Saturday, September 19, 2009

STV Captured

Kicked off the first Saturday morning photowalk. It was sort of last minute so only a few people were able to join me. Also, smarty pants me decided to kick it off in Stranglethorn Vale in conjunction with Pirate's Day! GANK city.


I barely got my achievement before being massacred. I figured it's nice to get this zone out of the way though. On my PvP server, it's hell and hard to relax while taking shots of everything.


I'm doing these by zones every Saturday around 9am (although I'm questioning my morning strategy because I was quite the zombie today). I figure if I do them one by one, I'll be more likely to upload and tag all the pictures correctly as opposed to a massive undertaking and then trying to convince myself to upload the bulk at one time.


Thanks to @azyxa and @jeppy (Flipmax, Bearfus, and Felix) for taggin' along on the adventures here and there. It was nice not being the sole receiver of a gankage. lol.


I can't say I'll miss Stranglethorn Vale much. The parts I'll miss the most are the Goblin Statue at Booty Bay, King Mukla the giant king kong gorilla, and the Guribashi Arena. Other than that, I probably won't miss this slaughter zone if they plan to destroy it. With my luck, it'll be the one zone they leave in tact.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Old Azeroth Highlights

Here are some great highlights from the http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth flickr set. Thanks to everyone for helping to post!

     

   

   

 

  

   

1. Sunken Temples , 2. Dancing trolls!, 3. Thunder Bluff, 4. Hyjal, 5. My WoW House!, 6. Cenarion Hold, 7. Maraudon, 8. Blood Myst Isle, 9. Crystal Lake of Elwynn Forest, 10. Dwarven Farm 2, 11. Felwood, 12. Darnassus

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Higher Learning is Hard


Higher Learning is Hard
Originally uploaded by alachia

I camped the Dalaran Visitor Center for about an hour and got one book so I thought I'd go ahead and try for another book.

I don't think I have the patience for [Higher Learning] lol. I've tried checking after server restarts but the problem is I'm not around most of the time when servers reset. I also can't find the book channel for my server. I'm tempted on getting on my priest to use the Mind Vision guide to the books I read on the WoWhead comments.

/cleartarget
/targetexact [button:1,nomod]Afsaneh Asrar;[button:2,nomod]Sandra Bartan;[button:1,mod:ctrl]Archivist Betha;[button:2,mod:ctrl]Archmage Timear;[button:1,mod:alt]Rhonin;[button:2,mod:alt]Zidormi;
/cast Mind Vision

I hear it works for keeping tabs on all the book locations to see if they've spawned. It'll beat putting my watch on a 4 hour spawn timer or staring at a corner for a couple of hours.

Old Azeroth DB Project

As mentioned in the last Warcast episode, the Old Azeroth photo database has begun. I created a flickr group called “oldazeroth” - http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

I’m already enjoying looking through the posted pics and seeing some serious old school stuff. Do any of you guys remember that island we got water from for MC?!!! LOL.

Originally Uploaded by iStarman


There are definitely a couple of places I wanted to make sure I get pics of again before anything happens to them. I know there is plenty of time but if you factor in procrastination x 100, I just know I’ll probably forget a bunch. Like the Twin Colossals in Ferelas! Gotta get back up there and buy a parachute for sure. Also wondering if I should try to get the Winterspring Alliance mount before it’s gone or the UBRS key? I already went ahead and got my sprite darter pet this past weekend.


I don’t want to get carried away but I figured these could be good weekend projects. I’m also wondering if the Explorer title will change once the world is different. Most importantly I really just need to get my archived pictures posted to the group.


I wrote up this post for those of you who are like me and have a disgusting amount of screenshots to go through. I’ll do a follow up post to this one later today of some of the great highlights from the Old Azeroth group.

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Tackling your Large Archives One Step at a Time

If you're a bit overwhelmed like me with archived screenshots that you're going through, here are a few tips.


1) Do not undertake throwing them all up at once. You'll get too overwhelmed with years of screenshots and give up.


2) Take the time to archive your photos by year. WoW stores your photos with this naming convention: WoWScrnShot_122805_001631
"122805" Indicates December 28,2005.


3) On choosing pics to upload, tackle quarter to half years worth of shots at a time only! Make a list and just check off where you left off. When you have more free time, tackle the next set.


4) Use Flickr Uploader! www.flickr.com/tools/uploadr/
It makes naming, BULK TAGGING, and BULK grouping pics soooo much easier. (tagging is key)

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Disney-fied….Blizzardized

You know that term when something has been Disney-fied? It’s a combination of dumbing down the complexity of something as well as making it family friendly. My best example is The Little Mermaid with the cute little Ariel and her happy ending with the prince and her plucky singing companions. The real story by Hans Christian Andersson is often disputed but the gist of the story is extremely tragic and sad.

 

However, in its Disney-fied form, the Little Mermaid became a house hold name and almost every family with kids has it tucked away on the movie shelf.

 

I was thinking about it and I feel like Blizzard has the same concept down for the game industry. They know the right combination of simplifying and structuring a game so that it can become household.

 

The very first time I was told about WoW, the exact wording was “I think you’ll actually like this MMO. It’s a friendlier and easier version of Final Fantasy. You’ll level like a 100 times faster.” And then when you compare the raiding experience of those who played EQ vs WoW, you’ll also see how they were able to simplify down the complexity of group play to make things so much easier.

(Very Old EQ Raiding footage)

 

And since it’s initial release, we’ve seen even further Blizzardizing of our game. Like I’ve said before, I no longer QQ this anymore. I think it’s great for turning WoW into one of the first fully functional social network/MMOs. I can’t wait to see it’s full evolution.

 

My theory about Blizzardizing are all focused on the new IP they have yet to announce. The new MMO boasts to be nothing like WoW and they say they are NOT afraid of it eating away a load of the WoW subscribers either. Of course, if you’re blizzard and sh1t more money when you bend over than most countries make in a decade, there is little reason to fear anything. (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/08/blizzard-co-interview/)

 

I have high hopes that the new IP will be a Blizzardized version of EVE online and the Star Wars MMO. If anyone can harness the epic complexity of fleets, galaxies, and empires, it’s gotta be Blizzard. That’s my prediction anyhow. And if Blizz can nab the Sci-Fi MMO genre, it will have globally take over the fantasy world.

 

Right now, EVE owns the sci-fi MMO genre and it’s epic nature and quality of real world over flow in terms of economics and politics makes it an extremely fascinating game. Just read here about how in-game economics reflects real world banking fraud (http://kotaku.com/5348223/bank-deficit-freezes-eve-accounts). The lifestyle and culture of this game play into full emersion of global empires and the real intricate and dynamic play for power among corporations. Just reading a few years ago about the underhanded, backstabbing infiltrations and heists that can happen and are designed so they CAN happen gave me chills (http://eve.klaki.net/heist/).

 

(Eve Online: Apocrypha Trailer)

 

However, it is also the complexity of this game play can be very overwhelming for virgin gamers. And no matter how much I love the sci-fi genre (one of the reasons I loved Outlands as much as I did) I just can’t wrap my head into existing as a ship. I also find getting lost as a tiny dot in a massive empire to be unappealing.

 

I have no doubt that if Blizzard’s IP draws from EvE or any other massive Sci-Fi game, they’ll be able to bring its usual appeal of autonomy of individual play and game simplification while still capturing the fascinating draw of the sci-fi world.

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