Then it just keeps getting worse and worse and bigger and bigger and finally there comes a time when my poor bitten nails cannot scrabble for purchase on the rapidly slipping shreds of my self-control and my head starts to spin around and flames come shooting out my eyes and sdflkasjdflk ARO SMASH.

Dear my friends: now is that time.

Now first, let me say that all references to “you” in the ensuing rantscreed can be substituted with “ebola” or “penguins” or “Bud Light Lime” or “that asshole over there who is certainly not me in any way.” I am not talking to any particular individual. I kind of think that goes without saying, but since I am attempting to lay down some edu-ma-cation ’round these parts I figure it will be better to clarify right on the outset.

I want to talk a little bit about Geek Social Fallacies, and specifically GSF1. In case you are afflicted by a case of Internet ADD and/or tl;dr, allow me to sum up: as “geeks” tend to identify themselves as members of their own marginalized group, the community of fellow ostracized, marginalized geeks in which they often find themselves becomes superior to the individual ostracized, marginalized geeks therein. In other words: CONFRONTATION BAD! Remember that thing up there in the very beginning? I struggle with this shit all the time. The sociological theory at play here says that group harmony and the feeling of belonging is so important that it’s a far greater sin to call someone out for being an asshole and encourage people not to hang out with assholes than it is to actually be an asshole in the first place.

Y’all, I love me some Nicely Nicely and everything, but that is bullshit.

Therefore, what follows is a small collection of boats that I am going to actively capsize, because I just cannot take this much bullshit in my life.

But I’ve never seen that happen, so obviously it doesn’t actually happen.

God, this is a big deal. This is such a big deal. I don’t understand why people don’t get this, but I see it everywhere IN EVERYTHING: if an individual has never experienced Behavior X, other individuals who may be complaining about Behavior X don’t know what they’re talking about, and obviously Behavior X does not really happen.

Let’s think about this for a minute.

If you personally are from, say, a desert climate and don’t travel much, and someone else of your acquaintance talks about being caught in a snowstorm, do you automatically assume that they are hysterical lunatics? I mean, YOU’VE never seen snow before. But no, you don’t, because that would be ridiculous, right? At least I hope you think that’s ridiculous. If you don’t, then just move along, because there is no hope for you.

But if you do think this is ridiculous, let’s translate that to a current topic running around the gameosphere: if you have never seen a female-identified gamer being harassed for gender-reasons, or if you are a female-identified gamer who has never been harassed for gender-reasons, congratulations! YOU ARE ONE OF THE LUCKIEST MOTHERFUCKERS ON THE PLANET, and/or everyone you have ever associated with is an awesome, upstanding human being. And that’s great! BUT IT IS NOT TRUE FOR EVERYONE, and putting your fingers in your ears and being all LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU when people try to explain how it totally, totally isn’t is ignorant and naive. STOP IT.

You’re just looking for something to be mad about.

A fun fact: usually one does not have to actually look very hard to see this kind of bullshit. Fat, Ugly, or Slutty is a big deal, and this shit happens every day. It’s not peering deep into the underbelly of the system code, flailing frantically to find a target for your Righteous Rage, when your faction leader comes straight up and says that he would totally hit that rather than saying hello, like he does to dudes. It doesn’t take hours in MogIt to find set after set of armor that comes up as nipple caps and butt floss on ladies but functional armor on men. It’s right there, is what I’m saying. It EXISTS. ALL THE TIME.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not actually like to be mad! I would like nothing more than to never get the Mrs. White flames on the side of my face ever, ever again. Unfortunately, we do not live in my personal utopia, that glorious bastion of equality and *ismlessness where the rivers run with delicious wheat beers and the streets are paved with popcorn and pretzels. No, we live in the real actual world where people can and often are be assholes.

If you would like an out-of-gaming example, perform this experiment that I replicate every time I go to Target, as I am the mother of a toddler girl: pick up a pair of jeans from the Baby Boy shelf. Any size at random will do, even the 3-month size. Now pick up a pair of the same size from the Baby Girl shelf, and lay them on top of the Baby Boy pair. You see that tuck in at the hips and knees on the girl jeans? The cut designed to accentuate one’s ladyparts, built to look sexy? FOR A BABY? Yeah. You don’t have to search for this shit. I am not hunting it out because raging is fun. I am pointing it out because it’s BULLSHIT. If people don’t know that something is bullshit — how many of you have had to buy clothes for a baby girl lately, for example? — then it will never get better, and I want it to get better, for myself, for my daughter, for your daughters, for her daughters, for everyone. No one can fix it if they don’t see that it’s broken, and there’s no shame in ignorance. There’s only shame in actively choosing to REMAIN so. STOP IT.

Just calm down and stop taking it so personally.

DUNH DUNH DUUUUNNNNH aka the tone argument.

I’m not sure if it’s actual irony or Morissetteian irony that nothing, absolutely nothing, makes me see BURNING WHITE-HOT RAEG!!!11 like the tone argument.

A person has every right to be hurt or angry when they’re being dismissed, belittled, and insulted. Whether or not you think they’re correct to be hurt is not the point because someone’s feelings are not about you.

I hate this so much I can’t even swear at it effectively and there is no beer that can assuage my rage. You don’t get to say when, why, or how someone gets to be angry. You don’t get to say that something is not offensive when there’s someone telling you they’re offended. You don’t get to make that choice because IT IS NOT A CHOICE. STOP IT.

If nobody ever said anything that might offend somebody, nobody would ever say anything at all!

So I guess people don’t say nice things in your world? I am very sad for you, because that must be a terrible place. I mean that’s even more awful than my world, and I live in a world where the Powers That Be want my toddler to dress sexy. Your world is a serious shithole, is what I’m saying.

I will let you in on a secret: it is totally possible to hold an entire conversation without saying something hurtful or offensive. I know this is maybe shocking to you, but it is actually totally totally true! And if you do say something hurtful or offensive and someone calls you out on it, all you have to do to start fixing it is APOLOGIZE. It’s not even really hard, I PROMISE. STOP IT.

There are real problems in the world that deserve your attention.

You know what’s a real problem in the world? The fact that one in every four women are sexually assaulted. You know what else is a real problem in the world? People implying that this is not a real fucking problem in the real goddamn world.

The oppression olympics make me insane. This is not a CONTEST, because EVERYONE LOSES.

Every time someone uses a slur of any kind without someone speaking up and suggesting that they perhaps rethink their word choice they get tacit approval for whatever horrible bullshit they’re spouting. They think you are one of them, that you believe the same things they do, that you agree with that slur. Every time. STOP IT.

Just get over it.

There is no such thing as “just words.” There just isn’t. Words hurt, sometimes more than physical hurts; words can drive people to suicide. If your words hurt someone, that’s on YOU, not them. Telling someone to “get over it” is belittling, dismissive, and makes you an asshole.

Look, here’s what it boils down to: if you say something and someone else says they are hurt by it, the proper response is “I’m sorry, I will try not to do that again.” That’s it. That’s all you have to do. It’s not up to you to determine who’s ALLOWED to be hurt by your words or actions or why; the only thing you can or should control is how YOU react to having hurt someone.

I think the key (at least it has been for me) is understanding that people don’t necessarily think you’re a bad person for having hurt/offended/been thoughtless/whatever at someone. We’re human. We make mistakes. Sometimes shit happens. You do not suddenly become a soulless monster the second you use “lame” as a pejorative. REMEMBER THIS, and do not immediately jump on the defensive when someone points out that you maybe might want to rethink whatever statement you’ve made. Be calm, say you’re sorry, and LEARN FROM IT.

…Also, bonus points: First Amendment rights pertain only to laws made by the Congresses of the United States abridging the speech of United States citizens. It doesn’t mean you can say whatever the fuck you want on THE WORLD WIDE INTERNET without fear of criticism. If you say something shitty, PEOPLE WILL CALL YOU ON IT. Crying censorship when they do so just makes you a dumbass. STOP IT.

For a person with normative brain chemistry, social behaviors are learned from the second you’re born; from infancy we’re taught to distinguish between ourselves and the other, that certain kinds of people “are supposed to” behave in certain kinds of ways. This doesn’t mean it’s right, and it doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. You can listen and learn NOT to be a jerkbag, IF YOU CHOOSE TO DO SO.

There is no rule that states people can’t learn from their mistakes and experiences. You just have to DO IT. You can spend the rest of your life growing and changing; I know I intend to. So go forth in empathy, my friends, and conquer assholery. I believe in you. ♥

I grew up on finicky parsers and point-and-clicks, and that kind of anal-retentive attention to detail has served me well in modern gaming. Y’all, for real, maintaining the kind of iron-fisted micromanaging control necessary over the notoriously suicidal party AIs in Bioware RPGs is absolutely nothing compared to trying to figure out which frigging spelling of “Rumpelstiltskin” the goddamn dwarf wants this time before he will give poor Graham his magic goddamn beans — to say nothing of trying to successfully achieve the babelfish in Infocom’s delicious textual hellscape for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

For this reason, many complaints about these later-generation Bioware games (up to and including SW:TOR) is kind of lost on me; spastically clicking ‘passive stance’ on and off because GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN FIRE CORSO JESUS GOD IF YOU WERE NOT SO ADORABLE I WOULD LEAVE YOU TO ROAST AND LOVE EVERY DAMN MINUTE OF IT is second nature. When you’re used to, say, frantically clicking to rebuild the pieces of an exploding turtle, then juggling the cover mechanics of an Operative or a Gunslinger while trying to keep your stupid, stupid companion tank alive really aren’t that challenging, and I love it.

So there’s that.

…And then there’s Mass Effect 3.

I don’t even know, you guys. I am right now at this crossroads where I am on my way to Tuchanka and yet I am cripplingly terrified to play, because I am so spoilerphobic all I have allowed myself to know is that the ending is terrible and unfulfilling and you guys the only fictional person whose happiness I am as invested in as I am Garrus Vakarian’s is Ezio Auditore’s, AND WE KNOW HOW WELL THAT’S BEEN TURNING OUT, THANKS UBISOFT. So I am stalled midway through the concluding arc of an epic story that has gripped me only slightly less than one that contains actual dragons, torn between desperately wanting to know what happens and dreading an anticlimax that would ruin goddamn everything. (Aside: NO, this is not an invitation to spoil me; I WILL get over this eventually, just … not right now.)

The fun thing is that console games (as on which I play ME3) at my house are a social endeavor rather than a single-player one; everyone in the family curls up on The Giant Couch What Eats Your Soul and we take turns with the controller and shout out our commentary and vote on choices for dialogue options like some weird democratic version of the Satellite of Love.

Some families have movie nights or going-out-to-dinner nights or whatever; we have game night, where we are all Shepard, and we all share in the story like the big ginormous nerds we are.

This is why the finish of ME3 in particular (and AC: Revelations, for that matter; AC3 may also be this way, but frankly we as a unit are right now way more invested in, say, Shaun than we are in Desmond) is so important to us, and it’s so important it be right; it’s not just a game to us — it’s a family memory, a snapshot in time as indelible as any physical journey.

Frankly if one of my toddler’s first words is not “turian” I consider it a parental failure.

The conversation in IRC when she mentioned this to me went like so:

<Aro_> … oh god WHICH SIXTH? How do I sort them? Like sixth ALPHABETICALLY or BY DATE or FILE SIZE or oh god oh god oh god
<Liore-at-work> Yeah, that’s about what I was expecting.

So there are actually a lot of images here, because I went a little crazy.

WE WERE NOT PREPARED

Lady Vashj

But I am not one to deny Liore’s schadenfreudic torment, and two images is not enough. Seriously. My screenshot collections are insane. But since I did a WoW-trospective in the last post, I need to break out the big guns, and those guns are the terrifying depths of my SWTOR screenshot gallery.

Agent Rari is interested in your theories and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Lieutenant Duskshatter really thinks you big whiny babies need to suck it up and walk it off.

Poor Yarriq. Everyone thought he was a frat boy who got lost on his way to a kegger.

The Balmorra Munitions Factory. I died three times framing this shot, stupid elites.

I know tagging is how memes get around, but I think I’m probably the last person this has come to so — if you have interesting images to share, share them! I LOVE pretty pictures of paper dolls, it’s kind of my weakness.

Byebye!

It feels weird.

According to the account transaction history on wow.com, I have been paying for this game since December 2004, and you guys, that is a long-ass time. It’s such a long time that I healed in my first serious raiding guild with this nice kid, spent another entire expansion and a half on another server, and jumped servers a third time to find myself melting face with that nice kid all grown-up into a great guy. The fuck? That is both terrifying and awesome all at the same time (and I still adore you, sensei).

I gave up serious raiding because of a combination of factors, the primary two of which were a lack of story and a lack of time. The end of Deathwing is the end of my Warcraft story, and raiding with a toddler has turned out to be drastically different than raiding with a baby; the baby pretty much kept herself entertained, but the toddler wants to share every interesting thing in the world and also stays up a lot later at night (no afternoon nap, ALAS).

This has been a remarkable seven years, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. You hear about Internet Friends not being the same as Real Friends a lot less often now, and I think WoW is to thank for that just like it’s got at least a little bit of the credit for how gaming has a lot more mainstream acceptability now. You can find a WoW player anywhere and that’s amazing. What Blizzard created with this game is mind-blowing, and the lasting friendships I’ve made over the years is testament to how gaming brings us together and keeps us there, a common thread regardless of our nebulous and scary Real Lives.

Thanks for that, Blizzard. I appreciate it.

A brief history in pictures

And then the actual raid: reused boss models, entire reused environments, just incredibly disappointing atmospherically. But that’s okay! Because that’s not what I’m here for, right? It doesn’t have to be pretty, you know, it’s the story! The end of the story! That’s so incredibly exciting!

So! The Fall of Deathwing. “Finally, some closure!” I thought.

And oh my friends, how very very wrong I was.

If you have not yet been to kill Deathwing, be warned: this contains spoilers. And, as per usual from me, some tremendous NERDRAEG!!11. But y’all should expect that by now.

As with Wrath and the Lich King encounter in ICC, there is a huge cutscene at the end of Dragon Soul. Also like ICC, this shit is completely incomprehensible. But unlike Icecrown, which merely provoked a brow-furrowed “wait, what? why?”, the finale of Dragon Soul made me so actively, ragingly angry I needed to walk away and have a little liedown.

The fuck is this shit, you guys.

I don’t — I — what.

There are so many things in there that are stupid, wrong, and STUPIDLY WRONG that I have no idea how they managed to put them all in a ninety second video.

1) Every goddamn Aspect is still a mostly-naked motherfucking blood elf. I hate this. You know I hate this. I have gone on record over and over and over about how much I hate this. But hey, at least Nozdormu is half-dressed too! It’s small, but it’s a start. Thanks for that, character design team! But still: look into pants.

2) Why is Aggra even there? I know some people think she is an okay character! Those people are wrong, but that’s fine, they can go ahead and be wrong all they like. But she has no business being here, especially since she wasn’t anywhere else in the entire fucking instance. She just appears there at the end, shoehorned in for no good reason just like every other appearance she has ever made ever. I am trying very hard to stick to standard story bitching here and not get into how offensive her presence and her role make me just because I am totally disinterested into getting into a Grr Feminism comment war, but seriously you guys: this is so bad. It is so bad and so out of touch on so many levels that when I try to formulate eloquent words for how I feel about it my brain goes BZZT SPANG and blood comes shooting out my eyes.

3) Here is a thing that is apparently a surprise to the writing staff, and has been for most of the expansion: the point of Deathwing is not Grr Evil. Neltharion was the wisest of the Aspects; it is not his fault that Unspeakable Horrors From Beyond ate his brain any more than it was Arthas Menethil’s fault that a demon ate his soul. Sure, Arthas could have left Frostmourne behind; Neltharion could have maybe, I don’t know, lived on a mountain rather than under it. Regardless, these acts of evil and destruction were not the conscious choices of evil-doers, but the corruption of potential and greatness, which is imho WAY MORE INTERESTING than a simple GRR SMASH. Leaving that out of the story (as they did in both expansions, with a few very tiny notable exceptions in WOTLK’s case) is selling the world they’ve spent so much time and effort building short, and it makes me sad.

But all of the above pales in relation to this one eensy tiny little detail that I am admittedly remarkably sensitive to, and that is this:

HOW IS THE WORLD ANY DIFFERENT AFTER THE EXECUTION OF NELTHARION THAN IT WAS AFTER THE EXECUTION OF MALYGOS?

This is what makes me so very angry, and I am totally up-front here and owning that a lot of that is because Malygos is my favorite character, but this betrayal of his story is so thoughtless and so useless that alskdfjlklsfd ARO SMASH.

It’s not because the world is left (momentarily) without an Aspect, because Malygos didn’t leave one either and Kalecgos had to fight for it. It’s not because there aren’t other black dragons to take Neltharion’s place, because there are; most of them are in the Blade’s Edge Mountains in Outland and everyone wants to forget about them, but they exist (and also are AWESOME). It’s just sheer, unadulterated, writerly laziness and a cheap way to usher in a new expansion that flows not at all from the original world. Either they forgot or they just don’t care that they’ve been through this whole Kill The Aspect thing already, and that inconsistency frustrates me so much that I find it difficult to enjoy the world anymore. How can I get attached to the story when god knows when they’ll throw out something else I find interesting? It’s why I don’t read comics.

And maybe it’s just me, but I am of the belief that when the gods give you the job of watching over the world and keeping it together, quitting whenever you feel like it is kind of a dick move, Alexstrasza.

Anyway. Transmogrification.

I do not begrudge the availability of shiny best-in-slot gear to anyone who wants to raid to get it, no matter how or when they do so. It’s just a game, and your achievement and acquisition do not in any way belittle mine, so that’s fine — but what does make me sad is every character by necessity looking like exactly every other character. This sucks, and it is SO AWESOME to have left it all behind. I’ve been actually enjoying LFG and LFR for the most part because I have a little inspect macro that I use to see how everyone has decided to present themselves (and I am incredibly disappointed whenever I come across an 85 who hasn’t bothered to define a Look).

I spent a lot of effort working out looks for my characters (well, Laikhaila’s was pretty obvious from the beginning), because presentation is important to me as someone who focuses on story-based and character-driven interaction.

Also, because I’m really, really shallow.

Arolaide

I wish so bad there were a blue dragon tabard.

I’m sure eventually the novelty of being able to wear a tabard doesn’t suck will wear off, probably around when I pick up a pretty weapon that matches Ogri’la’s (seriously did they even try that on a female model? because omg, you guys), and I’ll piece together some awesome robes.

The only sad thing is that I have this vast collection of beautiful staves — Anathema, Greatstaff of the Nexus, Devotion, Golden Staff of the Sin’dorei, Nexus Key — and I can’t use any of them. It is making me CRAZY.

Yelena

Goddamn I love goblins.

See, Avatar is beautiful and gorgeous; it is my favorite priest set. I love it a lot. I love the way Yelena’s ears stick out of the hood; what annoys me on a blood elf delights the crap out of me here PROBABLY BECAUSE SHE IS TINY and TINY THINGS ARE CUTE. However, there’s a big problem with Avatar, and that’s that the robe has a very defined midsection with its own built-in belt. There is only one single belt that matches, Belt of the Long Road, and it does so by looking essentially invisible. The belt comes from a BoP random drop epic pattern in SSC; the belt itself takes a metric shitton of fancy BC cloth. Unless you are yourself a tailor AND you are very lucky, you will never see this belt, and NOTHING ELSE WILL EVER MATCH EVER.

So uh all that rant means is I am rethinking her look. Maybe Incarnate, because she has adorable curly precious goblin pigtails that I would like to show off, but oh god I hate Gruul so much it’s so boooooooriiiiiiiinggggg.

My life: so hard.

Laikhaila

That's right, I'M A WINNER.

So thanks to everyone who was afraid of looking just like everyone else again, Laikhaila looks both unique and FUCKING SPECTACULAR. The Fel Iron Greatsword really helps put it together, I think (though if I HAD a mace, I would totally be all ups in a Sulfuron Hammer).

Also, for some reason wearing this set makes people completely insane in PVP, which is Lai’s primary focus. COMPLETELY INSANE. It’s amazing. Yes, please ignore the healers and look only at me! Please! I have a metric fuckton of resilience, I would LOVE for you to look only at me!

Lydgate

If you recognize his name, we can be friends.

To be fair, I don’t really mind the rogue heirlooms; it’s a pretty good set that looks fine on the Worgen and it’s only impossohard to get gloves and pants that match. But the daggers — oh god, the daggers. Heartseekers look BORING. They are SO BORING. But you know what isn’t boring, and what I have held onto on Aro because it is just so gorgeous? The Fang of Oblivion from Ulduar. I love you, brief and shining moments of maily heirloom transmog bug. You made me so happy. ;_; <3

So what looks have you all gone for, and how much time have you spent farming old content to do it (which is my favorite part)? Matching sets, or crazy eye-searing piecemeals, like my friend and sensei Srs? What’s the best one you’ve seen so far? For me, props to my healy priest sister Kaleri, who is totally rocking the trousers, and my retired GL Liore for pairing her Absolution with some spectacular goblin goggles. :D

ANYWAY.

There is a thing going on right now in my awesome guild full of awesome people where they troll me absolutely mercilessly about beer, and specifically my love thereof. It’s to the point where new applicants come in and they answer their “Tell us about yourself” question with some mention about Bud Light Lime or whatever and there’s a race to see who can make the “in b4 Aro’s crying emoface” post first. A secret: I kind of love it. I love also that my guild note was at some point changed to read “Beermaiden,” and I would like to buy a beer for whichever officer was responsible because it made my shriveled black heart grow three whole sizes.

This merciless trolling comes in basically only one flavor, which is LOL KICKIN’ BACK A COORS YAY BEER LOLOLOL. Seriously just tell the Grey Poupon guy that you’ve got some French’s in the back and certainly that’ll do, right? A hint: THE FLAVOR METAPHOR WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER.

ARGH.

Then there are the Teachable Moments that a know-it-all jackwagon such as your humble hostess lives for, which is the primary impetus for what I am sure will be a thousand-word screed on fermented beverages: “I don’t like the taste of beer.”

Dear European friends: you totally don’t have to read the rest of this post, because you probably already know where I am going with this. This is for my American and Canadian friends who do not know the wonders of a brewery that has never in its life worked with an aluminum can.

I blame the marketing machines behind American lager companies for this, because apparently it is some incredible esoteric enigma of mysterious mystery that there is no such thing as “the taste of beer.” It would mean exactly the same thing to say that you don’t like the taste of food. “Nonsense,” I hear you non-beernerds thinking. “I know exactly what beer tastes like, and it’s gross!” Now come unto me, my fellow North American children, while I avail ye of the truth: a corporation in the business of making money does not want you to know that competitors exist, and the big American lager breweries make so much money that it is in their best interests that their marketing departments make you believe that there is only one kind of beer, and the only differences between different kinds of beer are whether their commercials contain bikini models, giant horses, yodeling frogs, or all of the above.

Here is the thing: the beer that you don’t like the taste of? That’s not all beer. It’s not even representative of most beer. Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors, Miller, all those that you know and hate — that is one specific style of beer: North American-style pale lager. A lager is a cold-stored, slow-fermented beer characterized by dry, hoppy bitterness; the North American varieties tend to add corn or rice (sometimes both) to lighten it up (because that encourages consumers to drink more). Using corn and rice, traditionally very cheap in the US, instead of more expensive grains like barley, also increases their profit margins.

Shitty American beer: it’s just business.

This is not to say that “all beer made in the US is garbage,” because it’s not true; it’s not true because not all beer made in the US (or Canada) is a mass-produced North American pale lager. It’s not even true that all beer produced by the big US breweries is garbage, because Blue Moon, a witbier that almost singlehandedly revived the style and one of which I am personally quite fond, is brewed by MillerCoors and is quite respectable. Some of my favorite beers come from US breweries: Lazy Magnolia, Magic Hat, Stone, Ghost River, and Dogfish Head all have a great deal of deliciousness to offer, even though Dogfish Head and I are currently not speaking due to their decision to stop shipping to my state, those selfish assholes.

Beer is the world’s drink, brewed in every continent (except perhaps Antarctica, because holy god would that be a cold fermentation; I wouldn’t put it past some scientist to have a homebrew closet, though) out of its own local ingredients with its own unique styles, and to rule it all out or (more heartbreakingly because this is my blog and it is all about me) deride its enjoyment because you associate the noun “beer” with that Budweiser garbage is denying yourself what could be a truly awesome experience.

So, for those of you who think you don’t like the taste of beer, here’s a little lot about Beer Styles. Look how many there are. The beer that you know and hate is just one interior section of one of those numbers. See what you’re missing out on? ISN’T IT AMAZING? It’s amazing.

Since we’ve established that you don’t care for pale lagers (though on a particularly hot day I’d still suggest you give a German or Bavarian version a try, like the original Pilsner Urquell or Spaten), the secret to finding a beer you’ll love is employing the same tactics you’d use to find any other kind of food you’d love: try everything. Figure out what characteristics you enjoy and keep narrowing it down until you come up with the perfect beer.

My go-to brew for someone who doesn’t like beer is Lindemans Framboise, a raspberry lambic. If you don’t like raspberries (god what a sad and lonely life you must lead if this is so), Lindemans also provides apple, peach, pear, and cherry versions; the Framboise is probably the only one you’ll find on tap, though, if you’re in a fancypants bar that has more than just American lagers on tap. It’s served in a champagne flute because one of its key characteristics is its effervescence; this is one seriously carbonated drink, and it’s best to drink it before it goes flat. It tastes like bottled joy, and I keep a bottle in my beerfridge for those terrible days when I want to stab people in the face over the internet. It’s totally worth it.

If you are unwilling to order a bright pink beer in a public place, YOU COWARD, then there are still other styles that may suit you! If you like clean, crisp tastes, like white wine, try an ale; Magic Hat’s #9 is my very favorite, but there are tons of other delicious varieties, from the heavy-duty hops of IPAs (to me, a good IPA tastes like fresh-mown grass smells; they’re like springtime in a glass) to the nose-punchy high alcohol content of a Belgian abbey ale, like Chimay. Brown ales are usually maltier and more subtle in their hops than their paler brethren, and my favorite is Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan, which is just what it says on the tin. There are red ales (try Ghost River Copperhead Red) and blonde ales and cream ales and fruit ales, and every one is brewed differently, with different ingredients.

Stouts and porters have more malt and frequently fewer hops; my BFF, a beer-hater for life, was converted once she was introduced to Dogfish Head’s World Wide Stout. You can find chocolate and vanilla flavors in stouts, like Young’s Double Chocolate Stout (which makes an awesome ice cream float); oatmeal stouts, with their addition of oats to the grain mash, are incredibly smooth and sweet; try Schlafly’s Coffee Stout, from St. Louis.

Beervangelism is my hobby; very little makes me happier than managing to provide someone with a list of possibilities like some savant sommelier (beermelier?) and having them come back and tell me how awesome it was. If you can tell me what you like to eat, I can tell you what you’d like to drink, and you will never have to tell someone that you don’t like the taste of beer ever again. ♥

You are encouraged to read this entire post in Goofy's how-to narrator's voice.

Lots of people around the blogosphere have been talking about guildfoo lately, from guild management to structure to how to find the best guild for you; there must be something in the water lately. But here’s the thing: do you know what to do once you’ve found that perfect guild, built exactly the way you want, looking for exactly the things you need from the game? In my experience, a whole awful lot of people do not, and this is sad and also tragic. Even if you are absolutely the best #insertclasshere there is, no one will ever know it if you can’t get your foot in the door. And how do you do that? A stellar application.

Recruiting is really hard right now. I know it. You know it. Your dog knows it and your dog doesn’t even play. However, even with the dearth of good applicants, top-end guilds are still maintaining their standards. Some guilds are more accommodating than others and are happy to lead you down the primrose kindergarten path of This Is The Right Answer, but still: your application is often the first impression you’re giving to these people you want to kill internet dragons with, and it behooves you to do it well.

1. Research research research.

Even though this was (should’ve been) part of your Finding A Guild In The First Place process, do it again before you fill out your app. Read everything available to you on their site, on the forums, anything. It doesn’t have to be in-depth, but cursory skims to get the general feel of attitudes and how people present themselves in text gives you an absolutely invaluable reference point for how you should present yourself to them. This can range from the easy and obvious of not dropping curse words into an app for a guild that bills itself as all-ages, to the slightly more esoteric of helping you determine whether you should be all Srs!Bsns! in your app or throw in some Funny for color. Still unconvinced that you need to be doing yet more reading? Cursory research can help you avoid awkward social pitfalls like applying for a hardmode guild run by a woman when you labor under the misapprehension that Girls Can’t Play WoW, which never ends well for anyone.

1a. Corollary: the Eccentricity Credit

You should aim to allow something of your personality to come through in your application, but beware. You want to show them who you are, to present yourself as the kind of person they want to spend X hours a night melting face with, but watch carefully the line between “fun-loving dragonkiller” and “rabid crazed weasel on crack.” This involves what a friend of mine refers to as the Eccentricity Credit, and it keeping it in mind can serve you well in more facets of your life than just WoW: FIRST you convince them that you are hard-working and well-spoken and good at your job, THEN you can go off on tirades about real beer and lore inconsistencies and spammy pictures of stuff on your cats.

….Not that I speak from experience or anything.

2. Read and follow directions.

I know there are probably many words in there. I know this. But trust me, READ ALL OF THEM. More than once. Look, if you can’t follow directions in filling out your application, how are this guild’s leaders supposed to believe that you will successfully follow directions at raid time? They don’t. And, more importantly, they won’t. So reread your application before you submit it and make sure you haven’t missed anything, like say half of the required questions.

3. Proofread.

Some people have told me in the past that grammar and spelling do not matter on the internets, but oh my friend please allow me to tell you that that is a filthy disgusting lie. Even if someone tells you it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t really matter to them, it should still matter to you. Don’t get me wrong, no one cares about a typo here and there, or something that’s written in a language not native to you, or anything else — but if you don’t know the difference between “there”, “they’re”, and “their,” then you are a bad person who should feel bad it would serve you well to learn that difference and use that to show off how amazingly detail-oriented you are and how that reflects well on you as #insertclasshere.

4. Take your time.

Very little is more offensive to me as an application reviewer than an app that has obviously taken five minutes to fill out, or ten on the very outside. Look, reviews take a lot of time: studying your parses, studying your gear, studying you. So please, please please, do every reviewer in the world the courtesy of making your app WORTH that time. Use complete sentences and coherent thoughts. Think about what they’re asking you and why. In my experience, every guild in the world has some kind of personality question; in Apotheosis, it’s the following: There are four players, one each at the corner of a square, labelled A, B, C and D. Given identical latency and FPS, which player catches who first and why? Really, it’s that “and why” that should spring out at you. There is probably a question like this on every application in the world, and to me it’s one of the most important bits of information you can give. So, for god’s sake, think about the damn thing before you answer it. I know that you want to get your app in as soon as possible, especially if the guild’s app section is super-competitive, but taking a couple of hours to make sure you’re putting your best face forward will NOT hurt you. I absolutely solemnly promise you this.

And above all, the best advice I can give you is to find someone you trust and send your app to them to look over before you submit it. They’ll think of things you haven’t, and if they have clarifications, when they already know you, you’ll know what to add or remove to help strangers understand you better — and all of that will contribute to your success in getting this guild to take a look at you and what you offer.

Looking for a raiding guild? Apotheosis is currently seeking a retribution paladin, 1-2 hunters, an elemental shaman and a DPS *or prot* warrior. Are you awesome? We are awesome. Let’s kill some internet dragons together.

I am also a player and RPer nearing the close of the stories I wanted to tell; the end of Deathwing is the culmination of everything I have loved and played with since Warcraft 2, and none of the new plot threads that have been added to the interactive world have gripped me as much as the story of the Demon Soul — but there have been new additions to old stories. With this expansion, though, that’s changing. It’s only new stories, and I really do not care about the war between the Horde and the Alliance. I think it’s diplomatically ridiculous, particularly since that war has been over OVER AND OVER AND OVER again for twenty years worth of content, and I and many important people who actually do this kind of shit for a living who aren’t Henry Kissinger think it’s far more important for peoples at war facing, oh I dunno, EXTINCTION to band together against common threats, but hey, it’s a fantasy game, who gives a shit about logic?

On the Apoth forums, Dar said that while she wasn’t really a lore buff, she still felt kind of miffed about Pandaria because it felt like it just didn’t fit with the realm. I was going to reply there, but it ended up super long and with rather a lot of overly colorful metaphors so: QUICK, TO THE BLOGMOBILE. So, short form: speaking as a lore buff, the game’s been destroying its own lore for the last two expansions anyway, so for those of us who care about the little things like internal consistency and coherent narrative this is really nothing new and we’re kind of old hat at throwing our hands up and saying “fuck it” in sad, defeatist tones.

The funny thing about Pandaren is that they started out as a joke because Samwise is kind of a furry and he has this thing about pandas, so he doodled some and they got easter-egged in and now it’s this whole big fleshed-out thing and a lot of people have wanted them as a playable race for a while, so … I guess? I mean, whatever. It’ll have gorgeous environments and male Pandaren look outstanding so, sure, fine. Pandaria. Okay. If lady Pandaren end up looking like Minerva Mink I will seriously start punching some concept artists square in the nutsack over the internet, and I admit that I am kind of already bracing for it because what the hell bugs with boobs omfg but hey, models often change eleventy million times throughout the development cycle, which is how we got Minerva Mink Worgen in the first place.

And then there’s pokéwow, which: again, sure whatever, okay fine. It is probably not for me (who am I kidding I have perfect clears on every goddamn level of wowpeggle), but I’m sure someone will like it and it gives an entirely new dimension to Aro’s Dragonsworn Whelphome concept, but it is not, as it were, blowing my skirt up.

All of that is fine. Hell, if Malygos being a major villain was not a dealbreaker for me (THIS IS STILL SO WRONG, YOU GUYS, IT IS SO TOTALLY FUCKING WRONG), then AZURE WHELPLING I CHOOSE YOU sure as hell isn’t going to be.

However, and this is a big however, I have to give a big ol’ DO NOT WANT to the Duplo block talent trees. I am not cool with that, I do not enjoy that, that is not the game for me. I LIKE big complicated talent trees with a million different permutations. It makes me happy. It makes for infinite variation and countless fuckups and it’s interesting stuff to READ and it’s FUN and it’s AWESOME. Giving us six talents and treating them like glyphs is bullshit and I hate it. also all of the shadow stuff looks stupid and boring and it is totally not fun and this is my epic sadface: :(

Maybe it will turn out differently, and that’s fine. There’s plenty of time for it! Right now, though, I feel like I’m just moving on; they’re making what looks to be a fine game — it’s just not a game for me, and that makes me sad.

Void Storage

I know costs aren’t finalized, but right now Void Storage is prohibitively expensive. I knew that it would be a majorbig sum to unlock the void bank, which is fine (currently 1000g); the problem is that deposits and withdrawals ALSO cost money (right now it’s 100g per piece, both in and out). You guys, that is insane. I know it’s just fake money and everything, but seriously: insane. I have at least a hundred pieces of gear in my incredibly packratty bank, and just taking them all OUT of the bank and putting them into storage is another ten thousand gold. If I want to change my transmogrification for RP purposes (and you can damn well bet there are certainly people who will do exactly this), that’s not just a money sink; it’s a brutal cash hole from which there is no escape, and that makes me sad. It’s like a mobile company charging you for both sending and receiving texts, and it’s extortion. Fake extortion, in this case, but my inner fake capitalist is just fake beside herself.

Transmogrification

IT IS JUST AS AMAZING AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE

The interface is pretty clever and intuitive, which is good, because there are no instructions for anything goddamn anywhere. You talk to the happy little spacemummy man, and drag the piece that you want your gear to look like into its appropriate slot in the happy little spacemummy man’s interface, and pay money per piece that appears to be equivalent to reforge costs. It cost me 316g to mog everything but my cloak (which I have turned off anyway), and I’m in primarily FL 378 gear (except for my STUPID STUPID STUPID shoulders, which are still 359). This is not bad at all, and I have no problems with this cost staying just where it is. It feels like it’s based on ilevel of the gear you’re converting, which is appropriate and allows low-level characters the opportunity to customize their look, too, while not being so expensive that changing your look back and forth is unreasonably putative.

End Times: Heroic 5

So, uh … what?

On the one hand, I am so incredibly pleased that they didn’t throw away the Infinite Dragonflight x Nozdormu OTP plot thread, which is something I loved like burning and was desperately hoping they would bring closure to at some point. They did this, and it is RAD, and the model for Evil Nozdormu makes me so very very very happy I do a little dance.

On the other hand, I am really, really hoping that it’s just that the instance isn’t finished yet, because right now it makes absolutely no fucking sense. There’s no story anywhere. All that stuff about how This Is Sad And Evil Tyrande Who Has Lost Her Faith in the preview? It’s not in here. Anywhere. You run around and kill some evil nightsabers until she unlocks, and then you go fumble around with your clicks for a while until you figure out that there’s a teleporter that takes you somewhere else. I figure the quests aren’t done, and that’s where you’ll find most of the story, but seriously, y’all, there’s nothing else in there. If they keep it that way I will be THE MADDEST PRIEST.

With that being said, the place is jaw-droppingly beautiful. I mean, it’s terrible and horrible and post-apocalyptic wasteland and so very very sad, but the visuals are completely stunning.

Patch Notes Grab Bag

So hey, sucks to all you Quebecois using good French names for your characters! Blizzard says those aren’t real letters and you can just go fuck yourselves with your accents ague.

I’m thinking they didn’t entirely think that one through.