Selenar: I really think I could have sat in Rivervale any time I was depressed and all would have been fine in 15 minutes.

Dlorn: because of the music or the therapeutic aspect of murdering halfling guards?

Selenar: either works, really.

Whenever anyone said they knew what they were doing- they didn’t. It was all a learning process back then- even the likes of [insert uber guild name here] had their fuck ups… like big fuck ups… HUGE…

This wasn’t a time when guild leaders were looked upon as some sort of pix-elated geek deity. No- this was a time before the Internet was a mass source and Diablo 2 was un-hackable. People learned by doing… so when some douche dick said “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” You knew they were full of shit… the night ended with you on a six hour corpse retrieval in the depths of Kael Drakkal because for some reason the only corpse summoner you knew wasn’t on that day. GOOD MORNING!

If anyone during the course of your game play said:
“Trust me.”
“I got this.”
“No worries.”
“Piece of cake!”
“I’ve done this a million times.”
or my personal favorite- “Hey guys, watch this!”

Your night was devoid of any actual progression in game… you’d probably just be picking pieces of your ass up off the ground of whatever stank-ass plane of misery you were raiding in. Or worse yet you thought you were too awesome for the zone and you turn your head for a second while Captain Retardo goes and fucks with the Avatar of War.

Captain Retardo was almost always a monk. I remember that… Drunk Wizards were cool- you could predict when they were going to go and do something stupid (usually when they got fidgety). But Monks were like a pit bull with no leash… always training to zone or worse- your party… because they could just feign death and wipe their aggro… did I mention how mobs didn’t target one person? They just aggro’d whatever was near them and didn’t return to their spawn point until every living thing that was against them was dead.

I should probably pause right here and mention that I played a Necromancer for awhile- which was just about as bad as a Monk- only we were usually Dark Elves so you couldn’t see us. My friend Deb and I made our Necro’s with the soul intent to get high enough to train Specters in the Oasis to the docks. Yeah- I know- it’s a dick move. The Specters were the only level 45s or 50s in a level 10 to 20 zone… they kept to themselves unless provoked. You do the math. There were always at least ten cock bites just lounging around the docks- waiting for the boat to OT. Lunchtime.

Oh did I say boat? I meant raft. It was a raft… like a piece of wood on the water you got to balance on… and it took you into the Timorous Deep- land of irate raptors and gay overbearing parrots.

This brings me to travel in the wonderful world of Norrath. You can’t port everywhere even if you are a druid or a wizard… so you’re stuck taking the boats… WoW has amazing ships that come and go every few minutes and they are smooth sailing to your next destination… not EQ boats.

Boats may or may not have showed up every ten minutes or so… according to the non-existent dock workers. Give or take- you got on the boat and sat for elven hours while you traveled to the far off land of die-horribly-before-you-bind. If… I said IF you were lucky not to lag out while on your trip. And IF you were lucky enough to get to a bind spot before something killed you then you were home free and could go level with your happy peers. If you lagged out on your trip, the boat dropped you like a bad habit and you were stuck in the middle of the ocean and had to swim to shore. Maps? WHAT MAPS? You had your trusty inner compass that you BETTER have trained yourself in before your adventure.

You THINK you’re heading North… yes you had to LEARN your zones. There weren’t any maps! Even the most elite gamer had to search for Ry’Gorr fort for an hour and twenty minutes (SoW anyone?) before someone bothered to tell them their “loc.” Location was a funny thing… if one of your party was fortunate enough to find where they were going then they could type slash-loc and it would give you a numbered location of “longitude and latitude.” So once you had those numbers you could just find your own loc by making a hot button and pressing it five thousand times or every few steps to figure out if you were headed in the right direction. Sounds complicated and sans common sense? It was.

I can’t tell you how excited we all were when they placed little gnome porters at each dock and boats become optional and the internet site EQ Atlas was born… it was like Christmas… that was AFTER I played Star Wars Galaxies and hated myself enough to come BACK to the game though… and wouldn’t you know it… Hadden was STILL camped.

**Special thanks to Dlorn, Selenar, Sirath, Sscales… and the rest of the contributors that started a trip down memory lane this morning.**

I had a moment of nostalgia when my friend posted something about a drunk wizard on her Sims Medieval game… drunk wizards take me back…

The first MMORPG I ever played was Everquest. The bulk of computer gamers today started with World of Warcraft and never experienced half of the bullshit the more seasoned gamers went through with the likes of Ultima Online and EQ. Self inflicted bullshit no less… we lived to be taken advantage of by this game…

I’ll get to the drunk wizard in a moment but first let me touch on this word “quest.” In WoW you see a question mark, click on the NPC and you get highlights on your map as to where to go to complete your quests… then you finish in a semi-timely manner aside from the difficult ones and you get your loot and level up… right? Well for a game with QUEST in the title they sure as shit were hard to find, run and complete… first off you had to take a wild fucking guess as to who was the quest giver… and forget about clicking on the NPC- they will have none of your crap. You had to say something to them in public… and it had to have keywords to trigger the quest…

you say, “Hail, Baldric Slezaf!”

Baldric Slezaf says, “Hello. Don’t you think this would be a wonderful place to perform a symphony?”

you say, “What symphony?”

Baldric Slezaf says “It has been my dream for years to perform a symphony that would be remembered for ages to come. I have run into a few minor snags, however.”

You say, “What snags?”

This exchange of stupidity went on for what seemed like hours- you had to get the information from your NPC by triggering it with words. This was ONE of the people you had to talk to to start the Bard Epic… the bard epic like- caused me to have a full on break down at one point… no joke.

This quest alone spanned twenty different zones, thirty different quest items (over half which were almost impossible to earn) and you had to arrange a party and kill or catch over twenty NPC’s- including a couple of dragons: one that you couldn’t kill if you got above a certain level and one that decided whether you got your damn epic weapon or not judging on when the right version of him spawned… yeah- only by triggering another timed NPC could you even KILL this ass clown.

Needless to say that in the “old days” of EQ before everyone was over powered- this quest took months. MONTHS… maybe weeks if you had no life and an uber guild.

Guilds: if you didn’t dedicate your life to one then you were shit. End of story.

Corpse recovery: took hours. HOURS. In WoW you get to roam through the mystical netherworld unharmed until you get back to your body where you magically re-spawn with all your gear… well in EQ not only did you spawn back at your last “bind” spot (which could have been twenty zones away if you were stupid and forgot to re-bind) but you spawned naked with no weapon and fully capable of getting your ass eaten by whatever jerk-faced mob might be lurking around…. oh and you lost experience too… and it took forever to get levels- and once you hit level 30… every five levels were called hell levels where the experience was slower going… luckily for me they got rid of this concept right after I had gone through it.

So your naked (not literally- you had clothes but just rags) ass had to hike back to your body, avoiding kill on site mobs… unless you had porting capabilities had a porter nearby (only two classes could port and mostly retarded and/or pretentious douche bags played these classes: druid and wizard). Then you had to find your body- drag it to zone in and LOOT IT. All of it… every possession on you including coin…

Okay now for the drunk wizard… the original Leroy Jenkins.

There’s a continent called Velious- shitty ass zones full of butt raping mobs and rugged death-trap terrain… where someone with ADD such as myself ran off cliffs and died horribly.

On Velious was an anchor zone called the Great Divide- there was a portal there called Dragon’s Circle or some shit- where the druids would port in. For some reason- I have no idea why- our party decided to bind here even though it’s known as a “hot” spot where big nasty dragon-like creatures called Wurms tend to roam. Okay whatever moving on…

We adventure to a placed called Velketor’s Labyrinth- simply known as “Velks.”

I was terrified of the zone. I was a Bard and any enclosed zone where I couldn’t use my trusty bard speed (why I flew off cliffs before seeing them) I was unsure of. Velks was just one ice block full of fuckery. It was a zone that went up- you had to walk higher and higher on slippery paths with no barrier to stop you from slipping and plunging head first to your messy demise… along these paths were mobs- mainly crystalline spiders (they wanted to know you in the biblical sense).

The less adventurous just stayed at the bottom of the zone. You camped an area and one person- usually a bard or ranger- would pull mobs. You had to have HP to pull- this was and still is important… it’s not a foreign concept that wizards have a lot of intelligence but virtually NO hit points. Well that didn’t matter to Tallicor- the drunk wizard. Tallicor had gaming beer goggles on and decided to plunge head first into the shit storm that was about to commence.

Unlike WoW- if you pulled one KoS mob and other KoS mobs were in the vicinity… well they would gladly join the party. One mob could turn into five or more real quick… but in Velks (one of a few zones where the mob pathing was five ways fucked from friday) you could bring the entire goddamn zone down onto a groups head by pulling one wrong spider… and guess what our pal Tallicor was about to do…

This is where my job as a bard really screwed us. I have a song that hits everyone in the group- and basically the mob reads it like I helped Tallicor out as he pulled said spider… so I’m immediately a chain that attached aggro to not just the goddamn wizard but everyone else in our party. Tallicor thought he could put his spell range to use and pull a spider from the top of the zone… it was no secret that those mobs had shitty pathing- but hey none of the other mobs had re-spawned yet so we’d be FINE!

Rule #25 of all MMORPG gaming… mobs spawn at the most inconvenient of times. Always.

The whole zone re-popped the moment Tallicor cast his DoT spell on ‘a crystalline spider.’ He ran back to us in a frenzy and my song caught him… awesome. So the spider does a seizure dance across the whole zone and brings like a hundred friends with him. Our cleric didn’t even bat an eyelash- she bolted for the zone out… the tank thought about staying but then reassessed the situation real quick. I, however, was sitting and in bard la-la land so I didn’t notice anything was wrong until half my health went down and through the forest of long spider legs tearing at my face I could see Tallicor jumping up and down in circles around me like the window licker that he was.

I died pretty quick. So did Tallicor. Next thing I know we are naked at the Dragon Circle… where a young Shard Wurm was taking his daily stroll on through…

“I hate you,” I said to Tal. “I really hate you.”

I am beyond excited. I didn’t even realize that United States of Tara and Nurse Jackie were coming back- tonight! I think the networks drag out the breaks on the show for that purpose- so you forget about them and then once they are on again you get all sorts of happy. I even spaced True Blood and that’s only a few months away now. It pays to not pay attention sometimes.

I have been watching Tara from the beginning… going in to season three. I love it. It’s gotten mixed reviews but Toni Collette is such an amazing actress. I find it funny that some great actresses are on HBO,  Stars  or Showtime. Laura Linney, Toni Collette, Marie-Louise Parker, Edie Falco and Lucy Lawless… these are fantastic actors and so are the likes of John Hannah, John Corbin, Michael C. Hall and Bill Paxton… I love that they have long lasting shows!

So I am counting down the minutes until Nurse Jackie and Tara!

Fact: I love movies. What do I look for in movies? Mainly to be entertained- if I wanted something deep and thought provoking I would read a book.         Hey, remember books?

Did Sucker Punch deliver entertainment? Yes.

I’m a target demographic. I’m a 25-35 female that plays video games and enjoys fantasy and action movies… the other target demographic are the 25-35 males… that play video games and enjoy fantasy and action movies… so yeah if you’re a movie snob and you think you’re entitled to rage on this movie for a lack of [insert complaint here] then I have nothing to say to you. I hope you aren’t a hypocritical asshole and show up to comic-con. You don’t deserve to be there.

I think people have become desensitized to movies. People want to see amazing visuals- and if they get it then they want more- better plots, better characters, better execution… it’s never going to be good for the bulk of America any more. Zach Snyder you have FAILED. Now go stand next to Michael Bay as your punishment! Give me a break… this movie was all sorts of kick ass and because people are seeing everyone else hate on it they are joining in… sure they can give me reasons why they didn’t like it… so far it’s not anything I’d agree with. “My farts don’t stink and I deserve to be catered to in the theater. Wah wah wah.”

This was Snyder’s first film  based on his own source material and I think he nailed it. It’s going to be a love or hate sort of movie and I commend directors that do that. Give us something to argue about, please! It had a good soundtrack, cinematography, flow, and a fresh enough concept.

So before you go see this movie ask yourself a few questions. Do you like video games? Do you like anime? Do you like action? Do you like dragons? Do you like special effects? Do you mind seeing girls in minimal clothing kicking ass? Do you like swords?

I’m thoroughly enjoining the live action anime movies… I don’t see why people are so dead set against them. It’s like people are “over it” as if movies haven’t progressed in leaps and holy shit bounds in just the past fifteen years. Someone actually commented that he was BORED… I was like wow I can’t even fathom how delusional you are to think your life compares to fighting dragons and being surrounded by hot women- stop gaming…. it’s not real. (I mean I assume he was joking but if he wasn’t then… I pity him.)

I do have requirements for movies… I like character development. I like to invest in characters no matter how long they are on the screen. Sucker Punch was so-so in this area. I’m not wanting to BE these chicks but I’m wanting to know more about them on the base level (the reality level for those who have seen it.) This movie sets it up so you are just with them and fighting along with them and that’s it… so when the times comes for a few of them to get hurt or die you care- but you aren’t all that bummed out… but they are friends, fighters, and partners in crime. You just aren’t too sure how they got to like and trust each other so fast.

You know what movie sans character development that made me blind with rage? The Last Airbender… and that was visually appealing but WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE?? You could argue I was too invested in the show- truth. But there was no character development of any kind and no one can fight me on this. That movie sucked, I hated it and will never watch it again. So I know that I’m not all THAT lenient with movies. I would watch Sucker Punch every day for the rest of my life if it meant they would erase the Last Airbender movie from existence.

So what’s your deal? Why did you hate the movie? Female exploitation? Too campy? Too ridiculous? Not enough explanation? Or is it just a metaphor for Hollywood… they show us pretty things, entrance us and take our money… and you’re pissed about it? Oh snap (that’s John’s conclusion and I stole it).

Go see Sucker Punch. Forget about yourself for a moment- forget that movies aren’t there to cater to your every demand. Escape and be entertained.

PS: is it weird I just saw BioShock  undertones throughout this movie?

Anyway so I start reading the post and I pretty much die laughing… not only because I’ve been in that exact situation but because I love and respect blatant cynicism. I can only imagine touring with a band full of dudes and having to deal with the shenanigans that would unfold.

Needless to say I am following this chick.

Read on and enjoy a good laugh as well:

Dead Hooker Hotel

So once I started ranting and raving about movies, television and pop culture agendas I realized I was probably better off on another blog platform. I was reblogged and paid attention to when I posted anything game related which shows the gist of the Tumblr community. Nothing wrong with that- those my peoples- but I figured I’d reach a broader span outside of Tumblr.

Anyway this is my test post while I fart around more and design this bitch.

xoxo