I am deeply saddened to announce that Mats Hålimoen, aka Ercles, passed away last night. Erc had been bravely fighting cancer since June but was admitted to hospital last Tuesday. He died peacefully with his family at his side. He was 20 years old.

Everyone I’ve talked to today about this awful news have all unanimously said the same thing: that Erc was very special and that he will be terribly missed. He was an incredibly kind-spirited, warm, funny, generous and brave young man who was loved by his family and friends, both online and in real life. He was always supportive and caring towards his friends, and genuinely never had a bad word to say about anyone. He had a great sense of humour and was loveably geeky.

I regret that I never met Mats in real life. I know that he enjoyed a lot of outdoor pursuits like camping and hiking and was also passionately interested in music. Online I knew him much better, and from all our experiences together online I consider him to be one of my best and closest friends.

Erc was a big fan of computer games and especially World of Warcraft, which he had played since launch. He became a member of the guild Absolution three years ago and has been a close and much-loved friend to many in the guild over that time. Although he was a serious altaholic, his staple character was a Tauren Druid with whom he made an awesome tree healer. Although he branched out into different specs later on, that is likely how I shall always remember him, for I always used to call any Tree Druid I saw ‘Erc’, even if it was somebody else. Of course he was much more than just a healer, but I feel his preference for that role reflected his caring personality. Whilst he was never the loudest or most talkative in the guild, he was always there with a joke or helpful comment, a continually positive presence amongst us for three years.

His death is a tragic loss to us all. He will always be remembered for being an incredible man and a great friend. We’ll miss you Erc.

1. What Would Warchief Garrosh Do?

OK, OK, there’s a lot of Garrosh hate out there, but this movie (recommended to me by my guildmate Carai)  is a very funny take on the new Warchief. Plus the production quality is awesome.

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2. Ox Chop

This movie is kind of stupid, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Happy Halloween!

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3. I am Forsaken

This one is not comedy, but a very evocative short film. The fake British accent is annoying (trust me Americans, you always get this so very wrong!) but I really like the style of it.

It also came 2nd place runner up in the Blizzcon 2010 Machinima contest.

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4. The Rocket of Love

This IS a funny movie and it was the grand prize winner at Blizzcon this year.

It does contain smelly gnomes tho.

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5. How You Like Me Now?

Named after and featuring the awesome song by The Heavy, this is a very well-made snapshot of the Goblin starter zone which, in all honesty, makes me jump and down like a kid on a sugar high. I want to roll my Goblin toon sooooo badly!

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Happy Watching!

I’ve a strong interest in how women get portrayed in computer games; partly because I’m a strong believer in equality, partly because I like supercool ass-kicking women and there’s so few in games. With that in mind I’ve often found myself thinking about the depiction of female characters in my beloved Warcraft. There’s a hundred different ways I could approach such a topic, but for today I thought I would stick with the big picture and look at some trends across the board. To do that, I’m going to analyse some of Warcraft’s lore characters with a doodad called the Bechdel Test.

The Bechdel Test is intended a measure of female presence in media. Originally showcased in a comic strip (+1 geek point there) the test examines a film (or in this case, computer game) based on containing 3 simple criteria:

1. Does it include at least two female characters?

2. Who talk to each other?

3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?

It’s actually quite shocking how many movies, tv shows and games totally fail this test, which is of course the point. Naturally it is by no means perfect, but it’s useful as a kind of litmus test of how women are portrayed, highlighting the complete lack of well-developed female characters in modern entertainment. So how does World of Warcraft fare under the Bechdel Test?

The original comic by Alison Bechdel. Click for full version.

Well, it goes without saying that the first criteria is satisfied, it would be hard in a world as large as Azeroth for this not to be the case. However the remaining two points quickly become problematic. Now I’m not the first to apply this test to Warcraft, but to explore this further I decided to gather a host of Warcraft’s various female lore characters and submit them to the criteria of the test. The only stipulation I’ve made is that talking to player characters does not count, for obvious reasons.

For our consideration are…

Jaina Proudmoore

Talks to Other Women? Yes, but not in-game. In both the Arthas novel and the Warcraft comics she speaks with Aegwynn.

About Something Other Than a Man? No. She basically only ever talks about that blonde twerp who turned evil, or occasionally about Varian or Me’dan.

Verdict: Fail.

I’ve always liked Jaina. In Warcraft 3 she quickly developed from a rather timid character into a bold leader of her people. Not to mention she saved the world and stuff. However ever since then she has been a bit of a broken record. Arthas this, Arthas that. Yeah we get it, your high-school crush turned evil – it happens, get over it. I really hope that now that Wrath is coming to an end we will see some more of an interesting path for Jaina.

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Sylvanas Windrunner

Talks to Other Women? Yes, although only just. Her fellow Dark Rangers are all female, and she gives them orders during the Frozen Halls instances. I have never seen her communicate with any other women however.

About Something Other Than a Man? Yes. Well, technically she is giving her Dark Rangers orders as part of her vendetta against Arthas, but I won’t be too picky.

Verdict: Pass!

Sylvanas is one of my favourite characters ever and to my mind represents Warcraft’s superlative in female ass-kickery. As such I am glad to see her pass this test, as she is by far Azeroth’s strongest female character. However I feel it is worth emphasising that the pass is tenuous at best, and Sylvanas doesn’t actually talk to any significant female chracters. This is partly due to the lack of any other female Horde leaders, plus the fact that other than the Dark Rangers there seems to be a lack of any women in the Forsaken hierarchy. Sylvanas reminds me of Elizabeth I of England: the epitome of a strong independent woman , but in terms of actual female interaction there is very little going on.

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Tyrande Whisperwind

Talks to Other Women? Yes. In Warcraft 3 she talks to Shandris Feathermoon, other Night Elf Sentinels, Maiev Shadowsong and to Jaina.

About Something Other Than a Man? Yes, her and Shandris spend the first part of the Night Elf chapter of WC3 discussing their worsening situation.

Verdict: Pass!

Tyrande is probably the most solid pass  for this test in all of Warcraft, probably because she leads a society that until recently was female-only (the Night Elf men were all having a nap). In a sense this seems kind of odd, as Tyrande’s major role in the Warcraft plot is her juxtaposition between Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage, but we have to remember that Tyrande has a long history of being a pretty amazing female ruler. The only unfortunate thing is that we don’t really see it currently in-game, as she mostly just hangs around in Darnassus failing to interact with anyone, female or otherwise. Still, a resounding pass to the Bechdel Test.

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Maiev Shadowsong

Talks to Other Women? Yes. She talks to Tyrande in Warcraft 3.

About Something Other Than a Man? Absolutely not! The only thing Maiev ever talks about is Illidan.

Verdict: Fail.

At the other end of the Elvish spectrum from Tyrande we have Maiev. She is a very straight-forward fail, her obsession with revenge on Illidan making her completely one-dimensional.

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Alexstrasza

Talks to Other Women? Ish. We never see her talking to another woman in-game. However it is safe to assume she has talked to her sister Ysera and other female dragons. We also know she was close to Dahlia Suntouched.

About Something Other Than a Man? Presumably yes.

Verdict: Fail.

Why the fail? Well because whilst from a lore perspective we can assume that Alexstrasza has talked to other women about all kinds of things, we have never seen this occur in any of the Warcraft games. The Bechdel Test measures forms of entertainment, not just their background, so I sadly have to fail the Lifebinder based on this criteria.

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Chromie

Talks to Other Women? No, at least no that we ever see. We can assume that as envoy to the Wymrest Accord, she talks to Alextrasza and others.

About Something Other Than a Man? Unknown.

Verdict: Fail.

This one makes me very sad, as I absolutely adore Chromie and as a character she is by far the most inspiring and kind-hearted of the dragons. Unfortunately, whilst she has come to the aid of female characters like Pamela Redpath, she has only ever been seen to talk directly to male characters, with the exception of the player.

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Magatha Grimtotem

Talks to Other Women? Yes. Not that she does much in-game, but a quest specifies she is in communication with Apothecary Zamah, a Forsaken woman.

About Something Other Than a Man? Yes, they discuss the arrival of the player, as well as ongoing issues in the Stonetalon Mountains.

Verdict: Pass.

This may seem a bit of an odd once to select, as Magatha doesn’t do much except hang around in Thunder Bluff. However I selected her because she will have a greater role in Cataclysm. Her pass is tenuous, in a similar vein to that of Sylvanas. She has technically conversed with a woman in-game, however it wasn’t especially significant. It does however show her as a female leader who does sometimes talk to other women so let’s call that win, even if it is by a slender margin!

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Thoughts on the Test

To be honest, Warcraft doesn’t fair too well under the Bechdel Test. Out of 7 major female characters only three pass the test, and two of those are by slender margins. Obviously there are other female characters I could mention, but I was struggling to find many more who had significant roles in the Warcraft storyline. I mean, Magatha was clutching at straws to be honest. I thought about lore characters like Garona and Aegwynn, but I decided not to include them as they haven’t technically shown up in the game yet, not that I think either would pass the criteria anyway.

Of course the test is really just meant to be used as a general indicator, there are all kinds of problems with it. You can easily have a film or game that passes the test that is still overtly misogynistic or gender-blind, and just because one passes doesn’t means that all is fine from a feminist perspective. In the context of Warcraft, I think it is also worth  considering that part of the problem may be because, at least before Wrath, not many WoW NPCs really interacted much at all. Therefore any character’s ability to talk with anyone, male or female, has been somewhat limited.

However, I think the fact that it is difficult to find more than one female Warcraft character that passes definitely tells us something. The long and short of this little blog post is that viewed through this particular method, there is something wrong with the women of Warcraft. Of the three of my candidates that passed the test, two did so only by conversing with minor throw-away characters. That’s a problem.

Personally I think most of it is due to the fact that there are so few noteable female characters. Sylvanas would easily pass if there were another female leader to talk to, or indeed if one of her named Forsaken champions was female.  I’m not saying there should be some kind of arbitrary 50% quota for the gender of game characters, but it is true that the women are in the minority here. To be honest I struggled to come up with  many female characters for this post and had to go poking my Twitter buddies so I that I could remember half of them (thank you Rades, ShadowMisery and Thyanel!). This discrepancy is why I supported the idea that the leader of the Bilgewater Cartel should be female, but sadly that doesn’t look as if its going to happen.

I also think the representation of Warcraft women could be enhanced greatly with a just a bit more emphasis on the fantastic female characters we already have. Sylvanas absolutely rocks as a strong character, but is  hamstrung by the fact that she is, well, a psychopath. Its not the best female representation when your coolest lady is actually a cold-hearted killer. Looking at some of those characters above there is a lot of potential to have some more oomph. Jaina would be an incredible woman to look up to if she just stopped being the Arthas’s ex and started being a heroine. Tyrande already has a lot going on for her, she just needs to actually do something in-game, anything at all really other than looking pretty in Darnassus. As for Chromie, she’s an awesome character, I don’t even think she needs any improvement,  just the odd conversation with another female dragon might be nice for solidarity.

Ultimately, the female Warcraft character’s we have possess a lot of potential.It would just be nice if we saw more of their awesomeness, doing more stuff together and if we saw more of them period.

Enter Trixsti, the Gnome Warlock. Yes, another Warlock, I’ve been finding them quite fun as a low-level class; you basically just set fire to everyone and have an autopilot pet to… well also set fire to people! My initial reaction upon logging in (well, after going “Ohhhh look how tiny I am!”) was that the zone was as pretty as I remembered. Whilst lacking the ethereal beauty of the Draenei starting area, the arctic woodlands of the valley have a stirring effect on me. You really do feel like you’ve just stepped into some remote tranquil corner of the world and the Warcraft music, as always, really contributes to that effect.

However within that beauty I did also feel that there was something rather… lacking. Perhaps it is a result of having spent the last 2 years in the frozen world of Northrend, which despite being an icy wasteland still drips character from every snow-capped peak. By contrast, Coldridge just seemed a bit empty. Pretty to look at yes, but there wasn’t really anything to fill that beautiful space. Except wolves. Dozens and dozens of wolves to slay, which of course I quickly found myself in the business of. Quite frankly I wondered what all these predators were eating, given there only seemed to be about 3 rabbits left in the valley!

I tried to liven things up by making a point of setting every single Trogg I saw aflame. After all, the damned homewreckers had driven my people out of Gnomeregan, it was the least I could do to wage war upon their hairy kind. However even this slaughter quickly became boring. It was also just plain wrong that I was setting myself tasks when the quests should really have been driving into the experience for me. Sadly they did not. Most of the quests were about killing the local wildlife over and over, and delivering hot beer to lazy Dwarves.

I couldn’t ignore that the zone had less appeal to me as a Gnome than it had as a Dwarf. That is not to say that I was disliking my cute little gnome, it’s just that the zone didn’t really offer much background flavour for them. Admittedly their story is focused on the fact that the Gnomes have been forced to shack up with the Dwarves, but the whole experience felt like it was designed specifically for Dwarves and we’d just been stuck in there by a lazy developer. The only cool bit of lore I got was from my Warlock trainer, who explained that some gnomes are disillusioned with arcane magic and tinkering after such things led to the destruction of Gnomeregan. Thus they had turned to more “prudent allies”, meaning daemons. Interestingly the same Gnome didn’t seem too impressed with their alliance with Humans either, which I thought was an interesting idea. I had always thought of the Alliance as an annoyingly happy family, so this discord was rather refreshing.

My gnome Trixsti encountered a near-identical gnome named 'Trixii'. I guess I'm not that original!

Unfortunately that’s where the story-telling ended. The rest of my experience in Coldridge Valley seemed to involve killing off the local Ice Trolls for… well no discernible reason actually. They seemed to mostly be living in a cave minding their own business. The worst thing they had done was steal some guy’s engineering tools and another Dwarf’s journal. That’s right, their journal. I was killing dozens of an indigenous population so that no one would find out who a Dwarf had a crush on as a teenager. Also I noticed that I was primarily killing Ice Troll ‘whelps’, which I’m pretty sure means Troll children. Oh Blizzard, when will the killing end?

So, once again, with no real story behind the quests I found myself creating my own amusements. Having slain the troll leader I declared myself rightfully their queen. However my new minions just kind of milled around looking unimpressed, not to mention rather chilly in their little fur bikinis and loincloths. I mean I know you’re Ice Trolls guys, but you live in a frozen cave – at least put on a woolly jumper! Bored of my newly established empire I had to once again go looking for some kind of excitement.

I didn’t find it. Finished with Coldridge Valley I progressed to Kharanos, the next quest hub along the Dwarven path. I say Dwarven because really after this point there’s virtually no Gnome appearances besides the odd cameo, at least until you get to Gnomeregan. I had hoped Kharanos would add some explosive fun to my levelling, with its large inns, crazy drunk characters and a plethora of Steam Tanks. Sadly it didn’t. Again I feel this was a case of having been spoiled by Wrath. If I see a bunch of tanks I expect to hop into them and go blow something up. Imagine my disappointment when I was simply asked to collect some animal furs so that the actual tank drivers could be more cosy. Oh and that quest to salvage some lost ammunition from the vicious Wendigo (yetis)? Well it was rendered ridiculously easy when I saw the quest sparkle glowing from a mile away and it wasn’t even near a Wendigo.

A rare moment of excitement: Meeting the Mortar Team from Warcraft 3! I love these guys!

I went and fought some Wendigo anyway, which offered my first challenge as several all aggroed on me at once. However, being a Warlock this was not much of a problem and I quickly learned how to DoT and kite. Once I realised I was more powerful than a Wendigo could ever imagine, I finally gave up. There was no story here, no challenge, no excitement. Taking one last tantalising glimpse at the beauty of Ironforge in the distance, I left this frozen wasteland behind forever.

Final Thoughts: Given that I remembered this zone fondly, I was surprised and disappointed to find it so underwhelming on my return visit. I love the ideas behind the zone, but it just doesn’t come together. There is almost no lore or story, no interesting quests or proper sense of adventure. Ultimately there is a fair bit of character, but this is mostly in the cuteness of the Gnomes and the quirky drunkenness of the Dwarves, hardly enough to create a thrilling experience. I also feel the Gnomes are painfully under-represented here and am pleased to see that in Cataclysm things will be very different.

Final Score: 3/10.

The heart of the matter is this: Although my UI looks very cool at the moment, it doesn’t work perfectly. I get a fair few errors from time to time and I’ve had some niggling problems getting certain addons to remember what fonts they should be. This is probably due to the bazzilion addons in my folder, which have never really been cleaned out in the last 5 years and sometimes come into conflict with each other. Now this isn’t much of a problem for me, but its the kind of thing that I would want to get fixed should I make my UI available to others. It will also likely involve a massive cleanout, or possibly wiping everything out and starting again – which is something I find appealing, starting from scratch is a good way to try out ideas you would never have considered previously.

A second issue is that whilst I am very happy with how the UI works currently, I feel there are definitely areas it could be streamlined. The unit frames are good, but they could be better. There are also several bits and pieces in there that I think I could minimalise further, without loss of functionality. I would also like to add a few things, such as SexyCooldown and a refitted portrait frame that shows more of my toon’s facial expressions.

Seeing whole faces in the portrait would be more personal...

So why haven’t I done these things? Essentially because my real life has been crazy for the last few months and I haven’t had time. And now that I do actually find myself with some time, I find that Patch 4.0.1 and Cataclysm are not actually too far away. So I have decided to leave the UI overhaul until Patch 4 hits, because it should bring a bunch of interface changes with it, and I really don’t fancy remaking a whole UI only to have one or two key addons become totally borked. So I will bide my time and then when the dust has settled from Patch 4 I will leap into action. And yes, I will do my best to make this downloadable!

But don’t think that means I’m not doing anything at all UI-wise. Behold a sneak preview of some of my ideas, as drawn on my work notepad when I should have been, y’know, working.

So that’s a (very!) rough estimation of where my thinking currently lies. Trying to incorporate nice functional units frames along with buffs and abilities bar all in one centralised location. The sizing on this may be tricky however, as I don’t want a giant unit frame or for icons to be too small, so we shall see. I’m also extremely tempted to make a modified version of the oUF Hank addon, because I really love the style of it. Ultimately I hope to create something that is as similar to my existing UI as possible, but with some streamlining to save screen space and if possible improve functionality. For now, stay tuned!

Wow.com has an interesting topic up for discussion today regarding whether there is such a thing as an atheist in Azeroth. I made my token comment there, but I thought the topic was interesting enough that I’d share my thoughts in more detail here. After all Azeroth is a world where gods are real, their avatars are real and people wield amazing abilities via worshipping or otherwise communing with them. The prospect of somebody who does not worship one of the Azerothian deities is a curious one. However, I believe that it could be a more common scenario than you would expect. Here’s why.

People often make the mistake of thinking that an atheist is somebody who believes that there is no such thing as a god, but this is not strictly accurate. Atheism is more accurately a rejection of the concept of *belief*. An atheist is simply a person who chooses not to believe in any god. An atheist can quite happily admit that god may possibly exist, but given its existence cannot be proven and such a god can only be related to via a belief structure, they have no involvement with it. To put it simply: an atheist does not believe in belief. Some atheists do go further and say that god categorically cannot exist, but lets leave that to the side and focus on the core meaning of the term.

Religion: Glowy

In the context of Azeroth, where you can see the existence of gods and magic, it would be crazy (and potentially life-threatening) for someone to say that a god is not real. However that does not mean that you cannot have a person who abstains from all forms of god-worship. When Gods are real they can turn their backs on you, but you can also turn your back on them.

I’m reminded of a line in a recent Doctor Who episode, where River Song talks to a war-hardened Roman General, saying that he has long since stopped believing that the Gods are paying attention. I feel this could also be a great example of an atheist in WoW as well. They know there are gods and spirits and daemons out there, but they have had enough of them. When you have travelled the world extensively and seen a lot of bloodshed, you may turn to a god in desperation but you might also lose interest in them because they simply haven’t made the world any better.

Some gods are better left alone...

Let’s ground this concept with some tangible examples. I feel in gameplay terms the Warrior is probably the best archetype for the Azerothian atheist. Whilst a Paladin worships the light, a Shaman literally communes with the spirits and a Warlock makes his daemonic pacts, a Warrior has learnt to rely on nobody other than himself. His belief is centred upon his own actions, not the various beings in the sky throwing lightning bolts. Of course, a mage may also be an atheist simply by virtue of the erudite pursuit of knowledge coming before all other concerns. Rogues also work, simply because they don’t care about such matters, they’re too busy stealing your wallet!

I think race is also an important question in terms of who is more likely to be an atheist, although all known races will likely have a few atheists here and there. Spiritual peoples like the Trolls and Tauren are extremely unlikely candidates, as their worship of their particular deities is firmly grounded in their societies. Similarly the Night Elves and Draenei are constantly in contact with nature and the Light. Orcs also do not make likely atheists due to their emphasis on Shamanism, however I’m sure there are also a fair few embittered Orc warriors who worship nothing but might and steel.

Trolls: A little *too* in touch with their gods?

The Humans have some interesting potential as atheists, as although many worship the Light,  I can easily see the everyday Stormwind citizen being quite far removed from devout worship. Many likely just go through the motions but never really believe, leading to some to turn away altogether.

The Forsaken are known to have plenty of atheists amongst their ranks, and who can blame them given them given they’re basically living their afterlife already – and it kind of sucks. That said they do have a cult-like mentality when it comes to Sylvanas. Additionally, some strong-hearted individuals still cling to the Light, and there are also the philosophical cults of the Forgotten Shadow and the Echo of Life. The Undead are still likely one of your best bets for an atheist character however.

Finally, let’s not forget the Gnomes and Goblins, who are practically implicit atheists simply because they consider all this mythical nonsense as getting in the way of some good tinkering or get-rich-quick scheme!

Personally I’ve really enjoyed mulling over these ideas and find them a nice concept for potential character building and role-playing. Given my future main will likely be a Goblin Warrior, I think I just answered the ‘god question’ when it comes to his beliefs. My Warrior will be an embittered atheist, a mercenary soldier who’s only concern for the gods of Azeroth is if somebody pays him to help kill one. Atheism FTW!

Enter Eruditia, the Draenei Mage. Stepping out of my crashed escape pod, I am immediately stuck by the beauty of my surroundings. Looking around the misty forest I have found myself in, I find myself looking at the most beautiful starting area I have ever seen. The landscape has a slightly mystical feel to it, possibly because of the blue-green hues that subtly coat the landscape. Everything about Azuremyst Isle, with its rugged waterfalls and enchanted moths, not to mention the soul-stirring background music, all evokes a forgotten wonderland. Well, forgotten that is until the Draenei pilot pressed the wrong button! The smoking pink-crystal wreckage of our vessel stains the surrounding area, creating an exciting contrast to the sleepy woodland. It’s then that I notice a wounded colleague beside me and my adventure begins.

My first quest is one that is now all-too familiar to me: exterminate the local wildlife. The quest-giver states that “killing is not the Draenei way” but apparently on this occasion we have no choice due to our dire circumstances. I’m noticing that this kind of hypocrisy seems to be a common theme for the goody-two-shoes Alliance races. “Oh yes, we’re SUPER nice and friendly, we’re SO spiritual and kind…… except when the chips are down, and then we will kill ANYTHING who gets in our way, especially if it’s a kitten!”

However, to be fair the Draenei are not too bad in this regard. Once the perfunctory maiming and killing of local fauna is out of the way, a defined story comes together as I help my fellow survivors of the crash. My objectives are pretty simple: first help any injured crew-members I can find, and secondly to reverse the damage that the radiation from our ship has done to the environment of Azuremyst Isle. This second mission actually proves to lessen my cynicism and soon I am capturing some mutated monstrosities for study. Imagine my delight when it turns out that these abominations can be cured of their mutation and turn back into cute little bunnies! Maybe the Draenei aren’t so bad after all?

The volatile mutant was actually Mr Snuffles!

Moving on, the plot thickens as I try to help an attractive Draenei technician at the crash-site repair her communications device and send out an SOS. This has me wandering all around the crash-site, recovering items and also curing some other beasties who’s biology has been messed around with by our mad-space technology. I am starting to wonder who invented all this wildlife-corrupting technology in the first place, but I try to ignore this worrying detail. The quests had a very nice organic explorer feeling to them, similar to the Night Elf area. Then things got really interesting when my efforts were hampered by the appearance of a familiar enemy… Blood Elves.

At first I am bewildered as to what Blood Elves would be doing so far away from home, but then it all becomes clear. The Draenei fled Outland in the Exodar under attack from the forces of Kael’thas. These Blood Elves I now face have been sent by good ol’ KT to finish the job. Resetting my mind back into where the plot was in the early Burning Crusade era, I am pleased to be involved in the larger storyline so quickly. After all, the events unfolding here at these low levels will go on to expand into some seriously large plot points that affect the whole of Azeroth and Outland.

So I dispatch the Blood Elves with a few choice fireballs and finish repairing the communications device for the technician lady. This allows us to communicate with some of our fellow Draenei who have it seems have made a base camp to the north. I have to say that there was one thing really bugging me about the Draenei here, and that is that their space-goat technology really jars with the typical Warcraft feel. Of course, this is a criticism many have made, but you really see the worst of it in the Draenei early levels. Naaru space trans-dimensional ships I could swallow because they were all crystalline and magical, but here in Azuremyst the Draenei are using holographic communications devices to chat to each other. It was all far too Star Trek for my liking. I kept expecting the Draenei guards to set their phasers to stun…

I'm not sure which makes less sense here: Holographic technology or Draenei knee-socks?

So, having done my work at the crash-site, I moved on to the next questing area: Azure Watch. This makeshift camp proved to be a great quest hub that kept me busy for many hours with some fantastic quests. Before I get onto the good, let me touch on the bad. One quest that I refused to do was for a hunter who wanted me to kill off the Stags which wandered the nearby forest. Ah, the old kill-defenseless-animals questlines return! Seriously, I’m surprised DEHTA hasn’t nuked every Alliance starting zone from orbit by now. The stags were beautiful, majestic creatures and I found myself completely unable to harm them. So instead I spent quite some time using my emotes to insult the callous quest-giver in Eruditia’s best faux-Russian (and I must say Russian is a most satisfying accent to insult people in!).

I was very pleased to meet one of the Broken. I have a real soft spot for these suffering heroes and wish I could play as one!

However the other quests at Azure Watch were a lot of good fun. One long quest chain involved me helping an injured Night Elf we discovered and then making contact with a nearby Alliance campsite. It seems these Alliance ships had been marooned here by Goblins and we become makeshift allies to deal with our respective problems. This is a very nice touch, as the key moments when the Draenei become involved with the Alliance are enacted by the player. This was brilliant stuff that presumably laid the foundations for the narrative Death Knight starting zone in Wrath. It’s also worth noting that before the Alliance would help us, my first step was to prove to them that the Draenei were nothing like their evil cousins the Eredar. Lots of bonus points for going into detailed lore background there!

Hey Allies! Wanna be... allies?

However the Alliance questline paled in comparison to the next one I discovered, which involved helping the Draenei make contact with the Furbolg tribes native to Azuremyst. This involved me finding magical means to understand their language, which led me on a fantastic quest all over the island. I hunted down mystical totems of the Furbolg Shamans, each of which put me in communion with the ancestral spirits the Furbolg worshipped and magically transformed me into a variety of cool creatures. This involved some awesome and extremely pretty phasing technology, allowing me to travel the island as a spirit-panther. Not only was this extremely cool, but the Shaman in me rejoiced at this extremely fun questline. Helping the Furbolg evolved into a diverse and thrilling quest-chain, the end of which I won’t spoil for you, but it’s a good story!

Enter the trippy Spirit World, you won't be disappointed!

By the time I completed the Furbolg quest-chain I was well into level 10 and had completed my sight-seeing goals. However there was still much more to be done, and I hadn’t even ventured onto the neighbouring Bloodmyst Isle that I could so tantalising see across the water. I logged off feeling contented, but eager to see more!

Final Thoughts: I have to admit it, I like the Draenei a lot more now! This is hands-down the best starting area I have ever played, with the possible exception of the Death Knight starting area which came much later. The zone has it all, beautiful evocative atmosphere, fun engaging questlines that link directly into the larger plot of the game, and it firmly puts you in the driving seat as the hero of your people and saviour of anthropomorphic peoples everywhere! I still think the Draenei are stuck-up holier-than-thou types, but I’ve also seen a heroic noble side to them that I kind of love. Plus who can resist the comedy Russian vibe? I will definitely be logging on Eruditia again to finish exploring this magical lost world!

Final Score: 9/10

Enter Lunei, the Night Elf Rogue. It seems every WoW player has to roll a Night Elf at least once, so it’s impressive I lasted all these years without doing so (I also resisted the temptation to make her a hunter!). Let me start by saying that I’m not normally a fan of Elvish characters in my fictional worlds. Whilst undoubtedly more interesting than Humans, I have a bit of an aversion to the pretty goody-two-shoes types. Hence I tried to make Lunei as interesting as possible in my head, an outcast rogue who had grown dissatisfied with Elven society, with  a worn-out sense of morality from countless millennia of myriad experiences. Of course this attempt to make a slightly grittier persona for my character was kind of ruined when I logged in for the first time to find her bouncing up and down like a playboy bunny. /sigh.

Despite this my first impressions stepping out into the forested world of Shadowglen were quite positive. It is very pretty and atmospheric, finding just the right balance of a magical wilderness vibe without going over the top. I mean it *is* a bit heavy on the purple but hey, it seems to a be theme so let’s run with it. Moreover the music is absolutely lovely, with a mythical sound that is both moving and slightly haunting. The scenery and music combined beautifully, so that my initial sensations of exploring around the glen were, dare I say it, enchanting.

The initial quests however seemed slightly odd. I mean, I’m a (bouncy) Night Elf, a race who are sworn to defend their magical forests and the creatures that live within. My first quest? To kill boars and kittens. According to my quest-giver Conservator Ilthalaine, who doesn’t seem interested in ‘conserving’ anything at all, this is a necessary evil to balance out the wildlife in the area. This seems odd to me, and wasn’t quite what I was expecting. But off I go and soon my Elvish blade is stained with the blood of the local wildlife. Upon completing these murderous quests I am told that I have “proved my dedication to nature”. I nod at him uncomfortably and start to wonder what DEHTA would have to say about all this. I then receive my first quest reward, which appears to be a set of Hot-Pants. Animal slaughter and scantily-clad Elves? I was worried that this was about to turn into a rerun of Goldshire.

Fortunately, the quests began to improve quite a lot from that point on. I was pleased to meet a dryad who was the spitting image of her counterpart in Warcraft 3, and she sent me off to fight some corrupted Grellkin who were messing things up in our magical wonderland. This seemed a lot more like what I was looking for, even if ‘Grellkin’ sounded painfully like something out of Lord of the Rings.

Night Elves have the best swimming animation ever, scything through the water with the grace of a dolphin.

As I began to spread out throughout Shadowglen the quests became very fun and engaging. An effort to help a Night Elf who had been poisoned by a giant spider led to a nicely expanding questline of moving through the zone, collecting ingredients and so forth. I really liked the open feel of the zone as it gave questing a more organic (no pun intended) feel, wandering seamlessly from quest to quest rather than a boring linear progression. Although I should note this process was enhanced by the new feature of  having quest objectives displayed clearly on the map, as otherwise I could easily have become lost!

I was also extremely pleased to see an early quest that discussed a fair bit of Night Elf background and how the aftermath of the Battle of Mt Hyjal had impacted upon their society. Immediate bonus points for incorporating lore into the equation! These lore tidbits actually continue as a series of breadcrumb quests, with you learning more and more about your people as you level up. You are exposed to key lore plot points such as Ysera and the Emerald Dream as early as level 5. It’s a brilliant touch and one which I wish was present in more starting areas.

However, two things did start to mar the very enjoyable experience I was having. The first was the obnoxious presence of the Night Elf Mohawk. Seriously Blizzard, not only was this one of the dumbest marketing campaign ever, it really crapped on my levelling experience. There were several idiot Elves spamming each other with ‘Mohawk Grenades’ and it got very annoying very quickly. Please please please take this rubbish out of my game!

Stupid Mohawk man....

The second thing was more of an irritating trend I was noticing about the Night Elves I was encountering. Despite their very cool mythical feel, it seems that the majority of the Night Elf population are, in fact, complete idiots. It starts back in the introduction sequence, with the whole fact that the Night Elves built Teldrassil in the first place. Let’s review here: you used to have a World Tree blessed by 3 extremely powerful Dragon Aspects.  Then after blowing up the tree as a means to save the world, the Night Elves suddenly make a new tree which was not blessed by anyone, had none of the same cool magical properties, and indeed Malfurion – the guy who knows everything about World Trees – told them that growing a new tree would be a massive mistake. Yeah, not the brightest thing to do there and it’s really no surprise that I spent most of my time as a Night Elf killing all of the creatures who have been corrupted by this amazingly short-sighted mistake.

But the stupidity is everywhere. Remember that guy I helped who had been bitten by a spider? Well, he got bitten because his favourite thing to do is take walks in the area that is infested with giant poisonous spiders. Apparently it never occurred to him to avoid that one particular area in an otherwise very safe forest. Sadly, the stupidity even extended to my own character, against my wishes. You see, I finally left Shadowglen and set out on a mission to the nearby town of Dolanaar. On the way I encountered a particularly unfriendly-looking Satyr.

Would you trust this man?

Now my first instinct was to kill this daemonic monstrosity, until I saw the little quest-giver exclamation mark above his head. Apparently this guy with giant horns and claws needs my help and my character is all too happy to oblige. The fact that Satyrs are actually daemonically-corrupted Elves and an ancient enemy of my people doesn’t seem to bother my character at all. This struck me as ridiculous. Whilst admittedly a player new to Warcraft might not know the details of Satyr ancestry, the character would know! However a later quest, where I am understandably reprimanded for helping the evil-doer, implies that actually my Night Elf knows absolutely nothing of Satyrs or indeed of her people’s past. Which might be forgivable, if Night Elves weren’t thousands of years old and can actually remember their history from personal experience.

Stupidity aside however, I was having a great time. I killed a rare corrupted Furblog, which dropped some armour that actually covered up my legs . Then I discovered Dolanaar, which is a beautiful little town. I really love the twisting natural architecture of the Night Elves. I also had a bit of a loregasm when an Ancient Protector stomped past me, its giant wooden limbs creaking with each stride. I happily carried on questing around Dolanaar for a couple of hours, really enjoying the atmosphere of the place, before finally logging off feeling contented.

Final Thoughts: There were a number of little annoyances throughout the zone as I mentioned, but on the whole I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Night Elf beginner experience. There are a number of fun, involving quests with some nice lore thrown in, all set in an evocative magical forest-world. I fully expect to log back in and explore more of the areas around Teldrassil in the future – just as long as there aren’t any mohawks around!

Final Score: 7/10.

Now in rolling a Human I was breaking a long-standing practice of mine, which is to NEVER roll a Human character in a computer game. As a race they have simply never appealed in any context. I am in actual fact, a Human, so playing on in a game would be a  pretty pathetic effort at escapism. However this was my self-assigned task so into it I went. I rolled a female toon, because I’ve been finding female characters appealing lately. There aren’t enough ass-kicking heroines in the worlds, fictional or otherwise, so I like to create them. I gave her a cool hairdo, some piercings and made her a Warlock, mostly because Warlock is the only class I have never played. Her name? Shylocke.

So my first impressions upon materialising in the forested village of Northshire were that it was more cutesy and picturesque than anywhere I had seen on Azeroth before. The place has the feel of a sleepy village in southern France, with its lush green fields, birds singing in the trees, flowers all over the place and large pretty church slap-bang in the middle of it all. I felt… safe, at peace. It was most unsettling.

I was also a bit confused as to what my role was. In the Horde zones I am more familiar with there was a clear function to where I was, such as the Orcish Valley of Trials. Shylocke however mostly just seemed to be hanging around Northshire working on her tan. Nevermind, a few starter quests sorted that out. For what appeared to be a sleepy village was in fact a hotbed of activity… kind of. I immediately found myself fighting some very sickly wolves and hordes of Kobolds… well very small Kobolds! Seriously these things were tiny, almost adorable in their patheticness. I felt bad setting fire to them, but reassured myself that they must be some kind of evil menace. I mean, the Stormwind militia wouldn’t ask me to kill helpless little creatures… would it?

This was a cool moment, meeting the peasant who had so diligently worked for me in Warcraft 3. I gave him more work, just for old time's sake.

On the whole I found Northshire very bland. All I did was kill Kobolds and deal with some Defias thieves who had, in their most dastardly fiendishness, stolen some grapes. Yeah, that’s right, grapes. My main task was to get them back, a job that was extremely simple since the Defias weren’t even hostile to me, they just let me walk in and reclaim the stolen grapes. They hadn’t even eaten any. I took them back to the church, where an alcoholic monk thanked me and gave me a rag he’d spilt his wine on as a reward. This was hardly action-packed so far and I found myself longing for a Burning Blade cultist to stab!

I left sleepy old Northshire at level 4 and moved onto Goldshire, hoping to find more of a challenge. What I found instead was debauchery. Goldshire Inn, despite it’s annoyingly cheery music, is clearly a place for finding ladies of dubious virtue rather than a quiet pint. The place was crammed from wall to wall with Night Elf ladies wearing a variety of Santa costumes and bikinis. Clearly the ‘RP’ tag on my sever refers only to the kinkier forms of ‘roleplay’. Within moments of entering the place I received a number of quite frankly unhygienic propositions.

Carefully navigating my way through the minefield of Elvish cleavage, I managed to acquire a number of new quests, which once again involved the slaughter of the local Kobold populations.  At this point I really started to become appalled with the immorality of the quest-givers, and the extreme speciesism held by humans towards the innocent Kobolds. One man had heard that Kobolds often dig up gold in a nearby mine, so he paid me to kill them and steal it as part of a get-rich-quick scheme. Another guy was looking to buy candles for his Apothecary shop in Stormwind. Rather than just buying some candle wax himself, his elegant solution was to – you guessed it – kill the Kobolds and steal their precious candles. Seriously, this guy thinks the best way to acquire household items is the mass slaughter of an indigenous population? And the Alliance calls the Horde the evil ones…

Whilst inside Goldshire Inn is nothing but sex and murder, outside is once again disgustingly cheery and happy. It’s like Disney and the Easter Bunny had a baby: flowers and kittens are everywhere. Ultimately I became sickened by the double standards all around me. Cutesy happiness everywhere as a perverted cover-up for prostitution and murder.  A ridiculously cute cartoon cow happily wandered past me and in my disgusted rage I killed it.

Belle the Cow - cute cartoon animal or gold-hungry sex murderer? In Goldshire, who knows? She had to die.

Ultimately I realise that in order to level up, I was going to have to follow my quest and massacre the local Kobolds. Those despicable Goldshire scum have corrupted me to their filthy cause – WHAT HAD I BECOME? I tried to make it as painless as possible for the little guys, yet deep down I was disgusted with myself. Their shrill cries of “You No Take Candle!” still haunt me in my nightmares.

Dejected and blood-stained, I returned to the Goldshire Inn, carrying a bag of broken candles and some small scraps of gold. Were these pathetic trinkets worth the cost of my soul? The soldier who commissioned me to clear out the Kobold mine congratulated me by saying “Kobolds…. Whats next? Dragons?”. Erm no, probably not for many many levels, Mr Overreaction! Is this some kind of weird ‘the ends justified the means‘ excuse? To add insult to injury, in exchange for the gold I recovered the get-rich-quick guy gave me… a bag of marbles. Worst. Quest reward. EVER.

I started poking around in the basement of the inn, wondering what horrors I might find. Oddly enough I found a level 11 Dwarf player who challenged me to a duel (at this point I was still  level 6!).  I accepted and threw the marbles at him. It didn’t help. I quickly found myself in a desperate bid to stay alive. I kited him like mad through the inn,  using beer kegs and buxom elves for cover, all the time firing DoTs at him. Eventually to my amazement I won, barely. At this point that I realised that Warlocks were actually rather fun. However, I also realised that playing a Human is not, and had no desire to go back out into the sick world of happy bunnies and lies. Despite originally intending to reach at least level 10, I disgustedly logged off half way through level 6.

Final Thoughts: Ultimately this starting experience is pretty boring. Not much happens and it’s far too peaceful and rural an environment to be at all exciting. It’s just plain dull, with no attempt at story-telling or any sense of adventure or purpose. Furthermore, Goldshire confirmed everything I have ever said about Humans in Warcraft, that they act like holier-than-thou good guys, but they’re mostly evil bastards underneath. I felt *really* bad for killing all those Kobolds. These helpless creatures are guilty of no crime other than hiding themselves away in abandoned mines, and who could blame them for hiding down there when they are persecuted so? Yet for some reason I was required to take their lives, their money and their only light source. Players of Warcraft, I implore you: spare a thought for the innocent Kobolds!

Final Score: 2/10

I’m overjoyed to read this announcement from Blizzard, saying they have decided that, actually, it might not be such a great idea after all to use real names on the forums, and they have decided not to go ahead with this plan. Can I get A WHOOP-WHOOP?

This is freaking awesome news, and a massive victory for the online community. It has been massively inspiring to see so many people band together to fight against this, so I want to say massive thank you to all the gamers, tweeters, bloggers, forumites and everyone who helped protect our online privacy. This is your victory and you deserve cookies and cake all round!

As a word of caution, I would like to point out we are not totally out of the woods when it comes to the threat posed by RealID. Blizzard have simply decided against the use of Real ID on the forums, but their other plans, many of which they have not yet disclosed, still remain.  It partially restores some of my lost faith in Blizzard that they actually listened to us on this issue, but the fact that they had the idea in the first place, and that we had to fight so hard to put a roadbump in their plan means that I will never again view them with the same compassion that I once did. It is OUR responsibility now to continue being vigilant against encroachments upon our online privacy. Hopefully this has taught a lot of us some lessons about how much information is out there on the internet and how we can take steps to prevent this being misused.

But for now…. success! Now lets go kill some internet dragons!