I used to play World of Warcraft. The game has it's flaws, but honestly it was pretty damn fun for a while. It was one of the only mmo's that allowed me to feel like I wasn't grinding away in a joblike fashion while I was playing a game......at least while leveling and the first bit of raiding. Being a 40 man raid healer in MC was no different than 40 man raid healing AQ 40 or NAXX (if you've never played wow and don't know what those acronyms mean, basically picture a screen with an action bar of green looking spells across the bottom, a druid who looks pretty bad ass while wearing bullwinkle style antlers in the middle of the screen, and 40 health bars covering everything else), it pretty much turned into a glorified game of whack-a-mole with those aforementioned 40 health bars (not mana bars, fucking priests learn to conserve mana, I only innervate the main tanks, OH NOES THE MAIN TANK HAS NO MANA! *clicks innervate macro* /w Annalis You have been innervated, you can thank your mana battery later.).

Anyways I've rambled off-topic, I'm sure you all know the expansion wrath of the lich king has been out for a while. It's made me think about WoW, now that I may have free time coming up, but it also reminded me of something that happened. One of the mages in my old guild, had posted a WoW version of the St Crispin's Day Speech, from Henry the V (I don't know if it was original or a copy pasted thing). I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to do something similar myself, only with Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. After remembering about it, I wondered if I still had it saved, which I did, so I decided to share it with which ever poor saps come across this blog expecting to read something good:

Once upon a midnight dreary, as I raided, weak and weary,
Killing many a malign and arduous mob upon this floor,
While I tanked, quickly taunting, a mob came a jaunting,
As if it were simply flaunting, flaunting through the hall door.
" 'Tis a npc," I muttered, "jaunting upon this instance floor;
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, clearly I recall it was in the dreaded Kharazhan,
And each seperate dying fiend wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished progression; -vainly I had sought to borrow
From this instance farmed with sorrow - sorrow for the lack of tier 4 -
For the rare and feral gear whom the angles named tier 4 -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the frightful mob's hp falling, the dropping of each purple loot
Thrilled me - filled me with fantasic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
" 'Tis some NPC patrolling this instance floor -
Some non-elite NPC patrolling this instance floor; -
This it is, and nothing more,"

Quickly I cast enrage, waiting for the mana of no mage,
"Demon," said I,"or undead, truly your forgiveness I implore;
For I was engaged in combat, and so quickly you came patrolling,
And so faintly you came strolling, strolling through this instance hall
I was unsure I was in line of sight" - here I stepped into the instance hall
Curator there, and nothing more.

Long at the Curator peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no feral druid ever dared to dream before
Curator stood staring, towering above in the darkness just glaring,
And the only text typed, as it appeared in guild chat, "tier 4!"
This I typed, and the chat logs recorded this word, "tier 4!"
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the room turning, all the mana was returning,
Soon again I saw a flaunting, somewhat clearer than before.
"Surely," said I,"surely that is by the stair case:
Let me check what mob may be alive, after clearing this floor -
Let my healers drink a moment, after clearing this floor; -
'Tis a glitch and nothing more!"

I'll have a link right here, just when my future self gets around to making a post to link to, since this is getting to reach the point of OH GOD MY EYES THEY BURN, WHY IS THIS POST SO LONG WHYYYYYYY