A tribute to the one who inspired me to blog

Hello everyone, as you may have suspected my name is not Autarii, (I just wanted to clear that up) I am just someone who values privacy and secrecy to a somewhat ridiculous extent, I am not even on face book or twitter. The obvious question is therefore why am i going to put on the Internet the one thing that, until life catches up to science fiction, we can all keep as private as we like, our thoughts out there on the net for anyone to see? The answer is, as I first learned from an old character in Diablo II there is a great dichotomy in me. on the one hand I yearn for the shadows of comfortable anonymity and on the other I wish to step into the light and share my ideas with the world, to connect with those out there who may think like me, agree with me, be outraged by me, be amused by me, or have any interest in my thoughts at all. Of course I couldn't do this under my own name and picture, that would horrify my misanthropic half, who merely wishes to stay in the shadows quietly heaping scorn and derision on the world, so this is a happy compromise.

So before I get going on the tribute, as its my first post I should say who I am, well for now lets call me Autarii, why? Its the name if my main in World of Warcraft, that already says something about me, yes, I am a geek, nerd, whatever word you feel like using. I actually play wow far too much and it takes time away form my other loves, warhammer (both fantasy and 40k as well as a host of the specialist games), D&D (I'm creating my own campaign world called Thallatta) reading (mostly history/economics/fantasy/sci-fi) and occasionally watching TV (my favorite shows are House and Stargate Universe at the moment) but what actually led me here is wow.

In my stonger moments I advise people to run screaming away form wow, it destroys lives, it did mine as well as other people I know, it lures you in with false promises of a social environment, only to give you instead a posion cup, when you dont actually know the people you are talking to, when they live half way across the world and you will never meet them (and are safe in the knowledge that even if you do step outside your house long enough to meet them you wont recognize them) its remarkably easy to be cruel to them, and they to you. Having said that, in my weaker moments, which are most of the time, I urge people to play wow. It provides cheap entertainment and fills up boredom, and it lets you talk to people all over the world, in an, on the whole, friendly environment as well as providing all the fun of a fantasy world that you can truely get lost in, in every sense of the word.

I met the person to whom this post is dedicated first the first time at a games workshop, when I was merely a child. I’m older now, and I would like to say that we are good friends. He first introduced me to wow, although I took it far too far for his liking, I have since taken a step back and actually started talking to real people again, himself included. He recently showed me his blog and I was rather taken by the idea so he directly inspired this one. If I am granted permission to do so I will include in my next post a link to his blog as it is very interesting. One of his first posts was on an online comedy show called the guild by actress Felicia Day, to which once again I owe thanks for introducing me (the show not the actress). In honour of that first post, my first post will end with a little commentary on the guild.

At one point, when I was in my first wow raiding guild, I cried to a friend that I should like to move to another guild on our server (I can’t remember to which one I intended moving) as I was sick and tired of all the drama going on in our current guild. He laughed, saying “do you really think it’s better in any other guild?” I was shocked by this and although I did not leave my guild at that time, I never really believed that any other group of people could be as ridiculous as we were. That was in the beginning of my wow days, I know better now. Having been in many guilds now, including being the GM of one I founded I can say with complete confidence that every guild is full of drama, the longer the guild lasts the more will accumulate. So I was highly amused to see it shown so well on the guild web series. I found the show to be a very accurate portrayal of life in a wow guild, people stealing from the guild bank, the pain at servers being down, and the existence of rival guilds, I see all of it in my own life and on the guild. In season 3 when they encounter another guild of incredibly skilled players the other guild is shown as a collection of rogues and unpleasant individuals who don’t even seem to like each other. Again this is my experience of the best guilds on the servers I have played wow on. This accuracy in the guild allows me to laugh at my own life, safe and comfortable in the knowledge that it’s not just me, others share in my pain as well. So that is why I love the guild, on its own it is a hilarious comedy about a group of friends playing an mmo, in context of my own gaming habit (near but not quit addiction) it is even better.

Well my fist post has gone on far longer than I originally intended so it’s time to end it here, I hope it caught some ones interest.