A Green Mushroom

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 th...

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 apprec...

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...

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 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 ...

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 n...

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.  Congratul...