The Burning Crusade

I loaded up World of Warcraft's 10-day trial for their expansion, The Burning Crusade, yesterday. Today, I finished getting all the way to level 61, but a big catch 22 slapped me in the face.

In the trial version of The Burning Crusade players are hard capped from gaining a level past 60. It stops the experience bar at 1 exp to next level. It makes absolutely no sense. Here is a trial for an expansion geared for level 61+ players and the trial doesn't let you level past 60. Retarded.

Work: Day One

Well I have officially finished my first day of work at my new job. All went well. I set up my own Windows 2003 server and domain to play around with as I learn the software I will be configuring and setting up in the future.

Interestingly enough, the guy I work with is a World of Warcraft player. Go figure.

Close To Home

That terrorism thing: its real. I don't want to get into details, but let's just say that I was a wee bit close to this following story: Officials Find Explosives in Car.

Berkeley County Sheriff's department says it has arrested two men for unlawful possession of explosives. According to the Berkeley County Sheriff’s department, deputies closed Highway 176 after finding what they thought were explosives in the trunk of a car at about 6:00 Saturday night.

Agents deployed a robot and pulled what looks like a small bag from the trunk. After multiple agencies arrived on scene-- Charleston County Sheriff's Deputies detonated the suspicious material around 3:45 am.

Fortunately, I sacked out in my hotel last night and studied for my Linux+ certification exam.

A Card Game?

John Smedley's big announcement: a virtual collectible card game for Everquest players.

It’s called Legends of Norrath. It’s an MMO Card/Strategy game built directly into both EverQuest and EverQuest 2. It will allow EQ and EQ 2 players to challenge each other, or allow people to play from outside of either game and challenge people who are playing inside. The game itself is literally a part of both clients, and it’s incredibly fun to play. The first set (called Oathbound) has 375 cards. In addition, we have loot cards for each game that have some awesome in-game items, some of which are extremely rare (new mounts for example).

That's it. Nothing more. Just a little side project tacked onto SOE's main franchise.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is Official!

World of Warcraft's next expansion has been officially announced.

It's official: The next World of WarCraft expansion is coming; it's called Wrath of the Lich King, and will open up the continent of Northrend to players of level 68 and above. This second expansion will focus on the return of Arthas Menethil, a.k.a. the Lich King, ruler of the Scourge, and one of the most powerful beings in all of Azeroth. This semi-sequel to the saga of Arthas (from WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne) is intended for experienced players with a couple level 70 characters in their pockets.

Breaking down the details a little: there will be a new class, a new continent, and ten new levels.

The new class will be a Hero class, entitled Death Knight. Hero classes are epic character classes that will be gained through a quest at max level (which will be 80). Once gained, a newly created Death Knight will start life at level 60 or 70.

A new continent, Northrend, will also be included with a tentatively scheduled ten new zones. Among these zones will be a new outdoor PvP zone featuring destructible environments and siege weapons. Plus, another battleground will be added. Finishing it off will be classic whack a mole zones for leveling goodness.

Finally, there will be ten new levels bringing the level cap to 80. Along with this the skill cap will be increased to 450.

If I had to describe these changes in one word, it would be mudflation. Its just more of the same. I haven't even touched The Burning Crusade, but from playing the base game for almost three years, I have a pretty good idea how TBC plays. Therefore, I have a pretty good idea of how Wrath of the Lich King will play. Blizzard does not reinvent the wheel. Blizzard makes shiny, stable new wheels and then polishes them to a mirror like sheen.

The most distressing news, is the lack of news about the good old world of Azeroth. Azeroth is quickly becoming a wasteland and nothing more than a speed bump for The Outlands and soon to be new playground; Northrend. I truly wish Blizzard would drop half the planned zones for Northrend and restructure the current zones of Azeroth.

From all accounts, Blizzard learned a great deal from the base game and made the effort to make TBC kick ass. Hopefully, they will do the same for WotLK. However, I strongly caution Blizzard not to apply what they've learned simply to new expansions. Blizzard needs to take that knowledge and revamp the original game, or the WoW community will become even more splintered.

Oh, and Blizzard, I better damn well be able to level past 60 or 70 without buying the damn expansion.