Patch 3.3.5 hit yesterday, and with it came the ability to hunt and track all of your favorite friends that play on different servers/factions than you. RealID is upon us, friends. The ability to pop an email address into your window and invite all those nearest and dearest to you from Azeroth to chat with you at any given time.

And therein lies the crux of my problem with it.

I myself am not a private person. If I were, I’d not post my real name anywhere. I’d follow in the footsteps of that Anna chick who may or may not have written her own post about why she won’t be using the RealID feature either. Don’t believe that I’m not private? Scroll down. Look to the left. See that? That’s my real name. No, really. It is. Says so on my driver’s license too. So no, I’m not a private person.

However! That doesn’t mean I want to chat with all and sundry whenever I log into the game. As it is, I don’t do much “chatting” in the myriad chat channels to which I automatically log into when I sign on. Most are out of character channels, either to poke RP ideas at others or to group dungeon runs/raids with any that might not be on a character in guild. One’s an in character channel used specifically for RP purposes. That’s probably the one I’m in most. Even my own guild’s chat is normally Arrens chat free unless I’ve got a particularly snarky comment to say to someone. Aside from that, I’m typically doing things other than treating this game as a social platform or an AOL chat room.

But AOL chat rooms had one thing RealID doesn’t: The ability to be invisible. See, there are days where I’m as anti-social as the next person. Those days are far more frequent than you might believe. If I’ve had a rough day at work (more standard than not) and decide to relax by queuing up for a battleground, the last thing I want is to be hammered by 15 whispers followed by another 20 friend invites. If I had the ability to log out of the game invisibly and sign in the same way, I’d be all about this feature. Instead, when I log in, you know I’m there. The “busy” or “away” tags won’t likely do much to stop anyone from whispering anyways, even if it is just a mundane “hey, I see you’re away. hi anyways” kind of thing.

And don’t get me started on the “friends of friends” nonsense either.

I understand Blizzard’s intent with this. They’re trying to make what is supposed to be a social MMO more sociable. And I commend them for that. However, I think there’s a few things that can be added that won’t take away from the design goal, but would make folks like myself less apprehensive about going into it.

Note: Hi, folks. Long time, no blog, eh? Unless you’re a regular RPer on Feathermoon Alliance side, this might not be entirely of interest to you. I have other blog posts in mind that I hope to get out very soon, so if you wish to skip this, no hard feelings. If you DO read on and have questions about what the hell I’m on about, by all means, feel free to ask in the comments or email. I’ll do my best to clarify where I can, but in the interest of not making a 10,000 word essay in a single post, some details will be left out for the sake of brevity.

The title comes from a twitter remark by Yva of WTT:RP. “You know, if we collected all the sand in your vagina about Lore leaving SWU we could make a pearl, Steve.”

Last month, Lorelli left Stormwind University to join the folks of Wildfire Riders. This bugged Arrens on a whole bunch of different levels, none of which he can really talk to anyone about. Here’s the reasons why, from an Out of Character perspective.

Back when I GM ressurrected the warlock in December of ’08 and transferred him to Feathermoon, I did it knowing full well who I wanted to RP with. Having read Anna for as long as she’s blogged about WoW, the crew she ran with sounded amazing. Their level of immersion into RP was something I had wanted since I returned to the game as well as giving me an opportunity to take a peek at Alliance side RP. The only problem I had? No character to the warlock. No personality. No backstory. I had nothing to go on as I traipsed into the Pig & Whistle Tavern one Tuesday night and found a whole lot of people with <Wildfire Rider> tags under their names. So the good warlock just sidled up to the bar and…played voyeur. Within 20 minutes, things began to form in my head. I wanted a good character. I didn’t want to play the sterotypical evil warlock out to gain power and cause destruction. I wanted a dichotomy; a good-natured soul that just happened to enslave demons to assist him with his work.

As the weeks went on and my character was introduced to the rest of the Riders, I realized I had made a choice I liked with my character. The Riders, you see, can best be described as “morally diverse” from Arrens’ perspective. Arrens sees things in black and white. It’s either good or it’s bad. There is little-to-no gray area. The Riders don’t always see things that cut and dry and for Arrens to overhear varying conversations about business ventures, it has a tendency to raise alarms in his head.

As time pressed on, Arrens’ story and that of Stormwind University got more intertwined with the Riders. He was taken by SI:7, drugged and questioned merely for his association with Tarquin ap Danwyrith, the leader of the Riders. Tarquin, coincidentally, ended up sleeping with Rosie, a romantic interest of Arrens’ (which, by the way, was a helluva way to pay him back for not saying a damn thing about Tarq, Tarq! ) When Arrens professed  his love for Rosie (who is not a Rider), things got all sorts of buggered. He began transforming into a demon at that point which led to him being suckerpunched by Feliche, Dravir and, if memory serves, Tiforis, though I might be mistaken on that one. Regardless, all three of them are Riders. While Arrens may or may not have deserved being used as a punching bag, the fact that three people wearing the Red & Black did it doesn’t sit too well with him.

As things continue to develop, with the problems with SI:7, Bricu & Threnn’s daughter being kidnapped, Yva threatening him, and the Maggie Maunt line, students of SWU are being called upon to help the Riders. This, again, is a major crux of his. He fought during the siege on the Black Temple. He knows what it means to fight and has largely given it up. But putting his students in danger? Yeah, that’ll piss him right off every time.

All of this leads us to where we are today. Lorelli left the University and Arrens is most unhappy with the situation. He considered Lore a confidante. As the head of school security, she had access to every nook and cranny of the school and its secrets. All of that now wears the Red & Black and was there when Lore was told the Bloody Long Story by Bricu. Arrens has heard the Story now no less than half a dozen times. And each time, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Not the “friends unite in a time of need” part, but the “fuck everyone else not in the Red & Black” part. And knowing Lore is a part of that now upset him.

As far as Arrens is concerned, the Riders’ sole saving grace is Aely. Were it not for her, Arrens would have probably started going to the Boomstick Pub or the Blue Recluse a long time ago. She’s the one that showed him there is a good side to the Riders, that there is morality in that “morally diverse” bunch.

So there it is. That’s why Arrens has sand in his vagina about Lore having joined the Riders. Is he right? No, of course not. If he were right 100% of the time, I’d mock him and call him a Sue (and thus, myself). But that’s Arrens’ line of thinking. As for myself? I still can’t believe you folks have allowed me to join in on your shenanigans. I still consider it a great honor and hope that we can all continue to have fun together as I endlessly mock Lore about leaving the relative safety of SWU.

A common question to me lately, that title.

Life has, as they say, kicked me in the nads recently. Work scheduling is…a challenge these days. Some days, I work nights. Other days, I work during the daylight hours. And, just for an added bonus, some days they make me work overnight. This hectic schedule of 60-70 hours a week have left little time for blogging, so my humble apologies for having gone dark for over a month as I try to get back in the groove. Can I promise to post every day? No. Will I be silent here on my little corner of the internet for weeks at a time still? Probably. The schedule looks to let up some time in September at the earliest, November at the latest. So until then, things will still be largely sporadic around these parts. Bear with me.

On the RP front, things still progress between Aely and Arrens, as hopefully made obvious yesterday. Due to the nature of my work schedule, Anna and I are constantly talking about RP opportunities, plotlines and dates for Very Big  Things. Said dates have been moved to the right by a fair margin and that’s ok. When these Very Big Things happen, they promise to be pretty kickass. Moreso than had we just rushed into them for the sake of having our characters mentally quiet down in our collective heads.

As you hopefully read here on Monday, Likal did a guest post. Should any of you have something you’d like to contribute, please do so! Got something RP related? I’d love to post it. PvP oriented? Lemme have it! (I’ve been on a serious in-game PvP kick when I can.) Got a trick to earn buckets of gold in one day so that I can afford both a Mechano-Hog and a Traveller’s Tundra mount on the warlock in that same day? Well…just email me with that tip. We’ll keep it between us.

Until next time, my friends. Be good or be good at it.