My cello is itching!

While I’m still trying to finish my latest post on Lore and the Windrunner family, I found this little gem: Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ played by four cellos.

I should let my hair grow...

If you still have doubts about my theory (and I’m of course the first to ever have said that…) that the cello is the one instrument most capable of mimicking the human voice and its emotions and the Kol Nidrei has not convinced you yet, give this a listen.

Mixing classical instruments with soft metal rock or pop music in general is usually dubious at best and has a tendency to birth disasters. In this case though, I feel like the original song’s power is perfectly translated through the harmonics and crescendos of those four cellos. This cover actually brings out something new and unexpected from the song.

This gave me the same feeling than when I saw Mat Weddle of Obadiah Parker sing his acoustic version of ‘Hey Ya’ by Outkast. It shed a new light on this already great song and it made me like it even more for it. You can be a great technician and make a perfect cover of a song but when you actually add something the original lacked or hid, you’re an artist in my books.

That also reminded me to weep a little inside thinking about Jeff Buckley and the great things he should have brought to our ears. His cover of Hallelujah still gets me every time. Even Leonard Cohen’s barbarian of a brother gets teary when he listens to it.

Once I’m elected president of Europe, I’ll make sure death becomes illegal… except for medicinal purposes.

When did Lando grow a moustache?

Back on subject, Apocalyptica is a Finnish cello rock band from Helsinki. It’s composed of four, obviously, classicaly trained cellists with mostly long hair and untrimmed facial hair. Their 1996 debut album was all Metallica covers but they’ve since started recording their own original scores. They are the first Finnish band to ever reach the top of the american Billboard rock chart with their single ‘I don’t care‘. Their cute little names are Eicca Toppinen, Paavo Lötjönen, Max Lilja, and Antero Manninen and they all graduated from the Sibelius Academy. All their music is available on Amazon and, after all, it’s the season for half naked women, minus one boob, to ride their proud stallions across the snowy landscapes…

A propos, if I haven’t bored you yet, please listen to Sibelius concerto for violin solo. That’s some truly epic music…

Lore for Dummies, myself included… (part 1)

Ever since I started playing World of Warcraft, I’ve had a thing for its Lore. I listen to many different podcasts about this game and I make a point to pay a lot of attention every time a Lore segment comes up. Unfortunately, most of time, it seems that the hosts/narrators assume I already have a solid knowledge about this fantasy world and its main protagonists. I don’t have this background though and that’s why I put a lot of effort into listening religiously to the stories I’m being told. So I end up more confused, than before and I quickly lose interest, it never fails…

What I need is someone to take the time and explain it all from the beginning to my precious self. Podcasts hosts seem, for the most part, to care about their audience but I doubt they’re waiting for me to call them so they can spend a few hours on Skype and lay it all out for me in simple words.

Thus I’m a pretty frustrated Loremaster or was until recently…

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up this manga version of The Sunwell trilogy and the first five pages or so didn’t even have any drawings on them! Feeling cheated into actually having to read words, I drank myself into oblivion and bought a goat on Amazon.fr …

The next morning, as my new goat was being delivered, I sat down with a nice cup of coffee and proceeded to actually give this ‘reading’ thing a try. In simple English words and coherent sentences, the genesis of Azeroth was explained to me in a manner I had not encountered before. It all seemed so simple all of a sudden: the Titans, Sargeras, the dragon aspects all seemed to come to life in my mind.

On these pages, I will try to share some of this in a simple and unassuming manner. Hopefully, it’ll help other lore-noobs like me out there to grasp some understanding of this world we play in. Some players might actually enjoy this game even more for it. I know that for me, in these times of patch expection, it was a source of unsuspected enjoyement and it shone a new light on a lot of characters, regions and questlines.

Azeroth seen from the roof of the Black Temple

In today’s installment, I’ll go over the origins of Azeroth, the Titans and Sargeras.

The Titans are a bunch of almighty giant god-like creatures who travel the universe trying to bring order to it. They take planets, terraform them, stabilize them, put life on them and then move on to the next.

They are governed by a group called the Pantheon. This elitist sect chooses one of its members and one of their most powerful warrior, Sargeras, to defend their multiple creations against the demons of the Twisting Nether.

Sargeras

The Twisting Nether is a parallel dimension where demons and other abominations roam free. It’s not really a different universe but more like a separate level of the same universe. As such, it’s never far away from the world our characters live on, it’s like a layer surrounding it on all sides.

Teleportation and translocation spells are said to use that place in order to bend the physical world and create ‘wormholes’ between different locations in the physical world. Warlocks’ Ritual of Summoning, mages’ Portals and shamans’ Astral Recall apparently make their users go through that nightmarish realm in order to save a few copper in taxi fares.

This Twisting Nether is also where warlocks summon their minions from and it is the reason why you cannot choose names for them as hunters do with their pets. They’re not so much created by warlocks than picked from a wriggling bunch of them and injected on Azeroth. A great example of this are the Infernals, which come from the skies in a very meteor-like fashion.

Infernal landing!

So now we have Sargeras, this extremely powerful Titan fighting demons across the universe. He’s very good at this and the Pantheon completely trusts him with his demon bouncer functions. The job slowly gets to him though and he starts questionning his masters. After millenia of demon bashing, he finally, loses his mind and ends up blaming the titans themselves for the origin of chaos within their creations.

He now believes Chaos is the only pure and true form of the universe and that the Titans are corrupting it by bringing their so-called order where it doesn’t belong. He decides to dedicate his existence to destroy everything the Titans have created.

On the planet Argus, Sargeras finds the Eredars, a race of extremely evolved and magically inclined giant goats. They have built a huge civilization and have prospered undisturbed on their planet for millenia. He goes to the three leaders of the advanced species and promises them immense powers in exchange for their allegiance and assistance.

Kil’jaeden and Archimonde immediately join the Dark Titan hoping to get some imba loot but Velen disagrees. He refuses to succomb to the demonic powers and ends up having to flee with his followers and the help of K’ure, a Naaru. The energy being offers to take Velen and the loyal eredars to safety. They escape from Argus in the naaru ship Oshu’gun.

Oshu'gun in the middle of Nagrand

You can find this ship still embedded in the fields of Nagrand. K’ure is still there, imprisonned and guarded by the Burning Legion minions. For the quest When Spirits Speak (part of the Hero of the Mag’har quest chain) Mother Kashur asks you to find him and he, then, sends you back to speak to A’dal in Shattrath. By the way, at the end of that quest chain, the moment when Thrall comes back to visit his homeland is, in my opinion, one of the best in the game. It’s up there with the Wrathgate chain…

K'ure in Oshugun, you're free little Naaru, run away!

Velen and his followers now call themselves the Draenei (exiled ones) as they are being chased across the cosmos by Sargeras‘ army which is now called the Burning Legion under the orders of Kil’jaeden. During this exodus, K’ure becomes Velen’s friend and mentor and after centuries, they finally settle on a ’safe’ planet they call Draenor (which became Outlands at the release of Burning Crusade). This is where they meet the Orcs, a shamanistic and noble society with whom they live peacefully for a while.

The Burning Legion eventually discovers Draenor. Kill’jaeden decides to make the Orcs part of his army and to force them to fight the Draenei. For this, the eredar corrupt the Orcs, give them access to warlocks magic and transform them into a bloodthirsty race of warmongers. The Orcs, manipulated by Kill’jaeden, wage war on the Draenei, destroy their cities and kill most of them. Velen barely manages to escape with a few survivors and they find refuge in Zangarmarsh.

All that travelling made him cranky...

You can still find two Draenei settlements in Zangarmarsh: Orebor Harborage and Telredor. The latter one is probably the one where most of them fled after the Orcs turned on them.

After a period of time, the length of which I couldn’t really figure out, the Draenei eventually come out of hiding and manage to take control of The Exodar, the fourth wing of the Tempest Keep complex floating in Netherstorm.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to find out more on how Kael’thas took over this former Naaru fortress in a future episode…

Tempest Keep in Netherstorm

What the Draenei don’t know is that their new spaceship has been sabotaged by the bloodelves. Upon taking off from Draenor/Outlands, they lose control of the Exodar and come crashing on Azeroth, on the Azuremyst Isles. Velen and the survivors of the crash-landing salvage everything they can from the Exodar and slowly start rebuilding their society.

As Kil’jaeden’s revenge has supposedly been carried out upon the traitor Draenei, Sargeras is now free to push for more and more destruction across the universe. He charges Kil’jaeden to seek out the darkest and most usable races of the vast universe and to force them into the Burning Legion ranks. He makes Archimonde the general of his armies and orders him to lead them on a Burning Crusade across the universe.

The Exodar, the missing fourth wing of Tempest Keep

At this time, the Titans are unaware of the evil deeds their champion is comitting and keep on trucking through the universe searching for planets to inseminate with life. Eventually, they find a small planet which its inhabitants will later call Azeroth. They spend centuries creating mountains and oceans in order to make it as perfect as possible. In the center of its unique continent, they place the Well of Eternity, an incredible source of energy in order to feed the planet with life. Slowly, plants, trees and all sorts of creatures take over the barren lands and start spreading all over the small planet. On their last day of work, the Titans name this continent Kalimdor, the land of eternal light.

Before leaving the planet to its own destiny, in order to protect it against any possible threat, the Titans decide to grant a shred of their powers to some of the main creatures of Azeroth. Amongst the many dragons living on Kalimdor, there were five main clans (or aspects) dominating the rest. The five rulers of these aspects each receive a special gift from four Titans of the Pantheon.

Nozdormu during a quest in Dragonblight

Aman’Thul, el capo di tutti li Titani, gives some of his power to Nozdormu the Lord of Time, of the Bronze Aspect. He control how time flows on Azeroth.

Eonar, Patron of all Life, shares her power with Alexstrasza the Life Binder, of the Red Aspect, to protect all living things in the world. Her sister, Ysera, the Dreamer, shares with her some of that duty and rules the Green Aspect. Her duty is to watch over all the growing wilds of the world.

Norgannon, the Lore-Keeper, instills his magic to Malygos the Spellweaver, of the Blue Aspect, in order to safeguard the very essence of magic.

Finally, Khaz’goroth, Forger of the World, bestows some of his vast power to Neltharion the Earthwarder, of the Black Aspect, to give him control of the earth and its depths. The Old Gods will eventually make this puppy crazy and he will end up becoming Deathwing during the War of the Ancients.

Alexstrasza the Life-Binder at the Wrathgate

Azeroth is born but a phantom menace (!!) looms over it and, eventually, Sargeras gets drawn to its careless magic users…

Lore, I am your master! Stop flirting with your sister!

After a couple of weeks of hard work, I finally got my Loremaster achievement and colors.

Lore, get me a drink!

Fortunately, I love questing so it wasn’t too much of a pain, not as bad as, for example, getting an epidural. More on that another time…

While Eastern Kingdoms, Outlands and Northrend went by like a breeze, Kalimdor made me want to stick needles under my nails. The last 40 of the 685 quests needed had me running Wailing Caverns, Razorfen Kraul and Downs and the very confusing Maraudon multiple times. Fun times were had by most…

With 4 quests to go and no idea where to find them, I ended up having to switch my Desolace centaurs reputation. I had to go from hated to friendly with the Magram. At 20 points per kill, it took around 600 dead horsemen to make the switch and open up the opposite faction’s quest line. That’s a lot of meat but eventually that last quest in the line got me to 685 quests completed in Kalimdor!

Yup, centaurs look just like chicken once on the grill...

During this painful ordeal, I scoured every Kalimdor zones with the low level quest tracker on praying to see the beautiful little yellow exclamation point appear on the minimap. By the way, there are two addons I found invaluably helpful. Carbonite, amongst its many features, colors the map to show where quest mobs/items are found. The Loremaster addon puts a note on every quest in your log to let you know if it counts for a regional part of the loremaster meta achievement. Another resource that really helped me was the comments to the Kalimdor part of the achievement on Wowhead. Obviously, the Alliance version has much more info, including several lists of hard to find quests and quest starting items/rare mobs.

While running around Kalimdor, I discovered many interesting/funny things and here are two I found worth sharing.

Poor Sea Wolf

First, in Booty Bay, I met “Sea Wolf” MacKinley starring angrily at a map of Thousand Needles with knives poking through it. Could this be related to Cataclysm? Does he wish he could take his ship there? Did Blizzard grant him his wish by flooding the zone in the next expansion??? I was most likely perturbed by my race against yellow exclamation marks and it clouded my reason. I wished I could have told him to rejoice and prepare his fleet because his wish was on its way.

Loramus the quick-footed?

In Azshara, I turned a quest at Loramus Thalipedes. This poor NPC is stranded on a lonely island off of the coast of Ashzara. His only companions are three fellhunters, his warglaives and his magic bandana.

The guy is one of the only two demon hunters on Azeroth yet he spends his life on a tiny island of solitude…
But what are those demon hunters? Good question!

I'd roll on THAT!

Demon hunters are warriors who gave up everything to gain abilities essential to fighting the Burning Legion. They’re social outcasts since they chose to wield chaotic powers to fight chaos itself. You can see a bunch of them training on top of the Black Temple in Shadowmoon Valley.

They usually wield two large warglaives akin to the Twin Blades of Azzinoth and most of them wear a bandana around their eyes. The female demon hunters tend to not wear that band of cloth and, actually, not much clothing at all above the waist… to distract their foes in battle probably…

A sign of their chaotic affiliation is that they traditionnally burn their own eyes out in order to gain spectral sight to help detect demons/undeads more easily. That’s why they wear those funky bandanas in order to spare us all the sight of their eyeless sockets…

Players can wear the Cursed Vision of Sargeras, dropped by Illidan Stormrage himself! This head piece, quite appropriately gives you a demon tracking ability. By the way, that item should be amber, the color of Illidan’s former eyes and it should also be called the Cursed Vision of Lady Vashj, since she’s the one who gave it to him. See the Illidan’s Bandana Retcon for more info on this particular topic.

That bandana is black not amber...

Illidan Stormrage is the most famous and first of this class of enigmatic warriors. Also called the Betrayer, Illidan, twin brother of Malfurion turned his back on Azeroth and his people to serve Sargeras during the War of the Ancients. The leader of the Burning Legion and former Champion of the Pantheon burned Illidan’s eyes to alter his vision in order to better fight demons and undeads.

He fights in a very feminine attire... hint?

Another famous demon hunter is Leotheras the Blind. Out of five bloodelves sent by Kael’thas Sunstrider to Illidan to become demon hunters, only two survived: Varedis and Leotheras. The latter apparently lost his mind and ended up serving Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Caverns.
He is, in my opinion, one of the most fun bosses to fight in the game to this day.

The other blood elf who survived the excrutiating training of Illidan is Varedis. You can find him training the new demon hunters I mentionned on top of the Black Temple.

One last note. Warriors of any race can eventually become demon hunters. Most of them are Night Elves and a minority are Bloodelves. There are apparently even Human ones guarding Mount Hyjal .

FOR THE LORE!!!

Since my Loremaster title, I feel obligated to actually know a little about this Lore, of which I’m apparently the master… I’ve been reading some of the many Warcraft books and from now on, I’ll try my best to share some of that on these pages. I listen to many World of Warcraft podcasts and I always love the Lore segments of those but they often leave me more confused than before. Most of the time, those stories are told in a very esoteric way that seems aimed at people with an already vast knowledge of the history of Azeroth. So in order to make sense of it all, I’m starting at the beginning, with the Titans and will work my way down from there… Baby steps… baby steps…

Next time on these pages: Are the Windrunner the Ewings of Azeroth?

Cheers!

Elite Tauren Chieftains

A couple of days ago, some old friends and I wanted to get a feel of our old favorite instance Karazhan. I figured the fastest way to get there, was to use the Direbrew’s Remote and fly from Thorium Point to Stonard. So we ended up at the Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths.

TAFKAL80ETC

Once in the tavern, someone spoke to an NPC called Ognip Blastbolt (that’s a Goblin name if I ever heard one) which triggered an event I had no idea existed. Out of nowhere, The Elite Tauren Chieftains started playing Power of the Horde. The show lasted for about 5 minutes with fireworks and everything!

Copy and paste the following console command in game to hear it anytime:

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Music\\ZoneMusic\\DMF_L70ETC01.mp3")

Their actual name is “The Artists Formerly known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain”, abbreviated as TAFKAL80ETC for simplicity… The band members are all people working at Blizzard.

Mike Morhaime is Maï’Kyl bass player and, as a hobby, also president and co-founder of Blizzard… Samwise Didier is Samuro the lead singer and art director of Blizzard Entertainement. Chris Sigaty is Sig Nicious the rythm guitarist and lead producer of Starcraft II. Dave Berggren is Bergrisst the lead guitarist and finally Alan Dabiri is Chief Thunder-Skins, the drummer. Also known as the guy who likes to hang out with musicians.

Silvermoon City, where the party is at...

Besides summoning them in BRD (if you have the Direbrew Remote), you can see the band hanging out on a balcony in Silvermoon City as part of a Children’s quest, Now, When I Grow Up… They also play at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath City every 3 hours.

Hot and steamy!

Another fun thing I discovered about the Grim Guzzler that night is that when you turn in the quest The Love Potion, Mistress Nagmara runs out with Private Rocknot. You can find them under a stairway flirting like shy teenagers…

Raggy

By the way, we actually never even went to Karazhan that night and, instead, went to clear Molten Core and a lot of fun was had by everyone.

More on classical music and warcraft

Just a quick update on my last post on the music of World of Warcraft. In a comment (the only one…) Mann said that his favorite music in the game is the Azuremyst Isle theme. I just checked it and it actually is very enjoyable and very soothing. The oboe (clarinet too?) and harp theme is very tuned to the surroundings and my dirty undead warlock’s Karma almost got cleansed by it! I had to go pay Prophet Velen an extremely short visit in order to get back to the dark side.

and I totally pwned him!

That got me thinking about the music in the older regions of Azeroth and, then, I remembered my first steps as a Blood Elf on Sunstrider Isle, in Eversong Woods and in Ghostlands. I had forgotten about it but those zones have some of the best theme music in the game. The cello dominating the soundtrack is, obviously, dear to my heart as I’ve been playing the damn thing since I was eight.

That soundtrack came out with Burning Crusade and was written by Russel Brower, Derek Duke and Matt Uelmen. Besides the obvious graphical overhaul since the launch of vanilla WoW, you can definitely tell that Blizzard has paid a lot of attention to the mood and feel of those new zones. The Blood Elves and Draenei starting zones have awesome soundtracks and the whole music of Northrend is some of the best written for a computer game in my opinion.

It’s a funny thing, the cello. Most people just know it’s some kind of big violin but most of them have been affected by it at some level. Whenever you watch a movie and the general mood seems to switch to melancholy/nostalgia, listen carefully to the music. Chances are that a cello took over the score. I read once that the cello had such a profound effect on human emotions because it was the one instrument whose frequencies resonated the most with the human voice. I have to say that listening to Teodora Miteva play the Kol Nidrei by Max Bruch, automatically brings tears in my eyes… and I’m a tough cookie when it comes to letting my emotions seep through!

Me no shed tears

Talking about tear jerking music, Symphony No.3 by Gorecki is absolutely amazing. I can only listen to it on sunny days or when I’m high on serotonin… It was first played in a church in Warsaw to commemorate the atrocities committed by the nazys during world war II. It’s heartwrenching as it is but when you know that the lyrics for the second movement are based on words that were scribbled by a woman on a Gestapo cell wall, it’s, well, too much for words really.

One last thing about the resonance of instruments with humans. In the song Jenny Wren by Paul Mc Cartney, he used an instrument called Duduk. It’s a traditionnal middle and eastern Europe flute thingy and when I first heard it, I couldn’t tell if that was someone’s voice or something else.

Listen to it and tell me that’s not one of the prettiest instruments you’ve ever heard, after the cello…

The kids love it when I pull out my guitar while they're playing Guitar Hero

Sounds of Warcraft

I’m a music lover and I absolutely adore most of the music in World of Warcraft. We owe it to great composers like Russell Brower, Jason Hayes, Tracy W. Bush, Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford and Neal Acree.

Some people will argue that computer game soundtrack isn’t art and that the only real quality music was written over a century ago. I, obviously, disagree and I hate music snobs…

What people think of as ‘Classical’ music has always been the soundtrack of entertainement, although the official classical period only spans less than a century from 1750 to 1820. Starting around the 9th century, sacred medieval music was played during Christian and Jewish lithurgies and while we don’t have much traces of it, secular music of the time was probably played at courts to entertain local rulers. This is the case all the way until the 18-19th centuries when operas were the blockbusters of the time.

Beautiful gregorian score

Today, since Mass and operas aren’t so popular anymore, ‘classical’ music is found in soundtracks. Wether it’s to accompany movies, games or TV series, composers still help us get away from our daily lives. They transport us in different places and times just with sound!

One day, I’m sure, the soundtracks of World of Warcraft will be what people think of as ‘classical’ music. Orchestras will play them at wedddings and celebrations. Some already do like the Symphonic Game Music Concerts in Germany, the Orchestral Game Music Concerts in Japan and PLAY! A Videogame Symphony in the US.

I’ve actually bought some WoW music on iTunes like Seasons of War or Lament of the Highborn. Take that last one. Sylvanas Windrunner sings it when you turn in the quest Journey to Undercity . You can start that mini quest chain by looting a Lady’s Necklace on Fallen Ranger or Deatholme Acolytes in Ghostlands. This song, composed by Derek Duke and Russell Brower, is a tribute to the elves who fought and died during the Fall of Quel’thalas and the War of the Ancients. Don’t tell me that’s not classical music!

If you didn’t get the quest or just don’t feel like going to Ghostlands you can copy and paste

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Music\\GlueScreenMusic\\BCCredits_Lament_of_the_Highborne.mp3")

in a chat window in game and you’ll hear Sylvanas singing no matter where you are.

Sylvanas and her pals

Besides that awesome song, my favorite ambiance music is probably in Grizzly Hills. Although some people think it sounds a little too much like the theme of Deliverance, I love that fiddle/violin music and I don’t care if I have to put my pet on aggressive so that Gnoll hillbillies don’t sneak up behind me… Plus, the serene and relaxing atmosphere really helps while you’re fishing for that damn Sea Turtle…

Sneaky little hillbillies...

One last note, thanks to the console commands in World of Warcraft, not only can you tweak many audio/video settings, you can also use them to listen to any song/sound file from the game. Whether you want to hear Illidan commenting on your preparedness or Prince saying how he’s not alone and that he will kick your butt with the help of the legions he commands. Here you can download a text list of all the soundfiles links including the new ones from Wrath of the Lich King. Some of my favorites:

Thorim: In the mountain

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\Thorim\\UR_Thorim_Start02.wav")

Illidan: You are not prepared

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\Illidan\\BLACK_Illidan_04.wav")

Ingvar the Plunderer : I will paint my face with your blood

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\IngvarThePlunderer\\IngvarAggro.wav")

Prince Malchezaar: You face not Malchezaar alone…

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\PrinceMalchezzar\\PrinceSummon02.wav")

Archimonde: No, it cannot be…

/script PlaySoundFile("Sound\\Creature\\Archimonde\\CAV_Arch_Death01.wav")

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. It always brings back such good memories to hear those bosses’ quotes. Especially when you spent week after week wiping on them and those quotes were slowly driving you and your raidmates mad…

I finally got my pretty Dragonhawk!!

Hallow’s End treats FTW

Hallowed

Hallow’s End started over a week ago and  I finally managed to get the squashling pet I needed for the meta-achievement. A couple of nights ago, while raiding, I made an interesting discovery. The buff from the Soothing Spearmint Candy and the Pyroblast Cinnamon Ball actually stack to 4 times. Meaning the spearmint can give you +44 spell power and the cinnamon +24 spell power. Nice buff for such an easy to get item.

But there is more! Those two buffs stack with your regular +46 spell power food buff (from Fish Feast or Firecracker Salmon), giving you a total of 90 spell power just from food and candies… So make you sure you visit as many Innkeepers as you can and complete all the Candy Bucket quests to fill up on those awesome treats

/drool

Tired…

A fresh week is upon us and I already wish it was over. The last one never seemed to end and just blended into this one. Mind you I’m not complaining. On the contrary, you get a weird feeling of accomplishement (martyrdom?) after working so damn much!

We have such glamorous jobs...

The week in numbers: 96 hours at the hospital in 6 days and around 40 patients put asleep and, mostly, woken up… I got home Sunday at 10 a.m.  and was back at work monday morning at 7 so my week-end lasted a whooping 21 hours!

My girls

No matter which MMO I play, I always end up creating a female toon. That’s the case in World of Warcraft, Guildwars and Warhammer. The only online game where my character is a male is Eve but it’s just a face who is never going to leave the ship and walk around. What does that say about me?  That I’m a caring and gentle person?  Hopefully!

My main toon

The way I look at it, all it means is that I’d rather watch a girly character run around on my screen than a hairy, bulky behind. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it’s just that, well, if I wanted to stare at a buff, manly, unshaven figure, I would just put a mirror next to my screen, kinda…

It’s a fact of life: feminine lines are more pleasing to the eye than their rough and choppy male counterparts. Curves are prettier than angles and, since  I’m colorblind (protanomal to be precise) I can’t see male Bloodelves…

I learned how to tank on Mount Hyjal...

There also something to be said for the dichotomy of the fragile, “weak” figure nuking to smithereens some random mobs or tanking a huge boss. Take my protection pally for example. I love the esthetics of this frail, pale and frankly sickly looking Blood Elf tanking Prince in Kara or being submerged by a ton of mobs and erupting victorious from the pile of corpses. AOE grinding is more fun when it ‘looks’ like you shouldn’t be able to make it!
The same goes for my Death Knight who is even more pale and fragile looking under her black/purple spikey armor.

As everyone, I rolled a DK

My only male character in WoW is, of course, a Night Elf Hunter. He was my first steps on Azeroth and by level 4, I had grown tired of him… The Nelf Hunter is the most common race/class combo in the game. I thought that this was only the reflection of most people’s first few hours of game time (mirroring mine) but, when you look at every 5 level brackets from 10 to 80, the statistics are pretty much identical throughout. Just check  the Warcraft Realms Census.

So what makes this combination so popular? I think it comes from several factors. First, the elves are deeply imbedded in our fantasy (sub)culture. From Tolkien to Dungeons and Dragons, they are a reckognisable and familiar token of those universes. On the same level, in my opinion, as dragons themselves, which you can’t roll… yet… You could argue that Drawves are also representative of that paradigm but those exist, in some way, in the real world and that makes them less “mythical”. Players want to have some familiar faces around them in this huge place. It’s only some time later that you tend to challenge yourself by venturing outside of your comfort zone. Keep in mind that the bloodelves were only introduced with Burning Crusade.

Secondly, people like having a pet. Whether it’s to be able to offload the dirty jobs or for the feeling of companionship, which you can often find lacking when you spawn on Azeroth, it seems like a logical/natural path to follow. The Warlock, eventhough a pet-class as well, doesn’t really feel like your playing with “someone”. It could just come from the inability to pick your minions’ names, from the way you can’t raise them or, more likely, from the fact that you can only have one of 6 or 7 different models. Your pet won’t feel special when you go have lunch with your fellow Nether demon lovers. Even if its name sounds like an iPod in a blender.

Obligatory night elf hunter...

Finally, I was trying to remember why I chose to make a night-elf hunter and what could have directly influenced me at that moment. The original WoW trailer shows a Dwarf hunter launching his huge bear against a Tauren shaman. The bear gets crushed by a single blow but it still looks awesome to able to control such a wild and furious animal.

Then if you look at the user-guide (that I had just read religiously at the time) mentions hunter as deadly marksmen, capable of bringing their enemies down from a distance with bows or rifles. Skilled survivalists, they can track enemies or lay traps to damage and entrap their foes.. On the Nightelf page, you can find this: As a race, Night Elves are typically honorable and just, but they are very distrusting of the ‘lesser races’ of the world. They are nocturnal by nature and their shadowy powers often elicit the same distrust that they have for their mortal neighbors… that and they have Shadowmeld!

So we have, ranged damage dealers with pets which can be used to tank or help dps. They can lay traps, tame beasts of any color, furry or scaly. They are honorable, nocturnal and can vanish. Damn, this is making me want to play one! Maybe  I’ll try it, just for a few hours/days/months…

By the way, I know that it’s illegal to read user-guides or manuals. I usually throw them in the fire like everyone else. It’s just that when you’re waiting for your new game to install, you’ll read anything to make time seem to go faster… Mea maxima culpa, sue me…

Archeology is going to be so much fun!

The Dark Lady appeared and drew birds in the sand with my tears

The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a Deli. It is a gloomy October day, the kind you learn to live through around these parts where, sometimes, Autumn seems to be the only season ever invented. It is around 9 pm when I finally arrive home after a long, dreary day of work and a 1 hour drive through fog and drizzle. My shoes are off and I’m slowly starting to feel like the day has ended at last. My only plan is to spend the rest of the evening in front of a soul-warming open fire in the chimney and next to my sweetheart.
On cue, she appears with a warm cup of coffee and all feels good in the world. She sits next to me slowly and proceeds to remind me of the concert we are supposed to attend a little later that night…

He was ten stories high if he was a foot. I can see directly into the eye of the great fish! Mammal! How can I possibly get up from the couch, get dressed and head out in this depressing weather? The singer we are supposed to go listen to is Andrew Bird. A very good friend of ours works for a small independant label in Western NY and they’ve just signed him up. We promised her to go listen to him if he ever came to Belgium and that day is here…
After some discussion, some coaxing and, probably, naughty promises; my soul is sold to my devil and we head out in the, now, pouring rain…
At around 10.30 pm, we finally get to the place. It’s an old train station turned into a  concert venue. We get some drinks and proceed to the stage. I’m exhausted, my whole body begs for mercy, I want to be home and the flatish beers aren’t helping.

The man and his violin

Andrew Bird gets on stage, tunes his violin, turns some knobs, clears his throat, makes the usual speech in which he loves *city* in *country* and starts playing. Just his violin at first, then some more violin on top of parts he’s recording and replaying. Then the magic happens. His voice/whistling blends with the sound of his many violin ’solos’ overlapping each other in a sublime harmony. There is no more rain, no more fog. I don’t remember the day I just spent at the hospital, I am not tired anymore. I don’t wish to be anywhere else than right there and then, holding my beauty with one hand and a flat beer in the other. And this goes on for 2-3 hours of perfect bliss. Even the beer starts tasting good. All in all, after fighting exhaustion and the elements; and against all odds, we’re attending one of the best concerts of our lives. And I should, my live concert cherry was popped before my 14th birthday when I attended ‘Monsters of Rock’. I was dating an older girl from Australia and she got me to see Metallica, ACDC, Motley Crew and Queensryche live in Hasselt Belgium…

So get out there, Andrew Bird is touring the US and Europe for the next couple of months so check out his official page. You’ll thank me if you get so lucky to see him on stage. One last thing, he’s kind of shy so don’t mistake the fact that he usually keeps to himself for vanity, his heart lives light-years away from that. Further than the Kessel Run!