Nostalgia Explained

In my post about timewalking, I touched on how revamping old dungeons and 'updating' them for current content was one of the ways Blizzard has tried to accommodate people who want to revisit some of their favorite old dungeons. I also mentioned that I'm really not a fan of this method.

pictured: not me

Now, I understand the arguments in favor of revamping dungeons. One big one is the stories in them are outdated and they seem irrelevant. Why wouldn't the Gilnean traitors see Shadowfang Keep and say "that would make a good base of operations"? It makes sense that Scholomance would have changed over the last so many years since we first visited it, the school must be getting funding from somewhere. It makes sense that Warlord Zaela would commandeer UBRS and use it as a stakeout point for her planned invasion of alliance cities. Wouldn't it make sense that the old threats within them have been successfully neutralized? Why wouldn't big baddies see these strategically placed structures as a cool place to go start a new cult of evildoers?

But my gut says "Now why would you go and do something like that? Didn't you see the sign that said 'DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!'?"

How will we finish testing with the self-destruct mechanism active?

World of Identity Crisis

It's been a little under three months since my guild dissolved. We had been struggling since WoD's release, a veritable rollercoaster of events with an initial huge influx of new members, the splitting off of one of our best healers, followed by a full split of the entire guild where both our most casual and most hardcore people left the guild for different perceived reasons. Our GM quit and we tried to merge with another guild, which failed tremendously. We had just enough good people to hold on while we tried to rebuild, but recruiting was impossible. Of the about six good people that were holding us together, three of them left to greener pastures due to our stagnation. We were done.

We never made it to a level of progression and success that I was used to, and I've been struggling with Warlords as an expansion on its own since December of last year. Without a guild, a raiding schedule, or any interesting content, I haven't had much reason to play the game. I keep logging in, though, and I want to play. I don't know if I should look for a new guild or not. I feel completely conflicted about what I think I should do right now.

A More or Less Wonderful Life

One of my favorite Harvest Moon games, and favorite games in general, was A Wonderful Life on Gamecube. It was also one of my mom's favorite games.

it's actually one of the most different games in the franchise, too

My mom started dabbling in video games right before I had become a teenager. The first kinds of games she played were simulation games, typically a lot of stuff with tycoon at the end, The Sims being the game she ultimately binged the hardest on when first starting out.

Nostalgia and Addiction - a Warcraft Story

I bought a filing cabinet today because I am an adult. After setting up the hanging folders and putting all my important papers into a heap, I went through and ended up finding things from many years ago.

I'll figure this out

One thing in particular I found was a creative writing assignment I had in high school. I threw it away hastily in embarrassment, but not before looking through it.

In it, I had to write 6 separate pieces in an assortment of types of poetry and/or prose. Two of the six had been directly influenced by World of Warcraft and one of them was loosely influenced, with an additional drawing I had included for the final several page story.

I had this creative writing class in 2006-07 and graduated in 07. TBC came out about six months before I graduated from school (and on said release date, I lied and said school was cancelled so I could play, which was accepted without question for some reason), though I was in high school throughout all of Vanilla, and it almost caused me to be in high school longer than necessary.

The Art of Falling Behind

I think I'm looking at about the fifth time that I'll be behind the curve in game. It's been happening with more and more frequency as the expansions come and go, but the first time I ever fell behind was actually in TBC.

the one with the red hellfire peninsula

The difference back then was that I was still actively playing. Something about the game when I hit 70 prompted me to just chill, fly around, and farm rather than joining my guild in raiding. As I began to see more and more people in Shattrath with raid gear and, most notably, tier sets, I got frustrated and wanted to raid again. Unfortunately, I can never be happy playing the game without raid gear - yeah, just the gear. I really like raiding, but ultimately, it's the high end gear that I can't stand not having. I'm not saying I'm in favor of systems that grant raid gear to you without requiring some amount of raiding from you, just that basically I get frustrated when I'm not ahead of the curve. I know it sounds elitist, but I'm not really afraid to admit it.

Since my first raiding break back then, I have taken breaks from the game with increasing frequency and managed to always find myself needing to play catch up. Right now, in light of all of the work I've been doing to move and the fact that I still have rooms full of boxes and bags of clothes, I won't have much time, or frankly interest, to play to try and maintain my character between guilds since my latest dissolution.

Qualifications: World of Warcraft Player

Video games are pretty often considered to be a "waste of time." Yes, excessive video game playing isn't the best, but overdoing anything isn't usually a fantastic idea. Fruit is great for you, but if you eat too much, you can get stomach ulcers because of the acidity.

but pineapple kicks ass

It's pretty undeniable that video games have distinct, quantifiable benefits. Of course, the benefits depends on what kind of game you're talking about. Simulation builder and construction games can teach you about resource management, risk vs. reward, and the value of preparation and planning. Even simple puzzle games have shown to greatly offset, or even prevent, the development and onset of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. There are war games purposefully and specifically used to help train soldiers in a safe, simulated enviornment. And, well, World of Warcraft can actually teach you a ton about the real world...

Pascal: Origins

of course a master of the zergling rush

I've been playing video games since I was very young. I only played console games until my family got its first computer around when I was 11. The first notable games I played were Starcraft and Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I played other games, but RTS games were by far my favorite.

My brother owned Warcraft 3 but he insisted that I'd break it if I played it, so he never let me. I finally played it when I visited my family in Germany - my uncle specifically asked me if there were any games I'd like to play while I was visiting and I asked him for it. Once I got home, I secured myself a copy of it and played it for months.

When World of Warcraft first came out, I didn't even know it existed, but my brother got it a few months after its release. He no longer believed I would break his computer just by touching it and he more or less demanded that I come upstairs and play it.