Whispering Madness

It more than rings, it resonates. When I say I see the truth clearly, I mean to say I see precisely how cloudy my vision is. Some people pretend they see with perfect clarity, which is false and only serves to fuel their hubris. The greatest measure of a man’s wisdom is the extent to which he realizes he’s limited. Stuck in these bodies, we can’t be all knowing!

Yet the arrogant still thrive. The pugnacious preacher, and the glamour goddess wearing Prada. If only for brevity, I call them out to exemplify how arrogance of few can affect the behavior of many. It’s saddening to see this behavior take the form of self-destruction, even though it is indirect and easy to ignore. The solutions should have been a goal long ago, but only too late does the paradigm shift. Usually our leaders, if not of state, then of culture, board the bandwagon far too late, rather than building it in the first place and leading it by the reigns.

The inflexible behavior and belief of the arrogant extends the destructive trends of their numerous following. We consume our planet and churn out waste, and are hitting the brakes at what may be the last possible instant. Though we may yet circumvent this looming cataclysm, another will rise to take its place. By the nature of this cyclic phenomena, it will be on the scale of solar systemic proportions, rather than only planetary.

We will consume everything around us, forests to fields, fields to deserts, planets of blue and green to barren rock. We are built to consume and replicate and such things feel good! They feel good on a deep level, and to deny us this bliss will cause those of us with inflexible natures to be outspoken in denial.

The best progress we can make is only with the proper restraint, but I mean this not on the organism level, but on the species or group level. Our populations must be limited, this is a statement of fact not opinion. But those who are inflexible won’t see things this way. If we can have no control over our collective consumption, then we must have control over replication.

Those who see most clearly, such as myself, must go against the grain of what is considered good, and pursue solutions to the problems that our leaders have denied. We must delay the problem at it’s root, until technological solutions arrive. Replicate if you will, but for the good of us all, I’ll end your life, along with your young.

So my avatar whispers in my ear, tempting me to do evil. The taint of chaos has a long reach!

Population Drop

As I play I often wonder about the gripes of those negative nancies on the forums. There are the ever present 'this game sucks' posts, but I disregard those. A certain percentage will inevitably think any game sucks, and what better place to be heard but on the forums? It's a numbers game and it's biased. What I'm referring to are those posts about how our population in Gorfang is too low.

Back on Sylvania we'd run nights where both Order and Destro had 10 warbands each, and it was a lot of fun. My problem with low population isn't that it's hard to find others during off-peak hours, but that when we play during peak hours, the ebb and flow of battle locks into hour long stalemates.

Last night we had just shy of two Destro warbands camping the Order warcamp in Caledor. The strech of this camping was a full two hours, during which time the recently captured keep counted down all the way to zero without Order taking anything. They had only a small amount less than us, but alas couldn't reach that critical mass that's required to multitask. If half a warband on caffeine were to show up, they could have hit the east Objective via Dragonwake and dashed our hopes of flipping the zone.

It's either that, or there wasn't anyone in their midst with the zeal to organize and retaliate effectively. The smaller the pool, the less likely there are leaders within it, no? Well, no offense to anyone... perhaps the Altdorf seige was a motive sink. Sitting at their warcamp for a while wasn't all that bad. I hit Dooger with ten Doombolts in a row casting double time with Focused Mind. It took him down to 3/4 health. Some quick math tells me he then has about 40k health. Ha, wouldn't that be nice.

The Calm

For the first time in a long time I entered the world and there were no war drums to be heard. Damage Inc. seemed preoccupied with Lost Vale, and without them getting the gears rolling it seems ORVR picks up no momentum at all. I could perhaps lead a campaign again, but it's late and I'm only checking in on Macabre to douse the flames of drama, if there are any.

Interestingly, the scenarios are popping nonstop. This is either a vast conspiracy that went completely unnoticed by me, or more likely, is the natural next best thing when ORVR is stagnant. I check with the guild to see if any are interested, and we form a small party structured well to hurt healers from afar. They say nothing about the frequency of pops, so I assume there isn't a vast conspiracy, or they'd tell me to win kudos.

As the night stretches on, the scenario pops come less frequently until the resulting boredom in the interim prompts me to go search for some fun in contested zones. After a single flight path and a ten foot walk, a sea of swarming red names is spread out before me. With no action on the Destro side, it seems Order is chomping at the bit for some blind fools to stomp down the hill into their zerg and feed them RPs.

I figure I'll play with them for a bit and test my new spec. I bob and weave around the burdensome tanks that are always harrassing our back lines, trying to get a bead on the Archmages that are keeping them alive. I manage to get off a skill chain unnoticed, which is rare, and drop a poor sap standing on the edge of a rock blindly healing. Little victories such as that are why I keep playing the game. The true test is to take all the frustrating stuff in stride, and ignore it for the moment while waiting on the next small victory.