What Sylvanas has done is inexcusable, and effectively makes her the inheritor of Arthas’s mantle - celebrating death over all else, destruction for destruction’s sake, all out of spite and malice. The Warbringer animation does a good job of showing her come full circle, from heroically trying to save Silvermoon to cravenly destroying Darnassus and Teldrassil.

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As Grimmtooth notes, it’s left the majority of the playerbase feeling some combination of angry, guilty, and bereft - or as Perculia puts it, everyone feels bad. Except maybe well known elf-hater Syp, though I’m sure even he wouldn’t support what Sylvanas has done here.

As with part one, it’s kind of refreshing to see no get-out-of-jail cards being played. No appearance of the rumoured Old Gods to get Sylvanas off the hook, no surprise sabotage to frame her, just a pure and simple act of evil.

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If nothing else this new narrative has certainly engaged the playerbase. We’ll never be told, but it would be interesting to know how much Blizzard anticipated the level of outrage and sorrow (and the predictable but abhorrent social media attacks on Blizzard storycrafters). I suspect they may have underestimated, but then again they’re not new to this game.

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As many have pointed out, it’s important to remember that this is just the prologue to the full story. It was interesting to watch Saurfang hesitate during the cinematic, even as he obeyed his Warchief. There’s more to come there, no doubt, hopefully including the rebellion of the Horde faction leaders¹ against Sylvanas’s madness.

It’s not enough to make me re-roll Alliance, because I want to be there when we fight back - and make amends, if that’s possible.

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1. If you’re interested in the lore beyond what happens in-game, this deep analysis by Wowhead details how Baine is deeply suspicious about what is going on, and that Saurfang is horrified by what happens at Darkshore. All good signs. ↩︎

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I’ve signed up for Blaugust 2018, which is a wonderful initiative from Belghast at Tales of the Aggronaut to initiate or (re)kickstart gaming blogs.

It’s amazing what one enthusiastic blogger can do - so far there’s 80+ blogs signed up, and a great list of mentors from the more established blogs out there. So many thanks to Belghast and crew for all the work on this - and for helping wake this blog up again!

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With the Thorny War underway, I needed to get away from Sylvanas’s crazy crusade for a while, and there is no better way to find some peaceful equilibrium than fishing¹.

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I’ve been tootling around the Legion zones seeking all the rare fish for the Bigger Fish to Fry Achievement. There’s a fun mechanic where you occasionally fish up a special bait that in turn gives you a two minute buff in which you can catch the associated rare fish. The bait names are all pretty amusing - from Message in a Beer Bottle to Stunned, Angry Shark - and some even create things like a Sleeping Murloc who runs around throwing fish with gay abandon.

Each zone has it’s own fish, and it’s a nice way to tour some of the more out of the way places on the (still beautiful) maps. But I mostly love just quietly throwing in a line and waiting. Those moments when nothing is happening, and you can simply enjoy the serenity and scenery. It’s like real fishing, but with less rigmarole, and far less smelly. Unless you fish up some Aromatic Murloc Slime I guess.

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1. I have all my Tauren totems out and hooves crossed that they never kill fishing like they did First Aid. ↩︎

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For the first time as a dedicated Horde player I am questioning my role in events.

The pre-expansion quests have Sylvanas leading the Horde in a wholescale invasion of Alliance territory, quite clearly an act of war, and only very marginally justified - if at all. I’ve always liked Sylvanas, and loved her role in the Legion and BfA cinematics. She’s a true Queen, getting down and dirty with the rabble, and unleashing that banshee wail. I was proud to serve under her, and one of my oldest characters is an Undead Rogue who has always followed her Queen.

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But this war she has started is unsettling. Her justification - that we need to stop the flow of Alliance Azerite into Darnassus - is very flimsy, so flimsy that there must be more to it. Taking my Tauren Hunter into the campaign alongside her felt almost like a betrayal - I don’t want to be doing this, and it feels wrong, but I’m following along because we must.

I’d love to see the Alliance side of what is going on, it’s almost enough (but not quite) to use the 110 boost to jump in on the Alliance side and witness what they are experiencing. Is there another side to this story?

It certainly feels bad dragging the recently recuited Highmountain Tauren into this conflict too. They joined the Horde in good faith having seen what we could do against the Legion and to defend their lands. Before they have time to breathe, they are being asked to join what appears a phony war with a dark and irreversible ending.

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As Rohan at Blessing of Kings noted, this is different to what Garrosh did at Theramore, as we are personally involved. Garrosh was a monster, but one we didn’t have to follow directly into catastrophe, which is where this feels like it’s headed. Rohan is right that we should applaud Blizzard for committing to the conflict and forcing the players to acknowledge it, but it’s also hard when you basically have no choice. We can’t conscientiously object.

Having said that, it was interesting to see that it seemed like the bulk of attacking forces were Orcs and Goblins. I hold some slim hope that perhaps this is the time for Baine Bloodhoof, son of the mighty and betrayed Cairne, to step up and hold the moral line.

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A Tauren Warchief? Never say never.

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Coming back to your PC one afternoon to find it dead, and still dead after hours of fiddling, and deader still after days of troubleshooting, and confirmed dead after weeks of swapping parts, and finally condemned after even a multimeter on the motherboard couldn’t help, is not recommended. It certainly puts a stop to any MMO play, and also puts a stop to blogging.

Due to a combination of option paralysis and over analysis, it’s taken 6 months to get a new one built and installed. Which put me so far behind in Warcraft that all I could do before Battle for Azeroth was finish of Legion flying, and unlock the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne allied races (I pity the Alliance who could only unlock their extra races after finishing late-game Argus factions). I’ll mainly regret never getting the Field Medic title, but after grinding hundreds of poor murlocs (some revenge for the many times they swarmed a levelling lowbie) time just ran out.

However the enforced break did have some positive consequences, mainly in the form of playing some long queued-up PS4 and Xbox One games¹.

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First up was Uncharted 1 & 2, featuring the charming, handsome, and literally bulletproof Nathan Drake.

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These are old games now, but they still play as smooth as butter and look good too in their remastered states. It’s on-rails (literally in the case one of the best sequences on a moving train), Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft high adventure, all told with great vim and vigour, and the British humour is welcome.

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There’s a tad too much gunplay sometimes, but the sheer inventiveness of the set pieces and beautiful locales make it all worthwhile. I’m pleased to think there’s 3 more games to go - just have to wait for the PC to break again I guess.

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Next I plunged in to Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a beautiful game to play and watch. The scenery is often breathtakingly lush, and it’s set in a unique and totally compelling world of mechanical animals and primitive human civilisation.

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The lead character, Aloy, is a great protagonist, vastly different from the smirking Drake and a perfect example of how to create new and interesting heroes without having to fall back on standard tropes.

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The control and animation is a treat too, all feeling natural enough to pick up and play relatively easily even after a break. I spent a lot of time just wandering around foraging and exploring, slightly resenting having to deal with the mechanical wildlife when I strayed too close.

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I didn’t finish HZD though, mainly due to the sheer size of the game. I thought I was traveling quite well and progressing the story, only to unlock a new section of the map that totally took the wind out of my sails. It was overwhelming to see how much more there was to do, to the extent that I downed controller and moved on.

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As a palate cleanser I dipped back in to the online stalwart that is GTA V.

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The single player game is too brutal for me, but the online version is so full of ridiculous things to do (play golf or tennis, try and steal an army jet, race through Hot Wheels tracks in the sky) that it’s hard to resist. It’s an MMO without any question, albeit one without any structure other than the city you live in.

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Due to various Rockstar bonus events, I managed to save enough to buy a posh apartment this time around, which was fun - just like real life without the responsibility. I find GTA has only short term novelty value (though many would disagree - there’s plenty of role playing and career gaming happening there), so before long it was time for the highlight of this console escapade.

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Red Dead Redemption.

Easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. I’m a sucker for Westerns and RDR revels in the stories and traditions of the genre, then lets you live in it². It’s quite incredible.

I’d started and stopped it many times before (‘I should be paying Warcraft not this’), but this time it got the hooks in deep. RDR is a sprawling Western told through the eyes of John Marsden, a perfectly realised and written Western hero, fitting every stereotype yet rising above them all. The land he inhabits is full of wonderful characters, ranging from mad grave diggers to Mexican Cartel Generals, and everything in between.

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The range of personalities is great, and they’re all fully voiced, but it’s the landscape that is the real star. It’s beautiful and barren, dangerous and serene, begging you to stay on horseback and just ride as far as you can to see where you end up. could not find image

For an 8 year old game it still looks stunning, and the fact there is a remastered 4K version for the Xbox One X almost made me buy a whole new console just to see it in full glory.

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Of course being a Rockstar game there are few women, and unfortunately RDR2 looks to continue that tradition, but there is one very well written NPC that makes up for some of that. Some of the storylines are throw away, but many pack gut punches and emotional heft well beyond what you would expect from such a well trodden genre.

And, no spoilers, but it has the most powerful endings to a game I’ve ever experienced.

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1. Plus watching Game of Thrones S1-S7, finally. ↩︎

2. Which made watching Westworld after playing RDR a real pleasure. ↩︎

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Blizzard’s Overwatch League is about to begin it’s first ever pre-season, before the real competition kicks off in early 2018, and there is already controversy with teams missing the preliminaries and players suspended for cheating. Just like the real sports that Blizzard wants the OWL to be! And just like traditional sports, there are city based teams with trainers and managers and owners.

At first I was wondering how a game that sells for ~$50 could afford to support all this, but when you see the amount of OW merch available it all starts to make sense. Today they announced a new in game currency would be available to purchase OWL skins for your favourite teams. There’s plenty of cash in them thar hills.

It’s quite incredible the amount of money that is being poured into this endeavour, and shows just how important esports are becoming. The 12 members of each team are provided with “USD $50,000 minimum base salary, healthcare and retirement savings plans, and housing provided during the season”, there’s a Commissioner, and super high quality profiles of top players.

What they don’t have, however, is women. There are 96 official players (8 teams of 12 players), and they are all men. Given the seriously good push for diversity and representation in the game itself, this is incredibly disappointing. This is a brand new sport, invented from scratch, with no rules and no historical precedent, and yet the inequalities of rusted on sporting tradition seem to have been applied.

There can be no argument about physical differentiation in esports, so not mandating some kind of gender balance or ratio seems like a huge missed opportunity. Imagine the positive change that could be made by Blizzard enforcing a 50/50 or 60/40 ratio of men to women. The competition for those spots would be intense and reveal a whole new tier of skilled players. But without the seeing the chance to play at the highest level, professional female players will surely struggle to be motivated.

The arguments would be made that viewers only want to watch the top 100 players, and if they all happen to be men then so be it. But that is of course a self perpetuating problem, and Blizzard could have made a huge and positive difference to how women view, play, and are encouraged to become professional sportspeople, in a way that is uniquely available to esports. Not to mention the incredibly positive press you would imagine this would generate for Blizzard - and they are one of the few companies powerful enough to shut down the inevitable haters.

It will still be fun to watch, but in the back of my mind will be the feeling that it could have been so much better.

EDIT 6 Dec: As if on cue (the marketing people are doing their work) there is a long profile of OWL in Wired. It addresses the gender issue, and predictably the answer from Blizzard is ‘it’s complicated’.

Disappointing to read that “When asked what the Overwatch League was doing to attract more female players, nobody at Blizzard could point to any specific outreach or recruiting efforts.”. Perhaps most damning is this quote from Nate Nanzer (Blizzard’s global director of research and consumer insights):

“There was never a question that I was going to sit and play games with my son,” he said. “But then the other day my daughter asked me, ‘Can I play Overwatch too?’ and I was like, oh shit, I gotta be better about this. I gotta treat it equal.”

If the ‘director if insights’ has only just had this…insight…then it’s no wonder the league is a testosterone festival.

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