I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, nor have I quit WoW – it’s just that I’ve been pretty occupied lately. However, in order to not abandon this blog, here’s a quick roundup of what I’m playing at the moment.

L.A. Noire

Started. I like it a lot, sadly, I can’t find enough uninterrupted time to seriously advance in the story.

Dragon Age Saga

Bought all expansions to the original as well as Dragon Age II. Can’t find enough uninterrupted time to seriously continue.

World of Warcraft

Tried to level my Paladin out of Outland. Good times, but unfortunately, I currently can’t find enough uninterrupted time to… recognise a pattern yet?

Terraria

Bought it, love it. Don’t need much uninterrupted time, so that’s probably my most played game at the moment.

TES: Oblivion

Yep, good ol’ Oblivion. Purchased the German GotY version for my girlfriend, then felt the itch myself, re-purchased the English Deluxe GotY version for myself. Spent lots of uninterrupted time-slots on getting a good combination of mods to work with the Steam install, testing a new kind of modloader for a friend.

I’ll probably get back more into WoW once my girlfriend buys another gametime (or maybe I should gift her one) – but currently it’s a bit of a hiatus. What free time I have I tend to spend outside on my bike – still far behind my season schedule, or going out.

Since I’d rather post something instead of nothing for another two months, this blog might get slightly off-topic WoW, but still focus on casual gaming. After all, one of the hallmarks of a casual gamer is not being restricted on a single game.

There’ll probably be a few posts coming up about my observation of casual game styles, as for the first time I have another person beside me playing the same games. It’s quite fascinating and actually explains a lot about a few aspects in WoW (and other games) that completely baffled me before.

Anyway, it’s a bit disappointing that leveling has been streamlined so much. Just by completing all quest in Dustwallow Marsh I gained double as many levels as the zone is designed for. That of course leaves me with the question on what to do now.

Next up would be Eastern Plaguelands – a fun zone, completely revamped in Cataclysm. But I feel the need to change things up a bit, so switching characters is in order. My girlfriend has a mage as main, so toying around with my mage would be an option in order to give better advice. Then again, those would be essentially the same zones I just finished. My paladin is at 70, ready to mop up the last quests in Outland. And her alt is a paladin as well.

On the other hand, I had a dream last night about playing my deathknight – fresh into Outland. Taking a different path than my paladin, that would be a new adventure as well.

Desicions, decisions. Any insights or should I let fate (and some dice) decide?

Enough excuses – not playing WoW for the last few weeks (except for an evening with my Priest in Southern Barrens), what did I miss? What didn’t I miss?

First off, I think this shows one of the advantages of not being in a proper guild: No pressure to come playing when you don’t really have the time or motivation. Sure, my leveling slowed down, but with no running auctions there is no reason to force myself to play. No guild runs, no raids, no events. So my handling of my character may even be a bit rusty, or at least not improved, but really, soloing quests when most of them are already below my level isn’t that hard, ever. I might need some warm-up before tackling instances again, but that’s it.

That said, there still are a few things I miss.

I miss WoW. There a certain comforting routine to it, that helps me settling down after a day in the office.

I miss the hunt for rare spawns and new companions. I’m a collector, even if the collection isn’t that impressive.

I miss the story. Finding out what happened since the Cataclysm, exploring the changed zones or venturing into the complete unknown (for me). The Cataclysm quests are all very well done, so I really want to see how things turn out.

So, yeah, I miss WoW. And I’ll be back to Azeroth as soon as I can.

Saga posted a report about a project over at the MMOMeltingPot. Basically, get every MMO Blogger on a Google map and look at the result. I know that I am always fascinated by my Google statistics where my visitors come from (both referral site and RL location), so I’m going to participate.

Spread the word, let’s fill this map!

Let’s see what I have to show for the last two weeks:

Perma Peddle
Expensive, but at least not luck dependent. I really don’t like the look of the pet though.

Charming

Comes naturally when trying for the other achievements.

Nation of Adoration

Initially victim of the Cataclysm, Blizzard fixed it just in time.

Sweet Tooth

I love chocolate.

Dangerous Love

It took a while for the mission to spawn in Duskwood, for a while I thought I was out of luck and had to travel to Hillsbrad.

The Rocket’s Pink Glare

Fun, but lag inducing. Fortunately most people got theirs early on so the rocket launching was pretty light later on.

Shafted!

Also fun, even if maybe a bit annoying.

Be Mine!

You won’t believe how many boxes I had to buy for that last missing candy…

However, there were two achievements I didn’t get:

Lovely Luck Is On Your Side

I ran out of lucky charms, out of time and out of energy to farm more. Plus I didn’t have any luck with the two dress boxes I bought, so this will have to wait until next year.

Flirt With Disaster

Alright, I was just too lazy to travel to Ironforge and get all the requisites.

So only two not achieved out of the ones I can reasonably get at level 32 – 36. Was it fun, overall, though? I still think that the world events are a bit annoying. But this one is alright. Most of the achievements are fairly easy to do, you get Lucky Charms while soloing anyway and need to get back to Stormwind for the dailies. Next up is Noblegarden, which will require a bit more work but was a lot of fun last year.

At any rate, I’m quite happy with how this years Valentine Day turned out, both in-game and in real-life.

However, currently there is a lot going on in real-life, so my gametime has been significantly reduced. Questing through half a zone? Nope. Soloing near level-appropriate instances? Nope. Grinding Archaeology? Well, I think I could make time for that…

But what do you do if you only got half an hour or an hour tops? Dailies!

Even better: Do the world event dailies! Getting enough lovely charms for the present should also progress your current zone nicely and turn in a few ‘real’ quests along the way. Fishing and cooking dailies are also quite relaxing and offer some sense of accomplishments while you draw nearer to the various associated achievements.

That said, if I do have my usual amount of time, I usually don’t do dailies. It’s funny, but I really feel like they’re not really playing the game but more a stop-gap measure while you wait for something. But as that, they work perfectly.

I find it kind of hilarious – I’m usually not one to participate in world events (save for Noblegarden), but the one time I think to myself “well, nothing better to do, let’s go hunt some achievements” – they’re bugged. It started with not being able to buy anything from the vendors. Okay, so maybe there’s something weird going on and Worgen can’t buy these thing in Darnassus. But the same happens in Stormwind.

Never mind, let’s go and do the Nation of Adoration dailies. High Priestess? Check. Prophet? Check. King Wrynn? Check. King Bronzebeard? Uhh… no, not really.

The reason I find this pretty funny instead of annoying: There are certain achievements that I couldn’t complete with this character anyway, so the meta is out of reach no matter what. Still, it surprises me how many bugs there are in the world events year after year. I think that they actually do fix all these bugs – but until the next iteration comes around, so many other details in the world have changed (if you can call the Shattering a ‘detail’) that their fixes just aren’t up to date any more.

Anyway, the event runs almost two more weeks, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that Blizzard fixes it in time. Even if not – it’ll be there next year.

There is a trip down memory lane straight to nostalgia valley ahead, so feel free to skip this post in case that isn’t your thing. Also, pointless rambling.

My first contact with the world of computers was an ancient (then brand new) Schneider CPC that my dad brought home from the office. He used it mainly to write scientific papers, but naturally a few games found their way on floppy discs. (Years later, there’d be an expensive hard drive with, I think, two whole MB storage!) He even wrote simple games for me himself, mostly math games, or mastermind clones.

The first real gaming PC was an intel, again, brought home from the office for work reasons. And as long as he didn’t need the PC, I could play – games he brought home. He even joined in on occasion, mostly for the old MS flight simulators. My mother, though, didn’t understand computers (back then, mind you, now she’s really computer-savvy!). That didn’t keep her from sharing the experience, watching us play and generally accepting it as a ‘toy’ for me. Of course, that was when the internet was still a myth, so the WoW typical problem of “can’t you just pause the game?” never came up.

A few games though, both really got into: The old Hero’s Quest (re-named to Quest For Glory later) and Space Quest sagas by Sierra. We spent literally whole nights together in front of the computer, fighting goblins, solving puzzles and finishing the story. Also, that meant by the time English was introduced as a foreign language at school, I already spoke quite a bit. Well, read a bit of it. With much guessing. But boy, was it an incentive to really learn the language!

Treasured moment of the era: Visiting my grandparents (some 800 kilometres up north), returning home after a few weeks and finding… a hand drawn map of the whole game-world of Quest For Glory, painstakingly explored by my dad and mapped out with little graphics and notes by my mom. I used that for each and every re-play of the game until it, sadly, fell apart.

Internet gaming really came into my life almost a decade later with the advent of Counterstrike. In the meantime, though, friends would often visit, bringing their PCs with them and connecting first via serial cable and later via hub and switches. So again, the concept of “pixels on-screen can be people in a different room” came quite naturally. My dad’s office at the university was already fully connected, so no problem there.

Enter the internet age. Granted, it was a very, very difficult time to get a modem running. Or later the switch to ISDN. However by the time DSL came around, she welcomed it, because that would mean more than two concurrent lines available. Enter the Counterstrike Mania. Both my parents took the time to learn about the basic goals and gameplay, and as my best friend and neighbour was the one I spent most time online with, leading our clan, they soon also saw the team-play / sports-like aspects of it.

That was also the time where a few school killings happened in Germany, which were (of course, and please don’t get me started on that topic) linked to Counterstrike. Yes, my parents talked about that, but we all agreed that I was mentally stable and mature enough, and besides, by that time, it was also more of a competitive sport for me.

I think that this mindset, ‘it’s more of a sport, really’, clicked – after a few short explanations, both would wait for the current round to be finished when asking me to do something. And the reasoning ‘I’m in the middle of a league match’ even meant two uninterrupted hours, except for emergencies.

Big moment of the era: Going out for dinner, then a walk with the dog, having a great time. And then my mother says: “We should hurry, didn’t you have a league match in half an hour?”. And she was right and I’d have completely forgotten.

Funny moment: Getting a call from a co-leader, when I wasn’t home. My mom answered, so of course he told her his proper name. Later she would ask me, who this guy was. I shrugged and said “Redwolf from our clan”. Her reaction? “Oh, he could’ve just said that, that would’ve been less confusing.”

Which brings me to my parents and World of Warcraft. Again, the groundwork was laid back when I played Ultima Online. But I think they both ‘get’ it. My mom even reads this blog from time to time and asks if I’ve taken any more pictures of that world or what the game is like or if I already got the new expansion.

So, the point of this pointless and rambling post?

Mom, dad, you’re the best parents a boy growing up into the computer and internet age could have wished for.

Also, look, a picture! I just love the new Stormwind park area.

click for full size

The answer, of course, is “No, I don’t”. But then, Alt-Z’ing the UI hides some information I do want. Like, how many more fish do I need to catch? Alright, so the sounds of QuestGuru help with that, but still. Or a glimpse of the minimap would be nice – the least intrusive UI element there is.

So, I finally headed back to Kong and installed and configured it. Really, a video would be best to explain how it works, but instead, I made a few screenshots showing it in action.

Click to enlarge!

Travel mode - most of the UI is hidden

Mouseover the QuestGuru frames

Casting mode - Unit frames unhidden and action bars partially visible

Combat mode - all bars and frames visible

Back to travel mode - note that all popups open with 100% alpha

One thing to note is that you have to set it up completely yourself, but it’s very easy to do so. All you need is the frames you want to edit open on your screen – the rest is done with a few clicks.

Travel speed?

Yes, definitely that last one. It already hit me back when I started out on going from a character that had riding back to one travelling by foot. More recently, from 100% ground speed back to a paltry 60%. And now, from a level 70 flying Paladin back to a level 43 Hunter.

The interesting thing is, though, I miss flying. No wait, that’s not surprising. It’s that most of the time I don’t miss flying. Except when I want to get to an auction house. Or to a class trainer. Or go do the fishing dailies in Stormwind. See, I’m questing in Thousand Needles (a completely revamped zone that’s well worth a visit, by the way). Before that I was in Feralas. Have a look at the flight path connection to, oh, Darnassus. Okay, you say, you don’t have to go to Darnassus, the dailies are in Stormwind anyway. That ship sails off at Ruth’eran Village. See? That’s two minutes less travel time!

Of course, you could also go to Theramore, cross to Menethil Harbour, then Ironforge – and if you want the dailies, take the tram to Stormwind. Or Ratchet, Booty Bay, Stormwind. Common to all these travel plans is that the flight paths take extreme detours – getting from the Speedbarge to Theramore by taxi takes approximately five times longer than necessary, simply because you travel via Feralas.

So yes, I bloody do miss flying. When I just want to sell stuff at the auction house, get training or do dailies. Or dig up old stuff.

But during questing? Riding is so much more immersive. No more “get quest, take off, land at the precise spot, kill NPC, take off, land, turn in”. That kind of thing really was a bit of an immersion breaker. A time saver, yes, but it wasn’t so much fun any more. Now, riding, figuring out if I can sneak by those mobs or if I should fight them, trying to find my way to a hard to reach spot or resource node – that’s fun.

Granted, learning the flying skill is a huge milestone, even more so artisan flying and beyond. It’s a symbol for the career of the character. But even so, my ground mounts won’t rot forgotten in the stable.