 10 or level 100.
Your build represents mutually exclusive training choices your character took as it levelled - the fact that you can change build at all is purely to allow players some variety. Think of talent points as being like what courses you took at university.
Say you're looking to join the raiding guild "Google" to raid the exciting new "Internet Tech" dungeon. If you've put all your talent points into Ancient Sumerian Olive-Pressing Techniques and Improved Owl Noises then you're probably not going to be particularly welcome. If, for example, you've done the required 'cookie cutter' build of Info Tech or Computer Science, and your stats (experience, ability) are at the appropriate level, you're in with a good chance.
What you're complaining about is that the other players (NOT Blizzard) would prefer you to not suck if they're going to be placing the success and enjoyability of their hobby time partly in your hands.
Roll a hybrid and respec at will? I find I tend to have pairs of characters as my 'mains' that between them are good at all aspects of the game.
As for your complaint about dungeons needing you to actually have something approaching class balance - in the next expansion all raids will be double balanced as 10-man and 25-man. So basically you'll have a 'normal' mode 10-man, and a 'heroic' mode 25-man, which is basically what you're asking for. Unless you want to be able to tank Naxxramas 2.0 with your mage. In which case, no.
(+1, OhGodSoTrue):P
Probably not in the GGP's case but all you have to say on WoW is "yes, I'm female IRL" and chances are you'll end up with a stalker.
Or, run the same heroic dungeons over and over (and over, and mutha f***king over) to get those stupid badges that you can use to buy loot. If you don't enjoy the game (running heroics, raiding, whatever) they why the fuck do you care about gear? What's the point of farming badges to get gear to do something you hate?
If you're not having fun STOP PLAYING. WoW is not and never was designed around loot whores, that's why they find it so boring and generally cause a lot of guild drama then/ragequit.
Yes, but strangely, it's widely considered OK to play highschool football but looked down on to play an online game... the only explanations that I've heard have been along the lines of either "football requires physical exertion so it's 'real'" or more commonly "football's a REAL game" (ie. a game that I play and so understand and enjoy).
This whole thing reminds me of when we first got an internet connection, and I'd spend hours online chatting with friends and researching stuff. My parents could never understand what was so fascinating about "the computer". Eventually I managed to explain it with "it's like a window, with stuff on the other side, and it's not the window that's interesting but the stuff I can see through it". Now there're multiple layers of window that you look through (Computer screen, internet connection, application, internet, shared virtual world, objectives within that world) and explaining to people what, exactly, you're doing and why is getting harder and harder.
Once a week for 3-4 weeks is "over and over again"? Sure, generally once the initial effort has been made to learn a boss fight, it's quick and easy to kill said boss. Not only that, it's actually fun for a lot of people.
Ever played Mario? Of course you have. Did you ever complain about the fact that you have to finish the first level over and over if you want to get to the higher levels? Virtually all games contain this same element.
It's not the "high end players" that kill the same bosses over and over and over again for months and months, not now that there's so much content available. It's the mid-level players who aren't good enough to beat the higher end dungeons that get stuck and then just farm the same dungeon over and over.
Erm - if you're a shaman, just stay away from arenas until you get 400+ resilience. Shaman are pretty much the only class where all three main specs are highly sought after in PvE, and two specs are accepted in arena play.
In PvE - Elemental pumps out mage-class DPS while giving strong crit/+dmg buffs. Enhance gives INSANE melee buffs (try +30% white damage to all melee from Windfury + Unleashed Rage) while still doing competitive personal DPS. Resto is the strongest aoe-raid-healer spec. All of the above give the usual shaman goodies (Bloodlust, Reincarnation, spot heals in a pinch).
In PvP, all specs are fine for battlegrounds. In arenas, shamans are bad at 2v2 because a large part of their strength is group buffs, although appropriately geared enhance builds are getting sorta OK. 5v5 is where a shaman can really shine, bloodlust = 30% more damage for the whole group, and they can do face-wrecking ranged DPS as elemental.
Using blender isn't easy at all unless you already know how to use it. It's an awesome interface, but it's very much an expert interface, and (at least when I was learning it) the documentation was all aimed at experts. I remember reading a bunch of "beginner's tutorials" and thinking it was stupid that the tutorials were telling me to "subdivide and extrude a face and then edit its procedural texture" when what I wanted to know was how the fuck to select something. ("Well of COURSE you press 'b' then drag a box around it, how ELSE would you do it?")
Hmm... good point, actually. I was over in Europe a couple of years ago and I actually copped a bit of hostility from Londoners because they had so many Aussies job-hunting there, and yet our government won't let them work here for more than 3 months or so. It's easy to forget when you're one of the privileged few how cranky our government can be towards foreigners.:/
Well, I know an R2-sounding robot would make ME happy... but then I played waaaay too much X-Wing back in the day. Now if he'd only tie down that stabiliser...
Employers can screw their employees over with unpaid overtime because their jobs are so in demand. IT workers are easily replaceable. God, send some of your excess IT guys to Australia! My last job, there was a standing $3000 headhunting bonus for anyone who could recruit a an employee who lasted more than 3 months. My old agent still rings me occasionally to ask how happy I am and whether I'd like to consider switching jobs...
Do they do that intentionally to piss us off? No, to the best of my understanding (and ever ever will they admit it, usually even to themselves) it's because women, like cats, MUST be the center of attention. If you're not paying her attention then you could be losing interest in her, and that's bad.
I can spend all morning sipping a coffee and browsing wikipedia, and my fiancee will be happy to read a book / troll the WoW forums / whatever, pretty much ignoring me. The moment I start typing a slashdot post she wants to explain the back story and entire plot of the book she's reading. The other night when I was trying to tank a heroic instance in WoW (something that requires a modicum of concentration), as I pulled the first boss she started reading wikipedia out loud to me. All of it. With spot quizzes. For the next half hour.
I *know* it's not deliberate (and some women do play stupid power games, demanding attention at the worst possible moment to prove to themselves that they're in control, but this isn't that), it just seems to be an instinctive response. And it's 100% reproducible - the moment I actually start concentrating on something else, she wants my attention. I've started mentally counting backwards from 10 at the beginning of any such activity, and I usually end up getting to around 2 or 3 before she interrupts.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if you like killing dead things and ghosts. Luckily I do. ;)
Depends on your class. Maybe if you play something that Blizzard gives a crap about itemising properly, like prot warriors or healers, then yeah. But for "offspecs" that just happen to be major raiding specs (enh shammy for example) the badge loot is only very slightly behind BT/MH level, and a few pieces have no upgrades until Sunwell.
:`( I miss the monkey too.
You... want the game to give you gear, so you stay at the same point in the progression curve even if you don't play?
All experience-based games, from Dungeons and Dragons to WoW, ever since you hit level 2 and realised your level 1 axe wasn't good enough any more, are built around you running the Red Queen's race. You level, your hitpoints go up, you hit harder, you attack higher level monsters that hit harder and have more hitpoints, and you still finish the fight on the same 70% health after 10 seconds every time, whether you're level 10 or level 100.
If it's good at the game, why not?
Your build represents mutually exclusive training choices your character took as it levelled - the fact that you can change build at all is purely to allow players some variety. Think of talent points as being like what courses you took at university.
Say you're looking to join the raiding guild "Google" to raid the exciting new "Internet Tech" dungeon. If you've put all your talent points into Ancient Sumerian Olive-Pressing Techniques and Improved Owl Noises then you're probably not going to be particularly welcome. If, for example, you've done the required 'cookie cutter' build of Info Tech or Computer Science, and your stats (experience, ability) are at the appropriate level, you're in with a good chance.
What you're complaining about is that the other players (NOT Blizzard) would prefer you to not suck if they're going to be placing the success and enjoyability of their hobby time partly in your hands.
Um... they do.
Roll a hybrid and respec at will? I find I tend to have pairs of characters as my 'mains' that between them are good at all aspects of the game.
As for your complaint about dungeons needing you to actually have something approaching class balance - in the next expansion all raids will be double balanced as 10-man and 25-man. So basically you'll have a 'normal' mode 10-man, and a 'heroic' mode 25-man, which is basically what you're asking for. Unless you want to be able to tank Naxxramas 2.0 with your mage. In which case, no.
(+1, OhGodSoTrue) :P
Probably not in the GGP's case but all you have to say on WoW is "yes, I'm female IRL" and chances are you'll end up with a stalker.
If you're not having fun STOP PLAYING. WoW is not and never was designed around loot whores, that's why they find it so boring and generally cause a lot of guild drama then
Yes, but strangely, it's widely considered OK to play highschool football but looked down on to play an online game... the only explanations that I've heard have been along the lines of either "football requires physical exertion so it's 'real'" or more commonly "football's a REAL game" (ie. a game that I play and so understand and enjoy).
This whole thing reminds me of when we first got an internet connection, and I'd spend hours online chatting with friends and researching stuff. My parents could never understand what was so fascinating about "the computer". Eventually I managed to explain it with "it's like a window, with stuff on the other side, and it's not the window that's interesting but the stuff I can see through it". Now there're multiple layers of window that you look through (Computer screen, internet connection, application, internet, shared virtual world, objectives within that world) and explaining to people what, exactly, you're doing and why is getting harder and harder.
Once a week for 3-4 weeks is "over and over again"? Sure, generally once the initial effort has been made to learn a boss fight, it's quick and easy to kill said boss. Not only that, it's actually fun for a lot of people.
Ever played Mario? Of course you have. Did you ever complain about the fact that you have to finish the first level over and over if you want to get to the higher levels? Virtually all games contain this same element.
It's not the "high end players" that kill the same bosses over and over and over again for months and months, not now that there's so much content available. It's the mid-level players who aren't good enough to beat the higher end dungeons that get stuck and then just farm the same dungeon over and over.
Erm - if you're a shaman, just stay away from arenas until you get 400+ resilience. Shaman are pretty much the only class where all three main specs are highly sought after in PvE, and two specs are accepted in arena play.
In PvE - Elemental pumps out mage-class DPS while giving strong crit/+dmg buffs. Enhance gives INSANE melee buffs (try +30% white damage to all melee from Windfury + Unleashed Rage) while still doing competitive personal DPS. Resto is the strongest aoe-raid-healer spec. All of the above give the usual shaman goodies (Bloodlust, Reincarnation, spot heals in a pinch).
In PvP, all specs are fine for battlegrounds. In arenas, shamans are bad at 2v2 because a large part of their strength is group buffs, although appropriately geared enhance builds are getting sorta OK. 5v5 is where a shaman can really shine, bloodlust = 30% more damage for the whole group, and they can do face-wrecking ranged DPS as elemental.
You fail it. They didn't disband at all, they're just pranking the forums and gullibles spread it. :P
Out, damn stockholder! OUT!
Using blender isn't easy at all unless you already know how to use it. It's an awesome interface, but it's very much an expert interface, and (at least when I was learning it) the documentation was all aimed at experts. I remember reading a bunch of "beginner's tutorials" and thinking it was stupid that the tutorials were telling me to "subdivide and extrude a face and then edit its procedural texture" when what I wanted to know was how the fuck to select something. ("Well of COURSE you press 'b' then drag a box around it, how ELSE would you do it?")
Hmm... good point, actually. I was over in Europe a couple of years ago and I actually copped a bit of hostility from Londoners because they had so many Aussies job-hunting there, and yet our government won't let them work here for more than 3 months or so. It's easy to forget when you're one of the privileged few how cranky our government can be towards foreigners. :/
Well, I know an R2-sounding robot would make ME happy... but then I played waaaay too much X-Wing back in the day. Now if he'd only tie down that stabiliser...
...but she doesn't bring her sister, her sister's neighbour or gall stones into the request. Damn, just when things were starting to turn kinky...I can spend all morning sipping a coffee and browsing wikipedia, and my fiancee will be happy to read a book / troll the WoW forums / whatever, pretty much ignoring me. The moment I start typing a slashdot post she wants to explain the back story and entire plot of the book she's reading. The other night when I was trying to tank a heroic instance in WoW (something that requires a modicum of concentration), as I pulled the first boss she started reading wikipedia out loud to me. All of it. With spot quizzes. For the next half hour.
I *know* it's not deliberate (and some women do play stupid power games, demanding attention at the worst possible moment to prove to themselves that they're in control, but this isn't that), it just seems to be an instinctive response. And it's 100% reproducible - the moment I actually start concentrating on something else, she wants my attention. I've started mentally counting backwards from 10 at the beginning of any such activity, and I usually end up getting to around 2 or 3 before she interrupts.
So he got modded down on this post because he posted some flamebait elsewhere? Nice.
I hear they've had ninjas doing it for years but you never see it in the news because... they're ninjas. Duh.
Regardless, it's not a robot, it's a remote controlled McStabbyThing with a camera on it. Still cool though.