Porridge: The Sequel

[Creole Ned]

First, let me make one thing emphatically clear: I am not quitting CoH/CoV. I love dem games and still play them nearly every day. This is just something to fill the gaps, cleanse the palate or whatevah.

That said, I have three gamecards for WoW sitting here so I figure, it's free, why not give it another look-see? At least this way those bastards at Blizzard can't accidentally charge me an extra month after I'm done (did I mention they are bastards?)

Here is what I want:

- a low pop or new server. Not interested in jumping into a well-established community.
- not into PvP, so a PvE server is preferred.
- not into roleplaying. It's a game. I know and appreciate this.
- no interest in the auction house, economy, twinking, guilds, large-scale grouping or reaching the level cap.
- interested in soloing or small groups, mainly to explore and try out shiny new powers. They are shiny, aren't they?
- not interested in running a bunch of mods and spending time tinkering with the UI.
- think casual. Very casual.


Having looked at the classes, I am leaning toward Druid for the shape-shifting or Hunter for the pets. I don't care if either class is deemed sub-optimal.

What I am looking for here are specific suggestions for servers and any really basic tips for the game in general. I'm likely to only play a few times a week, so hardcore + me = no.

Thank you for any suggestions. :nod:

[Tai]

That's my gaming style to a T, but I'm on the same server as everyone else so have no real suggestion to help you :(

[Andri]

Ned, I wished you would consider joining us on Arthas just so that we could play with you. I have at least 2 lowbies under lvl 5 that I would like to advance. But Arthas is one of the oldest servers and currently back to high pop. :( If you want a new server where people are virtually just starting out; I think Blizz just announced yesterday that they opened 4 new servers. The message is probably still up on the login screen, so you can get the names from there. (I am sure one of you is going to correct me now that it is really 5 servers, and that it was the day before yesterday that the message was posted. Come on, cut an old owman some slack on her bad memory... :) )

On your other points: I am not at all into PvP either, but being on a PvP server does not mean in any case that you have to participate in the butchery of other players. It only means that it will happen to you occasionally that someone kicks your pants while you are harmlessly questing away. I'd say, though, that the introduction of Battlegrounds has greatly reduced the amount of random ganking. And oddly enough, I do get a great kick out of running into horde and NOT killing each other although both parties know they could. I managed a few times to complete quests with the help of hordies (or help them to complete theirs), which I found a fascinating experience given that communication is limited to a few pre-established e-motes. So if you can tolerate a few needless deaths at the hands of immature kids, it does not really matter much whether you join a PvP or PvE server.

Classes: I don't think there are any inferior or superior classes. All classes are soloable, although some appear to have an easier time in the beginning than others. I'd probably warn against creating a Paladin, but that is not because I deem them in any way an undesirable class, but because I observed that most people who played them to lvl 60 suddenly started hating their poor chars and more or less abandoned them. Don't ask me why.

I don't know how you generally like to play -- by yourself or in cooperation with others. You can usually do a lot of stuff on your own, but quest chains typically lead up to a final encounter that you can complete only in cooperation with others. If you choose a new server where none of us has alts, you'd have to collaborate with strangers. I had initially great inhibitions to do that, being a bloody n00b to MMORPGs etc. Now I am more than OK with it, although I still am not the person to spam Ironforge with LFG messages. I usually just sit around until I see somebody else spamming an appealing offer.

When you say, you don't like dealing with the Auction House etc., I assume you are trying to say that you are not interested in becoming a farmer who accumulates silly amounts of cash. That's fine. You can get good gear from quests, mob drops and instances; there is really no need to buy gear. However, you will need some money for training and to get your mount, and being stingy and saving up your quest rewards will likely not be enough to get everything at the time it becomes available level-wise. What you can do is take up two gatherer professions (mining, skinning, herbalism) and just pick up whatever herbs/ore/dead animals you come across while questing. You can then sell the proceeds to vendors or at the AH to supplement your funds.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents worth of thought.

[BoX]

Malfurion is the new pve realm. I have no real tips, it's all pretty straight foward stuff. Were you thinking of rolling horde or alliance?

[jackrabbit]

Hunter is a very self-sufficeint class (and my personal favorite). Once you get a pet at level 10 (12?) you essentially don't need to group until level 40 or so. Great class.

All the cool add-ons have been mimicked by the WoW UI now, so anything cool is for the most part "built-in" now. Other than that... if not an RP (role playing server) jump on one of the newest servers like BoX said (I think Lightning Hoof is also brand new, but I don't know... it may be PvP).

Tai, if Ned joined Arthas, he'd get killed by the opposing faction after like level 20 and hate you for the rest of your life. Besides, Arthas is one of the busiest servers aside from the ones Penny Arcade and Something Awful are on.

Anyhow Ned, good luck on your pick of servers, race, and class! I think you'll find it's a great game with a few minor annoyances, but far fewer than most MMORPGs have. Feel free to ask the veteran WoW players if you have questions. Though some of us talk like we hate the game, the truth is that we love it secretly much more than it annoys us.

[Creole Ned]

I was thinking maybe a hot Night Elf chick.

Oh, and Inka, it's six new servers, actually. :bg:

You correctly guessed what I meant about the auction house, more or less. I'm not really interested in the economic part of the game. I just need enough trinkets to be able to play effectively, not be uber.

Arthas is a high-pop server. Are there queues? That's something I won't put up with, free or not.

[jackrabbit]

just logged in....

Lightinghoof is the new PvP-RP server. Go with BoX's pick.

[BoX]

You don't want to play on Arthas, high pop, queues and lag. Stinky NE's :(
I hate that starting area.

[Harka]

I'd say go hunter or paladin for soloability. Im guessing that you will only play till your pay cards are up so you dont have to worry about high level Pali problems and they are great soloers for the most part until your DPS starts causing problems but in the early levels your good. And bliz is supposed to give them some love soon.

pick any low pop server and you will be good to go.

[Tai]

Tai, if Ned joined Arthas, he'd get killed by the opposing faction after like level 20 and hate you for the rest of your life. Besides, Arthas is one of the busiest servers aside from the ones Penny Arcade and Something Awful are on.

yes, that's why I didn't tell him to join it =P I'm going to go get 1.8 :thumbup:

[LogRoller]

Look for something mid range in the pop area, Ned. You don't want too many people on there that you have to wait to get in, but you don't want it so barren that you can not find a decent pick up group.

I'm playing a druid as my alt now, and it is fun. Plus, you are usually in demand for groups due to flexibility and healing.

[Tai]

Plus, druids just look cool. I was going to be a druid, but only elfs can be druids, and everyone else had started in Ironforge or Stormwind and I didn't want to be on the other side of the world from everyone. You wouldn't have this problem obviously. Elf land is pretty cool looking too! Much better than that underground hole the Dwarves live in!

[Andri]

I'd add to that that druids have the advantage of being faster on the road before all otehr classes (they get cheetah form (at rank 30???), which allows them to travel much faster even without a mount). And if you don't like the druid in the end, you'd still have gotten a good idea of what many other classes are like, as the druid can essentially be comparable to a rogue, a priest, or a warrior depending on what animal form you assume.

[jackrabbit]

hunters get aspect of the cheetah at level 24 I believe, so they have it sooner, but it's not as fast.

[Andri]

You just want him to be a hunter, don't you? :bg:

[jackrabbit]

No!

(yes.)

[BoX]

They get cheetah aspect at 20, it's a 30% increase in speed. Did you end up making a character Ned?

[Creole Ned]

I have not yet made a character. I have officially Mulled™, though.

[pogozorro]

In all honesty, the first 10 levels go by so fast that even if you didn't like where or who you are, it is just as easy to pick a new class and a new race and head somewhere else. The best thing you can do is just try something and see how it goes from there.

[Creole Ned]

Name: Pretzel
Race/class: Night elf/druid
Server: Arthas

Level 4ish right now. And instead of killing rats, it's killing boars. That's a step up, I guess. :P

[LogRoller]

Ned, you fool!!

Let us know if you need cash or anything at all. We can make you some decent gear to deck out your druid.

[Tai]

My level 3 Taitwo gnome/mage is ready to kill boars with you! She's got some extra bags too.

[jackrabbit]

Ned, I logged on to vent then into WoW with a brand new level 1 character to mug around with you in the land of Azeroth. After I didn't see you I dropped a message in IRC, then played the character a *little* bit.

I sortof made it to level 13 with Arbatel, my female human paladin. :(

[Tai]

roll another one =P

[bridude]

I'm gonna roll with you guys.

[Tai]

seriously?

[bridude]

yeah, I'll reactivate tonight.

err gotta get up early for dragday though. Maybe I should wait till Sat. :)

I think I'll roll a preist.

[Tai]

Yeah, wait. If you reactivate tonight, you'll be level 20 before I even get home ;) Good luck at the shootout, I'll be sleeping in :thumbup:

[bridude]

I'm just helpin out/spectating. Thanks though :)

[Fitty]

yeah, I'll reactivate tonight.

err gotta get up early for dragday though. Maybe I should wait till Sat. :)

I think I'll roll a preist.

you can roll the jerk class

edit - Lucy thought Drag Day was Drag Queen Day...ns ggs

[bridude]

Tell luci he call can roll the Intern class. He can specialize in gathering coffee.

[Tai]

Tell luci he call can roll the Intern class. He can specialize in gathering coffee.

I think that class starts out with a free Tie + 1 to nerdiness.

[Fitty]

Bridude your shoes are so white that it is a hate crime and your fish are dumb.


asdf

[BoX]

I've yet to see you Ned, though with the queues all the time I'm lucky if I get on myself.

[Tai]

Do you know how long you can stay 'link dead' and if you have to go through the queue to reconnect?

[jackrabbit]

I think you get 15 minutes AFK in-game, then get kicked back to the server's character select screen. You get another time frame here, maybe 15 minutes? After that you get kicked to the WoW logon screen and will need to wait in queue again. Also, if the worldserver goes down, it's back to queue for you!

[Tai]

Well, the fastest I've ever gotten home was 37 minutes, which I guess might be 7 minutes too long (and which speed I am unlikely to attain again anyway). I shall just have to suck it up and wait in the queue.

Safe journey home.

[Creole Ned]

I will probably start a hunter on a different server than Arthas. As little as I've played, I'm not going to spend time in queues just to get on.

Undecided on Pretzel.

[Tai]

noted.

Bridude made a night elf healer - if you do decide to play Pretzel (the queues aren't really all that bad), then the 3 of us can wreak merry havoc! :)

[Creole Ned]

I patched the game to 1.8.3 tonight and played around with Pretzel for a bit after launching via the new "We know you're cheating lol!" launcher.

I was looking through a few of the UI options when the game crashed again, same as the other two times. I get "no signal detected", as if the video card isn't even working and have to reboot.

I have had some crashes in CoH recently, but there are some stability issues with the game lately (and with the newly introduced physics engine) -- the crashes are well-documented on the official forums. Serious Sam 2 has crashed as well, but again, it appeared to be related to a specific physics-related problem in the game -- I could replicate the crash by doing the same thing (basically manipulating too many objects and causing the game to go "Dude, I am so not processing all that. Game over, you read book now. CRASH.")

I had not jumped back into the game because of the previous crashes and this has rather put me off again. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Specs:

• GeForce 6800 GT OC w. Nvidia 81.94 drivers (latest)
• MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo2_Platinum&class=mb) w. nForce 3 5.11 motherboard drivers (latest)
• Audigy 2 with drivers that were updated last time I felt like putting up with Creative's nonsense (maybe a year ago?)
• 2 gigs PC3200 ram
• Windows XP Pro, fully updated
• Defragged HD with plenty o' spare room
• etc. etc.

[Tai]

Have you tried disabling the sound card? Or disabling EAX in game?

[Creole Ned]

Is that a semi-random suggestion or is EAX/sound a known source of problems?

I didn't even know the game had EAX. But I'll have a look. I think I'd rather build a new computer than try to update Creative's drivers, though.

[pogozorro]

I have the same video card and a later revision of the mobo, so I don't think it is that barring any strange driver issues. The only crashes I ever had were because of a bad driver uninstall (video card) and only WoW would crash for me occaisionally.

[Creole Ned]

My Audigy 2 drivers were dated 10/21/03. I opted to not use their ActiveX/IE auto-update thingie and manually got the latest driver from their website. After installing, the driver date is now 10/18/04.

If I still have problems with crashing, I'll try disabling the Audigy and using my onboard sound. Or maybe I will take the Audigy out and smash it with a hammer as part of recommended therapy.

[bridude]

ok I'm lvl 10 now.

Tai I've been taking my time trying to stay with you but Im constantly getting group invites.

I can rez now YAY!!

[Tai]

eek, when did you play? I'm level 8, but can't train any of my mage skills :( I will be around tonight, but might be playing Tai.

[bridude]

last night. I went from lvl 7-10

I may take the trek over to the human area.

[Creole Ned]

With updated sound drivers: crashed in about 10 minutes. Same as before.

Unless someone has something else specific to suggest, I think I'm done. I've got plenty of games to play without wasting time trying to fix this.

[bridude]

so Ned you're not getting any error? Just a CTD?

[Creole Ned]

Not even a crash to desktop, the whole system goes down and "no signal detected" from my monitor - a blank screen.

I ran the repair utility and it reported nothing. I'm going to try renaming the WTF and WDB folders and see what happens. The last thing I will probably try is re-enabling the onboard audio and disabling the Audigy.

I'm not keen on having to re-install the entire game.

[bridude]

IMO I don't think its sound related. Sounds like something is over heating.

I also found this, I dunno if you've read it already.

lack screen crashes/freezes:

The second type of black screen crash occurs during Gameplay. There are a number of possible causes that include, inadequate cooling, using an insufficient power supply, malfunctions within the video card, or improper powering of newer video cards. Disabling AGP Fastwrites or changing the AGP aperture settings in the BIOS (we do not recommend BIOS changes unless a technician is present) has corrected the issue in some cases. Some UIs may also cause the crash and deleting the WDB, WTF, and Interface folders located in the game directory on your hard drive may correct the issue. As always, if the steps listed to not assist you in correcting the error, please email wowtech@blizzard.com


I noticed your VC is overclocked. You may want to roll it back. Another thing to try would be open up the case and put a box fax next to it. That would most likely rule out an over heating problem.

also doesnt that MB come with monitoring software, where you can set an alrm to go off if it reaches a certain temp?

[FoeKilla]

Ned, WoW is reported to be very finicky about the RAM in the system. If you have a hint of a weakness in your RAM WoW will get it's panties in a bunch. You said you have 2gb if I remember correctly. Try moving sticks around and/or running on 1gb. I have a suspicion your woes are RAM related.

[FoeKilla]

Bri, Ned's vid card is a factory OC. It's the same card I have.

[bridude]

Ned, WoW is reported to be very finicky about the RAM in the system. If you have a hint of a weakness in your RAM WoW will get it's panties in a bunch. You said you have 2gb if I remember correctly. Try moving sticks around and/or running on 1gb. I have a suspicion your woes are RAM related.

you could also run this.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#top

do you have any other nvidia video card in the house? You may want to swap it out just to see. Those drivers you are using will work with legacy GF cards.

[Creole Ned]

Ran the memory tester in extended mode (11 tests total). No errors reported. Grabbed the latest DirectX 9.0c from MS's site and "installed" it. I put that in quotes because the installation took about two seconds. It obviously sees DX as already being up-to-date on my PC. I'd have to nuke it before getting an actual re-install to occur. Not keen on that.

Finally, I disabled AGP fast writes and as reported above, renamed my WDB and WTF folders, forcing them to be recreated by the game.

Having done all this, I logged back in, re-adjusted all of my settings to how they had been before and played for half an hour with no crashes before logging off, which is considerably longer than I've managed before. So the issue *may* be fixed.

[Tai]

*Tai cheers*

[Creole Ned]

Played again tonight. Pretzel is now level 5. Woo, it's like I'm power-leveling myself!

Circuit has a 14 day trial and made a Night Elf hunter named Floody (this was one of the random names the game generated, so he took it). Floody is an amazing level 2 and can cry on demand. He also killed an innocent bunny. :( (Not our bunny, though.)

The game ran without a hitch.

[Kermit]

Bull tickie...

This is Azeroth, not America. Rabbits are guilty until proven innocent...

I'm starting a new character on Aggrammar with some non-MC friends. I will be on with them Monday and Thursday nights but will still be around some other nights with Krimet. Give a holler if you need a hand.

[Creole Ned]

Pretzel is now 11.5 and can be a real bear (haw haw).

[Tai]

Pretzel is now 11.5 and can be a real bear (haw haw).

Sweet! You too are ahead of me now - I'm ready to play :)

[LogRoller]

Is everyone in the Cartel guild so we can find each other?

[Tai]

I know Pretezel is, I assume the others got invites last night too. I got Taitwo up to level 11.5 :) I also did the run back to Ironforge picking up griffon points along the way, and trained up to my level 10 mage skills. I'm back in Elfland and ready to roll - I have the Ursal quest and the last of the tumor corruption arc quest to do (couldn't solo the elite by myself). Should be getting pretty close to being ready to move to Darkshore - how about you guys?

[Creole Ned]

Those who played last night are all in the guild:

Bunny = Llydia the Rogue ("I hate myself but will backstab you, bitch.")
Foe = Daro the Druid ("Ned, stay around for awhile, you know...unlike ME, lol.")
Orion - Motan the Warrior ("Ned isn't replying because he's still waiting for that CoH 'ding' sound when I type a comment.")
Ned = Pretzel the Druid ("I still get super jump at 14, right?")

All are at or close to 12.

[Creole Ned]

Circuit's hunter, Floody, is now in the guild and is level 6. So Pretzel wouldn't get too far ahead, I also created a hunter, Celerina, who is currently 7.

And to my dismay, while WoW has been running fine, I had another crash just like the ones I'd been having in WoW but tonight it happened in City of Villains. Checked the temperature and it's definitely not overheating (video card is running well below the threshold where it gets throttled back automatically). I am a tad concerned it could be a hardware issue.

[FoeKilla]

check the anti-freeze

those BC winters are a bear!

[Tai]

Ug :( There's some RAM checker diagnotsic software somewhere, perhaps you could try something like that?

[Creole Ned]

I already checked the ram, it came out clean.

Maybe it will be one of those problems that magically goes away on its own. :nod:

[Tai]

I shall cheer on the magic then!

[Creole Ned]

Update: Pretzel holding steady at 12.

Circuit has a gnome warrior that I think he likes and should be able to get him to 12 or close enough shortly, then will need to make the magical journey to the other side of the world where night elves live.

I also have Garq, a level 7 gnome warlock along for the ride.

[Circuit]

Since I'm still too young to figure out which class I like, I'm uncertain which way to go. I've only tried 3 so far: hunter, mage, and warrior. I liked the hunter the least, although I only got him to 7 and it may just be that archery is boring in most contexts. My gnome warrior seems pretty fun so far, but the mage seemed cool, too. My playstyle's usually up close and personal, so I assume the warrior's a good fit, but it's still too early to tell. The melee combat still seems icky to me, but I'll stick it out a bit longer. I will have to put in 90hundred hours of WoW over the next few days to decide.

[bridude]

Since I'm still too young to figure out which class I like, I'm uncertain which way to go. I've only tried 3 so far: hunter, mage, and warrior. I liked the hunter the least, although I only got him to 7 and it may just be that archery is boring in most contexts. My gnome warrior seems pretty fun so far, but the mage seemed cool, too. My playstyle's usually up close and personal, so I assume the warrior's a good fit, but it's still too early to tell. The melee combat still seems icky to me, but I'll stick it out a bit longer. I will have to put in 90hundred hours of WoW over the next few days to decide.

play the hunter at least to 10 so you can get your pet. Then it's a whole new ball game. Hunters can also use guns.

[BoX]

Rogues like melee.

[Creole Ned]

Pretzel is still 12 but now with tidily-arranged actions bars. When I was going through his abilities, I noticed he had an inherent, Teleport Moonglade. I tested it and sure enough I ended up in Moonglade. Unfortunately I couldn't recall exactly where Moonglade was but eventually bumbled my way back to Darnassus.

Garq is just a bit into level 13 and thanks to some help from pogo, now has his second pet, the big purply voidwalker. The quest that gets you the voidwalker is perhaps a bit too vaguely-worded for its own good.

I would like to hook Pretzel up with Circuit's gnome for a bit before we jump back into palling around with jackrabbit's hawt night elf rogue and other similar-level characters. Looking at the world map, I see that I can take a ship from Auberdine to Menethil Harbor. From there, I could hoof it to Loch Modan. Judging from the map, it looks like I might have to move partly through Wetlands, which is level 20-30 territory. My question: Is this trip completely insane or just somewhat insane? Any other suggestions if this is a Bad Idea?

[LogRoller]

Pretzel is still 12 but now with tidily-arranged actions bars. When I was going through his abilities, I noticed he had an inherent, Teleport Moonglade. I tested it and sure enough I ended up in Moonglade. Unfortunately I couldn't recall exactly where Moonglade was but eventually bumbled my way back to Darnassus.

Garq is just a bit into level 13 and thanks to some help from pogo, now has his second pet, the big purply voidwalker. The quest that gets you the voidwalker is perhaps a bit too vaguely-worded for its own good.

I would like to hook Pretzel up with Circuit's gnome for a bit before we jump back into palling around with jackrabbit's hawt night elf rogue and other similar-level characters. Looking at the world map, I see that I can take a ship from Auberdine to Menethil Harbor. From there, I could hoof it to Loch Modan. Judging from the map, it looks like I might have to move partly through Wetlands, which is level 20-30 territory. My question: Is this trip completely insane or just somewhat insane? Any other suggestions if this is a Bad Idea?

Most NE people do this, and corpse camp all the way to Loch Modan. The best way is to get a high level escort to help out.

[BoX]

Or have a mage port you to Iron Forge.

[Creole Ned]

Having now tried heading out from Menethil Harbor I can safely say that any lower level character attempting to walk anywhere from there is crazy, insane plus retarded. I call it cratardsane.

I will leave Pretzel there for now in the hope that he can procure other means by which to get to his fancy Eastern Kingdom friends. :nod:

[LogRoller]

Or have a warlock summon you, too.

[Tai]

My quest book is full of night elf quests, and I am hearthed at Auberdine - what are you doing to me? :eek:

[jackrabbit]

I asked a 60 mage to port me. It costy them a 18s reagent, so offer at least 20. I gave the guy 50s and I saved myself about an hour or running.

[Creole Ned]

I've decided to keep Pretzel in elfland so Tai and I can clear our quests. My plan wasn't to permanently move him, just have him hang out with Slappyjoe for a bit so he could level up some.

pogo said he could get him over to the mainland if and when I'm ready to hitch a ride. pogo - for all your WoW shopping and service needs!

[Harka]

Yea I tried to run Emmerth over from Menethil and was killed by a croc just our side the gates.

i then tried to be a bit cheeky and run as a wisp to ironforge and rez at the graveyard nearby only to find my self back in the swamp at the graveyard next to menethil. DAMN YOU BLIZZARD!!!! hehe

I just wanted to go and learn 2 hand maces, guess I will need a few more levels under my belt before i try again.

It was fun grouping with you last night Pretzel.