The Advocate

Looking-for-Raid (LFR) was implemented November 29, 2011 . At the time it was called "Raid Finder." It allowed players to automatically group up with like-minded players for endgame content -- basically a way for people to raid who weren't in a guild or a pre-made raiding group. Additionally , the difficulty of the raid was tuned way down to make it easier (and, therefore, possible) for more casual players to complete the raid without the necessity of having played together before or even having gained significant experience doing the raid before. If the group still failed to kill a certain boss, they would be gifted with stacks of "determination" that would buff the entire group and help them to defeat a given boss. These stacks could each a maximum of 10, which would equal a huge buff to each player individually such that even the most incompetent groups could kill the boss. It revolutionized the way World of Warcraft (WoW) was played. For the first tim...

It's not often that in our lil' slice of the sci-fi-fantasy pie you find art echoing life so eloquently, but here we are on the pseudo-eve of a long-awaited Warcraft movie and the plot is feeling... REALLY familiar. Let me breakdown it: the humans of the kingdom of Azeroth are finding their lands being invaded by orcs from a dying world called Draenor. The reason is that a minority of evil orcs have corrupted and ruined the orcs' homeland through the use of dark magics and partnerships with demonic forces. In fact, the portal connecting Draenor to Azeroth is partially the result of these factors. But most of the orcs are just trying to flee the devastation of their homeworld, seeking refuge and succor from a demonic corruption that is actually destroying their very racial identity from a noble, yet brutal community, to a cruel and bloodthirsty horde. Meanwhile, the humans of Azeroth are naturally horrified by these "invaders" to their lands. They are afraid ...

The commodification of nerd culture into the mainstream has brought with it both Jedi... and Sith, among us. In this case, I am speaking of Ernest Cline's "Armada" and Adam Sandler's "Pixels." These are 2 pieces of art -- novel and film, respectively -- that draw upon the rich history of nerdy geekdom in similar stories. However, where one succeeds the other fails. Miserably. Horribly. It wasn't just a setback; it was a goddamn tragedy. In Cline's novel, you're basically getting War Games meets Ender's Game, with a healthy dose of The Last Starfighter and Knights of the Old Republic to boot with smatterings of old-school games like Galaga, etc. The essential premise is that aliens misinterpret our intentions when we sent all those space-probes looking for life and we, in turn, grossly misinterpret their attempts to communicate with us such that a full-scale war breaks out requiring the help of Hero Protagonist in the guise of your pro...

  (For this level of deadly cuteness) Or are you? Consider the query. Welcome to this blog! This will become a repository for my gamer, geek, nerd, dork, dweeb, dofus, and otherwise awesome passions. (That you will not find in such abundance on my other blogs and web-based whisperings.) So I thought it worthwhile to open it with the infamous words of the late-but-soon-to-be-revived Illidan Stormrage of Warcraft, one of my all-time favorite computer gaming franchises. Don't worry; you'll get used to my eccentricities. This blog is, especially, dedicated to the late-night grinders such as myself -- the 4 AM, red-eye-lidded, HotPocket + Dr. Pepper = ulcer, incessant thought-wanderers who haunt the alleyways of the cyberspace for no better reason than habit. Do you grind LFR the Monday before server reset for Xmog grear? Then this blog is for you! Do you google minor plot points to John Scalzi novels while your spouse has long since passed out on the couch? Then thi...