Where for to Dueg?

So, yeah.  I suppose I owe everyone who read my blog regularly an apology for my sudden disappearing act a couple of months or so ago, and I really do apologize for that.  We had suffered yet another setback to the guild Reyk and I were still trying to lift off the ground and I sort of became disgusted and bored with the whole thing.  So I figured, “Eff it, I’m gonna take some time off from WoW, just a little break, maybe a couple of weeks.”  And so, Dueg’s odyssey back into “RL” had begun.

First, of course, I had to set myself down slowly, so I downloaded DDO Unlimited and gave the Free-to-Play model a run, which was actually kind of fun.  I even bought a month of VIP service after about a week so I could give it a full look.  In the end though, I really didn’t want to go to another MMO, so I looked elsewhere.  Then I remembered an old love of mine that I hadn’t really picked up in a while: Warhammer 40k.

For those not in the know, Warhammer 40k, or just 40k as it’s usually known, is a tabletop wargame played with models that are assembled and painted by the player.  I don’t actually play the game myself, but I do love to paint the models, so I went on a monthlong painting bender, finally churning out a couple of squads, a few hero units, and an APC model that I had had on the back-burner for a while.  I’d show you pictures, but Mrs. Dueg has the camera at work with her today, so maybe later.

But then I got the twitter twitch and decided to see what some people were up to.  I got to say hi to all the old gang, Bubz, Cadychan, Arrens, Tarty Tart, PixelExecutioner, Kerrsplat, all those crazy folks.  And the more I talked with others, the more I realized how much I had missed blogging.  So today I logged onto WoW again for the first time since before 3.2.2 hit, just to see how the old Duegster was doing.  Don’t worry, he’s still devastatingly handsome.

And then I came here, and now I don’t know.  I don’t know if I really want to play again right now.  I don’t have a guild to raid with, and I’m not sure I want to do the legwork to get a new one for something that I’m not 100% sure still has appeal to me.  Maybe I’ll try to pug a raid later tonight or run an instance to try to get the old thrill back.

So where does that leave the blog?  Well, if I do start playing again, I’ll prolly take it back up, but at a much more leisurely pace.  I had a lot of fun doing a post everyday for a while, but near the end there it was getting a little stressful until I realized that it was something I was posing on myself.  So if I do start posting again, it’ll prolly only be to the tune of two to three a week, which is prolly enough Dueg for everyone anyways.  I will say this though: I promise that I will finish the Saturday RP story line soon, and not necessarily on Saturdays.

And I may start posting about stuff other than Warcraft, maybe change up the theme.  There is a blogging sphere for 40k, so maybe I’ll make posts updating my army every once in a while simply to switch things up.  I might even throw in some reviews of the game I’m currently playing, make it more of a general games I’m playing sort of blog, who knows?

So stayed tuned, gentle jerkwads, because Dueg’s back, and he’s as handsome as ever.  And in case you forgot, here’s why you can’t quit Dueg:

Let me hug away your pain

-Dueg

Something in the Darkness Stirs…

Updates coming soon, for serious.

-Dueg

Saturday RP – Conclusions, part 2

Dueg staggered slightly as the heat once more washed over him, stronger this time, but gone much quicker as well.  Dispel, he whispered quietly, waiting to see if there was relief from a vice like feeling of pressure at the top of his sternum, where the flashes of heat were originating from.  Sweat began to break out on his brow as Reyk turned, his ears picking up the subtle movement of Dueg’s slippered feet followed by the quiet whisper.

“What ails you, Duegathalas?” came his question as Scrat and Noxt both turned in response to the pause.  The four stood in a small chamber, lit only by the purity of Reyk’s soul, gleaming from his blade.  It revealed an unnatural sort of tunnel winding into the earth, just large enough to stand abreast.  The walls revealed telltale signs that magic had been used to carve into the rock, so they had left behind the original caverns a few minutes before, confident that they were finally closing in on their target.

“I…” began Dueg, “I do no-”

“He quakes in fear at the might of the Alliance and the inevitable demise of the pitiful Horde!” came a voice from all around, resonating from every shadow even as they began to slowly creep in on the four companions, quelling the light that gleamed from Reyk’s sword.  He quickly brought it up, looking around for the source, but it was useless, for only inky shadows looked back at him, even his keen elven eyesight dampened by the increasingly obtrusive shadows.

Light! called Dueg, holding up a hand suffused with radiant light as Reyk joined in, the two faithful Sin’dorei pouring their very souls into the air around them.  A slight groan came from shadows as they fell back, momentarily defeated by the glowing points of brightness.  But after a moment, the shadow deepened, becoming almost a physical wall of blackness and began to creep forward once more, eating at the elves resolve with it’s very hatred of the holiness.  Steeling themselves, Reyk and Dueg poured as much of their faith into their extended hands as possible.

* * * * *

Finegal was holding onto to his soul with all his will.  Dark pacts he had made to get here, for this moment of ultimate hatred and vengeance against the wretched Horde and all they stood for.  He could only use this power very rarely and he knew it might draw him down into the very abyss of the Shadow itself, but it was worth it  to see these wretched beasts suffer.  The two students of the Light were fighting back though, trying to subsume his shadow with their faith.  He would crush them and then rend their souls from their body, delivering them to their precious Light.  For him, there would only be shadows.

Finegal stood… somewhere in the shadows, he wasn’t sure quite where because he didn’t know where his body ended really.  His soul had stretched beyond his corporeal form, delivering the power of the Shadow directly into the natural darkness of the cavern.  Once he had fused with it, he was able to control it, make it solid or liquid, cause it to protect or kill, though he had never used it in an act of mercy.  But it was not easy, and should his will fail…

He didn’t think on that as he gathered his resolve and began to push back against the powers of the Light.  The mage stepped forward and fired a blast of flame while the troll planted a totem in the ground, green light flowing through the four Horde.  The fire did nothing but burn out, consumed by the shadow and the totem was still so rough that it did not summon much power, barely adding any bite to the already brightly glowing hands held in defense.  Finegal almost allowed himself a moment to laugh.  Then the light shined on him and everything came undone.

* * * * *

Deep within the laboratories of Naxxramas Citadel, the gnomish lich floated gently before the blackened globe of gold powered by the bloody sapphires.  His loyal banshee was still draining some of the loyal, sycophantic cult members, willing to die if the lich asked it in order to join the perfect utopian world that it was to be a Scourge slave.  Even as their speech began to slur and their eyes took on a dull sheen, they raved about how they would serve forever in death, loyal unto the end to their undead King, may he rule forever from the glory of Icecrown.  They would serve their purpose well.

Through the globe the lich watched as the shadows drew ever increasingly in on the four Horde, somewhat impressed with the mastery of the Shadow that their opponent was showing.  But alas, he did not have time to study this interesting phenomenon, for he wished this errand done so he could move on to bigger, more important tasks.  He had delved through the shadow, looking for the annoying insect, and had found him, a human thing, bonded with Shadow through the soul.  No simple task, but easy enough to fix.  The lich placed it’s small hand upon the globe where the shadow priest was skulking and pushed with his mind, causing the shadow in the area to disperse, giving a glimpse of the priest where he stood.

A glimpse was all the four needed.

* * * * *

Scrat was the first to see him.  Finegal stood rigid with his arms straight out to his side, his fists balled up to point that blood was welling from where his fingernails sank into his flesh.  All over his body, tendrils of pure black entropy wriggled as if worms trying to swim in the still air.  They caused a shimmering effect as though shadows were constantly blurring over him even as the light reveled and began to eat at them.  Scrat stepped forward and fired a totem with an aim born of many hours of practice.  It thunked straight into the head of the blurred shadowy thing, firing off a burst of electricity.

Losing his concentration, Finegal screamed out, his hold on his soul finally slipping.  As the four watched, the shadow priest’s mouth gaped open, growing to twice the usual size as terrible cracking sounds came from the joint of his jaw.  A black smoke darker than midnight poured forth, streaming for any points of darkness as the body it had once inhabited began to blacken and decay.  Entropy took it over, a blowback from the pull of the shadow without a soul to protect it from it’s ravages.  In less than ten seconds, what had once been the shadow priest was nothing more than a quickly congealing pool of liquid rot.

The four turned away from the smell, quickly hurrying past and forging onward, knowing that they must be close if the Alliance had risked an ambush.  All that was left now was the gnome, and he could not stand up to the righteous fury at the pure sacrilege of the shadow priest that was coursing through the two devotees of the Light.  As they moved closer, the wailing began, setting them on edge, but not slowing them.  And in a laboratory in Naxxramas, long dead lips smiled at the note of fear in the wail of it’s prey.

* * * * *

End Part 2

-Dueg

Is PvP Strangling PvE?

We’ve all seen it.  A few hours to days before the patch hits we get the official notes.  With glee we scroll down to the pertinent class information, our eyes roaming over the changes and emotions of either disgust or excitement roll over us.  Then there it is, a line that makes your brow furrowed.  ”Why would they change that into that?” or “That just makes that a little more useless now.”  Then it strikes you that the change isn’t for general use, it’s for one particular section of the game: PvP.

Sometimes the changes are minor, perhaps a simple tweak to a seldom used talent to make it more enticing to people who prefer to spend their time in arenas.  Or it could be major, a glyph changed from being a wonderful PvE tool to something that only a very specialized PvPer will look at.  No matter which way you slice it, you often see it going in one direction, which is changing something from PvE viability to PvP viability.  But why?

Well, the key word is balance.  Blizzard wants to balance the game as much as possible with no particular class having an advantage over another when they face off in single combat.  The thinking is that if you present the population with one class that has a slight edge, you’ll see a huge migration of PvPers to that class which will unbalance the game for people who are die-hard fans of their present class.  Now this can certainly be true to a certain extent, and in order to create a fun environment for everyone to play in, then the devs simply have to make changes here and there.  The only problem is that any change made for PvP purposes will have repercussions to PvE players as well.

Now look, I’m not advocating for the abolishment of PvE or anything radical like that, but the fact is that PvP does sometimes mess with PvE.  I’ll give you an example, one that will make most disc priests choke back tears of rage: the ongoing nerfing of Penance.  This is the penultimate healing spell in a disc priest’s arsenal, originally introduced with an eight second cool down.  Then nerfed to ten.  Then nerfed to twelve.  Though there is a glyph that lowers the cool down by two seconds, there was some talk about them getting rid of that as well before increasing the cooldown to twelve.

Honestly, though, I can’t think of  a reason why this would overpower disc in PvE.  In actuality, the nerfing of the spell has weakened them in that area, bringing already somewhat lower healing totals even further down.  Therefore, I’m forced to conclude that this spell, mixed with a disc priest’s damage mitigation, was considered too overpowered in PvP.  Some people posited that the nerf might be Blizzard’s way of encouraging disc priests to cast other spells, but that only gives them time to cast one more Flash Heal, which most disc priests consider slightly better than worthless.  The loss of two second on your best spell in a raiding era where a boss can sometimes kill your tank in less time than that is huge.  The idea of being able to front load heals every eight seconds in PvP, however, is a fairly scary proposition to opponents.

The issue at hand is the fact that you really can’t balance PvP  and PvE at the same time.  They’re two separate and distinct systems governed by increasingly diverse and complicated rules.  A change to one will always affect the other and more often than not it will be adverse with what you want to accomplish.  And though the majoruity of changes in PvP resonate loudly with people trying to PvE, the reverse can certainly be said to be true.  Sometimes a change to PvE will mess with the balancing, usually when Blizzard tries to make sweeping overhauls to classes.

When new patches arrive, that’s always when the devs watch hardest to see how the now live changes will affect the servers as a whole rather than just the test versions.  Then the tweaks come.  Slowly, but surely, classes are changed and molded into a system that tries it’s best to be balanced.  You don’t want warlocks destroying everyone in PvP, but you also don’t want their pets to get popped in less than two seconds.  You can’t let shamans be crazy AoE healers in PvE because it will cause them to be the only healer in arenas and no one will want to play as priests or resto druids.  Back and forth the dance will go.

In the end the problem is that you just can’t please everyone.  Some will say you shouldn’t bother trying, that some classes will simply dominate seasons of arena based on the current powers nested in their talent trees.  Others wish the game was a 100% even playing field with the outcomes decided by raw skill and knowledge of playing your class rather than the ability to tap three numbers on your keyboard over and over.  The only difference is that when you make changes to PvE you don’t have to worry about whether or not the NPCs are going to complain about overpowered raiders.  You want to balance it so that there’s no one particular class that’s leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, but not everyone is going to switch classes just because that hunter pulls an extra 300 dps than them.

The only thing we can all agree on is that priests are the best class ever.

-Dueg

The End of an Era; Arthas in 3.3

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the book, Arthas: Rise of the Lich King.  If you haven’t read it and do not wish to know a major plot point, do not read the following post.  I realize most of you either have already read it or are might not care if something is given away, but for those who would have a problem with such things, consider yourself warned.

So the dust is beginning to settle as Blizzcon fades from the rear view and everyone once more returns to the present.  The new expansion is looking like it will truly take the game in a brand new direction by returning it to its roots and once more summoning one of the original bad guys from the lore.  But with a focus on the upcoming cataclysm and the revelations of the new classes mixed with the brand new races joining both factions, some details concerning 3.3 slipped in a little under the radar.  Not that people didn’t notice it, but most of the talk was definitely centered on the upcoming expansion.

Icecrown citadel is shaping up to be the penultimate raid experience of Wrath with what will presumably be the final chapter in the epic saga of the Lich King.  The fight and the “ending” of the expansion have been hyped by the developers as “epic”.  What has people slightly abuzz concerning this information, however, is the fact that Blizzard did not confirm the death of the Lich King, simply that he would be defeated as part of the raid.  So is that enough to start speculating?  Would I have already written two paragraphs if it wasn’t?

Yes, the Arthas fight promises to be spectacular and will forever change the lore of the game.  The end of the Lich Kings plans and therefore the Scourge as a controlled standing army really must be topped off right considering how much nerd love has flown into this tragic story line for the last 7 years and Blizzard has proven in the past that they have the talent to do just that.  Perhaps Arthas will finally fall and the being that has held the collected armies of the Azeroth in check will finally succumb to fate, or maybe he will make a final escape, returning to harry us at a future date.  Both are possibilities.

Now some people seem to think that by not specifically stating that the Lich King is being defeated means that Arthas will fall, but Ner’zhul, the original intelligence behind the Scourge will live on somehow, however, this can’t be true.  Here’s where the spoiler part I warned about comes into play.  At the end of Rise of the Lich King, it is revealed that Arthas mentally exterminates both his last dredges of humanity, and therefore any chance of redemption, and the last portion of Ner’zhul’s soul.  Therefore, Arthas, and only Arthas, is the persona known as the Lich King.

I can see them doing some sort of epic scene where Frostmourne is shattered and the Lich King is broken.  Maybe Jaina shows up and is the one to deliver the final stroke, which would certainly fit in with lore regardless of which faction is the one to take him down.  Speaking of which, the possibilities concerning the factions are certainly quite tantalizing.  Will the final fight involve major characters of lore?  Perhaps Thrall will fight alongside the Horde party members or maybe Varian shows up with a small party of Alliance, forced to aid that same party for the greater good.  We already know that inter-faction fighting will take place aboard zeppelins at some point, so who knows how far they’ll take it.

And concerning Jaina and more spoilers, the filling out of their romance introduced in the book would really come full circle with some sort of scene where Arthas begs forgiveness from her or asks for death or something like that.  For those not in the know, the couple were all but destined to get married when Arthas got cold feet and broke off the relationship for a few months.  Unrevealed in the game is that their romance is re-sparked during the events of Warcraft III until the point of Stratholme, when Jaina finally denies Arthas, becoming an impetus for his downfall and eventually leading to his assuming the mantle of the Lich King.  For her to be the one to finally close the book would be quite fitting in my opinion.

Or perhaps it will be only a temporary reprieve and he will make an escape, weakened but still powerful nonetheless.  Blizzard wasn’t even able to set a release date in 2010 for Cataclysm which means that it’s most like 10 months or so away still.  That means that if 3.3 comes in let’s say two months, there will most like be at least one patch adding a new raid instance or perhaps hardcore five man before they do the pre-expansion patch that will probably have us seeing the new talent systems and other changes that everyone will experience.  That is assuming, of course, that they stick to the same pre-Wrath schedule they had.

So should he escape we may see a final instance where we have to track him down and finally put an end to everything.  No matter how things go down though, I think one thing is definite: The Lich King story line should end in order to give the main stage to Deathwing.  If you haven’t read the books describing his meddling in pretty much all the wars that ever took place in Azeroth before Warcarft III, then you just don’t know.  Deathwing is the original gangster and I for one am looking forward to him being the final big baddie of Cataclysm.

But it comes down to this, really: Arthas has been the face of Warcraft for since the introduction of the final RTS.  He is synonymous with this game we hold so dear and should this truly be his final hour, it is only fitting that it be done right.  Perhaps there will be redemption or perhaps not.  Maybe he’ll be consumed utterly or maybe he’ll be trapped away, forced to slumber until an eon passes and some foolish adventurer once more unlocks the danger of the Lich King upon an unsuspecting Azeroth.  Either way, I’ll be seeing you at Icecrown.

-Dueg

An Enchanter’s Request

Me and my wicked step-enchanting trainer

Hello, I’m an Enchanter.

As an enchanter, I remember back to the dawn of the game when we were still exploring the depths of what the profession had to offer.  Enchanting was a hard prospect to level way back when, barely a worthwhile profession until later levels.  Not to mention that disenchanting items instead of selling them in AH did put a hurt on my coffers.  But still I stuck with the profession, slowly getting better and better.  I remember in particular standing in Ironforge on Proto Dueg and whoring myself out for whatever people would pay me for my pitiful enchants.  Yes, it was a difficult life, but one I enjoyed and enthused about.

And I remember also thinking how well it fit with my priestly airs, especially the fact that I could make wands.  It felt right in line with the new feel I was getting for priests as a spell caster instead of plate wearing clerics.  I thought it especially cool and pertinent back then as it truly seemed like good wands were few and far between at the lower levels and this particular trade skill was able to deliver a very serviceable new one every few levels.  Though the graphic was simply a stick, it was still cool that it was made by me and I got a kick out of the fireball I could throw out.

Eventually though you were able to get better wands elsewhere and then there were simply no more new wand recipes for me to train in.  My heart shattered into a million wand shaped slivers.  But why does it have to be this way?  Why can’t we have wands anymore?  Why can’t we have any sort of personal benefit?  Look, enchanting fills a very nice niche roll in the game, adding benefits to raids and individual players that simply aren’t available from other trade skills.  But other than that there is no personal benefit to becoming an enchanter other than not having to look for someone to enchant your gear when you need it.  It’s truly one of the most altruistic of professions.

Tailoring has it’s embroideries, jewelcrafting has it’s trinkets and specialty gems and inscription has it’s oh so precious shoulder enchants to name a few, so why can’t enchanting have a little benefit on the side as well?  They don’t have to be the best wands in the game and they don’t have to be BoE, but something in addition to simple enchantment would be nice.  You took away our weapon buffing oils in Wrath, which I’m still bitter about, in case you couldn’t tell.  Now, however, with the new expansion being announced we have a chance to correct this finally!  Blizzard, I am humbly requesting that you give us back our wands!

No longer should the profession simply be about standing at the bank after a raid, at the whim of newly geared guild members looking for that extra push.  At the very least wands should be available to the leveling enchanter, enabling them to have a good, utilitarian style wand that can serve as filler until they start really raiding.  I mean, look, I get it.  You don’t want enchanting to be something that only spell casters pick up to compliment their tailoring.  But as it stands right now, a majority of enchanters are going to be casters anyways by virtue of the fact that since it doesn’t need a separate gathering, therefore it fits really well with a tailor.  You might as well give in and throw us a small and, quite frankly, small bone here to keep us coming back.

I also understand that being an enchanter makes us attractive to our raiding guilds or regular groups that we run with because all of a sudden it adds a depth of utility beyond the scope of just healing or dpsing.  That stuff is great.  However, so is Inscription and Tailoring and Jewelcrafting and all the other professions that bring bonuses or give unique armor that can be sold at whoppingly huge prices on the AH.  Yet once you leave Outland, enchanting really offers nothing beyond the benefit to your guild and the opportunity to make money on par with other professions or maybe even less if you have to purchase your materials to gain skill ups.  It’s kind of a thankless profession if you think about it that way.

What it comes down to is that enchanting should have a little incentive beyond just the capability to augment items and improve them.  Every benefit we’ve had beyond simply enchanting items has been taken away from us until we’ve become nothing more then enchant-o-machines, serving at the whim of guildies and the occasional Looking4Enchant in trade.  I don’t mind it, I mean, I’m awesome and I love to help people and all, but it never hurts to wet your beak a little, eh?  Blizzard, I think it’s time.  Give us back our wands.

-Dueg

Welcome to the Club… I guess

So over the past few days I’ve been following the steady stream of news filtering in from Blizzcon 2009, looking at the new races, the new zones, new raids, new everything we can expect to see sometime in 2010 (hopefully).  However, one of the major things that came up was the confirmation of the new race/class combo.  It was there that a terrible, and what I hoped had been a vicious lie was confirmed as fact.

My god... it's hideous.

Yes, gnomes will be priests.  In addition, Worgen, Tauren and Goblins will all be joining in on the party, leaving Orcs as the only race that can never get to be cool.  The thing is, I don’t think that priest passes should be given out so willy nilly to anyone looking to get in.  I don’t necessarily disagree to the addition of gnomes though I certainly don’t have to like it, but I’m beginning to wonder what the process is for deciding which race would get each class.  The more I look at it, the more I began to think that some classes simply shouldn’t be priests.

Let’s look at Tauren for example.  I know that some people are one hundred percent opposed to the new classes being given to the race.  The reasoning behind this can range from a feeling that suddenly developing a devotion to the light just isn’t in line with the past religious beliefs associated with the race to the fact that it’s a little late in the game to suddenly be adding cloth wearing to a race traditionally seen as somewhat martial in the past.  Me personally, I can understand them getting paladins as to me that class requires zeal instead of devotion, which is much easier to come by when you’re a warrior race who respects strength as much as wisdom.  No, to me Tauren priests are wrong, simply put in there because Blizzard thinks that a prerequisite to being a paladin is that the race must be able to be priests as well.  It feels forced.

But that’s not the only example of new race and class combos, just the one that strikes closest to home for me.  Another one that’s caused a ruckus lately is the thought that Trolls are soon to become druids as well.  Now I’ll admit that when I first read this change, my eyebrow raised up ever so slightly.  But the more I thought about it the more that Trolls having a druid’s power made sense to me.  The trolls in both lore and the NPCs have had a long history of animal worship that fits along the lines of druish behavior, though personally I wouldn’t call them druids.  Along the same vein that Blood Elves are called “Blood Knights” even though they’re actually paladins, so too should Trolls have their own form of druids.

The other class combos seem to make sense to me though.  I get how Night Elves, Dwarfs and Orcs can be mages as all three races have histories showing an affinity for magic, especially the night elves.   Dwarf shamans could probably have been snuck into the vanilla wow without nary a thought and Human and Undead hunters aren’t really anything to get excited about in the overall scheme of things.  All of these seem to “make sense” as far as most people who play are concerned, but does it really matter?  Should there even be class restrictions based on race?

This is a thought I’ve had many times over the course of all the MMOs and tabletop games I’ve ever played before.  I can certainly get behind the idea that certain races are more pre-disposed to being certain classes which should be reflected in things like stat bonuses and racial abilities.  But I also believe that every race does and should have it’s misfits.  That “crazy” person who answers the calling of a different path, one not commonly associated with their race.  They may get slightly punished for it with certain stats being inferior or racial abilities suddenly becoming useless, but that’s the price you pay for being an oddball.  As long as they’re willing, though, why should there be restrictions?

Now I played EQ II for a couple of months (oh, the shame), and this is a game that subscribes to the be the class you want to be regardless of race ideal.  True, I never made an ogre mage or gnome monk or anything like that, but it was still cool to know that I had the option to do so even if the only reason I would’ve ever rolled a character like that is for RP reasons.  When it comes to WoW, sometimes I think that this methodology wouldn’t be so bad.  It’s not beyond the realm of thought that perhaps some night elves, seeing their immortality stripped, might choose to walk a darker path of power, becoming warlocks.  Or maybe there’s a human out there who truly appreciates nature in all it’s glory and endeavors to become a druid.

But in the end, the decision is up to Blizzard on which races become what classes.  Now that they’ve thrown out the idea that races and their number of classes need to be balanced, we can finally play combinations that some people have yearned for.  As soon as the games patches in the new combos, I’m sure you’ll be seeing some much shorter shamans and some much taller mages running around the world of Azeroth, which is good for both the business of running a game and the recreation of playing that game.  All I can say is that as soon as Creepy McTinyhands shows up to the priest meetings, I’m so out of there.

-Dueg

Saturday RP – Conclusions, part 1

Ignat stood before the desiccated thing, placing his fists upon his hips as his brow furrowed with consternation.  Next to him, seeming to blend into and out of the shadows constantly, stood Finegal, his arms crossed over his chest as a self satisfied smirk began to grow across his features.  ”Here sits our goal, as inspirational as it is divine,” he intoned to the cavern’s chamber, “with this magnificent weapon we can at last lay waste to both Arthas’ scourge and the hated Horde.  All glory to the Alliance, forever victorious.”

Ignat ignored the sarcastic speech, focusing instead on the withered mummy of a man who sat cross legged and preternaturally still on a natural bench of rock jutting out from the base of the cavern’s wall.  After four hours of spelunking and descending further and further into the bowels of the frozen island of Northrend, the man and the gnome had found themselves face to face with their goal.  The only problem was that the Forsaken Oracle, who this surely was, was non-responsive to any form of communication, simply sitting with it’s eye’s closed and back curved against the wall.

“It’s dead Ig,” Finegal intoned at last, “let us burn the cursed thing and be done with it.  I wish to set an ambush for those Horde wretches who are surely following us.  Hopefully we’ll catch Ter’vona in it as well.”

Ignat sighed heavily and turned to look at the shadow priest, his eyes narrowing slightly in annoyance, “Finegal, of course it’s dead, it’s had the same curse visited upon it that all scourge have, but it is more similar to Sylvanas’ lot.  I can feel the same spark of magic animating it that is present in all undead, it is simply choosing not to respond to us.”

“Then let us create a portal and return to Valiance Keep with this wineskin of a man and we can hand him over to the Inquisitors.  They’ll get him to respond, you can have no doubt.”

“No, unfortunately, you cannot port someone against their will.  If they resist the pull of magic for any reason then the spell simply breaks and they get left behind, allowing the Horde to regain the advantage.  We could summon soldiers to come and carry him from here, but we would have to deal with our shadows fir-”

Finegal suddenly stood up straight and turned, a sound echoing down the passage from which they had emerged into the chamber that held Oracle.  ”Tabernac,” cursed the shadow priest, “they have caught up to us, Ig, set the thing on fire or something to wake it up, I’ll try to slow them down.”

With that he seemed to slip into the long shadows created by the small ball of light floating at the shoulder of the gnome who simply nodded and stepped forward, his face inches from the undead’s long since rotted stump of  a nose.  As the gnome studied the face of what he hoped would become the Alliance’s newest source of intelligence against the Scourge, he noticed a slight twitch in the muscles.  Ignat stepped back a moment later when the eyelids shot open, revealing orbs of pure white that gave the impression of movement somewhere below their glasslike surfaces.

“You… you can see me?” piped the slightly shaken gnome.

The jaw, set at an unnatural forty-five degree angel from the rest of the skull, began to slide up and down, creating the unpleasant sound of bone grinding against bone.  As the Oracle spoke for the first time, the words came out of sync from the methodical up and down motion of the jaw, setting Ignat further at ease while the paper like rustling of the thing’s voice entered his mind, “The… door approaches… I will leave… with you… now,”

“Uh… excellent, excellent, let me simply gather my com-”

“Now… must go… now…” A note of urgency entered the whispered words, the thought occurring to Ignat that this thing was afraid of something.

“Finegal!” called Ignat, trying to see into the gloom past his orb of light’s radius.

“Too late… too late… he sees… he sees…”

With that, the Oracle leaned his head back and began to utter an unearthly wail.

* * * * *

For the third time since they had entered the gloom of the cave, Dueg felt a flash of heat radiate out from his sternum, engulfing his whole body momentarily to the point of being uncomfortable before it faded.  He supposed that perhaps the rigors of their trials was getting to him as he looked over to Noxt, who was still burning a path through the magical frost left behind by the hated Alliance gnome.  Scrat stood with his hand pressed against the wall, his strength still returning only slowly while Reyk looked on into the gloom of the passage before them, watching carefully for any movement.  After a few moments, Noxt stood suddenly and looked down, perplexed.

“The ice is fading…” he said, his voice slowly trailing.

Reyk and Dueg both stepped forward, looking down at the floor of the cavern and boggling at the ice, not just what the mage had been burning, but all of it, slowly receded, simply vanishing as the spell began to unweave.  ”The spell has faded,” said Reyk, “they must have either left or they are waiting for us now.  Come then, let us oblige them.”

With that he stepped forward in a guarded stance, his eyes shifting left and right as he gripped his sword tightly.  Slowly the others followed, also wary of any traps as suddenly the cave seemed to be alive with noise and shadow.  Dueg felt another flash of heat come over him as he pulled his dark wand from it’s sheath, and held it ready for use as the four grouped together, moving slowly but determinedly down into the depths.  And as they moved, the shadows danced.

* * * * *

End Part 1

-Dueg

So I hear Blizzard might be making an Expansion

Did you miss me?  Due to an unforeseen graphics card “issue” I have been knocked out of commission for the last week or so.  However, even before that I was feeling the effects of burnout and dropping from an effectual, regular raiding guild to a small, struggling one didn’t help.  But after a week and a half break from all things WoW or computer related in general, I’ve finally installed a new card delivered just yesterday and am back in the blogging business.  First thing I did though was check up on the news, and boy, did I miss a big story over at mmo-champion.

In case you’ve been living sans computer like me, the rigamaroo going around right now is that the next expansion will be World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, will give us two new races and will involve a major revamping of the old world.  Oh, and the two new races involved are a faction of goblins who finally realize what side their bread is buttered on and join the Horde, and the people of Gilneas who have now been cursed as Worgens and will seek aid from the Alliance, which isn’t too bright on their part.  It will also involve a restructuring of class/race combinations, allowing some races access to new classes and apparently completing the set for humans.

There is a caveat to this though: This is a leak from a reliable source and has not been confirmed by Blizzard who will be making an announcement at the fast approaching Blizzcon.  Fact is, no matter how reliable your source is, I don’t think that this is 100% accurate because some of it is a little… out there.  I truly believe that this is a marketing ploy by Blizzard in order to drum up excitement and get more people paying attention to the goings on of Blizzcon.  Either way though, I do believe that most of it is true, starting with the races.

If you think about it, the new races make sense from both a lore and game perspective.  They’re goblins were always part of the Horde and now a faction has come to roost.  However, I truly and sincerely hope that the lore behind their shift is not what MMO-Champion is suggesting.  Oh, Thrall, the leader of the Horde got captured by Alliance and was rescued by a bunch of goblins so he offers them a place in the Horde, you say?  So convenient and dumb, that it’s just a terrible plot hook.  It seems far more realistic that when Deathwing enslaves the goblins, instead of this roundabout, the faction that runs away simply asks the Horde if it can return for protection and Thrall, seeing the obvious benefits of having so inventive a race on your side, accepts.

Then there’s the Worgen, the race that I will be playing from now on.  Werewolves = cool in the Dueg household.  I actually cut my tabletop RP teeth on White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Apocalypse, so I’m all about it.  too bad they’re smelly old Alliance.  Now the background on Worgen are that they are inter-dimensional beasts that have only murder and mayhem on their minds.  It has been established that there is a curse developed by a warlock which can turn normal humans into Worgen, which I suppose makes them Wereworgens and not werewolves.  But I digress.

Now if you’re like me, you’ve probably run up to that huge wall and barred gate in southern Silverpine and pondered.  Later I discovered that this is actually the barred entrance to the small kingdom of Gilneas, located on a peninsula of the same name.  During Warcraft III, they had closed all their borders and no one had heard a peep from them until the titular cataclysm of the expansion cracks open the wall and gate, revealing a populace under the effects of the worgen curse.  Now that’s a background story.  I think they should just be under the worgen curse at all times though, why would you want to switch into a human?

Which one would you choose?

Then there’s the race / class combos that they’re shaking up.  Some of the proposed possibilities have some people up in arms about whether or not the receiving race should be able to attain that class.  For the most part, stuff makes sense with the biggest “awha?” moments being Tauren paladins and priests and troll druids.  However, if you look at the past lore and the setup they’ve been doing in the most recent patches, you see that these combos may have already been in the works for quite a while.  My main concern is the idea of a cloth wearing tauren just seems wrong.  Paladins, yes, priests not so much.  Now that they’re letting gnomes into the club though, I may be switching to a hunter.

With the expansion will also come revamped zones with new starting zones in Gilneas, which will be phasing like we’ve seen in the DK starting zone and in Azshara which will be revamped as, I’m assuming, the goblin starting zone.  There will also be new instances and supposedly Deathwing and Queen Azshara will make appearances.  If Deathwing shows up, I would assume he would be the final boss of the expansion.  Supposedly Uldum will finally become an instance and a lot of the old forgotten side stories and plots will finally be addressed.  Hell yes.  Also, with all the build up they’re doing in the comic, don’t be surprised to see a revamped Ahn’Qiraj at some point.

However, things do get weird.  According to MMO-Champion’s source, Thrall will abdicate his throne to Garrosh who will then immediately declare war while Thrall apparently goes off to pick flowers with Malfurion right when the threat from the black dragonflight and naga becomes apparent, gets captured, and has to be rescued by a bunch of goblins who then join a faction that’s at war with someone else.  Cairne is then murdered (their word) by Garrosh after being implicated as a traitor and not only do the Tauren stay in the Horde, but Cairne’s son takes over and falls into line.

Look, I’m all for war with the Alliance, lord knows they have it coming, what with their beady eyes always undressing me and whatnot, but c’mon, Thrall, dedicated to peace as he is, is just going to hand the entire Horde over to Garrosh, an obvious warmonger?  I’m not buying that.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Cairne dies, he’s like 106 or something, I dunno, really old for a Tauren, but I severely doubt that there wouldn’t be a helluva lot unrest if he was openly killed by the hot-headed, obviously unfit to lead Garrosh.  Among the entire Horde, not just the Tauren faction.

But either way, again, this is all speculation, it could be all true, mostly true, a little true or total fiction.  Me personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was mostly or all true, I would be surprised if it was all false.  I think it’s a teaser and Blizzard will confirm or deny a few things and give official features of the new expansion sometime next week.  Whatever the case, let’s not all get too excited, I’m still holding out for dance studios.

-Dueg

Leave a Light on…

I hear that game is pretty good.

-Dueg