The Lament for Theramore

Thee Theramore! O sadly lost!
Alliance lament frae coast to coast.
Now war grips, the barking host
May kill us a';
For noble Jaina's fabl'd post,
Is ta'en awa'.
Dwarvish Lament for Theramore *

It is the worst kept secret in the World of Warcraft that Theramore is going to be destroyed in the pre-expansion event leading up to the release of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The details are still unknown, but the destruction of the city will change the Alliance's position in Kalimdor drastically. At this point it's unclear as to whether Theramore will be in Alliance or Horde hands, whether it will remain a quest hub or become an instanced scenario of some kind, or just be left as a smoking, purple glowing crater in the ground.

And while others (ahem, Rades) have speculated on what the destruction of will mean to the Alliance from a lore perspective, I want to talk about what it's going to mean from my perspective as a life-long Alliance player.

What brought this topic to mind is that I was watching this video of what Theramore will look like after the Horde have their way with it. It broke my heart a little bit.

DUSTWALLOW MARSH

Even the name isn't really evocative of a place you'd choose to go willingly, and certainly Dustwallow Marsh isn't exactly a vacation spot. It's not pretty or scenic. In fact, it's downright dreary and just plain creepy; the sort of place you'd expect a spider to drop down out of the trees at any moment as you're walking through it. As a player, I get an ominous feeling when adventuring in Dustwallow, particularly in places like the Wyrmbog with it's wandering Dragonkin, Witch Hill and the spirits that eternally haunt it, and Darkmist Cavern with it's endless supply of eight-legged beasties.

In stark contrast to the impenetrable depths of the Swamp stands proud Theramore, a small but gleaming (relative to the rest of the marsh, at least) Alliance city perched precariously on an island. Compared to the rest of Dustwallow and Southern Kalimdor, to the Alliance player Theramore seemed like a bright shining beacon of civilization jutting out of the literal middle of nowhere. It was the essential travel hub for an Alliance player looking to get anywhere on Kalimdor since the only other town with connections to the Eastern Kingdoms was in Auberdine (now Lor'danel) and trying to get to some of the more far-flung areas (I'm looking at you, Gadgetzan) could result in a half-hour long hippogriff ride and a good chance to catch up on some reading.

Theramore was also the main quest hub for Dustwallow, and for a lot of players like myself it was the first time setting foot on the Kalimdor continent after following a breadcrumb quest from a bloke eternally standing on the Menethil dock asking whomever walks by to deliver something to the Inn there.

Now, I can't really speak to how other people level their characters, but I always made a point to go through Dustwallow with my characters. It just seemed a more natural and interesting place to go after the Wetlands than Arathi Highlands or the Badlands. I always liked the stories that were told in Dustwallow during it's first iteration. The Shady Rest Inn storyline was particularly moving, with a great emotional pay-off at the end. I've always liked the chain of quests at Swamplight Manor to cleanse "Swamp Eye" Jarl. And of course who can forget setting the raptors loose on the unsuspecting Grimtotem?

It's a zone that reminds me a lot of one of my other other favourite zones, Duskwood. It has the same kind of creepy, foreboding atmosphere to it that I like so much. And both zones had an insane amount of running back and forth before they were mercifully streamlined in Cataclysm. And all of those great memories started in poor, doomed Theramore.


THE COMING DOOM

With the impending destruction of Theramore there is a lot of uncertainty about the future of Dustwallow as it continues it's transition from sleepy, moody swamp that felt very insignificant in the grand scheme of the world to the front lines of an all-out war with the Horde. What will become of the small stories? Who's going to take the time to cleanse Jarl of his demonic possession in the middle of a battlefield? Is someone going to walk "Stinky" Ignatz home with Horde siege engines laying waste to the landscape?

But all that having been said, why do a lot of Alliance players lament the loss of this town so much?

Well, it's been talked about to death, but during the early stages of the War (represented by the Cataclysm expansion) the Alliance has been getting the hell kicked out of it. Southshore lost, massive horde incursions into the Night Elf homelands of Ashenvale and minor ones in Darkshore, the loss of Andorhol after the Scourge were finally defeated, and our new allies in Gilneas turned to homeless refugees forced to live in a tree by the Forsaken war machine. To the Alliance player, Cataclysm has been one iron-booted kick in the nuts after another.

Now we're losing Theramore. Whump. That's gonna sting the ol' Dwarf Potatoes.

I think that for me, at least, losing Theramore is going to make Kalimdor feel a lot less friendly and much more foreign. It's hostile enemy territory now, with no real safe havens worth mentioning for the Alliance. Go away, Dwarves, you are not welcome here.

But in all honesty, the real reason that people are complaining about the loss of Theramore has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with human psychology: People embrace the familiar and fear the unknown. Things that we know are comforting. And in this terrifying new world of conflict, destruction and all-out factional war that MoP is bringing with it people are naturally going to cling to those things that remind us of a simpler, better time of relative peace.

You know, when all we had to worry about was an innumerable, unstoppable undead army that was going to take over the entire world and suck out our brains. The good ol' days.

* Adapted from Robert Burns' poem Old Scotch Drink.

Repopulating the Old World: Cross Realm Zones

Sometimes I think you want me to touch you.
How can I when you build the great wall around you? - Tori Amos, China


In a move that surprised everyone, Blizzard has announced that they are going to begin testing Cross Realm Zones in the Mists of Pandaria Beta. I love this idea like a big sloppy Dwarfling kiss, and given the subject of my last post, the timing of this announcement is particularly serendipitous.

I am a unrepentant Wrath Baby; I created my first character in the very twilight of the Burning Crusade expansion, mere months before Wrath of the Lich King went live. Because of this I have never experienced the Old World as the thriving, vibrant place that it was in Vanilla.

For me and thousands of other people who joined the game late, levelling in World of Warcraft is a solitary experience. The wilderness of Azeroth outside of the major cities is filled with bears and bandits and monsters of all types, but even on busy, highly populous servers, meeting another character is something of a rare occurrence. It's a lonely life, being a lowbie in Azeroth, but the new Cross Realm Zones aim to change that.

The way that Blizzard is trying to implement this is quite brilliant, if you ask me. Basically, certain realms will be linked together based on population, and each of those realms will share certain zones that are flagged as "Cross Realm". Using the Barrens as an example, a character on Sargeras would walk out of a realm-exclusive Orgrimmar into a Barrens shared by 5 other servers, and would see and interact with characters from all of those realms normally, just as if they were all on the same server. At the same time, Blizzard will have the ability to keep highly populated zones (Cities, to be sure) exclusive. This way Stormwind won't be crushed under the weight of thousands of people standing at the fountain oogling the fifteen thousand naked Night Elves dancing on the mailboxes.

I think this feature is fantastic. Not just a technically brilliant solution to make an older technology scale and adapt to the changing reality of the current, max-level focused state of the game, but also as a step to the ultimate goal of eliminating realms completely. I talked about this back in January, but the elimination of the barrier walls around the different realms is a very clever way for Blizzard to extend the life of the game. Right now, if Blizzard chooses to do so, the only realm-specific areas are the main cities, the Auction House and any zone that is going to be populated enough not to be a concern like the Cataclysm zones and the new Mists of Pandaria zones.

As a social, massively multiplayer game, it is always a little bit odd to run around the world outside of the two major faction cities of Stormwind and Orgrimmar and see, well, nothing. By repopulating the Old World, new players will finally get an experience that is close to what older players experienced when WoW was new and when having a maximum level character was rare: A world that is full of people to interact with.

It really doesn't matter that there are no group quests in the game any more, nor is there any real need to team up with people to defeat the quests that people are given. Having a lot of people busily running around doing there own thing is exciting. It adds an immense amount of flavour to the game.

Like the bustling sidewalks of downtown New York, it's all about vibrancy and life and activity; it's about the soul of this game, which is missing in the low level zones. Bringing that kind of life back to zones other than the cities is going to go a long way to help make new players—and old players who love lowibe alts like myself—remain excited about this game for years to come.

After all, it is World of Warcraft. Bravo, Blizzard. Well played.

Now Appearing on The Double O Podcast...

Last Sunday afternoon I had the pleasure to appear on The Double O Podcast. The lovely and talented hosts, Ophelie and Oestrus interviewed me, along with Ceraphus, Hydrawr and StineErino on the subject of balancing the two highly incompatible roles of being a Parent and a Gamer.

I gotta admit, I was really nervous before we started recording. Having never done a Podcast, or been interviewed for anything other than a job before, I wasn't sure how I was going to respond. I was really worried that I would stammer and ramble and not make a whole lot of sense. But the two gorgeous Ladies of the Spherical Letter made me feel right at home as soon as we started and the recording went very smoothly. I had a lot of fun doing it.

Oestrus asked me a very interesting and thought provoking question during our chat, and even though I was expecting the question I don't think the answer that I gave was as deep or as thorough as I would have liked. She asked me how my identity as a blogger changed as I became known as the Dwarfling's father rather than as a player. Listen to the podcast for the answer I gave, but I think that is a topic that I want to explore in a little more depth with a proper Battle Medic post at some point.

As well, in the Podcast I mention a post that I wrote just before the Dwarfling was born, Coping with Limited Play Time and Lofty Goals that you can read here.

Check out the latest episode at The Double O Podcast website, or download it on iTunes like I did. I'll be listening to it on my drive home tonight. I've got my fingers crossed that I don't sound like a dork.

Daddy, you aren't seriously killing Internet Dragons instead of
playing with me, are you?

Did you at least get some loot that I can chew on?
 
  

Day Six: Dwarven Battle Desk

This post is part of a series "20 Days of... WoW Blogging Challenge", a blogging challenge suggested by Saga at Spellbound. She proposes twenty questions to be answered in twenty days and I, foolishly, have decided to take up this most daunting task because clearly my schedule is not full enough.


DAY SIX: THE DWARVEN BATTLE DESK

My office space is exceptional, and is my oasis from the hectic world.  I raid in the private luxury of my own computer room that is a good size, with a magnificent, winged desk that takes up a whopping thirty-six square feet.  I have two large bookshelves behind me that keeps my library of books and CDs within easy reach.  My chair is huge and incredibly comfortable, with both heaters and massage functions.  This room is my own personal version of a security blanket.

Or rather, that's how my office used to be.  Before the Dwarfling.

Along with virtually every other aspect of my life, my computer arrangement needed to change to accommodate a baby.  My office became the Dwarfling's room, and I had to give up my office nirvana shortly before the she arrived.  In it's place I got a new desk, new chair, and a new location in the house.  I honestly think that the change of my office space has been the hardest adjustment that I've had to deal with since the Dwarfling was born.

My new desk space is actually quite good, and I customized the IKEA bought unit a fair bit to suit my needs. It's nice, but it's not the same.  I had my old desk for about fifteen years, and as you can imagine I got pretty used to it.  It felt absolutely perfect - custom moulded like a really great ass-grove in a nicely broken-in couch.  It was comfortable and familiar.

This is my new setup.  As I said, it's nice, but not nirvana.  I custom built the monitor shelf with spare parts from the desk, which came with an upper hutch that was beyond useless.  My wife has a matching desk in the opposite corner, and both corner desks are connected by a long, skinny, straight desk with drawers.  The desk is located in our family room, which is where our TV is and where we spend the majority of our time while at home, so there is very little privacy.  I use headphones when I play now so I don't disturb my wife or the baby.

The Dwarven Battle Desk:  Click to Embiggen!

1.  My Logitech G15 keyboard.  The keys glow orange, which is just cool since it goes with the colour scheme on my blog.  Also, the six extra keys on the left side are very useful for keybinding cooldowns.

2.  A coffee mug from work.  It's not my desk if there isn't a coffee mug on it.

3.  A stack of unused CDRs.  I don't even know why these are on my desk any more, let alone why I have three stacks.  Who uses blank CDs any more?  Do I even have burning software installed?

4.  A stack of games that I'm not really playing any more but can't bring myself to actually put away.

5.  A baseball signed by the 1999 Montreal Expos.

6.  Altec Lansing 4.1 Surround Sound speakers. They sound gorgeous, but with the baby and the wife in the room most of the time they seldom get used anymore.

7.  Dwarven Battle Mouse.  I'm looking to get a new one and considering either the WoW Gaming Mouse or the Naga Razer 17 button one.  I'm having a tough time deciding which, but it's irrelevant since I can't afford either of them at the moment anyway.

8.  A baseball signed by the 2000 Montreal Expos.  I used to be a huge Expos fan, and was devastated when the team moved to Washington.  Since then I have lost my passion for baseball, but I still display these as a reminder of a long lost love.

9.  My wallet and cell phone.  I desperately need a new phone.  I have a Samsung Blackjack phone that works perfectly well, but I have a festering case of iPhone envy.  I would really love the extra capability that the iPhone would provide, especially the better internet experience.  Reading the web on a Windows Smartphone is brutal, to say the least.

10.  This is the monitor stand that I fashioned for my new desk.  I'm actually really quite proud of it.  Which is kind of sad considering it represents the most elaborate thing I've ever built.  Still, it's sturdy as hell.

11.  Atramedes killing me.

12.  The Dwarfling and both of my beagles doing something so incredibly, epicly cute that words simply fail to describe it.  I can't believe how lucky I was to capture this adorable - and completely indescribable - moment in this shot.  It makes me tear up just thinking about it.  It is... just wow... look at the photo, because I can't begin to do justice with words how precious this is.

13.  My second monitor.  It's an 18" LCD monitor that is insanely old.  It's refresh rate is slow enough that it's impractical to play games or watch movies on it.  I use it while I'm gaming to have boss fight strategies visible while I'm playing.  I also keep Ventrilo, Twitter and my website stats up at all times while gaming.  I love multitasking.

14.  My blog stats page.  I am so bloody addicted to watching my stats that I almost never turn them off.  They got washed out in this photo, sadly.

15.  My main monitor.  It's a 24 inch Acer monitor with a 2ms response time.  It's sexy and fairly new and I love it.  Previously I had a Viewsonic 19" CRT monitor that was as big and heavy as a barrel full of really heavy things.  This one is much better, and I love the widescreen format, but the colour reproduction of the old Viewsonic was better.

16.  Rottingham.  My only WoW figurine of any kind, and the one thing that lets people know that this is desk belongs to a hardcore geek.

17.  A Hasselblad 500 C/M circa the 1960s.  I bought this camera secondhand about 15 years ago.  It was my primary camera when I was running my Photography Studio.  It no longer works, sadly; it seized up after a photo shoot that was done on a wet, rainy evening.  I really miss shooting in a square format - the rectangular format of my Digital SLR just doesn't really get my creative juices bubbling quite the same.  I loved the simplicity of that camera; in fact this new-fangled Digital SLR is the first camera that I've ever owned that actually needed a battery.  All the buttons and blinky things just make me nervous.

18.  A picture of my beagle, Milo.  As of right now it's the only framed photo on my desk, but once I get around to printing up some Dwarfling photos, I'm certain that will change.  I really adore that photo of Milo, though.  It really shows off his sad, sweet eyes.

19.  A stack of crap, on top of which is my notebook that I carry with me where ever I go.  I use it to jot down blog ideas and post outlines when I'm at work.  It's so full of scraps of paper with ideas on them that I need to hold it together with an elastic band.

20.  A drawer full of crap.  Really, I need to clean that out.  It's got a lot of junk in there that doesn't need to be in there.

21.  All my important papers.  Note the complete lack of a filing system.

22.  My Metz flash.  I hate on-camera flashes, and so I use that bulky thing when I need to photograph the Dwarfling at night.  It's a pain in the neck to use, but is much more flexible than the flash built into my camera - I can easily bounce it off the ceiling for much softer light.  The only bad thing about it is that I haven't used the batteries in a number of years and they don't really hold a charge very well anymore.

23.  A chess set that my wife bought in Europe.  I love chess, although I'm not very good at it.  I have six or seven different chess sets in the house.  This particular one is notable because it's made of a beautiful green and white stone, and is completely impossible to play with because, aside from the Knight, all the pieces look virtually identical.  The only think that distinguishes the pawn, rook, bishop, queen and king is either height or a small, hard to notice detail.  It's like looking at a room full of Blood Elves and trying to decide which one is using a different hair gel than the rest of them.

24.  My computer. It's an Alienware system.  I won't bore you with the specs, but this is the first computer system that I bought prebuilt since high-school.  I've always built my computers myself, but this time I just said the hell with it and picked this one up refurbished.  It's been weird not having a personally built system, but the insides of this thing are spotless as hell - not the jumbled mess of wires and cables that I normally leave when I build my own.

25.  Way, way too many pens.  Really.  I have two pen holders that are absolutely jammed with pens.  Why do I need so many?  I type everything!

26.  My subwoofer.  Also makes a great footrest!

27.  A mess of cables that really look hideously ugly in a photo, don't they?


Yesterday, DAY FIVE:  FAVOURITE ITEMS
Tomorrow, DAY SEVEN:  THE REASONING BEHIND DWARVEN BATTLE MEDIC
  
  
  

Pushing a Boulder Uphill

or The Tale of a Dwarf, a Dwarfling and Not Enough Zees

The Dwarf had a fatigued look about him as he trudged along the path.  His formerly red hair, now streaked with enough grey to make his beard look snow-covered, blew wildly in the strong Dun Morogh winds.  His bright blue eyes were beset with creases and wrinkles but carried a determined squint, a defence against the stingingly bright snow of the mountains.  His head was bent forward as he pushed himself onward.

The last few weeks have been quite hard here at Battle Medic HQ.  The Dwarfling has been a part of my life for five weeks now and, as wonderful as she is, she is freaking exhausting.

My wife has been fantastic during this period, and has been trying her best to insulate me from the sleepless nights that come with a newborn baby so that I can perform well at work.  Still, I find myself up during the night fairly frequently rocking the baby to sleep or waking up when Mrs. Fannon gets up to look after her.

The snow was mercifully packed down from recent travelers along the road and it was no longer snowing, making each step the Dwarf took easier.  The Dwarf knew, however, that the journey would become more difficult.  With his hand he shaded his eyes and glanced upward towards the summit, grimacing.

The lack of sleep is really starting to get to me, and my brain feels like pea mush baby food – all green and squishy and not really all that appealing to think about.

This fatigue induced brain-fuzziness that I’m feeling lately has touched all aspects of my life and made even the most mundane tasks seem as daunting as pushing a gigantic boulder up a hill.  I find it very hard to concentrate at work, which given my profession is a very bad thing.  Most days it’s all I can do to stumble through until 6 o’clock.

He reached a fork in the road and paused for a moment.  In between the heavily snow-laden pine trees a path was visible leading up the slope.  It was apparent that it had been used recently and was kept well maintained, but the snow had blown in during the night and piled itself in deep drifts, covering much of the path so as to make any traveler’s journey up the hill arduous.  The Dwarf turned and started up the path, his feet sinking into the deep snow up to his knees, and began to slowly and painstakingly ascend the hill.

I find it extremely difficult to sit down and write for my blogs.  The words fight with me a lot more than I find they do when I have a clear head, and the wit and humour that I try to inject into each post has been missing, or at least hard to find.  I have started three or four posts over the past couple of days and all of them feel extremely tedious and repetitive and repetitive.  My normal technique of dealing with writer’s block by sitting down with my laptop and a glass of wine in a quiet room and just writing is hard these days because the house doesn’t get quiet for any length of time.

The other issue is figuring out just what to write about.  It’s a sad fact that my play time over the course of the past five weeks has been woefully restricted.  And when I have been able to play, the fatigue and fuzziness has ensured that I don’t get a lot done.  It’s tough to write a really compelling and personal WoW blog when you’re not actually playing WoW very much.

And before anyone panics, this is not a goodbye post.  I’m not leaving WoW for another game.  I’m certainly not quitting the blog – I enjoy this far too much.  I want to play, but life is conspiring against me.  I find it ironic that there are a lot of people who are leaving WoW because they’re bored with it, and I am desperate to play and can’t.

Seemingly after an eternity of backbreaking effort he reached a plateau and stopped for a rest.  He reached out his hand to brace himself against a large, gnarly pine tree; the rough bark feeling oddly warm in the frigid cold of the failing day.  He was breathing hard from the exertion of the climb and his breath had accumulated into icicles that clung to his beard, hiding any red hair that remained beneath a coating of frost.  A mountain hare sitting on a nearby stump considered him for a moment before hopping away.

The Dwarf smiled and looked up towards his destination nestled into the hillside at the far end of the plateau.  A warm and cheery glow was coming from around the sturdy, oaken door of the little stone home, and the smell of roasting boar was wafting through the crisp evening air.

The vast majority of my WoW time lately has been spent playing Fannon 2.0.  I’ve been really enjoying the levelling experience, but the most compelling thing is that I can play in small chunks with no consequences.  I find logging onto my main these days very stressful because I don’t feel like there is anything that I can do that is both fun and can be dropped at a moments notice when the Dwarfling decides that she wants daddy.  There is no pressure on Fannon 2.0.

I am still managing to raid twice a week, for the most part.  And while my wife and I have an agreement on my raiding time, Dwarfling Aggro has been a frequent occurrence.  More than once I have wiped the raid because the crying starts and I’m trying to heal and move with only one hand because I had to pick her up.  Ascendant Council is a pain in the butt with only one arm.

With a renewed vigour, he crossed the clearing and pushed open the heavy door.  The warmth from the cheery fire burning in the corner was a welcome sensation as he entered the little home.  White bear skins lined the floor and walls, and a table was set along one wall with crockery laid out for an evening meal, with two mugs of foamy ale already poured.

I suppose that I shouldn’t have expected less.  The exhaustion, the lack of time to do the things, the stumbling around like a zombie singing lullabies to your rather confused co-workers; these things are all normal when you have a newborn.

Still, I am looking forward to the day when I can play WoW and get a good nights sleep.

“Fannon, darlin’, is that yeh?” came a call from the next room over and presently a Dwarf woman carrying a bundle appeared in the doorway, her ample braids bouncing.

“I’m so glad yer finally home.  Everythin’ all righ’?” she said, passing the bundle to Fannon.

The Dwarf looked down at the tiny dwarfling face poking out of the swaddled blankets. The dwarfling’s eyes were closed, and her small, wrinkled face squirmed from the cold that radiated from her father. A drop of water from the melting icicles dangling off his beard dripped onto the dwarfling’s forehead and she began to cry.

“Aye, lass,” he smiled, his tired eyes twinkling.  “Everythin’ is just perfect.”

Dear Dwarfling...

I promised myself that Battle Medic would not turn into a 'Baby Blog' when the Dwarfling arrived.  Of course, as a new parent, a great deal of my waking (and sleeping, honestly) thoughts are devoted to this puffy, red screaming poop machine that is in my house now, so I think it's only natural for me to want to write about her.

On the other hand, this is a World of Warcraft blog, and I'm quite certain that most people don't come here for diaper talk.

So with that in mind, I've created a new blog: Dear Dwarfling... 

The concept for this blog is going to be a series of letters written to my newborn baby, describing her life and my reactions and observations of her.  I have no idea how interesting it's going to be, but if you're curious about Dwarfling news and photos, check it out.

The Dwarfling Arrives

After a long and epic battle, the Dwarfling finally arrived yesterday.  Thirty hours of induced labour, forcepts and just about every other medical intervention short of a Caesarean Section and there she was.  And it was completely mind-blowing.

I really didn't understand how instant the love and attachment would be.  It's actually very cool.

This is Teagan.  She's absolutely adorable.