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Month two in World of Warcraft and Life

Well, the end of this week will mark my second month in World of Warcraft.  It’s been an interesting experience.   I can definitely say that it wasn’t what I expected.   I have many years of experience in online gaming.  I have played since the early days of Ultima Online and since the original Everquest launched.  I even played the very early massive online game of Meridian 59.  Before that there were Doom, Quake, Quake II and others.

Well, World of Warcraft (WoW) has surprised me.  I was expecting your average run of the mill linear leveling MMO.  (And NO Diablo II is not a Massively Multiplayer Online game – MMO – Someone said today that it was)  For all intents and purposes, on the surface, WoW is like any other leveling MMO out there.  You go from level 1 to X and work your way and work on gear along the way.  The “End-Game” is comprised of raiding etc.  However, an aspect that I have not seen other games get close to right. Is the Player vs Player aspect.  This is very integrated in to the WoW gaming experience.  I am not normally a PvP type of player, but I like how it’s implemented in WoW and have surprised myself on how much I am enjoying it.

Now, with that said, PvP generally brings out the kiddies and the immaturities.  This is also true of WoW.  Originally, a group of my friends and I started on a regular PvP realm (server) and were just wore down by the level of immaturity on the server that we were going to give up and go to a regular non-pvp server.  Deciding to give it another go, we checked out a Role Playing PvP realm (RP-PVP).  Generally, Role Playing servers have a more mature level of players on it.  So, we wanted to see if this was true with WoW.  So far it is.

We found the Emerald Dream server and joined up with a fledgling guild that has great people (so far) .  We joined up with Endless Rain ( http://endless.wowstead.com/ ).  We’ve met some great and not so great people and overall the experience has been MUCH better. If you’re looking for a good start in WoW or a change, check us out.

- Zenshinzo, Level 60 Night Elf Druid – Emerald Dream server

As far as life goes.  Well, we have to upgrade the server software again.   The never ending updating continues.  CentOS is now 5.2 and I have been testing the stability on a couple of our boxes.  So far so good.

We’re still working on migrating all of our machines to the Mac platform.  We’re gonna go with a 15″ MacBook Pro for Angel and a 17″ for Andrew.  Draylan’s probably going to get a 13.3″ one when we are able.  I was originally going to get stand alone Mac Pro for our “server” box, but these new Intel Extreme iMac’s are looking promising.

We’re working on moving to Los Angeles here in the next couple of months.

AND  TechnoChubby.com is still coming soon   Getting closer, I have fleshed out the categories and have a test site running.

That’s about it.  Tune in next time….

Week Two in WoW

So, it’s now my second week in World of Warcraft. I have to say, and maybe out of desperation, that it’s not as bad as I expected it to be.

I played the game heavily during beta. I was not impressed with it then. I believe that was about 3 years ago. Since then, I think it has improved dramatically.

It’s definitely a social game, it’s not as fun playing solo than it is when grouped. Another major change for me is that we’re on a PvP server and that goes a lot better when you are running around with a group of friends.

The major thing I like about it is the ability to tweak the UI and add various helper mods that make the game play much easier than it already is. My list of MUST add World of Warcraft mods:

First off, I use WoWMatrix to install and manage my mods. ( www.wowmatrix.com )

Then install the following MUSTS:

1) QuestHelper – this shows you where your quest objectives are located.  Also, if you are in a group, and your fellow group members have it installed, it will show you their quests.

2) BeQL – An enhanced quest log.  This adds all kinds of things to your quest log that gives you info.  The main reason why it’s on my list, is that if you enable “Quest progression to party chat” it informs your party when you get quest items so your not always asking “How many more do you need?”

3) Cartographer – General map addon.  Adds some features to the map and keeps it from taking over your entire screen.

4)  Titan Panel – Adds an information bar on the top and bottom of your screen that gives you all sorts of useful info. Bag space, gold, XP, etc etc.

Those would be my key recommendations for starter add ons.

I am enjoying WoW so far and will report more as I go along.

- Zenshinzo, level 36 Night Elf Druid

My Switch from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion

I found out that VMWare is doing a contest to win a Macbook Air. You need to post a video to YouTube with the tag ‘switchtofusion‘. I decided to do an entry a while ago. However, I have been busy with a lot of different things and was unable to do the wonderful video ‘showing off’ what VMWare can do. I am a VMWare NUT, and I LOVE Fusion even more. (It was one of the deciding factors in my going Mac)

In it’s stead, I decided to throw together a quick video of why I switched from World of Warcraft to VMWare Fusion. (I know, I know.. it’s not the same type of app. I just thought it would be fun) Enjoy:

Anyways, I do want to say that I have been a virtualization user for quite some time. From the very early days of VMWare (geez, what years ago). I have tried Parallels, Virtual PC, and a host of others. I have not found anything to work quite as well as VMWare does. I use all of their products, Fusion, GSX/ESX, Server, and Workstation.

I was really happy when they came out with a Mac version, VMWare Fusion. It was very instrumental in my switching over to the Mac platform. I have to say, that I am quite pleased with how it runs. I really like the Unity interface. (See my MacVista post in this blog) I love the seamless integration. It just plain ROCKS!

OK OK, I’ll stop raving about it, I just wanted to share all of this with you.

GO BUY VMWare Fusion! If you don’t have a Mac, GO BUY A MAC, THEN BUY VMWare Fusion!

See more about switching to fusion: http://www.vmware.com/switchtofusion/

Mac Gaming and World of Warcraft

Recently, we have been making the switch to the Mac platform here.  Angel and Andrew have switched almost entirely.  Dana’s kind of stuck in a windows world (shame).  Well, let me say this.  The only drawback from being on the mac platform is the lack of good games for the mac.   If you are purely or 95% a gamer, then the mac platform is not for you.  This is odd to me, since the mac platform bodes well for graphics, multi-tasking etc.

With all that said,  I have need to have some sort of game to play.  So, we decided to try World of Warcraft.  Some of you know, I have been an avid MMO player for over 10 years.  I have played the gamut of them.  From Meridian 59, EverQuest, Earth and Beyond, EVE, Entropia Universe, EverQuest II, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, and a host of others.

We pushed back on World of Warcraft because it seemed very easy to play. Almost TOO easy.  Well, I must say, almost a week playing and it IS easy.  However, it’s not so easy that it takes the fun out of the game play.  It’s actually a good balance between ease of play and fun. (get back to me in a couple weeks and I’ll let you know more as well)

We also decided to join a good friend of ours on a PvP server.  I am surprised I went this route, since I am not big into PvP, but the way I look at it, if the PvE play style gets boring to me, I can always PvP.

So, if you are interested in joining us in World of Warcraft or WoW as some call it.  We’re on the Gorgonnash (US) servers and we’re Alliance based.  My in game main character is Zenshinzo.  Send me a tell if you pop in. We’re currently in my friend’s guild. However, as things progress this may change.

Hope to see you!