Time to Make Our Own Cataclysm

Cataclysm. The word on everybody’s lips these days.

Kyrilean longs desperately for it. Spinks predicts that it only will be able to hold the endgame player’s attention for a couple of months. An old game is an old game and we can’t take much more of the same.

More and more of the veteran players have called it a day since they’ve lost their edge and hunger for endgame. I’ve lost count on the “See you in Cataclysm!” farewells I’ve taken recently, to bloggers as well as to guildies.

Cataclysm. The one and only answer to all our wishes. Or fears– what if it doesn’t deliver?

However I’ve got some good news for you people! You don’t have to wait for Cataclysm to get your world turned upside down. There’s a Cataclysm available right in front of you.

You can get out of your comfort zone and make something different. Scary, I know! But it makes you good.

Ixobelle wrote one of the most inspiring posts I’ve seen in a long time about his ventures into PvPing. This is a completely new world to him, and initially he lost every single match, pretty clueless about what he was doing. But somehow he managed to disregard of the natural resistance we all have against doing new things, which require us to actually make an effort and learn something. And the reward wasn’t just that he eventually started to win a few games. The main reward was that he about got the spark back:

“We're embracing the fact that we have no idea what we're doing, and having fun learning this new system.”

My RP Cataclysm
Ixobelle found his Cataclysm in PvP. Tamarind found his switching to Alliance. I think I've found my Cataclysm in my recent RP adventures at Argent Dawn.

It’s new. It’s a learning process. And it’s scary as hell. Most of the time I’m more or less paralyzed by stage freight. Saying anything aloud in character gives me butterflies in my tummy. I guess it challenges the obsession I have with being good at whatever I do in real life as well as in WoW. Now I have to practice accepting that Larísa sometimes suck at things and that it isn’t such a big deal.

Take this little true story, which took place a late night this weekend. I was out questing in company with another tauren RP noob, when we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of some sort of event in a stronghold. We were facing an entire guild of high levelled players from the Alliance, who seemingly were patrolling the premises in set patterns. It would have been hard to tell them from NPCs, if it wasn’t for that they did “strange gestures” to us now and then.

We were puzzled and didn’t quite know what to do not to mess with their activities. Could we just keep killing the guards, pretending that we were alone on the spot? Would they think badly about us if we did? Maybe we should rather flag ourselves for PvP so they could finish us off? Suddenly the concept of PvP-RP made sense to me. Why would they just stand there, doing nothing, as we defeated the useless guards?

In the end we decided to complete our quest as quickly as possible, and then moved away, still confused, but at the same time excited. It’s a part of a game we’ve never seen before.

The Gnomish Rally
Another memorable recent event was the SAN Campaign for Gnomish Rights. Never ever had I imagined myself spending almost two hours on walking between the gnome starting area and Ironforge at half speed, enjoying every second of it.

Not once did I think about xp/hour, gold/hour or other stupid measures of efficency. The most threatening creature I killed that day was a yellow-flagged level 6 boar (we were hungry, so we no choice). I talked to the king, I had a swim in the public fountain, I got pretty drunk and I disregarded of most of the orders of our beloved captain Maximilian. I was absolutely immersed into it, since RP:ing can require just as much of your attention as any raid encounter.

In short: I had more fun and giggled more than I have done in a very, very long time. Because, as Ixobelle puts it, it's good to rock the boat. (For a more detailed recount, there’s an abundance of posts about this already, as you could expect from a guild of bloggers.)

Finding your Cataclysm
This post wouldn’t be complete without a message. I have a suggestion to all endgame players out there, all of you who are suffering from end-of-expansion apathy, all of you who have completed your full tier sets, never want to see another frost emblem, all of you who think you have seen and done it all.

Don’t waste your time doing the same things you’ve always done, or even worse, making circles in Dalaran!

Go out and make your own Cataclysm happen! You don’t have to wait for the expansion. It’s already available.

PS Regardless of my RP adventures, my main interest in WoW is still raiding and as you can see from this post, my guild Adrenaline has lost a few players recently. Because of this we have a few spots open. If you are an EU player who is enthusiastic about ICC raiding at a challenging level, we might be a good fit. Check it out.

Findings on The Other Side of The WoW Galaxy

Mulgore.

The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of Larísa. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where... ahem, actually quite a few players have gone before. But not Larísa.

Welcome to the second chapter in the story about my recent expedition to Argent Dawn. The last few days my world has been turned upside down:

1. I’ve gone horde
Ever since I rolled at AD, I’ve been more or less constantly lost, involuntarily exploring every corner of Thunder Bluff without really finding what I was looking for. The NPC directions don’t cut it in a multi-level city. Basically I guess it’s a defense mechanism to keep allies from stealing our fires. I just wonder if I’ll ever learn. Since I still fail to find my way out of Exodar, I’m quite pessimistic.

2. I've found that I'm a tauren at heart
I’m a cow! Or maybe I should rather say: tauren. Cow sounds a tad pejorative, and that’s the least I want to be. It’s odd how quick your perspective can change; I used to consider tauren just huge and ugly, something I’d never consider to roll myself. But then I put the blood elf I first rolled at AD on rest and got myself a mighty tauren druid, and now I’m on the other side of the fence. Tauren are at the same level of awesomeness as gnomes. Whatever they lack in sexiness, they make up for in soulfulness and personality. Without knowing it, I’ve always had a tauren inside me, just waiting to be let out in full freedom. This is a homecoming.

3. I’ve been confronted with RP
I knew it was an RP server I rolled to, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to me that people actually are roleplaying around me. Yet I’m fascinated but also quite intimidated by it. It isn't going on constantly in every corner (players are complaining about the lack of it in /general, longing back for the good old days), but sometimes I see players talking in character, using /say right in front of me.

I've never experienced anything like it before and it makes me nervous. What if they expect me to do something in character? What if I fail? What if I offend someone by saying something that doesn’t match with the general agreement on lore, or that doesn’t follow the role playing guidelines? I don’t feel confident enough to start acting like me. Is it OK to silently watch what other players are doing? I’m the butterfly on the wall, invisible, observing, thinking. Does that make me a leech and a slacker in the eyes of the true RP:ers? I enjoy the efforts of other players, not adding anything to it myself. I might do it one day though. Just give a beginner some time, OK?

4. I've realized that a bit of slacking makes me good
I know this probably sounds a bit weird, but every since I started to raid, some 2.5 years ago, my playing has always been extremely goal oriented. Everything has always been about the next goal to reach, the next challenge to beat, how to improve myself and my character.

And I still love it! My gaming heart will always beat for high-end raiding. I’ve got a competitive mindset and I’m addicted to the thrills, to feel the adrenaline flowing in my veins, to see the team come together and make it happen. I love to bang my head against a wall, then pull myself together and just do it. It’s not the loot that is the reward; it’s the sense of accomplishment and reaching your goals.

But for all my love of this side of Warcraft, there’s also another side of the game that I’ve been neglecting ever since I started raiding, namely slacking. The hanging-around, talking to interesting, witty and geeky people, just because they're there and for some reason seem to not mind your presence - chances are that they even like you a bit. The activity of doing nothing particular, exploring or trying out silly stuff for giggles.

I never realized how much I’ve missed this until I set my foot on Argent Dawn. As the insight dawned upon me (no pun intended), it was so strong and sudden that my eyes flooded. Here’s the story:

Larísa's tears
The Larísa-starts-crying incident took place a late Saturday night, my normal out-of-scheduled-raids gaming time, when the rest of the family either are going to sleep or doing things on their own. The night is free, at my own disposal.

Any ordinary Saturday you would probably have found Larísa hanging around in Ironforge, eagerly following the /trade chat to see if there was any 10-man raid going on that she could tag along. She would see the time pass, adding up to hours, and slowly she would become more and more frustrated and disappointed. Eventually she would give up and run a couple of 5-man pugs, just to comfort herself. She would get yet another few frost emblems she didn’t need anymore. And that would be it. She wouldn’t giggle once.

This Saturday however, I logged in at my home realm just for a couple of minutes, saying “hi” and “good luck” to a group of guildies who were currently working on downing Algalon. But instead of hanging around, waiting for something to happen, a brilliant pug miraculously appearing out of nowhere, I decided to switch to my tauren alter ego at Argent Dawn.

I took her up where I had left her, in some smallish village and I set out to do some questing, as I tried to keep up with the guild chat (which indeed is busy, to say the least, bloggers and blog readers are a rather talkative sort of people, just so you know.)

Suddenly I got a whisper from nowhere. It turned out to be huge tauren druid, wondering if I wanted a ride on his mammoth to Thunder Bluff, an offer I declined, sinde my plan was to keep questing.

This guy didn’t take a “no” for an answer though, so he ended up as my private driver. This ride didn’t only go to every spot I needed for completing my quests, but he also took me on a sightseeing, showing me all of his favorite spots in the zone, places where you could just sit down, relax, enjoying the landscape. Every now and then he stopped to let out a warcry. “Sometimes there are others around who will answer it”, he explained to me.

The mighty tauren (dressed too look cool rather than to kill stuff efficiently), became the first of the non-SAN guilded inhabitants of Argent Dawn to enter my friends list. And as I added him, I cried silently, as I realized that it had been about 2.5 years since the last time I made friends with a player I randomly had run into. I suppose there were opportunities on the way, I just didn’t have time to notice them, blindly rushing to grind the next tier piece.

Taking the day as it comes
I’ve walked this road for so long now. I've killed so many creatures - 163 499 to be exact, since they added the statistics feature. I've downed so many raid bosses (566, only counting WotLK.) I've seen so many players come and go.

Somewhere on the way I lost the curious glimpse in my eyes. I lost the ability to just let things happen to me, taking the day as it comes, rather than optimizing it, using every available gaming minute to improve my character.

Don’t read me wrong: I still love the themepark. But no matter how cool and exciting the roller coaster is - sometimes you need to get out of the wagon. Azeroth isn't just a bunch of set scripts, reacting to your key pressings. It's also a stage where anything can happen.

My exploration of those strange new worlds has only begun.

Encounter at Argent Dawn

”Hi sexy”

It came out of nowhere, in pink letters, which indicated it was a whisper. Clearly this was intended for me.

For a moment I was confused. How came that someone called me sexy? My gnome appearance is no doubt cute, but I don’t think anyone ever heard the epithet “sexy”.

Then I realized that this version of Larisa, actually wasn’t a pink pigtailed gnome, but a blood elf chick. And yeah, I suppose they look kind of sexy, at least that’s what they’re designed to be.


The new blogosphere guild
I think I could be excused for my rather slow pace in grasping the situation. After all it took place only a few seconds after I had spawned at Argent Dawn (EU). In this very moment I had only one single thought in my head: to execute my plan to look up Tam’s alt, joining the brand new blogosphere guild Single Abstract Noun.

I was still a bit upset and annoyed after finding out at the creation screen that Larisa with a normal “i, as well as Larísa, with an the emergency accent, were occupied, just as Larissa. I guess it’s the effect of having a highly populated server. Lots of players need lots of names.

Finally I had come up with the bizarre spelling Larïsa, which I knew would be annoying for anyone wanting to put me on their friends list. But I didn’t see any alternative but to insert those stupid dots. I couldn’t possibly let go of my online alter ego in a guild that was so connected to my life as a blogger.

There was other stuff going on contributing to my confusion. A yellow question mark was calling for my attention right in front of me. And Blizzard’s crash course, introducing the interface to new players messed up with some addons that randomly had spawned all over the screen.

So maybe it wasn’t so strange that it took me a while to find myself and localize the the guy who had approached me, a rather handsome looking blood elf.

How to react?
Suddenly I recalled where I was. Squee! Argent Dawn is an RP realm. Finally, after all this hesitating and the mumblings about wanna-try-one-day from the closet, I had taken the scary step. This was the real thing. Maybe this was the normal state of things here? Maybe there’s a lot more interaction going on between players here than there is on my normal PvE home realm? At least I liked to think there was. And I asked myself if there was some sort of social conventions that I was supposed to follow.

I fell into deep contemplation. How should your character react when someone calls you sexy? Maybe I should blush a little, or even flirt a bit? Or… probably not. After all I didn’t know this guy at all. Certainly a rude gesture and a slap on the chin would be more natural?

But before I had come anywhere near taking a decision, the caller had vanished, and I found myself smiling into the air.

Cosy and chatty
I shrugged, did a /who Single and found what I was looking for. Shortly after I was let into the cosiest little guild I’ve ever encountered. Bloggers are a special kind. They may appear shy, preferring thinking and writing to socializing. But put them in the right company and they’ll suddenly turn out chatty. They just can’t shut up.

When I saw a character in the guild list – currently offline, but nevertheless - named “Tobold” in the guild, I all but fainted. Tobold – a guildie of mine? Wow. Is this for real? Is this THE Tobold? “We think so”, came the answer.

Since Wednesdays basically are gaming free nights for me, I only stayed online five minutes. Still it was some damned good minutes, filled with giggles, happy greetings and a general cosiness that is hard to describe. It was a homecoming, an in-game version of The Pink Pigtail Inn is the best description I can give. (As a matter of fact the guild tabard is designed to make you associate to a virtual pub.)

Like for everyone else, this is just a side project. My home and the bulk of my gaming time will remain at Stormrage. But there also are times in the game, outside of the scheduled raids, when I find myself pretty lonely. I guess I’m just not very good at making friends. I can always pug away a few instances with an alt, but it leaves me with an empty feeling. And when this happens, I hope that I might find some likeminded people from the blogosphere to hang out with at Argent Dawn.

And who knows, next time I’m online as Larisa the Bloodelf or maybe Larisa the Tauren or Larisa the Troll – I haven’t yet made up my mind about what class and race to play (please feel free to come with suggestions) – I even might dare to put on my role playing glasses. I’m not ready to force the story-of-my-life upon any stranger I meet – I’m not ready to be in character at all. But maybe I can start out by just listening a little to conversations I may stumble upon, getting an idea of what it’s all about.

Or maybe I’ve got too high expectations on what an RP realm is like?

The future will tell. All I know now is that I’m kind of happy that things messed up for Tamarind so he came around to take this initiative. The worst things that happen to us often turn out to be blessings, leading us to try new paths we never would have thought of else.

Anyway: I've had my first encounter withe Argent Dawn and I'm looking forward to grab the next opportunity to drop by and spend some time with my fellow bloggers and readers.

It came from the bar: Roleplaying or Role Playing?

This is yet another guest post written by Holly from Feathermoon (US). As opposed to the innkeeper, who is a closet wanna-be-one-day role player, Holly does it for real.

The Difference Between Roleplaying and Role playing
What can a simple space mean in the world of roleplaying, at least to a silly little Holly bear? To me it means how serious you are about getting into the role, and what rules you're willing or enjoy breaking. Does your character fit into the world designed, game or not? Do you use out of character knowledge? Is the roleplay dramatic, comedic? Did you stick to the genre, or do something way out in left field?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's a wrong way to roleplay. It's just that depending on your style and seriousness of it, finding a group that accepts and enjoys what you do can do is the real challenge.

My Roleplaying Experience; Old, Older, and Present. No not presents, the present
Since well before joining World of Warcraft, I've often found ways to sneak into a roleplaying community. Sometimes it's erotic, sometimes fantasy, sometimes futuristic, but I've never been short of far too many identities to count. When I found World of Warcraft I started on a normal server (argent dawn, partly because it was the beta server) but soon moved to a roleplaying server (Feathermoon, mmmmm, Feathermoon)

I've hopped guilds a few times, and something that amazes me is the difference in roleplaying style and seriousness from group to group. Sometimes you have to do world RP and guild chat is restricted to out of character talk. Sometimes guild chat is in character and you don't world roleplay much, sometimes you get things like guild chat is in character officer chat is out of character, and then there's the seriousness of the roleplay.

The hardest thing I think when roleplaying is figuring out how much fourth wall you can break, and how much you limit yourself to the game mechanics. I've often found these two things tend to make or break how fun roleplay is. I've made many characters, serious and silly in various guilds, I usually take them from my stories (they're terrible, trust me, you don't want to read them.)

Lately though I've actually found myself in only one roleplaying guild, where the roleplay is so drastically different depending on which characters are on that it's mind boggling, sometimes it's more serious if our resident headmistress mage comes on. Sometimes it's so ridiculously off the wall when our waffle loving moonkin logs in and starts waving her kinetic waffle iron about. And my only real character, a mute, illiterate pallygirl raised by trolls (she's secretly a tauren pally in blood elf disguise***) fits somewhere between the two. I often wonder how I'd do in a more serious roleplaying guild these days.

I'd like to think I'd step up, and really get into character, a beautiful backstory, and not breaking the fourth wall, trying to stick to only in game references and knowledge. But honestly, lately my creative juices for roleplaying have mostly been run dry. The desire to slip into someone else's head is severely lacking and I think both my writing and my roleplaying has suffered greatly because of it.

Seeking Inspiration.
Normally when my creative juices run dry, and my desire to slip into another skin is a little light, life deals me a lemon, and that escape becomes much more desirable, lately though, the lemons I've gotten haven't helped inspired me.

Sometimes I find reading, either blogs, forums, books, magazines, anything I can get my hands on will get me in the writing mood. There's something about seeing words so eloquently written, ideas being converted into language everyone can understand, wonderful descriptions that transport me away from my little 6'x8' room in the middle of nowhere to rolling plains, beautiful skies, raging seas, or intimidating mountains, or climaxes that have you sitting on the edge of your seat, crying desperately in your lover's arms, or feeling a blissful moment lost in more wonderful thought, that can really get my creative juices flowing. I wish half the time I could write a tenth as well as some of the people I read (resident innkeeper included.) Lately though I've found my lack of skill at grammar and my usually generic ideas has left me feeling more bitter than creative.

So lately I've been trying to find a new inspiration, fire the old muses and hire a new one. I've been looking up beautiful works of art, to see if a visual muse might help me gain a passion for writing since my ability to draw doesn't extend far beyond stick figures. Because when I get the inspiration to write, I can, by association get the inspiration to get inside characters. I've tried opening myself to new experiences, trying new foods, new shows/movies, expanding my musical knowledge, etc. . . .

I hope to find my own inspiration soon, till then I have found the inspiration to send another post to the sexy gnome who, when she mans or womans the bar, needs a stepladder to see the customers and reach the bottles.

In closing I'd like to ask a few questions, okay?
To those who roleplay often, where do you find your inspiration? What type of roleplay do you enjoy most? Do you roleplay in game, in guild, in a private channel, or away from WoW altogether? Do my grammar and poor language skills make your eyes bleed? If your answer is yes, how do you type so plainly with bleeding eyes? Will I stop asking questions? Will Larisa bap me if I continue in this manner? Do gnomes really make a squishy sound when punted? How is a raven like a writing des-*ow!* Okay, stopping now, how do gnomes swing bar stools that ha-*ow!!!* Really stopping now, Holly over and out.

Finally giving Larísa’s feet some air

After more than 2.5 years I finally let Larísa take off her shoes. It was about time you could say. I dare not even think about the smell that spread around her.

The triggering event was that I gained my Frostsaber mount. This creature is different to most other mounts in the way that it hasn’t got a ton of armor and decorations on it. It’s a plain tiger. And that’s where the beauty of it lies.

While grinding for it, a vision came up in my mind. I wanted to let Larísa have her first ride on it dressed in a similar manner, in a simple but yet beautiful dress, barefeet and free from her duties and free from heavy armor and weapons that she normally drags around.

My choice fell on the Lovely purple dress. It was such a perfect match with the white/purple shimmering mount and the distinctively pink pigtails.

The inventory became rather cramped as I took off any visible gear, just keeping a couple of rings, trinkets and a wand equipped, since they weren’t viewable anyway.
And you know what? I was surprised at the fuzzy feeling I got in my stomach as I saw Larísa happily taking off, so beautiful, so relaxed, really living up to her title “Merrymaker”.

Secret roleplayer
I guess it was another hint from the secret wanna-be-roleplayer I nourish inside. This was something I realized as I shortly after this read a passage at Too Many Annas in a post where she gave the basics about role playing:

Would you want to sit around in a park with your friends while wearing an entire suit of armor and padding, unable to bend half way? I know I wouldn’t! So Aely usually wears pants, a shirt, and a vest, with some leather boots when she’s just “hanging out” – simply because as a /person/, it makes more sense. (Even Knights from the Medieval era didn’t wear armor 24/7)

Even if I’m not into RP, I must say that makes sense to me. I can’t help feeling a bit silly though for not thinking about it earlier. As far as I can remember it happened once before. I remember letting Larisa taking off her shoes, enjoying some relaxed fishing in Hinterlands after an especially crappy raid night. I also think I put on a festive dress when we had our guild anniversary. But apart from those occasions, Larísa has been decked out in equipment intended for warfare. Day after day, week after week, year after year. She hasn’t had any vacation ever. She even sleeps in her uniform!

Switching gear
One reason for this is that I’ve never gotten into the habit of switching my whole gearset. If you’re playing a hybrid, you’re probably used to carry around several sets, and you’ve been using wardrobe addons for years to manage it smoothly. You’re also probably pretty good at keeping your bags clean to make place for all those different sort of clothes.

Playing a mage is a different thing, especially if you like me don’t have a complete PvP set. Sure, I’m dual specced and I’ll certainly change a few pieces if I’m switching from arcane to fire or if the hit rating needs vary depending on the group. But most of the time I’m wearing the same thing. It was only thanks to my adventures into druid levelling that I became aware of the new standard gear change feature in the default UI.

Suddenly one day the insight reached me that as long as I keep my bags fairly tidy, I should be able to redress Larísa entirely with just a simple click.

I don’t have to do the tedious task to move item after item individually to the inventory and then back again, afraid that I’ll miss something. OK, I’ll have to do it once, when I create the new gear set, but when it’s done it’s done.

In real life I prefer to walk barefeet when I get home from work, changing my clothing for something more comfortable. And with the new support in the UI, I really can’t blame my laziness any more for not letting Larísa relax, taking off the dirty and uncomfortable warfare uniform when she’s not actively fighting the enemy.

Disadvantages
There is still one little problem connected to it. Even if I from an RP perspective would like Larísa to go to sleep in a pyjama as I log out for the night, it doesn’t quite work with my raiding ambitions.

Logging out in Lovely Purple dress didn’t go unnoticed in armory. And this meant that my gear score fell from 617 to 52 at Be Imba. Not that impressive if you’re trying to find a pug and someone is making a check on you. And it will definitely mess things up for you if I try to run an updated optimization check in Rawr.

So my solution will probably be a compromise. I’ll give Larísa’s feet some air while she’s fishing, crafting or making deals at AH. But she’s doomed to keep spending her nights dressed in full armor. Smelly or not.

How to make an unforgettable guild anniversary

Are you lucky enough to be in a guild which in the position to celebrate anniversaries? Then you’re in a minority. According to a study by the Daedalus project 64 percent of the players have been in their guild one year or less.

Considering how it looks in the forums and guild recruitment channel I’d say that the real figures are much worse than that. Many guilds seem to be more or less glorified PUGs, surviving for a couple of weeks or months at the best.

But there are exceptions and my guild is one of those. The other day we celebrated that it was one year since Adrenaline was born. And what a celebration it was! I’ve actually never seen anything like it. In this rather lengthy post I thought I should write something useful for once, sharing the concept in case some other guild would like to try it out.

So: I proudly present you The Adrenaline Anniversary Scavenger Hunt of 2009! This is how to make it.

What it was all about
The officers had been very secretive about the whole arrangement; although it was apparent they had been planning it for weeks. All we knew was that we were supposed to sign up in time as we do for any normal raid, with the difference that there was a spot for everyone.

To begin with we were told to head for the Temple of Storms, where we lined up at the top circle. The officers handed out wrapped packages, one for each of us. At a given moment we were told to open them. It turned out that they contained shirts of different colours, which we were supposed to put on. Looking for other players with the same colour we formed 3-man teams. Every team had a vent channel of their own at their disposal for the night.

Next thing that happened was that we were provided with a web link and asked to check it out. At the page we found five “clues” in the form of poems. If we figured out the meaning of them, each one would lead us to a “quest giver”, standing some unknown spot in Azeroth. Those quest givers where in fact guild officers, using their secret alts. They acted very nicely in character, both in says and emotes. And they also gave us different sorts of tasks, most of them about getting certain objects. When we turned them in we got keywords in return.

When we had learned all the words we whispered them to a named officer. He gave us another riddle leading to his position. On finding him we were given another clue to lead us to the last quest giver of the night (our bald gnome guild leader, which explains some of the lines in the clue).

The team that first reached him was the winning team of the night. Once this was settled, the general hunt was off and the whole guild joined at the meeting point in Crystal Forest (since Dalaran had turned out to be too laggy). The winners were given a final quest where they were to compete with each other. The one who collected the requested items and was first to return was the winner of the night.

While they were gone the rest of us kept dancing, playing with all sorts of vanity gear (finally a good reason for filling your bank slots with that kind of crap) and generally having a nice time. We were definitely in a festive mood.

On returning the winners were generously rewarded, standing in Moonstone spotlights: frostweave bags for the members of the winning team and a rare pet for the guy that won the whole competition. Some “fun” awards were also handed to teams that had excelled in different ways, such as committing suicide in order to find a graveyard or being completely clueless and renounce of sense of direction.

A few fireworks and some music on vent completed the night.

The rules we followed

To make the event fun and give all teams the same chance to win, some rules were given. The officers kept an eye on us, sneaking into our vent channels silently listening to what was going on, having a laugh at our struggles. As far as I can tell no one broke against this code of conduct:

• Quests must be done by the entire group. You may split up to collect items but you must all be present at both collection and turn in of your task at each checkpoint.
• You must not communicate with other groups.
• There will be no use of 2nd accounts.
• All quests must be completed to progress (you cannot simply get lucky by guessing keywords).
• Certain class abilities will be banned as it is impossible to balance teams around them:
  Mage Portals
  Warlock Summons and "Gate" ability
  Paladin Crusader
  AuraHunter
  Pathfinding Talent
  Deathknight Unholy Presence and On a Pale Horse Talent
  Aspect of the Pack/Cheetah (which can effect certain “vehicular” mounts)
  Astral Recall or items of similar effect
  
• Flying mounts can be used in zones that permit them.
• You may use the internet and should watch for clues in /say and various emotes along the way.
• Hint - A pen and paper is probably a good idea to have handy and you will need some bag space, so come prepared
• Once in your groups and away, please nominate a group leader to hand in any quest items/be vocal for the group.
• If you are asked to find a BoP item for a specific quest, when turning it in it is enough to simply place it in the “will not be traded” section of the trade window so that the person at the checkpoint can check it.
• You must turn Cartographer off for the duration please.
  

The manuscript
If you’d like to do something like this on your own, you could of course create new clues and quests. But if you don’t want to put all that work in it, feel free to get inspiration from the ones that Adrenaline used as posted below. I’ve connected each clue with the quest that was given out at the secret spot. Mind you, since we didn’t get the quests until at the arrival at the quest giver, the riddles were harder to us to solve than they are when you’re reading them in this form.

Clue 1:
I heard about Nooble gnome
searching for a home.
Beyond the mushrooms,
not far from Ogre paradise
he found it
and rested in peace.

Quest 1:
zzZZzzzzz....?I was asleep and still feel sleepy. Can you please bring me some [black coffee] to feel awake. Andsomething hot to eat, [ravager dog] is my favorite food lately. Do not think you can find coffee herein town, but it should be in the city.

Clue 2:
From the lion's pride now ride
To seek the Naked Bride
Within the pool of tears she cried!
She's hidden well unless
You make the proper guess
And spot her nonetheless!
Speed now and do not wait
To aid her in her fate
Or it will be too late!
Cross country through the wooden halls
until you hear her desperate calls:
She's waiting where the mirror falls.

Quest 2:
Help Deedlit get her wedding dress back! And while you're at it, organize some more things for the wedding:
-1 Dark Green Wedding Hanbok
-1 Wedding Gift wrapped in RedRibboned Wrapping Paper.
-1 Witness who will bystand the wedding ceremony. This person can be any random player who is not a member of the guild.

Return to Deedlit with all 3 items to complete the quest and receive your reward.

Clue 3:
You'll find her in her element,
Surrounded by death and decay.
In a land of the Myconid she is found,
In a location where they thrive.
Amongst the Brutes of the Portal lands.

Quest 3:
Go to UB and get me:
- 1 Sanguine Hibiscus
- 5 fish scales
- 1 glowcap

Clue 4:
If things are looking difficult and bleak,
it is my knowledge you need to seek.
Find me in a rainy and solemn woodenland,
watching the falling of hourglass sand.
Standing in the cold wind has made me stiff,
comes from standing on one of the 2 tallest cliffs.
In Kalimdor, find me on the top of one of the twins
where I'm serving my days and repenting my sins.“

Quest 4:
So, yah useless scum found me, I ain't be partin with me words that easily! If yah want me words show me an egg from dah annoyin hippogryph birdies.. Oh and Im real hungry, bring mesome bean soup, this place just aint smelling right.

Clue 5:
„It was a horrible journey through the middle of nowhere. Animals of all kind attacking me on the sandy roads. Crocodiles, tigers and spiders wanted to eat me raw.
I met a man, his name was Mister Biggs. I asked him where I could find a warm place to dry and rest. He sent me to this direction, a "dry" place he said... On my way there I almost drowned in the deep waters. But I made it, I have found a small place to rest. The only thing missing is the warmth, and it takes forever to dry my clothes too! Find me and bring me a bottle of Moonshine! Then create a campfire to warm my hands and unfreeze my lips so I can talk to you.“

Quest 5:
Do me a few favours, as reward you will get a code word that can be used for your further journey:

My shoes are so soaked and my feet so cold, could you please go inside and find me a new pair of boots, any boots will do as long as they are dry. Boots always come with a matching purse, I have heard that the oozes drop a fine oozebag that can match any pair of boots.

My last request is to bring me 20 mageweave cloth, found inside the walls of this Temple, so I can knit my own blanket to keep myself warm for the rest of my journey. Go now and return to me asap with my requests!

Clue to the hidden officer:
To continue on your quest you need but to find me. I am in the forests of the nocturnal elves, north of the border to a vale ashen. At a place where a master is said to have killed an elder.

Clue to the final quest giver:
Leaders come in many guises,
different colours, different sizes.
Bald yours is and to find him, well,
you need to seek where Magi dwell.
A challenge awaits the quickest team,
a final chance for us to deem
a valiant winner, flying high.
Find me monkeys, in the Crystalsong

The last challenge:
"Well done you three, you made it this far as a team, now you become individuals out to claim the top prize. You shall now be involved in a flat race against your teamamtes to collect 5 itemsand return them to me here at Antonidas' Memorial.

I shall shortly pass you a list of items to collect for me. Please wait until I give you the signal to start""- A set of Worn Mag'hari Gauntlets from Bartleby Armorfist at Valgarde in Howling Fjord
- A Zweihander from Scabbard at Ebon Watch in Zul'Drak
- A Gnomeregan Doublet from Broxel Goldgrasp at the Argent Tournament
- A Winterfin Clam from Borean Tundra
- A Blackbone Wand from Dalormi at Wyrmrest Temple inDragonblight”

Concluding thoughts
The officers had obviously spent an insane amount of time and effort in creating this event for us. Still they admitted afterwards that they were slightly nervous about the outcome. How would this guild of dedicated (a nicer word for addicted) raiders receive a very social, casual and lighthearted event like this? Would some players be pissed off that we “wasted” one of our raiding nights, a night when we probably would have had another shot at Yogg-Saron? There wasn’t much reward in it – no dkp, no badges, no tier pieces. How much did people care?

But it didn’t take long before it was clear that they needn't have worried. We loved every single second of this magic night.

How come? Well, apart from some very special first kills, many raid nights mix up in a sort of blur when you think back at them. We certainly enjoy most of them, but it’s hard to tell one from each other after a while. This on the other hand was one of those nights that glue the guild together, one of those shared experiences we’ll remember and talk about for long.

Do I need to tell you that we have huge expectations on our upcoming second anniversary?



Edit: For a more personal account about what those events looked like, have a look at the commented photo album that one of our officers put together. My group unfortunately never made it to this very quest giver before the hunt was over, in case you're wondering why you don't see much of Larísa there.

What you (don't) need to know about mages

It’s time for another shared topic from Blog Azeroth, the wonderful source of inspiration and comfort and information for all WoW bloggers out there, this time suggested by Flux.

The heading for the week made me sigh a little bit though, I must admit. I can’t help I feel that I’ve seen articles on this subject a little too many times to get that kick of curiosity from it. Most of them seem to be written in an ambition to educate stupid, ignorant players, trying to make them treat you better, to behave. You can sort of feel the anger, frustration or at least the tiredness between the lines.

When it comes to mages the posts usually bring up things like:

• sheeping (don’t dot them, if you spank them – tank them)
• drinking (don’t rush off to the next pull, let us gain some mana first or we won’t be able to do our job)
• portals (no, we can’t make any portal at once, so don’t ask for a portal to Shatt from a level 20 mage. And they’re NOT for free, we pay for the runes ourselves and the training’s pretty expensive, so a little bit of tipping would be appreciated)
• food (making manna bisquets actually cost us some mats that we need to carry around, it’s got a cd and you need people to help you. Bread and water cost too – they cost TIME and mages really want to play the game just like everyone else, we don’t play it in order to become vendor machines)

Etc. You know the drill.

But let’s turn the perspective for once. Is it necessary always, in every single situation, better if everybody knows the basics about every class?

In a raiding situation the answer is obvious: yes. Raiding as such is so challenging that there is no reason to make it harder by being ignorant. It’s most of all a team effort and it’s impossible to work well as a team without some basic knowledge about other classes.

But for players who don’t raid - couldn’t it be fun to become surprised? To see other players and classes just like blank, unwritten sheets of paper – you have no idea what to expect from them. For instance in a role playing environment – imagine you’re duelling someone, you can tell he or she has some magic powers, but you’re not quite sure what those powers are – if you risk to be sheeped, feared or otherwise possessed by them. You have no idea about their weak points – that’s something you’ve got to figure out for yourself, by trial and error.

What if mages could turn into quite mystic guys, with superior intellect and secret knowledge that we refuse to share with anyone but other mages? Wouldn’t it be pretty cool to give another kind of answer (said in a deep, mystic voice) the next time someone ask you to inform them about mages:

“Stay away. The less you know the better. This knowledge was only meant for mages.”

Warcraft novels – crap and pleasure

The other week I went on vacation, spending a week on the beach. But actually I spent a couple of days in the Warcraft universe as well – even though I was completely offline. For the first time in my life I read a couple of Warcraft novels.

Until recently I honestly didn’t know those books existed. It was when I was doing some last minute book shopping for my trip that my eyes fell on those titles on the sf/fantasy shelf in the local book store. Afterwards I realized my picking was rather random. As a matter of fact I didn’t have anything to choose between – there were just two titles, both written by Richard A Knaak. There seem to be some more Warcraft writers around and quite a few books, but this was what I found in my little shop. In the hurry I thought I had got part 1 and part 2 from a trilogy. It turned out that I was wrong – the first one, Day of the Dragon (first published 2001) was from another trilogy than the second book, The Demon Soul (from 2004), which turned out to be the middle part of The War of the Ancients trilogy. Well. Things happen. Actually it didn’t matter much. Some of the main characters appear in both and I got the hang of the plot pretty fast anyway, so the only thing I really regretted was not having access to part three in the War of the Ancients series.

I guess there are a lot of connoisseurs out there who know a great deal more about the Warcraft novels than I do, so you’ll probably think I’m quite stupid and unknowing, but I’ll use my blogger privilege and write about my experiences from reading those books anyway.

First of all – the whole concept felt a bit weird. I may be a bit old and conservative, but when I grew up you usually first read the book. Then you saw a movie based on the book. If you had read the book first you’d probably get disappointed since you had all the pictures in your head and the movie rarely could live up to it, with all it’s limitations when it came to special effects as well as the very short format. No matter how great job you do with the movie you always have to kill the darlings… (like Tom Bombadill who sadly but necessarily disappeared in the Lord of the Rings movies, which I by the way think were excellent on the whole.)

And after the movie you would read the cartoons and play the games and the toys and wear the clothes and chew the bubblegum… you know. But the book was always the original, which everything else came from.

Now the world seem to have turned upside down and for the first time in my life I’m reading a novel where the cover tells me it’s based on a game. Mind you, I don’t complain about it, but it makes me realize how different it is nowadays. And that’s for good. Why couldn’t a game be the artistic original and the book a sort of copy? When you think about it.

Secondly: what did I think about it? Was it worth the money and time I spend on them? Well, to be honest, those books aren’t the best examples of fantasy I’ve read in my life. If you’d compare them to the classic, recognized fantasy eposes I think they’re meagre, written in haste by a very, very productive writer. They lack depth, especially when it comes to portraying people – they’re all sort of plain, flat and show up a lot of clichés. The language isn’t beautiful or original in any way and the plot doesn’t make me go wild. History is told rather clumsily in longue ranting parts sometimes. That’s the negative side of it.

BUT (here comes the twist)

I loved to read them! I really did and I don’t regret reading them at all, on the contrary. It’s just that it’s unfair to compare them as fantasy books to other fantasy books – because they aren’t – you could rather see them as companions to the game, the extra material you’ll find in any good dvd box.

I must confess that I’ve never until now been able to understand much of the lore until now, to conquer it and make it to a part of my own game experience. I don’t know why, but I found the descriptions in the manual that accompanied the game when I first bought it rather boring. I was eager to start playing and didn’t pay much attention to the glorious passed of the dwarves or whatever it spoke of. And once in the game I read at least some of the quest texts and dialogues properly, but I found it hard to put anything into my memory and to get the full picture of it. The world was too confusing, the game so huge and new, that I couldn’t grab that side of it too.

Of course there are an abundance of websites where I could catch up. Wowwiki would be a great start. Whenever I’m looking up tactics on the next raid boss I tend to come to the lore department by mistake, but then I’m usually in a hurry, so I quickly go forward to the strategy part of it. When it comes to reality I’ve never taken myself the time, and reading huge chunks of text on a screen isn’t really enjoyable.

Those books offers a solution – they’re far more accessible to me than heavy websites. By reading those novels, no matter how crappy written they were, I can now see the game from a slightly different point of view. Even though I’m not actually roleplaying, it’s quite a lot more interesting to go and take down a raid boss if you can think that you’re actually part of an ongoing war, and know what’s he been up to so far, and what this event actually is about. If you just ignore the lore altogether, I sometimes get the feeling that we’re rather technically trying to beat a PC-game just like Pacman or Lemmings, just a bit more technical. If you get the difference.

Especially the book from 2004, The Demon Soul, made me happy and excited. I was reading about how they were defending Mount Hyjal, where I hope to go very soon (typically I missed the guild-first kill of Rage Winterchill the other week when I was on vacation.) I’ve followed how Illidan grew up and I know why he turned evil. And my server, Stormrage, turned out to be named after his twin brother, a nightelf druid – I had no idea about that before! Maybe everyone else does, but I didn’t, noob as I am. Now that I’ve met Archimond in the battlefield through the eyes of this young druid, I just can’t wait to see him in the game as well.

Of course it’s a bit disappointing that no gnomes whatsoever appeared in the novels (I guess there are historical reasons for that which I’m still unknowing of). But there are mages! And trust me, there’s something special to read about how they counterspell stuff, conjure food, mount their gryphons and do other things you recognize from the game.

Everything in the game becomes a bit bigger and more amazing after reading the books. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. The game can be just as thrilling as we want it to be. For instance you can chose to see the flying from point A to B, not just as another boring waiting for the next fight, but as a thrilling, dangerous journey, like in the books.

My conclusion is: if you ever like me stumble on those novels – give it a chance – for what it is: companions which can add a lot of pleasure to our beloved game – even though they may not be the greatest fantasy novels ever written.

Roleplaying in the closet

Could there be a little roleplaying creature living inside of me, just waiting to be let out?

Sometimes I think about it. What would have happened if my sister hadn't been playing on a normal PvE realm when she talked me into starting playing? I only did as I was told - rolled an alliance character on a certain EU server. If she had told me to start out on a RPPvP server as a horde I would just have obeyed since I didn't have a clue about what kind of game I wanted to play.

Until this very day I haven't played Larísa in any other way than just like the average PvE player. Even though I may be a little more sentimental about my char than many other players I know - for instance I would never dream of logging out Larísa being dead or unrepaired, and for a long time I always tried to make her go to sleep in a decent bed - you can't say I really play her in character.

I've never even tried to invent a story for her. The only time she actually is acting like a character it's passively, when the script makes it happen - like when the ogre masses bowed and celebrated her as a queen after completing the Ogrila quests to open up for the dailies. (I've always loved any dialogue where NPCs actually address me with my name).

Still I can't help being a bit curious. Maybe I could become a closet roleplayer from time to time, just like Eye for an Eye, who recently wrote about his experiments in this area. Playing in a normal raiding guild on a PvE server, he has been sitting in his chamber, trying to put together some kind of story or information about his character. He's tried out two different ways to do it - one by just putting together a little story about his char - where he comes from and what he's up to - the other one by using a kind of form that he had found on a RP Forum.

This post is actually quite inspiring. It revealed to me that you don't have to put up a black-or-white-attitude towards role playing. Even if you're in an environment where it would look a bit odd to act in character, there's nothing that stops you from enhancing your own gaming experience by using your imagination. It dawned upon me that while pulling all those trash mobs in a raid instance you could very well think about what brought your character to this situation, what she feels and thinks about it - and not only about boss strategies, possible upgrades or your current position on the dmg list.

Lately I've been starting to think a little about the former life of Larísa, trying to find some kind of story that would fit the kind of activities I usually take part in when I'm playing. I can't say that it's easy - on the contrary. The main challenge I think is to find up something that feels the slightest original, and not just like another copy of all the long time ago worn out clichés from the fantasy genre.

I'm not an easy judge to please. So far everything I've come up with has been classified as "rubbish", "seen it a thousand times" and "too plain and predictable". So that's why I have no inclination whatsoever to share it with anyone else, not even the readers of Larísa's Corner. Not yet at least. Maybe one day I'll be ready to share some stories - if anyone will bother to listen - but for the time being I'll keep investigating the life of Larísa in secrecy, for my own pleasure, roleplaying all on my own in a locked closet. That's probably the right place to start anyway.