Tickled Pink: Music from the Hearts of Warcraft

This is the final Tickled Pink post. Under this label the staff at the PPI used to give different perspectives on a topic that had tickled our minds. Since Elnia has quit there won't be anymore posts in this series. However, before leaving, Elnia sent me a last idea for a Tickled post. He never finished his part, but since I’ve done mine I could as well publish it. So here we go, tickled one last time!

Tickled Pink
The music is an integral part of Warcraft. From the choral chants of “Lamb of God” while in ghost form, to the swelling chords of Stormwind City, to the soulful punk of the new Icecrown Citadel music transforms the playing experience. In fact, the Blizzard developers have stated that half the size of recent patches is taken up by sound files alone. So what music leaves you Tickled Pink?

Larísa: To be honest I’ve missed out a lot of the music in WoW, if not most of it. There are several reasons for this. One is my former wreck of a computer, with its horrendous lagging. I had to take every possible measure to decrease the strain on the system as I was playing WoW. Apart from putting the graphic settings on a minimum, minimum, this also meant that I had to turn off the music or even the entire game sound, at least as long as I was raiding. It didn’t help much, but it helped a little and every counted.

This problem is gone, and nowadays I can turn on the music as much as I want. But I still miss a lot of it.

Partly I blame my non WoW-playing family members for this. One of the things that annoy them most is when I’m playing with my headset on, since it shields me from taking part in any conversation or noticing when they’re calling on me. When I’m raiding I have to use them, and they accept it since it’s something we’ve agreed on. But at any other time, I try not to use my headset as long as there are people around me. Since the computer is situated in the living room, this is often the case. The more discrete I can be in my playing, the better. So letting the sound come out of the loudspeaker is of definitely out of the question.

But what about the raids then? I surely could listen to the music then, since I have my headset on? Well, I could. But on those occasions I have so many other things to listen to – the instructions and discussions in the vent channel, but also alert sounds coming from a bunch of addons. Even if I do keep the music turned on nowadays, I tend to have it on a very low volume, not to distract me from more important sounds. This means that I don’t notice the music all that much, which probably is a shame.

However, if I was to choose the one piece of music from the game that meant most to me, it wouldn’t be the majestic music from a raid instance. No, it would be the most basic, childish, simple one you could think of: the default music in Elwynn Forest. To me this represents the heart of WoW. It reminds me of my first, innocent, struggling steps in WoW three years ago and it makes me feel cheerful, happy and positive for some reason.

No matter if you’ve had one of those nights when nothing worked the way that you hoped for and you just feel worn out, empty and disappointed. Enter Elwynn Forest, hug a cow, smell a flower, say hello to one of the guards, grab a beer at the inn, listen to the music and remember once again that Azeroth is a wonderful magic fantasy world where anything can happens.

This little melody speaks to me, telling me that there may be heroic deeds to be performed in far distance countries, but in the end every adventurer wants to return one day to the merry, sunny pastures we call “home”.

Tickled pink: Will you participate in the Winter Veil?

He's back! Greatfather Winter has cloned himself and established a Winter Veil camp in Ironforge and Orgrimmar respectively. Goblin vendors are selling rather useless, but probably tasty seasonal brews and we're all asked to go looking for that reindeer, who seems to get lost almost as easily as Corkie. It's the same procedure as last year. Are you tickled at the thought of participating in the Winter Veil event 2009?

Larísa:

I actually never paid much of attention to any world event until Winter Veil hit last year. I didn't bother, since the little rational goblin voice in my head judged them to be rather unnecessary, not offering any upgrades, taking tons of time, giving nothing but bags filled with junk.

When Blizzard introduced the title Merrymaker as an award for completing the Winter Veil quests and a bunch of added achievements, I changed my mindset was changed. In an instant I got turned into one of those sad social casual players; I just KNEW that I had to become Merrymaker Larísa, whatever it would take, no matter of if it was useful or not.

Since the Christmas period generally is rather slow in the game, most guilds putting raiding at a halt due to lack of players online, it turned out not to be as bad as I had imagined; on the contrary I found it to be a pretty fun, lighthearted and entertaining way to spend my hours online. I would definitely rather bribe Greatfather Winter with cookies and milk and look up monks all over the world to toss snowflakes over them than going on a grind. Most of the things I was supposed to do put a smile on my face.

Above all - it was the first time I did everything, so Winter Veil offered the sweet added taste of novelty, which comes with all new content - be it a new kind of quest or a new raid instance. The freshness is the same.

Quick jump forward to this year. Do I get equally excited and happy about Winter Veil, now that I've already done it once before?

Well, I thought I should make an effort to follow the tradition, so I bravely set out on the mission to rescue Metzen and kill that Abominable Greench over again, even though I already had the achievement. And to be honest I wasn't very tickled.

A bit of the charm with those quests last year was to find the creatures - now they're highlighted on the new map interface with built-in questhelper addon. The rewards aren't impressive, the quest design and animations are old-style, not anything of the fancy things introduced in WotLK, and this year I don't even you don't get any achievement flash my screen.

So basically: No, I'm not excited at the quests and achievements.

On the other hand I AM rather delighted at the Winter Veil period as such. I love the decorations everywhere, the atmosphere, the snow balls flying through the air, the Christmas dresses (although Larísa admittedly is freezing in her bikini), the unlimited feeling of childishness and playfulness which don't see that much of for the rest of the year.

I'm also wondering what gifts Greatfather Winter will bring us this year. There have been speculations that it will be something needed to complete the only new achievement, BB King. But I can't stop hoping there's something else. If Ghostcrawler can't give us a pony, what about a new cute vanity pet? I'm tickled at the thought.

Elnia:

I am tickled at in seeing Grandfather Winter again. Growing up, Christmas was always my favorite holiday, not so much because of the food (I liked Halloween candy better) or because of the presents (I can’t remember a single one) but because it seemed to be the only holiday when people were happy.

In Warcraft terms, The Feast of Winter’s Veil is a special time for me because during this feast last year I dinged 60 for the first time. It was also the first Warcraft holiday I participated in because I was not playing the game in September and October of last year. I remember being mildly frustrated because I couldn’t complete the Achievement because I wasn’t high enough level.

For reasons I can’t explain now, I had decided that I wasn’t going to upgrade to the expansion but just cap out at 60. So I actually spent most of the Feast working on the Ambassador title instead, which I achieved on Christmas Eve. My Christmas present to myself was to be one of the first Night Elves on my server to have the Mechanostrider, which has been my land mount ever since. I still remember getting whispers about how I must have hacked the game.

The result is that I am tickled pink to finally, after an entire year, have the Merrymaker title. The first day I rushed out to drop the bombs, kiss the revelers, and defeat the Horde with a little helper from my friends. It took me about three hours total to get it all done but I am pleased indeed. I do not have a violet drake yet but in my own way I can talk about what a long strange trip it’s been.

Last year at this time I wasn’t even planning on playing to 80, and I never would have dreamed it would take me six months to go another 20 levels. I never would have dreamed that I’d meet Larisa and that I’d start writing for a blog. Never would have imagined I’d get involved in the gold game and now have so much gold I don’t know what to do with it.

A long strange trip indeed. One that has left me feeling tickled pink.

Tickled Pink: Pop Culture References

Warcraft certainly has it deeper side but one thing that makes the game enchanting is that it has moments that make one laugh out loud. There are lots of “in-jokes” in the game and sly pop culture references. Which one has left you feeling Tickled Pink?

Elnia

Oh! It’s so hard to chose! Certainly the most recent example of this happened just last week. I was working on the Wrathgate quest line minding my own business when I arrive at the quest to kill Thel'zan the Duskbringer. I almost failed the quest I was laughing so hard after reading the lich was none other than “Father Inigo Montoy”. The Princess Bride happens to be one of my favorite movies and I have in fact quoted Inigo Montoya in a post here at PPI. Discongruency is an aspect of humor and this irrelevancy in the middle of what is a sober quest chain was priceless.

Another one that I liked was Lord Serpentis who proclaims that he is the serpent king and he can do anything. I’m dating myself here but I have actually visited the grave of Jim Morrison. Can you imagine that Elnia was once huge fan of The Doors. That should make you laugh. “If you give this man a ride/sweet family will die/killer on the road.” I sing that sometimes when I am grinding mobs.

Sometimes I do wonder though if all the humor in the game is intentional. There is a quest that rogues get to start lockpicking at level ten. There is a paragraph in the text that reads, “The Hidden Circle has values. We value valuables. Can ye understand?” Even now typing that brings tears to me eyes. I’m not sure I do understand, actually. Isn’t valuing valuables what makes values valuable? Or is it that valuable values cause rogues to have valuable values? I don’t know. But in homage to that line I have come to define an ethicist as one who values values.

Yes, I do think the sense of humor in Warcraft is under appreciated. It’s easy to take the game too seriously and get caught up in the search for epics and gold and forget to laugh when the laughing is good. Laugh, and the world laughs with you; cry and you will cry with all the other raiders complaining about Blizzard making the game too easy.

Larisa:

My favourite pop culture references are definitely the ones I find on my own, stumbling upon them by accident.

For instance I remember how I smiled when I noticed that The Ocular, a thing you are supposed to destroy in the quest “It’s All fun and Games”, looked very similar to the eye of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings movie.

But unfortunately I don’t see much of those things without anyone pointing them out to me, since I seem to be playing WoW wearing an eye bindle, as I pointed out in a post from October 2008. At that point I had finally recognized Jhordy Lapforge and Scooty, and was quite enthusiastic about it, being a hopeless Star Trek fan. And I still love them.

It was the finding of the excellent Wowwiki list that opened my eyes to other references, such as Scooby Doo’s collar appearing in the form of Alterac Valley Marks and the Pink Floyd quotations in The Triage quest at Theramore. And in the post I pointed out how stupid I felt for not noticing it by myself.

The only explanation I have is that I often suffer from tunnel vision, being too focused on my game play to pay much attention to the details. Probably I’m also rushing the content a little too quickly, often trying to get things done efficiently rather than enjoying the ride. Which is isn’t a good thing, but that’s how I play the game.

I thought I could as well go back to the list and check out what jokes and references I’ve missed in WotLK. And I didn’t get disappointed. Of course there was a ton of new ones, including some more Star Trek love.

There’s Sailor Picardo and Sailor Philips, deckhands of the Kraken, likely to be references to actors Robert Picardo and Ethan Philips, who played the characters of The Doctor and Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager.

In Borean Tundra, there are some evil gnomes, acting like the Borg: "We are Mechagnome...resistance is futile" "You will be assimilated or eliminated."

And in Grizzly Hills, Datalore Smallsphere associates to Data and his twin android Lore.

While I’m still on the topic of TV series, I can’t but approve of the presence of Agent Skully and Deathguard Molder, from X-files, an old favourite of mine.

In Blizzcast 12, the interviewed developers briefly touched upon the topic of the pop culture references and the humour in the game. Tom said that that they have a whole bunch of class clowns working at Blizzard, so that it “inevitably finds its way through”.

Those class clowns however, aren’t only up-to-date with popular games, rock music and movies. They also occasionally show that they have a broader education. For instance there is the quest Horn of the Ancient Mariner , referring to the 18^th century poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. Of course you COULD argue that the Blizzard staff rather have listened to the Iron Maiden version of it, but I prefer to think they didn’t.

And then you have Drottinn Hrothgar, with the same name as character in the epic poem Beowulf. The Old Gnome and the Sea achievement refers to a short story by Ernest Hemingway and Parts for the Job contains a Fresh Pound of Flesh, associating to The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare.

Whenever I see one of those notches to players who don’t only consume pop culture, but also read classical works, I feel Tickled Pink. It clearly shows that WoW is aiming for a very broad and diverse audience.

Tickled pink: Are you playing the gold game?

You’ve all heard about the legend of Midas, the Greek king who whished that everything he touched should become gold, something he deeply regretted after a while. Even so the iconic metal still has a strong position in the minds of mankind as well as on the market. Gold is the given currency of every fairy tale and Azeroth is no exception. For some players it’s the essence of WoW. The how-to-make-gold blogs and guides are thriving. Others couldn’t care less. Are you playing the gold game? Does a huge purse tickle you pink?

Larísa:
It took me at least until level 30 before I entered Auction House. To begin with I didn’t have a clue about where to find it. And when I did, I was terrified of doing anything. I was convinced that I somehow would lose everything I owned because of my ignorance.

Besides, I was constantly short of money as I levelled my first toon, not yet having grasped the basics of the game. Staying away from AH seemed like a good way to make sure I wouldn’t get tempted to buy something I didn’t need.

As I grew more experienced and inhaled the collected wisdom of the WoW community through blogs and websites, I understood that this probably wasn’t the wisest approach. Whatever you did, you should use Auctioneer. This would grant your purse to always be filled, more or less automatically.

So I tried the Auctioneer road for a while, but it was always rather out of necessity than of interest, and eventually I stopped out of pure boredom and gold was abundant in the game anyway.

Nowadays I haven’t even got Auctioneer installed. I don’t bother doing even a weekly run to keep the statistics fresh. I don’t try to do any cleaver undercutting transactions. I don’t try to get rich from converting eternals to crystals or the other way round. I don’t mass produce glyphs.

There are two simple reasons:

1. I don’t need that much gold to cover my expanses.

My main income comes from transmuting epic gems. One every day I log in (which isn’t every day of the week), sold at a profit of 100 g or more at AH. This 1 minute piece of action will easily cover my consumables and repairs for a normal raid night (flasks lasting two hours for an alchemist). If I would ever need some extra gold to gem and enchant new gear, I would probably convert some emblems of conquest to epic gems or emblems of triumph to orbs to sell with good profit, or possibly make a few spellthreads, being a tailor.

My fortune is steady at a level of between 5 and 9 k gold, and that’s enough to cover anything unexpected that will come up.

I’ve never longed to own a chopper, watching others driving them is enough entertainment for me. And the screen-covering mammoths are so clumsy that they’re annoying. So why would I bother to make more money?

2. The gold game doesn’t entertain me.

Some players get a kick out of the gold game. They want to hit the gold cap the same way as I enjoy killing raid bosses. Putting up a goal gives them motivation and direction in the game and they enjoy the process of building a business empire. I’m just not one of those.

Probably it’s because the gold game is so abstract, going on in your mind, as opposed to questing and raiding, which involves much more of your senses, attention and imagination. To be honest, I’d rather grind thousands of bears in Winterspring than posting thousands of auctions.

What I also know is that if I’d ever try out the gold game for myself, I wouldn’t think of buying one of those infamous how-to-make-gold-guides. Why would I? I would rather like to find out mechanisms and niches by my own thinking. Blindly following a guide seems to be just as entertaining as to play Lemmings, reading the solution of every scenario on advance. The challenge and the entertainment in playing the AH is to make up your own strategies.

Elnia:
Unlike Larisa I do play the auction house. While I'm not gold capped I have more than 100K in gold, more gold than I can even dream of what to do with since I don't raid and don't collect pets.

So why do it? Curiosity. Satisfaction. I'm an explorer and an achiever and for me playing the AH is just another way to explore and comprehend the vast world of Azeroth. For example, out of that 100K gold I'd estimate that at most 20K was earned by using any of my professions (mining, herbalism, inscription, enchanting.) And almost none of it was made by flipping things on the AH. The vast majority was made by being a trade chat channel habituate; buy up items cheap and selling them on the AH. Since I don't belong in a guild trade chat is my way of socialization. Flipping glyphs is ultimately more profitable in gold terms but I find it so so boring. I enjoy the sparring and negotiation that goes on in trade chat. I also strongly think that I learn so much more about the game and the people who play it that way. Playing the game via trade chat, once you break past the Chuck Norris spam and the Grammar Nazis, breaks down much of the insularity one finds in guilds. I probably know more about the economy on my server than anything Auctioneer could ever tell me. Why? Because I'm actually talking to six different leather workers and I know exactly how many BOE epics are being crafted and I know what is selling and what is not.

In other words, I agree 100% with Larisa when she writes that "The challenge and the entertainment in playing the AH is to make up your own strategies." That's what I do. For example, I won't sell epic gems and I won't sell flasks. Because I don't understand the epic gem market on my server and I won't invest in a area I don't understand. I won't deal in flasks because most flasks are sold by alchemists in bulk who are satisfied with a one gold return per flask. Mass production doesn't interest me. I can make 2-3k gold a week just selling two to three crafted purples. The key to selling purples is understanding what crafted items are best in slot for the various classes and keeping up with the various gear resets.

Let me give another example. On my server the trick to making money during the summer is to buy raw materials during week and sell them for a profit on the weekend. During the school year this reverses. The weekend drives all the prices down as all the kids come on-line and flood the market with supplies while on the weekdays the prices shoot up because all the raiding guilds are active on Tuesday and Wednesday after the raid resets. But here's the deal. The fun part for me isn't in the exploitation of these supply and demand imbalances. The fun part is learning about them in the first place. It's in talking to people and asking, "Why are you doing that? Why do you care?" Making gold is a confirmation that I identified the market trend correctly; its a way of smiling to myself and thinking, "Oh ho! I was right."

So I guess I'm different from King Midas. I don't touch things to turn them into gold; I touch gold to turn it into mind.

Tickled Pink: Do titles matter to you?

Bane of the Fallen King. The Ashen Verdict. Wrathful gladiator. Three new titles that will come with the 3.3 patch. How much do we care about them? Do the titles as such tickle us enough to make an effort to get them? Or should they come with other rewards? Plectical at Rawrcast suggests that players with the Loremaster title should get 10 percent more gold from quest rewards or that Battlemasters should do more damage in BG:s and arenas. Is that a good idea?

Larísa:
Titles. Who cares about titles in real life? I don’t. On the contrary – people who are obsessed with titles give me giggles. As I grew up we always used to laugh at Germans who seemed to be excessively interested in that stuff. As if it wasn’t enough to write “doctor” about someone who was that, they had to add another “doctor”, as if they just had to make sure. But on me the effect was rather the opposite. How could you ever take someone who called himself “Herr Doktor Doktor” seriously?

Do you remember how it used to be in the old days? Sure, there were some titles around, but people didn’t make such a big deal of it. I barely noticed them to be honest. I remember a guildie who was particularly proud of some title she had gotten in the old PvP system. Could it have been “Commander”? But to me it didn’t’ say anything. The first titles I got were Champion of the Naaru and Hand of A'dal. It was pretty far into TBC and didn’t come with a lot of prestige. I saw them as nice souvenirs, reminding me of those endless quest chains to get them, but I didn’t really expect anyone to notice.

Enter WotLK. Enter titles. A ton of them, ranging on the entire scale from silly to imba.
On the silly front I count “Jenkins”. I guess that title is supposed to be funny, but it only gives me shivers. Yeah, I’ve got it on my mage, but I wouldn’t dream of displaying it. Whenever I find a “Jenkins” in my pug, I fear the worst and expect all sorts of immature behaviour - l33t-speech, loot drama and ninja pulls.

The imba titles on the other side are quite impressive – for a little while. The sad thing is that their value decreases rapidly as time passes. While “Twilight vanquisher” was pretty cool early in the expansion, it can be acquired easily now with people geared in ToC epics. It doesn’t say a thing, so if you still wear it, it’s rather for some sort of RP reasons. You think it goes well with your character. You feel like a “twilight vanquisher”.

All in all, if you ask me, I’m almost as uninterested of titles in WoW as I am in real life. The only one that ever caught my attention was “Merrymaker”. I thought it so fit well with a sweet little pink pigtailed gnome with a sweet giggle and explosive spells. So Merrymaker it is. Larísa is also Elder, Hallowed, Matron, Love Fool and God knows what after the long strange trip which ended recently (yay!), but I don’t bother show it.
Would I make an effort to get one of the new titles? Well, I certainly want to kill the Lich King in heroic mode. But it’s not primarily in order to be able to expose myself as Bane of the fallen king. The title would just be a side effect.

So should Blizzard should add more incentives for players to get those titles? In my opinion: only in the form of vanity items. Dragons and non combat pets are fine as rewards, but giving substantial advantages to players with certain titles wouldn’t only cause imbalances in the game. It could also become a too strong incentive, making it harder for some players to keep the RL/game balance at a healthy level. And that’s exactly the kind of gaming behaviour that Blizzard is trying to move away from.

Elnia:
I agree with Larísa that there should be no substantial rewards tied to titles in game. Unlike her, I like to collect titles. I have five of them now: Ambassador, the Explorer, Chef, The Argent Champion, and The Guardian of Cenarius. I usually wear whatever holiday title I have during the holiday but in-between I almost always use Ambassador for role playing purposes.

Interestingly, I also share Larisa's dislike for titles outside the game as well. Except for the polite terms of "sir" and "ma'am" (which are originally titles) I never use them; it seems to go against the grain of our American sentimental egalitarianism. This is why it frustrates me when people give me titles that I don't actually have. It's true. All I have to do is show up on a college campus and with minutes I will be addressed as "Doctor" or "Professor" even though I do not have a doctorate or ever taught a college level course. I guess I just look like a professor and that's good enough for most people. Thankfully no one has ever called me Doctor Doctor because I would lose lose it it and smash smash their their face face.

The reason I like to use titles in game is two fold. One, they are useful for role playing purpose. It's cool when I meet another Ambassador that plays along and we can discuss the respective duties of the our Ambassadorships and what we think of the big political decision of the day. I've probably learned more about the actual lore behind Warcraft though this means than I have any other way.

The other reason I use titles is because I think it creates a sense of identity in the same way that people dress up their AH alts in bunny ears or with a diamond tipped cane. Let's be honest. From a distance all night elves look basically the same: tall with pointy ears. If we are in tree form we all look exactly the same: like wilted celery. And don't give me nonsense about how I'm disrespecting trees. I'm a druid healer myself. But if you take out a sheaf of celery that has been in the fridge for too long, stand it on the counter, and walk it along it moves and shakes exactly like a running "tree" does. If it looks like wilted celery and runs like wilted celery than celery it is and I don't care if people want to sex it up by calling it a "tree". It's celery. Call me Ambassador Celery. I'm O.K with it.

Where was I again? The fact that from a distance all gnomes look like balls of cotton candy. No? Titles. That's right; titles. As I was saying titles help to spruce up the trees and give their identity some bark. Without titles trees would be rootless and leave the forest whenever they could, fir sure. Do we players want that? I think not. It's roots that give trees their nourishment and allow to them thrive. If Blizzard allows rootless trees the next thing you know they will begin to wilt and people will mistake them for walking celery. So a title for every tree and a tree for every title.

I do think that titles do tell you something about a person that you can't tell just by looking at them. For example, my own impression of the Jenkins title is exactly the same as Larísa's impression and arrived at completely independently. The problem is that the interface limits one to displaying one title at a time, which limits the amount of information conveyed. So I think we should be able to display all our titles and see who really has the biggest ego. I want my title to be: The Explorer Ambassador to the Chef of the Argent Champion. Now that's a title that commands respect, isn't it Herr Doktor Doktor.

Tickled Pink: Blizzard's New Account Services

Over the course of the past year Blizzard has implemented a series of changes to Account Services that allow the player to change server (PVE to PVP), faction, and soon race. These changes are controversial to some who thought that these are things Blizzard would never do. Are you Tickled Pink about these changes and have you utilized any of the services yourself.

Elnia

Normally, I've all for expanding opportunities and enhancing freedom; these changes do that. Yet I also understand why people who have invested a lot of time and energy creating an identity for their character are upset. Until recently I would even have said the complainers were correct. A recent experience has made me rethink my attitude.

I have a human mage alt that is now level 70. I didn't intend to create this character as a full fledged alt; initially he was my bank alt. When 3.0 rolled out last year I leveled him up to level 20 so I could take advantage of the new inscription profession released with Wrath. Then he sat for almost four months. When I learned about dual spec in 3.1 I decided to level him up again to level 52 so I could once again take advantage of the inscription profession on the Auction House. Then he sat for another three months. Over the summer I decided to level him to 65 so I could max both his inscription and enchanting profession. Now I want to get him to level 74 so he has all the portals.

What I have realized over time is that I actually don't like playing a mage. I didn't level him because I wanted to play a mage yet now he's so close to 80 I feel like I should just finish the job. I love playing a hybrid class and doing nothing but frostbolt spam and the occasional water elemental as my dps bores me. I want my cat rotation. I would love to try out the Paladin class and if Blizzard gave me the opportunity to pay to switch my class I would jump on it.

Of course, class changes are not a paid service Blizzard offers; maybe they never will. Yet my feelings about class changes has helped me to see why some people were dying to change their race or their faction. Frankly, race and faction don't mean as much to me as class. Yet I can see how having the wrong race or faction could cause as much angst for some people as being in the wrong class has for me.

I still won't say I'm tickled pink about the changes but I'm no longer an blustery red either. Even though I don't have any plans to utilize the paid services available, I now get why they were implemented.

Larisa:

I love freedom of choice as a principle. Maybe it’s an effect of growing up during the cold war in the relative neighbourhood of the socialist regimes, which not only oppressed their own citizens, but also filled the surrounding countries with fear. I suspect many of the readers of the PPI aren’t old enough to remember words like Glasnost and Perestroika. But believe me, if you lived in Europe in that period, they meant something. People literally tore down the wall dividing Berlin with their very hands, stone by stone, and I shiver this very moment when I think back at it.

Even though I’m quite far from the political standpoint of Gevlon, I’m basically a fan of giving as much freedom as possible to the individual - for good and for bad. Making our own choices isn’t always fun or anything we wish for, but it’s a part of being human.

The last few years we’ve seen a smaller revolution in Sweden, which has parallels to what’s going on in Blizzards account services. I’m no longer stuck with the government power supply, telephony service, school or healthcare. I’m free to pick whichever I want. This doesn’t mean that I’ll necessarily switch. In most cases, I stick to the government alternative, as I’ve always done. They’re doing their job well and I’m rather lazy about checking up the alternatives. But the possibility is there, if I want to.

For me, the new account services in WoW are exactly like this. I can switch server, I can switch faction and soon even race. New opportunities are opening up almost every month. The choice is mine, not some random rules set in stone when they first came up with the idea about WoW. But will I use this service? Not very likely!

I’m a main hugger you see. In a world of altoholics, I’m a mainaholic. I may play a little on some alts now and then to get an idea about other aspects of the game. It gives me variation and some giggles as I’m enjoying the druid shape shifting. But Larísa is and will remain my first love in Azeroth. She’s much more than just a vehicle through which I can consume content, questing and raiding. She’s an extension of the real me, and that’s why I can’t imagine waking up one morning, seeing Larísa turned into a blood elf or a human.

On the other hand – I can’t see any reason to deny other players to switch around as much as they want. After all, people make sex change operations in real life, why not in WoW? If someone who was unfortunate enough to pick a blood elf instead of a gnome at the creation screen, why would I demand that they re-roll and start their gnome career from level 1? Their choices don’t affect me.

Glasnost has arrived at Azeroth. And it was about time.

Tickled Pink: Are we solving a puzzle or living a fantasy?

Euripides at Critical QQ wrote a post where he talked about his lack of enthusiasm for lore when he's raiding. While he appreciates a well told quest chain, it's irrelevant in a raid situation. Kael'thas could as well been a featureless blue cube named "final boss" with abilities called "Phase one ability" and "Phase two ability". Raiding isn't about storytelling, it's about laying a puzzle. This post tickled the raider Larísa and the non-raider Elnía.

Larísa:
I'm torn when it comes to lore. I really am. Let's put it this way: One part of me wants to pay attention to it, wants to get involved, wants to live the story. Isn't this what playing an MMO is about? Escaping into a distant world, seeking the adventure, playing our roles in the history. But no matter how hard I try to listen, my mind starts to wander when it's time for storytelling in WoW.

The first time I saw Lord Jaraxxus, I found it a bit amusing to see that little gnomish warlock and then the huge dude incoming. But not even at our first date could I focus long enough on the dialogue to actually hear what they were talking about. Because when I raid - I raid. I don't care about stories. I care about performance. No matter what hero or anti-hero or bad guy or whatever we're going to face, my mind is somewhere else. I ask myself: am I at the right position? I double check my buffs and players I'm supposed to buff one more time, just to be sure, even though I've checked it a dozen of times before. I plan for my opening attacks. And above all - I pay full attention to the pointer, to see when it changes to a dagger, the signal for me to throw my favorite starter - mirror images. All those speeches - with or without excellent actor performances - is just a background noise. The only voice I'm listening to is the one of the raid leader and the only text that matters to me is the raid chat, the mage channel and the ranged channel.

So to be honest Euripides, I'm quite with you. Jaraxxus could as well look like a cucumber - I wouldn't notice much of a difference as long as his abilities were the same.

Unfortunately this lack of interest for in-game storytelling doesn't only appear when I'm raiding. I'm afraid there are a ton of great stories you can get through the quest lines which I've missed too. I'm reluctant to admit it, but it's very rare that I stop and read what the NPCs are trying to share with me in those let-me-tell-you-a-story-quests. Normally I click it through as quickly as possible, impatient to get to the yellow question mark and head along to the next quest. Maybe it's because of my lack of experience of game storytelling, maybe it has to do with the game mechanisms and the incentives to constantly progress our characters. Or maybe the narrative parts are rather poorly written. I just know that there is something that doesn't work. I fail to lose myself in the story of Azeroth. At the most I see a hazy version of it in the far distance.

If I'm going to become involved I have to do it outside of the game, by reading Warcraft novels. Thanks to a generous donation from Ixobelle I've read a few and I enjoyed them a lot. They haven't got Nobel prize potential - to be honest they're rather crappy written - but they tell the story about Azeroth well enough to make me interested.

Still I can't say that I listened more carefully to what Ilidan had to say in Black Temple just because I had read about him. Once I stood in front of him I looked at him and thought to myself: "hey, there's a celebrity", in the same manner as I would have looked at one of the wax figures at Madame Tussaud's. And then I went back to my normal raiding mode, thinking about what this "Final boss" would do in phase one, two and three, not giving a damned about who this guy was, what he had done and why I was fighting him.

I'm sure I would look differently at it if I was playing at a RP server. Who knows, may I will one day? But as things are now, I'm definitely not living a fantasy. I'm solving a puzzle.

Elnia:
I don't see myself as engaged in solving a puzzle or living a fantasy. I do understand the puzzling part because I have done five man heroics and some of the fights can...well...could offer some puzzling challenges. I say could because I have been level 80 for only about five months and what I have learned about running heroics is that patience is the primary challenge. Whatever strategic decisions might be needed usually go out the door once you either find an over-geared party or become over-geared yourself. The best evidence of that is the fact that I have most of the achievements for the red protodrake and never once have I been in a PUG that deliberately set out to get those achievements. They just...happened. So unless you happen to do heroics at level they are basically /faceroll; no puzzle at all.

Nor do I really see myself living a fantasy, although that is the more appealing direction. As I mentioned in my post about improving questing the problem I have with the story is that it remains discombobulated to me. I think Larisa's point about the boss being a "celebrity" is spot on. For me, the Lich King is akin to Paris Hilton; someone who is famous for being famous although I couldn't actually tell you why. His name is on the box cover; I see his picture on the loading screen; but he has no relevance to what I do in the game outside of one or two quests. It's strange to me because as a non-raider I would think raiders would care more about the deeds of the summit bosses than us little schmucks in the trenches; after all, you guys are killing the bosses; don't you even care why? But it appears you don't.

At the level we are speaking about Warcraft is a game. I enjoy playing it. I like to explore the world; listen to the music; complete some achievement in the game to give me a feeling of accomplishment. Maybe there is a sense of a puzzling but it's the entire game universe that's a puzzle. How does the mechanics of this class work; where does this road go; how do I defeat this mob; how can I make 10,000 gold in one day. Yet there is also a sense of wonder, of being in a different space and time; of projecting myself into my character so much that when she gets whacked from behind I jump in my seat. So in that sense it's a fantasy too. So do I play for the intellectual challenge, for the imagination; neither fully and both a little bit. Let me quote that grand-papa of gaming, William Shakespeare, who had Hamlet solve a much more serious riddle with this immortal strategy: "The play's the thing." Yes, the play is the thing that reveals the consciousness of the king. I play to play; it's enough.

Tickled Pink: Should Ghostcrawler become a ghost?

As you probably know, the Lead Systems Designer for Warcraft has been a regular presence on the forums for at least a year. Recently, he stated he was going to leave the forums because he felt that his active participation was doing more harm than good. Even more recently, he wrote to make it clear that he wasn't leaving entirely, only being more choosy about his participation. Are you Tickled Pink with this situation? Tell us in the comments.

Elnia

Frankly, the whole situation has developed into a negative public relations experience for Blizzard. I agree that Ghostcrawler has done a great job of acting as liaison for the company. But the hue and cry that greeted his initial announcement reveals the chaos going on at Blizzard.

One of the most fundamental principles of management is that you never let a person become identified with or essential to a position. Everyone is replaceable. Effective organizations are run as systems. That doesn't mean that they are uncaring or unfeeling; it doesn't mean inflexibility. But it does mean that if someone dropped dead tomorrow someone else should be able to step in and take over with little or no loss of core performance. Actors know well how being identified with a famous role can destroy their career; it's called being typecast. When an employee becomes closely identified with a position it came be difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to replace them. Experience shows that whatever the short term benefit of having that "special person" in a job it's not worth the long-run damage.

The real problem is that Ghostcrawler has done his job too well. There was such a hunger among the fan base for someone, anyone, to communicate to them the underlying rationale and philosophies of the developers that Ghostcrawler has become a celebrity. When WoW.com did their tee shirt spoof "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony" the demand for the shirts was so heavy they simply posted the graphics file online so that people could make their own. One only needs to do a Google Image search for 'Ghostcrawler' to see the problem.

He's an employee. It's very bad when you middle management employees are showing up in Google search results.

If I were Ghostcrawler's boss at Blizzard I'd pull out the ban hammer and use it on him. The role of being the developer spokesman has turned into a role much larger than what anybody thought. Right now, intentional or not, this has become a situation about Ghostcrawler. The focus should be on Blizzard. It needs to be clear that while a developer liaison speaks for the developers it's Blizzard the company that is doing it as part of its customer service and/or community relations effort. This perspective has been lost.

Once a situation becomes about what's best for one person and not what's best for the team something has gone seriously awry. Someone high in the company needs to step in and clean up. It's time for someone else to do the job.

Larisa:

Oh, I’m tickled by Ghostcrawler. But my position is quite the opposite of Elnia’s.

In my view this guy, or should I rather say phenomena, is everything a PR manager could wish for. How many companies and organizations don’t try to give their brand a human face, to reach out to the audience, to communicate? And how many of those don’t fail since the assigned person clearly lacks charisma, talent and a genuine interest for the task?

Ghostcrawler has all of this – and above all – he’s got a persona that the audience can identify with. While the costume dressed top-managers of Blizzard-Activision would turn off the target audience whenever they appeared (everyone thinking: “they’re only in it for the profit”), Ghostcrawler has the opposite effect. He shows up slightly overweight, a little bit geeky, in some badly fitting out-of-fashion t-shirt. He could easily come up in the how-I-look-in-real-life thread on our guild forum. There’s no doubt that he’s “one of us”.

What adds to his credibility is his writing style, which has a flavour of authenticity. Even if his texts may have passed under the eyes of a PR person, it isn’t obvious; they aren’t overly polished or diplomatic until boredom. You get the feeling that he writes whatever comes to his mind. He’s sharing his personal views, sometimes with a spice of humour and a little bit of edge. While making a clear border of how much the community can expect to influence the game (we don’t always know our own best), Ghostcrawler also displays a genuine interest in what we have to say, as long as we express our views in an intelligent, non-insulting manner.

He is performing an act of balance, where every single comma he utters may be discussed and analyzed. And he’s doing it excellently.

In short: Ghostcrawler is a gem. He means far more than Ozzy Osbourne for the promotion of WoW and I wouldn’t be surprised if the marketing specialists at Blizzard took part in the decision to let him become a spokesman. For what I know it could even been on their initiative, to make sure that Blizzard wouldn’t appear too distant and anonymous to their customer base.

But what about the danger of depending on one person that Elnia warns for? Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Ghostcrawler isn’t the only celebrity at Blizzard, not the only employee who players know by name. And if he one day would find another employer and leave, I’m pretty sure they would scan their human resources and see if they could find someone willing to take his dropped mantle.

I can’t help wondering though why he’s called by his nickname and not by his real name. Is it for security reasons only? Tradition? Actually it opens up for new possibilities. I come think about the comic series The Phantom, who is said to be “immortal”, but in fact is a persona, taken by several different persons.

What if there would appear a new Ghostcrawler the day when the current one has had enough and left the scene? Just hand over the t-shirt, make sure he’s got the right body shape and send him out on his mission.

Ghostcrawler – the ghost that never dies. It isn’t likely to happen, but I must admit that the thought tickles me.

Tickled Pink: Brewfest – Happy Hour or Horrible Hangover?

We’re halfway through the biggest booze holiday of the year, Brewfest. The inhabitants of Azeroth are gathering to swing their goblets. They’re running rams, engaging into bar fights and filling our bags with jugs, silly hats and all sorts of crap. Above all they’re more or less constantly drunk, pending on a scale between tipsy and smashed, depending on how long it was since they did their last achievement.

There has been a lot of enthusiasm for Brewfest in the blogosphere the last few days. Several bloggers have pointed it out as their favourite holiday event. There are cheers and happy cry-outs all over the place (with one exception).

Since The Pink Pigtail Inn is run as a virtual pub, you could expect the innkeeper and bartender to join the choir, praising this celebration to Bacchus, which definitely will increase the sales of this business considerably. But strangely enough our landlords don’t seem to be entirely pleased. Someone is grumbling in the corner.

Let’s hear what they have to say about it! It’s time for another Tickled Pink.

Larísa:

I remember the first time I got drunk in WoW. I was shocked when my character started to wobble. And also utterly fascinated. Such a simple mechanism and yet, it was so realistic!

However the entertainment value of this faded off pretty quickly. I guess it’s a bit like in real life. Our enthusiasm for getting drunk normally decreases as the years goes by. We don’t get excited about it anymore. Only tired.

This year is the first time that I participated in Brewfest. I never bothered about it on the two previous opportunities I had, since the all-year-round-achievement-dragon wasn’t available at that time.

And innkeeper as I am, I must admit that my feelings for this event are mixed.

On the positive side, I like the situation of the Alliance camp, right outside of Ironforge. I’ve always felt at home in the winter landscape of Don Morogh, and with all those dwarf connections, it fits in very well. I like the way they’ve set it up. The festive atmosphere, the little happenings, the wagons and salesmen, all those things give a feeling of what Darkmoon Faire could be like if it hadn’t been deserted by the developers. The boss fight in BRD gets quite repetitive, but the transport service to get there is very charming. It reminds me of a TV show from my childhood, John Blund (Sandmann in Germany), where a little gnome travelled the world in a space rocket.

The ram ride is OK. It’s nice to compete with yourself and see how many rounds you can get out of the given time. Still I can’t get out the idea of my head that I’m whipping the poor animal until he’s bleeding. I know it’s not what actually is happening, but it’s what my brain makes out of the animation and the sound effects.

But Brewfest isn’t just fun. As a matter of fact it has given me a bit of a hangover, and then I’m only half way through it. Not only because of the extremely grindy character of this event (how ironic isn’t it that you have to log in more or less every single day, playing like an addict to get your achievements done?) It also makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because of the shameless glorification of heavy drinking.

Read me right. I’m not an absolutist in real life, I’m not against drinking as such. Not at all, as long as it is moderate. I love to have a glass of wine or a jug of beer when I’m having a nice meal in company with friends.

On the other hand I also know about the negative sides of alcohol. I know more than I’d like to know, having a close relative who is an alcoholic. It’s painful and I assure you it’s not something I like to be reminded of, especially not in a game that I play to be entertained and escape reality.

I’m also a bit concerned about the young audience of WoW. All those kids who are playing – what kind of view on drinking will they get? The more you drink, the more achievements you get and you’d better get completely smashed to succeed? You don’t even get a hangover!

I’m not asking for Blizzard to cancel the whole event because of my concerns. They’ve already taken away a couple of quests from the players on the EU realms for political reasons, which I think is silly. Those quests weren’t any worse than anything else at Brewfest.

But perhaps it would be possible to make some smaller adjustments, so the event is pointing towards responsible drinking rather than get-smashed-drinking? Adding an appropriate hangover debuff after you’ve done your achievements could be a start.

Elnia:

Like Larisa, I too have some social concerns that Brewfest is not simply a festival of good cheer but disturbingly a festival that glorifies drinking to excess. Especially in a game that's rated for teens, and we know people even younger than teen play it, it does seem unfortunate. Yet I can't help but feel a little hypocritical. After all, the last time I looked at the statistics on my achievement panel it showed that I had killed more than 30000 virtual creatures. Maybe this simulated killing is killing to excess. Looked at more broadly, there are other aspects of the game that are excessive: bosses that stand three to four times taller than a night elf, grinding for a rare mount for three months, the whole motif that we puny little characters will defeat the Lich King and save the world from the Titans. There are elements to Warcraft that are exaggerated, cartoonish. From this broader perspective the drinking and drunkenness that goes on in Brewfest is in line with the overall character of the game.

I also find my worries about Brewfest inconsistent with my position regarding violence in the game in another respect. There is solid body of academic work that disproves the notion video game violence leads to violence outside the game. If I am persuaded by that research, then it seems improbable that simulated drinking would also have the out of game affects I fear.

Yet despite all my logical reasoning Brewfest bugs me; it does. I think Larisa hit on the key point of why it still bugs me. Both of us have had family members who have been touched by the curse of alcohol abuse. We know what that's like; we have experienced first hand the social, psychological, and physical trauma it causes. One doesn't think about alcohol the same way after staying up all night making sure a passed out relative doesn't choke on their own vomit. That isn't cool. Seeing my own character drunk hits too close to home; it brings up too many bad memories. Even the cool Om-pa-pa music can't remove the sour taste.

There are lines from the Tina Turner song "What's Love got to do with it" that go,

It's physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
that it means more than that.

Sometimes being ignorant is a really difficult thing to do. Physically, logically, getting drunk in the game seems no more harmful than anything else about the game. Yet subjectively, intuitively, it means more than that.

Tickled Pink: Before the Cataclysm

Now that Cataclysm is official and the full extent of the sweeping changes are clear, many people are thinking about what they want to accomplish in the old world before it is radically changed. For some reason that remains mysterious to us these "to do" lists are known in the Warcraft community as bucket lists. So, what do you plan to before the moment of Cataclysm arrives. Is your bucket empty or full?

Elnia

Before it's too late has such awful connotations, as if the end of the world is tomorrow. The truth is that if prognostications are correct we have at least six months before the end of Azeroth as we know it. Personally, I feel fine.

There are indeed some activities I would like to get done before now and the next expansion but most of those things were on my to do list anyway. Unless Blizzard were to announce that Cataclysm were to come out at Christmas, I can't imagine there won't be enough time to fit it all in. The one aspect of this I do have mixed feelings about is the Horde.

Unlike Larisa, I do think there is value in seeing the game as story. As I have never played Horde, seeing the story and learning the lore from that aspect of the game does interest me. Yet I find it hard to justify learning all about the Horde and then seeing it wiped away so quickly. Since I know I'm interested in playing a Goblin, I think I'd rather wait until the expansion before going over to the opposition.

In general there are two aspects of the game that I am interested in right now: collecting titles and mounts. One achievement I probably will find time to do is Loremaster. I'm almost done with the quests in old Azeroth and have about 50% of the expansion quests done. Another title I will probably grind to get is Guardian of Cenarius. I've got most of it done and I've always felt a little guilty that as a Druid I don't have it.

The other aspect of the game I want to focus on is mounts. For example, I will probably go back to grinding the Barron Rivendare mount. I've tried about 40 times and never got it. In this regard, it would be nice to know what the exact changes are to the various zones so you would know what you needed to do ahead of time.

So yes, there are somethings I want to do before the next expansion. I just don't feel any pressure about it though. If I miss it I miss it. I've missed a lot of the game already.

Larisa

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. All over the Blogosphere I’ve seen people making up all those lists of “things I have to do before Cataclysm”. People who turned their backs to Azeroth long time ago are suddenly returning to the game. I would expect them to do that, but not until the final “bridge” patch, which I suppose we can expect before the launch of Cataclysm at some point 2010. I was completely taken by surprise to see all those bloggers declaring that they would roll brand new alts to see the old content one last time before it’s gone.

What’s up with you guys? There’s a good reason why they’ve decided to remake some of the old vanilla zones. They’re obsolete in every way you can think of. The quest distribution sucks, with quest chains that I thought we agreed long time ago was a pain in the ass because of the heavy travel duty they involved. The environment and artwork is mostly plain and boring, especially the endless plains of Kalimdor makes my skin itch.

And the quests in themselves… Oh, dear. The amount of “collect 10 boar parts” quests is much higher than in the modern WotLK WoW. Do you really have to be reminded of this? I don’t get it. The only reason for rerolling before Cataclysm I can come up with is pure nostalgia. And since I wasn’t around at the original launch, I’m not a part of it. When I started to play, the gravity centre of the game had already moved on to Outlands.

I think the basic problem with the “bucket lists” is that they’re created from the assumption that WoW has an end, that it resembles to a book, with a number of scenes and chapters that you work your way through, until you’ve seen and done all and then put it aside.

If you see the game this way, it’s no wonder you get worried if you get the information that some pages will be ripped out of the book and replaced with others, so if you want to “read the whole thing” you’d better hurry up.

But speaking for myself, WoW isn’t a book and it isn’t a game like any else which you play your way through and then put aside. It’s a huge pile of sand which I make sandcastles of and it hasn’t got any beginning or end. It’s more like an activity, a state of mind, an alternative existence to pull it to the extreme. And from that perspective, levelling a character on the horde side, for taking one example, could as well be done after the Cataclysm launch. The game is too big to see and do everything anyway. I have to accept that I wasn’t around to raid Molten Core “in the old good time”, and frankly it doesn’t bother me the slightest.

Old readers of PPI may have some objections now. After all I’ve been guilty of making lists myself. A few months ago I listed “33 things I want to do before I quit WoW”. Out of curiosity I went back to check if any of those “things” would become impossible to do after the upcoming changes.

“Eat a delicious chocolate cake at a beautiful spot”. No problem with that one!

“Spend a silly night at the IF bridge with our realm clown Cacknoob.” Sure! I haven’t seen anything about changes of IF, but even if they’ll give it a facelift, I’m pretty sure he’ll find himself a spot. The show must go on.

“Play hide and seek in Stormwind”. Why not in Cataclysm? The worgen district they’ll add will only make it more fun.

As far as I know now, I can even tick off the questionable goal number 4 on my list: getting myself a Winterspring Frostsaber mount. There isn’t anything said about remaking Winterspring. (Although I’ll probably be wise to save that one until I’m ready to quit the game, since it will be so sickening boring that I’ll never want to see it again.)

To put it short: the only thing I want to do before Cataclysm hits is to keep enjoying WotLK at its full potential, not worrying too much about what is to come. I’ll throw my heart and soul into whatever challenge that is calling for my attention at the moment. Yes, there will be some content that will be erased from the game that I won’t have seen. So what? New content will arrive in its place, more than I’ll have time to see anyway.

WoW is most of all a state of mind. I refuse to transform it into nothing more than a tick list.

Tickled Pink: Onyxia Revisited

Larísa's take:

"You can't step into the same river twice."

This quota by the old Greek philosopher Heraclitus has haunted me through life. How many times hasn't it happened that I've wanted to return to something I enjoyed once upon a time - it could be a job, the company of a friend, a place I've visited? In some sort of wishful thinking and outburst of nostalgia, I've fooled myself for a second that it would be the same experience as it was the first time.

But then I've heard the soft whispering from the old man, reminding me that everything inevitably changes over time. The flood seemingly runs the same way as always. But the second time you step to it, the water that was there the first time has moved on somewhere else. It's not the same river, even though it maybe looks like it.

We can do things again that we've done before. We can re-read novels 20 years later, get back to our favorite restaurants and see the movie yet another time. But we must be prepared for another experience. If nothing else, we have changed in ourselves.

I came to think about this as I heard about the upcoming return of Onyxia. The opinions on it differ. Most reactions I've heard so far have been pretty negative.

"We've been there and done that. Why on earth would we like to do it again? Blizzard should use their resources to develop new content rather than to reheat the leftovers from yesterday. We deserve that as paying customers. "

Others on the other hand hope to enter the river once again and are excited, expecting that raiding somehow once again will feel as epic as it did in vanilla WoW. And considering the river mechanism, I'm afraid they're bound to get disappointed. No matter how much they'll revamp Onyxia and enhance not only stats and loot, but maybe also the visuals (at least I hope so, because frankly quite a lot of the vanilla WoW content looks rather plain and crappy if you compare it to WotLK) - they can't possibly create the same atmosphere. You who were around in the old days have too many years of raiding behind you, too many scars that you've earned wiping in Onyxia's lair to get that excited again, even if you'd like to.

I guess I could call myself lucky, being a TBC baby. Even though I've fought my way through the attunement and got my Drakfire Amulet (still in my bank deposit), I've only done this encounter in an overpowered manner, more or less as a joke, where it didn't matter much what I did as long as I stayed out of fire. This means that I can actually look forward to this raid encounter, which will be more or less new to me.

But no matter if you like the thought of a returning Onyxia or if you consider it rather pointless, we probably shouldn't work up ourselves too much about it. Think of it as a silly little bonus event to celebrate the anniversary, equivalent to the cute baby bear we got last year. It does not take away Blizzard's focus from developing Cataclysm and whatever is beyond that. The amount of PR about a phenomena doesn't necessarily reflect how important it is.

As long as we don't believe that the river is the same, we'll be fine.


Elnia's Perspective

I have been fortunate in my life to have traveled outside the USA numerous times. My advice to people about traveling is always the same, "Go. Just go." There is no right time to travel because every traveling experience you have is going to be a unique combination of who you are at the time and who the places and people you meet along the way are at that time. And whether it is you who are different or the place that is different the experiences are not fully repeatable.

The other thing that I have learned is that as big and huge as this planet is (and it is not a small world after all) no matter where you go someone will have been there before. It's like falling in love with someone who is married; if you are expecting virginity you are simply deluded. Virginity is the province of the inexperienced.

On of my pet sayings is that novelty is the rape of intuition. Being new and fresh and virginal is certainly attractive. On the other hand, a lust for perpetual virginity, perpetual novelty, perpetual freshness and youth seems to me a disordered view of life. Certainly there is a rush the first time new lovers see each other naked. But no one who has experienced the deep and penetrating satisfaction of a true emotional and mental intimacy built up over time would ever trade that for a series of perpetual infatuations. At least I wouldn't.

So I agree entirely with Larisa when she says you can't have the same experience twice. But why would you want to? Why is it that the second time or the third time around is by default going to be worse. Sometimes, I won't lie, it is worse; that happens. Yet I think it shows a poor mental attitude, a self defeating attitude, to simply assume that's going to be the case. Shouldn't it be, like when you have the right lover, experience makes it better. To me all the angst around recycled content in Warcraft smacks of a lust for endless virginity, a desire to plunder the muse of creative intuition for all it's worth and leave it bleeding and moaning in some drank alley.

And that's assuming that angst is even credible. There are a lot of trolls out there who will search out anything, no matter how small, just to bicker about it. They will find the negative in every situation. If it's recycled content then it's boring because it's not new; if it new then it's offensive because it's not traditional and violates the the lore, or their sense of identity, or whatever. Not only do these poor creatures collapse everything into a binomial, they collapse it into a negative one. Pity them.

Rather than prejudging the matter, we should give Blizzard a chance to show what they can do with a recycled Oynxia. I am more likely to accept negative criticism from someone after the fact if I know they had an open mind before the fact than someone rehashing the same criticism they been had going on about for the last year. At the end of the day, the only real measure of success is if the game designers produce an expereince that's interesting or fun to play; if they do that, no one will care if it's recycled or not.

Tickled Pink: the new races of Azeroth

The staff at PPI are pleased to offer to their customers a brand new feature at the Inn. Tickled Pink shall appear occasionally in these pages as a collaborative effort between the Innkeeper and the Bartender. One topic relating to the world of Azeroth is selected and Larisa and Elnia will both offer their views on that topic within the same post. We extend an invitation to our readers to let us know if they are or are not Tickled Pink in the comments.

Elnia's Perspective

The introduction of the new races is more important to me for what I hope it portends about other changes to the game not because I possess an overwhelming enthusiasm for specific new races introduced. Playing Alliance, I honestly don't have much interest in playing a Worgen. They are not visually appealing and when you have to look at a toon for hours at a time visual appeal is important. There will need to be enticing racial benefits in order to over come that visual barrier.

On the other hand, I'm going to play a goblin. If there is one thing that will entice me over to the Horde side it's playing a goblin. Which, I suspect, is one of Blizzard's goals; to get more people to play Horde. I definitely have an impish and rapscallion part to my character and the way goblins are portrayed in Azeroth has always appealed to that aspect of my personality. A goblin Rogue is a little creature after my own heart (and certainly after my pocketbook!)

My problem is that I don't really think goblins should be a playable class at all. I understand the lore argument but it's based on the false assumption that Azeroth as implemented in the game is a perfect reflection of lore and it's not. All the other three races introduced to the game were races that, up until their introduction, played on a small part in the life of the game. Goblins are different; they have a significant role in the game as NPCs. The major neutral cities of Taranis, Stranglethorn Vale, and the Barrens are all goblin cities. In terms of sheer numbers, there are probably more Goblin NPCs in the world than any other race except human. This will certainly be true after they get their own starting area. Maybe because I've only played Alliance, but I'm acculturated to looking at Goblins (which are everywhere) and thinking "friend" or at least, "not enemy." Changing that mindset will be difficult I think. More than anything else, I think the game will look unbalanced with so many Goblins (both PC and NPC) running about.

The introduction of Goblins, the Argent tournament, the ability to change factions, these three things make me wonder if the new expansion features a much reduced emphasis on the Horde vs Alliance conflict. Perhaps in the future the world will split up into competing home cities (much like feudal warlords). The only thing that actually still requires Horde vs Alliance is battlegrounds, and the Argent Tournament offers a model where even that could be displaced. I think that if the new classes are the major development in terms of game play mechanics in the next expansion I will be disappointed. So I'm curious to see what else Blizzard has in store.

Larísa's perspective

Was I really tickled by the news about the new races? Yes and no. To be honest I found the way that they first were broken – the discovery of the masks in the database and the following efforts to cover it up – much more interesting than the actual content of the news.

As a former journalist I kind of enjoy watching the race between the search dogs of the community, constantly browsing forums, putting clues together, and the public relations staff who try to keep some kind of control over the information that goes out.

The community obviously won this one, since someone had been careless. Or maybe the policies have changed a bit and they just don’t care that much anymore about what comes out in which order? Anyway – seeing it happen makes me giggle. I’m definitely tickled.

On the other hand, like Elnia, I’m not overly excited about the outlook of having access to two more races. Unlike a new class it doesn’t bring in any new aspect to the game – it’s just two new furs to put on and not a big deal. Surely they’ll come with new questing areas, but is that enough to make me roll another alt, just to get the privilege to watch the furry back of a worgen instead of a nightelf or a dwarf? I doubt it. Hey, I haven’t even come around to roll my new DK, which seems like a far more exciting thing to do, since it’s also a new class.

Besides – is it just me, but do you really think that a werewolf looking character really fits into the Alliance team? I’m sceptic. To me it has much more of horde connotations. Without having any deeper knowledge in the worgen lore, the looks of them makes me think of them as another people of outcasts – misunderstood and not considered “beautiful” in the normal sense, unless you get to know them a bit better.

And then we have the goblins. I don’t quite get it. Why would they suddenly go all-out horde? I’ve always seen them as mercenaries, - the Ferengies of Azeroth, loayal to nothing but their gold. It would have been natural if they had become the first flexible race that could go either horde or alliance, as you prefer. It doesn’t make sense to me that they suddenly would swear a permanent oath of faith to the horde. This said I would like to have a goblin of my own – in the only natural role I can see for it – as a banker. But that little pleasure will only be given to the horde players as it looks with the information we have at the moment.

All in all – I hope that the next piece of leaked news about Cataclysm will be more exciting than the one about races. When I’ll take the decision if I’ll stay for the next round, it won’t depend on the availability of another furry skin. There are other aspects that matter more: the amount of new content such as instances, cool questlines and a new hero class. It’s about overall feeling of the game, the look, quality and finish in the design of the new areas. It’s about how much effort they put into the development of game mechanisms and the features yet-to-be invented the equivalences of the phasing, the vehicle fights and the integrated short movies that came with WotLK. It’s about the general feeling that the game is still alive and breathing, that Blizzard cares about it and not only are cashing in the gold, while their heart and focus is turned somewhere else.

But what matters most of all is as always the players. For in the end it’s the players that build this game more than anything else. If there’s a mass exodus from the community, if my guildies move over to other games and I find myself all alone in the new Cataclysm world, there’s no worgen or goblin suit in the world that can make me want to stay there.