Posts filed under 'World of Warcraft'
All right, folks, it’s confession time. After my abortive attempt to log in on Monday, I have steadfastly refused to log in to WoW at all. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s all the other ways in which my life has gone to shit in the past two days.
Anyway, the details of why I’m not playing aren’t quite as important as the fact that I haven’t brought teh funni since last week. (Arguably it could be said that I have, in fact, never brought teh funni but to that I say– it’s my damn site and I’ll do what I want with it.) What this means is that, rather than cut the project short, or do both you and the game a disservice by not going through the full thirty days, I’m going to extend my trial period by one week; the new trial period will end on September 2nd, 2006. That’s right, Blizzard is going to get at least $15 out of me. I figure they deserve it, at least for not letting the Tauren Male dance be “the milkshake song”.
I do have real-life and personal stuff to take care of today, none of which is any of your business, so don’t ask. If all goes according to plan, I’ll at least have one twelve-hour Catass-a-thon to report on between now and the end of the month.
As soon as I have one more play session (normal length) under my belt, I’ll do up a “midway point” report. ‘Till then, En Taro Adun– damn, wait, that’s Starcraft. Meh, same difference.
August 17th, 2006
My server is down– both of them, now that I think about it. Both Anvilmar and Dark Iron are down. I am Jack’s quivering little ball of hatred.
Of course, Anvilmar is listed as down on the server status page; players are directed to the Realm Status forums where we’re greeted with a list of servers down for “emergency maintenance”. DI is on there (even though it’s listed as online on the status page) but not Anvilmar.
SO FULL OF IRRATIONAL RAGE.
August 14th, 2006
Session Time: 2h30m. Progressed to Level 9, cleared out quests, made money. Note a distinct lack of anything that requires other people.
All right. Maybe it’s something I missed when the server was started up, but is Anvilmar one of the Eastern European servers or something, where nobody speaks English? Oh, wait, it can’t be, because the incessant and irritating prattling in the General Chat and Trade channels is in (extremely poor, when it wasn’t indecipherably abbreviated) English. I’m not looking for Dickens here; I just want some of you WoW elitists to make like Coldplay and talk to me! Nobody said word one to me during the entirety of the Interrogation on Wednesday. For two hours. Complete and total silence. Even when I sent whispers asking general questions– in polite, phrased, well-formed English– I was completely ignored.
Hooray for the WoW ‘community’!
So, what did I do during that time? What the #@$% else is there to do? I ran the grind. Killed monsters, completed quests, and managed to get some rather interesting drops. None of which I could use AT ALL. Right, a Shaman has a whole hell of a lot of use for a Short Bastard Sword of Stamina. So, once i was done, I decided that the Auction House would be an excellent way to make more money than selling the item to an NPC. I put it and three other green-tagged items (green meaning “Uncommon” quality) up for two-hour auctions and went to bed.
The next morning, they were no longer on the block, I hadn’t received the money, and there was absolutely no indication that they were in my mailbox save for a small icon near the (now almost perpetually-ignored) minimap. After scouring Thunder Bluff for a mailbox (and asking, in vain, other people where it was), I eventually found it and got my items back. In spite, I sold the stuff to an NPC anyway because I was not about to throw away more money listing the items again. For the record, this is exactly the first time that the manual provided with my copy of the game has proven to be accurate in its representation of how the software functions.
So, to sum up, there are apparently six million people playing this game and not a single one of them can be assed to stop grinding for ten seconds and answer a simple, polite question.
Of course, you know, this means war.
The Good: Brother, are you looking at the wrong post…
The Bad: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the deafening silence.
Opinion Change: Way, way, down. The gameplay is what draws a player to an MMO, and in the case of WoW that’s all right. Nothing special, as I’ve said, but it’s all right. The community is what keeps a player paying his fifteen green a month, and so far as I’ve seen here there just ain’t any. We’re halfway through the trial, and things do not look good for Blizzard in the “getting me to continue playing” department.
August 11th, 2006
Slashdot has an interesting WoW-related headline. Fortunately I don’t have to worry about becoming one of the 40% (that’s over two million people, FYI).
August 9th, 2006
An Interrogation is a live event designed to help the members of the community that The Unbelievers mock defend their game. Within the game, the Unbeliever working on the game will (hopefully) be joined by folks like you who’ll help him or her learn the ins and outs of the game, and respond (in a civil manner) to the criticisms raised during the course of the game.
When: Wednesday night, August 9th, at 8 PM Eastern Daylight Time (5PM server time) for two hours
Where: World of Warcraft, Anvilmar server, Thunder Bluff
Who: Tauren Shaman Shalalah
Why: If I’m a n00b, why don’t you folks show me how the game is supposed to be played?
Some ground rules. Don’t twink me. This probably goes without saying but I am explicitly not begging for silver or looking to get new stuff. The purpose of this event is for you folks to show me what makes the game fun and to possibly change my mind. Because brother, this game sorely needs it right about now.
Be civil. If I’m doing something dumb, say so politely. Calling me a n00b, even though I am (and even though that’s the whole point of this website), will only get you ignored– and ridiculed. You might want that now but believe me, you won’t when I’m done with you.
I don’t just want to talk. Maybe what makes the game fun is some 80-man orgy of violence that I can’t get into until I’m Level Eleventy-Billion. I’m Level 8 right now. Telling me about fun stuff later does nothing to get me to play the game now. If you know of fun stuff now, then show me fun stuff now. If this game doesn’t get fun I’ll be lucky if I hit 14 before the thirty days are up. Talk = little fun (unless you role-play, and role-play well– and I will be the sole judge of that). Deal with it.
Above all, don’t take it too seriously. I sure as hell won’t. I’m jaded, biased, bitter and cynical here. Even if all I do is mock losers and fanboys for two hours I’ll still come out ahead.
Let’s see some enthusiasm here, folks.
August 8th, 2006
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