I dreamed up character names again to coincide with some restructuring. Not everyone gets to be a maw defying hero. I have fewer and fewer alts with these abysmal catchup mechanics.
I donāt have nearly as much time to play as I used to. How do you manage? Do you set aside certain hours of the day?
Yes, usually manage to squeeze out one short hour, two if Iām lucky
But I have a personal rule to MAKE time for myselfā¦ work, family, and all, all nice and necesary but if you donāt have time for youself, whats really the point?
It just feels like Iām on the clock all the time and itās worse than the passive, ambient stress of my steadily draining prepaid gametime. Ultimately it distracts from the fun that I could be having and the hours when I do play feel so fleeting as I awkwardly try to schedule in a few hours to just do a questline and catch up.
Dream Diary 83:
The Bradley
A wholesome movie about a young boy in a time and place not terribly different from cold war america. Bill is very into the military, having a disappeared hero soldier dad whom he idolizes along with a childās simple love for his country, flag and toy tanks. He dreams of nothing more than to one day join the army and be a hero like his dad.
Bill is however rather fat and struggles to run short distances. The product of a doting mother who gives him every snack, (possibly out of unresolved issues and definitely not wanting little Billy to run off to war and die) heās bullied at PE class, failing the obstacle course and his soldier dreams seem very distant.
One day, thereās a parade in town! The military have invented an amazing new armoured vehicle to be rolled through town at noon and Bill is so excited. Can he pleeease go? Said and done, Bill huffs and puffs his way down the road to the town square and is stunned! The whole area is decorated with glorious patriotic imagery, flags and cheerful marching glories are on full blast as the military convoy comes rolling. Heās just in time! Awkwardly making his way to the front of the crowd, heās utterly floored by what he sees; A chubby young soldier, not very different from a grown version of himself sticks out of the turret of the new fighting vehicle, waving to the crowd. Chubby guys can be heroes too?!
Bill shouts over the din of the crowd, cheering and asks the soldiersā name as the vehicle rolls by. Nick Farthing. Bill has an instant new hero. Then disaster strikes. As the vehicle reaches the end of the road, it explodes with the whole crew inside and Billy cries out soldier Farthingās name as the fire licks the sky. Heās led away by adults, crying, told that this is nothing little boys should see. As he leaves, a wisp of smoke along the road takes form for a moment; Farthingās ghost!
From there, itās a charming but sad story about how Nickās ghost follows Bill home, waking him at night and after a few comedic initial frights, they sit down for meaningful talks and the ghost becomes a not so imaginary friend who teaches Bill that war isnāt actually that great and glorious but he can still love his lost dad. Billās mother also learns how sheās compensating and Billy starts getting healthier food. Thereās just the problem of Nickās death; the explosion was a catastrophic engine failure, as Nick should know, being responsible for preventing such things but this was definitely not right. For his sake and that of his crewmates, the truth of the failing engine must be brought to light! This is made complicated by another subtext heavy part of the plot; the military industrial complex is embarrassed by the event and tries to cover it up, another failure of the young boyās idealized military, and it falls to Bill and Nick to expose the flaw to the world before any more troops can be sent to blow up in a shoddy fighting vehicle!
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Despairing to find that dream diaries 74 to 82 werenāt compiled in my backup folder. This is now corrected.
Iām mashing together new and old ideas for a new void weilding priest, looking to explore angles I didnāt last time. The self spinning cylinders of the engine of my entertainment keep going in spite of the drought.
Reminds me of Neuralisator.
Dream Diary 84:
Timelost Vikings!
We begin in a funhouse mirror world of the viking age where Ulf and Erik, two swedish vikings are about to go viking. Erik is tall, groomed, blond and of course rather dumb, and Ulf is heavyset and grumpy with a big brown beard. Bumbling idiots that they are, they loot some ancient alien device thinking that itās a bracelet or torc and get caught in a strage distorted energy field.
Getting their bearings, they ready for the attack on a rival village, letting out bold warcries as they charge from the woods right intoā¦ a meadow? What in Garmās teeth is this? There was a village here yesterday!
Finding a dirt road nearby, they trudge along in full regalia until nearly struck by some charging roaring hog, gleaming like metal. To our modern audience, they were nearly hit by a car. The alien device sent them into the future!
The two eventually find a village; a small suburb near Uppsala and get approached by a chubby nerdy young man named Henrik who gushes over their cool outfits, thinking that theyāre LARPers. They canāt communicate at first as old norse isnāt modern swedish but mutual intelligibility and the alien artefact kicks in and soon theyāre established, by way of slightly archaic swedish, as confused time travellers. Offered a place to stay in the nerdy guyās basement dwelling, they try to figure this whole thing out.
What follows is a series of wacky misunderstandings, Ulf scaring Henrikās mother and Erik being a picky eater, wanting boar, not hotdogs! Meanwhile, a shadowy government agency has taken notice and sends an agent to capture the vikings with syringes full of sedatives.
The agent catches Erik leaving the local supermarket with a bag full of, what else, hotdogs having developed a taste for it despite himself and is stabbed with the syringe. Not getting quite the perfect dosage, he manages to lash out, grab the second syringe meant for Ulf and stabs the agent with it.
Dragging the unconscious agent home to the basement, Erik collapses on the couch, boasting of having āslainā an enemy and is convinced that heās off to Valhalla, dramatically demanding his axe and shield as grave offerings, feeling deathās embrace. While Erik snores loudly in his couch grave, holding his axe, Ulf and the others read the captive agentās documents revealing the sinister plot and so they start their counter plot: dressing up Henrik in Erikās gear and passing him off as a LARPer the stupid agents thought was a real viking to discredit the nefarious governmemt plot!
Catch our next episode atā¦
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Dream Diary 85:
Winterās Raven:
A short tale set in an animated world. Two kids, a boy with brown hair and a girl with frizzy red in their early teens wander through a forest. This is an ancient time full of wonder and magic and that means the forest is full of giant wolves!
They end up fighting the wolves, driving them off with club and knife but the boy is injured in his boldness. Shirt torn and bleeding, he canāt be moved but the girl tries for hours.
Exhausted, kneeling in the snow beside her friend, she sees that heās looking blankly at the sky. Realising that heās gone, she follows his gaze to two birds circling above; a raven and some other odd bird with brown feathers. She lays back in the snow to catch her breath and keeps watching the birds.
Soon enough, a red feathered bird joins the brown one with the raven and the three fly off to wherever they go. The girl lays still in the snow, lost to exposure.
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How do you breathe new life into a story thatās been going for quite a while in a comfortable rut? Iām not talking about a lack of inspiration but rather finding some new thing independent of other players for the character to engage in? I donāt really want to jump into a new guild and push my ideas on strangers.
I think it is like in real life
You have your friends, family, but you have your own path to walk, like everyone
Sometimes you are not alone, others walk the similar path, but sometimes you take the scenic route
Others may fallow you or may not
I treat these things as āside questsā in a compagain, sure the gang have a fixed path, a goal, an aim, but if time allows and opportunity presents itself, grab it!
Maybe you and your buds are chillinā in a tavern, and while you go for some drinks, walks in a ā¦ walk up RP and get entangled. They will eventually come to seek for you, what happned, where are you? Flirting a girl again or got mugged again or bothā¦ and could join some totally unplanned session or drag you away, cāmon, we have to goā¦
Random things are the spice of life I say
Its not necesarly pushing your ideas on stranges and you donāt have to join a new guild (or any guild at all)
Well at least this is my two copper
Hey all. Been a while. Again.
Which probably makes it all that more weird that this is a goodbye post.
With the recent allegations towards Blizzard, I have decided to take my this time permanent leave from the game.
Thereās a few things at play there for me. Admittedly, I havenāt been enjoying the game for quite a while, so that made the decision easier. However, Iāve experienced sexual harassment over this game myself. Some years ago, a RPer on Earthen Ring blackmailed me for nudes, with a friend of his covering up for him and aiding in tarnishing my reputation whenever I spoke up. At the time, Blizzard would not do anything as parts of the dialogue happened outside the game, meaning they had insufficient proof they could fact check. That definitely hurt, but, you know, it was understandable.
Recent allegations however have put a very different light on that situation, and I have thus decided to withdraw myself from the game altogether. I will still be around on battle.net for those who have me there, as I donāt feel the same guilt playing games I already paid for such as Diablo or Overwatch, or over on Discord, but thatāll be it.
As for why Iām writing this here ā to serve as an explanation and an apology, of sorts. As the second person was a regular here on the forums.
I will not name and shame as to adhere to Blizzardās policies, but those few old timers who are still around can probably make a relatively safe guess as to who it was. I will however say who it was NOT - being Cathrion. Her and I have had our fair share of explosive drama here, but sheās not guilty of what I described above, and much as I might not have gotten along with her I would not want people to think she was guilty.
The apology part of this message then comes in the form of apologizing for the fights spilling over into the forums. While Cathrion was not guilty, she did defend the person responsible on numerous times, which obviously made me feel pretty damn awful given the situation. I do not believe she did this with malice in her heart though. As mentioned, the two responsible spread lies about me over on our serverās community too, so I have reason to believe she simply bought into those, which I can not blame her for.
I never mentioned this situation on the forums because, I meanā¦ Obviously, naming and shaming rule and all that, hence why I am still not naming those responsible.
But with my subscription running out in just a few hours from now and me making the decision not to return to the game, I figured I would at last clear the situation up.
To all the fellow old timers still around to read this ā Take care, wherever your journey takes you. Iāll be around on FFXIV, as Tyrinne Forestspring over on Louisoix.
Love to all of you (aside the obvious individual). Yes, that means even to you Cath, should you still be reading these forums.
EDIT: I canāt post replies without a sub anymore but I can still edit this post, and yes, I am reading your replies still
EDIT 2: While I doubt anyone is going to look back to see thisā¦ Some regained confidence tells me you know what, I should stop defending this guy - if Blizz wants to boot me for that so be it.
It was Amariel. There. Itās out now. If he wants to complain about being outed - heās had years to hold his friend responsible and didnāt. Instead, he helped him cover up.
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No one should have to suffer that especially on a online gameā¦
Keep that strengh and chance of You that made some envy You that the best is yet to come, may the winds bring toward You some souls who will appreciate and cherish you better and know that You let a void here.- Rain 
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Goodbye, have fun and take care. I donāt know what else to say. I hope that this person, whoever they are, leave you alone.
On the subject of this whole thing, Iām not very happy with staying either. The lore and writing has taken turns I cannot work with as a roleplayer and Blizzard as a developer has been proven a neglectful, shameful mess that wonāt course correct, abusing employees and taken consumers for granted.
Not having many options besides WoW, itās an uneasy feeling. The joy of writing in my own corner in spite of everything has faded.
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Reminds me of an old joke that actually isnāt a joke.
-Why is it that God takes the best of us first? Why not the baddies?
-If you go to your garden, which flower will you tear from its place and take to your love?
With that in mind, I bid you farewell and good luck, if you happen to read this sometime later.
A tear drops from Dunkieeās eyes as she sees another kind soul leaving the forums.
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In terms of rp related things, if I may be so free to promote this hereā¦
Please feel free to join the discussion and keep the thread alive with your own thoughts and ideas of things that could help make roleplay more interesting and diverse.
As for rp, a big thank you to all the people who keep the cities lively and promote interaction between people. Itās nice to see that some parts of the community keep on being a source of positivity. Means a lot <3
A question not worth its own thread but perhaps a post;
How do you deal with pets in roleplay? Especially and specifically living animals that might get hurt or killed in a combat scenario?
As a great source of RP
They add a certain depth to a character
(For example, I have a manawyrm that hangs around and every time I see a Sinādorei got very protective of my lilā buddy, and Iām afraid it might end up a lunchā¦ old habbits die hard)
In a combat scenario or even and random event, a pet could get hurt or even killed; Azeroth is a very dangerous place - I mean we have spiders size of a cow, and even worse things - so if you have a pet that travells with you - and not a summonable magical creature - you either have a PokĆ©ball like easy way (not sure WoW have those, but some of my Mage friends are very creative when comes to magical thingies; and with the arcane and techno-magical knowledge, portals, summoning scrolls and such, I belivable, a Mage could make a cube or ball like ācontainerā, that have a whole little sunny pocket universe where your pet is safe and could be called out) or be very protective. A bit like those Truck drives who have a cat with them sitting on their shoulder
Or those world-turist who carry their pets with them without any carriage or such
And of course a petā¦ is a pet, a cat - knowing how loyal they areā¦ - probably will ran away and hides and you never see it again, if you are lucky, the cat runs up to a tree and after the fight you need to rescue itā¦ while a dog probaly will fight by your side and got seriously hurt or die.
Its risky to have a living animal pet on Azeroth (especially with the Pet battlesā¦)
Mechanical or summoned or something like that is a bit easierā¦ but with a living animal, the safest to give him a magical collar, with a built in teleport, to send him back to grandmaā while you fight for your lifeā¦ or face the possibilty of losing him (wich as I said a great source of RP)
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Hardly much of a dream diary but I was in a trailer home detaching from a car and careening downhill. The key to survival, as my mind would have it, was to continuously convince myself that āthis is fineā even as the shaking shattered windows and fires broke out.
A clumsy metaphor for all sorts of urgent issues in life, politics and global concerns.
This one has one but itās not been relevant to my stories since she still roamed QuelāThalas.
Well The Great Akazamzarak in Legion mage questing put a whole rabbit colony in his hat pocket realm large enough to unwittingly let wolves in.
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Hello again folks.
Been keeping the ideas thread alive for a couple months now and wanted to post a friendly reminder that if youāre wanting to join the discussion and share your own thoughts and ideas, youāre more than welcome to.
I would also greatly appreciate the help if you could share this with any likeminded friends, or in places where this may be relevant.
Thank you all in advance by the way, appreciate it ^^
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