Landmark Day

Today, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments on marriage equality and whether or not same-sex marriage is allowed under the constitution.

The US used to be one of the more forward-thinking countries in the world.  We led the way in all manner of advancements.  People looked to us as the cutting edge of what the future should be.

Somewhere, we lost our way.

Somewhere, we forgot what we stood for.

Today, nine men and women will determine the next course of history for our nation.

There has been a movement on Facebook to change profile pictures over to the following image.

Equality.  That's all anyone wants.

As an interesting side effect to this movement, I've found it to be difficult to tell which of my friends is which in my newsfeed.  I've had to stop and look at names.

Suddenly, I'm paying closer attention and not just knowing something based on how someone looks.

Because everyone looks the same.

How's that for a statement on society?

So, feel free to download the image and use it pretty much at every turn.  Paint the internet red with equality.  And pray to whatever god you hold to that these nine men and women do what's right and let marriage be about love between two humans and nothing more or less than that.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Catholic.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

 Just because you're not part of a group doesn't mean it's not your duty as a human being to stand up for them and stand with them.

((Cross-posted from my main blog at markahix.com))

Vial of the Sands

When archaeology came out, it was fun.  I liked it.  Leveling it, going on the hunt for all the artifacts, seeking out digsites... it was a blast.

But then, after a while, I felt like I was required to do it.  I spent more time in Kalimdor than I ever wanted to just grinding digs waiting for one to appear in Uldum.

Hours and hours, days and weeks, all spent in the arduous quest to get to the next Canopic Jar would would *hopefully* have the Alchemy recipe, Vial of the Sands.

It was to be my crowning glory as an alchemist.  I never had access to a goldsink like that before.  Hyperius is my alchemist, and has been since his inception so many years ago.

I picked up alchemy and herbalism right from the start of my WoW career.

Finally, last night, I was working on Archaeology in Pandaria.  I just wanted to get it to 600 so I could be done with it again.  I'd written off the whole idea of ever seeing that recipe.  For me, the effort that I'd put in should've been more than enough, yet I never saw it.

20 canopic jars, not once did I see it.

Then, Pandaren archaeology changed the game for me.  Every artifact I turned in gave me Tol'vir fragments.

I solved something or other, and got a canopic jar.  I was only a few fragments short of completing it.

I had a Spirit of Harmony on me, so I went and bought another artifact to turn in.  It felt like gambling.  This jar had to be complete.  Even if it didn't have the recipe, at least it wouldn't be staring at me from the Archaeology profession window.

I solved the jar.

I opened the jar.

Since then, I've opened my alchemy window a dozen times to make sure the recipe is still there.

I finally, after over two years of searching (I think, when did Cataclysm come out?), I finally got my crowning achievement as an Alchemist.

I still lack a few recipes, but they are no longer available.  They're the ones that used to drop from the World Dragons that stood by the portals into the Emerald Dream (which, by the way, Blizzard still needs to make into a new expansion)

Hyperius is 90.  And while I'm working on gearing him up as a sufficient tank, the most important goal for me has finally come to pass.

I can make you turn into a giant dragon with a skin condition.

Absolution

I'm a paladin.

That's not just my class, that's my chosen outlook on life.  Defend the weak and defenseless.  Throw yourself entirely into the pursuit of what is good and right.

I know this is just a game, the Warcraft universe simply a story.

But I've wanted the Lich King dead since I first saw him in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos.

Battle Pet Trainers and Profiteering

I'm fairly certain the pet battle trainers that you're supposed to be able to duel have all agreed to boycott me.

I'm not sure why, exactly.

None of them will actually battle me.  Unless I'm just completely stupid.

Which is a very distinct possibility.

Due to the prohibitive cost of faction changes and server hops, I haven't yet managed to bring my main to my new server's Alliance side.  Say nothing, you Horde enthusiasts!  It's just a game, and my friends are all Alliance at the moment.

I also discovered more than a few characters spread over the disparate realms upon which I have meandered throughout the years.

And some of them had gold by the Bag-of-Holding-ful.

So, rather than attempt to transfer them all to a server and wind up clogging my character screen with toons I'd just as soon delete, I decided to try something entirely different.

I checked the prices for different pets on my primary server.  Saw which ones were selling high, which ones were hardly represented, and which ones were flooded.

And then I checked the auxiliary servers' markets and bought those various pets that would sell higher on my primary server.

Learn, log out, log in, cage, rinse, repeat.

PROFIT.

Not sure how long that can last, though.  I mean, the concept is fairly intriguing.  I mean, Blizzard has been steadfast in their resistance to allowing gold to be transferred between servers.  However, the rise of account-wide pets in combination with the ability to cage them on any character has given some of us an opportunity.

If you want to make some serious gold, the account-wide pets has opened up the markets for you.

You're not tied to a specific faction at all.  So long as you've got a level 1 Alliance and a level 1 Horde toon on a server, you can bounce pets all over the place and get the most bang for your buck.

Where before, the biggest and best of the AH game only had to understand the flow of one server, now they must know many.  Ideally, you'd want to buy from a server where old-world raids are the norm and then sell on a server that is generally a low-population server.  Mind you, that's just one example.

Point is, the game has changed.  Well, the game within the game.  The Auction House Game, I mean.

An entirely new dimension has been added to it.  Now we must learn to buy and sell across multiple servers, attempting to maintain the maximum possible profitability.

This will be fun.

But seriously, those damned pet trainers won't battle me.  And I don't know why.

Stupid jerkfaces.

Hunters

Okay, I *finally* got around to trying out a hunter legitimately, not just seeing if I could get to level 5 without taking a hit.

Hunters are fun.  I like hunters.  I mean, I'm only at 18 so far on my hunter, but it's pretty good so far.  I'm liking the fact that the vast majority of mobs can't reach me before I've blown their heads off.  I'm finding they're very gear-dependent, however, and that's making the leveling process a little rough.

Still, Agility leather isn't exactly hard to come by when you're a leatherworker and a skinner.

I think they should really rebalance the requirements of leatherworking's leveling process, however.  I mean, I got my skinning to 75 and turned over to the leatherworking, where I got to about 30.  Following the appropriate pathway for maximum production.

I'm in a new guild now.  A couple of friends and I have all thrown our lots in together.  In a few weeks, after my bank account recovers from the cataclysmic impact of Christmas Shopping, I'll bring my main Alliance-side and get him in the guild.  In the meantime, however, it's just leveling a new rogue, warlock, and hunter.

The rogue's pretty fun in MoP.

In fact, let me back up a bit.

MoP came out during my hiatus.

Since coming back, I've had the unimaginable task of relearning all my characters, choosing their talent points, and generally figuring out just what the hell they're all doing.

Take Warlocks, for example.  First tier talents, everyone thinks Harvest Life is great.

And it is.  As long as you're doing nothing EVER but dungeons.

But if you need to solo anything, remember that your self-healing capabilities are dramatically reduced when compared to Soul Leech's value.

So I had to respec both my 85 'lock and my newbie 30s 'lock because of that realization.

Rogues.  Those guys are *FUN*  I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the talent options, but then they weren't supposed to be game-changing so much as stylistic variations upon an overall theme.  So, ignoring the ineffectiveness of those talents, the core function of the subtlety rogue is goddamned awesome.

*sneak sneak* *stabeverythinginthefaceallthetimeHEEHEE!* *vanish*

Hunters.  Shoot everything with a concussive shot first to make sure they never get to you.  If they do get to you, disengage to buy more time.  Rinse repeat.

Seriously, it's just too much fun.

Paladins got all kinds of weird.  I'm seriously considering leveling another paladin from scratch just to learn what the hell happened.  I mean, the departure from 96969 on Prot and HealSplashing in Holy to the Cataclysm model was hard enough.  I did it, but it wasn't easy.  The MoP model, however, is going to require that I spend some time and completely overhaul my entire UI.

Which I'm not prepared to do until I can afford a more powerful computer.  Because while I love this computer, it's not exactly a top-end gaming rig.

Haven't tried my prot warrior yet.  Not sure how he'll work.  I'm nervous, to be honest.

Haven't done much on my fire mage, either.  Mainly because every legitimate talent (in my opinion, at least) is a frost-based spell.  Which sucks.  Because FIRE. BURN ALL THE THINGS.

Disc priest.  Haven't even logged in on that guy.  Not entirely sure if/when I will do that.  I may not do that for a long while.

Meh.

anywho. 

Hunters are fun.  I'm still a paladin at heart, though.  Just in case any of your hunter-sympathizers out there are thinking of converting me. I'm lookin' at you, Grumpy.

On A Tentative Return

     Howdy, everyone!

     I realize it's been a while since I last posted.  *checks last post* Okay, so two months.  Eh.

     Anywho, life's been getting more stabilized over the past several weeks, and I'm thinking about playing again.  I can't reactivate my account just yet, since I have bills to pay first, but I'm hoping to be up and running again by New Years.  I've been talking with a few friends, two of whom used to play before, and we're all thinking that playing a little WoW is a good way to kill some time here and there, as well as have it be an activity that we can all do while we hang out.

     I'm not entirely sure if I'll be getting back to this blog with the same level of dedication I once did, but who knows?  If nothing else, it'll be a place to catalog whatever random crap I come up with as I play.

     I did dust off the starter account.  I noticed that since my last post where I was bitching about the prohibitive cost of Pet Battles and how the 80g price tag put it beyond the reach of Starter Accounts, they went and dropped the price to 10g.

     So I bought it.

     And I'm constantly flooded with the error message, "Failed to begin pet battle."

     GG Blizz.  GG.

     So, fine.  I'll wait until I reactivate.  I did try out the worgen starting zone for the first time ever.

     Nobody ever told me they get a TOP HAT.  Why did nobody *ever* tell me I could've had a fancy top hat?  I mean, I've already got a monocle and a diamond-tipped cane!  I could've had a TOP HAT to match!

     So, first order of business when I get a full account again is to create a new bank alt and get him a top hat, tuxedo, monocle, and diamond-tipped cane.

     Because what's fancier than a top hat and monocle?!

Long Goodnight

     I started this blog back in January or February of this year, and while I intended to keep up with it, life got in the way of things, as life tends to do.

     I'm simply too busy lately to play WoW at all, much less really blog about it at the level I'd have liked to do.  I did have fun while I kept up with this, and I will still read up on other people's blogs (I've got to do something on my lunch breaks, right?)

     So, for the foreseeable future, this blog will be silent.  I may resurrect it later, I may simply let it fade to obscurity, or I may flat-out delete it.

     I really don't know.

     However, if anyone wants to give me a shout, feel free to leave me a comment on this or any other post.  They're moderated, so only I can see them if you leave contact info.

     Other than that, there's not much to tell.

     So, for at least now, and possibly forever, Hyperious is leaving his Arcanite Ripper (of Epic Awesome-itude) in the bank, unplayed.  Faces that pass by shall remain unmelted.

     WoW was fun, but it's just not something I can do right now.

     I may start up some other blogs at some point, but I'm not sure.  Perhaps a blog where I build random crap and take pictures of it.  Sure, why not?  After I get things a bit more... settled.

     Until then, cheerio.

     ~Hyperious