Troubles.

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My current favorite game is having major revisions. A new addition to the game is getting ready to come online. All settings, and there are many, including armor types, spells, attributes, and the various "trees" (each class (warrior, mage, etc.) can be one of three types, and vary beyond that by choosing lower levels of the tree from less activated trees... yes, confusing). Okay, that is one character. I have 10 on my main part of the game and another 10 to 12 on other parts. Every time I check in after an update I am having to reset my characters, and blindly.

There are people who devote themselves to figuring out which tree, attributes, and such are best for a particular need or want. Let us say I have a druid, and I want to solo. Or, let us take that same druid and consider that I might want to group or raid (grouping is 5 players, raids are groups of groups... so can be up to, what, 25 players). There are different set-ups for these different choices. You can change these, for a price. However, at this point, and with continual change, it is impossible to know how to set up a character. It will settle, more, in time. However, changes happen continually, even without a singular major event like an addition. So, I am... simply lost. Oh, and after making everyone a bit too powerful they have nerfed (devalued) the upgrade and maybe more than taking it back to what it was. I have no idea what works best and am nervous about how well I will be able to solo (do quests and fight alone).

To boot, the system is shutting down for another revision or a reset as I write. That is part of the reason I am writing, or I would be playing. Usually, on Tuesday, they do all of the updates. Sometimes, like today, they have to shut everything down and go back and make corrections to the game, add nerfs, or other things.

Are you lost yet? I know I am. I am hoping something will normalize and stabalize before too long. I am guessing, however, since they are being so ambitious with the changes, that this will not happen for months, perhaps a year or more even. I am hoping, before too long, to be able to just hop on and play without worrying about having to reset all of my characters again, only to know that the next update will require me to do this all over again, and without any real support from the players who do the numbers because they cannot possibly keep up with major weekly shifts. Yeah, best guess is fine, to a degree. But in such a competitive environment, it is tricky.

I suppose I will look through the blogs and see what is going on, checking in to see when the game is back up and what has changed because of the outage. Arghhhh!

Oh, another thing though on a different topic. I read today that a dog is smarter than a cat. And, in some ways, that probably has some version of truth with it. Here is my deal with that concept, cats can survive on their own and very well, dogs cannot. I guess this is akin to suggesting that a microbiologist is smarter than a woodsman. While many tests might prove that to be true, without the gut-wrenching foolishness of modernity to uphold the useful idiot, the scientist could not figure out how to start a fire to cook the food that could not be caught. Smart, very. That does not even include dealing with aggression (from any source) related to surviving in a real (harsh) world in obtaining a place to sleep, water, or any other need. Smarter? Really? Let us play. (And, no, naked aggression based on secular zealotry will never win against tried and proven combat skills and mindset, and when it comes right down to it, that will happen, period. *BAM*) Though you can train a dog, you cannot train it to survive well by itself. Cats are not all that trainable, but they do not need to be. Sometimes brains get in the way, though they make a fine fat for those with hunger and a little zip. And those little dogs? Cat food...