Fantasy Battles
After watching Yahtzee take apart the XBox 360 game “Too Human”, I saw a trailer for the new Warhammer Online game starting up, so I stuck around. Now, I won’t be playing “WAR”, as it’s called, if for no other reasons than a) I’m still enjoying WoW just fine, thank you, and b) as is so often the case, I’m using the wrong OS. One WAR developer’s mentioned with a wink that he’s working on something important involving his non-Windows computer, but I take that with a Massively Multiplayer Grain Of Salt (MMGOS).
Okay, but I do read the blogs from the beta testers, and it looks like while WAR won’t be a revolution in online role-playing, they have a few nifty ideas, and kudos to them if they make it all work. As I’ve said before, I’ve long grown out of the idea that my fandoms and other people’s fandoms must engage in steel cage matches until only one can stagger out. But the point of this whole entry is the reaction I had to the trailer, a reaction that surprised me. While I might have been interested in the game under other circumstances, I hated the trailer. I had an intense negative reaction to it. Why?
WAR has two ‘factions’ one can play: Order and Destruction. In the trailer, we see Destruction assault a capital city of Order. Death is everywhere, people dying of (bloodless) sword wounds, spear wounds, arrow wounds, magical fire, magical ice, and crushing mass. The trailer shows us the Dwarves, Humans, High Elves, Dark Elves, Greenskin, and Chaos forces slaughtering each other as the city is knocked apart around them. (I am somehow unsurprised that both Elven ‘hero’ avatars are females who manage to make it through the trailer unscathed, and in the case of the Dark Elf, scantily dressed.)
So, of course there’s war. It’s called Warhammer! But the video made something abundantly clear: in the world of Warhammer, Destruction wins.
It may not look like it. The last scene of the trailer shows the three Order races facing some huge monster, and we are led to believe that the resolution is up in the air. But look around the heroes. There are bodies everywhere. The city is smashed. Even should the monster be defeated, Destruction can just come back tomorrow, to a city that’s still smashed and carpeted with the dead.
(Oh, I know that in the game, the city will reset overnight, buildings will spring back into existence, and the citizens will respawn. I’m not talking about the game, I’m talking about the fictional world.)
It takes years to build a city, weeks to construct a building, and decades to produce an adult warrior. It only takes hours, minutes, or seconds to end that existence. Destruction is easy. The years of food and housing and training and socializing that went into that warrior are countered with a single arrow. If all one cares to produce is wreckage, the world is quite willing to help.
(This, by the way, is why I had to give up on Battletech fiction after a while. Excellent games, and the individual novels ranged from okay to excellent, but they painted a reality where a star-faring humanity nearly pounded itself back to coal and steam, called a truce, recovered long enough to rebuild some technology, and then immediately resumed smashing everything within the reach of a Jump Drive. And they did this cycle repeatedly.)
Now, the game isn’t exactly its fiction. Once online, Order and Destruction have nigh-infinite resources in the long run, and new weapons, warriors, and metropolises with the click of a mouse button. But the fictional background shown in that trailer is far too bleak and pointless for my tastes, and unless the WAR loremasters have something up their sleeves, this is a world that offers me little appeal.
To Do Checklist
Things to do today, in random order:
1) Have large breakfast so I don’t mope all day.
Completed at 1:00 pm.
2) Call Mom and check up on her. Continue searching for home care.
No answer at Jon Reid’s. Left message on his phone.
3) Clean gerbil cage.
Gerbils looking much happier. Cat still sad this is not a buffet.
4) Get badly needed haircut.
This is being put off for a week-and-a-half due to time and budget issues.
5) Get lamp for spare bedroom.
Lamp secure. Only been meaning to do this for months.
6) Do laundry.
Third load in dryer. That’s all I have energy for tonight.
7) Contact plumber who fixed kitchen sink at Kentland to make payment arrangements.
Number not in phone. Left voicemail with neighbor contact.
8) Try for Azeroth Olympics tabard and pet.
Got tabard. Pet looking unlikely.
9) Clean up living room. Empty dishwasher from last night.
Dishwasher is empty and reloaded. Living room in progress. Vacuum cleaner belt is broken.
10) Make dinner.
Seared then baked chicken randomly seasoned with garlic, lemon, cumin, and cilantro, with couscous on the side. An Iron Chef would be appalled, but it came out yummy.
11) Call local lifestyle group about demo they asked for on Tuesday.
Done. No problem, they just need me to revise the entire presentation, that’s all.
12) Buy new pantz to replace 1 holed pair and 2 pair falling off my hips (good thing, right?)
This is being put off for a week-and-a-half due to time and budget issues.
The Spirit of Getting Your Tail Kicked
Players who participate in WoW Battlegrounds from the 8th to the 24th get a Competitor’s Tabard with 4 linked colored rings. What could that refer to? Battleground winners *may* get a gold medal summoning a special dragon pet.
So, I jumped into my first PvP Battleground ever today: “Warsong Gulch”, a capture-the-flag competition. Great Cthulhu, but that was lame. I see the enemy, and I’m preparing a spell – oh, I can’t move while casting, and they’ve run off. Okay, another enemy, and I’m using my lower-damage instant spell – oh, their warlock has “feared” me, and I will now run in circles while they zap me dead. Okay, I’m back, and I’ve infiltrated their base… oh, wait, the enemy Priest just killed me with a single instant spell. Yes, that’s right, their Healer class one-shotted me.
Hmm, three captures for the Horde, and they’ve won. How many did we have? Oh. None at all.
I have the tabard. I’ve lost interest in the pet.
Azerothian Geographic Society
It takes a certain kind of person to play World of Warcraft, yes. It takes another kind to try and figure out the geographical details of the place.
Azeroth’s “Google Map” has been assembled at mapwow.com. For most of the game, players have explored two continents on that fantasy world (though at least one more is known to exist), but the actual map scale has never been revealed. Some time ago, I figured that one could record the time it takes to walk between two points on the map, and multiply that by the average walking speed of a hero laden with equipment, and come up with a fair estimate of the scale.
I’m far too lazy to do that, of course, but someone else wasn’t, and neither was another person. Turns out that the “continent” of Kalimdor is about 4 miles wide… or around 41 square miles in size. For my Virginian friends, this is vaguely the size of the combined cities of Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
In a related note, this destroys a hypothesis I had made before about the shape of the world of Azeroth. The “world map” seen in the Burning Crusade game expansion must be considered an artistic rather than a faithful representation; and I argued that Azeroth was clearly flat, because there is no difference in the position of shadows between the northernmost and southernmost points of the continent at the same time of day and season. (The Greek Eratosthenes used the shadow trick to figure out the Earth’s size in the 3rd century B.C.)
Unfortunately, if Kalimdor is around 10 miles long, then that’s not enough distance for the shadow trick, and the question remains unresolved. Oh, well. Perhaps the Gnomes can develop a space vehicle and get some photographic evidence (there is indeed photography in WoW).
And They’ll Monitor His Mind
I really want to sit and watch some good DVDs, preferably with company as I hate watching movies alone. I wonder if it’s worth it to buy an upconverting DVD player at some point; we’re using the PS2 at the moment.
The Aviator and Catch Me If You Can are on my list. I’ve seen them before, but they are cool enough to make me appreciate Leo as an actor, and Starr’s never seen either. The uncut, re-dubbed My Youth In Arcadia is on the list, as is the recent CGI Appleseed. (Is there an uncut, properly dubbed Galaxy Express 999 available? I’d like to find a good version of that too.)
Also sitting unwatched on my shelf: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Heroic Trio, about which I endlessly badgered kittykatya for a copy; and the new Transformers movie, which may not be fanservice perfection, but at least it’s got the right Optimus Prime voice.
We won’t even talk about the movies in theaters. Everyone’s raving about Iron Man, yes I intend to see Speed Racer despite the reviewer bashing, and ditto Indy 4.
I can’t even blame World of Warcraft for this. I enjoy the game enormously, but go weeks without touching it sometimes.
130 Leagues Over the Asphalt
T – I – R – E – D.
Went back to Roanoke on Saturday. My mom’s doing great: she can move both her leg and arm now, and on Sunday took a few steps (with a great deal of support). I’m told this is still Gold Medal performance, and my optimism was repeatedly fed this weekend. nanoreid was there for a bit, and I got to say hi to Ginny and Ian as well. Starr bought my mother a knitting loom which can be fastened to a solid surface, and now my mom can indulge her addiction one-handed for the duration!
Roanoke felt a little odd, there are buildings and shops which weren’t there last time I passed through – a bit like hearing an old song on the radio and finding an entirely new chorus after the second stanza. I took a hotel room there Saturday night to save us the drive to and from shrewlet‘s offered crash space in Blacksburg, but while the room was huge, the bed was hard as a plank, and we slept poorly for folks who would be driving 204 miles home. Route 460 was a beautiful, tranquil drive, though. I’m sold on that road for now.
Yesterday we woke too early, and headed over to spend lunch with Starr’s mom, then the afternoon at Amy’s with the gamer group. Her mom was going to gas grill the food, but after the gas loop rusted away at a touch, we went with good old charcoal, and lunch was yummy. I now know where Starr gets her habit of cooking a regiment’s food for a few people, and felt guilty leaving before I could consume a second hamburger.
While the afternoon was sold as a combination grilling / gaming event, I’m not sure anyone was really into the gaming, and after a few hours of excellent chatting and cattching up, we left to get me some badly needed quiet time. I developed yesterday something that feels much like my old migraine headaches, something which comes in short, searing pulses then goes away for a half-hour or so. (One of the first things Starr did when hearing about that was to check me for stroke indicators – of which I seem to have none.)
In geek news, the Mars Phoenix robot probe has a Twitter account. Andy Ihnatko referred to the account as cosplay for rocket scientists, but I’m enjoying keeping up with what the probe’s doing (or at least what it was doing 15 minutes ago – speed-of-light lag, y’know). Some quick Googling finds images taken by the Mars Recon Orbiter of Phoenix on the way down (Phoenix Down?) which means that we Earthlings not only managed to hit a target scores of millions of miles away, we got a picture of it from another camera that had previously done so under our instruction. [T]hese are the things that hydrogen atoms do when given 13.7 billion years. – Carl Sagan
So, yeah. Probably another early bedtime tonight, which is a shame because I wanted to get some WoW levelling in. With luck, the rest of the week will go a little easier on me!
‘Twas caviar
This weekend was good. I got to chill a little bit, which I’d long needed. Had caviar for the first time ever; it tasted mostly of salt, and slightly fishy. I’ve heard it’s served on buttered toast, and I think that would improve it quite a bit.
I also tried the Lord of the Rings online role-playing game. The first thing I noticed is that it’s certainly prettier than WoW (and therefore needs more video processing power than, say, my desktop can handle). I enjoyed the Minstrel class I tried – there’s something entertaining about whipping out a lute in the middle of a melee and dealing damage with a few bars of a song.
But, when all’s said and done, I enjoy the slightly surrealistic graphics of WoW – they seem to fit with a world which has so many fantastic shorthands for everyday actions – and the LotR game takes itself fairly seriously, which also isn’t really what I’m here for. I might play it if there were a Mac version and no other competitors, but my subscription will stay with Blizzard for now.
This week’s Doctor Who episode brings the Series 4 average down to .667. Even discounting the goofy, thoughtless science – which is hard, since one element is a major plot point – there wasn’t much special about it. Donna was great; her emotional arc about the future of humanity and our ethics, and the conditions of the Ood provided a welcome touch of development.
But overall, the episode was fairly formulaic, including at least one completely gratuitous CGI death, and someone trying viciously to kill the Doctor for no reason at all. One touch I did like: minor spoiler
Brief updates
- 12:56 Mirandala dinged 66. I know this is a matter of vital national importance. #
- 13:06 Looking at the first few scenes of the unearthed Infocom Hitchhiker’s Guide sequel game: tinyurl.com/5su79h #
Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter
All is foggy to me
This morning brought a bank of that 30-meter visibility fog, and the “bridge from nowhere to nowhere” effect on the Monitor-Merrimac. Already, though, it’s turned clear, mild, and sunny with a cool breeze: I suddenly want to skip work tomorrow and go to Busch Gardens. Won’t, of course, but still.
Yes, “I can’t support your virtualization software at this time” means I can’t troubleshoot the apps you’re running in it, either.
I finally have the free Pirates of the Carribean MMO running correctly on my laptop. I’m likely to play it about as often as I launch Second Life – which is to say, almost never – but it’s amusing nevertheless to get “FedEx” quests* from Johnny Depp. None yet from Orlando or Kiera, but then, those are probably saved for people who actually play.
Starr went to her mom’s on Tuesday to plant the irises I retrieved. Turns out there were about two dozen, so with the other plants she’d brought, she spent most of an afternoon digging. Add that to her hospital shifts for Wednesday and today, and I’ve got a still-tired lady on my hands!
Happy WoW stuff: thanks to shrewlet, I got all the materials to finish building Mirandala’s epic quality Destruction Holo-Gogs. Among other materials necessary were 206 chunks of difficult-to-mine ore… I can only assume that a LOT of refining is done to turn that into a single pair of goggles.
Also, my polymorph quest issue was resolved while I was offline, so Mir can now turn people into pigs. Thank you, GMs! Too bad that the spell’s unavailable to my warlock, since I named her Circy.
And thank you ranchonmars for the postcard! I have too aged since the Pathfinder days, but it’s dang nice of you to say otherwise 🙂
*Game character A gives you item to take to character B, who will reward you with money, loot, XP, or often as not another FedEx quest. Perversely amusing when characters A and B are less than 20 gameworld yards from one another.
Must – Control – Jaws – of Death…
The cat wishes everyone to know that he was highly paid for this television appearance. The hamster… would like some more carrot bits please.
Game blogger Tobold suggests that WoW players would reach endgame with far better raiding skills if there were quests where you had to practice raiding with sets of NPCs. Aside from the time pressures, one reason I don’t do instances is that I’m not very good at them, and I think this is a fine idea. When I do have to hit an instance dungeon for a quest, I usually end up in the company of several far-higher-levelled guild mates, and my presence becomes a bit unnecessary. This idea would mitigate the problem a bit.
rhaps and shrewlet are coming down this weekend, which is a good thing because my Technicon experience was extremely rushed. I envy Rhaps’ new iMac, which is the same model as my Mom’s. But I’ll have my Mac Pro soon enough.
Paying bills, finishing paperwork, getting all sorts of ducks in a row this week. (They were sitting out front again this morning, enjoying the humid weather.) It all feels good. Also: new blender yay 🙂
