“I don’t know if you felt you would be missed or not but you are. I didn’t know you as well as I could have and I’m sure you could say the same about me. I can’t help but imagine that you might have felt your action would not have impacted those that didn’t know you so well. If so you were wrong. I am saddened by your choice and wish I had the chance to know you better. My thoughts and prayers go out to all those you left behind. You are missed.”

I think we can agree on that there wasn't much at Blizzcon 2010 that stuck out. Here's my quick summary out of my memory:

• Arthas has been killed 489 000 times. Is the content accessible for everyone these days? I'd dare say so. And I'm not miffed. The fact that I see Kingslayer titles everywhere doesn't take away the fact that it was a fun fight and that I was insanely happy as we beat it the first time back in the spring.
• Cataclysm will be available for downloading on beforehand for those who buy the digital online version. Count me in! Sweden at midnight in the beginning of December is freaking cold.
• Chances are that I've gotten lost in Sunken Temple for the last time. They're not only finally offering maps for the old instances, but also rebuilding the ones who suck most badly. Yay!
• They're adding information about the abilities of the bosses to the maps, giving us less reasons to tab out and look at out-of-game resources for hints. I've got mixed feelings about this. A little voice inside me reminds me of how fun we had during our blind raids when we refrained from looking at the strategy videos in advance. Once again they're taking away a bit of the mystery and challenge in the game, assuming that players don't want to find out things for themselves. But then the more pragmatic part of me says: so what, don't lie to yourself - everyone checks out the resources anyway. Thy're just making us a good service as they integrate it into the game.
• The new login screen is pretty. Some players apparently don't like the sound of Deathwing, following the debate at MMO-Champion. I bother more about his underbite.
• Mike Morhaime isn't as charismatic as we'd like him to be.
• Another pet that looks like a miniature druid will be on sale soon. There's something compelling about having a miniture version of your own character. WTB mini gnome! With pink pigtails!
• Some poor guy managed to break his own leg as he was participating in the dance competition. That's what I'd call dedication! I hope he got a special prize.
• And talking about dances, they're still working on that dance studio. At least they claim they do. But no promises about when we'll see it. I don't think they'll make that mistake twice. I wonder though how outdated the dances will be once they're launched. They're often based on some popular music video. Will anyone remember the original?

Bringing in the trolls
I might come back those topics and a few other tidbits from Blizzcon in the following weeks, but the fact remains that the overall competition for our attention is underwhelming. This means that even the slightest slip of the tongue from someone could render a mentioning in a Blizzcon commentary blog post. There's so little else to talk about. Bare this in mind as I'm approaching the next part of this post of this post. I'm going to ponder a bit over a very small thing, and I know already as I'm writing this that it might annoy a couple of readers.

This is as good as to ask for trolls. Any post that touches the slightest on the gender topic will lure them out from their caves. Actually I could as well give the word to them right away, they'll speak up eventually anyway. I think I'll go for a lovely piece of work that turned up on another recent post:

"You rage because you don't like how pixels of a female model look in a computer game?? You're either intolerant/discriminatory or it's just subconscious envy, which is even worse. You make smart women, naturally born with big boobs, feel bad. Then, I guess you're one of those persons who wear tight turtle-necks in RL don't take this literally). May I suggest that you go outside, walk in the park or talk to real people more? Blogs written out of rage are always failures. Always."

It's good, isn't it? No, don't thank me. All credits to "Derrek" for this one!

Q&A
So now, that we've established that I've probably got a turtle neck and carry a subconscious envy of big breasted girls and need a walk, I'd like to talk about a statement from Blizzard that rubbed me a little the wrong way. I'm thinking about how they chose to answer one of the questions that came up in the open Q&A panel:

Question:
"I love what you guys have done with WoW, I love that there's a lot of strong female chars, though I wonder if we can have some that didnt look like they came out of a Victoria's Secrets catalogue? "

Answer:
"Which catalogue would you like them step out of then? We feel ya, we want to vary our female chars more in the future. So yeah we'll pick different catalogues. "

So. What kind of an answer is this? I'm not sure what they're trying to do here. I suppose it's intended to be somehow funny, but I don't think it is. Actually I don't think it would have been that hard to give a proper answer. There's no reason for Blizzard to fall flat on the floor, unconditionally apologizing for the stereotyped female bodies. Even if we bash them sometimes for their shortcomings in this area, they're actually far better in this aspect than many other games I've seen.

What they could have said
Rather than answering in a snotty, dismissing manner, they could have discussed the question properly. Let's say I would have been a Blizzard employee, sitting in that panel, how would I have replied?

I think I first would have talked enthusiastically about how important the strong presence of women is in the game, maybe mentioning that a large part of the player base is female, and what a great change this is to how it used to be back in time. I would have said something about how Blizzard takes those questions seriously and how they listen carefully to the input they get from players - women as well as men. Then I would probably have questioned the claim that all female characters look as if they came from an underwear catalogue. Some do it, no doubt, but far from all. I would have highlighted the huge variety there is, and said that there are many options that are pretty far from the traditional photo model.

You can make your female warrior into a mighty tauren, you can create a badass dwarf chick who looks like most women do, with broader hips than they have in any catalogue, or you can make an wrinkled gnome lady with a face that is grim rather than cute. Unfortunately very few players do. For some reason the "pretty" female models are way more popular. Regardless of this, I would have said, Blizzard will keep creating a variety of looks, keeping them available. But in the end it's up to the player to choose.

But they didn't say any of this. Instead they said that they'll add some more catalogues apart from Victoria's Secret. I don't think it was even remotely funny. It's possible that it was honest, but most of all it was lazy. I would have expected Blizzard employees to be a little bit more polished and PR minded. They're big business now, not a basement company and they should have the resources to get some proper training.

It's not as if I'm raging. I'm not overly upset and it's not the end of the world; it's just a minor detail that popped up in the Blizzcon flood of pseudo news. But after all those years in the spotlight, Blizzard should know how to answer a standard question such as this one in a proper manner.

“The product is something we think is going to redesign the way these type of games are looked at”.

“Our characters started in an area called Westfall, a devastated farmland that was once part of the Human Kingdom and has become run-down and over-run by thieves. We stood in the middle of a wheat field looking out onto an absolutely stunning ocean. (You may have seen the impressive lighthouse in the gameplay video that was released). We noticed the sun was rising and were pointed to the little clock in top right of the interface that shows the current time in the world. You could see the movement on the water with the waves as the sun beams streamed across it. The sky looked stunning.

As we stood in the World of Warcraft for a few moments and soaked up the breathtaking scenery, it was evident that Blizzard wants gamers to feel they have been transported to a completely new fantasy world. A place that is full of rich vibrant colours where buildings and trees are exaggerated and not photo-realistic.”

"We marched through the field until we came across our first enemy in the world, a Harvest Golum which was patrolling the field. These burly mechanical creatures plod round the farmlands, guarding the crop. When we held the mouse over the Golum our cursor icon changed red which meant our option was to attack. The Golum approached and we engaged in combat. The status of combat is all shown on screen so if you hit a small tag will rise indicating how much damage you have inflicted or indeed if you missed. What this means is that combat status won’t be spamming the chat window and the actual combat is easier to follow.

When you attack you click once and your character will continue attacking until the target is dead, or your character of course. This allows you time to cast spells and even change equipment. "

"It was time to move on to a new area with the use of teleport scrolls from our inventory where each one would take you to a different location. Teleport scrolls were created for the purpose of the demo and may not appear in the final game. We asked if there would be other modes of transport other than foot. At the start of the game when the character is low level, on foot will be the main way of getting around. Bill Roper then said that there will be other ways to get around the game world but these have yet to be decided. Now wouldn’t a horse be cool we suggested?:) "

"We approached a trader who issued a quest to find the Treebeast and assemble a weapon called the Firestar, a mythical sword. You can then accept the quest and begin your journey. We were close to a new area called Darkshire and it was here we saw the transition between two very different areas of the game. As we moved towards and over a bridge Darkshire loomed ahead. Our hero crossed the threshold into Darkshire and our world changed dynamically. The trees became thicker and the sky ominous and overcast. This was one of the most impressive moments in the game. The transition was seamless, as were the environmental changes, the light, textures and clouds. All this changed with the help of Blizzard’s procedural skies and procedural lighting to great effect. We stopped just inside the Darkshire boundary and looked back. Beyond the edge of the murky forest we looked back from where we came and could see the sun hitting the ground, it was like looking into another world."

"A feature that we really liked was the ability to move an item, whether it be armour or a weapon, into your inventory and the game will automatically move it onto the correct spot on the body as long as it’s not already occupied. In other words you don’t have to place armour directly on the body, the game is intelligent enough to know that it’s armour so it will place it directly in the correct body slot, so it’s easy to ‘throw’ items on, making it quicker to change on the fly to suit your situation.

The backpack inventory can also be accessed without blocking the gaming environment which allows you the freedom to utilise items in your backpack without having to stop playing. "

"We talked to one the NPC character who had issued us the quest to find the Firestar Sword. To complete the sword quest we handed over the pieces to have it assembled. Duly assembled, we took the sword and replaced the standard one we had been using. As the name suggests, subtle flames licked the edges of this gigantic blade as we stood defiant with our new toy. It was about 3 times the size of our previous sword, positively massive Blizzard is promising something rather special as far as weapon effects go. They want players to feel they have really achieved something when they complete a quest by having impressive looking items that will allow you to show off to other players in the game. "

“Again this area was very different to previous. More of a jungle with murky swamps and giant trees with overgrown foliage. We were placed new a small lake with a waterfall to the rear and paused for a moment to marvel at the realistic cascading waters. We stepped closer to the lake to watch the wee fish dart about just below the surface. There is a possibility that the final game will see characters with a swim ability, walking through shallow waters is also a possibility.”

“As short as it felt, we saw three very different areas, all rich and packed with incredible detail. It is a world you will have no problem losing yourself in. It’s fantastical and exactly where Warcraft should be heading. If the character development, quest content, guild support, PvP aspect are nailed down then this will be the new standard for MMORPGs.”

“I jumped out of my chair yesterday when I hit the Play button to check on something in the game. This isn't an intended heart-rate check and we're looking to get it fixed in an upcoming patch”

I look forward to that too. Even if I can see the benefit of being alert and awake once I start playing, I prefer to get my adrenaline rushes in other ways.

New mage dresses
Enough about the patch though. I’m sure I’ll come back to it in the next couple of months.

There has been some other stuff going on this week, worth a mentioning. MMO Champion presented the new tier 11 armor set for mages, and I just have to talk a little bit about it because with one exception it looks absolutely amazing.

What isn’t there to love with the fire themed dress with the glowing shoulders? The thought of wearing this if you’re fire specced is irresistible. There are two other versions as well, one purple and one blue, and it's still a little bit unclear what they represent. Maybe it's about heroic and non-heroic versions? Or could it be that they show how the dress will look in different specs, the blue one being the natural choice for a frost mage? Probably not, but I like the idea.

And now to the exception from the awesomeness. Of course I'm talking about the head, which displays a glowing skull mask. And I just don't get it. Do they think mages enjoy running around like some kids begging for Halloween candy - all year round? It could have been a fun seasonal trick where you temporarily could get your head turning into something more festive. Like the mounts at Christmas. But this?

Oh well. I know where to find the checkbox to not display the head. I’ve used it so many times before. There just isn’t such a thing as a good looking head for mages.

Paragon interview
This post is running awfully long, but it’s my Friday night when I’m talking about whatever comes to my mind and there’s no way you could stop me.

So now I’ll just mention something completely different that I stumbled upon this week, namely a podcast called Nordrassil Radio. They did a mega-long interview with Totalbiscuit, which was entertaining in the way you could expect. If you like his style of ranting, I suggest you listen to it.
They also did a 1,5 hour long interview with the Finnish guild Paragon, which currently is considered the best raiding guild in the world. They talked to four of their members and the conversation gives some interesting glimpses into a world of competitive raiding that is very different from what most of us ever experience in the game.

Did you know that it's a normal procedure for this kind of guilds to take fake screenshots from first kills with guild members who weren't even in the raid at all? The reason is that they don't want to give out information to their competitors about what setup they've used. And if you’re curious about what specs the players in Paragon use, maybe wanting to copy it, you shouldn’t trust what you see in Armory. In order to not reveal their tactics, players will deliberately switch to some random spec before logging out! Wow. That’s what I call a competitive mindset.

It was also intriguing to hear that they regularly use Meyers Briggs tests as they’re evaluating potential new players. They have found that one personality type was dominant within the guild, even though they didn’t say which one in this interview. However it might be worth keeping an eye on their website. Apparently they’re planning to give some more information about their testing, possibly also letting visitors test themselves.

The weekly toast
It’s time to wrap this up I think. This gnome has been babbling long enough.

Have you felt the earthquakes? Every time I do, I smile to myself, and my heart trembles a little in anticipation. The shivers tell me that we ain’t seen nothing yet. There’s more to come. Much, much more.

Let’s bring out a toast for the earthquakes and whatever adventures they’ll bring us.

Cheers!

“Here is the deal, you are only allowed to stay away until you feel that hunger to write and contribute again. Then you wait a week. Then you return.”