Project Lore

A while back I told you all about the jump into multi-boxing which I've been observing second-hand through my husband's toons. He's been leveling up two hunters through recruit-a-friend: one on his usual account and another on the new account. I helped out a bit in the beginning, then we both cut back on the adventure for a bit. Now that the end of the three-month window of triple xp is coming up, he started the push again and got both hunters both up to level 60. In the process, he racked up 30 levels to grant to another character on his main account. Here's where the fun begins. We decided to team up to act out a bit of the spectacle that can be garnered from level-granting. So I logged on to his level 30 paladin, Horadric, on his main account. And he logged on to the newly level 60 hunter, Officetemp. We met up in Orgrimmar, just in front of the bank and mailbox where there's usually a pretty decent crowd. It started off innocently enough. Officetemp /waved. Horadric /bowed. He said, "Let's see how this works." And so it began. DING! Flash of light, woosh of sound. Officetemp: "Grats!" Horadric: "Thanks!" Not many paid much attention. On with the show. DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! [Horadric] has earned the achievement [Level 40]! Now, a crowd was starting to gather. Chatter began. Some questioned WTH was going on. Some laughed. Some congratulated. Some cheered. Others asked how many levels more would be granted. Oh, the attention. Officetemp: "Hang on, I think I still have some more." DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! [Horadric] has earned the achievement [Level 50]! Now, spectators started speculating about how many more levels would be granted. Would he go all the way to 60 - the cap for level granting? DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! Horadric: "Getting close!" DING! Level 56. DING! Level 57. DING! Level 58. DING! Level 59. ..... Horadric: /bow. Officetemp: ...(silence) The crowd didn't like the suspense. Speech bubbles started popping up as some predicted that Horadric wouldn't get all the way to 60. Some seemed disappointed. Some even complained on Horadric's behalf at the cruelty to leave him hanging at level 59. Officetemp, an orc, finally speaks. And it's not pretty: "You have to work for this one. Dance, you filthy blood elf, DANCE!" Horadric, not one to be discouraged: /dance. The Napolean Dynamite-inspired number ensues. Some of the crowd seems to think this isn't good enough. "Get naked!" someone yells. A couple of spectators derobe and start getting jiggy with Horadric as he strips down, one piece of armor at a time. Toons hollar and whistle at the scene, and Horadric continues with the spectacle. Finally, Officetemp is satisfied. DING! [Horadric] has earned the achievement [Level 60]! The crowd cheers, jumps around, continues to dance, offers congratulations -- and those who guessed that Horadric would go all the way to 60 gloat in their victory. Horadric: /kisses Officetemp. The spectacle has ended, but a full-on party has started in the process. And nearly-naked toons continue to dance the night away. Officetemp logged off, and I handed the reigns to Horadric back over. It was a fun experiment in attention whoring. I was utterly satisfied that some simple role-playing combined with the awesomeness of level granting had made for a fun experience for all. The social aspect and interacting with a group of toons also was a great time. I thirst for more! Now I'm curious about what similar experiences everyone else has had? Have you had an opportunity to create a spectacle in front of a group? If so, what are some of your favorite ways to gather a crowd? Do you like joining in on group parties, or would you rather do your own thing and leave the attention-seekers to themselves?

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I mentioned in yesterday's post about Bejeweled that I had more to say on the topic of dual-gaming. First let me define the term. Dual-gaming is simply playing two games at the same time. Be it via an addon like WoW Bejeweled, spinning to the TV behind you or having a Nintendo DS by your keyboard. I have actually been doing this for year's, mostly the spinning to the TV or having a handheld nearby variety of dual gaming. But this past weekend I entered into a new age of dual-gaming, dual-gaming on a single computer. I am sure many of you have heard of multi-boxing. That is the art of running multiple instances of World of Warcraft (or other MMOGs) across multiple computers. The users would then control all of the toons via various scripts and third party programs (remoting into the other computers and such). Blizzard Entertainment has even said that they see nothing wrong with multi-boxing. But that method is different than what I strive for. Instead of running it across multiple computers I decided to try multiple games on a single machine. Why the hell would I do this?

• Most of all, I wanted to be able to play multiple MMOGs at the same time. While queuing for an AV, trying to find a 5-man group for heroics or waiting for the raid, I could spend that downtime grinding in Warhammer Online or blasting away the aliens in Tabula Rasa. Vice versa, while playing WAR or TR, I could be scanning the auction house looking for deals or simply socializing as I get through the tedious parts in those games.
• I like challenges, specially when I think I can defeat them.
• My buddy (who helped me tweak and setup the box) wanted to see it done.
• I needed an upgrade anyways.
• And let us not forget, I am a huge nerd – and not the candy coated sugar kind.

As you can see in the screenshot above, things went pretty well. I decided to test it on WoW and WAR, since I play them the most. Both are running in windowed mode (the most taxing way to play but really the only way to do this), and you can see via my taskbar that I have a bunch of other crap running as well. WAR doesn't report its performance so I had to use FRAPS to get its FPS. With WAR as the active window, the machine was able to run both of them at a solid 20-30 FPS. Plenty good for gaming, although not the most ideal if I was raiding. I also tested the setup while playing The Witcher: Enhanced Edition and WoW. I had Auctioneer scanning the Auction House for deals as I ran around as the White Wolf slaying various beasts. The box ran without a hitch. Unlike the double MMOG test, The Witcher: EE was running in fullscreen while WoW was windowed on my other screen. For both tests, all the titles had their graphics settings to the highest level and highest resolution the screen could provide. Incoming nerdiness. For those who are wondering what hardware I am running:

• MSI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB 512-bit GPU– This is an overclocked X2 running at 780MHz and is currently the best and most expensive card on the market. The card is tested and OCed by the manufacturer which is awesome.
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Processor– Overclocked on air to 3.0GHz.
• Corsair 4x1GB DDR2 PC2 6400 RAM – Ram running at 4-4-4-12.
• Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10,000RPM SATA Harddrive – God, I love these drives.
• EVGA nForce 680i Ultra SLi Motherboard - An okay motherbord.

Now I should be able to review PC games twice as fast!

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