Posts Tagged Splat’s sense of humor is broken

Because I threatened to do this after his most recent podcast… (Click image for full size.)

(I’m typing this during what we all hope is the tail end of Tuesday’s maintenance downtime, and setting it to post roughly around the time my wife and I will be returning home from her Wednesday dialysis treatment.  We’ll see how that goes.)

And now: What has McSplat been up to this past week (or so)?

I am epic in my less than 20 points worth of cloth armor!  EPIIIIIIIIIIIIIC! \m/ O \m/  … of course I forgot to turn on “display helm.”  Feh, at least I got the achievement eventually.

Found this walled off portal in the Burning Legion controlled portion of Winterspring.  That whole area is a good source of ore if you’re trying to level your mining up past 300 and don’t tend to aggro level 60 eletes.  No one ever goes there, it seems.

If you don’t get this one I feel sorry for you.  Really, I do, even though Spider is far from one of their best songs.  Check this band out and get back to me.

Worst. Costume. Ever.  Trust a gnome who spends most of her time eye level with my kneecaps to think that a paper orc mask is going to fool anyone.  At least I got that cool M.C. Hammer dance down.

Now see here?  This is a fine costume if I’ve ever seen one!  Check out that supurb stitching! The wonderful joint articulation! Why, it’s so good it almost fooled ME into thinking I was truly a murloc!  Muglurglugluglug, indeed!

Yes, yes it has.  I did it, and I’ll do it again. … daily.

Who knew goblins liked hair so much?  I think this barbershop was somewhere in Netherstorm.  I want to say Area 52, but I’m not sure.

There is a particular joke that springs to mind when I see this image, but it’s wrong.  So very wrong.

“I will do science to it.”  Also: “STAND BACK!  I’m going to try SCIENCE!”

Also also: Leveling engineering is going well. I hope to have my shiny new epic goggles by Friday at the latest.

… and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Rilgon over at Stabilized Effort Scope currently has an issue with engineering.  To summarize: If everything else is equal endgame raiders who are engineers do up to 45 DPS less, and therefore the profession is worthless.

Naturally a statement like that creates a decent amount of discussion – more than I’ve ever seen on any of my own blogs, to be sure.  I myself contributed several thoughts, but when asked a direct question the server started acting … flaky … before I could submit my response.

So while Rilgon rages against whichever machine/ISP/corporate entity is to blame, I thought I’d post my most recent comments here.

Me:

I cannot speak for everyone, but I currently have a holy pally with maxed engineering and I have a hunter who just recently dumped maxed skinning and a LW skill over 400 just so he could be mining/engineering.

And I still contend that the DPS difference pointed out in this post is worth it to play a profession that is more fun. If that small number of points is enough to make the game not fun for you, then dump the profession or reroll. Engineering is not for you.

Rilgon:

Fine. But where is the fun?

Me (and this is the part that I had trouble submitting):

A very valid question, and a very subjective one as well.  Obviously what is fun for me is not the same as what is fun for you, so what follows is strictly my opinion.

For me, a lot of it is aesthetics.

I love the look of the BC and wrath goggles.  Other than a few headpieces in vanilla wow they’re the only ones that’ll make me check “Show Helm” in my preferences, and so far none of the drops I’ve seen in Northrend have wowed me.  Sure, they’ll be replaced if I ever get into a Nax raid where the MT doesn’t bail before we kill a single boss, but that hasn’t happened yet.

I love flying around and dive-bombing things in a gyrocopter.  The noise!  The unidentified black smoke!  The ground rushing up to meet me as my engine tells me it might decide to go on a 5 minute break instead of pulling me out of it!  Sure, I could do the exact same maneuvers on a gryphon, proto drake, or even a broom, but it wouldn’t be the same EXPERIENCE.

I love explosions.  Splat want big boom.  (I suppose I don’t need to go into detail with this.)  My favorite in-game events usually involve fireworks in some way shape or form.

In real life and the game, I love gadgets.  I like playing with things made by others, but I LOVE playing with things I’ve made myself.  Are there any other professions where I can make my own noncombat pets?  Buying them on the AH doesn’t give me the same sense of ownership that I got when I finished my first mechanical squirrel, then made them for all my friends.

That’s just part of why I love engineering enough to have two engineers (one goblin flavored & one gnome).  If Blizz took that away from me but tried to console me with an extra 45, nay, 100 DPS, I’d strongly consider leaving the game.

Again, just my opinion.  Subjective questions get subjective answers.

Sometimes I feel this site is turning into nothing more than a screenshot gallery.  (I have more content!  Really! Didn’t you see my last post?)

… I’ve just been busy spending more time playing the game than writing about playing the game of late.  In any case, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Oh I wish I could take credit for this.  Someone killed the Pit Commander that hangs out at the Dark Portal.  The NPCs were actually doing a good job of keeping the other demons off the steps … for a change.

I kid you not, Rilgon is the most self-loathing engineer I’ve ever known.  As to why I made the switch from Skinning/LW to Mining/Engineering?  I would have been hypocritical not to.  I’ll elaborate in a future post, once I’ve earned my I-don’t-care-if-the-first-drop-in-nax-will-replace-them-I-love-them-anyway goggles.

My crab disguise totally fooled those cultists and heretics!  It’s a good thing devilsaurs are indiginous to the Zoram Strand so Cuddles didn’t need a disguise too … oh, wait. XD

I think eating all that buff food has made me put on a little weight.  It doesn’t show, does it?

Pole dancer.  Well, mast dancer at least.  I’ve no idea why I like climbing things so much.

I’ve no clue why this Midsummer Celebrant outside of Astranaar was a Tauren.  It was pretty funny watching him say that the Alliance fires burn bright and he hopes we go put out the horde fires.  Of course he seemed like a nice guy, so I went and did just that for him.  But when I came back, he’d been replaced by a gnome!

2nd best flying mount ever.  (1st place is this one.)

That’s right, you heard it here first – thanks to some inside information* from one of the best male blood elf holy priests sporting monocles and rockin’ mustaches out there (It’s only a crowded niche because of the copycats…)  we now know that Blizzard will be introducing new talent trees in a future patch or expansion!

Naturally the testing involved while perfecting a fourth talent tree for every class is extensive, so I can only offer some meager guesses as to what these specs will be.  Let’s start with the one we know the most about:

Class: Priest
Talent Tree: Clown
Features: 1 point talent “Clowns Are Scary” AOE Fears any mobs or players 10 levels or more below the caster. This skill is on auto-cast and cannot be disabled.

Can put talent points into “Rodeo Clown.” which gives priest extra Stamina and the ability to transfer damage to the priest so long as a Tauren is within casting range.

Also, for some reason most priests using this spec don’t seem to mind leveling through Outland.

But wait, there’s more!  I used my enormous brainpower** and contacted a few Blizz developers*** to get the scoop on the other classes:

Class: Rogue
Talent Tree: Ninja
Features: Can assume “Ninja Form.” in the same way that priests can assume shadow form.  However, this does not change their physical appearance as much as it makes them appear to be fine upstanding players to the rest of the PUG.  Auto-generated text will compliment PUG members on their prowess and snide comments about the tank not holding aggro (and the ubiquitous “HEALZ!” yelled in /RW) will be blocked.

Can put points into “Phat Lewt,” which adds 5/10/15 points to all need/greed rolls and allows them to pickpocket actual items (nonsoulbound only) out of player bags.

51 point talent allows rogue to change character’s name with a 5 minute cast time.

Class: Mage
Talent Tree: Vending Machine
Features:  Conjured consumables are only created in full stacks.  51 point talent makes conjured consumables buff players as if they were Small Feasts.

Can put points into “Mass Transit,” which makes all portals instant cast, and “Greyhound,” which allows the mage to create a portal to any location with a known flight path.

Class: Paladin
Talent Tree: Leeroy
Features:  Can put points into “Say My Name,” an AOE taunt that automatically crits and has double the range when used against dragonkin.

Can put points into “Conjure Chicken,” which summons a small flock of chickens upon the paladin’s eventual death.  When killed by raid members the chickens become random buff food, but only if the paladin has not released or been rezzed.

Class: Druid
Talent Tree: Wonder Twins
Features: Available only through a program similar to recruit-a-friend, both druids have many more shapeshifting options but only when they shift simultaneously and only if they stay within casting distance of each other.

51 point talent allows “Form of Ice-9,” which crashes the server to avoid embarrassing wipes.

Class: Shaman
Talent Tree: U-Haul
Features: Talent tree has 50 points of blank spaces that give no benefit whatsoever.  51 point talent allows the shaman to equip a shopping cart in their off hand in which they can place all their totems so they become mobile.

Class: Warrior
Talent Tree: Luddite
Features: Talents include “Rage Against the Machine,” where rage is generated at double the normal rate or more against mechanical opponents and players wearing engineering goggles.

Unfortunately further talent development has been put on hold until he dev team can figure out why the Deeprun Tram zone keeps crashing every time a luddite specced warrior enters.

Class: Death Knight
Talent Tree: Dark Knight
Features: 1 point talent has character randomly say “I’m Batman” every 5-120 seconds.

Other options for talent points include “Breathe in space” and “Young Ward,” the later of which replaces the summoned ghoul model with a human child dressed in gold, red, and green.

Class: Hunter
Talent Tree: Ebay
Features: Can put points into “Button Masher,” where so long as the player hits any keys on the top row of the keyboard as fast as the global cooldown allows, their DPS will be only 10%/5%/1% less than the 2nd lowest non-healer in the party.

51 point talent is “Gangsta Hunter,” where ranged weapons are held sideways while bad rap music (Yes I am acknowledging that there is good rap music, which is why I’m making the distinction here) plays in the background.  In addition to the change in graphic the hunter’s hit rating is cut in half.  In spite of this huge penalty it is expected that most hunters using this spec will select this talent.

*I’m almost certain Dueg was inside a building when he typed that.  Barring that, he was inside the Earth’s atmosphere.
** As if.
***I’d like to think they’d laugh if I actually contacted them about this.  Or at least anything other than sending an army of lawyer goons against me.

This is my last week of work before my vacation, where you can (in theory) expect an increase in the quality of the content of my blog posts.  But to tide you over: More pictures!

Yes, dear.  I’m sure that’s exactly what the ghoul meant.  <_<  Gotta love it when guild chat from another part of the game entirely interacts with NPC text.

As storage space has its limits, me and a few guildies made a bank alt guild.  I think this is the best bank guild name ever, don’t you?  (Oh yeah, and Oldbanker is a rogue as well. ^_^)

In related news, my former bank alt was a female Night Elf priest that I’d leveled to 50 then abandoned.  I’m looking forward to the new bank alt not seeing as many whispers like this one.  Legreon of <DICIPLES OF TRUTH> (sic), I hope future guild masters find this blog when Google searching your name.

As for his guild’s unfortunate spelling error, perhaps it was a typo demon?  My own guild has been plagued with those (hence this blog’s name…), but there may be a way to remove them!

I don’t want to be mean to the poor stable boy … it’s just that Blizzard gives me no other choice!  C’mon, it’s good that he has a goal!  Reach for the stars, kid!

To understand this one you have to remember that Twitter reads in reverse chronological order.  This is what @Kikirowr gets for following bored literalists, I guess.

And either I’m rubbing off on Daynear/Farnight, or he was already like this.  Either way it’s a scary prospect.  My only regret is that I didn’t think of the joke first.

It started with this twitter post, complete with a typo so people would know I wasn’t an impostor.

Well, not exactly.  Really this blog entry was posted first, but I read it after the Twitter thing.

In any case, whatever the lore of the next Warcraft expansion ends up being based on there will have to be certain game mechanics that come into play as well.  Here’s my thoughts on the matter:

• Beastmaster hunters will have a talent that allows them to train critters. Skunk pet for PvP!
• Continuing the trend to make things easier and therefore more accessible to the casual gamer, murlocs, naga, and tauren will all become skinnable.  After complaints that tauren have become primary targets for a new kind of farming in PvP, the developers will cave in and make gnomes skinnable as well.  As a result players with maxed Leatherworking on the Horde side will increase by 500%
• Contrary to the widely held opinion that the next hero class will be a healer, Blizzard will introduce the Sapper.  As in the goblin variety.  Finally, a class made specifically for the players whose responsibility it is to wipe the raid … zone.
• To honor one of the more talented machinima artists out there and curb the alarming trend of beggars spammers & gold farmers, anyone reported by enough players in a certain time frame has their character killed by Lt. Colonel Virtue himself.
• Rogues will be nerfed.  Hah!  Just kidding!  Instead they will gain a 1 point talent in all trees called “Pwn n00b.”  This talent will cause the target’s internet connection to encounter a lag spike for 5 seconds, during which the rogue is free to do whatever.
  
• Players will be able to train riding skill at level 1.  When they do so they’ll automatically get a 40% speed horse mount in the mail.  That’s right, boys and girls – Ghostcrawler is finally giving you your pony!  (Now shut up about it.)
• Druids won’t be the only ones with new looks!  Blood elf females will have the option of going to a bakery and eating something.  Anything.
• New dances?  We’ve got’em!  Head to your nearest capitol city and visit the dance studio to learn the chicken dance, rave (with glow sticks), and of course, this smart classic.
  

Ghouls.

We love them. We hate them.  Our unholy spec DKs enjoy running around town with them and our paladins enjoy giving them the smackdown of a lifetime.

In Wrath they were given a new spawning animation where they crawl out from under the ground, rather than just fading in like 99% of the other things in the game.  I for one think this minor detail is a large improvement, as it helps make the game seem a little more “real.”

“Real” being in quotes because any environment where walking deformed rotting corpses crawl out of the ground and try to eat my face better not be real or I’ll have to have a word with the management.

In any case, this got me to pondering what spawning animations could be used to improve other old world creature models in the game.  As I’ve been sick for several days these are all either pure genius or fever-induced ramblings.

Maybe both.

Murlocs: Simple enough, they swim in from whatever body of water is nearby.  For extra flair, they could come in stomping on the ground like Godzilla trampling Tokyo.

Leper Gnomes: They fly or ride in on some form of mechanical device (probably the racial mount or flying machine just to save modeling time), and the device runs off or breaks down (random occurrence) when they dismount.

Goblins: Just like Leper Gnomes, but whatever they ride in on blows up.  They have explosives, you know.

Dragons (and other flying mobs): Swoop straight down from impossible heights in a “death from above” maneuver.  If they spawn directly on top of a player they get a free crit.

Naga: Get dropped off by a Sting Raider.  …. Oh come on!  Tell me I’m not the only one who thought that was funny!  I mean, seriously!  “Cobraaaaaaaa!”

Hogger: Jumps down from the trees causing the ground to shake (Remember what core hound pets were like before they fixed that?), then pounds his chest while something by Rammstein plays in the background.

Ogres: Wander in wearing a smoking jacket and monocle while holding a snifter of brandy.  They finish the brandy, remove the monocle & jacket, then roar.

I could probably think of more, but don’t know if I should.

Went through multiple raids last night with the guild, you can check out that illustrated story here.

However not all the screencaps on my desktop belonged in that set, so now I shall provide you with all the missfits:

Just a graphics bug, or have I discovered a new definition of “fly fishing?”

Great minds think alike…. Seriously, we were posting our wisecracks within milliseconds of each other.

Holy forced perspective, Batman! … er … bat staff?  (PS: Other than the technicolor Batman accessory, notice how I just leveled trough Outland with matching gear?  There should be an achievement for that, dagnabbit! *shakes fist*)

At last here we have an excuse for using the same jokes – Merth is my kid sister.

Dagnabbit!  XD

Hopefully I will be continuing my WoW n00b series soon – only 2 more weeks before Summer vacation!

I’m kinda busy at work lately, so in lieu of a more well written post I’ll provide you with a few quick screenshots:

I’ve been hanging out in Stormwind off and on for over a year and I don’t think I’ve heard her say THAT particular quote before now.  Best of all of them, I think.

Ogres are Outland’s kobolds.  True story!

OOoOOOOOO OOOOOooooooOO OOOOOOooooooo OOOOooooOOOooooo.

OOOOOoo.