A break from killing

One of my favorite things to do in WoW, especially towards the end of an expansion when there is no push to “finish” things, is to crank up some music, possibly crack open an adult beverage, and just mindlessly fly around a zone gathering herbs or ore or fish. I find it fantastically relaxing — …

Can this relationship be saved?

In every long term relationship, there is an awkward phase where the rush and breathless excitement are gone and suddenly all you notice are the disgusting sounds your partner makes in the bathroom and the annoying way they chew, or that they snort when they laugh. The things you used to think of as cute …

Player housing – could Blizz really pull it off?

A while back — maybe a couple of weeks? — MMO-C posted a quick summary of a recent 4FanSite interview with some Blizzard devs. One tiny comment seemed almost earth-shaking, coming from Blizz.  The original quote from the German site was: Housing ist bei Blizzard ein sehr großes Thema. Die Entwickler sind noch am Überlegen …

Garrisons revisited

A couple of years ago, during Warlords of Draenor, anyone reading this blog would likely have been treated to a rant about how badly Blizz screwed up the whole garrison idea. Garrisons had become a second job, they made the game seem about as fun as spending your weekends cleaning house and mowing the lawn, …

Whose line?

A couple of weeks ago a WoW player created an addon to inject a little pizzazz into quest giver voiceovers. You can read more about it here and here, but the basic story is this: The player created an addon that substituted player-created voiceovers for standard Blizz voice-acted quests. The community was invited to upload …

Through the glass darkly

As I have for the past couple of weeks, I spent most of my game time this weekend continuing to chug away at leveling my Void Elf arcane mage. I thought maybe as I got more into the leveling mindset, I might come to appreciate the finer points of Blizz’s throwback leveling mechanics. Nope. I …

The way home

This post contains a few spoilers. Skip it if you are sensitive to that kind of thing. I am frequently very hard on Blizz, especially when it comes to what I believe is their inability to carry out a clear and cohesive expansion, one where each individual piece contributes to a well-stated strategic message for …