Token Female Gamer

This is something that has been circulating in some of the WoW Blogs I read occasionally. Even though I don’t consider this a World of Warcraft Blog (though it could easily become one!) I thought it might be a good way to pay my respects to WoW.

And respect it deserves. World of Warcraft: The Lich King expansion has probably been my favorite game of the year (2009). I know, it was actually released in 2008, but I played so much of the game this year, I think it fully qualifies. =)

I’m pretty sure that I played WoW more this year then I slept. And so I award WoW the “Better than Sleep” award. =)

(more…)

Aion seems to be thriving, the servers are at decent concurrency levels, there aren’t overwhelming server problems, and most players seem genuinely happy with the game. China can’t add servers fast enough and North American and European sales have almost reached a million.

Really it appears that the Aion launch (in North America) was not only successful but also quite smooth. Not something very many MMORPGs can boast. (To be fair, it was also not as large of a lunch as some previous games have been, plus they launched in Korea and China before they did here. Clearly that gave them an excellent opportunity to work out some kinks.)

And though I may be finished with Aion, I’m extremely glad I tried it. Much of my playtime was quite enjoyable. It just turned out to not be for me, which is fine. No game can appease everyone’s needs.

So I’m closing out the Aion book with a proper review. =)

(more…)

Aion is a newly released MMO where all the characters are angels, not that they call them that, but the world is populated with beings that can fly. From what I have read, flying is the thing to set this MMO apart, flying around the world, and even more importantly, flying combat.

Since at our house we like to try out many of the new MMOs that pop up, we couldn’t miss this one. And since I wanted to share, writing a diary of my daily Aion activities seemed the best option.

(more…)

…Finding them.

Once resigned to the fact that PUGs are necessary and need to be suffered, finding them becomes the challenge.

Sadly in World of Warcraft the Looking for Group function is horrible. It is incredibly limited and hardly anyone seems to use it.

On my server the big alternative is the trade channel. This channel is only available while inside a major city. Since it is literally the only channel that gets used with any frequency everyone joins it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Imagine every PUG experience rolled into one very overused channel. It’s awful and I avoid it as much as possible.

Overall finding PUGs is not that easy, especially if you are a damage (DPS) class, as they tend to be a dime a dozen. Either you sit in town reading through agonizing trade chat, or you join the severely limited in game Looking for Group feature.

(more…)

One of the suggestions that I got from my WoW raiding 101 write up was that I hadn’t mentioned anything about PUGs and how those should affect peoples class role choices.

PUG – Acronym for the phrase ‘pick up group’ – meaning to play as a team with random people.

Pick up groups are something most aspiring raiders will have to deal with, especially in World of Warcraft as it is today. Unless of course gifted with a very dedicated set of friends to play with, or part of a large guild that has enough daily active members to provide frequent group and raid buddies.

(more…)

Geeky Teen Girl Romance!

As a general rule I tend to pick up anything that involves the words ‘gamer’ and ‘girl’ (or various forms thereof). Those two words have been tough to find in the same paragraph, much less in the same sentence. Clearly the machines that drive capitalism have scented a new market as these words have been showing up together far more often.

Gamer Girl completely capitalizes on the newest trend in geekyness; girls play computer games too! The thing that rankles most about the whole ‘targeted market’ is that the book is merely a standard teen romance novel coated with a layer of geek.

(more…)

I hope everyone had as wonderful a halloween as I did! Managed to finish my All Hallows Eve achievemnt and still go out trick or treating IRL! Candy + sedentary computer game addiction = way too many extra pounds. Time to bust out the Wii Fit! =D

Wanted to leave you all with this excellent image from Aion today. Clearly nakedness sells, but nakedness topped with a pumpkin head, zomg! Merchants wet dream. From all of the vendors that spam Aion mercilessly, Happy Halloween! Every holiday is a shopping holiday. =)

<3 TFG

It took me a while to get into the idea of Achievements in World of Warcraft, mainly because I disliked them so much on the console. Unlike the console version of achievements, which are essentially a glorified score board, the WoW achievements confer awards.

In fact it was one such award that started me on this crazy ride. My husband pointed out that one of the awards was a purple drake, a flying mount. As purple is one of my favorite colors I was immediately determined to get it.

(more…)

The second expansion for World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King (WotFK), graced us with its presents a mere year and ten months after the last expansion. (Woot! Our wait was cut by four months!)

Feature wise, it was very similar to the previous expansion, a new continent to explore, new higher levels to reach, more quests, more dungeons, and more loot. They even added a brand new class to play.

And yet, WotLK has been the more successful expansion. Clearly a lot was learned from the previous two games, because they somehow managed to keep and fine tune features that worked well while weeding out most of the irritating bits.

But not all the features are recycled, loads of new ones joined the frey, seamlessly blending new and old. A few of the most notable additions being: achievements and vehicle-combat.

(more…)

The Burning Crusade (BC) expansion was release just a bit over two years after the original World of Warcraft MMORPG went live, and boy was it long overdue. While there is no doubt that WoW was a massive achievement (feat of strength?), it was by no means content rich enough to remain engaging for two years.

It certainly didn’t hold my attention as I took a long break before BC came out. In fact quite a few of my friends took breaks at similar times.

But promises of new and more lured me back for The Burning Crusade. Two new races, a whole new continent, new dungeons, and loads of new loot were just some of the features that this expansion boasted.

(more…)