Bye Bye, Went the Tank Healer Guy

So, an idea hit me today for a Parody to the song "Bye Bye Miss American Pie". The only way you'd get most of the song is if you are a World of Warcraft player, especially back in the days of Vanilla WoW. The song is about a failed Onyxia (a level 60 raid boss) raid, and references some of the mechanics in that raid that used to wipe the raid. So, here are the words:

V1. A long, long time ago in World of Warcraft of yesteryear Onyxia was under attack.
     And I had thought we had a pretty good chance to get our Tier 2 helm and bag. But something was about to go wrong.
     Oh, we all thought we knew the fight. The odds went left and the evens right.
     But the tank got feared in fire. He said, "Healing is my desire."
     But the priest, you see, oh, he'd gone OOM. He'd used a mana potion, too.
     He call the paladin a noob. Said, "I'm leaving this raid."

CH. Well, bye bye, went the tank healer guy.
     Healed the pally with his mana till his mana went dry.
     That good ol' boy did a "slash wave" goodbye
     Sayin', "This won't be the day that I die. This won't be the day that I die!"

V2. And so we started up again. Replaced the noobs that were our friends. There must have been, oh, eight or ten.
     We cleared the trash and then we paused. But it didn't seem like long enough, 'cause we ran into trouble again.
     The DPS got feared to eggs, there were whelps now everyplace.
     The tank tried to bring 'em 'round, but his taunt was on cool down!
     The healer said he'd had enough, he didn't realize this boss was rough.
     We said, "We need you!" He said, "Tough! I will not heal your raid."

V3. We finally got to her again. "Third time's a charm," that's what we said. But we found out so differently.
     The tank stacked sunders on her head. "Throw more DoTs!" The leader said. We really wanted to see her dead.
     But her tail swipe hit us all; threw us right into the wall.
     We did it again. Who were we trying to kid?
     So on our third try she didn't go down. In fact, she made us look like clowns.
     The healer did not stick around. He said, "T.T.Y.L. G.L."

V4. We caught a port to Stormwind town; disappointment all around. No one had gotten loot.
     We tried our best, but failed the test. I guess you already know the rest: Onyxia gave us the boot.
     And in the end our tank had died. Hunter feigned death; we all "slash cried".
     And from all that croakin', all our gear was broken.
     And the GM I admired most? Onyxia had burned to toast. Well, I'm still here and he's a ghost. I guess I'll rez his corpse.
 -END

Well, there you have it. I am going to try and record that soon. If I do, it will be available for download. Hope you enjoyed, especially if you are a WoW fan(atic).

   - Sapper Woody

What Gets Me: Misplaced Outrages

We've all gotten them: chain emails telling us that the world is ending as we know it because <insert atrocity here> is about to happen unless we get <insert a large, yet reasonable sounding number here> signatures on a petition by <insert a date that is about 2 weeks away>.

I recently (about 30 minutes ago) received an urgent email. Telling me to circulate this email to as many friends as I could, because we needed to stop the production of a movie that would portray Jesus Christ as a homosexual man. Of course, I was outraged. I am a Fundamental, Conservative, Right-Wing Baptist. "How dare they make a movie that portrays my God as something that He considers an abomination?"

*Disclaimer: I in no way am implying that I hate gay people. However, I disagree with their actions, and desire that they would change their ways. I believe they are wrong in what they are doing, but I do not hate the person in any way.

So, being the astute blind follower of what other people say, I instantly forwarded the email to all my address book, and then posted in on Facebook, right? Wrong. I decided to check it out.

The email said that there was a movie entitled "Corpus Christi" (Latin for Body of Christ) that was in production based on a Broadway play by the same title that would portray Jesus Christ as a homosexual, and that the movie had already been banned in several European countries. I decided to check it out, using the famous websites www.truthorfiction.com and www.snopes.com. Turns out, it was a good thing I did before sending out emails and posting my disdain on Facebook. Here are the links to what I found:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/gayjesus.asp
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/g/gayjesusmovie.htm

As you can plainly read for yourself, there was a movie back in the '80s that was started along these lines, but the project never got off the ground. There is indeed a play by the name "Corpus Christi", which portrays Christ as homosexual. There also will be a documentary about the play coming to film. But, as of right now (and not for 25 years) there is not a film being made about a homosexual Jesus.

Seems like this "Urgent" email was a little misplaced, huh?

Again, don't get me wrong. I am a conservative right-wing. I believe that there are causes we should fight for, beliefs that we can't let fall to the wayside. However, I don't believe that we should discredit our voice by allowing ourselves to be made fools of by propagating idiocy via unchecked "facts".

Another set of emails that I received several months ago were saying that Obama had refused to stand in honor of <insert event here>, or another one that said he had refused to salute the flag at <insert memorial>. When I checked them out, they were all fakes. Pictures were inconsistent with what Obama was wearing at the ceremony, (one emails pictures, even contradicted each other, one with him wearing a blue tie, and another picture with him wearing a red tie), their time lines didn't hold up, etc.

Again, if these things were real, they would be cause for outrage. However, they were not, and I would estimate that thousands if not millions of Americans were outraged because they believed a lie without checking it out.

America, (or, as Stephen Colbert would say, "Nation,") check things out before you forward/post/tweet them. You will lose credibility by crying "wolf" too many times unless you do.

And that is "What Gets Me".

   - Sapper Woody

Strategy: Focus Fire

One amazingly powerful aspect of any game is the ability to focus fire. This works in tabletops, First Person Shooters, strategy games, practically everywhere. The idea is this: by using all of your assets focused against one individual, you will destroy that individual and lower the overall DPS (Damage Per Second) of the other team as quickly as possible.

Look at it in this example: 2 teams (red and blue) are evenly matched. They each have 5 players with 5 HP (hit points), and each does 1 DPS. Now, the red team focus fires on one member of the blue team, whereas the blue team spreads out their damage, say 2/2/1 (2 fire at one, 2 fire at one, and 1 fires at one). In the 1st second, blue team is down one man. In the 2nd second, blue team is down 2 men. Now, in the 3rd second, it is possible that the red team loses a man, but simultaneously blue loses their third man. Now it is red's 4 to blue's 2.

At the beginning of the match, both teams had 25dps. If one team were to stand still and not attack, either team would have the other team down in 5 seconds. However, the one that focused their fire was the one who won the match.

Now, if the opposing team has people of differing HP/DPS, then the matter becomes a little more sticky. As a rule of thumb, you focus fire the enemy with the least HP first. However, there is a formula that can be used to determine a persons damage until death while focused. It is ((HPT1 / DPSUS) * DPST1) + (((HPT1 + HPT2) / DPSUS) * DPST2). You can continue this formula ad infinitum to adopt for more targets. In this formula, T# stands for the order in which that enemy would be targeted; T1 = Target 1, etc. US  obviously refers to us. Once the formula is figured, adding in the enemy as variables, then you have to switch the variables up, and check them against each other. The goal is to get the lowest possible outcome, as the answer is the total amount of damage the enemy will be able to deal (given no loss of your own DPS) until they are all dead.

As you can see, this formula is complex, and you have to know a lot about your target, and have time to determine which target to focus on. Since you normally won't have that kind of time, use the rule of thumb and focus fire on their lowest HP person.

   - Sapper Woody

Playing a Tabletop game with a 2 year old

For those of you who don't know what a tabletop game is, it is using miniature "toys" to depict warriors, soldiers, etc, and using a roll of the dice to determine accuracy, damage dealt, etc. This particular tabletop game has a fantasy medieval theme. I decided to try and play with my 2 year old. This is the outcome:

Scenario: Our band of adventurers (consisting of a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric) happened upon a group of 4 skeletons, 2 goblin archers, and a minotaur.

Round 1: Friendly: Fighter advances, kills skeleton1. Rogue misses skeleton2. Wizard kills Skeleton2 with a fireball. Cleric misses skeleton3.
Enemy: Skeleton3 critically hits cleric, knocking him unconscious. Skeleton4 misses rogue. Archer1 hits Rogue for minor damage. Minotaur kills Cleric.

"Wait! He's not dead, Daddy!"
"But he got killed by the minotaur."
"No, I save him"

Adjustment to round 1 Enemy: Minotaur misses Cleric.

Round 2: Friendly: Fighter critically hits minotaur, killing him.

"He's back alive!"
"No, baby girl, we killed him. He's a bad guy."
"I want to be horsey."

Adjustment to Round 2 Friendly: Suddenly, 3 knights Templar appear on horses, and trample two skeletons and an archer.

"I want to fight the dragon, Daddy."
"He's too big for this map, Baby."
"I be him, ok?"

Adjustment to Round 2 Friendly, take 2: Icingdeath the white dragon appears and knocks everyone sprawling, some off the edge of the world. He then flies away to his upstairs bedroom and hides under a bed where I have to retrieve him before he gets broken. To do so I must trade a fluffy purple dog for him.

Conclusion: Game was a tie between armies after 2 rounds.

   - Sapper Woody