11 posts tagged “world of warcraft”
It has gotten to the point where our allegiances in Azeroth determines whether or not we forge a friendship with a stranger -- single serving ones at that. Yes, live from the Los Angeles International Airport, it's World of Warcraft!
Whether you were standing in line at midnight for The Burning Crusade or you've had a random encounter with a player in the wild, you have experienced this conversation. This makes twice for myself this week as our previously mentioned Gamestop employee enabled it as well. While he seemed like a pretty decent guy, I almost wonder as to what his reaction would have been were Shelby and I a part of the Alliance. Would we have gotten our copies of Hotel Dusk?
Here at LAX, it only took but a glance over my shoulder to figure out that I'm a Horde player and to dismiss me completely. Granted, I wouldn't actually want to talk to someone if they judge people over what race they play in a video game, but this sort of virtual racism is as hilarious as it is troubling. Generally speaking, gamers aren't the most socially adept creatures walking the face of the Earth. Seeing a few put up yet another blockade to communication is disturbing.
And yet, I probably do nothing but perpetuate the problem. The emblem of the Horde is proudly displayed on my messenger bag (Thanks, Shelby!) and I make no qualms about it. I may be proud to serve under the hammer of Thrall, but that doesn't mean I won't break bread with you nancies in the Alliance in the real.
Hey. I don't want to go to work today. I just want to stay home and say, "I feel like total crap!"
I remember getting up this morning and setting up my Macbook Pro atop my luggage. I sat down cross-legged, opened up my feeder and stated looking for the news of the hour. Then, not an hour later, I found myself back in bed, whining incessantly. I'm not exactly sure what had hit me, but I stood in bed until about 20 minutes ago where I found the will to get back up to check my email. I think it's the water.
My own personal exile continues as I've been down here in Bakersfield, visiting Shelby since this past Thursday. Though I'd prefer that she comes up north for a visit, it's good that I come down here every so often. Both to reconnect with her side of the family and to escape from the Bay Area for a bit. This town still creeps me out to no end, but at least there is a Sonics seemingly on every corner.
It is also a very anti-nerd establishment. Their one comic book store was like the reanimated corpse of a video rental store, posing as a front for comic books. Stuffed into a tiny corner behind rows and rows of white shelves and dusty VHS cases was a singular shelf for new releases. They had plenty of Civil War, but not what we were actually looking for. Inside a dirt stayed case was a lone Yu-Gi-Oh starter deck.
To get what we really wanted, a World of Warcraft: TCG deck, we had to go to Hot Topic. How messed up is that?
I prepared for my 3 hour layover in LAX this Friday with a trip to Toys R' Us. While I was hunting for Hotel Dusk, I ended up getting Phoenix Wright out of lack of books I want to read at the moment. A few people may recall just how much I hated Phoenix Wright when it was released here, and I stand by everything I said. If you want to play Phoenix Wright, just read a book. This situation is the anomaly.
I'll be back in the Bay Area this weekend, should some cracked out, meth addict of a high schooler not stab me first.
It's only when I can't feel my face that I start thinking about just how bad of an idea this was. My feet went numb long ago and the only way I can keep my legs from buckling is by dancing a little jig outside the Gamestop we're all standing in front of. Shelby calls my cell phone, but I don't answer. Doing that would mean my hands would have to leave my pockets and I like them there. Thats where the warm is.
Television tells me that we're in the middle of whats known as a cold snap. Television could have told me that god herself was pissing icicles that night and I would have still lined up to get The Burning Crusade. I had to beat the Blood Elf rush, after all.
Coming up on 5AM and I can confirm that yes, that was a bad idea. My sleep schedule that, thanks to Joystiq, I had finally gotten under control is once again out of whack. The temperature is still dipping below 30, but I don't mind. My recently acquired Macbook Pro is nice and toasty here in bed and I'm starting to wonder how I ever lived without it.
Plenty to write today and plenty more to play. I'd go to sleep but it's already 8AM on the east coast. That means it's time to get to work.
It isn't that I become addicted to World of Warcraft. It's simply that when I restart the habit I don't bother to play anything else.
With my Xbox 360 regulated to nothing short of an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon and the DS waiting for something -- anything beyond Elite Beat Agents, WoW has become the all consuming, ghastly creature in my life that it is typically pegged to be. Fortunately, I don't mind. The Vox guild better known as [This Is Good] is going strong (and if you're playing WoW, using Vox and not a part of it, you need to rectify that). We're clearing dungeons, grabbing "phat lewt" and generally having a great time. It has been a while since I've been able to run with a group that I've actually had fun with, much less could tolerate for entire raids. Essentially, these folk rock.
It's almost a good thing that I've gotten back into Warcraft when I did. With the freelance work rolling back in from the holiday break and my new gig filling out the daytime, I don't have much time for games that aren't for job related purposes. The next game on my list, Crackdown -- which by the way, I've been championing for a good year before the Halo 3 debacle -- has been changed to fit that very distinction, leaving much more time for The Burning Crusade next week.
And as a lore nut, the Darkmoon Faire calls.
I'm sure that a lot of folks operating the grid are quite content with their Second Life counterparts, some more so than others. Mine on the other hand could use a bit of digital, plastic surgery. He could also use an expert hairstylist, not to mention a damn good fashion consultant. That is all in due time as today, I made a table.
Miles above the New Citizens Incorporated building, I set to work on figuring out just how to shape the "prims" to my every will. A table isn't the most fabulous thing one could bother to construct, but I figured that if I were to make one fancy table, I might learn a thing or two. Being able to do it in isolation from the generally well natured population of Second Life was another advantage, as my avatar is far too reprehensible to blend in amongst the beautiful people.
Like most people entering the virtual world of Linden Labs, I have wide eyes and big dreams. Shelby was destined to get in on this action, fueling us with the rush of creativity sorely needed in this ever expanding world. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be as her PC practically choked itself to death attempting to process everything that Second Life could throw at it.
This Christmas, it's time to get my girlfriend the gift that she'll treasure for up to six months. Ram. . and a new video card.
Which is a shame because I'd really like to stick around Second Life to see where I can go with it. World of Warcraft aside, my last big MMORPG adventure was in The Matrix Online, which was atrocious at best. Yet, the entire reason I played MxO was not in fact to play through like a normal online RPG, but to become entrenched in the community and stories being built around us. Adding to my rabid curiosity when dealing with Second Life is my love for the Neal Stephenson classic, Snow Crash. It's chilling to think of the slow, eventual crawl SL is taking towards emulating the metaverse, as described by Stephenson.
But without Shelby by my side, it seems as if all I can do is make this stupid, freaking table. Regardless, I'd still like to see where this leads me.
The Vox hasn't been getting much love this week, due to the hectic and entirely left field workload I found myself under with 1UP. Through features, reviews, previews. . You name it, I was pounding away at it. Somehow, I found the time to sneak into two segments of this weeks 1UP Show, which is now available for download. So if you'd like to see me wax awkward poetry about Elite Beat Agents and Viva Pinata, see below.
That would also be me playing Elite Beat Agents. I'd like to apologize in advance for what, I feel, is a ridiculous amount of greats during the "Jumping Jack Flash" portion. Playing on a DS Fatty dev unit is no easy task. Aside from the multitude of hand jobs I've dispensed regarding Viva Pinata lately, I've managed to find the time to start yet another character in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It is currently my anti-drug regarding MMO's as I'm officially on the Burning Crusade bandwagon.
It's the plant beasts introduced in Outland that did it for me. Beasts that can then be skinned by herbalists towards alchemy? Consider my fifteen bucks a month surrendered.
Earlier this week, I mentioned that the lady in my life, Shelby, was working on a replica of the Horde crest from World of Warcraft. Well, she put the finishing touches on it last night and the end results can be seen here.
All together it weighs in at roughly three pounds, thanks to being built largely out of different types of foam and gesso. The majority of that weight, if I'm not mistaken, comes from the chains lining the top of the crest, which is really impressive. You can see a lot of the little details, like close-ups on the bone pieces here in her construction entry leading up to the finish.
I just needed to toot her horn a bit as I'm really proud of her for this one. Shelby can do some really amazing stuff, but it's the sheer essence of nerdom that she has displayed that really gets me. I think we all know how much I can appreciate that.
I leave for San Francisco in roughly 30 minutes. Its something that I would typically do every day of the week, but considering that it's no longer a necessity, it's much more of an adventure then before. For anyone who lives in the Bay Area, heading off to San Francisco really isn't quite what I make it out to be. That would be because I live in the East Bay. No, not the fake east bay cities like Berkley or Oakland. No, I live in the far East Bay. The East Bay that dictates that todays trip is going to take me a little over 2 hours to get from my front door to the San Francisco Hyatt. I could say that today, I'm doing mother nature a favor and taking only public transportation. The truth is, I can't take my car because if I were to leave now, there would be no parking left at the lightrail station.
I was in the city last night for a press screening of the latest Nickelodeon CGI monstrocity, The Barnyard. Chris invited me out to the early showing (The release is on Friday, I believe) and while neither one of us expected Citizen Kane, it is a pretty telling sign when the children in attendence are largely silent throughout the entire picture. Yeah, I don't think Pixar has anything to worry about either.
Today I'm off to check out the latest from Aspyr, namely the latest sequel to their Gothic series. Since it is also a general Aspyr event, I'll also see if I can bug someone about the recently announced Gamerhood application, exclusively for the Mac. Think of it as Steam for the Mac, only it might actually work properly.
Afterwards its off to the Virgin Megastore to do a meet and greet with one of the current princesses of Japanese pop music, Nana Kitade. Can we be honest here for a minute? I really don't know who she is. Between you and me, I'm really just going to meet some kids I know from the internet. Maybe they can clue me into what I'm missing. Regardless, I'll bring my camera anyways, if not just to try and capture some of the cute EGL fashions.
When I come back home to the East Bay, I'll do my best to neglect the work that lays ahead of me tomorrow. The English copy of Sega's Yakuza, currently finding a home on the floor of my room will have to wait, if not for just a few more hours. The lady has been itching for a good Warcraft session and I've been too tired or just too busy to comply. I'm so proud of the work she's done on her Horde crest, but I'd probably be more proud if I could help her with those awful Druid quests.
Somewhere around 4AM, I'll call it a night.
(( This is the start of what I assume will be an on going series of blogs dealing with subject of role playing found in MMORPG titles. It's a subject that touches at the essence of my nerdom and a few of my sore spots as well. Maybe we'll all walk away from this better for the experience. ))
It's not the barely clothed dwarven man, doing his best cossack up on the inn's table that bothers me. Oh heavens no. My time spent in the Warner Bros disaster that was The Matrix Online showed me that sexual debauchery within the realm of role play could be taken just as seriously as staring down the barrel of a gun. No, it's his Paladin friend that bothers me, offering silver if he can somehow manage to take off more clothes in the spirit of this debauchery. Did prostitution exist within the world of Azeroth? It's certainly not documented, but that doesn't mean it's also not in good taste.
With six million subscribers under its belt, World of Warcraft is the current juggernaut of the MMORPG genre. For six million subscribers there are currently sixteen servers in which to practice the ancient art of roleplay within it's bounds. This was but one of the uninspiring situations I found myself in tonight on my new home, the Sentinels server. Sentinels is one of two new recently introduced roleplay servers for World of Warcraft. While I had tried to play on one of their designated roleplay servers before, it was not encouraging to say the least.
No one in their right minds should ever expect six million players, much less even a million to join a roleplay server and seriously get down with their nerdy selves. Yet for such an immensely popular title, you would expect to at least find a good number of like-minded people in which to adventure with through lengthy text and enriching character development. Instead, you're more than likely to find our dwarven friend in the inn, enriching you instead with Russian culture.
The problem, unfortunately, stems with the actual game itself and not from it's extremely mainstream appeal. However, it has less to do with the mechanics of the world and more to do with the complete disconnect felt between the player and their avatar. Every variety of every race you will find within Azeroth is of the exact same mold. You will never see one human that is larger than another. You will never see any Tauren that is smaller than another. With every person slapping their avatars together from the same tiny pool of feature sets, you're guaranteed to run into at least one character daily that is a near mirror image of yours.
The disconnect goes beyond mere physical appearance and to dig deeper is to question the entire point of roleplay in World of Warcraft. Other titles on the market such as Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest II, while much smaller in population support much stronger roleplay communities. Part of this not only has to do with the extremely robust character creation tools found in each game, but also because both games support -- what your average gamer would call, "the boring crap".
"The boring crap" is a figure of speech used when describing the non-combat portions of MMORPG gameplay. Star Wars Galaxies will forever be known for it's sheer amount of this "crap" due to its heavy emphasis on non-combat gameplay. It's rather unfortunate that activities such as dancing and herbalism are looked down upon because for an MMORPG to successfully be able to create a role playing experience, you need them.
You need them because there is no in-character way to say, "Excuse me. I have to go grind harpies for the next three hours."
When you take a good, hard look at the feature set found in World of Warcraft, it becomes very clear that there was never any intent to promote the digital art of roleplaying. You're never supposed to actually think about the motivation of your character because your motivation is to grind those harpies so that you can hit the end-game. With no motivation to pursue any kind of non-combat profession (The only two being Fishing and Cooking), there is no other reason to exist in Azeroth then to join up with thirty-nine other players and take down whatever the dragon of the month is. You can try and craft all the back story you want regarding your troll shaman, but how are you going to explain the fact that you do nothing but endlessly kill wildlife in search for epic loot?
The next time I see my dwarven friend kicking up a frenzy on the tables, I'll let it slide. It's not his fault that he was brought into a world of nothing but gameplay slavery. He knows not why he must kill every living creature on this planet, but he does know that dancing can heal the wounds left inside.
The next time I see him I'll pat him on the back and tell him, "That's some nice dancing there, garycoleman."
Shelby loves the Horde and who can blame her? When half of the races on your side can sport mohawks and epic clad Tauren's are the pinnacle of bad-ass, Horde is indeed where it's at. I tried to explain to her last night that with awesome decisions come great consequence. It's no secret that Blizzard seemingly loves to screw the Horde every chance they get. Whether its the horrid starting conditions, awful raid setups or constant Shaman tinkering, Blizzard isn't that big of a Horde fan.
I woke up today in Bizzaro world as Blizzard announced today that in the Burning Crusade expansion this fall, the Alliance will gain access to the Shaman class through the Dranei and the Horde will get the Paladin class with the Blood Elfs. This upsets me.
This upsets me because it comes right on the heels of Blizzard admitting their goal of trying to lower the overall DPS of the Horde in group situations. The reasons behind this massive change, however, is to balance the end-game content. To put it simply, this is Blizzards way to make the situations where Paladins are invaluable to the end-game raids easier for the Horde to manage. Gee, thanks Blizzard. Why do I still feel screwed?
It's because now the balancing between the two factions is no longer the biggest cause for concern. It also doesn't help that I consider the end-game portion of World of Warcraft to be the worst part of the game. To me, the game ends at level 60, because thats where it just stops being enjoyable. To change the entire aspect of the game for such a small and vocal minority, when the game was based on the principal that anyone, casual and hardcore alike will be able to fully experience WoW is a total step backwards for the game.
There are social aspects that come to play in the form of stereotyping the players. Horde, in general, is seen as a more mature faction as you're not dealing with all the 14 year old crack rabbits who fawn over Night Elves and other humanoid races. Now, the Horde has the prettiest of all the races and the most friendly of classes to boot. Now, no one is safe.
I was telling Shelby last night how we might be able to actually hit level 60 before the Burning Crusade comes out. Now, I don't even really care. Come this Fall, choosing between the Alliance and the Horde will come down to simply, "How much do you want this to hurt?"
