Sober Geek

Hm..

Hey guys. Long time no see. /distribute apologies

I’ll be back up soon. Promise.

[damn you, Bethesda!]

fireworks.

I got a txt from my WoW friend that there were fireworks in Stormwind coming up in 15 minutes. So I popped on for the show. I thought it was a WoW seasonal event but it was actually a role-playing event put on by players. A bunch of people showed up to watch and it was amazing how coordinated it all was. :)

3D monitor

My Alienware 3D monitor came in last night. Forgetting my adaptor for my usual machine, I had to play WoW on an older laptop with low end graphics…  but the minute I put the glasses on after installing the drivers..

AMAZING!

I can’t explain how incredible 3D makes gaming. When people first hear about it, they seem to assume “Oh it’s just stuff popping out at you. So gimicky.”  But it’s nothing like that at all!

The depth vision is what really, really transforms games into reality. World of Warcraft came to life last night. I actually felt like I was there. Seriously. I could see how far things were, how tall a ceiling was. My mount came out of the screen. The gryph’s wings when I was flying felt like they were going to hit me in the face. When I put it in first person view and walked slowly into the inn after a friend’s suggestion, I was speechless. And when I looked behind me, I could see far into the forest that was outside the door. Just..amazing.

Can’t wait to see what it’s like with my usual machine tonight…  my new PC should be here sometime this week as well. I should just take a month off from work and barricade myself in my room haha!

Thankfully so many games are already compatible with the 3d nvidia vision. And they don’t need patches for it to work either. Here’s an official list so far: http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-3d-games.html   — I can’t wait to try other games out… I can’t even imagine what Mass Effect will look like. Mirrors Edge.. Portal…Oblivion..  ahhh!

I wish I could actually share the experience somehow.. but you really just have to experience it for yourself. If they have set ups at Best Buy or somewhere, you have to try it out. You’ll never look at 2D games the same way. 

new rig.

Finally bit the bullet and ordered a new, custom machine last night! I’m so excited!! I stumbled upon a great one for the $$ and couldn’t resist :)

i7 930 processor 3.6 GHz, 6 GB RAM, 1.5 TB drive, Nvidia 470 GTX 1.5 GB SLI ready, Gigabyte X8A-UD5 Motherboard w/ SATA III and USB 3.0 support, heatsink, fan controller/LCD, all-in-one card reader, etc. Also ordered the Alienware 3D monitor w/ Nvidia Vision Kit. Hopefully all should be here next week! :) I’ve been so overdue for a machine that can run games smoothly… will be such a relief, even just to have a nice FPS in Azeroth hehe.

// weekend round up // 9.19 - 9.20 //

I had a nice weekend juggling marathons of Halo: Reach and WoW. Reach has been really fun to play so far. The new additions to multiplayer have been great and addicting as Halo 3 was. So far I think my favorite new feature for MP would be the Firefight mode, where up to four people act as a team to defeat enemies that come in waves [rounds] with different map options. The campaign has been fun too. I started it with a couple of friends but since we were usually in conversation, I couldn’t concentrate on the storyline much. So the next morning I started up a solo campaign and I think I have the gist of it. Although I miss playing as Master Chief, I love that you can customize you: the main character. Choices include a wide variety of armor (upgrades “for show” using a point system), colors/symbol, voice, and a choice between a male or female character. I can’t wait to play more this week!

WoW has been fun too..  I leveled up to 78 last night while exploring all of Northrend for the “explorer” achievement with the tabard award. During the day I quested with my “bff” WoW buddy who I’ve been playing the game with for five years. We did a few 5 man dungeons and checked out Pirate Day in Booty Bay:

When he took a break, I jumped into a random dungeon [Violet Hold] and the group turned out to be one of the bad ones. I wasn’t getting proper heals from the priest nor was the tank. She had full mana so I politely asked for heals as I was below half of my health. None came so I backed away from the boss and asked for heals again. “Sky shut up,” she said. “Eat some food.”

“I can’t eat during combat. Do you want me to kill this boss or be a food critic? ”  Haha! Bad pugs are never fun. I had one before where the tank ran into mobs, pulling 2 or 3 at a time thinking he could handle it. Nobody was talking on the group chat and when someone did, it was usually disrespectful yelling. The group wiped four times without getting past one mob [thank god Rogues have Vanish!]. I told them good luck getting past one mob without dying and left the dungeon. There’s nothing better than a great tank who can make sure everyone is ready and hold all the aggro…  but there’s nothing worse than a big ego wielding tank who acts like he’s in the dungeon alone. 

But besides the two bad groups, I had a great time playing all day! I also finally purchased the flying training so I could soar in Northrend. It makes traveling so much easier :)

I also preordered the Collector’s Edition of the next WoW expansion. I’ve always gone with the CE edition as I’m a sucker for extra stuff! While I was ordering, I noticed there was a CE of Final Fantasy XIV, the new MMORPG coming out in a week.. so I preordered that too.

I honestly haven’t checked into it too much but after watching some trailers and gameplay videos, I was intrigued! Although I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan, I never played FFXI Online when it was out but I remember watching a friend play it from back in the day. But after talking to my WoW friend, he mentioned there was a controversy about FFXIV being made in China and the Japan team covering it up. Apparently since they’re running it, you’ll be restricted to hours of game time, censorship, etc. It was hard to believe when he said that..  and I haven’t looked into it yet to see if that’s actually true. I just can’t see a FF game doing that, especially with its immense popularity and success. I downloaded the beta and hope to check that out soon.

It will also be hard to juggle that with WoW…  I was on Lord of the Rings: Online for a few years but ultimately cancelled because I couldn’t put enough time into it. I have hopes for FF, though..  with Nobuo’s music how can you go wrong? 

My God of War discs came in… I was able to get all three for under 30 dollars via Gamefly. I embarrassingly enough never really played them.. only watched friends play a bunch back in college… can’t wait to finally get on the bandwagon :)  

Back to work… :(

Stressy stress stress.

It’s September again and that means work is usually stressful for me. The transition from summer to fall is like going from 0 to 100 mph. The phone is off the hook, emails are pouring in, and stickie notes make nests around my monitor. When the clock ticks 5, I fly out of here as fast as I can to those pajamas waiting for me at home. I get a couple hours of downtime, head to bed, and before I know it it’s the the next morning waking me up to do it all again.

Needless to say, after a few days of this I get a little crazy.

But… there are always ways to cope. I like to turn to gaming. Whether it be during my lunch break or in the comfiness of my room at home, I can always escape through a game.

So yesterday in particular was a higher point than usual on the Richter scale of stress for me. I have had World of Warcraft on my mind the past few weeks but had yet to open it up to play again. I know some people despise it but I love the game.. I don’t play it just for quests as I also love the community and RP. Very nerdy, I know :)  I’ve met a lot of wonderful people over the past few years and have made some long lasting friendships. August marked the fifth year anniversary that I’ve been playing WoW. Although I haven’t been diligently addicted as I once was the first few years of playing, I still have my spurts of playing from time to time. I call it “the itch” :)

Well, it’s been getting itchy again and after the hell of yesterday, I launched the game at my desk when work ended. I ran around for about an hour, did a few quests in Northrend, hearthed back to Stormwind, walked around, chatted with some people, changed my hair style, signed off, and went home.

I can’t tell you how much better I felt! It felt so nice to escape this world and go back to being a sneaky, masked rogue for an hour, riding around the forest on my giant cat. The subtle music in the background, the ambience sounds of the wind and trees…  all transforming me into a place where no one was emailing me, no one was calling me, and everyone saw me as this dagger wielding little rogue, not some tech support robot in jeans fixing laptops.

Below is an old screenshot when the Burning Crusade expansion had just come out and I was seeing the Outlands for the first time. It was so much fun to just ride around alone and with friends. I remember how fascinating the sky was to us as we snapped screenshots upon screenshots of it.

It’s fun to sit down and play a game to have good time and complete objectives but for me it’s SO therapeutic to also immerse yourself in the story, the surroundings, and the character. That goes for any well made game…even when I’m firing off my guns in Call of Duty with friends online.

I know not many people follow my blog right now… but for those who do (and thank you!) :

• What games help YOU with stress? 
• Do you have certain games you can get immersed in? Which ones? 

Please comment below! :)

0 Comments

Sorry geeks..this sober geek has been a sick geek lately :(   WIll get back to posting again soon!!