A gnome is knockning on the door

Three weeks have passed and here I am, standing by the door that leads to the WoW fandom. Should I knock on it? Am I ready? Does anyone still remember that little gnome lady with the pink pigtails who used to hang around? And - above all - have I still got anything on my mind about WoW, any opinions and thoughts worth sharing?

Something makes me hesitate for a second. I've never been away from blogging this long since I started in February 2008, and as I'm stretching my muscles, I suddenly feel how stiff I've become. It's strange how quick it goes. Three weeks, is that all it takes to get out of touch with the community?

Mind you, I haven't turned my back to everything imaginative and geeky during my vacation. On the contrary. For instance the last week has been a 24/7 exercise in All Out Geekiness.

Living the fantasy
The Medieval Week at Gotland that I mentioned before my take-off delivered anything I could possibly have hoped for. I think the best way to describe it is that when you're there, you're not playing a fantasy game anymore. You're living it. (I'm afraid there aren't any good videos posted yet, but here's a bunch of pictures from the week 2009, which will give you an idea of what it's like.)

Walking the streets dressed in a mantle and fairy-tale dress is for one precious week the norm rather than the exception. In more or less every corner there's some street performance going on - jesters, jugglers, acrobats and eaters and the music never ceases. If you like me think that bagpipes as opposed to the general opinion is a lovely instrument, you've come to the right place.

I spent three afternoons raiding, which turned out to be a quite exhausting activity wearing a full-length blood red dress in the sunshine. The sweat was pouring down my face and made me look far from ladylike. But I barely noticed, because the activity too my entire concentration.

To be fair, I don't think anyone else noticed that I in fact was in a raid. For a spectator it looked as if I was taking classes in medieval and renaissance dances, jumping around barefoot in long, complicated patterns in the green grass to some very old music. There wasn't any blood shred, no villains or dragons to deal with. But apart from that - it was raiding I was doing.

The learning process was exactly the same. The patient explanations from the raid/dance leader, the wipes in advance when something didn't click and we had to work out why. The strong sense of team work. And finally the moment when it clicked for everyone at the same time and we to our astonishment got through the entire dance to the end, ending at the positions we were supposed to end at. You don't need to wear a headset or even sit in front of a computer to let out a out a first-kill-cheer.

Can you blame me for holding onto this bubble? Can you blame the bards and musicians for writing melancholic songs about how dear the week is to them, and how reluctant they are to leave it, songs that brought tears into your eyes as you heard them.

I think anyone who's been to a geek convention knows the feeling. It's a homecoming and you enjoy every minute of it, but at the same time you're starting to take your bittersweet farewell of it even at the very moment it starts.

Nothing much happening in WoW
However - an end is an end and I'll have to cope with it. After all: you're still around here, provided Tam and Ixo didn't scare you off, and why should they?

WoW is still there and from the little I've seen so far, not very much has been going on since I headed out for adventures. It all seems very calm - to be honest a little bit too calm for my taste.

The release date for Cataclysm hasn't even been revealed yet. Not that I expected it to. Wrath was announced in mid September 2008 and launched in mid November. So we could wait at least another month or two before we have a reason to start worrying and asking ourselves if Cataclysm will launch this year.

But I must admit that the thought of spending the entire autumn with nothing much raid content to do except doing hard modes in Ulduar and ICC feels like a downer. It's a very long time we have ahead of us indeed. How are players like me, who aren't in the Beta and are reluctant to devour all the content in advance through movies and spoilers, supposed to keep up the spirit during those months?

And what about the blog, my dear old inn? With the lack of deliveries and new ingredients, can I really produce any decently tasting ale? The future will tell.

Tonight I'll just stretch out my legs in front of the fire, sip on a drink and linger a little bit longer in the memories of firetorches dancing in the air, hypnotizing music from instruments which I don't even know the name of and nightly walks under a the starry sky through the stone paved narrow streets of the 13th century town Visby, which makes Stormwind look totally modern and charmless.

I'll get over the loss eventually. A flat screen with moving pictures is slightly disappointing as a replacement for living out the fantasy, but as the nights quickly are getting darker and colder, I think I'll be quite pleased with the solution. And after all - only in Azeroth will I stand face to face with a dragon. That's quite something!

Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to hear your stories of what's been going on in the WoW community. What should I catch up on? Which discussions should I dive into?