Quick hits

I have a lot of quick little things to touch on today. If I wanted to, I could force all these out into individual posts and actually have one each day for the week. But I don't feel the need to do that. Instead I'm going to break my "one topic per post" rule and do a few quick hits here.

RealID on the forums:
I wasn't one of the "no-way, no-how" individuals regarding RealID friends in-game when that feature was announced. I understood people's privacy concerns, but I didn't feel they were completely justified. Plus, I wanted to actually see how it worked in the game before coming to final judgment. I was pleased enough with how it worked that I'm okay using it. My one hang-up was being able to see friends of friends, but when it turned out that you could only see their name and not any game/realm/toon information, or even whether or not they were actually online, I considered this acceptable.

I like what Blizzard is attempting to do by extending this to the forums, but I'm less okay with the real name implementation out on the general internet than I was with the friend system that was in-game only.

I know a few people have said this in the last few hours, and it's an option I had silently wished would be worked into the system before it was even released in game, but if Blizz would just let us set a single account-wide nickname, every concern I have with the system would go away. If I could be known to Battle.net as Saniel instead of my real name, no matter what game I was playing...problem solved.

It would tie a single name to all your friending and forum posts, but still maintain a barrier between your game life and your real life. I don't know why this is not being considered as an option. Hopefully it's something that can be.

Another pre-Cata goal down:


I dinged 80 on my Shadow Priest on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was spent running a slew of heroics (even though I said I didn't care if he ever stepped foot in one) and I managed to pick up 3 pieces of Triumph gear before the day was over, including 2 pieces of T9.

Incidentally, the extra 6 seconds on Vampiric Touch from the 2pc set bonus have totally screwed up my rotation. I'm now trying to figure out a new one.

One step closer to being fully self-sufficient:
I also maxed out Siaaryn's alchemy skill (with Transmute specialization). I can now make my own Elixirs and transmute my own gems. One step closer to full self-sufficiency. All I need now is an Enchanter (which will likely happen come Cata).

Still waiting for a Beta spot:
That one pretty much says it all. I haven't been one of the early fortunates. But it's a long process and people are entered in all the way through. There's still a lot of time left.

General Cata news:
Since the NDA was lifted, it's all been coming out way too fast for me to keep up with. There's some things I'm willfully ignoring (like any starting zone information), but also a lot of stuff that I'm pretty sure I'm just missing.

I feel like it's the same thing as trying to keep up with Game Trailers during E3. If you blink, you're already too far behind to catch up.

As someone trying to maintain a respectable and informative blog, I know this is a bad state to be in. At the very least I'm trying to keep up with anything Druid related. But I'm sure I'm behind in that, too.

On that topic...


Worgen and Troll Feral forms:
Yeah, I saw 'em. I knew I'd loved the Troll forms most of all four, and I wasn't wrong. They're the most ridiculously silly of all of the races, but I love them. Tigers with mohawks and tusks? What's not to love? Alas, I have no desire to leave my Alliance guildies just for a bitchin' cat form that I won't be spending as much time in as Bear anyway.

And the worgen forms? I like them. They look tough. But they also scream "leather-daddy" to me. I feel like they'd fit right in with the Village People. Or IML.

I'm still not 100% sure, but I think Saniel is eventually going to be race-changed.