WoW and Roller Skates
One of my lifetime passions is World of Warcraft (WoW), which I've sadly been unable to play much these last few weeks.
The obsession started when Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) came out with the New Game Enhancements (NGE). The NGE totally screwed up the game play of a really truly fabulous game. SWG was so completely customizable. Every character was unique according to how the player wanted to make the character. This went beyond mere appearances, but also included the skill build as well (there, called professions). There was no such thing as a cookie-cutter character. If you wanted a character that had a little bit of rifle skill, a little bit of hunting skills, and a little bit of bio-engineering skills, you could do that. Heck, you could even add tailoring, cooking, and architecture to that if you wanted. Not sure how good you'd be at any of it.. but you could do it.
BUT, "They" decided that the game needed an upgrade, and came out with the NGE. While it was great for people who'd never played the game before and didn't know what it was like previous to the launch of the NGE, those of us who had experienced life pre-NGE thought it totally sucked. Especially those of us who were pigeon holed into professions we didn't really want.
Ok, that's a whole new set of griefs there. This post is about roller skates. So anyway, I started playing WoW after giving the NGE a small chance (two months). Some friends who played SWG before had been trying to get me to move to WoW for a year at that point, and it seemed like a good time to make the jump. After a small dab at playing an Alliance character (technically, "the good guys"), I was persuaded to play a Horde character.
My first reaction was "I'm a bad guy again?" -- to which I was quickly reminded that good and bad are clearly in the eyes of the beholder. Technically, the humans (Alliance) were encroaching on long-held orc (Horde) territory. The humans are the bad guys, here.
My next reaction was "But they're ugly!" How can I play my usual bubbly self if I have to play an ugly, mean character? The closest I could get to "pretty" is the troll... which, by the way, hate every living thing on the planet. They tolerate other members of their tribe, have a truce with the orcs because the orcs saved their hides once or twice, grudgingly respect the tauren because they're just mean fighters, and clearly, definitely, hate the forsaken (undead humans--they can't be trusted--they were human after all). So, my "pretty" troll shaman immediately allies herself with a group of undead. Makes sense, right?
Eventually, my shaman makes it to level 60. I'm not really sure how she got there, considering it's such a sllooooww climb. But making friends makes the climb lots easier. So, let's fast forward a bit.
Now, I'm playing on another server, as an Alliance character this time (yay!), because of a friend I met on the first server. This character is a Night Elf Druid. She's cute and bubbly (although, not nearly as cute and bubbly as the gnome mage I made elsewhere). So, anyway, I'm working on leveling my druid today because I actually have time to play for a while. I actually managed to get two and a half levels on her. Now, instead of being level 19, she's well on her way to being level 22! Woohoo!
And, I made a new friend, which brings me to the thought of roller skates. When your character first starts out in WoW, there are two speeds for transportation - walk (incredibly unbelievably slow) and run (just incredibly slow). Get your character to level 40, and you can buy a mount (horse, ram, tiger, mechanical chicken, raptor, wolf, or kodo depending on your race). The mount increases your speed by 40%. But, you have to wait until you're level 40. Which, for me, will be sometime in the year 2007, I believe.
So while dragging my new friend around everywhere (he'd only been playing the game for a few days), I thought of a great new invention for the gnomes to come up with -- roller skates. You get these metal plates about the size of your foot, attach wheels to the bottom, and strap them onto your shoes. You can now travel faster, and with less effort, than if you were running! What a great concept!
Instead of taking two hours to run (the incredibly slow pace) from Stormwind to Menethil Harbor, you could maybe skate there in say.. 90 minutes instead? It would be a slight improvement.
There, Blizzard, a free idea for you. I won't even charge you royalties. Just pleeeaase let me run faster!
The obsession started when Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) came out with the New Game Enhancements (NGE). The NGE totally screwed up the game play of a really truly fabulous game. SWG was so completely customizable. Every character was unique according to how the player wanted to make the character. This went beyond mere appearances, but also included the skill build as well (there, called professions). There was no such thing as a cookie-cutter character. If you wanted a character that had a little bit of rifle skill, a little bit of hunting skills, and a little bit of bio-engineering skills, you could do that. Heck, you could even add tailoring, cooking, and architecture to that if you wanted. Not sure how good you'd be at any of it.. but you could do it.
BUT, "They" decided that the game needed an upgrade, and came out with the NGE. While it was great for people who'd never played the game before and didn't know what it was like previous to the launch of the NGE, those of us who had experienced life pre-NGE thought it totally sucked. Especially those of us who were pigeon holed into professions we didn't really want.
Ok, that's a whole new set of griefs there. This post is about roller skates. So anyway, I started playing WoW after giving the NGE a small chance (two months). Some friends who played SWG before had been trying to get me to move to WoW for a year at that point, and it seemed like a good time to make the jump. After a small dab at playing an Alliance character (technically, "the good guys"), I was persuaded to play a Horde character.
My first reaction was "I'm a bad guy again?" -- to which I was quickly reminded that good and bad are clearly in the eyes of the beholder. Technically, the humans (Alliance) were encroaching on long-held orc (Horde) territory. The humans are the bad guys, here.
My next reaction was "But they're ugly!" How can I play my usual bubbly self if I have to play an ugly, mean character? The closest I could get to "pretty" is the troll... which, by the way, hate every living thing on the planet. They tolerate other members of their tribe, have a truce with the orcs because the orcs saved their hides once or twice, grudgingly respect the tauren because they're just mean fighters, and clearly, definitely, hate the forsaken (undead humans--they can't be trusted--they were human after all). So, my "pretty" troll shaman immediately allies herself with a group of undead. Makes sense, right?
Eventually, my shaman makes it to level 60. I'm not really sure how she got there, considering it's such a sllooooww climb. But making friends makes the climb lots easier. So, let's fast forward a bit.
Now, I'm playing on another server, as an Alliance character this time (yay!), because of a friend I met on the first server. This character is a Night Elf Druid. She's cute and bubbly (although, not nearly as cute and bubbly as the gnome mage I made elsewhere). So, anyway, I'm working on leveling my druid today because I actually have time to play for a while. I actually managed to get two and a half levels on her. Now, instead of being level 19, she's well on her way to being level 22! Woohoo!
And, I made a new friend, which brings me to the thought of roller skates. When your character first starts out in WoW, there are two speeds for transportation - walk (incredibly unbelievably slow) and run (just incredibly slow). Get your character to level 40, and you can buy a mount (horse, ram, tiger, mechanical chicken, raptor, wolf, or kodo depending on your race). The mount increases your speed by 40%. But, you have to wait until you're level 40. Which, for me, will be sometime in the year 2007, I believe.
So while dragging my new friend around everywhere (he'd only been playing the game for a few days), I thought of a great new invention for the gnomes to come up with -- roller skates. You get these metal plates about the size of your foot, attach wheels to the bottom, and strap them onto your shoes. You can now travel faster, and with less effort, than if you were running! What a great concept!
Instead of taking two hours to run (the incredibly slow pace) from Stormwind to Menethil Harbor, you could maybe skate there in say.. 90 minutes instead? It would be a slight improvement.
There, Blizzard, a free idea for you. I won't even charge you royalties. Just pleeeaase let me run faster!
posted by Pami @ 4:12 PM
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