bad-luck
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Breakfast Topic: That one dumb thing that always happens to you
Sometimes, it's hard not to wonder if some other player out there somewhere isn't hogging all your luck. Is the zeppelin always leaving just as you pop out of the top of the tower? Do your groups learn about knockback effects from watching you get knocked off cliffs, ledges, platforms? Does all your soil seem to hide Squatting Virmen? Do all your unsold auctions come back the moment you leave town? Let's not even talk about loot rolls. You've already heard about my stellar lack of luck with phasing mechanics. That was a big deal -- but wanna know what small but annoying little thing always happens to me? The only time I get free time plus the inclination to play WoW during work hours is during maintenance. I used to think I was just being silly and not noticing that my schedule is lighter on Tuesday mornings -- only it's not. Tuesdays are logjammed with some of the most intense writing deadlines of my week. So why would I expect to be able to grab some WoW time on a Tuesday morning? Yet miraculously, when I find myself with just enough free time some morning to log in and toss back some dailies, it's Tuesday. What the heck?! Eventually, I began to notice that if I tried to log in late some afternoon on evening when I don't usually play, there would be some sort of emergency maintenance. I'm just not destined to play WoW at nontraditional-for-me times. Is there some annoying little thing that always seems to buzz in and sting you in game? Something so seemingly inconsequential (if not for the fact that it always seems to happen to you) that you almost feel embarrassed to mention it? Let's hear your bad luck trials and tribulations, fellow sufferers.
Breakfast Topic: Murphy's Alt Law
The other day while doing her usual mystic rituals at the Auction House, my wife who was on her recently-turned-80 Priest saw an LFG for 25-man Archavon. She decides to hop onto her Warlock, who still needed the Valorous version of her gloves, and proceeds to do the raid. When the group fells Archavon some minutes later, surprise surprise -- the big lug drops the Valorous Leggings of Faith and the Valorous Robes of Faith. The painful irony is that there wasn't even a Priest in the raid. Head against keyboard, she couldn't help but think "if only I had brought my Priest..." but I've got a feeling that if she did, the Valorous Plagueheart Gloves would've dropped. It's kind of Murphy's Alt Law. Whatever loot drops will be what you alt needs.It's something that everyone who has an alt has experienced. Last week while doing Malygos, one of our officers hopped onto his Mage to give the raid some more DPS since his Paladin tank wasn't needed for the fight. Sure enough, Alexstraza's Gift opened up containing the Barricade of Eternity, which his alt needed. Have you guys ever experienced this? Running on your tank only to see the drop, which would have been better suited for your caster, get disenchanted or rolled off for greed? The kind of situations where you wish everything was Binds-to-Account, instead. If only you could pay off the RNG...
Superstitions in WoW
The Daedelus project recently posted an article dealing with MMORPGs and the superstitions we build as we play the games. Seeing as how we as people love to finding meaning in seemingly random events, World of Warcraft has its fair share of superstitious players. I might even go so far as to say we all are superstitious about some things within the game. Despite the prevalence of superstitions in game, we always seem to see others' quirks as crazier than our own. Now we're not talking about religion or spirituality here, we are talking about how players create meaning where there is none. Here are just a few examples that Daedelus brought up: The spawn dance There are many players out there that subscribe to the particular belief *cough* Maelis *cough* that a special dance will help mobs spawn faster. I have never myself attempted to use a spawn dance, but I have found that I tend to run in a clockwise direction when I am farming because somehow the mobs seem to spawn faster. Or perhaps it's just because I can't turn left.
