Daily Archives: April 10, 2020
The Return of (the) Garrosh (Poetry Challenge)
So yes, Averry is still alive! (At least for now.)
I had originally planned to add an OOC note in parentheses after the previous post (If you haven’t read that one yet, what are you doing here reading my prattling? Priorities, people!), but somehow it seemed like the closing bit would have lost something if it wasn’t really, y’know, the closing bit. So here I am to give you a second appearance in one night!
Which… I suppose still doesn’t make up for literal years since the last time I wrote something here. The force of inertia will do that to you. While I’ve worked on material for the blog in fits and starts since things went quiet around here, the reality is that once I got out of the habit of posting, it became all too easy to let things stay that way. So for those of you who are still out there even noticing a new blip on the radar, thank you.
But, as Garrosh himself said moments ago, under the new circumstances we’re all living under, it seems like we could all do with a little extra diversion and distraction, and what could be more entertaining (for me especially) than to slip back into the boisterous voice of everyone’s favorite long-deposed Warchief? (Although now we’ve gotten to the point where I need to make sure I’m being clear about which deposed Warchief I’m talking about. Yeesh.) Especially since April is National Poetry Month, which gives me an excuse to dust off Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge as a warmup.
So, here’s the plan: from now until the end of April, the Warchief will be posting a new installment of EPIC VERSE every Tuesday and Friday. As always with these poetry challenges, he’s going to need help from all of you, so fill up that comment section with suggestions – anything from specific topics to opening lines to kickstart the poem. Anything goes, and I’ll try to make use of as many of the suggestions as I can, but do try to keep it fun – remember, the spirit of the exercise is less “a somber meditation on existential despair” and more “There once was a gnome from Mudsprocket”!
That will take us through April. The first week or so in May is going to be a busy one for me, so I know that I won’t have time to give the blog a lot of attention, but after that, the plan is to post every Wednesday going forward – Warchief Wednesday, as it were! (And for anyone worried that it’ll feel weird to have mailbags not be on Monday, don’t worry; Monday Mailbag will stay in place, and those weeks you’ll just get a second post for the week!)
So, yes, that means you’ll soon get to resume the ongoing and ridiculous adventures of our very particular version of the big ol’ Mag’har lug. Spirits help us all.
One last note in closing: I have a small favor to ask. Since the last time I posted on the blog, there have been a lot of changes in WordPress that forced me to spend a fair bit of time reassembling the site. (Among other things, some of the WordPress changes broke the theme I was using, which I had heavily modified in the first place, and… well, let’s just say it was time-consuming and not fun.) I’m pretty sure I’ve fixed all the major issues, but I’m also sure I’ve probably missed a few odds and ends, so if you could just click around a little and just see if you notice anything that looks off, I’d appreciate it. Nothing major, just maybe link your way through a few pages, pull up a handful of old posts, that kind of thing, to help with shakedown. Also, I’ve added a new plugin to manage comments on posts, so feedback on any bugs that need working out there would be welcome, too.
As always, thank you for sticking around… or rather, for coming back again. More soon!
I mean it this time.
Averry
Tales of the Earth Online-pocalypse
Well you know how I kill time
On that game called Earth Online
In a nightmare future world that’s purely human.
But my gaming’s been derailed
And my login time curtailed
’Cause recently a freakish techie threat’s been loomin’.
Seems some hacker was desirous
Of a vile computer virus
To completely undermine our in-game doin’s.
Well then, grats on that one, bastard,
’Cause you’ve definitely mastered
The fine art of leaving our whole game in ruins.
See, the way that this thing works
Is some shut-in virgin jerks
Planted coding in the game to skulk in hiding;
There was no direct disruption,
Not a hunt of file corruption,
Till it picked a toon or two and went out riding.
So some unsuspecting losers
Logged on just like any users,
Never knowing that their character was tainted;
While they quested and hard-moded,
The damn virus got downloaded —
Five days later, their computer blue-screen fainted.
Hold on tight — the plot gets thicker.
Now here comes the goddamn kicker —
In those five days up until the time bomb blew,
Infested players kept on playing
And to all nearby conveying
The damn virus… so they downloaded it, too.
So the virus started rolling.
And this shit went way past trolling —
People’s hard drives got wiped out by this damn griefer.
And you’d think the circumstances
Could be managed, but your chances
Would be better making Tirion be briefer.
Everybody knew the danger:
Keep your character at range or
You might give the virus more room to disperse.
Just stay back a couple yards!
But of course, some fucking tards
Just kept partying and making matters worse.
Now the player base was scattered
And some raiding guilds were shattered
’Cause the spreading of the virus wasn’t random.
And the sole hope of resistance
Was on antisocial distance,
Separating the whole Earth Online game fandom.
Hubs have emptied by default;
Raiding’s ground down to a halt;
In-game economics slowed to nearly nix —
Save for this one wallet-raper
Auction-housing toilet paper.
(Hmm, I wonder if that fucker’s Gallywix…)
Now for all my dire opining
I’ll admit, one silver lining
Has come out of all this virtual disarray:
’Cause this viral infestation
Gives me more justification
To tell D&U to stay the fuck away.
Now this whole thing’s leaving me stunned
(Plus I better get a refund…)
There’s no precedent for this mess to compare to.
And those devs had better reckon
That I’ll bash their fucking neck in
If they try to keep my money (if they dare to).
But there’s still a bigger issue:
Earth Online’s fucked up; you wish you
Could keep playing, but for now it’s off the menu.
For your downtime fun and mirth
There’s no more roaming ’round on Earth —
We’re all stuck in Azeroth’s boring old venue.
So for spiritual sustainment,
You all need new entertainment!
While this EO lockdown goes from bad to worse,
All my followers and minions
Need more musings and opinions!
And above all, I know you need
OH OH HEY HANG ON A SECOND, I know EXACTLY what I can compare this whole fucking mess to — you remember that whole deal right at the start of the Northrend campaign, when that zombie plague broke out, like out of fucking NOWHERE? You know, there were all those weird crates turning up out of nowhere, and the fucking syphilitic roaches and shit, and next thing you knew, people were running around breathing zombie stank all over each other, and then they would croak, and, you know, good riddance ’cause FUCK THAT PLAGUE-CARRYING ASSHOLE, only it just kept spreading and spreading? Remember how fucked up that shit was?
Yeah, so, this is a lot like that. Only I guess it was worse then, because back then people were getting plagued for real, and this Earth Online thing is just a game.
On the other hand, back then, I hadn’t just sunk a shit-ton of gold into a new badass gaming rig that I DON’T GET TO USE NOW, so, you know, who’s to say which is the real tragedy? You be the judge.
Anyway, I… okay, where was I? Oh yeah…
…EPIC VERSE!
But yeah, I know you people need some kind of entertainment to fill your empty lives, now that Earth is all fucked up and shit, and you can’t go running there and hiding from, you know, the aforementioned empty lives that I mentioned. So yeah. Stay tuned. YOUR WARCHIEF’S GOT YOUR BACK, MOTHERFUCKERS.
Well, that attempt to digitize the blight didn’t go nearly as planned. Oh well, unlive and learn. ~_^
