Project Lore

My long-awaited vacation has finally arrived. And one of the top items on my priority list (although I'm sot sure yet whether it will happen) is playing more WoW and getting a feel for all the 3.1 patch changes. The only problem: I'm more than 800 miles from home and in a much different atmosphere than usual. Here, there's no permanent desk setup, which isn't a huge deal since I normally play on my laptop anyway. It's just a bit less comfortable playing from a hard, wood chair than in my much softer desk chair. But since I need my mouse accessible, I can't exactly sink into a couch. I wish I would have remembered to bring my lapdesk - that would have solved that issue beautifully. Thankfully, latency isn't much of an issue. The DSL here versus cable back home both have me hovering at about 200 ms. But I doubt we'd have enough bandwidth here to run two (or three) windows of WoW simultaneously. Needless to say, my escapades with dual-boxing have temporarily halted. I'm just glad I'm not staying with someone who still runs dialup! So it's not quite the same as back home, but I'm able to squeeze in a bit of WoW in between fun vacation-esque stuff. Enough to feed the addiction. For any of you all looking to leave town for spring break or whatever reason and still hope to get in some gaming on a laptop you can travel with, I recommend: find a comfortable spot - bring a lapdesk (do as I say, not as I do). Don't forget your mouse - touchpads are incredibly difficult to use in-game. And if you have anything like a Zboard that you can fit in your luggage, bring it along, too. Even if you can't fit your entire desktop, a keyboard doesn't take up a ton of space. Of course, if you CAN bring a more powerful desktop, that also would be nice. Though it may limit your options for a spot to play. And no matter what the case, remember: You're on vacation! Don't forget to run some RL quests for fun, too! So what's your WoW routine while on vacation - do you still find the time to squeeze in some playtime? And do you have any more tips to offer for those traveling?

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World of Warcraft may have over 11 million players, but that doesn't mean it is easy to get together. One of the most annoying things about World of Warcraft is the amount of realms the game has, causing the 11 million plus players to be fragmented all over the place. Unless you specifically rolled on the same server as a friend, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to play together, without making another character.  I understand why they do this, but I guess I want a little Eve Online in my WoW.

I have been talking about the game while walking down the street only to be interrupted by “are you talking about WoW?!” Being the brazen nerd that I am, I opening admit my affection for the game to the complete stranger and ask them what server they are one. The response always ends up being anything but Magtheridon. However, this weekend, I got to spend some time with a Mag player, and two other players from my Battlegroup. The horde player, I knew by reputation before meeting him in person. The other two are friends from back home, who are both Alliance, rolled in my Battlegroup by sheer chance. This is something that I have never come across before.

Needless to say, shenanigans ensued. We quickly plotted a coup against a 5-man instancing group of the horde. The idea was to get a bunch of rogues, druids, shadowmelders and anyone willing to blow an invisibility potion to group up outside a level 80 instance. Our double agent hordie would then summon his group and BAM, we'd all pop into action, laying waste to players several levels higher than us, while having a good laugh.

With the other members of the LAN on a different server, they weren't too interested, and the plot never materialized. My hordie friend did manage to train some guards on me after I applied a Deadly Poison to him by accident though.  Thanks for that.  However, we did play hours upon hours of Left 4 Dead. That is a Co-op LAN game to die for (excuse the horrible pun).

While I am sad the weekend is now over, I finally managed to catch up on my sleep from the hardcore gaming sessions, hence the coherent article. Anyone else have some good LAN stories or carebear soliloquies?

This weekend made me realize something, I guess not all horde are bad...

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