Daily Archives: October 26, 2009

NFL International Series: Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs New England Patriots

This year’s NFL game at Wembley was slightly disappointing after last year. Josh Johnson threw an interception early in Tampa’s first drive that was run back for a touchdown, and just as they were putting together a decent second drive and looking like they might make a game of it a second interception took the wind out of their sails, and New England had control for the rest of the game. The Buccs ground game never got going, and Johnson didn’t get too much help from his receivers as they dropped a few pretty straightforward catches. “Efficient” summed up the Patriots offence, not too much on the ground either, but there didn’t need to be with Brady passing for 300+ yards and three touchdowns, Tampa Bay failing to capitalise on a couple of interceptions of their own. A nice Antonio Bryant touchdown near the end of the first half gave a faint glimmer of hope for the Buccs, but that was the extent of their scoring.

With the result never being in doubt, the atmosphere was pretty flat; nominally Tampa Bay’s home game, there was a bit of noise for their defence, but surprisingly little for New England despite the prevalence of Brady jerseys. Our seats weren’t so great either, low down, without the best perspective on the game. A good evening out again, but I think I’ll wait and see who the 2010 teams are before deciding whether to head back again.

The Factory Run: Part 1.

It was an eventful weekend. At least, as close to eventful as one such as me ever gets; it started with me mooching around my favourite haunt with no real plan as to what to do, and ended with a successful raid on The Factory, an achievement that most of us have only ever dreamed of.

It was Rex who first suggested it to me and Tom late on Saturday evening. Tom seemed keen right from the off, but he’s always spoiling for a fight, which is why he defaulted to being the group’s main tank I suppose. There’s something reckless in the way that Tom’ll throw himself into the middle of a brawl, but there’s no denying the effectiveness of his fighting style — at some point in time a sumo wrestler and a Viking fell very much in love, and Tom was the offspring of their affections. I was very much on the fence at the time, I’m often accused of spending too much time there, but I find that by setting myself apart from the emotions and persuasions of the rest of the group I can see further afield and often warn of dangers that the others may not have seen. Plus I find it really comfy there. Still, there wasn’t anything better to do other than perhaps engage in a bit of casual world PvP with any wandering packs from the other faction, and that’s only ever idle sport because they’re just so stupid and disorganised. Every time we fight it’s the same: each of them hurtling around solo with their own goal in mind, never thinking about the battle as a whole. I pity them really, they near as never win, and I’m amazed that they continue to turn up night after night chasing their tails around as we pick them off one at a time.

Rex and Tom looked at me imploringly though, and even though I knew I was being manipulated I conceded that it was a fine plan and that we should start looking for group members. I put the call out on LFG, Rex and Tom helping out now and again, but it’s generally accepted that I’m the best at getting a group together. Tom only seems to attract flaky female fire mages who are all angry heat and no concentration, and usually cause as much damage to the group as they do to other mobs. Plus they distract Tom from his tanking duties with their flashy displays. Rex, on the other hand, has an uncanny knack of attracting the attentions of any nearby raid bosses. Thankfully most of them can only attack from range, locked up in their concrete towers as they are. The battle shouts are of no concern to us, but sometimes they launch a projectile that, though rarely doing much damage, can cause a bit of a shock to one’s system, especially if one is in the middle of talking on LFG at the time.

It wasn’t long before I got the first reply, Tabitha made it known that she was available, and we all relaxed markedly when we knew that she was in for the run. Tabitha is our regular healer, a real motherly type who keeps us all in check and keeps such a close watch on our health that she usually has any wounds licked before we’re even aware that we’ve got them. I probably looked pained when I got the next reply though, and when Rex and Tom pushed me as to why, I told them that we’d got an offer from The Twins. The looks that they returned told me all that I needed to know as to how they felt about the situation — pretty much the same as me. The Twins are notorious DPSers who always go on runs together. Don’t get me wrong, they are top shelf DPS, possibly the best in our neighbourhood, but they are… eccentric isn’t really the right word. Rex is eccentric: he won’t go near running water, but loves being out in the rain; he can sleep next to open fire but is afraid of the magical light that the raid bosses use to light their dungeons, even though it has been proven harmless – it’s not even hot. Well, mostly harmless, there was that one time when old Cobby poked a broken one with his weapon and got quite the shock. That was a repair bill that wasn’t easily paid off, I’m sure. No, The Twins are just mad, that’s the easiest way to put it. Personally I put it down to their abundance of energy, which is a boon when put to use against the other faction and raid bosses, but when there’s no point of focus for it then it just seeps out of them and usually results in the pain and suffering of innocent bystanders. I mean, for starters they bounce. Now I know that a lot of DPS types seem to bounce for no apparent reason, but The Twins, they bounce a lot. If you’ve seen one of those strange balls that raid bosses sometimes throw out for no discernable reason, that ping around off of walls and ceiling and seem to cause more consternation to the raid boss than to us, you’re still not even close to how much The Twins bounce around. And if they are not bouncing off of the surroundings and each other, then they are duelling. They duel each other; they duel random other team members; they duel inanimate objects. They even duel their own reflection, not that we haven’t all been guilty of that one at one point or another. It wouldn’t be so bad, but they’re such scrawny looking characters that it’s hard to understand where they get such bravado. That is until you watch them at work. I’ve seen them take down a raid boss in seconds; their weapons seem to ignore all armour class, and all of their abilities seem to proc Deep Wounds. Not only that, but they seem to have memorised the strategy for every raid boss out there and know exactly where the weak spots are, and what form the boss’s retaliatory attacks will take. They’re the only DPS to ever make it through an entire encounter with The Baker and not take any AoE damage from his sweep attack.

After some debate and no small amount of caterwauling by Rex who, as our crowd control, finds The Twins style of indiscriminate whirling dervish DPS to be particularly tiresome, we had a vote and decided to take them. After all, The Factory was the hardest raid dungeon that we knew of, and we were going to need help from the best if we were going to defeat the dungeon and reap its rich rewards.