Starlost

Wow. They want a lot of killing from me today. Got new boots to replace the ones I made, that's sad.

I found tin! Yeeee.

Silver, wowwwwwwww. Silver silver silver! Gonna put that in to replace the silver I borrowed from the guild. >_>

Carrying wayyyyy to much. Dunno what to do about it.

Antikata

I had been sent to finish cleansing the Agamand Mills, but the Scourge were too thick within the crypts. Facing so many foes at once is not a task we mages are suited for. Though I resolved to force my through with careful and firm progress, I still had not made far into the depths before I was set upon by four or more and fled back out of the crypt.

That was too much. I picked my way down the cliffside, skidding a couple of times badly, until finally I dropped myself into the ocean and swam round the headland in search of safe shores. Curiosity got the better of me, and peeking at a chest in the mouth of a dead fish saw a swarm of murlocs after me, so I ran all the way back to Brill. I am sure my frost armour is the only reason I can manage such escapes, allowing me to outpace any who dare strike me.

Since it seems I must regather myself before attempting the final cleansing of those crypts I have taken myself south, to deliver some messages and make my first visit to Undercity. I had never got to visit here in life but I am sure it is much changed. With the surface in ruins, how could it not be?

Mistpaw
New mail today from Vorlock and Starlost, did not disassemble into anything especially interesting. Still waiting on silver rod from Starlost. Going back to sleep.

Starlost
Finally made it to Loch Modan, think I found the guy I was told could show me what to do with this bear meat I found... hope it hasn't gone off by now. This is a nice area. It feels much happier than Bloodmyst. I think I will come back here after I finish helping out there.

Sword is nice and sharp and sparkly. Rawr, swish! Miss my pretty copper armour tho. I guess this stuff is better but I feel all drab. :(

Better get back home, they need me. Wish I could fly back. Maybe mine more on the way?

I feel weird. This is where my sword came from, from the ogres across the loch, but this is my first time here. I couldn't even pick it up not long ago. Maybe someday I can take it all the way back home to visit!

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Darkshore is beautiful.

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That was a lot of smelting... and I got a new hammer for my collection. But we must get back to Blood Watch. I have a princess to save!

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All this running around is making me tired. But we are new to this world so I guess we gotta go to the dwarves an' elves an' humans to find out how to cook the weird creatures here.

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Back to my own made pants now, yay! Prally should go sleep now.

Around December I went back to playing World of Warcraft, mainly because the people I played with decided to go back to it also. The group had branched out to another server to play Horde characters and because of various complications (me doing NaNoWriMo, my home net connection being throttled to dial-up speeds so that downloading the game patches took two weeks), by the time I got back into the game everyone else's characters were all levelled in the mid-20s or higher. So I created a tauren druid named Katacat to join them (and an undead mage named Antikata, and... )

The point is I spent a fair meanwhile playing her to catch up with the others, so they could group together. Playing on the Horde side felt distinctly uncomfortable relative to the Alliance side of last time. It put me in mind of race drag. The tauren feel very much like pop-cultural Native Americans and the trolls are seeming very much to be Rastafarian stereotypes (plus some Cannibal Islander in the mix). It bothers me. And the Horde side seems to have much more extreme sexual dimorphism, with the women often scarcely resembling the men beyond skin colour. When I was making an orc warlock it seemed like the female model could fit entirely inside the male model.

It is also quite jarring when Voodoo is referenced within the game (pertaining to trolls, of course... are they just all islanders of colour all at once?), such as when a character mentions sending an enemy's severed head to a troll friend because he 'knows he likes to use that sort of thing in his voodoo rituals'. Do the writers not realise this is an actual, specific real-world religion they are referencing? I think if the word 'Voodoo' there were replaced with 'Christian' I think many more people would recognise that as jarring, as pertaining to a specific set (of sets) of beliefs and rituals which have no place being explicitly referenced in a fictitious world which does not support their development. Likewise for shaman. These are specific, actual things, not generic terms which attach to nothing particular.

Conversely, I have been quite enjoying the wildlife of the Barrens. We stick European animals and plants in fantasy settings all the time, so it is a pleasant change to see some lions and zebras and hyenas and giraffes roaming about, although I mislike how much of a minority that zone is in compared with the rest of the world. It does make me think I would like to see some areas themed with Australian-based flora and fauna (perhaps the new island zones in the Cataclysm expansion? although I think that decision and work is already past and done by now). I suspect that ironically where that where 'voodoo' and 'shaman' pass often unnoticed and unremarked, including creatures derived from those inhabiting Australia would throw people out of suspended disbelief and perhaps lead to accusations of inappropriate inclusions. I say that because I believe the general 'we' is accustomed to seeing, frex, kangaroos as symbolising the specific place Australia, and that we are accustomed also to seeing the religions of people of colour as synonymous with dark magic and spirits so we don't notice the appropriation of those or see a problem with it. (the omnipresence of wolves and boars[1] and bears is also invisible, for different reasons) Then again, they have annual festivals based on Christmas and Valentines, so maybe not.

Speaking of the festivals, they have recently put me in mind that I would love to see global seasons implemented. I suppose the way the festivals are synced annually would be an impediment but still I would love to see changing seasons done on a scale shorter than a year (maybe over four months? one month per season, keeping the festivals always occurring in their proper season), and separated too north from south. It would be lovely to see how the zones change through the 'year'. Much of the game I have been finding quite beautiful even with the graphics necessarily turned far down; I wouldn't want to see them all given conventional spring, summer, etc., but something appropriate to existing themes could be quite breathtaking.

[1] Oh, boars! This game is the only time I have seen them depicted as peaceful, plentiful creatures rather than elusive, ornery animals it is unwise to stumble upon.