Egads, I tweet

Not sure how I feel about this yet (damn you Wed 2.0) but I set up a twitter account for this blog. I’ll probably tweet about stuff in game–a little more current than “last week we killed x boss”–and any interesting links I find about prot pallies, as well as links to posts as they go up.

If any of you, dear readers, happen to be on Twitter as well, please “follow” me (or whatever you kids are calling it these days) and I’ll return the gesture.

See you in the cloud…

My guild’s DKP system

Credit for this whole set up goes to Demo, who not only found the addons but also figured out how to make them work and through his constant, unceasing, incessant nagging forced the guild to adopt them. … And I mean that in a good way.

Here are the addons that every raiding guild member is required to have (you won’t get the bidding window without them):

• Bidder
• Bidder_BossAuction

And these are the addons the DKP admins need to run the system:

• DKPmon
• DKPmon_CSV
• DKPmon_BossAuction
• CT_RaidTracker

All addons can be found on this page.

Yes, it seems like a lot, but honestly it all runs very smoothly. The way it works for the rank and file is when a boss is downed the master looter gets a loot window from DKPmon that gives him the option to “Open for Bidding”. Doing so activates the window in my screenshot where raiders can click on an item and enter their bid. No one knows how much the others bid on an item, it’s totally silent.

When bidding is closed, DKPmon is used to announce the winners and how much each person paid for an item, and then the master loot uses the “Distribute” option to give out the loot to the winners and deduct points as spent.

And at the end of the night the DKP admin exports the raid and uploads it to the ES guildlaunch site giving you a page like this.

The whole system is very painless to use once you get the hang of it. I very much recommend it!

Grinding my gears, and confusing Dalaran with Belfast

For the past few days this tool–er, night elf–has been hanging out in front of the Horde-side bank in Dalaran, on his Red Proto Drake, somehow undismounted, and just sitting there. For long stretches of time too.

I don’t get this behavior. Doesn’t this guy have anything better to do with his time?

If I can get Freudian for a moment, maybe what bothers me most is that he’s poking around on the “wrong side of town”. The north side bank is closest to the Sunreavers’ Sanctuary, so it is in my mind the Horde bank.

It’s kind of a West Side Story mentality if you will, with all the requisite fingers a-snapping gang wars in the center courtyard.

I tend to avoid the south side for the same reason. Feels like trespassing.

Am I the only one that feels this way about Dalaran?

Why I tank

Kind of a crazy day at the conference when, perusing my feedreader on the ol’ iPod, I noticed I was linked on WoW Insider. Total insanity… without the unkillable Druid adds.

For those new eyes checking out my humble corner of the Interwebs, I feel compelled to write a new post as a delicious morsel of what you can look forward to feasting on if you continue to sit at my table of… alright, I’m clearly very hungry right now. Food metaphors aside, here’re the goods.

I first rolled my tankadin a year and a half ago, in September of 2006. I was on a long hiatus from WoW and was planning to rejoin the game on a server a few of my friends were playing on. Asking what class role they needed filled I was told a tank, so tank I rolled. Like a turkey leg off a tabl–er, sorry, doing it again.

So originally I came to tank out of sheer coincidence, it’s what they needed, so I provided it. But, over time, other reasons emerged for me not deleting Rhidach into the Abyss That Only GMs Tread.

For example it is really easy to pug as a tank. In TBC it was stupid easy, you’d hop in the LFG channel and put in your comment “Tank, x hp, uncrittable” and you’d get hit immediately with some whispers. These days there’s a bit of a tanxplosion on the multitudinous servers, so it takes an extra of minute or two to find a pug needing your services.

Still that not having to languish in the LFG channel is a mighty nice privilege. I’m sure any healers that read this blog can sympathize.

Other reasons I came to enjoy tanking are a bit more personal. For example, I find it deeply satisfying to complete a group of a mobs, or a boss, knowing that if not for my character’s ugly mug and heavily-dented shield, the rest of the party would promptly go splat.

Every time the main tank has gone down in Naxx and I’ve managed to round up the wayward adds and hold them in my holy wrath while the remnants of the party pull together and overcome a near wipe… that’s satisfying.

The massive repair costs are a burden I will gladly carry to see the raid or group through to the end of the journey.

There’s a definite high–a taste of serotonin that I’m generously provided by that lump of gray matter that calls my skull home–when I’m tanking. It’s hard to describe, but I bet among anyone reading this blog they’ve had that pang of satisfaction at some point, whether it was when landing a sweet crit, or managing to get that heal off before someone was nearly smashed into the dirt, or what have you.

Tanking is exhilirating. That is why I tank.

Plus, the pay. We get paid for this, right?

Alright my dinner awaits! Good feasting… and tanking!