Today I finally remembered to kill Attumen for the scope schematic. I invited a guildy to come with so we could kill Moroes as well for a shot at mongoose. We killed him, no luck. The guildy died while I was gouged, as is tradition.
On a whim I asked if he wanted to do MC afterwards, and he said yes. A quit line in gchat brought another person as well. Then someone decided to argue with me about MC being a waste of time and how the enchants are worthless. That wasn't so fun.
We eventually had a fury warrior and hunter, I think marks. And me. We took down everything up to before Garr. Gehennas with no decurse was fine, because we had no heals anyway. Yea, that was a fight that we finished with 10% health.
A few more people joined and then we killed Garr. A bit more trash and then Baron. I threw on healing gear and healed the fury warrior. That was the closest thing we had to a healer until Domo. Baron died. I clicked on the corpse. A rogue got happy about his bindings and suddenly I freaked out. I had not anticipated competition. Fortunately I was able to mention that I had the other binding "oh my god the other binding at last!" The rogue passed to me since I already had the other and he did not. Very very carefully I master looted it to myself and then spent the next ten minutes or so barely able to think or type coherently. I almost skipped Shazzrah.
This made me very glad that I had set ML, because I can totally see the rogue, and myself, mashing need the second it dropped. ML gave us time to chill out, or in my case completely lose it.
We carried on until Domo. Then the warrior switched to his 75 priest for Domo. He got the eye of divinity and that made me feel even better. Then back to the warrior for him and onward to Rag.
Ragnaros with no healers is tricky. I mostly just tried to stay alive and prayed hard that we did not get to sons, since our DPS felt slow. Eventually I got knocked back and fell too many times and had to pop LoH. Then he died. One tank, 6-7 DPS, and no healer... fun times.
I only had three of the ten needed ore and couldn't smelt it, so I gathered upa couple guildies, PUGed a bunch, and did BWL. It went pretty smoothly. I lost all the judgement to another paladin. But at least a guildy warlock got a few pieces of T2 amd I got one ore and the smelting book off the goblin. That's the fix for the constant bugging of the NPC with MC: he drops a book to teach elementium smelting.
Now I can make my own legendaries. :)
Artificial Rarity
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Thursday, February 26, 2009
Perhaps forced rarity is a better term?
It's a bad concept.
Be Mine was forced rarity. Regardless of effort or capability, some people could not get it.
Maybe it's just me, but one of the nice things about WoW is that in an artificial world, we have control. In WoW it's a lot easier to have an internal locus of control, to believe that our actions are what matter, rather than some overall forces. Sure the devs matter: they matter for their creation of this world in which we decide our fates. We decide how far we will get in raiding. WoW can create an ideal world in the sense that we are truly free to pursue what we desire and there is no racism to hold back some people, lack of educational opportunities to hold back others, or rich parents to boost ahead a small few. We all play the same selection of 10 classes, with the same spells, with an AH which does not discriminate. Sure time is an issue, but ultimately personal determination is more important than most external factors.
In other words, WoW is great because it creates a world where you choose what you want to accomplish.
Forced rarity breaks this. Be Mine was a good example (good example of a bad thing). Random drops are this as well. I remember some silly news program where they claimed someone was great because they had Ashes of Alar. Oh sure, killing Kael'thas wasn't nothing, but the mount? That was luck. There were a thousand times as many people who killed him and received no mount.
The upcoming change to the Glory of the X achievements also breaks this. According to Bornakk they're removing the drakes. Why? They think Ulduar gear will trivialize them and they want them to be rare. Fine. But this is the wrong approach. This change only means that if you started WotLK late, too bad. If you leveled slowly, too bad. Maybe you were slow to get into raiding, too bad. This is wrong. It's forced rarity.
What's a better method? Maintain the difficulty past Ulduar. Add an iLevel maximum for the achievements and leave the mounts. This way you cannot trivialize them with gear because you can't get past a certain gear level. All Ulduar can give you is more experience with your class rather than a way to bypass the challenge.
The mounts will remain rare based on their difficulty.
Though I'm tempted to go for the other direction. Let them be trivialized. Let every noob and scrub get one, for free, for nothing, after 3.1. Then go back to the people that burned through content and will then bitch about it and just laugh. laugh and laugh at them. Explain that they are harmful to WoW. Their elitism, their desire to burn through content and then bitch when it runs out, that is harmful. Blizzard probably couldn't get away with canceling their accounts, but annoying them, hurting their egos, that might get the job done the same way.
Random is stupid.
Time-dependent is almost as stupid.
Anything based on either of these should be a feat of strength.
It's a bad concept.
Be Mine was forced rarity. Regardless of effort or capability, some people could not get it.
Maybe it's just me, but one of the nice things about WoW is that in an artificial world, we have control. In WoW it's a lot easier to have an internal locus of control, to believe that our actions are what matter, rather than some overall forces. Sure the devs matter: they matter for their creation of this world in which we decide our fates. We decide how far we will get in raiding. WoW can create an ideal world in the sense that we are truly free to pursue what we desire and there is no racism to hold back some people, lack of educational opportunities to hold back others, or rich parents to boost ahead a small few. We all play the same selection of 10 classes, with the same spells, with an AH which does not discriminate. Sure time is an issue, but ultimately personal determination is more important than most external factors.
In other words, WoW is great because it creates a world where you choose what you want to accomplish.
Forced rarity breaks this. Be Mine was a good example (good example of a bad thing). Random drops are this as well. I remember some silly news program where they claimed someone was great because they had Ashes of Alar. Oh sure, killing Kael'thas wasn't nothing, but the mount? That was luck. There were a thousand times as many people who killed him and received no mount.
The upcoming change to the Glory of the X achievements also breaks this. According to Bornakk they're removing the drakes. Why? They think Ulduar gear will trivialize them and they want them to be rare. Fine. But this is the wrong approach. This change only means that if you started WotLK late, too bad. If you leveled slowly, too bad. Maybe you were slow to get into raiding, too bad. This is wrong. It's forced rarity.
What's a better method? Maintain the difficulty past Ulduar. Add an iLevel maximum for the achievements and leave the mounts. This way you cannot trivialize them with gear because you can't get past a certain gear level. All Ulduar can give you is more experience with your class rather than a way to bypass the challenge.
The mounts will remain rare based on their difficulty.
Though I'm tempted to go for the other direction. Let them be trivialized. Let every noob and scrub get one, for free, for nothing, after 3.1. Then go back to the people that burned through content and will then bitch about it and just laugh. laugh and laugh at them. Explain that they are harmful to WoW. Their elitism, their desire to burn through content and then bitch when it runs out, that is harmful. Blizzard probably couldn't get away with canceling their accounts, but annoying them, hurting their egos, that might get the job done the same way.
Random is stupid.
Time-dependent is almost as stupid.
Anything based on either of these should be a feat of strength.
Naxx 10
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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
I finally managed to get into raiding again. Last night I'd intended to be on in time for the start of the guild Naxx 25. That failed. I blame my friends. But I decided to not give up and jumped into LFG for Naxx 10 along with either VoA. I got an invite to a Naxx 10 which was mostly a single guild, they just needed an OT.
Short version: I got a few pieces of gear, most of it went very fast, near 4H there was a constant stream of fail.
We started out with Patchwerk, missing the achievement by around 15 seconds. Grobbulus was easy times, though I did die for my first time ever on the way over due to Frogger. Gluth was easy enough, though taunting didn't seem to work properly. I'd taunt and nothing would happen, RD and nothing, and by then I think the MT was getting nervous before taunt came up again. I got the T7 shoulders which later became my new holy shoulders (we were doing offspec rolls). Thaddius was pretty easy and as fun as I remembered.
I can't remember if we did spider or plague next, I think spider. We decided to go for the achievement, so we skipped looting until the last boss was down. First boss went well, which was good because I was worried about screwing it up, having not done it since I was 70; though I did have to bubble to taunt when I got caught in locust swarm. A pat caused us to wipe while doing Faerlina trash (pulled the boss), but we got back up fairly quickly. At the end we did manage to down Maexxna in time, giving me the achievement for both clearing the wing and the speed one at the same time.
Plague was similarly swift. Noth was fairly easy, though there was some brief swearing when the RL noticed that we had no decurse, though maybe the resto shaman took care of it. Heigan was easy enough; though my dancing wasn't perfect, I didn't die, someone else did though, so no achievement. Loatheb was simple as usual.
Death knight wing was strange compared to 25. Razuvious was totally different. Rather than tanking extra adds I was tanking the boss himself, with my own add. For Gothic, I've never done live side on 25, but on 10 it seemed boring, very predictable and easy where 25 dead side was hectic and exciting.
Then it all went downhill. A healer had to leave, then it took a while to find a replacement. We wiped on some trash, and then again. We replaced another healer and the rogue chain-disconnected for the rest of the night. 4H didn't go well. First I wasn't tanking in the right place, not close enough to the corner, and the other tank was a little close as well, so we had stacks doubling. The druid healer didn't seem to be healing me enough. Maybe I don't know the fight properly, since it didn't seem to be like the back where I fake being a healer, I was still tanking, though in a low-aggro mode of JoL/SoL with SS and heals when I could afford them. Maybe the druid wasn't supposed to be healing me much, but either way, I kept dying. Eventually we called the raid, to finish up on Sunday.
Overall it was a good night. I got new tanking boots from Noth, a belt from Razuvious (though I can't wear it in raids due to the defense loss), and T7 shoulders for holy.
Short version: I got a few pieces of gear, most of it went very fast, near 4H there was a constant stream of fail.
We started out with Patchwerk, missing the achievement by around 15 seconds. Grobbulus was easy times, though I did die for my first time ever on the way over due to Frogger. Gluth was easy enough, though taunting didn't seem to work properly. I'd taunt and nothing would happen, RD and nothing, and by then I think the MT was getting nervous before taunt came up again. I got the T7 shoulders which later became my new holy shoulders (we were doing offspec rolls). Thaddius was pretty easy and as fun as I remembered.
I can't remember if we did spider or plague next, I think spider. We decided to go for the achievement, so we skipped looting until the last boss was down. First boss went well, which was good because I was worried about screwing it up, having not done it since I was 70; though I did have to bubble to taunt when I got caught in locust swarm. A pat caused us to wipe while doing Faerlina trash (pulled the boss), but we got back up fairly quickly. At the end we did manage to down Maexxna in time, giving me the achievement for both clearing the wing and the speed one at the same time.
Plague was similarly swift. Noth was fairly easy, though there was some brief swearing when the RL noticed that we had no decurse, though maybe the resto shaman took care of it. Heigan was easy enough; though my dancing wasn't perfect, I didn't die, someone else did though, so no achievement. Loatheb was simple as usual.
Death knight wing was strange compared to 25. Razuvious was totally different. Rather than tanking extra adds I was tanking the boss himself, with my own add. For Gothic, I've never done live side on 25, but on 10 it seemed boring, very predictable and easy where 25 dead side was hectic and exciting.
Then it all went downhill. A healer had to leave, then it took a while to find a replacement. We wiped on some trash, and then again. We replaced another healer and the rogue chain-disconnected for the rest of the night. 4H didn't go well. First I wasn't tanking in the right place, not close enough to the corner, and the other tank was a little close as well, so we had stacks doubling. The druid healer didn't seem to be healing me enough. Maybe I don't know the fight properly, since it didn't seem to be like the back where I fake being a healer, I was still tanking, though in a low-aggro mode of JoL/SoL with SS and heals when I could afford them. Maybe the druid wasn't supposed to be healing me much, but either way, I kept dying. Eventually we called the raid, to finish up on Sunday.
Overall it was a good night. I got new tanking boots from Noth, a belt from Razuvious (though I can't wear it in raids due to the defense loss), and T7 shoulders for holy.
Kael'thas was merely a setback
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009
He lost sight of his original goal.
His duty was to lead his people, to ensure their survival and prosperity. In many regards he was successful, others, total failure.
The journey to Outland was a solid idea. It was a source of magic, something which his people needed. It was also a way to start over again in a new land, perhaps a safer land. After all, there are no hostile trolls in Outland. Well, until the Horde showed up there weren't. :)
Still, going to Outland may have been an abandonment of his homeland. He may have worked for the prosperity of the Blood Elves as a race, but is it good to ignore location? He would have dramatically changed their culture by tearing them from their homes.
But this is a difference of opinion and I cannot say it is truly a success or failure. No, his failure was something much bigger.
Magic.
The Blood Elves needed magic to survive. But Kael'thas did not have the job of securing magic for his people, he had the job of securing their survival. When he became too focused on magic, he failed. This was when he left, betrayed, Illidan and joined the Burning Legion. That is just plain stupid. It was the Legion which created the Scourge which destroyed the Sunwell. It was the Legion that had driven the Orcs to their first devastating invasion of Azeroth. With them came the mobilization and renewed power of the trolls, again at the cost of Quel'thalas and the High Elves.
The Legion could offer magic and nothing else. The alliance with them cost the lives of many Blood Elves and caused massive disruption following the invasion of Silvermoon City. Draining demons may have been risky, but allying with them was insanity. Illidan may have been a bit crazy, but he was still powerful and was still loyal to Kael'thas, at least until the split.
Kael'thas lost sight of the goal: protection of the Blood Elves. Instead he focused only one one aspect: magic, and in the process stopped caring for the Blood Elves in favor of a smaller group of those who betrayed all life in service to the Legion.
What can we learn from this? Don't let methods replace goals. Don't let ends justify means. But also, don't ever truly die.
His duty was to lead his people, to ensure their survival and prosperity. In many regards he was successful, others, total failure.
The journey to Outland was a solid idea. It was a source of magic, something which his people needed. It was also a way to start over again in a new land, perhaps a safer land. After all, there are no hostile trolls in Outland. Well, until the Horde showed up there weren't. :)
Still, going to Outland may have been an abandonment of his homeland. He may have worked for the prosperity of the Blood Elves as a race, but is it good to ignore location? He would have dramatically changed their culture by tearing them from their homes.
But this is a difference of opinion and I cannot say it is truly a success or failure. No, his failure was something much bigger.
Magic.
The Blood Elves needed magic to survive. But Kael'thas did not have the job of securing magic for his people, he had the job of securing their survival. When he became too focused on magic, he failed. This was when he left, betrayed, Illidan and joined the Burning Legion. That is just plain stupid. It was the Legion which created the Scourge which destroyed the Sunwell. It was the Legion that had driven the Orcs to their first devastating invasion of Azeroth. With them came the mobilization and renewed power of the trolls, again at the cost of Quel'thalas and the High Elves.
The Legion could offer magic and nothing else. The alliance with them cost the lives of many Blood Elves and caused massive disruption following the invasion of Silvermoon City. Draining demons may have been risky, but allying with them was insanity. Illidan may have been a bit crazy, but he was still powerful and was still loyal to Kael'thas, at least until the split.
Kael'thas lost sight of the goal: protection of the Blood Elves. Instead he focused only one one aspect: magic, and in the process stopped caring for the Blood Elves in favor of a smaller group of those who betrayed all life in service to the Legion.
What can we learn from this? Don't let methods replace goals. Don't let ends justify means. But also, don't ever truly die.
We did not call him the Ashbringer because of the sword. No, he was the Ashbringer without it, before it. He did not need to draw his weapon before turning thousands of enemies to ash. And yet, despite his power, it was all futile. The Scourge he could destroy, even the undead he could keep dead.
But there is one who springs from his ashes like a phoenix, and we will never forget that shrill cry... "merely a setback!"
Leveling enchanting
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Sunday, February 22, 2009
So much better than BC and far, far better than pre-300. I think it's from two changes, one of which may only be in my imagination.
Low enchants are useful. I didn't notice much demand for leveling enchants in BC except maybe AP. Now there are very good ones like icewalker and the cheap weapon enchants. Those seem to be popular because the next higher ones are maybe 10-20% better, but cost at least 4x as much. This might just be my imagination, forgetting useful low BC enchants.
Scrolls are probably the best thing ever for enchanting. I bought a stack of armor and weapon vellums and carry them around. As I get mats I enchant them and send them to a back alt. Here's the great part: they actually sell. Before I'd have to either waste mats re-enchanting my own gear, give them away: "enchanter lf work, free with your mats!", or hope guildies needed what I had. Now I make gold and level up.
How awesome is that, leveling and making gold at the same time? It's probably not a net profit since I'm not vendoring quest rewards, but at least it's not a gold sink. Only think I can think of that would be comparable is inscription since glyphs aren't ranked, they're all the best of their type, even if some are more or less useful overall.
[edit] Enchanting in general is very useful with other professions. My warrior (hit 74 Monday night, Dalaran ho!) is leveling BS and this results in a lot of spamming useless junk for skill. These are sent for DEing. Maybe I could do better vendoring and buying dust off the AH, but I like the idea of self-sufficiency even if it's less efficient. Cue arguments about global trade. :P
Low enchants are useful. I didn't notice much demand for leveling enchants in BC except maybe AP. Now there are very good ones like icewalker and the cheap weapon enchants. Those seem to be popular because the next higher ones are maybe 10-20% better, but cost at least 4x as much. This might just be my imagination, forgetting useful low BC enchants.
Scrolls are probably the best thing ever for enchanting. I bought a stack of armor and weapon vellums and carry them around. As I get mats I enchant them and send them to a back alt. Here's the great part: they actually sell. Before I'd have to either waste mats re-enchanting my own gear, give them away: "enchanter lf work, free with your mats!", or hope guildies needed what I had. Now I make gold and level up.
How awesome is that, leveling and making gold at the same time? It's probably not a net profit since I'm not vendoring quest rewards, but at least it's not a gold sink. Only think I can think of that would be comparable is inscription since glyphs aren't ranked, they're all the best of their type, even if some are more or less useful overall.
[edit] Enchanting in general is very useful with other professions. My warrior (hit 74 Monday night, Dalaran ho!) is leveling BS and this results in a lot of spamming useless junk for skill. These are sent for DEing. Maybe I could do better vendoring and buying dust off the AH, but I like the idea of self-sufficiency even if it's less efficient. Cue arguments about global trade. :P
The Huntard
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
The scene is Utgarde Keep. I'm there on the warrior that I am leveling.
After the second green drops and we roll I happen to notice that the hunter had rolled need on it and it was spirit gear. Same with the previous drop. I comment in guild chat, thinking it's a ninja. Then I inspect the hunter and realize that he's not a ninja: he's an idiot. He was wearing the spirit shoulders which he had just needed. The rest of his gear seemed to be elemental gear.
In the future I should stick to the standard procedure: ask about his gear (sometimes people have a strange item or two because of absolutely terrible luck, respeccing, or a hacked account) and then later make fun of him. But, I deviated. Instead I sent him a tell: "May I offer you some advice on gear?" After no response: "I'd like to help you." Still no response. I tried in party chat, nothing.
I noticed that the DK tank was in his guild and tried talking through him. No luck. He didn't seem to notice either. Sometimes the hunter would say something in all caps like "AWESOME."
The priest in the group sent me a tell, seeming to have similar confusion about the hunter. He concluded that he was ebayed or a farmer. I figured if he was ebayed, fine, I'd still try to help, if only so future groups would be spared some pain.
I failed and was left confused. Why was his gear so terrible? Why would he not respond to tells? Why did his guildy not seem to care? Is there even a God? I fled after two mobs in a three mob pull were left on the healer, and many questions and doubts were left on me.
[edit] Apparently this was the night for stupid people.
Trying to do UK later resulting in the only person near the stone leaving because no one was heading over, despite one person being on the boat between the Tuskarr areas. The boat person then left because they thought everyone else should head over too, apparently no one is worthy of being summoned unless they're already at the summoning stone.
Nexus later on had the priest who apparently lost his dispel button, using mass dispel for single debuffs (or sometimes debuffs that weren't even able to be removed as far as I could tell, not that a spell damage debuff on melee is a big deal) and then went OOM constantly. He told us all to go faster, then went afk in the middle of the rock boss, causing us to wipe. Throughout the run the DK was being generally nubbish, reaching his peak when he started the last boss while the healer was at 50%. We wiped, but might have made it if the priest or paladin would have cleansed the chains.
Then the healer and tankadin left. The hunter left a little bit later, leaving me with the DK. After some LFM for last boss I found a warlock. He told me to invite a mage, and then didn't seem to understand the idea of needing a tank and healer. My explanation that I could tank if we had a good enough healer was apparently too complex for him. After a few minutes he got impatient and said he would tank with his felguard while we got another person. I explained that there was nothing to tank except the boss. He then got mad at me for inviting him to a cleared instance. Meanwhile the DK repeatedly asked if we could do it with 3 people, after we'd wiped with 5 which included a healer and proper tank. I left after the warlock started demanding a reset.
No I am not at all frustrated. Why would I be frustrated? I mean, it's not as if I asked my level 80 friend to help with the last boss (he has a holy paladin, so I could have tanked it) and he responded by going afk again. And hey, I've not been trying to get into groups all day as fury, only to find that everyone is specced for DPS (I suppose I'm not helping). Maybe tomorrow I can finish the Nexus quests. Or I can waste a lot of time and get mad.
After the second green drops and we roll I happen to notice that the hunter had rolled need on it and it was spirit gear. Same with the previous drop. I comment in guild chat, thinking it's a ninja. Then I inspect the hunter and realize that he's not a ninja: he's an idiot. He was wearing the spirit shoulders which he had just needed. The rest of his gear seemed to be elemental gear.
In the future I should stick to the standard procedure: ask about his gear (sometimes people have a strange item or two because of absolutely terrible luck, respeccing, or a hacked account) and then later make fun of him. But, I deviated. Instead I sent him a tell: "May I offer you some advice on gear?" After no response: "I'd like to help you." Still no response. I tried in party chat, nothing.
I noticed that the DK tank was in his guild and tried talking through him. No luck. He didn't seem to notice either. Sometimes the hunter would say something in all caps like "AWESOME."
The priest in the group sent me a tell, seeming to have similar confusion about the hunter. He concluded that he was ebayed or a farmer. I figured if he was ebayed, fine, I'd still try to help, if only so future groups would be spared some pain.
I failed and was left confused. Why was his gear so terrible? Why would he not respond to tells? Why did his guildy not seem to care? Is there even a God? I fled after two mobs in a three mob pull were left on the healer, and many questions and doubts were left on me.
[edit] Apparently this was the night for stupid people.
Trying to do UK later resulting in the only person near the stone leaving because no one was heading over, despite one person being on the boat between the Tuskarr areas. The boat person then left because they thought everyone else should head over too, apparently no one is worthy of being summoned unless they're already at the summoning stone.
Nexus later on had the priest who apparently lost his dispel button, using mass dispel for single debuffs (or sometimes debuffs that weren't even able to be removed as far as I could tell, not that a spell damage debuff on melee is a big deal) and then went OOM constantly. He told us all to go faster, then went afk in the middle of the rock boss, causing us to wipe. Throughout the run the DK was being generally nubbish, reaching his peak when he started the last boss while the healer was at 50%. We wiped, but might have made it if the priest or paladin would have cleansed the chains.
Then the healer and tankadin left. The hunter left a little bit later, leaving me with the DK. After some LFM for last boss I found a warlock. He told me to invite a mage, and then didn't seem to understand the idea of needing a tank and healer. My explanation that I could tank if we had a good enough healer was apparently too complex for him. After a few minutes he got impatient and said he would tank with his felguard while we got another person. I explained that there was nothing to tank except the boss. He then got mad at me for inviting him to a cleared instance. Meanwhile the DK repeatedly asked if we could do it with 3 people, after we'd wiped with 5 which included a healer and proper tank. I left after the warlock started demanding a reset.
No I am not at all frustrated. Why would I be frustrated? I mean, it's not as if I asked my level 80 friend to help with the last boss (he has a holy paladin, so I could have tanked it) and he responded by going afk again. And hey, I've not been trying to get into groups all day as fury, only to find that everyone is specced for DPS (I suppose I'm not helping). Maybe tomorrow I can finish the Nexus quests. Or I can waste a lot of time and get mad.
Q: What does a joking ogre say?
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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A: Time for pun!
Q: What do you call it when a Tauren does double damage?
A: Bull crit!
Q: What do you call a loose explosive?
A: A rocket whore!
I apologize. While eating lunch I was struck by a sudden fit of lame. Tragically I had a pencil and paper nearby, so I was able to record my idea before it could be mercifully destroyed by forgetfulness.
Q: What do you call it when a Tauren does double damage?
A: Bull crit!
Q: What do you call a loose explosive?
A: A rocket whore!
I apologize. While eating lunch I was struck by a sudden fit of lame. Tragically I had a pencil and paper nearby, so I was able to record my idea before it could be mercifully destroyed by forgetfulness.
Girls are all the rage these days
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Monday, February 16, 2009
Yes, it seems that talking about girls is the cool thing to do for the next... one day and four hours. Don't believe me? Check out this Link! It's a girl (okay woman, or does that imply old these days? Maybe that will be the next cool thing, talking about perceptions of age) talking about girls or what it means to be a girl or how people perceive or something. The point is, I am totally on the bandwagon. Yea.
So. Um. People. With uh... baby-making factories. Well, as Marx would say, they are clearly the bourgeoisie: controlling the means of production while men are the proletariat: an oppressed and exploited mass of workers who only create products from which they are disconnected and derive no profit or meaning. Clearly men need to rise up and seize the means of production. Or no, this has happened. This is the social condition in many countries where women do not have control over their reproduction.
Serious time: There is a strong link between women controlling their baby-making factories and their country not being crap. Example time: Africa has many nations where women have little control over whether or not to have children or how many: Africa on average is a pretty crappy place. In contrast America allows women a great deal of control; rape is illegal under all circumstances (This is not to say that all cases lead to punishment; guilty people may be found innocent. My point was that there are no legally accepted religious or social rules which allow rape), abortion is legal (well, mostly, I think some states have laws against it), birth control is legal and fairly cheap: America is awesome.
TL;DR: If you let women control their own bodies, your country is significantly less likely to be terrible. This isn't feminism, it's practicality.
This is the part with game stuff, so start reading here. Look at the bold words. The stuff above this is not related to gaming and may also be offensive, despite being true.
Sorry, got totally off the topic of girls and games or something like that. Girls on bandwagons. Something.
I play a female blood elf paladin. The males were a little too.. fabulous for me. Other races were not good options due to being on the wrong faction. Anyway, I sometimes run into problems.
1) People thinking I am a girl.
By itself this doesn't bother me much. I usually correct them. However, if they get sexist, then I tend to ignore them and if possible get them killed. It pisses me off when there are problems in a group and next thing I know someone is calling me a bitch. Sexism is dumb enough, but sexism when you aren't even certain of the sex of the target?
2) People ask if I am a girl.
WTF does it matter?
3) I think I am a girl.
That came out wrong. Oops? A while back I realized I was too much in the virtual world of WoW. I wasn't properly differentiating between my character and myself. This almost instantly creeped me out. Why? Well, I'm male and my character is female. I briefly freaked out and went "Agh! Am I pretending to be female? WTF is wrong with me!" I played other characters for a couple weeks while I reminded myself "that is a representation, not an identification."
Stereotypes are weird. For starters, they're not based on nothing. That isn't to say they are true or universally generalizable, but they're rarely from out of nowhere. The weird part of them is that they aren't just used by outsiders, but also by those who they are supposed to describe. People sometimes become the stereotype. Then there are the 'taught' ones. Let's pretend that [Alaskans] are stereotyped as violent and in response to perceived danger we impose marshal law in [Alaska] and mobs attack suspected [Alaskans]. You think they're going to act normal? Before long there is an [Alaskan] independence movement (nvm, that already exists) and before long there is a small civil war. Those damn violent [Alaskans] started this whole mess!
Let's see if I can bring that back towards girls. Let's say I were to say that girls are impulsive and emotional. In response they might kick me very hard. See? I was right.
Girls don't play video games: Would you join an activity dominated by people who obsess over you and who lose (or never had) basic social skills just because of your mere existence? Thankfully this stereotype has eroded to little more than a lame joke and in fact girls, and not just a very tiny portion, do actually play video games.
Do I joke about stereotypes about girls and gaming? Sure. With my female friend who is a gamer, and I suspect might kick my ass if we were to ever play against each other in the same game. Fortunately she plays City of Villains, so I am not at risk of e-castration. We realize it is a joke and a very dumb one. Would I make the joke around anyone other than her or a few of our friends? Hell no. I refuse to be one of the idiots that throws that around and not only looks lame, but also a bit sexist.
Jumping back to self-reinforcing stereotypes: Female skills and roles. Are girls bad at games? Hell if I know, I don't conduct surveys in PUGs or even in guild: "on a scale of one to ten, how terrible are you? Are you female? Thank you." But... when someone is bad, who is more noticeable? OMG TERRIBLE GIRL! When the majority of players are male, they are the default, so only female gamers are going to be commonly labeled by their sex. Moving on to healing: it's not nurturing and nurturing is not the only role that females can play or even want to play.
Sex and gender: Perhaps it's due to where I was (am) educated, but gender is a social/mental state. It does not refer to male and female, and while tending to follow patterns of X and Y chromosomes, is not directly linked. Sex is the physical description. Why don't people say sex when it's the proper word? I'd guess because it's often associated only with sex as an act and is branded as dirty. Is that ironic that the proper word is considered 'improper'?
Wow, this ended up way too long. I blame Larísa.
So. Um. People. With uh... baby-making factories. Well, as Marx would say, they are clearly the bourgeoisie: controlling the means of production while men are the proletariat: an oppressed and exploited mass of workers who only create products from which they are disconnected and derive no profit or meaning. Clearly men need to rise up and seize the means of production. Or no, this has happened. This is the social condition in many countries where women do not have control over their reproduction.
Serious time: There is a strong link between women controlling their baby-making factories and their country not being crap. Example time: Africa has many nations where women have little control over whether or not to have children or how many: Africa on average is a pretty crappy place. In contrast America allows women a great deal of control; rape is illegal under all circumstances (This is not to say that all cases lead to punishment; guilty people may be found innocent. My point was that there are no legally accepted religious or social rules which allow rape), abortion is legal (well, mostly, I think some states have laws against it), birth control is legal and fairly cheap: America is awesome.
TL;DR: If you let women control their own bodies, your country is significantly less likely to be terrible. This isn't feminism, it's practicality.
This is the part with game stuff, so start reading here. Look at the bold words. The stuff above this is not related to gaming and may also be offensive, despite being true.
Sorry, got totally off the topic of girls and games or something like that. Girls on bandwagons. Something.
I play a female blood elf paladin. The males were a little too.. fabulous for me. Other races were not good options due to being on the wrong faction. Anyway, I sometimes run into problems.
1) People thinking I am a girl.
By itself this doesn't bother me much. I usually correct them. However, if they get sexist, then I tend to ignore them and if possible get them killed. It pisses me off when there are problems in a group and next thing I know someone is calling me a bitch. Sexism is dumb enough, but sexism when you aren't even certain of the sex of the target?
2) People ask if I am a girl.
WTF does it matter?
3) I think I am a girl.
That came out wrong. Oops? A while back I realized I was too much in the virtual world of WoW. I wasn't properly differentiating between my character and myself. This almost instantly creeped me out. Why? Well, I'm male and my character is female. I briefly freaked out and went "Agh! Am I pretending to be female? WTF is wrong with me!" I played other characters for a couple weeks while I reminded myself "that is a representation, not an identification."
Stereotypes are weird. For starters, they're not based on nothing. That isn't to say they are true or universally generalizable, but they're rarely from out of nowhere. The weird part of them is that they aren't just used by outsiders, but also by those who they are supposed to describe. People sometimes become the stereotype. Then there are the 'taught' ones. Let's pretend that [Alaskans] are stereotyped as violent and in response to perceived danger we impose marshal law in [Alaska] and mobs attack suspected [Alaskans]. You think they're going to act normal? Before long there is an [Alaskan] independence movement (nvm, that already exists) and before long there is a small civil war. Those damn violent [Alaskans] started this whole mess!
Let's see if I can bring that back towards girls. Let's say I were to say that girls are impulsive and emotional. In response they might kick me very hard. See? I was right.
Girls don't play video games: Would you join an activity dominated by people who obsess over you and who lose (or never had) basic social skills just because of your mere existence? Thankfully this stereotype has eroded to little more than a lame joke and in fact girls, and not just a very tiny portion, do actually play video games.
Do I joke about stereotypes about girls and gaming? Sure. With my female friend who is a gamer, and I suspect might kick my ass if we were to ever play against each other in the same game. Fortunately she plays City of Villains, so I am not at risk of e-castration. We realize it is a joke and a very dumb one. Would I make the joke around anyone other than her or a few of our friends? Hell no. I refuse to be one of the idiots that throws that around and not only looks lame, but also a bit sexist.
Jumping back to self-reinforcing stereotypes: Female skills and roles. Are girls bad at games? Hell if I know, I don't conduct surveys in PUGs or even in guild: "on a scale of one to ten, how terrible are you? Are you female? Thank you." But... when someone is bad, who is more noticeable? OMG TERRIBLE GIRL! When the majority of players are male, they are the default, so only female gamers are going to be commonly labeled by their sex. Moving on to healing: it's not nurturing and nurturing is not the only role that females can play or even want to play.
Sex and gender: Perhaps it's due to where I was (am) educated, but gender is a social/mental state. It does not refer to male and female, and while tending to follow patterns of X and Y chromosomes, is not directly linked. Sex is the physical description. Why don't people say sex when it's the proper word? I'd guess because it's often associated only with sex as an act and is branded as dirty. Is that ironic that the proper word is considered 'improper'?
Wow, this ended up way too long. I blame Larísa.
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