toon
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Breakfast Topic: I don't like the word 'toon'
I might get a lot of hate mail for this one. Might as well just be frank about it: I don't like the word "toon" to describe my character. They're my "guys," my "characters," my whatevers -- but not toons. Maybe it's too goofy of a word for me. I can stomach every ridiculous name and phrase and descriptor in World of Warcraft, but toon is too goofy? You just have to trust me on this one. Maybe it's the various permutations of the way people say toon. It's very easy to turn the double-ohs into an elongated, strained toooooooooooooon that stings your ligaments. I don't hate people who use the word, of course. There would be too much hate in the world. My Sha would consume Pandaria, Azeroth, and escape into the Titan's living room, sit down, and watch the game with Sargeras. You are not the problem; my weird aversion to the word is. Obviously I don't hate the word that much -- it's just not my preferred term. So what is it with the word toon? Change my opinion, give me a comment spanking, or rally behind my unknowable and toon-phobic sentiments. Please, sound off on the word toon.
The Daily Grind: How realistic do you like your avatars?
From the highly detailed characters in EVE Online to the beautifully impressionistic avatars in LOVE, there's a wide variety of avatar types available in MMO games. Whether you use your avatar purely for humorous results as the above EVE Online pilot did, attempt to create a character that looks at least somewhat like you, or are out to create a completely foreign fantasy being to role-play, choice abounds these days. Character creators go from automatically generated with no choice to insanely complex and detailed -- and everywhere in-between. Nonetheless, with the sheer number of options out there, this morning we thought we'd ask which you prefer? Do you like your avatar so realistic that it's almost bordering on uncanny valley? Perhaps you prefer more middle-of-the-road options like Guild Wars or other games in that general neighborhood -- not too realistic, not too cartoony? Or do you prefer to go as far into your imagination as the character creator will let you with avatars such as the ones in LOVE or World of Warcraft's stylistic, non-human offerings? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
3D Armory offers a round of new improvements
We linked to 3D Armory a little while ago, and as Eliah says, it does what it says it'll do: provides a picture of your character as they are in the Armory in 3D. The site's founder recently emailed us about a few improvements, and as you can see over there, there's lots of new additions. All the different regions are now reachable, and while there was an issue with special characters in the realm name, it's been fixed, so you can get any character that's online into the 3D viewer. They've added character customization, so you can make sure that the model in the picture matches your model in game. Screenshots can now be taken, and even uploaded to Facebook through their Facebook app.And there are some inter-character features as well: you can now comment on character profiles, which might be a good or a bad thing -- you could mark a good player or maybe label a ninja (though we're not sure what kind of moderation there is for that. And finally they've created something called the PuGchecker, which lets you quickly and easily enter character names and see what raid achievements those characters have earned (so if someone says they've been to OS before, you can make sure it's true). And they've even got an ingame macro you can use to run the script from directly in the game.The rate of development over there is pretty impressive, and the site has definitely grown into much more than just your average Armory substitute. At some point you wonder just how many of the features are necessary (if you ever want to see your character in 3D, you can pretty much just log into the game), but they're definitely getting creative.
Reserve your Death Knight name right now
Cameo of Dethecus has a good idea -- if there's a specific name for your Death Knight that you want, probably best to grab it right now. You can create a character with the name on your server right now, and then when Wrath comes out next week, delete the placeholder character and the name should be freed up for your DK.During the beta, I called my Death Knight Dingbat, only because it was the first thing that jumped to mind. But it was a little silly to hear the great knights of the Scourge ordering me around as Dingbat, so I'll probably go with something a little more threatening for the actual release: Marton? Erathor? Killahdk?Whatever it is, now's probably a good time to check and make sure your name is free and get a toon in place before someone else takes it. And please: spare us from the "Darth" names. Nobody, including Arthas, wants those.
Breakfast Topic: Toons have character
I never really thought about this before, but someone started a thread on the General forums decrying a term that I use every day. They stated that everyone should quit using the term "toon" and instead use "character" -- or as Drysc commented, "char" for short. Something I will admit to being doubly guilty of, as I realized that I use both interchangeably.I don't honestly know where i picked up "toon." I am pretty sure that I started using it back when I was playing EverQuest, but I can't say that for certain. I know it was used heavily in City of Heroes, as everyone thought of their characters as being comic book creations by and large. I didn't even notice until the post, but I actually tend to use both terms. I'll say "toonhop" when I'm switching between characters. On the other hand, I also say "I'm going to play this character" if I'm indicating one of my characters as being the preferred one for that run/group/etc. I've also said that I would "jump to another toon" as well. Considering the uproar, I should probably just say "charhop" when I'm switching between characters, but somehow it just doesn't flow as well as "toonhop" does. And really, since I'm just saying that to save my friends the trouble of doing a bunch of "goodbye" "welcome back" typing, does it matter?So what do you prefer? Character or Toon? And where did you pick your terminology up? Does either term drive you bonkers? Personally, neither one offends me, and nobody's ever asked me to stop using either term. Go figure!
Toon-Doku threatens to break our brains
Despite thinking we're pretty smart in general, we're just terrible at sudoku. We know that, conceptually, you can use any nine symbols instead of numbers to play the game, but we never wanted to try that because it sounds pretty confusing. It's a lot easier to glance at a line and see that 4 and 9 are missing than it is to see that walrus is missing.Majesco's Toon-Doku, then, is a puzzle weapon that can be used to melt our unfortunate psyches. Not only does it have picture-based sudoku, where you line up rows, columns, and squares of little dessert icons, but it has custom "distractors" that block the screen with a drawing of your choice. We feel our Brain Age approaching infinity.
Playing "Ugly" Avatars
As someone who, admittedly, plays a level 60 Gnome (with pink hair and everything), I understand where people are coming from when they talk about the importance of the appearance of your in-game avatar. But if having a "pretty" avatar is so important, how do you explain all of the Horde players out there? Or even the numerous unattractive Alliance options? Kotaku ponders the question, while the source article on Guardian Gamesblog seems to assume that there are no ugly avatars. What about you - is your avatar beautiful or hideous, and why?
