Class in a MMO format

I've thought multiple times that I am really glad that I didn't find this game while I was in either grad program. I think I would have found it really hard to balance wanting to play with studying and writing papers and whatnot.

Well, a game design professor has structured his class in a MMO format. Professor Lee Sheldon at Indiana University at Bloomington teaches a class on design elements and production requirements for online games.

"Class time is spent completing quests (such as presentations of games or research), fighting monsters (taking tests or quizzes), and "crafting" (writing game-analysis papers and a video-game concept document). The 40-person class is divided into six "zones," named after influential game designers, in which students complete group tasks."

"Instead of receiving traditional grades, students earn "experience points" for completing assignments. Mr. Sheldon says that points system not only feels more like a video game, but also lets students feel like they're earning points for getting things right instead of losing them for incorrect answers."

Check out Professor Sheldon's syllabus for this class. The syllabus talks about your solo, raid, and guild activities. He also provides extra credit for votes within your guild/group for group participation:

Peer Review Secret Ballot extra credit. 0-100 possible XP as follows:

1. Guild Leader 100 pts
2. Raid Leader 75 pts
3. Solid Guild Crafter 50 pts
4. Needs Rez 25 pts
5. Leroy Jenkins 0 pts

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

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Requisite bacon post and other randomness

Is it just me, or does it seem that all bloggers have blogged about bacon at some time or another? Is it some blogging requirement? What is it about bacon? I mean I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but honestly I can't remember the last time I had bacon. Hmmmm. Anyways, to fulfill my blogger duties to blog about bacon at least once, today I share with you Mmmvelopes, bacon flavored envelopes.

From bacon, let's move onto leet speak. I wonder if we even realize how our vocabularies have expanded since we've played WoW?

And leet speak leads us to want to examine our geekiness. Or is it dorkiness? Nerdiness? Hmmm...

Finally, I don't care if this is geeky or nerdy or dorky. This illustrated alphabet by Neill Cameron is just pure awesome. Have kids who are learning their ABCs? Use this! Err... ok maybe some of them are not safe for kids, like the Hello Kitty one.

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Yay Dreamwalker!

I think I missed posting our guild screenshots of our Rotface and Blood Queen kills from a while back, but look!

Not only did I post our Dreamwalker SS, but I made it all purty-like with inspiration from Kae. Yay! Though I guess this isn't really a kill, cuz we didn't kill her. Hmmm. Dreamwalker save? And she's so purty. I wish she'd stayed around for the picture.

Last night was our second night of working on her, though our first night was a bit ago and we all know with my short term memory that I barely remember that first night. It was definitely a fight where we had to really strategize and adjust as we went through our wipes. I was healing along with our pally Nico and our priest Suzzy.

We all went in the portals to take advantage of the buffs, but all of us were also healing on the outside as well. After some trial and error, we ultimately had Suzzy go in portals 1, 2, and 3; I went in portals 1, 3, and 5; and Nico went in portals 2, 4, and 6 (though I can't remember if he really went in 6 or not... I think it may have been over by then).

With this portal strategy, it meant that we had one healer outside during the first three portals, but two healers outside during the later portals when the adds started to speed up and the raid and tanks started to take some more damage. It was good because it forced all of us to practice and learn the portal phase (which I need to get better at). And we all had to learn how to balance healing the raid. It may have not been the best or most effective strategy but it worked for us while the tanks and raid were learning how to best assign, prioritize, and manage the adds.

I used a macro to target her, but I still felt really clumsy coming out of the portals or switching from raid members back to her. Maybe I just have to get used to it more with time and practice. But Suzzy's Guardian Spirit and Nico's Beacon were great, but our secret weapon to getting her down? Nikolai and Shmoo putting their Gift of the Naaru on her! I mean having one Gift of the Naaru is awesome, but with two, we were totally OP. :p

Its nice for us to be able to balance some moderate level of strict 10 progression, with what I feel is the crux of our guild, folks who genuinely enjoy raiding with each other. Sometimes our raids are just so incredibly hilarious. Case in point, the scene before a Blood Queen pull a week ago.

Buns: It killed my sheep!
K: Huh? What?
Someone: Yeah, the little sheep pet has a mechanic where a wolf comes and kills it.
K: Aw, so sad!

Let's just pause here a sec and look at how cute our lock Buns is right now.

I just love how she's sorta sheepishly peering out underneath her hat. Don't let her fool you though. She's incredibly cute, but she will kick your freakin' ass.

Let's get back to my recollection of the crazy raid chat from that night:

Shmoopsypoo yells: OMG BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND BASIL TRISCUITS! SO GOOD!
Nikolai: (stands facing raid on steps down into Blood Queen) /clears throat
Veloreynn: /claps for Nikolai
Nikolai: Are you all ready for this? Can you handle it?
Nikolai buffs raid with Stamina
Nikolai: Did you like that? How'd that feel? Do you want more? Can you handle more?
Nicolause: /nods at Nikolai
Shmoopsypoo yells: OMG BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND BASIL TRISCUITS!!!
Nikolai: Here it comes kids!
Nikolai buffs raid with Spirit
K: /cheers at Nikolai
Nikolai: You thought that was all, eh? Well there's more! You ready?
Nikolai buffs raid with Shadow Protection
Nikolai bows
Shmoopsypoo yells: OMG BALSAMIC VINEGAR AND BASIL TRISCUITS!!!

Geez what a drama queen that Nikolai. But we love him. :) And yes, sometimes we drive Jess/raid leader crazy. I'm wondering if this was a Sunday night? Our Sunday nights are always the crazy nights.

Now this doesn't even get into the myriad of naughty raid chat that is inevitable on Blood Queen when we have to talk about biting each other. For example, folks have asked each other (and people's spouses) if there is a specific location where someone would like to be bitten. Though for some reason, I'm guessing we're not the only raid that has taken this biting mechanic to a slightly naughty turn in raid chat.

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I'd rather have the blog relationship...

... than the one night stand. Ok, let me explain.

There is one type of blog statistic that bloggers take note of: hits or page view. Now I've read folks talk about this on their blogs, as well as had private conversations with bloggers about it. It runs either spectrum, folks going "ZOMG look how many hits/page views I have! I am zee awesome!" or folks going "QQ, I haz so little page views, I am zee suck".

Sure, page views are one stat. But you know what? In this day and age where most people read blogs via readers and not directly coming to your blog, page views don't mean as much to me. Sure, you may have had an article here and there that has gotten a lot of links. Or sure, folks may find you via a popular search term in Google. But it's a one time visit.

What is more important to me as a stat is the number of subscribers. I remember surprising Jess a while ago with how many subscribers Pretty in Plate had via Google Reader. This is public information, as anyone can go to any blog in your Google Reader, click on 'show details' on the upper right corner. Now I don't know how exactly accurate it is, but I figure its close.

So why is subscribers more important to me? Well duh, it means these people actually care about what you have to say on an ongoing basis. Its more than just one random page view. To me, it just seems like more of a relationship. So yeah, I would rather have the blog relationship than the one night stand.

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Adrianne Curry and other "hot female celebrities"

So I come across this article from back in December that mentions that Adrianne Curry plays WoW "as a Night Elf Warrior named ‘Darthadri’ on the Nazgrel server". I looked her toon up in the armory and her warrior is now level 58.

Now I think its cool that she plays, but really, I wish she could have just shared the info without having to make it sexual by saying she plays WoW naked. I mean, I guess her point was that she wanted it to cause a stir and whatnot, but I did /sigh a little bit.

In trying to find out a little bit more about this, I come across this article. Now, I have no idea where they are getting this from, but they mention folks like Jenna Jameson, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Simpson, and Kate Beckinsale as also having played WoW (we already know about Felicia Day and I've previously blogged about Mila Kunis).

Again, cool to know or consider some female celebrities could be playing WoW but I could do with a little less of the "playing naked" or making it "hot female celebrities who play".

But really, Kate Beckinsale? Cameron Diaz? Wtf? I wonder where they got that from.

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Let's go on a positive note and change the world

So unless you've been living under a rock, you already know about the hubbub that hit the blogosphere last week. I caught it late, about a day after it happened. I was very hesitant to immediately post my thoughts on it because I really wanted to think about it before posting rashly about it. Though now I think the incident and its subsequent fallout has been pounded into everyone's heads and that the time has passed to talk about it.

Smarter and more eloquent folks than I have already talked a lot about this. I point you to Tam, Ophelie, Byaghro, and Soph. Tam's post has some incredibly well written and thought out comments on it. If you're interested, take the time to read through them.

In a nutshell, here's my quick take on the unfortunate incident. In my opinion, I honestly don't think that either Anna or Cranky really intended any harm or malice. But its hard to see through intentions. I do think that bloggers, even the biggest bloggers, have every right to post public reactions on their blogs. Though I do think that Anna could have been a little less heavy handed. I'm really sorry to see Cranky go and hope that she will consider coming back to blogging.

I'm just surprised by how big this drama has gotten. So let's look at something positive, eh? Game designer Jane McGonigal thinks that we can use games to change the world. These games would be "serious games", those that intend more than entertainment for its players. She wants to "inspire large groups of people to pool their knowledge and skills to overcome obstacles, and this is precisely what’s needed to tackle global social issues, such as poverty, hunger, disease and climate change".

McGonigal is the Director of game research and development for the Institute for the Future. In this lecture (link here) she talks "about how to work out real world problems in gaming spaces and how gaming can change the world".

She also specifically mentions our little game here, starting at about 4:32 in the video. "Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems?"

Hmmm. So then she asks what exactly is it that we are learning through games that could be applied in terms of changing the world? She mentions:

1. Urgent optimism, the desire to act immediately to solve an obstacle
2. Our ability to weave a tight social fabric with bonds of trust and cooperation
3. Epic meaning, our desire to be tied to awe inspiring missions

One factoid she shared is that the wowwiki is the second largest wiki in the world, second to Wikipedia. Wow. Now in 2007 McGonigal was involved in developing a game called World Without Oil that started with 1700 gamers, asked to look at how they would react in an oil crisis.

Her latest project is Urgent Evoke which launched in early March. It is aimed "toward young people in Africa primarily and more broadly to anyone in the world who wants to help solve problems in the developing areas. It’s a crash course in how to start a venture, a business, that can tackle these problems [of poverty, disease, hunger] at a local level".

Evoke has quests and missions you can complete. It also has ten skills and abilities in which you can build up points such as Sustainability, Vision, Entrepreneurship, and Local Insight. There is still time to play as the season ends on May 12.

I think she has some incredible ideas, plus I really really love that she is a female game developer. :)

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QQ moar, your tears are delicious

Adamas used to say "QQ moar, your tears are delicious" when he felt someone was whining. Well, Klep has deemed this Whiny Post Day, so I shall try to comply. Though in all honesty I'm not sure if I know really how to whine... it probably jumps the border into ranting quite quickly.

Maybe if I point out something I've already blogged/ranted about it could constitute whining because you guys would be like "She's already QQ-ed about this, STFU". Anyways, let me whine/rant YET AGAIN about the fact that 10 man raid bosses do not drop BOEs. I think I may be getting more and more perturbed about this as I see folks talk about selling BOEs and patterns and such from their 25 man raids as the source of their guild bank funds. Woe to us, strict 10 guilds (see, there is my attempt at whining). Though I am more "Argh! For fuck sake!"

See, there I go again, jumping the fence from whining to ranting. Swearing probably takes whining to ranting as well, right? Now speaking of swearing, I am probably the worst offender in the guild in terms of swearing on vent or via whispers in game. The boys are surprisingly very good about swearing while Vel is my swearing partner in crime from time to time. Though Vel's swearing tends to sound sweet and innocent in a way, even when she says "Oh, fuck me".

In comparison my swearing is definitely more angry, as I throw out "Fucking-ay" and "For fuck sake" in whispers or on vent. Jess has noted that I am especially bad when we are doing arenas, and that I have a way with putting in more u's than are actually in the word. When I'm in arenas, it's "Fuuuuck".

Anyways, I point all this out because I have an explanation. Apparently neuroscience research has found that swearing increases your tolerance to pain. Even more interesting was that they found differences between men and women. There was a greater effect of swearing decreasing perceived pain and increasing pain tolerance in women compared to men.

See! So my swearing is a protective mechanism to shield myself from the pain. And Vel and I swear more than the boys because we get more benefit from it. It's all explained by science!

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In the end... we won

Two recent guild happenings that I want to talk about today.

First, one of our friend's accounts who has been taking a break from the game for a while got hacked last week. The hackers actually paid to reactivate her account, then spent some time farming herbs. Apparently they were planning on turning the toon into a farming bot? I had no idea that hackers did this! Anyways, it was discovered pretty early and the real Suz came on to take over her character and found her bags stuffed to the gills with frost lotuses and herbs.

Yes, she was able to regain control of her account before the hackers were able to sell stuff or send gold elsewhere. So thanks to you hackers, now Suz is back playing again with us for a month on YOUR dime, plus thanks for taking all the time to farm all those herbs for her! How thoughtful of you!

Second story is a longer one. Yesterday we had our first instance of guild bank ninja-ing (is this the right conjugation of the verb to ninja? hmmmm). Let's step back for a bit. A couple joined our guild last fall when we were very desperate for raiders to fill out our runs. They raided with us for a bit, though there were red flags everywhere. It was quite clear that they were loot whores, even in 5 mans. When the new ICC 5 man heroics came out, they didn't want to run with any other guildies who could compete with them for gear.

So yeah, lots of red flags with the loot whoring in raids and 5 mans. But it also moved to quite inappropriate behavior like questioning individuals on certain armor pieces they had chosen to equip. For example, there questioning a hunter's trinket choices for the faction champions in TOC. Or questioning the equipped gear of a dps person who had agreed to be our third healer. They probably had no idea that we knew the extent of what we knew, but yeah, Jess and I did. What they may not have realized is that most of us have been playing together for 2+ years and we talk... a lot. And because we rarely have drama, when we do, Jess or I immediately hear about it. Even all the small one off comments or incidents.

But we were so desperate at the time for raiders, that even though it was clear that they were not a good fit, because nothing egregious had occurred that we could clearly gkick them for, we kept them. While neither of them were horrible players, they were not anything to write home about. Nico or I could outheal her with one hand tied behind our backs, though that was probably because she was too occupied being all Snottydin-like with "I am a girl in RL! *shy smile*". The guy? Well he never topped dps meters, though he wasn't horrible. But he had horrible spatial awareness and would always be standing in something or not dpsing the bonespikes or whatever dps was supposed to do.

Fortunately, around last December they started to not show up for raids that they had signed up for. When this happened three weeks in a row, I felt that it was an awesome early Christmas present for us because we had good reason to no longer invite them to our raids. Their mains eventually transferred back to Horde (without saying anything to any of us BTW), but their alts remained in our guild. But because we hardly ever saw them, they had sorta become out of sight out of mind, aka thank God they are gone. Everyone was happier, raids were more successful, and we brought in much better folks like Darcness and the ever lovable Sammy.

In retrospect Jess and I should have at least demoted these alts or outright kicked them all together. But like I said, out of sight, out of mind, right? Well Jess sends me an email Sunday morning to let me know that two folks had taken stuff out of the first tab of the guild bank and then gquit, ending it with "I don't think I need to tell you who". When I log on, I see that the log shows their alts having ninjaed all of the abyss crystals, frozen orbs, dream shards, greater cosmic essences, in addition to some flasks, pots, fish feast, and other small items here and there. While there was a limit in the number of stacks they could withdraw, it did add up.

Was I surprised? In a way yes, in a way no. I knew that they were not trustworthy. Even though this is a virtual game, you get a sense of how people are by interacting with them. There was no mistaking with these two that they put the shade in shady. When word got out that this had happened, it was quite humorous in guild because folks started to share stories like "Well, I never liked her since she did blah blah blah" and "I never liked him because he was inappropriate by saying blah blah blah". I said "Guys, if we were to share all our stories of those two here, we'd be here all day"

Were folks angry? Sure. Even if its just virtual pixelated goods, it is still theft. But really, do I think they've "gotten" us somehow with this? Child, please. More so than being angry, I feel sorry for them. These two are very young, I like 19 or 20 years old. I foresee a bleak bleak future in front of them if this is their level of morality, or their sense of what is right or wrong. I do hope for them that they eventually learn about karma and that their actions do have consequences.

What is the lesson here? Well first, I think that Jess and I need to trust our instincts more about people who just don't fit or are not trustworthy. We need to worry less about how things may look, be more upfront and honest with our concerns, and act on them. Gkicking is not rocking the boat, if it is necessary. Personally, I think I need to care less about seeming harsh (I know! shocking right?), even though there is a part of me that wants to be a nicer, more supportive person (yes Jess and Kal, its true!).

But really at the end of day, just like with Suz's hacker story, we won here. Blizz may replace the items, and hello I am Ms. Gold Cap, remember? I probably should have thrown them a couple thousand pity gold to have them leave earlier. But if this ninja-ing is what needed to happen in order to take out the trash, honestly I'm good with that.

***************************

Update 3/16: We got everything replaced by Blizz yesterday. So about a day after this happened, we're back to normal. I was quite surprised and impressed by Blizz's quick turnaround!

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Perhaps we all need to join ZCC

From indexed:

This is the only sort of bracketology I am caring about right now since my basketball team (Carolina) sucked ass this year, leaving me to mutter "2005... 2009... 2005... 2009..." to myself repeatedly.

I would like to point out that us elves beat out the trolls! Yeah! Though seriously, we could take them zombies. If zombies are really this powerful, perhaps we all need to join the Zombie Combat Club.

Yep, turns out there is an actual, real Zombie Combat Club. Their objective? "To educate the public on effective blade, bludgeon, and unarmed combat techniques to eradicate the threat of the living dead". They even have a book coming out on Amazon in April!

Seriously, the stuff people come up with amazes me.

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Gnomish binary translations

Remember getting those punch cards in Gnomeregan like this?

Well, did you ever wonder if all those 0s and 1s meant anything? What could Blizz and the gnomes have hidden in the code? Well, someone has translated the binary on all the cards! How brilliant!

The full list of translated messages:

* Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
* Down with the horde!
* Tell your friends to play WoW
* Play the Warcraft roleplaying game
* If you can read this, you're standing too close
* Gnomercy!
* Kiss me, I'm gnomish!
* The Lich King lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* Go go go!!
* Recipe: Mechanical Chicken Soup
* Gnomeregan forever!
* Play More WoW
* Help! I'm trapped in a binary punch card factory!
* Short and sweet
* How am I driving?
* insert funny message here
* Message to Castpipe: your laundry's ready for pickup.

And my favorites:
* Natalie Portman Rocks
* The gnome king wears night elf underwear

Wow, a number of messages about playing more and getting our friends to play eh? Blizz with the subliminal messaging! And what? Thrall and Jaina?!?! Huh? Jaina sure gets around.

I personally love Natalie Portman, so I love that one. Now the one about the gnome king wearing night elf underwear, um I'm wondering how the sizing would work there...

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Apparently I can't keep emails straight

When I started this blog, I created a related email account for keredria at gmail. (Though Shmoo says my email should be keredria@treemail.com Haha). Now, I've set that email account to automatically forward all emails to my personal gmail address so that I don't have to switch back and forth to read them. Sounds like a brilliant time saving plan, right?

Well, it may save time but what happens is that I often forget when I'm reading an email forwarded from the keredria account, that I'm reading it from my personal account. I'm good about initially sending emails from the keredria account, but then when I read responses, 95% of the time I forget and end up replying from my personal account, which then tags that email with my personal email address with my real full name.

I did this 2+ years ago when first trading emails with Jess, which is how Jess found out my full name and my ethnicity (Korean last name). I did this last year with a couple of other bloggers. I've also done this THREE times in just the past couple of days. Though I have a pretty common and widely used name so its not like anyone could find me out that easily. But still, /sigh.

While there's a bit of a facepalm effect, it cracks me up that I've done this as many times as I have. Apparently two separate email addresses is too much for me to keep straight.

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I smell arrogance and pretention

This post is one that I've thought about doing for a long time. Yet I was pretty hesitant to do so because I wasn't sure if it would seem offensive, negative, ranty, or downright bitchy. That it was something that perhaps I shouldn't blog about because it could be too negative for the blogging community. But finally I decided, what the heck, I'm referring to less than 1% of the community, it's been irritating the crap out of me, and I think others may feel that same way, so I'm putting it out there.

First, let me talk about three rules of etiquette that I hold blogs and websites to. Now these are not only rules that I personally strive to follow, but rules that I measure other blogs/bloggers/websites by:

1. Give credit where credit is due

Seems easy eh? I think there are differing levels of breaking this rule, from the most egregious end of blatantly stealing someone else's posts/content. But I really do believe in a general code of conduct where if you were inspired by someone else's post or even a comment on that post, it just seems like the right thing to do to reference your inspiration. Really, us bloggers and readers read a lot of blogs... and a lot of the same blogs. Trust me, if you think that we don't quickly recognize that you are blogging about something without giving credit... er, we do.

2. Understand the difference between fact and opinion

Maybe this is just a personal pet peeve of mine. But it irritates me to no end when folks seem to confuse the difference between fact and opinion. Let me just clarify this with two definitions of the word opinion:

* a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty
* a personal view, attitude, or appraisal

Now my personal opinion on how you write differently when you're stating facts vs opinions? Two words... diction and tone. Learn it. Love it. Use it.

3. Give a shit about getting it right

I'm not saying that every single thing that you initially publish on a website or blog has to be 100% correct. We all write stuff then find out something is not correct. But damn it, you should care about the quality or integrity of information that you are putting out. This extends to information beyond maths and rules and stats stuff in this game. To me, it extends to information you are putting out around events that transpired or what other individuals did or said. If you have been told that what you published is incorrect, give a damn enough to correct it with accurate information.

Now I said above that these are my personal opinions on blogging rules. Its how I personally measure the integrity of other blogs. It is of my opinion that these rules apply to all blogs and WoW websites/fansites/whatever. Honestly, I really don't give a shit how "big", "important", "number of hits, subscribers, readers blah blah blah" you have. If they continuously break these rules, I personally take note. Yeah, I may continue to read to see what they have to say, or see whether they continue to break the rules, but I do so with less respect and more suspicion.

I've been blogging here now for two and a half years, and have been reading blogs for 3 years. And I truly love the blogging community. While I'm not as involved in various forums, twitter, or other sites as others are, there is definitely a warm and welcoming sense of community. There are a number of fellow bloggers that I truly consider to be good WoW friends, even if I've never played or spoken with them before (though I'm talking to a lot more of them now in Single Abstract Noun!!!). So I have to say that 99% of my opinion on the blogging community is genuinely positive.

However, in my personal opinion there seems to be a lot more pretentiousness and arrogance and general asshattery in the WoW blog/website world today compared to 3 years ago. Does this opinion of mine also have anything to do with my 3 rules of blogging? Definitely. If you continuously break the rules, yeah chances are that I am more likely to think of you as an arrogant arse. But do I also sense arrogance of these blogging rules? Well yeah, I find some folks are just down right pretentious.

Though perhaps it isn't right for me to compare a community that has grown and matured as much as ours has. I think back to the big mama and papa blogs from when I first started reading WoW blogs... those that had such a huge impact on the blogging community (essentially building its foundation) and strongly influencing my personal reason to start blogging. Gone but definitely not forgotten folks like Bigredkitty and Phaelia (omg we miss you Phae!), as well as thank Elune they are still around folks like Big Bear Butt and Ratshag.

Is it just me that I didn't see or sense any bit of arrogance from their blogs? Is it just me that I felt/feel no sense of underhanded self promotion? Maybe I just personally clicked with their personalities and writing styles better, but I felt that they didn't have to try so hard to put across this notion or air of being so popular or important or smart or providing such valuable information. They didn't put out an air of superiority or being better than others. They just did what they did, kicked ass at it, and we loved/love them. They didn't have to try so hard, to ask/demand us to love them.

Now I'm not saying that I think the majority of blogs/websites out there are arrogant. Far from it. In actuality, the number in my head is less than the number of fingers on one hand (ok, maybe two hands). So I'm not quite sure what my point is here. Especially since I am pretty certain most of the folks I am talking about do not read my blog. So my point is... hmmmm. Maybe I just wanted to rant and get it out of my system. Maybe I'm just disappointed. Maybe I should just STFU and get over it since I'm not going to like or mesh with every single person/writer.

Its a fact of life, and should be no different in our virtual WoW world that not everyone is going to be best friends. Could it be that I just don't mesh with the personalities of certain writers? Sure. Some folks are just going to rub others the wrong way. That's fine. But seriously, give me a freaking break. You blog or write... about WoW. If that is something that you measure sooo highly in your life, to the point of being so pretentious and arrogant about it... to need to look down on others... wow, just wow. Uh, can I just say perspective?

Blog because you love it. Blog because you want to rant or let things out. Blog because you want to share ideas or new points of view or be helpful. But when you write or blog because you crave the attention and have the constant need to wave your "popularity or superiority" over others, trust me, we can smell it a mile away. And to me, it stinketh.

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Real life suggestions for Cataclysm?

A long time ago, I did a post on possible real life inspirations for locales in WOW. As we wait for Cataclysm to come out, perhaps I can go the other way and suggest real life places that they could put in game? Today's suggestion:

This is Blood Falls, part of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica. There is a lake trapped within this glacier that is very rich in iron, thus giving the waterfall coming out of the glacier its red color. Now it looks like there are going to be glaciers in southern Deepholm, a new zone for levels 82-84. Maybe they could put it there? Anyways, I thought Blood Falls was very cool and looked cataclysmic.

On another note, Tam has started a new guild for bloggers and readers and friends over on a EU server. Since we can't go play with them, Miss Medicina has started a US version of the guild Single Abstract Noun on Argent Dawn.

I will be starting a toon for this guild, as I think is a great way to chat with some of the folks I've conversed back and forth with. Now I just have to decide class and name. I mean I could go with a resto druid night elf named Keredria (originality! I haz it!) or I could go all crazy and go rogue or mage or something. I could perhaps go on the whole Kum/Kumquat theme of Tam's and create a white haired toon named Lychee or a green haired toon named Guava?

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A plea... let me keep my costumes!

My statcounter directed me to a link the other day. It was a guild's forums that listed a couple of resto druid blog resources with a little description next to each blog. The description next to mine was something like "not much information, but really funny random humor". LOL. Funny cuz its true.

Anyways. Are you guys taking part in the Lunar Festival? I am two dungeons elders away from completing it. The relevance to this post? Well I like to keep all the dresses and costumes and random stuff I pick up from all of the holidays. I'm not exactly sure why, because its not like I wear the costumes or use any of the random items, but they are a keepsake for completing the holiday events.

Then there are certain pieces I can't get rid of, like Phaelia's Vestments of the Sprouting Seed or Je'Tze's Bell or my T8 sparkly moonhead.

Anyways, my available bag and bank space is seriously reaching crisis levels. I hope Blizz is taking a look at this, though I wish they'd implement solutions NOW as opposed to saying everything will be looked at with Cataclysm. I think I posted a long time ago about asking for a larger sized default backpack. They should also consider moving tabards to the tabbed system that we have with mounts and vendors.

Speaking of costumes, how crazy are the Sesame Street costumes above? Seriously what adult woman would wear them? I mean the flapper style Big Bird costume? lawl. The Elmo costume with the goldfish belt thing? Geez.

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What this game can teach or reconfirm about yourself

I've talked a lot about how this game is much more than a game. I don't think folks quite realize when they first start the extent of the social interaction in this game. I know that I had no clue as to the kind and extent of social network I would be involved in via our guild.

Now whenever you are in a situation where you are interacting with other people, I think there is an opportunity to either learn or reconfirm certain things about yourself... whether they are good or not so good. How do you interact with others? React to certain situations? So some revelations/confirmations for myself around this end with some personal stories.

1. I can be a stubborn hothead who is not afraid to speak her mind

Family and past personal relationships will tell you that I am probably one of the most stubborn people you've ever met. And if someone wrongs or crosses me, or does something I don't feel is right, my instant gut reaction is very unlike what most folks would expect. When you're standing with a friend, waiting to put your name in at a very busy restaurant and someone else tries to go ahead of you, I'm the person who will publicly call them out, getting into somewhat of a verbal sparring match (no, that didn't really happen... er ok, it did).

In game? Well yeah... this definitely carries over. When I come across asshats in pug runs or in battlegrounds, I'm not the kind of person who can let it go. I'm the hothead who has to have her say. And stubborn? Me? In game? No.... er... ok yes... just ask Jess. If I think we should do something a certain way, or go for a certain boss, lets just say I am very very resolute on that opinion. :)

2. I'm fiercely loyal

If I feel my friends are being attacked, whoa watch out. I recall a situation back in college when one of my best girlfriends at the time had this crazy skank of a girl come up to her, started yelling at her, then grabbed her hair. Instinctively, I grabbed this girl's hand, twisted it around and off of my friend, pushed this girl back, and spewed something to the effect of "Are you f'in crazy?!?!". In the process I broke a finger on my left hand.

It became a big joke/conversation starter within our circle of friends for quite a while... and the story of how I broke a finger morphed into me getting in a catfight with a girl to defend my friend. This quality of mine is something that I have also seen in game. If I feel that friends or guildies are getting attacked or accused of things that are not right, I am very quick to defend them and attack back. Its sort of interesting... I play a healer in game, but I am very much a real life tank in personality.

3. I get easily frustrated

I've long known that I tend to get much more frustrated than others. I am probably the worst teacher in real life because I am just not very patient. I think I tried once in RL to teach someone the piano, and it ended pretty badly for both of us.

Unfortunately this aspect of myself has been confirmed in game as well. I definitely get more frustrated than others... and not only that, but I am not very good and hiding my frustration, which is bad. I think this is something that I can perhaps work on to improve about myself in game and in real life. Perhaps I can be inspired by Shmoo, who has to be the most optimistic guy I've ever met.

4. I am not the best communicator

I would probably say that in real life, I am not always the best at communicating what I want or need. I can tend to not express whatever is bothering me, and let it simmer and simmer and simmer until it blows up under completely unrelated pretenses. It's bad, I know.

Surprisingly, I think I am much better at communication in game. Guildies will tell you that I am not shy at all (see #1 above) about telling someone that I need them to move here, or do this, or do that. Our poor tanks probably get it the most from me, as I tell them what minor positioning or timing changes they could make from a healer's perspective. Perhaps this is something I've learned in game that I can translate over into my real life.

Anyways, all in all its amusing to me that I react to most social situations in game in very much the same way I do in real life. In some ways it confirms to me that I am how I am, in others I see things that I could translate over from game to real life, and it also highlights areas where I think I could and should perhaps soften up a bit both in game and real life. :)

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Quick post

Busy day at work today (wth right?), so some quick funnies to share (real post tomorrow hopefully).

1. If you ever find yourself longing to levitate in RL, a tip from Forgetomori:

2. I like the tone of this little girl. She not afraid to say what's on her mind and tell it like it is. I think she'd make for a great healer. "I would really like it if you just did what you are supposed to do". Classic... a quote we should use on our tanks!

3. Nintendo toast!

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