Virtual Life

At one point I was very disillusioned with World of Warcraft. When the honor patch came out, I could hardly play in peace. Since killing other players now come with incentives, I was literally ganked and ganged-up left and right, both on my Lvl 60 main and my alt.

A friend was so disgusted by the troubles happening to his alt that he blew up one day and decided to quit the game. It was not the main reason, but it was the "little something" that finally pushed him to make that decision.

However, I stuck on with it.

The Battlegrounds patch lessened the outright ganking somewhat, as PvP in those instances was more rewarding and fun. Those who wanted PvP can find it, those who chose their battles more carefully had an easier time PvE (player vs environment).

Time passed.

I can scarcely believe the amount of personality found among the players I have encountered. I have seen clueless idiots, newbies who beg for money, cool professionals who work as doctors, lawyers, students who still play the game mere hours before an exam, husband-and-wife duos, brothers on opposing factions, loot whores, ego-maniacs, generous people, jerks, people on power-trips...

There's a lot of drama in our server. A big, Singaporean guild all but collapsed as their Lvl 60s left to form an all Lvl-60s club with a primarily China-based guild, dedicated to raiding end-game content (Molten Core). My guild, being also primarily Singaporean based, had its lvl 60s invited (me included). We disagreed, saying that it's not fair for the lowbies.

Since then, the new guild went on with their objectives and are on their way to accomplishing their tasks. Slowly they are making headway, becoming the secondly only guild on the horde side to do Molten Core on a regularly basis.

Meanwhile, my guild plodded along. We picked up the remnants, leveled some of them to 60. Helped to gear them up. All the while, we have fears that these newcomers would leave to join that all 60s club when they are ready.

But things are looking up. Our "home-grown" lowbies are climbing up the levels.

Anyway, now the guild is becoming stronger, big enough to hold in-guild instance raids of 10-15 players. We formed alliances with other medium-sized guilds, and took our first steps into Molten Core. We even killed the first boss on our 3rd run, proving that an alliance among guilds -can- work.

Now we just have to prove that it can last.

Tag, I'm It

From Saffron's http://saffraan.blogspot.com/.

If I could be a monkey's uncle...
...I would train said monkey to train other monkeys and other ape-kind to take up arms, shake off their human oppressors, conquer the world and make me the Monkey King of the World.

If I could be the Pope...
...I would organize the Church to be a fully-equiped, fanatical army of zealots. They will take up arms, shake off the shackles of lousy governments, conquer the world and make me the Pope and Unquestioned Voice and Ruler of the World.

If I could be an game designer...
...I would design a game that subconsciously make the players addicted, and implants subliminal messages. They will emerge from their parent's basements, take up arms and utilize their l337 Counter-Strike and flight simulator skillz to shake off the heckling non-nerds, conquer the world, and make me the Game Guru of the World.

If I could be the President of the U.S...
...I would start a program of terra-forming the moon and nearby planets and move my people there. They will make the moon and the planets green, beautiful and habitable, and then I will sanction "nuclear accidents" that wipes the Earth, and the survivors will shake off their hatred of me, look up upon me and make me the Savior of Mankind.

If I could be a Miss Universe...
...I would seduce the leader of a powerful country with nukes, marry him, gain the trust of the people and their warmachine. Kill the said leader in his sleep, take over the nation, and then conquer the world, and make me the Empress of the Universe.

I'm tagging Lancelot.

Yes, I'm bored...

I am perfect by nature!

I go where I please, I tread where mortals shun!

What is shame for you is natural for me!

I wallow in the darkness, only fools imitate!

I'm drenched in the vile slime of society, living without limits!

Every nook, cranny and grotto is my abode, there is no boundary!

Fear me and tremble!

(C) The Dapper Rat

Rejuvenate

I figured I had lost interest with World of Warcraft. You can see why over here (http://www.thegumppl.org/index.php?topic=2624).

The PvP madness is slowing a little, and I'm having some fun again with my Druid alt.

But the main reason I wanted to play it over again from level 1 is because of this WoW music video: http://games.softpedia.com/get/Trailer/World-of-Warcraft-Here-Without-You-Trailer.shtml

Great stuff.

Tying Loose Ends

Apologize for the lack of updates.

To continue from the previous news, I need to correct some facts. The guy who was arrested was not the murderer, but in fact his father(!). The murdering son in question has fled, presumably to Indonesia. No further development, not sure how the victim's family is taking it.

Ripples

Well, something different than the usual dreariness of my mornings.

On the way to breakfast, my dad and I noticed that an area near the Senyum supermarket (which is near the pubs and nightspots) had been cordoned off with yellow police stripes.

Then someone told me that a bunch of cops showed up at one of my business spots. They found and promptly arrested one of traders there.

The charge?

Murder.

Not sure how much is true or wildfire, but apparently the man had ganged up with 10 other people and beat the hell of a person near the pub locales in Melaka (the cordoned area). At the end of the fight, the arrested man was said to have got into his car and then rammed the victim, causing death.

Hm.

More as it develops.

Ninja Looter

Today I held in my hands, RM100,000.00 (Ringgit Malaysia One Hundred Thousand Only) in cash.

Too bad it's not mine @_@

Reverb

I was WoW-ing with a guildmate and trying to complete an incredibly long quest chain. The whole chain was a parody of the Legend of Zelda games from Nintendo, and on of the quest involves drinking a potion at the graveyard to... achieve a different form to talk to an NPC.

While playing, there was a moment when I thought my chair was wobbling. At first I thought it was my brain telling me to get to bed already (twas 11pm). After several seriously-weirded out minutes, all became calm and I continued playing.

It was 1am and I was still playing (the quest chain is incredibly long, 13 steps in all). All of a sudden, I got an MSN message. Curious, I alt-tabbed and read it, it was from my brother which was rare.

There was another earthquake near Indonesia.

Immediately I checked on the net news and sure enough, it was being reported on Yahoo. I alt-tabbed back into the game and informed my guildmate. He was concerned and asked if I was ok. I was touched, but on reflection I guess he's worried that I would ditch the game and leave him hanging, heh. Just kidding.

Anyway, after several more minutes of reading the news and my guildie tuning into CNN over at his place (it was morning for him and he had been playing for 8 hours or so... he's a machine), I came to the conclusion that Malaysia was safe. The earthquake had happened to the west of Indonesia, and thus again our country was shielded from the worst of it.

I'm not sure what I feel now about it. Was the wobbling I felt caused by the earthquake? No idea.

But it did shake me up that disaster can strike at any time, and while the rest of the world might be sleeping or having a ball of a time playing a game, people might be dying on the otherside of the world.

Yet, I slept soundly that night.

I wonder why.