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Ok computer, it’s on June 2, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Instances, Rants, Technology, World of Warcraft , add a comment

After buying a new graphics card and then finding out that I don’t have the right slot for it. Simply put I made a bad assumption that my computer was built at all in a way that would allow it to be upgraded when in fact it seems more like they cut as many corners as they could. I was hoping to get a quick and cheap upgrade to my computer to keep it going till at least this time next year but it wasn’t to be. As I essentially spent £50 on something useless I decided that now would be a good time to do what I’ve been saying for a while that I would - build my own computer.

Doing some eBay based price research revealed that the cost of buying the parts to assemble myself came up to about the same amount as buying a computer of the spec I want but without the graphics card (or actually just with a not very good graphics card as all the ones I’ve seen have ones included), perhaps a little bit more. I figure that paying a bit more to get exactly what I want as well as the experience of putting it all together is worth it.

Todays raiding experience has highlighted the need for this new computer.

As I had not been experiencing the persistent crashes - the computer just restarts for no good reason, error report contains the most useless crap reason it pulled out of its “We dunno what happened so here is something random we noticed” bag - recently I kinda thought maybe they had fixed themselves, as these things sometimes do. Alas today I was shown this clearly wasn’t the case. Before the raid started I got the first restart, then again after releasing spirit after the first wipe and then a further time after just having got back into Serpentshrine Cavern (my first time in there, kinda cool, didn’t down any bosses but that’s the way it is sometimes) again after a wipe. This combined with the other graphics card bugs puts a level of urgency on a new computer.

Not to mention, <20fps looks fucking awful.

Cleaning up May 29, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gear, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Just finished an evening of Karazhan with the guild.  We had the people to do two simultaneous teams which is quite promising, we could maybe have pushed 22 or so people.  As such I got the rare event of being the only paladin in my raid which although isn’t normally a particularly uncommon thing I would imagine we have quite a few active paladins so I’m very rarely alone.

The run itself was a breeze, one shotted every boss and I picked up a couple of bits and pieces as well as badges of course. I didn’t pick up any straight upgrades and am still in desperate need of a new weapon, trinket and chest but its all good otherwise.  One thing I really do need is to enchant more of my gear, I really dislike enchanting generally because of the necessary requirement of having contact with the enchanter themselves. It’s just irritating finding a person who can do the enchant, giving them the materials etc.  I wish Blizzard would just hurry the hell up and implement auction house sellable enchants (which they showed they could do in the Arena tournament realms).

In other WoW news, I experience my first 25 man this week, Magtheridon’s Lair.  It would seem that during my time away from WoW my guild has progressed as far as downing the Tier 4 25 mans which is pretty cool really, I’m very pleased with the speed of our progress.  The only downside of this is that I’m starting to feel under geared again, as I was when I joined.  Before I went on my break I was actually one of the better geared healers in the guild, despite starting behind the others.  Now I’m a little bit behind although I’ve healed through the first 4 bosses of Zul’Aman and by the opinion of Be.Imba I shouldn’t even be able to perform at all.  I guess I must be alright at this healing malarkey after all.

Back to what I was actually going to talk about - my first experience of 25 man raiding was pretty chaotic, there was damage appearing everywhere and of course I’m just freaking out because I start to forget that there are 6 other healers helping me deal with it all.  I think I am, at heart, still a 5 man healer but it is being flushed out of me, albeit rather slowly.  We didn’t manage to down big ol Maggy but we were already trying to 22 man it so I’m not really disheartened.  We also didn’t get that many attempts on him because people were needing to go, I think a few more gos and we would have had him as all the problems that we had got dealt with very quickly generally.

I’m really enjoying the raiding with my guild and although I don’t really make any effort to make myself a part of the social side I do enjoy being in the company of the people in the guild.  A lot of them to remind me of the more ambitious people I knew in Runescape, I think there is some kind of hardcore inclined gamer stereotype which just pops up everywhere and it’s kinda interesting to see that here in quite a different environment.

WotLK-gasm May 9, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Gaming, Life, World of Warcraft , add a comment

As anyone who reads WoW news will know a whole bunch of Wrath of the Lich King news appeared today.  I’m not gonna go into it all as it’s really not necessary but it does make me excited for the new expansion.  It should make it easier for me to experience more raid content due to the 10/25 man modes and the new zones are looking pretty awesome from where I’m sitting.

It’s looking pretty sealed that I will be buying it when it comes out and probably playing WoW for quite a while yet although it’s difficult to know how much I will play until then.  I’m surprised by how little I am actually missing playing WoW.  What happens with me and gaming addictions (if you want to call it that, what I experience makes a real addiction look like a walk in the park but I’m not sure I can come up with a better word) is that if it is displaced with other things so that I keep busy then I don’t really have a problem.  That’s how I can go away on fun holidays without ever wanting to play but can have trouble traipsing the mundane normality without a good WoWy fix.

If I find my life filled with things to the point that I don’t need WoW then I won’t play it and will probably be more productive at other things as well but until that time comes I’ll just keep having fun.

The sweet smell of progress April 29, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Paladin, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Today we hit ZA again going for timed on the first, maybe the second boss and aimed to give ago to the other two bosses.  We were going to go yesterday but we were lacking the people so a few of us went and had some fun beating up blood elves at Tranquillien.  Anyway, today we headed in, we had a new priest with us as well and he got on well.

We got to the first boss fine, unlike the past couple of times I was healing the main tank whilst the other two were on the off tank (sounds a bit weird but our paladin takes a lot of spiky damage during those fights before the bear dude so he needs the healing).  We proceeded to down him, despite the bear form tank accidentally getting the mangle debuff, it was very, very close but thanks to some holy light + greater heal + every HoT you like and swiftmend we pulled through it. Phewf.  He dropped the plate healing helm I already have which the paladin tank took and then… I’m not sure what the other drop was, nothing interesting for me though.

Trash leading up to the second boss all went fine, despite slight lag from me and from a couple of others.  We then proceeded to down the boss with many deaths including the tank right before we took him down.  Another timed completed, woot!  We got a healing staff and something else I forget.  Two bosses in the timed, that’s some pretty good progress right there. Where we currently stand I don’t think we could do the timed any further as we don’t have the DPS but if we farm the first two timed and then the next two for a while we’ll get there eventually I’m sure.

We proceeded to take down the next two bosses, not a lot of trouble on the dragonhawk but it took a couple goes but then we managed to one shot the lynx.  No paladin lewts for me but more badges is always good, I’ve got my eye on upgrading one of my two green (/shame) trinkets.

Overall I’m really pleased with Sapphiron’s progress and I hope to stick with them moving forward into twenty five mans before Wrath of the Lich King hits and maybe even carry on for a long time after that…!

Nice Surprises April 27, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Instances, Life, World of Warcraft , add a comment

I forgot to actually make the post about it but Sapphiron did actually manage to down the Lynx boss in ZA on Saturday. More than that, we did it in two proper attempts, first attempt was good and we got him to about 35%, then we had a messed up and the tank died straight away because us healers were moving and on the next try we got him. As such I’m very proud of us, looking at Be Imba for the healers that were there only one of the three are even in a position to perform well in ZA according to that and we’re 4/6 in there.

I probably should start to take a meter to see if I’m actually healing as expected although it probably won’t tell me much, the other paladin healer that the guild has is substantially better geared than me (probably has more experience aswell).

In other WoW news, my latencies at home are still unplayable and I seem to be able to do nothing about it. Given that it happens regardless of whether my connection is going via my router or not I don’t think it can be a port forwarding issue. I also don’t think it can be a firewall issue because if it were the game would simply have no connection, I’ve never known my firewall to just heavily block something. This kinda leaves me suspecting my ISP but my friend has the same ISP as me and although I’ve had a few strange disconnects on his computer my latencies are fine.

I’ve also canceled my subscription due to my upcoming exams, although I may have carried on playing if I could play at home as it’s nice to have the game to relax with, without it I can’t really reward myself for having done some good revision as I don’t really want to play any other games. It might be for the best though, given that these are exams are so important.

Hangin with trolls April 26, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Instances, Internets, World of Warcraft , add a comment

Last night we made some progress in Zul’Aman, or at least, I think it was progress for the guild, it definitely was for me.  We took down the first three bosses (Bear, Eagle, Dragonhawk) with the Bear going down within the timed event. No lewts for me as it was mostly DPS cloth that dropped and a resto druid belt but I’m just pleased  that we got them down.  Be imba puts my performance level as only just inside the first 25 mans, not even able to do well in ZA but still me and the other healers who are of a similar level I think (it was two resto druids last night) got right through those bosses, actually one shotting the first two (if you don’t include a very quick fail and recovery on the bear, oopsies).

I think all in all this puts many of us in good stead to start the 25 mans all we really need is the numbers, it seems we don’t have enough for even two Kara groups going at the same time yet so the next level is a bit far away.  It’s healers that are mostly lacking I think which just puts a bit more pressure on me to be active.

I think we’re going into ZA again tonight although my internet connection is being very temperamental when it comes to WoW, I’m constantly experiencing 1000+ms latencies whilst the rest of the stuff I do on the internet is fine.  We’re gonna be trying out Halazzi the Lynx (again, gonna be a first for me) which, according to WoWWiki, is a gear check for both tanks and healers. With that in mind, I will be very surprised if we down him.