One of the most frequently talked about subjects here of late in the World of Warcraft community is the new Looking for Group (or Looking for Dungeon) mechanic that was added in Patch 3.3. A lot of people love the new system and can’t see how they ever manged to level without it. Other people completely hate the system and refuse to use it ever again.

A lot of bloggers happen to be talking about it right now on their own blogs as well, but rather than reading their posts and then essentially responding them in my own post, I am going to simply post my own thoughts here and then any responses I have to them will be left in the form of comments on their blogs.

Initial Impressions
When I first tried out the new LFG I absolutely fell in love with it. Groups were fast, people were nice and cooperative, people who didn’t know the dungeons took advice and guidance from others, people didn’t mind spending a few minutes constantly clicking the icon to teleport into the dungeon after getting smacked around by the “Door Boss” repeatedly with messages of “Additional instances cannot be launched. Please try again.”

For the first week or so I didn’t have a single problem with any aspect of the new system. Sure, I might get thrown into a dungeon I didn’t really feel like running, but even then it wasn’t all that big of a deal. It was about the same as having a friend ask for help in a dungeon I didn’t care for; I might not have the most fun, but at least somebody was enjoying it.

And the loot! Holy cow, when you’re talking about level 15-25 characters the BoP items that drop from the satchel for doing random dungeons are actually Best In Slot gear if you get the right random enchant for your class/build.

Current Impressions
Now that I’ve had more time to play around with the system and have had a chance to do it not only on my low level characters, but also on my mid and high level characters I have a slightly different opinion.

Overall I still very much enjoy using it and any time I’m not caught up in the middle of doing something else you can pretty well count on me either sitting in queue waiting for the next one to pop or already running through one that recently popped for me.

However, I have had my fair share of horrible groups now too. At first they were just small things, like a low level tank that couldn’t hold threat on more than one mob at a time, or a healer that had only a dps spec but was the only one in the group that could heal, or a hunter who thought he was 60 levels higher than he actually was and then blamed the tank/heals for not saving him from his own stupidity.

As time went on though, things got progressively worse and progressively better at the same time. I have found some excellent groups that fit together perfectly and ones that actually stayed together to requeue for another random dungeon after the first. But I’ve also seen a group with a single bad player progress into a group almost entirely made of morons.

The first time I really doubted whether or not this new LFG system would hold out was when we ran into our first ninja looter. Cynwise and I found ourselves in a group with a mage who rolled need on absolutely everything that fell. After the third case of stupidity we kicked the guy from the group and replaced him almost right away. Not long after that though we found the hunter in the group decided that he had to roll Need on a shield because he was “going to use it when [he] level[ed] up”. We went on to other groups finding hunters and mages who thought they could tank, healers who didn’t see any reason in stocking up on drinks to restore their mana, trial accounts who “miss rolled” Need on boss drops and then couldn’t trade them to anyone else in the party, and so on. And I thought that was a bad day, until last night.

I started off last night by queuing up with my 19 twink mage in a few randoms and having a blast. If you care to read about the good times, then please refer to Blastoph: Adventures in SFK which you can find on my twink blog. After a few good runs with him I decided to switch over to my new Rogue Twink for a bit and go for some Deadmines and Wailing Caverns runs to finish off her gear (no luck) and finish leveling her up to 19 (got that one).

The first dungeon that came up was Wailing Caverns and the group had already cleared all but three bosses, and while we were there I got the Armor of the Fang (3rd best in slot) the Leggings of the Fang (1st) and the Gloves of the Fang (1st) so I was pretty happy just from that, and then my satchel for completing it held a belt with “of the Bandit” on it which just happens to be exactly what I was looking for. So it was very much a successful run. The one minor flaw was that Venomstrike dropped and a hunter with a crappy white bow rolled Need on it and I couldn’t bring myself to roll against him. My Throat Piercers are a bit better with their +2 Agility bonus, but Venomstrike is amazing for switching over and dealing damage when you need to.

The next run took me into Deadmines and we had a pretty good time in there. VC dropped the Blackened Defias Armor which is the second best armor for my Rogue. I rolled Need on it of course and watched as other people passed and offered grats, except for one. I noticed the Warrior tank hadn’t rolled yet, and just as I was about to say something I saw him click Need and he got it. So, no luck for me there.

The next queue took me back into Wailing Caverns, and that’s where things really went to crap. I filled in for a DPS that they kicked out of the group so I went to join them where they were. I saw as I was running to their location that most of the mobs on the top ring were still alive on both sides, but I just shrugged and assumed the tank wanted to save Lady Anacondra for the last. I also saw that the group was split up with the tank and hunter on the west side and the healer and warlock on the east. From that I assumed that the healer had gone to resurrect the warlock so I went for the tank.

When I got there I found the tank fighting mobs while the hunter yelled at him not to fight the serpents. I saw people dying so I jumped up there and started killing things off so the tank would live. The hunter yelled at me then too. To make a long story short, the hunter had been dragging the group to various places in the instance for the sole purpose of taming a serpent that he didn’t know where to find and had caused multiple wipes. Eventually he got his pet and the group formed up to actually run through the instance. I thought it particularly fitting that the hunter would fire a single shot at a mob, let the mob come to him, engage in melee combat, and then have his pet join in and never leave melee himself.

With that group and that moronic huntard as the group leader, we went through three tanks and four healers before I convinced everybody to just break the group and requeue. Luckily I managed to put the hunter on ignore and will never have to see his stupidity on my screen ever again. He was a perfect example of one person blackening the good reputation of the LFG system for several different people though.

I had such a horrible time in that last run through WC managing to kill only a single boss that I absolutely had enough with LFG for the night and had to go into WSG to kill people. I imagined every horde toon was that stupid dwarven hunter and went on a killing spree completely ignoring the whole concept of WSG all together. People had to die, and they had to die as soon as possible and in as large a quantity as possible. I didn’t do all that great in that run, but at least I got to vent some frustration.

Desired Improvements
The biggest issue I have with the new LFG system is the same as so many other people out there – I want to be able to queue for both Dungeons and PvP at the same time and take whichever one comes up first. I don’t mind getting kicked out of one queue if I accept an invite to the other, I just don’t want to sit there waiting for 30 minutes in one queue while the other is popping every 5 minutes.

Next up has to be more uses of Vote to Kick. When you’ve got a real bad player in the group you either have to deal with them or vote to kick them out of the group. But you can’t kick anyone else out after the second or third use of VtK. Instead you just get stuck with whoever you have there with you and your only option then is to deal with them or leave the party yourself. I don’t mind running with people that don’t know what they’re doing, are new to their spec, are new to the game, have never been to the dungeon before, or anything else so long as they are willing to accept advice on how to do things. If you suck and you refuse to let people help you not suck, then I make no hesitation in voting you out of the group. Come on Bliz, there are more than 3 people in each level bracket that suck, give me more chances to get rid of the morons.

And finally, I’d like for them to retool the Dungeon Deserter debuff (I can’t remember it’s actual name right off) . In fact, I’d like to see them get rid of the thing all together. I’ve only had it applied to me once and that was when the tank and one of the dps rushed right into combat before the healer had even zoned in, died, and then refused to run back and the healer hadn’t bothered to learn how to resurrect people yet. None of the votes to kick would pass for some reason so I had no choice but to leave them behind and I got flagged to not be able to queue again until the debuff went away. It was a whole new level of annoying.

Playing a Mage twink that’s focused on Crowd Control causes a few people to shake their heads when it comes to running around in low level dungeons. “What? You’ve only got 64 spell power and you’re a twink!?” I love getting those comments. I also love pointing to the tank’s hit points and saying “Yeah, I’ve also got over twice his health and more mana that all four of you combined. You want to duel me, or you want to shut up and run the instance?” Epeen aside though, I’ve only had to smack somebody upside the head once over their stupid misconceptions of what makes a Mage twink good.

Today I’m going to share with you some of the adventures I’ve had with Blastoph lately in using the new Looking For Dungeon feature that came with Patch 3.3. Luckily most of Blastoph’s adventures have been fun and successful, with only one or two exceptions. His first run took him to RFC which was great since I got both the bracers and robes from the instance which are the only reason for a caster to bother going in there in the first place. After that run though it’s been almost entirely SFK runs with an occasional dip into Deadmines or Wailing Caverns.

I’m going to talk about one particular trip into SFK that I had last night because…well, I just feel like bragging about my twink a little bit to be quite honest, but I’m also going to talk again on why I bother with the LFD tool instead of just queuing for WSG over and over, though not in that order.

Why Not Queue for PvP Only
I already touched a little bit on the blue items that drop from the Satchel of Helpful Goods that you receive when running Random Dungeons using the new LFD system, but I’m going to mention them again because the question was raised while running some of those random dungeons.

I queue for randoms rather than PvP at times because every now and then you just need to change things up a bit and do something different. Sometimes I do it because the last group I was with in WSG was bad and I’m looking to get in with a different group. Sometimes I do it because I want to take another chance at the good gear from that Satchel. Sometimes I just like the more laid back feel of a dungeon crawl to the fast pace of PvP. Sometimes I do it because I might actually be missing a piece of my gear, or because I just want to collect some green drops for selling or disenchanting purposes. It can be for any number of reasons actually.

You’ll see that a lot of those reasons though point to some degree at one thing in particular: sometimes we just need to take a little bit of a break from PvP.

Twinking is just like any other engrossing aspect of this game, and if you do too much of that one thing then you’re likely going to get burned out on it after a while. I don’t want to stop liking PvP so I just have to step away and do something else from time to time just to keep some variety in the mix.

Shadow Fang Keep: Gnomes Gnever Shut Up
Last night I was in a random dungeon (SFK) when we ran into the room where Commander Springvale and his Wailing Guardsmen can be found. I told everyone before the fight that the safest way to pull the room was for the tank to agro a few mobs at a time and then pull them back into the previous hallway so that the healer wouldn’t get line of sighted and have to run into the room. You don’t want to get your healer into that room if you can help it because every mob in there has an AoE spell that silences targets for 3 seconds. Everyone agreed and then the tank ran right into the room and started fighting them there. The healer paused for a second and then followed to keep him alive, and the dps (except for me) ran in to save the healer. The healer got silenced, the tank died, the healer pulled back into the hallway and then died, the other two dps died, and then it was just me and the mobs who decided to agro me since I tried to save the healer with a Frost Nova.

I immediately went into Flag Carrier mode and threw a few instant casts at them while I took off back down the hallway and into the room where the Baron sits. I didn’t want to stop moving because I knew that silence could hit me if I got too close, but I wasn’t about to be a little pansy mage and run out of the instance. I relied on Frost Nova to keep them off of me as much as possible and when I did get hit with the silence (about 6 times) I just ran until it wore off and then did what I could.

There are two stair cases in the Baron’s room that lead up to the same place, but come down on opposite sides of the room. I would run down one set of stairs throwing Fire Blasts when I could or Arcane Explosions when they got too close, run out into the room a bit to let them all get close to me, and then run back into the middle of them casting Arcane Explosions until I got to the far side of them and then Frost Nova if I wasn’t silenced. I then ran up the stairs and around the corder to bandage myself and then repeated the process over and over while I waited for everyone to run back to the instance.

When a Frost Nova caught them all on the stairs I would go ahead and cast Frostbolts and Fireballs to burn down the ones that were particularly low on health to take them out, but otherwise it was constant movement and instant casts all the way.

I finished off the last mob just as the first person got back into the instance and when we went up to the room again to take another shot at it we found that I had killed all but two mobs from the room. We continued on and easily took out the rest of the dungeon with no problems at all. I had a lot of fun in there, especially with soloing that one room, but the cloak that can drop from the Satchel of Helpful Goods never dropped and instead I got multiple copies of the belt that I already had on instead.

Last night I did go see RDG again. It was that good, I really wanted to see it again so I went with some people on my floor. It was still really good and fun! When I got back after the show, one of the guys on our floor who was in RDG taught me and another girl the finale dance while another member of RDG on our floor taught a different girl so we could have a dance off. Just so you know…I actually could do the dance almost perfect and I was SO PROUD of myself considering I don’t have rhythm like at all. It only took like 20 minutes which was quite the feat. He was a good teacher. It was fun to just hang out in the hallway and dance. So today is the day to do homework and do laundry. I have done some homework, I just have to keep chipping away at it. As for the laundry, it’s in the dryer so I am well on my way to having nice clean clothes. I washed my jeans so when they come out they are going to be nice and warm. It’s going to be just glorious.

The new Bowser/Stewart Executive Line Diesels feature revised tooling and many upgraded detail parts. They will be available in the following roadnames: Reading “Bee Line”, Chesapeake & Ohio, Conrail, Pennsylvania, and Union Pacific. We plan to stock a few of each of these locos but to ensure you will be able to pick one up it is best to Pre-Order.

Click Here to Check the Bowser Stewart C-630 Century Series Diesels with Soundtraxx Tsunami Sound Today!

Ingressos antecipados a R$ 10,00 nas lojas 1Dasul, Negredo, A Firma e Porte Ilegal.

Acum câteva zile am vizionat un film german despre realităţile din Germania răsăriteană cu câţiva ani până la dărâmarea Zidului Berlinului şi reîntregirea acestei ţări.

Nu voi reda subiectul filmului, ci doar anumite impresii pe care mi le-a lăsat. Am remarcat mai ales asemănarea izbitoare între actuala RM şi fosta RDG, omniprezenţa serviciilor secrete STASI, care controlau totul, orice gest, mai ales al persoanelor care le păreau suspecte, deci primejdioase pentru regim. De asemenea, isteria manifestată de regimul comunist de la Chişinău vizavi de România şi cea a comuniştilor germani de la Berlin faţă de RFG, pe care îl considerau cel mai mare duşman al lor, pare trasă la indigo.

De fapt, am remarcat că comunismul este acelaşi, indiferent în ce ţară se cuibăreşte. Comuniştii nemţi nu se deosebeau prea mult de confraţii lor ruşi sau chinezi, sacrificând fără scrupule individul în numele unei creaţii aberante, numite de ei “Omul Nou”. Şi-au creat şi o artă de partid, statutul oamenilor de creaţie devenind unul identic cu al prostituatelor. Peste tot – balet cu strungari şi ţesătoare, utilaje şi comunişti în acţiune. Pur şi simplu, nu-mi venea să cred că acţiunea filmului este plasată în Germania, atât de mult îi idealizasem pe nemţi până acum, crezându-i prea inteligenţi, incapabili de comunism.

Nu voi mai vorbi de destinele frânte ale unor omeni care fie au fost prea slabi şi n-au rezistat, fie n-au acceptat să colaboreze cu regimul comunist, să se prostitueze, alegând să se sinucidă decât să devină lachei, poeţi de curte. Ţin doar să repet în încheiere că situaţia din RM este aproape identică cu cea din Germania răsăriteană comunistă de până la ‘89, deci ar exista anumite speranţe că vom evolua conform aceluiaşi scenariu şi că zilele regimului roşu din Basarabia sunt numărate.

I love being Indian and I feel an immense sense of belonging to everything this group of people stand for. I enjoy the cultural elements as well as the simple things that make us Indian, putting aside differences in language, geographical descents and appearances. I always feel proud to see an Indian make it to the top, to see an Indian production or just to see an outlet for potential. Yet, its amazing how in some instances we really become our own enemy. I have two interesting experiences to share; one with complete admiration for some members of this community and another filled with disdain. Ladies and gentlemen, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Sathai/Saakadai – A double bill presented by Puthiya Uthiram (Ravindran Drama Group)

I have always been amazed at the smaller productions organised by RDG (their larger productions are targeted at mass appeal and in my opinion, don’t show the same amount of boldness that the smaller shows do). Puthiya Uthiram represents the junior batch of up and coming artistes and they blew me away yesterday. I went to catch their double bill at Substation theatre yesterday and I was very glad I did. Saakadai was shocking, real and painful. I will not go into detail about the play itself as I truly hope that it makes a comeback to cater to a slightly larger audience, but in a nutshell it revolved around the filth we engage in day after day. This was juxtaposed by a toilet cleaner whose actions were filthy but his mind was cleaner than any one who had stepped into that toilet. Kudos to Mano and Rupbini as well as the director. Their roles were wonderfully executed and made the audience cringe, tear and reflect.

Sathai in my opinion was not as impressive as Saakadai. Funny how I actually went anticipating watching Sathai more but left being captivated by Saakadai. It was nice that they managed to eliminate some stereotypes we have about social escorts and sexual workers as a whole. Both the actresses were excellent in portraying what they were set out to show. I did feel that some elements of Sathai could have been a little better. For example, the play was not very clear in its motive – although it did show that social escorts do have a choice and they may CHOOSE to be in this line, by adding elements of sexual abuse and love failure, it still made it seem like they were somewhat pushed to making these decisions.

In what I have studied and researched before, I know that while sexual abuse, failed relationships can lead to people becoming social escorts or any other sexual workers (sexual workers need not be selling sex, escorts and domination work is also in this list), I know that they do not make the bulk of sexual workers. Many sex workers choose to be in this line because of the money it makes as well as the freedom the job provides them.

I feel that sometimes we are always so set to portray the deviants in a sympathetic light that we fail to understand that they are conscious human beings who do not need our sympathy but in fact just made choices that are different from our own.

If you want to know about some other misconceptions about sexual workers, you can check this link out: http://www.nhchc.org/2008conference/workshops/8docs/Sex_Industry_Myths.doc.pdf

Nevertheless, Puthiya Uthiram’s attempt must truly be applauded as both plays did move me and were very intelligently weaved. The cast were superb and I was so proud to see so many young, new faces who boldly embraced their roles and were not at all afraid.

I wish that there were more such Indians. Indians who want to change things, Indians who want to face things and Indians who want to raise awareness amidst other Indians. Kudos Puthiya Uthiram – I look forward to your next performance.

Now moving on to the BAD and the UGLY (a double bill presented by Dhool 2008) :P 

DHOOL 2008

Once again, Indians haven’t failed to amaze me. This time for the opposite reason. This is not a post meant to attack Megastar, Dhool judges or Dhool hosts or even the dance groups. This is directed towards the audince. Will we ever grow up? Will we ever start looking at things objectively?

I visited the Dhool blog earlier today and honestly I am just so disappointed at the way we Indians tend to think. Firstly, the comments towards the hosts. Why is it that we can never appreciate when someone takes the effort to present a show. Being on live television is not easy. Apart from memorizing lines, one also has to think about quick comebacks as the show’s schedule is constantly changing. With that many eyes all on you, it is expected that one or two bloopers will be made. I do not have any personal affinity towards Vadi or Uthaya but I do think that people should be a little less harsh on them. People in the blog were asking why hosts like Jainesh and Vishnu were not chosen – Simply put, even if they were the hosts, I am certain that another group of audience will have something to say about them and their hosting. It really is good to see that the hosts take this in good humour and actually add it in their come back lines. And if you really do think you can do a better job than them, then Vasantham is having auditions for hosts – why not go participate and see if its as easy as it seems.

Secondly, comments towards judges. Why is it that we assume that someone is only fit to be a judge because they have danced? Does that mean that we as an audience don’t have the right to make comments about a dance until we’ve performed on television? Does this mean that if someone sings terribly, you’re not allowed to pass a comment until you’ve sung a song yourself? Dance is universal and everyone has a right to their opinion. I don’t think anyone is incapable of judging a dance performance. Vijendran may not be giving on the mark comments but I honestly do not think that he has been rude or crass at any point in the show and as such he should still be respected.

Then there are some who comment about how the judges are looking for stupid things like Taalam – Taalam simply put is the ability for a dance to be in beat with the song. This is definitely not a stupid thing and this should be the basis for judging any dance performance. Then there were those who criticised the judges for saying their favorites so openly. I’m sorry but I just think that we Indians are a malcontented bunch. Last year, when NUS won and the judges openly said they had wanted for Acidhouz to win, everyone was okay with it and criticised SMS voting. This year when SMS voting seems to be outshadowing the judges’ decisions, we are critcising the judges decisions? ( I do not intend to start a spate of debates on NUS vs Acidhouz because honestly both teams are the least bothered by this anymore).

But really, why is it that its in our nature to constantly dispute things especially when its said by a fellow Indian. Why can’t we accept that in every competition there will be winners and losers. Some are favoured and some aren’t. It is impossible to please everyone, and if it did, it will be the most boring show to watch. The judges have been placed there FOR their opinions and I think the only time a judge will be useless is if they were to say “no comments” or something like that.

On the whole, the more you hate or like a judge or a team, the more extreme your views get, the more controversy starts, the more you will watch the show and the more money the production company gets. Congratulations to all of you because your anger has profited another individual.

Remember people, its only in Indian organised competitions that you get to see so many Indians being given the opportunity to showcase their talents and their abilities. If this was an external competition, the proportion of Indians would have been much lower because of the racial distribution in the country. That would mean that you’d hardly see an Indian taking the centrestage. Here, the opportunities have been given, but if we constantly misuse it and abuse our power as an audience – no production company will come forward to organise such a competition and then we can go back to being unheard of.

So please folks, grow up.