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description=Originally a pair of views on gaming, it s now musings by Redbeard on video games (mainly MMOs), board games, RPGs, and other geeky hobbies.;

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h dopamine hits that i could understand the urge to keep playing when i realized i was eschewing work to play bg3 i had to dial it back for my own sanity and to keep my job but that kind of goes without saying my son didn t have those issues since he was able to fit in most of bg3 before his current semester of grad school started and more power to him for that i m not going to lie and say i was totally fine with all this i felt a pang of jealousy at how he cruised through the game while i m plodding along it s not as if i m savoring the game either at times it feels like when i was speed leveling that draenei shaman when tbc classic came out i m constantly plotting my next move and trying to figure out how to progress further through the story yes my mmo playing is at exactly the opposite inflection point from where i am playing a single player rpg you could say that i m playing baldur s gate 3 like other people play world of warcraft and you d not be wrong it s the equivalent of reading a really exciting novel the pages fly by and you want to get on to the next part just to see what happens i get that i really do but i think that i need to be reminded of that from time to time that people who blitz through content aren t doing it just to get it over with but genuinely like the content so much that they re constantly turning that next page to find out what happens i guess i get cynical about things when like in tbc classic everybody was supposed to follow a playbook to get themselves raid ready as soon as possible i thought it was only my guild that did that because a few people i met out in outland while leveling had completely different and better experiences with their guilds in terms of pacing and prepping for raids however on further reflection those better experiences had more to do with helping their own leveling shamans to get leveled and not abandoning them to their fate when the dark portal opened those guilds while more helpful to their shamanistic and blood knight brethren still had goals to achieve and raids to prep for they were just a tad nicer about it that s all there were quite a few guilds raiding karazhan gruul s lair and magtheridon while i was somewhere out in terokkar forest plodding away a blast from the past from june 18 2021 if i were in the sweaty raid i d have only a little over two weeks to get to l70 and through the attunement gauntlet our raid team was the one with the casual reputation that i despised and started raiding in the last week of july 2021 if i were in those guilds i d not have been abandoned true but i d have also been pushed into the regimen all of those other guilds were doing so why am i okay with it when i m playing a video game such as baldur s gate 3 as is typically the case i believe it has to do with agency typically the way to get me to do something is to let me figure it out on my own and i ll likely end up doing what needs to be done if i m forced into doing something by some external force then i m going to drag my feet and refuse think of it of how people approach taxes everybody in the us has to file their income tax by april 15th and a lot of people will procrastinate until the last possible moment to do their taxes i know people who do that on principle complaining about their tax rates and whatnot but i am one of those who simply don t like being told to do their taxes especially if i m given some sanctimonious bullshit like what i got as a kid when being told to eat my dinner because it s good for you from calvin and hobbes likewise at work if i m told i have to do something i m probably going to be one of the last people to actually get it finished i would not do well in a highly regimented environment such as the military hawkeye is my spirit animal from imgflip and m a s h from that perspective you can see why i clashed with progression raiding in an mmo format when i joined the progression raid team i did so willingly and pushed myself to get up to speed both gear wise and add on wise there weren t requirements for how exactly i went about getting my toon s ready for progression raiding just that i get myself ready and yes i willingly went to sixtyupgrades wowhead and icy veins to see where my gaps were it wasn t a directly communicated expectation but rather something i did on my own to become a member of the raid team it was only when tbc classic came along and raid guild leadership began making exact demands on the gear and process of getting raid ready did i rebel the concept of raiding went from only being concerned with the end result raid ready to trying to dictate how it should be done and those demands weren t limited to my guild almost all of the actively raiding guilds on myzrael us were guilty of making the same demands on their members starting in tbc classic and whether their demands were cloaked in a velvet glove or not the demands were pretty much the same iron fist do it or you re not on the raid team the lone exception that i was aware of was one guild who basically told its members to go do whatever for a month when tbc classic dropped and they circled back after that month to see where the guild stood before getting ready to raid okay that s just raiding still there s nothing that says you can t do whatever you want in an mmo in general at it s core that s correct the design of an mmo is to allow a player to do a variety of activities without saying you must conform you could make the argument that modern mmos have a ton of alternate activities designed with this player choice in mind this old chestnut highlights the player choice the modern mmo has versus good ol classic can t even recall who first made this meme the thing is mmos are not merely the sum of systems there s a social element to them as well and that is how the problems creep in in any social endeavor certain niceties are expected if you want to fit in just like proper social etiquette in real life there s an mmo version of social etiquette when interacting with people the wil wheaton saying don t be a dick is just the bare minimum for social interactions beyond that mmo interactions are a bit more complex if you want to do group content in an mmo especially in today s age you re expected to have done the correct things to maximize your output what that entails varies between guilds and groups but there s a measure of commonality driven by the knowledge that in the group finder mmo environment players are interchangeable if you don t have the right specs gear systems settings you can be painlessly replaced by someone else and in a pre group finder mmo be prepared to submit for inspection if you want in on some group content developers have attempted to circumvent such social restrictions with new ideas lfr raids being the most notable but that s a technical solution for what is inherently a people problem and when i play any group content in an mmo i feel the social pressure i never used to but once you ve crossed the rubicon and been on the progression side of things the veil of obscurity has been ripped away and you now see things from the lens of those who are judging whether you re good enough to join their raid team the best way to find good candidates for your organization is to create what i call positive encounters actions speak louder than words so you need to ensure that these potential new members have some actions by which they can judge you when you need a specific class get your best group runners together and advertise that you need said class in order to do an instance once you get them in your group don t mention recruitment just run that instance and do your job well if they do well tell them you hope to group again and then part ways if they aren t in an organization you may subtly mention that you are looking for their class do this enought times with enough people and word will get around that you re a solid outfit you can t buy better publicity than that and it creates more opportunities for you to use the soft sell the guild leader s companion by adam ferrel trzonkowski page 41 the irony is that i thought this way before i bought the guild leader s companion because i d be on guild runs in an instance and guild chat during the run would have a lot of commentary on any pugger s technique both good and bad and what their prospects were as a potential member of the raid team i never saw it myself until i formally joined the progression guild immediately before tbc classic and there were plenty of times i wished i had remained ignorant and just enjoyed a dungeon run or a raid i guess that s where the irony creeps in a single player game such as an rpg doesn t have that sort of social pressure there s nobody looking over your shoulder judging your gameplay dropping comments and or hints about how you could have done better nobody is pulling you into a discord chat about how you could up your dps a bit more so you could overcome that last fight more quickly nobody is telling you what extra gear pieces you should farm for nobody is suggesting a link in wowhead to go check out to improve your gameplay in a single player game the only person you have to please is yourself and garrus you ought to please garrus too from tumblr because of that i can focus as much or little of my time on the metagame without any recriminations i haven t gone and pulled up walkthroughs or youtube videos or gone to other websites that would cause spoilers in bg3 but the plotting does remain i know that there s an optimal way of doing things that s a drawback to any game really but i don t seek it out most importantly i don t have people telling me or others in a chat i m not part of that i m not playing it right in one form or another to a certain extent ignorance is bliss i suppose now about that arcane tower in bg 3 sort of i still don t quite get people who took off for a week s worth of vacation when tbc classic and other wow expacs released given that at least here in the us paid vacation isn t very copious to begin with and if i told my wife i was going to burn a week s worth of my vacation time playing video games for upwards of 18 hours a day she d have a conniption fit if i were retired that d be a different story but i think i d be expected to travel a lot and i m not as big on that these days either for the record yes my character has been immersed in the other party members backstories let s just say i was surprised at how easily certain relationships progressed which made me wonder if there was something i was missing out on in real life if fictional relationships moved at this sort of speed the terokkar forest zone was exactly in the middle of the outland leveling experience so while i was halfway through i still had a ways to go unless you re streaming i suppose but i don t stream because i don t like having a peanut gallery watching my every move posted by redbeard at 4 25 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels baldurs gate memes mmos musings retail rpgs tbc classic wow wow classic monday march 11 2024 meme monday hunter memes hunters rangers wardens whatever you want to call them are a mainstay in fantasy mmos they re characterized by an animal companion that attacks or tanks enemies while you stay back at distance and rain arrows bullets on the baddies that style of play has a lot of appeal to it not the least of which is that a hunter can solo a lot of enemies that other classes cough mage or paladin cough would have difficulty with of course that hunter mentality tends to create issues while raids may designate hunters as the puller it helps to coordinate with the raid leads from ifunny co so without further ado some hunter memes for this march monday although there are a ton of pets to choose from hunters in wow tend to follow the crowd i ve been told that petopia is the go to for all things hunter from imgflip about those more mobs from skeletonbooty this is what those extra mobs lead to from pinterest and likely demotivational of course hunters do name their pets and it can sometimes get awkward from quickmeme can t argue with that one from imgflip and one extra hunter meme because hunters do have that reputation of rolling on everything because it s a hunter weapon from imgflip again posted by redbeard at 6 00 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels meme monday memes thursday march 7 2024 random news and notes for a thursday if you post coffee memes beware your readership will explode given that there s literally hundreds of coffee memes out there why on earth i got a sudden explosion in views on pc when i posted a few of my favorites is beyond me it s not like they re that new either but oh well i m not above using one of the ones that missed the cut for a few extra pageviews what i find disturbing is how close the after picture looks like david tennant from laugh lore under the header of video games getting a board game treatment there s a beloved bioware franchise that has a boardgame in the works this landed in my inbox on monday from modiphius yes modiphius is going to publish mass effect the board game a cooperative and story driven boardgame designed by eric m lang and calvin wong tze loon for 1 4 players it sounds interesting at first blush and given how modiphius tends to have high quality plastic pieces in their games this ought to look pretty too here s the signup page for more info and to receive emails about the release of the game itself just make sure you fill out the correct info for us vs uk europe so you end up with the correct website you know the dracthyr race in retail world of warcraft has taken some lumps for it s decidedly un dragonkin like look from wowpedia i was perusing some rpg sites the other day and i came across some artwork from runequest that made me go hmmm look vaguely familiar found on glorantha bestiary pages 36 37 verified with my copy also found here at artstation these are dragonewts as drawn by cory trego erdner back in 2016 2017 for the runequest glorantha bestiary in runequest dragonewts claim to be the oldest sentient species and are one of the races found in the main starting area in runequest dragon pass now admittedly there s only so much an artist can do with the basic dragon design but the reason why i don t mind the look of the dracthyr is that they do evoke a similar look as that found in runequest the lore is obviously very distinct but given that nobody seems to bitch about the lore of dracthyr so much as that they don t look cool enough that s my two cents on the matter finally i wanted to mention a long departed podcast that really sucked me into rpgs back in the day before modern times and the proliferation of podcasts in their current monetized form chuck tinsley and lonnie ezell created the dragons landing inn podcast back in 2005 they kept it going for about 126 130 episodes and then steve ...