Gitr

I just noticed some new plays on celebrity names as I was reading about the new NPCs in Buring Crusade. Here is what I have noticed without any research or digging into possible celeb references:

• Caregiver Ophera Windfury –Oprah Winfrey
• Flightmaster Krill Bitterhue – Phil Donahue
• Gaston – Gaston from Beauty and the Beast
• Lebowski – The Big Lebowski

How many more can you find in the expansion?

It has taken me a while to come up with a noteworthy response to Tobold’s excellent post on How big is Azeroth, but I have finally done it. Actually, it only took me 2 minutes to think it, but much longer to compose it into something deserving of my fine readership’s eyes.

To quote some of Tobold’s experiment:

So what I did was run from the east end of Thousand Needles to the west coast of Feralas, because you can do so in pretty much a straight line. I timed it, and crossing the width of the continent of Kalimdor running took me 18 minutes and 35 seconds. That makes the distance 3.7 miles. That means the continent of Kalimdor is 41 square miles (just over 100 square kilometers) big, and the world of Azeroth pre-Burning Crusade is about 80 square miles or 200 square kilometers.

I have my own answer to my own question about the size of Azeroth: Is Azeroth Big? Now that we know how big it is, does that qualify as big. I can never seem to make anything simple, so I have two answers to this, as I do most things that I can come up with multiple sides.

First is, Azeroth is HUGE! There is no way one person or even guild can dominate the whole virtual world. If there were real world dynamics going on and the Horde and Alliance were actually going at it all the time in a war, the war would go on forever. Neither side could beat the other into submission because it is just too big. A guild could dominate a zone, or a player can dominate a battleground, but just as in real life, someone is always better than you. Eventually someone will get better gear or better tactics or better support personnel and wipe your butt for you.

Second, Azeroth is a tiny little drop in the bucket. Just doing the comparison to the world, Manhattan is not a very big piece of land on the planet, much less compared to Texas. People, such as Loius and Clark and Napoleon have explored far greater areas of the world than Azeroth offers. If exploration is the measure, then Blizzard has fallen far short of Creation itself. Someone can explore every nook and cranny of Azeroth in under 10 days of running around or riding a horse, yet the great explorers have taken much longer for our benefit.

So, which of me is right?

After reading some reviews on Vanguard on various sites and blogs, I have decided that I will be purchasing Vanguard when it comes out at the end of the month. I have pretty weak reasons why, but one of them is that gameplay will be free. Whether that is a sustainable model or not remains to be seen.

I will be far more tempted to get some upgrades to my computer once I start playing it, though, so I am a bit hesitant to get excited about the game, knowing I can’t just go out and spend money like that now. I have responsibilities now. 🙂

Today is a mini-patch day for Patch 2.0.5, and will slow some of you down if you wait until peak hours to log in.

 

I am chomping at the bit for the expansion tomorrow. Deadr may not be level 60 yet, but I still have Gitr to go check out the new areas. I worked 4 hours on Saturday so I can take it easy this week and go buy the Collector’s Edition and take the afternoon off tomorrow. I’m getting off at 2:00 at the latest.

Things I want to do:

1. Go check out Hellfire Peninsula with Gitr
2. Roll a Draenei Warrior
3. Roll a Blood Elf Hunter (I can do both on Kargath, being a PvE server)

I guess my first stop will be Honor Hold, as the Alliance base of operations. Then I will try to make my way to the Temple of Telhamat. I have no idea about the geography of the area or the mobs between the outposts.

Deadr is level 54 +16% now. I had terrible problems this weekend with enclosed areas. For weeks my computer would randomly lock up in instances, usually after entering a room. Recently, it has locked up in caves, but I am usually picked off by a mob and transported to the graveyard. Saturday I died while attempting to Douse the Flames in Felwood, and no one was around to kill me. I repeatedly logged in and it immediately locked up.

I resorted to disabling my SB Live…nothing. I did a file check…nothing. I reset the config files…success. I lost ALL of my settings and downloaded only currently compatable UI addons. It worked, until I went into the AH in Orgrimmar. That was the last time it locked up.

I am considering making a list of the UIs I use and offer them as a downloadable pack. Is that something that any of you would be interested in?

I was off work Monday with a cold, and I got over it by Wednesday. Last night, my wife’s throat started hurting, and this morning, she is pretty wiped. I hope it’s the same thing that I had or the cycle will start all over again, and I’ll have to take Wednesday off next week with a new cold.

I had my flu shot this year because the CF doctor said a flu could nearly kill me. I’ll take colds, then I guess. My sinus doctor put me on Levaquin for 2 weeks just to be sure my sinuses don’t make things worse.

I’m at the office today trying to get some overtime for our trip to Canada next month. I should get some play time tonight if my wife goes to bed early for some sick sleep. I’m all ready for the expansion. Apparently, it’s too late to pre-order it at my stores because they sold them out, so we’ll see if there are any in-store when I get there at lunch on Tuesday.