The George Lucas Method of Preserving the Past

Time may change me

But I can't trace time

--David Bowie, Changes

One thing I’ve discovered about Northrend is that the questing cadence is quite different from Outland (TBC Classic) and the Old World (Vanilla Classic). I suppose that you could say that Northrend is the first area that contains the “Modern WoW” quest design, where you get quest chains that are: 

Quest 1 -> Quest 2 [-> Quest 3 Optional] -> Mini Boss

in flow. TBC Classic had some quests like that –and Vanilla Classic as well—but you find it in abundance throughout Northrend. Since I started playing WoW back in Wrath, I never realized that there was anything other than that style of quest design, but having seen the progression from Classic -> TBC Classic -> Wrath Classic, I can now see clearly how Blizz zeroed in on that questing style after fumbling around with a variety of different designs in Vanilla. 

Which also explains why I’m so used to that cadence throughout the MMO-verse, especially those that are called “WoW Clones”. 

***

Of course, doing things in threes isn't exactly new. Aristotle --yes, that Aristotle-- had a triptych about communication involving three steps:

1. Tell people what you're going to say.
2. Say it.
3. Tell people what you just told them.

The first time I encountered that triptych, I was in college and part of a team working on a project for an Engineering Design Seminar. Everybody had a part to play on the team, and I got drafted (they pulled my name out of a hat) to present the team's findings in class. I remembered my old Speech class back in high school providing me some basics on how to lead a meeting, but it was only when I was putting the report used with the overhead machine did my professor suggest the triptych. 

Ah, those were the days.
You know, before PowerPoint.
And computer presentations.
From Wikipedia.

I always thought the triptych came from Mr. Rogers --again, that Mr. Fred Rogers-- but only when I looked it up for this article did I discover its true origin.

Regardless, the triptych highlights the importance of the cadence of three things at a time, and one that Blizz* has embraced in their quest/story design.

***

Remember the long, meandering questline for Marshal Windsor --or for the Horde, their even worse Onyxia questline-- and how it sometimes took forever? Or the Green Hills of Stranglethorn? Yeah, those questlines would never get made today, and I recall Soul telling me when I first started encountering those missing pages for the Green Hills of Stranglethorn that even Blizz admitted that the quest didn't work the way they wanted it to. 

But you know, I was fine with that. It may not have been a streamlined experience, but it certainly had character. 

***

Being a Wrath baby, I had no idea just how much the Old World --and, consequently, Outland-- already had been altered from its original state when Wrath dropped. I was aware of the "Feats of Strength" achievements, for things that were no longer in the game, but since most of the people I interacted with in-game had begun in TBC or Wrath, I never knew about some of the quests and achievements that lurked out there. Such as Marshal Windsor. 

Or that the original Hemet Nesingwary quests in Nagrand didn't involve killing 12 animals per quest, but 30.**

Or just how many of those older quest zones --such as in Silithus or Burning Steppes-- began life with all those mobs as elites, not the normal mobs I encountered. 

Or that some of those roaming world bosses in places such as Burning Steppes were true world bosses, not the "rares" as they turned into when the Dark Portal opened. 

By the time Wrath came along, enough of the Old World had changed that some of those old zones were closer to the 1997 Special Edition Star Wars releases than the OG versions I thought I knew. 

Some of the changes were simple, such as allowing riding inside the ring and chains areas of Blackrock Mountain, which was how I remembered it when I first poked my nose inside. (Because Wrath, you know.) The same goes for allowing some of those high end (Vanilla era) raid/dungeon Summoning Stones allow summons for up to L80, an increase from TBC's more stringent requirements. 

Of course, the fact that Summoning Stones actually, you know, SUMMONED people without the need for a Warlock being new to TBC was bit more of a dramatic change to the environment.

Yep, a lot like that.
From WoW's Facebook page.

Or the questing additions to Dustwallow Marsh, which effectively doubled the quests in the zone and completed the mystery questline as to who caused the fire at the Shady Rest Inn. 

Oh, and the change of Tabetha from a mysterious character of somewhat unknown origin and purposes (and age, let's face it) to just another Mage with some apprentices hanging around was also significant. To a non-Mage, that might not be a big deal, but to me... Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. The Mage questline to make a wand in Vanilla Classic was hard to do at level, because you were outnumbered and outleveled by everything nearby. You either had to band together for mutual defense or you spent a lot of time and effort getting there and back to her farm, not to mention actually doing the quests. Even finding the farm was an adventure, because there was no path there and nothing to indicate you were nearby until you were practically on top of her shack. Yes, it was quite a rite of passage for a Mage if you tried to do it at level without an assist from a much higher level toon.***  

Even Horde Mages sought out
Tabetha. Also, note the name of 
Tabetha's apprentice in the screenshot:
Garion. Someone at Blizz was likely
a fan of David Eddings' The Belgariad.

That's not to pretend that Cataclysm wasn't a blowing up of the Old World entirely, it's just an acknowledgement that what I thought I knew wasn't the case. 

***

There are times when I simply don't understand George Lucas.

His historical reluctance to never release the original trilogy in their original form is totally at odds with his reverence for the movie serials of decades past. I get it that he paid homage to those movie serials with Raiders of the Lost Ark and the eventual Indiana Jones series of movies, just as I understand his desire to see Star Wars as he originally envisioned it come to life on the screen. I also understand that he wants his wishes as the creator of the work to be respected. 

That being said, the original Star Wars has significant historical importance from not only a fan's perspective but a filmmaker's as well. It's not just that the special effects were ground breaking --they were****-- or that the cinematography and editing were all well done, but the entire product is a film that can be studied by future students to appreciate the significance of A New Hope. (And yes, I'd be fine with the "A New Hope" scrubbed from the titles, but I realize that is likely never gonna happen.) As much as George studied those movies and movie serials of the past, future filmmakers should be allowed to study his movies as well.

From quickmeme.com.

Right now, people will look at Star Wars: A New Hope decades from now and wonder just how much was modified over the years, and how much was left alone.

***

Admittedly, video games --and MMOs in particular-- don't quite have the same problems. If you'll recall when discussions surrounding Blizz creating an "official" Vanilla version of WoW first began in earnest, the biggest question was "Which release version of Vanilla should Classic be?" Wilhelm Arcturus weighed in on that more than a year before Blizz officially announced WoW Classic, and others did too. Trying to figure out what release version of an online game --even if it were just an exercise among friends relaxing on a weekend, remembering the "good old days"-- is bound to raise some passionate responses among any fan base.*****

This isn't going to devolve into a "no changes" versus "some changes" argument, because I'm not interested in that. It's just that I wanted to point out that in WoW at least, there really never was a static "Old World" that I thought existed once TBC and Wrath released. I'm not even talking about class changes and whatnot, because that's been tweaked from the beginning, but I meant the world itself. Blizzard didn't have to blow up the Old World to make things better in Cataclysm, because they already had tweaked it a bit in TBC and proven that "some changes" could be done without ruining everything.

I guess it says something about Wrath Classic that my very first impressions about the expac were what changed in the Old World versus a return to Northrend itself. Having seen firsthand how the class changes in the prepatch suddenly felt overpowered compared to TBC Classic, I can understand now how some people felt Wrath wasn't what they were used to, raiding and other things notwithstanding. What I thought was an unchanging world definitely wasn't.

*And other software development houses, to be fair.

**When that changed in the Wrath Pre-patch, my jaw dropped.

***One, that I might add, I did not accomplish at level. 

****As much as 2001: A Space Odyssey broke new ground in special effects in 1968, the overall feel of those effects was to emphasize the cerebral nature of 2001 as a film. Lucas expanded on those designs and integrated them seamlessly into an action movie format in a way that still feels concrete today. I look at the average Marvel, DC, or Star Wars product today and think that I'm watching a comic book rather than an actual film. There's a certain amount of Uncanny Valley feel to them, where in the back of your head you comprehend that it's all computerized special effects, and there's nothing that people can actually reach out and touch.

*****If Bioware wants to bring back "Classic" SWTOR, I'd be on board with playing! I remember how much harder things were back in the day, and how convoluted certain things were (commendations on a per planet basis, anyone?) But I also remember going through just about every quest on every planet because you needed all of the XP and gear and whatnot you could get. The people who blitzed to the end, WoW style, then filled chat with "I'm bored" moved on very quickly, so these servers would most definitely not be for them.

Meme Monday: Frosty Memes

This past week saw the first hard frost of the Fall around here. It brought some relief from Fall allergies --ragweed, I'm looking at you-- but we need a good rainstorm to truly flush that out of the air. 

When my questing buddy plays her
Priest, I frequently have this pop into
my head. Oh, for no reason.
(Before she says anything, yes,
I know she plays Disc Priest.)
(From imgflip.com.)

But after last night's dungeons,
I'm eternally grateful that she was
our healer. And that I didn't die
even though I stood in stupid.
More than once.
(From imgflip.com.)

Okay, this wasn't EXACTLY me
last night, but it came close. I accidentally put
up a Shattrath portal instead of a
Dalaran portal. I then had to hop
over to Shat and put up a Dal portal.
Whoops.
(From Ranker.)

This cracks me up every time I see it.
And I have no idea where this is,
because from this angle it looks like
a park. You know, where you'd just
expect to see Warcraft cosplayers
simply hanging around.
(From Pinterest this time.)

Lich King + Buff = People Going Bananas

Having watched the population on the Wrath Classic servers swell from pre-patch through the launch to now, I can safely confirm that the old saying "a rising tide lifts all boats" applies to WoW. 

It's a shame, really, that people abandoned the smaller population servers to create these megaservers, because I've found enough people out and about in Azeroth on Myzrael-US that are looking to have fun that there was really no need to leave. 

But here we are, and all the wishing in the world can't change what happened.

***

So...

This post isn't about that, but rather this video:

You see, I wasn't the only person who noticed that there were more people out in the Classic environment. The title of this post references a line that All-Trades Jack made in the video:

"I also just wanted to point out how easy it was for Blizzard to make Classic a bit more popular and bring people back to the game. All they have to do is say 'Wrath' and give a 50% XP buff and people go fucking nuts."

--All-Trades Jack, from Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves World of Warcraft.. For Now

And another thing I noticed while watching the video was, well...

I circled it in yellow so you could
see the guild name.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

"Hey," I blurted out. "That's Variance." My first thought was that this was an old video clip, in the pre-exodus days, and I was looking at an instance from Myzrael-US.

Then I noticed...

Again, highlighted for ease of observation.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

The Anti-Drama Society is an Atiesh-US guild, so All-Trades Jack must be on Atiesh-US.

This was confirmed by this last one:

You can't really tell, but that's because
his quest lists kept getting in the way
when I'd do screen caps.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

That's Rage Against the Murlocs, another Atiesh-US guild, and one that I've a couple of acquaintances in. (They're more my questing buddy's friends than my own, which is why I said acquaintances.)

So I was amused by All-Trades Jack's utilization of the Atiesh-US server for his videos.

Still, that does color my perception a bit. I don't think he's aware of the "Great Myzrael Mass Migration Event", which is why a lot of newer toons showed up on the server. Admittedly most of those are max level, but still an influx of about 1000 raiders will have an impact on server populations.

And there's a very real connection between that YouTube video and my own activities, one that had me combing the background to see if Deuce showed up somewhere.

(Narrator: She didn't.)

***

Overall, I thought it a good video, although I disagreed with his characterization of Classic Era as dead. Compared to, say, Grobbulous-US, Atiesh-US, or Pyrewood Village-EU Classic Era appears dead, but as Shintar's numerous posts on the matter confirm Classic Era still has an active population that is simply not that concerned with what a lot of Wrath Classic's population is into.

I was kind of nonplussed about All-Trades Jack's suggestion about having more wacky servers from the WoW Classic team as one-off events, although to be honest I could get behind some of the ideas he had, such as having Hogger as an end boss. Sure it sounds funny at first, but wouldn't it be just how some of these stories would end up? That it turns out the evil mastermind wasn't Kel'Thuzad at all, but rather Hogger, someone you bypassed and ignored after you left Elwynn Forest?

Speaking of ignoring things, there's
Kira, oblivious to the fight surrounding
her. Somewhere, Card and Linna
are facepalming right now.
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

But I will say that I suspect that All-Trades Jack is a Jaina Proudmoore fan. Why would I believe that?

Look at all the hearts...
Oh, don't give me that, you can see the
hearts as plain as day. I sure can, just like
how I can see that Jaina's eyes are blue. :-P
(From Wrath Classic Pre-Patch Saves
World of Warcraft... For Now)

Oh, no reason....

EtA: Corrected some grammar by removing a few commas.

Meme Monday: Great White North Thanksgiving Edition

Yes, today is Canadian Thanksgiving, or as Canadians call it, Thanksgiving.

If you know people from Canada --Hi, Vid and Voss!!-- make sure to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving today!

When my first Jedi character in SWTOR
--a Shadow-- reached Coruscant, my thoughts
were along these lines. From Pinterest.

"the gods of interesting decree
you should check that out."
--My ex-DM, probably
From Pinterest.

"Those Were The Days."
Sometimes, I just want to hear
The Fifth Dimension's version of this
song. From demotivational.

Maybe I ought to cover the
Traveller RPG, but you could
put any RPG map in there.
And yes, those are star systems.
Hope your crew isn't being chased
by the Zhodani or the Sword Worlds.
From Pinterest.

EtA: Corrected a grammatical issue.

An Homage of Sorts

When I first started poking around on Atiesh-US, I thought about resurrecting the old guild name I was a member of on Ysera-US, Is Up To No Good. Instead, I created that guild on Myzrael-US as a home for some of my alts, such as Az and Linna. 

Something about Linna's Mona Lisa-esque
smile fits that guild name perfectly.

But if nothing else, I wanted to put a guild together on Atiesh-US for Deuce. I'd discovered the joy of having an entire guild bank to yourself, and I figured that if I was going to have an alt over on Atiesh it'd be nice to have a mammoth amount of space for oddball junk as well.

I try not to be a packrat, but with WoW
you never quite know when some of this
stuff might come in handy.

My questing buddy and I got to talking about this blog, and I mentioned about how the MMO blogging landscape had changed over the years. 

"There's a lot of blogs that were watering holes for the community, and they're no longer around. Places like Tam and Chas' Righteous Orbs, Rades' Orcish Army Knife, and Larísa's The Pink Pigtail Inn were the places to go, not to mention WoW Insider."

"What was that?"

"What? WoW Insider?"

"No, The Pink Pigtail Inn."

"Oh, Larísa ran that. She stopped blogging long ago, 2014 maybe?"

My questing buddy began gushing about what a great name PPI was, and then she mentioned something I hadn't considered. "That would be a great guild name!" she added. "Hold on."

"Okay..."

"There!" she said a few moments later. "I reserved it. Want to sign the charter?"

"Sure!"

Alas, that charter then proceeded to languish for some months, as we moved on to other things. 

Fast forward to this past week, and I logged in on Deuce to find this:

"Yes, Mistress Elsharin. I like it too."

So Larísa's blog now lives on in game.

Larísa, I know that you've moved on and don't play any more, and I'm pretty sure you've put your gaming days behind you, but in case you come across PC again I wanted to let you know that you were an inspiration to me and a lot of other bloggers over the years. This small thing, a guild name for a few people, is just one way of saying thanks for your writing and community way back when. It still means a lot to me, and I hope I'm not the only blogger who thinks so.

EtA: I had "gushed" in there twice. That looked weird, so I fixed it. No more gushers here.

What Goes on in My Head, Yet Again

After my post last week, Shintar and Bhagpuss collectively kicked me in the ass to get me out of my funk. They might disagree about how I characterized their comments, but that's how I took it. And it was greatly needed.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about that last post, and referencing a few other posts, such as this one from this past July (or during Blaugust), or even why I shun the spotlight to my detriment, as I've opined on several occasions here over the years.

Those brooding, often melancholy moments, remind me that in the Nature vs Nurture debate I'm far more on the side of Nurture. We are the products of our experiences, whether we like them or not, and it takes a lot of effort to overcome deep seated tendencies that stem from those experiences. When people talk of the term "reverting to form" I imagine this face in the Wikipedia article:

This ol' pic is getting up there
in age.

***

I've had a hard time of thinking of anything more to say than what I've already said about this, other than I used to not be this way when I was much younger. I used to not be the sort of person who hid from others, who put up impenetrable barriers in gameplay designed more to keep myself separate than preserving a sense of "authenticity" or some other bullshit excuse I can think up. No, I learned to do this as a reaction to my own life experiences.

And really, I don't want to rehash more life stories any more than I have to. I mean, if you've read the blog you know about some of them already, and I'm hardly unique in that I was bullied or forgotten in my youth. 

But I will say that I had become introverted enough by the time I reached college that after I took the psychological exam that all incoming students at UD took back then*, I was summoned to the Health Center for a discussion with the shrinks there. My responses were such that they were concerned I would be able to function in a collegiate environment, but as I told them, I hid it well. 

You'd think that over the years at work that I'd gradually outgrown this sort of reticence, but that has most definitely not been the case. I've learned to tolerate it, that's all. It's only when I can relax and let my guard down that my introversion comes rushing back to the forefront, such as when I'm gaming. 

Someone mentioned in a YouTube video I was watching last week about how the automated dungeon finder in WoW was a godsend for introverts and the shy people who have a hard time reaching out and forming groups on their own, which gave me pause. WoW's well known toxicity kept me from enjoying dungeon runs in Cataclysm and later, but I do have to admit that selecting a role and waiting for a dungeon to pop was a lot easier than trying to reach out and do it yourself. While some people complained that it encouraged passivity, I'd argue that for the shy it was a godsend.

There were times --even in WoW Classic-- that I wanted to get into an instance to finish a quest or three, and I'd get a whisper that I shouldn't be looking for that instance because I'd outleveled it. That sort of behavior encouraged me to shut up and be passive when watching for groups, because people couldn't just keep their opinions to themselves.

***

Still, I need to be more responsive to my friends. They know me well enough, and in spite of my foibles they do appreciate me. That's where the kick in the ass came in handy.

"I might have deserved that..."
From Pirates of the Caribbean:
Curse of the Black Pearl.

*I have no idea if they still take those exams today; I don't recall any of my kids having to take psych exams for their Freshman year. For me, the exams took about 5 hours on a Saturday, and the guy I drove up with had psych problems of his own, namely that of his very overprotective mother. If there was a mom who fit the classic Italian-American stereotypical mom, it was her. She even called the university to check on him while he was taking the exams. This was in an era before cell phones, mind you, and he was totally embarrassed when they summoned him out of the exam room because his mom called.

EtA: Added a link.

Meme Monday: Meme-tober!

Okay, that doesn't make any real sense, but it certainly sounds good.

Anyhoo, I've been working on another post as a follow-up to my last one, but in the meantime, have a few snorts/chuckles/whatever:

Before Gorak's Guide, there was
this. From memedroid.com and
batvader9001.

Thankfully the healers I know aren't
like this. From memedroid.com
and ghostwolf901.

Guilty!!!
From J!nx on Pinterest.

There's a ton of variations on 
this meme out there, but
I really liked this one.
From Gametiptip.com.

You Could Call it My Preseason

Back when Cataclysm first dropped, I was in the middle of leveling a Draenei Paladin and the original Nevelanthana. Both were in Outland at that point, so I decided to rechristen their leveling process the Convoy to L85. Complete with a song from 1975 filled with CB radio lingo:

Doing both toons, it took me from December 7, 2010 to January 19, 2011 for them both to ding L80 and then head for Cataclysm zones. Getting to L85 took a bit longer, the first week of March, but still that was also not going totally gangbusters either.

Mists was a bit different. I decided on Azshandra as my new main not too long before Mists was released, and I leveled her all the way straight to L90, mixing up Battlegrounds with questing out in the field. That misadventure took from August 2012 until June 2013 to complete. Of course, I was also heavily playing SWTOR and LOTRO at the time, so that also contributed to the slowness in leveling.

Why do I mention these things? Because I have a history of not rushing out and heading straight into the new expac. That contributed to my thought process in deciding to start from scratch in Mists with a new toon --Az, in this case-- because I figured there'd be no way I'd enjoy the chaos up in Pandaria. 

Looking back on it, I think the only time I logged in for a brand new experience and actually followed through on it was the release of WoW Classic itself.

The scene in Teldrassil on Myzrael-US,
August 2019. I wonder how many of
those toons are still being actively played?

I logged in, looked around, got a few screenshots, and then logged for a couple of hours, figuring that there'd be no way in hell I could complete any quests with that crowd around. (Plus it was dinner time.)

Hmmm... I do recall checking out the Cataclysm pre-patch on the night it went live, but I also recall making a ton of gold on Neve porting people back to Orgrimmar from Dalaran.

So imagine my surprise when I was heading to Zul'Farrak to farm some greens there to disenchant* and my questing buddy --who I was grouped up with-- said "we're kidnapping you".

***

Now, you have to also understand that allergies have been killing me all week, and I finally gave in last night and took some Benadryl, so I wasn't exactly in a very lucid state. Still, my brain completely fizzled out when suddenly two more people popped into our group and they decided on running Utgarde Keep.

"Uh... I was actually feeling tired, because I took some Benadryl."

I believe somewhere in the responses to my declaration was my questing buddy saying she was having none of that, and since she'd already joined me in Zul'Farrak I began waking up because I had a hard time keeping up with her and killing things.

So, away to Northrend I went.

I told my questing buddy on the ship to Valiance Keep that "this doesn't count" as far as me going to Northrend. I only collected a flight point --force of habit-- and then we did the same for Howling Fjord and away we went.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this I completely woke up and briefly thought about fleeing --the old fight or flight response to a surprise-- but I suppressed it. My questing buddy was looking out for me, and I'd be a pretty damn poor friend if I went and hid.

Although I'll be completely honest in that when I switched my Details meters from Threat to Damage, I wanted to hide from embarrassment: Deuce was barely doing more damage than my questing buddy, who was healing on her Disco Priest. 

The warlock, who was also a good friend, was doing about 80-85% of the damage in every single fight.

And it's not like Deuce is totally undergeared, as she has the full Brutal set from running Alterac Valley, plus the PvP Staff. None of those pieces are terrible, and they fit in roughly with a range from T4 through Zul'Aman to T5 gear from TBC. So, roughly middle of the pack epic gear but with Resilience, that classic PvP stat that keeps a body from being one shot in Battlegrounds. The difference was that the warlock had at least T5 --and in some cases T6-- gear, so he was running with easily some of the best stuff out of raids in TBC Classic. You know, stuff I would have had a shot at getting if I'd not had to drop progression raiding back in January.

Which then reminded me that I was once again on the outside looking in, and that I was essentially being carried through this instance.

So in the span of an hour, I went from surprised/stunned to reluctant to grateful to happy to embarrassed/humiliated. 

***

Oh, how was Utgarde Keep itself?

Like riding a bike, really. After a few minutes you remember the cadence. 

Although to be fair, I know more about interrupts and how things tick for a Frost Mage than I did back in 2010-2011, and that probably cost me a bit on the damage meters. I would interrupt and use Spell Steal to keep the additional damage off of the tank, who, being a Bear tank with a lot of T5-6 gear himself, didn't really need the help.**

I'd have completely enjoyed myself if it weren't for that constant reminder that I was not pulling my weight. Even the mage table is totally useless for Northrend, since the mana and health pools are so much larger than those found in Outland.

Someone shared a couple of quests along the way, and I accepted the first one strictly from muscle memory and then I realized what I was doing. I then refused the second quest and deleted that first quest from my log. Not until I officially go to Northrend will I do any quests up there.

And that concluded the first night in my "preseason" before I officially head to Northrend. 

I was extremely happy to be back in Outland by myself this morning.

*Long story, but in order to progress in Tailoring, after a certain point you need items such as Imbued Netherweave. To make THAT, you need Arcane Dust, which is found by disenchanting TBC Classic greens. But in order to get to the Enchanting level to disenchant THAT, I need to get to 275 in Enchanting. Deuce, being 230-ish, needed to get up to 275, which meant targeting green gear for disenchanting so I could then turn around and use FOR enchants to raise my skill level. And to find the green gear that would disenchant properly, the best places to look are in Uldaman and Zul'Farrak.

See? Clear as mud.

**It's still good practice, though, like using Frost Nova and then Deep Freeze to keep a caster in a mob from healing/casting.

Where'd the TIme Go, Part Whatever

PC began on September 29, 2009. 

The blog is now a teenager.

Saints preserve us.

Same Same But Different

Wrath Classic dropped at 3 PM Server Time Monday, and I was an expac behind.

Again.

But let me make one thing perfectly clear: this time, it was by choice. I deliberately chose to not board the boats (or zeppelins if you're Horde) for Northrend on Launch Day, because I firmly believed it was going to be a nuthouse. 

Our 10 person raid team had a "get to know you" sort of raid on Sunday, which was a combination of Zul'aman and Karazhan --minus the pre-patch Invasion boss in Karazhan-- and it was there that I discovered that the pre-patch included some additional nerfs to the bosses in these raids.* But when the question as to who is going to do what when Wrath drops, I told them I was going to wait in Outland and quest there for a little while. "I'm not entirely convinced that the boats won't have a Sultana re-enactment when they head for Northrend," I replied.

While the boats didn't blow up and sink --which admittedly would have been just the sort of thing that the Lich King would have loved-- I found out that afterward that on Atiesh-US the first ship to leave for Valiance Keep circled around and came right back to Stormwind's port. The people on the ship couldn't get to Northrend afterwards, so they had to take the port that Blizz put in place when things went south.

On the whole, however, people swarmed all over the place on Atiesh-US (and to a lesser extent, Myzrael-US) and I was grateful I was not caught in the middle of that mess.

My questing buddy logged on that evening and was going to group up with me to do some questing in Outland when she got pinged to join a couple of dungeon runs, so she headed off for Northrend too. That meant I could goof around by myself for a bit, and then I figured "why not" and ran some Alterac Valley battlegrounds. 

Deuce just hanging around with
The Knights Templar. Who knew?
(This particular screencap was the night
before, as I couldn't find a decent looking
one from Monday night.)

***

Did I miss not being there?

Uh... Maybe? Maybe not?

Okay, there are thoughts that I need to unpack here, and it starts with adjusting to reality:

• The questing would have driven me nuts.
  
  It kind of goes without saying, but the crowd in Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord had to go somewhere, and for those who chose to level gathering professions or quest out in the field were going to find it extremely hard to do. I don't care how many layers Blizz puts on a server, people have to go somewhere.
  
  Additionally, I want to quest at my pace, which is a LOT slower than most other people. If I were grouping up, I would have simply stopped picking up quests at all just so I wouldn't slow down the leveling group. Even my questing buddy zips around from quest to quest much faster than I like, so I've pulled that before on her where I just hang around and kill things with her. I go back much later, in the very late night/early morning, and quest on my own where I can relax, read the quest text, and enjoy what is being presented to me. It's been since 2013 that I've actually been out in Northrend, enjoying the leveling experience in a non-beta fashion, and I want to savor the experience. Maybe on the 3rd or 4th time I'll start speeding up, but now? Are you kidding me?
  
  
  

  

  There was a Horde toon just out of view
  from this screencap, impatiently waiting
  for this to end so they could get moving
  to the next quest.
  
  And yes, I RP walked for this.

  
  My desire to quest at a leisurely pace would have put me at odds with almost everybody out in the field in Northrend, and all it would have done is gotten me frustrated. Even though there were at least 50 --and likely more-- people in Zangarmarsh when I was there Monday evening, I barely saw anybody. It was nice to quest and not deal with people pulling mobs out from under me. You know, like what it was when Briganaa finally made it to Outland on her own.
  
  
• Chain running instances to level quickly is not my idea of fun.
  
  Everybody has their own idea of fun, and yes, I do enjoy running instances. If I've done those instances before, hey great, let's chain run a few. No biggie. But running them time after time to level quickly? Eh, no thanks. 
  
  That's the big difference between Deuce running some instances in Outland and Brig doing the same. Brig was doing them in their original, more difficult state, and I was just learning how to do those instances. Additionally, by the time Brig (and later, Linnawyn) got to Outland, people were already burning out on chain running instances to level their toons as quickly as possible, so I had to pug a lot (or in Linna's case, simply not run instances at all.) 
  
  Deuce, on the other hand, got to Outland after the pre-patch dropped and at the end of the expac, so chain running Ramps and Blood Furnace was a nice exercise in figuring out just how overpowered we were compared to the beginning of the expac. 
  
  I have to clarify something here: I really really like Wrath 5-person instances. I really do. Just like I really really like BC 5-person instances. And Classic instances. The problem is that people just want to use instances as a means to an end, while I want to enjoy the instances as they are. It's like people who skip all of the interlude text/interactions in SWTOR Flashpoints and then get grumpy when you have someone in the group who is reading it all for the first time. Well, I'm one of those people who --like when questing above-- enjoy those small parts of group content. 
  
  

  

  Part of the reason Questie exists.

  
  What I'm concerned about is that by the time I get to Northrend and actually want to run some instances, people will be burned out just like in BC Classic and I'll just make do. I mean, I can certainly make do well enough, it's just that I feel like I'm watching June 2021 on repeat.
  
  
• Grinding out the Wintersaber Mount on OG Cardwyn taught me how to get maximum XP gain out of low level zones.
  
  It may seem kind of funny thinking of Winterspring or Silithus as low level zones, but compared to the content in TBC Classic they were. After I left the Monday raid, the Wintersaber Mount grind became something that kept me playing. And sane, to be honest. I learned how to spread out my XP so that I could always keep the Rested XP boost going, and how critically important it was to pace myself to prevent burnout. 
  
  So... Along comes Wrath Classic, and oh look, I've got a metric ton of quests available to Deuce in Outland.
  
  
  

  

  Here's the proof that it works.

  
  Take a good long look at that screencap. What do you see?
  
  1) The only zone that I "completed" was Zangarmarsh.
  2) Nagrand has exactly ZERO quests complete.
  3) My XP bar --with Rested XP active-- shows Deuce is over halfway to L71. And this was just after getting really really close to finishing up Terokkar Forest.
  
  What you don't see is that I completed only 18 quests total in the following zones combined: Nagrand, Blade's Edge Mountains, Netherstorm, and Shadowmoon Valley. For reference, 16 of those quests are from one zone: Shadowmoon.
  
  I have plenty of room to work with to get XP for. And unlike a lot of other people, I've not been out grinding every chance I get. If I take my time and do it right, I could potentially be at L73 by the time I hit Northrend.
  
  
• Will I last that long before heading north? No.
  
  I may have willpower, but I only have so much willpower. I realize I've got about a month to get to L80 before we start raiding, so I know I've got plenty of time. Still, I don't want to leave my questing buddy in the lurch. She's leveling her Priest, Zarlie, as Disco, and I know from experience that leveling as a healer out in the field absolutely sucks. So, I'm going to make the jump up to Northrend as soon as I feel like there's enough space out there in the field to quest and I have enough gold to afford purchasing Dual Spec. I'm going to be a Fire Mage for raiding, but everything else? It's Frost. Deuce is returning to my Frosty roots.
  
  
• Do I really hate having the spotlight on me? Oh hell yes.
  
  I mean, it's me. Did you have to ask?
  
  I may be back on a raid team, but I'm not on the leadership team. While I may have seen the sausage put together, I don't have to worry about it any longer. 
  
  

Of course, this will likely all change by tomorrow, but we'll see.

*It was scary, to be honest. We finished Zul'Aman AND Karazhan and had 30 minutes to spare before the raid was due to end. When I commented on how insanely fast the raid was proceeding, I was told my one of my fellow ex-Monday raiders that a raid team she's been on lately has been doing SSC + Gruul + Mags in one night.

**"Sultana?" the raid lead asked.

"Yeah, the steamboat that was filled with ex-Union POWs from Andersonville that was heading back north. It was overloaded with people, the boilers overworked, and on the way back home the boilers blew up and about 2000 people died."

"Holy crap, they were coming back from Andersonville prison camp? I've been there, and it's a horrific place."

And for the record, here's one article about the Sultana and here's a link to the Sultana Disaster Museum, which includes links to this podcast.

Words of Warning

(Normally, these pieces of fiction percolate in my head and in draft form for quite a while before I'm satisfied enough to release them into the wild. This time it was a bit different.

I wrote this very quickly, within the span of a few hours, and it passed through a couple of basic tweaks after I removed one big chunk that really had nothing to do with the story at hand. I'm not totally satisfied with it, but the release of Wrath Classic forced my hand.

As you probably know from reading the blog, I'm not fond of the entire Malygos questline. It makes no sense, and even if you knew the comics and/or other fiction Blizz puts out that isn't in game (see: why the hell Varian Wrynn is King of Stormwind in Wrath of the Lich King and not his kid) it still doesn't make sense. But it is what it is, and I'm determined to make some lemonade out of the lemons that Blizz presented us with.

Hence this piece.

As is usual, this is a piece of short fiction. Any resemblance to people, living or dead (or a dragon, I suppose) is purely coincidental and really, I'd have to ask if you've been dropping acid if you think dragons are real. Card and company are property of Redbeard, who thought up this whole mess. Blizz retains the rights to their characters and setting; this was based on Wrath of the Lich King Classic, and not Retail.)

Words of Warning

by Redbeard

“Do you really have to go, Aunt Cardwyn?” Lewys asked me for what had to be the twentieth time today.

My nephew flopped on my bed and propped up his chin with his hands, while he watched me organize my pack. He was flanked by his younger sister Starlys, whose face was contorted into a permanent pout. Their big sister, Carys, made her displeasure known by her pointed absence from my room, in the vain hope that giving me the silent treatment would make me come to my senses and stay back at the farm instead of heading off to Northrend, the fabled northern continent where the Kingkiller Arthas ruled.

“Yes, I really do,” I replied with a sigh. The kids were making this harder on me than they likely knew, as once my temper cooled off after the flashbacks from Naxxramas I found myself reluctant to leave home. I had made the commitment to finish what I’d started, to see Kel’Thuzad destroyed once and for all, but I was afraid. I knew what it was like inside that dreaded floating citadel, and I would have to walk those passages once more, facing old enemies that no doubt could smell my fear.

“Why?” Starlys demanded. “Why are you going, Car-wyn?”

“Because Kel’Thuzad is back, kiddo. You won’t remember this since you were just a baby, but a couple of years ago Kel’Thuzad led the Scourge in an invasion of Stormwind, and the Scourge even attacked the farm. Auntie Evelyn sent Carys to Stormwind to find me, and I brought friends here to help fight them off.”

“Oh!” Lewys exclaimed. “I remember that! Elsharin came and brought Elves with her!”

It would figure that my nephew was more impressed with Elsharin bringing some Silver Covenant Rangers here than seeing my friends, since they played Rangers and Trolls just like I did when I was their age. Still, my mistress never let on exactly how she pulled that off; she only vaguely mentioned that someone owed her a favor.

“Yes,” I replied, stuffing another article of clothing into my pack. “When that attack was over, I swore an oath that I would defeat Kel’Thuzad for threatening your lives. I thought I’d fulfilled it when we killed Kel’Thuzad, but he won’t stay dead.”

“Can’t you just stay here and protect us?”

“I wish it were that easy, Lewys. But if Naxxramas comes here to Elywnn, we likely have lost everywhere else. Even in Orgrimmar and Ironforge. It’s better to defeat them far away from home, so the rest of Azeroth can fight together.”

“Like how Auntie Evelyn fought at… Hyjeel?”

“Hyjal.”

“Yeah, at Hyjal.”

“Yes, like that.” Mistress Evelyn spoke about that battle in only vague terms, but out of that she gained far more sympathy for the plight of the Orcs than in all those years of the Second War. A sympathy, I might add, that was not shared by Mom and Dad. Still, the formal letter from Thrall thanking me for my part in defeating would-be usurper Rend Blackhand was framed and hung on the wall in the house. “I’m going to fight the Scourge far away so that they never come here to the farm.”

“We’re going to miss you, Aunt Cardwyn,” Lewys added.

“I’ll miss you too, kiddo.” I wanted so much to tell him that he had a talent for Magecraft, but I didn’t want him to get a huge ego over it. Better to let it lie for now and me just be there to nudge that talent along slowly than try to force things. “While I’m not around, you three are supposed to keep up your studies with Auntie Evelyn, right? I’m sure she’ll keep you busy so the days will just fly on by.”

“Hmmph.” Starlys doubled down on her pout.

“Well,” I said, cinching my pack closed, “that’s most everything I need. I can always come back and grab something if I missed it, so I’m sure that I’ll see you three from time to time. After all, it’s nice and warm down h—”

A shadowy blur zipped past my window, followed by Carys shouting something outside.

Meme Monday: Saying Goodbye to Outland Edition (very late Monday/early Tuesday edition)

Okay, not really. I'm planning on hanging out there while the locusts swarm over Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord (and the associated dungeons), and then show up some days later. So far, so good, as things are quieter in Outland now.

From memegenerator.net.

Hey! I know that guy!
From Reddit.

Or, "How I Got Card and Deuce
and Neve all Geared Starter Pack."
From Reddit.

And one bonus Retail Meme:

Uh... You can say that in Retail and
not get banned?
From Reddit.

When Rip Van Winkle Woke Up

Something I've puzzled over, off and on over the course of several years, was how on earth role playing games suddenly got popular.

Well, popular in a relative sense, since nobody is ever going to confuse the popularity of D&D with, say, the NFL.* But even more than its popularity, which is likely at the highest its been since the 80s, is the reputation of RPGs. For a survivor of the Satanic Panic, I'm as bewildered by this as much as I am that the Cincinnati Bengals actually made the Super Bowl this past NFL season.**

After all, this art wouldn't have gotten the views
it's had if it didn't resonate with people.
Princesses Playing DnD (2014), by madam_marla.

What I've come up with are a series of reasons why this resurgence in popularity, which started roughly around the time that Dungeons and Dragons' 5th Edition was released, came about. I don't have any data on this --really!-- so it's just speculation on my part. Still, I suspect I might not be too far off the mark here.

• The release of D&D 5e.
  
  I'm of the opinion that 5e ended up riding the wave of popularity rather than being a cause, but there's no denying that direction that Wizards of the Coast took with 5e --moving in a less rules heavy direction-- allowed RPGs to become more accessible. 
  
  Look, I'm not saying that there aren't more rules-lite games out there, because there are. FATE, Fiasco***, Burning Wheel, and other RPGs are more rules-lite than D&D 5e, but nothing has the sheer name recognition among the general populace than D&D. Even Pathfinder, which dominated the RPG market after the disaster that was D&D 4e, doesn't have that market penetration. 
  
  But Wizards did a couple of very important things when they worked on D&D Next, which is what became D&D 5e: they abandoned the rules heavy approach of D&D 3.x and D&D 4e, and they brought fans on board from the beginning. Those two items, with an emphasis on picking up a game and playing without delving deeply into the rules, allowed more people to just sit in on a session without being lost. Wizards went so far as to release a basic version of the D&D 5e rules online for free. And yes, they're still there.
  
  
  
  

  

  Oh, this is the truth.
  From ifunny.co.

  
  
• A generational change.
  
  All of those people who played D&D in the 70s and 80s grew up and had families of their own. (Some of them even have grandkids now.) For those who didn't forsake their roots and remembered with fondness those days of yesteryear, playing D&D in the basement with their friends, chances are they introduced RPGs to their own kids. And with a new, pick up and play friendly version of D&D, they could do just that more easily.
  
  A corollary to this is that you began to see D&D in places that they hadn't been found in some decades: the discount stores. Places such as Target and Walmart began carrying D&D core rulebooks and starter sets, so those families could actually see the games on the shelves while they were shopping.
  

  

  From Facebook.

  
  
  
• Streaming and YouTube Videos filled a niche.
  
  I don't believe it's an accident that the rise in popularity of RPGs came about while Streaming and YouTube videos blew up online. In a very real sense, these two activities plugged a big gap in bringing people into the fold. 
  
  If you're like me --and even if you're not-- and you've heard of RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons, and you're curious about it, there was always that divide between wanting to learn and actually playing. I hate to say it, but it's true: there is a huge problem with gatekeeping in the geek community, and RPGs are no different. Everybody has heard horror stories about people curious about playing, showing up to a game session with people they've never met before, and being either talked down to or marginalized for not knowing how to play. What if there was a way to expose yourself to playing an RPG without having to deal with the asshats and gatekeepers?
  
  Enter social media.
  
  People who post real play sessions on YouTube, stream them on YouTube or Twitch, or even the "Celebrity D&D" and "How to Play" instructional videos help to bridge that gap and allow a new player to understand how the game is played without dealing with the gatekeepers. I can't emphasize enough how important it is that our hobby be viewed in a positive light, because there's still a pretty big social stigma out there that no amount of handwaving can ignore.
  
  Those videos/streams can lead to unrealistic expectations in a game group, and I get that, but people ought to realize that not every game group is going to be filled with professional voice actors like Critical Role's. That doesn't mean that people can't grasp the game, however, and do their own thing.
  
  
  
  

  

  From me.me.

  
  
• Video Games' popularity led people to wanting more.
  
  Now, this doesn't necessarily work for everybody. I know people who play video games and are perfectly happy with what they've got, such as a good subset of MMO players are interested solely in the raids or PvP and don't give a whit about story or immersion. But for some people, being exposed to MMOs and video game RPGs got them curious about the pencil and paper version, because they would run up against the limitations of video games and they wanted more freedom. This can come in the form of the obvious "Why do I have to kill everything?" question, or the "Why can't I do [insert activity here] in this video game when it makes sense to do that?" 
  
  The concept of freedom to do as you please in a pencil and paper RPG is something that can't be truly transferred to a video game. Some MMOs come closer than others, but a lot of that freedom in MMOs is restricted to secondary interactions. Interacting with NPCs in a manner that you'd expect, such as chatting up the bartender for information, simply doesn't happen in an MMO if the developers didn't put it in there.
  
  TL;DR: Improv in an MMO is restricted to player on player interactions, and that can leave a player wanting more than what the MMO can provide.
  
  
  
  

  

  From me.me.

  
  
• What is considered an RPG has expanded over time.
  
  I'm reminded of this every time I see a new RPG, such as This Discord has Ghosts In It, that veers more into purely improv territory.
  
  The old hands at RPGs**** tend to believe that if there aren't the classic six stats + dice + a dungeon + monsters to kill it isn't an RPG, but as the decades have gone on the "role" part of "role playing games" has gained increased significance. This doesn't mean that RPGs have turned into amateur thespian hour, but that the concepts behind RPGs have expanded to cover both the 'old school' designs as well as newer designs that are diceless in conception and execution. 

Such as Dread.
From d20Monkey.

• RPGs are no longer merely a "Boys Club".
  
  As I've pointed out in previous posts, there was a deliberate attempt to include women in Moldvay Edition D&D based on the artwork and the sample character, Morgan Ironwolf.  Even the commercials of the time included girls at the table. However, among the general populace D&D was considered the province of geeks and nerds, the vast majority of whom were boys. Even though I would have loved to have gotten to know some, because I'm all up for similar interests, I personally didn't meet a gamer girl until the Fall of 1987 when I went away to college. They might have been there when I was growing up, but the stigma was likely worse for them than for me. 
  
  Of course, my tribe hasn't exactly been welcoming toward others, either. Like I've explained to my kids, people react differently to being bullied and picked on: some people become determined to not let that happen to others, others shy away from any contact until they're absolutely certain they can open up, and still others learn to become the bully to those they perceive as weaker than them. And if you don't end up on the wrong end of a Gatekeeper, you just might end up having to deal with a few people straight out of Reddit's r/niceguys. My oldest once had an experience with a game group in her high school years that I would describe as barely above soft core porn in terms of all the sex going on.***** 
  
  The thing is, as Treebeard said in The Two Towers#, the world has changed.
  
  You could make a big argument that Vampire: the Masquerade upended the RPG world in the 90s by giving an outlet to all of those Interview with the Vampire fans in an era before anybody had ever heard of Twilight. People who were not interested in D&D and other standard Fantasy RPGs found a home in a game set in the modern world where players --as vampires-- got to explore the horror genre in more of a storytelling environment. Among my friends who played RPGs, V:tM was considered the "goth game", but they also acknowledged that it brought women who enjoyed the Anne Rice vampire stories into the hobby, and while those women may have gotten older, they never really left the RPG genre. I still run into people in WoW Classic who played V:tM back in the day, and their stories about their adventures were inspirational to me.
  
  The Gatekeepers and Neckbeard types are still there, waiting to cause trouble, but they are becoming an ever smaller minority of RPG players. There's nobody stopping them from playing with their own restrictive group, and RPGs' tent has only grown larger over time. There's a spot at the table for everybody to play their own game, and they don't let others tell them that they're "doing it wrong" in a vain attempt to keep "the libruls" or "the wimmens" out. Thank goodness.
  
  
  

  

  From Reddit.

  
  

In the end, no matter the reasons why, one fact remains: RPGs are more popular than ever. I'm just happy that we've gotten to this point, and hopeful that in the future there'll be more stories that I hear about how epic the games were for people as they introduce their own friends and family to our own brand of fun.

*And as many times as the geek crowd like to make jokes about "sportsball", referencing the fact that physical sports aren't held in as much regard among our clan, physical sports leagues such as said NFL and the Premier League will continue to be far more popular among the general populace than RPGs. That doesn't make one superior to the other, it just is. And denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

**I just hope I don't have to wait another 33 years before the Bengals get back to the Super Bowl; I'm pretty sure I'll either be dead or in a retirement home by then. Although the way this season has started, it's not looking good right now.

***If you want a one shot that plays like you're in a Cohen Brothers movie, you want to play Fiasco. The rules are not deep at all, and it's definitely worth the price.

****If we were talking wargamers, we'd call them 'grognards'.

*****And not only that, a couple of the game group were obviously hitting on her. As she put it later, she wanted a campaign, not that sketchy stuff. 

#The novel, not the movie. In the movie trilogy, Galadriel provides that narration at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring.