Oh.. and I did a new tag-sig for our 25 man team.

this one is transparent in the middle too.

We’ve made a few mistakes in fighting there, but we’ve all learned pretty fast and have adapted to the fights well.  We play together on Wed/Fri/Mon mornings.  I’d like to start an hour earlier but it’s not gonna work out for a few others.  All the raid teams in <alea iacta est> have names.. since we are a morning crew fueled on copious amounts of coffee, we named our team:

I made the team banner sig

I removed Hash’s two toons from the guild while the jerk on his account was online.  I can’t remember him having any other characters in the guild.  Threecard and Fourtune were the only ones, right?

If you aren’t gonna run noscript in Firefox (or the equivalent in IE) then at least keep your operating system up to date with patches and most importantly.. keep Adobe’s FLASH PLAYER UPDATED.  Java too if you have it installed.. especially if you insist on using friggin porn sites.  Shame on you for that.   You can become infected with keyloggers injected into your system by visiting sites with harmful flash embedded in them that exploit vulnerabilities in un-updated Flash players.

Use Spybot Seek and Destroy and Hijack This and a good Anti Virus.. even a free one, many of which are better than ones you pay for *cough* Norton *coughsucks*.. keep em updated and scan.

If you just can’t be bothered to keep your computer as safe as possible from predators (it’s not just your wow account, but if you bank online.. retirement plan online.. jeez you are just asking for it..  well get an authenticator at least for 6 bucks for WoW.  It alone won’t stop somebody determined from hacking you if your machine is vulnerable.. but it really is a big enough deterrent that most folks aren’t going to go to the lengths necessary (timing man in the middle attacks against you while you log in on your compromised machine) to save your account.

What do you guys wanna do?  Don’t hold back, be honest.  <Faith of the Fallen> is entering into a split raid plan with <Horde Honor Guard> doing Ulduar 25 3 to 4 nights a week.  Tu/We/Thu with Friday and Monday being optional.  Basically we are adopting their loot policy for our combined raids.. there have been a very few changes to it that aren’t yet displayed yet at www.hordhonorguard.com under the “policies” link near the top.

Not sure what all they haven’t updated it in awhile.  He’d mentioned one thing that was different than their listed policy while we were talking.. if you (and everyone else) pass on a piece of loot that you could use for your main spec and let it go to offspec roll then you can have your chance at it along with all others that want it for their offspec and if you win it won’t be counted against your loot total.  Previously (and still displayed in their policy) was that if you want something for your main spec, even if it’s a sidegrade or for a specialty thing.. like a threat or block set for tanking or a “haste set” for caster it would count toward your loot total.   Now if you don’t really really want it and would like to let it go to offspec roll (not counted as loot total) then you can roll on it then taking your chances with all the others that will want it for offspec, without it counting for you either.

I guess I don’t want to hash out the terms of the new raiding agreement here.. just to say that HHG has always been a pretty cool guild with decent folks.  Will there be background tension and the potential for divisiveness in a joint raid this big?  Probably.  We are supposed to be taking the cream of the crop from each guild to steamroll Ulduar.. or at least have a decent shot at it.  Those that aren’t selected will “do a 10 man run”.

That’s gonna work out horribly IMO.  An entire 10man of middle and down players isn’t gonna do well in Ulduar.  There has to be some top dogs along to have any kind of shot, from what I’ve seen.   It’s just setting up the Ulduar 10 on the side of the people they didn’t classify as the best of the best to fail on their own.  If somebody can’t figure out how to squeeze the most possible DPS out of their own level 80 class.. they aren’t gonna have the wherewithall to lead each other in Ulduar 10 raids..  An exercise in futility.

This all sounds to be potentially rewarding for those going to the combined HHG/FotF Ulduar 25, and pretty crappy for those not deemed leet enough.  There’s a 75% raid attendance policy that we are both agreeing to, or you don’t get loot over somebody with 75% attendance.  Given that all the loot that drops is gonna be wanted by somebody for a very long time and I can only be on for the Tu/We nights, I would be automagically passed over for all loot for long into the foreseable future.  I questioned Reaxx/Mosh about wether that HHG policy was going to be instituted for the combined thing and they said yes.  I told them that I didn’t have much incentive to be involved then and a discussion about wether the 75% should be for all the raids scheduled.  The said it wouldn’t include the optional Fridays say.. so wouldn’t get dinged attendance if not showing up on the optional day(s).  The topic included them considering if it should only be 75% of the days that a person says they can commit to.  So like me.. I commit to Tue/Wed nights and I would have to have 75% attendance on those nights.  Sounded good but they started discussing if that was enough involvement.

I told them that I didn’t want or expect them to change any of the rules or make an exception for me as they had started off saying how much they really liked a meticulous, black and white formula for loot and policy layed out for all to see and have it applied 100% to everyone.  That they didn’t like gray areas.  If it was black and white and totally enforced there were never any problems in the time they have been a guild blah blah.

When I asked about the 75% and that it would rule me out, they started talking about letting it slide.. changing the way the figure 75%..  they wanted to say that I wouldn’t be affected by it but I could tell that they weren’t comfortable changing that policy as we were talking about any possible new interpretations of it.  I don’t want an exception and if it is decided that the 75% attendance overall is needed that’s cool.. I just don’t fit into that rule.  While I’d like to wipe out Ulduar25 for the experience of it.. doing it with basically no shot at any loot for a long time takes away almost all my motivation to suffer the progession through there.  No hard feelings, I just won’t fit into the new order of things coming.  Not gonna lash out over it.

I don’t think Mosh is on the same page with Reaxx and HHG about where this is all leading to.. Mosh has mentioned several times that what he wants to get out of this is knowledge and practice of doing all the stuff so that we can succeed in Ulduar with just our guild..   HHG’s philosophy of this allegiance is to merge the two guilds to continue raiding as a more cohesive unit that is possible when split as two guilds.  So there’s gonna be disappointment on somebodies side soon.

All that said.. I’d be the most happy adventuring alongside my longtime friends.. wherever that is.  Ulduar 10 would provide enough challenge for me (us) for a long time I think before it get’s old to the point I would feel the need to step up to 25 to get something more out of the experience.  There’s gonna be a new raid zone in patch 3.3?  Something in Icecrown?  That could carry us through to the next expansion.. and if not there *should* be Starcraft2 out by then haha

There’s a link along the menu line up top here - ”Forums” the address is www.hadleysplace.com/forum for now anyway.

I logged off to eat dinner and laid on the sofa to watch something on TV with Mandy and I promptly zonked out.  Maybe we can hit up Obsidium Sanctum tonight, Tues, leaving Sunday for getting more done in Naxx?

Almost all the minor glyphs are discovered recipes.. I think there’s 61 of them I think and it’s on a 24 hour cooldown discovery… so it’s gonna take awhile before I get all the minor’s.  If you can’t wait, expect to pay a premium for the minors over the majors for awhile in the AH, probably.

If you didn’t know, you take the glyph and you stand near the Lexicon of Power in the room where the inscription trainer is.. the floating book thing.  Find it by talking to guard in old world city.  There you can click the glyph and should automagically open up your glyph window and you can click the blue glowy hand on available, appropriate (major/minor) glyph slot.