Tag Archives: satire
The Women of WoW and why they kinda suck…
The way females are portrayed in video games is a long standing hot-topic that never fails to get the attention whores a-yappin’ while the majority of the gaming community just rolls their eyes in exasperation. That being said, it’s always a fun conversation to have among peers; you’ll have five people arguing and six different opinions on the matter.
The Warcraft franchise is one with a long history and its lore is backed by several games, novels, comics, and the like giving us an entourage of characters that we’ve grown to love and hate. As with most high fantasy settings, the story is extremely male oriented, as the majority of the most memorable characters (for good or bad reasons) are guys. I’d definitely argue that Warcraft can brag a decent arsenal of Female leads as well, but I’m going to be pretty honest. For the most part, each one can be pretty neatly packed into an annoying stereotype of female roles that you find all across literature and entertainment.
Shall the victims line up for me, please?
Jaina | Sylvanas | Vareesa | Tyrande | Valeera | Katrana
Jaina Proudmore: Love will find a way! …ouch, you’re hurting me…
Formerly “Yeah, I’d hit that.”
Up until Lich King, Jaina’s major fail point was erring on the side of Typical Fantasy Female Lead. Born into royalty, past lover of the big bad, one of the few female wizards who is ‘Oh So Super’ at magic, a soldier of peace, justice, and the American way, etc. Ah yeah, and the object of more than a handful of desires. When she wasn’t rejecting the passes of 150 year old elves, she was busy being an UbAr MaGe and tearing shit up.
Then 3.3 happened and suddenly Jaina’s a hot, sobbing mess. She breaks down into tears when Varian lets down his guard and allows his true Orc-Love show through to Saurfang Sr. Then her relationship demons with Arthas start to take over, out of nowhere, and she’s chasing him down the halls of the Icecrown Citadel like a bat out of hell.
Wait, what?
You’d think after dumping her twice, killing scores of innocent people, banning the Jonas Brothers from Stormwind, and eventually becoming the fucking Lich King was red-flag enough, but not for Jaina. No way. All that Cool Mage shatters at the second she thinks the real Arthas is somewhere in there, just maybe she could reach him with the power of love and justice and bunnies, rainbows, sugar plum fairies, oh god make it stop.
How Uther didn’t break free of Frostmourne with the intense desire to slap her into sense is beyond me.
Sylvanas: YOU RUINED MY LIFE!!!
Jaina: ARTHAS, MY LOVE! ARE YOU IN THERE?
Arthas: ….
Sylvanas Windrunner: Hell Hath No Fury…
You think dumping your girlfriend is bad?
Getting caught cheating with her best friend?
How about ripping her soul out and damning her to an eternal life of sentient zombism?
If Jaina’s relationship with Arthas is akin to the wife who keeps taking the beatings because “deep down inside he’s a good man”, then Sylvanas’ relationship with Arthas is a spot-on representation of “I will stop at nothing until I see the man who ruined my life in shambles.”
She is hands down my favorite chick in Warcraft history, and is the source of one of the most badass quotes from a game, ever: “Give my regards to hell, you son of a bitch.”
But this doesn’t change the fact that Sylvannas is your typical hell bent vengeance-seeking burned woman out for justice, except that she has an army of undead and the backing of an entire planet on her side.
For future reference, try not to be “that guy”.
Vareesa Windrunner: Stepford Wife Model#XT.002
Vareesa. Oh Vareesa, Vareesa. What can we say about you?
Uh…well absolutely nothing.
Vereesa is ultimately so perfect that one would rather watch the grass grow than read more about how amazing she is. It doesn’t help that so much of her personality in the novels is expressed through Rhonin’s broken personality, either. A perfect lady, badass ranger-hunter-swordswoman, beautiful, smart, charming, and Oh Em Gee, mother of Super twins.
Give me a break.
The fact that she easily beats her MIA older sister Alleria on the LAME meter is no small feat. The eldest of a tribe of broken Elves, Alleria wasn’t much more than a deadbeat mom & orc hunter extraordinare, like so many other Alliance women. But at least she allegedly flung herself in to the Twisting Nether for no real reason whatsoever, and we have to admit that’s pretty badass.
Tyrande Whisperwind: “WHILE YOU’RE BUSY DRINKING BEERS IN THE EMERALD DREAM….
..I’m stuck here leading a nation. Thanks.”
Tyrande is one of those good girls gone sour when she realizes the world is not as dandy as she thought.
As a youth and childhood friend of infamous twins Malfurion and Illidan, Tyrande was kind of a cool chick (for a night elf, anyway). A priestess of Elune, she resigned to treat every living thing with respect and care without question. As a warrior, she could crack skulls and take names. This made her pretty damn perfect (but not in the boring Vareesa way) and a good role model for other females.
Unfortunately, she also had an unrealistic view of the world and the people in it. When the shit hit the fan, it was all over. Her precious queen was responsible for allowing the Burning Legion into Azeroth and then eventually blowing up the fucking world. Losing her immortality, best friend Illidan to the Dark Side, and eventually her husband to the Emerald dream only further drove her into a fit of emotional shock until eventually, akin to seasoned New Yorkers, she reached point where she stopped giving a shit. Now she’s cynical, resentful , and kicking Taxis. This doesn’t go unnoticed by her Hubby who, on one of his rare visits home basically said, “Bitch, why you so angry?”
Not helping, Mal. Not helping at all.
Valeera: VARIAN, GO TO PROM WITH ME!??!
Varian: ?? But I <3 Orcs…
Valeera Sanguinar: I do anythang for mah boo!
While Valeera is more of a comic book personality and hasn’t played too big a role in the game, she’s significant to the Re-Education of Varian Wrynn storyline. More importantly, she’s also one of the lamest, pathetic female characters to ‘grace’ the Warcraft universe.
A typical backstory.
Valeera watched her home and family get destroyed one of the 3 billion times Silvermoon got nuked by whoever the Blood Elves happened to piss off that century. As a result, her now hardened, snarky soul went Rogue and she found herself arrested and in the company of Varian and Co. at the Crimson Ring. Despite Varian’s constant PMS, she ended up developing some sort of mental one-sided romance with him, not too unlike those of Twilight fangirls.
So instead of running around shanking people and breaking shit like all other respectable Rogues, she decided to follow her high-school crush around the world, using the excuse that her own “people” arrested her as a reason to resent the Horde (and we all know it was her fault for getting caught). When the Gaurds of Stormwind said “Nay, ye Horde Scum She-Devil, thou shall not pass,” she found a rock to hide under to stay close to him. Creepy? I think so.
The best part is Varian doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he certainly doesn’t give a shit (and what can you expect, if you’re not a Dragon or Orc, you get no attention from that guy anyway).
Speaking of dragons…
Katrana Prestor: Yeah, I f*** your mom, too. No, seriously.
Katrana, better known as Onyxia the Mother Fuckin Broodmama, is not unlike that one woman at the job who sleeps her way to the top. Manipulative and self-serving, Katrana was able to cleave-age her away through the ranks in Stormwind, eventually taking up a position next to Bolvar as a top advisor to the King, then 10-year-old Anduin Wrynn. She was also bedding Varian upon his return at some point, furthering her influence over Alliance affairs.
She was able to get away with complete and utter bullshit, things that normal people would question outright, because at any given point in time her tits were hanging out, and we all know how awesome that is. The only one who seemed to be immune was Anduin who was questionably too young to care about boobs just yet. We’ll ignore the fact that she probably used Dragon VooDoo, too.
Things got kinda complicated when Varian’s split personality became a little too literal, and any self-respecting whore knows that’s the time to peace out. She kidnaps Anduin and flees to her hovel, only to be later slain by the Heroes Of Azeroth.
Which, by the way, was recently retconned in the comic when Blizz decided to ignore the fact that WoW players have been killing Onyxia since before anybody gave 2 shits about Varian and his hideous original human model. All of a sudden he’s the reason she’s dead, and everything else for that matter. Figures.
PS: Thanks to Marc for inspiration and lore info <3.
iPad. Super absorbant.
Like the other 3 billion tech enthusiasts out there, I followed the iPad release minute by minute via @wired’s weblog.
I am skeptical as I usually am with any breakthrough technology, especially coming from Apple (I’m not going to mask my love/hate relationship for the beast.) My biggest beef is with this concept of .5 technology, which I just made up so let me explain.
Humanity has a lot of gadgets that we use. Phones, computers, gaming platforms, etc. My idea of .5 technology is pretty much crap that falls in between, or overlaps, the functions of other major products.
The primary function of an iPod is to play music. The primary function of a camera is to take pictures. Then you have the new next-gen iPod that does both Aka iPod5.5. There you have your .5 technology. It doesn’t make much sense, but I have no real way of describing this idea in my head so I just made up my own jargon for it.
So the iPad is, in my mind, the grandmammy of .5 technology. There is nothing this thing does that something else can’t already do (and most gadgets can). It’s trying to be to mobile technology what next-gen (or current-gen at this point) gaming consoles wanted to be for home entertainment. Sure, your computer and dvd player can already play dvds, , but so can your Xbox. Of course your Blackberry can take pictures, movies, make phone calls, browse the web, play music.. So can your camera / laptop / ipod / netbook.
The problem I saw is that too many things can already do anything / everything, so why add another item to the pile?
But taking a step back to really think about it, it’s quite possible the iPad is not another addition to the problem but may very well be a cost effective solution (or the start of one, anyway). The new problem, then, is that it’s way ahead of it’s time.
This product is a super thin, super light touch screen tablet that will allow you to do (like mentioned above) pretty much everything all your other gadgets can do. The key point is in the delivery and the power in being able to access the function of all those items in one, easy to use, and easy to transport piece of technology.
When I travel for a trip lasting more than one overnight, I find myself weighed down by all the crap i bring. A digital SLR, my iPod, phone, laptop, and a book (I was toying with getting a Kindle, too). the iPad could effectively get rid of the need for half of those things (though nothing can replace my darling Nikon D50).
Then there’s the cost. When you go back and think about how much people pay for all those separate items, it can easily add up to or surpass the projected price-tag Apple is pitching — 3G contract isn’t too shabby, either. For the average tech-savvy Joe, it seems almost a dream. Someone who is satisfied with using their phone for pictures can easily find themselves needing only their cell and an iPad and be set.
It’s not all flowers and sunshine, though, and ultimately a there are a lot of downsides to the product.
-First of all, there’s the factor for Apple to consider since they are literally competing with their own products. The .5 technology problem is still there. Other than netbooks, the iPad cannot single-handedly out perform the functions of any other Apple toy, or otherwise, 1 for 1. Even the iPhone, which has the added use of being a phone and camera.
-Touch-screen technology is still an acquired taste for many, and is far from perfect to handle. There’s an attachable full-sized keyboard …but doesn’t that seem out of place and bulky? I’m trying to imagine how you’re supposed to use them together, especially while on a plane or train. It’s awkward and defeats the purpose of the iPad being a mobile device.
-The small memory bank is another let down. 64 gigs max –with a heftier price tag, to boot– to store all the media it’s supposed to display with such flying colors. My Ipod holds more than that.
-The name fucking sucks.
So will it sell? Most likely, but the numbers I predict are going to be considerably lower than people are expecting. I hope Steve jobs & Co. are prepared for this. This isn’t the same world it was in 2007 where people couldn’t get enough of buying crap they don’t need. I hate to say it, the iPad isn’t a breakthrough the way the iPod was. It’s not about to fill the space of some much-needed missing technology, and in a bad economy consumers are going to think twice about impulse buys more than they did in the past.
The light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps, is a few years down the line when people start wanting to replace old, used, and broken technology. The convenience of having it all in one is too tempting for it to just die out-right, but that time just isn’t now.
Now, will *I* get an iPad? Unlikely If I do, chances are it wont be for a very long time. I’m a designer and a gamer. The iPad as it is now is not going to cut it for what I do. I still need the more powerful processing of my laptop to run the software I need for art and the games that I like to play while I’m on the road.
But sometime down the line when my laptop shits out like they all inevitably do and my iPod inexplicably decides to just never start again, there’s a possibility I might want to start consolidating and give this shiny slate of silicon and bytes a go.
As an aside, I’d like to point out this is the first time I’ve really ‘felt’ web 2.0 in action. As I sat there refreshing and sneaking on twitter via Spreadtweets, I bounced ideas back and forth with my fellow twits. I watched as the #apple trend dominated suddenly, backed by iBook, iWork, iPad, etc. With each press of F5 on Wired’s live blog page, I couldn’t help notice the retweet/digg/comment numbers continue to climb.
Kind of fitting.
~Izzie
GW: Tale of the Rainbow Chicken
For anybody who’s a ranger/completionist/charmable pet collector in Guild Wars, the holy grail takes the form of the Rainbow Pheonix.
The Rainbow Phoenix, as depicted by Arenanet and Maya
This feathery ball of shiny is arguably the rarest / hardest pet to obtain, although some may say the coveted Moss Spider is a close contender. It’s also considered one of the best looking (and it had better be, considering what you have to go through to get it.) Of course, I’m one of these people so I decided to do the (rough) math and figure out what would be the best / easiest / fastest way to get it. Or, in the words of Kellus Anasûrimbor, “What is the shortest path?”
There are three main several ways to get this guy, all of which are a righteous pain in the ass. I shall cover these and other tips on obtaining this beaut in order of plausible ridiculousness:
The pet shall be mine, for I am the right hand of Balthazar himself!
The Rainbow Phoenix, as depicted by Color by Numbers
Firstly, he can be unlocked in the Zaishen menagerie for 80,000 Balthazar faction. That’s a big number. But the hard part isn’t farming the points, but rather, farming the titles to be able to hold that much at one time. Let’s face it: you can’t put down monthly payments on the bird like you could on your Honda Civic. The Majority of all GW players can hold a max of 10,000 Balth faction at once. In order to up that cap, you need the “equivalent of 14 ranks in the Gladiator, Hero, Champion or Commander title tracks.”
And that, my friends, is no easy feat.
Of course, i’m going on the assumtion that the majority of GW players haven’t even stepped foot into Heroes Ascent. And let me tell you, unless you’ve got a good guild/alliance backing you up, getting your foot in the door in this highly competitive PvP arena is nearly impossible as a pug, let alone WIN anything.
For the .0045% of GW who are/were lucky enough to already have the capacity, though, getting 80,000 faction is just a matter of having the patience to spend a week or two farming it, and with ranks that high, I’m going to assume they’re half decent at PvP and can win enough.
The pet shall be mine, for I am a glutton for punishment and get off on masochistic tendencies!
The Rainbow Phoenix, as depicted by Vikings after a night of pillage and rape.
The second, and more traditional means, is by meeting a set of requirements that will cause the Phoenix to spawn in your hall of monuments. The straightforward requirement is having rank 2 of the “Big Deal” title, which is obtained by having at least 10 maxed out titles. This can be a bit difficult to achieve, but many regular or semi-regular players of the game will probably find that they already have a few, or are close to obtaining them.
Furthermore, discussion amongst several communities are showing that with rank 1 of the Big Deal title (5 maxed titles), and a certain amount of filled monuments are also spawning the phoenix, which could mean it’s a lot easier to get him than previously thought. The exact math of it is still hotly debated but the consensus seems to be that having each monument filled to display capacity along with Rank 1 of big deal could be another way of getting him. That’s about 5 achievement statues, 5 heroes/pets, 5 sets of elite gear and something like ~5-8 of the destroyer weapons and ~15-20 dedicated minipets. It’s been claimed by a handful of people that they do not have minipets/destroyer weapons maxed by are somehow spawning the turkey.
Depending on each player’s individual progress, which way is easier varies.
For me, personally, i’m already close to filling my displays, so i’m eager to test out whether or not I can get him earlier than I had planned. The destroyer weapons will be the hardest to obtain, but I’ve got some gold to blow, so we’ll see.
Either way, you need at least 5 max titles, so what should you be going for? Protector of Elona/Tyria/Cantha (which is successfully completely all missions and bonus objectives from each campaign) on normal mode is simple enough, especially with guildies/friends. That’s 3 titles right there. Guardian is the hard-mode equivalent (and considerably more difficult) and completing all six will yield a 7th title, Legendary Guardian.
Legendary survivor is simple but time consuming.
For farmers, reputation titles for Kurzick/Luxon, Sunspears, Lightbringer, Asura, Norn, Vangaurd, etc. can be easy to get, especially with the introduction of the Dungeon Master books that keep track of your progress (these can be turned in for ridiculous amounts of rep). More often than not you can double farming rep with vanquishing.
All the other crap is much more elusive/annoying but it’s best to check what progress you have already and aim to completing those first.
The pet shall be mine, for I am the incredible hulk. 
The Rainbow Phoenix, bringer of the Impotence, as depicted by ancient Mayans
Lastly, and what I’ve decided is the easiest/most casual friendly method is by unlocking him via Zaishen coins.
The Zaishen challenges are essentially dailies that you can do on your PvE characters. There’s a Mission, Bounty, and Combat challenge each day, and they all vary in difficulty, and the rewards scale with that.
So, here come the numbers.
Completing all 3 objectives (including the bonus’ which are in hard-mode) will yield an average of 450 copper coins per day. The phoenix requires 15 gold zaishen coins, which boils down to 7,500 copper coins, plus some pocket change. With my trusty Windows Calculator, one can conclude it would take about 15-18 days of completing each objective to get the coins to unlock him, which is under a month consecutively.
But don’t get TOO excited, there are a few, likely account-wide requirements that you as a player/person have to have before being able to successfully do these.
~Owning the appropriate campaigns: You can’t do the missions/bounties in games you don’t own. You need to have Factions in order to do a good chunk of the PvP challenges, as well.
~Progressed though PvE. Obviously, you can’t do Bounties/Missions in areas you’ve yet to visit.
~Furthermore, hard-mode can only be unlocked once successfully beating a game in normal mode, and only for THAT compaign. And it’s the hard-mode bonus’ for each challenge that yields the most coins.
~Time/Patience to deal with it. Cause let me tell you, the harder missions/bounties can be a pain to do in hard-mode. And I doubt everybody wants to dedicate 3 hours every day to
Logically speaking, most of us can’t do this.
But, before you cry emo tears of sadness, there are even more factors to consider before committing digital suicide.
~Coins are account-wide. So assuming you have at least ONE character who’s beaten every game, you can do hard-mode on any other of your characters as well. Obvious answer, to up your daily copper intake, complete the challenges on as many toons as you can.
~You can hold up to 3 quests at a time, so if you can’t do them every day, don’t fret. Collect them over time and save them all for one idle Tuesday.
~PvP quests are repeatable, which is good news for anybody who enjoys a good face pounding. It’s also helpful to turn it in once, and then grab it again to work on the bonus (which will usually be something like winning 9 games overall) and work on it over time.
~PvP quests from the Battle Isles are available to any PvE character you have, and the faction missions (AB/JQ/FA) are open to PvE characters who have advanced that far, making them highly worth getting even ANY of your toons and do them over time.
Final Thoughts: 
The Rainbow Phoenix, as depicted by a night of photoshop and cocaine.
So while I did rank these in order of ‘difficulty”, if you do want to eventually get this pet, which method you choose is really up to you. You have to consider what you enjoy most and what you already have completed so far. That will likely have a huge impact on what direction to go.
I’ll leave this off with a “quick guide” of sorts to figure out which meathod is best for you.
If you solely/mostly PvP…
…the best option would be to work on your hero titles and grind out the 80,000 balth faction.
If you solely/mostly PvE …
…with one advanced character, you’re best bet is to go for the five titles and fill your monument, or go for the ten max titles. Chances are you’re close to getting there.
…with several characters, none of which have progressed too far, you might do well by unlocking hard-mode on at least one and working on collecting zaishen coins accross your account.
Garrosh Hellscream is a tool, and really needs a hug.
To be fair, as a counter to all my Varian hate, I decided to expand on my extreme distaste for Garrosh Hellscream. It’s only fair I pick on a fellow Hordie. As much as I love my faction, we are not without our toolbags.
Now, in an attempt to give Varian some depth as a character, Blizz pulled one of their famous Lore Injections via comics and some in-game RP speech that most lowbie humans will ignore when turning in quests.
But for Garrosh, there’s absolutely nothing, nothing to back the vast amounts of seething failure that spews from his mouth. Now if he was just your garden variety FOR THE HORDE, BLOOD AND THUNDER spamming NPC, that’d be one thing. But no. This guy has more unwarranted g.n.e.r.d. rage than a level 12 who walks into a WSG for the first and experiences what we call a “Twink”.
SO a look into the history of this twit:
Burning Crusade: Papa never loved me!
Wowwiki will tell you ‘Garrosh Hellscream is known as “one of the greatest heroes in the Horde”. But anybody who’s leveled through Nagrand can tell you that’s the biggest load of shit ever.
We first encounter Hellscream JR. out in Garadar, and it’s obvious within two seconds of talking to him that this guy spends his time playing the world’s smallest violin. The Mag’har have been overcoming Smallpox, courtesy of all the Azerothian settlers and their dirty cloaks. Greatmother Geyah, leader of the uncorrupted orcs of Outland, is among the dying and he’s most likely to have to take her place. Additionally, the last Garrosh heard from dear Daddy Grom was that he drank some blood and went apeshit with power, likely beating the wife and kids in the process.
But this is WoW, serioulsy, who’s father hasn’t done that?
–> Fact: Garrosh Hellscream has some severe father/son issues. Which is never a good thing in a world of axes and explosive magic.
There’s a lot on the guy’s shoulders. But unlike all other orcs who just club the shit out of night elves in Ashenvale to feel better, Garrosh settles with crying by a conjured fire.
Several quest lines and 3 levels later, we discover that Geyah is Thrall’s Gma. The Warcheif comes over for some tea and biscuits and replays old VHS’s from back in the day, when Grom overcame his drug addiction thirst for power and sacrificed his life to free his brethren.
Charming Orcish fire resparked, Garrosh, out of nowhere, decides not only does he have the balls to lead the Maghar, but he can also take over the world. Scratch that, take over both fucking worlds, because dammit, he’s Grom Hellscream’s son.
Thrall then offers Garrosh an Officer spot in his guild, with access to the Gbank and all. He ups and leaves the Mag’har leaderless and heads home to Org. Despite his desire to take over Azeroth, for no real reason, Garrosh agrees to work along side Thrall in attempting to create peace with humans.
One might say this was a nicely wrapped ending to his’s broken tale, and that he should be able to overcome his childhood demons and settle for a life of Blood and Thunder. Right?
Yeah, right.
Some time between the stories in the two expansions of WoW, Blizz injected some more lore involving a peace-treaty between Varian and Thrall, the closest the two sides have ever been to such a thing. The shit hit the fan when a bunch of renegade orcs, Gorona included, out of fucking nowhere, attempted to kill Varian. Having been the traitorous bitch who killed his father, Varian snapped and decided Garrosh was ugly enough to be behind it.
Garrosh, on the other hand, for some reason known only in the sixth and ninth levels of hell, assumed Varian was behind it.
Yeah, I know.
So begins the chain of stupdity that is Garrosh Hellscream’s Thought Process.
–>Failpoint 1: Being given a position of power within Thrall’s guild leads to unwarranted self importance.
Wrath of the Lich King: KILL THEM ALL. EVERYTHING. EVERYONE. JUST KILL THEM.
Fast foward to Lich King; In a genuis move by Thrall, Garrosh is sent to Northrend to command the horde forces. In a complete 180 from his slobbering mess of a life before, all of a sudden Garrosh has balls the size of Norway and is suggesting the horde just charge in to Icecrown and give Arthas an assrape he’ll never forget. He goes as far as challenge Thrall to a duel, an epic fight that was ended early by the invasion of the Scourge (seriously, they ruin everything!).
From this point on, Garrosh continues to challenge Thrall’s leadership abilities and bares teeth with Varian at every chance he gets. The combined fury of their unwarranted hatred and constant feeding into each other’s psychosis is a current and constant thorn in Thrall and Jaina’s asses as they attempt to unite the Horde and Alliance, the sensible thing to do, against Arthas.
I pit some blame on Thrall, as well, for being too much of a wuss to admit Garrosh is a lost cause. His hardon for Grom is so intense that he continues to take Garrosh to all these events that involve Humans and Varian, knowing it’s going to end in the two trying to rip each other to shreds. And all he can say is how dissapointing he is.
WHAT?
Did he bring back straight D’s on his reportcard?
That’s disappointing.
Got caught drinking bear at the 8th grade dance?
Super disappointing!
Knocked up his girlfriend?
Very disappointing!
Trying to kill the King of Stormwind every five seconds and ruining what was likely the only chance at peace between the Horde and Alliance?
Kinda disapointing.
Or maybe Thrall secretly agrees with me that if they take each other out, he, Jaina, and Rhonin can be rid of them once and for all.
Wishful thinking, if rumors that Thrall charges Garrosh with leadership of the Horde in Catacylsm are true.
This is the same guy, remember, who pissed himself at the thought of leading the Mag’Har, a force of maybe 500.
So My conclusion?
Garrosh is a whiny, impatient, bloodthirsty brat who’s worn out his “Baww, he’s just kid” welcome and has become a real threat to the stability of everything. Hot-headed, brash, and ridiculously misguided, Garrosh is unfit to lead a squad of 13 year old cheerleaders let alone the entire force of the Horde.
What should he do about his problems?
Kill himself.
That simple.
King Varian is a Tool, and You Can Too.
WoW Cataclysm : Poetic Irony
Alright, next on the list of stuff to muse about: WoW Cataclysm, appropriately named since it seems as though Blizz is imploding its own game.
This past weekend found the Internet overloaded with information, screenshots, theory crafting, and a whole lotta “WTF” over the expansion. It seems very hit or miss on how the community is taking it thus far, but one thing can be agreed upon by all: The changes planned for the game come 4.0 are going to be, shall I say it… cataclysmic.
The old world of vanilla WoW is going to be literally torn apart, with the re-emergence of Deathwing causing major seismic shifting and explosions, rearranging the terrain of Azeroth permanently. What this means is even new players or alts will experience this “new” world, with places such as the barrens being split in two, old world dungeons SFK and Deadmines being re-worked as end-game dungeons, among other major changes.
[Why does "angry dragon emergence breaking the world" seem so familiar? Oh, riiiiiiight.]
Itemization is being completely raped overhauled, with all secondary stats like spell power, attack power, defense rating, and mp5 getitng tossed out into the twisting nether. How exactly this is supposed to work, I have no idea. It would seem there’d be no more true difference in gear for hybrid classes anymore, which may or may not be a good thing.
The two factions are getting new races: Horde being stuck with Goblins with the undeserving Alliance getting Worgen.
As if the Horde needs another self-serving, OCD race among it’s ranks. The fun part is, as a racial, these little buggers start out with the best faction discounts possible. Yay!
What else is in the plans for WoW:Cata?
-Rated battlegrounds allow for Arena-level epics seems like a good time; AFKing gear has never been more fun.
-Major overhaul of the Warlock class (again) makes soul shards less annoying but more central to the class.
-Guild Leveling helps take care of dirty ninjas, as well as promote “brotherhood and heroism” amongst guilds.
-Flying mounts in Azeroth means more fun for leveling alts/newbies on PvP realms.
-Places like the Barrens and Desolace will be lush with vegetation, leading to mass confusion amongst newer generations.
-Undercity and Orgrimmar will get revamps, making the crypt-like home of the Undead much more welcoming to Alliance raiders visitors.
-Old school 5mans Deadmines and SFK get high level heroic modes. INC trade chat whining while wiping on VanCleef.
I have a comprehensive list of all the currently released information, but it’s friggin huge so I backdated it.
You can find that shiz here.
Preview of the Zone Changes and new areas
Guild Wars: Fashion Police
From a self proclaimed Gaming Fashionista comes an epic and catty debunking of in game style.
Beware. It can get ugly.
Jera’s Vote: Nay (severe nay)
At first I thought, this is, simply put, classic case of PvP experimentation gone wrong. Then I thought about it and oh man, did I want to stab my eyes. The top is PvE. So someone spent the money on this combination? Albiet, it’s 1k but still. Here we have standard Sunspear top and arms Shing-Jei skirt and Starter/Ascalon shoes. So comes another failed attempt to make the skankiest ele armor combo possible. There’s a difference between classy skanky and just out right wrong, and you, ma’am, fall into the latter. Suggestion: start over.
Jera’s Vote: Yay
Ignoring my initial distaste for some of the more revealing costumes in GW, I have to say this combo definitely caught my eye. 15k Druid arms, feet, and top with the 15k Studded Leather legs. They work well together and are died a natural color (green?) to keep with a general scheme. There’s nothing I can think of to change this for the better. Kudos for the creative put together!
Jera’s Vote: Nay
Elite Sunspear top and legs with Istani hands and feet. What bothers me about this combo isn’t the mixed armor (istani gloves/boots can go with just about anything, which is wonderful). But the bright white dye-job on the arms and feet takes away from the entire thing and makes the mixed-part extremely noticable. And while I do say Istani can go with anything, the money was spent on the 15k Sunspear Armor. I’d suggest to at least synergy the gloves and boots with the standard Sunspear. Less harsh a color, as well, like a gold/orange/brown if red wouldn’t match right. A noble try falling just a bit too short.
Jera’s Vote: Yay
But just barely. Here we have Ancient top and feet and Elite Woven skirt and handwraps. I think the general style and design for the two armors work well, though the skirt is just a WEE bit off, imo. Intentional or not, the arms and skirt being dyed similar colors kinda helps bring it together pretty well. My suggestion would be a less harsh dye color; white/silver should be replaced with a dulled down yellow/brown/orange mix to match the rest of the clothes better. For something a bit more daring, kurzick handwraps would look pretty nifty.
Jera’s Vote: Yay
You may be asking yourself “how does this piece of garbage get a yay?” And so I say to you… the pure humor of it. It’s actually kinda hard to wear holiday masks in a way that’s not ridiculously painful. Most people don’t care, being that’s kind of the point of holiday masks. However, every now and then you come across something like this that’s so absolutely perfect. The only other hat/armor combo I can think of that’s remotely equal would be santa hat with furlined armor. Candycane weapons a plus.
Suggested Mix Armor of the Issue:
This combo makes for a pretty awesome bad-ass look for Fem Necros. The key to the outfit is the Canthan top and 15k Luxon Skirt. The styles work awesomely together, and they dye pretty much the same. What I have here includes Canthan gloves and 15k Luxon boots. For a cheaper alternative, regular luxon look just as great, as do standard canthan. Gloves can also be luxon. For less fiersomeness, Kurzick gloves and boots, or Krytan Gloves and boots. Outside of Canthan/Luxon combos, gloves and boots should be from the same set.
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That’s it for this issue. I’ll be stalking around for more disasters / fabulousness. Feel free to submit your own screens be it your own char or something you see for review! Def let me know what you think~
