Facelift!

Lookie, lookie - a facelift!

I stuck with blogspot for ages just for convenience, since it's where I started, but I finally got around to putting it on my own webhost, thus the upgrade to wordpress. So you should already be in the right place if you're using the right url (www.xantherblog.com) then you're set. If you're still using the xanthersz.blogspot.com one, then please come on over and update your url!

3.3 Woes

As with every patch, comes the inevitable glitches.  They’ve already done a mini patch fix, which is good.  But the fix I’m really hoping for?  The Call Stabled Pet bug.  Yes, if you are using this ability while using the random dungeon finder beware.  It doesn’t seem it’s a problem if your entire group is from the same server, but it definitely is when you have cross-servers.  The bug?  The 5 minute cooldown goes up to 25 days.  Mine’s now down to something like 22 days, and still ticking.  I’m curious though – will the GM’s answer my ticket before the CD is up?  I’ve had it open for days.

Now, a guildie had another problem and put in the magic key words since it was a more immediate problem, which got him a GM within an hour or so (If you don’t know the key words, I won’t tell you.  And no, I’m not going to cheat and use them in my ticket since the issue is just an annoyance, not crucial – it’d be like skipping in line).  While he had the GM, he asked about my issue (they asked if he had any other questions, so that works, right?  Lol.) and they said yes, it’s a known issue and to keep doing what I am (using a regular stable, and leaving the ticket open).  But it begs the question – if they have the system in place to track for key words and phrases… why don’t they use it for known issues?  Wouldn’t it be great customer service (in comparison to what they have – certainly there’s even better than this small thing I suggest) if they found the key words for this glitch, then auto-replied with a status update, saying it’s a known issue and instructing you to stay/not stay in the ticket queue?  Or anything?  If someone in my office took more than 1 business day to reply to a customer, that might be ok depending on the issue and whether or not they got back within 2 business days.  If they did it to more than one customer, or if they were like Bliz and don’t respond for days on end – then there would be consequences.  It’s just plain terrible customer service.

Luckily, it’s not that big of an issue, and only really just an annoyance.  Hell, it goes back to the days before the ability existed.  So my frustration is more, once again, with Bliz’s poor customer service than the actual issue.  Probably because my own field is directly related to Customer Service, but oh well.  I expect glitches, especially when making changes of the caliber they did.  I just also expect some measure of Customer Satisfaction be included in their Customer Service.

He's Big, He's Blue, and He's Mine!

This past weekend, my wife went to scan for Arcturis for me, while I went real quick to check Sholazar for Loque. Amazingly enough, he spawned right in front of her! Heart racing, she puts him in roots, and tells me to hightail it over. She’s calmly holding him there and I’m on my way over, when Hardtobrake, a tauren, comes in. He starts trying to tame it, even though she’s already tagged it and is obviously holding him for someone. Somehow he managed not to tame him, and my wife kept him holding Arcturis. So then, the tauren decides to kill Arcturis – even though she’s emoting him to stop, begging him, etc. Wtf? Seriously, if you come across a rare-spawn that you know hunters around Azeroth are trying to tame, why would you kill it rather than let someone else tame it, especially if they tagged it first? Thus, the inevitable happened – he and I were forced to compete and camp the spot together until the next spawn. Because of that, I award him the following achievement.

I mean, honestly, it only hurts you to be a jerk like that. And then after killing Arcturis, he tries dualing her, taunting her, etc. Of course, he probably forgot he was a 77 and she was a well geared 80 when he flagged himself PvP, lol. He didn’t make that mistake twice. I’m happy to say, though, that the next day when I was camping him (I’d run a dungeon, check for the spawn, see afore mentioned huntard there, then go do another dungeon, lol) – he did spawn. I’m sitting there watching a movie, and he spawns right in front of me! Quick concussive shot & tame, and he was mine! Immediately fed him to get some happiness up, then thanked the other alliance hunter (I apologize, I forget your name – I was a bit preoccupied, lol!) who had come over probably 30 minutes prior. He said gratz, and as he saw I was already camping the spot – he let me tame Arcturis without a fight. Damned decent of him, and much appreciated that there are polite people on the server. And YAY! He’s my first Spirit Beast. I’ve now seen King Crush twice, but no Loque. Maybe luck will hold out and I can find Loque soon too. And fyi, if you’re looking for a spirit beast, Arcturis is your easiest bet, since he spawns in the same place every time. Simply camp the spot long enough and you’re essentially guaranteed a pet (provided some jerk doesn’t kill him first).

Thoughts on 3.3

Sooo I did have time to jump in last night.  Conference call got done early, and I just stayed up way too late.  Aside from the typical patch-day nightmares (“Additional instances cannot be launched…”, Dalaran nightmare lag, etc.), it was pretty good.  The new instances are fun, and a bit of a challenge.  I even picked up a new crossbow!  Rest of the stuff was mostly shaman gear (no one could use) or tank gear.  Very nice, is dungeon queuing that lets you port right from dungeon to dungeon.  Also nice is the random heroic option, which means we don’t have to sit around going “what dungeon do you want to do?”.

But nicest of all…  It looks like the Hunter Misdirect is finally fixed.  Not only that, but AoE Damage seems to work as well.  Thus we’re no longer limited to pulling 3 mobs weakly onto the tank – we can actually AoE a group onto them!  Or more importantly, once we hit MD, we can actually lay into a target without fearing that we’ll be pulling agro by our 6^th shot…  Yay!

Now if they just fix it so we can actually get the schematics for epic ammo…  I understand that it’s epic ammo – should take a little effort to get.  But after ages of gnomish/goblin engineering not really mattering, it seems so random to make bullets go to one and arrows to the other.  Not to mention, why does the schematic have a rep requirement and the ammo not?  Doesn’t that basically defeat the purpose of trying to get the schematic?  I mean, to get the bullets, I don’t need the rep, but to make the bullets someone else needs to get the rep.  Just seems a little weird to me.  Seems the schematic and the ammo should both have the requirement.  Oh well.  I doubt I’ll buy the ammo, and at some point I’ll get the rep up and then I’ll make them.  So not a big deal.  Just seems a little odd.

3.3 Live

I should be excited, except I have a full day of work, conference call this evening, and MBA to do.  I guess that means that 3.3 goes live for this Hunter tomorrow instead…  More comments on the patch after I have a chance to see them!  Lol.

RL WTH?

Ok, first the WoW.  If you’re going for Exalted w/ Bloodsail, find some friends or cross your fingers that there’s someone else as insane as you at the same time.  The 2 guys we’re farming it with are nice & fun.  Half the time, only one of us is actually at the computer killing Jazzrek, but we just stay in a raid group so when we afk out, and log back in, we’re still in the group.  Then whoever is around kills him, and everyone gets the rep.  Much nicer if you don’t have to always be there – and it works both ways!

Onto the WTH…  So we have a database, that tracks everything about everyone.  Well, not everything, but you know what I mean.  contact info, giving history, grades, degrees, employers, and so on.  Basically, everything is supposed to be recorded in it, so that all of us who have access, can pull the data we need, when we need it.

So knowing that there’s a particular department here that doesn’t do a great job of inputting the data, I always do one or two things on the side to make sure I actually have the data I need.  I also train people to let me know when they stumble across something I should know, so that they inform me – anything I can do to get the necessary data.  So now that I have my 90% solution, as accurate as I can get, I pull the list from the database to cross-reference.  My list has 22 names.  A little low (usually closer to 30 at this time of year), but still probably pretty accurate.  The list I pull?  Had 1.  WTH?  Out of curiosity, I run the same report for the list I should get in late FEB.  In late FEB it should have ~380 names.  Right now it has 150 (it should have 0 right now…).  And 12 of the names on my list (the ones that should be on the original list I pulled that only had 1 name), are on the FEB one!  W T H? ? ? ?

I know, probably confused everyone with this, but let’s just say the math doesn’t add up.  I swear, someday I’ll just make everyone elect me King. Then I can solve problems like these by hiring Lifeguards for the gene pool…

Sick

So at least the perk to being sick was that we got our Bloodsail rep up a bit.  Watching movies, and killing Jazrek.  And now we have 2 others who joined us, lol.  Makes it easier now too, since they’re also watching for him to kill him as soon as possible.  Though if you have to be sick, don’t be sick on a TUE so that you can log into WoW, lol.  Yet for some strange reason, Nazgrel wasn’t down when I woke up on TUE.  Weird!  Oh well, back to work now…  At least it’ll seem like a short week, since I went in MON, and now just THU & FRI.  Then a weekend!  Yay!