I've Got Some Backlash Here In My Bag

Sage flinched as a shard of ice shot from his hand and straight into his eye.

"You really ought to be more careful with that," Parsley advised, shrugging off an arrow or two that had made their way into his shoulders. He had his back turned to the ram-manners and his shield up defiantly facing the rest of his party.

They had happened upon a keep whose outer door had not offered much resistance. They had quickly joined the horde of peons of the Bird God in taking down the inner door and crush what little opposition faced them on this a most sunny day in Dragonwake.

"I mean," he went on to say as fire rained around him, "I've seen you get seriously hurt from those things. I know you can be more careful with that. Besides, it doesn't help one bit when I'm sticking my neck out to defend you."

"Have you ever heard the saying 'You need to spend money to make money'?" he asked as a particularly thick, sharp and now bloodied ice spike pierced through his calf. "The same principal applies. In order to inflict pain, one must endure it, as Mary will no doubt attest to." Mary, as it happened, was falling down from above, a gun shot piercing her chest and ending her life right before her feet touched the ground.

"That may very well be but... You could give us a break. I mean just look at Rose and Tom here."

"It's Thyme..."

"Sure, Tom. They work their asses off trying to keep us up and you're not making their job any easier."Rose and Thyme looked and each other quizzicaly. They soon resumed their pelvic-thrusting and baton-twirling. They knew how things could get when Parsley made up his mind about arguing about something.

"Oh. And I suppose crushing our opposition to a bloody pulp does nothing for our cause. Or freezing over something pesky that might pounce on them or leap from the shadows." One of his ears froze over entirely and began to crack as he spoke.

"You see that? The mere fact that you're falling apart as we have this discussion is indicative of how right I am."

"And the cinge marks in your armor and all the arrows protruding from your body are supposed to make me take you more seriously then? Be silent, Chosen and do your job, which in this particular situation would consist of... not a whole lot."

"Oh, really? I guess I'll leave then."

Sage's smirk quickly faded as a Shadow Warrior's arrow found it's way to the middle of his forehead as soon as Parsley was more than 30 feet away. He rose up again, uncomfortably close to his friend the Shaman, to meet Parsley's grin.

"Although I still believe I've made some valid points, I'll take your advice into consideration," he uttered grudgingly as green and purple lights swirled around him, removing blood stains and restoring cloth to it's pristine condition.

"Glad to hear it! Now, Mary, I suspect you're about able to pick the door again?" She nodded and twirled her blades in that very characteristic way Witch Elves are known for. "Then Rose and Tom shall edge closer to the wall and Sage and I will do our best to keep them safe. Keep the chatter to a minimal and let's send some of these toons back to whine to their maker."

Down, But Not Out

I moved.

Decided to try something different. Although I won't be playing WAR anytime soon as this blog as been mostly just about that particular game, my recent purchase of Rift and a 3-month subscription made me realise I still have something to say about gaming in general, what it's like for me, how it impacts my life, what I expect from games, how I expect to feel fulfilled and, you know, stuff.

And here's where.

Urgh...

This is probably one of the hardest posts I've ever written. Not that I'm like all pro about posting that I do it every day or that I did it even semi-regularly. No. Posts, for me, came and went but this one was particularly hard to start.

I've been dreading this day for months now, when I'd finally put all of this in words but now the time has come and so, out with it.

For two years, I adored WAR. I loved it and was proud to play it. I spent hours on it, ditched school, set my desk on fire, let the dishes pile up in the sink. I was a healer and a damn good one at that. It was a title I wore like a medal. No other game could steal me away from it for long and I even had vivid dreams about it. I talked about it, read about it, blogged about it, wrote about it. I loved WAR.

Just... not anymore. I remember a post I wrote once on how people rr80 could still find things to entertain themselves while they waited for the post 80 patch: chase down tome unlocks, roll an alt and... I did all that. And I'm not even rr75 yet. I milked that cow dry and now I'm left holding the saggy tits of the dead thing.

I don't even know why I bothered resubscribing this month. I played it for like 15 minutes and all it did was piss me off. If people keep screaming that they need new content, that something that's not really an expansion doesn't cut it, you should listen. It's like going shopping for a woman having no idea what they like. You have to know the audience you're trying to please. That starts by listening. I think they failed to listen.

Losing interest in WAR was, for me, like losing a dear friend. I spent countless hours having fun with it, I laughed, I debated, I learnt, I taught. But now it's giving me the cold shoulder and I could care more. I could. But I don't and that's what hurts the most. That the game has become something I just don't care about.

I'm hoping that, given enough time, I'll come back to it, pretending to see with fresh eyes that which I'm now so pro at. Meanwhile, I'm going to go give Rift a try. Not that I'm overly impressed with it but I miss playing stuff with other people. At least undil Dragon Age 2 comes knocking.

If anyone finds this, I hope you continue having a great time with WAR, that it fills your life with as much joy and entertainment as it did mine, once.

Now and Then, Here and There

Wonderful anime, that. Featuring what probably is the cartoon boy that has suffered the most and grinned and beared it. Too bad this post has nothing to do with it.

No, I'm not dead. It was Christmas.
One thing about Christmas.
I fucking hate Christmas. I hate it to the point of tears, which is usually where it ends up (or starts off as the case may be). New Year's Eve, however, I love, and this year I got drunk to the point of laughing hysterically sitting on the floor behind the couch. Good times.
So that's why I've been away.

Also, Epikk did us the wonderful favour of buying Dragon Age: Origins which brought me back to an old favorite hobby of mine: flirting with fictional hunks.

A few years back I had a huge crush on Carth Onasi. You remember him, right? The blumbering widower from KotOR. I don't know exactly why, but I almost intantly fell in love with the thing. And I call it a thing cuz I have no delusions about what it is. It's a thing, a remarkably well made and endearing thing, but a thing. Maybe it's the voice behind the thing (somewhere, a voice-actor is blushing right now) that spawned that crush in me, I don't know. Probably.

But, for a time, I could do nothing else but play through KotOR over and over again, finding new ways to romance it and break its heart. I know most fans of the game actually hated it and I can see why. It could be a bit whiny. But what man, fictional or otherwise, isn't at times?

That was then - now, its Alistair. He's my crush for the new year.

Alistair is the spiritual successor to Carth in many ways. It's just as whiny but I find it a bit more witty. Plus the british-like accent is a nice change. So, while my modem is all up in a rage, I have succumbed back into BioWare's grip, romancing their fictional hunks. I spend hours in camp, flirting with other party members just so he'll tell me how hurt and jealous he is. Come to think of it, better I do that in a game than in real life, right?

Problem is, Epikk liked the game so much he's considering buying Mass Effect as well. Oh, dear, this does not bode well for my sanity. I just know there's at least one more virtual hunk in there for me to fall for. A girl can only have so many crushes at once.

That thing about the modem: I don't know what's wrong with it, it keeps disconecting both our 360 (which is really anti-climactic when you're making out with your choice of pixels) and Epikk's new pc. Also, since we received our new bedroom furniture (crafted by a very old, very rikety hermit in Sweden that has a contract with a very big, very famous furniture selling company that starts with an I, ends in an A and has the letters K and E somewhere in the middle) we had to disband our "junk room" so it could be turned into our bedroom. Junk, however has a habit of not magically storing itself in appropriate places so we now find ourselves with the den, where the computers are stored and used, as a temporary "junk room". I'm afraid to go in there. Not only because it pains me to know I'll be doing the bulk of the cleaning and storing but also because there's a big ass mirror against a wall that I'm always afraid will fall on me when I open the door.