My girlfriend sent me an email a few days ago that was amazing.  I won’t bore you any more with the intro, here is the email:

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

VS.

MY GIRLFRIEND.

BY TYLER CURRY

- - - -

I’ve had a lot of time to think about our last conversation, particularly since you ended it by ramming a keyboard through my monitor. I understand that we were both upset at the time and perhaps we said some things we didn’t mean. Well, maybe you more than me, considering I mostly just listened to you shriek and cowered in the corner.

I do not think I am, as you so eloquently screamed, “addicted to World of Warcraft.” I have, however, made a number of unfortunate mistakes, for which I would like to apologize.

I’m sorry I was so late picking you up from the library. I didn’t know they locked the doors at 8, and I’m sorry you had to stand outside alone for two hours. If it makes you feel better, despite its reputation to the contrary, that portion of the city does not have a violent-crime rate significantly above the national average.

You have to consider the position I was in. I was healing for a party with five players in it, all of whom were counting on me to help them defeat Mekgineer Thermaplugg and liberate the Gnomish city of Gnomeregan. Those are the needs of five people, in contrast to just yours, alone. (Note that I’m not even counting the needs of the Gnomish people here, Ashley.) As Spock once famously said, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.” You were that one.

Had I looked outside and noticed the freezing rain, I may have made a different decision. Probably not, though.

I’m also sorry I posted those pictures of you on my guild forums, the ones I took when you were passed out. I had no idea they could Photoshop your bra off. That was poor judgment on my part, and I freely admit it. I also should have told you before the chain letter went out. On the bright side, you hated working there anyway.

I also have some things to say that I think you should hear, and, since you forgot to pause long enough for me to speak before your charming little bout of property damage and subsequent stormy departure, I would like to say them now.

Ashley, you have never been willing to accommodate my World of Warcraft needs, or even to compromise the slightest bit.

Last month, when your mother was in a car accident, you called and not only demanded I drive you to the hospital but insisted I stay there to provide “emotional support”—despite knowing full well that I had booked that evening off to fight forest trolls in Zul’Aman. When I suggested you take a cab and that I join you in three to four hours, you unleashed a string of expletives that even my therapist found disturbing. You also refused to wait until we finished off the eagle boss, the one who drops the helm piece I have been trying to get for months.

For the record, she turned out fine anyway. Many paraplegics lead rich and rewarding lives.

Also, what you stumbled upon me doing with that Level 64 blood elf in the back room of the Silvermoon City Inn was neither “sick and perverted” nor “cheating on you.” We were role-playing. That I called you by her character’s name later that evening was just a weird coincidence. I do not wish your body looked like that. You and I both know that it’s physically impossible for humans to have those proportions, at least while retaining all of their internal organs.

However, in the midst of your raging diatribe, sandwiched between the curses and the flailing limbs, you made some very good points. In fact, the words you spoke about commitment, loyalty, and “being there when someone needs you” have sort of inspired me.

Ashley, when I gave you that ring and pledged to spend my life with you, what I didn’t mention was that, eight months prior, in the Level 10 quest “For the Horde,” I had already pledged eternal fealty and service to Warchief Thrall.

Now, with the gates of Ahn’Qiraj opening and the threat of the Silithid invasion looming over Azeroth, the call has gone out for all able-bodied members of the horde to band together in the great war effort. An event like this only happens once in a server’s life, and I cannot honorably abandon my online brethren in this hour of need. I understand that you need me to be there for you, but, Ashley, the truth is, right now, the horde just needs me more.

So it has been a few weeks since my last post.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. I canceled my EQ2 account and was waiting for the WAR open beta to begin for me. (Thanks again to Landuran who bought all the EQjunkies the game).

2. School started again.  For the fellow graduate students out there - you know what a complete time sink this is.

3. UPS & USPS can be annoying (details below)…

I did get a chance to play WAR beta for a few nights, maybe a total of 10 hours or so.  I had mixed feeling about it.  When you first start the game you have to wait through a couple of developer splash screens to come up and also click through two agreements every time you log in.  The annoyance of clicking these agreements has been well documented.

For me, the license thing is annoying, but it isn’t a game breaker.

Once you get into the game the graphics are refreshing.  They are kind of a cross between EQ2 (who goes for realism) and WoW (which is admittedly cartoonie).  The result is scenery that flows in the background and characters that look like a split between Conan (the movie, not the game) and Dragonball Z.  I really enjoy how my Blight Wizard looks like a bad ass. (I went for the spiked hair and a couple tattoos).

The game play in the noob zones (I only played for a few hours) is similar to other MMOs.  You are given some basic quests and are asked to perform some basic functions to get used to the game.  The main difference is the existence of open groups and open raids.  Basically, if you are in the same area as an open group/raid you can join without being invited and everyone works together.  What is really impressive is how seamlessly this works.

Now to why UPS/USPS is annoying - I still haven’t received my game in the mail.  Landuran, Greldor, and Myclawz all already got it.  Mine was shipped UPS, but they handed it off to USPS.  They are holding it hostage somewhere in PA and hasn’t moved in a couple days.  Consquently, I haven’t been able to log on and play (I am busy enough with school that it hasn’t bothered me all to much yet).

One last thing - my weekday posts won’t be back to normal for a couple more weeks.  I have a lot of homework to do & it is more or less consuming my life.

If you have some free time, I would recommend buying WAR and giving it a shot.

Wait, what?  As reported by a recent CNN article, it appears Microsoft is doing something that will help the customer and at the same time hurt them!

It appears that the beta version of Internet Explorer 8 has a new feature that is getting a lot of attention: InPrivateBlocking (Firefox is planning on releasing something similar…eventually).  The basic idea behind this is to take user invisibility on the web to the next level.  Instead of taking “cleanup” approaching of clearing user’s temporary files and cookies the browser doesn’t allow them to be downloaded in the first place.

The temporary files and cookies are what enable websites to track what sites you visit, what ads you click, how to market to you, and in some cases, allow the installation of spyware and malware - think of them as your internet fingerprints.  Microsoft’s move to give users this option is interesting because Microsoft’s own advertising software uses these internet fingerprints to target ads to you…they are hurting one of their businesses while improving another.

For the users this is a great option.  Internet anamolitity is something that, in the past, we could only dream about.  The idea of no one tracking where you went, what you viewed, and what you bought is refreshing.  What is the down side though?  For one - if this feature becomes popular the ads you see on sites will not be as revelant to what you actually like.  This isn’t the end of the world for the user, who typically ignores the ads anyway, but it could spell disaster for websites’ income.  As a result of lower revenue from ads sites might have to turn back to subscribition services, which I personally hate.

So do you mind sacrificing a little privacy to help make more of the web free or would you rather pay for things (with registration…and lose that privacy anyway) and not see as many ads?  Tough call.

CNN is reporting that Nintendo is being sued over their Wii remote.  Apparently they have violated 4 patents of another company by its design.

What really boggles my mind is that with all of these types of accusations, the prosecutors always wait until the product is really popular. I don’t know if anyone remembers when facebook got sued, or how about this one?

I mean, some lawsuits are valid, but the majority of them just seem to be gold diggers.

Hopefully Nintendo is able to settle this quickly and move on. It just seems like a waste of everyone’s time. Better yet, just buy the company like Microsoft does…

A little while ago Sony announced that EQ2 will have an integrated voice chat system. In the most recent game update (47)- it went live.

The Setup

The first thing I noticed when I logged in after the patch was the voice wizard that took me through how to setup everything. To my surprise, EQ2 handled my Logitech headset (use an amazon link to the side to support eqjunkies.com!) without any problems.

The Interface

The voice interface within the game was fairly nice. It has everything you need at your finger tips. It has the channel window, so you know what channels are available to you, and who is in them. This something that is really nice to have in game instead of in Ventrilo/Teamspeak; when you are grouping with people for the first time you can figure out who is who.

The Quality

The quality is on par with Ventrilo (which has better quality than TS in my opinion). I didn’t notice anything about the quality that was a drop off to me.

Troubleshooting

There were a few Mic/speaker settings that I had to tweak, but the “FIX” button seemed to do all the fixing automatically, which…is amazing. Maybe they should create a “FIX” button for other things too.

Final Thoughts

I am very impressed with the initial release of voice chat. This is a great baseline that they are starting from; I look forward to seeing what they do in the future with this.

With the slated release date of September 18th, Warhammer Online is fast approaching.  While the hype for this game has certainly matched the level that you would expect from a so-called “WoW Killer,” many folks are still questioning whether WAR will finally be the game that takes down Blizzard’s dominance in the MMO marketplace.

The bigger issue at hand, however, is not if the game succeeds - but rather, what if it fails?  WAR represents the last game “in the queue” for quite some time that could possibly stand a chance at competing with WoW.  If WAR follows in the footsteps of Age of Conan, it stands a chance to quickly fizzle as the critics tear any small problems to bits.  Indeed, if some of the comments coming out of the NDA release from closed beta hold true, it looks like WAR might actually provide some fairly large targets for the critics to hit.

Here’s hoping that Mythic has done their research and realzies what Warhammer Online can do for the MMO industry… and the consequences of an epic failure come launch time.