Epilogue

Larísa isn’t here anymore. She’s enjoying her retirement, forever sitting by a campfire in Elwynn Forrest, sharing stories, looking at the starry night sky.

The inn will remain closed. I don’t subscribe for WoW anymore and I’ve even – gasp! - uninstalled it from my computer. It’s a finished chapter in my life. I don’t regret it but I’ve moved on.

It’s me, Jessica who is writing this post - not the innkeeper, even though I know it can’t be separated all that easily. A part of me will always listen to the name Larísa.

There’s a thick layer of dust covering the place. Not many people come this way nowadays. I see you’ve emptied the bottles, and that what was just what I intended.

I know there were a few of you who wondered what happened to me and who asked me to give a notice if I’d ever come back to public writing again in some other place. And that’s why I’m here. I’m just putting up a small note on the door for stray wanderers to see.

Yes, I’ve started to blog again, just a little bit, hesitatingly, but not as a pink pigtailed gnome, but as myself, Jessica. It’s called The Velvet Café. (Yes, I couldn’t let go of the analogy of a bar, I’m afraid: I always get that image into my head when I think about blogging.) However I don’t think this blog will be particularly interesting to most of you, if any.

It’s not about WoW; in fact it’s not about gaming at all. It’s about an old interest of mine, which has been sadly neglected for many years due to other commitments taking precedence – raising children, making a career, spending insanely lot of time playing and writing about WoW. It’s a blog about movies.

I’m not quite sure yet what I’ll make of it. Like all newborn blogs it has an aura of insecurity. It lacks direction and a distinct blogger’s voice. I suppose the introductory post will give you an idea of where I’m heading though.

As for a start I’ve tossed up a bunch of reflections over movies I’ve seen lately, which I’ve previously posted at a forum for where I’ve been hanging around. (This is quite an intimidating place by the way. Believe me, there are EJ forums for everything! Film is no exception.) For the future I imagine that I’ll write not only movie-specific posts, but also more personal takes on whatever comes into my mind as long as it has some sort of remote connection to the world of films.

Again: I know perfectly well that this cup of coffee isn’t for everyone. But I thought I hould let you know since you asked so nicely. Feel free to come and have a look if you want to, but remember - don’t feel bad if you don’t like it at all. It’s not you, it’s me, OK?

I also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their thoughtful, loving, caring and touching comments on Larísa’s final post. I always used to reply to every comment I got, but this time it felt appropriate not to, since Larísa basically had left the place. However, I took all you said, every single comment, and put it close to my heart, where I’m still carrying them around. It’s a cold world out there. You kept me warm. You still do.

Hugs

Jessica, former Larísa, innkeeper of The Pink Pigtail Inn

One chilly, blustery morning in March

You should put the important stuff first in your article. Don't wait for it, just let it out. Give the reader a hook or you'll lose them.

That's what they taught me when I studied to become a journalist, and God knows I've happily ignored this advice many a time here at the inn, including in this post. That's the freedom of blogging as a non-professional. You can just not give a crap about how it "should" be done and do it your way, and there's no one that will hold anything against you for doing it. Your blog. Your kingdom. Your call.

But I won't keep you hanging any longer because it doesn't change anything. I see that you've all got a pint of our finest draught, the one I saved for this very occasion. So here we go, it's time to pop the news.

This is the final post at The Pink Pigtail Inn. My days as a WoW blogger have come to an end.

So, I said it.

I didn't hesitate about the decision; it came way easier to me than I imagined it would. However I hesitated on how to put it. Somehow it didn't feel right to write: "I'm closing the inn". Because how could you ever close an imaginary place? Regardless of what happens in the future to the blog, it will always remain open in my mind, as a spot and a hideout where I can recover when the world out there feels dark and lonely and threatening. A fire to warm my feet, an armchair where I can snuggle. The mumble of friendly voices in the background. Stories are shared, songs are sung, food is enjoyed. This doesn't change. The inn remains open for me. It's just that I'm not blogging anymore.

The reasons
You may wonder about the reasons for this change of mind. Why did I stop blogging now and not a year ago or a year into the future? And I honestly can't come up with one particular. I just woke up one morning and knew that this was it, that the day had come. It was over. I had said what I had to say about WoW.

I blogged for over three years. This is quite long in comparison to most other WoW centric blogs. Over the years there have been about 700 posts published at the PPI, of which I've written the vast majority. So I guess it's no wonder that I eventually feel that I'm done with it. To be honest I would have expected it way earlier. I could never ever imagine what PPI would become and how long it would last when I started to blog once upon a time.

I have no idea how many hours I've put into this blog. It must be thousands, and I'm not exaggerating. But exactly as in the case of the game itself, I don't regret a single one of them. Sure, it took a lot of effort, but there was also so much in it that I enjoyed.

I enjoyed stretching my writing muscles, taking up the challenge to write in English, seeing how it became easier over time after the initial struggles. I enjoyed the perspectives blogging gave me on WoW. All those thoughts, all those insights that were brought to me - from my own writing process as well as from commenters and from the discussions with other members of the blogosphere - have helped me to understand and experience the game in a way I wouldn't have otherwise.

If you're a blogger you notice things and it adds depth and meaning to everything you do. You associate to blog posts you've read or you get inspiration to new posts of your own. With the mindset of a blogger, even such a trivial thing as killing ten rats, can be turned into something interesting.

The thanks
And this is the point when I should give away the big thanks. But to be honest, I've never been a big fan of acknowledgement chapters in books. It's normally just endless lists of names that mean nothing to the reader, where the only variation is if they have put the credits to the supporting wife first or last. I won't make a list of names, not only because it would become too long, but also because I'd be terrified to miss to include someone that was important to me.

But you know who you are - readers, commenters and other bloggers. You cheered me up when I needed it desperately, you gave me solid advice when I was clueless, you believed in me when I just couldn't. You gave me giggles, resistance and food for thought. Without your support, your love and your inspiration, this place wouldn't exist. You made this happen.

The future
So, what's next? Well, as far as it comes to the blog, I'll keep it up for now. I pay a little fee for the rights to the domain name, but it doesn't cost me much, so there's no rush about anything. Once I see that there are absolutely none visitors whatsoever, I'll silently close it, but at that point it doesn't really matter to anyone.

And Larísa? What will happen to the pink pigtailed gnome when she has left the bar disk and walked out of that door?

For now being I'm still playing and raiding as usual (even though I'm honestly playing very little outside of the raids these days - like so many others). I haven't left WoW and I still don't know for sure when it will happen. But I know one thing: it will be a lot easier to do it, now that I'm not blogging about it anymore.

I can already give you a glimpse from how it will end. It's all planned. After giving away my gold I'll take Larísa to a green meadow in Elwynn Forest. Her feet will be bare and she'll wear nothing but a simple cloth robe, just like she did when she entered the world four years ago. Closing the circle.

And what will happen to me then, the player, that middle-aged woman who stumbled upon WoW more or less by accident and unexpectedly turned into a die-hard raider? Will I keep playing games, will I keep playing MMOs, will I start blogging again, under a different name?

I'm pretty sure I'll play other games. It took me very long, but eventually I realized that my visit in Azeroth was more than a tourist trip. Like it or not, I've become a gamer myself.

However I doubt that I'll ever go this deep into an MMO again. It becomes very time consuming ever so easily. And while I - as I've said before - don't regret the time I've spent on WoW, life isn't unlimited and there are other things I want to do with it, apart from exploring virtual worlds. I would think twice before committing myself to a game again the way I have with WoW. Been there, done that.

When it comes to blogging, I definitely want to keep writing for pleasure rather than for work, but I'm not so sure I'll do it in this form. I might try to find a different outlet for my creativity.

The final toast
I see that you're close to finishing your pints and the fire has turned into a faint glow. It's time to let go. Normally I'd probably find a suitable quote from LOTR as so many times before, but Tamarind beat me to it as he let Bilbo have the last word as Righteous Orbs closed down a while ago.

Instead I'm going to finish this final post at the PPI with the words of Richard Adams, from the ending of Watership Down.

He expresses my thoughts and emotions way better than I could myself. I'm leaving now because it was time for me to do so. But life goes on in the blogosphere and you'll be just fine.

I bid you all farewell. This is the final toast at The Pink Pigtail Inn.

Cheers!

"One chilly, blustery morning in March, I cannot tell exactly how many springs later, Hazel was dozing and waking in his burrow. He had spent a good deal of time there lately, for he felt the cold and could not seem to smell or run so well as in days gone by. He had been dreaming in a confused way -- something about rain and elder bloom -- when he woke to realize that there was a rabbit lying quietly beside him -- no doubt some young buck who had come to ask his advice. The sentry in the run outside should not really have let him in without asking first. Never mind, thought Hazel. He raised his head and said, "Do you want to talk to me?"

"Yes, that's what I've come for", replied the other. "You know me, don't you?".

"Yes, of course," said Hazel, hoping he would be able to remember his name in a moment. Then he saw that in the darkness of the burrow the stranger's ears were shining with a faint silver light.

"Yes, my lord," he said. "Yes, I know you".

"You've been feeling tired," said the stranger, "but I can do something about that. I've come to ask whether you'd care to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you and you'll enjoy it. If you're ready, we might go along now".

They went out past the young sentry, who paid the visitor no attention. The sun was shining and in spite of the cold there were a few bucks and does at silflay, keeping out of the wind as they nibbled the shoots of spring grass. It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits and to try to get used to the extraordinary feeling that strength and speed were flowing inexhaustibly out of him into their sleek young bodies and healthy senses.

"You needn't worry about them," said his companion. "They'll be all right-and thousands like them. If you'll come along, I'll show you what I mean."

He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom. "

The Legendary Test

How much longer do you think you will keep playing World of Warcraft?

I guess I’m not the only one who has been wrestling with this question lately, seeing many long-time guildies taking off for greener pastures in other games.

I’ve come up with a way to find out, and it’s as easy to take as a pregnancy test. I call it The Legendary Test and it consists of one simple question:

Imagine that you are a raider and that you’re playing a casting class. In the 4.2 patch, Blizzard is expected to introduce a legendary casting staff. Will you candidate to become the staff carrier of your guild?

Long time commitment
I don’t know how others distribute the legendaries in their guilds, but in our guild, our legendaries have been given out through a dkp auction, just like any other loot, but with one difference. If you wanted to candidate you should be likely to keep playing for a long time to come, with a good sign-up history, committed and prepared to put in the extra efforts it may require, such as gathering expensive materials and working on quest lines.

When the previous two legendaries were introduced – first the Ulduar mace and then the ICC axe, I obviously wasn’t a candidate, playing the wrong class. However I don’t doubt for a second that if those weapons had been suitable for mages, I would have loved to get one. At that time I was certain I would keep playing WoW for years, and I knew beyond any doubt make good use of the weapon once I had completed it, killing evil dragons under the banner of Adrenaline for a long time to come. Something else was unthinkable.

When I took the Legendary test on myself the other day, asking if I’d go for the weapon this time, the answer came up just as quickly. Only that this time it was in the opposite direction.

No. I won’t candidate, since I’m not 100 percent sure I’ll be around to complete it or use it for very long once it’s forged together. To candidate would feel completely wrong and unfair to my guild.

Losing the grip
This is not a farewell post, this is not the post where I declare “I’m bored with WoW and I’ve already cancelled my subscription”. But I can’t deny that something has happened, that something is in development. WoW is slowly but surely losing its grip on me.

I don’t think it has to do with the way the game is designed. It’s prettier, more polished than ever; I think they’ve more or less nailed it with the raid difficulty, coming up with good solutions to offer challenges to players on different skill levels and I really can’t see any reason to complain about lack of content either. It’s a beautiful, many sided and well crafted game, in many ways a lot better than what it was like when I started to play it four years ago.

There's something different that is in the doing, which affects me and gets to me. And I think it’s mostly about the community.

Every week there’s someone who leaves, a blogger I used to read or a guildie I used to raid with. And when they go they take something with them. Each one takes a little fragment of what kept me so invested and given me so much enjoyment in WoW. You could call it soul shards.

Today I got the message that one of my best friends in WoW has decided to call it a day. He’s not the first one and maybe not the last one, but suddenly I realized that I’m starting to run really low on soul shards. They’ve been taken from me and it doesn’t seem to me as if they’re replaceable.

I’m so low on them that I don’t pass the Legendary Test anymore. And as sad as it sounds, I realize deep down that this actually might be a Good thing rather than a Bad thing.

After all, when I’m completely out of soul shards and will decide to move on, there will be room for something new to come. Somewhere there are new shards that I can find and love and gather into shiny legendaries. I just don’t know where and how. But they’re out there, waiting to be discovered.

The WoW episode of my life isn’t over yet and I still can’t tell for sure when it will be. It could still be many months away. I don't know. I’m closing in though. I'm closing in.

It’s just like when you approach the sea and hear the birds already at a distance. They’re calling for me, louder and louder.

How I left my guild

OK. It’s Friday night and I admit I’ve had a drink or possibly two already, which means that I’m in a mood for talking and sharing, possibly more than I normally would. But sharing is a bit of the point of blogging, isn't it?

There won't be any pretence or cover-up. This is the truth, the reality the way it is, including cracks and less-than-perfect. But even if this post starts in misery, I assure you it will get much better towards the end. Don’t worry. Just have a seat and a pint and relax while I'm sharing my story, OK? And don't forget I love my guild.

Now let's get started, shall we? (Larísa fills a pint to the brim and heads for her favorite armchair, takes a sip and clears her throat before speaking up.)

What made me leave
If you’re a frequent reader of PPI you probably have noticed that things haven’t been quite as bright and rosy as usual recently. Last week I hinted about a sleepless night and hours of crying, but I refused to say what it was all about.

However I don’t think it was too hard to guess. What WoW-related issue could possibly make Larísa that sad? A wipenight? A lost loot roll? A nerf to my class? No way. Such trivial things aren’t even worth a shrug. It’s nothing. The only thing that possibly could cause me such a grief must be related to the people I play with. My guild. And of course you were damned right.

This is what happened:

Despite our struggles to fill our roster, Adrenaline has put up daring goals for Cataclysm – even raising the ambition level a bit compared to earlier. We aimed for the hardmodes and we wanted to come to those and to progress through them fairly quickly. This was announced early in the expansion, and we also were told that our performances would be followed and noted and that players who couldn’t live up to the requirements would be removed, regardless if you were an old-timer or a new recruit. Fair enough.

A month or so after this “evaluation period” had been declared, our GM gathered a bunch of players to a special meeting on vent after a raid. He wanted to have a discussion with the players who were considered to have “issues”, the players who were most likely to be removed from the guild in case we would have to give up on 25 man raiding altogether, cutting down to a 10 man guild. And yes, I was one of those players.

Not a surprise
To be honest it didn’t come as a complete surprise. I’ve shared my struggles and efforts many times here at PPI. Especially fights that required a lot of movement and multitasking have always been a challenge to me. This very day I’ve still not gotten to terms with that son-of… cough, sorry. I mean Hodir. While my survival has been quite OK, I’ve been messing around at the bottom of our damage charts ever since Cataclysm was launched. I’ve done my best, as always, but my best isn’t always good enough.

Calli at PewPewLasers seems to be in a similar position as me. As he wrote in his post of confessions a little while ago:

"The problem is, I’m 41 next month. My reflexes aren’t what they used to be, there are youngsters in our raid who act like they have the reaction times of rattlesnakes on crack and they handle fights like this with ease. Me, I need time to process things, time to let muscle memory take the slack that my reflexes can’t handle and my brain can’t process. "

This could just as well have been written by me. So when I was told that they were afraid that my learning curve was too slow and they feared I might hold us back from progression in hardmodes, it wasn’t exactly a shock to me.

Nevertheless – it sucked to hear it said openly. While most of the others that were called to this meeting had issues that were quite easy to solve – such as attendance issues – mine was far worse. With exception for Hodir, I usually learn fights like everyone else. But if the learning curve is too slow, is there really that much you can do to speed it up? If you’re already giving everything in every raid, if you’re already preparing, watching strats, adjusting to the latest advice from the theorycrafters, practicing with dummies, what more can you do? I am who I am. Larísa. And after about 300 raids it should be quite well known to my guild what I was capable of and not capable of. It wasn’t something I could fix or change within a week.

After all those years of fighting to deserve my spot in the raiding team, to be someone who contributed to the success of the raid like anyone else, it felt as if I finally had reached a roof. I had reached the limit of my potential as a player and if this wasn’t good enough with regards to where Adrenaline was aiming, I should recognize this and take the consequences.

Hesitation
No one told me to leave the guild. The idea was entirely my own - and that was the point of it: to take the initiative, to be proactive and in charge rather than just waiting for a verdict to fall.

Of course it wasn’t easy. I had raided with Adrenaline since I first stepped into Black Temple in the summer of 2008. My entire existence in Azeroth was built around raiding and around my guild and I couldn't imagine the game without it. What would I do? Where would I go? Even if I suspected that I probably could find a new home if I advertised my need for it at my blog, I wasn't sure that I even wanted a new home. After so many years, starting all over in a guild where I didn't know anyone, where I had no shared history, no sense of belonging together, felt close to impossible.

Leaving Adrenaline would mean that I would try WoW as a solo game, alt playing and pugging my way through the world. Since I never have had time to explore all the revamped content and the worgen and goblin starting areas, it probably could hold my interest for a while. But deep inside I knew that leaving my guild, most likely was the beginning of the end of my time in WoW. An era coming to an end. No wonder that I hesitated.

Sunday night I had made up my mind after rewriting my farewell post to our guild forums four times and waiting a few days, just like I had promised our GM. I spoke a final time with my closest friends in the guild, and then I got to work, removing my characters from the guild one by one. And all the time I thought about the guy who cut off his own arm when it was stuck under a rock in the desert. I hated what I was doing but I didn't see any alternative. I didn't do it to cause drama, I didn't do it to make a point or make anyone feel sorry for me. I did it partly out of a sense of pride, dignity and self respect, partly because it seemed to be the logical thing to do, the best solution not only for me, but also for my guild.

After two and a half years I was no longer a member of Adrenaline. I was alone again. Lost in the big voids of Azeroth. I didn't cry. I reckon I had already emptied my resources in that field. All I felt was this huge emptiness.

Letters and comments
Little did I expect what would follow the next few days. It turned out that my departure didn't go unnoticed. Letters were written, in- and outside of the game. Comments were written and all those efforts that were made to convince me to come back to the guild brought tears into my eyes. One guildie wrote to me: "If there are hard modes we can't do with you, then I do not want those hard modes. Do not leave, please." You would have to have a heart of stone to resist that.

Another one sent me a compass in the hope that it would help me to find my way back home. He was also rather brutal on our poor GM (who goes under the name Stumps), starting to send me stumpy feet every day, threatening to keep cutting our GM into pieces until I got back to my senses. and returned. And he wasn't the only one to take to blackmail - one of our sweetest, most peaceful members swore that he'd kill one innocent puppy every day until I came back.

Most unhappy of everyone was our GM, who regretted the turn things had taken and was determined not only to get me back into the guild, but to help me work out anything that could be missing for the hardmodes, if it so would mean that he'd had to buy an airplane ticket to Sweden. He made it clear that he'd never give up on getting me back, and he would keep pestering me until I gave in.

Who can resist so much love, coming from a family that I've spent so much time with? Well, I certainly couldn't. 48 hours after my departure I was back in the guild of my heart, back in Adrenaline, the only guild I'll ever belong to for my remaining days in WoW.

25 man struggles
So is all well again now? Sort of. I'm fine with my relation to my guild, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure for how long we will survive. Times are tough for 25 man raiding groups, as Spinksville wrote about the other day, and God knows we too have been struggling a lot over the last month, never sure if we could make the raid take off, more often than not undermanning our raids.

The other night we got a blood transfusion in form a of a whole bunch of players from a smaller guild joining us and hopefully this will take some pressure off us. After rain comes sunshine and things actually look a little brighter now then they have for a long while.

Let's not worry about the future though. All I need to know for now is that I'm back, at home, in the guild where I belong. A happy end and I've put the issues we had behind me. That's a good way to end a week, isn't it?

The toast of this week goes to my GM Stumps. For all the pain the last couple of weeks have brought us both, I think we've learned and ended up a little bit wiser. And we've still got some great adventures ahead of us, I'm certain of that now.

As you said when we talked about it on vent - this book hasn't come to its end yet, and I still have a part in it to play. You haven't given up about my learning curve, so why should I?

This one is for you and and actually for all other guild leaders out there, struggling with the fine balance of pushing their guilds up and beyond while maintaining the atmosphere and level of happiness. It's a damned hard balance act you're doing and there's no wonder if things go wrong once in a while. The crucial question is if you have the ability to recognize when it happens and make something about it.

Cheers!

(Larísa raises her jug and let's her eyes sweep around the room, smiling and nodding to all theose friendly and familiar faces.)

But look over there! Our musicians for this evening have arrived! So let's put those past events behind us and sing and dance and enjoy ourselves until the night ends. Dark shadows may lure around the corner, but tonight I assure you we're out of their reach.

The death knight who dreamed of turning 85

After the bar fight the other night I figured we could need something more lighthearted as a Friday night snack.

I thought long and hard about it and to be entirely truthful I had a hard time to find anything cheerful to talk about.

I remember how a game friend once said to me something along the lines: “You know, when WoW is good, it can be SO good. And when it’s bad, it’s SO bad”. Indeed. While I don’t hold it for truth for everyone, and there certainly are players who walk around, eternally stuck on some sort of average, “OK” level of happiness, my own curve tends to be a bit bumpier, spiking from time to time in both directions.

Recently it has spiked downwards. I won't go into any details, because I can’t at the moment (it has nothing to do with blogging drama though). All I can say is that I've spent a few hours crying and a sleepless night this week over WoW, how pitiful it may sound.

Crying can be a relief sometimes, but is frustrating when you like me have to hide it since the people I have around me in real life have zero understanding of why you ever would care so much about some” imaginary friends” in a game.

WoW sucks sometimes. It really does.

An application
But lo and behold, something popped up in our guild forums that actually gave me a huge smile and I thought I’d share it with you because I'd like to spend this Friday night at the inn in a slightly happier mood.

It was an application to our guild, which – in case anyone missed it – is a fairly serious raiding guild with high expectations on our potential new members, which I think is obvious from our website. Those expectations didn’t stop this daring young man to try his luck as in the following. And yes, in case you’re wondering, he does exist for real. It’s not a hoax; I checked in Armory. However, I’ve changed his name here slightly and hidden his guild in order to protect him. Motherly Larísa is motherly.

Name: dkmaster

Class: Death Knight

Level: 82

Race: Gnome

Country: england

Age: 14

Gender: male

Occupation/Study: go to school

Professions and skill level: engineering = 452, balcksmith = 111

Talents: frost and unholy

Would you be willing to adjust your talents where necessary? (Yes/No): yes

What do you feel are your core PVE stats? (Please do NOT link your armory profile here, this is for you to tell us what you feel your core PVE stats are): good

Our raid days are Sun-Tues-Thurs 20:00 - 23:30 (server time) How many of these raids are you able to attend each week? dont no but can try

Please outline your previous raiding experience Pre-Cata - Cata -: good did afew raids, done none yet

Who is/was your current/last guild and why are you looking to leave/why did you leave them?: [guild name] abd i am leaveing as it is a lvl 1 guild and there is like no one in it

Do you have Ventrilo and a working Microphone? No but can get soon

Are you playing with a stable internet connection and computer? yes

What are your expectations of Adrenaline? that it is a very friendly guild and i will have fun in it if i get in

Please tell us a little about yourself and also about your aims within the game. my aims r to be lvl 85, have fun and be in th eadrenaline

How did you hear about Adrenaline? a member in the guild told me about it

Toast of the week
I mean: isn’t he just adorable? Reading this I wanted to hug this little gnomish death knight, keeping him as a pet. Poor little creature, stuck in a level 1 guild with no one around him. It sounds tough.

May he remain as he is, innocent, sparkle eyed, with the goal to reach level 85 and to find a friendly, fun guild. May he never grow up and turn into a cynic, disillusioned veteran! May he level his “balcksmithing” beyond 111!

Dkmaster, I doubt that you read this post. However, you brought a smile to my face in a moment when I needed it. Thank you. This one is for you.

Cheers!

And now if you excuse me I'll just grab an armchair by the fire and doze for a while. I think I need a rest.

Can a game without graphics be better than WoW?

The vocal members of the WoW community are currently looking left and right for someone new to fall in love with as their relationship with WoW is fading away. This has become more and more obvious the last couple of weeks.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Cataclysm. It’s just that those who have been playing WoW for six years straight are pretty much done with it, needing a change of diet, and who can blame them?

A lot of the buzz has been about Rift, which I honestly couldn’t care less about. There will no doubt be a day in the future – yet to be determined - when I too am done with World of Warcraft. However I can’t see why I would want to play something that appears to be pretty much the same thing, with only some smaller adjustments.

My current plan is to stick to the original as long as it can hold my interest, and after that I’ll probably venture for a completely different gaming experience, which not necessarily will be an MMO. But I imagine will be playing some sort of game, which is a change of mind. I guess I’ve finally taken the step to recognize myself as a gamer rather an as a temporary tourist, accidently coming by.

A new game experience
This week I dipped my toe into one candidate to become my future gaming partner.

The game in question didn’t cost me anything; I was given it for free. It didn’t spring out from a huge studio inhabited by professionals. This piece of art was created by a hobby gamer like me, not for greed or for fame, but as an outlet of creativity. A world spawned from the writer's mind and I was invited to share it.

Did it look shiny and fancy? Hardly. There wasn’t a single graphic element to be seen, no eye-candy to dazzle my eyes. If someone passed by my screen, all they would see would be plain black text on a white background. Just like any Word document.

I didn’t dance around restlessly with my mouse and there was no frenetic spamming of key combinations. All I did the entire gaming session was to write text commands. “Talk to man”, “walk east”, “take x”, read the response and then write another command. It sounds a bit quiet, almost dull, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t.

I had ventured into my first piece of interactive fiction (IF) and I can’t remember last time I was this enchanted, thrilled and immersed playing WoW as I was during my session in the text adventure.

Interactive fiction
I’m a little bit late to the party, obviously. This genre isn’t he mother of WoW and other MMOs. It’s rather the grandmother’s grandmother (if you can claim any connection at all) and according to Wikipedia it peaked in the first half of the 80s.

I suppose the more jaded readers of PPI will sigh to themselves, asking what rock Larísa has been dwelling under during all those years in order to miss it out completely. But apparently I did and I’m glad that I finally got out of my ignorance.

The question is: is my fascination and newborn enthusiasm for IF well founded? Could it be just the sensation of novelty and change that I enjoy so much? Perhaps. But thinking about it closer, there are elements in it that I miss in WoW.

I think most of all it's the sensation of exploration, of stepping into an adventure. Playing my first text adventure, I experienced the thrill of folding up a story with an unknown ending, of looking at a puzzle that needed to be solved.

Even if I didn’t see the surroundings on my screen, I had a clear picture of them in my mind, noticing every detail in a way I never would in Azeroth, where I’m just rushing forward to turn in the next 12 trophies to the quest giver.

I walked from room to room, carefully examining every item I saw, talking to every person I met, always looking for clues. I opened doors, I tried out paths, I fumbled in the darkness and sometimes I got stuck and had to go back and rethink, trying another strategy. I guessed and I took chances. One door might lead to success, another one to defeat and if there were pointers, they were well hidden.

It was exactly the opposite of the concept of yellow exclamation and question marks, sparkles, cogwheels and marked areas on the map, showing exactly where to go next.

From autopilot to interaction
After trying out IF, I can’t help thinking that some of the convenience we enjoy in WoW, those handy maximize-the-cool-fun and minimize-the-boring-hassle solutions, also come with negatives.

If I’m completely honest with myself, it sometimes feels as if I’m playing WoW on autopilot. Absentmindedly I push the same nuke button over and over again, thinking about something completely different. And you may rightfully ask: what’s the point?

The text adventure on the other hand required my full attention, without giving away a single sound or light effect. The story was more involving than any boss fight and if I failed to find a puzzle clue I felt more frustrated and more motivated to overcome the challenge than if I had been wiping repeatedly on a raid boss.

I wasn’t only a watcher, I was an actor, a participant, or even a co-writer, since the continuation of the story depended on my choices.

IF may have peaked 30 years ago, but apparently I’m not the only one that is intrigued by it. From what I understand there is a community that is still going strong, making up new adventures that they share generously with each other.

Could this to some extent replace WoW for me in the future? Yes, possibly. And for some reason thinking about it makes me happy. I guess it’s the old punk rocker inside me speaking. I feel the smell of underground.

So to answer the question: yes, how crazy as it sounds, games without graphics, games without million dollar budgets, can compete and even be better than WoW and its clones in some aspects.

There are still enclaves of the world that are ruled by other incentives than money.

And naturally the toast of the week will be dedicated to those enclaves and to the enthusiasts that inhabit them. Here’s to all those who create new worlds or me to explore in the future, beyond Azeroth.

Cheers!

A Haunted Week

I won’t hide it to you. This week is best described as “meh”, which is odd. After all it’s Patch week and we should be bouncing and clapping our hands – alternatively raging and knitting our fists over the buffs and nerfs to different aspects of the game.

But it’s quiet. Too quiet. I see apathy in the blogosphere and I see apathy in my guild and it’s damn hard to not get somewhat affected by it - even if you’re blessed with pink pigtails.

Adam wrote a post the other day claiming that old bloggers like me have a “responsibility to rise to the occasion and inspire others”. Are you serious Adam? I’ve been doing this for three years now, don’t you think I deserve a rest at some point?

But OK, I’ll do my best not to be too dark and whiney as I’m about to ramble away, sharing what’s been on my mind lately.

The haemorrhage in our guild
So, what’s up? Well, first, there’s the constant underlying worrying about the future of my guild. I wrote about it a while ago and we’re still struggling with our recruitment. While we still get an application here and there, we’re losing our older players at the same rate as the new ones join – or actually slightly quicker. The veterans aren’t leaving us for other guilds; it’s a case of reaching the point where the game doesn’t have a grip on them anymore. They’ve had their fun but now they’re done with it.

Of course this was bound to happen at some point, but I must admit that I’m a little bit surprised at the timing of it. We’re still just a couple of months into the expansion. It’s not like when we had been raiding ICC for six months and there was nothing new on the horizon. I wonder if this is just our guild or if it’s a sign of an overall change in the game. Are we seeing a shift of generations here? Are the vanilla veterans marching out?

The shift in the blogosphere
And then there’s the blogosphere. The part of it where I hang around took a huge hit this week as Righteous Orbs closed down. I still stand by what I wrote in a comment – that I’m happy for them, since I think that their talent was too to be spent on solely writing WoW-related blog posts. I understand and support their decision to move on, and somehow it’s almost a bit inspiring and liberating to see them let go so of it so easily.

But this said – Tam and Chas are leaving a huge void after them as they’re moving on. Normally I remove blogs that have shut down immediately from my blogroll, but in this case I can’t yet bring myself to do it. The community won’t be the same without their voices. They brought colour and life to it and as I look around in what’s left of bloggers, we all appear a bit grey and dull in comparison, to be honest.

However - life goes on and I suppose the rest of us will recover eventually. But I can’t deny that it feels as if I too am getting closer and closer to the day when it’s my turn to bid farewell and head for new pastures. The thought has crossed my mind, more than once.

On the brighter side: when oldies like RO and – at some point in the future – PPI shuts down, it leaves more space for the newcomers to flourish. And there isn’t any lack of new blood. Every week several new blogs are introduced in the Blog Azeroth forums. I keep getting letters from newcomers, such as most recently Stubborn at Sheep The Diamond, asking me how to get started and noticed. Maybe he will grow up and find his own voice and eventually and become the next generation’s equivalence of RO? You never know.

The LFD buff
So what about the patch that dropped this week? Does it get a “yay” or a “boo” from Larísa? Well, I think the biggest news in it was the introduction of the up-to-15 percent buff to LFD parties, which made some players cheer and others moan. I’m in neither party since I’m currently only doing dungeons in guild groups, so it really doesn’t affect me at all. And I don’t give a crap about if it’s easier or not for non-guild parties. It’s not my concern.

For me the most interesting aspect was the fact that we had been doing those random dungeons for such a long time without anyone noticing that the 5 percent buff didn’t work. It reminded me a little bit of when you’re teaching a child how to ride a bicycle. As long as you assure them that you’re holding the rear luggage carrier, everything will go just fine. They’ll keep going until the moment they realize that you’re actually not holding them anymore and haven’t been doing for a long while. As they see this, they’re bound to fall over, and they’ll be very angry with you, claiming that they can’t ride the bike unless you support them.

I know there have been come complaints, but I can’t help being a little amused thinking of that so many players seem to have been riding that bike damn well without anyone holding it. However, now all of a sudden, GC isn’t just holding the bike for us, he has even put on supporting wheels.

Is it for good or for bad? I don't know. I don't pug and I'm not the target audience for this change, so I'll refrain from judging and raging this time; I've done enough of it in the past.

Drop of the week
Let’s end this post on the brighter side. After four years of playing WoW, I finally got my first epic world drop in the form of a pair of plate trousers. For some obscure reason a crocodile in Tol Brad carried them in his pockets, so I killed him and sold them for over 20 k gold. This is a sum that I personally never ever, under any circumstances, would pay for a piece of gear that inevitably will be replaced in the next content patch. But of course I’m happy that other players think differently!

On the other hand, I'm prepared to spend ridiculous amounts of gold on other sorts of items that I suspect other players would consider utterly useless. Worthless fluff, filling your bags with nothing. And that’s exactly what I did for a part of the income from the trousers: I bought myself a shadow.

For ages, I’ve been cursing myself for losing my Haunted Memento, somewhere along the road. In case you’ve forgotten, this was an item that you got during the scorge invasion in the pre-Wrath events. If you have it in your bag, it will give you a haunted buff or debuff, (considering how you look at it), and occasionally you’ll also see a dark figure discretely following you in a distance.

Once upon a time I had one of my own, but I must have lost it during some bank clear-out, in the belief that it was just another trash necklace (the icon model is not unique for the item). And ever since, I’ve been a sad panda for being so careless and stupid.

However, rich as a goblin after my world drop, I entered AH and bought the one that was up at 5 k gold. It was worth every copper of it!

Finally I’m back to myself again. This is Larísa, this is me, in a nutshell. A gnome with bright pink pigtails, carrying a shadow she never quite can escape.

It’s been a haunted week indeed. So let’s end it here with a toast.

I’ll have a big one myself. I think I need it.

Cheers!

Snapshots from my life as a blogger

I became a blogger on February 2 2008. I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing or why I did it. I was curious. That was reason enough for me to give it a go.

Three years later I’m still around talking about the same stuff - World of Warcraft. You would think that I’d run out of things to say after +600 posts, but obviously not. I’m not sure if it’s about the size and complexity of the game and community, or if it’s more about my passion for it. Regardless of which, here I am as always, standing in the bar, serving drinks and thinking aloud, occasionally taking a break in one of the cosy armchairs by the fireplace.

Not much has changed over the years. The top picture has remained the same since I redesigned the blog in June 2008. I'm turning my back to the audience on it, which doesn't really look very nice, thinking of it. I think I wanted to picture me and the readers sitting side by side by the fireplace, staring into the dancing flames, sharing our stories from Azeroth. Some conversations don’t require you to look into each others eyes all the time.

However I thought that the three year anniversary would be a nice opportunity to turn around for once and say hello to all guests face to face. So here’s a picture of me, drawn by Vidyala at Manalicious from my Armory page. Pretty much spot on if you ask me, only the pink colour is missing.

So this is me, Larísa, and I'd like to spend this jubilee sharing some snapshots from those years by linking to some of the older posts that were special to me for various reasons. Some of them were particularly fun to write - or hard or painful. Others stirred up reactions. Or they just stuck in my mind.

Divorce
Before I transferred to my current server, I went through a guild split. It was the first time in the game that I experienced that kind of drama and I took it pretty hard. This post was memorable because it was the first time I shared something personal on the blog and used it as therapy. Many more of this kind of posts would follow.

Onion thoughts
This was a little post which came to my mind as I was chopping onions. I compared the learning curve of WoW to the looks of one of those. What made the post special to me was that Matticus linked to it in a post about some new and “upcoming” bloggers. It was the first time I felt as if someone in the blogosphere had noticed me and I’ll never forget it.

The Big Battle of Mages
When people link to PPI they normally categorize it as a “general” WoW blog, rather than a mage one. I don’t talk much about mage stuff these days. But during my first year as a blogger I had a very enjoyable little discussion going on between me, Gnomeaggedon, Krizzlybear and Zupa, a former blogger. We argued about which mage spec that was the best one, in a pseudo-theorycrafting pretty silly way. I’m not sure it was an all that good read to be honest. However we had a blast doing it (arcane of course, what else?) And I think it gave me a taste of how fun and friendly the blogging community could be.

Discovered: Black Temple
PPI was never much of a diary, but bigger events and changes to my gameplay normally will end up as blogposts. Joining Adrenaline was probably the bravest thing I ever did in the game. This post reflects what I felt about it at that time pretty well. Re-reading it is a good reminder to me to be nice to our trialists.

If I die for real will anyone notice?
My gnome may have a cheerful appearance with her pink pigtails, but PPI has never been just strawberries and sunshine. Sometimes I write about my weakness, my self doubts, my ghosts. Or even death as in this case. Two years later I wrote In the Shade of Deathwing – about those things we normally try not to think about, which if possible was even darker. I struggled to write it, but I was glad that I managed to. It rendered some very beautiful and insightful comments.

Ask Larísa – how do I make my blog noticed?
Gevlon at Greedy Goblin and I have a long story together. He was one of my first readers and as he decided to start a blog of his own, he turned to me, asking for advice, which I willingly gave him. The rest is history. Needless to say, I have disagreed with him several times over the years, like in this post. But he has always a reserved seat here at the inn, regardless of how he’s regarded by the rest of the blogosphere.

Happily building my sandcastle
Most posts you write will be forgotten the next day. Blogposts are like milk, it’s consumed on the spot and come with a best-before-date. But this one was an exception. I still hear people in the blogosphere referring to the “sandcastle post”. For some reason this analogy worked, not just for me.

Twisted!
This post isn’t spectacular in itself, but it’s a souvenir from when I appeared as a guest in Twisted Nether Podcast, which turned out to be way more fun and way less nervous than I had imagined. The major problem was for the poor host to make me stop talking.

A year later I did another podcast appearance, in Blue Plz. Considering the size of the audience, this was scarier, but I needn’t have worried. Totalbiscuit is as nice in real life as he’s nasty in his commentary and he didn’t just make me feel comfortable, he also managed to make me stop talking.

33 things I want to do before I quit WoW
I think list posts are a little bit like choir music; it’s more fun to sing or write it than it is to listen or read. Bloggers who give advice on how-to-blog tend to be enthusiastic about list posts, suggesting you to make posts like “Five reasons to…” “The five best ways to..”
It’s tempting, since it’s a convenient structure to work in, but I try not to do it too often, since it gets old after a while.

However, this post was one that I really enjoyed to write and which I actually went back to every now and then, if I needed inspiration for what-to-do next in the game.

Other list posts I enjoyed to write was 17 excuses to play WoW when you know you shouldn’t and Seven lessons learned from trekking, where I managed to combine my interest for mountain walks with WoW (constructed or not, I leave for someone else to judge.)

How to make an unforgettable guild anniversary
I’ve always been quite discrete about my guild's doings in my blog, reluctant to even mention the names of my guildies. For some reason it feels as if I shouldn’t talk about them unless we’ve agreed on it on before hand. If I’ve been writing, it has mostly been in positive contexts, like when we’ve gotten a very longed for first kill. There has been very little guild drama in my posts, if any at all. This post was about a guild event that was so good that I wanted to share it. And I was actually pretty delighted when WoW Insider wrote a special post about it, giving the officers of Adrenaline credit for all their efforts.

Sad and frustrated
The summer of 2009 was a nightmare, computer wise. My old rig had never been a hit, but at that point I was really in trouble and I couldn’t work out what was wrong. I wrote about my desperation and got so many responses and honest tries to help out. In the end, it turned out that I had to buy a new computer, but oh, how touched I was by the love and friendship I felt from the community.

The Bubble
Some posts are personal and this is one of those. Enough said.

The Picture of the Day
I’ve never been one of the Bloggers Who Talk A Lot about Gender issues and unlike Pewter and Chastity I’m not particularly good in feminist theory or argumentation. But sometimes I dip into the topic nevertheless. Not too often though, it wears me down for some reason. This post was about a picture of the staff at Blizzard which made me realize that WoW in the end pretty much is a boys club.

Coming out as an older player in WoW
Age is another topic that I’ve touched on a couple of occasions. I was floored by the reception of this post and I felt far less alone than I had before. The club of older players was apparently bigger than you might imagine.

Musings over boobs and my liberating lack thereof
This post combined the last two topics – age and gender – into one, and a wonderful discussion followed in the comment section, which left me touched and empowered.

A power demonstration of a GM
I’m probably not known to be the most controversial of bloggers, but there are exceptions like this one. My support for a guildie who had been rude to a GM and deprived of his character name as a punishment provoked a massive reaction, with over 100 comments, of which approximately 2/3 were negative. It didn’t make me change my mind on this, though.

Did Blizzard just miss to do a reality check?
Oh, the community rage of the summer of 2010! Blizzard launched the idea of real name posting on the forums. And we raged and they changed their mind! I would believe it was rather the players who cancelled their subscriptions how made this happen, but who knows, maybe I contributed a tiny, tiny, tiny little as well?

An unfortunate meet-up with the pumpking leechers
Some posts are more fun than others to write, posts where the writing is pure entertainment and doesn’t feel like taking any effort at all. This was one of those. The situation was so absurd that the story had to be told. It basically wrote itself.

WoW is...
Sometimes I can't resist going in clinch with those people who I call the Bitter Veterans. A few times it has been Wolfshead, but this time it was Syncaine I attacked. This was a simple list post with linkage, mostly to my own blog. However it was fun to write and gave me a reminder about how many different ways there are to play WoW and why I still like it so much after all those years.

The Perfect Raid Snack
My final snapshot will be this little post about what constitutes a perfect raid snack. I never intended my blog to be useful, but in the end this post turned out to be, since the commenters were more than willing to share their own recipes and ideas.

Thanks
I've enjoyed taking this walk down the memory lane and I could go on talking forever about every blogpost I ever wrote, but I think I’ll end it here. 25 snapshots are more than enough. (No, I said snapshot, not schnapps shot! 25 of those would DEFINITELY be enough!)

Only one thing remains: to bring out a toast. Thank you for coming here and helping to make this place into what it is.

Cheers!

Banal and self-serving? Yes, you bet!

“Pink Pigtail Inn needs to think up some better topics. […]. I am hoping WI can find better posts to link to in the future that aren't as banal and self-serving”

Those sweet lines dropped in a comment at WoW Insider this weekend. Lately they have shown the blogosphere more “love” than usual, speeding up the frequency of their Daily Quest column where they feature links to posts they’ve found interesting for whatever reason.

This time they decided to mention my post about how annoying the single-listing practice is from the point of view from a customer. I guess I would have been better off if they hadn’t.

Getting link love from WoW Insider is a double-edged sword. Many new bloggers crave for it; they think it would be the best thing ever to happen to their blog, to finally get the chance to reach a bigger audience. (Unfortunately the bump in the visitor statistics will be just a bump. It’s not the ICC buff we’re talking about here, rather a short burst of heroism/bloodlust).

But even as a veteran I can’t deny that I too secretly get a little bit flattered by the attention. I suspect that bloggers are a bit like actors – happy and terrified in equal proportions as we’re taking our place in the spotlight – left out, vulnerable, fragile and yet thrilled, empowered and confident.

The negatives about WI linkage is that you’re exposed to the views of a lot of people who never have read your blog before, who don’t know you and who are every so quickly to judge you and point fingers. Expect rotten tomatoes come flying in your direction. You’re dealing with a mob.

Shielding yourself
Wise bloggers know how to shield themselves from this. If they even take notice of the trolls, they give the trolls the laugh they deserve. And that’s the advice I’ve given too, over and over again over the years to fresh bloggers. If you get hurt, it’s only because you let them hurt you. There’s no need to! You can choose your own reactions.

But for all my gnomish wisdom and insights about how I SHOULD react, the comment above still slipped through my defence system. For a moment I lost my balance. And as I did so, stumbling on the stage, wondering where to put my feet, I looked at myself and wondered what this was all about. Why did I care?

And I found that this particular troll had managed to pick up and echo doubts my own doubts, doubts that I think most writers struggle with at some point. It happens that we ask those questions: “What’s the point in my blogging in the first place? What am I doing, standing on this soapbox, sharing my banal thoughts with the world, as if they were worth listening to? Who do I think I am?”

Long-time readers of PPI know that I normally try to remain positive, no matter what. However it happens that I occasionally slip and fall into more self-destructive patterns. And that’s why this post could break through my shield and get to me. It matched thoughts that I already carried myself.

Banal and proud
However, the slip was temporarily and I definitely won’t let this troll leave the inn with the last word. Because after a short moment of self-pity and soaking in my own butt hurt feelings, I popped heroism and manned up, growing to the double size if not more, ready for a fight.

So this guy thinks that PPI is banal and self-serving? Good for him. He's right. PPI probably is quite banal. And you know what? I’m not even ashamed of it! Why would I be?

Banalities are fine. People have made entire comedy shows going on for years about “nothing” and they were excellent. There are so many pretentious works of art in the world that crave desperately for a little bit of banality, which would make them matter and not just remain unreachable thought constructions. Gief more banality!

This week I’ll be celebrating three years as a blogger. During this time I’ve given my thoughts, experiences and views on WoW in over 600 posts. They’re probably not the kind of deep or world-changing posts that the commenter is looking for. But so what? I never claimed anything else; I’ve never reported in as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. I’m just an average – or sometimes even mediocre if I’m absolutely honest - player who runs an average blog where I ramble about my very ordinary life in Azeroth.

The guests that frequent PPI are accordingly kindly asked to leave their e-peens as well as steel toe shoes in the hallway. You see, I think that there are others like me in the community, players who long for a safe spot, somewhere where banality and mediocrity is not only accepted, but even embraced.

I want PPI to be a place in my mind where walk barefoot, where I don’t need to pretend that I’m any better or smarter than I really am. Where I’m just me. And if the WI readers don’t approve of their choice for linkage, it’s their problem, not mine.

As long as PPI remains open, it will always be a home for banalities. I promise.

The Single Pack Disease at AH

I shop my groceries in a supermarket once a week. It's the quickest and cheapest way to get the stuff you need for a family of four. The carrier is always filled to the brim, so heavy that I just barely can handle it and stop it from running straight into the back of adjacent cars in the parking area. I guess I'm like any ordinary middle aged mum in my neighborhood, apart from that I normally listen one or another of my favorite WoW podcasts as I'm doing it. This makes the task far less tedious.

But let's move along to the point. As I do my shopping I tend to buy the items in big packs. Living in a fairly small house I haven't got storage space enough to go for the Very Biggest, Supergigantic and therefore also cheapest versions. But I go for the middle priced. Take toilet tissue. I wouldn't dream of buying that in singles. It would be quite inconvenient for one thing, but it would also be far more expensive. So normally I stick to the 8 or 12 packs, even though I know that the ideal would be to buy 64 at a time, if I only had somewhere to put it.

The more of them you buy, the better price you'll get. That's the norm in real life shopping. Buy three books and you'll get a fourth for free. Buy ten at the price of nine. You know the drill.

The Cataclysm change
It used to be that way in Azeroth too. Stacks of items were always cheaper per item than buying them one by one. Pre-Cataclysm you could always make a little money at AH this way. You bought one elemental fire and cut it into ten crystallized fire pieces, selling each one at the double price of what they had cost you to begin with. The people who only wanted to buy that single crystallized fire they needed for their crafting were happy, the seller was happy, everyone was happy.

Enter Cataclysm and something happened.

The "Multi packs always give you a discount rule" is broken. Nowadays the rule seems to be exactly the opposite, at least at my server. And it drives me nuts.

My main is a tailor, but I don't have any miner or herbalist at max level. This means that I need to buy elementals to do my weekly special cool down cloths. And I buy loads of them. Each cloth type takes 30 elementals and I can make five of those cloths a week. This means 150 freaking volatiles of different flavours!

All this would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that the rule has changed. The elementals even stack better these days, so theoretically I could buy 30-packs. Click, click, click, loot mail box, DONE.

But alas - no. I can't speak for other servers of course, but on my server, Stormrage EU, you have to pay extra nowadays if you want a proper stack. The single packs are always cheaper per item, and I mean a LOT cheaper.

For every single item I need this means that I have to click at least three times in AH. One time to mark the item, one time to mark that I want to buy it out immediately and a third time to accept it and get it done. Looting it from the mail box fortunately only takes me one click, provided that I remember to use shift and right click. But never the less, all in all, it's four clicks for each one of the 150 elementals every week, which if I count it right will result in 600 clicks. And that, my friends leads to a LOT of clicking.

One day this is going to give me some problems with my arm, no kidding. The repetitive clicking, over and over again isn't just boring and annoying, it even hurts, physically.

I suppose there is a solution out there if you use the proper addons. There surely must be some addon that enables you to bid on a multitude of single posted items without having to mark and click on each one of them.

But should I really have to go through that hassle to find that addon, to install it, to configure it, to keep it updated and make sure it doesn't drag down my system?

I don't even WANT an auction addon in the first place! I'm not interested in gold making and I spend as little time as possible messing around with business related activities. I'm in the game to kill dragons, explore worlds and hang around with people I like.

Possible solutions
I guess there are two solutions to this. One is that Blizzard could change the game default UI in some manner so you don't need to do all that clicking if you want to buy 30 volatiles and end up buying them in singles because people refuse to post stacks of them.

Another solution of course is that we somehow get back to the standard that the more you buy, the less you pay. But I suppose that won't happen.

The goblins get better paid for big stacks, which require them less work to post. And I must admit that I'm sometimes even prepared to pay them for it, even if I grumble as I do it. It happens that I just can't face another click-my-way-through-thirty-singles session and buy out the pricey stacks just to save me some time. So why would they refrain from the possibility to do such good business?

The question is what a grumpy gnome is to do when she's out to do her weekly stack up shopping for her crafting?

Well, I put on a podcast and try to think of something else as I click my way through page after page at AH. Just as I do when I go for my weekly shopping at the supermarket.

But I can't help thinking myself back to better times, when the market in Azeroth behaved like other markets and one elemental was cheaper than ten crystals.

The Unfiltered Joy of Smashing Thieving Little Pluckers

Let me reveal a secret. Those pink pigtails - the doll-like cute little face if mine – is just a disguise. In reality I’m a full-fledged slaughter machine, always craving for blood.

The more they bleed and scream, the wider is the smile on my face. It feels good to be evil!

Pygmy cravings
My true nature was revealed to me the first time I did the quest Thieving Little Pluckers in Uldum.

As I raised the Tehtret Dynasty Mallet, which is about the size of Larisa and smashed it into the living pillar of equally annoying and cute sand pygmies, and as I saw how they fell in all directions, blood flowing and yellow numbers filling my screen, I knew that I was lost.

I had to do this again! Please, please let me! I would do anything in my power – even level an alt if that was what was needed– to get the chance to just one more time pwn those little creatures and tear them into pieces.

Fortunately enough it turned out that someone at Blizzard knew about those darkest corners of the pink pigtailed mind. Of all quests in Uldum, they had picked this one for making a daily, in an effort to meet the needs of us addicts. And I pulled a sigh of relief. I could do this quest, over and over again, as many times as I liked. The flow of blood from smashed pygmies would never get dry.

And this was how it all began back in December. Many pygmies have died for my mallet since then and Ramkahen now are so pleased with my services as a smasher that they’ve given me a camel mount and released me from my duties. If I insist on keeping smashing pygmies, they let me of course, but the salary is set at a modest 7 g 85 silver, which I probably could earn quicker if I just gave AH 30 seconds of my attention.

From a strict goblin perspective, there’s no reason why I should do this daily again, ever.

But I do. Because I’m just like Raz the Crazed in Blackrock Caverns. I like to smash!

The joy of destruction
I frankly don’t know what it is about it that makes it so satisfying. There isn’t any challenge, no e-peen to wave and certainly no tasty quest reward awaiting.

And yet I love it, the same way as I enjoy stomping on the thin ice covering a ground pool an early winter morning, seeing the ice shatter into pieces as you pray silently that this pool was empty and not filled with dirty water. I think it’s something about the sound and the very sensation of breaking things. It’s the joy of pure, unfiltered destruction.

Bam, bam, splash! You’re so dead!

Blizzard may break their backs to provide us with all sorts of sophisticated quests with phasing, invisible vehicles, mystical mists à la Emerald Dram or crazy action filled cut scenes in the company of Harrison Ford. But we players are strange, ungrateful creatures. Sometimes we don’t want sophistication. Sometimes we just want to smash things and listen to the sound of screaming victims and flowing blood.

Thieving Little Pluckers. I think I already have a good candidate for when it’s time to nominate the best quest of 2011.

To all fellow smashers
My Friday night toast goes to all my fellow pygmy smashers out there. Maybe you find reasons to hide your addiction, putting up a façade that you prefer quests to be challenging and intriguing. But even so, don’t feel ashamed for your secret cravings.

You’re not alone!

Cheers!

A view from the bottom of the learning curve

Two weeks away from WoW was all it took for me to tumble down all the way down the learning curve back to the sewer level, where I started four years ago.

This was obvious as I logged in last weekend after my holiday absence.

I stared in disbelief at the screen, getting more and more nauseous as the camera nervously flipped up and down. You were supposed to control this thing with your mouse, weren’t you?
Was something broken or was this how it worked? How was I supposed to move my toon? Had I ever even played this game at all?

So this was my character, Larísa. A mage apparently. Level 85, it said, whatever that could mean.

Catching up
Slowly I recalled what this was about. Oh yes. There had been this expansion coming right before my holidays. In the middle of packing and other preparations I had managed to press her up to end game level, but not much more than that.

And now I was back and within 72 hours our first 25 man raid was scheduled, and I needed not only to remember how to play WoW, but also to make Larísa raid ready. It wasn’t anyone else who had required me to be prepared to go in such a short time, but I wanted to. This would be the first 25 man raid since June last year, and you all know what it’s like to get back to school after the summer vacation. There’s something special in the air in the first raid of the season. I just didn’t want to miss it.

But where to start, what to do? I was lost, so lost. And also increasingly ill, not just because of the view of the screen, but because all those germs we escaped in India seem to have been assembling in Sweden to have a sneaky assault on me as soon as I came home.

It was a challenging task, but somehow I did it. Don’t ask me how though, because those first few days are a bit hazy in my memory, an equal mix of chain running heroics and chain running to the bathroom.

Enough to say: when Adrenaline stood at the top of Bastion of Twilight Tuesday night, ready to enter for the first time, I was there.

I was dressed up in mostly heroic gear and even a couple of epics thanks to a very wealthy and equally generous guildie. I had the reputation enchants I needed and I had even managed to level first aid to max, which was a bit of a pain, especially since I levelled my tailoring profession at the same time. (A tip to anyone in the same predicament – if the cloth is dirty expensive at your server, take a treasure finding potion that gives you extra loot and find a spot for aoe-farming. Even with a price of 200 g a pot, it pays off and it saved my day.)

Climbing the learning curve
Gearing up is one thing though, learning how to play is something completely different. You can be as raid ready as you like gear wise, but this doesn’t help much if you’ve lost the feeling for how to play WoW.

This has made me think of learning curves. I’m admittedly not the quickest of climbers, and I tend to start out horribly low as we’re learning new encounters. Eventually I will always “get it”, but not quite as fast as the quickest learners in our guild.

But if I think about this first week back in WoW, I don’t feel as if I’m just at the bottom of a learning curve I need to climb. It’s more as if I’ve fallen down into a dark pit hole, losing skills I believed I already mastered.

When you think of learning how to ride a bicycle, it’s a one-time-only. Once you’ve learned how to do it, it’s there. You won’t forget how you do it, either you practice or not. You can mount a bicycle 10 years later and you’ll still not fall.

Playing WoW is different. Apparently you can de-climb the curve and de-learn things you knew, leaving you with no choice but to start over again.

A headless chicken
Partly I figure it’s the result of the class changes. Mages have gotten a couple of new spells that need to be squeezed, not only into my action bars, but also into my mindset, habits and muscle memory. It’s not done overnight.

Another reason for my struggles is probably that the difficulty level has stepped up considerably since Wrath. Some of the heroic bosses feel more like raid bosses than anything else. This is basically something I welcome; it means that also non-raiders can get access to interesting and challenging content. So it’s not as if I’m asking for nerfs, not at all.

But the fact remains, more than once have I felt like a headless chicken – in heroics as well as in raids - and I can’t help feeling a bit let down by myself.

Why I can’t pull my gameplay together and climb the learning curves as quick and easily as my fellow guildies? What am I doing here, still crawling around in the sewer?

However, this isn’t going to be a post that ends in misery, despair and self-bashing. I refuse to give up! I’ve climbed hills like this before and damned me if I won’t be able to climb it again!
As a reminder I’ve changed my title from Merrymaker to The Patient. Even if I geared up in two days I can’t expect myself to re-learn my class with all the changes there have been to it in the same amount of time. All I can do is to keep going, spend some times at the dummies, read up, ask fellow mages for advice and then and practice, practice, practice, Eventually I’ll get it.

The juggling experience
If I have any doubts about it, I’ll just think back at what I did in India. I spent most of my days lazily drifting in the ocean or reading novels on the beach. But I had brought one project with me: a set of juggling balls. I had decided to once for all learn how to juggle, which was quite ambitious for someone who lacks any sense for ball handling whatsoever.

The balls came with a leaflet, where you were told you could learn three-ball juggling in seven steps. “Anyone can learn this within one hour”, assured the writer. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. For me it took one and a half week of daily practice before I got it. But that’s not the point.

The point is that I didn’t give up. And I didn’t care about the quizzing glares I got from other beach visitors as I publicly displayed my shortcomings in tossing as little as one or two balls.

I just kept going. Not for long periods, just ten minutes per hour, day after day. Sometimes I fell back on the learning curve, starting to fail at step five, which I previously had mastered. In those moments I went back a few steps and practiced more until I had them working properly, before taking it back to where I was.

I didn’t bash on myself, I didn’t ask why it took me hours and hours of juggle training when the leaflet said it would take just 60 minutes. I just did it anyway, my way, enjoying the learning process as such, not attempting to take shortcuts as I climbed the curve in my own pace.

I left India with a moment forever burned into my memory: the feeling of successfully doing three-ball juggling as the sun dived into the ocean at the peaceful beach in Goa. Twenty times in a row I cast the balls without dropping them once. I don’t think anyone noticed. But I’ll never forget how I felt inside.

And whenever I’ll find the view in the sewers at the bottom of the learning curve just too depressing, whenever I’ll start doubting that I can be a true asset to our raid team rather than a burden, I will think about my juggling experience.

If I could learn how to juggle, I can learn how to do anything.

Even how to play my mage properly in Cataclysm.

Cheers!

The New Year Reset

So it’s New Year’s Eve tonight. And thinking aloud, I want to throw out a question:

Isn’t this day the pinnacle of broken dreams and lost illusions?

The expectations are so huge. While it’s perfectly OK to have a less-than-exhilarating Christmas, spent on your own or with family members who’d all rather be somewhere else, New Year is quite the opposite.

You should be with your friends at a huge crazy party where everyone drinks floods of champagne and laughs all night long - pleasantly dizzy but never embarrassingly drunk. As the bells start ringing at midnight you lose yourself in a soft and sparkling kiss with the love of your life (or at a minimum a wonderful flirt of the evening.)

In reality it’s never as fun as it is on TV. It’s more like a cruel reminder that yet another year has passed of your life, and what did you do of it? Where did all the dreams and promises go?

I don’t think you see as much faked happiness and as much true and honest loneliness as you do at New Year.

But for all the bitterness it carries, there’s still something about it that I love. The fireworks. As you might now, enjoying some fireworks after eating a chocolate cake in WoW is one of my guilty pleasures. And you can only imagine how childishly enthusiastic I am about them in real life. Of course it’s a complete waste of money and effort, the ultimate sandcastle, an instant flash of beauty, lost and gone within a few seconds, only leaving a fading trail in our memories. But it’s one of the aspects of what it means to be human.

A reset
New Year is also something of a reset, resembling to the release of a new WoW expansion or at least a content patch. Your calendar has still some empty spots; nothing is set in stone. This is the time and place to make those decisions you’ve been pondering on. Maybe level up some new skill, explore a new zone of the world or even go through a complete remake of yourself, going from a forsaken to a gnome – or the opposite way. Even if the timeline is a theoretical construction and not a physical fact, the impact is undeniable.

The world is reset, and if the American dream that “anything is possible if you just try hard enough” actually is a bit of a lie, it’s still true that many of us only use a fraction of our full potential. All dreams can’t come true. But some can. And New Year reminds us of that.

I don’t think I’ve ever given any New Year solution. Or if I have, it wasn’t serious enough for me to remember it afterwards, so I reckon I broke it pretty quickly.

Oh, or wait. I actually did write down a couple of WoW related New Year's resolutions two years ago. My compliance with them has admittedly been so and so. But it’s a good reminder to glance over them again. The order in my bags and bank could be better, can’t it always? However it’s not completely out of control, in the sense that I have some space. I still don’t charge for mage portals, but if someone asks me about the fee, my reply is “what you think it is worth to you”. I still know how to do the Heigan dance! I don’t think you’ll ever forget it once you know the steps.

Most important though is my promise to see to that I keep having fun playing WoW. This means following my heart rather than the crowd, making sure the game doesn’t turn into a job rather than entertainment.

Spending the night
There are many ways to spend New Year. I will spend it 30 k feet up in the air homeward bound, crossing a number of time zones. If I wanted to I could have a reason to drink champagne throughout the whole night. It's the New Year that never ends.

Some of you will spend it with friends and for a few of you it will be a blast and a new beginning of something, possibly a romance. For others it will be a night of disappointment.

Perhaps a few of you will spend New Year in Azeroth. And if you do, don’t feel awkward or ashamed about it. If you’re with friends, having fun, you’re probably way better of than many of those who celebrate New Year in a more conventional way.

Regardless of what you’ll do, I hope you’ll have a great night, where expectations and reality somehow end up at the same level.

Now please head over to the bar disk, have a glass of free champagne and join me in a toast!

Happy New Year!

Some thoughts about wish lists – in WoW and elsewhere

Did you write any wish list for the season yet? Perhaps you’ve received one from a toddler in your neighbourhood? Or maybe you’ve forgotten about Grandfather Winter’s doings altogether, too wrapped up in the cataclysmic craziness to care?

I’ve reached the age when I dread the question on what I would like to get. I was asked about this recently, as I’ve got an incoming birthday, and my mind got absolutely blank. Or to be truthful: there was one wish that crossed my mind, but I hesitated to say it aloud. Since my birthday is in the weekend, I would love if I could spend a big chunk of the day playing World of Warcraft. It’s not something I’d normally wish for, but this year it’s a special situation, with Cataclysm just out of the oven, fresh and steaming hot. Just imagine being left alone for a while to enjoy it, no question asked, no negotiations, no need to explain anything.

Of course I didn’t say it aloud. I just mumbled something incoherently: “whatever” and “it doesn’t matter”. Age has that effect on you. I don’t really care much about my birthdays anymore, especially not from a gift perspective. I’m a grown-up with a steady income and if there’s something I know that I want, like a book, I’ll buy it, regardless of which day of the year it is. So wish lists are rather pointless.

I wouldn’t go as far as Gevlon does, who on several occasions has talked about his hatred for birthday celebrations, seeing them as the pinnacle of moronic social behaviour. If someone surprises me with a personal, well thought out gift, given out of love and consideration, rather than as an obligation, I will still be touched and appreciate the effort and gesture. But mandatory wish lists? They don’t appeal to me.

A WoW wish list
But let’s move along and bring in some WoW focus to this post. Have you ever made a WoW wish list?

In the podcast Twisted Nether, the hosts always ask their show guests: if you could wish for anything WoW related, what would that be?

Without any competition the most common answer is: to get a job at Blizzard. Actually this isn’t something I personally would wish for. From what I’ve heard, the working conditions in the game industry seem to be far from ideal. If I was to wish, I would rather like to get the opportunity to hang around in the Blizzard HQ:s as an intern for a week.

I’ve always been fascinated by the underlying machinery it takes to produce all sorts of items we surround ourselves with. As I grew up I was enchanted when they showed on TV how the process of putting together a toothbrush in a factory, from the beginning to the end.

What’s behind the curtains? What’s in the minds and on the agenda for the hundreds, not to say thousands of people involved in the creation of Azeroth? I’d love to sit like a butterfly on the wall, listening to what they talk about at their meetings and their lunch room, seeing the voice actors live or meeting the guys who spend their days designing trees and bushes, putting them into the right place.

Tear down the wall
Back to the WoW wish question. If you leave out working for or visiting Blizzard, you could also make a wish that was about game changes. If you were in power and could change one, but just one thing about the game, what would that be?

It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? If you ask me tomorrow, I’ll probably answer it differently than today. But OK, if you press me for a reply, what comes first to mind is this: I want Blizzard to once for all tear down the Berlin wall they’ve built between EU and US servers. Let us play wherever we want to, allow us to move our characters across the Atlantic at our own choice! If there’s a lag issue, the decision of how much we can put up with should be ours. I want to give my friend Gnomeageddon an in-game hug. Stop preventing me from doing that!

Haunted Memento
Then there’s of course a different, down-to-Earth way to answer the WoW wish list question. Some guests of TNB have wished for in-game items, such as Illidan’s warglaves and others want a Frostmourne replica to put on the wall or an orc statue for the garden.

I’ve never been much of an item gatherer myself, even though I admittedly have a weak spot for non combat pets. What I would like most of all though, is to get back my Haunted Memento. Somewhere on the way I lost it, probably when I cleared up my bank slots a bit carelessly and didn’t really look, thinking it was some old outworn neck piece. I miss my shadow and if someone could bring it back to me, I'd be very happy. I was always more than just a pink pigtailed Merrymaker.

What children wish for
This post is long as it is, but I won’t let you go quite yet. I have one more thing to share, not WoW related, but wish list related, namely a little piece of classic Swedish TV comedy from the mid 80s. The clip is in Swedish, so here’s a rough translation that I think will give you the jest of it.

Reporter:
So, Anna, if you could wish for anything in the world, what would you wish for?

Girl:
A doll!

Reporter:
Well… I mean like something bigger.

Girl:
A bicycle.

Reporter:
No… not a toy.

Girl:
A car.

Reporter:
No, not things, but something superimportant that all people on Earth want.

Girl:
Food!

Reporter:
No, food and food, I mean something that is important that you demonstrate for and that America and Russia are discussing, what is that?

Girl:
Money?

Reporter (increasingly annoyed):
Bah! Money and money, what the hell is that the only you think about, dolls, bicycles and money and food and such shitty stuff, what the fuck, think if there came a bunch of soldiers to your home and shot your mum and dad, would that be fun, would you like that?

Girl:
No

Reporter:
No, but what the hell is it then, what is it?

Girl:
War?

Reporter (exploding):
What the fuck are you stupid or something, that is not what you want, that is what you DON’T want, so what is it that you want?

Girl:
Peace?!

Reporter:
Yes, peace.

Reporter (turns, looking into the camera, finally pleased):
And that is what the Swedish children want most of all! Peace on Earth.

END

Friday night toast
And with those words I wish you a wonderful weekend, with dolls, peace or whatever you wish for.

Cheers!

Deathwing knows how to dance – my first impressions of Cataclysm

I haven’t been fortunate enough to be fried by Deathwing as he’s been roaming about in the neighbourhood the last couple of weeks. I figure a pink pigtailed gnome is just a too frightening sight even for a big bad dragon. He’s a coward, I tell you.

However I got a very close look at him last night as hundreds of thousands EU players tried to log into the game at the same time.

Dancing with Deathwing
Deathwing and I spent almost an hour inspecting each other, and after a while his appearance switched. He started to look somewhat friendly. Dragon staring has that effect on you.

By the way, in case you’re wondering what kept us hanging for so long, I can reveal the truth.

It had nothing to do with the assumed lack of login capacity. Corporate lies! Excuses! This was a cunning arrangement to make the players listen through the entire login screen music, all the 12 minutes it lasts, rather than the 30 seconds it takes to log in. At least once we should hear it. Russell Brower must be happy now.

After enjoying the piece a couple of times it started to grow a bit old. It was time to switch to something different to make sure that I kept up my happy, festive, time-for-Cataclysm mood. The good old Sweet hit Poppa Joe turned out to be exactly what I needed: a little silly, upbeat and unquestionable optimistic. It worked as intended! Both of us lit up and I could swear that I saw Deathwing dancing. He does those little motions every now and then, perfectly in sync with the music.

Then, all of a sudden, Deathwing decided that he’d had enough of this gnome and the screen switched. For a fragment of a second I hesitated. Anyone with the slightest sense and a regular working schedule the next day shouldn’t be up playing World of Warcraft at this hour. At all. But on the other hand – one night of bad sleep wouldn’t kill me. And I wanted to enjoy a bit of the launch night geeky craziness. It only happens once.

And so I entered Cataclysm, blind as mouse since I never looked closely at the beta information, and enthusiastic as a child on Christmas Day, eager to try out all the new toys at once.

It took me a while to realize that you can fly in Stormwind these days. High, high, up in the air I went, staring in fascination at all sorts of dragons, carpets and other vehicles cruising above the city like a flock if seagulls. It was as if this was the first time I really saw Stormwind, realizing what a stunning beauty it is.

I could easily have remained there, hovering over Stormwind and the surrounding areas for the rest of the night, but eventually the sirens called for me to go to Hyjal to get a taste sample of the cataclysmic questing.

Questgiver camping

My impressions so far? Well, it's too early to say anything definitive about the questing, apart from that it seems promising from what I've seen so far. I expect a pleasant and interesting ride to 85.

The starting area was pretty cramped, for obvious reasons. Since the spawn rate of mobs seemed to be connected to the player density, it was still playable, even though it no doubt would have been more enjoyable with slightly fewer players around. If there ever was a potential for immersion in WoW, it goes down in the drain as the masses enter.

What quickly turned into a bit of an annoyance was the access to the questgivers. Whenever you wanted to pick up or deliver a quest, you’d better prepare for some patient waiting.

What is it with people that they think that they have to literally stand on the quest giver to be able to talk to him? And if they want to have this close-up, how about dismounting? Grr.

Word of advice to anyone planning to go questing in the new areas: bring some stacks of baby spice, even if you’re travelling light. You’ll need it.

As I logged out I was almost halfway to 81, which felt like a decent rate. And our guild had advanced to level 2, giving us an experience boost. Sweet! Next up will be the speed travelling boost and after that the quicker reputation gain. The guild perks are way more than just cosmetic nice-to-have features. I wonder how many solo minded players that will remain guildless as they realize what they’ll miss out.

TLDR version: Cataclysm launch night. I had a close look at Deathwing. Poppa Joe saved us from dispair. Stormwind from the air is beyond anything I had imagined. Bring baby spice in your bags. It rocks to be guilded.