I’ve been hyped for this since day one.

Click for an incredibly rare photograph of me dancing. Yeah that’s right, I don’t use any mods.

Finally.

After several months, I transformed from a measly level 36 warrior with a sword into an awesome level 37 warrior with a mace! I’m talking about World of Warcraft of course. Is it obvious that I don’t play that much? I never became addicted to the game like some, so while I have my health, I don’t have a mount. It’s a win/lose situation for me. Running everywhere is becoming tedious!

That should all change relatively soon. I’ve renewed my subscription, and my quest buddy Davu Chike is playing again as well. Too weak to quest on my own for now (at least for the quests I want to complete in the Arathi Highlands), I’m helping him out, which helps me out. He’s a level 32 warlock, and I’m assisting him in the completion of his newly obtained quests in the previously mentioned Arathi Highlands. Once we acquire our mounts, everything will be smooth sailing from there. I heard that levels 30-40 seemed the longest and most boring, and that notion seems to be true for us.

Taken August 16th, 2007, around Midnight. I don’t know any of these people. We all just sat down at a random campfire. I was a level 35 then. I’ve only leveled twice since!

I’ve owned the Burning Crusade expansion since day one, and yet I am not even close to really utilizing it, other than the Netherwhelp dragon that likes to follow me around. My only goal is for everyone to tell legends of the guild they call The Nubonic Plague! With only two members in it though, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Ok, I lied. I’m not too weak to quest on my own, because in the middle of this post, I loaded up the game to take a couple of screenshots, and I decided to try the Stromgarde Badges quest since I am a bit stronger now. I was successful! I just used my rifle to lure out one enemy at a time. I did have help with one opponent from a level 70 warlock, but I totally didn’t need it . I got a little bit too cocky though. A couple of Horde rolled in and started killing foes left and right, so I started attacking a bunch of enemies too to get some extra experience, figuring they would assist me (I know, they’re filthy Horde, but I have met a couple of cool ones.), and that they did. Problem is, I started fighting a Conjurer with her Minion, along with a couple of Thieves shortly afterwards, and my Horde pals decided to go AFK. I quickly perished, reviving at the Spirit Healer and then turning in my quest for a nice 4400 XP. I haven’t completed a quest in quite some time, so I was shocked at how much blue filled up my bar. It made me feel like I did in the good ‘ole days.

From the same campfire as above.

Is it possible? Will Spore actually be released September 7th worldwide, for the PC, Mac, DS, and mobile phones? According to EA and Maxis it will be. The man behind the game, Will Wright says “The wait is almost over. We’re in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can’t wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year.”

Here is the official press release:

“Get ready for the next Big Bang this fall! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Maxis today announced that Spore™, the highly anticipated game from the creators of The Sims™, will be available at retailers worldwide the weekend of September 7. Spore will be available for the PC, Macintosh, Nintendo DS™, and mobile phones.

“The wait is almost over,” said Maxis Chief Designer Will Wright. “We’re in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore, and the team at Maxis can’t wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year.”

Spore gives players their own personal universe in a box. Create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore a universe created by other gamers. Spore gives players a wealth of creative tools to customize nearly every aspect of their universe: creatures, vehicles, buildings, and even UFOs. Players can then seamlessly share their creations with the world or explore infinite new galaxies created by other gamers.

Consumers can visit www.spore.com to sign up for the Spore newsletter or check out all-new screenshots and video of the game. Members of the media can visit EA’s press site at www.info.ea.com for information about all of EA’s games.”

I love stuff like this.

As part of the Love is in the Air event in World of Warcraft, Weighted Companion Cubes from Portal (if you didn’t already know that I will incinerate you) have been seen in such locations as Stormwind and Undercity. It’s always good to see an old friend, especially after euthanizing them ^_^

I really need the plush to comfort me.
 
 
 
Thanks to WOW Insider

You know how when you’re really scared, like seeing what you thought was just a mannequin leave its post in Condemned, or wondering why you can’t back up in BioShock only to turn around and see a splicer blocking your path? And you either pause the game to take a breather and gather your bearings, or you beat the hell out of them in a frenzy of fear with your 2×4/wrench and then pause the game to gather your bearings? Well, in EA’s upcoming Dead Space, this technique to ease the tension and give us enough time to turn on the lights/change underwear may not be an option at all. To force players to deal with the scary situations the survival horror presents, EA may omit this luxury completely, a decision sure to stir up controversy.

It is important to note that there are no menus in this game that stop time like in a lot of titles. Being ravished to death by a tentacled monster and wanting to administer a health pack as your enemy is in freeze-frame is not possible. You’ll either have to escape or continue fighting, for your inventory is simply a hologram display in front of your face, with your monster friends lurking in real-time behind it.

Initially, this may sound like one of the cool new immersive ideas that developers are always trying to come up with to entice gamers into the purchase of their game, but there are those obvious negative aspects to this controversial design decision too. Receiving a phone call, the ringing of a doorbell, spilling your drink on the carpet, family member possibly dying etc. are all excellent reasons to pause one’s game. What if you’re fighting a boss and any one of these incidents occur? Do you let your character die? Continue fighting? Maybe answer the door while mashing buttons in hope of defeating the boss anyways (thank god for wireless)? All reasonable questions that can be avoided by enabling players to pause the game. Granted, you have the Guide button on the 360, but that doesn’t always work. What about the Home button on the PS3 controller? Who knows. What I do know is that if enough people bitch about this (I guarantee you many will) then it’ll be something EA stops considering. I personally think it could be cool, but there have been many times where some jerk calls me in the middle of a game’s cinematic/climatic moment, and being able to pause made me a very happy gamer.

I still think they should do it, even if it doesn’t work out for the best and it pisses a ton of people off.
 
 
 

Thanks to CVG

I recently signed up with FigurePrints after discovering it through a recent Penny Arcade post. For those of you scared to click strange links, FigurePrints is basically a site that takes your World of Warcraft character and makes a fully 3D replica figurine out of it, and sends it to you in a nice glass case so you can display it and show all your friends and family how much of a friggin’ nerd you are. Since each one is hand crafted though, you cannot simply purchase one. You have to enter into a drawing, and if picked, you are able to have one made for a total of around $114.90 (including shipping).

How do they know what your character looks like? Well, their server takes your latest character data from the World of Warcraft Armory, and then you pose it however you like, and then a 3D statue is made with their machines, and the rest of the work is finished by an artist. Pretty cool huh?

And yes, laugh at my character all you like. Laugh at my pathetic Mining and Blacksmithing abilities. I haven’t played for months, and I usually take long breaks as I never became one of those addicts although I do enjoy the game. I know that is no excuse for my weak skill set, but still.

Hopefully I can have one made soon! I need to get back into the game, but I’ll have to pay money that I need for other stuff right now.