Oh What A Difference A UI Makes

Here's a non-Skyrim related post idea that I had tagged to write about a week ago. I'll try to do it justice now, though we never got around to taking screenshots. It actually ties into Skyrim though, as you'll see in a bit.

(Yes, I'm being a bit facetious here. Normally, you see, I'd feel I have to mention this is a "non-WoW" post. But since all the WoW blogs have recently become Skyrim blogs (amirite?), I'm poking fun.)

As the title indicates, I'd like to wax philosophical about UI's for a bit.  The idea came to me as Fuu and I were doing our 2v2 arenas last week. In the weeks leading up to the Skyrim launch, there was a distinct lack of gaming things to do.  The calm before the storm, if you will.  Fuu took it upon herself to go in and revamp her UI for PvP.

In our raids, she's a tank, and that UI has been customized for her for a very long time.  She'd just started getting serious with me in PvP about three months ago or so.  Before we made a guild push to try and gear for rBGs, I was pretty much the only PvP'er of the guild.  I think one of our mages regularly ran BG's too, but otherwise the rest of our crew only dabbled.  I'd never gotten into high end PvP, but I'd generally gotten all the gear I could without stepping foot in arenas.

The point is just that I've had a PvP UI for ages now.  I use mostly the same addons, but things are arranged in a completely different manner.  I'm a bit of a macro guy (though I've not written a new one in ages), so most of my custom work is done there.  In PvP, seconds can be the difference between life and death.  You need to have the appropriate skills at fingers reach.  I'm talking snares, silences, oh-shit buttons, as well as attacks.

Generally, in PvE, you know what to expect going into a fight.  So while I may shuffle a few buttons around, make a special macro for one fight, etc, I don't usually have to have everything available all the time.  In PvP, it's a completely different approach.  Reaction spells need to be pressed, not clicked (unless you're the fasted clicker in the west).  Attack spells need to be chained with certain CC.  You learn and adapt over time, and a customizable UI is crucial to this.

So Fuu gutted her UI and set up a PvP-centric one.  When we PvP'ed that night, it was like I'd picked up a different partner.  All of a sudden, she was a healing machine, easily able to frustrate opposing players while slinging bubbles like a madwoman.  What a difference a UI makes!  That isn't to say we went undefeated, or there weren't the frustrating moments where we were pwned by our betters.   We still ran up against unbeatable combinations (I have a whole post in mind for how two druids are OP), but it felt like we were now beating the teams we should beat.  There weren't as many frustrating losses where she said "man, I should have done x."  We left it all out there in the arena.  We played our best.

I made the quip about Skyrim because it shows the other side of this.  I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've died already because of fumbling around with their crappy UI.   Yes, that is my one Skyrim complaint so far: the crappy UI.  I'm playing on the PC, and it's just awful.  I could go into detail, but that's already been done.  Check this out.  I think that about sums it up.  I hope Bethesda takes note and maybe hotfixes some of this, because otherwise, the game is amazing.

Monday Update

Here comes another collection of random, semi-connected thoughts... and then a bit on Skyrim.  It may get a bit other-gamey around here for a while, as I'm heavily into Skyrim right now (level 17), eagerly anticipating AC:Revelations, and have gotten into the SWTOR beta (though I can't talk about it right away).  Thus, WoW time is limited.  Still, we plan to raid once a week, and rBG once a week, and when 4.3 comes out, we'll be playing.  So, though I may get a bit diverse around here, I'm not planning to quit WoW.  I'll just keep my eye for things I think are important, and otherwise leave the minutia to others (and hopefully give entertaining glimpses into other worlds that you may or may not be experiencing as well).

So let's hit on each of those topics in reverse order:

• 4.3 - They've confirmed the current PvP season ends on the 29th of November.  Generally, this is done about a week before the patch drops.  So we're looking at a December 6th release here.  I don't have a whole lot of goals before the patch drops.  Outside of raiding, that is.  There's nothing I have left on my to-do list.  For raiding, this means we have exactly a month to try and finish Firelands.  I doubt it'll happen, but we are 4/7, so it could.  At worst, we're probably looking at polishing off the last few bosses after the patch and getting another late start.  We've been behind the "curve" for this entire expansion, so this doesn't surprise me.  It's just been really slow to get the gear I need.  I lodge my complaints with the loot table committee.  I've never gotten a chance to update my shoulders... but I get chest drops out the wazoo.  Which is just great since the chest is, you know, purchasable.  I can't get cataclysmically epic on my raid toon, solely due to shoulders.  There are a couple other finicky slots like that, but it's just frustrating to get 1% upgrade drops when you have huge needs elsewhere.
• The SWTOR beta is being opened up to anyone who signed up as a beta tester before Nov 11.  That includes me.  They won't let you talk about it a whole lot, other than that you're in it, and I've not gotten my invite yet.  They say "more information to follow," but that everyone is getting an invite in the near future.  They want to stress test their servers, which I think is a smart move.  Get as many people in as you can and see what happens.  We'll see how it goes and what I can actually talk about.
• AC:Revelations drops this week.  I'm excited.  Not sure how I'm going to balance it with Skyrim.  That's all here.
• Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim.  That's pretty much how my weekend went.  The game is awesome.  I can't say enough about what a good job they did.  I'll wax on about it more outside of this list...

So, I'll admit to being a bit of a fanboy, so I may be glossing over the downsides.  Also, I'm looking at it more in comparison to previous iterations in the series.  Like the scope of the Elder Scrolls games has always been huge, and that's something people may complain about: it can be hard to figure out where you fit in the world.  That's sort of what you expect going into an ES game though, right?  And in that regard, I think they've done some great things to improve typical ES gameplay. 

The fast travel is great, the interactive map is awesome.  The quest tracking is much improved.  I feel like I can pick up where I've left off without having to have a million post-it notes (like I did for Oblivion and Morrowind).  It'd be nice if they let you make notes, and the descriptions can be sort of sparse, but it's much improved, I think.

I love the clairvoyance spell.  Until I got the lay of the land, it was a must have.  Now that I've gotten some things discovered, fast travel is where it's at.

I've always loved the "use it to level" system.  You start off with certain predispositions, but really you can make your character into any "class" you want.  I'm currently playing sort of a ranger, battlemage hybrid.  I do a lot of sneaking and shooting with my bow, but if things get hairy I'll pull out a sword and a spell and mix it up.  Also, two handed fireballs are fun.  The physics ending makes you feel pretty power even early on, and I love the new killing animations.  A great touch, there.

Also, when any storyline revolves around slaying dragons, you know it's going to be win.  I joked with another WoW friend that I needed to get back to slaying non-Internet dragons.  It's a pretty neat twist on old tropes, I think, what with the voices, and absorbing powers, and "it's in your blood."  The werewolf side quest is pretty cool, too.  I won't spoil anything, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it, though it's not as blatantly OP as you might think.

The world is breathtaking, too.  Sometimes I just stop and marvel.  It isn't the best graphics ever, even on the "ultra" setting, but they're pretty solid.  It retains the ES feel without going to far to "realism," I think.  And it's run smooth for me so far.

That's all I'll say for now.  I'm excited to get back to it tonight, but I'll have to squeeze it in before our raid.  I get to Starfox again in WoW tonight... which is fun too.  Do a barrel roll!

Slaying Internet Dragons

Fulguralis fluffed his robes and turned to stare at the huge, ferocious dragon. Blood dripped from its razor sharp teeth, pooling on the ground.  It roared in the warlock's face, sending his long blond hair streaming back.  Flecks of spittle slapped him.

"And now," Fulguralis announced, "you, dragon of epic size and strength, shall meet your-

Oh, sorry guys, Skyrim is done downloading.  Bbl.  Maybe in like 600 hours or so.

Random Hump Day Shenanigans

Several quick items today.  First of all, posting may be sparse for the rest of the week (and has been already) due to a confluence of day job busy-nesses and night job finishing-ings.  Or something.  My "real job" has me in training for three days this week, which makes it hard to squeeze in any writing.  Then, I'm writing the very end of my next novel, which requires my attention outside of work moreso than just your average chapter.  Good news is, both should ease up after this week... just in time for the holidays!

Ugh.

In other news, Fuu and I are definitely picking up Skyrim this Thursday.  Followed by AC: Revelations next Tuesday.  Don't be surprised if I write a bit about them.  WoW's sort of in the whole breath-holding-between-patches thing right now anyway.

I have one fun non-WoW related story to tell before I leave you today, but first I wanted to mention something kind of cool.  You can now subscribe to this blog through Amazon and have it directly delivered to your Kindle device!  That's pretty neat, right?  Amazon apparently opened the service up for all and sundry, and we decided to take advantage.  Now, you should know that THEY set the price.  We have no control of it.  $0.99/mo is the basement (we can't offer it free), and I think we see only like 30% of that.  So it's not going to make us rich even if all of you subscribe.  It's better than a kick in the teeth, though, if you'd like to support what we do here.  On the other hand, you can keep getting everything here and through my RSS feed completely for free.  That's completely cool too (and probably what I would do, were I you).  I just wanted to let you guys know that it's offered. 

(A side note is that we'd still like to publish a collection of my IC stuff as a free ebook, we just need to get some time to do it.  I plan to have a bit of time when I finish the current novel I'm working on and ship it off to the editors).

Now, story time.  I'll make it quick.  Promise.

The aforementioned day job happens to be at a global corporation.  Like all seven continents global.  Ok, maybe more like four, but still... a myriad of languages can be heard at any given staff meeting.

I walked in this morning, and a note was taped to the employee entrance.  Apparently, we were being instructed by someone important (important enough to have written the not ordering us to do things in hastily scrawled sharpie, anyway) NOT to answer "the email."  I gave a snort and continued on my way, not really knowing what it was referring too.  I am, after all, not nearly important enough to be included in "the" email. 

Fatal last thoughts, am I right?  I log into my workstation to be immediately confronted with no fewer than 68 unread emails.  (Side note: I keep a pretty clean inbox.  When I left for a full week, I think my record was like 20... maybe).  "Holy fel," I says to myself.  "What gives?"

The email, conveniently titled "IT Learning Newsletter" is repeated on every one of my unread messages.  Being a good engineering detective, I went back to the first to see how this chain of doom started.  As anyone involved with corporate emails may know, there exist a construct known as "contact groups."  HR types use these extensively to create lists of folks to send appropriate emails to.  Generally, it works well, as a boss might say "make sure the group gets this," and Sheila (or whomever) clicks on the "our group" list and off goes the memo.

Sure you occasionally run into what might be called the "Peter Gibbons" syndrome, whereby one receives a memo in octuplet due to having eight bosses.  Eight, Peter?  Yes, Eight, Bob.  And let me tell you about TPS reports...

Anyway, there apparently is also a group for "Everyone."  Several everyones, in fact.  Everyone in each continent and location.  For whatever reason, some mental midget decided to include EVERYONE EVERYWHERE on an email.  I'm assuming it was an accident by an overtired, overworked user.  But let's go with idiot, because it makes for more provocative reporting.

This idiot hits the send button, and it goes out to everyone.  Now, even in a good company, you could probably say that 1 in every 10 employees are technologically impaired.  This is simply fact.  1 in 10 people still think email is magic.  They understand that someone, somewhere is sending them something.   They've also been inundated with things called "mailing lists" and "spam."  Obviously, all one must do to rectify this is ask the machine to nicely "to take me off the distribution list."  Or, more succinctly: "PLEASE STOP THE SPAM FOR ALL THAT IS SACRED TO YOUR GODS."  One or the other.

Problem is, they can't really figure out where the email originated from.  There is no convenient link at the bottom that says "to remove from list, click here."  This is not the thing you accidentally signed up for when you installed that piece of free software and didn't read any of the checked boxes and "oh, my, where this Yahoo search bar come from?"  No, this isn't you granddaddy's spam.  This is accidental corporate memo spam.

So you take the only rational recourse.   You "reply to all" with your polite request.  Can you see what happened here?  That's right, now everyone gets a second email in this huge change that says "please stop sending me this stuff."  Since 1 in 10 people are also secretly sheep, they say "Oh, that's how it's done," and copy-cat their way to freedom.  What we have here, is a failure to communicate.  That, and an avalanche of corporate spam.

For perhaps the first 4 hours of my day, I received around two emails every ten minutes, in probably one of six different languages (including Chinese characters which I have no hope at all of deciphering) pleading for an end to the spam.  What 1 in 10 people fail to realize, obviously, is that in responding, they're simply scratching and spreading the rash of stupidity.

Then, of course, the server crashes, and I'm sure bursts into flame somewhere in IT-land, and for the rest of the day our network shows all the speed of a dying whale, marooned on the beach.  I think I breached triple digits by the time someone had figured out how to shut down the chain, but I could have more... my inbox was full to capacity  (helped along by the people attaching screenshots of their own full inboxes as if we didn't believe that they, too, were getting the emails).

So what did we learn in this "IT Learning Newsletter?"  10% can screw it up for the 90% of people that are sitting there laughing/crying/screaming behind the screen, not replying, but hoping to God/Allah (or the Nether if you prefer) that someone sitting next to the sheep, sheers it.  Or at least instructs it in the finer points of email etiquette.

That is all.  Yaaay Hump Day.

WWSFD?

Fulguralis swooped in, slinging shadow about with reckless abandon.  The ant-like mobs below shivered and scurried away as each bolt landed.  Fire seemed to be everywhere, and from above it seemed like his tiny companions were frolicking through a forest of flame.

"I'm flying." Fulguralis yelled. "Wheeeee!"

He came down for another pass, relishing in the feeling of corruption as it streaked away from his fingertips.  Dark contrails streamed behind him, dipping as the warlock dipped, and curving as the warlock curved.  Some of the monsters below toppled over, much to the delight of his brave, ground based friends, he was sure, and Fulguralis flipped over to drink in the sky.  It was red, as was everything else here in the elemental plane of fire, but beautiful nonetheless.

"I can show you the fiiiire," he crooned.  "Shining, shimmering, splendor."

It was so quiet up in the air.  The comforting sound of wind rushing by his ears was punctuated by the occasional pop of a baddie below.  It all seemed so... small.

A large cloud cast its shadow over him.

"Hey..." Fulguralis started to complain.

Rational thought caught up to him.  He was in the Firelands.  There wasn't a sun to be shaded.  There weren't an clouds either, unless you counted the congealed sulfur that stretched like a dome over the plane.

The shadow, then, wasn't a shadow, but a huge creature.  Fulguralis blinked twice before he realized what he was seeing.  Its wings blended in with the fiery sky, but it charred, skeletal body marked it for what it was.  It turned a beady, avian eye on the floating warlock.

"Ah, there you are Alys.  I'd wondered where you'd flown off to," he said casually.

An ear-splitting screech was the reply.

"Well, if you're going to be that way about it...."  He flicked a spell off in her direction.  It appeared to tickle. 

The great fire hawk puked fire down upon his companions.

"Well that wasn't very nice."  Fulguralis pointed himself like an arrow and shot off toward the bird.

She began to circle away from him, raining flame on the ground.

The warlock gritted his teeth.  "Not. So. Fast."

He pulled out of a sharp turn, settling in on the bird's six.  She began launching counter-measures immediately.  Fulguralis didn't want to conjecture where the exploding balls of sulfur were coming from.  He just avoided them.

And then he saw it.  A ring.  A band of fire, burning brightly in the wake of Alysrazor.  It gleamed and shimmered, calling to the flying warlock.  What would Starfox do?  The strange thought skittered across his brain.  Where did that come from?

With a burst of speed, he flew through the ring. It spun around him, small sparkles bursting the middle as the magic infused him.  Faster, faster, it urged.

He lost himself in the battle, casts streaming from him with ever increasing haste.  He was the angel of death, taken to the fiery skies in pursuit of an ill-tempered hawk that had long overstayed her welcome here in the Casa Del Diablo.

When she finally fell, smoldering hunks scattering on the ground, Fulguralis remained aglow with the magical energy.  He zipped over cheers below, and someone yelled: "Do a barrel roll."  So he did.  Arms stretched out to his sides, robes flapping, the Firelands spun around him.

And it was epic.

Movember

Quickie post today. In case you don't stalk him like I do, Gnomeaggedon popped in with a Movember reminder post.  (The stalking, of course, is simply natural for a warlock to do to a mage... to harass and corrupt.  For sure.)  The short story of Movember is that we like to use mustaches in the month of November to raise awareness about men's health.

I'll be doing something, not sure what yet.  Last year we missed out on an opportunity to hang out at a bar and don mustaches (paste on for the girls) and drink good beer.  There was some sort of donation involved, but they had me at beer and mustaches (had I not been indisposed).  I'm hoping they do it again this year so we can attend.

Gnomer has talked about depression in the past, and it is an illness that hits home around here.  I write about our own adventures monthly on my personal blog.  Feel free to stop by there if the topic interests you. 

Otherwise, I'll be keeping my eyes out for any cool events.

This Warlock's Bit On Specs

The hot topic seems to be speculation on the future of warlock talents.  WoW Insider has a Blood Pact article.  Our dear old warlocky friend Saresa has reappeared from the nether to weigh in on the issue.  And Flora-Grimm threw a nice piece up as well.  They're all worth a read for those 'locks out that that like to keep up with the Gul'dans.

I, on the other hand, am content to wait and see.  I've always held off on pre-patch, pre-expansion speculation simply because you never know what's going to actually make it live.  I figure that right now they only have the general concepts in mind, so it's worth it to look at those. 

I find myself more on Flora's side than Sar's.  In general, I believe the great Theorycrafters That Be will always distill things down to a handful of "cookie cutter" specs.  The choices we had before were only choices if you didn't desire to play optimally.  Or, at worst, simply confusing to most players.  In general, I've liked the trend Cataclysm started with simpler trees and clearer choices.  The proposal that's out there now seems the next logical step.

However, I have my bouts of nostalgia too.  I used to feel important back in the day.  A mediator seemed necessary to comb through EJ articles and distill the advice into digestible chunks for the casual player.  I really think blogs added value in understanding for most people (it's certainly why I started reading blogs, and what I hoped to provide).  These days, I just don't find it as needed.  A lot of that is because I think speccing is simply easier to understand.  You don't need gobs of math and a fine toothed comb.  It used to be hard to hold an entire spec in your head and really get the feel of it.  It was a challenge.  And that challenge is being whittled down.  Perhaps that's a bad thing, perhaps not.  I suppose that's up to the individual player.

Still, I think there's one major flaw that Saresa would point out in Flora's post, and that's the knee-jerk assessment of the potential of green fire.  I mean, c'mon!  It's green fire! Of course it's better than plain old normal mage fire.  Geeze.