One of the things about Summer is that you have to spend some time and relax a bit. While I may not go on vacation, I do try to take it a bit easy on things.
Of course, MMOs have their own unique spin on that...
I think this kind of fits my experience in World of Warcraft to a T. From Reddit.
And yes, I am a filthy casual a lot of the time. From Thunderdungeon.
Ain't that the truth. This is a Redbubble poster, found here.
Then again, maybe I should take up another hobby that I could find relaxing. Like gardening. From Reddit.
When you were a kid and you wanted to be outside but couldn't, you'd press your face against the glass window pane, smudging the window to the point where you left a soggy mess when you pulled your mug away. Rainy days, frozen days, days where you had to go to some important family event, just pick one and they're all the same. That longing of wanting to be where you couldn't made your entire day miserable. Even later in life, when I wanted to be reading about different worlds found in SF&F novels, if I had to be somewhere else I'd not be in the best of spirits.
I mean, who wants to go take a Chemistry test if they had the option to go play Risk or read Dune instead?
This is my copy, circa 1985. I mean, look at the price on this paperback! $3.95!!
Tonight is my questing buddy's regular Wrath raid night, and while for the most part I'm quite happy to be no longer in the grind given all the Heroic Plus Plus** "runs" she's been doing lately***, I will confess to missing out on all of the trappings surrounding those raids.
More than anything else, I miss the camaraderie in the raids, chatting and enjoying the company of each other, than the raid itself.
Ever since the transition from 40/20 person raids in Vanilla Classic to TBC and now Wrath Classic, the raids have felt "less than" compared to those early raids. I know that it could be argued that 10 person raids in Wrath Classic truly are less than, particularly given the differences between 10 person Wrath Naxx and 40 person Vanilla Naxx, but I've felt that way ever since I set foot in every 25 person TBC raid I participated in****. Blizzard may have made it easier to field a raid team in terms of numbers, but they also left some magic behind.
It's an acceptable trade-off, I guess, but for me raiding hasn't been the same.
But it's a bug I can't completely leave behind, despite my obvious refusal to "play the game" and catch-up to the current raid tier in the most expedient way possible. The raids themselves don't exactly hold much in the way of charm for me, and Trial of the Crusader holds bittersweet memories for me.
***
Back in 2010, I almost became a Wrath raider.
Oh, you never heard about that? Well, there's a reason why I never blogged about it: why blog about an event that ended up not happening? I didn't expect that I'd ever be back in this situation in a Wrath of the Lich King Classic edition of WoW, either, but here we are.
Remember this guy? Here's Quintalan, complete in his T9 Liadrin's Battlegear, earned the hard way by running plenty of dungeons.
Back in Satyana's very brief period of joining Parallel Context, I'd been logged in one evening when she whispered me "Hey, you want to join a raid?"
This was back when I severely restricted my WoW time because the mini-Reds were truly "mini" and they took priority over my game time, but this particular evening I had a few hours to just kick around. Still, my brain kind of froze at the prospect. I still had a hard enough time dealing with the 5-person pugs in the LFD tool --not that I didn't now what to do in those instances, but the very nature of dealing with random strangers on the internet-- and here I was being asked to make a huge leap into raiding.
"Uh..." was my oh-so-brilliant reply. "I've never been raiding before."
"Oh, you'll love it! It's fun!"
She kind of had me over a barrel there. "Okay, what are we doing and do I have enough time to read up on it?"
"It's Trial of the Crusader, and don't worry, I'll tell you what to do."
That didn't exactly make me feel any better. But since I didn't want to let my co-blogger down, I joined the raid team that Satyana was putting together, and she cast about for 3 or so more people to finish filling out the raid.
Raiding was such an unknown to me that I didn't even realize there was a "raid" channel, so imagine my surprise when I started seeing chat messages with an unfamiliar color popping up in my dialogue box.
I, uh, kept my mouth shut throughout this, but I had a feeling that I was going to need to go on Ventrillo if we were going to run this raid. Oh yay, I thought. Mister Introvert is going to have to be in a voice program with 8 strangers and look like a complete idiot along the way.
I hung around Dalaran for a few minutes and after consulting with a WoW website --maybe Thottbot-- I flew up to the Crusader area in Icecrown.
It was then, while I felt like I was waiting for my own funeral, that it began to dawn on me that Satyana was having trouble filling out those last few spots.
Over the next 15 or so minutes we got to 9 raiders twice, then someone would drop.
"Anybody know anybody who can join?" Satyana asked in raid chat.
Nobody said anything, and my hopes rose some more.
A couple more people dropped, and we went down to six raiders.
"Okay, I'm going to call it," Satyana finally said. "We'll try another time."
I breathed a big sigh of relief.
That "another time" raiding with Satyana didn't materialize, as she moved on from both the server and from Parallel Context shortly after that aborted raid attempt.*****
***
Thirteen years later, Wrath Classic has returned to Trial of the Crusader, and I can't help but think of what might have happened then.
Would I have liked it? (I don't know.)
Would I have screwed up royally? (All signs point to yes.)
Would my fellow raiders have tolerated my mistakes? (Come on, this is World of Warcraft we're talking about; what do you think would have happened in a pug like this in the era of GearScore?)
I do believe the trajectory of my MMO career might have been totally changed if that raid had actually happened, but my suspicion is that it would have made me even more reticent about raiding when Vanilla Classic became a thing. Even then, I had to be fast-talked into those first raids I went to in Vanilla Classic: Zul'Gurub and Molten Core. Yes, I ultimately had fun in both raids, but there was a learning curve. And the weight of expectations was not upon me. If anything the only expectation was that if we didn't loot the Corehounds like we were supposed to, we were gonna get called out in that first Molten Core raid. (Luckily for me I stayed on top of that job; I only got called out once and was in the middle of looting when it happened so it went something like "Cardwyn, loot the-- oh, nevermind.")
At times like this, I do wonder whether I deliberately sabotage my gearing and playstyle just so I am never put in the situation where I'm asked to join a raid. You can't have someone reach out to see if I'm interested if I'm not geared enough, and with my avoidance of running 5-person H+ and H++ instances, I'm guaranteeing that I won't have the gear.
Still, I do have to periodically clean the smudge from the window, looking at all the fun, wishing I was there.
*From the movie A Christmas Story. Here's the reveal of the now classic "leg lamp":
**For those who remember their programming languages, I always hear Heroic Plus Plus and think of C++. Kind of weird how this stuff comes back into your life after being away for a couple of decades.
***I put runs in quotes because the current strat for those runs is to basically run through all of the boss encounters to get to the final boss because badges for the current raid tier only drop off of the final boss.
****For the record, that does not include Hyjal, Black Temple, or Sunwell.
*****It's been forever since I've thought about her, but my biggest memory about her time here was the time she made a post criticizing someone and disparagingly wondering if someone had Downs Syndrome. My biggest regret was not standing up to her more forcefully than I did for that behavior.
This was going to come up eventually, right? I mean, armor can be made fantastically beautiful --just go see the outfits that Kamalia puts together for that-- but there are tons of memes surrounding armor in MMOs, video games in general, and RPGs that just are ripe for the picking.
I could easily put down twice as many memes as I've chosen now, but let's try to keep this within reason. After all, I'd not mind having material for a second Armor Memes post...
Admittedly, with plastic surgery this look could be achieved today. From 9GAG.com.
Oh look, it's TERA. Believe me, the "underwear being less revealing than the armor" thing is NOT just a TERA thing, but it's one of the more dramatic displays of it. From 9GAG again.
Basically TERA vs. FFXIV. LOTRO would be on the FFXIV side as well, but I digress. From Twitter.
What if something potentially fun and lighthearted, or just a personal curiosity, takes a sharp turn off the highway and deposits you in the middle of nowhere, adrift without any cell signal nearby?
This isn't the plot of a novel, but metaphorically speaking this is what happened to Alice Collins Plebuch when her work on her family tree took a decidedly unexpected direction. All she had to do was spit into a vial and send it off to a DNA testing site, such as 23andMe or AncestryDNA, and await the results. What she got back, however, wasn't the Irish ancestry she expected. Alice experienced what genealogists call a NPE, a Non-Paternity Event, where your parent isn't the one you thought they were. Sometimes it's an adoption that was hushed up, it's the usage of donor sperm for insemination, or the byproduct of an affair. Or sometimes the NPE was something darker. The result of experiencing an NPE, however is that it can turn the recipient into what is known as a "Seeker", trying to find out the answers behind the NPE no matter where the path leads.
Uh, yeah. Basil Rathbone I ain't. From Pinterest.
This story, and a study into the practice of what can be classified as recreational genomics, is the focus of The Lost Family by Libby Copeland. The book evolved from what was originally an article for the Washington Post*, and Libby interwove Alice's search with an investigation into how genomics has evolved in the past decade to where it is today, including both the positive and negative aspects of this opening frontier into what our genes say about us.
I'm surprised the photo turned out as good as it did. It's a wee bit cloudy outside today.
Sometimes the positive and negative are part of the same story, such as the usage of DNA genealogy databases in the apprehension of the long elusive Golden State Killer. That Joseph James DeAngelo was caught was one thing, but that DNA genealogy databases could be exploited by law enforcement without people's knowledge was quite another.
Remember those fingerprints we all provided when we were kids back in the 70s and 80s so that law enforcement could find us if we were abducted? Yeah, like that only much more so. From imgflip.
But this book, while it makes for an engaging read**, has a personal angle to it that goes far afield from anything that this blog typically covers.
***
Over the past decade I've seriously considered having my DNA tested numerous times, and even within the past month I've gotten to within a few clicks of signing up for AncestryDNA's DNA test. (Luckily for me I didn't, because a couple of days later that money --and some Father's Day cash-- was sucked up by car repairs. Yay, car repairs.) Some of it is curiosity, as I've always considered myself a bit of a mutt as far as my ancestry is concerned, and my mother insisted we have some Native American ancestors on her side***, and putting the question of where my ancestors came from to bed would solve these two items. But there's there's more to it than just that.
We know absolutely nothing about my father's father.
("Oh, a puzzle!" my questing buddy exclaimed when I mentioned this to her.)
My dad was always told that his mom and dad met, moved out to Colorado, got married, and his dad died when he was an infant. As you might be able to read between the lines, that was simply a fabrication by my grandmother and my great-aunt, her sister. One of my dad's cousins finally spilled the beans to him about 25 years ago before my grandmother passed away: apparently my grandmother got pregnant, she and my great-aunt went out west, had my dad, and then came back home with him. My dad, being the sort who would apologize if he ever cursed with a word stronger than "darn it", was incensed and demanded an explanation from his mom.
"Who told you that?!" she responded.
"I want to know the truth!"
I don't know all the details, but what I do know is that in addition to the above story my grandmother had "doctored" my dad's birth certificate, which made it difficult for him to receive Social Security benefits because his name didn't match that on the certificate.****
So... Who was my grandfather? Outside of a name that may or may not be real, I don't have a clue.
I also don't know if there are any genetic risks for cancer or heart disease or whatnot that I don't know about either.
As for relatives I don't know about, well... I'm of two minds on that one. Unlike my wife, who calls her parents multiple times a week and chats with her sister and her other relatives on social media all the time, I tend to keep my distance from my family. They all tend to be far more religious than I am, and far more prudish as well, so I'm happy to keep them at greater than arm's length.
And, oh look, here's this little DNA test that has the ability to upend entire families' understanding of who they are if I were to spit into a vial and send it off to get studied.
That's the thing that keeps me from pulling the trigger: I already know that something will likely come up, and that I won't be interested in reaching out to these people, but will those people then find me? Or if I don't get test but another relative does, and suddenly I'm the one getting the metaphorical knock on the door by someone claiming to be a cousin I never knew existed?
In a post pandemic world, where I saw the worst of humanity broadcast for everyone to see, do I really want to know these people? I can select my friends, but I can't do the same to family. Unlike many Seekers I don't feel adrift because I'm missing part of my life, but I am curious. But am I curious enough to find out answers I might not like?
***
Finally, there's a question about my genealogy that has nothing whatsoever to do with my non-existent grandfather, and that has to do with my family's search into their own family tree.
One of my mom's sisters has been conducting research into my mom's family, and supposedly she's found all of this interesting stuff about where the family came from, yadda yadda yadda. However, my aunt isn't exactly known for her academic rigor, so without me reviewing her research I look at her claims with a skeptical eye. So for my edification if nothing else, I'm interested enough into my own verification of these claims that I've begun collecting a database on the family history. Yes, I use Ancestry's database, but no, it's not public. DNA testing might help to solidify some of this genealogical research, but then again, it might open up a can of worms.
Jeez, Rowan, the least you could have done is gotten me into the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympics... From memegenerator.net.
***
Some reviewers think of this usage of recreational genomics --and the book itself-- as basically First World Problems. "I don't think that the world really cares who your great grandpa bonked," is what one reviewer on Goodreads said. The world may not, but this isn't really about what the world thinks. The book isn't really written for Genealogists either, as they likely already know everything in the book and would look at it as rather simplistic.
From Cafepress, where you can get this on a coffee mug.
I don't get to say how your ethics and morality play into what you might find in your family tree, and to be fair what people think of genealogy in the US and Canada --where a lot of people's ancestors came from somewhere else-- is going to be different than the viewpoint of someone from Europe or Asia.
If I were to look at it as purely an academic exercise, I'd most likely pass on a DNA test. From that perspective, the potential downsides outnumber any upsides. Still, I'd be a fool to not acknowledge an emotional component to this: the desire to know as much as possible. While I may keep my family at a distance, knowing a bit about their collective history --my history-- is a very strong pull. Plus, I want to set any records straight: I'd be going in ready to accept things such as hidden names or even different family names than what is commonly accepted today, because history is messy like that.
What? Oh, the book! Right.
About the book...
Yes, I liked it. For people worried about there being too much Biology in the book, don't worry; if you lack detailed knowledge about genetics you won't have any issues following the book. You had better expect to think critically about the subject, however, and for people who thought that getting your DNA tested on a lark or as a present to a family member the book is a bucket of cold water dumped on you. If you want to go ahead, do so, but go into it with your eyes wide open as to any consequences you might encounter. And to be fair, you don't even need to have been tested to personally feel the effects; Big Data is seeing to that.
*In much the same way as Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer was originally written as an article for Outside Magazine. Alas that the original article appears to go to a follow-up article about people who are obsessed with Chris McCandless.
**Not everything in the book is as annotated as some people might like, but I was comfortable with it given that NPEs and other genealogical surprises are kind of a touchy subject, and genealogists weren't always so keen to put their names and faces down on these discussions.
***Which I no longer believe, I might add. Apparently, that is a fairly common family backstory that people have, and it frequently turns out to not be the case.
****It took months, but eventually things got sorted out.
EtA: Changed a couple of words for clarity's sake.
Given that a lot of people I know who are into RPGs and MMOs are also readers, it kind of figured that this version of Meme Monday was going to make an appearance.
But if you're like me, you can relate to this one. A LOT. From someecards.
I'm with Stephen Colbert on this one. From Pinterest.
From Debbie Tung and wheresmybubble.tumblr.com, quoting Stephen King.
And alas, this is me as well. This happened last night, hence that first meme. From memegenerator.
...you spend hours editing a document that should have been properly reviewed by someone else.
Yes, this was a document for work, and there were work things attached to this document that I'm not at liberty to discuss. However, a cursory glance of the doc told me that it needed help.
A LOT OF HELP.
And I've been spending hours on this thing, and I'm close to halfway done, just trying to deconstruct what the author was aiming for and how to fix it.
The funny thing is, I'm not mad at the author for the state of the document.* Who I am grumpy at, however, are the people who reviewed it before me who said "Yep, looks good!" and passed it on.
Who knew that all these years of writing ol' Parallel Context would come in handy like this?
The reasons for my lack of interest in travelling places are pretty diverse, but the single biggest reason for a long time was that we couldn't afford to go on vacation somewhere. A couple of times we camped via car camping to save money, but the sweltering Midwestern heat did us no favors with the "great outdoors".
I suppose we could go on vacation now, but I'm at that stage of my career where going on vacation is actually more trouble than it's worth. I have to get ahead of the pile of crap that is in my to do list just so I can leave and not be pestered by somebody --and yes, that has happened several times before*-- and then when I come back there's three times the amount of work waiting for me to deal with than if I'd just stuck around.
There's also the issue of me working around off days from getting kids back and forth from college, and now all of my little extra doctors' visits, so I've just kind of looked at what vacation days I have and take a day or two off here and there.
I do look at those people who could simply take a week or two off on release of a game they've been waiting for --or an expansion-- and wonder how they could pull that off. I mean, there were so many people who were going to go balls to the wall** when TBC Classic and then Wrath Classic were released, and now Diablo 4 has generated the same interest:
And oh look, there's a Zelda thread about pretty much the same thing. From Reddit.
Still, that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate a good vacation meme, so here's a few to tickle your funny bone...
The few times we have gone on vacation, this has been my wife, wanting us to make sure we get to the place on time. From Pinterest.
But this... This is me. From Someecards.
Alas, this is me as well. After over 20 years of working from home, I have issues not thinking about work. From quickmeme.
And then it's all over. "It must have been love, but it's over nowwww...." From Memegenerator.
*And this was done by people who should have known better. They thought that my being "on vacation" meant I just wasn't visible on the company's Microsoft Teams. When they asked me to get on the network to look up something on a server, they were genuinely shocked when I told them I was 3 hours away from my laptop and was going to take this discussion up with their boss when I got back.
**Yes, it's more than just the title of a song by Accept.
