PC | The Recycle Bin

Painful return to WoW

After 18 months, last night on a complete whim, I decide to return to World of WarCraft. After finding my finding my boxed version game – the older version with 5 painstakingly slow loading CDs – I installed the game. This took a good hour. At least it felt that way, but I was not closely watching the clock.

After installing the software, the game downloaded a bunch of stuff (patches, installers, the typically PC gaming crap). Of course I ran into problems right away, which reminded me of why I despise PC gaming. I could not get the f’ing WoW installer to work. Instead I got a nasty error message:

Unable to install. You need to be an admin user to install world of WarCraft.

WTF? I am using Vista and there is only one user. I started farting around with router settings with no luck. I was not too keen on turning off my virus scanner, but thankfully Google is only one step away. This error message is fairly common for Vista users.

Next up was more installing, patching, and the like. I guess my version of WoW was old enough to warrant 2-3 hours of downloading, including a new installer program. A little after midnight, I gave up for the night with the progress bar at around 61%. I think I started around 9PM, so after three hours of nonsense, I was still not ready to play.

My youngest son kicked me out of bed around 5:30 this morning, and after another hour of installing stuff, it looked like I was finally ready to make a return to WoW!

Ah, but nothing can be simple when it comes to PC gaming. I could not get the damn game to start. After signing into the game, I was presented with a blank screen. No buttons. No instructions. Nothing. The only thing I could select was the cancel “button” in the lower right hand corner.

WoW without buttons

What happened to the buttons?

Next up was a lot of searching. Much like my experiences with The Hunter, it looks like the Dell Inspiron 1525 is just not cut out for gaming. I thought I was at a dead end, but then I came across this UI corruption and GMA 965 chip set thread. While my drive update did not go exactly as outlined, this did fix the problem.

So I was able to get started again in Arathor with Tuldar (Dwarf L15 Hunter), Kaldur (Dwarf L14 Priest), and Faltutin (Gome L39 Mage). I entered the game again with Tuldar, but I really do not remember how in the heck to play the game. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing. I am sure things will come back to me straight away, but I am not considering just starting over with a new character.

OOTP10 Demo available.

In case you missed the last couple of $10 off sales, and you are still interested in giving OOTP10 a try, a full-featured demo has been released.

A demo version of OOTP 10 is now available, so now you truly have no excuse not to give us a try! The demo version is valid for 7 real-world days, one-and-a-half seasons of fictional play, or one-half season of historical play. Aside from these limitations, the demo version is fully functional. No features are limited in our demo!

I actually missed the first two sales, so I hope to have time to give the demo a try. I enjoyed past versions of the game, but for whatever reason have not committed to this one.

Spinning the numbers. EA revenue by gaming platform.

Another day, another game of spin the numbers. This time MCV (via N4G) shows us that the PS3 outperforms Xbox 360 for EA.

Wii revenues lead the charge at $161m, up from $109m in the same quarter last year. Next up was PC, which courtesy of The Sims 3, bought in a considerable $124m.

Next in line was PS3 with total revenues of $121m, markedly higher than Xbox 360, which generated $73m for EA. The PSP was also a surprise victor over DS with revenues of $38m compared to DS’ $28m.

I guess you could say that is interesting, but it is funny that the lead was not Wii outshines other consoles, or maybe the PC kicks Sony and MS in the nuts.

Like a lot of articles I reference, be sure to check out the comments. Sometimes (and this is the case with this article) the comments are better than the article. Well … maybe more entertaining.

WoW pushes towards the 12 million mark.

I think it is pretty damn impressive that the World of Warcraft (WoW) subscriber base is currently at 11.5 million.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard’s most recent World of Warcraft subscriber figures revealed 11.5 million users are signed up to the game, with those located in the US paying USD 15 a month to play online.

That is one hell of a cash cow. I have considered re-subscribing, but at $15/month I will probably not get value for my dollar. Not that WoW is not a fun game – it is highly addicting and fun to progress your character(s) skills. I had a great time with it when I did subscribe – I just never got into group gaming with random folks.

Out of the Park 10 is $10 off July 9-15.

I have not played the last couple of OOTP iterations, mainly because the online league I was in folded. There was a $10 off preorder special, but at the time I decided I would pass. Now this deal comes along, and I am going to strongly consider jumping back into OOTP.

All-Star Special: $10 off Out of the Park Baseball 10!

Get OOTP 10 Now And Safe [sic] $10!
If you’ve just heard of OOTP, or if you’ve been sitting on the fence, take advantage of our Out of the Park Baseball All-Star Special!

From July 9th through July 15th, OOTP 10 can be yours for just $29.99 (€29.99 for customers living inside the European Union), a discount of $10 off the normal price!

Out of the Park Baseball 10 is the 10th iteration of our award-winning baseball management simulation game. It will be the best OOTP ever released, adding more features to an already unparalleled feature set and improving already existing ones. We have done a lot of work on the under-the-hood functionality, greatly improving the artificial intelligence, which results in the most realistic baseball management experience ever. As a baseball fan, you owe it to yourself to play OOTP 10!

This is a pretty good deal. It is basically on sale for the price of a PSP game, or a heavily discounted (or Greatest Hits) PS3 game. Plus you get the added advantage that the game has already been patched, so it should be pretty clean.

Women love WoW?

OK, I have to admit that this story really surprised me.

“It’s amazing how Nielsen can get these numbers but they’re reporting a total of 428,621 female WoW players while there are 675,713 male players within the age groups of 25 to 54.

The statistic is even more impressive when considering that an estimated 675,713 unique male players of the same age group logged into World of Warcraft during the period, indicating that the WoW gender gap may not be as large as some imagine.”

Who knew that women love WoW almost as much as men? I know that Blizzard claims to have millions of users, so I guess the rest are male teenagers? Surely there are not hundreds of thousands of girls slogging though WoW?

The day gaming died.

I think today is the day that I finally realized that gaming has died. Well, maybe not died, but it is truly on life support. As long as I was on a roll with some blog updates, I figured I would check out the latest videogame action to see what I wanted to write about. I cruised on over to n4g, and looked around. First I took a glance at the general news page, then the PS3 section, and finally the PSP section. Nothing of interest. Nothing to get excited about. Nothing to make me turn on my PS3.

It has been a while since I played anything. My PSP lives in a drawer waiting for me to recharge its batteries; hoping and praying for a business trip that will let it strut its stuff. My PS3 sits idle, waiting for me to put in something other than a Blu-ray movie. And so it goes.

At some point I have to ask myself WTF is wrong with me? Am I defective? OK, don’t answer that one, but right now I am not sure when I will get close to being enthusiastic about gaming. It has been months since I wanted to play anything. Come to think of it, Madden was the last game I purchased and played (and certainly not $90 collection edition enough to get value for my purchase). I wonder if playing Madden is the gaming equivalent of a cock block.

It may be time to switch gears and pick up something PC oriented. A return to text based simulations such as Football Manager or Out of the Park Baseball. Or maybe check out Spore, Civilization, or some other addictive simulation. Maybe even give World of Warcraft another go. As it stands right now, gaming is on life support. Hopefully sooner or later, it will come back alive and kicking.

In other news …

Even Doves have pride – so says Prince.

The duck is down.
If I were a betting man, now would be the time to buy some Columbus, GA based Aflac stock. Showing the volatility in the current topsy-turvy market, two days ago Aflac shares plummeted 36% on news that Morgan Stanley recommended investors avoid buying Aflac stock before its fourth quarter earnings report is released February 2. Yesterday the duck quacked back:

Aflac’s shares soared 16.3%, or $3.74, to $26.64, in afternoon trading. But they remained below the Wednesday closing level of $36.27.

So buy now and gamble that the European hybrid securities fears are over blown. If you are right, shares will jump like a bunny in heat, but if you are wrong, you need to stop playing with matches.

What was he thinking?
Our new President believes it will be a good idea to release Guantanamo detainees. Who the hell wants them? Maybe Iran? Or do we just drop them off in Miami and hope for the best. I can understand that Democrats disagree with the previous administration’s tactics on getting information (i.e. torture policies) from terrorist suspects, but how can anyone agree that releasing these SOBs is going to end well for America? The Guantanamo detainees are hell-bent on murder and destroying the American way.

Flight Simulator takes one on the chin.
I am not sure I thought I would ever see the day when Microsoft would cut 5000 positions. It looks like the gaming world will also take a hit; the Flight Simulator franchise is now in limbo.

Microsoft confirmed Friday that the software giant has shuttered ACES Studios, the developer of the Flight Simulator series of games, whose latest incarnation is Flight Simulator X. The simulation is considered Microsoft’s oldest product, whose original version first shipped in 1982.

This economy serious sucks.

Pass me the chips. Eye candy is back!
If you read this blog, chances are that you smoked a lefty last night. So says some folks at BYU that produced this brilliant observation:

“those who play video games daily smoke pot twice as much as other players and three times more than those who never play”

Tori should help set the mood

Speaking of BYU; need some help kissing? Don’t ask me how I found this one, but I figured if you spend all your time in front of a gaming PC or console, you probably could use a little advice.

All for now. Happy Saturday!

Might as well WoW.

What do you do when your air gun is broken, you do not get NFL network, and the Bowl games are crap? You play some World of Warcraft! My gnome mage just hit level 39.

To be honest, I would rather punch paper or watch the Cowboys, but a little time with WoW along with a nice toddy is a decent consolation prize.

WoW – A Daunting Task

There are a couple of guys at work that I consider pretty serious WoW gamers. These are guys with multiple L70 characters, which got me to thinking. My mage just made L38, and is about 20% of the way to L39. If I manage to clear one level per week, I am not going to hit L70 until January or February of 2008. Yikes!

A level per week may not seem that unrealistic, but I would have to spend around 5 hours a week just to meet this goal. Is 5 hours per week unrealistic? For some weeks it may not be, but I only have so much free time a week to devote to gaming. I doubt I would ever spend it all on WoW. I think it has taken me 4-6 hours per level for the last three levels, and that is probably being a little generous. In other words, I need to hit 20% of my experience bar each hour to stand a chance. Ouch. Even if I could manage 10 hours per week (and that is not going to happen), I would not reach L70 until October.

The long and short of it is that I have a whole new appreciation for those of you that have managed to reach every increasing heights in WoW. For me, the reality of the time required to hit L70 is a daunting task.

WoW Monday

Since Chris threw down the gauntlet, I had to play some WoW tonight (second time in the last few days), but I am nowhere near closing in on 70th level. I guess I am just not good at leveling, grinding, power gaming, or whatever you want to call it. I have a nice little quest in front of my right now where I am taking on some L38-40 bad guys; each are good for around 500XP per kill (thanks to rest state experience catch-up). I took out about 10 of these guys before calling it a night, which puts me just under half-way to L38. I figure I could grind here 2-3 more times this week for about 30 minutes, and maybe, just maybe, I can level.

When I first started playing, Chris said get to L60. Now it is get to L70. I am just not so sure I have it in me, which makes me a WoW flunky or something. I still have not been on a raid or played though an instance, so maybe I just more cut out to be a console gamer. That reminds me; I still need to open Elder Scrolls.