It’s the Twelfth Annual Finding Jaina Day

Another year has gone by and we celebrate once again Jaina Finding Day, the date in history on which we found a little baby kitty wandering through the parking lot at our apartment, just a little ball of floof and gumption. There was simply no way we could not take her home with us. Despite the vet’s dire diagnosis, she has continued to thrive. She is The Cat who Lived.

Her exploits are many.

• In the past few years, she’s developed a propensity for hit and run tactics. She’ll drop a good one in the litterbox next to my desk, then go tearing through the house like she’s making a getaway.
• Her paws continue to be large and almost kittenlike. Almost, because they have serious weaponry ready to deploy. We call them “murder mitts.”
• She still has a marvelous singing voice and will seranade us late at night as the mood takes her.
• She loves to show off. Sometimes when I walk down the hallway she’ll start batting the foil ball toy around, stop, and look up at me, as proud as if she’d won the Daytona 500.
• Though she’s late middle-aged now, she’s still spritley as ever.
• When we get up in the morning, she’ll get all bouncy and zoomey.
• Twelve years in, her fur is still soft like a kitten’s. 
• She still is shaped like a little bear, and I’m pretty sure she accepts “Jaina Bear” or just “Bear” as her name.

We were concerned we’d need to take her back to the vet for another allergy shot, but her cough has not been persistent and her fur has not been falling out, so we’re holding off on that. Her vet retired recently, and we’re not entirely pleased with the New Management. So long, Dr. St. John, you were a real gem, and we’ll miss you. Whoever we choose, I hope the techs there have kevlar gloves.

Though her birthday is unknown, we still celebrate this fierce little warrior by observing the day that she wandered into our life. Happy Finding Jaina Day, for those that celebrate!

The Inners

Jaina’s companions are still with us.

• Petey is still the patriarch of the family, and still thinks he’s in charge. He insists that Mommy leaves her computer on so he can sleep on it and soak up the Warms from the blowhole fans on top.
• Wash continues to be the lovable goofball (loves sitting in my lap when I’m watching a movie). He also annoyingly likes to chew on plastic, such as plastic bags or soda rings.
• Zoey has developed a new habit of singing to me from the sink while I shower. She’ll then zoom into the shower and lick it after I’m done. Sometimes she sits in the hallway and sings to no one in particular.
• Butterscotch (aka Professor Jiggley) continues to be the most mellow kitty of them all. He loves sleeping with mommy at night, and the back of our love seat by day.
• Tater continues to be our little psyco and deliverer of Night Biscuits. She’ll show up after I go to bed, get in between me and the missus, and proceed to make them biscuits while I fall asleep to her quiet purrs.

The Dusters

The “feral” cats that spend time with us haven’t run away, which is a bonus.

• Noodle continues to prefer to spend the days inside and the nights outside. If he’s in at night he’ll usually come get me between 3 and 4 AM to get let out.
• Monster, likewise, hasn’t changed a lot. We’re pleased with her return to full weight after the toll the Little Monsters had on her – she was skin and bones by the time we fostered them out. No wonder she brought them inside, she knew she’d need help. The rotten thing has tought several other of her kin the trick of licking and/or biting my toes.
• Scooter continues to live up to her name. When it’s feeding time she doesn’t pace around like other cats. Instead, she zooms around in such a way that I also call her Skeeter. She also knows how to get me out of bed to let her out at night. She loves to sleep nearby on the ottoman while I work during the day.
• Gremlin has taken to spending more time inside, and sucking up for pets every now and again. She has the most amazing purr and still has the hilarious “granny voice”. Her usual vocalizations are more mrrrs than anything else, but when she wants to be heard she can belt out a big MAOW (as opposed to meow). She’s one of the kitties that Monster has taught to lick and bite toes.
• Pip has taken to spending more time inside. She hurt one of her back legs a few weeks ago (or there’s something wrong in her control of her aft half) and still has a powerful limp, though she doesn’t let that keep from climing up on stuff. Damned if I know how she does it, but she does. She’s still the chonker, which makes my full name for her damned ironic (“Pipsqueak“). Pip has also learned the art of biting toes. What is it with these guys?

The Beltalowdas

• Daddy Goblin is still around, but very beat up. He has a terrible wound on his neck, skin tore off and all. And yet he persists. It’s actually hard to look at him for myself. I’m a bit squeamish.
• Stripe (Mama cat) has disappeared and I’m worried. Either she has a litter of kittens or something bad has happened. She’s had a hard life for a little cat.
• Speaking of bad news, Scooter’s sister, Poof, met an untimely end when some speeding jerk hit her on the road. I was with her when she passed. Good night, little girl. Sleep in power.
• Highbrow and Lowbrow (collectively known as “The Brows”) are still with us. Highbrow is definately a boy (got a good look at the harbles one day) but Lowbrow appears to be a girl. I think I saw their actual daddy just this night – big black cat, with big floofy tail identical to Highbrow’s. Can’t prove anything, but it’s a bit of a coincidence. I don’t think this is Pliskin, one of the neighborhood cats that we’re pretty sure has a home, as this cat was a lot bigger. Like, twice Pip’s size.
• Merry proceeded to not grow to her sister’s huge size, but otherwise is doing well. She’s developed a tic where, no matter how recently she’s eaten, if you see her she will put on a show like she’s staaaarving! I call her FrantiCat. While the show is amusing in its way, her frantic to and fro-ing does make taking her food out for her a bit of a challenge.
• Oh, and finally, one of Spartacus’ siblings, Brownie, has made several appearances. He appears to be in good health and in magnificent shape. He’s a little bigger and studlier than Noodle. All the Dusters hate him, and I’ve seen him chasing Gremlin around a bit (not going to do him any good, she’s fixed). I’m glad he’s doing well, and wish we could catch and fix him.

Our plans right now are to get Lowbrow fixed, and Highbrow as well if we can manage. If Stripe returns we’d like another shot at getting her fixed, as well, and if we could capture Goblin I wanna take him to a vet and have his wounds tended – and his tubes tied, of course. With exception of The Brows, I am not optimistic, but those two will at least come in a little ways.

Thus is the State of the Jaina and her Little Furry Pals. For now, MAOW. Happy Jaina Finding Day to you and all those that celebrate.

Way to troll, Blizz

Since roughly 2015, I have mostly not paid any real money for my WoW subscription. The secret? I had a business, as it were, that produced enough gold every month to renew my subscription to WoW by virtue of buying a token and cashing it in.

When the consolidated / global commodity AH changes kicked in, that started to fall apart. And now, I’m back to buying my sub time with cashey money. But up until then, this was a sweet deal. No regerts.

Given how miserable Blizz has made it for AH weasels like myself, I was surprised to read that WoW tokens would no longer be convertable into game time unless the user had previously purchased game time with real money. I mean, we’re dying over here. Just let things stand, and we’ll be back to cash.

The wording on this announcement is a bit odd, but it appears that any purchase from 2017 onwards will apply to this qualification. In other words, if you bought a 30-day game card in December, 2017, and then used it, then you’re cool. This is highly specific in my view.

I was not initially surprised by this announcement until I got to the 2017 part. I had suspected that the new corporate masters probably wandered in and viewed this program and said something along the lines of “You did WHAT????” But this doesn’t track with that scenario.

For reals: the entire token program has seemed like a gigantic money-sink for Blizz. People like me have been able to play effectively for free, and for minimal effort. I had been putting in less than an hour a day on this, and it really paid well. I actually was able to buy game time, pay for new expansions, and ocassionally float my wife a token – all using Bongo Bucks. That is insane. Any decent accountant would have gone postal somewhere around 2017 or so.

So I’m a little bit confused as to the reason for this new restriction. I suspect botting has something to do with it. I’m not sure the new policy will actually help in that regard. If a bot network is really dedicated to the cause, they won’t be put off by a one-off $30 expenditure per account.

Still, it’s fun wondering if this will have some sort of effect on the AH in the long term. I suspect I’ll start seeing real data by January, or, possibly, by the Daytona 500, at the latest.

Oh, and did I mention that you can by the token on the Classic servers, and it’s a lot less gold? We’re getting close to the point where I can implement my old-school Glyphmonger strategies (mostly waiting on my glyphmonger to level) which was very, very lucrative.

I’ve written before about my misgivings about Cata Classic. But you know what? I might be willing to eat a bit of shit for a free ride. I’m a whore. For reals.

Incidentally, I posted a comment on the Massively OP post about this and got one of the wierdest comments in the world. I’m not crying about this thing. I’m crying about other things (follow the links, and take a snack) but I was quite clear on my comments – I’m currently not paying for game time on the token because the economy is wrecked. C’este la vie. As I asked previously, did someone hurt you, man?

Looks like this guy deleted his comments, so I won’t pull his pants down in front of his mom. She’s probably got enough problems, primarilly that he won’t move out of the basement.

Okay, so let’s talk about the Next Big Thing

So I’ve bitched and whined about Fear and Loathing in Cataclysm Classic. That was not, strictly speaking, the extent of what Holly Longdale had to announce, nor what we were really there for. She also brought in Chris Metzen, who announced Big Things. So let’s have a look.

Not One, but Three Expansions

First of all, Chris Metzen played everyone like a fish. He had Blizzcon eating out of his hand. The marriage of Something Old and Familiar with Something Exciting and New was intoxicating to the audience. He exploited this with more skill than I thought he had in him, to be honest. Well played, Chris.

But then was the big drop, namely “The World Soul Saga“.

Let’s break that down. It’s a saga, see, about a world soul, see.

Kidding!

Okay, first of all, the chutzpah of calling a series of expansions a “saga“. I get it. When Pokemon can have a saga, when candy can have a crushing saga, I guess something as impressive-sounding as a “world soul” can have a saga. In this case, possibly the term is appropriate. The first two cases, no. Probably not.

But anyway, this, coupled with the announcement trailer, implies that we’re dealing with world-soul-adjacent matters for the duration.

I like to call this bit “Sword? What sword? Oh, THAT sword!” How long has it been? Legion? That’s a bit of a time.

At any rate, here are a few observations.

• Good lort, Blizz has stepped up their cinematic game by at least an order of magnitude. The quality of this cinematic is the same level as the Warcraft movie itself. Somebody give these people a script and we have a movie on our hands. Seriously. Please.
• Anduin’s anguish is obvious and well depicted. Far better than it was at the end of Shadowlands. I appreciate that this could imply that his anguish needed time to “cook”, and that’s cool. Ish.
• The emergence of Varian’s theme in connection with Anduin is once again asserted, and it’s done well.
• WTF could have beaten Anduin down so much in the ensuing time between the end of Shadowlands and now? I mean, sure, I guess being dominated by this big bad guy is really a life-altering situation, but is that the extent of it? His breakdown feels a lot more personal than we’ve been privy to.
• Did *anyone* think to consult Magni or are they just going to pretend that the crystaline Dwarven King is out at Vegas doubling down on red?
• I actually thought this made sense while drunk on cheap tequila. On day 3 of tequila-induced trauma, I’m getting close to the POST button.

Okay, let’s let the cheap tequila work its way out. Given the current state of the vlogosphere, is that really a bad thing?

The upshot of the cinematic is that both Anduin and Thrall (and, presumably, others) are being plagued by messages from an Unknown Entity, which we know to be Azeroth Actual. And, while Magni was not featured, we, as Azerotian Denizens, know he should be on the low-down with Azeroth Actual, and I wonder, as we are wont to do, why he wasn’t very prominent in this particular cinimatic. Like”Uh, yeah. Guys? Hello?”

I mean, if you missed it a few expansions back, he actually became a Diamond Dwarf and had Intimate Contact with Azeroth Actual.

I’m sorry, but aside from “Sword, what sword?”, the Buried Lede of this is “Magni is tired or shouting, would you like to listen to Magni?” is possibly the most obvious plot point EVAR. Yeah. Let’s listen to Magni.

Right now I’m thinking that this is where we should have gone instead of the Dragon Isles. I could easily go the rest of my life without seeing the Dragon Isles. Let them stay hidden. I’m cool. I’m also pretty sure I’d be okay without Shadowlands if this is where we went instead, to be honest. Really, everything since Legion feels like filler and that’s a bit of a problem.

After Legion, there was this gigantic “and now what?” that nobody would address. Nobody at Blizzard at the time seemed to have a genuine idea about what to do next. “There’s a giant sword stuck into the planet” does not, in most cases, lead to “hey let’s go explore the realm of Death”. Nor does it lead to “hey, let’s go chase dragons!”.

I’m personally annoyed that something as obvious as “a giant sword stuck into the planet that we know to be alive and kicking” was somehow not an obvious jumping off point for the writers. Here we are, a few expansions later, possibly addressing that.

I am still hesitant to instantly credit Chris Metzen with this change of direction, but it really feels like a heel-turn after the malaise-era of the past two expansions. I’m not in the Chris-Metzen-Is-A-Freekin-Genius camp, not by a long shot, but the events of BlizzCon2023 really seem intent on crediting him with that narrative change. Possibly contracturally.

We will probably never know who’s idea it actually was to address this whole World Soul thing but as far as the direction is concerned, it is the next logical step in my mind. Too long deferred, IMO.

So let’s look at that, lore-wise.

Going by (possibly obsolete) lore as presented in the Chronicles, Titans come from World Souls. Planets are, basically, eggs that World Souls gestate in until they hatch and become Titans. Legion provided us with a worst case scenario in the form of Argus.

Argus actually hatched. Argus was also subverted by the Legion and turned out to be a big Boss fight in Legion before we finally nailed Sargerus’ ass to the wall.

Argus, the planet, was unfortunately broken in the process. Kinda makes you wonder about the ultimate fate of Draenor – did they blow up the world soul, or is it still out there wandering around, looking to pick a fight? (Metzen, I want a nickel for every game sold if that ends up being something.) Anyway, Argus introduces us to the concept that hatching a world soul is possibly bad for the planet itself.

• 

Not at all surprising. Eggshells rarely survive the making of omelettes. Remember the Marvel movie The Eternals? Kind of a familiar scenario. (Anybody’s guess as to whether there’s copyright-infringement-adjacent activities here, and who has first claim, though I suspect it was Marvel.)

So ultimately it’s not just the Giant Sword. And it’s not just the Giant Sword’s Impact on the World Soul. It’s the World Soul herself. Azeroth, the planet, the world, is a no-win scenario from the perspective of its inhabitants.

Based on what I know of eggs, things living on the shell don’t survive the hatching of the egg’s inhabitant. The shell’s inhabitants need to come up with a long term and permenant solution to that issue. Something that doesn’t involve the destruction of the World Soul living within Azeroth, but also doesn’t involve the destruction of the inhabitants of her shell.

I feel like this “saga” possibly acknowleges this situation and that we will also have some resolution of that untenable situation.

And now we address the tin-foil hat crowd. Hiiii.

One of the most prominent tin-foil hat trends in this regard has been that the final act of the World Soul Saga will set the stage for WoW2. I would like to debunk those theories now.

I mean, I really would.

But I can’t.

This is the perfect excuse to reboot WoW and to make WoW Retail (as it exists) into the Ultimate WoW Classic, and WoW2 into the New New Classic.

I’m not a gaming industry insider. But I AM a software development insider. And as a participant in that industry, I have to say that the most cynical take is usually the most profitable. All the theorycrafters in the world will pretend that the realities of corporate software development don’t exist, and I am here to tell you that they are complete and utter fools for ignoring those realities.

Blizzard is a software developer first, and a gaming software developer third. Maybe fourth. Anyway, what “makes sense” from a lore standpoint will always take a back seat to what makes sense from a sales perspective.

And WoW2 will, if it happens, be all about revitalizing sales. Any other “reason” provided will be in service to that unspoken goal. Sales is alway unspoken.

Please note I am making all effort to avoid judging. At this point in time, maybe WoW2 will be a good thing.

I’d be a fool for guessing what WoW2 would look like.

Never let it be said I walked away from being a fool.

Some completely subjective evidence I should like to submit is that WoW Classic (Endpoint, Classic, or whatever guise you want) is actually doing pretty well. They wouldn’t continue adding new features and (counter-intuitively) content to Classic if they didn’t see it driving engagement.

So first prediction is that there will be something like a reset in WoW2 that takes us back to Azeroth (actual) in a way that connects with WoW Classic Fans. Instead of adding a Whole New Expansion, they reset to the original Azeroth, or something like it.

One possible deviation might be that they finally acknowlege that STV and Tanaris are equatorial zones, not southern, and that there is more to the south of those zones, as it should be. (BTW, follow the links in that link – I deep dived.)

But the other thing is that maybe they reset everything. We’re on Azeroth. We’re working out things towards, possibly, the Naxxaramas raid as the ultimate endpoint of that world. And maybe they make the tie-ins into the next exapansion – WoW2 2.0 – less clunky. Maybe we already have Sin’dorei and Draenai from day one.

(I can also make a case for Pandarans being relegated to Associate Race in this case).

Dude. I’d pay for that.

And that possibly is the ultimate observation on the WoW announcements of BlizzCon2023. i.e. we’re excited about the New Shit, but we’re hoping you’ll take us back to the Old Shit Done Right.

As a (software) industry insider, this actually looks like a positive-trending reaction.

Am I right? Probably not. But this is what my tequila-infused neural network is thinking at this time. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Classic is basically dead next year

Over the past few months, there has been a campaign, of sorts, by some who shall remain nameless, for Cataclysm Classic – the next, in their minds, logical evolution of WoW Classic. While it doesn’t matter at all, I did push back on that concept whenever it was trotted out, because I strongly object to Cataclysm in principle, word, and deed.

Well, this past weekend was BlizzCon 2023, and, yes, they did in fact announce that Cataclysm Classic would be coming out in 2024. And in my mind, they announced the death of WoW Classic.

I’ll get to that.

To get into my head on that, it’s important to understand why I was playing WoW Classic in the first place.

Ignoring all the new zones added since Cata came out, what sets the current Retail apart from Classic as it exists right now? If you said “Azeroth itself” – i.e. the zones, quest layouts, and so forth – then you’d be right, as far as I am concerned. That is THE big difference between Cata and current Classic (WotLK, that is).

Okay, second question. Ignoring all the new zones added since Cata, what is the difference between Retail and Cata?

(I’ll wait)

I’m sure you came up with a lot of systems and borrowed powers and stuff like that, but one thing I bet you did NOT come up with was “Azeroth is different between Retail and Cata”. That’s because there IS no difference. NONE. I mean, minor adjustments here and there notwithstanding, and yeah that whole Darkshore thing. But go to Westfall, and it’s identical. Go to Stranglethorn and it’s the same. In fact, go to most of the zones in Kaz Modan or Kalimdor and it‘s all identical with the current state-of-the-art Azeroth.

I don’t think I could find anyone that would tell you that all the various “systems” in Cata were worth bringing back, but look out – here they come!

I want to make something clear: the changes made to the various zones in Cata were, in most cases, necessary. Adding a zillion new flight points – good! Quest hubs? Excellent! I’m not sold on the stories being told, but hey, there were plenty in WotLK I didn’t like either. But the geographical and convenience changes were good.

But! We can go revisit those anytime in retail! There is absolutely NO REASON to roll out Cata Retreaded for those zones.

Sigh.

Okay, philisophical reasons aside, there was one other thing that bothers me. During BlizzCon, when discussing Cata Classic, they dropped the nugget that when Cata Classic dropped, WotLK Classic would go away. No option to stay behind. Just YOINK you’re in Cata now. Pretty much the same that they did to BC Classic when WotLK Classic came out.

Which is what I was dreading with regards to Cata Classic in the first place – the forced migration. Listen, the mere existance of Cata Classic doesn’t bother me. You wanna go play in Retail Lite, go right ahead. In my mind that is when it all started to go wrong, but as long as I could stay in WotLK Classic, I could continue to experience WoW at what many consider to be its high point.

I’m hoping they change their minds. I doubt they will. If they don’t, I will probably uninstall WoW Classic. It won’t be fun anymore. I can use that drive space for something else, like Night Elf porn (click at your own risk) or something.

Listen, I adore Holly Longdale, and she has probably the best fashion sense of any software developer ever, but in this one instance, I respectfully disagree. Cata is a bad call, but forcing it on Classic players is even worse. Repent, Holly. Repent.

Still, my warlock’s current clown suit makes me long, with great desire, for transmog.

So maybe I’ll just grit my teeth and move on to bitching about Pandaria Classic.

There is no pattern here. Move along, citizen.

Little Miss Can’t Be Right

They run forums, and Q&As, and AMAs, seminars, Blues News, and any number of other PR stunts to gather feedback from users and try to produce a game that users might like. The success story in this is the mere existance of Classic, partly in answer to an obvious desire from users to play the game hte way it was meant to be played all those years ago.

And yet.

And yet, my friends, what do they get for their trouble? I’ll tell you what they get. They get slagged, second-guessed, whatabouted, whined about, cried about, buried.

Example:

ONOZ!!!!!1one! We whined and bitched and lamented that there wasn’t ENOUGH content! Especially during the inter-expansion gap that is always there! And so Blizz has upped their game! Something like Five or Six Patches This Year! And that above, my friends, is what they get in return. I saw THREE BLOGS running this sort of … stuff in one day.

Second place on the podium for this sort of nonsense: players complain that Blizz doesn’t communicate. Fine. So when they start running out the hype train for these many many content patches, what do we get? Aside from the obvious sock puppets that re-hype this stuff for clicks, we get “think pieces” like IS THE WOW HYPE TRAIN TOO MUCH TO BEAR etc.

They can’t win. Nothing they do is good enough, or, if it is, it’s too good and Elliot Lefebre will complain about THAT. Nothing they do is good enough for the puling spawn that inhabit the WoW online “communities”. They can do no right.

If I was them, I’d seal up the campus under a dome like Dalaran, fire all the PR people (because they won’t need them), and just drop a patch without announcements or anything. Maybe even without a PTR.

I’d bet a dollar and a box of donuts that the bitching would die out faster after each upset than it does right now. And they’d spend a lot less money to get there.

I think all the negativity is getting me down. We’re all a bunch of ingrates, and who likes working for that?

(I do not for a moment dismiss the actual bad things that Activision / Blizzard the Company are doing. This isn’t about that, and don’t pretend you can’t tell the difference.)

Crafting is dead as a source of revenue

Over the past few expansions, crafting has taken a huge hit in its ability to bring monetary joy to its practitioners. The first hit were the armor professions – tailoring, leatherworking, blacksmithing. But there were ways around it. Tailors could make bags. Leatherworkers could make drums. Blacksmits could make belt buckles. There were ways to parlay such professions into a means of making a few coins as a means of paying for, for example, one’s weekly raid repair bills and materials.

But, eventually, that started to erode. And over time, only the professions that created constantly needed consumables could be counted on to make a few GP. Enchanters would make enchanted vellums, jewelcrafters would make gems, alchemists would make flasks, scribes would make glyphs.

Now, those profession are under attack as well. Let’s consider Inscription. There are no new glyphs in Dragonflight, there is no ink trader in Dragonland, and the cost of making glyphs is out of reasonable levels. Right now, if you want to make glyphs to resell them, with mats bought on the AH, you are probably going broke.

Other consumables are similarly under attack – it is far more expensive to make consumables than it is to just sell the mats off and call it a day.

So what we’re seeing is a breakdown of the WoW economy. My benchmark for this is in terms of how much it costs to purchase the materials to make an item. If it costs more to buy the mats than one can reasonably expect to sell the end product for, things are broken.

And, um, yeah. Things are super broken. Here’s an example.

In this chart, I am tracking in real time the cost of making a potion and how much it is selling for. If “cost” is more than it sells for (“buyout”) the column is red. As you can see here, there is no potion selling for more than it costs to buy the mats to make it. (these are all gold-level quality, I don’t bother with the bronze and silver levels)

Now, as a person that spends more time in the AH than is healthy, this is a red flag for the economy. You can make all the meta arguments you want here, but the fact is, based on actual data pulled down from the AH itself, that every potion an achemist can make costs more in materials than it can be sold for.

It should be noted that if you just make potions off of what you forage, then, yes, every potion is essentially free money. But I will also argue that every potion you make is money left on the table, because you could sell the mats you foraged for so much more. In some cases 10x the gold that you would make from the product. And that is the essence of the problem.

Let me draw a parallel to the Real World ™ for a moment.

Right now the US economy is seeing massive growth in the ‘service’ economy. This is the economic sector that encompases the people working at Starbucks and McDonalds, Krogers, Winn Dixie, and so forth (not the IT jobs, but cashiers and stock clerks). In other words, there is massive growth in a sector that basically defines workers as “servants” to people buying their “services”.

While there is no direct correlation between the “real world” economy and the virtual economy of a virtual world, it “feels” the same. Where before there was pride in producing items that people would be interested in buying (for crissake, crafted armor even bore the name of the person that crafted it if you sold it!), now there is not. In fact, if you’re looking to be compensated fairly for your work, good luck. Nobody cares how much you paid for those bolts of cloth. They only know that that other guy is selling it for 25G, so good luck getting that 500G back to pay for the mats.

A lot was said of the “new crafting system” before Dragonflight was released, but those very vocal cheerleaders have found other things to tout now, and don’t seem to be too interested in what’s going on in the crafting sector. So let me state my thoughts here: in its current state, crafting as anything meaningful in WoW is dead. Nobody makes anything that will have any meaningful impact in the game, either for themselves or for others to purchase.

If you want to make a few bongo bucks from professions, heed my words: take up two gathering professions, and just dump your stuff on the AH. Thanks to the merging of comoddity items across several realms, you won’t get top dollar, but at least you won’t waste time and effort on a profession that gets you nowhere. Just provide mats for the jewelcrafters, scribes, alchemists, leatherworkers, and enchanters out there. It’s actually kind of liberating in that regard; there are tons of obscure “optional mats” that you don’t have to worry about. Just dump them, too – AH if you can, vendor if you can’t.

I really hope they reverse or at least improve on this in the next expansion, but I have very little faith.

On Quotas

I just read that a Classic WoW tech lead developer (Brian Birmingham, pictured) “Left Blizzard […] under protest” after refusing to give a lower than deserved evaluation to one of his  subordinates’ performance review in order to fill quotas.  Let me unpack that for you so that you understand … that this kind of evaluation process is evil.

So, it works like this.  At my company, you could get a ranking from one (worst) to five (best). One was “recommended for termination” and Five was “recommended for promotion.”  Three, as you might expect, was the general average rating (recommended for retention).  I personally was always happy with a 3 as I felt I wasn’t really exceptional – just a grinder, grinding away, and moving one day to the next.

Now the trick was, upper management and HR determined that you could have no more than x employees at a 5, y at a 4, and so on.  A variant of this is, of course, that you must have between x and y percent of your team in each bucket.  But let’s simplify to illustrate with this example.

• 1% 5 – recommended for promotion
• 4% 4 – recommended for advancement
• 85% 3 – recommended for retention
• 4% 2 – recommended for remediation
• 1% 1 – recommended for termination

This is, I again emphasize, an oversimplified example but illustrates the situation quite clearly.  It’s not that you can’t have MORE than 1% as a 5 or a 1, for example – it’s that you are REQUIRED to have that number.

This is called rating stacking, and basically means that every team is competing against themselves for performance ratings.

But what if you have a really great team? I mean, sure, we all realize it’s competitive and they are competing against each other, but if they’re all great employees then why would you want to fill that lower 5%? Imagine you’re the unlucky one that is performing objectively well, but comparatively worse than others on your team?  You still want to keep the guy. But due to quota buckets, you have to put them in a 1 (recommended for termination) or 2 (recommended for remediation).

This is what Birmingham refused to do, and I applaud his moxie.  His unemployed moxie, that is, because Blizz just canned his ass and transferred his team under someone that they expect will be more pliable (especially considering the example of Brian right under their nose).

Again, I want to emphasize that I have no insight into Blizzard’s managerial playbook, but I recognize the performance eval type and absolutely loathe it, and know how it works to a point.

Apparently, Brian refused to continue to work under these conditions, and intended to resign, but was fired instead. Joke’s on them, that makes him eligible for unemployment (a fund he has been contributing to all his time there, so essentially he at least gets his own money back).  There are reportedly other managers there that asked if they could be assigned a ‘2’ so that one of their people could avoid it (they were denied).

To me, Brian is a Hero of the Revolution, even if the Revolution hasn’t quite happened yet.  I wish him Godspeed, and hope the rotten-ass managers that pushed him out get flea infestations in their public hair.

By the way, I can pretty much guarantee that there will soon be layoffs at Blizz, and that this “tool” will be used to guide who gets the axe. This is really what it’s all about.

It’s the Eleventh Annual Finding Jaina Day

It is the time of year that we celebrate the finding of Jaina, our little Bearcat, The Cat That Lived.  Diagnosed with FIP, she was expected to die within weeks of finding, but she bucked the diagnosis (i.e. it was WRONG) and continues to flourish to this day, eleven years later on December 21.

As is traditional, we’ll talk about her cohort, as well.  I’ve added a new flourish to that, as we apparently have three groups of cats to discuss now, and I’m using The Expanse as my model.

• Inners are the cats that live inside full-time, including Jaina.
• Dusters are the kitties that spend time both inside and out, such as Noodle and Monster.
• Beltalowdas are the kitties that won’t come in, are too skittish to trust us that far.

Inners

First of all, let us discuss Jaina. Last year we took her to the vet due to hair and whisker loss, and The Vet diagnosed allergies, and gave her a shot. I am happy to report that that made a huge difference, and even addressed her cough. Alas, the cough is returning now after nearly a year, so we’ll probably need to take her back in.  Sorry, vet techs. She’s brutal on vet techs.

Otherwise, she’s still in the same mental space as previously. She has three or four favorite spots to sleep at night. Right now, she’s taken to sleeping next to my pillow, which I just adore. She also still hates Tater like nothing else, but has started getting antagonized by Washburn as well, and will go after Zoey under certain circumstances.

The most remarkable thing about her is that she is now the second-most senior cat here.  How’d that happen?

The most senior cat, Petey (aka Repeat) has become more and more frail looking, but still conducts himself as the Alpha Cat in these here parts. He is very much Mommy’s Boy and will spend hours sleeping on her desk, adoring her whether awake or asleep. Every night, he comes to bed and spends the night cuddled up to her. He’s close to 18 years old now. Not bad for a country boy. After all these years, he still believes he’s the Boss Cat, and most of the other cats buy into it.

Butterscotch AKA Professor Jiggly continues to be quite mellow about no longer being an outside cat.  We were worried that when we moved here, he would want to continue to be an outside cat, but he was quite content with Inner Life, though occasionally he does give a wistful look out a window or door, so we’re cautious opening doors in his proximity. He has no problem asserting himself, but doesn’t push the issue, either.

Wash and Zoey still continue to be happy we adopted them. Wash does miss being able to hang out in the sewing room, which is now the daughter’s bedroom. Zoey however has adopted our bathroom and we just don’t put towels on the lower shelf of the towel rack any more. She also enjoys licking the shower after someone uses it. Cats are weird, yo. Speaking of which, Wash does insist on us turning on the sink for him in the morning, because water poured into a bowl will just not do.

Finally, Tater continues to mellow out. She has attacked me far fewer times this year – whether it’s because she’s becoming less stressed, or that I’ve adopted a more cautious approach to her, is hard to say.  She does continue to come tuck us in at night, making a big plate of biscuits one or more times a night. and sometimes settling in for a nap in between us.  She continues to have a most glorious set of whiskers.  While she’s a bit of a chonker, it seems to be less flab and more just the body type. Our little psycho cat, incarnate.

Dusters

Monster continues to be friendly, and will spend many a night inside sleeping with either of us. She’s very clear on when she wants out, though, and usually delivers a request to be released around 4:30 in the morning. Fortunately I am very good at getting up, letting the cat out, and falling directly back into slumber.

Noodle continues to be a success story. He spends most days inside with us, only going outside to bask from time to time. He, too, is very good at letting us know what he wants (food, pets, or out). We did get him fixed, so he is no longer a menace to society, as it were. He is a lovely little man, a gentle soul, and a most affectionate fellow. The funniest thing about him is when he comes to tell me he wants out at night. Note, I said me. He’ll jump up on the bed, stand on my chest, and inform me.  I’m his person, I guess, so when he wants something, I’m who he comes to see.  I just never expected it to be that personal.

From one of Stripe’s previous litters, Gremlin has become fairly comfortable coming in and hanging out with us. She  has a most amusing voice, kind of an Old Lady meow rather than what most people consider normal. It cracks me up listening to her vocalize, sometimes.  We were able to get her fixed, too. Recently, she has spent her nights sleeping on the ottoman. We hope this is a trend. She’s become a bit of a little terror, to the point that Monster will not walk past her if she’s in the doorway.

Another one from Stripe’s previous litter, Scooter, has also grown accustomed to coming in and spending time with us. She has possibly the biggest eyes I have ever seen in a kitty.  She loves sleeping in the kitty beds we have set up next to Mrs Grimm’s desk, which we count as a win and a blessing. I named her Scooter because she doesn’t seem to have a slow speed setting. She just zooms everywhere.

Pip and Merry are an odd pair. Merry recognizes me as  an interesting person, but does not like to be touched. Her sibling, who we named Pip (short for Pipsqueek, which didn’t pan out for reasons) has settled into the Duster lifestyle, and is fairly friendly to our nefarious agenda. She’s spending nights with us from time to time as well. She’s one of those odd ones that prefers kibble to gooshy, and I think that’s one reason she grew so big.

Beltalowdas

Scooter’s littermate, Poof, is quite aloof, though she will talk to me when looking for foods. She has the most amazing blue eyes.  We got her fixed at the same time as Scooter, too. Sadly, she isn’t very social.

Her mom, Stripe, is still not fixed. She is wiley and has been difficult to trap. She has since had another litter and they are currently getting used to us, so we have high hopes of at least getting them fixed.

We really haven’t given those two proper names yet, but we call them High Brow and Low Brow because of the colorations on their heads. I’m fairly certain the former is female, but haven’t had a good look for harbles on the latter. The fact that the father hasn’t chased it off is a fairly good indication that it is also probably female.  Both kittens have what might  eventually be floofy tails, and signs of becoming fairly large, much like Pip.

Finally, there’s the daddy of them all, Goblin. He’s fathered all of the Dusters and Beltalowdas (well, we’re still uncertain of Monster’s litter since she’s so unlike the rest). When it comes to male children, he’s quite the jerk, and with his female progeny, he’s also a bit of a jerk but only in as much as he wants to procreate with everything cat-like.  We did manage to capture him once but when we did we also captured two other cats in the same cage and I was afraid he’d kill the other two if I didn’t open the cage, so if we didn’t get him fixed I’ll take the blame on that one.

Goblin is big, beat-up, scarred, but, at least to his kittens, a good daddy. I’ve seen him hungry as hell sit off to the side while the kittens eat their fill. He looks like someone hit him with the Ugly Bat a few times but he is, in his own way, a loving daddy. Hard not to love someone like that.

In the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Every cat that I have described has no intrinsic value, and, yet, is valued uniquely. The Inners have a unique relationship with their humans. The Dusters, likewise, and the Beltalowdas as well, have unique relations with us.

The people that run the shelters might have no idea of the unique relationships between their charges and the people that adopt them. And, yet, I have to tell you, these people I support without hesitation. These are the people on the street. The people that are doing the work. If you are at all able, give your money to the local feral control and adoption agencies. Please.

See you next year, for the 12th celebration of our little bearcat.

Inscription: where is it going, what is it doing, and why is the rum gone

I write this on the eve of the 2nd phase of the pre-patch roll-out, presumably with more pre-patch events.

The profession of Inscription has taken a drastic turn, but I have to say that most of that turn has nothing to do with the pre-patch, but rather the AH merging of commodities several weeks ago now.

Let me be more precise.

First of all, let’s recall how money making in Inscription works.

• First, you determine how many inks you will need to produce your glyphs.
• Then, you determine the best herb to buy and mill for maximum yield of necessary pigments (umbral, in this case) to support the creation of glyphs.
• Then, you create said glyphs and sell them for a fixed percentage over cost of manufacture.  Basic economics, there, chief.

Since the introduction of the multi-realm commodity auction house, prices of herbs have crashed. Generally, what was hovering around 4g per, is now hovering around 1g per.

That’s a good thing, right?

Well, there’s a mirror to that, and that is that the cost of producing glyphs is likewise commoditized. Glyphs are also a commodity (stackable) across the same realms, so the sell price has in this case crashed.  Where we had a comfortable, sustainable market in glyphs (even though they were 100% cosmetic as opposed to functional), now it’s a market operating on razor-thin margins. And this is a problem.  Previously, Inscription was a very sustainable way to make gold with out really trying. Now, it’s starting to look a lot like work.

Now, I am not going to start freaking out just yet.

First of all, we are in the flux period between expansions. The Old is fading, the New has not begun. It is probable that there will be an increase in sale prices for glyphs once the new herb (and therefore the new inks, and therefore the new currency for ink traders) settles in.  That will not be a data point we can measure until 2022-11-28.

But let’s not forget the original source of this issue, that being the merging of commodity items into whatever realm “grouping” you might be in. That is the  existing cause of the market crash for glyphs, and I really don’t see it just going away for DF.  So, counter-point, the new market emerges with higher prices for glyphs, but also higher cost for mats and thus not much positive action for profits.

I had had hopes that Inscription would get a new coat of paint in this expansion. Sadly, I think the core crafting changes pretty much ruled out any fundamental changes to Inscription, which is unfortunate. While I feel we should move Inscription back from a cosmetic to a functional craft (similar to, but co-existing with enchanting), I understand that that will take a little bit of planning and such to implement. I just hoped it would be now. We already had our move from the broken tier system for talents, I figured, why not have glyphs re-enter the stage as enhancements on abilities, similar to how enchantments are enhancements on items.

At this points I run out of words, as even the PTR does not present me with options relevant to Dragonflight, but rather it is still anchored to Shadowlands and the old crafting system. I am not worthy of Beta, which, to be fair, I am not actively seeking, either. I have a moral code. But it is at moments like this that it all falls apart.

But currently, it appears that Inscription in Dragonflight will be identical to that in Shadowlands. Sure, the pigments and inks will be different, but it will still boil down to herbs –> inks –> ink trader –> glyph.  Now, for a couple of expansions the ink trader went AWOL without any forthcoming explanation, so it is not outside of possibility that the ink trader in Oribos will remain the MVP of Inscription for the next 18 months or however long it takes. I hope not. I hope many things in this regards, but, in all honesty, it really looks like we’re being sent to the back row for this expansion – possibly even worse.

I keep eating Crow because it’s so Darned Tasty

Well, it’s official. Tuesday, October 25, 2022 is the date that the first of two (?) pre-patches dropped for the next expansion, Dragonflight.

And I cannot be more pleased to be wrong about it.

More specifically, I had grave doubts about the release date for Dragonflight – “by the end of 2022” – and figured if they didn’t have a prepatch by mid-November, they’d miss the date. And, as you can no doubt tell, they made that date, with a month to go, even. So basically here in the last week of October, even, we are with a prepatch all loaded up.

I cannot understate how much this says in favor of the dev team and the ops team together.  They’ve pulled off something quite unusual for Blizzard.

Now … it’s not perfect. As many have said, there are bugs. Many bugs. Although the way some are treating this, “it’s unprecedented and therefore Blizzard have failed”. This fits their chosen narrative so of course. Some people (see link) haven’t had anything kind to say about WoW in years, so we’ll not act surprised when they find the dark lining in a silver cloud. Again. Right, Elliot?

(Seriously, there’s busting Blizz’ balls because upper management are a bunch of anti-union fuckweasels, and there’s constantly harping on WoW because they’re perceived as the big boys in the genre and thus the Scrappy Little Blog can claim to be Speaking Truth to Power like the red-blooded patriots they think they are. I’m good with the former. Not the latter. Be better. Git gud.)

BUT … considering the timeline, considering the gargantuan amount of work that had to go into this, Dev and Ops did a pretty good job.

It is true, there are bugs.  But I’ve seen this for every prepatch for years.  Hell, listen up, you pups, I remember when BC came out and people entering Hellfire Citadel caused Wetlands to crash.  You wanna talk bugs? Let’s talk bugs!  Haha.

It’s gonna be a few days, is all I’m saying.  It’s going to take a while to get the core system cleaned up, and it’s gonna take a while to get all the addons working.  Some may not come back at all. Some won’t need to.

A propos, here’s a brief catalog of some of the issues thus far.

• GupPet is dying on an obscure (to me) UI error. It may not be back. I’m pretty much at my limit here and may just punt and load up BeStride, which is still maintained and works fine.
• TSM is having issues both posting and buying.  And crafting. And … well, it hates the rest of WoW.
• Speaking of crafting, TSM and Skillet are both having issues in that regard.  The new crafting UI may be somewhat usable but you have to disable TSM first (it got better).
• Dominoes is totally busted, but if you can make the new default UI work for you, you may not miss it.  About 90% of Domino’s features are in the new UI.  I’m not 100% sold yet but it does look promising. It would be really nice if I could move the experience bar, bags, and system buttons, though. (Really, guys? Really??)

Right now I have like 60% of my addons disabled, including ElvUI (however, that’s just to see if I can make the default UI work out).

But, bottom line, this is about where we’ve always been three days after a new pre-patch. I’m not Nostradummus but I’m willing to say that this whole thing will be good to go by launch day.

Then again, I’m the idiot that said they’d probably not be ready by the end of the year, so …