finishing touch ..

messing about with perspective and the edit feature on Vista, I transformed a very innocent emote into something far more sinister ..


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**Ala's concept began almost a decade before her current GuildWars incarnation; the original "Alacrity" was a character I played for years in Bethesda's fantasy rpg Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall game ~ she was a Khajiit (scorned race of catpeople) assassin/magician whose custom class I named "Deathpixie". She mostly used a bow and magic, and finished off surviving prey in unarmed combat.
That world's freeform possibilities were best for characterisation ~ Alacrity totally ignored the main quest, it held no interest for her, and preferred to raise her standing in the assassin's Brotherhood and wreak havoc in her own style.

I basically reserved the name "Alacrity" anytime I felt like playing a cute deadly female assassin - not necessarily in a fantasy setting; her persona was not really developed beyond being a naive outsider, and someone who did not follow what was expected.

There are many games I enjoyed where she DIDN'T appear; for example I forgot what I named my assassin in Diablo II (not my fave class there anyway), but that game felt too linear and the toons lacking in identity for me to get connected to any characters.
Same for the KOTOR and NWN series, although I really enjoyed those, for some reason I did not identify with the characters (and again, maybe because I preferred other character types there).
Nor did I recreate her in the subsequent Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind and Oblivion), just didn't have the right feel.

the next time Alacrity made a significant appearance was in SirTech's strategy rpg Jagged Alliance 2 - yes, as a modern day mercenary. Again, a setting where the main goal can be totally ignored and the player can romp about the violent countryside doing as they please. Assassination and stealth could be quite important, and it was more fun to be a maverick, so she seemed to belong here.
Of course I had to recreate her for each campaign (SirTech released only one addon, but fans created several more), and spent many years enjoying her antics there.
This time she became a redhead simply because the sole female blonde avatar was not cute enough; even after I learned how to change pictures etc, Alacrity remained a redhead (but an even cuter one). I also used the russian voicemod, so she spoke in russian ~ no I do not understand a word, but it kept her in character as an outsider (and the stock american voices got kinda annoying after a while).

No, Alacrity did not appear in SirTech's fantasy rpg Wizardy 8, even though faerie assassins are quite potent there .. again that world is too linear and the characters seem to lack uniqueness.

I was then introduced to MMORG's by friends, they play pay-per-monthlies like Ultima, WoW, EQ and others I can't remember. I resisted joining, mostly cos whenever I watched over their shoulders, I saw a lot of grind ..
I decided on the no-fee Guild Wars; and because in mmorgs there's interaction with hundreds of people a week, I felt the need to make a proper full story for Alacrity, plus the GW universe is rich enough to use as the setting.
Of course, GW is primarily a team PvP game, and 99% of the other players don't care for roleplay, but I was unaware of that until much later on .. still there is enough freeform to enjoy the worlds as one pleases ~

GW will no doubt reach its expiry date in 2009; Ala will certainly appear in another MMORG, but whether it will be GW2 or another is yet to be determined ~

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*this is a modified screenshot from Arenanet's GuildWars mmorg