When cool kids drink

Before we all embark on another weekend adventure, I'd like to recall the events of the 4th of July.

The 4th of July around here is a time for celebration. Beers and barbecue. Friends getting together and enjoying each other's company. This is what Brian and I set out to do last Saturday morning. We headed down to the house of a friend of ours who was kind enough to host. The burgers were seared and the beers were flowing.

Now, this party was populated heavily with what I'll call "Cool Kids". These are people who are into sports, watching and playing. They've got the clothes and the sunglasses and all that...

... but, woe to them, for after a few beers, inhibitions are decreased... or erased entirely. Some suffering this fate participate in the usual acts of public drunkenness. But a few, the select few, are compelled to unleash their inner nerd upon the world. They do this by singing a World of Warcraft parody song. I am not making this up. I was serenaded about the woes of being a shadow priest from one such inebriated cool kid. I have proof.

So beware, fair readers, as you set out this weekend for whatever debauchery you have planned. You, too, could wind up showing someone your inner nerd.


Note: The one on the right is wearing a Nat Pagle Fishing Supplies shirt. He has nothing to hide.

[WoW] I loves me my PvE server

The Midsummer Fire Festival has come and gone. As with any of these holidays, there was a large amount of complaining about the PvP element. I am not without sympathy for these complainers. There are those that do not really enjoy PvP. I also fully agree with the solution to the problem that others have put forth; you don't have to do the holiday. For those of you still with me on the epic quest for the Violet Proto-Drake, it doesn't seem quite so much like a choice. Rather than complain, though, I wish people would embrace the excitement that a little bit of PvP can introduce to your regular game.

Behold, the PvE servers. As Brian reminded me, in the days of Vanilla WoW, they were referred to as "Carebear Servers". Of course, I'm not particularly concerned with my "hardcore" status, so that's where I roll. Even while cuddling my Carebear, I do love some good PvP. I like battlegrounds (except Warsong Gulch) and Wintergrasp. Woe to the lowbe Ally flagged in my presence. Otherwise, I like to be able to do what I want to do without having to worry about some jerk killing me for no reason other than the pleasure of ruining my day.

Along come the holidays. They seem to usually have some kind of PvP component, be it battleground achievements or world PvP. The Fire Festival is no exception. We must honor our own flames and desecrate those of our enemies. Desecrating enemy fires cause you to become PvP flagged. This is where the complaints lie. We're on a PvE server because we don't want to have to deal with world PvP. Really, though, give Blizzard credit for trying to make it something a little more than just a tour of the greater Azeroth flight paths. I, for one, relish the excitement of finding oneself vulnerable in the middle of the wilderness. Avoiding the Alliance on the roads, preparing to make a lightning strike raid on their main cities, waiting out a flag in the trees. This really makes my heart pound. There's preparation there. I ride around on my Dreadsteed instead of my wolf. I turn off my title to make my name shorter. I turn my helm back on to be less conspicuously Blood Elf. There's a Mata Hari-like thrill to the whole affair.

That being said, there are a few easy things you can do to make your life easier during these times. First, if at all possible, don't try to get this stuff done during peak hours. Brian and I raided all four of the opposite faction cities to get their fires first thing on Sunday morning. We only died once at the hand of another player. Because we got such an early start on the achievements, we had actually done all of Azeroth before they reset the quests. I actually wound up doing most of them twice. With all of those enemy fires, I only had a problem with other players a couple of times. I'll admit, once I became flagged, there was a fair amount of diving off the roads when someone was coming. Occasionally I'd cast water breathing on myself and wait it out at the bottom of a lake (This works well. Players don't like under water battles). It's great fun. And don't go alone. Even if you only have one other person to roll with, that's enough to protect you from the lone jerk wandering the wastes. Sure, you might die a couple times. Remember, if the person is camping your corpse, as long as you're not in the capital city, you can always wait out your flag as a ghost so they can't continue to grief you after you res.

So, come on, people, embrace the opportunity to show some of those snotty members of the opposite faction what's what.

[Rant] An open letter to hosts of Warcraft Podcasts

Please, please, please. I'm begging you. When hosting a podcast, please don't speak as if you were in trade chat. "DK" does not take any less time to say than "Death Knight". Do not say "Lol" while actually laughing out loud. It's "Congratulations" not "grats". While these acronyms and colloquialisms may save in game chat times, you shouldn't have to rush your podcast.

I may be somewhat dismayed at the sloppiness of internet chat, but I accept that it's not going to change. I mean, somewhere along the way, people decided that "it is" is too long and made it "it's". That's fine. Language, especially written language in this age of faster communication, must evolve. Keystrokes are time, people. I get that. But please, people, there's no character count when you're speaking. Use real words.

That being said, I have no problems with using some acronyms. If you want to say BRD instead of Black Rock Depths, I'll accept that. Sometimes that's the only way I learn what the acronym actually stands for. DoTs are fine. Call it WoW. But let's be reasonable.

I've been trying to expand my podcast listening, maybe adding one or two more Warcraft related ones, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I downloaded one today, which shall remain nameless, but I just couldn't get past the WoW speak. This is, of course, not a universal problem. The Instance is safe. How I WoW is fine. WoW Insider is tolerable. These shows seem to have set a certain standard of professionalism for themselves, and because of that, the language used is, well, professional.

And if you want someone to listen to your product, a little professionalism might help.

So help me, I'm blogging.

Alright, here we go. An hour for lunch and I'm going to try and cram in most of what I've wanted to write about for the last two weeks...

First off, I am so very excited that yesterday was the beginning of COMMISSIONATHLON 2009. For those of you not in the know, Obsidian of Commissioned Comic has this mad plan to do one commissioned piece of art a day for the next month. All of this is to fund his trip up from Colombia to Conneticon at the end of July. O's first piece was Scott Johnson's WoW character Gerp and his tiger pet Henry. It looks awesome. It may be my favorite of the WoW character drawings I've watched O do so far. I was fortunate enough to get to see the whole thing, and I am not so much more excited for the commission that I have coming. Brian and my piece is scheduled for next Tuesday, June 9th. I'll be sure to tweet about it when it's happening and I'll put the finished piece up here when I get it.

Along those lines, I got a wedding invitation from two of my good friends, and their wedding is on the first of August. This is squarely in the middle of Conneticon, solving my on-going questioning as to whether I was going or not. I'm sad I won't get to go see O, but maybe the 'con means that more awesome stuff will be going on sale in his store.

E3... It deserves it's own post, but I want to at least get my initial impressions out in case I don't get another chance to write. The big news: I'm going to have to buy a PS3. I don't really want to. But I must. Team Ico announced The Last Guardian, which I have been waiting for years to hear about. It's nice to have an actual trailer (even if it is only a teaser) rather than whisperings, hopes, and the occasional blurry screen shot. Shadow of the Colossus is very likely my favorite game ever, and now I'm trying to get my hands on Ico. Along with Little Big Planet, that I've wanted since it came out, and God of War 3, Brian and I just can't fight it much longer.

I'm sure my WoW characters have been weeping uncontrollably at my absence. I miss them, too. Daniora is working on getting her last Champion city, Orgrimmar. She's also gathering up enough Champion seals to get her hippogryph. Amelinda of Earthen Ring is leveling... slowly. She's still in the Ghostlands, but I have got to tell you, I am loving AIE. It's really nice after a hard day at work to be able to surround yourself with a wall of friendly green text. I think people have the impression that there are so many jerks on the internet because all the nice people are tied up playing in the guild.

Scott Johnson's got a new podcast, this time pairing up with Eric, otherwise known as SkyHawk. It's called AppSlappy and covers apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Very nice. I can't officially review it here until there are at least 5 episodes, but expect something soon.

Brian Dunnaway of Mission Deep, ELR, and Comics Coast-to-Coast has said he's been working on a few new things for the site. I can't wait for that!

Phew. That was quite the linkfest. Hopefully I'll be able to get more regular and less insane posts out in the near future.

Also, I'd like to give a big internet shout out to Beth, the greatest office manager any company could hope for.

[Podcast Review] The Instance

This is the first in my series of podcast reviews spawned by my new found love of podcasts. Most of them will be World of Warcraft related, but the rest will be pertinent geek life.

I'm going to start right off and say that I love The Instance. I'll admit, I'm a bit of a fangirl of Scott Johnson. I read all his comics, listen to all his podcasts, read his blog. But I digress...

Scott Johnson and Randy "Deluxe" Jordan have fantastic chemistry. They balance each other perfectly. This does a lot to do attract the high numbers of listeners that they have that don't actually play World of Warcraft. If Scott goes off on a rant about this or that, Randy is there with the hard facts to bring him back again. Randy and Scott can be on opposite sides of an issue, but it never decays into an arguement. After so many episodes together, they've developed a rapport and inside jokes have developed. I mean, who would have thought that Scott's wrestling name in high school would be the same as the band that Randy played bass for?

It's very clear that both of them have a passion for the game and truly enjoy playing. It is not a podcast that's going to teach you how to get that extra 5 points of DPS in 25 man Naxx. It's more concerned with making sure that you get the most out of the game no matter what your play style is. They strive to make sure that listeners know what's going on in the game and with Blizzard in general so that no one misses out on anything. Most refreshing is that unlike some WoW players, they never loose sight of the fact that it is a game and should be enjoyable, otherwise it's not worth playing.

The format consists regular segments for every episode covering the biggest news, WoW rumors, and questions from listeners. Episodes generally run about an hour and a half, but if the particular episode happens to be jam-packed, Scott and Randy are more than happy to let it run long to cover everything. I have to say, this is a rarity in WoW podcasts. Many others tend to be a bit too tied to their "time limit" and will cut off topics without letting them progress to their logical conclusion. However, they also know when someone (like a guest... ahem, Turpster) is wandering a bit too far off target and Scott and Randy are excellent at reigning them back in without stifling conversation.

Regular contributions from listeners like Patrick (from How I WoW), Mean Gene, Buxley, and others provides a variety of information for listeners. These segments contain information in little snippets that if they were the basis of the podcast would bog it down in number crunching and urls. There's the Mod of the Week, PvP tips, twinking tips, and many others that come and go from week to week. This might be one of The Instance's best qualities: Anyone can contribute. My favorites, by far, are the WoW parody songs. Those get stuck in my head, and I sing them for days.

The Instance has the highest production values of any WoW podcast I've yet heard. The segments submitted by listeners vary in quality, but all are better than many whole podcasts I've heard. This does a lot to make it enjoyable. There aren't any sound problems to distract from the content. A lot of smaller podcasts suffer this fate, I feel, making me not want to listen even if I am completely interested in the subject matter.

The Instance has been described to me as "listening to a couple of your close friends talk about WoW." It's true, Scott and Randy feel like friends to me now. I follow both of them on Twitter. (You can follow me too!) But I've got to tell you, it's way more interesting than listening to my friends talk about WoW. And while the expansion and all the new content had a lot to do with it, The Instance has really gotten me "into" WoW again. I'm even thinking about overlooking my distaste for leveling alts just to join the guild they started, Alea Iacta Est. I find that even though the podcast is all about playing WoW in whatever way you find enjoyable, it makes me want to be a better WoW player.

So, thanks, Scott and Randy, for setting the bar so high for other WoW podcasts.