But fear not!  You can find me over here form now on, instead. I promise I will still toss out the occasional flowchart, the content will just be a lot more…random in topic.

Meet Tove, my Norn Ranger. Isn’t she awesome?  She’s pretty awesome. Also, the character creator is addicting, guys, you have no idea. I have sliders to play with, weeeeeee. There could be some more variety in the faces (for those of us who are bad at sliders), but after 7 years of WoW character creation I’m just not going to bitch that much. There’s a height slider (more wee!) and while there’s no body sliders, you do have a selection of frames to choose from, and that’s something.

I didn’t level as high as some of my friends did–the sense of BUT I HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN AT RELEASE was definitely there, holding me back. Getting Tove to 10 was enough for me to know I wanted to play a ranger. I also poked around with a Guardian and an Elementalist and liked those. Warrior and Thief didn’t instantly appeal, but I also only leveled them to like…2, so.

Combat was fun, although for both Ranger and Elem I did a lot of OMG RUN AROUND IN CIRCLES KITE KITE KITE.  Ranger pets could use with being made of a little less tissue paper.  One really nice thing I noticed, though, was that individual pets within a family mattered.  My snow leopard was not the same as any other cat–each type has their own special ability. I also noticed some slight differences in cat models, although I failed to get a good screen shot. My norn ranger’s cat seemed to have a thicker tail (as befits a snow leopard) than my friend’s human ranger’s jaguar.

We tried PvP. We were bad at it, but we enjoyed being bad. Wait. No, we enjoyed PvP despite being bad. It feels somewhat like old AV, in the sense that it’s a huge map with points you want to capture. Only…with a larger map. And supply routes and caravans to defend and things. And no mounts. Yeah. Don’t get me wrong though, we really DID enjoy ourselves! We were just also terrible.

It was also interesting to note that you don’t see the names of your opponents–they are simply labeled by team color.

This is a Charr. A female Charr, in case you were wondering (and I couldn’t blame you if you were). I had fun making mine resemble a snow leopard. The four ears and two horns are a leeeeettle weird, but actually, I rather like this race.  See MMO people, not all females of every race have to be pretty. I can rock FIERCE and be glad. Although I wish her claws were a little smaller–those just seem impractical!

Awesome random notes: you can only have two professions active at a time, but you can switch without losing progress. You can TURN OFF YOUR SHOULDER GRAPHICS. There’s armor and then there’s town clothes, which are also awesome. Oh, and dying clothes works SO much better in GW2 than it did in RIFT, seeing as how RIFT like to leave swathes of the garment undyed and thus looking awful. Replacing gear also automatically dyes it to match the rest, until you change your dye scheme in the hero panel.  Squee!

The game is fucking pretty. SO fucking pretty. The cities feel like cities. There’s fascinating nooks and crannies, interesting NPCs, and breath taking background views.

RP is a little awkward. For one thing, there’s no official RP server, although Tarnished Coast has been declared the unofficial one, and I did indeed see RP in various cities as I traveled around. There’s no /say though, and the emote range is expansive…so you basically spam the zone with your emotes and talk in the local channel. That’s the most significant issue we have to see addressed. I’d also really like to sit in chairs.

Some people complain about a lack of chat bubbles, but I don’t see the point–I’ve always kept an eye on my chat log. The only time I rely on chat bubbles is in spammy, tavern type events…but, I think I could live without them. Chat bubbles pop up next to players in the party interface, so there’s always that as an option.

But I want to sit in the chairs, damn it!

So. That is my rambling overview of the GW2 beta. I will indeed be playing, and at this point in time there’s vague plans for an RP guild build around a core of my RP friends from Earthen Ring. Look for Tove in future beta events if you want to say hi!

Hi. This is going to be one of those annoying, obligatory “I’m not dead” posts. End of the expansion, blah blah, I don’t have a single fucking thing that I feel like writing about.

“But Amber, BETA,” you say, to which I retort, “Look, I’m not IN the fucking beta!”

And then you go “Oh” and we sit here and look at each other awkwardly for a few minutes.

So, yes. I have nothing beta related to talk about, DS is on farm and other than that, I just RP. RP all the things. I might toss up a few posts on that topic, mostly telling people to stop being assholes in various ways.  Barring that, you can expect some Guild Wars 2 beta nonsense as I run around sobbing about how there isn’t a dedicated healer oh god what do I do with myself what is this HELP.

Unless I give into my Creating New Blogs addiction and make a new one for GW2 stuff, which is…entirely possible. Like rolling new characters, new blogs are a….a problem I have.

Don’t judge me.

Most people don’t want their characters to die. That’s understandable, I mean, these are our creations and they can take a lot of work!

The problem is that sometimes…sometimes a character really SHOULD die…because he did something stupid.

Let’s say you have a character who is, for all intents and purposes, a villain. In this case, a cultist, because that’s most of the villains I see these days. And let’s say this character decides to…pick a fight in a crowded tavern. Maybe he flings some sort of shadowy, tendril-y spell at a patron.

Not surprisingly, four or five OTHER people are probably going to turn around, go “What the FUCK?” and get involved because…nothing involving tentacles is ever good.

Is it reasonable for the cultists to miraculously escape a tussle with 5-6 other characters unscathed?  No, but I see it happen routinely, because the player of said character doesn’t want to lose them.

It’s exasperating for the others, however, because this is usually accomplished by ignoring or brushing off nearly all of their actions. Before too long it’s no fun to play your little cultists because no one wants to deal with you.

What’s the best solution to this problem?

Simple. If you character doesn’t want to die, he needs to fucking act like it.

My apologies to all the Warhamz fans out there, but Eisenhorn could have avoided a lot of trouble for the whole universe if he's just not been a fucking idiot. Seriously. Have you READ those books?

Play your character INTELLIGENTLY. Don’t pick 6 on 1 fights unless you want to get seriously messed up. Have a plausible back up plan if he does get in over his head. And for the love of all that is holy, get fucking hit sometimes.

Last night my druid, Aedeminar, got in a tangle with a known villan alongside her friend, a priestess named Sarah. Despite it being a two on one fight, the cultist got away–but it was a reasonable escape. Our intrepid heroes weren’t used to working together, so they were sometimes getting in each other’s way, skewing things in favor of the cultist. My feral druid had no idea what to do when the PRIESTESS tackled the target, preventing her from making a leap of her own! When the target got as far as her drake and took the combat to the air, Mina had to bow out, because bird vs dragon never comes out in the bird’s favor. All three were injured to some degree or other–we all took hits as well as gave them.

In other words it was a well-played out conflict that DIDN’T SUCK. You know what does suck? The enemy being unharmed by every single damned thing you did because they have to brute force god mode their way out of their own fucking idiocy.

My druid has been caught unawares–and paid dearly for it. Either embrace mistakes and have your character learn from them (note said druid is now in armor FAR more often than not, what with a cultist RP plot actively moving against her guild–she learned!) or rub their two little brain cells together and don’t box them into stupid situations that should, by all logic, result in them getting their gravestones erected.

Other RPers are often approachable. Don’t be afraid to say to someone, “Look–I got this character in way over their head right now, sorry. Is there some way we can work this out so that my character survives this time? I really need them for later, I’m not ready for them to die.” This will go over much better than “and suddenly, Archnemesis vanishes into the night, despite three fireballs, an arrow, and a sword coming right at him.”

5 tallstriders, for 5x the annoying SKREEEEEE noise.

5 devilsaurs, for 5x the OMG WTF DINOSAURS. If this alone wouldn’t make BM the best spec I don’t know what would.

4 devilsaurs and a raptor, because c’mon, that’s just kinda funny.

5 spirit beasts, because fuck you, we camped all these sons of bitches for DAYS.

5 shale spiders for 5x the adorable yet annoying chittering noise. Note to self: tame Jadefang 4 more times.

5 chimaeras, for no, you can’t see a fucking thing through their wings!

5 spiders, for AAAHHH GOD NO you know what never mind this one. Have you been in a park during tarauntula mating season? I have, okay. No.

5 wolves, for the obvious WOLF PACK. Take that, shamans.

5 corehounds, in case the previous wolf pack didn’t have enough slobber for you. Or to be your own mobile MC trash pack, I don’t know.

5 rhinos, for an honest to god stampede.

5 silithids, to cause Silithus flaskbacks in all of the vanilla era folk.

5 crabs, or what this Baltimore native calls “dinner”.

I forgot Aedeminar–aka Mina–in my “Now” post, so I thought I would make amends for it by posting her transmog. Although now primarily a healer, Aedeminar will never forget her feral roots, and retains something of a practical streak while still wanting to be “druid-y”. This is her current transmog and I’m rather fond of it.

Helm: Cenarion Helm (actually displayed more often than not, just happened to not be when this shot was taken)
Shoulders: Ravenholdt Shoulders (practical, yet with hints of the purple I want to bring out in this outfit. There’s another, identical set of shoulders you can grab instead, too)
Chest: Malfurion’s Vestments of Conquest (because druid t9 was awesome)
Gloves: Wild Draenish Gloves (because Mina likes purples, but can be easily replaced by another Ravenholdt peice)
Boots: Vicious Wyrmhide Boots (not that they matter much under the robe)
Belt: Arctic Belt
Weapon: Queen’s Insignia (because finding druidy maces on the AH suck and this one was simple and green)

Poor Ambrosine…forsaken at level 80.

Vain only appears to have reverted back in time. The glimpsed Souldrinker on the far side proves that.

Leveled to 85. Still not really keen on focus. But look, we have the same pixel cat!

The bubble vendor is not forgotten. By this point I couldn’t be arsed to return to Tanaris for the shot so…enjoy a Stormwind background. HALO, FOREVER.