“A very long time. It was a great success, but even great successes come to a natural end.”
― Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire
Well, I’m not sure if the Azerothian Empire is truly coming to an end. Heck, even Ancient Rome had a shelf life of ‘only’ 500-600 years (trying to do my Before Common Era and Common Era math: give me some good ol’ Anno Domini any day). No, I’m not leaving Azeroth. Not yet anyway. It’s too easy for me to have accounts and alts. But I do hope they pay attention, and quick being such dicks. Such little Caesars about the whole matter. If someone like Tome is canceling her subscription, gentlemen (and it is mostly “gentlemen”) take heed. You’ve exceeded our goodwill limit, and we’ll get all Visigoth and Gaulish on your asses and topple your civilization.
Asterix, Dogmatix, and Obelix…my heroes!
But just when I think there are no new worlds to conquer, I looked in Zep’s bags and found an old pair of Belbi’s Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles. I seriously have no idea why I have never tried them on before. Everyone knew this but me, but it turned everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, into a gnome:
Okay, Chris, I hope that leather strap isn’t chafing your…or your…oh my.
Et tu, Oscar?
What I don’t understand, and maybe I never will, is why the really fun things in Azeroth are temporary, and the shitty grinds, no flying, and falling apart raid teams and mean pick-up groups seem to rule the day? I’m just gonna sit over here with my goggles on and look at all the sexy gnomes.
PS I am a bit concerned about Ceniza. She drank some potion not too long ago and, well, frankly she thinks she looks better as a male;
Kimzee, shush! If Blizzard hears you they’ll take something else away that’s fun!
What causes boredom, aka, “Mere existence does not satisfy us?”
Well, as I predicted, my concern was that as an avid alta-holic, having multiple garrisons would wear on me. Yes, there have been surprises along the way with quests, regions, and class-specific needs, but I have to confess: the gold, the mining, the herb garden, and the professional cool-downs really have me down. And though I love pets, I hate leveling them, and am not a big fan of pet battles. So there is a neglected Leo the Lioness NPC on all characters, and a fishing shack that smells like yesterday’s sushi.
So why don’t I relish fishing, pet battles, etc.? I don’t know why. For real, if I could do pet battles on my i-pad I would be all over them. But Blizzard lags with tablet content, hell, they just got Hearthstone out for Android players. I’m sick of getting apex crystals for one and all, sick of getting tokens for rolls that turn into gold 90% of the time, and sick, really, kind of -eff-u-Blizz mad about the three craft items. Really? REALLY?!?!?! Can’t make it four, and then get some of tier bonus? No ‘you cool player, making this fake shit over years of your life, here’s a treat?’ buff? Haanta is at 612, and because the only way to get her gear is by doing heroic dungeons, which means I have to do Silver PG, or crafting things, which she’s at her limit, she’s screwed. No Molten Core Soup for you, hunter girl! What would have been a VERY nice touch is if Blizzard had made our crafted items Account Bound.
Yes, I know. This is the nature of MMOs. Go play something different. Get a fresh perspective. Sometimes I think we get saturated with change. I had this epiphany today that Draenor is wonderful, but it’s too much. If they had allowed us to have better models, (still not over it, still….not…..over….it)…..keep our beautiful characters as they were to the rest of the world, and not just to our own deluded mirrors, if they had provided a means of sharing garrison resources among all of our characters. For example, how cool if our characters could pop into one of our enchanting shacks, or visit one another? How wonderful if we could move the friggin’ furniture around once in awhile, eh? If you’re going to make it boring Blizzard, might as well go all out! Give us dishes to wash and beds to make!
The thing is, everyone needs a purpose and autonomy. We need to know if our characters and time are spent in an isolated land, we enjoy our own company. Right now Draenor is reminding me I don’t like being in my own head, and that’s a dangerous place to be.
So, let me go trap and hunt a few things. I’ll set a timer. And when that timer is up, logging off shall I to do some coloring outside the lines in my real world.
We interrupt this regularly scheduled Random Tuesday Morning Thought to bring you little monsters. Specifically, little troll hacking monsters.
Helke alerted me to this news story. Usually when I’m in Azeroth, I’m IN Azeroth – in spite of the chaos, mice, unpaid bills, and Cruel Taskmaster’s BACK TO WORK’s–I’ll get whispers late at night, when I’m snuggled in bed, playing Hearthstone, and it’s hard for me to respond. I wish I had an “Open Sign” that went dark between the hours of 9PM and 7AM.
Oh, and Mr. Snerguls: remember, data are plural: One thing to keep in mind; your data in Blizzard’s serverswaswere never in any jeopardy.
And claiming national security is not an overreaction, but I do believe it’s misunderstood. It is not that people couldn’t play games, and our responses to national security are –let me just say complex at best. Frisking eight-year-olds does not security create. However, when young civilians have the brains and psychopathic tendencies combined with a steady stream of disassociated reality, we create a potential for even more than disruptive shenanigans.
On a tangential note, Mr. and Mrs. WoW ask about our feelings about Big Blizzard itself. This incident, and many others, remind me that Blizzard is a business, first and foremost; they are allowed and encouraged to employ, pay taxes, and return on investment to the infrastructure and customers that in return, help them make the profits they do. So when I, as paying customer, have an issue, they have been great in resolving it, and for the most part, have turned from arrogance to being more responsive.
Today’s Random Tuesday Morning Thought is brought to you by the letter P and the feeling of O, as in, “Oh, I am really anxious about this.”
Mrs. Potts IS Angela Lansbury!
“Personification” is one of my favorite figurative language terms. So simple in definition, yet provides so much richness to our imaginations. Whenever illustrating personification one of the most accessible ways is to think about the characters in Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Each tea pot and candlestick has its own personality, every feather duster and door knob. It’s magical.
Even Carmen from Art of Carmen puts her own spin on Azerothian characters. They tend to be salaciously sexualized and entertainingly sinful: note the little “devil’s tail” in the smile of the Draenei below:
My dear friend Plaid Elf much more kindly pointed out some of her disappointment, too.
We were all so excited, but what we got was Low Budget Beasts. Scratch that. Low Budget Beasts have character and grit, even if ofttimes poorly executed cosplay. At least they try!
When many of us saw the ‘sketchbook’ if you will of our new characters we were delighted. All except me, who immediately saw the dead-eyes, too narrow of jaw, and sexless, plastic lips– to me, the new Draenei female models look like they’ve been on a three-day bender of Botox and Velen sold their souls to Illidan. Am I that unhappy? Yes. When I showed the Beta model of the female Dwarf, with richness and vibrance to the art, that is what I was pointing to, what I wanted. I feel that this is somehow Blizzard’s passive-aggressive means to take two of the most beautiful female races (Draenei and Night Elf) in Azeroth, and instead of making ALL races rich, vibrant and…looking for a word here...they did what they always do: break the good in an effort to level some imaginary playing field. Now – I’m going to try to say this next thing as carefully as I can, but I’ll probably get misunderstood: Tauren, Troll, and Dwarf females were often thought of as not the “beautiful” races. First, I disagree. Big time. But Blizzard did give them a richness and nuances that served to enhance their natural beauty. (We haven’t seen Troll yet, but I am betting the farm they are ‘new and improved: even the Forsaken has left us feeling forsaken.) Careful framing, shading, and line work that only added to their beauty. I wish the good and talented artists at Blizzard would take a step back and go study the artists of Disney,Hayao Miyazaki, and Pixar. Heck, even Tim Burton would add some grit. Let him redesign the Forsaken! And second, shame on Blizzard if that is their plan, to somehow make the “pretty” girls “ugly” as a way of compensating for something that didn’t need to be paid.
Now maybe I can get the word to Blizzard. I know they keep saying it’s just the Beta, and not providing me any mental relief as far as what the future holds for my Draenei and Night Elf clan. I will say I’ve been delighted with the addition of a Dwarf shaman named Mollei. Remember Mollie MacBallbuster? She is all kinds of delightful. Sometimes I have error speech on, and when she says in her little Scottish accent, “I’m oot of mann-ah!” I crack up, as her braids twirl with every spell. At least I can count on her to stay beautiful, inside and out.
I planned to meet a girlfriend for coffee this morning, however between playing hours of Naxxramas Hearthstone, CD Rogue’s usual restlessness, and an atypical thunder storm, sleep took precedence. All those spiders…all those….spiders…gave me a weird nightmare. I see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, (I’m typing this in between bites of organic cocoa crisps and sipping black coffee, the only cure to dispel this type of dream): we were at some grand log cabin somewhere, and on a window just outside of where the living room would be was a collection of huge arachnids. There was one especially large black widow, who had found a doll’s head and wrapped it in her web, and its face (the doll’s) was staring outward. The black widow seemed to know she couldn’t eat the doll’s head, but having it for a trophy gave her an aura of triumph. A stinkbug the size of my hand crawled up the window, and various little grey spiders scuttled about. But that doll’s head…I took pictures with my i-phone, and when I showed them to CD Rogue (this is all still in the dream) every shot was in HD and so clear, so large in details, that it seem the black widow leered back. If you’re sufficiently creeped out remember; this all was in my subconscious. Like eating bad pepperoni pizza late at night, I shall not be playing Hearthstone so close to bedtime again.
Remember: that was in MY head. Dispel! Dispel! Curse you doll’s head: be gone with another bite of cocoa crispies! I’m not sure Tome is going to get the image of her warlock out of her head as easily, however: Sasche looks like she’s retaining embalming fluid (yes, I’ll keep telling that joke – I think I’m hilarious). And our dear Dwarf friend Briege is shaking things up, too. I must admit I admire and am envious of my friends who know how to create a safe community, are diplomatic, funny, and kind. The struggle is real, Matty.
This would be a great tabard logo…
With so many changes, I’m having this “Why bother?” attitude – and that is a dangerous and debilitating attitude indeed. For example, the guild perks’ changes.
We still want to incentivize guild membership, aside from the social benefits, so we’re keeping conveniences like faster mount speed, instant guild mail, Mass Resurrection, etc., as exclusive benefits to all guilded players. The guild achievement system, and unlocked items and other benefits through completion of guild achievements, will remain as-is. We’d like to emphasize that system a bit more as a yardstick for collective accomplishment, rather than guild level which primarily just reflects individual effort.
The rest of the article discusses how Guild Challenges are the things that make gold. Making gold for Drunken Fish was never a priority — we never had that many members. So what this statement from Blizzard seems to be suggesting (remember: I am still working on my inner demons) is that we still have to work to get to Level 25 we just don’t get a few of the rewards that would actually have helped a cottage guild. I don’t give a damn about the guild membership spams – that was never an issue. And where is the reward for the little cottage guilds that have two members for a long time and leveled a guild at all? It just seems that Blizzard once again caters and encourages the guild spam, and gives no viable options for the small-town girl. In other words: f-u individual effort. Subtext: you are a big loser if you only have a few friends in Azeroth.
Blizzard: s.t.f.u.
Like most strong economies, its strength derives from entrepreneurial efforts. If I’ve had to be creative to level a tiny guild it’s been fun, but please don’t punish me for it – you should be rewarding guilds that have less then ten actual accounts — not members — accounts. Look, I would love if I had three players on at any point in time who could run instances together. It just doesn’t work like that in the real world anymore, and I’m a bit resentful that Blizzard still thinks it does.
Okay – there’s my rant. I’m done.
Maybe this should be on the guild tabard?
In any case, Hawtpocket, one of the best tanks and players I have had the pleasure, created the Rubber Ducky Society guild, and we’ll be doing some things together. I counted up all my level 90s, and um…yeah. But she wants Momokawa to come along tonight and tomorrow for some Flex raiding, so that’s something I’m looking forward to doing.
So, to more black coffee and the cocoa crispies seem to be doing the trick. I feel better. It’s still raining heavily, and the thunderstorm for this area is unusual: normally the western side of the Northwest doesn’t generate enough heat. But once in awhile, there’s a flash and boom, and then the air gets clear again.
Was I excited to see the new female Draenei models?! YOU KNOW IT BRO! SO Excited, like Amy Schumer excited! Like, helllllsya, especially after the idiotic April Fool’s debacle, Blizzard efffing OWED me one! Well, we all know Blizzard owes us nothing. But artists, please: this poor new model is seriously suffering from a debilitating case of BRF: Bitchy Resting Face. It is a common ailment that robs young, often beautiful women of their friendly affable countenances, making social contact and approachability awkward. I myself for years have been afflicted with BRF – simply walking down a hallway or trying to juggle grocery bags I’ve been told to “SMILE.” Hmm. Anyway, maybe that’s why I love Mataoka’s little face – I mean, just LOOK at her – she shows kindness and inner strength:
Blizzard, I am warning you now: cure these Draenei girls of their BRFs now. Even if you don’t agree that BRF is the culprit, at present time this face looks even more alien, bug-like, and disconnected. Yes, I know – wait till animations come out, blah blah blah. But I remind you –look at Matty’s face and tell me if animations could make her any more beautiful? That’s what I thought.
Sugar&Blood 
