Inside what?

So... I've kinda mostly stopped blogging, at least over summer. I'll post summaries of the last sessions of Mage and Naruto over the next week or so, but the Exalted game is being compiled into its own logs (which I'll go over at the end of the campaign and put somewhere then) and I'm not playing any other RPGs. Still playing WoW, and might post occassionally about that. [EDIT Wall-o-text rant after the break]


Like now, for instance. That I'm here indicates there's some stuff on my chest and I want to vent. That's what I got this blog for, after all - to rant when noone cares. First though, a WoW update:
-I'm in Why So Serious, a good 10-man raiding guild on Quel'Thalas, which is putting its first feet into 25-man raiding. Unfortunately, the internet, and WoW in particular, is full of dicks, so it's not going as well as could be helped. Still, rules are being strictened and recruitment is ongoingish, and we're up to Yogg-Saron (the 2nd last boss) on 10-man so s'all good.
-I levelled Jewelcrafting in place of Tailoring, because 1) it has better bonuses and 2) it has its own daily quests, which Tailoring doesn't. I'm hoping it's also better for making gold through trading, but we'll see.

Anyway, right. Firstly, WoW Insider. Sorry, Wow-dot-com. For all I know, WoW Insider was at some stage "just a fan-site", but for as long as I read it, it was owned (and paid for) by AOL. This bugs me.

See, the large majority of WoW fansites out there are run and written for by people who, y'know, like the game. Bloggers like Pike, Euripedes or Gevlon were having enough fun playing this game that they decided to share with others. So too were BRK and Skeleton Jack, though for the latter 3 it's no longer the case. However, what all 6 have in common is that they wrote good, informative and/or entertaining blogs about aspects they enjoyed within a game they enjoyed. Half of them still do. And none of them (afaik) did it for money. Some of them asked for donations, though not even all of those were for themselves. None of them were writing for a corporation. None of them had to produce content every week, no matter what - if they had nothing good to write, nothing was written. And other sweeping generalisations about these people who are better than me, which I'm sure might prove to be untrue. But hey, edit button, right?

Anyway, WoW Insider. It had good posts. However, the main reason I read it was to get linked to other places. Aside from news posts which linked away to other sites (usually Blizzard's own, or mmo-champion), they had regular columns. Of these, I read: Arcane Brilliance: one bad mage tauting his bad views about things, saying bad things about the class and having a hardon for warlocks for no discernable reason. Bad. The Queue: A column dedicated to answering the questions of the stupid. Ask a Lore Nerd: The Queue, but for people who care about the in-game story. Slightly more of a point than the Queue, but still easily subsidised by WoW Wiki. Now, this could be said about the internet in general. It's all cyclical, right? No truly original content. Except that, y'know, there is. People who bother to edit WoW Wiki (those who edit it to be right, that is) put in a lot of work. The people at MMO-Champion put in a lot of work trawling through blue posts or patch files. The people at WoW Insider put in a lot of work... reading other websites.

And what's more, they get paid to do something that many would do for free. It is the former generation's perception of what the internet should be used for, rather than the internet generation's actual use of it. Needless to say, I agree 100% with Euripedes' opinion about pirating. And to take a tangent from that same rant: We (my generation) do things we like because we like them. If we like them, and think other people will like them, we will give these things to other people. Radiohead is the example 'Rip used, and it fits perfectly here. They made music, because it's what they enjoy doing. They gave that music to other people, because they thought said other people would enjoy listening to it. Those other people then proceeded to give Radiohead lots of money. They needn't have given any. I got distracted again. Get used to it.

WoW Insider was, and (sorta) is, incredibly corporate. As discussed above, its employees (contributor makes it seem too voluntary) don't even put out content that's better than that of those who started writing and then later started being given money for it, almost by accident. Of the 3 current blogs I mentioned above: I couldn't find any donate button on 'Rip's site, though he has G-ads (or similar) up to cover costs; Pike is accepting donations to help her live, but in the form of art commissions; Gevlon I'm pretty sure would be violently opposed to the idea of asking for donations. Of the 2 dead ones: SJ accepted donations to help a friend's daughter get surgery to prevent her death - and even that was in the form of a raffle; BRK sold t-shirts and stuff. All of these people put out good content, and none are getting a wage for it.

The last straw, for me, was WoW Insider's recent makeover. You see, AOL have had the catchy www-dot-wow-dot-com for a while, since before World of Warcraft came about. And recently (well, a couple of weeks ago), they decided to move WoW Insider there. This is a perfectly logical decision. BUT. I don't like it. Call me paranoid, or a stick-in-the-mud, but it seems underhanded. A good number of people out there only know of the game as WoW, and while I've been on the internet long enough to know that google's a better option, I do remember the days when searching for anything on the internet was a matter of typing "www-dot-anything-dot-com" (hint: this was my way of avoiding a search engine. I don't *actually* remember a time before search engines). So someone's interested in this "Wow" they've been hearing about, this fun game, and they go to wow-dot-com, because hey, bound to be the official website. Instead they find a "fan"-site (at this point I think I'm coming off as bitter, but I can live with that) that either a) they'll get confused by and give up or b) they'll turn to using as their primary source of information about the game, which is frankly a bad idea.
Just as a test, I decided to try to do a few things at wow-dot-com that a newcomer might. Firstly, get a link to worldofwarcraft.com - the *actual* official site. Nope. Secondly, find out about the game. Nope, only able to find out about this website. Look for information about mages. I find mostly links to recent articles from Arcane Brilliance, from which  I gather that all mages hate warlocks (though I'm not sure why), Blizzard are wrong, I should be PvPing as three different types of mage, and I should have professions. Get some advice for people new to the game. Yes, though all of it is assuming I already am playing. Which I'm not if I still haven't found the official site, but hey.
Anyway, I no longer peruse that site, and would discourage it (though I realise I might well have just increased their traffic by, like, 1 person - good thing I'm not popular). However, back when I did there was a little story happening...

Last month, Charlie Brooker did a series called Newswipe, in which he took a satirical look at the behind-the-scenes working of news. It was pointed out repeatedly that a lot of the news consists of "This happened" "A lot of people are bothered that this happened" "A lot of people are angry that this happened" "Yet more details on this controversy". The news often directs the public's opinion, rather than reveal it. If we are told that we are bothered about things, clearly we are. Also during April, WoW Insider reported that a player had been given an item by a Blizzard employee that let said player cheat. Said player then used this item to kill all the hardest bosses in the game, some of them before anyone else in the world had managed it. By the time I was aware of the story, I found it as follows "What's your opinion on this scandal that has rocked the WoW community to it's core?" Odd, I have no idea what you're talking about... "Man cheats, it's outrageous" Sure is, I guess, how'd he do it? "Player cheats using item given to him by Blizzard employee" Oh. Well, that's Blizzard's own fault then really isn't it? Wait, I'm supposed to be outraged, aren't I? Oops.
A fansite of a game, no matter how poopular, should not be using the same tropes as international news networks. That's just ridiculous. Noone I've talked to ever gave even an impression of being upset about it, in fact most found it hilarious. So yeah, stop being bad, stop snaring newcomers, and stop having delusions of grandeur.

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More ranting! There was this blog about paladins, which was run by a female WoW player, who put up pictures of herself and occassionally posted off-topic stuff. Only it turned out that the pictures were of someone else completely. And all the off-topic stuff was stolen from another website (I *think* the website of the girl whose pictures were posted - not 100% clear). The WoW player girl then claimed to be 7 different people, some of whom were men. But it's ok that she was using someone else's pictures (I don't think the picture girl was any of the people WoW player was/is) because the paladin stuff was good.

I haven't read the paladin stuff, I don't plan to. Plagiarism is bad though, especially when it borders on identity theft. Simple rules folks - if it's not your own work, say whose it is. My main issue with the WoW blogger was that, upon it being found out that she wasn't her (or something), she shut down her website for a few days, then came back with an apology post so convoluted (Seriously. 7 people? 6 of whom were plagiarising just because the 1st had done? WTF) one almost missed the fact that it ended with self-congratulation. "Sorry I was bad, here's a bad reason why. But hey, I'm still awesome, right?" Wrong. You're (I have no idea whether that you was singular or plural, so I'm glad it's one word) not awesome, you're a liar and a thief. Which wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have your head so far up your own arse(s). I hadn't heard of Ferraro before this, and I hope I don't again. At the very least, not positively.

Wall of Text enrages, and hits you for 999,999 damage to the entire raid (especially if reading that took over 15 minutes). Come back with better deeps next time.