Well, some good news. A friend of mine got in the guild. He's been stuck in limbo since my old guild broke up. And with Wrath approaching he was very worried that he wouldn't get to see Illidan die. And while he did get into the guild, he did not actually get a raiding spot. However, despite that he got into a BT run this week and not only managed to see Council and Illidan die, but he also got T6 Legs and Chest. In 1 night he pretty much caught up to me gear-wise.
Last night the guild went back into Sunwell to work on the Eredar Twins. And while so far I've liked the fights in BC, Eredar Twins is easily the worst in the whole game right now, supplanting Leo for the worst-designed boss spot. Why is it so bad? It's mostly a matter of raid positioning being terrible; combustion insta-killing the raid, LOS issues, and massive raid wide damage. Combusion is definitely the most annoying ability I've seen in a while. It's living bomb, or Solarian, with no warning and only 3 seconds to react to it before killing everyone.
Eredar Twins fell fairly quickly. They don't have many HP, and Combusion is only an issue through Phase 1. So then we went onto M'uru. M'uru was probably the hardest fight in BC before the nerf, but we managed to figure out a strategy in about 2 hours. I'm not going to say that this fight is trivial...but if you've got good tanks and DPS and can coordinate well, this fight isn't too bad right now. I'm actually surprised that we got past it actually. Like Eredar, when things go south in this fight they do so with quickly. Things can go from OK to dead raid in about 5 seconds; and even with the nerf everyone needs to be on their toes.
Unfortunately last night also was one of the first times I've been so far down on the DPS chart. Eredar Twins, well, I was just playing uber-conservative, and kept falling off the ledge because I just couldn't get any LOS. But M'uru doesn't really seem suited for mage DPS. Oh well, I'll just have to work better next time.
We did go ahead and make one pull on Kil'Jaeden (sp?)...1 pull, no strategy = 70% before we wiped. That encounter truely looks...epic, something that was missing from the Illidan fight honestly. I'm really looking forward to more time with KJ tonight. There is even a chance we'll get him which would be awesome.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Chuck
I picked up a few DVDs last week. One of those was the first season of Chuck. This was one of the shows that I was interested in last season, but managed to miss and completely forgot about.
Chuck is about a regular guy who inherents the government's special secrets when his old college buddy emails him the information contained within the Intersec (a visual database of all government secrets). Both the CIA and NSA assign agents to watch over him, while having him go on missions that cause him to 'flash'--looking at something will frequently bring up mental flashes relating to what he is looking at.
Chuck is played as a light-hearted action/comedy adventure. It follows his life as a somewhat bumbling spy; and his life at home and at work. Chuck finds himself more and more caught up with his secret life, which begins to impact his relationship with his friends and family (his only family being his sister).
Over all, the show is surprisingly good. Even if the premise makes absolutely no sense. The show can be a bit spastic, switching from goofy comedy, to angst filled romance, to action-adventure in seconds. But then again that's also part of it's charm. None of these elements overpower the show, and it attempts to play a lot like a light-heated Alias more than anything else. Unfortunately, Alias eventually ditched the stories regarding main character's personal life and friends, something which caused show to loose a lot of it's charm, and lets hope Chuck doesn't make the same mistake.
At this point I've seen all of the episodes of the first season, and most of the ones of the second. I was expecting the show to be a bit more serialized than it actually is--normally that's a turn-off to me but honestly so far it's been fun. There hasn't been a lot of actual character development in the show yet, but hopefully that will change as the show continues to air.
The only downside with the show IMO is the will-they-or-won't-they romance between Chuck and Sarah. The two honestly make a great couple, there is a lot of good chemistry there, but they've already overplayed it too much. I honestly think the two would work together as a couple better than the on-again-off-again swingsaw that they are currently on. Though TV shows are rarely able to sustain a long-term relationship on a show like that so we'll see what happens.
Chuck is about a regular guy who inherents the government's special secrets when his old college buddy emails him the information contained within the Intersec (a visual database of all government secrets). Both the CIA and NSA assign agents to watch over him, while having him go on missions that cause him to 'flash'--looking at something will frequently bring up mental flashes relating to what he is looking at.
Chuck is played as a light-hearted action/comedy adventure. It follows his life as a somewhat bumbling spy; and his life at home and at work. Chuck finds himself more and more caught up with his secret life, which begins to impact his relationship with his friends and family (his only family being his sister).
Over all, the show is surprisingly good. Even if the premise makes absolutely no sense. The show can be a bit spastic, switching from goofy comedy, to angst filled romance, to action-adventure in seconds. But then again that's also part of it's charm. None of these elements overpower the show, and it attempts to play a lot like a light-heated Alias more than anything else. Unfortunately, Alias eventually ditched the stories regarding main character's personal life and friends, something which caused show to loose a lot of it's charm, and lets hope Chuck doesn't make the same mistake.
At this point I've seen all of the episodes of the first season, and most of the ones of the second. I was expecting the show to be a bit more serialized than it actually is--normally that's a turn-off to me but honestly so far it's been fun. There hasn't been a lot of actual character development in the show yet, but hopefully that will change as the show continues to air.
The only downside with the show IMO is the will-they-or-won't-they romance between Chuck and Sarah. The two honestly make a great couple, there is a lot of good chemistry there, but they've already overplayed it too much. I honestly think the two would work together as a couple better than the on-again-off-again swingsaw that they are currently on. Though TV shows are rarely able to sustain a long-term relationship on a show like that so we'll see what happens.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sunwell!
Last night my guild hit Sunwell. They haven't been in the zone for a while due to burnout and other reasons. But with the raid nerf they had 35 people online waiting for a spot and the only thing that held us back were stability issues with the server.
Now I know there are probably a lot of people complaining about the change, but the raid nerf was brilliant. Instead of attendence and interest dropping through the floor, people are showing up in droves to try to see stuff they didn't think they'd be able to see otherwise. And while the gear may not matter post-wrath, the relative ease and pace of the encounters creates an entirely new experience. Pre-BC, my old guild was struggling to survive the hump; now it seems my new one is thriving. And I know this isn't just limited to me.
Of course, none of the new kills matter as much. But it's very nice to see the content. Sunwell actually looks more interesting than I was origionally thinking--the front loaded trash is a definite turnoff but once you get past Kalegos things definitely pick up.
Kalegos (sp?) is a fun fight. It definitely requires coordination and good healing. That didn't change with the nerf. It was definitely easier to keep the tanks up, but since special ability damage wasn't changed. Hit Points were much lower, though, reducing the strain considerably and making the fight much easier overall once you know the general strategy. For a guild that had already downed him, we took him with no problems.
Brutalus...after Illidan this was one boss I really wanted to see killed. Not sure why, but I guess him being a major gear check made him something I wanted to get past. Now, however, he is a complete joke. With raid DPS being much higher, and his HP total being 7 mil instead of 10...Brutalus is simply no longer anything but a trivial challenge. The definition of a tank-and-spank. Last night was the first time my guild ever attempted Brutalus and they one-shotted him.
Felmyst...so far this is my favorite fight in Sunwell. Its already one of my favorite BC raid bosses. Again, this seems like a boss less affected by the nerf than Brutalus; much of her damage wouldn't have been affected by the nerf making many of the mechanics just as dangerous as always; but again the loss of so many HP and easier tanking certainly makes the fight a lot easier than before. Still, this fight has it all. Massive raid-wide damage; huge spike damage, deadily laser beams, undead aoe packs; DEEP BREATH, and a chance to shoot the dragon while airborne! Took us 4-5 attempts to figure her out, but loved every minute of it.
Though we still had time left last night after Felmyst, the raid was called after doing the trash before Eredar Twins. I think the officers wanted to discuss some stuff, but who knows. I would have loved some shots at the twins. We did one pull, no strat, and still did fairly well so I'm not expecting us to have TOO much trouble with that boss either (i'm guessing the nerf is going to affect the Twins pretty heavily).
I didn't get any gear (and didn't expect it either) but it was definitely fun to see the fights. And if my guess is correct we're going to be hitting Sunwell hard for the rest of the expansion. I can't see a reason why we wouldn't go for KJ before Wrath. Sure it won't have any real meaning in the grand scheme of things, but hell, it's new content for us and something to do except farm.
Now I know there are probably a lot of people complaining about the change, but the raid nerf was brilliant. Instead of attendence and interest dropping through the floor, people are showing up in droves to try to see stuff they didn't think they'd be able to see otherwise. And while the gear may not matter post-wrath, the relative ease and pace of the encounters creates an entirely new experience. Pre-BC, my old guild was struggling to survive the hump; now it seems my new one is thriving. And I know this isn't just limited to me.
Of course, none of the new kills matter as much. But it's very nice to see the content. Sunwell actually looks more interesting than I was origionally thinking--the front loaded trash is a definite turnoff but once you get past Kalegos things definitely pick up.
Kalegos (sp?) is a fun fight. It definitely requires coordination and good healing. That didn't change with the nerf. It was definitely easier to keep the tanks up, but since special ability damage wasn't changed. Hit Points were much lower, though, reducing the strain considerably and making the fight much easier overall once you know the general strategy. For a guild that had already downed him, we took him with no problems.
Brutalus...after Illidan this was one boss I really wanted to see killed. Not sure why, but I guess him being a major gear check made him something I wanted to get past. Now, however, he is a complete joke. With raid DPS being much higher, and his HP total being 7 mil instead of 10...Brutalus is simply no longer anything but a trivial challenge. The definition of a tank-and-spank. Last night was the first time my guild ever attempted Brutalus and they one-shotted him.
Felmyst...so far this is my favorite fight in Sunwell. Its already one of my favorite BC raid bosses. Again, this seems like a boss less affected by the nerf than Brutalus; much of her damage wouldn't have been affected by the nerf making many of the mechanics just as dangerous as always; but again the loss of so many HP and easier tanking certainly makes the fight a lot easier than before. Still, this fight has it all. Massive raid-wide damage; huge spike damage, deadily laser beams, undead aoe packs; DEEP BREATH, and a chance to shoot the dragon while airborne! Took us 4-5 attempts to figure her out, but loved every minute of it.
Though we still had time left last night after Felmyst, the raid was called after doing the trash before Eredar Twins. I think the officers wanted to discuss some stuff, but who knows. I would have loved some shots at the twins. We did one pull, no strat, and still did fairly well so I'm not expecting us to have TOO much trouble with that boss either (i'm guessing the nerf is going to affect the Twins pretty heavily).
I didn't get any gear (and didn't expect it either) but it was definitely fun to see the fights. And if my guess is correct we're going to be hitting Sunwell hard for the rest of the expansion. I can't see a reason why we wouldn't go for KJ before Wrath. Sure it won't have any real meaning in the grand scheme of things, but hell, it's new content for us and something to do except farm.
Monday, October 20, 2008
This Week in WOW
I have a confession to make. Friday night's non-scheduled raid of BWL and AQ40 was some of the most fun I've had in a game for a long time. Virtually all of that content was new and interesting, and AQ40 especially had some very interesting visuals and encounters which made it a great trip. I made a fool of myself a few times, unfortunately, but it wouldn't be a true raid if I didn't do something like that at least once!
My impressions of BWL was that it was too much like the other black rock instances. It's a zone mostly filled with boss fights, and relatively small amounts of trash--though I'm not 100% sure that I liked the boss to trash ratio. There were still a few unusually long sections that just weren't needed.
AQ40, however, was just about perfect. There was a lot of variety, and a lot of bosses. And it had some interesting trash sections. The only problems with the zone was it's confusing layout and large size--but honestly that added to it's charm. And I've heard lots about the C'thun fight...and it's everything I thought it would be. Easily the best, and most internally consistant end-raid boss in the game right now. (Though right now it's a bit buggy).
Otherwise, Blizzard is still suffering from server stability isues and big ones at that. No raid happened last night due to all instances being down (and people were getting kicked of regularly with bad lag times and other issues. Population levels are high on the server, but not THAT high, so I'm definitely worried about whatever problems they've introduced into the system. I don't think this is just a matter of load. And if it is, things are going to be damned painful when Wrath comes out.
My impressions of BWL was that it was too much like the other black rock instances. It's a zone mostly filled with boss fights, and relatively small amounts of trash--though I'm not 100% sure that I liked the boss to trash ratio. There were still a few unusually long sections that just weren't needed.
AQ40, however, was just about perfect. There was a lot of variety, and a lot of bosses. And it had some interesting trash sections. The only problems with the zone was it's confusing layout and large size--but honestly that added to it's charm. And I've heard lots about the C'thun fight...and it's everything I thought it would be. Easily the best, and most internally consistant end-raid boss in the game right now. (Though right now it's a bit buggy).
Otherwise, Blizzard is still suffering from server stability isues and big ones at that. No raid happened last night due to all instances being down (and people were getting kicked of regularly with bad lag times and other issues. Population levels are high on the server, but not THAT high, so I'm definitely worried about whatever problems they've introduced into the system. I don't think this is just a matter of load. And if it is, things are going to be damned painful when Wrath comes out.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The New Black Temple!
Is A Joke.
I was wondering if there was a reason behind the BC raid nerf, or not. And after last night I'm sure that if there IS a reason then it has nothing to do with raid balance.
I remember when I first started Karazhan, and how my guild had problems with it (it's been nerfed several times since). We got through it and seriously started hitting the 25 mans and after that I pretty much stopped going b/c I was rarely online at times people still did it. Then about 6 months later, well into T5, I finally went back and was shocked at how different it was. They weren't assigning off tanks or single targeting--they just AOEd shit left and right. Stuff died so fast that you could barely get a 3 second spell of before stuff died. And all of those encounters which used to require some careful execution now merely consisted of running inside and AOEing.
That is now the new Black Temple. It's 25-man Karazhan. The only boss that still took more than a minute or two for us to kill was Council (that took us 5). And the only time we wiped was when our MT DCed along with 3-4 others at the same time on Illidan. When we rezzed, we proceeded to kill him in 1 metamorphosis.
As a fire mage, I had 0 mana problems. I couldn't use it fast enough. DPS basically varied between 1200 to 2400 depending on my crit rating and Hot Streak. Everyone's DPS was higher, the average jumped from 1200 to 1800. And I'm sure everyone was acting sub-par as they adjusted to the new rotations and talents. I certainly improved a lot over the course of the raid, which took a little over 2 hours from start to finish.
Despite being a joke, last night was also probably the most fun I've had in a raid in a long time. It was extremely fast paced, and while all of the encounters were easier, they also all felt different because of the way we were doing them. I was very, very happy with it and can't wait to see more of Sunwell.
I was wondering if there was a reason behind the BC raid nerf, or not. And after last night I'm sure that if there IS a reason then it has nothing to do with raid balance.
I remember when I first started Karazhan, and how my guild had problems with it (it's been nerfed several times since). We got through it and seriously started hitting the 25 mans and after that I pretty much stopped going b/c I was rarely online at times people still did it. Then about 6 months later, well into T5, I finally went back and was shocked at how different it was. They weren't assigning off tanks or single targeting--they just AOEd shit left and right. Stuff died so fast that you could barely get a 3 second spell of before stuff died. And all of those encounters which used to require some careful execution now merely consisted of running inside and AOEing.
That is now the new Black Temple. It's 25-man Karazhan. The only boss that still took more than a minute or two for us to kill was Council (that took us 5). And the only time we wiped was when our MT DCed along with 3-4 others at the same time on Illidan. When we rezzed, we proceeded to kill him in 1 metamorphosis.
As a fire mage, I had 0 mana problems. I couldn't use it fast enough. DPS basically varied between 1200 to 2400 depending on my crit rating and Hot Streak. Everyone's DPS was higher, the average jumped from 1200 to 1800. And I'm sure everyone was acting sub-par as they adjusted to the new rotations and talents. I certainly improved a lot over the course of the raid, which took a little over 2 hours from start to finish.
Despite being a joke, last night was also probably the most fun I've had in a raid in a long time. It was extremely fast paced, and while all of the encounters were easier, they also all felt different because of the way we were doing them. I was very, very happy with it and can't wait to see more of Sunwell.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Mage Builds!
Oh, I almost forgot. With patch 3.0.2 comes the new talent trees. And with that I had to make some choices. Fire, Arcane, or Frost.
Well, with my new T6 pieces Arcane looses some of it's luster (especially with the changes to AB and the nerfing of 2-piece T5). And to me it seemed a simple choice considering that we got new Fireball and Frostbolt spells (and a new Arcane Missile, but that doesn't cover it).
So the choice was between Fire and Frost. And since I'm fire right now I decided to stick with it for the start. And that left me with some difficult choices. The two obvious ones were 11/50/0, or 0/50/11. At 70, you just don't have enough talents to hit everything, so no matter what you do you have to make some concessions.
It really came down to the choice of IV + Elemental Precision vs. Focus Magic + Arcane Concentration (hmm, I think that's wrong, but I can't look it up right now)
Now, IV is a great talent, an awesome addition to the mage class. And obviously Elemental Precision is extremely important (still annoyed they moved that to T2). But Fire now completely relies on crit rating for high damage output. Without it, the new Fire tree isn't that much better than the old one. Or to put it another way, in my short tests on the targets in IF yesterday, my fire DPS was sustaining about 1200 when I wasn't getting double crits, but was sustaining 1800 when I could.
If this works out, I might not switch to frost until Wrath hits. I'm almost certainly going to spec Frost for leveling (the spec kicks ass for leveling, and will do so even more with the WE for extra mana regen).
Not sure what to think about Arcane yet, so for the moment I'm avoiding it though that may not last long. I'm personally interested in what they do with that spec. The Devs have said they intend to do something with it, so hopefully they can fix some of it's current problems. As it is, I think Arcane is just too situational and reactionary to be fun over a long fight even if I could keep up in DPS with it.
Now IV is a great talent, but Fire now really relies on crits for it's damage output, so to me Focus Magic still made more sense.
So, I specced 11/50/0
Well, with my new T6 pieces Arcane looses some of it's luster (especially with the changes to AB and the nerfing of 2-piece T5). And to me it seemed a simple choice considering that we got new Fireball and Frostbolt spells (and a new Arcane Missile, but that doesn't cover it).
So the choice was between Fire and Frost. And since I'm fire right now I decided to stick with it for the start. And that left me with some difficult choices. The two obvious ones were 11/50/0, or 0/50/11. At 70, you just don't have enough talents to hit everything, so no matter what you do you have to make some concessions.
It really came down to the choice of IV + Elemental Precision vs. Focus Magic + Arcane Concentration (hmm, I think that's wrong, but I can't look it up right now)
Now, IV is a great talent, an awesome addition to the mage class. And obviously Elemental Precision is extremely important (still annoyed they moved that to T2). But Fire now completely relies on crit rating for high damage output. Without it, the new Fire tree isn't that much better than the old one. Or to put it another way, in my short tests on the targets in IF yesterday, my fire DPS was sustaining about 1200 when I wasn't getting double crits, but was sustaining 1800 when I could.
If this works out, I might not switch to frost until Wrath hits. I'm almost certainly going to spec Frost for leveling (the spec kicks ass for leveling, and will do so even more with the WE for extra mana regen).
Not sure what to think about Arcane yet, so for the moment I'm avoiding it though that may not last long. I'm personally interested in what they do with that spec. The Devs have said they intend to do something with it, so hopefully they can fix some of it's current problems. As it is, I think Arcane is just too situational and reactionary to be fun over a long fight even if I could keep up in DPS with it.
Now IV is a great talent, but Fire now really relies on crits for it's damage output, so to me Focus Magic still made more sense.
So, I specced 11/50/0
Patch Day 1 & 2!
Well, I haven't been blogging lots (this is still just for fun). And my interest in WOW has been rising again with the release of the new patch, which I knew would happen. So far it's been an interesting experience.
Patch Day 1
The install went pretty well, but I'm running Vista and it re-installed the entire WOW app to the \public folder...wierd, but interesting.
After the install...my server was down. In fact it was down until about 11 PM that night (though interestingly SOME people were able to get online, for me the server never even appeared in the list for me to choose it. I spent a little time puttering around on a scrub character on another server just to check out the new Stormwind, but other than that I had a lot of fun watching Iron Man on BD!
Patch Day 2
I was really hoping that we'd raid last night. And so after I get home the first thing I do is try to get online. World Server Down! Yeah. Apparently Outlands, and Eastern Kingdoms were down most of yesterday. Kalimdor was still up, and eventually Eastern Kingdoms too, but Outlands didn't come back online until after 8:30. So, no raid. Well, I did manage to get into the final stages of an MC run which was interesting. The frost mage that went sustained 8000 DPS on Ragnaros and even though I was fire-specced with 11/50/0 I was critting him for 10k (apparently Rag takes double damage vs. frost?)
After that, I was going to spend some time on my Horde mage, but ended up getting on my 62 Druid instead when Outlands came back online after being down 8 hours. The leveling speed is definitely faster, and I managed to make 63 pretty quickly compared to what it used to take. My Feral Kitty's DPS was also much higher by about 100 DPS. Managed to pick up a few useful quest pieces too with some Hit on it, so my hit rating is now sitting at 64.
Tonight, hopefully the guild will actually raid. I want to get some practice with the new spec, and see how I perform. I also want to see if the BC raid nerf actually speeds up the runs, or if it really is just necessary to make it through the raids now.
Patch Day 1
The install went pretty well, but I'm running Vista and it re-installed the entire WOW app to the \public folder...wierd, but interesting.
After the install...my server was down. In fact it was down until about 11 PM that night (though interestingly SOME people were able to get online, for me the server never even appeared in the list for me to choose it. I spent a little time puttering around on a scrub character on another server just to check out the new Stormwind, but other than that I had a lot of fun watching Iron Man on BD!
Patch Day 2
I was really hoping that we'd raid last night. And so after I get home the first thing I do is try to get online. World Server Down! Yeah. Apparently Outlands, and Eastern Kingdoms were down most of yesterday. Kalimdor was still up, and eventually Eastern Kingdoms too, but Outlands didn't come back online until after 8:30. So, no raid. Well, I did manage to get into the final stages of an MC run which was interesting. The frost mage that went sustained 8000 DPS on Ragnaros and even though I was fire-specced with 11/50/0 I was critting him for 10k (apparently Rag takes double damage vs. frost?)
After that, I was going to spend some time on my Horde mage, but ended up getting on my 62 Druid instead when Outlands came back online after being down 8 hours. The leveling speed is definitely faster, and I managed to make 63 pretty quickly compared to what it used to take. My Feral Kitty's DPS was also much higher by about 100 DPS. Managed to pick up a few useful quest pieces too with some Hit on it, so my hit rating is now sitting at 64.
Tonight, hopefully the guild will actually raid. I want to get some practice with the new spec, and see how I perform. I also want to see if the BC raid nerf actually speeds up the runs, or if it really is just necessary to make it through the raids now.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Fringe
So I watched the pilot episode of Fringe yesterday. It was one of the new shows I was hoping to watch this year, but so far this is the first chance I had to watch it. Caught it on Hulu, which is actually a pretty good way to watch a TV series, though there are a few things I don't like about it.
The pilot involved the release of a bio-terrorist weapon, some sort of 'virus' released on an airplane which caused the flesh of the passengers to dissolve. A multi-agency task force is created to explore this, and the main character is a female FBI agent involved in the investigation. It becomes personal when her partner and secret lover is infected with the same virus after tracking the culprit.
I had high hopes for the show, but honestly I'm not sure it lived up to them. I liked the concept of a conspiracy show regarding technology run amuck. Certainly there was the undertone of the threat of a rapidly approaching technological singularity, which isn't really stated in the show but is certainly hinted at. (The concept of a technological singularity as a doomsday scenario is an interesting one to me).
Unfortunately, I had a hard time liking the characters. And while the spooky technology and conspiracy stuff was good, the investigative work and methods for assembling the various characters of the show seemed rather...dumb.
Seriously, ok the FBI agent is in love, which causes her to grasp at any straw to try to save her lover; yet she finds a wacky scientist who may be involved by doing a google search for a 'flesh eating virus'? (or whatever). And hes in an insane asylum? And her boss (who seems to hate her) lets her run with it? But tells her she can't see him because he's not allowed to see visitors unless they are immediate family...even when it's a case of national security? um, what?
And the son, whom she tricks into getting her to help him, is an ass for the most part. Yet, he has to be the scientist's guardian, so he's now stuck with them and involved? And considering how blind she was to accept that she was told no matter how crazy, at the end she is the 'sceptic'?
I don't get it.
The fact is, the show didn't do a very good job establishing the premise. No motivations were given. And the characters are so loosely connected as to make the whole situation unbelievable. And at the end, she becomes part of this super secret investigation regarding the pattern...after it turns out that her lover, who she risked everything to save, was a bad guy.
Now, I'm not saying that its terrible. The actual show might be OK. But the setup just plain sucked. And I just didn't like any of the characters...at all. The FBI agent was bland. The crazy-scientist...too crazy (but the best and most interesting of the bunch), the son was a dick, the boss was a bigger dick. And no one else mattered.
Oh well. JJ Abrams normally knocks pilot episodes out of the park (the pilot for Alias is one of the best pilot episodes of all time, and Lost's pilot kicked ass)..but this was a definite foul ball. Not quite a miss, but nowhere close to a home run.
The pilot involved the release of a bio-terrorist weapon, some sort of 'virus' released on an airplane which caused the flesh of the passengers to dissolve. A multi-agency task force is created to explore this, and the main character is a female FBI agent involved in the investigation. It becomes personal when her partner and secret lover is infected with the same virus after tracking the culprit.
I had high hopes for the show, but honestly I'm not sure it lived up to them. I liked the concept of a conspiracy show regarding technology run amuck. Certainly there was the undertone of the threat of a rapidly approaching technological singularity, which isn't really stated in the show but is certainly hinted at. (The concept of a technological singularity as a doomsday scenario is an interesting one to me).
Unfortunately, I had a hard time liking the characters. And while the spooky technology and conspiracy stuff was good, the investigative work and methods for assembling the various characters of the show seemed rather...dumb.
Seriously, ok the FBI agent is in love, which causes her to grasp at any straw to try to save her lover; yet she finds a wacky scientist who may be involved by doing a google search for a 'flesh eating virus'? (or whatever). And hes in an insane asylum? And her boss (who seems to hate her) lets her run with it? But tells her she can't see him because he's not allowed to see visitors unless they are immediate family...even when it's a case of national security? um, what?
And the son, whom she tricks into getting her to help him, is an ass for the most part. Yet, he has to be the scientist's guardian, so he's now stuck with them and involved? And considering how blind she was to accept that she was told no matter how crazy, at the end she is the 'sceptic'?
I don't get it.
The fact is, the show didn't do a very good job establishing the premise. No motivations were given. And the characters are so loosely connected as to make the whole situation unbelievable. And at the end, she becomes part of this super secret investigation regarding the pattern...after it turns out that her lover, who she risked everything to save, was a bad guy.
Now, I'm not saying that its terrible. The actual show might be OK. But the setup just plain sucked. And I just didn't like any of the characters...at all. The FBI agent was bland. The crazy-scientist...too crazy (but the best and most interesting of the bunch), the son was a dick, the boss was a bigger dick. And no one else mattered.
Oh well. JJ Abrams normally knocks pilot episodes out of the park (the pilot for Alias is one of the best pilot episodes of all time, and Lost's pilot kicked ass)..but this was a definite foul ball. Not quite a miss, but nowhere close to a home run.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
T6
Well, over the last 2 weeks I have picked up 2 T6 pieces: the legs, and the chest...giving me the first opportunity to spec something other than Arcane in a LONG time.
And just in the nick of time too, since Arcane gets demolished as a spec in just one week.
Still, I'm curious to see what happens this week with the raid. My guild, which has certainly been going through expansion blues, turned it around this week with a pretty solid outing. Wednesday BT to Council; Thursday MH to Archimonde; Friday 1 shot council, 1 shot illidan, and 6 shot Archimonde (don't ask me why this guild has so much trouble with Archi). Last night they did not raid sunwell b/c they didn't have enough people show up.
So it's not done yet. This is the last regular raid week before the BC Raid Nerf and 3.0.2 goes live. I'm still not convinced on what spec to pick for live next week...Fire? Arcane w/ an Abar rotation? Or Frost? 3 weeks ago the choices seemed clear, but now I'm not so sure anymore.
At least now I've got a replacement for T5 before it's arcane bonus gets nerfed to oblivion.
And just in the nick of time too, since Arcane gets demolished as a spec in just one week.
Still, I'm curious to see what happens this week with the raid. My guild, which has certainly been going through expansion blues, turned it around this week with a pretty solid outing. Wednesday BT to Council; Thursday MH to Archimonde; Friday 1 shot council, 1 shot illidan, and 6 shot Archimonde (don't ask me why this guild has so much trouble with Archi). Last night they did not raid sunwell b/c they didn't have enough people show up.
So it's not done yet. This is the last regular raid week before the BC Raid Nerf and 3.0.2 goes live. I'm still not convinced on what spec to pick for live next week...Fire? Arcane w/ an Abar rotation? Or Frost? 3 weeks ago the choices seemed clear, but now I'm not so sure anymore.
At least now I've got a replacement for T5 before it's arcane bonus gets nerfed to oblivion.
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