Rants tag

Rants, ruminations, and rambling remarks from my mad, muddled, meandering mind.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Blaugust Blowout

Valerija is Unimpressed
My anticipation of the Legion launch yesterday was such that I almost forgot August has thirty-one days, leaving with a chance to another post. This much more casual Blaugust was a bit more to my taste, I think. I did mange to post 12 times (including this one), which on average is about every three days. On the other hand, I don't know that my posts were any deeper than last years' on average.
Scooter and I, playing our Demon Hunters, did the quests to transport Dalaran to the Broken Isles and then our Artifact Weapons, plus a little dabbling in Azsuna. We finished out the evening on two new characters (I know!) in Teldrassil. It was actually nice and quiet after the crowds and minor chaos of the expansion zones.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.
Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Legion Launches

Today's big event seems almost anticlimactic. Much of the changes to basic game mechanics (e.g., the talent system, spells/abilities, transmog) came out over a month ago. Demon Hunters have been available to play since early August. And, of course, the ever increasingly frequent Invasions of six prime targets had everyone in a frenzy of XP and loot. After creating and boosting a pair of characters, Scooter and I started our own DHs, ran all four through the high-level quests prepping us for a counter-invasion of the Broken Isles.
I started a solo mage and leveled her to 52 purely through running Invasions, only completing all six last night after a couple laborious treks because I was missing flight points. I know others have gotten fresh characters from 1 to 100 due to the event.
It's been fun—if a bit frustrating at times due to the vagaries of random number generators. My level 52 still has the level 1 staff she started with, and Scooter's Paladin never got a weapon drop. But I suppose it kept us on the hamster wheel. Frankly, I'll be happy to return to regular questing. It will be up to Scooter whether we return to leveling our low-to-mid level duos, or jump into the Broken Isles stuff—or both. Scooter still hasn't really seen Outland or Northrend, and neither of us has seen Pandaria or Draenor at all.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

A Leveling Play Field

Belghast hit on something today I've been contemplating for a bit since the Legion Invasions started. If you've been following him this month, Dear Reader, I am sure you are aware of his progress in getting several characters both leveled and geared solely by running the Invasion content. I am sorely tempted to do the same thing, but two things keep me from doing so.
Tough Girls
One, Scooter is resistant to the idea. We leveled our rogues up about 20 levels and got some great gear along the way, but on our freshly minted 100s (mine a warrior, hers a pally) she has been frustrated by the RNG gods and still doesn't have a Felforged Weapon. Meanwhile I am fully geared with a couple Warforged pieces and a Mace seems to drop for me every other Invasion. If they weren't soulbound, I could share. But the past few trips to Invasion zones have only led to disappointment and frustration for Scooter.

Two, having a raft of 100s is not the reason I returned to World of Warcraft in the first place. I've essentially missed three expansions (due to my own burn-out), and that's a lot of content I am now interested in checking out. It's been long enough that, while I recognize many of the old quests—in slightly modified form—it's more like returning to an old favorite book rather than rehashing content for the umpteenth time.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Glow!
I've said it before—just the other day, in fact—that leveling is not as important to me as experiencing the quests and storylines, a major reason I disagree with the "story is bunk" philosophy of MMOs espoused by C.T. Murphy, for example. I agree with Belghast (and Murphy) that Blizzard has left the leveling process a bit disjointed, and Scooter and I have skipped entire zones to get somewhere challenging. But hey, with a little planning, we can get those zones with other characters on a different occasion.

It's not that I don't want to level. If I wanted to do that, I could turn off XP gains while running through a zone. But I wish the leveling were smoother, more in line with the vast amount of content available in WoW.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Classocalypse

OR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Legion

Yahoo!!

I'm going to admit right now that this post is the imperfect melding of three only somewhat related posts. Let's get to it.

Which Main Felbane Reigns Gamely in my Brain?

Negative, Ghostrider. The pattern is full.
Syp has been debating which character he wants to be his main during World of Warcraft's impending Legion expansion. As it turns out, Belghast was trying to decide the same thing.

Having just gotten back into the game myself, I am still on the fence about many of the classes. Druid has versatility, but like always, it lacks focus. I’ve always liked enhancement shammies, I had one as my main of the last year I played. But I wish they hadn’t nerfed the tankiness of the class. When Blizz abandoned Shammy/Pally parity, it seems like shamans got the short end of the stick.

My own altoholism is already rearing its beautiful head, I already have 11 toons on Argent Dawn after only a couple months back. Granted, two of them have been created but never played, and two I played to about level 5 in a single session and have not returned. So I’ll be no help to you there, Dear Reader. Given the trinity roles, many of the classes seem like rehashes of each other. Do I kill with my fists or my daggers? Do I send in my cheetah or my doomguard? Maybe the order halls will restore that feeling of uniqueness.

Classocalypse

I'm lying, Fury Warrior feels way different than Enhancement Shaman or Outlaw Rogue. But I haven't played any of them in the past few years prior to June, so I am not sure how they are different since the 7.0 patch. It might be better to say many specs overlap from one class to the next. For instance, Destruction Warlock and Fire Mage. As an altoholic, my reaction to Destrolocks is that they give up on what makes a Lock unique in favor of imitating another class. However, if I were only ever a Warlock, I might want to distinguish myself from other Locks, taking what is perhaps a path less traveled. And I indicated above, even within specific group roles, like melee DPS, individual classes and specs feel very different, even if they look similar to an observer.
Cool Explosion Shot
Syp is lamenting the recent changes to the Beast Master Hunter spec. I have a relative lowbie BM hunter that I have no intention of changing (except maybe raiding, if it comes to that). I agree that it seems a little stilted, like they expect a chunk of damage to be auto-shoot. I expected more beast commands, but right now I basically have 4 abilities of any consequence, three of which are on cooldowns and only two of which involve beasts.

On the other hand, they've made it super easy to switch talents and even specs (making trainers nothing but decoration). I am not afraid to experiment. If you're looking for guidance on the "best" specs and talents, Icy Veins is a great place to start, and may be the only thing you need. I also recommend the developer blog posts about the various classes/specs in order to get a feel for their intent.
Let Fly the Cobra's Fang!
Too often, we get caught up in being optimal—myself, included—when the focus really should be on having fun. Soon enough, Blizz will take the nerf bat to any "überl33t" spec, which will then be "teh suxxors." Maybe it makes me an awful player, but I rarely listen to the commentariat regarding ideal/garbage specs. The one recent exception is when Manglehaft and Psynister tempted me into creating a Fury Warrior, which is now my boosted-to-100 toon in full 700 gear (thanks to Invasions). However, it is mostly the "fun factor" they sold me on, as opposed to any statistics.

You worry too much

I think Legion will probably be fun; that doesn't mean it will be perfect. Just the other day, I saw a suggestion to make the Demon Hunter resource "Preparedness." When there's not enough to perform an ability, your character could say, "I am not prepared." It's clever, and just the sort of tongue-in-cheek that WoW means to a lot of folks. Then again, I thought Pandaren were a natural fit, but thousands raged about the race. You probably know, Dear Reader, that Blizzard did not follow that DH suggestion.
Wasn't there a level glow picture here?
Blizzard has already tweaked the Invasion XP several times, to the consternation and delight of various bloggers, including me. There will be more changes to come, as there have been in the past. And there will be "winners" and "losers" who will perhaps have legitimate concerns. I feel that I have some myself. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, and how long it will take before people will start bitching about the lack of "content" again in one of—if not THE—most content-rich MMORPGs on the market.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

The Sisters Spinoza

or

CSI: Sentinel Hill

The Spinoza sisters come from a privateering family that helped keep the sea lanes open near the town of Southshore. Their father captains the sloop Lady Legace (named for a former paramour). After the destruction of Southshore by the Forsaken, Captain Spinoza set sail for warmer waters. His daughters, tired of life at sea, disembarked during provisioning at Stormwind Harbor to make their fortunes ashore.
While they look very similar, you can recognize Beyleigh by her slightly longer hair and impish grin. And Beyleigh certainly is the more mischievous of the two, preferring shadows and the subtle sting of a dagger in the back. Meyleigh has shorter hair and a canny gaze. The younger Spinoza is quick with a cutlass or boarding axe, or a pistol shot to the face.

While their father may or may not have slipped into outright piracy, the Spinoza sisters have ended up a crime fighting dynamic duo, helping solve a murder mystery and uncovering a plot against Marshall Stoutmantle of Westfall. But when Vanessa VanCleef and her co-conspirators retreated to the Deadmines, who actually got justice . . .
Horatio Laine takes stock of Admiral Ripsnarl.

(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)

And who got the shaft?
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.
Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Livy and Manerva: Reborn

I am way behind on my profiles. I say this a lot, but in my defense, given the chance, I normally would rather play MMOs than blog about them. So if a post doesn't mostly happen at lunch, it's not likely to happen at all.
Hi, everyone. We're just happy to be here . . . again.
Livy and Manerva Honeywell
[IPA: ˈlɪviː & məˈnɜːrvə] (Manerva—derived from the Roman goddess of wisdom and war—is Scooter's character, with lively eyes and a mischievous grin. Livy—short for Olivia—stands behind her, a more sober—dare I say it: grave—twin.

The Honeywell cousins lived and died in Southshore before the Second War with the Orcish Horde. After the defeat of the Lich King, Sylvanus Windrunner implemented a program of expansion and re-population of the Forsaken territories. The graveyard containing the Honeywell family plot fell into Forsaken hands, which they used to replenish their "Human Resources." Though they were simple folk in life, the resurrected cousins showed talent for magic. Mystical Manerva delves into the Arcane, while her more disciplined, priestly partner mixes the best of Light and Shadow. The budding adventurers performed some services for the denizens of Brill and the Bulwark before being sent on to Silverpine Forest to meet with the Dark Lady herself.
What road do we take to get to Forsaken High Command?
I tied the Honeywell ladies's story back to a period prior to much of the contemporary struggles of Warcraft, so they have no loyalties/resentments with regard to the Cataclysm era politics of Azeroth. Tying into my own history with WoW, I discovered upon arriving in Southshore during the Vanilla/BC days an NPC named Julie Honeywell, who had the exact same features I'd used for my blog namesake, Rowanblaze, and her twin sister Hollyhammer. If I had not already come up with a surname and backstory out of Redridge for those two, Ms. Honeywell would definitely have been part of it.

I think of their in-game monikers as what they call each other. Manerva has a nickname for Olivia, whereas Livy tends to address her cousin by her given name. It's also mildly amusing to me that I envision both Livy and Meyleigh as more practical than Scooter's more mischievous characters, since I think Scooter herself is by far the practical one in our relationship. As far as why they'd be so well preserved when it could be assumed that they'd be nothing more than dust; in my head canon, the magic of the Val'kyr is sufficient to restore some flesh to Forsaken bones.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog. 

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Invasion: Azeroth!

Scooter and I spent the weekend when we weren't preparing for the family dinner party) questing with Meyleigh and Beyleigh. At some point, I also got some solo time on my Tauren, Sedgeweaver. As you may already be aware, Dear Reader, WoW's pre-expansion Legion invasion event is going on right now, since the introduction of the Demon Hunter prestige class on Tuesday, 9 August (maybe it started this weekend, I'm not sure). I had assumed that the event was for high-level characters only, and didn't figure on participating. However, a flight from Thunder Bluff to Orgrimmar took me through the Northern Barrens during one such event, so I headed to the Crossroads to check things out. As it happens, the event mobs are tuned to my own character levels, so I was able to participate and get some rewards.
On Sunday afternoon, I suggested to Scooter that doing a couple events would be fun and rewarding. She turned out to be at least enthusiastic as I was, and we were able to complete all the events in the Eastern Kingdoms before migrating Meyleigh and Beyleigh to Kalimdor on Sunday evening. Of course, we're hoping to get at least four more events in tonight—including all three in Kalimdor to complete the Defender of Azeroth Achievement/Feat of Strength. I guess there's another one involving collecting pamphlets that players are literally killing their characters to get "efficiently."

The event is a bit of a mixed bag, from my perspective, though mostly positive. I like the invasions themselves, which remind me of Rift invasions. And the rewards are nice. I liked leveling and gaining more abilities, which seem few and far between compared to WoW 1.0-3.0. On the other hand, the massive amount of XP and levels gained from participating in the events is exactly the opposite of how I would like to progress through the game. Our Rogue ladies leveled twice per event; which, along with some regular questing, meant they went from level 21 to level 33 on Sunday. So our Redridge quests turned grey before we were done, as did Duskwood before we even arrived. We completed the Bravo Company (SPOILERS) questline anyway, which was entertaining, but decided to skip Duskwood entirely in favor of Desolace—at this point, more level appropriate. [EDIT: As of Monday night, Meyleigh had hit 40, with Beyleigh on her heals. Desolace is barely green, and we quested in Dustwallow Marsh instead.]

If I were more inclined to race to 100, I would eagerly welcome the boosts the events give. But as always in RPGs, it seems to me that the journey is the better part.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog. 

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Damn Lucky


MMOs are, of course, far easier and more enjoyable when you have a steady partner to play with, and there is nothing steadier than having your partner in the game be your partner in life, as well. Scooter has been a fixture on this blog practically since we met almost five years ago. [No, it's been almost six. ~Scooter] When we first started dating, I curtailed my MMO habit quite a bit, though I didn't quit entirely. 'Twas in the last days of WotLK, just before Cataclysm dropped, and there were still a few things I wanted to accomplish. It was early December before she asked me if she could try playing WoW on my account. I would say I created a monster, but she already had the gaming bug from her youth playing D&D. She'd left off gaming to raise three wonderful kids (other than kicking their butts on the Nintendo), but returned to a new era of online fun. I still tend to play more than she does, but usually due to differing office hours rather than lack of interest. But it is cool that Scooter enthusiastically shares my interest in adventures both in virtual worlds and in the real world. Just yesterday, we went to the supermarket on a weekend afternoon, and had a house full of family. I am damn lucky.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted). If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Beyleigh and Meyleigh

or

Mispronunciation Blues

So Team Rogue has shifted. When she read* my post about Livy and Manerva, Scooter asked if it would be better to create rogues of another race and re-role our fledgling Forsaken to something else. She also said that after thinking about it, she thought Manerva should be more magical than a rogue. I agreed that it might be better to follow our respective character fantasies. So Livy and Manerva became a Priest and a Mage, respectively, and we rolled two human female rogues.
The Sisters Spinoza in Goldshire
Meyleigh and Beyleigh Spinoza
[IPA: ˈmeɪliː & ˈbeɪliː ɛspɪˈnoʊsə]

Simply known as Meyleigh and Beyleigh in-game. The names themselves are currently slightly more interesting than the histories of these intrepid sisters. Scooter came up with "Baylee" first and hunted down an acceptable spelling that hadn't been taken. Interestingly enough, the Urban Dictionary describes Baylee as "an incredibly hot female, typically with beautiful brunette hair. Loves animals and books. . . Has a great smile and round eyes."

Meyleigh's name is based on a common mispronunciation of the term melee, generally construed in MMORPGs to be the distance at which combatants can strike each other with swords, maces, etc. Since I was having a hard time coming up with a good plant-related name, Scooter suggested a departure from my habit. While I like the name, I have a hard saying it out loud. "Spinoza"—with various alternate spellings—is a common Hispanic surname indicating a family association with the hawthorn plant.

More later. . .

*Scooter proofreads almost all my articles before I post them, for which I am very grateful. However, any mistakes are mine and mine alone (unless otherwise noted).
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Saturday, August 6, 2016

The Trouble With Transmog

"After all... the true end game is looking awesome."
~ Belghast the Aggronaut, Rubber Band Thief
Since my recent return to World of Warcraft, I have not become involved in the Transmogrification game in the sense of running old content to pick up cool pieces. In fact, I avoided the original system entirely, knowing that before the end of the summer, it would replaced by the revamped version for Legion. If not for a major flaw (which I will discuss below), I could have avoided it for quite some time, given my focus on new, lower-level characters. Most MMOs have come up with various systems to help people express their sartorial preferences. As has been mentioned with some regularity elsewhere, having some kind of color matching or dyeing system in place goes a long way toward making "original" outfits that don't look like you stepped out of a clown's closet. Outfit systems that allow players to project an image independent of what they have equipped for attribute boosts are even better.

"I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty"

Achillea with Elara, Smashing!
Star Wars: The Old Republic has a fairly decent cosmetic system. Your mileage may vary, of course; partly depending on your subscription status. The paired-colors dye system is somewhat cumbersome, but this is mitigated by the match-to-chest feature. With one or two really awesome pieces, MtC helps me look cool without necessarily breaking the bank. And while BioWare at one point restricted player characters to cosmetic outfits that matched the armor class of the gear they could actually wear, a lot of the coolest stuff was Adaptive, matching whatever "hardness" the character would typically equip. Eventually, BioWare developed an outfit system that would allow the player to "imprint" a piece and still use it for other purposes. This meant that I could more easily match my Trooper Companions to my own uniform; whereas previously, I had to have two matching pieces for each slot.

With the KotFE expansion last fall, SWTOR eliminated gear-based stats for companions, (among other things) making it even easier to dress them them sharply. (Mako always wanted Mando armor!) In the meantime, the outfit system was broadened so that my character can "wear" anything, regardless of armor class. Additional outfit spaces are available for credits or cartel coins (RMT), but I am not sure what the ultimate limit is. It also costs an increasing amount of credits (based on character level) to imprint outfit slots. My only real criticism of SWTOR's cosmetic system is that if a given outfit slot is empty, whatever piece is in the actual stats gear slot is visible and doesn't necessarily match. "Bare-skin" versions of each slot are available through the random loot Cartel Packs, but high demand items (notably, the gloves) go for extortionate rates on the Galactic Trade Network. Since I have not been running top-end content, it is easier for me just to leave the slot empty if I want to go bare-handed.

Rift's outfit system is even more versatile. It's been a while since I played, but as I recall, several outfit spaces were available, all with independent slots. And you didn't have to worry about gear pieces showing through if, for example, you decided to leave your hands bare for a given outfit. Rift was also the first game I played that had a dye system allowing me to alter the colors of my gear. While dyes could get pricey on the player auction house, you could still look elegant. And unlike SWTOR, Rift's primary and secondary dye slots could be filled independently. The biggest drawback to the outfit system seems to be the outfits themselves—that is, the art design. But that is a different post all together. The last time we returned to start new characters, Scooter and I splurged on RMT store outfits to make our toons look fabulous.

Guild Wars 2 has an excellent dye system that almost makes up for the lack of actual variety in the costume choices. The system was expanded at some point to be accessible account wide. I tended to prefer some of the more easily obtained dyes, leading my daughter to refer to my characters as Christmas Girls. I don't recall being able to alter outfits independently of stats gear, but it's been a long time since I played GW2, and I know there are various outfits on offer in the Gem store (RMT).

Another cosmetic system worthy of mention is The Secret World, where they've completely divorced fashion from stats. And the costume pieces go into a "closet" where they are easily retrieved. While there are lots of outfits and pieces based on achievements—meaning occasionally you can show off your accomplishments—most of the people I saw were dressed in things that fit their (or at least their characters') personal sense of style. A few drawbacks: no dyeing system, but most costume pieces come in a variety of colors, such that I rarely felt like there weren't enough choices. Also, as of the last time I played, there isn't a built-in way to save entire outfits. However, there is at least one excellent add-on that enables you to do just that. Lastly, while the costume interface is arguably both minimalist and a bit cumbersome, the same can be said for the rest of the TSW interface. You just get used to it.

But what about Transmog?

Which brings us back to the new Transmog system. I can't speak to the way transmogrification worked before WoW v7.0.3; however, it seems to be the most cumbersome costume system I have yet to experience in an MMORPG. Prior to the Legion pre-patch, for instance, I could go to the Interface settings and hide my head piece, and my back piece at will. And now that functionality is part of the transmog interface that is only available when interacting with the transmog vendor in a single capital city: Stormwind for the Alliance, and Orgrimmar (I assume) for the Horde. There may be other places to do transmog, but the point is that the places are limited; whereas, at the least, hiding the head and back slot pieces used to be available anywhere in the world, because it was part of the Interface settings. It's still "free" to hide those slots (and now shoulders, as well), except for the time and perhaps coin required to get to the transmog vendor. And each piece must be hidden (or transmogged) as I acquire it. For a game with a reputation for making things ever more convenient ("dumbing down the content"), this a serious step backward.

Why does all this require me to go to a vendor anyway? Why could it not be done from anywhere? Half of the transmog interface (the images of my acquired pieces) is available at all times through the Collections window. Just like I can use that interface to summon my mounts and minipets, why could I not use it to transmog my stuff at will? Contrast this with the new talent system allowing folks to switch between all specs at will, in any resting area (i.e., Inns and Capitals)—or for that matter, the costume systems of the four other MMOs I have mentioned here.

Also, rather than making cosmetic costumes independent of stats gear, each piece must be transmogged as I acquire it, if I don't like the look. And still no dye system. It is my understanding that the color/texture system Blizzard uses won't allow for dyes. However, based on only my current transmog "inventory," they are fond of "dyeing" the same patterned piece a bazillion different ways back at Blizzard studios. Are they doing that "by hand" the way I might use MS Paint?

Now, to put this all in perspective, transmogrification is not a make or break system for me. Blizzard has done a lot to make outfits less random at the lower levels, at least if you're using quest reward gear. But in a game where most of the customization/creativity that players crave is tied up in their character's appearance (as opposed to, say, housing), you might think Blizzard would have done what they used to do best, look at what other developers are doing, and do it better.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Livy and Manerva

OR

The Risks of RP

Meet Livy and Manerva [IPA: ˈlɪviː & məˈnɜːrvə], a pair of Forsaken Rogues. I don't really have much to say about these two yet. Manerva (derived from the Roman goddess of wisdom and war) is Scooter's character, with lively eyes and a mischievous grin. Livy (may be sort of short for Olivia, and yet includes "Ivy": a creeping vine, fitting for the name of a stealth class) stands behind her, a more bitter—perhaps vengeful—twin. I hope to have something more fleshed out (heh) for them in the near future, but we barely made level 5 last night.

Part of my problem is that we kinda fell into these characters by default. As Scooter and I were discussing starting new characters, we quickly decided on Horde because we already have two Alliance duos. Since I wanted a Rogue, Tauren were right out, and I was reluctant to start another Blood Elf pair, since their starting area hasn't really changed since BC. We've already started Goblin characters (and I strongly dislike the result of the Goblin starting story). Scooter already has a Troll hunter, and expressed no interest in repeating the starting zone.

That leaves the Orcs and the Forsaken (called "Undead" in the character creation screen; is that because new players were confused as to what Forsaken are?). We could have gone with Orcs, but Scooter didn't really express interest in them either. Plus, her Troll and my Tauren (solo characters) are already in the Barrens, likely following the same questlines that any Orcs would.

So there I was, staring at the character creation screen, reviewing Forsaken models. And there are almost twice as many "Features" choices for Male Forsaken—including several with no jaw. I thought it would be cool to have a jawless female zombie. Many of the female Features, I guess, are supposed be protruding facial bones. But they end up looking like budding horns, like SWTOR's Zabraks. Despite the relative lack of choices, I still prefer the female Forsaken models to the males; hence Livy and not Georg.

Perhaps this risk in "RP" isn't much of a risk. No one is throwing virtual rocks at me or disrupting my RParty in Club 37. But it does touch on the fantasy side of why people roleplay. It's a powerful thing to step into the shoes of a character. But if the fit isn't quite right, it will obviously affect the enjoyment you might get out of the experience.

Class Fantasy

Herein lies the other side of my dilemma. Stormsage fills my core fantasy of the Shaman as a "battle mage": up close and personal, but with the fury of the elements infusing every blow. Sedgeweaver is the mighty Tauren Hunter, with a powerful beast companion by his side and respect for his worthy prey; more comfortable under a wide open sky than stuck in the social confines of a city. Bernolf is the shapeshifting Druid, ferocious and versatile in battle (though less so with the recent changes), in tune with the pulse of life in the wild world.

I don't actively RP in any game, but I usually have a strong sense of who my characters are. And I often make in-game decisions based on how I think characters would react to situations, even if that knowledge is the mind of other toons of mine. For example, I avoided (and urged Scooter to, as well) an entire questline in Stonetalon that involved the Alliance teaming up temporarily with the Grimtotem, because I knew—though there is no reason Bernolf or Leilue would—that they were dishonorable traitors to the Tauren and that it was dishonorable for the local Dwarf captain to form an alliance with them.

I love the Forsaken in general, but I am ambivalent about what happened to their plot line after Wrath of the Lich King. The story of the self-willed victims of the Undead Plague, trying to survive in the ruins of their former kingdom and against a world innately hostile to their very existence, was a compelling one. Then came the Wrath Gate and the betrayal of Putress and Varimathras. The Forsaken became even more distrusted by the living races. But then Sylvanas doubled down and started raising her own new citizens rather than just recovering the victims of the Scourge; not to mention her expansionist conquest of Southshore and Gilneas. Having been away from the game for a while, I hadn't realized that Sylvanas is now the Warchief of the Horde and somewhat allied with Stormwind's King Varian, as seen in the Legion opening cinematic. (BTW, if Dalaran is now over the Broken Isles, what is the "capital city" of Northrend?)

I have a strong class fantasy about a swashbuckling sort of honorable anti-hero that I'm not sure Livy fulfills. Then again, I'm not sure changing Livy to an Orc would solve that. I think Forsaken would lean toward Assassination, given their propensity for murder. (On the other hand, so too are the rest of the WoW races.) Am I going to come to appreciate Livy as a Swashbuckling Outlaw, or would I be better off changing her to another race and creating a Forsaken Shadow Priest or something?
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This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.

July Activities

Wow, another month come and gone with me only posting once. It seems like I write too many of these posts. July was a busy month, and since my return with Scooter to Azeroth, it seems I have spent every spare moment playing in the World of Warcraft rather than bothering to blog about it. Blaugust is upon us, as well. Belghast has declared this to be a much more casual year, and that suits me just fine. I don't know if I'll be posting daily but I figured I'd at least start the month off right. [Correction: it's taken me two days to write this.]

After over a month of playing on battle.net, I finally sent out friend invites to folks on my suggested list; like Scarybooster, Tententacles, Scopique, and Belghast, himself. Scooter and I have two pairs of Alliance characters above level 40, and I have a Tauren hunter just over 20. Already feeling the altoholic urge to start a Rogue Outlaw. (I've loved the "Highwayman" concept of sword and pistol combat for years.)

Chuslum Sedgeweaver

[IPA: tʃʌsləm sɛdʒwiːvɜːr] (His given name means "bull" in the Nez Perce language, according to my research. Sedgeweaver, as he is known in-game, is the surname of my Aurin Spellslinger in Wildstar, and is an invented occupational surname meaning "basket maker.")

The calf of a long line of renowned Tauren basket makers, young Chuslum felt the call of the Tauren Great Hunt. In his twentieth season of adventure, Sedgeweaver journeyed into Night Elf lands on a spirit quest. There, in the Ruins of Mathystra, he encountered the Ghost Saber, Dushka, who agreed to guide him on the Hunt.

I started Sedgeweaver on Argent Dawn, about midway through July while on a business trip. He's about 21 now, and I took him up to the north end of Darkshore to tame one of my favorites on my Dwarf Hunter (my first WoW character). I named her Dushka [IPA: duʃkə], which is Russian for "little spirit" (or a whole lot of other things, apparently).

Leilue and Bernolf Lovell

[IPA: liːluː & bɜːrnɒlf lʌvəl] (Bernolf is an invented name using Germanic roots to mean "bear-wolf". Lovell is an English surname meaning "little wolf." You'll have to ask Scooter how she came up with Leilue; however, as pronounced, it could be taken to mean "wolf meadow." Do you see a pattern here?)

Meanwhile, the Lovells, keepers of the old ways, were caught up in the events surrounding the destruction of Gilneas. After using their druidic powers to help rescue many Gilneans from the devastation of the Cataclysm and the ensuing Forsaken invasion, Leilue and Bernolf found a welcoming community among the Night Elves, occupying an apartment in the Craftmen's Terrace of Darnassus. They developed quite a reputation for generosity and ferocity with the Night Elves in the ruined Darkshore and the embattled Ashenvale, going on the offensive with the Darnassian armies in the Stonetalon Mountains and driving the Horde back into the Barrens. Now sojourning in Feralas, the Lovells have played a part in the Night Elf campaign against Cho'gall, an Ogre devotee of the Twilight Hammer. As it turns out, several Gilneans are in the area, directing skirmishes against the Naga on Sardor Isle and the Gordunni Ogres throughout the mainland rainforest. Like many of their fellow Gilneans, Loo and Bernie long for the opportunity to return and restore their homeland.

Leilue and Bernolf are 41 and exalted with Darnassus. They have a few things left to do in Feralas before moving on to the Thousand Needles. Soffe and Stormsage are also 41 and ready to move on to Eastern Plaguelands.
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Creative Commons License
This article from I Have Touched the Sky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If you repost part or all of the work (for non-commercial purposes), please cite me as the author and include a link back to the blog.

If you are reading this post through RSS or Atom feed—especially more than a couple hours after publication—I encourage you to visit the actual page, as I often make refinements after the fact. The mobile version also loses some of the original character of the piece due to simplified formatting.