Shit is officially fucked over here, with PAX East fat upon the horizon, and both of us committed to disappearing completely the week immediately following. We're lining up tons of strips, and I'm trying to accompany them with a strange kind of post. Strangeposts. You'll see, I guess. Expect anarchy.

It's working against the playing of HOTS, which joins DIE and LOL in the Hall of Wry Truncations. Except now Gabriel is telling me he wants to play it. He is telling me that games are very quick. He's selling it hard. Plus, he says, they've changed the rotation of free characters: Sgt. Hammer's Siege Tank is in. And isn't that something I'd like to see?

Games like LOL or COD or DOTA or HALO (which I don't think needs to be capitalized, but I was on a roll) have reputations for being primitive societies where humans are instructed re: hierarchy at the edge of a blade. Except I have bad experiences literally everywhere I go, in every game, and I don't even talk. I think people see it in those games because they are the most popular games on earth, and people play them. It's not a localized phenomenon.

The "Veterancy" on display is more a mindset than an expression of a specific skillset, and it's not hard to find it. You can't actually be a veteran of a quasi-game that isn't out, but you can absolutely be kind of an asshole, and you can drape your behavior over the wicker framework of your profound incredibility which never really seems to be on display. Definitely be sure to use terms you and your friends agreed were cool, and then behave as though they're internationally recognized IEEE designators. That's sure to crack the towers in bottom lane.

(CW)TB out.