Acid for Blood

Filthy Hobbitses

About a month ago, I was seriously considering getting back into World of Warcraft. Even though there are so many things I dislike about the game, most of which stemmed from being on a PvP server, there are also many things that I like about it. I stopped playing almost a year ago, but I was never very hardcore. My Warlock only got up to level 34, and although I desperately wanted my Felsteed (the level 40 mount) so I could ride about on this demonic black horse with flaming eyes and hooves, getting ganked so often ticked me off to no end. The plan for getting back into WOW would have involved transfering my Human Warlock to a PvE ("Normal") server getting her the mount, then creating an Undead (or Blood Elf) Warlock and having the Horde character as my main. I have never liked the Alliance. The only reason I had a Human character was because the people I was playing with a year ago were Alliance, so I never got to play the character I truly wanted to play. However, monthly subscription fees deter me from starting up the game again unless I know I can devote a lot of time to it.

A friend has recently given me access to his spare/unused Founder's account on Lord of the Rings Online. I played in the LOTRO beta earlier this year, and I liked the game. The level of grind, to me, seemed to be similar to WOW, but it was more palatable. In LOTRO, at least you earn titles for all the grinding you do. I created an Elf Loremaster on the server. I really liked the class when I played. The plan as of now is to hang about Middle Earth for a while, as well as hang around Tyria (Guild Wars).

The Bonus Mission Pack in Guild Wars came out last week, and I haven't had a spare moment to play it yet. Shocking for a Guild Wars Super Fan, I know! I do still have Portal to finish, and I'm not sure how long I can fend off spoilers at work. I'm just so busy these days!

‘Rape’: More Than a Word

One of my pet peeves of gaming culture (and I guess culture in general, since I've heard non-gamers use the word this way) is how gamers use the word 'rape'. I recently read a blog post which explains that:

To some people rape is just four letters put together to make a monosyllabic sound... To others it is an invisible scar that can be worn for all to see, hidden away beneath layers of camouflage, or in some cases acknowledged but not quick to be shown.

In WoW, on the server I am on, they call Alliance, AC. The C stands for cunt. They are loathe to use this word around others, yet they will shout out how they raped that AC paly or got raped by that AC rogue. (For the record, the word cunt doesn’t bother me.)

When I see those four letters slung about without a care, I get shivers down my spine.

The post continues with a descriptive set of reasonings of why people should be more sensitive to how they use words.

[Read via Jade Reporting]

Ruptured

So, I'm on Rupture. What now?

Oh wait. I guess I have to play WOW to network on this thing. I'll get back to it. Eventually. Maybe.

[Link]

WOW = Matchmaker

One of my friends informed me that he now has a girlfriend, and they met in World of Warcraft. They're in the same guild.

What it Feels Like For a Girl

IrGXaNa, a male, played a female Night Elf on a role-playing server in World of Warcraft:

I was wanting to roleplay my Night Elf character but the server I was on wasn't a RP server. So I decided to start a new Night Elf hunter on a RP server. This was much more fun and starteed off so well. I joined a guild of Hunter Elves and to start with was great fun. but i'm starting to realise the trouble many women find with gaming... the sexual harrassment.

As I was roleplaying a female character, many many times male characters just kept coming up to me and flirting, blowing kisses and declaring their love. Cos I was Roleplaying I didn't wanna just say "hey, look mate, i'm a guy, leave it, ok" so i thought I'd just make my character not interested in it all.

What was intersting before i moved to a roleplay server was a female character was always asked if I was male or female, but I never once saw a male character being asked the same thing. It's almost as it's assumed that male characters are only played by men, yet the female charaters might be men too.

He goes on to detail a bit of a crazy experience in which members of the guild he joined accused him of some major guild drama which resulted in the break-up of the main guild and the formation of a splinter guild. Eventually, after it got really crazy, he decided that all the drama wasn't worth his time, when he just wanted to role-play and get on with the game. Unfortunately, he also acquired a scary stalker with some psychological issues, apparently. He decided to start from scratch with a female Human Rogue. Unfortunately, he really did want to play that Night Elf, so he couldn't get into the new character as much. His first experience was tainted by some horrible drama and sexual harassment, and now he's wondering whether World of Warcraft is worth playing at all.

He ends with the following:

So, do I continue playing after the 9th feb when my bill needs renewing? Ever since all that crap I've not enjoyed it as much. I am even thinking of starting yet again on a new server as a male night elf hunter. Ok i'll be doing all those missions again, but you just don't get all that sexual harrassment as a guy. My sister was saying this is kinda how a lot of women feel going into pubs or clubs, guys hitting on them all the time or thinking they're complete bitches when they're not interested. God that sucks!

[World of Warcraft and my first 2 months via Jade Reporting]

WOW Has Entered My Workplace

I am a known gamer in my division at my company. It's one of the few "personal" things that I will talk about*. Whenever a games-related news item penetrates the mainstream media, people come up to me and talk about it**.

When there was an article about taxing virtual income, the Technology Policy Counsel forwarded it to me.

When there was an article about how an enterprising young gamer was making money by coaching players on their gaming skills, the Senior Science Advisor forwarded it to me. He also suggested that I could do that as a job, too.

When the hype about the PS3 vs. the Wii raged in the mainstream press, the Senior Research Analyst and I had a chat about it, and it concluded with him saying that the Wii looked like so much fun and the PS3 was too expensive.

When my division Vice President needed a Wii for his children, he asked me to use my "contacts" to find out how he could obtain one. I think he'd be a little irritated that I won the opportunity to purchase one on Amazon.com less than a week before Christmas, but sold it to one of my friends at-cost, instead of selling it to him. He reported to me the other day that his wife was unable to obtain a Wii. They were discouraged that they needed to camp out the night before to significantly increase their chances of securing one, so they didn't bother.

When the (now) husband of one of the Counsels in the division started playing Guild Wars Prophecies, he told her to tell me about it. He's now in my guild, though I don't see him online too often.

One of my co-workers, a manager, started playing World of Warcraft over the Christmas holidays. Right after Christmas, she and her boyfriend (who is an avid WOW player) bought a new computer specifically to play WOW. They have kids who play games. Prior to World of Warcraft, she mainly played a golf game on the Xbox (360?) and Burnout. She said that she lacked the co-ordination to play videogames, and that they were too complicated for her to understand.

So when she started playing WOW, she apparently told her boyfriend that she couldn't wait to talk to me about it. Her boyfriend's level 50 Orc Warrior is twinking her (female) Orc Hunter out with some decent gear, Mageweave Bags, and of course running her through quests fairly rapidly. She confesses that she still has to come to grips with the controls and angling the camera correctly, and that she never would have got to level 14 without her boyfriend's help.

The other day she gushed to me about her Hunter's Savannah Prowler pet which she named "Georgia".

Yesterday, she reported that she had joined a guild. Though membership was ostensibly closed, her boyfriend's friend, a guild officer, allowed her to join. I assume (and hope) that her boyfriend will train her out of newbie behaviour before partying up with the rest of the guild.

Today, she excitedly reported that she had been in her first instance last night.

She was disappointed that I was no longer playing WOW, because she thought that it would have been neat for me to roll Horde on their PvE server so we could all play.

It's really cute to hear new players, especially non-gamers, talk so excitedly about games, and so excitedly about WOW. It reminds me of how I was when I started playing, when everything was new and shiny. The first time I saw another playing flying on Gryphon back through Elwynn forest was so amazing to me. I felt a sense of wonder about the scale and depth of Azeroth. I was excited about new discoveries and adventures that lay around the corner.

Now, I'm somewhat jaded about WOW and have quit playing, but I'm glad that newbies are being introduced to games through their partners. It sort of says something about the accessibility of World of Warcraft to the non-gamer. If she's been able to stick to WOW for 14 or 15 levels so far, whereas before you couldn't get her to sit in front of the Xbox to play a platformer for a hour without being frustrated and quitting -- that's pretty cool.

* Through some effort (direct questions!), some of them have managed to drag out a few bits about my personal life. :P

** I also get asked technical computer questions. Like, "What kind of laptop do you suggest I buy?"

Experienced Players Are Often Worth Listening To

One of my friends recently started playing World of Warcraft. He's one of those people who would rather ask someone about something instead of first searching for the information for himself in the instruction manual or on the internet. Indeed, he actively refuses to read the instruction manual.

I don't mind answering questions if the information is complex, not intuitive, or not easily found in an information resource. It's also fine if people miss some things when they read the manual. I know I have missed many details in the manual, and it's nice when people are patient with your newbie-ness. It also helps when experienced players give you advice that is not found in the instruction manuals.

He also asks questions I consider stupid/not serious, such as "How do I change my [character's] boob size?" or "How do I whore myself out?" or "How do I have sex in the game?" Questions like this irritate me, but whatever. I played along and told him to announce his intentions in General Chat.

Last week, he actually had a serious question, about selling items. Basic information, of course, can be found in the instruction manual, but I guess some people like consulting others. The conversation went something like this*:

Newbie Friend: How do I sell stuff?

Brinstar: Talk to a vendor (open the dialogue window).

NF: What vendors?

B: You know those people at the inns who sell you food and drink? You can sell stuff to them.

NF: The innkeepers?

B: Yeah, it's sometimes the innkeepers. So you talk to one of them. Then you open your bags and right-click on the item you want to sell.

For many items in World of Warcraft, selling crap ("grey" items) to merchants is fine. However, there are some items that could be sold to other players at the Auction House, fetching higher prices than selling to an NPC.

When I was a new World of Warcraft player (and I think I still have a lot to learn), I was told to download the Auctioneer Add-On. I was just told that it would help me sell stuff at the Auction House. Fair enough. Things that help are good. I deferred to the greater experience and knowledge of other WOW players, as well as their higher levels of nerdiness. I was told it would be useful, so I installed it. Though I didn't do any background reading on Auctioneer at that time, using it for the first time revealed how the Add-On worked and just how invaluable it was.

Auctioneer is a tool used to help you buy and sell items on the Auction House by taking a snapshot of current market prices for a particular item. It's extremely helpful in determining what prices you should set when you create auctions. It saves you from taking the time to scan the market manually, and saves you from making all the calculations about the prices you set for your items.

So, I told my friend:

Brinstar: You can get better prices for some items if you sell them on the AH.

Newbie Friend: AH?

B: Auction House.

NF: Ah.

B: I recommend that you download the Auctioneer add-on. It helps you determine what prices you should sell items for by telling you the current market price for goods.

NF: I don't cheat.

B: It's not a cheat. It's a tool to help you set prices for items you sell.

NF: I don't cheat!!!!

The conversation ended there because he continued to insist that he wasn't a cheater, despite my attempts to explain further what Auctioneer does.

Another MSN conversation about selling items ocurred a day or so later. He had been happily selling items to NPC vendors, which is fine and dandy. I suggested that he should be selling "green" or "blue" items on the Auction House because he would get significantly more money selling there rather than to the NPCs. He asked me how much more money he could get, and I told him that it really depended on the item and the level of demand for that item, but he would usually get more than what the computer would give him. He then told me that he had sold a few green items to NPCs.

A couple days after that, it seemed that my advice about selling items on the Auction House had finally sunk in. He sends me a message on MSN:

Newbie Friend: Okay, how do I make an auction?

Brinstar: Talk to the Auctioneer to bring up the auction panel. Navigate to the Create Auction Tab (at the bottom of the auction panel). Open your bags, and right-click on the item you would like to sell. Set your base price and the buy out price in the auction panel.

The next day, I get an IM on MSN:

Newbie Friend: How do I know what price to sell my items for at the Auction House?

*facepalm*

Brinstar: This is why I told you to download and install the Auctioneer add-on. It scans the current market price for items and helps you set your prices for when you want to sell stuff.

Newbie Friend: Is that illegal?

B: No. Blizzard has made it easy for people to create add-ons for World of Warcraft. This isn't a cheat, it's a tool to make your life easier.

*sigh* :? We'll see if he actually follows my advice.

* I'm paraphrasing these conversations because the actual conversations are more drawn-out and digressed away from WOW at times. I'm conveying the important bits of this particular topic.

Extended Pause

I cancelled my subscription to World of Warcraft. Originally I was just going to take a break so I could play a lot of Guild Wars during the winter festivities. I have enjoyed playing WOW for the most part, however I have found it harder and harder to ignore many of the irritations in the game so I'm going to extend the break indefinitely.

The World of Warcraft account management page gives you the option to tell them why you are cancelling. Amusingly, one of the options in the drop-down menu is "Patch (New)." I guess enough people were canceling because of the recent game updates for them to add this option? I told Blizzard that I was cancelling my subscription to play Guild Wars.

I can still play WOW until 2nd January, which is when my paid time expires, but I doubt I will be doing much.

Oh, that reminds me. I should probably send an in-game letter to the person who made me a member of their guild. I was randomly questing when someone whispered and asked me whether I wanted to join their "new endgame raiding guild." I told them that I wasn't an alt and that it would take me a long time to reach level 60 (I am level 34). They said it didn't matter, so I joined the guild. Anyway, I'd best let them know that I'm going to stop playing.

Pausing WOW for Wintersday 2006

Wintersday, the Guild Wars in-game winter celebration of the rivalry between Grenth, the god of death and cold and Dwayna, the goddess of life and air, is due to begin soon. I loved the Wintersday celebrations last year; it was my first true taste of a Guild Wars in-game event.

A few posts ago, I said I would be cutting back on World of Warcraft, and I have done so. However, now that Wintersday is coming up in Guild Wars, I am actually going to pretty much stop playing WOW until the festivities are over. I may check in to sell some stuff on the Auction House when the Auctioneer add-on is has been fixed, but I doubt I will make any time to do anything else.

My Warlock is well and truly stagnant at the moment, at level 34.5 or so. I doubt that I will be able to reach 40 and get my Felsteed before the Wintersday events begin, so there's little point in trying to grind through quests I dislike and to look for a group for Gnomeregan using the clunky LFG interface.

What's that? World of Warcraft has winter events, quests, items, and festivities, as well? Yeah. Don't care. Let's go Grenth!

[Wintersday in Guild Wars -- My blog entry about the Wintersday 2005 events ]

[Wintersday Finale -- My photos from the 2005 Wintersday celebrations]

MySpace for WOW

I detest MySpace, but I'm on it anyway. I often think about deleting my account. The Warcraft Social Network is a MySpace clone for World of Warcraft. This may be kind of lame, but I created an account.

Your profile displays your main character's basic information, as well as your own basic information. You can add alts to your profile. You can search for players by faction, realm, race, class, etc.

It's still in beta, and there are a lot of features that could stand to be added, such as more options to keep data off of public profiles.

Because of the lack of more robust privacy options, I won't post my profile here. However you are welcome to search for me. :P If you find me, and you decide to leap onto the nerdy social networking bandwagon, you can add me to your friends list.

I'm wondering whether Rupture won't just replace this.

EDIT: After mucking about on the site for a bit, it's very clear that this is a US-centric social networking site. There is no option to choose a server that isn't an American server, and there is no option to list anything besides AIM as your instant messaging client. How disappointing*! I sent them some feedback with these and other complaints suggestions.

* I do use AIM (and Yahoo! and ICQ via Trillian), but I prefer MSN because of the UI, and due to habit -- it was the first IM application I started using regularly because all my (British/international) friends were using it. Only when I returned to the US after university did I discover that the majority of Americans use AIM.