Consider In-Game – Vanilla

Due to length reasons, this post will have to be split up into three sections, one for each expansion. I could fit it all in one, I’m sure, but spreading it out will keep it from degrading in quality as I would inevitably get lost on one side point or another.

Before WoW

Surprisingly to many of my friends, my gaming history outside of WoW is almost non-existent. Prior to this game I had never played a mmorpg, I wasn’t familiar with the term shooter, and I didn’t own any of the latest and greatest console systems. In fact, aside from Age of Empires II and Warcraft III – two games which I absolutely loved, and still consider amazing for their time – I didn’t game at all. I was much more likely to have my nose in a book or be out at the movies with others, two things which I still immensely enjoy but have all too often taken a backseat to raiding.

But then, one day in Feburary ’05 (about four months after the launch of the game), a friend was talking about WoW, and I decided to give it a go to humor him. Thus it all began.

Vanilla

Not having a clue what in the world I was doing, I picked a random server – Daggerspine – and rolled a random class- warlock – of a random race – human. Having just started the Sword of Truth series at the time, I decided to name my toon Kaylan after Kahlan, a protagonist of the novels. Considering my friend decided to stop playing about two days after I started, I was left to my lone self to figure things out… and suffice is to say I can’t even began to describe how utterly clueless I was of the game.

Consider IRL – Zach

It’s always interesting (to me, anyways) to find out who the person is behind the player.

Of course it doesn’t actually matter. If a person is ten or twenty or fifty, if a person is in high school or in college or in a career, if a person lives off their parents or their own hard work or their lucky lottery winnings… it doesn’t affect what type of player they are and how good they may or may not be at the game. I’ve played with adult men with families or jobs who were plain horrible. I’ve played with teenage girls still living at home going to high school who were amazing. I’ve seen everything between those two extremes. The fact is, real life circumstances have near zero relationship to in-game performance.

However, let’s be honest: human curiosity demands one know. Could that person you’re playing with be your fifth grade teacher, that creepy neighbor in the house next door, or that celebrity all over the news? Is that person who claims to have a son who sounds suspiciously like you actually your dad?  Is that person praising every little change in the game, no matter how controversial or poorly thought-out it may be, actually a Blizzard employee? The possibilities are endless, and you have no way of actually knowing who they are short of them explicitly telling you (and even then you only have their word to go by).

And, besides, there are some genuinely legitimate reasons to be interested in the person behind the player, especially if you’re a guild leader evaluating a promising application. What if the person is still in high school, and thus doesn’t have full control over their own playtime? What if the person lives with their parents, and thus can’t talk on vent late at night for fear of waking them? What if the person is in the military, and thus is subject to long periods of unplayable time or poor internet conditions? Real life can cross into the game, particularly if you’re younger.

So, it does matter. Somewhat, anyways. The obvious question then: Who am I?

Preliminaries

How best (if rather unoriginal) to start off a fresh blog with nothing other than an introduction?

To begin with, I am Consider of Laughing Skull, a Death Knight of some minor repute: Aside from proudly being a member of Deus Vox, one of the top guilds in the world, I’m best known for my work on the popular theorycrafting site Elitist Jerks. There I run the Unholy Death Knight DPS thread – not only is it one of the most popular on those forums, averaging over 15,000 views a day, it’s often complimented as the best organized and most informative.

Although you’ll undoubtedly catch me referencing my thread at various times, this blog won’t primarily be about theorycrafting. What would be the point of saying the same thing in two places?

Instead, I hope to focus on the other side of the game – subjective analysis and musings, along with personal background and advice. Ideally this blog will provide me with a platform less restrictive than EJ in which to ramble to my heart’s content about thoughts on Death Knights, hardcore raiding, and the game as a greater whole.

For the time being, I don’t intend to publicize this page. What would happen if I managed to start attracting readers only for me to decide a week later that this format of writing isn’t my type of thing?  Once I have things formatted to my liking, a number of solid posts up, and the knowledge that I’ll keep at it for the foreseeable future… then I’ll bother to get this link out there through subtle means and hopefully readers will start trickling in. And if readers don’t start happening by? Then so be it; I find it as relaxing to ramble to myself as it is to ramble to others!

If you somehow manage to stumble upon this page before that point in time, then kudos. Enjoy, and hopefully things won’t be too chaotic while under construction!

For now, that’s about it. Off to test out some various themes, then to sleep.

Tomorrow look forward to a brief background on the actual guy behind the toon.

Until then, have a pleasant evening.