1. January 2006 – The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj are opened for the first time anywhere on the Medivh realm. Hundreds of well-wishers and curious observers from other realms flooded Medivh with level 1+ alts, created specifically to observe the gate-opening scripts — largest gathering of cows (tauren) anywhere, with bovine names such as Milkme, Gotmilk, and Mooyou. (Warcraft tutorial: the tauren starting area is the closest to the Ahn’Qiraj instance.) GMs eventually got involved and ported the cowlings to other areas so the natives could enjoy their gate party without being trampled.

I took some heat for running around AQ/Silithus with my own noob cow tourist, but there’s nothing like being there for mass chaos. I only wish there were more such events during the year, hopefully on my home server for once. Would save me the trouble of making a noob character and running him all the way out to the anarchy.

The series:

• A Party Atmosphere
• The Ahn’Qiraj Tailgate
• The AQ Hangover
• Bonus! Are All Cow Druids Lying Douchebags?

2. August 2006 – The “I Hate People” series. Notice how quiet my guild was for the first 8 months of the year? Ya, I notice it too. What in the hell happened Summer 2006 because it was just one shitstorm after the other.

Too many players involved in this shitstorm to name, but I enjoyed writing this series because I got a rare chance to toast someone’s ass who thought he got away with a lie. I didn’t necessarily enjoy LIVING through this drama, but all’s well that ends well.

The series:

• I Hate People — here’s a fun fact: if you search for “I hate people” on the blog, you get pages and pages of results.
• I Still Hate People
• I Am The Master

3. September 2006 – THE EMO TANK!! I know you miss him. I’d say I do too, but that would be a lie. He’s trying his darndest to get back into our happy family so you might get your wish.

I’m voting “NO!” because I want to publish his tattoo pics and gang hand signs pic that I copied from our guild site a few months ago.

The series:

• The Emo Tank
• The Emo Tank’s Myspace page
• The Emo Tank: Exit Stage Left

4. October 2006 – If This is Wednesday, This Must Be Naxxramas. I had wanted to try a live-blog chat-log type post of a guild raid for a while. Unless you are an online-gaming raider or have been one, you cannot know the craziness involved in organizing more than five people. Even thinking about it now, these are all adults, who can all follow directions (I used to think), why is meeting at a pre-arranged location at the pre-arranged time so difficult??

I still don’t know the answer to that, but maybe the log makes it clearer why “guild” is just another word for “nuthouse”.

5. October 2006 – No, I Won’t Dance Naked with You in Ironforge. I love these two nutballs (aka future guild members) I met in Westfall and Redridge Mountains; they taught me the true meaning of irony. I’m hiding from my nutcase guildmates on an anonymous alt, enjoying the peace and quiet, and somehow, like I’m a vortex for crazy, they found me.

The one guy did teach me an important technique for avoiding people. Whenever I don’t feel like talking, “SCUBA!!”

Bonuses after the jump, Other Favorites and My Five Favorite Screenshots of 2006

Also Rans – Other Favorites:

February 2006 – CBS News and Teh Smed bump heads: CBS News published some anonymous-y emails about Sony Online and their games and “practices”, Smedley, (OMG, of SOE, noob) struck back: “There has never been a release by Sony Online Entertainment that has been incomplete.” Ex-EQers everywhere are still laughing.

• CBS News | Star Wars Mailbag
• SOE Strikes Back

March 2006 – The Onyxia is Serious Business sound clip. See also, Kotaku’s interview with the Onyxia guy (NSFW: language and screaming)

October 2006 – South Park raids World of Warcraft in the episode “Make Love not Warcraft”. Wildly popular when it aired, wildly popular still — one of the top sellers on iTunes videos, I see. This Christmas, when visiting the family back home, my nephews would ask to borrow my iPod whenever we had to attend a family yawnfest … Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day brunch, etc etc. “You’re gonna watch that South Park Warcraft again, aren’t you?”, I’d ask. “Ya …”, said they. “Ok, let me share an earphone”

November 2006 – Blue Forge Fire’s recruitment video. Clever, snappy — sadly, they’re full on rogues.

December 2006 – The forum thread (short-lived, boo!!) “Why is homosexuality excluded from lore?”, partially archived in Lesbiantics. That thread was bound for glory and its life was cut short in a tragic forum deletion. It will always have a place in my heart, however, for teaching me the best word I learned in 2006: phallogocentric. Once you learn a word like that, it’s amazing how many things you notice, and comment on, that are phallogocentric.

Five Favorite Screenshots of 2006

My one-screenshot review of The Burning Crusade, the Blood Elf starting area (full post):

Madonna on the loading screen (no, not The Madonna, Madonna the faux virgin). (full post)

My favorite guild name from 2006 (full post)

Gnome Porn. In the absence of interesting, productive activities, players will always turn to porn, in-game or out. (full post)

This screenshot wasn’t mine (shot by Atrox). For some reason, I still chuckle everytime I see “I’m inside your farms, stabbin yur swinez”.

In the absence of porn, players will always kill pigs. (full post)

2006 was a good year — was a little dry for new MMO releases. 2007 should be better for that.

There will always be good stories to tell whenever two or more players are gathered together. Like a vortex for crazy, I intend to be there!

Some background. Once upon a time, we were allied with another guild for raiding purposes. Their main warrior had this habit of doing a stream-of-consciousness play-by-play commentary for every single boss fight. Something like this: “I’m at 80 health, gonna need a heal soon, ok, got a heal, thank you whoever that was, now Onyxia is at 95, I’ll need more heals, knockback!! ok got a heal, I’ll try to find a good spot to stand, we’ll have phase two when it’s time, I’m at 70 health, 65!!! ok got a heal, thanks again, think I found a good spot, I’M TAKING SERIOUS DAMAGE HERE, ok healed …”

Oh ya, it was hilarious. So I did an impression one night of his Ventrilo play by play. My impression was very popular and spawned many other variations for everyone’s amusement. HE, however, was not amused. I got yelled at for being a dick and I apologized. (Between you and me, it wasn’t a sincere apology. That shit was funny — he was being too sensitive.)

As I’ve told you before, that alliance ended the one day and that was the end of our first Emo Tank encounter, although we hadn’t coined the term as of yet.

Fast forward a few months and we have this secondary tank in the guild — some would call him the primary offtank, the #2 warrior. Basically, he’s the guy that offtanks the second most troublesome add/guard in a boss encounter or he’ll tank the boss itself if the MT (that’s Mr. Main Tank to you kids!) loses aggro for some reason.

This new emo warrior would regularly descend into self deprecation and long-winded apologies whenever the boss fight or the raid didn’t go well, which was really annoying because he’d need reassuring for 15 minutes and he’d have to talk to a guild officer and he wanted the MT (that’s Mr. Main Tank to you peons) to evaluate his tanking skills and on and on until no piece of uberness could ever be worth dealing with that shit.

Exhausted of this love-me-now routine, I rebuked him one night, by telling him to “Save it for your Myspace, man”. And, out of that rebuke, a running bit in /gu chat and Ventrilo about The Emo Tank and his Myspace was born.

“Dear Myspace, I screwed up the Razorgore kiting today. I need a hug.” “Dear Myspace, I disconnected during the Skeram fight. I’m so ashamed.” “Dear Myspace, I think my guild wants to /gkick me. I feel so alone.”

OF COURSE, his feelings were hurt and I got yelled at for being a dick. Again.

He left the guild after a time (no, not because of The Emo Tank stuff), and one little side benefit of his departure, so we figured, was no more Emo Tank — how wrong we were.

We had about a week’s worth of peace and freedom from emo-tankiness until suddenly, a new Emo Tank emerged: the third tank down the line rises to take his place on the Emo Throne.

Last week, late at night, he made some disparaging /gu comment about some guild-whatever. I thought the comment was out of line and said so. (I wasn’t a dick about it, yet. That comes later when it’s obvious that subtle will not work.)

Cue fifteen minutes of his further explanations, his reiteration of his guild loyalty, his outline of his stellar tanking skills but why won’t the MT ever just tell him that he’s a good tank? He’s asked the MT several times for an evaluation of his play. Blablablablablabla. The Raidleader tells the healers that they’re doing a good job almost every day, why not the warriors? Don’t the warriors need feedback too? A pat on the back?

Fercrissakes.

Because of the pressure building inside my skull, I patched things up with emo-boy and assumed the incident was over.

Wrong again.

The next day, Emo Tank #3 apologized to the guild, as a whole, just in case anyone who wasn’t online the night before to witness the conversation had heard of the conversation and was frightened that our guild lacked the commitment to best any encounter in this wonderful World of Warcraft. Or in case they were questioning his guild loyalty, which they shouldn’t do because he’s loyal, baby!!

The entire guild heaved a collective sigh. Here we go again.

In honor of our Emo Tanks, past, present and future, I have created the fabled Myspace page: The Emo Tank. If you have a Myspace, you’re welcome to become The Emo Tank’s friend and leave pithy commentary or /huggles for him. Some days, he’ll recount actual emo /gu chat so you can share his pain. Other days, he’ll just post moods and listen to music.

He needs reassurance. He needs understanding. He needs a support system. He needs to talk about his feelings in minute detail until every available listener is begging for a bullet.

ADDENDUM: In case you’re thinking this is an age thing, let me break down some demographics about our three emo tanks.

Emo Tank 1: mid 20s, high school-educated, girlfriend (or so he said), level 60 Warcraft warrior
Emo Tank 2: early 20s, college student, live-in girlfriend, level 60 Warcraft warrior
Emo Tank 3: teens, high school student, never mentioned a girlfriend (real or imagined), level 60 Warcraft warrior

The only pattern I’m seeing in my statistically unsound sample: LEVEL 60 WARCRAFT WARRIOR.

ADDENDUM 2: I named the Emo Tank “Tyler” because I’ve met more than my fair share of Tylers with emotional issues. If your name is Tyler and you aren’t emotionally unstable, then you’d be the first. I’m not saying you don’t exist, I’m saying I don’t believe you.