Hold on to your hats, folks.

OMIGOD.

I am just… I can hardly contain myself.

Where to start, where to start.

Okay.

So.

(more…)

There is no eloquence in me today.

China, Russia, Georgia… the United States Presidential elections… all the endless lies and bullshit and misery, and never an end, never an end to it.

I have no words for you this morning. I’m sorry.

Maybe later, after I convince myself once more to bury my head in the sand and regain my focus on my family and friends, and stop giving a shit about what is happening in the world that I cannot affect, and cannot change.

Perspective. I have to regain my perspective.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The serenity prayer. It’s not just for twelve step programs, you know.

This message has been posted instead of the twelve page rant that I deleted this morning.

You’re welcome.

I let it go live, but I’m still not very happy with my second part of the WoW Insider Karazhan tip post.

I just don’t think I spent enough time on spellcasting for the basic section, or cleaning up the melee DPS section… but good lord, the thing is over 2700 words, at some point you have to let go.

Wish I could think straight today. Feels like I’m swimming and thinking in a sea of cotton.

It just gets so frustrating sometimes.

On the one hand, WoW Insider justifiably gets tired of my massive walls of text. They’re nice about it, but I keep getting asked to break it up over a couple weeks.

But on the other hand, there are a ton of topics people keep emailing in asking for, and there are only so many weeks. If I break this one topic up into 4 parts or more, that’s over a month gone before I turn to something else.

Not counting if special events pop up that I want to highlight, like the Lifebloom nerf, or the Epic Dolls Druid podcast with Phaelia. Or, heaven forbid, WotLK news.

There are only so many weeks, and I can only talk about one thing in a given week there… and so when I get on one topic, I try and cram as much as I can in.

But 2700 words… and it’s still weak. I blew off healing entirely. Le sigh. And casting, only touched on Barkskin/Hurricane.

And the best part?

2700 words, and I freaking guarantee you, SOMEONE will STILL point out things that I ‘missed’.

Not make suggestions on alternative ways of doing things, or their own tips or tricks.

No, someone will announce that I ‘forgot’ to include such-and-such.

And someone else will ask why we’re still talking about Kara, isn’t it kiddy-kara now?

Betcha.

For my friends that blog… do you ever want to just copy/paste the entire WoWWiki and WoWhead sites’ content, post it, and then say, “There! Now tell me, did I miss anything? Huh?”

Lol.

Ah, well.

Should my articles be shorter? Hell yes.

Do I feel that more content each week let’s me get to something new sooner? Sadly, yes.

So… I’m sorry for the walls of text. I guess I’m just that crazy long-winded guy.

And I’m cranky, because I have a nice strong cold that’s kicking my butt, and the workday has been pretty bad. Lots of things I had to fix, because we hired two new Technicians a week ago that, well… suck.

Geez, if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, don’t freaking break it worse and walk away! Ack!

You read that correctly, my gamer friends.

If you are on a budget, and wish to spend your carefully saved, hard earned money on expensive electronics, please do yourself a favor and don’t spend that money at Best Buy.

Allow me to regale you with a 100% factual real life story.

(more…)

As revealed directly by Class Designer Koraa, there are no plans now or in the future for a Dire Cat Form.

End of story.

Now, you might think that Kalgan had told us something completely different at the WWI Q&A. Did Kalgan lie to us in the World Wide Invitational?

Allow me to quote what Kalgan said, exactly.

Will feral druids get new skins in WotLK?

They talked about it, but while some players would like it, other wouldn’t, like when the Rogue stealth animation was changed.

Will druids get male or female optional forms to choose from?

There is plan for a new dire bear form model and the introduction of the dire cat.

Thanks be to Lisana of the guild Zerg, who brought the question immediately back to Koraa, who says it wasn’t an actual lie… he was just mistaken as to the nature of the Druidic graphics changes that were planned… right? 

Koraa said;

I think what Kalgan meant was that we intend to do different texture variances for Druid forms, including Cat form. Which is true, though not sure how soon we’re going to get that. They may come from a repeatable quest, or through inscription.

Yeah… um, so, Kalgan wasn’t lying, exactly, he was just thinking that something that wasn’t done yet, something a class designer has no idea when they are going to get to, was going to really be Dire Cat Form, and worth mentioning at the WWI Q&A… along with Dire Bears getting a new model. Yeah. Because Dire Cat Form and ‘different textual variances acquired from an Inscription or a rep/quest grind’ sound so much alike in team meetings.

*cough cough* BULLSHIT *cough cough*

But I’ll let you be the judge.

I’m thinking of how it would feel, if I were in France, having paid to attend a series of panel discussions given by the Lead Designers of World of Warcraft, to learn firsthand what the future plans were for my favorite class…

And I were to hear firsthand about various changes to my class, changes that spark my imagination and send excitement surging through me (yes, I’m a Druid fanboy)… and later find out the guy was talking off the top of his head and presenting to us as fact things he did NOT know for certain.

I’d feel exactly like I do now… but additionally, I’d wonder why I should bother going to any panels in the future? Just go to the event and meet the CMs and get fanboy pics taken, and maybe get a goodie grab bag and see the Beta live and hands on of real new stuff… not things some dude made up.

Let’s be honest… it’s things like this that, right or wrong, can make you feel that your class is of no concern to the designers. Clearly, they are more interested in some other class, if they are so far off reality, right?

I am NOT going to drag out the whole “Kalgan loves PvP Warriors, and hates Warlocks” drama that we used to see all the time. I don’t know the man, I don’t know what, if anything, he likes to play in the game. And if he is responsible in a significant way for WoW as it is, then I’ve really got no problems here overall. I love the game.

But there are only so many classes. The game has been out for a long time now. Many folks have 3 or more level 70 characters. We argue over and memorize the Hit Rating cap, the armor cap and if there really ever IS an armor cap or diminishing returns from armor, things that are inherently more micro-scale than, oh… a WHOLE NEW CLASS FORM.

You’re telling me that Tom Chilton (Kalgan’s alter ego), Lead Designer, can’t tell the difference in scope between ‘Dire Cat Form’ and ‘texture changes’?

What the heck am I supposed to think about a new Dire Bear model? Is that all bullshit too?

That’s all I’m going to say about it.

Since I can’t just end on a down note, then let me give you the sunny part of the discussion. It’s not all gloom and doom, not by a long shot. 

In that same thread on the Beta forums, Koraa states that it IS planned for Druids in forms to be able to get the effects from Items or Enchants that have a chance to activate “On Hit”, as previously reported.

Currently, Druids in forms do not get the advantage of such things, because when we are in forms Items and Enchants act very much as though we are using our naked furry paws and claws and teeth to attack, and the only benefit we ever get is from items that boost our base physical stats or have flat ‘always on’ effects.

The thinking, which I have never argued with, is that when you shift, you are no longer holding a physical staff to whack a badguy with, so why would an enchant proc? Hell, as a pen-and-paper RPG GM, I can tell you straight up that I totally agree with the thinking there.

The counter-argument, of course, is one of class mechanics, class balance and math. If a Rogue can get weapon enchant procs and trinket procs ‘On Hit’ and we can’t, like Mongoose and Crusader and Romulo’s Poison Vial, then where is the equality?

 Well, it looks like we don’t get a Dire Cat Form.

But, at least we get to have flaming claws of Windfury!