Misdirected

In an effort to consolidate all my thoughts into one place, we'll be moving our operations from here and elsewhere to an entirely new location:

Misdirected

See you there!

Easing Back In

It is Tuesday morning, and this is the first chance I have had to update. The followers of The Blizzard Cult know what that means - I have fallen headlong back into the pit of WoW.

It wasn't easy! It took a couple of very dedicated Blizz employees 2 days to get my account separated from whoever it was that hacked their way into it and put an authenticator on it. The missing equipment on my toons on what used to be our main server is still missing, ETA on restoration is 7-8 days. But even with all that I was managing to run around in Azeroth as if I hadn't been trying to go Azeroth-less for the previous 7 months in a very short time.

Loralia (time to start using her WoW name again :-) has been delighted. She is checking add-ons, figuring out auctions, deciding on a new plan for her WoW life now that our original server is on hold for a while. I am not delighted, exactly, but the feeling is more like...comfortable. I know what I am doing here, more or less, find it enjoyable, and am no longer spending hours and days and months trying to find a replacement. Now I just need to avoid the Real People interaction types that caused me to quit in the first place.

So, to celebrate our return, we've both picked new toons to level up on a new server of whose mechanics we are ignorant: Lor a Priestess, myself a Warrior. She misses her Druid, I long for my Paladin, but this has been a great way to get back into the swing of things, by learning entirely new classes. We're in our 20s so far, and the two of us as a duo have already defeated Ragefire and Wailing Caverns...good to know that our old "do 5-mans as a duo" magic is still with us. Though we really should be using the LFG tool, I know. Too scared of a high twerp-to-normal ratio still.

Back on line in....3 hours!

Patiently,

- Hawk

The Long and Winding Road...Ends In...

Wow, what a few weeks it has been. My nephew came and stayed with us for a week, requiring more physical exertion during his visit than I had put out in the previous couple of years all together. I turned 40. I successfully maintained my Wiz 101 boycott.

Oh, yeah...and I sorta re-signed up for WoW.

(blush)

The funny part is, I can't re-start under my old "Hawkwind" account just yet. See, apparently during the last few months my non-authenticator-ed account got hacked. And had an authenticator added to it. And has been getting all its stuff sold off. So, while Mel has been swooning over the delights of having her beloved WoW characters returned to her, I have been sitting around on a 14-day trial, waiting for the world to change and all that. Joy.

But, watching Mel (Loralia again, I suppose) dive right back in to WoW has been really special. I hadn't really known how much her separation from the game saddened her. Well, at least it was me who decided to go back to Warcraft World, so maybe I will get some positive cosmos points out of happy-wife-making-behavior for once.

Anyway, once the recovery takes place, I guess I will be seeing some of you back on WoW before too long. Ciao!

Anxiously Awaiting Change,

- Hawk

The Long and Winding Road

Well, I have managed to maintain my Wizard 101 boycott so far, thanks to their idiotic pet breeding policy. But I find myself more and more trying to find something else to get plugged into. Spending lots of time on the Xbox now, playing Borderlands and Gyromancer, spending some time watching television, and more or less working hard at reminding myself why I stopped playing WoW.

But it is tough stuff - I would literally spend 4 or 5 hours a day doing WoW business before, just about every day of the week. Those folks that spent their time complaining about how there was nothing left to do in WoW? I was never one of em. My problems were always of the "interacting with other human beings" variety, rather than anything else. And I just can't seem to find anything else out there that captures my attention to that same degree.

I have now tried short term subscriptions of just about every paying MMO out there, and have spent tons of time downloading freebies. Surely, somewhere out there, there is something that both requires AND inspires the same amount of effort, right? If it is out there somewhere, I haven't found it. Any other ideas from anyone?

Bored and frustrated,

- Hawk

Wiz 101 Pisses Me Off and Real Life Intervenes!

Wow! Lots of new developments. The last few days have been spent getting ready for a maybe long term house guest, so left very little time for gaming. But, Mel and I kept slugging along putting in a little time every day to try and get our main pets to Adult status so we could make new pets! As of yesterday we finally made it, and went rushing off to the Lab to mate my Imp with her Unicorn, despite the really really bad mental images that created in our heads. We stepped onto the little pads, waited ten seconds...and were informed we didn't have the FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND gold necessary to perform the operation.

Really, Kings Isle? 45K?? So, this whole thing was never intended whatsoever for people that are making their first run through the game, eh, like at level 30 each like my wife and I are at. This is either intended for bored max-level folks, or for those with $50 per mating attempt (each) to spend buying gold from the crown shop. You might have let us know before we spent any effort on this whole project.

My disgust with Wiz 101 is pretty overwhelming at this point. This kind of lack of information just really bites. Given that we still have several days ahead of us to continue prepping our home...who knows if Wiz 101 will still be on the agenda when we are done. The mind boggles at what other design decisions await us in the end game.

Pissed,

- Hawk

Memorial Day Weekend

Wow, what a weekend. Had very little time for gaming, as we were spending time visiting with my nephew, playing Borderlands on the XBox and visiting an SCA event!

For those unfamiliar with the SCA, it involves people dressing up in Middle Ages gear, taking over a local campground, and bashing each other about the head and shoulders with rattan broadswords. Thought I had died and gone to geek heaven! Gonna have to investigate this phenomenon further - can't don any bashing myself, sadly, due to epilepsy and blows to the head being a bad combo, but maybe I could learn to make chain mail or something...who knows?

And, Borderlands has sorta totally sucked me back in for the last few days, but Mel took me by my trembling little hand last night and got me to put a couple hours into Wizard 101, so I should be all better now. I am off to work on pet leveling and trying to find new ways to contribute to the Wiz community!

See ya online,

- Hawk

Friendly Issues The Challenge!

With an excellent little analysis of Gregor Mendel's genetics modeling, the Friendly Necromancer has thrown down the gauntlet: who will be the person to act as the point on the Pet Modeling Project?

It is gonna be a big undertaking, for sure, 'cause not only are there about a bazillion different pets in the game, but the individual pets don't even have to have the same talent set from pet to pet! The specific talents for each pet are picked from a pool available to that particular model/species/whatever :-) It is gonna take a ton of work, and I am very interested to see who signs up to be the central receptor for all this info.

And, if you aren't in a position to be Pet Data Central, are you at least going to volunteer to spend some time and gold in-game to get the data from your crop of pets in to whoever takes on the burden? That is what I have signed up to do, should the project get off the ground...I think it is totally of benefit to everyone if this thing gets moving sooner rather than later, yes?

Hopefully,

- Hawkwind