The $30 Blizzard Cash Store Warforged Nightmare party mount.
This Guy.
You read that right: party mount. You can click on an item and get the mount for the duration of the instance/raid/BG/whatever.
But what they didn't tell you is that it combines the sparkle pony's ubiquity with the Lil' XT's mind boggling annoying sounds.
The noise was so bad from having about 13 of these at the starting gate in an Arathi Basin run that I turned my sound off. There was no way in hell I was going to click on the totem/whatever-it-is to get my own mount, and neither was a Mage.
"Get with the program!" one of the fellow Alliance BGers said.
"No thanks," I replied. "Blizz gets enough of my money, and I don't want to encourage them."
I could only imagine the obnoxious sounds of 13 metallic mounts clanking and steam whistling away. This isn't the "clink clink clink" of a Gnomish mount, but something right out of the Molten Core.*
Gah.
I do have to hand it to Blizz in that they do give the people what they want --or at least they think they want-- but hearing this noise is almost too much.
*Not literally, but it sure does look like it could have come out of Blackrock.
I have found the new Hillsbrad, and it is called Hellfire Peninsula.
The past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Hellfire while groups of (primarily A-52) Horde invade Honor Hold and the Temple of Telhamat, ganking everyone and everything in sight. The cold war of the Stadium/Overlook/Broken Hill has turned hot ever since A-52 and its 10:1 Horde:Alliance imbalance was lumped in with Ysera.
There are times when I'm the lone L90 in Hellfire Peninsula and I have to simply grit my teeth and take it when a group of 6-8 Horde sweep down on Honor Hold, slaughtering everything in sight. If it were a bunch of Horde L60 toons doing this, I'd probably not care, because the fight would at least be a fair one. But when it's instead a bunch of L90s wearing Conquest badge gear doing the ganking, I really get annoyed.
Some people would leave, and others would try and tilt at windmills for a while, but that's not me. I might not be able to stop the onslaught at Alliance bases, but I can skip over to Thrallmar or Falconwing, exacting an eye for an eye.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lone juggernaut who is able to wipe out an entire settlement, and I do often get caught by the same Horde group rushing back to defend their own base, but I also don't gank their own lowbies. I don't sink completely to their level.
But all is not lost for the Alliance.
Eventually someone either calls their guildies or makes it to Shattrath and sends out a plea over Trade Chat, and the cavalry comes running. There was one time a few days ago when a pair of Hunters and a Shaman thought Honor Hold would be easy pickings, never guessing that myself, another Rogue, a Hunter, and a Feral Druid were waiting in ambush.
The results were messy. For them.
"AND STAY OUT!" I shouted when we'd dispatched the last of them.
I'll miss his voice, but he insists that his decision will not impact From Draenor With Love.
Kurn, over at Kurn's Corner, has a very in-depth post talking about how social media impact the wider world. It's close in length to a Cynwise post, but very much worth the read. There's even a Ratters appearance in the comment section.
***
I don't often read Twitter, but it seems that more than a few bloggers I know have invaded Wildstar. I'm not sure how well that will go, but I wish them luck.
Also, given the whole explosion from WoW-space (see the first musing), I'm not sure how well Wildstar will hold up, either.
1927 screen icon or Wildstar character?
You decide.
***
This week is exam week at the kids' schools, so I don't really have a lot to talk about from that perspective. I will mention that two of them rolled up Smugglers and one a Trooper, and they're all loving the class stories so far. (Apparently Corso is "soooo cute". Who knew?)
***
I hope your Monday has been going better than mine has so far. I really need to go get some coffee now....
EtA: Apparently my issues with punctuation include the period. Corrected.
I wasn't exactly planning on making a second post today, but there's currently a bit of an internet kerfuffle going on right now concerning some commentary that Rob Pardo, Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard, made at a recent MIT Media Lab talk. While he made some references to emphasizing fun and gameplay over narrative during the talk, the most interesting comments happened afterward.
Todd Harper, writing an opinion piece for Polygon, covers the questions and answers he had with Rob Pardo that touched on how Blizzard portrays women:
His subsequent list of justifications, reasons and examples became increasingly problematic. Pardo argued that Blizzard works primarily in sci-fi and fantasy because they're "kids at heart," reinforcing the idea that games — specifically Blizzard games — are not a place for "real world issues" to be discussed: "We're not trying to bring in serious stuff, or socially relevant stuff, or actively trying to preach for diversity or do things like that," he said. His example of a place where Blizzard struggles is portrayal of women. Pardo notes that "because most of our developers are guys who grew up reading comics books," Blizzard games often present women characters as a sexualized comic book ideal that "is offensive to, I think, some women."*
There's a bit more there --particularly about Nintendo and their Tomodachi Life issues-- so if you want to follow the link below and read the article, go ahead.
Aside from the issue where it seems that Blizzard is all but saying they're not that interested in appealing to women, one of the problems with Pardo's statement is their belief that because they don't intend to write about real world issues their game has no effect. But unless you live in a bubble, everything has an impact on the wider world.
I've told my kids time and again that when they wear their school t-shirts and jackets out and about, people are judging their school based on their actions. It is most definitely not fair to judge an entire diverse community based on the actions of a few, but nevertheless it happens all the time. That's the entire point behind the term "represent" as in "Represent your school". If you act like an ass, you taint everyone with your behavior. But if you act responsibly, people will think more highly of your organization.
The same thing happens with Blizzard and WoW. For all their words, Blizzard demonstrates with their actions that they don't value very highly a substantial portion of their player base.
But the thing is, their representation issues are so easily fixed, it's not even funny.
Looking at Heroes of the Storm, for example, you could easily replace the Priest with Tyrande and the Paladin with Lady Liadrin, and you'd then have 4 of the 9 WoW characters as women.
Want to (partially) fix the lack of female faction leaders in WoW? Swap out Lor'themar for Lady Liadrin. Hell, until Mists dropped, I'd wager that most people thought she was the faction leader anyway. You could also make Moira the head of the Council of Three Hammers.
And before any lore nuts go ballistic over my suggestions, remember that Pardo also said that Blizzard emphasized "fun and gameplay" over "narrative".** Given the lack of emphasis on story and their total control over the content, there's no reason why they can't simply tweak this via a novel.
***
As I mentioned earlier, all this has stirred up a huge hornets nest in the WoW blogosphere.***
And I can't help but think this is another black eye in Blizzard's direction when the company is having retention issues.
Maybe this won't have much of an impact with WoW, but the company can ill afford to piss off a not so insignificant amount of their player base. I doubt there will be a boycott of Blizzard, but what I do think is that some people who were considering taking a break from WoW might decide to pull the trigger now.
And really, if you feel shunted off to the side, why continue to spend money on the game?
It will prove interesting to see what happens next.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming. Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.
--From Unforgiven (1992)
The Wildstar open beta ended on May 18th, spawning plenty of blog posts about various aspects of the game. Given that I finally caved and tried out Wildstar over the open beta, I figured I ought to pen my own thoughts.
Others have mentioned the bugs (it is a beta, so they're to be expected) or the gameplay, but I figured I'd mention the story for a change. As in, how the story meshes with the rest of the game.
Or, perhaps, it doesn't.
***
If I had to describe Wildstar in one sentence two sentences, it would be "Texas crashes an MMO, causing widespread chaos. Film at eleven."
Got that, Cupcake?
The loading screen gave no indication of this. Sure, there was the cartoony aspect of it all, kind of like WoW's but amped up to eleven, and borrowing heavily from such classic SF films as Metropolis (for the Mechari) or comic books such as Guardians of the Galaxy (using Drax as a template for the Granok, with a bit of Ben Grimm thrown in for good measure).* But that initial cutscene for each faction? It was pretty obvious we were going heavily toward a black and white storyline that made Yin and Yang look tame.
When a faction thaws you out of cryosleep because they want you to interrogate potential traitors, you know you're playing a not-exactly-nice faction.**
You could argue that the Dominion and the Exiles are best understood through the lens of a traditional Texas-sized Western movie, and you'd not be so far off the mark.
The Dominion: The bad dudes. They've got secret police, a two timing religious church that has a penchant for occasional forays into Inquisition, bloodthirsty warriors, and crazed mad scientist-types who think nothing of slaughtering so-called "traitors" in the name of "science". All you'd need to do is throw in the occasional racist or "Federales" and you've got the long line of bad guys that Hedley Lamarr is looking to hire in Blazing Saddles.
The Exiles: the good guys. They've got Western movie style gunslingers, Ben Grimm types, Tree Huggers/Nature Lovers, and Space Zombies(tm). There's been more than one time that as I wandered the first zone after the planetfall zone and I thought that this place could fit into Cowboys vs. Aliens wholesale. Or maybe Pale Rider with aliens. Whatever.
I suppose the cartoony space western genre needed some representation, and really, the game isn't too bad on that part. But the game also spends a lot of time trying to act too hip, too cool, with some of the ways that the game is handled.
Take the leveling up graphic. You're in a serious questline, you turn in a quest about something such as saving a settlement, and you level up.
But you don't level up. You...
From onrpg.com.
No, really.
This is so jarring that it drops you completely out of the game experience.*** And even though the two aren't even in the same ballpark, I kept thinking of a really really bad cartoon from my youth, Romie-O and Julie-8, as an equivalent. (NO! Don't go looking for it on YouTube! Just... trust me.)
***
I'm not sure what Wildstar wants to be. It could be strictly a space western and go full frontal campiness, or it could go with the Sci-Fi genre and veer occasionally into grimdark territory (which the quests go from time to time). Or it could go all hipster and try to act like it's playing you for playing the game. But trying to do all things at once ends up in a mishmash.
Perhaps a little focus is needed. Got it, pardner?
*And the Aurin? Furries. Definitely furry influenced.
**The Dominion. Need I say more?
***Which, to be honest, reminds me more than a bit of Guild Wars 2.
(EtA: I just HAD to add a Blazing Saddles clip. The post was CALLING FOR EEET.)
