I know you're all obviously chomping at the bit (hah) for the next part of the adventures of Lyara and her player through the World of Warcraft, but unfortunately, real life has gotten in the way (much like it gets in the way when you're actually playing the game).
Due to impending exams beginning on April 29th, stretching to a project report hand-in on June 1st, I will be pretty busy over the coming month and a bit (see: understatement), and thus will not have enough time to put together any new posts.
Never fear though, once this period is over, I shall be back and continuing the story!
In the meantime, why not content yourselves with some internet cookies?
p.s. I have no idea how to solve this.
13 April 2011
9 April 2011
Memoires (Part 2 - Guildification)
"Who we choose to be around us defines who we are."
 |
| Guild Crest - Most Wanted Postals |
Due to the inherent social nature of MMO's, all games offer a formal system to create organisations of players, these go under various names - Clans, Corporations, or in World of Warcraft's case, Guilds.
Guilds allow players to band together under one banner, to provide aid to each other in the form of shared expertise, shared resources and also familiar faces to group with in order to advance through the harder content in a game.
Naturally, Guilds vary in size, attitude and purpose. Some are just social affairs - essentially there to provide a private chat channel for a group of friends and unite them under a funny name, others are a whole lot more well organised and serious in nature, with strict screening processes for new members, a clear vision and goal and well defined roles for the members to fulfill (i.e. someone who has learnt Alchemy will be obliged to provide free potions for the guild to use, in return for this they are able to use ingredients gathered by other guild members free of charge to help advance their skill in that profession).
Guilds that managed to establish themselves as the top dogs on each server stood essentially at the pinnacle of the social ladder, and were (in general) accorded respect and admiration for their accomplishments by the rest of the player base.
At the time, I had no idea about any of that - but some way through level 13, I felt that I should start looking around for a guild. It would make progressing through the game easier, and I felt that it would be fun to have a regular bunch of people to play with as well, instead of the solo game I had enjoyed up until then.
I had spent about a week based in Auberdine at that point. It was rather depressing. There was always an air of melancholy hanging over the small town and the surrounding forests - no doubt driven by the proliferation of fel wildlife and malcontent spirits lurking in the mists. Even the sun seemed to abandon it's duties in this land; it's rays weak and wanting.
I sighed as I arose from bed, the ninth day now. The serenity of Teldrassil had become nothing but a distant memory now, pushed to the corners of my mind by days filled with exploratory quests - more often than not ending up in fierce combat against wayward spirits or the enraged and diseased animals that still called this blighted shore their home.
I pulled on my garments - a simple cloth tunic and pants, dirtied and ripped, along with a comfortable pair of well made cloth boots that had been my latest purchase. I fastened my belt - tough hide which was now fast falling apart under heavy use, and girdled my trusty mace. A parting glance as I headed for the door revealed that in the short time I'd been here I'd managed to make a thorough mess of the tiny room I stayed in; stacks of paper parchments were scattered all over the desk, empty potion flasks rolled around on the wooden floor and a pile of dirty laundry sat in the corner, growing larger by the day.
Didn't know you were such a slouch!
Not compared to you I'm not!
Touché.
Anyway...
It was on that day I met Chaspal. A meeting dictated by chance more than anything. I was walking through the town centre of Auberdine, out towards the ruins of Ameth'Aran, when suddenly a voice called out from behind me.
"You! You're a Priestess right?"
I turned to face the stranger. In my travels, I've met a lot of rogues, and in my experience they generally fall into two classes; the rogue-ish sort, who love to tell a good tale and enjoy some friendly riposte before attempting to pickpocket you, and the other, assassin, sort. Silent but deadly. You know...the stare at you then stab you whilst you weren't paying attention type (and then they would pickpocket your corpse, although strictly that's probably better classified as looting).
I looked up at his unsmiling face, and immediately put him into the latter category.
"I need some support down south, there's a Furbolg tribe which could potentially give Auberdine a lot of trouble. Come?"
I didn't really have anything better to do, so I agreed.
So, yes, I did indeed meet this Rogue called Chaspal in Auberdine. I remember he was maybe four or five levels higher at that point, but struggling with a quest (if memory serves me right).
We ended up grouping, and he must have taken a shine to me as a healer because we ended up doing several quests together (or so I remember). They were of the rather trivial sort, i.e. collect 5 bear asses, then go kill 5 monkeys etc, so having someone to chat to definitely made it more enjoyable. He also seemed like quite a friendly bloke, despite what Lyara says.
I also noticed that Chaspal was part of a Guild called The Revenants - in fact, he was the Guild Master. It was a pretty good name, or so I thought, so I decided to ask him whether I could join.
He had a think, then told me that although they needed healers, I was a bit low level. He said that I should get to level 15 and then talk to him again before logging off. At this point, I was pretty determined to join, and so I set my nose to the grindstone and began questing like mad.
Thankfully, it was the weekend, so I ended up playing all day, and the next time I bumped into him I was level 18.
I could imagine him nodding approval as he extended a guild invite. As I was about to accept it, I realised that I knew absolutely nothing about the guild apart from the name, and Chaspal. For all I knew, they could have been a guild of LBGT roleplayers (such guilds do exist!). Still, what the hey, I thought, and clicked the "Accept" button.
"Lyara has joined the Guild." popped up a little message on my chat box.
Several "His" and "Welcomes" came in from various other guild members who were online. It turned out that I had joined an exceedingly small guild, with only 7 members (me included). Of these, six were officers. It turns out I was the first fully fledged member to join.
I learnt quickly that the officers in the guild had met in the beta test, and were so enamoured with each other that they'd decided to stick it out in the release of the game. That sounded pretty cool to me.
What was also cool to me was I was now a member of a guild. It was like I now belonged somewhere - I had a flag to fight for.
We stood on the pier in the late afternoon - the sun, having given it's token effort for the day, was well on it's way back down to the horizon. Waves lapped softly at the supports, slapping them gently and rhythmically. Rows of elven lanterns hung from graceful supports, shimmering pale blue.
"So, is there some sort of ceremony?" I asked.
"No," he replied, communicating amusement with the slight upturn of one corner of his mouth; Chaspal was an elf who's speech was as pointed as his weapons.
"Here." He tossed me a small wooden badge, emblazoned with the guild crest - a droplet of water surrounded by ripples. "Congratulations, you're now a member of The Revenants."
And so, sometime during the late afternoon, on the tenth day after I'd left Teldrassil, between the second and third lanterns on that pier, I became a Revenant.
I've often looked back on that point and wondered how things would have been had I said no to his request for my aid; it seemed like it was by pure chance that I accepted his proposition. But as I reminisce now, it has come to my realisation that fate often plays it's hand under the guise of coincidence, and in the grip of destiny, we have less choice in matters than we think.
 |
| Auberdine - artist's impression. |
I had spent about a week based in Auberdine at that point. It was rather depressing. There was always an air of melancholy hanging over the small town and the surrounding forests - no doubt driven by the proliferation of fel wildlife and malcontent spirits lurking in the mists. Even the sun seemed to abandon it's duties in this land; it's rays weak and wanting.
I sighed as I arose from bed, the ninth day now. The serenity of Teldrassil had become nothing but a distant memory now, pushed to the corners of my mind by days filled with exploratory quests - more often than not ending up in fierce combat against wayward spirits or the enraged and diseased animals that still called this blighted shore their home.
I pulled on my garments - a simple cloth tunic and pants, dirtied and ripped, along with a comfortable pair of well made cloth boots that had been my latest purchase. I fastened my belt - tough hide which was now fast falling apart under heavy use, and girdled my trusty mace. A parting glance as I headed for the door revealed that in the short time I'd been here I'd managed to make a thorough mess of the tiny room I stayed in; stacks of paper parchments were scattered all over the desk, empty potion flasks rolled around on the wooden floor and a pile of dirty laundry sat in the corner, growing larger by the day.
Didn't know you were such a slouch!
Not compared to you I'm not!
Touché.
Anyway...
It was on that day I met Chaspal. A meeting dictated by chance more than anything. I was walking through the town centre of Auberdine, out towards the ruins of Ameth'Aran, when suddenly a voice called out from behind me.
"You! You're a Priestess right?"
I turned to face the stranger. In my travels, I've met a lot of rogues, and in my experience they generally fall into two classes; the rogue-ish sort, who love to tell a good tale and enjoy some friendly riposte before attempting to pickpocket you, and the other, assassin, sort. Silent but deadly. You know...the stare at you then stab you whilst you weren't paying attention type (and then they would pickpocket your corpse, although strictly that's probably better classified as looting).
I looked up at his unsmiling face, and immediately put him into the latter category.
"I need some support down south, there's a Furbolg tribe which could potentially give Auberdine a lot of trouble. Come?"
I didn't really have anything better to do, so I agreed.
So, yes, I did indeed meet this Rogue called Chaspal in Auberdine. I remember he was maybe four or five levels higher at that point, but struggling with a quest (if memory serves me right).
We ended up grouping, and he must have taken a shine to me as a healer because we ended up doing several quests together (or so I remember). They were of the rather trivial sort, i.e. collect 5 bear asses, then go kill 5 monkeys etc, so having someone to chat to definitely made it more enjoyable. He also seemed like quite a friendly bloke, despite what Lyara says.
I also noticed that Chaspal was part of a Guild called The Revenants - in fact, he was the Guild Master. It was a pretty good name, or so I thought, so I decided to ask him whether I could join.
He had a think, then told me that although they needed healers, I was a bit low level. He said that I should get to level 15 and then talk to him again before logging off. At this point, I was pretty determined to join, and so I set my nose to the grindstone and began questing like mad.
Thankfully, it was the weekend, so I ended up playing all day, and the next time I bumped into him I was level 18.
I could imagine him nodding approval as he extended a guild invite. As I was about to accept it, I realised that I knew absolutely nothing about the guild apart from the name, and Chaspal. For all I knew, they could have been a guild of LBGT roleplayers (such guilds do exist!). Still, what the hey, I thought, and clicked the "Accept" button.
"Lyara has joined the Guild." popped up a little message on my chat box.
Several "His" and "Welcomes" came in from various other guild members who were online. It turned out that I had joined an exceedingly small guild, with only 7 members (me included). Of these, six were officers. It turns out I was the first fully fledged member to join.
I learnt quickly that the officers in the guild had met in the beta test, and were so enamoured with each other that they'd decided to stick it out in the release of the game. That sounded pretty cool to me.
What was also cool to me was I was now a member of a guild. It was like I now belonged somewhere - I had a flag to fight for.
 |
| Auberdine pier |
"So, is there some sort of ceremony?" I asked.
"No," he replied, communicating amusement with the slight upturn of one corner of his mouth; Chaspal was an elf who's speech was as pointed as his weapons.
"Here." He tossed me a small wooden badge, emblazoned with the guild crest - a droplet of water surrounded by ripples. "Congratulations, you're now a member of The Revenants."
And so, sometime during the late afternoon, on the tenth day after I'd left Teldrassil, between the second and third lanterns on that pier, I became a Revenant.
I've often looked back on that point and wondered how things would have been had I said no to his request for my aid; it seemed like it was by pure chance that I accepted his proposition. But as I reminisce now, it has come to my realisation that fate often plays it's hand under the guise of coincidence, and in the grip of destiny, we have less choice in matters than we think.
3 April 2011
Memoires (Part 1 - Humble Beginnings)
February 12th, 2005, one day after the official release of the game, it began...
As someone who had played other Warcraft games before, I was familiar with the fantasy world which Blizzard had created, and the thought of being able to participate actively in it was an exciting one indeed. If you've ever read a good book or saw a movie and thought to yourself: "Damn, wish I could spend some time in that world." then you know the sort of feeling I had, and so you can imagine the gleeful anticipation that came with the granting of said wish.
Shh...hey...I was getting around to it.
Er...
Name calling already? You've only been on this blog for 6 lines!
Well, you're the guy who gave me a name which translates into Gnomish as "Weird", so suck it. Also, why is my text in this stupid red colour? I don't like it.
...pick a colour then, and we'll carry on with the story.
Yay!
Really?
I had to put up with this for two years...
Go on then, take it away.
Teldrassil, the home of the few remaining Night Elves.
Up until that point, a sheltered life amidst the eternal dusk of the forest floor was all I had known, but when I enrolled as a Priestess of Elune, my life changed. The tasks I was given were simple at first - culling the local wildlife to preserve the balance of the ecosystem, investigating taints, collecting herbs and so forth. However, I progressed quickly in strength and magical aptitude through devoting my spare time to the study of spells from all the disciplines of priesthood and the training of my body and mind.
It wasn't long before the serving Priestess at Aldrassil recognised my talents, and sent me onwards towards the town of Dolanaar, where it seemed my services were more required than ever. It seemed that the fel taint had suddenly sprung up in all sorts of places, and the Furbolgs were driven mad by it.
I remember being sent to the village of Starbreeze to investigate - what seemed to be a simple task turned into carnage as the Furbolgs attacked. The guardian Sentinels were too far away to lend aid in time, and I...arrived to see innocents being cut down and the village pillaged and torched for all it was worth. Compared to the trials I have been through since, perhaps this is small, but this was the first time I had witnessed such devastation, and forever this will be etched into my memory.
So, it turned out that after some investigation, the Chieftan of their tribe had been corrupted by some Fel Moss. He was beyond saving, unfortunately, so I was sent to dispatch him. He came at me, a flailing, insane mass of limbs and fur, and I, no longer a stranger to combat at the point, sidestepped his attacks with ease and put him down in as humane a fashion as I could.
After that, I was sent to Darnassus, the capital, where I was received in the Temple of Elune and commended on my achievements. I was even allowed to pray beneath the statue of Elune, albeit briefly. The senior Priestesses told me that I had potential, and to further my training, I would be sent away from Teldrassil, onto the continent of Kalimdor.
I had come of age in the Night Elf hierarchy, and thus, travel was to be expected. However, the thought of leaving all I had known behind weighed heavy on my mind. I stood for an age at the docks of Rut'Theran village - the port town of Teldrassil, and stared across the grey seas. The waves crashed without purpose against the roots of our great tree, the deep rhythmic booms interrupted by the chittering of the hippogryphs in their stables. A sudden determination gripped me; I wouldn't be like those waves, breaking fruitlessly against an unyielding shore. I felt a calling, a drive, something...urging me forward to a destiny as yet unknown to me, but it was a good feeling, to have a sense of purpose in one's life.
Hey, that was surprisingly good. I was expecting snarky comments and an exceedingly blunt account of things.
Not bad for being a bunch of pixels, a few kilobytes of data and a figment of your imagination, right?
To be honest though, after all that, you can hardly criticise me for my dramatic tendancies.
I can be a hypocrite, I don't care...you whiny girl.
...
So anyway, this was pretty much the first ten or so levels of my time in WoW, which were spent questing around the Teldrassil area. It was a really exciting time of the game, when everything was new and fresh - there was a feeling of limitless possibility.
Because I'd started a day later than everyone else who had bought the game on launch day, the starter areas wasn't too cramped, but there were still enough people around so that the area-wide chat was lively and populated. The general atmosphere was one of marvel, as people communicated their delight at discovering new things as they progressed through the first few levels of their characters.
The art direction was great - even though the graphics weren't cutting edge at the time, there was a cohesiveness and a certain stylism to the look they had gone for, and everything fitted together well - Darnassus especially was a memorable place, with it's graceful marbled architecture, intertwined, as most elvish dwellings are, with nature. Slender bridges connected the various sections of the city together, spanning over a central lake. The ambient sound of water was everpresent, as were the quiet jinglings of the wisps (elvish spirits) which populated the place.
God those wisps were annoying. They'd never move out of the way and if you tried to walk through one you'd never hear the end of it...they'd just follow you around and jingle at you. Blasted things.
The core gameplay mechanics were simple to learn, and everything was well explained. The quests were also well constructed and had an overall narrative, which made the various tasks such as collecting x number of plants seem meaningful. To be honest though, this was all within expectations.
The point at which this game really grabbed my attention though, was the first hippogryph ride away from Teldrassil. Normally, when you take a form of transportation within a game, it goes to a loading screen and then you arrive at your destination (unless you're playing a game like Gran Turismo, where it would then probably defeat the purpose of it...but I digress).
Not so here.
I clicked on the hippogryph, and what happened next literally took my breath away, as Lyara mounted the beast and it proceeded to take off, flying over the sea towards the continent of Kalimdor. Perhaps it just because it was in absolute defiance of my expectations, but that moment really opened my eyes to the fact that there was a world there. I mean, it was virtual, but at the same time, it felt real...if you know what I mean.
That was cool.
I looked around one last time before taking the last of my silvers and giving it to the hippogryph master. He directed me to one of his steeds. It croaked and bore me upwards with great thrusts of green feathered wings. Soon I was high aloft and over nothing but sea. The cold wind bit into my face, and I grasped the hippogryph tightly, not wanting to be thrown off.
Behind me, all that I had ever known receded slowly into the greyness of a clouded day, and in front, lay my future, whatever that was to be.
As someone who had played other Warcraft games before, I was familiar with the fantasy world which Blizzard had created, and the thought of being able to participate actively in it was an exciting one indeed. If you've ever read a good book or saw a movie and thought to yourself: "Damn, wish I could spend some time in that world." then you know the sort of feeling I had, and so you can imagine the gleeful anticipation that came with the granting of said wish.
Are you ever going to introduce me?!
Shh...hey...I was getting around to it.
No you weren't, you were just rambling as always, and what is it with you and all the dramatic tendancies; I mean, "Gaping maws of blackness..." really? If you could see me, I'd be rolling my eyes and flicking my hair in a disdainful fashion.
Er...
Oh, for Elune's sake, I'll introduce myself then. I'm Lyara, the Night Elf Priestess that this here person/douchefag created on the Dragonblight server.
Name calling already? You've only been on this blog for 6 lines!
...pick a colour then, and we'll carry on with the story.
Yay!
Really?
Kidding! I'll go with this one, it's the colour of my hair. ^^
I had to put up with this for two years...
Go on then, take it away.
Teldrassil, the home of the few remaining Night Elves.
Up until that point, a sheltered life amidst the eternal dusk of the forest floor was all I had known, but when I enrolled as a Priestess of Elune, my life changed. The tasks I was given were simple at first - culling the local wildlife to preserve the balance of the ecosystem, investigating taints, collecting herbs and so forth. However, I progressed quickly in strength and magical aptitude through devoting my spare time to the study of spells from all the disciplines of priesthood and the training of my body and mind.
It wasn't long before the serving Priestess at Aldrassil recognised my talents, and sent me onwards towards the town of Dolanaar, where it seemed my services were more required than ever. It seemed that the fel taint had suddenly sprung up in all sorts of places, and the Furbolgs were driven mad by it.
I remember being sent to the village of Starbreeze to investigate - what seemed to be a simple task turned into carnage as the Furbolgs attacked. The guardian Sentinels were too far away to lend aid in time, and I...arrived to see innocents being cut down and the village pillaged and torched for all it was worth. Compared to the trials I have been through since, perhaps this is small, but this was the first time I had witnessed such devastation, and forever this will be etched into my memory.
So, it turned out that after some investigation, the Chieftan of their tribe had been corrupted by some Fel Moss. He was beyond saving, unfortunately, so I was sent to dispatch him. He came at me, a flailing, insane mass of limbs and fur, and I, no longer a stranger to combat at the point, sidestepped his attacks with ease and put him down in as humane a fashion as I could.
After that, I was sent to Darnassus, the capital, where I was received in the Temple of Elune and commended on my achievements. I was even allowed to pray beneath the statue of Elune, albeit briefly. The senior Priestesses told me that I had potential, and to further my training, I would be sent away from Teldrassil, onto the continent of Kalimdor.
I had come of age in the Night Elf hierarchy, and thus, travel was to be expected. However, the thought of leaving all I had known behind weighed heavy on my mind. I stood for an age at the docks of Rut'Theran village - the port town of Teldrassil, and stared across the grey seas. The waves crashed without purpose against the roots of our great tree, the deep rhythmic booms interrupted by the chittering of the hippogryphs in their stables. A sudden determination gripped me; I wouldn't be like those waves, breaking fruitlessly against an unyielding shore. I felt a calling, a drive, something...urging me forward to a destiny as yet unknown to me, but it was a good feeling, to have a sense of purpose in one's life.
Hey, that was surprisingly good. I was expecting snarky comments and an exceedingly blunt account of things.
Not bad for being a bunch of pixels, a few kilobytes of data and a figment of your imagination, right?
To be honest though, after all that, you can hardly criticise me for my dramatic tendancies.
I can be a hypocrite, I don't care...you whiny girl.
...
So anyway, this was pretty much the first ten or so levels of my time in WoW, which were spent questing around the Teldrassil area. It was a really exciting time of the game, when everything was new and fresh - there was a feeling of limitless possibility.
Because I'd started a day later than everyone else who had bought the game on launch day, the starter areas wasn't too cramped, but there were still enough people around so that the area-wide chat was lively and populated. The general atmosphere was one of marvel, as people communicated their delight at discovering new things as they progressed through the first few levels of their characters.
The art direction was great - even though the graphics weren't cutting edge at the time, there was a cohesiveness and a certain stylism to the look they had gone for, and everything fitted together well - Darnassus especially was a memorable place, with it's graceful marbled architecture, intertwined, as most elvish dwellings are, with nature. Slender bridges connected the various sections of the city together, spanning over a central lake. The ambient sound of water was everpresent, as were the quiet jinglings of the wisps (elvish spirits) which populated the place.
God those wisps were annoying. They'd never move out of the way and if you tried to walk through one you'd never hear the end of it...they'd just follow you around and jingle at you. Blasted things.
 |
| Darnassus |
The point at which this game really grabbed my attention though, was the first hippogryph ride away from Teldrassil. Normally, when you take a form of transportation within a game, it goes to a loading screen and then you arrive at your destination (unless you're playing a game like Gran Turismo, where it would then probably defeat the purpose of it...but I digress).
Not so here.
I clicked on the hippogryph, and what happened next literally took my breath away, as Lyara mounted the beast and it proceeded to take off, flying over the sea towards the continent of Kalimdor. Perhaps it just because it was in absolute defiance of my expectations, but that moment really opened my eyes to the fact that there was a world there. I mean, it was virtual, but at the same time, it felt real...if you know what I mean.
That was cool.
I looked around one last time before taking the last of my silvers and giving it to the hippogryph master. He directed me to one of his steeds. It croaked and bore me upwards with great thrusts of green feathered wings. Soon I was high aloft and over nothing but sea. The cold wind bit into my face, and I grasped the hippogryph tightly, not wanting to be thrown off.
Behind me, all that I had ever known receded slowly into the greyness of a clouded day, and in front, lay my future, whatever that was to be.
2 April 2011
Memoires (Prologue)
I poked at the campfire in a vain attempt to stoke the dying embers. Around us, the forest stretched away in all directions, tree branches forming shadowed archways; gaping maws of blackness. It was windless on the forest floor and the moonlight barely penetrated the thick canopy.
I kept my sword close, though I suspected that I wouldn't be in any danger; I was in her company after all.
She sat quietly beside me on a log, staring into the red hued remnants of our fire. She was my elder by a few hundred years, not that you'd know just by looking: Night Elves don't age. Only in her bright eyes, set like iridescent sapphires against the lilac of her skin, did the depths of her experience and wisdom show, and only in her wearied and deliberate movements could you see the strain of a thousand battles and the toll that they had taken.
Her name was Lyara, and I had come to listen to her story. She was regarded by most of our village as an eccentric, and lived a reclusive life. I however, as a student of history, knew her legacy. I knew that, had it not been for her and the alliance of brave heroes she had been the leader of, I wouldn't be alive today; none of us would.
A quick primer for those of you who don't know - World of Warcraft is the most popular Mass Multiplayer Online (MMO) game in the world, with over 11 million subscribers logging into the fantasy lands of Azeroth to play.
And, for those of you wondering what an MMO is - it is, in general, a game which can only be played online, by connecting to a server which runs a persistent world. The player will create a character in this world, to roam and explore this virtual realm, interacting with other characters in the process (most of which will also be played by other players). MMOs are unlike normal games due to the fact that the world does not stop when the player stops playing, his/her character is merely placed in stasis until the next time he/she logs on. They are also unlike normal games due to the complex social interactions that are allowed to arise by having a lot of players running around a persistent world.
A lot of the harder challenges in the game are designed to be tackled by a large group of players (up to 40 in World of Warcraft) - i.e. if you want a slay a dragon, you'll have to grab some mates. This places an emphasis on the ability to co-operate and co-ordinate with a large group to achieve a common goal.
MMO's have gotten a pretty bad rap in the press, mainly due to some of the horrendous addiction stories that have been aired by the media i.e. the Shawn Woolley incident, amongst others. There's no way to put a positive spin on it, so I'm not going to try to; it's the dark side of these games that they lend themselves easily to addiction by their nature.
However, it's not all bad, but it seems to me that the real delights of an MMO are not readily understood by those who do not play and have not experienced it - which includes a lot of the ill informed media outlets spewing their vitriol. In an attempt to explain some of why these games are just so good, and often grab players for years at a time, I'll be writing a series of blog posts in which I recount my own adventures through the World of Warcraft, starting from my beginnings as a Night Elf nobody, to how I rose through the ranks and became the de facto leader of one of our server's most respected and elite guilds, our successes and failures, and finally my eventual acquittance.
It's a World of Warcraft story. Get ready!
p.s. I was trying to find some World of Warcraft related pictures to post, and stumbled upon this cosplay...:D
I kept my sword close, though I suspected that I wouldn't be in any danger; I was in her company after all.
She sat quietly beside me on a log, staring into the red hued remnants of our fire. She was my elder by a few hundred years, not that you'd know just by looking: Night Elves don't age. Only in her bright eyes, set like iridescent sapphires against the lilac of her skin, did the depths of her experience and wisdom show, and only in her wearied and deliberate movements could you see the strain of a thousand battles and the toll that they had taken.
Her name was Lyara, and I had come to listen to her story. She was regarded by most of our village as an eccentric, and lived a reclusive life. I however, as a student of history, knew her legacy. I knew that, had it not been for her and the alliance of brave heroes she had been the leader of, I wouldn't be alive today; none of us would.
 |
| Lyara's tale awaits... |
A quick primer for those of you who don't know - World of Warcraft is the most popular Mass Multiplayer Online (MMO) game in the world, with over 11 million subscribers logging into the fantasy lands of Azeroth to play.
And, for those of you wondering what an MMO is - it is, in general, a game which can only be played online, by connecting to a server which runs a persistent world. The player will create a character in this world, to roam and explore this virtual realm, interacting with other characters in the process (most of which will also be played by other players). MMOs are unlike normal games due to the fact that the world does not stop when the player stops playing, his/her character is merely placed in stasis until the next time he/she logs on. They are also unlike normal games due to the complex social interactions that are allowed to arise by having a lot of players running around a persistent world.
A lot of the harder challenges in the game are designed to be tackled by a large group of players (up to 40 in World of Warcraft) - i.e. if you want a slay a dragon, you'll have to grab some mates. This places an emphasis on the ability to co-operate and co-ordinate with a large group to achieve a common goal.
MMO's have gotten a pretty bad rap in the press, mainly due to some of the horrendous addiction stories that have been aired by the media i.e. the Shawn Woolley incident, amongst others. There's no way to put a positive spin on it, so I'm not going to try to; it's the dark side of these games that they lend themselves easily to addiction by their nature.
However, it's not all bad, but it seems to me that the real delights of an MMO are not readily understood by those who do not play and have not experienced it - which includes a lot of the ill informed media outlets spewing their vitriol. In an attempt to explain some of why these games are just so good, and often grab players for years at a time, I'll be writing a series of blog posts in which I recount my own adventures through the World of Warcraft, starting from my beginnings as a Night Elf nobody, to how I rose through the ranks and became the de facto leader of one of our server's most respected and elite guilds, our successes and failures, and finally my eventual acquittance.
It's a World of Warcraft story. Get ready!
p.s. I was trying to find some World of Warcraft related pictures to post, and stumbled upon this cosplay...:D
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