Snowball fight!

This is the sort of thing that gets me labelled a carebear by Jonas but I gotta tell you, I love all the Winter’s Veil holiday stuff going on. I get to ride around on a Rudolph-analog and throw mistletoe at people to raise their Spirit, and the latter I can pick up by blowing kisses at guys hanging out in taverns. (And thanks to Blizzard for not forcing the kiss-under-the-mistletoe mechanism into heteronormative patterns. As a gay player, the acknowledgement that I might actually exist and be playing this game is nice.)

Other bits have been fun out in the field. Picking up holiday snow around the Ruins of Alterac makes for fun impromptu snowball fights. Some guildies and I headed up there to do the Greench quest, and while waiting for it to spawn, we’d run around and toss snowballs at each other while our party-members/targets were trying to collect more, preventing them from doing so. Finally, after the Greench popped, we had him stolen by a high-level Horde rogue. After he won, the rogue turned to us and made a /rude gesture at us. We promptly pelted him with snowballs for 30 seconds, and he was a good enough sport to stick around and let us get it out of our system. That was good for a laugh all around.

The presents for everyone under the tree, the snowmen and holiday food, the goblin gnome-o-matic, the allegory of the meaning of the holidays being lost in a rush of consumerism… I love it all, and just a few things go a long way to make me feel immersed in a real world with a real sense of tradition and the effects of passing time. That, and it’s fun to sit outside Ironforge as a snowman and turn down duel challenges, saying, “You want to duel me? You want to duel me? I’m a freaking snowman, tough guy, how am I gonna duel? I got no legs, I can’t run anywhere. You’re gonna stand over there with your little twigthrower and anything’s just gonna pass right through me because I can’t bleed because you know why? I’ll tell you why. I’m made of snow, wiseacre! I’m 100% water save for this carrot and the coal and the hat. Oh, I got these branches, you know what? You hit me there and I’ma bleed sap. Whaddaya gonna do, duel me with a stack of pancakes? Send a rabbit over here to eat my nose? You gotta be kidding me. And forget having a snowball fight, I ain’t making ammo out of my own ass. A snowman’s gotta have principles. Just save it, kid. Go back to dueling school over by Anvilmar with all the other charity cases.”

Organ bankers

Organ bankers
Originally uploaded by Jason.

Electric shocks and rubber cocks

I was going to write something more intellectual for my inaugural post here on WoWzers, but instead I’ll pose a more prurient question: What is Wired news trying to imply by placing this photo of a World of Warcraft Gift Card in their Sexy Gifts for Geeks article between an electric sexual stimulation device and a set of buttplugs?

Just call it Goblin Engineering gone wild.

Thodt’s Handy Dandy Guide to Horde Warlock Race Choice

(whee, what a title). Nary a day passes, killing Alliance out on the green pastures of Azeroth, that I don’t get a question like “wud’s bettr, UD or Orc”. I usually /ignore the fools messaging me unprovoked, but here’s Thodt’s completely Handy Dandy Guide to Horde Warlock Race Choice. If you’re Alliance, go nail your nads onto a table, you made one wrong choice already, another one won’t hurt. Besides, you’re beyond redemption.

But onto the good side of WoW. Here you are, staring blankly at the Char Generation screen, thinking to yourself “hmmm, wud’s bettr, UD or Orc”. Thodt to the rescue. First, let’s observe the racial passives and abilities:

Orcs have:

Blood Fury, which is UTTERLY useless to us ‘lock. We don’t meelee much, and if we do, nothing would we appreciate less than being healed for an even more miniscule amount than Deathcoil, xyzTap, and Healthstone already do.

Hardiness, on the other hand, is teh roxorz. It increases your resistance to stun effects (post 1.9, I think that’s “disorient”) by 25%. Which means, stun-lock Rogues mistaking us for a squishy might actually be in for a nasty surprise. All it takes is one stun to go wrong, Deathcoil, Seduce, Soul Fire, dead Rogue.

Some Warlocks prefer to stay true to their classes magical roots. Remember, we’re (according to Blizz’ lore) Magicians with a little too much fun in the daemonic world. That’d be the guys who cast a lot and don’t rely on their pets much. I, personally, like to use my pet, even though I have almost nothing in Daemonology, talent wise. Command increases my Succubus’ melee damage by 5%, which is a lot at level 60. Even my Voidwalker does decent damage, now.

Our second passive, Axe Specialization, is for the arse, as they say. We’re not meelee, and if we were, we couldn’t use Axes anyways.

Undead come factory ready with:

Will of the Forsaken. The killer trait. Immunity to fear, sleep, charm. Enough to give crowd controllers a hard time. Polymorph resistance comes with the Insignia of the Horde (I hear Alliance has a “Insignia of the Cowardly Ganking Wimp”, as well), but the trinket is on a longer cooldown, and being able to resist two fears instead of one is nice, nice, nice.

Cannibalize is another uber-trait. It serves a dual purpose. Firstly, since for us Warlocks life equals mana and we pay in HP for all the good stuff, being able to replenish our pool every two minutes for free by feasting on our fallen foes is an excellent idea. Secondly, it’s the ultimate humiliation. No need to /spit on Alliance, all it takes is one click and we gnaw on their bones. Tried to gank me, stupid NE Rogue? Your carcass serves as my regaining life and mana, on to another round of me killing your sorry behind dead. And this time, I’ll take your ears as a trophy.

Underwater Breathing is useless past Unending Breath. This is the ultimate Priest PvP talent, btw. Have your attacker follow you into the water, then MC him to the ground. He drowns, you alive. Best thing since MCing them into the lava inside Blackrock Mountain.

Shadow Resistance is nice, but +10 on resistance makes little difference with all the gear past level 60.

Which now leaves us with the question: Wud’s bettr. Personally, I play Orc. After playing an Undead Priest to 60, I was kinda tired of the waddle, the sticking out backbone, and the fact that even epic gear looks like Salvation Army donations on Undead. Plus, I wanted the +5% on my Voidwalker and Succcubus’ damage, and the resistance to stuns. I find that I get stunned more than I get feared, especially since the fear-meisters, Priests, are on a 26 second cooldown, which is usually enough time for me to kill them after using my Insignia. Next fear, or Intimidating Shout, or whatever, however, screws me. I tend to sit out Polymorphs, being it super-regens my life and mana, and I am more or less unattackable, unless the sheeper wants me to come back. If I re-rolled today, however, I might choose Undead, I miss my cannibalize.

Welcome to the Barrens

There’s a myth out there, one that somehow claims Horde players are more mature than their Alliance counterparts. If that WERE true, Alliance would be somewhere in the pre-natal phase. Or close to it. I am a Horde player. I couldn’t put up with Alliance (trust me, I’ve tried, the failed experiment is still somewhere on Greymane), but let’s observe what our fellow Hordies do while in the Barrens:

[CharA]: LFG WC
[CharB]: Wut lvl ru
[CharA]: 19, Priest
[CharB]: U nub, WC is 4 20s
[CharA]: Oh? I’ll go turn in those quests, then
[CharB]: Into ur momma
[CharA]: Say, what?
[CharB]: ur a fag, ur ghey, Shamenz rule

a little later:

[CharC]: Can sme1 tell me where the Wife is?
[CharB]: In ur momma
[CharC]: anyone?
[CharD]: Alliance ganking outside Ratchet, camping me
[CharB]: Wut lvl?
[CharD]: ?? to me
[CharB]: u nub.
[CharC]: A N Y O N E????????????????????????????????????????????????
[CharE]: Should be 60s, one has a Dreadsteed
[CharB]: I’ll com pwnz
[CharD]: He’s wearing Felheart
[CharC]: A N Y O N E????????????????????????????????????????????????
[CharB]: I have Felheart. On my Alliance Mage
[CharD]: Felheart is Warlock Epic
[CharB]: STFU u gay nub
[CharE]: lol
[CharC]: A N Y O N E????????????????????????????????????????????????
[CharD]: Dude, go look some. Or ask Thott
[CharC]: Can sme1 run me thru WC?
[CharA]: LFG WC, 20 Priest

A peak into the lives of gold farmers

The International Herald Tribune reposts an article from the New York Times on Chinese gold farming operations, and Game Guides Online has an essay about how individual gold farmers operate and what they have to deal with by a guy who’s befriended a few on his server. Sounds like a hard job to keep up; after the one or two times I’ve managed to play an online game for that long, I’ve had to walk away from it for a few days because I couldn’t take any more.

Then there’s info on the farmer class and its talent trees, hee hee.

Sweet fejebus, the Darkmoon Faire added a bipedal cannonball ride

I mean, I couldn’t say “human cannonball,” that’d be racist. (And this is really dark on Windows, I’ll look into improving the brightness when I can.)

The overdone-RP syndrome

Jonas brings up a valid point in regards to RP servers, and how players on them overcompensate with flowery language of the “thee and thou” sort. I suspect it’s only natural, though, for those that haven’t done a lot of RP before. WoW has, as its baseline, a medieval fantasy backdrop, and for some, their exposure to that genre has maybe only been a rented copy of Excalibur and a community college production of Twelfth Night, and perhaps a dinner at Medieval Times or a trip to the local Renaissance Faire. Not sure of where to start, many go with what they think is correct.

Of course, WoW takes a different slant, what with all the modern-day references present in all levels of the game. Then there’s the character voice emotes, all thoroughly modern, Millie. “I’m feeling very feminine, and I’ll beat the crap out of anyone who disagrees” is not the utterance of your average orc in a serious setting.

Now, to be honest, running into someone who abuses the language in the name of character portrayal isn’t going to put me off. Let’s face it, half the people out there can’t even type well. (Or won’t, having adopted the habit of chat shortcuts to send off quick messages during raids and big fights. It’s understandable.) On the other hand, I’m not going to ignore it, either.

SirGibberlad: Prithee, my good man, might thou know where I could find somewhere to sell the gains of an expedition?
Me: Yeah, you got several options. There’s a couple towns nearby… Hey Flo! FLO!
Flo: WHAT.
Me: WHAT. I got a guy from out of town looking for a place to sell his stuff. What’s the closest place he could go?
Flo: Hold on, hold on.
SirGibberlad: …Out of town?
Me: Well you don’t sound like you’re from around here.
Flo: Tell him to go to Goldshire, that’s the quickest from here.
SirGibberlad: Sir, I speak merely the King’s English!
Me: You’re kidding me, the king’s ten years old. Have you seen him?
Flo: And hey, thanks for the help with that wolf attacking me while you were having your little conversation.
Me: My bad.
SirGibberlad: I see… Goldshire, sayest thou? I thank thee, and take my leave.
Flo: …You do that.
Me: Take it, don’t shake it.

Though I should be so lucky to have such a conversation with someone on an RP server. Another thing I’ve noticed in my short stints on RP servers are that some people feel like it’s necessary to talk to every single other player they come across, as if our party is there to entertain them. That seems odd to me, since I don’t do that sort of thing in real life… say, walk up to a group of people standing on the corner and strike up a conversation, without intention. In those situations, my friends and I have had to come up with responses similar to ones you’d prattle off at parties when people you don’t want to talk to come right up to your conversation. You can be polite about it, answering any questions before coming up with an “out” to get on with your quests. (Or you can talk about cursing the righteous and making killer fudge, your call. Either works.) Better to cut to the chase and ask for what you want, though perhaps not as abruptly as the warrior in Jonas’ example did.

One thing my regular group that plays on an RP-PvP server still needs to work on is our shtick… how we’ll interact with other people is something we haven’t decided on, but we’ll need to figure it out soon. Even if you’re not talking in a fake British accent, you still need some idea of who your character is. I’m inclined to say we should all wing it, suggesting the basic rules of improvisational comedy as a way to proceed. (We do intend a comedic route; one player, playing a Tauren, wants to get to the point where we can survive the human lands so they can run around killing cows, just to see the reactions of “That’s not right…”)

The third pitfall, and one where all rules are off, was described as “TinySex” in my MUSHing days. I think you can guess what I mean, but if you want confirmation, the “YAR YAR HUMP HUMP!” scenario gives an example, and is as good a way as any to handle those sorts of encounters.

Internet millions!

Internet millions!
Originally uploaded by Jason.

How to deal with RP servers…

It’s no secret. I don’t like RP servers. A fan of language, an addict to verbal artistry, few things pain me more in the realm of the written and spoken word than the bastardization of a perfectly fine means of communication through the use of faux Shakespearean. A good example is the moron whose Flash Heal(Rank 7) used to /party “I heal thou, mighy %class% %name%, with mine most emminent Flash Heal”.

Because I love hanging out with Jason, though, who has a MUCH more impressive tolerance towards idiots (he tolerates me, a heroic act), I rolled a Warlock on Horde side on a RP server (which should remain nameless). It wouldn’t take long until…

[SomeName] says [Orcish]: Fair Warlock, lend me a hand in defeating the humans of Tiragarde?

[Thodt] yells [Orcish]: I WILL BAKE YOUR BRAIN, PUNY WARRIOR. BOW TO ME, FOR I HARNESS THE SHADOW THAT IS ETERNAL POWER. I COMMAND DEATH AND LIFE. I CURSE THE RIGHTEOUS. AND I MAKE A KILLER FUCKING CHOCOLATE FUDGE ON SUNDAYS.

[SomeName] says [Orcish]: I reported you to the GM

[Thodt] says [Orcish]: Fuck you, too. Do you have a life outside WoW?