I got this in my inbox the other day.

Kaiser wrote:

[el darklordo], man, you are still my hero…

…but I must humbly request just ONE non-Wow-related blog entry. Only one. And then you can WoW report us to death for the next dozen months. I know, I know, this is your vehicle of expression and I have no right to drive it, but there was a time when you would blog about Not-WoW quite naturally–without special request from your fans.

What do you say, man? Sneak one “mundane” blog entry in there before the rest of the world drops into Burning Crusade with you.

Besides, if you’re playing all this WoW, how are you playing Trauma Center on the Wii?

Thanks!!!

O.o

My first reaction to this was, “Heh, well, I guess he might have a point.”

My second reaction was, “Hey, eight of the last ten posts I’ve made have been non-WoW related. Well, actually, I guess seven. That one about the vampire cards had a big long WoW card game intro in it.”

My third reaction was, “Wow, I gotta post more World of Warcraft stuff. I’m falling behind.”

But! That is not the point here! Let it never be said that the darklord does not respect the requests of his fan(s)!

(Although… I think it is clear that this request is little more than a thinly-disguised plug for Trauma Center. For the record, I am not playing this game currently, as I do not yet own a Wii upon which to play this marvel of interactivity. Soon, though, let us pray, hallelujah.)

Non-WoW-related post you want? Non-WoW-related post you shall get!!!

…mostly because there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about anyway.

That something is my recent love affair with Guitar Hero.

For those of you living under a sand dune in Darkest Escarpion, Guitar Hero is something of an out-of-left-field smash hit rock-and-roll rhythm game, who’s sequel (the aptly named Guitar Hero 2) came out just last week.

It’s… a game where you play air guitar for points. Pretty much.

It sports the most amazing add-on controller ever: this marvelous creation called the mini-Gibson SG, a device that is so like a musical instrument as to be indistinguishable from one:

Note that I did not say it is indistinguishable from a guitar. Because, of course, it is in practice, comparing the mini-Gibson here to a real guitar is a little like comparing a kazoo to a trumpet. True, both require breath to make noise, and both require some skill (in varying amounts) to operate… but there is where the similarities end. One is a maker of sound, and the other is an instrument.

That said, there is an enormous amount of skill one can apply to this stupid game. Just imagine: Dance Dance Revolution, only with a guitar:

It’s unbelievably fun. And, I’m really good at it.

Now, I wouldn’t normally make such a bold claim. Modesty is, after all, a virtue, and it is important to keep your perspective in such things: there is always someone better than you out there, and it’s best not to over-celebrate your own successes. I feel these things to be true, in my bones, and in no way wish to misrepresent my accomplishments.

So I brought proof.

Before we talk about that, though, I wanna break this game down for you a bit, and discuss its genius. It’s one hell of a game.

To begin our discussion, let’s establish the Facts:

• In this game, colored dots scroll at you while a song is playing (see above for screen shot), and you have to “play” the right “note” at the right moment. If you succeed, yaay, if you miss, boo.
• “Playing” a note means pressing the right colored button, and “strumming” the little lever that represents the strings. It feels amazingly like playing a guitar, in practice.
• There are four difficulty levels in the game – Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.

In “Easy” mode, you only ever have to worry about three of the five buttons. This is nice for the uncoordinated, as you never have to move your hand, and the notes come at you in a nice, liesurely pace.

In “Medium”, they add the fourth button, which you have to either press with your pinky (often awkward), or shift your hand position (tricky to do). And they expect you to be able to handle faster notes, and more of them.

You can imagine this, I bet: it’s a timing game, like many others, with the added cool factor that it really feels like a guitar. Hit one of four inputs, at the right time… if you played PaRappa the Rapper, you’re not too far off here.

…and then the wheels come off.

In “Hard” mode, a couple of important things happen. The first thing you notice right off: the notes come at you literally twice as fast as in the previous two levels. The second thing is that the fifth button starts to appear in songs, which makes the skill of relocating your hand on the neck a requirement, no longer optional.

And… well, you kinda have to start playing the solos. Which means chains of tightly packed notes, all in a row.

They mean it. It’s hard.

The two most difficult songs (and, not surprisingly, the last two songs in the game) are Cowboys From Hell by Pantera (oh yes, yes, more metal, bring on the metal) and Bark At The Moon by Ozzy Ozbourne. It… took some time, and the development of whole new playing techniques, to overcome this obstacle.

…

See, this is where it starts to get crazy. “Expert” mode is something completely different.

In Hard mode, one has the impression that the designers are aware of your fear of the fifth button. They tease you with it, as if knowing that every time you see one of those babies appear on the screen, scrolling towards you, your stomach cramps, and you hope you’ll get it. In contrast, the designers working on Expert mode have only disdain for this fear. “Get used to that button,” they say, “because you’re going to be hitting it whenever we damn well feel like you are.”

Gone, too, in Expert mode, is any pretention that you will not be hitting every goddamn note the lead guitarist played in the song. In Hard, they let you off the hook here and there, and allowed some notes to “represent” note phrases. This was in order to preserve your sanity. Note to self: the Expert mode designers are trying to drive you insane. Was the sound in the song a chord? You’ll be hitting two buttons at once. Was it played at speeds few humans can even comprehend? Join in the band, brother, because that’s your job now.

As an aside, I want to say that it is very strange how much playing this game is like learning an actual instrument. Anyone who has struggled with real-world instruments knows the cycle of learning one goes through, and that same cycle repeats itself here. I would go for days and days without progressing, banging my head against the same goddamn song, and then one day I would pick up my “guitar”, and a song that was insurmountable the day before would be simple.

I get better at this game when I sleep. Just like the real thing.

I only have one more thing to say on this topic, and it is this:

…

p.s. As remarkable as this accomplishment is to me, I can assure you, my performance in no way comes close to what is seen at the other end of this link. That guy, whoever he is, is my hero.

I had quite a weekend. As I write this, I am shaking visibly with barely-constrained enthusiasm. I have had to hit the backspace key far more often than I normally do.

I have laid out in some detail the nature of my (and by “my” I mean my imaginary avatar, Allora’s) excursions into the Molten Core of Azeroth. I have further laid out to you, here and there, the slow, arduous ascent I have been engaged in collecting together what is knows as the “Lawbringer Set” of armor.

I slowed the reporting on this recently. You have been experiencing a kind of “media blackout” on the progress, since I hit 7 of 8 pieces. The reason for this is that I have been at 7 of 8 pieces for three fucking months. The last piece I needed was the Lawbringer Legplates.

Note the use. Of past. Motherfucking. Tense.

Just so we all understand each other: in nearly a year of raiding Molten Core every weekend (yeah, that’s right, I said it, I’m a nerd) I have seen these goddamn legplates once. According to the illustrious Thottbot, they have a 10% drop rate. Apparently, the rate is actually (10% – Allora_Special_Case_Magic_Number), because I’ve killed that stupid goddamn dog at least forty times, so you would THINK that they would do us all a favor and show the fuck up once in a while.

Well, last night, ladies and germs, I got my wish. One of my guildies was actually ahead of me in the DKP rankings, so technically he could have taken them, but he knew they would complete my set and so let them pass. Thank you, Gamon.

I must say. I look sexy.

You would think that that would be enough madness for one weekend. You would be emphatically wrong.

I think it is somehow fitting that the next topic dovetail in the same post with the previous one. It is as if they were fitted, by dwarven hands, to nestle together, one after the other.

The Molten Core is, of course (and the anxiety I am experiencing in bringing this topic to your attention is mammoth) only the first high-end raid dungeon in the World of Warcraft.

There are several more. A few of these we (the guild) have been already engaged with, but they are all roughly equivalent to the Core, both in power needed to tackle them, and in rewards that one receives for removing them of all living inhabitants, smearing their walls and floors with the blood of your victims. They are known as “tier 1″ dungeons.

The first, and most significant, of the “tier 2″ dungeons (I’m getting a chest cramp as I type) is a place known as Blackwing Lair. I’ll save you the trouble of following that link and quote from it here:

The mighty fortress carved within the fiery bowels of Blackrock Mountain was designed by the master dwarf-mason, Franclorn Forgewright. Intended to be the symbol of Dark Iron power, the fortress was held by the sinister dwarves for centuries. However, Nefarian – the cunning son of the dragon, Deathwing – had other plans for the great keep. He and his draconic minions took control of the upper Spire and made war on the dwarves’ holdings in the mountain’s volcanic depths, which serve as the seat of power for Ragnaros the Firelord. Ragnaros has uncovered the secret to creating life from stone and plans to build an army of unstoppable golems to aid him in conquering the whole of Blackrock Mountain.

Blackwing Lair can be found at the very height of Blackrock Spire. It is there in the dark recesses of the mountain’s peak that Nefarian has begun to unfold the final stages of his plan to destroy Ragnaros once and for all and lead his army to undisputed supremacy over all the races of Azeroth.

Yeah. I speak nerd.

Our guild has been banging it’s collective head against the first boss fight in this new dungeon for some time. Months, in fact. It’s a fight with a pleasant fellow known as Razorgore, and this fight is well-known for being a brutal introduction to methods required to take on the higher-level bosses in the game.

He’s a fucking pain in the ass, pretty much.

I won’t go into too much detail. It suffices to say, there’s up to 40 elite mobs running around the room trying to kill us at any one time, one of us is controlling the crazy dragon guy with an orb thing and making him break eggs, if you let the boss die too soon he explodes and kills the whole party… lunacy.

It’s been at least three months of brick wall time with this fight… until Saturday. Saturday, he went the fuck down.

It’s funny how anti-climactic it was. We, I think, were all so focused on the fight, and have gotten so used to getting pwned by this guy that when he actually went down, we all kinda looked at the corpse in surprise. “Huh!” we said. “I guess we killed Razorgore!”

He dropped some warrior gear, and we went on to get our ass handed to us over and over by the second boss in the instance, a guy named Vaelastrasz the Corrupt (who, as it turns out, is actually a really nice guy… he’s just got an “I’m possessed!! Flee before I kill you!!” sort of problem).

Now, you should be made aware…

um.

Yeah. You should be made aware that the Lawbringer gear I have shown you is what is considered “tier 1″ gear, as it comes from “tier 1″ dungeons. I… well…

So I have 1 item of the “tier 2″ set: the Judgement Crown.

It’s… 1 of 8.

Yeah, so if you read my last post, you know about my recent estimates on my collection of VTES cards. I believe I said something like “5000+”.

This weekend I finally completed my organizing spree, managing to stuff all my cards into three large boxes. Curious, then, as to what the actual total was, I measured how far 100 cards was, and then counted up 1 row… and then multiplied…

I rejected the number I came up with. I tried it again, with a 200 card measurement.

Yeah. I have 12,000+ cards.

I can’t say anything more about that without throwing up. Here is something to distract you from this topic.

If you viewed that page, and have survived, I applaud you. You are made of stern stuff, and should consider a career in the military.

Over the year(s) that I’ve been blogging here I have come to believe that some large part of the entertainment value (if I may be so bold as to use that phrase for what I have done ’round these here parts) that folks derive from reading about my exploits has to do with something I think of as a blended mix of fascination and horror at the level of obsessive behavior I struggle with on a daily basis. “How can all that crap be done by the same person? And… his poor family!” is something like what I imagine people think when they expose themselves to my latest fascination.

I am opening in this way for a reason. I… I think I’m bracing myself for what I have to divulge next.

As you may know, I play a lot of games. There are, in fact, not all that many games that I haven’t played, in one form or another. If it’s got orcs and swords and magic and stuff in it, chances are I’ve at least picked it up and tried it. If it’s good, chances are I was obsessed with it for a while.

So it was with some trepidation that I read of the horrible alchemy of the (then-impending, and now readily available) World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

Some of you may not have been exposed to the nightmarish world that is these collectible card games (CCGs, or, as the WoW game has apparently re-christened them, “trading card games”, or TCGs). If that is true, I can say with the sternest of faces and the most serious of voices: if you derive any joy from collecting stuff, and in particular from completing sets of things, stay the fuck away from these games. They will cost you thousands of dollars.

In brief, here’s how they work: there are hundreds of different cards (and sometimes, in a mature game, thousands), all of which are useful in some way. Some are ‘common’, some are ‘uncommon’, and some… some are the elusive prey known to the Card Hunter as ‘rare‘. What does this mean? You may ask… but only if you are strong of heart. God knows, I was not.

It means that they sell you these cards, these nefarious slices of demonic power, in “packs”, which come in various shapes and sizes. Usually, there’s something like 12 cards in a pack. Nine of these will be ‘common’. Feh. Three of these (say) will be ‘uncommon’. And one, and only one, will be ‘rare’.

$2.75 a pack, or sometimes as much as $4.00. Buy now!!

It’s the worst kind of evil: the kind of evil that steals hundreds, nay thousands of dollars, from children. Babies, mostly.

I can only imagine that Blizzard feels they have not managed to extract quite enough cash from their World of Warcraft franchise. They (I imagine) must feel the urge to keep up with the Joneses, and build their own skyscraper. Or, perhaps they want to use $1000 bills to wallpaper their studio. For, what other nefarious impulse would lead them to decide to enter into this horrendous fray? What would make them release their own trading card game??

Whatever else it is, it’s evil.

Now, you may at this point be imagining that I am going to reveal to you that I have fallen into this WoW:TCG hole. You may imagine that I am, at this moment, up to my eyeteeth in cards with names like “Sunder” and “Arcanite Reaper”. You might further imagine that I have emerged, penniless and broken, my life destroyed by this marketing juggernaut. Indeed, my past behavior would give you good reason to expect this outcome!

Aha!! Fear not, o fearless reader! I have, in fact, purposefully led you astray in this narrative. (Unkind, I know.) For, you see, although you may have come to believe that I am completely without self-control and willpower when it comes to my gaming obsessions, I can assure you: that is not. the. case.

No, friends. I am steel. I am made of iron.

I have been down this road before, and I know its evils. I knew what lay in store for me on the other side of that threshold, yes, friends!! I am strong!!

That’s right. I took one look at that damn card game Blizzard was getting ready to release upon a fragile and unsuspecting world, and said to myself, “Boy, that WoW game sounds kinda dumb. Hey, didn’t I used to play a different card game with vampires in it? I think I have a bunch of cards lying around somewhere… I wonder what they’ve done with that game since the last time I looked? Hey!! Wow!! Look at all the new expansions I’ve missed!! Holy crap! I don’t have any of these cards!! And look!! You can get ‘em cheap on eBay!! Oooooo, they just released the third edition!! Where’s my credit card!!”

I am not exaggerating when I say that the rest of my world has pretty much come to a full stop while I engage with this titan. By way of demonstration, let me describe a project that I just recently completed: White Wolf (the blessed publisher of said game, having retrieved the rights back from Wizards of the Coast some time ago) has on their site a .csv file that lists every card ever published for the game, all 3,000 or so of them. I didn’t like the way they had laid out the data in this file (it cramped my style, you see), and so I learned Python, wrote a parser, and completely rebuilt the file. Now, after several days of massaging and bug-fixing, I have an Excel file that allows me to…

…if you have small children with you, you might want to avert their eyes at this point…

…count and catalogue my entire 4000+ card collection, in minute detail, so that I can better determine what I’m missing and what I really should not get any more of. I am about 80% done with the counting as of this morning (in which I digested my collection of cards from the Dark Sovereigns expansion).

I… also have at home now two (soon to be three) new card boxes, in which my collection has been being filed. Alphabetically.

My friends are no help. In passing, I mentioned this recent fixation to a buddy of mine at work. “Oh, yeah!” he opined. “I played that! I have a bunch of cards at home! I’ll bring ‘em in for ya!”

O.o

Apparently, the gaunt, hung-over, “I’ve been alphabetizing for three days” look had no impact on his empathic systems. Twenty hours later, this friend buried me under his collection, which had apparently been sitting in a back corner for years, mewling piteously, in search of its true master. And, apparently, that was to be me. So I (wonderously) got to add ~750 cards (including something like 50 of the elusive rare variety) to my collection. This, as you can imagine, did not do much to dim the fires of my obsession.

I’ll try to post some pictures later. I’ve been too busy counting and alphabetizing to take any pictures, you see.

p.s. For the love of all that is holy, does anyone have a Talbot’s Chainsaw??? It’s the only card of the first release that I don’t yet have. /cry!!!

p.p.s. I…

…also bought a case of boosters packs (36 in a case) and two starter decks for the WoW game.

But that’s it! I’m not getting any more!