Gili Longarm lit his handcrafted pipe as he climbed the stairs to the top of the Keep. He was smoking his best tobacco, dressed in his finest war-gear and carried a small casket under his arm. He reached the small room at the top of the tower, pushed open the door and sat at a small desk in the centre of the room. He placed the casket on the desk and looked around the walls, which were decorated with Legendary gear from his long career of adventuring. Hawlic's Handy Axe lay next to the Dragonslayer. A set of Ogre Plate, the unassuming Highbolt Jerkin and General Gideon's Helm stood displayed along with the Crown of Mad Eskin, which did not show a true shape when you looked at it. Gili opened the casket at looked at the treasure within. The last two bottles of Broon's Ale. Legendary and long thought lost forever. It was probably the best time to drink it, thought Gili, given the recent and surprisingly unequivocal messages from the Gods - "the World will end at the turn of the Moon". There was some discussion going on between Kayte Whitehart and Ulf Sternhammer over the meaning of one rune, was it "end" or "restart" but in the final analysis it made no difference to Gili. He often thought how he'd die, unlike many warriors, and there had been some close calls - fighting the giant Thurisaz on the Lake of Frozen Tears, taking an arrow to the knee in the Trog Caverns and having to limp slowly forward, hacking with torch and axe toward the daylight. His comrades had come to his aid that time and others, as he had theirs and he hoped he would meet them all again in whatever afterlife the Gods had chosen for them. He took a deep drink from the first bottle of Broon's Ale. The taste was sweet and sublime, flavours old and flavours new mingling as he drank, a warm feeling spreading out through his body. Gili slowly drank the ale and he wasn't quite sure when he noticed the stars going out. "Not such a bad way to go", he whispered. "Not a bad way at all."
Ahh, and I already sold all my Dwarven Ale to the store. Well, truth be told, that's a "Common," and tastes mostly of pixels. Me, I never touch the stuff. Well-said, skip_intro. Well-said indeed.
Let me recite an appropriate piece of verse. The last portion of Edmund Vance Cooke's "How Did You Die?" ...And though you be done to death, what then? If you battled the best you could; If you played your part in the world of men, Why, the Critic will call it good Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce, And whether he's slow or spry, It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts, But only, how did you die?
*opens the door to his treasure room and adds one more item to the gigantic pile before closing the door to lock it*
Or look at it as turning your items and records into electronic compost, to be heaped in a pile and left to rot, until they turn into the smelly brown fertilizer from which new games shall grow. . . . Does that help?
I think some old school poetry definitely fits the occasion. Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and souls delivery. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, And better then thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. -John Donne
I can only say that I haven't so far. It would seem sensible to let the beta veterans test the new build first to make sure they haven't inadvertently broken anything. I think I read somewhere that it could be up to a week before the first new batch of keys goes out... but it sounded like it will be a big batch so I'm sure you'll receive one soon!
It is much easier for them to give out key in larger batches. But hopefully it will be soon guys. I look forward to new blood (to spill ).
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the great mountainous island of Tremalking. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.” -Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time