I’m working through lunch (yet again!) as there is just too much to do. Too many sites that need building, too many reports and specs to write, just too much. But also (as you’ve probably guessed by now) I’m kind of slacking as well. I’m writing a blog post, eating a chocolate brownie, listening to Miyavi and Marilyn Manson (music tastes that cover the spectrum) and wishing it was finally the weekend already.You know, free time. Time to spend gaming. The thing that I manage to crawl through my week in order to get – which I completely admit is a sad way to spend a life.

My paladin is breathing down the neck of Level 80, and I’d like to try tanking a bit with her. It was the original purpose for levelling her. But I read accounts like the veryvery funny pass my soapbox from Tam at Righteous Orbs, and I have to think: Who in their right mind would ever, ever want to be a tank or a healer? Seriously.

I did some tanking in Aion on my Templar Ravven, and although legion runs were a lot of fun, pugs were not. On my very first tanking experience, the first time in a new instance, the first time I’d ever tried marking and pulling and keeping aggro, we had the group from hell. Higher-level players who had run that instance before, and wanted to get through it as fast as possible. It was one of those “GOGOGO” type of runs, with one of the players impatient enough to start pulling his own mobs.

You pull it, you better be able to tank it. Not wearing plate?  Sucks to be you.

I admit that I’m not the most social of people, anyway. I just generally think that a large percentage of the people you group with will turn out to be asshats. Now, I’m just speaking from personal experience, mind you – your mileage may vary. But I have terrible, terrible luck with pugs. And the thought of tanking one…

*shivers*

I was in the bookstore last week (yeah, it’s where I spend a lot of my lunches. My home looks a lot like a second-hand bookstore, but there’s always room for more) and I saw a book which really made me laugh.

I happened to be in the Teen section. Aside from my lamentable taste in vampire fiction, I am firmly of the belief that you find some of the best fantasy books there, just because they’re afraid to market them to adults. I have no problem whatsoever with buying kids books. And what do I see?  A very, very Twilight-esque cover. On Wuthering Heights.

Oh, come on – that’s funny. The Amazon blurb (because I yoinked the cover image from them) was also very funny: 

One of the greatest love stories ever told, beautifully repackaged for a modern teen audience. Love the Twilight books? Then you’ll adore Wuthering Heights, one of the greatest love stories ever told. Cathy and Heathcliff, childhood friends, are cruelly separated by class, fate and the actions of others. But uniting them is something even stronger: an all-consuming passion that sweeps away everything that comes between them. Even death!

Even Death! hahahaha….

I saw this on Wandering Goblin, and thought it was very sweet: Romeo, Juliet and their Sassy Gay Friend:

Due to the fun of hanging with Single Abstract Noun, I’ve gotten back into the game in a big way. I haven’t played so much Warcraft since I virtually quit the game when I stopped raiding. Even though the game is fairly old, everything considered, the graphic style has held up quite well. There are a few areas, though, where it’s really starting to bother me a bit.

1. It’s time to redesign the character models.

I love Kit above every other game character that I have spent endless hours with. But when I look at her awkward spade-shaped hands and triangular fingers, it really bothers me. Mouths are bad. Male characters are creepy and ugly – most of them seem to have harelips, and they all look kind of pissed off and constipated, as though they’re in need of a good poo. I could never play one. Blood elf males are better facially, but still suffer from the grotesquely overwide shoulders. Human models are boring, and human females are saddled with the worst dance in the game. It just won’t do!

Now, everything doesn’t have to be as beautiful as, say, Aion. I quite like the look of the towns and outdoor environments, and the very stylised Warcraft art direction works for me. But please, please, please – redo the avatars.

2. The older armor and weapons need an update.

I get the starting out in rags and gradually acquiring better gear thing, that’s fine. But again, the older textures are really showing their age. They’re so low-res that you just get a vague impression of broadly-sketched in texture. Give me more modern textures, where the cloth looks like cloth, and metal actually looks like metal. Newer high-level armor sets are fine, a lot of work has gone into those. But the really old textures are pathetic.

When interviewed, the developers and designers at Blizzard are pretty honest about not really knowing what, exactly, give Warcraft the magic that it has, that indefinable quality of “fun”. And I would never wish anything to detract from that. But surely, better character models would only increase pleasure in the game, without diverging too much from the look and feel of the environment.

That said, though, I am having an enormous amount of fun running around with my blocky, floppy-footed troll hunter with the vacant, somewhat retarded face. She’s smarter than she looks…and a lot more fun. :)

I’ve played so much Warcraft this weekend. I’ve played until my eyes have dried up and turned into raisins…but it was still a fun weekend.

P. has been playing Star Trek Online, having discovered Klingon pvp. Our computer rooms are on the top floor of the house, with a connecting door so we can yell at each other. It’s rather nice. Quite often we play together, when we’re playing the same games. When we’re not, then we go off and do our own thing. We always have something to talk about, and have an outlet for our geekiness (gaming is something that I mostly just don’t talk about at work, aside from casual references).

The cats have their favourite spots around the rooms. Occasionally they insist on quality time, usually by sitting in front of the computer screens, being obstructive. My room is dark blue, filled with a wall of books, several computers, a squashy reading chair and lamp, and a poster of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow.

This is my homespace, this is where I relax. Where the sound of space battles meets clashing blades, where the air smells of my favourite Nag Champa, where we can call to each other from our separate universes.