RIP John Bain / Totalbiscuit / TheCynicalBrit

I should add Totalhalibut there too, because I remember John Bain first and foremost from his days covering WoW news in what I believe to be one of the oldest Warcraft podcasts in existence, Blue Plz. Since then, he’s always been relevant to me one fashion or another, whether it’s bringing his personality to the gaming media, his work ethic with streams, and his striking honesty. He introduces me to a lot of franchises, whether it’s Warframe, SC2, or Planetside 2. His enthusiasm towards the Warhammer universe made the Dark Heresy Rollplay series an outstanding (albeit short) introduction into the rest of the channel and roleplay streaming in general. 

I first heard him just out of random happenstance almost ten years ago. It was one of the few podcasts about WoW at the time called Blue Plz. An introduction hounded by the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack followed by the same ‘EPIC’ tagline we’ve all heard for years. I cued in while just running around in Stranglethorn Vale, and I kept listening through Blue Plz, Ask a Murloc, and several others on the website (whos name eludes me, sadly). Since then, he’s been just about everywhere. It’s hard to imagine some one’s you’ve known, even just off-hand, disappearing, more so when you can hear their voice all the time. Recordings of his old shows still exist! He’s vibrant, boisterous, and utterly unflappable. 

And he will be missed. 

Rest in peace, Totalbiscuit. You did a whole lot of good for the world and for the gaming community and we’re thankful for it. 

Glittering Garbage

The Fastlane skyway took her to the edge of the Garden and Joviah crawled the rest of the way through the underworld. The tunnels burrowed beneath the streets spanned for miles in every direction, painted over by graffiti and gang markings long since faded. Another hour out and she stopped by a custodial closet with a faded terminal, keying in a 27 number sequence that opened up to everything a Scrapper needed. She slipped into a hand-me-down hazard suit and checked the oxygen tank’s capacity, full and good to go. She zipped up, slipped a gas mask on, and taped up around her sleeves and gloves.

Suited up, she pulled out the hover trolley stashed inside headed towards a grating leading down into the Pit. A hot flush of air swept through the tunnels as she aimed the hover trolley at an angle and fell down into the great canyon surrounding the whole of the city. Her suit’s headlights flashed on and didn’t find the bottom for nearly nearly four thousand feet, right where the piles of refuse from the city clung to pillars that held their world up above the canyon’s lip.

Mountains of waste littered the Pit. Tech decades old and rusted over laid beneath tons of last years model of vid screens, self-warming toilets, and a couple of bodies discarded from the morgues under a thick fog of toxic death. She slung an empty tote bag across her shoulders and stepped off into half a foot of feces mixed with plastic and blended together with healthy dose of chemical wastes to make her daily job that much more delightful.

A few taps of a keypad hanging on her waist and the makeshift matrix popped up with a whirling dance of beeps. A couple teams had already ventured down to work already. When everyone’s competing for a slice of the dung pile, knowing where everyone else is at wasn’t the brightest idea on paper. Same time though, she liked hearing the fuckers when she was flinging dirt out of the way of her payday.

New WoW Expansion:

... I guess?

More world quests, more emissary quests. Here’s a troll island, here’s Tol Barad 2.0. Big surprise, Alliance and Horde are fighting because reasons in a Post-Garrosh world. Story wise, I want to throw this expansion out the window and wait for WoW 2 to happen.

The quality of life changes are a a bit better. In that respect, it feels like it’s going to become a Warlords of Draenor expansion. 

Mmm... Hmm.

Dunno. Maybe it’ll be worth playing until the first raid pops up? Nothing really stands out or amazes me out the get go.