Beta Noob

Beta testing is not something I have enjoyed a great of success with. My only previous experience was highlighted here. I have already stated that I am currently experiencing a bit of a lull in the game and am not overly excited about the new expansion, so why would I bother to download and install the beta version. The answer lies with the one I promised not to ever answer my kids with, "because I can". The current expansion is winding down and several months ago I signed up to Annual Pass. At the time I took the decision that I would still be playing in 12 months and that a free Mount, a free copy of Diablo III and beta access was a gift for doing nothing that I hadn't done for 7 years previous.

When the e-mail arrived my curiosity got the better of me, and besides the world and his wife already appeared to running around as Pandas. The process is summarised below.

1. Receive e-mail
2. Logon into battle.net account
3. Find software available
4. Gaze at Diablo III release date
5. Click on Mists of Pandaria beta download

As usual with digital download nothing ever goes that smoothly. There is need to open up firewall ports all of which is done automatically on your say so like the old method for downloading a patch. The download is Peer 2 Peer and takes a long time for the 30+ GB of data to download. My copy encountered the standard Microsoft code  stop: 0x000005c which means that it is not Microsoft's fault and it either hardware, 3rd party software or antivirus software (nothing like blaming everybody else). Fortunately the day before I had read a blogpost by Alto, I tried all the steps up to and including step 4. This involves finding the battle.net folder and renaming it to battle.net1 (Win 7 is located under C:\program data). Restarted the launcher and off it goes again. I now have folders have folders battle,net, battle.net1, battle,net2, and battle.net3. As you can see it's not a flawless install.

The starting screen is slightly different than the old screen, I dabbled with Male and Female Panda Monks just like 99% of the rest of the testers and then paused over a name. Usually I have a name before I choose a character and this time I just sat there and pondered the options. Everybody else has a Panda beginning with the letters Pand, I decided this was lame and the chances of getting a unique name were going to be quite slim. In the end I generated a name using what Pandas like to do most and the famous book by Lynne Truss - Eat Shoots & Leaves. The resultant name is Eatshootslea, which I am more than happy with.

The starting zone is pure chaos and for the unsuspecting and the slightly stupid (me included), the game is hideously laggy. The install in its infinite wisdom and with Blizzard wanting to show off the textures and artwork of its new creation have defaulted the graphics settings to max. By moving the slider down to fair, the game leapt from 3-4 fps to my more standard 20 fps. I have heard commentators suggesting that if your current computer setup is ok, then there will be no need to upgrade for the new expansion. I personally feel that to enjoy the game to the max, an upgrade from a borderline nVidia card like mine is well worth considering.

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog has made an appearance in World of Warcraft or has it? Sightings of this mystical beast were first discovered on the Digital Roar blogsite. The baton was picked up by Wow Insider and of course once the rabbit was out of the bag it is now all over the internet.

On any other day this would not be an issue, Blizzard regularly uses pop culture throughout its games and in particular WoW is littered with such references.

1. Terry Palin - Eastvale Logging Camp in Elwynn Forest is a lumberjack named Terry Palin, who sometimes says "I'm a lumberjack, and I'm OK. I sleep all night and I work all day."
2. Bring me a Shrubbery - The quest found in Zangarmarsh
3. It's Just a Flesh Wound - Defeat the Black Knight to obtain the Achievement
4. I'm Not Dead Yet - Horde quest in Icecrown
5. Holy Hand Grenade of Resistance -

The date posted was of course 1st April but having checked WoWHead it all seems to be quite genuine. There is a a debuff Huge Sharp Teeth, and an achievement That Rabbit's Dynamite.

I for one am hoping it is first genuine and secondly that it makes it to the final release.

WoW Plus

One week into my computer experiment, means that I now have a fully functioning 64 bit Operating System with a 64 bit WoW client. Now installed as intended on my old system I can see some real improvements. My computer is probably around 3 years old now and the only improvement to its performance was an upgrade of memory to 4MB, 12 months ago.

Windows XP does not cope with memory over 3.5-4GB due to the deficiencies of the 32 bit operating and certain articles suggest that WoW 32 bit client only uses 2GB of available memory and copious amounts of CPU. Anybody who plays in Full Screen mode and then Alt + Tabs to look at a web browser will have encountered the lag before IE or Firefox are available to use. The reason for the reduced lag on the 64 bit client is that it typically uses less CPU power to run the client, with more data being cached in the larger memory available. I haven't done the statistical tests on memory and CPU but the in game response is sharper, with higher frame rates up 50% to 30 fps even in high population areas like Stormwind. One other advantage is the decrease in load times and re-logging.

I have no real empirical evidence to back it up, but I believe that this is a huge improvement for my computer

Are you going to Darkmoon Faire?

Ahead of You, Down the Path

A Majestic, Magical Faire!

Ignore the Darkened, Eerie Woods

Ignore the Eyes That Blink and Stare

Fun & Games & Wondrous Sights!

Music & Fireworks to Light Up the Night!

Do Not Stop! You're Nearly There!

Behold, My Friend: THE DARKMOON FAIRE!

- Upon the signs leading to the Darkmoon Faire, down the Darkmoon Path

The Darkmoon Faire showcases the weird and the extraordinary. Gathering the exotic from around the world, Silas Darkmoon presents the Darkmoon Faire as a celebration of the wonders and mysteries found in Azeroth. The Faire spends most of its time in parts unknown, they are available from time to time by accessing portals in Mulgore and Elwynn Forest.

Does anyone remember the fanfare with the launch of the new improved Darkmoon Faire? The original Faire was a relic of another time, It was useful to Goldmakers and Reputation gatherers. The only other visitors got there latest Darkmoon Trinkets and hearthstoned as quickly as possible.

Is the new Faire going the same as the old one? I think it might be. I portalled over as soon as the Faire was available and joined the small band that could be bothered to hand in a few quests and unload the stack of Darkmoon Artifacts. Now we have had a few problems in the last few months with the achievements Darkmoon Dungeoneer and Darkmoon Despoiler resetting each month. So I set off to check that the progress had not been cleared. Hurrah for Blizz, everything was in place.

Not everything was working as intended. There was a flurry of blue exclamations but none of the monthly quests were available. On trying to hand in Soothsayer Runes it stated that I had already completed this quest.. All the profession quests were the same and was the Grisly Ears quest.

Yesterday this had been solved, and I was able to complete the monthly quests, but something else struck me in the process of researching this post, the achievement history is now blank. It would appear that the quests are slightly bugged and its either quests or history. So I still stand by my post last month as Epic Fail Blizz.

I am the Resurrection

My wife and our best friends said goodbye to Azeroth 6-9 Months ago, they had all grown tired of the roller coaster ride that is World of Warcraft. Cataclysm was so wrong on so many levels and the tired and weary just put away their wands and staves and never looked back.

We have rarely spoken about WoW since and only briefly in passing. That was until this weekend. An opportunistic approach from one of my guild mates, took the opportunity by scouring Facebook to find inactive guild members who might be wanting to comeback to the game via the Scroll of Resurrection.

At first I was slightly annoyed that somebody should contact my wife in this way. I wanted to be the person to benefit from the Scroll of Resurrection not some random guildy, and besides I never expected my wife to be interested in playing again.

The questions about the game and installing on her new laptop, playing over wireless, 64 bit operating systems and 64 bit clients. I offered to set it up for her and then in a flash the moment was gone. I had pushed to hard and too fast. The interest had been extinguished, however there is an glowing ember and I will tease a months subscription out of her I am sure, but it will take time and until then its definitely slowly slowly catchee monkey.

So what is in the scroll of resurrection? and how do I go ahead and get hold of one?

Step 1 - Send Invitation

Send your friend a Scroll of Resurrection email by clicking Send Invitation. You may also invite a friend via your World of Warcraft in-game friends list or guild roster.

To receive a Scroll of Resurrection, your friend must meet the eligibility requirements outlined in the FAQ.

 Step 2 - Resurrect Your Friend

When your friend accepts your invitation and returns to WoW, he or she immediately receives the following FREE rewards for ONE character:

· Character boosted to level 80 - limited time offer
· FREE upgrade to Cataclysm
· 7 FREE days of game time
· FREE character move to your realm and faction so you can play together

Step 3 - Earn Rewards

When your resurrected friend pays for at least 30 days of game, you receive your choice of the following FREE rewards:

Spectral Gryphon for an Alliance Character

Or

Spectral WindRider for a Horde character

So do I qualify, here is the FAQ

Are all countries eligible to cast the Scroll of Resurrection?

To send an invitation an account must be a full active account in good standing. Only residents of the following countries may send a Scroll of Resurrection invitation: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and United Kingdom. Battle.net registration required. Register at www.battle.net at no cost to you.

UK - yippee, one down

Who can be sent a Scroll of Resurrection?

To be eligible to receive a Scroll of Resurrection, your friend must have a full (non-Starter Edition) World of Warcraft account, and their account must have become inactive on or before March 4th, 2012.

If your friend’s World of Warcraft account has been inactive since December 2009 (or longer), your friend must first associate their World of Warcraft account with a free Battle.net account before they can receive a Scroll of Resurrection. Tell your friend to see our Battle.net Account FAQ for information on creating a Battle.net account and merging their WoW account. After your friend has set up their account, you should be able to send them a Scroll of Resurrection normally.


OK - here, lets hope my wife is better at following instruction than I am

Can I resurrect one of my own World of Warcraft accounts?

If you have at least one active World of Warcraft account, you can send your inactive accounts Scroll of Resurrection invitations.

N/A

How long is the Scroll of Resurrection invitation good for once I send it out?

Your friend has 30 days to accept the invitation. The offer will expire if not used within that time.

Slowly Slowly Catchee Monkey - I have 30 days but the E-mail will trigger alarm bells.

Is there a limit on the number of Scroll of Resurrection invitations that I can send out?

There is a limit of one Scroll of Resurrection invitation per day per World of Warcraft Account on both the web and in-game. This makes an effective limit of 2 Scroll of Resurrection invitations per day per account if you use both sending options. There is no limit on the number of lifetime Scroll of Resurrection invitations that an account can send.

N/A

Can I invite someone who has never played before with a Scroll of Resurrection?

Scroll of Resurrection can only be used on players who once had active World of Warcraft subscriptions. For a similar offer for friends who have never subscribed to World of Warcraft, please see the Recruit-A-Friend FAQ.

Yes, so lets proceed.

Damn, I need to log into my Battlenet account. It will have to wait till I get my hands on my Authenticator.

Instructions are for people who don't know what they doing.

My daughter when she was a very young child, was a big fan of Bob the Builder. In the episode "One Shot Wendy" the gang are busy making a crazy golf course. In the process of making a windmill, Bob utters the immortal lines "Instructions are for people who don't know what they doing." Bob of course comes a cropper and ends up inside the windmill unable to get out.

I have often been heard muttering the same line, and more often than not end up in a similar pickle. It would appear that I have installed the WoW Client 64 bit version wrong. The official instructions as per Wowwiki states:

Windows

• Make sure your 32-bit World of Warcraft run directory is up-to-date (build # matches 64-bit client).
• Unzip WoWLive-64-Win-15211.zip (approx. 7.6 MB) into the run directory where WoW.exe resides. It should create a WoWLive-64-Win-15211\ directory.
• Copy the following files from WoWLive-64-Win-15211\ into your World of Warcraft run directory:
  • Battle.net-64.dll
  • MovieProxy.exe
  • WoW-64.exe
• Run the Launcher, go to Options\Game Preferences and make sure "Launch 32-bit Client:" is unchecked.
• Click Play.

It would appear I have 2 distinct versions of WoW installed on my machine. This way if the 64 bit client goes pear shaped I have a backup plan. Opening the game without the launcher is just so fast anyway. I guess for now that I will just leave it as it is. There is no shortage of HDD space on my PC. Due to the number of times I rebuild my PC I keep my data separate from the Operating system. The disks are labelled as:

C:\ System
D:\ Music
E:\ Video

Both WoW installs are sat on the E:\ drive exempt from the regular use of Format C:

Is There Anybody Out There?

The last post was several days in the writing. I am still playing but not very much. To fill the gap I have recently rebuilt my PC.

My current PC originally came with Windows Vista, I tried to love this operating system as much as XP but it just didn't work between us. On the rebound I went back to my first love Windows XP. We had some lovely times together but I became obsessed with something new, it was shiny and I wanted it. The object of my affections was of course Windows 7, but it was still in beta. I had heard such good things about Windows 7 and I had to have. It was everything that Vista wasn't but oddly it shares so much with this unloved predecessor.

In the end Windows 7 Beta was a complete washout for me, I tried 32 and 64 bit version and none of them would get past the introduction page. As you can imagine, I was not in rush to buy a product that had a good chance of not working. I returned once more to Windows XP and thought no more about it.

A few months later I got involved in a Computer rollout of Windows 7, with server implementation of Server 2008. Windows 7 proved to be a joy to work with it, once you worked out were all the menus had disappeared to. Whilst on the rollout I took the opportunity to see if my computer would actually support Windows 7 now it was a proper operating system with its very own service pack.  Sure enough it worked like a dream for several months until one day it fell out of love with me. The messages it sent me got worse and worse with every passing day, and then one day the screen stopped showing the lovely scenes of the United Kingdom and everything went black.

Oddly enough the PC still worked and the updates kept rolling in. I eventually got depressed by the blackness of it all, and went off to consult the Underworld Oracle. The font of all knowledge told me I could have my Windows 7 all shiny and new again. This happened again about 6 weeks later and the process just rolled on for 4 or 5 resets then Windows 7 stopped loving me and the world went black forever. Over the black background a little message in white font was teasing me.

"Windows 7 Build 7601 This copy of windows not genuine".

Now the dilema was what to do? The install had only been a test to see if Windows 7 would install, but could I go back to Windows XP? The answer of course is no way. Then it struck me that my wife has a new laptop, and that all the new laptops are rolling out with 64 bit as you would expect. The version of Office 2010 in the house supports 3 licenses, WoW also now as a 64 bit client, so would my aging PC support Windows 7 64 bit.

The answer is a resounding Yes. Currently installed is Office 2010 and early stage 64 bit WoW client.
I do still have the 32 bit copy to hand if needed. The 64 bit WoW client is a strange beast. The installer is a very tiny 7.2MB in size and this grows to an enormous size very quickly. Currently it occupies about 27 GB but you can play almost immediately, with the proviso of a very poor framerate. I am unable to give my full impressions until it has stopped updating but the early signs are very encouraging.

Now I have Windows 7 64 bit on test for a few weeks, but what happens when it goes black again. Well there is something shiny and new just round the corner, I just need to get hold of that Windows 8 Beta software.

I am definitely not sitting Comfortably Numb.