Rashin

This is a good write up, Z. Thank you.

Hello all, Just wanted to put a tid bit of information out here as there was recently a ToS change with Discord. Basically the change was in regards to dispute resolution. It will be bound by arbitration and consumers will lose the right to perform a class action lawsuit. The ToS also stated that we have the ability to Opt out of arbitration without penalty within 90 days of the ToS going active. This information is important and relevant since the company that controls Discord has personally identifiable and confidential information. Think IP addresses, email addresses, Credit Card #s, etc. If there was ever a mishandling of that information or a leak/breach where this information was made available elsewhere, we would lose the ability to produce a class action lawsuit to hold the company liable. It would be handled individually with an arbitrator. Copied from ToS Page of discord: Hey there! These are our new Terms of Service that we're putting in place with the launch of the Discord store! If you're signing up for a new account, purchasing a game, downloading a game, or subscribing to Nitro, these Terms apply to you. For everyone else, these Terms will go into effect on November 2, 2018. I am not gonna paste the entire section but it is listed in the Dispute Resolution section of the above link. The relevant portion of this is that all of it can be fixed by sending an email. This was a snippit from the ToS in the Dispute Resolution section: Opt-Out Right. You have the right to opt out and not be bound by the provisions requiring arbitration by sending written notice of your decision to opt out to Discord by email to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com. The notice must be sent within 90 days of this Terms of Service taking effect, or your account creation on the Service. If you do not opt out via this method, you will be bound to arbitrate disputes in accordance with the terms of these paragraphs. If you opt out of the provisions requiring arbitration, Discord will not be bound by them either. If any clause within this Arbitration Section is found to be illegal or unenforceable, that specific clause will be severed from this section, and the remainder of its provisions will be given full force and effect. Survival. This Arbitration section shall survive any termination of your account or the Service. If all else when reading this, a simple email would be all that it would take to enable you in participating in a class action lawsuit if this should ever happen. Personally, I would rather send the email to be sure, then to not send it and be unable to do anything about it later on. Your friendly itch on the butt, Rashin

Yes. That ryhmed. Just finished downloading this behemoth of a game. Giving it a whirl. Is there still people active in ESO from CotP?

OMG bobby is playing WoW?! jk. welcome. I am also giving it a go. Am liking it so far. Just a tip. Shadow priest = balance sage/madness sorc for playstyle. :D.

Mmmmmm sexy specs. Prices ain't too bad either

Princess is in another world. 😕

I use Google DNS. Haven't had any complaints. Just set it and forget. I used to use opendns until I found out that they don't promise not to share your dns requests. Not that there is anything that would stop them from actually doing that. My tin foil hat has rust on it.

oh WOW. That is really nice. Never knew that existed. That could really come in handy with game glitches and whatnot.

Congrats

Bordering the same comments as @Elric and @Cair adding only that things generally pick up too with the summer break with kids for most games especially when content releases. Even though most of the people that I game with are approximately my age or older (mid 30's), it still reflects the major player base of most games with the younger generations and the overall free time spent. That being said if you are looking for an honest assessment of a particular game such as SWTOR. I can add that since the merger things have died down quite a bit. The "newness" wore off. The recent changes to conquest also left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths. As for our chapter, its still business as usual. Recruit, Hold events, and try to keep the peace. Personally I play two MMORPGs currently. SWTOR and FFXIV. I am in CotP for both. Both also suffer from content binging players. After the binge and there is no more content, it begs people to ask, "what next?" Although the amount of things to do in the game is different for both SWTOR and FFXIV. There is drastically more to do in FFXIV. that means that players can keep consuming and keeping active for longer before the next release. SWTOR on the other hand has intermixed their content with changes to how the game is consumed. You either like it or hate it which makes people either stay for specific reasons or find something else to occupy their time. How you determine to play a game largely has a factor in how long you stick around. Some people sip on the content and it takes them ages to get through it all. Others down it in a single gulp. Also if you factor in how many of the games functions you play, PvE, PvP, Raiding, Dungeon Crawling, etc. Back to your original question in the subject line. State of all games. In my opinion, gaming as usual. Never a dull moment unless you are idle. People come and go. Games change hands all the time. Experiences are what you make it to be with whom you make them. Enjoy them until you can't anymore, then find something new that you can enjoy. Rinse and repeat. Of course all of this is my opinion based on my experiences. It may be different for others.

Ok. So am back in for some leveling and learning. Am working on WHM (Training Wheels Heals) and SMN/SCH (Raid Utility Heals/DPS). I insta'd all of them after trying the first 30 lvls to see how they operate. Liking them all so far. On my non-SWTOR nights, I am doing the roulettes and trying to get at least a line of Wonderous Tales in. In trying to learn to heal properly I found some things that I need to improve upon (MP Management and Overheal Reduction). Assize and Lucid Dreaming are my new best friends. Zero already figured my problems the hard way the other night. Sorry. Still got a ways to go before I tackle Hard dungeons. So I googled like a newb and found some stuff out and looking to get some group action going for heals to burn this in. If you see me in-game, give me a shout-out and I will try to make you live through a dungeon.

Congrats @Erudius . You awesome man.

Nice. I like the changes that are coming along. Confirmations on companion returns, final Ops boss, 6.0 expansion finally acknowledged that it is on the way. All good things. Hopefully, the conquest portion will just be a minor tweak with the inclusion of daily rewards and can be added to the current conquest calculators and some re-balanced numbers (last part being speculation) Considering how people are still trying to prog HM for the first 4 bosses, I don't think it will change people's perspective too much. The title and achievement from MM will only really help the 1% that have got that far in HM. From a SM perspective, people will just keep chugging along as normal (Praying for implant drop). If implants drop will be grinding that bad boy repeatedly.

Short answer: The numbers that you have should work for you until you are ready to start min-maxing your gear at 248. Long Answer: You are on the right track. The magic alacrity number is 1860. Alacrity has a rounded effect in the game and there are 3 levels. These levels are for lowering the cast times (HoT ticks, etc). When you are at 1860 the standard GCD is 1.2 seconds (or 1.3 I can't remember). between 1400-1800 it is like 1.4 - 1.5 seconds for the cast times. For an average item rating of 240ish you should be at the second tier. It isn't until the 248 item rating that you will be able to not give any needed crit up for alacrity. Since you are still playing with your gear. I would recommend keeping an extra Crit and Alacrity augment. Play around with 1 or two augments until you are comfortable on your numbers. Do it over time with various encounters. That way you truly get a feel for it. Once you get the timing, start focusing on getting the remaining pieces to 248. Rinse and repeat with the augments focusing on your alacrity to 1860, then crit.

Wow. Just wow. You all are really working your tails off. Looks amazing.