Bet you’re saying, “OMG! She’s back in WoW!” Well, no. Not yet, anyway. I’ve been looking at Asus’ Eee super-portable computer for awhile, and have caught my son and sister admiring it at BJ’s. The Eee is a very, very small computer with a solid-state drive and amazing portability, and is really cute :) The screen size is a little small, but they are about to release the new Eee 900 series, which has a larger screen, multi-touch touch pad, and Linux or Windows XP. ...
After we cleared Protector’s Realm tonight, we said, hey, what the heck, let’s pop over to the Shard of Hate and see what we can pull from the place. Since the last time we went, a lot of the Epic x3 mobs have been changed to Epic x4. Why is this important? When an Epic x3 is fought by a four group raid… it drops no loot. This probably explained our abysmal drops the first time we we went. This time, it was fine. We got several chests, some masters, some nice pants – just from trash. The first boss dropped a VERY nice bow which could have been made specifically for a bard (and a bard did win it!), and Davic tells me that mob also drops the most perfect bard weapon in the world, Marrow’s Song; same delay as our epic, boosts our run speed song and our proc song; full of all the stats we love best…. But for some reason, this uber bard weapon which, let’s face it, is nearly as good as our epic, is usable by ALL scouts PLUS guardian and berserkers. Any non-bard who even so much as bids on this in jest… should be hung, feet first, outside the gates of Freeport or Qeynos, exposed to the ridicule of the crowds. I don’t have the DKP to even consider such a weapon, but I’ll bid what I can just so nobody gets the idea bards don’t want this for some reason :) Of course, when bards bid against bards the bids go up by ones or twos :) ...
While discussing the possibility of “classic” servers in World of Warcraft, Cameron waxes nostalgic about his own yearning for the simpler days of gnoll-pounding in the Karanas. I loved those days too – my blog is named after one of those old zones, and my header images are all from EQ1, so you know I’m standing right there with Cameron, casting SoW, shooting off careless lightning and healing as best an old-school druid can. I was so nostalgic at one point that I restarted on a new no-transfer server, Stromm, and went through the entire game from scratch (xping in East Commonlands and Permafrost and Oasis, seeing the world once again), so that helped sate that particular yearning. ...
A feature of mine about good games that DON’T have Warcraft in their names and could use some well-deserved love is up on Massively. Check it out, let me know what you think :)
It’s been a little over a week since I started blogging over at Massively, and while I am really enjoying myself, I think I still have a lot to learn about story ideas. It’s all about the page views, right, and what brings in the eyeballs better than our dear old friend, porn. So I suggested this to the editors, and they pretty much informed me that they already had plenty of Second Life coverage, and maybe I could work on this piece about “Shoulder armor through the ages – how high is too high?”. ...
I had the pleasure of being on SUWT #22 this weekend. I was first on SUWT #12, so I guess I’ll get another chance to mix it up with the crew on SUWT #32! The fights, the yelling, the smashed windows, the death threats and broken relationships that make podcasts fun, are all here. Our souls laid bare. Tune in and listen to the terror that inevitably occurs whenever someone lets me get too close to a microphone. ...
A guildie from my EQ1 guild (since moved to WoW) made this animated avatar of my old WoW character :0 Kanda LIVES! I dunno why, but it makes me happy to see her again.
From a comment on Tobold’s excellent post about the tank shortage in the World of Warcraft (or more accurately, the Protection-spec’d Warrior shortage): I’ve been playing WOW for 2+ years now and everytime I see pvp hurt pve, it makes me wish there was a viable pve alternative to WOW. I happen to think there are plenty of viable PvE alternatives to WoW. Not least among them EQ2, but also LotRO (the breakout MMO of 2007, by anyone’s definition viable), Pirates of the Burning Sea, FFXI Online and literally hundreds of smaller MMOs, most of them free to play, most of them with very dedicated and helpful player bases. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Vanguard these days. ...
Aside from World of Warcraft, the most popular MMO in the US today is… The Lord of the Rings Online, which from what I understand, has about 500K subscribers – about what the original EverQuest had at its peak. LotRO was clearly the breakout hit of 2007. But all we hear about is WoW, all the time, WoW. Because as successful as LotRO has been, it’s nothing compared to the behemoth that is the World of Warcraft. ...
Sure, Warhammer may have grand battles to decide the future of realms, war everywhere, skies dark with the fires of pillaged cities… but do you win money when you gank a newb? World of Warcraft announced a new Tournament server where, for $20, you can create a new level 70 character from scratch and participate in 3v3 Arena matches and if you’re good enough, advance through regionals to become the best PvPers in the world. ...