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Showing posts from December, 2010

Games of the Year 2010

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It's almost the end of the year, only a few more hours to go.  2010 was a good year in gaming and here are my absolute favorite picks. Minecraft I like playing with fire (safely) in real life.  In Minecraft I decided to light a tree on fire and watch it burn.  Good times were had by me.  Then I had an idea.  A wonderful, awesome, burning idea.  What if I lit all the trees on fire!?  With this goal in mind I set to work and very soon had a forest fire raging through the world as far as I could see.  It had taken off and was spreading wildly on its own. That's when my brother said, "Be careful where you light those fires, my castle is made of wood, remember?"  The truth of the matter is that I remembered but was having far too much fun with fire to actually care.  I'm a great big brother, I know.  I said, "I'm sure it'll be fine."  It wasn't.  Although, in my defense, his castle did burn gloriously. We then vowed to create a

Subscription MMO Stress

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One thing driving me crazy about playing World of Warcraft is that I have to pay a monthly fee for it.  In the past all MMOs were set up with this subscription model, but with the rise of free to play I noticed that a monthly subscription is really bugging me. The subscription fee makes me feel like I have to play WoW with all of my gaming time.  If I don't, I feel like I'm not getting my money's worth, like I'm throwing my money away, which stresses me out. There have been a few times in the past week when I was playing WoW but actually felt like playing a different game.  I ended up staying online because I really wanted to make my subscription count for something.  In hindsight I know I would have had more fun playing something else. Does this reflect badly on my mental state or is it the exact way that subscription MMOs are intended to function?  Does anyone else feel the same pull while they're subscribed? This feeling is only increasing my appreciati

Mind Numbing WoW

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Questing was fun, but now I'm 85 I've been using WoW to kill time lately.  It's pretty mind numbing but that isn't a bad thing.  The release of Cataclysm lined up with a gap in my work schedule, so I've already accomplished a lot of the goals I have for this expansion.  I'm all done with questing, but now I'm 85 and there seems to be less to do. The thing I forget when I'm not subscribed is it doesn't take much skill to play WoW successfully.  It's really easy to zone out and play while still accomplishing things and reaching goals.  Once I have the hang of a class I can basically sleepwalk through dungeons and questing with ease.  It's the same button sequences over and over with slight variations on the more complex bosses or pvp. I'm already getting bored of endgame content, but I still want to complete a successful heroic run in each dungeon.  I just don't feel like getting caught up in the gear treadmill when I would rather

Happy Holidays

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my readers. No matter how you're celebrating, I hope all your gaming wishes have been fulfilled! -Void

Child's Play Charity 2010

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Child's Play Charity has reached over 1 million dollars donated this year.  If you haven't contributed yet, now is the time!  Child's Play is a great way for the gaming community to do something positive for others. The media and general public tend to think of gamers in a negative way.  I love that Child's Play breaks those stereotypes and shows that we're just people like everyone else.  It's a charity that donates games and gaming systems to children's wings of hospitals.  It makes a huge difference in a child's happiness when they get to play and have fun with other children. There are some amazing stories from patients and parents of patients who have seen the difference games can make.  Just read some of these letters and you'll see how much happiness you can bring a child. The entire gaming community has been pitching in.  The Penny-Arcade guys not only run the charity, but also throw a huge charity auction on it's behalf.  The

Healing and Tanking Are Fun

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I forgot how fun tanking and healing can be.  Long long ago I tried healing on my druid, but could never get enough group content to actually make it worthwhile.  After that I switched to a feral spec that would let me tank.  I loved tanking because I got to dictate the pace of every dungeon I entered. Then I hit max level and something interesting happened, I started getting shit from everyone.  If I messed up a pull, didn't go fast enough, or if the group wiped I would get called all sorts of names.  People would ragequit and say it was because of me.  I had enough of that, so I switched to a feral dps spec and have stayed there since Burning Crusade. With all the alts I've been rolling I decided to give healing and tanking another try.  The dungeon finder makes it easier then ever to find a group, especially as a healer or tank.  I didn't realize how much I had missed doing something other than dps.  It opens up the game in a whole new way.  Once again I'm the

The Queue and Crowding

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Our old friend the log-in queue has made a triumphant return!  It's interesting to watch the pull that a WoW expansion seems to have on former players.  They flock back to find old friends, favorite characters, and new content. The upside to this is that we have more people online to play with at all hours of the day.  The downside is that log-in times can get ridiculous during prime time in the evening or on the weekend.  One day it took me over an hour to get past the queue.  It gave me some time to accomplish other things and catch up on my email, but an hour is still a long time to wait. The return of so many players just goes to show how Blizzard has a huge death grip on the title of most popular MMO in the world.  It's hard to even remember most of the other games that released in 2004.  It's unheard of for a game to stay popular as long as the World of Warcraft has, but it currently has something like 13 million subscribers.  Congratulations Blizzard, somehow yo

Cataclysm and the Shattering Initial Impressions

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I've been having fun with WoW since the Shattering changed the old world.  With the release of Cataclysm that fun has been extended to my main too! I currently have a 13 Paladin, 17 Priest, 6 Mage, and a 82 Druid that I'm playing around with.  Since I created all the alts in the past 2 weeks I've had a chance to test out a bunch of starting zones.  Overall the quests are much tighter and have a more cohesive story then they used to.  I really appreciate that quest text tends to be shorter then the old world.  I always like to read the lore but I hate running into a wall of text at quest givers. The tighter quest pathing gives the game a more linear feeling, but I would rather have that then the way the old world used to be.  Besides, I can always go off the beaten path if I choose to.  The only starting area I tried that still feels scattered is for the draenei.  It needs work.  I can't believe how long it took me to get to level 15.  At that point I was so frustr

Thanks Blizzard for the New Cat Form

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I've had another busy week with just a little bit of gaming time.  I managed to finish up the main story in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (awesome) and had a little bit of WoW time on the side.  I'm still loving Cataclysm and the shattering of the old world.  Hopefully I'll get some impressions up soon. Until then I just wanted to say thanks to Blizzard for finally getting around to making new cat and bear forms for druids!  Sometime between when I quit last year and started again last month they patched in the new models.  It took long enough, but thank you for the change.  I was tired of looking at that model and having no individual characteristics.  Thanks!

WoW Midnight Releases! How About No!?

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I'm so excited I don't have to wait in the cold at midnight for Cataclysm.  Blizzard finally got with the program and is releasing the digital copy of Cataclysm at the same time as the retail version.  I wish they would have done it sooner (I'm looking at you Wrath and SC2) but I'm glad they're catching up with the times. The truth is if I buy the digital copy I can actually play the game earlier then the diehard midnight release folks.  The Blizzard downloader has already downloaded all of the Cataclysm data to my computer.  This happened as soon as I payed for my digital copy and started the patcher.  At midnight all they have to do is bring the servers online and I'm ready to play. No long lines.  No waiting in the cold.  No install from a DVD that I have to wait through. Chances are the servers will crash on the 7th, but for today I'm going to be optimistic and happy about digital distribution as the wave of the present.  My friends, the future

Reddit and Our Decentralized Media Channels

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The media is not what it used to be.  There are so many channels of information that we have access to today that there's no possible way to intake and process it all.  With cable, books, movies, video games, magazines, the internet, our phones, newspapers, cable, satellite TV, and more where do we turn for entertainment and information?  Well, if you're in your twenties or younger the answer is the internet. But even if we narrow down our media channels to only the internet there is still an overload of content at our fingertips.  Even if we say that we only want to talk about the news of the day the question remains, "Where should we turn?"  Almost every cable news network has a site, as well as every paper, local station, special interest, and political leaning. I've given up on keeping track of current events, and I'm sad to say that many of my generation have.  With untold amounts of data generated every day there needs to be a way to sort the worth

WoW on the Cheap

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My server transfer request has been placed for my main and I have an awesome new Pally alt that I'm playing with my brother.  After a year of absence I'm really having fun with the World of Warcraft again.  A few days of running Wrath dungeons for nostalgia plus the sweet new leveling with alts has combined to make me feel content with my playtime.  I really want to write more about my alt experience in the future, but for now I just wanted to say that I'm having a blast! It's also worth mentioning that the World of Warcraft is extremely cheap at the moment.  WoW and the Burning Crusade expansion are each on sale for $5 and Wrath of the Lich King is only $10.  If you haven't picked up the expansion packs or were waiting for a good time to try WoW you should definitely take a look at the current deals . Until next time, I hope everyone is enjoying their post-shattering pre-Cataclysm playtime as much as I am!