Been braindead with a nasty cold all weekend so I didn’t post anything. But I picked up Wrath of the Lich King on Thursday night, got it installed and let it patch, and rolled my Death Knight on Thursday night. I haven’t had so much fun playing that game since vanilla WoW and Molten Core. The class is fun and versatile, but keeps you thinking while playing. I hit 70 quickly and went to Northrend and started looking around and I must say I’m very impressed with what Blizzard’s given us so far. The architecture is different than what we’ve seen so far, the environments seem more lifelike and interactive, and the feeling of a war being fought around you is strong – NPC characters are engaged in combat everywhere you go. Even the usual “hack-n-slash” quests I’ve seen so far are improved by integration with other quests and good explanations – instead of the typical “go to a cave and kill 12 ogre warriors and 10 ogre mages” it becomes “raze the vrykul fortress and burn their barracks.” I’m really looking forward to trying out the new instances as well.
Also discovered this weekend the music of Zoe Keating, an avant cellist, and her One Cello x 16 project. It’s really quite interesting from a technology standpoint what she’s done with the real-time recording and layering when she plays live, but from a musical standpoint it’s simply beautiful music. I’ve found it to be very relaxing the last couple of days, and the absense of vocals keeps it from being a distraction if I have other things to do. If you’re not familiar with her work, I’d suggest checking out “Tetrishead” as a good representation (at least of what I have heard so far). She has several videos up on Youtube as well.
Also, my comment moderation system is having some issues right now, not sure what’s going on but hopefully they’ll be corrected soon. If your comment gets stuck in moderation land and you don’t see it appearing on the page after a few hours, blame WordPress and/or Akismet.
Hope you’re feeling better. ttyl
i love zoe keating!