Mark Your Calendars

Warlords of Draenor will drop on November 13th, 2014.

Here's the trailer:

All done?  Good.

Given the focus of the cinematic, I think it's pretty plain we're back to a Horde-centric story.  It also feels like, well, a bit like this:

That doesn't mean that all that's old is new again and we're back to the original Warcraft stuff, but it is definitely a throwback in design.

But I just can't get excited for it.

No demons here, move along. Nothing that says "the Alliance will play an integral part of this expac," either.

Welcome to Draenor 2.

Play it again, Sam...

There's a Change.org petition for Blizzard to immortalize Robin Williams in WoW.

I would like that, but within the past hour it was announced that Lauren Bacall has passed away today as well.  If Blizzard does immortalize Robin Williams at the World's End Tavern, I would also like them to have Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart at a table nearby, watching the show.




EtA: Yes, I know that my title is a) a misattributed quote, and b) from Ilsa Lund in Casblanca, played by Ingrid Bergman. However, it didn't feel right referencing a bar such as World's End Tavern without using that quote. I suppose I could have used "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?", but that scene isn't from a bar.

RIP, Robin Williams

Robin passed away today, the victim of an apparent suicide.  While he was most well known for his comedy and acting, he was also an avid gamer. He played Warcraft 3, D&D, sand table tin soldiers, and a variety of video games.

He battled his demons, depression and drug addiction, until the very end.

Robin, you will be missed.

"I attack the darkness!!"

In honor of the release of the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I figured I'd post an oldie but goodie from the Dead Alewives, their classic Dungeons and Dragons sketch.*

And, well, whaddya know.  Gen Con is next week. I'm looking forward to checking out the games, watching the crowd, and seeing the previews with the family.  Among what I'm hoping to see are a preview of Fantasy Flight Games' new Star Wars miniatures game, Armada. I've always wanted to yell "IT'S A TRAP!" during a game, and now it looks like I'll get the chance.

THIS.  This looks cool. From fantasyflightgames.com.

*I have to confess when I first heard it, I cringed because I lived through the Satanic Panic back in the 80s, but then the transition to the gaming happened, and I lost it. If you replace Mountain Dew with Milwaukee's Best Light, then you have my gaming group from back in college...

Video Game Armor Logic

From cheezburger.com

Um.... Yep.

Overheard on a Thursday

In The Foundry flashpoint (SWTOR):

Meanwhile, back on the planet's surface...

I'd been taking a break from gaming for several days, figuring that the time away from the computer would do me some good. No big surprise, really, since every time I go through my blogroll I'm reminded that I kind of need to come up with a new theme for the title graphic among other things.

But a week away is long enough, and I logged into SWTOR for the first time in a while.

I'd been trying to keep from leveling too far with some of my toons that are at the end of Chapter One so I could play with my kids, so I figured that I should either try something new or work on the Chiss Bounty Hunter I've got.*  The Bounty Hunter isn't a bad option at all, and I do like where the story has been going in Chapter 2 (I'm up to Hoth now), but there was one glaring class omission from my list that I decided I should rectify:

The Imperial Agent.

My son had started an Agent but gave it up because the Empire asked him to do things he felt uncomfortable doing.  I can respect that, but after having played a few Imperial toons --and one to max level-- I figured I could handle the Agent's story.

I spent more time than I usually do creating a character, mainly because I was trying to get a look that would allow the toon to seamlessly integrate into various Hutt and Republic areas. I also figured that an Empire that emphasized pureblood Sith and Human races over others would likely send a human to perform their espionage activities. Finally, I decided on a female toon, because I had 4 male and 3 female toons on this server, so things ought to balance out.

In the end, I realized afterward that I created a Black Widow lookalike**, but with a bit more 80s style hair.

The first several quests were designed to ingratiate me to the local Hutt in control of this portion of Hutta, but were nothing special.  I could see certain conflicts lining up, and I had a basic feel of the progression this story would take.  Still, I had this feeling in the back of my head that since this was Bioware, things were about to turn sour fairly soon.

And I was not disappointed.

I reached that part of the questline where a Sith intervention (naturally) led to... Complications. I was then asked to turn around and kill the person I'd spent some time aligning myself with.

While it was not unexpected --the one thing I've learned on the Imp side is that the Sith can wreck just about anything-- I still blurted out "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

I then realized what it was that caused my son to quit his Agent.

And, to be honest, I've not touched my own Agent since receiving that quest.

Maybe curiosity will eventually get the best of me and I'll go to complete the quest, but I simply can't go and kill somebody like that. It's not like anybody in the Hutt's palace is free from some sort of blood on their hands, but killing a person not because of something they did but because of something the Sith did to their family and you don't want them to find out, that's a different matter entirely.

I guess that means I'm too much of a good guy to play an Agent.  So much for that edgy bad-boy image I've been cultivating.

*Apparently he has a "melty look", according to Mako.

**Scarlett Johansson version.