World of Warcraft

Lately, I haven’t played much America’s Army (AA). In fact, I think I have played twice in the last six months. Most of this was due to internet issues with my provider. He panicked one day when he had some port scans going on and closed everything down. 🙄 Ports required to be open for me to play AA (as well as some other internet applications) would no longer function correctly. It took me a couple of months to convince him that was the wrong approach and not acceptable. He got in some new equipment in and the problem was solved – I could again play AA. However, the damage was done and my interest waned during the down time. Couple that with several vacations this summer and AA dropped off my radar screen. I don’t think it will ever return.

Enter into the picture now World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg). That means you are playing online with hundreds or thousands of gamers at once. The role playing aspect means you assume the role/identity of a character and guide him/her through a series of journeys and adventures. WoW has been around for years, but I hadn’t ever tried it before downloading the trial version this past weekend. After about three days of playing it, I went out and got the full version.

As a youngster, I used to play Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D). Many hours were spent wandering though mystical worlds and dungeons. In those days, the game was played on paper and in your mind. Today, computers allow us to enjoy the same type of things visually. I actually decided to give the game a try at the urging of some coworkers and friends in my AA clan.

Thus far, I have enjoyed the game quite a bit. The graphics aren’t quite up to snuff with some of the recent Xbox 360 games I have been playing but they are far from a distraction. Some collision detection would be nice. One thing that has been quite noticeable is the lag playing the game. While it’s not horrendous and doesn’t detract from the game, being a frequent 1st person shooter player (ie Halo, AA , etc), its noticeable and would be completely unacceptable for those games. However, those games have a vastly smaller number of players at once and any lag is intolerable. WoW even has names/terms for the lag, such as loot lag (lag you get when taking loot off of dead bodies or chests).

Since getting the game last weekend, I have been getting in a couple of hours a night. I started a couple of sample characters to get familiar with the gameplay but have now reduced that down to two characters – one in each faction (alliance and horde). One character plays with the group from work and the other characters hangs with the guys from the AA clan.

Today, I am unsure which character will become my main one and which will become my alt character. I suspect the alliance character with the work guys will become the main one. This is primarily because I will likely join their guild (same idea as AA clan) and actually build up a website for the guild. So watch Mr Papa’s World for the go live announcement for that website.

I am still quite the noob at WoW and have a tremendous amount to learn, especially the lingo. I don’t know that I will ever become as addicted to AA as I was but I am sure it will give me many hours/days/weeks/months/years of enjoyment. If you haven’t tried Wow, you should give the 10 day trial a go.

If you want, you can look me up online in WoW on the Stormscale Realm. Just ask for Papalino.