Imagine smacking your funny bone – you know that feeling? Now imagine that the feeling never goes away. Ever. HAPPY FUN TIMES.

Waiting on x-rays to make sure it’s not an issue with my neck, but my doctor is pretty sure it’s carpal/cubital – I have some tingling in my thumb/index/middle, but mostly it’s my pinkie. It’s possible I have carpal AND cubital (with more emphasis on the cubital).

For the last few weeks I’ve been complaining of having cold hands even when my body is perfectly warm. I didn’t think much of it, though, because I always get cold when other people are hot. I thought it was just winter or something.

Then in the last week or so, my fingers have started to tingle. Again, I just thought it was the cold weather making them tingly. No big deal.

They yesterday, they tingled all day, with a numb feeling too. It was driving me crazy. I couldn’t sit at my desk, or drive, or rest my arm on anything for more than a few seconds before the feeling came back again. So I made an appointment in the afternoon to see the doctor. I suspected carpal tunnel, but thought maybe it could be a circulation issue, and possibly related to my migraines.

He was really great – very friendly, laughed with me (instead of the condescending courtesy laugh that most doctors give). Actually felt my hands with his fingers, for changes in temperature etc. He did a bunch of strange tests, including flicking the nerve on my wrist, which did nothing for a while until he got it bang on, and I jumped about a foot and yelped. Bingo!

I am exacerbating the problem with long periods of computer work, but also the way I sleep with my hands curled up – I’m not sure why, but it’s stupid, and I hate that I do it – but I can’t stop it while I’m fast asleep. So I bought a wrist brace to wear while I’m sleeping and working (or gaming). Forcing it to stay straight while I sleep should help with some of the irritation.

The problem though is that while it’s great to type in, very comfy.. the brace part actually pushes against the back of the mouse, so it makes the mouse do things I don’t want to do. In a raid setting this would mean a lot of trouble using mouseover macros, because the cursor will go off in directions that I don’t mean it to.

I’m hoping that it will get better, that I’ll get used to it and it’s just that I’m not comfortable with it yet.. but at the moment I am feeling pretty down. WoW is my way of “getting away” from things that stress me or upset me.. but what happens when I’m upset about not being able to play?

I needed a break from raiding anyway, I guess. But it does make me worry that I won’t be able to be a raider again. Last night I couldn’t raid with it, so I played an alt for a while, but I had to keep dropping my hand down to dangle at my side, to alleviate the buzzing. Basically, anything that has my arm bent at the elbow makes my fingers tingle – so, sitting with my arms on an arm rest, driving, using a mouse.. lots and lots of things. It’s crazy annoying.

On the bright side, he started me on migraine blockers, so at least I (hopefully) won’t have to worry about being out of action for days at a time with migraines. A buzzy finger is driving me up the wall, but I would take it over migraines any day. Not really keen on surgical options, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see if the brace (and some adjustments at work) improves it enough for me to cope.

Blah.

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(That’s my 17″ non-widescreen beside it. You have my permission to laugh at and/or pity me)

So I’m hopped up on Forte and admiring my shiny new toy, which will be so handy for me. For play – it means I can have Warcraft on the big screen (and be able to see more around me), and have vent, MSN, forums and strats up on the other. No more tabbing out to blog or write, and missing ready checks.

For business, it means I can have my work in front of me, and sites to the right, refreshing as I need. Or notes, or spreadsheets, or photoshop, or whatever. I find it SO valuable to be able to have two workspaces, instead of constantly switching between the two. I’m working on a new website at the moment and it’s such a pain in the butt to have to keep switching windows to see my changes each time. I think I’m actually more excited about the changes it will make to my work. So, so handy!


So.. my head is still hurting, and I’m losing money (ugh.. stress!) but at least I have an awesome new monitor setup, right?

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• I’m working hard towards my RL goal of buying a house, and $50 counts!
• The panels I want to see are at 6:30am on Saturday and Sunday for me. That’s not a huge deal, I’ve been up early for WoW commitments before, but it’s still a factor. If I wanted to post things as we hear about them, I’d have to be up really early to catch the panels (I don’t care about the archives/replay).
• There’s no guarantee that they won’t cut to random stuff like behind-the-scenes or interviews, meaning the few segments I want to see may be cut short. I would be very cranky if they cut to stuff I didn’t care about. Lots of people have asked about this, but no answers have been given by Blizzard, and if it’s the case, I think that’s pretty crappy, to be honest. If people are paying $40 ($50 here) they should be able to choose which “channel” (stage) they want to watch. It’s not difficult to do.
• Australian internet isn’t the greatest, and I live in a rural area, making it worse. There’s a very good chance it will be very poor quality – especially if my connection forced me to use the low-def version. I guess I should be grateful that I have internet – but boy is it suck compared to a lot of other countries! Australia really needs to get its A into G, as we say here. Give us better internets!


So all up I would be paying $50 for poorly streamed (due to my connection) video, at 6:30am on Saturday and Sunday, and the coverage may not stay focused on the 3 panels I want to watch, anyway. I really wanted to catch the news live, but I can’t justify $50 for about 3 hours of panels that could be cut short and may well be very low quality due to my backwater internet.

So I’ll just have to suck it up and deal with compiling druid info from the main sites. It’s disappointing to me – I would rather be posting it first-hand, but it’s not the end of the world.

To everyone on their way to the con itself – have a blast! Wish I could be there with you!

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SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS



What amuses me is the number of people getting REALLY upset about the possibility of changes that go against the lore of Warcraft.

I certainly respect their opinions and their passion for the story, but what people need to understand is that lore is a history, it’s not a set of rules. The past can’t be changed (well, unless we head over to CoT and mess around!), but the future is an open book. Just because something has been a certain way for thousand years does not mean that it can’t ever happen.



Night Elf mages: WRONG WRONG WRONG.. right?

The possibility Night Elf mages seem to be causing the biggest uproar. Evidently Night Elves can’t be mages because:

(From http://www.wowwiki.com/Night_Elves)

Their powerful magic was recklessly unleashed by the quel’dorei,[2] who believed they were superior to other Kaldorei and practiced magics far beyond the considered norm.[citation needed] This careless use of magic may have allowed the Burning Legion to invade the world, and finally led to a catastrophic battle known as the War of the Ancients. This battle changed the face of Azeroth for all time, and resulted in the creation of the continents of the world, tearing the land apart and forming the vast nexus of energy at the center of the ocean known as the Maelstrom.

…the Well of Eternity imploded in a magical cataclysm, sending untold numbers to their doom. Many Kaldorei were dragged to the bottom of the sea, only to be twisted and transformed into the sea serpents now known as the vile naga. The catastrophe tore the continent apart into three sections, and left a permanent storm known as the Maelstrom where the well once stood. With the majority of the Highborne dead, the kaldorei turned away from their arcane legacy and began a new culture focusing on attunement with nature and their surroundings.

The TLDR version is that the Highborne dabbled in magic that they shouldn’t have, which led to the destruction of the Well of Eternity, which in turn turned many of the Night Elves into Naga, tore the world into several chunks, and created the Maelstrom.

Basically: bad things happen when you play with magic.

So the Night Elves are a little shy (to say the least) when it comes to dabbling in the arcane.

But does that mean they’ll never do it?

What if something REALLY big went down, and they were forced to reconsider? They are, after all, avoiding magic mostly by choice – they’re not incapable of it, right? They can just change their minds, no sweat.

Oh, wait:

From http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/encyclopedia/508.xml

Afterwards, arcane magic was outlawed on pain of death, but the Highborne arrogantly continued their dangerous sorcery.

Rather than execute their defiant kindred, Tyrande and Malfurion sentenced the Highborne to exile. The exiles journeyed over the sea to Lordaeron, where they founded the kingdom of Quel’Thalas and began calling themselves high elves.

Okay, so, it’s outlawed. Fair call. But if the Highborne can break the rules, is the idea of the Night Elves changing their minds really so inconceivable? Sure, it’s been quite a while, they’re creatures of habit now.. but is it such a massive leap that a cataclysmic event might drive them to change their ways?


Forever changed (again)

This already happened. We just weren’t around to see it. Something really big DID go down, we just didn’t log on until the dust had settled.

Is it time for round two?

I LOVE the idea of the world going through a massive, cataclysmic event that changes zones dramatically – destroys some, sinks some, tears some in half. That something so massive, dramatic and violent tears up the world as we know it, and the people have to rise up and find new alliances and new ways to fight back. I got goosebumps just now as I was writing that.

Posted by Irem on wow.com Aug 15th 2009

This is why I want for this to be true. As players, we’ve often only got Blizzard’s word to go on that we’ve lost something. “The Scourge has killed thousands of people!” That’s not our loss. Those thousands are just words on a screen. “Bolvar and Saurfang the Younger are dead!” Suddenly that’s our loss because they’re characters we knew and liked and will never see again.

If they really want to make us feel something powerful while changing the old world, they have to actually -change- it. Make us feel that punch in the gut when we log in and the places we leveled and played in are altered permanently, and when we realize that things we took for granted seeing every day are gone. Force us to own our place in the world by actually taking something away from us. That’s the kind of immersion a time-frozen-from-character-creation game world can’t provide, and I applaud Blizzard for not playing it safe, if this is all in fact true.

This. This, this, THIS.

This is exactly how I feel, and I couldn’t possibly have said it any better.


Caving to the whiners, or building on the story?

Most people seem to be in one or the other camp.

Is Blizzard relenting to the whiners who want gnome healers and to fly in Azeroth, or are they putting the boot up this game and shaking it up?

Is it a lazy plot device to accommodate player wishlists, or the next step in an ever-evolving tapestry?

Is it lore-breaking, or lore-expanding?

If the speculation is true, they’re going to have to spin some really fantastic stories to explain it all and make it believable. As long as it’s done properly and not someone waving a wand and saying, “BOOM! Garrosh is the boss of you guys now, trolls can be druids if you want, and Night Elves got over their silly aversion to arcane magic. As you were.”

As I said above though, I don’t consider lore to be “the rules”. I consider it to be a history book of what happened once before. Who’s to say it can’t change?


Phasing – oh please let it be phased

If this is all true, I have every finger and toe crossed that they use phasing. I have to say I would be very sad if the geographical changes were brought in and simply made permanent for every player, old and new. I would be sad to lose the ability to go see the old barrens, and i would miss Orgrimmar so, so much.

I hope that they leave the old world how it is for new players (and new alts), but perhaps once you hit a certain level (maybe trigged by a questline), the world changes to post-cataclysm. If it’s true, I hope they put in a device like speaking to Alexstrasza at the Wrathgate – something that allows you to go up to old Orgrimmar and say “show me what happened here”. This game needs more Wrathgates. That will never, ever get old, and I get goosebumps every time I watch it.

I’d love to be able to roll an alt and go see “old Orgrimmar”, and take a picture and preserve it Postcards from Azeroth style.

A small, worn and neatly folded card, tucked carefully into my Orc’s armor; that she might glance at it occasionally while looking over what is now left of Durotar – remembering what once was.

Oopsie, slipped into lorenerd mode for a sec..

Please Blizzard – if you’re going to change the world – use your magic phasing powers for good. Make us another Wrathgate-type video to make all the little hairs on my arms stand on end.






PS – I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I jumped on the possible-Tauren-paladin bandwagon and reserved “Holycao” (which is a play on the name of my first druid, Caoimhe). I couldn’t resist!

Bring on Blizzcon, and the truth!



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• that people couldn’t recognise the MASSIVE effort I had put into the guild, which in my mind would mean I was the obvious choice, all other things being equal; and




• that you’re DAMN RIGHT the first one is important, how can anyone say that?


It’s not just a cool weapon – and I suspect the above argument is typical of people who are more concerned with loot than other issues. That weapon was not important to me because it was orange, or cool looking, or because I’d have lots of people /inspecting me on the Dalaran steps.

It was a testament to just how much I had poured into that guild.

And it hurt so much that I wasn’t the obvious choice.


25 fragments short of a guild

But the guild split up. We never killed Yogg without a watcher. We didn’t even get to kill him with all of the watchers.

Everyone went their separate ways. Some to hardcore guilds more progressed, others to play with friends. Some quit entirely.

So I will never get my mace. I will never get my trophy.

Instead, I have five fragments sitting in my bag. Five fragments to remind me of the fantastic team I was once part of, that I poured my heart into, but will never get back.




To some people.. it’s just a silly weapon in a fleeting game. It doesn’t matter. But to me, it symbolises friendships, hardships, hard work, good times, bad times, triumphs.. and everything I gave to my team. It was a small token to say “thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

You may think it’s silly to put so much emphasis on a trivial pile of pixels.. but to me it means so much more than just another item in the game.


And that’s the story of Christmas

So, ex-guildmates, friends, rivals, strangers… that is why I get sad when I see those fragments, or see other people with their new maces. It’s nothing personal – but I can’t help but feel a little bitter, because they have two things that I had, but lost:-

a shiny, orange “we couldn’t have done all of this without you”..

..and, more importantly, a family to belong to.



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• ..that our characters to be sortable on our character collection screen.
• ..that we have a tabard storage system similar to pets and mounts.
• ..that we have a better pet/mount UI, with a search function.
• ..that we have another druid race per faction. It’s about time.
• ..that we might upgrade our original 16 slot backpack.
• ..that “lowbie” mounts could scale to the speed of our epics.
• ..that we have a search button on our achievements.
• ..that Blizzard fix our ongoing mouseover macro issue with Wild Growth.
• ..that we have a 2000 Fish achievement.
• ..that we have a 100 pet achievement.
• ..that Chillmaw be made to be a summoned NPC.
• ..that we could display the number of quests remaining in Kalimdor and Azeroth by zone.
• ..that Australia would get its own servers (ha!)




What are yours?

What are the things that you wish would be implemented, and you just don’t understand why they’re not in the game already – after all, it’s not much to ask, right?



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Any dungeons that previously dropped Emblems of Heroism or Valor, such as Naxxramas or Heroic Halls of Stone, will now drop Emblems of Conquest instead. Emblems of Conquest can still be converted to Valor or Heroism.


So, Heroism and Valor will no longer drop from anywhere – instead, the heroics, 10 mans and 25s that dropped these badges (eg Heroic Nexus, 10 man Naxx, 25 man Malygos) will drop Emblems of Conquest. You can either use these for Conquest gear, or exchange them 1 for 1 for Heroism or Valor tokens, to buy those items.

The upshot: you can kit yourself out in Conquest and Valor gear without ever setting foot in a 25 man raid.

The hardcore raider in me screams “WHAT A RIP OFF! Now anyone can get Ulduar gear without having to work hard in Ulduar!”

The casual Kiiva in me rubs her chin and says, “Nice, now I can get Ulduar gear without having to work hard in Ulduar…”

Well, not exactly. But it DOES mean that I don’t have to play “catch up” trying to gear my rerolled character up to the tier of raiding that I want to be playing in. I won’t have to run old 25 mans (if I don’t want to) to be able to get gear of an adequate standard to go do Ulduar or start out in the next lot of raiding. If I want to, I can just run heroics with a few friends in order to dress Kiiva in some shiny epics.

On the other hand, running the “old” stuff now has a purpose after you’ve grabbed all the drops out of them that you need. Heroics, after finishing reps and whatnot, were places I never bothered with again (unless for mounts and achievements). Now, I can go do heroics or Naxx and grab Conquest badges to be able to gear Kiiva or get her some items for offspec.

As Spinks said in Gevlon’s post – this is an alt patch. Archangel added the point about dual spec. It gives people a reason to go back and do these heroics and raids once they’ve exhausted the achievements and taken all the drops they needed. And I would add that it is also a reroller patch – allowing people to reroll without thinking they’ll have to spend months catching up to the level of gear they need.

The change will also help people who need/want to take a break from the game but don’t want to “fall behind” the gear curve when they get back. My previous post had a number of people saying that they came along halfway in TBC and struggled to be able to raid because they were always behind. With this change, you won’t have to run Ulduar in order to be ready for Icecrown. You can use your half hour here and there to keep gearing your character (at a more relaxed pace) and still be able to jump into Icecrown if you want to get back to raiding (this may be me).

The casual in me says “sweet change!” but I can understand how the hardcore raiders, taking their items on DKP saved for weeks, might be.. slightly pissy.

I believe I’ll be setting up camp on this here fence.

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Images courtesy of Wowraid.com



At the moment we are seeking priests and hunters. Ideally I would like one of each flavour priest (holy, disc and shadow). We will also consider other dps classes, and wouldn’t mind another holy pally.

I’ve just finished getting our new site off the ground – http://inexguild.com/ – it has more information about the guild, our progress and recruitment.

So if you’re looking for an Oceanic raiding guild (or you have a friend who is looking) – have a look at the site, and feel free to send me a forum PM, email, or whisper in game to chat. I’m online every night if you need more info.

Thanks


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