This is me riding my newly acquired Green Proto-Drake.  The Proto-Drake is obtained from a Mysterious Egg which can be purchased in Sholazar Basin if you have revered reputation with The Oracles.  According to WoWWiki, ”you may only carry one Mysterious Egg at a time, each of which takes three days to hatch. [The Reins of the Green Proto-Drake] has an extremely low drop chance, although this chance was increased in patch 4.0.3″.

Originally, the egg took seven days to hatch, so you could only check once a week to see if you got the mount.  After reaching revered with The Oracles on my Shaman, I was fairly diligent in checking my egg once a week, but after having no luck with the mount drop, I gave up.  Then I started focusing on leveling my Mage and forgot about the Shaman altogether, who I haven’t played in over a year now.  His talent points are still sitting unassigned since the release of Cataclysm.  He’s had a Mysterious Egg in his inventory, ready to be checked, for a very long time.

A friend of mine has been doing the egg-checking dance for quite some time now, hunting for the Proto-Drake.  He has had no luck, but he has continued to check time and again.

I was playing my Mage last night, doing quests in Deepholm, when my friend logged on.  I saw that he was in Icecrown and sent him a quick message asking him what the heck he was doing there.  ”Just checking my egg, on my way to get another one,” was his reply. Remembering that my Shaman had an egg on him, I quickly logged him in to check it.  Lo and behold, the Shaman was actually camped in Sholazar Basin, standing in front of the guy who sells the egg.  My friend was now standing there as well.  I check the egg, fully expecting an Aged Yolk, or some other common rubbish, but instead received the Proto-Drake.  Here’s a screenshot of what happened next…

Here’s a transcript of the conversation for those of you reading without graphics:

You receive loot: [Reins of the Green Proto-Drake]
Friend waves at you.
To [Friend]: I just logged in to this character to check my egg… haven’t logged into him for ages
[Friend] whispers: what did it hatch?
To [Friend]: [Reins of the Green Proto-Drake]
[Friend] whispers: let’s see

At this point I mount up on my new proto-drake, and begin prancing around my friend… yes, prancing…

[Me] says: WOOT!
[Friend] whispers: you’re a stupid dick face
[Friend] whispers: [Aged Yolk]
To [Friend]: I’m sorry, but I’m laughing so hard right now
[Friend} whispers: do you know how many weeks I’ve been doing this?

So there you have it.  I’m a stupid dick face.

A stupid dick face with a brand spanking new Green Proto-Drake!

Most of my free time this weekend, which wasn’t very much actually, was spent playing Dragon Quest IX on my DS.  It was fairly obvious that I was near the end; the story had me hooked and I was quite eager to see how things would unfold.

It’s been a while since I’ve been engrossed enough in a game to the point where I couldn’t put it down, as opposed to finishing a game just to get it over with already.  DQIX has earned a place among my favourite console-style RPGs, Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy III (VI, if you’re from Japan).

Without spoiling anything, I really liked how the story played out. It was really well done. As an added bonus, the game doesn’t really end either.  Once the credits finish rolling you’re dropped back into the world, free to continue your adventures. There are hidden grottoes sprinkled throughout that require a treasure map to find. So far I’ve found three, and each subsequent grotto increases in difficulty.  I’ll likely take a break from playing the game exclusively, but I’ll definitely pop in now and then to get a fix.

I logged in to World of Warcraft the other night for the first time in about two weeks.  I played for almost an hour and a half and if I were to sum up the experience in one word, it would be “meh”.  In fact, that’s sort of been my feeling towards WoW in general since Cataclysm released.  I like the expansion; the changes to the old world are great, but I think the WoW train may be running out of steam for me.  My Mage is currently half way towards level 83, and pretty much the only thing keeping me playing is to get him to 85.  I just got the achievement for doing 160 quests in Vashj’ir, and I’m sick to death of that zone.  I have another quest to finish off there, something about a battle on a boat or something, and then I’ll be more than happy to head somewhere else.  Perhaps the current lull in enjoyment that I’m experiencing with WoW will reverse itself with a change of scenery, but if it doesn’t, I’ll likely be taking another break from WoW for a while.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I find my enjoyment of Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies on the Nintendo DS increasing daily.  I haven’t been this “into” a game for quite some time.  I haven’t looked at a walkthrough for it so I can’t say for sure, but I’m almost positive I’m right at the end of the main story, so I’ve taken a detour to do some last minute grinding before heading out to save the world.  The thing about DQIX though, is that to me, the grinding doesn’t feel like grinding.  I have fun doing it and it’s strictly by choice; my party is probably strong enough as it is, I just want to make them stronger.  I can’t get enough of this game right now.

This past week I subscribed to EverQuest II again… but not really.  I was actually away on vacation when I decided to check my email.  There in my inbox was a message from Sony Online Entertainment thanking me for my recent purchase of an EverQuest II subscription.  I thought it a little strange, given that I made no such purchase, and really have no interest in playing EQII again outside of occasionally dabbling in the free to play EQII: Extended.

I logged in to my SOE account to check it out.  I saw that my EQII subscription was now active.  I checked the credit cards associated with my account.  It listed my old card which expired back in August of last year, and another card which did not belong to me, but some other fellow in Hartford, CT with the same first and last names as me.  Figuring that something was screwed up with SOE’s back end I opened up a support ticket and explained the situation.

The reply came back the next day that the account was compromised and was now banned pending their investigation.  Over the next few days I responded to various verification questions and my account is active again, so I’m now able to log in to EQII should I choose to do so.

There’s something I find weird though…  If the account was indeed hacked, why wouldn’t they have changed the password on it along with the email address?  If the email address had been changed first, I would never have been made aware that the subscription was purchased.  I would have thought those two things would be standard account hacking procedure.  Furthermore, why would the hacker add a credit card to the account?  Wouldn’t they prefer to hack an account that had an active credit card associated with it, rather than my useless, expired card?  Also, would the hacker really take the time to associate a credit card with a matching first and last name to the account?  I doubt it… which leaves me still convinced that the account wasn’t actually hacked, but some other guy out there from Hartford with the same name as me created an SOE account which somehow piggy bagged on to my existing account.

I finally did it.  I have succumbed to the Great Computer Room Closet Clean-up and I’ve broken down all of the computer game boxes that I’ve been holding on to for so long and will soon be driving them off to the recycling depot.  I’m not going to lie, it was a difficult thing to do, and I wrestled with it for a few days, but I eventually came to the conclusion that it was time to let them go.  I would enjoy looking at a nice clean closet more than I would a bunch of boxes I never looked at anyway.

Of course, there were some compromises.  My collection of World of Warcraft and EverQuest II boxes are staying put, along with my Vanguard box, and the two collector’s edition tin boxes that I have.  Plus, I’ve only discarded the cardboard boxes; I’ve kept any plastic cases that the games shipped in, including the games themselves of course.  And yes, there’s still the few large boxes packed full of more (older) computer game boxes that are still sitting in our crawl space that I’m holding on to for now.  Some of my all time favourites are in there…

I thought it’d be fun to write a quick blurb about each of the freshly departed, and whether or not I’ve gotten my monies worth out of them… how nerdy am I?

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings – One of my all time favourite RTS games.

Age of Empires II: Gold Edition – I got this for the expansion that it included so that I could play multiplayer with some friends from work.  We had some epic battles.  Great fun.

Age of Wonders II – Great game that I didn’t play enough of.  One day though… right?

American McGee’s Alice – Loved this game, played it from start to finish.

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn – Played a tonne of this.  After sinking a bunch of hours into it, I lost my progress when I accidentally wiped out my hard drive.  Have never finished it, but sure do want to.

Baldur’s Gate II: The Collection – Bought this because it was cheap and I didn’t already have the expansion.

Bioshock – Played it.  Finished it.  Ultimately didn’t like it.

Black & White – Remember the hype for this one?  Loved the introductory tutorial, but hated the actual game.  Never made it a single mission past the tutorial.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: Game of the Year Edition – Still playing this one, roughly half-way through.  It’s okay, not great.

Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion – I loved Transport Tycoon but just couldn’t get into this one.  Picked it up real cheap though.

Civilization IV – One of my all time favourites.

Civilization IV: Warlords - I can’t think of what this adds to the base game, but I probably enjoyed it.

Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword - I’ve never played any of the scenarios, but I’m pretty sure it adds certain stuff to the base game, right?

Command & Conquer: Generals – Picked this up in a bargain bin and never played it.  Bargain, eh?

Company of Heroes - One of my all time faves.  I’ve strictly played multiplayer, no campaign.  I hope to get to it some time.

Deus Ex – Awesome game, from start to finish.

Diablo II – I played the crap out of this game.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction – By the time this was released, I was so sick of Diablo II that I just critical-pathed my way through this expansion to see the cinematics.

Disciples II: Dark Prophecy – Awesome, awesome game that I picked up on a whim.  Glad I did.

Doom 3 – Started off really cool, then got really, really bad.  Why are so many monsters hanging out in tiny closets?  Just stupid.  I eventually enabled god mode and whipped through it just to see the end.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil – I bought this one cheap and because I had read it was way better than the main game.  I wouldn’t know, I only played the first level or so.

Dungeons & Dragons Online - I bought this for just over $2.00 and played the free month that came with it.  When that month was up, the game went free-to-play.  I’d say I got my moniey’s worth.

Falcon 4.0 – I so desperately wanted to play this game hardcore, but just never did.  I never played the campaign, just flew around and shot at random stuff.  A shame.

Fallout – Played it, loved it, finished it.

FarCry – I was loving this game right up to the point where you stop fighting other humans and had to take on the mutant creatures.  That’s when I stopped playing.

Guild Wars -  Played this a bunch, even tried getting back into it last year.  The highest I ever got was level 14.

Half Life: Opposing Force - Great expansion.  I must have the Half Life box in my crawl space.

Half Life 2 - A classic, but it ended to quickly.  After finishing it I remember thinking, “that’s it?  It’s over?”.  I also remember not being able to play it on release day because the Steam servers were being pounded and I couldn’t create an account.

Hearts of Iron II: Doomsday – One of those games that I wish I had the time to sit down and play.  I almost picked up Hearts of Iron III during the holiday Steam sale but reminded myself that I still haven’t played this one.

Home World: Game of the Year Edition – Found this one super cheap one day.  Played a few missions, nothing more.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault – The first WWII FPS that I played, and I loved it.  Finished it.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 – Another one I only wished I had spent time with.  I never played it beyond flying around looking at some scenery and crashing into buildings.

Neverwinter Nights – I played this one all the way through and really liked it, although the first chapter was a bit of a struggle to get through.  I remember the final encounter being crazy hard too because my party had no magic left and there was no place to sleep to restore your spells.

Neverwinter Nights: Diamond – Bought this one cheap so that I could play the expansions… which I never did.

Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis – Man, did I ever love this game… right up to where they make you drive a tank, which I had no interest in doing.

Operation Flashpoint: Gold Upgrade -  Never played it.

Operation Flashpoint: Resistance – Never played it… *sigh*

PGA Championship Golf 2000 – I loved this game and played it a tonne.  I remember downloading custom courses and everything.

Puzzle Quest – I bought this cheap, for $10, after reading a review in GFW Magazine that gave it a 10/10.  I don’t like puzzle games though, so how stupid am I for spending $10 on it?

Rainbow Six 3: Gold Edition – Great game, played some multiplayer with a friend, but never did the campaign.

Rainbow Six: Covert Ops Essentials – Didn’t spend much time with this one.

Rise of Nations: Gold Edition -  One of my favourite RTS games, and the game where I had one of my greatest gaming moments of all time.  Long story short: multiplayer game with two friends, came down to me and one other.  He had the defense technology that made his territory impervious to nuclear strikes.  I brought a big chunk of my army into his territory on the left side of the map, and when I saw his entire, frickin’ huge army come out to meet me, I retreated.  He followed me into my territory where I promptly nuked him and obliterated his army.  My main army then flooded in to his area from the right side of the map and finished him off.

Scrapland – I bought it because it was only $3.00.  I never played it.

StarCraft Battle Chest – Bought this one because of the hype; I was never big into RTS games.  I was blown away by the cinematics, which was what drove me through the campaign.

StarLancer -  One of my all time favourites.  I sure miss these types of games… please Chris Roberts… bring Wing Commander back.

The Wheel of Time – When I bought this game, I knew nothing of the books.  I really enjoyed the game and subsequently started reading the books.  I like the game better than the books.

Titan Quest: Gold Edition – I really like this game, but can only take it in short bursts.  I really do intend on finishing it some day.

Unreal Tournament – Probably the one game I’ve played more of outside of MMOs.  One of my faves.

WWII Fighters -  I think I like the idea of playing flight sims more than the actuality of it.  At least with this one I started the campaign and got a few missions in to it.