Sideshow & Syrana

Woo, queues have significantly reduced over the weekend.  It seems that opening a couple more servers and raising population caps slowly have helped.  Also, the change made to the private stores, where they can’t be afk selling for more than 30 minutes, has helped too.

As I mentioned before, Sideshow and I rolled Asmodian on Lumiel.  It has been a popular server – which makes it busy.  During the headstart, queues for Lumiel were easily 2 hours.  After the live launch, the queues were commonly 1.5hrs.  But Friday night, it was only 20 minutes!  Then on Saturday, there was no queue in the afternoon, and a short one (15ish minutes) in the evening.

See, I think things will be ok.

Character Creation

So, yes, I have an Asmodian on Lumiel by the name of Syrana.

(continue reading…)

It’s time to get more warlocky around here, don’tcha think? With all the excitement surrounding the announcement of Cataclysm, many people have decided to roll a new character to experience Old Azeroth one last time.  Perhaps you’ve heard the call of the dark side and are thinking of rolling a warlock.  If so, let’s start with the basics.

I don’t know about you, but when I created my first warlock, I didn’t think a whole lot about the racial traits.  Most of us roll a warlock to get in touch with our inner demon, right?  I know I was more interested in melting faces than magical resistances, reduced stun effects, or profession bonuses.  Or, if we want to determine evilness based on looks, I’d say the Forsaken win hands down.  But, does that mean they are the best choice?

Let’s take a look at what the available races have to offer before we try to answer that question. (continue reading…)

Alright, so we’re still in open beta right now, but I still get altitis.  I guess part of it is, I know my characters are going to get wiped so I don’t want to overinvest in them just yet.  Right now, it’s sort of like the trial period where I can putz around before making more permanent selections upon live.

And selection dates are coming up fast!

So, primarily I’ve been playing an Asmodian Spiritmaster.  This is similar to the WoW Warlock, so, y’know, pretty fitting for me.  Can I compare Asmodians to Horde? Meh, not really, no… at least not at this point.  Maybe somewhere down the road I can take a look at lore/war/oppression/whathaveyou parallels or something.

Now, the Asmodians are considered to be the dark, shadowy faction while the Elyos are bright and shiny.

….

I had to make one just to see it.  But I decided I needed to roll something different, so I went warrior.  The first random face that I got was this:

I’m sorry.  I cannot smash faces with a HEART ON MAH CHEEK. (continue reading…)

What is it with me and posting multiple parts lately? Well, with BlizzCon, there’s no way I could write just one post to cover it all.  Ok, so that’s a lie.  There are 2 ways:

1- Use thousands and thousands of words that would take days to read

or

2 – Use one word: Epic.

Since both ways are such extremes, we’ll go for bite-sized pieces.

Ideal vs. Real

Remember how prior to BlizzCon I shared with you my ideal itinerary?  Yeah, so, it was practically impossible to attend all the panels I wanted to.  But you knew that would happen, didn’t you!

Here’s how it really went down: (continue reading…)

This comic has given me pause (and a laugh, sorry, but it’s true!) to consider the predicament my Undead brethren find themselves in.

Thank you to Crispy Gamer for granting me permission to post this comic on the blog!  And, a thank you to @omgitsafox for tweeting the link!

Last week we had the Intro to this little series.  Today, I’d like for us to take a look at the stereotypes out there for the playable races in WoW.  I must limit it to playable because it would be quite the daunting task to encompass every single race within Warcraft.

Although, maybe we could look at some of them down the road? /ponder

Here I give to you a list of player race stereotypes (good and/or bad).  These can be formulated through role playing, lore, playing experience, relation to real world (out of character) things, whathaveyou.  Please feel free to add any you think I missed (or discuss what I list) in the comments!  And remember, most of all, to have fun with this series!

Horde

Orcs: Blood-thirsty, brutal, warriors, skilled with axes, dumb, thick skinned, ugly, smelly, simple, gifted shamans, no anger management control, stout, lawless, primitive, clans

Trolls: Slow, Jamaican, voodoo users, witchdoctors, lanky, tall, cannibalistic, crazy, threatening, lawless, tribal, cunning, aggressive, hostile

Tauren: Slow, cow like, earth and nature worshippers, strong, peaceful, nomadic, simple, vegetarian, story tellers, tribal

Undead: Evil, smelly, untrustworthy, vengeful, zombies, mindless, no feelings, cannibalistic, sneaky, lawless, outcasts, faithless

Blood Elves: Pretencious, snobby, high society, orphans, magic addiction, rich, pampered, intelligent, educated, traitors, good hearing, good eye sight

Alliance

Humans: Rulers, intelligent, ruthless, manipulative, diplomatic, educated, explorers, builders, arrogant, proud, order, political, betrayers

Gnomes: Tiny, sneaky, untrustworthy, intelligent, mechanically inclined, inventors, eccentric

Dwarves: Alcoholics, quick tempered, stout, war driven, miners, beards (male and female), gryphon handlers, dumb, earthen, Scottish(?)

Night Elves: Nature and moon worship, elegant, sneaky, hunters, intelligent, bouncy, good hearing, good eye sight, rangers, protectors

Draenei: Lost, space goats, alien, healers, resilient, heroic, adaptive, Russian, affinity for magic, religiousness (Holy Light of Creation, Naaru), intelligent

Next time we’ll take a look at classes (regardless of race) and some of the stereotypes that are attached to them.

Hello class!  Today you could say I was actually inspired by a training at work… *gasp*

I know! Hard to believe.  This will be at least two parts, I think.  But today’s Cultural Diversity training at my office got me thinking about it in Azeroth and how it can apply to in-game characters and gamers alike!

Much like the real world, in Azeroth there are many different races with their own cultures and subcultures.  Each race has their own stereotypes they assign to other races, and even classes.  The cultures can and subcultures can be viewed as where members of a certain race live, what class they are or tend to be, their racial traits, etc.  Subcultures could go further with classes and specs, and even roles.

And like in real life, there are certain things throughout our lives that mark or symbolize us, our generation, our culture.  Things we embrace which shape who we are and how we interact with the world around us.  I might even toss up some of the workshop’s “busy work” questions and see what we can do with them from character perspectives.

As in… imagine Syrana and a bunch of other Hordies sitting through this training and what they’d be getting out of it.

Piqued your interest yet?

I hope so.  I don’t want to go to wild on this first part and more or less wanted to outline this idea so I can start piecing it together and organizing my thoughts.  Plus, I had to look through a ton of screenshots before I found one that seemed fitting for the topic.  (Yes, I know, somehow I screenshotted a loading screen…)

What we’ll explore:

• The stereotypes and subcultures of races in Azeroth
• The co-existing groups that include traditionally Alliance and Horde races
• Becoming culturally diverse in the World of Warcraft (from a character or RP perspective)
• The players behind the toons, including another spin-off look at the hardcore vs. the casual debate