Paper Dolls - Julienne

Julienne had a last name once, a name picked from someone interesting in the Old Hillsbrad version of South Shore. I'll have to go look it up again before Forever releases since it might be the best way to have her name on a giant shared server. 

She has been "classic clown" and has carried a whole set of underleveled gear in her bag so that she could look "sexy" when I wanted. Now she can wear the purple thigh-highs plate whenever she wants and not lose her real armor. She is my "main" and has always been that for me. A fury warrior born in July 2008 who only rests for short times to let other characters level "for awhile."

Some time after they first introduced transmogrification I learned the joy of dressing my MMO paper doll and it has never stopped. Only 3 or 4 characters in my LONNNNNNG list of alts have identifiable "looks" and Julienne's has been the most iconic of them all.

Purple or green, sexy and not booby. No dresses. No frills. No lace. Just a warrior through and through. And occasionally goofy because when you can't laugh at yourself who CAN you laugh at?

I know without thought or hesitation what Julienne would do in any situation, how she would prefer the world to be and how she'll be in each new expansion as it unfolds. It's kind of cool to be someone else who is both different from me AND part of me. 

And mostly she's just a super fun paper doll who has been a fabulous alternative identity to meet the world through for 18 years. Just pixels. Pixels I arrange specifically and intentionally. It's fun.

Now you've met Julienne. LOL She's far from alone in her Warband. She is also their leader, still.

Not shocked. Not awed. Just sad. FOREVER

Warcraft Forever is... insanity.

You cannot have a different space with all of the same old things. Warcraft players are set in their ways. From a wracking path through content at a break-neck speed and complaints when there is nothing new to do after a week or two to the slow, plodding celebration of doing everything the hard way and complaining when there is any change to the status quo. What ALL of the players share is a learned expectation of having their way when they scream and shout and threaten to leave.

Blizzard hawked something new, lovely, different with all of the same elements and perhaps new directions because this world is what might have been. A game that respects the need for new experiences and "growth" without a constant upward drive at speeds that are impossible to support. A game that holds the joys and sentimentality of the same old thing with only the slightest change to speed and quality of life accommodations.

Then they SOLD beta keys. No control over the people who arrived and advertised and tested and filmed and shared their product. No control over whether they would get real feedback or just the same old tired selfish whining that has plagued everything else Warcraft related for the past 22 years.

And people are outraged... appalled... the hype is overwhelming the actual product.

And it isn't ready for release. Different qualities of rendering (new vs. old) on in-game models and cocky almost assaultive responses from developers when asked if there's a fix for this jarring difference. (The fuckers are actually using the same "you didn't use the exact right phrase so you're corrected and not answered until you take the time to re-phrase your question using the right word" bullshit that is breaking our entire society.)

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I WILL play Forever. I'm not sure I'm going to pay for the new race (right NOW "discounted" pricing is $29.95 or something stupid in order to unlock the new/old elves and their starting grounds.) After all of the BS and hype and a sense of compounded deja vu I think I will optimistically play on my own. No parties. No groups. Just on my own and see whether the "world" (as comprised of what is available to me including other players) meets my expectation of a more connected community or not.

I mean, the people I play with are so "retail ruined" that they have no understanding of playing TOGETHER towards a goal. My trading of gear and equipment that I can't wear and would only sell is alien. The idea that I would approach a stranger and give them 5 pieces of chain armor because I know leveling a warrior or paladin is hard as hell dumbfounds the people I usually play with. They discredit me as being stupidly supportive of others instead of looking after myself. The perceived hardship being so great going in that they would watch a warrior or paladin in cloth gear getting beaten to fuck by the environment for that extra 2 silver in gear without the concept of helping the guy out so that he can tank 5 or 10 levels from now and everyone can get gear from the dungeon.

Sigh. Maybe I am stupid. I feel it. I just keep tilting at this windmill because the game really WAS better back then. I just think people were, too. And an MMO can only be as good as the people playing it, right? I'd love to pretend it isn't me. I'm too old and jaded to believe it anymore. It IS me, and I'm not sorry for it. I am not going to apologize for it. I'm not even going to apologize for not wanting to play with other people who aren't respectful and accepting of the way I play. Why should I? They play how they want for their $15 a month and I'll do the same with mine.

Where I Come From...

I have played World of Warcraft since July of 2008.

I played PvE on Uldaman. I was Alliance.

I played PvP on Akama. I was Alliance and then I was Horde.

I played RP and Horde on Farstriders until I realized I'm RP enough in my own ways and that I don't like RP players much. Maybe I'll elaborate. Probably I won't. Only two survived, one is Horde again and the other is Alliance now.

After someone I loved and enjoyed playing with above all others left my life and the game I parked all of those characters and started a new one on Baelgun. She was Alliance. He (race and sex swapped him to Kul Tiran) still is.

Literally every character I have now in Retail/Live WoW is on Baelgun/Doomhammer. Classic is all Pagle (now one giant blended server of a number of like rule types.) And the Forever ones will be in the ether where WoW stores them.

When I started playing World of Warcraft (hereafter WoW) you couldn't move characters or join groups across servers or have cross-faction (Horde and Alliance in a single group.) Playing WITH your friends meant having a character and leveling it from 1-[level cap] on that server. It was just over 4 months before the first achievements were brought in and another couple of years before joining game-made dungeon groups would work well enough to trust it and the experience. (I'll eventually elaborate how ironic that statement is, I won't be able to help myself.)

I have raided as a pick-up member, as a raid leader, as a guild raid member and in the Looking For Raid feature avaiable in the game. I'll probably elaborate on this, too. Again, I won't be able to avoid it.

I played WoW Classic when it was released. I ruined my experience by tying it to someone else and exclusively to that someone else. I should have played Classic the way I'd played every other version of the game from the start and didn't. We just don't play solo anymore. It is somehow deemed pathetic not to want to watch someone else click everything for you and run along behind as if you're too slow. Or argue about the best way to achieve clearing the quests in an area without being bossy. Sorry, I might have some issues here, too. LOL

I'll be 55 in December. I never played WoW as a kid. I have loved it and (like all WoW players everywhere) hated it in equal measure since day one. I was taught to play that way. We teach everyone to play WoW that way. I feel like that is the experience as it was designed and there's no way to change that now. There is no other relationship possible in a game that does not explain itself and instead relies on outsiders to explain it for them. From muzzy quest instructions, when there are any at all, to a total lack of coherancy or consistency (well, aside from being absolutely incoherant and inconsistant) in quest design, implementation and carry through, no player without access to the internet and a handfull of outside sites would be able to complete any game zone or even the required quest chains. 

And I get ahead of myself.

I love playing WoW. I really do. I optimistically leap in, do my researches online and keep a second window open at all times so that I can ask the WWW what the actual fuck is going on the whole time I'm playing. I know more work-arounds, glitch fixes and ways to make the game playable than any player really ever should, and we ALL do. You HAVE to. And one by one we teach each new player the same work-arounds, glitch fixes and ways to make the game playable.

I've also got so many maps, details, quest chains and items, "Easter Eggs" and Noble Garden Eggs in my head that they're often not even accessible memories until I can see or hear the area or zone or event. That's just how playing WoW goes if you're an immersive player who has been around for a long time. I remember maps that don't exist, places that are gone, zones that are entirely different. I can tell you that things changed in a location from expansion to expansion because I've played them in Classic, Burning Crusade, Wrath, Cata... etc... I've owned every version of the game since Burning Crusade and well explored them all as a course of gameplay and adventure. 

And I don't actually like exploring or leveling with other people. (There is one exception and it gets rarer and rarer so that I cannot expect or even rely on it.) Here's that issue mentioned before.

See, in the beginning we really DIDN'T level together... we were all at our own pace and doing our own things and asking questions or staying up with the gossip and adventures of others in our guilds IN GUILD CHAT. "VOIP" was what the hardcore guys did, or the fancy people. I played with the game up or my own music up and everyone else was doing the same. We'd come together from time to time and show things, explore things, get things done that one could not do or struggled to do. Then "raid guilds" happened and it was all about the fastest climb through the content to come out with the most gear, most stuff and most money. 

The game became the thing between us and what we wanted to do.

And I hate it. 

And most of my "friends" have played that way for so long that they're used to going 30+ hours a week in "the grind" and then "pushing content for gear" and "getting the iLevel up" and then taking breaks between content releases. It's no surprise to me that WoW Retail/Live now pushes new content every 8 weeks... there's a HUGE percentage of their player base that only plays for the first week to 10 days of each 8 week segment except to log in for raid nights.

A lot of my friends are irregular players anyway. I honestly think they burn out. I know it wears me out to try to keep up and do the things I don't like the flow of just to have someone to play with only to be left behind when they're over it for the time being.

I play at least a little every week and have only taken large breaks from the game when the game itself shut me down or turned me off. Two expansions have shut me down so hard that Blizzard billing people could tell you specifically what and when and for how long because I told them when I cancelled my subscription. (If they cared. Again, it's part of our contract that we love and hate them... and no one knows it better than they do.)

So... there's my "props" if you will... my pedigree and where I come from. 

I play WoW and have for more than 18 years. I started at the end of BC and really came into myself in Wrath. I've only taken 2 "long" breaks... once in Pandaria and once in WoD. Smaller breaks as life happened never involved turning off my sub. I love Azeroth and all of her denizens, even the ones I call dirty names and wish legos or jacks on the floor when they make their midnight pee runs.

My real name is Ruth. Most people know me as Jules. And I'm getting ready to play Forever and see if I can fall back in love with this game that I love to hate.