I'm doomed, it seems, to never be able to finish a heroic daily. The last two times I've tried, I've gotten to the last boss that we have to kill, we wipe, then I have to go.
Shadow Labrynth. Murmur. It isn't a raid night (for me, at least). We breeze through -- Vorpil down in under 1 teleport. (Literally, he was at 3% when we had our first teleport - close enough for me to call it - under 1 teleport. With as many DoTs on him, he didn't live long enough to even start ticking down his Rain of Fire.)
We get to Murmur. Our tank and our healer don't quite have the concept of avoiding his sonic boom down very well. So we wipe. And then my new guild leader, Gaj, gives me a tell and says, "Kikidas, we NEEEEEEED you to come to help us kill Hydross the Unstable! We have no hope without you! Come save us!"
Well, I'm paraphrasing.
So I have to leave. I beg one more shot at Murmur, but then as we're heading back in, we have respawn. And I have my guild leader begging me to come save him from the savage horde that is the other 23 people of a SSC raid.
Today. It's 10am. I get in a group to do heroic slave pens, today's heroic daily. We have a few wipes, a few funnies (haha! I died AGAIN! This is hilarious!) and a few obligatory 'Whew, how did we live?' moments.
At one point in time, the rogue we were partying with (I do not know this rogue, to my knowledge.) gives me a tell, out of the blue, with 'You do kick ass'.
Now, to my defense, I did not subtly prompt that comment with any little 'oh, I hope I'm doing enough DPS. Am I doing okay?' or any other such coy attempts to get praise. Nor was there any commentary on the damage meters or anything like that.
It's nice to know I truly am universally loved.
Anyway, we get to Quag, for some odd reason Bite dies so we lack his buff, and we wind up wiping twice. The third time we're coming back in, I look and realize it's almost 2pm! And I have to go to the pharmacy to pick up medicine. The pharmacy is down by where I work. Which is 20 minutes away from my house. The pharmacy closes at 3pm. The weather is something described best in the last part of 'The Day After Tomorrow' where you can see the ice forming out of the moisture in the air!
So I have to leave before we finally down Quagmirron.
But...
I do kick ass.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
It's all about the love...
If you go to www.google.com and type in Kikidas. I'm the top hit. No seriously. My armory page apparently is the first thing that pops up on Google. Not so on Yahoo, but Google loves me.
Andy Kikidas, patent holder and avid golfer, sorry, you're just not as loved as I am. You have more things about you online, but Google says I'm #1. You're merely #2-10. :P
And Yahoo... what's wrong with you? Someone's web photo that has a young warlock Kikidas in Scarlet Monastery listed in one of the pictures is #4 or 5 on your list, but the rest is that Andy fellow! What's up with that?
On another note...
So, it's Valentine's Day. I hope people spent it with loved ones, doing something enjoyable. Now, this doesn't mean that on normal days I hope you spend those days with hated people doing something you detest. Every day you should say that you love your spouse, significant other, family, friends and Kikidas.
You never know what tomorrow will bring, so don't put off telling those you care about how you feel.
Richard... I love you. (Boon, I love you too. But you're no Richard, sorry.)
Now back to your regularly scheduled Kikidas.
Andy Kikidas, patent holder and avid golfer, sorry, you're just not as loved as I am. You have more things about you online, but Google says I'm #1. You're merely #2-10. :P
And Yahoo... what's wrong with you? Someone's web photo that has a young warlock Kikidas in Scarlet Monastery listed in one of the pictures is #4 or 5 on your list, but the rest is that Andy fellow! What's up with that?
On another note...
So, it's Valentine's Day. I hope people spent it with loved ones, doing something enjoyable. Now, this doesn't mean that on normal days I hope you spend those days with hated people doing something you detest. Every day you should say that you love your spouse, significant other, family, friends and Kikidas.
You never know what tomorrow will bring, so don't put off telling those you care about how you feel.
Richard... I love you. (Boon, I love you too. But you're no Richard, sorry.)
Now back to your regularly scheduled Kikidas.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Impressions given but not intended...
I have an issue with things. Shocking, I know. My issue today is something that happened last night. I HATE being made to feel bad. I hate being made to feel bad by making someone else feel bad. Hate hate hate.
So. Who did I make to feel bad? Why do I feel bad for making them feel bad?
A friend wanted to do heroic Underbog. I say, sure. I need badges. I like heroic UB. It's fun. She needs one more DPS and a tank. I sign up for the DPS. Now the tank.
Another friend offers to tank it. He's a new 70 druid. He only just hit honored with CE. He's only tanked 3 or 4 other instances. I wasn't in charge of the group or I'd have said no... Unfortunately, the person in charge and the other people wanted to do a guild run.
We didn't even get up the ramp before Hungarfen before we called it. Someone died on every. single. pull. Usually the healer. Usually me and the other main DPS too.
Underbog gets a bad reputation and people think it's an easy heroic because UB is a low level instance. And it's short. And it's sweet. And with few exceptions, you don't have big massive pulls -- a four pull is the most you have to handle at once.
And people think they can tank it without any problems with gear that they could tank regular Slabs or SH with. You can't. The giants hit like trucks. If you're shy on CC, you have multiple car-hitting mobs on the tank or healer or wherever the hell they decide they want to be. Even with appropriate CC -- hunter, mage, warlock (my preferred grouping for CC in UB) -- there are pulls where you can't CC and you have to tank multiple truck-sized monsters. A newly keyed, newly 70 tank probably can't handle it.
Some of it was technique. He's a new tank. Some of it was over-geared-DPS in the form of an elemental shaman and myself. We unfortunately didn't take into account his newtankness and acted like he was an established firm tank and didn't let him establish good aggro before we started dotting and casting. Some of it was healer aggro. The tank gear wasn't the best, so he took a lot of damage, so the healer had to heal lots, so the healer got aggro, and the tank didn't have a good hold on aggro, and.. you probably see where this was going. So did we.
Now, I have a druid tank. Granted, she isn't the best druid tank out there, but I've tanked many times with her. I've tanked the HH, the CE, the TK... you initial it, I've tanked in it. (I don't think I've done Shattered Halls or one of the TK's, but I don't recall what ones.) So I was trying to give him tips on aggro, how to up his aggro, how to lower healer aggro, how to hold initial aggro on multiple mobs when the healer is getting lots of initial aggro.
Unfortunately, I think that made him feel bad. :( I didn't mean to have him feel bad.
I have a feeling. I think a lot of people think I'm a snob or mean when I give them /tells with suggestions. I'm not being an elitist. I'm honestly trying to help solve a problem that I see. And I try to do it without shouting it in ventrilo or party chat. I'd hope someone would do that for me if they see me doing something wrong. But I fear it gives the impression that I'm an elitist. It's an impression that is no doubt strengthened by the fact that I took my warlock out of my old guild to raid, even though my old guild is trying to become a raiding guild. This had little to do with a vast majority of the people in the guild and more to do with a few very particular not going to go away issues I had with the way the raids were run and organized.
But I think people think I'm ... an elitist. A mean bitchy snob.
I know I give that impression. I'm a good warlock. I'm a good player. I have alts in every walk of life so I can usually toss my three cents in on any situation that is going on. And it gives that impression.
I'm sure after I left the group (after it was called, and I had to go to bed) that those particular people were talking about how evil I was. :( Well, I'm not SURE, but my paranoid side (what warlock doesn't have a paranoid side? It's the left and right sides of our personalities) insists that they were just waiting for me to leave before they started to talk about me. :(
Things like this make me not want to party with my old guild. Not because of them, but because of me. I'd rather party with a PUG because if I make that tank feel bad by well intentioned advice, or any other person in that group, I don't feel bad if they feel bad!
Right now, I feel terrible. Like I kicked a puppy.
So. Who did I make to feel bad? Why do I feel bad for making them feel bad?
A friend wanted to do heroic Underbog. I say, sure. I need badges. I like heroic UB. It's fun. She needs one more DPS and a tank. I sign up for the DPS. Now the tank.
Another friend offers to tank it. He's a new 70 druid. He only just hit honored with CE. He's only tanked 3 or 4 other instances. I wasn't in charge of the group or I'd have said no... Unfortunately, the person in charge and the other people wanted to do a guild run.
We didn't even get up the ramp before Hungarfen before we called it. Someone died on every. single. pull. Usually the healer. Usually me and the other main DPS too.
Underbog gets a bad reputation and people think it's an easy heroic because UB is a low level instance. And it's short. And it's sweet. And with few exceptions, you don't have big massive pulls -- a four pull is the most you have to handle at once.
And people think they can tank it without any problems with gear that they could tank regular Slabs or SH with. You can't. The giants hit like trucks. If you're shy on CC, you have multiple car-hitting mobs on the tank or healer or wherever the hell they decide they want to be. Even with appropriate CC -- hunter, mage, warlock (my preferred grouping for CC in UB) -- there are pulls where you can't CC and you have to tank multiple truck-sized monsters. A newly keyed, newly 70 tank probably can't handle it.
Some of it was technique. He's a new tank. Some of it was over-geared-DPS in the form of an elemental shaman and myself. We unfortunately didn't take into account his newtankness and acted like he was an established firm tank and didn't let him establish good aggro before we started dotting and casting. Some of it was healer aggro. The tank gear wasn't the best, so he took a lot of damage, so the healer had to heal lots, so the healer got aggro, and the tank didn't have a good hold on aggro, and.. you probably see where this was going. So did we.
Now, I have a druid tank. Granted, she isn't the best druid tank out there, but I've tanked many times with her. I've tanked the HH, the CE, the TK... you initial it, I've tanked in it. (I don't think I've done Shattered Halls or one of the TK's, but I don't recall what ones.) So I was trying to give him tips on aggro, how to up his aggro, how to lower healer aggro, how to hold initial aggro on multiple mobs when the healer is getting lots of initial aggro.
Unfortunately, I think that made him feel bad. :( I didn't mean to have him feel bad.
I have a feeling. I think a lot of people think I'm a snob or mean when I give them /tells with suggestions. I'm not being an elitist. I'm honestly trying to help solve a problem that I see. And I try to do it without shouting it in ventrilo or party chat. I'd hope someone would do that for me if they see me doing something wrong. But I fear it gives the impression that I'm an elitist. It's an impression that is no doubt strengthened by the fact that I took my warlock out of my old guild to raid, even though my old guild is trying to become a raiding guild. This had little to do with a vast majority of the people in the guild and more to do with a few very particular not going to go away issues I had with the way the raids were run and organized.
But I think people think I'm ... an elitist. A mean bitchy snob.
I know I give that impression. I'm a good warlock. I'm a good player. I have alts in every walk of life so I can usually toss my three cents in on any situation that is going on. And it gives that impression.
I'm sure after I left the group (after it was called, and I had to go to bed) that those particular people were talking about how evil I was. :( Well, I'm not SURE, but my paranoid side (what warlock doesn't have a paranoid side? It's the left and right sides of our personalities) insists that they were just waiting for me to leave before they started to talk about me. :(
Things like this make me not want to party with my old guild. Not because of them, but because of me. I'd rather party with a PUG because if I make that tank feel bad by well intentioned advice, or any other person in that group, I don't feel bad if they feel bad!
Right now, I feel terrible. Like I kicked a puppy.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A story of Boon
Most of you who know me, know Boon. Boon is my husband's paladin. If you know my husband, you know why he's a paladin. Boon is also the name of his character on Star Wars, Minos Cluster. D'artagnan Boon (no one ever accused Boon of having an over abundance of imagination with names!), who father's name was Athos or one of the other musketeer's, started out as a lowly New Republic Special Forces agent, ie: the police. He started small, had a few escapades that should have killed him whilst he was a lowly 4D character but due to luck and other people being nice, didn't. Eventually, he worked his way up to being one of the hardest people on the game to kill, he could dodge like Neo, shoot like someone who shoots really well, fight like Jet Lee and Jackie Chan mixed together, and started everything he said with a pun. He also was one of the few 'really hard to kill' people who wasn't a jedi. He became the leader of the New Republic, General Boon.
Occasionally, the admin would throw a 'world tinyplot' out there, where the Empire and New Republic had to work together to save the entire cluster. The hard part was always opening up discussion between the two factions.
The last time this happened, we needed to open discussion with the Empire, but they were being assholes about it. They're the Empire, it's kind of what you expect. So Boon flew to one of the Imperial border planets and walked up to their garrison. He knocked on the door. This private or ensign or someone opened it and he waved at her. And introduced himself. And she, according to Boon, did amazingly good roleplay for the situation. She called him 'sir', saluted him and when he invited himself in, she gave him a tour of the facilities. You know, flustered newbie who suddenly gets a visit by ... General Boon. Holy shit. What do I do? "Uh, hello, General Boon, sir.. would you.. like to come in?" is how I imagine the story goes. This is the man who could single handedly take out a stormtrooper squad. And he's asking how the weather has been and is Commander Hawk around. Oh dear.
He also single handedly killed a dark jedi. Well, sort of. The dark jedi was on the NR's main planet. Walking around. In 'political discussion' with the ex-president of the area, who happened to be a light jedi. You'd think -- what discussion? Discussion with light sabers?
But whatever.
The dark jedi is walking along the beach, where a lot of NR officers have homes. Boon's character and my character, the sluissi Kylariss, were married and lived on the beach. I know, I know.. a snake and a human? What? It's Star Wars. Live with it.
The dark jedi sees Boon and stops to talk to him. Boon calls in the rest of the active NR military people who are hanging around, not liking the dark jedi on the planet one little bitty bit. But they can't do anything. The dark jedi isn't threatening or whatever. He's just talking to Boon.
He smugly says, "How is your wife?" and points at Boon's house, which is past Boon. Boon, the paladin, suddenly grasps his head and staggers to the ground, moaning, as though he's in horrible hideous agony.
The rest of the troops watching make the conclusion that the dark jedi just mentally attacked Boon. They've seen it happen before, they're the New Republic!
Ten of the New Republic's best fighters open fire on the lone dark jedi. And he dies.
Boon, having faked the attack, single handedly killed a dark jedi. Of course, he never let on that it wasn't a real attack. And ICly, neither could the dark jedi, because he was dead. As far as everyone was concerned, the dark jedi let his true colors show and attacked the General. Case closed.
I love that. (The admin gave him a DSP for that, even though he didn't use a force point and he isn't force sensitive, so he shouldn't have gotten one for doing an 'evil act'. They justified it by saying as the General of the NR, he should have higher standards or something, and that by deliberately doing an evil act gets a DSP. No wonder most of the old characters retired from that game, stupid favoritist admin.)
Occasionally, the admin would throw a 'world tinyplot' out there, where the Empire and New Republic had to work together to save the entire cluster. The hard part was always opening up discussion between the two factions.
The last time this happened, we needed to open discussion with the Empire, but they were being assholes about it. They're the Empire, it's kind of what you expect. So Boon flew to one of the Imperial border planets and walked up to their garrison. He knocked on the door. This private or ensign or someone opened it and he waved at her. And introduced himself. And she, according to Boon, did amazingly good roleplay for the situation. She called him 'sir', saluted him and when he invited himself in, she gave him a tour of the facilities. You know, flustered newbie who suddenly gets a visit by ... General Boon. Holy shit. What do I do? "Uh, hello, General Boon, sir.. would you.. like to come in?" is how I imagine the story goes. This is the man who could single handedly take out a stormtrooper squad. And he's asking how the weather has been and is Commander Hawk around. Oh dear.
He also single handedly killed a dark jedi. Well, sort of. The dark jedi was on the NR's main planet. Walking around. In 'political discussion' with the ex-president of the area, who happened to be a light jedi. You'd think -- what discussion? Discussion with light sabers?
But whatever.
The dark jedi is walking along the beach, where a lot of NR officers have homes. Boon's character and my character, the sluissi Kylariss, were married and lived on the beach. I know, I know.. a snake and a human? What? It's Star Wars. Live with it.
The dark jedi sees Boon and stops to talk to him. Boon calls in the rest of the active NR military people who are hanging around, not liking the dark jedi on the planet one little bitty bit. But they can't do anything. The dark jedi isn't threatening or whatever. He's just talking to Boon.
He smugly says, "How is your wife?" and points at Boon's house, which is past Boon. Boon, the paladin, suddenly grasps his head and staggers to the ground, moaning, as though he's in horrible hideous agony.
The rest of the troops watching make the conclusion that the dark jedi just mentally attacked Boon. They've seen it happen before, they're the New Republic!
Ten of the New Republic's best fighters open fire on the lone dark jedi. And he dies.
Boon, having faked the attack, single handedly killed a dark jedi. Of course, he never let on that it wasn't a real attack. And ICly, neither could the dark jedi, because he was dead. As far as everyone was concerned, the dark jedi let his true colors show and attacked the General. Case closed.
I love that. (The admin gave him a DSP for that, even though he didn't use a force point and he isn't force sensitive, so he shouldn't have gotten one for doing an 'evil act'. They justified it by saying as the General of the NR, he should have higher standards or something, and that by deliberately doing an evil act gets a DSP. No wonder most of the old characters retired from that game, stupid favoritist admin.)
What's in a name?
I was at a loss for what to post today, yet I felt htat with WoW down and this being my day off, I should post something. So I looked at Owaru's blog and that slacker hasn't updated in forever and a day. So I looked at Bremm's blog and he in turn mentioned... just what I mentioned. At a loss and wanting to post something.
Thank you Bremm, for showing me BlogAzeroth. Now I have something ELSE to waste my time with! :)
I didn't see what Bremm was talking about in regards of where exactly he got his post topic, but I like his post topic anyway. Names. What's in a name? What's in my names? My story is just a little bit longer than Bremm's.
You may have noticed a certain theme with my character names. Bremm has all Bremish things. I have K.
(No, my real life name doesn't start with a K. I wish it did.)
It all started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No seriously, it did. Well, almost.
Back when I was a teenager, I was a trifle antisocial. Not because I wasn't friendly and outgoing, but I lived far away from my school and I wasn't a 'cool' crowd kid. I was in the 'not true nerd/geek/but not goth oddball' group. My brother was on a BBS. I don't recall what BBS stands for now a days, but it was a big old chat room, text based only. There were games in there, like a dungeon crawler that you could play. All text based. He kept at me to join it and try it.
I finally caved in and then I had to pick a 'handle'. Egads. How do I do that? The answer is an odd one. Years before that day, I had this very strange dream. I was looking down at this ancient tome that was faintly glowing. It suddenly opened before me and the pages started to flip rapidly. It stopped. The only word I could make out on the page was Cristivaliani.
No joke. Cristivaliani.
So, that became my handle on the game. People thought my name was Cristi Valiani. It isn't. But it was a good try. We could also write descriptions for ourselves. So I became a silver-white dragon with gold eyes, horns and teeth.
Through that BBS, I met people who actually went to my high school! One of them became my first boyfriend. And then oddly enough, he was with me when I met (and bought) the real Cristivaliani. When I made my description up, I knew nothing about Windstone dragons (remember, geeky teenager, me + malls = never happened). But now that I had a boyfriend and went out more often, I ventured into this little gift shop in the mall with some report card money I had. And there she was. The white Windstone Edition dragon.
And that's how it started for me. But you say, ..... K? Where's the K?
The BBS also had a link to a text based RPG based on Star Wars. For those in the know, it was (and for all I know, still IS) SW1. I created a character on that game and made up a name. I just happened to call her Kaera. Because it looked pretty. I met one of the greatest friends I would ever have on SW1, named Skylar on the game, Mike in real life. We played a lot of games together. And from SW1, I tried the other Star Wars games. SW: Brak Sector, SW: Minos Cluster, SW: Clone Wars. And I honestly don't know why, but all the names started with a K. Keisha, Kiva, Kylariss, everything, K. It wasn't conscious at first, they just had K's.
I branched out into other games, some fantasy games, all text based at first. K, K, K.
(Interesting K trivia, I met my husband on SW: Minos Cluster.)
The first MMORPG I played was EQOA (PS). From there I played FFXI, CoH, LOTR (trial period), EQ (computer), SW: Galaxies and finally WoW.
By the time WoW came around I was consciously picking my K names. The only times I don't have K names was in FiranMUX, where you have pregenerated characters and when I'm trying something deliberate with a name ... like when I named my Tauren after an old Celtic mythic bull. Some of the names, I've posted about earlier where they came from, so I won't bore you with repeating that.
My K characters have been famous on some games (and this isn't my hubris speaking. I'm serious). Kaera, my first ever character, was known throughout half of SW1. All the independents and the mercenary group I was part of knew her. She was a gunner on a capital ship, yet knew more secrets than most of the diplomats because people kept... talking to her. She was 100% sweetheart. I don't think anyone ever tried to hurt her. In fact, the one bar fight she was 'in', happened around her, and half the people in the bar made sure she was safe before they went on to fighting.
Kylariss, my most famous character on Minos Cluster -- I've had a few, but Kylariss lasted the longest -- was known by the entire cluster. Literally. If I'm remembering correctly, she made the MUX news as an entry under local heroes or legends or whatever they were doing for some of the older characters that were retiring. Most established characters knew her, either in person or by reputation. 1: she was the only sluissi (snake like alien) in the cluster, 2: she was the best technician in the cluster (she was tied by a human who was an admin alt that sometimes fudged his stats.), 3: she eventually was a high ranking officer in the New Republic, though at one point in time she was an Imperial bounty that they released. I bet they kicked themselves over that ICly, but OOCly they released me because they were being nice, 4: she was a pacifist and the entire NR looked out for her. If she got hurt, watch out because the entire NR was up in arms. "They hurt Kylariss! Those BASTARDS! GET THEM!".
Keisha was my Brak Sector character. She ... uh ... has a long involved history. She was a medic/martial artist. Really. She was. She was freaking scary. I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. She could kill you then bring you back to life. And with her attitude, she'd probably kill you again.
She started out independent, became a rebel, was captured by an independent organization, tried to kill the head of said organization (most famous man in the cluster) because he said he was going to kill her friends or her (I forget which).. (did I forget to mention she did this in full public, in a room full of people, and did this by deliberately throwing a knife at his groin. Which in most men, would kill them), wound up getting a dark side point by using a force point to try to kill someone (granted, said someone had held her prisoner for a brief period of time, but still) while escaping the planet that she was on while trying to kill said head of organization, then wound up keeping an entire group of people unconscious and in 'quarantine for a mysterious illness' because she didn't like the company that they were leaving (they were leaving the company owned by the fellow she tried to kill). (What can I say, she didn't trust them!) without anyone realizing she was actually drugging them. Then when her brother was in trouble on a planet with the Empire about to catch him, she hatched a scheme with a bounty hunter friend to take her in to provide distraction so her brother could escape the planet. In the course of her time as an Imperial prisoner, she got whitewashed, was made part of the ISP (Imperial Intelligence? I forget the initials), and released on the main planets as a 'good citizen/pet of the Imperial Admiral and Imperial Captain who liked her spunk/poster child for why rebels should turn themselves in so the good Imperials can show them the error of their ways/See, we made this evil terrorist murderer into an upstanding doctor! We're good Imperials. Nice Imperials.'.
She could single handedly kill a raging trandoshan bare handedly if she had to. She could also, as I said, bring someone back to life using a tongue depressor and tooth paste. She was... an interesting... psychotic (because of that pesky DSP)... character. No wonder the Imperials liked her. (I loved playing Keisha. She was great. She'd fly into a black rage and try to seriously hurt you, then the next minute be telling you what you should do to fix that nasty bruise you just obtained.) Oh... and... never fight her with knives.
In her tenure as a 'villain', she was #1 on the Bounty list for the cluster. #2 was her brother. #3 in the cluster was the head of the local rebellion. #4 was Luke Skywalker. :P
Anyway, I digress. (But God, I could talk about Keisha Vorr for hours.)
It's amazing how much you remember of such trivial things.
I had a squib named Kithan on some game that I don't recall the name of. She wasn't famous necessarily because the game wasn't large, but dear lord, people who knew her did not forget her. Have you ever heard a squib talk? Or a kender? The two are related even though one is Star Wars and the other is DragonLance. Heehee. I had someone tell me that if I didn't shut up, he'd kill himself. It was great. She walked into a bar once and there was this evil dark cloaked person sitting by himself, all gloomy and drinking his drink in utter silence while watching the room closely. You know the type. She walked over to the table, told him he reminded her of something, or something like that, and proceeded to talk to him. She got out a ball of yarn to show him, she's been collecting yarn for years and years and the ball was actually Aunt Clara's ball of yarn but Aunt Clara was dead and do you know how hard it is to actually collect yarn, I mean you can buy yarn anywhere but to collect it it has to be special yarn and...
And he grabbed the yarn and threw it on the floor and told her he didn't care. And she cried. And he picked the yarn back up and gave it to her and told her he was sorry he threw the yarn, would she please stop crying and leave him alone.
I miss roleplaying.
Thank you Bremm, for showing me BlogAzeroth. Now I have something ELSE to waste my time with! :)
I didn't see what Bremm was talking about in regards of where exactly he got his post topic, but I like his post topic anyway. Names. What's in a name? What's in my names? My story is just a little bit longer than Bremm's.
You may have noticed a certain theme with my character names. Bremm has all Bremish things. I have K.
(No, my real life name doesn't start with a K. I wish it did.)
It all started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No seriously, it did. Well, almost.
Back when I was a teenager, I was a trifle antisocial. Not because I wasn't friendly and outgoing, but I lived far away from my school and I wasn't a 'cool' crowd kid. I was in the 'not true nerd/geek/but not goth oddball' group. My brother was on a BBS. I don't recall what BBS stands for now a days, but it was a big old chat room, text based only. There were games in there, like a dungeon crawler that you could play. All text based. He kept at me to join it and try it.
I finally caved in and then I had to pick a 'handle'. Egads. How do I do that? The answer is an odd one. Years before that day, I had this very strange dream. I was looking down at this ancient tome that was faintly glowing. It suddenly opened before me and the pages started to flip rapidly. It stopped. The only word I could make out on the page was Cristivaliani.
No joke. Cristivaliani.
So, that became my handle on the game. People thought my name was Cristi Valiani. It isn't. But it was a good try. We could also write descriptions for ourselves. So I became a silver-white dragon with gold eyes, horns and teeth.
Through that BBS, I met people who actually went to my high school! One of them became my first boyfriend. And then oddly enough, he was with me when I met (and bought) the real Cristivaliani. When I made my description up, I knew nothing about Windstone dragons (remember, geeky teenager, me + malls = never happened). But now that I had a boyfriend and went out more often, I ventured into this little gift shop in the mall with some report card money I had. And there she was. The white Windstone Edition dragon.
And that's how it started for me. But you say, ..... K? Where's the K?
The BBS also had a link to a text based RPG based on Star Wars. For those in the know, it was (and for all I know, still IS) SW1. I created a character on that game and made up a name. I just happened to call her Kaera. Because it looked pretty. I met one of the greatest friends I would ever have on SW1, named Skylar on the game, Mike in real life. We played a lot of games together. And from SW1, I tried the other Star Wars games. SW: Brak Sector, SW: Minos Cluster, SW: Clone Wars. And I honestly don't know why, but all the names started with a K. Keisha, Kiva, Kylariss, everything, K. It wasn't conscious at first, they just had K's.
I branched out into other games, some fantasy games, all text based at first. K, K, K.
(Interesting K trivia, I met my husband on SW: Minos Cluster.)
The first MMORPG I played was EQOA (PS). From there I played FFXI, CoH, LOTR (trial period), EQ (computer), SW: Galaxies and finally WoW.
By the time WoW came around I was consciously picking my K names. The only times I don't have K names was in FiranMUX, where you have pregenerated characters and when I'm trying something deliberate with a name ... like when I named my Tauren after an old Celtic mythic bull. Some of the names, I've posted about earlier where they came from, so I won't bore you with repeating that.
My K characters have been famous on some games (and this isn't my hubris speaking. I'm serious). Kaera, my first ever character, was known throughout half of SW1. All the independents and the mercenary group I was part of knew her. She was a gunner on a capital ship, yet knew more secrets than most of the diplomats because people kept... talking to her. She was 100% sweetheart. I don't think anyone ever tried to hurt her. In fact, the one bar fight she was 'in', happened around her, and half the people in the bar made sure she was safe before they went on to fighting.
Kylariss, my most famous character on Minos Cluster -- I've had a few, but Kylariss lasted the longest -- was known by the entire cluster. Literally. If I'm remembering correctly, she made the MUX news as an entry under local heroes or legends or whatever they were doing for some of the older characters that were retiring. Most established characters knew her, either in person or by reputation. 1: she was the only sluissi (snake like alien) in the cluster, 2: she was the best technician in the cluster (she was tied by a human who was an admin alt that sometimes fudged his stats.), 3: she eventually was a high ranking officer in the New Republic, though at one point in time she was an Imperial bounty that they released. I bet they kicked themselves over that ICly, but OOCly they released me because they were being nice, 4: she was a pacifist and the entire NR looked out for her. If she got hurt, watch out because the entire NR was up in arms. "They hurt Kylariss! Those BASTARDS! GET THEM!".
Keisha was my Brak Sector character. She ... uh ... has a long involved history. She was a medic/martial artist. Really. She was. She was freaking scary. I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley. She could kill you then bring you back to life. And with her attitude, she'd probably kill you again.
She started out independent, became a rebel, was captured by an independent organization, tried to kill the head of said organization (most famous man in the cluster) because he said he was going to kill her friends or her (I forget which).. (did I forget to mention she did this in full public, in a room full of people, and did this by deliberately throwing a knife at his groin. Which in most men, would kill them), wound up getting a dark side point by using a force point to try to kill someone (granted, said someone had held her prisoner for a brief period of time, but still) while escaping the planet that she was on while trying to kill said head of organization, then wound up keeping an entire group of people unconscious and in 'quarantine for a mysterious illness' because she didn't like the company that they were leaving (they were leaving the company owned by the fellow she tried to kill). (What can I say, she didn't trust them!) without anyone realizing she was actually drugging them. Then when her brother was in trouble on a planet with the Empire about to catch him, she hatched a scheme with a bounty hunter friend to take her in to provide distraction so her brother could escape the planet. In the course of her time as an Imperial prisoner, she got whitewashed, was made part of the ISP (Imperial Intelligence? I forget the initials), and released on the main planets as a 'good citizen/pet of the Imperial Admiral and Imperial Captain who liked her spunk/poster child for why rebels should turn themselves in so the good Imperials can show them the error of their ways/See, we made this evil terrorist murderer into an upstanding doctor! We're good Imperials. Nice Imperials.'.
She could single handedly kill a raging trandoshan bare handedly if she had to. She could also, as I said, bring someone back to life using a tongue depressor and tooth paste. She was... an interesting... psychotic (because of that pesky DSP)... character. No wonder the Imperials liked her. (I loved playing Keisha. She was great. She'd fly into a black rage and try to seriously hurt you, then the next minute be telling you what you should do to fix that nasty bruise you just obtained.) Oh... and... never fight her with knives.
In her tenure as a 'villain', she was #1 on the Bounty list for the cluster. #2 was her brother. #3 in the cluster was the head of the local rebellion. #4 was Luke Skywalker. :P
Anyway, I digress. (But God, I could talk about Keisha Vorr for hours.)
It's amazing how much you remember of such trivial things.
I had a squib named Kithan on some game that I don't recall the name of. She wasn't famous necessarily because the game wasn't large, but dear lord, people who knew her did not forget her. Have you ever heard a squib talk? Or a kender? The two are related even though one is Star Wars and the other is DragonLance. Heehee. I had someone tell me that if I didn't shut up, he'd kill himself. It was great. She walked into a bar once and there was this evil dark cloaked person sitting by himself, all gloomy and drinking his drink in utter silence while watching the room closely. You know the type. She walked over to the table, told him he reminded her of something, or something like that, and proceeded to talk to him. She got out a ball of yarn to show him, she's been collecting yarn for years and years and the ball was actually Aunt Clara's ball of yarn but Aunt Clara was dead and do you know how hard it is to actually collect yarn, I mean you can buy yarn anywhere but to collect it it has to be special yarn and...
And he grabbed the yarn and threw it on the floor and told her he didn't care. And she cried. And he picked the yarn back up and gave it to her and told her he was sorry he threw the yarn, would she please stop crying and leave him alone.
I miss roleplaying.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Living up to Expectations
The phrase "Living up to expectations"... that means that whatever I expect you to do, is what you do. If I expect you to single-heal BT, and you do, then that's living up to expectations. Godly expectations, but nevertheless, you did it.
The reverse is also true. If I expect that you can't even heal VC as a level 60+ healer and you do... that's also living up to expectations. Or maybe it should be termed 'living down to expectations'. Whatever.
This holds true to lots of avenues of life. And sometimes, we become what others expect. When it's expecting UP, making yourself better so you fit into what someone expects of you, that's a good thing. However, a lot of times, people don't expect much from us, and we take that as permission to ... not be our best. We go down. We do what they expect from us because we don't get credit or it isn't "worth it" somehow to do MORE. And then that becomes what we are.
To some extent, I can understand what WoW is doing. You have a very large player base. You want more people. You want smart people and dumb people, basically anyone who can spend 15 bucks a month, to play your game. So you have to make it so that all those people, smart, dumb and in between, can play your game.
You begin by making a quest log that keeps track of everything. How many mobs you need to kill, what items you need to get, and even a summary of where to find said things so that if you're spam-quest-collecting, you can go back and read the quest afterwards to figure out where to go. Almost everything is soloable or duoable. That's how it used to be. They didn't even have the quest tracker for you. If you wanted to know how many more whatevers you needed, you had to open your quest log.
Yet still, you had people saying 'Where do I go for this?' or 'how do I get that?'. Sometimes, the best answer was 'Did you read your quest log?'. ... "No."... *bangs head on desk* The question is, do you help these people? Do you take them by the hand and lead them through their quests?
Other times, and admittedly there are a few quests still out there that takes some exploring and some deduction and isn't spelled out in a 'How to...' manner. And those questions, you ask and the answer is 'Yes.'. And it's one of THOSE quests and you know that this person did try their best, but need some help. And you help because that's the right thing to do.
The other person, the one who doesn't read their log or can't be bothered to... there are multiple thoughts on these people. Some people are of the 'I'm a nice helpful person! So I will help!', and take them by the hand and lead them down the road of their quests. These people, in their effort to help, are perpetuating the 'down' expectation. They can't be expected to read their quest log on their own! And look, they get REWARDED for not doing so! They have some nice person do the quest for them. Yippee!
Other people do the middle of the road method, which I do. I help to a certain point. I'll direct them to their quest log, or to one of the websites. I'll even ask leading questions like 'Doesn't your quest log tell you where the cave is?', and hopefully I'm rewarded with a 'Oh! It does! Thanks'.
Then there are some that are rude about it and get snarky and smarmy and offensive. Maybe these are people who, at one point in time, maybe started out nice and helpful, then moved to the middle of the road and finally are fed up enough that they've become angry.
Because WoW is altering the game to live down to the expectation of people who can't be bothered to read. Or look. Or try.
We now have sparklies over quest pick up items. And dots on the mini-map. And way points. Next they'll probably make a little path that appears in game for you. Or a spirit dude will appear to lead you by the nose to the next step.
I will admit, the quest giver exclamation points are nice, and let you discover where quests are more easily. But ... c'mon. How dumbed down is the game going to get before we tell people ... it's time for us to stop living DOWN to your expectation and time for you to start living up to ours.
The reverse is also true. If I expect that you can't even heal VC as a level 60+ healer and you do... that's also living up to expectations. Or maybe it should be termed 'living down to expectations'. Whatever.
This holds true to lots of avenues of life. And sometimes, we become what others expect. When it's expecting UP, making yourself better so you fit into what someone expects of you, that's a good thing. However, a lot of times, people don't expect much from us, and we take that as permission to ... not be our best. We go down. We do what they expect from us because we don't get credit or it isn't "worth it" somehow to do MORE. And then that becomes what we are.
To some extent, I can understand what WoW is doing. You have a very large player base. You want more people. You want smart people and dumb people, basically anyone who can spend 15 bucks a month, to play your game. So you have to make it so that all those people, smart, dumb and in between, can play your game.
You begin by making a quest log that keeps track of everything. How many mobs you need to kill, what items you need to get, and even a summary of where to find said things so that if you're spam-quest-collecting, you can go back and read the quest afterwards to figure out where to go. Almost everything is soloable or duoable. That's how it used to be. They didn't even have the quest tracker for you. If you wanted to know how many more whatevers you needed, you had to open your quest log.
Yet still, you had people saying 'Where do I go for this?' or 'how do I get that?'. Sometimes, the best answer was 'Did you read your quest log?'. ... "No."... *bangs head on desk* The question is, do you help these people? Do you take them by the hand and lead them through their quests?
Other times, and admittedly there are a few quests still out there that takes some exploring and some deduction and isn't spelled out in a 'How to...' manner. And those questions, you ask and the answer is 'Yes.'. And it's one of THOSE quests and you know that this person did try their best, but need some help. And you help because that's the right thing to do.
The other person, the one who doesn't read their log or can't be bothered to... there are multiple thoughts on these people. Some people are of the 'I'm a nice helpful person! So I will help!', and take them by the hand and lead them down the road of their quests. These people, in their effort to help, are perpetuating the 'down' expectation. They can't be expected to read their quest log on their own! And look, they get REWARDED for not doing so! They have some nice person do the quest for them. Yippee!
Other people do the middle of the road method, which I do. I help to a certain point. I'll direct them to their quest log, or to one of the websites. I'll even ask leading questions like 'Doesn't your quest log tell you where the cave is?', and hopefully I'm rewarded with a 'Oh! It does! Thanks'.
Then there are some that are rude about it and get snarky and smarmy and offensive. Maybe these are people who, at one point in time, maybe started out nice and helpful, then moved to the middle of the road and finally are fed up enough that they've become angry.
Because WoW is altering the game to live down to the expectation of people who can't be bothered to read. Or look. Or try.
We now have sparklies over quest pick up items. And dots on the mini-map. And way points. Next they'll probably make a little path that appears in game for you. Or a spirit dude will appear to lead you by the nose to the next step.
I will admit, the quest giver exclamation points are nice, and let you discover where quests are more easily. But ... c'mon. How dumbed down is the game going to get before we tell people ... it's time for us to stop living DOWN to your expectation and time for you to start living up to ours.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Raids, Guilds and Ever Quest.
Sorry I haven't posted in the last ... oh gosh, almost a month. I know you missed me. You know you missed me. A month without K is like a month without amusing sunshine.
I have a lot on my plate and I don't mean just what's for dinner. Real Life is always a fun hurdle but nothing anyone here needs to know about! Not that I don't love you and not that you aren't just wanting and waiting to find out all sorts of neat RL things about me so you can stalk me, but I'm just not that public of a person. I'm rather private and shy, you know. And humble. Let's not forget humble.
Anyway, I've been raiding with my guild usually Monday evening and Friday evening. At least I was. Alleria has had a queue issue lately and I think a bunch of people in the guild changed servers. At least, I assume that's what they did, rather than simply delete their characters, because I don't know why I wouldn't be able to send them in-game mail otherwise.
So, what happened is this: My husband, Boon, got EQII because he's a sucker for punishment. He made me do the free-trial that comes with EQII. And every day, when I get home, it's EQII. Which, I will give it the credit it's due: it has it's moments. Character creation is more detailed. There are more classes. There are more races. There are skill-chain-like-things. There are shiny things on the ground you can pick up. Crafting is more intricate (is this a pro, or a con? I can't decide).
The downside is the amount of running around you have to do. The animation on my computer is a bit choppy. I lag in every town and city. Anytime something pops up in my background, my computer crashes because EQII doesn't like when things pop up in the background. And since when does an even match have a greater than 50% chance of killing me? (Okay, slight exaggeration, I don't die often, and when I do it's because I do something really stupid, rather than because I'm fighting a single mob that's yellow or white. That's pie. But still.)
So, I left WoW for less than five days. I stopped in last Friday and there was a mini-raid scheduled. There were people in the guild. Yay, all's well. I log back out since the mini-raid was Karazhan and I don't need Kara on my 'lock. On Monday, I log back in for my regularly scheduled raid evening and BAM. There are 26 people in the guild. Mass exodus. A guild message that says 'This is the end!'.
And I think... damn, I didn't know I was THAT popular. I go away for three days and look what happens!
But here's the clicker. The guild leader, a good paladin named Fragh, is away until the 16th. But we don't have a guild left. If people left for other guilds or just transferred servers. I don't know. I don't know if he's going to try to rebuild or just call it. Some of my favorite people in the guild are no longer on Alleria for one reason or another.
Word of what was happening to my guild must have spread, because 5 minutes later I get a headhunter tell. Before I realize that Fragh is on vacation and is away until the 16th, I say 'sure', and I fill out an application to another guild. Surprise surprise, they say 'Yes, you can join us!'. After that happens, someone logs on and says 'WTF!', erases the guild message and says 'That wasn't Fragh putting that up. Fragh is gone on vacation! We'll see what's going on with the guild when he gets back.'.
So my dilemma. Do I wait until the 16th to go to this new guild, to see if Fragh will rebuild again? Do I tell Fragh that my limited raid time makes me a liability to a guild that's going for end-game? Do I even bother to raid anymore?
What do I do? I'm in a quandry.
WWRD? (What would Richard do?) .... (other than kill everyone, that is.)
I have a lot on my plate and I don't mean just what's for dinner. Real Life is always a fun hurdle but nothing anyone here needs to know about! Not that I don't love you and not that you aren't just wanting and waiting to find out all sorts of neat RL things about me so you can stalk me, but I'm just not that public of a person. I'm rather private and shy, you know. And humble. Let's not forget humble.
Anyway, I've been raiding with my guild usually Monday evening and Friday evening. At least I was. Alleria has had a queue issue lately and I think a bunch of people in the guild changed servers. At least, I assume that's what they did, rather than simply delete their characters, because I don't know why I wouldn't be able to send them in-game mail otherwise.
So, what happened is this: My husband, Boon, got EQII because he's a sucker for punishment. He made me do the free-trial that comes with EQII. And every day, when I get home, it's EQII. Which, I will give it the credit it's due: it has it's moments. Character creation is more detailed. There are more classes. There are more races. There are skill-chain-like-things. There are shiny things on the ground you can pick up. Crafting is more intricate (is this a pro, or a con? I can't decide).
The downside is the amount of running around you have to do. The animation on my computer is a bit choppy. I lag in every town and city. Anytime something pops up in my background, my computer crashes because EQII doesn't like when things pop up in the background. And since when does an even match have a greater than 50% chance of killing me? (Okay, slight exaggeration, I don't die often, and when I do it's because I do something really stupid, rather than because I'm fighting a single mob that's yellow or white. That's pie. But still.)
So, I left WoW for less than five days. I stopped in last Friday and there was a mini-raid scheduled. There were people in the guild. Yay, all's well. I log back out since the mini-raid was Karazhan and I don't need Kara on my 'lock. On Monday, I log back in for my regularly scheduled raid evening and BAM. There are 26 people in the guild. Mass exodus. A guild message that says 'This is the end!'.
And I think... damn, I didn't know I was THAT popular. I go away for three days and look what happens!
But here's the clicker. The guild leader, a good paladin named Fragh, is away until the 16th. But we don't have a guild left. If people left for other guilds or just transferred servers. I don't know. I don't know if he's going to try to rebuild or just call it. Some of my favorite people in the guild are no longer on Alleria for one reason or another.
Word of what was happening to my guild must have spread, because 5 minutes later I get a headhunter tell. Before I realize that Fragh is on vacation and is away until the 16th, I say 'sure', and I fill out an application to another guild. Surprise surprise, they say 'Yes, you can join us!'. After that happens, someone logs on and says 'WTF!', erases the guild message and says 'That wasn't Fragh putting that up. Fragh is gone on vacation! We'll see what's going on with the guild when he gets back.'.
So my dilemma. Do I wait until the 16th to go to this new guild, to see if Fragh will rebuild again? Do I tell Fragh that my limited raid time makes me a liability to a guild that's going for end-game? Do I even bother to raid anymore?
What do I do? I'm in a quandry.
WWRD? (What would Richard do?) .... (other than kill everyone, that is.)
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