The scariest place... for a hungover Elf

I love how the bear looks over the edge anxiously, as if he already knows what is to come

She has faced a Balrog, Gortheron and Saruman and lived to tell the tale, but this is the scariest place lore-master Ravanel has ever been. She and Bear are on a tiny island in the freezing sea of Forochel. The water is so cold that touching it will result in instant death. There's no safe way off, but that's not why she is in distress.

How I ended up gaming

The first friends I made in an online game. Here back in 2007, after beating Annúminas.

I've really enjoyed reading people's tales about their gamer history, so I thought it would only be fair to return the favour. Behold the story of how I ended up gaming (because there was no grand plan or dream involved, really).

Capturing High Fantasy

One of Murf's screenshot categories of his Screenshot Safari challenge had me scratching my head: High Fantasy. What is High Fantasy? The first thing I thought of was that it might be a synonym for "real fantasy", as in, "Lord of the Rings is real fantasy because Tolkien invented the genre - everything after that is lesser fantasy". Murf doesn't strike me as someone being into fantasy elitism (if such a thing even exists), though, so I googled it:

The Republic wants YOU

The last week of the NBI is there, and I have so many things to post still! More things than my usual writing schedule of Monday - Wednesday - Friday permits, so you will see Ravalation posts on odd days (gasp), just so I can get all the posts out. There, I've warned you.

The nerdiest things I've done

Drawing Wrex of Mass Effect in my agenda: geeky or nerdy?

Time for another Fandom Friday!* I learn a lot from these events. Today: apparently there's a verb called "to nerd". It sounds like a geek word. A while ago, I read an about a group of scientists that had looked into the cultural meaning of the words "nerd" and "geek" based on their linguistic use. If I remember correctly, their conclusion was that "geek" is mostly related to fandom of things considered nerdy, while "nerd" is not. It's obviously a grayscale thing, hence the heated arguments about the definitions.

I don't really identify as either a geek or nerd, but it wasn't very hard for me to come up with five things I did that could be considered nerdy. (I left out the video gaming, as that would hardly be a surprise.) It's up to you to say if they qualify!

SWTOR speeder giveaway (closed)

I got a Cantina code to give away five speeders from a guildie. Since I don't know who to give them to, and since you guys are awesome, I thought this blog would be a good place to give them away. In addition, I'm giving away four more speeders from my collection as well as one million credits. Welcome to my first (mini) giveaway!

The big Ziost review

Ziost has been released for over a week now, so why has it been so silent on Ravalation? Don't worry, I haven't quit; I have been busy playing through the story on both Imperial and Republic characters. I've also had the chance to play around with the world bosses. So here is my long-awaited all-inclusive Ziost review, featuring both pre- and post-May the 4th content.

Juggernaut Neserys: hero or villain?

This is my submission for Murf's 2015 Screenshot Safari, category Heroes or Villains. At first I read the category as requiring a screenshot featuring people of which their status (hero or villain?) was unsure. But then it dawned to me that we were probably allowed to enter either a hero or a villain as well. I decided to stick with my earlier interpretation, though, because I thought it was an interesting approach. What do you think of my juggernaut Neserys depicted above: is she a hero or a villain?

Mums in games

Pokémon mums, by ViViVooVoo

When I saw that last week's 5 Fandom Friday* theme was "favourite fictional mums", I knew I was going to have a hard time adapting this to "favourite mums in games". What I did not know was that I would have to scratch the "favourite" part altogether, because there simply wasn't enough data. With games traditionally focusing on the combat adventures of healthy, young characters; mothers, associated with homeliness, parenting and familial relationships, don't exactly score high on the agendas of game developers.

I'm sure there are some games featuring great mothers out there, but for now I'll focus on two questions: how many mums are there actually in the games I play? And: in what way is motherhood portrayed?

NBI 2015: Call for blogs

This week was the start off of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, the one-month event that has become the pillar of the gamer blogging community. The concept is simple: bloggers that have been around for a while help out new blogs by sharing their knowledge and giving them exposure. So if you have been thinking about starting a blog, or have started one that you think could use a kickstart, now is the time.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse... [NSFW]

...it did. Remember how I was on a great hunt for a decent outfit earlier? I was surprised at the difficulty to find decent-looking clothing for female characters wearing light armour in Guild Wars. The skirt in the screenshot above came to my knees and didn't look skimpy at first sight. That is, until I started swimming.

May the fourth be with you

It's that day of the year... may the 4th be with you! SWTOR is all about the Star Wars celebration today. Subscribers logging in found a cute little astromech waiting for them in their mail. In addition, they got access to the world boss and the closure of the story on Ziost. And, last but not least, the long-awaited 12x XP buff has become active. It's time to start leveling!

The world boss bans: Bioware is doing it right

Back when the Ravagers exploit was reprimanded, a stream of ado was going through the blogging community. Most people thought the punishments were not nearly as severe as they should have been: many exploiters laughed them off. Back then, I took the unpopular stance that the light nature of the repercussions was appropriate, because Bioware had failed to deal with the situation for months, letting it get out of hand. In my opinion, they should have either took the servers down for a hotfix or be honest about the situation and punish exploiters right away.

Either way, the devs promised faster and more severe intervention for future exploits and it seemed inevitable that that statement would be put to the test at some point or another. It seems the moment was there earlier this week, when several groups of people exploited the Ziost world boss.