Arena-Inside

While Cindy, Britzy and Viola are struggling to comprehend the evil afoot, the evil is in turn struggling to kill them. Vulnerable to light and a deux ex demonhunter known as Loot, the demonic half-murlocs have only managed to kill a one contestant on-screen; which unfortunately was little more than an alt. While murlocs generally pose no threat, a hidden mechanical device is actively blocking certain spells from being cast, and certain abilities from being used.

Hired by Goblin producer Godiva to spice things up, the evil Iamshamangirl and that Warlock dude are desperate for blood, before the show is cancelled by an unknown force only known as The Network. With fire. Iamshamangirl musters his/her connections and has called forth the mighty Exodar, reasoning that its unpopularity is the perfect Stealth Drive. In its shadow, the warlock’s agents of destruction, the half-demonic murlocs, are able to prey upon the unfortunate contestants.

Meanwhile, the ever-vigilant agents, of the organization only known as Moo In Black, have their own agenda. They are determined to bring an end to the Draenei alien menace, that began in the wake of The Burning Crusade. Having infiltrated Exodar the alien Mothership, agent N unintentionally devours important guiding systems.

Unaccounted for is a dwarf, whose only function in this particular story is to provide the setup for the final pun, once the story ends, and a flimsy female warrior going by the name of Fiona, who may or may not be a Werewolf or a Worgen. Seriously, who can tell those creatures apart? Hired as a covert operative by the agents of Moo in Black, Fiona has worked in secrecy, until recent events led other events which led to a temper tantrum. As a result, Fiona has decided to take matters into her own hands – paws? – and is roaming the jungle, searching for clues.

Thus concludes the third update this week, and I hope to continue this epic  rare saga sometime next week.

Kodos.

November 10th – January 19th. That’s a long hiatus, to the power of nth, and sadly, it might not be the last. Studies and real life concerns has caught up with the digital shennanigans, and my interests has long been unrelated to World of Warcraft. Once the next expansion hits, my old addiction may be renewed, but then again, it’s too early to tell. What I have been spending time on, however, is writing. That is, apart from the exam preparations intertwined with general holiday stress. Hopefully, to those interested, I will be able to divulge more information about the various writing projects sometime this year.

I like telling stories. And while Arena – Inside has been a joyful medium to share stories in, it has also been a time-consuming process. Each update can easily claim an hour or two, sometimes three, and in that time span, I still can’t manage to properly convey the story I wish to tell. The updates have been erratic (which is not the same thing as erotic) and the communication on my part has been less than stellar. As a reader, new or returning, having to keep track of a long, convoluted plot unfolding every other week is neither fun, nor pratical. And in the long run, this hurts the story. And while not the main reason, it is one of the reasons why I prefer telling stories in the written medium, over the drawn copy-pasted-and-edited-in-photoshop medium. Don’t get me wrong, I like comics, and I absolutely love web-comics, but I’m not fond of my own update ratio. And sadly, I cannot find the time or the desire to change this.

So what does this mean for Arena-Inside and the current story arc? First of all, I am still going to finish this story and resolve the plot. It should have been over last year, but perhaps it dragged on to the point of few reedeming qualities. Nevertheless, there was always a conclusion in mind, and there was always a joke waiting to be told. It will be finished, hopefully, eventually, and the various hints and eastereggs dropped in prior updates will hopefully make sense.

So what does this mean for Arena-Inside? Well, it also means that this story arc may, or may not, be the last before a long hiatus. There are lots of stories I want to tell, but they are unrelated to World of Warcraft and belong to a museum different format.

The website itself is not going to disappear, not yet, but perhaps I will be shamelessly promoting other products at one point. It will remain advertisement-free (the comics probably take enough time to load as it is) and although the website might change slightly, it is not going to disappear.