Current Ramblings

Monday, September 29, 2008

Target Audiences

It came out during my fortnightly Dungeons & Dragons session that most of the guys who've been playing WoW in the group have jumped ship to Warhammer. They aren't the only people I've known to move to newer MMOs. I inherited my guild from someone who headed for Age of Conan's greener pastures, and another friend who I know from WoW was sucked into Warhammer as well.

This is not an essay on whether or not I agree or disagree that WoW has jumped the shark, that assorted changes have made this or that class unplayable, that the content has been played out, that the lore has or has not been irreparably broken. This is about something else. Because as my friend showed off Warhammer's intro on his big screen HDTV and then all the men in the room giggled about how his goblin squig herder's /special was him "rubbing his ass on the ground", and as they talked about how hilarious it was that the cower animation to drop aggro involved him pissing himself, I realized one very important thing:

I, as a 30-year-old woman, am so not the target audience for these games.

The two other big MMOs that are currently out there, Age of Conan and Warhammer, are both overbearingly masculine in ways that WoW is not, and both try to be mature in ways that just make them appeal to teenage boys and men who never quite got past that level of humor/boobie-gawking/gore. And that pretty much kills it for me before you can even start making arguments about gameplay. WoW almost feels like a game that doesn't have a target audience in mind, and that's what's made it so popular. It's just mature enough to seem normal - some blood, mild swearing, drinking - without being either too clean or feeling like it's trying too hard to be mature. Just as there's something to fit just about every gameplay preference and hardware setting, there are elements of the setting that appeal to most everyone. It's not even strictly heteronormative, like the Valentine's Day stuff being set up to allow you to attract whichever gender you feel like at the moment. I feel like Blizzard made WoW with everyone in mind, men and women alike, without pandering to either. (Unless you count the entire Blood Elf race as pandering to women.) It's like rather than make a game to appeal to a certain group, they simply made a game.

So no, assorted male friends, I'm not going to leave my friends on Thorium Brotherhood to come play Age of Conan or Warhammer with you. I don't think the developers ever invited me to, and I can't say I find either very welcoming.

posted@12:13 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Friday, September 26, 2008

Lichy!

Yesterday was quite enough deep insightful personal stuff. Now I talk WoW.

I'm extra-excited now that Sylvanas' Blood Elf model turned out to be a placeholder for an amazing awesome proper model. The second model was okay, but the hair was too foo-foo and she needed the hood and she just looked too plain for a racial leader. This is the model she should have had in the first place, if they...you know...had had High Elves and hoods that worked that way and stuff. I would also be thrilled if that hood model was used elsewhere, as Melana totally needs one. Assuming someday she is actually leveled for Northrend gear. I'd love for Meri to have one, too. The hoods coming up around your neck look silly with the plunging neckline most robes have.

As we were pretty much the only people who didn't get in the beta, Andrew and I copied our 70s over to the PTR as soon as it opened. And then the power immediately went out for a couple days. I'm really glad we did, though, because it taught me something very important: the video card I got when I put my new system together just isn't gonna cut it anymore. So for my birthday I asked Andrew to get me a new one. I suspect that the earlier iteration of the PTR might have had its own problems anyway, but I am back to getting very solid framerates with all settings turned up, including the dynamic shadows and increased draw distance. I may have to post screenshots.

I have taken 11/13 off work, because I am a dork. I am considering also taking 11/14 off and making a four-day weekend of it. We've both got Collector's Editions reserved at GameStop, and we plan on making it a midnight thing. Bawls will almost certainly be involved. Andrew asked what I intended to do first and, after a moment's thought, I realized I want to take Meridith to Vengeance Landing. She's been chomping at the bit to go for ages now, and there's no excuse for her to not be on the first zeppelin over. Or at least the first once I get home and get it installed, which shouldn't take too long given the location of the GameStop and the speed of my computer. I'll probably wait until the next day at the soonest to roll Dariahn-the-Death Knight.

There will be some interesting RP shenanegans for Curse that may be kicking off right after the Hallow's End ball. Stay tuned!

Putress is a badass.

posted@1:34 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sir Mix-A-Lot Wouldn't Approve

I've been putting on weight.

As best as I can recall, it really started when I was on the road to recovery after my ulcerative colitis first really hit me. I lost some weight from being sick, and after I gained it back I just kept slowly gaining more. I wondered if it was just that I had always had something wrong with my digestive tract, and now that it was being properly treated I was actually absorbing all the crap I ate. Or maybe it started a little before that. It's been a while. I've also blamed it on going from a physically active job to a sedentary one, which is also something that's too pat and convenient an answer as it started creeping up before I left Half Price Books. I can't blame WoW like so many likely would, because before I spent all my free time in front of the computer playing that I spent all my free time in front of my computer chatting on IRC. Probably the truest culprit is age. My father was also a stick of a person until his late 20s or so.

It's just that the last year or so it seems to have gotten worse.

Part of me has always believed my own body at least would be the weight it wanted to be. I have always tended to have a very stable weight, and short of illness it's rarely moved dramatically. So part of me considers this to be, to a certain point, something that there's no use fighting against. I used to be thin, and that plus 50 pounds is still not exactly obese. It's just, you know, womanly. Andrew is only bothered in that it seems to bother me; he shows me every day that he, at least, thinks I'm attractive, and that's extremely important. I tend to compare myself more with geek women than any more mainstream standard, and we aren't known to be a skinny lot. And there's always that futurist idea that our bodies will atrophy when our minds take over anyway.

But I'm outgrowing my collection of witty T-shirts. Sometimes I'm content with myself and sometimes I'm not, the latter usually when I'm realizing something I used to love to wear can no longer be wrapped around my expanding thighs. Dieting for me is a joke: a lifetime of having a metabolism able to overcome whatever greasy garbage I felt like eating has gotten me too accustomed to not caring, though at least the aforementioned digestive problems keep my portions reasonable. I messed with WiiFit for a month and was just discouraged at the slow creep my weight is showing.

As of yesterday morning - the morning after I wrote the first draft of this post, actually - I started getting my rear out of bed half an hour early to walk around the block like I used to. It's nice in the morning this time of year, a little colder than I like but it warms up as you go. I don't know if I'll be able to keep to this schedule once winter creeps in, but I could probably talk Andrew into not having dinner waiting when I get home (Though who can really argue with that?) so I can do it when I get home. Next week I'll probably start using the WiiFit again, at least to keep track of things. Crossing my fingers that it helps.

posted@1:07 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Friday, September 19, 2008

Big Bad World One

A random blog post referencing The Last Starfighter has made me decide that what I'd really like to do for my birthday tonight is make some sloppy joes and rent some ridiculous movies that I thought were awesome when I was a kid. If the Columbus Transformers Fan Club still wants to get together for dinner I'd be up for it on Sunday.

posted@10:20 AM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

My internets!

I have them back! Thank goodness!

(Also we have power now.)

posted@9:56 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments