WOOOT!

We’re back in business people!

Slowly…

Another amount of downtime this morning meant I couldn’t play this morning before Abby woke up nor while she was at school. And the realms are coming back online slowly, but my realm is sitting there on the Realm Status page, surrounded by a sea of green with it being the only red dot in the middle.

Ugh. Best be before 11.30am- gotta go pick up Abby from school. Then get on briefly and check guild bank and mail box, make sure I can go to AH to fill the spots where my epic loot was yesterday and then finally turn off the computer and go to sleep. I have been awake since yesterday morning, and thanks to the help of two cans of Mountain Dew and some tea…I am still bouyant and perky! Sleep?! Sleep is for the weak!

Bye, my sweet, sweet epics :(

Well, it was fun while it lasted. There was a couple of items available FOR FREE at the Champion’s Hall in Stormwind and I was on the island when someone told me. So I hot footed it over to the city to see what it was all about. When I realised that some of the pieces I could actually use, I snatched them up. Unfortunately, I was a bit of a dumb ass and I got rid of the old stuff that I had to begin with. And I used the one epic gem that I’d been saving for weeks in my bank account on the necklace- thinking we had a shot of keeping them.

Doh! Servers are down again so they can correct the prices on these said items, and finally fix the mail box problem from earlier. Oh well, at least I took some screenshots of Galilyse wearing them before they dissapeared. It gave me a chance to see how I performed wearing some epic gear though, so now I’m gonna grind some major PvP points so I can actually buy some legit next time

Realms. NEED MAI GAMEZ…..!

I am so frustrated at the moment. World of Warcraft has been down ALL DAY and I am seriously climbing the walls with waiting, and waiting…and waiting some more. I have to bake a cake for my choir director birthday’s tomorrow- so I’m attempting to kill time with doing that, but every couple of seconds my brain freaks out and says “NO! MUST. PLAY. WARCRAFT!” And so, I started up Warcraft 3…but the void is not filled. I attempted to do laundry but my brain rebelled again with “NO! MUST. KILL. BRAIN. CELLS. WARCRAFT. NIGHT ELVES. MAGIC. STARFALL. GOLD. LEVEL 70. DAILIES”

So I called my friend in PA, who also happens to be the person I run my guild with (yup me and a bunch of friends started our new guild) and he’s not answering his phone. I was kind of relying on him to calm me down a little, cause he’s really good at that. My brain is running at a trillion miles an hour and it would slow down if they would just bring the realms back online again. Gimme my game!

Why, Oh Why?

My husband likes to watch me squirm, I’m sure of it. I told him today that if I came home from working for my friends with a cheque in my hand to pay him back for the bounced cheque…could I get the password for the WoW account again? The answer was no, because he would prefer I pay him back in my own time and he will give me the password when he thinks I’ve learned my lesson.

*insert whining noise here* No. No, no no no! I have a Level 70 that is dying to be played, and I want to interract with my fellow guild members again- I have such fun with them. Some of the time it isn’t about playing the game, half the time we sit around and chat…and I know that it’s an expensive $15 a month for just talking to people…but I miss that. I call the GM on the phone and talk to him that way, but honestly it’s not the same.

So hopefully when I get some money today, I will be able to play tonight. If he still won’t let me, I will go out and buy my own version of the game and I’ll make my own account. He can’t stop me playing if I have my own account with my own password and my own way of paying for my nightly social interaction.

Knowing Nick, he’ll probably take away the modem and stop me playing that way. Ughhhhhh.

Zombie Roundup!

So, since I am not online this evening…I thought I’d post all the screenshots I took of the zombie event in WoW. It really was awesome and I really enjoyed it. I ran around with a guildie for part of it and we killed any undead that even looked as us funny- such a riot!

Pulling my hair out and going BATSHIT crazy!!

I have always thought of gaming as a way for me to relax in the evening, but recently I’ve been playing games that make me want to pull my hair out and drive me batshit crazy. The first one was Lego Star Wars, I decided to buy a cut-price copy for the PC. Haha, I have recently found out that the PC version is buggy as shit and freezes or just doesn’t work in parts. The controls drove me up the wall too, but now at least I have them configured to how I like and everything is peachy-keen again. Until I get to a part in the game that drives me nuts and I get so pissy. Grrrr….

The second one is a game that I borrowed from a friend of mine this afternoon. He’d been harping on about it for a while, and me and Nick are looking after their house while they’re on vacation. He’s a HUGE gamer (even has a whole room dedicated to it) and I borrowed Trauma Center off him for my DS. Urgh…wish I had never bothered, as it lags in parts and then you can’t finish the level in time. I keep having to do the same thing over and over and over again and I want to throw the DS across the room. Not that I would

Apple vs Nintendo?!

I find this completely ludicrous

From: http://news.cnet.com/8601-13506_3-9961881.html?communityId=2017&targetCommunityId=2017

Why Apple will never kill the Nintendo DS

Has Brian Caulfield of Forbes totally lost it? In a piece entitled, “Why Apple could kill the Nintendo DS”, Caulfield contends that Apple’s new App store for the iPhone and iPod touch could be the first step in replacing Nintendo in the handheld gaming space.

“Monday…Nintendo will likely face a new and far more dangerous foe: Apple,” Caulfield wrote. “Steve Jobs’ computer and gizmo maker will likely launch a long-promised feature, dubbed the App Store, which will let outside developers pour software into the iPhone and iPod Touch. And while it’s unlikely that, say, a mobile version of Oracle’s wonky database will make anyone stand up and cheer, we already know putting games on the iPhone is a pretty powerful combination.”

We do? Ostensibly Caulfield is alluding to games that we saw at the iPhone SDK event earlier this year where Sega unveiled Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone and EA showed off Spore, but I don’t know where else he sees this “powerful combination.”

And if he knew anything about the handheld gaming market, he would probably know that Nintendo’s past is littered with the remains of companies that have tried to supplant it as the leader in the market and failed — miserably.

But to suggest that Apple could conceivably command the market and wrest control from the one company that has controlled it for over 20 years, is both foolhardy and downright ludicrous.

Here’s why:

So far, Nintendo has sold just over 73 million Nintendo DSs. Compare that to the iPhone’s lofty goal of 10 million units sold and the iPod touch’s sales, which have yet to be released, and you can see how much work Apple has to do just to catch up. In fact, last quarter, Apple sold about 1.7 million iPhones and 10 million iPods, although the exact number of iPod touch sales were not given. Considering Nintendo’s April DS sales were 414,800, I just don’t see how Apple has a chance

The DS is currently on pace to not only destroy the Game Boy sales record, but it has the opportunity to do so in about ten years assuming the same rate of sale can be maintained. Can Apple truly produce that many products and then convert those users into gamers? I seriously doubt it.

And perhaps that’s where Caulfield’s logic really falls off the tracks. Apple will most likely try to make some inroads in the handheld gaming business, but the sheer number of DS units already in the wild is enough to ensure that the iPhone and iPod touch will never come close.

Let’s face it — Apple is struggling to sell 10 million iPhones. How can it truly expect to supplant the Nintendo DS in the handheld gaming space if it’s still more than 60 million units behind?

But maybe I should give Caulfield the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps his title about “killing” the Nintendo DS was a little too strong and it’s not about the numbers. Of course, I’m not quite sure how he can run from the sales figures so easily, but that’s another story altogether.

Maybe, just maybe, Caulfield meant that the iPhone and iPod Touch would kill the Nintendo DS by selling more games in the App store. If he believes that, he’s probably even further off than even I want to admit.

Can anyone see any way for Apple to kill the DS by selling games through the App store? If the sales figures (oops, there they are again) aren’t nearly as high as the DS, which has about a 4.7 game attach rate, can we really expect Apple to beat it?

Assuming we’re going to judge the “killing” of one device in the handheld market by software sales, each iPod Touch and iPhone would need an attach rate that has never been achieved in the history of gaming: 34 games per device assuming there are 10 million iPhone and iPod Touch units in the wild.

Now that is doing something.

Sadly, Caulfield makes, well, no sense. Regardless of how hard he tries, he can’t run from the overwhelming discrepancy between the DS sales figures and those of the iPhone and iPod touch. And although he has faith in Apple’s upcoming App Store, does he really trust it that much?

I certainly don’t.

And although I haven’t mentioned it due to the overwhelming evidence that can be found elsewhere, what about the 800-pound gorilla in the room? You know, that whole issue with Apple not understanding (or even caring) about gaming at all. How does Caulfield account for that?

I understand that some folks would like to believe that Apple can control every industry it may have some impact on, but I guess I’m not that naive. Suffice it to say that in some markets, Apple can’t (and won’t) be the leader.

Is that so hard to accept, Mr. Caulfield?