The End of One Journey …

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I told you I was going to do it!

Two days ago I cancelled my World of Warcraft account.  Nearly five years worth of game play.  Three 80+ level characters, several 40+ characters and several dozen alts still remain on my account.  I am not worried about them, just yet.  According to Blizzard’s website, they will still be there waiting for me should I ever decide to come back.  ”We never delete anything,” seems to be the motto of the world’s most famous MMO.

In all, after a final /played inquiry, I have devoted 55 days, 20 hours, 23 minutes to my main character – and let it be noted, this was not the first character I had created.  My first toon was a human warrior that I played all the way up to level 58 then deleted because I didn’t like it.  My hunter came next, which is this character I am referring to now.  Not to mention the countless number of alts, other sub-mains, etc.

It has been a fun game, but it is no longer fun.  The only reason I have been playing lately, as I stated in a previous post, is because I was paying for it.  It was an obligation the past several months and it was time for a break to get away from that cycle.  Two days without playing World of Warcraft and I can honestly say I do not miss it at all, yet.  The day will come, I’m sure, when I may want to get back into the fantasy world of Azeroth, but for now, I’ll devote my time to other interests that this particular game has eaten into for so long.

In fact, I can say, without a doubt, that when the next expansion comes out, Mists of Pandaria, I will definitely check it out – if for nothing more than to make a playable panda character and see how many Kung Fu Panda jokes and references they crammed in to the quest lines.

So, it has been fun. Thanks for the memories. I’ll see you on the other side. It is the end of one journey but the beginning of another.  To all the folks I’ve been guild mates with, grouped with, harassed, been harassed by, ignored, camped, etc … thanks.

I’m Going to Do It, Seriously … I Am … Really …

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I’ve been thinking about it more and more.  Tonight, I am on the verge of doing it.  Yes, I am talking about the ultimate step in the 12-step program – I’m thinking about canceling my World of Warcraft account.  For now, anyways.  I may reactivate it again when Mists of Pandaria is released to see if I’m at all interested.  Right now, though, I am so burnt out on the game.  It’s the same old thing day in and day out.  Yes, there are tons of things to do, race/class combinations, etc, but in the end, it’s the same old grind.

So, I’m posting this to put it out there and see how it looks.  I think it’s time to hang it up for a bit and move on to bigger and better console adventures.  There are a lot of good games out in the video game market and WoW hogs available free time.  I suppose it shouldn’t, but if I’m paying out $15 a month, it feels like an obligation to play, not to set it aside while I go enjoy something else.  So, Blizzard, it’s been fun, and we will see each other again, but I need a break, old friend.  It’s been a great four years.

Movies, Games, Life Events – the Usual Stuff

Hi there!  Everyone, take your seats and let’s get started.

I’m Gaming!

A few posts ago, I commented on the PS3. I am happy to say that I am still playing!  Right now my dusty and miniscule collection includes Saints Row 2, Fallout: New Vegas and Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga.  On

the horizon are: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Batman Arkham City and I’m also interested in Dark Souls.

On my list of little played games are World of Warcraft, which I am on the verge of cancelling.  It isn’t that I don’t still have fun, but there is just not enough time for it anymore to do anything.  It’s basically came down to a waste of money each month.  Also, Facebook games.  As much as I enjoy the jump in and jump right back out

play style of the Facebook flash-based games.  They are so simple that it quickly becomes time consuming because you are suddenly playing 10-15 of them at once.  A quick glance at Facebook now turns into an hour tending your farm, replenishing your Sims needs, hunting for treasure on an island, etc.

So, PS3 good!  WoW and FB gaming – meh.

Watching Movies (and Television)!

Because I’m already in front of the television after playing a game, my movie viewing as increased.  Just check out my GetGlue check-ins!  Weeds, The Walking Dead, William Shatner‘s The Captains, Monster Squad, Law Abiding Citizen, Captain America, Hot Tub Time Machine, The Roast of Charlie Sheen, Ghostbusters!!!!  /GASP\  Yes, I’ve been getting my money’s worth out of the Apple TV, Netflix and a couple of Blu Ray discs.

Reading Books!

Kevin Mitnick!  Ghost in the Wires.  This is the story from the man himself – Kevin Mitnick, the world famous and infamous hacker.  Good book, a simple read but by God I was so tired of the words Social Engineering by the last page that I could have ripped the digital reader in half with my bare hands.

Also, finally finished George R. R. Martin‘s A Storm of Swords.  It lost me there in the middle, but the end picks up speed as you get rolling past a certain point.  Fantastic read, as usual.  Can’t wait to read the next book – but I’m taking a break from the Ice & Fire series for a bit, first.

Events & Stuff!

Halloween came and went with no bumps. Carved pumpkins, Trick ‘r Treated, handed out candy. It was a great time, over all, but I’ve had a cold ever since that night.  Stuffy, congested, runny nose, cough.  Fun times!

Thanksgiving is coming up, which also means Christmas is right around the corner. Can’t wait!  The wife is already wanting to put up our Christmas tree, but I’m holding strong – for now.  The evening of or the day after Thanksgiving is good enough for me.  Besides, as we all know, it’ll start out as a family affair, but in the end it’ll be me throwing up the decorations while Noah is in his room watching television and the wife is mad about something.  Ahhh, holiday traditions :)

And, I’ve been working over time at work.  Big surprise there, eh? They get an extra man on days and our work load doubles on nights.  Interesting how that works out.  I guess the 6 of them are just too covered up so the 2 of us on nights have to catch all that overflow.  Because we can handle it, darn it!

It’s not that I’m ungrateful, but I do have other things to do besides sleep a few hours then work 12-14 hours a day because they can’t get a fire lit on days.  I know, I know, paint me a cry baby and send me on my way :)

So that’s been my past couple of weeks.  I hope yours is cruising along nicely and that the remainder of the year treats you well.

 

Rollin’ With Mad Deeps (Parody of Adele’s Rollin’ in the Deep)

A World of Warcraft in-game music video set to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.  Very nicely done.

 

Five Toons Walk Into An Instance …

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It has been awhile since I wrote about my adventures in Azeroth, so I figured now was as good a time as any.  First, let me start off by running down a few things about me and this game known as World of Warcraft.  I have been playing since the release of The Burning Crusade expansion.  I picked up both and jumped into the fantasy world by starting a human warrior.  I played this fine character all the way up to 57 and then deleted him one day because I was not having any fun.

Enter The Hunter.  Right before deleting my warrior, who was named Naheim (rest in peace, brother), I had started a Draenei hunter.  Shavelle, along with her (yes, you read that right) boar Hogg won me over and brought back something I had been missing: fun.  So at this particular moment, I have an 85 hunter, 83 warlock, 80 death knight, 53 priest and a 17 hunter.  I love questing and leveling different class/race combinations.  I’m a glutton for punishment, evidently.

One thing I’ve never done while playing is group up.  I have ran solo for all these years, only grouping with a buddy who no longer plays to get a few pieces of gear.  The experiences I’ve had on the one or two times I have PUG’ed was unpleasant.  I realize this isn’t a sunshine and roses type scenario, but I absolutely hated the couple of times I joined queues with strangers.

This brings me to the here and now.

That level 17 hunter I mentioned above:  he’s my social experiment toon.  Aroben and I are going places at a nice steady pace.  We are going to take things slow and experience level-by-level the joys of the Dungeon Finder.  At level 17 1/2 tonight, I hit the little button for a random to launch my new quest into socializing in WoW.  After 6 minutes, we were wisked away to Wailing Cavers.  Mind you, I’ve never been to Wailing Caverns and I quickly pointed this out to our little 5-man group.

Aroben: “Hello. Just wanted to let you guys know that I’ve never been here before. So if anyone has a problem with a “noob,” just let me know and I’ll drop out.

No one replied, so we went on our way.  The tank, a warrior, and our healer, a pally, fought constantly.  The tank couldn’t hold aggro and didn’t seem to know where he was going.  The paladin stayed on his butt.  The priest eventually dropped and the mage just hung back and kept attracting stray elites that we were no where near.  I tried my best to keep up, when I knew who to follow – eventually just deciding I’d stick with the warrior since he was suppose to be the tank and had came in as group leader.

I’ve never been to Wailing Caverns, as I’ve said, but from what I was seeing, neither had anyone else except the paladin.  He eventually left the dungeon after everyone died except me and the warrior. The warrior went afk and I just started killing random mobs because I figured, well, what the hell? at this point.  Eventually I died and the tank became pissy and asked if I was going to come back.  I said:

Aroben: “Sure, I’m on my way, but I figured you’d just leave, too :P

At which point the tank said: “F*** this!” and logged.

I’d like to thank all four of my dungeon partners for showing my my fears of grouping have always been justified.  I’d also like to say, though, that I’m going to continue jumping in there on this toon.  I want the full experience on my way up the leveling ladder so that when I reach the coveted 85 spot, I’ll be experienced enough to jump in with the best and take down the big guys … right?

We Didn’t Start the Fire

A near-excellent video creation!  A few folks are too busy trying to be a ham, but most involved have their lines down :)  Worth a watch!

Shattered!

The World of Warcraft has been shattered.  Sort of.  Various locations have been completely torn asunder, changed around, split in two … water where there was once sand, lush forest where there was once dry wastes.  Everything else is untouched, aside from some graphical upgrades.

The game does look shiny and beautiful, and once Cataclysm is released and players are able to fly across the old world, I bet it will look even better.  Right now, though, while I am enjoying the pre-expansion events, I am also a tad bit underwhelmed.  I was expecting a much more drastic change in the environments, but am not complaining.

I’m also intrigued with the fact that about 10 years is suppose to have passed since Deathwing erupted and tore the land asunder.  Yes, that’s the official word, I believe, if one listens to The Instance.  Since The Shattering, we are warped ahead 10 years to the rebuilt Stormwind, the upheaval in Thunderbluff, the changing of the Warchiefs in Orgrimmar, the retaking and build up of the Trolls and their new area.  Even King Wrynn’s son, Anduin? has grown and is now an adult, or at least a mature teenager.

If you are Alliance, and well passed your 20′s, you should go back to Redridge Mountains and play out the Keeshan questline.  It’s basically a play on the Rambo movies, but it’s fun to play through.  And speaking of quests, I like the new method of quest delivery.  Many you are able to turn in and accept while “out in the field” via a communication device.  There also seems to be a nice flow to the quest giving — instead of having a questlog full of adventures sending you from one end of Azeroth to the other, you’re given a couple at a time, and they are usually related or in the same general area.  It flows nicely, leading you from your initial entry into a zone on off to your next area of interest.

Abilities and spell changes came before The Shattering, but I also like the changes made to these.  Instead of having to go train each spell/ability upgrade, once you purchase them, they upgrade automatically with you as you level.  The Level Notice is nice, where once you ding, it fades into the screen what level you’ve reached, tells you what abilities are available at your trainer and if you’ve received an action point or not.  Very nice.

All spells and abilities are also visible in your spellbook now.  Faded out, if you aren’t high enough to attain them, but they are listed, along with the level you can acquire them and a description of what it does.

I’d love to cover all of this and more in detail later, despite millions of other professional and amateur blogs are doing that left and right, but for now, these are my opinions.  I’ve nothing to complain about, really enjoying the pre-Cataclysm events  and changes and look forward to the game coming out next month!

Have fun adventuring!

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Gets Release Date!

After a week of griping across the internet, Blizzard finally (ahead of  BlizzCon) announced the release date for the upcoming, world-changing World of Warcraft expansion pack – Cataclysm.  December 7, 2010.  (Full News Release Here)

This was a welcome surprise from Blizzard, especially with many in the community complaining about expected release dates and rumors of pushbacks.  Way to go Blizzard, for stepping in and shutting some mouths.

Follow-up to “Way To Stick To Your Guns, Blizzard”

I know I picked on The Instance every now and then, but in one of their latest episodes, entitled, “The Rage! It Burns Us, Precious!” the guys discuss the RealID system and the controversy created by Blizzards initial announcement that it would be used on the forums.  Randy makes excellent points as to why it really doesn’t matter …  These are the thoughts I have, but was unable to jot down at the time of my original post.

Excellent recording and discussion, guys.  Bravo!

The Instance Podcast, Episode #196 – The Rage! It Burns Us, Precious!

Way to Stick to Your Guns, Blizzard!

In a move that could have ended thousands of peoples jobs as internet trolls, Blizzard announced that they would integrate their RealID system into the Blizzard forums.  The trolls protested, and now they have backed out of that decision, opting to keep the trolls safe so they can continue to harass the good folk.  Here is Mike Morhaime’s letter to the Blizzard community concerning the issue:

Oh, and for the record, I would have backed this campaign …

(link to original content here)

Hello everyone,
I’d like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We’ve been constantly monitoring the feedback you’ve given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we’ve decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.
It’s important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name.
I want to make sure it’s clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you’ll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature.
In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard’s success from the beginning.
Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment Blue