…The Aion Drive
My time in Aion may be coming to an end, at least for now, and this saddens me. In a nutshell, I cannot afford it right now. I don’t have the time, or more importantly, the money, to really sit back and enjoy it.
Aion is a very enjoyable game, it really is – and if I do end up taking a break from it for a bit, I’m also going to plan on returning as soon as I can. The game mechanics work, the characters are fun to plan, and there seems to be an engaging storyline. I’m really looking forward to getting to max. level (50) to see what the Aion end-game is like.
However, I do have some rather big criticisms about Aion as well.
General Attitude…
First, I’ve really gotten tired of the general attitude of most of the Aion base. If you mention World of Warcraft in any of the chat channels, you get a screenfull of people ranting about how horrible WoW is, and how they’ll never play it again, and how Blizzard ruined (fill-in-your-favorite-class here). They’ll mock anyone that is still playing, mock anyone that doesn’t see how CLEARLY superior Aion is to Warcraft and then it’ll calm down for a bit.
Just to start again the next time someone mentions WoW.
As someone that enjoys both Aion and World of Warcraft, that doesn’t really make me feel wanted. The only exception I’ve seen to this behavior has been from the people that I’m in a Legion with on Israphel. They understand that I still play WoW, and respect that, and are willing to give Warcraft its due – something I’m very, very thankful for.
Back to the larger Aion community, though – look, Aion does things *differently* than Warcraft. But it doesn’t do everything *better* than Warcraft. The two actually are pretty equivalent. Aion has the advantage of only being a month old, so things are still novel – but the spell rotation I used in Aion for my Sorcerer is remarkably similiar to the spell rotation I used in WoW on my mage.
Further, Mages in Aion are just as squishy as Mages in Wow; and we still need a healer and a tank; and we’re still little aggro monkeys.
So, seriously, SHUT THE HELL UP about how Aion is “SOOOO MUCH better than World of Warcrap”. It isn’t.
Are there things that Aion does differently, that are cool? Oh, heck yeah.
Are there things that Aion does better? Sure.
But there are also things that WoW does better – and what frustrates me is that for the most part, the Aion player community chooses not to see that right now – and then proceed to mock anyone that tries to claim that it does.
Further, there is the implication by the Aion community that the Aion player base is ‘more mature’ than the player base in Warcraft. Oh, bullshit.
I’ve seen just as much immaturity and crap in the Aion public chat channels as I ever have in the Warcraft public chat channels. And let’s not get started on the character names – some of the ones I’ve seen in Aion have been downright offensive – stuff that would have drawn an immediate ‘Name Change’ if they had tried it in WoW.
Instancing and Group Play
My highest character in Aion is at level 22, and I’ve never seen the inside of an Instance. I understand that the first instance is coming up soon – but it almost seems like the role of Instances in the game is greatly reduced from what I’m used to in Warcraft. This may not be a bad thing, but it is something that I’m not used to, and I’m left wondering if I’m missing out on something.
Worse, group play is nearly non-existent. I don’t know a lot of people in Aion, and the folks that I do know are either on at different times, or are already working on other stuff when I’m finally able to log in after the Warcraft raid – so I’ve tried to work with the larger Aion community.
It took me a LONG time to get into a decent group for the Krall quests, and when I finally did, I only got about half of the quests done. I still haven’t been able to get a group together to go kill the Pirate Captain. After a while, I just get frustrating at asking, and end up just grinding in a zone for a while. Hardly a good use for my already limited playing time – but it is effective.
It is apparent that Aion is designed to be played in a Group – but so far, to me at least, it has seemed much more like a single-player game.
Eltnen
Eltnen. This place is so horrible that it gets it’s own topic. The zone just drains my enthusiasm – it is so confusing, and the quests just seem to meander instead of driving you from story point ‘A’ to story point ‘B. A good deal of the quests in Eltnen seem to be gathering quests – so I need to go back to the previous zone and level my gathering back up again. On top of that, there are no other ‘channels’ in Eltnen, so my latency is higher there, and my FPS much lower than in other areas. It really has sapped my desire to push through, and has lead to my stalling out for now.
Heck, over the last week, I’ll log in – get into Eltnen, and then just sit there for about 10 minutes before saying, ‘Oh, forget this..’ and log out.
NC Soft, please take another look at Eltnen and fix the damn place? Please?
Private Stores and Gold Spammers
Yes, I’ve lumped those two together.
I really hate running into a major city and being met with about 50 players sitting there with ‘GET YOUR GREEN STAVES HERE! LOWEST PRICE!’ and ‘MANASTONES – LOWER THAN BROKER’ and the like floating over their heads. It drops my FPS down to about 1, and all that most other players do is ignore them.
The few times I’ve tried to use one, it either hasn’t worked – or the price has been SO high that it was pointless. Further, if I have something to sell the last thing I’m going to want to do is just spend my in-game time sitting there waiting for some sucker to walk by. I’ll just throw it up on the auction house and not worry about it.
The Gold Spamming was HORRIBLE for the first two or three weeks of the game. To NC Soft’s credit, they’ve really cleaned most of that up – however the one loophole the Gold Spammers still have are the Private Stores – so as you’re running through the cloud of store ’signs’, you’ll see that half of them are blatant ads for Gold Sellers.
I have to say, I’ll be extremely happy to read in a patch note that the Private Stores were being shut down.
In The End…
Despite these criticisms, I still really like Aion – I just don’t like it better than WoW, and I guess that is the bottom line. I have great friends in Aion, and if I do take a break from it for a while, I’ll have to keep in touch via e-mail, blog and/or phone. And keeping in touch with them would be the only reason right now for keeping the Aion subscription going.
…uphill, in knee-deep snow, both ways!
We all like to make fun of the older generation. Everyone has, at some point, done so – and one of the key things that really is said, despite becoming a cliche’ is the ‘Things were tougher back in my day, and it made us better people!’ rant.
I heard this from my Grandparents. “Why, back after the Great Depression we didn’t even have two DIMES to rub together. We made do with what we had, and we liked it! And that made us tough and resourceful! Look at how lazy you guys are today!”
I heard this story from my Parents. I’ve heard it from my Aunt’s and Uncle’s. I’ve even told that type of story to my kids. It is almost a universal truth: Whatever our experience is, younger generation has it easier in some way – and therefore we feel they’ll miss out on some important life-lesson.
The same thing is happening now in ‘World of Warcraft’. Blizzard has announced a number of core mechanic changes in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion. They’re doing away with spellpower, attack power, armor penetration and the like. They’re clarifying and/or removing stats from items and making it easier for players to change stats on loot that does drop. In short, they’re making it far easier for the casual player to successfully gear up their characters.
Naturally, this has a good number of the ‘older generation’ of Warcraft players fairly screaming in protest, and I can’t help but laugh at them. Well, laugh, then hang my head in frustration.
Fact is, right now being a successful raiding is really a numbers game. You have to surf Elitist Jerks and do a fair amount of number crunching to min-max your gear, gems, enchants and talents to come up with the configuration du jour that will win the day for you. beyond that ability to farm for the data, there is very little in there about personal skill or ability. If you have access to the right research – you can build a base character able to take over the world. Sure, you may still stand in every fire and run blindly into walls – but as long as you’ve tweaked your hit rating to this, and your spellpower to that, and your haste to this, you’ll be fine, really.
Blizzard has a vested interest in making their game as accessable to as many players as possible. Part of that means reducing that amount of theory-crafting – and I think that’ll be a good thing. One argument that I’ve heard is that some noob will be able to easily farm up a very good raid set without having the ability to actually raid. You know, that’s probably correct – but that isn’t going to work in their favor.
In an environment where everyone has equivalent gear, what will make people stand out is their skill. That’s it. So lazy players won’t be able to phone it in anymore. It’ll be noticed if you run into walls and keep standing in the fires – because your gear and being able to min-max won’t save your ass. It will, I believe, make bad-raiders stick out more than ever before.
Of course, the people complaining about these changes are not lazy people. They are already good players that have put in a lot of time and effort to get it right, which leads to what I believe is their true frustration: We had to do the all that goddamn work, and farm thousands in gold to get specific gems and enchants, and run hundreds of heroics and raids just to get one specific BiS piece, so why shouldn’t they?!
Sadly, I don’t have a good answer to that one. It is horribly unfair – but that is the nature of the beast.
Things change, and when we play – we accept that what will take us two months to farm for one day (like, say, Sons of Hodir rep) might by virtually given away later. It has always happened in this game, and that’s part of the risk we take by playing and trying to live at the cutting edge. While it is fair to complain about it, I don’t think it is fair to walk away just because Blizz is doing it again.
I mean, come on – why give up another chance to say ‘Man, when I first hit 80 things were a lot harder…’
Glith’s Top Five, Electronica Edition…
I recently discoverd the ‘Genius Bar’ in iTunes. I have to say, this is the coolest feature that I’ve seen in this program. I won’t bore you with how it works, but I will rave about how it has reintroduced me to parts of my music library that I had forgotten about.
In that light, here is this weeks ‘Top Five’ songs. This time, all of them are coming from my Electronica / Trip Hop collection. I could strongly recommend any of these tracks for some good, mellow, almost back ground music. These songs don’t demand your attention, instead they provide a nice matte painting against which you can set your evening.
“…When I’m with youThere’s no reason,
There’s no sense,
I’m not supposed to feel…
I forget who I am -
I forget…”
Looking at their album covers, you wouldn’t expect Goldfrapp to be so heavily anchored in mood electronica. Utopia is off their first album, released in 2000, “Felt Mountain”. The band consists of Alison Goldfrapp on vocals, and Will Gregory on synthesizer/keyboards. Before starting her own band, Alison lent her voices to a number of other trip-hop artists including Orbital and Tricky.
Other songs I’d recommend: Lovely Head, Human, Strict Machine
“…I think that I love you.I think that I do…
So go on,
Mister..
Make Miss Me,
Mrs. You.”
I love just about everything I’ve heard from Zero 7, especially the tracks from their album “Simple Things”. I settled on this selection mainly because of the line that I quoted. The singer delivers it with such quiet longing, and joy, and yet there is a tinge of resignation in her voice as well. I wonder how many takes they needed to get it just right.
Other songs I’d recommend: Destiny, Somersault, Give It Away
“…left my soul there,down by the sea.
Lost control,
Living Free…”
Once I started to do the Suite, my weekly webcast, I realized that I’d need a pretty hefty library and so I struck out to find some stuff that hadn’t really gotten a lot of mainstream airplay. Morcheeba kinda leapt to the top. They haven’t release a lot of albums, and seemed to be highly regarded in the electronica community. Listening, I found out why. The Sea, paints such a vivid picture… it brings you right to the shore, so to speak. A trick they also mastered with their lounge classic Sao Paulo.
Other songs I’d recommend: Sao Paulo, The Music That We Hear, Moog Island
“…Nobody loves me, it’s true.Not like you do…”
I couldn’t do a trip-hop/electronica list and leave off Portishead. Sour Times is pretty much the definition of Trip Hop in the 90’s. They set the bar, and all other acts were compared to them for a long time.
Other songs I’d recommend: Glory Box, Wandering Star, Biscuit
5 – Sneaker Pimps – 6 Underground
“…Talk me down;Safe and Sound,
too strung up to sleep…”
First the song. Like Sour Times, this track is a classic. Sadly, the vocalist left the band after this album (“Becoming X”) and the band struggled on with a male vocalist. Yes, the music and mood is still there, but it is missing the magic that the vocalist brought. By an large, Sneaker Pimps is much more an electroic dance band – but this is their stand-out track.
Now for the weird part. Back in the mid-late 80’s, I had a series of very realistic ‘post-apocolyptic’ dreams. Dreams that I couldn’t tell for a long time if I were dreaming, or if I were awake. They were all set in the future, and were internally consistant – that is, we didn’t suddenly ‘jump’ from one thing to another, or have a gun turn into a phone or some such. I can also remember almost all of them vividly today, some 20 years later. Anyway, in one of those dreams, we were in the sub-basement of large shopping center that had not yet been completed. There were 17 of us, and we were trying to find a way out of that structure quickly. There were busses we could get to at the other end, so we were trying to get everyone up and moving through the sub-basement to get to them before we were seen.
I clearly remember walking in the room where everyone was waiting and hearing 6 Underground on a radio/boom box as we were getting everyone up.
You can imagine my shock, then, when years later I turn on the radio one day and hear the same song in real life. I was freaked out for the rest of the day. Seriously.
Other songs I’d recommend: Becoming X, Roll On, Tesko Suicide
When to say When…
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein
We paid ten man Trial of the Champion (or is it Crusader?) a visit last Thursday. We weren’t supposed to go there… we were supposed to continue our domination of twenty-five man Uldaur. However, we ended up being short a number of DPS and healers, so Trial of the Crusader (Champion, whatever) it was.
We didn’t get far. We didn’t get far at all. I mean, we ran in – everyone got buffed – and then we insta-wiped. Repeatedly. For the next two hours.
I don’t mine wiping; I really don’t. That is part of progression raiding and as long as people are learning and we’re getting a little better each attempt I’m good with it. Nothing frustrates me more than raiders who make a half-hearted attempt or two at, say, Thorim then decide that they’d really rather do Ignis instead. Or Hogger. Or maybe just faming some sheep in Elwynn. Sorry, but suck it up – we’re here to learn.
So what do you do, then, when the learning just isn’t happening? In our case, we had three healers – myself included – and we just weren’t getting the job done. We should have been able to, but the furthest we got was into phase-two of the Northrend Beasts. The healing crew consisted of two priests (both Holy spec’d) and myself (Tree Druid).
We aren’t bad healers, but the force just wasn’t with us that night. One priest was fighting through latency/disconnect issues. The other was, frankly, still undergeared/skilled for TotC. As a result, we just hit a wall. Once that happens, how long do you give it? Personally, I’d give it about an hour – if we aren’t getting anyplace after an hour, then it is time to either call it, or make some composition changes.
It can be very difficult to tell if you’ve hit a wall, or are just struggling through strategy. I remember raid-leading Kara back in the day, and running into the Shade and then spending hours there trying to put him down – some nights you could feel that we were making a little-bit of headway into the fight, and other nights you knew after the first attempt that the mojo just wasn’t with us.
For me, it isn’t just how far we’ve gotten the boss down – it is how smoothly we’re starting to get the fight. With the Shade of Aran, it isn’t really anything to get him to 40%. But you need to watch – are the tanks picking up the elementals? Are the warlocks banishing? Are people getting killed by Blizzards or Arcane Missiles? Are the frostbolts getting kicked? All those elements have to come together, otherwise you’ll end up lying there dead screaming in agreement with the Shade when he goes on about wanting the nightmare to be over.
It’s that careful choregraphy that has to happen… and it won’t happen immediately – but if you don’t see it happening at all, then it is time to start watching for that wall.
Back in Trials of the Champion (Crusader) – our raid lead gave it two hours before he called it. I really appreciate his patience and support in trying to figure it out, but it just wasn’t going to happen that night. We healers just weren’t finding the choregraphy for the night – and it was costing the other seven members of the raid dearly.
The next question, perhaps the more important question, is ‘do you know why you failed’? Well, yes. I think in this case I do.
And if what I learned can prevent a wipe-fest in the future, then maybe the evening was worthwhile after all.
Blue Elf is About to Die…
This has not been a good week. Not by any definition. Not in real-life. Not in Warcraft. Not anywhere.
It has been the kind of week that makes me want to collapse into a sobbing heap in the middle of the floor. In fact, I think I may have ended up there at one point. I’m really not sure. If not yet, then there is still the weekend.
I’ll spare you most of the messy details, and just share a couple of thoughts here…
On Moving the Guild Raid Times
There are, once again, people suggesting that we move our window thirty-minutes earlier. I truly appreciate their reasoning, and understand that it may help make things easier for them. Sadly, moving our windown thirty-minutes early may place it out of reach for me on a regular basis.
And while my position is just as valid as theirs, I don’t want to stand in the way of something that would help the guild overall, even if it means that I’ll have to moderate my raid-participation some.
On Lazy People
Back when Lich King first came out, and the good guild Imposs took a break from Raiding, there was a bit of drama about just when we should start back up again. Basically it boiled down to how quickly it would take folks to gear up through heroics, and the general opinion was that it could be done rather quickly if you ran lots of heroics.
Which people did, for the most part. Except that I couldn’t – by the time I got on, all the runs were up and going so I ended up missing out. Night after night. And I fell behind and while everyone else went on about just how they had more Emblems than they could spend, I would pop open my Currency window and gaze at my lonely two emblems and hope that someday there would be more.
It is starting to feel like we are back at that point again. By the time I get on in the evening, we’re either raiding or all the heroics have started up. I’m hearing from Drak and Jet and others about getting pieces of T9 and having more Conquest Emblems than they know what to do with – and I haven’t gotten enough triumph to get anything yet. This time, I’m dealing with it better – and I know that I’ll eventually get there at my own pace.
Still, it is frustrating to hear folks in raid say that they don’t want to do boss ‘X’ because it’d ‘reward the lazy people’ who hadn’t bothered to farm for that gear through heroic emblems.
I love, love, love WoW. I really do – but I love these people here in my life more. That doesn’t make me lazy, and I shouldn’t feel that I’m considered ‘lazy’ for not getting on as soon as I get home and jumping in as many heroics as I could if I were single, or jobless, or childless, or had my better-half waiting for me in-game already.
Glith’s Top Five…
Back in my LiveJournal days, I would occasionally break-out a list of my top five songs of the moment. I’ve always found it a fun exercise, and it provides a way for me to share something that I like with people, and maybe introduce them to some good music.
I originally wanted to do this as a Saturday feature, but life conspired against me this weekend. Maybe next time I’ll hit my self-imposed deadline. Now, without further ado…
1 - Cage the Elephant – Back Against the Wall
“…You’ve got me where you want me again, and I can’t turn away.I’m hangin’ by a thread and I’m feeling like a fool.
I’m stuck here in-between the shadows of my yesterday,
I want to get away… I need to get away… Now, you know, you’ve got my back against the wall…”
From their 2008 self-titled debut album, this has quickly become my favorite song of the moment. While it is being playing on alternative stations, it is really just a simple bluesy rock song… the riffs are simple, but they wore. Cage the Elephant seems to focus on their lyrics as well as their music, and both this song, and ‘Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked’ are just as much about the words and the story. That isn’t something you see much of these days, even on the alternative scene.
If you are a classic rock fan, give it a listen.
2 - The Thermals – Now We Can See
‘…Now we can see, The warnings and the signs, Read in-between the lines, like writing on the wall… Now we can see, What do we need? We should need nothing… nothing at all.’While also very ‘lyric-intensive’, this one doesn’t make as much sense as our previous song. Oh, don’t get me wrong – the song rocks and the chorus is fun to sing along with and it makes me want to dance – but I just don’t get the story that they’re trying to tell. But then, I guess that you don’t always have to.
‘Now We Can See’ is from the title track for their new album. If you like the Foo Fighters, or Green Day then you’ll probably like it. Speaking of the Foo Fighters…
3 - The Foo Fighters – Darling Nikki
‘…She said sign your name on the dotted line, the lights went out – Nikki started to grind…’Yes. This is that ‘Darling Nikki’ – oringally on Prince’s “Purple Rain” release. The Foo Fighters originally recorded it in 2003. Prince objected to the Foo Fighters covering his song, and refused to allow them to release it as a single, so it was released in 2004 as the B-Side to their single ‘Have It All’
Somehow, their version found traction, and made it to #15 on the Modern Rock charts for that year, and still gets airplay today. Personally, I just love their take on the song – and how it keeps the funk that Prince intended for it, while bringing hard-rock edge that really works. I’d recommend it, but other than the live clip that I’ve linked, you can’t really find it easily online anywhere.
4 - Muse – Uprising
‘…Rise up and take the power back. Its time the fat cats had a heart attack. You know their time’s coming to an end, We have to unify and watch our flag ascend…’Muse is back. Their new album, “The Resistance” was released on September 14th, and ‘Uprising’ is the both the first single, and the first track on the album. “The Resistance” is reinforcing Muse’s place as this generations ‘Queen’ – their music, while centered around hard-driving rock and earth-shattering drums, finds ways to be orchestral and spills across the ‘pop’, ‘rock’, ‘art’ and ‘alternative’ spectrums.
5 - Steriogram – Walkie Talkie Man
‘…Well you’re walkin and a talkinAnd a freakin and a yellin
And a bossin and a speakin
And a lookin and a pointin…’
This song has been around for a while, and was featured in an iPod commercial and like a billion movies.
Still – it is a hellafun song to listen to, and if it doesn’t get you moving, I’d be worried about you. Had to include it because right now, it brings a smile to my face when I hear it.
A few songs that almost made the cut…
6 – Incubus – Let’s Go Crazy
Yes, another prince cover. Incubus does Let’s Go Crazy justice.
7 – Little Boots – New in Town
This would have been in my Top 5 a week or two ago. Fun little dance/pop song.
8 – Muse – Hysteria
Just picked this up for RockBand. The bass-line destroys entire planets . Not kidding.
9 – Placebo – For What It’s Worth
This song had to grown on me some, but now that it has, I can’t get it out of my head. Killer horn section in the last half.
10 – Weezer – I Want You To
New Weezer song. I’m sure it’ll be on the next few ‘Top Five’ lists. Weezer rocks – this song continues their winning streak.
Gimme Some Wings!
Aion is out, and I’ve been playing it in the Beta. Just to get it out of the way: Yes, I like it; and Yes, I’m going to be playing it.
What’s Cool…
NC Soft really gets it right, from what I’ve seen so far. There is enough lore to back up both the PvE quests, and the PvP encounters. There is a feeling of ‘growth’ as you level your character. At least, it is there for the first character you level. Once I hit level 10 with Amerya, I actually was excited and had chills watching the mostly-interactive cut scene sequence. That sequence… well, it would be like watching the cut scene sequence with Arthas in Dragonblight, only you’d be able to move your character and you would be down fighting next to Bolvar.
Amerya in Aion
The game is really, really pretty. The character models are very well down, and have a good deal more animation to them than the characters in warcraft do – especially the faces. They smile, frown, wince, and more as you trigger those emotes. Last night, I was flying and had just landed and started to run down a hill. I stopped for a moment, and as the character stood there she straighted her armor and dusted herself off from landing. Shieke, while running around, noted that they seem to even wink at other characters from time to time.
It is the little touches like that, that seem to make the game fun to run around in.
Finally, they’ve implemented an interesting new mechanic to handle overcrowding. Each server has 10 ‘channels’. The channel is like a phase, or an instance. You can only see / interact / group with people in your channel. If one channel is too crowded, you can just move to a different channel and see how things are there. Interestingly, the local weather can be different from channel to channel – I’ve seen it clear and sunny in channel 1, but rainy in channel 7. (And, speaking of rain, if you just stand in it, the character will look up, sigh, and then conjure a giant leaf to hold as an umbrella… )
What’s Not So Cool…
Death. When you die in Warcraft, your gear takes a hit and eventually you need to replace it or repair it. When you die in Aion, you soul takes the hit, and you lose a bit of experience. Now, unlike Final Fantasy XI, it isn’t nescararily permanent. You can purchase ’soul healing’ that will restore your XP – but it can be costly – at level 10 it seems to run about 850 kinah (gold) per death. Don’t let that number throw you, you sell gray drops to vendors for about 120 kinah each, so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to earn it back.
Time. The world runs on a different timeframe from IRL – I’ve not actually measured it, but it seems like one day per hour. It makes referring to anything using in-game time meaningless – which can be difficult. Also, I think it is kind of broken because I’ve seen it turn night for about 5 minutes, then have it be mid-day again.
PvP. The end-game appears to be built around PvPvE. You’ll be in the same zone as the opposing faction, fighting with them for control of fortresses and to complete quests. From what some of read, you may be able to ambush opposing faction raids in instances. While I don’t mind PvP, I’m not good at it, so I’m concerned about how much of a PvP game Aion will be in the end. I know that PvP was originally supposed to be a bigger part of Warcraft as well, so maybe this is something that will get nerfed or changed as the game evolves.
The Guild…
One thing that has me concerned is our guild. Many of my friends in Imposs are also playing Aion. A few of us officer-types are playing. I’m concerned about the impact that may have on Imposs. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m probably just borrowing trouble here, but it is something that I want to keep in mind – I’m sure that (at this point) all of us are planning to remain in Warcraft and to remain committed to both the guild, and to our raiding goals… but having another time sink of leveling and raiding around to compete for our attention could be a problem. And even if we can handle playing both without issues, what about the Imposs members that may get frustrated that so many tanks and healers are now out-of-game for extended periods outside of raids? Will there be push back from non-Aion players about that, eventually?
I don’t know… I’m happy that I’m not alone in Aion, though. And I’d like to see more folks from Imposs join us there, they’re my friends and I want to share this experience with them. Of course, having more of the guild in both places could make for interesting raid scheduling in the future – but that’d be a challenge I’d be happy to face.
…Missing in Action
Yes, it has been a while since I’ve posted. My apologies. Truth is, I had gotten in a habit of updating this blog during quiet times at work, and after a meeting with my supervisor the other week, I had to change that.
So, now I’m trying to find time to blog from home.
Not that I want to be one to rant, but… this limitation at work bothers me. I get my work done. I walk around the office and see the desktop of other data center employees, and they are replete with TweetDeck, Google Talk, FaceBook, etc, etc, et al.
However, my supervisor holds herself (and there for me) up to a higher level, and was not happy that my name ended up on an Internet Usage Audit Report for our immediate team. So, while the rest of the data center hangs out on Forums, and MSNBC, and etc, etc – I’ll be a good soldier and just modify my behavior. *nods*
Otherwise, life in Warcraft goes well. Healing is fun; I just hope that I’m doing a good job at it. That’s my primary concern now – sometimes, while I feel like I’m doing it well – the group will suddenly wipe and I’m left wondering why. On an heroic run the other day, another player had to swap out to a healer so we could get through an encounter – and that shook my confidence quite a bit. To the point, in fact, that I went out and installed HealBot just to make sure I was on top of it.
At any rate, I’ll get back to sharing more here. You’ve been warned. 
An Atlas…
One of my favorite books right now is the ‘Atlas of Middle Earth’. I enjoy taking a good, hard look at the fantasy world that Tolkien created. It helps me understand the lore a bit better, and helps visualize the settings.
As a Fantasy World, Azeroth is as complex and grounded at this point as Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. However, no one has sat down to try to do a realistic atlas yet. I’d like to try.
I’m not a geologist – so I’ll leave actual discussion about WoW!Geology to Oriniwen… but I’d like to at least look at many of the other aspects of that Fictional World, and how those impact the game that we all like to play and the lore behind the game.
In my initial research, I’ve found quite a few people around the net going on about how Azeroth is either flat, or just 40 miles in diameter (or both). I’ll start off by saying that it is neither.
The ‘flat’ and ‘40 miles’ arguments come from experiences players have in-game. For example:
“So what I did was run from the east end of Thousand Needles to the west coast of Feralas, because you can do so in pretty much a straight line. I timed it, and crossing the width of the continent of Kalimdor running took me 18 minutes and 35 seconds. That makes the distance 3.7 miles. That means the continent of Kalimdor is 41 square miles (just over 100 square kilometers) big, and the world of Azeroth pre-Burning Crusade is about 80 square miles or 200 square kilometers.”
From Tobold’s MMORPG Blog: How big is Azeroth
I really think that if Kalimdor was just about 5 miles in width, that the Night Elves would have had a HUGE problem remaining completely isolated from the Eastern Kingdoms, just as one example. For another: If you look up, say, Astranaar, on WoWWiki you’ll see that it has a population of 4,000. Yet in game you see, what, a small island with a Flight Point, an Inn and three other buildings with maybe a dozen NPCs?
It is clear, then, that the lore!Azeroth is much bigger than what is represented in-game as the wow!Azeroth. This makes sense, as having to deal with a minor city like Astranaar as a bustling town with 4,000 NPCs wandering about would be unwieldly in a MMORPG. Likewise, we have to be able to move from point A to point B easily – how fun would WoW be if we got online and then had to spend a full day riding from Darkshore to Astranaar?
At any rate, I’ll be focusing more on lore!Azeroth, as it provides a foundation for the myths and the Role Playing supported by wow!Azeroth.
I still think we can learn a lot about the world in-game; from how the lay of the land looks, to the vegatation, to weather patterns, and I’ll be referencing it a lot.
So, before I sign off, how big is Azeroth?
My first Wide-Assed-Guess is that Azeroth is roughly between the size of Mars and the size of Earth. I’ll have to sit down and do some work on that yet, but there are some interesting measurements at the BlizzPlanet forums that may be a good place to start.
Perhaps it’d be close to Pern in size… I’ll have to break out the Atlas of Pern tonight and check it out.
…Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
To say that life has been happy, stressful, busy, and frustrating lately would be an understatement. There have been times that I’ve felt like some kind of juggling tight-rope walker. Come Monday, things should slow down and relax quite a bit. Until then… *shudders*
Through all this insanity, I’ve attempted to blog. Obviously, I haven’t been successful. I’ve had things that I’ve wanted to say, but no real way to say them. My ‘Drafts’ folder right now is littered with partial posts about Life, Love, Money and Warcraft. While I don’t think I could keep one post together in any coherent manner, instead I’ll just try to throw all the major points up against the wall – Jackson Pollack-style.
On Raiding, Mains, Alts and Specs
I love Raiding. I really, really do and I’m glad that not only am I back into it, but I have two toons that I can raid with. My challenge is deciding which should be my main; or – more precisely – if I ever want to run Amerya again. I would switch my mains in a heartbeat if I knew that – down the road – I’d be able to switch back. However, Shan was right to point out that she’s been trying to change her spec from Healy to DPS and has really not been able to do that yet, despite weeks of trying.
So I’m left feeling a little bit sad on those nights when there are *just* enough healers in the raid so I don’t have to hop over to Kely. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy pew-pew’ing with Ame, and I like getting her geared up – but when the time comes to zone in and I’m still on her, I’m jealous of the folks that get to heal that night.
Maybe it is just the grass being greener. Maybe it is just because it is still novel to me. I don’t know.
I do know that I am very, very appreciative of Ori and Unde both being willing to pull Kely in whenever possible. That means a lot to me, and I’m glad they’re both very patient people and don’t yell when I spam them each raid night with ‘I’ll heal if you want!’
Still talking about Raiding, just have to share that I’m still pretty frustrated with what went down in our 10-man Ulduar run last night. The officers are aware, and I know the situation will get dealt with, but it still left me more than a little angry. I mean, look. If you really don’t want to heal any more, then reapply as Ret, officially change your main spec and be done with it.
*takes a breath and deletes about five paragraphs of ranting about it* Apparently I needed to type that out someplace. I’m better now.
On Life Outside WoW
Our oldest’s Graduation is this weekend, so after tonight I really won’t be around WoW much until late Sunday. My parents are on the way for the weekend, so things will be EXTREMELY crazy for a bit. We’ve been juggling a billion things a night and really, I’m amazed that it hasn’t all come falling down around us. Sure, it nearly has a few times, but so far we’ve been lucky.
It is very weird, having an adult child now. Is that even the right term? I don’t know. It makes me feel old.
Onto happier thoughts – though – she may have a scholarship from Univ. of Missouri – we’ll see what comes of that.
We also want to hit Worlds of Fun at some point this summer. They’ve got a new roller coaster there this year, so it’ll be worth checking out.
Ok, I’ve rambled enough. Peace, Out!
