Games

Posts about games.

World of Tanks Ten Commandments – Repost

Standard

I just read this on the forums and had to share.  Submitted by Sword_of_Light.

Old-World-War-Tank-Textured-Photo-Art

Old-World-War-Tank-Textured-Photo-Art (Photo credit: Captain Kimo)

1.  Thou Shalt Not Team Kill.  No offense is greater in the eyes of thine team, nor grievance great enough to justify slaying thine own.  If the retch turn blue, strike him down, for he is an abomination, but neither grief nor TK if mere offense is given.
2.  That Shalt Not Cry Out “Hacker!”.  There is no hack, for thine is the kingdom of the server side.  Thou ye know not how that artie reloaded so quickly, or that heavy doth strike you down even though you totally had cover, it is not a hack, but skill, thine enemies skill.  Learn from them, so that ye may one day strike down thine own enemies with similar mad skillz.
3.  Thou Shalt Not Take Thine Own Life.  For all life is sacred, with the obvious exception of yon red infidels, and only thine wife’s lament that ye are late for dinner with the inlaws shall ye rush out midfield in Malinovka.  All else is sin.
4.  Thou Shalt Not Platoon With Tier Ones Unless Ye Be Tier One.  For the Children of WoT are many, and naive, and have neither shield nor sword, and though they may desire to see the great and ferocious Maus on the field of battle, verily, it is a move more like the behind of a mule to bring one in to a match.
5.  Thou Shall Be Useful.  All tanks are worthy in the eyes of the Maker of Matches, unless they beith loltanks, and though ye cannot pen, and lament that ye have no purpose being here, take heart, for you can scout, or distract.  Be not craven and hide in the corner, but strive, and in doing so, vex thine enemies.  If ye are small, then thy repair costs are but a pittance, and your death but a minor thing.  Your wreckage may serve as a haven for those who still strive for the victory which will surely granteth you too the boon of xp and creds.
6.  Thou Shall Take Responsibility.  Thou shalt not claim thine team arises from the land of the noob, for rarely is a loss not also your fault.  Nobility in defeat is greater in glory than nobility in victory.
7.  Thou Shalt Not Order In Pubs.  Though many have worn the crows and chevrons of war, none do so in WoT, and no prince nor king can lay sole claim to the green flag.  Order not thine team to do this or that, even if ye be a master of WoT, none is so great that they cannot utter the word “please”.
8.  Thou Shall Back the Play of The Big Guy.  For though none command, there are those that sit upon high, and they are the point of the spear.  If they strike alone, all is lost.  Let them not wander in the wastes of thine enemies, but follow with sword in hand, and strike down the unrighteous.
9.  Thou Shalt Not Blame Arty.  Artillery is the hand that reaps the enemies in the field, it is the fist that punishes the arrogance of Men.  Seek the shelter of stone, of buildings which are not destructible, of the shadow of the hills, and the hand shall pass over you.  Move, for the eye of artillery detests the stationary, and will strike down those enemies who linger.  Curse neither arty which has struck you down, nor curseth the arty which cannot strike the tier ten Leviathan on the other team.  Much goes into the striking fist of arty, and when the blow lands, it can be mighty, or it can totally whiff.  Such is the way of the world of tanks.
10.  Thou Shall Remember This Is Just A Game.  While thee may have paid cold hard cash, still the striving within are not real.  Wars rage for real, and real people die, and many go without food, or freedom, and nothing in this game is nearly as important.  Thou art blessed with the monies to have a PC, while many go without even a roof.  Nor playest this game when thou has the opportunity to get you some, nor at the cost of thine friends and family, who are real.  If rage within you cannot be contained, and your lamentations arise with much profanity, perhaps the time to stop is nigh upon you.

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/117627-the-10-commandments-of-wot/

Yes, I Played WoW! Help, I Miss It!

Standard

WoW – My World of Warcraft definition:  A fantasy MMORPG that requires a lot, and I mean a lot of your time if you want to get high into the rankings.

I took a bite of the forbidden fruit.

I remember the sweet beginning of my WoW days.  I’d wander around discovering new parts of the world.  Meanwhile leveling up and getting new pieces of gear or armor.  I loved the treasure chests and looting.  I was actually rather satisfied with that alone.  Then my hubby and some friends of ours started bringing me along for dungeon runs.  I was clueless and nervous.  We had Teamspeak at the time and I could hear tension as I knew I’d done something wrong again.  I thought it was fun to make the mobs attack me.  My toon was a human paladin.  The group of us consisted of me (the pally), friend’s wife (the warrior), friend’s hubby (the priest), my hubby (the rogue), and sometimes my brother-in-law (the hunter).  Looking back now, we were a pretty good group combo.  However, I just wasn’t getting it.  I wore plate and I could heal myself.  Why shouldn’t I tank?  Mind you, this was in early 2005.  Which was not long after the release, and things were quite a bit different then.  I’m sad to say, as a group, we always failed.  Finally, we quit running together.  I was actually kind of relieved.  I could go back to questing and exploring.  My hubby was a dungeon junky though.  Let me tell you, he was a typical rogue for a long time.  He thought he was doing a great service by pulling aggro and tanking bosses or mobs.  I watched him from my desk and shook my head many times. 

Finally, I thought…I can do that.  I figured it out.  I ran a dungeon and did really well.  I was still nervous, but not anywhere near as clueless.  Still not completely thrilled with doing the same things over and over.  Failing with pug groups.  I rarely ran dungeons.  Of course, I did some bouncing around guilds and making friends.  That’s when I would learn more about gear and professions. Finally, I leveled my pally up to 60.  Gee, that was fun.  What do I do now though?  Since I hadn’t messed around much with dungeons, you know I didn’t raid.  Then, I did what most players like me would do.  I created more toons.  A lot more toons.  About 20 of which really never made it past 20.  You couldn’t use mounts at that level back then.  For any of you who have had to walk back and forth thru Stranglethorn Vale over and over, I’m sure you’re somewhat peeved that now you can have mounts at 20.  One of the characters I created was a mage.  About that time, I had our baby boy.  WoW was put on the back burner.  Until the release of Burning Crusade.

These flying mounts are fantastic!

This expansion felt like it flew by.  Before I knew it, I had leveled to 70.  Realizing I needed a lot more gold to buy my flying mount, I spent a lot of time working on professions and learning the workings of the auction house.  Dailys were now part of my schedule as well.  Yep, I said schedule.  At this point, I played WoW everyday for hours and hours.  I don’t want to admit how many.  Running a few more dungeons here and there, I still didn’t care for it.  Maybe, it’s just my pally I don’t like to run with, I thought. 

Then comes the debut of my lovely mage.  I focused mainly on leveling her and researching how mages worked.  Apparently, this was like opening Pandora’s Box for me.  Hooked is an understatement.  The term warcrack began to make a lot of sense.   She rocked.  Dungeons were now fun and enjoyable.  I actually liked being a vending machine.  One day while running a dungeon with a pug, I made some friends who were part of a raiding guild.  The next thing I know , I’m getting invited and told to get this add-on and that one.  Get Vent, they said.  This was to explain how to get all of these addons…at first.  Things took off  like a wildfire.  They were a funny group and did well on runs.  For the first time, I felt like I belonged.  My first raid date was approaching fast and I wasn’t nervous, I was terrified.  Kara was the place.  Talk about confusing when you are new to raids.  I caused a few wipes, died from falling off balconies, but didn’t do too bad on the damage meters.  All and all, I liked this thing called raiding!  Before I knew it, I was raiding quite consistently, but not hardcore.  About every other day for 3+ hours.   I started getting noticed by the higher ranking guild members.  One evening, the GM messaged me asking me to join him on vent.  I did and was surprised at the topic of our conversation.  He wanted to make me an officer.  Just a class leader, but hey, I was shocked at that alone.  In awe, I accepted.  I thought to myself, now I really need to be on my game.  Raiding started to become a five night a week obligation.  Notice I said obligation.  I enjoyed my new position and the raiding. 

My husband, however, wasn’t so thrilled and neither was my two-year old.  Not long after, I convinced him to join the guild.  Then things really got bad.  He was raiding right along with me.  When I look back, this is the scary part of WoW.  Our son would just play by himself until he fell asleep in the evenings.  Not good.  We knew better, but had a hard time stopping.  Then some things went bad in the guild which eventually led to the guild being disbanded.  I was somewhat relieved.  Our son needed better attention and care.  Not long after, I took a month or so away from WoW.  I had intentions not to play anymore, but a new expansion was coming.  The Wrath of the Lich King. 

The Wrath of My Conscious

 The day our copies came in the mail, I was ecstatic.  Rushing to my pc to get the install going, I hadn’t noticed something about install requirements.  My husband hadn’t either, with his copy.  Around four hours later, we’re both mad as can be.  Neither one of us could get it to install.  I started searching forums and discovered we weren’t the only ones.  We thought our copies were probably bad and were quite disgruntled.  Finally, I came upon a post about requiring a dvd drive for installing this expansion.  Pretty sure that was our problem, my husband went out on a late night run to Best Buy to find us some drives.  Like magic, it worked! 

Since I was guildless and trying to spend more time with my son, I decided to enjoy the content and take it slow.  No raids, minimum dungeons.  Just questing, exploring, and professions.  I started with my mage, because I loved her so.  The death knights looked very appealing, but I decided to wait on creating one of those for a while.  Everyone seemed to have one.  Right around level 75 on my mage, I started to feel a little ancy.  It felt like something was missing.  Yeah, I was missing being part of a guild.  I kept in touch in game with a lot of my old guild members.  Most which had moved on and into different guilds here and there.  One day I was chatting with one of them and he says, why don’t you join the guild I’m in now.  I think you’d like it.  This peaked my interest so I asked what I needed to do.  He says I need to fill out an application on their website.  Hmmm, I thought.  This is different.  A little leary, I did check out the website and filled out the application.  To my surprise, the next day I was getting an invite.  It was the biggest guild I’d ever been in.  Almost 400 members.  It turned out there were quite a few from my old guild in this guild.  This really helped me to feel more comfortable.  Eventually, I got to know a lot of people and get involved in runs and random raids.  By now, my mage is really doing rather well.  She could pull some great numbers on the meters, but aggro was under control.  Once again, I was noticed.  Before I knew it, I was an officer again.  First class leader, then to a much higher ranking officer.  It was nice and we raided quite frequently.  I mean too frequently.  My husband had joined me again and it started all over.  It was worse though.  Everyday I raided.  For hours and hours.  He  raided when he wasn’t working.  My son was the best thing in my life though, and I was trying a lot harder to include him.  Even though, it still wasn’t enough. 

The one thing I started to notice in being an officer was the drama.  Almost everyday, there was something else to deal with.  Not to mention the forums I had to keep up with and keeping up with research.  At one point, I noticed a decline in the guild’s progress with raiding.  Raids were scheduled and people signed up, but wouldn’t show.  The numbers weren’t there anymore.  The raids weren’t horrible, but were now getting there as desperation started setting in.  Desperation meaning the guild applications were now gone and invites were going out everywhere.  Pugs were included on many runs which in some cases caused complete chaos.  All in all, it was starting to feel frustrating when I logged in. 

Then, out of nowhere a huge surprise came my way.  I was pregnant.  Slowly, I started drifting away from the game.  I tried to keep up with the forums for a while, but after awhile…I just couldn’t do it anymore.  I let my GM know I needed to be removed from officer status as I probably wouldn’t play much anymore.  Since then, almost a year ago, I’ve logged into those characters maybe three times.  Once, because my husband was hacked so I wanted to check on my account.  The others, just to pop in and say hi.  Now, I’m starting to get the itch again.  With a 6 month old baby crawling around, I don’t think it’s the best of ideas.  On the same token, with a 6 month old baby, I feel I don’t do much for myself.  Would it really even be worth it or would I find myself in the same place I was before?  Maybe, I could wait till Catacylsm comes out.  Do I really want to go there again?  I do, I really do.   Then again, I don’t..I really don’t.

Facebook Games Can Be a Full-time Job. Where is the reward?

Standard

So, I have this new routine.  When I get up in the morning I take care of both of the kid’s initial needs.  Then I make myself a cup of coffee and sit down in front of the computer.  What’s the first thing I do when the screen is lit up and ready for me?  I login into Facebook.  Immediately I start clicking away at all the bonuses I missed overnight.  Pulling up this game and that one.  Sending characters to work, visiting their neighbors, dogfighting, missions, jobs, socializing, planting, collecting, building, training, feeding, cleaning, preparing dishes, harvesting crops, and now digging.  In the midst of all of this, I’m feeding and changing a baby, making breakfast, helping my four-year old with his Facebook games, and sending all of my neighbors their respective gifts for each game.  That’s all before lunchtime.  This morning I thought to myself…WHY?  Do I feel some kind of completion by playing these “socializing games”.  I don’t go many places or do much these days.  The idea of getting both kids ready and myself ready to go somewhere is quite daunting unless I know I’ll have help.  Is this why I play?  Am I trying to trick my brain into thinking that I’m being social?  Am I just bored and in need of mental stimulation that doesn’t involve singing my ABC’s?  Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy doing all of it.  I have only a few favorites.  So, why the rest?  Do I feel I’m being helpful? 

Even as the afternoon rolls on, Facebook is still up on my monitor and every time I pass by, I click on this and that and check this or that.  Dinnertime comes and I’m in the process of making dinner.  Between stirs or chopping..what am I doing?  That’s right!  Working on my Facebook games again.  Then I have to wonder about another possibility.  Addiction.  I admit it, I have an addictive personality so it’s easy for me to become addicted to something.  I rarely do anything else, so is this just me finding something else to be addicted to?  If so, how about all the people who are right there with me everyday.  Posting, sending, working.  They’re there as much as me.  Are they addicted too?  Or is it just our way of being social?  It sure is a lot of work being “social”.  I don’t even get paid.  So, I have to ask this.  Where is the reward?  What is the reward?  All in all, I’m amazed at the other things in life I still manage to keep up with.  I guess it’s multi-tasking at it’s best.  Or is it?