Frustrations
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Forum post of the day: Really bad quests
Most of us have at least a couple of alt projects that we're working on. Once you've leveled to seventy you get a feeling for which quests are a breeze and which ones are painful. Arross of Thorium brotherhood started a thread entitled Really bad quests where players listed their least favorite quests. Some honorable mentions include: Arross of Thorium. "I have to say so far the worst quest I have ever had was Super Sticky in Un'goro Crater. The drop rate isn't bad, it's horrible." Shrosarias of Burning Blade, "Any quests having to do with murloc. Murlocs = evil." Ashcroft of Smolderthorn, "Zeth'Gor Must Burn! had me tearing my hair out by the roots. It was so very demoralizing to go from BG-topper to single-quest-dyer in one fell swoop." Arteree of Rivendare, "Almost every quest in Westfall." Etamalgren, "imo, any escort quests are the worst quests overall, except for the skettis daily and the nagrand escort."
Breakfast Topic: WoW as meditation
There are a million ways to relax in this modern era. Yoga, taichi, zen koans, transcendental meditation, knitting, and yes, video games. It might seem odd to mention video games in the same sentence as "zen" or "meditation," but think for a moment: most forms of meditation involve focusing on one simple thing, such as the flame of a candle, or the repetition of a mantra, and excluding all other thought. Doesn't World of Warcraft call this grinding?Now, granted, there are plenty of complicated and interesting things to do in WoW that involve lots of concerted thought and could not be considered meditation. But couldn't grinding away on daily quests or farming for materials be considered a very modern way for some people to wind down, clear their mind of daily frustrations, and just be nothingness itself for a little while? I know for my part, playing WoW by myself for a while certainly isn't ecstatic communion with the divine, but it can be a great way to just put everything else away for a bit and come back to life feeling refreshed. What do you think: is grinding a form of meditation for you, or is it just something to do when you're bored out of your mind?
That irksome Mac moment
Now, we all love Apple and our Macs. However, we've all had that one irksome Mac moment during which we wanted to tilt our heads back and shout, "Nooooo!" Vader-style. Mine happened earlier this week, when I realized exactly why the majority of people don't use Macs.I was at my day job (tech support drone) when I got a call from a coworker making a presentation at a remote location. He was having trouble with the "Powerpoint box" (according to my IT Decoder Ring, this means "projector") because it was "...for PCs, not Macs. In fact, they're all PC here, so I can't use my iBook for my presentation!" I assured him that the Powerpoint box would in fact work with his iBook, once I drove over there and delivered a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter. So I did, and everything was fine by the time I left. However, I saw a room full of maybe 35 people have their suspicions confirmed by the whole ordeal: "Macs don't work with anything." There was the presenter, going on and on about how he had to nix his slideshow because his Mac couldn't work with their system. Never mind that I showed up and proved him wrong, for I was the "computer guy," and I know how to beat those useless Macs into submission. No mere mortal could possibly have set that up.So, TUAWers, what was your irksome Mac moment? We all have one. Do share.
Breakfast Topic: Pet Peeves
This thread in the general forums brings up a good discussion topic about everyone's in-game pet peeves. And note the definition - a minor annoyance that causes extreme frustration. I have a number of them, myself, including people who refer to me only as "priest," players who start yelling "HAEL ME!!!" the second they take damage, and the players who see me shadowforming in PvP and feel they need to lecture me on the worthlessness of a priest that doesn't heal. (The latter especially irritates me, as anyone who's played with me for a while should realize that, even with a shadow spec, I know how to shift out of shadowform, and if I wind up in a good group will spend entire AV matches healing. Argh! I get frustrated just thinking about it!) But what are your personal pet peeves in this game?
Switched On: Flight of the damned... usage terms
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: (Based on a true story.) During fourthmeal a few days ago, I realized that I couldn't well let my fellow Engadget columnist Stephen Speicher grab all the Internet video glory with his recent tripartite YouTube encomium, so I decided to spend some time this week with an Internet video service that trades in good ol' Hollywood-produced motion pictures.Announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Vongo is offered by the Starz Entertainment Group and competes with other PC-targeted movie services CinemaNow and MovieLink. Much as the iTunes Music Store gained credibility by letting people buy music the way they do in the physical world, Vongo has received accolades by operating similarly to a premium cable network or even a service such as Netflix. For a relatively low subscription price of about $10 per month, you can watch as many movies as you like on the service on up to three PCs as well as watch a video feed of the Starz premium movie channel, Vongo is also working on support for portable video "sideloading" to devices that use Microsoft's Portable Media Center platform. Vongo also offers "pay per view" movies at $3.99 per viewing. I tried the latter option for my first crack at Vongo, choosing the movie Flightplan, the 2005 thriller in the Hitchcock tradition starring Jodie Foster and directed by Robert Schwentke.
