Friday, May 16, 2008

Random race/character thoughts

This past week was my first week for work up in the Boston area... Worcester to be precise. The other day a local asked me "Where did you park your car"? in a very thick Boston accent. For those of you unaware of the Boston accent... imagine that question sounding like "Where d'ya paaak your caaaa"? They don't seem to like the letter R so much.

Accents can so easily define where you are from. In our little game of ours we have races of characters who live in very different parts of the WOW world. It'd be cool if the night elves in Darnassus had a different accent than those in Cenarion Circle or in Evergrove or in Feathermoon Stronghold... just like how English in NYC sounds different from English spoken in the South... or the Spanish spoken in Spain is different from Spanish spoken in Mexico.

Now how much do we really know about the race of character we have chosen? I did a bit of research on my chosen race, the night elves. Let me just say, there is a reason my main is a night elf... here's why (info quoted from wowwiki).

*'The kaldorei are practical but superstitious, and often a paradox': I am very practical, but my friends and guildies will hear me say "Its a sign"! all the time. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, even if we don't know it yet.

*'They are a people possessed with a deep spiritual passion and a desire to find solace': I am definitely not the most social person, and with people I don't know I can be very shy or aloof. Plus there are certain things I really don't mind doing alone.

*'The night elves are honorable to a fault, and they are a just and sometimes compassionate people': I love the 'sometimes compassionate' part. I can be real sweet and compassionate, but I can also be a total bitch.

*'They cultivate a relatively low-tech society. It should be noted that their lifestyle is not "anti-technology," but rather one where technology is not the goal.': Oh this is so me. My cell phone until August of 2006 was the old school Motorola Startec... I still don't have an iPOD... and I still need help creating macros.

*'The Sisters of Elune are the oldest Night Elf religious and magical order. The Sisters are the major active night elf political faction, and fulfill the roles of magistrates, officials, and the like for the night elf government': I love that the night elves are run by women.

Finally, interesting fact about nightelves: 'Night elf society was sharply divided by gender, with the vast majority of men being druids and most women serving as warriors, priestesses, or a combination thereof. There were a few deviations, obviously- males with no aptitude for druidism trained in the arts of war, and females with exceptional druidic gifts were trained, but these gender roles more or less defined the culture of the kaldorei for ten thousand years. In the years since Archimonde's death, this gender division appears to have eased somewhat, and more women have taken up the mantle of the druids, just as men have begun to choose the path of war or dedicate themselves to Elune.'

Interesting that female nightelf druids are supposedly less common in the lore of the game!

3 comments:

  1. The start of your post made me giggle. Two of my best friends on WoW are from Boston, one of them leading raids a lot with me. I still giggle like a big girl whenever he says he needs to "Faaahhmm for shaaaahhds" on his warlock. I love it.

    It would probably be hard to hear two more different accents during a raid, as I'm from the north of England.

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  2. Haha... faaahhm for shaaahs. I wonder what makes the Bostonian accent what it is... does it come from some Irish pronounciation thing since there were a lot of Irish who settled in Boston? Where do accents come from? Any etymologists around?

    Anyways, I think our British brothers and sisters have the funniest sayings. When you wipe would we hear you scream bollocks? Or bugger me?

    Oh wait... could our dwarf priest friend Ratshag be a Brit? He does say buggers and wankers a lot...

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  3. I think it's some odd mix of Irish and Italian, actually. Sometimes it reminds me of the Liverpool accent, which is also from the Irish that came over during the potato famine and such.

    I've been known to tell people to bugger off a lot. I live in England but I'm on the American servers. The novelty of my accent has sort of worn off with my usual group, but when we talk to somebody new we get reminded of it.

    And Australians also say wankers and buggers. ;)

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