Flashbacks and resolutions

It’s the last day of the year, time to make a summary of what has passed and to make resolutions for the future.

I try to remember what the game looked like to me a year ago, but my memory is a bit hazy, and there are no achievement records or blog posts to support my memory (this blog didn’t start until February 2008).

Guildlife and raiding
The first thing that comes into my mind is my guild. The guild I belong to has always been important to me. It’s my home and my family, it’s the starting point for everything I do in the game, actually it’s such a big part of what the game is to me, that it’s one of the major reasons why I play it at all.

This year I’ve gone through quite a lot guildwise. In the beginning of the year I went through a guild split, which was pretty painful at the time and I ended up making a server transfer. After that I’ve switched guilds twice, which is a little bit too often to make me comfortable.

Fortunately enough I now feel that I’ve found my home in the guild I joined during the summer. The guild is healthy and stable and there are no dark clouds on the horizon, so hopefully you’ll find me in the same guild if The Pink Pigtail Inn is still around next New Years Eve.

The second thing that I come to think of looking back is the raiding content. One year ago I had cleared Karazhan for the first time pretty recently, if I remember it right. Netherspite was the last one to go. I remember a couple of wipe nights before we could get the beams right. How odd it feels thinking about it now – were the beams really that complicated to handle?

One year ago I had never been in a raid with more than ten people. My ambition didn’t go any further than to see Gruul at lest once, to see what 25 man raiding was like. Little did I suspect that I’d end up clearing all raiding content in TBC except for Sunwell.

Guild life and raiding. Those are the things in the game that mean most to me. Even though I often say that I’m fond of Larísa, I must admit that I don’t think much about her doing this summary. Of course she’s geared, skilled and levelled up during this year, and she’s become friendly and honoured and exalted with obscure clans of creatures all over Azeroth. But so what? Dear Larísa, I’m sorry to tell you, but in the end you’re nothing more than a vehicle, the tool I use to enjoy the game. You’re not quite as irreplaceable as I used to believe. This insight has evolved over time, as I’ve come to understand the game and my relationship to it better.

The year to come
Now over to the looking-forward-part of this post. What are my expectations for the year to come?

Well, considering how great we did towards the end of TBC I’m looking forward to some really good 25 man raiding, beginning next week. The only thing that worries me is the performance of my computer. It’s doing OK in the current 10 man raids, but the lag in Dalaran is bad, and when I joined a 25 man pug in Vault of Archavon, I found it quite hard to perform well, since my fps was too low. If this continues I don’t know what to do. Possibly I could turn in the computer once again, perhaps putting some more RAM into it. But I know my family would find it quite incomprehensible since the PC in their eyes is pretty new and top-notch. Just thinking about it gives me a pain in my stomach. Suggesting buying a new gaming PC is out of the question. Not because we can’t afford it, but because I’m the only one that wants it. This issue needs to be solved and I don’t know yet how to do it. If I’ll ever stop playing, it will probably be because of this.

So do I have any resolutions? I’ve never been much of a resolution maker for New Year, making promises to quit smoking, loosing weight or whatever. I normally keep my mouth shut when it comes to that part. But let’s give it a try, just for the fun of it.

• In 2009 I’ll start charging strangers for portals. I have no reason whatsoever to spend my time and money on consumables to be their taxi driver all over the world.
• I’m going to learn the Heigan dance well enough to survive it.
• I will get my bank and bags in better order. The first step is to stop jamming it. I’ll stop keeping tons of junk there “just in case”. The starting point will be a big sellout at AH, and after that I’ll ALWAYS see to that I have at least 10 empty slots in the bank so I easily can clear my bags if I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to make decisions about what to do with items.
• I shall prioritize my sleeping better than before. This means cutting down a bit on my nightly gaming. I’m so tired at those hours that I’m not efficient anyway. It’s ok in the weekends, but normal weekdays I’ll quit my habit of playing after midnight.
• I will see to that I keep having fun. I’ll follow my heart rather than the crowd and make sure that the game never turns into a job instead of entertainment.

Now time has come to raise our glasses of sparkling wine and suggest a toast.

Happy New Year to all the guests of The Pink Pigtail Inn! May you live long and prosper!

Tipping makes me uneasy

Probably it’s got to do with the culture I come from, but I’ve never felt comfortable when it comes to tipping, and if possible even worse about bargaining.

In my world a price tag should show the price the seller wants to sell the item for. Nothing less, nothing more. You should always feel safe with the knowledge that you have agreed upon a price which will make you both happy.

Non fixed prices come with an amount of uncertainty, which makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fooled in the end somehow – because of my lesser knowledge, lesser experience and a piece of bad luck. In 90 percent of the cases I’ll end up as a loser. And in the last few percent when I don’t, I don’t feel much better, even though I may look as a winner. I don’t want to take advantage of other people. I want fair deals. But it’s hard to know what’s fair when everything is flowing in an ongoing negotiation.

From Sweden to Azeroth
In Sweden we don’t tip a lot, if ever. You may do it at restaurants, you used to do it in cabs, but nowadays it’s included in the fee and not expected. That’s about it. There are few places in the world where you tip as rarely as you do here. That would be New Zeeland I guess, at least if it still is like it was when I visited it 20 years ago. I still remember the signs meeting us on the airport, telling us that tipping in this country wasn’t a custom – it may even have been forbidden. What a relief it was to read! Two months as a tourist in a non tipping country – it couldn’t really be any better!

But in most cultures in the world you tip. And you bargain, which in my eyes is even worse. (Seriously, if I can’t get clear information about the real price from the seller, I lose interest in buying anything at all. When I visited Tunisia last summer I ended up in not buying a single item in the bazaars since I couldn’t put up with the bargaining procedures).

Azeroth is not like Sweden or New Zeeland – it’s like the rest of the world. A place for tippers and bargainers. Have you ever tried to get a price from an enchanter? It’s almost impossible. You always get the vague answer: “no fee, but tip if you want to”. Further questions about what a normal tip is won’t give you any straight answers. Sigh.

Tipping a tailor
The other night I was put in one of those uncomfortable situations. I had been thinking for a while about getting a Deathchill Cloak, but the price at AH, about 1 600 gold, was a bit too much in my opinion. It turned out however that I could gather the mats for about 600 gold. This was a more reasonable price to me. Now it happened that a tailor announced in trade chat that he could craft those cloaks. I asked about the fee and he said that it was up to me to give a tip.

How do you tip such a thing? I knew that getting the pattern would take quite a lot of work – you need to be Loremaster of Northrend, so it’s not something that any tailor will get from the trainer. Considering how much money this crafter would save me, I thought I should give him a decent tip. I ended up giving him 50 gold. The next night I saw the same tailor advertising in trade channel. He didn’t only craft those cloaks for free – he even offered to PAY people to do it for them, since he wanted the skill-up. Stupid, stupid Larísa, ending up as a loser again!

Portal fees
Now in Azeroth we’re all businessmen. How do I act myself when I’m offering services to others? Well, to be honest I don’t have any experience of advertising in the trade channel and selling my stuff on the street. It wasn’t until recently that I switched into a crafting profession and I haven’t got used to the idea, even though I realize that I need to do it at some point.

Since I’m a mage it happens every now and then that I get requests to do portals though. And I must admit that it doesn’t make sense at all how I do it, considering my feelings about vague prices. I never ever ask for a fee for a portal. If I’m not already in a party or up to something I’ll make it. If they ask me about a tip I’ll reply: “Give what it’s worth to you”. How vague isn’t that? Often I end up getting 1 g. A few times I’ve got 5 g and once or twice even 10 g. But half of the portals I make end up as losses since I don’t even get a tip to cover the cost for the rune. It certainly would be better for me as well as for the customer to set a fixed price. Considering the amount of gold circulating those days, 2 g wouldn’t be unfair. (Portals for guildies, friends and party members are free, of course.)

Maybe I’ll make it into one of my new year’s resolutions: start charging strangers for portals.

The question is what I should do about the tipping? Perhaps putting a bit more of attention into Wow economy would help, making me feel more aware about the market prices, so I get a feeling about what’s reasonable and what isn’t. Because the likeliness that Azeroth will turn into Sweden is pretty small. It’s up to me to adapt.

Time for preparation

Lately I haven’t reported so much about what I’m up to in the game. So today I thought I’d make a brief report for once, just so that you know that I’m still playing and not spending all my time sitting in a corner, pondering upon different philosophical aspects of the game. I do what many other people do these days and that’s why I haven’t much to say about it.

Preparing for raids
Most of my gaming time since the expansion was launched has been about preparing. My guild is starting 25 man raiding next week, and I’ve worked hard to get a decent gear to begin with, not yet with the most exclusive enchants and gems available in the game, but at least nothing I’m ashamed of. With exception for my very much hated head and the hit rating trinket, I’m full Nothrend epic by now, which is far better than I could ever have dreamed of.

I’ve ran tons of heroics, completing all there are of them in Northrend, gathering so many badges that there’s nothing more to buy for Larísa, but hopefully there will come other things to buy later on, perhaps some gems. I’ve done a few of the heroic instance achievements as well. I’m still not as caught by the achievement bug as many of my guildies, but I like the twist they add to the instances, making them more interesting again once we’ve geared up and learned the strategies. It feels like the excitement about them will last longer thanks to it.

My current favourite instance is timer run in Stratholme. I’ve always liked instances where the script sets the pace for you, like Black Morass and Durnhold and the timer puts some extra pressure on you. I’ve managed to complete it twice, but lost the rolls for the mount, so I’ll keep doing it for a while more.

Waiting for the holiday debuff on the guild to wear off, we’ve done some 10 man Naxx. Considering how few times I’ve been there, I’ve been lucky with the drops and rolls, already wearing 4 pieces of T7. But above all I’ve got the opportunity to practice. It’s a great appetizer before the real thing starts, and I think it will help that I’ve seen and killed all of the bosses. I still haven’t survived the Hegan dance, but I won’t give up until I do!

The hated Sons
When I’m not running instances I’m grinding rep. Oh you Sons of Hodir! You call me revered… You should know what I call you! You’re not even friendly with me. I feel like a slave, polishing that stupid helm over again with some yucky slime oil. Trust me, once I’m exalted I’ll never do you a favour again. Not a single one. It’s a promise.

On the other hand I know there are some other rep grinds awaiting then. I’d really like a penguin pet. And the oracles are so sweet, they could deserve a hand from me. But with those reps there’s really no hurry.

The shoulder enchant is different, it’s necessary, according to me. I know there are others who have different opinions on this matter. I suspect that Gevlon think that I’m suffering from Raider Stupidity, gearing up a lot more than needed for the encounters we’re about to make. Waste of effort, waste of resources! And yet I keep doing it. To me going to a raid is like going to a new year’s party. Of course a pair of worn jeans will cover your body and keep you from getting wet and cold. But it won’t give you the right feeling. When I raid I want to come in the best clothes I can afford.

Yesterday I made a little step away from the narrow road, doing something just for fun and not in order to prepare for raiding: I started doing the Winter veil achievements. It just came into my head that “merrymaker” would be a perfect title for Larísa to wear. I’m a bit late in the start – the last day to do it is on January 2, and especially the task to get 50 honorable kills in disguise is quite time consuming and annoying. It remains to see if I’ll succeed.

Well, it’s not all in the title, is it? I could very well decide to become a merrymaker, even if it doesn’t show above my head.

The gift of imagination

Today a thought crossed my mind: the things I enjoy most in the real world as in Azeroth actually don’t cost anything. Or rather: they don’t wear a price tag, telling me to pay x dollars or y gold. I’m thinking about the ideas and experiences I share with other people. Actually Gevlon, of all people, commented on this the other day. He put it beautifully, when he answered a commenter the other day about why vanity mounts really is a useless way to try to stick out in the crowd:

It's the new and unique thoughts that make us unique, and not mounts.

How true isn’t this, especially in this time if the year, when the goblin people of the world tare trying to persuade us to waste a fortune on pretty pointless gifts and items of pure vanity?

A Christmas gift
The best Christmas gift I've heard about didn’t cost the giver a cent and yet it was beautiful and priceless. In his family (with grown-up kids, I guess it would be harder to make such a thing with children around), they had agreed not to exchange any Christmas gifts in a physical meaning. But that didn’t stop them from giving away presents. In stead they were all supposed to give an imagined gift of any kind and to write a rhyme about it. This guy had decided to give his daughter “1 000 pairs of shoes”. I bet she enjoyed them, especially since her father is a writer and the poem probably was witty and entertaining.

I haven’t sent or received any Christmas gifts this year in game. Last year I sent a tonk to a boy I knew on my former server (he was much into duelling, and constantly asked me to fight him, partly because he enjoyed outclassing me, partly because he had a hope that he could teach me a few things). I gave it with a promise that I’d run tonk duels with him as much as he liked, and I had bought one for myself too. The gift was very much appreciated. This year I never came up with any good idea about gifts to my friends, so I skipped it.

However, I recieved a thing a little while ago, which was as good to me as any Christmas gift. It was a link, sent to me by Zakesh, my lazy co-innkeeper, who knows pretty well what kind of game related things I love.

Events in Darrowshire
The link went to one of the most beautiful machinima videos I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a small and simple music video, made by the machinima maker Cranius. He tells the story of a few events in Darrowshire, Eastern Plaguelands in pictures, music and lyrics.

You probably can recall the quest giver, the little girl Pamela, who’s lost her doll and her family. You’re supposed to help her find it. This was one of those quests that stayed in my memory, since it wasn’t about collecting boar intestines. But yet, I never thought much about the lore content when I did it, it was just another quest to along the way, something to “get done” as soon as possible, to move on to the next one.

When I did the quest once upon a time I probably did it the normal way – I checked on Wowhead/Thottbot/Lightheaded/Questhelper to get the coordinates, killed whatever I had to and delivered the items, my mind already set on where to find the next quest objective. I never reflected about what I was doing. Not until now.

Seeing this movie I suddenly saw the story in it, thanks to the imagination and creativity of the people behind it. This little quest came alive to me and I know for sure that if I ever roll a DK, I’ll definitely savour it in a way I never did before. Pamela has touched my heart. What a gift isn’t that?

The best things Azeroth can offer us don’t cost anything, neither gold, nor dollars. Don’t forget that.

There’s nothing bad in using Auctioneer in order to get rich. But if you use your imagination every once in a while, I promise you’ll get even richer.

Christmas thoughts

This post will be published on December 24 – the day when the Christmas Celebrations reach their climax in Sweden. I know it’s pretty much an ordinary day in most countries – quite a few of you probably read this post at work. But where I live this is The Day, especially for children, opening their Christmas gifts.

It probably sounds a bit weird, but guess which tradition we have in Sweden, which is supposed to catch and symbolize the spirit of the season, the thing that no one would dream of not doing? Did I hear anyone suggesting going to church, attending a midnight mass? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

The thing that unites the Swedish nation for Christmas is watching Disney Cartoons, seeing Donald Duck and his friends wishing us a Merry Christmas. It’s tradition and it’s pretty geeky when you think about it. Every year on Christmas Eve at 3 pm, at least 75 percent of us will assemble in front of the television to watch cartoons. It will last for one hour, during which we enter a state of Christmas coma, half awake, half asleep, due to drinking too much of a spicy, sweet and hot alcoholic beverage called “glögg”, an equivalent to the more wellknown “glüwein”. When the cartoons are over it’s time to open the Christmas gifts, with or without the presence of Santa Claus. And once the kids are happily playing with their new toys, the grownups will throw themselves into a huge dinner, mostly consisting of meat in all shapes you can think of, a dinner well worthy the mightiest of the Vikings of Howling Fjord.

Since I have a family, this is what I’ll be doing too. I doubt that I’ll get the opportunity to visit Azeroth at all today. But I know some of you will, for various reasons, out of free will, or out of lack of alternatives. Maybe you haven’t got much of a family – or there are reasons why you can’t or even don’t want to spend Christmas with them.

The faces of Christmas
Christmas has so many different faces. It can represent love, friendship and sheer joy. But it can also be the opposite – expectations that are impossible to live up to, conflicts, loneliness, disappointment.

I haven’t yet been in the situation where spending Christmas in Azeroth would be an alternative, so I haven’t got any personal experience from it. From what I’ve heard I can imagine it’s very calm, but yet never totally empty. There will always be a few other people around on your server, people you can group with, chat with, people who can help you feel less lonely, if that’s what you feel in real life (and by the way you can feel really lonely even though you’re surrounded by people in real life, mental loneliness isn’t the same as physical).

To all of you who will be online – whether it’s for company or just for a little break of entertainment and relaxation, to get away from all the “musts” and “should dos” for a little while – to all of you I’d like to send my thoughts and greetings.

Society may frown upon such activities as playing an MMO at Christmas. Maybe you’ve heard claims that “gamers are losers” so many times that you’ve started to believe in them. Don’t. There’s no law that obliges you to do certain things at Christmas; it isn’t forbidden to enjoy Icecrown more than one hour of Donald Duck, no matter what they try to make you believe. Your way of spending Christmas may be a bit different and unusual, but it isn’t necessarily a bad way.

Christmas atmosphere
I think it’s very much doable to experience some great Christmas atmosphere in game. Just put on the pink glasses I talked about a while ago. Try to treat the players you meet a little bit better than you normally do. Give a stranger an unexpected hand. If you see someone who seems a bit clueless, help them out!

The Christmas in Azeroth (Well, “Feast of Winter Veil” as they call it for some obscure reason, I guess in order to stick to a non-confessional policy) isn’t created only by NPCs. It isn’t only about completing certain quests and getting achievements. The Christmas is created by people like you and me. It’s about how we treat each other and look on the world. Help to turn this Christmas into one worth remembering, especially for all those whose closest family is the virtual one.

Last, but not least I’d like to wish all the guests of The Pink Pigtail Inn a Merry Christmas! Thank you for all of your support and all the fun times we’ve had this year. I don’t know if I’ll be posting quite as regularly the next few days. But be sure that you’re in my thoughts.

Open letter to an absent mage

It’s been over a month since Gnomeaggedon almost vanished from the Blogosphere, going for his epic journey to gain the Explore India Achievement. He’s still present by his Googled-posts, popping up every now and then, looking a bit like that stand-in angel that comes whenever a priest dies. It helps a little, but it really isn’t the same.

However we got a sign of life from him a while ago. I had commented on one of the Googled-posts, and to my surprise, Gnome himself answered! It was just a few lines, but they made me think. This is what he wrote:

So how is the whole FrostFire spec going?How are people enjoying their Mages at 80?

And I couldn’t help feeling a bit bad reading this. I’m supposed to run a mage blog, right? I write about other stuff too – but at least I imagine it’s from the point of view from a mage. Still I’ve obviously failed to describe what’s it like to play a mage these days. It’s about time I do it. So this is for you Gnome – a letter from one mage to another. Here we go:

Dear Gnome!

You were wondering about how we’re enjoying our mages at 80, maybe because you’re subconsciously pondering about what to do at your return. Is levelling your mage to 80 what your heart really desire? Maybe you hear the tempting whisperings from the Deathknights. You’ll never ever get a better opportunity to roll something else than now, balancing on the line between the old and the new content

Well, no need to worry any further, dear Gnome! Knowing the desire of your heart – making huge damage, hurling big balls of fire – I can tell you that you’ll get more than pleased with how mages have developed.

I haven’t run Recount lately, due to lag, but my general feeling is that we’ve finally been given some love and attention from Blizzard. We’ve been improved, but not to the extent that it has pissed off everyone else and resulted in a backlash nerf, which happened to ret paladins and hunters.

I know it’s silly and immature, but I’m kind of fascinated by big numbers. You see them a lot nowadays. Frostfirebolts are often critting for 8-9 k damage – sometimes a lot more – I saw one at 16 k the other day. And with two of those in a row, followed by a hot streak and a pyro for 6-7 k damage it adds up. Then I haven’t mentioned the little helpers you have whenever mirror image is up, or the living bomb, a nice dot which actually hurts a lot more than it looks. The enemies are literally melting in front of your eyes.

And the best thing of all: in spite of all this damage, threat hasn’t become a bigger issue – rather the contrary. I think tanks do better aggro these days – actually I’m working on changing my playstyle, trying to become a little bit more aggressive. I’ve been taught to wait for a few seconds, preferably a few sunders, before starting to cast my first nuke. Now I should rather cast it as soon as the tank starts the pull.

Since we haven’t started 25 man raiding yet in my guild I haven’t seen any recent WWS charts. I have a friend mage who has though, and his reports have been quite promising, doing 4 k dps on average during a normal raid night, ending up second on the damage list.

After the last patch in TBC mages had very hard to compete at all, doing damage on par with a tank – or less. Geared and talented at level 80 my impression is that we shouldn’t complain too much. Maybe the days when mages were known for their constant whining in public forums are over.

Other news
This was the nuke part. Nuking is important – it’s the essence of being a mage. But I’ll give you a few of the other news for mages at lvl 80

• You don’t necessarily have to be a tailor anymore. The gear you can craft isn’t overwhelmingly good and anyway it isn’t restricted to tailors – you can pick another profession if you want and have another tailor make them for you.
• Your bills for bringing potions to a raid will be smaller, since they’re restricted to one per fight. I had fears that mana would be a big issue because of this, but so far I haven’t seen experienced any lack of mana. It remains to see if this will be the same when the fights will get harder and longer.
• I don’t know if it’s my imagination but I don’t see many warlocks around anymore. Are they all sulking and rolling Deathknights? I don’t know, but they’re gone.
• Competition for gear will be a bit harder. You’ll find yourself rolling on a spellpower ring, not only against other dps casters, but also against healers. On the other hand there’s a lot of good gear around – through reputation grinds, badge collecting or crafting, so you can’t really say that gearing up is hard. One and a half month after the expansion was released I’ve got only 4 out of 17 slots that aren’t epic. And I still count myself as a pretty casual player with a limited time for gaming.
• The cost for making tables has gone insane. Five powders for one table! I haven’t been to any BG since the release, but I suspect that you rarely see tables there nowadays.
• Blastwave has changed, making it behave like… a real blastwave(!). It sure looks fun, knocking away the mobs, but it’s useless in an instance, too hard to control. I imagine though that it can be great fun in PvP.

Class balance
Are their any things to worry about? Well maybe that would be the class balance. Being a mage you don’t bring anything else to a raid but dps. We used to bring our int buff and awesome cc as well, but other classes can provide the same thing now. We’re not indispensable. The dual spec upcoming means that hybrid classes will be more attractive, being able to provide extra healing for one boss and dps for another one. A mage is a mage is a mage. We definitely won’t be given any spots in the raid by default.

Another problem is the constant lack of healers. The addition of the DK class has made a few more tanks available (though I must admit that I have yet to see a good DK tank, the ones I’ve met so far in pugs really haven’t been top class if so to say). But that makes the lack of healers even more urgent. There have been nights when I’ve spent hours in the LFG channel, and all you hear there are the desperate cries from the surplus dps. “DPS lfg heroics”, followed by “Good DPS lfg…” And then another one: LFM healer, last spot, gtg. The only thing we can hope for is that Blizzard makes a new hero healing class pretty soon or finds another way to make healing more fun and attractive.

The best of times
But enough of worries now. The new capital is even a dedicated mage town with mage NPCs in every corner. We’re the only class with a trainer of our own in Dalaran. And you can even join and honor The Mage Society itself, Kirin Tor, by wearing the tabard. We’re certainly living in the best of times for mages

Welcome back to Azeroth, to the brand new mage friendly world of Northrend! And welcome back as an active blogger!. We’re all looking forward to your return.

Best of regards

Your fellow mage and blogging colleague

Larísa

Free your mind with re-customization

My guild has gone through a major transformation. A boob surgery if you so say. Suddenly we’ve got at least four new ladies in our guild – and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few more incoming, this seems to be the fashion of the day.

The reason is of course the new Re-Customization feature, giving you the possibility to change sex, name and appearance of your character for a fee of $15.

All of those name changes have been a bit confusing – it isn’t easy to know if those unknown names suddenly appearing on the guild roosters are newly recruited or veterans in disguises. So I asked for some clarifications and explanations in the guild forum and also wondered about the reasons for the changes.

This was the answer I got from one of our tanks, a warrior (played by a guy):

“I got a gender change because over the time I’ve played as a male nelf I’ve come to regret rolling a male. Their animations are really awkward and downright ugly, not to mention the fact that my guy had a really weird looking face that I couldn’t only cover up with a beard and a mad hairstyle”.

A female player decided to change her male priest into a girl:

“The sexchange was good for me to create a char I enjoy the graphics of, have a better feeling with and best thing is that people are not calling me dude/ m8/him etc. anymore”

The most interesting explanation though came from our Deathknight (male player):

“Too much beer, too less brain, I changed gender and name. Don’t really know why, but after a day I want to change back, tired of all the whispers with: “Hey, can u take all ur gear off so I can see a nude” already, so just waiting on the cooldown to get off”.

Female or male

I wonder how many of those switches back and forward we’ll see. And I also wonder if we’ll really see the opposite, female toons growing beards? I haven’t heard about any so far. Do people generally think that male characters look worse than female?

Loronar at 35 yards out wrote a post about the gender surgeries last week, arguing that it’s unlikely that the use will be wide spread. We’ve been living without it for such a long time, so why should we jump on the train now when it comes? The price is a bit high considering that it’s just for vanity purposes, according to Loronar.

Well, looking at the statistics of my guild I’d say the opposite. About 10 percent of the players changed sex as soon as it was available, which is quite a lot.

A good thing
So what do I think about the whole phenomena? Well, there are some disadvantages of course. The whole thing that you can so easily change name and appearance can make it easier to ninjas and other people you want to keep on your ignore list to sneak into your game play again. However they’ll probably reveal their inner nature soon enough, and changing over and over again will get pretty expensive, so probably it isn’t much to worry about.

Even though it hasn’t occurred to me to change my name, gender or even my hair cut (I’m proud to say that I haven’t got the hair cut achievement and I have no intention whatsoever to get it), I approve of others doing it. I think it may even be for good.

When you think about it there’s no reason that those things should be fixed and static in the game. It’s a magic world after all. It’s a place where you can find weird things as chrystallized fire, a world where you can teleport to other places and turn enemies into sheep. Why shouldn’t you be able to try another sex for a while out of curiosity? Will you be treated differently then you were before? You’ll never know until you’ve tried.

And where does it say that you have to make your character good looking? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the games through the eyes of a truly ugly character?

All in all I think the new deal is a great opportunity for us to free our minds and get away from the preset ideas about femininity, masculinity and beaut. We can try out new roles and we can switch back and forward if we want to.

Tanith Lee
I came to think about one of my favourite SF books, Biting the sun by Tanith Lee. She writes about a world where people commit suicide over and over again, are brought back to life and then can swip sex and looks if they want to. I can’t refrain from quoting the opening scene, hoping it will make you curious enough to read the whole book:

“Of course, when I woke up in the Limbo Tub I’d changed my mind. Some quasi-robot medicine man was peering in at me.

“Look here, young woman – I see that is what you pre-dominantly are – this has got to be stopped. This is the second time you’ve been back here in ten units”.

“Mmm,”, I swam around a bit and smiled at him with my emotional response wires.

The Q-R went away, and someone came and asked me what I wanted to come out as, and by then, you see, I’d anti-Hergaled myself. How drumdik it would be if people actually thought I was Hergll! What with that, and that floppy bee swooning in my hair… I showed them the new me. As usual it was depressingly lithe and glamorous. Hatta, and lots of other people I know, nearly always makes a point of having a fat body once in a while, or spots or something. Anyhow, this me was willow-waisted, with an exotic bust and long, long scarlet hair. I got into it, and it felt so odd I had to go somewhere quiet and have an ecstasy pill, and forget about it for a while.”

To be honest, the teenagers Tanith Lee writes about are pretty unhappy, in spite of the possibility to re-customize. Still I think there’s something beautiful about the idea. The body is rather a shell, containing a beautiful mind or an awesome player.

It’s a good thing that Blizzard brought this into Azeroth. I only wish there were a few more appearances to choose between, in my opinon the possiblities still are rather limited.