[Warcraft] Northrend eye candy

Filed under world of warcraft Tags: , , , , , , , , — • Written by Mark @ 01:33

I’ve tried to take a few panoramas within Northrend…in World of Warcraft, but the going has been very slow due to some very real technical hurdles – low (1024×600) screen resolution, and a processor that simply wasn’t intended for intensive graphics and photo post-processing needed to create them. Wrestling with 5 FPS and waiting for more than hour for the images to compile is tedious tedious tedious.

Tweaking after stitching is minimal – I boost saturation, contrast and brightness slightly, otherwise the images will tend to look a little dull on screen.

Send your donations for a Mac Pro to…

Gun’drak

Zul'Drak: Gun'drak

From WoWWiki:

This is the Drakkari capital, the only large city in Zul’Drak and the home to the Drakkari Frost King. It is a massive place, with thick walls, tall guard towers and heavy gates. Inside, the buildings are tiered and covered in steps, and wind about one another like a nest of small animals, each fitting into the next.

Utgrade Pinnacle

Utgarde Pinnacle

From Wowhead:

Utgarde Keep is the first dungeon hub located on the shores of Lake Cauldros in the Howling Fjord of Northrend. Inhabited by the vrykul (led by King Ymiron), a half-giant Viking-like race bent on proving their strength to the Lich King, they are raising the most worthy of their warriors to serve him beyond the grave here at their main base of operations.

The cat's away! The cat's away!

Filed under las Vegas, me Tags: , , , , , , — • Written by Mark @ 08:39

Signs of the time include me listening to loud music and sipping an ice-cool Monster energy drink while doing something as wantonly useless as politely answering really stupid newbie questions on a Linux forum. I project that as this rate I will be found snorting lines of coke off a whore’s ass within the next week.

Mmm…ass candy.

Mariah, her mum, Caira and the boy-foetus have all left for the rolling green hills of Missouri for a month, in order to dispose of Mairah’s deceased grandmother’s wordly goods. But, you know, I heard Beth muttering something about ”trailers…hired hands,” so I’m unquestionably certain concerned that they’ll return sometime in June with a horse trailer full of junk. Ah well.

Until (if) that comes about I’m left to lay around the house, play World of Warcraft on the 37” television, blog, write, bullshit with friends online and search for work in my rare free moments. Wait a moment.

if wife

Mariah, you should know that I am spending every waking and sleeping searching for work. Sleeping? Yes, I’ve set up my netbook so that I can type cover letters while deep in the throes of R.E.M. sleep. I’m terrified that those cover letters might reveal my deep-rooted Oedius complex to potential employers, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I swear to you that by the time you get back to Las Vegas I will be high-flying executive. I will have a massive payroll, a private jet, a ninjutsu-trained nanny for Caira, a masseuse for thyself, and a gaggle of pretty, bobbleheaded assistants hanging on my every word.

We will be a corporate family, and we will be happy.

else

Mostly I’m mostly running heroics, doing the odd daily, helping out lowbie guild members/alts a lot and quietly working up my gear and my courage until I can try Naxx-10. I’m terrified of trying the Arena because I am getting my ass handed to me so badly in world PVP. Tashrak isn’t (too) badly geared, but he’s simply not up to the level of beating down on other players who are wearing full suits of shiny epics: Clicky for his profile

fi

In my search for work I’ve had moments that aren’t so much only in Vegas as they are only to Mark. I’ve been desperately trying to avoid the retail grind just because I’ve already done it for ten years back in Ireland and also because I feel that I’m capable of more. So to that end I had an interview yesterday with a notable perfume and candle reseller who is way up in North Las Vegas. Seeing one pretty little lady after another walk in for interviews was disheartening (Jesus, have you ever fucking seen me?! I wouldn’t trust that scruffy rapscallion, I’ll tell you that for free) until I had my own turn and found out that the owner:

Loves cats
Employs a staff who are MMOG junkies
Is a photographer himself

Interesting, random, I’ll give him that. I still have some remote hope that I’ll get a callback from them. If not…ah well, back to Craigslist I go.

More Vistas

Filed under me, world of warcraft Tags: , , , , , — • Written by Mark @ 21:06

The Wetlands - Eastern Kingdoms

The Hinterlands

The Wetlands

This panorama was tedious to stitch as I had to compile the components seperately and then merge them into the final vista in a process that took four hours, not including the time to post-process the image.

But once again, I’m happy. There are trees, there is grass and there is a fat full moon hanging low in a starry sky. What more could an Irishman want from a nighttime scene?

The Wetlands - Eastern Kingdoms

The Outland!

I’ve finally made it there!

/glee

(Click for the full-sized images)

The Dark Portal

The Dark Portal-Hellfire Peninsula

Shattrath City

Shattrath City

Some days you're the piegon, but other days…

Other days, yeah. Mariah has been Big Bear and San Diego over the weekend, so I dusted off my Warlock on Arthas and decided to grind him to level 50 (from 42) so that he could both fill out his Demonolgy tree and get his Felguard. I just didn’t count on weekend warriors.

Immediately after starting a quest on Saturday morning I was obliged to defend myself from speciest Horde who were probably just a husband and wife team IRL trying to grab a few kills, but were ultimately traumatized after their meeting with me. So I moved location and had another team try and kill me. And another. But all this fighting honestly produced some awesome moments because how many level 46 Warlocks can say that they killed a level 58 Death Knight? A level 48 Rogue attacked me at the Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris and as I was finishing her off a Death Knight intervened and attacked me. I immediately spammed Fear, put a DoT on his pet to stop him from mounting and ran for Gadgetzan (the Highlander Boots from Arathi Basin and a Swiftness Potion were my two lifesavers). The Death Knight followed me on foot and was immediately killed by town guards. Easily my most fun kill of the weekend.

Weekend warriors turned what should have been a straight grind into a twelve hour passage through the valley of darkness. I dinged to level 50 at five o’clock in the morning in the backwoods of Felwood and getting an underpowered pet. I can understand the power of the Felguard at levels 70 and beyond, but at the moment you get the pet at level 50, it is severely underpowered. Playing through Demonology I am used to using my pets to control a situation. My Succubus can instantly stun a player for up to fifteen seconds and with the damage mitigation, mana and healing provided by talent tree my Voidwalker becomes the rock on which monsters break themselves. But the Felguard cannot do any of that. The Felguard’s melee damage at this level is middling, it cannot charge/stun players yet and it’s taunt is underpowered. Had I known all of this beforehand I might have stayed with the Affliction talent tree, but what’s done is done.

Felguard fun

And maybe getting the Felguard was a premonition of Sunday? If I was the pigeon on Saturday, I was the statue on Sunday and died to every player who gave me so much as a casual glance. I was corpse-camped in Un’Goro and faced ride-by gankings in the Plaguelands. I lagged out so badly in Shattrath City that I ran diagnostics on my laptop and found that my hard disk might be on its last legs.

y da h8?

Blackrock Mountain

Blackrock Mountain

Blackrock Mountain

The views from the balcony, AKA the Heart of the Mountain. These are my last shots from Blackrock Mountain for the time being and (subjectively) the best of my attempts to this amazing view some justice.

(New) Vistas of Azeroth

Booty Bay, Mark 2

Lets give this another try.

A while back I posted a series of screenshots under the title Vistas of Azeroth (you can download them here) and decided to rest on my laurels after churning out twenty-four pieces. And, you know, they went down very well with WoW players, to the point that I know even Blizzard saw them.

I was completely happy with this until I followed the other link to Nebdaar’s panoramas and was immediately blown out of the water at the first sight of his amazing compositions. He matches technical perfection and artistic talent in a way that puts me utterly to shame, I’m afraid to say.

And fair play to him for doing it. Nebdaar honestly sets a standard that (I feel) I have to match

Durotar.

Epeen +1

My Shaman hit 50 and beat the crap out of the Scarlet Monastery cathedral solo, which is something that I’ve really wanted to do for a long, long time.

Apologies for the quality of the video, but if I try to capture at any higher of a resolution the game (and the resulting video) starts to stutter.

/nara

My tummy hurts

Filed under america, las Vegas, me, rant Tags: , , , , , , , — • Written by Mark @ 07:40

We had cheeseburgers for breakfast and excellent dim sum for dinner yesterday, later followed by a lazy night of lolling listlessly on the couch helping newbies and taking a stab at two-boxing Uldaman. We wiped once because I’m a goober and got a surprisingly large amount of decent blue items before calling it a night. I think we’re done with instances for the time being; I’ve been dragging Mariah through quite a few of them in the face of her dislike of these dark and dangerous yet dull dungeon descents.

Honest, we will go grind quests tonight, on my honour.

We talked about politics at Orchid’s Garden. Shit. I know I’m getting old when I deign to pay attention to any politics beyond key issues such as Is Bush Out Of Office Yet? I consider myself not so much a Libertian as I do a Please Stop Annoying Me (PSAM? Closet anarchist?). Who knows? I believe that G’kar’s statement regarding the nature of the universe eternally holds true:

“The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.”

And just maybe in my darker moments I might admitting to subscribe to the concept of enlightened self-interest. What’s wrong with pursuing your own interests if your work also benefits the many?

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© 2010 Mark Grealish. In a (New) World of My Own is Creative Commons friendly.