Leafshine: Lust for Flower

The Guild: Singing Avatars

As re-posted by just about everybody:

The thing I love about this little MMoRPG subculture of ours is that it can support creativity and art like this, because new media has brought down the cost of producing and distributing professional-level art, and also created a ready-made system for letting people know about its existence - by reposting it on their blogs. ;-) Oh, and there's enough of us out there to make it financiall viable.

The actual song and video are really nice pieces of work - both an accurate spoof of modern mainstream pop and absolutely spot-on gags in the lyrics that hit the spot for gamers. It's almost like a highly-niche version of a Wierd Al track.

And I'll never, ever look at the phrase "tank and spank" the same way again.  

Anyway, you can snag the video from iTunes and the track from Amazon: (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar (feat. Felicia Day).

Bring a n00b home to Mom

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

[Via Dale]

Azeroth After the Cataclysm

Another day, another set of expansion pack rumours. You can see them in all their potentially spoilerish glory at MMO Champion, and the BBBBBBBBB has given his take already. 

At first, I was a bit "meh" about the news. Only little globbets of new environments to explore? Half the levelling to do? That last bit rankled particularly, as it was expressed in terms of "it was taking manpower away from making the important stuff: raids" terms, to which you can have a double portion of "meh", with some whipped "meh" and a "meh" on top. I'm no raider, and marginalising levelling content in favour of raiding? It would alienate too many casual players.

That said, there are some intriguing possibilities in theses rumours. If they really did take the time to revamp Azeroth, then the way is opened for a fully progressive, phased world. And that could have all sorts of fascinating implications:

• Imagine that, after the fall of Arthas, the Plaguelands start to be reclaimed. New Lordaeron arises in the Eastern Plaguelands, while the Western Plaguelands becomes a Wintergrasp-style battle zone as the Forsaken and the humans vie for supremacy. For sub-80s, they're still Plaguelands, for post-80s, they're new content.
• Invasions could actually occur and make a difference. The Burning Legion invade as we hit level 95? We lose whole zones to invaders once we hit the appropriate levels (or finish the right quests). 

And more than that, if the rumours are right, and the level cap really is going to be 85, then perhaps this is the first sign of Blizz hitting their aspiration for yearly expansions:

• 5 levels per expansion
• 2 tiers of raiding per expansion
• Less time podding around at the level cap
• Less need for gear levelling late in an expansion or at the start of the next
• A revamped old world means that an Emerald Dream expansion could be extensive but (relatively) quickly produced, because it traded of existing landscape, phased.

 There are some interesting possibilities in these rumours - but I'm not sold on them due to some details I find hard to believe. (I don't think for one second that Thrall is going to be the next Guardian of Tirisfal, as it doesn't match either his or the Guardian story in any useful way. And what would Malfurion have to do with all of that?)

Ah, well. This time next week we'll know.

Goblins, Worgen and Cataclysms (Oh, my)

So, wow.com thinks that the goblin/worgen rumours are true and that we're going to see two new races in the expansion. I avoided writing about the rumours the first time around, as they seemed to be just that: rumours. But as they're looking more likely, I thought I'd break from the two Epic Posts I'm writing at the moment to talk about them.

They make sense as races in that Blizz seems to like to establish a sense of balance in the factions. The Goblins give the Horde a small, ingenious race (some might say annoying) to match the Alliance's Gnomes, while the Alliance gain a animalistic race in the Worgen to match the Tauren. 

Time is Money, For The Horde!

Goblins as a playable Horde race is something of a reversion. After all, Horde goblin suicide bombers were a fun part of Warcraft II at a time when the concept was somewhat less politically sensitive than it is now. (And, anyway, didn't they make a repeat appearance in one of the quests out of K3 in Storm Peaks?)

I think we can make a few pretty safe assumptions:

• It will just be a faction of Goblins, not the whole race.
• The existing, neutral Steamwheedle Cartel outposts will stay just that: neutral
• Undermine will make an appearance, either as the racial capital or as the Shatt/Dalaran of this expansion - which suggests that elements of this expansion have been in planning since before the release of vanilla WoW, given that maps of Undermine were visible in the "making of" DVD. 

Cataclysm will be key to the group of Goblins siding with the Horde, I think. I can't see Thrall's Horde hiring the Goblins en masse to join the Horde, so there must be some need that drive at least some of the Goblins into the Horde's arms for protection. And a Cataclysm would certainly do that. 

Level 99 Required

So, I did my fishing daily this morning, like a good little Night Elf, and in Marcia's sack, I got a steamy romance novel.

Rather than just vendoring it and moving on, I sat down to read it, and was quite swept away by the tale of rather, um, violent passion between a gnome warlock and a human paladin. But just as it was getting good…

Level 99?

That's two expansions away. 

I'm just going to have to make up the rest in my own deviant little mind... };-)

Recipe Day (Patched)

Wut!

Patch day???? How was I to know? There's been virtually no information about this patch anywhere on the internets…

</sarcasm> :-)

While we wait for my game to patch, here's the recipe for Naxx Surf'n'Turf:

Safe!

That was a nice thing to happen on my first post-holiday raid. :)