I know that a lot of you write blogs, and most of the rest of you read blogs (and if you don’t, well, now you do!). I’ve become curious about people’s preferences regarding blog reading and writing, and so I’ve set up a survey asking about those preferences. I’d really appreciate it if you’d go through and give me your responses!

Edit: Yes, the survey is now closed. It was meant to be a quick snippet, not something long-running and comprehensive.

Thank you to everyone who participated (or tried to)!

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I’ve been away for a while. Part of that is that I haven’t actually had a computer that runs WOW for a few weeks now. You can imagine how frustrating this is. The worst part is that what destroyed the computer wasn’t necessary (although, in hindsight, it probably would have destroyed itself anyway). You may read the story at the bottom if you like.

The other part is that I’ve been starting a business. My work in that area is in delighting website audiences and turning them into evangelists – basically, the things that make people say, “This is so cool – you’ve gotta try it out.” I’ve been focusing on small businesses and non-profits, but it occurred to me today that I could apply this work to WOW guilds as well. RP guilds want people who are going to be happy to log on and roleplay with them, so that nobody’s ever at a loss for someone to interact with. Raiding guilds want people who are excited about raiding with them, not just raiding in general, because that means that nobody’s going to bail 45 minutes before the raid saying “lol <Anal Blinkstrike> has beter loot sytsem”. (That’s if they say anything at all.) Social guilds want people who are going to actually socialize and not just sit around and raid the guild bank every now and again.

That’s my job. I can help you find and keep the guildies you want to have around, while quietly discouraging the players you don’t want. If you’re struggling with player retention, I can help. If you’re keeping the wrong kind of players, I can help with that too. I’ve run two guilds, assisted with two more, and been an active member of several beyond that – RP, social, and raiding. So I understand the dynamics that come into play and the special considerations that WOW guilds need.

If you’re interested, head over to Delight Specialist and check out the description. (It’s more general than this one!) Also, because I know the WOW guilds that don’t have a lot of money available often need help the most, I’ve arranged a special discount – if you’re arranging a consultation to help with a WOW guild, use the discount code DTPGUILD when you check out to bring the price of a one-hour consultation down to $25.

Now go kill Arthas for me – he’s got it coming. I just wish I could be there to see it.

The Story

My left speaker had started cutting out, but unplugging and replugging the cord almost always fixed it. I figured it was a problem with the rear audio jack, but when I assembled the computer I hadn’t realized that my case had a front audio jack and so I’d left those jumpers unconnected. So I went into the case to connect the front audio jack.

When I reassembled the case and turned it back on, nothing came up on the screen and the POST beeps indicated a video error. So I reseated the video card; no luck. I opened the case back up and re-seated everything, including the CPU, and that’s when I noticed the disaster – when I unseated the CPU, several pins fell off. They’d been corroded by something, which was visible both on the CPU and in the socket. (Oddly, nothing else on the board showed signs of damage.) Naturally, the CPU didn’t seat properly again.

So at minimum I need a new CPU and motherboard; I may need to replace pretty much everything. I know the RAM, the hard drive, and the CD drive are good, but beyond that everything’s up for grabs.

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I promise I’m still here. I haven’t had the chance to play WOW much this week, but I’ve been thinking fondly of it and sending it imaginary I-miss-you notes. In the meantime, two new things that may be of interest:

1. I’ve re-opened applications for The Story Thus Far, my WOW-blog hosting service. If you’ve ever wanted to write a WOW blog, or if you’re unsatisfied with your blog’s hosting, drop by and check TSTF out.
2. If you’re looking for a custom web design but not hosting, I’ve gone into business offering just that at www.etherjammer.com. Stop on by!

That’s all the news for now. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses!

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The druids of Teldrassil were certain that they had a powerful new weapon against the Scourge. With the help of Denalan, they had bred new species of plants with innate offenses – some had spikes, others released poison clouds, still more could lob dense seeds over long distances. The plants seemed to work well against the elementals rampaging around Lake Al’Ameth, but when the druids received word that the Defias were threatening Northshire Abbey and that plagued wolves were coming over the border, they saw an opportunity to test the plants on humanoids and to start their work against the Scourge. So they packed their seedlings up and traveled to Stormwind.

At Northshire, the tests went well: the plants proved an apt defense against the Defias and helped to drive back the plagued wolves. The druids were excited about the prospects for reclaiming what were now the Plaguelands, until one morning they awoke to find their plant defenses gone, dug up in the middle of the night. It seemed that some members of the Brotherhood of Northshire had gone rogue, corrupted by the Defias, and had stolen the plants and broken ranks. Through spyglasses the druids could see their plants freshly sown around Garrick Padfoot’s shack, flowering gaily in the sun and surrounded by the rogue clerics. The druids who went to retrieve their work were driven back by their own defenses.

In desperation – for they couldn’t reclaim their work and didn’t want the plants to fall into the hands of Edwin VanCleef – the druids called on the dwarves of Ironforge, who came to Northshire with a herd of rams, specially chosen for their vast stomachs. In the dead of night, they sent the rams across the river, with shepherds to make sure that the ravenous beasts ate only the druids’ plants and didn’t bother Milly Osgood’s vineyards. The rams, however, turned up their noses at the plants, and the shepherds finally had to drag them back across the river to the abbey.

The druids were devastated. Now, they thought, it was only a matter of time before VanCleef fortified the Deadmines with rows of their fighting flora. They sent word to Gryan Stoutmantle at Westfall Keep to be prepared, but were shocked when Stoutmantle himself came riding up the next day. “You’ve been going about it all wrong,” he said, and gestured behind him, where human shepherds had corralled the sheep that roamed Elwynn Forest. “Is that all of them?” he called.

The head shepherd nodded. “All the females, sir!”

“Then send them in!” Stoutmantle rode forth and the sheep and shepherds followed, and within minutes the sheep were happily munching on druid-enhanced plants while the druids themselves looked on in shock.

“How did you succeed with common sheep when the stout rams of Ironforge could not?” demanded one of the dwarves.

Stoutmantle laughed. “The druids would have known too if they’d paid attention to the flyers being distributed in Stormwind. Any human child could tell you-

Only ewes can prevent florist friars.“

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• Druid travel form is usable indoors. (Guys, really, we can use it throughout the entirety of Undercity but not in the windrider tower in Thunder Bluff?)
• Milling is migrated from Inscription to Herbalism. Pigments get more uses than just making ink.
• Low-level cooking recipes provide a larger range of benefits. (Right now it’s +Stamina/+Spirit or, occasionally, +MP5 until the Outland foods.)
• Basic food and drink are rescaled so that characters just before the next level of consumables don’t have to drink twice.
• Players can rearrange characters on the character select screen.
• Battle.net account-based chat allows for external clients like iChat and Digsby.
• Zones have seasonal weather. Rain in Elwynn in the summer, snow in the winter.
• Each of the capital cities offers a tabard starting at level 15 that allows the character to gain reputation for kills in instances.
• Using the “Teleport Into Instance” option takes you to the group’s position, not to the start of the instance. (Or is that just me?)
• GREEN FIRE Buffing someone who’s flagged for PVP and not in combat no longer flags you for PVP.

What do you want to see change in Cataclysm? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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The funny thing is, I am actually going to be talking about more than Disc priesting here from now on; I really do have a bunch of non-priest alts at various levels and I’ve been playing them a lot, so I have a bunch to say about paladins and rogues in particular.

But the main point of this post is to point out the new blog theme! It’s based around an image that I commissioned from the lovely Baenhoof of my priest Theande. (If you’d like to commission work from Baen, now’s the time – she’s shutting down commissions once she reaches a total of 10 on her wait list!) This is a preliminary version; I’m not entirely sold on the colors and layout, but I like the basic idea. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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Since then, though, I’ve stopped raiding as much. Part of it is a desire to spend more time with my family, and part of it is that I have dangerously high blood pressure and an anxiety disorder, both only very recently diagnosed, and I’ve been instructed to not spend all my time in front of a computer. So when I have played WOW, I’ve been focusing on other characters. I have a death knight at 72 – a friend and I just did Wrathgate last night. My paladin, Rolastra, is now 43 and rising quickly. My rogue Tiryns is 52. I have a hunter in her mid-30s (and another, long-neglected hunter at 64). And last night, it all came to a head. I realized that I wasn’t healing because I was sick of healing. It’s just whack-a-mole with Grid and mouseover macros instead of a foam-rubber mallet, and frankly the foam-rubber mallet is at least satisfying. Healing doesn’t hold a candle to the tense excitement of tanking, or to the gratifying “thunk” as your DPS’s weapon collides with the boss’s ass.

In fact, I’m so committed to not healing anymore that I’ve wiped the slate clean. I’m thumbnailing this for your sake; click on it to get the full image.

So because of that, and in honor of Baenhoof finishing my commissioned portrait of Theande, and because Easter is coming up and it’s a time for renewal, and because the first of the month seems like a symbolically good time to make changes, from now on, Duct Tape and a Prayer will be no more. Instead, you’ll be reading Heirlooms and a Prayer, which is all about leveling alts (well, I guess I don’t have a main anymore, so leveling characters) and then sending their heirloom gear off to more characters when I’ve gotten them to 80. It’s about a journey, from 1-80 on as many characters as I can manage. (+20% XP doesn’t hurt!) But mostly, it’s about never fucking healing again, no matter what.

(Hell, my paladin doesn’t even have Holy Light on her action bars.)

Come back tomorrow for the new and exciting Heirlooms and a Prayer!

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Then it expands.

“It’s just a TPS report. I shouldn’t put so much thought into it.”

“It’s just a temporary job. I don’t need to give it that much effort.”

“It’s just my day job. I don’t need to stress out so much about it.”

“It’s just my career.”

“It’s just my family.”

Of course I’m exaggerating. But little things like to spread. Why not start at the bottom with “Instead of doing what I need to do to get by, I’m going to do what it takes to accomplish something I’m proud of?”

Once you apply that in-game, it’s hard to not apply it to the rest of your life. After all, you can do it in WOW, and that’s just a game.

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A quick update on this:

• I’m planning on starting as a level-1 alt and traveling the world. (Yes, I am going to spend a lot of time as a ghost.)
  • I may level this alt to 10 before I set out proper.
• This isn’t going to be “a memoir of leveling”; it’s a deliberate, Pausanias (or Bill Bryson, as you prefer) -style travel journal, going to different interesting places and recording them for posterity.
• This is going to be on a new server, one I haven’t played on before, to avoid the temptation to supply this character with gold and gear.
• I welcome guest stars, but I won’t be taking on permanent traveling companions.

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Don’t get me wrong – I love raiding, and I really like the group I’ve been raiding with. But right now, my son just came back from his summer in California and has started school (he’s in 5th grade this year – I can barely believe it), my wife is going back to being a full-time student (to finish an English/Business degree), and I’m working 50 to 60 hours a week (and that doesn’t include the time I’m spending training up on work-related skills). Plus, we have a new dog who needs to go out regularly. All of that comes together to put me in a situation in life where I really can’t put together three or four uninterrupted hours at the times when my guild raids.

Because I feel guilty about not raiding, I’ve been avoiding playing my priest – I think I’ve been in the new 5-man all of three times (not for lack of trying – someone else always gets to the healing spots first), and of the new raid I only ever saw Northrend Beasts. I’m kind of tired of dailies, and I don’t do heroics (for a lot of reasons – one being that as a healer, I’m the one who’s going to take the blame, deserved or not, if the group fails). Instead, I’ve put a lot of time into my rogue alt (she’s level 44 now – I’m averaging about a level a day for the last two weeks), since I can play her in little bits. (Heirloom shoulders, chest, and dagger mean she’s doing just over 100 DPS and getting 120% XP from killing and quests, so I’m cruising right along. I’ve been out of rested XP since level 27…)

I try to log on to Theande and Sisuphe once a day to transmute and do the Jewelcrafting daily, respectively, but I don’t always remember, and I’m running out of green Northrend gems to feed the daily – and I really don’t want to have to fly around Storm Peaks two dozen times gathering ore again. (I know, I bought Sisuphe’s epic flyer so she could do exactly that, but I do my best farming when I can play uninterrupted and, as above, I don’t really get uninterrupted time these days. That’s one of the reasons I love my rogue – if I have to step away, I can just stealth in a corner until I get back.)

I am happy about most of the changes in 3.2 (the Penance cooldown was a nerf, and honestly we should have taken the +5% crit they offered us in exchange in 3.1), and I’m really looking forward to the reworked Onyxia in 3.3 and to Cataclysm. But otherwise – well, I don’t really have very much to say about WOW right now, I think.*

All of which is to say that I’m sorry posts have been thin on the ground here lately, and I don’t know when I’m coming back.

* Yes, I’m consciously invoking this in order to kick-start my creative brain. Don’t tell it that, though, or it won’t work.

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