Snarl, Rage, etc.

One of the ironic downsides to playing on a Roleplaying Server is having to actually deal with the Roleplaying Community. Yes, I’m aware how reality-warpingly absurd that statement sounds, so let me elaborate and get a few petty gripes out of my system in the process. If that’s not something you want to listen to, feel free to skip this post.

The Roleplaying Community has always been split, to some degree – we have people whose only contact with Warcraft is World of Warcraft itself, we have people who have played all the strategy games prior, we have people who throw themselves over sourcebooks to devour all the information they possibly can.. and then we have people who just want to play Forgotten Realms Drow or Warhammer Space Marines. Combine this with how roleplaying can often very much be about wish-fulfilment and you essentially end up with a powder keg of egos just waiting to explode, and some rather atrocious takes on the Lore to go along with it.

To bastardize a quote from Ian Malcolm: Many are so occupied with whether or not they could that they never stopped to think if they should.

The latest subject of my ire is the most recent Sentinel guild – a group that had me wary from the start because I’ve seen plenty of attempts at both Sentinel and Warden guilds and I’ve yet to come across a single one that actually suspended my disbelief – either if it is due to teenage drama, inability to grasp the chain of command or what their area of responsibility is, I’ve yet to be convinced such a guild isn’t doomed to fail. Of course, I’m slightly skating on thin ice saying that since Starwatch (or, the Kal’adore forward scouting Sentinel detachment) that old priestess Nhani Moonfall commands is technically a Sentinel guild, but their numbers are limited to a few fellow nubs that I trust are able to use salutes, proper formal address and capable of acting with professionalism and dignity.

I’d like to think I’m not unresonable – I can accept their members having Teenage Drama(tm) when in tabard (and therefore, on duty) though old Moonfall would describe such behaviour as unprofessional at best, I can accept them being unable to refer to Shandris Feathermoon in proper formal address (It’s General Feathermoon!) and I can accept some of their numbers being the xenophobic sort that don’t like non-Night elves around Darnassus and that they speak derogatively to such, though again Nhani would have a few words about improfessional and irresponsible behaviour. I can even live with how they seem to have both males and druids as a vast majority of their numbers, in spite of how much that means their leader(s) are essentially spitting all over tradition.

What I can not accept is when they decide that Sentinels – not the Temple of the Moon – are the ones who dictate Night elven policy; when they decide that they suddenly have the authority to throw out members of the Alliance out of Darnassus simply because they’re on a xenophobic power trip and when they decide that a lowly Sentinel of their ranks have more authority than a Priestess of the Moon.

Of course, I realize to a point I’m blowing my own whistle here, but I’m not going to appologize for claiming old Priestess Moonfall has authority over a single upstart Sentinel who demands human friends of hers will have to leave Darnassus mid-conversation because they are “trespassing”, especially not after the community happily had her represent the night elves when signing an agreement between the Alliance and the Horde!

Now I admit that Nhani came down pretty hard on the guy, but let’s face it – she has her own set ideas on what it means to be a Sentinel, and among those are to represent the best of the Night elves; being an undiciplined and upstart git to her face while in uniform is a fairly quick way to earn her ire. It was actually rather amusing how it ended, as it’d derailed to the point where old Moonfall was essentially throwing her full title and authority around, and our Sentinel goes “Prove it”. Now while I could have thrown a fair bit of retorts there that is basically his reality versus mine and would’ve gotten us nowhere.. a random passerby druid stops, goes “She is right.” and continues with how there are very few who don’t know of Nhani Moonfall. I’ll admit I was a little too busy having a wide grin on my face to respond when the Sentinel mumbled something about god moding and ran off with his tail between his legs.

Yes, it seems I can still out-fame people on rare occasions. I have no doubt this is just a start of a growing animosity however, nor that it’ll force me to play that politics game again, no matter how much I resent it. It’s rather ironic, though, because barely a week ago one of their number sent me a whisper saying that he felt Nhani should join their Sentinel order and I politely declined because she has her own duties to attend to. Now, a week later, I’m at a point where Nhani’d seriously consider publicly stating that their entire company be declared renegade and dismantled because their loyalty is clearly neither to the Temple nor Elune.

Kiss Your Own Frogs

(Clicky)

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the particular quest referenced. While it’s far from the worst indignity Blizzard has subjected its player characters to, when given to a certain of my characters by a certain NPC, it takes on a whole new level of implications. After all, it might be some Draenei courting ritual and he simply doesn’t realize how asking ten thousand year old night elven Priestesses to kiss frogs might not be well recieved. ..then again, he might just be trying to send a message. What is certain is that it’s most definitely going to be detrimental to his chances of getting any.

*huffs*

Reclassing old Moonfall

There exists no character I’ve spent anywhere near as much time with as priestess Nhani Moonfall – be it characterizing her, practicing her characterization or writing stories; the Beyond the Tree cast are in a position where they might eventually come to rival or supplant it, but old Moonfall has a few years advantage over them. One thing that always stood out for me with Nhani compared to many other World of Warcraft characters I’ve seen is that she was never defined by what in-game character class she was – she might borrow elements from the one currently characterizing her, but she’s never been the class (or the anti-class, as it were). An ancient former Sentinel turned Priestess of the Moon – as much a skilled martial combatant as she is a spiritual guide and voice of wisdom.. no one class truly abstracted all that she is, and giving her form in game mechanics is a delicate balance of which aspect to emphasize.

She’s been many things in her time, some which worked better than others. To be honest, I never expected her to be back where she truly started.

To most who are familiar with her.. well.. legend, as one person put it, old Nhani Moonfall began with the rogue class. It was later shifted to the priest class, then back to the rogue class during my rogue tanking period, then back to priest for most of Wrath up until now. What most people don’t know is the early draft of Nhani Moonfall that existed on EN Beta 9 during the European Final Beta phase of World of Warcraft. It was before she ended up with her priestess title which came with the Lights of Elune guild – she was just a former Sentinel.. and classed warrior.

I’ll freely admit I didn’t know the mechanics very well back then – the basics, sure, but the intricacies of how hits are randomized, how strike damage is calculated, how talents and abilities synergize.. all that was an alien concept and I was just running around on a 56k modem dial-up (yes..) with an arms warrior wielding dual daggers because a fast attack speed had a tendency to kill caster NPCs before they could blast me, unlike slow two-handers that took forever to swing. As one might understand, I didn’t do too well with the class and decided to shift when the game hit retail and the choice ended up between rogue and hunter.. and I picked the former because “everyone else was picking night elven hunters”, heh. Hindsight is amusing, sometimes.

The Warrior class and I have a strange history. I’ve gone on record saying many times I don’t like parts of it – notably too much in-combat stance dancing and the tendency of the rage system to run out on you when you most need it. And yet I had two warriors at level 70 on the same server and same faction. Lately, I picked up one of my warriors again, pulled her up to 80 and started utilizing the emblem-rich nature of the latest patch to gear her out, and.. to my surprise.. I was really enjoying myself.

The problem of course that I had was that I’ve been pretty set to have a Gnome priestess in Cataclysm for some time now, and with the warrior being a Gnome, my plans were somewhat led astray, because I still wanted to keep Nhani around in some form.. and with how poor I am at maintaining alts.. with one warrior Gnome and one priest Gnome, she’d be left wayside. I was thinking maybe I’d keep Nhani as the priest and go with a Gnome warrior.. but there’s something special about a Gnome healer and gnomish casting animations, so I found myself in a spot where I was outright questioning what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go.

Then I got a suggestion – one of my Yelnenu cronies helped me sort out that what if I made the priest into the Gnome, eventually, and made the warrior – seeing how I was enjoying that – into Nhani. I had one of those moments where it’s just stop.. waaaitaminute.. that’s an idea..! Initially it was something I was going to hold off until Cataclysm but as I was thinking about it.. going it over in my head, what it’d mean, what I’d have to do and how it’d affect things.. I found myself utterly falling for the idea of putting Nhani into the warrior class. It’d let her protect people, and moreover would fix my pet annoyance about her being too frail – as a warrior, especially one with Protection as main spec, she’s one tough woman.

After having spent nearly the entire thursday evening just going back and forth between people rambling indecisively.. I took the plunge. Gave my gnome warrior a race change and figuring that if it really was a total failure, I’d be able to undo it again and return things as they were.

Of course, the warrior class isn’t all that she is – it holds the ferocity, the stamina, the strength and – curiously enough – the leadership; but it often lacks the subtlety and some of the guide and caretaker. It’s not a perfect match – no class is – but it surprised me how right it feels at the moment. After spending so much time in the back row in a dress, she finally gets to pick up arms and go straight into battle herself. Moreover, she gets to stand toe to toe with larger foes again, and prevail. She feels larger, stronger and more powerful – like a true force to be reckoned with; what’s more – like a protector.

Time, of course, will tell where it all leads – how long it lasts, and if/when she might shift form again. I’ve been enjoying both the tanking and the damage aspects of the mechanics – though I harbor no illusions I’m anywhere near as good at them as I am at healing – I’ve held my own. There’s a whole lot still to sort out – finding a proper dress for official attire (the Gossamer one being unpleasantly rare these days), gather up all manner of casual, out-of-armor outfits as well as catch up on whatever quests, achievements and titles I might want. While things can still change, and we have yet to learn what exactly Blizzard intend with class balance and talent design for Cataclysm.. it’s provided something that I’ve been looking for for a long time.

Something to do with Nhani.

Passing the Holidays

So, seeing how I’ve been stuck with a perpetually high ping complimentary of Wireless Ethernet (the world seriously needs home-based wireless access points that somehow magically don’t suck), I’ve amused myself with things less demanding in terms of internet response times; usually meaning things I can do offline. One of these amusements come courtesy of Revolution Games and ScummVM; a star of brilliance so bright that it could make the sun itself wear shades. I speak of course of.. actually, I*ll let him introduce himself.

Being the supervisor of both the pipe factory and the recycling plant of the Eyrie tower block is hard work that’s difficult to measure up to; fortunately, our friendly neighborhood Supervisor Lamb is on the job with his near-superhuman brilliance..

..as well as his extensive knowledge of the subject matter. Not only does Lamb know the importance of the pipes that his plant manufactures..

.. but he’s also intricately informed of their importance and use. After all, you can’t have a huge metal city rising above ground without a proper compliment of pipes! Think of all the things they’re used for, like sewers and plumbing and water and such. In fact, Mr. Lamb would go as far as to say that..

..uhm, yeah. Okay. Well.. ahem. If you say so, Gilbert. Atleast he’s a snappy dresser with that smart fur coat.

..oh. Right. Yes, well.. there was that. Well.. hm..

..he likes cats? Yes. Clearly, this is an admirable trait that makes up for all the would-be flaws that people might incorrectly percieve because they simply lack the perception to see how Supervisor Glibert Lamb is a flawless and inspiring leader who makes every effort to ensure that his factory is productive and on schedule.

After all, he was appointed by LINC, and LINC is without fault. It might seem like a strange and controversial decision to some, but remember – every effort must be made to stand up against the corruptive influences of the Hobart corporation, which would see us all plumet into despair and decay.

We know you are, Gilbert.

That is all. Be Vigilant.

So another year, another Winter’s Veil..

(1920×1440), (1920×1200)

It’s kindof strange to picture that it’s been a whole year since last time; I figured putting something together would be a fun tradition to try to keep up, though this time not only having a larger cast to fit in but also trying to push a few envelopes in terms of how much I can do with visuals. Elune only knows what I’ll have to try to come up with for next year.

Still, Merry Christmas, Happy Winter’s Veil and whatever else you might wish to call it! Let’s hope for a good next year to come.

Casting Beyond the Tree

or: “Omg, it’s full of women!”

The topic tends to come up every so often – what’s with the cast, why are all the major characters women, so forth, so on. It’s rather amusing to reflect upon in hindsight, especially with how every now and then someone will try to imbue the fact with some kind of meaning, agenda or otherwise ulterior motive. The hilarious truth is that it all actually happened more by accident than anything – I didn’t even really take note that some might find the cast choices odd or unusual until things were well underway.

So how did it happen? Well..

I had an idea. It all started with an image I did just for fun, starring my own World of Warcraft character and another one connected to her – one of her adopted cubs, in fact. It was simple and hardly a laughing riot, but it had potential somewhere – something about it just clicked.. and I found myself thinking “You know.. I could make a Webcomic based on this. And so I did.

Hani and Tiny, the core duo, were already given. They both started as caricatures of existing characters and then evolved from there. Te’len was the third character that was added to the cast – a false start had made me realize I needed more than just the duo to keep things going; moreover, I wanted someone who could be a connection to Tinys’ past the way Hani had in the Sentinels and the High Priestess. Te’len already existed in some form in the past of the character Tiny was based on, so adapting her seemed a natural decision. Tyrande and the Sentinels – Raene in particular – already had key roles to play due to Hani being a former Sentinel.

After that.. things were a little more up in air. I mostly just spitballed a few rough archetypes I thought might make for interesting additions. In the initial plot layout, Areen was actually a stout dwarven priestess named Mora, with a self-occupied human rogue named Ivram and an insecure gnome mage called Oz set to join sometimes after the Deadmines. Interestingly enough, none of those three characters survived the plot overhauls – Ivram and Oz both were cut simply because their motivation for being there never felt solid enough; they just seemed to follow along without any real reason to do so. For that matter, none of them really managed to grow beyond their archetypes, unlike Te’len who quickly gained an identity of her own and asserted her position within the larger plot – to the point where she ended up coming along for the Deadmines visit even though the original plans had intended for her to stay behind.

Mora on the other hand wasn’t so much cut as was overtaken by an entirely different character – Areen was an alt of mine who had started with what I thought was an amusing concept and had just.. developed – a chance dialogue with a paladin on Earthen Ring EU turned her motivations entirely around and she turned into a devout follower of the Holy Light almost overnight. I loved the character she had become, but at the time utterly hated the warrior mechanics she was bound to. So a friend of mine suggested a compromise: Put Areen into Beyond the Tree. It didn’t take much convincing – Areen was a much more developed character and could easilly take over the role Mora had in the plot, not to mention could add some gnomish sensibilities that I had lost when Oz was cut, and Areen fit in. She was just as much an outsider as the rest of the group. It was perfect.

I’ll admit I actually found it rather odd how some people reacted such a female-heavy cast – for me it was never an issue of any sort: the cast are always characters and individuals first, to say there’s an ulterior motive in Hani being a woman is akin to saying there’s an ulterior motive in her hair being green. I actually feel like I’ve been almost forcibly dragged into the whole topic/discussion/whatever about equality and sex and gender roles – it was never something I intended and I stand firm in that my purpose in Beyond the Tree is and always has been to tell a story about characters. To some degree I actually feel somewhat slighted when people try to imply it has ulterior motives.

Of course, a friend of mine tends to point out that if the cast had been largely dominated by men instead of all women, no one would even have batted an eyelid. I’ll admit that the more I find myself embroiled in the whole matter, the more those words seem to ring true. It’s funny in a way, because I never thought this was a big issue; in my naivety, I’d readily assumed that we’d accepted the sexes are equal and were just waiting for the paperwork to catch up.

Beyond the Tree is built on the traditional hero journey more than anything, a path long traversed by myth and fantasy both. By its very nature, it has to do with empowerment, and while the cast are by large women, they are also flawed individuals who are much more than simply what sex they were born to. I’d like to think that the problems they have to come to terms with, the lessons they have to learn and the path they have to walk is by no means restricted – I think most people can relate to the things they go through on some level, whether men or women.

Of course, having the main characters all women for the first story arc has additional benefits in that it’s easier to develop a kind of kinship between them – that they become something like sisters in arms without risks for in-group sexual tension, which while potentially amusing would be somewhat distracting and detrimental this early on. Of course, one thing that massively boosts the female presence in Beyond the Tree overall is Hani’s Sentinel past – not only having been a member of the all-woman night elven army but also being known to the High Priestess somehow makes it somewhat difficult to avoid. And while Te’len comes from a portion of night elven society that’s largely male-dominated, that’s generally left more implied than stated outright, and the current leader of said portion is generally reviled by all.

I think to one degree a mistake some make is to assume that just because a character is a protagonist, they’re automatically right – it’s not really the case, and while we’re generally supposed to root for them.. we’re not always supposed to agree with the duo, and there’s times they do cross the line. It’s an important realization to make – that just because the characters say or believe something doesn’t mean that is right, or that it represents what I think.

Of course, there are male characters in Beyond the Tree – some which I think people underestimate simply because the duo talks down to them. Delgren notably, and he still has a part to play in the coming future. For all his apparent whining, city guard Captain Horace Cravenrest has shown a significant degree of patience when dealing with the mismatched group as well – while essentially an extended cameo, I never saw him as weak or antagonistic as some seem to. He’s a decent enough sort just trying to do his job – something which can become increasingly difficult when the duo is involved.

And then there is That Fifth Character set for arc two – the mysterious one that we won’t see for quite some time yet but keeps being brought up as when the group will start dragging a guy along for their adventures. What sets him appart from previously axed characters is that he has a direct purpose in the narrative – he’s essential to arc two, and as a result becomes developed as it does. I’m quite looking forward to when he shows up, though it’s not something that can be rushed along – every character needs a solid role and purpose to fit into the dynamic, and his simply won’t work until arc two.

So where is all this headed? Well, to an interesting narrative, hopefully. Those that get hung up are in general still a minority and arguably not part of my target audience anyway, so it’s not as if it’s all woe is me or anything. It’s something that’s been stewing over in my mind though, so it’s something I’ve been wanting to get out of my system. Ultimately, Beyond the Tree remains on the same track it has been – a story about characters, the things they experience and how they change on the way. If it helps make representation more even then all the better, I think – it’s a bonus, but the characters and their journey still comes first.

..and the flying ship..

Yes, I admit, the Gunship Battle is fun and interesting and all that. Chaotic, but a good sort of – leaping back and forth between ships and keeping up with everything happening is a great deal of fun, and has a rather epic atmosphere. Blizzard definitely keeps upping the ante with Wrath, and I’m actually quite curious what ways they’ll come up with to top themselves with Cataclysm. This does set a significant predecent, though I’m still waiting to see how the rest of the raid instance develops from there.

Of course, to make sure it wasn’t all smiles and giggles we struck a strange issue where the Skybreaker just stopped after sending Ogrim’s Hammer off to give a message to the ground with no apparent means of exit nor any character to speak with, so we ended up having to take the hard way down and then teleport up. Thank Elune for Levitate, I say.

Deathbringer Saurfang.. provide a bit more of a hassle. With a few people feeling ill and people having early mornings, we only got so many tries and they were unfortunately not enough. He felt perfectly doable, mind you – it just seems that it’s easy for things to go pants with the adds if they’re not completely under control. Practice and luck, basically.

Still, so far so good. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of it and how it all plays out. I’m curious how satisfying they’ll manage to make it to finally put a stop to the Lich King, especially with just how much has been building up to this very confrontation. There’s a few hooks they’ve scared up too that I’m quite curious where they’ll end up.

..and then there was that patch thing

And so patch 3.3 hit, and there was much rejoicing and soforth. Actually, I found it rather perplexing that people sounded like they’d be interested in my opinion since for all the bang it’s supposed to carry, 3.3 has felt suprisingly.. small.. to me. A new instance, a new raid, some new gear. Sure, lots of content and all, but for me it really hasn’t been any new toys per se to play with. Shadow priests get some interesting changes – the change to Vampyric Embrace sounds absolutely smashing, but for disc? We’ve largely remained the same throughout most of Wrath, really – there’s the odd bug fix, there’s the odd time they decide to move the Penance cooldown around, but 3.3 landed with a complete absence of “Yay, new fun ability change to play with that will change my play style so much for the better”; of course, it’s nice to play a class that is considered fairly well balanced and complete and therefore stationary, but I can’t help but to look at some classes and envy how much new shiny things they get to play with while I just get to fall into the same practiced routine.

This, of course, doesn’t mean the patch is all drab boring sameyness – it actually contains quite a few fun and interesting things, but it really hasn’t changed anything for me beyond a new instance (well, three, but they’re part of the same whole) and a new raid. New places to go yay, but so far it hasn’t really compelled me to make use of old Moonfall outside of raids and instances. Nothing to really discover or explore outside of the instances themselves.

Before we move on to said instances though, there’s one thing I’d really like to congratulate Blizzard on with 3.3 – the map. As much as I resent how they keep changing the UI API around in only half documented ways breaking half my interface with barely a change to show for it, I’m actually really impressed with what they did to the map in 3.3. Sure, some people will probably complain how it’s far too easy to find where you’re going to go now, but I quite like how it gives you something of an idea of where you’re headed. Seeing the many people who manage to get lost looking for this or that, it’s a good change, and I really like the convenience factor when you’ve temporarily forgotten the location of or otherwise misplaced the NPC you were supposed to find.

This along with the additional upgrades to the quest tracking is a very nice addition to the overall logistics of questing, and if nothing else, Blizzard definitely deserves props for taking steps in that direction; especially with how few seem to actually be reading the quest texts themselves.

Of course, then there’s the additions of the adorable Core Hound Pup, and the long awaited ground animation for Hippogryphs. Yes! They can walk at last! Elune be praised! Once more, I have to hand it to Blizzard for a top job with it – the Core Hound Pup is adorable and have some really endearing animations, and the Hippogryphs.. let’s just say the Gyrocopter was finally taken from its throne as the one flying mount with the most personality for me. The hippo will look around, stretch and even peck for food – it’s a huge step up from trying to fly on the ground, and finally you can actually tell whether you’ve truly landed or not. It might seem a minor thing, but this is definitely one addition to 3.3 that I like.

Now, yes, there are new instances and they’re great and Blizzard have outdone themselves and what do you expect of me, here? Alright, alright, I can be a tad more descriptive than that. I have to admit, the new 5-man dungeon actually left me really impressed – not due to the encounters or loot, but due to the overall design of it. It steps completely away from the typical dungeon crawler layout and goes into a full on mission narrative where you have three seperate on-end parts of a mission into the Icecrown Citadel, each narrated by a support character who show up time and time again to drive the story forward and provide an emotional response, as well as a great deal of other characters and events that take place as things go. And then the very final stretch where you run into the Lich King and essentially have to run for your life is a fun twist from the typical method of just slaying everything you come up against.

In a way, it seems almost as if World of Warcraft has now gone full circle compared to its real time strategy roots – World of Warcraft vanilla being the first Warcraft: Orcs and Humans that establishes the settings and the basic idea behind the underlaying mechanics, but being somewhat stilted, not completely player friendly and having only a basic narrative. The Burning Crusade expansion pack being the Warcraft 2 where the mechanics are expanded upon and made somewhat easier to work with, and the narrative presented somewhat better with a slightly greater focus on a few key cast of characters, and then Wrath now being Warcraft 3, the flagship of ease of use and having a narrative that’s driven largely by characters. While a good old fashioned dungeon crawl can be fun at times, and the additions of running narratives in and the streamlining of dungeons have often come at the expense of free and open exploration, overall I think it’s a good change. It’s easy to grow detached and just shrug as NPCs die in large heaps – having one of them delivering a hopeful speech only to be cut off halfway through due to reasons of dying, and then hear another character exclaim frustration and despair over all this dying actually gives these characters identity and gives you something you might care about.

Also it’s mildly challenging on heroic and some of the loot doesn’t look half bad, but pft.

Then there is the raid, and I don’t have quite as much to say about it yet since Yelnenu has only done one tentative poke into there as of yet, taking down Lord Marrowgar after some trying and one-shotting Lady Deathwhisper with only one death and then leaving it at that for the night. It was a fun visit and interesting visit, and I suspect we’ll take some time before we can tear down the whole place in any expedient sort of manner; I’m actually quite curious what the gunship battle will be like, and overall interested to see how the whole place develops as we go. The place is obviously not quite as .. shiny.. as Ulduar was since Ulduar was largely in orange yellows while the Icecrown Citadel is a pretty cold and bland blueish tone, but it’s definitely impressive, and the bosses seem quite creative, visually speaking. I also like how the entrance is full of places to repair and obtain things, and how it again starts with narrative elements, and seems like it’ll continue having them throughout much of the journey.

It’s quite a step up from the Argent Tournament, I’ll give them that. Some of the set gear design however..

It’s not all smiles and giggles, of course – there was a hilarious bug with the Alliance 5-man dungeon that was thankfully hotfixed where you would generally disconnect if you walked up the walkway to the last loot chest. Levitate could help it – if you were lucky – but it was a rather strange and bothersome issue. There also seems to be quite a few oddities with NPC placement where they’ll often walk through a tank or otherwise stubbornly attack them in the rear, leading to hasty tank or other party/raid member death. I’m also torn over their idea of having traps rogues can disarm in atleast the starting entrance of the Icecrown Citadel raid – on one hand it’s nice that the ability actually gets used, on the other.. 10-man raids aren’t quite as guaranteed to contain a rogue as 25-man ones are, so there’s some question whether someone has to fetch an alt for that one particular stretch just to avoid sudden instant adds that cause grave owies or otherwise wipes the raid.

As for the LFG tool, what do you expect me to say? I have PUG allergy – I haven’t touched the thing. Some of my braver Yelnenu cronies say it works great, though.

So I finally got back into the game..

I’ve been a little distant from World of Warcraft recently, up until a week or two ago, anyhow; though it wasn’t the only reason, it was pretty much triggered when I went around trying for myself the little bug where you could end up with the wrong model for your character; only for yourself, mind you – it’s entirely a character bug, but nonetheless. Getting the opportunity to try what a gnome priestess would be like to play was.. somewhat breaking to my desires playing anything else, and since Blizzard are bound to take quite some time before I actually get to transform my healing night elven priestess main into a somewhat shorter stature, I didn’t really see much of an end for it. It’s a rather damning feeling to end up with – the knowledge that what you really want to play is going to be denied you.

Starting to feel a bit seperated from my Yelnenu cronies however, I eventually managed to drag my sorry, distracted arse back around World of Warcraft and decided that if nothing else, I might in the least try playing a gnome that Blizzard would let me play. The end result of that was that I reached into my heap of mothballed characters and dug out one that I honestly didn’t expected I’d ever return to.

She might seem just a little familiar. Ahem.

There’s a particular irony when it comes to me and the warrior class – on one end, I’ve gone to record multiple times saying how I resent the rage system, how the stances to a point bother me because of how disjointly abilities overlap with some stances drowning in buttons to click while others have barely any to go around and soforth.. on the other hand, I had two prot-specced warriors at level 70 fully capable of taking on Burning Crusade-era heroics. I say had, because one of them is now level 73 and slowly climbing. The thing that really surprised me is that I’m actually having fun – yes, I know! They really did a whole lot with the prot tree that endears me to it, even as it frustrates me. For one, where I used to have one charge-like ability per stance, I now have all three of them available at any time in any stance, and the amount of buttons I feel myself needing “just in case” ended up somewhat staggering compared to the normal size of my action bars. Furthermore, Rage doesn’t really seem to be an issue anymore – atleast not so far. The whole issue of never having it when I needed it the most seem largely gone, and it’s actually pretty amusing – if daunting – to realize that I’ll actually run out of global cooldown time to click buttons long before I run out of the rage needed to click buttons.

Then of course there’s the downside. Devastate. Dear Elune Blizzard, what were you thinking?! Now, don’t get me wrong – the ability is nice and handy to use and all, does what it’s supposed to do and works just fine. The visuals aren’t too bad either – a tad large, flashy and offset perhaps, but it works. But the sound. Dear Elune, the sound! I remember a time when Devastate sounded like Sunder Armor did at the time, and it had this sound that at least sounded like a minor structure collapsing, if not things being torn and .. well.. devastated. It wasn’t the greatest sound effect in the world, but it was effective, recognizeable and gave a sense of power. The one they have now.. sounds like passing wind. Seriously. It’s this quiet ffffffttt noise as if your character had spent the last few years on a bean diet and now tried to destroy his or her foes by letting loose “silent, but deadly”-ies repeatedly on end. It not only seems so utterly off, it also provides me with barely any feedback – half the time, I can’t hear it. The sound drowns in the noise of everything else.

It might seem a petty gripe, but I play a great deal by ear – I need audiable feedback. An ability that doesn’t make sound is difficult to use for me because there’s no feedback to guarantee it went through or that I hit the right key.

Of course, as a consequence – and somewhat against my better judgement – I’ve been poking around Stormwind lately. It’s something I can’t really do with my elves much, so I figure it was worth a look, and to its credit I’ve actually had my moments of fun – especially the times I’ve managed to link up to part of the gnomish community on Earthen Ring EU and had some rather gnomish conversations back and forth. With the night elven community largely having gone beyond and forgotten me by now, it’s nice to have a foot in with my new.. well.. adoptees. There’s some good people among gnomes, so it’s nice to meet some of them on more even ground.

On the other hand.. there’s the rest of Stormwind. Not all of it is terrible, of course, but I’m still night elven enough that part of me despairs whenever I see night elves acting like humans with ears rather than even remotely night elven – I suspect that’s a reaction that might take a long time to grow out of. Mind you, that doesn’t touch on the actual worst part, and I’m finding that every so often you simply have to take a step back and don the strongest bullshit armor you can find just to keep safe from some of the madness people throw at you.

Let me give you an example – a staged “ghoul attack” – with behaviours ripped largely directly from the Left 4 Dead games, I’m told – instigated by some sort of necromancer wearing immense plot armor and suffering infinite ressurection disorder (I’m told this was the 7′th or 8′th time she’s struck down..), spawning the immense horde of three human males playing ghouls, equally wearing plot armor and swinging plot attacks. Not only did this assault take place straight in front of the Cathedral of Light, but apparently the two Paladins that were on site had apparently forgotten both their plot armors and plot hammers at home and were refused to actually do any kind of dent in this terrible offensive, leaving a particular bunch of nigh-invincible Death Knights to duke it out with the ghouls in a battle to see whose self-proclaimed invincibility was the strongest. And no, I’m actually not making any of this up; I spent the.. “event”.. sitting off in a corner by the Cathedral entrance, donned in my strongest bullshit armor and quietly hoping they’d either stop soon or move elsewhere so I could get back to pretending Stormwind actually is a sane city rather than the Azeroth Asylum.

Mind you, people are free to run around however they please, and if they had fun going about, more power to them. I’m perfectly aware there’s a phase that pretty much every actor/writer/whatever goes through that’s all about empowerment of the self, and that a great deal of the playerbase in World of Warcraft are most likely somewhere in or around that phase. Sometimes though, I wonder if they really realize how they come across to the rest of us.

So it seems I’ll need a section for fan.. cakes?

I’ve got to show you this. A few weeks back, a friend and fellow Yelnenuite of mine, Lepida, gave me one of the strangest questions I can recall recieving: she asked me whether I would mind if she tried to put Hani Foonmall on a cake. A CAKE! Apparently as part of some course or whatnot she’s in, they were going to make a cake with a motif out of marzipan on it, and she wanted to use Hani for hers.

After picking up my jaw from the floor and properly dusting it off, I gave her the go-ahead and told her if she wanted a particular pose rendered to help I’d be glad to provide. Today.. I got the result:

(Clicky for Large)

I’m still not entirely sure what to say; on one end my mind is going all “okay.. how should I judge this from an artistic point of view..” considering we’re talking marzipan – hardly the most malleable material in the world – and there’s distinct limits on what you can do with shapes and colours – especially for a first try at it. On the other hand.. It’s Hani Foonmall. On a Cake. Yeah. Consider me in awe and my mind sufficiently blown. I mean sure, Beyond the Tree isn’t the most famous World of Warcraft-based webcomic out there – it’s different, it’s a tad unusual, I think it’s probably a bit hard to get into for some.. it’s not all jokes and hand-drawn art.. you have to want to get involved with the characters for it to work, and in that regard it’ll likely never be anywhere near as large as the really big names out there. On the other hand? Someone made a Hani cake. Take that!

So, I’d like to give a big thank you to Lepida for making a Hani Cake and – since there’s far too great a distance for me to find out myself – I hope it made for nummy eats! Now I’ll probably going to spend the rest of the evening going between laughing and grinning widely due to the fact that the first official Beyond the Tree fan art I recieve is in fact a photo of a cake. xD