Tag Archives: humour

Newbs and a Harry Potter Review. But Mostly Newbs

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Newbs:

My life as of late seems plagued by newbs. For one thing, I’ve gotten into several truly awful WoW raid PUGs in the last few days. In one, I came in to heal a Baradin Hold guild run (not my guild, thank god), only to find that they were trying to kill the new boss, Occu’thar, with DPS that wouldn’t have been nearly sufficient for the much easier Argaloth. Most of them didn’t even have gems in their gear. I try to fight every elitist urge I have, and I rarely judge people harshly for not having the very best gear or enchants, but not geming is just something that gets under my skin. It’s hanging a giant “I don’t care about succeeding, and I’m willing to drag everyone in my group down with me” sign around one’s neck.

A day later, I was thrilled to finally be invited to a Firelands group, only to find out the group had only one healer (me), and one tank. The raid leader was an all PvP gear and didn’t even know what a role check was. Needless to say, I bailed on the group–something I only do under the most dire circumstances. I try to be very tolerant of the inexperienced and help them when I can, but when you don’t even understand that raids take multiple tanks and healers, I start to wonder if you bought your toon off eBay.

Then today I joined another Firelands group (after having to explain my class, spec, and ilevel to the raider leader about seven times, after he said I could come), only to find the group had vanished and only the leader was left. He evaded my questions about what had happened to the rest of the group, and when I asked for clarification, he called me an obscenity and stormed from the group. This very suspicious fellow is now resting comfortably in my ignore list.

But my newb problem isn’t limited to the gaming world. A few months ago, I submitted some of my short fiction to a new anthology of fantasy fiction, “Beneath a Violet Moon” from an obscure company called Inceptus Press. And then I waited for a response. And waited. And waited. At last, a few days ago, I checked their blog, and discovered they had decided not to do the anthology after all because they didn’t like the submissions.

What bothers me about this is they didn’t bother to inform the contributors by any means but a single poorly advertised post. All they would have had to do is write a brief form letter explaining the situation and do a mass mailing to all their contributors. It probably would have taken the same amount of effort as the blog post.
That they neglected to do so proves they are a tactless, rude, and unprofessional group of people.

In other words, they’re newbs.

Anyway, I did promise a review…

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part one:

Last night, I finally got around to seeing the second to last Harry Potter film on DVD. I’ve found all of the movies to date rather disappointing compared to the awesomeness of the books, to varying degrees. Order of the Phoenix was pretty enjoyable and almost as good as the book, but Half-Blood Prince was a horrific butcher job.

The Deathly Hallows was probably the closest to the books so far in terms of following the specifics of events. Little was left out, and for the first time, it felt properly paced instead of seeming like a jerky plot summary of the book. But that said, it still comes up short.

This was the first time I realized this, but the actors playing Harry, Ron, and Hermione simply aren’t very talented. Ron is probably the best, but that’s likely just down to his being the easiest role to play. Daniel Radcliffe has none of the intensity or gravitas Harry carried in the book, and Emma Watson tries her best, but she just comes off as too shrill and girly. Neither have the strength of personality to pull off their respective roles. The good acting is reserved for the minor roles: Bellatrix Lestrange and Luna Lovegood.

There was one big blunder, too. (Warning: Spoiler ahead if you haven’t read the book–and if you haven’t, have you been living under a rock?) In the scene where Bellatrix is torturing Hermione, I remember book-Ron going absolutely ballistic. It was a crucial scene that really proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved her. In the movie, he hardly reacted at all.

Overall rating: 6.4/10 The Deathly Hallows part one is one of the better efforts to emulate the books thus far, but it still doesn’t work that well.

One final note–Weird Worm posted another of my articles: Beloved But Short-Lived Sci-fi Shows.

My Favourite Place in WoW, Lore Musings, and More Weird Worm

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Got a few different topics today.

First, Weird Worm has published another of my articles: Eight (Bad) Ways People Talk on the Web. I believe this to be my funniest contribution to them to date. Which is to say that it may actually be funny.

Next, there is news on the WoW lore front. Blizzard has recently released the latest in its series of leader short stories: “As Our Fathers Before Us,” focusing on Baine Bloodhoof. This wasn’t the best of their stories to date, in my opinion. For one thing, it was less of a Baine Bloodhoof story and more of a story about how Hamuul Runetotem is awesome and Garrosh Hellscream is an idiot. Which is redundant, since we already know that Hamuul is awesome and that Garrosh’s IQ is about on par with that of those level one zombies that wander around the Forsaken starting area. Mostly, the story just made me miss Cairne. Sigh…

Also on the subject of lore, as someone whose favourite expansion was Wrath of the Lich King, I’ve been continuing to ponder the answer from Ask CDev that stated the Lich King never unleashed the full power of the Scourge. I assumed it must have meant Uther was right about Arthas trying to save the day and hold them back (even though that makes little if any sense), but reading the answer again, something caught my eye.

“Yes, that does also mean that Arthas and Ner’zhul were not unleashing the full force of the Scourge during their respective reigns: you are welcome to speculate on the reasons for that.”

My bolds. This means that Arthas can’t have been what was holding the Scourge back. So then the question becomes, why was Ner’zhul holding back? Initially, the threat of a sudden attack by Kil’jaeden seems like a good option, but considering he got facestomped by the Shattered Sun, it seems unlikely the Lich King would still be worried about him by the time of Wrath. Could Uther have been right, but about the wrong person? Could there have been some shred of goodness left in Ner’zhul that was holding the Scourge back? I’d certainly find that much more believable than the idea that Arthas still had some good in him.

One wonders if the Lich King wasn’t afflicted by the same lust for destruction that affects death knights (the Endless Hunger, also discussed in the Ask CDev answers), but on a much larger scale. He was, after all, created to be a weapon. Maybe he sowed destruction not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

Alas, we will likely never know the answer to these questions, but it’s fun to speculate. After all, what’s the point of being a fanboy (or fangirl) if you can’t obsess over every unanswered question? Feel free to share any theories you may have in the comments.

Finally, I recently read a post on another blog where the author discussed their favourite spot in the game. This seemed like a pretty good topic, so I’m just gonna go ahead and steal it.

Those of you not intimately familiar with me may be surprised to learn this, but I’ve been pretty heavily critical of a lot of aspects of WoW (especially prior to Wrath of the Lich King), and there are still many aspects of the game that drive me crazy. But one thing I cannot fault is the massive, beautiful, and incredibly immersive world Blizzard has created for this game. There are many places I enjoy going just to be there and soak up the atmosphere.

It’s difficult to pick any one single location as my favourite, but I think I would have to go with the Snowdrift Plains at the northern edge of the Storm Peaks. The Storm Peaks are almost certainly my favourite zone; they’re incredibly fantastical and exotic, but they also feel incredibly real, so much so that I almost feel cold just looking at the visuals. Couple this with the beautiful and haunting soundtrack and the spectacular questing, and you have a zone I couldn’t help but fall in love with.

The Snowdrift Plains are just the perfect distillation of what makes the entire zone great. Standing at the cliffs and looking north, I really do feel as if I’ve reached the edge of the world (and not just because I know the game world literally comes to a stop not much farther north). It’s such a lonely, exotic-feeling place. It’s that sense of adventure and exploring the unknown that really attracts me to fantasy in general and WoW in particular. Plus, the graphics for the drifting snow are simply beautiful. The Canadian in me can’t help but approve.

And what of you, dear reader? What is your favourite place out of the whole wide World of Warcraft? Please comment and tell me where and why.

Pick up the games discussed in the post on my Amazon Affiliate.