I Participated!

I'll get back to the link posts one of these days. At least this is community-related!

Friday night I finally got around to sitting in on the chat of a live Twisted Nether Blogcast. I've got to say, it one of the most fun things I've ever been a part of. Llanion was the special guest and was great. I still think it's a bit of a coincidence that the first time I show up, Breana announces she's taking some time off. However, Nibuca will be taking her place beside Fimlys.

If they can stop doing the live shows at midnight on THURSDAY, I'll definitely go back. Not only entertaining, but very informative.

Then, after weeks of plugs, "Friend-of-the-blog" and CYOA author Syrana was on Epic Dwarven Blogger's podcast Wednesday night. I stopped in for moral support and ended up actually contributing to the conversation. Of course by "contributing," I mean asking a question nobody knew the answer to and causing 30 seconds of dead air. Oops. Wednesdays are a bit tight, but I'll try to go back when I can.

There are so many things that are easier to just SAY than type it all out, so these (and other) shows are great sources of information and lots of fun to listen to, as well.

Links! 4/10

Only one link this week.

BigRedKitty's Farewell Video

Many Hunters wouldn't be where they are today without BRK.

I wouldn't be here at all. It was reading his blog that inspired me to start up this thing.

I could shut my doors tomorrow and maybe get a few emails. To have hundreds, if not thousands of people, mark his retirement is a testament to how great the big guy was.

Alas, our friend BRK may be gone, but Daniel Howell lives on. Brain Needed some Space, and he got it.

I'm Paying Attention!

Okay, Okay. I'm sorry.

Syrana and Rhidach have nominated me for an award that's been passing around the blogosphere.

Apparently, I'm brilliant or something.

...

I'm just as surprised as you.

Anyway, with the redesign and working on "The Project," I have not had the time to prepare a proper response. I just wanted to express my gratitude (and show off my brilliance) while everyone still remembers what's going on.

Thanks, guys.

As for nominating other "brilliant" blogs... that's what the "Favorite WoW Blogs" list is for on the left there. Nothing but the best on Hardcore Casual!

Well... That was Unexpected

Just a quick note.

BigRedKitty, a fixture in our little community, has decided to do something that I greatly respect him for.

Unlike a sad amount of game players, BRK has decided to forego his favorite pastime in order to spend more time with his family.

All too frequently, we hear of others in his position making the incorrect choice. It's very refreshing to see someone who knows what's really important in life.

/salute BRK

Tagged: Nomenclature

I'm quite flattered. Byaghro over at Casual WoW is so jealous of my awesomeness that he has once again tagged me for the latest meme to circle the blog community.

"Tell us how you select your character names."

Well, I put slightly more thought into my names than your average player, but not quite as much as some roleplayers do. All my names are unique, but each has its own inspiration.

Samodean - Sam was my first alt to "stick," and eventually became my main, so I'm glad I gave him a unique name. Go ahead, Google it. I dare ya. Making a Warlock, I wanted a sinister inspiration. At the time, I was reading the Wheel of time series, and one of my favorite characters was Asmodean, one of the Forsaken, powerful spellcasters that turned to the side of darkness. That seemed to fit the bill for what I was looking for, so I did a quick letter swap and there we go.

Ralken - Ral was a more original creation. Ralken was my character name back in my Final Fantasy XI days. I played a Galka, a large, beast-like race with a very intellectual side. I played a Monk, so I wanted a name that would convey fierceness, with guttural-sounding, hard consonants, but just enough vowels to make it easily pronounceable, so it could be soft and spiritual. After typing some random letters and sounding them out in my head, I reached Ralken. I thought it was a solid name for a Dwarf, so I carried it over to WoW.

Ullic - Many years ago, when I was an even larger dork than I am today, I participated in a message board-based fantasy RPG. I played twin Dwarf characters named Thor and Ull. Thor was obvious, since he wielded a warhammer. Ull was a name I picked up from another ancient God, since I wanted him to be an archer character. Well, I refused to use "Thor" for a character name, so i went with his brother. I decided to add a little to the end for flourish.

Haddar - Easy one here. Draenei = blue aliens. The first thing that came to mind was the Jem'Hadar from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Easy!

Tarmr - I wanted something menacing for my Death Knight. I had recently been playing Too Human, which rekindled my interest in Norse mythology. Garm was the guardian hound of Hel. I originally wanted Garmr, but it was taken. So, T got his name, which is good because "G's Death Knight Guide" doesn't sound right to me.

Other character names that I've used over the years:

Corrigan the Human Paladin and Araym the Night Elf and Gnome Rogues were inspired by their counterparts in Septerra Core, a fantastic game nobody played.

Valiar the Dwarf Priest was a straight rip-off of Valiar Marcus from the Codex Alera series that I was reading at the time.

Athelas the Night Elf Druid is named after the healing herb from The Lord of the Rings.

Braxis the Human Warrior, Ryaa the Gnome Mage, Morgosh the Tauren Shaman and Warrior, Okthar the Orc Shaman, Rondrey the Undead Priest and many others I've forgotten over the years were all random names I came up with.

Pay attention to some of these unused characters, those names may be showing up on this blog in the ear future.

Well, now I must tag 3 more authors.

Kim. No not how she got "Kim," I'm pretty sure I know where that came from.
Rhidach, because I'm very curious where that came from.
K, just because I want to see her justify 78 names that start with the same letter.

My New Best Friends

Last week, I gave an invitation to any WoW Bloggers out there for a project. I was very pleased with the results.

So far, I've had the following people sign up:

My arch-nemesis, Byaghro of Casual WoW
Toraneko of Artists of Azeroth
Fulguralis of Killing 'em Slowly
Syrana of Sideshow and Syrana
Stoneybaby of Big Hit Box
Creep the Prophet of Creeping...
Vargarth of R E G R O W T H
Snug from Circumspect Snug
Chyllyphylly from World of Chyllyphylly

Some of those are newbies, some have been around for a while. Some are on little Blogspot pages (like me), some run big sites. The one thing in common? We're all part of the same community.

They're all great blogs, be sure to check them out. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for some great fun. (I hope!)

CYOA is upon us.

UPDATE: Miss Elf has joined up.






WHO WATCHES

Calling All Bloggers!

Just a quick memo to any WoW blog authors out there. I'm thinking of trying out a community project, and I'd like to know if anyone else out there is interested. For further information, I've created a topic on the Blog Azeroth forums.

Thanks for your time.

Sixth of the Sixth

Wait, what? Someone linked to me?

Yup, there's a game rotating around the blog community for everyone to post the sixth screenshot in their sixth folder. Byaghro over at Casual WoW tagged me. He's just jealous that my blog has a better name than his.

Here's the shot:



That's the cutscene from the Frostmourne Cavern quest.

Just for the fun of it, here's the sixth image in my blog folder, where I thrown any random images I come across that I think I can shoehorn into a post.



Now, just to prove that I'm not the dead end of the Internet, I can find 6 more people to tag that (hopefully) haven't been tagged by others.

miss elf
Pif
K
Rhidach
Galo
Megs

Favor to BBB

I know I'm not much of a fixture in the community, but I'm always more than happy to interact with my fellow Bloggers. So, per his request:

"Bear is a dumbass and has a broken Feed, and if you are still interested in getting his posts, folks need to please, pretty-please visit the site and subscribe to the new feed."