![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarea
We've been having unbelievably lovely weather, but today it's cloudy and I'm guessing it's here to stay. Oh well, at least we had that one week of awesomeness.
This weekend I'm hoping to go to the West Seattle farmer's market ... but ONLY if they have red gold nectarines (post about them all on my food blog, along with bonus challah). I've been eating two a day and now I can't imagine not being able to eat one every day. I know, even if I go this weekend and get more, those will eventually run out also. But at least I can delay the inevitable.
When I was younger, like ages 8-12, I used to take piano lessons. I got to an intermediate level and could read basic music and painstakingly apply them to piano keys, but I never participated in any concerts, I couldn't read new sheet music then play it knowing exactly how it was supposed to sound, etc. I've maintained that basic knowledge, though I haven't played in years so I'm definitely rusty. The point is, I would not call myself a pianist. But ... I may be getting a piano. See, during those years when I was learning how to play, my parents bought a piano. It's one of those upright ones that are placed against a wall (I don't know if there's a formal name for it) and has glossy dark cherry wood. My mom's kept it looking great all these years.
However, my parents are thinking of moving, either to a smaller house or to another country (everything's up in the air), so in preparation they're pretty much cleaning out the house. All the stuff I had with them from when I was little, to high school, to college, has slowly over the years trickled to me (to the point now where my house is packed with stuff). The piano is pretty much the last thing. I've never even really considered it 'mine,' though. I didn't pay for it, it's a hugely expensive item, and as I said, I'm not really a pianist. But I AM the only person in my family who even remotely plays the piano, so in a sense if it should be with anyone, it should be with me.
Last year or so, my mom asked me if I wanted it, and of course I said yes. I mean, where else would it go? But a week ago she called and said they were going to make arrangements to get it delivered to me, and while they were here, they'd take Talis back with them, so that I wouldn't have to kennel him while on my Santa Cruz trip in October. Then I was like, WHOA WHOA WHOA. The idea of having the piano seemed like one of those theoretical things, or years down the line. Now that I was presented with the reality, I had to consider if it really made sense. Was it worth the expense to a) hire people to move it out of the house; b) hire people to ship it up here; c) hire people to move it again, into my house? Not to mention, my house isn't exactly big. Where the heck would I put it? And I probably won't live in this house forever, so eventually I'd need to pay people to move it -- again!
My mom estimates that buying this particular piano today would probably cost around $5,000. Shipping it might cost around $1,000 or even more. If I were going to buy a piano, then sure, that might be worth it. But would I ever want to buy a piano?? When again, I don't even really play the piano?? Probably not. Though in some ways it pained me, because it's been in my life for as long as I can remember and nostalgia alone makes me want to keep it, I told them that if they could sell it at a reasonable price, to just sell it. I don't know if they'll be able to, though. And obviously I'm not going to let it just get dumped or given away -- in that case, I'd rather take it.
Sigh. It's just one of those things I figured would be with my parents forever.
And another long subject: Warhammer. I finally am comfortable enough with the game to talk about it relatively knowledgably.
1) I like the game more now than I did during beta, maybe because I'm more comfortable with it. I still don't like it enough to play it hardcore like I did WoW, but enough that it's an amusing pasttime that I'd enjoy playing with my friends casually -- you know, what I should have done with WoW.
2) I'm playing a Sorceress, which our guild is lacking at the moment. It's got incredible DPS, is basically a combination of a mage and a warlock in terms of having DoTs, frost nova, and high DPS output. The drawback is that you're tissue paper. Which isn't unexpected, as mages were also tissue paper in WoW, but the thing with the sorceress in WAR is that there is backlash to every spell you do. Meaning, you have the possibility of doing damage to yourself as well as whoever you're killing. So yes, you're killing way faster than any other class, but you may be committing suicide in the process. I can't tell you how many times I've killed myself because I killed 3 mobs in a row and was slowly killing myself without realizing it. It gets frustrating. I've also mostly been playing solo, though -- it's probably way more rewarding when you're in a group situation and have a healer.
3) I also already have an alt -- a Disciple of Khaine, which is basically like a rogue who can heal itself (through HoTs). You dual wield, but your DPS output isn't as high as a WoW rogue's. You gain "soul essence" with every hit, and that's the "mana" you use to cast your healing spells. So basically unless you're hitting stuff, you won't be able to heal. It's a pretty neat class and I've enjoyed playing it. Killing things isn't nearly as fast as with the sorceress, but I can also kill many mobs at once without really being in danger of dying, and also continuously kill without having to pause to regen, which is nice.
4) There's no food or drink in the game. When you're out of combat you regen quickly, equivalent to or faster than when you eat/drink in WoW.
5) You don't need as much bag space, but then you don't get as much either. You start out with 2 bags, of about 16-20 slots each (can't remember), and every 10 levels you get another bag. No other way to get bags, as far as I can tell.
6) There are regular quests, where you get an assignment to collect such and such, or kill so and so, and then there are also public quests (PQs). You wander into an area and it says "You've encountered a public quest." Basically, everyone in the area can contribute to the public quest, and you get contribution points for participating. There's usually 3 stages to a public quest -- if you participate in all 3, you get more contribution points. When the quest is done, usually by killing a named (mini boss), everyone is automatically entered into a roll off, and the higher your contribution, the more additional points are added to your roll. Loot gets distributed to the people with the highest overall rolls. Loot won in public quests are always for your class. You'll never get something meant for another class. If your rolls suck, keep participating and the system will give you persistence points, adding bonus points to your rolls until you win something. You don't HAVE to participate in public quests at all if you don't want to.
7) There are also 'scenarios.' This is NOT the equivalent of instances in WoW. Scenarios are PvP based, wherein you have to go PvP in something like WSG (but not as fun). You get credit for completing the quest whether or not you win.
8) There's only one capital city per side, and the Destruction capital is amazing looking. Maybe I only think that because it's new, but it's darned impressive. I'm sure the Order city is just as cool. There isn't one auction house; instead, auctioneers are all over the city so there isn't one place you have to congregate. I miss Orgrimmar, though.
9) The UI has built-in customization, which is neat, but it's not as flexible as using mods. The UI in general is well done, but there are still some things that aren't as good as WoW -- or I should say, that I'm used to from WoW that I like better. And that doesn't even necessarily have to do with Blizzard; I had a ton of mods that customized my UI to exactly how I wanted it. WAR doesn't have that (yet).
10) I know some people complain that WoW looks "cartoony," but I like the look of it better than WAR. WAR looks good, especially the landscapes, but the characters are, well, ugly. It may look more 'realistic,' but in the end it's still cartoony, just not the same way.
11) I haven't yet experienced what it's like to take over a keep or participate in high level stuff, as my highest level toon is only 10. Currently 40 is the max.
12) For PvE, tank-healer-DPS structure is still intact. PvP is still frustrating with people who don't protect the flag and/or who don't know what they're doing.
13) Each 'region' or series of regions, is also labeled by a 'chapter.' It's basically like it's writing a book, and you're participating in the events of the book, which is kind of neat. Like the starting area is the 'Prologue.' And then you move on to chapters from there. So you can easily tell where people are/what level they are by finding out what chapter they're on.
14) Along those lines, you have a virtual 'book' that you carry with you, that's part of the UI. This book keeps track of a bunch of random things for you, such as quests, notable people you've met, notable animal types you've encountered, achievements you've made, titles you've earned, etc. It's kind of neat.
15) There are also a bunch of random titles you earn for yourself as you play. Achieving a certain number of criticals gets you a title. Getting killed a certain number of times gets you a title. Clicking on yourself 100 times earns you a title. There are probably hundreds of titles in the game, and you can choose any you've earned to label yourself with. My current chosen title is "The Litter Bug," earned because I destroyed more than 10 items or something. It's an amusing but not important part of the game.
16) You also earn reputation and renown. I'm not familiar yet with how those differ from each other, but every chapter has its own reputation bar, which is fairly easy to fill. Participate in all the public quests in the chapter and you're likely to fill it. There are 3 'ranks' to reputation, and every time you achieve one you get a free item, like a potion or a piece of armor, from the rally master.
17) So far I'm digging the professions. I've tried cultivation, apothecary, and salvaging. Cultivation is cool -- you find seeds (looted off mobs usually, or bought), and you grow them into plants, which you then use in apothecary to make potions. Apothecary is pretty much like alchemy, except there are no set recipes like in WoW. You can make up your own combination of ingredients to find out what it makes (and of course, once you do, you'll make more of whatever you like best). This is a cool concept initially, except after awhile everyone's going to know everything, so in that sense it'd be better to have a recipe book, as it amounts to the same thing. As far as I can tell it doesn't keep track of what formulas you've tried and what works/what are the results, which would be very helpful. It's a little too memory dependent, although the plants do have tooltips that hint at what kind of potion it makes. My biggest problem with cultivation/apothecary is that there are dozens of seeds/plants/potions, and here is where you start to feel the pinch of the limited bag space. Salvaging is sort of like enchanting, or I should say, disenchanting. Occasionally a mob will drop, say, "ruined equiment." You can salvage it by turning it into essences and stuff like that, which goes into making talismans (which are like crafted gems in WoW). I've also got talisman making, but I haven't made anything yet so don't know much about it.
18) There's a "career trainer" in every camp/zone, who has training spells for every class. So there's no class trainer. That's kind of a neat 'shortcut' idea. Yet strangely enough they didn't apply it to professions. Each profession has a separate trainer. So apparently, one guy can know all the secrets of every class -- he knows enough about a sorcerer, a Witch elf, a Disciple of Khaine, to teach others -- but one guy knowing all the professions, that's apparently impossible.
19) Guilds can impose taxes or tithes on their members. Right now ours is set at 5%. It actually works very well, wherein every time you loot a mob, 5% of it automatically goes to the guild bank. It's a very 'fair' way to make sure that all guildies contribute equally. And you don't really notice it, since it gets taken immediately as you loot. So if I loot 20 brass coins (equivalent of WoW copper), 1 brass coin automatically goes to the bank. Guilds also earn XP -- not really sure how that works.
20) What's annoying sometimes is that there is collision. So you know how in WoW, 40 people can stand in the same spot? Not true in WAR. You can actually run into people and block each other's way. It hasn't really been a problem, but then I've been playing in beta/head start so there aren't as many people about. I wonder if this is something they'll consider changing if it gets to be an issue. It doesn't usually happen on roads or questing, but maybe in places where people congregate, we'll start to see jams.
This weekend I'm hoping to go to the West Seattle farmer's market ... but ONLY if they have red gold nectarines (post about them all on my food blog, along with bonus challah). I've been eating two a day and now I can't imagine not being able to eat one every day. I know, even if I go this weekend and get more, those will eventually run out also. But at least I can delay the inevitable.
When I was younger, like ages 8-12, I used to take piano lessons. I got to an intermediate level and could read basic music and painstakingly apply them to piano keys, but I never participated in any concerts, I couldn't read new sheet music then play it knowing exactly how it was supposed to sound, etc. I've maintained that basic knowledge, though I haven't played in years so I'm definitely rusty. The point is, I would not call myself a pianist. But ... I may be getting a piano. See, during those years when I was learning how to play, my parents bought a piano. It's one of those upright ones that are placed against a wall (I don't know if there's a formal name for it) and has glossy dark cherry wood. My mom's kept it looking great all these years.
However, my parents are thinking of moving, either to a smaller house or to another country (everything's up in the air), so in preparation they're pretty much cleaning out the house. All the stuff I had with them from when I was little, to high school, to college, has slowly over the years trickled to me (to the point now where my house is packed with stuff). The piano is pretty much the last thing. I've never even really considered it 'mine,' though. I didn't pay for it, it's a hugely expensive item, and as I said, I'm not really a pianist. But I AM the only person in my family who even remotely plays the piano, so in a sense if it should be with anyone, it should be with me.
Last year or so, my mom asked me if I wanted it, and of course I said yes. I mean, where else would it go? But a week ago she called and said they were going to make arrangements to get it delivered to me, and while they were here, they'd take Talis back with them, so that I wouldn't have to kennel him while on my Santa Cruz trip in October. Then I was like, WHOA WHOA WHOA. The idea of having the piano seemed like one of those theoretical things, or years down the line. Now that I was presented with the reality, I had to consider if it really made sense. Was it worth the expense to a) hire people to move it out of the house; b) hire people to ship it up here; c) hire people to move it again, into my house? Not to mention, my house isn't exactly big. Where the heck would I put it? And I probably won't live in this house forever, so eventually I'd need to pay people to move it -- again!
My mom estimates that buying this particular piano today would probably cost around $5,000. Shipping it might cost around $1,000 or even more. If I were going to buy a piano, then sure, that might be worth it. But would I ever want to buy a piano?? When again, I don't even really play the piano?? Probably not. Though in some ways it pained me, because it's been in my life for as long as I can remember and nostalgia alone makes me want to keep it, I told them that if they could sell it at a reasonable price, to just sell it. I don't know if they'll be able to, though. And obviously I'm not going to let it just get dumped or given away -- in that case, I'd rather take it.
Sigh. It's just one of those things I figured would be with my parents forever.
And another long subject: Warhammer. I finally am comfortable enough with the game to talk about it relatively knowledgably.
1) I like the game more now than I did during beta, maybe because I'm more comfortable with it. I still don't like it enough to play it hardcore like I did WoW, but enough that it's an amusing pasttime that I'd enjoy playing with my friends casually -- you know, what I should have done with WoW.
2) I'm playing a Sorceress, which our guild is lacking at the moment. It's got incredible DPS, is basically a combination of a mage and a warlock in terms of having DoTs, frost nova, and high DPS output. The drawback is that you're tissue paper. Which isn't unexpected, as mages were also tissue paper in WoW, but the thing with the sorceress in WAR is that there is backlash to every spell you do. Meaning, you have the possibility of doing damage to yourself as well as whoever you're killing. So yes, you're killing way faster than any other class, but you may be committing suicide in the process. I can't tell you how many times I've killed myself because I killed 3 mobs in a row and was slowly killing myself without realizing it. It gets frustrating. I've also mostly been playing solo, though -- it's probably way more rewarding when you're in a group situation and have a healer.
3) I also already have an alt -- a Disciple of Khaine, which is basically like a rogue who can heal itself (through HoTs). You dual wield, but your DPS output isn't as high as a WoW rogue's. You gain "soul essence" with every hit, and that's the "mana" you use to cast your healing spells. So basically unless you're hitting stuff, you won't be able to heal. It's a pretty neat class and I've enjoyed playing it. Killing things isn't nearly as fast as with the sorceress, but I can also kill many mobs at once without really being in danger of dying, and also continuously kill without having to pause to regen, which is nice.
4) There's no food or drink in the game. When you're out of combat you regen quickly, equivalent to or faster than when you eat/drink in WoW.
5) You don't need as much bag space, but then you don't get as much either. You start out with 2 bags, of about 16-20 slots each (can't remember), and every 10 levels you get another bag. No other way to get bags, as far as I can tell.
6) There are regular quests, where you get an assignment to collect such and such, or kill so and so, and then there are also public quests (PQs). You wander into an area and it says "You've encountered a public quest." Basically, everyone in the area can contribute to the public quest, and you get contribution points for participating. There's usually 3 stages to a public quest -- if you participate in all 3, you get more contribution points. When the quest is done, usually by killing a named (mini boss), everyone is automatically entered into a roll off, and the higher your contribution, the more additional points are added to your roll. Loot gets distributed to the people with the highest overall rolls. Loot won in public quests are always for your class. You'll never get something meant for another class. If your rolls suck, keep participating and the system will give you persistence points, adding bonus points to your rolls until you win something. You don't HAVE to participate in public quests at all if you don't want to.
7) There are also 'scenarios.' This is NOT the equivalent of instances in WoW. Scenarios are PvP based, wherein you have to go PvP in something like WSG (but not as fun). You get credit for completing the quest whether or not you win.
8) There's only one capital city per side, and the Destruction capital is amazing looking. Maybe I only think that because it's new, but it's darned impressive. I'm sure the Order city is just as cool. There isn't one auction house; instead, auctioneers are all over the city so there isn't one place you have to congregate. I miss Orgrimmar, though.
9) The UI has built-in customization, which is neat, but it's not as flexible as using mods. The UI in general is well done, but there are still some things that aren't as good as WoW -- or I should say, that I'm used to from WoW that I like better. And that doesn't even necessarily have to do with Blizzard; I had a ton of mods that customized my UI to exactly how I wanted it. WAR doesn't have that (yet).
10) I know some people complain that WoW looks "cartoony," but I like the look of it better than WAR. WAR looks good, especially the landscapes, but the characters are, well, ugly. It may look more 'realistic,' but in the end it's still cartoony, just not the same way.
11) I haven't yet experienced what it's like to take over a keep or participate in high level stuff, as my highest level toon is only 10. Currently 40 is the max.
12) For PvE, tank-healer-DPS structure is still intact. PvP is still frustrating with people who don't protect the flag and/or who don't know what they're doing.
13) Each 'region' or series of regions, is also labeled by a 'chapter.' It's basically like it's writing a book, and you're participating in the events of the book, which is kind of neat. Like the starting area is the 'Prologue.' And then you move on to chapters from there. So you can easily tell where people are/what level they are by finding out what chapter they're on.
14) Along those lines, you have a virtual 'book' that you carry with you, that's part of the UI. This book keeps track of a bunch of random things for you, such as quests, notable people you've met, notable animal types you've encountered, achievements you've made, titles you've earned, etc. It's kind of neat.
15) There are also a bunch of random titles you earn for yourself as you play. Achieving a certain number of criticals gets you a title. Getting killed a certain number of times gets you a title. Clicking on yourself 100 times earns you a title. There are probably hundreds of titles in the game, and you can choose any you've earned to label yourself with. My current chosen title is "The Litter Bug," earned because I destroyed more than 10 items or something. It's an amusing but not important part of the game.
16) You also earn reputation and renown. I'm not familiar yet with how those differ from each other, but every chapter has its own reputation bar, which is fairly easy to fill. Participate in all the public quests in the chapter and you're likely to fill it. There are 3 'ranks' to reputation, and every time you achieve one you get a free item, like a potion or a piece of armor, from the rally master.
17) So far I'm digging the professions. I've tried cultivation, apothecary, and salvaging. Cultivation is cool -- you find seeds (looted off mobs usually, or bought), and you grow them into plants, which you then use in apothecary to make potions. Apothecary is pretty much like alchemy, except there are no set recipes like in WoW. You can make up your own combination of ingredients to find out what it makes (and of course, once you do, you'll make more of whatever you like best). This is a cool concept initially, except after awhile everyone's going to know everything, so in that sense it'd be better to have a recipe book, as it amounts to the same thing. As far as I can tell it doesn't keep track of what formulas you've tried and what works/what are the results, which would be very helpful. It's a little too memory dependent, although the plants do have tooltips that hint at what kind of potion it makes. My biggest problem with cultivation/apothecary is that there are dozens of seeds/plants/potions, and here is where you start to feel the pinch of the limited bag space. Salvaging is sort of like enchanting, or I should say, disenchanting. Occasionally a mob will drop, say, "ruined equiment." You can salvage it by turning it into essences and stuff like that, which goes into making talismans (which are like crafted gems in WoW). I've also got talisman making, but I haven't made anything yet so don't know much about it.
18) There's a "career trainer" in every camp/zone, who has training spells for every class. So there's no class trainer. That's kind of a neat 'shortcut' idea. Yet strangely enough they didn't apply it to professions. Each profession has a separate trainer. So apparently, one guy can know all the secrets of every class -- he knows enough about a sorcerer, a Witch elf, a Disciple of Khaine, to teach others -- but one guy knowing all the professions, that's apparently impossible.
19) Guilds can impose taxes or tithes on their members. Right now ours is set at 5%. It actually works very well, wherein every time you loot a mob, 5% of it automatically goes to the guild bank. It's a very 'fair' way to make sure that all guildies contribute equally. And you don't really notice it, since it gets taken immediately as you loot. So if I loot 20 brass coins (equivalent of WoW copper), 1 brass coin automatically goes to the bank. Guilds also earn XP -- not really sure how that works.
20) What's annoying sometimes is that there is collision. So you know how in WoW, 40 people can stand in the same spot? Not true in WAR. You can actually run into people and block each other's way. It hasn't really been a problem, but then I've been playing in beta/head start so there aren't as many people about. I wonder if this is something they'll consider changing if it gets to be an issue. It doesn't usually happen on roads or questing, but maybe in places where people congregate, we'll start to see jams.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 09:17 pm (UTC)Just an upright piano, as far as I know. :-)
That is so awesome. I'm jealous! Did I even know you played the piano (even just a little)?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-18 09:29 pm (UTC)Ideally they'd sell it to recoup some of the cost, and also have someone else worry about moving it. But if they don't sell it, I think my parents would feel 'hurt' if I didn't want it, given that it's been around since I was little and I was the only one who played it, and they went through all that expense to buy it in the first place, took care of it all these years, and moved it around several times whenever they relocated.
If it does end up with me, I might need to take piano lessons from you, haha!
no subject
Date: 2008-09-19 02:38 am (UTC)