A goal of much roleplay is to realistically recreate the relationships between characters, even if those characters are under some extraordinary circumstances. These relationships can run the gamut of human emotion: arguments, trust, and especially love. Even though your character may be an elf, dwarf, or troll, you can still take the character through a myriad of "human" experiences.

However, it inevitablly seems that most roleplay characters pair up. It's part of many storylines. The growth of romance is a fun story, and often allows roleplayers to put many of their characters' most deeply held secrets on display. Of course, as with many healthy relationships, the romance can eventually grow into sex.

Roleplaying sexual relationships has lead to a lot of less-than-savory stereotypes about roleplayers. The Goldshire "cyber inn" jokes and Cybermoon tropes seem like the staple of every roleplay realm's official forums. And there's certainly been examples of erotic roleplay being taken beyond normal bounds.

Let's take a look behind the jump and talk about some ways you can deal with initmate relationships between characters, without necessarily turning it into a running joke.

Read more →

Filed under: All the World's a Stage (Roleplaying)

It's time to face the facts. The vampires are out there.

They lurk in the shadows of Silvermoon with their bare, glittering chests entrancing casual bystanders. Theirs is the skin of monsters. Their cunning angst and perfectly tousled hair threatens a new generation of Azerothian teenagers. They are vile and unrepentant. It doesn't matter if you claim that you can't be a vampire; the Blood Prince Council beckons like a tempting cupcake. "Eat me," they say with voices like chocolate frosting. "Forbidden fruit!"

But how can we possibly fight these vile fiends? What can we do to stave off our pale, cold future?

Ladies and gentlemen of the readership jury, I present to you: Stakethrower.

Stakethrower is crafted from the very finest engineering know-how. Its barrel packs enough Light-blessed silver to burn scars on thousands of vampires. The bayonette is crafted from metal retrieved from the Cathedral in Stormwind. The trigger is more sensitive than a teenager worried about their pants.

Capable of hurling stakes and bullets, the Stakethrower is the very finest sidearm available to modern-day vampire hunters. Pick yours up today in your local Icecrown Citadel!

The vital statistics for your last line of defense are just below.

Name: Stakethrower
Type: Ranged Gun (that throws stakes)
Damage: 500 - 836 Damage, 222.7 damage per second (with stakes that are thrown)
Speed: 3.00 (takes a little while to get a new stake in the barrel)
Attritbutes:

• 45 Agility
• 32 Stamina
• Improves haste rating by 28 (0.85% @ L80)
• Increases attack power by 70.
• Increases your armor penetration rating by 31 (2.21% @ L80)
• Decreases the number of vampires in your area

How to get it: You only need 9 friends to kill Blood Queen Lana'thel. Nine, for what it's worth, is the number of vampires in the Cullen family, if you count Bella. Coincidence? Unlikely. I suspect there's secretly a Twi-heart on the Blizzard staff.

How to get rid of it: It sells for 17 gold, or can become an Abyss Crystal. However, if you lose this protection, you could also lose your life, and become one of the gruesome vampires. Is that really worth 17 gold?

Filed under: Phat Loot Phriday

Last week, we talked about the core buffs just about every raid needs to get by. I included the 3% damage buff provided by some folks like retribution paladins. While ample raids get by without that buff, it's so straightforward that I felt it merited inclusion. It affects physical DPS characters, tanks, and magical DPS characters all alike, so is fairly universal.

Of course, I didn't mention a lot of other obvious buffs like Arcane Intellect. While I'll certainly admit I can't recall having been on a raid in while without that buff, I'm pretty sure at least a few 10-man groups have gone without a mage. But that's why, this week, we're picking up the remainder of the raid buffs that provide so much synergy for raids.

As Brian Wood pointed out, raid buffs are some of the most drastic increases available in raid performance. Every class's power soars while under the effects of raid buffs (and while their targets are getting debuffed), and it's this synergy that makes raids successful. That's by design: Blizzard wants us to be exponentially more powerful while grouping with other players. The power of two players in a group is greater than the sum of their parts.

With all that in mind, let's jump behind the cut and start going down the other important raid buffs.

Read more →

Filed under: Ready Check (Raiding)

I am Vengeance is one of the Rise to Power contest winners for the United States. Created by Malamenz, I am Vengeance is the story of a blood elf who done got mistreated. As you might expect from such an antagonist, he's got some rage and angst, and he's looking to go get some payback.

Malamenz created the majority of the movie in Fraps, which is a tradtional and time-tested method for machinimators who are just getting started in their craft. The voice over was clean and easy to understand, even if the production was all narrated from a first person point of view. The story is pretty straightforward and most of the audience shouldn't have much trouble picking it up quickly.

Congratulations to Malamenz on winning the Rise to Power contest. Here's hoping we see you to continue to explore creating machinima.

---

---

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Today we feature the last of the European winners for Alienware's Rise to Power contest. A Dead Bug's Life is the creation of Erunno and Frozen DeathKnight, two of the luminaries who regularly post over on the Myndflame site. You should remember Erunno from his outstanding work with The White Drake, a movie that helped redefine visual storytelling in Wrath of the Lich King machinima.

In contrast to the silent narrative in The White Drake, this Rise to Power movie had a great deal of dialogue. It displayed an amazing amount of wit and light-hearted characterization between the Lich King and Anub'arak. My favorite line was when Arthas complains how much fun it is to "constantly ressurect an oversized roach." I don't want to discuss the ending of the movie, since it would definitely give a significant spoiler. But let's say an old, ancient foe of the Alliance returns to join the Lich King's army.

A Dead Bug's Life is a beautiful movie. The graphics are intriguing and well done, seamlessly integrating to the story. You can really see how A Dead Bug's Life won its prize.

---

---

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

The third European winner of the Rise to Power contest was Xcross, who submitted the comedic song and dance number Welcome to the Deadmines. The "story" of the video is fairly simple. A group of adventurers show up to the Deadmines to get their dungeon running happening. When they're just about ready to go, Van Cleef welcomes the adventures to his home with a little performance.

Xcross did some absolutely amazing work here. This video is just fantastic. The song is catchy and clever. It's very well performed, and includes all our favorite characters from the Deadmines. The graphics in the video are amazing. The choreography captures the flavor of this Monty Python-esque performance, spotlighting each performance with grace and aplomb.

My hat's off to Xcross. While I don't believe every video needs fancy graphics, Xcross has shown exactly how practiced machinimators can use their techniques to vastly enhance their films. The music was absolutely amazing. You can easily see why Welcome to the Deadmines was so well received.

As a last note, if some of the lyrics seem a little confusing, you should remember that we're all going to enjoy the Heroic Deadmines in Cataclysm.

---

---

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Glorenzelg, High-Blade of the Silver Hand lives on multiple best-in-slot lists. At least, those BIS lists that don't include Shadowmourne and other Heroic content.

My favorite aspect of this epic blade is that it's blade from the Silver Hand, which is a more than significant bit of game lore. Since this weapon drops from Arthas, I think it's fairly clear that he somehow had been hoarding it (and other weapons) after having captured the weapon in combat.

For retribution paladins, this blade is especially attractive. I mean, the weapon is great for all of the two-handed DPS classes. But the weapon has a lot of strength, critical strike rating, and expertise, yet completely avoids wasting itemization points on armor penetration. This aspect makes it wonderfully suited to the class that has almost no use for ArP.

Sadly, though, Glorenzelg continues the trend of duct tape. Apparently, when the Lich King stole the weapon from the Silver Hand, he had to bind it back together. He chose to repair the weapon with skull-themed duct tape. That's okay. There's not much that the liberal application of some duct tape won't fix.

Name: Glorenzelg, High-Blade of the Silver Hand
Type: Two-Hand Sword
Damage: 895 - 1344 Damage (311.0 damage per second)
Speed: 3.60
Attributes:

• 181 Strength
• 197 Stamina
• 2 Red Sockets
• Socket Bonus: +6 Strength
• Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 115 (2.51% @ L80).
• Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 99 (12.08 @ L80).

How to get it: Get a raid together, including 24 of your best friends. As you methodically improve your skills, eventually approach and kill Arthas. He has a 30% chance or so of dropping this weapon. (At least, as of the time of this writing.)
How to get rid of it: If you're not about to pick up a Heroic version of the weapon, or perhaps Shadowmourne, don't. That being said, it breaks into an Abyss Crystal or sells for 31 gold, 57 silver, and 15 copper.

Filed under: Phat Loot Phriday

I've mentioned before that I'm a huge fan of Brian Wood's post Skill vs. gear. You should take the time to read through it if you haven't. However, in review, the basic premise of Brian's argument is that the largest DPS increases available to your raids are not directly based on gear. Instead, things like good rotations, talents, and ye-old "knowing your class" tend to have more to do with your damage than your gear.

Brian takes it to another level, however, and points out the overwhelming effect your raid buffs will have on your damage. The same can be applied to healers and tanks. (The difference between an unbuffed tank and a tank who's sporting Commanding Shout, Fortitude, Gift of the Wild, and Kings is absolutely amazing.) With all that being said, hopefully everyone's got faith in the premise that "your raid buffs really, really matter."

One of the fundamental design principles espoused by Ghostcrawler is that you should bring a player for their skill, not for their unique snowflake buffs (shaman have gotten a pass so far for Heroism, with a few different explanations). Most key buffs, debuffs, and such have duplication among multiple classes. Let's jump behind the cut and start looking at which vital buff and debuff.

Read more →

Filed under: Ready Check (Raiding)

This is another entry into Alienware's Rise to Power contest. Farinar Presents: Oswald's Amazing Story of EVIL! is the story of a squirrel in Elwynn Forest who is tired of the abuse he receives from passing adventurers. After seeing a campaign poster for the king of Stormwind, the squirrel decides to take steps to defend itself in the future.

This video was hilarious to me, and is the first comedy entry we've seen in the Rise to Power contest. Farinar did some amazing stuff with this video. One moment in particular stuck out to me. When the squirrel lights the fuse on his rocket ship, you'll notice the action is entirely implied by the scene framing. You obviously don't see the squirrel holding the match, just the tip touching the fuse. This kind of clever framing is one of the ways skilled machinimators like Farinar manage to make their videos have so much action, even while working within the limitations of WoW's models.

My only sad moment during the video is when the squirrel becomes a cybernetic killing machine. I was really looking for a Dath Vader moment when it screams, "Noooooooo!" I guess it makes sense that didn't happen, but I still would have giggled like a madman.

---

---

Filed under: WoW Moviewatch

Meet Sylvanas. She's about ten weeks old, and she awfully likes to gnaw on bones and my slippers. I'm aware that makes me a giant dork. I probably should have thought twice about naming my puppy after Sylvanas, but it's an awful lot of fun to point out things like "Sylvanas snores." My favorite is "Sylvanas has been sleeping with me and my wife all week." I know, I have the sophomoric sense of humor of a twelve year old.

But, really, Sylvie's adorable. However, I couldn't make this post if all I were doing was saying I named my dog after World of Warcraft. No, no, I'm going much further. Instead of telling her to "sit," I'm training her to plant her butt when she's told "Lok'tar." (That's not a very Orc-like use of the phrase, I know, but it's still very endearing.) "Ogar" is her command to "heel."

I'd like to pretend I'll eventually have Sylvia trained to a precision level like any good hunter pet. But for now, I'm just going to be satisfied if I can get her to stop chewing my slippers.

Filed under: Breakfast Topics