And Now for a Word About Characters

So, my wife is currently waiting to have her traitorous galbladder removed. I am scamming the hospital wi-fi, trying to think of things to do to keep myself occupied, and not going batshit crazy with worst-case scenarios. It's a simple procedure, but I had the same thing done 3 years ago and they had to do it the old-fashioned way...with a chainsaw and a baseball bat, apparently.

But that's as it may be. I'll try to keep off that. I wanted to go into how I choose and develop characters a little bit, since this is a question I get with a fair amount of regularity IRL.

So, I've been playing various RPGs for a really long time. In fact, I remember the old West End Games Star Wars System. Loved it; roll far too many D6's for no good reason. Yeah, I'm getting grey, I know. I've played AD&D 2nd, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, L5R, Rifts, Doctor Who, B5, WoT, V:TM, and so on. I go to GenCon every year, half to play the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, but half to see the weird new RPG tabletop experiments that are coming out. So I've got a fair amount of experience playing make-believe.

All those systems varied wildly from each other, for the most part. But the one thing that remained constant was the characters. Any RPG, no matter how poorly designed or executed, can be a really good time if you have interesting characters you like, care about, and enjoy playing. Conversely, the best-designed system in the world will fall absolutely flat if you don't give a damn about what happens to the main players (The Phantom Menace, anyone?).

That being the case, I go out of my way to build and play characters that are not just fun, but have history, personailty quirks, annoying habits, hopes, dreams, goals, character flaws...in short, I try to make them as close to real people as I possibly can, because that makes for interesting dialogue and game play.

What do you do, for instance, when your main group of characters has been hired by the mob to do a smash-and-grab at a local jewlery store, which sounds fine, but one of the PC's uncles owns the store and actually was a huge influence in his or her life? Maybe got him or her into NYU through his connections with the geology department? Or if another of the PC's was busted for petty theft 6 months ago and has been turned into a narc to avoid prosecution. How does he react to this? Does he do the job on the down-low, or does he stoolie out and run to the cops? Or how about a third who is naturally conceited and can't helping bragging to a few of his buddies after the job, and is overheard by a friend of the jeweler's?

See? Good, rich characters can make something that seems pretty ordinary on the surface (listen to the bit about the sandwich) and make it, if not epic, then so much more realistic, deep, and fun.

The same rules translate over to WoW, as far as I am concerned. Arthas, Sylvanas, Varian Wynn, Tirion, Thrall...these are all fantastic characters with rich, meaningful storylines. To create characters that are any less than 3-dimensional then, to my way of thinking, is an affront to the people who imagined up this awesome world. Therefore, my three flagship characters, Kusamoto, Tsurii, and Katsuko, have been developed over the course of months, even years.

Kusamoto, in particular, has a rich history, as he is my L5R alterego. I've been playing that game so long, in fact, they folks at AEG decided to give in and make him, and I, a part of canon. It's a nod at my peserverance and in a really strange way gives him, and therefore me, a kind of immortality most people can only dream of, so I am immensely humbled by the honor Shawn Carman and company have done me. So, here's my alterego, Kusamoto, in the card game:

Naturally, who else could I have chosen to create for my flagship WoW character? Since I play horde almost exclusively, the racial choice wasn't much of one (Blood Elf was the only thing that came close) and class was similarly chosen for me (Pally, of course). So I roll him up along the same lines as my card game character, and here's what I come up with:

You can see the similarities in type, which is why I was immensely pleased at how he turned out in game, and was really looking forward to playing the hell out of him. Only one minor problem:

I didn't like him.

In fact, he sat on the shelf for about 4 months before I started grinding away at the Blood Elf starting quests, but I still wasn't having any fun with him (and I'm certain the reverse was true). I couldn't figure it out at all. Until one day, in SFK, I chose DPS or healer, got in as a healer, and realized my mistake.

THIS Kusamoto was NOT entirely "my" Kusamoto. He preferred healing over righteous fury, and more "white collar" pursuits, like Inscription and Herbalism, over the down-and-dirty professions like engineering or mining. While this originally came as quite a shock, it made perfect sense with the background I had in my head of a mid-level functionary's son forced into a role and profession he never really wanted. And now, he finds himself, by virtue of his skills in writing and oratory, as the political figurehead of an organization he is more than glad to let Katsuko run behind the scenes while playing straight man to a undead warrior.

Even though I had built the character along the same lines as my true alterego, he changed and grew before my eyes in surprising ways because of the same rules I follow when building characters, not in spite of them. It's frightening when that happens; when a character you have made, played, and were both mother and father to, suddenly matures into something you never expected. Frightening, but also very exciting. It means you've done your job in creating and raising him well, and now you are simply along for the ride.

So, this has been pretty wall-of-textish, but I hope I got my point across. WoW is, for all intents and purposes, a tabletop RPG in a lot of ways. Character creation and development is similar, and if you go out of your way to make interesting characters with breadth and depth, it will never get old, no matter what changes are made to the game, and you will always enjoy playing it.

OK, back to the really real world of waiting for my wife to be out of surgery. But let me ask everyone: Who is your favorite WoW character (NPC, your own, or someone else's) and why? I'd love to hear your opinion.

2010-08-26 2300 Zulu; Battalion SitRep

Report Filed By: Gen. A. Kusamoto
Priority: Moderate

Classification: Secret

Batallion Status: Green

**Begin Trans**

Col. Katsuko deserves congratulations from the rest of our company on her latest achievement, namely promotion to the highest levels of Azerothian competence. However, since this milestone earlier in the week, she has only slowed down long enough to pull some new clothes, a knife, and a strange-looking orb (which, she informs me, has already been replaced with some terribly boring book) out of her footlocker. She seems absolutely driven to make it to Icecrown and Arthas' Frozen Throne in support of the rest of the battalion. While her singleminded zealotry is admirable, we all find it vaguely terrifying. Col. Tsurii even baked her a cake and had signs printed up ("Congratulations, Slacker") as a celebratory gesture, but she begged off saying something about the "twice-damned sons of Ho'Dir" needing her to do something. I swear I heard her mutter something about "waxing their helmets," but I really didn't care to listen past that. Tsurii just seemed amused in a knowing way.

Speaking of , after being unceremoniously stopped cold in his ICC advance by an entity known as the Blood Queen, Tsurii has performed a temporary retrograde action back to Dalaran in an effort to rally his boys and support Katsuko's drive. He did, however, manage to requisition new gear from an officer of the Ashen Verdict, as well as raid the Alliance's resupply and assault frigate for these. One of the creations of the Lich King's Lieutenant, Professor Putricide, apparently had no further use for this, either. While the remainder of his equipment is strictly standard issue, allied forces have reported that his conduct and performance under fire have been exemplary.

Sadly, the pressures and resposibilities of command have left me more-or-less stationed in Undercity for the foreseeable future. This is a delicate time for the Army, and I cannot ignore my post to go gallivanting off to the Arathi Highlands like some common mercenary. There are campaigns to plan, supplies to distribute, families whose loved ones Katsuko has set on fire to apologize to (cultists have mothers...huh...who knew?), then those same families to apologize to again after Tsurii ate a few of their cousins- ["OMNOMNOM! heehee!" "Dude, shut up! I'm recording here!" "Sorry, boss...say, does this clown taste funny to you?" "*sigh*They don't pay me enough for this..."]...where was I...oh, Dalaran city guardsmen to bribe...err...motivate, and plenty of new recruits to interview (although the Tauren that is convinced she is a Paladin and the very devout-if eccentric-Goblin flummox me). Our Army strengthens, and soon we shall be strong enough to not only push the last remnants of the Lich King's forces from our world forever, but also survive the cataclysm you have often spoken of. **END TRANS**

If it Looks Like a Tank, Walks Like a Tank, Holds Aggro Like a Tank...

So in celebration of dinging 72, here's a quick photo op in UC with my new gear.

In addition to the Tundra Pauldrons, Boots of the Unbowed Protector, and Disturbing Giant Gauntlets, I picked up a Cobalt Helm for cheap tanking fun, tossed a bunch of Borean Armor Kits over everything that a guildie was nice enough to ship me, and finally got my Fiery on for the Iron Grip Shortsword of the Champion. My DEF is sitting at 429 (ok, not great...but better), STA is over 1k, armor at 14.3k, and health at 15.2k. All in all, we're coming along.

Although Tsuri hasn't been too thrilled with the quest choices lately...

Leveling Madness

First of all, check out Tsuri's new threads. Are they not spectacular? Are you not entertained? The helmet was nice, but I had to give it up to Mr. "Mehaveironpantstosellyou" in Ogrimmar for a blacksmith quest. Besides, I like the chainmail headband, and it's just a placeholder until I can get the plate helm equipped at 40 anyway. Also, notice the sword. It's the first epic-looking item I've gotten. Apparently, the Orcs in Hammerfall don't have a key to the city, they have a sword. Color me unsurprised. As much as I had to grind in Arathi to get it, they better be fricken appreciative. Lastly, I purchased a tabard for our guild which I like much better than the PvP scout tabard (they made me an Officer...I guess I better look the part). Blue and green appear to be Tsuri's favorite colors. All in all, I am much less ghetto-looking than I was just 2 weeks ago.

In the remainder of this episode, I will be extolling the virtues of level grinding in Stranglethorn Vale. OK, stop groaning. The general consensus seems to be that everyone despises Stranglethorn, and I can't honestly figure out why. Here's what I found when I went there last night with the express intent of exploring rather than screaming like a little girl and running from the ?? mobs (which is what happened last time I went at lvl 25 or so):

1. Achieveable, simple quests in close proximity to one another. When you arrive at Grom'Gol, there are 8 quests waiting for you. 7 of them are all within walking distance of the city, and all of them are the "kill this kind of critter" or "bring me back X number of looted items" type. All of them involve killing large numbers of pretty easy trash (except the raptors...I hate the raptors) for more XP and very good (if rare) green drops and cash. Just in the process of completing these quests I made about 2G, and that wasn't with going out of my way to kill anything extra.

2. Good XP and gold rewards for completed quests. When I showed up, I was at less than one bar of XP into 38 on my way to 39. Just completing the first of the quest chains listed above (7), I finished up at 43K XP out of the 62K needed for 39. That's an average of 6k per quest all told. I also got some decent quest reward items out of it, too.

3. Manageable quest chains. I say manageable because it's a slow progression of difficulty that can still be solo'd if none of your guildies or PUGs are around, and the chains are still in the same general area as the chain originator quests. None of this, "well, you killed X critters near our outpost, but now you have to swim 25 miles south to get this one rare item off an uncommon mob that's 5 levels higher than you and take it to the Tauren Shaman who lives on top of an inaccessible mountain in Quel'Thalas. Oh...and you have to do it while hopping on one foot, playing the accordion, and singing 'Ave Maria' in B Sharp. If you do not complete this quest, ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WILL CEASE TO EXIST." After completing this ridiculous task, you then see "Experience: 450" pop up. I hate those. SV simply has logical progressions of quests utilizing the same mobs, locations, and tactics. No respecs, regearing, or long wait times for respawning required (unless you're farming Bloodscalp tusks for the Cyclonian warrior quest...and even then, they drop pretty frequently with a short-ish respawn time).

In short, SV is an AWESOME place to power level. Is it my favorite zone? Not really. I still really like Arathi just for the open-ness and beauty of the environment, as well as killing the humans that are trying to muscle in on Horde territory and eating their souls to give me strength. Forsaken, remember? Humans are the other white meat...

So, to promote talking amongst yourselves, what is everyone's favorite levelgrind zone? Can be in Azeroth, Outlands, or Northrend...we don't discriminate here.

Welcome to the World...of Warcraft: A quick general guide for new players

OK, now that I have the impotent rage out of my system courtesy of the Gnoll issue, time for the promised content. A few words before starting, however...




*pours another scotch and soda*

OK, much better. Please note that a lot of the stuff I'm going to go over is general in nature. I'm not going to get into quest specifics or where to find teh fat lootz. This is specifically for someone starting the game out of the box having just read the manual and logging on for the first time, and are things I wish I had known when getting going for the first time. End of disclaimer. Let's begin with...

In The Beginning: Choosing Your First Character

Before you even start the game, you already have choices to make: Race, Class, faction (Horde or Alliance), sex, hair color, features, 401(k) allocation percentages...OK, that comes later, but you get the idea. Notice that each race has it's own racial bonuses, but may only be allowed certain classes to choose from. In general, you obviously want to pick a race you'll enjoy playing, but also look at the bonuses for the races and match them up with the Class you want to play. Generally speaking, Gnomes don't make good warriors and Trolls are crappy at spellcasting, but Gnome warlocks and Troll hunters are extremely powerful characters.

When I first started, I made Matsu Tsuri, the Undead warrior, because I figured it was the simplest thing I could put together to learn the ins and outs of the game. Later on, I found that warriors, particularly tanks, are some of the more complicated characters to learn. For your first character, Hunters are very good because of their stand-off and shoot capability, the ability to "track" mobs (which allows you to find or avoid monsters as you will) and train certain monsters as pets to do the dirtywork up close. Mages and Warlocks are also good, as they have the ability to do massive damage from afar or sic their summoned minions on people. For a first character, I would choose one of those three and leave Warrior, Paladin, and Shaman for a 2nd or 3rd toon.

Whatever your choice, once you have created a character and chosen a server to start on, your journey toward heroic stature will begin with...

"Dude, can you go snake me 16 wolf pelts and some sage?"

Yes, starting quests are not very glorious. Then again, as cool as your character looks, your stats and armor will be visciously uncool for awhile, so put glory on the back burner for now. Remember that you can have up to 25 quests stored in your log at one time, so run around and grab every quest from the starting area you can before attempting them. I highly recommend, both for the sake of enjoying the game and learning how quests work in general, not using thottbot or similar to "cheat" on the quests. While it feels unethical to me, I'll give you a practical reason: Some quests are in the same area with each other, so it is possible to multitask quests IF you have read and understood what they're asking for.

Beginning quests aren't very difficult (duh...they're for Level 1 civilians), so you should be able to go out and complete 2-3 quests at a time and then return for quest turn-in all at once. This will save you some upfront time and running back to the same area over and over again to do multiple quests you could have polished off in one shot.

After you complete a few quests, you should have been able to level up a bit and may have actually grabbed some decent armor in the form of loot off the monsters you've had to exterminate. Pick the pieces that give you best armor ratings and sell the rest, but don't worry about buying anything else at this point. Early on, the drops you get from mobs will be roughly the same quality as the stuff you can buy off a vendor, and it may even be better. You'll need gold at later levels for things like the Auction House, flight paths, skill training, food, melon juice, Blood Elf "escorts," etc. Start the habit early of only buying what you absolutely need so that later on you can afford the cool stuff without begging with a tin cup outside Ogrimmar.

Questing vs. Kill-Crazy Rampage

The best armor and weapons you will get early on will come in the form of quests, as will the most XP. While laughing maniacally and killing everythig in site is sometimes quite fun, it is not the most efficient way to level and get gold, loot, etc. Questing can be difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating, but it is the best way to level early, bar none.

Each quest you do within the first 5 levels or so gives you anywhere from 150-300 XP. Each quest usually takes about 15 minutes. So, my math advisor wishes to inform me that questing nets you roughly 10-20 XP per minute. The starting mobs, on the other hand, only give out 15-20 XP each, and there is no guarantee in the beginning that you can kill enough of them to compete with the questing math...and you might die. There is always that.

Therefore, take and complete every single quest you can early on to net the maximum amount of experience in the minimum amount of time. on't worry, there will be plenty of stuff to beat on later, and I guarantee it will beat back.

Class and Profession Skills

As you progress, you will need to visit skill trainers often. your starting area will have a skill trainer for your chosen Class that is more than willing to teach you the tricks of the trade for a price. Make sure you visit your trainer at every level early and then every other level once you hit 10.

After completing your first group of quests, you will be shipped off the bunny hill to a new area where more quests will be available, but also the first few skill trainers you can learn various professional skills from. This is where your character starts to take on a life of his/her own. What do they excel at? When they aren't beating on poor, hapless animals, zombies, or fish-men, what do they do in their spare time? You can choose up to two main professions to take on, and any number of secondary ones (first aid, cooking, fishing, etc.). Generally, you want to pick a profession based on three criteria:

• Will it compement your class choice? In other words, it doesn't make a lot of sense to choose tailoring as a profession if you're a Paladin (unless you're going for some karmic warrior-monk theme or something) since tailors can't make the best armor, weapons, etc. for Paladin-class characters. Blacksmithing might be a better option for your character.

• Will it complement another profession you already have? Herbalism and Alchemy feed very well off one another. You can level them almost simultaneoulsy. Mining and Blacksmithing are also complimentary. Engineering and Inscriptions? Not so much. You'll find much more difficulty leveling 2 disparate skillsets than two related ones; not to mention the cost involving buying raw materials when, in the other examples listed above, you can farm them for virtually free.

• Will it make you money? Mining, skinning, and jewelcrafting can all make you a ton of cash if done right. Ore and refined bars of ore are always in high demand, as is leather armor, raw materials, jewlery, etc. Money makes the world...of Warcraft...go 'round. If you're all about the Benjamins and don't care about actually making anything, by all means, choose 2 farming skills and rake in the cash. Remember, though, at higher levels created items may outdo drops, so choose accordingly.

OK, that's all for the moment. There's plenty more, but I'm getting sleepy and I'm out of Scotch. We'll continue tomorrow...

Sooo Close

I hate Gnolls.

This is not run-of-the-mill hatred, by the way. You know, the kind of hatred you have for a hangnail, The View, people who read the paper while driving, or when the President is on TV right during that Heroes episode you haven't seen yet. No, this is the kind of hatred reserved for child molesters and oil company CEOs. The kind of white-hot hatred you typically feel after someone has walked up in the club and spit in your drink.

Yes, that much hate. Why, might you ask? Well...

So there I was, minding my own business while picking mushrooms for the Apothecary in Tarren Mills for some of his special recipes. Naturally, these mushrooms only grow in one field in the entire world, and this farm is overrun by Gnolls. When I rolled up and saw them I was like, "Crap. Not this again." The first Gnoll encounter back at level 9-10 or so was bad enough. However, I didn't have Revenge, Shield Block, etc. back then, so I figured I could take mobs roughly my level or slightly above, even if they were Gnolls, by myself...Right? >_> <_<

After the 4th time I wiped I gave up and went to kill things in Thousand Needles. Stupid mudslinging, item-camping bastards. So, the moral of the story is if you're a tank with no helaing abilities, don't try to confiscate a Gnoll's stash without some backup from 5.0. Preferably something with a quick heal/res spell.

In other news, I'm a bar away from 28, and would have been there before I logged last night if it weren't for the Gnolls. Grrr.