14 July 2013

Gen Y's own "Git off my lawn!!!!"



It's fascinating, curious, and quite awakening. Members of Generation Y's eldest citizenry are approaching age thirty. It is humourous for me, a member of Gen X, to listen to them slump into their rocking chairs, shout at their wee children, and reminisce. Do I give the first fuck about what it was like when they used to love Eminem or dream of girls who looked like they walked straight out of the latest anime? No, not in the least. What does fascinate me is when these young lads look to the "good old days" and reminisce about how MMORPGs (e.g., WoW) used to be the absolute shee-it. The year was 2004 (or 2005 or 2006) and they had no cares or responsibilities other than homework and being prepared for raids. Then real life bit them on their 'was-there-really-life-before-the-internet?' asses. They got jobs, wives, mortgages, kids, in-laws, etc. I'm confident that taking a shit seemed better in the old, carefree days than it does now. Could this be a large part of why so many Gen Y twenty-somethings pine for yesteryear, when WoW was just better? I am going to say 'yes.'

As an "old" man, I simply sit back, laugh at these young dickheads, and I realise that maybe 1985 (much like 2005) wasn't truly the shit after all. At least now we can all legally drink together... and dream.

10 July 2013

Today & Any Other Day

Summer with kids. I am interacting with kids the same way that I interact with almost anyone else: online. And I could really do without the young folk. Desperation for freedom in a field of no responsibility means bursts of fucktard glee. No thanks.

Let's get all Bitter & Salty on your ass...


Week 01 — Your first character? A dwarf paladin that I played to about level 12, then deleted. The next toon that made, I kept: my tauren--> dwarf--> troll hunter.

Week 02 — Your favorite raid? For design, music, and overall ambiance, Karazhan. But it is rather anti-climactic. The chess event blows and the final boss is meh. Better final bosses are in ICC and MC.

Week 03 — A class you’re awful at playing or enjoy the least? I am not very good at playing a fury warrior, demonology warlock, or enhancement shaman. And I am very bad at tanking.

Week 04 — Your favorite zone of all time? Ghostlands & Shadowmoon Valley. They look exactly as they did when they were first created. Revamping zones ALWAYS fucks them up.

Week 05 — Your favorite classic/vanilla dungeon? BRD, Old Scholomance. Allow me to reiterate, revamping BAD.

Week 06 — Your favorite quest line? There were a few in Shadowmoon Valley. One required you to put on special goggles and look for a pack of ghost riders, the other one led you into a secret cavern under a small body of water.

Week 07 — Your favorite piece of lore? That which surrounds the transition of High Elves to Blood Elves, as well as that which resulted in the Plaguelands looking as they do.

Week 08 — PvE/PvP/RP? PvE /drops mic

Week 09 — Horde or Alliance? Horde, via a chain of events much like that described in ZAMM which led Robert Pirsig et al to ride on only backroads.

Week 10 — Your favorite mount? White or red skeletal warhorse, turbo-charged flying machine.

Week 11 — Your favorite gear set? Bastardized version of the Judgment set that is purple (meine Lieblingsfarbe) not gold.

Week 12 — Your proudest moment/achievement? Getting Fiery Warhorse mount, getting exalted with Ravenholdt, getting my Black War Bear

Week 13 — Your favorite Burning Crusade dungeon? Magister's Terrace

Week 14 — Your least favorite/most challenging dungeon/raid/world boss? Razorgore. It's Vanilla and it's STILL that awkward to solo??

Week 15 — Your favorite addon? Healium

Week 16 — Your favorite Wrath dungeon? Appearance and lore: Culling of Stratholme. Actual mechanics: Halls of Lightning OR Forge of Souls

Week 17 — Your favorite profession? Alchemy, followed by JC & enchanting.

Week 18 — Best and worst thing about World of Warcraft? It allows me to do things at my own pace and it's never too hard to catch up. But, there are some things that should never be revamped that get utterly destroyed via change.

Week 19 — Favorite class? Warlocks, monks, priests.

Week 20 — Your favorite or most sought after loot and whether you got it? I wanted (and got) Thunderfury. I also pursued some rare mount drops and got those. I started to work on Tarecgosa's Rest in 5.0, but the guild I was with soon stopped going to Firelands.

Week 21 — Your favorite battleground? Twin Peaks

Week 22 — Your favorite non-combat or Hunter pet? Non-combat pet, my Anubisath Idol

Week 23 — The longest you’ve gone without playing? Probably just over a month. And half of that time was because when I attempted to log on after not playing for a while, I had been hacked. It took Blizz two weeks to rectify the situation so that I could play once more.

Week 24 — Your favorite Cataclysm dungeon? I liked the bastardized Zul'Aman, but I don't think that is a proper Cataclysm dungeon. My favourite original would be Well of Eternity.

Week 25 — Your least favorite profession? Leatherworking. One of the VERY few elements of the game that I could honestly say, if they made it easier I would not mind. It's the one profession that I have not only maxed out only once, I have only one character who ever got past 270-ish.

Week 26 — Your /played value? Che cosa?

Week 27 — A time you made friends with someone in a group? No, never.

Week 28 — Your favorite dungeon/raid/world boss? Illidan or the Opera Event

Week 29 — Your favorite Mists of Pandaria dungeon? Stormstout Brewery. Not really much to choose from. You've got the revamped (read: fucked-over) old school dungeons, the dungeons that were so challenging that Blizz started giving extra VP to complete them, and the ones that you run over and over whilst leveling. For me, SB is the least painful and the most fun.

Week 30 — Your main character and what he/she means to you? Very hard question. I rotate which character I regard as my "main." And I do so quite a lot. I have always liked my mage and warlock, at least to some extent. Ironically, it's my shaman who has gotten the most achievements. And I cannot stomach playing shamans terribly often. However, I have been through rep grinds with my shaman that I would *NEVER* want to repeat, e.g., Hydraxian Waterlords, Ravenholdt, and Ogri'la. This lackluster feeling for the shaman has caused me not to get the Beloved or Insane titles. Yet.