Last night, a new build hit the servers, and, unfortunately, hit them rather hard. For a while, everyone was having to delete their caches and WTF files and Goblins have been totally disabled. In fact, they have been so disabled that they are no longer on the server and have vanished. Hopefully, they will be returning soon.

Thus, I was left with having to decide- how do I handle this blogging about the game that has been my release and relief for so long. Well, I decided I would concentrate on the new experiences of four toons leveling up. While I will be testing Worgen and Goblins, I figure that those experiences are being discussed elsewhere, so I will concentrate on a Night Elf Mage, a Forsaken Hunter, a Dwarf Shaman and a Troll Druid. Now, I cannot stand playing Dwarfs, but I will for the sake of this blog. I hate Gnomes even more, so. . .

I will also chronicle the fun of doing things like learning archaeology from Harrison Jones (along with all the references to the Indiana Jones movies), and provide some insight into the new in-jokes that might be popping up. Do not be surprised if I skip dungeons. I am, alas, one of those players who tends to solo a lot and play with an intensity that borders on ‘meh, I’ll get to lvl 80 eventually’. I will also be providing my thoughts regarding gender and sexuality in game, just so you all know

So. . .let us begin with just waking up from being, well, mostly dead. . .

Blizzard has not rolled out the new cinematics yet, but they have added one nice feature. You are not prompted to actually click ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when you hit ESC to exit out of the opening cinematic.

Now, you are mostly dead, and being hit by a broom. That broom is being wielded by one Lucas Bandroy, and you are now being gotten up from the ultimate slumber. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to hit him to keep sleeping. This provides your first quest as well. Now that you are up, you are suppose to talk to Mordo, who has been tending the freshly dug up Forsaken for nigh on six years now. He is standing across the Shadow Grave from you. Now, he wants you to do his job and open up some coffins.

The coffins have two Forsaken ready and raring to go, a Scourge, and a frightened woman who runs away. After that, it’s back to the old grind. For the most part, the quests are the same. You have to kill ten Scourge running around Deathknell. The order has been changed a little and you now get the Scavenging Deathknell quest right off the bat, so to speak.

Speaking of Bats. . .Jim is a nice companion, but I hate bats in game. They tend to be bigger than a 747 and have a long cooldown ability. Oh well, I’m stuck with him until level ten. I guess starting with a fluffy Fox is out of the question. . .thought so. . .not Gothic enough, I guess. Speaking of Gothic, Deathknell’s architecture has not changed any. It is still very run down. This changes after you leave Deathknell and you see a lot of Forsaken buildings which are, well, very Forsaken in their architecture.

Now, having scavenged Deathknell for boxes and killed some ghouls and zombies, it is off to the usual run of gather more stuff from killing and, oh yes, kill some more. This time, you kill wolves, bats and skeletons, just like you do in Live. At least the capes look more like capes and not rags. . .though rags always look nice on a Forsaken.

The quests kind of departs at this point. While Samuel Fipps is still there wandering around, you no longer have to worry about killing him and burying him. Perhaps they finally got tired of him getting up and wandering away after you tried to plant him. Problem with planting zombies is that they just grow back like weeds.

So, remember the woman who ran screaming back in the Shadow Grave, you have to go and try to convince her that it is alright that she’s woken up a bit deader than she use to be. You have to bring along a mirror and show her. Now, one problem I have with this is that she seems obsessed with the fact that she’s hideous now. Yes, it seems a tad, um, sexist. This is not the only quest in the game that has to do with a woman hating her appearance, and being dead. Blind Mary in Duskwood in the current game has this basic story going on as well. I won’t harp on it. I am trying to remember if there are quests involving vain men in the game as well. I am pretty sure that there are.

This quest provides something of an insight into the thinking of the Forsaken. They are a hard people who have little time for emotions and do not really care if they cause others suffering. Many of the quests that a Forsaken player goes down involve slaughter, killing and other nastiness, including the creation of a brand new plague to liquify the flesh of the living and dead.

I did run into a major bug with the Night’s Web Hollow mine being blocked off. I could see in, but that was only after I pushed beyond a certain point. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to wait to complete the quest I had. That quest will be familiar to all those who know the game- go and kill spiders. Preferably with a BIG BOOT!

Ok, this is new. I now only have to get seven scarlet armbands and I have been order to cannibalize one of them…mmmm BRAINS. Well, that is up to lvl 5 and out of Deathknell. The big changes come after that, but I will blog about that some other time.

I rolled a Goblin and began working my way through the opening quests. To start with, the Goblins are definitely the more cartoonish of the two new races. This is not unexpected. There are several cartoonish gags in the opening, including delivering a present that explodes on the person, and getting to run over other Goblins while racing around in your hotrod. From what I can tell, you do not actually kill the other Goblins, but then again, they constantly survive explosions without dying. I have not tried out the Worgen yet as the zone is badly bugged and I hate playing male characters. Unfortunately, female Worgen are, well, not in game.

That said, back to what brought on the original article. Yes, Chip Endale is the female toon’s boyfriend. Now for the spoilers (do not read any further if you do not want to know!). It turns out that Chip is busy getting it on with Candy Cane. After you get through the opening quest line, and are almost ready to leave the Lost Isles, you are tasked with first killing Chip and then killing Candy. Killing Chip is rather. . .bloody. You have to kill him and rip out his still beating heart. Showing it to him is probably optional, but if you are like me, you do so anyway. Then, it is off to kill Candy. This, of course, creates its own problems of, well, the fact that you are killing two people for betraying you over matters of love, and there are certainly enough people out there who are doing that already.

Blizzard is, unfortunately, like many companies and gearing their games more towards the male market than the female. Still, it is nice that the game has advanced a bit on that front since the game first came out in 2004.

Right now, my Shaman is stuck on the way to Moonglade, my Paladin is stuck in the Emerald Dream, my Rogue is stuck on a bugged quest, as is my Mage.

Ah yes, my Mage. Cataclysm brings in new race/class combos, and unlike a lot of the coverage out there, I have been doing some wonderful questing in the ‘new old’ zones. I rolled a Night Elf Mage and began working on leveling her until I hit a bugged quest (Hey- it’s Beta, a lot of things are broken, I’ve reported it and I’m waiting for the next build). I was pleased to be working through the old, but revamped content in Teladrassil. My Mage worked her way up quickly. The time wasting Moonwell quest line was dropped down to two specific quests, and those centered around quest hubs near those. In Darkshore, there are ground taxis which take players between the quest hubs to make it easier to get back and forth.

The only big problem, of course, was the disconnect between having a level 12 Mage doing level 9 quests.

I love playing Night Elves, which are a female warrior society that worship Elune, the Goddess of the Moon. My biggest issue with them is that they are not very female oriented in their implementation, and certainly not as lesbian centered as much of the lore would suggest. This is a long standing issue that I have had with the Night Elves, though. It would be nice if Blizzard would remedy this, though that may be a long time in coming.

I will continue to write about my experiences, and do so with an eye on obvious gender and sexuality issues.

Oh, yes, and before I get ANY requests, I am not telling you my toon’s names. Those remain out of bounds as I prefer to not be harassed in game.

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• Blizzard Game’s Heteronormative Problem (lezgetreal.com)

Ok, so, most games are designed with the interests of young, white males in mind. That means women in skimpy armor and with large breasts, male protagonists, and a lot of other bits about that.

I remember the battle royale that happened on the Blizzard forums over the calls for more female-friendly fair in game. The suggestions included the ability to cover up a bit more of our characters, especially since much of the armor for The Burning Crusade expansion amounted to metal bikinis on women, as well as a few more female racial leaders (something that Blizz ignored again with Cataclysm despite calls to make the new Goblin leader female to go with Sylvanas Windrunner). Another suggestion was skimpier armor for male characters as well.

The thing is, not all of those who were arguing for the skimpier armor on male toons were women, and not all of those who were arguing to keep the skimpy armor on female toons were men. Many male, or at least assumed to be males, expressed a certain love for the idea of having men running around in armor reminiscent of Conan the Barbarian, and some women were appalled at the idea of taking away the metal bikinis because of pixilated sexiness. Not all of these were due to, well, let us face it, wanting to attract toons of the opposite sex.

The thing is, many lesbians and gays play video games, but the assumption has always been that the audience is not lesbian or gay. While companies have tried abysmally to break into the women’s gaming market (note- most women would not buy a pink playstation or Desperate Housewives the Video Game), they have also been abysmal at tailoring games towards the LGBT market which, today, has some pretty impressive buying power. World of Warcraft guilds hold pride parades, and there are several LGBT focused guilds in the game.

Unfortunately, what brought this little piece on is a bit of disappointing news. For the most part, Blizzard has never written in a romantic element to a character’s storyline. Unfortunately, there is going to be some romantic elements in Cataclysm, most specifically in the Goblin start zone. If ‘you’ are playing a female Goblin, then you appear to have a boyfriend at the start of the game, and if ‘you’ are playing a male Goblin, then you appear to have a girlfriend at the start of the game. The quest text seems to indicate a certain amount of romance between the NPC’s and the player’s character. It is disappointing, but not unexpected. Outside of The Sims, it can be very hard to find games which are not rampantly heteronormative.

It would be nice if Blizzard could have made it so that the player could chose which of the two NPC’s (Candy Cane or Chip Endale) the player could take the quest from. After all, the Valentine’s world event is certainly not limited by the gender of the NPC’s, and often involves kissing female or male guards irregardless of the gender of one’s character. Well, Cata is in Beta right now, and it would be nice if Blizzard did a bit of change with regards to this before the expansion goes live sometime later this year.

Of course, it would be nice if they sent me a Beta invite, but I doubt that will happen. After five years in game. . .you’d think they’d invite me lol.

I will still be buying Cataclysm when it hits the shelves.

I would like to thank WoW gamer and podcaster Total Biscuit for bringing this up. While he did not send it to me, he did mention it in game and it got me thinking. Blizzard has something of a problem with heteronormative thinking, and it would be nice if they moved away from that a little more. They aren’t as bad as others, but still. . .

Addendum: Irregardless is irregular English and is not considered a misspelling or a double negative. Please refrain from commenting upon it.

Westboro Baptist’s protesters were there to protest everything from LGBT rights to what they perceive as a culture of idolaters.

The wonderful people at Comics Alliance documented the whole thing including pointing out that Wesboro’s people have “faced down humans time and again, but Fred Phelps and his minions from Wesboro Baptist Church were not ready for the cosplay action that awaited them today at Comic-Con. After all, who can win against a counter protest that includes robots, magical anime girls, Trekkies, Jedi and…kittens?”

Apparently, many of the counter protesters chanted “WHAT DO WE WANT?” “GAY SEX!” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?” “NOW!” Given the number of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transpeople, and even drag queens and kings who will show up at Comic-Con, it should not be surprising. In 1999, at Dragon-Con, a man dressed up really well as Queen Amadala from Star Wars: Phantom Menace.

Seen among the crowd were people dressed in costumes from Star Trek, Futurama, and so many, many more.

There are plenty more pictures that can be found here.

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• Westboro Baptist Protests Against Lady Gaga (lezgetreal.com)

An argument between two men escalated to the point where one man stabbed the other in the face, missing the second man’s eye and slicing open his face near the eye. Comic-Con attendees leapt into action and detained the alleged attacker who could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The victim of the attack was transported to Sharp Memorial Hospital at 5:03pm Saturday. The young assailant was booed, geered and had profanities shouted at him by Comic-Con attendees while he was lead away by the police in handcuffs.

The melee started in between the panel for the upcoming Resident Evil: Afterlife staring Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter and the panel for the upcoming Universal Studios films Paul and Cowboys and Aliens. The second panel was delayed for forty-five minutes due to the unusual expression of violence.

Fights are rare at the annual pop culture confab of self-styled freaks and geeks. In fact, Officer David Stafford could not recall any reports of violence at the event for several years. Comic-Con is the nation’s largest comic book and pop-culture gathering with more than 125,000 attending this year.

This year, Westboro Baptist Church decided to protest Comic-Con in their usual attempt to garner some sympathy and attention for their anti-LGBT beliefs. Given that gatherings such as Comic-Con and Atlanta’s Dragon-Con often bring in large segments of the LGBT Community, it is unlikely that they met with a sympathetic audience. The fight did not involve Westboro in any way, shape or form, and it is not even clear if they made it to San Diego to protest the convention.

Typically, conventions like Comic-Con are treated like Sanctuary cities.

Source

Image via Wikipedia

03/05/2010- by Natasia Langfelder

In a daring move by Microsoft, Xbox 360 players will now be able to utilize gamertags Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bi and Straight in their profiles. Xbox Live boss, Marc Whitten announced on the official site:

“I’d like to announce an update to the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use and Code of Conduct which will allow our members to more freely express their race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation in Gamertags and profiles. Under our previous policy, some of these expressions of self-identification were not allowed in Gamertags or profiles to prevent the use of these terms as insults or slurs. However we have since heard feedback from our customers that while the spirit of this approach was genuine, it inadvertently excluded a part of our Xbox LIVE community.”

This was a very sensitive subject for Microsoft, who wanted to allow gamers to express their relationship orientation in a way that wouldn’t make anyone (gay or straight) uncomfortable. Microsoft collaborated with GLAAD and with their internal network of LGBT employees to ensure that the new system would be acceptable for all parties.  

Another Xbox Live policy boss, Stephen Toulouse, announced the change via his twitter account:

“Expression of relationship orientation ok in Gamertags and Profiles on Xbox LIVE. Special thanks to GLAAD and Microsoft’s LGBT community for guidance on the terms.”

There have been some gamers that have expressed discontent with this change, stating that they just want to game and not know about sexual orientation or that gay is often used as an insult online and that’s the only place for this word in gaming. This is blatantly untrue. While it is true that some gamers only form superficial ties to the online gaming community, for many players, the game is an extention of their social circle. Despite the negative commenters, this is an exciting day for LGBT gamers who are looking to connect with other members of their community online.

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In an unprecedented move, the game is drawing attention and opening up the conversation between children and their parents, although not always welcome. The game allows you to choose a male or female identity, and then invites you to choose a spouse, regardless of the spouse’s gender.

The response has been neutral so far with a few comments made on the website where the game can be downloaded such as these:

With a thumbs up leaf013 Mar 14, 2009 – “I love that its all inclusive of all people. Same-sex marriage being included just gives another opportunity to teach kids and adults alike the value of people, their freedoms, pursuit of happiness and at the very least – tolerance.”

With a thumbs down newsblogger Mar 13, 2009 – “This game potentially contains adult issues dealing with same-gender marriage. Be prepared for comments and questions dealing with that if you have kids playing this game.”

If you are interested in downloading the game for your family, you can find it here.

Anyone who has seen certain comments on our own site know that websites and MMO’s are subject to the use agreement of the particular institution that runs the site. That is, speech of a specific nature can be censored at any time, any where, and in accordance only with the policies, written and unwritten, of the administrators.

The problem is, are the words gay, lesbian, and transsexual bad words? According to some companies, they are.

The mega-MMO, World of Warcraft, run by Blizzard, had this as a major issue for many years after its launch. While the word “gay” was not banned, words like “lesbian” and “transsexual” were. Either with the release of version 3.0.2 or prior to it, those words were removed from the censor list.

Sony, however, struggles with this issue while building their own virtual world called Home.

Sony’s Home is suppose to be a virtual world for gamers. In many ways, it mirrors environments like Second Life and is more a virtual social world rather than a gaming environment where players slay pixilated monsters for quests, gold, and treasure. Playstation Home users start out with their own virtual apartment which they can purchase modifications for, as well as purchase other spaces for friends and family to virtually visit.

Home has been plagued by problems since it entered Beta. Not only have players faced issues with language such as terms associated with the LGBTI community, but words such as “Jesus” and “Jew” have been filtered by their program. This has created a major problem when it comes to attempts to create virtual groups. The censorship software was so strict that it even filtered out the word “hello”.

Censorship issues aside, one of the biggest issues has been the harassment of online players who have reported racist and sexist language from some users, and undoubtedly homophobic language as well. Sony states that there is a zero tolerance policy on this issue, and to report any harassment to moderators. Unfortunately, as the community grows larger, that policy may be harder to enforce, as Blizzard Entertainment discovered as their virtual world went from a million subscribers to over eleven million in four years.

Playstation Home has been plagued by problems and has been slow in reaching beyond its Beta, or secondary testing, stage.

The treatment of the LGBTI community by gaming organizations is something that has been lamentable. The bloggers at Lesbian Gamers have noted that there are many gaming companies which have deep homophobic tendencies. Policies concerning the LGBTI community have changed in the last four years for several gaming companies. In 2006, Blizzard had to change its policies regarding the creation and advertising of LGBTI friendly in-game groups called guilds to reflect a more open policy towards the Community after Shimmre, played by Sara Andrews was threatened with being banned from the game by a Game Moderator for advertizing her guild Oz. Unfortunately, Shimmre appears to have gone inactive, and the guild Oz on her server (though there are other guilds with that name).

It should be noted that, since I began playing World of Warcraft myself in 2003, I have been in close to a dozen guilds, of which only two still exist, if you count the one I am currently in. Guilds and players come and go constantly.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/28/BU1T14RGRV.DTL&feed=rss.technology
http://www.gamesdog.co.uk/news/news.phtml/8525/9549/PS3-Home-chat-LGBT-censoring.phtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4700754.stm
http://www.lesbiangamers.com/2008/12/is-penny-arcade-homophobic-nah-probably-not.html

Sei is a trans-lesbian who lives in Vermont and has a strong passion for LGBTI rights. She has a BA in History and her hobbies include sci-fi, anime, fantasy, action movies, video games, and more. You can visit her Blogger profile here.