Apparently, two former Activision developers who worked extensively on Call of Duty have signed with CAA, which is Hollywood’s premier talent representation agency.

I think that while the average developer (much like the average actor, writer, director, etc.) won’t ever sign with CAA, this move could be a sign of the growing impact of gaming on the rest of the entertainment industry.  I think we may see more of this as the years go by.

P.S. I refuse to speculate on the legitimacy of the claims put forth by either party here, but you may feel free to in the comment section.

In Which I Announce My Return and We Run ICC25

Don’t worry, I haven’t passed on into the Light.  RL matters combined with an aggressive bout of streph infection have conspired to keep my manly paws away from the QWERTY these last few weeks.  What little coherence I’ve had was mainly spent on raiding and studying.

With fruitful results, too.  At least for the raiding.  We downed Rotface in ICC10 a week before the Strength of Wrynn buff appeared.  This week, we ran our first real ICC25.  Though we had to pug a lot of the slots, many of the core raiding membership of MoK were there.  ICC25 did not progress much beyond Deathbringer, I believe in part because for many of our puggers this was their first run or they’d never progressed that far.  That’s not a problem for me, really.  If no one runs with them, they would never learn and never progress.  I’m good with helping people learn so long as they put in the requisite effort.

Worms In The Frozen Apple

Unfortunately, as tends to happen with pugs, we picked up a couple of first-rate jerks along with all the willing, eager raiders we found.  They could be described as “elite” raiders, but I think elitist probably serves as a more accurate descriptor.  After several snide remarks about performance and some fairly insulting (and off-base) comments about how “scrubs” don’t deserve loot that could go to “better” players, I (and several others) had had enough.

I will be the first to admit that I have a low tolerance for asshats.  In fact, if there’s one thing that gets me going, it is the elitist attitude that loot distribution should have some relation to Recount DPS rankings.  Forgive my bluntness here, but I would much rather take along a “mediocre” 5kdps rogue who knows his game than the hotshot we had Wednesday who apparently couldn’t hear me tell him—repeatedly—over vent to get out of the way of that ginormous Rotting Frost Giant or he’ll get squashed.  7-8kdps does not excuse arrogance and it certainly does not excuse stupid.  For that same rogue to have been excoriating our other pugged 5kdps rogue is so far beyond insulting that it is laughable.

Unsurprisingly, after a couple learning wipes on Festergut, our rogue/warrior elitist couple ragequit the run after the rest of us had told them—repeatedly—to can it.  Players who find the need to show us how empty they are inside are generally shown the door quickly.  Players who are in it to have fun and learn and achieve something as a team, those are the ones we like to keep raiding with.  Thankfully this ICC25 run introduced us to plenty more of that sort of player.

Coming Up

Later on this weekend I will be participating in Tree Burglar’s Elder Blogging Event, and In the coming weeks I’ll start a series on addons and the ones I use.  (Which, given the number of addons I currently load, could fill up over a year of posts.)  I’m a relentless tweaker of my UI, and I think my latest redesign might very well be my best yet.

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Extended Side Note:

When taking a language class, it’s good to research your prof before you go ahead and start taking the class.  Had I done that, I would have found out that the language I wanted to learn was not her native tongue, nor was English.  I also would have found out that highly contagious and aggressive bouts of streph complete with Doctor’s note do not constitute adequate reason for missing class in her world.  I also would have saved significant money on buying textbooks that I now need to sell because I dropped the class in the first week rather than learning French from a woman for whom (while she is exceedingly brilliant) English is—at best—her third language.

Meaning her no disrespect, as she is surely a capable instructor, I just don’t have the time to make learning a foreign language any more complicated than it already has to be.  Other students may have more success.  Students who are not holding down a full-time job, navigating a (relatively) new relationship, attending other classes, and leading raids as a guild officer.