It's discrimination if you don't want cancer...

[thistlechaser]

The county I live in is going to start to license stores that want to sell tobacco. $400 for the license, then $200 per year after that. The funds will be used to help keep minors from having access to tobacco.

The morning news did interviews with stores selling cigarettes. One said "This is discrimination! We're a minority! This is a hate crime!"

Persecution, ur doin it wrong.

---

Also, a small MMO note. I realized something, WoW is mirroring FFXI when it comes to expansions. Both had their best one (FFXI's ToAU, WoW's WotLK), followed by one that changed the world (WotG, Cata). FFXI's went back in time to a war-destroyed world, WoW's went forward in time to a dragon-destroyed world.

I bet I was the only player sad to see the new login screen this morning. Come back, Arthas! You're much sexier than a silly dragon with an ugly jaw and an annoying voice!

It's really hard to take Deathwing seriously as a bad guy. He looks silly. He sounds like a whiny kid. Maybe once we kill him, the Lich King can raise him as a cool frost wyrm. :P

Comments

[pomr.livejournal.com]

Having played WoW for about 4 years now I can definitely say that the trend has been for constant improvement, though the road has definitely been bumpy along the way sometimes!

I'm sort of 'meh' about the Shattering, but I'm looking forward to new questing and leveling stuff -- and I'm not keen on leveling in general, so that says something. :)

I'd say just give it some time, see what you think. :)

And yes, you're the only one! I hated the Wrath logon screen after the first couple logins. I even downloaded a mod that shut that damn dragon up! Sindragosa's roar is so annoying, but that's fitting since the ICC encounter with her has the most annoying voice acting in the game. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oops! I love her roar, I love the whole Wrath loading screen! I've not seen her in ICC though, so I missed out on the bad voice acting!

If nothing else, 4.0.3a should improve my AH markets! MMMM! Must Make More Money!

[pomr.livejournal.com]

Each to their own, my friend. :)

Trust me, her voice acting was HORRID. I'd have rather had spikes driven into my ears. Twice. Rusty spikes covered in live fire ants. :) (Fortunately I could just mute that encounter!)

Yeah, the AH is going to be insane and getting worse with Cata. Gatherers are going to make HUGE coin the first couple weeks of the expansion.

[pomr.livejournal.com]

Also -- here's an addon you might want:
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info18376-Login2CustomLoginFrames.html

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Watch as your pathetic magic BETRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYS YOU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jInIBx65tfU&feature=related).

[pomr.livejournal.com]

Yes.

That line, repeated over and over and over and over and over -- gets old about the first time you hear it, and repugnant from then on. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Okay, that's kinda bad.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

But but but, if we get rid of the roar, I can't play the, "Log in before Sindragosa roars" game! I love that game.

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

Oh, you played that too? :)

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

It's really hard to take Deathwing seriously as a bad guy.

Arthas was a big ham. When asked if we would encounter Deathwing like we did Arthas, Chris Metzen said "You'll see him but it won't be as cartoony and over the top as Arthas. Basically every time you see Deathwing he'll kill you.Hey, his name ain't Socialwing."

[pomr.livejournal.com]

His twin brother was originally slated to visit the Blood Elves and Draenei, but WarmFuzzyWing didn't make the cut to live. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so he's just an evil brat! No talking, no chance to reason or make any deals, you see him and BOOM! You're dead.

Think of it like RPing or writing a story: There is no black and white. All good or all evil characters are boring.

(I'm not being 100% serious about this. I do think he's a much, much, much lesser bad guy, but I'm sure he'll fill the role on WoW well enough.)

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

You have to remember though that, like Arthas, Deathwing used to be a good guy. And like Arthas, insanity overtook him. Unlike Arthas, Deathwing has had thousands of years of insanity. He got epically pwned during the Second War, which necessitated him getting metal plates grafted to his body to keep him from imploding.

You'd be mildly pissed too. ;)

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I can't take deathwing seriously for some reason either. Maybe it's just the convenience of the whole thing. It's probably the same reason I've had a hard time placing someone as the bad guy in WotG. I mean, he just decides to come up with the intent to destroy everything, so he bursts forth and starts fucking shit up. Which does what? Makes the zones changes, some new harder zones show up to help us level, and introduces 2 new races that can help to beat him. Then what does he do? Goes and chills out in his secret lair and waits for us to go get him.

Deathwing needs to get his hands on the evil overlords list (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html) I think... World destruction, you're doing it wrong!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just the convenience of the whole thing.

I think that's a big part of it. He's not a good plot element, but he's a good WoW element.

Then what does he do? Goes and chills out in his secret lair and waits for us to go get him.

He's a bad character, but a good WoW character. *points at my reply to Achi* He's all evil. He's got no grey, it's just a black/white thing. That's boring. Lich King? Not black/white, thus a lot more interesting. (Though it took us time to find that out, didn't it? Maybe it'll turn out that Deathwing is actually a kitten deep down inside!)

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the final result of all the Lich King quests in Icecrown that, no, he actually was just all evil? I seem to recall doing any number of quests where attempts to find any good left in him turned up negative.

Even the whole "Without Arthas the Scourge is more dangerous" resolution to the whole thing is more "Arthas is obsessed with being a king, and is thus organizing the Scourge in a way that actually makes them LESS effective rather than just setting them loose to eat everyone."

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Not really, I knew the whole time that Arthas/Lich King wasn't purely evil. Or rather, to state more correctly, the Lich King was evil, but the part of Arthas that hadn't been destroyed yet was holding him back from pulling a deathwing, but replace fire, with scourge.

Although that would be great, Deathwing turns out to be a fuzzy (yet fairly evil) kitten and Garrosh has a soft spot for kittens and take him home, or something ridiculous like that. That's way more interesting then "You beat deathwing, the elements are not under control again, grats newbs!"

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

Actually, he doesn't go and chill in his lair waiting for us to come get him. He's going to be randomly attacking zones and killing everyone in them until he's killed for the first time on a server. There's even an achievement for getting killed by him (Stood in the Fire).

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Ok that's slightly better then just chilling in his secret lair, but still not evil enough. I knew about the Feat of Strength by dying in the fire but I didn't know he was staying out until he gets killed for the first time, I thought it was just a prelaunch thing that would end on or around the 7th,

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

How can you call any WoW character whiny after Illidan whined all the way through the TBC cinematic? :D Illidan is the end-all-be-all of whiny, everyone else is just a little melodramatic in comparison.

Deathwing is just a little emo. You'd be emo too if your jaw fell off, I bet!

Also, seconding the "Syndragosa is so freaking obnoxious" statements. She makes you want to kill her just by talking, which I guess is good, 'cause that's why you're there after all.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I have a good excuse! TBC was mostly before my time. :D I played a little then, but just a month once a year or so -- WoW was my MMO vacation spot when FFXI got to be too much.

Deathwing is just a little emo. You'd be emo too if your jaw fell off, I bet!

The whole opening video bugged me. So there's this big dragon, getting armor put onto himself. Okay, it hurts. And so he's whining about it hurting and his pain is going to destroy the world and blah blah blah. WELL, MISTER DRAGON, HOW ABOUT YOU DON'T GET THE ARMOR PUT ON, THEN IT WON'T HURT! Stupid dragon.

A man goes to the doctor. "Doctor! Doctor! It hurts when I do this!" Man punches himself in the face.

Doctor says, "Well, stop doing that!"

[itsbacon.livejournal.com]

E:

I think... I prefer Arthas (and Kael) because their lives (and thus character development/descent into badguyness) were more "recent". Even if a player hasn't played the earlier Warcraft games, we've felt their presence much more and longer than we have Neltharion's. For RPers, pretty much any character who isn't a draenei will have had their backstories heavily influenced by Arthas's actions. And the memory of the golden prince who ultimately turned against the living, and the wounds his betrayal caused, are still fresh.

And because their lifespans are closer to ours and the events of their lives have been more recent, I think it's a lot easier to empathize with Arthas, Kael, and even Illidan. Even if Arthas ended up TEH EVUL, he's human and thus relate-able, so his story evokes stronger feelings. At least for me, it's much harder to relate to an extremely ancient, powerful being like Neltharion; his life and problems are god-like, and as a human, I'm really more interested in human-like problems than god-like problems.

I think this feeling could be remedied by showing more of Deathwing's backstory, personality, and motivations in the game (which it seems they do not want to do) or by reading the novels... And the novels = nononodonotwant as far as I can see. D8

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Agreed, on all of this. I can much easier relate to someone like Arthas than I can a giant dragon-god thing with an oversized jaw.

I think this feeling could be remedied by showing more of Deathwing's backstory, personality, and motivations in the game (which it seems they do not want to do) or by reading the novels...

You shouldn't have to read a book to be up-to-date on game theme! Or if we do have to, the book should at least be well-written. c.c

[kaelash.livejournal.com]

WoW's went forward in time to a dragon-destroyed world.

Aaaactually a Blue post said there's no timeskipping (MAYBE a week or two or something for places to get rebuilt, if insta-graphic-updates bug you), so it's just 'progressing along the timeline to a dragon-destroyed world'. :Dc

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

True! We debated about that a long time for RP purposes.