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

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be stalking him forever until he gets it added! I'll have my happy Northrend snow back!

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

The Elder Gods drove him nuts, basically. He's the Earth Aspect (like Malygos is the Magic Aspect, Alexstraza is the Life Aspect, etc), thus he's kinda the avatar of physical existence. Since he's been driven mad, he now reasons that nothing at all should exist without his say-so. This has eventually given way to 'nothing at all should exist'. He previously tried to enslave all the other Dragon Aspects in order to re-write existence itself into a form he preferred. It didn't work out so well. So now he's gonna kill everyone who would get in the way and then take his time recreating things.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

I'm working on catching up with the novels. I'm reading Stormrage right now, but I need to go back to some of the older ones. I've also read Arthas.

My reading of Arthas has led to many interesting discussions during raids. "I bet Arthas is just mad because he's a virgin." "Er...no, he's totally not. He totally banged Jaina and gave her the 'Let's just be friends' speech."

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

The novels have some good info, as does Warcraft II, but if you want it all in one condensed place...

http://www.wowpedia.org/Deathwing

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

It's mostly from the novel series (I forget which ones) and the WoW Wiki articles on him which can list their sources better than I could :)

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

Yeah! That :D

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

He mostly tried to enslave Red and Green (Because he totally wanted to rape their aspects. =o Yeah.). He mostly destroyed Blue.

All four aspects teamed up against Deathwing after Rhonin's destruction of the Demon Soul. After that, Deathwing his in Deepholm, regaining his strength for his return. Which is now.

[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!"

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

That's not true, the doctor says, "Take 4 of these and call me in the morning" and he prescribes the strongest pain killers he has which cost $150 a pill.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

The Old Gods are a bit interesting. The Titans (Who were the ones that gave the dragon aspects their powers) discovered them early on, and were going to remove them, but they found that if they did that, it'd destroy Azeroth.

Yet for some reason, we can kill them.

Hmm.

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

I think it's more like "You can banish that one small facet of them". They're still all bound in the prisons the Titans made, and what we end up fighting is basically the finger they pushed through to poke things with.

They're kinda using the Tolkien method of immortality, they've so infused the world with their own power that so long as the world exists, so will they. Even if it appears they've been killed, they'll return eventually.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

I actually JUST did this quest on my mage yesterday. It starts with the quest that you ignite the bomb that sends you under Icecrown Citadel and find Arthas's Frozen Heart.

The final part of that chain (Tirion's Gambit) ends with Tirion destroying the heart after he officially decides that Arthas has no humanity left.

I'm inclined to disagree though, at the end of the Fall of the Lich King video, I think that with Frostmourne broken and the Helm of Domination removed, that he became a bit more human. He seemed happy that it was over, in my opinion.

Or maybe it's just because he was dying.

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

Definitely open to interpretation. I read him in the Fall cinematic as being a bit bitter about the whole thing ("I see only darkness before me"), but he does also seem somewhat relieved.

But yeah, it was the whole "tore out his own heart" quest that tries to cement him as wholly evil. It goes with the premise of maybe he got rid of the heart because it contains his conscience or whatever, but finally ends up with "No, he tore it out because getting stabbed in the heart just sucks, and thus removing it means they can't stab it."

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

It's funny because when Tirion destroyed it, it hurt him. XD He had like 28M health when he enters the Cathedral of Darkness, and the destruction of the heart took him to like 8M.

Fun fact: If you don't escape through the gate at the end of that quest, you will die. The combat log will say "The Lich King's Fury instantly kills (character)."

Fun fact #2: Ice Block totally absorbs it. It still says you were instantly killed, but you aren't.

[sailor-arashi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I lagged and got smited before I could get to the portal :D

See, Arthas was right, getting stabbed in the heart does suck pretty bad. He just didn't hide it very well. I just thought it was an amusing subversion of expectations that finding the Lich King's discarded heart eventually ended up being basically pointless ;)

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I swear they came up with this whole storyline over a game of risk.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

So now he's gonna kill everyone who would get in the way and then take his time recreating things.

Hmm, okay. Well, that's better than killing everyone for no reason at all!

[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]

Woo, thanks! I didn't read the book (I hate her writing style), so it's good that I can get the info elsewhere.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Deathwing turns out to be a fuzzy (yet fairly evil) kitten and Garrosh has a soft spot for kittens and take him home,

And a million slash fanfics were born!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha! Point!

[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

[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.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

This is why I didn't like the Dragon Age Origins: Awakening. They brought in a bunch of every characters and story arcs that were explained only in the books (from what I was told) and it just makes the game feel thin and lacking. I'm all for books based on games but they shouldn't be mandatory reading to understand why a big bad death dragon is coming to steal your cookies!

[voidmagus.livejournal.com]

Oh jesus...Listened to that. I expected the voice actress to clear her throat and say calmly "Shit, voice cracked on that one, can we do another take?"