A West Coast Sound in the Midwest

If my occasional comments on Bhagpuss' Inventory Full haven't clued you in, I'm a bit of a music nerd.

I listen to most musical genres --with the notable exception of Country*-- and if you saw the albums I have on my typical playlist, you'd be bewildered by the range. But because of that range, I can enjoy all of the new (to me) music that Bhagpuss posts.

So when I was perusing YouTube for something or other close to a month ago, this particular video popped into my feed:

My biggest takeaway was Phil Aaberg. If you
hear his music, you may get a specific image
in your head of Phil, but the real Phil looks nothing
like that: gravelly western voice, a large frame,
and shock of white hair and beard sitting at the piano.

As I watched the video, I kept thinking "How the hell did I miss this on Kickstarter?"

I guess the magical search engine failed to pinpoint me as a Windham Hill fan, because I easily found the Kickstarter campaign, perused it, and tossed a few dollars their way. 

The campaign ended the other day, so I checked out the Community section just to see who were the people who backed the campaign:

Can you see it?

On the left is what you'd expect of a musical label and genre that began out on the West Coast: Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, etc. And sure, New York City makes sense too, given its size and variety.

But what the hell are Dallas and Cincinnati doing in there?

I can't speak to Dallas, but I know exactly why my hometown is on the list: WVXU-FM.

***

If you listen to WVXU (91.7 FM) today, you'd think that it was always an NPR news/talk radio affiliate, but that current format only dates from 2005. (Yikes!) Before then, WVXU was owned by Xavier University (hence the "XU" in the callsign) and had an eclectic list of programs: NPR's Morning Edition at dawn, classic radio shows (Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, etc.) in the late morning, and music in the afternoon and evening. 

The type of music the station played was something rarely heard these days on the radio: Jazz, Blues, Big Band Jazz, New Age, Acoustic, and Alternative/Progressive that bordered on the Avant Garde.**

'New Age' and 'Acoustic' umbrellas kind of cover a wide range of styles. Sure, there was John Diliberto's Echoes program, but the main afternoon show on WVXU, Audiosyncracies, was less New Age and far more acoustic oriented. Audiosyncs had a lot of Windham Hill artists in rotation and even featured Alex de Grassi's Clockwork as the intro music to the program.

I may have first been introduced to Windham Hill music while at college, but WVXU kept it going. In the mid-late 90s, while I was coding or debugging at work I'd have my headset on, listening to Audiosyncs. And when it was Christmas time, WVXU sponsored and promoted the Windham Hill Winter Solstice concerts locally when the tour came to town.

Alas that all good things come to an end, and in 2005 Xavier University sold WVXU to the local public radio company that owned WGUC-FM (formerly a University of Cincinnati station) and the format shuffle led to all of the NPR shows being transferred to WVXU, ending most of their music programs. 

So yeah, Windham Hill has a history here. And I'm glad that a few of us were able to provide some funding to help tell the story of the small label that found success going against the grain. While the label Windham Hill is effectively dead --it is owned now by music giant BMG in the same manner that EA has done to numerous video game companies in the past-- the spirit of Windham Hill lives on in Will Ackerman's current label, Imaginary Road Studios.

Maybe I ought to send a link from that Kickstarter to a friend and ex-coworker of mine; she's a relative of the late George Winston.

*I've mentioned it before, but my dislike of Country music comes from my Catholic School music class as a kid heavily promoting Country music as an alternative to our 'traditional' music we covered: hymns for Mass.

**There was also Saturday Night Loud, a heavy metal program that played metal that you rarely heard on the radio back then.

#Blaugust2024

Gen Con 2024: Forward Into the Past

If there's one thing about Gen Con, you're never sure what will attract your attention. To borrow an overused term, you think you do, but you don't.*

And 2024 certainly delivered on that premise.

My wife hadn't attended since 2015, so she was excited to go. We picked up my son and his partner at 7:30 and pointed our car west on I-74. Destination: Indianapolis.

We parked just outside of Lucas Oil Stadium and headed north a block or two to the Indianapolis Convention Center.

Yes, the Colts play here. Does it show?

Along the way, there was evidence that there was going to be a crowd inside.

Uh oh.

Yes, Gen Con was sold out all four days beforehand. According to the post-con press release, there were over 71,000 attendees throughout the entire con, and yeah, once you got inside the Convention Center you could tell.

I apologize for the blurry photo, but I was
in a hurry as I was being jostled along. But
hey, dice are dice and Chessex was everywhere.

(The rest of the report is after the jump break due to the sheer number of photos.)

While You Were Away...

NOTE: The Gen Con report will come out on Wednesday at the earliest, as I'm still letting everything cook in my brain for a while.

But in that absence, here's a YouTube link to Saturday's Cosplay Parade:

There are a few notable tweaks that came into play during Wrath of the Lich King, such as the automated dungeon finder or the 10/25 person raids. While TBC Classic added random compliments from an NPC if you became Exalted with their faction, Wrath saw an expansion of that by having more NPCs throw an "atta boy" your way when you pass them by.*

In a similar vein, there's the interaction with Gryan Stoutmantle out in Grizzly Hills that highlights what Blizzard could potentially do with a toon. If you've gone through the Defias quests in Vanilla Classic that lead up to and through The Deadmines, Gryan greets you as an old friend. If you haven't finished those quests, Gryan gives you a generic greeting. The decision tree on that sort of interaction isn't very difficult to implement --it's pretty much "if X is marked complete, then do Y else Z"-- but it provides a certain amount of familiarity to a player. The customization makes you feel a bit like you're part of a larger narrative in a small way.

But what happens when the game acknowledges you concerning events that you never performed, such as raids and whatnot? It's kind of hard to be the Champion of Azeroth if you never went raiding or even played 10+ years worth of expansions.

There is no easy way to let a player experience a story if they come into a game that's been running for ~20 years, or if they've been away from the game since Cataclysm or Mists. There's too much story, too many NPCs, and too many changes to the world** to easily digest. Therefore, I have to wonder if Blizzard hasn't simply thrown in the towel and is tailoring expansions to the 'in-crowd' who have already been playing consistently through the years and only stopped playing after Legion or during Battle for Azeroth.

This is inherently a self-limiting design, because a design team would want to draw in as many new players as possible. However, this becomes more feasible if the overall pool of lapsed players is large enough, but only to a certain extent. My complaints about WoW's story focus since about Wrath onward aside, once you are away from a story long enough it simply becomes impossible to catch up with what's going on. 

I liken this to taking a break from watching a soap opera and then coming back to find yourself so out of touch with the story that you have no idea what's going on. And yes, I do have experience in that manner, having spent part of my sophomore year at UD watching Days of our Lives. Soap operas crank out new half hour episodes every day during the work week all year long, so you kind of have to keep watching to stay current. Taking even a week or two break from watching --and this was in the days before people had widespread access to online services, never mind the internet itself-- put me so far behind that I had major issues following the plot. 

Or, to put it another way, if you stopped reading a book series at book #4 and you want to step back in at book #15, well... I hope you like reading, because that's going to be the easiest way to catch up in a comprehensible manner. 

After a while, the publishers/producers just have to simply shrug their shoulders and just keep moving on, even at the cost of limiting their overall potential readership/viewership.

And that's what I think Blizz has done at this point with World of Warcraft. Sure, they'd like me to spend money on a Retail expansion, but they're moving ahead whether I do it or not. They get far more profit out of fewer subscriptions but a lot more cash shop activity than more subscriptions but far less out of the cash shop. 

*The first few times it happens, it's cute. But after about the 20th time it starts to get really old. Especially if you're like me and want to blend in with the crowd, being called out in Dalaran by Linda Ann Kastinglow with "You couldn't ask for a finer person than Quintalan, I say."

**Dalaran? Whaddya mean there's more than one Dalaran? It's still back under a bubble north of Southshore like in TBC, right? And what's this about a spoiler? What?

#Blaugust2024

Meme Monday: Post Gen Con Memes 2024

Iz ded.

Gen Con has come and gone, and while I only spent a single day up there, I can identify with these aspects of the post con aftermath.

I made sure to get new inserts for
my shoes so I was ready this time.
From TheSixParkers.

This is pre-Doctor Doom Robert
Downey Junior. From WhiteMetalGames.

Squidward or Henry David Thoreau?
Who knows? From Reddit.

I've learned to not discuss my geeky hobbies at work,
even if the post con letdown hits hard.
From TheYearofHalloween.

#Blaugust2024

Coffee for the Road

I prepped this ahead of time, so by the time you read this we'll be on the road up I-74 to Indianapolis and Gen Con. Unlike last year, we're not going to experience any rain, so parking outside by Lucas Oil Stadium* and walking to the Indianapolis Convention Center ought to be pleasant. That's relative, given the heat and humidity of summer in the Midwest, but a lot better than a downpour.

In case you're wondering, I'll be somewhere in the Exhibit Hall....

*Where the NFL's Indianapolis Colts play.

#Blaugust2024

For The Record...

People who play Retail WoW have been posting their Favorites in the loading screen, organizing that front screen based on what they want. Of course, Blizz has their own criteria as to how toons are selected for your initial Favorites listing, and I've not seen the decision criteria for it.

Being mildly curious as to what I'd find, I did login to Retail, skipped the cutscene, and found this:

Uh...

Well, whatever I was expecting, it certainly wasn't this.

I'm pretty sure three of these four toons were not the last four I'd logged into, and obviously none of them are my highest level toons either.* 

So... my belief is that if you don't have enough play time for Blizz to properly select four toons as Favorites, they just pull four toons out of a hat from those that were logged into over the past year or two.

The only other MMO that I've played that has this sort of grouping in the login screen was TERA,

The scenery may not have been impressive,
but the music was epic.

and for me it's pretty much a toss-up as to which is better. TERA has the better music and your toons striding forward like a badass, while Retail WoW has the more pleasant background and toons in, well, "down time".

*My highest level toon is the original Azshandra at L35, at the same location --Shrine of Seven Stars--  as she was when I last left her in the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

#Blaugust2024

How to Rest on Your Laurels

OG Cardwyn is finished, gear-wise, for Classic Era. That's not exactly a surprise to anyone who knows that this particular toon was there to see Kel'Thuzad die*, and she had enough DKP at the end of Vanilla Classic to splurge and get the full T3 set.**

Okay, so she didn't get the Wraith Blade, which was BiS if you weren't in line to get the Atiesh legendary staff, but that's not a big deal. I think our raid team had more Atiesh staves created (2) at the end of Vanilla Classic than Wraith Blade drops (1), and that's saying a lot about the quality of our raid drops.

The traditional World of Warcraft reason why someone would want to play a toon, to get gear and/or complete a raid, is not really there. And if I were the sort to stand around and show off my stuff, I'd not be hanging out in Darnassus, the least active Alliance city, like I traditionally do. 

But I do spend a decent amount of my time in Classic Era logged in to her.

***

OG Cardwyn, the Evil Twin, does have her uses. Okay, 90% of the time those uses involve her being used as a DPS mule...

The Good Twin could have handled this fight
too, but due to the punier damage and smaller
mana pool would it have been more of a challenge.

...but I don't mind. While it's nice to see enemies melt a lot faster than on the Good Twin, the main reason to bring OG Cardwyn to a fight is because her mana pool is large enough that I don't have to drink to recover mana nearly as much.

***

Honestly, I prefer to simply do things on the Good Twin simply because I like Frost Mages better than Fire Mages. I could change the Evil Twin to being a Frost Mage, but... Eh, I don't mind having two mages with two separate specializations. If I ever wanted to join an AQ40 or Naxxramas raid, the Evil Twin is available for use. And given that I figure the best geared I can get the Good Twin while still remaining as a Frost Mage is the gear out of AQ40***, I'm kind of fine with how things are as-is. 

Is there anything I might want, or want to do in Classic Era, Mage-wise? Trying for Atiesh, maybe?

Eh, no thanks. 

There are three four reasons for that lack of interest in the original caster legendary staff:

• To get in line for Atiesh, I would have to join a raid team actively raiding Naxxramas and likely raid twice a week at minimum to get in line for Atiesh. I really don't have the time I can presently dedicate to raiding at that level, hardcore or not, so it'd be silly to sign up and then have to constantly put myself on the bench.
  
  
• If I want to get Atiesh, I have to prove myself to any prospective raid team. Just because I have the gear doesn't mean that I'm "good enough" to get to the front of the line for Atiesh. After all, I was Fourth out of Six Mages, DPS-wise, and of the three Atiesh staves that our raid team eventually built our top Mage was actually the last of the three people to receive their Atiesh, that coming after the Dark Portal opened.**** If I wanted to justify receiving an Atiesh, I would have to do more than just show up and do my job; I'd have to get sweaty, and I'm not doing that.
  
  
• This is admittedly personal, but I think that Atiesh looks as ugly as hell; until I examined it more closely I thought it was a walking stick with a sulfur ball stuck on the end of it. 
  
  
  

  

  Kind of like this, but without James Burke.
  A screencap from Connections Episode 2,
  "Death in the Morning", at roughly 28:03.

  
  I now know that's it's a carving of a raven on top, but it still looks ugly to me. 
  
  
• I really just don't want it and everything it represents. I'm one of those people who zig when everybody zags, and I look at Atiesh and instead of looking at the staff as an achievement I think of all of the politics that have to be played to actually get one. For my money, I'd rather keep my hands clean and pass on all of that crap.*****

***

So, I've got a toon that doesn't really "need" anything. But I do login as her and just hang out; watching the chat channels, buffing baby Night Elf characters as they run by, and helping out my friends as-needed. And that's fine; I don't have to be doing anything when I login, and I've found that I derive a lot of joy from merely being present in the game. 

*Just how many times had he died canonically? Three? Four? I'm thinking three, unless he makes a reappearance in WoW after the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

**For reference, the full Tier 3 sets for Vanilla Classic are different than that in subsequent raid tiers in that the full set is nine pieces, including the ring that you can get as a drop. The so-called 'full set bonus' is for eight pieces; while OG Cardwyn does have all nine pieces, she isn't wearing the belt as the belt that came out of AQ40 is better for Fire Mages.

***For the most part, the three piece Bloodvine set are the best Chest, Legs, and Boots until a Mage reaches AQ40 and gains access to the (so-called) Tier 2.5 gear, the Enigma Set. Typically, that's also when a Mage will switch from Frost specialization to Fire due to the inherent bonuses with stacking several Fire Mages together. That being said, I know of some guild raid teams who let people bring their Frost Mages into AQ40 and Naxxramas. That latter one does puzzle me quite a bit, given that Frost is definitely at a disadvantage there in the same way that a Fire Mage has real damage problems in Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. But hey, those guilds are sticking to their "bring the class/spec you want" credo.

**** Yes, a Warlock and a Resto Druid were ahead of all of the Mages. Typically a person tagged to receive Atiesh is not merely the highest DPS or healer, but performs services to the guild above and beyond the average raider. In the case of the first two Atiesh staves, they went to a co-Guild Leader and the Guild Officer who ran all of the non-progression raids for the guild.

*****You are talking to someone who had an Onyxia Head in OG Card's bank that I'd completely forgotten about. I rediscovered it in Era while I was moving items around to free up some bank space, and when I mentioned the head to my Questing Buddy, she told me "I'm not surprised."

EtA: Corrected a few sentences.

#Blaugust2024