Fourth Edition

As the number of posts I've tagged as D&D shows, I love Dungeons and Dragons. What you may or may not know is that I'm passively interesting in DMing. To be more accurate I'm very interesting in campaign building and telling a story but am very intimidated to actually get somewhere with it. Part of that intimidation comes from not knowing the rules as well as many of my fellow D&D players. Recently, however, I've been looking at 4th Edition D&D rules. And while I still have some doubts about the system so far from what I've read in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide and the D&D podcasts I mentioned earlier this Blogust, I'm really liking the streamlining of the rule. This might be because I'm not a rules person and don't have a ton of devotion to any of the older systems, but 3.5 had way too many supplements and too many options in a lot of cases. So, I'm learning 4E so that I can try it out, because whether the game comunity likes it or not this is what's being current;y supported.

That and I'm absolutly loving building an entire world from the ground up. Yesterday I was working on the calendar and it was nice because I could make it as convenient as I damn well pleased. 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in a month? Bah! Mine have 25. Made of 5 weeks with 5 days a piece. Its kinda therapeutic to my OCC tendencies.

I Love Geeks

I love geeks!
More importantly than loving geeks I love being a geek. I love geek culture and everything here is about being a geek. One of my favorite things about being a geek is that even though there are many types of geek, we still understand and have the same basic mindset. Geeks understand me.

Because not everyone understands staying out till 5:30AM when they hear what D&D is.


Letme get this straight, you were out til four AM siting around a table talking about doing stuff? 


Uh, yah.

Zoroastrian

In High School I basically took as many AP classes as I could. My first AP class was AP World History during my Sophomore year. Before we had our first taste of a real AP test Ari, Emma, Darla, and I (I think at least) got together for a "study group." We ended up getting very little worthwhile studying accomplished. Although I believe we all passed the test pretty handily. And of the college credits I've gotten from my AP classes this class counted for more GEs (General Education classes) than any other test I took.

The first of our gems was a passage from an AP test prep book, that we then wrote on a whiteboard.

Actual quote about the Maji Maji Rebellion's use of "magic water."

The second stemmed from the question of "what were the beliefs of Zoroastrianism?"

 My answer being, "I don't know. Chill and don't kill?"

"Chill and don't kill," ladies and gentlemen, words to live by. 

Raiding with Meyr: Pugging

Since on Sundays I raid on WoW and I want to talk about some aspects and highlights of raiding, I figure what better day to do this than on Sunday.

Pugging. What is "pugging" or "a pug?"

Not this.

A "PUG" stands for "Pick Up Group," meaning that the group is not prearranged of people you know. It's random people, that share a similar goal for raiding or grouping together. Pugs, however, are notorious for being all sorts of bad and awful. Because you don't know the people beforehand they have the potential to majorly suck. With a prearrgaed group you know the strengths and weakness of the people you play with, you can assume a certain level of competence, and you know if they have connection issue and the like. Also, with a set group you start to get to know people and conversion blossoms.

So, why am I talking about this? Lately our Sunday raid attendance has been abysmal lead us to pug more and more people to fill in raid spots. The content were working on has 10 man groups. Lately we've been pugging between 3 and 5 of those spots. Tonight my brother and I joined a raid that was essentially a complete pug. It was interesting to say the least. Our raid leader had a brother who was undergeared for the instance. We wiped (everyone died, forcing us to retry the fight) on the easiest fight in the game currently Gunship Battle, which to show its ease had been dubbed "Lootship" (which "loot" refers to gear, much like pirate loot). The reason we wiped was because we tried to do the encounted on a harder difficultly, but it took fours tries before the leader decided "Hey, maybe we can't do this on the harder setting. Especially since we're carrying the weight of my brother." Although come to think of it I don't think she used those words per se. In the Lady Deathwhisper encounter the tank didn't trust my kiting and almost got himself killer. But still most of the fights did go smoothly, which makes me appreciate even more raiding with people I know.

Heroic

I was bored today, so I made a superhero. Using a superhero generator. Yay! Random fun on the internet. 

It's Captain Meyrific, or something.

I don't know what her super power is though. Being really pale maybe. I'm a little bored if you can't tell, Internet. I miss D&D.

Sweet Nothings

I talked about TV yesterday and it gave me (read: almost relates to) an idea for today's topic-- Internet time wasters. More specifically TVtropes. I find that TVtropes and Wikipedia are dangerous places for me, since I can sink hours into them. Although all things considered I could be doing worse since I learn a lot of neat factoids form doing this. The problem for me is that I start harmlessly on one page and end up jumping and opening up a bazillion tabs different tabs (which makes me seriously glad I'm using Chrome). For example I currently have 20 tabs open.

Unrealated, I this is at least the 6th time this months I've blogged while in front of the TV.

On the Topic of Dungeons

I absolutely love playing D&D. I also have a creative side that loves to create worlds and stories. And thats why I'm working on creating my own D&D setting. Currently I'm working on creating my pantheon of deities. Also, it works out great since I like drawing maps. So, if anyone has any ideas for names or places or people or etc I'm all ears.

Something Different

The size here doesn't fit well with my blog-- whoops, I should have thought about that.

From our D&D campaign a couple months ago.

This by the way, is my absolute favorite cursed item ever. And this particular exchange may be my favorite thing from D&D ever

Jinxed

As everyone on this blog should be aware, I'm a geek and a nerd. I also love wearing T-shirts. So, my love of Jinx clothing is obvious. Linked on my sidebar, their website features shirts to please every sort of geek and gamer. My favorites tend to be the shirts they design for Blizzard games. I placed an order earlier this week when they released the new Starcraft designs and it came in today.

Apparently I have a thing for purple.

Crafting Stars

I've talked about Starcraft 2 before, and this is probably not the last time I'll talk about it. However, since the release last week I don't feel that I've really done it justice. I think that's because I was spending most of my time actually playing the game. So here I go...

Starcraft 2 features both a compelling single player story campaign and dynamic multiplayer insanity. I personally love the single player part, for two main reasons 1) I'm a sucker for a well crafted story (and Blizzard delivers) and 2) I'm not very good at the multiplayer/I don't like playing against other people (I don't really like any sort of PvP (Player v. Player) games).

On a similar note using the Map Editor people are starting to create and release custom maps. Meaning... new Tower Defense games!!!

Casting

I'm still deciding what I think of this template, so I may end up changing it again (and again until I'm happy with it). I like the new design elements, but I'm not sold on the colors. But, that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

Podcasting. Love it, hate it, or never heard of it seem to be the opinions of it I see from people. I personally love it-- for specific purposes. For example I can't do a lot of things while listening to people talk: homework, writing, talking, blogging, etc. However, I think some of the greatest and funniest things I've heard come from podcasting. For podcasting I also feel that pure audio is better than a video podcast because it allows you to do something else while listening and because its faster to download of iTunes or to stream online. In the past I've listened to all sorts of different podcasts, from generic geek to World of Warcraft to Ask a Ninja (I've even been a part of a robotics podcast for my high school team). However, recently I haven't been listening/watching any podcasts, because either the podcasters stop putitng the shows together or becaues I lost interest.

This summer I found a new podcast-- about D&D involving the creators of the PVP and Penny Arcade webcomics  that has brought back my love of Podcasting. This podcast is great for anyone interested in D&D in any fashion, whether you're trying to find out what its all about, or veteran players who want to learn about the changes that 4E brings. Also, while like many podcasts each part is pretty long it is absolutely hilarious. If D&D isn't your thing there are podcasts for virtually everything now.

I Write Like

I write like

George Orwell

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I found this site today, that compares you're writing style to that of an actual writer. So I plugged in my writing from each of the BEDA stories (each paragraph that I wrote (so it wouldn't necessarily make sense but gave the program plenty of data)) Some of my other results from just some of the longer blog posts included Steven King and Kurt Vonnegut. I think its kinda neat-- and I like to think its somewhat accurate.

Starcraft 2sday

Today Tuesday July 27th, Starcraft 2 was released. Which I spoke about before when the Beta was out. Now the full game is available including the campaign which was not tested in the Beta release (ei.. the part I'm most excited about. Well, that and the Tower Defense maps)So, if I hole myself up in my room; it's okay, I'll be back-- eventually.

Don't Stop Me

Because I really need more distractions before finals I was directed to a particular web comic (here) that often makes science and math jokes. 

However, the science in this joke is minimal.

Blizzcon, Baby!

I'm going to Blizzcon this year! I got my tickets this morning. Although I will admit that I was worried that we wouldn't get tickets after seeing how busy the queue was earlier this week. Yikes! However, due to some mad clicking skills from a handful of us we now have enough tickets for everyone.

Is is October yet?

Geeky Design

Second in this little series I'm doing. Is a picture story the Admiral linked t me a while back. Its a sotry based on the game Dwarf fortress, however the art speaks for itself:

The rest of the images can be viewed here.

Unbearable

With BEDA in the past I'm no longer blogging everyday and it shows. It's not something on my mind as much anymore and I only seem to remember to blog when I'm doing something (Physics lab report currently) anyways, since I've been getting into my D&D game/character I'm going to start a series (Well, that's the plan anyways)  of either interesting things about our game or links to related D&D sites. My plan is not to make this a daily thing but an "every-now-and-then-thing" to try to kick start me back on here:

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the Gelatinous Cube as mount, but actually it is a monster in D&D, something that the players fight. Since then I have found a list of the stupidest monsters in D&D.

Including the Owlbear for example:

I kinda like the Owlbear though.

Holiday Cheer

In World of Warcraft at different times during the year Blizard honors real life holidays by creating corisponding in game events, such as Chirstmas and Halloween. As an incentive to complete the accheivements for all the holidays over the year, there is a nifty mount as a reward-- the Violet Proto Drake (a purple dinosaury dragon).

For me, I've been working on actually get this mount this last year and finally with Children's Week completed. And one of the achievements in particular required some player vs. player (PvP) components. And I happen to hate PvP. Although with the help of my brother and the fact that like 60% of people were also trying to get the achievement done, it was mostly painless. 

Who is Stevie Wonder?

I mentioned a month or so ago I had played the Starcraft 2 Beta at a friends house. Well, fast forward a month later and Blizzard is distributing Beta keys like crazy (and have a mac client available). So, thanks to my friend Nick (Hi, Nick!!) I now have a Beta key. So, I've been playing as often as I've had time today. And let me tell you, I still absolutely suck. I'm better at Gears of War 2-- a shooting game. Imagine that! I'm working on it-- although it would be nice to actually see some improvement in my game, but I'll give it time before I make any rash decisions. Anyone who wants to play (read: have a good laugh) I'm Meyr.lancer.

[Oh, the title? Inside joke.]

The End is Here

So, my birthday was last week. For my birthday my brother bought me a Battered Hilt for Meyr off the AH. So, now I'm very excited that I can get an awesome weapon for my hunter. Now, I'm off to bake some cupcakes and play some DnD. Somebody make sure that I don't run into any doors this time.

Today being the last day of April is the last day of BEDApril 2010. And I'm very proud to say that I made it!! I was able to post as a post everyday, for 30 days.

The End.