Hunter skinners are poachers

In connection with my last post, from a RP perspective, one reason I was starting to hate my hunter that I deleted, was that he was a poacher. Being a hunter and a skinner means that the awful truth is I shot and killed thousands of wild animals. I just could not do it any more. The irony is, hunters have animals as pets and supposedly take care of them. Well, I read a story about a year ago about a woman who loves animals that married a trapper. He killed a bunch of coyotes and brought home a young coyote that he did not kill, so she raised it as a pet. I do not want to be that guy.

Lv 85 deleted

I deleted my oldest character today, a lvl 85 hunter. I had 2 lvl 85 hunters, so I deleted one. He was my leatherworker, however, other than that he was unnecessary. And I have been more and more dissatisfied with leatherworking in WoW. I know it could be said, "Why delete? What harm does it do to leave the character alone?". It is hard for me to answer this logically. A character in a RP game often is more than just stats and abilities. It is an extension of yourself, or a particular aspect of yourself. I did not wish to pursue this aspect any longer. All characters are a project, and I do not wish to leave uncompleted projects lying around that I no longer wish to work on. It is so easy to level a character now anyways, that if I wanted another leatherworker, I would level up a different class character as a leatherworker.
Also, it was rather tedious leveling both hunters, and getting them basic decent gear with gems and enchants. I do not want to do this again.
My other level 85 hunter, named Yaggle, I still play and enjoy. I am "adopting" some of Mourndarr's(deleted character) pets by re-taming and giving the same names. So in a way, at least in spirit, he is still with us, and RP-wise, the pets will still get plenty of food and exercise.
It is hard to let go but it is the only way to move on, improve, and be happy.

I feel really stupid

I got caught up in the RIFT hype. I guess I want a new,exciting MMO so badly that I jumped off a cliff. I read all the hype about Rift, looked at their website, and it looked really cool. I watched a couple of YOUTUBE videos, and it looked even cooler. So I bought it and even paid the extra 10 bucks for the bigger bag, riding turtle, and pet because I was so sure I had found my new game. Well, my computer cannot handle it unless I put the game at the minimum settings. It just, well, it's playable, but it's not more awesome than Wow when it looks like that. It just doesn't look like I wanted it to look. I like Rift, I think it's a good game. But I don't really think it's better than Wow, just different. And if I could play it at high graphics settings, I might have gotten sucked in. Instead, 60 bucks got sucked out of me.
I went to the Indian Casino here in Tucson(there are 4 in or near town actually) today and won about $570, which, sure, takes some sting out of it. But I have been gambling since I was about 20 and I have learned a few things, one of them is that, the $570 and the $60 actually have nothing to do with each other, and 60 bucks is 60 bucks, whether or not I won money today. Also, gambling isn't actually a smart thing to do, so I basically did one stupid thing after I did another stupid thing. Just because I won doesn't mean it wasn't a stupid thing. Realistically, I never should have blown that 60, nor went to the casino. My bad spending habit is a catalyst for my gambling habit. I need to be more careful about impulse buys such as RIFT. My account is already cancelled and I only played it for 2 or 3 days. I guess it was actually TRION's(publisher of RIFT) lucky day.

Get rid of resilience

Resilience is a terrible stat in World of Warcraft. People with more resilience on their gear have an advantage in pvp over people who don't. People who raid do not get resilience on their gear because the tank gets protection against crits through other stats, and everybody else does not need it, so they want gear with other stats instead. What resilience really does is make it so people with pvp gear are better at pvp but worse at raiding, and people with non-resilience gear are better at raiding but worse at pvp, at least as far as their gear goes. Their actual experience with either raiding or pvp already makes them better at whatever they usually do.
My point is that you should be able to get good gear doing pvp, and be able to take that gear to a raid, and that gear serve you well in the raid, as well as good gear gotten from raiding should help you when you go to do pvp. You earned that good gear, it should be good for both things. If somebody geared up doing raids and now they are in your battlegrounds, why should it bother you? You usually do pvp so you already are better than them. And vice-versa. And adding another stat for no good reason is annoying and wasteful. Get rid of resilience.
I almost said we should get rid of hit rating also, but, there may be balance issues there. Maybe you don't want the balance druid to be able to heal as well as the resto druid, well the balance druid can't, because he geared for hit rating instead of intellect, spirit, or spell power. Maybe there are issues for other classes as well, so I won't go there on hit rating. But resilience just places limits on players so they are only geared to do what they usually do. And I think that's stupid.

Cataclysm rocks

Well, I held out for 2 months and did not buy Cataclysm. But then I did. I still have issues with the game, the same old ones I did in Wrath of Lich King. But this time, I think the good outweights the bad. I started playing through the starter (lvl 80) zones in Cataclysm, Mt. Hyjal and Vah... well, the underwater zone, whatever it's called. I liked them except for the linear quest progression that feels more like I'm reading a story going on an adventure. I made a goblin and leveled to 20, and enjoyed the starting goblin quests. Then I made a blood elf mage and went to the undead area since I knew it had a major overhaul. THIS is where I decided that Cataclysm seriously rocks. I played until I got to lvl 27 and got to Tarren Mill and I have to say, that was probably the funnest(sorry not a real word, I know) 27 levels I have ever been through. Plus the plants vs. zombies-esque mini game with the singing sunflower pet reward was a blast. The mad undead scientist who thought Johnny Awesome was Jenny Awesome was exceptionally gratifying to kill. Overall just a great time. The sheer amount of work that went into this expansion blows my mind. I still have a lot of it to experience since I got both my hunters to 83 only. And if I don't get that flaming turtle pet, I think I will die. YES! I like Cataclysm.

The Civ 5 Cultural Victory

My Civ 5 playing has mostly revolved around the Cultural Victory. It's a rather fragile way of playing, since there are a couple of computer-controlled civ playstyles that can ruin it. If you start between Japan, Greece, and Persia, it's going to be really, really hard, because even if you kick all their buts, if you devote much production to military units, the cultural victory slips away. You have to build certain improvements, and specific wonders(Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Cristo Redendor, Sydney Opera House) by a certain time or you are screwed. In particular, Sistine Chapel and Cristo Redendor are game-breakers. If another civ builds one, you need to drop the cultural victory right then and there. I got to where I could win a Cultural Victory nearly any time with any civ at Warlord, so I moved up to Prince. I got to where I could win a Cultural Victory with any civ some of the time, and culture-favored civs(Egypt, France, Siam, India) most of the time, so I moved up to King. Now I am having some big problems. I came within 2 turns of success with France. Then I had an ideal scenario playing as Egypt where I had a large island all to myself. However Persia was so ridiculously far ahead in tech and had about 20 cities, then produced Cristo Redendor about 5 turns before me (game over). I have no doubt that a cultural victory is possible even on Emperor level, since higher difficulty means making things easier for other civs, not penalizing yours. So as long as you stay out of war and somebody like the above example with Persia does not happen, you should be able to do it. I just have not done it yet. Today I try again as France. But one thing I am not sure about is whether I will ever be able to get a Cultural victory with a culture-unfriendly civ at King or higher. I almost did with China, hell I guess that is possible too for the same reasons, just gotta keep trying.

Civ 5 and Rock Band 3

I'm pretty happy lately because 2 of the best games ever just came out: First Civlization 5 and then Rock Band 3. In particular, I recommend anybody who has not played Civilization games to try Civilization 5. Especially if you are a heavy thinker and planner and love to create something and make it better, this game is wonderful. I love the way it plays, the way it looks, the way it sounds, even the way I imagine it smells (like Thanksgiving dinner with a strong pot of coffee brewing and pumpkin pie that just came out of the oven). It's really THAT GOOD. And with Rock Band 3 out now also, to get up and do something else in between Civ 5 games, life could not be any better!
World of WHAT-craft? Who cares!