Month: November 2006

So I’ve been on and off with various cold-like things for about a month or so now.  I did go and see the Dr. and we got the coughing under control, but I was out from work again yesterday with sneezing and upper respiratory stuff.  It seems to have calmed down today, but honestly, I’m just tired of the whole thing.  I don’t like taking this much time off of work and I don’t like feeling unwell and tired from being sick (or maybe sick from being tired).  I wish I knew what was causing it.  I hate the idea that I’m just generally unwell.  Bleah.

We had a lovely time with the Bullwinkels for Thanksgiving.  Lots of food and fellowship.  The cats survived the trip although we have discovered that Wendy has started getting carsick at the beginning of trips now.  I think it’s stress.  She drools and froths for about 20 minutes or so and then settles down and is fine for the rest of the trip.  We’re planning a quick X-mas trip to see the Greensburg family and possibly pick up Tom’s motorcycle.  It will depend upon whether or not his family is able to receive us as guests at that time.  My parents are stopping with us over New Years on their way to Disney World, having become jet-setters now that the nest is empty.  So we have lots to keep us occupied.  Now we just have to clean up the house. 

Consider this a throwback to Diablo playing (where you pick up every bloody thing you see and sort it all out later) and I promise not to do it any more.

The Background:
So, on World of Warcraft sometimes when you kill a monster it drops an item.  Items are color-coded so you know exactly how nice they are.  So far we have seen grey (trash), white (common), green (uncommon) and blue (rare).  When you pick things up, you have to make quick decisions about what to take or leave and the color coding helps.  And some of these items, when you pick them up, they get “bound” to you.  This means you can’t trade them to another player, you can only sell them or destroy them.  (Guess what most of the nicer items are…).  So, you have to make careful choices about what to take and what to leave for others.  There is a nifty game interface that lets everyone in a group make a decision based on whether they think they need the item, want the item or couldn’t care less.  

The Problem:
Tiernen and  I thought the standard in informal groups, like we were in last night. [I know our guild has different rules, someone actually took the time to explain them to me] is to use the interface, but be polite.  If you really don’t need something, don’t ask for it.  So I started out using the interface.  I passed on the things I didn’t want and picked “need” or “greed” as appropriate for the rest.  Then someone starts complaining.  “Don’t pick need.”  (Picking “need” weighs the randomizer in your favor).  But, and I’ll stress this, he didn’t take the time to explain the alternate system.  (I looked it up later and found out that everyone passes and then whoever wants it uses the informal dice roller to choose the person to go and pick it up).  [This seems unnecessarily complicated to me.  I mean, if the game gives you a tool, why not use it?]  However,  he was complaining and I couldn’t figure out why.  I stopped picking “need” for items, but if I thought I could use something, I picked “greed” for it (imagining that that might be more fair) and if I didn’t get something, c’est la vie.  We were mostly there to finish quests anyway.  And this guy, kid actually, he was about 17, is still complaining about us picking up stuff.  

An Aside
I think this problem was aggravated by the group we picked up.  Tiernen and I are pretty methodical.  We like to check out an entire room and clear an area before moving on.  The people we were with were not like that at all.  They kept bolting ahead and pulling in lots of enemies while we were still checking on loot and restoring our mana.  So, we were constantly scrambling to keep up.  And this caused a certain amount of hasty button pushing.  Also, the chat window interface for party communication is very ungainly to use.  The guild we are in has a voice over internet program called Ventrilo that is MUCH better.

The Conclusion

So the upshot of all of this is that I wound up with some stuff that this guy wanted and he got in a huff and stopped communicating with the group after the last boss.  I feel like crap because my ineptitude with the game conventions kept this kid with a low level character from getting some gear he could really use.  It wasn’t my intention to “ninja the loot”, and a little basic communication at the beginning would have helped us enormously.  This is a lesson learned for me, but I hate the thought that there’s some kid out there thinking I was taking advantage of the system on purpose. *sigh*   We’re going to go back and do this dungeon again, but this time we’re doing it either by ourselves or with a group we know.   

Short work week this week, then off to see the ‘rents for the holiday and weekend.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone, just not the drive.  Many hours in the car are no fun.  I’m going to try to get Tiernen to stop and get a motel room at the halfway point.  We’ll see if that happens or not.

I just got off the phone with one of my co-workers from the other library. She is looking for books for her teenaged son’s research project. His topic, Ed Gein , the famous grave robber and serial killer and inspiration to such films as Psycho and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And now I’m wondering if I should be more creeped out by the idea of this 17 year old doing his project on admittedly a pretty ghoulish topic or by my knowledge of the case and ability to point the mom in question to the correct books in my former library (purchased by me against this eventuality) for her son’s research. The terrible power of the Librarian Mind freaks me out sometimes.

We took Tiernen on his first Instance last night (for those non World of Warcraft folks, this is a thing in the game where you take a portal into a special dungeon just for your group). It’s quite challenging and you have to be a good team player. Everyone has a job to do and tactics are very important, as we found out. The front line fighters (slang term-“tanks”) try to keep the enemy standing and fighting in one place while the rest of the party heals or does damage with distance weapons and spells from behind. This can be very hard, because some enemies will break and run when they get low on health (should provoke an Attack of Opportunity, but I’m mixing my games here). A lot of times when they run, or if you chase them, it brings a new monster into the fight. We got killed a few times by “adds”, new monsters jumping in, provoked by people and their pets running after creatures that someone could have killed with an arrow or spell before they got out of range. We were a group of mostly new players, or people playing new characters, so it’s not completely unexpected, but it shows me lots of places for us to focus on in the future. The use of the voice program is very helpful, as the in-game text chat can be very unwieldy to use. I’m becoming more comfortable with joining new people for groups and such as it speeds up gameplay tremendously and is very exciting with all the spells going off and people running and jumping around. We’re going to try to do the Deadmines instance some time this week, so watch for us.

We had a nice weekend. We visited the NC Renaissance Festival (the one out by Charlotte). The Fest. was nice (funny shows) and I found more long socks for garb, so that was good. We also figured out how to hook up the laptop in the car so we can play CD’s and DVD’s on long car rides. Makes the time go much faster. Yes, the car did have a CD player, but it broke, so only the tape player has been working and all of the good new audiobooks have been coming out on CD.

I also got through a fair amount of laundry so I felt justified in spending some time playing World of Warcraft yesterday. I’m about halfway between 19th and 20th level. I hope to hit 20 sometime this week. Tiernen’s just about in the same place, so we’re going to be working on it together. 20 is a big milestone in the game. We’re laying down some of the groundwork for it now. I opened up two new boards last night, but I’m not ready to go running around in them like I have been in the ones we are playing in now. The game is really well designed. It keeps itself just challenging enough so that you don’t get bored where you are and you constantly get glimpses of what you will be able to do once you get more powerful. It’s very motivating.

So it’s an uncreative heading. I haven’t been feeling the funny much lately. We had a nice Halloween, despite working. We passed out candy to the local Trick or Treaters and then turned off the lights and went over to Darrel’s around 8 for a little get together. Nice to see all the friends. I was supremely uninspired in the costume realm this year and I’m sorry that this made Tiernen not have as much fun. He really enjoys Halloween and I’m having trouble finding the inspiration to do anything lately. It just seems like everything is too much trouble with all of the getting up, washing, going to work, coming home, eating and sleeping I have to do. Yes, I have been spending too much time on the computer, but even the enthusiasm for that is fading. I didn’t play at all yesterday and I’m sure the world would not end if I didn’t play tonight. I just feel like there’s so much to do and no time to do it in, while at the same time, not being able to muster the energy to work on stuff (like housecleaning and dishes) that will just get messed up/dirty again. I’m hoping it’s just seasonal, linked to the shorter days, but I’m really starting to wonder if I’m going through some depression. It seems silly. I have nothing to be depressed ABOUT, my life is good, we’re a lot less worried about money than we were. But I can’t seem to get motivated about anything. So aggravating.