Happy Noblegarden

I was going to mention some useful tips for the noblegarden holiday, but I was way too slow, maybe next year. Sorry.

Hope you all achieved your Easter goals. I myself got my spring Strider on Monday and didn't look back. Along the way I got the last two random drop achievements so unless they add more next year I'm done with that holiday.

On to other news. Still no helm token for Ironshield, but if that thing ever drops on Normal my EPGP is so high now there is no question it's mine. But RNG gods seem to have it out for me so we'll just wait and see. I suspect I'll get heroic tier shoulders or something at about the same time just to rub it in. Bit of background, I'm using LFR tier shoulders right now instead of the Heroic off set to keep the 4pc bonus. Naturally the tank off piece shoulders are BiS.

Speaking of LFR, there has been a lot of venom around the blogosphere lately about LFR griefers. And some of those are sounding like absolute world class d-bags. People have been asking... what can we do? Well not much really.

BUT

There are a few things. First off remember that even if there are 5/6 absolute asshats in your group, 80% of the group is fine. It's important to remember that the bad people are memorable because they are bad. And usually because they are vocal or conspicuous in some way. But the good people quietly get on with things. Don't forget the decent people, it will improve your stress levels.

Now what can we do about the bad? Healers, you have a Lot of power here. Even on low damage fights everyone is getting something. Don't waste your mana on the idjits who can't click the heroic will button or move out of morchoks slime. Tanks, don't taunt off the guy which breaks CC on Hagara trash. But other than that, manage the bad as best you can. The off tank on spine should pick up the bonus hideous amalgamations and keep them out of blood pools. Preferably go stand them on top of the moron DPSing tentacles just to scare him a bit. And take note of griefers and call them out in /s (or /rw if you're assist). That way you can possibly get a votekick in before the next boss.

But the most important thing to do, is not stoop to their level. Don't be a BAD. If someone is doing the wrong thing, start with polite correction, don't go straight to insults - although this is sometimes a big ask. The best way to improve the community is by being a decent member of it.

Is this the coolest world boss of all time?

I am thinking so... Darkmoon Rabbits on Wowinsider
With the baby on the way I don't know how much WoW time I'm going to be able to squeeze in by the time Pandaria rolls around, but this boss is tipping the scales in favour of continued subbing and upgrading.
I wonder if you have to bring up the holy hand grenade and count to 5 - NO 3! - In order to kill it? Maybe do some strategic "RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY"ing before you make it that far.
It's these little random acts of awesome that make world of Warcraft so fantastic in my book.

Innovative ignorance.

Not so long ago there was a bit of noise in the blogosphere over Blizzard's somewhat confused censorship policy. In a nutshell people were confused as to why Blizzard had chosen to censor some words while not censoring others. One of the words was transgender. I remember thinking at the time that this didn't make sense. (Bit if background) I am a white male who grew up in South Africa and have spent a lot of time in various all male institutions, as such I have heard a significant quantity of derogatory language in my time. Discrimination of pretty much every group imaginable and across a broad spectrum of maliciousness. And while I have heard many words used in a negative context transgender was never one of them. Maybe it's just a bit to weighty or long or benign sounding to work as an insult. It's a word that I would be much more likely to expect to hear from an LGBT advocate than detractor. As such I think it should probably not be censored. However a couple nights ago I witnessed something that might at least explain Blizzard's heavy handed approach. Please note I'm just playing devil's advocate a bit and I don't have all the details of all the language filter furore. But I was in an LFR where a player started berating people for not targeting properly by asking if they had AIDS. Now leaving aside the idiocy of the comment it was fundamentally clear from the context that this was intended as an insult along the lines of "moron" or "retard" and to the WoW player base's credit he was immediately challenged and accused of inappropriate behaviour, to which he offered the defense of "AIDS isn't a swear word, if it was it would be stopped by the language filter!" I was flabbergasted. I was overwhelmed with a desire to drive home to thjs individual the ignorance and downright illogic of this comment, but i couldnt even think where to start. Although in retrospect I suppose this was foolish, I mean I've SEEN /trade chat. All I could think to do was hit report and ignore him (or her - I have no idea - but as generalizations go I doubt the feminist community will be too upset with me for claiming this particular ). Now I accept that the language policy is disjointed at best and downright discriminatory at worst, but in the interest of hoping that it is at least well intentioned, I can understand the reasoning that leads to people making mistakes when it comes to designing a language filter to combat this kind of twisted logic.