Tag Archives: lament

Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.

Channel KiaSA, in association with LotRO, now returns you to the continuing adventures of Captain Completionist in Grindland.

I recently completed levelling my Captain’s crafting profession by grinding materials while listening to various podcasts, with the aptly named How to Murder Time, as well as A Casual Stroll to Mordor, Massively Speaking and Claims of the Normal all helping to distract me away from the ‘game’ that I’m ‘enjoying’. In addition I’ve nearly finished the reputation grind with the crafting guild to become kindred with them, thus opening up a raft of high level recipes that can make some potentially useful items; all of which will become obsolete in the next month or so when the Rise of Isengard expansion arrives and new crafting tiers are introduced. I think I’m doing it wrong.

I also spent time grinding virtue deeds to get the last few that I need to the cap of ten, just before Isengard raises the cap to twelve. Oh dear. Anyway, the last virtue required the killing of two hundred and forty worms anywhere in the depths of Moria, and I was joined on the venture by OG of the Hobbington Cresent massive, Van Hemlock, who is also on a bit of a character completion bender at the moment. It started off simply enough, with the worms conning grey to our level-capped characters, such that my Captain with her dwarf archer herald in tow, and Van Hemlock’s overpowering Guardian, were able to tear through the mobs like cats in a box of catnip-laced tissue paper. I generally turn the ‘gore’ setting off in Bioware’s Dragon Age games because it never seems quite right to have my character sitting down for afternoon tea with the Countess de Snootyknickers, she dressed in immaculate white lace, my character dressed from head to toe in the blood of a hundred orcs, possibly with a piece of severed ogre flesh slowly peeling embarrassingly away from her top lip, eventually landing with a plop in the countess’s best china. Grinding virtues as we were at the time, however, I would have paid for a ‘persistent gore’ setting which I could switch on. There would have been mayhem! Any orcs chasing us would have been in danger of impaling themselves on their own weapons as they slipped and slid their way towards us across a field of gore and entrails, eventually having to invent a new type of skate for use on the blood rink we had created. Other adventurers, possibly looking to muscle in on our territory, would have stepped slowly away in horror as they were drenched in a torrent of blood, while clumps of flesh fell from the ceiling where they had been thrown by our frenetic efforts, slapping down upon the poor adventurers’ heads. It would have been glorious! As it was, the worms fell down dead in the best ham actor tradition, and we looted their perfectly clean and sterile corpses before moving on.

As such we came up with our own form of entertainment, seeing as MMOs remain so obstinate about not providing any themselves. Alternately we launched into tirades about all the well-trod issues with today’s MMOs as we encountered them on our ‘adventures’, like geriatrics complaining about the snow while stubbornly refusing to leave their rocking chairs on the front porch and go inside where it’s warm and hot cocoa awaits. I think it slowly progressed into a sort of grumpy old man’s pranking game, each of us trying to put the other off MMOs altogether by questioning the reasons why we were doing it, what productive ventures we could be otherwise undertaking, and so forth; you know, all those perfectly valid questions which are just not mentioned in polite MMO society, like bringing up third world debt at a banker’s bonus award ceremony.

My virtues complete, the epic quest content was the final major item on my checklist of 100 Things To Do Before The Expansion Comes Along And Makes Them All Obsolete. As such I’ve been staring at virtual horse bums once again, while occasionally performing errands that street urchins would take offence to, even if you offered them a shilling and a sharp clip around the ear. However, I did make good use of the time by performing drive-by buffings on unsuspecting lower level characters who were otherwise minding their own business in the area. I’d forgotten how good a drive-by buffing feels, and I’m not entirely sure why I haven’t done it in recent memory. I usually play buffing/support characters where I can find them (something which Telwyn points out is perhaps more difficult than it should be in these cooperative games of ours); I have fond memories of sitting on the entrance at Perez Park in City of Heroes and doing nothing for an hour but cast Speed Boost on the low level characters there, giving them a short duration run speed and attack speed buff, and transforming them into levelling machines; I like being able to give other players a taste of a more powerful character for a while, a glimpse into the future, if you will. So I’m not sure why I haven’t been doing my drive-by buffings, and I do worry that it’s because I’m letting myself be carried along by the decline in co-operation which the genre seems to be experiencing. Thus it may be that the epic content –which used to be for groups but that I’m now progressing through solo– has reminded me about some of the things that we used to do back in the days when we were young and MMOs were younger. A time when we weren’t quite as jaded as we have become, what with the slow decline in MMO society as huge numbers of people from diverse walks of Real Society ‘invaded’ our world.

As such, I won’t be grinding any content tonight; if you want to find me, look for the level sixty five Captain standing in some random starter area, dropping buffs on the new characters they find there. Behind that character will be sitting a smiling fool, reminiscing happily about friendlier times, trying to work out what he needs to do to return to them.

A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!

Observe the craftsman sat on the porch of his rickety weather-beaten workshop. His tanned arms, sinewy and dextrous, carefully manipulate a bow, sanding off the final imperfections.

It’s taken him an age to make.

The yew he collected himself from the ancient forest that surrounds his cabin, dried for a year before it was ready to be carved. A single piece, the sapwood and the heartwood coexist in laminate felicity, together they form that bond of harmonious cooperation that all marriages would aspire to but very few attain: there is flexibility, and with that flexibility comes strength.

The bow string is formed from the sinews of a deer that he hunted himself, his neighbour the forest is a generous giver of gifts and yet asks for nothing in return. The craftsman is conscientious, however: he plants new trees each year and attempts to improve his neighbour’s lot. The bow string is scraped using tools that have been passed down through the generations, each as lovingly made and cared for as the weapons which they are used to create.

The grip is formed from the leather of the deer, boiled and preserved and stretched and cut. A carving runs the length of the bow; Artemis accompanied by a deer hunts the wolf who flees before them, and so the carving runs. The carvings are inlaid with silver, ore that he mined himself and smelted in small quantities. It is applied with a fine brush, its bristles made from the tail of the deer. Nothing goes to waste: the bow is formed of the deer, the deer is slain by the bow, and the cycle begins anew.

When he is finished he looks over his work. It is art and appliance: form and function. He turns it over and over in his hands checking for any imperfection, rests it by its midpoint on his outstretched index finger and confirms that it is perfectly balanced. He leans back and takes a single arrow from the basket next to the door. Unhurriedly he gets up and steps down from the porch, draws the bow and feels the tension in his arms. The arms of the bow pull back, as if the bow was trying to draw him. He launches the arrow, the air whistles as if in admiration as the arrow passes, and is then stunned into silence as the arrow strikes the tree straight and true.

The craftsman nods to himself as he takes a cloth from the pocket of his worn leather apron and begins to slowly massage oil into the limbs of the bow. As with any act of love, he takes his time and is thoughtful and considerate with every action. By the time he is finished, the sun has begun its inexorable rise, throwing back the blanket of morning mist and lifting its head from the pillow of the forest canopy.

The craftsman holds the bow before him one more time, with a wistful look on his face, his eyes full of pride and fatherly love.

Then he chucks it on the pile with the twenty other bows he made earlier, takes the lot down to Norman the Merchant and sells them all for a few measly copper pieces.