My Computer and I: Fumbling in the Dark

My desktop is a 3-year-old Dell Dimension 8400. It was high-end at the time it was bought, but regardless is starting to show its age. I have upgraded some of its parts since then to keep playing World of Warcraft bearable, but of course it will need to be replaced eventually.

I have had my share of computer problems with my current computer (not suggesting that Dell is necessarily a poor computer assembler, mind you). Other than high school computing studies, I have had no formal training in maintaining a computer, so I usually need to end up experimenting when something goes wrong. Without further ado...

The Problem:
My LCD display suddenly stopped working. The screen went blank, even though the tower still seemed to be running.

Reused Boss Mechanics

All boss encounters as respective wholes are unique, although there are several cases of encounters sharing mechanics. From a computer programming perspective, it is good practice when mechanics that work are adopted again and incorporated in a future encounter.

A veteran player might notice this over the time they have been playing. In fact, while they have progressed through World of Warcraft's many raids, they may have noticed the following commonalities...

The Healer's Skills Record

In my adolescence, I went to swimming lessons. I would learn various swimming skills and the instructor would keep track of my progress. At the end of the program, I received a certificate, overleaf a checklist of the skills being assessed. Ticked were the skills I managed to master, and unticked were the ones I still need to work on.

The listed skills were also sorted according to difficulty. In the above example, from easiest to hardest, the categories are Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. There was also a note that continual practice was needed to maintain mastery of the skills learnt.

Like swimming, the responsibility of providing healing to a group requires the mastery of several skills. Like swimming, some skills are more difficult than others. And like swimming, being a good healer requires continuous practice, not only to maintain current proficiency, but also improve on it. In the spirit of the above example, I have prepared a checklist of the many skills a healer needs in order to heal well. It assesses the following general criteria:

WoW Mathematics: Destructive Shadow interference

During the Blood Prince Council encounter in Icecrown Citadel, players may find a number of Dark Nuclei floating around. These are vital for the tank tanking Prince Keleseth, for they each offer a stacking Shadow damage reduction. Against conventional wisdom, this damage reduction stacks multiplicatively, so full immunity cannot be achieved from a stack of three (as is the case with additive stacking).

Aim: To calculate the damage taken from Empowered Shadow Lance at a particular level of Shadow Resonance.

Summary:

• With Shadow Resonance of an order of a stack of n, the Keleseth tank will take 80,000(0.65)ⁿ damage from an Empowered Shadow Lance.

Optimising the Blizzard Default UI

Some people play World of Warcraft using user interface (UI) mods. These AddOns change how unitframes, actionbars, the chat frame, scrolling combat text and screen fonts are displayed on the screen, usually by making them more streamline and compact. They do away with the clunkiness of the ornamentation that is in the default UI.

However, these addons are usually highly intertwined with the WoW program code, and often stop working as intended when the game client is changed with a content patch. Players usually become very accustomed to playing the game using a narrow set of controls, and become very frustrated when they have to do without their UI mods, spoiling their virgin dungeon or raid experience.

Some other people would rather avoid such disappointment and leave their UI mostly unadulterated. Of course, others may find a joy or challenge in playing the game in the way Blizzard intended them to play it, with an elaborate and ornate UI complementing the vibe of the playing field. For whichever reason people play the game through the Blizzard default UI, there are still ways to make handling the character easier under it.

Random Ramblings to 31 January 2010

Acetylcholine
A chemical in the body which transmits messages between a neuron and the nearby cells (a neurotransmitter). Its presence will signal muscles to contract. Nerve agents prevent its breakdown, causing muscles (including those in the heart and lungs) to contract uncontrollably. Atropine, the toxin of deadly nightshade and an antidote of nerve agents, prevents cells from detecting acetylcholine, causing muscles to relax uncontrollably at high doses. Its chemical formula is C₇H₁₆NO₂.

The skeletal formula for acetylcholine.

Resources and Their Sources

Accounting is a practice that allows someone (or something, in the case of an organisation), the accounting entity, to keep track of their economic and financial details. It involves accounting for their economic resources, as well as the sources from which they are obtained.

In early accounting practice, businesses would keep separate lists of their resources and sources. It was soon discovered that both can be linked. Thus came double-entry accounting, where every transaction that is recorded would recognise both and implicitly relate the two together.

All accounting entities strive to accumulate resources, while being careful of how they finance them. Those resources help to satisfy the accounting entity’s economic wants by providing economic benefits.