The Cranky Old Gnome

Today I finally earned the achievement “What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been”!  I had picked up the helm and sinister squashling a couple days ago, but hadn’t finished the achievement “Check Your Head”.  I still had to put a pumpkin on the head of a Draenei, and wanted to wait until people in my guild were actually online.  But since I don’t seem to have been online at the same time as them recently I decided I was tired of waiting.  I wanted my proto-drake!  So I headed to Dalaran and walked around a bit, searching for just the right Draenei.  I found one, a paladin named Lewtybewts.  I really got a kick out of her name, and recognized her as one of the people I had run the Headless Horseman with.  So I snuck up behind her and BAM!

Thistlefizz has earned the achievement [Check Your Head]!
Thistlefizz has earned the achievement [Hallowed Be Thy Name]!
Thistlefizz has earned the achievement [What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been]!

It was very exciting, and she was a good sport about humoring me and got excited about the cool new mount.  And, I promised her screen shots, so here they are:

Lewtybewts Pumpkined!

Three Achievements at once!

Look how pretty!

I’m really excited to finally be riding a proto-drake!  I’ve been trying for that dang bronze one in Culling of Stratholme…but we all know how well that’s been going.  So a very special thanks to Lewtybewts for being a good sport and humoring me, and for helping me wrap up a years worth of work and earn my sexy Violet Proto Drake!

As a side note, you may have noticed in my first creen shot that I’m tracking my Loremaster of Kalimdor Achievement.  As of this posting, I only need 48 more quests and then it’s on to Icecrown to finish off The Loremaster!

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

And now, story-time with rich Uncle Wizzbang!

Will Blizzard screw up their own lore again? A lot of us are wondering this, especially in response to the new Worgen lore. And frankly, our fears are justified. You see, once upon a time there were two races, the Eredar and the Draenei.

The Eredar were an evil race of giant, demonic beings who joined the Burning Legion because…well…it seemed like fun to them. They were evil to the core and wholeheartedly signed on to serve Sargeras in his quest to tear the universe apart. They were the leaders and masterminds behind the various invasions, especially the Third War (shown in WarCraft III), after their master was defeated. The Draenei on the other hand were a strange, gray race of outcasts native to Draenor (aka: Outland), some of whom who had escaped through the Dark Portal to Azeroth. We were first introduced to them in the WarCraft III expansion, The Frozen Throne, and by the time we met them in “vanilla WoW”, some of them had gone insane, while others had set up a tiny enclave in the Swamp of Sorrows and were just doing their best to survive on what was to them a hostile, alien world. The Eredar and the Draenei were two completely different races with two very distinct histories and two very different appearances. That is what the WarCraft III manuals say, it’s what the WoW pen-and-paper RPG manuals said, and it’s what the “vanilla WoW” quests all said.

Then came the Burning Legion expansion – Blizzard decided to give the Horde a “pretty” new race, the Blood Elves, but couldn’t seem to figure out what to give the Alliance. There was an April Fool’s Day joke claiming the new race for the Alliance would be the Wisps, and we all had a good laugh, then turned to Blizzard and said “No, really. Who’s it going to be?” Well, soon enough the announcement came — it would be the Draenei! “Oh, neat!” we all said. “You mean the weird gray guys from the Swamp of Sorrows?” “No,” Blizzard responded. “Better! Check out the website!” So we looked at the page they’d set up and right away noticed something was…off. “Uh, Blizzard?” we said. “Why are there pictures of Eredar all over the Draenei page?” “Oh, see,” explained Blizzard, “the Eredar are actually corrupt versions of the Draenei who were seduced by Sargeras! In fact, the Draenei were themselves aliens who settled on Draenor (now called Outland) when they were trying to flee their corrupt relatives. The ones you meet in the Swamp of Sorrows have been mutated by the magical energies which were unleashed during the war on Draenor. And the real Draenei worship the Holy Light!” We all looked at each other, laughed nervously, and said “Ha ha, good one, Blizzard! But no, really. What’s with the Eredar?” “What do you mean?” Blizzard responded. “Well, the manuals say that they were a single evil race that was always evil and that Sargeras recruited them because of that. The Draenei are completely different.” Bizzard got real quiet right about then. “Uh, what?” We blinked. “The…the manuals. The ones you published. For WC3 and the expansion to WC3, and WoW, and all the pen-and-paper WoW roleplaying games?” Blizzard stammered for a moment, said “Hey! Look over there!” and then ran away.

In time Blizzard reluctantly admitted their mistake — they’d screwed up their own lore and had to heavily retcon the entire history of Draenor, the Draenei and Garona Half-Orcen (who hasn’t been seen or heard of since). Then they “politely asked” us to stop talking about it. Oh, but that wasn’t the end of it. The Burning Crusade expansion was full of intriguing quest-lines that dead-ended, characters who were clearly intended to serve an important function but who were apparently forgotten shortly after launch, and promises of revelations that never came. Can anyone say Alleria and Turalyon, and their son in Honor Hold? How about the conversation in the inn in the “Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad” event? That smith out on a ledge in Terokkar, David Wayne, who seems to match a promise from the old Ashbringer event in the Scarlet Monastery’s Cathedral? And don’t get me started with all the dead-end quest-lines from “vanilla WoW” that promised information linked to Ashbringer! Or the entrances to Mount Hyjal that never opened! *twitch*

So how does this relate to the expansion?

Well, overall I’ve been impressed with the way Blizzard has handled introducing the Goblins as a Horde race (for the second time). How do they explain having Horde-allied Goblins AND neutral Goblins? Politics. Remember, once upon a time (in WarCraft II) the Goblins were affiliated with the Horde – they only became neutral after the Horde’s loss in that war. And the Goblins who side with the Horde in Cataclysm will be affiliated with a completely different cartel than the neutral ones, and therefore have no real reason to remain neutral, especially after they’re betrayed by the Trade Prince and wind-up in the middle of an Alliance/Horde skirmish. It makes sense, it involves pre-existing lore, and it doesn’t involve a wave of the magic Orwellian “retcon” wand.

It’s the details of the Worgen lore that many of us feel conflicted about. That might be because even in vanilla WoW there were a variety of odd inconsistencies. See, almost everything we’ve seen in the Lore implies that the Worgen are their own race, beings from another world summoned to this one – there are a pair of quest-chains in Ashenvale and Duskwood that explicitly portray them as alien beings summoned by the Scythe of Elune to Azeroth. In the context of these quests, they absolutely aren’t cursed humans or cursed members of any other race. And then there’s Pyrewood, a village you might not be familiar with if you haven’t played one of the Forsaken or the Blood Elves. The humans in Pyrewood, as part of his campaign against the Scourge, were cursed by Arugal into becoming Worgen at night so they could defend themselves and their land. As humans they are friendly to Alliance players and hostile to the Horde; but at night they’ll kill everyone. We’re curious to see what will come of this “cursed” aspect of Worgen existence. The curse apparently can’t be transferred by bites because otherwise player characters (or non-Pyrewood NPCs) would find theoretically themselves similarly “cursed” when they fight the Worgen (though Blizzard could just be ignoring that aspect).

But Blizzard also brought Arugal and the Worgen back in a new and improved form for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Now one could argue that this iteration of the Worgen is different, subject to different rules than the other two types introduced in “vanilla WoW”; those who have played through the quests in Grizzly Peaks will know to what I’m referring. The problem is that these Worgen seem even less suitable as player characters, and certainly don’t seem related to the Worgen which will be inhabiting Gilneas next year. The only argument i can think of for their relevance to the playable Worgen issue is that they establish a greater variability, thereby giving Blizzard more wiggle room — not unlike the way the Death Knights in WCII bear no relation to the Death Knights in WCIII which bear no apparent relation to the playable Death Knights introduced in WotLK.

So we have a variety of possible approaches to the Worgen as a player race and to the fact that they’re actually the human citizens of Gilneas – all of which need to explain that the Sons of Arugal Worgen in Silverpine WEREN’T originally human, and that the people of Pyrewood are only nocturnally Worgen, and that somehow (as the Blizzard Cataclysm info has indicated) the cursing of the people of Gilneas was a result of some magic spell gone wild (which somehow got beyond the gates of the isolationist kingdom but nowhere else) and had absolutely nothing to do with any sort of cult.

So will Worgen be the new Draenei? Good gravy, I hope not. If they are, not only will it cause excessive fuming and ranting on the forums, but it’ll become another arrow in the quiver of people who have long suspected that Blizzard doesn’t care about Alliance people.

Well I have mentioned my old roommate, Wizzbang, in a number of posts already.  He’s the one who got me into WoW and he’s like an encyclopedia when it comes to Lore.  He knows everything there is to know about Lore in this game.  If you need to know something lore related, especially if you are having trouble with a quest because you can’t find something, you just ask him and he knows it.  He also spends a lot of time pondering the implications and interactions of the developments in the story, like the upcoming Icecrown patch and of course Cataclysm.  Because he always seems to have interesting things to say, I have asked him to become a contributor to the Cranky Old Gnome.  So without further adieu, I will turn over this post to Wizzbang.

_____

My name is Wizzbang.
I’m a Gnome Mage whose preferred spec is Frost.
I like Engineering, Mining, sunsets, killing loving bunnies, and long walks on the beach.
I have a summer home in Grizzly Peaks and a winter home on a tiny floating island in Nagrand.
I spend weekends polishing my roflcopter and chopper, feeding my extensive menagerie of pets, and aggroing mobs off even the mightiest tank.
I’ve been playing the WarCraft series since the early 90s, and WoW since November 23rd, 2004. Fizz has asked me to be a writer here because I have a terrifyingly extensive knowledge of WoW lore, tied (I’m sure) to the fact that I’m actually an academic, and to the fact that I would read/contribute to WoW Wiki articles in between assignments at work. As such I will generally be contributing posts about lore, quest-lines, common sense approaches to game-play, the history of WoW as a game, and the broader scope of things (insofar as it relates to WoW anyway).
I adore playing a DPS class, and a caster in particular, so I will also be contributing posts dealing with the squishy DPS perspective on things. Like how frustrating it is when the tank and healer won’t get out of the way while I’m AoE-ing the Black Knight’s second-stage EXPLODING ghouls which I’ve risked life and limb to Frost Nova in place in a small cluster so the tank can kite the boss away…AND WHAT IS THE HEALER DOING STANDING NEXT TO THE TANK ANYWAY?!? STUPID NIGHT ELF DRUIDS — BURN THEM ALL, THAT’S WHAT I SAY!!!!

*ahem*

Yes, well…
My favorite races are: Tauren, Dwarves, Gnomes, Blood Elves, Forsaken.
And oh, yes — I truly HATE Night Elves.

I haven’t been tanking much lately.  Like at all.  Well, I’ve been running the Headless Horseman every day to get that damn pet and helmet (just got it! yay!) to drop, but that doesn’t really count.  No, the last run I actually remember going on was Heroic Trial of the Champion, sometime in the beginning of September (just after my trouble with Arthas).  So it’s been a bit.  Here’s what happened (hmmm, suddenly I feel a little like Monk):

I have always been very self conscious about tanking.  Well, in PuGs anyway.  I know I’m a good tank, probably better than most simply based on my awareness of the rest of the group (hmm, you seem to be out of mana…maybe I’ll stop for a sec).  And when I run with guildies or friends I’m always confident and sure of myself.  But many times when I get into a PuG I just freeze up a little and become much more susceptible to criticism.  This is especially true when I get with groups where I know people have run Ulduar.  Whether they say anything or not, I tend to project my own assumptions that since they have run Ulduar they are running with better tanks, more experienced tanks, [insert I’m not good enough statement] tanks.  Most of the time people are pleasant about things and just want to get the run done.  But if anything goes wrong, if they don’t immediately blame the healer, they blame the tank.  Having played both, there is a distinct difference in the criticism.  When I am healing and screw up, if the blame is placed on me typically all that is said is, “Nice heals” (said snarky), or “Next time, heal me”, or “Dude, why the #%!@ did you let me die?”, etc.  And it usually ends there.  But when I get criticized as a tank the comments are much more…thorough. “Dude pay attention.” “Keep them off me.” “I don’t think your gear is good enough for this.” “Are you even def capped?” “Do you even know the proper rotations?” “You don’t know these fights do you?” “What, did you just turn level 80?”

Well anyway, I was in a PuG for heroic ToC.  I had run regular ToC over and over and over again.  Not only that, I had run it almost every day since the patch came out.  I say this as a preface to establish that I had run it before, on heroic, and had been successful many times.  But on this particular day the run was not going well.  We were having trouble with the champions.  We had a warrior, rogue, shaman combo (which in my opinion is the hardest combo).  The rest of the group greatly outgeared me, so I was having trouble holding threat against their high dps.  We wiped once.  I told them the issue, and said, “if you just slow down a little with the dps, we’ll get past this.”  They scoffed a little.  We went again.  They didn’t slow down.  We wiped.  The first thing the healer said to me was, “You aren’t geared enough for this.”  And not in whisper, in party chat.  Apparently that left it open for the rest of the group to rail into me.  It was crazy.  It was as if they had decided to let out every nasty thing they had ever held back but had wanted to tell their tank.  I won’t repeat what they said, as most of it isn’t appropriate for PG audiences.  Or even PG-13 audiences.  At first I let it go, cause I’ve had people rail against me in the past.  But after each person got in a good shot and then they started in for another round, I started to defend myself.  That seemed to just draw out their venom even worse.

And then they booted me.

It really shook me up.  Normally I can shake these off after a few days.  But with my string of unsuccessful events tanking during that time just made it impossible to get past.  And combine that with the great success that I was having on my shaman–why should I bother to put up with tanking where everything is negative, unsuccessful, and unappreciated when I can go heal where I am valued, appreciated, and dare I say, needed?

I don’t know as if I’m really going anywhere with this.  I guess I just felt like getting this off my chest.  I’m not posting this to give some dramatic announcement that I’m retiring from tanking forever, or that I’m making my triumphant return to daily tanking.  Mostly I just feel like venting.

And you know, I feel much better now.  Thanks Internet, for listening.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz

So, leveling up my mage in Howling Fjord I came across something I had no idea was there.  While doing the quest, “The Echo of Ymiron” I discovered, while in the spirit world via the incense’s influence, the Lich King, standing there in front of Utgarde Keep.  Since my mouse icon changed to a sword when I moused over him, I figured I’d see what happened if I attacked him.  Well, he snatched me over, stunned me, went into some diatribe about me bowing to his power, but I wasn’t yet worthy or powerful enough or some nonsense.  And then he killed me.  Killed me dead.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that I had completely missed this when leveling Thistlefizz through the Fjord oh so many months ago.  There’s been a few things I’ve noticed recently that I hadn’t before.  Like the mage in Dalaran that randomly sheeps people.  And the other (I assume mage) who goes around lighting the lamps in the town at night, and then sells a wand you can use to light the lamps he missed.  Makes me wonder how many other things I just totally walked by without giving a second notice.

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz