On Fangirls

As a female gamer, I am accustomed to being the odd one. I don't expect others to all like the same things I like, or be excited about the same things I am, or agree that something is as awesome as I think it is. Most people who don't follow the mainstream or pop culture are used to this concept. When we stop by a Burger King while still dressed up and on the way home from a medieval reenactment event (think Ren-Faire garb), we expect a few weird looks. When we talk Warcraft with some non-MMO friends, we don't expect all the others to be interested in how we pwned Deathwing last night.

This is why I've been a bit amused and baffled at my mother in law, recently.

She's a grandmother. A teacher. An all around warm and good woman. Enjoys historical fiction. Greatly disliked that my husband and I lived together before we were married. Had a few wary things to say about Harry Potter due to the "witchcraft," years ago. Very conservative.

When she became a fangirl to a pop-culture band, I was surprised: I certainly hadn't expected this out of her.

Trust me, when I say fangirl, I mean fangirl. This is an obsession, and she is way out of the targeted market but she's had an opportunity to meet them and write to them and be active on their facebook group and show very vocal support for them. It's certainly not the first time that fans have existed outside of a targeted demographic, but I certainly hadn't expected this one.

I don't think it's a bad thing. She's happy, she has something to be excited about and look forward to when getting home, and it's honestly helping fight depression. With economy as it is and socialization flowing more and more to an online setting (and she lives in a rural area), she has embraced a very positive way to have an interest.

Her choice isn't my personal cup of tea, but I am happy for her.

The problem?

She has not yet learned that it's okay for others to not be excited and infatuated about the same thing. That it's okay and quite normal for not everyone else to be waiting with bated breath for a movie release, or think that the movie is the best thing that has happened to the world.

All those years of her sons being excited over a new comic book or video game release, that perhaps she didn't want to hear about endlessly? The connection doesn't seem to have clicked. Whether it is us, as her family, or the strangers that she was approaching across the town to promote a release and beg they all come and see and agree with her and become huge fans themselves. She was crushed when some came, saw the movie, and said they didn't really think it was that great. As fandom does, some did agree, of course. But others didn't. And it is confusing her.

It's interesting.

I don't intend to post the actual topic she is fangirling, as that is irrelevant. It could be ponies or singing vegetables or a rap group and it wouldn't make a difference. I'd still have to be explaining to her over facebook how to take a screenshot on her computer and upload it :D

I support her being a fangirl for the joy that it is bringing to her life, even if I myself am not a fan. I just hope that she will make the connection that it's okay that we're not all as excited on the topic as she is, and that she'll learn the methods that the rest of us do when talking about our obsession with disinterested people: generally keeping in short and to the point, and understanding that they don't HAVE to like what we like, or understand WTF l334 5p34k is.

I do, however, find it infinitely amusing that my mother-in-law is an obsessive fangirl.

It's suddenly a whole lot easier to shop for her for Christmas ;)


(as a random note, I heard someone's grandparent was told that WTF stood for "Welcome to Facebook." I'm sorry, but that's just cruel and going to result in a LOT of confusion!)

Oh hai?

It happens to all of us at some points: our focus shifts away to other things, our time gets consumed with other activities, and things we used to do regularly fall by the wayside. Awkwardly, that has happened to me with all things WoW. I am still raiding and have no intention to stop, but my time outside has been eaten up by external activities. Nothing bad, nothing huge and life-altering, but simply is.

Just to reassure, I have no intention of stopping blogging. For those that don't already, I suggest using an rss-feed reader like Google Reader to keep up with updates :)


General Rambly Life Update:

My regret, though, is that it has put a halt to any amount of art I used to do. Once upon a time, I would make real paintings and colored-pencil sketches. I even did medieval scrollwork, though I used acrylics (I like Celtic knotwork, and silver paint is fun). As I got into photoshop, I started doing full digital paintings, though I never got anywhere near the level of the "super digital artists" like Meerkat or Sarah Ellerton, both of whom I admire for their skill and dedication--both of them inspired me at times.

Of course, you all know me for the stick figures I have posted on this blog: the rough and easy quick doodles that serve to illustrate important aspects of boss fights. That's most of what my art has amounted to in recent years, though I have spent time with larger art projects, like creating removable "stained glass" windows ~5' x 5' tall out of tissue paper and plastic dropcloth.

Seriously.


I idly wish I could get back into digital painting, maybe one day be able to match the skill of those who inspire me, but that's a time commitment I just don't have the time for. For now, I need to take one step at a time and at least provide some stick figs for all of you :)


WoW Stuff:

I'm enjoying raiding on my druid, still. While the daily quests have gotten dull and repetitive--irritating, really, for a mainspec healer, spending time raiding with my guild is what keeps me interested in the game. I will admit, though, to a certain hatred of heroic Chimaeron.

- Heroic Chim rant -

Chim is one of those gear-and-skill-check fights on heroic. Communication and very strict job assignments are required. For a tank, it's all about communication and cooldown timing. For a dps, it's a snooze-fest except to dps as hard as possible and group up periodically, aside a single dps-tank who has to fill an out-of-the-box taunting role and sometimes deal with popping survival cooldowns.

For a healer... it is an intense fight that requires complete focus and quick reaction times. But you can't rely on your usual reaction of "fill the bar, they're low health" or you'll go OoM: the healers have to train themselves to AVOID that reaction and rely purely on low-health debuffs. It's all in decision and assignments and making sure each healer does their job and can trust that the others will do their job, while at the same time keeping an eye out on boss timers and making that snap decision of "massacre inc, there are two with low-health, I need to help them now" and have pre-arranged with the other healer as to which person you will heal (by party and by top-to-bottom vs bottom-to-top).

Entire nights of this will leave a healer's brain the consistency of porridge. I'm not talking about that thick glop, either: I mean the kind where you accidentally poured in too much water and it's beginning to more resemble stew or even soup. It reached a point where running into the room, I would see Chimaeron snoozing there with his little green z's and my mind would fill with loathing, loathing for the pixels before me. Pyrecraw didn't help, pre-stack-nerf when we all had to rotate LoS to drop the flame buffet stacks, and that was just trash. I preferred playing with Nefarian and wiping to tailwhip+electrocute combos to dealing with H-Chim.

Now, my guild did kill H-Chim last night. I wasn't there, but my guildies got it. I haven't heard what loot dropped, but I am hoping and hoping it was a pair of uber-bracers for my fellow resto druid Herc (the guild's new healer recruit, who slipped in in spite of our hope to get a shammy or pally simply because he is so awesome). We have never seen a pair of epic leather bracers drop off of Chim so we've both still been rocking blues all this time.

- Bear, rawr? -

On a feral side, they have had me tank H-Halfus for a few kills. Me, in my mostly-blues tank kit. I had to completely remap some of my bear keys to allow for a quicker interrupt reactivity, and I had to huge-ify (yes, I claim that's a legitimate word) my quartz target cast bars to be able to make sure I didn't miss the casts that I needed to interrupt. I am currently running around specced as a healer primary, bear secondary, which as you can imagine makes dailies 'interesting.' It was a change of pace that I enjoyed, though. I have yet to tank a 5-man in the expansion, yet I have helped tank 10-man heroic raid bosses. Ha. Go me. I even managed to keep aggro off of our insane DPS. Scawwy bear-kae, rawr!



Yay, Puppy!

FLUFFY! She is about 75lbs (or more) and still likes to climb in laps. She spends lunchtime laid out across the couch, mostly in my husband's lap and sticking her paws and nose in my lap while we eat; being able to go home for an hour lunchbreak is a wonderful thing. She and I like going for walks around the local college campus, where she has been getting better about not trying to yank my arm off or digging through the landscaping to find all of the food the students like to leave laying around.

The leash-training and behavior training have been a weekly challenge as she is true to her breed: stubborn and independant, but with lots of positive reinforcement and treats, she is coming along well. I have taken to training her on a few sledding commands for left/right (haw/gee), though I am using an archery-range command of "hold" to get her to stop and freeze given that I want her responding to that command when she hears it around that range.

She enjoys campus more than our local neighborhood, as she gets to see lots of people, and many college students love seeing a friendly fluffy dog they can cuddle with.


I'm just waiting for the moment I try to give a raid direction in vent and say "gee" or "haw." It is bound to happen. -_-;

---

So, that's a quick update for those of you who have been worrying. I have been plotting for more stick-figure guides, just need to get around to doing them.

Remix

A sappy Valentine's Day song to my guildies: those current, those past, and those gone beyond the game, whether by choice or because they have moved on from this world.

VANILLA TWILIGHT... a raider's remix.

The heals hug round to kiss you
'Less I go LoS and miss you
Pour me a heavy dose of guild raiding
'Cause I'll pug 'round safe and soundly
But I'll miss your spells around me
I'd send a postcard to you, dears
'Cause I wish you were here

I'll watch the boss turn to goo
But it's not the same without you
Because it takes ten to go raid perfectly
The silence isn't so bad
'Til I look at my cursor and feel sad
'Cause the spaces between my grid frames
Are right where you fit perfectly

I'll find repose in new ways
Though I haven't raided in two days
'Cause cold nostalgia
Chills me to the bone
But drenched in a pixel twilight
I'll sit in Orgrimmar all night
Waist-deep in thought because
When I think of you I don't feel so alone
I don't feel so alone
I don't feel so alone

As many times as I blink
I'll think of you tonight
I'll think of you tonight

When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I'll get to raid and feel alive again
And I'll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won't forget you
Oh, if my voice could reach
Back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear
Oh guildies, I wish you were here


/end sappy song :)

Various Updates

So, I've gone through and did some updates to a couple mod posts:

• Power Auras settings
• IceHUD settings

I added a few to the power auras post and updated some of the screenshots. My raiding auras for specific boss abilities include a few I found useful in current Cataclysm raids, like Parasitic Infection. Following in Beru's footsteps, I also made a Chef's Hat aura because, well, raiding with a chef's hat on is bad. >_>


Archeology:

In other news, I got Tyrande's Plushie, and I looooove it. It was the 123 total NE artifact I created... that's a lot of surveying, but oh so worth it.

I haven't surveyed since then.




Efflorescence:

In terms of spec stuff, I have been following my combat log parses for a month or so now, and determined that efflorescence really makes me cry. The amount of healing it does, especially in a 10-man where we still have to spread out fairly often, is too weak compared to other talents I could spend points in.

So I dumped it back to 1/3 points and stuck the other two points in Genesis. Mmmm Genesis.


PuGs:

This was in regards to the last boss of Stonecore wiping out 3 people at once with a rock.

Some PuGs have made me whimper, others have made me laugh until my sides were splitting. It is comments like that that get me to join the dungeon finder each day when my guildies aren't always available.

Of course, there are still interesting things I start to notice after running an instance for the ten zillionth time.

Like this.



My husband pointed this one out to me during a half-pug daily heroic. It has resulted in me spending a lot of time staring at the instances now rather than at the party's health bars, in search of more interesting faces in the walls and floor... no one has died from it. Yet. :D

A New Expansion

I went and picked up my collector's edition during my lunch break, and took the soundtrack with me to listen to over the afternoon. There are some truly beautiful tracks, and as I type, I am listening to Nightsong and absolutely falling in love with it.



Beautiful. It resonated with some part of me, and called back to my mind my first character, my night elf druid, Kae. That emotional tie I have to her as a character, my concept of her, my experiences with her from the early days tumbling off of Teldrassil's branches all the way to her first piece of T1 cenarian, when she ran around with leafy shoulders and deer antlers, up to her last raids facing off against the waves of undead in ancient Hyjal. Her home, Moonglade, and her heart, the Emerald Dream.

While that particular character is but an alt now, the flood of memories is still present and washing over me, very much a part of my experience and history in the lore-rich world of Azeroth. It is an appropriate time to look back over the past expansions and our experiences with the game, just as we look forward to the new Cataclysm. What will Cataclysm bring us, as players? What will it bring you?

I look forward to:

• exploring the new zones and incorporating new abilities into my hybrid toolset.
  
• the challenge of having mana problems while healing.
• having to make triage decisions again in 5-man instances.
• having to worry about aggro, and CC, and positioning again, as that difficulty makes for an enjoyable challenge.
  
• experiencing the wonder of exploring new zones and new dungeons, and new raids with the friends I have made across the world.
  
• my worgen alt, my love of wolves and wish for playable worgen finally realized.
• playing again with friends who had left Azeroth behind, but are returning to see the expansion. Friends who had brought me to Azeroth in the first place, all those years ago, and helped baby Kae learn to love this game.

Whether you're already playing around in the expansion or patiently awaiting your copy and the freetime to play it, I wish you a fun and enjoyable expansion.

Linkage: Fun Times

Between a lack of things to really occupy me in-game and a sudden pull into a co-op NaNo, I haven't had much to write about that is druidy, lately. No, my writing time has been thoroughly engrossed elsewhere, for the time being. For fun, though, I have compiled a list of links to all the wonderful things that have made me seriously LOL over the past couple weeks.

Enjoy.

• In Case of Emergency....
• Beware of Writer
• Dogs Don't Understand the Concept of Moving
• Buffering.
• ALAMO teech a CATTAKISSEM
• The Muggles KNOW!
• FYI: Rouge is not Rogue
  

And for just the awesomeness that is this mashup:

How Not to Plagiarize

This post is in solidarity for my tree-buddy Keeva.

Plagiarism is defined as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work."

Example:

I wrote this all by myself. It is entirely my own work. Though, to cover my ass, I might claim there is some tiny chance someone somewhere in the world might have written this before me, verbatim. Just like monkeys with a type writer pummeling out Shakespeare. Great excuses to use if you are caught stealing 1. It was meant to be private but I made it public by accident. 2. It was meant as placeholder text, it was a draft, I was going to change it (I don’t know why it said “I wrote this guide”). 3. Who’s to say what’s original on the internet, anyway? We all use the same words, it’s inevitable that we will accidentally use the same ones sometimes. 4. We came up with exactly the same idea, with exactly the same wording. Weird huh??? 5. Someone else did something bad so why am I in trouble for this? 6. English isn’t my first language, I copied because I am not good at writing things from scratch. 7. Someone sent this to me, I didn’t know it was someone else’s work! 8. I was going to give credit, you just didn’t give me a chance!

That is plagiarism. I copy-pasted it from Keeva's site and then claimed I wrote it myself.
That is also what is known as a LIE.

Now, if I wanted to use her content in an honest manner without having to re-write the concepts in my own words, I would do it like this:

The following is from Keeva at TBJ: Great excuses to use if you are caught stealing 1. It was meant to be private but I made it public by accident. 2. It was meant as placeholder text, it was a draft, I was going to change it (I don’t know why it said “I wrote this guide”). 3. Who’s to say what’s original on the internet, anyway? We all use the same words, it’s inevitable that we will accidentally use the same ones sometimes. 4. We came up with exactly the same idea, with exactly the same wording. Weird huh??? 5. Someone else did something bad so why am I in trouble for this? 6. English isn’t my first language, I copied because I am not good at writing things from scratch. 7. Someone sent this to me, I didn’t know it was someone else’s work! 8. I was going to give credit, you just didn’t give me a chance!

That was copying another's work, but not claiming it as your own. It even helpfully linked the source to give proper credit. That is okay.

See the difference?

I'm sure most of you do. Because most people reading this blog aren't thieving idiots with no concept of what "your own words" means. If you want to claim something is your own work, then it better be your own work. People are more likely to respect you if you just say "hey, I got this content from this source," than to discover you're a liar and a thief. Sources. Cite them. Link them. Don't claim it your own if it's not.

/end rant.






Hey look, a puppy.

A Mashup of Commentary

A bunch of topics that I don't really feel like making separate posts for.

CATACLYSM

• CATA TALENTS: the talent tree for resto is still confusing me, with its tendency towards dps talents. The feral tree is nicely straight-forward and I can put a build together without issue, but the resto tree is not nearly so cut-and-dry in terms of talents. I think much of this stems from not knowing exactly what to expect with mana management and spell use, as well as time available for DPS (regardless of free wraths).

• CATA GUILD RECRUITENT: I've noticed a lot of people apping specifically to join a guild for the expansion, rather than for current raiding. I have a bit of advice: if you're going to play as a different character for Cataclysm (or are willing to level and play a different character as a main), make sure you SAY that in your application so that the guild can plan around that class and role, rather than your current main. Linking to your current main is only useful in terms of showing off the care you give to your gear, spec, and reputation-grinding.
  

LIFE

• SAWMILL: I went to a sawmill late last week. Live, operational, industrial sawmill. I watched as trees were methodically turned to lumber. The resto druid in me was screaming... but I couldn't hear her over the earplugs necessary to protect my ears from the screech of metal on wood. I did have a philosophic moment as I watched a tree be quickly decimated into boards, scrap, and sawdust that this was much like what Blizzard was doing with current resto druids: cutting it down, slicing it apart, making it something that looks visually nothing like the treeform it once was.
  

• BIRTHDAYS: It was my birthday over the weekend... went to dinner on Saturday with Kitarha to one of those hibachi grill places. The grill table we sat at had not one but two other birthdays, and we heard at least 4 other birthday song-and-cakes go out (not all birthdays buy this special treatment, either). In addition, I shared my own birthday cake on Friday night with 2 other birthdays. It makes me empathize a bit with twins and kids who have their birthdays over the winter holidays. It steals the specialness of your birthday. You're just another one littering the weekend, unremarkable, overdone, "lol what was in the water 9 months ago."
  

• PUPPY: River had her first dog-to-dog socialization over the weekend, and did well. She also met a bunch of "the college kids" whose common exclamation over her was "FLUFFY!" I left the camera at home because I didn't want to risk it getting lost or damaged in the rush of dogs (and wanted my full attention on her rather than taking photos), but I'll try to remember to bring it to her next playdate.

MOVIES

• OLD MOVIES: Last Dragon and Gymkata are more bearable than Zardoz. One word: mankini.

• NEW MOVIES: Legend of the Guardians was cute and decently done. As a "kid's movie," it couldn't really delve too deeply on topics it skirted around... an adult/teen version would actually do well. As an adaptation from the books, it did well in cutting out a lot of the slow parts that I thought unnecessary, but it took some liberties and shortcuts I was upset with given how short the film itself was. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:
  1. It took two completely different, rival factions and merged them into one conglomeration (St. Aggies and the Pure Ones were mashed together). While it worked, more or less, it was a surprise and forced several of the plot changes.
     
  2. It made Kludd out to be nicer than he was supposed to be. He PUSHED SOREN (and later, Eglantine) out of the tree AS A SACRIFICE to the Pure Ones... he didn't fall with him and it wasn't an accident. Kludd was never kidnapped. He also tried to kill Mrs. Plithiver when she refused to stay silent about him pushing his siblings out of the nest. He also WAS Metalbeak. Kludd was evil from the start.
     
  3. Otulissa was underdeveloped, as was the training at Ga'Hoole which was completely understated; they could easily have added that time to what was a short movie.
     
  4. What happened to the entire Collier chaw? That whole firestorm thing was something Ezylryb trained Soren and Otulissa to do, among others: they collected coals for the Blacksmiths.
     
  5. Ummmmmmm wtf was up with the magnetism? It's just MAGNETISM. It's not visible. It attracts metal and messes with the owls' navigation and makes them woozy/disoriented. It's. Not. Visible. In addition, the vampire bats were just around to drain the St. Aggies owls to make them weak and unwilling to try to fly: they were not warriors with their own metal weapons (they also just ignored the whole plot point about metal and magnetism when it came to the movie-bats' weapons).
     
  6. If I'm remembering right, Soren's parents "vanished" (aka killed). IIRC, it was hinted that they were killed by Kludd himself. They certainly did not magically show up at the Ga'Hoole tree after months of their childrens' disappearance and say "oh we were so worried about you!"
     
  7. I was disappointed that they didn't include Madame Plonk; I was looking forward to hearing their adaptation of the Taps song she sings at the Ga'Hoole tree, with the harp the nestmaid snakes play. It was, possibly, the part I was looking forward to the most. I think it was also what was supposed to help cure Eglantine's moonblinking.
     
  8. WTH did they do to Twilight? In the books, he was harsh, he was strong, he was violent, and he certainly did not have a lute. He was a warrior who happened to sing war songs in combat out of ego and as a tactic to confuse and inflame his enemies. At least, that was always my impression of him: a world-hardened young owl, not a showy (and bad) bard.
     
  9. ....echidna? Hello, puffin-replacing movie plot device that makes me /facepalm. The crow mob got nuetered from the true danger it was supposed to be, and they certainly didn't know any nuerotic echidna-sages.
     

Okay, I think that's everything for now :)

Currently Listening To: Linkin Park - The Catalyst

What is the iconic girl gamer?

Let's take a moment to look at some female heroes.

• Belle. Beautiful bookworm wishing to get out from under society's expectations of her, loyal and brave in the face of gloom and danger, self-sacrificing for the sake of her family, and empathetic to the plights of monsters though ultimately weak and human, herself.
  
• Mulan. Beautiful klutz wishing to get out from under society's expectations of her, loyal and brave in the face of gloom and danger, self-sacrificing for the sake of her family (and friends), picking up martial activities, and with a failed attempt at mascarading as a man before she was "true to herself." Saves her country.
  
• Lara Croft. Strong, beautiful tomb raider, confident, deadly, and powerful. Barbie mixed with Indiana Jones, and given a darker pallet to add to a mysterious and dangerous glamor. Saves the world and hunts for shinies.
  
• Buffy Summers. Strong, beautiful vampire slayer, deadly and powerful. A teen Barbie who kicks ass and bridges the cheerleader-geek gap. She is supported by lots of other likeable female characters (a favorite being Willow), and saves the world. Repeatedly.
  

These 4 are the best female role models I got from story media (movies, TV, games) while I was growing up in the 90's, and the most memorable. They all broke the stereotype of the female side-kick or love interest: they were the main character, and they broke from what their society viewed as traditional female roles while retaining their feminism. They all told me that I didn't have to be the tomboy I was in the 80's who would rather watch teenage mutant ninja turtles and play army men, super mario, and sonic the hedgehog than my-little-ponies: I could just be me, I could be a girl who wasn't a high-heel-wearing princess whose only conflict was who to invite to the dinner party and how to attract a boy with my poofy hair (as was the 80's view on beauty).

"Create your own character" games that allowed me to play as a female reinforced this: Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Dungeons & Dragons. In creating my own strong female character, I helped define who I wanted to become, and that it was okay to be a girl without being "girly."


It's Okay to Game

This is, in my opinion, what being a girl gamer is about: breaking conformity and embracing your true self. That it's okay to fight for what you beleive in. That it's okay to be the hero. That you can be strong and beautiful without being a helpless damsel in distress. You can save the world without being a sidekick. If you want to do it in hiking boots or stilleto heels is up to you: just be yourself. That guys will still be interested in you even though you can speak your mind, and sometimes speak it through a Sniper scope in Unreal Tournament or a huge sword as you cleave through pixel-dragons.


On Beauty

Now, there is one other thing that these heroine images all share: beauty. This is a conformity that they retain, that of the idealized, perfect, super-model imagery. I don't think that it's just because the marketers want to appeal to male audiences as well: is it really any different than the Barbie dolls and Cinderella beauty stereotype? "You must look like this and go get married!" That stuff *IS* marketed directly for girls, rather than to both genders.

Many male role-model images are the same way: you must be handsome, fit, strong, and go save the world to get the girl. You must be exceptionally smart, confident, and/or have a great sense of humor: all things desired by potential mates.

Why? The Disney theme: "to find the one you love and get married and live happily ever after." After saving the world or overcoming a curse or bewitchment, in the case of some. Love is the ultimate goal of most, which biologically makes sense, as it benefits survival of the species, especially a species that requires such a time commitment to raising its offspring. The fact that appearance plays a part in selection is not incidental, and that's an aspect that overcomes society's gender-specific strictures on behavior and place. So, while stories of heroes and heroines can be breaking a society's traditions of a gender role, general beauty or handsomeness is one thing that is rarely degraded in its heroes and heroines.

Exceptions are stories like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera, where beauty is found in other ways, but can ultimately be viewed as tragedies rather than stories about role model heroes.

The unfortunate aspect of these beauty-based ideals is that relatively few girls can attain them without a) destroying their health or b) photoshop. Programs like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty are designed to lessen the impact of the media and advertisements on girls' self-image, and many of the beauty images found in role models are less extreme than those found in model magazines and photoshopped ads.

While physical beauty seems to be important in role models, absolute physical perfection it is not the ultimatum for success or being a role model. Taking care of oneself and others, and having the self-sufficiency and confidence to protect those you love overshadows simple looks; beauty itself goes beyond the physical and into the realm of how these role models act and feel about themselves.

Regardless, some amount of physical beauty stems from physical fitness. While gaming in itself is not a very cardiovascular activity, we appreciate the fitness of those capable of pulling off the feats we accomplish in-game. Though some may not be able to do a roundhouse kick or run for miles without breaking a sweat, they wouldn't play it if they didn't, somehow, wish that they could.

(FYI, I am envious of parkour runners)


The Avatar

So many of our avatars are aesthetically pleasing. Some few may choose to be the wrinkle-faced gnome or decrepit undead or snaggle-toothed, snarling orc, but generally speaking, most females would rather have an avatar that looks nice. It is either a reflection of what they want to be, what they are comfortable being, or a mask to hide beneath.

The avatar itself is also, in most cases, physically fit. How else would they have the stamina to run from hither and yon, fighting dragons or aliens or enemy soldiers without so much as getting a blister?

These things lend themselves to girls recreating themselves in their avatars to match their role models, in physical ways they may feel they can't otherwise attain. Like the clutz who can't do a cartwheel is on her avatar doing loops in the air, or wall-jumping to reach a special power-up. While character and animated role models aid in providing that super-human image a gamer can mimic, seeing living-flesh role models who can do these things and still enjoy the gaming as a hobby serves as an inspiration to get up and try: try to become more fit, have more confidence in themselves, and generally become more healthy.

Of course, this in turn often results in sayings such as "do not try this at home." :) Those words are usually directed at the boys, but it's a good danger warning to females, too.


The Iconic Girl Gamer, for GIRLS

There are, I think, two kinds of girl gamer: the expressive, and the practical. The expressive is more flashy in dress and makeup, while the practical is more subdued, but both are likely to bear some form of peraphanalia/imagery from a favorite game or subject (fangirlism) rather than simple and meaningless patterns, flowers, or solids.

If I were to create some sort of pro-gamer-girl icon, it would be something to this effect:

• Good-looking, fit, aesthetically pleasing
  
• Confident
• Self-sufficient
  
• Nurturing, empathic: feminine ideals that are contrary to the competitive nature of most games, but are not impossible to reconcile as many games are also team-based.
  
• Practical or comfortable clothing with subtle imagery suggesting a game or geekery (to cover most bases, digital imagery ala "digital angel" would probably work best)
• Maintains feminimity in form, shape, and pose

... without being overly sexual. Once she gets suggestive, she becomes marketed for men, or rather for fantasies. I don't think it's much different for guys, either, though: if a male's image is sexually suggestive, he's being marketed for private fantasies and not as a role model. Once you cross a certain threshold of sexual suggestiveness, leaving what is appropriate in public, they leave the realm of role model.

While role models inherently portray sexual appeal, it is idealized and publicly permissible. The threshold must be maintained in order for the heroine to remain her place as a role model rather than as a marketing slut.

So, that is my long-winded ramble on being a girl gamer and the role models that support it. It started as a reply to Keredria's post on the Geek and Gamer Girls parody video, and ended up consuming my morning. Whoot.

On Limited Spots

So, let's step back and talk generic for a moment. Say you're organizing something without getting paid to do it. It takes a lot of time and effort, and involves a good number of helpers (officers, staff, whatever) who are also unpaid in order to get your "program" off the ground.

Due to space, you can only accept a certain number of participants.

Now, say your "program" has become insanely popular. You're successful, you're doing something people love, and you suddenly have a "wait list" of people all wanting into those limited spots. This is pretty ideal, as far as the program's success is concerned.

But... those participants who are left out start to whine. They don't want to be on the wait list. For whatever reason, you can't fit them in, and darn it if they aren't going to try every trick in the book to figure out how to get in.


A few things I have seen:

• Begging. (This runs the gamut from polite "please?" to full out drama-queens that say you're ruining the life of them/their family/their friends)
  
• Offering bribes.
  
• Harassing the volunteers working for you (begging or generally being a nuisance).
  
• Threatening to tell others not to attend your event or threatening to get others to leave.
  
• Insulting the organizer's "business skills" for not providing enough space for them.
• Threatening to get the organizer fired "and you'll be jobless and homeless and never work in this field again!" (....these people don't realize that it's volunteer)
• Threatening to set up an even better version that will steal people away from yours (have fun organizing it and getting all the volunteers you need, dude!)... and then, when you appear unphased by that "threat," they then ask for all of your notes and contacts on how you developed your program/event, as well as for your help in doing it (wait, wut?).
  

This happens with shows. This happens with conventions. This happens with banquets. This happens with camps. This happens with MMO raids; it happens for raiding slots on the roster itself. You know what? If your program has a first-come, first-serve policy, if you showed up late to registration or your raid, tough luck, try to get in next time. Or if it has requirements and a ranking system preferential to the best applicants/participants (including hardcore guilds and competitions), oh well: try harder to improve before you come around again. The world doesn't revolve around a single person: it's a group effort, and others want that spot just like you do.

The most outrageous (and hilarious) that I have seen is one from outside of the game, where a mother threatened to drop her child off at an event that had no further registration space and said "there won't be anything you can do about it!".... to which the organizer calmly quoted her the phone number for Child Protective Services, as 'they are usually involved in cases of child abandonment.'

Yep.

In the case of a recurring event, rotation can be set up (such as we often see in WoW raids): those on the previous event's wait-list may get priority on sign-ups for the next event. This, of course, can only work to a point: the person still needs to actually sign up and submit all appropriate paperwork (medical documents, bio forms, payment, etc). Showing up unannounced to the limited event because you think you're entitled to a spot just means you'll get embarrassment; the best you can do is to just be available on a wait list and ready to hop in if a spot opens up. Going around saying you're going to an event when you haven't even been invited/listed/registered is also a sure way to get embarrassed.


I will say this, though:
Being polite, helpful, and understanding will get you much further than being a PitA.


So, limited spots: acknowledge them. Apply for those spots following the rules set out by the leadership. If you missed out, don't be a pain about it... especially if it's being run by volunteers who aren't getting paid to put up with BS.




Disclaimer: no, this wasn't sparked by anything from my current raiding situation :) breath easy, my guildies!

Semi-OT: Requiring a Data Plan?

I read a news article yesterday that said,

Quote: “As instructors, it might behoove us to take a look at whether we want to require a hardcover textbook or a data plan [for phones],” he said. “It’s not going to work on every subject, and it’s not going to work in every department, but we need to look at it.”

This set my mind churning.

First, a bit on my perspective:

I work at a major university. I am a gamer, as well, who happens to dislike using cell phones because they are noisy, distracting, and demand your immediate attention. They are also very audio-centric, which doesn't mix well with my heavy preference for writing and visuals: I want to type and read, not listen. I will confess that, out of my phone-hating bias, that I didn't bother TRYING to learn how to send a text message on my phone until I was sitting bored in a car in a parking lot 5 months ago, and only did so because I knew it would be text-based.

I am an odd mix, certainly: a (relatively) young phone-hating gamer who works in distance learning at a university. I can respect that phones have their ingrained place in the American society, however, given the way that they interconnect people in places where a computer's internet access isn't assured. When it comes to learning, connectivity is key.


Requiring a data plan??

Why would a college instructor do this, specifically, for their class?

• They themselves are heavy phone users
• The school is in an area with good cell phone signal
• The curriculum doesn't require a lot of software programs that a phone would be unable to run
• There is no guaranteed wireless connection around campus/dorms/where-ever the class may be spread, as may be the case with a school spread through a town
  

What is a data plan but an internet connection for your phone? Am I perhaps spoiled by living in an area where students are all given great wireless access for their laptops, with a centralized campus and a wireless signal expanding even to the bus system?

To be honest, if I were ever confronted by an instructor who told me I have to get a data plan for my phone in order to retreive online class materials, I would balk. For one thing, I would have to get a new phone that would allow me to type better. And a larger screen that could reasonably read the websites without converting it all into ugly chunks of plain text with horrible formatting. And a better scrolling option. And I'd have to remember to charge it and take it with me every where. And I'd wonder why my teacher is so interested in being able to send me emails or class announcements while I'm out on Friday night with friends.

At that point, I would say, "A laptop would serve me better. Why is a laptop with internet access not enough? Why should I get a phone data plan instead?"


Anti-Phone

Some may argue that it'd not be a big leap to require a data plan, "Everyone already has a phone, and most already have a data plan." I'd have to argue against this. I was forced to get a cellphone by my then-fiancee during college because of safety reasons: I was doing field work and he wanted me to be able to call out if there was an emergency. As someone who enjoys backpacking, I couldn't argue with his reasoning. Within the first year, though, I lost it down a hole in a huge field while doing soil sampling. I still go camping and expect my cell phone to be a durable, rugged, preferably water-proof lifeline to emergency services. A blackberry is unlikely to survive me very long. (EDIT: Rhii tells me Blackberries aren't the delicate flowers I make them out to be. :) I stand corrected.)

Aside anti-phone wierdos like me, there are those who can't afford one, or can't afford the data plan. Locking an international student into a phone plan for the sake of making sure they can check email on the sidewalk just makes me squirm. Buying textbooks for a class is painful enough, but at least a $80-$160 book (and that's on the high end) for one class is cheaper than a $60/month data plan for dealing with heavy email attachments and web use. A class that doesn't need a textbook would otherwise be a financial breathing point, saving the student money, but instead it would be filled with an even more expensive data plan.

This is in addition to the basic computer requirement held by any major university, because a phone's not going to be able to run the necessary software to create presentations, spreadsheets, or term papers. There are also special software packages like AutoCAD, ArcGIS, and Photoshop and design studios. Some classes/programs even require Tablets.

Why not a laptop? Laptops come in all sizes and power, and can have internet access of their own. Computers are required for most American college students, anyway. You can get a cheapo word-processing, internet-browsing laptop for the same price or less as that little iPhone, and it'll still weigh less than most text books. You can get a decent laptop and use it for internet access, while it can also run programs you want/need (like if I want to play WoW while sitting in a cafeteria), both in the classroom and for recreation.


I don't like it.

I'm not saying that there aren't some people who like data plans for their phone; there are certainly some out there who find it more convenient to have a pocket-sized web browser. Being able to price-check or look up reviews while standing in the store is always a bonus.

REQUIRING a student to get a data plan for a phone (when some may not even have a phone) for a class, however, is a little extreme, given the current cost compared to already having a computer requirement.

So, I guess I'm just left baffled. As time goes on, phones and laptops are becoming more similar, and the lines between them are blurring. Requiring a student to have both with internet access for the sake of a single class just seems like asking too much, financially. I just can't understand the reasoning of requiring, specifically, a phone data plan for a class that will span all of 3 months, when a student may instead prefer to keep their internet access mobile via a laptop.

So I'm throwing this out there. I know we, as gamers, tend to rely much more heavily on having a good, strong computer: do you have a data plan on your phone, too? Is it used enough to be worth the money you spend? If you were a cash-strapped college student who had to buy a laptop for a whole degree program and were then asked by a single class to also get a phone data plan, would you complain, or think it unfair to those students without data plans already?

Or, perhaps, is the quoted person assuming that the student won't have a computer? Have I been spoiled in my perspective by the computer requirements at my own and other major universities? (EDIT: the quoted person's university has computer requirements, as well!).

I think that rather than requiring a data plan, the class should simply require reliable internet access.

The problem with "Kae"

No, this isn't a problem with me personally. Or my character. This is about my name.

I love my name. I think it looks pretty, and it's short and easy to say (though admittedly I did take much humor when the greeks I used to play with pronounced it as "Kai")... but there is a glaring problem with the name.

"K" is used a lot. A lot a lot. It's an affirmative sound tossed all over voice chat, both as "okay" and as the shortened "k." You can imagine the difficulties this can cause for a Kae.

• "Okay." "What?"
• "K?" "....wait, what?"
• "Mmkay." "Sorry, I missed that, did you need me to do something?"
• (chorus of affirmative "k"'s resounds through the channel) "WHAT?!"

I have been Kae for 5 years now, and I still do double-takes at some vent conversations. You know how you start to tune out and focus on what you're doing when you know a conversation is not about you, but then you hear your name and snap back to the conversation to figure out what's going on? Oh yes. Kae does that a lot. I have had to train myself to figure out quickly if it was my name or not, which is no easy task for someone like me who is a heavily tactile/visual learner!

Take-away lesson from this is, I suppose, that you should be careful when choosing your name to make sure the sound of it isn't used heavily in conversations, especially if it is short.





And by posting this, I know some of my guildies will probably start messing with my head in ventrilo on purpose for the next few weeks. I will pre-emptively state this to those that are already grinning to themselves about it: "I HATECHU!"

Offtopic: Directoring

So, as some of you know, I spend quite a bit of my free time that isn't consumed by WoW with volunteering for Girl Scout camps. The biggest of these is a week-long resident camp that I'm now deputy-director of, and is starting in about a week and a half.

Needless to say, it is ze crunch time.

Some of the things that I have spent my spare time on lately:

• Creating a detailed class plan for the wildlife science class activity
• Organizing a guest speaker (with real animals)
• Chasing down other volunteers that need to touch base and turn in paper work
• Researching suggestions for those activities that haven't bothered to come up with a plan yet (/facepalm)
• Testing out possible last-minute activities (I made a tiny hand-molded clay dragon this weekend)
  
• Working on props and necessary signage
• Creating cool little gifts for the 20 girls that I am the unit director for
• Touching base with my own unit staff to assign them to different groups of campers
  
• Figuring out how to fit my assigned programs' material purchases into the very limited budget
  
• Creating a "camp tour" and rules guide for the staff to walk their groups through on the first day to make sure everything is covered
• Reminding campers about space limitations and "YOU MAY NOT BRING" items on their packing lists
• Proof-reading emails being sent back and forth between director and volunteers and parents
• Watching the weather forecast and trying to pick a good night to take a small group of them for a night under the stars
• Keeping the head director from completely loosing her head and exploding before camp even starts
• Consuming fudge and cookies at an alarming rate.

When you're in charge, things are always popping up: problems, research, etc. Any good guild officer can relate to this :)

Sheesh...

I get swamped for a weekend and then get sick and pass out for a day and look what happens...

Not sure what to think, yet.

Gonna go get some tea, and probably pass out for another day.

Security Shot in the Back

Why are so many people concerned about their online presence being linked to their real identity?

For myself, it is one major, glaring issue:

I don't trust EVERYONE.

This is different from saying "I don't trust anyone." If I don't trust anyone, then I don't trust my husband, or my mother, or my friends, or my cat who I do talk to about random things as if she can understand everything I say. No, not trusting everyone means that I can trust some people, but I don't trust every single person that might happen across my blog or forum post via links or web searches. There are some seriously insane people out there who go on murderous rampages--or stalkings or harassment--over perceived wrongs online. And it is disturbingly easy to find out information once you have a name... seriously, google yourself. It's good to know where your name pops up and how easy it is to find info about you (BTW, thank you Averna for linking over to that post, it is priceless).
The vast majority of people are ones I wouldn't care about having them know who I am. Those few that would do evil things with the information frighten me into a little ball of paranoia.

I do use RealID for chatting with a few close friends, but this is very different.


Security in Anonymity

I can understand the argument that removing anonymity will result in accountability for one's actions and speech, and in doing so, result in fewer jerks saying things just to get a rise out of people (there will still be some who troll anyway, of course). Hiding behind a level 1 alt won't work anymore: everyone will have to say what they feel with their name tagged to it. Sure, that's all well and good until they are stalked down for voicing their opinion. Even if the vast majority of people are good at heart (or at least abiding by some morals or self-preservation against jail time), that small percentage of the population that are driven to evil acts are enough to cause trouble, sacrificing their future to cause harm to others... and when they know a real name, and can hunt down work and home addresses, it can spill over from what would be online harassment into physical harassment or violence.

That is the benefit of anonymity. The web is a huge communications network, spanning the globe and overcoming time with its ability to store entries until they're deleted, each piece a footprint left behind by the person who posted it, fossilizing if forgotten, until someone stumbles upon it again while digging through your website or web searches. The immense number of people it reaches is far greater than a local newspaper or school flier. WoW itself is only a portion of that enormity, but it is still a large number of people around the globe. We've already seen cases where something as simple as stating one's like for bacon resulted in a threat against the opinionator's family.

Not all "trolls" will go to this extent. It's a relatively tiny amount of the population that will do these horrific acts, and a relatively tiny amount who are victims. There ARE victims, though. Is it worth playing those odds when you have your opinion voiced to the world?


Protection?

What do you tell the police? "Hey, there's some crazy guy on the internet that's threatening my family." Pretty much, that is all you can do. The internet is still new enough that policy for policing it is still being hashed out, and threats (or even bullying) on the internet have resulted in a huge demand for what are limited resources for policing (nevermind the international boundaries it so easily crosses!). Once things spill over into the physical world, it's much easier to police, but too often it seems to be too late. Beyond the physical, though, even the mental/social jabs can be devastating for some people. I watched a news report not long ago about a girl who committed suicide over bullying on the internet, and I know hers was not a unique case.


Professional "Backlash"

In addition to the more worrisome security issues, there are the more prevalent work-related backlashes. For some bizarre reason, media and society have labeled gaming as a negative thing (I expounded on this topic earlier), stemming from the few cheetoh-encrusted stereotypes living in their mother's basement contributing "nothing" to society, or those few cases where a demented kid went gun-crazy at school and also happened to like playing games Grand Theft Auto or Counter Strike (or even if there wasn't evidence that the maniac played games like that, people will still blame the games). Gaming, as a hobby, is often looked down upon or sneered at by employers to the same extent as having photos of drunken antics publicly viewable. It's not viewed as "professional" or "conventional."

I'm lucky that I work for people who are more likely to bring a Wii into the office than hold gaming against a person, but I know not every office is like that.

As much as it pains me to say, there are simply some professions and employers who will hold it against a potential employee when hiring to find their name posting to a game forum, or against a current employee when it comes to promotions, or even just firing them outright. Even if it's illegal for them to bias against such a hobby, they may still do it "for the company's image," etc. Productivity is called into question, while other hobbies that can be just as (if not more) time-consuming or exhaustive are ignored or applauded. Right or wrong, it does happen. Several other bloggers have already commented on their concern over this particular topic.

In some cases, the player may actually be famous (or infamous) outside of the game. Their ability to become a part of the crowd may be exactly what draws them to the game. Once that is taken away from them, can they really continue to play?


What of Blizzard's Decision?

There is no easy answer to the issue. Trolls will run rampant where there is anonymity, but anonymity also provides a security for the innocent. Are Blizzard's steps towards removing anonymity a right choice? Is this a test run in a large setting, to see what needs to be done to provide protection in a world-wide scale where differing views on religion, race, gender, lifestyle, economic standing, and even diet (the game itself makes a crack at PETA) have sparked physical violence? If it works out, will we see steps taken towards removing anonymity in other games and forums across the internet?

...will someone's hacked account start spewing trollish onto the forums?

...will recruitment more easily pry into a person's real life to judge their worthiness?

...will the game no longer be an escape from reality, at least where the forums and Real_ID are concerned? Will it stop there?

...will similar be enabled when pugging, to stop the cesspit of cruelty that so many groups often become?

...will most people stop posting to the forums completely, even if they have constructive things to offer, out of fear of loosing their secure anonymity? (Lissanna, IceDragon?)

...will fewer people say "girls don't play WoW" after seeing all the feminine names popping up on the forums from those bold enough to do so? Or will many females be more likely to avoid posting simply to hide their gender from the wider community?


Whatever does happen, this is certainly a bold step, given the size of the game's client base and forum useage. If it were JUST to kill the trolls, they could have instated a policy that makes users post under the name of the character they have the highest time-played on that entire account (for that particular game, if a game-specific forum)... just one, single, static character name. But they didn't choose that route.

It makes me wonder why they decided to do this.


"Opt out."

I hope that RealID names are removed from being accessible by addon scripts. I hope there may be a check beyond parental controls that opts for anonymity, flagging you with your top character name rather than your real name. I hope that Blizzard isn't being tempted to these actions by the over-zealous owner of Facebook who seems to believe for some reason that everyone should throw their identity out to the whole world, privacy and security be damned.

I hope it doesn't go further without extreme restrictions being placed upon the security, with the default being an "opt-out" rather than an opt-in.

The forums have been one of the most useful places to go for technical support, but players are less likely to post their problems if their name is attached publicly to it. While it is optional, this change will result in a widespread loss of good guides and the variety of tech-support possibilities.

Recruitment can find new avenues, at least, and very likely will settle onto one of the more popular fansites as the "go-to" for recruitment posting: if an interface like the old World-of-Raids recruitment system is redeveloped, it would probably be extremely popular.

In the meantime, I suggest reconsidering your passwords to your account's email address (16+ characters with numbers, symbols, and caps/lower all included), and getting an authenticator if for some bizarre reason you still haven't purchased one. If your security is going to be questioned, at least put some of these walls up.

---

A few links to some other good posts on this topic that I haven't already linked:

• Variant Avatar, mentioning several different aspects of how this impacts the community
• Too Many Annas, which also suggests some ways you can let Blizzard know you don't approve (just in case they do decide to change their minds)
• Murloc Parliament, on how it's further limiting the players who will post on the forums (with an amusing representation of a troller before and after)
  

How to Bump *THREADS* with Style

*edit: Calla, get your head out of the gutter ;)

Recruitment is a big deal these days. It's the doldrums of WotLK, as content stalls and eyes focus ahead to an unreleased expansion pack; some players loose interest, some just have a change of summer plans, some graduate and have to completely change their lives. It's expected.

Of course, with that, comes a slew of recruitment posts on forums, which have to be repetitively bumped back to the first page of a forum to ensure maximum advertisement. This is referred to as "bumping."

My guild is one of these forum recruiters.

Now, I have a strange kind of honor upon myself to be creative in my bump posts. It feels like spam to just bump a thread for the sake of bumping. Posting filler content to bump a post to the top of a forum feels like downright cheating. Examples include:

• Bump
• /bump
• Up
• up!
  
• .
• ..
• ...
• bump bump
• bump!
• And every other variation of these in repetition, punctuation, and capitalization.
  

Yes, Scythe, I AM LOOKING AT YOU.

So, when I get a poke from my guild to go help bump the recruitment threads, I take a moment to consider what I'm going to write. Some examples:

• "Dot dot dot" Scythe? Moar DOTS! :3
• I'm here cuz Scythe made me do it. /ducks
• I'd shapeshift out of tree to cast more moonfare, but then people might die and that'd be bad.
• AH! Loud noises! I wonder if sound can travel through a pally bubble?
• Moo! Moo, I say, Moo!
• <---spends more time ARGIEING about bumping threads than actually bumping them. Just sayin'.
• Yellow leaves flash by;
  A punch as I run in: rawr!
  Rabid melee tree.
  
• Vroom vroom kitty kitty with a pretty post!
  Zippy zippy tru da forum
  Scythe's done bumps da most!
  Shifty shifty CAPS LOCK I CANS SINGS A SONG
  Here's hoping they aren't scared away
  As I sing it all day long!

Come on... how many recruitment threads sing for their potential applicants?

Now, there are bonuses to this: it keeps you and your guild entertained while doing what would otherwise be an excessively boring chore of thread-bumping. It also gives your potential applicants a glimpse at your guild's personality: their ability to write legibly, their creativity, their typos or use of l33t 5p34k, and how formal or joking they are with each other.


BTW, we're recruiting a healer (sham/pally) and a melee dps (rogue/shaman) for 10-strict raiding, 11/12 hardmodes. ;) If you are interested, clicky here to app!

Society and Life: Gaming and Alternatives

Beru asked a question yesterday that I've been pondering on, myself, for a long while now:

What would you do if you didn't play WoW?

The answer is, for me at least, the same things I do now:

• Yardwork and housework (cleaning up after hubby and pets)
• Play with pets
  
• Volunteer Scout stuff (developing a short summer camp)
• Read fantasy/sci-fi and the occasional hiker/backpacker novel
• Watch TV
• Find games to play when I get (quickly) tired of the non-interactive TV, preferably ones I can play cooperatively with friends.
  
• Hang out with my equally quiet and domestic friends for movies, crafts, and RPGs.
  

....except that I'd be missing out on time spent chatting or experiencing a virtual environment with in-game friends I've known for anywhere from a couple months to 6+ years. I'd replace it with more of the above. Or I'd find another cooperative game that I can play with my friends... and do you know how hard it is to find those kinds of games? Even dominos is like "ZOMG BEAT YOU RAWR!" I can find more cooperative play in Unreal Tournament than in a lot of card and board games.


What do people do if they don't game?

A lot of the media and political anti-gaming stances are basing their opinions on the idea that either a) games make people violent and dangerous, or b) games are a waste of time that result in unproductive citizens.

Let's look at some of the things I see non-gamers do with the same amounts of their time:

• Go to bars to get drunk and socialize, often not remembering all the details of their nights and sometimes endangering others on the road afterwards.
• Host parties (that likely involve alcohol): more for the extroverts. Usually involves drinking or gossiping, and usually both.
  
• Sunbath for hours on end. Greetings, skin cancer.
• Watch TV all evening.
  
• Get high on drugs for lack of anything else to do that they view as "cool."
• Join gangs and wage turf wars.

How are these things any more productive than gaming? How are these things any less "dangerous" and "violence-causing" than gaming, for the community as a whole?

Let's look at two of the most common alternatives:

• Why is sitting on the couch watching TV viewed as less of a problem by media/politicals (who tend to control society's general viewpoints and information) than gaming? I don't know for 100%, but I have a few possible ideas along the vein of propaganda control and advertisement marketing for economic stimulation.
  
• Why is getting drunk at bars viewed as less of a problem by media/politicals? At least we aren't out making the roads unsafe. Again, I don't know for 100% certainty, but I tend to believe it's because they're out spending money and being "social"... coupled with the fact that rowdy drinking's been a part of society for at least a couple thousand years, and gaming (and TV for that matter) is the new "upstart."
  

Alternatively, someone could lead the society-ideal life of a healthy mix of volunteer work, casual sports team play (or martial arts), reading and/or writing, craft or outdoor hobbies, a bit of TV, and family/friend-time. Why is it bad to throw a bit of gaming in there to offset some of that TV time? Instead of watching a string of the latest reality shows involving 20 guys trying to win the heart of some fickle girl, I prefer to cooperate with a group of friends to go "save" a virtual community from imminent doom.


"Productiveness"

As I just mentioned, there are things that are healthier or viewed as more productive uses of time:

• Sports or martial arts
• Volunteer time (scouts, cleanups, helping neighbors, etc)
• "Community involvement" (ie politics)
• Family time... assisting homework, board games, teaching, attending little league, etc.
• Doing anything that spends money: amusement parks, hotels, theaters, sports events, etc.

....and why is there a view that gamers don't do these things?

Answer's easy: because of the legacy stereotype of the shut-in basement gamer who leeches off his parents and does not have the socialization to fit into "polite" society, in addition to media hype that likes to highlight the occasional cases of psychopathic violence inflicted by someone who happens to game. Since such cases are alarming and unusual, of course they make the news... but many read into its highlight as if game-related-violence is more prevalent or more "wrong" than violence over alcohol (including DUIs), drugs, money, social disagreements (work, mating, "turf" be it gangs or religion or politics or even sports teams, etc), and the psychopaths who happen to not game. There are violent people out there, and that's regardless of whether they happen to play WoW or CounterStrike or any other game.

In addition, who's to say a gamer is not productive when they have a stable, legal, productive job that they do well? Or a volunteer, playing on computers at a firehouse or rescue-squad station while waiting for a call to go out, a game that they can play together and drop what they're doing immediately when the siren sounds? Or a student, still earning good grades but taking a mental breather from studying to destress with a game?


Moderation:

Just because you enjoy gaming doesn't mean you can't have a more "productive" life than someone who doesn't game. I know people who don't game that lead less productive lives than I do, and I blog and raid!

Gaming--especially in a game as social as an MMO--is an excellent way to spend time expanding your horizons beyond what you can experience at home in your safe suburb in a non-life-threatening way, has interaction far more than a TV can give, yet still allows time to keep up with life, studies, physical fitness, and whatever else you want to do...

It all just depends on moderation.

I'm in a 3-night raiding guild: that's only 12 hours per week of committed raiding time. I get on just about every day for at least an hour or two to run a quick daily and see if I can get Anzu to drop, maybe say hi to friends if they're around, help them with something, or just chat with them about their day. That's time that most people I know and grew up with would instead spend just changing channels on TV complaining there's nothing to watch.


PVR:

As relatively little as I do watch TV, there are some shows that I enjoy watching. For this, I have PVR: my TV records the shows I like, and I can watch them when I feel like it, often during my lunch breaks, which I am lucky enough to be able to go home from work for (a rarity in American society, where work commutes are often 30 minutes to an hour). I can fast-forward through commercials to reduce time that I personally view as "wasted" by those advertisements, where a 1-hr show is reduced now to 40 minutes (fits well into a 1-hr lunch break when you consider food prep, cleanup, and a short commute).

Short of the Long:

The way I see it, in the middle-class American society that I've grown up with and know, most people spend their "at-home freetime" watching TV. I--and many others--replaced that time with the more interactive gaming. Anyone who does game can still take care of family/house, go out for weekly social events, do sports or other physical exercise, and volunteer for things: I know, I do it, and I've gamed with others who can manage it with kids (just having to play less to account for the time they devote to their children). It all depends on how you handle your playtime: moderation in favor of other responsibilities to family and self.

I think gaming is a better use of that chunk of time that many in my society otherwise devote to drinking and watching TV.

Linkage for a Busy Week

I have been utterly swamped this week with office work, house work, and outside projects. While it has been remarkably productive, it has also been quite exhausting, stressful, and time-consuming... as such, I've had little time to blog this week. I'm taking some time now to give myself a mental break before diving back into the thick of my work, and sharing with you a few links to things that have kept me sane through the mess.

• Puddle sharks.
  
• Keredria at ToL has a short discussion about gamers and their control over dreams, which I found fascinating.
• Vortex has almost gotten its full raiding roster their ICC drake mounts. We'll have to redo Sindragosa's all-you-can-eat achievement next week to finish us out, though, which means we're pushing back our heroic Lich King work for another week.
• Vortex is recruiting two melee dps (rogue, pally, or deathknight) if such players happen to read my blog and are interested in joining us for ten-strict raiding. We lost a couple of our melee due to outside commitments (my hubby included), and would like to get back up to a 14-raider roster.
  
• I've been amused by BRK's Cataclysm Alpha notes, which are posted in a completely non-spoiler (and non-NDA-breaking) kind of way. He posts his reactions to things over a night of play without leaking the details. The gist of them is that things are changing, and lots of things are currently broken... it *is* an alpha, after all!
• Murloc Parliament recently posted a long discussion on gaming and relationships: namely, addressing the "WoW widows" concern and how it is often treated differently from other hobbies, the "me-time," which in itself is a necessary part of any healthy relationship.
• A relatively short post by Dinear at Forever a Noob regarding the supposed "death of 25 man raids." The topic has simmered down, recently, after its initial burst of blogging activity; his post is a good summary of what the iLevel-equilization will mean for guilds.
• Graylo at Gray Matter had an excellent post on surviving as a moonkin in raids. The majority of the tips apply to resto druids as well.
• Disapproving Kayak.
• I have a mod that splatters my screen with blood when I meet a certain crit number. I'll link it later when I remember exactly what it is. It makes me happy.
  

Offtopic: Summer Classes

A quick rant under the guise of a quiz. Multiple Choice. Each question is worth 20 points.

1) A form tells you that you should submit it at least two weeks before the start of the semester. It is an important form that all of your students need information on before class can be held. What do you do?

• a) Submit at least two weeks before the semester starts.
• b) Submit the week before the semester starts.
• c) Submit the weekend before the semester starts.
• d) Submit the day before your class starts.
• e) Submit one hour before your class starts. Call the department angrily when it is not immediately processed.
  

2) A form only provides one drop-down menu for requesting times on a single day, and you wish to have multiple days in the week. There is a comment box that allows you to type in extra information. What do you do?

• a) Type in the additional times in the comment box.
• b) Ignore the comment box and submit two forms.
• c) Submit two forms, writing in the comment box "same class, two days."
• d) Submit two forms, writing in the comment box "lol I can't see a place to request two times."
• e) Panic and call the department's front desk during lunchtime, when they're understaffed because their student workers have gone home for the summer.
  

3) A form asks what semester you would like to request. What do you do?

• a) Request the semester you want.
• b) Leave it blank and assume they'll guess correctly.
  
• c) Request the wrong semester, and then blame the department when they get it "wrong," even though they have your form on record.

4) A form asks you to check a box if you wish to have a special condition occur. You would like to have that condition. What do you do?

• a) Check the box.
• b) Don't check the box, and then blame the department when they get it "wrong," even though they have your form on record.

5) The single staff member that is receiving and processing these forms works part-time and has a class this afternoon, yet you:

• a) Submit your request late.
• b) Submit the wrong information.
• c) Leave out information.
• d) Call the department when you don't get it processed immediately.
• e) All of the above, and then nitpick on an inconsequential typo in the response email.

/sigh. I want to go slay pixel monsters.

F.lux Screen Tinting: Light and Nighttime Computer Use

I was linked an interesting article last week that highlighted some research on the glow of screens and their impact on our sleep cycle: most notably, on how the light of a computer screen can increase insomnia.

There is a free program that you can download that will automatically alter your computer monitor's settings to a light that is less likely to mess with your internal, hormonal time-clock: reducing the bright blue tint that mimics daylight, without really impacting your ability to use the computer (as long as you aren't doing really color-sensitive work, like photoshop, but even then, you can tell it to turn itself off for an hour to let you work).

Left: Flux evening monitor color; Right: normal "daylight" monitor color
(color change simulated)

I was interested enough that I went and downloaded the software myself and tried it out over the weekend, which included a raid. (F.lux website here)

Based on the research linked on the site, there are several interesting impacts of warmer light:

• Conflict Resolution:

One study found that people under a warm light were more disposed to collaborating with others to resolve conflicts; those under a cool light were more likely to just avoid resolving the problems and let problems linger.

My take on this: does this mean that a raider is less likely to contribute to strat ideas or confront problems in ICC (a very blue instance) than in Sartharian or Molten Core (firey red/orange hues), before they reach a snapping point?

• Volunteerism:

A similar study found that those under a warm light were more likely to spend more time volunteering for unpaid tasks; a cooler light shortened the time they volunteered. Providing unexpected gifts (in the case of a game, this would be loot/epics or even offering to pay their repairs) extended the time in both cases, pretty much equally.

My take on this: does this mean raiders have more patience wiping in instances like Sartharian (firey red/orange hues) than in Icecrown (blue)? More patience dealing with people who stand in fire than dieing to Sindragosa's LoS iceblasts, perhaps?

• Alertness:

They found that "higher colour temperature" (which is more blue, ironically) resulted in higher alertness and mental activity, while lower (reds) result in more drowsiness.

My take on this: this is probably the key to the insomnia, where the daylight of a late-night computer screen will increase your alertness and make it harder for you to fall asleep afterwards. There is a flip side to this, however: are we more likely to be drowsy while raiding in those red-hued instances and firey boss fights than we are when facing down the blue-hued Frozen Throne?

• Sleep Quality:

Segwaying to the sleep side of things, researchers found that people who were exposed to brighter (blue-daylight-type) lights in the hours before bedtime had less restful sleep than those who spent time before bed under lower "color temperature" lights (warm red/orange). The brighter daylight blue light is known to supress the production of melatonin, the hormone that regulates the production of your other hormones, and also sets the rhythm of your 24-hour internal clock.

My take on this: so computer screens themselves (including iPads and TVs) are disrupting our sleep from pre-bedtime light levels, even if we get a "decent" number of hours of sleep. Depending on the type of light bulbs in your home (I'm thinking particularly of the violently bright "daylight" CFLs I have in my garage, for example), these may be exacerbating the problem as well.

---

My experience:
I've only been trying it for a few days, but so far, I haven't found the program to be disruptive of my late-night websurfing or raiding. I like the program for its ability to cut the sharpness of the screen colors, making it easier for me to get "night vision" and not need so many lights on, or have a computer screen in the early morning hours of dimness hurt my eyes.

Now, since I know it will impact "alertness," that is something I'll need to be mindful of during progression raids. I may need to hit the "off for an hour" if I find myself getting drowsy early.

I suggest giving it a try, and reading deeper into the research linked on the F.lux website if you're interested :)