I’m writing this post on February 11, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve been playing World of Warcraft again, although one of them is getting nosey.

I was chatting via email with the friend whose Warrior is on the same server as my Mage.  He was stuck at work on the night shift while I was happily questing in the Blasted Lands.  I asked him how his shift was going and he says, “not bad… have you resubscribed to WoW yet?”, which seemed totally random.  Why was he asking that?  Does he know something?  I replied, “yes, in fact I’m playing right now” which wasn’t a lie.  I followed it up with, “I just solo’d Arthas” which, of course, would be a definite lie, but it helped throw him off my trail a little bit.

As for the game itself, I managed to ding level 55 and even got three quarters of the way to 56.  I’m hoping by the end of this coming weekend I’ll hit 58 so I can get into Outland.  I remember really enjoying Outland and also remember the journey from level 60 to 70 didn’t take very long at all.  If I can get to 70 before revealing to my friends that I’ve been playing I’ll be ecstatic.

I’m really having fun playing again, which only confirms in my mind that I enjoy the leveling process much more than the end-game.

I’m writing this post on February 10, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again… could that change soon?

When my friend arrived at work this afternoon he mentioned that he logged into his Warrior character for the first time in ages.  That Warrior character resides on the same server as the Mage that I’m secretly playing.  I’m quite certain that the Mage is on his friends friend list.  He then proceeded to ask me if my Mage was still on that server…

He claims that he only logged on to that character because his normal server still hadn’t come up from patch day and that he doesn’t plan on playing the Warrior, but still.  If I happened to be playing when he decides to log on to the Warrior out of the blue, my whole jig could be up!  I’m getting increasingly paranoid that one of my doofus friends is going to look my mage up on the armory for some stupid reason.

Fortunately my friend is currently working the night shift, so the chances of me being logged in while he’s on his Warrior is extremely slim… I still don’t like it though.

I’m writing this post on February 8, 2010.  My friends still don’t know that I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again.  I’ve managed so far to refrain from logging in to my main character at all (highest risk of detection), choosing instead to play as my Mage.  At the time of this writing he is level 55.  I had hoped to be 58 and into Outlands by this point, but I’ll have to push that goal back a week or so.

Ever since reaching level 50 I’ve been spending a lot of time in Blackrock Depths, courtesy of the random dungeon finder.  Typically, the groups haven’t stayed in the zone for long, choosing to zone out after clearing the prison area and killing High Interrogator Gerstahn.  A couple of other times the group has also done the Ring of Law, but for the most part, the groups have seemed content to get out of the zone as quickly as possible.  The other night however, I got put into a group that wanted to clear the entire zone.  We ultimately didn’t make it, stopping after killing Watchman Doomgrip in the vault.  It was late at that point and once one of the party members left, the group disintegrated.

It was still nice to see a lot more of the zone, which I’d rank right up towards the top of my favourite dungeons list.  Everything about it feels very epic, from the size of the zone itself, to all of the bosses, and of course all of that lava, which movies and games have taught me is the hallmark of evil zones.  It’s clearly not as difficult as it once was, as our group of low fifties players tore through it without much difficulty.  I’ve read comments from a few years ago that talk about the difficulty of bosses like Bael’Gar (pictured above), and how you’ll need to be prepared for a “long fight”.  For us, he went down in under a minute.

Once again, it would have been nice to see the zone back in its heyday, but the XP was still great, and that’s good enough for me at the moment.  I gained an entire level during our extended foray into the dungeon.  It would be nice to finish the entire zone at level though, I’m just not going to hold my breath on that one.

If you’re reading this, and I can only assume that you are, then that means it’s either April 1, 2010, or my friends have discovered that I’ve been secretly playing World of Warcraft since re-subscribing on January 17.

Despite a valiant effort, my will finally gave in to the relentless calling of WoW.  The random dungeon group finder just sounded too perfect for me to not check out for myself, so the credit card came out and I re-activated my subscription for three months.  My goal is to work on leveling up my Mage, pictured above, who was level 44 when I last played him, and is now just two bars away from level 51 after two weeks of sporadic play.  Ideally I get him to level 80 in time for April 1 when I publish this post, and before my friends discover I’ve been playing again.  That’s the dream.  The reality may be different, I don’t know.  My lack of time for games certainly hasn’t changed at all, so that’s definitely a factor in my road to level 80.  Not to mention the fact I could slip up and mistakenly reveal that I’ve been playing, or one of my nosy friends could happen to look up my character on the armory for whatever reason.  My friends have transferred their main characters off of the server my Mage is on, so I’m not too worried about running into them in-game.  My 80 Shaman however, is on their server and on their friends lists as well, so I’ve forbidden myself from logging in to that character, lest my grand plan be spoiled.

That means it’s been pure Mage for me so far, and it’s been fun.  I’ve already taken part in three random dungeons (Uldaman, Sunken Temple, and Maraudon), all of which went very quickly and smoothly.  I have to say that it’s quite refreshing to just sit back and blast away at the target.  In group situations as my Shaman (leveled as Enhancement spec) I was constantly adjusting position, running around to ensure I was constantly melee attacking the mobs.  It’s also quite fun to actually see the spells I cast.  Unlike the Shaman where I looked mostly at the mobs chest, I can see my Frost Bolts fly out from my fingers and smash into the mob.  The Blizzard spell is also pretty cool to see in action.

The downside to the Mage so far is in open world PvP.  Keep in mind that I’m quite likely the worst PvP’er in the history of video games, but I was fairly decent in open-world PvP with my Shaman, but so far I’ve been terrible with the Mage.  If someone gets the jump on me, the only thing I can do really is run away.  Ice Barrier and Blink certainly help in that regard.  I haven’t had much luck being the aggressor either though.  About a week ago, at level 47, I came across a level 38 Warlock who I figured I’d mop up pretty easily.  To my utmost embarrassment, I got soundly thrashed.  I was Feared almost immediately and then had my face smashed in by the Warlock’s voidwalker.  I sure do miss my Shaman’s Tremor totem.

If all goes well with this little WoW secret, you’ll be reading this when I’ve reached, or am at least close to level 80.  I’ll try to continue writing posts following my progress and saving them as drafts to be published after the great reveal.  Should be fun.

I bought a Nintendo Wii.

It was in early January that we had our neighbours over for a visit and they were telling us how they had played a  Wii at their friends house and had a great time.   After they left, my wife said to me, “maybe we should get a Wii.”  My gaming obsessed mind interpreted my wife’s casual comment as, “we must get a Wii at all costs and I mean yesterday!”  Since that day, I’ve been on the hunt.  You see, it’s not everyday that my wife actually encourages a gaming-related purchase; she’s much too sensible.  This was a window of opportunity that I had to seize before she came to her senses and shut that window!

As luck would have it, I had saved up about $230 worth of PC Points from the Real Canadian Superstore.  While most people might use those points towards groceries and other necessities, I typically save them up to get gaming stuff.  It’s how I got Rock Band, along with other games throughout the years.  It’s such a great feeling using these points for unnecessary things such as games because, even though I know we’ve spent a bunch of money earning these points, it still feels like I’m getting this stuff for free.  Having $230 worth of these points meant that I was now going to be able to get our family a Wii for sort of free.

The only problem was actually finding the dang console.  I checked the store at least once a week, often times more than that, since January, but was always told that they hadn’t received any stock from Nintendo since Christmas, and they didn’t know when they’d get any.  It was the same story almost everywhere else.  If any store had actually received stock, they’d sell out almost instantly.  I knew the Wii was popular, but this was crazy.

Just the other day I was coming home after picking up our new dishwasher (it doesn’t play games) when I decided I’d stop in at the Superstore to check the Wii situation yet again.  I walked into the electronics section and headed towards the Wii area fully expecting to see that familiar shelf sitting there empty again, but *gasp* there on that shelf was a single lonely Wii!  I scooped it up, along with an extra controller with Wii Motion Plus, EA Sports Active, and Super Mario Galaxy.  I plunked down all my PC Points and walked out of there with my bounty.  It only took two months too!

When I got back home and walked in the door, I held the Wii box above my head in victory and showed my wife.  ”Check it out!!!”, I exclaimed.  Her reply?  ”You bought a Wii?  What for?”