I’ve just posted the latest update to Alayne’s Story over on the WoW RP forum. This week starts the arc that leads into the Bastion of Twilight. It’s a bit of an interlude between the action.
I had hoped that the rumors about the new WoW expansion were not true. When it was confirmed, my stomach sank. I’m not certain that I will continue to chronicle Alayne’s adventures after Cataclysm. I’ve never been overly fond of Cataclysm (though it has its moments) but Mists of Pandaria? I’m having a hard time urging myself to even buy the game when it comes out, let alone feel excited enough about it to want to chronicle it in Alayne’s Story.
The Burning Crusade, for all its tacked-on ending, for all its complete ret-conning, was a great expansion. Wrath of the Lich King was decent even though Blizzard ripped the big action out of the players’ hands and made them all bit characters in a long-running melodrama. Cataclysm had strong potential. But panda bears? Freakin’ panda bears? A melee priest class? A watered down talent system? Pokémon? Seriously? The same exact system that Square-Enix tried to pull off and had blow up in their faces rather spectacularly? A new continent that has been mysteriously hidden for ages? In a world that has been criss-crossed a dozen times? Mother of God! With the technology in World of Warcraft, has there not been a single Christopher freakin’ Columbus? Double-you tee eff, srsly! “But, G, it was hidden by magic…” Magic is a hack-writer’s excuse to ret-con. If there really was a hidden continent behind some kind of magical shroud, then it should have been referenced. “We can’t sail beyond the Great Barrier in the Western Sea. Any who try find their ship returning to Kalimdor.” See what I did there? It’s called “planning,” “foreshadowing,” and “outlining.” Maybe Blizzard could look those concepts up.
I’ll probably only get MoP because I’m a guild master and my guild may decide to go for it. At least its some new raid encounters. I doubt I’ll be playing it because the game itself is enjoyable (it hasn’t been for a while now) but because my friends play it. Once they get sick of it and go to something else, well, can’t really say I have much reason to stick around Azeroth myself.
Alayne’s Story Updated: http://t.co/CBWibcZ5