The Game Dame

Remember how I told you I’d found an Orb of Deception? Well, guess what!? Tonight I sold it for 700G!!! Woot!!! Holy cow, holy cow, holy cow. Now Sligger will be able to afford his epic mount… assuming he ever gets enough honor to buy one. Color me flabbergasted!

Abuto The Sneaky here, reportin live from Azeroth. Feel free ta call me “Abby,” but if ya call me “Boot” or “Toe,” you’ll get de same ting in a darrrrk, intimate place, mon. I’m jus’ sayin.

I be part o’ de Green Poxed group in Pox Arcanum. Green be perfect for me cuz my hair be green, my skin be green, and many times I get da green stuff stuck between my tusks.

So me and da odder Greenies went into a cave underneet Orgrimmar last night to practice killin de troggs dat root around down dere. Not sure what dey doin down dere, exactly. It be mighty hot and filled wit lava. Maybe dey tinks it be a sauna for dere health? Well, after we got tru wit dem, dey dint have much health to sauna anyways.

“Surprise Troggs Are The Worst”

Anyhow, dem troggs needed killin, so we stepped up for da task, mon. Sumyerki led us tru da cave and he did a mighty fine job of it too. Some say he be bossy, but hey mon, I’m so laid back dat if you don’t order me around sometimes I might forget what we dere for. Besides, most o’ dem Blood Elves be like dat and I be mostly used to it by now. (I believe in diversity, mon. ) Only time I got confused was when he be changin what de Blue Square mean. Stealth? No stealth? I kept fadin in and out so many times I almost joined Elips’s imp in Phase Shift limbo land. (Hey, I like de limbo! Maybe dat wouldn’t be so bad!) De first few times I stealthed in, I aggroed about 4 bajillion troggs behind me (we trolls be good at countin) so I’d have to run screamin’, “AAAAHHHhhhhhh!!!” over to Raamah for help. My group kept yelling at me to “feint!” but you know I be a hearty gal and I don’t swoon easily. I had no idea why dey’d want me to faint on purpose anyways. Maybe I’ll learn about fainting when I get older.

“All Pensive and Cowish”

Eventually, tho, I got de hang of runnin around behind da smelly troggs dat Raamah was poundin on so I could make wit da stabbity-stabbity on their mangy little backs. All I could see back dere was arses and elbows, which I promptly sliced. For his pains, Raamah got a nice green belt. It had a large buckle on it, like you see dose guys named Rock and Rocky and Rock Lobsta and such wearin when dey get nekkid and trow each odder around da ring. It be rather flatterin to him, I tink. You can see for yerself here in dis picture I took. (I always carry my camera into caves for, you know, research purposes. It be fittin nicely in my red Daxe5Ave bag.) Raamah’s all heroic and the other Greenies are too.

Elips always have de way of describin’ tings jus’ perfect.

What everyone was lookin’ at was dis dead Tauren mon in a cave. We’d come ta rescue him but it appeared we be too late. He’d been jumped by a level 16 elite trogg and his cronies. It made me sad ta look at him lyin’ dere. Especially when Raamah, our own Tauren, ended up lyin’ right next to de odder one — in da same pose! Havin’ dated my share o’ Taurens, dis was a sad sight for my eyes. (You know what dey say, “Once you go Cow, you never go back.” Except in my case, where I be goin back to whatever man I tinks I can slice if dey do me wrong. And cows slice up good.) Fortunately, we had 2 priests so it was easy to rez him up again. (De odder guy, not so much.)

In fact, our shadow priest, Wulfa, be so confident in her voodoo skills dat she don’t even wear much clothes to da party! I be kinda shocked at first, tinkin, “Dat elf be crazy! She gonna get scratches all over her tiny ears!” And she be dancin’ and flirtin wit de troggs — right before she smited em into da hereafter. Dat’s confidence, I tell ya, mon. I tink she only died once, tho, so dat must be a testament to the power of Belf undies. She may still be crazy, but I unda-stand why she don’t need no armor. She be badass!

“That Troll Chicken Emote is Awesome”

When I be runnin’ away from dose first troggs, flappin my arms and squawkin like a chicken, Elips tot it be funny and made his own chicken sounds. For me, seein a Forsaken mon doin a chicken dance makes me tink of KFC. (See? I be easily distracted, like I tole you, mon!)

Elips did some amazing imp drivin’ last night. His imp be named Biznar — and dat’s what he was, all biznar. (Dat be da right word? Ya, I tink so.) Elips drove dat imp right up in da trogg’s biznar and had him waggle his floppy paws at dem till dey come runnin right into our swords an’ spells. I ain’t ever tried imp driving, but dem tings don’t even walk good, so dey must be very hard ta drive! Odders have told about Elips’s blue dude, Thog, so I will leave you ta read dat yerself. O’course we really didn’t need de imp to drive up to pull the troggs once I remembered I had brought along some axes in my bag. I’d just trow dat axe right at dere noggins and it be a ting of beauty.

Even tho we didn’t finish da whole cave, I still feel it was a success since no one fell in the lava. In fact, I tink I’m now gonna call my hairdo a PWNY TALE!

Taz’dingo!

I found out this weekend that it is NOT WoW causing my computer graphics problems. I was trying new game development software and it made the same streaky marks that WoW does. I guess my graphics card is toast. Now I have the dilemma of deciding whether to buy a new one or just keep playing on the Mac. (Of course, now I’m afraid I’m going to burn out the Mac’s card too.)

1. Two Bosses Enter. Seriously? Who cares! Newsflash: we want to know how to beat the bosses ourselves. And, in case you didn’t know, we are hip to the fact that the bosses cannot actually get out of their hidey holes to fight each other. That whole series is just a waste of an Excel spreadsheet. The game is already a fantasy and sometimes meta is just pointless.
2. Too much focus on PvP.
3. Two words: “No Ratshag.”
4. Other blogs already do what you’re trying to do — and they do it better. BigRedKitty (whom you had to steal), Kestrel, Kinless, Less QQ, More PewPew, and many others.
5. Two more words: “No TemerityJane.” (Okay, not sure if that’s 2 or 3 words.)
6. No out-of-the-software-box thinking. Why hasn’t WoW Insider come up with cool games-within-the game, like Gnaked Gnome Races or the Pox Arcanum experiment?
7. Too much recycled content. Comics and movies should be produced by and for the mag exclusively. Don’t you think we surf the web and already see what you’re reposting?
8. No clear theme. What’s the point of the magazine? It’s kind of all over the place. Is it to help us play more effectively? (How does “effectiveness” work into a sentence with “play” anyway?) Is it there to help us have more fun in the game? Just a fanzine, documenting the “culture” of WoW? Sometimes I get bored by it because it’s trying to be everything to everyone and not doing any of it very well.
9. About the Bloggers. I mean, really, who cares? Wayyyy too self absorbed!
10. Lazy content. Too much focus on generating forced “interaction” from readers (e.g., “What do you think about that? What are your thoughts? What do you do on Wednesdays?”), rather than letting it arise organically out of thoughtful, helpful articles. It’s a content cop-out. Why not take some initiative and actually put together communities that don’t exist right now, or get interviews with gamers or people at Blizzard?
11. lolWoW instead of Around Azeroth. Please. Screenshots, for peetsake?? /eyerolling. Maybe if you add some kitty pidgin to the pics, you’ve got a great series!

I found two more pics from the Gnaked Gnome race hidden away on my computer.

I love some of the gnome names: Snacksize, Crocfood, Billyjoel, and Fordahorde. Looking at the chat windows, you can see how much chaos there was before the race.

Gnomes do NOT look pretty close up, to which Bearcow in the front can attest. Another good gnome name on the chat screen: Gnaughtygnom. BigRedKitty was treated like a rock star!

For those keeping up with the escapades of the “anti-pug” experiment conceived of by Ess at Outland Bound, make sure you visit the blog for our new guild. It’s called Pox Arcanum. All of us in the guild are bloggers so I’m sure we’re going to have plenty to say!

I’m playing a troll rogue named Abuto.  Yes, a rogue!  Who knows, maybe I’ll add a rogue blog to the Game Dame!

Also, since my blogroll is HORRIBLY out of date, go to the Pox Arcanum blog to find links to all the other bloggers’ sites who are anti-pugging.

This is WAY too cool not to post about. For those of you who are fellow bloggers, this is a totally awesome idea. You know how you can rate stuff on Amazon or BestBuy? Well, now you can add a 5-star rating gizmo to all your posts and get immediate feedback from your readers! How cool is that?

It’s called Outbrain and it is easy-peasy to install. Go, enjoy!

Seriously, this may be the Killer App that forces me to go to a Wordpress.org hosted site instead of the freebie version.

No, not the cute little doggies! Leave the puppy-babies alone…!

I’m talking about our little anti-pickup group guild experiment, the brainchild of the lovely Ess at Outland Bound. It’s a phenom, I tells ya! A snowball with a mind of its own! [Insert your favorite runaway-train cliche here.]

I’m not going to cover ground that some of my future guildies have already covered, so go read them first:

• Hooved Shaman
• Two and a half Orcs
• Musings of a Nut Job
• Kung POW!
• Life Tap

So if you did read any of those posts, you get the basic premise of what we’re doing. We now have a guild name, Pox Arcanum, and Wulfa’s working on a tabard for us.

Last night, we met for the first time and had a blast! One highlight of my evening was getting a 6-slot bag as a drop from a Vile Familiar. I can’t remember the last time I was so excited about lewt! But the true fun of the night was the chatter on our private channel. These bloggers crack me up! I can’t wait till we’re dancing together on top of the Org bank!

If any of this sounds like fun to you, the Yellow Poxless group has an opening for a DPS-er. Check it out here. Also, some folks on the EU servers would like to get a similar group going on their side of the Pond. Check Outland Bound’s comments for those folks to hook up with.

Now to the more philosophical part of the post. Some people talk about World of Warcraft being addictive. I can’t argue with that accusation. The game sets up a system of rewards that is pure operant conditioning via variable ratio reinforcement. Same as other addictive behaviors like gambling. When we quest for Epic Loot, we are essentially pigeons who keep pecking at the feeder for some pellets.

I am aware of this Pavlovian aspect of the game. However, an MMO is not just the game that the designers envisioned it would be. Due to the presence of masses of people, the game becomes an organic thing, growing and changing in ways no level designer could’ve predicted. This social effect astonishes and fascinates me, especially as a future game designer myself.

In grad school, we studied how users often adopt technology for purposes other than the innovators envisioned. For example, when the VCR was invented, the inventors and marketers thought that it would primarily be used for taping shows to either save or give to other people to watch. Their biggest fear was that people would SELL their shows to one another. (WTF??) They never imagined for an instant that consumers had found the technology most useful for time shifting their shows. You can thank those creative early adopters who changed the purpose of the VCR for the existence of your TiVo or DVR.

Take, for example, BRK’s Gnaked Gnome Race. And now, think about our little premeditated guild experiment, described above. These two events, occurring within the last few weeks, have been some of the funnest moments I’ve had in World of Warcraft lately. I’ve been totally jazzed about participating in these little sub-games. Did Blizzard have ANY IDEA that the social aspect of the game would be used in this way? Absolutely not. The users made the game their own. I think this organic possibility that the MMO offers is a large part of the reason for its popularity.

I’m sure there are dozens of of other examples of WoW games-within-the-game out there, like kiting a huge mob to Stormwind and whatnot — something fun for which Blizzard never imagined the game would be used. Have you heard of one you’d like to share?

We need 2 more bloggers. Are YOU one of them??

Here’s the deal. Ess at Outland Bound had a brilliant idea to form a little group of bloggers on a new server and roll some alts together. We could level together, having premades for instances and, later, bigger raids. We could even form our own exclusive guild and choose complementary crafting professions to help each other (and the bank) out.

I think it sounds like great fun! In a sense, BRK and TJ and a lot of those folks on Drenden are blogging so they pioneered the blog/guild pairing. We’ll just be doing it deliberately!

Right now we have 1 group of 5 folks and another group which needs 2 more people to fill up. Details decided upon at the moment:

Faction: Horde
Server: Normal (PvE) — a US server where none of us has alts so we can avoid any twink/sugar-daddy issues.

If you’re a WoW blogger and interested in being a part of this grand experiment, get over to Outland Bound and write a comment professing your committment! The first two interested parties to post will get berths in the 2nd 5-man group. (If we get more, we can try to form more groups.)

Well? Whaddaya lookin’ at?? GET OVER THERE!

Here are a couple of screen shots from BigRedKitty’s Gnaked Gnome race today. My gnome was called Gnomnclature — for which I expect to win the “best name” prize, by the way. Hint hint.

This shot was one that BRK took. I’m standing way in the back.

This shot is one I took, it looks like around the same time that BRK took his. Ish.

Here’s a video that KiyzaGnome made on YouTube.

I placed about the middle of the pack. After the race, BRK’s guildmates graciously ported us to Shattrath where we wreaked a bit more havoc as well.

TONS of fun! Too wild and wacky! My only wish was that I could’ve read the chat… it went by so fast that I got a headache trying to read it.

Thanks, BRK, TJ, and everyone else who made this race possible!