Well, i was never in a hurry.

Last night i decided i had to try and push for lvl 85 on my main, who was lvl 84, i was about half way through to 85 anyway. I had managed to get about half a level just by doing a ton of archaeology.
So i went out to Deepholm (again) and just continued questing and it took me about 3 hours of playing when i finally dinged.
For Deepholm i am currently at 102 out of 125 quests, so "only" 13 quests to go before unlocking the achievement :)

I have to say i am not as impressed yet with Deepholm as i was with Vashj'ir or Hyjal, there's still some pretty funny quests to be found (I loved "Pebbles", too bad i didn't get to keep him), but overall i am not liking it as much. But then again i haven't reached the end of the storyline there, so who knows..

After that it's probably off to Uldum, which i allready heard a lot about, most people say it's a lot of fun, so i can't wait. I could have allready gone there, as i have the quests leading me there, but i really wanted to finish Deepholm first.

And there is a certain ghostly crawling crab that i definatly wanna tame, back in Vashj'ir :)

Not sure if i am that happy about reaching the "end level" allready, on purpose, i never rushed for lvl 85 as i never felt it would take that long anyway. For now there is still plenty to do, i haven't even touched any of the new dungeons yet and then there is all of the revamped stuff in all of the old zones, so i am not that worried about running out of things to do.

It's the monster of Loch...... Modan.

Blizzard is always good for some "little" ingame surprises, now i don't know if it was there before, i sure haven't seen it before, but on one of my archaeology trips i flew over Loch Modan and suddenly saw the Modan Monster, obviously a take on the Loch Ness monster, i just love this stuff :)

it's some kind of huge crab and of course i had to kill it, it was only a lvl 15 elite so no problems :)

From the sea to the mountains

Soaring high

After going through both Vashj'ir and Hyjal i still think Vashj'ir is the coolest zone. The quests and stories had a big fun factor and i really enjoyed the movement or 3d aspect of the world. And as a bonus no annoying dragons blocking questgivers.
I did have two major problems with the phasing here, the first one occured in the questline of the battlemaiden, i had to talk to three NPC's and only two spawned, no amount of rezoning, dropping the quest and retaking it or logging out helped, i gave up and logged out, three hours later i logged back in and luckily he was there, so i could finally continue the quest.

Another (very annoying) phasing issue i got was once i had to board the Vern, the Vern would dock properly and i could see it, but the moment i tried boarding the ship it completely dissapeared, if i'd try to still board it i would end up in the water, the ship was simply gone. I tried all the same thing logging out and back in, dropping the quest and retaking it, but nothing would fix it., after trying for an hour or so i though of another way, i tried to board the Alliance version of the Vern, i flew over there, luckily got no aggro and managed to board the Alliance Vern without a problem and was able to complete the story (although i did get aggro and killed once i spawned inside the Alliance cave).
Although i was happy to complete it, it still doesn't feel right with me being a Horde player to have boarded the Alliance ship to finish the story this way..

But after finishing Vashj'ir i was still on 138/150 quests, but eventually i managed to find a little quest chain that i had missed the first time around, i really don't remember if this were 12 quests (don't think it was) but after doing a few quests for this questgiver i got the achievement for it.


Hyjal was a whole different story, i kinda compare the two with the Goblin and Worgen starterzones, the first being all fun and jokes (well mostly) and the second being more serious and darker.
Well Hyjal was definatly a lot more serious, the storyline was awesome, but the first downside, people were able to use flying mounts and even now people still deem it neccessary to block questgivers, and i found on my server that especially Alliance players were very good at that...
But the story itself was definatly full of lore and i enjoyed doing it, but to me i still liked Vashj'ir a lot more, i guess i am more into the fun factor :)
I did not encounter any problems in Hyjal with the phasing, all went very smooth, the only bug i currently have is with the trampoline, for an achievement to have to bounce 20 times, but no matter what i try the counter stops at 1. I did some searching and it appears that many people have the same issue, the trampoline works fine if you do it before completing the end quest, but once you are done with the end quest the trampoline bugs.

So if you're going for that achievement, make sure you do it while there for the bearcub quest (fun quest btw) or at least before finishing that last quest or it will bug out.

I really enjoyed that last fight.

Hyjal definatly had some fun quests, like the jousting where you get a new pet, but overall i have to say that Blizzard did an awesome job on Vashj'ir, i remember the Oculus, which you could say had also a 3d aspect to it, but i really hated that, this underwater enviroment was really a pleasure to go through and i am almost sad there isn't more stuff like this.
Don't get me wrong i am still enjoying every part of the Cataclysm, Blizzard has really set the standard when it comes to gameplay and fun, especially considering they are doing this on a very old game engine, it is awesome to see that and old game doesn't mean a dead game and that you can't be innovative. I think this really is a great example to some of the developers out there, they should really be taking notes, *cough SWG, *cough, ahum.

Anyway, if you haven't done Vashj'ir yet, go, go what are you waiting for :)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim it is.

So we finally know the next Elder Scrolls is coming.
Can't wait to learn more about this game, considering how much i have played Oblivion, i am pretty sure i'll be getting this :)

Do i have a deal for you.

I have really been enjoying Cataclysm so far, i especially like the new Goblin race, so much in fact that i race changed my main from Blood Elf to Goblin, so behold of the new and improved Hauntshade :)

My "new" main with her new pet an awesome looking crab.



The change took just seconds, after clicking finish transaction, i almost instantly recieved an email saying i could log into the game and continue the race change. I kinda expected it to take a few hours, so once again an awesome service by Blizzard.
The only downside was that my questlog got cleared of all quests, although it is also nice to start fresh, i think i had an almost full questlog with quests allover the world, so cleaning this up is not all that bad :)

The new content has been a lot of fun and i would have to say that Blizzard has once again done it, especially when it comes to starter areas, the Goblin and Worgen startingzones are simply stunning and a lot of fun, i definatly had a lot more fun levelling through those than levelling my main through the new content, at least there are no flying mounts (and annoying people) to block the questgivers, i just can't believe how many annoying people are there, it's like they're doing it on purpose. You would think they would find it annoying enough for themself to be blocked, but since hardly anyone gets of their mounts (i think i have seen 2 people today who got off their mount to turn in a quest), they probably enjoy doing it.

I guess it's a "good" thing to hear that other realms have the same issues or i would be very tempted to do a server move, just to get away from that annoying behavior.
But really, apart from other players the new expansion is a lot of fun.

Hauntshade's Fishing Adventures

On my travels through the old Azaroth i passed Stormwind and suddenly remembered i did not have the achievement for fishing in Orgrimmar and Stormwind both and with flying now added to the old world i figured it would be a lot easier to get into Stormwind (my main is Horde), i wouldn't have to fight my way into Stormwind through the gate, so i decided to give it a go. As a precaution i took off most of my gear since i was expecting to get killed a few times.

I flew in slightly to the left of the gate and basicly dropped myself off my mount into the water and started swimming towards a spot where i could stand out of sight and start fishing.

All to easy, first fish you get gives the achievement.

One achievement down :)

Next i decided i wanted to fish up Old Ironjaw in Ironforge.
Now this one was going to be a lot more difficult, since i couldn't just fly over the city and drop myself down, instead i decided to try and take the metro from Stormwind to Ironforge, i figured that was gonna be easier than just fly into Ironforge through the front door, so i started flying towards the metro entrance, carefully trying to avoid the guards, of course failing once i reached the entrance as there are two guards standing there, but i just made a run for it trying to get as far in as i could. Got killed but the corpse was far enough in to release without getting noticed.
The metro itself was no problem at all, no guards.
Ironforge on the other hand was a different story, i could fly there but every time i had to fly through narrow corridors the guards would spot me and almost one shot me, but with a couple of corpseruns i made it to the spot i would learn to hate... the Forlorn Cavern.
I pushed myself up against the wall all the way in the back, hoping to not get noticed (you are flagged for PvP), of couse that is kinda hard with a big red nametag over your head :)

Anyway i started fishing. Luckily many of the Alliance players were good sports and basicly left me alone, a few did attack and kill me, but i think they were quickly bored with it and left me alone. I decided to simply not fight them when they would attack so the realised i was only there for the fishing, afterall is it really fun to kill another player who doesn't fight back :)
One perfect example was a Dwarf, as soon as he saw me, he attacked and killed me, but as soon as i was dead i saw him pulling out his fishing rod and started to fish, now a corpserun would take me 2 minutes so i would be back quickly and he would have to make a choice to either fish or kill, so i released, started fishing and ... bummer he started attacking me again, got me down to about 100 HP, when he stopped attacking and started to fish again, so i did the same, he never attacked me again, he did walk over to me a couple of times but never attacked, so either he got bored attacking me or he realised i wasn't going away no matter how many times he killed me :)

Now the fishing itself proved to be quite a long story, it took me many hours before i finally caught Old Ironjaw, i remember i got Old Crafty in Orgrimmar pretty quick and i figured this was going to be a quick one to, but boy was i wrong. In the end i had caught close to 2000 fish, a few potions and some gear.
So you can imagine how happy i was when i finally hooked Old Ironjaw :)

Boy was i glad to hearth out of that cave...

So on to the next one, i was flying over the Wetlands when i noticed some junk in the water and since i had been checking my achievements i knew i was still on short on another achievement and lucky me.. this was the one missing :)

Another achievement in the bag :)

I noticed another achievement, The Lurker Above, now i had no idea how to get him but quickly realised this achievement could only be gotten in a 25 man lvl70 dungeon, now how was i gonna get that ??
So a little Google search led me to Els Anglin and their little guide on how to get the achievement.

I basicly followed their advice and got the achievement, no sence writing it down here when there's a great guide basicly telling the same.
The only thing that didn't work for me was taking the invisiblity potion and as soon as i was in the water take the water walking potion, cause as soon as i took the water walking potion the invisibilty potion would stop working and i would get attacked and the potion would be gone resulting in almost instant death.
Instead i tried walking down the ramps, past the mobs, who luckily didn't agro. Got to a platform close to a spot were you can see a pipe coming out of the water on the other side, i took the invi potion jumped in the water, swam across within 15 secs (the potion only lasts 15 secs), got out of the water, took the water walking potion and walked onto the water to the spot where the lurker hides and started fishing.
The first catch got me the achievement and killed :)


In the end i guess the 3 "easy" achievements make up for the Old Ironjaw achievement, i would say that that was one of the hardest or most frustrating achievements i have earned so far.

And with this i end this episode of Hauntshade's Fishing Adventures :)

Leveling to 85 ?.... nah, not right now.

So after experiencing the leveling and going through the starting zones of the 2 new races i decided it was time to try level my main to level 85.
Well it didn't take long to start pulling my hair out, grinding my teeth and slamming my fist on the desk.
It's just unbelievable how many jerks are there to be found....

If it wasn't difficult enough to try get kills you need for a quest when there's a lot of people there, it is even more difficult trying to turn in your quest, simply because of a lot of assholes that are to lazy to get off their mounts and block (swarm) the questgiver so it becomes almost impossible to target the questgiver to turn in your quest.


Yes, there is a questgiver in there... somewhere.

You'd think after 5 minutes people would get it and get off their mounts to not obstruct other players from turning in/getting their quests and in turn make it easier on themself...

Personally i wish Blizzard would implement the same thing they do for the flightpaths, as soon as you click them you are dismounted. Although that would probably get a shitstorm of protest from those that are to lazy to click a button for mount/dismount.
I mean there are so many easy ways to mount/dismount, personally i have it set up so my scrollwheel click button is mount/dismount..

So for me, right now i am done with the leveling, i am going back to the old content or go level my Worgen and Goblin, at least there aren't as many people there and those that are there are a lot nicer.

I met Deathwing and survived.

erm.. I mean i met Deathwing and ran like hell


Oh, hi Deathwing and bye..

The Cataclysm is upon us.

The launch of Cataclysm didn't go as smoothly as i had hoped. I was logged in and awaiting the Cataclysm on my main in Orgrimmar, when suddenly a message popped up telling everyone that the Cataclysm was live but you had to log out and restart your client for the Cata features to be available.
Now obviously having a "few" Europeans logging out and all trying to log in at the same time didn't go over very well, the login servers were almost fried. It took me over an hour to get back into the game...
So much for playing the minute it goes live (i bought the digital version alongside pre-ordering the collectors edition), so i was a bit pissed for not playing, after all that was why i bought it, however i think it wasn't a complete waste of money as my collectors edition hasn't arrived yet..

Anyway on to the good stuff :)

Say hi to my latest alts:

First one i created was my Goblin Hunter, named Coppernut who is currently at lvl 16.


The second character i created was my Worgen Hunter, named Moonfur who is currently at lvl 11.

So far i have to say i enjoyed the Goblin starting area the most, lots of humor while questing and talking to NPC's, while the Worgen area is a bit more dark and "serious" fell about it, funny thing though when you create your Worgen you create both the human and the worgen form, but only play as a human for a little while before turning into a worgen.

We didn't start the Cataclysm

Simply awesome!!
That is all.

The new armory

I have to say, the new WoW armory/Battle.net looks awesome.
Looks like they're still working on some stuff, but i am definatly liking the new armory layout.

The only downside, i don't seem to be able to find any RSS feeds for my profiles, like in the old armory, there is an activity feed but it's not readable as an RSS (yet).
The old ones still seem to work (who knows for how long, they have taken the old armory offline), but it would be nice to see them added to the new armory.

The uber buff

While working on the "Fiona's Caravan" quest in WoW, i found one of the most awesome buffs i have ever seen.
You can get it from Fiona's Caravan (obviously) and it's called "Pamela's Doll".

The desciption for it says "is somebody following you?" and what it basicly does is, have Pamela show up every now and then, she's just following you around for a while and then dissapears again only to show up a while later, i don't know if it actually does anything else, but i just thought this was awesome.



Hidden gems like this make me really like WoW more and more!

War... War never changes, but Warcraft does

The end came faster than i realised.
I had been thinking about possible locations to log out before the patch would hit and the whole world (of Warcraft) would change, but i was so busy doing the Pilgrim's quests that i completely forgot. So when the server shutdown message popped up i realised it was too late..
I had plans of logging out i Thousand Needles, but since there was no time left and i was at Undercity i simply walked outside and waited for the server shutdown.



Hoping for some big changes i logged back in today and found myself inside the Ruins of Lordearon instead of outside.



Just to see the changes i of course immediatly went outside, and sure enough, not really breathtaking (Undercity doesn't seem to have changed much).



So "the end" was not as spectacular as i had hoped (i never did get the beta client running so i had no idea about the changes) but still fun, and i think it will be a lot of fun exploring the world again to see the changes.

I am definatly liking the new look of Orgrimmar, looks amazing!

Maybe you would like some WoW with your Oblivion

Hey more Oblivion :)
This time some different kind of mods, especially if you're into WoW you might like them.

First one is Shadowfang Keep, this mod will add Shadowfang Keep as a dungeon to Oblivion.
I have allready played through it once and I have to say this mod is very true to the original WoW version, never did I get lost cause i remembered it from WoW.
Really a lot of fun to play through.

Next one I have not played yet, so I can't say if it's good or not but it's from the same creator as the previous one.
This one is called The Scarlet Monastery, since Shadowfang Keep was pretty true to the original I am going to assume this one will be as well.

Since I enjoyed the first one, I just wanted to share them :)

Reborn into Cyrodiil

Over the weekend i have been playing nothing but Oblivion.
Now this game wouldn't be half as much fun without mods, so a lot of that time was spent trying out and looking for mods, i used to have a lot of mods installed but since i installed Win7 i had to re-install and just to aoid the whole path of installing from disk searching and downloading/installing updates and patches for the game and it's DLC i opted to buy the whole thing (GOTY edition) on Steam.
I do still have my old savegames but from what i remember i used to have a lot of crashing issues with those and did not want to go through the troubles of trying to find all the old mods and try to fix the problems to be able to play, so instead i went with a new game and new mods.

The only mods that i previously used and installed now are Glenvar Castle a really great and fun questline that leads to you becoming the owner of a great looking castle with lots of hidden secrets, i also installed the Lost Spires a mod that ads a new guild to the game and a whole range of quests/dungeon crawling.

A few of the new ones i installed and like to mention, as you can see in the screenshot i went with a new race (and yes it is a night elf) that came from a great mod called Xenius Race Compilation, another great mod is Castle West Weald a great looking castle, the only "downside" is you don't own the castle but can only buy three rooms in it to call your own, but the castle looks absolutly stunning, has a really great feel when walking around in it.

Next to that i have installed many mods that add to the world, more travelling npc's, UI improvements, graphic enhancements, complete overhauls (like Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul), a nice mod called OblivionXP that lets you earn XP for killing mobs, reading books and finishing quests (much like you see in MMO's).

Needless to say that this is what makes a game(or in particular this game) great, you can basicly mod the game to your liking and when you're bored with it you can simply remove mods or ad new mods to the game, this is really what i miss the most when playing an MMO, now i know WoW comes pretty close with it's addons (that's one of the reasons i do like WoW) but still..

Into Oblivion

After finishing Dragon Age, or all the DLC to be more precise, i felt a bit let down. Somehow most of it was fun but especially when it came to Witch Hunt i felt like, "was this really neccessary?".
All along it felt like it was leading up to something and when i found Morrigan i thought, now things are going to start... but nope cue credits..
To this moment i still don't really know what i learned here or what the story was about, other than trying to find Morrigan, no revelations, no surprises, nothing..

Anyway while playing i felt like doing a completely new playthrough of Dragon Age from the start, but after finishing Dragon Age i actually felt like re-installing Oblivion :)



Since my old saves were corrupt (constant crashing) and i didn't have all addons that i use to run with the game i decided to roll a new character and do a new playthrough and i have to say that i still enjoy Oblivion a lot, i really enjoy going where ever i wanna go instead of feeling like i am on rails (like Dragon Age), i can follow the questline(s) or just go wandering around in the world and see what crosses my path.

Since starting this new game i have allready discovered some locations that i had never seen before despite the fact that i have allready spend over 170 hours on Oblivion, that combined with the many great addons/mods out there still make it a really great game to play.

I am stil very excited for Dragon Age 2, but for now i am perfectly happy playing Oblivion :)

Dragon Age: The Hunt is on

Well the fix i wrote about yesterday did seem to fix the problems i was having, i managed to finish Awakenings and played through Liliana's Song and Golems of Amgarrak and am now on (the) Witch Hunt.

Have to say the both Liliana's Song and Golems of Amgarrak were a bit to short for my taste, but fun, playing Lelliana's Song was definatly fun, eventhough i allready kinda knew the story it was still fun to play through.

Golem's of Amgarrak had a very difficult boss fight (maybe to difficult), i was playing on easy and the only way to win this was by "spamming" health potions inbetween swings, all my companions went down almost instantly dispite me trying to (micro) between them and having them take health potions as often as possible. Luckily i had plenty of health potions in my inventory to get my warden through the fight, yay for stacking up on those.



Another thing i had to change though was a bit more complicated, i had since i purchased Dragon Age, moved my folder containing the game and for some reason the authentication thing wouldn't work no more, so i couldn't access my recently bought DLC, luckily i managed to find a forum post containing a fix that worked for me.
Unfortianatly it involved messing around with the Command Promt (CMD) under windows (something i haven't done in years), but thanks to this forumpost here i managed to get it uninstalled and installed/working again (the section .3.2.4. "Uninstalling and reinstalling Dragon Age Updater Service if you receive errors at point 3.2.2 or everything else failed" did it for me).

It is something that really annoys me, really, i know companies are trying to protect their property/IP/game against piracy, however in the end it's always the (legally) paying costumer that suffers. If everything works properly, no problems, but if i have to go through so many loopholes to get your authentication "service" working, you are punishing the wrong people here.
And the fact that there is such a huge problem shooting guide on how to get your DLC to work, is (i think) evidence enough your authentication system is flawed.
Besides those who wanna pirate are gonna do it anyway, they will find a way to crack it, so why punish those who support you..

Almost all of those systems depend on an internet connection, which is fine as long as it works, but when you for whatever reason loose your connection, you can't even play those games you payed for, another example i recently encountered was with Blizzard, now there system (Battle.net) works almost perfectly (well most of the time), but recently Battle.net went down and i could not play WoW or even play Starcraft 2 in single player mode because of it.

Anyway enough about me ranting :)
So here's to hoping for no more troubles!!

Dragon Age: Finally Awake

Way back i started playing Dragon Age: Awakening and i got lots of crashes from the start. Initially turning of some mods fixed it, but when i got a bit further along into the quest line, to the point were i was thrown into "The Fade" i would get a crash no matter what as soon as i got around the first corner and started that second fight (you have the first fight after the cut scene).

The game would simply crash to the desktop, no matter how many times i tried and as a result i haven't touched Dragon Age since, eventhough i loved the game.

Yesterday i figured i would try to play again, hoping that there might have been some fixes in a patch or something, but no luck, as soon as i got into that particular fight the game would crash again.

After some google searching and reading through posts on forums i did however found something that made sence, apperantly it's much like the problems i had with WoW, "too much" memory in my system (Win7 64-bit 4g ram), or in other words, the game client is designed to run with 2g ram and as soon as it gets over that the game simply crashes, eventhough my system can run with 4g.

This post/thread here actually had the thing that fixed it for me.
I used a program called CFF Eplorer, that has a "patch" to make the game client work with 4gigs of memory and for now i have to say it fixed the problem, i am now getting past that dreaded fight and am able to continue.

I haven't had a lot of time yet to play more so i still have to see in the long run how it does (if there's a memory leak in the game it's bound to crash later on), but finally getting past that fight without crashing felt like a huge victory.

I still can't believe it was so easy to fix, after all i tried (like re-installing etc.), all it needed was a little patch to the .EXE file, basicly a few seconds work.

Now to play the rest of the story of Awakenings and all the DLC after it (hopefully).

To the other side.

Most of my time in WoW has been spend playing my hunter, still my nr.1 class, as i really think this is the most fun class to play.

However this weekend i decided to go for something new and different (for me at least) so i went and made a Gnome Warlock :)
So say hi to Glimnottin...

Also for a little change, i decided to go Alliance this time, i still think Horde is the way to go (more fun), but i figured i should at least try to get a max level character on the Horde side.

Currently Glimnottin is level 13 so she still has a long way to go, but you have to admit, she looks cute :)

World of eSports

I really suck at StarCraft 2 but man were those SC2 matches at Blizzcon awesome to watch.
Re-watching some of those matches made me want more, so i started searching the internet for ways to be able to watch the "Global Starfcraft League" and i happen to stumble across GOMtv and actually bought a season ticket to be able to watch all those matches.
There's some pretty amazing matches to watch.

I was also hoping to find some WoW arena tournament league or something but haven't been lucky so far, so if you happen to know a good link,let me know.

Not bored yet

I have been having a lot of fun in WoW lately, i am definatly enjoying this game more and more.
I feared that once i would reach lvl 80 i would be "done" with the game (has happened to me before in MMO's) but that was not the case with WoW.
I still have plenty of stuff to do, some of them achievement related, but i am also having lots of fun using the random dungeon finder and i am definatly getting interrested in raiding more and more.

One of the achievements i am currently working in is the loremaster achievement, this achievement has me running all over the old worlds, completing any quests that i may have missed.
It's actually more fun than i thought and it gives me a great oppertunity to see the old world once more before Cataclysm tears it appart :)
Just the other day i got the "2000 quests" achievement but i am still a long way before completing the loremaster achievement, my current "score" is: Loremaster of Kalimdor 463/685 and Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms 491/550 and then of course i still have to finish the other loremaster titles, but for now i am concentrating on the old world.

Over the weekend i have not been playing much as i was glued to the screen watching BlizzCon (oh man i am turning into a fanboy), and eventhough it was somewhat dissapointing with the announcements (Diablo 3's final class the Demon Hunter a new charity pet for WoW), i did like some of the stuff coming from the panels, i am especially excited about the new "enhanced maps" feature coming in the very near future, although some addon makers and websites are probably not to happy about it.
It will feature maps for every dungeon and lots of info about the bosses (special abbilities etc.), basicly a lot of stuff that you now get from addons like Atlas and websites like Wowhead.
They are also going to break down the dungeons into chunks, so no more wandering around for hours and getting lost in dungeons.

I also have to say i was glued to the screen for some of the Starcraft 2 and WoW tournament matches, if you think you are really good (or elite) check out some of these matches..
After watching these matches, i know i suck at these games :)
But i am having fun playing them so who cares!

So looking back at the weekend i would say it was definatly worth getting a virtual pass for Blizzcon, although RayV was far from perfect, but i still had 3 channels to watch (main floor, Starcraft 2 Tournament and the WoW Tournament), of course that also means missing some stuff, but i have plenty of time watching that "on demand" through their website.


And of course The D was awesome..

Now to get that awesome pet.. :)

See you in Azaroth

This is not MyLotro

A recent "One Shot" on Massively, called Peacefull Protest, reminded me of the fact that, in the EU we're still lagging behind compared to the US players.
There is still no MyLotro and of course we are still waiting on the F2P move.

Information has been lacking from Codemasters and many people are still wondering if/when things will happen, i have yet to come across an official announcement containing a definate date, the latest word was they will be "aiming to release within the next few weeks".

Personally i am not effected by the F2P much (or at least i don't think i am) as i have had a lifetime sub for LOTRO since launch, but i still think this is a major dissapointment and to me it clearly shows Codemasters is not capable of running an MMO of the caliber of LOTRO.

The way this game has been run by Codemasters from the start has definatly effected my interrest in playing LOTRO (wish i could change my EU account to a US account), i am sure things are not as smooth on the US side as they probably have their problems but i think the EU side has definatly been run worse. As of today i am still waiting on an email with a link to download my "Mini Prima Booklet" that was suppose to be part of the collectors edition (last email about that dates from April 24th 2007, not that i really care about that booklet, but still if they can't run something like that properly, how are they gonna run an MMO..

When i first read about LOTRO going F2P, i was actually suprised, but definatly had my hopes up that Turbine was going to take over the EU side and we would finally get the same features and support the US side are getting, but i guess there will still be no MyLotro community for the EU players.

Still think LOTRO is a beautifull game and i do occasionally log in to play, but i just wish it had nothing to do with CM.

And to get back to where i started, the "One Shot", i noticed that this was actually taking place on my server, if i had been playing at that time i would have definatly joined them, not that it would have mattered/changed anything, Codemasters probably doesn't care and likely didn't even noticed it, but it is the thought that counts and probably the only thing you can do to show your dissapointment in CM.

It's the little things

You often get quest where you have to gather a bunch of items but you never see anything change, but just today i got a quest called "Creature Comforts" where i had to gather 20 pieces of Dead Thornwood, so that they could light a fire to dry the troops.

And to my surprise, when i finished the quest, a fire was lighted and some troops gathered around the fire :)



Often it's the little things in a game that makes you feel good, much better than downing some random boss in a dungeon, but maybe that's just me.

WoW mobile armory app broken

The latest update to The WoW mobile armory app brought 3D view for character portrait, which is nice, but it also broke one of the most critical parts (IMO) of the app, and that was the automatic import of an authenticator code if you are also using the Battle.net authenticator app.



Normallu when you claim gold from your mailbox, post bids or post auctions it asks for your password and then it would automaticly detect that you have the authenticator app and offer to import a code, you'd click yes and that was it, your done.

However the way it is at the moment whenever you're doing stuff in the armory app that requires you to log in, you have to close the app, open the authenticator get a code, write it down (you can copy the code to your clipboard in the authenticator app, but the armory app doesn't have paste), then open up the armory app and try to get it all to work and filled in before the code expires, as you can imagine, that's a major pain in the ..

Blizzard is aware of this issue and has said it will be fixed in the next armory app update. Hopefully that will be very soon, as the last update took almost 4 months.

I have praised this app and definatly thought it was worth the extra costs to use it, but if they don't fix this soon i will be cancelling my sub for the auction house app.

Really, i have not been drinking.

I have been playing a ton of Warcraft lately and really enjoying it.
Brewfest has been a lot of (drunken) fun and i finally reached my goal (getting 200 tokens) and joined the Brew of the month club and had a drunken stupor :)
Although i have to say that by now i am getting a little tired of those daily quests, but i am still 3 Brewfest achievements short.

Also been doing a lot of dungeons through the dungeon finder, which is a great help to find groups to do them with, granted you don't always get a great group, but when you do, it's a lot of fun.

But i have been leveling so fast now that there are not many dungeons left i can do through the dungeon finder, when i reached lvl 76 i could no longer do any of the older dungeons, only the Wrath dungeons are now available to me, which sucks because i had just started doing dungeons on heroic and buying keys for them.

At the moment i am lvl 77, so i am hoping those dungeons open up again to me at lvl 80 (heroic or not) so that i can do them, as i am still missing a lot of the lower level dungeons and i would definatly like to experience them all.

I have also joined a guild (called: Just For the Tabard) which at the moment is a leveling guild, but who knows i might be able to get into some of the old world dungeons that way, definatly a fun guild (with a great name).



I have also been "achievement hunting", hence why i want to do all dungeons at least once, and am now at 182 achievements, but at the moment my main push is for gold :)
I need to get a total of 6000 gold so that i can buy my artisan riding skill and get cold weather flying, so that i can fly at Northrend, ever since i got my flying skill at Outland i miss flying whenever i get to Northrend (or the old world), but progress on that i quite slow as i am also working on getting my enchanting profession up to max, which has now become a pretty expensive profession to level, i easily loose 300 gold in a day trying to level, i am currently at 367 out of 460, so also a long way to go.

Other professions i am still leveling are Cooking (417/450) and First Aid (427/450), but those are a lot easier to level as i get most of the stuff i need for that from questing or dungeon loot.



On another note i still have those memory/crashing issues and still have to turn the graphics options down quite a bit (Ground clutter, shadow and viewing distance) which is a major bummer as, some of the areas in Northrend and Outland look awesome, but if i am constantly crashing it's no fun either, so..
Although turning viewing distance down ads some "fog" to the envirement, that sometimes definatly gives a cool look to the scenery, other times though, like in cities it's pretty ugly, as in you actually see stuff "being drawn" in the distance as you move (like mountains).

I am still trying to narrow down what's actually causing this, at this point i am close to saying it's the viewing distance that's causing it, as i tried turning up the viewing distance to max at Northrend yesterday and withing 10-20 minutes i crashed, although it might still be a combination of other things, like addons that, in combination with viewing distance is causing the game to use to much memory.
But than again i still think it's odd, there are people out there that run way more addons than i do and have graphics set to max and they are not having any issues..

What's in a name

My first character on WoW was actually named Hauntshade, however i never really played Hauntshade much, she was still stuck as a lvl 18 Night Elf Hunter.
Somehow i never really enjoyed playing the Alliance side.
When i started playinga Blood Elf Hunter on the Horde side i never went back and Cynheiddon became my main character.

However i always wished my characters name to be Hauntshade but since i allready had a character going by that name there wasn't much i could do.
Sure i could change the Night Elf's name to something else and than take that name for my Blood Elf, however as soon as you change a name the old name becomes unavailable for 90 days.

So i decided to bite the bullet and delete my Night Elf, afterall 18 lvl's isn't that much to do again and i started the namechange process for my Blood Elf.

I have to say i never saw something changed so fast, all in all i think it took Blizzard less than 10 minutes to process the namechange.
I actually thought it was gonna take some time before the change was done and i would be able to log in (during the process you can't log in) but after 10 minutes i recieved an email that confirmed the namechange as being completed and i was able to log in as Hauntshade.

Talk about being fast, kudos to Blizzard!

So goodbye Cynheiddon, hello Hauntshade :)

WoW: Explore new worlds and CTD

I've been playing a lot of WoW lately and having lots of fun.
Basicly trying to get through the old world content before Cataclysm comes out.
There is still plenty to do as i am only lvl 71 now.

Another thing i am really enjoying is the random dungeon finder and have been running many dungeons and after reaching lvl 70 finally some of the Wrath of the Litch King dungeons opened up (as the screenshot above shows), so new stuff to do :)

However since i have been leaving the old world more and more and went into Outland and Northrend i have also seen a major increase in CTD's.
I have been getting a lot of crashes that seem to have something to do with WoW using to much memory. Apperantly the gameclient is set to a 2 gig max memory use and when it goes over that 2 gig it crashes. When i first heard/read about the 2 gig max i was kinda annoyed, since my comp runs with 4 gigs of memory so there should be plenty of memory there, but when it is actually the gameclient that's setting the limit to 2 gigs, well that explains quite a bit..

It was really getting annoying i would almost guaranteed get a crash when using flightpaths and by moving a round busy areas. Funny thing is going back to the old world all problems seem to dissapear and there would be no crashes (no crashes in dungeons either).

One of the first things i started to do was go through my addons and see if there were addons that i could do without and started disabling them, most of them had no effect on the crashing, as a final effort i turned down a lot of the graphic settings like the "ground clutter" settings, shadows and viewing distance and i also turned off a mod called "Handy Notes".
So far it seems the game is running quite smooth again and i have yet to see a crash (of course now i am jinxing it).

By the looks of it i think it was both the graphics and some addons combined that used to much memory, to me the graphics look like they might use some more memory in Outland and Northrend than they do in the old world (Outland and especially Northrend are definatly cool zones).
So i am hoping this fixes my crashing problems and i can finally enjoy playing again without the fear of a CTD.

Still think it's kinda wierd that the crashing only occurs in Outland and Northrend and not in the old worlds.

Hopefully Blizzard will come up with a fix for these problems, searching google with the error messages, showed that a lot of people are having the same issues as i am having, so there definatly is a problem somewhere.

But i think another positive thing is that i removed some addons that were there but that i didn't really use so my addons folder looks a bit cleaner now :)

The WoW Armory Mobile Auction House App

My initial reaction to the Armory Mobile Auction House was: why the hell would i pay extra for a feature that i can use in game.
But since i allready use the armory app, i decided to give it a go for a month and actually thought i would cancel it after that first month.

 

However i found this app to be surprisingly fun/easy to use.
My first thought was that i would really miss my Auctioneer add on, which helps in checking out prices to figure out what price would bring the most profit, but the app has a price check build in so with a little ectra effort it's posible to look for the best price.

Now one of the things i like most about it is the fact that you can log in from anywhere and do your auction house stuff, whenever you've got 5 or 10 minutes.

You have instant access to your bank, mail and inventory and can list items from all three, so relisting expired auctions is very easy, in game i would have to find an auction house first than go to the bank pull out the stuff i want to sell and go to the mailbox to retrieve any expired items and than go to the auction house to start listing.
With this app it doesn't matter where your character is in game (or where you are for that matter), as long as you've got the items in your inventory, bank or mail you can list it.
You can also claim your recieved auction house items or gold in the mail through this app, so i don't even have to go to a mailbox to retrieve it.

Now i do still miss the auctioneer addon but still think this Mobile Auction House app is awesome in it's use, the way Blizzard implemented the whole thing is simply amazing.
I now use this app to list my stuff, buy stuff and recieve my stuff and when i get home i can just jump in game and don't have to waste any time doing my auction house stuff.

So in short, is it worth the 3 dollars a month?
Considering the amount of time i save by using this app, time i can now use for questing/adventuring, i think it is :)

Spam through the roof..

Hey, finally a new post from me..
I know, i have been ignoring my blog for a very long time, but i am still alive :)

The WoW spam i have been recieving lately has gone through the roof, or to be clearer the phishing spam has.

Somehow they managed to get a hold of two of my email adresses, which are both not even used for WoW, go figure.
Of course there has been plenty of warnings, personally i made a rule of always going directly to the (official) WoW website and log in there and (of course) i use an authenticator so i should be safe (?).

I have been getting these in the last few weeks/months almost on a daily base and from what i read among the blogs a lot of people are getting them.

A spam example:

Hello,

This is an automated notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Your account options was recently modified through the Account Management website.

If you made this change to your subscription type, please disregard this automatic notification.

*** If you did NOT make any changes to your account or subscription, we recommend you login to Account Management at the following link to review your account settings:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/

If you cannot sign into Account Management using the link above, or if unauthorized changes continue to happen, please contact Blizzard Billing & Account Services for advanced assistance.

Billing & Account Services can be reached at 1-800-59-BLIZZARD (1-800-592-5499 Mon-Fri, 8Am-8PM Pacific Time) or at billing@blizzard.com.

Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives will typically lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

Regards,

The World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowindex/

Obviously the links in this email look legit but clicking on them actually brings you to a completly different site.

Just a few nore of the headers as an example, "Battle.net Account Issue -- Account Locked Notice", "World of Warcraft Subscription Reminder", "Battle.net -- Login Account Changed Confirm", "World of Warcraft -- Character Faction Change Notice", "Cataclysm Beta Opt-In", "Blizzard Store Order#(random number)".

When i innitially recieved them i wasn't to concerned, as i said i use an authenticator and my email program and sometimes my email provider marks these emails as spam (they automaticly get a tag on the subject line like: [spam] or *****SPAM*****), while the official WoW mails get through just fine.
But after a while i was getting worried they might be messing with my account (i had not played or logged in to WoW for quite some time), but after logging in through the official website i saw that my account was just fine.

Just a few days ago i even started getting those type of emails for Aion, a game i never even played/tried, eventhough i do have some play time i believe from when Tabula Rasa shut down.

Anyway just a reminder, never click on an email link always go to the official website (i don't even do it on the official emails), check if the email adress you are recieving it on is the right one for your account (in my case i am getting spam on two seperate email adresses that i never used for the game), and when you can (like WoW) use an authenticator.
And another thing to notice, they official Blizzard (order) emails always have you first name in it.

Anyways: Play safe!

A new hero in Champions Online.

This weekend was a weekend of trying out new games for me, guess i am getting kind of bored and wanted to try some new stuff.

I found the Champions Online free trial on Steam and decided to give it a go.
My first impression through the tutorial was one of "i have allready been there" as it feels a lot like City of Heroes.
But still i think Champions Online is a fun game and i did spend a lot of time this weekend playing it.
I do think there's a lot of grinding, maybe a bit too much, but i still find myself having a lot of fun.

To me it is a lot like Star Trek Online, a lot of fun for a game "on the side", not for my main MMO, i guess that's Cryptic, their games are a lot of fun but after a while you want to play something else for a change.

Anyway, here's my new hero, she is called Dawnblade, her main power is Dual blades, but i thought it would be fun to make her blind, hence the blindfold :)
And of course she can fly with the help of her "rocket boots".


Oh yeah, i also love the iPhone app for Champions, hope they're also gonna make one for Star Trek Online, definatly love that stuff :)

I really would like to play Alpha Protocol but..

Sometimes i come across a game that doesn't work very well with my 3840x1024 screen resolution, unfortianatly Alpha Protocol is one of those.

Eventhough the game works, it's menu screens are partially off screen, meaning i can't click anything to agree or like in the screenshot below, can't select a class to play.


Usually i get by this by selecting a smaller screen resolution, like for example Mass Effect (1&2) they both have the same problem where the menu buttons were off screen, but i selected a 1280x1024 resolution and i could play the game, not the way i would like but at least i could play.

Alpha Protocol however, i can't even change the resolution, as i can't get to the button to accept a new resolution (if there is one)


There is also no option to change the resolution before starting the game, even messing around with the games .Ini files did nothing as the game just started up in 3840x1024 resolution.

To all game developers, is it so hard to at least make a menu screen that adapts to the screen resolution, no matter what it is, so that you can get to all options...

Looks like, unless they fix this, which is very unlikely as not many gamers would have this problem, i won't be able to play any Alpha Protocol, so i just wasted 50 Euros..

Into the Gateway to Khitai

Tianyi finally made it to the Gateway to Khitai, after reaching lvl 20 i started the "end battle" at Tortage and went on my way.
I did decide to speed up the leveling by using some xp potions, as i allready went to Tortage several times and i didn't really feel like doing it all again, eventhough some of the storylines are different depending on the class you play, so as soon as i could i started the quest that lets you leave Tortage and go to your homecountry.

I was actually surprised to see a ton of quests to start there, as i didn't see any quests when i went there with my (instant) lvl 50 character (named Hsiumei), so no wonder i felt lost with her as there were no quests to lead me on, all i could do was continue on the destiny quest.

When i got there with Tianyi and got all those quests the whole thing finally started making sense, as the basic story is that the caravan you're travelling with stops because they see another caravan that has been attacked and you're basicly going out there to help them.

Although there is a lot of lag at the Gateway to Khitai, it sure is refreshing to see some new areas/surroundings.
I also decided to go with another class when i created Tianyi, so far i have mostly played my main, who is a barbarian, which i think is a really fun class, but with Tianyi i decided to try out a guardian, and i have to say so far that's a lot of fun, i definatly prefer to use a polearm, but i think i might give some other weapons a try.

So far i really like the melee classes a lot more than the magic classes, personally i really feel the melee classes are more "Conan", but that's just personal i guess.

Another thing i am still hoping for in AoC is an appearance tab/appearance armor, so that you can look the way you want to look and still use the "good stats" armor, and at least look a bit (more) different than everyone else, right now you wander around in game and you constantly see people running around in the exact same armor as you are wearing, sometimes it feels like you're in the army where everyone wears the same uniform.
And no, i don't think PvP is an argument against appearance armor as i am on a PvE server.

Meet Tianyi, Khitan Guardian

Say hi to Tianyi, a Khitan Guardian, my latest character in AoC. :)
She is not the first Khitan character i created, i made a Demonologist first and decided to use the (one time only) instant level 50 option and ended up in Khitai.

It just didn't feel right playing her, being thrown into a class i really haven't played much at lvl 50 just didn't do it for me, so i decided to roll a new character and start at Tortage as lvl 1.

So far i am having a blast, although i can't wait to leave Tortage (allready reached lvl 17) and head out to Khitai, from what i have seen so far it looks pretty good.
The only bad thing is, there's way to many people in Khitai at the moment so the lag is awefull :(

Anyway a few more levels and i am off to Khitai :)

WTF Funcom?

Today i got a very surprising email from Funcom, they decided to freeze (cancel) my account because i had not paid the upgrade for the collectors edition of Rise of the Godslayer.
Now i pay this by using their "Pay by Cash" service and it didn't go through yet, nor did i get a message about this.

The main thing that pisses me off here is the fact that i have a paid account, paid for a full year that still runs to Dec 2010, so at least 6 more months.
I also allready paid for the "normal" Rise of the Godslayer expansion, i just added the collectors edition.
I would have understand it if they would have simply disabled the expansion for my account but instead they decided to simply freeze my entire account, which i f'ing paid for in advance..

Now i know it can be easily fixed, and i did by sending payment for the expansion, but i still believe they have no right to shut down my entire account when it is paid for in advance.
Really not a nice move, especially since i got no previous warnings about the payment not going through.
I would have been ok with just the expansion being turned off, afterall that was the only thing not fully paid yet.

Not a nice move.. not nice at all...

Gaming in 3840x1024 resolution on 3 monitors

For some time now i have been playing with a screen resolution of 3840x1024 and i have to say i am never going back, i really feel like i am missing out when playing on a smaller resolution :)



Sometimes i do get a game that doesn't support a resolution like this or the game simply won't work properly because of menu screens extending beyond the resolution so i can't click on the "ok" button (like Mass Effect does). But i am glad to see that most games nowadays do support those resolution. I am aware that i am probably one of very few gamers that play with resolutions this big so i really think it is awesome when a game supports it.

So how do i manage to get a big resolution like this across 3 screens?
Well pretty easy, i am using the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition.


Basicly this little device sits between your monitor(s) and your PC and it makes Windows think that this is just one monitor (Windows only sees one monitor).
There is some software coming with this device, so that you can make a game compatible with resolutions like this but most games nowadays will just give the option to set it to a 3840x1024 resolution.

What else am i using to power this rig, well i have an Nvidia GTX295 in there with an Intel core 2 quad processor and 4 gigs of memory, I also used to have an Ageia Physx card in there but with that GTX295 i felt it was kind of overkill.


Just to be able to use the max amount of ram and make use of Directx 10 i recently upgraded from WinXP to Win7 and i have to say i am really enjoying Win7.

Of course i also added some stuff to make the rig look cool :)


For a full rundown of all components (if you are interrested in that) you can go here and see a full list of all my gaming gear.

Needless to say it is a lot of fun gaming with a resolution like this, the view is somtimes breathtaking, not to mention the fact that i can have many (inventory) windows open without them obscuring my view, this of course is especially helpfull in MMO's.

For the first 15 to 30 minutes i really had to get used to this, because all of a sudden you see a lot of movement in front of you, you basicly look at the center screen and the two other screens kind of act like the corners of your eyes, and you basicly get what Matrox calls surround gaming, really makes it feel like real life where you can see in the corner of your eyes, but it also takes a little time to get used to as sometimes it feels like everything is moving in front of your eyes, so if you get motion sickness this might not be the setup for you.

Right now i am limited to a 3840x1024 resolution because i am using three 19inch (1280x1024) monitors, but i am allready looking at possibilities to get even bigger resolutions/monitors :)

Free Roaming

Lately i have been having a lot of fun again in games like Just Cause 2 and Saints Row 2 and it really made me think about what it is that i am enjoying so much in them.
Well it basicly came down to "free roaming". Having a huge world at your disposal and go wherever you want to go to explore or do whatever you want to do.

I also think this is one of the main reasons for me to play MMO's, having this huge world to explore and have adventures in, however in MMO's you are often limited by levels, which i think is a major dissapointment.

It has happend often to me, that i would wonder of into the world to explore only to suddenly find myself surrounded by mobs that can one shot me, kill me on sight. Of course than starts the (very) annoying task of trying to get out of there in one piece, back to an area where my character can actually survive.

I really wish MMO's could be more "Free Roaming", no more levels (or everything scaled down/up to your level), so that you can actually explore everything and do whatever you like and enjoy the world for what it is, as i am pretty sure that all games have their areas, those moments where you actually stop what you're doing and enjoy what you are seing in front of you, without being constantly attacked.

I guess that is why i keep going back to games like Saints Row 2, so that i can actually enjoy a big world without boundaries, without level restrictions and just have fun, afterall isn't that why we play games?

Rise of the Godslayer

So we finally have a date (May 11th) on Rise of the Godslayer expansion for AoC.
I had allready pre-ordered the new expansion quite some time ago so i was kind of surprised to see this email message from Funcom:


Really think it is nice to get the option to upgrade my pre-order to the collectors edition, which wasn't available at the time i pre-ordered.
This isn't the first time i see this happen where i pre-order an expansion as soon as it's available only to see them come out with special/collectors editions later and i really hate having to go through the trouble of cancelling my order and then get the other one.

Needles to say i did take the offer since it was only a few euros extra and it also gave me 2 cool looking pets, and as you can read in the email they're also usefull pets as one bufs you and the other helps in fighting (can only have one out at the time though).
Can't wait to see what those tatoos look like :)
And the coolest part i get them for all my characters.