Dungeons are hard!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2053469#blog

So Ghostcrawler wrote a post about the recent nerdrage concerning WoW dungeons and heroics. This recent whinefest is seriously getting disgusting. I understand that the game has changed a bit from what it was in Wrath of the Lich King, but it hasn't changed that much.

In the the beginning of WoW every dungeon was hard. It required teamwork and communication, until we got to the point where the majority of people knew the encounters well enough to not need an explanation. In Wrath, when the LFD tool came out, most people already had T9 or equivalent and just got into the habit of steamrolling heroics to farm badges. That was after the game had matured for what, 2 years? You cannot expect to enter the new expansion, essentially a brand new game, under a new philosophy that Blizzard has adopted, and expect to queue up and destroy everything with little to no social interaction with your fellow players. If you want to play an MMORPG and not interact, use strategy, and overcome difficult tasks with other people then you are free to just do quests, dailies and solo old content. When you do that you must realize that doing so will not get you the best gear. If you want the best gear, you must join a guild, be active within said guild, make friends, and generally be a good person.

The mindset of these people just baffles me. The reason Blizzard put so many perks for guilds in Cataclysm, is because they wanted you to join guilds! Be social! This is a massively multiplayer online game, which means there are massive amounts of people for you to meet, befriend, love, and also hate. You can play an MMO totally antisocially but you must accept the consequences for doing such.

I have just been focusing on acquiring gold, doing all the cool new quests, getting my main and all my alts to 85 and leveling a goblin. I am playing quite antisocially, actually, and I am enjoying the hell out of the content they have provided for us. I have done a few dungeons, but only with my good friends that I have made within the game and real life by being friendly and social.

I don't believe Blizzard should nerf content to placate the lowest common denominator that is not interested in improving themselves and learning. You are not entitled to anything in this game, even if you pay the monthly fee. You are just renting the content and the space on their servers. They aren't required to give you anything at all. They do so because they want to give people an amazing experience. So just shut up, and enjoy it!

World of Warcraft gold-making tip

If you are a WoW player looking into accumulating more wealth but are low on time to really sit and play, then try using the WoW Remote Auction house to your advantage. It only costs 3 dollars per month and you could use it to make your gold accumulation a lot more streamlined.

There are not nearly as many people in-game during the day, since most people are at work, yet you can use this time to your advantage by browsing the Auction House remotely for deals. So, if you're doing the Obsidium shuffle, you can browse the AH remotely when the prices may be down. Yesterday I bought about 3k gold worth of Obsidium while I was at work, so it was just waiting for me when I got home. I prospected it all, turned the gems into Carnelian Spikes, Nightstone Chokers, Hessonite Bands and sent them to be disenchanted. The ones I couldn't turn into disenchantable items became cut common gems that I divided up, put a few on the AH then vendored the rest.

If it wasn't for the remote AH I may have missed out on the cheap Obsidium. Therefore, if you pay for the remote auction house don't squander your 3 dollars by forgetting about it. Browse around for the sure deals that are less likely to be found by the smaller number of players.

Verizon users finally get the iPhone!

http://www.cultofmac.com/verizon-iphone-costs-199-for-16gb-299-for-32gb-with-tethering/76605

So the news of the Verizon iPhone is probably what everyone will be talking about today. It seems that they are confident that their network can hold up to the abuse of thousands of people jumping ship from AT&T to Verizon. We all know that iPhone users are heavy abusers of bandwidth, but Verizon has been touting for months now that their network can handle extremely heavy use. It will be interesting to see what Verizon will be saying after a few months of these data hungry, 3g abusing, tethering-loving have their way with the network.

The free tethering and unlimited data make me want to switch right now, but I'm going to wait and see what AT&T does to compete with Verizon and try to retain some of their customer base. I'm hoping they bring back the Unlimited Data plan or at least lower some plan prices.

I also found this link if people are interesting in switching their phone providers but don't want to pay the early termination fee. Enjoy!

http://www.cultofmac.com/wanna-switch-carriers-avoid-paying-your-early-termination-fee-how-to/76570

Net Neutrality

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/net-neutrality-fight-gop-wields-garlic-against-fcc-vampires.ars

So I was reading this article and it seems the majority of people are confused about what Net Neutrality actually means. The term Net Neutrality seems to have become a slogan for politicians to confuse the hell out of the average person to the point of just not caring. Even the writer of this article seems to be confused at whether he should hate Marsha Blackburn or not. At one point he states that her legislation is "anti-net neutrality" when it is clearly pro net neutrality.

Here is the definition I snipped from Berkeley's website:

Simply put, net neutrality is a network design paradigm that argues for broadband network providers to be completely detached from what information is sent over their networks.  In essence, it argues that no bit of information should be prioritized over another.  This principle implies that an information network such as the internet is most efficient and useful to the public when it is less focused on a particular audience and instead attentive to multiple users. 

Based on that definition, every single American that enjoys anything that the internet has to offer should rally behind  Marsha Blackburn for defending our right to enjoy a free and relatively unregulated internet. We don't need to fragment the service into separate payment tiers based on usage. We also don't need the government to take it over either or it will just end up like every other government-run system, that would only end in tears.

So you wanna be a Cylon

Sony's new 3D display

I found this link today and thought I'd share. It sounds like a pretty sweet idea, though I don't quite understand all the clamor about 3D. Sure, it's a nifty little novelty, but there are great strides that must be taken to make it THE format. The glasses need the go, and the technology that doesn't use the glasses needs to be tweaked so you don't get headaches or sick to your stomach after an hour or so.

Instead of working so hard to make movies 3D, I think they should work on making 3D the format for games. Everyone wants more realistic, immersive gaming. Imagine running around Orgrimmar and it looks like you are truly running through town. 3D movies still seem forced and gimmicky. We need something better than just another catchphrase you can throw in front of a movie title and charge 15 dollars more.