Friday 29 May 2009

Never fear....

I is here. (name the movie for geek cred)

OK so where are we or more specifically where am I? In a nut shell 'leveling' would pretty much sum it up :)

As mentioned before I set up several 'test' accounts before commiting to the US realm move. This was mainly to test latency etc but even more importantly to hook up with some of the excellent people from the WoWCast channel on BINDpoint. As you can tell given 62*80 the tests went fine and the people on BINDpoint are still excellent,

I ended up with 5 linked accounts and as I added them slowly to the chain this means over the past few days and for a few days more RAF has been expiring at various link points. Now I'm the sort of bloke who hates to waste anything and when a deadline is thrown into the mix out comes the cape and outside underpants. My usual 8 hours a day playtime has jumped closer to 16 as I try to squeeze every level out of RAFs dieing embers.

Some of the multitude of 60s created will go on to join 62*80 but others will not it is a harsh world this world of warcraft.

When things settle down I will of course be back with more posts and who knows some of them may be worth reading.

Tuesday 19 May 2009

It's all about you (and you)

I have found over the past few weeks that reactions to this project vary greatly.

They range from seeming hatred of me and the whole thing to total support for all I do. Unsurprisingly I like the latter way more then the former but the former certainly gave me pause for thought.

On the surface this project could easily be seen as a desperate attempt to get my head above the parapet and be a unique little snowflake in the meta sky. In all honesty that is certainly part of it (you didn't expect me to deny that did you?). However it is definitely not the only reason and far from the main one.

Desire

I partly see this project as satisfying my desire for goals and structure to the game I would play for 8 plus hours a day regardless of the 62*80. It therefore goes without saying I love playing WoW (pretty lucky considering) but it is as much about the community surrounding WoW as it is the game itself which keeps me playing.

Community

I honestly don't think WoW would be as popular if it hadn't encouraged and facilitated people getting together for the experience (Recent MMOs have failed to understand this and have made forming community harder not easier). This community is also quite unique in that it continues outside the game in various vibrant forms. These include the multitude of podcasts, blogs and forums.

Fishing for friends?

I therefore also see this project as a huge old net. I guess that requires some explanation!

Many of the people I have met through the game I have clicked with. Initially we share a common WoW language which makes conversation easier but even as I delve deeper I often find there are deeper roots of connection.

WoW is therefore very much the portal to like minded people for me.

What tends to happen is that the 'conversation' will then continue by other means. At the heart of this for me is the excellent BINDpoint and specifically the WoWCast channel. I pretty much consider this my virtual home (as proof of this recent downtime of the service had me roaming the meta streets like a lost soul). If this project can 'catch' more like minded people for me to interact with then it's working as intended.

So grab the lure. Of course if you say bad things about biscuits or tick the fucktard box you may get thrown back in the meta river!



No apology

I won't apologise for not updating recently cos as you can imagine I've been doing a wee bit of leveling :-)

As mentioned before the early stages of 62*80 are all about building foundations on the 6 chosen servers. In the main this means creating a whole ton of 60s and getting the whole gold making process moving. During this stage I am jumping about like a gnome on a hot plate.

In the past (on the EU realms) this was all very unstructured and resulted in toonmegeddon. This is one of the many reasons I am now playing on the US realms (that and the free cup cakes promised by @Alachia) Fortunately 62*80 has brought order and calm to the fun.

I have to say thanks to all those following the blog and the kind words of encouragement you guys have given me. Also I need your help (see you knew there was a catch). I would love to hear what you want to see on this blog as far as project updates. Naturally I am happy to blah blah blah but I am torn about how to show progress. So suggestions are very much appreciated.


Friday 15 May 2009

Some Answers...

I just realised that some folks had been kind enough to leave comments on some of my posts. Thanks! Here are some answers....

I am medically retired and therefore do not work. Prior to that my life was spent at sea.

My medical condition restricts my movement considerably.

Although retired I am in my early 40s (meaning of life this year).

I am married with 3 children Boy @ 13 and 2 girls at @6 and @10

My family is the centre of my life and I see them way more than I ever did as a working man.

My sleep pattern is madder than a box of badgers.

My WoW PCs are 3 x Zoostorm Core 2 Quad Q9450.

My main monitors are 3 x Dell 2408WFP.

My e-peen is now well polished.

I am playing on the US servers as my unstructured approach to levelling on the EU has left a huge mess (131 level 60s) and I am scared to look!

My Twitter and FriendFeed accounts are ElJeppy. I love genuine followers!

While I level I am 'talking' in the WoWCast channel on BINDpoint (sign up now!)

I listen to Mozart, podcasts and The Modern Scholar (audio education ftw)

and finally... No I could not be Stephen Hawking if I played less WoW and focused on physics!

Fame at last?

Yesterday the folks over at WoW Insider (specifically Mike Schramm) did a write up about my little project.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Mike briefly when he appeared on RawrCast a few weeks back and it was there he heard about 62*80. Very much like in the article Mike obviously felt the whole thing to be somewhat pointless and a waste of time (one of the tags is 'Crazy'). I of course disagree as you would expect!

The article has so far received 90 plus comments and quite a few of them echo Mikes opinion. It seems that several commentators are very worried about how I use my time, how I spend my money and some about my mental state and mistreatment of my children! All very strange.

I am not going to go over again how my personal circumstances effect how I spend my time because quite frankly it's my time!

For the record I agree that simply sitting here day in and day out playing 8+ hours of WoW in order to end up with 62 poorly geared under funded toons would indeed be a waste of my time. Fortunately that is not why I am doing it. You see I have a confession...

  1. I love playing WoW
  2. I love levelling characters
  3. I love the community built up around the game
This project gives all that some structure.

Every realm I have picked for this project has people playing there I want to play with. These groups are mostly built around the podcasts I love listening to and have had the pleasure to interact with. I am a firm believer that WoW is as much a conduit to like minded people as it is a game. I guess one toon per realm could have been sufficient but that forgets points 1 and 2 above.

I am already gaining immense personal enjoyment from 62*80 and regardless of outcome the people I meet and interact with on the journey will have been worth every 'wasted' second.

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Three little DKs all in a row...

OK where to begin...

Pretty much the first thing I did when moving to the US servers (Boulderfist) was create a 3 man Pally team and level them to 60. The main reason for pallys - A free horse and their almost cockroach like survivability.

As well as giving me my first set of 60s it also gave me territory wide access to the wonderful Death Knight class. This was a must for 62*80.

So in the beginning there shall be a multitude of Death Knights of all shapes and sizes (many called Jeppy) This not only has the advantage of a level 55 start but also a free epic horse and not a bad set of bags. This all adds up to GOLD!

As you can imagine 62 toons require a fair bit of financing at least early on. Since I would rather fry my left bollock in batter than buy gold I have to make it all myself.

The Death Knight teams therefore go through death and reincarnation (in othere words run through the starting zone) about 4 times on each realm which secures me roughly 400 gold. This is more than enough to get several teams started and the forward motion begun...

Tuesday 5 May 2009

The Basics...

OK the blog posts are arriving thick and fast now as 62*80 motors forward....

In order to help achieve my goal I am going to be multiboxing and using 2 periods of recruit a friend (Come on! its 62 frigging toons I need a little help)

I am planning to do mainly 3 man from 1-60 and a mix of 3 and 5 from 60-80.

The Hardware.




I currently have 3 meaty PCs each tied to it's own 24" monitor. Off to the side out of sight I also have an admin PC for twitter, skype email etc.

In 3 man as you can see I run WoW full screen. For 5 man I spin left and right to portrait and run 2 instances of WoW on both.

All in all this setup is fine for my play style and also keeps my room very warm in the winter!

The Software.

I only use two external programs to help me multibox and these are Keyclone and Multiplicity

Keyclone allows me to send key presses to multiple instances of WoW. Multiplicity allows me to use one mouse across all monitors. To be honest I think with out them I couldn't do what I do and they are both wonderfully stable and well supported.

I also use a one stop shop addon for multiboxing called Jamba. This really is a must for anything above dual boxing in my opinion.

The Schedule.

As you may have heard during my time on the excellent Ctrl Alt WoW I have more free time than any grown man deserves. In fact pretty much 16 hours out of each day (ok stop crying). I plan to use at least 8 of these each day playing WoW with extended hours as when I feel like it (based upon my EU levelling this may be more often than not).

As you can see the tools are in place now on with the fun...


And the winners are...

So after much tweeting, stalking and some detective work (mainly asking 'so what realm are you on..') I Finally have all six US/Oceanic servers for 62*80.

Alliance
PvP - Boulderfist
PvE - Runetotem
RP - Wymrest Accord

Horde
PvP - (embargoed)
PvE - Staghelm
RP - Earthen Ring

A few of these servers have already seen 62*80 activity most notably Boulderfist which was my first WoW US home and will always hold a special place in my heart.

Monday 4 May 2009

Project 62*80 - The Plan.

  1. Create 62 level 80 WoW toons before December 25th 2009.
  2. Have 1 of each class/race combination for both Horde and Alliance.
  3. Spread toons across all style servers - PvP, RP and PvE.
  4. Accept help where offered but try and be as self sufficient as possible.
  5. Play where the fun people play (i.e. The WoW Podcast Community)
  6. Try and learn stuff. (Which faction really does have it easiest etc)
  7. HAVE FUN.

Sunday 3 May 2009

OK here we go....

Well it's been a busy week or so since I did my first post on this blog. Well busy for me....

I set this blog up to record the doings of my current project.

Project 62*80

In a nutshell 62*80 is my goal to create 62 level 80s before 25th December 2009.

Why 62? Well that is the total number of race/class combinations currently in the game.

Race/Class (WoWwiki) sums it up nicely I think.

I guess the next question is just Why? Sadly there are no links to WoWWiki to explain this one!

Firstly I am an altaholic (stands and waits for polite claps) When I say that I don't mean I have a few alts I mean I have hundreds. If I was to equate it to being an alcoholic I am not the guy who has one too many every night but rather the naked guy chasing your car swinging a golf club and singing My Way (every night). I will try and explain...

The Madness Begins

Living in the UK I naturally started playing WoW on the EU servers. Straight away I knew this game was special. Well I say straight away but my first attempt to play on my son's account ended with me being killed by a level 3 kobold! So it was the second attempt that hooked me.

My first toon was a human warrior named Neowolf. For quite some time he was enough but then I saw other toons blasting stuff with fire and ice so up popped Neomage. Very rapidly I was exposed to the other classes and my obsession began. I entered the pokemon zone. I had to have them all!

The desire to see both factions and experience PvP as well spurred me on and then the fateful day arrived. I tried to create my 51st toon an Orc warrior called smackem and up pops 'You have reached your character limit for this account' For what seemed like an hour I stared at that message. Obsessive nausea flooding over me in waves. Then somewhere a little voice in my head said

'Fuck 'em create another account'


And I did.....

(To be continued)