Steven Scougall's Journal

Non-World of Warcraft post

2009-12-13T14:30:30Z

Today, at the anime club's End of Year comedy marathon, there was a trivia competition.

"What the hell," thought I, "why not?"

Eight questions in I was feeling the strain. There'd been a whole lot of questions that I simply couldn't answer. One of the questions had been, "Who is the author of Death Note"?

I don't bother to remember the authors of really sucky manga series so I had no chance in hell of answering that question. All I could remember is that Death Note had been a writer + artist duo. Meanwhile, all around me, I could hear people getting questions right, going, "Oh I know this one!"

But then, all of a sudden, there were questions that I could answer. Some anime questions, and then questions not about anime at all, such as, "Of Japan's four main islands, name an island that doesn't start with H," and, "what is a shinkansen?" and, "What is the name of the Chairman in Iron Chef?" Me, knowing a reasonable amount of Japanese and having lived there, could answer these questions extremely easily.

Then suddenly there were a lot of internet-culture questions I couldn't answer. The only one I even knew in passing was, "who is the author of the best page in the world?" I thought, "isn't it the ninjas are awesome guy?" There were other questions, but the only ones I remember clearly are, "(Picture of cat) What is the name and title of this cat?" and, "Who fights who eternally in Catnorak?"

Oh, *and* one of the anime-related questions was, "What is the name of Kenshin's Reverse Bladed Sword?" I should know this, I should know this, I should KNOW this, I thought to myself, but I couldn't remember it and didn't know it.

At the end of the questions I was feeling quite embarassed. All these questions I couldn't answer! The reverse bladed sword question! Even the name of the latest Studio Ghibli movie, had I got that right? (Turns out I hadn't.) Feeling sure I was going to place squarely in the middle, I passed my questions back.

It turns out I scored 14 and just won, with the second place winners at 13 questions right.

This is only the second time I've won something on my own in fifteen years. Or is it thirteen years? A long time, nonetheless.

My prize: A Tokyo Night Train t-shirt and a handtowel with Alto Saotome (in Kabuki makeup) from Macross Frontier on it, but not drawn in a very anime style. Alto had been drawn in a very old fashioned style, so I imagine that anyone not knowledgeable in Japanese would have looked at it and gone, "what the hell?"

I felt very pleased with myself. To actually win something for once!

Obligatory World of Warcraft post of the random time period

2009-12-13T14:13:17Z

Horde related thoughts:
I don't think I can do it anymore. Sorry, fellow Hordies. I like Taurens and Trolls, and have come to not hate the blood elves so much. I alternate between feeling sorry for the Forsaken and appalled at the acts they constantly want me to do.
And as for the orcs... I need a whole new paragraph. The problem is more than just Garrosh Hellscream. The problem is more than just Thrall being incompetent or naive. The problem is that the orcs have a burning desire for the fight, to die gloriously in battle, and a resentment against the Alliance that stopped being understandable years ago. Now, Garrosh Hellscream has come along and has a simplistic desire to smash the faces in of the 'obvious' bad guy oppressors (the Alliance). This is enabling every orc's desire to be idiots.
And in Cataclysm Thrall and Cairne are leaving, and they were 2/3 of the people that were keeping me as a Tauren.

Post Path 3.3 Dungeon Finder thoughts:
I've used the new Dungeon Finder tool to get into groups and do dungeons I'd been putting off forever. I've now done Violet Hold, Azjol Nerub and Old Kingdom, and cleared a large number of quests from my quest log. And really quickly, too! There's none of the old tedious business of searching for additional members and getting everyone to the instance. Every single time, I've queued up as a Tank/Healer and been in a group in less than a minute.
The people I've been grouped with have mostly been great! Except tonight, when on an Old Kingdom run the first fight went disastrously, with at least two groups of enemies beating on us. I was the healer and frantically trying to keep myself and the tank alive. Meanwhile, the mage, who I shall call Mr Furious Mage, had been the first guy to die. During the fight he was constantly typing messages into party chat saying that the healer (me) absolutely sucked and I was a druid and why hadn't I AOE healed the team?
I somehow managed to keep myself and the tank alive for the majority of the disastrous pull, with me finally biting the dust while the tank was on the last mob. The tank, being a protection paladin, finished off the last mob and stood there, victorious for a moment. Then he started resurrecting party members.
Meanwhile, Mr Furious Mage was still so incensed that he'd died that he was still typing about what a sucky healer I was.
I calmly (I hope it was calmly, anyway) typed into party chat that we'd pulled additional mobs, and that I was following a simple priority list: Keep myself alive, keep the tank alive, keep the DPSers alive, and that if the rest of the party wanted me to go I would. The rest of the party? Silent. Mr Furious Mage? Kept on going about how much I sucked and that I didn't understand druid healing and that he'd tell everyone on my server about how sucky I was.
Hello Mr Furious Mage I just kept the tank alive throughout the entire of that botched encounter and nobody else in the party is complaining.
Surprisingly Mr Furious Mage stayed in the group until about halfway through, at which point he suddenly disappeared. He hadn't even died. He just disappeared.
The rest of the party was finally prompted to speak. Paraphrased:
"Wat now"
"We cant complete with only 2 DPS"
"neone no any1?"
"No"
"No."
"No, sorry."
"Damn maybe we should call it"
At which point the Dungeon Finder tool sent someone new our way. She was a little gnome warlock with a felguard and was exactly what we needed. Oh new Dungeon Finder tool, how I love you. Without you we might have had to quit halfway through.
She caught up to us, we all buffed up, and bravely continued on!
The first fight went badly when the felguard suddenly dashed off to the right and came back with a group of cultists beating on him. But we pulled through and defeated the suddenly much larger group of enemies with no problems and nobody dying.
The gnome warlock said sorry. What a refreshing change of pace from Mr Furious Mage!
In fact, I don't think anybody else died from that point on!
The rest of the dungeon went pretty smoothly. At the end of it, when the party was breaking up, the tank had something really nice to say:
"thank you for heals"
Sadly, it is the healer's lot in life to stand in the back and keep everyone alive and not be very appreciated, and to get yelled at when somebody dies. It is very nice when somebody in the party recognises your efforts. I am going to have to thank the healer more often.

Netherwing quests:
I am *almost* done with the Netherwing reputation grind. One more lot of daily quests and I'll be done! Yay!
But not only that, tonight I finally beat Captain Skyshatter in the racing quest! Whoo! I have really enjoyed these Top Gun-esque racing quests and it's a shame there aren't any more to do.

MUGEN stuff

2009-11-17T15:03:34Z

I mentioned over a year ago that I had re-found MUGEN and had even gotten around to making edits of already existing characters to make them more like my GRIT characters.

Well, the editing really slowed down but I've gotten back into it...

...a little, anyway.

I had made an edit of MarvelVSCapcom Ken to make him like GRIT-Steve. I haven't made any changes to him lately. He's really boring you know? His moves are not very dynamic or spectacular, even if he hits you with a 90% combo.

I had also made an edit of a KOF Goeniko (a popular character that is a female version of Leopold Goenitz) to make her a bit like GRIT-Ann. This "Windy Ann" receives all the attention. I've been trying to make her moves work a little better and fairer. Being able to spam a QCF+C fireball all day and win does not make a character very interesting.

I should put these characters online sometime.

World of Warcraft ravings

2009-11-17T14:43:03Z

My Pandaren Monk pet is very cute and amusing, even with his constant high pitched "HII-YAAAH" and "WHOOP-AAAH" yells.

-

Markco, of Just my two Copper, has revealed himself to be a total slimebag. ~~Either that or Gevlon is making controversial stuff up like he did once before. (Sorry, can't find the link.)~~ ~~Scratch that, Markco has confirmed he really did send the email to Gevlon.~~ Scratch that, Markco has deleted the post.

Who are these people? Why should you care?

I can't tell you why you should care but I can at least tell you who these people are. They both write WoW economy blogs, and have both made tons of gold in-game. Gevlon is infamous for making so much money in-game that he's hit the maximum amount of gold a character can have, at least twice. He's also infamous for railing against morons and slackers, spruiking the "goblin philosophy", and coming off as a controversial antisocial prat. I may not like the persona he presents but he's presented some very useful articles, such as the mats you farm are NOT free.

(And yes, that *was* buying into the goblin philosophy, thank you for pointing it out.)

I have no idea about Markco's moneymaking achievements in game. His blog seemed more personable but nowhere near as useful. It seems to have spawned a whole slew of WoW economy blogs. He has also, with this latest incident, revealed himself to be a complete arsehat.

---

How are my characters doing, money-wise, in-game? Well, all I can say to that is the Epic Gem transmutes introduced in Patch 3.2. I can make and sell an Epic Gem every day. For 5 minutes work I get 100G profit. This is 'only' 700G a week but requires almost no effort and is enough. I like those maths.

---

If anyone comes up to you in-game and says "lol ur class is ez facerolling mode" then you should respond with "Bacon is delicious!" Or something equally random, like "I like bacon!" Or possibly, "Baconnaise is GOOD with mushroom and carrot!"

The best thing is, this works irrespective of whatever MMORPG you happen to play.

---

I tried going back to some of my alternate characters recently, and after a little while all I could think was, "meh", "do I really want to do Outlands YET AGAIN", and, "now I remember why I stopped playing these characters."

It's always a shame when I think to myself, "now I remember why I stopped playing these characters and I shall stop playing them again," because over the past 3.5 years I spent quite some time on my gnome rogue, human paladin, and draenei shaman. To ignore that time spent feels like a waste. But my Alliance and Horde druids handily supercede them all and are not slogging through the same old content for the sixth time. The other characters... simply don't click with me anymore.

I'd explain why I don't blog much, but oh well

2009-11-10T12:36:59Z

Here's an example of why I don't post very much in this Livejournal/blog/whatever. It is, of course, related to World of Warcraft.

The really big news in WoW at the moment is that Blizzard is selling in-game pets, or virtual items, for real money. Pay US $10, and you too can have your very own kung fu panda. Alternately, you can pay US $10 to get a mini lich with a cute demonic laugh that kills level 1 critters, when he can be bothered.

The reaction in the WoW blogosphere seems astonishingly huge and vitriolic. Lots of people are talking very seriously about these novelty vanity items and whether they mark a bold/bad new direction for Blizzard and so on.

On the other hand - and this is why I don't blog very much - I heard the news that Blizzard would be selling the virtual pets for real money, and didn't get worked up at all. I shrugged and thought, "oh well." I also thought, "Blizzard is far too smart to ever sell in-game items that will actually affect in-game performance, like armor and weapons and such, for real money."

"At least for a good long while yet."

"Oh well."

He's talking!

2009-10-30T05:45:55Z

Young nephew Finn has been saying "Dada" for a while. Mind you, his favourite syllable is "da". So we're never sure if he's saying "Dada" to refer to his dad, or is just saying Random Cool Noises.

Also in his repertoire is "Mumma" which I'm pretty sure is him referring to his mum.

He has a word, "wiiyar!" and I have no idea what he means by this.

If you sing "Row row row your boat" to him, he responds with his best attempt at "Row row row", which comes out as "Woah woah woah".

And finally, a quite recent addition to his vocbulary, is "Dirdie". Which means, "birdy". He came over to my place recently and saw all sorts of flying shapes in the sky. "Dirdie!" he exclaimed.

Steven is goofy, part the (million + 1)th

2009-10-30T05:36:03Z

Not that we need any proof I am a goofy person, but here's some more. On the back of my chair in the office I have taped a sign, which reads, "It's a giant enemy spreadsheet, that hits your weakpoint for massive damage."

One person in the office gets the joke.

With tomorrow being Halloween, I took a quick couple of minutes to update the sign with a comic picture of a giant enemy spreadsheet hitting someone's weakpoint for massive damage. The person is going "Eee!"

World of Warcraft pet peeve

2009-09-21T15:14:43Z

Amongst lots of other my pet peeves with WoW is the commonly said line, "The game begins at level 80."

To everyone who says that:

NO IT DOESN'T.

THE *ENDGAME* STARTS AT LEVEL 80.

Get it right.

Dissipation of the nerdrage

2009-09-09T02:48:39Z

Well, cripes, I haven't posted much since my nerdrage about the next WoW expansion. In which I got things wrong, even.

So, to set things straight: The goblins that ally with the Horde are not *all* the goblins in the world (of warcraft), as I initially thought, but the Bilgewater cartel. The Steamwheedle cartel is still going to be the neutral faction that it is today.

Oh, and night elf mages. Meh. I suppose it can be explained away by saying these are the Highborne, the original night elf mages from thousands of years ago. It sounds like this'll be Blizzard's explanation for night elf mages.

There, I feel much less nerdragey now.

He's walking!

2009-09-09T02:45:34Z

My young nephew (1 year and a bit) is now walking!

He's not walking a lot, and he wavers and falls over after several steps, but this is understandable. His head is still huge compared to the rest of his body and it's no doubt making it really hard for him to balance. Plus, there is of course the fact that he's only been trying out this 'walking' thing for a week and still needs to practice.

I have no videos of his momentous achievement yet.

He has also gone to the beach and learned about:
a) The ocean - it's cold and treacherous and scary
b) Sand - it's fun to pick up and drop
c) Beach showers - they're cold, come out of nowhere, and are terrifying

Four things actually

2009-08-21T22:32:48Z

The lore page makes absolutely no mention of Jaina Proudmoore.

And it talks about ever increasing tensions between the Horde and the Alliance.

Does this mean that Jaina Proudmoore will indeed be Chickified and Refrigerated?

sscougall @ 2009-08-22T08:08:00

2009-08-21T22:25:56Z

Well, the information leaked on the next expansion has turned out to be true.

I'm OK with most of the changes, actually.

Old world changed drastically? Great! The old world had become a boring ghost town.

Flying mounts in Azeroth? What's to complain about there?

Previously inaccessible zones in the Old World have been made accessible? It's about time?

Taurens can be priests and paladins? Well, there are some hints in the current version of the game that indicate Taurens trying to find some link to the Sun, rather than the Moon magic of the night elf druids... and what is a better reflection of the Sun than the Light of Priests and Paladins?

Gnomes can be priests? This gives me another excuse to try levelling a gnome. I like the gnomes, it's just that I'm not liking their class choices all that much anymore. I imagine the reason gnomes haven't been priests before is because it required too much faith for the very rational gnomes - but maybe they've found a rational way to be priests. Which sounds really interesting.

I don't even mind the increases accessibility to the druid class. First of all, it seems highly likely that Taurens have discovered a Sun-oriented approach to druidism. (Which also implies that the Moonglade has been massively altered in the Cataclysm and is not the same happy sanctuary it used to be.) Some trolls have exhibited shapeshifting abilities, and Worgen are shapeshifters right from the start. Who's to say they don't have their own recently rediscovered traditions of druidism?

There are just three things annoying me.

Night elves can be mages. There's the not inconsequential fact that night elf mages broke the world and attracted the attention of the Burning Legion in the first place. The night elves swore off using magic forever. Even if the new night elf mages in Darnassus are terribly shunned, I still don't see why they're even being allowed to continue on down this dangerous path. (Maybe the rationale given will be that everything is so terribly screwed up in the world already that night elf mages can't make things any worse?)

The rationale given as to why goblins are Horde only is that dealing with the Alliance has become unprofitable and dangerous. The popular theory back before Cataclysm was announced was that the goblins in the Horde were just one of the goblin clans. (Much like the Trolls in the Horde are only one clan of all the trolls.) But no, apparently the goblins as a whole are no longer neutral.

It seems terribly obvious that the Moonglade is going to be changed significantly in the Cataclysm. I liked Moonglade, with the Tauren and Night Elf druids standing guard. Somehow, I don't see trolls joining in, regardless of whether they're druids or not. I'm guessing there'll be a Horde druid area and the Moonglade will become Alliance only.

Work blogging - everything changes and then stays exactly the same

2009-08-14T13:23:50Z

I am a very big fan of Not-Being-Fired-For-Blogging-About-My-Job.

However it should be safe enough to post an update on my working life.

I used to work in the IT department of an energy company. The energy company decided, some time ago, to outsource large parts of their IT department (including my job) to an Indian company. Oh no, shock and horror, doom and gloom, and so on! Except, instead of me getting booted out onto the curb and having to find another job, I have instead ended up being outsourced to the Indian company.

The transition date was today.

The end result is that despite me now counting as an employee of a different company, almost everything else about my job is exactly the same. I work at the same desk in the same building with almost the same colleagues doing the same work as before. The main difference is that the security card that lets me into the building now calls me a "Site Inducted Contractor".

The Horde, revisited

2009-08-14T12:23:24Z

I wrote a while back about how I tried rolling with the Horde but they have too many things annoying about them. Even so, I still run around in WoW with my Tauren druid from time to time, because as much as the Horde can annoy me, I still like *him* a lot.

Tonight I decided to try him again.

After a while I had an exchange with a fellow Hordie that made me wonder if the Horde had lost all its cool points. The Horde has, if I understand correctly, always been the 'cooler' option because of the assumption that all the idiots instantly gravitate to the pretty races that the Alliance gets. This fellow Hordie seemed intent to disprove the 'Hordies are cooler' theory.

Him: Oh, hi, what are you doing?
Me: (I think I vaguely remember this guy. We grouped together not too long ago.)
Me: Hello.
Me: Running around Borean Tundra, killing hunters for DEHTA quests.
Pause.
Pause.
Him: Say want to run a dungeon.
Him: With a friend.
Me: (Checks his level. It is now 15 levels below mine.) Which dungeon?
Him: How about ZF?
Me: Okay, I'll be over there in a few minutes.
Me: Who's your friend?
Him: Name is Y1
Me: (Tries to invite Y1)
Game: No player named Y1 exists.
Me: Didn't work.
Him: Try Y2 (spelled slightly differently)
Me: (Invites Y2)
Game: Player Y2 has declined.
Me: He declined.
Him: Tell him I'm in the group.
Me: (to Y2) This is a group your friend's organising.
Y2: I'm in a battleground, stop bothering me. (Is never heard of again)
Him: How do you get to ZF
Me: (Niggling thought, so re-checks where he is. Yep, he's in Undercity, practically the opposite side of the world to ZF.)
Him: Can you help me get there
Him: Where is it
Me: (How can you be his level and not know where ZF is?) It's in South Kalimdor. It could take a while to get there. Do you have the flight point to Freewind Post?
Him: I've been away for a year, I don't know where those places are.
Me: (Patience snaps) HOW CAN YOU BE LEVEL 55 AND NOT KNOW WHERE SOUTH KALIMDOR AND FREEWIND POST ARE?!?

Well, okay, I didn't actually say that though I certainly felt like it. Let's try again.

Me: (Patience snaps) Check your world map by pressing M. You can see where various places are on your world map.
Me: (Leaves)

Seriously, how can you be level 55 and not know where places are? The game has a world map in it. One of the very first things I did in game, when I started out in it over 3 years ago, was to just look over the map, seeing all these unfamiliar placenames, and getting an idea of where they were and where I was in this big unfamiliar world (of warcraft).

This guy has further eroded any cool points the Horde once had.

Druid love

2009-08-05T07:50:41Z

Why the druid love?

I played a gnome rogue first, because, well, I always play rogues. I loved being invisible.

I played a human paladin second because I liked the idea of being a gish (a Dungeons and Dragons term that means a combination of melee fighter and magic user). Even after realising that a Paladin isn't really a traditional gish and more like a cleric, I continued playing my paladin for a good long while because I loved being invincible.

Then, one fateful day, after my rogue and paladin were each over level 40 and were getting boring, I went back to my level 28 druid.

"OMGWTF Ashenvale is still so frigging annoying," I thought, remembering why my druid had become sidelined so many months before. I quickly finished things off in Ashenvale and left for other zones. I did something about the grey Deadmines quests in my quest log. And I started to realise that my druid combined the invisibility of rogues and the invincibility of my paladin...

...and that was it. I haven't been able to play any other class very much since then. They just don't feel as versatile, and can't do all the things my druid can do.

Many times there were oh-so-hilarious examples of pressing the wrong key. For example, one time on my rogue I tried to enter stealth to get past some nasty mobs and activated Cloak of Shadows instead. I had pressed my druid's stealth key by mistake. The mobs were not very impressed and tried to eat me. For another example, I found myself hurtling off the Aldor Rise by mistake. "No problem," I thought, pressed the Flight Form button, and fatally plowed into the ground a second later.

"Oh, right, I'm not on my druid," I sheepishly said.

(To make it worse I was probably on my paladin at the time and could have used Divine Bubble.)

And no other class can go sneaky-sneaky past most of the bad guys in a dungeon, track down the one specific one I've been tasked to kill, turn into a ferocious bear to claw his face off, suddenly find he's decided to become immune to physical damage, and turn back into a night elf to hit him with magic spells and finish him off.

Oh, I still like my rogue and paladin... well, I say I do... they were just superseded in a big way by my druid.

The puntability of taurens

2009-08-05T07:49:31Z

For some reason people look at World of Warcraft gnomes, say they are way too silly and small and that there's no way such an itty bitty teensy thing such as a gnome can realistically hope to fight *them*. After all, they're giant taurens who are like 30 times the size of a gnome, or 8 foot tall trolls, or savage orcs with axes bigger than the gnomes. How on earth is a 2.5 foot tall gnome supposed to fight back?

Yet nobody ever complains when their tauren downs a Un'goro devilsaur that's more than 30 times their size.

So! Clearly there needs to be a campaign to allow the devilsaurs to punt Taurens.

The Alliance, the familiarity of space-squid-goats, and moronic leaders

2009-08-05T07:48:28Z

Ah, the Alliance, which is, well, an alliance (imagine that) of the traditionally good races of fantasy. Humans, dwarves, ~~hobbits~~ ~~halflings~~ gnomes, and elves.

Except these elves look more like dark elves, and who are these weird space-squid-goats that have shown up? Thankfully these dark elves have a lack of brooding antiheroes who have rebelled against the existing order and go around with two swords and a panther companion.

Like many, I presume, I initially picked the Alliance because, well, they're familiar. And when you get to the capital cities those cities are also familiar. Humans have a medieval fantasy city, dwarves live in a mountain, elves live in the treetops (well, just one gigantic treetop, but a treetop nonetheless), and the gnomes managed to blow up their underground steampunk fantasy-techno-city.

Then of course there are the space-squid-goats, who live in the crashed remains of their gigantic spaceship, but, well, they're from space. Anything goes when you're an alien space-squid-goat from outer space. Including, it seems, having tentacles on your face. They're really called Draenei, but space-squid-goats sounds funnier and people know how to say "space-squid-goat."

So, where was I? Ah, yes, familiarity. The space-squid-goats are, in a slight way, also familiar. With their features - horns, tails, hooves, glowing eyes - they look remarkably like devils. Or demons, or something. But they're nice. In fact, possibly too nice. It'd be nice if they stopped praying to the Holy Light one of these weeks and went and got blootered in the local pub, you know? I suppose it's hard to do that when you know your god really is watching you. Anyway, they perhaps make us think of reformed rogue demons who are now being nice. With all the rebel vampires, werewolves, zombies, and brooding dark elves with two swords and panther companions in popular culture, the idea of reformed bad guys being nice is pretty familiar by now.

Of course, the space-squid-goats aren't actually reformed demons, and they live in a giant crashed spaceship so the analogy rather breaks down.

Look at that, I've written over 300 words and am still nowhere near any sort of point. Shame. I just wrote down the word "Alliance" and wrote what immediately came to mind.

As well as the space-squid-goats, there is one other thing that immediately comes to mind when you think of the Alliance, and that is King Varian Wrynn. Ah, how we love to hate you, King Varian Wrynn. You're a really annoying moron, you know that?

OK, perhaps the man has a perfectly understandable hate for the Horde (as long as you read the World of Warcraft comic, otherwise it comes from nowhere), but declaring a renewed war on the Horde while the Alliance and Horde should both intead be concentrating on the Lich King is perhaps one of the stupidest strategic decisions ever made. If he hadn't declared the renewed war, then perhaps Garrosh Hellscream would be slightly less antagonistic (but this is unlikely), and perhaps the Broken Front wouldn't have happened (after all, there wouldn't have been an official war giving the Horde soldiers an excuse).

If you've been in WoW for a while, then one other NPC should come to mind as well - Arch druid Fandral Staghelm. Seriously, this guy makes me ashamed to be a night elf druid. He's a condescending arrogant prick and belittles you every time a quest requires you to see him. And he's my archdruid? WTB new archdruid plz, PST with best offer.

These days, with faster levelling, the lure of Outlands at level 58, and no real need to go to Silithus in the 55-60 range, I imagine many new Alliance players never even see the guy anymore. With the possible exception of low level night elves, who see him once and decide never to go back.

I suppose that's another tick for familiarity - the condescending arrogant elves who think they know better than everyone.

The Horde, or why you shouldn't be incompetent and/or gullible

2009-08-05T07:47:21Z

I went through a long stretch of trying out a Tauren druid fairly recently.

Despite the hideousness of the Tauren cat form (now a thing of the past! Yay!), the sheer hell that was trying to level up in the Barrens, and the slightly less sheer hell that was trying to level up in a mostly deserted Old World, I had lots of fun as a Tauren druid.

One key thing that made him awesome was that, well, he's a he. I have almost no male characters, either because I hate the other male character models, hate the race in general, or the race doesn't have access to the druid class.

However Donda Wildhoof was able to bypass all that hate and make it past the character creation screen, and I felt somewhat less of a fraud due to the fact that I was playing a male character for once. It felt... weird and new. It was pretty cool, really, and I was also rolling with the Horde for once! The traditionally-evil-races-yet-actually-good side! Who had Warchief Thrall! This was awesome, and -

Oh, wait, this orc just told me there are these harpies angry at us because we killed their leader and I have to go kill them all.

WHAT

And this Tauren just told me to go into Ashenvale and 'acquire' some items from the dryads. Which of course really means I have to kill them because I'm Horde. You know, I'm a druid, should I really be killing guardians / custodians / wardens / whatever of nature such as the dryads? Apparently so.

WHAT

Much later on there was an orc in Dustwallow Marsh who congratulated me on discovering that the Grimtotems had gone behind Thrall's back and had instigated violence against humans and were threatening the fragile peace between the factions. "By the way," he then said, "there are all these human spies creeping about. Go kill them for me."

WHAT THE HELL

Even later on there was a blood elf in Hellfire Peninsula who said that the fel magic collected from the Pools of Aggonar was really good at satiating his addiction to magic. "Some draenei priests are going to go cleanse the fel taint from the pools," he said. "Go kill them for me."

WHAT THE HELL

Dude, it's FEL MAGIC. As in, FROM THE BURNING LEGION. Find some other way to get your fix you moron, I'm not doing this no matter how shiny the reward.

Then of course there are other various things throughout the game that are examples of gross Horde stupidity. Garrosh being sent off to lead the charge into Northrend. The Broken Front. The Forsaken unleashing the New Plague at the Wrathgate. Thrall's continuing acceptance of the Forsaken in the Horde, despite what they did with the New Plague and what he saw in the Undercity. Thrall being either incompetent or dangerously foolishly gullible.

Maybe the Horde isn't so awesome anymore.

But despite all that.

I still like the Tauren, and Thrall. I mostly like the orcs and the trolls. But why on earth does Thrall keep Garrosh around after all the stupid shit the spoiled brat keeps on pulling? Why does he still count the Forsaken as allies after the New Plague event, and after the "retake the Undercity" event showed him what they're getting up to in the Undercity?

Eventually it got to a point where I just couldn't keep rolling with the Horde.

The Alliance isn't *better* - they have their own petulant idiots. Varian Wrynn and Fandral Staghelm in particular. But the Alliance doesn't seem nearly as divided, the game isn't murdering the character of their leader(s) (yes, thanks, we all know that Varian Wrynn and Fandral Staghelm are arrogant xenophobic pricks already), and doesn't have races that I hate on general principle.

And seeing as I hate the look and animations of night elf males, my druid will have to be a night elf female.

Things I will never do in WoW

2009-08-05T07:44:26Z

Raiding

OK, so I guess there's *some* strategy involved in beating these bosses who have a gajillion HP and hundreds of ways to kill you extremely quickly, especially when you stand in the fire.

I shouldn't have to spend ages and/or hundreds of gold in getting the right sort of gear just so I can get into a fight that requires thought and strategy, though!

See, I've historically had a huge aversion to raiding because of two things. First, that I had a crappy old PC that probably couldn't have handled 25 people in the same instance, let alone 40. Second, the "do dungeons to get gear that's just good enough to let you do heroic dungeons, to get gear that's just good enough to let you do easier raids, to get gear that's just good enough to let you do harder raids" idea. Which was, once, also linked to the "do inane quests to fetch aged gorilla eyeballs and turtle anuses to even be let into the raid in the first place" idea.

(Well, actually three things. I'm not a very social person. Trying to coordinate schedules with 24 other people, and the threat of the crazy loot dramas that ensue from raiding is enough to make me break out in a massive anti-social attack and go live in a cave for a few years.)

Back in Burning Crusade, I was once exposed to what I presume tanking is like in raids and heroics. There was a PuG for a son of Gruul and I naively accepted the group's invite.

I got hit and lost half my health in one shot. I hoped like mad that the healer would heal me through the damage but they weren't keeping up. Meanwhile, I was getting yelled at to stop standing in the fire. Well, avalanche, or whatever it was, but it hurt to stand in it.

It was raid tanking dressed up as a normal group quest. And no, I was not prepared. (Insert groaning at bad pun here.) It was so traumatic it put me off the game for weeks.

All this has combined to put me off raiding for life.

-

PVP

It's not so much that I hate the idea of PVP.

It's just that I suck at it, my chosen class and spec (feral druid) is not great at it, and I hate hate HATE that PVP means I'm engaging in Alliance - Horde hostilities.

(For an example, see my previous post where the mere thought of having to kill Horde in the Argent Tournament made me completely flip out and start yelling "SCREW YOU BLIZZARD".)

More World of Warcraft ravings

2009-08-05T07:43:04Z

Warning, nerdrage ahead! Plus a minor patch 3.2 spoiler that really should not be any surprise to anyone.

Way too much time reading WoW sites and blogs last night.

Maintenance last night is when patch 3.2 finally dropped. However tonight I plan to cook curry and probably wash pants and will probably not get much time on WoW.

But because of the WoW sites and blogs I know a little about 3.2, and I already have a big hearty screw you to Blizzard. Also I have read that Garrosh and Varian continue to be idiots, Tirion Fordring is also an idiot, and the Argent Tournament gets completely screwed up. As in, there's a fight during the Coliseum instance where they demand that the heroes fight the Champions of the other faction. And you (spoiler) them. And Tirion is sad but then says the Tournament should continue on anyway.

...

SCREW THAT.

You want *war* between the two factions, Blizzard, don't you? You don't care what it takes to get them fighting, do you? SCREW YOU.

You want the game to be easy mode for all the morons and slackers who don't want to bother with strategy or tactics when fighting packs of trash mobs in instances? SCREW YOU.

You want people to speed-level through the old level 1 - 70 content because it bores you and you want everyone to get to the end of the game, which, apparently, is all that matters anymore? (Which incidentally seems to be the antithesis of the orginal design of the game.) A REALLY REALLY BIG SCREW YOU.

Time and time again we get told, "WoW is an evolving game," and, "this is not the WoW of a few years ago." Like, no shit. The WoW of a few years ago didn't have such a myopic and blinkered focus on the raiding / PVP endgame. It had quests that were hard, annoying and/or required you to travel over the whole world. It had quests such as the one for Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. You got a sense of accomplishment when you completed such quests.

It used to be that Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker was a cool and useful tanking weapon that took time, dedication and really cool guildies to get. Now, if someone links it in Trade Chat then you get lols, a Thunderfury war and people getting reported for spam. SCREW YOU.

But I've digressed slightly. Let's get back to the war between the factions that Blizzard seems to so desperately want us to engage in.

Blizzard, do you perhaps have a plot twist coming in patch 3.3 that says Arthas actually escapes because of the fighting between the factions? Way to go. His transformation into a Scooby Doo villain is complete.

If I actually cared about Arthas as a villain at this point you'd get a hearty SCREW YOU. But I don't. He was always a moron. Thanks to that Arthas book, now he has racist undertones. And on top of that, now he's a Scooby Doo villain.

Oh, and Blizzard, you keep on saying Thrall and Jaina want peace or at least no fighting bewteen the two factions. Despite the fact that you, the Powers That Be, obviously want *war* between the two factions. Aren't you going to have to get rid of them somehow? Oh, look, there was a blonde human girl in Thrall's history that died to advance his plotline. Narrative parallelism, a history in-game of women getting Chickified and Refrigerated to further the plotlines of male characters, a deplorable history in fiction-in-general of women getting Chickified and Refrigerated to further the plotlines of male characters...

Blizzard, should I really be so surprised when you kill off Jaina Proudmoore? SCREW YOU.

...

Actually, why DO I play this game, anyway?

Oh, right, because it's fun. Most of the time. Except when the game is desperately trying to remind me its plot is getting seriously stupid, or it's desperately trying to force me into raids or PVP or something I have no interest in.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go kill a bunch of undead Scourge in Icecrown and pretend that they're the lead game designers for WoW. Go on, guess what I'll be yelling while doing it.

-

I might almost be persuaded to dust off my City of Heroes account and log in, because it's supposed to be more casual-friendly and more my speed, isn't it?

Oh, wait, it doesn't have anything like the druid class. And once its previous lead designer left, the game introduced a consignment house and visible statistics and loot and a crafting system, in an effort to be 'hardcore' and like another, more successful MMORPG. SCREW YOU, NCSOFT.

I'll have to pretend that some of the undead Scourge in Icecrown are also CoH game designers.

(END POST)

World of Warcraft Ravings

2009-08-05T07:41:55Z

Just a heads up - I am likely to start posting WoW stuff to this LJ a bit more often now.

Well, I *have* been playing World of Warcraft, off and on, for over *three* years now, and tried to limit my WoW-related posting to a bare minimum. What could I have possibly posted that hadn't already been said, and much better, by others?

Eh, I dunno, but this LJ has been dormant for far too long.

In which I hold a conversation with a magazine

2009-08-05T07:35:34Z

Hyper article on Tekken 6: Tekken has always been known as a technical series!
Me: WHAT
Hyper article on Tekken 6: It also has multi-leveled stages taken from Mortal Kombat!
Me: Actually, Mortal Kombat's multi-leveled stages were taken from Dead or Alive 2, and the Mortal Kombat team freely acknolwedged this, and - oh, this is just stupid. I can't believe I once liked this magazine. (Puts Hyper back on shelf) I'm sticking with Edge.
Hyper: ;_; Don't leeeeave me! WAAAAAAH!

More weird dreamings

2009-06-19T22:39:37Z

I guess this LJ has turned into a weird-dreams / games / movies / anime / say-what-weirdness / slice of life blog.

I was going through my notes and found a 'weird dreams' post that I never made. So these are not from last night, but almost two months ago... but they're just as weird now as they were then.

The original post follows:

---
April 30/2009
Weird dreams this morning.

See, I knew it was this morning because an hour before I had to get up, I had to get up for a bathroom break.

In that last hour I had *three* weird dreams, all running into each other.

Dream 1: Was extremely groggy and half-asleep, yet hearing and *feeling* someone in my room. Tried to yell out, "who are you?" but nothing came out. Time passes. I manage to get up and go through the house, looking for what's been done... I hear noises outside, so go check, and there's a special forces unit! It turns out they're investigating a R.A.Abercrombie-Fitch Jr, whose name means nothing to me.

"She changed her name to this," says the leader, and shows me a name, which is V-something S-something. I think it looked like Valxie Smith. In the dream this was a perfectly normal name. I also recognise it as one of the prior tenants of the house. "Oh my god," I say. "She's one of the prior tenants! Her mail kept coming to me for a while!"

The leader says something about how she's very suspicious and has done stuff with 16 bones and they're searching the house and garage for evidence.

"Ah, so this explains it," I say. "I thought I heard someone moving about in my room only a short while ago, I guess that was you guys searching through it."

He looks at me strangely. "No, that wasn't us."
My blood runs cold.
"Okay chief, we're all done," says one of the Special Forces, and they pack up and leave.
Very nervous, I walk up the stairs, dreading what I might find. I am literally only a few steps away from my room when...

Dream 2: I wake up, wondering if the hearing someone in my room was part of the previous dream or if it really happened, I'm not sure.

I hear noises outside and go check - it's the exact same Special Forces team from the previous dream.
"He's awake," says someone.
Annoyed, I walk up to the leader. "R.A.Abercrombie-Fitch Jr, who became Valxie Smith, who used to live here, and is being investigated because of suspicious dealings with 16 bones?"

"How do you know all that?"
"I *just* woke up from a dream where you told me all that."
He looks at me strangely.
Stuff happens that I can't remember exactly - I'm just standing around outside, annoyed and they do their stuff.
Then one of the guys goes into the house and suddenly the glass door slams shut! And the glass darkens to black! People swoop in towards the door, brandishing tools and implements and keys, and for some reason one of them is my coworker Ross. For some reason I now have my keys, so I open the door and we charge up the stairs. No sign of the missing guy, but there's blood on the floor! Aiee!

We look up at the ceiling and see blood dripping from the ceiling, so we charge up to the next floor and find a *big* bloodstain on the floor, but no sign of the missing guy.

Dream 3: I wake up, *again*. This time it's just a normal day, and I make my way to work...
Where things get weird. We're having an end-of-the-IT-team party, and previous members of the team have come in. A weird presentation is given, casting the boss Trevor as a knight searching for other knights, who are members of IT.

"It was during this time that one of IT's traditions started - we got our very first extremely-long-term contractor."
"Then, disaster struck!" says the narration.
A pair of dark knights enter the scene. One of them sounds suspiciously like Geoff, one of the Business Analysts. "Trevor!" he yells. "Your reign of indiscriminately hiring people on your own has come to an end!"

There's a bit of a battle, that Trevor loses.
"Sure, there's nothing against you hiring people," says the BA/dark knight, "but we need much more formalisation."

Real life: My alarm goes and I finally wake up, feeling really cold, not to mention confused, and really scared of the names R.A.Abercrombie-Fitch Jr and Valxie Smith.

Hey, I remember this!

2009-06-19T11:42:02Z

I came across Artpad again, and made this quick sketch. (Make sure to set the speed to Fast.)

So torn

2009-06-19T11:08:58Z

So, World of Warcraft. I've been playing since April 2006, mainly on the Aggramar server. I have two main charactes - both druids, but one on the Alliance side and another on the Horde.

(Yes, the news of new graphics for the druid forms has made me very happy. Especially so for my Tauren druid, who has said several times that he's no cat, but a cowbearpig. But I digress...)

Just when I'm starting get a bit more serious about my Horde character and enjoying the guild chatter and even helping out fellow guildies, I find that miggy (and others from the old Impro days?) are running on the Proudmoore server and have Alliance characters.

Le sigh.

Maybe I'll shift my level 80 Alliance druid over to Proudmoore. She's got no guild ties, as all the guilds she's ever joined seem to implode after a while.