The Tempting “DELETE” Button!?

I have a friend, and we both suffer from a case of deletealohlism.  Its were you have too many characters on one server (or other servers) and you began to sympathize with them. Asking your self:

“Why did I create you, how come am I not playing you right now?”
“I’m sorry about your misfortune, would you like to go back to the neither-verse and rest your pix-elated soul.”

Then you proceed to type in D-E-L-E-T-E and presto, your toon is gone, and get a sense of relief, almost liberating. It becomes addicting. I’ve deleted toons over level 50 pre wrath and had them restored only to delete them again!
I have rolled alts to play and deleted them just as fast as I had created them. This all goes along with my other 2 posts HERE and over HERE, about how it may be time to quit your current game, or at least take a break and do things IRL for a bit. I found some deleted my Wow account videos that should have gone with my other posts, but didn’t know about them then. So, I’m going to post them with this one; as they are about the same genera.

Well that was Depressing/odd wasn’t it. Did you feel something give way deep inside of you?? Well, it might be time. (Hopefully none of that stuff has happened to you!)

I personally get like this around the time I hit Northrend, or get frustrated with a character’s  progression.
I’m feeling this right now for a few reasons:
1. Lack of friends to play with on my server
2. Lack of general population maturity in World of Warcraft: ie, trade chat or general chats consistent spam of linking items and the fetish of linking ablitlies with the word Anal right after it, which I will admit was funny the first time I saw it probably Six months ago, but by now its down right annoying.

Okay, here’s two screen shots from /2 or Trade chat.  When I logged back in over an hour an 1/2 later, you had better believed that there was still a consistant stream of Anal this and that.

3. End game is just BLEH like that infamous Chinese restaurant that every town has and you can’t tell if they are legit authentic Chinese food, or cat cooking cheap under the table dirty chiefs,  that you dread going too, but your family or friends rave about…ugh.

Pvp/class imbalances are not withstanding, but when a “nerfed” pally can still 3 shot you and you have 800 resilience, 26k hp, there is something wrong with the mechanics of the game.
Support classes should very well be capable of dps(damage per sec) and not feel gimped in other rolls when they choose to pursue those career paths. The problem is the balance of the game has been thrown out of scale(wack) with the introduction of Arenas(team vs. team combat) and the sole purpose or design of a class mechanics right along with it. Every time one player says this or that about being nerfed(under powered) or about how another class is over powered, the combat mechanics team has to go back to the drawing board and see whats going on. This causes multiple problems for average users pve/pvpers. Not the die hard Arena fanboi. Spinks has an article that talks about Arenas how they are the worst mistake Blizzard has implemented in Wow. I don’t want to go into too much detail about Arenas and that facet of PvP. I like world pvp and battle grounds. They suit my play style better.

The purpose for this post is to vent out my frustration with Wow right now. I almost want to DELETE all my characters, save one, and start over with my heirlooms. I know that sound dumb, and it probably is, BUT IT’S MY MONEY AND MY GAME TIME, so i can do w/e I want. I’m not really that frustrated, just more annoyed at the end-game in Wow. Raiding is hours of your time spent listening to other complian and gripe about one thing or the next, and the loot system is terrible in Wow, WTF do Mages need 4 pecieses of gear drops in every VOA run, and chance that it’s not cloth for a mage its plate for a paladin or dk. thats the ratio of drops, I’ve run 10 and 25 mans on my druid and shaman not one thing dropped in over several attempts, with my old guild or the many, many PUGS(pick up groups) that I’ve done. Its just annoying. Okay, I’m going to abrubtly stop here, because I’m tired of talking about this.

And just to show, that I’m not a real Wow hater, or anything, (*cough*addict*cough) I’m going to go play Wow, but I might delete all my Horde toons and go Alliance. Taking server/guild suggestions now!! oh, maybe I’ll do what pitrelli is doing and go on a pve server, or roll play server. I dunno. BLEH BLEH BLEH BLEH BLEH BLEH itsmuchnicertoventonurownblogthanacomunityblog BLEH BLEH BLEH BLHE!!!

Okay, I’m ok now.

~Kaldeem

Ninja Kriby Go! *<(~ ~)>*

Fallen Earth…

So steam had a great deal today, Fallen Earth for 24.99 (us) and I couldn’t resist. I know my system doesn’t even come close to the minimum requirements for game play, but meh, who cares right. Kaldeem in on FE and will most likely play my free month before giving it a rest until I get a decent system.

Boring Tundra.. I mean Borean Tundra

I actually laughed when at the thought of posting this, seriously. I like Wow and really enjoy some of the game content/charachters in low level and leveling situations. I have a ton of alts and I have played through TBC on 6 of them and never get tired of Outlands.

The old world gets me down sometimes, mainly in the 12-30 ish range which is: The Barren Plains, Ashenvale, and Thousand Needles (Horde). Then you get to STV and Shimmering Flats, Arathi Highlands and other places you can venture. Those are the golden levels, as I call them. The best level range in most of the alts I’ve played is the 34-45-ish zones.

For my mage, Salsaverde, it was not like that at all. I didn’t start enjoying her until after level 50, when I got Dragon’s Breath. Then it started to rock, quests, mobs and xp started flowing, everything became one harmonious quest grind to Outlands and Northrend. I rocked Outlands, virtually in a few days of play time, w/o many, just  2 instances w/groups, I went from 58-68.

I was so excited to be heading to Northrend, I decided… no, I told my self I would start in Howling Fjord and take a diffrent route than my 5 previous trips to Northrend. I failed, sorta. I did venture to Howling Fjord first, but the gear/xp of the quests was a Slog in terms of enjoyment and productivity. I remembered how “fun” Borean Tundra was, how awesome the gear was, and how fast the Xp flew on my druid
and shaman. My warrior, hunter, and death knight did not share the same experience. Well, ok so it “did fly” by on my druid and shaman…but (didn’t on) the warrior who only made it to 72, the hunter(alliance) made it from 70- 70 1/2 or 3/4 now. My death knight made it to 73 and all of them; stuck in Borean Tundra. Ugh. Seriously guys.

I was laughing when checking my GReader the other day at 2 posts- 1 not Wow related but still good *Slog link*, and this one about “Colderra and the Worst Storyline in Wrath“. I’m slogging through B.T(Borean Tundra) right now. I just finished all the quest lines in the main land, and now heading towards- the worst storyline in wrath(lol) part, Colderra. It’s very disheartening, to be a hundred percent honest. I mean, really- Welcome to Spinksville said it to a T. My subscription is up on the thirtieth of this month, and in this phase of questing/grinding I’m debating on renewing it. Odds are I will, just because I don’t have another MMO to go to right now, and I’m dead tired of Counter strike and L4D which are the only 2 other games installed right now.

And now time for a break, while you enjoy this super crazy Japanese guy do his thing, I’m uh, use the bath room.

Okay, I’m back. Hands washed an everything! So what did ya think? Pretty sweet huh, good enough to impress Napoleon Dynamite right. sure.

Sighs, back to Boring Tundra, and the quest to end all quests. Really Blizzard. Northrend was supposed to be the crème brûlée of MMO’s expansions for this past year, but some how, bye cosmic forces and or divine intervention it has only surmised to become the “expansion that could have been” in the light of… OMG what’s that! It’s a UFO, no wait its Mickey Mouse flying high in pursuit of…”cough”. “Uh excuse me, but I do believe that, that is neither a UFO nor Mickey Mouse but that, it is in fact, a flying video game.” Cataclysm to be more precise. Oh, you’ve heard of this news already?! Have you. Hm.. well then you must know about: The fall of the Lich King, Goblins, Worgen, new class/race combos, and a REVAMPED OLD WORLD oh my! All this makes me wonder about Wrath and its lack luster of content. Now, I’m not downing all of Wrath. I happen to like some of it. Namely Dragon blight and…um, hold on, I’m thinking here. <<Fast Forward>> Okay, so I like ONE zone in all of Wrath. That’s not too bad.

Point being, and my final thoughts are that while Wrath introduced a lot of decent content and some new features, but the replay value of leveling through Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord just don’t make the cut. They are grind infested, mundane nuances in my quest to get to 80.

And just because I like Napoleon Dynamite, here is some blood elf dance moves IRL, by the master him self!!!

Game on
~Kaldeem

New Moon, out tonight!

So I’m on my way home from work, its 6am and I pull into the drive, park and start walking to the backdoor of my place when I notice something on the deck!! Glowing eyes staring at me from a distance, and I’m like “aw man, I’m foreign and in an all white country hill billy town, I’m getting lynched or dragged…” then I noticed its a dog (dug as they say around these parts) but not any normal dog, its one of those wolf looking ones… so I said a prayer and told the dog I didn’t like Twilight or Edward, or the ugly chick playing the love interest and especially wasn’t going to waste my hard earned Wow subscription money to go see New Moon, that it just wasn’t going to happen, and if he felt inclined to eat me alive… I hope he chocked on my fat stomach and died a horrible death, but not before dragging me off so my remains wouldn’t be around for my parents to find when they got up for church this morning. Needless to say, team Jacob is wuss and just hid behind the patio table on my deck till I was safely inside.

So all of this just goes to say that if it was a Vampire, he would have gutted me before I had a chance to smart mouth him or explain why I hate Twilight.

Stop reading this now, I’m not going to talk about New Moon, and I’m not going to tag this post with Twilight, New Moon, Team Edward vs Team Jacob or any of that stuff.. gosh. Whats wrong with you people. You will do anything for a little free advertisement or traffic to your relatively new blog site!

You people make me sick! I loath the day you were spawned and breathed (TWILIGHT) air and other stuff not having to do with anything remotely interesting…ok I’m tired. Good night.

New Moon… psh, give me blood sucking, werewolf killing,cross breading, half man/half wolf making out with Salene and wrecking peoples face Underworld Vampires/Werewolfe action.

Northrend Exposure

I dinged 68 on my mage (Salsaverde) last night, and headed to Northrend. I will write a full post about how I leveled through Northrend the last few times with my shaman and druid(80), warrior(72) and dk (73), and how I plan on changing the pace/scene of things a bit with the mage.

90% of my posts can be found HERE over at Imtalkingames.com

but they undergo a editors touch which is okay with me, but I kinda like posting the OG’s here, just word for word and every grammatical error in its purposeful spot.

~kaldeem

Analysis: Signs it’s time to quit your current MMO?

So, this seems to be a #trending topic in the last few days here in the blog-sphere. With recent posts like this one from Syp @bio break, and then from Game by Night, and Kill Ten Rats even having chimed in on this topic. So many of us gamers; especially the MMO crowd seem to be recovering- yet self inflicting and heavily dependent addicts to “Our” game. What causes this? How many quests, levels, un-subs, re-subs, free trials must we go through? Personally I’ve been battling this with Wow, for the last year. It’s start a character and the fun returns, then it’s gone, rinse and repeat.

So how do you know, really know when its time to just call it quits, and move on or quit all together. Well lets do some investigation and see what we come up with, shall we!!

Basic tell-tales on its time to see what else the market has for you.

Time – How long have you been playing, is this your 3rd expansion pack? Do you have all the playable characters maxed out or can you hop on and have a character at various levels to play with new found friends or a fellow guildie who is rolling an alt, and you can casually jump back in forth between your main for w/e endgame content you need to do, but also have leveled enough alts that you can moderately play with them if you choose to.

Idleness - Do you log on, only to find something else other than playing the game, grabbing for your attention? How about finding your self just jumping around Orgrimmar or Stromwind (for you Wow players) searching for that last hope of a tank for that pug TOC 10 man or a pre-made Pvp group LFM players.

Fractions – Find your self ever wondering if the grass is really greener on the other side? Do you or have you tried to level an alt on another server only to find that starting over w/o your main isn’t as much fun as you thought it might be.

Lack of Content/Tread Mills – Did/done that and got the tee-shirt? Maybe your guild is so tight nit and goal orientated that you have done all there is to do in the current game scene, you have all the major achievements and or titles one would require to fell self adequate for a time, or on the other hand, feeling bogged down by the daily monotonous tread mill for gear, emblems or reputation.

All of these are very good indicators that you should probably check out whats new in the market, and maybe take a nice needed IRL vacation.

Lastly I would like to just mention, just touch on something that be a concern to you (or not); and share a video on the subject.

Video games, along with blogging about them, or looking up new games to see if anything peeks your interest. may or may not become an addiction. I know that after the first time I quit Wow, I would spend just as much time looking at Warhammer Online stuff waiting for the Open beta and head start, as I did when I was actually playing Wow. I know right. I think it happens more often than we think, and to more people. We get so involved in finding the next hot title and trying to see were or what the best class/server/race etc will be and it becomes something more then a hobby. So if you’re able to manage all that an MMO can throw at you, and still balance your life and other responsibilities; I salute you! As friends, gamers, and a community we should be able to talk, express concern and offer help to those we perceive may have a problem.

Addiction: What is addiction?
Addiction is a complex problem, affecting not only the physical and mental health of individuals, but also their families and social environment

Well, this has been a more serious post, but hopefully one that will get you to think, and even act; if you believe that you know someone who could use help. As always, moderation is key, I hope you guys enjoy all the games that are out, I know I am, but remember to spend time with family friends and take care of your responsibilities before your game time!

Game on!
~Kaldeem

Random Thought of the Day..

Brain-farts hurt your ability to think critically, and your lack of interest in thought provoking,thoughts, only prove to feed your brain a continuous supply of new and more horrendous brain-farts.

Thoughtfully yours
~ Kaldeem

Facebook: Have you been scamed?

Recently, I decided to X my application in facebook, regarding Mafia Wars. It was decent fun, and a good time killer, but I decided that I was done with the facebook games. So today I’m going through my Blog roll reading up on the most current video game news when I run across this article by Player versus Developer, and then going further back to this article written by Tech Crunch.

So what they both say is that in the “Free Face-book/My-space” games, is that some people will willingly pay to have an over all better experience in game, and others will try out the alternatives to paying: IE referring friends to the game and in turn gaining a larger base of players, who in turn will either pay, or refer their friends to play, in one huge gigantic money making scam. Ok, your thinking weres the scam part come in? right? Well right here when you read that:

“In short, these games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience. Which is fine. But for users who won’t pay cash, a wide variety of “offers” are available where they can get in-game currency in exchange for lead gen-type offers. Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash (there are notable exceptions, but the scammy stuff tends to crowd out the legitimate offers). And it’s also bad for legitimate advertisers.

The reason why I call this an ecosystem is that it’s a self-reinforcing downward cycle. Users are tricked into these lead gen scams. The games get paid, and they plow that money back into Facebook and MySpace in advertising, getting more users. Who are then monetized via lead gen scams. That money is then plowed back into Facebook and MySpace in advertising to get more users…

Here’s the really insidious part: game developers who monetize the best (and that’s Zynga) make the most money and can spend the most on advertising. Those that won’t touch this stuff (Slide and others) fall further and further behind. Other game developers have to either get in on the monetization or fall behind as well. Companies like Playdom and Playfish seem to be struggling with their conscience and are constantly shifting their policies on lead gen.

The games that scam the most, win.”

Which is a direct quote from the  TC (Tech Crunch) blog site. This is really interesting to know how and why so many “free games” are available on FB and MyS.

Just a heads up to all you Facebookers and MySpacers!

26 days left for Nanowimo, and I’m soo far behind. :-/

I didn’t know what to expect with this venture into Nanowimo, I heard the rumors, read some forums and still, it did not prepare me for the mad rush of tweets and updates about people reaching the 10k mark in 4 days, or close to it. I like usual have take the slower approach, and just hit the 1k mark at about 6am this morning. With playing my fire mage Salsaverde on TFC and work and other things I just haven’t had the interest until I read the pep talk email sent out by nanowimo to every on in their particular region. So with that, I’m pushing forward. Words! Lots of Words, and hopefully when I reach the finish line they will make sense and portray my vision of a novel.
~Kaldeem

Not much going on…

So, I’m kinda in one of those bleh! moods right now, with nanowimo going on and already behind by some 3k words; and thinking of  something to write for ITG… it hasn’t really been an overly productive week as far as pursing words and blogging goes.

My part time job has me working close to full time hours which isn’t bad, but kinda throws off my scheduling a bit. Really not much going on right now other than playing a fire mage (level 49), work and nanowimo. So it maybe slow here for a bit.

Although I can, and will prob post some excerpts from my nanowimo article here from time to time.

Well, until I have more to say, in the words of Truman Burbank, from 1998’s The Truman Show: Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and in case I don’t see you again, Good night!!