Great job on Rotface! Very fun fight once we got it down, very frustrating fight before we got it down! Remember, this fight is all about the ooze...

 Thanks to Pholia for the fantastic image!

It's that time of year again.  The time when so many people make new years resolutions.  The infrequency with which such resolutions tend to be successfully upheld is so low that many a comedian has turned these resolutions into a running joke.  In spite of the jokes, we make resolutions anyway.  I love this fact.  I love that so many have the desire to improve something about themselves, their lives, or the lives of others.

Resolve is a great word.  It's both a noun and a verb.  It lets us be filled with "firmness of purpose or intent" and then we can take that determination and apply it to our lives so that we can: clear away or dispel (doubts, fears, etc.); deal with (a matter of uncertainty, etc.) conclusively; to convert or transform something "by any process".  We begin the process of accomplishment when we "come to a definite or earnest decision about" something.

The earnestness is easy to come by.  That's why so many resolutions are made at the beginning of each year.  The firmness of intent is there.  The desire to deal with a matter conclusively is strong.  It's the process that tends to be our downfall and generate so many jokes.  Follow-through is the key to successful resolution.  Once we set our goals we get to take the steps to make them our reality.

The qualities of a good raider are also the qualities of a person who can succeed anywhere.  We resolve to learn a boss fight; clear a wing; clear an entire raid instance; do it all again only faster, cleaner and with a fancy achievement.  We stick with it when we wipe.  We take a break and rethink our strategy.  We reconfigure the way we do things or get better tools to do them with.  We get more information.   We practice our coordination.  We cheer our fellow raiders on and challenge each other to do better.  We focus on our individual performance as well as our ability to work as a team.  Most important of all, we show up and give it our best, week after week.  It's the process following the decision that brings our success.

With that in mind, whether you resolved to deck yourself out in complete Tier-10, get a special mount or title, level an alt, eat better, learn the tango, travel more, make your business more successful, write that novel, change your career or plant a garden this New Year, I hope you stick with it.

With the holidays underway, it makes me reminisce on the fact how important friends are in our lives.  For many of us, our friends are closer to us than most of our family members.  I think that is because our friends are 'chosen' and family is not.  Most of our friends know us WAY better than family members.  I started this game with real life friends (Silmarrilion and Shadowgath), been playing with quite a few since the first guild I was in (Porther, Agaros, and Rothgard), and made a ton more in this guild.  Hell, it's been 3 years in this guild!  So, I am going to share with you a post from Wowhead Forums.

As we all know by now, World of Warcraft has truly brought about some weirdos over the years. From couples in Korea neglecting their children to everyday marriages ending up in divorce, & lessons on how to Feign Death, we got 'em all. But if there's one thing to be said about this game, which like any other has its share of eccentricities, it's that there is a certain feeling of camaraderie.

For most people, it's all about the list of friends. Who's online, who got what item last night, who saw that cool, new superhero movie. It's no mystery we all spend a great deal of time socializing, from the casual to the hardcore, with our friends. What's so amazing is that while many of us started the game with a friend or two, we have all probably gained (and lost) several online friendships over the months & years. So what is it that drives this "ease" of friendship online? Are we less socially applicable in real life? Or is it just the most basic of causes, the accessibility of the Internet?

For some, things have blossomed into more than just a simple friendship. Tales are told, and videos made, of couples being married (both online & in real life). It goes beyond that, though. As one blogger wrote, "playing pvp games online allows you to communicate and talk about something other than 'I miss you,' 'no I miss YOU,' 'no I miss YOU more!'"

Then there is the culprit for many friendships, both beginning & ending: the guild. Guildmates must work hard, together, to accomplish their goals (particularly in the raiding scene). Teamwork & coordination, along with proper planning & execution, are essential for success. With so much human investment, it's no wonder friendships are forged on a daily basis.

So I'll leave everyone with two sets of questions this week, as readers seem to like a direct response more than ramblings.

• What do you think about relationships in-game?
• Do they carry over to instant messaging & email?
• Are your "e-friends" as important to you as those in real life?
• How much of your time in-game do you spend just chatting?

 - The Norlok

 I was recently pondering how I think about luck and the glories and frustrations of the WoW random number generator.  Being as it was me, the conversation that inspired this thinking revolved around fishing.  

 It began with Apo exclaiming "I can't believe that you have the Magical Crawdad from Mr. Pinchy!"  I admitted that I got it from my first Mr. Pinchy drop, which I fished up out of my third or fourth node.  I remain ever thankful to Sterlingstar, who was the one who showed me where to fish for him.  I actually caught a second Mr. Pinchy a week or so later, but that time I somehow managed to make him mad at me after he gave me some potions and I haven't tried again for fear of being attacked by giant crayfish.  Plus I have other fish to fry.

 The thing is that having caught 2 Mr. Pinchy and received all 4 crocolisk pets and the Strand Crawler as fishing daily rewards, I haven't been able to fish up anything rare since...  for someone who not only wants a Giant Sewer Rat but a Sea Turtle mount it's sad.  I began to wonder if I had perhaps used up all of my RNG luck.  I'm at 4000 casts and counting for the Giant Sewer Rat.  I decided not to even think about how many nodes I've fished in to put together Fish Feasts for raids; I might get depressed by continued absence of Sea Turtle.

 This got me to thinking about all the folks out there doing hundreds of runs in Stratholm, or Magister's Terrace, or Zul'Gurub for mounts as well as the folks spawn camping any number of rare mobs for various reasons.   The folks who love numbers go on about probability theory and drop percentages plus the vicissitudes of the random number generator.  Personally, I hold to old fashioned dice superstitions left over from the D&D days of yore, and it occasionally bothers me that Blizzard is the one rolling my dice.

 How has your in-game luck been lately?  What item do you yearn for?  Is there some other player who has been helpful in your quests?