I don’t remember that hairstyle….

The annoyance of a clingy pet in a barbershop

Dalaran

City of the Kirin’Tor; City of Magic and Wonder. Beset by the Horde; attacked by the Scourge and razed by Archimonde, it was repopulated slowly. The mages that were drawn back to their beloved capital erected a giant forcefield around it while repairs continued, eager to put the terrors of the past behind them and work in concert to make it once again the center for magical arts and learning. Upon hearing of the impending assault on Northrend the Kirin’Tor dismantled their cities protective bubble; using unbelievable arcane might, they transported their city all the way to Northrend and set it in place hovering over Crystalsong forest. They have since kept watch and aided many adventurers on their journeys; they have also joined in the assault on Ulduar as well as having a token force at the Crusaders Coliseum.

Many players enjoy Dalarans multitude of benefits. It has ample portals, one to each major city and then one to the Outland hub Shattrath. Dalaran also has two banks, multiple inns, a portal to Wintergrasp, a level 80 5 man dungeon, the highest level profession trainers, and some whimsical NPC’s. The list of features goes on for a long time. This hub has so very many fanciful and wondrous things to astound and amaze us, as well as many things on the practical side. Such a convienient city.

I fucking hate it.

Everything from the music to the colour scheme, even the NPC’s. God I am sickened by this bloody city. I hate it’s guts. The hate has transcended and become an entity unto itself; I often have long conversations with this manifestation of my hatred for Dalaran, it enjoys crumpets and theater shows about dolphins. I have run so many laps around that town square as to make my characters permanently unable to distinguish left from up, or right from toast. I have gone to Dubin Clay in the blacksmith shop so many times and hit that little anvil icon time and again; I have put his children and his childrens children down through to the generation that will be herald to the worlds doom through college. I have long since ceased to find “Tanks for Everything” and “Simply Enchanting” amusing titles for shops; I have long since stopped caring about Glowergold and his fucking cheese; I have long since stopped liking this place.

And Yet….

I spend most of my time there. Every day the place you’re most likely to find me is Dalaran, jumping around or circling the middle of town. I feel chained to the place due to it’s convenience and it’s position in Northrend. I can get to any place that’s current content from there much quicker than anywhere else. I could use Shattrath, sure I could but then to get to any of the raids I would have to get a portal to Orgrimmar or Undercity and get a zepplin alllll the way to one of the starting zones and then fly alllll the way to the other side of the map because that’s where ALL the raids are apart from Naxxramas and the dragon Sanctums.

In Cataclysm there is one thing I want more than anything; More than Worgen Ninjas; more than a fix to distracting shot; I dare say even more than Good friends and Good raids. No, all these things I could do without, what I really want in Cataclysm is to get out of this damned city.

Come on Blizzard, give me somewhere new; I’m sick of these mage guys in their sissy robes. 🙂

RealID and it’s withdrawal

So recently, some few of you may have heard of Blizzards plan to display our full names whenever we posted on the official forums. This was not met with approval from the community. The two uber threads on the EU and US boards showed a variety of reactions to the announcement, but most of them were of outrage that Blizzard would do this, that they would betray the playerbases trust in them.That it was an unethical move that threatened peoples safety I have no doubt, especially not after reading this. I don’t know how the originators of that idea thought it was a good one, but the amount of information that can be gotten from a name should be proof that it was terrible.

The main thing I felt though, and judging by the myriad blog posts I’ve read about the matter, others felt similarly, was shocked. Shocked that a company that I have always thought of as not being a company, more a bunch of guys working on games they loved and trying their best to improve them so that more and more people could enjoy their creations, would so blatantly put their business decisions ahead of peoples personal privacy. I mean, I’ve read plenty of posts with people saying that RealID is not that bad, but I have read very very few where people actually support it and say that it’s a good idea.

When I think about the shock this produced in me I’m reminded of this post by Larissa over at Pink Pigtail inn, I think more than the Celestial Steed(which I shamefully bought), more than the remote auction house, more than Lil KT or Lil XT, this RealID forum debacle has really shown me that Blizzard is not some benevolent bunch of fun guys, it is a business. A business that is doing very well, partly because of the trust the community has in them. They have abused that trust now, and even though it is no longer going ahead, it has tainted many peoples view on Blizzard and their business policy. I know that I for one no longer really trust them to put fun ahead of greed. It has made me leery of the future, I can only hope that they never stumble this badly again.

Basic Campfire for Warchief 2010!

We of the horde know that the great Cataclysm brings great change, not least of which will be the vacating of Thralls seat of power as our Warchief. The transference of power to a worthy individual, one strong enough to lead the Horde is obviously of great importance to everyone. Many people’s thoughts immediately turn to Garrosh Hellscream when I say these words, and he is, to be truthful, a strong Orc, one which would lead us to many victories over the Alliance. I did not come here today to speak of Garrosh however, I came to talk of a different candidate, one with a burning passion for the welfare and full stomachs of the Horde.

I speak, of course, about Basic Campfire. Never has there been a more stalwart and trustworthy ally than BC. He has made many magical meals possible in the days of Vanilla and Burning Crusade, and has kept us warm and full in the harsh winters of Northrend, and he will be there in Cataclysm, comforting us with the familiarity of his crackling flames in the suddenly unfamiliar lands after Deathwing’s arrival. If you have but one vote to give, give it to the candidate whose happy flames keep your spirits up(+4!), give it, to Basic Campfire.

Many thanks to Vrykerion of Oddcraft for making this and many other kickass Warchief 2010 campaign buttons!

Good Old Fashioned Questing

Sometimes in this great big world of warcraft, we can forget the little things that made this game fun for us a long time ago.

This is the way it has been for me for a while now.I’ve been suffering pretty badly from some major WoW burnout, and whenever I would log on I would do the famous laps o’ Dalaran. As fun as it is seeing myself slowly circle that place and listen to the horrendous music (Seriously, does anyone like that music? It gets on my tits), I mostly just didn’t play. This was absolutely the right thing to do, if you don’t enjoy it anymore, take a break. You’ll only end up resenting it if you force yourself to play.

I think I may, just may, be coming out of it though. The other day I started up WoW and instead of my main, Vash, I decided to log onto my hunter, Ironsights. Struck by whimsy, I began taking screenshots of the paintings on the walls inside the horde inn in Dalaran. There were only two, but enjoy!

This is a picture of Vordrassil, from Grizzly Hills. I think it looks really great, which is doubly impressive for just being a random painting in an inn.

This appears to be a Tuskarr fisherman gutting his latest catch, a whole whale! I find the expression on the whales face amusing for some reason.

These lightened my heart a bit, I like seeing little pieces of content tucked away in unseen places. This one was even better because it was in a place all horde players probably go to once a day at least, and yet I’ve never heard mention of it before. Little nuggets of content leads me not so smoothly to my next bit of nuggetyness.

Old world quests.

These babies are pretty cool. Just the few at the Bulwark, where I randomly decided to stop of, Alas, Andorhol, The Cauldron quests and Scholomance key questline. These were really great and enjoyable quests to do. The Cauldron quests have a systematic approach with different enemy types around each Cauldron, this makes you really feel like you’re making a difference. They also have the added bonus of having an additional quest at each location, which you have to find yourself. The Alas, Andorhol and Scholomance key quests led me to some interesting places, but the main thing I loved about them were the NPC’s that gave them to me.

Those guys are rarities. They are the first Forsaken NPC’s I’ve met in a long time who were not dicks. These guys actually seemed like they cared about you. They would pat you on the back, spell out your virtues, express concern for your safety and even seem to have a little bit of shame that you had to foot the 15 gold bill for a part of the key chain. These characters were rounded individuals, not just one exaggerated personality trait.

To segue into a pet peeve of mine for a bit, apart from a few exceptions, Northrend seems to be full of Grim Warriors, that is all. You could go from person to person and they would all have this “Grim Warrior” persona imprinted on them like a Dev was rubber stamping defining characteristics and lost all the other ones.

Summary

Annnd we’re back. Don’t worry about burnout, it happens sometimes. However, when you journey back into the game, check out the little things around you that go unnoticed. Go on a trip around the old world. Do some old quests, they can surprise you.

Note to Self: Try to be less rambling

Horsie Horsie Horsie!

Always, I want to be with you, and make believe with you, and live in harmony harmony oh love!

I’m not dead

I’ve just been swamped with college work, and I’m back tomorrow for an intense last month of work and annoyance! I just wanted to tell you, phantom audience, that I may not be posting very regularly because of it. Regular broadcasts will resume once my workload is a little lighter.

P.S. – CLASS CHANGES OMG I DON’T EVEN HAVE A DRUID PAST LEVEL 12 AND I HATE THE TREE OF LIFE CHANGE 😦

A new lease on WoW life

So, as some of you may know, I’ve recently been burning out on Wow. What with guild leadership stress and the falling apart of that guild, I was just shattered and I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm. I stopped logging on much at all and when I did I didn’t really do much.

Recently though, things have changed a bit.

How you ask? Well I’ll tell you my bright-eyed little disciple. I completely stopped playing for any other reason than to have fun. I got into a ToC 25 man run on my alt hunter, I didn’t care how many bosses we downed, I was having great fun and kept yammering on and making little jokes that popped into my head. We only made it up to Faction Champs where we wiped on that run, incidentally.

I made a couple of friends from it though, who said that there was a place in their guild if ever I wanted it. That made me feel good, because I was just having fun and I infected the people around me with that fun. It was a great feeling.

I then logged on tonight, wanting to raid. I spotted someone looking for a Rotface tank. So I hopped onto my paladin and I responded and was promptly invited. This was a raid that was a joint effort between two guilds who usually raid together with a pretty stable IC 10 group. They asked me if I had vent and then gave me the details of the one they were using. I popped on and they were friendly and nice. (The raid leader was also from Ireland, and I always love meeting a fellow countryman, countrywomen in this case)

I gave a few pointers when the tactics were being explained (I was asked, I’m not snooty) and we proceeded to try him out. We wiped I think….3 times? Maybe 2. But it was fun the whole time. I couldn’t give a shit if we were wiping, I was having a ball of a time tanking for these people and chatting away. We killed Rotface and moved onto Putricide. I wasn’t expecting much from this group as they seemed uncoordinated.

I was wrong.

We didn’t kill him, I think the closest we got was 41%. However, I could see them improving each time, reassuring each other and doing everything with a casual and fun attitude. This was fantastic, this is what raids were meant to be like. By the end of the night we called it because people had to sleep.

I didn’t mind that we’d only killed one boss, I couldn’t give a shit about loot. I made more friends and spent a very enjoyable evening killing giant monsters, and isn’t that what WoW is supposed to be about?

Alliance Alt Hooooo!

I love the Horde. Since day one, and throughout the times I was playing Warcraft 3, I’ve wanted to play Horde. I have two Horde 80’s, and the rest of my characters bar one or two name holders are Horde. The highest level I have ever gotten an Alliance character has been 10. I just found them visually unappealing and boring.

However, since Cataclysm was announced I’ve been thinking. I don’t want the whole of Azeroth to change before I’ve had a chance to experience it from the Alliance point of view. This is also the reason I’m going to be doing Loremaster on my paladin, but that’s a story for another day.

With this in mind, I rolled a dwarf priest. I got this priest, named Rales, to level 10. There he will stay forever, because I had a look at the high level armor sets on him and I just didn’t really like the way it looked. I have to like how a character looks to be able to play them. It’s why I hate gnomes I think.

I then decided to create a female Draeni priest. This was done at the same time my brother started one, and we’ve been levelling them together. Once I got over the strangeness and the idea that it was freaky for a guy to play a female character, it became very fun. I like how female Draeni look, the males are great for plate classes, but they’re just too bulky for cloth and such. I’m really looking forward to playing through the various zones that I never visited before and having a look around the strange new cities. I think I’m also going to love buildings that are actually made made of stone instead of rough animal skin and wood. 🙂

This post turned into a strange dear diary kind of thing, but I just wanted to announce that I was levelling an Alliance alt, because I find it very strange to be on the wrong side.

Lok’Tar Exodar!

ALL OF THESE ARE TOTALLY TRUE

I am quitting!/moving out of the country!/joined a folk trio that plays Albanian jazz!/deleting my blog!/am going to make money out of performing coin tricks with my nipples!/am incredibly angry with someone you know!/am breaking up with my (gf/wife)!/am going to sell all my possessions!/drop out of college!/need you to hide a body!/am going to jail!/just vomited blood!/have a secret sexual obsession with wooden horses!/lost my wallet!/lost my baby!/lost my house!/lost my babies house!/am really little red riding hood!/am really a horse!/have found out I have several illegitimate children!/am telling lies!

If you managed to read all of those, well done, and April Fools! 😀