We love our bank alts. We give them funny names and place them in vanity guilds. We kit them out in fine clothing, almost treating them as digital dolls. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if your bank alt took on a personality? It’s something I decided to try out with…
Author: Gazimoff
An Interlude, with Music and Ice-Cream
There’s going to be an intermission at The Mana Obscura over the next week or so. Don’t worry though, normal service will resume on roughly 9th May give or take a few days either way. And to put your minds at ease, I’m not having surgery or real-life problems or anything of that nature. You…
Getting Time To React
One of the things that I’ve seen thrown around lately is how reaction times are going to become important in Cataclysm. It’s not enough to have phased fights where a boss might require you to change tactics three or four times in order to defeat it. In the new expansion I’ve heard that we’ll need…
The Dying High Street Retailer
Back when I was a kid, my dad used to take me shopping for videogames. I can only half-remember the store – a brightly lit and almost empty room with shelving lining the walls and and a small island with a till in the centre. We’d go and spend maybe £3 on a cassette tape…
The Final Night Raiders Club
I’ve been neglecting my guild over the last month, only managing to sign up for a couple of raids. I don’t know what my schedule’s going to be like from one day to the next, which makes it planning pretty impossible. It means that I end up scratching around for raids whenever I’m online instead…
A Snipe at the Socials
I was out at a bar recently with a few friends, discussing the many trials and difficulties endured by Warcraft players today… Heck, who am I trying to kid – my fiancee and her sister were trying to tie fairy lights to each other, while I tried to work out if a Havana Zombie wanted…
The Colour of Money
During the weekend the Celestial Steed appeared on the Blizzard store. I’m not against the idea of paying real cash for in-game stuff as long as they’re “fluff items” that don’t give any real benefit. I’m floored by the reaction the Celestial Steed got – by most accounts the digital horse made Blizzard millions of…
Mage Playstyles in Cataclysm
The dust is beginning to settle following the almighty stack of class changes that came out last week. While Paladins are still waiting for theirs, the rest of the Warcraft population has been trying to work out what the changes mean for them. Mages are no exception – I wrote up an initial assesment shortly…
Injecting Chaos
I’m a big fan of Lego. I like to buy the big Technic sets – the ones with pneumatics and gears and motors and so on. When I buy a set, I open the box and meticulously follow the instructions, sorting the pieces by size and colour before assembling whatever was on the front of…
Where Videogames Go To Die
Back when I was a kid, one of the first videogames I remember playing was Horace Goes Skiing. I was about three years old, playing this basic Frogger clone on a computer with a dead-flesh keyboard. It was great, even though it was frustrating trying to steer this character down a virtual slalom course. There…