You simply go out and shut the door
without thinking. And when you look back
at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds
like the story of a life, okay.

It was raining. The neighbors who had
a key were away. I tried and tried
the lower windows. Stared
inside the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo set-up.
My coffee cup and ashtrays waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart
went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,
or something like that. After all,
this wasn’t so bad.
Worse things had happened. This
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.
Took that and leaned it against the house.
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,
swung myself over the railing
and tried the door. Which was locked,
of course. But I looked in just the same
at my desk, some papers, and my chair.
This was the window on the other side
of the desk where I’d raise my eyes
and stare out when I sat at that desk.
This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.

And it was something to look in like that, unseen,
from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there.
I don’t even think I can talk about it.
I brought my face close to the glass
and imagined myself inside,
sitting at the desk. Looking up
from my work now and again.
Thinking about some other place
and some other time.
The people I had loved then.

I stood there for a minute in the rain.
Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.
Even though a wave of grief passed through me.
Even though I felt violently ashamed
of the injury I’d done back then.
I bashed that beautiful window.
And stepped back in.

—from Where Water Comes Together With Other Water

After more than 2 months of waiting around, I was finally able to transfer an old domain I’d let lapse into poverty and make it useful again. Word to the wise: whenever you renew a domain, there’s a waiting  of between 45 and 60 days before you can fuckle with it, transfer-wise.

So now, with those 60 days finally passed, The Nth Degree resides at thenthdegree.org, making this all professional and shit. Being a perfectionist, I loathed to post here until I could do it up right. Incredibly petty, or amazing resolve? You decide!

I don’t know that I’m going to keep doing the long-format posts that have been the only things here for the last 6 months. Squarespace offers a highly-classy iPhone app for posting to your site & tinkering with various things, so I shouldn’t be surprised if posts begin to approach soul-of-wit length.

It’s nothing astounding, but the wheels in my life keep turning even as I let this house moulder and decay. Here’s some things that have happened between posts:

I kind of forgot to keep playing Dragon Age! I have a bad attention span with videogames; I probably “finish” less than a third of the ones I buy, which isn’t a big number to begin with. The last game I recall completing was GTA IV — and even then, just the main storyline, not the side stuff. Anyway, maybe I’ll finish it? I guess?

I also let World of Warcraft die naked and alone! Not tragic, just my usual binge-purge cycle with the game. I’m sure I’ll be roped in again come Cataclysm.

I started playing Mass Effect 2! It’s pretty great! I don’t think I’m going to get into any real detail about it here on the site, but it’s a definite step up in terms of gameplay, visuals, and best of all: storytelling. I’ll probably even play it all the way to the finish.

My job is more different! At the time of my last post, I was working in a “special behavioral classroom” (or SBC) at an area middle school. I now work one-on-one with a student at an elementary school, and it is AMAZING the change one year makes (the 6th graders I was with, to the 5th graders I o now). It’s about to change again soon, as I transition into supporting a student with autism, as well. I shouldn’t be surprised if the topic of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) comes up in the future; it’s pretty fascinating.

Thanks to that job, I have my eyes set on getting a place of my own! In this economy, it’s not as shameful to live with your folks as it might be, especially for the recently-graduated (and those poor fucks still trapped with the intestines of higher education). But I want out bad. I’m building up a nest egg to make it happen.

I bought an iPhone! That much should be obvious from my remark about the Squarespace app, but it happen just about a week after my last post. This is also thanks to the job; I got two paychecks at once, in essence, and flush with cash I decided the time was right. I love the little bastard. I’m past the gadget phase, and it’s now just a ridiculously useful tool. (And mobile Scrabble platform for all my properly-equipped friends.)

Still doing the D&D thing! Not DMing at the moment, as I’m letting a good friend test out the waters with a homebrewed campaign of his own. It’s only had one session so far, but I think it’s been pretty great.

I submitted a proposal to Wizards of the Coast and never heard back! They say they have a 60-day turnaround time for the submissions they’re interested in, and I never heard back. Didn’t stop me from tweaking the email a bit and sending it in again! I figure, until I see the article in Dragon that makes mine obsolete, I’ll just keep resubmitting the fucker until they accept it out of pity, disgust, or the simple desire to make me go away.

Some interesting prospects on the horizon! This is all speculation, but I’m crossing my fingers that a nice change of pace is headed my way soon. I’d go into more detail (and maybe I will later), but I don’t want to jinx it just yet. And actually, I’m being so vague this really applies to two totally different things. Developing!

I am become adult, destroyer of childhoods! My job is actually full-time now: benefits, retirement options; the whole she-bang. From what I understand, they want me to stick around fairly long-term. Multiple school years, if I understand the plan they have laid out for the students I work with and the training they’re giving me. It’s not public radio, and that does leave a weight on my chest some nights. But I’m hoping that maybe, doing this is what will pay the bills while I work public radio in around it; better still, maybe this will just be the stop-gap I want it to be until The Stars Are Right and I get my job at PRI and Cthulhu awakens within his lost city of R’Lyeh. Anyway, I’m also managing and paying my student loans on my own now, and I’m getting my taxes prepped without as much help as usual. With getting a place of my own looming in the near-distance, it’s a pretty heady brew.

Guess that’s why they call it “Dragon” Age.

There’s a lot to admire in BioWare’s latest RPG. The world is vast (at 27 hours of playtime, I’ve progressed through a mere 18% of the game), what parts of the story I’ve explored so far have been enjoyable, and the overall opportunities to actually “role play” feel much richer than in similar entries within the genre. Indeed, getting into the mindspace of an RPG character has always been easier for me at the table with dice, rather than in front of a screen with a controller.

In many ways, the setting of Dragon Age: Origins (which doubles as pencil & paper RPG setting to be released soon, in a smart move by the powers-that-be) has much to recommend it as well. The tension between the Templars and the Circle of Mages is excellent, without establishing either side as the good guys. Sure, the Templars often act like jerks to mages — and everyone else, really — but at the same time, what’s said in the game about careless or weak magicians becoming unwilling vessels for bloodthirsty demons is, you know, true. See, a mage shines like a beacon to the denizens of the Fade, an immaterial realm of dreams, spirits and demons. And like moths to a flame, they hone in on practitioners of the arcane arts to wreak havoc in flesh.

I also love part of the backstory for the creation of the Darkspawn, the primary evil that players battle against in Dragon Age. Way back when, a group of powerful magicians ran out of terrestrial power to covet and acquire. What to do, what to do? they asked themselves. I know! Let’s go to heaven and conquer the vacant city of god! And so they did.

Two words: Bad. Ass.

Now obviously this doesn’t turn out well, since it results in the creation of the Darkspawn. Judging by the name alone, you can probably figure they’re not nice dudes. But at any rate, these are just a couple examples of the parts of Dragon Age that establish an engaging and unique world. It’s a shame, though, that not everything about the game’s world was created with such loving care and an eye to individuality.

Pictured: New Fantasyton. Motto: “No hobbits here, no sir.”

The assemblage of races and nations in Dragon Age is your typical Tolkien Standard Array (not a real term, but should be) meets medieval Europe: Welcome to 90% of fantasy settings, fellas. Now, to BioWare’s credit, they subvert a few tropes in their world-building. Elves, for example, are a subjugated race of second-class citizens, having only recently won freedom from their former human masters. Many elves still do serve those same human masters, so recent is the change.

Though dwarves are, sigh, toiling away under mountains crafting the finest weapons & armor in the land, their once mighty empire is now is near-total collapse. And not because they dug too greedily, or too deep! Those Darkspawn mentioned before first bubbled up from the deep parts of the world, and dwarves were the first stop on the path to the apocalypse. But the dwarves can dodge all the blame for that, too — a lifetime living and working with the physical stuff of magic, “lyrium”, has rendered every last dwarf a magical non-starter. Sure enough, it were those dastardly human mages what done the deed. Nice move, guys.

More annoying still are the lazy Euro-centric ethnic stereotypes renamed and redecorated to fit into the fantasy schema. The world might be called “Thedas”, but it still feels a lot like home. The game’s main nation of Ferelden? UK accents and cultural flourishes abound. Nearby Orlais? Home to wine-, fashion-, and bard-loving francophones (so it’s pronounced or-LAY, of course). Somewhat more-removed Antiva? Spanish-accented rogues and schemers. And on and on like that. Obviously, the developers require voice actors from our real world to populate their game, and they will have accents, but there are more interesting ways of addressing this issue, and turning it into an advantage.

Digression time!

Put in whatever contacts you want, man; I don’t think you’re getting on the cover of National Geographic.I’m a big fan of the two Dune miniseries that were produced by the Sci-Fi Channel. For various reasons, (financial, logistic, etc.) shooting was largely done in studios in Prague, with Czech cast members fleshing out many of the side roles. Notably, nearly all Fremen were played by Eastern European actors, many of them with very distinct Eastern European accents. Now, the Fremen of Dune are already a culture assembled in many respects from historical pastiche: author Frank Herbert borrowed greatly from the Arab and Islamic societies of the Middle East in creating Fremen society.

It could have been awkward, but when you put swarthy-looking Czechs in stillsuits and have them start treading the sands, suddenly disparate elements are working in your favor. The Fremen are a race of humans on a desert planet in the far future, where Earth is but a memory. Having our expectations subverted (seeing a white guy in Bedouin kit speaking oddly-accented English) gives our imagination some more room to suspend disbelief. In a game, where all the visuals can be created from whole cloth, there’s no reason a similar technique couldn’t work. (Complain all you want, but you can’t say appropriating the English patois of the Caribbean region didn’t help create a… unique culture for Star Wars’ Gungans.)

None of these elements seems obvious in the first hours of play. But as your progress toward acquiring the Urn of Sacred Ashes becomes more and more almost-comically identical to the quest of Arthur’s knights for the Holy Grail, it’s hard not to feel like someone just pulled a quick “search-and-replace” on the Wikipedia pages for history and folklore of the Dark Ages, then slapped it all on a new map.

There are some rough spots in the plot as well, which are perhaps more jarring for for the story’s overall quality. But I haven’t seen it through to the end yet, and I’ve detected a few whiffs that plot machinations that seem rote or obvious at first blush might have a little more complexity to them, as the player and their heroic surrogate both learn more.

Don’t mind us, just doin’ a little light demon summoning before supper.

Truly, though, Dragon Age has captured my attention in admirable fashion, regardless of any flaws it has. The decision to include six different starting zones based on character creation choices, with six separate introductory stories, is an excellent move — all the more so since those choices have real effect on the game world. Play as an elf, for example, and expect to be on the receiving end of human prejudice fairly often, and have the opportunity to confront the same head on, both in social and combat encounters.

Welcome, too, is the lack of any kind of “morality continuum” for the playable characters, mechanics-wise. Instead, your options change only your standing in the eyes of your adventuring party as permanent effects go, with possible ramifications for the greater narrative, depending on what’s at stake. So rather than worrying about earning immersion-breaking “dark side points”, you can concentrate on maintaining the trust and esteem of your friends and allies as you make your mark on the world. Much more realistic, and much more amenable to complex decision-making. So, too, is it easier for a player to have their character make interesting choices (and ones more in keeping with a unique outlook) without being penalized by the game.

I think more than anything, it’s those two game design choices that draw me in, by letting me imagine my character as a realistic person and having the game reflect and give opportunities to realize that image. The flashes of originality that can be found in its world of Thedas are a factor as well. I just hope that I won’t continue discovering more seams and frayed edges in the world as I explore it.

The key difference is that TBC and WotLK, as expansions, primarily filled in blank spaces on the map of Azeroth. A few changes were made in old zones to facilitate the new content — the shifting of NPCs to Outland, or the construction of new travel hubs to reach Northrend — but for the most part, the areas from classic, or “vanilla”, WoW remained unchanged.

Cataclysm will break widely from this pattern. While content patches have had their effect on the existing areas of the game world (opening the gates of Ahn-Qiraj; the construction of the Argent Coliseum), and the “phasing” techniques introduced for WotLK were put to good use reshaping zones to reflect player actions, this new expansion will be dramatically altering old world content forever, and for everyone.

In brief, disastrous events are radically changing places players have grown familiar with. Some locations are flooded, others are overrun with lava, still others have sprung into new lushness and vitality. All this is being worked into the storyline of the Cataclysm expansion, with the added benefit of allowing the WoW developers to put everything they’ve learned designing new content to work in older, lower-level areas.

Indeed, for all the beauty of Northrend and strange majesty of Outland, many players experienced only a taste of Blizzard’s labor. The classic problem with the MMO system is that new content is produced to be tacked on after existing content — to appease those who have reached the end and wish there to be farther to go.

New races, as those in Burning Crusade, and now in Cataclysm, are one way to inject new material for everyone to enjoy. All players are able to create new characters in these new starting areas without needing to progress through existing content to see the new parts. Cataclysm is also allowing new race and class combinations, creating more opportunities for low-level newness.

Interestingly, Blizzard is also restructuring some old, lower-level content to be challenging to the current top end; in a short while the old Onyxia raid instance will be re-release with a version tuned for level 80 players. A similar retuning was announced for the instances of Dead Mines and Shadowfang Keep for Cataclysm.

The usefulness of this strategy is less immediately obvious than making new content that is available at low levels — why bother taking old content and shifting upward for the top-tier to enjoy? But the satisfaction of gamer nostalgia, not to mention the very real opportunity to make something new while avoiding creating it from scratch, make it a sound choice (even if the storyline explanations may end up a little contrived).

Revamping old content in this way is a likely crowd-pleaser, for veterans and newcomers (who may have missed such content the first time around) alike. How well the choice to drastically chance old zones completely will go over, however, is far from clear. Certainly some will be distressed to see favorite old content gone, or cry foul over lore developments for beloved zones and characters.

Cataclysm may be more of a gamble than WoW’s past expansions. Granted, the size of Blizzard’s playerbase means any expansion is almost bound for success, but I’m glad to see that the biggest player in the MMO arena isn’t resting on their laurels or sticking to business as usual. Count me as a fan — though if Garrosh Hellscream is indeed becoming the new Warchief of the Horde, I may have some difficult choices to make in the months ahead.

This post is a Beginning. Ideally, the End will be far off. A vast gulf of time and space ought to fall ‘twixt those two polar opposites — anything less, shameful and failure-ridden.

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