It's an oft-referenced saying that you are the hero of your own story, just like how people never really see themselves as the villain.
Yes, I was thinking of this sketch. From imgflip.
This has some interesting effects when considering where we came from versus where we're going. We try to make sense of our lives and unconsciously put ourselves in the best light possible. Nobody likes to think of their ancestors as mere peasants. But that's the thing, isn't it? Just on sheer numbers alone, most people living today came from peasant --or worse-- stock.
Although perhaps another quote from Henry David Thoreau would be a more apt one: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.* In that respect, the desire to see yourself as the hero is quite strong.
Where would the video game market be without the ability to see ourselves as the hero? Or the pencil and paper RPG market? Or even the printed word?
We as humans watch sporting events and cheer on our chosen teams experiencing highs and lows through their exploits. Just ask Liverpool fans what it meant when they finally won the Premier League, or Chicago Cubs fans when they finally broke the century long curse and won the World Series in 2016. Or ask Crystal Palace fans when Manchester United came from behind to beat them in the FA Cup in 2016.
So... When we play the hero in a game, is it escapism? Or do we delude ourselves into thinking that everything we do in our lives can turn us into the hero, and we feel cheated when we're not considered as such, even in something as a video game? Honestly, I don't know the answer to that question, but the older I get the more I wonder whether in our youth we convince ourselves of our own greatness and then spend the rest of our lives dealing with the disillusionment that follows. If we're lucky, we find a sort of equilibrium, where we can acknowledge our highs and lows in equal measure and simply accept ourselves for what we are.
Nothing in particular really triggered this introspection, but it has been growing on me for a while now. I can't look at the elitism found in a lot of activities --we see it in gamers/gaming and comics, but it's prevalent everywhere-- without wondering just how much of that is driven by that insecurity that we feel when we wrestle with the reality that we aren't the heroes we imagine ourselves to be.
*Here's the full quote in context from Thoreau's book Civil Disobedience and Other Essays: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”
Okay, I’m going to say something that ought to be patently obvious: visible activity by other players in an MMO is critical to an MMO’s success.
It’s a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the number of games that struggle with that simple notion.
"Hello??!! Anybody here??!!"
I remember when I first started playing WoW, there were people running to and fro in Eversong Forest; not that many, mind you, but enough to get the feeling that there were others inhabiting the world. Then I was taken/escorted to Orgrimmar and… Holy crap was it crowded.*
But as I leveled, outside of a few critical places that were busy, such as Hillsbrad or Stranglethorn, the number of other players I encountered dwindled until I barely saw another soul in Outland or large sections of Northrend. At the same time, I began to see “Dalaran” more and more as the location of people I encountered and put on my friends list. It wasn’t until I reached where Dalaran floated above the Crystalsong Forest in Northrend that I truly understood just how many people played WoW on my server.
And, more importantly, where they all were.
After that revelatory moment, I began to keep a closer eye on how MMOs handled the “multiplayer” aspect of their games.
***
It’s a rather common problem that over an MMO’s lifetime people will gather at watering holes where the current content is located. The problem is that is not where the new players are, so to a new player it certainly seems like nobody –or nearly nobody—is playing the game.
If you don’t want people around, that’s fine; I’ll be honest in that I kind of prefer the isolation to an extent. However, if you want to do any form of group content, well… Good luck with that.** It’s just that you need people out there and visible in the world to give you the impression that the game is viable.
***
By all indicators, WoW Classic Era doesn’t have a large population. The server selection screen identifies the East Coast Cluster as having a low population, and if you look at the raiding population it’s not exactly overwhelming.
However, if you enter the two capital cities in Classic Era, you’re going to find a decently sized group of people just hanging around, even at 1 AM server time. Given that you periodically return to a class trainer to train, you’re always returning to a major city while leveling. Additionally, the leveling process itself funnels you into the capital cities early on, acquainting you with the fact that this is where people go no matter their level.
The impression it leaves on a new player is that the game is active even at the beginning.
***
Lord of the Rings Online does something similar in that your intro zone and first leveling zone –for clarification purposes they are distinct zones based on your race— may be active, but they all funnel you toward Bree. Bree becomes a major hub within LOTRO itself that is always active, no matter the expansion. While the leveling zones have fewer and fewer players in them, Bree is always omnipresent as a watering hole. Sure, the central location of whatever the current expansion is gets the lions’ share of players at max level, Bree is probably one of every player’s top three hangout locations. Bree shows a new player that yes, people do play the game, and some of them are even at max level out there. LOTRO may not have the activity of even WoW Classic Era, but it is active in its own way.
***
When you get to Retail WoW, however, a lot of the systems put in place back in the Classic game are no longer present or no longer needed.
Blizzard quickly discovered that people at max level congregated at a central location in the current expac zones, abandoning other areas. Shattrath City and Dalaran was where the people went, and the major cities became ghost towns. History repeated itself in both TBC and Wrath Classic, only more so, as there were very few new players out leveling in the world. Blizzard's solution was to put the focus back on the capital cities in Cataclysm, but it didn't exactly work as intended. Automated systems, declining subscriptions, and server transfers all meant that while some servers had active players where Blizzard wanted them, others did not. And to make matters worse, servers marked "New Players" were frequently those with the lowest population in the WoW ecosystem.
Instead of server merges, Mists of Pandaria introduced connected realms, clustering servers with low population together so that the world would feel like an active world. Blizzard abandoned the idea of returning max level players to the capital cities where low level players could see them, and as time went on more systems were created to get people to max level as quickly as possible. If you were new and wanted to feel like part of a living world, you had to skip over all of the "old" content to get to the new stuff.
***
When J1mmy put out this video:
There was a particular sentence that resonated with my experience in many MMOs since 2009:
"...but sure enough the second I hit 60 right on cue my pager's going off and I'm getting contacted from people in Stormwind begging me and pleading me to return and start the Dragon Chronicles and so I went back to Stormwind, I got to the dragon place, I think I leveled up like once or twice and then I logged out cause I realized that through that entire experience [of leveling through Battle for Azeroth to Dragonflight] I had yet to talk to a single other human even once."
It's kind of ironic in that for many MMOs the most active you see players out in the world are in the starter areas and the main hubs in a current expansion.
The starter areas are where new players inevitably begin play***, and the hubs at the current expansion are where all of the max level toons go. But it's once you leave that starter area where things get mushy, and if you don't see anybody around the promise of seeing other people at Endgame can seem like so much vaporware.
To combat that emptiness you need good gameplay, good systems, and a story that remains valid throughout the leveling experience. And all three demand one thing that a lot of game companies don't want to utilize: a development team's time. It costs too much time and money to make sure the mid-game is taken care of, despite it being a critical part of keeping a player playing your game. It costs far less money --and is more profitable-- to simply put new items in the cash shop rather than plan for the long term.
*And more than a little intimidating. Ironically enough, as soon as I arrived, I was accosted by someone looking for guild signatures. Having someone come up to me out of the blue kind of froze me in my tracks. I have since gotten over my fright of that sort of behavior, but it did take quite a while to do so.
**And the overall lack of players available to perform group content at level is one of the reasons why automatic group finders are a thing.
If my occasional comments on Bhagpuss' Inventory Full haven't clued you in, I'm a bit of a music nerd.
I listen to most musical genres --with the notable exception of Country*-- and if you saw the albums I have on my typical playlist, you'd be bewildered by the range. But because of that range, I can enjoy all of the new (to me) music that Bhagpuss posts.
So when I was perusing YouTube for something or other close to a month ago, this particular video popped into my feed:
My biggest takeaway was Phil Aaberg. If you hear his music, you may get a specific image in your head of Phil, but the real Phil looks nothing like that: gravelly western voice, a large frame, and shock of white hair and beard sitting at the piano.
As I watched the video, I kept thinking "How the hell did I miss this on Kickstarter?"
I guess the magical search engine failed to pinpoint me as a Windham Hill fan, because I easily found the Kickstarter campaign, perused it, and tossed a few dollars their way.
The campaign ended the other day, so I checked out the Community section just to see who were the people who backed the campaign:
Can you see it?
On the left is what you'd expect of a musical label and genre that began out on the West Coast: Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, etc. And sure, New York City makes sense too, given its size and variety.
But what the hell are Dallas and Cincinnati doing in there?
I can't speak to Dallas, but I know exactly why my hometown is on the list: WVXU-FM.
***
If you listen to WVXU (91.7 FM) today, you'd think that it was always an NPR news/talk radio affiliate, but that current format only dates from 2005. (Yikes!) Before then, WVXU was owned by Xavier University (hence the "XU" in the callsign) and had an eclectic list of programs: NPR's Morning Edition at dawn, classic radio shows (Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, etc.) in the late morning, and music in the afternoon and evening.
The type of music the station played was something rarely heard these days on the radio: Jazz, Blues, Big Band Jazz, New Age, Acoustic, and Alternative/Progressive that bordered on the Avant Garde.**
'New Age' and 'Acoustic' umbrellas kind of cover a wide range of styles. Sure, there was John Diliberto's Echoes program, but the main afternoon show on WVXU, Audiosyncracies, was less New Age and far more acoustic oriented. Audiosyncs had a lot of Windham Hill artists in rotation and even featured Alex de Grassi's Clockwork as the intro music to the program.
I may have first been introduced to Windham Hill music while at college, but WVXU kept it going. In the mid-late 90s, while I was coding or debugging at work I'd have my headset on, listening to Audiosyncs. And when it was Christmas time, WVXU sponsored and promoted the Windham Hill Winter Solstice concerts locally when the tour came to town.
Alas that all good things come to an end, and in 2005 Xavier University sold WVXU to the local public radio company that owned WGUC-FM (formerly a University of Cincinnati station) and the format shuffle led to all of the NPR shows being transferred to WVXU, ending most of their music programs.
So yeah, Windham Hill has a history here. And I'm glad that a few of us were able to provide some funding to help tell the story of the small label that found success going against the grain. While the label Windham Hill is effectively dead --it is owned now by music giant BMG in the same manner that EA has done to numerous video game companies in the past-- the spirit of Windham Hill lives on in Will Ackerman's current label, Imaginary Road Studios.
Maybe I ought to send a link from that Kickstarter to a friend and ex-coworker of mine; she's a relative of the late George Winston.
*I've mentioned it before, but my dislike of Country music comes from my Catholic School music class as a kid heavily promoting Country music as an alternative to our 'traditional' music we covered: hymns for Mass.
**There was also Saturday Night Loud, a heavy metal program that played metal that you rarely heard on the radio back then.
If there's one thing about Gen Con, you're never sure what will attract your attention. To borrow an overused term, you think you do, but you don't.*
And 2024 certainly delivered on that premise.
My wife hadn't attended since 2015, so she was excited to go. We picked up my son and his partner at 7:30 and pointed our car west on I-74. Destination: Indianapolis.
We parked just outside of Lucas Oil Stadium and headed north a block or two to the Indianapolis Convention Center.
Yes, the Colts play here. Does it show?
Along the way, there was evidence that there was going to be a crowd inside.
Uh oh.
Yes, Gen Con was sold out all four days beforehand. According to the post-con press release, there were over 71,000 attendees throughout the entire con, and yeah, once you got inside the Convention Center you could tell.
I apologize for the blurry photo, but I was in a hurry as I was being jostled along. But hey, dice are dice and Chessex was everywhere.
(The rest of the report is after the jump break due to the sheer number of photos.)
NOTE: The Gen Con report will come out on Wednesday at the earliest, as I'm still letting everything cook in my brain for a while.
But in that absence, here's a YouTube link to Saturday's Cosplay Parade:
There are a few notable tweaks that came into play during Wrath of the Lich King, such as the automated dungeon finder or the 10/25 person raids. While TBC Classic added random compliments from an NPC if you became Exalted with their faction, Wrath saw an expansion of that by having more NPCs throw an "atta boy" your way when you pass them by.*
In a similar vein, there's the interaction with Gryan Stoutmantle out in Grizzly Hills that highlights what Blizzard could potentially do with a toon. If you've gone through the Defias quests in Vanilla Classic that lead up to and through The Deadmines, Gryan greets you as an old friend. If you haven't finished those quests, Gryan gives you a generic greeting. The decision tree on that sort of interaction isn't very difficult to implement --it's pretty much "if X is marked complete, then do Y else Z"-- but it provides a certain amount of familiarity to a player. The customization makes you feel a bit like you're part of a larger narrative in a small way.
But what happens when the game acknowledges you concerning events that you never performed, such as raids and whatnot? It's kind of hard to be the Champion of Azeroth if you never went raiding or even played 10+ years worth of expansions.
There is no easy way to let a player experience a story if they come into a game that's been running for ~20 years, or if they've been away from the game since Cataclysm or Mists. There's too much story, too many NPCs, and too many changes to the world** to easily digest. Therefore, I have to wonder if Blizzard hasn't simply thrown in the towel and is tailoring expansions to the 'in-crowd' who have already been playing consistently through the years and only stopped playing after Legion or during Battle for Azeroth.
This is inherently a self-limiting design, because a design team would want to draw in as many new players as possible. However, this becomes more feasible if the overall pool of lapsed players is large enough, but only to a certain extent. My complaints about WoW's story focus since about Wrath onward aside, once you are away from a story long enough it simply becomes impossible to catch up with what's going on.
I liken this to taking a break from watching a soap opera and then coming back to find yourself so out of touch with the story that you have no idea what's going on. And yes, I do have experience in that manner, having spent part of my sophomore year at UD watching Days of our Lives. Soap operas crank out new half hour episodes every day during the work week all year long, so you kind of have to keep watching to stay current. Taking even a week or two break from watching --and this was in the days before people had widespread access to online services, never mind the internet itself-- put me so far behind that I had major issues following the plot.
Or, to put it another way, if you stopped reading a book series at book #4 and you want to step back in at book #15, well... I hope you like reading, because that's going to be the easiest way to catch up in a comprehensible manner.
After a while, the publishers/producers just have to simply shrug their shoulders and just keep moving on, even at the cost of limiting their overall potential readership/viewership.
And that's what I think Blizz has done at this point with World of Warcraft. Sure, they'd like me to spend money on a Retail expansion, but they're moving ahead whether I do it or not. They get far more profit out of fewer subscriptions but a lot more cash shop activity than more subscriptions but far less out of the cash shop.
*The first few times it happens, it's cute. But after about the 20th time it starts to get really old. Especially if you're like me and want to blend in with the crowd, being called out in Dalaran by Linda Ann Kastinglow with "You couldn't ask for a finer person than Quintalan, I say."
**Dalaran? Whaddya mean there's more than one Dalaran? It's still back under a bubble north of Southshore like in TBC, right? And what's this about a spoiler? What?
I prepped this ahead of time, so by the time you read this we'll be on the road up I-74 to Indianapolis and Gen Con. Unlike last year, we're not going to experience any rain, so parking outside by Lucas Oil Stadium* and walking to the Indianapolis Convention Center ought to be pleasant. That's relative, given the heat and humidity of summer in the Midwest, but a lot better than a downpour.
In case you're wondering, I'll be somewhere in the Exhibit Hall....
People who play Retail WoW have been posting their Favorites in the loading screen, organizing that front screen based on what they want. Of course, Blizz has their own criteria as to how toons are selected for your initial Favorites listing, and I've not seen the decision criteria for it.
Being mildly curious as to what I'd find, I did login to Retail, skipped the cutscene, and found this:
Uh...
Well, whatever I was expecting, it certainly wasn't this.
I'm pretty sure three of these four toons were not the last four I'd logged into, and obviously none of them are my highest level toons either.*
So... my belief is that if you don't have enough play time for Blizz to properly select four toons as Favorites, they just pull four toons out of a hat from those that were logged into over the past year or two.
The only other MMO that I've played that has this sort of grouping in the login screen was TERA,
The scenery may not have been impressive, but the music was epic.
and for me it's pretty much a toss-up as to which is better. TERA has the better music and your toons striding forward like a badass, while Retail WoW has the more pleasant background and toons in, well, "down time".
*My highest level toon is the original Azshandra at L35, at the same location --Shrine of Seven Stars-- as she was when I last left her in the Mists of Pandaria expansion.
OG Cardwyn is finished, gear-wise, for Classic Era. That's not exactly a surprise to anyone who knows that this particular toon was there to see Kel'Thuzad die*, and she had enough DKP at the end of Vanilla Classic to splurge and get the full T3 set.**
Okay, so she didn't get the Wraith Blade, which was BiS if you weren't in line to get the Atiesh legendary staff, but that's not a big deal. I think our raid team had more Atiesh staves created (2) at the end of Vanilla Classic than Wraith Blade drops (1), and that's saying a lot about the quality of our raid drops.
The traditional World of Warcraft reason why someone would want to play a toon, to get gear and/or complete a raid, is not really there. And if I were the sort to stand around and show off my stuff, I'd not be hanging out in Darnassus, the least active Alliance city, like I traditionally do.
But I do spend a decent amount of my time in Classic Era logged in to her.
***
OG Cardwyn, the Evil Twin, does have her uses. Okay, 90% of the time those uses involve her being used as a DPS mule...
The Good Twin could have handled this fight too, but due to the punier damage and smaller mana pool would it have been more of a challenge.
...but I don't mind. While it's nice to see enemies melt a lot faster than on the Good Twin, the main reason to bring OG Cardwyn to a fight is because her mana pool is large enough that I don't have to drink to recover mana nearly as much.
***
Honestly, I prefer to simply do things on the Good Twin simply because I like Frost Mages better than Fire Mages. I could change the Evil Twin to being a Frost Mage, but... Eh, I don't mind having two mages with two separate specializations. If I ever wanted to join an AQ40 or Naxxramas raid, the Evil Twin is available for use. And given that I figure the best geared I can get the Good Twin while still remaining as a Frost Mage is the gear out of AQ40***, I'm kind of fine with how things are as-is.
Is there anything I might want, or want to do in Classic Era, Mage-wise? Trying for Atiesh, maybe?
Eh, no thanks.
There are three four reasons for that lack of interest in the original caster legendary staff:
To get in line for Atiesh, I would have to join a raid team actively raiding Naxxramas and likely raid twice a week at minimum to get in line for Atiesh. I really don't have the time I can presently dedicate to raiding at that level, hardcore or not, so it'd be silly to sign up and then have to constantly put myself on the bench.
If I want to get Atiesh, I have to prove myself to any prospective raid team. Just because I have the gear doesn't mean that I'm "good enough" to get to the front of the line for Atiesh. After all, I was Fourth out of Six Mages, DPS-wise, and of the three Atiesh staves that our raid team eventually built our top Mage was actually the last of the three people to receive their Atiesh, that coming after the Dark Portal opened.**** If I wanted to justify receiving an Atiesh, I would have to do more than just show up and do my job; I'd have to get sweaty, and I'm not doing that.
This is admittedly personal, but I think that Atiesh looks as ugly as hell; until I examined it more closely I thought it was a walking stick with a sulfur ball stuck on the end of it.
Kind of like this, but without James Burke. A screencap from Connections Episode 2, "Death in the Morning", at roughly 28:03.
I now know that's it's a carving of a raven on top, but it still looks ugly to me.
I really just don't want it and everything it represents. I'm one of those people who zig when everybody zags, and I look at Atiesh and instead of looking at the staff as an achievement I think of all of the politics that have to be played to actually get one. For my money, I'd rather keep my hands clean and pass on all of that crap.*****
***
So, I've got a toon that doesn't really "need" anything. But I do login as her and just hang out; watching the chat channels, buffing baby Night Elf characters as they run by, and helping out my friends as-needed. And that's fine; I don't have to be doing anything when I login, and I've found that I derive a lot of joy from merely being present in the game.
*Just how many times had he died canonically? Three? Four? I'm thinking three, unless he makes a reappearance in WoW after the Mists of Pandaria expansion.
**For reference, the full Tier 3 sets for Vanilla Classic are different than that in subsequent raid tiers in that the full set is nine pieces, including the ring that you can get as a drop. The so-called 'full set bonus' is for eight pieces; while OG Cardwyn does have all nine pieces, she isn't wearing the belt as the belt that came out of AQ40 is better for Fire Mages.
***For the most part, the three piece Bloodvine set are the best Chest, Legs, and Boots until a Mage reaches AQ40 and gains access to the (so-called) Tier 2.5 gear, the Enigma Set. Typically, that's also when a Mage will switch from Frost specialization to Fire due to the inherent bonuses with stacking several Fire Mages together. That being said, I know of some guild raid teams who let people bring their Frost Mages into AQ40 and Naxxramas. That latter one does puzzle me quite a bit, given that Frost is definitely at a disadvantage there in the same way that a Fire Mage has real damage problems in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. But hey, those guilds are sticking to their "bring the class/spec you want" credo.
**** Yes, a Warlock and a Resto Druid were ahead of all of the Mages. Typically a person tagged to receive Atiesh is not merely the highest DPS or healer, but performs services to the guild above and beyond the average raider. In the case of the first two Atiesh staves, they went to a co-Guild Leader and the Guild Officer who ran all of the non-progression raids for the guild.
*****You are talking to someone who had an Onyxia Head in OG Card's bank that I'd completely forgotten about. I rediscovered it in Era while I was moving items around to free up some bank space, and when I mentioned the head to my Questing Buddy, she told me "I'm not surprised."
There's Gen Con to kick off the month, then some other family related activities in the middle, and then probably back to working on the deck by the end of the month.
Maybe back to the deck? I'm not sure when, exactly, but definitely during September at the latest with a new batch of deck boards.
It may not sound like a lot, but trust me, my free time can evaporate pretty quickly around here, even with only one kid left as an undergraduate in college. Besides, there's stuff going on that I'll report about after it happens, so let's just enjoy August for what it is.
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.
