tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32878593351749018212024-03-18T19:38:55.998-04:00Parallel ContextWhat Used to be a Pair of Views on GamingRedbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.comBlogger1361125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-48453347944006818072024-03-18T06:00:00.003-04:002024-03-18T06:00:00.131-04:00Meme Monday: Thirsty RPG MemesNo, I don't mean memes designed by the Hydro Homies Subreddit either.<div><br /></div><div>My poking around in Baldur's Gate 3 has made me wonder a bit about just how horny is everybody out there. I mean, I get it that you're young and whatnot, but more than once I've watched a cutscene in an MMO or RPG and thought "Just how much of this is wish fulfillment?"</div><div><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaRUcwdgciJimgG3NbLtRjBYuMbGzodDNWXSdzuV1YymovLd7WB6LPFvq-BNtXFPIQoe2lu3FKTSpPCiHdCPjjIpvQV5ZEptW6OEvtIirKCQbdV26WWC9s9sLVFLGRJnZhVQPa7DS0LKMEz0BwMYWphrAR-TGaEBS-xxu6e7cfvqEI6R7cswYZkCGqYKE/s1280/swtor-fluke.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaRUcwdgciJimgG3NbLtRjBYuMbGzodDNWXSdzuV1YymovLd7WB6LPFvq-BNtXFPIQoe2lu3FKTSpPCiHdCPjjIpvQV5ZEptW6OEvtIirKCQbdV26WWC9s9sLVFLGRJnZhVQPa7DS0LKMEz0BwMYWphrAR-TGaEBS-xxu6e7cfvqEI6R7cswYZkCGqYKE/w400-h225/swtor-fluke.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, it wasn't a fluke, Kira. <br />Wait just a minute; you could have <br /><i>said</i> something, you know...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Thankfully I began playing BG3 <i>after</i> there was a hotfix to get some of the NPCs to, uh, not get so horny for you so quickly, to which I thought "Holy crap, it was even <i>faster</i> earlier??!!!"</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to have to go in the direction of assuming that a lot of these romances and whatnot are primarily wish fulfillment and they just get hornier quicker. And that I wasn't hanging out with an extremely slow moving and prudish crowd in my teenage/college years. </div><div><br /></div><div>Still, RPGs and MMOs do now have their share of very thirsty NPCs these days to match the horny PCs. So in honor of all this thirstiness in the genres, here's a selection of memes on the topic...</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhObWkC_DT_mueQOHlAgVmoB041j975T3cl6iiE_cB83HPdfW7bdpZ_cOpCQsal8ucdFgv9zJc50QXepeVvu1qMFvSWL6j_O5n8n2JCOgWssewBtqlphjx6cdgELCMfQUK2XJ6b-6IdN0Fc8xg-57ONWYDMhRCMrjO34s0_Pd1pr8BuCi8y-KCmZPAdmGw/s640/dndmemes-thirsty.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhObWkC_DT_mueQOHlAgVmoB041j975T3cl6iiE_cB83HPdfW7bdpZ_cOpCQsal8ucdFgv9zJc50QXepeVvu1qMFvSWL6j_O5n8n2JCOgWssewBtqlphjx6cdgELCMfQUK2XJ6b-6IdN0Fc8xg-57ONWYDMhRCMrjO34s0_Pd1pr8BuCi8y-KCmZPAdmGw/w400-h400/dndmemes-thirsty.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You know, the Paladin doesn't <i>have</i> to be the<br />thirsty one... From dndmemes.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eTHw99__Vb3bp6ggSkYR700ue_E08fyDJMC4HSBW3kGEUu97eR_Le-t-Hg4mzPdKjSCWb4IZ6nsGAsZwxKz8oMlgq-g3AwaC5JhtlpLQU4rLdxu7LohK67ZuicdnSvfCnKZuY1o-UZ2Lo6la7dPaYoNzvNmyCUIZhr9tprwL7GQaKseIJyCiIyVZ0DY/s640/animalnouncomics-romances.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5eTHw99__Vb3bp6ggSkYR700ue_E08fyDJMC4HSBW3kGEUu97eR_Le-t-Hg4mzPdKjSCWb4IZ6nsGAsZwxKz8oMlgq-g3AwaC5JhtlpLQU4rLdxu7LohK67ZuicdnSvfCnKZuY1o-UZ2Lo6la7dPaYoNzvNmyCUIZhr9tprwL7GQaKseIJyCiIyVZ0DY/w400-h400/animalnouncomics-romances.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, that escalated quickly.<br />From animalnouncomics.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibm4YFzlqhup-Hhi4JqIkvAZDkfehuWYqgx_IlJxGpTJ0YoU41h5endYifhL2_xXnuZrudDKO52fG60Z_dLWW5rI47XepqIdmXI5Znu2-zTw_mTIWRtpIFg32xYxJfsdcKyzaCi_zIogk6emwqtWW3sg7z-WFBr1ByzDLw2RO9WnRCfdCBgp7uXK5EkC4/s750/demotivational-clear-orders.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibm4YFzlqhup-Hhi4JqIkvAZDkfehuWYqgx_IlJxGpTJ0YoU41h5endYifhL2_xXnuZrudDKO52fG60Z_dLWW5rI47XepqIdmXI5Znu2-zTw_mTIWRtpIFg32xYxJfsdcKyzaCi_zIogk6emwqtWW3sg7z-WFBr1ByzDLw2RO9WnRCfdCBgp7uXK5EkC4/w320-h400/demotivational-clear-orders.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well, if you ever wondered where<br />dragonkin really came from...<br />From demotivational (I think).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidnDQaT9OzHJarIbogWlrxLuVryfhnX2s0arS3-sOPjyG-GibczlXFsrBcpLysfWLvz1PRKeqY62iJqFhGu5NKv3csz6nSA2NIPetzO8VOPyUWxlr1Vifuajrvh6I3lu_AuRYJxPIBs6Pc48GiLYGmaDDDXgmgEu-9N5Wv82hoDbBnzZMp-FkZ1xNU0_c/s561/imgflip-horny-wizards.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="561" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidnDQaT9OzHJarIbogWlrxLuVryfhnX2s0arS3-sOPjyG-GibczlXFsrBcpLysfWLvz1PRKeqY62iJqFhGu5NKv3csz6nSA2NIPetzO8VOPyUWxlr1Vifuajrvh6I3lu_AuRYJxPIBs6Pc48GiLYGmaDDDXgmgEu-9N5Wv82hoDbBnzZMp-FkZ1xNU0_c/w400-h356/imgflip-horny-wizards.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Well, that certainly explains Elminster's interest<br />in... things. No, not in BG3 specifically (yet), but<br />due to reputation, courtesy of Ed Greenwood's <br />copious novels about the Forgotten Realms.<br />From imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>And one bonus meme for the perpetually thirsty:</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_4VER6_2A0TPBfcjewLW4YCZ_zA-5AvFDLTn2-yOeRyDs4oLx5rHpTLLffufD5fOpzEI1fKHBX2AmizHY04356H5ibcMFLZYNMSS0lmmwvr5ReBTPIstw5oAccM3PnNK-B8e8_tQpKrkKxH2NewK-0NPU10WyE91Z3K67GeGu_vE-C3NMhz8CLMBu6Rw" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_4VER6_2A0TPBfcjewLW4YCZ_zA-5AvFDLTn2-yOeRyDs4oLx5rHpTLLffufD5fOpzEI1fKHBX2AmizHY04356H5ibcMFLZYNMSS0lmmwvr5ReBTPIstw5oAccM3PnNK-B8e8_tQpKrkKxH2NewK-0NPU10WyE91Z3K67GeGu_vE-C3NMhz8CLMBu6Rw=w352-h400" width="352" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You see, Moss' description was the <br />perception of what RPGs were to the<br />people who didn't play. Trying to convince<br />some DMs to actually <i>not</i> inject tons of sex<br />into their campaigns is the challenge I've experienced.<br />From Cheezburger and The IT Crowd.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-61057937030784546552024-03-15T06:00:00.001-04:002024-03-15T06:00:00.252-04:00Point of ReferenceIf there's one game that I play more than any other, it's Sid Meier's Civilization IV.<div><br /></div><div>What, you expected an MMO? WoW, maybe?</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh no, not by a long shot. </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTed-VPhpa_H1sc5ibW22s8hNq4LAzwR_GlVMq085wewJyOxTmrfj6wiRRc4nsga85LxzOOlbC3wfD8fjngQNULEr_Gi1T_s_ORYHOVzXfaHuc31JKIygjzSy_jw7019YEKQAXQSq-IZQOvEStrroG0pFLVoEhPkw0I-mLO_at-YmEd-lpqzyVcRH6Sxc" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTed-VPhpa_H1sc5ibW22s8hNq4LAzwR_GlVMq085wewJyOxTmrfj6wiRRc4nsga85LxzOOlbC3wfD8fjngQNULEr_Gi1T_s_ORYHOVzXfaHuc31JKIygjzSy_jw7019YEKQAXQSq-IZQOvEStrroG0pFLVoEhPkw0I-mLO_at-YmEd-lpqzyVcRH6Sxc=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A rare cultural victory for me, from <br />back in May 2022. I don't save a lot of<br />screencaps, but since I almost always win<br />a space race, this was a notable exception.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I bought the game around 2009 or so*, which honestly works as a counterpoint to WoW, and I ended up re-purchasing the game on Steam a couple of years ago when it was down to $4 or so on one of those Winter or Summer sales. My reasoning was that I'd already gotten my money's worth out of the original game, and I knew that in order to install it on this new PC I'd have to go buy a portable DVD drive, so it kind of made sense to save a few dollars and just buy the game off of Steam instead.</div><div><br /></div><div>Having played the original Civ back in the day, and then Civ III for several years, I knew what I was getting into. Still, even I was surprised at how much I preferred Civ IV to Civ III. I don't think I've even bothered to try to install Civ III on this PC, and even though I dabble a bit in Civ V and Civ VI, I always return to Civ IV.</div><div><br /></div><div>Just how much?</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYyAk3eBhrGtc8ZxcEa5Ui4-wYOLCf-G59DUEf55Psllbh-qY_pQaFNdZHtO41ZgjKRz2b4F6GD8W9V-HxyCU53iDT-msIhINtd2DsyYnB9MDSvubdPH6quPreI0f7BG_sk9q-X7ldWbBGArdRYkWRDMG88hK9cfrjnKqzNcNep1PzZmbdn-hDk36TDWc/s510/2023-playtime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="510" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYyAk3eBhrGtc8ZxcEa5Ui4-wYOLCf-G59DUEf55Psllbh-qY_pQaFNdZHtO41ZgjKRz2b4F6GD8W9V-HxyCU53iDT-msIhINtd2DsyYnB9MDSvubdPH6quPreI0f7BG_sk9q-X7ldWbBGArdRYkWRDMG88hK9cfrjnKqzNcNep1PzZmbdn-hDk36TDWc/w400-h351/2023-playtime.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh.... Whoops.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>That little graphic is from my 2023 Year in Review from Steam. That's roughly half of the year I played Civ IV, because some of those sessions went kind of long. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's the sort of game where I can play for a bit, go away and do something else for a while, and then return to the same session while it's been patiently waiting for me in the background.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unlike it's brethren and other civ sim games, a match of vanilla Civ IV can be cranked out in about 3 hours or less, depending on how wars develop and my need to micromanage city building and development. It's when you add systems such as found in Civ IV: Warlords or Civ IV: Beyond the Sword do the Civ IV matches really start extending in length. I guess for immersion those later iterations of the game are better, but I prefer vanilla Civ IV for the overall simplicity and balance. I've gotten to the point where I can play for about 5-10 minutes and immediately decide whether it's worth it to continue a game or start over, something I can't really do in the latter two for a bit longer.</div><div><br /></div><div>And don't tell Sid Meier this, but the AI in Civ IV is kind of predictable and brainless, so I can switch my own brain off for a bit while playing. That is especially useful during lunch, where I can hop on and play for an hour or so and try to forget anything stressful in the morning.</div><div><br /></div><div>So... If you ever wonder if I spend all my time in WoW or other MMOs, I guess you'll understand that is simply not the case. Hell, I don't even spend the majority of my video game playing in WoW, but rather in a turn-based civ builder game from 2005.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Just a guess, really. No idea as to the exact year.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-4595322301725268132024-03-13T16:25:00.000-04:002024-03-13T16:25:02.641-04:00Behind the CurveMy son informed me the other week that he'd finished Baldur's Gate 3.<div><br /></div><div>Considering that after that first week's worth of excessive playing my time in BG3 had shrunk to practically nothing for a month, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm not into rushing into new content when an MMO expansion hits, but that initial week's worth playing BG3 gave me enough dopamine hits that I could understand the urge to keep playing.* When I realized I was eschewing work to play BG3, I had to dial it back for my own sanity. (And to keep my job, but that kind of goes without saying.)</div><div><br /></div><div>My son didn't have those issues, since he was able to fit in most of BG3 before his current semester of grad school started, and more power to him for that. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm not going to lie and say I was totally fine with all this; I felt a pang of jealousy at how he cruised through the game while I'm plodding along. It's not as if I'm savoring the game, either; at times it feels like when I was speed leveling that Draenei Shaman when TBC Classic came out: I'm constantly plotting my next move and trying to figure out how to progress further through the story.**</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, my MMO playing is at exactly the opposite inflection point from where I am playing a single player RPG. You could say that I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 like other people play World of Warcraft, and you'd not be wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>It's the equivalent of reading a really exciting novel: the pages fly by and you want to get on to the next part just to see what happens. </div><div><br /></div><div>I get that, I really do, but I think that I need to be reminded of that from time to time that people who blitz through content aren't doing it "just to get it over with", but genuinely like the content so much that they're constantly turning that next page to find out what happens. </div><div><br /></div><div>I guess I get cynical about things when, like in TBC Classic, everybody was supposed to follow a playbook to get themselves raid ready as soon as possible. I thought it was only my guild that did that, because a few people I met out in Outland while leveling had completely different (and better) experiences with their guilds in terms of pacing and prepping for raids. However, on further reflection those better experiences had more to do with helping their own leveling Shamans to get leveled and not abandoning them to their fate when the Dark Portal opened. Those guilds, while more helpful to their Shamanistic (and Blood Knight) brethren, still had goals to achieve and raids to prep for; they were just a tad nicer about it, that's all. There were quite a few guilds raiding Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, and Magtheridon while I was somewhere out in Terokkar Forest***, plodding away. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4oMz6KghAiAgoATtyl8wSKQU5CINQdNOcADIRRDLoyZb3SXbmvikWkfjW1XabGdc_zLeia4KIc3J7m_z8rU8N684PLd942IO7gzHeKOvq_lt6z5SwwJGxuvRZ9uFOCKZkcszLOQolvFrXJHv5k1oOp_lWZK4JcGcuMymChw3UcT46YatI2F2RI6bol94/s2560/WoWScrnShot_061821_083022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4oMz6KghAiAgoATtyl8wSKQU5CINQdNOcADIRRDLoyZb3SXbmvikWkfjW1XabGdc_zLeia4KIc3J7m_z8rU8N684PLd942IO7gzHeKOvq_lt6z5SwwJGxuvRZ9uFOCKZkcszLOQolvFrXJHv5k1oOp_lWZK4JcGcuMymChw3UcT46YatI2F2RI6bol94/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_061821_083022.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A blast from the past, from June 18, 2021. If I were in <br />the "sweaty" raid, I'd have only a little over <br />two weeks to get to L70 and through the attunement <br />gauntlet. Our raid team was the one with the<br />"casual" reputation that I despised and started <br />raiding in the last week of July, 2021.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>If I were in those guilds, I'd not have been abandoned, true, but I'd have also been pushed into the regimen all of those other guilds were doing. </div><div><br /></div><div>So why am I okay with it when I'm playing a video game such as Baldur's Gate 3?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>As is typically the case, I believe it has to do with agency.</div><div><br /></div><div>Typically, the way to get me to do something is to let me figure it out on my own and I'll likely end up doing what needs to be done. If I'm forced into doing something by some external force, then I'm going to drag my feet and refuse. Think of it of how people approach taxes: everybody in the US has to file their income tax by April 15th, and a lot of people will procrastinate until the last possible moment to do their taxes. I know people who do that on principle, complaining about their tax rates and whatnot, but I am one of those who simply don't like being told to do their taxes, especially if I'm given some sanctimonious bullshit like what I got as a kid when being told to eat my dinner "because it's good for you."</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOeQZG2orngS9Rn1Xc41ihAP79_9yAwLh3RYPWvEDUop1VJqUSnuLu0k-oG1_tXb1g9-Mbnupd9064YlY9jAwOISh3qxFsdSwM1ccK_tcb11T8Ww6TFmp7iVriOos16DqmHVjkTUGUKh8HxXvRPUGbNAmIMvmmR6Etuq73tLNBNdIo3dfXvq4RxBxNpnU/s643/calvin-and-hobbes-lunch.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="420" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOeQZG2orngS9Rn1Xc41ihAP79_9yAwLh3RYPWvEDUop1VJqUSnuLu0k-oG1_tXb1g9-Mbnupd9064YlY9jAwOISh3qxFsdSwM1ccK_tcb11T8Ww6TFmp7iVriOos16DqmHVjkTUGUKh8HxXvRPUGbNAmIMvmmR6Etuq73tLNBNdIo3dfXvq4RxBxNpnU/w261-h400/calvin-and-hobbes-lunch.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Calvin and Hobbes.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div>Likewise, at work if I'm told I have to do something, I'm probably going to be one of the last people to actually get it finished. I would not do well in a highly regimented environment, such as the military. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHUDfCfSB3voxMEMGlo4pw6LUcgXFeqSsVCvzulV6I0E3wkj0BaTGXL3ddcLippGN4hrm5KMEWwcS2BKRXKx1MRKnP5-TG6LRbJ4-21DRW8glolvCvH71ezM9xESFlf2sa7G-aO-hT6sOpAt7mGQp0UkaSiB9XHcLiCASD6eSab04T6pUcS4zLL2UGAk/s577/imgflip-hawkeye-pierce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="577" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHUDfCfSB3voxMEMGlo4pw6LUcgXFeqSsVCvzulV6I0E3wkj0BaTGXL3ddcLippGN4hrm5KMEWwcS2BKRXKx1MRKnP5-TG6LRbJ4-21DRW8glolvCvH71ezM9xESFlf2sa7G-aO-hT6sOpAt7mGQp0UkaSiB9XHcLiCASD6eSab04T6pUcS4zLL2UGAk/w400-h300/imgflip-hawkeye-pierce.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hawkeye is my spirit animal.<br />From Imgflip (and M*A*S*H).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>From that perspective, you can see why I clashed with progression raiding in an MMO format. When I joined the progression raid team, I did so willingly and pushed myself to get up to speed both gear wise and add-on wise. There weren't requirements for how exactly I went about getting my toon(s) ready for progression raiding; just that I get myself ready. And yes, I willingly went to SixtyUpgrades, Wowhead, and Icy Veins to see where my gaps were. It wasn't a directly communicated expectation, but rather something I did on my own to become a member of the raid team. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was only when TBC Classic came along and raid/guild leadership began making exact demands on the gear and process of getting raid ready did I rebel. The concept of raiding went from only being concerned with the end result ("raid ready") to trying to dictate how it should be done, and those demands weren't limited to my guild. Almost all of the actively raiding guilds on Myzrael-US were guilty of making the same demands on their members starting in TBC Classic, and whether their demands were cloaked in a velvet glove or not, the demands were pretty much the same iron fist: do it or you're not on the raid team. The lone exception that I was aware of was one guild who basically told its members to go do whatever for a month when TBC Classic dropped, and they circled back after that month to see where the guild stood before getting ready to raid. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, that's just raiding. Still, there's nothing that says you can't do whatever you want in an MMO in general. </div><div><br /></div><div>At it's core, that's correct. The design of an MMO is to allow a player to do a variety of activities without saying "you must conform". You could make the argument that modern MMOs have a ton of alternate activities designed with this player choice in mind.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNdNbxgxhb-vIUzzIZt0PqbvnWbG9aCYIwlVbBvn1wVluu47GA3APVhoM7l6KyxGEA6d29armg1KANdrOwOhcV8Bc7sJKqmOOf8ddG7XRboQWhBUKeApX7QXRO8-Qu7lU77KKpJVDlPknoTmej5KG8l-IWHj6HgjveEcn0i1Ve0XTZqM_a70ladReby8/s821/old-chestnut-classic-retail.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="821" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQNdNbxgxhb-vIUzzIZt0PqbvnWbG9aCYIwlVbBvn1wVluu47GA3APVhoM7l6KyxGEA6d29armg1KANdrOwOhcV8Bc7sJKqmOOf8ddG7XRboQWhBUKeApX7QXRO8-Qu7lU77KKpJVDlPknoTmej5KG8l-IWHj6HgjveEcn0i1Ve0XTZqM_a70ladReby8/w400-h260/old-chestnut-classic-retail.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This old chestnut highlights the player choice <br />the modern MMO has versus good ol' Classic.<br />Can't even recall who first made this meme.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>The thing is, MMOs are not merely the sum of systems: there's a social element to them as well, and that is how the problems creep in. </div><div><br /></div><div>In any social endeavor, certain niceties are expected if you want to fit in. Just like proper social etiquette in real life, there's an MMO version of social etiquette when interacting with people. The Wil Wheaton saying "Don't be a dick" is just the bare minimum for social interactions; beyond that MMO interactions are a bit more complex. If you want to do group content in an MMO --especially in today's age-- you're expected to have done the "correct" things to maximize your output. What that entails varies between guilds and groups, but there's a measure of commonality driven by the knowledge that in the "group finder" MMO environment players are interchangeable: if you don't have the right specs/gear/systems settings, you can be painlessly replaced by someone else. And in a pre-group finder MMO, be prepared to submit for inspection if you want in on some group content.</div><div><br /></div><div>Developers have attempted to circumvent such social restrictions with new ideas --LFR raids being the most notable-- but that's a technical solution for what is inherently a people problem. And when I play any group content in an MMO, I feel the social pressure. I never used to, but once you've crossed the Rubicon and been on the progression side of things, the veil of obscurity has been ripped away and you now see things from the lens of those who are judging whether you're good enough to join their raid team.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><i>The best way to find good candidates for your organization is to create what I call positive encounters. Actions speak louder than words, so you need to ensure that these potential new members have some actions by which they can judge you. When you need a specific class, get your best group runners together and advertise that you need said class in order to do an instance. Once you get them in your group, don't mention recruitment. Just run that instance and do your job well. If they do well, tell them you hope to group again and then part ways. If they aren't in an organization, you may subtly mention that you are looking for their class. Do this enought times with enough people, and word will get around that you're a solid outfit. You can't buy better publicity than that and it creates more opportunities for you to use the soft sell.</i> </div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><i>--<b>The Guild Leader's Companion</b> by Adam "Ferrel" Trzonkowski, Page 41.</i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The irony is that I thought this way before I bought The Guild Leader's Companion, because I'd be on guild runs in an instance and guild chat during the run would have a lot of commentary on any pugger's technique, both good and bad, and what their prospects were as a potential member of the raid team. I never saw it myself until I formally joined the progression guild immediately before TBC Classic, and there were plenty of times I wished I had remained ignorant and just enjoyed a dungeon run or a raid.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess that's where the irony creeps in. A single player game, such as an RPG, doesn't have that sort of social pressure. There's nobody looking over your shoulder, judging your gameplay, dropping comments and/or hints about how you could have done better. Nobody is pulling you into a Discord chat about how you could up your DPS a bit more so you could overcome that last fight more quickly. Nobody is telling you what extra gear pieces you should farm for. Nobody is suggesting a link in Wowhead to go check out to improve your gameplay. In a single player game, the only person you have to please is yourself. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS7UCynDyOQYyeF7UHLL_MPz2GUskwpF6ooXWPoXvTeQqduNe3_WvVfhU1OYucak3Km-zqKU6oMrZ_02o-Reb7S3psrY0Oem10902eIuKE2fRceveziQl5552-LcyKKdExaTs032PDPFgsL946dPvyNtotWTNItMhZ9ESB_rum5JXgtqRvC4cEiG4AzQ/s250/tumblr_inline_pe3ebbu3m71uaml1j_250.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="245" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS7UCynDyOQYyeF7UHLL_MPz2GUskwpF6ooXWPoXvTeQqduNe3_WvVfhU1OYucak3Km-zqKU6oMrZ_02o-Reb7S3psrY0Oem10902eIuKE2fRceveziQl5552-LcyKKdExaTs032PDPFgsL946dPvyNtotWTNItMhZ9ESB_rum5JXgtqRvC4cEiG4AzQ/w392-h400/tumblr_inline_pe3ebbu3m71uaml1j_250.gif" width="392" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And Garrus. You ought to please<br />Garrus too. From Tumblr.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Because of that, I can focus as much or little of my time on the metagame without any recriminations.****</div><div><br /></div><div>I haven't gone and pulled up walkthroughs or YouTube videos or gone to other websites that would cause spoilers in BG3, but the plotting does remain. I know that there's an optimal way of doing things --that's a drawback to any game, really-- but I don't seek it out. Most importantly, I don't have people telling me (or others in a chat I'm not part of) that I'm not playing it right in one form or another.</div><div><br /></div><div>To a certain extent ignorance is bliss, I suppose.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, about that Arcane Tower in BG 3...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Sort of. I still don't quite get people who took off for a week's worth of vacation when TBC Classic (and other WoW expacs) released, given that at least here in the US paid vacation isn't very copious to begin with, and if I told my wife I was going to burn a week's worth of my vacation time playing video games for upwards of 18 hours a day she'd have a conniption fit. If I were retired that'd be a different story, but I think I'd be expected to travel a lot, and I'm not as big on that these days either.</div><div><br /></div><div>**For the record, yes, my character has been immersed in the other party members' backstories. Let's just say I was surprised at how easily certain relationships "progressed", which made me wonder if there was something I was missing out on in real life if fictional relationships moved at this sort of speed.</div><div><br /></div><div>***The Terokkar Forest zone was exactly in the middle of the Outland leveling experience. So, while I was halfway through, I still had a ways to go.</div><div><br /></div><div>****Unless you're streaming, I suppose, but I don't stream because I don't like having a peanut gallery watching my every move.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-67168673493839875452024-03-11T06:00:00.023-04:002024-03-11T06:00:00.247-04:00Meme Monday: Hunter MemesHunters, Rangers, Wardens --whatever you want to call them-- are a mainstay in Fantasy MMOs. They're characterized by an animal companion that attacks (or tanks) enemies while you stay back at distance and rain arrows/bullets on the baddies. <div><br /></div><div>That style of play has a lot of appeal to it, not the least of which is that a Hunter can solo a lot of enemies that other classes (::cough:: Mage or Paladin ::cough::) would have difficulty with. Of course, that Hunter mentality tends to create... Issues...</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiih_Ns0nNT66jyjTlUp1M7TpTSalwOEaOvcSjjw9y4pnUPQr0pWSVycyklTMtC4qxPIihyDFLulEyq5ciq-0Xrzq4omQCgTaUvnpASZLY2yoF-_I-W0z9sz60Jk6pM7UyNyDmZcWPCi_cMYHh3p5Pps2n5VgrLZ9eJB9qsI891-iuf6b0MFAbj1P4qhvg/s639/ifunnyco-permit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiih_Ns0nNT66jyjTlUp1M7TpTSalwOEaOvcSjjw9y4pnUPQr0pWSVycyklTMtC4qxPIihyDFLulEyq5ciq-0Xrzq4omQCgTaUvnpASZLY2yoF-_I-W0z9sz60Jk6pM7UyNyDmZcWPCi_cMYHh3p5Pps2n5VgrLZ9eJB9qsI891-iuf6b0MFAbj1P4qhvg/w313-h400/ifunnyco-permit.jpg" width="313" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While raids may designate Hunters<br />as the puller, it helps to coordinate<br />with the Raid Leads. From ifunny.co.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So, without further ado, some Hunter memes for this March Monday:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfqCeBKLRVfvOZfUrBwDAWTRgF8M4aU5rWaFLrAU8J9TdoS6_5Ps-LcRQkCzvRpYKhZOcoOFgqhcxxzn5jZdoZx-4EEiE5QVZlIvEPd6t9PNKii9mfAjsYgSI6oq4vAyTgU0h9c51deQdzNgnR6xtD2GfS2k-_8ArWcyyPFNC1YNdi5ZQrXDu10uJQds/s572/imgflip-hunter-originality.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfqCeBKLRVfvOZfUrBwDAWTRgF8M4aU5rWaFLrAU8J9TdoS6_5Ps-LcRQkCzvRpYKhZOcoOFgqhcxxzn5jZdoZx-4EEiE5QVZlIvEPd6t9PNKii9mfAjsYgSI6oq4vAyTgU0h9c51deQdzNgnR6xtD2GfS2k-_8ArWcyyPFNC1YNdi5ZQrXDu10uJQds/w350-h400/imgflip-hunter-originality.png" width="350" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although there are a ton of pets to choose<br />from, Hunters in WoW tend to follow the<br />crowd. I've been told that Petopia is the go-to<br />for all things Hunter. From Imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRbCZ7UfbDEq_0TpL2XpNR1-d29BaNzJEhXtdwPyZ4O5OtQPO8Qw40VSauF2ybcG_C-UCJdF-kJc9ZUKcJASnkNwrmuYXoXEyfHkX7i10u-aFGc5hETdi-KjFigWDO8p73oTzonV31bWo2apQNYNWyGbDcUixynw3IHG4H10aqXjsadv_-3ID-VYkQOOg/s744/skeletonbooty-mobs.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRbCZ7UfbDEq_0TpL2XpNR1-d29BaNzJEhXtdwPyZ4O5OtQPO8Qw40VSauF2ybcG_C-UCJdF-kJc9ZUKcJASnkNwrmuYXoXEyfHkX7i10u-aFGc5hETdi-KjFigWDO8p73oTzonV31bWo2apQNYNWyGbDcUixynw3IHG4H10aqXjsadv_-3ID-VYkQOOg/w323-h400/skeletonbooty-mobs.png" width="323" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"About those more mobs..."<br />From @skeletonbooty.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvK2JqF5Kcpo7AqbfzLuEOiHRZ10J9m60FVL0xSsMXQvusB3zxZwFe4nhPCmUtUaxPP1JYHKujX3NGb2uvEu_tcXcSYNOIbrkXNLBEkGysSvEi9TuMoW0cFA2wydtB8kmtEnJtribTHb-RShIQQp6eDTTH9XvS2_pJ0lLnGLOYWitdxL2NxGsT98LuNY/s750/pinterest-feign-death.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvK2JqF5Kcpo7AqbfzLuEOiHRZ10J9m60FVL0xSsMXQvusB3zxZwFe4nhPCmUtUaxPP1JYHKujX3NGb2uvEu_tcXcSYNOIbrkXNLBEkGysSvEi9TuMoW0cFA2wydtB8kmtEnJtribTHb-RShIQQp6eDTTH9XvS2_pJ0lLnGLOYWitdxL2NxGsT98LuNY/w400-h320/pinterest-feign-death.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...this is what those extra mobs lead to.<br />From Pinterest (and likely Demotivational.)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjzLkTM5G6KsNt6ouF0ahZyKxIzJmGPACbEIVpnWAa1kwTA_TmsC64bWFcjrPVTC2HOuYiS8CqWQBNeMQoYKUa4a5f76C2t0DTNiAsmweJlOZ1sKNkeHH3B1MfKz9FD72tyGRqWBLqqlwLRCZZ6AAuqWARRW0Zlfah8Q9K0WN0-nd3cWAX_aCSCyZ47NA/s233/overly-attached-hunter.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="233" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjzLkTM5G6KsNt6ouF0ahZyKxIzJmGPACbEIVpnWAa1kwTA_TmsC64bWFcjrPVTC2HOuYiS8CqWQBNeMQoYKUa4a5f76C2t0DTNiAsmweJlOZ1sKNkeHH3B1MfKz9FD72tyGRqWBLqqlwLRCZZ6AAuqWARRW0Zlfah8Q9K0WN0-nd3cWAX_aCSCyZ47NA/w400-h371/overly-attached-hunter.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Of course, Hunters do name their pets, and it can<br />sometimes get awkward. From Quickmeme.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eU4cGgjXvJmNh7VsmVUFvDTGNh0uJu3PvlfW8PIhcLizZVKnYRYsbwAGlFMqHaFu6dDsHgzPyv3KIHPYxDycHBmgyKR06CHXRJ0wKZmjs0NzHTOX_ssFlyEje_s64OBS3uKjw28QL6iCyh9PzTIP9AFa78U5x8S4OGDyDx_RAParVfOtD2q1Ha7PzRM/s640/imgflip-joker-hunter-top-dps.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eU4cGgjXvJmNh7VsmVUFvDTGNh0uJu3PvlfW8PIhcLizZVKnYRYsbwAGlFMqHaFu6dDsHgzPyv3KIHPYxDycHBmgyKR06CHXRJ0wKZmjs0NzHTOX_ssFlyEje_s64OBS3uKjw28QL6iCyh9PzTIP9AFa78U5x8S4OGDyDx_RAParVfOtD2q1Ha7PzRM/w400-h225/imgflip-joker-hunter-top-dps.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can't argue with that one. From Imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><br /><div>And one extra Hunter meme...</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLEAJ3zXXl106wpqCyhsWARghC661_hWxa-UMXUSN6jNEPydQkoCu5UMiCjR0tegR6D05pMQ5TQUdbz0PhVGUzYsGUj_TdFHbqVS9jIZIXngaoT1ykxDy_5ksyiTL2GD2IguxOsWBHyo7qMCfz8HYgtwPmg8l0aFUZx5IqxcMwwqFzIQMAPGkX2OEpi4/s1079/imgflip-weapons.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="1079" height="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLEAJ3zXXl106wpqCyhsWARghC661_hWxa-UMXUSN6jNEPydQkoCu5UMiCjR0tegR6D05pMQ5TQUdbz0PhVGUzYsGUj_TdFHbqVS9jIZIXngaoT1ykxDy_5ksyiTL2GD2IguxOsWBHyo7qMCfz8HYgtwPmg8l0aFUZx5IqxcMwwqFzIQMAPGkX2OEpi4/w400-h374/imgflip-weapons.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Because Hunters do have that reputation of<br />rolling on everything because "It's a<br />Hunter Weapon!" From imgflip again.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-5775258687876156892024-03-07T11:34:00.006-05:002024-03-07T18:28:14.898-05:00Random News and Notes for a ThursdayIf you post coffee memes, beware: your readership will explode.<div><br /></div><div>Given that there's literally hundreds of coffee memes out there, why on earth I got a sudden explosion in views on PC when I posted a few of my favorites is beyond me. It's not like they're that new, either, but oh well.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpMQLpU6b0jl13CqOpWY9COPh2NZVIx82bz44ELQ1Jau0mrDRHeFXF60bT-DrIAtqUD966keIgKRtTidnJbnYGmazjj442q_kiK2c32SGVZQrYDTv9zuUkJCrgYd_aoSL59YhSZV53_lD6yudsae2CT2a_EkvGjGPwVLsv6L23DWuT4aM6frcaaXsr4Y/s1024/laugh-lore-coffee.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpMQLpU6b0jl13CqOpWY9COPh2NZVIx82bz44ELQ1Jau0mrDRHeFXF60bT-DrIAtqUD966keIgKRtTidnJbnYGmazjj442q_kiK2c32SGVZQrYDTv9zuUkJCrgYd_aoSL59YhSZV53_lD6yudsae2CT2a_EkvGjGPwVLsv6L23DWuT4aM6frcaaXsr4Y/w400-h400/laugh-lore-coffee.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm not above using one of the ones that missed<br />the cut for a few extra pageviews. What I find<br />disturbing is how close the 'After' picture looks like<br />David Tennant. From Laugh Lore.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Under the header of 'video games getting a board game treatment', there's a beloved Bioware franchise that has a boardgame in the works:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gs3T6aNWZoELFsLD0XntyNF5YDzswQ5HbZo6B4Vmjjcv6s8J3hVBvoFZfPq256YqDXYTm2UNEybsb4xp1-jG8FsQFRGBVR6INvtRBu8702vuWGtAlCy2YZCCe1vtnvKHyROJ16ib_dLWFcSkNAYw23kOBZr7a_NylHInXCd5UkflaAyl14LSEyTi3kE/s581/modiphius-mass-effect.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="581" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gs3T6aNWZoELFsLD0XntyNF5YDzswQ5HbZo6B4Vmjjcv6s8J3hVBvoFZfPq256YqDXYTm2UNEybsb4xp1-jG8FsQFRGBVR6INvtRBu8702vuWGtAlCy2YZCCe1vtnvKHyROJ16ib_dLWFcSkNAYw23kOBZr7a_NylHInXCd5UkflaAyl14LSEyTi3kE/w400-h321/modiphius-mass-effect.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This landed in my Inbox on Monday<br />from Modiphius.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>Yes, Modiphius is going to publish Mass Effect: The Board Game, a cooperative and story-driven boardgame designed by Eric M. Lang and Calvin Wong Tze Loon for 1-4 players. It sounds interesting at first blush, and given how Modiphius tends to have high quality plastic pieces in their games, this ought to look pretty too. <a href="https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/pages/mass-effect-signup" target="_blank">Here's the signup page</a> for more info and to receive emails about the release of the game itself. Just make sure you fill out the correct info for US vs UK/Europe so you end up with the correct website.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>You know, the Dracthyr race in Retail World of Warcraft has taken some lumps for it's decidedly un-dragonkin-like look.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk16LsMaCcAIS3qor1DSBtj2pkYv4ZkYATxJSVAH25QRjn055JOoJguluK9-RhlAH8Ed3tL7UGdNvPzQv7VpVfS6-5sgnCY7sSpNvgydviSVTNqk8jkLxbM7wYevl77k-A6DCwkfIO9eEskLcKkHmA9286hQfCje7MfQHA6BSKfg9jN4VvdGmDJztIaUk/s1000/dracthyr-wowpedia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk16LsMaCcAIS3qor1DSBtj2pkYv4ZkYATxJSVAH25QRjn055JOoJguluK9-RhlAH8Ed3tL7UGdNvPzQv7VpVfS6-5sgnCY7sSpNvgydviSVTNqk8jkLxbM7wYevl77k-A6DCwkfIO9eEskLcKkHmA9286hQfCje7MfQHA6BSKfg9jN4VvdGmDJztIaUk/w400-h266/dracthyr-wowpedia.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Wowpedia.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>I was perusing some RPG sites the other day, and I came across some artwork from RuneQuest that made me go "hmmm..."</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitfhWdBUFMKwrnDwbzP0na_glqKY2MXKVkIIQZzzeRBMzBrjlQVY28WV0Zof7hAZiNoVC3xeE69iYw2PYP_GXvomNU9u0Hlmj-I3K2pv_zURJ1CYjHrsv9BhVZbD5Mb8aihFm56-7rI1HdCT2RhdS9h6PZPsu2-irahcZ6G9zEnNd0knVVBuOZmSRfL7I/s900/dragonewts-6-900.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="900" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitfhWdBUFMKwrnDwbzP0na_glqKY2MXKVkIIQZzzeRBMzBrjlQVY28WV0Zof7hAZiNoVC3xeE69iYw2PYP_GXvomNU9u0Hlmj-I3K2pv_zURJ1CYjHrsv9BhVZbD5Mb8aihFm56-7rI1HdCT2RhdS9h6PZPsu2-irahcZ6G9zEnNd0knVVBuOZmSRfL7I/w400-h253/dragonewts-6-900.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look vaguely familiar?<br />Found on Glorantha Bestiary, Pages 36-37.<br />Verified with my copy. Also found <a href="https://corytregoerdner.artstation.com/projects/oaPOq" target="_blank">here at Artstation</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>These are Dragonewts, as drawn by Cory Trego-Erdner back in 2016-2017, for the RuneQuest Glorantha Bestiary. </div><div><br /></div><div>In RuneQuest, <a href="https://glorantha.tumblr.com/post/96654096148/whats-the-deal-with-dragonnewts" target="_blank">Dragonewts</a> claim to be the oldest sentient species and are one of the races found in the main starting area in RuneQuest, Dragon Pass. Now admittedly there's only so much an artist can do with the basic dragon design, but the reason why I don't mind the look of the Dracthyr is that they do evoke a similar look as that found in RuneQuest. The lore is obviously very distinct, but given that nobody seems to bitch about the lore of Dracthyr so much as that they don't look "cool enough", that's my two cents on the matter.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, I wanted to mention a long departed podcast that really sucked me into RPGs back in the day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Before "modern times" and the proliferation of podcasts in their current monetized form, Chuck Tinsley and Lonnie Ezell created the Dragons Landing Inn podcast back in 2005. They kept it going for about 126-130 episodes, and then Steve and Rob kind of picked up the mantle for a dozen episodes or so in a relatively unmoderated format until the podcast faded away. When I asked my brother-in-law what good RPG and gaming podcasts were out there, he said without hesitation "Dragons Landing Inn".</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8FFlwWil5HjJyTO80QdIyMDXFngG93Pgle9LYIWhlQsGXJiCcNjkKqx_hRKLXIDJdrf15_rBudHtD2w1WbrsdLod4P1yp0YNf2mKnY34qOHc3XXHSK11pQ8XM3L2QjgTy8R66CzZVwFumZr-i7QoLY39jeqBueBR4yHuhi5HKsAPOQbIp7nb8-iCFvas/s209/DLI%20Image.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8FFlwWil5HjJyTO80QdIyMDXFngG93Pgle9LYIWhlQsGXJiCcNjkKqx_hRKLXIDJdrf15_rBudHtD2w1WbrsdLod4P1yp0YNf2mKnY34qOHc3XXHSK11pQ8XM3L2QjgTy8R66CzZVwFumZr-i7QoLY39jeqBueBR4yHuhi5HKsAPOQbIp7nb8-iCFvas/s16000/DLI%20Image.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've tried to find a better version<br />of their graphic to no avail.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>With the tagline "Gaming Goodness", Chuck and Lonnie would espouse on RPGs, whatever the news was in RPG space, and eventually would broach RPG specific topics on running a campaign and having a rules set fit the type of campaign you wanted to play. Although the news is quite dated --it began in a time before D&D 4e and Pathfinder existed-- the old podcasts are still available via the Internet Archive <a href="https://archive.org/details/dragons_landing_inn-podcast_archive" target="_blank">at this link</a>. I don't believe they're complete, as the original podcasts start at Episode 27, so you'll have to search the Internet Archive for individual episodes to complete the entire run of DLI.</div><div><br /></div><div>I still have my old downloads of DLI on my desktop. I've dutifully backed up and transferred them over the almost two decades that they came out, and have no intention of ever deleting them. Given how podcasting has evolved as a format since DLI's heyday, it's refreshing to find a podcast in a raw, unmonetized state (and low bit-rate) still providing entertainment. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>EtA: Corrected grammar.</div><div><br /></div><div>EtA: Corrected more grammar. Sheesh.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-23751631405878923972024-03-05T06:00:00.013-05:002024-03-06T17:18:57.612-05:00What is the Point of a Legendary Item if Everybody Has One?<p>Or rather, if the game assumes everybody has one?</p><p>Of course, that question is predicated on a lot of assumptions, such as "Why do people play the game?" and "What do the developers believe the players want?"</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVwGpOkQvwx8zxzF02omsKtJG461jDEYH4EW-vcIgIGY0l-yiOyFuRT3LAdyycbGs4BcuPr2VWJhqV8b_QcXE_KinoV65P_E_XlJUShFau7W-0WRl-X_IrAqQk8dM9ox59KUB3AqB3WrIV9C7iQ4TTQizfweMM9bsF-ccGQ2pa4_cWGpFRt5Cl7fnduU/s640/kinks-give-the-people-what-they-want.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSVwGpOkQvwx8zxzF02omsKtJG461jDEYH4EW-vcIgIGY0l-yiOyFuRT3LAdyycbGs4BcuPr2VWJhqV8b_QcXE_KinoV65P_E_XlJUShFau7W-0WRl-X_IrAqQk8dM9ox59KUB3AqB3WrIV9C7iQ4TTQizfweMM9bsF-ccGQ2pa4_cWGpFRt5Cl7fnduU/w400-h400/kinks-give-the-people-what-they-want.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A college acquaintance had the LP and<br />insisted I listen to it (among other LPs of his.)<br />I'll admit I listened to part of it.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Although it wasn't a Legendary item in and of itself, my first experience with an item that "everybody" seemed to want actually predated MMOs and video games by years: the +5 Holy Avenger from AD&D.</p><p>Among players of 1e AD&D, the +5 Holy Avenger was the ultimate weapon in the hands of a Paladin, at the time one of the hardest classes to roll for --and play-- in AD&D. Sticking to the straight and narrow of Lawful Good --in TSR's original Deities and Demigods sourcebook, Galahad was considered a 20th Level Paladin and Lancelot a former Paladin and now merely a 20th Level Fighter-- meant that you couldn't really participate in anything resembling a heist adventure. Or really, depending on how strict your DM was, anything that involved stealth. You were very much the stereotypical Knight riding up to the cave mouth to challenge the Red Dragon inside.</p><p>The Paladin's quest* for a Holy Avenger, either the sword itself or something earth shaking enough to warrant the sword as a reward, was one of the high points of an AD&D campaign. The adventure Fedifensor in Dragon Magazine #67 --<a href="https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/dragon/19/DRA19_Fedifensor.pdf" target="_blank">reproduced here</a> on Wizards' website in PDF form**-- was notable in that it was one of the first published adventures featuring a Holy Avenger (Fedifensor) as well as the first adventure featuring Gith (Githyanki in this case) as the baddies who stumbled upon the sword in the Astral Plane.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6Y4l_PJhMLdd9hXDHU2W1-vV9Qh0r34VOdEl6v1U_H7bBWTRq9GbT1bc4Ct-XA-dMUWf4EDQNXMJScFB30fn__xIqN6dyUePN1HwPKbcMA57wgD4CLpIxysel_7cTZpkIeQLPnH8vq9rQj6hBdWgn5ZWibnwN8S5Wr7lsKdVmVGexuLJkwueTTDOKzc/s1185/dragon-mag-67-fedifensor-main-page.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="912" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ6Y4l_PJhMLdd9hXDHU2W1-vV9Qh0r34VOdEl6v1U_H7bBWTRq9GbT1bc4Ct-XA-dMUWf4EDQNXMJScFB30fn__xIqN6dyUePN1HwPKbcMA57wgD4CLpIxysel_7cTZpkIeQLPnH8vq9rQj6hBdWgn5ZWibnwN8S5Wr7lsKdVmVGexuLJkwueTTDOKzc/w308-h400/dragon-mag-67-fedifensor-main-page.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first page of the Fedifensor scenario<br />by Allen Rogers, from <a href="https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/dragon/19/DRA19_Fedifensor.pdf" target="_blank">Dragon <br />Magazine #67 Page 37</a>. (November 1982)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Still, despite the (supposed) rarity of a +5 Holy Avenger, it wasn't nearly as rare as the Artifact/Relic section in AD&D. Those were one-of-a-kind items that had boatloads of special powers but equally risky side-effects. The Hand and the Eye of Vecna --back in the day when Vecna was <i>merely</i> a powerful Lich who was supposedly dead-- were two artifacts whose first side effect upon grafting them to your body was to turn you immediately Neutral Evil. And the problems only got worse from there. Artifacts and Relics were nothing to be trifled with, even among mortals.*** By contrast, the <a href="https://adnd2e.fandom.com/wiki/Deck_of_Many_Things" target="_blank">Deck of Many Things</a> was just a rare Miscellaneous Magic item, not a Relic of considerable power by itself that merited <a href="https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/the-book-of-many-things/" target="_blank">an entire D&D supplement</a>.</p><p>Having the ultimate item in an RPG adventure has persisted through the years --what Witch or Wizard wouldn't want the Elder Wand, for example-- and so I suppose it's only natural to covet what is best. But if everybody has one, is it really something to covet versus just something to just acquire as part of the normal progression of things?</p><p>And what are game designers to do with game balance when accommodating an item of legendary power?</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>MMOs have a particular problem with this design, because the persistence of the game world and the constant addition of new content mean that what is currently game breaking may be no better than a basic quest reward a few years later. Or, worse, due to game design, that game breaking item might actually be <i>worse</i> than a basic quest reward.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wOeZexy-UXgHjz5N-1oWdJHjv4IAxvlgGmdGM2IHThRTBH_MzrX-J7_zaT2MgNNiUya6aZsyPrLaTtp9ezU3376Ts2ssTdTAC9UWalI0qOGYY2ifavKCn9SE1e-q_jyhKjt8mcmdNwL4TKJqeDchW5dzW_aKw9nYIC4IRlyQMnM4cIiNqNvd9aw-cac/s950/nerfnow-excalibur-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="950" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2wOeZexy-UXgHjz5N-1oWdJHjv4IAxvlgGmdGM2IHThRTBH_MzrX-J7_zaT2MgNNiUya6aZsyPrLaTtp9ezU3376Ts2ssTdTAC9UWalI0qOGYY2ifavKCn9SE1e-q_jyhKjt8mcmdNwL4TKJqeDchW5dzW_aKw9nYIC4IRlyQMnM4cIiNqNvd9aw-cac/w400-h190/nerfnow-excalibur-2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I'm bringing out the old Nerfnow.com<br />comic again for this post.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>This was a particular problem in Vanilla Classic WoW, where it turns out that some quest rewards or dungeon gear drops were better for your class and spec than the raid specific "Tier" gear. For example, while the Mage's Tier 0 or Tier 1 set might look pretty, a variety of crafted gear and dungeon drops were better for Mages overall. This had its drawbacks, as the three piece Bloodvine set had no Stamina bonuses which meant a Mage or Warlock wearing it was extra squishy in a fight****, but there was no denying the superiority of the damage potential for that set.</p><p>However, there were two items that it seemed everybody coveted: the legendary items Thunderfury and Atiesh. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTdKIV1yGENVWnm6cUCdLDjW-0ftv4EqziMeS3jAj9UOaXxj_RXOlQFmj-EUo0M_DHua5H9Md7lBVbFj4XD0DerXWULUla8tHLeVH396VFgdPSjMa2a8XeGWDwDvm0MgkMj6dr1K5iobxE39OmkhuUkkXPGLmz317SGzMFT2MujdECxbrFK38dwXp75c/s744/thunderfury-tshirt.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="556" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqTdKIV1yGENVWnm6cUCdLDjW-0ftv4EqziMeS3jAj9UOaXxj_RXOlQFmj-EUo0M_DHua5H9Md7lBVbFj4XD0DerXWULUla8tHLeVH396VFgdPSjMa2a8XeGWDwDvm0MgkMj6dr1K5iobxE39OmkhuUkkXPGLmz317SGzMFT2MujdECxbrFK38dwXp75c/w299-h400/thunderfury-tshirt.jpg" width="299" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This meme is so old hat that<br />you can now get it on a t-shirt.<br />Yes, really. From <a href="https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/did-someone-say-thunderfury-blessed-blade-of-the-windseeker-by-Bichthao81/75085126.FB110" target="_blank">Redbubble</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Thunderfury looked awesome, but Atiesh, not so much. It looked like a sulphur ball set atop a cane unless you looked closely.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zir7VeNlQ2zNE3-Xn29CD9tjZUj8rFqjR_ahik921viV6yiapTdGmB6hPzqbVZ0mILZRpYEcdp0D80K10pyM9R_pUkZPvTZIoa3wBgAdJvvARVEFQG0qGJIF-xNLp6POwiabA-pKbYXhDYCRJXdK67QmKk362b8wYmDy3HqIRuZ8ynLJYoZhN2QSVw8/s835/wowhead-67714-atiesh-greatstaff-of-the-guardian.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="562" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zir7VeNlQ2zNE3-Xn29CD9tjZUj8rFqjR_ahik921viV6yiapTdGmB6hPzqbVZ0mILZRpYEcdp0D80K10pyM9R_pUkZPvTZIoa3wBgAdJvvARVEFQG0qGJIF-xNLp6POwiabA-pKbYXhDYCRJXdK67QmKk362b8wYmDy3HqIRuZ8ynLJYoZhN2QSVw8/w269-h400/wowhead-67714-atiesh-greatstaff-of-the-guardian.jpg" width="269" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was not impressed.<br />From Wowhead.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Still, there was the general perception that since the work involved to get either item was involved --and in the case of Atiesh it came in the Naxxramas raid, which very few raid teams back in the day completed-- only a few people ever got either item. Even in Classic WoW, guilds usually designated a few select people to be those to work on either questline. </p><p>Between that scarcity and the potential for guild drama, both items were rarely found in WoW.</p><p>I'm not sure where things changed, but gradually the desire for an item of legendary rarity became normalized to the point where access to such legendary items became easier to obtain.</p><p>When I started playing WoW back in 2009, I became aware of legendary items as a "well, unless you raid and you're of the right class and status within a guild, you're not going to get one" sort of item. However, by the time I reached max level the "Fall of the Lich King" patch was released. Yes, everybody remembers the Icecrown Citadel raid, but I remember the decidedly unsexy Patch 3.3 name for two items: Shadowmourne and Quel'Delar.</p><p>That first item, Shadowmourne, is the two-handed legendary axe that people could obtain after completing quests in Icecrown Citadel. I can't speak of the scarcity of Shadowmourne, but one of the last things to do before completing the questline and obtaining Shadowmourne was to actually kill Arthas, the Lich King. Given that took a while for a <i>lot</i> of guilds, and I've mentioned numerous times how smashing your head against ICC for months on end ruined guilds (including mine), I can't imagine a lot of people obtained a Shadowmourne in original Wrath.</p><p>Quel'Delar, on the other hand, was more obtainable although still a bit of a rarity.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>While not a legendary item per se, in order to obtain Quel'Delar you had to complete a questline once you obtained the ol' Battered Hilt, which was a rare drop in the Heroic ICC 5-person instances. </p><p>Although the Wowhead entry for the Battered Hilt mentions a 1-2% drop rate, due to a bug in Patch 3.3 the initial drop rate was a bit higher, and a ton of Battered Hilts dropped before Blizz fixed the bug. I wasn't high enough, gear wise, to get into the instances where the Hilt dropped before the fix, so I had to wait for said Hilt to drop at the "proper" drop rate.</p><p>And wait. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7WdzfcIppYa2vTcV-ks1QilMl7aGBWrC3ESvT_LXvBCdupLPhdgvYR-WsvMwz_2zn36v_xhBGFv2l0b6WU4QY93lb5ljRGtlQBJksGZZJbb4Qvw7_UBhxfMiFKikZmNFwr3kMnRG9feAMXoiARH8oCbmnynjijTuNV4_AWLEwKbyG_kfJUaJAXi_KU0/s390/battered-hilt-wowhead.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="140" data-original-width="390" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7WdzfcIppYa2vTcV-ks1QilMl7aGBWrC3ESvT_LXvBCdupLPhdgvYR-WsvMwz_2zn36v_xhBGFv2l0b6WU4QY93lb5ljRGtlQBJksGZZJbb4Qvw7_UBhxfMiFKikZmNFwr3kMnRG9feAMXoiARH8oCbmnynjijTuNV4_AWLEwKbyG_kfJUaJAXi_KU0/w400-h144/battered-hilt-wowhead.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Wowhead.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>And wait.</p><p>After several months of only seeing exactly one Battered Hilt drop (and losing that roll), I finally got tired of waiting and scraped together the 5000 gold necessary to buy one off the Auction House. It took me a month of steady dungeon running and selling ore to do so; I was going to buy Epic Flying then, but... To me, the questline was very epic, and since my Paladin Quintalan was a Blood Elf it fit perfectly into my race's lore.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCE5MT5PRF12Q1-1sfL15x05zD1utRBdw7tkDtit1Rsvzd04odHzM0VMIgexpJH83lZPhGZ2SyOPgc1Nzx8C_3bb_pXGVb8Y4ro9yuJcvAEt35p0lXpyWYhXI2FUijgroZPl_12IiznO-1jErzbOXuhGc2ox3j-lFzNoSyDqv133cMVAG8vSttZGr_hk/s570/q-dath.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="570" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaCE5MT5PRF12Q1-1sfL15x05zD1utRBdw7tkDtit1Rsvzd04odHzM0VMIgexpJH83lZPhGZ2SyOPgc1Nzx8C_3bb_pXGVb8Y4ro9yuJcvAEt35p0lXpyWYhXI2FUijgroZPl_12IiznO-1jErzbOXuhGc2ox3j-lFzNoSyDqv133cMVAG8vSttZGr_hk/w400-h281/q-dath.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I'm pulling out this old screencap<br />from Eversong as proof.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Judging by how the game has progressed since December 2009, it seems that while Quel'Delar wasn't a legendary item in the same vein as Shadowmourne, Quel'Delar was enough of a success that it seems that Blizzard decided to move more in the direction of using the sword as a model for how to handle legendary items in WoW.</p><p>And with that has come a sense of entitlement from some MMO players that I find both confusing and off-putting.</p><p>If a legendary item is supposed to be rare and difficult to obtain, why does it seem that a lot of players expect to obtain one over the course of an expansion?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CZ-s-ydnAi4ZxuPsbjRD99Rr_4GtIPB144YOx5wqWKG9rLJ8ouPCkM3-bvLKRlbGyKhWm31dL2FaxMjbnDimG3xzEHJsSxGO5882yQcNuzv5laXcm_J9j01rZO0l2opnePNzaDKLSuiQIqlbCfp_iXo0cv4PErd9xp6zvw3q7ER0eFqbINaYCtI1Ntw/s596/reddit-getting-a-legendary-this-patch.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="584" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6CZ-s-ydnAi4ZxuPsbjRD99Rr_4GtIPB144YOx5wqWKG9rLJ8ouPCkM3-bvLKRlbGyKhWm31dL2FaxMjbnDimG3xzEHJsSxGO5882yQcNuzv5laXcm_J9j01rZO0l2opnePNzaDKLSuiQIqlbCfp_iXo0cv4PErd9xp6zvw3q7ER0eFqbINaYCtI1Ntw/w393-h400/reddit-getting-a-legendary-this-patch.jpg" width="393" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1axq995/getting_a_legendary_this_patch_is_not_as_quoted/" target="_blank">this</a> Reddit r/wow thread.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Perhaps this thread by itself doesn't cover the sense of entitlement per se, but...</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2urkdJH08NRCjvkBJNgCglvOG1w8i9nxcLwjGOIjK-N_KNoI6n-CeNCwLnHvqCVCf9n2Y_M7RsaDB7NrmQSSrjiIzyTZf4TsE1TfrQ0HAiNPqPmDxzodyxi-nzLmfTnAFHWObT3n8t3tzaUIdM0KKGaAMAw_jLCSqepl4VXAclhIrJENrqvt7uKPopI0/s1030/reddit-weekly-whine.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="594" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2urkdJH08NRCjvkBJNgCglvOG1w8i9nxcLwjGOIjK-N_KNoI6n-CeNCwLnHvqCVCf9n2Y_M7RsaDB7NrmQSSrjiIzyTZf4TsE1TfrQ0HAiNPqPmDxzodyxi-nzLmfTnAFHWObT3n8t3tzaUIdM0KKGaAMAw_jLCSqepl4VXAclhIrJENrqvt7uKPopI0/w231-h400/reddit-weekly-whine.jpg" width="231" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1aqkz80/weekly_no_legendary_whinge_that_is_all_carry_on/">this</a> thread on r/wow.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I could keep going, but you get the idea.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Perhaps Blizzard is at fault for this sort of behavior, because a lot of their modus operandi in WoW's design is "Awesome players doing awesome things", and what isn't more awesome than having a legendary weapon?</p><p>Well, the funny thing is, if Blizzard designs its systems around teams having one or more legendary items, if you <i>don't</i> have one you suddenly feel like you're behind the curve.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ieZ3iXjWRk" width="320" youtube-src-id="4ieZ3iXjWRk"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">This really just covers commentary around</div><div style="text-align: center;">this phenomenon, so you don't have to read it.</div><div><br /></div><div>This isn't just a Retail WoW phenomenon, because Classic WoW is infested with it too. Just look at all the people who lusted after Thunderfury or Atiesh or Shadowmourne and went back to Classic WoW just to get that. Or their Scarab Lord title and associated mount.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1uouRGupFG7mOdnuu98Zkcb5_JGKiFkp_O5sB6AwW8SIQrPb2ZU4FjL6nBvezU0-zatUf97fssUbhBVRbD4HAhNEQD6aKcwFIg3x2-9wgY1fh1iCkQ890TufsgIEw7xBmYalzH0nFrnaXVX0B7lv9x1pbrccib1Nz7vXbNgCrY6fz4l1GfRl9mQW_tQ/s1510/reddit-scarab-lord.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1510" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1uouRGupFG7mOdnuu98Zkcb5_JGKiFkp_O5sB6AwW8SIQrPb2ZU4FjL6nBvezU0-zatUf97fssUbhBVRbD4HAhNEQD6aKcwFIg3x2-9wgY1fh1iCkQ890TufsgIEw7xBmYalzH0nFrnaXVX0B7lv9x1pbrccib1Nz7vXbNgCrY6fz4l1GfRl9mQW_tQ/w400-h234/reddit-scarab-lord.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Reddit.<br />(And SpongeBob Squarepants.)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess the ultimate question is "Why should we care about motivations when playing an MMO?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, ordinarily I'd be saying that it doesn't matter what others want to do, what <i>you</i> do matters, but when the game design focuses around certain game behaviors, it does matter.</div><div><br /></div><div>Think about the Legion expansion and the Artifact Weapon:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3nOOmDm5AEzDvwntsmQHtvbpTLWUXQke3DSltFx0mNlarEbtdGNvnUrW70tbbhUGwWWHYswHwlTTnJVRYHW4ArWsDRxPWwiLFJm_gmLTW10ucMCEF6M2kGNdW4evk3_EnzdAbkhp5GExsnlM7p-4VF1IOGaupiTxvWBDZo9R5MZoeUSEdj1dAFKuHnU/s1204/ashbringers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1204" data-original-width="495" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3nOOmDm5AEzDvwntsmQHtvbpTLWUXQke3DSltFx0mNlarEbtdGNvnUrW70tbbhUGwWWHYswHwlTTnJVRYHW4ArWsDRxPWwiLFJm_gmLTW10ucMCEF6M2kGNdW4evk3_EnzdAbkhp5GExsnlM7p-4VF1IOGaupiTxvWBDZo9R5MZoeUSEdj1dAFKuHnU/w165-h400/ashbringers.jpg" width="165" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yep. Another blast from the past.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The concept of everybody getting an Artifact Weapon didn't appear out of nowhere. If you're going to be an awesome player doing awesome things, what better way to combat the (then) ultimate power in the WoW-verse than for everybody to have their own Ashbringer (or equivalent)? It was the desire for a Legendary item for everybody baked into an entire expansion. While that fed the desire for a legendary item, it also introduced the so-called Borrowed Power systems into Retail WoW, which had a huge impact on the game's enjoyment and understanding.</div><div><br /></div><div>Good luck trying to explain Borrowed Power to a new player, for instance.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9J8bLtD7ARuJc-HpfnZNnrvUbs3LdAApbKqgMOE2WDZeXAvCKiskAPUrt5I3LJaPSb347ofXBh0TuuL4qRXoHVl9T4k_Fsg-A-BZwNnzQBTR8n3burTmDlMFGiRZDysEQQDB-gkHkFOIOvyGBPY-r36Wk5wL8tu5SmOiY-9uw-HCOZ8mAof4NX0vnms/s3300/reddit-new-gamer.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3300" data-original-width="2550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ9J8bLtD7ARuJc-HpfnZNnrvUbs3LdAApbKqgMOE2WDZeXAvCKiskAPUrt5I3LJaPSb347ofXBh0TuuL4qRXoHVl9T4k_Fsg-A-BZwNnzQBTR8n3burTmDlMFGiRZDysEQQDB-gkHkFOIOvyGBPY-r36Wk5wL8tu5SmOiY-9uw-HCOZ8mAof4NX0vnms/w309-h400/reddit-new-gamer.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Reddit.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>So... What now?</div><div><br /></div><div>Hell, I don't know. I'm just gonna do my own thing, but I worry about whether the player base in general --and Micro-Blizzard# in general-- aren't repeating old mistakes with each new expansion. Why would I think that?</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, no reason...</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GuVXA1JIxFc" width="320" youtube-src-id="GuVXA1JIxFc"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8AD6n9cGOGY" width="320" youtube-src-id="8AD6n9cGOGY"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><p><br /></p><p>*Yes, Paladins would call them quests back then, denoting their outsized importance to the Paladin. Nowadays, people just call any task a "quest" of some sort, but back then a quest was very much in the realm of "rescue the maiden from the Evil Big Bad" sort of thing. No Kill Ten Rats here.</p><p>**I saved a copy locally on my PC just in case Wizards ever yanks the adventure, so I can upload it for future use.</p><p>***And yes, in the era of Elves living 4000 years, they were considered mortal.</p><p>****I was once in a Blackwing Lair Raid while wearing my Bloodvine set, and I kept dying during a specific set of trash pulls. A healer whispered an apology to me, saying that she'd keep throwing heals on me but I'd die before they landed. I told her I wasn't angry or anything because the Bloodvine set, while powerful for damage, meant I had absolutely no extra health to me at all. She was much relieved that I wasn't one of those asshole Mages who demanded that healers TRY HARDER for something out of their control.</p><p>#My inner Middle-schooler: "Micro-Blizzard... *snicker*"</p><p><br /></p><p>EtA: Uploaded a larger version of the Nerfnow comic.</p></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-41774354422616239592024-03-04T06:00:00.001-05:002024-03-04T06:00:00.144-05:00Meme Monday: Coffee MemesWhile tea has it's afternoon slot, particularly within British culture, coffee is first and foremost a morning ritual. Bowing to our caffeine overlords is a rite of passage in both school and work*, so in honor of coffee's importance in American culture, here's a few coffee memes...<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicF41kf_63Tg5vXcWTEVdQQEX2CwmWRg_Tz0XFlhjJpf60wyWkDKAusQt9Pd_IVCUA3zmDJfgWTizswP6tKx7MxLcg_KkfApwiIw9OsdnkJUG6TkNZ_q2aQRM7VsBHJE06CwCA3VbfN51oa2yOjHF0cjLBu7C58uob8g71axxqPktLUri8ycPP1c8z12E/s500/sheideas-I-need-coffee-meme-23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicF41kf_63Tg5vXcWTEVdQQEX2CwmWRg_Tz0XFlhjJpf60wyWkDKAusQt9Pd_IVCUA3zmDJfgWTizswP6tKx7MxLcg_KkfApwiIw9OsdnkJUG6TkNZ_q2aQRM7VsBHJE06CwCA3VbfN51oa2yOjHF0cjLBu7C58uob8g71axxqPktLUri8ycPP1c8z12E/s320/sheideas-I-need-coffee-meme-23.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When people ask how are you feeling<br />in that meeting at 7 AM...<br />From sheideas.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBBkySb7TrxuwH00nJBKqGw_RVCPI03KP8RkB5vnydrvqGHSzl4g2gYLKF8CqH4tDX7cXDKnaXiKxSpWcvrsv2WF1Hx7UuqjbMoG1lF6fEeMdsCNy_scyt-hxcjtGMCBoAXMhWugnPc6mRCbZAJkX0oGAUycmL8Ln7yVax9kpuz2UYPneHp8r5dw3B-4/s750/dump-a-day-coffee.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBBkySb7TrxuwH00nJBKqGw_RVCPI03KP8RkB5vnydrvqGHSzl4g2gYLKF8CqH4tDX7cXDKnaXiKxSpWcvrsv2WF1Hx7UuqjbMoG1lF6fEeMdsCNy_scyt-hxcjtGMCBoAXMhWugnPc6mRCbZAJkX0oGAUycmL8Ln7yVax9kpuz2UYPneHp8r5dw3B-4/w400-h400/dump-a-day-coffee.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Self-explanatory. From dump-a-day.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizTOmXj5FykLavIFpRPfdfdeXZoEppqzrDKiHhk5hQ69sO_c_X34Cu6GMuhmKccsnP9NQaZhNajCMTk5eUsSZK1Au2z1UiMsjt1it8PPcWqmTUAfk1JhRMOeRlVlcwC3KpBXOZ0lCSeGpMqWCWfpS3Zzm5_ouxDuZ10TdTP7hWkgJfDB83uzpAcs7ybkM/s594/voltage-coffee-surprise.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="594" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizTOmXj5FykLavIFpRPfdfdeXZoEppqzrDKiHhk5hQ69sO_c_X34Cu6GMuhmKccsnP9NQaZhNajCMTk5eUsSZK1Au2z1UiMsjt1it8PPcWqmTUAfk1JhRMOeRlVlcwC3KpBXOZ0lCSeGpMqWCWfpS3Zzm5_ouxDuZ10TdTP7hWkgJfDB83uzpAcs7ybkM/w400-h334/voltage-coffee-surprise.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I also drink coffee on the weekend when<br />I have to get up early for some project.<br />From Voltage Coffee.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPt-vLQZyxXaVByzS0w48BemPyroGs0LwwKcW-fUmfhzHHEhrygE27_LJnaHmZVsVEY63a8Wjy8boyGay1eUECF0u33OpTZSMKMIbZpvs29vKOPjfb_o1fBB8d9-EDF-jTuw45Le3DbIOGULryrCSAmo8t0Bv-7DUtHA65ayVcw6gxMsoFBHwvkfXMAaI/s1200/ruin-my-week-sexual.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPt-vLQZyxXaVByzS0w48BemPyroGs0LwwKcW-fUmfhzHHEhrygE27_LJnaHmZVsVEY63a8Wjy8boyGay1eUECF0u33OpTZSMKMIbZpvs29vKOPjfb_o1fBB8d9-EDF-jTuw45Le3DbIOGULryrCSAmo8t0Bv-7DUtHA65ayVcw6gxMsoFBHwvkfXMAaI/w400-h210/ruin-my-week-sexual.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If a woman told me that, my curiosity would<br />know no bounds. Alas, my wife only drinks tea.<br />From Ruin My Week.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div>And one bonus meme:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsElhtdHODs_VjE7WQkN1dtsIVlaCVRZUna3bI124EYsWCFPY1RKE3JwUe5VGY-H9wExCB16cY5q14rMo1aS5cfXr8C8aKtVvaEhN3rrlmce7mpndh9kQumYtLOm3ERaWY_ZMgzPU2lDli0KeB6hVgU8_vuB1ao7an_x8HpcRy-30LJDj1oaurXbkqmA/s1600/remote-tools-too-much-too-much.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQsElhtdHODs_VjE7WQkN1dtsIVlaCVRZUna3bI124EYsWCFPY1RKE3JwUe5VGY-H9wExCB16cY5q14rMo1aS5cfXr8C8aKtVvaEhN3rrlmce7mpndh9kQumYtLOm3ERaWY_ZMgzPU2lDli0KeB6hVgU8_vuB1ao7an_x8HpcRy-30LJDj1oaurXbkqmA/w400-h225/remote-tools-too-much-too-much.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I knew a guy my Freshman year of college<br />who drank coffee and took No-Doz to stay awake<br />studying for a test the next day. He looked a bit<br />like this the next morning. From Remote Tools.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*True story: when I was in high school, one of the people campaigning for Student Body President ran on the platform of having coffee introduced into the cafeteria. He was laughed at back then --it was the 80s, after all-- but now? In the era of a Starbucks on every corner, he'd likely win the election on a platform like that.</div><div><br /></div></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-8190443649057952662024-02-27T06:00:00.044-05:002024-02-27T06:00:00.244-05:00Things That Make You Go 'Hmmm...'I was commenting on Shintar's latest WoW Classic Season of Discovery post when her reply gave me some food for thought:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSPAxf2aGOzY-A2Zzbpk4aP8Qz4wQPNiYgnDa4FZ5h5j8ZY5LPkWUeSI4x1nj0tFrKFb3rmNNgteiuBuBl73mSgHm_ZQCe9hoY98xkvPBAvxsOvuKHhMe9supuJIZEZKlxQ8A8in0eQhJYYfgEIbab6m6iTF2dSKoPfakUzXLkAga_UPh4cHNE3nKklY/s446/Screenshot%202024-02-26%20111303.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="147" data-original-width="446" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLSPAxf2aGOzY-A2Zzbpk4aP8Qz4wQPNiYgnDa4FZ5h5j8ZY5LPkWUeSI4x1nj0tFrKFb3rmNNgteiuBuBl73mSgHm_ZQCe9hoY98xkvPBAvxsOvuKHhMe9supuJIZEZKlxQ8A8in0eQhJYYfgEIbab6m6iTF2dSKoPfakUzXLkAga_UPh4cHNE3nKklY/w400-h131/Screenshot%202024-02-26%20111303.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>She's right; I haven't been talking very much about what I'm up to, game-wise. Especially compared to the first four or five years' worth of this blog --or even the first three years' worth of WoW Classic-- I've gone mostly silent on my actual video game activity.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, I can answer the question "What have I been up to?" pretty succinctly: not much.</div><div><br /></div><div>Seriously.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxx9twYcSboXUZsuEOG1Q-G3XQXk-d9jZlSDon12jOTEbsoSR8fiQlRMNGLQPXk3dIkapxJhrzLiOMpxktHhkeTdmpCuvb-q8chuDZf79gViZ7hnqjpBwjMep7UyR97h2QOisuOg5eCv209OORDgmUHiUF2keCr5s3JEpQk-l8qU8xzhVhyILL_VXN4R0/s1915/WoWScrnShot_022624_124424.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1077" data-original-width="1915" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxx9twYcSboXUZsuEOG1Q-G3XQXk-d9jZlSDon12jOTEbsoSR8fiQlRMNGLQPXk3dIkapxJhrzLiOMpxktHhkeTdmpCuvb-q8chuDZf79gViZ7hnqjpBwjMep7UyR97h2QOisuOg5eCv209OORDgmUHiUF2keCr5s3JEpQk-l8qU8xzhVhyILL_VXN4R0/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_022624_124424.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my spot.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Ever since WoW Classic's Season of Discovery dropped, a lot of people have abandoned WoW Classic Era and jumped on the SoD bandwagon. The resulting emptiness in Classic Era, while not nearly as bad as it was when Burning Crusade Classic came out, is very noticeable. And it suits me just fine. </div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose I could level an alt or try to get into a raid or something, but I've found myself not really interested in doing that. Over the past few months one of my Classic Era friend group pulled me into a Molten Core raid, but that experience was soured by that raid's leadership giving a piece of tank gear my friend could have used to a <i>spellcaster alt</i> of one of the raid team's guildies, in explicit violation of the gear distribution rules.</div><div><br /></div><div>Main Spec over Off-Spec my ass.</div><div><br /></div><div>Several people in the friend group have joined other raids and raid teams, and some even go into AQ40 and Naxxramas (the last two raids of Classic Era), but I've just not been that interested in doing so. My Questing Buddy does want to join some raids, but her raiding requirement is in the evening on Pacific Time (US West Coast), which most raids in the server cluster don't do. There is one guild that does, however, and she briefly joined that guild only to discover she was unceremoniously benched to make way for another guildie to attend. No apologies or anything, just a "you're benched" from that guild's raid team right before the raid was to start. It'd be one thing if they said that she was being benched for another Hunter, but they instead brought an 8th (or something) Warrior instead to Zul'Gurub, a 20 person raid, where you want Hunters to do certain pulls or be damage soakers or whatnot.</div><div><br /></div><div>So yeah, I'm not interested in any of that petty bullshit. </div><div><br /></div><div>With the dearth of people in Classic Era, it's also been difficult to get into any Alterac Valley Battlegrounds, as most of the Horde players are (you guessed it) in Season of Discovery.</div><div><br /></div><div>I do help out my friends by running their low level alts through instances or questing, or if they need a body for a dungeon run, so there is that, I guess.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, for the most part I just stand around in Darnassus, doing random buffs to people who run by, and providing portals to people who need it. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>What about Season of Discovery?</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, I was happy to move at my own pace, and explore just for exploring, and I'd even created a Horde Mage just to play with my Questing Buddy who'd never played Horde before. I honestly had a good time watching Barrens Chat* and figuring out where all the quests were out there.** Hell, I even got into a Ragefire Chasm group or two, which I hadn't done on the Horde side since... 2010?</div><div><br /></div><div>I got said Mage up to L22 or so before Season of Discovery's Phase 2 dropped, but my interest in SoD evaporated when Blizzard decided to provide all sorts of information about the upcoming Phase and then stuck Phase 2 in the Public Test Realm before release, which kind of defeats the entire purpose of, you know, <i>discovering</i> things. Some websites have at least paid lip service to the concept of letting people discover things on their own, but once Phase 2 dropped my YouTube Main Page was overwhelmed with "Here's Everything You Need to Do in SoD Phase 2" videos. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I did login after Phase 2 dropped, I found that Blizz had added a 50% XP buff to push people into the new content more quickly. I figured that in order to delete it I'd have to do what I did with that Joyous Journeys buff and talk to an innkeeper, but since Blizz couldn't stay with the actual theme of Season of Discovery and instead turned Phase 2 into a "normal" mini-expansion, I abandoned Season of Discovery.***</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I've logged into other MMOs, such as Elder Scrolls Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic, but...</div><div><br /></div><div>Let me put it this way: I've logged in, started a character (or logged into an existing one) and... I just kind of hung around, doing nothing. Just watching people run here and there. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then I log off.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, I've played a bit of the original Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 3, but... I've reached a certain point in both games where I'm fine with where I'm at. I don't feel like pushing very hard, and I don't feel like starting over. In BG3 I know what I need to do to keep moving forward, but... that requires me bashing my head against a virtual wall for a while until I figure out how a clever way of solving a few quests. Despite a lot of temptation out there in the form of guides and whatnot, I want to figure the game out for myself, without any help. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdMzVjFUPDtgQr_Zw7zkupnabY__l-QFuksT7zVjX_SDf2t9q04BEmdY1IrgeYoEpL2uKaKESjijteq8J3xGXGdrqPOE0RrP00dkp-UJEBRtQFYcliGyjG7jTPl3eNxQal0MZxWfmMcZkmW3YWi5DuK2UW0HosgMTw4uKeJ6PgDNbGyWPSJ0XY5w_Die0/s2560/20240216042242_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdMzVjFUPDtgQr_Zw7zkupnabY__l-QFuksT7zVjX_SDf2t9q04BEmdY1IrgeYoEpL2uKaKESjijteq8J3xGXGdrqPOE0RrP00dkp-UJEBRtQFYcliGyjG7jTPl3eNxQal0MZxWfmMcZkmW3YWi5DuK2UW0HosgMTw4uKeJ6PgDNbGyWPSJ0XY5w_Die0/w400-h225/20240216042242_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm not saying I don't believe you, but<br />I've played my share of CRPGs over the years,<br />and I've learned to never trust people who say that.<br />(No spoilers, thankyouverymuch...)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>What have I been doing?</div><div><br /></div><div>Work, I guess.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm up to my eyeballs in work, and even though my hours are still roughly 40-ish hours per week, the timing of that work is impacting my down time. For example, I've had a meeting scheduled for very very early morning, and that same meeting has been delayed several times. The problem is not only that I have to go to bed very early to make this early morning call, the delays usually come in when I'm asleep, so I wake up for the meeting only to discover the meeting had been delayed. Again and again and again. So I've not been on much in the evenings because I've got to get to bed. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3onh3cQ8vVwKsPM32pgpVIu0uVpFG8QCnOXM_NAO-k7VQ1GUv6UwHZtc0alWlUGolvg198W-H3A25QThilOJcx5AlvJHX5Y-opnVYmAkx5qQEzQHBtggc0E33-G3kherPp7iqTWNjXSXpMv__ueSDlkmhWsrguAb-OSYEwLuuSUUpSed9HItyR6kaf1o/s1259/grab-your-coffee-9-10.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1259" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3onh3cQ8vVwKsPM32pgpVIu0uVpFG8QCnOXM_NAO-k7VQ1GUv6UwHZtc0alWlUGolvg198W-H3A25QThilOJcx5AlvJHX5Y-opnVYmAkx5qQEzQHBtggc0E33-G3kherPp7iqTWNjXSXpMv__ueSDlkmhWsrguAb-OSYEwLuuSUUpSed9HItyR6kaf1o/w400-h305/grab-your-coffee-9-10.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While I wrote this post, I set up the<br />timer on my coffee machine because I don't<br />want to follow that 10th voice and sleep in.<br />From Grab Your Coffee Facebook group.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>When I'm not doing work, I'm running to and fro for various family obligations and whatnot. I haven't had this many family obligations to go to since more than one of the kids were back in high school, and I can't really explain why. </div><div><br /></div><div>I would say that I need a vacation, but every time I think of taking a couple of days off from work, more stuff comes in --both personal and work-- that kind of have to get done. If I took time off from work, the extra work would still be there (and I'd already be behind in getting it done) and the personal stuff would have had to be finished <i>while</i> I was "on vacation".</div><div><br /></div><div>While I'd like to say that I'm overworked, I'm not. My Questing Buddy's husband is really slammed at his job right now, which is why I don't complain about my work. I guess there's nothing really exciting me right now, and that is reflected in my lack of video game activity.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, I do have to set one thing straight: even if I were busily playing video games, I'm not so sure I'd even bother to post about it anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div>Remember how I've said (numerous times) that I'm a private person and don't open up much? Well, I've been in one of those moods over the past several months where I'm just not interested in opening up, period. Sure, there's the blog and all, but beyond that I'm just not into talking about my activities. I push myself to posting about such things because it feels like I ought to be at least a bit social, but I also know that posting about what I'm playing doesn't generate much interest compared to other topics.**** It's kind of funny how a blog is social media, but when I post about social things, those posts are very often the least read on the blog. </div><div><br /></div><div>So... If I'm not enjoying writing those posts, and people aren't reading them, why should I force myself to do it?</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Mg5iyY_idY2QaakgF9cKuTfD_Gufm_2X7uHYwZADGdTQePOZ_cF7cxO1QwlOIlNL1XmjgjfJqda_T-aP21i4AzVK9gRlmN3mHF-1KuxdoZ6v631_Ln110pbhDhxyQNqiY8HSXX3u8qv0BkFD_Ke3BK9O5d-134YuOTXCS7ItO9tenUmbYzVfVZXt8T0/s404/imgflip-arsenio-hall.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="404" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Mg5iyY_idY2QaakgF9cKuTfD_Gufm_2X7uHYwZADGdTQePOZ_cF7cxO1QwlOIlNL1XmjgjfJqda_T-aP21i4AzVK9gRlmN3mHF-1KuxdoZ6v631_Ln110pbhDhxyQNqiY8HSXX3u8qv0BkFD_Ke3BK9O5d-134YuOTXCS7ItO9tenUmbYzVfVZXt8T0/w400-h343/imgflip-arsenio-hall.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good ol' Arsenio Hall. This was probably<br />what, 1987 or so? My freshman year roommate<br />and I used to watch his show and then turn<br />on Late Night With David Letterman. From imgflip.com.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I'll probably post about my goings on from time to time, but not nearly as much as I used to. I'd rather talk about other things than making the blog about me, honestly. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Except for one evening where some people decided to talk politics and the Middle East, and let's say it did not end well.</div><div><br /></div><div>**In case you're wondering, by the time a Blood Elf character is finished with the two Blood Elf specific starting areas --Eversong Woods and The Ghostlands-- said character is about L20-L22 already and can pretty much skip The Barrens entirely. So the WoW Classic version of Neve never quested in The Barrens at all, but instead went straight to the next zones after them.</div><div><br /></div><div>***I will give Blizz some kudos for banning GDKP raids/groups on Season of Discovery servers, which for the uninitiated are raids in which people bid for gear that drop off of bosses with in-game gold. And yes, the GDKP raids are the big reason why gold farmers and (technically illegal) gold selling goes on in WoW Classic servers. But if you ask me, I doubt Blizz will stick to their guns for very long. I mean, just look at how quickly they abandoned the "discovery" portion of Season of Discovery.</div><div><br /></div><div>****My first post about my hospital stay notwithstanding.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-87336206764776158592024-02-26T06:00:00.001-05:002024-02-26T06:00:00.248-05:00Meme Monday: Min-Maxer MemesI'd been considering a few other subjects for Meme Monday, but for some reason I kept running into memes concerning min-maxers. Of course, min-maxing isn't a recent phenomenon --just look at the strategy discussion surrounding chess, for example-- and even in real life people will use what is "best" to get a leg up on the competition. <div><br /></div><div>My decision to make this Meme Monday about min-maxing was solidified when an acquaintance asked in chat the other day what 'parsing' is. Yeah, about that...</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOrBnLwZwgxe7wnHMMTfeKeDc285Rf3jWp0tdQrPVcJGULPIduqMZAmosj83JAnchb_BwEffhak0_dmZXw3kh60rfIJmLeRVMPMosuFx9fQF3MgTyprRTwFtcpsL1WtFM7Odtn2qROrVxXHQtEAWxLns6So2kFZBZmlyzZiKtmqDlEbB91OvoM8SfVNyw/s738/ifunnyco-2-percent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOrBnLwZwgxe7wnHMMTfeKeDc285Rf3jWp0tdQrPVcJGULPIduqMZAmosj83JAnchb_BwEffhak0_dmZXw3kh60rfIJmLeRVMPMosuFx9fQF3MgTyprRTwFtcpsL1WtFM7Odtn2qROrVxXHQtEAWxLns6So2kFZBZmlyzZiKtmqDlEbB91OvoM8SfVNyw/w348-h400/ifunnyco-2-percent.jpg" width="348" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is why players will do <i>all the things</i><br />in an MMO, even when they were put in the<br />game to provide something to do for everyone.<br />From ifunny.co.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgG-mPMrdDiCpAf1pzV4N02he9eKreCCgA7t2vVt679fqxSge3xe3B5YtddJVtJtcAn7FEkKwJaZYOlCDO9AUC9FX6HhRZ9n0jpY_PL4HtJrKhyphenhyphenC5mXmT1kb_W_cX_N1xbwd7WvLqiM8OlcmNQ8Qm5gOYnNeYv11p68Xgrao5k98n_4-13I5rgycyyk8/s800/reddit-dndmemes-weakness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgG-mPMrdDiCpAf1pzV4N02he9eKreCCgA7t2vVt679fqxSge3xe3B5YtddJVtJtcAn7FEkKwJaZYOlCDO9AUC9FX6HhRZ9n0jpY_PL4HtJrKhyphenhyphenC5mXmT1kb_W_cX_N1xbwd7WvLqiM8OlcmNQ8Qm5gOYnNeYv11p68Xgrao5k98n_4-13I5rgycyyk8/w400-h225/reddit-dndmemes-weakness.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Video games aren't the sole domain of<br />min-maxers. There's a ton of memes in<br />pencil-and-paper RPG about min-maxers too.<br />From Reddit's dndmemes.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjejoCzz4FsvIuurMGrIccf1bwfXkbRhT_lVaE72mpCRkz79wgbrlwTLuL2FGLgXNtnEMtgBAppWhy5u-y4o-npFvUdGnV7RGgJlbg8ZH8oPT-iEz8HrJKZQlPNa4SICJjw-vTxbpR0Nf3HBvqnzhyphenhyphenrVTzZ_TGEyb9RwpK-dKyJr3Koxn5n_2liCkBTuI/s776/dndmemes-ghastfighter392.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="776" height="383" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjejoCzz4FsvIuurMGrIccf1bwfXkbRhT_lVaE72mpCRkz79wgbrlwTLuL2FGLgXNtnEMtgBAppWhy5u-y4o-npFvUdGnV7RGgJlbg8ZH8oPT-iEz8HrJKZQlPNa4SICJjw-vTxbpR0Nf3HBvqnzhyphenhyphenrVTzZ_TGEyb9RwpK-dKyJr3Koxn5n_2liCkBTuI/w400-h383/dndmemes-ghastfighter392.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes, you have to admire how some<br />min-maxers think outside the box.<br />From Reddit's dndmemes and Ghastfighter392.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEZ4ZxJ0uU3Alg5CIdio6tsCnrdVOSoTJ5GT_hDEB8JDp4xEttC8OlIxPGyCNws_g6l9LVYtnDUEVXuP1iVocT4W20pkZceEb2uPOOarFcbRqYzAuy1uk6svPjThR1Se9mrcheeQfD7rOgORz45EpStCymy1VBHQ41WuF9OMveEg1QDTxk-CmLjrPFOk/s681/imgur-min-max.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="681" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXEZ4ZxJ0uU3Alg5CIdio6tsCnrdVOSoTJ5GT_hDEB8JDp4xEttC8OlIxPGyCNws_g6l9LVYtnDUEVXuP1iVocT4W20pkZceEb2uPOOarFcbRqYzAuy1uk6svPjThR1Se9mrcheeQfD7rOgORz45EpStCymy1VBHQ41WuF9OMveEg1QDTxk-CmLjrPFOk/w400-h261/imgur-min-max.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And then there's me.<br />From imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-15953834494896280872024-02-23T12:36:00.001-05:002024-02-23T12:36:03.942-05:00Sometimes, It Doesn't Mean AnythingIn the years that I've been blogging here, I've watched this medium's popularity peak and decline.<div><br /></div><div>To be fair, in 2009 blogging had likely already peaked, but in MMO space we were still riding the high point of the MMO wave with WoW's Wrath of the Lich King and the impending release of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Parallel Context was just one of many MMO (and WoW specifically) oriented blogs out there; if you went to any of the big MMO sites back then, it certainly seemed like there were a lot of people starting up or maintaining blogs. I guess it feels kind of weird when I sit back in 2024 and realize that PC is a survivor.</div><div><br /></div><div>Blogging is, at it's heart, a solitary kind of experience. When you write, you don't get much in the way of feedback until you actually post.* After a while, that can get kind of old. Here we are, blogging about a genre that is at its heart a social endeavor, and yet we operate in solitude while writing.</div><div><br /></div><div>It takes a certain type of person to keep blogging, year in and year out.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz-9e0E5Lb75djYmqpsD8v8pikIDnpS4YX_-v78_2vv6rwGL4osLn3j0YOxlGEHI5lIy99JcVjFSld2GPW5kygY5MBBiSF7uKwv8vTLSjlM5CzvidsHTesQoKlqJBEuZQw5vjaQYxVUfFC-8YQGm3-ZNQ9G9StCk141KIE4mN7ISSJvE5IoP-4zhI9tZg/s1920/is-blogging-dead-facebook.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz-9e0E5Lb75djYmqpsD8v8pikIDnpS4YX_-v78_2vv6rwGL4osLn3j0YOxlGEHI5lIy99JcVjFSld2GPW5kygY5MBBiSF7uKwv8vTLSjlM5CzvidsHTesQoKlqJBEuZQw5vjaQYxVUfFC-8YQGm3-ZNQ9G9StCk141KIE4mN7ISSJvE5IoP-4zhI9tZg/w400-h225/is-blogging-dead-facebook.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From wpbeginner.com. Yes, there's a site for<br />purchasing tutorials on how to blog using Wordpress.<br />Not sure how I feel about that one, given the<br />complaints I read about WP from my friends.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>This isn't a lead-in to me saying how wonderful I am at blogging, because most days I'm just happy if I can get something off my chest and posted here. And really, if people actually knew how to write something that was guaranteed to go viral, they would go and do just that. Human psychology being what it is, you can't operate with certainty about anything. You can establish trends and have a really good feel on tendencies, but prediction is an inexact science.</div><div><br /></div><div>And people's tastes can be fickle and change on a dime. (Just ask Billy Squier and his sudden plummet from popularity after Rock Me Tonite.**)</div><div><br /></div><div>For me, the head scratcher is that while I've been doing Meme Monday for close to 1.5 years now, the Meme Monday about <a href="https://parallelcontext.blogspot.com/2024/02/meme-monday-playing-female-toon.html" target="_blank">Playing a Female Toon</a> is the one that by far got the most eyeballs to Parallel Context.</div><div><br /></div><div>The memes themselves were kind of tame, because I didn't want to retread the same old female armor memes or the sexy fun times memes that are all over the place on social media, but for some reason that post got people to the blog. </div><div><br /></div><div>Go figure.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I will admit that blogging in the age of streaming and Tik-Tok does feel kind of weird. I thought of this while I've been reading Pride and Prejudice, because I can see the forms that modern novels take in the story, but the novel is most definitely a product of a bygone era. But if an author writes what is important to them, so do bloggers today. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's not always the case, given the metric ton of "how to write for profit" books/websites/etc. that are out there, but when you get to the heart of it all we do tend to write what we like and what we want to say. </div><div><br /></div><div>And what do I want to say? I'm not sure, really. I just write about things that pop into my head. Are they interesting? To me, yes. </div><div><br /></div><div>For example, reading Jane Austen has given me a bit of a window into what she found interesting over 200 years ago, and in turn I wondered what someone would think of my own output if they were to read this blog in 2224. How much could that reader glean from my posts?</div><div><br /></div><div>It's a question that I can't really answer, because I think I'm too close to the blog to be able to stand back and take a more critical approach without coloring my opinions. But I do wonder what authors thought their work might appear to people in the future, or whether they were more concerned with simply providing a living for themselves and their family to worry much about what future generations thought.</div><div><br /></div><div>I certainly hope that they won't think that the high point of my output is a Meme Monday on playing a video game as a Female avatar.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Unless you bring other people into the writing process, or have multiple bloggers for one blog, such as what PC originally had. </div><div><br /></div><div>**Whether or not the video played a part in Billy's fall from grace is debatable, but what isn't is that Rock Me Tonite was Billy's last charting single in the US, and he suddenly vanished from the pop charts after that single.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tcFSheSaht0" width="320" youtube-src-id="tcFSheSaht0"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-83308676471560426192024-02-21T15:49:00.000-05:002024-02-21T15:49:00.593-05:00A Different Kind of FunOn more than one occasion I've had ex-military personnel explain to me what it's like coming down from being on active duty. I'm not talking about whether you've seen combat, which is a whole other matter, but just the routine of military life. By far the biggest difference between military and civilian life, they've said, is dealing with the freedom to do whatever they want.* They're so used to having their lives planned out in detail that the concept of "eh, do whatever" becomes foreign to them. <div><br /></div><div>This isn't exactly a new phenomenon, given how monks' lives were planned out in meticulous detail back in the Middle Ages ("Hellooo, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_Saint_Benedict" target="_blank">St. Benedict!</a>"), but I was thinking about this tendency toward specific goals and rules as the crux of the difference between Classic and Retail World of Warcraft. </div><div><br /></div><div>Or, in an MMO versus an RPG, such as Baldur's Gate.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFLhNJZAP4Ya0OgogGwTxIxw1gTYxPMptjzibmmuNVtB2h-wbuBqYS8zX61dGZ7oR9obRcWs-_4WmQ7gvGPbmpv8Ufy925PrQwl3aTBx1kC6rgeCfesnyCMprc1rnMTKXIYAqW4Q7OeM_k2QPZtgF66cn5WVxLhaKN4211iH2CbNTbH_d1OC8iSN6i2mg/s2560/20240216042756_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFLhNJZAP4Ya0OgogGwTxIxw1gTYxPMptjzibmmuNVtB2h-wbuBqYS8zX61dGZ7oR9obRcWs-_4WmQ7gvGPbmpv8Ufy925PrQwl3aTBx1kC6rgeCfesnyCMprc1rnMTKXIYAqW4Q7OeM_k2QPZtgF66cn5WVxLhaKN4211iH2CbNTbH_d1OC8iSN6i2mg/w400-h225/20240216042756_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's... not too far off, if I had about 30 fewer<br />pounds on me. Alas that this is about as "aged"<br />as I can make a toon without turning them gray.<br />And yes, Lucius is the name of my Cleric from<br />that now ended D&D 3e campaign, although this<br />fellow is a "I hit it with my sword" Fighter.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>When I finally broke down and bought BG3 as part of the Winter Steam Sale --likely the last sale on that game for a while-- I started playing the first Baldur's Gate again and got as far as reaching Baldur's Gate itself. The siren's song of temptation finally proved to be too much for me, and so I created ol' Lucius above and started poking around. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the case of both games, there are obviously some differences --the different D&D rulesets notwithstanding**-- but in general there are timers involved in-game that keep you pushing forward. In the original Baldur's Gate they are more overt and party driven, such as having to get certain quests done or else party members will either leave or attack you. In other RPGs, such as The Witcher, if you try to collect quests and try to get everything good and ready before you "continue" a quest (such as what you'd do in an MMO), you might discover that the timer for that quest has already expired and you've got some NPC mad at you for dithering when they needed help.</div><div><br /></div><div>The concept of just wandering around and doing whatever is pretty much lost on the player, as the story is paramount.</div><div><br /></div><div>By comparison, Retail WoW is very forgiving. You can do quests (or not); you can do dailies, run dungeons, raid, etc., but there is very little that's actually <i>required </i>of a player when you play the game. And unlike an RPG, where once you kill enemies others don't respawn after a set timer, you can pretty much go ahead and deal with whatever whenever you want to.</div><div><br /></div><div>The irony is that all of those items in-game in Retail WoW become "required" by the player base, who enforce a "correct" way of playing based on whatever the min-max numbers say, so it ends up that we, the players, turn a self-directed environment into a regimented game all by ourselves.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>And, of course, that mentality has trickled down to WoW Classic, where I am resisting it's pull with all my might. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think it needs to be said, however, that after some sessions with Baldur's Gate 1 and 3, I've discovered that it is very freeing to login to WoW Classic Era and just, well, hang around without needing to actually do anything at all. Once you tell the collective min-max crowd to go piss off, playing an MMO such as Classic Era is, well, fun in a way that story driven MMOs and RPGs aren't. </div><div><br /></div><div>That's not to say I suddenly don't like RPGs, but it's a different kind of fun than that found in WoW Classic Era. Sure, Era can feel kind of empty in terms of "things to do", but sometimes that's <i>exactly</i> what you want out of a game. And sometimes you want to do some things here and there that you can't do in Classic/Classic Era but you find in Retail. Or another MMO. And then, you want a story that keeps you moving, and there's one of several RPGs to choose from.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's all different, and that's okay. And I think I need to be reminded of that on a regular basis.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*A very distant second was dealing with all the rules. And the bureaucracy. If you thought academia or government had a ton of arcane rules and regulations and absurd bureaucracy, wait'll you meet the military. Of course, being in the private sector my whole life, I often say the same thing to people who bitch about "waste in government", and they're offended for some reason that capitalism hasn't wiped that waste out. I'm personally of the opinion that it's just a reflection on human nature, and you just have to live with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>**I'm still having issues dealing with Short Rests that exist in the modern game. I'm so used to hoarding supplies such as healing potions that the concept of a Short Rest --where you can get a bunch of your hit points back twice in a day-- before you need what I'd term a "regular" or Long rest is confusing me. I try to figure out how to win an encounter without needing as many healing potions or spells as possible, but the encounters are designed for people to expect those "mini mass heals". </div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-60083967673630477372024-02-19T06:00:00.002-05:002024-02-19T06:00:00.123-05:00Meme Monday: Post Valentine's Winter DoldrumsI kind of blinked and Valentine's Day had come and gone.<div><br /></div><div>Even in MMOs, the pseudo Valentine's Day celebrations ended a day or two after the day itself, and in a flash everything was gone.</div><div><br /></div><div>A lot of the Valentine's Day MMO activities had me in kind of a bit of doldrums myself, as my brain kept saying "if real life romance were as easy as MMOs' presentations of Valentine's Day were, I'd be doing fantastic in the romance department."</div><div><br /></div><div>Part of that is also being married mumblety-mumble years, and I've discovered that familiarity is the biggest killer of romance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, it could also be that we had a rather 'fun' week of weather, which culminated in the temperatures dropping from highs of 60F (15.5C) to lows of 11F (-12C) within the span of 48 hours. Oh, and we finally got some accumulating snow that stuck around for longer than 24 hours, too. (And ice! Don't forget the ice!)</div><div><br /></div><div>But everybody goes through these doldrums after Valentine's Day and before March heralds the arrival of Spring.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGCaKe72eo0y0uIUbVCwvwVnCBeFRiQzbK6LA80igd4F1VcqwGFGkf1eDJOann0Vd0JF-9FdtOKAZlhwlPWWtbfqmpEl0HqVdfE9cRtZj6ebYc1knse5p249u7C4NZJEopJbFJHk1AaP4CkFR_HuewwtloxRl9pwP_pmfZ9v0L_gEeBDuxR3nPn8Hc_iA/s800/only-in-your-state-winter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="592" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGCaKe72eo0y0uIUbVCwvwVnCBeFRiQzbK6LA80igd4F1VcqwGFGkf1eDJOann0Vd0JF-9FdtOKAZlhwlPWWtbfqmpEl0HqVdfE9cRtZj6ebYc1knse5p249u7C4NZJEopJbFJHk1AaP4CkFR_HuewwtloxRl9pwP_pmfZ9v0L_gEeBDuxR3nPn8Hc_iA/w296-h400/only-in-your-state-winter.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Last week was like this.<br />From Onlyinyourstate.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhHyAX8EWoFXrBB3xU7yImN42cXtJPSMu44fN8MVP_Q0E9Qj7tX25Ra79avC4t7wo6lVlsUXcVj8ftRmpfxXAB1gfp9Y8mBfFhdX22W8r77w_to5nOJESOUnzUqTSs6VfKTvP8vCTCowgGTFGHZNki3w_CPn6bOx10JA75pmEquu1c_4qrjJn5nkjejo/s749/fowllanguagecomics-two-stages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYhHyAX8EWoFXrBB3xU7yImN42cXtJPSMu44fN8MVP_Q0E9Qj7tX25Ra79avC4t7wo6lVlsUXcVj8ftRmpfxXAB1gfp9Y8mBfFhdX22W8r77w_to5nOJESOUnzUqTSs6VfKTvP8vCTCowgGTFGHZNki3w_CPn6bOx10JA75pmEquu1c_4qrjJn5nkjejo/w320-h400/fowllanguagecomics-two-stages.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, the gray sucks the life right out<br />of you after a while. Makes Moria in LOTRO<br />look cheery by comparison.<br />From Fowllanguagecomics.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7gxH2lZWEEuu4wcbKj8WS-O_iC4MuJsHL6N__yihNJNsETUkxxeSucbM2B56m_TWUgzW4KrDFRVoMnNkJpGJH0MRLCbE6Rf3CpQsobYLph0HG1Pa_Fj57QXZd_ppL-pdOIrNOWDFHOsGyTmmZP_yANrOvgA_BwGs3jhAHvzgquMHr8PBgT8SKiU1C2s/s552/imgflip-doldrums.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="552" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit7gxH2lZWEEuu4wcbKj8WS-O_iC4MuJsHL6N__yihNJNsETUkxxeSucbM2B56m_TWUgzW4KrDFRVoMnNkJpGJH0MRLCbE6Rf3CpQsobYLph0HG1Pa_Fj57QXZd_ppL-pdOIrNOWDFHOsGyTmmZP_yANrOvgA_BwGs3jhAHvzgquMHr8PBgT8SKiU1C2s/w400-h300/imgflip-doldrums.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yep. From Imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSiv-4_NQ_eYZcx2AqHPwM0Erx-pspGCp2FAKxve3C-8HH4zlGQBNAK-URzGuSuvwn3J0aYXnf9zISjQjy4Vajx5EhJNtsLhguPVsxFv81ZmcjffqUuEM-gVV7APZBZkhShBD_qzgBVbjFxmLsL6lIyMvrycKCeaq72yy7XFA3U2r7gjBIx8Hl44BwBfM/s800/cheezburger-daughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSiv-4_NQ_eYZcx2AqHPwM0Erx-pspGCp2FAKxve3C-8HH4zlGQBNAK-URzGuSuvwn3J0aYXnf9zISjQjy4Vajx5EhJNtsLhguPVsxFv81ZmcjffqUuEM-gVV7APZBZkhShBD_qzgBVbjFxmLsL6lIyMvrycKCeaq72yy7XFA3U2r7gjBIx8Hl44BwBfM/w400-h266/cheezburger-daughter.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My wife and my oldest had to deal with this<br />on Saturday, with all the ice hidden under<br />a couple inches of snow. Yay us.<br />From Cheezburger.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-22084575406192986712024-02-12T06:00:00.001-05:002024-02-12T06:00:00.129-05:00Meme Monday: Playing a Female ToonWhile I might be more identified with playing Cardwyn since WoW Classic debuted in 2019, I originally played --and had as my main toon-- men. Throughout a variety of MMOs, such as WoW, LOTRO, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, and Age of Conan-- my first or primary characters were all male. Go with what you know, I suppose, even though that doesn't really matter all that much in MMOs from a story standpoint. <div><br /></div><div>Even in single player RPGs the characters I created were male, and in all types of games the mini-Reds have rather unhelpfully pointed out to me how much those characters actually looked like me.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0qh7mpw8PZUChCagmB2ULnQduSpjpoCOvEYBs7Q8dyiqJpGtJi7xwrS2y2BtdLGAXOsPSxwEqZXdW5Lh_Dhv8lucHZ9hpH3vu2DTyLb5lUizPrcA11V35d1T8KxP2EddLHeqzm14dXUQc_l8tQ7PC6oZVPlYLwpZYlVj4Gr7OE4Cfkr15XSI-bsIE2G4/s845/gw003a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="845" data-original-width="687" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0qh7mpw8PZUChCagmB2ULnQduSpjpoCOvEYBs7Q8dyiqJpGtJi7xwrS2y2BtdLGAXOsPSxwEqZXdW5Lh_Dhv8lucHZ9hpH3vu2DTyLb5lUizPrcA11V35d1T8KxP2EddLHeqzm14dXUQc_l8tQ7PC6oZVPlYLwpZYlVj4Gr7OE4Cfkr15XSI-bsIE2G4/w325-h400/gw003a.jpg" width="325" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay, he's in the ballpark, if I were<br />abput 30 years younger and my hair<br />were a bit more bleached.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>It was only when I created Nevelanthana back in 2010 that I decided to consciously create a female toon. It's kind of surprising that a lot of my toons these days are female --especially given that I do have pretty much an equal mix between the sexes-- and I really don't play them differently either.</div><div><br /></div><div>I discovered pretty quickly that people did treat female toons differently as opposed to male toons. Even though I know I don't say anything in raid or group chat anything other than I as a person would, you'd be surprised the number of times I've spoken up in voice chat only to have someone whisper me "OMG you're a GUY!" There must be something about me and how I act toward people that triggers that response, but hell if I know exactly what it is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, yes, I've been on the receiving end of some interesting commentary regarding my female toons, and so in the (dubious) honor of that, here's a few memes of what it's like to play a female toon:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbD0GzYdN-qd38tvmFnDbkXbnhkKqv-IDItHgj-0Wh85ruQx87n9FPpcAm0tal7UeZgazfSpvd51i_LiuLMDT413SmzYJfWnp3LdyQ0DKMURjR867dWPaBF5uQ-7YSH6qs8snHQHUt_EDslUN4931MF9HfdjQhfzqWgfzkYfTtpB0d5WiA1QHUdEPQ7o/s1285/pvpboost-character-looks-like.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1285" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbD0GzYdN-qd38tvmFnDbkXbnhkKqv-IDItHgj-0Wh85ruQx87n9FPpcAm0tal7UeZgazfSpvd51i_LiuLMDT413SmzYJfWnp3LdyQ0DKMURjR867dWPaBF5uQ-7YSH6qs8snHQHUt_EDslUN4931MF9HfdjQhfzqWgfzkYfTtpB0d5WiA1QHUdEPQ7o/w400-h336/pvpboost-character-looks-like.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As the old saying goes,<br />GIRL = Guy In Real Life.<br />From PvPBoost.com.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAE9gSZe7aYqfn6b2R92hqbSoOoYw5xNPp4K3bS_MK82KC6pVVB07tWH8RY1kl9hN1F7S9rEcRgwI88BYELkQR5stGv0Q2mJqdtETopKWiY6qJ8CDqkJDTvTPJZKoeOJTgZjZkLGBMD4gFsvdVAKXal23OWaP7SQTqwOANspPbLJbAxw5a_Kcw3pqi7E/s1500/amanda-webb-dressing-room-blues.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1500" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsAE9gSZe7aYqfn6b2R92hqbSoOoYw5xNPp4K3bS_MK82KC6pVVB07tWH8RY1kl9hN1F7S9rEcRgwI88BYELkQR5stGv0Q2mJqdtETopKWiY6qJ8CDqkJDTvTPJZKoeOJTgZjZkLGBMD4gFsvdVAKXal23OWaP7SQTqwOANspPbLJbAxw5a_Kcw3pqi7E/w400-h186/amanda-webb-dressing-room-blues.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is... a thing, unfortunately.<br />From Amanda Webb.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM9tpebr1I4Mqd36KLgUEketKBFHCM3rSpZhd4rNCbmirLU83EN-uOlhzKnpHvD1rjlvyRenveOhlQ4VO_IXDwY4GrSWHaUzgCz3X_DhX27uP7ju6yhLuy3H-_nhJ_F6E0ysq6NfZhLTFj4o1G4i_aGNnFW-welJmSPUvMydHNZh5Vayle0XU1qbepGE/s1729/pinterest--gamer-girl-problems-just-girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1729" data-original-width="236" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM9tpebr1I4Mqd36KLgUEketKBFHCM3rSpZhd4rNCbmirLU83EN-uOlhzKnpHvD1rjlvyRenveOhlQ4VO_IXDwY4GrSWHaUzgCz3X_DhX27uP7ju6yhLuy3H-_nhJ_F6E0ysq6NfZhLTFj4o1G4i_aGNnFW-welJmSPUvMydHNZh5Vayle0XU1qbepGE/w88-h640/pinterest--gamer-girl-problems-just-girl.jpg" width="88" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay, it's one of those you'll have to<br />open up to see the whole thing. But yeah,<br />I've received some "special favors" because...<br />I guess people think I'm a woman or something.<br />From pinterest. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD-cJn3eWB8OA1RQWvi43MGpvIAeLRcAuBjvsU5VrmlxciTyyzMTjISv29hltPGZgiRjrM1MBMHtWtk6B4N6xjAXj9acjumz_vumKKGPf66vKb7lTholV4kjVpTlDyk7GUbHQF-t5XYK-4FpTZd0MkMP9mTPXeU3MZRaDd-jQqSKzFJVuSqC6fgkwuv9s/s826/pinterest-flirting.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="826" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD-cJn3eWB8OA1RQWvi43MGpvIAeLRcAuBjvsU5VrmlxciTyyzMTjISv29hltPGZgiRjrM1MBMHtWtk6B4N6xjAXj9acjumz_vumKKGPf66vKb7lTholV4kjVpTlDyk7GUbHQF-t5XYK-4FpTZd0MkMP9mTPXeU3MZRaDd-jQqSKzFJVuSqC6fgkwuv9s/w400-h350/pinterest-flirting.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indeed. I've been propositioned just because<br />I happen to be parked by my usual spot in<br />Stormwind or Thunder Bluff, or in Isle of<br />Conquest or Alterac Valley, or... Well, you get<br />the idea. From Pinterest.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-44636270322003222822024-02-08T16:18:00.000-05:002024-02-08T16:18:34.489-05:00There's the Offiicial Reason, and then there's....Nothing like stirring the pot, I suppose.<div><br /></div><div>One of my side comments in the discussion surrounding my <a href="https://parallelcontext.blogspot.com/2024/02/how-can-this-still-be-broken.html" target="_blank">last post</a> alluded to me not playing SWTOR very much was because of the broken companion pathing whenever I play it. I've switched PCs, replaced CPUs and graphics cards (and manufacturers), and I even have the game installed on an NVMe SSD drive --a far cry from the slowpoke 5400 rpm mechanical drive it was once on-- but all to no avail.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbcTTn6Rk3u5Pa3cN3cUAvZXOsaXUy4mx_hZVDsKXeUeSTxuUSvdGI5b2acQj3LN3ljBzzsO0H5HzJe1IT_bHrONfgvK4mC6DRy0KdFP2oYboPXfBV6Qd8cF7Y706msfqGaqnGhOw5PE03v1O09q9NfFEyuIPYqFw-CFMeWLUjco_EZ7Kw0B1q_zgfgAE/s2560/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_37_48_557212.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbcTTn6Rk3u5Pa3cN3cUAvZXOsaXUy4mx_hZVDsKXeUeSTxuUSvdGI5b2acQj3LN3ljBzzsO0H5HzJe1IT_bHrONfgvK4mC6DRy0KdFP2oYboPXfBV6Qd8cF7Y706msfqGaqnGhOw5PE03v1O09q9NfFEyuIPYqFw-CFMeWLUjco_EZ7Kw0B1q_zgfgAE/w400-h225/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_37_48_557212.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My old Sith Inquisitor is still somewhere in<br />Chapter 10 of the KotFE expansion.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Here, I started at this entrance area in Nar Shadda, right after you disembark from your ship, and I ran toward the taxi. Literally all I did; no attacking, no shenanigans, no nothing:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmmD8ZtIxdsanBTNV2yW3ULE_FL5hMJ590aIIHcXdt50cSTojhIuLIh_g9YlOftY_jWY755CiOep-TkWyE5jJ0t3ZmBXxkdmoU-C8ZZhgUkaZ0Rw-OgAbJqN7sP6-UGtdVN8iFZKUdNYgwkG6LqRVRTx1E3KwcOgnpa2PzIpOu9IGkNJ7D-3LzKxPlaU/s2560/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_38_36_890716.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmmD8ZtIxdsanBTNV2yW3ULE_FL5hMJ590aIIHcXdt50cSTojhIuLIh_g9YlOftY_jWY755CiOep-TkWyE5jJ0t3ZmBXxkdmoU-C8ZZhgUkaZ0Rw-OgAbJqN7sP6-UGtdVN8iFZKUdNYgwkG6LqRVRTx1E3KwcOgnpa2PzIpOu9IGkNJ7D-3LzKxPlaU/w400-h225/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_38_36_890716.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay, so Senya is now just out of view...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3k_zS1DzCPtGWIPLG4YmHYGcmJbHh_ZUH5XULfUlJdoDd-ZlA_3chS84mpdcaL_4LR1Pb7zss5cWfUsvnb6g8gpmez2ImOOMJRzmCxGoj81HG4Cn_ApJVwcPz4MsdfQWF6mRex4a4AVmWRjah3pjMctwee8mXIeVbj61nF7K87gteffjwnOVs-Me1BoA/s2560/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_38_50_255139.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3k_zS1DzCPtGWIPLG4YmHYGcmJbHh_ZUH5XULfUlJdoDd-ZlA_3chS84mpdcaL_4LR1Pb7zss5cWfUsvnb6g8gpmez2ImOOMJRzmCxGoj81HG4Cn_ApJVwcPz4MsdfQWF6mRex4a4AVmWRjah3pjMctwee8mXIeVbj61nF7K87gteffjwnOVs-Me1BoA/w400-h225/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_38_50_255139.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you look closely at the map, you can see that<br />she moved about half speed from the screenshot <br />just above this one.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFKRlxWT56Q8mCOXdTbyrrpPbluWKe7tuJ7BPOlpiQAd0e1cVehkdSNxS82EbAGm9w_OLxTOalmuEXNrTOwoZDsN4Yv8s3QcKsoZLNs3lgnpbhOZt6SVvvRFI1Yyoaj3g_10nVf6FCWONllQGkvf0Tofrup4rGtmtx1TXjr4t4Ts49Ru5OI1OuM9wE-M/s2560/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_39_00_464684.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFKRlxWT56Q8mCOXdTbyrrpPbluWKe7tuJ7BPOlpiQAd0e1cVehkdSNxS82EbAGm9w_OLxTOalmuEXNrTOwoZDsN4Yv8s3QcKsoZLNs3lgnpbhOZt6SVvvRFI1Yyoaj3g_10nVf6FCWONllQGkvf0Tofrup4rGtmtx1TXjr4t4Ts49Ru5OI1OuM9wE-M/w400-h225/Screenshot_2024-02-07_17_39_00_464684.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And now, having arrived at the taxi, I can swing the camera<br />around and watch her go "Oh shit! I'm coming!"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Imagine if I were in a fight and she were dilly dallying around far behind me. In the original implementation of SWTOR, where some of the story fights were really hard (I'm looking at you, original difficulty of the final boss of the Jedi Consular story), I'd have been dead by the time my companion would have decided to show up. As it is, I haven't died due to these sort of problems, but I can only stand to have to play nursemaid to my companion for as long as it typically takes me to reach the end of Chapter One of the SWTOR Vanilla areas.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's other changes over the years that irk me, such as replacing the original in game map with that map reminiscent of the map in TERA --and believe me, combat aside, you <i>don't</i> want your MMO to ever be thought of as similar to TERA*-- but that can be remediated by customization. But the companion issue? Despite years' worth of efforts, I can't fix it. I even have a second account that the mini-Reds used to play SWTOR with, and that account has the same damn problem.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Why bring this up?</div><div><br /></div><div>Because I wanted to highlight some reasons why I no longer --or hardly ever-- play some MMOs that really don't end up on people's reviews or blog posts about the games.</div><div><br /></div><div>Petty? Maybe. They're definitely not in the realm of "I just don't like the direction the story is going" or "the combat is clunky".</div><div><br /></div><div>Accurate? For me, absolutely. </div><div><br /></div><div>Since I've already mentioned SWTOR, let's delve into a few others...</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Age of Conan's issue is simple: lack of responsiveness when pressing a button.</div><div><br /></div><div>For all of the issues that Age of Conan has, and believe me, the grindy nature and the bugs do factor into anybody's ability to play the game, the main reason why I don't play Age of Conan anymore has to do with the game's lack of responsiveness when you go to select an action.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe it's because my first MMO was World of Warcraft, which is famous for its smooth user interaction, but there's more to it than just that. Almost every other MMO has no delay between pushing a button and performing the action on screen, but Age of Conan somehow manages to have a noticeable delay between when you select a combat action and your toon actually performing said action. Combat itself is straightforward: you select a certain combo of buttons and then your toon performs the action, but there's just enough of a delay between the selection and the action that makes you think that there's lag in the system. This happened when I first tried the game out back in 2010 or so, and it persisted through the years even though all other MMOs I've played have overcome any lag issues with respect to combat. It's not even a matter of the couple of servers left in AoC being located far away, as they appear to be <a href="https://forums.funcom.com/t/where-is-aoc-server/112491" target="_blank">located in Newark, New Jersey</a>, and the latency I was seeing was around 100 ms. I've played other MMOs with a 100 ms latency without any issues at all, so I don't believe it's the latency either. I think it has to do with the lack of optimization in AoC's code, and for me that's a deal breaker when you're expected to perform more and more complex maneuvers quickly.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Lord of the Rings Online's UI is a nightmare for visibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>As much as some people want modern screen sizes to be supported by LOTRO, I want something a bit more basic: more easily readable UI icons.</div><div><br /></div><div>If there's one thing that MMOs such as WoW and SWTOR have figured out, it's that making unique enough and easily visible buttons in the UI make for a better playing experience. This is something that Standing Stone has yet to figure out, apparently, as every time I boot up LOTRO and login with the intention to do something more than just wander around Bree and listen to the Friday evening band play on the Gladden server, I'm presented with the blasted icons that tell me absolutely nothing at first glance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Or second or third glance for that matter.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUEzuOzq2cPhPv4JBhKPv2V1ZZpv4xC6AzKfE1TQ6E8d1OHWbj3Whjg8WWVhk9nXZcs7HENyOU4x6U9wtkyDF8JUTbSN6138kKDmrAc90pAThkBgIfGFQ1TbcpQG847dPyXBAtDWFl5NVE5ZOBuVcwdUyEIHVvv_FYagpR0AUBDRVtTh3qxmjLUKN0QM/s1159/ScreenShot_2023-03-21_224531_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="662" data-original-width="1159" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUEzuOzq2cPhPv4JBhKPv2V1ZZpv4xC6AzKfE1TQ6E8d1OHWbj3Whjg8WWVhk9nXZcs7HENyOU4x6U9wtkyDF8JUTbSN6138kKDmrAc90pAThkBgIfGFQ1TbcpQG847dPyXBAtDWFl5NVE5ZOBuVcwdUyEIHVvv_FYagpR0AUBDRVtTh3qxmjLUKN0QM/w400-h229/ScreenShot_2023-03-21_224531_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From my foray last Spring as a High Elf.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>It's bad enough that they're various shades of red in my example above, but this is what you get if you've been playing for a while:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqDYPykGrR1vaOV-pLD_yp-jzkgtGtS8nODKUuq6a5BC-MrNqKnqNnckh6Bhj9iOygrJOSS9raSp4OWUf0swp4zJ27zYC1fM-DE8ymihRVPsi1QMfHP1Y-8_BLXIm0BCe0W34Qq8keYOsK6ZZYZkI_51hcvWcnJBEfkor2jnF6BvyPg0SbcRAhbx06hk0/s1510/ScreenShot_2023-08-23_212407_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="1510" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqDYPykGrR1vaOV-pLD_yp-jzkgtGtS8nODKUuq6a5BC-MrNqKnqNnckh6Bhj9iOygrJOSS9raSp4OWUf0swp4zJ27zYC1fM-DE8ymihRVPsi1QMfHP1Y-8_BLXIm0BCe0W34Qq8keYOsK6ZZYZkI_51hcvWcnJBEfkor2jnF6BvyPg0SbcRAhbx06hk0/w400-h121/ScreenShot_2023-08-23_212407_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was my old main on LOTRO.<br />It's been a while since I last played him, and<br />as you can see some commands have been<br />removed and I need to correct things.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The washed out coloring matches the rest of the LOTRO color scheme, but given that I have to pay close attention to the details of the icons to distinguish between the various red ones and green ones, that does me no favors when performing actions. </div><div><br /></div><div>And can you imagine the nightmare if you were red-green colorblind? (I'm not, for clarity's sake.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Then we have to talk about the in game maps.</div><div><br /></div><div>The maps are kinda sorta faithful to the old Pauline Baynes map of Middle-earth (my own copy was passed down to me from my mom, and I gave it to my son):</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJHPfnEzdgMEwPUzWHxF12o2t5rO-23_dcKSiWJTLYW6Qa4JzZqZtJCBC2Foguhb58daOYgH21UHIz17e6o2hYHo4vVDY0ValHVWO6jqNb17fcJD6Ol-evx31ysyhW6QUCbW1Nxex0C4Z7xGgciyEsBzQpUGavUwR5E3fcjL0OoiJmaVfMGEI8qe86PE/s1200/pauline-baynes-middle-earth-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="854" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJHPfnEzdgMEwPUzWHxF12o2t5rO-23_dcKSiWJTLYW6Qa4JzZqZtJCBC2Foguhb58daOYgH21UHIz17e6o2hYHo4vVDY0ValHVWO6jqNb17fcJD6Ol-evx31ysyhW6QUCbW1Nxex0C4Z7xGgciyEsBzQpUGavUwR5E3fcjL0OoiJmaVfMGEI8qe86PE/w285-h400/pauline-baynes-middle-earth-map.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I was surprised to find that<br />museoteca has an interactive map<br /><a href="https://museoteca.com/r/en/work/7469/pauline_baynes/a_map_of_middle_earth/!/" target="_blank">on their site</a>. This was the map that<br />inspired my exploration into SF&F.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The thing is, there's a difference between being faithful to the original map and making an in-game map actually usable:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR31BobW-pKQctDJOOU3dcVWfS5JEfUP4-SNnzSofgNEE7z3EGosMdk2tdgd_RTz295hduJOQHQEcYMRmF6Jqs9ss8H1mgPe4VPKNHgJUBEcbY5a8bvBNUIqyzkulAE2hIVuTK9_giMYGWJOB1ERMKoH-0RxSD_b08PmZ9Ql-CRd1W-ApkqBysDXkAlp8/s2560/ScreenShot_2024-02-08_144557_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="2560" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR31BobW-pKQctDJOOU3dcVWfS5JEfUP4-SNnzSofgNEE7z3EGosMdk2tdgd_RTz295hduJOQHQEcYMRmF6Jqs9ss8H1mgPe4VPKNHgJUBEcbY5a8bvBNUIqyzkulAE2hIVuTK9_giMYGWJOB1ERMKoH-0RxSD_b08PmZ9Ql-CRd1W-ApkqBysDXkAlp8/w400-h225/ScreenShot_2024-02-08_144557_0.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is light years better than what it used<br />to be, but even when I had a smaller monitor<br />nothing was sharp.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The original map design was much worse, where everything was washed out brownish colors, and trying to distinguish details was... poor at best. And the quest markers? They were all various colors of rings (for The One Ring) but they were too hazy and poorly placed to make any details out either.</div><div><br /></div><div>I know that I was looking forward to an overhaul of the UI (as was <a href="https://tagn.wordpress.com/2024/01/17/the-lord-of-the-rings-online-2024-roadmap/" target="_blank">Wilhelm Arcturus</a>), but more for overall improvements of the clarity of the design. Until then, why bash my head against a wall (metaphorically speaking) when I try to play the game? In as much the same way as I love SWTOR's story, LOTRO's story is extremely well done, and I miss being able to progress in it, but for me it's not worth it to keep playing in earnest when I have these visual issues.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Doom and other FPS games have a "simple" problem: I get nauseous when I play them.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3aZmd2TR2NIJTQ6d5rQ7uE2lnUJauPyFTwbRcpk40nkPOQu8pYdU6YnekL1467Baw2qg8H_23Ju0-ayKTvqyP5_A2AYaK-wyXhzANNCMbeW3kRhQXO_QX9hDwc1QFJlzoKbUfzBm2JdcokevGp8maikthshvWZS1nO6__zadEjVuLOwNPeFHHbEmafc/s500/memecrunch-step-brothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_3aZmd2TR2NIJTQ6d5rQ7uE2lnUJauPyFTwbRcpk40nkPOQu8pYdU6YnekL1467Baw2qg8H_23Ju0-ayKTvqyP5_A2AYaK-wyXhzANNCMbeW3kRhQXO_QX9hDwc1QFJlzoKbUfzBm2JdcokevGp8maikthshvWZS1nO6__zadEjVuLOwNPeFHHbEmafc/w400-h266/memecrunch-step-brothers.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Memecrunch and Step Brothers.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>I know I'm not the only one out there that gets motion sick when playing some types of video games, and there's articles out there with advice on how to deal with the problem (<a href="https://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/stop-gaming-motion-sickness/" target="_blank">such as this one</a>). Still, the only way I've been able to successfully combat this motion sickness is to use Dramamine in the same fashion that I'd take Dramamine before riding on a train or a plane.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, I made the decision a long time ago that if I was going to have to be medicated in order to play a video game, I probably shouldn't be playing said video game. It does save me money in the long run, as I don't purchase FPS games, but it does make me sad that I can't play a specific class of video games.</div><div><br /></div><div>I recently discovered --much to my horror-- that the NASA Moonbase Alpha video game gave me the same motion sickness as FPS shooters did, so what looks like a rather good lunar base simulation is sadly unplayable for me. Thankfully it's free to play, so I didn't lose any money buying it only to discover I can't play it, but still it's a tough pill to swallow.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*I'm pulling this out of my archives just so you know <i>why</i> you shouldn't want to have your game compared to TERA:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuq2eAuqw2wbNljTmWQYxYU5odrq7ICO0xF0SpGCQPTe_MtT_zWrZOngUAkWM4yiwbvG2n_IyNWwRr4FUo08RE0ALF_rPr5YbslCIRqeiYqSBiVfsKAwCxmOSTmHksENgneUF0o3jbokfNI-ww4zacaDmSF8CO2JyXQKwATQbsjDi0S0fDmK6GhXyLRfw/s1387/20170801200858_1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="1387" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuq2eAuqw2wbNljTmWQYxYU5odrq7ICO0xF0SpGCQPTe_MtT_zWrZOngUAkWM4yiwbvG2n_IyNWwRr4FUo08RE0ALF_rPr5YbslCIRqeiYqSBiVfsKAwCxmOSTmHksENgneUF0o3jbokfNI-ww4zacaDmSF8CO2JyXQKwATQbsjDi0S0fDmK6GhXyLRfw/w400-h266/20170801200858_1a.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh, yeah. Interesting enemies you got there.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTmcoS3VipqBgTTsY5ZSF7LDQ-V8Nw8SXAqppIcYnTFES-xOuxKABbE6QFSxQvlib4ne4libiz7mrV1UjL35xXWCNjPIDIawlE9ymT-hWLo7J-hPLFpYUTAI9wbFU8acAfbiOBXiMGhox4jPEpyYJcHLKk1G1hYmGyyfMR-xYqbukoylqFbCn9Q4Ul8E/s1920/20170727010416_1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTmcoS3VipqBgTTsY5ZSF7LDQ-V8Nw8SXAqppIcYnTFES-xOuxKABbE6QFSxQvlib4ne4libiz7mrV1UjL35xXWCNjPIDIawlE9ymT-hWLo7J-hPLFpYUTAI9wbFU8acAfbiOBXiMGhox4jPEpyYJcHLKk1G1hYmGyyfMR-xYqbukoylqFbCn9Q4Ul8E/w400-h225/20170727010416_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And no, I'm not posting a pic of the Elin.<br />I have standards.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-32331905710475627712024-02-06T06:00:00.003-05:002024-02-06T22:44:59.051-05:00How Can This Still Be Broken?When I started the research for this post, it wasn't the kind of post I expected to make.<div><br /></div><div>You see, I happened to note that the Mage Class Lead for my progression guild in Classic and TBC Classic was back on the Myzrael-US server, leveling a new toon.* The few times I'd been on Myz after the server opened up for free transfers to Old Blanchy were disheartening to say the least; I wandered Stormwind and other places without anybody in sight. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to create a new Cardwyn and hop on. I figured that if nothing else, anybody who was still on that server --and who knew me-- would take note.</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, Northshire Valley went as well as I kind of expected:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5NIwmqzEhdtHGchEWLS1TDqvpeSBMV2xcAwLR7BvmpYuDDdjbD5Q8mnx5MFrWtssiyajtQLYWtEZBMYSzbXqzEzFr-OrjO2zUCHwU_cbUE_-qwA3-TBrrIE_8B5AFWiVjkyL37ytAuBHAdU-itwtlaa5CXthy7YsunfrQZuZp41BbY6mGvcp9KTLfRU/s1913/WoWScrnShot_020624_201717.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1913" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5NIwmqzEhdtHGchEWLS1TDqvpeSBMV2xcAwLR7BvmpYuDDdjbD5Q8mnx5MFrWtssiyajtQLYWtEZBMYSzbXqzEzFr-OrjO2zUCHwU_cbUE_-qwA3-TBrrIE_8B5AFWiVjkyL37ytAuBHAdU-itwtlaa5CXthy7YsunfrQZuZp41BbY6mGvcp9KTLfRU/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020624_201717.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At least it's not zero...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Still, I did kind of expect it would be about "one" (me).</div><div><br /></div><div>I did take notice of the server population in Wrath Classic's server listings: </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6dGWypbdfyMRtANZWPwHVLSgx-amtm1fRbFAPpe3oucCBTzGE5OvxJ6yYzjATtn-GlqKVy8V1U1f5Zc8uDnM65iQG2LnWM4g5C7Nu-TkcXnaB0TFBho8FZbJ9PLNL5TXTcUNs5dCJi2XTlDRi5QJeZN7Iulwpl_4fV1k7oMauNgQGhoIvac4ZES71Oxg/s828/us-west-wrath-classic-20240206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="828" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6dGWypbdfyMRtANZWPwHVLSgx-amtm1fRbFAPpe3oucCBTzGE5OvxJ6yYzjATtn-GlqKVy8V1U1f5Zc8uDnM65iQG2LnWM4g5C7Nu-TkcXnaB0TFBho8FZbJ9PLNL5TXTcUNs5dCJi2XTlDRi5QJeZN7Iulwpl_4fV1k7oMauNgQGhoIvac4ZES71Oxg/w400-h366/us-west-wrath-classic-20240206.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXcTKhzsDazh80EMv3il4BGne6bMxnVAJWbyJTl6Y1oYg3MnPigVPKHbEQ8fQeJZKIGOJmdS46BsEbsGxeNCRRGDWbaXicPJtMX8xHLvL2DCvIY61VjbUJeVDuOFjr3ThYxUv8Y1M0PxkUrKXoe_wNMBXDiyARjsjWE5cthSWp5fiAkxrkFaHc9xqxXbM/s829/us-east-wrath-classic-20240206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="829" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXcTKhzsDazh80EMv3il4BGne6bMxnVAJWbyJTl6Y1oYg3MnPigVPKHbEQ8fQeJZKIGOJmdS46BsEbsGxeNCRRGDWbaXicPJtMX8xHLvL2DCvIY61VjbUJeVDuOFjr3ThYxUv8Y1M0PxkUrKXoe_wNMBXDiyARjsjWE5cthSWp5fiAkxrkFaHc9xqxXbM/w400-h365/us-east-wrath-classic-20240206.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div>It seems that even what were "large" servers when I stopped raiding and eventually abandoned Wrath Classic back in January 2023 are no longer that: Atiesh, Grobbulus, and Whitemane were all "High" or "Full" back then, but are now on par with the one destination server for Myzrael and the other abandoned servers: Old Blanchy. </div><div><br /></div><div>The few times my Questing Buddy had gone onto Atiesh after her raiding career there ended --roughly November 2023-- she'd reported back that there were a lot fewer people logging in than there used to be. I hopped onto Atiesh myself and found Dalaran still fairly full with 50+ people in the /who listings, but it definitely felt not as crowded as before.</div><div><br /></div><div>I kind of chalked it up to the end of the expansion, as very few people would ever confuse Ruby Sanctum (the current raid Wrath Classic is on) as a filler raid between ICC and the drop of the Cataclysm pre-patch. </div><div><br /></div><div>Still, I wondered. Both Wrath Classic and Retail are in the end of the expac blues right now, but what does that mean for, well, the new player experience?</div><div><br /></div><div>So I did what I usually do: create a new character and go look around and see who's there.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh, you can stop with the fake shock now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, I did create a few toons on Retail.</div><div><br /></div><div>No, none of them were named Cardwyn.**</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbHaXVWVqvXLftpMgd146hwhFORESF36ARJLrnbzbn1DCs9L3ocWIo_Q5kjSuraV5dFAaYDphkXNtKurh5d6MDk5jMXYoKIQa3_QYc2Uxy3hYzdtoiRMlT6XYg7IYWFLvoF8tko94wTkLNhIX_VV5SdU4jpp712TcdYkJEELbq3JjKq_fseIZVc3uUeE/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020624_200923.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifbHaXVWVqvXLftpMgd146hwhFORESF36ARJLrnbzbn1DCs9L3ocWIo_Q5kjSuraV5dFAaYDphkXNtKurh5d6MDk5jMXYoKIQa3_QYc2Uxy3hYzdtoiRMlT6XYg7IYWFLvoF8tko94wTkLNhIX_VV5SdU4jpp712TcdYkJEELbq3JjKq_fseIZVc3uUeE/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020624_200923.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice mutton chops, dude. You'll give<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvUQcnfwUUM" target="_blank">Mungo Jerry</a> a run for his money.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>I figured I'd go to Area 52, my Horde toons' old stomping ground, and see what popped up when I started a new toon.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zk3FBgB992pTW9o63Zn-5t3VQl_q96pniGUlvuM3cwDTjHFVZfdl7VtsQXP3Fyi9TyhPm2A32-GEUKUsD-I-IGQI5BSs0F6C-YvO5FLqaAOoyDzfMHZrX_FFQ7et8KeCymbibkVXZZB2jM4BRjkAqwUyMnNZmgOSds0s893dzkh5eAsLM1Z0qPyIHZU/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020624_200829.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1zk3FBgB992pTW9o63Zn-5t3VQl_q96pniGUlvuM3cwDTjHFVZfdl7VtsQXP3Fyi9TyhPm2A32-GEUKUsD-I-IGQI5BSs0F6C-YvO5FLqaAOoyDzfMHZrX_FFQ7et8KeCymbibkVXZZB2jM4BRjkAqwUyMnNZmgOSds0s893dzkh5eAsLM1Z0qPyIHZU/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020624_200829.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh....</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Okay, that wasn't good. There's nobody in Eversong in the /who...<div><br /></div><div>Wait. Do you see it?</div><div><br /></div><div>There are at least two other toons right by me here, so why aren't they showing up in /who? </div><div><br /></div><div>They're not on the same server as me --I checked-- so is it a scenario that only people on the same server as you show up in /who? If that's the case, then that means that nobody from Area 52 has a toon in Eversong Woods. </div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, I'll freely admit --and I told my Questing Buddy as much-- that Area 52 might be a mature enough server that just about everybody is a max level toon. I mean, it is "Full" after all. So maybe I need to start poking around on a server marked for "New Players". A brand new player won't know any better, and with the server clusters in place in Retail (and Classic Era) this shouldn't be a big deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>So I chose the first server on the list, Aegwynn, and rolled up a few toons.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTfOWEODfkMNO0sXXLx4m19BwSNVL30xXxKR6Kg2p9Wmlk4ELT1Eu12hUqPTGsTFuDvrzuPgU4MPz4p2Lu6oX_kJxeUemLKAspakGW1pKRvKlzn3LtQa-nlSMgi0KuCTBGxgvyA01T6EVgXeXVbaQ6x4qJ8FOdl8R9d96B5jgkxDyNKLRpSmSM9xEYX8/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020424_230539.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTfOWEODfkMNO0sXXLx4m19BwSNVL30xXxKR6Kg2p9Wmlk4ELT1Eu12hUqPTGsTFuDvrzuPgU4MPz4p2Lu6oX_kJxeUemLKAspakGW1pKRvKlzn3LtQa-nlSMgi0KuCTBGxgvyA01T6EVgXeXVbaQ6x4qJ8FOdl8R9d96B5jgkxDyNKLRpSmSM9xEYX8/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020424_230539.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Since when were Tauren allowed to become Mages?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE3cDDyaWXAgybdRpTjfX7ahh5jfG0OCtqp6_OcjRA34WBYHDu7UkiaOfj_Elz0_Bh6vHtSOg7SHScIF_rU_fKV_tbERn15A7Bq08WdeEQOakKoTwijt_94YSXNAZrCZQSzBN-07vfmFHov0CH_dDSCOITT8YEN80mkZ_b4ynzMNUGzIyP_zmvcyUTaJc/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020524_010204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE3cDDyaWXAgybdRpTjfX7ahh5jfG0OCtqp6_OcjRA34WBYHDu7UkiaOfj_Elz0_Bh6vHtSOg7SHScIF_rU_fKV_tbERn15A7Bq08WdeEQOakKoTwijt_94YSXNAZrCZQSzBN-07vfmFHov0CH_dDSCOITT8YEN80mkZ_b4ynzMNUGzIyP_zmvcyUTaJc/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020524_010204.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A server specifically marked for New Players,<br />and Azshandra was already taken? Oh<i> COME ON</i>...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>A couple of the toons I started on the "new" new player experience of Exile's Reach, but I discovered that the "ship" I was on had almost nobody aboard:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3SDfYsDRDDvwNLhbWFRB48QzRyQNEZEVooiiXSicwfyB-7aR_Oj-sA0AHkAVRa7CUnP1595sWH2D7xveOZkVSr4t32CwYEgjfuUsYHywj3blnQR-IkAgFWa8vNz3pvWZJoJWGEbl2APZOPw9sqrvvE7WXwrb5FvEqMZnyr6eMUnyvmx9qA75jvggWig/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020424_230632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih3SDfYsDRDDvwNLhbWFRB48QzRyQNEZEVooiiXSicwfyB-7aR_Oj-sA0AHkAVRa7CUnP1595sWH2D7xveOZkVSr4t32CwYEgjfuUsYHywj3blnQR-IkAgFWa8vNz3pvWZJoJWGEbl2APZOPw9sqrvvE7WXwrb5FvEqMZnyr6eMUnyvmx9qA75jvggWig/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020424_230632.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is the lone toon I discovered on either<br />faction on the boat. "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfuIWmm7m9c" target="_blank">We're on the Good Ship<br />Lifestyle! I elect me the captain!</a>"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Well, at least I got a chuckle out of the Alliance captain saying "The Alliance leaves no one behind!" in a weird echo of something I once wrote in one of the stories concerning Card and the Defias.*** But still, there was nobody around.</div><div><br /></div><div>Except for this:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpAlXgeISLhdkjLyZGNgkfcutoLDyTztsLw_MH8NCxPN3guZIKe5D1Pxn4rhlJux3s4Jp1XJCyCX6zD4ZdprOwXM9b_uY6VO3b0eKRdeQGHIEWzsAS5tl8wmIv7GAqSVH4HMaGqrudv21UVfM4JKrvbyUzj4m7mMJwbQfsSgfjRXKb2tbybl-nsOKKYM/s1920/WoWScrnShot_020424_230320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYpAlXgeISLhdkjLyZGNgkfcutoLDyTztsLw_MH8NCxPN3guZIKe5D1Pxn4rhlJux3s4Jp1XJCyCX6zD4ZdprOwXM9b_uY6VO3b0eKRdeQGHIEWzsAS5tl8wmIv7GAqSVH4HMaGqrudv21UVfM4JKrvbyUzj4m7mMJwbQfsSgfjRXKb2tbybl-nsOKKYM/w400-h225/WoWScrnShot_020424_230320.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>As you can see, there's three toons there --there were more if I rotated the screen around-- but none of them were the ones who showed up in /who.</div><div><br /></div><div>I mean, something as basic as /who for a zone couldn't be this busted, could it?</div><div><br /></div><div>Could it?</div><div><br /></div><div>I got onto my Banking toon in WoW Classic Era, the only WoW instance in Classic that has server clusters, and got this for a listing in Elwynn Forest:<br /><br /><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVz2jns7ORDYUSW2PS5DB3NW7yElI7fZ0bZohdbflonQr6igdGuiQZGYHdKxQFkWAjT0iHAkT-ttgbJo2lXNlUZWG2WU5q5DY6FoPuuHHQzz2X0B4PsP8K_yLjxfwij59QP5gblAemXy07W02IpbJWsNcuwJB3ljuMXmgiUJV_r2zEY9jeIOZ_Ehfxro/s581/Classic-era-elwynn-20240206.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="581" data-original-width="449" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVz2jns7ORDYUSW2PS5DB3NW7yElI7fZ0bZohdbflonQr6igdGuiQZGYHdKxQFkWAjT0iHAkT-ttgbJo2lXNlUZWG2WU5q5DY6FoPuuHHQzz2X0B4PsP8K_yLjxfwij59QP5gblAemXy07W02IpbJWsNcuwJB3ljuMXmgiUJV_r2zEY9jeIOZ_Ehfxro/w309-h400/Classic-era-elwynn-20240206.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>As you can see, there's other people in the cluster present on the /who listing.<div><br /></div><div>So what the hell is going on?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, it's a bug. Apparently it's been around in Retail for several years now, judging by some of the <a href="https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/who-function-still-not-working/335361" target="_blank">comments in the WoW forums</a>.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3jY1HC7Gh03E9QNd1EitDbItYCL9DvwNdGpBsYR1ZsgiWKA-pJeQMOInX-DHIew9kAbRdZZhiCDpYHtEFVNJ92GHVEXHcOWN3UKYcjskbf719g4_HKMd22Iymgng5cTmoFu5yksUl8B4IEMzBb8atH_QGRaXK5WqA_z5bQ67PyYQx-9quDx_sf7NvP_E/s962/Screenshot%202024-02-06%20223020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="725" data-original-width="962" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3jY1HC7Gh03E9QNd1EitDbItYCL9DvwNdGpBsYR1ZsgiWKA-pJeQMOInX-DHIew9kAbRdZZhiCDpYHtEFVNJ92GHVEXHcOWN3UKYcjskbf719g4_HKMd22Iymgng5cTmoFu5yksUl8B4IEMzBb8atH_QGRaXK5WqA_z5bQ67PyYQx-9quDx_sf7NvP_E/w400-h301/Screenshot%202024-02-06%20223020.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This makes the date of the bug introduction to around<br />January 2020 or so, as 8.3 dropped on January 14th. <br />Screencap from "/who function still not working?"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>How has this been allowed to persist for this long? Obviously it works fine in WoW Classic Era, so this ought to be a no brainer to actually get corrected. It is also something very basic to the game, being able to find other people nearby, and if you can't even do that, why should people think you've got a quality product that people use?</div><div><br /></div><div>Before someone hops on and says "yeah, but Blizz has bigger problems than fixing /who", I can unequivocally state that being able to find people in a game where playing <i>with</i> other people is the desired goal is a high priority. And if you can't trust the results of a simple /who command, then how can we trust the rest of what the game is providing to us? </div><div><br /></div><div>This is a horrible look for Blizzard to provide to new players. WoW already has major problems with bringing in new people, and making populations look even worse than they really are does them no favors. I was originally going to mention about how nobody was starting new players in Retail, but I can't say that. There is absolutely no way of knowing without me taking a higher level toon and coming back to a starter zone to manually look around and see for myself. </div><div><br /></div><div>For all of the problems that Blizzard has with story and retention and systems, it's the small stuff that annoys me the most. The small annoyances that say "this is not a polished product" before you even run into the story or other issues make me wonder why I'm paying $15/month. If the game can't even have the basics work right --or if they only care about getting combat tuned to the point where nothing else is reliable-- why should I play the game? Why should a new player play it? </div><div><br /></div><div>Or maybe Blizzard thinks that the only people who play Retail now are those who already had been playing it, and they have an excessively high tolerance for poor product quality?</div><div><br /></div><div>Either way, this is a bad look for Retail.<br /><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Yes, we're still Battle.net friends. We haven't spoken in quite a while, but we're still friends.<br /><div><br /></div><div>**My Questing Buddy did ask me if I had. I told her no, because I would spend a lot of time trying to customize her to get her "just right", and I was more interested in taking a look around.</div></div><div><br /></div></div><div>***Here's the excerpt: <br /><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>"Is our mutual friend still here?" I asked. </div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"She's likely in the park where the Cenarions are, sleeping it off." With a mischievous grin, Sloan patted her hair. "It's a wig, Card. That's why I keep my hair short."</div></div><div><div> </div></div><div><div>"Oh." For a moment I thought she had a spell cast on her.</div></div><div><div> </div></div><div><div>"Don't sound so disappointed; not everything is Arcane related. It fooled you, didn't it?" Sloan turned toward Mom and inclined her head. "We protect our own, Ma'am. It's an honor to finally meet you," she added.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"Oh?" Mom arched an eyebrow.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"Yes, Ms. Gray." Sloan's normal equanimity vanished. "I've read so much about you. The Vintner made sure you were restored to your proper place within the organization. And..."</div></div><div><div> </div></div><div><div>"And?" I'd never heard Mom slip into a voice quite like this before. Whenever she had us kids do something around the house, her tone was a completely different. This sounded like a Sergeant whipping some green trainees into shape.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"We..." Sloan paused, then her reply came in a rush. "We study you, Ma'am. What you did, and how you did it. And because of you, we are taught to never leave anyone behind. If that makes us weaker than our enemies, then so be it. But it makes us better than them."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>Mom nodded. "Thank you...."</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"...Sloan. Sloan McCoy, Ma'am." Sloan swallowed hard.</div></div><div><div><br /></div></div><div><div>"Thank you, Sloan. That means more to me than you'll ever know." Mom reached across me and clasped a surprised Sloan by the shoulder. "Let's not keep the Vintner waiting."</div></div></blockquote></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-31584343090347976052024-02-06T06:00:00.001-05:002024-02-06T06:00:00.147-05:00Ponderable That Makes You Go "Hmmm..."If there's one truism in World of Warcraft, if it can be corrupted it eventually <i>will </i>be corrupted.<div><br /></div><div>After all, the lore states that even Humans are descended from Vrykul, who are corrupted Iron Vrykul who received the Curse of Flesh, as did Dwarves and Gnomes.*</div><div><br /></div><div>There's also another truism that WoW follows that is Lord Acton's quote that <a href="https://www.acton.org/research/lord-acton-quote-archive#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPower%20tends%20to%20corrupt%20and,certainty%20of%20corruption%20by%20authority.%E2%80%9D" target="_blank">"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."</a> If you give an NPC enough power, they'll likely become corrupted over time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unless, of course, plot armor dictates otherwise. (See: Jaina, Thrall, etc.)</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHiTjCTK-POvDI5dRH6w9LLcDXtPMHpirt_Yde0CdNMt3Jg1tDUkHcWkR8rJw3m-1dUZvLQeQ6RPowiBLadIsHs5gUvIK2FkPtX3JRDFCZYqKZo9hsdxPhT7bejWBsvamCt4MYKQUvg42YJijlG_dzIwg7FuXheHCSpS0plRXtjVhERp_lmw7vtDKRyQ/s512/memegenerator-plot-armor.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="512" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHiTjCTK-POvDI5dRH6w9LLcDXtPMHpirt_Yde0CdNMt3Jg1tDUkHcWkR8rJw3m-1dUZvLQeQ6RPowiBLadIsHs5gUvIK2FkPtX3JRDFCZYqKZo9hsdxPhT7bejWBsvamCt4MYKQUvg42YJijlG_dzIwg7FuXheHCSpS0plRXtjVhERp_lmw7vtDKRyQ/w400-h225/memegenerator-plot-armor.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From memegenerator.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>There's also another exception to these general truisms. Us.</div><div><br /></div><div>Given everything that our toons supposedly have done in Retail, we're pretty much at peak power right now. (No matter what happened in Dragonflight, you won the Afterlife an expansion ago, which kind of supersedes that.) So why haven't we become corrupted?</div><div><br /></div><div>Yeah yeah yeah... Blah blah blah... We're the player characters. We're the protagonists in the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then why are we playing second --or third or fourth-- fiddle to the faction leads? Or the guardians of Azeroth? Or of the Afterlife? If they couldn't do any of this without us, why do we need <i>them</i>?</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><br />History is full of examples where the Leader's Champion becomes more powerful or popular than the Leader, and that leads to... Issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes the Leader tries to have the Champion killed (See: King Saul and David).</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes, the Champion revolts against the Leader (See: Sulla vs. the Roman Senate).</div><div><br /></div><div>And sometimes the Champion gains political enemies that bring them to ruin (See: plenty of plots, but also popularly done in literature, such as in Othello.)</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvNZPdz0UBx7DK-t-XhBpApP84eQyHmMIWeMECMsjnKCxb1XBxyzwwDgBMWHbWg0XFN8PbszzzV1xYVl10LiQWzPxgDaMtYT4v8PWw1zCbgGBnXgo3uK86a-9pgaYSsYcZJjkAi2ArF5wscEaEZOzE87W6QH6we0cGfaHRDVnX0bYLpkPkYnMjRr7MfE/s600/memegenerator-othello.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvNZPdz0UBx7DK-t-XhBpApP84eQyHmMIWeMECMsjnKCxb1XBxyzwwDgBMWHbWg0XFN8PbszzzV1xYVl10LiQWzPxgDaMtYT4v8PWw1zCbgGBnXgo3uK86a-9pgaYSsYcZJjkAi2ArF5wscEaEZOzE87W6QH6we0cGfaHRDVnX0bYLpkPkYnMjRr7MfE/w400-h300/memegenerator-othello.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From memegenerator. They're doing well today.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So, while I often make fun of the Mary Sue/Marty Stu nature of Jaina and Thrall, we could also apply the same term to our toons. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>It's the nature of MMOs to eventually run into these problems, because the longer an MMO is alive and receiving updates/expansions, the greater the power creep and the challenges overcome. This is also a problem with ongoing book series, such as with Kim Harrison's Hollows series and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files.*** Still, you'd think that after a while the WoW team would realize that they've been boxed into a corner and need to figure a way out of it. </div><div><br /></div><div>If the story team put half as much effort into addressing the elephant in the room as the dev team did with raid design, they would likely have come up with a solution by now. Then again, maybe not; it certainly seems that the fallback solution is to just assume that we're good little <strike>henchmen</strike> champions who have no desires whatsoever for something grander. History has shown us that for every Cincinnatus or Washington who voluntarily gives up power, there's 99 other people who are more than happy to seize it.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjvy7y9Xppl1DXmkqgGdxUuG8RgaG6SSHhIMa1cuDmSdgdOfXh_rw7nSluKWPtuczJ9vNRt-fC4kgoMFzSPcHWevFym2fFRhIIyLpgL-PLjSq4fPBgyeJ9jCdFRtlet2H1n_MLYp8yplEfu6GyjcHeoZ_-NcUP3bR7T_SdFJehOgVi6Lv_2X8dF0mGhCY/s600/weird-facts-cincinnatus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjvy7y9Xppl1DXmkqgGdxUuG8RgaG6SSHhIMa1cuDmSdgdOfXh_rw7nSluKWPtuczJ9vNRt-fC4kgoMFzSPcHWevFym2fFRhIIyLpgL-PLjSq4fPBgyeJ9jCdFRtlet2H1n_MLYp8yplEfu6GyjcHeoZ_-NcUP3bR7T_SdFJehOgVi6Lv_2X8dF0mGhCY/w400-h400/weird-facts-cincinnatus.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I personally don't think it's weird, but<br />then again I live in Cincinnati. <br />From weird-facts.org.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>And if you've ever been in a battleground, you know that there's a ton of MMO players who'd be more than happy to follow the latter path.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Yes, I still remember my Wrath of the Lich King lore.</div><div><br /></div><div>**whether or not you played those Expacs, the assumption is that your toon did All The Things.</div><div><br /></div><div>***The inspiration for this post originally came from an acquaintance's comment about Rachel Morgan, the protagonist of The Hollows. She told me that she liked the series at first, but Rachel very quickly moved into Mary Sue territory, which gave her problems while reading the books.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-73653862945528650682024-02-05T06:00:00.002-05:002024-02-05T07:55:15.743-05:00Meme Monday: Life of the Party MemesIf you play RPGs, you might be familiar with Travis Hanson's webcomic "Life of the Party: Realities of an RPGer". <div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG4pj4ru71Os3pvpAQWAMc5ExpZAXoruTjqfEHplCWYxCegPgHn_W9Hj050Y9hyphenhyphen2V-pkFC2rLutocbHlBnZa04qt6wNs585ltzua6MjEPsQKFFvPB_CbjRS30BpxZzjxJoMANM7ZgQhyW8gJJ3NEkIPur6W5fIOLa4960Ux_WYXFtXN6JBlDsGRSOOPpk/s1000/weebly-lotp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1000" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG4pj4ru71Os3pvpAQWAMc5ExpZAXoruTjqfEHplCWYxCegPgHn_W9Hj050Y9hyphenhyphen2V-pkFC2rLutocbHlBnZa04qt6wNs585ltzua6MjEPsQKFFvPB_CbjRS30BpxZzjxJoMANM7ZgQhyW8gJJ3NEkIPur6W5fIOLa4960Ux_WYXFtXN6JBlDsGRSOOPpk/w400-h274/weebly-lotp.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Travis' <a href="http://lotprpg.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Weebly site</a>, which last had<br />an update in 2017.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Travis has had various outlets for his webcomic over the years, from GeekDad to his own website. He's also posted on that social media website that is basically Elon Musk's plaything*, but he now most regularly posts on <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/travisjhanson" target="_blank">DeviantArt</a>. (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Life-Party-Realities-Travis-Hanson/dp/1645702839/" target="_blank">He also has several books out!</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, to anybody who plays RPGs or MMOs, Travis' work can touch a nerve and make you laugh at the same time. In honor of Travis, here's a short selection of some of his single page comics:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pn0FprUgDfNPUswwOR8ncXD6VB1wBNluKoBvYaeoD5tbfHiUWYpaIHSR0OcW4vItirqDDMKSsj9FMkDmE0t57fVS4-H7H1osqY-h3hjnitm-Hug1c0Tl16tx1LVBQtDsLsJyzAtPDnHX9zfzgK-90tiCEfuRNBu7DYwgtAlyUH-1HeQlDyhHOplDNqA/s1200/life-of-the-party-killer-rabbit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="1200" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Pn0FprUgDfNPUswwOR8ncXD6VB1wBNluKoBvYaeoD5tbfHiUWYpaIHSR0OcW4vItirqDDMKSsj9FMkDmE0t57fVS4-H7H1osqY-h3hjnitm-Hug1c0Tl16tx1LVBQtDsLsJyzAtPDnHX9zfzgK-90tiCEfuRNBu7DYwgtAlyUH-1HeQlDyhHOplDNqA/w400-h275/life-of-the-party-killer-rabbit.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gotta watch out for that rabbit.<br />Just sayin'.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu0PXkw4wDS84Nwv9S_HMLUBX7CBb3LUwACypkDNqDl_lGRwuoly5TmgToPsvFO02Cq9ooSg-cfRNkxmjnOU64E3hy0WOKONDlrdpOSLKqniV-wTvyiKry44FZL0MO243KiU5hu1-k2CZn5cPJusUmhSpFAFNnbhd0N_zKpwmeu_kH8Y63Y123OM-np4/s1024/armor-in-winter.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="1024" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu0PXkw4wDS84Nwv9S_HMLUBX7CBb3LUwACypkDNqDl_lGRwuoly5TmgToPsvFO02Cq9ooSg-cfRNkxmjnOU64E3hy0WOKONDlrdpOSLKqniV-wTvyiKry44FZL0MO243KiU5hu1-k2CZn5cPJusUmhSpFAFNnbhd0N_zKpwmeu_kH8Y63Y123OM-np4/w400-h275/armor-in-winter.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heh. Nothing more needs saying.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAedhj1Xpc1hyo76aEqxInRpcAW1FVknQvU7SseU2P9ai_-740cLXr3IFyTd3ikQSASKSgB9Q8FzoxPJcdVG0-ePh1RksJlJj8T7XEQVIIWqhALzOICluwNC_NgJ2iMwVkS9MrmLkVoBRqkVCkQba5aCvx8lUdXSDYkCwRmYnMEQxIACPJX4Uok3Hz3mo/s1600/life-of-the-party-baby.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1101" data-original-width="1600" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAedhj1Xpc1hyo76aEqxInRpcAW1FVknQvU7SseU2P9ai_-740cLXr3IFyTd3ikQSASKSgB9Q8FzoxPJcdVG0-ePh1RksJlJj8T7XEQVIIWqhALzOICluwNC_NgJ2iMwVkS9MrmLkVoBRqkVCkQba5aCvx8lUdXSDYkCwRmYnMEQxIACPJX4Uok3Hz3mo/w400-h275/life-of-the-party-baby.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes tech makes things worse.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAldXCjeHKrTJnoJ7_8XyeQw_m4XCvN02qTXNUK5iMV8cMPOqYdJckBZ2n-XbPzu4QwOjOo8adTWlvxNHkRfUgCbWilmCL_z1-KK1ih_ZL1qtlXd0JjOWTTGZXa6UweXBygSVvxnodOOr9lGXGxDqkVSJjy-n6WCImtWn8uVA_5rFfY5qqbLkrtmSuVE/s1100/healing-the-old-fashioned-way.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="1100" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUAldXCjeHKrTJnoJ7_8XyeQw_m4XCvN02qTXNUK5iMV8cMPOqYdJckBZ2n-XbPzu4QwOjOo8adTWlvxNHkRfUgCbWilmCL_z1-KK1ih_ZL1qtlXd0JjOWTTGZXa6UweXBygSVvxnodOOr9lGXGxDqkVSJjy-n6WCImtWn8uVA_5rFfY5qqbLkrtmSuVE/w400-h275/healing-the-old-fashioned-way.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Playing Clerics as I do in pencil and paper RPGs,<br />this tickled my funny bone. A lot.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xlu-VP3OKl4FDZ41f5uUXnvgTga4zvCCm6a4qBVg13G4Q4R8rik8xJzFr3IiBFgRcaZPDWWqglaBSRzsh2tK52bpTiyrlWN-6OPNPevIcRf5EqEtOmO274mNw2t1NtNoyJ5ohnXtxyzfHYETEJyDAhnT-2H4Qsa4T48nerFMnFupokZLpV-MSPsrfTw/s1200/might-be-a-trap.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="1200" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xlu-VP3OKl4FDZ41f5uUXnvgTga4zvCCm6a4qBVg13G4Q4R8rik8xJzFr3IiBFgRcaZPDWWqglaBSRzsh2tK52bpTiyrlWN-6OPNPevIcRf5EqEtOmO274mNw2t1NtNoyJ5ohnXtxyzfHYETEJyDAhnT-2H4Qsa4T48nerFMnFupokZLpV-MSPsrfTw/w400-h275/might-be-a-trap.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is what happens when you roll a one, kids.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>And finally, one bonus meme, just for the Mages:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvRbazBUYrTSL2UwcIKrUdP6QIkNA6Rb0puKvl7BEszZqpP_p8k2BdrJ4U3cjhb9sDtpPX8lIK0DDhZ58q_0MDzdDaQiTX_YeX13mPsdEjoW3RWKSBEtX2AYvLpXAKMhkRa4QWmmmX2VF7EITjVnYewSFp5NLL6PNSNFXLhqMGYBQ-aXbP6NBwgD3npdA/s735/not-a-good-wizard.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="735" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvRbazBUYrTSL2UwcIKrUdP6QIkNA6Rb0puKvl7BEszZqpP_p8k2BdrJ4U3cjhb9sDtpPX8lIK0DDhZ58q_0MDzdDaQiTX_YeX13mPsdEjoW3RWKSBEtX2AYvLpXAKMhkRa4QWmmmX2VF7EITjVnYewSFp5NLL6PNSNFXLhqMGYBQ-aXbP6NBwgD3npdA/w400-h275/not-a-good-wizard.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oops. This is SO me.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*As much as people complain about that, it doesn't matter. It is owned by Elon, and all users of it are pretty much his plaything in the same vein as Earth was to Ming the Mongo from Flash Gordon.</div></div><br /><br /><div>EtA: Added the very first pic. Can't believe I missed that.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-54922477491660687382024-02-02T11:56:00.001-05:002024-02-02T11:56:25.150-05:00Return of the Happy HourOne of the things that I remembered fondly from my time in that Horde guild back in 2010-2011 was that on Fridays after work there would frequently be an impromptu 'Happy Hour' in WoW. <div><br /></div><div>The guild was split between people in the Eastern Time Zone and the Pacific Time Zone, so at 5 PM EST and then at 8 PM EST we'd have people getting off work and getting online to relax and chat. Alcohol was optional, of course, but after a long week at work it was nice to grab a beer and chat online while I worked on dinner. There was no pressure to actually run anything at that time, although if you wanted to run a dungeon with guildies it was an option.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even when that WoW guild imploded, I found another 'Happy Hour' on Lord of the Rings Online with the local band on the Gladden server playing at 5 PM EST in Bree.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4xq7JMF_5pRTSfaPsSzsA-NZxxTvpSEzs0eoc7CjGxlYMbvBo4kmwBPLHCgaTKNCZKSmYF9Cf-YqGpN17VI5qAxbZl6XkaDpX-9vRLWAR31_zyBsoWB_i8XVqcxf2zI5OUJtvAmG5c6eocYsD-8jThw0sK53FJsmg16VoBvV3whNAdy0-UvaLVB37VVI/s1366/ScreenShot00483.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4xq7JMF_5pRTSfaPsSzsA-NZxxTvpSEzs0eoc7CjGxlYMbvBo4kmwBPLHCgaTKNCZKSmYF9Cf-YqGpN17VI5qAxbZl6XkaDpX-9vRLWAR31_zyBsoWB_i8XVqcxf2zI5OUJtvAmG5c6eocYsD-8jThw0sK53FJsmg16VoBvV3whNAdy0-UvaLVB37VVI/w400-h225/ScreenShot00483.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I reached into the archives for this one.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>The mini-Reds found the band first, but after they informed me of the Friday afternoon concert I became a regular as well. </div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't often drink during these concerts, but there were weeks where a beer or a glass of wine felt like a good idea. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, my participation in these Happy Hour concerts ended when the kids reached high school and they joined the marching band. That meant that in the Autumn, Friday after work was spent going to high school football games to watch the marching band.*</div><div><br /></div><div>Eight years later, the mini-Reds aren't quite so mini, and they've all graduated high school and gone to college. It's been a few years since we last attended a high school football game, but of course it's also been a few years since the pandemic began as well. </div><div><br /></div><div>And oh yeah, it's been a few years since my health was turned upside down. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>When I returned to WoW Classic in 2019, I fully expected to remain guildless. It wasn't a desire to play solo per se, but when you've had enough drama within guilds --and being the parent of teenagers**-- you prefer to keep the drama to a minimum. That being said, I did kind of miss the old Happy Hour on Fridays: the ability to just kick back and relax where people are glad to see you.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIB-zk8GCfZYyLl0y3Ywn51l2HwcbSlVf1egAhlE8Fw8SujVw67qhVw2LD2IMR5cu6dQkGWVIILM3m6LajmTY6s7QaaCLUubC8ja9-Vafa4BZFfjcNvdolc4kXpmP5GlM2HoaOwQg3FtLadkA4mdN4O03PUsXRmPmJ04dsp68FNbXC6BLNh2tIHKvcB3o/s400/cheers-norm.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIB-zk8GCfZYyLl0y3Ywn51l2HwcbSlVf1egAhlE8Fw8SujVw67qhVw2LD2IMR5cu6dQkGWVIILM3m6LajmTY6s7QaaCLUubC8ja9-Vafa4BZFfjcNvdolc4kXpmP5GlM2HoaOwQg3FtLadkA4mdN4O03PUsXRmPmJ04dsp68FNbXC6BLNh2tIHKvcB3o/w400-h300/cheers-norm.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Cheers, via yarn.co.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>I ended up joining a few guilds in my WoW Classic career, and with the exception of the one guild pivoting toward a truly hardcore raiding scene which directly led to my departure from it, I had an okay time. I say "okay" because being on a West Coast server meant there weren't a lot of people on when I got off work; that usually happened when it hit 5 PM Pacific Time.</div><div><br /></div><div>But now, with my involvement in Classic Era with my Questing Buddy and a small cadre of friends --originally hers, but I kind of got adopted by them-- it feels... Good. While we're not part of the same guild, we have a chat channel that we share that keeps us all connected. We also use their old TBC Classic guild's Discord server for when we want to get in voice chat. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today, being Friday, means that we'll likely get on voice chat and enjoy the company of each other for a while. It'll be later than the traditional Happy Hour, as some of them have kids that need to be put to bed, but it definitely qualifies as one to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, about that beer...</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JIWlxayqtkR6bhQwbuf0pApAa6uuuytrrU2kFDTxU64p5h5h4haZjwUVVtI7SyDg68zzCD3zsMsP4CdZc4GgfrP3UdGluY4SCW8seHjZrZTjL0AXNf2AUfARaacVFK5_4Bm3f9pOQlPLVOyzhbGDVQ9ZcMWWYI6IyauCjrWX7QP8GaIsX95-xZY-KSI/s400/braxton-brewing-garage-beer.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="229" data-original-width="400" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JIWlxayqtkR6bhQwbuf0pApAa6uuuytrrU2kFDTxU64p5h5h4haZjwUVVtI7SyDg68zzCD3zsMsP4CdZc4GgfrP3UdGluY4SCW8seHjZrZTjL0AXNf2AUfARaacVFK5_4Bm3f9pOQlPLVOyzhbGDVQ9ZcMWWYI6IyauCjrWX7QP8GaIsX95-xZY-KSI/w400-h229/braxton-brewing-garage-beer.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I can drink beer, but I have to ration my amounts.<br />And yes, I know that means 'light beer' for the most<br />part, and that probably sucks for a lot of people.<br />But local breweries make light beer such as<br />this one that taste much better than the big brands <br />and I support the local economy. From the Braxton<br />Brewing Company, Covington, Kentucky.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*To be clear, it wasn't to watch the football team. We were there to watch our kids, and the football team lost their games <i>a lot</i>. And by 'a lot', I mean that seasons where they only won one game wasn't that uncommon. </div><div><br /></div><div>**There's also drama in our neighborhood that I definitely try my damnedest to avoid but don't always succeed. In a way, not sending my kids to Catholic schools --which is where most of the kids in our neighborhood attend-- has been a boon in the end. It sure didn't feel like it at first, but once the kids grew up I realized I'd successfully avoided most of the parochial school/church related drama (and there tends to be a crap ton of it, from what I can see). </div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-24900257342218158842024-01-29T06:00:00.006-05:002024-01-29T06:00:00.348-05:00Meme Monday: Memes of Things That I've Actually DoneI figured that there have been enough memes that I've saved that reminded me of silly and/or stupid things I've actually done that I ought to share.<div><br /></div><div>Why? Because I'm stupid that way, and I figure I really ought to laugh at myself.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBj8hh1jR6E35oqecpCuCUPcF7pwoKeB7q01dhugWnTch5GCIv8P2LvLmw8tppYOE2siaF3iICecyC0nq9mXuGazKExi70rCvr62BLqIRccsxbx9UkktlEJmrjGDyp0uBD_PxSoiTAtIdsSj3dGfIyk5D4cDyJqeVxEUtLadi2IIt8vyrdbIqcHK95Bt8/s403/memebase-done-it.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBj8hh1jR6E35oqecpCuCUPcF7pwoKeB7q01dhugWnTch5GCIv8P2LvLmw8tppYOE2siaF3iICecyC0nq9mXuGazKExi70rCvr62BLqIRccsxbx9UkktlEJmrjGDyp0uBD_PxSoiTAtIdsSj3dGfIyk5D4cDyJqeVxEUtLadi2IIt8vyrdbIqcHK95Bt8/w398-h400/memebase-done-it.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surely I'm not the first person to do this one.<br />From memebase.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjrSQ_e0I7WSv5qpl_c2jg7aVDw-WYZOyujWXAGyMtha8KhzxHW46fMRtT_KDiA3XT5EQi7yJByvT2kyWqZnZ7Rqz4rU8sNqNaN-2qdmV9gaButmWeNb9LwiZGaAbyz9ugxDCoVyF_bxPnNEb_GH2wX4AEB5TMMwOH0tHT_2U8rrZBr9d_eqJ9MIMeHo/s574/reddit-bard-dying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="460" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRjrSQ_e0I7WSv5qpl_c2jg7aVDw-WYZOyujWXAGyMtha8KhzxHW46fMRtT_KDiA3XT5EQi7yJByvT2kyWqZnZ7Rqz4rU8sNqNaN-2qdmV9gaButmWeNb9LwiZGaAbyz9ugxDCoVyF_bxPnNEb_GH2wX4AEB5TMMwOH0tHT_2U8rrZBr9d_eqJ9MIMeHo/w320-h400/reddit-bard-dying.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uh.... Not as a Bard, but you get the idea.<br />From Reddit.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsxjEHE7RVOAIL1NTUBLqo5vc6X2D5vQNPBm6eELr_ztUIn_7Jz8l1IEweTB3bELzGTaMmLqjyOmem1RwDq2daZVjMdEyqdZfOqMKFsW5Z0UK23MNL9IgJ4O555t3kUjWMceDT_ca9fFSSlAjwtli_Infjh4jkjpkhXsuWPEczcvNCvClvEBFr4Girm5s/s650/ranker-misses.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="650" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsxjEHE7RVOAIL1NTUBLqo5vc6X2D5vQNPBm6eELr_ztUIn_7Jz8l1IEweTB3bELzGTaMmLqjyOmem1RwDq2daZVjMdEyqdZfOqMKFsW5Z0UK23MNL9IgJ4O555t3kUjWMceDT_ca9fFSSlAjwtli_Infjh4jkjpkhXsuWPEczcvNCvClvEBFr4Girm5s/w400-h259/ranker-misses.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm pretty sure I'm the reason why the D&D 3.0<br />concept of "Take 20" exists.<br />From Ranker.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqk4Wyn1RzTmOIFS8UY6wxqof5IRyygH9Fmn-k0VaVxeOUwWeWSjn7lQTOU-IxqJLyYcwhgQSiQkGBaJuB79fLbd2KujX9CO8ejFSZNRD89bqwl_lFdFXO0XTWeCfKV9k178avWwrTXkvQMtdcgGkeoUra1UeHPtbsLgeeFgV-P2WAgKYhxbryGQai_k/s740/wargamer-improvise-names.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="416" data-original-width="740" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLqk4Wyn1RzTmOIFS8UY6wxqof5IRyygH9Fmn-k0VaVxeOUwWeWSjn7lQTOU-IxqJLyYcwhgQSiQkGBaJuB79fLbd2KujX9CO8ejFSZNRD89bqwl_lFdFXO0XTWeCfKV9k178avWwrTXkvQMtdcgGkeoUra1UeHPtbsLgeeFgV-P2WAgKYhxbryGQai_k/w400-h225/wargamer-improvise-names.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NPC: "I see, Mr...."<br />Me: "Uh.... Bob! Bobby Blobbo the Healer!"<br />From wargamer.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>And one bonus meme:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0QKcQNi1Pi9R-eY14AuSRsn-KyHRT44HNqqkNiHo-OEv-oZzAh8eydkZzBS6142zJnwWB8ssayV6WACIiYGQoWSacto3vexwEFzAce-FPg7fCh6SALVbSBchKd44pbvlWPsx8tMp3z-ZnnYqHWPrpdhDrbqGpMLiFfmiwPXUsN0mduQzIOgcuys0jNZs/s736/ifunnyco-splitting-party.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="736" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0QKcQNi1Pi9R-eY14AuSRsn-KyHRT44HNqqkNiHo-OEv-oZzAh8eydkZzBS6142zJnwWB8ssayV6WACIiYGQoWSacto3vexwEFzAce-FPg7fCh6SALVbSBchKd44pbvlWPsx8tMp3z-ZnnYqHWPrpdhDrbqGpMLiFfmiwPXUsN0mduQzIOgcuys0jNZs/w400-h330/ifunnyco-splitting-party.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For the number of times it worked for Scooby<br />and the gang, it had never worked for me.<br />Which is why I'm so adamantly against it.<br />From ifunny.co.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-83587016678769548292024-01-28T14:27:00.002-05:002024-01-28T14:27:38.872-05:00No, I Can't Get Used to ThatMaybe it's because it's that part of Winter in the Midwest, where you might see the sun once every couple of weeks, that's got me feeling this way. Or maybe it was my little medical scare last November, which I can safely say has passed after my latest blood test. Or maybe it's because of all the layoffs that have been happening in IT, video games, and other portions of the tech industry for no real good reason other than making the profit line go up for faceless investors that never have to deal with the consequences of their rabid, insatiable demands for more more more. But yeah, this has been a gloomy kind of weekend.<div><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglNuif4meSc9xTQsL7VPfY6W6prstlnWWnSjpj53GaSp81rAcyrKVSf6vtk1vw69dNcxL1rEVu5VqUZOa6GMi-iVA6I-dY5uxxg-cfqH4FOXd4Rd6p0jKwyM3_jYYJjEfn-vZpTsKQ9h1ALhj4uSIcbrfNHXqavWd8LHPNqxpQ9T_73TW7L3VTe2KUfA/s348/Screenshot%202024-01-28%20082714.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="348" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiglNuif4meSc9xTQsL7VPfY6W6prstlnWWnSjpj53GaSp81rAcyrKVSf6vtk1vw69dNcxL1rEVu5VqUZOa6GMi-iVA6I-dY5uxxg-cfqH4FOXd4Rd6p0jKwyM3_jYYJjEfn-vZpTsKQ9h1ALhj4uSIcbrfNHXqavWd8LHPNqxpQ9T_73TW7L3VTe2KUfA/w400-h376/Screenshot%202024-01-28%20082714.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was on Mike Ybarra's LinkedIn page<br />as of this morning. I took the screencap just<br />in case this post gets deleted sometime later.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>If you can guess, judging by my comment above, I was rather disgusted by the tone deafness inherent in the post. 1900 employees (at minimum) <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/01/25/microsoft-lays-off-1900-activision-blizzard-and-xbox-employees/?sh=37b4d157686d" target="_blank">lost their jobs from the Microsoft Games division</a>*, and that included ex-Blizzard President Mike Ybarra. In typical LinkedIn fashion, he posted a perpetual sales-type upbeat spin on his own departure; if he never worked another day in his life I'm sure he'll be perfectly well off. If he could handle living a middle class lifestyle, that is. </div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_w-31z_TOAKl7eh2lDTK7rMGeXtJrAFH8y2iQTgf885YP8oSBkKyf1loOdgjbMta8vdBomgT7OrzLpkycNZ8tIlCmFwfhEdLS0GMse55052_oQVtxAYkK-YbJvKhOFxall5Lneuc09fiGbNgdsmJMG8aNPmzDiZlLZp48cvU9LZAzofqGp5imor60bK4/s795/boredpanda-x-castle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_w-31z_TOAKl7eh2lDTK7rMGeXtJrAFH8y2iQTgf885YP8oSBkKyf1loOdgjbMta8vdBomgT7OrzLpkycNZ8tIlCmFwfhEdLS0GMse55052_oQVtxAYkK-YbJvKhOFxall5Lneuc09fiGbNgdsmJMG8aNPmzDiZlLZp48cvU9LZAzofqGp5imor60bK4/w353-h400/boredpanda-x-castle.jpg" width="353" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm sure that Mike Ybarra will cope with using<br />Kroger brand peanut butter and coffee; just think<br />of all the money he could save!<br />From Boredpanda and Elon Musk's private<br />dick-measuring exercise with his billionaire buddies.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>Still, that did get me to thinking about a variety of things, not the least of which is grappling with the concept baked into the American work ethic as defined by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/34745-puritanism-the-haunting-fear-that-someone-somewhere-may-be-happy" target="_blank">H.L. Mencken</a> as "Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>Having done my share of genealogical research, I've seen a lot of census entries for my ancestors as variations on "laborer", "housewife", or "maid". Sometimes you see them progress to "machinist" or "carpenter", but I've also seen pictures of the houses/apartments they rented --many of them merely rented rather than owned a home-- and I saw how they kinda sorta eked out a living over the past century and a half. </div><div><br /></div><div>And now there's me.</div><div><br /></div><div>Where I am is the culmination of their work --and their luck or lack thereof-- and I've made a living in a field that has seen its share of ups and downs. I'm no Puritan by a long stretch --my kids will tell you that-- but that Puritan work ethic has manifested in me over the years to an uncomfortable degree. I simply can't seem to relax and enjoy myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, what I find enjoyable is not what a lot of people do. </div><div><br /></div><div>A few months ago I had a conversation with a coworker about a variety of things, but he mentioned he was going to go on a cruise in a week or two, and that is one thing that I simply can't examine and find enjoyable.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqAnvyxOW4KVkyXYLvdkGSTAn8-FLHbgjRaKvW_KPbyvw3ey8NtDPtdzHdGStXxvVwjmBJujzOFldTGGsByAswZoEI1GU1E8FUvNBjiY68DkKzVn9_hXHFTfYND-ZSZbqno0NqFoCQRyk2qeTsB6CtG3HMHKp_9ppLNCp-fZVuXSHsmtNyn9bO3OaGqs/s600/cruisecritic-icon-of-the-seas.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMqAnvyxOW4KVkyXYLvdkGSTAn8-FLHbgjRaKvW_KPbyvw3ey8NtDPtdzHdGStXxvVwjmBJujzOFldTGGsByAswZoEI1GU1E8FUvNBjiY68DkKzVn9_hXHFTfYND-ZSZbqno0NqFoCQRyk2qeTsB6CtG3HMHKp_9ppLNCp-fZVuXSHsmtNyn9bO3OaGqs/w400-h266/cruisecritic-icon-of-the-seas.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, this is not Bobby Kotick's yacht;<br />it's two of Royal Caribbean's cruise ships.<br />From cruisecritic.net.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Even before my dietary restrictions, being in an enclosed space around that many people --and the associated conspicuous consumption-- just made me shudder. Even if I did find being on an oceangoing vessel enjoyable in itself, I would know that the places these ships docked at were tourist traps that presented a false impression of the localities themselves. It's kind of like going on what is called "exotic travel" and ending up at a resort somewhere; I can't enjoy that at all because I feel like I'm participating in some holdover from nineteenth century colonialism.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's not white guilt per se, but the feeling that I'm still taking advantage of a situation when I recognize that a past I never had any control over still influences things today. I could choose to be willfully blind and try to enjoy myself, but that's not me.</div><div><br /></div><div>To put this in perspective, my family once went on a road trip vacation that ended at the Outer Banks, North Carolina.** One evening, my ever-budget conscious parents decided to go to a "family restaurant" on the strip near our motel. You could tell the restaurants there wanted tourists because a lot of them had "AAA Approved" signs***, and so did the one we chose. The place had late 70s/early 80s decor, and the food was good enough (think of a local version of Perkins or Denny's), but what made me profoundly uncomfortable was the fact that while the management was white all of the staff were black. Okay, it was more than just that: the mannerisms that the staff exuded were extremely formal in a "this is how the serving staff of a duchess/plantation owner would behave" sort of way. In one of those rare occasions where my brother and I saw eye-to-eye, we both commented on later when we were alone at how damned icky that made us feel.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, it was the South and only 20 years removed from the Civil Rights Act, but still I was shocked that in the mid-80s this sort of thing still existed. At a "family restaurant" no less.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I guess you could say that I'm uncomfortable with what I consider to be ostentatious displays of wealth and privilege. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qrH24KZoQvc" width="320" youtube-src-id="qrH24KZoQvc"></iframe></div><br /><div>I realize that Lexus as a car brand isn't truly a "luxury" car brand in the same vein as, say, Bentley is, but the "I could get used to this" tagline caught my attention when I first saw this commercial back in 2015 and I instinctively thought "No, I couldn't." For me, it's as if I'd gotten dropped into the middle of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62446.The_Prince_and_the_Pauper" target="_blank">The Prince and the Pauper</a>, and I know instinctively that I'd never feel at ease knowing what life is like for people who have less.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, at this time of year, when you watch sports and there are tons of commercials for cruises, destination vacations, financial products, and luxury items**** and sporting events that the rich (or wannabe rich) go to, it really starts to affect me. (And that doesn't even touch on the fact that in the US there's now a ton of commercials for legalized betting.) I suppose it's a good thing that my social media imprint is minimal, given that I'd see a lot more of this stuff, and I'd really rather not be a party pooper.</div><div><br /></div><div>Was there a point to this rant? Not really; I just have had it building inside me for a very long time now and I wanted to get it off of my chest. Well, that and that I'm tired --really really fucking tired-- of extremely rich people trying to proclaim how they're just "a regular guy" while hobnobbing with other extremely rich people, and trying to enact policies in business, politics and elsewhere that only favor themselves.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Mostly ex-Activision-Blizzard employees, but also some from Zenimax (Bethesda) and other areas.</div><div><br /></div><div>**Luckily for me we visited Kitty Hawk, the site of the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers. Yes, I'm an aviation nut.</div><div><br /></div><div>***Now THAT is a blast from the past. I doubt businesses give a rat's ass about the American Automobile Association's seal of approval these days, but back in the 70s and 80s you were at least guaranteed a minimal amount of quality if that stamp of approval were given to a business.</div><div><br /></div><div>****Given the price, I consider an iPhone or a top model Samsung Galaxy a luxury item, no matter if the wireless company gives it to you "for free", because you end up paying the $1400 cost for the phone. It's just hidden in the cost of the service itself, that's all.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-75380947066183773512024-01-25T15:15:00.000-05:002024-01-25T15:15:00.108-05:00An RPG from the Past: RuneQuest<p>Back when I was in high school, my Geometry teacher ran a club called the Rail Baron Club. Until I actually had him for Geometry my sophomore year, I had absolutely no idea what the hell Rail Baron actually was, much less why a club existed for it. </p><p>As it turns out, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/420/rail-baron" target="_blank">Rail Baron</a> was a game produced by The Avalon Hill Game Company*, and since my Geometry teacher was a railroad fan, he'd fallen in love with the game and shared it with the students. A few of us bought our own copies of Rail Baron, and I joined their ranks sometime late in my sophomore year. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcimUbgqWKVouaf4D71M2HLQbWaqy9TtRSkewiCRGJmIWssExxMfZ7pfdkmgZoPjMXN9Tl5EsAMU3CuJuMerGjpJ46LMxSfTf_s-NoCaXLQ3yXsrBDxAFN6qDMLVPLeQ392-Gyu8hPRBj45D694_nxdFxKJ_iIbKvCSsZ_-TDFIZMwnZ7DZm4FBMUbEw/s4624/20231129_151723.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2604" data-original-width="4624" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrcimUbgqWKVouaf4D71M2HLQbWaqy9TtRSkewiCRGJmIWssExxMfZ7pfdkmgZoPjMXN9Tl5EsAMU3CuJuMerGjpJ46LMxSfTf_s-NoCaXLQ3yXsrBDxAFN6qDMLVPLeQ392-Gyu8hPRBj45D694_nxdFxKJ_iIbKvCSsZ_-TDFIZMwnZ7DZm4FBMUbEw/w400-h225/20231129_151723.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Imagine Monopoly but using rail lines, although <br />that's a bit of an oversimplification. I'm nerdy enough <br />that I laminated the destination chart to protect it long term. <br />"I swear, Bill, if you buy Seaboard Air<br />Line AGAIN I'm gonna scream!" --Me</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Inside the box for Rail Baron was a postcard you could send in to Avalon Hill, requesting a game catalog, and of course I did just that.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQZRpRkM5t4ZLjl9rxE9eVDYgryyZBqYU8sdHYGgpUqFs0rpPoSZSxMhf0s65FIFI9YSpM0zvyegCmT_59J8vbMO1grqwWkE6OM_tJMh5awVpIfPGojUkMj2_8v8f6yMuESgzU0GXCmvcIS-vZ0NzgpvDpensYaqeW3zVRQrK-f-YpxNG8OFA4QyOc4c/s1055/Avalon%20Hills%20Friend%20Reference%20Card_0001.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1055" data-original-width="844" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQZRpRkM5t4ZLjl9rxE9eVDYgryyZBqYU8sdHYGgpUqFs0rpPoSZSxMhf0s65FIFI9YSpM0zvyegCmT_59J8vbMO1grqwWkE6OM_tJMh5awVpIfPGojUkMj2_8v8f6yMuESgzU0GXCmvcIS-vZ0NzgpvDpensYaqeW3zVRQrK-f-YpxNG8OFA4QyOc4c/w320-h400/Avalon%20Hills%20Friend%20Reference%20Card_0001.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I couldn't find any of these old cards, where<br />the air of superiority was very strong, so<br />I had to go to the Internet Archive to find this one.<br />The cards I found from the late-80s onward were...<br />much more polite toward prospective players.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>When the catalog arrived, I would spend hours perusing the various board game titles, imagining what it'd be like to play them. But in the back, there was an ad for this:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWUS1jDHME4tkKZe1cfC-6IVZS7yRsVUen9lewfbhT69_PV_SMjJZHNXnw-mvRKWB-K0SNiGLauMxcG_7zImUWYkje1qFoNohjz3xoU5AubU5_OAUbo8Afa-zsIxcK_KFpXMuHJxEtORAnXzZVqk1OMn-4oYO30KhgucXxDDmNSk_N23Y2MY0NfYX9Bw/s1000/runequest-3rd-edition-avalon-hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWUS1jDHME4tkKZe1cfC-6IVZS7yRsVUen9lewfbhT69_PV_SMjJZHNXnw-mvRKWB-K0SNiGLauMxcG_7zImUWYkje1qFoNohjz3xoU5AubU5_OAUbo8Afa-zsIxcK_KFpXMuHJxEtORAnXzZVqk1OMn-4oYO30KhgucXxDDmNSk_N23Y2MY0NfYX9Bw/w288-h400/runequest-3rd-edition-avalon-hill.jpg" width="288" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Something I did not know was that<br />SFF author Kate Elliot and her husband<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/KateElliottSFF/status/910393249944104961" target="_blank">were the models</a> for this artwork by<br />Jody Lee. From Bill H from RPGGeek.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p>RuneQuest? I'd never heard of it before. Given that I was a couple of years into the RPG ban in my household, I just didn't draw any sort of attention to the fact that an RPG was right in a board game catalog. Still, the image that Avalon Hill tried to project --they were a "thinking man's company"-- meant that their Mensa-esque "superior" image rubbed off onto RuneQuest. I kind of knew about the game, but never played it, and I figured it was pretty highbrow as far as it went.</p><p>Oh, I had no idea just how bonkers the game could be.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Okay, let me back up a bit. </p><p>As I have since learned over the decades, RuneQuest was created in 1978 as an RPG for the world of Glorantha, a setting created by the late Greg Stafford back when he was in college in the 60s. Greg co-founded Chaosium to publish his first game based on Glorantha, a board game titled <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10884/white-bear-red-moon" target="_blank">White Bear and Red Moon</a>, and RuneQuest came along a few years later. D&D was experiencing its first huge burst of growth, and people who liked the Glorantha setting in White Bear and Red Moon wanted an RPG for that setting. </p><p>Hence, RuneQuest.</p><p>The initial two editions of RuneQuest, published by Chaosium, were integrated with the Glorantha setting, but by the time the third edition was published, publishing had since been picked up by Avalon Hill.*** The biggest change from the previous editions of RuneQuest was that the third edition became divorced from the Glorantha setting; sure, there were plenty of Glorantha supplements published for RQ 3rd edition, but the "official" setting was Fantasy Europe****, which is just as it sounds.</p><p>Avalon Hill published RuneQuest up until the company imploded and was sold to Hasbro*****, and when the rights to RuneQuest became available once more, Greg Stafford grabbed it and got Mongoose Publishing to create a version of RuneQuest. </p><p>In typical Mongoose fashion, they ended up with two versions of the RPG. And let's just say that Mongoose's version of RQ had.... issues. Unlike Mongoose Traveller which continues to be well received, there were a ton of issues with RQ, and in the end a RuneQuest 6th Edition was created by The Design Mechanism. </p><p>Fast forward to 2015 and Chaosium was on the verge of collapse, and the founder, Greg Stafford, was brought in to save the company. (Apple fans, tell me if you've heard this scenario before.) When Greg came back, he helped to get Chaosium on good financial footing, and began work on a new version of RuneQuest. The Design Mechanism's version of RuneQuest was no longer needed per se, so that 6th Edition morphed into a setting-agnostic version of the game called Mythras. (Which still exists to this day.)</p><p>Greg passed away in 2018, but his vision for the current version of the RPG was realized with the publication of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, in 2018. </p><p>Got all that?</p><p>Oh, and I haven't even mentioned Greg Stafford creating HeroQuest, which also uses the Glorantha setting in a rules-lite fashion.</p><p>No, not this HeroQuest:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd1KsPpxp4E27wCX3slUU1QSfCgnlMhNwPsChGjDysRseYHlM0ajlkN7hBvagF0EKMYZCNmA4-VEy71HVHQEcW2hShstqjpOZ3LKwFf8GpCkL7kvRL6dOnb3JfBMiNyxDciqEpDF1oXk5Kafq9HFHoQiOlWpwwYP-LV6uJREQbYyXD1qxCq8SZwKNSUek/s2090/heroquest.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="2090" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd1KsPpxp4E27wCX3slUU1QSfCgnlMhNwPsChGjDysRseYHlM0ajlkN7hBvagF0EKMYZCNmA4-VEy71HVHQEcW2hShstqjpOZ3LKwFf8GpCkL7kvRL6dOnb3JfBMiNyxDciqEpDF1oXk5Kafq9HFHoQiOlWpwwYP-LV6uJREQbYyXD1qxCq8SZwKNSUek/w400-h266/heroquest.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the current version of the<br />Milton Bradley game, published by<br />Hasbro. Pic is from all over the net.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>But THIS HeroQuest:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwhndq8f0jH5uPKbhTi5uL8czX4K46p2Jh4y_VtaSSBgxtd6LxJSjlnFStGf_DbFUfe3aQffHc5J1xDx1Yxu6kLJnC6rdS3UaVCDLFt-wagvDn2DCCQ_syAhgV4-FlQa0bbg1DMwExfzNmM5qc220blI5Vh088-5VVm7NQt9ACQmWrafPwR3U65u13pk/s1000/heroquest-glorantha.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="742" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkwhndq8f0jH5uPKbhTi5uL8czX4K46p2Jh4y_VtaSSBgxtd6LxJSjlnFStGf_DbFUfe3aQffHc5J1xDx1Yxu6kLJnC6rdS3UaVCDLFt-wagvDn2DCCQ_syAhgV4-FlQa0bbg1DMwExfzNmM5qc220blI5Vh088-5VVm7NQt9ACQmWrafPwR3U65u13pk/w296-h400/heroquest-glorantha.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, it's complicated, and I'm not done yet!<br />From Moon Design Publications.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />And back in 2020, <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/blogmoon-design-publications-transfers-ownership-of-the-heroquest-trademark-to-hasbro/" target="_blank">the trademark for HeroQuest moved back to Hasbro</a> so they could republish that first HQ game, and THIS HeroQuest is now known as QuestWorlds.<div><br /></div><div>Whew!<p>In a bizarre sort of way, the history of RPGs based on Glorantha is as complex as the Glorantha setting itself is.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Remember when I mentioned that RuneQuest was a bit bonkers? The RuneQuest system itself isn't bonkers per se, because it is a skill based RPG with a lot of crunch to it; if you think Pathfinder has crunch, let me introduce you to my little friend here. </p><p>No, it's the Glorantha setting itself that is bonkers.</p><p>When you first hear Glorantha and "Bronze Age Setting", your mind immediately leaps to, well, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Or maybe Ramses II of Egypt, or Hammurabi. Or maybe even the Hittite city of Watusa, the Nubian city of Meroƫ, the Elamites of Anshan, or the Indus Valley and Harappa.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v48sVyU2EZg" width="320" youtube-src-id="v48sVyU2EZg"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">Somebody should have told the Hollywood</div><div style="text-align: center;">execs that these should have been bronze weapons.</div><div style="text-align: center;">But The Rock's gonna Rock...</div><p>But Glorantha is... Well, it's kind of not what you might be used to.</p><p>For starters, the world of Glorantha is known by its inhabitants be a gigantic disk, with an underworld and a sky above:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4fAPZSQTsbFbkhIAXX6MgIeFethMwu1rI-RaV4LSJfhVVOf-bUwf16oDeX59YDzvBLWobz2HFxVo78i-0_VIGK3dRr8XGxA-jNeZsw0mddJgoPZwMhovR40-yJONSttu2T4Bzi8IFZTIYFgFpEHO9tPMbTETy5XhwTbza5BqMF8JE8eNV56JgGIvcEc/s1321/glorantha-cosmology.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1321" data-original-width="1298" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA4fAPZSQTsbFbkhIAXX6MgIeFethMwu1rI-RaV4LSJfhVVOf-bUwf16oDeX59YDzvBLWobz2HFxVo78i-0_VIGK3dRr8XGxA-jNeZsw0mddJgoPZwMhovR40-yJONSttu2T4Bzi8IFZTIYFgFpEHO9tPMbTETy5XhwTbza5BqMF8JE8eNV56JgGIvcEc/w393-h400/glorantha-cosmology.jpeg" width="393" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I should mention that the artwork and the rules<br />themselves do have an adult approach toward<br />sexuality. I mean, I'm an adult so it's no big deal,<br />but be aware of it in case you don't want kids asking<br />uncomfortable questions of you.<br />This is from <a href="https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/josef-bugman/glorantha/">writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>There are also a veritable ton of gods out there in Glorantha, and none of them really fit into the standard Greco-Roman --or even Egyptian-- Pantheons. The gods aren't good or evil either in the standard Fantasy sense either, despite what the Chaosium rep tried to explain to me at Gen Con back in 2023. There are gods and goddesses of Nature, the Sky, the Underworld, etc., but whether they are good or evil is purely dependent upon the point of view of your cult.</p><p>Oh yes, the cults of Glorantha.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSG64B4rpD5AgtQ8V5DQclThomg6DxHr9-amA-5j9JKYyo-ocqYEGqSgUloM33H-GAny8_fVYEmI26SHxiWcY9Z4kcWMtx4P28UdGvrJuSfrGfJvvY7mV0I7YgdAlkRJGRQTvIc1DJU630pdcBTkFyhaNkDes47J0JEJbCT9JFbw36S56a-OOOZQuiTXE/s640/the-cult-sonic-temple.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSG64B4rpD5AgtQ8V5DQclThomg6DxHr9-amA-5j9JKYyo-ocqYEGqSgUloM33H-GAny8_fVYEmI26SHxiWcY9Z4kcWMtx4P28UdGvrJuSfrGfJvvY7mV0I7YgdAlkRJGRQTvIc1DJU630pdcBTkFyhaNkDes47J0JEJbCT9JFbw36S56a-OOOZQuiTXE/w400-h400/the-cult-sonic-temple.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No, not this Cult...</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsVU2zTwzH8iJtAC0WXfz1H049oi7CyZfnX3qMDD8LBz3vrC5hDHFijKFFfzo8LKad6kZuIWbdv_m97r7p4bT_xPjTwyBS6crlftEs9XL68rhr4gfHs2UQdUBMuGC80Ec0LO15iYfSweTcwfSH2oeM3xq7X-D01Xa_0nKwSS3130rdExuBkxYgNilcU5Y/s800/Cults%20of%20RuneQuest%20-%20The%20Earth%20Goddesses.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="604" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsVU2zTwzH8iJtAC0WXfz1H049oi7CyZfnX3qMDD8LBz3vrC5hDHFijKFFfzo8LKad6kZuIWbdv_m97r7p4bT_xPjTwyBS6crlftEs9XL68rhr4gfHs2UQdUBMuGC80Ec0LO15iYfSweTcwfSH2oeM3xq7X-D01Xa_0nKwSS3130rdExuBkxYgNilcU5Y/w303-h400/Cults%20of%20RuneQuest%20-%20The%20Earth%20Goddesses.jpg" width="303" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">but these types of Cults. Have I mentioned<br />the adult themes? From Chaosium.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>A Cult in Glorantha isn't what it means in our own terminology, but is closer to an extended tribe that embraces a god or goddess. If you roll with that, you're about 90% of the way to understanding cults. Your cult gives you identity and camaraderie, and a ready made community to fall back on for support throughout the game. You betray your cult at your own risk.</p><p>The player characters in Glorantha embrace their position as heroes by going on what is in-game referred to as Hero Quests# --if you think of the Hero's Journey as a template, you've got the right idea-- for the glory of your cult and your chosen deity. If you complete your Hero Quest successfully, you may take your place in the upcoming Hero Wars, where the great heroes across Glorantha gather to fight for the future of the world.</p><p>The traditional starting location for a RuneQuest game is Dragon Pass, where there's a ton of action and activity, and there's clearly defined "Good Guys" (Kingdom of Sartar) and "Bad Guys" (The Lunar Empire). Like I mentioned above, they're not "good" and "evil" in the traditional sense, but the Lunar Empire is definitely the aggressors as an occupying empire that the Kingdom of Satar has recently ejected from the area; like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, the Lunar Empire is plotting to return to power in Dragon Pass, so they're not going away any time soon.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Okay, one thing I do have to address about Glorantha is that while humans are the current dominant race, there are lesser races that had their time in the sun. Such as the Elder Races. </p><p>Elves are not like what you typically find in RPG fare, but are akin to that found in Guild Wars 2: they are sapient plants.##</p><p>There are also spirits that reside within everything, which is very much an ancient way of looking at the world:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aWHn9Qt038fag_Glljc-_aVdZqKG8zygjEP8BUci4tBvwLDVw54HTasGqjyNuWUpDD37hN9hVEtU-0cpx4ioHhrGjyovGzjPk8_HLuflkCFy9mOqnPJlWvfuBndaI094tLixZaalCjeAY4V1bKqWqpVGhBvnhEaKdQg0ZdK7kOsXw1igYFD_XxESZzA/s1211/glorantha-coloring-book-spirits-page-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="936" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4aWHn9Qt038fag_Glljc-_aVdZqKG8zygjEP8BUci4tBvwLDVw54HTasGqjyNuWUpDD37hN9hVEtU-0cpx4ioHhrGjyovGzjPk8_HLuflkCFy9mOqnPJlWvfuBndaI094tLixZaalCjeAY4V1bKqWqpVGhBvnhEaKdQg0ZdK7kOsXw1igYFD_XxESZzA/w309-h400/glorantha-coloring-book-spirits-page-15.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From RuneQuest: The Coloring Book,<br />available for <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/the-runequest-coloring-book-pod/" target="_blank">Print</a> and <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/the-runequest-coloring-book-pdf/" target="_blank">PDF</a> from Chaosium, page 15.<br />If you buy the POD version, the PDF is free.<br />Again, yes, adult themes, but the art is really fantastic.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>And I suppose I need to mention the Ducks.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7HQmgKx9MwQOhLTawelUOyHb5-SPj869Ek-BXAWUEFYjXvQbrB_B8xyGz5ovLdLFy0lEq5Zi1cok9d505pAdsVCP0hl4FiNyWgMZ-T0ApXrBLrEwhuiD9FrUAoGLV2YBHx0L96JZQRqxXsOKfj6qmbIiAds3SCjQ3bhNXXIqWMIbvP7f2_DSxXMNbuIA/s650/Creating-a-duck-character-for-RuneQuest-Glorantha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="650" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7HQmgKx9MwQOhLTawelUOyHb5-SPj869Ek-BXAWUEFYjXvQbrB_B8xyGz5ovLdLFy0lEq5Zi1cok9d505pAdsVCP0hl4FiNyWgMZ-T0ApXrBLrEwhuiD9FrUAoGLV2YBHx0L96JZQRqxXsOKfj6qmbIiAds3SCjQ3bhNXXIqWMIbvP7f2_DSxXMNbuIA/w400-h355/Creating-a-duck-character-for-RuneQuest-Glorantha.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Again, Glorantha is a bit bonkers.<br />From Runeblog's <a href="https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/creating-duck-character-for-runequest.html" target="_blank">Creating a Duck<br />Character for RuneQuest Glorantha</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>They're formally known as the Durulz, and kinda-sorta fill the spot in a Fantasy RPG normally populated by Halflings or Gnomes. As for their creation, the most common explanation is that they were created by a curse, but I've also seen <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/blogsteve-perrin-creating-runequest-part-four-came-the-ducks/" target="_blank">goofier creation stories</a>. Still, they're a part of what makes Glorantha a bit nutty.</p><p style="text-align: center;">***</p><p>Okay, nuttiness aside, why am I so fascinated with Glorantha and RuneQuest?</p><p>Because it's a classless, skill based system that acknowledges that combat is dangerous.</p><p>Unlike MERP or D&D 3e or other skill based hybrid systems, RuneQuest has abandoned the level concept and gone full tilt into skills. If you want to 'get gud' at something, you have to actually <i>do it</i>. You know, like real life. </p><p>But RuneQuest has also abandoned the class structure as well, basically allowing you to do whatever you want as long as you actually work at it. It's like an Elder Scrolls game without even the pretense of a class structure.</p><p>There is magic, performed through the use of <a href="https://rqwiki.chaosium.com/rules/runes.html" target="_blank">Runes</a> that grant you access to spells. Runes are also intrinsic to Glorantha, and their in-game use is that they also allow you to augment your skill checks and your resistance rolls.</p><p>Combat is, well, not something you enter into lightly. You can quite easily be maimed or die. It's not quite the "you die on character creation" that Traveller has, but it's not the handwaving of the danger that you find in a lot of other RPGs. There are real consequences to combat, and even the best battle plan and warriors can be laid low if the gods do not favor you. True to the ancient world, you want to attack when the gods favor your success. </p><p>Yes, RuneQuest is crunchy; there's no denying that. But it also provides you with extraordinary freedom within all that crunch. </p><p>And yet...</p><p>RuneQuest can be dense. The reason why it never took off the same way D&D did is due to the denseness of the rules and the zaniness of the game world. You kind of need a RuneQuest evangelist to help you embrace the game and overcome it's quirks. <a href="https://matthewjconstantine.com/2023/02/09/tabletop-rpg-review-runequest-starter-set/" target="_blank">For some</a>, that's the video game <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/352220/King_of_Dragon_Pass/" target="_blank">The King of Dragon Pass</a> that is set in Glorantha. For others, YouTube can come in handy, although I've found the official Chaosium videos on Glorantha to be somewhat lacking. If you've lived through a class at a university given by a boring professor who obviously knew his stuff but couldn't communicate effectively, you'll understand what I mean. </p><p>However, Chaosium has put out a truly high quality starter set for RuneQuest that is worth checking out. The <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-starter-set/" target="_blank">Starter Set</a> has premade characters --and the set doesn't teach you how to create characters, strangely enough-- but they stuffed just so much material into the box that it's frankly amazing how they were able to pull it off.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQXsQFVweIOy1_Lq0fVNXtV5HwzBoj94xZueGaGYkL2NZyW7NDfkDDhW-Wr0I7IUGAkxNI3U-PNR8yo6JP-OASYKTUjDwqn3qYg75emX8AHBrQFolm4qmr3N_yDGktiesuJcR979IDKGk4V-oVY9C1VdqA4LamNcUpTxhyb-dtOMqe0Dio45oZVZx5Pg/s1280/CHA4035_-_Starter_Set_Box_-_Front_Cover_-_700x900__70038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1003" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYQXsQFVweIOy1_Lq0fVNXtV5HwzBoj94xZueGaGYkL2NZyW7NDfkDDhW-Wr0I7IUGAkxNI3U-PNR8yo6JP-OASYKTUjDwqn3qYg75emX8AHBrQFolm4qmr3N_yDGktiesuJcR979IDKGk4V-oVY9C1VdqA4LamNcUpTxhyb-dtOMqe0Dio45oZVZx5Pg/w314-h400/CHA4035_-_Starter_Set_Box_-_Front_Cover_-_700x900__70038.jpg" width="314" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Chaosium. You can find it at <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-starter-set/" target="_blank">their<br />website</a> or at your local game store (which<br />is where I bought my copy).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I've often wondered how RuneQuest would work in a rules-lite system. I've never played HeroQuest so I couldn't comment there, but adapting RuneQuest and the Glorantha setting to the FATE or, say, Burning Wheel systems would definitely pique my interest. </p><p>Still, if you're up for something definitely different, RuneQuest is a rabbit hole worth going down. I mean, where else can you create a character who is a Bison Rider?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxpshAfKPKNJ_BQqqW6NtWe9upZZRtrsmPie1_H_KbIekjqh_FknINZeoToiHexuB3J6oU_mpQ2jvCjIHBrvmnjms9z4cHFS6tzWnw8UTGwX-6ddV_WD26cYQjXTBfnajrcn_OAEQhBbRbNwPtqPI91O4OLknGTA6TS4Vf2S9Naz79s7bbbtLloDKL80/s1280/CHA4035_RQ_Starter_Set_Book_3_SoloQuest_-_1_-_Front_Cover__90945.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="989" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxpshAfKPKNJ_BQqqW6NtWe9upZZRtrsmPie1_H_KbIekjqh_FknINZeoToiHexuB3J6oU_mpQ2jvCjIHBrvmnjms9z4cHFS6tzWnw8UTGwX-6ddV_WD26cYQjXTBfnajrcn_OAEQhBbRbNwPtqPI91O4OLknGTA6TS4Vf2S9Naz79s7bbbtLloDKL80/w309-h400/CHA4035_RQ_Starter_Set_Book_3_SoloQuest_-_1_-_Front_Cover__90945.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Vasana, Farnan's Daughter,<br />one of the iconic characters of Glorantha.<br />From Book 3 of the <a href="https://www.chaosium.com/runequest-starter-set/" target="_blank">RuneQuest Starter Set</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*3M --yes, <i>that</i> 3M that created sticky notes and various forms of adhesive tape-- was publisher of Rail Baron before Avalon Hill bought all of their board game assets, including <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5/acquire" target="_blank">Acquire</a> and <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1233/facts-five" target="_blank">Facts in Five</a>. The original Facts in Five (which is what we have) is kind of dated these days as far as trivia goes, although there was a reworking of the trivia part back in 2007 or so when University Games put out a version. As is usual, my wife tended to win those games we played in the 90s and 00s.</p><p>**Now most well known for the Call of Cthulhu RPG.</p><p>***Hence its presence in the 1985 Avalon Hill catalog.</p><p>****Not to be confused with the Mythic Europe setting for Ars Magica.</p><p>*****Now THAT is quite a tale by itself.</p><p>#Hence the name of the rules-lite RPG HeroQuest.</p><p>##From the <a href="https://glorantha.tumblr.com/post/97191668008/could-you-tell-me-about-elves-my-knowledge-about" target="_blank">Glorantha Tumblr on the subject of Elves.</a></p></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-39498124262674689812024-01-23T20:09:00.000-05:002024-01-23T20:09:24.147-05:00What Goes on in my Head, Part Whatever Plus OneLast Thursday, I got pinged at work by my a coworker who'd I'd worked with for the past several years. He was alternately a friend and mentor, and was my boss for about 3-4 years.<div><br /></div><div>"Hey Red, when you get out of that meeting you're in, call me."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Sure," I replied.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Good. If I'm in a call, ping me. We need to talk."</div><div><br /></div><div>I began to get an uneasy feeling about the directness of his words. I knew that one of his grandkids had childhood cancer but had finally beat it after a few years' worth of chemo, and the first thing I thought of was that her cancer had returned. Then I thought that he'd been canned, but I figured that he'd just retire at that point.</div><div><br /></div><div>My meeting ended, and I pinged him. </div><div><br /></div><div>He called me immediately.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Hey buddy," he said. "Kristy* died yesterday."</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe I blurted out a "What??!!"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah, I said the same thing when I heard the news. Since you and her had been really close over the years, I wanted to make sure you heard it from me."</div><div><br /></div><div>You see, Kristy had been my boss for a decade, and before that we were coworkers on different teams and frequently worked together when there were security related issues. Even after she'd moved on to another position, we'd chat every three to six months just to catch up on how we were doing. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd known her for close to 20 years.</div><div><br /></div><div>My friend informed me what had happened. She'd been in a Teams call when she suddenly became unresponsive**. At times like that, my company has procedures if people think there's an emergency, so her boss called for a life squad and tried to reach her husband directly. By the time the life squad had arrived and gotten into the house, however, they found her slumped at her desk by her laptop.</div><div><br /></div><div>She'd suffered a massive heart attack. The life squad had attempted to revive her without success.</div><div><br /></div><div>My friend was going to reach out to some of our other old coworkers, but the emails had started making the rounds already. I reached several of my old teammates --some had heard and some hadn't-- and some of them were really torn up over it. I had to just console them as best I could, on a Teams call with some of them a half a world away. As of now, there's still one member of our old gang that I've not been able to get a hold of, but that's because he's apparently out of town.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>As for me, I'm just numb.</div><div><br /></div><div>I kind of just unplugged this past weekend and crawled up inside my head for a while. Kristy was nine years older than me, and was already looking forward to retiring after a couple of more years. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've already buried a parent, and I know that other parents will be following soon due to their age, but this is different. She was a friend and coworker, a contemporary of mine. We both grew up in the same part of town, so we had similar experiences, albeit hers were in the middle of the Disco era and mine was Hair Metal. Working for global teams like we did, it was like we were the only people who got our jokes. She was also good at giving me advice, and if you were ever in trouble or something, she had your back.</div><div><br /></div><div>On Sunday night I tried logging into WoW for a while, but I just wasn't feeling it so I logged off and curled up on the couch until I finally drifted off to sleep. Last night I logged in, found my Questing Buddy, and we had a long chat. She was patient and read my messages, and was simply there for me. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div><br /></div><div>I found Kristy's obituary, and the family isn't having a service, so I'm using this as an attempt to say goodbye. I'll miss you, kiddo.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>*Not her real name.</div><div><br /></div><div>**No, we don't put our cameras on for almost all of those meetings. I'd rather not end up on the wrong end of a viral video clip.</div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-13020906458758363792024-01-22T06:00:00.004-05:002024-01-22T06:00:00.144-05:00Meme Monday: Warlock MemesThis is my Questing Buddy's warlock, Zargala:<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlXCg3KfSaIV_X678S-7qXE5L_kMRACRkpix7Qydhb3leT9RyJpJCCAFENQ4m1lrfNPAwFMc7qtgjI-FyMAMzlR38B_QlNHU36h6h7Db_gbisZq8U-WyWawYkaipgXiZWcvryVKx7BptSNrhaDD5MBt_JQsM8vEuh26ehKl4FS92misePc_ODlTwuHOM/s730/this-is-zarg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="730" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlXCg3KfSaIV_X678S-7qXE5L_kMRACRkpix7Qydhb3leT9RyJpJCCAFENQ4m1lrfNPAwFMc7qtgjI-FyMAMzlR38B_QlNHU36h6h7Db_gbisZq8U-WyWawYkaipgXiZWcvryVKx7BptSNrhaDD5MBt_JQsM8vEuh26ehKl4FS92misePc_ODlTwuHOM/w400-h176/this-is-zarg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I need to find a better screencap. Really.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>In my mind's eye, I see her in the same vein as how Henrik Stavnem drew this warlock:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiIbNAAeGAftI9XEgf08-hBuY899G_3L9bCkhu6T1IIYcvzEnV_GhvLHqeoq9m_z3nvAsYhyrOy0HAOWHBSJeZxTRMqlWX7wTs5WBteGZc_BY8FkKPbyS5loPxGZispGqrjKPwJS_eUT65VxdOASJWfvvyqmFEzVAFUqkM7FlFCMY5kTC7d1hhS8V7MQ/s600/henrik-stavnem-warlock.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="429" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiIbNAAeGAftI9XEgf08-hBuY899G_3L9bCkhu6T1IIYcvzEnV_GhvLHqeoq9m_z3nvAsYhyrOy0HAOWHBSJeZxTRMqlWX7wTs5WBteGZc_BY8FkKPbyS5loPxGZispGqrjKPwJS_eUT65VxdOASJWfvvyqmFEzVAFUqkM7FlFCMY5kTC7d1hhS8V7MQ/w286-h400/henrik-stavnem-warlock.png" width="286" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Only with dark hair, of course.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Maybe she needs a slightly more insane look to her face, but still, it'll do.</div><div><br /></div><div>That graphic inspired me to pull together some disparate Warlock memes --from both MMOs and tabletop RPGs-- and create today's Meme Monday...</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNlk5dhJZXZv1d1VUgvHh4FkBhR5sGn01MmusxNvENhzF0zQyRnjVOcY5GiVkExarNSg0U8z-DoziAWA7y3AumCeQJ5pb0mYCHoMJfb-wriPDwvkSxUAurtY16_Fdy4hbavgdoO9Pd9RdUCvtmFv0WQ9aUEXWmvdVE7PJ-j4zrKBjuvF5tbrehsyIcYY/s921/pinterest-warlocks-healers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="677" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkNlk5dhJZXZv1d1VUgvHh4FkBhR5sGn01MmusxNvENhzF0zQyRnjVOcY5GiVkExarNSg0U8z-DoziAWA7y3AumCeQJ5pb0mYCHoMJfb-wriPDwvkSxUAurtY16_Fdy4hbavgdoO9Pd9RdUCvtmFv0WQ9aUEXWmvdVE7PJ-j4zrKBjuvF5tbrehsyIcYY/w294-h400/pinterest-warlocks-healers.jpg" width="294" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In World of Warcraft, Warlocks use<br />Lifetap to replenish mana at the expense<br />of their health. And then they expect that<br />healers will heal them back to max health.<br />HA! I say... From Pinterest.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFr7auqzeUNOauZHU1_sEbzsOGpfp3XYsYeEabIGR3yrhLrV88G-n9kKkrCfvDEPGXUm0oD4T15ob6tsMyNXop7wHvl-_DwGAGK8ccCZKZo9DWXTrM1PrpFPNbTTcu2HS869XgVOCTDP5JwwY0R37b4oUV6O9mOQbuV1m1oIiiJ_cXGrGKpW_vzNGoG5g/s933/imgflip-tap-tap-tap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="932" data-original-width="933" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFr7auqzeUNOauZHU1_sEbzsOGpfp3XYsYeEabIGR3yrhLrV88G-n9kKkrCfvDEPGXUm0oD4T15ob6tsMyNXop7wHvl-_DwGAGK8ccCZKZo9DWXTrM1PrpFPNbTTcu2HS869XgVOCTDP5JwwY0R37b4oUV6O9mOQbuV1m1oIiiJ_cXGrGKpW_vzNGoG5g/w400-h400/imgflip-tap-tap-tap.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Speaking of using Lifetap, I'm pretty sure<br />Amidala is supposed to be a healer.<br />From imgflip.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGhXKVSRmBBMeQaZyI0AJbmaTUsf1XMEHLKGE1njgH9n9SLMHj3kboUGTBm66DRK8VT_7GjJ3VEBNR1uQip4vawDf6o_tHEi1Ixbn9sw7pPM6AYtW6lFRHHxdWNizDHCQ7A-5RHhlAqQpDVI3VWp1Th5Z5HsvMwd18OXenmNGgySNZjNw0KHLDbJyCrM/s1515/ifunnyco-fireball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1515" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGhXKVSRmBBMeQaZyI0AJbmaTUsf1XMEHLKGE1njgH9n9SLMHj3kboUGTBm66DRK8VT_7GjJ3VEBNR1uQip4vawDf6o_tHEi1Ixbn9sw7pPM6AYtW6lFRHHxdWNizDHCQ7A-5RHhlAqQpDVI3VWp1Th5Z5HsvMwd18OXenmNGgySNZjNw0KHLDbJyCrM/w285-h400/ifunnyco-fireball.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although this references D&D's version of<br />Wizard/Mage vs. the Sorcerer and Warlock,<br />it fits Zarg to a tee. From iFunny.co.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8U3lLO7rWGB6QFkXLoIW6aXshI2NDK1L3BiJbA0manaKOKzYtthDA9aBz2Dx8yf_SuMsZoz8wD1PON-lK01HBiBLB9KW7kvYskJMcYRSD38n3BHViwm-9P0nA9TpWoJa1TaD3MzVccReNkzjpIathSFsUGwYDPOP3temMt7cfRxNUoEkIgqH2ACBSrw/s474/owlturd-blast.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="474" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8U3lLO7rWGB6QFkXLoIW6aXshI2NDK1L3BiJbA0manaKOKzYtthDA9aBz2Dx8yf_SuMsZoz8wD1PON-lK01HBiBLB9KW7kvYskJMcYRSD38n3BHViwm-9P0nA9TpWoJa1TaD3MzVccReNkzjpIathSFsUGwYDPOP3temMt7cfRxNUoEkIgqH2ACBSrw/w400-h373/owlturd-blast.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lure of power is strong in Warlocks.<br />From owlturd. (Yes that is a thing.)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div>And finally, one bonus meme:</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNGmxSBTMrQru-gAmmfQVHRHI6KAnvGpxWofxbGDeQNBtjuIeuYteUjuIlbXDMkDZWcRAPxnR1Gj_pa_QFvo_ivkOB2VUmaw8WRE7GC59MmWvqIhY18HWihCbZcPtg3GLy9oNhdxopLbq1TtJcSBS3YlgpsLVKYkijGfiOwAWvhpZqGzvBfPRphRP8Tds/s825/feedthejar-patron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="825" data-original-width="736" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNGmxSBTMrQru-gAmmfQVHRHI6KAnvGpxWofxbGDeQNBtjuIeuYteUjuIlbXDMkDZWcRAPxnR1Gj_pa_QFvo_ivkOB2VUmaw8WRE7GC59MmWvqIhY18HWihCbZcPtg3GLy9oNhdxopLbq1TtJcSBS3YlgpsLVKYkijGfiOwAWvhpZqGzvBfPRphRP8Tds/w356-h400/feedthejar-patron.jpg" width="356" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah, I'm like that Paladin. A lot.<br />(Honestly, I feel like I should know where<br />this graphic came from. Can't place it for<br />the life of me, however, but the "Warlock"<br />is a dead ringer for a girl I knew in grade school.<br />Which is kinda awkward, seeing someone you<br />had a crush on appear here.) From feedthejar.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-63461365264993205742024-01-20T19:22:00.003-05:002024-01-20T19:22:40.130-05:00What Drives You?<p>People play games for different reasons, and even those reasons may change over the course of your lifetime. </p><p>When I was growing up, my family would have regular game nights. Those included some of the classics, such as Waterworks,</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEjpmlJIrRYXqJdEMPh0X1nXy95f7QnxheVDxLGHuxqALBPNIMBURCanv7KiCdBgWxEvQUIkb6qPoeI3ZOJKOfg_FNCxSrbkykhpcZTMC0aHrddUOK6_v7YU1pPBURhzag10UbjbqqphxvYJKtd5K23KkKa7V6kjRHcrj_uFPBeQzBKt-DZ0OSaM_Zqk/s1600/waterworks-1972-ebay.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHEjpmlJIrRYXqJdEMPh0X1nXy95f7QnxheVDxLGHuxqALBPNIMBURCanv7KiCdBgWxEvQUIkb6qPoeI3ZOJKOfg_FNCxSrbkykhpcZTMC0aHrddUOK6_v7YU1pPBURhzag10UbjbqqphxvYJKtd5K23KkKa7V6kjRHcrj_uFPBeQzBKt-DZ0OSaM_Zqk/w400-h300/waterworks-1972-ebay.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was the version at our home,<br />which dates to 1972. I believe Mom still<br />has the game around somewhere. From eBay.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />or Authors,<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RZZJAYgR99xczjSqmnIhzD7XGulCtpVQHT9bIsphoZUc8286LvpTxr1CC-mg03HCD9WbLkTGxlbG9olVsk2ZIWZGLJNzaJ4UbF3MOExtSPEUVa0S8eT62OVBGDgsyzsB207txBcjMQpTNxJhfmFEyEuQJ_13DysTyJNhK0KwVLzHVwuykDqjqT3aXj8/s1600/whitman-authors-ebay.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8RZZJAYgR99xczjSqmnIhzD7XGulCtpVQHT9bIsphoZUc8286LvpTxr1CC-mg03HCD9WbLkTGxlbG9olVsk2ZIWZGLJNzaJ4UbF3MOExtSPEUVa0S8eT62OVBGDgsyzsB207txBcjMQpTNxJhfmFEyEuQJ_13DysTyJNhK0KwVLzHVwuykDqjqT3aXj8/w400-h300/whitman-authors-ebay.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I should have this version around the<br />house somewhere. From eBay (again).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>or Clue,</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaY4DwbAKBflJABQyTX3zZKwj51etK4r95lMC_ctrx2w0Jl1FsxuqnLMeF-gAsESKc4dc_K4B9OX71Or_D1rBLCCPKCz_w8RJiwXffXIE1vkGRIYf97s92ICjq2O6-JkbgVSrpNv15UFIcJkgKTn1Cj_QUtEOkWfN65FhVCjx7AyUWGFXFgpDUwhgFzEs/s4624/20231105_181047.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2604" data-original-width="4624" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaY4DwbAKBflJABQyTX3zZKwj51etK4r95lMC_ctrx2w0Jl1FsxuqnLMeF-gAsESKc4dc_K4B9OX71Or_D1rBLCCPKCz_w8RJiwXffXIE1vkGRIYf97s92ICjq2O6-JkbgVSrpNv15UFIcJkgKTn1Cj_QUtEOkWfN65FhVCjx7AyUWGFXFgpDUwhgFzEs/w400-h225/20231105_181047.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While I was unsuccessfully trying<br />to find my copy of Authors, I found<br />my circa 1980 version of Clue.</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>but they also included games that are no longer published, such as Scan.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMW_X7EtWOIlWbkAUFJFhUFTrTf4GsI4S2HZYhDqoVwro4nl1oNp-6aTdrXNTYbDsRKG3mMDacuJ5hlTUqMpwRB9CCZEAUiFRRbDMYlyjk27GDBQJ2Oc8fx4wUmdO26qfKm67A6Z_XegYn2AIBGcJjQt6VMtnBFdnXpPoHenGyZGRpp16Cx_lP8JDlhTA/s822/scan-bgg-parkerbrothers-1970.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="822" data-original-width="471" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMW_X7EtWOIlWbkAUFJFhUFTrTf4GsI4S2HZYhDqoVwro4nl1oNp-6aTdrXNTYbDsRKG3mMDacuJ5hlTUqMpwRB9CCZEAUiFRRbDMYlyjk27GDBQJ2Oc8fx4wUmdO26qfKm67A6Z_XegYn2AIBGcJjQt6VMtnBFdnXpPoHenGyZGRpp16Cx_lP8JDlhTA/w229-h400/scan-bgg-parkerbrothers-1970.jpg" width="229" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is circa 1970 or so.<br />From Rahmiano Anderson via<br />BoardGameGeek.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>We also played card games such as UNO, Hearts, or Michigan Rummy, the former two of which received new life when I went away to college. However, those days of my youth were fueled by the desire to beat my dad at these games. It was partly a competitive streak in me, but Dad was easily the best player in the house, and so if I wanted to finally prove my worth (in my own mind) I had to beat him. </div><div><br /></div><div>As for chess... Let's not talk about chess. I only beat my dad once in chess despite years of trying, and my brother was on the chess team at his high school, so I kind of got used to losing at chess.</div><div><br /></div><div>But still, it all fed into my primary motivation: Beat Dad.</div><div><br /></div><div>The simple straightforward concept of "beat the other player" is not exactly new, and this is the basis of a lot of PvP video games today.*</div><div><br /></div><div>It was only when I was a teen that I began to break out of the 'beat Dad' mentality and understand that there were other reasons for playing games. I wasn't giving up my quest to win, but that drive to win doesn't necessarily fit well into other types of games.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some of that comes from learning RPGs. Sure, there's a "beat the Big Bad" component to RPGs, there's also the social element to those sorts of games. </div><div><br /></div><div>Back when I was a kid, we approached playing AD&D as if it was The Party versus The DM. Who became the DM in our campaigns rotated, but the resulting competition was always the same. The DM tried to kill us, and we tried to outwit the DM. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdE2t7qmEdeKszknqKydQ66SJ5tbmip0u1T4P2G75G1Pj_VfrSDHws2KtYCHkH_SeJ-de9niCeVsG3laK4y6uum3uSNBXkO1bDU61ZxVAd9qg44JeohzdIo-NmOgV0BAzpqbWu3AsgPLkxndqQ0-vQbH2jDYyRiLPn7MiEjWBF6NzeFBRLBFnmq0uMH8/s1297/tomb-of-horrors-tsr-alexandrian.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1297" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdE2t7qmEdeKszknqKydQ66SJ5tbmip0u1T4P2G75G1Pj_VfrSDHws2KtYCHkH_SeJ-de9niCeVsG3laK4y6uum3uSNBXkO1bDU61ZxVAd9qg44JeohzdIo-NmOgV0BAzpqbWu3AsgPLkxndqQ0-vQbH2jDYyRiLPn7MiEjWBF6NzeFBRLBFnmq0uMH8/w400-h230/tomb-of-horrors-tsr-alexandrian.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The high point of any Party vs. DM competition was <br />ALWAYS The Tomb of Horrors. Let me just say that <br />of the two options above, there are no right answers. <br />IIRC, one will destroy you utterly, and the other<br />one will merely strip you of all your gear and clothing.<br />From TSR Hobbies via The Alexandrian.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Understanding the concept of a shared story or a shared plot with the DM not as an antagonist but rather a facilitator came about much later, but old habits do die hard. It was then, when I was an adult, that I finally realized that merely killing things and beating the DM wasn't nearly as much fun as a well crafted story that both we as players and the DM participated in. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes it's part of a big story arc like what you'd find in a premade module, or sometimes it's something we purely make up as we go along. Or maybe it's something that we work on in creating a world together, but what I found to be the most fun is the story and my participation in it. Perhaps I'll never write a novel, but this is the closest I can come to actually doing just that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sure, I love puzzles, but I recognize that they're just that. The long term enjoyment, however, comes from the stories I participate in. Given my love of reading, I guess that's not that much of a surprise.</div><div><br /></div><div>So... What drives you? What do you play for? </div><div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>*Despite complaints from players otherwise, I sure as hell go into Alterac Valley in WoW Classic wanting to win, and the constant losing in Battlegrounds by the Alliance during the Mists of Pandaria expansion just wore me down to where all I was feeling was anger. That was when I knew it was time to leave WoW.</p><p><br /></p></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287859335174901821.post-38175816345653623782024-01-15T07:48:00.003-05:002024-01-15T07:48:46.799-05:00Meme Monday: Miscellaneous Memes, Part... eh, whateverTime for a bunch of miscellaneous memes once more!<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXsXZtKgIl0gmSHMQyp2IqfmEQJ7SPysdYCOiaeog1qyfSedi-gkhKX_T9E1CH62X7oC9a9df1O-20SiUHxoQavpLbxy1LSI2BXrqPJvFApdFVS5i_qRrQY160YXcvvo5CgJBTcsZ-KujhZZmSKloyt9RH_-c8Q8JEWbEVzISfBbOdn3ozYEyRMGl_go/s736/pinterest-grandma-ethel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="736" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXsXZtKgIl0gmSHMQyp2IqfmEQJ7SPysdYCOiaeog1qyfSedi-gkhKX_T9E1CH62X7oC9a9df1O-20SiUHxoQavpLbxy1LSI2BXrqPJvFApdFVS5i_qRrQY160YXcvvo5CgJBTcsZ-KujhZZmSKloyt9RH_-c8Q8JEWbEVzISfBbOdn3ozYEyRMGl_go/w400-h355/pinterest-grandma-ethel.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's... A scary thought. From Pinterest.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7OcDqBlCzyfqvkwRCfCgODRZr5chchqe24AJlkBTZzp-JCItdy2ZLRXQ7LZd_SGjcsHP84BvIcQVN0I3qmjTcAlJbFUe7NP08FCXHasrj91odTECuUiflwBlTEsyfchvGHhAgdxkFImksndpN7PI6o35gD0Upeh-tIcR6BwTMEFta77h9VQqCctfD5U/s640/reddit-eff-you.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7OcDqBlCzyfqvkwRCfCgODRZr5chchqe24AJlkBTZzp-JCItdy2ZLRXQ7LZd_SGjcsHP84BvIcQVN0I3qmjTcAlJbFUe7NP08FCXHasrj91odTECuUiflwBlTEsyfchvGHhAgdxkFImksndpN7PI6o35gD0Upeh-tIcR6BwTMEFta77h9VQqCctfD5U/w400-h400/reddit-eff-you.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Although the ones that get pissed<br />off the most are the Rogues. Just sayin'.<br />From Reddit.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-7mqVTMki6gk13bZZh4lvUig3BCM5gBC3D6ilKsto-iTbZueebLHsHPUJ1LCTpswQXjYQ1SCZk7i6HjoDlTEsmAavrTwqnQx5tftbSRmStjI41vUBNtgOhGHBlxQqXLea4OVnqMXbAj5J9Khv-b-vpAZDHOtwIEWBOytIdaxwsvXQg1rZaePYy-ttTk/s1032/pinterest-bert-ernie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht-7mqVTMki6gk13bZZh4lvUig3BCM5gBC3D6ilKsto-iTbZueebLHsHPUJ1LCTpswQXjYQ1SCZk7i6HjoDlTEsmAavrTwqnQx5tftbSRmStjI41vUBNtgOhGHBlxQqXLea4OVnqMXbAj5J9Khv-b-vpAZDHOtwIEWBOytIdaxwsvXQg1rZaePYy-ttTk/w388-h400/pinterest-bert-ernie.jpg" width="388" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This actually happened in our last<br />AD&D game, although it was a percentile<br />roll and our Illusionist/Thief rolled a 100.<br />From Pinterest (again).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVp5CAFcixepbHVLqUbsQ4GkkWdFQTmCu5gWCUfs8Xqlh5vl3-ygu9AUdavDsQhk0ZL8a7RxRclXUI7E6ZKTSPGIzQfXBvMKipigeRFYlNwyTKJvNLExLjKfK5xxC96FsBekyr8oo8jRKR2ICz6Nmp9TjYkAkVqYPXZiRoFNBUhRPy7I885fDjdwclBU/s960/pinterest-really-wow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQVp5CAFcixepbHVLqUbsQ4GkkWdFQTmCu5gWCUfs8Xqlh5vl3-ygu9AUdavDsQhk0ZL8a7RxRclXUI7E6ZKTSPGIzQfXBvMKipigeRFYlNwyTKJvNLExLjKfK5xxC96FsBekyr8oo8jRKR2ICz6Nmp9TjYkAkVqYPXZiRoFNBUhRPy7I885fDjdwclBU/w400-h225/pinterest-really-wow.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Somewhere, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrgl2b6soSs" target="_blank">Richard Pryor is<br />smiling</a>. From Pinterest (once more).</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Redbeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05306063084983025771noreply@blogger.com2