The Battle for Azeroth has arrived. With it, we get to explore new lands and face new (or old) villains. I remember the last real mention of Kul Tiras was in the old Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. It was the Horde side campaign where you played as Rexxar. This was one of the first times where the Horde invaded Theramore and where Daelin Proudmoore ultimately met his demise. Fast forward to World of Warcraft, and Kul Tiras had a few mentions and appearances throughout the game like those early zones in Tiragarde Keep which held Kul Tiran marines. The formal arrival of Kul Tiras into the game answered many questions for me and it was like revisiting the past in a new light. In Warcraft 2, Kul Tiras fleets were the backbone of the Alliance naval forces. So it was always weird to me that when WoW came out, you knew what happened to the Kingdoms of Lordaeron, Stromgard, Alterac, the Kirin Tor, and the rest of the different Alliance factions, but Kul Tiras was nowhere to be found. It was after the events of the first Horde assault on Theramore that we never found out what formally happened to them — Until now.
Levelled to 120 – Twice
Ugh, I think I’m getting too old for this. Reaching 120 on the Priest was just agonizing as Shadow, but I still managed to do it. My server, Proudmoore, went down for about an hour during the evening. I didn’t end up hitting 120 until about 6 AM. After clearing out the first emissary, I took a nice nap before waking up and striking through into heroics and mythic 0’s.
We can’t seem to recruit Rogues for the life of us, so if there’s any free agent Rogues out there, check us out. It’s a great guild with a fantastic, but disciplined atmosphere. I love our pacing and level of organization at all areas. One of the few downsides are the few dad jokes or feeble attempts at assorted puns. Like, c’mon guys, it seems that raid progression is inversely proportional to quality of dad jokes. I’d totally step into that arena and show these guys how it’s done, but I don’t want to jeopardise my raid spot for being too witty, know what I mean?
The past couple of weeks have been fairly calm. Week one was all about rushing characters to 120 — In my case, it was my Priest (main) and my Ret Paladin. Previous expansions, I would have levelled up my Elemental Shaman first. I will say that after the Priest, playing Ret was a relief. I could delete anything without taking forever. I had assorted outs at my disposal in case I unexpectedly over pulled (and those of you who have levelled with me know that happens fairly often).
Tomorrow, my real game begins. The raiding season starts again. After almost a month off of no raids, the time has come to zero in on health bars and ensure I don’t stand in bad. I am so excited. Miss my res cloak though :(.
I also miss my talking knife. She kept me company throughout Legion. What would she say now if she were by my side?
The Gaming Stadium
Speaking of unexpected, an opportunity came my way to help grow the esports scene in Vancouver. I’ve been a Hearthstone Fireside organizer since 2014. One of my constant challenges is finding a venue to run an event out of. The back of hobby and comic book shops, to University lecture rooms, coworking spaces, convention halls, and casino ballrooms have been different places where I could hold Hearthstone.
Then out of the blue, the idea of a dedicated esports community centre came up. Anyone that lives in the Vancouver area know that there’s already enough LAN centers here. Players go in and play with their friends for a few hours on Fortnite or League of Legends, or what have you. The pitch to me was, “not just another LAN center”. Regular, recurring tournaments would be a priority. Recreational weekly leagues would be on the calendar (like a beer league for gamers). We could have a space to watch majors or host viewing parties for HCT or OWL games on a big screen with your friends instead of at home. Vancouver hosted The International last month, and the packed atmosphere was crazy.
I haven’t heard Rogers arena that loud and energetic since 2011 (That’s a Canucks self burn, by the way #Sadface).
Another thing that came up was during my time hosting Hearthstone tournaments, I’d get into conversations with parents who were asking about coaching for their daughter, or their son wanted to learn how to play a specific deck. The best I could do was point them out to a few players and have them observe. But now I’d be in a position where we could run like a bootcamp, a Hearthstone master class, or like a Fortnite 101 and invite local community players to provide a crash course.
Lastly, this one might be a little more selfish on my part than anything. There’s been some unflattering news lately about Riot and but they’re attempting to turn their culture around. There’s an opportunity here to affect and influence players at the local level to be a less toxic, to play nice, and to play fair. It’ll be good to remind players when they’re in here that there’s another person on the other side of that character whether it’s on their team or on the opposition. I can’t change the world overnight, but if I can shape even a fraction of younger players to be less toxic, less misogynistic, and more welcoming, maybe I can do some good here in the long run. It’s too late for me to compete on any kind of world stage. I grew up too early. But maybe one day I can say that we had a hand here in developing players and gave them the right amount of media training and guidance to compete in the HCT or Overwatch League and not get suspended or ejected for behavioural issues. Or maybe it’s a lost cause, I don’t know. Too optimistic and naive? Probably. I have to try.
Wait a minute though, what does this mean for raiding? Won’t this eat up most of my time? Thankfully, my guild won’t have to worry too much — I specifically negotiated a clause where I could raid from the office uninterrupted in the evenings if it was needed.