Into the night

There are usually five or six emails in my inbox at work that I am actively ignoring at any one time. The worst of the present bunch dates back to April. It isn't even a particularly horrible email. It's from an old colleague who'd like to meet up for a drink. I like this old colleague, the prospect of drinks with her is not unpleasant, but I cannot bring myself to reply.
I'm not one to keep to-do lists, but if I were, you can bet it would follow this same pattern, with my blog somewhere up there in the bunch of top (or bottom) tasks ripe for ignoring.

There's clearly something wrong with me.

Psychologists call it procrastination, defined as a "counterproductive" deferment of actions to a later time. It's supposed to be "a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision", which is ironic considering the effects of procrastinating can include "stress, a sense of guilt and crisis, severe loss of personal productivity" and "social disapproval".

Ironically, by turning to Wikipedia for a diagnosis of my condition, I managed to put off writing this blog for a whole other day.

What happened is I got sucked into World of Warcraft, the cyber equivalent of a crack den, and have spent the last three years of my life spiralling into sleep-deprived oblivion. I have managed to keep my head above water at work, and have done enough to keep my relationship together, but that's about it. My friends, my career, even my self-esteem, have suffered.

My work is so pressured right now that I'm not even getting home in time to raid. And I clearly haven't been finding the time to stay on top of this blog. So it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of my virtual list, where it lurks and seethes and gangs up with emails from long-suffering ex-colleagues to make me feel guilty and ashamed.

It's cathartic just to even put that down in writing. My neglected blog has been bullying me.

I'd love to say right now, having reached my epiphany, that I will no longer procrastinate. I will complete all tasks that come to me in a timely and professional manner. But it's not going to happen. I am both incredibly busy and incredibly lazy. Something has got to give.

So for now, it's got to be this blog.

I think it's safe to say that if I am not blogging about the most monumental patch to ever hit this game a week before it's due to land, I'm never going to. And that's a huge shame because this is exactly the kind of thing I set out to write about, and the kind of thing I love doing, time willing.

I had a good run, I think. This blog, and all of you who read and contributed to it, made me a better player. And I think I got a lot more out of my subscription by investing time here, in the WoW community, with you. Thank you very much for sticking with me this long.

I'll not be quitting WoW any time soon, and I'm not going to rule out another blog at some point in the future, but until I can sort out my priorities and learn to balance my time a little better, it's time to let the shadow fall on Misery. Happy face melting :)

300 miserable posts

988 days ago I had a genius idea to start a blog. I had just finished levelling a shadow priest through Outland and had no idea what to do next; it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I called the blog Misery after a key talent in the shadow tree, but also because I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy. If you’ve had reason to pop by on occasion you probably know that.

300 posts later, and I’m still… well, you could hardly call it going strong, more limping along.

That amounts to an average of one post every three or four days, which is not exactly prolific — though I do still remember the dizzy feeling of posting twice in one day. Good times.

I average about 300 hits a day, which even in the rather specialised realm of gaming fanblogs I recognise as a modest splash in the pond. And I can’t even promise that all of those visitors find what they need; I am inherently lazy and don’t do nearly as much housekeeping as I should.

But every now and then, I catch a glimpse of the big time, thanks to the generosity of those rock-star bloggers at wow.com. The most hits I’ve ever received in one day was 2770 on 13 January 2010 for a post about shadow priest glyphs which Alex Ziebart very kindly promoted.

My most read post of all time is also about glyphs, which is a bit of a common theme on Misery. This time it’s the one about glyphs for levelling (hideously out of date). I’m sure anyone who ever hits that page bounces right back to Google in disgust. I promise to update it for Cataclysm, ok?

My top referrer is clearly Google, but I owe a good chunk of my visits to referrals from other blogs — top of the list are Blessing of Kings, wow.com, the (sadly retired) Egotistical Priest, and Penance Priest. Thank you very much guys, and thank you to all the bloggers who link to me that I have shamefully omitted here. Drop me a line if I don’t return the favour, I need a kick to update my blog roll as it is.

The most comments I’ve ever received on one post is a modest 19 for my musings about going holy. I clearly need to do more if I want the buzzing discussions of the big hitters like Matticus and BBB. Share your ideas in the comments please :)

Wrath of the Lick King has been a mixed bag for Merlot. He has seen shadow priests go from a hopelessly broken marginal support class to a dps contender, but he has had to sit out much of the end game while an upstart Tauren shaman monopolised my time. For casual players like me, this has been an incredible expansion, but it has come at a cost. I think most hybrid classes will recognise the pressure to offspec for healing or tanking, and many will understand the pitfalls of succumbing to that pressure for convenience. Once you accept that it’s easier to heal or tank than fight for a dps spot, you are lost.

So I have done more raiding this expansion than ever before, but I wasn’t melting faces. And now it’s too late to catch up. The advent of achievements and gear score have pretty much seen to that — but that’s another post.

With Cataclysm already in beta, I’ll be able to get my teeth into priestly class developments again, which is something I love. And I will soon have to make a decision about my Cataclysm strategy. Do I take the easy route and stay healing, or do I go back to shadow and bench the facehealer?

Either way, you don’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll still keep banging on about how priests need moar luv and how glyphs are broken and how I am totally going to redesign this blog like tomorrow. Yea, mañana baby.

Writer's block

Even as my personal progress through Icecrown moves slowly, I sense a general winding down of the expansion already. We know there will be probably only one more content patch before the real work on Cataclysm begins, and the shadow of the summer exodus looms. I already feel the tension mounting for many guilds on my realm between ambition and apathy. And as much as I hate to admit it, I'm presently erring on the side of apathy. I need a kick up the ass.

So apologies for the dearth of content lately (the doughnut post was a stretch, I know). I do have some ideas (see below) and just need to find the time and motivation to put these plans into action. You can help speed up the process by indicating if there's anything in this list that you particularly crave (or don't, for that matter):

• Why it's time to remove regional restrictions on forums (rant)
• Part 2 of the levelling guide (long overdue)
• Updated raiding spec (but honestly, not sure if this is needed)
• Whether to drop mind blast with the tier 10 4-piece bonus (don't know, should look into it)
• Cataclysm wish list (too early?)
• More addon and UI investigations
• And lots of admin - updated links, blogroll, new header, and if I can find one I like, maybe even a new template

The doughnut debate

It's a cake, right?

These people who say it's a pastry are clearly crazy people.

Bread supporters? Two slices short of a picnic.

Here at Misery blog, we call em like we see em.

Doughnuts are cakes, dammit.

The shadow priest playlist

I need your help with a project please.

Do you ever wonder what songs would be on the soundtrack to your life? I'd like to think mine would be full of self-consciously stylish era-defining tracks like Smooth Criminal and Unfinished Sympathy but have a niggling fear it would be full of Steps and Bananarama. Such is my life.

Anyway, I was daydreaming to the Jason Bourne soundtracks the other day (they make me feel like an invincible secret agent, EVERYONE should try them after a shitty day at work), when I wondered what Merlot's soundtrack would be — or indeed, any shadow priest's.

So I'm on a mission to find the best songs for face melters. Now I know music is very subjective — I am very much a child of the 80s, if you haven't already guessed it, with a strong affinity for electronica, pop, and anything with a strong rhythm. I toyed briefly with rock and metal but it was all just too exhausting. So none of that 'virgin's entrails' stuff for Merlot. Otherwise, anything goes.

Not surprisingly, there aren't that many songs out there about holy people who reject their faith to channel dark magics in pursuit of perfection, but there are lots of songs that evoke an appropriate mode, talk about facets of shadow lore and style, or else just make great tunes to destroy the minds of monsters to. The connection doesn't have to be obvious, but it does need to be there.

Some of my (rather long) shortlist currently include:

• True Faith — New Order
• The Double Life — Siouxsie and the Banshees
• Brain Damage/Eclipse — Pink Floyd
• Losing my Religion — REM (too obvious?)
• Rehab — Amy Winehouse
• Crucify — Army of Lovers
• Sympathy for the Devil — Rolling Stones
• Comfortably Numb — Scissor Sisters
• It's a Sin — Pet Shop Boys
• Black Hole Sun — Soundgarden
• Condemnation — Depeche Mode
• Constant Craving — KD Lang
• Shadows and Light — Joni Mitchell
• Bad Moon Rising — Creedence Clearwater Revival (too druidy?)

If you don't like pop this is probably painful to even contemplate, let along listen to, so my apologies if I've offended anyone :) But it's totally a work in progress. You can make a case for dropping any one of these tracks, and suggest a suitable replacement. Over to you please, what should be on my shadow priest playlist?

The cost of stupidity

This weekend, the GMs restored my stolen goods to a standard that I hadn't even dared hope for. They returned all my gear, gemmed and enchanted. They returned all my gold. They returned all my farmed materials, my stock of gems, cloth, eternals, consumables, badges, bags... they even returned the odd bits of vendor trash that were sitting in my bags. I have a vague feeling at the back of head that something's missing, but I couldn't even tell you what. For all intents and purposes, I got it all back.

So it would appear that the cost of stupidity, in this case at least, is very little — only the memories of a very unpleasant period, and a week without my favourite characters during which I turned, in desperation, to the alliance. (Don't tell my friends but I now have a female gnome death knight. She looks like a really small Pink.)

Thank you all for your messages of support. As some of you pointed out, I should have known better. Now I do, and I have an authenticator on order.

Hacked!

I thought I was too clever to get hacked, so I guess this was a long time coming.

Just to warn you, if you search google for the eu armory, the current top sponsored link is a pfishing site. You should not get a battle net login screen and you do not need to log in to check the armory. I thought it was a little odd, but fell for it anyway.

Merlot's armory page now shows a character with no gear equipped except badge gear (which of course can't be vendored). As a nine-character gear horder, I have just handed over close to 25k of gold and bank-fulls of herbs, ore and leather to the gold-selling bastards.

An authenticator has been added to my account so I can't even log in to start repairing the damage.

The pfishing site is now on Mozilla's blocked list, but it came too late for me. Boy, do I feel stupid now. Don't get caught, check the links first.

Merlot's new year resolutions

I thought it would be fun to make some new year resolutions, but the fun evaporated when I saw the list. Honestly, this game is a full-time job.

1. Find a new guild. With my shitty gear, it'll have to be one that's either still farming ToC or willing to give me time to catch up. I only want to raid two or three times a week, I want to know in advance when those raids happen, and I don't want to be guilt-tripped into raiding every time I log in. I'll bring my healer with me (same gear conditions apply) but if I end up healing more than dps I'll throw a tantrum and start hiding on non-guild alts. If you're in a horde-side darkspear guild with an opening for a mediocre shadow priest and his shammy alt, drop me a whisper in game.
   
2. Sort shitty gear out. I've been out of raiding for too long. I have triumph badges coming out of my ears but nothing to spend them on. This is a complete tangent, but I didn't look properly at tier 9 when it came out and now I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. All that hit and all those blue sockets make me sick. Those triumph badges are not helping at all. Blizzard seems under the impression that hit is an "interesting" stat. It's not. Gonna have to pug those Icecrown heroics till I get some decent non-hit gear. Carrying 1k dps death knights is not my idea of fun.
   
3. Get loremaster. Only 800 or so quests to go. Easy, right? But it's so monotonous. So much time spent running or flying from one point to another. Those old world quest hubs do not compare well to their Northrend counterparts. That's time I could be farming badges or gearing alts instead. This one may have to wait till the expansion, when we will be able to fly across the new zones. I just hope Blizzard doesn't raise the target at the same time.
   
4. Blog more. And get better at it. And make it look better. I'm not like all those 1k death knights out there — I at least understand my predicament and know how to tackle it. But it's not quite as simple as using the right spells in the right order for a change (note to death knights: you aren't supposed to use all your attacks). Improving my blog will take time and effort, and it will always sadly take third priority behind earning a living and playing the actual game I write about. But I spend an awful lot of my life doing pretty much nothing at all (commuting three hours a day for example) so there's plenty of room for improvement.
   
5. Clean up my UI. This is one of those jobs, like spring cleaning or the annual report, that squats in my mind like Philip Larkin's work toad, soiling any feelings of contentedness and satisfaction that might arise in me. My UI is a complete mess and needs an overhaul. Fortexorcist was a great start and has vastly improved my dot and cooldown tracking, but it's just the beginning. I desperately need to reorganise my action bars, finish customising my grid and clique settings, and find a new frames addon (and set it up to my liking). And I need to find a way to easily manage addon profiles across alts and duel specs.
   
6. Find obscenely rich, daft philanthropist with blind passion for slightly paunchy blonde brits to fund full-time massively multiplayer online roleplaying antics. About 30k should do it for starters. Investment returns negotiable.

Dragon Age: the Misery review

BioWare's latest fantasy masterpiece is an "epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal" — much like my professional life, which chose to implode just as a free copy of the game landed on my doorstep. Luckily PS3 pro Nas stepped in to review the game for me while I did battle with the brain-sucking ogres of my office. It's late and it's off-topic, but it's here now in case you're looking for a new challenge in 2010.

Being a KOTR and Mass Effect addict I was delighted when BioWare were brining our a new RPG — Dragon Age Origin. Dragon Age has a great story, great battles and incredible scenery. You can immerse yourself in this fantasy world and lose countless days uncovering new quests and perfecting your character. You start from choosing from three base characters, warrior, mage and rogue and within each base you can then have a choice of two classes. You wander around this vast fantasy world interacting with all those that take your fancy and making decisions that affect the game. These decision can cause party members to leave or attack you, maybe even fall in love with you, but I haven’t achieved that yet!

No matter who you chose as your base character, you soon meet Duncan, a Grey Warden, and the Darkspawn. You battle through the game becoming a Grey Warden yourself and meet characters who have a depth and quality that you rarely find in games. The game manages to combine humour and suspense. The world really is your oyster, you decide how you turn out and how the game finishes, you decide how much you want to immerse yourself into this world but the dialogues that you chose to have or not have and the quests you chose to follow or not follow.

The development team have done a sterling job, it’s a beautiful looking game and if you are fan of BioWare RPG games, or any RPG game then buy it — just book a few days' annual leave first!

A quick google of the title reveals that Dragon Age comes with a mature rating for graphic and morbid violence, mature language, and sexual content. Sounds like a party. Learn more at dragonage.bioware.com.

LFG and psychic warlocks

A warlock friend recently dinged 80 and we've been dipping in and out of the new LFG too to get geared up. (I am always the healer. If you ever want to dps, trust me, uncheck the heal box.)

So I'm having a poke around Skada afterwards and notice he's using unstable affliction and immolate. And I have a vague feeling from patch notes of yore that you can't do that any more. So I check wowwiki before opening my mouth and sure enough, these two dots now share a 'slot' — they overwrite each other.

Naturally, he was a little perturbed to receive this news — and from a priest, of all things. And after several expletives he asked, quite reasonably I thought: "how was I supposed to know this?"

And I have the same question for you, my erudite readers. If you don't trawl through patch notes with the ferocity of a tabloid proofreader, or have rolled your affliction warlock since the change was made, how exactly are you supposed to know about this? As far as I can see, there's nothing in the tooltip for either spell. Does Blizzard just assume you'll work it out, or have we overlooked the obvious?

To-do list

Wednesday, 9 December

• Install patch.
• Update addons.
• Log in.
• Stare at character selection screen swallowing back mounting panic.
• Take deep breath, log in on priest.
• Check talents, glyphs, gems; decide you are too poor to change them even if you wanted to.
• Open LFG, stare with horror at alien interface.
• Alt-tab to wow.com's handy guide.
• Return to LFG with renewed confidence, list for new instance.
• Fly aimlessly round Icecrown looking for new instance.
• When UI freezes with six-figure lag, realise you have found new instance.
• Run into instance, stare with wonder at shiny new interior.
• Start casting spells.
• Panic as ALL addons go MENTAL.
• Perform like brain-dead gold farmer through most of instance.
• Ninja all caster gear.
• Leave quickly.
• Alt-tab to Curse for the bad news on buggy addons.
• Waste hours trawling forums to find fix is months away.
• Realise with depressing clarity that all addons need replacing.
• Log resolving to deal with it tomorrow.
• Go to be early for 5.30am taxi to work (yes, 5.30am).
• Wake up at 1.30am remembering you are guildless.
• Resist urge to log back in to look for guild.
• Dream fitfully about the insurmountable challenge of fixing addons AND finding guild before the entire world has killed Arthas and moved back to Kalimdor to take up farming and crafts.
• Go to work. At 5.30am.
• Resign. Find new job.
• Start to-do list for Thursday, 10 December.

Lost in (virtual) space

In a world where we are bombarded relentlessly with audio and visual stimulation from the moment we wake to the point we pass out drunk on the sofa with a half-eaten kebab in our hands, moments of clarity are rare.

I had one just now while reading a Guardian article that compared World of Warcraft to a cathedral: "it is the Chartres of the video-game world...a supreme work of art that is, on a brick-by-brick basis, the creation of hundreds of artisans and craftsmen, many of whom will be long gone by the time it comes to completion."

Plausible perhaps, if a little far-fetched. But I play a priest so religious metaphors are quite appealing.

The journalist, Sam Leith, thinks questing is like praying — a repetitive and ritualistic observance that elevates the status of the environment and pays homage to the symbol of our faith. And, as with churches, he thinks the lasting appeal of WoW lies in its social nature: "The people who stay in WoW join guilds, make friends online, go questing in groups and spend hours (with only a bit of giant-slaying) talking in the chat channels. It's as much a social networking site as a videogame. You log on and gossip in its pews."

Which got me wondering what it is about WoW that keeps me coming back? I've always thought of myself as a fundamentally antisocial person — surely I don't spend hours of my life and a considerable chunk of my income to engage in frivolous chatter?

It was in this thoughtful frame of mind that I scrolled through the comments and stumbled upon the words of one perennial dissenter: "Ah this old nonsense again...Imagine yourself in twenty or thirty years time. Are you going to say 'My God, my healthy years were well spent playing World Of Warcraft', or 'I cannot believe I wasted so many hours of my life on such a trivial diversion'."

There it is: the moment of clarity.

Silence. Then... what am I doing?

It almost came to me, the answer to life, the reason I am obsessed with this unhealthy occupation, a glimpse of a future filled with enriching activities, exercise, skinny-fit jeans. My god, he's right! It's a computer game! I could be writing a novel, running a marathon, curing cancer! If I could only...

And then, without warning, Jimmy Buffet sang to me. I don't even like Jimmy Buffet, but this one line has been going round and round my head for days. So instead of discovering the meaning of my existence, I heard a crooning country dropout confess to eating the last mango in Paris, something about Saigon, and then moaning that there's still so much to be done. (Yes, he rhymed Saigon with done.)

From one waster to another, that's it. Goodbye moment of clarity. If there ever was an answer, it's gone now, probably never to return. All that's left is a bad pun in a country music song (which I'm still humming by the way).

No wonder I spend so much time hiding in Azeroth.

Tales from the test realm #14

KT: FOOLS, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE COME HERE. NOW YOU WILL D... You there priest, what is that?

Priest: Hmm? Oh, you mean Lil KT, he's my new pet.

KT: Pet? It's a... mini... me....

Warlock: Haha, "groovy baby"!

KT: SILENCE MINION! Where did this abomination come from?

Warlock: What did he call me? He did not just call me that.

KT: Oh sorry, I thought it was the imp talking.

Warlock: Can we burn him now already?

KT: WAIT.

Priest: I bought him, innit. Those Kirin Tor dudes are breedin em like puppies.

KT: ...

Warlock: Prepare to die, lich bitch...

KT: Lich bitch? — Priest, how much did you pay for that monstrosity?

Priest: Ten dollars.

Warlock: Ten what?

KT: What are these dollars of which you speak?

Priest: dollars, you know. They're like a virtual currency you buy with gold.

KT: I don't understand.

Priest: You know those shady dudes that hang around in starter towns and whisper you? You give them gold and they hand over these dollars.

KT: How much gold?

Priest: It varies. The dollars don't have an innate value, they're like a commodity, so the amount fluctuates according to the economic principles of supply and demand. It's called an exchange rate.

KT: HOW MUCH?

Priest: A grand, square up.

Warlock: Pwnd!

KT: But why trade in this virtual currency, why does not this mage just charge 1000 gold thereby rendering the undesirable peasant middleman obsolete?

Priest: Erm...

KT: Surely your Horde would prohibit such a pernicious trade for fear of undermining the global economy?

Priest: Huh?

KT: Well, if people start trading in these dollars instead of gold, the value of goods becomes increasingly unstable, devaluing the gold standard and potentially leading to hyperinflation. Hmm, that gives me an idea...

Priest: Dude, it's just a pet.

KT: Warlock, how much for my wand?

Priest: What are you doing?

Warlock: I do not need to buy your puny wand frosty, I'll rip it out of your cold, dead hands.

KT: Yes yes, but how much?

Warlock: Ten dollars?

Priest: YOU CAN'T BUY GEAR.

KT: Deal. Whisper me later...

Priest: Can we fight now?

KT: I'll swap you my robe for the mini me...

Do not adjust your sets

I'm very sorry I've been a bit of an absent landlord of late. I've had a perfect storm of attrocities in real life and online to battle with, including, but not limited to:

• Packing for a two-week holiday to Florida for which I leave in NINETEEN hours (pending)
• Attempting to loose two stone in a month to avoid looking like Mr Tickle on said holiday (FAIL)
• Trying to finish all my work so that I don't spend entire holiday remembering things I didn't do (ongoing)
• Tidying desk area so I don't return to alien landscape of deadly bacterial cultures (this will almost certainly be a fail)
• Finishing Quantum by Manjit Kumar so that I can devote holiday time to more appropriate vactional reading like Hello and the Nanny Diaries (partial fail - finished but utterly baffled; does anyone really understand this stuff?)
• Planning a drive route through Florida that encompasses every mall of minor significance while maintaining maximum Cinnabon exposure (much harder than you might appreciate but achieved)

Add to this the fact that my guild has been in meltdown for the last three weeks and that I have been like a condemned man at work, I will be very glad to see the back of England for a while. My guild finally succumed last night, so Merlot is officially homeless. I'll write more about that another time - I have a theory that all guilds are dommed to an inevitable and spectacular death at birth. Copious quantities of martinis are required to help solidify my thinking on the subject. Expect normal services to resume in two weeks when your rested and greatly enlarged blogger returns. Please don't go away :)

To the edge and back

My normal blood elf elitist bravura has taken a bit of a pounding over the last few months. A perfect storm of conditions have aligned to beat the confidence stuffing right out of me.

My raid performance as shadow has, and continues to be, very lacklustre. Gear is a bit limp in several slots and we often run very melee heavy, which means I'm low on optimal raid buffs, especially in 10 mans. I make mistakes too, which contribute both to a poor performance and a general feeling of inadequacy. You can't help but wonder, when you are 2k below the top dps in your raid, and they can beat the boss with you face down on the ground for most of the fight, why you're there. I know I can play my class better, but I also believe the class is underpowered.

Unfortunately, I don't get that much time to practice. More often that not we are struggling for healers these days, so I end up healing. I never did pluck up the courage to go holy, by the way, although I went as far as to buy the gems and glyphs. I decided I loves me bubbles too much. Bu that doesn't mean I enjoy raid healing as disc any more than before. Merlot, at heart, is a hissing, remorseless, unwavering death bringer. Every time he throws a heal, a kitten dies.

I have turned instead to my shaman Golan, a tauren, an earth lover and a life giver. I love shaman healing, the mix of spells feels right, the talents and glyphs varied enough to keep shaman healing interesting and effective. When I heal as a shaman, I feel like I am pulling my weight.

It's not without its drawbacks. Nobody can keep a tank up like a disc priest; there have been times when I just couldn't put out enough heals quickly enough to keep them alive. And I've lost count of the number of times I've pushed out a chain heal on a target too far away for it to bounce. WORST. FEELING. EVER. It's a huge challenge to try and keep track of people around me and know where on grid they fit together — but it also forces me to lift my head up more than I would otherwise.

Don't worry, I'm not going to start blogging about shaman. Too many people do that too well already. It just means that Merlot's identity crisis is over. No more healing, and no more fretting over how well he heals. From now on, the only lasers I'll be firing are killer purple ones. I'm going to get better, I'm going to dish out more pain and suffering than ever before. And if anyone asks me to heal them, I'll curse them into next year. NO. MORE. MR. NICE. GUY.

A change for the good

An odd little quest popped up in Dalaran after the last patch. At least, I think that's when it popped up — certainly, I never noticed it before. There's a Tauren hanging around the portals, looking rather shifty. He asks you to deliver a shield to an injured colleague who has returned to Thunder Bluff to recuperate. You trot over to Mulgore, turn in the shield, and wait patiently for the follow up. But nothing comes. That's it. A seemingly dead-end quest that nets you a couple of gold, barely worth the time it took. Except, if you are patient, and can filter out the NPC dialogue from trade spam, something very interesting happens. The injured Tauren turns to a friend and starts talking about this new fangled night elf goddess, Elune...

I can only assume this is a nod to possible future developments within the Tauren culture — laying the foundations, so to speak. If you've read the mmo champion spoilerfest on the next expansion, you'll know what I mean. This post might let a couple of them slip, so stop reading now if you don't want to know.

I got talking about this with a friend, a real lore nerd who played the original warcraft strategy games and can tell you what colour underwear Gul'dan had on when he died. He's outraged by the very notion of Tauren preists and paladins, Troll druids, or Gnome shamen and considers any plans to alter or ignore warcraft lore a dilution and bastardisation of the game. He might even quit if any of these changes come to fruition.

I feel for my friend, I really do. He has invested a lot of time in this fictional world and grown to love it, and he doesn't want it to change. But worlds do change, frequently, constantly; this change is what drives them and keeps their people alive and evolving. Cultures and civilisations thrive on change, even though the people living through it may not always appreciate the experience — anything from a new fashion to a country invasion. And one of Warcraft's strengths is that it recognises this, using change to build a believable environment and story that keeps its inhabitants consistently engaged.

In the next expansion, something terrible may happen, something so monumental that the forces of Azeroth have no choice but to adapt and evolve.

It may not be in the nature of Taurens to wield the light, but it is in the nature of every culture that has ever existed to take what it values (and some things it doesn't) in alien cultures and adopt it for themselves. Taurens have fought alongsides Blood Elves and Trolls, they have fought against Night Elves and Dwarves, and it is inevitable that some of them will grow curious about these other powers and philosophies, and possibly experiment for themselves.

So Tauren priests and paladins may not be in warcraft lore, but it's inevitable that they should feature in warcraft's future.

In fact, in one sense, the next logical stage of evolution for the races of Azeroth would be a hybrid. Not in the sense that we know it now, but in the true sense — a being that has experimented with several philosophies and built a new one from the fusion. Just what kind of super class could you expect from, say, the combination of shamanism and druidism, or a priest with demonic powers? The next hero class, perhaps. Who knows, the future's not decided yet, but it's crammed with exciting possibilities.

Cloud hangs over face melters as barmaid auctions secret book

DALARAN. A secret code of conduct for shadow priests governing how the dark brethren should behave while away from the monastery has been found by a barmaid in a Dalaran tavern.

The shocking guidelines are said to include advice on exploiting auction houses for profit, safe application of narcotics and sex toys, and basic triage in combat scenarios.

One section procured by this reporter describes the conditions under which it is acceptable to allow other adventurers to die. Of rogues, the chapter says: "don't even bandage the fuckers".

The Modern Shadow Priest Handbook was found abandoned in a dark corner of the salubrious Filthy Animal by Tiffany Gorehound, 23, barmaid and "part-time model".

"It was, like, just lying there," she confided. "I was curious because you don't get many people coming in here to read, if you know what I mean!"
She quickly realised the explosive — not to mention lucrative — nature of the material she found. "It's gonna go to the highest bidder!" she squealed.

If such a handbook exists, it could threaten the very foundations of shadow priesting, and would certainly strengthen calls for more transparency from Azeroth's far-reaching cabal of dark missionaries.
A spokesperson for the Cult of the Forgotten Shadow refused to comment, except to say "we are transparent enough already" and "we are interesting in talking to the blood elf Merlot in connection with our own investigations into this matter."

Four things that are easier when you're drunk

• Jousting. Don't think about it, don't even try and control it, just mash your buttons and hope for the best. It's the same strategy I used to great effect all those years ago in street fighter and mortal combat. Combos? What combos?
• Trade chat. Caution and responsibility will do nothing to earn you respect in trade. This activity is best reserved for the second bottle of wine, when your can unleash your snobbery and sarcasm in all their glorious fury, like a verbal paladin.
• Battlegrounds. If you really must grind that honour, at least inoculate yourself from the worst asshattery first. Really, loosing your fifth AV in succession is much more fun after a six-pack.
• Levelling weapons. Your ham-fisted buffoonery is ideal for that long, boring slog to level a new weapon — you'll be mashing all the wrong buttons, meaning the mob lives for twice as long. If you pass out on the keyboard, even better. It'll be at 450 when you wake up.

 ...And four things to avoid

• Fishing. A healthy amount of lubrication will do nothing to improve your aim. If you attempt to land a catch, you're liable to miss-click and run into the water. The only thing worse than a drunk is a wet drunk.
• Herbing. Have you ever tried to pick a herb but ended up spinning madly on the spot? Not surprisingly, this does not go down well with a brain already pickled by booze.
• Vent. It's possible to pass your written diarrhoea off on a cultural difference or lack of inflection, but if you're too wrecked to pronounce your own name you will earn no friends by dribbling and belching down Vent.
• Auction house. You know those people who 'accidentally' post silly 4-figure buyouts for leather scraps and BoE greens? They're little shopping traps for drunks. Selling is even worse: you'll either flog all your raid consumables by mistake or put that epic item on for six copper. For the love of god, stay away.

 

The art of politicking

I'll be brief, because I'm aware that I'm at risk of appearing rather bitter on this subject, but I can't let this pass without comment.

The normally well-informed and always readable Alex Ziebart of wow.com has just published his review of the priest Q&A shadow section. His review is articulate, reasonable and balanced, as always. But he makes the mistake of taking the Q&A at face value.

People who work in public-facing roles are often asked questions that they don't want to answer. It is their job to resolve this dilemma, and they have evolved a barrage of decoys and evasive manoeuvres to aid them.

We all like to think we're savvy to such manipulations, but the truth is we fall for them all the time. This is simply human nature, and testament to the skill and ingenuity of the people we are dealing with. Our only defence, which is an imperfect one, is to be aware of the techniques and be on guard for them. Ask yourself: is this the question I asked? Does this answer address my subject? Is this what I want to know or is this simply what they want me to hear?

I like World of Warcraft, I value what community relations we have with Blizzard and I think Ghostcrawler is an extremely talented and likable person in a challenging job. But Blizzard is not in the business of pandering to every emo appeal they receive and sometimes they are asked questions they do not want to answer.

So you can choose to take the priest Q&A at face value. Or you can see for yourself the range of questions put to Blizzard by the community before you judge the output.

Things I want to know

• Why do raptors wear jewellery?
• Why can't I skin centaurs?
• Where are all the female ogres?
• What's behind that portal in the middle of Stormwind?
• Why can't hunters tame druids? (That's for you, Dral)
• Can the Forsaken reproduce?
• Why is Gamon neutral?
• And why can't I resist killing him?
• Where do troll boots go?
• Does anyone really understand auctioneer?
• Really?
• Are gnomes evil or just plain sinister?
• Is that night elf stalking me?
• Why can't I stop thinking in questions?
• Will this list ever end?
• Will someone put me out of my misery?