Metaplanar Babel

As I mentioned previously, my husband and I have been working on a character in WoW together, in hopes that I’ll someday have a level 50+ character with which to play with the guild. So far, so good. We created Joriandra, a nelfling warrior, a little over a week ago, and she’s nearly 32. I’ve been having a blast with her, because I don’t have to worry so much about trying to maximize xp/hour in hopes of joining up with my friends someday. I feel free to run around do silly quests again (she’s currently escorting a poor Stormwind orphan about the world).

This morning, I jumped off the Stonewrought Dam, just to see if I could live through the fall. (I couldn’t.) Somehow, it’s very difficult to actually land IN the water; I sort of bounced off the last several feet of the dam and landed atop a pile of bodies of other thrill-seekers. But, as I was to find, the fun was only beginning. See, where I landed is virtually impossible to legitimately walk to (without being level 60), and I was afraid that my wisp would only die again if I leapt from the dam. Thus, my adventure through the Dragonmaw Compound, which is guarded by level 55+ elite dragonkin. Fortunately, they lack the spirituality to see the ghosts of the dead, so I was able to sneak through their mighty fortress, eventually reuniting with my physical shell. Then, I had to figure out how to get down to the marshlands, where I needed to locate a specific root for a friendly fellow in Stormwind who let me use his bonfire to cook up some Wolf Kabobs.

Azeroth is not friendly to waterfall divers. I needed to get the rest of the way down the mountain to the marshes below, so I figured I’d let the water take me down. Bad idea. Once again I hit rock rather than water, and found myself back at the same graveyard for the second time. The spirit healer seemed a bit perplexed, but I ignored her and set off for the falls. Fortunately, this last fall had taken me down the final peak to the Mosshide swamp, so I was able to find the necessary root once I had reclaimed my rather battered shell. Needless to say, I was nearly late for work, thanks to the great adventure.

In the course of surfing around a bit this morning, I came across a couple of interesting articles. One, a semi-transcript of a presentation given by Raph Koster a couple months ago, is about the theory of fun - basically what makes something fun. Incidentally, Raph’s written a book about this same topic. The other, a recent Gamasutra feature, is about the psychology of gaming. Similar topics, and again evidence that more people take gaming more seriously that I would’ve expected.
(Continued..)

I was telling Jon just now about this experience I’d had with a priest in Elwynn Forest who saw that my warrior was in trouble with Hogger (a low level elite monster) and ended up helping out. She rezzed me, grouped up to help me finish off Hogger, and was generally a nice individual. I found out after we were done that she had just been going out to Westfall when she saw me die and decided to help me out. She just spent about 15 minutes of her time helping out a stranger. Kinda blew my mind, because that sort of thing is extremely rare in WoW (heck, I don’t even do that, most of the time). Anyway, Jon’s response was so perfect (and amusing) that I just had to mention it here:

one could say that nicer people tend to play priests (non-shadow), which would explain the pointed lack of priests in WoW

And there you have it. The reason for the priest shortage in WoW. *nod*

Tarise just got some new gear that looks pretty sweet. Check it out.

Yep, that’s right. Another year down the tubes. I’m 26, for those who are curious. It’s always strange, hitting a birthday. Nothing feels any different. Honestly, I don’t feel all that different from when I was, say, 20, except that my memory is already starting to deteriorate.

I don’t have any major plans, though. I always think the fuss people make over birthdays is a little silly, I guess. My boss wants to take me out to lunch sometime this week, which is kinda weird, but I guess it’s nice of her. The in-laws are doing a “birthday dinner” next weekend for me. My parents are coming up the following week. Should be fun, all around. One amusing thing though: I woke up this morning and logged into WoW for a few minutes to check my auctions before work, and I found a note from Diantha (my husband’s character) wishing me a happy birthday. You know you’re too into gaming when, not only is that not surprising or strange, but it actually makes you laugh to see that note in your inbox.

Now, if only I’d had today off.. unfortunately, the price for taking a day off is having to work 8 hour days for the rest of the week, and it’s just not worth it. Alas~

Edit: Oh, one other thing. I enabled the theme switcher plugin, so you can play with the various themes I come up with over in the sidebar over there. Metaplanar Babel is fairly obviously completely derivative of Dark Maple, and Softer Babel was further altered from there, using mostly the base structure. zen has been fiddled with a bit, but it’s not really finished because I can’t decide if I like the idea of it. I love the layout itself, I think, and I really dig the way the header looks, but I’m not so sure about the color scheme. Monochrome black/white is so boring, but I think the red is a little too much. *shrug* I guess I’ll fiddle some more sometime and see what I come up with. I was having far too much fun doing just that last week - sometimes I think I’m the eternal paper-doll afficionado.

Tarise has such a strong personality base that I just *had* to get her an outfit for around-town. Here she is:

Edit: All fixed~

As is, unfortunately, fairly standard for me, I’ve reached a point in WoW where I just really don’t know what to play. I’m starting to think that my best bet is going to be to cultivate 5 or 6 characters and sort of rotate them around, keeping them all at max rest-state as much as possible.

Thus far, I have: 20 troll shaman (pretty much retired), 34 nelfling rogue, 35 nelfling druid, 22 nelfling priest, 32 nelfling hunter (sensing a trend here?), and *gasp* a 13 human paladin. Said paladin is my current interest, though I did go back to my druid for a little while (until he ran out of rest state). My paladin (Tarise) actually has something of a story to go with her, and I was trying to go for a “different” look as well. A long time ago in an Earthdawn game, I had an older elf character named Reshae, who was a warrior and questor of Garlen (the Passion of hearth, home, and healing). Basically, Reshae was this motherly type who was always looking after the other members of the party, but woe betide those who picked a fight with her “kids” - hence the warrior, which she learned after her home was destroyed by an encroaching Theran army and her family disappeared.

Anyway, Reshae was a lot of fun to play, though she didn’t get to last very long, so I decided to quasi-resurrect her in WoW as a paladin. I’ll post a picture of Tarise when I get home, because I actually think she’s pretty cool. Tarise is supposed to be about 40 or so, thereby allowing me to avoid all the dippy bimbo faces, and going a bit grey. Pre-war days, she was the village midwife and herbalist. However, with the onslaught of demons and morass of political tensions, she felt the call to fight. Never being one to back down from a challenge, Tarise took the less-obvious choice and learned sword-fighting techniques to augment her own healing abilities, joining the squires of the Cathedral in Stormwind. Now, Tarise is about as practical and down-to-earth as a woman can be, so there’s no lofty Light-crusade nonsense from her. She’s just trying to protect what people she can with what tools she can. Perhaps others might think she is too old to wield a blade in battle, but that thought will never occur to her.

I dunno, I think she’s cool. Hopefully the iron chainmail thong-type armor will be somewhat avoidable, since I just don’t see the character wearing it. ‘Course, I don’t really see any paladin wearing it, but that’s a rant for another day.

Nothing real exciting, just took a screenshot of Thaleia’s new stuff (mostly new breastplate). Here she is, with a sleepy Pìca.

((Thaleia embarked on a grand adventure to visit the Scarlet Monastery instance yesterday. Although she is a bit inexperienced, her companions more than made up for the lack. Diantha, a 55 hunter (my husband’s character), and Phaedra, a 50 druid (played by the awesome Cruinh ), joined Thaleia in the battle to protect freedom of religion - well, actually it might be more true to say that the battle was to appropriate religious funds into our own coffers, but…these guys are serious fanatics who misuse their power, so they needed the take-down. Really.))

Our first meeting with a high-ranking member of the clergy took place in what seemed to be a library. Scarlet-clad swordspeople, priests, and monks patrolled the halls, along with a few very awesome Scarlet Tracking Hounds, which I have decided I will return to tame in a few levels. Really, the place was rather bristling with military might, which I found somewhat odd for a library, but I suppose it kept things interesting. Eventually, we arrived into a large, beautifully appointed room wherein paced a robed figure, which I soon discovered was the Arcanist Doan, a very skilled mage. Fortunately, my companions had warned me that his magic was very strong, so I hid outside the door, periodically ducking out to get in a shot or two. Fearing that Doan’s magic was too strong, I kept little Pìca back with me - no need for my own love of adventure to bring her to harm, of course. She wanted to fight, I could tell, but she obeyed me, for which I am very thankful. Eventually the great mage fell, mostly thanks to the efforts of my companions. Knowing that we needed to venture deeper into the monastery, I appropriated his sacred key; while doing so, I noticed a very lovely dagger that I just know must be magical. I decided to take it with me, just in case I found use for it in the future. The blade has an exotic pattern in the metal; I find my eyes drawn to it in the strangest way.. @.@

*cough* Erm, anyway. After that, we ventured into what I think was the Armory or Barracks or some such place, again bristling with swordspeople and battle mages. These Scarlets were far more well-trained than those in the library; I’m afraid I was of little use as we stormed through the area. Finally we reached the inner sanctum, where stood a tall, massively armored man who shouted at us for breaching the sanctity of the monastery. I have never encountered such a terrifying creature as that human - I’m afraid I just hid behind the wall and hoped my companions could overcome him somehow. Thankfully, they did, and we were able to enter his chamber. I was later told that the man was called Herod, though I still do not know what his place in the Monastery’s hierarchy might be. His room was encircled by statues memorializing those of his Order who had fallen in battle or were otherwise lost. It was a noble place. Did I not know that its protectors had fallen from their noble ideals, I would have felt great remorse for invading such a.. a.. sacred place.

Here are the three of us, resting after the long pitched battle:

Here you can see the bottoms of a few of the statues:

So maybe doing the template wasn’t quite as hard as I’d imagined. I’m sure it’ll get redone a few times, but this is satisfactory for now. The effect isn’t quite as..hm.. smooth, as the original, so I may need to rethink my color scheme; we’ll see. I’m happy with it for now, though. Overall, today has been a good day for computers and me - got my SQL database issues straightened out, learned how to use phpMyAdmin a bit, and got this little corner of the web going. Not too shabby.

Didn’t get to play any WoW this afternoon, but it seems a small sacrifice. My poor little hunter will have to wait another day to get level 29. Alas, what ever will she do?

Here’s Thaleia, with her twilight runner, Pìca, just outside the gates of Ironforge.