2004 vs 2025

I keep up with YouTuber WillE's videos, because he does spend a lot of time on the Classic WoW side of the house. On Monday, he posted this video...

Which was filled with ways how people have turned the game into speedruns, leveling boosts, and whatnot compared to what it was like back in 2004. The game mechanics are the same, but how we play it is completely different than 20+ years ago.

All I could think of while watching this was "...and here I am, plodding along, eschewing most things that resemble a 'modern' approach to Classic, much less a Retail mentality."

It seems kind of strange that I'm now a rebel and a hipster for wanting to do things the old way. 

I'm not "that guy" who wants to RP as a Hobbit in Molten Core, not wearing boots; since I know that there are expectations placed on you if you raid, I'm eschewing raiding. I do work hard to acquit myself well in group content I do enter into, but I refuse to play the rush-rush-rush game. 

The people who do the behaviors that WillE highlighted in the video are having fun, or at least I hope they are, because I'm having fun playing my way. I'm enjoying playing classes I'd never touched before, and because of that I'm learning how to better play as a Mage. I'm learning how a Feral Druid rotation works, and because of that I know better when I can push as a Mage and when I can dial it back. I understand better the symbiotic relationship a Warlock and a Shadow Priest have, where one complements the other and enhances their overall damage output. 

***

Also this week had the Mists of Pandaria Classic pre-patch drop. One of my little group is all gung ho for it, and I wish her the best, but I'm not touching that place.

I remember three things about Mists: WoW Pokemon, Let's Blow Up Theramore Just Because, and Battlegrounds were horrible. Well, there's also the insane gear scaling, wherein a Mage player I knew had 4-5 TIMES the health my leveling Rogue had because she was wearing raid gear from the second(?) raid from Mists.* And now that I think about it, I stopped playing any instanced PvE content in Mists as well because I got into one instance after an insane multi-hour wait, the tank pulled everything, died, and dropped group, followed by everybody else.**

WoW had turned into a game where I saw nobody out in Pandaria, the guild I was in died due to people leaving WoW, and Blizzard thought it an absolutely banger of an idea to force PvE players to have to go win the Mine Cart BG to progress in the legendary questline. Oh yeah, there were also the tons of bots in BGs, the Alliance had almost no chance to win anything other than the 40 person BGs, and the gear treadmill on both PvP (and I presume PvE) meant that by the time I became barely relevant in BGs the goalposts got moved and I had to start all over again.

And that's not even counting all of the quality of life changes, the so-called*** talent tree rework, and the Scenario content that I already wrote off when I wrote off 5-person instanced content. I mean, if people are silent toxic assholes in 5-person content, why won't they do that in the 3-person variety?

I guess I realized that WoW had strayed too far from the version of the game I fell in love with in 2009, and if the horrible BG experience was just making me angry all the time, why should I keep playing?

So yeah, I'm not going there. I much prefer Vanilla Classic and the relaxed pace (well, my relaxed pace, that is). Speedrunners need not apply.

*Not sure what the second raid patch was, but I know it wasn't the third or the first.

**To this day I still don't know what I was supposed to do in that instance, and what exactly happened and whether it was my fault. There was absolutely no discussion, even after I mentioned this was my first instance in Mists.

***If they're trees, I'm a duck. ::quack::

Yet Another Debriefing

I've wanted to put together an origin story for Linna for quite a while now, so when I began Winter's Veil and the Light as a Christmas story things seemed to fit into place. Unlike the average Hallmark Christmas Movie (tm), I wanted a Christmas story that didn't have romance involved. Okay, yes, there's a few references here and there to romances, but it isn't the focus of the story at all.

It's also quite easy to forget that Linna's actually older than Card by about a year or so, because Card left home ahead of her. I felt that Card being the catalyst for Linna's departure is one thing, but there had to be more to it than that. I've done my share of volunteer work and I know people who chose professions that aren't very lucrative but serve a critical function in society* because they feel the call to serve. To me, the Paladin is an extension of that call to serve, despite in WoW lore the Silver Hand was seen as a path to the nobility. Obviously, people will join an organization for any number of reasons, yet I wanted Linna's desire to help out to manifest in a pretty obvious way. That doesn't mean that she's an overgrown Girl Scout or something, because I once described her as the least serious Paladin in the world. I can easily see her as being an annoyance in the side of Lord Shadowbreaker because she simply will not act with the gravitas as befits her status as a Knight.

The path of a Paladin in World of Warcraft is more than simply based on the historical military religious orders of the Crusades**, given that the members of the Knights of the Silver Hand could marry and have children. The AD&D version of the Paladin (the O.G. Paladin, to be honest) had a very restrictive set of ability requirements for the class, and in the old days of "what you roll on your ability score is what you get", Paladins were quite rare.*** Therefore, I made some extrapolations based on what I knew in-game of the WoW version of the Paladin and came up with the requirement for two sponsors for acceptance into the Order.

But how the initiation would progress kind of stumped me. 

Okay, I knew about Arthas' initiation in Arthas: Rise of the Lich King by Christie Golden, and I thought it might work with some heavy editing, but I cast about for information on how it was interpreted in a roleplaying scenario. It took some searching, but I came across this post on the Argent Archives website, which provides a full RP induction ceremony into the Knights of the Silver Hand.

From argentarchives.org as of July 1st, 2025.

As you can tell, I adapted it to use in the story in the same way that they adapted it from Christie Golden's work. I thought there was too much in the ceremony to simply copy it verbatim, so I trimmed here and there to speed up the story a bit, as well as to add the sponsorship portion. I also thought it appropriate to give the Priesthood more authority over the entire ceremony by cutting out the Silver Hand's direct participation in some of the initiation, reflecting the Catholic Church's authority over the military religious orders in the Middle Ages. Azeroth has too little population --compared to Medieval Europe prior to the Black Death-- to simply let whatever Priest happens to be around to administer the induction ceremony. Sure, one of the Bishops could have run the show, but since the High Priestess is actually there in the Cathedral in-game, it made sense to use her instead.

***

Okay, confession time: for the longest time I had absolutely no idea who Linna's second sponsor would be. Only now in retrospect it seems obvious, but I wrote up several basic outlines for various people who would be Linna's second sponsor, and at various times I tried them all out:

• Elsharin
• Evelyn
• Mona
• Sloan**** 
• Mathias
• Some Faction Lead/Bigwig

The last two I discarded very quickly, because Mathias wants to stay in the background as much as possible despite Mona's past ties to SI:7, and also because I wanted this to maintain more of a "common people" focus than fall into the same "faction lead-focused" trap that Blizzard has with their own Retail story. Still, I knew that in order for Linna to be inducted, there had to be some nobility or higher up involvement (the High Priestess, Lord Shadowbreaker, etc.) but I didn't want that to be the focus of the story. All of the others in the list I deliberately brought up and discarded in the story itself because the story actually provided the TL;DR of why I decided not to use any of them. I also really didn't want to choose Azshandra, because she'd never agree to that. I know her well enough --she lives rent-free in my head, you know-- and she'd have shut that down before I could even put her on the list.

I wanted the second sponsor to be someone that Linna has interacted with, and could potentially represent a larger organization that may or may not be well received by either the nobility or the clergy. To my mind, that meant either a semi-renegade (such as Balthan) or a member of an organization not based in Stormwind: the Cenarion Circle, the Argent Dawn, or the Explorer's League. Of those, the Cenarion Circle made the most sense since Linna has interacted with them before. And it was then that I went "Duh!!" and smacked my forehead. I contacted Ancient, who readily agreed to let me borrow Kitwynn again, and that was that.

***

There was one last loose end I had to clear up, and that was a technical matter. I didn't want to write about Honey Bread without actually having experience in how the damn thing tastes. Yes, I could have just rolled with it and come up with a description based on what I knew of the bread, but I wanted to ground my writing in my own impressions of what it tasted like. Of course, the problem here is that a fictional food isn't something you could readily taste.

Or could you?

Well, in the Before Times, I wrote a post about fandom cooking in July 2021. Among the books I referenced, there was this little gift set:

I still have the apron, btw.

And tucked within it's pages, there was this:

Sindorei this, Sindorei that. It's not like the Queldorei
didn't eat it before them, you know...
From World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook
by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, Page 79.

So... I had a recipe to try.

I need not bore you with the details about my testing the recipe out*****, and I did have to make an adaptation to accommodate my low-salt diet, but this was the result:

That's after brushing it with melted butter
once it came out of the oven.

If you want to know how it tastes, well... 'absolutely awesome' kind of covers it. It reminds me a lot of challah bread, given that the ingredients are similar, but the recipes of challah I've used have granulated sugar instead of honey.

Before you ask, 1/12th of Chelsea's recipe comes out to about ~34 grams of carbs, so it's well within my carb budget on a per meal basis. Believe me, I kept an eye on my blood sugar after eating it, and I had no issues with a sudden spike in my numbers. 

My wife really likes the recipe, so I think I might have to put this into regular rotation. Next, I ought to try Chelsea's Mulgore Spiced Bread recipe, which apparently gets rave reviews on Reddit and other websites. 

***

So there you have it. A story that I originally thought I could belt out in a month or so took over seven months and had me bashing my head against a wall for a good while. I have other stories I'm working on in various states of completion, and I'm not sure which one will appear next. I ought to start posting on Azeroth After Dark rather than letting that blog sit there, unused, but we'll see. Based on my pageview data, I know that my fiction doesn't get a lot of eyeballs, but I wanted to get this out there instead of holding onto it.

*Aside from the military, there's teaching, firefighting, police, local journalism, libraries, community outreach (such as senior centers and support), park administration, and religious orders (no, televangelists don't count).

**The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon (Templars) and The Knights of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (The Hospitallers) are the most well known among the military religious orders, but there's also other Crusades througout Europe that generated military religious orders. Among them are the Teutonic Knights, the Order of Calatrava, the Order of Santiago, and the Order of Montesa. All of these military religious orders mixed a monastic life with military service. Unlike their non-religious chivalric counterparts, the adherents of the military religious orders eschewed worldly possessions and maintained celibacy in the name of service. While those requirements may have held up for individual members, some of the military religious orders became very rich from donations by the nobility throughout Europe (looking at you, Templars).

***Or you had to keep rolling until you got the right combination. I tried that once, and it took me hours before I finally got a Paladin on rolls alone. That minimum score of 17 out of 3d6 for your Charisma is a real bitch.

****You can find Sloan as an NPC vendor in SI:7, and I adapted her in another unfinished story into someone Card interacts with when she finally arrives at SI:7 with Mona's letter of warning to Mathias. That letter of warning is referenced in One Final Lesson, Part 5 and Part 6.

*****If people want to see the details, I can make another post about that later.

Winter's Veil and the Light -- Part 2/2

Previous Installment:
Winter's Veil and the Light -- Part 1

Several days later I paced restlessly in the foyer of the Cathedral of Light. I may not be the focal point of today’s events, but I was going to be in front of the High Priestess of the Church of the Light herself. The Cathedral may not be the Keep, but that didn’t mean the nobles of Stormwind weren’t paying attention.

I paused for a moment to rub at the ache on my shoulder.

“Stop playing with it, Apprentice,” Mistress Elsharin said in Thalassian, her voice thick with disapproval. “It will take longer to heal.”

Pulling my hand away, I rolled my shoulders to move my old purple robe around a bit. “It’s…” I frowned as my voice trailed off. Searching for the right word in her tongue and realizing I didn’t know it yet, I changed directions. “How long before the pain goes away?”

“About a week.”

“A week?” I was about halfway through.

“Surely you’ve been hurt from being out in the sun too long, it’s no worse than that.”

No, it wasn’t, but that burn usually faded after a couple of days, and this was still going strong. I frowned, realizing that this was likely Elsharin’s way of saying “don’t be such a baby,” only since she said it in remedial Thalassian it sounded worse.

While Mistress Elsharin had given me another present –a warm bathrobe—for Winter’s Veil, her primary gift was a tattoo of her family’s crest on my shoulder. The concept of bearing the Dawnweaver crest sounded exciting and sophisticated at first, but the moment the Queldorei tattoo artist began, all those emotions vanished in a puff of smoke. I’d been beaten and stabbed and shot with arrows, but this so-called “small thing” hurt more than it had any right to.

Still, it kept me from thinking about Linna’s acceptance into the Order for a while.

“Remember, Apprentice,” Elsharin said, interrupting my musings, “Give the Knights what is asked, but no more. You have a talent for talking too much.”

“Yes, Mistress Elsharin.” I opened my mouth to continue, but I realized I was about to demonstrate my Mistress’ rather apt critique and shut it instead.

The doors to the Cathedral opened and my family entered, with Linna in front. She was dressed all in white, as was the custom for a supplicant, and she’d even taken care to brush her tangled blonde hair and tie it back into a smart ponytail. Her easy, casual smile was nowhere to be seen.

Winter's Veil and the Light -- Part 1/2

Yes, you read that correctly. I suppose you could call this a "Christmas in July" surprise, given that I'd originally meant to have this ready for last year's actual Christmas season, but stuff happened and I got stuck finishing the story. I'll explain more in a follow-on post after this is complete.

This story is set after the events that culminated in The Deadmines and then The Stockades in Vanilla Classic WoW. When I write I tend to jump around the timeline when I find a compelling scene, which is why I have other works of fiction in the pipeline. I may eventually begin creating completely original works of fiction again, but that also assumes that Cardwyn won't kick my ass or something and demand more be written.

The full list of attributions will follow at the conclusion of the story, so I won't give anything away, but here's a standard disclaimer: 

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any characters and locations created by Blizzard for WoW Classic remain their property. This work of fiction uses WoW Classic as the primary reference point. Copyright by Redbeard of Parallel Context, 2025.

Winter’s Veil and the Light

"Apprentice, your sister is here!"

I stuffed the last wrapped present into my pack and slung it over my shoulder. "Coming!" I called, flying out of my room and to the top of the stairs.

At the bottom stood Mistress Elsharin and Kira, chatting quietly. Considering she’d just arrived from Goldshire I expected my big sister to at least appear like she’d been traveling all day, but no, she looked like her typical perfect self. She wore her formal Journeywoman's outfit, complete with the badges signifying her rank in the Goldshire Bakers Guild stitched onto her breast jacket. The only indication she’d been on the road at all was her travelling basket by her side, which she used to carry baked goods throughout central Elwynn. I bounced down the stairs and into her arms, clapping her on the back. “Kira!” I cried.

"Card!" she exclaimed, squeezing me tight and holding me at arm’s length. "Look at you! You're wearing a new robe!"

"It took me quite a while to figure out how to stitch the material,” I grinned, “but I had some help from around the Quarter." 

That was quite an understatement. When Mistress Elsharin suggested that I should mark the ending of the Defias affair by making my own robe, I was a bit hesitant. After all, she'd made it rather plain to me that despite her Queldorei house name she was not a tailor and had no interest in becoming one. After my experience with a tailor accosting me to examine my robe when I first arrived in Stormwind, I wasn't so keen on asking for help, either. However, Elsharin recommended a different tailor, and Mistress Larson took me under her wing to show me the basics of dealing with bizarre items such as spider silk thread in the creation of this new white robe.

"I love your Journeywoman's outfit!" I added as took in my sister's uniform. "Isn't it different than last year’s?"

"Yes!" Kira pulled her sleeve over, exposing some new stitching. "The gold stripe along the shoulder and down the sleeves signify Senior status."

"That's wonderful! Does that mean you're the Senior Journeywoman in the Guild?"

My sister grinned from ear to ear and nodded.

I dropped my pack and embraced her in another tight hug. "Congratulations!"

"That is wonderful news!" Elsharin exclaimed, crossing over to our kitchen. "This calls for a toast before you leave." 

"You're not coming?" Kira called after her.

My sister released me, and I shook my head and sighed.

"I shouldn't intrude, as it is a family event, and a Dawnweaver always puts family first," Mistress Elsharin replied, returning with three glasses and a bottle of wine.

"I tried to convince her that she's family now," I added, "but..."

"No buts, Apprentice." The Elf handed out the glasses and poured some wine into each. "To Kira Songshine, Senior Journeywoman!" she exclaimed, raising her glass in a toast.

"To Kira!" I saluted my sister and drank. 

"To Card and Elsharin, my Stormwind family!" Kira added.

"And now," Elsharin said, setting down her glass, "I believe you two have a date to keep back at your farm." She walked over to the foyer and raised her arms to cast. "Apprentice, you have my presents with you?"

I grabbed my pack and slung it over my shoulder. "Yes, Mistress Elsharin."

"Very well, I'll open the portal." She focused and brought the arcane to bear before us, and a portal to the farm opened. "Tell everyone Happy Winter Veil for me!"

"I will!" 

We stepped through the portal and into our barn.

Meme Monday: Summer Heat Memes

Well, it took an extra month to arrive, but Summer has finally hit our corner of the Midwest with a gigantic sledgehammer. The past week we had what the meteorologists rather blandly call a "heat dome" over much of the US, so we here got kind of thwacked by the weather.

In an absolute sense, low to mid 90s (~34C) isn't really that bad, but given that we had a significantly colder Spring and early Summer so far, it was a bit of a rude awakening. So, while I'd typically put this sort of Meme Monday later in the Summer, I figured I'd post it now. After all, Cincinnati and Milwaukee were both warmer than Las Vegas for the majority of last week.

I should try this sometime. From Thunder Dungeon.

Okay, I chuckled at this. After all, I do live on
the northern edge of the Bible Belt.
From Memedroid.

My son's room is like this. It gets the afternoon
sun and not enough airflow from the HVAC system.
From 9GAG.

If it were hell, it'd be a lot closer to what
work feels like. From Thunder Dungeon.

And because I prefer winter....
From Facebook and Castillo.

A Bit Late to the Party

Mike Bell dropped a YouTube video today about his coworker and buddy Matt's experience with a new toon on a fresh Retail WoW account. 

The TL;DR is Matt found that approaching the game as a brand new player --without knowing the ins and outs of the game itself-- the leveling experience pretty quickly becomes unbearable due to the level scaling.

To which I say...

From The Ballad of Busker Skruggs and really
from all over the internet.

I know, I know, people may not internalize things if they don't experience it themselves, but this is not a new event. In fact, problems with the new Retail WoW experience have been around for quite a while. I tend to focus on the story problems, but when your gameplay starts to break down, then WoW finds itself in a precarious position. 

For all the problems with the story, WoW has always --always-- been able to lean on its gameplay as its strength.* But now, Matt found himself where he'd outleveled the content but didn't have commensurate gear to match with the content he was facing. Since your ability to kill mobs in Retail WoW is so dependent on gear**, he found himself having to pull off every trick in the book to kill mobs, something your average new player won't know. Returning players have certain advantages, with heirloom gear that automatically scales with you, and they can also have friends drop by to help them kill things in the same way that people are boosted in Classic WoW.

How to fix the problem? 

Matt eventually used his knowledge of crafting to craft some cloth gear (he played a Tauren Mage) and then he could keep playing, but again, that's something the average new player won't know. Among the suggestions he was given but rejected include the tip to simply logoff and not play for two months, then Blizz will automatically provide you with a set of catch-up gear. Given that buying the game then NOT playing it seemed nonsensical, Matt passed on that one.

I guess my reaction to this video is better late than never, but at least they did make an honest attempt at trying things out.

*I'm including raiding and other instanced content here.

**I'd argue even more so than in Classic WoW, where you can get away with being undergeared while being out in the wild for quite a while. Hell, I'm proof of that.

On a Clear Day, You Can See L40

Okay, it's not quite that bad.

Card is wearing gear really meant for someone
in the upper L20s, but those bonus Frost damage pieces
have no equal until much higher Tailoring skill is obtained.
The levels as of Tuesday, June 24, 2025.

I mean, everybody is at L34, so only 6 levels to go. I suppose that you could argue that L40 is the true midway point in the leveling process due to how difficult it is to level the higher you go up in Vanilla Classic, but paradoxically more quest areas open up once you get past the mid-30s and mid-40s doldrums. 

I've kept myself busy by fishing for Nightfin, which has come in handy as that gold I've made has now started to go into leveling Blacksmithing and keeping up with all of the toons' ability training. At least two of the toons I'm leveling will get their mounts automatically at L40, but that means I have to pay for 6 mounts in the not too distant future.

So... I'd better have something like 600 gold lying around for that, right? Probably more, given that I want to have a cushion so I'm not totally broke* and that I'll still likely have to pay for the basic riding ability for those other two toons anyway. And then there's all those nice L40 abilities you have to train for as well...

Yeah, I think I'm gonna be mount poor for a long time after L40.

Back when I was originally leveling Az in 2019/2020, it was at this point in the leveling process that her gear was getting pretty long in the tooth --most of it came from The Deadmines, so at L20 or so-- that I began purchasing some items off of the Auction House to replace the oldest pieces. I've held off from doing that for now, but when your daggers came from random drops in Westfall, trying to kill things in Desolace with them doesn't really cut it. 

***

That does lead into an interesting paradox with leveling: I frequently will take gear drops I find in the wild and send them to my other toons to help them out. For example, I don't think Hoots has gotten a bow for herself since Darkshore; instead she's gotten bows as hand-me-downs from other toons that found them out in the wild. The same thing goes for my Druid, Taldanifal, and his items. It's a pretty rare occasion when my three Leather wearing toons find useful gear out in the wild, especially after the embarrassment of riches in Westfall and The Deadmines. All those leather drops there led to what I kindly call "the expectation of riches"; after all, we got a lot of gear early, so why won't that continue in later levels? Well, Vanilla Classic (and life) don't work like that. 

You know the disclaimer: past results do not guarantee future performance? Well, Vanilla WoW is that saying come to life. To be honest, it's much better that it happen in a video game, as opposed to happening in real life with your finances. While you can't depend on gear drops, you can make some educated guesses. And in my case, just prepare for the worst, because that's how my luck rolls in MMOs.

Still, I can enjoy the sights...

Winging by Grom'gol on my way north from Booty Bay.

*Back when I was leveling in TBC Classic and had at least made it to Zangarmarsh (the swampy zone in Outland), one of the guys I knew on our raid team who had pushed ahead and was busy doing all the things had wiped out his entire stash of gold to pay for a fast flying mount, something like 5000 gold. The move shocked me, but he said it was totally worth it.

To be honest, I think that decision to essentially bankrupt yourself in pursuit of a fast flying mount is what turned me off from getting fast flying on any of my toons in TBC Classic and Wrath Classic. I've lived my entire life on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis, and blowing everything for what is pretty much an extravagance simply isn't in my system. 

Meme Monday: Contextual Memes

Yes, there's that classic Doctor Who parody meme where Clara Oswald asks the Twelfth Doctor about whether a particular number is a lot, and the Doctor answers "Depends on the context". I've got a few of them around, so why not have this for a Meme Monday?

Let's get the original out of the way, shall we?
From Incorrectwhoquotes, but really from all over.

Okay, I'd argue yes to both, because I'm old enough
to know I need to do more per day than just game.
From the Facebook Geeks are Sexy group.

Of course I had to go and put a Minecraft
meme in here. I can even here the nasally "huh?"
sound that character makes. From Reddit and
Know Your Meme.

Yeah, as a pencil and paper RPG player, that's
about right. From Imgflip.

Given that I own a few Wusthof knives, I found this
quite funny. From Imgflip.

Absolutely. I saw a LEGO store in the Charlotte airport,
and they told me that they ship internationally, so you
don't have to worry about trying to board a plane with
"extra baggage". From Pinatafarm.

Red Flags

When I logged into Battle.net today, I saw this graphic:

From Battle.net, although a slightly different color tone
than found on the front page.

I typically don't see this particular version of Xal'atath --I think this is from a cutscene or a trailer for the expansion-- because this is more photo realistic than the "usual" version:

It's that "I'm the smartest person in the room"
look that gets you. From Wowhead.

The look she has in the first graphic reminds me a bit of Minthara from Baldur's Gate 3:

Well, except for the white hair and the non-glowing
eyes. And the carvings. And that Minthara is obviously
pissed off. From IGN and Larian Studios.

That middle graphic looks more obviously diabolical to me, while the other two being more understated actually scare me a helluva lot more. 

I've never heard Xal's voice, but Minthara's throaty voice, like she's got a breath mint in her mouth that she needs to work around to speak properly, is properly noble yet demanding. She also carries the baggage of expectations, because the Drow in D&D and The Forgotten Realms have a long history that can't easily be ignored. 

On the flip side, Xal's photo realistic look is scarier due to the red flags I see in them. Like, oh, the carvings in her cheeks. While I've seen my share of facial tatoos over the years, I very rarely see facial carvings; the only people I've ever seen who actually put carvings on their face are those who really don't give a damn about anything.

And let's not forget those eyes. Sure, WoW has tons of races with glowing eyes, but Xal's have a certain... something about them. Maybe it's the shapes in the center that appear to be small mouths. Or that the glowing portion is mainly the irises, unlike entire eyes that glow (looking at you, Sin'dorei, Kaldorei, and Draenei). Or that it makes the eyes look like moons, and not in a "ooo, how beautiful" way either.

Speaking of which, here's another graphic of a Big Bad with similar red flags:

Oh yeah, Ahmanet works. Better than the movie
itself, to be honest.
From 2017's The Mummy (and Reddit).

Ahmanet gives a whole new meaning to the term "four eyes", and those raised tattoos don't endear her to people, either. 

I guess the biggest red flag among them is the malice that to a greater or lesser extent they all inhabit. It doesn't exactly give me warm fuzzies if one of them were to strike up a conversation with me at a bar. Since they all wear their intentions on their collective sleeves, it's kind of hard to look beyond that. Unlike some baddies...

Yes, I pulled this gif from Bedazzled. So sue me.

What is Best in Life?

I'm not exactly sure how Age of Conan is still kicking around, but it still is.

Yes, there it is.

I hadn't installed it in 2021 when I broke down and bought my current PC, and I suppose that my old toon there is still hanging out wherever I'd left it way back when. 

Still, Funcom continues to keep the Conan license alive with AoC, Conan Exiles, Conan Chop Chop, and Conan Unconquered. How do they do it? And while most people know of Conan from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies the original Robert E. Howard short stories are still around.* I can find at least one Conan book at my local bookstore, which is one more than from David Eddings (and until recently Michael Moorcock). What is the appeal of Conan?

Maybe it's because the Sun travels east to west
and the Moon travels west to east. Yeah, I thought
something was weird the first couple of days I played,
but I couldn't put my finger on it until I realized that
the Sun rose in the same area that the Moon set.

The Sword and Sorcery subgenre has its adherents, particularly those in the RPG community who enjoy the "old school" style of 1e AD&D and modern interpretations such as Shadowdark. It's just that for some reason the brutal and brooding style of the Hyborean Age, created by a bookish Texan, has an enduring appeal to this Norwegian game company. 

When I used to play Age of Conan I got the impression that it was far more popular over in Europe than in the US, and my tinkering around with Conan Exiles has only reinforced that perception. 

Taking a rest in a bed I'd built with crude tools.

Both Conan Exiles and Age of Conan have a casual attitude toward nudity that would shock certain sensibilities in the US. Yes, you can play Conan Exiles on a server --your own or created by others-- without turning nudity on, but I'm sure that was put in place to allow the game to be put on Steam. I'm not here to moralize about that, because nudity or near nudity is a staple of Sword and Sorcery along with magic and civilization itself being evil and corrupting, but it is worth noting that Funcom went all in on the aesthetic. Before you ask, no, they didn't add sex to the game, but apparently people created mods to "fix" that.

Why am I not surprised?

A more problematic part of Conan Exiles is that Funcom did not shy away from another aspect of Sword and Sorcery: slavery and thralldom. Here in the US, any discussion of slavery centers, first and foremost, on the slavery of Africans that culminated in the American Civil War. Slavery in Conan Exiles is more akin to that found in the Ancient World, where those defeated in war were enslaved by the victors.** In Conan Exiles, you "recruit" people to your side by knocking them out using a truncheon, putting them on the Wheel of Pain, and having them "work" the wheel until their spirit is broken. 

And despite the "splitting hairs" aspect to the whole thing, holy crap is this something incredibly problematic. 

Yes, it follows with the spirit of Conan's world, but I also think this is something that the devs could have read the room and said "You know, slavery isn't exactly a popular thing right now, maybe we ought to come up with another mechanic other than thralls." I mean, there's plenty of other things that were popular in the Ancient World (and Sword and Sorcery) that didn't make the cut in the game. 

If you are thinking about Conan Exiles as a survival game to play and you find the thrall mechanic a hard line, that's on Funcom. They could have easily changed the game to something less problematic, but by sticking to their guns they limited their game's appeal. 

*Not to mention stories written by other authors, such as L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Poul Anderson, and even Robert Jordan.

**For those familiar with Roman and Greek history may have heard of Epictetus, the Stoic Philosopher, who was born a slave. And there's Spartacus, who led a slave revolt.

Serendipity Surprises

When I logged into Steam today, I wasn't expecting to see this:

Honest!

I guess that makes yesterday's Meme Monday all the more appropriate, I suppose.

It's like seeing a random comment by an NPC and saying to yourself "What the hell was THAT?" Like this one I saw last night in Stormwind on the Anniversary Server:

I can't say I've seen THAT one before, and given the lack of context (and to be fair, Blizzard's company culture's reputation these days) that just sounds so wrong.

There's one last little bit of serendipity that has nothing to do with gaming. I was working away at the end of May when I happened to look outside the nearby window and saw this:

Yes, that's a very young fawn, likely a newborn, since the fawn was still a bit wobbly when moving around. That's something you don't get to see live every day.

Meme Monday: Fishing Memes

A decade or two ago, I had a fishing license. Not to actually catch fish, mind you, but so I could cast with a rod and reel with my kids. Good thing I never had a hook on the end of the line either, because I would have been gouged by said hook multiple times when the kids "cast" their lines. 

Still, I've never forgotten having some fun with them while "fishing". That translates into MMOs, where fishing is very much a thing.

I'm with you on that one.
From Reddit.

This could be my Questing Buddy saying this
too, you know, given that I've been fishing a lot
lately in game. From imgflip.

Heh. I like this. From Midday Memes. 

If you're doing this while listening to Otis
Redding, I can get behind this. From the Facebook
group Final Fantasy XIV: A Meme Reborn.

This one needs no comment from me.
From Reddit.

Tim Cain on Being Happy

I've mentioned this before, but I religiously watch Tim Cain's Cain on Games videos on YouTube. Having the perspective of developing games since the early 80s, and working in a field that I can relate to, is incredibly fascinating. That Tim not only survived the meat grinder but also has carved out a lasting and impactful career is inspiring to me, since my software development career lasted a little over 5 years.* That he worked on games such as the original Fallout, The Bard's Tale Construction Set, Pillars of Eternity, Wildstar, and even Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodlines speaks to how his games impacted my life as a gamer. 

Tim is also a genial person**, and he has a passion for games and game development. He's opinionated, but he's not an asshole about his opinions. That's something I can get behind.

On his Fun Friday video today, he had a short discussion about Being Happy:

Anyway, his first point of emphasis (and the reason for this post) is to stop rage watching videos and rage playing games. You know, the idea that you watch something that makes you angry --and you know it's going to make you angry but you watch it anyway-- and then you complain about it. It's corollary, rage playing games, is going out and playing a game that you hate and then you go online and talk about how you hate the game. 

This resonated with me because of my personal experience with my health issues and social media. And, well, the news.

Before somebody complains that being a CIS white guy means that I can tune the news out, fine. Yes, I am a CIS white guy. I'm also a CIS white guy who has health issues, especially hypertension, and I need to cut out stress in my life or I won't be around for very long.*** You can't vote if you're dead, even in Chicago nowadays.

One of the things I've done over the past several years was to cut out social media in my life, because first I couldn't stand the misinformation floating around social media with the pandemic, and then because of people within my extended family going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole when they ought to know better. 

I can draw a parallel to this from a couple of decades ago when I cut out some news channels because their modus operandi is to generate a strong emotional reaction (frequently anger) as those strong reactions can turn into dedicated viewership. It becomes it's own feedback loop: keep throwing out red meat at their viewership, and their viewers get mad and tune in to listen or watch more often. I realized I was getting angry when those channels were on, and when I stepped back and turned them off, I realized I was much happier as a result.

***

But recognizing that rage playing games --or even just playing games that have changed over time into something you don't like-- isn't healthy is one piece of the puzzle. You have to break the chain and go play other games that you might actually enjoy. As Tim points out, there's oodles of games out there on Steam right now, so why not try other games instead? And if you don't like the game, return it and try another one. 

Before you ask, no, I'm not using this as a prelude to doing something drastic such as quitting WoW and playing only Civilization IV or something. After all, I still derive a lot of fun from playing Classic WoW, and yes, I've even enjoyed poking around here and there in Retail**** as long as I limit my interactions to places I'm familiar with and I ignore all the helpful suggestions to try Retail's version of Green Eggs and Ham. 

I will not try Dragonflight in a boat, or with a (space) goat, Blizz-I-Am.

--Dr. Seuss, maybe

Anyway, Tim has gotten me to thinking that I need to work more on trying to be happy, or if I'm not careful I will turn into a "get off my lawn" old guy, and sooner than I'd like.

*I should be clear: I enjoyed that software development part of my life, but I'm glad I'm no longer involved with it. Knowing what I know now about my health, I doubt I would have remained married or even been alive in 2025 given all the stress involved in what was a CAD/CAM software development job. 

**Yes, I know, he presents that way on YouTube, and people might not be like that in real life, but since Tim basically makes his videos in one take it's kind of hard to fake it for over 500 videos without using a lot of editing. Still, I haven't experienced him as either a coworker or a boss, so I can't speak to that. 

***I just had my six month check in with my doctors --both cardiologist and my primary care physician-- and I'm still hanging in there. I wasn't planning on providing an update in a post this June, but the TL;DR is that I need to keep doing what I'm doing, and my primary doc keeps hounding me to take vacations and relax more. Of course, working on projects such as woodworking do help me relax more, so there's that at least.

****Within reason. Without "playing the game" by questing or anything like that, I can simply move around the Old World and enjoy what I see for the art alone.

There's Always Someone

I'm sure that of my stable of toons on the Anniversary server, Hoots gets the most flirts and catcalls because of her name.

The listings as of Tuesday, June 10th.

I could be out fighting Yetis in Hillsbrad Foothills, fishing at Booty Bay, or just running through Stormwind and someone will either whistle or /flirt at her. 

Is it the braids in her hair? Yeah, maybe it's the braids.

Narrator: It wasn't the braids.

Considering that there's a lot more provocatively dressed female toons in Stormwind especially, you'd think that a Night Elf who's not attracting attention to herself would just be able to pass on by without comment, but noooo...

Apparently a lot of people who play WoW like owls.

Yes, I am aware that this is what people think is the likely
inspiration for Hoots' name. From a 2013 USA Today
article about Hooters' restauarant struggles.

Hoots may get the most flirting in terms of volume, but the most provocative flirting I've had on the Anniversary servers has been centered on Shaluna, my Holy Priest.

I have no idea why she gets hit on.

Apparently that Corsair Overshirt attracts attention. Another player on a group I was in commented that Shaluna had "quite a rack", and that she'd make a great dancer. I told them thanks, and that it's the Overshirt from the Deadmines that is doing the heavy lifting, which generated a few snickers. Well, at least nobody asked me to strip or perform ERP, unlike what I've experienced before. But there has been the occasional scoping out of Shaluna by a Forsaken --always a Forsaken, it seems-- while on a boat between Ratchet and Booty Bay. 

I am so looking forward to getting a replacement for that Overshirt, let me tell you.

***

Beyond that, I had yet another one of those "conversations" to try to get me to level faster. As seems to be typical, this conversation came after yet another pug some of the gang had where a pugger did one or more of the following:

• Didn't wait for the tank to establish threat
• Didn't use crowd control to handle the mobs
• Would run ahead and pull more mobs to make the group go faster
• Would provide an excuse and leave the group, conveniently after the boss fight where the item that they were hoping for was supposed to drop
• Whine about wanting the group to go faster

I understand the frustration: pugging can suck, especially if some of your puggers are selfish assholes. And if you're a tank or a healer, DPS behaving badly can wreck your evening. Still, they're all pretty much in the same guild now, and I'm sure they could likely find people to run instances with them.

For me, one thing is certain: I'm not joining that guild. To me, it feels too close to what I experienced in TBC Classic, only with more drama (if that were possible). Maybe I ought to create a guild or two for my own toons; after all, I now have enough gold via fishing to afford the cost of paying people for guild signatures.

***

Oh yeah, one more thing: over on Classic Era, I got into a Blackwing Lair run. This is probably the first time I've been in BWL in about a year, and that time they were halfway through when my Questing Buddy asked if I could help out as they were short of people. This time at least I got into the raid beforehand, so I pulled OG Cardwyn out of the garage and sent her to Blackrock Mountain. I was missing some consumes, and like a good Mage I died a few times, but overall it was an enjoyable experience. 

I doubt that experience will make me want to push faster on the Anniversary servers, because if I want to scratch that itch I can go do that on Classic Era whenever I want. But we'll see how things go.

And oh look, this weekend is Alterac Valley weekend...

What on Earth is Red Reading This Time: 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan

Kind of a mouthful of a title, isn't it?

I stumbled on this book when I was browsing the stacks at a local bookstore, and the title intrigued me. I owned a copy of Kind of Blue and played it when the mood struck me, and hearing some of my youngest's high school friends play Freddie Freeloader as part of the jazz band* they put together their junior and senior years only reignited my interest in that era of Jazz. While I'd known about the basics surrounding the lead-up to the creation of Kind of Blue, courtesy of the Ken Burns documentary series Jazz, the detailed biography and intersection of Miles, John, and Bill was relatively unknown to me. 

The book begins with a retelling of James Kaplan's interview with Miles Davis for Vanity Fair back in 1989. As James tells it, his brother somehow convinced an editor at Vanity Fair that James knew all about jazz and so the editor gave him the job of interviewing the often difficult Miles. James promptly freaked out and crammed for the interview prior to showing up for what was originally to be one hour. Apparently Miles was taken with James and was very generous with his time, forming a lasting impression on James which led to this article (found in the Vanity Fair web archives) and a lifelong interest in jazz.

James then proceeds into both a biography of the three men, interweaving their tales with the progression of jazz from the Big Band era into Bebop and beyond. Some biographers would stop at the point of creation of Kind of Blue, but not Kaplan. He puts the album into perspective by showing the direction the three --and jazz itself-- went after that inflection point. After all, 1959 was also the year of the release by Ornette Coleman of The Shape of Jazz to Come, which announced to the world the presence of what is now known as Free Jazz. At that point, jazz began to move toward the avant-garde in the same way modern Classic Music did in the same time general time period. 

If you're a student of the music, or just enjoy music in general, you might find the book fascinating. And more than a bit sad.

Why sad? Because the history of jazz is littered with corpses, slaves to another mistress: drugs.

Miles also noted that the session was punctuated by the arrival of "all these hustlers and dope dealers looking for Bird [Charlie Parker]"--who kept disappearing into the bathroom, then coming back "all fucked up and shit. But after Bird got high, he just played his ass off."

And there it was, inexorably entwined with the growing fame that this album would accelerate, a coded message to young aspirants, the first two premises of a siren syllogism: Bird does heroin. Bird plays like a god on heroin. Young musicians could draw the obvious, but spurious, conclusion. And to the sorrow of so many, many did.  

 --From 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, Pages 65-66.

There are times when it was difficult to read about these incredible musicians as junkies who could create masterful improvisational pieces night after night, particularly given my personal aversion to needles.** Knowing also that other jazz musicians of that era such as Dizzy Gillespie or Dave Brubeck eschewed drugs and still performed at a high level turns the triple biography into a tragedy, one that you can see coming a mile away.

Another theme of the book is the racism experienced by the jazz musicians, and how they responded to such racism. You could draw a direct line between the racism experienced by all three and their consequent drug addictions, and from there to their eventual decline and death. 

Still, there's the music. Oh god, the music.

I get it: jazz isn't for everyone. I'm not about to make any converts here, because like, say, an Irish Stout or an India Pale Ale when you are exposed mainly to American Lagers, it takes some getting used to.

Jazz and popular music split a long time ago, much longer than I've been alive, but I've made a living of finding music, books, and games off the beaten path.*** The beauty and tragedy of Jazz is wrapped up in the beauty and tragedy of countless artistic endeavors, and as long as there's music to be made, Jazz will endure. 3 Shades of Blue was a great book to absorb, and I spent way too many late hours reading it before I realized I had to get at least some sleep before I had to wake up for work the next day.

*The band's name was called Kinda Jazzy, in a self-deprecating fashion. They played in at least one jazz club around Cincinnati, somehow managing to be allowed to play despite none of them being old enough to actually drink at the establishment. 

**Yes, I know, I have to deal with needles due to my medical conditions, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

***If you don't think MMOs aren't popular, just remember that WoW had at its peak 13-14 million subscribers globally in a world of 8 billion people. That's less than 0.2% of the global population.