Weekend Playlist - Mike

Sadly, it is Monday. Goodbye weekend. I'll miss you dearly. You were good, truly. I had several hours of game time allotted to me on your 2 days and one night...most of those hours I flipped through cards with my mouse and one night I ran around a zombie infested world...trying to find my friend.

Haha. That last part is frustratingly true, as my friend Ronnie can attest to. He told me about a game, that is NOT for the kiddos, called DayZ. I downloaded the game and mod required to play and tried it out with him on Saturday night. It was exciting, being in a new world I've never been in...but the game play was foreign to me. None of my WoW controls came to light when trying to control my character in DayZ. Ronnie came online to join me...we ran around for 2.5 hours trying to find each other...but alas, we never did. He recommended that I get a new mod for the game, Epoch, that started to download Saturday night...it is still going as I type this on Monday. So far, DayZ has become DayARRRRRRRGH! We will see if that changes when this newer mod downloads.

I got a little bit of Warcraft time in, and achieved level 99 with my Paladin. Not too much to report here, I feel like the WoW train is leaving the station, unfortunately. Patch 6.1 is releasing tomorrow, so we will see if that changes my mind.

Rexxar be owning some card tables!

Most of my weekend gaming centered around playing cards. That's right. Hearthstone has caught my attention. Why now? I'm really not sure, but I watched a stream of someone playing it on Friday night and decided...let's do this! I got in there, messed around with the crappy cards I had, made the best decks I could...and attacked that Innkeeper with everything I had! 

I started unlocking some pretty solid cards and I become very efficient with the hunter hero (Rexxar) and the multiple beasts I can throw down in front of him. Why not take my talents online and battle other players?! YES! Great idea! It started off as expected, you win some and lose some. Then I went on a streak...got overly confident and thought I was amazing.

That tune changed quickly, though. I noticed that several of the players I battled more recently had WAY better cards than I did. What happened?! HOW ARE YOU GETTING THOSE SWEET CARDS?! Frustration...and 11:30pm on Sunday night caused me to shut the computer down and steam on the couch while Brittany finished watching Teen Mom.

I must research how to get these epicly amazing cards! I must win! FOR REXXAR! So, I googled. And now I will start my career in the Arena.

And that...was my weekend playlist. Boom!

MnM Gaming: Episode 1 - World of Warcraft

2004 seems like it was so long ago. I had just graduated high school and was starting my journey into the work force as well as college. In 2005 I was an intern at the company I work at today, working with a few graphic designers who played video games quite often. That summer, the topic of conversation was a little game that had just come out, World of Warcraft.

I would sit there and listen to my co-workers go on and on about raids, dungeons, quests, dwarfs and elves. All with a $15 a month subscription charge. YEAH. RIGHT. Game sounds great, but there is no way I'm paying a $15 a month subscription.

A month later I was signing up, using my hard-earned money to handle that monthly fee. I was hooked instantly. I loved it. Wonderful game, wonderful story, huge community. Everything I ever wanted in one game.

I played for years, on and off, as new expansions came out. My human mage fighting for the Alliance against the nasty Horde led by the orcs. So many great memories in the early game, questing with friends.

I decided that Micah was probably old enough to handle the game, with supervision. So now, he gets to experience the magic. Check out our video review below to hear our thoughts on this epic MMO.

Overall Scores:
Micah: 4.9 million out of 5 million
Mike: 9 out of 10
Appropriate for ages: 10+ with supervison, 13+ otherwise

My Journey Back into World of Warcraft

In the mid-2000s, WoW Dominated Video Games

Well, it’s been a long time since I entered the virtual portal to Azeroth, sucking myself into one of the most successful video games ever created. Earlier this year I picked up my mage staff and re-activated my account and played for about a month before the interested died out quicker than I could cast my frost bolt. I had no idea what I was doing…so much was different from the time I had played in college. 

Ah…college…those were the days. I had three worries in my life my 2nd year of college. One, when did my classes start each day? Two, when do I need to get into the Garden Center at Walmart to work? Three, how late can I stay up running Molten Core to get some sort of drop that would help me?! Those aren’t in any particular order…Seriously, my 2nd year, my free time consisted of World of Warcraft and the occasional Socom 3 battle…not much else…yes. I was a loser. 

Back to current day, after years of not setting foot into the gaming world of WoW, I felt lost. I had a high level character that I put a TON of time and energy into, and I didn’t know him anymore. Spells were different, gear was obsolete…new zones…new raids…new…everything. AH! What do I do?!

Screenshot of Gameplay in WoW

Yep…that’s right…create a new character! Who needs that character that I invested so much into, I can get attached to a new character! So, I rolled a monk, because that was the new class at the time. 

That month, I played that monk exclusively and he almost reached the same level as my mage, who I had abandoned, thrown aside like a broken toy to live a lonely life on my character select screen. I miss you Emberrayne…I miss you…So, I jumped back into the high end stuff with my mage. BOOM! I’m back baby, I missed you! 

Then…two days later…my subscription ran out and I moved onto another game.

This month, Warlords of Draenor released. Yeah, so what? Another WoW expansion that does the SAME thing that every other expansion did…blah blah blah…the magic will be there for a few days but it will run out quick. Right? Oh…it is getting good reviews? Oh, interesting, you are going back in time to an area you’ve explored years ago in the franchise? Hm, graphic improvements? Garrisons? Automatic boost to level 90?! 

Garrosh, the main baddie in the recent expansions, Roar!

My account is reactivated. 

I haven’t purchased Warlords of Draenor yet, but it is on my Christmas list…and I have been able to play it a bit on Micah’s account (Micah’s birthday was earlier this month, he got his own account and Warlords as a present…I was instantly jealous). I have however, gone back to my characters that I gave the cold shoulder to earlier this year. The best thing they did with recent patches and updates? They SIMPLIFIED EVERYTHING! 

Yeah, that could be a bad thing for those who have constantly played since vanilla WoW (for those who don’t play WoW, that means the original game that released in 2004), this change is probably an annoyance. They’ve taken away spells and changed the talent trees to become more accommodating to players like me, who haven’t played in years but can jump back into the game without much of a learning curve on characters they have known for so long. Basically, it feels like riding a bicycle now…it takes a minute to get back into the groove, but when you do…it isn’t overwhelming. 

Emberrayne, my mage that felt like a completely different person when I tried playing him in March, was the old Ember from back in the day. I felt comfortable with him. I enjoyed getting back into the groove and getting him up to level 90. 

Resemblance to Emberrayne...BOOM!

I’m only a couple weeks into playing WoW again, but I’m highly anticipating snagging Warlords of Draenor (hopefully Santa brings it) to try out some of the newer perks with the expansion. I applaud Blizzard for getting me back into the swing of things with the late game content AND allowing a player to boost a character straight to 90, so they can experience the magic they created in that late game atmosphere. 

Look for Emberrayne on Frostmane, he will be spreadin’ ice like Elza in Frozen this winter. Any old school WoW players thinking of jumping back into Azeroth? I’d highly recommend trying it out!

I’ll try to get an official review of World of Warcraft (as of 2014/2015) soon!