The Cranky Old Gnome

So, anyone else notice that the character selection screen looks a tiny bit different?  Well, I did.  It’s just a slightly lighter tint.

Also, the character creation screen underwent an overhaul.  The fonts are a little different, and now it shows a graphic for each class despite the race.  However, some of them are lit up, some aren’t.  Only those classes that you can play as that race are lit up.  Also a giant “Wrath of the Lich King” icon is in the upper right hand corner.  And the race and class descriptions are slightly different.

Why am I bothering to ‘break this news’?  Well, news breaking isn’t actually my thing.  Actually I wanted to use it as a jumping off point for discussing the character selection screen.  It’s time it underwent more than a tint change.  In my fantasy world where I am King and everyone bows to Thistlefizz and I have a long purple robe, with a long scepter with a rabbit on top, here is my list of changes and additions;

First, increase the number of characters that can be created on each realm to 12.

Next, I would make it so that you can see if a character has any mail or calendar invites.  I don’t need specifics, just if there is anything pending.

Also, maybe a clock with server time displayed.

I would move the enable addon icon from the character selection screen to being an in-game feature.

I would change up the default background.  Yes, I’m sure we’ve all grown to love the current ones and there would be plenty of nerd-rage nostalgia fights if it changed, but I think something new would be nice.  I would also make a different one for the gnomes (different from the dwarves), same with the trolls/orcs.  I don’t care if they have the same starting area.  I want unique backgrounds dammit!  Makes me curious as to what the backgrounds will be for the Worgen and Goblins.

Oh yeah, how could I forget?  I would make it so you can change the order of the characters in the character list.

That’s it really.  Anything you would like to see different?

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz

So yeah, I’m a little engrossed in the new patch.  But I have lots to say and PROMISE I will get back on my regular posting schedule tomorrow. Or thursday at the latest.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz

Larisa over at the Pink Pigtail Inn posted yesterday about Alliance faction pride–or the lack thereof. She talks about Blizzard’s 5th anniversary Battlecry event, and how most of the pictures are Horde related.  At the end of the post she asks:

Where is our faction pride? Where’s our heart? Do we care at all about our Alliance? Why aren’t we posting our pictures at the Battlecry Event?

The short version is this: The Horde is a group of outcast, downtrodden, recently freed from evil, and orphaned races joined together in a common goal.  They need each other more to survive.   The Alliance is more a loose confederation of independent city states (kind of like how Italy started).  They are grouped up mainly because there is strength in numbers, making it easier to stand up to the Horde and fight off enemies like the Burning Legion and the Scourge.  So it’s a lot easier to get behind the Horde as a whole, where as with the Alliance people tend to get behind their own race more than the Alliance as a whole.

Now for the extended version

I was reading somebody’s blog the other day (I’m really sorry I don’t remember who it was), and they had related a story that their Onyxian whelpling set off their Deadly Boss Mods with it’s tiny version of ‘Deep Breath’.  I had a good chuckle about it, and it slipped from my mind.  Until last night when the exact same thing happened to me.  And how did I react?  I screamed like an idiot and ran into the wall–despite being in the Orgimmar Auction House.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz