Realmpop Post

I heard about this neat website while listening to the instance today and it spawned this post. The website (http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html) is divided into pie charts that show Alliance vs Horde, breaks each realm into all 10 classes and 12 races. It also has total stats for number of players on each server and can be ranked by each category. I got a lot of enjoyment out of clicking the different category headings and seeing the results.

I was surprised by a lot of the information I found when looking at my servers. Going in I assumed that Earthen Ring was going to be the most populated server I played on. It turns out that Kel'Thuzad has 16,588 more players than Earthen Ring which is almost the total number of horde players on Demon Soul. The relationship of alliance to horde on Earthen Ring is much closer, at .92 A/H, than I would have thought. On Demon Soul there are only 4,665 alliance players to the 18,238 horde players for a whopping A/H ration of 0.26. That's pretty much 4 hordies for every alliance scum.

I found out that Demon Soul really is dying. I compared the 4 servers that I played on (and the newly selected a 5th) to see how they compared. The highest population server that I currently play on is Kel'Thuzad with 99,098 characters. Demon Soul by comparison only has 23,039 characters. As you may know, Demon Soul is the realm where Chuckem (my only level 85) character is and is the server which I play on the most. I just recently rolled an Alliance, Human Rouge with my guildies who wanted to try the other side. Their move to Kel'Thuzad was also influenced by it being a popular Alliance and PvP server. These statistics show how much of a difference there was in player base.

I decided to populate the Darkspear server because they were the highest populated server that was not locked at the time. Darkspear has 101,595 characters with 64,626 alliance toons and 36, 454 horde toons. That's a 1.77 A/H ratio. Accepting the thought process of my Morningstar guildies in wanting a server with a lot of activity I went out and found the highest player-base I could find. And since I'm doing the 2012 in 2012 challenge I decided to roll 10 new toons on the Alliance side there. Because 10 is also the same number of classes available I made one of each class. I have only leveled 1 of them to level 4, but I have made all 10 to reserve the names and map out which class/race combinations I wanted. I'll write another post on that later this week.

Here is the data I pulled off of (http://wow.realmpop.com/us.html):

Name	Type	RP	TZ	Alliance	Horde	A/H Ratio	Total
Demon Soul	PvP	Normal	EST	4,665	18,238	0.26	23,039
Earthen Ring	PvE	RP	EST	39,248	42,652	0.92	82,510
Kel'Thuzad	PvP	Normal	MST	76,836	21,660	3.55	99,098
Vashj	PvP	Normal	PST	19,917	20,187	0.99	40,403
Darkspear	PvP	Normal	MST	64,626	36,454	1.77	101,595

A Nice Shammy Guide

Found this nice Enhancement Shaman guide on the World of Saz blog. The post is called Enhanced Leveling: Beginner to Level 10 (Cataclysm) and it is also the link. I was thinking about leveling one for my try at 2012 in 2012. Check it out if your interested in leveling a Shaman. Cheers!

2012 in 2012 WTF

Just heard about this crazy challenge from Effy's blog. You can find a link to Effraeti's RP blog in my blogroll to the right. So 2012 levels in 2012, is that even possible? At first I say "hell no" but after a bit more thought I think, probably not but ... maybe.

That challenge has been put forth from JD Kenada at Amateur Azerothian. Here is a link that explains the rules in full. I suggest you at least give it a look and decided if it is for you.

I have however decided to post an update because this sounds like fun. If only I had not went crazy last week and deleted several of my characters to make room for some Alliance toons. So here is a spreadsheet with my progress thus far. 336 out of 2012 is only 16.7%. Not too surprised there.

Name	Server	Class	Race	Level
Chuckem	Demon Soul	Mage	Blood Elf	85
Chuckita	Demon Soul	Paladin	Blood Elf	44
ChuckMAN	Demon Soul	ShaMAN	Goblin	26
Ottochuck	Demon Soul	Druid	Tauren	16
Gwynstacy	Demon Soul	Hunter	Night Elf	11
Gluug	Earthen Ring	Death Knight	Orc	70
Dachuck	Earthen Ring	Priest	Troll	25
Augustember	Earthen Ring	Shaman	Troll	2
Kalchuck	Kel'Thuzad	Rouge	Human	32
Dunncan	Kel'Thuzad	Warrior	Worgen	1
Augustember	Kel'Thuzad	Shaman	Draenei	1
Nochuck	Kel'Thuzad	Paladin	Dwarf	1
Ottochuck	Kel'Thuzad	Death Knight	Draenei	8
Alkala	Vashj	Rouge	Human	4
Huntermary	Vashj	Hunter	Goblin	4
Gnowangie	Vashj	Priest	Gnome	3
Oonoreen	Vashj	Paladin	Dwarf	3
			Total:	336

Picture of Chuckem

Here is a picture of Chuckem as taken off of the armory. This is the image I emailed to Effy for her to suggest a new wardrobe for the all powerful Lord of Assets. I have realized after viewing a lot of other WoW blogs that I need to include more images in my posts. You would think that I would know this. Here is an image of Gluug, my DK from Earthen Ring.

I have a story I'm working on about my new Human Rouge that will include a few images but I wanted everyone to see Chuckem as he looks now. I wish there was a way to turn off the tabard cause I don't really like the Thunderbluff tabard, but I'm currently grinding rep towards the United Nations achievement. Here is the armory pic for Kalchuck the Rouge.

Also, I have been working on getting my blog to come up when you Google Lord of Assets. It is finally showing up at the top of the list and I noticed that the image results usually show up as well. But most of the recent images are about EVE and I wanted more WoW stuff to show up. Cheers!

For Chuckem

Hey everyone, Chuckem was featured on another WoW blog. That's right, the Lord of Assets himself was featured. Check it out!

I played a bit of Alliance

I played a bit of Alliance over the weekend. It started a slew of character deleting and creation that I had not intended. I have been trying to lessen the amount of characters I have for awhile since I logon and stare at the character selection screen trying to decide who to play. I want no decision, just logon and hit the enter realm button.

I first trimmed down my Horde characters on Demon Soul from 9 to 4. Then I rolled an Alliance rouge on Kel'Thuzad to hang with my guildies who were rolling alts there. That spawned an afternoon of character deletion and creation that I was not prepared for.

I had rolled a few Alliance characters earlier this months with the thought of working on 'The Loremaster' achievement but I rolled them on Demon Soul. Demon Soul is where Chuckem and all of my Horde characters are located. I have since deleted all but Gwynstacy, my Night Elf Hunter. Currently my plan is to use Gwynstacy to quest and complete each Loremaster achievement, zone by zone. I had thoughts of moving her to Kel'Thuzad but I now realize that would cause me to rush her to 85 like every other character. Since no one plays Alliance on Demon Soul I have no rush to get her there and can take my time working towards Loremaster.

The basis for the move to Kel'Thuzad was the amount of players there. I guess that Kel'Thuzad is a big PvP server as well. I enjoy PvP but I'm not a very experienced PvP player. My guild has come to the consensus that Demon Soul is a dying server. There is hardly anyone on and it makes it hard to meet people to run an instance or raid. This is one of the big reasons I started playing Gluug on Earthen Ring. I'm now trying to balance my characters to have only one of each race/class. This is because I would never want to level another Mage to 85; therefore I feel like it would be a waste to level multiple alts of each class. If I want to play a DK I'll play Gluug on Earthen Ring. If I want to try a Rouge I should be playing Alliance on Kel'Thuzad. This proved to be a bit more challenging than I intended.

So here is a list of my current characters, race, class, and level (sorted by server):

Chuckem -- Blood Elf, Mage (lvl 85)

Chuckita -- Blood Elf, Paladin (lvl 44)

ChuckMAN -- Goblin, ShaMAN (lvl 26)

Ottochuck -- Tauren, Druid (lvl 16)

Gwynstacy -- Night Elf, Hunter (lvl 11)

Gluug -- Orc, Death Knight (lvl 70)

Dachuck -- Troll, Priest (lvl 25)

Kalchuck -- Human, Rouge (lvl 9)

Dunncan -- Worgen, Warrior (lvl 1)

Augustember -- Draenei, Shaman (lvl 1)

Nochuck -- Dwarf, Paladin (lvl 1)

You will notice if you study this list a bit that I have no Undead or Gnomes. I also don't have a Warlock. Dunncan is filling the role of Worgen and Warrior because I currently do not play either. I also just plugged in Nochuck as a Paladin because I like Dwarfs and I think every Dwarf should wear plate. If Worgens could be Paladins then Duncann and Nochuck would probably be switched. Augustember showed up because my original WoW character was a female Draenei Paladin and I wanted another female Draenei. None of this was intended, but after screwing around for hours trying to get my characters sorted this is how it turned out. It all happened because I rolled Kalchuck on Kel'Thuzad.

Wowjuju

I just found a new website that talks about reputation gains in World of Warcraft. Welcome to Wowjuju.com. I have never been that big of a reputability grinder, but as I'm working my way through the achievements I noticed a giant hole where my rep achievements should be.

Also, check out my new forum signature. It have some information about the 3 characters I'm focusing on right now in WoW.

Computer Issues

As mentioned in previous posts, I have been having trouble gaming on my PC so all of my gaming has to be done on my Macbook Pro or on my iPad. This is causing problems as well since some games, like TOR or Civilization IV do not play on my Mac. I grew up playing PC games and I have a deep love for the platform. Unfortunately I cannot afford to maintain a gaming computer and each new laptop I get is usually related to work/school needs. That is what pushed me towards console gaming in the first place. I just can't afford to buy a PC specifically for gaming.

Some games like WoW or EVE have taken this into consideration, but other games like Rift and TOR have not and do not offer a Mac client. Why would a company, serving a world of gamers alienate their potential customers by not offering a game on their platform. This same issue has bugged me in the past when a title is offered for Playstation but not for xBox. It just seems silly to cut your customer base up like that and by adding additional hurtles for the minority players to overcome. It seems like bad business sense.

I digress, I have been gaming on my Macbook Pro for almost 3 years now. I enjoy it, and for the most part the Mac has been able to keep up just fine. I had a little trouble with EVE, but only when I was in the hanger with the "realistic" rendition of my character. The spaceships looked fine. WoW is the same way, the computer keeps up fine unless I turn up the graphics to a ridiculous degree. I think the issue is my video card, but I don't' think it would be easy (or cheap) to get a new video card for my Macbook Pro. I honestly don't mind turning down the graphics a little. The game still looks great to me. You have to give credit to Blizzard that their choice in art-styles has stood the test of time. Most games that are 7 years old look terrible by today's standards. I'm gonna stop this one here since I think I'm rambling. Cheers!

Why MMOs?

What is it about MMOs that keep bringing me back. I have asked myself this question repeatedly as I have lost/found/lost my interest in console gaming. I almost exclusively play games that have an interaction element, interacting with other people. Why?

I used to be a strictly console player (due to the increased cost of maintaining a gaming pc) but I have found myself drifting back into the realm of personal computers. I think it is mainly because the multiplayer offered on xBox Live is usually limited to 8 players, 16 at the most. There are a few instances of games that allow more but they have not really taken hold. Or if they have they are not in the types of games that I usually play.

In MMOs there is obviously the potential to have a lot more players than 16. There are usually hundreds, if not thousands of players online at any given time. This is balanced with realms, zones or queues. So it is not like all 100 of us are standing around together because if we were the lag would be terrible. But it is nice to know that there are plenty of people interacting with the world and you can interact with them if you wish. It is funny, because even though the players are there, I usually solo (play the game as if it were a console RPG). But I like having the option to join up with someone and do a quest or run a dungeon.

Another reason I have drifted is because I do most of my gaming after 9:00 pm once the kids are in bed and I can finally get comfortable on the couch. It tends to be anti-social for me to hide in the basement and play xBox by myself, but I can get more traction with the family if I play on my laptop while watching TV with the wife.

I guess that I just dream big, and I imagine the possibility of taking down Deathwing in an EPIC 25-man raid. That sort of thing is just not an option on my xBox. Honestly it is not much of an option on my Mac either since I don't even raid, but there is always hope.

I'm Back ... from outer space

Well, I'm back from my holiday travels. We were gone for 11 days and it took another 2 days until I was caught up on everything. It's good to be back and towards the end I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation. Anyway, things are settling down now and I'm starting to get back into the daily routine.

A few things have changed as well over the last 2 weeks. I started playing WoW again and decided to take advantage of their offer of signing a 1-year contract to receive a Tyrael's Charger and a free copy of Diablo 3. I'm not sure which was the bigger bait, but I have decided that it was a good deal and I should take advantage of it.

The Annual Pass also offers beta access to the Mists of Pandaria expansion. This was of less consideration, but I have never had beta access before and I will probably take advantage of this as well. It seems like an experience that every 'gunter' should experience at least once.

Diablo 3 offers me a few more options that I'm interested in. Mainly the ability to sell in-game items for real world currency which can then be used to pay my WoW subscription or buy in-game vanity items. I don't entertain for a moment that I would be able to make enough money to turn a profit, but if I can eek out 15 dollars every few months I can then get a free month of WoW time. I'm not sure on which computer I will play this game on, but I'll deal with this after the games release later this year.

In addition to this being a free Blizzard game (and who can say no to that) it is a chance to be avant-garde in the MMO world; and I want to be a part of it. Obviously Blizzard has done some cutting edge things in the past, and they will probably continue to break the mold in the future, but what they are doing with the auction house in Diablo 3 is taking a risk. They are joining real-money transactions, or micro-transactions, with in-game loot to create a secondary market behind their game. I see this as a first step to generating a secondary economy with 'Blizzard Bucks' or whatever they are calling them. I have been listening to some interesting audio books lately that talk about how this could effect the global economy.

I recently listened to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (narrated by Wil Wheton, cue nerd cred) in which the value of in-game currency exceeded the value of the US dollar and was used by corporations world wide because of it's increased stability. This is just one of the many instances of this I have of this encountered in modern fiction. The other book that I'm currently listening to is Reamde by Neal Stephenson. In this book the MMO Terrain has take the place of WoW and also is taking transactions it the in-game currency. I'm not through this book yet so I can't speak to the effect this is having on the world, but clearly it is heading this way. So authors have thought of in-game currency eclipsing the US dollar and how this may affect the future. Blizzard is taking what I sense to be the first step towards this; and I want to experience it.