LowTotem.com >> The Server Situation, Gold Buying, and Protection Spec Leveling

Another new post over at the new site.  I talk about gold buying, server stablity, and my experience leveling a protection spec warrior.

Check it out at LOWTOTEM.COM

LowTotem.com >> Patch 3.0 Builds – Warrior and Paladin

New post over at the new site.  Unfortunately, this blog gets more traffic than the actual site, so I’m trying to re-route traffic over there

ANYWAYS, new post deals with the builds I’m running as a Holy Paladin and Protection Warrior with the new Patch 3.0.2 content.

Lowtotem.com>> Return to the Light

The entirety of this post can be read at http://lowtotem.com/site/2008/10/return-to-the-light/

I had a post I was working on.

It had a bunch of stuff, mostly about the new patch, Blizzcon, and some work updates.

Forget all that, because I’m about to flip it on you.

Originally, I was going to make a post about the new patch.  I was gonna talk about what an amazing spec Retribution has become.  I was gonna talk about how with the addition of Divine Storm and the new judgment system, your gameplay options are much wider than if you were playing something like Holy.

Again, forget all that.

I had fun with Ret.  For the less than 24 hours before the hotfix, I felt SUPERHUMAN.  Rogues were a joke.  Druids were a joke.  Warriors were a joke.  Hunters were a joke.  I’m sitting here, decked out in my healing gear with a couple of Ret pieces I picked up while I was leveling from 65-66 and I’m taking down Warriors like it don’t mean nothing.

READ THE REST OF THIS POST AT HTTP://LOWTOTEM.COM

Lowtotem.com >> I Like WARHAMMER

Quick post of my intial thoughts on Warhammer up over at the new site.

Post Preview:  WARHAMMER is pretty fun.

Lowtotem.com>> The Siren Call of the Game Industry

(Cross post from Lowtotem.com Please check out the new site!)

Even though I’m happy with my current job (for now), I check game industry job sites everyday. I’m also never far from my contacts still working on mainstream titles.

In spite of the fact that where I’m at now, career wise, everything is awesome, a part of me feels like going back. Going back to the long nights, the stress, the tension, and also the fun.

Its no secret that the game industry has some deep rooted quality of life issues. Making games is very demanding of you life. But I think about the good times I’ve had, and its almost worth it. If someone was to offer me an AP position at a mainstream game studio, I’d be a tough decision.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m a glutton for suffering, but when I think back to the days and nights I’ve spent working on games, those were probably some of the best times in my life. I think of the people I’ve met, suffered with, and bonded with during those hours, and I know I’ve made friends for life. And even when morale was at its lowest, someone would always be there to lighten the mood.

Mostly though, I just miss working on games—the kind of games I play. There is just something about knowing I’m working on a title that guys like me are gonna play . . . it makes me proud to have contributed (even if it was just a little bit) to the project.

The current casual game project I’m working on—its an interesting concept. But so far, in execution, it has a lot to be desired. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but every project I’ve worked on in the game industry has been driven by a desire to produce something awesome. Sure, in every project you have to make sacrifices, but at the end of the day, everyone just wants to make something that is cool.

We make games to draw people to our site to make money. Everyone wants to make money. I want to make money. But, if you’ve ever been in the game industry, at the core of making money is a passion to make fun games.

I miss that.

Braid Thoughts

I’ve posted my thoughts on Braid over at the new site (LowTotem.com):

http://lowtotem.com/site/2008/09/01/quick-review-braid/

Please check it out!

Lowtotem.com >> Risk vs. Reward and the Game Industry

(This is a pretty serious post from me, and since LowTotem.com isn’t being indexed yet, I’m cross-posting it here as well.)

I’ve got a couple of posts planned for the future, but I’ve all of a sudden gotten real busy at work.  For the first time, I really feel like I’m doing what I want to be doing, and that’s a good feeling.

Some pretty big changes have gone down the last few days at work.  Its unavoidable, I guess, especially in the world of startup companies.  That’s the real trade-off.  Risk vs. reward and all that.  I spent 2 and a half years working for 3 of the biggest names in the game industry.  Things were stable (in theory, when you are a temp, you never have job security).  But I knew my chances at moving up were limited.

I took a real risk when I left my last company to move into production for an unknown, untested, casual game startup.  As someone who’s taken a non-traditional career path, I knew the only way I was going to advance is by taking a huge risk.  I jumped right into it.

It seems crass to say this when people you’ve known and worked with have just been let go, but frankly, I’m not worried.  I don’t want to lose my job.  But if I do, I’m in a lot better place to deal with the situation than I was 2 and a half years ago.  Everything I do, I’m learning.  Every new day, I’m learning.  Success or failure, I’m learning.

Our CEO said something today that affected me deeply.  He said, “Be your own CEO.”  Think like a CEO.  Solve problems like a CEO.  And that’s exactly what I intend to do.  I’m not worried about failure, or making a bad decision.  Its all about risk vs. reward.  As a young person, you have to be willing to take risks, even at the expense of losing everything.

And that’s the advice I give to my friends still toiling away in the QA dungeons of the Game Industry.  You have to be willing to give it up at a moments notice.  Take risks.  Think like a CEO.

I know too many bright, intelligent people who are wasting away in QA.  They grow bitter, wondering why they can’t advance in an industry they love.  They grow complacent, willing to accept mediocrity because they aren’t willing to take a chance.  At some point, you have to be willing to risk it all.

So, I’m sitting here, still trying to process today’s events.  I wish everyone good luck and hope they quickly land on their feet.  But its time for me to start taking advantage of the opportunities each new day brings.

New Site, New Name – LowTotem.com

SO, if you are reading this for whatever reason, please head over to the new and updated site at

LOWTOTEM.COM

Its totally cool, I promise you!

I Recruited Myself

I was out sick from the office yesterday. So I bit the bullet and decided to try out WoW’s recruit a friend system.

I sent an invite to myself from my WoW account. Then I registered a new account using the key I received. This linked the two accounts together. Then I upgraded the trial account to a regular account for 19.99 through Blizzard’s digital upgrade. Luckily I’ve had an extra copy of TBC since launch, so I used that to upgrade it to a Burning Crusade account, even though it wasn’t necessary and I probably just wasted a copy of TBC.

I decided to level a Druid and Warlock combo. Both have ranged attacks. The Warlock has a pet that can tank. And the druid can heal. Much to my chagrin, I found that Tauren are not able to pickup quests at the blood elf starting area. So, after completing all the starting quests, I had a level 8 Blood Elf Warlock and a level 5 Druid.

So I ported my Druid back to the Tauren starting area, then created an Orc Shaman on the same account as a the Warlock. I then summoned the Orc Shaman to the Tauren starting area (luckily the Orc can share quests here) and got both the Druid and Shaman to level 8 before I logged off for the night.

Overall, even though I’m level 8, it was much faster leveling using the Recruit a Friend bonus XP. Normally once you complete all the starting quests, you are around level 5-6. I’m about 2 levels above that, and when I reached the next quest hub, some of the quests there were green to me.

As far as the setup and everything, going by stuff I’ve read from Dual-Boxing, I purchased a copy of Keyclone. I have dual monitors so I run two instances of WoW on the same machine (though if I wanted, I have a second computer I don’t use). It took a few minutes to setup keys and macros. Basically, I hit X and the second account starts to follow the main account. Hit Z and the second account assists the main account. I set shadow bolt, wrath, and lightning bolt to the E key, so when I cast it on my main, the secondary account will also cast at the same time. I then setup R so that the druid heals my main, and Shift-R to heal himself. It’s a pretty crude setup right now, but I’ll probably setup a system with focus targets and junk over the next few days.

Questing is the most difficult part of this setup, as I have to switch windows to pickup quest items and to turn in and accept quests. Also, the mouse is a little janky for some reason, and I sometimes spin out, though I have no clue why.

It will be pretty interesting to see how this plays out and it’s a good distraction from getting rolled on my Paladin in BGs. I’m just trying to get these guys to 60 before the expansion at this point, and I’m hoping that the 70-80 grind gets the same bump old content did at some point so I can get them to 70 and then eventually 80.

I think right now is probably the worst time to play WoW. With the next expansion looming on the horizon, it seems like nothing you do really matters. While I don’t think that we are going to see people going from purple to green like we did with the release of Burning Crusade, I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up some decent new gear in Northrend, so I’m not too concerned with that.

Progress Update – Week of 8/24

I didn’t play as much as I thought I would this weekend. In fact, I played FAR LESS than I anticipated. I played for maybe an hour Saturday because, shockingly, I had real life stuff I needed to get done. Sunday, I got a couple of games in, but after being dominated by Alliance in almost every game I played, I got discouraged and threw in the towel after playing for maybe an hour or two.

I make mistakes. But I really think my game has improved from where it was just a few short weeks ago. I’m doing a lot better keeping my teammates alive. The biggest area I need improvement however is keeping myself alive.

I’ve said this before, but I suffer from tunnel vision – I tend to focus on health bars rather than the game unfolding before me. As a result, I sometimes don’t’ notice that I’m not actually getting heals off because I am stunned or silenced or something. Usually, the thing I tend to ignore is my own health bar. At first, my mentality was “keeping the team alive is most important.” Then I realized that if I’m dead, my HPS is zero. I try to be as mobile as I can (for a Paladin) and use Line of Sight to my advantage.

My other big problem is not knowing when to pick my battles. This is a big reason why Sunday was so frustrating to me. I found myself either alone with no support, or going into a fight with inferior numbers. Look, I know there are some players who can take on 4v1 or whatever and come out victorious. But I think 99% of the people who play PUG BGs are not that player. This is why is so stupid for me to see some idiot warrior charging into a flag room with 6 alliance guarding it. This usually ends with more dead horde and him crying in the BG chat about how terrible this group is playing.

Right now I need about 39,949 more honor for all the pieces of gear I want. I earn between 100 – 500 honor a game, for an average of 300 honor per game. At that rate, I figure it will take 134 games to earn the honor. So starting tonight, I’m just going to start counting down games from 134. Its situations like this where I can totally see why people AFK bot. I don’t think I would ever do it, but it is very tempting.