Gnotable Gnomes: Moxie Lockspinner

Battle for Azeroth is a welcome change with lots of gnomish flair and interesting gnew gnomes to meet. Moxie Lockspinner is a feisty gnome you meet in Stormsong Valley, and you can tell right away where her gnomish heart lies.

Jaina’s War

Every great war has a history that reveals how it truly came to blows. A spark, a match, years of suffering….and Jaina’s Proudmoore’s war is no different.

In this incredibly powerful animated short, the artists have outdone themselves in showing the true Jaina Proudmoore and everything that has culminated to her final warning “Beware of….me.”

One cannot understand Jaina’s state of mind until we go back to the turning point that broke her world apart – the fall of Theramore.

A Real-Life Gnomish Profession for Me?

You know that big change I was talking about? Read on…

Six years ago, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life. I decided to walk away from a field and specialisation I received my Master’s degree in to pursue playing piano full-time. Far from being something out of a movie, it was really just me deciding to do what I loved full-time and accepting the risks and consequences it came with. Back then, I had no idea where the path would take me career-wise, but I was determined to find out.

The journey so far has been filled with Bach, Beethoven, Brahms with a good dose of music history, performances, recordings and even artistic injuries. The question on my mind lately is where I want to go with it.

 

Over the last two years I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the rather geeky subject of tuning and historical temperaments. It’s really cool and interesting and the more I learn about it, the deeper I want to dig. At some point being able to tune my own piano sounds particularly cool. I could dabble in these historical temperaments, not be stuck with out of tune pianos whenever I visit India, and possibly have a “proper” I-can-pay-the-mortgage-by-myself type career with it. And, it does seem kinda gnomish doesn’t it?? The pianistic version of an arclight spanner is my hands! So, is piano tuning for me?

It’s a tough question for me to answer. Considering my colossal misjudgment of my Master’s degree, I’m being cautious about approaching this one. I’m applying to one of the best schools in the country for this (because there are a lot of scam ones around and anyhow, if you want to do something, might as well go all the way and do it right the first time). It however comes with a decent price tag – $25k for the year long program. I have no doubt of the schools caliber of education and prestige it’s name has, but 25k is 25k.

There’s a bit of an internal conflict inside of me right now:

“You should totally go for it! It’s a great way to continue your interest in historical temperaments while making some money!”

“Wat. No, you’re only considering this because you’re really just running away from performing. And recording. Because you hate an audience.”

“That’s not true! I like historical temperaments and all!”

“So keep reading those books! I mean really, do you like them 25k much?”

“But I’m ready to get a career and make some proper money and be independent.”

“But but it’s so far away! And I JUST got settled here!”

“You gotta take a risk if you want a reward! Don’t be a gnub!”

“Who’re you callin’ a gnub?? You’re the gnub! I’m the smart one!”

“No you’re the gnub!”

“No u!”

“No U!”

After a few hours of internal back and forth, we end up here…

I’m such a stressed out gnome. Partly because making decisions is hard. And also because this one’s such a big one!!

Mechanostrider Garage – RL Edition

After getting my driver’s license late last year, I’ve been wondering about what would be the perfect gnome mobile for this gnome. I found the one that has captured my gnomish heart in all it’s glory: The Fiat 500 Abarth.

It’s a car that’s just my size. But this decision didn’t come easily to me as I was overwhelmed with reviews of “better cars with more practicality”, “reliability issues”, or “get an SUV” instead.

Let me explain something about myself. I have lived in a city my entire life. An american sedan to me is a seriously big car. I nickname SUVs and Minivans tanks. They are huge. And frankly, at some point, they all look the same to me.

For me, driving is a particularly fun endeavour. As a kid, my grandpa let me change the gears as he drove us to school. He popped the hood one day and showed me how engines work and how efficiency of gears change. I don’t know if I understood it all then to be honest (I must’ve been 10), but I thought it was fun as heck. (Incidentally, this was on an old Fiat!) And his love for driving kinda stuck with me.

I’ve to come to embrace what I like about cars and what I need my very first own car to have:

• It needs to be fun to drive. And mind you, fun is in handling – not necessarily going over the speed limit. If you can have a blast driving your car without 450 HP, that’s the right car for you.
• It needs personality: Any kind of call back to the vintage cars of the 1960s will bring a smile to my face. I like a car with history. And that’s something I found sorely lacking when I checked out Civics, Camrys, Accords etc. Also partly when my hubby and I bought our first family car, I convinced him to get a Mustang. 😀
• I need to be comfortable driving it: The Fiat 500 is till date the only car where I’ve sat in it at the lot and felt like I could just drive off in it no problem. It’s small, the seat sits a little higher than the usual cars which is great for me. I swear I felt like I was drowning in the Mustang sometimes.

Haters gonna hate. It’s no different from the gnome jokes I’ve heard all these years when I play my favourite race. So it is with my car. I am going to embrace that despite living in a good ol’ ‘Murrica for a while, there’s a lot of preferences that are very much European inside of me.

PS: About the reliability issue, I called my mechanic Jim to ask him about what he’d seen at his garage. And he said, dont you worry – if you take care of your car, it’ll take care of you. The only issue he saw was when someone never bothered to do oil changes and killed their engine.

Thus begins my journey to get my very own Abarth – either new or used with very low miles (1k ish I’m thinking). I am SO excited!! Now the only decision left is whether to go manual or automatic!! VROOOOOOM!

 

 

 

 

The Price of Rewriting History

This is a post that sat in my drafts folder for about four years. Yep, four years. The entire time it’s been simmering since the Cataclysm at the back of my mind. Two things have propelled me to dust this one off and finish writing about it. The first was the announcement of Vanilla servers at Blizzcon in 2017; the second, taking a second look at the journey through Azeroth as I level my lightforged draenei paladin.

Blizzard took a huge risk back in Cataclysm when they decided to wipe the slate clean and redo Azeroth. It’s something almost everyone wishes they could do but can’t – and for good reason. We don’t get do-overs sometimes. They in effect, rewrote history by erasing some of it – and the question I have long sought to answer out loud: Was it worth it?

The New Heels

If you thought my love of heals and heels was limited to warcraft, then ha! I went on an inspired shopping trip the other day… and can I just say, they are so pretty! So here’s a little bit of rl heels for the time being while I work on real and “serious” gaming posts.

What. Pretty no? 😀

Humour, Fun and a Gnome

I know I haven’t really been writing much. But I think I am ready to. It took the last two years for life to feel like some kind of “normal” returned. And now that things feel normal, I feel like I can’t shut up about stuff again.

I feel like I’ve found my home with the gnomes of G4. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I was in a place where I belonged like nowhere else. With fellow awesome gnomes who have a great sense of humour and love for Gnomeregan. *high four*

My new normal is of course casual with a capital C. I will most probably write about a lot of lore, outfits, fashion, alts, outfits, transmog, did I mention outfits yet? There will some healing in there because I will at heart, always be a healer in heels. Maybe a healing guide here and there. But I’m quite sure my days of “serious” raiding are behind me – and I like this new life.

So here’s to writing about fun times in Warcraft (yes I’m still sticking around – having a guild who is family kinda does that to you!), posting about hilarious and laughing at life in true gnomish style! For Gnomeregan!

TL;DR: I’m baaaaaack!

 

 

 

 

The Battle for Azeroth

Here lies King Terenas Menethil II — last true king of Lordaeron.

Great were his deeds — long was his reign — unthinkable was his death.

May the father lie blameless for the deeds of the son.

May the bloodied crown stay lost and forgotten.

This iconic cinematic immediately came to mind when I thought of the Battle for Azeroth. Why? Because this was the last time the Alliance controlled Lordaeron.

As a wee little sproutling druid running around Darnassus, I was always awed by the history of Warcraft and longed for the day when Lordaeron would be restored to it’s former glory rather than the goo-filled stinky sewer it currently serves to house.

I’m just not sure this is how I wanted to be taking it back. But then again, is there any other way?

 

Thoughts

War for war’s sake seems silly. But I’m not surprised at it – humans are good at one thing and that’s killing each other. Azeroth is simply a reflection of it.

And I am absolutely onboard with retaking Lordaeron and whatnot. But I have a couple pet peeves with how of all this is playing out. So yeah, time to tear some of it apart.

Where are the Gnomes?

Clearly gnomes are no longer part of the Alliance. Atleast not my gnome. Because seriously, what the fuck. Not a single gnome in any expansion cinematic to date. And we’ve been around since before Pandas, Worgen, Goblins and even Draenei. I’m ready for the gnomes to pack up and leave the Alliance – they can figure it out themselves. Let’s see how they like life without access to our genius. We have better things to do – like retaking Gnomeregan!

If the Alliance comes around asking Lillen to help, she will show him all four fingers.

Allied Sub-races?

Eh? This seems like a real stretch to me and not much of a perk. Void Elves and Zandalari trolls? Uh, sure. But really, if we’re that far out of stuff to add it means other more important things should’ve got done first. Like getting a gnomish city back. Adding some gnome lore, tauren lore, goblin storyline. Why so many elves?

Classic Servers

I actually jumped out of my seat at this announcement. I am excited for this! No, this doesn’t mean I have rose coloured glasses about the grind time, stocking up on ammo/arrows, or constantly visiting the trainer. I get that life sucked way back then.

But I have to admit that Cataclysm broke something in WoW. Yes, the timeline for the most part – but there was something inherently wrong when one day I woke up and I couldn’t point to the game I started playing and fell in love with. I cried puddles when I saw the destruction of Auberdine. It was my world and no amount of smooth linear questing, fancy colour coordinated gear,  and increased number of flight points outdoes what it had.

So yes, I am excited to finally go home.

Leveling Fixes

Thank the Light. Scaling throughout the world is a welcome change for me personally. I can’t remember the last time I actually managed to quest through and finish a zone properly without feeling like everything around was trivialised the moment I breathed on it. It will be a breath of fresh air to go back again and watch the story play out, and maybe level alts again instead of just dungeon farming.

There’s still a lot of information to come and a lot of stuff that can change. But here’s how I’m initially feeling – kinda excited for new things, super annoyed about the lack of gnome anything, and warm and fuzzy when I think of vanilla servers.

Can’t wait to see what happens! 🙂

 

 

Putting on my Healing Heels Again

Trauma medic Lillen Lightspark reporting for duty!

Yes, you heard that right. I’m back in the field doing what I enjoy most – healing. It’s been a while since this blog has seen some proper healing notes. My raiding adventures now will not be anything close to hardcore. Infact, I will be casual with a capital C and happy about it. Furthermore, I am joining the fine gnomes of G4 in our shared quest of gnome powah, so I know my new raiding journeys are going to be nothing short of epic.

Is there a game for me?

My gaming life has been through a lot of change lately. Long gone are the days when I raided and kept up with how things changed with each patch in WoW. And in FFXIV, I am so far behind on the story that I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever see it while it is current.

My little pup somewhat sealed the deal on my limited game time. And I’m never going back – I am officially a dog mom. And I love spending my time with him. But I do occasionally miss the socialisation and stress relief my gaming hobby provided. Hey – socialisation isn’t just for dogs! 😛

Some days I only get to play 30 minutes a day. Some days I don’t get to play at all. And ofcourse, the more my pup grows up, the more things settle down and the more time I get for my own stuff. Currently, I am flip flopping between three games trying to find that perfect zen state. That’s somewhat the story of my life right now with the move and all. Yes, I know it’s been six months but hey, I apparently am an OCD musician who is resistant to change and takes a while to put down roots. But back to gaming for now.

The three games I swing between are WoW, FFXIV and Hearthstone. I tried Legion in WoW and loved it until a few months after I hit level 110. I began with my gnome mage and did World Quests and a bit of LFR but never managed to do much more. And frankly there didn’t seem to be much of a point to do a whole lot more of the same. World quests became redundant after a point since I never really plan on raiding, so I don’t need lots of gear. I predictably then moved onto leveling alts and enjoyed that for a while. But it wasn’t long before my initial excitement just fizzled out and once I couldn’t afford the token in gold anymore, I decided just to switch it up and try FFXIV. On the plus side, playing my gnomes was awesome.

FFXIV for me was the exact opposite – there was OODLES to do. There are so many classes and jobs and story arcs that I haven’t yet explored.  The music and art offer a welcome change. And so I began picking up where I left off. And here I am now, absolutely drowning in things to do. The problem is, everything takes a long time – which is great, I enjoy the challenge. But sometimes, with my limited gaming time, it feels like very little progress is being made. Heck, my pup has learned to do neat tricks like twirl, walk back, bop his nose on specific spots, shake, high five and lots more. And here I am STILL leveling my bloody White Mage and Summoner, and STILL working on trying to get my ilvl on my Black Mage high enough to do the next part of the main story quest line. On the bright side I love playing a Lalafell, and the trailer for Stormblood left in super fangirl mode with stars in my eyes.

Now we come to Hearthstone, an unlikely game for me to begin with since I’ve never been into competitive card games and deck building. But it offers small goals I can reach everyday like those daily quests. Then I make gold with those daily quests and buy solo adventures. That’s my play style and it was going great until they decided to get rid of buyable solo adventures with the new expansion. I really should’ve kept up with the news on it but I had no idea. So now, I’m close to buying the final wing of Karazhan (which is super fun fyi) but then what? The bright side is that the game offers me goals I can accomplish in an evening – but sadly not much more without adventures to buy.

That brings to me to the question of the hour – is there a game out there for me? Or is my dissatisfaction just another sign of moving-into-my-new-life growing pains? I just had to get it all off my chest. Because I remember the good times of logging on and having fun and looking forward to gaming. And I want those feelings back. The excitement and the enthusiasm with which I looked forward to and read about those games. I miss it. I know moving and change happens but there are some things about my old life that I miss and want in my new life here.