Gen Con is this week, from Thursday, August 1st through Sunday, August 4th. As usual, I'll be attending on Sunday along with my son, his SO, and my wife. I was kind of surprised when my wife wanted to go since she'd not expressed interest the past few years, but hey, I'm fine with it.
Well, duh. From Giphy and the Gamers.
I've got a few items I'm going to want to look for that aren't at my local game store, and I think that this year I might actually buy some artwork. Not exactly sure where I'll put it, but I'll come up with something. While I can appreciate some of the art at Gen Con, not all of it really fits into the decor for the house.
Although these are really damn cute. From Gen Con 2023.
So, in honor of this year's Gen Con, time for some more memes!
I have only been there one day all of the years I've been going, and I'm drained after that. I shudder to think what it'd be like being there for multiple days. From Reddit.
Hey, we got ours early this year too! From Elon Musk's place.
Yeah, it's like that. I've kind of given up explaining gaming to my non-gamer friends, but if I tell them "it's like going to Gatlinburg for the week" they all nod their heads. Yes, I live in the Midwest; does it show? From Musk's place.
Although to be fair, given some people's addiction to board and/or role playing games, "Dealer's Hall" might be more appropriate. From Musk's Place.
This YouTube video was posted only this morning (my time), but...
The Baldur's Gate 3 music is kind of surprising.
They could have gone with, say, Elwynn Forest
and it would have been better in my opinion.
Yes, I realized that it was done in the same vein as Baldur's Gate 3, but I have to admit that this little 2 minute video underscores just what an RPG set in the Warcraft universe would look like.
The thing is, I'm not sure whether Blizzard could actually create a good CRPG based on WoW. What your character is --and is capable of-- in WoW is vastly different than in an RPG such as Baldur's Gate. You're practically a walking demigod in Retail WoW, whereas you'd have to scale back everything to you being pretty much a nobody in a Warcraft CRPG for it to work well.
I'm not trying to put my biases from Retail WoW here, it's more that I've played a few pencil-and-paper RPG campaigns where you start out as a big ol' hero and... Well, it just doesn't work well. It's much easier to build yourself up from zero to hero and have a satisfying campaign rather than essentially starting out as high level (or high society) and trying to figure out the world when you're already supposed to be an expert. When you start like that, the DM ends up doing a lot of the heavy lifting as you get up to speed, and you frequently feel like you're watching the DM play with themselves for hours at a time.
If Blizz were to swallow some humble pie and create a story that starts with a bunch of nobodies or lowbie types and follow an arc like in one of the Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, or Neverwinter Nights CRPGs, yeah, that'd work. Although knowing Blizz, they'd probably model it after one of the Divinity games but amp up the power scaling very very quickly.
I suppose I ought to provide an update to my deck adventure, if for no other reason than as proof that I didn't abandon it again like so many other years.
Last year, car repairs ate up all available money, and the year before I was still in recovery from my little hospital adventure. And the year before that, 2021... Well, I'd rather not talk about that summer again.
But yes, I have been working on the deck this year, and I do have a long term plan of action.
The first stage was to determine if the top of the beams and joists were good enough to use as-is. If they weren't, then I'd likely have to replace the entire deck and... with costs for a new deck running $12,000 to $20,000 for a direct replacement, we don't have the money for that right now.
So I bought a couple 8 foot replacement deck boards and pried the old ones out on the far end with the intent of determining if the so-called bones of the deck were worth saving.
Luckily, they were, so I replaced them and put in an order for decking that would cover somewhere between 35-40% of the deck. I give it a range because you always over-order on wood being delivered to your house because you have to assume that some of the wood is going to be unusable.
Looks can be deceiving.
From this side, the wood looked pretty good. However, when I began flipping the boards over, I discovered that was not the case.
There's a reason why I put some boards up high like this. This flaw just had to be in the middle, because if it were on the end I could have found a place for it and cut off the bad section.
Some boards, however, could be made usable by merely flipping them over so the flaw wasn't showing.
Such as this one. I do sometimes wonder how people at the mill where this is cut convince themselves that wood such as this is perfectly fine to sell at the same price as other, good boards.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been pulling out a row of decking and replacing it with a new one. Although I've been out there early in the morning from time to time, typically as stress relief from work, for the most part I've begun my work after 3:30 PM. That's when the deck is covered in shade from a nearby chokecherry tree.
If you notice that the last board on the end is an old board, that was done on purpose. I'm using that board to be able to snap a line once I'm finished and trim all of the excess off in one cut. That does mean that there are boards that extend pretty far out from the edge of the deck, and I've nearly thwacked myself a few times by forgetting that fact. When I cut the grass last Sunday, I forgot about the 16 foot deck board I set on the top of the rail and nearly smacked into it with my temple.
Still, the project is continuing, and I'm about 30 - 33% finished:
That has left a lot of old deck boards to get rid of.
That pile is after I broke down a bunch of boards, took care of the nails sticking out, and set them out for trash removal. I sure hope that the trash people aren't gonna complain about the steady stream of old decking they're gonna see.
***
The plan going forward is to finish using these deck boards, then in September I'll get another round of wood, and go until that round is finished. If I need a third bunch in October, that's fine; October is usually our driest month of the year.
Why spread it out? Well, the short answer is money. I can afford a bit at a time, rather than pay for it all at once. Since the cost pushed me into using pressure treated wood instead of composite*, cost is also determining just how much of the deck I can complete at one time. I'm a one man operation, so I don't want to have all of the wood delivered just to have it sit out, unused, for months.
Once the deck boards are replaced, then I have the Winter to plan out how I want to attack the next phase, which is either the railing or the steps. I'm thinking it's going to be the railing, but I could change my mind and do the steps instead. The last stage of the deck repair will be replacing the skirting and putting in some gravel and whatnot around the edge of the deck to keep the weeds away.
So yeah, multi-year project. One step at a time, however. One step at a time.
*At one point composite decking cost as low as twice that of pressure treated wood, but the price of wood has gone down recently. Still, I'd likely have to rework the deck by adding joists if I wanted to use composite deck boards, because composite isn't as strong as regular wood. Yes, I'd have to paint the deck more regularly than if I used a composite material --and paint is not cheap-- but having to resubmit the deck for review by the county inspectors isn't worth the extra up front cost.
D&D is 50 years old this year, and because of that anniversary it has now been given a status like that of other pop cultural icons: on the cover of US stamps.
The official US Postal Service announcement included stamp series honoring legendary basketball coach John Wooden, photographer Ansel Adams, and the classic summertime pastime of carnivals in Carnival Nights.
Before you ask, no, I'm not going up there on Thursday just to get the stamps; I can get them at our local post office without much of a big deal. (We're going on Sunday, however!)
What does amuse me is just how much the anti-D&D crowd is likely to explode when they discover that the Post Office is peddling SATANIC MATERIALS!!! I'd better prepare myself in the event my mom has a coronary when she goes to the post office.
Yes, I've been on that kick again, where comparing RPGs and MMOs between "back in the day" to "right now". And yes, I know I could just login to WoW Classic Era and compare it to Retail WoW, but this is much funnier.
Be warned that some of these are pretty damn large and you'll need to either download them or something to see them all...
Such as this one from Dorkly.
Again, from Dorkly. I really miss Dorkly's glory days.
From Nerfnow. It's the bane of all classic MMOs: they're basically solved games, and have been for the past decade or more.
I wish I could look that well adjusted. From FowlLanguageComics.com.
While you'd never guess it if you met me in person, I'm quite enamored of cosplayers of all stripes.
There's the professional cosplayers --those who are paid to cosplay, from the so-called "booth babe" gig to those who cosplay at a con to mingle with the crowd*-- and there's the various levels of amateur cosplayers. The amateurs range from raw newbies to those who work on their cosplay with a level of professionalism that rivals those of the actual pros.
Svetlana and Benni, the people behind Kamui Cosplay. They not only create and wear cosplay for events, they also publish digital (and print-on-demand) books on creating your own cosplay. Full disclosure: I own one of their books. From KamuiCosplay.com.
Svetlana in Druid Tier 9 gear from World of Warcraft. From KamuiCosplay.com.
And I know that some of them will get mightily offended when I lump them in with the cosplay crowd, there's also the historical costume people --ranging from SCAdians** to historical re-enactors of various stripes-- who research and create their own clothing with varying degrees of faithfulness to historical accuracy.
Union Civil War reenactors at the "A Step Back in Time" event at the Sharon Woods Heritage Village Museum. From Cincy Magazine.
To me, I consider all of this part of cosplay. Your research, design, and engineering (whether by needle and thread or actual machine shop equipment) for the outfit you're working on is going to be just as rigorous as you want it to be. Having seen a lot of the cosplay YouTube videos --such as those from Mineralblu or Justin Cosplay-- there's no real difference in quality between the various groups.
Part of my interest is because I enjoy working on and creating things***, but also there's an undeniable amount of beauty in cosplay.
Screencap of Dokomi 2024 in Dusseldorf, Germany, video by Mineralblu. One nice thing Mineralblu does is put the names and social media for the cosplayers in the video without having to switch on closed captions, so they get full credit.
Another part is understanding the how behind the cosplay designs that elude my oh-so-not-with-it brain.
I mean, I can comprehend using 3D printers for a variety of purposes, and foam sheets from the hardware store (such as this from Home Depot) to make armor and whatnot:
From Flooring Inc's website. The website I linked to is an entire entry point into how to use foam for armor and shields. I kid you not.
Yes, I also understand the power of needle and thread, whether by hand or by sewing machine. I've described sewing machines before as power tools for cloth, which makes it sound more like something that belongs in a garage shop than in the corner of a bedroom.
Or in storage in the basement. Yes, that's my machine, built in the late 1970s. And holy crap is it heavy.
I also understand the ability of makeup or a wig in the hands of an expert to transform someone.****
While I was peripherally aware of other things out there to assist a cosplayer, I have been still quite surprised at the extent of what's available. Such as contact lenses for the eyes:
Apparently this movement got a boost from Kim Kardashian of all people, which is likely a big reason why I never heard about it before. The pic is from boob tape brand Skines.
When a magazine known for household tips and tricks such as Real Simple runs an article about how to use boob tape, you know this entire thing has gone mainstream. All my brain can think of is that removing the tape must really hurt like hell, but the various forms of boob tape is safe for use on the body, so hopefully it doesn't hurt like when you're waxing your body.
Steve Carell from The Forty Year Old Virgin. Supposedly he was never told about how this would feel before the shot, and this was his real reaction.
There's an entire cottage industry surrounding items for cosplayers, whether intentional or not. Companies that you'd never expect to have anything to do with cosplayers, such a Flooring Inc. mentioned above, have web pages on how to shape their products for cosplay gear. It all spends, I guess, and if cosplayers are going to shell out money for your company's stuff, the easiest thing in the world to do is to encourage those sales.
***
Things aren't always sunshine and roses, of course.
There's a reason why the slogan "cosplay is not consent" is a thing, and that's because some people can't keep their hands and their words to themselves.
I get that someone in their cosplay outfit can look damn hot --just watch a video or even looking at the small samples here and it becomes pretty obvious-- but a cosplayer looking hot or acting/posing in a sexy way doesn't give an onlooker license to act like an oversexed creeper.
Basic common courtesy can go a long way toward interacting with cosplayers, but also recognizing that there's an "in-character" and an "out-of-character" mode for them is highly important. Just like any actor who slips into character, they may act in a fashion they may definitely not feel internally. Sure, that Harley Quinn cosplayer gave you a grin and a wink while striking a pose, but that doesn't mean that they're giving you an okay to go and pursue them. Or grope them. Or berate them when they refuse your advances.
***
I could go on and on about details surrounding cosplay and historical re-creations --in another lifetime I would likely have been busily working away at Colonial Williamsburg in their archives or assisting in restorations rather than working in IT-- but I'm going to end this with a couple of videos on the creation process:
as hell), I went with an actual dress creation video.
*Some professional cosplayers get involved with con events, such as judging amateur cosplay contests or holding workshops on cosplay and the cosplay process.
**I've mentioned the Society for Creative Anachronism several times in the past; they were my initial exposure to amateur level historical costuming. Yes, I've visited Colonial Williamsburg, but I've always considered the re-enactors there to be purely professional in nature. The SCA was my first exposure to true amateurs who research and create their own period clothing. I met my first Civil War (or other) re-enactors only after my first (and only) SCA organizational meeting.
Why didn't I join the SCA? Well, that's a story all by itself, and one that won't fit here...
***When my primary care physician suggested I go on vacation to relax --yes, really-- I immediately thought of woodworking projects. Such as creating this outdoor end table using 2x4 and 2x6 pieces of wood:
****Okay, time for a short story.
Back when I was a junior in college, one Saturday night my friends and I stopped by the dorm of some girls we knew before everybody was to go out for the evening. Two of the girls were to join us later --they had some event to attend first-- and they were finishing up makeup in their common room when we walked in. For the most part, the girls didn't wear much in the way of makeup --after all, when you're up until 1 AM studying and then have to go to class at 8 AM the last thing you want to do is spend time doing makeup-- so when they came into view I was stunned by what I saw. Before, they were 20 year old friends of mine, but after...
If you've seen the transformation that Katy Perry makes when she puts on makeup, you get the idea.
Let's harken back to those halcyon days of yester er, 2021, when the Dark Portal opened and TBC Classic formally launched.
The optimal method of leveling in Outland --according to all the game guides-- was to spam dungeons in succession until you get to the level cap. My guild back then followed that strategy religiously, endlessly spamming dungeons to get to the cap*, and then... They stopped. They --and a lot of other players who followed the same strat-- simply burned out on running dungeons and refused to run them again.**
This strategy, one of endlessly spamming dungeons over and over, was repeated in Wrath Classic and in Season of Discovery's Phase 2 (Scarlet Monastery, anyone?) and was even picked up on by Nixxiom in his latest video as part of the reason why he stopped playing SoD:
One of my Classic Era friends hates hates HATES Gnomeregan, so she's right there with you, Nixxiom.
So, why bring this up? I mean, that community-wide scourge of min-maxing things to death is what led me to quit Season of Discovery too, but that's not why I'm posting.
I'm looking at Delves from Retail's soon to be released The War Within and am thinking that people will simply run Delves on repeat until they get to max level, and then switch to running dungeons and raids. That's assuming that they don't actually need to finish a main storyline to jump straight into endgame content. Maybe they do need to quest to get to endgame, but my belief is that people will skip everything to get to the end if you give them the opportunity to do so. The WoW community has shown in the past that enough players will do whatever it takes to "win" that they need to be protected from their worst impulses.
I don't need to rehash that TBC Classic experience that the leveling Shamans --myself included-- had upon reaching Outland: when we finally needed to enter some of these dungeons, we couldn't find anyone to run with us due to the burnout. At least with Delves you can run them solo, so you don't have to worry about your friends burning out on them and preventing you from getting your own runs completed.
It's just that I look at these new systems and think of all the ways that they could go wrong. Like death and taxes, the concept of developers underestimating a player base's lust for something --no matter what it is-- is almost a certainty.
*And then Heroics once those unlocked, because getting attuned to some of the raids required a lot of Heroic dungeon runs.
**Until the Isle of Quel'Danas unlocked at the end of the expansion, revealing the Magister's Terrace dungeon, and they all spammed that endlessly for reputation and gear.
Because it's mid-July, I suppose, and I'm not sure anybody wants to see marching band memes right now. (Particularly those who started band camp this past weekend in the heat and humidity, standing at attention on an asphalt parking lot...)
In 2004 I was 35, so I already had those so-called adult responsibilities. From Gamerant.
You know, this is what happens when you play an MMO that encourages mass slaughter. From Imgflip.
Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I'm pretty sure the Dragon Queen would have a few thoughts on the matter... From Reddit. (Of COURSE it's from Reddit...)
The craziest people I know who I play RPGs or MMOs with are women. So yes, I can confirm this. From Pinterest.
The other day I was helping out my Questing Buddy with a run through Uldaman --that mid-L40s dungeon out in the Badlands that is actually the archaeological excavation of a titan city-- when I mentioned something amusing I saw when I got to the Ironforge Flight Point to head out.
"One of the people from [the guild I occasionally help out with Onyxia] was here at the Ironforge FP and they did a keyboard turn as I ran by on OG Card," I reported. "It was as if they saw my full Tier 3 set and said, 'Wait, isn't that the Mage who never reserves anything in Ony?"
"LOL"
I'm sure I got recognized, since that Mage Tier 3 set is pretty distinctive, and having it also means that I was raiding Naxxramas in Vanilla Classic long enough to actually get the full set. In a 40 person raid where you have --on average-- 5-6 Mages, 3 Warlocks, and 3-4 Priests vying for the same drops-- you're competing with over 1/4 of the raid to get 9 pieces of gear.
Too bad I didn't say out loud "I'm the EVIL twin!!" before I took the FP, but because my brain only thought of that now, oh well.
"Maybe they're waiting on the T6 set," my Questing Buddy added.
"They'll be waiting a long time for that," I replied. We both knew that the T6 set was released in Burning Crusade, and Classic Era is permanently set at Vanilla Classic.
After a short pause, I said, "I never got a T6 set. Or a T5 set, for that matter."
"Neither did I."
Our TBC raid team disbanded after only one try in Sunwell Plateau*, and since I was Loot Manager for our raid, I was also aware of her struggles to get gear in the two Tier 5 raids, Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern.
"IIRC, Tier 5 wasn't that good for Enhancement Shamans," I mused. "Maybe two of the pieces were good, but overall Tier 4 gear was more desirable."
"I didn't even get Tier 4 gear at all," she replied, "since Fire Spec Warlocks used the Spellfire set."
"Ah, the Tailored set?"
"Yep."
That was the set that required a Tailor to make Spellcloth every couple of days. While it's one of those 'it sounds great in theory' concepts to spread out the gear acquisition process, what ended up happening in TBC Classic was that people would fanatically level alts just for the purpose of cranking out tons of Spellcloth for their gear. I knew one Mage who actually had FIVE toons making Spellcloth so they could get the gear needed for raiding.** (Yes, they also had a 'normal' full time job.) Somewhere in the back of my head I would have liked to get that set for Cardwyn or Neve, but I looked at how sweaty people were at working for that set, threw up in my mouth a little, and walked away.
The next day, we were killing pirates in Stranglethorn Vale when talk about TBC Classic came up again.
"I find it surprising, but I'm now kind of missing TBC Classic," I said. "It would be nice to go back and do things differently."
"What would you do differently?" my Questing Buddy asked.
"First thing is that I wouldn't switch to being an Enhancement Shaman," I replied with some heat.
She laughed.
"I'm a Mage, and while I love melee, I absolutely hated the totem-twisting rotation. If you were off by just a smidge everybody's DPS would tank. I know I'd lose my raid spot, but that'd be the case only on the hardcore guilds."
"Yeah, I'd do a lot of things differently," she added. "I loved Warlock Fire, and I hated giving that up to tank [Leotheras the Blind]."
"I don't miss raid leading." Being peripherally involved in guild leadership drama wasn't worth it, particularly the perception that we were the "casual" raid despite our once per week raid trying hard to keep up with the multi-day per week hardcore teams.
"I miss Jesup." Jes ran a lot of alt raids, and she was the one who originally created the Friday night Karazhan run before handing it off to me. She'd burned out on all those alt raids in TBC Classic, but she came back to run some in Wrath Classic.***
"How is she doing?" another of our friends asked.
"I haven't heard from her in months," I replied.
Now that we're a few years away from the end of TBC Classic, I find that I've come around to agreeing with Shintar's desire to have a few TBC Era servers around. For all those worried about the player base being fractured, to Blizzard a sub is a sub is a sub, so if they keep you "in the family" in some fashion rather than having you unsubscribe to go play FFXIV or Elder Scrolls Online during content droughts, then Blizz has succeeded.
Preach talks about the "keeping it in the family"
concept here, so it's not just me who thinks that...
I know I'm not the only one who misses the concept of TBC Era servers, given the community driven "fresh" server push on PvP-RP Classic Era servers, as highlighted by WillE here:
Apparently Microsoft/Zenimax is pushing hard
to promote ESO's Gold Road expansion with all of these sponsorships...
He is right in that Vanilla Classic seems to be an evergreen thing, where there's continual interest in starting over every few years, but another part of it's appeal is that in an Era server you have all the freaking time in the world. You don't have to rush to the end and then start on the progression raiding treadmill because you know an expansion will be coming out in a few years. That's kind of why in LFG and Trade Chat there's an ongoing argument about why pay for a level boost when most of the Vanilla Classic experience is in the leveling itself.
With Cataclysm Classic in full swing, there is now no ability to see the Old World + Outland + Northrend as it was, so Blizzard is effectively creating a demand by simply going through the progression of World of Warcraft's expansions. While it's not their primary motivation for creating Cataclysm Classic, I'm sure that the WoW Classic team is aware of it. I'm also completely sure that Blizz has at least kept an eye on the private server community to see if there's an uptick in interest in TBC and Wrath Classic servers.
But we'll see. After my experience in TBC Classic, I never thought I'd be circling back to want to try it again, but here we are. Maybe it's a shot at redemption, or maybe it's a chance for me to finally get some closure from all of the shit that myself and the other leveling Shamans went through, but if I did go back it would be on my terms, not anybody else's.****
And that's a start.
*That's where you get the Tier 6 gear, along with Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.
**And to sell on the Auction House.
***I'd have loved to have run with her in those, but since she was doing them under the franken guild's name and some people I no longer respect participated, I refused to join. I'm not so desperate to raid that I was willing to overlook bad behavior, which judging by commentary in social media makes me feel like I'm some sort of unicorn.
****Even just writing that last paragraph gave me flashbacks to that insane month I spent and how miserable it was. Slaying that soul-sucking psychic vampire would be very much worth it. Now, where's my fucking wooden stake?
Word disseminated across the Classic community a couple of months back that a bunch of older servers were going away --my original home of Myzrael-US among them-- and there were free migrations off of those servers to other locales.
My Myzrael-US toons had already migrated to Old Blanchy well over a year ago, where they sat while I began playing Classic Era on the Mankrik Cluster, but I figured I ought to move them before the opportunity was removed.
The West Coast PvE destination for all of these toons was... Atiesh-US*, which has apparently been suffering from player loss as well. Since I already had a stable of toons on Atiesh-US, that wasn't much of an option. I'd have preferred to migrate my Old Blanchy toons to the RP-PvE server, Bloodsail Buccaneers-US, but that wasn't an option. So, I selected Pagle-US on the East Coast, and that was that.
Or so I thought.
Somewhere shortly after that migration, I began to wonder about the nascent Classic Era West Coast Cluster. After all, I'd saved a copy of the original Cardwyn on the Era version of Myzrael-US for posterity, and when the price dropped to $5 before the ability to save a toon on Era was lost forever I went ahead and saved my two bank toons and my Rogue, Azshandra, as well. These toons were sitting on a dead cluster when all the Era activity was on the East Coast Cluster, and I began to wonder if Blizz in their desire to get people to compress onto fewer Cataclysm Classic servers had also opened up free migrations in the Classic Era realms as well. I was absolutely not going to pay Microsoft to migrate the toons to the East Coast Cluster, but if it was free...
TL;DR: Migrations off of the West Coast were available for free.
The limitation is that you had to move your toon to Mankrik-US in Classic Era, but since I created my current Era toons on Pagle-US, that wasn't an issue.
So.... I now have two Cardwyns on the same Cluster.
One is Fire,
Ignore the kinda-sorta icy glow.
and the other is Ice.
I SAID, the other is Ice.
That's better.
I still prefer the utility of Frost, but I can't deny the sheer firepower of Fire. That OG Cardwyn is practically at full best in slot, gear-wise, that also means that she brings the pain from that angle as well. I'd like to get newbie Cardwyn up to a much better gear level, but since I'm not planning on switching her from being a Frost Mage there is a certain ceiling to her damage potential. And that's fine.
*That's the server where my franken guild moved to, and that's where Deuce (Cardwyn Mk. 2) resides.
Before you ask, no, I'm not having another "medical event". And no, I don't have Covid, either. The other week I spent my lunch time cutting down some bush/weeds that had grown in the midst of some "regular" bushes and was restoring that part of the yard to what it once was.
...and in true Redbeard fashion, I pulled something on my shoulders/back. Couple that with the next day having a surprise emergency deadline, and...
The past week was... not fun. Let's leave it at that.
Good thing that, given that I haven't healed in quite a while. From someecards.
I am the almighty wizard Ambien!! From Shane Plays.
I can feel this one, given that I've played Clerics for a very. long. time. From r/dndmemes.
When Tylenol is not enough, maybe I ought to listen to ol' Arthas... Wait, he's not talking about emptying your intestines, is he? From World of Warcraft Memes on FB.
EtA: How the hell could I have missed a misspelling in the freaking title?? Well, I did, and I corrected it.
There are days when I wonder just how some authors, such as Brandon Sanderson, can crank out novel after novel at such a high rate.
Sure, there are people for whom this is their job, and they get up and do it on an 8 AM - 5 PM basis. I get that. But for me, my writing goes in fits and starts, highly dependent upon whether the bug actually bites me and I can write in an inspired state. When I try to force myself to write, what tends to come out sounds like reports from work.
That might be because report and documentation writing is the least favorite part of my job.
The beauty of working from home is that I can be flipping off Lumbergh while he's telling me this. From makeameme.org.
It's not that I don't realize that the work is important --because it is-- it's just that writing that stuff is bland and uninteresting. It's... well, it's a job, and being forced to write is not nearly as fun as wanting to write something.
So when I see people like Brandon or Stephen King do the 8 hours of "work" of writing per day, somewhere deep inside my brain I hear screaming, as if my creative impulse was bound up and tossed over the walls of the Chateau d'If.
***
I will freely admit that I do have issues with description. There are days when I sit there and see something in my head and think "this would be so much easier if I had the capability to actually draw or paint what I see rather than describe it," but my artistic ability is worse than my writing.
"What does it look like?" I tell myself.
"Nice," I reply.
"Nice... That fucking helps a lot..."
I'm reminded of how the Apollo astronauts were trained to observe and describe objects on the lunar surface. They all had to learn how to describe landscapes the same way that they described activity in the spacecraft they flew, and it took a large amount of unlearning to then begin to build up their vocabulary and phrasing properly.
While I'm not on the caliber of being an Apollo astronaut, surely I can figure out how to write the turns of phrase needed to describe something properly.
Ha.
From colorado.edu.
I wish it were that easy.
My inner critic loves to tell me that I'm no good and that I should give up "playing at writing", but I've found that my addiction to putting words on the (virtual) page isn't so easily vanquished. I don't believe that my speed at writing fiction will ever improve, but hopefully I can actually complete a story without it turning into drudgery.
While my son and I were grabbing lunch before visiting our local game store for Free RPG Day*, he asked me if I was planning on playing Final Fantasy XIV any time soon. I'd created a Lancer a few years ago, but I'd never gotten around to playing him.
"I don't know," I admitted.
It's not that I don't want to give the game a try, I suppose, but it's more like I'm not sure if I'm going to like it very much. After all, I've expressed my displeasure on more than one occasion about the focus of WoW circa Wrath onwards of the player as the Champion of Azeroth.
From ifunny.co.
When the story doesn't involve a telenovela about the major faction leaders, that is.
From Pinterest. (And ifunny.co.)
I may not know much about the FFXIV story but I do know that your character is supposed to be the equivalent of the Champion of Azeroth, the Warrior of Light, which puts you on the level of a Godslayer or something. Given that we've been killing gods in Azeroth since 2006, this isn't exactly unknown territory. Still, that original C'Thun raid was a 40 person raid, and was a stand-in for an army in-game, even though it doesn't explicitly say so.**
In FFXIV, being called out as the Warrior of Light right from the beginning means that the focus of the story is on you in more ways than one. You're the protagonist in a fashion that's closer to being The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time) or The Child of Light (The Belgariad) from a novel.
Even Google anticipates the inevitable Mary Sue question.
But that's neither here nor there, since one of the things I've learned as I've gotten older is the enjoyment I derive from being anonymous.
***
Being a redhead --and having worn a beard since roughly 1990 or so-- I know a bit about sticking out in a crowd. Beards are accepted now, but they weren't that common 30+ years ago. Couple that with a natural hair color that is also the rarest, and you have a recipe for being "that guy" who people notice in a crowd.
Even if I'm not trying, I used to be able to stand out in a crowd just because of what I wore. I remember one time I went to a Star Trek convention back in the late 80s and I stood out because I was one of the few people who did not wear a t-shirt with a logo, a jean jacket, or a Star Trek outfit of some sort***. I figured just dressing like I was going out to a baseball game or to Kings Island would be appropriate; who knew that wearing a pretty basic polo shirt and shorts would make me stand out like that? Oh well.
Fast forward about 30 years, and the older I've gotten the less I stand out. More people wear beards these days, more people dye their hair****, and my clothing is for the most part jeans and t-shirts unless I go somewhere where I have to dress up. I'm just Joe Average, and I'm fine with that.
It's quite freeing, being able to go places and people not really giving a fuck about you at all. If you've ever been to a car dealership and you're pestered by the sales force ad nauseum, you now understand the beauty of being invisible. Sure, it sucks when you actually want to speak with someone and you can't find anyone, but I'd rather have that problem than fighting off the vultures as they swoop down on you.
From @itsmariah.
But if you're famous for some reason or another, you can't just blend in with the crowd.
Maybe you don't want to blend in, but when you're famous or of high rank (pick an organization, any organization) your time is not your own.
This may surprise some of you, but back in the mid-late 90s to the early 2000s I was a member of the Parish Council at the Catholic church we attended. As such, I got to go over items such as the budget and planning for the next fiscal year. Let me tell you, it was pretty eye opening. But even more than that, it opened a window as to how the time spent by the Pastor was divided. What we saw, as handling Mass and other Church observations, was merely the public face of their activity. There was a ton of stuff (sorry, not at liberty to discuss) behind the scenes that took up a lot of their time. When someone asked during one of the Parish Council meetings about something concerning the Archbishop, the Pastor told us a story about one of his recent discussions with the Archbishop. During the meeting the Pastor asked about scheduling some time for the Archbishop to work on a particular line item, the Archbishop opened up his calendar and pointed out that his time was booked solid for the next three months, and there was a backlog just to get on the calendar for non-essential items. The conclusion of the story is that if we thought we could get to the Archbishop for anything, well... Good luck with that. "He has no time for himself, and it's been like that for him since be became Archbishop."
***
If you take that experience into MMOs, you begin to see how my own real life experiences have colored my in-game experiences. I've known teachers who have moved well outside of the school district they teach in because they want to have lives separate from their students,***** but that only works in the modern era where you can be that far away and still teach. If you're in Fantasy Land, you could potentially do that if you're a Mage,
Neve: "Of course I can." Me: "Oh shush. Shouldn't you be hunting on the plains near Garadar or something?"
but most everybody else would be stuck wherever they were at. And like celebrities everywhere else, you're not going to get a moment's peace from anybody who wants your ear.
So while it would seem at first blush to be pretty awesome to be the central character and the Warrior of Light, I'm not so sure that's a blessing. Being the hero and being able to rush out and do your own thing whenever you want is very much a best of both worlds for the player. It's like partying all the time while you're the king, because it gives the impression that there's nothing to ruling a kingdom: you just show up and things take care of themselves.
Having seen how it all works makes it that much more difficult for me to appreciate MMOs (or other video games) where you can be the hero without consequences, because my brain won't simply shut up and enjoy the ride. Kind of like me, the guy with a Minor in History, having to leave the room when I watched National Treasure for the first couple of times because I simply couldn't take the butchering of history that was done in the movie. (My wife can attest to this, as I did it while we were watching the movie together.)
I do have to admit it was very well acted and
plotted, however.
I guess I may eventually play FFXIV, but I need to push through the inevitable doubts that are going to crop up in my head.
*Last June 22, if you're curious.
**If you're in a 40 person raid versus a 10, 20, or 25 person variety, you can feel the difference in scope.
***They weren't cosplayers by any stretch, just people wearing a Star Trek jacket or shirt or wearing vulcan/elf ears. There were very few people who dressed up in costume (as we called it then), but quite a few people who at least made some effort to put their full-frontal nerdity on display.
****That's so they can either hide the graying of their own hair or so they can have it a funky color. Either way is fine with me, but you'd never catch me doing it myself.
