Meme Monday: Nostalgia Memes

If you're like me, you're the target of some of these 70s and 80s nostalgia memes floating around on the internet these days.

Funny, my childhood wasn't awesome, especially
considering I was frequently on the "loser" side
of these sports matches. From Pinterest.

All those memes that are supposed to make me feel better because I lived in a "real" generation often tends to celebrate things that are sketchy at best, and dangerous at worst. Like the ones who say "we survived lead paint", which makes me think "If you're more stupid because of lead paint, how would you know?"* 

As for me, I knew people who did some of the dangerous stuff celebrated on those memes who either got seriously hurt or killed. No, not the ones mentioning "drinking from a hose"**, but the ones about riding without a helmet or being in a car without a seatbelt or those exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke and developed respiratory problems.

Still, there's a point about nostalgia that I can choose to be amused by, which is nostalgia for video games. Unfortunately, most memes these days are for the NES or later, completely avoiding us older folks who survived the Video Game Crash of 1983.

I always thought the dragons from Adventure looked stupid,
and when my kids began to play it they called them "mean
ducks", which really fits. From Reddit.

Atari had more games, but Intellivision
had more complex games. Of course,
my parents got us a TI-99 4/A home
computer instead. From Imgflip.

In my day, everything was "Atari", but
you get the idea. From Gameintensity.

This should be "over 50", but it's a minor quibble.
Us older folks led the way to making gaming
an acceptable hobby. From greenstudio.

And the truth is that you'll still end up playing just
a few of them. Like, oh, Civ IV. Or WoW Classic.
From Reddit.

I wanted one of these so badly as a kid, but I
never got one. I had to budget for what I was
allowed to have, and Mattel Electronics Football
never made the final cut. Still, my wife and kids
got me one for Christmas two decades ago, and
I still have it today. From Imgflip.

*My dad drove a 1972 Chevy Nova for 8 years, and because the engine had issues, he used premium octane gasoline. Back then, the only gas that had the high amount of octane still had lead in it, so we drove a car meant for unleaded gas but with leaded gas. Ever since I learned of the dangers of leaded gasoline I've wondered whether my and my brother's development were stunted in any way due to my dad's usage of leaded gas. It's something I'll never know, as any residual lead will have leeched out of my system by now, but I also wonder just how many of my fellow members of Gen X unwittingly were impacted by the use of leaded gas.

**I mean, kids nowadays --including my own-- were allowed to come in and get a drink whenever they wanted. The cachet of drinking from a garden hose simply isn't there any more.

Festina Lente

"Make haste slowly" is a Latin phrase that's been around since antiquity*. I was first exposed to it back when I was reading Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars --which is also referenced in the Wikipedia entry-- basically referencing Augustus' dislike of rash commanders. So a George Patton would probably not been on Augustus' favorites list.

Basically, the point of the phrase is to balance out the extremes of caution and aggression when pursuing a task. Choose a middle path, if you will.

If waffling somewhere in the middle is an ideal, I think I've achieved that while playing on the WoW 20th Anniversary server.

Given that Card is from a (relatively) poor upbringing
and that I tend to play in a "gold poor" manner, her
clothing right now kind of fits.

What I've done is configure my leveling to first get everybody to L10 then progress increments of five levels at a time. (Yes, even the Shaman, who is not on the loading screen above.) So, right now I'm progressing everybody to L15, although in a kind of haphazard manner.*** 

While the leveling pace has slowed significantly since I started --from L1-L5 taking about 20-30 minutes and L5-L10 about 1-1.5 hours-- there are a few interesting notes that I've come across. Even without getting their full toolkit, I can see some classes progressing faster than others**** which has thrown me for a bit of a loop when I look up and discover one class is at L12 while another is struggling to get to L11. 

Really? I have to bust my ass to go all the way
to Orgrimmar to train skinning? I mean, have you
seen the sheer number of animals around here?

Some of that discrepancy is how a class plays. A class that can avoid fighting a lot of mobs all the time won't be generating XP at the same rate that other classes do; in a game based around completing quests and fighting mobs for XP, if the mobs aren't there or are avoidable that's simply XP that won't be obtained. I discovered that issue when first leveling a Rogue back in Mists, as her stealth ability meant she could simply avoid a lot of crap when questing, but unlike a tabletop RPG the game doesn't reward you with XP for your ingenuity. As a consequence, if you want to keep the leveling pace going, you have to race through quests faster than other classes. 

I'm not willing to do that, so I'll likely move at the pace of the slowest leveling toon.

I think I found my problem; too many
alehouses and taverns for this guy.

Before you point out the obvious, yes, I could use boosting or dungeon running to get my XP up on those slow classes, but that's not my playstyle. I've already heard of people using the Spellcleave strat in instances --4 Mages and a Healer-- to rip through dungeons in Classic Fresh the same way that people used that strategy for farming trash mobs in the Sunwell raid, but I look at that as less of a leveling tool and more of a gold farming one. 

There's also the matter of grouping up, and I am quite aware that my friends would be happy to do so, but I also know that they want to go much faster than I do, so... No. That's just a recipe for frustration on my part. I know that most of them simply don't understand why I don't want help in the same way that I gave them help, but I have tried to explain that the temptation to powerlevel is too great if I'm focusing on one toon. I even explained my so-called Bataan Death March leveling a Shaman to L60 --mostly solo-- doing a pace of three levels a day while still working a full-time job and being a husband and father, but I don't think they really got it.*****

Shenanigans like this little breakdown
from the TBC Classic servers didn't exactly help.

That being said, my brain has been taking some time to adjust to completely different playstyles. 

I don't know how people who play a ton of alts do it, but it frequently takes me about 10 minutes of active gameplay before I get back into a full understanding of how to play a class. I have caught myself on numerous occasions switching from playing, say, a Paladin to a Priest only to discover about a half an hour later that I've not been throwing a Power Word: Shield on myself before engaging a mob. It may not sound like much of a gameplay issue until you realize that PW:S is there to keep you from dying when mobs attack you. Another example is switching to a class with a pet --such as a Hunter or Warlock-- and forgetting to, oh, let the pet go in first and get a hit or two in before you start attacking. The whole "let your pet build up aggro first" thing.

What gets me is that people seem to play far more alts quite effectively on Retail, which is a more complex game --attack rotation-wise-- than Classic.****** I know that some players such as Kayrliene with a metric ton of alts are an outlier, but I've seen so many bloggers over the years bring up various alts in Retail that I know it's far more popular there than I'd expect. The problem I have an issue wrapping my head around is that I'm struggling to keep a more basic game such as Classic straight, so how do Retail players keep their stable of alts all straight while playing? Or is it just a question of all the classes having similar abilities, in Retail, so just aligning your bars so that the similar abilities all are in the same location (such as big AoE damage on Button 6, and a shield on Button 10) so you are "close enough" while playing to keep things straight. 

Of course, long time Retail players probably are so used to playing various classes that it's kind of deeply ingrained into their gameplay. If you've been playing a dozen classes for over a decade, you've internalized the gameplay to such a degree that you never really noticed it until someone points it out to you. 

***

All this is pure speculation, because I've got my hands full as it is trying to figure out all of these classes I've never played before. At least I've got enough time to figure them out, and since there are some classes I'm never planning on grouping up for (such as a Warrior, because people would simply assume I'm going to tank things), I don't have to worry about being perfect.

*According to Wikipedia --yeah yeah, I know, not necessarily that accurate in general-- the original Greek is σπεῦδε βραδέως speũde bradéōs. I didn't know that and always assumed it was Latin until this research, so I kept the common nomenclature as "Latin" above.

**If you played old school D&D --such as 1e AD&D-- the amount of XP to level between classes is vastly different. The idea is that some classes were much more powerful at higher level than others, so the amount of time it took to level that extra powerful class (Magic-Users, for example) was much longer. I believe that TSR/Wizards of the Coast got rid of that in the designing of D&D 3.0 in the late 90s, so you don't see that artificial XP tweaking much anymore. 

***Right now I expect to try to hold this entire stable together as I level, but I can also see where in the near future there begins to be a bit of separation of some of the toons from the main pack. My guess is that once I hit L25 or L30 I'll begin to break out 4-5 toons to focus on while leveling. Still, the overall goal of getting the stable to L60 over the course of a year is doable for now.

****For example, the Hunter progresses much faster than a Warrior.

*****Except for my Questing Buddy, who did what she could to help me out, and I provided emotional support for her dealing with the leveling process in what was for her a new guild with new people to play with. 

******I guess here is where I'd also bring out from the archives one of the rotations from FFXIV to show it's not just Retail WoW that has complex rotations...

EtA: Corrected grammar.

EtA: Corrected some more grammar. Sheesh.

A Snapshot of Classic Fresh Guild Names

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, it's also been a while since I've been on a new server quite like this, either. Blizz decided that when they created the 20th Anniversary Servers, there'd be only on North American PvE (or "Normal" in the new parlance) server and one PvP server. In a way, that forces everybody into one place and there's no separation into primarily Alliance or Horde servers, which became a bane of the Classic servers when TBC came along.

Still, a side effect of this many people on one server means that yeah, there are going to be a lot of interesting guild names out there. Hence this post.

This time around I'm not going to comment on these guild names. Well, for the most part, anyway.

"Frankly Scarlet".

"Big Booty Bedlam"

"We Wipe on Chess". I need to find a better screenshot.

Meme Monday: Health Memes

Because I aim to make people uncomfortable laughing about my health issues, I collected a bunch of memes related to them for this Meme Monday.

Yeah, I hear this a lot from the Diabetes Team. Apparently
a lot of people simply don't change their diets enough
to make a difference, or they say "I'm taking the pills, that's
good enough." From Imgflip.

This is another thing that non-diabetics will
get confused about. Type 1 is NOT Type 2.
From Reddit.

Yeah, I'm not that big on time travel these days.
From Imgflip.

I use the Freestyle Libre sensor to monitor my blood
sugar. It's not perfect, but it does the job. However,
about 1 in every 6 sensors dies or malfunctions before
the two weeks for that sensor is up. My insurance does
not cover that missing time, so I end up having to supplement
with the old "needle prick and push out blood onto a test
strip" backup. And that really really sucks.  And if
you're wondering based on recent news events, yes,
I have that company's insurance. From Imgflip.

I laughed out loud at this one. Good thing I didn't wake
my wife up; she gets grumpy if I wake her up in the
middle of the night. From Reddit and Memeatic.

Yeah, I hear this from time to time, typically from
someone wanting me to buy a dessert or something
very sweet. "Live a little!" "Uh, yeah, I'd like to,"
is my reply. From Imgflip.

Past the Halfway Point

A bit over a week ago was the third anniversary of what I call "My Little Hospital Adventure". 

Here's a little reminder. My arm is
significantly thinner now than in this picture.
From this post back in November 2021.

My annual physical was delayed by a few weeks due to my stint of jury duty, so I waited until I finally had my physical before posting about that rather dubious anniversary. That being said, my physician is still pleased with my progress, and back in April my Cardiologist reviewed my ECG* and was happy with my current state of health.

I'd imagine that they'd be even happier if I were at a "normal" weight for my height, but my vitals are good enough, and there were no indications of any deterioration in my condition. Compared to where I was at, I've come a long way.

That being said, I'm also acutely aware that the average lifespan for a person who has suffered a bout of congestive heart failure once is five years.** Obviously, the younger you are will extend that lifespan by a bit, but basically once I reach December 2026 I will have beaten the average.

I don't mean to be morbid about it, but the more I've studied my situation I've decided I'm not going to sugarcoat this to people. I am quite aware that barring an accident (or war or something) I know what will kill me, and that it will likely be sooner rather than later. 

Does that mean I've created a bucket list to go through before I die?

No. 

And before anybody else says "But..." I'll stop you right there. No 'buts'. Just because I don't have a bucket list doesn't mean that I'm simply waiting around to die, like Kvothe from The Name of the Wind, and I'm also not some sort of monk who wants to retreat from the world. (No matter how tempting.) I will just continue to live my life as it is so far and continue to putter around with what interests me.

*Do you remember when an ECG required specialized equipment and a scheduled time to perform said test? Nowadays you can have a bunch of sensors taped to your body, hooked up to a laptop via a USB port, and running the software on the laptop takes a couple of minutes total. It was done prior to my meeting with my Cardiologist, and she had the data to review almost instantly. It's not just more efficient, but if you're wondering just how you're doing you don't have to spend days waiting for results. Yes, technology has created its share of problems, but this ain't one.

**People with multiple occurrences of congestive heart failure have a significantly shorter lifespan.

An Experimentalist's Survival Guide

Back in prehistory when I attended university, I got my Bachelor's Degree in Physics. While most of the undergraduate curriculum was already defined for a Physics major, there were just enough electives that you could pursue a few classes that you were really interested in. Based on what you liked --and whether you kind of liked working in a lab or not-- an undergrad was lumped into two classifications: theorists and experimentalists. The experimentalists performed laboratory experiments, while the theorists stretched the Mathematics behind Physics as far as it could go. 

I was definitely in with the experimentalists, as I enjoyed --and still enjoy-- puttering around and testing hypotheses. My deck project highlighted that I'm decent enough with my hands and working through issues on the fly that if I hadn't burned out on Physics* I would probably be slaving away in a basement lab** somewhere. 

During my time at UD, I learned how to think critically and how to attack a problem. Sure, it's nice to have resources, but back then Internet access was pretty minimal so if you didn't have all of the resources right in front of you, well... You had to puzzle a lot of it out on your own.***

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Sorry, no cheat sheets allowed for the exam.
Yes, this is Wowhead, as of 12/3/2024.

Yes, between my training, my inherited stubborn streak, and my revulsion at the widespread acceptance at turning a game into a mathematical exercise****, I try to figure things out myself. 

There are exceptions to the rule, obviously, such as when I joined Valhalla's raid team in 2020, but I want to learn to play a game by actually playing the game and learning the rules provided (either in-game or in a rules manual). People who love to say that Wowhead or Icy Veins is the manual for playing are missing the point: just because a game company farmed out some of this stuff to a third party provider doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to figure it out yourself. 

And with the new Classic Fresh release, I have been taking my time to do just that.

***

Of the nine original Classic classes, I've played five of them: Mage, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, and Warlock. Three of them, Paladin, Shaman, and Warlock, I've never played in Vanilla Classic past L20, but I am familiar enough with how they play in later expansions that I have a (somewhat) basic understanding of them.*****

Others, such as the Warrior, not so much.

Better get used to visiting dwarves, I suppose.

I thought I knew how a Warrior played until I actually started playing one. Then I quickly discovered just how much that basic attack meant to a Warrior: it builds up rage, which the Warrior can then spend for a variety of different abilities.

It's been a while since I played a class that behaved that way, so once I got used to the concept I began to work on how to play it efficiently. Build up rage, throw on a DoT, then build up rage for other buffs/attacks.

It was at that point that I discovered the next issue with playing a Warrior in Vanilla Classic: timing your attacks. 

I began bitching about the weirdness surrounding Heroic Strike when I went to use that attack. There were times when it would attack very quickly, and others where I sat waiting for a few seconds for the attack to land. 

"What the hell is going on?" I muttered more than once, mindful that my wife was sleeping upstairs. I checked my connection, but my latency held steady and internet speed was still good. I did a quick search as to whether the Classic Fresh servers were buggy, but no dice there for my specific problem.#

I just learned to live with it until about L8 when I finally realized what was going on: it had everything to do with timing. If you time your attack right then there's no delay at all. 

So THAT's why swing timer addons are so popular.

I then proceeded to get flashbacks from my time as an Enhancement Shaman and shuddered. I wasn't going to go down that route if I could help it, so I decided that if I was going to be serious about leveling as many alts as I am, I was going to have to just develop the necessary feel in-game to play a Warrior right. That also meant I wasn't going to take that alt into any instances, because when you see a Warrior in Vanilla Classic, you immediately think "Oh, there's a Tank."

And I ain't tanking. Too much stress involved; that's one job where you absolutely need confidence to do it right, and I don't have the confidence. There's also that trust you have to have in other people to keep you alive (and not pull threat), and let's just say I've got issues there too.##

***

Warriors aside, the basics of attacks and whatnot are pretty self-explanatory. What I've been surprised the most about, however, are the class-related quests and stories. 

I didn't know this NPC existed.

While the class stories don't come even close to the level of detail found in SWTOR --still the gold standard for class stories in MMOs, IMHO-- they are unique enough that I really enjoy their presence.

These were NPCs that I either didn't know existed --like the Bear Spirit (above) for the Druid class quest-- or I never paid attention to them. Yes, yes, I know the cardinal rule of NPCs in a video game is that if they have a name then they likely have a quest or something associated with them, but just what was associated with them was an unknown until I began playing more classes.

The class quests in WoW Classic range from the snarky...

To the earnest...

To the annoyingly mysterious...

While a lot of class quests are 'go there to see person X' and said person gives you a new ability, others actually want you to perform a task before they grant you the ability, such as the Human Warlock having to go 'rescue' a book coveted by your Class Trainer that the Defias had stolen.

All in all, these class quests aren't a lot of effort (so far), but they do provide flavor to Classic WoW that Retail WoW has lost.

***

Just about all of the alts I've created that I intend to level at this time are at L10 (with a straggler or two a couple of levels short), and most of those toons don't even have their major class abilities yet. What does happen at L10 is that the talent trees unlock, and I've found myself swamped by an unexpected desire to get it 'right'. You know, pick the 'right' talents to play the class 'properly'. Or select the right 'pet' for my Hunter.### 

I have resisted that siren song so far, but my desire to explore and experiment on my own wars with my desire to research a thing to death. And being a 'solved game', WoW has tons of that out there floating around that I am deliberately refusing to use this time around. (See Figure 1.)

This won't bring back 2004, but it will allow me to internalize my learnings better than following a guide or reading the contents of a Discord channel. And the one thing it will absolutely do is slow down my leveling process. I realize it's about to slow down the next five levels, and once I hit L20 the brakes will come on even harder, but exploring and learning will allow me to fight FOMO that much better.

I think I found my Holiday shirt.
From Amazon UK.

*And had the confidence to believe in myself. There, I said it. I've been carrying those doubts around since my first semester at UD, because I learned very quickly that unless I got my ass in gear I was going to wash out. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," could have been my mantra if A Song of Ice and Fire were around back then.

**Yes, the Physics Professors' labs were always in the basement of Sherman Hall. It might have been due to the weight of the equipment, but given that the Engineering building had labs all throughout the place, I think it was just because the building was designed primarily for teaching students rather than professors' research.

***Or wait for a week or two for the referenced article to arrive via interlibrary loan. If you thought Fed Ex is expensive now, back then it was so cost prohibitive you could just about forget about using it if you were a student.

****I remember people joking in boardgame circles back in the 90s and 00s that Mathematicians would play Reiner Knizia's boardgames for fun when they came home from work. Reiner was (in)famous for creating a boardgame with a mathematical premise and a theme that was pasted on to a greater or lesser degree. Nowadays, it wouldn't shock me if they played WoW instead.

*****That's all relative: the Paladin got a makeover in TBC, the three versions of the Shaman play radically different from each other, and I cut my teeth on a Warlock strictly through PvP in Catalcysm, which is very different than its Vanilla incarnation.

#There are issues with Friends lists not updating, but I don't know whether it's WoW itself or some interference with the addons I have. Just a note that the only "social" addon I do have installed is Total RP3, which doesn't really interact with Friends lists.

##It's several stories from my youth, and nobody wants to hear them now, except maybe a therapist.

###Somebody asked in Teldrassil's Gen Chat "Which Hunter's Pet is the best?", to which people said "Go to Petopia". Forget opinions, go to The Source and follow that.