Ravven dings 85

Work Avoidance

Lil Tarecgosa

More Work Avoidance

That’s a whole lotta work avoidance there. :)

Wow Insider had a post this morning on Where do you want your character to die? Interesting thought, although I kind of like the idea of Kitsune carrying on after I am gone, rather than the reverse. I know that sentiment, and the concept of game avatars having lives of their own, is incomprehensible to anyone who doesn’t play MMOs. If you do, though? You will probably understand.

Hey, I’m not embarrassed to admit that I used to log Kit out in pretty areas sometimes, even when she was levelling or when it was a pain to get her there. Just she and Ennui, her boar, kicking back by a roaring campfire. It made a pretty picture, and I’m not so adult that I am embarrassed to share that little secret. :)

I’ve levelled characters who weren’t “people”, but I didn’t care very much for them and it was difficult at times to put the time into them. Kitsune has always been a person to me, right from the moment that I created her. She kind of sprung into life complete with a personality and a backstory. I’ve been with her for so long that she feels like a friend, someone who I’ve actually known. She’s me, or the flip side of me…solitary, smart, sarcastic, and a fighter. Once you have her loyalty, though, she would fight to the death for you.

Where would Kit die? Fighting heroically for a lost cause, or against insurmountable odds. Alone, probably in some icy winter pass far from her beloved autumn woods of Azshara. I can see her in the snow, knowing that she couldn’t possibly survive the encounter, but throwing herself into the fight anyway. And Ennui would be with her until the end.

This is why I game. Who can be a hero in real life? I guess that this is important enough to me for my very first tattoo to be her name – and I would never have a tattoo that didn’t have a very personal meaning.

I have outfits for most of my characters, some skanky and some not. Kitsune is going to be happy to finally look like a proper hunter. Hunters shouldn’t be dressed in orange and purple, we shouldn’t have massive glowing shoulders that would give an orc back pain – how can you stealth through the forest wearing that? Sheesh! She’s going for a dark ranger look, with a near-black outfit and a non-silly bow. I would love to give her crossed swords on her back, but unfortunately I seem to be permanently stuck with polearms. I’m considering a black pet component to match her armour, but would hate to give up Artaius, her spirit bear.

I have to confess, I love Darkmoon Faire even in its current format, with very little to do. A spooky island with games, shows and quests? Oh yes, please. If there was one in real life, I would run away and join the carnival.

“Catch a show at the marvelous main stage or witness a dazzling fireworks display. But don’t stare too long or you might miss the stunning spectacles that surround you. Gaze in awe of our magical menagerie, get your fortune told by the amazing Sayge, go on a pony ride, experience the healthful effects of carnival food, and more!”

And the “replicas of long-lost suits of armor”? Oh, please have a Judgement set for my pally. I think that was the best set of armour that Blizzard ever designed, and it must be mine.

The comments on the Massively article were interesting – I had always believed in the statement that Pandaren were originally scrapped because you weren’t allowed to represent pandas in such a way in China. Evidently, that is not true, and as one commenter pointed out, Perfect World has playable panda characters. (I would hazard a guess that Perfect World may have a larger player base than Warcraft -I could be wrong- but either way that clearly demonstrates that China doesn’t have a problem with panda characters.)

Another commenter provided these to images to illustrate the point that China didn’t have a problem with Pandaren, but they did take exception to Chinese pandas wearing Japanese armour. Fair enough.
 

If this trademarked name isn’t simply a red herring, think of the possibilities.

What would I like to see? Make the Pandaren a new race and hero class (battle monk) which avoids the massive snit-fit that would ensue if you “gave” them to one side or the other. Or, make them a neutral race that either side could play…which would be a massive departure for Blizzard. If you don’t make them a neutral hero class race, then you would only have battle monks. If they are  a neutral race, allow them to any class, and give them their own capital city.

And that idea opens up something that I would LOVE to see…a Chinese-themed fantasy city done as only Blizzard could do it. I’ve always loved the feel of the Eastern cities in Guild Wars, the Dragon Festival and so on, and I think it would be amazing in Warcraft.

*sigh* We can dream, can’t we?

]]> http://www.ravven.com/blog/2011/08/mists-of-pandaria/feed/ 1 http://www.ravven.com/blog/2011/07/flamin-bird/ http://www.ravven.com/blog/2011/07/flamin-bird/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:30:22 +0000 Ravven http://www.ravven.com/blog/?p=3346 Kit is now done with dailies, for now. Hurrah!

I’m still playing some Warcraft, but basically I’m just doing the Firelands dailies on my hunter and shaman. I couldn’t bear to do it on any of the others, it is painful enough to just do it on two! I need to get out of this rut, and start pugging some instances. Blech. Or perhaps not.

This is a pretty MMO-free period for me, which is a good thing in terms of not being distracted by gaming. Star Wars: The Old Republic is in the hazy future, and Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World are even farther away. That is a very, very good thing right now, as I have all the willpower of a three-year-old in a candy shop when it comes to shiny new MMOs.

These are my dailies:

1. Wake up. Feed cats. Little bastards want breakfast at the crack of dawn, and have evil habits of rattling the door handle, running their claws along the metal of the bedroom radiator (or on the wallpaper, which is worse), etc. to wake me up.

2. Drink coffee and eat Special K while I read the morning news. I am way behind on keeping up with my blog feeds and Twitter.

3. Hit the job sites. If I was a pure developer I would have no problem finding something (rather than the more amorphous UI/UX designer, brand manager, web designer, etc.).

4. Do dailies on my hunter, which goes quite quickly.

5. Work on my portfolio – I want to start sending out emails next week.

6. Lunch and one of our recorded TV episodes (currently we’re trying to follow Carnivale, Falling Skies, and Camelot). Or my beloved Big Bang Theory.

7. Try to do dailies on my shaman, which is slow and painful in comparison with Kitsune the hunter.

8. More art, which takes us up to the end of the “work” day.

Hey, it’s not very exciting, but it’s a living. Actually, it isn’t – but I am hoping that it will. :)

I’ve logged into Rift a few times, but haven’t done much playing. Server population seems to be pretty low, and unless you play at peak times, there isn’t a lot of activity. Now that server transfers are live, I did consider transferring to the English RP server…but decided not to because the capital cities were dead at peak times. Perhaps it was a bad night, but still…I was surprised and saddened.

The question is, after five plus years why is Warcraft still enjoyable for me (within my current VERY casual limits)? Why is Rift, which is a solid, fun game with developers who are breaking their asses to create new content, not enjoyable? I honestly don’t know. I’ve read a lot of blogs written by former Rift players who kind feel the same way. Great game, but meh.

I’d hate to lose my love for gaming – being a gamer is a large part of who I am. I think I’m just very wary of timesinks right now, and very stressed over looking for work. Or perhaps I’m just burned out.

I love playing together – gaming is a love that we both share, and it also gives old married couples new topics of conversation. :) You whippersnappers will know what I mean someday. I don’t play World of Tanks, and he doesn’t play EVE, but we still share a lot of games in common – it’s quite nice. It would be difficult being an avid gamer with a non-gamer partner.

So, trundling along through Eastern Plaguelands…

Listening to the banter between the other passengers on the coach…