TB Roleplayers: I Am Here to BLOW YOUR MINDS

Action.

It can be as small as a little Troll warrior asking the wandering Death Knight, “Sih, kin Ah mine de ore from dat rock?” to as big as a group of people hanging out in a small coastal town, drinking around a fire and engaging in multiple conversations.

It all starts with one person, occasionally more, and expands from there. It never, however, spawns from players moaning about a lack of interaction or the amount of cliques on a particular server.

Roleplay is a social activity. It requires people to take their characters out into the world and engage with other characters, whether it’s a short snippet of conversation or a long, drawn-out plotline between a group of dedicated individuals. The people that get roleplay are not the ones that spend much of their time complaining about how dead roleplay is, nor are they the ones that constantly spout negativity and/or venom toward others (hint: I am only nasty toward someone if they are being nasty toward me – disagreeing does not equal being a jerk).

The people that get roleplay are the ones that act.

There is one member of my roleplaying community that has been on the server for six months and she does more for roleplay than any five of the most frequent complaining-types on my server. She frequently advertises that there is roleplay going on in certain locations from the Crossroads to Ratchet, and politely invites people to join in. She is friendly, open-minded and positive. She is active in three guilds and on one major community messageboard.

Guys? She’s already better at this than I am, and I’ve been at it for four years.

The secret to active roleplay: Just Do It!

One thing I have noticed in my time on Thorium Brotherhood is this: as more complaining takes place, less gets done. Time spent bemoaning the state of RP is time wasted. No amount of talk is going to improve anyone’s situation, ever.

The reason that I do not believe that roleplay on Thorium Brotherhood is dead is because, as hermit-like as I am, I actually do attempt to get out there. I occasionally show up to the main weekly event, even though I do not get along with a lot of people that go there. I occasionally seek people out. Once in a while, I run an event. I am frequently in-character wherever I go, especially in cities and while questing or grinding. Most of all, I maintain a positive attitude toward my server and its RP, even if I sometimes don’t agree with how people go about it.  I am open-minded. I do my best not to exclude people, though I can’t cater to everyone, and I do not, ever, try to pass myself off as some saviour of RP.

It is important to remain positive.

There are several people that are working their asses off in this community, trying to run events and just be Out There and helpful. Caeryn, Roshanar, Mellodi, Thierry, Lystaa, Berko – just some of the names from my particular section of the community – all do their best to encourage roleplay and help people out with it. They maintain a positive attitude toward Thorium Brotherhood RP. They don’t belittle it or minimize the efforts of those that even try by spouting venom at them.

That is hugely important. The more supportive people are of those that do their part, the better.

All in-character, all the time.

If one is unhappy with their particular lot in roleplay, perhaps it’s time to take a different approach. Try being in-character everywhere: while questing, during PvP, in the auction house, while crafting, no matter what one is doing or where one is, remain in-character and react to everything, even if nobody else is there. Immersion? Very helpful.

Events are awesome!

If it’s impossible to attend the events that are currently held, by all means, create some. Be as inclusive as possible to encourage attendance (unless, of course, one has a certain theme in mind – such as something meant for a single race or class) and do not use OOC reasoning to exclude any groups of people. The reason for an event must be in-character, even if it’s something as simple as “get completely wasted”. “Saving” RP is not a good reason for a roleplay event. Remember? Keep it positive.

Cliques: Interacting with people outside their boundaries since 200x.

Something else that people need to realize: TB’s “cliques” have been interacting with one another and with those outside them in a positive manner since, well, forever. When those interactions become negative, it is not the fault of the clique itself, but of individuals within any groups. Sometimes, some people just don’t get along – this does not make an entire group of people horrible. If, however, one person finds him or herself having difficulty with more than one group on a server, perhaps the problem isn’t the other people at all – in fact, it’s more likely to be that single person.

Overall: Be positive and get out there. There’s nothing to lose, folks. Nothing at all.

What I Would Like to See From the Roleplaying Community

A lot of roleplayers have this automatic sense of defeat about them. Nothing is within their power to fix, or if it is, there’s no point in doing it. Why should they report people that break the rules? It could cause trouble, create fights, fracture the community!

You know what? So does bitching without action. So does being a dick to people without real cause. So does being a permanent Negative Ned or Nancy. So does the constant complaint that Roleplay is dead, woe is us, let’s all cry for the good ol’ days.

My fellow Roleplayers, grow some fucking spines. Instead of bitching about the state of RP, do something. Be in-character wherever you go. Roleplay with everybody you meet, whether it’s in instances, battlegrounds, at the auction house, while negotiating for various trade goods – even the most mundane thing, do it in-character. Start running events! Start posting roleplay threads to your realm’s or community’s forums! Start dragging your guild or friends into the cities and roleplaying in public!

Don’t just sit there and bitch about how you think Roleplay is dead, how there’s no roleplay out in the world of Warcraft and blah blah blah, wah wah wah, soooooob. For fuck’s sake, pull your heads out of your asses and take action.

Report griefers. Report the textspeak kids that are yelling about how gay some dude named Tacobull is. Inform people that they are on a roleplay realm and that there is a specific ruleset that applies. They rolled on a roleplaying realm, it’s our sandbox, they have to play by Blizzard’s rules, too.

What does this mean for non-roleplayers?

It means that, really, not much will change. Your /guild, custom and /whisper channels are still yours to do whatever you like with, and you can get away with being OOC in /say and /yell if you’re sneaky about it. “lol im guna get so wasted 2nite!!! xDDD” becomes “Haha, I’m so getting wasted tonight”. Of course, the character could also be based upon you.

If you’re going to roll on a roleplay realm, be prepared to follow Blizzard’s roleplaying guidelines. That’s it. No ifs, ands or buts – it’s official as per Blizzard.

Overall, Roleplaying Community, I’d like to see you stand up for yourself. I’d like to see you do less complaining and more acting. This is going to be fucking hilarious coming out of me, but I’d like to see less petty bullshit and more working together.

If Matojo can set up the occasional roleplaying event and show up to a weekly tavern every so often that’s held by a guild that dislikes her (and that she doesn’t particularly like, either), other roleplayers (that don’t hold the “OMG RP IZ DED” opinion) can put in a little effort, too.

Spirit Beast, Get!

MIEN!

For a long time, after countless loops of various locales in-game, I found myself repeatedly emo-ing over my lack of a spirit beast. I had finally settled into a sort of acceptance – my hunter would always be lacking a Spirit Beast, and would be stuck with a wolf or her Devilsaur. This probably wasn’t a horrible thing for her DPS (at least, in Marks spec), but part of me seriously ached for a shiny rare beastie. I admit, my reaction was a helluva lot worse pre-medication, but still.

I finally got one last week, on August 28 – and it’s the one I’ve lusted after since it was added to the game.

So, Bouqueters, help me out. Arcie here needs a proper name! I’m looking for something befitting of a bear, bonus points if it’s a name from mythology that is a little Trolly. Try me, folks.

ALSO: Be sure to congratulate LODUR, whose hunter snagged a spiritbare tonight! WELCOME TO THE BARE CLUB, DUDE!

[Storytime][Bellerona] Forever Girl

(( Bellerona is my Undead Warlock on Thorium Brotherhood. I’m putting this below a cut because it does have hints of ritualized murder, ritualized sex (hints, HINTS) and such. ))

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Am I a raider yet?

Maybe a baby raider, maybe.

I started into ICC on my Warlock, Bellerona, a couple of weeks ago with the Harbingers of War – that is, my guild. My family on TB. My favourite bunch of people ever. I would leave Canada to be with these people, I am not kidding. They keep me sane when I would otherwise just… completely lose it.

So, they took me into Icecrown Citadel after plenty of waffling on my part and I haven’t regretted it one bit. I enjoy Destruction Warlock DPS – more than most other caster classes, I think (sorry mages) – and seeing those five-digit crits only makes it better (moonkin is close second). I’ve been working on her gear off and on between runs – though I haven’t been available for ICC for a few weeks – and I think I’m starting to catch up. Slowly but surely.

I have also had a taste of raid healing on my Druid, Varkev, thanks to a VoA 10 run and a Naxx 10 Patchwerk run. The Naxx 10 was a trade pug that surprise the absolute hell out of me since it was made up mostly of people from some of TB’s raid guilds (including Bloodrite, Order of the BlackLotus, Winterfell-with-the-funky-letters and Guardian) … so I felt a sense of “Oh holy shit I’m among people that know what they’re doing”. Since it was Naxxramas, people knew what they were doing and a lot of folks were overgeared, there were no issues – everyone was polite and it was fun. Varkev’s gear is a mix of epics from the 200-232 levels, and I’m desperately seeking more spellpower and haste.

Thank you, Harbies, for giving me the guts to get in there and do somethin’. I love you guys, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that Harbie Raids continue to be awesome and fun (like passing my connection issue from Monday night on to some folks from TBDF, maybe, SSSH).

Bell will start saving her frosties for T10, while Varkev - once he gets his T9 for resto – will work on his tank set. I’ll also slowly work on Matojo because, damn it, I want him to Shield Slam some baddies sometime soon.

In UI news, I changed over to Tapestry UI and I think I like Grid. It’s taking some getting used to, but I’m not wanting to beat the hell out of it yet.

No, I am not going back to using Clique. Yet. Grrrr.

Yeah, there’s been some radio silence.

At the end of June I lost my job, and I’ve been staying at my parents’ house ever since. I will be back in my own house at the beginning of August (babysitting their dog for the next couple weeks), but since then I’ve been having a hard time with my writing mojo. I’m definitely making the attempt, but I just… haven’t had much to post about.

I have some stories on the burner, a few ideas tumbling about, but I apologize for the silence all the same. All things considered, it ought to be understandable.

[Storytime] Patchwork Sin’dorei

[ I'm not sure how I feel about this, to be honest, and may try to tackle it from a different perspective, but it was an idea I wanted to get out there. ]

It was not a Sin’dorei that ambled through those sweltering woods on that summer night. Perhaps, at one time, it had been one, but there were very few distinguishing features left save for the faintly glowing yellow-green eyes that were embedded in the creature’s skull. The figure that slowly made its way through the trees was vaguely female, though time and ghouls had ravaged the body to the point where it was difficult to tell, save by what remained of the shape of the hips and the slight bumps of the torn shirt.

The Once-Sin’dorei traveled for days, perhaps weeks, even months, slowly made its way through wood and over field and past tall, sickly mushrooms and through forest again until it found its way to a ruined farmstead. In the trees just at the edge of the clearing, just before what was once the house of the property owner, a makeshift wooden enclosure stood. Its beams were falling from the nails that held them together and the grass was tall, past the creature’s waist. The Once-Sin’dorei paused as it approached the cage and it sniffed loudly before ducking down into the grass. Something glinted in the moonlight, the creature’s head snapped to the right, and its clawed hand closed around something shiny that was embedded in the dirt.

A chain.

Soft whining carried upon the wind, canine, as the Creature followed the path of the chain to another, smaller chain collar – and then it pulled.

The soil came away, pulling up a vertebrae or two, and that was when the creature noticed the pale skull of a dog in the grass near where the collar had been. The Creature tilted its head, reached forward, and slowly, gently, petted the exposed bone.

Barking. It wouldn’t stop barking. The dog crashed against the walls of the wooden cage that held it in, but the beams were sturdy and would not budge. He whined, he paced, he circled, but nobody came. Nobody came. The air was heavy, he was hungry. He was thirsty. When he finally curled up to die, his last thought was of the master that had betrayed him and left him to his fate.

Each bone was carefully pried from the ground and gathered up into the tattered satchel that the Creature carried. Once it was sure that everything had been taken, the Creature slowly stood and ambled from the woods and into the overgrown yard of the farmstead. It entered the barn where it paused in the doorway and took in the sights – the hay that was strewn across the floor, the bones of horses that lay in the stalls and the tools that had been abandoned. The Once-Sin’dorei set its satchel upon the ground, selected an empty stable, settled down on the dirt floor and began to dig, and dig, and dig.

When a hole had been made that was of the appropriate size, the Creature pulled its satchel close and began to re-settle the bones within this new, makeshift grave. Each bone, starting with the skull, was put into its proper place, and then a small bag of black powder was pulled from the Creature’s clothing. It paused over the grave, grinding its jaws with thought, before fishing out a handful of powder and sprinkling it upon the bones. With that task complete, the bones were buried and the Creature left the barn.

- – -

Every week the Creature returned to the grave, dug the dirt from the hole, and stared at the bones within. Every day it muttered gutteral words in Thalassian, words twisted by Undeath into a horrible spell, and every day the bones changed. At first, the changes were gradual – the position of the skeleton shifted until it appeared as if the corpse lay upon its side and a red film formed upon the once-white bones. Organs and muscle and tendon slowly grew in their proper places. At the end of the third month, something shifted within that grave, and the Creature – more ragged than ever – lifted the results of its work from its resting place.

The corpse was that of a gray-furred dog, obviously of Worg descent, with patches of rot still visible on its hide and a ragged appearance that one would expect from a deceased animal. The Once-Sin’dorei tilted its head to an awkward angle and ran its clawed hand over the fur with jerky strokes.

“Live.” The Sin’dorei-Creature rasped in a voice that, in life, would have been female. “Live.”

The animal did not move, but the Creature had much patience, and repeated the word again, over and over, “Live. Live.”

It happened gradually. Muscles long dormant twitched beneath the beast’s fur, then its lips jerked back from its teeth in a silent snarl; the eyelids flickered open to reveal golden eyes and the half-Worg stood.

“Find… him,” the Sin’dorei-Creature hissed and pointed north-east.

The large dog took off with unearthly speed, its haunting howls echoing through the forest.

- – -

Thom Waite was a survivor.

He had managed to outrun the Scourge when they took over his farm, he had made it out of many a battle against the enemy and, that evening, he was recovering from another near-miss. His time, however, was running out.

He lay alone within his tent in the Argent Dawn camp. He was just on the fringes of sleep when he thought he heard shuffling outside his tent and he barked, “I’m tryin’ to sleep, kid, go back to your own damn tent.”

There was no response. The shuffling stopped rather suddenly and Thom rolled onto his side to try sleeping again.

Then he heard it – the low growl right next to his head, behind him, that made his hair stand on end.

He didn’t have time to scream. The beast went straight for his throat, and the last thing he saw was the very familiar Worg standing over him, its muzzle soaked in blood, watching him die.

- – -

A year passed.

For the Sin’Dorei-Creature, time did not exist. For all it knew, it had been a decade since it had awakened and clawed its way from the pile of rotting corpses that had been thrown into a pit somewhere in the Plaguelands. It knew nothing of who it had been in life, nor did it have any inkling of just what it had meant to be alive – all it knew was this, the open road and travel alongside the rotting Worg that it had raised from the dead.

One afternoon, as the sun ducked behind the sickly clouds, the Sin’dorei-Creature found itself in one of the abandoned towns of the Plaguelands. Curiosity overcame it and it made its way through each and every home, checking drawers and closets and every possible surface for shiny, interesting objects for it to collect. As it reached the upstairs bedrooms of the largest house in the village, it found itself faced with a very unusual object.

A full-length mirror sat upon the wall of the smallest room, reflecting to the Once-Sin’dorei, for the first time, its own appearance – and the Creature screamed, a horribly unearthly sound that seemed to stay in the air for an eternity.

Pale yellow hair hung in clumps from a skull that was barely covered in tattered, ashen flesh. Sickly yellow-green eyes stared out at the Creature, and the arms that were held up in a defensive stance were missing much of their flesh, as if it had been clawed and eaten away, leaving only a little muscle and tendon; the torn clothing that was draped over the Creature’s frame did little to hide any of the exposed bone and torn flesh that made up its body.

Her body.

Flashes. Brief, but certain, of ideas of itself. Female. Rot. Ugly. Single words, simple thoughts.

And she kept screaming.

- – -

Every day, the Once-Sin’dorei sat before the mirror to trace her image with one bony finger. Every day, she wracked her rot-addled brain to figure out just what wasn’t right about how she looked. Face? Wrong. Hands? Wrong. Arms? Wrong. Everything? Wrong.

She raked her claws through her Worg’s fur while he happily chewed – wait.

The Once-Sin’dorei’s gaze snapped to the Worg by her side and the human arm he was chewing, and with a single hissed Thalassian word he stopped and stared at her. She growled. He growled. They growled until the Once-Sin’dorei snapped her teeth at him and he backed down, allowing her to take the arm. She snatched a dagger from the floor in front of her and cut a chunk of skin from the human arm, then held it to her face over some exposed bone.

If she had the facial muscles to smile, she would have.

- – -

A sewing kit from an unfortunate Dwarf. Several limbs. Several sets of breasts (if others that seemed female had them, why couldn’t she?). A couple of torsos. Some legs.

The Once-Sin’dorei sat before her mirror many months later, needle and black thread in hand, with an odd smile upon her brand new lips. She could smile. Though the necromantic spells and spell regeants that she had used to bind muscle to bone and animate it were running low, she was satisfied with her work – for the time being. She set down the needle and stood up straight, planted her hands on her hips, and beamed into the mirror.

The image that beamed back at the Once-Sin’dorei was fully fleshed: patches of various shades of ashen, pink and tan were connected to one another with neat, black stitches; borrowed eyebrows sat a little too high up upon her brow; small, round-ish breasts sat a little too low upon her chest (and neither one was the same colour) and her thick lips were parted in a crooked grin made even more crooked by the fact that they had been attached a little too much to the right.

Female. Beautiful. Perfect.

The Now-Sin’dorei bent down to retrieve a set of dog tags from around the neck of an earless, lipless, browless Once-Sin’dorei woman and put them around her own neck.

Simone.

For the first time in her Un-life, the patchwork Sin’dorei, Simone, could not stop smiling – and perhaps she never will.

GearScore and the GearScore Add-on: My Final Thoughts

Over and over again the rants for and against GearScore are tossed about.

Let me be clear: I think it’s fucking stupid.

The GS Add-on studies the iLevel of the equipment a potential raider is wearing. It does not inspect their stat weights, their talents or play style. It can tell you that their gear is alright for the content, but so can a quick glance of the toon’s character sheet. So can calling them up on wow-heroes or a similar site.

If you are a raid leader that absolutely needs GS to figure out whether his or her raiders are capable of hitting a certain level of content, you fail.

If the very idea of GS being abolished makes you shit yourself, you suck. It is completely unnecessary. A single number cannot possibly replace actual brain power.

That’s it, game over. Go home.

Why I’m Opting In to RealID

First thing’s first: This is going to be rambly. I forgot my anti depressants at my parents’ house and am rather light-headed and nonsensical already – everybody’s affected differently. If I piss someone off, so be it.

So, there’s a lot of concern about privacy regarding RealID. I think y’all ought to read this post before continuing the incoherent rage and whining, first off, and secondly, I need y’all to think about social media.

If you’re signed on to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any number of other social networking sites, your privacy is already out the window. Even if you’re careful about what you post. If you order pizza, your information is already out there. If you rent movies from your local grocery store, there’s another batch of people with your information. If you run your own website, finding out about you is as simple as doing a WHOIS of your domain (if you didn’t put your domain under a pseudonym or something).

Privacy on the internet is a myth. If you put information out there, you cannot take it back. No matter how paranoid you are, someone, some company, somewhere, has something on you.

Scary, huh?

If someone wants to find something out about you and they know what tools they need to do so, they can. If you race-changed and name-changed and then server-transferred a character to get away from someone, they can figure out where you went (there are WoW detective sites that actually track transfers and race changes). Pre-RealID WoW is no more private than post-RealID WoW.

I will be opting in to RealID because a) Most people already know my real name by now (Parasite Eve, sets people on fire, sings, there you go), b) I’m not afraid to tell people “Not right now, I’m busy”, c) I’m not afraid to simply not accept friend requests from people I don’t like.

If people take my behaviour personally, that’s their problem, not mine. I already have someone taking my snarkiness as a personal affront whenever it’s her hubby (who, by the by, can defend himself he’s an adult for fuck’s sake) that’s snarked after he acts like a fuckwad (hey, he’s a dick to other people sometimes, too, I figure he’s earned it). The best part is that afterward he doesn’t take it personally. Why should he? Why should anybody?

If I don’t want to spend time with you, I’ll tell you. If I want to be left alone, I’ll tell you. If I don’t want you knowing where my characters are at all times, you’ll know. Do I give a fuck if you know my e-mail address? No. I use the same e-mail address for everything. I don’t have the attention span to have a different fucking e-mail address for each little thing that I do.

And chances are, if I let you refer to me by my first name, I’ll happily let you stalk add me (that means you, people with my cell phone number).

You have more power with this thing than you think you do, but if your freak-out is lack of privacy, darlings? You’re on the internet. You’re already without privacy.

I hope Blizzard’s enjoying my chat records~

Matojo’s Adventures in DDO

So, while I wait to get my account back, I’ve been poking at a game I’ve been wanting to try for a while – Dungeons and Dragons Online.

The gameplay is interesting and some aspects are rather clunky compared to WoW, but it’s enough to keep me coming back. I mean, I’ve wanted more D&D experience for a while and since I can’t get into tabletop around here, I figured, why not? Maybe I’ll have to check out some of the other single player games, too (the Forgotten Realms versions, I guess that’s all that’s out there?).

For a newbie like me, working with the targeting system is a little unwieldy. It does operate on D&D rules and requires more movement to be effective than what WoW does. The skill/feat system is different, too, with some classes not having much in terms of buttons they can hit until much later in the game.

I have mixed feelings on the DDO Store that mainly stem from the idea of how difficult the information is to even find at first. Prices aren’t too bad for store points, but I dont’ know how earning them via the Favour system compares yet so I can’t comment that way. I have no problem paying for some game features (like Drow and Warforged).

My suggestions to anybody that tries to pick up the game are: Pay attention to tooltips, read the tooltips on your character sheet, pick up a little D&D info before you start and adjust the keyboard turning speed/mouse look speed before going too far – the starting values make movement slow, unwieldy and almost made me drop the game. Also? Don’t try to play the game in windowed mode – DDO’s windowed mode is horrible.

Also, Jesus Jumping Murphy do not start with a bard.

I’m not used to mob killing not contributing to experience, either, so THAT is a bizarre thing for me.

At the moment I’m running a Wizard (Tuhina Dawngarde), Rogue (Kerriganne Shadowfoot), Fighter (Erbin Warglaive), Paladin (Greenshanks) and Cleric (I forget, no seriously). I don’t have much rogue, paladin or cleric experience but I am a big fan of the wizard and fighter’s pewpew.

TL;DR – DDO, though clunky and it feels more like a single-player dungeon crawl than an MMO, is still interesting enough to keep my attention while I wait for my WoW account to come back. I MISS MY HARBIES. ;_;