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WSG boycott

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:51:50 -0400

anyone played it since 2.4? Maybe i just had 2 really bad experiences in the 60's brackets, but it was absolutely stupid how nobody could get the flag across due to abilities that worked before 2.4(sprint?), not working anymore, and basically forcing zerg walking across the field because the flag carrier cant do **** but walk across the flag and easily 2-3 shot :P

The 2 games i qued the scores were 0 - 0 for over 30 minutes w/ people afk'ing out saying how retarded blizzard/it was. its all druid/tank healer flag carrying now, even then its stupidly hard. so this is the setup to the e-sport verson of WSG>? dumb the venue down as much as possible to a completely different forced turtle crawl game? that isnt even the 'WSG', we all know and loved, w/ fond memories of?

Thx Blizzard you've slowly but surely have taken out all of the possible skill/fun there used to be to carrying a flag, and completely destroyed what used to be the best BG hands down to the worst. I swear whoever makes these decisions up there needs to be held accountable for their regular stupidity...either that or stop dumbing everythning down for e-sport viability you jackass's!!!11

WSG definitely isnt the same WSG many of us used to love, thx to E-Sports viability/Blizzard. Try it, and tell me if you had a similar experience(s). I know i sure as hell am not queing it unless i have to for a daily, those 2 games were absolutely ridiculous.

2.4 and Mages, latest test buffs and thoughts

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:44:08 -0400

QQ Locks, things are changing...1v1 DOES matter!!!111

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:58:48 -0500

Points for 1v1 Arenas: How would its issues be any different than multi-play Arena issues?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:27:15 -0500
-they are counter based on class(es) vs class(es). So this idea that 1v1 would be so imbalanced it wouldnt be funny is a joke. Arenas as they are, are as counter based as you can get based on synergies which is even worse because it extremely complicates things and extremely favors the coupling of particular classes over others, while leaving some classes completely left in the cold.

-Skill can also succumb at the mid to lower brackets over their counter. Yes a very good spell reflect Warrior can beat most Mages until the higher brackets. A very good Mage can beat most Warlocks until the higher brackets. All counters are beatable until you get to the point where everyone plays their class to a close to max efficiency.

-It would be an extension to the whole /duel feature thats been in WoW since day 1. Why be so anti 1v1 when that feature has been a staple of core WoW PvP?

-Its as casual as you can get. Arena partners not on? go do some 1v1 Arena until they get on. Only have 30 min's to play WoW before you have to go to church? go do some 1v1 Arena. Tired of retards in pugs losing you your dailies? Go do some 1v1 Arena. Sure beats looking for people outside of IF/Org/Thrallmar/Test just to get 1v1's on.

-1v1 is the basis of most WoW PvP play. Most players that are good are good at 1v1, and thats where it starts IMO. If you dont know how to beat each class w/ different abilities/play of your own class you very likely wont be very good in mutli-PvP play either. Basically in many cases you would kill classes in mutliPvP play as you would in a 1v1.

-Most importantly 1v1 Arenas would be a completely different dynamic in play vs the multi-player format of 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 Arenas. I mean it would be so different that it would feel like its own new version of Arena than any multi-Arena format that they could add. To me this is very important because PvP needs something refreshing, and not just the same old extensions of what we currently have, where the future of WoW looks bleak due to been there done that. You can say that about 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, even a 4v4 if they put one in, but you cannnot say that about 1v1 Arenas because it would be a completely different beast in the actual play within the Arena being completely based on you, self sufficiently, w/o direction or reliance on others. It would almost be like a completely new feature that has nothing to do w/ the feel of 2's, 3's, or 5's.

I truly feel adding 1v1 Arenas would be very in-line with WoW's charactertistics of giving casuals viable play option. Not to mention the other points i brought up about its positives. I cant see any downsides to adding this feature. Arena points earned should be obviously much less than the multi-formats, but at least it gives casuals a means of playing very casually to slowly gain awards w/o the need to coordinate RL play times. Even hardcores would love this venue, and i'd argue its participation would far surpass that of multi-player format of Arena play.

So i ask you, why not?

Dear Nethaera, theres a fine line between being 'positive' vs propaganda

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:57:40 -0500

Thoughts on strats in evenly matched BG's

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:42:01 -0500
I see arguments all the time in BG's over how to win. Its funny how many stupidass's you get that think PUG's can ezmode their way to a win the same way they just did it in a premade, and they dont account for the differences thinking the same strat a premade used will win it everytime. Truth is premades vs pugs are a joke, they are generally walk-overs in most venues and the advantages of a premade vs a pug arent going to be the same in a pug vs pug scenario. So you get alot of players thinking everyone riding through everything rushing the General in AV w/ no D is the way to win. Same people in EOTS that think the only way to win is a 3cap and not going for the flag. Same with players in AB that think everyone should rush Stables. WSG is currently a mess w/ Druid flag runners that its become a joke of a PvP venue. So you get alot of premade mentality to win strategy that doesnt account for PUG vs PUG play where the playing field is much more equal.

This is how i see each BG:

AV - Horde you will win more often than not if you have at least 15 defenders. Hold the bottleneck at the first tower with Archers and protect that GY. Kill every Ally that tries to get through the choke point, and protect all towers as a 1st priority. You get zerged, you fall back but keep pushing forward to retake towers or guard them, and try to get the GY's back. If the zerg is pushing real hard fall back to the base chokepoint in between both towers at the top of the incline Ally have to go through and 15 players generally should be able to hold 25 or so as long as they dont let them ninja the bases GY.

In my battlegroup Horde are retarded and there is always some noob telling everyone to just rush with no D so the game isnt drawn out. I hate the mentality of these losers for fast tokens/honor because they are everywhere, and tryiing to get a daily done with them is near impossible. Its why i hate getting AV daily's. When Horde guard w/ about 15 players i've had about a 70-80% win rate.

Yeah total rushing will sometimes work even in PUG's but i'd say they lose with that strat about 90% of the time. Ally are generally too efficient in a total offense vs total offense type of game.

EOTS - Getting 3 towers is all good if you can, but in a truly evenly matched game its all but impossible to hold 3 towers even if you can get them. Just think about it. Each tower defense is going to be outmatched somewhere if youre holding a 3 to 1 tower ratio in a 15 vs 15 player game. I get in more arguments about this with other players at times than in any other BG. People(mostly players used to playing in premades) tend to think the only way to win is to hold 3 towers and forget the flag. While the holding 2 and getting the flag to win strategy gets generalized by those same people as what noobs do. But just think about it logically in terms of attempting to hold a 3 to 1 tower ratio w/ equal numbers, someone is going to get zerged. Only when the players outmatch the other side can that realistically occur, and it does happen in PUG vs PUG, but other times where you cant get 3 and the back and forth is clearly equal you are much better off holding 2 and taking the flags.

AB - at this point this BG is pretty straight forward. You get 3 and hold them. Again tho there is a mentality of taking Stables in a rush that stems from premade play. It works sometimes in pug vs pug when the horde clearly outmatch the other side, but we cant assume that in most pug vs pug examples. You somewhat play off the other side, for example if they are in 1 big zerg taking each flag/node then you play ninja the flag right after the zerg leaves. they obviously arent setting up much guarding w/ the 1 big zerg strat. If they are broken up then equally guarding 3 nodes is the ideal way to win IMO. I also feel holding farm, BS, and LM for Horde is the best case scenario. You can put your 'reinforcements' right at the middle point between BS, farm, and LM which should be somewhat near the other side of the BS bridge leading to farm. If you do this you dont even need farm guards or maybe just 1, and maybe just 2 at BS and 2 at LM with the reinforcements ready to come help at the in-between point.

I also feel there is nothing wrong with at least 1 person going around being a pain in the ass ninja'ing everything they can. I always see someone yelling at a flag ninja for not holding and guarding 3, but that 1 player isnt going to make that big of a difference added to the existing D vs even temporarily getting you a flag where it reduces the other teams resource gains. those little bits help alot even if they get the flag back before it turns.

WSG - This BG is currently a joke. With the amount of Resto's that que this BG it almost always turns into 2 Resto's or some variance of them holding the flags. Even worse if they are S3 Druids because even 10 others will be very hardpressed to get that flag back. People act like Resto's or just Druids altogether can so easily be focusfired, but truth of this is most classes get a very limited opportunity in dps'ing them due to LOS turns or just being out of range. Personally as a Mage i can only get off maybe 2 frostbolts or so before hes out of range and i have to blink just to get one extra nuke in before i cant catch him. Other classes have this much worse.

Anyways WSG is broken due to the current rediculous OP'ness of resto druids and the quantity of them these days. I'd say about 80% of the WSG's i've qued have been over 30minute matches due to resto's holding the flags and nobody able to get them. Alot of times one side will just drop it to get the game over when 2 restos are holding it. Its such a joke sometimes tho when i see literally a whole team trying to focusfire a S3 Resto and they live, i mean the dps spam is enough to kill most classes 5x's over...for christs sakes nerf this class already ;p   It also makes me laugh how people think it was only a drinking in Arenas issue, or based on LOS, just really goes to show how out of touch some people are that only play this game in 1 venue and pretend that covers everything PvP :P

This is basically how i feel about BG's today and the strats to win in a BG. So if you do reply or disagree, back it up with some logic for why its a better strat than what i suggested. Try to picture 2 completely equal sides and view it that way when you make an argument for the best strats for one side to win that venue.

Search Engine priority, how does this work?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:12:13 -0500
I'm currently in a dilemma trying to decide if i want to pay for extra internet advertising from Yellowbook(about $40/month). I already have a personal website that costs me nothing. I have no idea how alot of the stuff on the Net works and can only guess. I also dont trust most saleman, especially internet advertising companies considering i've had so many send these offers that look like bills for a business's current advertising, and only when you look at them closely do you see the fine print of this is not a bill. Otherwise you could easily get it confused with your local yellow pages advertising and once you make that payment your signed up and locked into that agreement. They are so shadey also in the fact that alot make a living spinning their name off of Yellowbook, w/ some other name similar to it that ends in .net or .com or somethign like that but is a completely separate small advertising company almost trying to scam people into believing they are the major advertiser that is yellowbook.

What alot of these internet advertisers are telling me and try to sell me is priority of listings when people use search engines. I checked and put in the field of business i'm in for my area, and a yellowbook listing came up at one of the top with random shops listed. While i agree being at the top of a search engine for advertising your business in its respective field in your area is great, what goes into them being able to get that from lets say a Google search? Do they pay Google so and so amount of money to be listed first? can i do that independently for my personal website and would it be less than $40/month?

I hate sales people because their motivations arent generally in your best interests IMO. They get commission on their sales and they push and push to the point i have to be a dikk because they wont take no for an answer, then act like they are offended after i told them to GTFO because they keep going on and on of why i should signup. So is $40/month a good deal just to get listed on a search engine for my area near the top for my field of business? its annual renewal so its basically like $480 just to be near the top...oh and for the record this is what they've been pushing hard on top of the book advertising i already do, which amounts to about $1500 a year from them in itself~

"Why does Blizzard listen to QQ" QQ...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:43:05 -0500
I laugh everytime i read this. It usually comes from a singular class that just got nerfed or is about to. I'd like to breakdown QQ to what it is, and emphasize the difference between periodic QQ across multiple classes and your general QQ that occurs everyday. There a difference. Despite how people generalize it all as the same, not all QQ is created equal.

Everyone plays WoW in different bubbles of gear/ratings/pve/pvp/etc. Its difficult to know what is imbalanced for what each player does every night. High end Arena players for example can only speak for Arena and only inflated gear progression play at WoW's top PvP Arena levels. Many Arena players IMO seem to be unaware of general class balance power until late and after-the-fact, after many others have realized it, due to the set matrix's they generally play, in an environment that is very team based which in many ways makes up for the power of an individual class where a team on vent strategizing focusfire counters that class power to a larger degree than the masses of non preform min/max prearranged gameplan play. The high end of play is very efficient, and have most of the tools there to keep an overpowererd class in check due to being able to setup their own matrix of classes with healing, dps, cc, and healing debuffs, basically perfect scenario PvP.

2v2, 3v3 to a degree have always been discounted in favor of 5v5 based Arena play. Many of the sheep often state how 2v2 will never be balanced and therefore doesnt matter, 3v3 is usually that borderline matters venue, and the sheep tend to prop 5v5 as the only balanced Arena setting, and the only one that matters. This Arena mentality further scapegoats class balance due to 5 players a side obfiscating the power of any individual class to a much greater degree than any other small sided random PvP situation in WoW, while almost all of the PvP in WoW is small sided outside of the 5v5 venue and AV to a degree :P Most of it isnt prearranged bring your own min/max synergy based matrix either :P

So basically you end up with Arena players pretending the only issue with Resto's are drinking in Arena....which couldnt be further from the truth. Its funny to see how tunes change w/ Arena players from the early realization of Resto OP'ness to now. Most have suggested more than water nerfs in recent days, whereas before that was the only thing just about every Arena player saying was the issue with Resto's in PvP. So you can see how there is a being out of touch factor from 5v5 Arena play to general PvP and class balance in WoW. Of course many Arena players are pretty serious about the game, more than your average player, and tend to think what they do matters more than what the masses do in the game. So you get quite a few of them with alot of e-ego(oh hey faction!111`1) pretending like the game should be completely based around them and their play, so they'll play it like everyone is just a QQer for no reason and the only realistic nerf Resto's need is water nerfing.

The truth of it is there are over a million people that play this game across the world. Spread across 9 classes. A very small percentage of that plays high end Arena. Fortunately Kalgan recently stated that class balance is based on each player in whatever 'bubble' of play being able to have a enjoyable experience when they play the game, which is a all inclusive class balancing approach and nerfs come when things dont end up not very enjoyable due to the power of a class or classes. This has happened very recently with SL/SL Warlocks that had no real check to their play and were able to drain tank every class in the game after they hit a high resilience mark, and in many cases multiples of players. Now its Resto's being unkillable in general PvP random play, moreso outside of 5v5 Arena settings, and has practically made WSG a hour long joke now if you dare to que it.

The reality is the amount of QQ on the forums represents issues in class balance and mass QQ should be addressed because that is representative of what Blizzard balances around - an enjoyable experience for each player. Rarely can players of a class be honest or put their class in perspective and these are the players whom always tend to say "why does Blizzard listen to QQ?" QQ may occur everyday in some form but mass QQ across multiples of classes about a particular class does not. Its funny to hear Druids, Priests, or whatever class being nerfed constantly spout "why does Bliizzard listen to QQers?" considering there is no better judge of issues in play for each and every player than mass QQ...again i emphasize QQ may happen everyday on the forums but mass QQ does not. And that is indicative of issues that need balancing despite how a OP class tries to portray it.

Republicans involved in the Roger Clemens hearings need to be reprimanded/ousted

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:35:55 -0500
from Congress.

I know i'm late on blog'ing about this but i've meant to write a rant on the joke that is the Roger Clemens hearings in front of Congress. Its not so much the hearings in themself, its the Republicans who are enamored with Clemens and show blatant bias apart from the realities of this case.

Has anybody watched this rediculousness? In case you didnt know many pro athletes were implicated for taking steroids by a trainer, Brian Mcnamee(sp?), who was the supplier for many of them, and has testified under oath that he personally injected 3 players. 2 out of the 3 have admitted to it and coroborrated Mcnamee's side of the story, the only one denying the allegations is Roger Clemens. The funniest thing is Andy Pettite who was one of those implicated and admitted to using them stated he had a conversation with Clemens where Clemens admitted he took steroids, or something to that effect.

There are alot of other external facts about this case like supposedly Roger Clemen's wife took steroids to tighten up her body before a swimsuit photography shoot. There was also an initial investigation this whole thing stemmed from which was called the Mitchell Report that implicated many other pro athletes. And much of the reason Clemens is in front of Congress right now has to do with him being the only one to constantly publicly deny the allegations in the report.

Regardless of that, its to watch these hearings just to get an idea of how much these guys are abusing the power we gave them. Thats the only thing that really bothers me about watching this, could care less if Clemens is implicated or not. Its the corrupt abuse of power thats blatant with some of these Republicans on this Congressional Panel. You wont believe it until you see it for yourself, altho i'd reccomend reading some background on the situation before watching it to get a better sense of just how overwhelming the evidence against Clemens is....

Doesnt being paid to blog defeat the purpose of blog'ing?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:21:16 -0500
I read Ming's blog about Jasi getting on the payroll. I actually thought he was already on the payroll, he blog'd just as much or more than Ming it seemed and conducted alot of interviews. Now whether all of that was done to eventually get paid to blog i have no idea, but i do know blog'ing and being paid to do it seem to contradict each other.

I thought blogs were about writing on current inspiration based on a topic personal to you. Not where youre expected to put out so and so many blogs per week/month, where you have to make **** up or watch the latest Naruto episode to have something to blog about. When you get paid for it and have to do it, wouldnt it turn blog'ing more into a homework assignment than doing it freely, and creatively, based on your latest inspiration? Doesnt the motivation of doing it for money and on a timetable defeat the purpose of blog'ing?

I guess paying Ming/Jasi to blog keeps interest in high end WoW Arena blog readers here, but wouldnt other high end Arena players be blog'ing about the same topics as Ming/Jasi if they never blog'd? And as far as i know, reading some of the criticisms of replies to them it seems like they arent very in the know of high end Arena, altho that could be others just hating on them. I have no idea.

It just seems to me the difficulty of blog'ing comes down to it being a job. And when you pay them thats what it becomes - a job. So we get to read all about Naruto when Ming doesnt have anything to really blog about....and i guess with Jasi we'll see. My bet it'll be an interview with his 2's partner or someone easily accessible to kill blog space. Is that truly in the best interests of blog'ing?

just something to think about.

PS Ming, when you say Jasi now makes more than most people relative to the hours they put in at their job vs the hours you put into blog'ing, does that really say much in terms of how much you make? Seems more a play on words to exxagerate blog income than anything....nothing personal btw just really dont appreciate play on words to exxagerate something.

I'm going nuts reading all the QQ...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:28:08 -0500
Druids pretending they werent OP'd and actually expecting a buff?

Hunters QQ'ing their melee axe is getting nerfed?

Mages QQ'ing they need buffs due to Arena Representation?

Priests QQ'ing manaburn is now worthless?

And the crazy thing about this is its the majority of each of these classes saying this ****! Like 1 in 1000 being honest ;p

Why cant OP'd classes recognize they are OP'd?

I mean if you just lived through 6 players focusfiring you, do you really think you need buffs? if you completely dominate and saturate small sided PvP brackets and are regularly being fotm rolled to get 2k ratings, is OP'ness not obvious?

If you dominate ranged from 41 yds in every direction, do you really think you need a melee axe that can crit for 3k to counter your only weakness?

Does Arena Representation truly represent class balance relative to other classes? and not just equality in able to achieve rewards?

Was pressing one button 4x's to completely take a caster out of a fight that crucial for the top healers in the game?

Sometimes i feel like i'm playing a different game than most people are playing...then i wonder if its just people being extremely egocentric and unable to be impartial about the class they play. Its funny tho, how rare it is to see honesty of deserved nerfing from a player of that class in comparison to the vehement denials that they are unjustifiably being nerfed.

Is WoW E-Fame worth the downsides?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:25:28 -0500
Gameriot has a fair share of E-famous players. E-Fame i've always thought had alot of bad that came with the attention/recognition of being good on a mass WoW scale. Just look at Serennia, who gets alot of **** for his personality or lack thereof. Even Nochtyn Fogle always gets slighted by Ming in every blog with some food reference implying hes a big fatso that eats everything in front of him.

ITs not only the shots at E-Fame players, i'm assuming many of you deal with random /tells asking you your specs, how to play, and other stupid questions that just amount to massive spam. That has got to be annoying. And there are always those people who latch onto 'popular people', you have to attract people who want to roll with you too....where youre like wtf are you? wtf are you following me?

On top of everything i've already mentioned, the worst thing about E-Fame has to be being targeted. I can tell you if i recognize a famous player in a PvP venue, hes my first target everytime. I dont care if i win or lose the confrontation as long as he dies. It seems hes everyones first target everytime i've seen a e-famous player in a confrontation, and its borderline unplayable for them due to always being focusfired, even if the flag is going the other direction, or the healer is supposed to be the first target or someone should technically take the flag to keep them from ressing, everyone seems to rather focusfire the e-fame player. Maybe its not like this at the highest levels of Arena due to so much being on the line, but when you play with the masses you have to be a big bullseye. I've run across a few big names here and there in BG's and its funny to watch how people will always target them first everytime.

So what are the upsides of being E-famous in WoW? All i can think of is Attention. Most people dont get it, and the few that do probably enjoy when people say exceptional things about their game. Honestly thats the only upside that i can think of vs the serious downsides of E-Fame.

So what does everyone think about E-famous players, would you rather be E-famous in a game or anonymnous? And how about the E-famous players here at Gameriot? Would you prefer that nobody would distinguish you from the next guy or the fame of being you?

It sure doesnt seem to be worth it to me if i had the option to pick and choose anonmynity or E-fame...

Low/Mid End Arena Play Matters in terms of scaling...Fun in PvP is only Arena group-based? Why?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:20:08 -0500
This blog is mainly about 2 misconceptions i want to prove wrong with logic. Its often stated that "only high end Arena matters" when it comes to class balancing. Its also implied that the only fun in WoW PvP is based on Arena team play for most who enjoy PvP, and i have some questions/issues about that also because that mentality of PvP tends to narrow down the 'fun' to a very limited scope in WoW.

WoW is a scaling game due to equipment at various points throughout a players progression. Whether its PvE or PvP, WoW scales based on the player's activities/rewards considerably, and scaling isnt always equal throughout progression for all skill levels. Balance in large part is very difficult due to players at different points playing in different scaling bubbles, and only at the very top end do you reach a max scale of balance, but that is so limited in the players it represents, and very few will ever reach the point current S3 Arena players are stop-gapped at. It is a different bubble of play than most players will ever experience, stats are the most inflated, and because it is considered the best of the best its looked at as the 'model for class balance'.

I argue the whole basis of class balancing based on high end Arena play doesnt speak for class balance scaling on lower levels, let alone the masses, because it does not scale equally where there are/have been issues where high end players received huge jumps in power vs the masses for a particular class. Mages used to be this way when only the high end Mages had all the purples and trinkets, while the masses only had your average Mage abilites w/ genereric Mage equipment to work with. So Mages scaled rediculously at the top end, and it was difficult back then to make the argumetn Mages needed help without making the distinction between high end Mages and the masses. The same can be said of the not-so-long-ago SL/SL Lock issue. Most Warlocks werent nearly as OP'd as the high end Locks with max resilience and there was a clear separation of power between them and the masses. I'd go as far to say its a similar situation for Resto Druids currently to a degree...since the survivability of the ones in S3 is absolutely absurd.

So we have a high end bubble of balance based on the most extreme scaling of equipment that doesnt encompass or speak for the play of the masses that this game is based on. ITs a flawed assumption. Its a flawed approach. Its typical E-Sport Arena based PvP catering at the expense of the masses of WoW players because scaling is not equal throughout progression of equipment. Its not even a fact that Blizzard balances that way where they only look at high end Arena and not how each bracket of players is viable vs similarly equipped players in that bubble of play. truth is they have addressed lower end scaling/balance iin the past. Its more a assumed fact by Arena players who presume only high end Arena play matters....altho its very typical of Gameriot readers to put Arena above all else.

I'm just saying here from a logical standpoint that balance matters in WoW in way more areas than the top end of Arena for PvP....which many here state/presume.

Now the 2nd part of this blog is about fun in WoW PvP. I recently had a reply that inspired this part of my blog. I stated in a blog that I enjoy the act of PvP, that it didnt matter to me if it was in Arena or BG's or world PvP, that i have fun in the act of PvP'ing period and find enjoyment in that period, and how i didnt need ratings, rewards, etc.. The reply i received was that i must be a glutton for punishment mostly in response to my enjoyment of BG's, and here is where i want to make a case for fun w/o it being Arena Team based Fun that so many players feel limited to.

First i'd like people to be honest about their team-based WoW play and how its generally done. When most of you hop in vent, get on some premade, and start playing are you free to play as you please? Or are you more being directed and told how to play and what to do? Do you have a leader calling out focusfire targets? Designated flag runner, designated middle zerg, designated flag stopper? How about on Arena teams? Is someone giving you focusfire targets? telling you to CC and lockdown a called target? How many of you are basically being told what to do when you PvP in WoW on your teams? Be honest please, because i know most players dont have it where they can do as they please in team-oriented serioius WoW play, if anything they are treated like players in a PvE Raid where they have to listen to the Raid Leader and what he wants done. It is far from freeform play, but that is part of its efficiency, its called so every player in that vent is doing the same thing for max efficiency to win.

But i ask... Is it fun? Is it more fun to be told what to do, who to CC, what position to play, who to focusfire when you PvP?

Here is another question..... Is fun predicated on winning for you then? So while you may not enjoy being told what to do in how you PvP from a serious team, does winning makeup for not really enjoying the robotic act of being told and executing what they tell you to do?(ex. keep so and so CC'd, dont nuke, just make sure you lockdown that healer)

Dont get me wrong i understand there are different degree's of directional play in PvP by a vent leader but i do feel almost all teams and serious PvP's are very directional and micro-manage jobs for each player more than the teams/players that dont really care too much. Dont any of you ever prefer the type of PvP where you can use any ability you want, improvise to a situation in how you feel is best, w/o the need to be so efficient everytime where it feels like ratings are on the line and someone about to nerd-rage at you if you **** up?

Even in the sense of Arena vs BG's i prefer the multi- bad player venue to matching up vs other similarly calibered players iin a 1:1 ratio that is high end Arena play for the most part. For as often as i hear/read high end Arena players knocking BG's and its bad players, i rarely if ever see any of them able to take on multiples and micro-manage different tabs to the level of ability they tend to think of themselves. To me that is skill. The player that can take on multiples by himself and not with a crutch (of a healer hiding behind him) is the most entertaining PvP i see iin any PvP video. The player who's role is to just lockdown that healer or CC that dps is not what i'd call entertaining or fun, from a PvP enjoyment perspective.

How can i enjoy BG PvP you ask? I enjoy the BG aspect of PvP since it gives you situations of bad, average, good players, in a random multi-player scenario without it being a preplanned focused role job like on a Arena/BG team. Its freeform, casual, and nobody is going to nerd-rage at you if you ****up. There IS skill in micro-managing multiples of players and succeding, even if they are all bad players. Ive done it all: dueling, worldPvP in WoWs early days, PvE 5 mans, Endgame Raiding, Arena, BG's, etc. and i can tell you i get more satisfaction from winning a 1v3 than i ever did in any 1v1 against a equally skilled player, and i will tell you winning that 1v3 was way more difficult. We often talk about WoW PvP on a scale of skill. BG play does take skill, but its a micro-managing of multiples skill. You think you are so good you dominate bad players, but how good are you without your pocket healers and preform around you, and how many can you take?

I still get the urge to login and kill people, and thats the only reason i still play WoW. Its not the loot, not the ratings, not any status symbol, but the enjoyment of just the PvPer in it and its creative possibilities. I'm sorry, there may be a skill cap for the highest rated players in Arena when it pertains to Arena, but there is no skill cap to PvP in general and the creative possibilities it brings w/ so many power choices for each situation, and just how many players you can micro-manage while maximizing the use of every ability you have. Fun in WoW for most players doesnt make much sense to me because most of you completely base it on Arena teams or premade BG teams, where your rolling someone w/o much 'play' involved or beating a comp you are the counter to, since its way less freeform than playing w/o preforms. I'm much more curious as to how/what makes PvP fun for you being told what to do, and how to play within these teams, why is that fun? ratings? rewards? only when you win because you only get the gratification that way as a team having performed your roles?

...just understand that enjoying the act of PvP is separate from PvP'ing to be recognized, rewarded, and rated :P and not all skill in PvP should be based on Teams, let alone Arena. There is no skillcap because every player here can maximize their potential against multiples of players to be better, even if they feel they've mastered their classes/makeups in a Arena setting of a 1:1 prearranged even player ratio. Skill is a subjective term, and i think most people here are very short-sighted when they speak of skill and its possibilities within WoW to display it or challenge themselves on a scale of 'skill'.

NBA Blog: Shaq to the Suns for Marion? WTF?!!111

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:07:25 -0500
I guess GM's are looking to the playoffs right now and their rosters to matchup vs other teams that are already stacked(Boston).

Shaq looked like a old has-been this season making 20mill~ on the worst team in the NBA, in large part due to his decline, and the Suns take that contract w/ 2 years left on it while giving up Shawn Marion? Granted Marion would've been a free agent at the end of the season and likely bolted, but still...

all i'll say about this trade is the Suns better at least get to the finals this year after this trade or they look really bad with this trade. They are supposedly looking to make another for a swingman/defender.

Meanwhile....

Gasol was traded to the Lakers earlier in the week for garbage also. Not even garbage, players that were detriments to the team like KwamelolzBrown, A. Mckie, and J. Crittenden(who was solid). Memphis supposedly did it to free up money to sign some big name FA in the offseason. Just crazy how stars these days are being traded for crap.

Lakers are looking like frontrunners for a NBA Championship along with Boston. Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, and maybe Denver rounding out that 2nd tier. Orlando, Indiana, Cleveland, Utah, Detroit, Golden State are all borderline IMO, altho things can change in the 2nd half of the season quite a bit.

Word is Cuban is looking to get Kidd although he denies it. Cuban had supposedly offered Josh Howard for Shaq which is unbelievable to me, JHoward can play and has a very bright future. Shaq is 38 and all but washed up, and only good in spurts. Who knows tho, maybe he can turn it on when playoffs come, and i guess thats what they are banking on....just such a huge risk.

Anyways expect more trades since GM's are looking at their division/conference rivals rosters and seeing if they have a chance in a playoff series...and alot are borderline on the level of Boston/Lakers currently.   The trade deadline is approaching.

In random NBA news, Webber has signed with Golden State. Why? I have no idea. Golden State plays up-tempo, Webber is as slow as a turtle. Only reason i can see is in halfcourt slow down tempo play since Biedrins isnt a big strong body. Its difficult to question Don Nelson, he makes stuff work.

Personally i'm predicting the Lakers win it all, that lineup right now is unbelievably stacked, and they are a very well rounded team. I cant believe they got Gasol. Boston might have 3 superstars(Allen, Garnett, Pierce) but they are beatable and thin.

Just cant see any of the other teams matching up with either the Lakers or the Celtics in a series, unless they make some moves soon.

to be continued...

Can WoW go backwards? Save the Servers Save the Game?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:13:24 -0500

On the first day Blizzard created the world. There were no PvP instances. PvP was done around Tarren Mill on many servers. No rewards, no ratings, just PvP for the enjoyment of it.

On the 2nd day Blizzard created BG's. There was only Warsong Gulch and AV initially. Players rejoiced, it was something new, teams were formed, and HWL's were made, while server politics played a major role in who was able to hit HWL.

On the 3rd day Blizzard created Interserver BG play. Players again rejoiced. The competition initially was based on server vs server teams. Forums were filled with server vs server trashtalk. Lasted about a week.

On the 4th day Blizzard created Arenas. Duelers rejoiced. Teams were formed and ratings were given. Rewards/Titles were awarded and the venue was emphasized as THE featured PvP playground of WoW and the basis of Class Balancing.

On the 5th day Blizzard created Welfare Epics. PvE'ers were envious, PvP'ers were ecstatic, and it was the cause of much bickering between Raiders vs Arena'ers.

On the 6th day there was a realization by many. PvP had expanded to levels far beyond what most had expected in a direction nobody could have predicted, but in a way that distanced players. There was no more forum trash talk. Very little forum drama. Very little use for guilds in regards to PvP, and everything was based on ratings and instance based PvP. In essence server play had no meaning anymore, server forum activity had died across the board, PvP had lost its soul, and WoW had become a hybrid FPS/MMORPG favoring E-Sport competition validity.

And here we are. IS it possible to go backwards? Can WoW reverse the expansion of PvP to ever become what it was? Where PvP Guilds had a place, server forums were active with PvP drama, in-server trashtalk was common, and you knew most everyone in the sandbox you played in?

So much work has gone into expanding the PvP options in WoW to give us 4 BG's, 3 Arena venues, and an emphasis on PvP that wasnt prevailent in WoW's earlier incarnation of its game. PvE was most of early WoW play and emphasis, and Blizzard has slowly gone the way of appeasing its casual PvP audience giving them a means to be competetive in PvP with the masses by cutting out alot of the PvE treadmill.

And still... PvP seems to be less satisfying than it was in WoW's early days for many. There is some hope, WotlK is on the horizon. However so are Age of Conan and Warhammer both based on PvP playgrounds in a sandbox rather than a instanced ladder of PvP play focusing on E-Sports competition. Will Arena players always enjoy Arena, if only class mechanics/rewards are changed up after each season? Can Blizzard compete with their soon-to-be rivals w/ a instance based Arena ladder vs PvP in a sandbox? Can WoW even go backwards and revert PvP back into the server-based drama fest it used to be?

One things for sure. Blizzard took a different approach to MMORPG PvP with its focus on Arena and E-Sport play. Can they ignore their competition and maintain this model as the backbone of PvP for the future of WoW while having a successful PvP game in the longrun?

Why shouldnt Casters have Spell Pushback?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:12:13 -0500
I mean isnt this the check to being able to cast from range? Doesnt a Hunter suffer pushback when hes hit while shooting his bow?

Melee is much more of a difficult mechanic due to lag and quickness of play(having to be in melee against a fast reacting player) in comparison. This is exactly why ranged attacks should suffer some drawback to keep it balanced in relation to the drawbacks of melee attacks.

Its a balancing factor to caster classes who can do major damage from ranged with direct nukes and not be hittable by their immediate target or be obviously visible to the target. They cant just stand there and focusfire through being hit, they actually have to 'play' and move for opportune times to be able to cast anything that isnt instant. Why isnt that balance?

I dont see a problem with this. At the very least i dont see nearly the problem many Mages do. Reading General this morning there are multiple threads QQing about spell pushback predominantly from Mages. And as i predicted prior to the weekend, Arena Balance strikes again with a already powerful classes using Arena representation to justify more buffing.

I'm sorry fellow Mages, but in terms of the masses Mages are generally fine if not overpowered. I know i'm not the only one that see's mages that can be very dominating when well played. Only in the prearranged box that is Arena, and i'd argue only at the very top end where teams are very efficient, might they need some help. However in most PvP common to most players Mages are extremely overpowered.

The reality of WoW balance is Arena is the worst venue to pretend to balance classes based on Arena Representation. If you think Hunters really needed buffs youre retarded. Only because Arena is so different than most other PvP in WoW based on different sized pockets of prearranged PvP in a LOS box can a balanced class be justified as needing buffs. The same exact situation Mages are using to get buffs currently. Why cant you Arena players admit there is a flaw basing the game on Arena Balance?

Imo alot of you get what you deserve by pretending to prop Arena on this pedestal of importance to WoW where it deserves to be the end all be all basis of balance. And yet you all constantly QQ about balance in WoW....where its completely based on Arena Representation currently. In essence you are getting what you want - a flawed system of balance based on a flawed artificial venue. Are you so blind as you cant see the flaws in resto druids supposedly being fine because they arent as represented in 5's? Hunters needing all those dispels, removal of deadzone, MS in a shot, etc. because of their lack of representation? Now Mages are the worst class in the game because Arena says so? Are you kidding me? :p

The longer some of you pretend to put Arena on this pedestal of PvP end all be all, the longer WoW will be horribly balanced. You contribute to what you constantly ***** about, the completely disporportional balancing in WoW based on Arena Representation. So the next time you cry and QQ about balance, think about what its based on because of you. Hardcore Arena players have the least justification to QQ about WoW balance because it is based on what you regard so highlly above everythign else in WoW.

lol @ Mages needing buffs....let alone Hunters needing them before. Or the idea that Resto's arent op'd due to lack of 5's representation just like SL/SL locks used to say when they were drain-tanking their anti's in 2's and 3's. Arena is truly the cause of alot of bad in PvP currently....while many of you here are the biggest supporters of it.

And Mages, no you dont need anti-spell pushback. I could care less what any top rated Mage says, since i can at least speak for mass play, not top 5-10% in a Arena bubble :p

So according to Arena, Mages need buffs...or is Arena balancing just retarded?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:13:31 -0500

http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/player/all/all/all/all/

You're probably going to see this spamming up alot of QQ threads in the near future. If i know the Mage class on the WoW forums there will be alot of threads pointing to this data saying Mages need buffs, just like Shamans have been for some time, and previously it was Hunters before their huge buffs.

There is a rather large divide IMO with the Mage class due to the twitch-based nature of the class, and many who play Mages arent very twitch-play oriented, and then wonder why they suck so bad as a Mage blaming the class's lack of abilities...when its their defensive/offensive reaction that lacks generally. Clicking just cant work with most Mage play no matter how fast you think you are. If you are not quick as a Mage then you are going to get beatup much faster, and while that may be true for every class, its true for Mages much much more.

With all of that said i'm a firm believer that Mage's that can play the class relatively well are overpowered. Mages that can play the class in the say... top 20% can be dominating at times in general PvP consistantly. My issue with Arena balance lies in the artificial prearranged matrix setups with limited slots dedicated for different class matrix's(DPS, Healer, Tank, etc). What i mean by that is lets say one DPS class is better grouped with certain players for CC, mana sustainability, etc. and lets say another DPS class isnt too far behind in overall strength and has their own advantages but some major weaknesses(mana) and still behind that DPS class who is clearly better in that Arena-oriented role. It then becomes the norm for Arena teams to take that top DPS slot class choice over the secondary DPS choice, mostly due to boxed in gimmicky based play(why iceblock has always been so important/requirement in Arena's vs outside).

Furthermore, the practicality of 5v5 Arena balance, which is what Blizzard emphasizes is the least practical to 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, world, and BG PvP. This is why i call the players understanding of Blizzard's means of balancing all of WoW mostly around 5v5 Arena the most ass-backwards approach any game makers can come up with. They sacrifice relative balance in 5 venues for the sake of 1 venue....because its a more inclusive venue and in many ways masks 1:1 balance due to the factors of 5 players aside. I believe it was also initially Blizzard's E-Sport 'model' venue until alot of people realized just how difficult it was to follow the action or be entertained by it, and it seems ESport players have gravitated towards 2's and 3's more than 5's since Arena started for whatever other reasons.

If you read the forums at all, you will see many players(Resto Druids in particular) passing off 2's and 3's Arena, BG, and World PvP as a joke next to 5v5 Arena, which they maintain is/was Blizzard's only intended Arena in design, and only after-the-fact decided to add 2's and 3's for Arena play. I'm not sure how true this is but i've read it on the forums fairly often from different posters. So the general conclusion from the masses of WoW PvP's tends to be that 2v2 will never be balanced and not to worry about any imbalance in it even if 1 class is all but required due to their effectiveness for high ratings, while 3's is borderline, and BGs/World PvP balance doesnt matter so they say. I have a major issue with this mostly due to the players that prefer 2v2/3v3/BG's/World far outnumbering the players into 5v5 Arena...not to mention the whole idea of PvP balance entirely revolving around 5v5 Arena being the least practical to all the other PvP fascets as i stated but want to emphasize.

I play WoW pretty casually these days. Almost at burnout quit levels, just teetering the line because i do enjoy the PvP mechanics in WoW. Its more fluid than other PvP games i have and is more timing based, regardless of how so many players try and portray it as skill-less. There is skill, more than alot of other games, and its not nearly as dumbed down to just tactical head shot skill like in these FPS"s alot of 'serioius PvP's' tend to prop. Thats probably why i cant let WoW go entirely...

but when i do login and play i feel overpowered against equally geared players, and even many better geared than myself of most classes. Its only when i've faced prearranged teams in a box like 5v5 Arena where i get focusfired and forced to Iceblock early, and focusfired againt afterward do i ever feel somewhat gimped. To me its a unique dynamic in prearranged 5v5 Arena that really doesnt apply to PvP in other situations because most PvP in other situations isnt that redundantly perfected to be the exact same for each 5v5 team that has done over a 100 Arena matches. I just know there is a big, i mean huge difference between 5v5 Arena and the rest of the PvP in WoW....in Arenas altogether but more in 5v5.

Anyways i'm just going to say if you honestly believe Mages need buffs within the current framework of class balance as a whole then i think youre nuts. I know i downplayed Icy Veins before but even getting this ability was entirely unnecessary. Now more buffs are going to come the Mage's way due to class representation in Arena's? Yeah i read Affix's Mage QQ and the only thing i agreed with him on was mana issues. So many classes tho can take away mana these days its completely excasterbated that issue for Mages who have only had bandaid fixes like the gem/evocate to that problem. Its even more exasterbated due to the enclosure that is Arena vs other real world situations/play. I know Affix is a better mage than i am so you dont have to **** on my like you did Faxmonkey (/lol), much less most of those big name Mages, but i wont bow to his word because i'm confident in what i experience against my equally geared(welfared out) opponents, and many times better geared players. I think even reading what he had to say he was very reluctant to call them underpowered at all, and i think this is how most well played Mages feel, they have to know their relative power in their play vs other classes currently.

And only in Arena does it seem there is such a huge disconnect of balance vs standard balance reality. Is WoW truly better off using Arena as its basis of PvP balance? 5v5 Arena being focused on as the balance model? Because i can tell you right now you give me another pew pew ability, something that adds to my play power, and not longevity(which should be addressed IMO) then i'm a way overpowered machine against generally equally geared opponents in general PvP. Only with Arena representation justifying/whining does it seem to me a class that is already overpowered can end up buffed even more. GG Arena balancing!!!111 Too bad i'd prefer Mages not be a OP FOTM class like so many others where class saturation(resto Druids :p) hits the class and every scrub/nub rolls it for high ratings and gear.

Truth is Mages are a 'balanced' class. Some classes are overbalanced in general PvP (resto druids) applicable to most PvP venues and need obvious nerfs. But what i DO want to be is honest about this, and WoW becoming more practical in how they balance the PvP in the game. Its why i criticize, because i care. This musical chairs of balance based entirely on Arena, mostly 5v5, does NOT work and only makes the game worse for the masses into PvP. The QQ/criticisms of balance since the inception of Arena speaks for itself. The excuses/blame on synergies between 2 classes in limited, slot-dependant, prearranged PvP in a box w/ preconceived gameplans is retarded.   And especially the expectation to balance every other synergy to be equal to that between any 2, 3, 5 other classes even moreso. It just makes no sense to me why Blizzard is so reluctant to do the obvious, reasonable, and most practical balance approach: 1:1 relative balance. Emphasize it between class roles in PvP and then further balanced between each class relative to another class as a whole.

No everyone doesnt need to be anywhere near the same for all those sheep thinking players out there for 1:1 relative balance, it just means that fights across all classes need to be relatively competetive in ability play, not where 1 trumps another, another trumps another, and another has no anti's because hes the FOTM. I mean how often are we going to repeat this cycle of retarded balance until we realize the approach to balance based on Arena is the underlying issue here? much less 5v5 arena based play being so focused on and being so impractical to all other PvP in the game for its masses? Blizzard Dev's must either LOVE reading the QQ from their playerbase constantly criticizing them for how awful this game is balanced in PvP or have one very stubborn head balance Dev really into 5v5 Arena for some reason :p

Bottomline: Arena representation buffing DOES NOT work towards balancing WoW PvP as a whole, in fact the opposite, and it will continue to be awful and QQ'd about, w/ forum spam constantly criticizing the Dev's of WoW until the whole assanine approach is changed.

QQ hardcore Arena nerd-ragers, your pet venue IS the basis of the issue of most of class balancing and FOTM's in WoW. Hunters getting the buffs they did due to Arena representation is a case in point. I shudder at my power if my Mage is given similar buffs due to Arena representation...because i surely do not need it when it comes to most realtime PvP in WoW against equally geared/overgeared opponents to myself. Only in the boxed in prearranged PvP that is Arena can a class that doesnt need buffing whatsoever be buffed :P

Telemarketers: Charities, Health Insurance, the Internet, and mass SPAM

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:24:56 -0500
About 3 years ago i was looking for Health Insurance. I wanted to see what was out there other than Blue Cross Blue Shield. At the time i wasnt sure how to really go about looking into Health Insurance options, and the best resource i could come up with was the internet.

So me being naive, i found a site that i cant recall the URL of that was exactly what i was looking for. A site where you give your info, some typical health insurance info about myself, and basically a contact number with a email address. This site supposedly would competetively price you the benefits across many health insurance companies and email you the info to choose from. I want to say it was called something similar to Insurance Selection database. Yeah yeah dumb me if you can see where this is leading.

As i've blog'd about before i run a family business. I was signed up for the DO NOT CALL LIST as soon as it was put into effect, the sheer amount of telemarketing calls i received before that was just absurd. The phone would ring literally every half hour from a different credit card merchant company, someone from AT&T, Verizon, etc. trying to play the switch to us for lower rates phone game, or some small automotive supply company based out in Texas that always pretended they had some limited stock of brand new military unused air hoses with some drawn out sales speech everytime they called :p You really have no idea how bad telemarketing was pre-DO NOT CALL LIST.

So alot of that was cutdown after it went into effect. The problem was i was still getting hit by all kinds of charity donation companies. Charities were one of the few exclusions to the DO NOT CALL LIST. Its funny the amount of charities that prey on small businesses or business's altogether, and whats sad about it is alot of these calls are from telemarketers making a rather large cut of what their collecting. For example the Fire Dept would call and ask if we could donate towards retired fire fighters and their activities saying they only ask each business once a year. It was odd because i'd get a call a few months later asking if we could donate to the fire dpt again for so and so reasons. I finally talked directly to a LT. in the local Fire Dept after he came to my shop for a yearly iinspection, and he told me not to ever give anything to any charity unless a firefighter came to pickup the check himself. He told me telemarketers have some deal with the state or certain fire depts where they try and raise as much money as they can, then take a cut of it, and give the rest to a fire dept's concert or play, but it is not a direct charity.

I later realized that this is very common. I used to have a charity call me up called Ex Prisoners of War asking for donations. After asking if they are telemarketers they admitted they were, but tried to play it off like thats normal procedure for these governmental agencies to collect charity donations. When in fact i talked to the local fire dept who again told me they do it directly themselves and come pickup the checks themselves with a voucher for a charity donation as a tax writeoff. You would be surprised at how many of these type of telemarketers there are abusing the charity system where they never tell you they are telemarketers but pass it off as a complete charity donation, even if the charity only see's a small percentage of what they collect.

So yeah the world is not perfect. This was one of those things i had to tolerate, and be vigilant of. I'd get calls from some lady whos sales speech was buy pens from handicapped kids really playing the sympathetic aspect of the speech talkiing about how bad some of them have it, and then telling me they are not a charity but to help the kids by purchasing pens from them. So i'm sitting here like WTF? this ***** in her sales speech is sitting here playing the sympathy cardhardcore making me feel awful about these kids, then claiming shes not a charity asking me to buy a $100 worth of pens? I mean can these telemarketers get any worse?....little did i know by just how much they could :p

All of these charity calls i just brought up were more or less pretty consistant whether it was on a monthly basis call, semi-annually, or annually. None of them called me everyday or even close. Except for a telemarketing company that used the names: RX Pharmacy, Insurance Selection Committee, etc(really dont know what other names they use). This company HAS to be based out of India or some middle eastern country. They all have very heavy middle eastern accents, some barely even understandable. Rewind back to me being dumb and naive, 3 years ago, putting my name through some Health Insurance Selection database and from that point forward i've been getting calls from this company at least every other day. Many times its from the same person who i think is theyre manager, and its almost like he tries to disguise his voice while playing different company names he is representing. One time he called using the RX Pharmacy name(most common), and i went along with it just to see how they work. He asked me if i was interested in any prescription drugs, i told him i wanted Viagra, he said he could get me a case for it for something like $200 and that i'd have to Western Union the money, I /lol'd and told him to go **** himself...literally.

Anyways to make a longer story shorter, this company has been calling me for 3 years to today. Calling my place of work(since i used that phone number as my main phone line) literally every other day. I've cussed them out, threatened legal action, told them i was on the DO NOT CALL LIST when it ws in effect and they kept calling me with no fear of repercussions. Its funny because after the last time i cussed the guy out who i'm pretty sure was theyre manager fronting another company with a fake voice, i've now been getting calls where as soon as i pickup they hangup. Just so you know i have 2 separate lines in my office, they are for different area codes both listed under the business. I get calls back to back hangups as tho they are making their 'rounds' (telemarketing calls) to show i guess their superiors that they infact made the call to the persons on their daily telemarketing list. Not only have they spammed me with phone calls i've received a ton of junk email from them as well :p

At this point i'm resigned to having to live with this. Just like i'm resigned to having to live with all the goddamn charity calls. The charity calls arent nearly as bad since they are way more infrequent, but WTF can i do to Telemarketers out of India? Are there even laws to protect me from these jackass's? Since even doing a search it seems i see other helpless people in a similar situation where they are being spammed or telemarketed without any recourse. Are there laws against telemarketers based out of other countries? I dont think so since they had no fear of any governmental anti-spam program like the DO NOT CALL LIST. They seem to have no fear of anything, even one of them going so far as to cuss me back out, lawlz w/ a very heavy indian accent, after i *****ed at him about calling me for the 1000000th time.

Anyways, just wanted to rant on telemarketers out of control, shadey under-handed businesses being a regularity based off of the internet or telemarketing altogether(i could go into fly by night collections/mortgage companies, other telemarketing schemes based on a 'club' membership, etc. but i'll save that for another blog), and ******* foreign telemarketers having no check because our laws dont apply to them apparently :p

The Round Robin of FOTM WOW Balancing Approach: Intended Approach or Accidental?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:36:58 -0500
Why is it throughout the history of WoW the one constant in PvP has been 1-2 particular classes each couple months being buffed to overpowered and end up FOTM w/ mass class saturation? Intended? or accidental through other changes?

I read General Forums pretty regularly. It oftentimes inspires what i blog about. Today i was reading this thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4071476597&sid=1&pageNo=5

The current Druid issue really bothers me. Not really because of 2v2 Arena brackets, but just how unstoppable Resto's are in all PvP that isnt vent'd 5v5 focusfire Arena to kill one. I dont care what BS excuse Druids makeup to justify their current power, the bottomline is what i see ingame and experience in play everytime i login, and its consistant. Just like that SL/SL Warlock draining and living through 1v3's w/ consistency before they got subtlely nerfed to reasonability. Again the same excuses that parallel Druids justifications its just funny how op'd classes latch on to the same excuses...and i mean the same exact excuses...

-"but we're not well represented in 5's therefore we're not overpowered" (#1 popular SL/SL Lock excuse prenerf since 5v5 dynamics will 'balance' any single op class)

-"Blizzard said they balance around 5v5 Arena, world, bg's, 2's, and 3's doesnt matter, and Blizzard only put 2's and 3's in as a afterthought while nocs about bgs or world because they are more training grounds for 5v5 arena" (WOW if this were true, not sayiing it is or isnt, wouldnt it be funny if Dev's really chose a design balance favoring 1 venue that is the least practical to the 4 other venues to PvP balance? I mean think about how backwards and illogical this approach is to PvP in the game as a whole IF its true.)

-"classes cant be balanced or everyone would be the exact same" (imo the dumbest of forum posters use this one, just kind of shows extreme ignorance in logical thought)

-"If you nerf us we'll be a ruined class" (again SL/SL lock antinerf plea to a T: notice SL/SL Locks are still very functional ;p)

-"We were free HK's before and now that we're finally 'balanced' and people cant get their free HK's from druids anymore they QQ" (as you can tell by now or have any semblance of memory from a few months ago, same exact Warlock excuse)

I could go on and on with the parallels between Druids now and Warlocks just recently in terms of the 'downplay'. Again if you have any memory at all of the SL/SL Warlock nerf discussions leading up to those nerfs you should be laughing at the irony every time you read an excuse from Druids today.

With that all said let me go back to my first point. So is the constant FOTM since the beginning of WoW in PvP balance intended? or accidental through other changes?

And this is where i see it as a little bit of both and where others probably chalk it up completely to accidental balancing due to the multitude of factors in a MMORPG. The problem i have with that is its too easy of a scapegoat. Other MMORPG's have mad much better relative balance. I dont think many people know why Blizzard increased the coefficient of lifebloom healing to such a large bonus. I dont either because it made no sense, buffing in smaller wait and see chunks sure.... I mean they almost tripled the heal stacking from what it was before, and Blizzard generally doesnt tend to do things in big chunks in most other situations. So why the huge increase all of a sudden in lifebloom? Very uncharacteristic of Blizzard. My answer would be to increase the Druid population, the same went for the Hunter buffs which many thought were overdone, but Hunters were prior to that a less played class due to the sense that they were weak due to deadzone abuse or lack of Arena representation.

I wish i could correlate past class populations to FOTM changes according to their related timelines but unfortunately i dont have that information. On a sidenote related to that i dont think Blizzard shoots for even # class balance across the board, because some classes are more important in saturation(warriors) for PvE groupability. I do think however much of the FOTM balancinig is intended, with much of the X unintended factor coming from resilience these days. Getting used to the resilience factor in WoW for each class and how it affects them overall took some time to weigh...not everyone started with 300plus resilience, and even then it generally takes the masses to reach that point to weigh the situation it creates. Resilience was a big part in op'ing the SL/SL warlocks, partly resto druids today, who already had great survivability prior to getting their resilience into the 400plus which made them harder to kill than Warriors....not to mention in conjunction with drains and dot healing. If you really try to think about this stuff then you can understand the multitude of factors/changes that can go into overpowering a class in many cases, but as i said when it comes to Druids, theres really not much of an excuse for the sudden and exponentially increased buff in Lifebloom heal stacking where you have to kind of look for other reasons.

But even prior to TBC and resilience this was the way of balance. About 2~ classes every few months have ended up overpowered, then FOTM saturating that class as its effect with rerolls. Play alts? If you do the effect is very evident in the low lvl leveling areas, i mean the amount of Warlocks you would see compared to every other class being rerolled was hugely disproportional. The same goes for Druids currently, seems every Arena player is rerolling one and preforming them through BG's to gear up currently. Its very likely the motivation for many of them to 'downplay' the power of the Druid class since doing all that work only to have him marginalized has to be frustrating..oh hey Faxmonkey!~

There havent been many periods where WoW didnt have a FOTM which supports my theory that FOTM is infact intended to a large degree. For those saying its impossible to have relative balance because every class would be the exact same please shoot yourself in the ass retards. Relative balance isnt difficult to achieve, its a question of the Dev's wanting relative balance vs class populations they can control through FOTM balancing. Another thing that is a Blizzard trait in how they do their games is they are big into 'gimmicks' or viewing a class in a bubble and wanting to make that class 'fun'. In this sense i think it lends some credence to the idea Blizzard could very much intend to purposely FOTM for that 'fun' factor....doing a round robin so each class gets their moment in the sun. The history of class balance in WoW is too wishy washy FOTM spread relatively evenly across all classes in WoW history to really conclude Blizzard is seeking relative class balance across the board at any time in WoW over the gimmiicky FOTM balance we constantly QQ about.

So my conclusion to my question is FOTM class balancing is intended to a large degree, and is the basis of Dev balance by and large, while other factors will always skew it to a degree that at times have to be addressed(such as Warlock + resilience factor). But they do know and have to know the saturation effect that occurs for these classes when they FOTM them w/o much of a priority to fix that saturation, and thats a big reason why i think its blatant, not always or nearly as much accidental as it seems.

PS I could probably go into Kalgan's history of being a UO dev that kind of parallels the wacky balance of WoW currently, but i'll save that for another blog. Altho i find it hard to believe Kalgan himself has so much power to be the basis for so much of the games mechanics/balance, whethter it was UO or WoW now. Can Kalgan have that much pull or do we unfairly blame him?

Affix vs Faxmonkey in case you missed it!!!11

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:19:22 -0500
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4064423957&sid=1&pageNo=1

dramalolz....anyways i must say i like Faxmonkey generally but hes wrong. I remember Ming specifically at one point saying Resto Druids were bad in one of his blogs right before everyone realized they were pretty unstoppable healers. I just think alot of the top Arena players more or less mimic the fotm makeups and are late to some parties....regardless its not just stars tears because they are unstoppable outside of Arena as well :p ...but really to try and black and white it like faxmonkey's trying to do is assanine.

and while the Mage community is piling on Affix, it took someone w/ that name value to really throw Faxmonkey off his horse a little bit so good **** Affix, even if you are a tight jew on your mods...

the funniest thing about these Resto Druid defenses is they use the same EXACT excuses Warlocks used before their nerf telling everyone any nerf would ruiin them, i mean 100% exactly the same stuff from top to bottom....see my previous blog on this irony(written maybe a month ago)

Here are some points i'd like to bring up on this topic:

1) Dont Pally's and Priests go down faster than Resto Druids after bubble/PS(as they say 'gimmiick 5v5 arenas) are burned?

2) Doesnt every healer class(let alone any class) die when focusfired by 3 people so can you really call that a specific Resto Druid weakness like so many presume to do?

3) When exactly does a healer need to heal someone for 20k other than in a raid, and more or less one specific situation in a raid(boss fight)?

4) Why do so many people of a particular class tend to deny what the masses see as obvious? its always something like "why dont you figure out a way to beat us instead of QQ?"....like i said Locks said the same thing ;p

5) How come PvP's presume a class is 'balanced' based on Arena representation in different brackets, and especially 5's? Wouldnt that only be 'reward balance' but not true class balance due to the needed gimmick abilities to be in 5's due to 3-4 man focusfire? I wish i could word this better, but if 5's is more or less based completely around a long CD gimmick ability for each class strong in it, does that really speak for PvP balance of the class? more than 2's and 3's? Just seems like its not really class balance, but a quick easy way for Blizzard to make each healer viable to get Arena rewards...and its like every WoW player assumes Arena representation across all brackets = class balance.

Bring the played out Warlock excuses Druids....heard them all before /yawn

Premade vs PUGs part2 the aftermath of AV Weekend: BG's meant as a grind for rewards or a fun competition venue?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:33:03 -0500
See my previous blog titled Premades are a joke or something along those lines made just prior to this AV Weekend. I used to think the honor grinding reward focused players purposely premade'ing vs pugs for fast honor had no case to stand on. However its really come down to a subjective view on what BG's are in WoW....and more importantly what the Dev's think....

Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=106731334&sid=1&pageNo=2

Its a pretty blunt and honest QQ about the current system from the standpoint of the Reward-focused player forming a Premade and having to play other teams. More than a few weighing in supporting him, and many against him. It seems there are very large segments of players on both sides. The underlying difference in views comes down to grind for rewards vs venue for fun. Is there a wrong and a right in this case?

Ironically Drysc commented favoring the competetive balance of the venue.

Granted, the whole QQ from the reward focused players who think its their right to be able to earn fast honor by organiziing Premades and rolling PUG's seems lame. Its against the spirit of competition any way you look at it. Except if you look at it from the standpoint of BG's just being a grind for rewards. In that sense it would be similar to someone forming a group and doing instances for faster experience than the solo player is getting.

But there is a flaw with that analogy. BG's are players on both sides, many que'ing up for enjoyment of the venue, and not being the victim of a 1-sided fast honor roll. Couldnt the same logic of it being a 'grind' be applied to Arena in the same way to shortcut the climb, if there were shortcuts to Arena, to get to the rewards? Would that excuse hold water when it comes to Arena being a grind for rewards? Or is Arena too new or a 'venue of skill' to be categorized as a grind even if its in S3?

I'm very bias on this issue, so its tough to try and look at it from a middle ground standpoint. However it seems to me the masses of PvP's feel like they should be able to form Premades to roll PUG's for faster honor to get to their rewards w/o any mechanic put in to force them into fighting other Premades. I think that mentality is way more prevailent than that particular thread indicates. If anything its a common perception from most of the 'hardcore PvP crowd'.   In one case you have a segment of people who think BG's are a joke and just a grind, while Arena is all that matters. In the other you have people who think BG's are/should be a competetive venue in WoW and que into them for such...

It just seems like the bottomline is play vs grind...and the perception players have of BG's. Premades by and large dont enjoy playing Premades despite how most talk...the point of every Premade i've ever seen was for fast honor. The same is evident in the General Forums thread i linked, at least that OP was being more honest than 90% of Premade players. BG's are 3 years old and havent changed much in theyre defense. At the same time Arena is the only other viable PvP outlet, so 'competetive PvP venues' would be limited to Arena only if Blizzard gave in to the idea its in 'theyre' right to earn faster honor by being 'more social' and forming Premades to roll PUGs....

But it also gives in to a mentality that is the biggest problem in WoW, and why these type of venues shouldnt of ever had rewards that drive players to do them as an incentive in the first place. Players end up not wanting to 'play' them but force themselves thru them in the shortest route possible for its rewards. Time and time again this ends up the case...

I think i'm echo'ing 1 or 2 posters who replied to my last blogs when i say it seems like its one of those gray areas of human nature vs integrity of competetive PvP in WoW. I mean like others have said, its difficult to blame players for forming Premades...its human nature to get bored after so much redundancy, altho at the same time its difficult to swallow a PvP venue favoring being anti-competetive and catered to the reward-driven mentality of PvP play.

Premade vs PUG excuses are such a joke...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:22:19 -0500
for why they form Premades. Why can't most of these players(errr AFK'ers...oh hey :p) be honest and just say "we form teams to roll PUG's for fast honor so we can get our loot"? Why are there so many other reasons, i mean completely illogical retarded reasons, some of these Premade players come up with to justify Premade vs PUG beat downs?

See General Forums threads, multiples of them btw, on the eve of AV weekend...during a time where Premades across all battlegroups have become common with 3rd party AV programs to que...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=4028096504&sid=1&pageNo=2

I mean you'll hear every dumb excuse in the book in that thread for why the current system is fine. Silly stuff...like "so what if we want to play with our friends, the system is fine"....."why dont you just form a premade too instead of ruining it for the rest of us"....."everyone would have 45 min que times if they made premade fight premades"....i mean the amount of excuses, retarded excuses, for why Premade vs PUG must stay in tact are just assanine.

Look i do believe there are a few Premades out there seriously seekiing competition in BG's. However at the same time i hope you arent so naive to believe the masses of Premades are specifically formed currently to abuse the system for fast honor, and the biggest victims in this are the non-premade abusing the system players....more or less the casuals. The ones who have sucky gear, that cant get on Premade teams, just like in this thread. They make a great point. Its the worst of the worst being victimized by a collection of the hand picked over-geared/well played players from a server.

I've always maintained the whole idea of Premade vs PUG is wrong. In a game of 2 sides competition should be the basis of play. The problem is Blizzard IMO only reinforces the 'competition' aspect of games when there are ratings to it. So Arena is the only venue of play where they will worry about competetiveness and people abusing the system to get to rewards faster. Just recently i wrote a blog that 'everyone should AFK to force Blizzards hand t fix the AFK issues in BG's', coincidentally they announced hardline measures to deter AFK'ers in BG's shortly thereafter. To me this is another example of the lack of care Blizzard has for anything but Arena, and only when things become so excasterbated of an issue similar to the AFK'ing that was spreading and becoming rampant does it seem like they will act. I cant stand how Blizzard is so ladder focused in their games based on ratings and just overall standing type of gaming, while pretending like nothing else really matters in terms of competition because there arent standings/ratings/ladders. It really feels this way in terms of the bias attention they throw towards one thing and nothing else.

So yeah there is supposedly a matchmaking system in place that theyre scared to over-set(supposedly its set with alot of room for leeway currently) because they want to take a wait and see approach.....but wtf are they so worried about the end result of creating a more 'competetive' league of play? Because it doesnt have ratings? because many fights arent 100% prearranged and fair so you might as well not worry about it? Which was Blizzard's attitude in regards to balancing based on Arena where Arena is supposedly the only place where competetive competition matters....due to fights in other situations being unfair sometimes. Well guess what dumbass's? There are many fights that are close to fair or fair in many world PvP, BG, etc. situations, and just because there is zerging doesnt mean it shouldnt have balance, or you shouldnt have to worry about the venue being balanced/competetive.

They did the same exact thing with HWL climb. They knew what was going on, they knew the climb promoted anti-competetive PvP stacking the deck to abuse the system for faster rewards, preying on the undergeared casuals, but they didnt do **** about it. In this sense Blizzard is to blame because its almost like they promote it as an advantage to being 'social'....kind of like how 5v5 Arena is considered King of Arena because its the most inclusive and social Arena venue :p

I dont respect Premade teams whatsoever anymore. Most are wannabe honor leechers, very few are in it for the competition, and these days they have become way more common due to the deterence of AFK'ing. The AFK'ers have to makeup the honor they get somehow, and if they cant just leave their computer on during a weekend with a macro program, next best thing is to form a Premade to roll PUG's for heaps of honor.

I'm sure i'll get flamed for this because Gameriot does tend to have alot of pro-premade honor focused players, and AFK braggarts....granted you all justify it with how boring BG's are, but i hope you realize that there are people your walking on and taking advantage of when you did your AFK'ing, or when you make your argument BG's should allow Premade vs PUG because you dont want to accumulate honor at the rate it was intended, that everyone else has to. Or because they are boring so you just want to sit there while everyone else does the work for you a man down because of you.....yeah i'll get flamed but as i've said before i have my 5yrold flame retardant comeback suit on just in case

At this point you have to think Blizzard keeps things this way on purpose because many of them probably feel the same way. I've got no doubt some DEv's are just as jaded as some of the players with BG's where they have the same mentality that BG's are boring but need a way to gear up alts with the least work/fastest route possible. Where to them competition or a competetive environment doesnt really matter because its only BG's...to a point. Since they at least had to address the AFK issue because it was spreading so fast as well as being a reason for a battlegroups 90% onesidedness due to so many AFK'ers in that BG(stormstrike?). Too bad that cant happen here with this situation.

AV Weekend w/ MLK's birthday making it a 3day weekend for some....and judging by the amount of QQ i've seen on General already, the amount of Premade forming i've seen on the servers i have toons on, there is going to be ALOT of QQ come monday/tuesday on this issue....

So as graphics and technology improves, MMORPG's digress in scope?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:18:51 -0500
Today's blog is about something i've always wondered, and its something thats bothered me everytime i think about the direction of MMORPG's since UO. Everyone probably see's how often Ultima Online is talked about or referred to quite a bit in MMORPG discussions. There is a reason for that. The sheer scope of UO was by far bolder than anything thats come out decades later. In its first 2-3 years UO had more activities for everyone to do across all types of playstyles than every current game by far. There were so many fascets to it, that had depth, that when you look at games now they have 1/2 or less the scope UO did.

To truly appreciate what UO was you'd have to have played it in its first few years. Watch it evolve from a no buffered open playground to the all fascets you can probably think of in a MMORPG, again the most impressive thing about that was it had depth in many of those fascets. To give a few examples was there was the whole PvP thing going on constantly for the PvPers in towns and the world and dungeons. The PvE economy and tradeskills setup revolved around item decay and crafting suits to sell on personal vendors across locales of houses in a very straight forward way. So the PvP tied into the economy and directly into the tradeskills in a more direct working way than most MMORPG's today to almost feell like a real working player driven economy.

There is no way i can possibly convey the scope of UO in a single blog. Lets just say it had everything for everyone. Every type of gamer had something in UO that catered to them. Didnt like PvP? You could become a tradeskiller(miner, fletcher, blacksmith, etc.) and try to become rich enough to play the real estate house selling market. You dont want to play a Real Estate agent? You could go buying 'rare' houses with all that trade skill money you collected with your house sitting alone on a seclusive mountain next to all kinds of ore to mine and play a 'retired' elife. Not into houses? You could get into the 'rares' market that had a website dedicated to all UO transactions that was active 24/7, and sometimes so active your threads would fall off the page a minute after posting it. I loved the ability to make trades, sell, or buy out of game or when i was at work....

I could go on and on with the sheer scope of UO and just how much depth it had compared to every current MMORPG on the market. I mean they actually had it where you could become a fisherman, buy different sized boats with hauls to store your loot, and go out fishing for sunken treasure. Yes you could fish up treasure chests with all kinds of possible 'rares', gold, items, paintings, potions, etc. in them. You could fish up a sea monster that could kill you. You could even go treasure hunting using maps you fished up, shovels around coordinates, and finding buried treasure on land if you had the proper skills for it. There was even boat to boat PvP....Even roleplayers were catered to...in many cases they had their own roleplayed towns. I mean areas where they designed their house placements to form a roleplayer community with forges, anvils, etc. that people could use. GM's gave them special favors at times but looking back its truly impressive the sheer scope of UO had, and i havent even delved into 1/4 of it. Even such things as weapons all had their own pluses and balance to them where each worked differently...somewhat similar to mace proc'ing in WoW but way more defined in terms of each weapon having an advantage/disadvantage another didnt.

I look at MMORPG's today and they are all way prettier, not much block looking graphics, and all feel more 1st person'sh w/ little scope in its gameplay. Then i wonder...will MMORPG's ever reach the scope of UO again? Despite vast improvements in technology, server latency, and learning lessons from past MMORPG"s that learned the hard way MMORPG's have gone backwards. Why? Why have they have become much more narrow in scope? Why do they have 1/100th the depth UO did? Why are they going backwards despite UO being remembered as one of the alltime 'classics' of games in general, but especially when it comes to MMORPG's? No MMORPG since UO has been able to or even attempted to create a world filled with just sooo many things to do, such scope in its gameplay from all aspects, that its remarkable that its almost 20 years later....and nothing holds a candle to it in terms of overall gameplay ;p

It makes me wonder more than anything what is deter'ing companies from re-creating something similar to UO with todays technology? Just something with that type of well-roundedness, not limited to direct PvE, PvP play/issues which is most MMORPG's today because theyre focus is so completely narrow. Why hasnt this been done yet?   I mean how many MMORPG's have come out since then? dozens and dozens with the same narrowed down scope pretty much replicating EQ's original architecture of gameplay...and nobody has attempted to do UO?   Why? just why?

I dont know anything about the technical aspects of making/creating a game. The only reason i can think of logically for the 'why?' would be that creating a game like UO today would be too daunting of a project for anyone to fund, since its hard enough for games with narrowed down scopes to succeed as things are, and something with as much depth in play as UO would probably be 10x's more difficult to do. Or that creating that type of world was much easier back then using more simplified programming/graphics during that time where it might be a nightmare trying to do that with the complexity of today's technology, and updating everything to today's standards. For whatever reason i dont know why it hasnt but there must be a reason...

It seems the EQ architecture has become the prefered spinoff of design since those early days of MMORPG's when they were new and much more different than what they've become today. Its sad to see games copycat'ing EQ design over UO and opting for the more narrowed scope in gameplay more or less based around PvE and Raiding at endgame vs the one that had just about everything for everyone and just so much variety. Even 3rd person MMORPG's with the same possibilities of creating a UO world/feel...something like ShadowBane which had all the 'player be able to build stuff' in its code, the play perspective felt alot like UO, opted for pure hardcore PvP based gameplay to a fault. It just seems every MMORPG nowadays has gone backwards in terms of complexity/scope since UO and its sad they've all more or less mimic'd EQ's more singular focused design....while many have ended up niche failures

Everyone AFK'ing = Blizzard addresses AFK...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:00:58 -0500
Lately on General there has been a ton of posts about AFK'ing asking Blizzard to fix it. Its a regular topic there since forever but recently AFK's have become more common in other BG's as well. Not as much as AV obviously because that is where most of the honor is given per game. But recently its become a very popular player issue on the forums for whatever reasons and the QQ is nonstop on General....while Blizzard tends not to care nor reply with anything like "we are currently working to resolve this issue" to give players some assurance that they at least plan to address it.

The contrast of Blizzard's treatment of Arena vs BG's is like night and day. It is amazing to me how much this company can focus on one particular venue of their game that is less played day to day than the other to such an extreme....and overall a very big aspect of the game still(BG's i mean). Every issue Arena has had along these lines of circumventing the system has been met with a harsh deterrent within weeks. They went as far as making changes to player ratings being personal to stop players from jumping teams to sell/give other players undeserved high ratings, then later threatened bans and taking away all their points when Area teams were again circumventing the system to reach abnormally high ratings.

If the same harsh deterrents were put in place for BG's most of the issues that pop up on the forums everyday, including here, would be non-existant. Who is going to risk account banning or complete honor wipes if they are caught AFK'ing in a BG? Even if they had 1 GM going server to server and only banned 5 players across all battlegroups in a week and it became known news on the forums that would deter many from AFK'ing for free honor. Nobody is going to risk that, its simply not worth the drawback of being caught vs all the time they've already put into their toon lvling/equipping along with the risk of losing all that 'earned' AFK honor. So the issue is very easily fixable to a degree based on Blizzard caring. That 'fix' is also minimal work on Blizzard's part. I mean just instilling the fear of something extreme for circumventing the system will deter most, if not all AFK'ers, just simply isnt worth it with those repercussions.

I've seen an increase in AFK'ers of late across all BG's i que, even WSG. Some people get so angry at them it kind of makes me laugh because at this point i'm numb to it, even if i think its lame, its so common that its the norm to me.
Its sad because i know others feel this way, that they are helpless to do anything about it, so why not just ignore it and play instead of going thru nerd rage on some AFK idiot sitting in the tunnel....if you want to bring up the AFK report feature it is a joke. Everyone playing is too busy fighting or trying to meet objectives to win than staring at their BG map for 20 minutes to see if a guy in some remote area moves. You also have idiots who yell in channel to report someone AFK who isnt AFK...this feature is not a practical deterrent given player behaviour and the time/focus it takes watching someone to be sure they are AFK'ing instead of maybe grabbing a drink and getting back to their keyboard.

Its clear at this point that Blizzard doesnt have any immediate plans to address AFK'ers. AFK'ers have also as a result of Blizzard's inaction become more common and bold. As i said they have also started leaking into other BG's so the issue is becoming more pronounced. Simply put Blizzard will not do anything until this issue becomes extremely problematic to them and the players because BG's are a very low priority to them despite the amount of activity it gets.

The solution: Everyone start AFK'ing. Now i know some of you 'holier than thou' players will say "then you'll be just as bad as them"....my response would be "but i want to get something done not this BS where you idiots pretend the players can actually control anything in regards to AFK'ers while pretending Blizzard isnt directly accountable for this type of issue". It isnt a player issue its a Blizzard issue that they are too lazy/non-caring to fix because they easily could in the same harsh manner they 'fix' any/all Arena issues. The idea that players have any practical means to police this and deter it is just assanine.

I'm already tired of hearing all of the Ritual of Refreshment and prebuff QQ from everyone in a tunnel pregame. You summon 1 it goes before you can get any in AV tunnel...then you hear QQ from people just getting in yelling "Mage Table?"...and cmon that 40 int isnt going to make the difference in anything you do in the next 5 minutes before you get your face smashed in by some zerg :p

So yeah at this point i'm joining the AFK party....i'm already jaded by the masses of 5man PvEgeared players in BG's pretending that 40int is going to matter on 20/40 players who are goign to die in 5 min's or that mage tables are theyre 'right' and my responsibility on their time table of whenever they que in for their first game. I'm quickly caring less and less for how others feel about what i do. I know i'm going to hear QQ/flames directed at me but its for the good of the game as a whole that i make this sacrifice...and i encourage everyone else who enjoys BG's to do the same. You will be martyrs in my eyes for this altruistic act to better the game. It is the only means to force Blizzards hand to get BG's addressed/fixed....

I hope to see you all in the tunnel AFK'ing with me!!!!1111

Korean-Americans: Can you relate?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:23:01 -0500
-your parents force you to take piano/violin/flute or some instrument no matter how much you didnt want to.

-your mom beating the **** out of you if you came home with anything lower than a B.

-most other koreans you know, even the ones born in the U.S., have korean accents?

-you grew up having to help your parents small business

-you were forced into going to a korean church every sunday not by choice.

-all the korean people you know hang out with more or less only other koreans?

-most koreans you know drive Honda's?

-when you were young had a curfew way earlier than every other 'American' kid?

-parents into korean video soap opera's and talent/game shows that feature people in Don Johnson neon T-shirts, white sportjacket attire w/ their sleeves rolled up? then your mom pretending Korea is the hub of fashion?

-Dangjang jigge stink up your house? always being careful not to eat kim-chi before going out?

-parents embaress you bigtime with anything revolving around the opposite sex/relationships?

i could probably go on but i'll stop at this...

Player Housing gets knocked too much by PvPs...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:21:39 -0500
Not sure if most of you that are so against it have ever played other mmorpg's, or only came from FPS's. Not sure if you ever played UO. I wouldnt be surprised if many of you havent since the mentality of PvP's in WoW is abit different than the mentality of your average PvP's in many other MMORPG's. What i mean by that is many PvP's in WoW seem to think Arena is a perfect PvP scenario, and arent bothered whatsoever by it being a prearranged, artificially setup instanced venue for PvP.   Many of you tend to argue for everyone to be the same for more competetive fights, but that is contrary to the whole idea of what a MMORPG is, and the plus sides it has vs a FPS. To me, many of the WoW PvP's tend to want the best of both worlds, which in many ways is impossible due to the nature of each....and in that sense WoW PvP's to a large degree differ from PvPs from other MMORPG's.

In contract, someone that has likely played UO, EQ(PvP server), AC(PvP server), DAOC, ShadowBane, etc. have likely experienced world PvP at its finest. They probably know how much better it can be than the Arena setting we currently have, because there is more a sense of sandbox, drama, and worldly feel to it almost in a high school sense. Arena feels like a detached tourney, while world PvP done right can feel like so much more with so many fascets/crews/drama/storyline to it that IMO there is no comparison. Arena just has no sandbox feel to it which is the biggest advantage MMORPG PvP has over FPS style PvP, character customization withstanding.

Before i get carried away with WorldPvP vs Arena, back to player housing :p It seems alot of you assume its only for dressup Barbie type of players. Players that just want to play 'house', dress it up with pretty furniture, gardens, etc. like the SIMS. Sure player housing does that, at least UO's did. They did their best to appease many of the roleplayers in that game, and to a roleplayers focused credit, its thing of this sort that enhances the whole aspect of the world. From top to bottom, from PvE to PvP in that setting, player housing for the most part was a huge complement to the world, more than most of you that havent experienced those games before realize.

Truthfully, i can only put UO on a pedestal for housing. The rest i'll complement for their world PvP, but most only had instanced housing. Basically an instanced apartment where players could furnish or store their stuff. This is the route most MMORPG's have gone since UO because it doesnt clutter up the landscape, but it feels so much more cheaper and a step back that its disappointing the whole idea of player housing has gone backwards since UO.

UO was amazing in alot of respects. One of those respects was player housing and the hangouts it created, as well as neighbor vs neighbor action, with the ultimate worst case scenario possible in any mmorpg - getting your house looted if you lost the key(or due to some exploit). I cant tell you how often or how enjoyable the PvP was in small world PvP pockets based around where people 'lived'. IT truly created a sense of territory that i dont think anything else implemented in the game could where people would naturally PK around their house, and there was never an under-abundance of targets due to so many people doing things around their house....trying to defend their house and its immediate area so they can do what they want to do around it, etc.

The housing in UO had issues that players QQ'd about, mostly in regards to lag. That issue these days is much less. Consider that sometimes in UO it could take 5 minutes to get from one screen to the other, but it was also the first mass played mmorpg to come out in the U.S. Needless to say server lag has been improved significantly since then. The other issue was clutter. To me this was a positive aspect of PvP, negative to roleplayers/PvE'ers. Houses in UO in some situations would be placed very close to one another. House upon house of all sizes were clustered in some areas to the point it created narrow alleyways you had to run through, very similar to a maze. I cant tell you how fun it was running through these mazes PvP'ing, having people run in and out of their houses, afraid to come out thinking your going to break iinto their house and loot it, etc. I'll never forget these times because i've never experienced PvP in any game as enjoyable as these memories of PvP in narrow alleyways, between houses, with so many people becoming involved because it was in their 'neighborhood' coming out of the woodwork.

I wish i could really depict the scenarios better so some of you could maybe imagine them to know just how great of a setting it was for PvP. Sooooooooooo much better than Arena. While player housing completely enhanced almost every aspect of it. It just all in all created a sense of territory that i dont think any other implemented feature could possibly come close to creating, and thats what i think alot of you are missing in terms of how player housing can enhance the PvP in WoW if done correctly. Alot of PvP's are very close minded because i dont think alot of PvP's know better or have played some of the other MMORPG's that did things differently. Many of you just dont seem to know that Arena is so much less than what the PvP in WoW can be...unless your really the FPS type completely partial to ladder type PvP games done in a bubble, and not a sandbox.   I can completely understand this mentality with pro-WoW players trying to win tourneys and treat it more as a competition for $$$$. However if you treat WoW as entertainment whatsoever i think your doing yourself a disservice by not being open-minded to player housing. It does alot more than entertain people who just want to play 'house'...

Ironically Druid balance is justified in the same way pre-nerf SL/SL Lock was...

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:00:15 -0500
where the class itself is op'd in most PvP situations but only balanced by zerg focusfire in 5v5/mass pvp. Its the same justification that used to be used for SL/SL Locks when they were OP"d, prior to any nerfs to SL/SL Locks where they dominated smallsided but werent represented in 5's as much, which was the justification used to call them 'balanced'. Most knew Warlocks werent balanced pre-nerf(some still dont), just like most know Resto Druids arent right now either...but again its the same justification to justify they arent OP'd due to the zerg focusfire present in 5's. In fact you can make the case no class can ever be OP"d in 5's since no class can sustain 3-4 player concentrated focusfire.

I've done alot of random PvP where Resto Druids are practically unstoppable. Compared to any other healer class in most PvP situations, they by far have it the best. Priest, Shaman, Pally are all easily locked out...some not easily because they play their class well, but equally skilled RestoDruids have things much easier in keeping player(s) up in most general PvP situations. I probably run into 20% of Priests, Shaman, or Pally's who are nearly the difficulty of 90% of Resto Druids so its not a skill for skill equality in healing effectiveness. What it is generally is they have no real anti-class like every other healer does, at the very least a class or classes that can prevent them from healing. Let me explain:

A solo Rogue can completely lockdown most Priests or even Shaman through the use of CC, stuns, etc. by themself to prevent them from healing. Pally's are VERY prone to spell locks/counterspells, along with Priests and Shamans to top it off.   As a Mage i can lockdown those classes as well. Priest is subject to CS. Shaman is subject to CS after i kill his totem. Pally is easily subject to CS after bubble. The funniest thing about this is, it is sooooooooooooo much easier to do that against all of these classes by and large, than to keep a Resto Druid from healing to kill his target. I cant emphasize the difference in difficulty on a regular basis enough when i run into these classes.

So you might say "well you play a Mage and its a known fact Mages cant kill Resto Druids"....my reply would be what class individually can? Like so many individual classes can like Pally's, Shaman, or Priests, at the very least keep them locked down and unable to heal. They suffer a double whammy because not only are they locked down in the movement aspect, but they are locked down once they try and throwout anything with a cast time, if they can manage it through the CC/Snare being hit. Druids suffer maybe 1/4 of these issues due to being unsnareable and obviously healing with HoT's...only when they try and cast a regrowth or are feared do they have to deal with remotely the issues other healing classes have to deal with.

I have yet to see rogues regularly stunlock resto druids to death or be able to regulary prevent them from healing. I've actually seen multiples of them on a Resto Druid at times and still see the Resto Druid able to get away while hot'ing himself and his target. Dont see Warriors stopping them either. Both seem to be easily kited, so long as the Resto Druid HoT's himself to live thru a stunlock, and doesnt do it way after the fact like a retard. Both on the otherhand can wreak havoc to any/all Priests/Shaman/Pally's.   I mean its not even close in terms of effectiveness of a counterclass to prevent a healer from healing. Resto Druids by far have no specific class that can keep them down like every other healer has. Granted other healing classes get gimmick abilities like Pain Suppression, Bubble, etc. but they are very limited long timer abilities that arent/cant be spammed and not a regular part of their play.

The truth is Resto Druids parallel the situation with SL/SL Warlocks prior to the SL/SL Warlock nerfs. They dominate small sided brackets. The same defensive excuses are used where they act like they are 'balanced' or some even saying they need buffs(just like some SL/SL Locks were...) because of their lack of representation in 5's....and the most idiotic common statement is "but they die to focusfire"....just like SL/SL Locks used to say because they had no true Anti....until rogues/warriors were buffed, Dots were nerfed, at least to compensate for SL/SL Lock OP'dness. At this point Rogues/Warriors are capable Anti's to SL/SL Locks, at least much better than before when they were drain-tanking those same classes. However Resto Druids currently have NO anti, very few buffers to what they can do healing-wise, and arent in line whatsoever with the other healing classes. The only thing they lack is a gimmick group ability which is why they arent as viable in 5's, which is the basis of 5's more or less :p ...dont give me that "we're not well represented iin 5's therefore we needs buffs" BS SL/SL Locks used to say =P

ITs just funny how Blizzard repeats the same problems they created before with how they balance. They are so incompetent and backwards in how they do these things, where you have to really question them at this point.

I didnt go into Cyclone which is a huge QQ'd about aspect of Druids by Arena players but to me thats not really the basis of what makes them OP'd...which is why i didnt. Its healing for healing ability vs CC/lockdown/anticlass. Most PvP in WoW is small-sided, its where they excel, its why there are so many Resto Druids all over BG's nowadays, and its why its almost impossible to kill one without 3-4 person focusfire, much in the same way SL/SL Locks were.

Flame me Resto Druids, i'm rdy w/ my 5yrold flameretardantcomebacksuit....and Locks this isnt aimed at you, just the parellel'd denial of OP'dness is....and F-you Blizz, you are just completely clueless and assbackwards in how you balance repeating the same **** you have to patch-nerf-fix over and over again...retards!!!!111

Why are so many WoW Premade players against Team vs Team, PuG vs PuG BG's?

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:03:58 -0500
I've been reading a lot of these posts on General probably due to WSG weekend just wrapping up. Threads like this, there are multiples of them:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=3706996610&sid=1&pageNo=3

In all of them there is a segment of players who seem to be very in favor of teams rolling pug's. They make points that its a MMO so its supposed to be a group based game that rewards interaction so therefore they've earned the right to rollover PUG's by being more organized. This is one of many i've read justifying why Premade Teams should be able to rollover PUG's. Others i've read are that nothing is fair with gear anyways, so why QQ about PUG vs Teams? Its just another unfair venue of play to the many in WoW. My favorite tho has to be "but PUG's can beat Teams if they try"....... lawlz.

I've never understood why Blizzard hasnt implemented a Team vs Team, Pug vs Pug system after 3 years. They instituted a MUCH MORE elaborate team ratings system for Arena that had to have been 100x's more complicated than separating Teams from PuG's in BG's. Especially after the obvious HWL climb teams earning fast honor which is/was well known and the prefered means of reaching those ranks across every server. To the point of que dodging other teams, and completely preying on PUG's, it still hasnt been 'corrected' even with how blatantly its (been) done, and with regularity to this day. It was bad enough when all of the top PvP's for each faction formed their allstar teams to pharm fast honor and the politics of whoever had control of that team had control of who reached HWL back then per server. I mean i thought stuff like this would be deterred by game dev's, at the very least something put in at some point to promote competetive matches between any randomly que'd PvP.

I've thought about this quite a bit. Its something thats puzzled me for the longest time. Why would Dev's be so reluctant to act on anti-competetive PvP in their game, where players were circumventing theyre system to reach rewards faster? Where it was so commonplace that it basically became part of the culture of PvP play...almost the norm amongst the more 'popular' players on every server...to this day...

I have nothing against players wanting to play with their friends. Thats fine but dont pretend its for competitions sake because 95% of your matches are vs PUG's, its what really made me LOL @ the competetive WSG blog just prior to this past weekend with almost everyone fronting the 'competitive match' factor like thats what they've been pursuing in WoW all along...when actions speak otherwise from these masses.

The bottomline here is Blizzard tho. Why would they be so reluctant to institute and promote 'competetive play' with BG's? They were gungho about it with Arena, but for some reason BG's arent supposed to be competetive?

Its not like they havent addressed way more minor aspects of BG play like the AFK's, or the overall balance of play(Av for example). So the idea they dont care at all isnt exactly true, mebbe partly true :p

So why do you think Blizzard has been reluctant to address this issue for 3 years while overlooking it for other 'improvements' that are way less of an issue? Is it a necessary evil because Team vs Team wouldnt work due to burnout of competetive match after competetive match? I can kiind of see that since team vs team can be very draining, even just 1 match can feel like you've just rolled 20 pug's. Or are there other possible reasons why they are reluctant to do whats so obvious, and something many (casual) players have asked for?

thoughts?

I Hate AV SOOOOO MUCH right now :P

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 14:36:23 -0500
its the most boring sucky PvE race for marks i've ever had to go through in any BG. Its worse than pre 2.3 AV by far. The key to winning this BG now comes down to rushing, win or lose, where nobody stops anywhere but Balinda, then straight to the Aid Station and Vandaar.   I literrally played like < 5 minute AV's this weekend from us just skipping everything and going straight at Van, they felt like 2 minutes AV's actually.

Theyre Defense cannot stop our zerg to Vandaar, unless Ally doesnt zerg either and holds their base but they dont. ITs a double zerg race thats 50/50 either way.

The worst thing about this is EVEN if Defense won AV's, most players that que would rather lose in a fast game, than anything drawn out giving them a better chance at winning.

the good thing about this strat tho is it creates late auto D if you dont take any GY's. As long as 2/3's of the AV can get to Van hes going down. the rest get knocked back to D by default.

Rushing shouldnt be an option in this BG, just completely takes the PvP fascet of it away :P

Making/Turning Money in RL - Automotive Industry

no.spam@gameriot.com (TehJerk) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:41:10 -0500
Making money probably interests alot of people. Most WoW players probably arent in the professional workforce yet. I imagine alot of you are college students scraping by on pennies, eating ramyun noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while playiing WoW with all that free time in between classes college students have.

Me, i'm in the pro workforce. Went to college and took over my family's business - Auto Body Repair Shop. Go ahead ask me any question related to autobody repair work or car painting, its what i do. Having been in this business for awhile now i've realized the automotive industry has many ways of turning money that people can do, and believe me alot of people do it. This blog is about making real money in any industry, for people to share ways in which they/others they know make RL money.

I can share a few ways of which average people make money in the automotive industry. I understand there are people who probably dont want to share their 'secrets' because the more people who get into fast money turnarounds dont want more competition in what they do. Personally i dont make my money doing these things, because its kind of petty in relation to running a shop. However with that said i see it everyday from people who visit my shop, or in general conversation with others who do what they do to make their bling. So here we go:

Scrap Metal Collecting - I probably get more of these guys stopping by every week asking if we have any scrap than anything. These are what i would call the 'bottom-feeders' of the automotive industry. Basically all it requires is a pickkup truck, the bigger the better. What they do is go around to Auto Body Repair shops looking for scrap metal or any place really that would have a high volume of scrap metal. They focus on radiators, condensers, and rims. Considering they are willing to pay each shop in upwards of $15 for these items, they have to be getting close to $25 or more for each of those, but its cashed in on a scale of weight.

I once went with one of these guys just to see how it worked since i was interested more on curiousity than anything. Basically my man had a pickup truck full of scrap metal, from car parts to a bunch of other crap thats metal. We goto this place that looks like a gigantic junkyard, i'm sure every area has a scrap metal recycling center. He goes to talk to this lady and parks the truck on a scale there which weighs the metal and gives them a value for the scrap. He came out with at least a couple hundred dollars for a pickup truck full of scrap. If youre willing to do some dirty work altho its simple, basically calling/visiting different shops/business's who have large quantities of scrap metal and driving by with a pickup truck just picking it up and taking it to the scrapyard, its easy money anyone could make i their spare time that doesnt require much committment.

Car Auction flipping - I see alot of people do this. To me its a poor mans way of house flipping. Many btw who dont have any experience fixing cars. What they do is goto public car auctions, if theyre lucky they have a friend that has a Dealers license so they can get into the Automotive Dealer only Auctions that have much better values. They need to know a little bit about cars, at the very least the blue book values and what sells well on sites like ebay according to year, make, model, and mileage. Honda Accords/Civics from what i've seen sell very well. Flipping cars comes way more down to knowing which cars sell well at what values, and being able to look at them at a auction enough to know where its issues are, and the value you can get for it even with what issues it has.

Some people wont do a thing to the car and just list it on some car sell site 'as is'. Others will do the flip, which usually is some minor repair/replace work on its issues of which pretty much anyone can do with a starter ratchet/screwdriver set. The issues where your going to have to goto a shop for generally comes down structural damage, basically where you see shifts in the cars lineup. They are very likelly going to have to pull the frame just so you can get things to lineup right to screw on, which will probably cost you anywhere between $175 on up depending on how bad it is. What you also need to becareful of is non-superficial front end damage that knocks the radiator support back alot. Usually if your AC Condenser/Radiator are hit pretty good its likely the radiator support is hit hard too considering thats the bars that hold them in place. Its a very common occurance with front end hits, and individuals will have a very tough time addressing this unless they know what their doing and have a welding machine. I see more 'car flippers' screw themselves with this type of hit than anything because it can cost in upwards of $1000 plus to replace with parts + labor.

Alot of times tho 'car flippers' just do some very minor repairs using aftermarket parts which basically comes down to just replacing damaged sheet metal panels. Aftermarket parts are basically generic parts made out of Taiwan that are much cheaper than dealer and even used parts. Generally you want to go CAPA Aftermarket, CAPA is going to be more expensive but when you see that it means the part is considered 'high quality' aftermarket. Insurance companies generally use CAPA for their claims(except State Farm i believe which doesnt list any A/M parts for their claims) but many wont use the aftermarket parts of lower quality because they just arent made to exact dealer specifications and in many cases are way off. Some other tips here would be for painting take it to Maaco/EarlShy's(sp?) because they will be MUCH cheaper than any autobody repair shop, altho the quality will be bad generally but that doesnt matter with car flipping selling cars 'as is'.   If it starts to peel a year later thats the buyers problem a year later....'as is' is what it is :p

Smalltime Parts Sales - I've dealt with smalltime individuals selling hard to find parts through the internet. I'd imagine this works for everything that isnt too bulky so shipping costs arent extremely high. All it requiries is some web page experience and getting your available parts to showup on some search engine. Someone with good web experience could probably even goto a autobody repair/mechanic shop and workout a deal of categorizing/listing all of theyre 'spare' parts sitting around the shop or from 'parts' cars sitting there on their lot, because most shops wont go out of their way to sell these parts because as i said to start off the blog, profits from this are minimal in comparison to what they do as a business. Maybe workout a minimal% split for being able to sell theyre 'spare' parts. I think the potential for this is there for many many shops as long as it requires the least amount of hassles/work on the shop's part. And trust me, most shops will have many various spare parts lying around for whatever reason that have value to someone somewhere~

Bumper Repair selling as OEM Recycled - many Aftermarket companies do this. They either have a subsection of their company setup to repair repairable bumpers to resell as OEM Recycled or have a deal with a company/individual that does it. Its not very difficult to learn to repair bumpers. IMO definitely easier than sheet metal. It generally requires an epoxy with a mix that hardens, and then you sand down from there reshaping it to be contour with the bumper in its damaged areas. Having a DA(6'' orbiter you put sandpaper on) makes it easier but it can all be done by hand as long as you have various grits of sandpaper(generally between 80 grit to 320 grit).

Most shops replace their bumpers that have punctures/holes in them, and alot of bigger shops/Dealers wont even bother with repairing some repairable bumpers and make it easier on themselves by just replacing everything. Its why Dealer estimates for car repairs can be so jacked up. If you are paying out of your own pocket know that you are getting ripped at probably a 30% increase from a Dealer vs most other shops. Its how they do. In anycase i know the potential is there if you teach yourself how to repair plastics with automotive kits(reccomend 3M autoplastic repair kit, like $32~). Damaged throwaway bumpers are very easy to get from Body Shops in quantities, and a good proportion of them are repairable.

The biggest problem your going to find doing this is selling them off to shops due to not trusting your primer prep, which your going to have to do after the epoxy repairs. Understand that if you do not scuff/sand ANYTHING you put paint/primer over its very likely going to peel later on. And that is why shops generally have to trust their suppliers with stuff that is recycled/repaired. That said they would probably be very easy to sell to other individuals looking for parts through the internet.

Well these are all i can think of right now in terms of what i think/know are potential ways of making fast turnaround money with probably the least bit of work, and basically no regular committment/tax'ing/etc. Obviously its limited to just what i've seen from the automotive industry, and how successful you are at these things is purely dependant on you. I will swear by the potential being there with the turnarounds i bold'd.

Hopefully someone else can share some fast turnaround money making idea's with little committment needed in other fields. I once did some work for a Airport Cab Driver who swore to me he made all his money from selling things on Ebay, and how him driving a cab is chump change, and just supplemental to that, altho i have no idea what he sold or how he went about it other than he flew around alot. Which reminds me also that i get TONS of South American/African people who appear to make alot of money from purchasing cars here and shipping them to their home countries who have bodymen/mechanics that repair stuff at a much cheaper cost for labor. I mean this is a regular occurance with how often they stop by looking for 'total loss' cars they can buy and ship over.

Goodluck.