Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

No one could have predicted…

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

T R E 4 5 O N

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Everybody saw this coming.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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65Comments

  3. 3.

    jnfr

    I played on the PTR this week, and the changes are so massive it’s almost unimaginable. And Garrosh is still an asshole.

    But Tauren priests rock. I was skeptical of the concept, but they really feel right.

  5. 5.

    Jay in Oregon

    I enjoyed the game, but not when it became a full-time hobby that consumed all of my free time.

    When I got my second level 80, I realized how much time I was spending just keeping the first one geared.

  6. 6.

    Jay in Oregon

    @jnfr:

    And Garrosh is still an asshole.

    Why should the Horde be without an asshole for a leader?

    Varian Wrynn can suck it; my monarch taps kegs at Brewfest.

  7. 7.

    Yutsano

    I thought Azeroth was the source of Raven’s powers…

    Oh wait, that was Azerath. Never mind. Carry on.

    /dweeb

  8. 8.

    Uloborus

    @Yutsano:
    Metrion Zinthos!

    Ahem. Back to WoW, I actually reactivated my account for Cataclysm. I’m very impressed with the rebalancing they’ve done of the classes, but mainly I’m looking forward to the quake tomorrow. Like pretty much every MMO ever the devs have learned as they went along, and every new zone was better than the old ones.

    Every long-running MMO needs to go back and redo their old zones from the ground up to take advantage of what they’ve learned. WoW is just the one that actually did it.

  9. 9.

    Comrade Luke

    there’s a quake? like, literally, a quake?

    Can someone get a video of when everything falls apart?

  12. 12.

    lawnorder

    Cataclysm Beta has closed today.

    So now we all have to wait 2 weeks to fly in Azeroth, visit Deepholme or breathe under waster riding a seahorse.

    Dec 7th, 4 days after your blog surgery. Hopefully you will be free to play!

  18. 18.

    ruemara

    Not looking forward to it. And, despite mostly playing Alli, I liked Thrall. Garrosh makes For The Alliance seem right to do. I wonder how many ways Blizz will crash my computer tomorrow. And fuck them 6 ways to sunday for tossing my res.

  19. 19.

    jnfr

    I am kind of disturbed that John apparently plays Alliance.

    For the Horde!

    @Jay in Oregon:

    Say what you will about Thrall, he was not an asshole.

    @matoko_chan

    And may Elune light your path as well.

  22. 22.

    scarshapedstar

    Apparently some dwarf city gets blown up or something. It probably means more to the elves and gnomes and pixies and fairies over on the Alliance side.

  23. 23.

    marcopolo

    @James K. Polk, Esq.: This. I kicked the habit 16 months ago after realizing progress in game (8 of 10 toons @ 80 pretty fully geared; the other two close behind) had a deleterious effect on progress in real life. And no matter how fun it was, that the treadmilling would never end. I can get that outside of a game. The friends still go at it every weekend. Sometimes I go over to visit but I never stay long.

    It is freaking amazing though how well the game design/ incentive creating folks at Blizzard do their work.

    And for those who can pry themselves away from the games long enough to read a book, two novels that revolve around folks playing MMORPGs: Halting State by Charles Stross and For The Win by Cory Doctorow

  25. 25.

    scarshapedstar

    @jnfr:

    But Tauren priests rock. I was skeptical of the concept, but they really feel right.

    Back in my day, no self-respecting Tauren would have wanted to play a priest. We druids were quite proud of consistently having more healing points on the post-boss-battle scoreboard.

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    @Comrade Luke: I can, on occasion, be hard to outnerd. And I don’t even play WoW.

    @asiangrrlMN: Hi hon. I expect nothing but cheeriness out of you because of today’s developments. Plus I might get the day off work tomorrow.

  27. 27.

    Seanly

    So glad I don’t play that anymore. Great game and all that, but I’m pretty antisocial and never had time to properly raid. I think my brother who’s beaten the addiction at least 3 times will be reinstalling for Cataclysm. We were always Horde except for one or two low-level toons. Alliance was crap.

  28. 28.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    You know, World of Warcraft is the only Blizzard game I never bought. And… well, I’ve heard of well organized raids consisting of, what, ten or more people, and careful planning and minimaxing and tactics and….

    And, well, I’m *impressed as all hell* that people have figured this stuff out and enjoy it.

    But now I understand how my parent’s generation freaked out about D&D and other RPGs.

  29. 29.

    BethanyAnne

    Grr, just got camped at the Auberdine docks getting the turkey achieve. Sorta vaguely wish I had paid a bit more attention to the city invasions. I’d like the Feat of Strength. Headed to IF and SW now for the last enemy tables. Wanna get this done before the world goes kaboom. I’ve been playing Mass Effect and Dragon Age – totally lost on my hunter still.

  33. 33.

    BethanyAnne

    And, yes, nice Amani bear. I sorta wish I had focused more on one server. Twould have made it easier to get some of the cool toys.

  35. 35.

    Yutsano

    @asiangrrlMN: I really should be crankier than I am, considering I have to get up at 6 AM just to coordinate all travel issues if I do have to head in. I’m debating driving but that sounds just slightly more suicidal than the bus right now. Plus whatever the verdict is when I call I’m taking it and running. But it has to wait until the morning unfortunately. Yuck.

    Now why iz you cranky and why iz you not solving it with either chocolate or kitteh wuv?

  37. 37.

    Murc

    Holy hell, John has a warbear?

    I hate him so fucking much. Fucking… Zul’aman timed run. Bane of my existence for a year and a half.

  38. 38.

    Comrade Kevin

    I’m going to go take a last tour around Azeroth before maintenance starts.

    You need to join the Wreck List, John.

  39. 39.

    Kobie

    I’ve actually been playing LOTRO lately, since it’s basically free (optional F2P, I guess). I’m just biding my time until BioWare releases Star Wars: The Old Republic.

  40. 40.

    Kobie

    And I successfully warded off the addiction, but not to WoW — 8 fully geared combat toons and five crafters in Star Wars Galaxies made me realize how badly I needed a life.

  41. 41.

    BethanyAnne

    Whoever rec’d the first Mass Effect, I’m having fun with it now. I think that might have been CrustyDem? Anywho, it’s not as polished as Dragon’s Age, but hopefully ME2 will be. I’ll prolly get that in a month when I’m finished with the first one. Nini

  44. 44.

    Singularity

    @ jnfr

    Until they nerfed it. Dude, I knew a gunsmith who had farmed the best possible mats and made the most amazing weapons. I think his name was Ravage. But that was more than five years ago.

    I played beta for Cataclysm, and I can honestly say it’s a whole new game after tomorrow. And December 7 will just enhance that.

  45. 45.

    teewolverina durotan

    @matoko_chan:

    In physics we talk about dark energy.
    WoW has dork energy.
    May Elune light your path.

    May the light be with you.
    lol
    this made my day.
    wolverina

  46. 46.

    NobodySpecial

    It all ended six months ago for me, and I don’t really miss it. I may reinstall EQ2 and give it a run, though.

  47. 47.

    ChrisS

    I bowed out in 2006, just before Outlands expansion, and sold my account on Ebay for $500. I saw the direction where you had to farm reputation points with more and more and more races to get everything you needed to participate with the bigger raiding guilds or PVP clans. And, frankly, running around killing PVE without the challenge of 40-mans (or heroics) didn’t appeal to me.

    I eventually picked it back up a few years later, before the Lich King, ramped up a Tauren Druid to 67 or something before I got bored farming rep again. I haven’t been back since. Every now and again, I’ll pop over to WoW census to see if my old characters are still being used or check on some of my older raiding buddies.

    It would be fun to check things out again, but I guess it will never be like it was back when the game came out and everything was new and figuring out the what the hell the game was.

  49. 49.

    TomG

    I’ve quit WoW 3 different times, this time will likely be for good. Now if I can figure out how to get LOTRO running under Linux (supposedly possible), I’m good to go.

  50. 50.

    Sly

    @ChrisS:

    And, frankly, running around killing PVE without the challenge of 40-mans (or heroics) didn’t appeal to me.

    Unless you were the actual one running 40-mans, they were rarely a challenge. The hard part was managing 40 gamers and all the egos that that entailed. There were people in my guild that I literally wanted to stab in the face with a rusty rail spike.

  51. 51.

    J.W. Hamner

    I’m Blizzard’s ideal customer, in that I buy time in year long increments and then go for months without playing and using up their bandwidth… I’ve had an account since before the first expansion, but still only have a couple of characters in the 60’s… thanks to an alt addiction.

    So yeah, this is basically my ideal expansion. A revamp of the 1-60 experience is awesome, and I can’t wait to roll a Troll Dr00d.

    Though unfortunately they stopped supporting my girlfriend’s aging Mac, so I’m not sure how much household tension Cataclysm is going to cause.

  52. 52.

    ChrisS

    @Sly:
    I was one of the class captains, and yeah, keeping 40 people’s attention for more than three hours, for weeks at a time is incredibly difficult. Part of the problem for me was that I had a paladin for the longest time and while they had their pluses, they were always overrepresented in raids. I then had a rogue, overrepresented again. Priests were necessary and rare, but boring as shit to play.

    Now, to me, the amount of customization for gear and characters seems overwhelming and daunting. Plus, I just don’t have the time to play.

  53. 53.

    gene108

    @LongHairedWeirdo:

    But now I understand how my parent’s generation freaked out about D&D and other RPGs.

    Dude…it’s still worth freaking out about D&D and other RPG’s…

    @Bnut: EVE sucks without a good corp…what I remember from playing WoW is you could do O.K. if your guild fell apart…

  55. 55.

    Internet Dragons

    Grats on that Warbear, John. I hate ya :). And…Alliance? Really? Ew.

    I guess I got lucky in WoW. I landed in an active, friendly guild filled with working adults and their kids (and a few grandparents). We managed to raid through to the final content (I have my Frostwrym mount as a reward) without ever making the game feel like work – or like an obsession.

    So for me, it’s a place to hang out with nice folks from all over the country and achieve some fun stuff together as a team.

    I was accepted in beta this summer, and really like what they have done with this expansion. The changes are incredible, and the writing in the questlines is the best I have seen them produce. It’s all worth a look if you feel any connection to the game at all.

    I would love to try EVE – I like PvP (both the economic and personal varieties, haha). For some reason I just can’t get into the outer space stuff, though.

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It will be interesting to see how much the radical changes in WoW will affect the player base. Patch 4.0.1 had a lot of mixed reviews.

    I’ll give credit to Blizz for telegraphing every change they’ve contemplated. They’re not vile corporatist assholes like the vermin of SOE when they utterly destroyed Star Wars Galaxies overnight five years ago and instantly lost 75% of their userbase.

  58. 58.

    norbizness

    I like the ease of character-related stuff in WoW now (reactivated after a 2-year absence); I assume this was to prep everybody for the physical changes that take place. I’ve forgotten so much it might be like playing a new game.

    Kept my subscription to CHampions Online active, it’s gameplay/combat physics are just light-years ahead but it doesn’t quite have the variety of missions. I don’t know about all other MMOs, but its character customization is almost worth the price of admission.

    Incidentally, Champions is trying a free-to-play option in early 2011 to compete with the other, DC-backed superhero MMO (which I heard is getting slayed in beta due to its absolutely goofy gameplay and next-to-no character customization, e.g. three sizes of people with no facial changes).

  59. 59.

    norbizness

    P.S. I still reply to the NPC dwarfs’ “Watch yer back!” by saying “Shut yer gob!”, out loud (unfortunately).

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @norbizness:

    Isn’t it a bit disturbing that as he puts you on a gryphon to fly off into the wild blue yonder, the dwarf flight master says “Keep your feet on the ground!”?

  64. 64.

    jayjaybear

    Every damn time I see a screenshot, I end up forgetting it’s just a picture instead of the actual game and try to pan around.

  65. 65.

    evinfuilt

    I was sad Beta went down yesterday, Blizzard let me in beta longer than anytime before. So i’m a lil spoiled (okay a ton spoiled) with todays changes.

    Which of course helps me handle the usual patch day delays, and with this giant server swap, I think their predicted 5pm pst is optimistic. The Shattering will take a full 24 hours to rip the Barrens apart and destroy the remaining lands.

    When you do get in, if you’re horde go straight to Azshara, don’t wait, just go. Frickin awesome zone now. The rocketway is the best way to travel.

    For Alliance, go to Redridge.

    Then everyone hit northern STV, the new questline dealing with Zul’Gurub makes the loss of the zone easier to handle.

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