Because apparently it’s in-fucking-evitable

Obeying the Muse

It’s a fresh start – I will be moving none of the old posts over.  I’m not sure if I’ll keep this up for posterity (as if they care about my old posts) or if I’ll take all this down at some point.

You may throw rotten fruit if you wish.  Even if you throw a tomato at me, I hope to see you on the pink side.

The Scoop

It’s been a good long while since one of these has come around – which is really too bad, since I like learning about my fellow bloggers.  And that’s what you should think of this as – learning about your fellow bloggers.  Not a…  *glances around and lowers her voice* meme.  TEH HORRORS!  The questions in this survey that I saw on Jaedia’s blog are quite interesting and help reveal opinions about the blogger that may not come out in their usual blogging.  (I’m not trying to make it sound like a personality test, I just really enjoy learning about the people who write the blogs I read!)

Let’s begin:

1. Raider, farmer, PvPer, or altoholic?

*blank stare*  This hardly bears asking.  *tics last box*

2. Favorite raid or dungeon?

My favorite dungeon, even from way back on my rogue, is The Mechanar.  I’m not sure exactly WHY I like it so much (perhaps how pretty it is inside) but even running it a million times on Anea and Sin combined never made me tired of it.  I’m looking forward to doing it on Anarkali.

3. Number one choice for a new playable race?

Tuskarr. Srsly.

4. Class you suck the most at?

Well… I haven’t played all the classes to a decently high level yet (warlock and druid haven’t made it out of the starting gate) but I’m not good at Death Knights.  Or Warrior tanking.  At all.

5. Original UI or modded UI?

The UI that I’m running right now is more or less the original UI.  I do have a few mods here and there, but they’re more “support” addons rather than drastic interface changing ones.  This is due to the computer that I must play on (a crappy old desktop) until I can buy myself a new one!  RIP laptop.

6. Profession you’ve never levelled past 200?

Blacksmithing, Leatherworking and Tailoring.  I have a small profession circle that I choose from.

7. Favorite flying mount?

Ironbound Proto-Drake. I’ll never have the damn thing, but boy do I want it.

8. Nozdormu — friend or foe, you figure?

Erm… *quickly opens Wowwiki and reads Nozdormu page*  Seems like a good guy dragon aspect?

9. Useless item you have in your bank that you’ll never get rid of?

Anea has quite a few random things in her bank – one of the things that’s stayed in her bank is the Mallet of Zul’Farrak – she kept it back when it was a white useful item only to look at it a few months ago and see that it’s no longer useful, but has turned in to a blue item that, should you want to vendor it, requires you confirm the deletion.  (Fancy, huh?)

Since Anarkali is still a growing Shaman, she doesn’t have much in her bank on the “to keep” side – but she does have Old Crafty in there.  (Oddly, he doesn’t smell yet.)

10. Most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

Do you all want the sad truth?  Artisan Riding. That’s the most expensive thing I’ve bought.  I haven’t splurged on other vanity items/mounts/pets/whathaveyou.  That’s all.  Boring.

11. Favorite starting area?

I have about three answers to this.  I’m tempted to say the Draenei area (Azuremyst) since I’ve done it so many times… but I don’t like the way the quests flow there.  I don’t particularly enjoy the quests in Elwynn but they flow like a well-oiled machine there.  (I’ve also played many humans.)  The scenery in Eversong Woods is divine but there’s too much running hither and thither for my taste.

There are, however, a few little islands that are the silver lining to an otherwise horrible, red, desolate starting area.  Durotar is a horrible boring hell of quests, but once you make it out of the Valley of Trials as a brand new level 5, you get to go over to Sen’jin Village and get quests that send you to the Echo Isles.  Love it.  (Please see question 30.)

12. Inane goal you worked hardest to achieve?

After I had switched mains to Anea, my rogue Sin sat patiently waiting for me to return to her.  I never did – however, a year later the Midsummer Festival came back around and I got it into my head that Sin needed to be a Flame Keeper, that she needed the whole outfit AND needed the pet.  Must have them or else.  So… I picked up my long abandoned rogue, did all the fires, all the achievements, gathered tons of blossoms and got her the whole kit and caboodle.  Only to never play her again.

Clearly this took all of my enthusiasm for the holiday because Anea isn’t a Flame Warden nor can I muster up the strength to schlep Anarkali to all the damn fires for the quests/experience.

13. Darion Mograine VS Tirion Fordring, gloves off — winner is?

See, this is one of the fun interesting questions that I’ll enjoy reading on other people’s blogs, but I don’t know enough about them to craft an answer, let alone a clever one!

14. Game music or your own playlist?

Game sounds have actually been my soundtrack for the last several weeks.  I’ve recently discovered them sans game music and it’s really quite interesting what you end up hearing that gets covered up by the zone music or the Apoptygma Berzerk you have blasting into your headphones.  I’ve been thinking about turning the music back on, after I hear what each zone sounds like in the Outlands and Northrend, since the music in the game is too damn awesome to not listen to.

15. Particular option or setting that you always toggle on a new alt/server?

Hmm… way back when, I used to have to toggle the auto-quest-text option.  When I had my fancy UI I would tweak this or that.  But really now, since I’m more or less playing with the default UI I just have to make sure that my Automaton will auto-decline duels, auto-repair and auto-sell and I’m ready to roll.

16. Highest amount of levels gained in one play session?

In recent memory: I got Anarkali five and a half levels in her 50s.  I couldn’t make it to six, my brain wouldn’t stand it.

17. Thing you’d most like to experience or see in-game?

Wrathgate.  Lus and I missed the whole thing on our way through Northrend.  I haven’t been back on Anea and I haven’t had an alt high-enough level to see it yet.

18. Worst PuG moment?

Oh gawd, where to begin.  I could name any one thing, but there has only been one time where I have been SO fantastically pissed at a PuG that I wrote a rant post about it.

19. Best dungeon/raid moment?

I have a lot of “good” dungeon/raid moments, but I don’t know if I have a “best” one to write about.  (Clearly, since I can’t think of anything.)  I didn’t raid bleeding edge and I haven’t seen the “end” bosses of Vanilla, BC or Wrath.  Just had a good time raiding with the guild.  (What a lame boring answer.)

20. Worst quest ever that you totally hate doing?

We’ll not address these sorts of quests since I (and Rades) have recently talked about them and I won’t even mention the poo quests, since they’re just gross but not overly annoying… I hate doing the “Learn Furbolg then run around after ghosts all over the damn island just to open up a handful more of quests” questline.  HAET.

21. First thing you do when you hit 80?

Train.  (Insightful, I know.)  I hit 80 so long ago on Anea I can’t really remember if I did anything special – I don’t think she had any gear saved for when she was 80.  I may have abandoned quests to revel in the “not leveling anymore” feeling.

22. Character (of yours) you would RP as if you had to?

I think Anarkali would be really fun to RP.  I’m quite sad that she’s not over on Matojo‘s realm to soak up the Trolly-RP goodness.

23. Keyboard, mouse, or both for using abilities?

When I am fighting I like to press keys.  I am only a clicker when I heal because I use Injector/Clique.  Keys keys keys otherwise.

24. Thottbot or WoWhead?

Wowhead.  Always and only.  <3

25. Acronym you’ve seen in chat but don’t understand?

Since I stay out of Trade, the only acronyms that I see are either obvious (lol, ttyl, ty, wb) or are related to dungeons (cc, k, ty, np) but can we just talk about this “r” phenomenon for a second?  Where the hell did this come from?  Is it too hard to type out “ready” or to initiate a ready check?  I hate seeing anyone type “r” in party chat.  The first few times I saw them, I thought they were typos until I got yelled at for not responding.  I will NEVER type “r” in response and will either stay silent in protest or, if feeling futilely smart-ass-tastic, I’ll reply with “arr, matey”.

26. Plot point you’d like to see resolved someday?

To have Jaina learn that endless optimism will only get people killed?  Is that a plot point?  (Bitter about my H-Hor experiences?  No, not at all…)

27. Biggest thing you’re looking forward to in Cataclysm?

Seeing all the new zones, the new creatures, new mobs, the new “capital” city… all the newness that comes with expansions.  Especially Vash’jir, I’m excited to see that.

28. Guild event you’d like to see?

Not applicable.

29. Level range you hate being in?

The 20s Alliance-side and the late 40s/early 50s Horde-side.

30. Favorite map to quest in?

For the longest time I’ve claimed that Stranglethorn Vale is my favorite zone.  I love that zone.  However, I was dragging a little on Anarkali when I went through STV and I’m not sure why… perhaps because she is approximately the one billionth character I’ve had go through Stranglethorn, I dunno.  The shining star at the end of my Horrible Hellfire experience is Zangarmarsh.  I love that zone too.  For the last couple of alts that have made it to Outlands have gotten the quest achievement for Zangarmarsh.  In Northrend, I know I’ll be spending a lot of time in Sholazar Basin.  Apparently I enjoy rainforesty, wet, marshy places.  Perhaps it’s my inner Troll?

In which there is a guest post

Nope, not here!

Over at Revive and Rejuvenate!

Well, nevermind then

I was chatting randomly to someone on my realm while I was queueing for randoms about how I wanted to get Classic Dungeon Master and that I hoped I could find people to do it with.  I was squarely in the BRD range of things and knew that the big long “Upper City” was coming and was (honestly) dreading it.  The chances of getting someone (anyone!) in the group that knew where they were going and the group finishing the instance intact were slim to none.  Especially multiple times in a row.  I was dreading it.  It actually ended up that I managed to find one group for Prison but we did the whole thing (plus I got my key) and then I didn’t queue for a random again until I was sure I wouldn’t get BRD.  That much haet.

So now that I’ve reached Outlands eligibility, I can go to Hellfire and sprint to 60 and be eligible for the Outlands randoms.  Things will go pretty fast from there.  That means that I would have to queue for particular Classic dungeons that I don’t have yet, but that also means rolling the dice in the hopes that I will have someone (actually, four someones) that know where they’re going and will stick together.  Those last Classic dungeons are long and I (ironically) cannot be a contributing member of my party, navigationwise, ’cause I don’t know the dungeons whatsoever.  Yes, I will learn them if I queue for them, but will I ever get a group that can make it to the end?  Will I have enough groups make it to the end that I will learn by repitition?

At the time I was talking to the person on my realm, I was all gung-ho about it and told myself I was DEFINTIELY going to get that achievement.  Now that it’s time for me to actually do it… I probably won’t.  I’ll probably wuss out and go back at 80 to get the achievements.

Surely I’m not the only person who doesn’t want to spend hours queueing and requeueing as people drop out of stagnant groups?

Through the Dark Portal

I really think there ought to be an achievement for going through the Dark Portal.  It’s such an important event in a character’s life, it ought to be memorialized in their achievements in addition to the cheesy “Dark Portal” screenshots that I take.  (Surely I’m not alone in this, right?)

Also, Naithin?  I believe this makes you wrong!

RIP Thersa Windsong

A while ago, after Wrath came out, there were quite the flurry of posts about ethics and morals and how they applied in game, mostly in regards to a certain quest.  (There was also a similar quest in the DK starting area, but I didn’t see anyone mention it, oddly.)

The death of Thersa Windsong didn’t directly involve me taking some sharp instrument and torturing her before she died, but I think it counts nonetheless.  I had gone down in the Apothecarium to deliver some information to Andon Gant from Jediga and saw that there was another quest available if I went down the stairs.  Sure enough, Chemist Cuely wanted me to go fill some vials from tidepools in Azshara to help this poor Tauren standing next to him.  Thersa did look quite ill and Cuely wanted to find out what had made her so sick.

So, I went to go fill the vials.

Should I have known better?  Yes.  The very first time I played an Undead out of the starting area and got to Brill and got the quest to poison the poor Mountaineers in the basement of the inn, I’ve disliked the Undead.  (I was actually so disgusted and guilt-ridden I didn’t roll an Undead for about a year.)  And as you go one, there are more and more quests in a similar vein throughout the world that the Undead questgivers make available to you.  Because I have an inherent dislike for the Undead that started that first time I rolled an Undead, I stay away from their areas while leveling.  I’ll go to the Undercity to turn in quests or to pick up quests for dungeons.  But I don’t like them, I don’t like what they do, and I don’t like their areas.

But my Troll, as naive as that poor Tauren that went looking to the Undead for help, desperate for a cure, decided to go fill those vials.  It was an easy enough quest.  I hearthed back to turn it in, and as Chemist Cuely says, “… Perhaps it will cure her… perhaps not.” my stomach dropped a little.  I knew what the vial Anarkali held in her hands was going to do to the Tauren.  It was either going to disfigure her horribly or it would kill her.

What should I do?  As soon as I read the quest text, I was taken back to that first time I went into the basement to poison the Mountaineers.  Since I didn’t know what would happen, I watched them turn into zombies.  It was horrible to read their e-motes.  I felt exactly the same knowing I was going to kill this poor Tauren, who was only here for help because other healers couldn’t help her.  (Plus, she’s a Tauren – there’s a whole added bit of innocence somehow built in, imo.)

I gave it to her.  She died immediately.

My excuse (and that’s what it is, an excuse) is that Anarkali needed the experience points.  She’s trying to level as quickly as possible.  Why?  The sooner she is 80, the sooner she can start working on Loremaster.  Issue?  Now I’m not sure if I can do that.  As I said, there are more quests out there like this – if I want Loremaster, will I be able to skip over them and complete others in order to meet the number requirements per continent?  Or will I have to bite the bullet and kill off who knows how many other people in order to make my quest count go up?

This could turn into a whole big discussion of ethics and morals and how my morals perhaps aren’t Anarkali’s at all and while I don’t have an intimate knowledge of who she is yet, I’d like to think that she wouldn’t willingly participate in such a deplorable quest and be in league with the damnable Forsaken by choice.  She is a shaman.  She heals people by choice – this wouldn’t be what she does.

Welcome to Ethermead!

Regarding the “new posts” in your feedreader: I apologize for the post spam that’s been assaulting your feedreaders.  For some reason when I go back in to posts to edit them (to fix the broken images and links) the feedreader thinks it’s a new post.  I’m not sure how to “turn it off” so please ignore them for a couple days until I can get everything edited correctly.  I apologize for any heart palpitations the high unread items count may have caused you.  -A

Welcome, thanks for coming!  Make yourselves comfortable, there are cushions scattered on the floor for your comfort.  Please, have a glass of ethermead.

Greetings and salutations!  I am your hostess, Anea.  Some of you may know me from the .nu domain in my name.  Some of you may even know me back from my beginnings as HolyDiscipline.  Some of you may be new!  Whichever you are, thanks for making your way here.

This is to be my new home.  (I’d add “hopefully”, but I think this just tempts the gods.)  Rather than have a specific name or a general one or one named after a particular character, perhaps abstract is best for me, my style and my altoholism.  *audience chuckles at the joke* Yes, it’s funny ’cause it’s true.

Please excuse my dust as I get things cleaned up, sorted out and put away here.  Images will be put up as soon as my brain will allow.  The blogroll will be compiled yet again (if you have a link that you think I ought to check out, please share!)  Tags and Categories will be redone, hopefully in a more specific way that will help you search for what you’d like to read.  There will even be a banner coming, in the correct theme of things, hopefully soon so this place won’t look so drab. As you read on the other update, please be so kind as to update your blogrolls and feeds.  Since we’re on wordpress now, there is even an option to subscribe by e-mail, and if you so wish you can now subscribe to comments.  (I know that was a feature that some readers wanted at the other site.)  I think that being here will make us both happy.

Honor de Ancestors

So, I saw this today:

HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

Gnomes got their posters, we finally get ours.  I’m psyched.  I actually listened to this track that I found a while ago and it really helps me channel my inner Troll.  Then I listened to the voice dialogue (that’s a spoiler, obv.) that goes along with the event that I stumbled upon while clicking more links.  And WOW it was awesome.

Taz’dingo!

Because of a slightly busy work schedule, I haven’t been able to play my shaman as much as I’d like, but when I DO play her, she’s getting leveled quite well.  I had done five levels a day two days in a row so I arbitrarily made that my quota for when I play.  So it’s been ALL TROLL NO QUIT around here lately.  She is currently (as of five minutes before this writing) sitting at 51.  I am hoping to have her in Outlands tomorrow.

Outlands.

Tomorrow.

It would totally feasibly happen and that makes me so excited.  Not only because it’s Outland and a change of scenery and dungeons, but because she is that much closer to 80.  Because 80 means that I can go back and start working on quests, because I have a holy terror in me that Cataclysm is going to drop like, tomorrow, and I won’t have my Loremaster amg amg amg.  (I only JUST got 250 quests completed today and it makes me rather sad that it’s “only” 250 after all this time.  Daunting?  Yes.)

So, things have been Trollish around here.  How about you all?

In which I ramble on (as per usual)

So.

I totally lied about getting back in the swing of things, apparently.  I promised that I would sort things out with scheduling time properly for blogging, commenting and playing.  It’s all gone to playing.

I’m telling myself that it’s ok, you all understand since you all play too.  I’ll let myself be deluded and believe it to be true.

Honestly though, I think we’ve all been there.  Way wrapped up in a character and all you want to do is work on them, whether leveling, professions, PvP or achievements.  Honestly, I think that if we’re all passionate enough about the game to blog about it or read other people’s blogs about the game, we’ve all been there.

The last three weeks has been an interesting turn of events, not only with the whole hacking thing either.  Back on the 10th of May was when I got the last achievements for my Troll shaman and started playing a Gnome warrior, since Lus didn’t want to play his Horde rogue.  Instead he wanted to play his Gnome warlock.

It was with sadness I bid my shaman adieu, since I knew I’d never see her again.  I had made the decision to leave the shaman as is, since she was supposed to be paired with Lus’ rogue.  I would instead play Alliance-side on the warrior, so that at least we were playing “together” if not together, since there was a more than considerable level gap.

And I poured myself into that warrior.  She got all the heirlooms, she did leveling correctly, professions were chosen (jewelcrafting, naturally), all possible flight paths gotten, books were searched out and all her secondary professions were leveled apace, if not ahead of whatever she might need.  I did all this, since it is my wont.  It’s how I roll.

She made it to 44 four days ago.  She hearthed to Dalaran and I saw some female Trolls walking around and all of a sudden I didn’t want to play a Gnome whatsoever.  I wanted my Troll.  Posthaste.

I hesitantly asked Lus, “Would you care if I played my shaman?” and I poked him for emphasis, since he was immersed in a battleground.  “Sure, play what you want,” he replied to his screen.

I was practically already logged in by the time he finished talking.

So, while I did a total 180 in my playing from Gnome warrior (Arms) to Troll shaman (Resto) I realized that while my character and role my change, my style of playing doesn’t.  I throw myself into developing the character, all go no quit.  It’s that way with every character.  It’s sometimes exhausting to play and also why I hang on to characters longer than is probably wise in regards to interest.  Not sure if this style of mine is good or not, but dammit, at least my characters are well rounded.

To segue back to what I mentioned before, battlegrounds.  Lus is doing them.  While his interest in PvP isn’t new, the active PvPing is very new.  Like, considering speccing his warlock for PvP new.  Buying mats for a starter PvP set new.  I’m not sure what to think of it (and glad that I am safely Hordeside right now so that I can’t be lured into running them with him.)

OH ALSO?

His warlock is 80.  I thought I’d never see the day.  YAY LUS!

Now, back to the PvP.  He actually got his last five levels or so with a good solid mix of instancing and battlegrounds.  And in only a few days too!  Surprises around every corner, I tell you.  As you may already know if you’ve read me for a bit of time, I dislike PvP.  A lot.  I never ever do it.  I avoid it.  I won’t even duel.  However, seeing him PvP so much has rather encouraged me to go try out a few battlegrounds here and there, which is a change of pace, if a stressful one.  (I only do it for the achievements!)

Random: PuGs are making me lose faith in humanity.  Srsly.  It also makes me say, “I hate people” more often than one person should in such a small timeframe.

To continue: since I have no form to the post whatsoever, let’s talk about the fact that I am so enamoured of my shaman that I have made her her own wowhead profile.  Yes.  Also that I have made her an RP name though she isn’t going to be RP’d and also that I have the unattainable goal of making her “the Seeker” because “it fits” but would most likely kill me if I ever tried to get it.  True story.

She also has hot pink hair.  Also true.

(Which makes me wonder if it’s disconcerting to see that your healer has hot pink hair in a crest/mohawk.  IYO?)

Re: blogroll – I have been neglecting the blogroll too much lately.  Rest assured that I am reading you and that you’ll be rightfully placed on Anea’s Blogroll of Reading once things get moved to the new WP version of the blog.

Disclaimer: I may lose patience with this blogging service and switch to the new blog by the end of the week.  Start your “switch link/feed” engines.

Get an authenticator

Lus’ account got hacked last night.

We woke up this morning as my alarm went off for me to get ready for work and Lus turned on his computer and tried to log in.  “It’s asking me for an authenticator code.”

“It shouldn’t, try again.”

It still asked for one.  I was still waking up, so I said, “Well, either Blizzard activated mandatory authenticators overnight or you got hacked.”

It was cold, I know.  I’m not a morning person.  >.>

I think that it was partly ’cause I didn’t think it could’ve happened, but really, there’s no other reason for that window to be there unless there’s an authenticator attached to your account.

After I fully woke up and realized what happened, I recommended several things that I’ve gleaned from reading what other people have written about their accounts and/or their guildie’s accounts getting hacked.  Call Blizzard.  Try to log in on battle.net to change your password.  Check your armory.  Run a virus scan.  CALL BLIZZARD.  (I had to say that one several times, as he sat morosely looking at his naked gnome.)

They emptied our guild bank of anything of value (and our gold) of course, but what I thought was interesting was that his pally, that had the best gear (epics, anyway) still had about half his gear on, but the warlock, who was only 75 and leveling, had just about everything gone.  His old BE rogue had all his gear gone except arena gear.  Those were characters of note.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for work pretty much right then, so I could only issue instructions for him to stop pouting about his warlock and CALL and get the ball rolling.  (I’m such an ass.)

I drove to work very concerned about the whole thing, whether or not he was going to get the ticket submitted, how long it would take them to respond, whether or not it would take months to get things back… selfishly, I even wondered whether or not this was going to scare him away from WoW.

I know, how horrible of me.  Lus’ account is hacked, his characters stripped, his stuff gone… and I’m worried about losing a playing buddy.  Classy, huh?

And really though, it just infuriated me that some scumbag mouthbreather was profiting from the armor, the gold, the mats, that Lus had earned, saved and had access to.  And THEN some other scumbag mouthbreather is buying the gold and not feeling the slightest bit guilty for it.

Before I had to run out the door to work, I told him, “I’m very sorry that this happened.  We’ll get it figured out.”

And since we’re an honest blog here, I’ll continue being honest – as I was driving to work, I also wondered why he didn’t apologize to me.

AND just to let you know that I’m not really an unfeeling horrible person, I didn’t EXPECT him to.  I know that if I were in his position, I would be pretty devastated, seeing my characters stripped and used in that manner.  I’d be worried about getting control of my account back.  I think I would also feel guilty about what happened to the guild bank too.  It’s kind of a “it’s the thought that counts” type thing, you know?

Part of that is also a “you should have had an authenticator” thing.  Getting an authenticator is such an easy thing to do now.  Part of why this is such a ridiculous thing to have happened is that Lus has an iPhone.  It’s free for iPhone users!  You just need to download the app and take a few more seconds logging in.  I’ve had mine for months and months now, I’ve told Lus that he ought to get one, but he didn’t want to bother with it.

’cause everyone thinks it won’t happen to them, right?

That’s what I thought too, I’ll be honest with you.  That’s why I didn’t get one the second that they came out.  But I still got one – the very day before the corehound pups came out, actually.  I tried to entice Lus into getting one with promises of a puppy that will dig holes in the ground and be fiery and cute and stuff.  But nothing doing.

But who would actually come out and say “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the sense to get a free security device that would protect my account”?  No one.

Before I even got this post past “naked gnome” he had someone on the phone from Blizz to unattach the bad authenticator from his account and to get the password changed so he could login and further assess the damage.  The woman he talked to said that they would try to restore as much that was taken as possible and it might take about a week.  We’re choosing to be optimistic and hope for it actually being about a week, since he really wants to play his warlock.  The plan we have is to look at quests that will give useful rewards to replace what was taken, that way he has at least some gear, even if it’s not as nice as what he had on before – then he’ll be able to run dungeons to get his gear back.

Also luckily, one of the managers at work also plays WoW, so she understood why I was 10 minutes late to work and also why I wanted to go home.  Third luckily, she had made a mistake in scheduling so we had too many people this morning but no one to close tonight, so I got sent home so that I could feel in the loop and as if I was helping, even though there was nothing I could do.  There’s nothing worse than being away from someone that you care about when they’re upset, even if it’s something like this.

“Even if it’s something like this.”

That’s another thing I thought about on the way to work – how was I going to explain why I was late?  There are two managers at work who play and a third who used to play but quit.  (I was amazed that anyone at all played, but that’s neither here nor there.)  I was hoping against hope that one of the managers who played was there so that I could explain that there was a crisis that needed dealt with and that I wasn’t some slacker who shows up late to work.  If it wasn’t a manager who would understand WHY it was a problem, nay a mini crisis, that Lus’ account had been hacked, could I have explained it well enough?  Probably not.  It seems like unless you play the game, it’s just a waste of time and a stupid one at that.  It’s not as if your real life possessions were stolen, your car broken into, your bank accounts emptied, right?  But these characters and accounts are very valuable to us, even if they’re not something that are “real life” possessions, something tangible that anyone can relate to.  We spend time on these characters and in this online world and of course we become attached to them.  It takes time, determination, skill and effort to get characters where they are.  Dedication.  It’s perfectly plausible that we assign value to what we play in the game.

But, luckily I didn’t have to explain to a non-playing manager.  So, I can be thankful that she was there and she understood what we were going through.  She gave some helpful tips that, even if they turned out to be unnecessary to do, it felt like I could contribute advice to help Lus’ cause, and she was a soundingboard for me.

See, even I can find a silver lining in all this.  It may be a little one, but I found it.  So there.

Now, I guess the plan is wait and see how long it takes for Lus to get his stuff back.  Get the Gnome warlock some quest gear.  And FARM SOME HERBS AND ORE.  That will probably be the majority of my playtime for the foreseeable future.  Plans are helpful for rebuilding.  We have one.

If you don’t have one already, GET AN AUTHENTICATOR.  Whatever reason you have for not getting one will seem stupid and insignificant if you do happen to get hacked, so just save yourself the time, worry and trouble and get one now.  Do it.