This is Thoradin’s Wall, which runs between the Arathi Highlands and the Hillsbrad Foothills. I came upon the wall while running to Southshore for the quest MacKreel’s Moonshine. The quest is timed, so I didn’t pay any attention to the wall when I came to it, but after finishing up in Southshore I made a point of walking back to have a closer look. Figuring it would make for a nice screen shot, I started backing away, oblivious to my surroundings, trying to frame it just right. Just as I was about to take my screen shot, a mountain giant named Fozruk walked into the frame.

So what was it about this wall that compelled me to come back for a closer look? I mean, it’s just a big wall, right? To me it wasn’t. While running through Arathi Highlands, the wall came into view off in the distance, growing larger as I approached. The wall, heavily damaged, gives the zone a sense of history; something big happened there long ago. Who built it, and why did they deem it necessary? Who destroyed it, and why?

At present, my character is level 31, which means I haven’t seen a whole lot of the world thus far, but I’ve already come across a number of places or things in the game that not only piqued my curiousity much like Thoradin’s Wall, but serve to make the World of Warcraft look “lived in”. Ashenvale, for instance, has various ruins strewn about the zone, dilapidated statues the only things left standing from some long forgotten shrine or monument. Orcs toil away in the Warsong Lumber Camp. On the Eastern Continent, Thandol Span, the mountain pass of Dun Algaz, and the majestic Stonewrought Dam, all help convey a sense of history. I took my curiousity outside of the game and did a Google search for “Thoradin’s Wall” which brought me to this article on WoWWiki. There’s not a whole lot there about the wall, but there is some interesting speculation, and lots of links to other articles. I killed more time than I should probably admit just browsing through different articles, clicking link after link. There is a vast amount of lore contained within WoWWiki which has only fueled my desire to explore WoW even further.

Now, contrast this to EverQuest II. I am fully aware that a lot of this is completely subjective, and people’s opinions will vary. I love EverQuest II, it’s a great game, but when compared to WoW, EQII does not feel like a “world” as oppsed to a bunch of loosely connected zones. I’m not criticizing EQII’s use of zoning, that never really bothered me, rather, EQII’s zones feel like zones. They feel like arbitrary areas created to adventure in with no connection or relation to any other parts, nor do they evoke any sense of historical importance. I don’t consider myself a “lore guy”, that is to say, I don’t need to know who Malkonis D’Morte is in order to kill him, nor do I need to know the grand history of the Commonlands. It would be nice however, if some of the lore behind those things would come through in the game without having to look for it. I’ve read some of the EverQuest lore available at EQ2-Daily, particularly the “Tome of Destiny”, which tells the story of The Shattering, and the many battles that took place during that time. When I wander through EverQuest II though, I don’t see any signs of these battles, or any monuments dedicated to the many lives lost during The Shattering. I never played the first EverQuest, so maybe I’m missing some of the connections between the two games, but EQII’s Norrath doesn’t look or feel like a world that’s been shattered to me.

“The Shattering” chapter of the Tome of Destiny describes the explosion of Luclin, sending “a wave of energy carrying chunks of debris rapidly toward Norrath”. Walking through Antonica or Commonlands, there is no evidence of these chunks of debris anywhere. I think a sprinkling here and there of some huge smoking rock chunks could ramp up the “cool factor” of the EQII zones considerably. The Rending and Shattering events would even make for a sweet intro video for the game, rather than the one that plays currently, that doesn’t really have much to do with the game itself.

EverQuest lore is out there, it’s just very disjointed. There’s some really good stuff in the History and Lore section of the official forums, particularly the stickied threads. Other lore links I came across include the EQ2-Daily one above, EverQuest II Stratics, and The Athenaeum. It would be so much better if all this lore was combined into one wikia-style site like WoWWiki, and better still if it made more of an appearance in the game itself. Norrath has a long and storied history, I just wish it was more evident while playing.

This past weekend I managed to ding level 31 for Ordeth, my Draenei Shaman. This is the highest I’ve ever leveled a character in WoW, a 29 Dwarf Warrior being my previous high long ago. It was an interesting weekend; I didn’t get a lot of time to play but I still managed to get a fair bit done in just a few hours, one of the things I like best about WoW. The picture is of me flying down to the Exodar after doing the Call of Air quest to get my Wind Totem. I’m still enjoying the Shaman, it’s a great class, although I burn through Mana like crazy.

I had an interesting PvP experience Friday evening. Level 29 at the time, I was doing some quests in Ashenvale when I stumbled upon a level 28 Horde Shaman. We both immediately engaged each other, but I was able to take him out. Low on health and mana, I retreated up a hill and hid myself in a little nook behind a tree to have some food and drink. While my character sat down enjoying his snack, I turned away from my PC to watch the TV I have in the room to check out the hockey game. The one thing I’m slowly learning about playing on a PvP server is that it requires a bit more attention than a PvE server. It seems I developed some harmful habits playing exclusively on a PvE server for my three plus years in EverQuest II that don’t carry over to a PvP server very well. Things such as pointing my character in the direction he needs to go, sticking him on autorun, then turning my attention away to my other PC while my character runs obliviously towards his location. Or, things like parking my character to drink and turning away to watch a bit of TV. The sound of my character being whacked in the head brought my attention back to my PC. Apparently I’m not great at hiding, or perhaps I had been followed, but regardless, I had a level 28 Troll Rogue rapidly depleting my health. I quickly tried to cast Ghost Wolf to run away, but it was too late, and I soon found myself in the spirit world running back towards my lifeless corpse. After reviving I got back to killing mobs in the immediate area for my quest, when just a few minutes later I spotted that same Rogue just a short distance away. Payback time. I buffed up, popped into Ghost Wolf form and sprinted towards him. I went through all my Shaman’s bag of tricks and it didn’t take long to exact my revenge. Satisfied, I moved on and continued with my quest, only to come across the Rogue yet again about ten minutes later, this time engaged with two mobs, with a third close by. He was in trouble, and would be an easy target for me. I closed in. Putting myself in his shoes, I envisioned myself struggling against two mobs, a third ready to join the fight, my health dwindling, and then to top it off, seeing a sworn enemy closing in to take advantage of the situation. I ran up beside him, pulled one of the mobs off him, and engaged the third before it could pounce on the Rogue. With all the mobs dead at our feet, I turned towards the Rogue, targeted him, and emoted a /salute. He /nodded back, then we headed off in separate directions.

While at work yesterday, my co-worker (and Timesink co-writer) Joe, upon finishing a 1.5L bottle of water showed me the empty bottle and remarked, “I have this much water in my bladder right now!” It was completely random, and came out of nowhere; just another one of those funny little conversation starters. I had a follow-up question regarding the inner workings of the bladder which ultimately led the two of us back to his workstation to do some research.

After bringing up Wikipedia on his browser, Joe typed in “Digestive System” which brought up a super handy diagram of the gastrointestinal tract. We didn’t get the answer to whatever bladder question I had, but there at the bottom of the diagram was, *tee hee*, the anus. Joe, apparently having some sort of fascination with the anus, clicked on its link, opening up an article dedicated entirely to that region where the sun don’t shine.

Scrolling down the page, we discovered the differences between the rectum, the colon, and the anus; it was genuinely interesting stuff. Scrolling a little further however, brought in to view a real picture. There, staring back at us, was the hairy eye of Sauron. Belting out a “woah!”, Joe immediately scrolled back up to hide the picture again, as I fled back to my desk, crying with laughter.

Lesson learned: Don’t wikipedia anus at work.

It’s been posted on a bunch of other sites already, but I couldn’t let this one skip by so I’ll add my two cents on the passing of Games For Windows, the magazine. It sucks. Really, really sucks. GFW was easily my favourite mag; the writing was excellent, the stories were interesting, the editors were funny. Pretty much everything that PC Gamer, the only “major” PC gaming mag left, isn’t. Especially lately, PC Gamer has been extra craptacular, seemingly written for eight year olds. But I digress. Jeff Green’s blog has the announcement which you can read here. Sure, they’re just calling it a “transition” to a digital format, and their podcast, which is awesome by the way, will still be around, but I have my doubts they’ll be around for long. I hope I’m wrong.

So really, is print media dying? Do that many people really prefer to do their reading online? I certainly do my fair share of reading on the web of course; all the blogs, news sites, etc. But I always have room for a good old fashioned magazine in my hands, whether sitting out on the deck, or stuck on an airplane.

If I were PC Gamer, I’d do whatever I could to get Jeff Green to be my editor in chief, and bring in Shawn Elliott, Sean Molloy, and Ryan Scott as well. Then it’d be worth buying again.

It appears as though my transfer to a new webhost has gone smoothly, although I’ve still got that, “it’s quiet… too quiet” feeling. I made the DNS change yesterday afternoon and it appears to have already propagated, at least in my neck of the internet woods. So, hopefully the site is available to everyone again, although if it isn’t, then you may not actually be reading this.

While it appears that I’ve been able to transfer over the site intact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was the odd broken link here or there. The end result will hopefully be a more stable site, and while it may be completely psychological at this point, I think I’m getting a slightly faster response time. One thing for sure is the back end side of this web host (Host Gator) is much better than my previous host, having more features and up to date applications. All seems well so far, but of course it’s much too early to say for sure.

For those who may be wondering, my old host was Netfirms. I was with them for two years, most of which was just fine and dandy. Periodically however, especially lately, my site kept going down and having connection issues (timeouts, slow speed, etc). The flip-side to that, is I know of someone hosting their site there who is having no problems at all.

As for moving my WordPress installation, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it went. Working in the IT industry has led me to expect that not all things go as well as they’re supposed to, especially when you’re dealing with databases. Fortunately I just have a rinky-dink site with a tiny database (hey, it’s how I use that database that matters!) and things seem to have gone smoothly.