Friday - November 14, 2008

As a Bee

Sorry I've not posted in so long. Things have been busy.

I'll not spread drama or air dirty laundry here on the blog - half of the reason I've not posted in quite some time, but suffice to say, there has been drama at the office, and that's where I have my blog software set up. It's been highly distracting at best, so I'm just now getting time to post something constructive.

Ed's 40th Birthday Party was last Saturday. I have no photos from it, but things went reasonably well. I find it difficult to weigh the value of the party, as large gatherings with lots of drinking aren't really my thing, but Ed seems to have enjoyed it immensely, so I suppose it was a success. I dealt poker half the night, and that was pretty fun, like it was last year.

For the first time ever, I've gone to a midnight release of something. Be it a movie, a video game, or otherwise, I've never waited in line at midnight to be the first to get anything. I mark myself a patient man - as I like to say, my patience is only second to my modesty. Usually, I don't see a difference in experiencing something JUST as it comes out, or waiting a day or two to let the crowds die down.

World of Warcraft : Wrath of the Lich King was the notable exception to this rule.

GameStop was offering a pretty nice incentive program : bring in a bunch of your old games when you buy your WotLK expansion, and we'll give you 20% more for them. So, Meg and I cleaned out a bunch of the old PS2 and Wii games (titles like WarioWare and Elebits, that we never play anymore) and ended up getting both of our expansion packs for a grand total of $23. I'd say that was a good trade.

I expected the gathered masses, in some strange, misanthropic way, to be unshowered, greasy neckbeard gamers. I took a moment to wonder why this was - ordinarily I have no problem expecting the lowest out of humanity and being proven right, but this happens to be a community of people I actually belong to... The WoW players, that is, not the stinky neckbeards. Why can I belong to a community, know I'm not like that, know plenty of other WoW players that are like that, and yet still expect the stereotype of the stinky fat WoW player? Maybe because it's somewhat true, and the type of people who look like that, you'd expect are the type fanatical enough about a video game to show up at GameStop at midnight to buy it the moment it's released.

I'm happy to say my lowered expectations of humanity were sorely misplaced. The people at the midnight release were actually pleasantly clean, normal looking people. You wouldn't know most of them on the street. There was nobody notably overweight, greasy, or hairy. Nobody in costume. Nobody shouting "FOR THE HOARD! YUS!" at the top of their lungs. I stood in line and chatted with a nice guy about various things I'd read to expect of the game. I turned in my old games, purchased my new one, and left $23 poorer.

As for the expansion itself : OH EM GEE. Blizzard, thus far, has outdone themselves. I really liked the changes they made in 3.0 thus far (even if they did fail to address core issues with the Priest class, but I digress) and the expansion content, thus far, has been no different. I'll write a more extensive review of it later - this post is already getting long enough as it is - but suffice to say, leveling up my Death Knight was an amazing thing, and still is. The cinematography they've added... the epic feel... and that they pulled no punches making it clear you've begun your career as an agent of horror and death.

I'm also glad that, somewhere in this setting, I've gotten to make Maricyl the way he's SUPPOSED to be. Behold, mortals, and despair.