An interesting read

I haven't meant to neglect this blog for this long but things have been busy with the recent holidays and at work, so...well, I guess I did.

I was just starting to work on a post about my own personal gold challenge when I saw that Grumpy was talking about gold this expansion.  I'll still get to mine (unlike my other lost topics) because it is slightly different and specific to my situation, but I saw this article that I thought was worth sharing.

The secondary title of the article sets the stage What happens when the vast universes in massively multiplayer online games go offline?

From the perspective of the characters who inhabit a doomed MMO’s diegesis, it is truly the end of everything, their world, as the poet Philip Larkin put it, “[soon] to be lost in always, not to be here, not to be anywhere.” For players, the apocalypse is, of course, not real, but nevertheless imparts a real experience of what the apocalypse might be like, to see a world they have come to care about lose its ability to be.

I don't agree with the entire article but I found it worth my time and thought I would share.

It might be the straw, but I don't know

In and of itself, this news about Frost Death Knights shouldn't be enough to be the end of my investment in WoW

Why are the only Frost Artifacts that we’ve seen so far one-handed swords? Why don’t they have a two-handed counterpart? Quite simply, because Blizzard has confirmed that Warlords of Draenor will be the last expansion in which a two-handed sub-spec exists — in Legion, Frost will be a dual-wielding spec exclusively.

But, my honest reaction is sadness and a resignation that things might be over for me.  It's funny, my last post was all about coming up with storylines for the class halls and how it helped me get excited and interested in the next expansion. And this bit of information undermines it.

To be fair, it isn't this one thing in isolation.  There have been a lot of things of late.  But something about this just hits me and I am really left disappointed.  More than disappointed.

It's not like I even play my death knights that much and the frost one isn't commonly played.  But I have this one that I really like, her theme of Frost makes so much sense to me.  That is who she is.  A frozen warrior of death and destruction with a massive axe that lays waste to all in her path.  I don't care if her DPS is sub-standard to dual-wielding, I like her as she is.

In the article the author says:

I fully acknowledge that many players enjoy the playstyle afforded by two-handed Frost. I am also aware of the fact that two-handed Frost represents the closest thing to a “Lich King”-like playstyle that many players feel is crucial for the fantasy behind the class. After all, who can forget the Lich King chasing us in the Halls of Reflection, a massive ice storm swirling around him as Frostmourne glittered menacingly in his hand? Should this type of fantasy simply cease to exist in the interest of better balance?

For me, the answer is a loud and resounding "No".  And the fact that Blizzard is heading a different direction may be one of the signs that I am not going with it.

Where does the journey end?

In order to get one of the mounts and use the triple xp bonus to level up some characters [SPOUSE] and I have recently been playing with a recruit-a-friend account. (For a quick bit of background see here)

It was a lot of fun and well worth it for us. It just recently ended, so as my time was winding down I was assigning levels, selling gear, giving gold to the bank, sending off materials collected, and the like. But a recent post from someone (and I WISH I could remember who) got me to thinking about where these characters should log off for the last time.

While I don’t really RP in game, in my head the vast majority of my characters have backgrounds, personalities, history. Some have deep and meaningful ideas behind them while others are just themes or concepts. This is the case even with my temporary recruit-a-friend characters.

For me, the RPG part of these games is much more important than the MMO, even if I don’t actively RP much in game. I imbue these characters with a little bit of a story I make up so that they are more real and enjoyable to me. I can experience the developers’ world more if I have a little bit of my own mixed in.

A great example is City of Heroes. I loved City of Heroes. Any altoholics out there will know well the wonder that was the character creator in that game. And that you could actually type up little stories to have visible in game too. Loved it.

I was on-line, playing with the various other die-hards, when the game ended. My main character was in the middle of fighting off the Rikti invasion when the disconnect message came down. It was sad to have that game end overall, and I’ll get into that another time. But whatever the case, he ended his time fighting as a superhero. Which I think I didn't appreciate the symbolism at the time as I do now.

So for this recruit-a-friend account, I tried to find the place for the character that felt like the best fit to their “life”. And now I’m thinking about my mains (yes, more than one, they are all equal although some are more equal than others). To be fair, I was thinking about it when whoever it was proposed this idea, but just having gone through it I’m thinking about it more.

I know my one mage will end his time in Dalaran. It’s just the perfect magical city.

Even Moonglade is too removed from the wild for most of my druids. They may need to be scattered about in the wild places of the world.

I’m unsure if the pandarans will return to Pandaria, or if they will embrace the wandering that took them away from there in the first place.

Most of my dwarves want to be close to kith and kin, to tell stories and share an ale around the fires of home, so Ironforge will probably be their destination.

I’ve got a human rogue who will be a great pirate. I’m not sure if she should join a particular crew or just plan to commandeer her own ship and start one.

My gnomes want to retake Gnomeregan.

The death knights are a mixed bag. The ones more filled with battle lust will likely return to Acherus and look for more campaigns. At least two will outright reject the Ebon Hold to find a quiet, lonely place to mourn the life that was taken from them and contemplate the path they were forced down.

I think my one blood elf paladin is going to find the largest mirror he can find and put Narcissus to shame.

Most of my other blood elves will likely return to the chaos and warm rays of Silvermoon City.

No hunter, except for the goblin (see below), will end their days in a city. The harder part for the hunters is not going to be which location, but which companion. Some it will be easy, but for at least one, that’s going to be tough.

The Draenei are unclear at this point. The Exodar has always felt kind of sad. Some will follow where the light leads, but the shaman needs to follow the elementals. But where?

A few of my goblins will take over the Trade Prince’s palace.

Neither of my trolls has a clear answer right now. Battle most likely for the one. Taverns looking for contracts and easy targets for the other. Dirty deeds done…well, prices are negotiable.

Most Tauren will go to Thunder Bluff or some vast plains away from war. Although I have a feeling that one will enjoy the brawler’s guild quite a bit. At least one of us will.

My snarky rogue will never keep herself out of trouble. The warlock that has questionable loyalties might need to be watched.

One night elf rogue is going to terrorize the Horde in Ashenvale until she retakes it single-handedly.

The human priestess will take comfort in the Cathedral of Light. She might retire from adventure and minister from there. She never shied from her duty and charge, even though she was five-times a grandmother when she first went to Northshire Valley. But truth be told, glory and battle were never for her and quiet, slow days were all she wanted for her twilight years.

A few others will likely follow where my spouse’s character might go, if they are interested in choosing a place. If not, I’ll figure that out as it comes.

And what of you? Have you thought where your character might start new travels without you?