Playing With Lava

I was watching my cat play the floor is lava game and it brought back some nostalgia over my own lava room games.

I can’t say that my experiences with the lava game were exceptionally different from anyone else’s, but I think the only time that I played the game with a seriousness bordering on panic was during the early hours of the morning when nature called. Bedrooms are different in the middle of the night, and as we all know, carry their own special dangers. While I can’t say I particularly remember believing in monsters under the bed, at 2 a.m. with a full bladder, I know I never wanted to take the chance. Making it from my bed to the hallway became a choreographed dance that required a certain measure of skill and if I do say so myself, flair.

The first order of business was to get some light shining on the situation. While it wouldn’t keep the monster from reaching out his grubby little hands, or even prevent a scalding dip into the lava pool, it’d at least let me see where I was jumping. Fortunately, my dresser reached from my bed to my closet (which had one of the fancy open the door turn on the light doo-dads) and could be easily scaled without tipping or wobbling.

Light secured, I could now see the lay of the land. Fortunately, I was very rarely without some clothes lying around that could serve as safe anchors as I navigated the rest of the room. The trick with the next step was making sure I aimed for a clothes pile sufficiently far enough away from the bed to evade any grasping from the bed monster. With a mighty leap, I would be precariously ensconced in the middle of the room, surrounded by fiery doom, but that much nearer my objective.

However, I didn’t have the athletic ability to make the leap to the hallway door. I could probably make it close but close doesn’t cut it when you’re dealing with fire. So I often resorted to the chair tucked into the corner of my room which always held a handy throw, knitted by some great-great aunt which I used as a bridge. (If my mother knew, I’m sure she’d be willing to beat me to this day).

As you may or may not know, jumping onto a rocking chair is serious business and successfully launching yourself from a chair that is already rocking back to your clothes pile takes careful timing and cat-like reflexes. But having the blanket in hand, back on the clothes pile, it is a seeming nothing to toss that sucker between you and the door and make a couple of quick hops to freedom.

Mission Accomplished.

What I remember best from my self-imposed limitations was that little burst of adrenal fear that maybe I would not be able to successfully meet my goal, and the little high I achieved as I made that last skip into the hallway. Let me tell you, it was a pretty good feeling.

So much so, that I think it’s not any surprise that I enjoy gaming so much. I mean, how much closer to the lava-game can you get than this:

Forget the floors! The entire room is lava! But with a game plan, your handy tool-box, and a little skill, it can be conquered.

Update: State of the UI

Instead of writing a whole long winded post, I’m just gonna include a screenshot and direct you to my UI page for the latest update that I’m running. Feel free to leave a comment if you have a question

Minipost: Loot in ProCo

We have a simple loot system in Production Company. If you need an item, you roll on it. If you want it for off-spec, you roll a 200. If you want it for fun or don’t think you’ll use it much, you roll a 300. Whoever is highest (based on priority 100>200>300) wins the loot. But do they keep it?

Roll on [Awesome Epic]

Player 1 rolls 82 (1-100)

Player 2 rolls 15 (1-100)

Player 3 rolls 185 (1-200)

Player 4 rolls 91 (1-100)

Player 4 receives [Awesome Epic]

- #4: You sure you don’t need this 2. I got a really cool ring last week, and I see you’re using 397 legs.

- #2: Oh no, you should definitely keep it, because I won this trinket a few days ago. I can wait for the next token.

- #4: Well ok…. /opens trade with #1. You know, I think you should have these 1, I mean, this would give you 3 pieces, and then you’d be one away from a 4-piece.

- #1: But it might take me weeks to get another tier token, and you can use it now. Just keep it already!

- #4: You know, maybe I should give it to #3. They use their off-spec once an expansion, but what if we need them to swap on the final boss this tier? They need to be prepared!

Wednesday I spent about an hour trying to get rid of a truly excellent trinket, because, well, you know. I didn’t need it. It’s probably a good thing we have a roll system as opposed to say, open bartering, or we’d never get loot distributed. As it is, I think we redistribute the wealth so frequently that it would be impossible to do any kind of “accounting” as to who actually received what and when, which makes me blessedly thankful that we don’t have one of those pesky point systems.

Flying Solo

I was reading Stubborn’s article yesterday about the erosion of social activities in the leveling experience as he ventures forth in SW:TOR. While I can’t say that I can talk about that game in particular, as someone who considers herself a somewhat sociable player in MMO’s, I found that the article didn’t really resonate with me. Although I commented, I wanted to expand and explore that comment, and the general topic a bit more.

DPS Farming

It was the end of a weekly LFR run, and the group was huddled beside Deathwing’s cache waiting for dice to finish rolling. Out of the blue, one of the feral druids starts having a hissy cow about how the rogue (my friend incidentally) was a disgrace and should never ever come back to a LFR. Because it was my friend’s name that scrolled across the screen, I started reading:

- You are nothing but a DPS farmer.

- What’s a DPS farmer?

- If you don’t know, you’re just showing that you are one.

Well damn, thought I, maybe I’m a dps farmer too!

Discovery

There’s always that raider that you look at in awe: that you admire for their seemingly flawless and polished technique. They never seem to stand in the bad. Their rotations flow from their fingers into perfectly executed strings of numbers that add up to a whole lot of pain. And you’re standing next to them feeling like the proverbial elephant in the raid.

Minipost: What IS Solar Beam?

Ever heard a lazer chicken splutter? It’s not the easiest feat, especially with that beak of theirs. But over the weekend, as the hubby and I ran some randoms and worked on some Cata dungeon achieves, I could hear the anguished cries from the other room “Oh COME ON!”

Why you ask?

Because I think we didn’t meet a single tank who understood what a solar beam was.

While a well-placed solar beam is sometimes placed on a lone caster to lure it into your tank’s waiting arms, more often, a solar beam would be dropped directly on a packed clump of mobs only for the tank to… remove them.

So ignore your cat-like reflexes which pull you out of dangerous AoE bad stuffs, and stay in the bloody solar beam! Your boomchicken will thank you.

This is a public service announcement brought to you by the Moonkin Sanity Council, Chapter 2493. Thank you for your support!

Screenshots: Pics of the Week

These aren’t exceptionally great screenshots, but I enjoyed them all the same.

First up is my new mount which I can’t decide whether I want to ride or secretly covet. I almost wish I’d waited to roll on it so I could have seen my whole raid team decked out on one, but I just couldn’t help myself:

It’s just such a pretty mount, and it’s my first “boss” mount, so come what may, it’ll always be an important part of my story with Production Company.

The second is more because of the circumstances around the shot. I was doing this quest in Loch Modan where you hide in a bush in order to sneak up (and spray) your unsuspecting victim. I suspect that they intended you to use the bush as you reached your quest objective, but instead, I ran around the entire area in my “disguise”:

As I aggroed my 2nd murloc on the way to my quest objective, my husband asked:

- What do you call a dwarf and a bush?

- I dunno. What?

- Russell.

Gotta love the corny!

Minipost: Fixing #&!@

Get tired of reading a lot of gobbly gook in your chat because the Mature Language Filter keeps turning on? Download Mature Language Filter Fix, a light and simple solution for your cursing needs. Simply download to your addons folder, and voila: no more #&!@.

10-Man Healing Team | Heroic Yor’sahj

This is not intended as a comprehensive example of all viable healing solutions for this encounter. These strategies were utilized by the Production Company healing team, and hopefully, will provide a starting point for starting a discussion about your healing model for the encounter! 

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping is an early healing/DPS check for your team. While we’re not as concerned with kill priority in terms of making sure we’re running in the right direction, knowing what combinations you get will help you plan your healing strategy appropriately. For this encounter, we utilized 1 tank and 2 healers, although this may vary based on your raid composition.