Possession Is 9/10 of the Law

“You’re saying that mine was yours? So why’s the ore in my backpack?”
--Just about anyone who has beat you to a node

Not too long ago, I was skimming the forest floor of Terrokar with Scepter when I spy the most beautiful of sights, the adamantite node. You know the one, all shiny and glittery and completely solitary, not a toon soul within Frostbolt distance. With the lightning speed that can only come from a normal flying mount and an equipped Carrot on a Stick I shift course and angle down to approach the Mine of Scepter (to be christened ever so briefly).

I land crisply, textbook really. I dismount (this was before the patch that rolled dismounting and harvesting into one convenient action, God bless Blizzard) and reach for my worn pick . . . when my kid sidles up to me, knocking my hand from my mouse. I take a moment to glance down on her. Smiling benevolently, I kindly brush her aside as I prepare to return my attention back to the Mine of Scepter.

But what’s this? I hear a clanging terrifyingly close by. A metal on metal sound that seems much too premature given the fact I never actually began the mining process. Couldn’t have, given the real life gremlin that had seconds ago wrestled my hand away from certain divine mining justice. I snap my head to face the screen and witness the horror of horrors: an alliance pudwacker stealing the Mine of Scepter, reaping its bounty it as it were his to reap.

My anguished cry startles my little girl. I pat her on the head and give her a peck on the cheek, assuring her interruption is forgiven. And promptly log onto my only alliance toon to have a “discussion” with my alliance friend regarding mining rights etiquette.

/tell ALLIANCE PUDWACKER

ME: You know, that mine was mine. I was clearly there first.

PUDWACKER: Really? Sorry man, I didn’t see you there.

ME: For Christ’s sake, how could you not see me? I was right there! You landed your damn chicken right on me!

Long pause.

PUDWACKER: WTF, you’re like level two. What the hell are you talking about?

ME: My other toon. The one you just stole the mine from. In Terrokar.

PUDWACKER: You mean that horde toon? Lolz.

ME: You can’t go around stealing people’s mines.

PUDWACKER: Sure I can. Horde does it to me all the time.

ME: But that doesn’t make it right.

PUDWACKER: Yeah it does. You’re Horde, I’m Alliance. We’re at war you idiot. I’m going to steal ore from you pricks every chance I get. Now go QQ somewhere else.

Long pause.

ME: I see. Carry on then.

The only thing worse than being wrong is being wrong at the expense of a night elf hunter named Leggolass.

Consoles Get All the Fun

I want to play this game something fierce. Bad enough to go out and buy a X-box? Hmmm, probably not. But it does get me thinking about supplementing my PC gaming with some console action. And wondering bitterly why certain titles are exclusive to consoles. Assassin's Creed looks to me the spiritual successor to Thief: the Dark Project, one of my all time favorite games. That was a PC game, so why isn't Assassin's Creed as well?

I know, some suit crunched the numbers and foresaw more profitability in skipping a PC version. I just hope they don't go the half-ass port route a year from now; I hear nothing but complaints about the PC ports of the Halo series. My brother has a X-box 360, so I'll have him over some weekend and get a little taste of it then. Who knows, if Assassin's Creed turns out to be as fun as it looks, I just may take the console plunge.

Boy She's Got a Nice Set of Warlocks

Rod Ryan, the morning DJ at The Buzz, has recently been referring to women's breasts as "warlocks." Now, I hear (and use) plenty of euphemisms for women's breasts and almost all of them make sense to me at some level. But I have no idea where he's getting "warlocks" from. Unfortunately for me, every time he says it, I picture two gnome warlocks glued to a woman's chest at a 90 degree angle, slapping each other. It's not a pleasant image.

I really need him to stop using it and go back to his old stand-by, "milk wagons."

Bioshock a 10

Games for Windows gave Bioshock a rare 10/10 rating in their latest issue. They admit it's not perfect, but praised the game for its unique game world and compelling story.

I don't usually like 1st person shooters. But I do enjoy the ones built around a good story, Half-life 2 comes immediately to mind. I think I'm going to hold off picking up Bioshock since Hellgate: London is getting close to release, but I'll probably take a look at it in a few months.

File Under TMI

Cue the chorus of angels, my three-year old daughter just went poopy in the toilet tonight. Twice! Dare I dream of a life without changing excrement-filled diapers?

I dare.

Mr. Clean

I clean the bathrooms at my house. I'd rather not, to be completely honest. I'd much rather be the quintessential 50s head-of-household, clad in my smoking jacket, sitting in the study as I puff away on my pipe and read the newspaper. But then that would mean driving an Edsel and only having three TV channels, none in HD.

So I clean the bathrooms at my house.

It's been a dangerous endeavor as of late. The toilet scrubbing goes smoothly enough. It's the shower stall and bathtub that have proved hazardous to my health. You see, I'm not a fan of old-school scrubbing. Scouring with Comet and brush? No thanks. That smacks of work, and I'll have none of that, thank you very much. Instead, I subscribe to the new theology of bathroom cleaning; I use products that promise thorough sanitizing without any of the laborious scrubbing. In other words, I spray the crap out of stuff. It works and I don't have to. Scrub Free eats up that pesky soap residue like Takeru Kobayashi in a hot dog factory. When all is said and done, the bathrooms look and smell clean.

But maybe Scrub Free doesn't work as well as promised because I have to spray like half the bottle into the shower before it disintegrates the soap residue. Meanwhile, a toxic cloud fills the entire bathroom, sending me fleeing, coughing and gagging. No joke, I can actually feel it searing lung tissue. Chemical weapons in Iraq? Bush need look no farther than my bathroom cupboard for some off-the-shelf WMD. Seriously, no one can go back in there for a good half hour until the air has cleared. I guess I could try using less Scrub Free and actually pick up a scrubbing brush. Instead, I think I'll look into military surplus and see if I can't score some sort of gas mask.

Looking For Fellowship PST

I've really been enjoying LoTRO this last month or so. But finding a fellowship for those innumerable group quests has proved difficult at times. Like WoW, LoTRO has a built-in group finder that allows you to customize what quest you're on, what levels you need, and what classes you'd like to recruit. But just like WoW's, no one uses it. No one. I have yet to create or join a fellowship using this tool. Instead, I have to spam the LookingforGroup channel. Sure, that works, . . . well, in the sense that people can read your chat and ignore you. So it functions as intended, but isn't particularly effective at helping you find a group.

I guess it's not a complete mystery as to why people aren't using the tool. I chalk it up to laziness. The thing is, if the tool use ever does hit some kind of critical mass, I know its success would quickly catch on. But people don't bother configuring the tabs because after you get done with the fifteen seconds worth of effort it requires, invariably your entry is the only one sitting there.

I have an idea on how to fix this. First off, dump the current tool. No one uses it anyway, so chuck it. Instead, design a system that tracks everyone's quest log. Next, allow players to search by quest name, something like /quest Retaking Weathertop. Code would then search everyone in the region/area/world that also has that quest. With those names you could then begin a /tell spree trying to put your fellowship together.

Too intrusive you say? Nay, my friend. This system is alive and well in WoW, although in a much more primitive form. In WoW, nothing keeps a stymied player for searching by class for the always needed tank or healer. Ask a tank how many /tells they get a night and they'll confirm this. Sure, sudden /tells from strange people can be annoying, but what's even more annoying is a quest log full of fellowship quests you can't finish. Feeling antisocial? Check an "anonymous" box to render your quest log invisible to queries.

Though I have ask, isn't anonymous and MMO an oxymoron?