Open Trade for Water*

I have further proof that the Alliance can win in Alterac Valley:

The numbers don't tell the whole story.

We had a lot of healers in AV --probably about 10-12 Priests/Pallys/Druids combined-- and that made a huge difference in the match.

But for me, this was my biggest takeaway:

Yes, you read that right.

I wasn't BG Leader until about halfway through, and the original Leader didn't drop, so I guess he passed it off to me without me noticing.

I even blurted out in Chat "Holy shit, why am I leading?" but nobody seemed to care.

It's not like I was on the front lines, either, as I stayed back on defense at Stonehearth Graveyard. There were four of us back --2 Mages (including Card), a Holy Priest, and a Rogue-- and we were able to keep the Horde from flanking as well as keep SHGY out of Horde hands while the main team did the dirty work. It did feel weird when the Holy Priest and I were pushing against three Rogues in advance of the rest of the Defense team, and the Priest was shouting "Nobody touches my Mage!"

Our defense team moved forward to protect Iceblood Graveyard when that was captured, and once more when Frostwolf Graveyard was captured. By then, my job was to make sure we had a tank and off tank identified while we waited on the Relief Hut to be captured.

I did rush forward once we got the Relief Hut and got in some blasts on Drek before he died, but really I was a small cog in the match. The healers did the hardest part of the work, keeping the team upright and out in the field, while the rest of us were disciplined enough to want to push for a win rather than rep farming.

It's not like I'll get this gig very often, so I'll savor it while I can. And I can say that my record as BG Leader is 1-0.

*The title references the fact that Mages are in charge of distributing Water and/or Food before any group event. After I started Raiding, I took my job in BGs as "Water Girl" a lot more seriously.

This is Gonna Leave a Mark

So, this happened yesterday:

I didn't do nuthin'! I swear!

I was walking across a parking lot, going to get something for lunch, when I felt a pop in the back of my left knee, and then I hit the ground.

I found myself unable to put any pressure on the left leg, and so I hopped my way back to the car and drove back home. Later that day when my wife got off of work, we took a little trip over to an urgent care facility to have the knee checked out.

An x-ray revealed no broken bones, and the doc said "there wasn't anything crazy in there", so they gave me the brace and told me to rest, elevate, and compress for a week to see what happens.

Normally you'd think that this means more game time, but given that I game from a regular desktop PC, sitting at a desk, I'm not so sure about that. But we'll see how it works out.

So... um... yay?

Well, That's That

I've been intrigued by the impending release of Cyberpunk 2077, as I'd spent some time in the past* playing Shadowrun. A cyberpunk game set far enough in the future --but not too far-- to be intriguing? Yes, sign me up. However, I knew it was coming some time in the future, so I shelved my interest until the release date approached.

Then I saw the previews hitting social media, and noticed that it was almost completely in first person perspective.

A short time searching articles later, and I confirmed that the game was going to be only first person, except for a few short set pieces.

Well, scratch that game off of my list.

/sigh




*Okay, the long past, as it was back in college when I was exposed to Shadowrun.

Charge of the Ram Brigade

WoW Classic's Alterac Valley has been heavily dominated by Horde wins ever since the Alliance was banned from creating premade AV teams. Even then, the map by default favored the Horde so it would take a superior game from the Alliance --combined with poor luck on the Horde side-- to eek out an Alliance victory.

That being said, in all of my AV runs in Classic I'd never seen Ivus the Forest Lord summoned or the Ram Riders charging into the fight.

I got to see both the other night.

I wasn't around to summon Ivus, as I was defending Stormpike Graveyard at the time, but I was around to help get the ram riders ready.

Here's a few pics for those who have never seen it before:

After the last ram turn-in, they appeared.

All that was missing was the theme from
the movie Patton. (Or Rocky, I suppose.)

Back when the commander led
troops into battle.

Cardwyn followed along
as they charged through Dun Baldar...

...across the bridge...

...into the ravine...

...and toward the Field of Strife.
The Horde never knew what hit them.

We ended up losing this match as it turned into a DPS race at the end and we didn't have enough people south to kill Drek before Vann went down. But still, it was an inspiring sight.

EtA: And when I meant the theme from Patton, I meant the march:

Wait a Sec... Just HOW Long?

One thing I've discovered about writing fiction that I've never much thought of before was that it focuses me on just how long it takes to perform certain actions.

I don't mean how long it takes to cast a spell, for instance, or even how long it takes to travel across land or sea. The first is completely arbitrary, and the second is configured this way to make the game practical.* But I mean something a bit different, and the older I get the more ridiculous it sounds.

I mean just how long between events in the Warcraft universe versus what we're seeing in game.

***

The reason why I'm picking on the Warcraft universe as opposed to other MMOs I've played is because it's the one MMO whose game release schedule matches the MMO world's real time environment. Other MMOs don't try to tie down in game changes from expac to expac to a specific timeline like WoW (and Warcraft before it) does, so that creates issues of believability.

Okay, look, I know we're talking about a fantasy game that includes Orcs, Tauren, Elves, Spellcasting, Undead, Dragons, and Male Humans who look like they're all Arnold Schwarzenegger clones with a steroid problem.

And yes, the Warcraft story frequently devolves into plotlines that would do a soap opera proud. You don't think so? Go read up on the Lo'gosh plotline from the WoW comics, and try to explain to me why the two Varians story doesn't make for a perfect WWE or soap opera plotline.

But the thing is, the more I've delved into timelines the more I look at the game world and say "this is simply NOT possible."

***

For starters, let's use the 'unofficial' WoW timelines found on various places like WoWWiki and WoWpedia.

Now, there are variances between the unofficial WoW timelines, and the "official" one that used to be on the World of Warcraft website was taken down years ago when Blizz moved to Battle.net, but there's enough overlap to make it usable.

For starters, let's see the "official" one that WowWiki preserved, and I'll focus on the big items:

0      Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (PC game)
6      Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (PC game)
8      Warcraft 2X: Beyond the Dark Portal (PC game)
20     Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos (PC game)
21     Warcraft 3X: The Frozen Throne (PC game)
25     World of Warcraft (PC game)
26     World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC game)
27     World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC game)

Now, the official result of Warcraft 1 was that the Kingdom of Stormwind (and Stormwind itself) was destroyed. It was only at the end of Warcraft 2 were the Kingdom and City of Stormwind re-established and then Stormwind was rebuilt.

I'll be charitable and say that Warcraft 2 ended around year 7.5, giving WC2 about 1.5 years worth of fighting instead of 2. But what that means is that WC2 effectively ended and people could return to Stormwind around Year 7.5.

Putting that into more important terms, the time between Stormwind's reestablishment and the beginning of WoW Classic/Vanilla is 17.5 years, and that's being generous.

So what that means is that if a Human player was 18 years old when they left home and began adventuring, then you were one of the first kids born after Stormwind was reestablished. If a Human character started at 21 years old, then you likely have vague memories of being a refugee. Your older brothers and sisters were all refugees and likely had bad memories of this. Your parents were refugees and/or veterans of the First/Second War, and were likely scarred by the conflict. On top of it, either date is not enough to get Elwynn Forest back to a pristine condition, Redridge to seem so wonderful (as if it were Autumn), or even Westfall or Duskwood to be as alive (or undead as in Western Duskwood) as all that.

However, if you read quest text in the Human areas, you don't get those impressions at all. The area around Elwynn Forest, and even Duskwood and Redridge, are filled with quest text about "normal" things, not "boy, am I glad that we survived the Wars!"

It's as if there's collective amnesia about WC1 and WC2.

And believe me, people in Westfall would absolutely remember the Horde invasion, because based on the timeline they would have just gotten back on their feet when the Defias cut their legs out from under them.

If you thought that timeline might be off, here's the one from WoWpedia**:

0      First War
4      Second War
8      Warcraft 2x: Tides of Darkness
20     Third War
23     Warcraft 3x: The Frozen Throne
25     World of Warcraft
26     The Burning Crusade
27     Wrath of the Lich King

As you can see, the dates are pretty similar except for WoWpedia moving the Second War back two years.

***

You might look at that timeline and think "yeah, that seems about right."

But you know what I see?

The Thirty Years War.

It was one of the most destructive conflicts in history, went from 1618 - 1648, and was responsible for the death of 1 in every 5 German language speakers*** in Europe. Wikipedia puts the number of European deaths at 8 million, and although I'm not completely certain it's accurate, it's good enough for me.

The sheer brutality of the conflict made the Thirty Years' War one of the first that you could arguably call "total war", where entire regions were laid waste and depopulated, and entire nations mobilized.

You know what I don't see?

Evidence of the Thirty Years War --Warcraft Style-- in WoW Classic.

Bucolic. That's a good word for this, and there's nary
a sign that a short time ago this was supposedly
all devastation. Those certainly don't look like 15-20 year
old trees, even if you have rapidly growing ones such as silver maple.

And before you say Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge, or Desolace, all three happened prior to the timeline above. The only regions that you could safely say fall under the "entire region laid waste" designation are the Blasted Lands (home of Ye Olde Dark Portal), the Plaguelands, Tirisfal Glades, Felwood, and the southernmost part of Winterspring, where the Burning Legion is still present along the border with Hyjal. And of those, only the Blasted Lands stretches back to the Second War; all the others happened only a few years before Classic, in the Third War.

Azshara? Been that way since the War of the Ancients.

Silithus? Been that way for thousands of years, since the Kaldorei and their allies shut the Qiraji inside their prison.

Stonetalon Mountains? It's not so much as laid waste as an ecological disaster brought on by the Venture Company.

I find it hard to believe that the Cataclysm expac had a greater impact on the Eastern Continent than the Wars between Orcs and Humans.

***

And don't get me started on the buildings.

I knew that castle building was a huge endeavor that drained the coffers of more than one monarchy (Edward I of England for one), so the reconstruction of Stormwind being hugely expensive doesn't shock me. But building a castle in Medieval times took anywhere from 2 to 10 years, depending on the size and complexity of the job.

But an entire city?

A decent comparison is how long it took to rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666, and it took about 50 years.****

And that's with mainly wooden structures, not stone.

Compare that with Stormwind's less than 17.5 years --probably more like 10 given it takes time for the Defias afterward to take root-- and you're left scratching your head.

10 years? Yeah, but if you had far larger population
than what the ravaged Human lands --Stormwind +
Lordaeron + the rest-- have.  It took a far larger English
population 50 years to rebuild London after the Great Fire.

And don't forget that on top of that, there's places such as Menethil Harbor, Lakeshire, Goldshire, Darkshire, Sentinel Hill, Theramore, and the (now abandoned) areas of Raven Hill and Moonbrook. Oh, and the towers scattered throughout the area.

Don't forget that Dalaran was rebuilding within its bubble too.

And somewhere in all that Nethergarde Keep was built, manned, and then was the staging area for the invasion of Draenor.

***

Speaking of buildings, let's talk about the Horde cities too.

The Undercity, well, that was always there underneath Lordaeron, so let's just assume it was made (un)livable with minimal effort.

But Thunder Bluff and Orgrimmar? They just sprang out of the ground within 2 years? Looking like that? And while the Tauren encampments around Kalimdor were built (and designed) for a nomadic, Native American asthetic --which are believable-- but the size and scope of constructing Orgrimmar alone, particularly while the newly reformed Horde with the Frostwolves in charge were constantly under threat, makes me raise my eyebrows.

I don't have an active Horde toon, so this one is from
Blizzard Watch. BTW, if you want info on all things
Blizz, they're the one to to go check out.

I could see this in 2 years, but that's only if Thrall and Co.
weren't constantly fending for their lives.

So yeah, call me skeptical, but I look at that timeline and think "Nah, not happening." Even if you enlist the help of Mages to build all of this, the sheer volume of activity might require every single Mage found in Azeroth to get it done properly in such a short timeline. And believe me, any Mage worth their salt would make sure that YOU NEVER FORGOT THAT.

And remember, all this construction had to be completed early enough so that it feels like all of these buildings have been there for quite a while, because nobody surely talks about the "before times". Hell, there are quests in Elwynn Forest that imply that people grew up and grew old on the farm. (It's the lover's questline.)

***

The only difference in the timelines that makes any sort of sense is the time between the end of the Third War and WoW Classic/Vanilla. Everything else, well, it doesn't really make sense.

If you extend the time between the end of the 2nd War and the beginning of the 3rd War to about 30 years, that makes the reconstruction and fading memories more realistic, but it then proceeds to throw off the personal timeline of major NPCs, particularly Thrall, Jaina, Vol'jin, Arthas, and others.

I can see why Blizz would want to keep the timeline intact for the NPCs' sake, but they could have easily altered the world they built in WoW to reflect the true state of affairs rather than present a bucolic countryside that they did in the starting zones for Tauren, Orcs, Trolls, Humans, Gnomes, and Dwarves.

And I'll be frank, I'd never have noticed how off the timeline really was until I went and looked up the timeline because I was writing fiction. When I figured out the true timeline based on what was found on the original WoW website, I blurted out "Bullshit! That is not what is presented in game!"

Oh, hey, Kira. Card says 'hi'.

*Movement at the speed of plot and all that.

**I removed every little detail that was provided in the Wowpedia version and instead matched the major events with the "official" version.

***You can't really say Germans, since Germany as a state didn't exist until the 19th Century.

****The Museum of London has a great pdf file on the Great Fire, which I won't link to because of potential security risks. However, if you type in "how long did it take to rebuild london after the great fire" it'll pop up as being one of the first hits.

EtA: Corrected a few grammar issues. That's what I get for changing my mind on how to present something and forgetting about the grammar leading up to those changes.

EtA: Forgot Felwood in the list of regions affected by the WC1 through WC3, but my premise still stands, as Felwood happened during WC3.

At Long Last

It only took from the beginning of Classic until now, on both co-mains, but this finally happened:

It was one of those epic 3+ hour AV fights that you hear people who used to play in Vanilla brag about. The battleground started like any other, where the Alliance held off the horde for a while but eventually we lost the Stonehearth Graveyard. That usually signals the beginning of the end, because the Horde gradually accelerates their gains from there. But something unusual happened: the Alliance was able to push back and eventually --after an hour-- to retake the Stonehearth Graveyard.

During this time I --on Az-- found myself with only another rogue for support, so we both sent back the Wing Commanders* and then I took the southern mine. That mine capture is typically a love-it-or-hate-it move, with very few people on the Alliance side in the "meh" camp. Luckily this time our side was happy for that, and I quickly gathered the 10 resources, killed off some wolves for the pelts, and made it back up north just in time to become a member of the backcap crew.

And there I spent the vast majority of my time in-game, part or a 2-3 man crew defending the Dun Baldar bunkers and graveyard from Horde who'd outflanked the main force.

During this time the main force continued their unusally strong push and had a breakthrough by capturing the Snowfall Graveyard. We were able to hold both graveyards, and in the process kill off the Horde Wolfriders and their Shamans.

When the Horde lost their Shamans, their morale broke.

We were then able to capture the Iceblood Graveyard, and our gains accelerated rather quickly until we finally downed Drek.

I've been waiting for what felt like forever for this, as this is the typical result we see:

So a victory like this, hard fought from beginning to end, was something to savor.

*Two of them made it back, which was unusual in itself.

Let Me Expand on That

Not too long ago, I mentioned that I'd gotten into my first true raid.

Ever.

That was a Zul'Gurub run that, looking back on it, was a fairly wipe filled run that lasted almost 4 hours.* However, I will say that the raid leader was a real saint; he kept calm and never raised his voice, as he patiently explained and reexplained how to handle each boss.

In that raid I learned three things:

• For a raid to be effective, you have to be in a voice app of some sort. You may not have to talk --I saw people reply in raid chat to requests-- but you must be able to respond to the raid leader's (and others) directions. We had one person in the ZG run who was not in chat, and that person was simply not following instructions, even the written ones.
  
  As a sub point on that, everybody not only has to be in a voice app, but be able to understand the language spoken. Being in a voice app does you almost no good if you don't understand what's being asked of you. And yes, that 4 hour ZG run had at least one person in the raid who didn't understand English, and also didn't know the raid. It made things difficult at times.
  
• I like to perform interrupts and stuns on Az as part of my work in regular 5-man instances, and that part of being a Rogue becomes important in ZG. In the ZG run Az was literally the only rogue, and I got assigned the job of interrupting the healer in the Raptor boss when he (it?) splits into three people. Once that boss was burned down enough, I and the off tank were the only ones on that boss for a large part of the fight, with me eschewing anything resembling DPS in favor of watching for the healing action and then delivering a solid kick to stop it. While my job in ZG overall wasn't very taxing --mainly don't stand in the bad, do what the raid leader says to do, and just keep my DPS Slice and Dice ability running-- at this one point I had the big job to make sure we don't make a boss fight that much more difficult. And I was able to do the job because I enjoy those little things about being a Rogue.
  
• Raids in Classic take about as long as the longer instances in WoW. If you compare a Classic level raid (Molten Core, Zul'Gurub, etc.) with the longer Classic instances (Blackrock Depths, Maraudon, etc.) the Classic instances are either as long or longer than the Classic raids. So the time commitment by me would be pretty much the same. The only thing that the raids have over instances are the buffs and the consumables, where Mages, Alchemists, and others who handle both items spend considerably more time in preparation than the people who don't have those classes and/or professions.

But despite my initial concern about what to do in ZG, I found the explanations easy to follow. And I learned very quickly that "bat riders go boom" as I put it in guild chat afterwards.

***

What?

Oh, that.

Yeah, I joined a guild. It's a small one, and not even close to being in the same orbit as some of the huge guilds on Myzrael-US, such as Sunrise or Stance Dance Revolution, both of which have over 400 members. 

More on this another time.

***

Anyhoo, I went on another ZG run a week later, and that run was as smooth as butter. It clocked in at just under two hours, and we only had one wipe, on the trash leading to Hakkar. We even handled the Jin'do fight without any problems.

So fast forward a couple of weeks, and a friend who I'd run quite a few instances with over the past months whispered me on Friday. One thing led to another, and this was the result.

Yep, still running with that BRD Green drop
for my chestpiece. Still, Card only died once,
the Majordomo teleported her up front. Twice.

It was an alt run put on by two guilds, and they pug the extra people.

The most amazing thing to me was that when I zoned in, I discovered that I knew about 1/3 of the people there. When I mentioned it to my friend, he laughed and said "that's the Vanilla experience for you."

Maybe I can do this raiding thing after all.





*This ZG run was on Az, for clarity's sake.