Points of Convergence

Welcome to 2009: Beneath Two Skies!

2009-01-01T20:54:00.001-08:00

January first is a day for new beginnings. Whether it's the hot start to your shiny new resolution or just a chance to reset, refresh, and maybe look forward to the next year with an extra ounce of optimism, the first day on the Western calendar is the right time to make a change.

So, I shall.

As of today, Points of Convergence is no more.

This blog has moved to become Beneath Two Skies, a self-hosted and much more polished version of the Blogger site that you've come to know over the past 11 months.

Everything from this site has been transferred to the new location, where it is fully indexed, searchable and available to future visitors. Subsequent posts, contact updates, comments and everything else will now be handled exclusively in the new location.

Thanks to the moderately comprehensible folks at Feedburner.com, you should find that your RSS feeds automatically update to the new site*, however you will need to update your bookmarks if you visit me manually.

So, goodbye to PoC. Hello to B2S. I'm ready and excited to begin a shiny year in a great new location with all kinds of sleek content on the way. I hope you'll join me there!

Best wishes,
~Rhoelyn

*Cough. I think. I hope.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

2008-12-29T19:13:00.001-08:00

I just... can't quite put my ~~finger~~ paw on it. Hrmm....

Of Titans and Demiurges 06: Arist Sandara

2008-12-22T15:58:00.000-08:00

In this season, I always find myself drawn even more than usual* to beautiful and sparkly things. With no ulterior motive whatsoever**, I'll wander through the jewelry stores for an extra dose of glimmer and tune the old Pandora to my Opera station for a few precious weeks. Why? Because it's all so pretty! For whatever insane reason my brain comes up with, during the holidays I want to soak up ambiance and emotionalism and gorgeousness like an hungry little human sponge - Achem. I mean... nightelf sponge, of course. o:}

In that same vein, I've been returning over and over again to one particular page that I've recently discovered. Sandara of DeviantArt sure seems to have 'beautiful' and 'emotional' in spades in her rich, painterly art. Check it out:

Ahh.... Sigh. :) These are only a few examples from a very lovely and diverse gallery; Sandara has many more paintings of WoW characters as well as a wonderful selection of non-WoW-related art that still gets high points for style and execution. She's got the dynamic lines, the graceful forms and figures, and the evocative lighting that makes me just want to stare and stare (and maybe drool) and stare some more!

I highly encourage everyone to follow the links to the full-sized images*** and take a few moments to really look them over - admire the quiet detail and softly gritty flow of her brush strokes. Follow a line and watch how it becomes much more than just a line of paint in the way it interacts with the shapes and colors around it. This is the 'painterly' style, and I think she's a perfect example of how and why it works so very well. The paintings manage to look rough and finished at the same time, controlled and somehow still loose enough to make you wonder how every pixel can seem to be in the right place and a random place all at the same time. Mmm... yep, she gives me my holiday artsy glow every single time.

* Yes, it's possible. Tough to believe, I know. But possible!
** I promise, Mr. Rhoelyn. I wasn't hinting at anything more. Really!
*** If you're not familiar with DeviantArt, please follow my link and then click the image itself on her DevArt gallery page one more time to see the full sized version. We intarwebtubes are thumbnail-happy, nowadays. :P

A Look Back: First Responses

2008-12-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

Not too far on the other side of the horizon, a pleasing and arguably important date for the blog approaches. The end of January, 2009 will mark the first anniversary of Points of Convergence, and watching and planning for that approaching event has gotten me feeling nostalgic. I wasn't quite sure what to do with that feeling until fellow blogger, OneAmongMany, tagged me via Tweet.

Mad Props

After what may very well be the most boring first post in the history of blogdom, PoC got a real start with a quick introduction to yours truly. I was lucky enough to be greeted and welcomed to the blogging world by a few really top notch people. It's those first-supporters of my work that I want to slap with some mad props and thank, today. You are the ones who gave me my first push and helped me to keep going through a busy and stressful year.

Sweetflag - My very first commenter, Sweetflag was a visitor from the UK who has since branched out from WoW-blogging to general game and culture blogging, as you can see in his (I'm guessing gender) new blogging location, Construed.

Asaradragoness - A frequent return visitor to the site, Asara's always been a supportive voice and an uplifting commenter around PoC. She has a personal / WoW blog that is currently hosting a bunch of pictures of just about the cutest young family in the whole known world. Best wishes to you and yours, Asara!

MamaDruid - Here's another friendly face that got her start on my blog early. MamaDruid, beyond being an enthusiastic and friendly supporter of PoC, has one of those blogs that are just the way I like them: covering a great breadth of WoW-related topics with an emphasis on fun things to do and see, interesting experiences, and little in-game adventures and discoveries.

MamaDruid is currently MIA in the blogging world (as you'll see if you click her blog link), but myself and all the Twitteratti are hoping she'll reappear soon and that everything is going well in the mean time. Come back to us, MamaDruid!

Honorable Mention

Siha - Although she didn't comment on the first commented post in PoC, I wanted to give an honorable mention shout-out to a great blogger and fellow Proudmoore Alliance player, Siha of Banana Shoulders. She introduced herself on my second post, the introduction to my namesake toon, Rhoelyn, and has held a special place in my heart (and my feed reader) because of her great writing, her wonderful guides, and the remote possibility that I might actually run into her in-game.

Somehow, despite a few /who attempts, that has still not actually managed to happen in the past near-year. Of course, she keeps crazy Aussie hours and I keep crazy American hours. We're probably passing on the login screen, each night.

Tagged

That's right! It's my turn to pass on the nostalgic feeling to others. You are tagged:

Phaelia <<>> Kestrel <<>> Khol Drake <<>> Hana <<>> Faradhim

Insidious Voice

2008-12-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

You don't know me, and I have no intention of telling you my name. I just want you to know something that I didn't, be prepared for a danger that no one acknowledges...

_________

It began with a whisper. A threat.

I'm a soldier of Stormwind, a fighter by caste and by calling. Sure, I may be relatively young, but if I had a silver for every doom-and-gloom, end-of-your-world promise from an overly dramatic enemy, I wouldn't be the only adventurer in Shadowmoon who's still riding a damn horse. So, like I have with every other insidious voice I've ever met, I scoffed and ignored my mysterious new chatterbox friend.

Thus, I entered the fray with my blade sheathed and my back exposed. Maybe not the brightest strategy, in retrospect.

The voice haunted me for days and days. Like a rude neighbor or an extra murloc, it would pop up at all the worst times:

As I fought...

As I traveled...

As I ate...

Someone .... something... always at my side. Whispering. Threatening. Promising.

Enticing.

Oh, I was pissed for the first fortnight - pissed and tired and frustrated because I couldn't make the voice in my ear shut the hell up. I tried every trick I knew to find the whisperer; I can't convey in intelligible words how badly I wanted to shut him up with a conveniently sharp object through the gullet. Whoever or whatever he was, though, he always stayed well out of sight and all of my most deadly ranges, much to my bush-kicking and stool-shattering dismay.

But then, after another week or two... something shifted, something too subtle for my brute-force brain to catch. The voice was ... maybe not so bad. Maybe a little bit of welcome company on the trail. Maybe a little bit of an amusing distraction from the rote of killing clefthoof number five hundred and seventy-six. Maybe a friend.

I need you to understand. I'm a loyal citizen, a devoted servant of the Wrynn Dynasty, and not at all interested in the wholesale slaughter of every living being on Azeroth. Like every good human, I hate the Scourge, mistrust the Forsaken, and spend my leisure hours beating down uppity Hordies.

But that voice... it started to confuse me. As if, somehow, I could still be a good person - maybe a better person! - if I gave myself over to its side. Just a loaner, let's say. My sword arm and my tough shield for a bit of cold glory, simple death, blessed silence. It made it all sound so ... peaceful.

I hear the insanity in that concept, now. A few days ago, though... Well, let's just say that I was finding it a lot more comfortable wielding the pointy end of a big, metal stick than the grey matter between my ears. I stopped looking for a pest to slaughter and started looking for a potential friend.

That's when, in the wee hours of the morning in a quiet inn in Telaar, I finally found him.

A Shade. An Icecrown ghost no more substantial than my battle shout, but equally as deadly. I stared into the empty place where his eyes should have been, and I felt my knees bending, felt hand falling away from its comfortable place on the pommel of my axe.

And then it spoke... one last taunt. One first command.

Even now, I don't know why those simple words woke me. Perhaps the power of the Light was so much greater, so much stronger, that even the merest thought of it was enough to shatter whatever spell the Frozen Shade had woven. Perhaps I was only barely in its clutches, staring down the cliff's face of insanity but not yet fallen. I don't know. And, at the end of the day, I don't care. I'm no mage to worry about why things are the way they are. I only care about results.

With a growl and a move that I like to think is about twice as fast as mana forge lightning , I drew my axe and threw it through the fiend's throat.

... the innkeeper had a few things to say to me about that when she saw the damage to her wall, by the way.

The Shade braved one more whisper as I made my way to Stormwind, one last silly little threat. For the first time, I laughed at it. I probably should've done that from the start, whistling my way home to deliver what was apparently a far more precious treasure than I'd ever realized.

A Day You Mustn't Miss!

2008-11-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

November 23rd, 2004. Does the date ring a bell?

... well, it didn't with me, but then I'm no good with dates. Luckily, Blizzard is much more on top of things. :)

Happy 4th Birthday, World of Warcraft!

If you do nothing else to celebrate the anniversary of our glorious foray into Azeroth and Outlands, at least make sure that you take a second to log in. Just log in. Blizzard is giving us all an easy achievement and a wonderful little polar-bear pet.

I will love him and hug him and call him George!

Wrath Night - A Picturebook Story

2008-11-13T21:51:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time... a brave druid answered the call to fight Evil...

Joined by dozens of friends ... er... acquaint--... er... okay, dozens of total strangers, he waited for the sun to set and the boat to arrive that would carry him to ever-greater glory.

And arrive it did...

With visions of daring do and swooning damsels in distress dancing in his head, he faced forward as the majestic Kraken crested her first waves.

(He rather thought maybe that Joebaahb fellow was on the wrong ship, just for the record... )

... and then...

POOF!

...

Yeah. Achem.

Once upon a time, a brave druid who had logged out and back in answered the call to fight Evil. Again.

The Kraken returned, inevitable as the tides, to whisk the eager adventurers to a new world...

Her briney deck was full to bursting as she once again set sail...

But fate (and maybe Blizzard) is cruel.

RE-POOF!

Rhese fought with despair, but the wisdom of friends and countrymen soon buoyed his flagging spirits...

... more or less. He couldn't help but liken the moment to "the blind leading the blind."

... -_-

Still, ever a druid to harken to sage advice, our druidic hero proceeded to log, reboot, turn three circles, light some candles to the Wrath gods, and then wait the requisite short eternity for Kraken v. 3.0

She arrived just in time.

... What? After all that waiting, tiger was hungry, okay?!

Aligned against anything that would stand in their way, the heroes of Azeroth (finally) felt the stinging rain of Northrend...

... and faced the mighty walls of Valiance Keep.

And so, the brave druid who ventured to the frozen north (through many trials and tribulations) gained the first reward of many...

The ... Beginning.

^_^

Public Service Announcement: Just Say NO!

2008-11-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Dear Khierra,

You don't know me, but I am a hat activist. I scour Azeroth for the Headgear that Should Never Be Seen. Wherever I findi t, I find a cause, and I am compelled to lobby long and hard against its use. Horrible hats are a blight on the eyeballs of Azerothians everywhere!

Yours, dear druid, is one of Them.

Please understand. I sympathize; I know the temptation that a stat-rich new headpiece offers. I spent my own period of weakness beneath the brim of a particularly rancid millinery confection. I don't blame you for the errors of your youth, but I do beg you to see the Light. I don't think I could bear to see another young adventurer fall to the same evil that has claimed so many, including a dear friend of mine.

Be strong, young sister. Hide your helm for the good of all Azeroth (and Outlands).

And remember...

With Best Intentions,
~Rhoelyn of Proudmoore

The Day the World (of Warcraft) Stood Still

2008-11-04T13:56:00.001-08:00

By R.A. Silverwing | Tuesday, November 4, 2008, 3:56 PM

Months of preparation. Billions of gold in campaign funds. Two thousand five hundred and ninety-three babies of all races kissed. At least three aides lost to tragic attempts to give friendly pats to hunter pets.

Yes, we've all been waiting with baited breath as our candidates made their speeches, took their stands, and brought forth their glorious plans for the future of Azeroth and the Outlands. We've all been watching the calendars count down to one short, historic day that will change our lives and determine the course of the next four years. A day that has finally come.

Welcome, Alliance and Horde alike, to Election Day 2008!

The Candidates: DeNUBlicans

A celebrated war veteran, a household name, a seasoned and experienced politician - High Overlord Saurfang and his lovely (albeit previously relatively unknown) running mate, Captain Valindria of the Shattered Sun, have built a strong platform based on using productivity and extra beatings for peons and adventurers alike to rebuild our failing economy and revitalize a depressed national outlook.

Despite his advancing age, Saurfang's strength and prowess suggest that Azeroth (and the Outlands) will enjoy four years of firm leadership and a no-holds-barred aggressive front against the forces of chaos. High Overlord Saurfang believes that it is strategically and morally essential that we support the fledgling government of Shattrath until it is capable of governing itself and defending its people.

The Azeroth (and Outland) that Saurfang and Valindria envision is a powerful, independent environment that uses a balanced approach to care for the health and well-being of every citizen.

Except maybe the scummiest of the Alliance scum. Those guys can rot in jail until the day they wake up Forsaken.

Soundbytes of the Campaign:

Introduction for H.O. Saurfang at the DeNUBlican National Convention:

"High Lord Saurfang can cleave Azeroth and hit Outland. He can execute his enemy at 100% health, just to save time. The Deeprun Tram was made when he charged at IF from SW.

If he was a hunter, he'd tame Omen. If he was a warlock, he would enslave Kazzak. And if he decided to go to Outland, Nefarian would be his mount."
Saurfang's take on Illidan Stormrage, from an interview with Bobwa Waters:

"Stupid nightelven kid. Thinks cuz he was locked away for a few thousand years, he gets to be all emo and go cut the world. Lemme tell you something, Bobwa. He doesn't know pain. He doesn't know fifty years in a prison camp where they tear out yer toenails cuz ya didn't stand up straight enough.

Oh, yeah. I know pain. I eat it fer breakfast in the mornin', and then I give the extra helpins to my enemies with some left over for my butler, Chuck. That kid better stay off MY lawn, or I'll have to teach his tattooed butt just what pain really is. "
Valindria in discussions with the Kurenai vizier:

"Oh, golly! We should go hunting merlocs, don'cha'know? I tell you what, there's nothing quite as invigorating as stalking a little rawgler across the beaches of Quel'Dee isle. It's peachy keen."

The Candidates: Evocrats

Archmage Marvin Vargoth is out to break the mold, and as the first Kirin'Tor to run for President, he's off to a great start! With his running mate, some guy that no one knows or cares about, he's spreading the fever for change, promising lower mana costs for all casters and a policy of tending to the needs closer to home as a first priority.

Young (relatively) and idealistic, many are heralding Vargoth as the firecracker force that this World needs to get back on its feet and make itself strong once more. He wants to close the gap between the 70s and the 30s, proposing sweeping XP tax changes that will take from the rich and give to the poor.

The Azeroth (and Outland) that Vargoth and that other guy envision is a place of peace and stability, one that is free from the squabbles of the day and prospering due to self-sufficiency, equality, and affordable polymorphs for all.

Soundbytes of the Campaign:

Vargoth at the Evocratic National Convention:

"The land is in worse shape than I could've imagined. If the damage continues at this rate, then our world will be nothing but cosmic gravel very soon.

Where will it stop, I wonder? Perhaps the better question is, 'will it stop?'"
That other guy, from an interview with Bobwa Waters:

Bobwa: "Who are you, again?"
JoeRandom: "... "
Ultarn the Warrior, citizen of Ironforge:

"The only thing I know fer sure about that Vargoth fellow is that he wins battles. When my friends and I are facing a beating at the hands of Vashj or Kael, worn down and tired as we may be, we always have our ace ready. All he has to do is stand there and wave, do a bit of laughin', maybe, and we got all we need for our victory.

Y'ask me, I'd rather have him not-fighting at my side than about a third of my raid members...* "

* Cough. Ultarn never said this. Shhhh.... artistic license!

Slow Down: Genius at Work

2008-10-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

(Most awesome graphic EVAR made by Phaelia of Resto4Life, master model-viewer and all around cool tree. <3)

Dear beloved readers,

Please, even if you hate me and want to wring my neck for prolonged negligence, do yourself a favor and go read this post from Euripides of Critical QQ. Genius deserves an audience. (Plus, I'm hoping you'll forgive me for not amusing you if I can at least send you to someone who can.)

I am totally NOT dead. I have been spending the worst, most annoying kind of time on the blog, lately.... the kind you can't see. Bear with me just a few more days.

Oh, and set aside that afternoon coffee before you go visit 'Pides. Your keyboard and monitor will thank you for it later.

Coffee laughsplosions are bad, m'kay,
~Rhoelyn

Cuz, ya know... shift happens.

2008-09-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

... And I guess I like playing with it when it does. :)

}} Go visit Phaelia to see what I'm talking about. {{

I'm not really the type of person to ask for everyone to vote for me, but I encourage you to put in your vote for whichever new shirt you prefer. There are some great designs in the running.

Ah, and if the naked man-flesh isn't to your taste, I was going to create a naked-girlelf version for the boys if my shirt wins. So, y'know... just keep that in mind. We're not gender-biased here at POC! Much.

:9 Purple man...

An' It Be a Holiday!

2008-09-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

If'n ye 'as an ounce o' sense in yer barnacle-'fested, landlubber brain, ye'll 'ave already seen 'Ripides' warnin' an' perpared yerself. If'n not, then ye deserves ta dangle from th'mizzenmast by yer rotted toes, ye blitherin' slackjaw squiffy!

T'day be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, an' ain't nothin' like an 'earty chorus of avasts an' ahoys t'make th' lowest jack be feelin' like a swashbucklin' 'ero with a wench on each arm, I tells ye.

So, hoist the mainsails, ye scurvey sons o' a biscuit eater. Tis time t'be takin' th'ways of the sweet trade t'yer black 'an twisted 'earts 'til ya be loaded t'th' gunwales an' caterwhaulin' loudly 'nuff what t'send th' lilly-livered runnin' fer shore. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

An' be makin' sure ye raise at leas' one mug o' grog t'th' cap'n an' 'is best mate. They be deservin' th'honor, says I. 'Sides, Cap'n Slappy an' Ol' Chumbucket been knowed t'put th' black mark on scalliwag's fer less'n that.

'Appy Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye pack 'o scurvey dogs!

Piratical linkin's:

The Official Home of Talk Like a Pirate Day

The Official Pirate Booty

Talk Like a Pirate Day's official British HQ

The news column that launched a thousand Pirate ships.
Talk Like a Pirate Day on Wikipedia
Lady Jess tells us how to be a Pirate for a day in WoW
Anyone else feelin' a bit like Ratshag be infestin' they brain? >_O

The Name of the Game

2008-09-18T20:27:00.001-07:00

A blog's name is a very large part of its identity. It is the author's 'face' to the masses, her signpost on the busy highway of webbitude, and the map that gets drawn whenever someone wants to spread the word about her blog. That's why, when wise bloggers write about how to get yourself started, they draw attention to the importance of choosing a name.

What's in a name?

Points of Convergence was named for a relatively simple concept. We who play World of Warcraft with the kind of love and dedication that has kept us in the game for literal years face a challenge that is new to modern society. We live in two worlds at once, bound to each by responsibilities both assigned and assumed. We need to go to school or work. We need to go to raid or gain levels. We need to pay bills and make soccer practice. We need to grind Badges and study Hunter specs.

Demands from the real world become comparable to demands from Azeroth and Outlands, forcing us to walk a very fine mental, physical, and emotional line between one and the other.

That's why I wanted to create a blog to write about the points where these two worlds meet; to try to remind everyone that there is more bridging Azeroth and Earth than a login screen. The inspiration that comes from our second home can create beautiful art, touching fiction, wonderful crafts, and even lively social discourse. The every day needs that come from our first home can be met in healthful and intelligent ways without forcing us to sacrifice one life for the other. It seemed only natural to me that a blog about these convergence points between our two homes was named... yes... Points of Convergence.

However, with the self-hosted blog in the works, I've encountered an unexpected weakness in the title: it doesn't translate very well to an ergonomic URL. Now, at this point, we could digress into a discussion of what makes a good, 'ergonomic' URL, but I don't want y'all to fall asleep and drool on my web page. Suffice to say that I want to adhere to three simple rules for the new site's URL:

It should be clearly evocative of the blog title. Bonus points if it can also be evocative of the blog's purpose and its larger affiliation to the World of Warcraft.
It should be reasonably short and easy to type. Length is more acceptable than it used to be, but I would like to adhere as much as possible to a K.I.S.S.philosophy in the new blog. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Shorter is better. Also, if you have to pull out a dictionary to spell my URL, I have done something wrong (and possibly educated you :) ).
It should be available. More and more, people are 'speculating' on the URL market, which means that the finite combinations of meaningful URLs are slowly being claimed. A lot of perfectly good options are not options because they're already taken.

A PoC by any other name...

Herein lies the problem. www.pointsofconvergence.net (.com is taken) rather forcefully violates the second rule. It's long and tough to spell. Of course, every possible version of 'converge' or 'convergence' or 'PoC' was claimed back when the internet was a baby at Al Gore's knee.

Thus, I have been stretching the old right-brain to try to come up with some decent (though perhaps less obvious) alternatives, either through creative rescramblification of Points of Convergence or through... yes, renaming the blog. It's not something I would choose to do lightly, but when your ergonomic URL is at stake, you need to consider all feasible options.

Here's some of what I've been brainstorming:

URL: pointsconverge.com	URL: ptsofconvergence.com	URL: weconverge.com
Name: Arcane Tomes URL: arcanetomes.com	Name: Beneath Two Skies URL: twoskies.net	Name: Nexus Points URL: nexus-points.com

I have my favorites and my less-favorites. I also have a longer list with some that are downright crazy. What I'd like to know, though, is what you think. Which of these could you see yourself typing in that browser bar*?

* HA! As if anyone actually types URLs, any more. Hello, Google and Feed Readers. :)

WHadLibs?

2008-09-11T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here on the technological cutting-edge that is Points of Convergence, we have long had a tool that is beautiful and new to the BlogAzeroth community. (Ahem. Well, not new so much as resumed after the forum upgrade and institution of a new theme. But hey, let me dramatize, okay? It makes things tastier.)

As I was saying, BlogAzeroth has a new toy that has been proving a little oddly fun to play with. Here is a transcript of the thread that started what I can only call a new game with great potential.

Post title: WE CAN HAZ TOOLTIPS!

Phaelia: I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts.

Rhoelyn: I'm a model. You know what I mean, and I do my little turn on the cat walk.

Behemothdn: And I'm too sexy for my hat
Too sexy for my hat what do you think about that?

Phaelia: Also, I shake my little tush on the cat walk.

StoppableForce: And I'm too sexy for your party
Too sexy for your party
No way I'm disco dancing

Behemothdn: I'm too sexy for my cat too sexy for my cat
Poor pussy poor pussy cat

Leaf: I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love.
Love's going to leave me.

Hrm. Well, maybe we all need to go back and review the lyrics, but much random fun has been had. Worse, though. It's given me an idea. Drumroll, please...

Let's play WHadLibs! Here's how it works:

Below, you'll find a short excerpt from ... something. Anything can do, but for today, it's a great piece of wit from my idol, Khol Drake. In the passage, I've marked certain words in boldface and underline. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to take each of the marked words and find the funniest, most clever, at least semi-relevant WoWHead link you can to turn it into a hyperlink. You have all of the contents of WoWHead to play with, but bonus brownie points can be earned by choosing links that are creative, unique, funny, and / or alter the meaning of the sentence. (Get it? It's Madlibs, but with Java code and prettier graphics. Thus, it's WoWHeadLibs... WHadLibs. BOHOHO! My dorkery knows no bounds. )

Copy, paste, and add in your links, then post your version of the story in the comments. We'd all love to be amused by whatever you can come up with. Heck, who knows. If this is a fun enough game, I'd love to turn it into a contest and have a weekly WHadLibs winner. I'd give you a badge of honor and a spotlight widget on the sidebar. :)

Remember, to get a good tooltip, you'll want to avoid NPCs and places, as only objects, abilities, quests and spells have proper popups. The idea is that no one should have to click through to WoWHead to read your story. (Sorry, WoWHead dudes, but c'mon. You don't really need the extra hits from 'lil ol' us.) Also, it's worth mentioning that in order to read the comments with proper tooltips displaying, you will have to read them on this post's permalink page. Blogger's comment entry page is staid and boring and does not support anything as fun as little boxes that follow your mouse around like lost puppies.

Ah, well. ... soon, we will be free, my minions! Duh-duh-DUHHHH.... >:}

Achem. Anyway. Here's your WHadlib for the day:

“Really, Frank—can I call you Frank? You don’t even have to actually have any real information, Frank. Just point me toward someone who does and you get to stumble away from here...well, once your kneecaps heal, anyway.”

“M’name’s Edward,” the lieutenant slurred through his swollen, bleeding lips. I probably shouldn’t have punched him in the mouth so many times. He was having trouble speaking.

-- excerpt from A Stab In the Dark, Part the Twelfth: Uncomfortable Compromises

Have at thee!

Curtain Call: Anna's Friday Five - RP Style

2008-08-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

Though you may not know it*, I'm a serious sucker for a bit of Roleplaying. Despite all its well-advertised faults and foibles in the WoW community, it is a great way to add interest and depth to the smallest aspects of the game. Have you ever composed a little diddy while cooking Brilliant Smallfish in Bloodhoof Village? Juggled rings over fire totems for coppers in Stormwind's Trade District? Have you ever toured the Barrens on your brand new, completely runaway lizard mount, screaming curses and pleas to stop the whole way?

I have. No joke. I have screenshots (somewhere). That kind of little foolery and fun makes the 40 points' worth of cooking skillups, practice with new totem hotkeys, and the long run from Ratchet to Thousand Needles an order of magnitude more enjoyable than they could have been. As an added bonus, you never know who'll bite and start playing along, whether you're on a roleplay server or not!

That's why I was so thrilled to read Anna of Too Many Annas' most recent Friday Five post. She's borrowed the famous Friday Five meme** and put a fun, roleplayer's twist on it: she's asking her Friday Five questions to our toon(s) instead of us. Starting out light, it seems like she's going to use it as a way to ease the newcomers into the concept of developing a character for roleplaying. If you ask me, it's also a great way for the non-newcomers to explore their character a bit more, perhaps even flesh out some details they hadn't encountered for themselves, yet.

All I know for sure is that I'm stoked, and the toons in my head are all clamoring for attention. Here's my Friday Five - RP Style. Let's see yours!

What is your character’s name?
My name is Rhoelyn. In the lands outside of Teldrassil, I am sometimes given the surname of Silverwing, though I rarely use it for fear that the Sentinels to whom it truly belongs would object. I believe my friend, Axus, chose it in reference to my hair. I would never presume to call him unimaginative, but ... well...
Why did he/she pick his/her class?
One does not choose to become a priestess of Elune; the Goddess does the choosing, and we who are so blessed answer Her call. I believe I knew this was my path from a very young age. Suffice to say, I cannot remember a time before I knew that I was a healer and lightbringer. Certainly, I would not know how to be anything but a priest. It is my role in the deepest, most intrinsic sense.
What’s the worst trouble he/she ever got into as a child?
Somehow, though I have ever been the last child to cause trouble, I found myself in it quite often when I was young. I suppose that has something to do with my brother, Rhese, and his unerring ability to convince me to join in whatever adventure he had found for the day. No matter how clearly I saw the danger, I never had the heart to tell him 'no' when he turned that excited smile my way. Not then, and certainly not now.

The worst punishment we ever received, though, was when we decided to follow a friendly furbolg we encountered outside Starfall Village. He told the most amusing stories, and before we realized it, we were standing on the outskirts of Astranaar, waving goodbye as he flew off on a hippogryph. When our keepers finally found us, they were so upset that they refused to let us out of their sight for a solid fortnight. It was very ... stifling.
What is his/her favorite thing to eat?
My favorite food? Hm. I do not really have a favorite. I just eat what I need to be well fed. Does the flavor really matter?

... then again, I did really enjoy that Box of Chocolates from my friend, Rastelli. Do candies count?
What does he/she have in his/her pockets?
Oh, dear. Are you sure you really want to explore that potentially hazardous topic? I carry so much in my packs that they are near to being classified as disaster areas. Truly.

Imagine a dank, cluttered space bursting with a dozen different types of herbs, potions, cloth, odd dusts, dirt, keepsakes, and even a few pieces of equipment. Now, add quest items - most of them grisly and rotting - a few dormant pets, a pretty dress or two, and one very small purse of Gold.

I pity poor Murky for having to put up with it, but he seems to be quite content to spend his days swimming amongst the detritus.

* Or does the comic silliness give it away? :o
** Gasp. Yes, another one! They are rather... viral. ;)

Titans and Demiurges 05: The WoW Sketch Meme

2008-08-13T10:15:00.001-07:00

I've made a decision.

No, it's not the one that you're expecting. Despite my long silence and my relative blogging youth, I am not interested in announcing that I'm done blogging or that life's too busy or whatever. The fact is, I love this blog (despite all its rough edges). I have decided that it's time to stop waiting for life to slow down before I "get back to the blog" and start making time and energy for writing a higher priority.

So, here I am to tell you that I'm still here and still committed despite the long, inexcusable silence. I've been saving up all kinds of good ideas and information while I was gone, and I'm eager to share the wonder. I'm also digging away at converting to a new, self-hosted blogging platform, a new URL, and a more mature (less girly *cough*) look for PoC. If that's not NOT giving up, then I dunno what is.

I didn't have the heart to apologize with empty excuses during the long silence, so I hope that the sketch comics were enjoyable enough to be some fraction of the apology you're owed. I will continue the little mini-tale that I've started, and maybe when Rhoelyn finds her way back to the surface, my own life will ease up. (One can hope, right?)

Now, with all that said... Let's do something fun. :)

Anyone who's spent any time running around in the lighter journaling world (like Livejournal, for example), has probably run into a meme or three.

A meme (pronounced /miːm/)[1] is any thought or behavior that can be passed from one person to another by means of imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs and dances. Memes propagate themselves and can move through the cultural sociosphere in a manner similar to the contagious behavior of a virus.

From a more practical perspective, blogging memes are short little quizzes that ask you to give your take on a set of questions, then pass the quiz along by 'tagging' your friends to see their answers. The fun comes from trying to be creative, honest, funny, or just downright weird in your answers so that readers and friends can enjoy your input and give you their own to enjoy. It's a way to slowly and openly get to know yourself and other writers.

The art community has taken this concept and (of course) adapted it to what they love most, and the perfect example of this for those of us who love both WoW and art would be the WoW Sketch Meme, provided by Crimson Viper of DeviantArt. He has written a set of questions to be answered in whatever way you please, either with a sketch, a scribble, some writing, or even a pasted picture or screenshot.

I'm not going to post a thousand links, but if you look at the comments of the Meme's gallery page, you can go visit an easy two dozen examples of how other artists have completed the meme. There are some great and really funny answers in there!

And, of course, I'm not allowed to even tell you about this Meme without having my own entry ready to present as the fee for spreading the madness. If you click the little image below, consider yourself tagged! Go, enjoy, and toss together your own answers to share with the community. I'd love to see how WoW inspires you. :)

Words... Part 2

2008-06-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead... quite. -_-

Words Aren't Enough

2008-05-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

Skillups: Super Potion Candles... maybe?

2008-04-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about the wide world of crafting is that it's perfectly okay - encouraged, even! - to build on someone else's idea. If you see a pattern you like, see a design you admire, see a wooden carving with a shape you adore, you're nothing more or less than an inspired artist if you take the three and meld them together to create something that is wholly and truly your own. Those three crafters that inspired you are most likely to be flattered that you found something in their work worth pondering, nurturing, and evolving as your own.

It's beautiful and rare, this sense of community with strangers. Not all types of artisans share it.

Shelbi of The Bronze Kettle, who I think is precisely this type of artisan and crafter, is today's source, the origin of an idea that was simple, elegant and ripe for expansion. As I mentioned last week, she took over the World of Warcrafts column on WoWInsider and had me drooling over her very first post, called Super Potions. In case anyone missed the memo, I am a rabid alchemist at heart. If you put adorable, shiny, bubbly little bottles of 'alchemy potions' within my real-life grasp, I will (and did) have to have them. Being a complicated dreamer, however, I wanted to go a step farther. I wanted my potions to have a purpose beyond just looking incredibly cool on my mantle; I wanted them to light up my desk and fill the air with enchanting fragrances. Thus, I took Shelbi's concept, already conveniently made of candle materials, and took it to the next step. Super Potions became Super Potion Candles.

Here's how:

Step 1: Gathering the Mats

Following Shelbi's simple advice, I took my trusty credit card to my local craft store for everything I needed to make sweet little gel candles in potion-shaped bottles. There, tucked in between the soap molds and the decorative cake-baking supplies, I found my treasure trove of real-life alchemical goodness:

One vat of Gel Wax - $20
Liquid dye vials in three colors; red, yellow and blue - $6
Liquid candle scents in three varieties; cinnamon, vanilla, and lavendar - $10 *
Medium-weight, bleached wick; 3' roll - $2
Wick clips; packet of 25 - $2
Assorted small bottles, complete with cute little corks - $1 each
Pretty, sheer ribbon that was on sale by the counter; 2 rolls - $1 each

I decided not to get the $20 special melting pot (which is only special insomuch as it saves you from the temptation of using your nice cookware to melt insidious wax), but I also didn't want to use my nice cookware to melt insidious wax. Thus, I stopped by the great little grocery at the end of the street for a few supplemental supplies:

Coffee stirring sticks; pack of 100 - $1
Aluminum foil mini-loaf pans; pack of 3 - $2
Plastic funnels; set of 3 - $1

And that's all. In total, it cost me about $45 to get started, but I will have dyes, fragrances, and wicks for at least another dozen potion candles. It won't be this expensive every time I get the urge to whip me up a bit of pretty elixir.

One more item, by the way, which I forgot but really missed. Make sure you have some super glue on hand. Something that takes about 30-60 seconds to set up but makes a firm bond will really help you to get the wick clips well secured to the bottom of the bottle. Believe you-me, it's a pain when your oh-so-brilliant, cobbled-up attempts to stick those suckers down give way the moment you pour in the wax. Sigh.

Anyway, you need to farm up three more (hopefully easy) items before you can start your crafting:

Super Glue
Pliers
Protective surface (aluminum foil, in my case)

Set it all up in a nice, open space near the stove.

Step 2: Wick-ed Ways

There's really only one significant difference between what I did and what Shelbi described in her column, and that is the process of adding a wick to your potion-candles. It's not really that complicated, but to do a really straight, well-centered wick in a poured candle can be just a little bit challenging. .... especially if you don't have the aforementioned super glue to help hold your clip to the glass. Double-sigh.

Start this process either before you put the wax on to melt or while it's melting. A lot of the literature I read said that the wax would melt in around 5 minutes or so, but I found that it took more like 10 minutes at my nice, low temperature. I probably could have sped that up, but I didn't want to a) risk burning the wax through my thin tinfoil pans and b) risk not having the wicks ready when the wax was ready. Thus, I cut my wax, put it on the stove, and then got started to the measuring, cutting and clamping of my wicks.

Measuring: It's always better to have too much wick than too little.

Cutting: Measure twice. Cut once. Buy plenty more wick material than you need.

Clamping: No wussies allowed. You really want to take your pliers, get a good grip on your wick material, and cinch that little guy hard and tight. Imagine it's the head of that rogue that showed up for the first time, last Gruul run, and won the roll for your Dragonspine Trophy.

There you go. A nice length of wick clamped into a little metal tab is all that separates the Super Potion from the Super Potion Candle. However, our work isn't quite done. That wick isn't going to do its job well, chillin' on the countertop. It's time to take that ever-so-important superglue and a handy coffee stirrer and attach the clip to the bottom center of the bottle.

Note: It's tough in smaller bottles, but really work hard to make sure you center that wick. Candles made all wonky and crosswise in the wick department do wonky and crosswise things when they're burning. It's worth extra effort now to save you disappointment when it self-destructs, later.

Step 3: Pour Your Heart Out

By the time your wick is assembled and installed in the bottle, your wax should be pretty well liquefied. You may have already added your dyes and fragrances, or you may be ready to do that, now. It doesn't really make a difference so long as you mix them in before you start pouring your wax into the bottle. Just remember, as Shelbi said... Go slowly. You can't undrop any color or fragrance if you make it too strong, but you can always add more if it's too weak. Now, I didn't have one, but I do recommend that you use an eyedropper if you want to be precise with the liquid additives. I found that they poured very poorly and ended up dripping down the bottle as much as anything else.

Anyway, melt your wax, mix it up to be the color and fragrance you want, and grab your funnel and a hot pad. (Those aluminum baking pans, not surprisingly, get nice and hot through and through. Great for wax melting. Not-great for finger not-melting.) You'll need to be a little mindful of your wick, but basically that just means shove it off to the side when you put your funnel in there. No, nubby nubcrafter. Don't let the wick fall into the bottle. :P

Okay. Your candle is coming along, but remember what I said about wicks? Straight and centered. Take another of those handy coffee stirring sticks and wrap the extra wick around it like spaghetti until you have it braced against the top of the bottle. If you do this right, it will give you a gentle tension on the wick that will make it stay upright and straight while the wax cools. It will also let you adjust it to keep that line of highly-flammable string in the center of your volume of wax. If it's not staying on its own, you can always grab some tape and tape the ends of the stirrer to the sides of the bottle to give it a helping hand. There are lots of different ways to ensure your wick fidelity. Me, I used a few different ones to experiment, including the diabolical cork-bracing method (which was not necessarily the best). :P

Step 4: WTS 3x [Super Almost-awesome Candle Potion]

About 30 minutes of cooling time and a wick-trim later, I had three adorable little bottles of colorful, bubble-thick gel. I was enthralled. Thrilled. Ever-so proud. I grabbed my sale ribbon and a hot-glue gun that I found in the closet and set about simulating some of the potion icons I looked up on WoWHead. Ta-da! Three Super Potion Candles!

Wiktory, right? Supreme glory and the glow of accomplishment?

I thought so. For about ten minutes. Then, I went to take my coup-de-grace photo, the one where my three pretty candles were all lit and glowing with their own majestic power.

...

Let's discuss, for one moment, the needs of a combustion reaction.

Ignition - Check. Provided by my Flickr lighter. Or a piece of burning wick. Or ... heck, lots of options here.
Fuel - Check. Provided by a taught little white wick and that wonderful gel wax.
Oxidant - .... um. Maybe not so much. Now, this is a very subtle problem that I didn't see coming at all. Let's take a glance at the scale of our potion bottles.

Bummer. :(

But hey, that's okay. It's a very important candle-making lesson learned, and it certainly doesn't put my dream of potion candles out of reach! Now, I need to do more shopping and find slightly larger bottles that will let me have my candles and burn them, too. A larger mouth or a slightly different shape with less neck will make these work just fine. I'll report back when I find them and can really give you that coup-de-grace photo I wanted. Until then, I have "Super Potions" that are every bit as fun as Shelbi promised and looking hawt beside my friend the Orcish Rider.

Maybe not a full wiktory, but hey... I'm happy. Who can be sad when looking at real-life alchemy pots?!

* Note: Liquid additives ONLY. You can't use the solid candle scents that you'll see. They cloud the gel wax and make your sparkling potions look like vials of rancid Troll Temper.

Link Love: Potpourri from the Blogosphere

2008-04-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

Rumors of my death have been gr--... well, moderately exaggerated. I apologize for the quiet week. I'm not much of one for a dozen excuses; I've just been very busy and exhausted from a crunch at work and a convergence of many different real-life energy and time sinks. The work crunch will last a while, yet, but I am hoping that this weekend will give me a chance to clear out the rest of the rubble. I'll be back to a quality pair of posts, next week.

For today, however, here are some great places to go and enjoy the content I'm not up to providing:

World of Warcrafts at WoW Insider is not exactly a brand new cloumn, but since it was taken over by Shelbi from The Bronze Kettle, it may as well be. The quality of the crafts she has offered up is already leaps and bounds above her predecessor. If you're looking for an afternoon project, a bit of fun to share with the kids, or just a cool distraction to get you out of the game for an hour or two, then you should definitely check out her column and see what you can make. I'm really tempted to make myself some potion candles for my desktop.
Maybe gameplay ideas are more your creative flavor for the week? If so, then I think you should go read Siha of Banana Shoulders. She has great advice for those of the paladin ilk, and I really enjoyed her creative method for Farming For Shattered Sun Rep. When all your quests and group runs are exhausted for the day, you can use this method for eeking out a bit more of the SSO love on your way to Exalted. That's the way to think outside the box, Siha!
Roleplay is always fun, and perhaps never more so than when you're A Cheerful Corpse or an Orc with an attitude and a tendency to cross-dress. Both blogs are short, sweet reads that are guaranteed to amuse or make you think twice about some of your character assumptions. I know I'll never look at Jaina Proudmoore the same way, again.
Another fun blog to visit is this newcomer: Warcraft and Other Hooha. I think if you click the link, you'll immediately pick up on why I like to visit so much. Ankhara has some great screenshots displayed, both of the lovely variety and of the funny variety, and I am excited to go investigate a couple of the obscure quests she's highlighted. She's a promising new blogger, and I can't wait to see what else she brings us.
Mama Druid, true to her name, is trying to protect us from our own stupidity.* She has shared a profile of an interesting and moderately frightening new 'type' of player that might be lurking on the other side of the hedge, hungrily eyeballing your guild bank. I highly recommend you read her description and make sure that your guildies know better than to use the /ginvite command like a revolving door.

Oh, and since I will never, ever, ever write a 'oh, lookit mah shiny new loot' post, I think I'll take this small, unobtrusive opportunity to share a squee from last night. After topping off with a Karazhan run, I took Rhoelyn and her entire wad of 154 Badges of Justice to our new friend, Smith Hauthaa**. After much grunting and sweating, some syllables of obscure words of power, and a bit of magical investiture, my dear Shadow Priest was rewarded with the best thing since sliced bread (although I suppose it would be really good at slicing said bread). We're the proud wielder of the Scryer's Blade of Focus. Faces everywhere had better be trembling in fear. :D

* Talk about aiming high, huh? :P
** I'm very proud of my server for being the first to unlock the smith, but this isn't a WoW News blog. If you want to read more about the path through 2.4 content on Proudmoore, then please go visit Siha at Banana Shoulders. :)

Titans and Demiurges 04 - My Little Dreadsteed

2008-04-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

Well, hey. Since yesterday was a cop-out, and today has dropped some fun, creative fodder in my lap... Here we are with an off-schedule update.

Wertle over at the Livejournal WoW_Fanart community has made a great gift for a guildmate. Inspired by an old WoW Insider contest entry by Amynnah, she customized a My Little Pony into an adorable dreadsteed present. Isn't that just about the cutest thing since babies and kittens?!

It begs the question... what other 'My Little Pony' customizations could the game inspire? I wonder if you could get as far as a Ram or a Talbuk? And what other toys might be customizable into fun creations from our World of Warcraft experiences?

Cop Out: Gnome on a Turtle

2008-04-03T18:02:00.000-07:00

Today has been... odd, to say the least. I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say that I ain't writin' nothing, and ya can't make me!

It's time for a quality cop-out*...

Cue the Gnome on a Turtle!

* "Quality" being a relative term, of course. I'll be back with a real update on Monday. :)
PS: For those of you from the guild, bonus points if you can guess the guest-gnome!

Compendium of Fools - 2008

2008-04-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

If you haven't looked at your calendar - I mean, really looked at that-there datestamp, then you're in for a rough day. It's April 1st, and that means you're best served to suspend all belief until 11:59 PM tonight.

On the bright side, presuming you didn't fall for any of it, this is a great day for a smile and a laugh, both of which I love to bring to my audience. Thus, though it's not an official update day here at PoC, I give you my Compendium of Fools. Go. Enjoy. Lock your gullibility in the closet on your way out the door.

Blizzard has announced its newest foray into the Console market: World of Warcraft, The Molten Core. With such features as movement in any of 8 unique directions, glorious 192i resolutions, and SOUND, how can you possibly resist what is sure to be a record-breaking release for your PS3 and Xbox 360?! (... or maybe the Atari 2600?)
In a monumental feat of productivity, Blizzard has also taken the opportunity to announce a new hero class for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion: the Bard. If you thought 2.4 was breaking the barriers of gameplay, then you've got to see what's in store for those of us who take the path of hardcore Rock damage. Sexy and powerful, this new ultimate class may just beat the Death Knight into obscurity.
There's more. Blizzard has brought a new addition to its StarcraftII page. The Terran Marines are getting a boss new unit, and he ain't there to chew no cud. Meet the Mad Cow Marine, the baddest bovine on the block! After so long, it's finally true. There is a cow level.
Last, but certainly not least, Diablo II hasn't escaped the Blizzmonster initiative for 2008. Added to the expansion page is a wonderful new accessory, the Loot Piñata. I don't know how we ever dungeon crawled without it. (Though I wish I knew who found this page, because they need a big old pat on the back. I could not find any linkage from the Diablo II site.)
WoW Insider, long considered a key source for all the latest WoW info, tips, and tricks, has decided that it's time to move along with the tide of change. Say goodbye to WoW Insider and hello to Hello Kitty Insider, your source for HKSuperman and so much more. Triple B assures us that this is no joke, so it must be true. Have you got your Hello Kitty Online beta key, yet?
WoWHead, the popular and very useful WoW database site, has gotten a minimalist... and rather familiar-looking overhaul for this most auspicious of holidays. Now, where have we seen that look, before? Hmmm...
Phaelia and Valenna, apparently having recently traded WoW accounts altogether, have written up their respective guides to their new 70 classes. Check out Phaelia's Guide to Roguery and Valenna's Guide to Druidity. Not only are these two BlogAzeroth founders wise about their new toons, but they are apparently well versed in the creation of new and exotic WoW terminology. Who will be next to pontificate about classifery?!
Over at A Dwarf Priest, our earnest and honest little healiforating friend is not trying to fool you for this April 1st, but she is doing a good job of amusing you. Check out the amusing and impressive loot on her boyfriend's Loot-a-day World of Warcraft calendar. I'd totally go for with a gnome in those babies! Wouldn't you?!
McLovin' has done it, again. Always the first to bring us the latest news from the Tech front, he has yet another wild scoop over on his World of McLovin'. The iRaid, long rumored to be in development, is confirmed, and WoW is on its way to your handheld. Sweet! Farming during boring meetings never looked so simple.
Leafshine brings us a very new, very important secret to that 10-man instance that we all love to hate. Make sure you go see her Secrets of Karazhan video! If you follow her simple moves, you'll be rickrollin' your way to phat lewtz in no time.

These are the WoW April Fools that I've found so far. What else can we add to our list? Have you found anything hilarious? Whatever you choose, have a fun and lighthearted Tuesday. Happy April Fools Day!

Late edit:
I just found this one, and though it's not WoW-related, I think this crowd will appreciate the tease.
From IGN, we have Legend of Zelda: The Movie
Ah, if ONLY this were real... and about 50x less B-quality. :P But still, it's a great present for April Fools Day. We can dream!

Titans and Demiurges 03 - Burning Crusade: The Movie

2008-03-31T22:21:00.000-07:00

I almost scrapped today's topic at the last minute. Almost. Why? Because what I'm about to link you isn't new. It's been linked before, and in fact, has gotten a whole lot of link love* since its publication on Feb. 1st, 2008.

Upon careful consideration, though.... I don't believe that any of the blogs that I've seen, the recommendations, or even the random forum posts really have reached the beating heart of what makes this video great. It deserves a second - and even a third - look. Sit down with a cup of something nice to drink and no distractions and really just absorb all 31 minutes and 15 seconds of this artistic look at the raid content of The Burning Crusade.

Burning Crusade: The Movie
By Jack of Easy Productions (FR)

Now, if you're still wondering why I'm linking this movie, then I think you need to go watch it again. This is not just a PvE movie. It's not just another Guild X killed Vashj Youtube knockoff. Unlike so many of its "peers", this look at in-game content aspires to an intense level of artistry - aspires and succeeds! It's electrifying, dramatic, beautiful, and inspiring. If you've never seen these 25-man instances, it makes you want to go forth and conquer. If you're fighting your way through progression, it reminds you just why that 12-wipe night was worth it. If you've already fought these battles and seen these bosses, then this video shows you everything you were too busy staring at your actionbars and threat meters to notice.

How did Jack do it? The technicalities of programs and filters / effects could probably fill a month's worth of blogging**, but let's take a look at the artistic principles that he has used to turn months worth of game play into a half hour of visual appeal.

Cinematography - The cameras are seldom still on an action movie set. Sweeping, panning, zooming and fading the viewer's eye forces them into the action, making them feel like a part of what's happening on-screen. Jack has used this to great affect to heighten the emotion and the sense of excitement. You don't just stare at Vashj from across the room. You rush in at her, watching her hideous fangs and taloned hands get ever closer to your skin. You watch in horror as Illidan leaps into the air and comes crashing down toward you.
Color Adjustment - There is a very complex interplay between our brain, our emotions, and our eyes when it comes to colors. They have a meaning to us that seems to go far beyond what the words 'red', 'blue', and 'yellow' could possibly contain. That's why visual artists of any type work hard to understand and use the deeper meanings of color, and Jack is certainly no exception. Just look what he does at about 10:15 with the Voidreaver battle; we watch the Voidreaver go from a bright and vibrant enemy to a dull, grey, and lifeless hunk of metal in a handful of pieces on the floor. The subtle use of desaturation helps to lend a certain sense of loss to his death.
Score Composition - As brilliant as the visuals are in this film, it would be a gross oversight to fail to mention the soundtrack (except, maybe, for the unfortunate Linkin' Park at 17:50). Seamlessly mixed, Jack has chosen a handful of powerful compositions and matched them to the action, letting their resounding drums and energetic strings add to the tide of the video, drawing you up to crescendos at the instant of a boss's death again and again. It's hard to define the art of music beyond to say that the notes should do the same thing to your heart that the action does. I think, in that, Jack has found unequivocal success.
Dialogue - It almost feels funny to talk about dialogue in a video like this, but it most definitely is there. Moreover, it's meaningful in multiple ways - not only to the 'story' of progression that Jack is telling, the smaller understory of the determined Paladin and his nightelven guide; but also to the game, the source of his carefully-chosen words and effects. Unlike so many of his peers in the machinima realm, Jack didn't try to create his own homebrewed sounds, but instead he borrowed from Blizzard's expert studio. In so doing, he not only ensured that his dialogue was rich and recorded with impeccable quality but also that his video tapped into a larger sense of being in the game. Even if you don't recognize the voices, you recognize the sound of World of Warcraft dialogue, and it brings all kinds of in-game memories up to mix with the content you are seeing for (possibly) the first time. Did you recognize any of the soundbytes from your own game experiences***? How did that jolt of recognition make you feel?

Alright, that's enough from me. I hope you understand, now, why I felt that this video needed a re-examination despite its travels around the blogosphere and the larger interweb tubes. It's not just about the PvE. It's not just about the game. It's not just about 25 friends gathering up and shooting some vids while they go after their phat porples. It's about artistry and the manipulation of the human mind for the sake of evoking emotion. And I give Jack from the Empire full marks for knowing his tools and using them to the best of their advantage.

Thank you, Jack!

* 121485 views as of today. @_@
** Blogging by someone NOT me, as I don't know how to do these miraculous and wonderful things to in-game imagery. Imagine the havoc I could wreak if I did?! We're talking about the Screenshot fool being given an MPG Nuke to play with, here.
*** Gruul the Dragonslayer's gravely voice at 24:10, perhaps?

Sacrum Particulae - 11 Easy Outlands Recipes That You Need - Part 2

2008-03-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

When I think about content in World of Warcraft, I always put 5-man 'group play' on a higher tier than solo play. 'Higher' meaning 'harder', more difficult to initiate, coordinate, and execute. There are people for whom this is not necessarily the case, and I am honestly happy for you who can pop online and into an instance in five minutes. For me, getting a group - whether PuG or guild! - has always been an overall frustrating, time-consuming, and difficult process, the reasons for which are fodder for another day's discussion.

Suffice to say, when I think of the second half of the list that we began on Monday, it sticks in my mind as the hard half because the process of even getting to the mobs we need to kill (or the reputation we need to garner) is longer and less-straightforward. They are hidden behind swirling instance portals and an elusive smoke-screen of coordination that is commonly known as 'group balance.' PuG and guild channels can sometimes banish the smoke... and can sometimes fail to make a dent. It's the patience-requiring reality of 5-man game content.

Bah. Where's that gnomish contraption that spawns Tier5 warriors, again??

Thus, we're about to foray into a want-list that we all still share. I haven't gotten any of these recipes, myself. In fact, I haven't managed even one farming run since I first noted this list, last week. (Granted, at least part of that is because of the massive distraction that is the Shattered Sun Offensive and patch 2.4. It takes nothing less than brand-new environs, tasty lore-bits, blue-haired dragon-men, and beautiful cooperation between two previously-opposing factions* to temporarily drag me away from my devotion to all things alchemical. Even were that insufficient to distract me, every 70 I know spends all their non-raid time in Quel'Danas.) That isn't to say that I don't know the instances; just that I don't have direct experience with how little or much is required to get the drops we need, want, and simply demand for our alchemy screens. We're going to have to discover that particular sweet pain, together.

Personally, I can't wait!

Part 2 - Group Alchemy:

I've already alluded to the instancing requirement for these five recipes, but I should probably be more clear about what I mean. You will be running various dungeons for one of two reasons: either you need to kill instance mob X until you get your recipe to drop or you need to earn Y more faction reputation to hit rep level Z, where you will be able to purchase your recipe from the appropriate Quartermaster. Let's look at where you're going and why:

The Recipe: Recipe: Major Frost Protection Potion - farmed from Nexus-Prince Shaffar in the Mana-Tombs (Normal or Heroic).

The Mobs: Mana-Tombs is the northmost of the Auchindoun instances, a place infested by the remnants of the catastrophic magic that destroyed the ancient Draenic city. It's also infested by ethereals seeking to harvest this rampant energy for fun and profit. In Normal mode, it is a level 64-66 instance that culminates in an encounter with our alchemy-friend, Nexus-Prince Shaffar, a rather arrogant fellow who doesn't seem to want to let you and your group clear the place out so the Consortium can steal his profit margin. Imagine that.

You can run this instance on either Normal or Heroic mode for a chance to get your recipe drop, however it is worth noting that a Heroic run nets you a much higher drop rate. Heroic Nexus-Prince Shaffar weighs in at a 15-25% chance to drop our recipe while Normal Nexus-Prince Shaffar offers only 3-14%. You don't need an ethereal's keen nose for business to sniff out the surer deal, but you will definitely need a more powerful group.

Fringe Benefits: Forgetting, for the moment, that instance runs in general offer all kinds of opportunities for gear upgrades, Mana-Tombs has a few benefits that will help you get your party together. First, drag your Enchanting and Blacksmithing friends along for their chances to get Formula: Enchant Boots - Fortitude from the Ethereal Priests and Plans: Swiftsteel Gloves from the Nexus Stalkers. Their recipes drop in both Normal and Heroic modes, so they have no excuse not to contribute to the farming effort. Second, kills in the Mana-Tombs are great ways to get Consortium reputation. Normal Mana-Tombs kills give rep up to Honored, and Heroic Mana-Tombs kills give rep up to Exalted. Their Quartermaster has all kinds of great goodies for your guild's tradeskillers - especially the Jewelcrafters, and each month they give out free gems, the quality of which increases with rep level. Even though they don't have any alchemy recipes to offer, you can always find uses for that monthly Bulging Sack of Gems.
The Recipe: Recipe: Major Fire Protection Potion - farmed from Nethermancer Sepethrea and Sunseeker Astromages (Normal or Heroic) in The Mechanar.

The Mobs: The Mechanar is the southernmost and first wing of the Tempest Keep, an old Draenic temple that has been pre-empted by the most scientifically-inclined of Kael'thas' Sindorei followers. There are precisely 10 Sunseeker Astromages in The Mechanaar and precisely 1 Nethermancer Sepethrea, so with a drop rate that is 3-14% on both of them in Normal Mode and 25-50% on Nethermance Sepethrea in Heroic mode, it looks like a bit of a challenging recipe to grab. Whether Normal or Heroic, it is a level 70 dungeon.

Fringe Benefits: Your friendly neighborhood Tailors are great people to convince to come on this particular set of farming runs, as the Mechanar is also known to drop Pattern: Arcanoweave Boots and Pattern: Arcanoweave Robe for their sewing pleasure. Kills here are also very valuable for their Sha'tar reputation, which is one of the 'big 3' factions with which every toon should make nice, no matter race, creed, color, tradeskill or sexual orientation. Mechanar kills will garner your reputation with them all the way through Exalted, so don't be shy about bribing your friends to come along. It's for their own good as well as yours.
The Recipe: Recipe: Ironshield Potion - farmed from Captain Skarloc (Normal and Heroic) in Old Hillsbrad Foothills.

The Mobs: The timing on this particular instance is great, as it was a tough little cookie to crack on Heroic mode before patch 2.4 gave it a smack with the good old nerf bat. Now, you have two feasible options: look for a 3-14% drop rate in the level 66-68 Normal version of the instance or upgrade to the 25-50% drop rate in the level 70 Heroic version. In fact, it was also a tough little cookie to reach before 2.4, but with the introduction of a new teleport** to get you from the wilds of Outlands to the well-hidden Caverns of Time in Tanaris, the path to alchemical glory is a lot more friendly than it was last week. Either way, you're going to want to go say kind things to the Keepers of Time to get yourself started on this particular timeline-saving farming endeavor.

Fringe Benefits: Durnholde is the instance to which you should be dragging your Leatherworking and Jewelcrafting friends, as they both stand to gain a nice craftable piece out of it. Because all Leatherworkers are pimps at heart, they will definitely want to get their Pattern: Stylin' Adventure Hat from the Durnholde Riflemen, which will complement their velvet suit and bling-bling quite nicely. Oh, and speaking of bling, the Design: Circle of Arcane Might is no cubic zirconia, itself. The Epoch Hunter drops it, so we can only assume he's a closet blinger, himself.

Beyond those, we've got our usual phat lewtz and friendly faces - this time of the draconic variety. Durnholde (and all the Caverns of Time instances) gives reputation with the Keepers of Time all the way from Neutral to Exalted. Those confusing, non-linear time dragons have something for everyone, though the Engineers, Tailors, and Blacksmiths may feel left out of the recipe fun. Sorry, guys. Grab some great gear, instead, okay?
The Recipe: Recipe: Major Nature Protection Potion - purchased from Fedryen Swiftspear, Cenarion Expedition Quartermaster in Zangarmarsh. Exalted rep level.

The Reputation: Cenarion Expedition rep comes primarily from instance runs and quests, bolstered here and there by some rep turn-in items ... that you get from the instances, anyway. Any of the Coilfang Reservoir dungeons will get you CE rep, however Normal mode on Slavepens and the Underbog will only get you as far as Honored. To reach Revered or Exalted, you will need to run the Steamvault or any of the three on Heroic mode.

Fringe Benefits: The CE has no less than five Alchemy recipes to give to the people who work hard to become their bestest best new buds in the whole wide world. They also offer six Blacksmithing plans, an Engineering schematic, two Jewelcrafting designs, five Leatherworking patterns, two Enchanting patterns, a Tailoring recipe, and the best darn Bear-tanking weapon a babybear could ever want***. Look, if they aren't already Exalted with CE, they have no excuse not to come. Drag their butts along and get them some great phat lewtz, to go with your shiny, new potion.
The Recipe: Recipe: Elixir of Major Shadow Power - purchased from Nakodu, Lower City Quartermaster in Shattrath City. Revered rep level.

The Reputation: Lower City reputation comes from a lower-level item turnin, quests, and - sensing a theme, here? - instance runs. Specifically, you will need kills from the other Auchindoun instances, Auchenai Crypts, Sethekk Halls, and the Shadow Labyrinth. Heroic runs will give you reputation up to Exalted, however if Normal instancing is more your speed, you will be limited to the Shadow Labs after you hit Honored. Learn2Heroic?

Fringe Benefits: Like their CE cousins, the Lower City loot-handlers seem to love just about everyone. By the time one reaches Exalted, they are offering two Alchemy potions, four Jewelcrafting designs, a great Leatherworking pattern, two Enchanting formulae, a Tailoring pattern and a lot of great gear. That's not even mentioning the gear and rewards that can drop from the required instances on the way to Exalted.

There you have it.

Eleven great recipes and five new potential cauldrons, all yours for the taking. Now you know where to look, so even if you don't want to farm repeatedly for these recipes, you'll be aware of which opportunities might benefit your tradeskill. Shadow Labs for the 29th time might be just a bit more palatable if you know you stand to gain something very useful from it.

So, who has gotten the lucky drops? What other great recipes / rewards have you found out there? Does anyone else squee like an imploding cheerleader every time that pretty little scroll icon shows up in their loot window?? ^_^

* I always found it very sad that I couldn't be friends with both the Aldor and the Scryer, so their mutual effort as the Shattered Sun Offensive makes my carebear-fangirl-meter swing way over to Happy. :)
** Available at Revered with the Keepers of Time and accomplished by talking to an NPC in Shattrath City...
*** And, oh boy, does he want it! GIMMEGIMMEGIMME!

Sacrum Particulae - 11 Easy Outlands* Recipes That You Need - Part 1

2008-03-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

There are a few different types of players in World of Warcraft. Okay, maybe even more than 'a few'. You've got your AFKers, your Twinks, your PvE divas, your Farmin' Fools, your DPS-peeners, your Lootwh--... -lovers, your Carebears, your Roleplayers and a whole host of others.

Listing them (and defining the stereotypes) has been done by bigger and better bloggers than I. To great, amusing affect, I might add.

Today, however, is devoted to one of my favorite sub-classes of the Warcraftian race. Far from amassing wealth and garnering the uber uber l33t reputation that so many crave, these are the brave men and women who farm, farm, farm some more, and then still end up poor at the end of the day. In fact, they'll usually come out with less gold than they went in, and it's all for the sake of some elusive green, blue, purple or crazy consumable that you've never even heard of! Yes, I'm talking about the devoted Tradeskiller, that person who only comes to Heroic UB with you because she really, really needs another Primal Nether.

Specifically, we're here for the education and edification of those crafty courtesans of the chemical concoctions, those magnificent mixers of myriad mounds of marrows - Alchemists! Listen up, my fellow finders of non-ferrous fronds, because I'm about to tell you all about eleven great, rare(ish) Outlands recipes that you never knew you could have.

Do you have your gloves on and your safety goggles in place? Okay, then. Let's hit the scrolls.

Part 1 - Solo-Source:

The first half of this list are the recipes that can be farmed by killing non-Elite mobs in non-instanced Outlands environs. They're (relatively) fast, easy, and often come with some great farming side-benefits. Though you'll see some crazy low drop rates on sites like Thottbot and WoWHead, remember that these recipes only show up for an Alchemist that doesn't already know the potion. Realistically, you can expect to see something more like a ~5% drop rate on all of these solo-source recipes.

The Recipe: Recipe: Major Arcane Protection Potion - farmed from Vir'aani Arcanists at Oshu'gun in Nagrand.

The Mobs: The first of the 6 Major Resistance Potions, this recipe is a relatively easy farm from the etherial casters that hang out all around the wreckage of Oshu'gun. These level 66-67 mobs specialize in Arcane magic, shooting you with Arcane Bolts and occasionally doing an annoying Blink to end up about 15 yards behind you. They have a maximum of 5000 hit points, so they go down very quickly against a level 70 toon.

Fringe Benefits: The Arcanists and their local compatriots, the Vir'aani Raiders, drop some good cash and a metric butt-ton** of Netherweave Cloth. At 10-11 silver and 1-3 Nethercloth per kill, just one circuit around a boulder will net you about 2-3g. Now, add in a grey vendor item every 10 kills or so and a green every 15-20 kills, and you're making good money. But there's more. Vir'aani mobs have a chance to drop the Oshu'gun Crystal Powder Samples that the Halaani love with an unhealthy fervor, and all around the kill area are crystal spawns that you can loot for Oshu'gun Crystal Fragments. These are reputation items that you can turn in for Consortium rep from Neutral to Friendly.
The Recipe: Recipe: Major Holy Protection Potion - farmed from Abyssal Flamebringers at Forge Camp: Anger in Blade's Edge Mountains.

The Mobs: The Major Holy Protection Potion is, ironically, farmed from demonic elementals in the southern Forge Camp on the Ogri'la Plateau. Now, first thing's first - in order to even reach this spawn location, you will need to either have a flying mount or get the rare, kind pansy goth emo mage to summon you there. I'm not sure that I recommend the trip through hell, personally.

The Abyssal Flamebringers are scattered throughout the Forge Camp, interspersed with Vile Fire-souls. In what is probably not a stunning revelation, I'm going to tell you that they do a healthy dose of fire-element damage, first from a fire aura that tics for about 150 damage on a toon with negligible fire resistance and then from a ~3-second cast 'meteor' spell that will come crashing down on your head for about 800 damage. They do swing their meaty fists, too, but the melee damage is not going to break many people's heads (~2-300 against a cloth wearer).

Most notably, however, these guys are completely immune to fire damage. If you're planning to bring a fire mage, like Livaeya, then you need to stop that right now. Masochist.

Fringe Benefits: You won't get much in the way of non-recipe jollies from the Abyssal Flamebringers, but they do drop Apexis Shards. Ignore the place where WoWHead and its ilk mention Motes of Shadow. That is not true, any more, much to my eternal sorrow. However, if Motes are your goal, then you should definitely put some smack down on the other mobs that will be running around your Abyssals, the Vile Fire-souls. They drop Motes of Fire like a nub 2-Holy-Priest Arena team drops ratings. (That's a lot, okay?)

Warning: This region can get pretty heavily farmed by daily questers killing all the demons in the area, so avoid it during high-traffic hours.
The Recipe: Recipe: Major Shadow Protection Potion - farmed from Shadow Council Warlocks at Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley.

The Mobs: Oh, man. These mobs are a riot! The Shadow Council Warlocks ring three strange obelisks just behind the ramparts of Legion Hold (plus two patrollers, but who cares about them?!). There are about four per giant-phallic-symbol, and let me tell you... it's more than enough. These guys spawn like rabbits on crack with intravenous Viagra - I kid you not. Four to five toons can be farming these twelve little mobs, and not a single one will run out of fodder for his blades / spells. In fact, at times, you can barely grab your loot before you're being attacked by two new spawns. Now, add in the level 68-69 Elite that circles the area, and you're in for one wild farming ride.

Fringe Benefits: Wild, but lucrative. Not only do the Warlocks drop about 11 silver and 1-3 Netherweave Cloth per kill, but they also have a great drop rate for Aldor reputation items. You can come out of a 45-minute farming session with around 50 Marks of Sargeras and 3-7 Fel Armaments. They're great rep if you need them, and great cash if you don't. Win-win makes me happy!

Oh, but wait... these mobs don't drop just one measly recipe that you want, my fine fellow Alchemist...
The Recipe: Recipe: Fel Strength Elixir - farmed from Shadow Council Warlocks at Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley. Yes, again. I love efficiency, so go look at the list item above and do it all again and again until you get not one, but two great potion recipes.
The Recipe: Recipe: Fel Regeneration Potion - farmed from Deathforge Imps, Guardians, Tinkerers and Smiths at the Deathforge in Shadowmoon Valley.

The Mobs: Well, with four mob types, you've got the luxury of picking and choosing who you kill. The guardians are your run-of-the-mill angry, orcish melee mobs. They seem to be allergic to huge, honking balls of fire, as Liv's spells flattened them very easily. Imps are fire-based casters with nice, low hit points. One Mind Blast crit sends the little buggers to demon'la or... whatever. The Tinkerers are Broken and the Smiths are those messed-up mechano-undead-demon guys that like to wander around with drills instead of hands. They tend to travel together in packs of three, so take that with whatever caution it deserves. Also, although I never tried it myself, I hear tell that the Tinkers are immune to Fear, if that's your particular flavor of crowd control.

Fringe Benefits: These guys pretty much have all the glory of the Shadow Council Warlocks. They all drop around 10-12 silver, 1-3 Netherweave Cloth, and some of the Aldor rep items that we so love. They have identical percentage chances for these loots, apparently, so expect the same peripheral take that you got from the guys in Legion Hold. Finally, if you happen to have a friend who is a Blacksmith, bring them along for their own tradeskill loving, as the Deathforge Guardians have a good chance to drop the Plans: Khorium Pants.
The Recipe: Recipe: Fel Mana Potion - farmed from Eclipsion Spellbinders, Bloodwarders, Blood Knights, and Soldiers at Eclipsion Point in Shadowmoon Valley.

The Mobs: In typical Bloodelf fashion, these guys are soul-sucking anti-paladins, alarmingly not-quite-wussy casters, and melee with an annoying tendency to eat your mana. They are all level 68-70 and not terribly tough, but with a lot of wanderers and some mounted units, they can be a little bit of a pain. The spell damage they can deal is mainly arcane, but as long as they aren't bugged out, they shouldn't pose a serious danger to a level 70 toon.

Fringe Benefits: Well, if the Aldor rep items weren't your preferred flavor, then I think you'll like these guys and gals a lot more. The Eclipsion mobs drop Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes for Scryer reputation in addition to the usual 1-3 Netherweave Cloth and about 14-16 silver. If you're a skinner, you can also take a violent paw to the Eclipsion Dragonhawks that dot the area. They drop a great rarespawn leatherworking item, Wind Scales, that you can send to your favorite druid or just sell on the Auction House for 60g (or more) per stack.

Crazy, right? Great stuff? I know my heart gets all aflutter every time one of these drops. Yes, I am that much of a Tradeskilling geek; and, yes, Rhoelyn is going to get each and every one of these. In fact, I farmed up most of them in a few hours, last week. The only one she doesn't have, yet, is the Fel Mana Potion, and that's because I just found it when doing the research for this article. It's really, truly not painful. If you're not a killing class, then lure a friend over with some of the fringe benefits and get them to lend their DPS to your cause. There's more than enough to go around at any of these locations.

By the way, do you know why you want most of these potions, my dear Alchemist? Beyond their innate awesomesauce, five of the six Major Arcane Resistance Potions have a good chance to teach you the related Cauldrons. Can you resist a two-for-one deal like this?

That's the first half of the list. Next time, I'll show you the recipes that you can get with a group and an instance run. Sure, it's not as easy to get going, but the fringe benefits certainly go up in magnitude. Until then!

* Sorry, but that means you'll need to have The Burning Crusade expansion pack for this to be useful to you.
** That's a European unit of measure. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it before. *deadpan* o_o

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

2008-03-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

I apologize, but today's (Monday's) post will be up tomorrow (Tuesday). It just took too long to put together, and... well, I really had to go on that Heroic UB run before I wrote it. Rhese didn't give me a choice. He really wants his Earthwarden, and you know that joke about where bears sleep? Well, it goes for when bears instance run, too. Any time they want to!

I have been working for hours, though, so I promise that the post will be well worth the extra time. Please bear with me, and check back soon. :)

Your humble host,
~Rhoe

Titans and Demiurges 02 - Orc Rider

2008-03-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a sculpture worth?

Based on one of the earliest, most famous pieces of World of Warcraft art, "The Fury of Blackrock Spire" by Wang Wei, this statue is a rare and unique example of Blizzard inspiring itself - new blood taking on old concepts. It's a scale replica of the 20-foot bronze monster that they are creating for their new Blizzard campus in Irvine, California. Stunningly detailed, artificially-tinted to simulate the aging of bronze, and viscerally evocative, it's a stunning example of 2D art making an impressive transition into the 3D world. Far from a copy of the original work, it's a reinterpretation, one that I think mimics the game's evolution and enrichment over the past 4 years. Just as we've gone from the straightforward experience of 'Vanilla WoW' to the rich, multifaceted world of the Burning Crusade (complete with battlegrounds, arenas, instances of varying sizes and difficulty levelings, and reputation paths and rewards with more factions than you can shake a stick at) the Wolf Rider has graduated from his static, straightforward roots to a hauntingly intense, far-more-vital presence.

Where can you get yours? I'm afraid that's the rub. These statues can't be found in stores, and if you see one on Ebay, that means someone has probably gotten fired*. Blizzard gave one of these beauties to each to their employees as a Christmas gift for 2007. Manufactured in New Zealand, they only recently made it into the happy hands of employees that have been looking forward to them since they were announced back in December. It's part of a certain generosity that has impressed me about Blizzard Entertainment since my first experiences with them. Even back before they were making money like bees make honey, they made sure to save a bit of the budget for cool swag and fun opportunities for their people. Far from just an office to seat your butt in for the day, this company champions creativity and takes pains to create a work environment that fosters inspiration.

And hey... I didn't share this as some sort of promotion drive for Blizzard's hiring team. I honestly respect the effort they put into projects like this one, and I am never anything but impressed with the quality of what they can do.

* ... or is about to. @_@

Stat-Balance the Human: Snacking Well-Fed

2008-03-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

Before I get into today's post, there is one thing that I want to make competely clear. I am not a nutritionist. I haven't been trained in the metabolic process or the roles of the various vitamins and minerals in your body's vital systems. What I have done is read, experience, live and learn for the past *cough* many years about what is recommended, what was recommended, why things changed, how judgements were made, and who says what about nutrition. Let's face it - there have been a lot of voices in the choir about all things dietary over the last decade or two, and I've found that it's toughest to choose who to believe and who to ignore. Thus, I've kind of mixed and matched and formed my own opinions on the larger 'plans for eating right'.

So these are my thoughts and my suggestions based on experience, common sense, and research. In that order. My hope in presenting them is that you'll read, consider, and then maybe go do your own research into what makes sense to you. See if you can agree with me.

The Well-Fed Concept:

'Eating well' is the name of the game - not just eating, not just 'too much' or 'too little', but truly eating what your body needs and can use and avoiding the things that it is not designed to handle well. That's what I call 'eating well', and it should be a lot easier than it is!

... but really, it's so difficult. In the interests of economics, portability, and an eat-on-the-run modern mentality, the food that is easiest and cheapest to obtain often falls completely outside the realm of what is desirable to your body. Oh, sure. It's all 'eating', and it can make your stomach and your taste buds happy (mmm... pizza ... :D), but what is it putting into your system that you don't want? That you can't process? That affects your mood or your blood chemistry?

By now, I think everyone has seen or read some sort of documentation on the horrors of a fast-food diet and just what goes into fast food. I'm not going to beat that dead horse. I'm not going to tell you to boycott Burger King or avoid McDonalds like the plague. I'm not even going to tell you that burgers are the devil and french fries are little railroad ties on the train track to an early grave. We're not in the business of overdramatizing, here. I just want to encourage you to eat as smartly as you can and know what you're eating. You deserve to be healthy, and I think that with a few suggestions and some facts under your belt, you can take a simple, important step toward being just that.

What is that step?

Eat 'au naturale'.

If I had to sum up what's wrong with 9/10ths of the convenience food that we all (Americans or not!) eat, I would do it like this: It's fake.

Flashy, chemical preservatives. Color-enhancing additives. Oodles of strange sodium constructs to cover the other odd flavors. Processed flours. Processed sugars. Artificial flavors, textures, and scents. These types of things inundate the food we consume from restaurants and from groceries. Take a look at the back of your next pack of crisps and Google every ingredient you don't recognize. Are you sure you want that stuff in your body?

I know I don't. That's why I try to pick up simple, natural foods and avoid all the crazy chemicals. If I can't pronounce its name, I'm pretty sure my stomach won't know what to do with it. Sure, it's not a hard and fast rule, but you'd be surprised by how many of those bifurcated whoseewhatsis chemicals have nothing whatsoever to do with me or you getting sustenance from what we eat.

Snacking Well-Fed:

"Okay, Rhoe. That's great," you say, "but this is a gaming blog. You're supposed to talk about World of Warcraft and fun stuff like that."

True. I want you, as a player sitting in a chair behind a large, bright screen, to be healthy. And I know as well as you do just what influences World of Warcraft and its ilk can put on your life. Food often comes below raiding. Below farming mats for consumables. Below dinging 53. Below tanking that UBRS run. You're hungry, but you have two minutes until the next big thing hits in-game, so you need to grab something super-quick.

That's not necessarily bad. Some experts recommend eating 5 "small meals" a day instead of our standard three. I think that makes a lot of sense from a metabolic standpoint, but the fact is that it's still enough under debate that you should work out what's best for you. Me, I feel better if I eat about four 'snacks' a day and then one reasonably-sized meal (dinner for family time, really). Because of that, I'm always hopping up from the game to go grab a bite of something.

I want to share some ideas for that super-quick snack that are my favorites. I like natural, flavorful, but simple. Take these ideas and the guideline of 'no artificials' and play with them. Find your own snacks with ingredients you can recognize, and tastes you will appreciate on a daily basis. Healthy does not equal yucky. That's a myth of epic proportions, and I hope my snacks will prove that to you:

Baby Carrots - I eat mine plain, because I love fresh carrots. A handful of 5 or 6 of these little babies will always quench that little hunger bug. If you like a little extra flavor with yours, I recommend a really simple dip made from plain yogurt and a ranch dressing mix (such as Hidden Valley Ranch's powdered Ranch mix). Take ten minutes to mix it up, and you can store it in the fridge for a week. Best of all, you can grab, dip, and munch between pulls and still have both hands free for pwnage when the next mob is pulled.
Celery and Peanut Butter - Well, of course you can eat just celery, but even
I find celery sticks alone to be... rather boring. And we're talking about the person who can eat plain rice very happily. Thus, I recommend eating celery sticks with a little dollop of peanut butter. Not only is it tasty, but a good, organic peanut butter has great nut proteins and a large percentage of unsaturated fats as well as vitamin E, niacin, phosphorus and magnesium. In moderation, it's a beautiful supplement to celery, which has very little flavor of its own. As an added bonus, there are some common snack-pack products out there that give you a handful of celery sticks with a little dip-pouch of peanut butter. Read the label and see if you can live with the inevitable preservatives in these, but remember that even baby steps are still steps towards nutritional eating.
Fruit and Dairy - Personally, I use Dannon All-Natural Vanilla yogurt as a dip for my fruit when I don't want to eat it plain (which, honestly, I usually do), but you can also use plain yogurt for a less-sweet alternative or even cottage cheese. These are great little snacks because you can get a huge variety of tastes by varying the kind of fruit you pair with your dairy product du jour. Want a bit of crunch? Add some granola to make it even better!

Best of all, you don't need to keep fresh fruit on hand. I've recently fallen in love with Dole's Plastic Fruit Jars for the ability to eat however much I want, then screw the lid on and save the rest for next time. There's no need to feel like I need to eat an entire can or wonder if that old can with the foil over the top is going to reach up with moldy fingers and bite me when I open it. Even better, the ingredient list on one of these babies is short, sweet, and completely recognizable. Neither Dannon nor Dole sullies the mix with additives or preservatives.
Veggie Chips
- Veggie chips are a great alternative to the usual potato chip. There are sort of two 'types' of veggie chips, though, and you will want to know the difference. The original and authentic veggie chips were lightly salted, flash-fried vegetables that are most often available in the bulk aisle at your local grocery or health food store. As such, they have some fat and sodium content, but it's a small amount when compared to potato chips. Also, they retain a lot of the vitamins and minerals and the unique flavors of the vegetables.

Also in the 'veggie chips' category are flour based, vegetable-flavored chips that have more of the consistency of potato chips. They are still lower in fat and sodium content than products like Doritos and Lays, but they lack a lot of the natural vitamins and minerals from true veggie chips. They're less authentic, but still a good alternative. What you can find depends on your grocery and your region and sometimes the phases of the moon, so you need to take every product to the firing range and check its ingredients and nutritional information before you judge it fit for consumption. Because my local grocery doesn't carry true, fried veggie chips, I like to get the Jensen's Orchard variety. Just remember, every kind of veggie chip is a little bit different, so if you don't like the first ones you try, that doesn't mean you won't like the second.
Rice Cakes - You're groaning; I know. I'm here to tell you that rice cakes don't deserve their reputation, any more. Sure, if you get 'plain' rice cakes, they are a little bland, a little dry, and a lot of BLAH. Not many people get plain rice cakes for a good reason, but Quaker and other manufacturers make some great, flavorful variants that are completely worth checking out. Flavors like Apple Cinnamon and Chocolate Crunch make great banes for a sudden sweet tooth, while Cheddar Cheese and Buttered Pop Corn have that nice, salty tang that makes you crave potato chips. Even the men in my life are willing to admit that the Quaker Rice Snacks I get are worthy of the name food. I'm betting you'll be surprised, too.

It's just a start, but here we have five different snacks that are really just themes for you to explore. Think natural. Think fresh. Think about the foods that your human body was made to consume instead of the crazy stuff we've adopted in this modern day. Next time you're in the grocery, hit the produce section first and skip the soda aisle. Look for snack packs or pre-cut fruit containers. Check out your options in the canned fruit and veggies aisle. Snag some yogurts and other dairy products to use in moderation as your dips and sauces. You can absolutely bring healthy snacks back with you that won't interfere with your play time but will satisfy your cravings.

So, these are my solutions. What are yours?

Where in the World? - Old-world Answers

2008-03-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been seven days. Did you know where my screenshots were? As you were considering them or researching them, did you learn anything new about Azeroth? Was anything intersting enough that you ran around to find its source for yourself? Did the suspense have you biting your nails for today's revelations???

I hope not. It's bad for your cuticles. Tsk.

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. There were some very slick answers, and a few of you got most of the tricksie locations. However, one screenshot in here saved my bacon (read: prevented anyone from getting them all right). Number 16 was the big stumper.

But 'nuff said. Let's see the answers to the Old-World Details contest:

Un'goro Crater - Terror Run

Searing Gorge - The Doors to Blackrock Mountain*

Uldaman - The Ancient Halls

Felwood - Irontree Woods

Swamp of Sorrows - Near Splinterspear Junction

Scarlet Monastery Armory - Herod's Chamber

Un'goro Crater - Crystal Cave

Blackwing Lair - Nefarian's Lair

Desolace - Ranazjar Isle

Darkshore - Shatterspear Village

Duskwood - The Twilight Grove

Feralas - Dire Maul - Eldre'Thalas Courtyard

Desolace - Mannoroc Coven

.... Silithid Hive... somewhere**

Blasted Lands - Altar of Storms

The Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ40) - Battleguard Satura's Chamber

Thanks to everyone who emailed me to play. I hope that these glimpses of Azeroth have helped remind you about the rich world in which your toon makes his or her home. It's worth a few extra minutes to stop and look around, even in those places that you've run through a thousand times before. You never know when a cute little doodad or an interesting angle will pop up to inspire and motivate you!

* The Death Glow is active, which is why they are a funny greytone instead of their usual murderous red / orange.
** Despite an hour of running around to every Silithid hive in the world, I couldn't quite track this one down for certain. I believe that it is most likely from the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, but I give full credit for anyone who sees it and thinks 'Silithid somethingorother'. :)

Tutorial: Screenshot Trimming 101

2008-03-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

.... shhhh... it's still Monday... somewhere. >_>

Turning this into the week of the screenshot was definitely not wholly intentional. However, I find that when the situation stands up and stuffs a half-dozen neon-colored hints right in your face, it's best to shut up and take them. (Else you go blind. I mean, we're talking 250 candles worth of hot, hot pink in front of the eyeballs, here.) So, since I value my vision and my momma didn't raise no hint-missin' fools, we're going to take a quick pictorial trip through the process of trimming a screenshot with Adobe Photoshop.

Step 0: The setup

Once upon a time, when we were waltzing through the wilds of Warcraft, we came upon a thing. It was a wonderful thing! A perfect thing! And we had to have it. So, with all the grace and agility at our command, we hit that crazy little button that sits above our "Insert" key on the keyboard. The Print Screen button works some massive mojo behind the scenes, plying our World of Warcraft game with its irresistible charm until WoW happily deposits a JPG file into the Screenshots folder of its install directory. Our thing is there, safely ensconced in that file.

Now, we need to rescue our thing. We want to use it as a pretty doodad on our blog, so we need to trim it away from its background and set it on a transparent one so it will always match our blog-layout-du-jour. Enter our hero, Photoshop! Using some relatively simple tools and techniques, he is going to let us extract our thing from its environment and place it on a happy, healthy, and ever-so-transparent background.

Step 1: Unnatural Selection

There are two concepts that are key to doing anything in Photoshop: layers and masks. Whether you're cropping, slicing, scrambling, doodling or painting your masterpiece, they are the cornerstones of the program's higher functions. Thus, I hope you'll excuse me if I take a moment to explain them both.

Masks: A 'mask' in art is something that literally blocks off a part of the canvas or paper. We don't want to get into artistic media, but imagine a mask like a sheet of glass that you're cutting to shape and putting over your piece of paper. You can see your drawing through it, but if you try to apply paint over the glass, nothing happens. It doesn't reach the paper.

This is exactly the concept of masking an area in Photoshop. You're defining a boundary. Within that boundary, you're working on your paper... painting, drawing, applying a filter or effect - whatever you like. Outside of that boundary, your tool can't touch the paper, so if you try to paint or apply an effect, nothing happens.
Layers: If you think of a layer in a very literal sense, you're probably on the right track. If you took your painting and, instead of just painting on a canvas, you painted it on 5 different pieces of glass that were stacked one on top of the other, you would have painted on layers. This gives you the freedom to, say, change or destroy layer 3 without altering layer 1, or maybe move the apple on layer 5 a little farther to the right with respect to the orange that you painted on layer 2. When the layers are stacked and viewed together, you see your picture, but when handled separately, they let you work on only the orange instead of the whole fruit basket.

That's all I'm going to say about Layers, but if you want to see a great graphical representation and further explanation, I recommend you go visit The Web Design Library.

Okay. Wake up, now. We're going to start the step-by-step rescuing of our thing. Open up that crazily-named JPG that WoW deposited in your WorldofWarcraft/Screenshots directory. (Clicky for source file, if you please.)

Well, will you look at that?! Our thing is a door. A very pretty, ornate door from Silvermoon City. Luckily for us*, this door seems to have really high-contrast colors compared to its background. That means that we can use a really friendly tool when we mask the door to trim it away from its background. Hold your horses, though. First, we need to play a little footsie with the layers.

See, Photoshop is sometimes too smart for our own good. When it opened your JPG file, it said to itself, "Well, self. This JPG is a file format that doesn't support transparency. Thus, of course our esteemed user doesn't want to be able to put transparency in here!" Operating on that erroneous assumption, it opens our file on a transparency-locked background layer.

I'm sorry. I have to apologize here because I am wholly self-taught. There may be some way to unlock this special layer type, but I have never found it. So, we need to bust free from the restrictions imposed on the 'Background' of a JPG. We do that by duplicating the layer and deleting the original Background. In your layers toolbar (by default, it should be on the right side of the workspace), right-click on the Background layer and select "Duplicate Layer". It will open a dialog that lets you specify a name and location for this layer. I don't usually bother to rename it, but you can feel free to give it whatever name you want. Don't change the location, however, or cowthulu will fall from the sky and squash you dead. Plus, you'll get really confused. Drag the original Background layer to the little trash can in the lower right corner of your layers window to delete it.

Now that you have a workable, unlocked layer (notice that the padlock icon to the right of the Background name is gone?), you need to use the Magic Wand Tool to make your mask. Go to your toolbar and grab your Magic Wand**. In CS3, it is hidden under some crazy new tool I haven't played with. In CS2 or older, it should be staring right at you from the toolbar.

The Magic Wand Tool makes selections based on color. It's a very versatile tool, but if I go into too much detail right now, you're going to be asleep by the end of this tutorial. Feel free to email me if you want to know more. Today, we get to use it on some pretty standard settings. Once you have the tool selected, you will see that the horizontal menu bar immediately above your image has changed its options. (General tip: This menu bar is always specific to whatever tool you're using.)

Use a 'Tolerance' of 32 (default) and make sure both 'Anti-alias' and 'Contiguous' are checked. 'Sample All Layers' might as well be unchecked, but it doesn't really matter. We only have one layer right now, anyway. Also, make sure that the 'Add to Selection' button is depressed. It's the second one from the left of those four funny-looking little boxie-things.

Alright, we're ready to select, now. We are choosing the areas of the image that we want to CUT AWAY, so start clicking the wall and the flooring below the door. You've selected 'Add to Selection', so each click should extend the dotted 'marquee' that marks the boundary of your mask. I put little stars on some of the places that you'll need to click. I think you'll get a feel for how the wand works pretty quickly, but just remember... it's choosing contiguous areas of similar colors to the one pixel you click on each time. You can always use Edit >> Undo to go back to your previous click, and if you click outside the image, you can blank the boundaries of your mask and start over again. (CTRL+D does the same thing.)

After a while, you should have a mask boundary that looks something like this:

That pesky golden filigree on the pillars is causing a headache, though. Sure, we could click a dozen more times with the Magic Wand to add it into the mask, but let's take easy-mode. We gotta get back to WoW, after all!

The remaining area is far enough from the door we want to keep that we can safely just draw a square around it, so we're going to switch to the Rectangular Marquee Tool. This is the dumber-but-likeable version of the Magic Wand. It just draws a square and masks everything in it. Remember, though, we are still adding to our previous mask, so make sure that you've got that 'Add to Selection' option toggled.*** Draw squares around the areas of the columns that are still unselected, similar to the handy red dotted-lines I've put in the image above for you. Now you have the entire background 'masked' away from the door, that beautiful thing that we love so much! It's time to cut it free, boys and girls...

Step 2: Sweet Freedom

Under the edit menu, select the Clear option. This will take everything you selected back in Step 1 and make it completely transparent. Well, except that Photoshop shows transparency as a grey-on-white checkerboard pattern. You'll have to get your head around 'checkerboard = transparent.'

Lovely! We have a free and independent door. But we really don't need our 150-pixel-wide door to sit on a 550-pixel-wide transparent background. That's mad internet magumbo. So we need to make another mask and crop this baby down to good-magumbo size. I'm showing you a little tool that can help with this in the screenshot above, but you don't have to use it. The grids are just guidelines on the image, and when activated, they give your mouse pointer a 'snap line' that it will cling to. It helps for drawing straight lines and boxing in doors without clipping any corners. Of course, with or without the guides, this step is simple. Grab your Rectangular Marquee Tool and draw a nice, tight box around your door. (Highlighted in red in the image below.)

Under the Image menu, you want to select the Crop command. That will trim everything outside your marquee completely out of the file, thus making your file a nice, small, tight little view of your door and nothing else. Don't fret. If you don't like your Crop, just hit Undo. (Undo is the GOD of Photoshop, and if you haven't noticed it yet, the program lets you 'undo' about the last 25 actions or so. CTRL+ALT+Z steps backwards through what you've done.) If you turned on your Grid, you can feel free to turn it off, now, by the same method. Or not. S'up to you.

Step 3: Mini-Me

Great! Liberated and skinny door! However... if your screen resolution is anything like mine, your door is still over 400 pixels wide and nearly 600 tall. You don't want your cute little blog doodad to overshadow your witty words of wizardly wisdom. It's time to scale it down to a more sidekick-appropriate size. Under the Image menu, select Image Size.

Since you didn't hit the Daily Double, I'm guessing a dialogue box popped up. Make yours look something like this (choose whatever size you like most, but make sure the "Constrain Proportions" option is checked before you change anything):

You will probably find that your Resolution defaults to 72. Generally speaking, 72 pixels per inch is sufficient for any web image, as that's the best pixel density modern monitors bother with. Higher PPI ratings are purely for print images. Hit Okay.

Your door is now a properly sidekick door. We like that, however we (being me) also kinda dislike how Photoshop tends to let things get a little 'fuzzy' when it shrinks them. This is an optional step, but I do this on almost every image I resize. I want to use a Filter to Sharpen the lines in the door. We're not going to talk about the math of it all, but it makes all the detail of a small image just a tad clearer.

Open your Filter menu and select the Sharpen command.

... no 'and then'. That's all there is to it. You can repeat that if you want it even more sharpened. Since you haven't played with Photoshop (presumably) as long as I have, here is a side-by-side of exactly what this Sharpen thing is doing to our door. Left is unSharpened, as it was when Photoshop first shrunk it down to sidekick size. Right is with the Sharpen filter applied twice.

Step 4: Set In Stone

And there you have it. Your door is trimmed, transparencied, possibly sharpened, and definitely liberated from the confines of its background. Now all we need to do is save it before the dog kicks the power cord and kills the computer. In your File menu, select Save As. Choose PNG as the file type. No, not GIF. GIF is so 2007. We use PNGs these days, because they are clean, friendly and they don't add that nasty gunky pixelation to the edges of the transparency. Look, just do it. You'll thank me later.

And there you have it. You've got a shiny, wonderful, blog-friendly thing, and you can hug it and squeeze it and call it George. Would you like to see George the door in all his glory?

I knew you would. :)

Epilogue: Summing Up

So, what did we learn in this lesson?

How to Duplicate and Delete Layers.
How to use the Magic Wand Tool and the Rectangular Marquee Tool to make masks.
How to Clear a portion of a layer to transparency.
How to show and hide the Grid system and what it means to 'snap' to the Grid.
How to Crop and Resize images.
How to apply a basic Sharpen filter.
How to create a PNG file.

Next lesson, we'll take a lower-contrast image to work with. Because all the colors are similar, our Magic Wand Tool doesn't work as well, so we'll be using the Onion Skin and the Lasso Tool for more refined control of masking. Until then!

* Ah, but is it luck or is perhaps the author a devious being who planned it this way?? ... the world may never know.
** ... that sounds wrong, doesn't it?
*** If you accidentally forget, it will clear the mask. Don't fret, though. Just Edit - Undo (or CTRL+Z) to get your mask back.

Where in the World? - Old-world Details

2008-03-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

We do a lot of it in World of Warcraft - the running around. Point A to Point B, nonstop gryphon (or wyvern) all the way. You need to deliver eggs from Feralas to Gadgetzan, stop by the Hinterlands and take a picture of a giant turtle, then swing by Rut'theran village and deliver some feathers, the snapshot and another stack of Morrowgrain for that arrogant jerk, Staghelm*. It's enough to make the busy adventurer's head spin.

I'm here, today, to tell you that you should really slow down and take a look around. Azeroth is full of beautiful and interesting detail**, and if you're rushing around like an XP junky looking for her next fix, you're missing way too much. So, please... let me help you remember what you've forgotten to notice with a fun little contest.

Below are 16 cuts from scenes found all over Azeroth (not Outlands). They're places and objects in places that I noticed as interesting, amusing, lovely or just downright cool. A few of them will probably be pretty obvious, but some of these guys are tricksie-tricksie. The first person who can accurately name each location by zone and area gets a prize. (Email information is in the sidebar to the right, there.) Be specific because I love to catch people up on technicalities. MUHAHAHA!

"What's the prize?!" you say? Don't ask. It's a ... um... secret. Yeah. I'm keeping it a secret⁺...

Anyway, have at thee! Answers will be posted next week.

* We hates him, my precious! Haaaatesssss him!
** So are the Outlands, but that's a contest for another post. ;)
⁺ .... until I figure out what it is. >_> Maybe a free character commission?

Back After These Important Messages!

2008-03-03T13:20:00.001-08:00

Today is a very important day in my husband's life. It only comes once a year, so I am required by contract to coddle and spoil him all day. That doesn't leave time for blogging. I'll be back with an off-schedule entry later this week to make up for it.

In the meantime, please enjoy a moment of graphical zen that I've retrieved from my screenies folder for your viewing pleasure:

Bringin' More Than Just the Boom, pt 2

2008-02-27T21:49:00.000-08:00

Mage 101 is over, ladies and gentlemen, so if you missed the first class, I'm afraid we're going to have to send you back to grade school. Don't you dare return until you're feeling the urge to try Polymorph on your next door neighbor while sing-songing, "Un muton!"

Now that the kiddies are out of the way, welcome to the Advanced class, where we put away the things even the nubs know and pull out the subtler side of the Mage. Granted, 'subtle' is a relative term for a class that brings their own bonfire to every party and just adores hearing things Shatter, but ... hey. Rogues can have the sneak-up-and-murder-you end of the subtlety spectrum, and we'll take the veeeeeeeeeeery distant end, the one that kind of ... skirts the edges of the definition of the word.

So, on Monday, you pulled out the basic list to convince Mr. Party Leader that you're the right squishie for the job. He perused it, naturally impressed, but by some strange and perverse twist of the synapses, he's still not convinced enough to send you your invite! That's fine. Not everyone was born as smart as you were (after all, the World isn't 100% mage, is it?). Thus, it's time to bring out the big(ger) guns in your fight for your right to shusplodey.

Part 2: Advanced Abilities

Decurse - Look, I know it's tough to take time away from the massive burst damage. We want to see the numbers fly. We want to see the fools who oppose us dying in blazes of glory! But... we do have a powerful and rather rare special ability that doesn't involve damage per second. Mages are one of only two classes* who can cleanse a Curse, arguably one of the nastier and more prevalent debuff categories in the game. Mobs and bosses alike love to throw curses around like evil candy, so your party will love you if you take the time to toss a few Remove Lesser Curse** on their sorry hides. It could save lives.

... and if saving lives is not a motivator at all for you, "Decurse" is also a great counter to those pesky, fear-loving Warlocks we love to hate. Take away their DoTs, and they're just pansy goth mages. If for no other reason than to thwart our most dastardly rivals, put that spell on a hotkey on your bar. Please? For me?

Counterspell - Look, there's a set pattern for these things, right? We stand as far away as possible; we shoot a very powerful bolt of something destructive; the enemy gets mad; and while he waves his big axe and runs at us, we murderate him with extreme prejudice. Simple, right? Yeah... until you have to fight another caster. He, like you, prefers to keep his distance and nuke you from afar, which turns into an annoying casting-time battle that results in a few more scorch marks on your pretty dress. We don't like that, so we whip out our Counterspell and shove it in Mr. Caster's face. While he's choking on the 8-second lockout of his favorite (and hopefully only) school of magic, we are free to commence with the usual murderation.

Word to the wise, though. Counterspell is not at its most effective unless your timing is precise. If he's not casting when your CS hits, then you've just triggered a 24 second cooldown for the pure joy of it. Watch carefully and account for lag.

Group Hugsplosions - WoWwiki says that AoE stands for "Area of Effect", but we know better. AoE really means "All-over Explosions", because when we kick it into group-hug-destruction-mode, the fireworks of pain start flying. While a couple of other classes have a token AoE or two (pansy goth mages, for example), this is where the mages really take the field over their peers. No one else can take down multiple mobs with our speed and mana efficiency***, and when you combine that raw power with the fact that a lot of our Area damage spells also involve some form of life-saving crowd control, we become the best, most survivable AoE class in the game.⁺

Amplify / Dampen Magic - Probably the best-kept mage supahsekrit spells in the game now stand before you, exposed in all their glory. Amplify and Dampen Magic are utility buffs that we can cast on ourselves, our allies or our enemies. They increase or decrease, respectively, the effect of magical spells and abilities on the debuffed target, which makes them a very flexible and situational pair of tools that most Mages seem to forget about in the pursuit of destruction. I'm here to tell you to dust those babies off and put them back on your bar. If you're smart about their application, these two spells can become a great boon to not only a party, but to the solo mage.

Let's illustrate with a couple of potential situations:

Example #1: You're bouncing around outside of Manaforge Cooru, taking out those pesky Sindorei for fun and profit. All those Sunfury Arcanists and Arch Mages in their red-and-gold robes make the place look like a Barbie convention, so you feel the need to bust in there and blow them out of the water with some Arcane Explosions. Cast Dampen Magic on yourself before you pull to save on the damage from these spellcasters, and throw some Amplify Magic on Spellbinder Maryana to take her down faster when she tries to come in and crash your murderation party.

Example #2: Deep in a cave in Blade's Edge Mountains, there lives a large, smelly, and slobbery poppa gronn known as Gruul. If you gather up 25 of your bestest buddies and fight your way past the stupid ogres that worship him, you'll get your chance to molest him for his phat porples. Now, Gruul, being a rather unintelligent fellow, doesn't know any forms of magic at all; his attacks are all physical. This means that you can buff your entire team with Amplify Magic to enhance the power of any heals that are cast on them.
Mage-Yoink - No longer do rogues have the monopoly on the glory of a good steal. Since the Burning Crusade, we mages have been given a gift of thievery that is not only powerful but is also a total blast to use. Spellsteal is a level 68 trained spell that lets us yoink the beneficial debuff off of our enemy and take it for our own. Are you feeling a little lonely in your travels, my dear mage? Find yourself a shaman or a Storming Wind-Ripper and steal away his Lightning Shield for some spinny, sparky company. Or maybe you want an extra +295 spell damage during your Botanica run? Grab that Holy Fury off of a Bloodwarder Mender and go to town! There's lots of potential for fun and fury in this spell, so keep it nearby to play with.
Improved Scorch - Down on the fourth tier of the Fire talent tree is a lovely little gem that has the potential to bring some great benefits to both you and your group, depending on who Mr. Party Leader has brought to play, today. Improved Scorch is a 15-point mage talent that adds a pretty little debuff to the target of your Scorch spell. It makes the enemy mob 3% more vulnerable to fire damage - any fire damage. The warlocks, shamans and other fire mages are cackling in malicious glee, right now, since they all have abilities that can leach off this debuff and bring some extra hurtin' capability to your party. Share the destructive wealth, I say!

Winter’s Chill - All right. I admit it. This one's stretching it just a bit, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due... even if it's very situational credit. Winter's Chill is a talent that comes from pretty deep (25 points) in the Frost tree. It's tough to reach and has limited utility on short fights, but if the group we're trying to get into is a raid going against the bigger boys, this particular talent might just blow them all away. Like Improved Scorch, this guy is a stacking debuff that the mob gains, this time from any of our frost damage spells. It stacks up to 5 times, giving a possible 10% increased crit rate from frost spells. Once again, any Frost spells. Unfortunately, the only people who really do frost damage on a regular basis⁺⁺ are... well... us. Mages. Still, if we're in a raid with 3 of our Frosty, magey peers, it's a great talent to bring to the group, busting out an extra 10% crit for all of us! Our tank won't know what hit him, boys and girls. ... maybe because it never reaches him.

Okay. There you have it. I now pronounce you educated and graduated from the School of Boom. If this doesn't convince Mr. Party Leader that you should be the one he invites, then I'm afraid there's just no hope for him at all. Let him and his silly little group go slog through their task the hard way. There are plenty of smart people out there that will recognize that you're way more than just a dress-wearing squishy with a fireball in your hand.

* Druids are the other class.
** -50 DKP for that stupid spell name, Blizzmonster. -_-
*** ... Even though our AOE spells are our least mana efficient type.
+ Dear Blizzmonster, thank you very much for giving us all Ice Block. Our repair bills love you forevah!
++ I'm sort of discounting Frost Shock from Shamans, here, because my limited understanding of the shamanic ways leads me to believe that it's hardly ever applied in a raiding situation. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Bringin' More Than Just the Boom, pt 1

2008-02-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

It's 6:25pm, and you're feeling the itch.

That's right. You need to go light some massive fires, freeze a few feet to the floor, and maybe add a couple of fluffy widdle sheepies to the wilds of Azeroth. You don't want just any old in-game murderfest; no, not for a mage of your caliber. You want to hit the Elites and burn your way through an instance. You want a meatshield to take the hits, a healer to keep your fragile little form alive, and maybe a minion or two to add their own paltry efforts to your explosions. In short, you're ready find a party and join a dungeon run.

You, however, are a mage. You may be awesomesauce in a wrapping of highly colorful cloth, but the fact is that mages just aren’t the lynchpins of a group. We are too smart to stand there and gleefully let the mobs beat on us, tank-style (blame Arcane Intellect for that) and too interested in furthering the cause of devastation to cast something pansy like a heal. Thus, the rest of the game lumps us into this nebulous ‘class’ called DPS. They weigh us off against rogues, warlocks, hunters and hybrids when they consider who to bring and who to leave chillin’ in Shattrath City.

So, how do we make sure that we’re the ones getting the invites while the lesser beings get left behind? We tip the scales with some facts. Let’s make sure that everyone understands just what mages bring to a party.

Part 1: The Basics

DPS – You’re rolling your eyes, right? I know. Yes, the mage class, the ones that Blizzard says will "introduce monsters to a world of pain", does a healthy chunk of damage per second. Debatable though it is, I firmly believe that this is and will always be the foundation of our class. Everything else is icing and details.

Smarts for Everyone – Mages bring Intellect to the group. (Well, to the toons, at least. Sorry, but we can’t always say the same for the players.) Arcane Intellect and Arcane Brilliance give us the ability to make our fellow mana-users happier and longer-casting. All the better to heal us with, my dears.

Crowd Control – Polymorph and Frost Nova are how we keep a respectful distance from those who would like to maim us. The other classes call this ‘Crowd Control’; me, I just call it smart. We wear cloth, my friends. It’s like bringing a paper umbrella to a sword fight: it quickly teaches us that the wise mage keeps her distance!

Fire mages enjoy the effects of Blast Wave with its 6 second daze and Dragon’s Breath with its 3 second disorient. For the cold-inclined among us, it’s all about Frostbyte and Permafrost combined with some great cooldown-shortening talents like Cold Snap and Improved Frost Nova. Arcane mages aren’t left out, either. They get Presence of Mind to turn an angry enemy into an insta-Sheep as well as Slow, which affects not only the enemy’s legs but his sword arm, as well.

Free Meds – Water. Food. Our new, much-loved banquet tables. You, my dear mage, bring your group freebies that they would otherwise have to buy. You’re the anti-gold-farmer, earning money for your friends by dint of your generosity! Are they kissing your feet, yet? Turn them into pigs if they don’t at least say ‘thank you’.

Portals – Mages, probably because we spent so much time atrophying in the library while learning our weapons of massive destruction, don’t like to walk. Instead, we use teleportation to let us insta-blink to our favorite cities. Halfway across Azeroth? Hey, that’s easy. Other side of the inter-dimensional, time-space-spanning evil portal that destroyed a world by its very creation?! Psh. Give us ten seconds, and we’re there. We can even let our party members tag along or send them off to repair, restock, or buy us presents.

It’s not a bad start, huh? The basics are already pretty impressive. It’s only half of the list, though. If the group leader is still eyeballing Joe Rogue for your spot, then I guess we'll just have to whip out the Advanced Mage list! Let’s see who gets left in Shattrath, then.

... but I'm betting your eyes are tired. Let's save the Advanced class for next post. Until then!

Guest Post: "How I Became a Warlock"

2008-02-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to talk to you, today, but it's not for lack of love or anything. Only extreme excitement could possibly drag me away from my keyboard when it comes to Points of Convergence! But hey, my little warlock friend, here, has managed to put me all in a tizzy, and I really want to share her guest-post with you.

Say hello to Catrinova, everyone.

Cat is a writer and an artist, who joined the World of Warcraft craze (or was she infected with it?) not terribly long after the release of the Burning Crusade. With a busy family and work life, she's a casual player who has taken her time to look around instead of just rushing to 70. Most importantly, though, she brings a perspective to this blog that yours truly has long since lost: the outlook of the WoW newb*. Sure, she's level 67, these days, but the 'New Azeroth' in which she gained those first, important levels is very different from what it was back when I was running around in my Whitemane's Chapeau. She hasn't seen a lot of the 50+ instances that we older folks ground ad nauseum in the Pre-BC endgame. When we went to Scholomance to get her epic warlock mount, she was thrilled and fascinated by the aging old citadel, and it reminded me of my own fading fascination with Blizzard's crafted world. It's a breath of fresh air, honestly, to see and remember that excitement that we lost when we became old and grey, and I asked her to help me share it with all of you. :)

So, without further ado, here is today's guest-post, courtesy of my favorite newb, Cat.

How I Became a Warlock

When starting out in World of Warcraft, I had not done much research into the lore behind it all, so my choice of character was dictated solely by common sense and reason. ("Not done much" meaning "none at all," and by "reason and common sense" I mean, of course, "what was most shiny". I like the shiny.)

Warlocks sounded really fun and lighthearted! You even got a pet that you didn't have to feed all the time like those smelly boars and ravagers. I had lovely images of a snuggly, blue monster tucking my little warlock in at night, or having a lovely game of scrabble with that highly intelligent imp. What could be more fulfilling than nurturing such a loving and symbiotic relationship? Warlocks not only got a life-partner, they were like the social directors of WoW, summoning their friends to parties and handing out "green candies". They must be so popular, I thought, so loved and adored that they even got their own cheer: Nerf!

My Catrinova was born, and she was so shiny, so new and innocent, frolicking about Northshire Valley, that I suppose a fly in the ointment was inevitable. That fly was Beljub.

First off, what kind of name is that? It doesn't dance impishly off the tongue like Puck or Ariel; it sags and burps like a drunken hobo. However, that was Cat's imp and one must make the best of things. It's not his fault that he's named after a vomiting sound. I was sure his sparkling wit and conversational company would more than make...

"This was NOT in my contract!"

... up... for...

"Don't call on me, I'll call on you."

... the name. Or not.

Well, at least, at level 10, Cat can upgrade to her muppet-like friend, the voidwalker. Having some shadows cast now on my bright and shiny warlock outlook, I decided to do a little research ahead of time, just to see whether he preferred cookies or ice cream as a midnight snack.

"Voidwalkers are demons created from the chaos of the Twisting Nether.” Uh... demons? "These hulking blue creatures look vaguely humanoid.” Oh, well that sounds ni... "Their touch is misery... caring only for bringing an end to all creation”. Sigh! At least he wasn't named Beljub.

Okay, but there are other companion options at level 20.

No, never mind, there are no other companions at level 20. No, there aren't! I'm not listening… lalalalalalalalalala.

Level 30 brings us the Felhunter! Well... it could be a muppet. From a new, really dark interpretation of The Dark Crystal as done by David Lynch. With some Tarantino thrown in. Just don't touch it. Or look at it too closely because: ew.

By the time Cat worked her way through the Demonology talent tree and received access to a Felguard, I wasn't expecting any muppets and therefore wasn't disappointed in the huge, ugly and menacing minion that answered the summons. He does his job, does it pretty well and...

"Too pathetic to fight your own battles?"

Excuse me, Shaaghun. This is not your article, it's mine.

"Your time is running out."

No it's not! I have plenty of...

"Do not waste my time, lesser creature."

Lesser..?! You can just go back under your fel-rock, buddy!

"Summon me again at your peril."

I am so going to sacrifice that guy.

In the end the whole minion-as-life-partner thing didn't work out as I'd hoped, but I haven't given up hope. Warlocks are still greeted by that heartening cheer, and just yesterday I had some dwarf children try to throw candies at me! They mistakenly used rocks instead, but it's the thought that counts.

They knew, as I know, that warlocks might look scary with their demons following them everywhere, but we who are... iniquitously enabled... just need love and understanding.

Oh, and your souls. Almost forgot about that part. :-)

* Disclaimer: "Newb"is meant only in the most literal of senses! No comments on play ability are implied.

Outbrain: In or Out?

2008-02-19T12:53:00.000-08:00

I know. It's not Thursday, again, but darn it... I just get excited, sometimes!

I've added a new feature to the blog that I hope everyone will enjoy: a post 5-star rating widget. It's a familiar concept with a few tweaks and upgrades for the specific needs of the blogosphere, brought to us by the far-smarter-than-I-am techie people at Outbrain. What's really unique about these five little yellow stars (and the reason I've given them a home here) is that they don't only give you the overall rating for my post from all the lovely people who've come here. These ratings are personalized to your own rating history!

I'm going to let the authors explain it, cuz they do a far better job than I can:

... whenever we serve the ratings widget to a reader, we look at his/her rating history, find like-minded people automatically, and adjust the rating scores accordingly. This is what the widget looks like with personalization:

In other words – two people might be looking at the same blog post, but each will see vastly different scores based on each one’s personal rating history. The more each person rates, the better our recommendations will be specifically for him/her.

So for those of you who follow a number of blogs and really want to get an at-a-glance idea of whether or not the post topic is going to be worth your read, I recommend that you spread your ratings around and seed Mr. Friendly Personalization Algorithm. In the end, it'll help you the most.

At least, that's the idea. :) Please leave me feedback (ratings on this post or comments) to register your opinions on this feature. I'm not above baleeting them if I'm overestimating their starry-goodness.

Titans and Demiurges 01 - Artist Llanir

2008-02-18T09:54:00.001-08:00

We humans, wonderful animals that we are, love to derive inspiration from outside sources. From books, magazines, scenery around us, idle comments from our coworkers - that's the way of the demiurge, the creative force inside each of us. We're always watching, always listening, always flirting with ideas, concepts, and the boundaries of what we know versus what we wish.

Is it any wonder, then, that so many WoW players are inspired by Azeroth, Outlands, and their hundreds of thousands of years of richly-crafted history? 9 million subscribers, even if only a small fraction of them are creators who put these wonderful ideas on 'paper'*, that's a mountain - no, a planet full of mountain ranges - worth of media for us to enjoy. Videos. Paintings. 3D renders. Fiction. Poetry. Software. Web sites. Icons. Sound bytes. Songs. The list is ... well, pretty much as long as our imaginations are deep.

'Titans and Demiurges' is a series that's all about discussing, enjoying and sharing the creativity WoW has inspired. I'll be scouring the internet, bugging friends and contacts, following trails of animus, and gladly accepting suggestions for art, writing, webcomics and anything else that is born out of the inspiration of Blizzard's Warcraft world. Sometimes, we'll have simple showcases, a sharing of beauty and individuality. Other times, we'll discuss sources of inspiration in the game that might help your own demiurge kick into motion. For those that are interested, I will also offer critiques of paintings and stories, giving constructive advice from an experienced** artist and writer.

But enough talk. Let's start this party out right, with some beautiful World of Warcraft fanart gleaned from the depths of the Deviant Art community. Allow me to share with you the work of Llanir, a skilled portrait artist that has turned her hand to a few familiar races:

Llanir's beautiful, semi-photorealistic style combined with lots of interesting angles and dynamic lines really makes these portraits feel natural, graceful, and engaging at the same time. I enjoy looking at them, picking out the carefully-placed details that really elevate the relatively simple backgrounds and uniform skin tones.

* In this modern age, it's seldom really paper. Let's just use the phrase as a euphamism for 'any shareable form'.
** Experienced does not equate to perfect, so don't worry on that account. Critiques will be by request only.

Stat-balance the Human 01: It's a Sedentary Life

2008-02-14T13:20:00.000-08:00

Look. Let's face it. The gaming lifestyle is not exactly friendly to the human animal's body. Your character may be faster than a speeding hippogryph, more powerful than an enraged gronn, and able to leap tall zeppelins in a single bound, but you are probably something shy of a Man (or Woman) of FelSteel. After all, you're not quite spending your time working out, eating right, and relaxing away stresses while you're doing all these digital works of wonder. In fact, if you're anything like the average gamer, you're probably practicing poor posture, leading a typically-modern sedentary lifestyle and actually adding to your stress level by involving yourself in tense situations and (perhaps) some digital-social drama. I know. I do it, too.

You don't even have to be overweight. You could be Olive Oyl's long lost twin, but you may still be dangerously unhealthy. After all, physical health and well-being require so much more than a boney butt, a strong mind and witty reparté to share over voice chat. They require a balanced caloric flow, regular exercise, careful nutrition, a solid mental state, and a certain amount of ... well, not to sound too Zen about it, but a certain amount of periodic cleansing in both the literal and figurative sense. Mind and body both should remember the last time they had a bit of a wash. Meditation (or whatever you call a few minutes of peace and quiet and reflection) and showers are must-haves for any cool gamer.

Yes, that's right. Cool gamer. Times have changed, my friend.

Still, the human body remains the human body. Society may accept that your 4 hours in Zul'Aman are truly a worthwhile expenditure of time and your PDA is actually sleek and stylish instead of geeky and unnecessary, but your thyroid isn't going to kick it up a notch just because Nalorakk drops purples you reallyreally need. It's a stubborn little organ; I hear that convincing it to make that kind of adjustment can take generations and a liberal application of natural selection. So, I submit to you that you would probably be better off just doing what you can to work some good, healthful habits into your sedentary life.

The reality is that if we aren't attentive (or very lucky*), these poor mental and physical health habits will start to turn us into the Stereotype.

What Stereotype? Here. South Park illustrated it for you just perfectly:

Southpark DVD cover - Season 1
Normal little South Park kiddies

--->>

Southpark DVD cover - Season 10
Fat, greasy little WoW-playing South Park kiddies

We weren't designed for this modern lifestyle, so if we want to be able to live it well, then we need to understand how to incorporate as much of what we were designed for as possible. I don't know about you, but I want to maintain a healthy, active body and mind and still be able to get my video-game on. :) But where can we adjust our habits to help take care of our weight, our wellness, our muscle mass, our skeletal structure, and even our mental state? What does a gamer's lifestyle already have that we need? What does it lack?

What we have:

Mental Intellectual Activity: You and I are already exercising our brains when we game. We are strategizing, analyzing, and problem solving as we optimize our play via spell rotations, gear sets, talent points and many other game mechanics. Running, jumping, jinking, hiding, and getting up on that darn fountain in Stormwind are improving our hand-to-eye coordination and our three-dimensional spatial recognition. Raids, pets and even chat channels are exercising our mental capacity for handling multiple tasks at once. Depending on who you talk to, we might even be forwarding our careers via the social contacts we create. (It's an ongoing argument.) We're giving our brains, our intellectual thought centers, constant growth and endurance training.
Global Social Interaction: Modern games very often involve some sort of inherent or optional multiplayer functionality, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the MMO genre. World of Warcraft, like its predecessor MMOs, relies on its multiplayer content to enrich and enliven the in-game world. More than that, though, its global popularity makes it arguably the most interesting and unique social opportunity the world has ever seen. Where else can you meet and foster real-time activity-oriented friendships with people who live hundreds, thousands, even tens-of-thousands of miles away? It's not just text chat, any more. It's play style. Voice. Guild-inspired social dynamics. The only thing we're still missing is body language and ... maybe smell? :P

What we lack:

Physical Activity: Obvious? Oh, yeah. We all know that sitting for four hours on our butts in front of a Karazhan raid, clicking and typing and maybe jawing on our voice chat program isn't exactly going to make us lean, mean fighting machines in real life. There's nothing to work out those biceps, triceps, delts and quads, and there's certainly nothing in there to get the old heartrate up to aerobic levels. (Unless you're practicing questionable activities in the Deeprun Tram (PG-13 language)?** Or maybe you just get really, really into your PvP (PG-13 language)?)
Nutritional Eating Habits: Let me give credit where credit is due. I'm sure there are plenty of gamers out there who do eat right. Kudos to you! I submit, though, that the lifestyle doesn't do much to encourage it. We grab snacks (often fatty, well-processed snacks) and yoink them into the computer room, munching while we play without paying attention to how many / how much / how crumbly***. Meals get skipped in favor of "just one more run" or get inhaled because the party is waiting. Fast-food is always an attractive dinner option when you're rushing home from work or school to make raid. These little dietary faux pas add up quickly and become blind habit far too easily.
Introspection: If that doesn't sound like something you need for a healthy lifestyle, then let's try some different words. Meditation. Mental Self-examination. Emotional Cleansing. Hey, it's just "me time". You do need some for your emotional well-being, and I'm becoming pretty convinced that the quality of introspection you get while you're autoshot-grinding CE rep mobs is just not sufficient. Games - especially MMOs - encourage a rush from one activity to the other. Play downtime is frowned upon, and I think that has become so engrained in us all, that we sometimes forget that personal downtime is so important.
Informed Interpersonal Relations: "Informed" because as wonderful and diverse as our game-based relationships may be, they are missing some critical communication tools. Body language. Facial expressions. All the visual clues that inform us about intent, sincerity, depth of emotion, and even more animalistic things like physical appeal and compatibility. In this day and age, these are not requirements for friendships and fledgling relationships, but I do think it's very important to remember what you are lacking as you get to know someone in an online environment and know how that might effect your perception, his / her perception, and others' perceptions of your relationship.

In future Stat-balance the Human articles, we'll take a deeper look at each of these areas with the goal of helping us all avoid South Park's Stereotype and keep our mad pwning skillz. Knowing our lifestyle's weaknesses is a start, but we're going to discuss some ways to correct or at least minimize their effects. I've got some tricks and tips for snacking smartly and eating right, getting into the little habits that add up to big muscular and skeletal benefits, working exercise into our gaming day, facing what's going on inside our emotions and avoiding repetitive stress. There's plenty to share, and hopefully you all can bring some other good advice to the table!

Until next time...

* Congrats, you lucky few! We want to mug you for your metabolism wish you all the best in your continued, impenetrable skinniness.
** Please don't. Ew.
*** Alas. Many the keyboard has regretted the crumbly snacks.

Impromptu Link Love - Tankalt!

2008-02-13T08:16:00.001-08:00

Hm. It's not Thursday. I hadn't intended to write anything for the blog, today, but when I saw this great tanking post, I found that I just couldn't resist.

Tankalt!, a very new addition to the blogosphere, has a great post enumerating the "5 Ways to Break Your Tank." Rhese has been tanking for all of a few weeks, so I'm a complete tank newb. Even so, I have already seen every annoying, irritating and frustrating point on this list.*

In fact, now that I think about it, I've probably been the guilty non-tank party on a few of these in the past, too. Um... oops.

Your tank will love you if you go, read and take Zagan's advice with you to your next raid or instance. I promise. Now, scamper off and do me proud!

* Sure enough, every time it happened, I thought I'd done something wrong, too. Zagan knows his fellow tanks so well!

Intro: Rhese, the Toon

2008-02-11T09:59:00.000-08:00

Because all good things come in threes, here is the third and final character introduction. Meet my other significant other*: Rhese!

./who Rhese of Proudmoore

Allegiance: Alliance
Race: Nightelf
Class: Druid, Feral
0 / 44 / 17
Played: 15 days
(over 2 years)
Level: 70
Tradeskills: Skinning (375)
Leatherworking (362)
Raid Experience: Karazhan

Overview: Some people will probably chuckle when they hear about the origins of the dashing, daring and devilishly handsome Rhese. The non-roleplayers will snicker that little, self-conscious "oh, you're one of those" snicker that carries with it a hint of acknowledgment that gamers in glass houses shouldn't throw sharpening stones.** But I'm at ease with my origins, my baser instincts, if you wish, so I can admit that Rhese was born out of a story.

Yep. The toon was created because I had a tale wrapped around Rhoelyn's lithe form, and it demanded something that didn't yet exist: her brother. He needed to be a druid, to look like our lovely little heroine, have a young face and a wickedly wonderful grin, and generally... well, he needed to have his name reserved on the server. So back in the day, looooooong before he ever got any play time, a meaty nightelf with white hair and bright eyes plunked his pale-purple butt down on the character selection screen beside Rhoelyn.

.... and there he sat, chilling at level 0.

After a long-bass time in game, though, the ennui started to set in. I got more than a little tired of the same key sequences***, even despite having two different sets! (Rhoelyn and Livaeya ring any bells?). Not yet ready to retire my login screen, but sick to death of the same-old-shusplodey-face-melty, I turned to the dusty little boy waiting on my login screen.

Of course, he was never much of a newb. By the time dear Rhese met our old friend, Conservator Ilthalaine, I like to think that the person driving him was far enough beyond that particular moniker that even a level 1 toon was immune to newbishness. (Though, to be fair, he did spend a decent amount of time jumping his funky nightelven jump and dancing his funky nightelven male dance in those first few levels. Hey, it is pretty different, you know...) In fact, through Teldrassil and Darkshore, Wetlands and Duskwood, we pretty much encountered nothing amazing or new except how very much I loved my little baby druid.

Attack Power! Agility! Strength! Leather armor! Prowl! Panthers and Cheetahs and Bears, oh my!

Playing Rhese was a thing of beauty, my solace from the pains of raiding, guild responsibilities, grinding, farming, and otherwise being a priest and mage with connections. If I wanted to hide, I went to play my lowbie druid, who was just too darn weak to be called upon for anything more than the occasional Heavy Quiver for someone's hunter alt. It may sound irresponsible, but the game has to stay fun if you want to keep playing it. There are times when raiding mains and fighting eDrama llamas make World of Warcraft more like work than play.

Thus, Rhese crawled his way from 1-70 in fits and starts. He began his climb in the days before the Burning Crusade, but he hadn't even made 60 when the Portal was opened. Now, he is the proud owner of the Master's Key. He is getting ready to enter Medihv's stronghold and let some ghosts try to beat him through his shiny, Clefthoof-strong armor.

The Gyst: Rhese of Proudmoore is the third World of Warcraft toon in this blog whose experiences and abilities translate directly to game play. He's got a unique role when compared to the others, as he is both a) not a squishy little cloth-wearer and b) not a caster. He is also going to offer a lot of learning and growing lessons, being relatively 'young' and inexperienced in the game. Rhese is the third and final 70th-level toon you'll be hearing from in PoC, so look for him to share observations on the path to becoming a tank, mauling for fun and profit, PvP and the joys of shape-shifting, and much more.

* The one wearing the ring WITHOUT stats is my #1. Or maybe that ring is +1337 to Happiness for life? Awww... Heart!

** Geeks calling geeks geeky = pot and kettle, my friends. That's why we learn to laugh at ourselves as well as others. ;)

*** 1, 1, Q, F, turn, 1, 3, Z. Does anyone else feel like there are a lot of times when their WoW experience boils down to a single sequence of keys, repeated ad infinitum? Guh.

Intro: Livaeya the Toon

2008-02-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

This isn't a simple blog with a simple focus, and I'm not a simple player with a simple outlook on World of Warcraft. It's not enough to play one class and do it well. For me, the true game is in the understanding and the experience of each mode of play - each class and role and capability. It's a tough goal to meet in a game that's as time-intensive as WoW is. Don't worry, though, I'm not about to subject you to the full brunt of my alt army.

However, there are still two 'voices' to whom I do want to introduce you. Today is a glance at one of them, the mage whose conversations will usually revolve around exploding something or populating the world with a few more muton. Meet Livaeya.

./who Livaeya of Proudmoore

Allegiance: Alliance
Race: Human
Class: Mage, Fire
10 / 48 / 3
Played: 49 days
(over 4 years)
Level: 70
Tradeskills: Mining (375)
Jewelcrafting (356)
Raid Experience: Molten Core, Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, Zul'Gurub, Ahn'Qiraj, Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and more

Overview:

Imagine yourself in the early days of the World of Warcraft Closed Beta Test. The Dwarf Beta* has just recently ended, and your character creation screen has blossomed into a veritable smorgasbord of options. Suddenly, your toon is allowed to be over 3ft tall and doesn't have to have mounds of facial hair. S/he can be blue, green, yellow or purple, and where there was one faction, now there are two. What would you do?

Well, you might just pick the most visually appealing model (in your humble opinion, of course) and roll yourself a pretty, svelt human female whose pert behind is going to wash away the blocky dwarven butt that's burned into your retinas. You might name her Livaeya and cry with joy every day for a week while she sashays around the world, blowing things up in a most un-dwarf-like manner.

Thus began our favorite girly-mage, who has survived unchanged since those earliest days. Her intelligent eyes and messy brown updo made such a lasting impression that she, like Rhoelyn, transitioned the beta-test wipe to the live realms to blast her way to 60 and then to 70.

In fact, she and Rhoelyn have been partners in crime for a very long time thanks to the glory of separate accounts. Their in-game experiences are similar, and you may as well hop back to the previous post if you want to know Livaeya's resume of raid experience. She's been everywhere that Rhoelyn has, and there have even been a few times when they were raiding together**. They make quite a dynamite pair, though Liv feels a little short next to her tall, purple friend. :P

Within the pervue of the mage, Livaeya has very broad experience with specs and modus operandi. In her day, she has spent time in each tree of her talents, so she knows the blast power of Fire, the mob control and massive crits of Ice, and the mental stamina of Arcane. She used to love tossing Slows around like candy and POM-Polymorphing Tauren in Arathi Basin. Now, she's enjoying the simple mechanic of building up Improved Scorch debuffs and then whaling away with Fireballs. Soon, I'm sure she'll just have to try out the builds based on Patch 2.3's Icy Veins, but for now she's pretty content where she is: burning ghosts to a cinder in Karazhan and vaporizing Gronn drool as a public service in Gruul's lair.

The Gyst: Livaeya of Proudmoore is another World of Warcraft toon whose experiences and abilities translate directly to game play. She'll be sharing the soothing grey theme with Rhoelyn, bringing the mage's perspective and experiences into discussions of game mechanics, strategies, play styles, PvP and all kinds of WoW experiences. There's one more voice to add to the mix, however.

To be continued, again ...

* The internet seems to have lost a record of this event, but basically, the very earliest closed beta-test was called the Dwarf Beta. The only playable race was ... well, c'mon. You don't even need me to say it.

** 40-man raids were so much more forgiving.

Intro: Rhoelyn, the Toon

2008-02-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

Because everyone likes to know what the bejoolies is going on, let's continue getting to know the different themes and types of posts you'll find here. Meet the charcoal grey theme:

./who Rhoelyn of Proudmoore

Allegiance: Alliance
Race: Nightelf
Class: Priest, Shadow
14 / 0 / 47
Played: 58 days
(over 3 years)
Level: 70
Tradeskills: Herbalism (375)
Alchemy (375)
Raid Experience: Molten Core, Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, Zul'Gurub, Ahn'Qiraj, Karazhan, Gruul's Lair and more

Overview:

The scene is Teldrassil, sometime roughly in the middle of the World of Warcraft Closed Beta Test. One moment, Conservator Ilthalaine was standing alone on a grassy hillside. The next, he was staring at the game's latest newb, a silver-haired young priest wearing a shiny, green 'Rhoelyn' tag over her head.

Five minutes later, after she'd floundered around, learning the basics of moving and clicking and controlling the camera, he gave her the first quest on what would become a long and illustrious career in Azeroth... and beyond.

Baby Rhoelyn (or Rhoelyn I, as I like to call her) loved all the typical newb things. She danced her funky nightelven dance. She jumped her funky nightelven jump. She Smited some boars and imps and panthers, and over time, she managed to be less newb and more kena. (I'd say 'face melty', but keep in mind that face melting came along much later.) She figured out what Shield was for. She practiced her Heals and made funky resurrection macros. She made it all the way from level 1 to level 52... and then Beta was over, and she was wiped from the servers like so much errant data. But somewhere, on the other side of the computer screen, the knowledge she had earned of how to NOT be a newb priest endured!

Thus, when the live game began and people were scrambling to be the first to login, Ilthalaine found himself once more staring at a purple-skinned toon wearing a shiny 'Rhoelyn' tag. Only this time, he knew better than to underestimate his newest student. Armed with 52 levels of unproveable experience, Big Rhoelyn (Rhoelyn II) blasted her way through Shadowglen, then Teldrassil, and then an Azeroth that she had already defeated, stopping only to read every single in-game book she found. :P

As a result, Rhoelyn was hardly the first toon to 60... more like toon #198,204 to make the level cap. Approximately. She trailed her friends, but they were all kind and amused by her witty /g chatter. When she was level-appropriate, they helped her through all kinds of group activities, and she learned all about both solo and party play. She turned out to be passingly good at whatever needed doing, fun to play with, dedicated to her guild and her friends, and just generally a nice toon to have around. (Only a few people she's come across would disagree, and that's really because they wore their loincloths too tightly.)

Before the Burning Crusade came, Rhoelyn had the opportunity to get a lot of raid play time in with her guild(s). She had leveled with the Shadow talents, melting faces (once face-melting was invented) with evil joy, but she quickly switched to Holy in order to save her errant friends' lives in Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj, Onyxia and more. Those experiences taught her a lot, not just about being a great priest, but also about people and devotion and the life cycle of guilds. She carried all of this into the next level grind when Azeroth gave way to Outlands in the advent of the Burning Crusade.

Now, having fought her way up to level 70, she resides primarily in Shattrath City where she devotes herself to her current guild, . She has returned to a Shadow talent spec, and lends her face-melting power to the guild's second Karazhan group, which she helps her good friend, Ultarn, to lead. Outside of raid time, she can usually be found pursuing some futile attempt to earn enough gold for her epic flying mount, gleefully mixing Alchemy potions, or farming for herbs so that she can resume gleefully mixing Alchemy potions. She takes great joy in learning about her fellow adventurers, including tips, tricks and abilities for classes not her own.

The Gyst: Rhoelyn of Proudmoore is the World of Warcraft toon whose experiences and abilities translate directly to game play. Journal entries in soothing grey will be discussions of game mechanics, strategies, play styles, PvP and all kinds of practical advice for the people who sit in front of a priest of their own. Here is where you will find class-related ways to improve your play, but if you think the only 'voice' you'll hear from is Rhoelyn's, then you might be in for a surprise.

To be continued ...

Intro: The Author

2008-01-30T07:42:00.000-08:00

We writers are masters of disguise. I'll just bet you didn't know that. It's a well-kept secret in our world, but it's so critical to what we are, what we do. We put on faces like hats, taking on many different identities in order to express ourselves and our purposes through these little pixels that you read as words. Language. Our nifty little brains twist and turn until we are what we're writing, and we imbue every ounce of identity that we can create on all kinds of wild and wacky persons, places, and things. On bad days (or are they extra-good days?), we can get very, very confused by it all. :)

Because of that, I can't tell you who I am in just a few stats and sentences. No, especially for this eclectic and rather schizophrenic journal, I need to tell you who I am in pieces, give you the parts of my identity that you're going to hear from in the various entries. And because I am a being who loves efficiency, I am also going to use this as an excuse to introduce you to my organizational tool - color coding.* I want to let you know at a glance whether the entry you are looking at is fiction, philosophy, or fact. No guesswork involved for my audience, nosirree!

So meet Rhoelyn in all her incarnations and appearances. She and I** are looking forward to sharing our thoughts, our lives, and our adventures with you, and I hope we'll inspire you to share the same with us. :)

./who AC Bamblett

Age: 25 years
Gender: Female
Day Job: Designing Casino Game Cabinets
Creed: What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
Likes: Creative expression, philosophizing on the mundane, eating chocolate, not LOOKING like you eat chocolate, and cuddly cats.
Dislikes: Math, closed minds, impolite people, chaos, and tentacled overlords of evil that are bent on the destruction of all life.
Phobias: None, but arachnids are gross, icky, and horrible.

Overview:

I fought hard to not play World of Warcraft.

Surprising, isn't it? I knew that the game was going to be an impressive synergy of fun play, an intriguing world, and measurable goals. I knew I'd love it. I knew I'd want to explore it fully and thoroughly and (in all likelihood) repeatedly... which is precisely why I didn't want to play it. I knew it would be a huge time sink and a good time that I simply wouldn't want to resist. My only chance was to never even set foot in that huge, immersive world.

Needless to say, I failed in my attempt to avoid it. My husband turned those lovely, blue eyes of his on me, asked politely (and repeatedly for about 2 months), and I caved. I crafted a toon, dreamed up a name, logged in and was lost. I'm still lost, and to add irony to injury, my husband stopped playing about 6 months ago. So here I am, 3 years and 8 alts later, still rushing home after work to make raid, still geeking out on a daily basis about spell damage, talent trees, and guild e-drama, and still researching Lore on my lunch break. He just laughs at me, an evil kind of 'look how I've corrupted you' laugh.***

Involved as I am, though, I still fight the pull of the game long enough to find occasional time for my other activities. Goodness knows, it's not enough, but then my list of interests is about five miles long and three feet deep. Two lifetimes and an extra century could quite possibly still not be enough. I do what I can, treading carefully to try to find time for writing; art; fantasy, sci-fi, and romance novels; arts and crafts; home improvement projects; friends; pets; web design; decorating; and sports around the immense time sink that is this wonderful, fascinating game. I share information about these hobbies and the more personal side of myself as vayenne on Livejournal, but part of this blog will be sharing WoW-related art, fiction, news, and crafts from other artists as well as myself. It's part of making the game a larger experience, and I just love to see how it inspires and motivates all of us outside of Azeroth.

That's why I know that I'm going to have fun with this journal. By spending time here, I will get to geek out about WoW as well as polish my writing, explore my love of creating and appreciating art, nail down all those philosophical ponderings that the intricate social situation of an MMO spawns, and also pass along the knowledge and interesting information that I have gained, both in real life and in the game. It is my most fervent intention to do this in a way that will be educational, amusing, and interesting to all of you, but I hope that you will feel free to tell me whether I am succeeding or failing. I am always open to questions, suggestions, critiques or even guest content. Feel free to leave me comments or notes at any time!

The Gyst: Author-posts are from me, the person behind the words - that real, live being whose fingers are tappity-tapping away at the keyboard right this minute. Journal entries in 'Default Teal' will be about the real-life influences and consequences of World of Warcraft, helpful hints for treating your body with the same care you give to your toon, and the philosophy of the virtual world's reflections in the real world. Here is where you will find social commentary, mental and physical health and wellness advice, guild information, and real-world news related to Warcraft and other gaming.
______
* Ah, who doesn't love a good bit of color?! (Apologies to the color-blind, but I'm 1/2 artist. I couldn't do without my chartreuse and cornflower blue.)

** See? Told you it gets confusing for me, at times. :P

*** Lesson to learn, here? Men are evil. The truth is out...

That First Step

2008-01-29T09:06:00.001-08:00

It's always funny how that first step is naturally the hardest. It's almost as if the human psyche is as susceptible to Newton's First Law as the body is. You need to exert a large force just to get things rolling. A bit of pow and bif just to get the brain off its dimpled rump and into motion.

Well, I've got the pow in my purpose, here, and the can of Diet Coke on my elbow is bringing in the mad bif, so let's get this show on the road and see just where we roll!

Welcome to Points of Convergence, a tale and a blog and an intellectual challenge all at once. Quite literally.

Posts here will be mixed between philosophy, theory, fantasy and fact about the influences of the World of Warcraft on our real and imaginary selves. We'll talk about taking care of yourself as well as your toon. We'll talk about phat porples and strategies to get them. We'll talk about classes and advantages and abilities and macros and all those theorycrafting elements that the best WoW players dream about at night. We'll balance all the practical with a bit of fancy, and maybe a bit of artistry. We'll explore Lore: characters, histories, race and creeds. We'll wander Azeroth from the perspective of its denizens by way of fiction. We'll wander Azeroth from the perspective of its participants by way of fact. We'll enjoy stories, information and even art to help give greater depth to this digital interest that we all share.

Get your Riding Crops and Mithril Spurs ready, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to start a journey of exploration in the biggest digital world the Earth has ever known. :)