[MMORPG Monday] WoW Chat Snippets

It seems that these days, after the rousing success of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, everybody wants to make an MMORPG. Sadly, nobody wants to break new ground, they just regurgitate what Blizzard and everyone else has tried before, it's all grind, grind, grind, empty your bags and questlog, then grind some more. There's several big-name MMORPG's on the horizon, such as Stargate, Warhammer, DC Universe, Knights of the Old Friggin' Republic, and I'm definitely forgetting more than a few. Sadly, there's no reason to believe that they'll bring anything new, but hope dies last and all that.

All the above is just a lengthy way of saying that MMORPG's on their own aren't that much fun, as the gameplay is so repetitive. However, what really makes these games are the people playing it alongside you. There are times you'll visit a dungeon you've finished more than 20 times because these awesome people are coming with you, sometimes even grinding is tolerable if you can have hilarious conversations about all sorts of crap at the same time.

There's something I've wanted to do for a while now, more than a year actually, and that is make a collection of all (or just most) of the hilarious things I came across while playing WoW. Turns out I had to do several collections, since I had so many funny screenshots. Hopefully they'll get a chuckle out of you too, although you really need to have played WoW for some of them to work.

I'll start off with the infamous Trade chat channel. This is the only chat channel that is accessible from all five capital cities, and thus the perfect place for idiots to impress their peers. It's also the biggest victim of Chinese gold sellers.

Moving on, there's a roleplaying addon, called FlagRSP, that helps people add a profile for their character, with a surname, a title and a description of their appearance. Sadly, most people think they can use this addon as means to show the world how awesome they are, and to invite other weirdos to have cybersex with them. Here's the result of that:

A collection of random quotes, funny situations and stupid names:

A few other random stuff I couldn't be bothered to place under a specific category:

And lastly, what really made me stay in the game long after I had gotten tired of the game itself, my guild chat. Some really fantastic, yet also utterly demented, people there who made me laugh out loud (A.K.A. LOL IRL!*) more times than I could possibly remember.



* Yes, I know that's pretty sad.

TL;DR version:

It's rather telling when the main reason people would play a Massively Multiplayer Online Game is the basically the same one people visit a chatroom for. Sure, you have prettier graphics in WoW, AoC, etc., but it's the same principle.

Hopefully this trend will eventually change.

[Video Friday] A few videos for your amusement

First of all, happy 4th if July to those that applies (Americans for their Independence Day, and Greeks for their "Holy Fuck We Won the Euro" day). The menu of the day has three videos and two crazy stories for you.

Let's start with the heart-worming story of Christian the Lion. He was found as a cub by two men, who then took him and raised him as a pet. Naturally, you can't keep an adult lion as a pet, which is a damn shame if you ask me, so they eventually released him. When they saw him again after several years... well, look for yourselves:



I always wanted a lion as a pet when I was a kid, now I find myself wanting one again. ;_;

(Via Neogaf.com)

Now that you're all warm and fuzzy inside, check this story out, about a man who found out that his girlfriend was an assassin. Not a ninja assassin, as I thought at first glance (for whatever reason), but an assassin nonetheless. Amusingly, this story is bound to become a Hollywood movie, but one gets the feeling that it already has been, in one form or another. Talk about life imitating art imitating life.

(Via Neogaf.com)

And since that fuzziness inside you is probably starting to dissipate, here's a really dark and gloomy PvP video from World of Warcraft, called Diary of a Corruptor. This isn't exactly a machinima like last week's In For A Penny, but it's one of those videos that people can find entertaining even if they are not familiar with the game itself.

I understand it's kind of cheating to have this video today, but I honestly think it makes for an interesting watch for everyone. Visually it's very interesting, with top-notch editing, the soundtrack is what can be described as "awesome, dude" and the mood is fantastic. It should also be of interest to WoW players as it's from the perspective of an Affliction Warlock, as rare a breed these days as the Mutilate Rogue I used to play. Sorry, I'll start using English again.

Did I mention that it has several themes from the Silent Hill games? It's part of the reason why it's here, I'm extremely biased towards those games and their soundtracks. Watch it already:


Diary of a Corruptor - Unstable Affliction PvP from Sorrow on Vimeo.

Going from the spooky to the "What the Hell?", the story that's been in the news all day today is about that pregnant man who finally gave birth to a baby girl. If you haven't heard about this already, just read the article, I can't do justice to the... irregularity of that story.

And lastly, something different to the deluge of nuttiness, an Animaniacs compilation! A few of the best lines from their "Wheel of Morality" segment:



TL;DR version:

Muffins.

[Machinima Friday] In For A Penny

While I haven't played World of Warcraft in about five months (my name is George and I'm OKAY), I'm still following the machinima scene. There's several projects that are worth watching even if you're not in the game, even though several just dissolve into Manowar-style epiccy bullshit, like Tales of the Past and such.

(Oh, I went there.)

You see, I much prefer the comedy machinimas, as well as the completety trippy ones like this one. The one I'm presenting today, In For A Penny falls in neither category, but it's an attempt at a noir film using the WoW engine, and for that reason alone I have to recommend it. That, and the first part has a Tori Amos song in it.

Personal biases aside, In For A Penny is a really well-made machinima. The editing, atmosphere and voice-acting are all of very high quality, and the story is quite interesting as well, so far. Keep in mind that this is all the work of just one person, which makes the result all the more commendable, if you ask me.

Having a machinima which emphasises on atmosphere and story-telling over action and "RAGH!" yowls is a refreshing change after all those testosterone-filled, overly melodramatic nonsense that came out for a while. It doesn't come as a big surprise, then, that In For A Penny was created by a woman. Under the alias Selserene, she's the person behind this series and you can find her blog here, along with her other work besides the IFAP series. Her slogan, "Turning Blood Elves Straight Since 2008" cracks me up every time.

Now that I'm done ranting though, let's get on the videos themselves. The first part is a prologue, and features no voice acting, but it has a fantastic atmosphere. Selserene's description is as follows:

"When a young blonde stumbles into the wrong room at a seedy nightclub, her panic leads her to escape into a world not her own."


IFAP-720.divx

(Full Warcraft Movies page, including download link, here)

The second video, entitled "On All Eight" has voice acting for all characters (and that Tori Amos song I mentioned above) and is the real start of the story. Which makes sense, what with being Part 1 and all. Aaanyway, on to Selserene's description again:

"In For A Penny- Part 1 ‘On All Eight’” picks up where IFAP: Prologue leaves off. It is the first of a multi-part series which follows Thayle – a man falsely convicted, a fugitive from the law, a gambler who places his bet on the woman who holds the key to both his freedom, and perhaps his heart."


IFAP1-HQ-16x9-sub.mp4

(Full Warcraft Movies page, including download link, here)

TL;DR version:

In For A Penny is a noir machinima with Blood Elves. Go watch it already.

Also, make sure to dissuade me from buying Wrath of the Lich King, whenever it eventually comes out.

The Last Alterac Valley

"What's this, George? Are there no movies left on the internets besides WoW-related ones?"

There are, but this one is different. This one is from the server I'm playing, and you can even see my character in it. For a second or so. But that's besides the point.

Last Wednesday, a new patch introduced several changes to the World of Warcraft, including massive changes to the battleground everyone loves to hate, Alterac Valley.

For the uninitiated, Alterac Valley (AV for short) was designed as the most "epic" of all WoW battlegrounds, with 40 players on each side fighting over a large map, with several NPC's (non-playable characters) to fight along the way. It didn't always work, as it has been changed half a million times already, and it's always a pain to fight when you don't know anyone in your group. Even more so when everyone else is speaking Italian.

But it was a great place to fight when you had a lot of friends on your side, and especially when there was a leader than could organize attacks. Stealth teams, gathering reinforcements for the Wolf Riders (think cavalry) or the War Riders (think bombing runs), and let's not forget the huge boss that you could summon after significant effort, which got stronger with each player it killed.

Yes, AV was fun. After the last batch of changes was announced however, some of us were disheartened to hear that most of these NPC's would be removed. For that reason, we decided to have one last fight in the "old" AV, one in which we planned to completely dominate.

More than 30 of us joined, the fight lasted a little over two hours (it might sound like a lot, but the old old AV fights sometimes lasted more than twenty) and it was an almost flaweless victory, though we did lose one Lieutenant near the end. He was properly mourned.

All in all, it was tremendous fun, the kind of conflict I had in mind when I first heard about PvP battles in WoW, and not the low-impact skirmishes we get nowadays, but eh, what can you do? I'm just happy I took part in this one.

The forum thread (including some screenshots) dealing with this can be found here, and the movie page here. You can see my character a couple of times in the movie (look ma'!) though it's always at the graveyard, after I had died yet another time :P. My character is Gilraukoris, a Blood Elfette, in case you're curious.

And now for something completely original

To make up for the lack of a post on Saturday (argh!) here's yet another movie based on World of Warcraft. Hey, it's hilarious so shush!

Warrior V. Paladin, the musical!

I said what what?

My back is getting better, though sitting in front of the PC to write long articles is still not something I can do without some pain, so no big post for today either. Instead, here's a collection of strange/obscure/retarded happenings from around the world:

Firstly, you know how sometimes parents forbid their kids from playing videogames and/or watching TV when their grades go down the shitter? In most occasions, this isn't a solution to the actual problem, but it's a quick and easy solution. Kids usually complain or hold their breath in anger, but 16 year old Cory Ryder decided to be original and hired a hitman. As you can read in the article, he even stole money from his sister's piggy bank too, in order to pay the guy. I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry. Thankfully, the kid was caught.

Secondly, if you're into media in the least, you've probably already heard about the Hollywood Writers' Strike. Cynics around the world proposed a collective "Hollywood has writers?!" but that's besides the point. The first big casualty of this strike is the action-drama show 24, which will not air at all this season. A major disappointment for fans of the show, but personally, I've stopped caring about it since last year's disastrous season. Alright, maybe I'm being too harsh, I would have liked to see how much of a revamp this season would be. But I'm still not hyped about it in the least.

Thirdly, a 13-year old girl in Mascoutah, Illinois got detention for... hugging two of her friends. Apparently, as the school student handbook suggests,

“Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”

This is obviously open to interpetation, but I'm sure it was written with situations like kids making out and groping in public view, not hugging. Smiling is a public display of affection too, why hasn't anyone gotten detention for that? Not that I'm against kissing in public, mind you, but I could understand a rule against it in a school with specific "moral" (let's not start defining morality right now) rules. But come on. Detention for hugging someone? These people giving out such punishments need to get laid more often, quite frankly.

Lastly, and the most outrageous, downright frustrating news of the recent days is this: In the near future, all mages in World of Warcraft, regardless of specialization, will get Iceblock as a trainable spell!

What.

WHAT?

Revolting. Shocking. Scandalous, even! THANKS FOR LETTUCE GNOMES BLIZZ.



In all seriousness, it just shows that Blizzard cannot balance this game for both PvP (Player Versus Player) and PvE (Player Versus Environment), especially since the day they decided they want WoW to be an e-sport. And this talk suggesting that this change will happen with PvE in mind is just bull. People playing mages have complained about their survivability in PvP forever, and instead of coming up with something original (while also neglecting that mages have always been designed as glass cannons instead of survivability monsters like druids or paladins) they just decide to bite the bullet and give them complete invulnerability for a certain number of seconds every five minutes. Shut up about Cloak of Shadows already, it's fine.

*Phew* I really wanted to get that off my chest. Hey, if a man can't rant on his own blog, then what? Anyway, it's changes like this that make me think that at times not even the people at Blizzard are sure where they're going to with their game, or at least that at some point in the early/mid designing parts, they had no idea how it would evolve in the process. Which is kind of understandable, since MMORPG's are a very special kind of gaming genre, but still not the way to go if you're really trying to brand your game as an e-sport.

The PASOK presidential elections are on Sunday, in which even 16-year olds will be allowed to vote. Interesting, that. Still not quite sure what to make of it. I just hope they'd get over with it already, it's all a big publicity stunt, and we all know George Papandreou is going to win in the end.

Irony is a wonderful thing.

This is a bit of old news, but it's too good to not mention it, even if it's been a while since it happened.

Those of you that have played / are playing MMORPG's know that the buying and selling of characters is nothing new. I remember seeing Jedis being sold for around 2,000 dollars in Star Wars Galaxies, back before everybody and his sister was a Jedi in that game. Same thing with high level characters in Lineage 2, Everquest 2 and every other major MMORPG.

Now in the case of World of Warcraft, since leveling is so easy, characters weren't being sold for that much. Perhaps if their items were good, but still they did not reach such prices.

But in the case of Zeuzo, Night Elf rogue of Sylvanas EU, and one of the precious few people in WoW to have both legendary swords of Azzinoth, which belong to one of the most famous characters in the Warcraft universe, Illidan, the price was much higher. Some nutjob paid seven thousand euros for Zeuzo's account. That's 9,909.09 American dollars.

I won't even begin discussing why it was a bad idea to give such items to regular players. Warcraft lore and the actual game of World of Warcraft are two almost separate entities nowadays, and Blizzard seems to be fine with it. They are, after all, swimming in seas of cash.

What's more interesting in this case is that due to the publicity that this buyout attracted, the new account, owned by the person who paid for it, was banned only a few days later after the event. So not only did he pay an obscene amount of money, he can't even use it to... well, show off to his online buddies, since I doubt he could do much more anyway.

Such is life. *shrugs*

I've also added a link to the deviantART gallery of a good friend of mine, and professional illustrator, Manthos Lappas. It's full of awesome goodness, you should go check it.

Snacky's journal

One of the best things to come out of this whole World of Warcraft craze is all the machinima videos that have been created with the game's graphic engine.

I plan on making a full list of the best ones, as they are really brilliant, but I won't be doing that now since my PC is still acting up. In the meantime, here's a trailer for the third part of what is probably the funniest series of them all, Snacky's journal.