Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Getting My Geek On

If you need me, I'll be in the office on the computer, not that that's anything new.

The online game I play has "expanded" once again. There's that dragon what toasted Bill and I last week. You could officially play the new content yesterday. I had to go to Hallmark and get more Christmas cards for the office and Game Stop is just a few doors down so I nipped in and picked up my copy, which I pre-ordered back in early October.

The past 2 times the game has added content, installing and then logging onto the game the first day it goes "live" has been something of a joke. Their very first expansion, called "Burning Crusades", was fraught with problems. Servers hosting the game kept crashing. I didn't buy it when it first came out because my character was at a low level and it would be months before I could play it. So, I waited until I was close in level before purchasing and attempting the installation. It took me a whole evening. I'd have to look, but I think it came on 3 discs, maybe only 2, but it was huge and problematic.

The next time the game expanded, they were smarter and had people download some material before the game went live. It still came on a couple of CD's but it was much less of a problem to install and get operational. I think it took 2 hours instead of a whole evening and I was able to play the same day it went live.

For this game, we have been background downloading data for over a month, a couple months, I think, actually. It's released in small chunks that download behind your game as you play. If you don't play very often, you'll have more to download. As I play pretty much every day, the chunks were very manageable. I was kind of dreading the game installation. It was one CD which I started and then went to do a load of wash. When I came upstairs after loading the machine, it was done and I could play right away. From the initial installation, which also took an evening, to a 20 minute installation now, well, it's been 6 years so you hope they have learned something in those 6 years.

It's fun and I had a good time roaming a little around the new areas. The problematic phone sits to the left and a couple of calls came in last night. I took one but couldn't get the phone to work for the second. I forgot to get a new battery at Target over the weekend to see if that fixes the problem. If you don't get me, it simply could be that phone. I'm trying but I can't get it to work.

It also could be that I'm in the middle of a fight for survival and can't answer the phone. Would it be weird if I change the voice message to say something like, "Can't talk now. Raiding and the boss has the group down to 20% health. Leave a message and, if he doesn't kill me, I'll call you back."

Beverage: English Breakfast tea

Deb

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