Wrath of the Burger King...

Just read Wonko's account of his attempt to snatch a copy of the latest Warcraft expansion pack. As some may have surmised already, W is wholly responsible for getting me into WoW.

"C'mon, man, it's fun. You can quit anytime if you don't like it..."

Now who's going to pay for my WoW rehab, Mister?

I'm actually teasing him here, folks. Truth is that I've been a gamer all my life. If it wasn't Pac Man, it was Zaxxon. If it wasn't Zaxxon, it was Joust. If it wasn't Joust, it was Civilization. If it wasn't Civilization...

From the time I was four years old when my folks first brought home the Atari 800 to the present, I've played many video games. To some minor extent, I was encouraged in my habit due to the shitty depth perception I was blessed with at birth. Video games somewhat helped me to develop coping mechanisms for overcoming my eyesight shortcomings, so in a way, I was helping myself while I played.

I signed up for Warcraft almost a year ago and, much to my surprise, discovered that several other colleagues and friends of mine at work had been playing together for quite some time. I honestly had no idea that a quarter of the people who work where I do spend a few hours battling online in the epic struggle of good vs. evil.

As many know, I'm a bit of an insomniac, so it gives me something to do to wind down a few nights a week instead of staring upward at the ceiling all night. It's a fun hobby for me and it gives me a chance to hang out with friends I know in real life, friends I've met in-game as well as hang out with my brother who also plays occasionally.

Wonko showed me the ropes when I first got to Azeroth. He was completely patient with my obvious n00b mistakes and basically taught me everything I needed to know to be a kick ass grinding machine. We still run quests together and have a lot of fun doing so from time to time. There is still I ton I learn from the guy.

So, to read his post was pretty disheartening. I know he'd looked forward to getting the new content and I really felt bad for the guy when he told me that he had "no joy" in his attempts so far to snatch a copy.

Myself, I was a little more fortunate. Living in the Middle of Fucking Nowhere as I do actually does have its advantages on occasion. I strolled right into the Wal-Mart at 12:45AM, picked up a copy and went home. I had a really sinking feeling in my stomach when the nice lady who rang me up told me that all the stores in nearby Austin (big city) had sold out of their non-pre-ordered copies in TWENTY MINUTES. Ouch.

She also said that I was the twenty somethingth person to buy a copy by then and while they had a box and a half left in the back stock, they'd likely be gone by 6 or 7 AM based on all the phone calls they had been getting from the hordes (heh) of hungry gamers wanting a copy. Double ouch.

I went home and installed it. At this point, I was pretty wired up so I knew sleep wasn't an option. I ended up playing the new content for an hour before I hit the sack, waiting to see if anyone I knew would show up and want to get into some mischief.

I heard from a buddy the next evening via in-game chat that he had no luck after his search across stores in his city. He and I frequently team up for fun as we level a pair of 'toons who are the same level, so I asked him if he wanted to go get into some trouble.

"Nah, I'm good," he replied, "you go ahead and have a good time with the new content."

I knew he was pretty disappointed after his fruitless journey to find a copy and my response was instantaneous as it was genuine.

"Seriously dude, let's go run our 'toons. It'll be fun. I can screw around the new areas another time. Let's go kick some ass."

And kick some ass we did until he finally had to go to sleep. Questing is more fun when you do it with a friend and it's not something I would think twice about.

The funny thing was that as soon as my buddy went to bed, another friend in-game mentioned that he'd like some help running a couple lower level dungeons someday soon to finish up some quests he still had. I paused for a split second to think as I stood on the boat dock to board the boat that goes to the new content area.

I smiled to myself in brief contemplation as I watched the boat pull away from me as I stood still on the dock. I asked my pal which one he wanted to do first as I clicked the "invite" button to form a group.

The new and fancy stuff could wait.

I'm Actually Writing Something, But Not What You Expected...

It's been a different style of writing for me. I haven't had a lot to say here in the ol' blog lately but thanks to my esteemed brother introducing me to Warcraft, I've once again discovered my writing voice again.

It was an unexpected victory for me when I found myself first typing out a short entry on the guild message board. I was not only putting words together on the Internet, I was constructing an actual story of my character's "life" in the big World. I wrote a rather embellished (comedically) account of my milestones, thoughts and feelings and posted them on the board.

I was rather surprised by the responses. People actually read and took interest in what this complete n00b had to say, though most of them had been playing for months or more. That felt good.

Part of my major frustration over the past few years has centered around being mentally blocked when it came to creative outlets. I wanted to be creative but that kind of thing is never awesome if it's forced. Let me say that it was a complete shock when I discovered how easy it felt to slip back into writing mode when I have the right inspiration.

Hell, I felt so inspired that I started doing another secret project (which will be revealed later on once the wheels are officially rolling on this) as well as to finally get serious about the QTV redesign. I have a few notes on QTV's "Phoenix Rising" operation to share with you later as well, if things move along with that instead of being another false reboot like last time.

In the meantime, I offer one of my first entries on the subject of Warcraft. I shall post some Cliff Notes below the entry for those who have no friggin' clue about what I'm talking about. I hope you enjoy! :)

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A Time To Kill and A Time To Run FedEx, Another n00bish Reflection...

It's been almost two full weeks since I took a flying leap into the World.

I hadn't been too sure what the world held in store and what my place was to be in it. All I had at first was a wise brother who said, "dude, I think you'll totally dig this..."

Well, let me be the first to thank him oh so very much for getting his younger brother addicted to Warcrack, er, WarCRAFT, sorry. You'll have to excuse the obvious n00bish pun that I'm sure most of the seasoned vets in the game have rolled their eyes to after hearing it for countless years.

Can't say I blame ya. I felt the same way when I met my first n00b "Browncoat." I'll take a mulligan for the bad pun and shall go write a hundred lines of "I shalt not make n00bish puns unless I really like being tree monster food."

My first week was spent trying as hard as possible to avoid going to the nearest Boot Hill. Believe me, in the first week, I became well acquainted with every Boot Hill from Elwynn to Redridge to Westfall. Heck, I even paid the one in Duskwood a visit just to give myself a sense of achievement.

One night, I died fifty separate agonizing and variably gruesome deaths. From being beat down by the thugs of the Defias Brotherhood to getting sliced into 200 pounds of sirloin by those pesky fleshstripping vultures, I pretty much grew accustomed to being an ethereal being that night.

I kept at it though, slashing and slaying my way up the ladder. I was fortunate because I had signed up a guild that was filled with fellow adventurers who were willing to lend a patient hand and show the new kid the ropes. (Hoisting a cold one in your honour, lads & lasses!)

After a while, I began to notice that there were a hell of a lot of what I like to call "FedEx Runs" for me to do. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as the SWPS (Stormwind Postal Service) or not, but it sure seemed like it.

My favourite so far was the run from Westfall to Stormwind to Redridge to Stormwind to Westfall and back to, you guessed it, Stormwind. I racked up some easy XP and easy cash, sure, and I did learn a little more about the lay of the land, but I believe my index finger actually fell asleep while holding down the "up arrow" key. (awww, poooooor baby, lemme shed a tear of unimaginable sadness for ya... heh)

Sure, I COULD have flown to save myself the trouble, but I'm a cheapskate in nature and can't seem to justify squandering 99 copper sitting comfortably on the back of the Gryphon Express when instead, I can run amok through the forest like a crazed madman screaming Demoralizing Shouts and lopping the heads off of wolves, bandits, bears, boars and the occasional cow.

Hey, you know that cow's evil incarnate, man, don't try to tell me it didn't deserve it. Standing around, chewing it's cud. Plotting to rule the world. Cow had it comin'.

I'm sure the novelty of running will wear off in time. I admit that I can now lift a 1985 Olds Delta88 with my right index finger now, so there is a big awesome win for me in RL!

Anyway, I shall close today with a big thanks to everyone for helping me settle in. I hoist another cold one in your honour and wish you good luck and happy hunting!

-Vancinius (my character's name)

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Notes:

1) Browncoat is a reference to the short-lived Firefly sci-fi TV series created by Joss Whedon of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame.

2) Boot Hill - Graveyard. When your character kicks the bucket, you appear as a ghost in the closest graveyard. You then have to resurrect by running all the way back to where you died or you have to be resurrected by another character (another player or by the glowing angel spirit in the graveyard) to continue playing.

3) Elwynn, Redridge, Westfall, Duskwood - Place names for some of the many playing areas in the game. Each location is very different in climate and geography. For the first 30 levels of play, you spend a lot of time in these areas.

4) Stormwind - Capital city of the human race in the World as well as a major city of the Alliance (the good guys).

5) SWPS & FedEx runs - My joke about the quests that involve either "hey, go take this package to this guy who lives way the hell over on the other side of the territory," or "hey, go talk to this guy over there and he'll give you another quest."

FedEx Runs serve a purpose in introducing you to new territories, pointing you in the direction of additional quests and also helping to give you a little experience for doing basically little more than just running from one end of the planet to the other.

6) The "up arrow" refers to the key that is the default for moving your character forward. It gets quite a workout, I assure you.

7) Gryphon Express - The mythical gryphon serves as easy transport between one land and another, saving you from having to squander game time by having to run everywhere. It does cost some coin to do this, but comes in handy if you have things to do.

8) RL - Real life. Reality. Life outside of WoW. Heh.