Of all the things that gets me jazzed about World of Warcraft I think one of the most fun things to do is to create a new character. The feeling of making a new avatar, coloring the hair, choosing the facial features etc – all sorta make my bear heart warm n fuzzy inside. True, there aren’t many options so chances are you’ll end up looking like Butters standing next to Cartman sometimes, but the one defining convention of any RP game is the name you choose.
We’ve all seen and chuckled, or grimaced, at the names of characters running around capitol cities. I’ve seen some downright offensive names and have promptly reported such. I refer to those specifically racist or sexist in nature. I’m not a person who goes about telling people their business but I was taught to stand up against injustice and intolerance so when I see someone running around with a moniker that would make my old platoon sergeant wince, I am not shy about calling in the ban hammers from the GMs.
But that simply illustrates the less inventive or less creative side of the game. I’ve seen innocuous, forgettable names that spark no interest and often I wonder why didn’t they spend a few minutes racking their brains, or maybe hunting down some good references online before choosing Pallytankie as a name?
Before I launch into my ideas on where to get ideas, I’ve got to say that I’m more or less guilty of the offense of innocuousness in naming my toon. Agro isn’t very creative and while I do enjoy the name recognition, I wish I’d spent as much time as I had on my horde-side druid Ursal. But for all that Agro is a great name recognition tool – a lot of other people seem to think so too cause there’s at least one guy named Agro on most of the servers I checked on Armory.
Ursal is a common reference in the historical record. It refers back to many ancient civilizations’ deities – but I liked it because it seemed somewhat common in English – translating roughly into Bear from the Latin “Ursa.” English is based on Latin and we still use a great many Latin words in everyday language.
I often use dead languages to name my characters, or after the deities of dead civilizations – don’t use names from modern deities since you can get into trouble using some of them. I would imagine Native Americans won’t look too highly on anyone usurping the names of sacred lore or rituals for a game. You can argue all you want about freedom of speech et al ad nauseum, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is a game and if you do something intentionally to annoy someone then you’re really only detracting from your fun playing the game – Old Goblin saying, don’t borrow trouble, it’s always paid with compounded interest.
But you can find numerous references on ancient languages or peoples whose everyday common words can fit the bill of needs. The Aether Rays in Blade’s Edge mountains are named for Aether, ether, æther – Greek, roughly meaning or referring to a fifth element in alchemy, that which we now call “space” or “heaven,” once thought to be the medium through which light moved rather than simply a vacuum.
There are common references in the game to such things. All are taken from ancient history or languages or even proper names for long-dead people. Uther the Lightbringer … sorta sounds a bit like the Arthurian legend doesn’t it? Possibly loosely coupled with Judeo-Christian roots as well but you get the idea. Writers often borrow from such sources for inspiration.
When making a new character I often try to imagine a bit of a back story – it’s the RP in me I think that does this. I don’t normally RP when playing the game, but I do often think of this while I’m playing. What would Agro the Bear do when confronted by superior odds defending the body of a wounded comrade, while engaged in exploring the halls of an ancient castle tower, rife with deadly enemies? Why, attack of course! As if Agro had ever run from a fight … pfft.
What would Paladin Defender Thorney, so named because his bleary-eyed father ran smack into a thorn bush when rushing to summon the mid-wife for Thorn’s birth, do upon being confronted by 3 of the evil Horde, after flagging himself blessing a fellow of the Alliance? Stun, Bless, Judge, Consecrate and swing, until they or he dropped. It’s not so hard to do really, the imagination part I mean. (3:1 odds against the horde can be a bit of a pain). Imagination is what you want it to be.
So the next time you roll, take a minute to think of what you’d like people to see. I’ve seen some rather silly ones that really don’t make sense to me, a night elf who RPs as a paladin, uhm… might wanna stick to stuff you can actually do there bud… sorta helps to stay within the confines of the game. But hey – if you wanna go nuts and use the crayons totally outside the lines that’s the great thing about WoW, I don’t have to listen to ya.
If you’re looking for some good reference material then you could start by looking for lists of words in foreign or dead languages. Greek and Latin are great for starters, though you may not wish to stop there. I also read though old histories sometimes – you can find short, down and dirty descriptions on Wikipedia, not the most accurate of encyclopedia reference tools but it doesn’t matter too much when you’re not writing a thesis.
Biblical references work too – though I generally stick to historical names. I used Biblical names for my hunter’s pets. Ancient Egyptian, Eastern or European cultures all have proper nouns or names you can use, the limit is your gut instinct and the amount of effort you wanna put into it.
Mar 20, 2008
The Name of the Toon
Legacy Raids and why we do them
Legacy Raid refers to the old level 60, 40-man raids that were the rage before Burning Crusade hit the shelves. Things like Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, Onyxia, AQ20/40 and Naxx. You may or may not be surprised to learn that those raids are still quite challenging, even if you bring in your level 70 buddies.
The reason is that raiding at any level requires coordination, leadership, listening and no small amount of individual player knowledge regarding their class and abilities and how to use them in conjunction with others.
Let’s take Molten Core for example. It’s a relatively easy raid, can be run comfortably in a couple of hours now- pre-BC raid guilds were doing this in 5-8 hours after weeks of working at it. But I’ve seen uncoordinated groups of level 70s wipe REPEATEDLY on these due to inattention and lack of skill.
I never raided pre-BC. I was on the game for about a year before the expansion hit but I was in a guild that wasn’t into raiding and consequently, I didn’t’. But when Kara came out and I capped my second toon, I felt the need to find something new. So while stealthing the LFG channel one Sat night I ran across a group of pre-BCers who were going to run Molten Core. I grabbed my 70 and headed for Searing Gorge. The rest is history. It was so much fun I specifically leveled a paladin to 55 so I could join that raid and get my Tier 1 set, aka my Bananadin set.
But why do it? I mean Tier 1 gear may be nice for a 55 but for a 70? Why bother? Well, I guess it goes back to a combination of things. Nostalgia is def part of it, RP, and training new raiders is always a good thing – remember there are lots of folks out there who don’t know how to. Also, you find good people from small guilds who want to learn and can be an asset to the ‘real raids’ later on. So it’s sort of a recruitment tool as well.
But I just figured something else out too. Some of the best content written for this game has roots deep within those legacy raids. Ultra-long quest chains that can only be accomplished through the nitpicky world of repeat raids in places like BWL or AQ40. Boring? Perhaps to some, but the essence of getting the full value of the money you spent on this game is getting into the details of what came before Karazhan and ZA – it not only helps you flesh out the lore, it gives you some unique content that most people don’t get to do, and frankly, most will never see.
These quest chains can take months to complete but the end result is fun – world events involving massive raids – up to 100 players defending a village from invasion, while downing a massive dragon and fighting alongside legendary NPCs. Don’t think that happens? We did that last weekend on Feathermoon.
I main tanked a giant shark - 100ft long in the waters off Azshara. I got to take on a wicked Satyr in Duskwood of all places. And if you think it was easy, well, to a degree it was, but if anyone died the Twilight Corrupter gained LEVELS, not hp or powers but LEVELS. I’ve read that bad attempts resulted in a level 90 bad guy – yeah – 90.
There are others too – rewards for these can be Legendary items – you know, the Orange ones. Who cares if it’s for a level 60 player – it still looks cool as hell and will turn heads no matter where you go. Even the top raid guilds won’t have many people who have those items.
So now you have bragging rights. And if you find a group running those instances you can usually bring your level 60. Getting epics for a level 60 is pretty cool. Sure the outlands gear is better suited to leveling – in most cases, but don’t sell the tier items short. If you can ever get into Naxx before they pull it the tier 3 items can be used all the way to Kara, yeah they’re that good.
So next time you’re wandering around Feathermoon on a Saturday night, right about 6:30 or so, pop into the LFG channel and see if we’re hiring for the night. Anyone can come - based on the raid we’re doing. MC is 55+, BWL and AQ tends to 60+. If there is an attunement requirement we often run that for folks that need it before the raid starts.
Look for Agro, Firac, Teur, Chirax or Thorney. I won’t give out the raid leader’s name ‘cause he’s a high-end raider who spends a lot of time in Hyjal and BT – I’m sure he’d appreciate the enthusiasm but would rather I or one of my counterparts dealt with the details.
Welcome Back
The last few weeks have been crappy in terms of demands on my time. I've been able to get on WoW a few times but so much has happened that I'm barely on - just keeping up my commitments.
Which brings me to a retroactive announcement. I pulled out of my Friday Kara group. There was a whole lotta drama behind that one but for the most part it's history. A quick recap should suffice. I was on the verge of pulling out, sorta hemming and hawing over it when I got into the last run I did with them 3 weeks ago.
During the run our main tank was continuing her BS attitude, publicly calling out mistakes, deriding people and generally being rude as hell. Some of the other raid members were as annoyed with her as I was and a few started answering back. Things quickly spiraled out of control. I'd had a long day, hadn't really wanted to spend the night in a raid that wasn't fun and was tired - yes you can guess where this is going.
This old bear Laid Down the Paw. That's right. Papa Bear got up on his hind legs and knocked the entire raid on its ass, threatened to call the raid right then and there if that nonsense continued and further called out ACTIONS (not people but those doing the actions knew what I meant) that were reprehensible (ya I used that word too - seriously, don't piss off a pissy old bear).
I ended by saying that this was nonsense and that they could find themselves a new OT beacuse I didn't feel like wasting a Friday night I could be spending with my son.
Things sorta got quiet after that. A few of the people privately messaged me with /cheer and a few others I haven't spoken to since. But that was the catalyst for me. I contacted the rest of the officers the following Monday and told them I was done. I didn't have time for juevenile antics and I needed more time to myself anyway. Since then the raid has died. They tried to pug a few people in - 7 last I heard - but their issues with the MT caused that to end in a mess.
I'm happily raiding with my hunter's group - we're moving into ZA tonight for a more serious run than we've done previously. They really want me for Sat nights but I can't commit more than every other week. I've taken to spending every other weekend with my little one exclusively now so that sorta hurts them, but I was always upfront that Sat nights were too difficult for me to do much more than AH or farm mats.
Oh, I manage to get into a legacy raid as a pug - we run them every weekend, but more often than not I end up putting someone on follow for part of the run since my little one will wake up and needs his papa for a bit. Gruuls and Mags would be really nice- but I just can't give up daddy time.
Which brings me to another reason I've been absent - daddy time plus family time. We lost a grandpa recently - sadly we'd seen it coming for a while (inoperable cancer) but still, one needs to take time to care for the things and people that need caring for so WoW definitely took a back seat.
And one other fun thing - I hate my job. Okay, I know I'm in the club now, it's called Everybody and we all meet at the bar on Tuesdays, but I really hate my job mostly because of my inept boss. So I've been spending more time looking for a replacement (job not boss.. well.. boss too I suppose).
But I've set goals and am working on them so I feel that with not raiding as a bear, and with getting my family stuff taken care of I'm ready to get back into playing a bit more.
See you out there! Look for my Paladin Thorney - lvl 62 on Feathermoon!
Pally tanking is serious bidness and man is it fun!
Mar 4, 2008
Well howdy all, Life's been a bit nutso lately so I've taken a short break from posting on a regular basis. It's the standard fare, work, family etc. But I owe you all a continuation on Karazhan and I haven't forgotten, I just haven't had time to write it lately. In fact, things have gotten so tight on time lately that I've given up my Friday night raid in order to spend more time in the real world. So it shouldn't be much longer before I get the next few bosses up here. One other thing that may interest you is that I've started my journey to Zul'Aman on my hunter, and have even gotten a few invites as a bear. So dear readers, look forward to a run down of those bosses in the weeks to come!