It was better not knowing

As I'm sure everyone is aware, the huge patch dropped on Tuesday. Last night's raid was a bit lolful as a result, but overall successful. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, because this week is incredibly hectic. And when it started to look like I might be able to make I planed to go on my priest. I knew precisely what I wanted out of my Discipline spec and the mechanics haven't changed overmuch - just my efficiency with them.

Not that I don't know precisely what I want out of Mara's specs. I just want considerably more time to spend analyzing her gear and rotation before jumping into a raid. A weekend project, perhaps.

However, in the realm of honesty, that's not the only reason I wasn't ready to log on to Mara. I got wind of a terrible tragedy earlier in the week. My demons have gone missing... to be replaced by impostors... and I didn't want to face that.

I read an interesting short story last week about two people who get caught in a Time Loop. They are forced to repeat the same day over and over again. The physics of this (theoretical or invented, I'm not completely sure having not done any research) is quite intriguing. The Time Loop is centralized to their neighborhood. That is, the rest of the world is moving on quite normally but their neighborhood is isolated and forced into an infinitely repeating loop of one Thursday.

This starts to cause a build up of entropy and heat and things start to break down. Things don't really fall apart... they just disappear. Small things first - like papers, pens, etc. Then books, chairs. Eventually walls. There are holes in things. But not like holes you can see through or put a finger through... holes in the reality.

Then the same thing starts to happen to people. And the main character starts dreading waking up each Thursday morning. Because he doesn't know what will be different. What will be missing today? Who will be missing today?

The reason this story is so compelling - quite apart from the interesting physics and the suspenseful and evoking storyline - is that is exactly how I felt when I found out the demon names had been reset.

I didn't want to log in and discover my companions of several years were now gone. I didn't want to be another warlock posting in the lost and found:

"Have you seen my Flaag? He's a cantankerous dude with a huge axe, but he's been protecting me from Big and Scaries for 30 levels now."

"Missing: one dutiful felhunter named Shaan. Tries to eat Ice Barriers off me when I poke Sindragosa with a stick. Cannot finish ICC without him."

Its really very hard to explain, but this has devastated warlocks. The good news is the demon names will revert to what they were before the patch on the next maintenance day. The impostors are temporary.

I still don't know which of my demons are currently taking a vacation, but its a huge relief to know they will be coming home on Tuesday. It was better not knowing who was missing. It will be easier to face the impostors knowing that my minions will be back soon.

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