Stuff

Deciding not to go with that whole realID disaster changes nothing. The fact that they even considered such a course of action beyond the drawing board stage is, well, bad.

Still, I over-reacted, and I apologize for that. Y’all didn’t need to read that “Still Raging” post. I’m not normally such a huge raging douche. Usually I keep my douche levels at tolerable levels, or discharge it privately. The internet did not need to see that.

So. Sorry. 😦

I did need to type it however. Catharsis and all that. Didn’t need to publish it though. Let’s move on and pretend last week never happened.

I still want to play WoW. I genuinely like the game, and I was genuinely looking forward to Cataclysm. RealID has stained all of that. As of now, my account expires August 4th, and I currently do not have any plans to renew that.

Generally, any company who does something like that loses my support instantly and permanently. How can I justify sending Blizzard money when they try and do something like that? I can’t. I can rationalize it away (herp derp it was Activision not Blizzard) or maybe pretend Blizzard is still totally cool.

And yet… I still want to play WoW. I’ve tried so many other MMOs, and there’s always, always some sort of horrible problem (usually something small) that ruins the game instantly for me.

For example, Lord of the Rings Online. Last time I tried it, there was a little camera issue.

In WoW, when I hold down RMB to move my camera around, and then release RMB, my camera stays pointing in the direction I moved it.

I thought this was standard for any third person RPG type game. But NO! In LOTRO, when you release RMB, the camera immediately snaps back to its default position. WHY?! Why does it do that? That issue alone renders the entire game completely unplayable.

Naturally, WoW has an option that lets you choose between loose camera and instant snap back camera. Why you would ever want your camera to instantly snap back is beyond me, but then again there are keyboard turners and default interface users out there. I can’t exactly expect everyone to play the same way I do.

On the other hand, I do buy games that, technically, provide funding for companies I strongly dislike.

Bioware, for instance, is a company I like, and I’ve enjoyed damn near every game they make. However, that entire company is technically subservient to their masters, EA. EA is a company that I loathe, such loathing, more loathing than the huge amounts of loathe I have for Apple.

I still buy the games, in full knowledge that it is benefitting my nemesis, but I do it because it also supports a game studio I like. I just never allow the game to go online and never buy DLC. Or pirate the DLC, but usually the DLC is so shitty or buggy it’s not even worth getting for free.

I suppose I’ll have decided if my adventures in WoW will continue by by the 4th of August. For now, I still have a lot of hate for Blizzard, but this is being tempered by sadness at the loss of my WoW.

Which is a little odd, come to think of it.

I (obviously) reacted quite strongly. Far stronger than a mere game should warrant. Then again, it is a game I’ve happily played for… what, five years now? I’ve been a Blizzard fan since 1999, maybe it’s just what comes across as the betrayal of an eleven year friendship that hurts.

Which raises the question: why would I ever consider a company a good friend in the first place?

Maybe I could continue playing WoW, henceforth treating Blizzard as a corporation and holding them at arm’s length.

I certainly won’t be defending them anymore. And definitely won’t buy any of the other crap or any special editions. I have to actually like the company to do that.

I won’t stop writing Warcraft fan fiction though. The world is too rich with potential stories to let some corporation ruin that.

-=-=-=-

Switching gears entirely. LORE THEORY TIME!

Alright, so.

I’ve actually done some research, and apparently there are half breeds of damn near everything in Warcraft lore.

I’m going with the theory that the Titans, who designed and adjusted pretty much every single sentient life form in the entire universe and even created some sentient life, designed all these disparate life forms with the sole intention of allowing any of them to produce viable off spring with any other species.

Consider that if a draenei and an orc, two completely different species from completely different ends of the universe, make love and produce a baby, that baby will look extremely human.

How is that even possible? Sheer coincidence? I say nay! The Titans themselves, at some point, got their grubby little god fingers all up in that DNA. Or, if a lifeform didn’t use DNA, reprogrammed them so they did.

That way, any sentient being from anywhere would be able to make babies with any sentient being from anywhere else.

(I have no idea what the exceptions might be. Maybe it’s impossible to make human/murloc hybrids. Anyone care to take one for the team?)

So why would the Titans go through all the trouble of doing such a thing?

Answer: so that life would be very, very hard to extinguish.

My theory is that the Titans knew damn well someone, or something, would try to wage war on life in general. Maybe they knew of Sargeras and the Burning Legion beforehand, maybe not. Maybe they merely knew that eventually, something would try to kill everything else.

Maybe they didn’t know at all, but they decided to prepare for such an eventuality anyway. Consider the absurd defenses Azeroth, as a planet, has. What possible reason could the Titans have in creating the Aspects, massive dragons with god like powers behind? They don’t give a shit if the mortal races wage war on each other, they only intervene to prevent the entire world being destroyed.

Thus, by making literally any species able to reproduce with any other species, it becomes possible for life itself to perpetuate itself extremely easily.

Imagine if Azeroth was destroyed, the only survivors being a handful of tauren, orcs, night elves, humans and draenei. Any of those populations by themselves would run into serious problems down the line due to inbreeding.

But if any of them could reproduce at will with any of the others, all those genetic problems go away.

Which raises the question of why the Titans couldn’t just eliminate inbreeding entirely while they were messing with genetic code.

Maybe they want different races to interbreed? Racial and special hatred is everywhere. Allowing them all to breed together breaks down a lot of barriers.

It’s a work in progress.