Jul

2008

Hi hi! Im back!

I’m slackin…I know. I’m probably like most people - start a blog - write in it every day for a week, then once a week…then once a month…then….Stagnant!

News: Son got back from Canada at Camp Bil-O-Wood..he loved it and wants to go back! He came back and followed Dad into WoW. So we both are WoWing again. Guild is having it’s ups and downs in attendance. Still working out pretty good though. Summer can be tough on guilds with people on vacation and all. Plus its been a long time since the last expansion, so things can start to get boring for some, just like I got bored and stopped for 8 months….and 13 months before that Does help alot to have some friends that you play with regularly AND talk to outside the game as well.

I have met person who is turning out to be a lot of fun and very similar to me. Kinda came on as a surprise…very unexpected but very much a welcome surprise. Known her for about a year and have been getting to know each other more and more each day lately. <3

Also have been working on a book my dad wrote on How to make a Windsor Chair. He is going to teach a course at an art center, so I am making it look all nice. Need to get that DONE!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life", Gaming | Comments (0)

Jul

2008

Return to World of Warcraft

So, I did return to WoW. The guild is growing. I’m now an officer. Been running around with a few members and had a good time. There are still moments when I will just stand around in a town and have no idea what to do, so my WoW boredom isn’t totally gone. Still it is nice to hang out with old and new friends. It’s fun to watch a guild grow and progress. We have started to run instances together to learn each others play styles. Thus if you ran around with me, you know I will make you work extra hard to hold agro and will try to attack 2 mobs at once any chance I get! But you would also learn that while I push the limits, I know how to get out of trouble when I do push too hard. (not always though X.X)

My newest goal for when I am not raiding, is to gear up my Warlock Cynders for PvP (player versus player combat) Will take quite a while. If you dont know about WoW and getting gear…you fight in a battle ground in a team of 10 to 15, sometimes more, against another opposing faction team and try to capture flags, or control territory…and if you win - you get honor and tokens. If you lose - you get a little honor and 1 token. With the honor and tokens you gain - you can trade them in for armor and weapons. So, my goal is to fully outfit myself in PvP reward gear - so for about 150,000 honor - I can get the full thing and hopefully be alot harder to kill. Looks like I can get about 2000 honor a day without feeling burnt out or spending HOURS in the game. Thats alot of days to hit 150,000.

I’m not a very good PvP’er, but it can be fun to compete against Real Live characters instead of the normal Non-Player creatures in the world that don’t have much of a brain.

So - Here is me now - Cynders - In my normal gear for everyday questing and raiding. I changed my talent spec too… Destruction doesnt seem to have enough tricks or backup plans so now I am SL SL - which is Siphon Life/Soul Link - hybrid of Affliction and Demonology making me a bit harder to take down while I annoyingly DoT and Seed everyone in target range.

Also started some new arena battles. That is where you are paired up with another team…2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 5 vs 5. Matches don’t last long…especially against me. So Adon, Shoklar and Cynders started up Royal Defense again ( 3 vs 3), and then Adon and I (on Tish) started a brand new 2 vs 2 called Eye Candy Chicks. We got some help from another member named Blacknova, who does know how to PvP, and has helped get our rating up higher than it should be

Last Week - Royal Defense won 11 in 29 and Eye Candy Chicks won 4 in 13. We really need to learn to PvP

PvP records for my toons:
Tish - Lifetime Honorable Kills: 2280
Cynders - Lifetime Honorable Kills: 5767

Tish and Cynders

By Azzura | Posted in Gaming, WoW | Comments (2)

Jul

2008

Blog/Podcast Spot on Jokaydia

Jokay asked me to freshen up an old spot on Jokaydia I so - we present to everyone…

The Resident Blog/Podcast Spot!
Loading URLs into the blog images

After Brainstorming a bit and knowing what was needed, I decided to make a communication tower as the focus/landmark. Not quite as dramatic as I had originally wanted…I at first wanted an easy landmark to spot if you were somewhere else on the islands…like the lighthouse, or the Edublog Awards building. You can still pick it out while looking over the landscape since it does sit higher than the rest of the items on the Sim. I made the tower on my Sim in Rust Spot. It looked tall, it is over 30 meters high, but when I got it back to Jokaydia, it wasnt visible at all. Plan B! Stick it on the roof of a building!

Top of the Tower

Time to build! I started by removing all the old wood of the existing deck, and removing the ponds and plumbing, I recreated the same basic layout Jokay originally had in place. It has the same pathing as before with the layers a little different. I knew I wanted the build to be about 15 x 15 so I created an area to fit that size while not blocking anyone’s access. Jokay has a style she usually follows with all her builds…I tend to not have a defined style, but I usually go techy, metal, rust, neon, and I like to have open air spaces. The modern techy style wasn’t going to go well here It turned out what I hope is a mix of Jokay’s and my style mixed…letting it fit easily into the island setting without being so different that it becomes an eyesore!

So this spot will be used to showcase any of the residents blogs, podcasts, or websites. An added value of making Jokaydia your home in Second Life!

By Azzura | Posted in Jokaydia, Second Life | Comments (3)

Jul

2008

Blizzard Authenticator - Become Hackproof

So this past weekend Blizzard released the new Blizzard Authenticator. It is a little keychain size device that generates a random 6 digit number. This number is needed to log into your WoW account. With all the account hacking and key loggers out there, people have been getting their accounts stolen and all their items sold off for gold, presumably for the resale of the gold for RL money.

What you will do with this device is log into your WoW account in the normal fashion, but then you will have to push the button on the authenticator, and then enter the code it generates in order to get all the way logged in. This makes it impossible for anyone to ever log into your account unless they have the item…including YOU! So don’t lose it!

The cost is just $6.50. Should it be free? Probably. I can see it taking a blizzard a few man hours to investigate an account hack, and then figuring out what was stolen and then having to restore that account back to how it was. More than $6.50 for sure. But not all 10 million accounts are going to get hacked. I myself have ordered one. I would have liked to have seen blizzard give these away to loyal paying customers. Ones that have stuck with WoW for 1 or 2 years. But then again - $6.50 to protect your account that you have invested literally months of time developing isn’t too bad.

So now, how many online games, online worlds, and bank accounts will follow suit? Are we going to be stuck with 10 different number generators we need to use each day? I’m thinking we need a standard! But then, as we approach that, will that just make it easier for the hacking world to clone our device and break into all our accounts. 10 years from now, will we be needing to do a biometric scan of our finger, then a retinal scan, then a random generated code, then a password just to log into SL? Woot! fun fun.

By Azzura | Posted in Gaming, WoW | Comments (0)

Jul

2008

So Azzura….Whats this blog about?

So far, from what I have blogged about already, you can tell I mess around in Second Life, and I always seem to be playing at least one MMO short for MMORPG which is…Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. I love gadgets, games, computers, science, Sci-fi, some art… I’ll talk about the few odd things that happen in my RL world now and then also.

I’m basically at a computer 2/3 of the day working or playing. Easy to reach if you have questions or problems. Maybe some things I talk about will interest you…they might not be something your into, but maybe you can find a hidden meaning in my rants and pull something useful out of it. Who Knows?!!

Ill leave off with a thank you for taking a peek and a bigger thank you if you keep reading…and a huge thank you if you link to me

On with the blogging

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life", Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Jun

2008

Blow by Blow….

6:15 PM EST: Arrived home to find a box on my front porch. Assumed it wasn’t dangerous and held the door open with one foot and grabbed the box with my right hand while holding keys, Ipod, and my cell in the other.

6:17 PM EST: Air conditioning turned on, kicked off shoes. Proceeded to open the box which contained a new power supply for my dead computer along with a brain upgrade.

6:19 PM EST: Prepped the operating table by putting two mouse pads down and then placed the patient on said mouse pads in a way to reveal the supposed infected power supply. No need to remove the outer side shell as I never can get it to stay on, so I leave it off.

6:21 PM EST: Removed the new power supply from the box that was inside the box that was on my porch. It looks very similar to the infected one…only difference being that all the wires of the new one are all in separate bags! I must build the maze of wires! But first….I will individually label every wire on the existing power supply explaining where I disconnected it from.

6:49 PM EST: Patients main power supply has been removed - while removing all its workings, I noticed more and more how dissimilar it is the the new heart of the system. Lets hope the “Customizable” power supply has the proper wire configurations in the sealed bags which I have not looked at yet. So much for read instructions first…but, there were none…were there?
I have no one to wipe my brow

7:20 PM EST: Turn on test fails - but at least it beeped. When I tried to trouble shoot it before - I bypassed the power button in case that was broken. Im going to fix that again….TAPE!

7:30 PM EST: Ok - now all fans turn on - But I get a long single beep over and over - nothing shows up on the monitor. Looking up BEEPS on the web to see which beep I have!

8:29 PM EST: Wiggled, took stuff out, put it back in, switched wires….fans run, memory is all lit up…no monitor though…just the long single beep which my user guide says there is a table below about Bios beeps on page 40, but there is no table about beeps in the book at all.

FAILURE

Guess it goes to a stranger now, to make it unsick.

8:10 PM EST the next day: I came home and switched the places of my memory….nothing…then put them back and shoved them in hard! TADA! it runs! Still don’t know if it is 100% unsick - but it is 98% unsick! WOOT!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life" | Comments (2)

Jun

2008

Hopes for a live computer & Time to clean up!

Ordered a new powersupply for my computer that stopped working. I’m HOPING it is the power supply. Its a big bundle of power wires inside my case, but I’m hoping I can figure it all out. While I was at New Egg, I ordered 2 more gigs of ram, cause when I was cleaning out my case, there were two sad lonely empty slots in there crying for me to feed them. I ordered it next day air so I can have my computer back! I dont have photoshop on this one!

Now for Clean Up! Safety Girl has a new item….A Shop Vac!

Shop Vac

By Azzura | Posted in Second Life | Comments (0)

Jun

2008

Computer - X.X

Im sitting at my computer reading something not on the computer….and my screens go black to power down. I wiggle my mouse to get it to come back and nothing…ENTER….nothing….bang on the keyboard, CTRLALTDEL….nothing. So I restart. Screens have all the booting info on, then I look up and the screens are black again. So I thought, Ill just restart everything….hit the powerbar switch on, then off. Monitors come on, but the PC wont. I wiggled everything inside….banged, cleaned out the dust. There is a light that comes on the motherboard when I have the powersupply turned on. Nothing works. I cut the wires to the power button and hot wired them incase it was the switch…nothing!!!!@!!!!111

Took it out from under my desk…broke one of the plastic feet off the bottom while tilting it. (this thing weighs ALOT) I slid my old dusty dell over in its place and I am using that. I retired it back in Jan 2005 - but it has been used off and on if I needed to duel box games or SL.

Got my email working. Got SL installed. Figured out a few web sites and passwords, like twitter and Wordpress (Had to reset some passwords) This will do for now I suppose…but I never had to take my computer to get fixed…I always figured out what was wrong. It could be the powersupply, but this monster has soooo many wires coming out of it - I can hardly make it poke out of the box. No fuse I could see on it either. Just what I want - some stranger being able to poke around on my computer…I dont keep stuff locked up on there…all passwrods are remembered for everything I do - except banking and bills.

*Sigh*

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life" | Comments (0)

Jun

2008

To WoW or not to WoW…..

A friend of mine who I met playing World of Warcraft asks me now and then to consider coming back to play WoW. I started WoW back when it first came out in 2005. I played for about 9 months, became the leader of the guild had 2 top level toons plus 1 of each of the other classes…and then it got old and I stopped playing. I tried out other games…but eventually, after a 13 month break and a new WoW expansion coming out soon, I joined again. I found a great guild of people (Centurian Order) to socialize and play with. It became like a family and made you want to log in every night just to say hi, and chat, and do some things together. One of the members, Adondralyn (Jeremy), is the one that wants me to play again. Today, he informed me that his current guild broke apart due to drama that inevitably curses a guild at some point. So he has been given the old website and a bunch of guild bank goodies to form a new guild….which he has done. I spent the afternoon setting up forums for the guild, Burnt Sacrifice.

Not sure how many of you are gamers, but you do get burnt out doing the same things over and over. The thing that keeps you from getting burnt out fast is having a friendly social environment that goes along with the game. You can play the absolute best MMO out there, but if you aren’t in a guild that is talkative, friendly, and active, you will not last in the game for very long. But a game doesn’t have to be perfect if you have a good in-game family to help offset possible boredom.

I’ve learned this from playing EQ2 and City of Heros/Villans. I played City of Heros with my son…and never joined a guild. And I left the game without ever reaching top level or gaining any friends after 2 or 3 months. During my WoW break - I tryed it again when they released the City of Villans expansion. I was invited into a guild called Blood Moon Angels. Many of the member were on nightly, they were talkative, and helpful. I eventually became an officer there and was in charge of events. I quickly made max level with one toon and had many others. The game became fun socially and physically (if you can call the action questing part that).

I did eventually get bored though which happens. After my second leaving of WoW, I tried City of Villans yet again. This time though, most of the old guild members were gone…just a few logged in now and then, leaving me to play alone most of the nights. And after a month or 2, I left…just nothing there to keep me happy. So I thought maybe it was time for a brand new game…So, I turned to Everquest 2. My son and I joined and started having fun. I hunted for a guild and found one that stated they were older members, no kids, mature, and were tradeskillers/questers. Perfect!

Spirited Misfits was the name. Everyone was friendly, they would help if you asked. They got use to me and I got use to them. After 3 months though, I was getting bored…even though the guild was friendly, there wasn’t enough people, not enough bonding by doing events. I am use to there being 20-50 members on at a time from WoW… in EQ2 there were maybe 8 on at the most, and now that it is summer, even less on. I haven’t logged into EQ2 for over 2 weeks now. I don’t have the urge to play. When I play a game - I am totally addicted to it…4+ hours a day every day addicted. So me not wanting to log in at all must mean its over. I did grab one friend from EQ2 though.

It’s funny how you can gain Real Life friends from an Online game. I played Ultima Online for 3 years and left with 4 people I still talk to today, and I havent played that game for 6 or 7 years. They live all over the US…VA, PA, WA, NY…and I have met them all in Real Life. Then I played Anarchy Online and still talk to a few people from that game. Still talk to one from City of Heros, and I have 3 friends from WoW. All my current friends are people I have met in games online. Some people wouldn’t understand this and still look at me funny when I have plans ONLINE as opposed to “Normal Friends” who meet to drink at a bar. To me, going out every Thursday night for a bowling league is the same as me logging in at 8:00 to go raid an instance in a game for a few hours. You have a team of people you are familiar with, that meet every week for the same thing.

ANYWAY….I have to decide whether I want to go back to WoW again or not. Im not currently playing any game. I have been logging into Second Life alot more. WHY?!! Its because I’m meeting new people, all thanks to Jokay and her Jokaydia Island. Helps you stay around when you have things to do, friends to talk to, and people that you can help out, at least thats how my personality works. I’m an introverted helper, and SL lets me be a bit less introverted and allows me to help people learn. Trouble with going back to WoW is that I seem to be an all or nothing gamer. Need to try and see if I can casually play 8-10 hours a week instead of 36-48 hours a week!

By Azzura | Posted in Gaming | Comments (3)

Jun

2008

How to move your shop to a new location in SL

Safety Girl and Azzurave are now set up and have their Landmarks all reset. I learned from the last move how to do it right. I’ll pass that onto everyone now!

1. Do NOT, bulk select your shop and take it into inventory! This is a bad thing to do! Almost all the time - you will not grab everything. The tiny pieces of your displays will not be selected and will sit there floating in the air….and you may not even know it until you set up again. Plus there is a limit on how many items you can select at once. 256 I believe. Just don’t try.

2. What you should do! Clear out everything in your OBJECT general folder - Make a new folder in your OBJECT folder and call it Current Objects….put all your loose inventory from your OBJECT folder in there for the time being. Reason to do this is, everything you pick up from your shop will automatically go into your OBJECT folder…and when you grab chunks of your displays, they may end up with strange names. This way you know everything you see in the folder are pieces of your shop!

3. Face a wall of your shop and highlight-edit your items on that wall only, then take that group of items into inventory. Do Not Link These Items! Do not take the shop itself yet. If you have alot of items - take that wall of items into inventory in sections. Keep grabbing chunks of your shop until your store is empty.

4. Now you can try to grab your building - I would suggest linking it if you can, ONLY if it is a small building. If you have a large shop with over 80 or so pieces or it is spread out past the linking limit….you want to link it in sections and go buy a rezzer. The building rezzer I use is called Rez-Faux. You can buy it here in game or here on SLExchange . To use one - link a few sections of your building…to make it easy, link the North, South, East, and West sections. You then drop a script into each of the pieces, then take a COPY of those sections and put them in the Rez Box. Now you can click the box and your building will pop out perfectly lined up, and you can turn and raise and lower until you are happy, then lock it in place. Its a great tool to have! Just test it to make sure it works before you destroy your main building. You never know when something might have not been selected.

5. Now go to your new spot, rez your building…set it in place, and start pulling out all your chunks of your shop! Before you pull out each section…click on the floor so you are in edit mode, then pull out the chunk…this way all the pieces are selected and you can move and rotate them. If you are not in edit mode when you pull it out of inventory, you will have to select all the items you just rezzed and you might not grab them all. The reason you didnt link these chunks was to make sure all the prices you set before will still be the same…you will not have to go around and reprice anything at all or set items for sale.

6. The most time consuming of all these tasks is putting new Landmarks in all your items. I am still behind in the times and don’t have my items in a database. Someday!

By Azzura | Posted in Second Life | Comments (0)