A Moment of Clarity

Decedereful glared at the sweating man in front of her as he dragged a shaky hand across his brow.  It came away shining with sweat and grime.  The Death Knight frowned at that, but kept her burning blue sockets fixed on his beady brown eyes.  The man obviously still had a problem with her kind and Decedereful was going to use that to her advantage.   

"I'll ask you one last time.  What do you know about Bright Runes?" Decedereful growled, the omnipresent tin in her voice seeming more like steel.

"Lady, I already told you.  I don't know what you want from me, I'm just a simple blacksmith!" the man said, throwing up his hands.

"You're lying! Blacksmiths have to work with runes!  Don't you guys runeforge around here at all?" Decedereful asked incredulously.

"No! We don't bloody do any bloody runeforging.  That's a scourge thing, that is," he said, screwing up his eyes and pointing a pudgy finger at the Death Knight.

"Well... you're missing out!" Decedereful sputtered back.

"Look," the man started nervously, "if you be looking after runes, you'd have a spot more luck with Master Nathane.   He were the son o' the librarian 'fore the war made us all soldiers."

"Nathane.  Ugh.  Of course, it'd be him," Decedereful sighed.

Beady brown eyes regarded blue with trepidation, glancing left and right as if searching for some avenue of escape.  Finally, Decedereful drew herself up and waved the man away, "So be it.  Thanks for nothing."

She stared towards the middle of the camp where a colorful tent flew a large flag, white eagle on red background.  She groaned as she saw the man lounging indolently out front, one leg kicked over the arm of a wooden folding chair as if it were a throne.  His eyes were all on her, almost as if he knew he was her only shot at answers.  The mere thought of it burned her up on the inside.  The man chased after her like some sort of nether addled horse handler, trying to corner her in any place one might be cornered, and now he sat there smiling smugly as if he'd won some sort of victory.  Well, she'd show him!  Marching determinedly across the camp, exuding an aura of a woman on a mission, Decedereful clomped in front of the smarmy man.

"Nathane.  In the tent.  Now!" She ordered.

His flashed a slimy smile in response, eyes glinting mischievously, "Whoa there.  Shouldn't we at least go on a date first?"

Decedereful just stood there, hands planted on her hips as he grinned like a fool.  Slowly, the grin slide from his face and then with a resigned sigh, he stood up and held the tent flap aside for her to enter.  "Ladies first," he said, half bowing.

The flap had hardly settled when she rounded on him, "Now you look here.  No more games.  You're going to tell me what you know about Bright Runes or I'll... I'll..."  She didn't know what she'd do.

"You'll what?  Cut me open and eat me for lunch?" he suggested.  "Dece, you and I both know you're not going to do that.  I've known enough of your kind to realize that your murderous rage is directed at one place, and one place only: Arthas.  You're not in the business of killing allies any more than I am."

"Yeah well, I may not kill you, but I can still make your life pretty unpleasant," Decedereful returned, fingering the hilt on one of the two swords at her waist.  "Why do you have to be so damn difficult?  It's a simple question, for a friend."

"If she was as much of a friend she'd have told you the right of it," Nathane snapped back, then clamped his mouth shut as if he'd said too much.

"What?  Out with it!"  Dece pounced.

Nathane sighed and held up his hands in surrender, "Look, Brightrune is not some sort of written symbol, it's a name.  A person coming around here, looking for Brightrune is probably looking for the Captain." 

"The Captain?" Decedereful echoed.

"No, the Strudel Man," Nathane replied irritably. "Yes, the Captain.  That's what I said isn't it?  And before you ask, no, I can't tell you any more.  I stayed here because I didn't want anything to do with the Brigade.  They all went traipsing off after that tart, Jaina, when there were plenty of problems right here in our own land.  If you want to go meddling in the affairs of the Brigade, then you'd best head to Theramore.  That's all you're going to get from me, dear."

"Captain Brightrune, huh?  Theramore? " Decedereful repeated.  "Well, I guess I'd better catch a boat then.  What's the nearest dock?"

"Menethil  Harbor.  And good riddance!" Nathane said with irritation in his voice, turning away from her and making a show of rifling through some papers on a table.

Decedereful blinked.  The man had been all butter to her until now.  Could her leaving really bother him all that much?  She'd been nothing but rude to the man.  Yet, he had helped her.  Despite the usual prejudices against Death Knights that permeated most humans, he had accepted her at face value.  He had made her feel almost human again with his unflappable pursuits.  He wasn't even all that bad-looking, Decedereful admitted now.  She had places to go, and perhaps haste matters, but her frigidity was poor recompense for the warmth this man had shown her.  The world was not all against her.

Before she really realized what she was doing, Decedereful had cross the room to stand behind the man that had driven her batty the last few months.  She would be leaving after this, and who knows where her adventures would lead her.  She refused to leave more burned bridges in her wake.

Reaching out, she grabbed the Nathane by the shoulders and spun him around.  His eyes narrowed to slit and he opened his mouth, presumably to voice his displeasure, but he soon found his lips under assault.  Decedereful twined her fingers through his dark brown hair and forcefully pushed his skull towards her own.  Her tongue battled through his exterior defenses and found his.  She held him there for a good minute as the battle between them raged on.  Finally, when she could feel him on the verge of surrender, she released him and stepped back.

His mouth hung open as he looked at her and she frowned at his astonishment.  The man had chased her relentlessly and now all he could do was gawk?  His hair was mussed on one side, so Decedereful reached out a hand and smoothed it down, pinching his cheek when she finished.  Nathane stood like a statue, dumbfounded.

"Thank you," the Death Knight said.  Then, with a small smile, she turned and strode from the silent room.

"Yep," she muttered to herself, "still got it."

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Did you hear? Apparently there are, like, changes for classes happening in Cataclysm. No. Way. And, like, Blizz is totally announcing them. Get. Out.

Okay, you got me. I'm being sarcastic. And a little bit valley-girl or something. Whatev. It's just that apparently we're in the grips of a slow news... month? As soon as something - anything - hit the interwebz, everyone decided to write about it. Far be it from me to stop the dead horse beatings. As Sar put it: "Unfortunately, the problem with big announcements is every bloody damned blogger out there writes about them." It sounds really angry if you put it in an Australian accent and pout a bit.  I'm with you, Sar.  Yet here I am, writing about it anyways, because wtf else am I going to write about. 

So, at least I'm going to try to just keep it to my personal musings rantings.  Here's the things that popped out at me.  If you want the full report, I'm sure you can find it around. 

Here are my Warlocky Thoughts:

•  The almost had me on this whole Fel Fire thing.  That is, until they said "this is similar to the Mage ability..."  and anything after that was lost in a blind rage.  Blizz, I appreciate the nod towards green fire and even maybe getting a true instant cast spell that could be useful, but for Light's sake stop treating us like Mages.  It's bad enough you gave them pets and us... nothing.  Probably give them "Super Mage Form" next where they become a huge fire elemental and deal extra damage for a set period of time.  
• There was some shit about buffs.  Yeah, we don't do that.  Next.
• They waved around some feeble ideas for soul shard revamps.  I hope it's not like the carrots in Ocarina of Time when you're riding Epona.  If you're a Legend of Zelda fan, you know what I'm talking about.  I can just picture three little soulshards and an annoying "boowip" sounds as they regen automatically out of combat.  I hope they don't go that route.  I still want to be evil and trap people's souls. 
• Along those lines, I'm not sure about the special "combo" abilities they were suggesting.  Like consuming a UA for some instant damage?  I don't know how that would play out.  If it takes us two casts to do it (put on UA, then like consume a soul and something happens?), it could be useful, but it could also just be too slow.  I'm hoping for something to help Affliction Warlocks on quick dying stuff, but I'm not sure this is the answer.  The soul fire thing looked interesting though.  I love that spell on my Demo 'lock.  Instant cast would be awesome.
• I like what they're doing with haste adding on to the end of DoTs.  It was sort of annoying when you'd get to higher levels of haste and have the darned things dropping off so fast.  I'm hoping this means they scale everything correctly so you don't just get super long DoTs either, but that it's just more ticks in the same amount of time.  This would make fiddling with a rotation a lot more precise.
• I guess splitting up the Curses and making some Banes is a good thing.  I don't know though.  I mean what do I do when not on CotE duty?  CoW?  No way. It would be nice to have CotE and CoA (BoA) up though.  I wouldn't have to feel like I'm sacrificing DPS to help others, and we all know Warlocks are all about being selfish.  (See above buff statement).
• It looks like pets might get more interesting.  As long as I get to keep using my Felpup and he synergizes well, I think I'm okay with this.  I really don't want to have to micro-manage though.  Still, set-it-and-forget-it is kind of boring too.  Maybe we can get a healthy medium?
• They mentioned something about Drain Soul refreshing some stuff.  Looks like they're really trying to make this out finishing move.  Quite frankly, I love it.  I wish all the 'locks pulled out DS at the end.  It looks like we're Ghost Buster's and someone's just throw out that trap thingy of theirs.  Don't cross the streams.
• As for the mastery stuff... what the hell is up with Blizz trying to force crit down our throats?  The stat is totally devalued with Affliction 'locks.  Haste is up near SP in terms of damage per point.  Crit is like half that.  Why would Demo's mastery involved haste but not Affliction?  Ugh.  That's so critty of them.

If you are a DK, I really have only two questions:

1. WTF are they going to do about DW tanking?  I have my guess (it might go away), but I don't have to like it.  
2. Why would we tank in Frost presence and spec in the Blood tree?  I really don't understand their choice of Blood as the "tank tree" here.  I can only hope it'll change or however they implement it will make more damn sense than what I'm seeing in the preview.  Sounds like a huge overhaul though.

All in all, it may sound like I'm sort of pissed about a lot of these changes.  I'm not.  I generally don't like change, but I understand what they're trying to do here.  This is also the reason I generally shy away from PTR crap.  Blizz has this annoying habit of giving us half formed ideas and vague summaries until they're actually ready for release.  It makes sense, because they don't want to get burned later, but if you try to take the changes at face value, I think they usually sound like crap.  We'll see how they end up implementing them, and I have some faith that they'll get most of it right.  They usually do.  For now, we can just pick out the general direction in which Blizz seems to want to head.

For 'locks - I think they're finally going to help some of our "up front" damage.  They're looking at ways to give us more instant stuff and ways to cut DoTs short so they damage all at once.  To me this screams "we want you to be better on add fights".  They also want to make pets more integral, more than just set-it-forget-it.  They want to give us more utility in raid situations.  That's probably a good thing.  It also looks like they want to give Demonology some much needed love.  They want to strengthen our finishing power, and, last but not least, they want to fix the shard system using what they've learned from DKs (you know that's their baseline).  Expect all these things to reflect themselves in the final solution.  The bad news is that they're also going to be looking a lot at what works for Mages and try to apply it a bit for us.  Since I guess we are pretty much Mages that decided to be evil (and badass), it makes sense from a lore point of view I suppose.  I just hope we don't lose the "evil" part.

For DKs - They're going to cut down the trees and plant new ones.  Not totally new, but not the smorgasbord they are today.  It's going to be a lot clearer what tree does what.  There will be a "tank" tree.  It will most likely be Blood.  DW tanking will probably go away.  Sad day.  More on DKs still to come, though.

Now that I've got one spell of Green Fire in the works, I think I want Black Ice for my DK too.  I mean, blue ice is so passe.  Just one spell though, Blizz, don't overdo it.  :-)

Decisions are Hard

I'd like to go off the reservation a bit today and talk about Dragon Age: Origins and non-linear gaming. I'm not really going to get into specifics about the game, but I do want to cover a particular plot point, so there will be spoilers. You have been warned.

This article spawns from a concept that hit me while analyzing the difference between the two non-MMO games I'm playing right now: Dragon Age and Final Fantasy 13.  They are both part of the larger RPG genre, but are quite different in their goals and execution.  Final Fantasy is linear.  Dragon Age is multi-threaded.  Dragon Age is pretty basic, graphically.  Final Fantasy is breathtaking.  Both rely heavily on an in-game AI system for battle, but they implement it completely differently.  Both have a great, engaging story line.  You may not like one game or the other, but I think it's clear they are both well-designed games from companies that know what the heck they're doing.  Neither Square Enix nor Bioware need any introduction among RPG gamers.

The aspect I want to focus on today is the linear vs. multi-threaded difference.  I think a lot has been written about the two approaches, expounding on the pros and cons of each approach, so I'll spare you the regurgitation.  Suffice it to say, neither is explicitly better than the other; it depends very much on the desires of the player at the helm. Rather than reopen this debate, I'd just like to point out my personal, emotional reaction to a certain choice in Dragon Age, and how, for ill or good, I will totally avoid such a tangle in Final Fantasy.

As an aside, am I the only one that feels that consulting the internet before you've finished an RPG is, in a way, a failure on my part?  As in: I couldn't figure it out on my own and that's somehow bad?  More on this in a second, but I just found it odd that I have this stigma.  Not with MMO's mind you (hence, blogging), but with single player games.  It's one thing to read, ask around, get general advice.  I think it's another when you have to look up a specific quest or something because you're "stuck".  To me, stuck = fail.  In a way though, stuck = win because think of how good you feel when you eventually get un-stuck.  Shouldn't that be sort of the goal of a game designer, to get the player stuck?  Not horribly, irrevocably stuck, mind you, but enough so that when the hurdle is eventually overcome, it feels like a triumph?  To me, that's an interesting thought.

That, however, is only an aside.  As I pointed out.  Right.  If you have not run off to save yourself a spoiler yet, then this is your last chance.  I'm totally delving into it in the next paragraph.  No more waffling.  Waffle House.  Even the sign looks like a ransom note.  (Gaffigan anyone?)

Near the end of Dragon Age, you have to make what seems to me to be a monumental decision.  Namely, Morrigan approaches you and offers an "out" for your Gray Warden, involving some kinky impregnation ritual and stuff.  For those that may just be reading out of mild interest, the short version is that if you (or a fellow Warden, if you happen to be female) don't sire a child with the, um, friendly Witch (friendly is probably a stretch and totally depends on how you play, but theoretically she is on your team at this point), then one of your number will die.  It's a classic "how far are you willing to go" scenario.  Do you impregnate a woman of dubious moral standings, possibly giving her some sort of "super baby" for her nefarious purposes or do you willingly offer yourself or a friend up for sacrifice to save the world?

And here's where I got "stuck".  You see, I played the romantic route with Morrigan.  My hero was very much in love with her, and perhaps she with him.  Yet, to me, none of the choices reflected this.  Basically, you were given really two options.  You could say no and probably die.  You could say yes and never see the child or your love again.  Oh, and saying no would also make Morrigan leave.  Let's set aside the fact that if you'd liked using Morrigan in your party, you would be denied her services unless you, you know, serviced her.  (I guess tit for tat is quite literal in this case.)

Another aside here: I find making decisions difficult.  I can't be the only one out there.  I think there are a lot of people who find decision making an anxiety laden activity.  This isn't to say I find all decisions difficult.  Some you just have to make and are easy and clear.   However, sometime choosing where to eat is a real chore.  If neither my wife or I feel very strongly about anything, it's like "no you decide", "no you", "no, don't put this on me."  I know we're not the only couple that does that.  Sometimes you just don't want to make decisions.  Deciding is hard, mmkay?

With that in mind, sometimes a non-linear game like Dragon Age can be a bit of a chore for me.  I agonize over some decisions.  I mean, I'm not ashamed to say I get a bit tied up in my characters.  That's what RPGs are all about, and I want to see a good story played out.  So how in the hell am I supposed to feel when the culmination of the game comes down to two choices, neither of which I believe fit my character.  I mean, I get it.  It sort of had to be cut down this way for the story to work.  You can't have a completely non-linear game if you still want to tell a story.  Bioware does a great job, but they're not God, and as far as I know it'd take a omnipotent deity to be able to truly make a non-linear game.  There's just no way you can account for free-will in game design.  There will always be the player that thinks outside the box.

In this case, here was my reasoning.  I thought my relationship with Morrigan was going well, as such things go.  I mean there was some drama and she has some issues, but really she was opening up.  It was like the start of any relationship, except with a couple thousand Darkspawn thrown in.  It's sort of like meeting a girl's family for the first time.  Darkspawn = In-laws, amirite guys?  (jk, my in-laws are actually really cool and fun people, but making a good impression when you have designs on the daughter is sort of hard, IMO.)

So if I have this relationship, why can't I talk with Morrigan and compromise with her.  She obviously feels strongly for me.  She even says how much she wants to save you.  She may be a complete selfish bitch, but my character would have at least tried to reason it out with her.  She may have understood.  He wouldn't just take her word as final after some awkward, fact-finding questions (Yes, I've told her to "get in the tent, woman" before.  That's the kind of guy I am.  What now?).  He's this incredible badass hero, and he's just going to let her walk away?  She loves him and she's just going to say "welp, it's been fun..."

I mean, I get it. Sequel.  You have to leave yourself room.  It's just that the decision just didn't feel right or complete to me.   It left me conflicted.  It made me "stuck".  Like I said above, that alone probably means "Mission Accomplished Bioware".  They got to me.  I just had to go look up the possible ramifications of my decision.  I had to know what the outcomes were.  I had to cheat because I just couldn't make the decision based on what was "closest" to my character and be satisfied with how it worked out.  I was emotionally conflicted about it.

To me, this highlights a fundamental problem with the non-linear game: You cannot account for all possible choices.  It's that simple.  There may be ways that, after 50 hours or whatever, I've played my character that would make sense to me, but aren't offered.  The fact that when the little choice dialog pops up and the choice that I really want isn't there... well, that irks me.  It frustrates me.  It sort of lessens my enjoyment to some extent.  After all, everything after that sort of has to have an asterisk like "I wouldn't have really chosen that exactly", so I've created a fundamental disconnect between the character in my head and the character that keeps going in the story.

This isn't going to a problem in Final Fantasy.  The story is "on rails".  There aren't any tough decisions (yet).  All the decisions revolve around what strategies and gear to use.  In that way, it's more traditional.  In that way, for me anyways, it's more fun.

Well, I even hesitate to say more.  It's not that one is more fun than the other, it's just different fun.  There are days when I just don't want to make one more damned decision.  Those days, FF is a welcome release.  I can sit back and kill stuff and enjoy the scenery.  It's still challenging, but not emotionally.  More a cerebral exercise.  Which leveling path do I take?  Which accessory or weapon do I upgrade?  What three characters should I use for a particularly tough fight?

There are no disconnects between what's on screen and what's in my head.  After all, the characters aren't mine, but I'm okay with that.  It's more like an interactive movie that way.  I still care about the characters, I just don't own them.  I think each approach has it's own merits. A good story telling doesn't require for you to dictate the characters.  I'm more than happy to be led through a story.  I mean, I love books and movies and that's what those do.  I also used to like the "choose your own adventure" books too, and that's essentially what Dragon Age is.

So, I guess, FF is like a traditional novel and DA is like a CYO novel, but they're both books.  And I like books in general, but it certainly depends on what sort of mood I'm in.  They can all get to me emotionally, but in different ways.  I can't say either is fundamentally better than the other because they're really different.  I guess I think something of that difference is lost in reviews and such.  Also, I think a lot of times the fact that a decision can be quite stressful is not taken into account.  I always seem to see more choices equated with "better", but I think sometimes that is just not the case.  The phrase "less is more" comes to mind.  Either way, I have a great amount of respect for what both companies are trying to do, and look forward to their future titles.

Now, time to start thinking about where I want to go to lunch today... ugh!  What?  It's a tough decision!

Knowing your Raiders: What spec are you again?

Hey Gang!


So, I've been talking to my Raidleader as of late about the in's & out's of our 10-man ICC raid. We were discussing DPS (the damage output & the Actual DPS raiders), Buffs, Debuffs, the works. Once we got on the subject of overlapping Buffs & debuffs that each class brings to the table, it hit me like Patchwerk's Hateful Strike. I don't have the slightest clue what specs our DPS were.

As a tank, you don't really care what spec everyone else is, you just care that the DPS is high & the healing is solid enough to keep us standing on our own two feet (or four if you're a druid).

Is this a good or a bad thing?

Our Raid group consists of:

Healers~
1X Discipline Priest
1X Resto Druid

Tanks~
1X Protection Paladin
1X Protection Warrior

Ranged DPS~
1X Elemental Shaman
1X Arcane Mage
1X Affliction Warlock
1X Beastmaster Hunter

Melee DPS~
1X Retribution Paladin
1X Enhancment Shaman

As you can see, I can spout them off pretty easily... now. I'm pretty embarrassed though because a few of these people I couldn't tell you before.

I had no clue that the Mage was Arcane. Maybe the Pew Pew should have set me off but I guess I never really looked too hard into it. Would it have really made a difference if they were Fire? Probably not. I can tell Frost Mages from their little water elemental now. So guessing what spec she was, well, it was a hit or miss without knowing more information.

Shamans all look the damn same. They drop totems & two out of the three stand in the back. What if the elemental likes to stand up close & personal to the boss? Well then, I sure couldn't tell you. I mean the chain heal is a dead give away that they are resto but really? I see 4 totems on the floor that are doing something, that's all I know.

Oh, let me tell you about hunters. Ummm they have a pet & they use a bow. You seriously need three separate trees to do that? Ok, ok, I understand that Beastmaster can tame sweet Spirit Beasts or lol T-Rex but what do the other ones do that really makes a difference in the play style? YOU SHOOT A BOW!

WoW, this is turning into a rant.

So ok, my point being, does it really matter, to a tank, what spec the rest of the party really is? I mean, does it help me in any way to know that the Warlock is Affliction rather than Destruction? I'm really just not seeing a major point to knowing that information if you are not the Raid leader.

What do you think? Is it important for you to know what spec everyone else is or do you just work around what you see?

<3 Fuu

Made A Pact With D.Pact Yet?

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. I know Fuu and I are both kind of worn out from travel/eating way too much. My family loves to eat. I think that's pretty common though. We have so many leftovers. Fuu's happy because she probably won't have to cook for a week.

We returned home in time to catch a Sunday Night Weekly Raid run with our raid group.  It was my first real chance to try out Dark Pact since I wrote about it last week. In my opinion, it went rather well.  I'm not sure if my healers noticed it, but I felt a lot... healthier?  I was at 100% for a lot of the fight, and the innate self-healing of an Aff'lock really kept me topped off with what I hope was minimal attention.  Not that I was life tapping a whole ton before, but I certainly think it's noticeable. 

The amount of mana back from each Pact seemed pretty sizeable too.  I didn't find myself going OOM or having to tap a lot extra (and I always have Life Tap on backup just in case).  I didn't notice my Felpup going OOM either, and I was easily able to keep the glyph buff up.  All in all, I'm thinking this change is all win.  My question today is how about the rest of you?

Dark Pact: Win or Fail?

Is it as much mana as you expected?  Is anyone noticing excessive tapping or going OOM as a result?  Are you living through stuff you used to die on because you don't have to Life Tap?  Last night was more of a dress rehearsal for me, as our 10 man ICC raid is scheduled for tonight.  That will be the real test.

If you're an Affliction 'lock and you haven't respecced to grab Dark Pact yet, I say "do eeet!"  If you're like me, you probably have an extra talent point hanging around that you're not quite sure what do with anyways, and you can always keep your LT on backup.   I don't really see a down side to it, and the Felpup is really well-synergised with Affliction to make use of this talent.  I suppose it's what you would hope from a deeper tree talent.

I have to say, I'm rather pleased with the state of Affliction Warlocks right now.  It's a pretty solid spec all around.  It makes me a little concerned about the re-working we're set to get for Cataclysm (soul shards especially), since it would seem there's a lot more to screw up than fix.  Danger is the spice of life though.  Or something like that.

No IC Friday... this Friday but...

Hey Gang!

I know that you guys were expecting one of Fulguralis's Awesome IC Friday posts today but...

Here's the thing, it's Good Friday which means we didn't have work today. So I'm forcing him to do a few things out & about with me today. I'm kidnapping my husband if you will ;)

We are going to be out of town for the rest of this beautiful weekend off to see his side of the family. I wanted to point you to something that our blog will be participating in for this upcoming holiday. Over at Revive & Rejuvenate, they are putting together a cute little blogger event for Easter. Here's a link to the event if you are interested.

We wanted to wish you all a safe & Happy Easter!

<3 Fuu

Wherein I Try To Fool You

So, I rolled a mage last night and...

No really, I was playing on my mage and I Topeka'ed their rotations and...

Okay srsly, it wasn't that bad but...

Oh, you're no fun.  Mages are awful.  I can't lie about that.

What can I lie about?

Jbelle called me last night.  She's done healing, wants to roll a real toon and DPS.  Well, she didn't call, because she hates phones, but she did text.  Or maybe it was MSN messager.  Yeah, we actually use that.  Maybe we'll Tchat in our Tmail about that today.

Hydra slapped me.  So I hacked her account and rage deleted her toons.  Except for her Warlock, she's still allowed to play that.  But only if she doesn't cry.  THERE IS NO CRYING IN WARLOCKERY!

Abi isn't back.  I've been writing on his blogs.  All 27 of them.

Samodean came by last night to chat.  In a drunken stupor he guiltily admitted that he's never played a video game in his life.  All his info, he got from reading fanfic.  That and gamer magazines like IGN.  He is IGN. 

Saresa is actually married with 5 kids and lives in Kansas.  Google, Kansas.  It's not a flat and boring as you might think.  She's not a school teacher either, as she claims.  Rather, she's a farmer.  Soy beans, not corn.  She tweeted about it on her super-secret farmer name: @Soyresa.

Grimm didn't take a break.  He just kept right on playing through it, but he wanted to seem dramatic and deep.  /tear.  That is, he plays when they allow him time at the nut house where he's being treated for Dissociative Identity Disorder.  My aunt works there, I know.

Nibuca isn't actually human.  Fim and Bre created an artificial intelligence co-host back in the day and named it Nibuca.  Like sky-net, she may slowly be taking over the World... of Warcraft.  We won't know until Judgment Day.  Fim is working on a second AI host named Syrana.  However, a faulty flux capacitor has lately left the second fembot dysfunctional and mute.  Hence, lack of posts.  Also, Stop is the first of Nibuca-net's self-aware creations.

Larisa actually runs a dungeon over in Europe.  Americans don't always realize, but most Europeans still have real dungeons in their fiefdoms, and Larisa is the DM.  Gnomeaggedon is her chain supplier.  Dungeons need lots of chains, it's a billion dollar business.

Euripedes and Euripides are actually the same person.  That one letter difference isn't fooling anyone.


Tam isn't British, he's German.  He admitted it himself.  He has his own guild named The Fourth Reich.  All that bollocks about drama is propaganda to make you feel sympathy for him, when in reality he holds all his guildies (and their families) in a Wi-Fi enabled Gulag and forces them to carry him through content.  Chas has erected a wall and is attempting to get messages through to the Allied Blogosphere, but they get swallowed in the deluge that is Tam.  Every blogger that you see that says they're "quitting" has actually been captured and forced to work in Tam's Guild Gulag.  You'd better believe BRK is there.  Spinksville is the next haven marked for conquering on his ubiquitously cliche evil wall map of the world, and what chance does a small hamlet like that have against the might of Tam Nation?


And, last but not least, BBB is suing Blizzard for copyright infringement.  It seems he has proof that he was writing about WoW before there was a WoW, allowing him royalties due under the Peremptory Literacy Clause of Copyright Law.  It's an obscure law, but there is some precedence to support his claim, perhaps the most famous case being Gore v Internet.  The case is being referred to as Blizz v Butt.

Today is April the First, and remember: The Truth is Out There.