Project Lore

Of the Christmas presents (a few WoW-related) that I was happy to receive over the holidays, the one that I most appreciate is a present from myself: a new desktop. You see, for the past few years I've been playing WoW and doing all of my other computer tasks (such as blogging) via laptop.

First, it was a Sony VAIO running Windows Vista with pretty measly specs and a 15.4-inch screen. I could do most of my day-to-day productive tasks on it fine, but WoW -- not so much. My graphics were turned way down, addons were kept to a minimum and tabbing out of game was really the equivalent of committing in-game suicide -- an automatic crash. Not too fun at all.

Then, a pretty major upgrade came when I started swiping my husband's "gaming laptop" (an oxymoron? yes.), a Gateway FX series, when it wasn't in use. A larger, 19-inch screen, more graphics capabilities, less worry about tabbing out. But to keep things running smoothly, it was best to close all other programs while playing. Then there was the addon confusion. Our two sets of addons aren't entirely compatible, and it took me a few times to realize that I could customize the addons per character. Not a huge deal, but it still wasn't my computer.

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Misconceptions Cleared Up It seems that there was a bit of confusion in the WoW On A Netbook post from last week.  Enough, in my opinion, to warrant an entire response post, rather than a rebuttal comment.  So here we are, returning to the topic to clear the air, set things straight and sprinkle in a few additional points. Judging by the comments there are a few issues to tackle including the definition of a netbook, why the hell I would try to run WoW on such a piece of hardware and why it may matter to you, our loving readers.  First and foremost, a netbook is a laptop that is primarily designed for web-browsing and e-mailing, with no maximum requirements on how that can be done.  Rather the tertiary concern is that of battery consumption, leading the hardware engineers to nerf and throttle the buzzwords of computing, GHz, GB (RAM) and GB (HDD space), to save power.  In the end, the netbook and laptop (aka notebook) discussion turns into the "a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square" discussion.  Simply put, a Netbook is a subset of the laptop sector.  It also happens to be the fastest growing computer market, more on that later. Being an IT professional by design, design being my college degree, I tend to stay up on the latest trends in computing.  I get asked my opinion on the topic all the time, so if I fall behind I feel that I am doing a disservice to friends and colleagues.  Unfortunately, my three plus year old laptop continues to stand toe-to-toe with every single netbook currently available.  Once I took purchase of upcoming events for this summer, E3, BlizzCon and Penny Arcade Expo to name a few, I broke down and added the conservatively priced Asus EEE PC 1000HE to my line-up of machines.  It enters as my third active WoW-capable machine.  Third is the key word.  I have plenty of other machines that can play WoW, but this baby was purchased to make travelling easy.  Playing WoW on it is a bonus, a huge one, that I made a requirement during my netbook research.  I do not want to play on a netbook, I am just forced to when traveling.  Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting more powerful netbooks. I understand that many people may not find discussions on the latest computing trends to be incredibly interesting, but they should at least be informative.  If you, or your parents, haven't already purchased a shiny new machine for the upcoming school, business, or gaming, year then you'll likely to begin your research sometime soon.  Desktop machines your cup of tea?  Then move on to something more directly WoW related.  A Mac user till death?  Allow me to point you elsewhere.  However if space, portability, money or power consumption (go green!) are your concern then netbooks should be at the top of your list.  For those in this boat, hopefully the end of the summer will bring an ION-based machine, or a sexier, cheaper ASUS N10J. Do you see a netbook in your future, or do you prefer lugging around a machine that can double as a murder weapon (Alienware) in crucial situations? P.S. Just kidding Apple fans!  I have a Powerbook sitting at home too!

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It's Possible, But Not Fun In mid-May I finally broke down.  With E3 approaching, BlizzCon tickets in hand and PAX just two weeks after that, I realized that I couldn't delay a new laptop any longer.  After scrutinizing numerous netbook or netbook-style PCs I went with my gut and purchased the Asus EEE PC 1000HE. From a basic user's standpoint, the machine is a glorious meld of metal, wiring and plastic.   Sure, the thing attracts smudges like stink on a monkey, but the battery lasts an eternity.   I was able to fly from Philadelphia, land in Denver for a layover, and then continue on to Los Angeles without being tethered to the archaic power grid.  The 1000he's impressive wireless capabilities comes from Intel's Atom architecture, Asus' Super Hybrid Engine that allows throttling of the processor, and a low power profile in Windows XP.  Of course, there's power, and then there is power. My bit of QQ over Netbooks revolved around their lack of GPU power.  Just because my hand was forced into the purchase of a lackluster model, for me, doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to push it.  After spending a few hours downloading WoW, TBC, WotLK and patches (there's no CD/DVD-ROM drive) to the slow harddrive, I fired up the MMORPG and waited.  To my surprise, the game got to load screen in a fashionable time.  Of course that's just the load screen, not a big accomplishment. An excruciatingly long wait later (Tommy Tallarico suggested I upgrade the machine with a solid state drive.  A good suggestion, but that would make the machine seep an extra 50% from my moth-ridden pockets.), and I am loaded into Icecrown.  With everything at the bare minimum (shadows, textures, color depth, no add-ons) the game is playable in only the loosest sense of the term.  With framerates that fail to count with toes I won't be making a habit of entering Azeroth from Asus's slim gateway, but it is suitable for housekeeping activities and certain daily quests. The little machine is impressive visually and technologically, but it falls flat when it comes to pushing polygons.  All things considered the purchase was a good one.  That doesn't mean I won't be watching for the second generation of Netbooks to make non- raiding and PvPing a possibility.  Come on ION. In E3 news, The Grinder (shown behind closed doors) looks and plays as described, Left 4 Dead on the Wii.  Batman Arkham Asylum is the dark Batman I have been looking for, but I can see the seemingly awesome combat system becoming repetitive.  The scale of Just Cause 2's (closed doors again, aren't I special!) open world and the amount of ways to dispatch enemies are a pair of features to get excited about.

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Blizzard Entertainment announced the official System Requirements for their second expansion to World of Warcraft. Wrath of the Lich King sports higher requirements in a few areas that will likely force some users to upgrade their computers, or go nuts and get new ones. The announcement comes by way of Bornakk and the official forums. If you are interested in the full run down, then click that link. I will simply highlight and discuss the major changes. We learned shortly after Wrath's official release date was announced that the title would only be available on DVD. According to a poll run by WoWInsider, this means that some 7.5% of WoW users will need to upgrade their CD-ROM or CD-RW drive to a DVD-ROM or DVD+-RW. Thankfully, that cost is only about $30-$50, if you have the know how to install it yourself. Of course, there are some tricks around this, such as loading the game off an ISO image by way of an external harddrive. The rest of the upgrades are likely caused by Wrath's bump in graphics capabilities, like real-time shadows. The upgrades fragment a bit for the different platforms, PC or Mac. First off, PC users must have Windows XP SP3 or Vista SP1, but both service packs are free upgrades (for legal owners). This means that users of Windows 2000 will finally have to make the jump to Vista. Those who are scared of Vista should start searching for copies of XP now. Then comes the most drastic change for PC users. PC machines are required to have a faster processor than before, a 1.3GHz processor (or equivalent) instead of that old 800MHz dog. That is almost a 40% boost and will cause people on the low end to upgrade.  If you have the know-how this can be cheap, but most people will probably just opt for a new machine.  Ram and video card requirements remain the same, although Vista users need double the Ram than XP players, since that OS is a hog. Mac gamers are an entirely different story though. I will start it off with the worse news, all G4 machines will be unable to play Wrath of the Lich King. Blizzard states that the minimum processor requirement for Mac machines is a Power PC G5 1.6GHz processor.  This kills G4s across the board, PowerMac and PowerBooks. As for the OS, 10.3.x is being dropped in favor of 10.4.11 or higher. Look on the bright side , at least your OS doesn't cost hundreds of dollars.  Mac players will also need double the Ram at 1GB required, another low-cost upgrade. Lastly and most costly, Mac Minis and most MacBooks have been dropped due to their on-board video cards being a bit behind. MacBooks released almost three years after World of Warcraft can not play Wrath due to Apple's poor choice in graphics processors. Models from Late 2007 were finally updated with the Intel GMA X3100 on-board graphics solution, which can do the needed Lighting and Hardware Transform.  However, as of press time Blizzard has not confirmed them as suitable for Wrath, but it meets the announcement's listed requirements. It seems that many Apple supporters got the short end of the stick on this deal. This isn't to say that all year old PC laptops will be able to play Wrath.  Many OEM manufacturers (Dell, HP, Sony, etc) cut costs on the low- and mid-range machines the same way. Rule of thumb for those PC gamers, if you have an Intel on-board solution, there is cause for concern.  Lucky for me, my third gaming machine (I have a problem) squeaks by the requirements with a Radeon 9700 Pro. How do your machines hold up?

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