As more buzz, news and rumors emerge regarding Cataclysm (including some very interesting coverage by The Escapist), a thought has occurred to me. It was only reinforced by the experience I had over the weekend into last night that will become public some time in the next 24-48 hours, to say nothing of writing “The Haunting of Pridewater” twice.

A storyteller should never be afraid of starting over.

The developers at Blizzard aren’t technically starting over. They’re revising and updating most of the original world, partially for in-game lore reasons and partially to take advantage of the advances in graphics and phasing. However, to experience this new content as something other than a max-level fully armored hero astride a flying mount, one needs to start over with a new character. This really isn’t a big deal, speaking as someone who suffers from a condition known as ‘alt-itis’, but for some it’s pretty daunting. I for one will be starting at least two new characters, and possibly one on the Alliance side of things. We’ll see.

In terms of both writing and the other thing, which I will not mention for reasons I can’t explain but involve the preservation of my sphincter, there are times when a creative endeavor doesn’t go quite as smoothly as one would like. Sometimes you know it right away, and sometimes it needs to be pointed out to you. But either way, the only responsible thing is to start over. Unless you’re writing strictly for your own pleasure, you need to write in such a way that other will be interested in your work enough to see it through to the end, and if you want to be successful, you need to transcend the interest of morbid curiosity. In other words, you want someone to check out you work for a reason other than, “Let’s see just how bad this can suck before it ends.”

Even when you have a deadline, you can always find time to start over, at least in part. Provided you’re not coming out of the gate for the first time at the last minute, there’s opportunity to review your work, pick out what works, scrap what doesn’t and begin again. It can seem like a chore, and sometimes it’s a daunting task, either due to the work’s overall length or the approaching deadline, but working through those obstacles and emerging with a product you know for a fact is better by a great factor than your previous attempt is very nearly its own reward. It’s thrilling to have that sense of completion twice, especially if you can compare what came before with what you have now.

How often have you had to start over? Have you had to do it multiple times on the same project? How much better was the end product due to the stops and starts?

It’s been some time since I’ve discussed upcoming MMOs other than World of Warcraft. Since then, Star Trek Online revealed itself to be rather dull, other bloggers have gotten into the FFXIV beta, and there hasn’t been anything more said about the Twilight thing. Thank the Maker. So let’s see what developments have come along lately, shall we?

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Not sure if want.

It was recently announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic will include space combat. This reminded me of the announcement BioWare made about the sex in Mass Effect. It’s aimed to drum up interest. In this case, those of us with fond memories of X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (if not TIE Fighter itself, one of the best space combat sims EVER) can imagine ourselves enjoying that sort of gameplay in an MMO setting. Some might already be blowing the dust off of their HOTAS setup in anticipation.

However, BioWare’s previous attempts at space combat were somewhat lackluster. The elements of it in the KOTOR titles were a bit dull. I’d love to think that, if they borrowed anything form Star Wars Galaxies, it’d be at least the skeleton of space combat, because it was pretty good in SWG. But I, for one, will be waiting to see the end result.

Warhammer 40,000

Definitely kinda want.

So THQ and Games Workshop have issued a trailer along with some bits of info about the setting for Dark Millenium, their Warhammer 40k MMORPG. I still like the idea of playing around in this universe, but the fact that the trailer shows gameplay as a Space Marine makes me a bit leery. I’m afraid that Space Marines will become the blood elf death knights of Dark Millenium – everybody will be playing one, and they’ll all think they’re the most badass mofo with the best RP story EVAR. I want to know more about the other races and classes available before I render a final opinion, but for now, it seems to be going in an okay direction. More diversity and information, please!

World of Darkness

DO WANT.

In a word: Yes.

In two words: Fuck yes.

Fan boy wank aside, this prospect excites me for a variety of reasons. The World of Darkness is a rich, deep IP, that does supernaturals pretty damn well (especially in comparison to Twilight or Underworld) and contains plenty of basis for both PvE and PvP content. With every type of supernatural their own faction, and some being played by NPCs, there should be something for everybody there.

Beyond that, there’s the fact that the World of Darkness comes to us from White Wolf. Other than employing some extremely cool men and women, White Wolf is owned by CCP. Yes, that CCP. As in “creators of EVE Online.” These cats not only know how to make a decent and well-received MMORPG, they know how to keep it going and make things interesting for those who don’t even play the game. Like having six years of real world revenue get destroyed by a pirate raid. This boosts my confidence in the notion of this project not only launching successfully, but being worth playing and maybe even paying money to play.

For the time being, I’m still playing WoW. But I’ll be keeping my eye on these titles, and as soon as I know more, so will you.

So Blizzard’s having this contest and I wrote something for it. Given that this is a piece of fiction written within an established universe it is, in essence, a work of fan fiction. Now there’s a lot of fan fiction, from the drabbles that put Harry Potter in bed with Draco Malfoy to the novels published in the universes of Warhammer or Star Wars. There are some things, in my experience, that separate good works of this type from the bad ones.

It all comes down to doing the research.

If you want to avoid derailing a character’s development, ensure your work fits into the tapestry of the universe and match the tone of previous works while providing your unique voice, you have to know the facts about your piece back to front. If the universe began as movies, watch them; as novels, read them; as games, play them. Know the characters, settings, themes and moods. A lot of established fictional universes have on-line resources, from basic fan-sites to extensive wikis – make use of these resources.

There’s established lore out there, and if you ignore it, by either not researching it or choosing to omit it, bad things can happen. It might not make the work entirely unsuccessful, but you might have to weather criticism such as “This character would never act that way,” “The timeline of these events is all screwed up,” or “[insert author name here] doesn’t know how to write women properly.”

Walking into a place filled with lore looking to tell a new story can be a lot like walking into a minefield. If you don’t watch your step, your journey will end very abruptly and messily.

Just be careful.

Special thanks to Aron, Anthony and Eric for their efforts over the weekend. I hope you enjoyed the guest posts. If you didn’t, well, maybe you’d like to write one for me next time I disappear for an extended period of time. Just sayin’.

So the voice of the community, here in the person of Gandalf the White, made its mind known to the king, and apparently Blizzard (Theoden) was able to snap itself out of the money-grubbing stupor. Apparently the potentates of the great gaming company do, in fact, listen the concerns of the people and make corrections when necessary. We must all hope that Wormtongue will take the hint and stop dumping poison in the great king’s ear.

Coming back into the game after a long weekend knowing this issue’s been resolved was like meeting a friend for beers after an unfortunate miscommunication’s been cleared up. As I played for a bit last night, I remembered why things had started to feel a bit tedious for me.

As with many aspects of my life, I’d been trying to do too many things at once. Hodir dailies, netherwing dailies, dungeons, PvP, hopping on this alt or that one… it was getting to be too much. They were all things that, for some reason, I felt I had to address now. But what’s the rush? Cataclysm won’t be hitting shelves for a while, so it’s better to pace myself. With that in mind, I think I’ve gotten a grip on how to get the most out of my WoW play-time, especially now that a second PC capable of playing the game is about to be introduced to the Loomis-Piche household.

And yes, “Loomis Peach” (that’s how it’s pronounced) sounds like a cocktail my mother’d really, really like.

Characters have day jobs, too (Dailies)

One of the first things I need to do is stop worrying about raking in as much gold as possible per day. This is supposed to be relaxing for me, not a test of how much repetitive questing I can tolerate before my head explodes. The nice thing about how the gathering of faction reputation works is that there are a few quests one can do per day that not only pay well but eventually yield better rewards. Currently, my main character’s working on his reputation with the ice giants known as the Sons of Hodir. Following that I can return to Outland and continue my quest for the staggeringly awesome nether drake, only to come back to the frozen land of Northrend to work for either the Oracles or the Frenzyheart Tribe. However, the key to enjoying all of this is to only do one set at a time.

A character can do up to 25 daily quests per day. That is a LOT of dailies. If I didn’t have other characters or concerns, I might tackle all of this faction-based work at once. But there are other things I need to attend to. The fact is that no matter how much gold I earn, I can’t use it to buy the better equipment I need to stand a chance in an end-game raid.

That means going into the dungeons, and I figure that I can do two, maybe three of those per evening. The Random Dungeon system that teleports you instantly between a given location and the dungeon in question is ideal for someone like me, who is doing daily questing in between dungeon runs. The process and somewhat tedious repetition of daily quests is broken up by quick runs into random dungeons. You never know what adventure you’ll be heading into until the loading screen appears.

Well, it’s fun for me, and that’s what matters, isn’t it?

One Multiple Personality At A Time, Please

I tend to come down with a condition called ‘altitis.’

Altitis is a serious affliction that strikes many players of World of Warcraft. Symptoms of altitis include rolling far too many alternate characters, spreading alternate characters between various servers, having a dozen or more characters below level 30 with only a handful anywhere near maximum level and dry mouth. Altitis can severely cripple a player’s ability to experience or enjoy end-game content. If you or someone you care about seems to be suffering from altitis, please remind them that dinging 80 is not the same as actually defeating the Lich King. Thank you.

I need to address my alternate characters the same way I do daily quest sources – one at a time. Heirloom items will make leveling them easier, so if I wrap up my dailies and dungeons, then switch to an alt to grind out a level or two, that should make a for a rather complete evening’s game play.

I know it also makes me something of a sad bastard and takes away from writing time, but I ride the train most days for a reason, people.

Playing is Optional

That said, it’s just a game. I don’t have to play it. I could write. I could fire up Steam. I could watch a movie with my wife, play with the cats, toss a console game in the X-box.

As long as I like it and continue to find ways to get the most out of my monthly subscription, however, I think WoW will be sticking around for a bit longer, now that it’s over that embarrassing little bit of bad advice it nearly swallowed.