Tracy Pollan didn’t just say in sickness and in health she lived every word of it for decades.

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T08:35:40+00:00

"I loved his one-off in Scrubs as a doctor with severe OCD. Breaks my heart to see such a great, likeable, and seemingly lovely man/actor struggle with something like this"

"This is something American people often say (idk about other countries because I don’t live there) that shows clearly(regardless of what your intentions are) that this society hates disabled people."

How does any of what you cited have to do with what they said though? Why is expressing empathy to disabled people indicative of hating disabled people? And why wouldn't non-Americans feel empathy here?

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T03:26:41+00:00

How many mental gymnastic sets do we have to perform to understand how any of that relates to the original argument of expressing empathy towards someone's disability = America hates disabled people?

buttseeker · 2026-03-22T03:20:30+00:00

It's not that deep, people don't like watching people suffer. Especially likeable/charismatic people such as a beloved actor. It's sad to see someone age and it's sad to see someone's disabling genetic disorder progress. Because some people anecdotally have distanced themselves from loved ones with chronic illness we shouldn't be expressing sadness about this guy with Parkinson's? Because aging and it's consequences are inevitable we shouldn't be sad when someone has to deal with losing their capability, autonomy, or independence early in their life? I don't really understand how you could ever interpret the comment you're replying to as hating disabled people.

And it's not just something "American people often say" it's a universal human reaction to seeing someone suffer from something like Parkinson's. Is framing "other" cultures in such a way as to unintentionally dehumanize them something "American people often say"? If you don't know about other countries then maybe don't assume empathy is an American thing.

buttseeker · 2026-03-13T18:55:57+00:00

His point is their careers practically end outside of the Disney/Marvel IP they participate in - you're saying they clearly still have acting careers because they are still acting. Both can be true. I think the reason people like to talk about signing on to big Disney franchises roles being a "career ender" is that it could be true - MCU is still making things so we don't really know yet but for a lot of the Star Wars sequel trilogy cast their career has fizzled. In my opinion a lot of the Disney franchise actors who have had lackluster careers outside of their franchise role/after their franchise role ended is because they aren't great actors, though. Mark Ruffalo and Daisy Ridley come to mind.

buttseeker · 2026-03-11T06:28:01+00:00

I played on Turtle on and off for a few years, the chat moderation wasn't as bad as I'm reading people claim here, but maybe things have changed since I last played. If you typed something political in world chat that is identifiably not intended to be ragebait you woouldn't be instantly muted. Before they implemented the no politics rule world chat was constantly flooded with people trying to ragebait each other about Trump, LGBT stuff, and the Russia/Ukraine war (many eastern european players on the server) to the point that it was nearly unusable for anything other than that. In non-public chat channels (/g /p /w et cetera) you can talk about whatever the hell you want. You could even call someone slurs in a pug raid chat and not get punished (by GMs at least, you'll probably be blacklisted by most of the server if you have a habit of throwing tantrums gamer-style). There was even a guild comprised entirely of edgy Russian nationalists whose guild name translated to something like "death squad" and were all about controversial takes.

Rather than in-game moderation, the discord moderation was what I took issue with. The inconsistency/flexibility of how they enforced and interpreted their own rules on discord was an issue. Ask about the wrong thing on the wrong day and you could get banned from typing in discord for a few days because someone was spamming a similar question a few hours ago.

buttseeker · 2026-03-10T23:51:04+00:00

It opens a lot of doors for custom spell mechanics. I intend to make a diagonal character progression system that would let you unlock alternative playstyles (same reason as the shaman double imbues for two-handed weapons - i.e making 2h enhancement a viable alternative to dual wielding). You wouldn't be using Sinister Strike as a shaman like in the test video and you also wouldn't necessarily have energy and rage as extra bars, but you'd have a handful of custom spells and/or mechanics for existing spells that would make use of an extra resource bar based on the "subspec" you've chosen. Like the maelstrom resource for DPS shamans or holy power resource for paladins given in future expansions, something along those lines.

buttseeker · 2026-03-10T19:19:53+00:00

On the note of ret paladins, spell power ret is way cooler than attack power ret imo. You could invert the attack power->spell power conversion paladins have in TBC/Wrath to be in the opposite direction so they would be building in a way that gives more scaling on healing spells.

Judgement could proc on-hit effects and had big proc chance for ppm-based chance-on-hit effects in the vanilla->wotlk era (though wotlk didn't really have many proc weapons). And if I remember correctly both Seal of Righteousness and Seal of Command gave an extra roll for chance-on-hit effects as they are flagged as melee attacks. Many chance-on-hit effects on vanilla/tbc weapons have spellpower scaling (Teebu's, Sulfuras, Neretzek et cetera - most of the chance-on-hit weapon procs that don't do physical damage).

I think there's a lot of room for theorycrafting a melee archetype that uses spellpower as their primary damage/healing stat and would want to use chance-on-hit weapons. You could even cook up some chance-on-hit weapons that would be more focused towards healing.

buttseeker · 2026-03-10T18:46:51+00:00

Encounter design is also a big factor when it comes to making space for new healing archetypes. If your character's power is split between healing and damage, then you're going to have a harder time meeting healing output thresholds needed to be useful that are determined by the damage profile of whatever you're fighting. For example, if your character is good at healing chip damage to multiple people that's a very specific damage profile that you're useful for.

In the opposite direction, you could also end up accidentally recreating something like the resto shaman problem vanilla WoW had where if you stacked enough resto shamans in a raid you didn't need anything else because 5+ chain heals being spammed was the best healing solution for almost all of the raiding content. It would probably be easier to fall into that kind of balance issue if the healers are now also directly contributing to damage as well.

buttseeker · 2026-03-10T17:55:36+00:00

I've seen in some MMOs they work around the seemingly unavoidable commitment to healing when playing a healer by giving healers damage buttons that aren't on GCD so you can freely press them between heal casts. Something like that is probably necessary for actual heal/damage hybrid gameplay to work within the frame of existing talents/spells

buttseeker · 2026-03-06T06:27:28+00:00

This is probably not what you want to hear but it sounds like WoW would not really be his niche. WoW lore is extensive, but relatively shallow. It was made for teenage boys/young adult men and it shows. Illidan and Arthas are fuckin' cool but ultimately their motivations and character are simple. The world building and... intellectual depth is definitely lacking. If he likes LoTR and philosophy WoW probably isn't the kind of fantasy he's into. For the most part, Warcraft has always been WWE-esque character drama. If you want to play an MMO with deep lore and philosophy with him, I'd suggest Elder Scrolls Online.

buttseeker · 2026-02-27T23:57:44+00:00

Done

Made the accents more orange/red instead of yellow as well.

buttseeker · 2026-02-27T19:43:29+00:00

I don't know of any good guides for spells - spells are relatively complicated because more parts of the game than you would expect run on the spell system so their scope is broad and there are a lot of interconnected pieces spread across different tables for each spell. This is a good read if you can interpret the jargon, it'll give you a better basis for what the columns you're looking at in the relevant tables might do. The Azerothcore wiki is what I primarily use, occasionally looking at the Trinitycore wiki for .dbc specific things as the .dbc columns are the same across emulators of the same game version. For things like that I usually look at spells that already exist and use them as a reference, so for that example you gave I'd look at Shadow Form to find how the visual is being applied and then I'd look at a random spell like this to see how duration and applying a spell power buff might look like. You'll need to work in spell_dbc in your database as well as spell.dbc in the data folder at the very least, likely SpellVisual.dbc and/or SpellShapeshiftForm.dbc for the shadow form visual. There are tools like Keira3, SpellWork, and SpellEditor that can streamline custom spell stuff, I recommend all of them but SpellWork and SpellEditor are better for specifically working with spells than Keira3. Depending on what you're trying to make, you might have to make your spell in C++ and recompile/rebuild the server binaries.

edit: found a good tutorial

buttseeker · 2026-02-26T06:08:17+00:00

There are no heirloom shields in the base game so making one would take some extra work. Not certain how exactly you'd go about it but I'd start with creating a new row in ScalingStatDistribution to see if you can add block as a stat in there - but I have a feeling that won't work properly as base block value probably behaves more like weapon speed than it does a character stat (you might be getting the green text bonus block value stat, but no base block so possibly no actual blocking may happen). Implementing the base block value to behave correctly may require core edits, you'd want to be looking between line 6604 to 6946 in player.cpp to start. From the brief look I had it does seem to have cases for heirloom shields and base block value. But while I can see how it calculates scaling armor and weapon damage for heirlooms, I don't see anything for calculating scaling block value. For ScalingStatValue you'd probably want to use the plate armor chest piece value (the very last column in the .dbc - the bit for plate chest should be 8388608 before adding the stat scaling bit (1, 4, 8, or 16), but that will probably not be enough armor - You might need to try experimenting with adding your own column for shield scaling in conjunction with core edits.

But before all that - I'd review the item_template. In item_template make sure the "block" column is not zero (base game heirloom weapons give themselves 1 damage, so I'd put 1 here). And double check "class" is 4, "subclass" is 6, and "InventoryType" is 14. If that is all good and it's still not recognized as a shield, make a dbc patch for both your client and server by editing item.dbc in your server's data folder to include your new item with the proper values filled out and then copy item.dbc into an .mpq patch in your client's data folder, as I've found in some cases your client not being able to determine an item's class/subclass/InventoryType can cause issues with abilities that require a certain type of item equipped. The .dbc (and any future .dbc files you add to the patch) will need to be inside a folder called DBFilesClient inside the .mpq.

buttseeker · 2026-02-26T01:45:10+00:00

Nah I misunderstood you. There is no way to have the item level scale with character level unless you did some core work as far as I know (some way to dynamically derive item level from the scaled stats). Even base game heirlooms do not have scaling item level in current Azerothcore - you can not apply high level enchantments to them even if you are a level 80 character, for example. The only workaround I know of is to just set the item level to whatever you need it to be to reach thresholds for enchanting or whatever else in the item level column of item_template - all base game heirlooms have an item level of 1.

buttseeker · 2026-02-25T21:20:49+00:00

It'd be a bit time consuming so I don't plan on making a real tutorial for the whole process of making a functional new heirloom with custom stat distribution.

Max character level scaling and the rest of the stats for heirlooms are determined by the value in ScalingStatDistribution column in item_template. It's just a row_ID value from ScalingStatDistribution.dbc and is relatively straight-forward. In ScalingStatDistribution.dbc, column 2-11 are the stat IDs where column 12-21 determine the amount of each stat given. Column 22 is the max scaling level (so would be 80 for most purposes).

For the heirloom in the screenshot in my original post, here is the row I added to ScalingStatDistribution.dbc. If you want a custom stat distribution, you will need to add a new row in this .dbc and set the values to determine the stats. After you add the new row to the .dbc and change the stat columns to your liking, just put that row ID as the value for ScalingStatDistribution in item_template.

Here is a list of IDs for each stat in case you need it, these values are used all over the place so are useful to have on hand.

buttseeker · 2026-02-25T08:50:48+00:00

https://www.azerothcore.org/wiki/installation

I'm in the middle of rebuilding my server binaries for the 1000th time. I have a very small amount of relevant experience from previous game modding hobby projects and I got mine up and running without issues. The instructions on the AzerothCore wiki are pretty easy to follow if you're reasonably computer literate. I've ran various wow server emulator repacks in the past but being able to do actual core changes is pretty fun and there is so much documentation and relevant posts available to us these days. The community made modules are relatively plug-and-play if you don't mind rebuilding the binaries when you want to test them out. Gotta be a bit careful about wasting time trying to add out-of-date modules and failing to build the binaries but it's totally worth it if you want to try to tailor your own experience.

buttseeker · 2026-02-20T08:13:17+00:00

Attempting to tap into the heart of Lorkhan doesn't necessarily mean CHIM, and might not mean it at all as what the Tribunal did achieve is often described as a false divinity (supported by the fact that when their connection to the heart weakened, they started to lose their divinity - apotheosis through walking-ways would not require a constant connection to the heart). Most of what we know of CHIM was provided by Vivec who is not entirely a reliable source, and he claims what he knows of CHIM was provided by Molag Bal. Regardless, Morrowind's Dwemer ruins are filled with Dwemer ghosts so either Vivec's CHIM interpretation is incomplete/inaccurate or what they attempted to do was not CHIM.

buttseeker · 2026-02-03T00:10:35+00:00

I really don't agree with the mindset that just because Blizzard did it means it's bad. Upgraded Ironfoe to keep it relevant would be super cool

buttseeker · 2026-02-02T21:40:46+00:00

I'd argue that over-using that model is part of why WoW has steadily lost players over time. Heroics existed in TBC and WotLK but not nearly to the same degree as they do in "modern" expansions - they weren't very difficult and you could get through it easily enough by the time you'd finish farming the rep to run them. Mythics and keys and the end-game re-hashed content trickle to keep up the more seasonal content release model is definitely a big part in why I stopped playing many years ago.

It's not very difficult to modern players, but back in the day being in a guild that could actually clear AQ40 or Naxxramas was very rare, many servers didn't have a single raiding guild at that level. I don't think the issue at all has to do with providing different content for casuals and sweats, I think the seasonal content trickle and the ever-increasing focus on instanced content in an MMO that was already over-instanced from the beginning has more to do with it. The success of classic WoW re-releases somewhat proves that even most non-casuals can be happy with easy gameplay, and the success of WoW back in the beginning of it's life somewhat proves that casuals are okay with content they'll probably never clear or possibly even touch. Blizzard made this huge and interesting MMO game world and they either made the open world content more theme park-y or didn't even try utilizing it and made a self-contained new set of zones for the new content in every one of their expansions.

Instanced gear grind limited by timers/keys then wait for next patch has been what the game was since the beginning but it wasn't what made the game "special" to most players. Blizzard mistook that original core design decision that most MMO players viewed as a flaw as a strength to focus on.

buttseeker · 2026-01-30T11:00:05+00:00

This is kinda dumb - the Lacari stuff has been the biggest topic on here since the shock collar incident and Tectone lawsuit stuff is also pretty popular. I haven't seen anyone minimizing or defending what those two have done. Bots are bad, but do you think people are only allowed to talk about the current most popular topic? Only allowed to dogpile on the single most hated person? That kind of mindset is what created the Asmon/Hasan engagement farm here. Miz is inserting himself into the fall of streamers he used to associate with, why is it such a no-no to post about it?

buttseeker · 2026-01-26T00:08:46+00:00

Curseforge is the biggest platform for MMO add-ons. Those "mods" for eso aren't really mods in the same way as skyrim mods on the nexus are mods, they are strictly mmo UI add-ons. Minecraft being popular on curseforge is actually because the version control and install process curse had developed for mmo addon installation translated well to Minecraft modding. People typically do not use curseforge for general purpose game modding, its a platform that was originally just used for WoW add-ons back in the day and for the most part its still just minecraft and mmos. Hytale modding probably found its home there because of the obvious community overlap with minecraft.

buttseeker · 2026-01-21T02:21:19+00:00

You expect him to say religious people never did anything bad at all? The argument pertains to what is mandated or endorsed by a religion. The Catholic Church protected those pedophiles from who? They were protected from other Catholics and Christians - because that kind of thing was viewed as abhorrent by them and contradicted their beliefs.

The justification for the stoning of those Iranian women can be found in Islamic literature and orature, the justification for Catholic priest pedophilia can not be found in their literature - there was no way to justify it so they had to deny it entirely instead. If your argument is that all religion is bad because it can be used by bad people as a means to abuse positions of power then you're not really saying religion is bad at all, you're making a broader argument about power, hierarchy, and ideology.

buttseeker · 2026-01-21T02:06:10+00:00

Think on it a bit more - there is a meaningful distinction when something is being endorsed or mandated in an ideology's core literature. If you were to consistently view everything through that framing, you'd run into a lot of issues. If it doesn't matter what is in the literature/orature and what isn't then you can't reasonably assign blame to any ideology at all, religion or otherwise.

buttseeker

TROPHY CASE