A surprisingly provincial addition to a world full of dragons and wizards.
When I’ve played MMOs previously, especially World of Warcraft, the prevailing sentiment has been that ‘the real game begins’ at the maximum level a character can achieve. For the most part, this has applied to large-group raid or player-versus-player content. Not everybody is interested in such things, though. The question becomes, then, what does one do once their main character hits the ceiling of the maximum level?
There’s always the option of rolling another character, for certain, but I would argue that a good MMO provides a plethora of content for a player who’s struggled through the slow grind upwards. There was a part of me that was concerned when I approached the top level available as I worked my way through World of Warcraft’s new continent of Pandaria. However, when that bright light and familiar sound met me, I was in for a surprise.
Like many previous expansions, World of Warcraft’s newest areas feature multiple factions towards whom a player can endear themselves. They’re all over Pandaria, but unlike the forces featured in Cataclysm or Wrath of the Lich King, they’re not necessarily worried with getting your help to save the world. The Anglers are fascinated by the various kinds of fish you can find around Pandaria, the Order of the Cloud Serpent raises the continent’s unique breeds of dragons (and you can, too!), and the Tillers are farmers, plain & simple. I’ll get back to them in a moment.
Top level players have been queueing up to enter dungeons for a long time, but Pandaria also gives us scenarios to experience. These instances are smaller and more scripted, geared for 3 players instead of 5 and not necessarily requiring a specific team makeup (a tank will certainly help you, though). With many of the factions I mentioned, you can participate in daily quests ranging from slaying nasty critters to corralling lost yaks. These quests and instances yield plenty of gold to finance other endeavors, gear either through direct drops or special currency, and even reputation with the factions above. But not everything that you can do with your max-level character is so confrontational.
The Tillers allow you to start a farm of your very own. I’ve been told this portion of the game is lifted almost directly from the Harvest Moon games, based on the different crop conditions and finding gifts for fellow farmers. Either way, it feels to me like a lovely change from the usual grind of post top level gear gathering. It’s still a bit of a grind to get your farm to a point where you can grow materials you need for your professions, but considering the things you can do with the other crops in the meantime, it feels like less of a grind, and a player getting a positive feeling from an in-game experience is evidence of good mechanical design.
If you skipped a profession on your way up, or want to change from one to another, max level is great time to retread those steps a bit. Archaeology, in particular, is a neat secondary profession to explore at top levels. Few of the areas you’ll be digging in are actually dangerous to you, you pick up unique items, and it’s a skill that can be used for dailies in Pandaria. In fact, the Order of the Cloud Serpent has dailies that call upon your skills as a cook, medic, angler, and archaeologist. It pays to diversify your skills, after all!
And then there’s the Brawler’s Guild, which I haven’t even touched yet…
Of course, this could just be my feeling about reaching the current top level in World of Warcraft. I’m sure others are more interested in the raiding scene or jumping into the Arena to take on other players. While there will always be alts to level, the game clearly does not end when the levels do. A MMO worth its asking price should keep providing fresh, new content, and for my money, Mists of Pandaria is doing that pretty well for World of Warcraft.
Another nasty winter storm has slapped the area, leaving people buried in snow and shivering in near-zero temperatures (negative teens or lower in Celsius). Today sees the sun shining, but there’s a nasty wind out of the north-northwest and temperatures show no signs of going up. Local traffic is certain to be dicey at best. Thankfully, I am in a position where I am capable of working from home.
Doing so not only allows me the opportunity to feel more like a novelist, as they are a reclusive breed who rarely leave their homes, but also preserves energy that would otherwise be expended on my least favorite part of working in an office: the commute. Even though I moved closer to the office at the end of 2012, it can still be a major pain to get there even when conditions are good. And today, conditions remain dicey at best.
After doing so yesterday, I was able to make more headway in the new project (which needs a title at some point) and get a post over to Geekadelphia for the opening of the Hearthstone beta. Now, anybody can play! I’ve been trying to balance out my leisure time a bit more, and despite the advantages of working from home, I’m looking for ways and means to get out and about a bit more. Going strictly from home to the office and back again with deviations existing only in the context of errands can get tiresome.
Which is why I went to the cinema on Sunday night, and when Friday rolls around, I’ll tell you all about that.
A late night working plus working from home today equals headaches and other complications, the least of which is the fact that I didn’t prep a blog post yesterday. So while I brew coffee and hunt down painkillers, enjoy reading this post about what writers are.
Living with writers is a tricky business at times. Look here, here and here for some of the proof. Over and above any cautionary tale you might here from the trenches is a deeper truth that is ever-present but rarely discussed. Writers, especially creators of fiction, for all their imagination and altruism and creativity and willingness to share their inspiration to inform and entertain, share a common bond that has nothing to do with what they drink and everything to do with how they do what they do.
I know I may be exaggerating somewhat, but bear with me through the metaphors. Writers, you see, are criminals.
Writers are Thieves
A writer may talk about someone or something that inspires them. What they’re really doing is confessing to theft. Now it’s rarely wholesale thievery, and you may need to look very carefully to see the seams between ideas stolen from other sources, but trust me, the wholly original idea presented by a writer is exceedingly rare.
Many writers have talked about this, at times obliquely, but Joseph Campbell is probably the best-known whistle-blower for this sort of thing. The idea of the hero’s journey is nothing new in the slightest, with the task of the writer being to modify that narrative through-line to make it interesting and relevant. Often the words being used have their roots in outside sources. However, the important part is not the words themselves, but rather what they are talking about.
Writers are Voyeurs
When you pick up a work of fiction, be it rattled off by a fan of a particular current narrative or a story spanning multiple volumes and years, you are looking into the lives of other people. You are seeing as much or as little as the author wants you to see. At times, you’ll be witnessing moments and aspects the people in question may not wish you to witness. You’ll be watching them at their most vulnerable, their most monstrous or their most intimate.
What is this if not voyeurism?
We often find or are told that the act of watching another person, especially if they are unaware of our presence, is something abhorrent. It’s invasive and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Yet we do it all the time. And it is writers, of stage and screen and page, who encourage us to engage in this sort of sordid, vicarious living.
It’s not all steamy windows and heavy breathing, though. When we see the lives of others unfold, the possibility exists for us, despite only being involved as observers, gaining something from the experience. The exploration of these fictional people can give us insight into our own perspectives and motivation. If we can relate to, understand and care for original characters, there’s no reason we can’t relate to, understand and care for our fellow man.
Writers are Murderers
George RR Martin, I’m looking at you.
What are writers if not gods of their own little worlds? They create the people that populate their stories, give them backgrounds, motivations and personalities, sometimes to the point of being all but living and breathing in the minds of the audience. Then, for the sake of the plot or to drive home a point, the writer kills them. Don’t be fooled by something like old age or heart failure or an “accident” – the character is only dead because the writer murdered them.
You can smooth over the stealing in a few ways, and the voyeurism is victimless, if a bit creepy. But murder? Man, that’s serious business. The writer is destroying something they themselves have created for the sake of telling a story.
Or rather, if they’re any good, for the sake of telling a good story.
The only two true inevitabilities in this life are that you are going to die and you are going to pay taxes. And writing about taxes isn’t very sexy or exciting. It goes back to the vicarious nature of experiencing fiction: by seeing how others deal with death, we can gain some measure of peace, understanding and even inspiration to apply to our own lives. The writer’s murders take on an edge beyond this due to the finality of death, but it can still be to the ultimate benefit of the audience.
There’s also the fact that it can be a hallmark of a writer doing their job well. If people are truly outraged by the death of a character, if they cry out in protest or flip tables or what have you, the writer’s done something very special. They’ve made the audience care about an imaginary person. The people experiencing the story feel something on a personal level, have become engaged if not immersed in this tale, which means the writing has done more than convey a story. It’s drawn people into it and inspired them to care.
You can’t make an omelet without making a few eggs, and you can’t tell a truly compelling story without characters dying.
Writers are dark. They’re dastardly. They’re absolutely despicable.
I rolled on the tables from this post for this week’s tale.
Table 1: Detective
Table 2: Casino
Table 3: Left for dead, out for revenge!
Now, let’s get it on!
You lose track of time to a scary degree when some Neanderthal knocks you out. I was under the impression they only got physical with you at casinos if they caught you counting cards or feeling up the cocktail waitress without her consent. Apparently, they beat the shit out of idiot gumshoes who are getting too close to the truth, too.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been thrown a beating by what colloquially folks would call a ‘goon’, but this time, it wasn’t my fault. I was playing it cool, understand, and specifically not winning too much at the hold ’em table. When your job is precipitated on reading people, poker becomes practice more than anything else. And the reason I charge so much for my services is, without hyperbole, I’m very fucking good at what I do.
The problem is, my reputation preceded me. I got fingered (not as sexy as it sounds) by one of the pit bosses, who told their boss, and one thing lead to another and this shambling prick in an off-the-sale-rack suit was slamming my head into the wire racks in a pantry. He wasn’t pulling punches. He meant to kill me. He seemed to be know what he was doing, too. Without breaking my bones or leaving major bruises, it would look like I stumbled into the wrong room and cracked my skull. Bam, case closed, everybody go about your business, nothing to see here.
Thankfully for yours truly, the fucking ape was too dumb to make sure I was done before he left me.
Son of a bitch took my gun, though. Old-fashioned pearl-handled .45 – a gift from an old partner. Engraved, and everything.
I push myself up off of the grimy closet floor, and I remind myself that the tux is a rental and I’m probably not getting my deposit back because the thing’s covered in grease and God knows what else now. I get out of the closet, get myself down the hall – my head is pounding and I want to vomit – and find a locker room for employees. They have spare jackets for the waiters and croupiers. I swap my smeared slightly mothball-smelling coat for one of those, and find my way back to the floor. I pick up a tray of drinks on the way for good measure.
I weave through the slots, people taking drinks and leaving cash. I stay on the move until the tray is empty. I make my way back towards the poker pits. It takes me a few minutes of circling and trying to look innocuous, but then my beefy friend comes through a back door. Have I mentioned he isn’t too bright? He doesn’t see or hear me coming up behind him. I wait for him to turn a corner, knowing there’s a tiny blind spot in the bazillion-camera coverage of the floor, and then I introduce my lovely tray to the big fat target that is his big fat head.
You’ve heard of glass jaws, right? This guy apparently has a glass skull. He drops like a bag of hammers. Not surprising, considering he’s about half as smart.
Service with a smile, asshole.
I get my gun and my phone back, give the prick a kick in the ribs for good measure, and make my way to an exit. In the parking lot I check my phone, and sure enough, our Cro-Magnon friend didn’t bother flashing its memory or even deleting the recordings I’d been making.
It’s quiet in the lot. Which is good, because the slab of stupid I’d left laid out on the carpeted floor had friends, and they were coming out after me. I hear the door slamming open, footsteps, and the hammer of at least one gun’s hammer getting pulled back the way a guy unzips his fly. They’re not even trying to be subtle.
So, why should I?
I break into a run as I draw my piece. You’d think it missed me, the way it just flows into my hand and my arm extends with it to start taking shots. I’m not trying to kill or even wound anybody, just trying to keep their heads down. Well, maybe wound someone. A little. Out of spite.
I’ve got ten years of experience between firing ranges, ‘official discharges’ as a detective, a couple undercover jobs, and this freelance business after I got drummed off the force. These morons seem to have gotten all of their experience from playing video games.
“Way to shoot wide, Call of Duty!”
I’m already getting in my car by this point, and I can’t help but get the last word in. Now, I know it’s unsafe, and you assholes at home better not do this, but it’s an emergency, so I dial my contact. Or rather I dial my contact’s office. I say some words to his lovely and polite secretary I’m not going to repeat here. I make a mental note to send her flowers because nobody deserves to have their mother referred to in that fashion, especially not someone just doing their job for an honest wage. Seriously, I’m a prick sometimes. I called you all assholes like three sentences ago. Anyway, I’m on hold and I’m swerving through traffic. Both things I hate. When he finally picks up the phone I’m fucking livid.
“You did not tell me there would be hitmen and legbreakers at this meet!”
“I thought it was a given.”
“No, it was not a given, you sawed-off prick. Put down the fucking doughnut and listen. I have him on tape.”
“You cut out there. Say that again?”
“Of course I cut out, jerkfuck, I’m on the goddamned freeway! I said, I – got – him – on – tape.”
“Saying what, exactly?”
I change lanes to pass a Yugo. A goddamn Yugo, in this day and age. And I thought my life was hard. “He’s saying that he’s in over his head and wants a way out. He says it’s for tens of millions. The words ‘cocaine’, ‘heroin’, ‘ecstasy’, and ‘hit squads’ are mentioned. And not by me.”
“Jesus.”
“I told you I could do this! Now it’s time for you to hold up your end.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause. I’d glare at the phone if I wasn’t trying to drive as safely and quickly as possible. Those two things are not easy to do at the same time. And this is with one hand on the wheel. I’m dead serious, kids, do not try this shit at home. (Oh, and if you are a kid, sorry for all the swears.)
“Look…”
“Don’t. Do not tell me there’s a problem or a ‘snag’ or some other bullshit. The next fucking words out of your fat face better be ‘where are you and where do I send the chopper’ or I swear to fucking Christ I will leak this shit to the Internet and take my ass to goddamn Lichtenstein.”
“… Where are you, and where do I send the chopper.”
“Was that so hard?”
“It would have been easier if you hadn’t interrupted me, jerkoff.”
“I’m on the Interstate heading west. There’s two – no, check that, three – black Cadillac SUVs full of angry men with guns probably under orders to shoot my ass and drag what’s left back to the casino to get worked over by this fucking dumbass lump of lard who…”
“Wittaker, I need you to focus.”
I pass a bus. I think someone takes my photo through the window. Tourists. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. And sorry about the fat comment. But seriously, man, you gotta hit a gym.”
“Wittaker…”
“Jesus, fine. Two exits ahead, there’s a parking garage, 8th and Spillane, top level’s exposed and probably mostly empty.”
“Got it.”
“Hey, can you cover me with a couple of establishments?”
“What do you-”
He’s cut off when bullets start hitting my windshield. Dammit, I thought I’d lost them behind the bus! Or at least, gotten out of line of sight. Whatever. I drop the phone and start to serpentine. Which is a fancy way of saying I drive like a goddamn maniac and piss off plenty of decent people.
I take the exit I told my contact about and I don’t bother to slow down any more than I have to in order to avoid flying over the guardrail. It’s two turns onto 8th avenue, and then I pass Spillane. I cut the wheel and pull the handbrake, and practically slam into the wall next to where I want to go, which is through the little arm they drop on you so you take a ticket. It cracks like a toothpick against the grill of my Pontiac and I’m heading up the ramp before the night watchman can run out after me yelling obscenities.
I’m still a bit nauseous from earlier, so taking so many fast turns in such a confined space almost knocks me out again. My head is swimming and I can’t read any of the signage for shit. It’s a miracle I don’t get lost. I make it to the roof, grab my phone and stumble out of the car, and throw up. I manage to get to my feet as the three Caddies pull up onto the roof and line up one next to the other. The hitmen get out of the cars with guns drawn, at least seven of them, and all of them looking really pissed off.
The cherry on it is when my fat friend rolls out of the back of one, holding an ice pack to his head.
“Oh, hey! Look who’s vertical!”
“That was a cheap shot, you fucking prick!”
“Ha!” I’d literally laugh in his face if I could cross the killing field. Well, killing parking tarmac. “I’m not the stupid son of a bitch who left me alive!”
“Well, let’s correct that,” says one of the hitters. They all take aim.
“Sure, you go ahead and you fucking shoot me.”
I think between the ride up through the parking garage and their raging hard-ons, they hadn’t heard what I’d heard. It became obvious when the spotlight came on.
“Right in front of federal officers!”
Three (Three? Christ.) black helicopters with FBI emblems slapped on their sides come out of the inky night, bathing the roof of the parking complex in bright white light. The hitmen stagger back from the glare as I spread my arms wide and invite them all to kiss my ass. I don’t think they hear me over the loudspeakers above my head.
“THIS IS THE FBI. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.”
The helicopters land, and agents in tac armor with submachine guns spill out, yelling orders and putting zip-ties on the hitmen. Agent LeToux, suit rumpled and hair a mess as usual, gets out of one and walks towards me. I give him a hard time, but he’s a man of his word. Even if he could stand to eat a few less Big Macs. He’s not unhealthily fat, but someone’s got to ride his ass so he stays in shape, and Mrs. LeToux sure as hell isn’t.
“You are a pain in my ass, Wittaker!”
“I didn’t tell you to send a whole SWAT team out here, LeToux!”
He snatches my phone out of my hand. “No, but you DID say there’s enough evidence on here to shut down the whole operation!”
“Hey, you called me, asshole, because these pricks can smell a fed a mile away.”
“Yes, and we thank you for your service, now can you kindly fuck off so we can do our jobs without you breaking anything else?”
He turns to walk away.
“Hey! Tell your guys to get my tux jacket back! It’s a rental!”
He flips me off. Doesn’t even look back.
LeToux loves me. If he denies it, he’s lying.
Not really my type, though. Don’t tell him that. I wouldn’t want to break his heart.
I know I said that reviews would be happening on Fridays, and I’m bound to have something worth reviewing next week. This week, though, has been difficult.
I still don’t believe this is the space for me to delve too deeply into my personal headspace difficulties. That’s what Tumblr’s for, and I posted over there if you care to read. It involves words and conditions that may trigger some people, just so you know.
