Too bad, so sad (WoW, book)

[thistlechaser]

Here's a free tip, Blizz: Copying S-E when it comes to MMO stuff might not be your best decision.

Among the many new things announced today: Pet Battle System

Hmmmm, that sounds familiar. (Yes, yes, I know FFXI didn't invent it, but adding it into a MMO?)

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but all the information release thus far... I don't like any of it. Pandas as a playable race. Pandas. PANDAS. Level cap raised to 90 (not a surprise, but... whine).

Pandas. Seriously. Blizz said outright that that race would never appear outside of the RL money online pet store. Sigh.

Maybe their goal is to make Cata no longer the most hated expansion? :P Well fine. Just leave Northrend alone. I said it pre-Cata and I'll say it now: Do whatever you like to the rest of the world, worse comes to worst, I'll just hide in Northrend.

Pandas. Pandas. Grrr. PANDAS!

---

And since I'm already being a Negative Nancy, I might as well continue it and talk about Elizabeth Moon's Speed of the Dark, the book I mentioned previously, told from the first person viewpoint of an autistic man.

It wasn't until hitting the 50% mark of a 300 page book that the first hints of the plot showed up.

That wasn't even the worst part. The characters are so god-awful black and white. The boss is so evil, he doesn't even come off as a real person, I keep expect him to sprout horns and wave a pitchfork around.

It's also preachy. Autistic people are just like us, but a little special! If I hadn't known going in that the author had an autistic child, I would have highly suspected it from the way the book is written.

The autistic man's POV was interesting at first, but got old really, really fast. Picture 150 pages of:

For breakfast I have toast. I like toast. White toast. I have a new toaster. It toasts my bread perfectly. I like it when the toasting is even. Dark spots upset me. Light spots make me sick. I spread my toast with butter. The layer of butter had to be exactly right. Then I opened the jam. I bought the jam last week. Wednesday is my day to go grocery shopping. I bought the jam on Wednesday.

150 pages of that so far, only the most minor hints of the plot. The vast majority of the characters totally unbelievable. I really don't think I'm going to make it through the whole book. (And after I liked her last book, Remnant Population, so much!)

Comments

[blightheart.livejournal.com]

I actually am very optimistic about this expansion. No main villain! No lore character for the chopping block! New zone stuff! VALOR POINTS FOR DAILIES?? People don't HAVE to raid to advance their characters? Do want. I don't give a crap about the new race because I've never even rolled a goblin or a worgen so it has no real bearing on me. >_>;

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read the valor point part when I made this post, but I totally agree with that.

While I like no main villain, I'm less happy at the "main focus will be Horde vs Alliance conflict". Call me a hippie, but ever since I started WoW, I'd much rather see the two factions working together against a common enemy. Horde has good and bad folks. Alliance has good and bad. Neither side is all good or bad, the fight is just... bah.

I give a crap about pandas because we're going to see them everywhere. At least goblin are somewhat easily overlooked. Imagine SMC with damned pandas everywhere. Big, fluffy bears. (Hey, Felozaram will finally have friends!)

The thing I dislike most about pandas is a silly/personal thing. I could see Thistle ICly liking them a lot. Animals! That are people! You can talk to them! While OOCly I'll he here all grrr.

I don't know. Maybe it'll be okay. But Cata depressed me so much, it's hard to hope now. (Which sounds way more dramatic than a game deserves.)

kaelash has me pegged. Before Cata dropped, he said something like "No expansion is ever going to match WotLK in your eyes, is it? You'll never be happy with another one again?". It's true.

[blightheart.livejournal.com]

Well on the subject of "no expansion will ever match WotLK", given how they handled that lore I would be absolutely thrilled if they forgot Northrend existed and never touched it again.

You've heard that rant already.

Above all the cosmetic changes and talent adjustments, what I like most about this expansion is that I have no stake in it. I have absolutely no emotional investment in the stupid pandas or their lore. I don't really give a crap about the horde or alliance anymore. Blizzard's inability to write a compelling story with a satisfying ending can't hurt me here. That's why I like this expansion most of all. Honestly and truthfully, it feels like a sigh of relief.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

I'm in the subset of the fandom that is all about playing a Panda. :D

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Good! I'm glad some people are happy with it! :D It's not for me, but if others will enjoy it, then they should!

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

Years ago, one of Blizzard's April Fools things was "New race! Pandaren Brewmaster!" ...and they were immediately deluged in a flood of e-mails from people who really, really thought that would be cool. People have been asking for them ever since.

I, um, might have squee-ed out loud when the cinematic reached that point. XD

[isandare.livejournal.com]

I'm... just lying on the floor. They've blown away so many of their sacred cows that it's left me reeling.

I'm not sure I like it since at this point they've pretty much ripped off Kung Fu Panda and shoved it in sideways, from what I saw of the trailer. If they had massaged it more, I'd feel better about it, I think.

Design wise, I really hope they learned from their lesson with the female worgen and don't do the same thing with the female pandaren. Design by committee... no.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I really, really hope the female pandas are big, round, fluffy things... not female worgen.

Seriously, they couldn't come up with any better ideas? Something cool? Dark? Evil? We had to get cute? :/

[mel-redcap.livejournal.com]

The pandaren were first proposed before Kung Fu Panda. Honest. I kid you not. Samwise Didier did some concept sketches and then they showed up as an April Fools expansion and... well, Blizz were surprised how popular they turned out to be. XD

*waves banner of Pandaren Pride*

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Having watched the trailer I figure blizz has just given up. Pandarin can be both Horde or Alliance? This is either inability to come up with another race or simply them attempting to placate everyone so no one gets left out of playing a Panda. My money is on the latter.

New Talent system! Didn't we just get one of those like...a year ago? Same with level cap increase (although that was kind of a given). Going to focus on Alliance vs Horde? Didn't Thrall just spend a shit ton of time teaching us how to get along? Screw this shit, I hope Thrall takes over an Exodar ship and just goes exploring to find a less stupid planet.

Thrall's Adventure expansion pack. No new races, no new classes, no new talents, no level cap increase. All Thrall, all the time.

I guess the PVPers have been especially whinny recently if we are getting a whole expansion which screams that it will be dedicated to it.

I hope they just stick a fork in WoW soon. It's getting sad honestly. It's not even that I'm against WoW or Blizz it just seems like they are spinning their wheels and not going anywhere. I'm all for improvements on something and making it keep going but that's only if it keeps going somewhere.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Pandarin can be both Horde or Alliance?

Yeah, to level 10 they're neutral, then you get to pick one or the other.

New Talent system! Didn't we just get one of those like...a year ago?

It's not even a new talent system, it's just... totally new. Every 10(?) levels you get to pick one talent of three. You can never go back and get the ones you didn't pick...

*huddles with you* :/

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

There was no way the talent system could continue with the current iteration without at least some changes. Just adding another five levels and talent points would open up the third tier of talents to other specs and imbalance the game horribly. Also, as they noted, they failed to do what they wanted. Many, if not most, of the specs had no choice at all, it's possibly even more cookie cutter than Wrath because there are no talent points to spare anywhere. In Wrath, I could run a successful Aimed Shot BM build while others skipped it entirely. Now? The utility talents are so bad that it would be idiocy to pick anything but Spirit Bond and you'd be tempted to skip that if you could.

I was spitting nails after just seeing the little preview in the first panel that briefly mentioned the talent changes just going off the names of the paladin stuff. Once the actual talent panel was one and the full talents were shown for everything, though, I changed my mind and thought they did pretty well. I'd say my biggest objection at this point is that it looks like they're probably killing off feral hybrids for good, which is sad. I know people who love being able to play acceptably well in either form using one spec.

I just had the level cap argument with a guildie. So...you want to just stay static? Never changing? No progress? That would be pretty boring. Having gear be the only thing possible to change about your main for years to come would be incredibly sucky. If they had that ability to further customize characters with "leveling" after the cap like in FFXI, maybe it wouldn't be a big deal, but since they don't, to never have the cap increased again would be awful.

And while I would gladly follow Thrall to find the less stupid planet, continuing confrontation makes sense with the twin assholes in charge of the two factions. It actually amuses me that the two factions cause a lot of the problems just by arriving and their jerkiness coalescing into monsters. The faction war at this point is so bad even the planet can't stand them anymore!

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

I'm the same way with Burning Crusade, nothing has ever matched up. XD

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

It's a sad thing, isn't it? Ah well. RP never has to change... other than pandas wandering through our scenes.

[achika-soladia.livejournal.com]

Pandas? Meh. A total revamping of the talent trees? Meh. Only five zones? Meh.

"New class: Monk." TELL ME WHERE TO DEPOSIT MY BANK ACCOUNT INFO NOW BLIZZARD

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Monk (which I have a hard time not spelling MNK) has no autoattack though. :/ No thanks on endless button mashing!

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

I'm cautiously meh about the only five zones. The zones were all about as big or much bigger than Twilight Highlands, which wasn't exactly small, and they're insisting that there are going to be alternate questing paths through them. If they deliver on that so I don't have to do the exact same thing on every single character ala Deepholm...well, it might not be so bad. Then again, the massive lack of dungeons again suggests they might not manage it. More than Cata, but still, only nine (plus two revamps as heroics)...

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

They never said there would never be Pandaren in the game. They used weasel words to avoid confirming Mists of Pandaria as the expansion for...well...I guess the people who were in denial, because it was extremely obvious that's what it was when the trademark was issued. They understandably didn't want to let the cat out of the bag two months before Blizzcon.

I'm...rather surprised by your objection to the pet battle system. I doubt very much that it has anything to do with FFXI because it all is so very, very, very Pokemon. So Pokemon that if it actually makes it into the game, I will not be surprised if some sort of legal battle starts between them and Nintendo. There was even a screenshot of a mocked up battled with the pets and trainers positioned exactly like and taken from the same angle as in Pokemon. If that's at all like FFXI, it's only because SE ripped off Pokemon first, as Pokemon clearly preceded both. :P

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm so against the pet battle system because I've seen it in a MMO before -- how everyone jumped on it at first, was so excited about it, stayed up hours late to do it... and in the end was worse than pointless. In FFXI, there was zero reward for doing it. I suppose I should have more faith in Blizz, but what's that saying? "Once bitten, twice shy"? Maybe it will work out, maybe it will be fine, maybe it will be fun, maybe it will have useful rewards, maybe they won't get sued into the ground by Nintendo, but I'm wary.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I had previously read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which was /even worse/ with the POV aspect, so Speed of Dark was refreshing, compared to that. The plot does get going, but it does continue very slowwwwly. It's a very atmosphere-centric book.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I've started skimming (or rather, "skimming", paging rapidly through it with my eyes unfocused). I got through another 20% of the book last night, and when I stopped to read a couple pages it was still basically at the same place in the plot that it had been at the 50% mark.

I suspect I'm going to give up on it before I reach the ending.

I want to like the book, but I think it's not going to work out. :/

[priestpluswolf.livejournal.com]

I am both dubious and anticipatory about the expansion. Maining a hunter, I'm thrilled about the no deadzone, no need for a stat stick any-pet-can-be-a-tank-or-DPS angle. DPS WOOOORM. I can finally tank with my butterfly!

Less than thrilled about 'time to relearn your entire class, again!' aspect for a whole lot of classes. UTTERLY unthrilled about Silencing Shot and Intimidate on the same tier. I use Intimidate all the time soloing, but Silencing Shot will be all but necessary in dungeons.

It's nice they FINALLY gave bears a way to wrangle ranged mobs beyond LoS.

Dubious about pandaren. If the wimmens look like bears too and not furotica pinups*, then I'll be thrilled. Otherwise, I don't mind or care. Pandaren were in the RTS games, people have been screaming for a neutral race for years... I like bears..





*I do not mind furry/anthro art. I just get tired of every single female ever being this 'sexy' human supermodel woman in weird skin colors or with cute little hooves or fur.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

The only reason I'm on WoW anymore is for the RP really, so most of the details on new talents and stuff don't really apply to me. I reach new level caps through archaeology, and the only time I PvE is to try for this damned HH mount once a year.

Agreed on the need for every woman to be 'sexy'. I'd really, really like panda women to be big, round, furry things. If we have to have pandas at all, that is.

You know... I suppose I wouldn't have issues with pandas if they were banned from SMC. If I never had to have one wander through my RP, I'd be happy enough. :P

[itsbacon.livejournal.com]

The only thing that's enticing for me about MoP: pandaren can be either faction, which is giving me a tantalizing hope of any-race-can-be-any-faction someday in the future.

Otherwise... :| (And I'm also worried about horrific impending racefail.)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh man! I'd kill for any race being able to be any faction! That'd be the most fun thing in WoW ever.

I know, and the amount of racefail this will likely bring makes me :| .

*snugs!*