One Last Time? January 31, 2010

At the risk of sounding like John Farnham*…

The time has come for me to hang up my writing pen (at least, my WoW writing pen), and take a step back from the community.  After a lot of soul searching, I have realised that I simply spend far too much of my time focused on the game and immersed in this online community.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but I have stopped thinking so much about the ‘Real World’, and it has begun to affect things it quite frankly shouldn’t be affecting.

I guess people might have a few questions….

1.  Why you quitting?  That above answer seems kinda vague.

Well, it is.  I don’t really want to go into all the nitty gritty of the things blogging has changed in my life (some for the better, some for the worse).  Essentially, I’ve just decided that it isn’t healthy for me to have my focus lie here, so I am going to drop WoW blogging and spend the (great deal of) time I worked here and in other places focusing on my job and saving some money.

2.  Does this mean you are quitting WoW?

At this point, no, I’ll continue to play the game, hopefully at least until Cataclysm.  I’ll also hopefully feel less obligated to be all serious and mathy about it… hell, I might even spend time on alts rather than my main.

3.  Will the website be staying up?

I am 99.9% sure my hosting dies in March.  At this point, I’ll either pay to keep this page here (probably useless, as there is no relevant info to be found here), or I’ll transfer all the content over to my old free Wordpress site and let the hosting expire.  I’ll always keep hold of the name, just in case.  We all know I haven’t done well at quitting in the past, but this time I have a much better incentive.

4.  What did you mean, hanging up your WoW writing pen?

I do have a personal blog, and I’ll continue blogging sporadically there.  I’m not going to link it here, as the writing standard is (unbelievably) even lower than here, and most of the posts consist of me emoing out.  However, it’s not hard to find, I am pretty sure I have links to it here and there on the community, so if you are interested enough to track it down, feel free to have a look.

However, I will be ceasing all writing at this point in time on Destructive Reach, and more than likely Tree of Doom as well.  If I do happen to post on Tree of Doom, it will be without fanfare, and I certainly won’t be expecting readers!

5.  What about your involvement with the WoW Community?

Most of my involvement with the community will also be coming to a close.  I am more than happy for anyone to have a chat to me about, well, anything at any time, and if you want to do so, you can look at my Twitter page for my contact details.  I will probably eventually be withdrawing from the WoW twitter community as well.

As for Blog Azeroth, I am also planning on withdrawing from that community as well.  So, I am hoping that a couple of motivated bloggers want to step up to the role of moderating and helping the BA community.  If you are interested, please please PLEASE let me know.  In this regard I am quite disappointed, as there were a couple of things I was hoping to achieve in the community this year.  However, it will be nice to see new people take on the role and achieve something

So, this is the part of the post where I should do thank yous.  However, I am absolutely terrified of leaving someone out, so I would just like to thank those in the WoW and Blog Azeroth communities who have been so kind to me over the past two or so years, and who have helped me through SO many things.  I’d also like to of course thank every person who reads this blog, and those of you who are kind enough to comment, regardless of whether you have agreed or disagreed with me.  You have all been truly amazing, and I consider myself blessed to have such wonderful people actually interested enough to read what I have to say.

Thank you all again.  It has truly been wonderful fun, and I will miss you all immensely.  Best wishes in the World of Warcraft and beyond for you all.

Love, Sar

*Oh… and who is John Farnham, you ask?  Well, he was a singer in the 80’s and 90’s in Australia, who has probably now made a large amount of money of countless ‘One Last Time’ tours.  I think he has been quitting performing since I was about 10… and is still trekking around doing ‘last shows’.  The man just doesn’t know how to quit.

Do You Qualify To Be A Warlock? January 29, 2010

Many people believe that they could be Warlocks.  Some people think that it is barely even a challenge.  All the time, I am hearing “Pshaw, I could easily be a Warlock.  They aren’t THAT awesome, and besides, how hard is it to be evil?”  Well… let’s have a quick run down of what could be a Warlock and what could not.

1.  Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is often hailed as the weird geek be all and end all of power.  If it can be done, he can do it.  Hell, if it can’t be done, he can probably do it.  However, Chuck is unfortunately severely lacking in the awesome that is required to be a Warlock.  Why?

• Melee Combat – way to risk getting a broken nose, doofus.
• No Magical Powers – epic fail, right there.
• No understanding of the term ‘Damage OVER TIME’ – instantly pwning things is neither evil nor fun.
• This photo right here: Guns are for noobs and people who fail at throwing firey balls of doom out of their hands.

Warlock Capable Factor: Hell No.

2.  Darth Vader.

Darth Vader.  He wears all black.  He has a creepy voice.  He wears a bad ass helmet.  He only has one hand.  He killed a whole heap of children.  He lives in the Death Star, for frick’s sake.  How can you get more evil than that?

Well, for starters… you don’t let someone CHOP YOUR HAND OFF.  You also don’t emo out at any opportunity – seriously, grow a pair and deal with it.  When you kill children, you don’t get all emo about that, either.  And you cook them afterwards – it’s only proper.

Warlock Capable Factor: Nope.  Evil?  Maybe a little.  But definitely lacking the brains.

3.  Cats.

For this, I am going to use my cat Suki as an example.

Suki is the ridiculously small, white, fluffy thing that is curled up into a ball. The other cat is Kamiko, my monstrous tabby of doom.  The other day, she killed a bird and left the remains scattered throughout my parents’ house, with most of the body under their bed. Mmm yummy.

Anyway, I digress.

Suki is like the Gnome Warlocks.  Small, fluffy, absolutely adorable.  She is totally deaf, and half blind. One would think that she is entirely helpless.  Of course, we would be disregarding her ranged attacks…

• Fear (or, the Hiss of Death) – She has perfected the art of jumping in front of other animals, puffing up, and letting out an ungodly hiss that sends them running.  It works particularly well on my ridiculously large dog, who is terrified of Suki.
• The Fur DoT – Often weakening me to a wheezing state of utter helplessness, Suki deposits fur in cunning places (such as my pillows, in the clean washing, and on my towels).  She is not always around when I finally succumb, but I know that she is off cackling somewhere!
• Minion control – she often chases Kamiko into inconvenient places… like right in front of my feet before I walk down stairs, or as I step out of the shower.  She does this knowing that my first reaction will be to blame Kamiko as I go tumbling over.  Evil indeed.

Warlock Capable Factor: I’d have her on my raid team any day.

I think this conclusively proves that many of the people who THINK they are awesome enough to be a Warlock clearly are not.  Warlockery is difficult, you know, and it takes a lot more awesome than what most people contain.  Hell, Warlocks have more awesome in them than most people have in their little finger. 

Do you think YOU have what it takes to be a Warlock?

The Drama Llama And Why We Secretly Fancy Him January 27, 2010

Some rather general discussion of guild drama and the drama llama in BA Chat got me to thinking about how we react to drama.  We all whinge and moan about it – the trouble it causes, how annoying it is, how nothing is the same afterwards.  The way we carry on, you would think that we all hate the drama llama.  It sounds like we would be happiest if the drama llama never reared his ugly head.

Well, I call BS.  And my proof?

A totally irrelevant experience in a one player game.  Completely valid argument though, I swear!

I don’t know how many of you guys played The Sims.  Yes, the old Sims, without genetics, or babies popping out everywhere.  Well, there was an interesting NPC who was a sad clown.  The purpose of the sad clown’s life was to show up when your characters were feeling depressed.  He then hung around, cried a lot, and made your characters even MORE depressed.  The only way to get rid of him was to cheer your characters up (near impossible with gloomy guts hanging around like a bad smell), or to call the clown catchers.

Anyway, the point of this whole little story was that there was also an artwork for sale for something like 40 simoleans (an absolute steal!)  This kitschy little painting depicted a somehow familiar sad clown.  If you purchased the painting and hung it on your wall, you basically guaranteed that the clown would show up at some point to ruin the party.  Kinda like telling a vampire they can come in… or something.

What sort of idiot would buy a painting that would invite a depressed lunatic clown into their home?

… Well, me for one.

Don’t ask me why.  I really don’t know.  It always meant that I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to cheer my Sims up.  They would often lose their jobs because they were too depressed to go to work.  Eventually, I’d have to call the clown catchers, even though my unemployed Sims could no longer afford it**.  But damn if it wasn’t amusing watching this ridiculous clown get my Sims down.

I figure, the drama llama is kinda the same.  We get bored when nothing is going wrong.  So, I suspect we often go looking for little ways to find trouble.  Perhaps we even try to cause trouble sometimes (not that I would ever do such a thing, I swear!)  Drama is interesting, and exciting, and it gives us a feeling of satisfaction when we deal with it.

Just like that damned Sad Clown.

** Good thing I have no scruples and used the rosebud cheat liberally.

P.S.  Yes, I know this makes NO sense.  I am currently sitting at Fiji Airport, hoping that there isn’t a random coup (Fiji has a lot of coups, compared to most countries, and our military spend a bit of time here helping out, or some such thing).  I haven’t slept in… 28 hours now… I would gladly donate my left arm, and one of my kidneys, for a shower… it’s an interesting state of affairs.  ‘Home’ in 11 hours though!

Lost: One Blogging Mojo January 26, 2010

If anyone finds it, I’ll pay good money!

You may have noticed that posts are a little thin on the ground as of late.  I think I have managed, what, two or three over the past month?  I could make a whole bunch of excuses, but I guess it all really comes down to the following:

I feel rather inadequate as a player and a writer right now.

You know how in movies, people talk about having a crisis of faith?  You know, they suddenly realise they don’t believe in God/Buddha/the Staypuft Marshmallow Man/whatever deity they happen to believe in.  Well, since I am one of those evil cynical types who doesn’t have one of those faiths, my little crises tend to take the form of suddenly being unable to believe in myself.

I still will occasionally have a bright sparkling idea for a post.  A really incisive look at UIs, for instance.  Or a gritty post interrogating talent points (I have Shadowfury tied up to a chair, with my evil attack minions poking it with a fork as we speak).  Unfortunately, the minute I go to write the bloody thing, my mind runs out screaming “You don’t know what you are talking about, you moron!” 

Luckily for you guys, there are SO many Warlock bloggers now (seriously… to think I used to feel like I was the only Destruction blogger – there’s a zillion of them around nowadays, and for the most part they are bloody fantastic), so you don’t really need me to be writing that stuff.  You can find it elsewhere, and it’s all really solid content that is written in a much clearer way than I ever could.

So, until I can somehow start believing that I’m not a brainless twatwaffle with a verbal diarrhoea problem, posts might be a little… infrequent.  Or, there will just be lots of random drivel like this. 

Re-do time!

So, it comes down to the following:

My inner writer is emoing out like a 14 year old who just discovered black hair dye and razor blades.

I’ll get back to writing when my common sense returns.

<3 Sar

You’ll Have To Speak Up, I’m Wearing A Towel January 8, 2010

OK, so by my watch, I have 15 minutes to get dressed, blow dry my hair, get all my things together, and leave.  So, of course, I am instead writing a speedy post (you telling me you don’t write straight out of the shower while wearing a towel?  What is WRONG with you?)

So far, I think it has been….20 days since I last logged into the game. So, a good minimum of 40 Emblems of Frost, a few gold (given my usual gold accumulation rate, I’ll estimate this to be… wait, I think I have saved myself 500 gold!), and a bit of chit chat. 

For a while there… I was missing it.  I spent the whole week at my Mum and Dad’s cursing myself for leaving my authenticator at home on its little hook, way way waaaaaaay out of reach of my grabby little hands.  Never mind that I couldn’t play at my parents anyway, since both their computer and their internet were both terrible.  I just missed the game!

In Japan, I also found myself missing it occasionally.  However, it only seemed to be during those moments when I would much rather be somewhere else (hello, sister and her boyfriend making out REALLY LOUDLY in the room next to mine!), or when I happened to see guildies on twitter (/wave Tziv!)  Most of the time I was just way too busy to actually care too much about not being in game, or the fact that when I get back I am going to have to play like an insane Chinese gold farmer to get my character caught up and back up to scratch.

Now, well… I miss it more because it’s DAMNED hard to talk about the game here when I am not playing it.  I mean, what can I say?  I can do the whole band camp routine:

“This one time, at Nagrand, an Elekk fell on me….”

Yeah, we won’t even contemplate the rest of that story. 

I can also still rant a little I guess, because people seem to have this uncanny ability to get my goat even when I’m in a different bloody country and out of the game… but there is only so much one can rant about before they start to sound like a certain person who shall not be named.  You all know who I mean!

So, instead, you get really fast terrible posts written when I am wearing a towel.

Rants… you know you have missed them! January 7, 2010

I tried really hard to not write really angry blog posts. I kept telling myself that people really do not enjoy reading me yelling and raving about how much I don’t like this, that or the other about the game. The problem is… if I’m not ranting, I don’t have much to say. It’s almost like I don’t know how to write anymore if I’m not cranky. So, I guess we get to welcome back the cranky Sar this year!

The game has become full of angry, elitist asshats. It’s like you give everyone a pile of gear, and all of a sudden the egos shoot through the roof, everyone thinks they are better at the game than anybody else, and it all becomes about gearscores , following Elitist Jerks slavishly and everyone treats everyone else like crap.

Even when I am not in the game, I see a stream of tweets. ‘I hate these bads I am stuck with.’ ‘Oh, look, I found a new way to judge people!’ ‘I can’t wait to kick this person from our group’. The new pugging has brought such a negative attitude to the game. People aren’t happy if the people they run with are less than perfect, if they don’t have perfect gear, if they aren’t doing what they think they should be doing. And it’s contagious. All of a sudden everyone starts whinging. The game has become a giant cacophony of whingy whiny spoilt brats complaining and squealing because they don’t get their way.

“Oh my god, look at their gear!”

Oh no… you mean you might be in a heroic with someone in BLUES? The horror! Fancy someone actually wanting some god damned GEAR.

Newsflash: You don’t have to be in ToC epics to do a bloody heroic. Hell, you don’t need Naxx epics… not that anyone wears that stuff anymore anyway. Heroics are tuned for people to wear BLUES. Epics might make it a little faster, sure, but it doesn’t mean it is only possible to do them that way. So, stop being a whiny little shit who drops group because ‘waaah waaah waaah 2 of the DPS are in blues and this is sooo slow and OMG it’s totally killing me to run with you inferior beings’.

Stop being a self absorbed twat who thinks their time is more important than anyone else’s. Your fricking purple gear does not make you special. AT ALL.

“You run with THAT spec? Wow….. noob”

This just outright drives me INSANE. Let’s imagine a world where everyone specced exactly the same way. Every Mage was an identical arcane spec. Every Warlock was affliction. Every tank specced the same as well. And every healer. Why the hell not? Let’s make us all the same, because that’s what makes the world fun, right?

I just have two little words to say to that. Fuck off. Why aren’t people allowed to spec however it is they enjoy playing? It’s a damned game. They are bloody heroics. You know how much DPS you need to do to be able to get through a heroic? Bloody 1500. THAT IS ALL.  People can probably even pull that with the most poorly designed spec from hell that they somehow ended up with when they let their cat control the computer.  Get over it.

So, what’s my solution to all the bitching and whining that I see going on in game? Suck it up, princess. Just get your badges, shut your mouth, and move on at the end. Obviously, none of this excuses the following

- Ninja AFKs

- Rudeness

- General Asshattery

- Totally stupid shit like pulling before the tank

Stupidly obvious caveat that shouldn’t need to be said, but if I don’t someone will pull me up on it… the new heroics are a bit harder and require somewhat better gear. The STFU principle still applies though!

Oh… and you guys have to let me off on the whole ‘poorly written’ bit. I am travelling and busy and all that stuff… I’m just sick to death of my twitter stream and chat channels being full of whiny little bitches.

The Japan Raid – The Last Snowflake January 2, 2010

Today, my sister and I ditched skiing to spend the daily frolicking in the snow… you know, building snowmen and what not.  Let me just say… we kick ass at snowman building!

Isn’t that the most awesome snowman you have ever seen?  He even has a cute little hat!  I just want to take him home and install him in my yard… too bad he would melt very rapidly.

Too bad, as well, that it isn’t our snowman.

THIS is our snow(wo)man, who I have dubbed Queen Pinhead, for the extreme difference in the size of her head and body.  She was a nurse in the war whose arms got sadly chopped off by an overenthusiastic surgeon, hence the arm stumps that you may or may not be able to see. She also has a scarf made out of snow, because my sister and I are arty and clever like that. (And yes, our snowwoman has a melodramatic backstory.  That’s totally normal.)

Right after I took this photograph, my sister kicked off her head.  There is a photo of me holding said head Hamlet style, but it’s on my sister’s camera… and it really doesn’t look like a head at that point.  I look like I am mourning a ball of snow, and it makes no sense.

I also got hit by several snowballs thrown by Japanese in the process of making this snowman.  My sister got hit with none because my fat ass was protecting her.  I took them for the team, damn it!  I think they were targetting the blonde because I was easy to spot.

Today is our last day at the snow, so we are celebrating it by getting well and truly hammered (well… as hammered as one can get off half a bottle of hundred proof Japanese vodka… so well and truly tipsy?), then going to a karaoke bar and making fools of ourselves. 

More random photos!

THIS is why I don’t do beanies.  Ever.

Hot Chocolate in a CAN.  Everything in Japan comes out of a vending machine, I swear! 

   Me trying to look like a mushroom out of Mario with my sister.  By the time I remembered my sunnies, it wasn’t half as glary.  Figures!  There is also a stupid snowflake RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY NOSE.

/hugs to all!

The Japan Raid – They Lie! December 31, 2009

So… people say skiing is easy.

Does this look like the face of a competent skiier to you?  Because, to me, I look like I am about to pee my pants in absolute terror of falling over.  It didn’t get much better from their either… My first fall (which was my only ‘proper’ fall, I must admit’ resulted in me crashing into my sister and taking her out.  Of course, we both just laid there in the snow laughing for about 10 minutes while we waited for her boyfriend to help us up.  My second fall was when some random guy crashed into me, took me out… and made me fall on someone else as I went down, taking them out… very messy!!! 

The third fall was probably the best.  My sister and I decided that we were getting kinda chilly, and we weren’t confident enough to ski down the slopes since the visibility had dropped to next to none.  I had the brilliant idea of skiing down the road, like I could see other people doing.  I made my way merrily down the hill, and then suddenly realised I was at an incredibly sharp corner… with an oncoming drop.  Yipes.  So, rather than try to get around the corner (and probably not turn enough and go plummeting off the edge), I decided to run into a giant wall of snow that would have been at least as tall as me.  My sister then tried to come down to help me, and managed to stack it in the snow about 8 metres up the hill behind me.  Of course, I had to get up, pick up my things, toddle all the way back up the hill, pick her up, and find her things for her and pick them up too… I think the fall kinda scared her.

I think she described it as ‘You were going down the hill, and it all seemed to be fine… then you suddenly turned 90 degrees and faceplanted into the snow wall’.  I am nothing if not dignified.

Also… all the pictures of blonde alpine beauties are also a lie.  You know how they run around in their ski jackets and stuff that makes them look shapely (and a lot less like a blob, which is what I look like in the above picture)… and they have this long, flowing blonde hair that always looks gorgeous and just brushed and glowing?

Well…

I think more appropriate descriptive terms would be manky icy hair that looks… well… manky and icy.  Especially that GIANT LUMP OF FRICKING ICE that attached itself to me.  Of course, my hair was also constantly freezing itself to my jacket, so whenever I moved I made weird little squealy sounds of pain.  Tomorrow I am wearing my hair in a bun.

It was pretty fun though, even if I did drive the ski instructor nuts with my inability to make pizza legs properly  

And, since we all like pictures….

My sister and I.  The weird thing all Japanese girls seem to do in photos with their fingers is clearly contagious.  I also have an epic case of beanie hair, and the bags are the result of a horrid sleep on a futon mattress.  Urgh.

I don’t remember exactly what happened here… but it’s scary.  The person lying on the ground is my sister’s boyfriend… she is the one doing the questionable movement in front of him.

  Um….  See the whole ‘arctic beauties are clearly a lie’ thing?  Scary stuff.

I might post more photos from my trip later on   I think these are horrific enough as they are!

The Japan Raid – Day One! December 29, 2009

Well, the plane didn’t crash (despite the excessive screaming of the psychotic lady next to me who thought it was going to and we were all going to die and blah blah fricking BLAH), and I landed at Narita at 7pm yesterday Japan time.

The first thing I did was find a bathroom, because I really really needed to pee and the last thing I like to use is a plane toilet.  Even when I flew to LA, which was a 13 hour flight, I didn’t go to the bathroom… plane toilets just freak me out, what can I say.  Anyway, in the bathroom there were three toilet options:

1.  Fancy high tech loo: more buttons than a space ship, I didn’t even know what any of them did.  I was afraid to use something that looked like it had more gadgetry than the Sputnik, so I gave it a miss.

2.  Glorified hole in the ground: Um… squat loo?  No thanks, I’m lazy and don’t really like hovering above a hole!

3.  Normal western toilet – huzzah!!!

After that I went to go do the whole immigration/customs thing.  Not sure why, but for some reason you need to get a shuttle from one part of the airport to the other.  Guess it’s marginally too far to walk, so they make you take a 1 minute train ride.

I got through everything ok (although one of the immigration officers started speaking Japanese to me, and then was a little confounded when I couldn’t understand a think he said).  Turns out he thought I must be half Japanese because my middle name, Naomi, is apparently a Japanese name.  Heh.

My sister and her boyfriend picked me up, and we drove around for a bit (it was about 2 and a half hours from the airport to their place), and we grabbed some dinner along the way.  Wasn’t too bad… the meat was super fatty (which was apparently normal) and it made me a little sick, but it was fairly tasty.  I still fail at chopsticks as well, but I should be a master by the time I leave!

This morning I got to try pizzaman and nikuman.  Basically it’s filling in bread… kinda like a hot pocket I guess, but steamed.  Oddly enough, the pizzaman is pizza filling, and nikuman is beef and vegetables.  Now THOSE I could handle eating!

I think we are going to ride bikes around Ashikaga today, and pack to get ready for skiing.  Now, the shower is calling my name, so I best be going!

P.S. – I find it hilarious that my sister now speaks English like a Japanese person, and randomly throws Japanese words in her sentences.  However, I wonder if her and her boyfriend are using it as a secret code to talk around me

P.P.S – My sister’s boyfriend’s mate arrives tonight I think.  Will be nice to have another ‘Japan first timer’ around!

So This Is Christmas… And I’m On Vacation! December 25, 2009

I kinda failed to write this post BEFORE I left the house a few days ago.  Yeah, I know, bad bad me!  However, I think that most of you are aware that I am heading off overseas for a month very soon (in two more days, as a matter of fact), and so posts from me shall be rare, and full of boring real life stuff like photos of me half killing myself skiing, being ill when confronted with the possibility of eating sushi – I don’t like cooked fish, let alone raw fish.  Or anything else that lives in water, for that matter.  Except calamari.  Nom – being buried alive in snow, etc etc.

So, if you really find the whole idea of a month of random RL Sar disgusting, as I would myself if I weren’t me (and totally unaware of how awesome I am), feel free to tune me out until the start of February.  No WoW posts ‘til then.  I even left my authenticator living on its little hook at home!  So… unless you want completely unqualified waffle….

Yes, I am aware that’s nothing new. Thanks for pointing that out, person just like the kid in the supermarket (You know, the one who loudly points out all the fat people?)

Ahem… Unless you want completely unqualified waffle, I suggest you spend the month lurking on the EJ forums or something.