Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 3: Slowly Comes The Deathmoose

In our last installment if you'll recall we went out to kill a random number of animals. Guess what we're going to do today?

Close enough. Only this time it's spiders. Variety is the spice of life. So I guess it's only fitting that monotony is the spice of death. Anyway, apparently giant spiders have infested the local gold mine. So, rather than clearing it out, destroying eggs or doing anything remotely sensible I'm asked to nip over, kill a handful and then come back having achieved nothing useful. Which, since I'm getting paid I promptly do.

Well, that was fun*. What's next?

*may not contain actual fun

Well, try to stay with me here. Seems there's some rebel zombies who want to attack the "village". Now, rather than going straight off to fight them I must first go and find the festering idiot man-child who has dogged my every step since I woke up in the graveyard this morning. Of course, he won't actually HELP in anyway. That would be a bit to obvious. No. He'll just stand by a tree, a nice safe distance from the enemy camp whilst I go and do all the hard work.

THANKS.

So anyway, leaving him to cower in a puddle of whatever it is that passes for cowardice in the undead I trudge up the hill and into the pitched battle at the enemy camp. There's apparently an infinite number of psychotic assholes leaping around. They were all like:

And at first I was like:

But then after a bunch of them suddenly appeared right behind me I was all like:

Ah. Dead then. Again. Well, all things considered I suppose it's a blessed release really. This whole undead slayer of random quantities of things bit wasn't really working out so well, and that whole bit with the rabbit footed wolves was far to confusing. Maybe it's better to just slip away into peaceful oblivion....

OH GODDAMNIT.

So now I'm the ghost of a zombie. Wandering around a twisted nether dimension completely bereft of anything resembling intelligent life. So, business as usual then. Guess I'll go for a walk and see where I died. I mean, what else is there to do?

Just sayin'

Anyway, where was I?

Hahahahahah. Look at that dead bastard. Hey, what does this do?

OH GODDAMNIT.

Not only am I once again cursed to walk the land of the living from the neck down, not only that, but now I find that the way to cheat death is to simply wander around the astral plane until you get bored, at which point you just pop back into existence? WHY THE HELL AM I A FUCKING ZOMBIE IF IT'S THAT BLOODY SIMPLE?!?!?! Seriously, did nobody think to mention this before? It's no wonder these here zombie bastards are so upset. Judging by the way they keep popping up from nowhere and the fact that I've killed their glorious leader no less than 5 times in a row I'd say THEY'VE worked it out. Wouldn't you be pissed of to discover you'd been turned into a festering zombie when you were but a short walk from being properly alive again?

Screw this noise. I'm going away for a while.

CONtretemps

So, I went to the London Film & Comic Con on Saturday. I'd never been to a con before, so it was an interesting new experience.

Well, that's not STRICTLY true. I have, after all, been shopping and spent far to much money before. Just not usually surrounded by quite so many nerds. There was quite a bewildering array of things on offer. I know there were talks and stuff as well, but it turned out the only one that I'd really have been interested in happened before we got in. Maybe if they'd actually bothered to list any of them on the goddamn website we could have arranged to go early. Ah well, such is life.

But the shopping! As I said, there was much. Many and various THINGS. And I didn't even get everything I wanted. There was some Yu-Gi-Oh stuff and Doctor Who minis that I was going to back for, but when the time came my mind and body were broken and I totally forgot. Which is kinda annoying. If you want a good idea of the breadth and depth of the prizes on offer, aside from the fact that we spent nearly a whole day trawling up and down the dealers aisles, allow me to demonstrate.

You see those cute Sanrio characters?

I NOW HAVE PORN OF THAT. In soviet Japan Rule 34 is Rule No. 1. And it's mandatory.

Aside from the Doujin stand and the wizards hats the other highlight of the day was, for me, getting a photo with Sylvester McCoy. Because to a child of the 80s Doctor Who fanboy like me he is unto a GOD. I'm not going to post it of course. Aside from the simple principle of putting a wretched visage such as my own online, the simple fact is that my idiot grin and rigid posture make me into the human equivalent of a massive boner. Which on sober reflection is of course entirely accurate. Even aside from being a massive cock most of the time at the moment my entire body was an erection.

Metaphorically speaking.

Anyway, as cool as that was it did sadly lead to the only major problem of the day. Which was trying to collect the damn thing. Picture if you will a thousand sweaty, exhausted and cheesed off individuals, clustered round a small table, desperately trying to collect their pictures as the clock inexorably counts down towards chucking out time and NOBODY HAS A CLUE WHAT'S GOING ON. Eventually I managed to recover mine with 10 minutes to go. Which was rather cutting things fine. To say the situation lacked organisation is rather like saying the cold void of interstellar space lacks a breathable atmosphere. I'm not convinced they were quite prepared for the Karen Gillan sessions that had completely sold out well in advance of the day thus not really providing them any reasonable excuse, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, despite the trauma of the last hour and a half or so it was actually quite a fun time out. Which baring in mind my rather fragile mental state is pretty impressive. May have to try it again some time.

Once mind, body and wallet have recovered, anyway.

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 2: Back In The Village.

And so, with frightening ease, we find ourselves at the gates of the village of Deathknell. Who, frankly, need to have a serious talk with whoever it is that's running their tourist board.

Bring the whole family!

I mean, I get that the major features of the place are graveyards and mildly disinterested undead wandering around, but Deathknell? Really? The whole setup seems pretty odd frankly. There are a whole THREE buildings in use. Outside of the stockade surrounding these 3 buildings there are plenty of disused structures, but no one seems in any hurry to occupy them, possibly due to the hordes of harmless skeletons that wander aimlessly around  like pedestrians in search of something that isn't another bloody starbucks. Seeing as how there's lots of them, and seeing how they're harming no one, the first thing I'm asked to do is kill an arbitrarily small number of them.

His name was Albert. He was only looking for a picnic site.

This of course serves no readily apparent reason. The blading deathmurder I unload into these hapless deadites doesn't seem to significantly reduce their numbers. AT ALL. As soon as you've finished burning one of the hapless sods 3 more wander by, idly wondering if you're doing some sort of street theatre or something.

He was so cuddly. And now he's dead.

It's not ALL murder though. Whilst I'm wandering around the outskirts of town (I.E. actually the middle of the village) I'm also tasked with gathering dead bodies. Which seem to grow like mushrooms in these parts. Although perhaps gathering the bodies of the slain is not a strictly accurate description. If we're being completely honest here my job is to point out dead bodies to my idiot companion.

Who apparently has never seen one before and therefore doesn't know what one looks like. And can't remember even after he's carrying like six of them piled on his back.

After escorting the festering man-child back to what passes for civilisation in these parts (I.E. 20 feet up the road) I collect my reward and am given an important communique.

Hmm, a summons from the Mage Trainer Isabella. Clearly this be important for her to send a scroll all the way to the head priest guy. I better prepare myself for a long and arduous trek. Where in the world could she possibly be?

Oh fuck you. Fuck you right in the ear. You're telling me that the person STANDING NEXT TO ME had to write you a letter to for you tell me to go and see her? WHEN SHE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE?!!?! When she could have just asked herself? Gods, even if she's shy why not just ask you to ask me? WHY THE LETTER?!!?!?! If you waste enough paper do you think you can make a zombie tree or something?

Anyway, after repeatedly beating my head against the wall I have a quick chat with my wasteful and socially awkward new chum. She then tasks me with a quest to buy spells from her, proving both that maybe not everyone around here is quite as stupid as I'd previously thought and that I'm clearly in the wrong line of work.

After politely declining her offer to help out a certain Nigerian prince she apparently knows, I head off out of town to find out if punk is dead or not.

Turns out it is, but it's willing to pay me to mutilate animals. Thus confirming everything your mother ever told you about those nasty boys down the road. I'm not quite sure why exactly it is he's just hanging around on the road into town, but I'm going to guess he's handing out flyers for his mates band. Anyway, like most people I've met so far he asks me to kill an arbitrary amount of the local fauna. And then cut off bits of them and bring them back because.... apparently you make armour out of wolves feet now? It's either that or he's got a fetish. Either way I'm not sure I want to think about it to closely. So I pop off and set a few passing wolves on fire and then saw of their legs only to find....

THE WOLVES HAVE RABBITS FEET.

I think I'm done here.

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Chapter 1: You're A Wizard Harry

And so it begins. At character generation I elect to roll an Undead Wizard. Partly because I'm me and Undead Wizards rock my world, and partly because it seems oddly appropriate having just died of old age waiting for the updater to finish.

Now, quite naturally I wake up in graveyard with some winged ethereal bint standing over me. You know, as you do.

Just another regular morning.

Having been torn from beyond the veil of death to once more walk the land of living I am then immediately tasked with a mighty quest. "Oh mighty Val'kyr! Black harbinger of the grave! What is this great task for which you have awakened me from my eternal sleep? What fell deed is it I must complete?"

"I want you to talk to someone. He's over there."

Okay... Well, maybe he'll know what's going on.

I'll take that as a no then. Having walked 10 feet behind the first person I met to complete my first quest, next I am tasked with walking 10 feet behind the second person I've met in order to complete me next quest. Only this time I get to go inside a building! Obviously, this is all scary and new, and thus I am given a companion to hold my hand in the scary crypt.

So, there we are. zombie warrior and zombie wizard. Ready to team up and face the nightmarish terrors of...

A table. Because that's all that's down there. They gave me an escort to make sure I found my way into the building that was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. In order to walk down a flight of stairs and pick up a couple of bits of crap for the lazy bastard standing RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR. Who is apparently far to busy standing around doing nothing to take the thirty seconds to pick up his own crap. I am too disgusted to even make a bone idle joke. I am beginning to suspect two important things about the leaders of the undead. Firstly that they think everyone else is CRIPPLINGLY RETARDED. Secondly that this is because they themselves are in fact CRIPPLINGLY RETARDED. Still, let's take a deep breath and get on with the task in hand.

OH WAIT I CAN'T DO THAT BECAUSE I'M DEAD. Still, never mind eh?

Still, we return to laughing boy in less time than it takes to type this sentence. Having brought him supplies so that he can allegedly patch up the local zombies, what do you think the next logical course of action would be?

That's right. We must now kill a bunch of the local undead. And by we I of course mean I, since my burly companion is apparently exhausted by the rigors of the tomb of storage and has gone of for a little rest. And so it's up to me to defeat a small percentage of the mindless undead who are quietly milling around the graveyard, minding their own business, bothering no one. Still, ours is not reason why. Ours is simply to set things on fire. So we do that for a bit.

This makes absolutely no difference to the number of harmless zombies quietly milling around of course, and probably wouldn't even if I'd been asked to kill more than six of them. But I'm getting paid to kill six, so whatever. After that pointless little exercise I'm then sent on to meet a new contact. The directions for finding him are a little more complicated than my previous quests. This time he's 10 feet to the LEFT.

Not only that, but he's standing on a tree stump, and refuses to get down. I guess he figures that being higher up makes him more important or something.

INFINITE POWER!!!

So the king of the hill asks me to go talk to some other zombies. Apparently they're having some difficulty adjusting to their new situation. Frankly they're not the only one. Still, after a quick survey one third of respondents said "oh well never mind", on third said "AAAAHHHH DON'T LOOK AT MEEEEEE!!" and the remaining respondents said.... well.

What the hell is that even supposed to mean? I've... I've got elbows. EVERYBODY here has elbows. Even the mindless zombies have elbows, and most of them only have one arm. I don't even know what I'm doing any more. Frankly I'm starting to wonder if maybe I wouldn't be better off back in the grave.

Having reported back my findings I am then assigned my toughest assignment yet. Luckily Zombo McUseless or whatever his name was from earlier has recovered enough to once again accompany me. Which is good to know, because there's no way I could do this alone unless I happened to be older than five. The next job is to walk down a path.

Scary I know. I mean, that's what? 50 feet of clearly marked pathway to follow? It could take anything up to thirty seconds! How will I ever cope with this mighty task?

Tune in next week when you will hear "with frightening ease".

Let's Play World Of Warcraft Prelude

So then, I decided to have a go at a wow trial account. Why I hear you ask? Simple. Like anyone who resorts to playing wow I simply hate my life and want to die. However, rather than simply taking the dignified route of autoerotic asphyxiation in a cupboard whilst dressed as a chicken my self hatred runs so deep I'd rather totrure myself into oblivion in the slowest most painful way possible. Hence wow. There are many things in life that can destroy a mans will to live, but not many that can similtaneously destroy his will to die and leave him in a souless limbo state. So, you know, let's give that a go.

After creating a fake email and signing up for the trial we then ready to start our first quest: Kill 2 days.

Yeah. fisrt we must download TEN GIGABYTES of data. TEN. Seriously. I'm not quite sure how it is this games supposed to be so addictive when the very first step is to go and do something else for 2 days. Still, what do I know about anything? I admit that according to the downloader you're meant to reach a point about halfway through where you can actually play whilst it's downloading the 8 gig of stuff you will never get to because you're only doing this to take the piss, but that really doesn't work out so good.

Honestly I don't really mind the bizarre Nemesis The Warlock vibe at all, however the concept of framerates is but the fevered dreams of a madman as your bandwith is assraped by umtygigs of extraneous bullshit. So I guess we'll just have to come back later in the week.

Doomcrawl Dungeon Chapeter 13:Chosen

Maris hated prophecies.

To be fair, when it came right down to it he hated a lot of things. Maybe even most things. The problem with most things was simply that they tended to get in the way of what you actually wanted to do. Most things were, simply, a distraction from ones goals. Which were simple enough. Maris was, at heart, a wizard. Or would be if he had a heart. Which he didn't, but he never let the absence of any major organs worry him. Organs were, like most things, simply another distraction. Like most wizards, all Maris really wanted to do was stay at home and read black and ancient tomes of forbidden knowledge, study the magical arts and learn some new spells. Admittedly most of the ones he ended up learning were explicitly violent. But those were the ones that came in most useful when someone was trying to interrupt. They also came in pretty handy on the rare occasions he ran out of arcane secrets no man was meant to know and had to go out looking for more. This was, he felt, the ideal way of life for any self respecting student of the magical arts. The simple fact that he was dead just meant that he theoretically had more time time to do it than most.

Doomcrawl Dungeon Chapter 12: Piety

There were days when Maris wondered if he'd done something to offend some god or other who was even now exacting some tortuous and needlessly overcomplicated revenge. To be fair, in his line of work it was kind of hard not to offend the odd Deity, and there were an awful lot of them to choose from. For a start he was unnatural undead construction of bone and malice, which did tend to upset most of the various life and nature types, as well as a handful of the more boring gods of death. There were just so many of the damn things. More or less every culture had their own version of god for more or less everything, all with their own particular sets of rules and edicts. It was all so terribly complicated. Most of the time you just had to hope that whatever you did that found favour with one lot was enough to protect you from the ire of all the others you'd upset in the process. Or maybe that the gods had slightly better things to do than watch your every movement. Particularly the naked ones.

Of course there were those that might claim that there were no such thing as gods, but they were mostly just followers of Aethistocles, the god of doubt. There were other, saner scholars who questioned the existence of the church of Aethistocles. But that, the high priest would say as they sat back looking smug, was entirely the point.

Doomcrawl Dungeon Chapter 11: Smash

"You see, the thing about a Greater Deathhulk is, they're really built for sieges rather than hand to hand combat" Maris explained to the Skittering Rat-Thing that sat next to him on the edge of the pit. He wasn't quite sure where the Rat-Thing had come from. Presumably it had followed him down from the upper levels.

"I mean, sure, they can obliterate pretty much anything in a single punch, but they're a little slow."

A great crash echoed up from the depths of the pit, as if to punctuate this statement

"Gk kggkgkg gk" chittered the Rat-Thing in agreement.

Old The New School

So here we are at last. The big mid season finale. The last big hurrah before the interminable wait for the second half to kick off later this year. Of course, as Doctor Who fans one thing we've learnt to do is wait. Through hiatuses and cancellations we've honed our patience. So a matter of a few months should pose no serious problem. Right?

Well... Kind of. if nothing else it'll give us an extra period of wild speculation, rumor, and inevitably a couple of spoilers. So... thanks for that?

But enough rambling about the unknown future. What of the episode itself?