I've got the Leveling Pneumonia and the World of Warcraft Blues

When I most recently came back to WoW, I decided to level a new alliance character from scratch. No heirlooms, no time off to gather rested XP, no recruit-a-friend, no nothing. Just level a new character to 1 to 80.

On a completely unrelated note, it's eight weeks later, and I've decided I will never, ever, EVER, level a new alliance character from scratch without the benefit of heirlooms, lots of rested XP and plenty of time off.

The good news is that I've invented a new way to keep myself from getting distracted from the fun task of getting to 80. Instead of logging off in an inn (and getting rested XP), I "hot log" in a place where I just killed a bunch of guys. That way I get right back to questing when I log in, instead of spending a bunch of time on the AH or chasing new cooking recipes.

The best part is that I'm 66 right now, which means it will probably take me another four or five weeks to hit 80. Ugh.

Blizzcon Predictions

Blizzcon is less than a month away. I know it's only one company with only 3-5 games, but if you're only concerned about quality games from proven companies it has about as many games as E3 does. Anyway, my predictions ...

Next WoW expansion announced : Cataclysm, set in Maelstrom and Undermine (center of WoW map). New races, no new hero class, profession revamp instead of a new profession, and two or three exciting new things to make up for no new hero class or profession (player sea mounts or player sea vehicles will be one).

Stracraft II will be playable and either the starting date for the beta will be announced or they will announce something like "it's starting sometime in the next six weeks." We'll start to see substantial information about single player in the first (terran) installment and some sneak peaks at single player in one or both of the zerg and protoss installments.

Diablo III will be playable but nothing groundbreaking will be announced.

No announcements will be made about Blizzard's mythical game four or game five.

Achievement Streak 6

In an attempt to make WoW more fun for the average everyday casual Boat, I've decided to try for an achievement every day and ten achievements a week on my new Warlock, Boatorious. This is my week six log ...

I'm still in it. This week I "caught up" on ten achievements a week, so I have 60 total. I also hit level 60 this week (and level 50), so that's my first big milestone while doing the streak.

I've already done most of the "easy" achievements that are not exploration or running earlier (easier) dungeons. So for the forseeable future I'll have to run back to Azeroth to explore a zone before I get to leveling in Outland for the night. A little irritating, but that's the way it goes.

	Master in First Aid 10 points	Become a Master in first aid. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 20, 2009
	Master Fisherman 10 points	Become a Master Fisherman. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 20, 2009
	Master Cook 10 points	Become a Master Cook. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 19, 2009
	Professional Master 10 points	Become a Master in a profession. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 19, 2009
	Explore Eastern Plaguelands 10 points	Explore Eastern Plaguelands, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 19, 2009
	Level 60 10 points	Reach level 60. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 19, 2009
	Fast and Furious 10 points	Learn the journeyman riding skill. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 19, 2009
	Explore Western Plaguelands 10 points	Explore Western Plaguelands, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 18, 2009
	Safe Deposit 10 points	Buy 7 additional bank slots. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 18, 2009
	Explore Felwood 10 points	Explore Felwood, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 17, 2009
	500 Quests Completed 10 points	Complete 500 quests. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 15, 2009
	Level 50 10 points	Reach level 50. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 15, 2009
	Explore Wetlands 10 points	Explore Wetlands, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 13, 2009
	Explore Searing Gorge 10 points	Explore Searing Gorge, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 12, 2009

Achievement Streak 5 : The Continuing

In an attempt to make WoW more fun for the average everyday casual Boat, I've decided to try for an achievement every day and ten achievements a week on my new Warlock, Boatorious. This is my week five log ...

A very late post, but I did survive last week, at least in the achievement streak sense. It's getting harder now and I'm having to rely on exploration achievements a lot more since there are only a handful of other achievements left that are easy to get. Exploration achievements are fairly easy to get but I like to avoid them at the moment, since (in most zones) they require me to do something I would not normally do.

I almost faltered last week one time. It was ten and I didn't have an achievement and I was falling asleep in my chair. I woke up enough to remember to get an achievement.

Funny that WoW is really the only game I play while I'm falling asleep. I'm not sure if it's because WoW is more boring than other games I play, or because I like WoW enough to keep playing even when I want to sleep. It's probably a bit of both.

	Tastes Like Chicken 10 points	Sample 50 different kinds of Azeroth's delectable dishes. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 12, 2009
	Artisan Fisherman 10 points	Become an Artisan Fisherman. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 11, 2009
	500 Fish 10 points	Fish up 500 items. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 11, 2009
	1000 Fish 10 points	Fish up 1000 items. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 11, 2009
	Short Order Cook 10 points	Learn 50 cooking recipes. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 10, 2009
	Explore Westfall 10 points	Explore Westfall, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 9, 2009
	Represent 10 points	Obtain a tabard. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 9, 2009
	Artisan Cook 10 points	Become an Artisan Cook. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 7, 2009
	The Green Hills of Stranglethorn 10 points	Complete all of Hemet Nesingwary quests in Stranglethorn Vale up to and including The Green Hills of Stranglethorn and Big Game Hunter. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 6, 2009
	250 Fish 10 points	Fish up 250 items. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 5, 2009
	Explore Arathi Highlands 10 points	Explore Arathi Highlands, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 5, 2009
	Can I Keep Him? 10 points	Obtain a companion pet. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 5, 2009

I'd also like to point out that I am level 53, while my wife (who started leveling a week after me) is now 66.

* The armory cutoff for achievement-days is, I believe, somewhere between 8 and 10 PM, so it does not necessarily show me getting an achievement every day -- you'll just have to take my word for it :)

Anybody else not buying BioWare as a legit massive developer?

It seems like everywhere I see the assumption that Star Wars : The Old Republic will be awesome. After all, BioWare has a reputation for great RPG's, right?

Sort of. The first thing people say about BioWare games is that they "have a great story." Huh. Saying a game has a great story is a lot like saying a girl has a nice personality. You are giving a compliment while avoiding other issues entirely. In the case of BioWare, you aren't saying "it's a great game." You're saying that you completed the game because you wanted to see the end of the story, not because any sort of compelling gameplay was sucking you in.

It's hard to make the leap from regular games to massive games. Blizzard did it, of course, but they also knew how to make fun games before they started.

Today I just really want to quit WoW

Four of my five favorite zones in WoW are for level 48-60 characters -- Hinterlands, Winterspring, and Eastern and Western Plaguelands.

But right now I'm in the doldrums. Level 40-48 is always the roughest patch for me. I don't really like any of the zones you do around this time, and they are all far away from the nearest cities.

Why don't I just quit? Well, everything is work sometimes, even things you do for fun. If I slog through another four levels I'll get to the zones I like and everything will be fun for about thirty straight levels as I go from my favorites to Burning Crusade and Wrath expansion zones.

But I'll tell you what -- I'll be hating these four levels.

How WoW is like the Simpsons

I've been watching old DVD's lately, specifically the first season of the Simpsons. It's stunning how poor quality it is compared to the modern product (or even the product of season 2 or 3). Reminds me of WoW at launch -- you wonder how launch-era (buggy, laggy, down half the time) WoW and first season Simpsons ever survived. It probably says more about the competition than anything else.

Was thinking about early WoW because wow.com posted the 0.6 (beginning of beta) patch notes and they are ... well, rather funny.

Achievement Streak 4 : The Halfening

In an attempt to make WoW more fun for the average everyday casual Boat, I've decided to try for an achievement every day and ten achievements a week on my new Warlock,Boatorious. This is my week four log ...

Made it through my fourth week fine and dandy. I went a little overboard this week, trying to catch up with my decision the previous week to go for ten achievements a week (in addition to one every day). So here are last week's achievements, cut-and-pasted from Giant Bomb * :

	Level 40 10 points	Reach level 40. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 5, 2009
	Artisan in First Aid 10 points	Become an Artisan in first aid. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 4, 2009
	Expert Fisherman 10 points	Become an Expert Fisherman. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 4, 2009
	Burning Hot Pole Dance 10 points	Dance at the ribbon pole for 60 seconds while wearing completed Midsummer set. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 3, 2009
	Professional Artisan 10 points	Become an Artisan in a profession. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 3, 2009
	Fish Don't Leave Footprints 10 points	Learn the ability to find fish. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 2, 2009
	Lunch Lady 10 points	Learn 25 cooking recipes. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 2, 2009
	Expert Cook 10 points	Become an Expert Cook. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 2, 2009
	Explore Duskwood 10 points	Explore Duskwood, revealing the covered areas of the world map. 0 comments	World of Warcraft July 1, 2009
	100 Fish 10 points	Fish up 100 items. 0 comments	World of Warcraft June 29, 2009
	250 Quests Completed 10 points	Complete 250 quests. 0 comments	World of Warcraft June 29, 2009

I got to 40 this week, which is numerically halfway to 80. Realistically, I'm much farther away.

* Kids, if you're trying this at home, make sure you use firefox instead of chrome, cuz chrome makes everything all weird.

Five Things From Friday : WoW Edition

I haven't done one of these in quite a while, so it's worth reiterating that the title "Five Things From Friday" contains three implicit promises (five items, on friday, every friday) that I have no intention nor inclination to honor.

1. If Blizzard released a patch in the woods and there was no one to complain about it, would it still be a patch?
   
   
2. The Greedy Goblin is a pretty interesting blog concerned with making money in WoW. He's also a self-admitted Randian, and when he's complaining about other players it often brings to mind Whitaker Chamber's famous rebuke:
   

   From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!"

   I mention Gevlon because above he recently bragged about excluding a player from a five-man heroic group because the player had not yet completed the Naxxramas ten-man raid (in case you aren't familiar with WoW, a ten-man raid is far more advanced than a five-man heroic). People in over their heads are certainly a problem in WoW, but so are elitists who take upon themselves to arbitrarily decide who is worthy and who is not.
   
   Come to think of it, there's considerable overlap in that particular Venn Diagram.
   
   
3. Faction changes are here, which have to be the most-signficant-yet-least-asked-for feature in the entire history of WoW.
   
   It's nothing I seriously considered before, but it does hold a certain charm. In the Grand Pantheon of MMORPG's I could never get into, there resides a special place for Leveling in WoW As Horde, a task I've oft begun but have never completed.
   
   
4. The Chinese ban on Gold Farming came and went this week. Like many things that seemed to odd to be true, it was too odd to be true.
   
   
5. I keep meaning to make a "Coolest Things Since I Returned From WoW" list but I don't know if I'll ever get around to it. One very cool thing that has nothing to do with Blizzard : I can now get my WoW news from WoW.com instead of scanning the (awful) forums for blue posts thrice daily. This is a dereliction worth celebrating.
   
   
6. The other "Coolest Thing" that has nothing to do with Blizzard : mods have really grown up. I'm returning from my second long absence in WoW. During my first nine-month absence mod maturity advanced ... by about nine months. During my second, two-year-long absence, mods seemed to advance by ten years.
   
   Ackis was originally based on a mod I wrote and then quit maintaining, and if any of my work is still left it is now unrecognizable. And Ackis is marvelous, far better than anything I could have done.
   
   So it's quite possible that the greatest thing I ever did in WoW was make a mod and quit.
   
   
7. The #1 Video Game podcast on iTunes is WoW-focused The Instance. I have recently partook and found it excellent, although my #1 Video Game podcast will always remain the Bombcast.
   
   
8. The Expansion Prediction Wagon has arrived : it will be called WoW Cataclysm and it will be based on The Maelstrom. I am hitching myself to this wagon.
   
   
9. Speaking of hitching, some time ago there was a (possibly fake) secret leaked plan for WoW expansions. It has proven remarkably accurate in the duration, although details have obviously changed. According to the notes, the fourth expansion seemingly introduces new starting zones, "Wolfenhold" and "Pandaria", presumably for Worgen and Pandarens.
   
   I'm going contrary to The List, and predicting that based on the Children's Day updates, the two new races will come in the Third Expansion, and will be Wolvar and Gorlocs.
   

Happy Independence Day to you, readers!