Lazy Skier’s Blog

I have put a few more videos up on my youtube channel

You can find it here http://www.youtube.com/user/SengirMTG?feature=mhw5

I was thinking about the upcoming changes to the World of Warcraft ‘Old World’ and thought it would be a good idea to remember the ‘Old World’ and to that end i hope to video all of the Flightpaths. This will show the great zones we all leveled in over the years.

The first video is here

Well I have not updated this blog for a while but with the announcement of the new expansion for WoW called Cataclysm I thought I would review the info that is around.

Blizzard in it’s usual artful way has produced it’s ‘sneak preview’ web site at http://www.wow-europe.com/cataclysm/ which has just enough info to excite the WoW community and to keep them playing and paying.

But the biggest question is when is going to be released? My guess is Easter 2010!!

Its nice when the weather forecasters get it right and I woke up to a layer of snow this morning. Its a bit usual to see snow so late in the winter but the kids were out making snowmen. The temperature has since risen so it looks like it will be a short lived blanket of snow.

I wonder how much my brother is enjoying the snow, he has to go gritting the roads of the Isle of Wight and only got in at 4:30 this morning. He will be glad when he not on call for gritting.

The weather has been very strange this year with February being the sunniest since 1929 in the UK.

Sengir

Surfing the news feeds tonight I was saddened by the news that the inventor of D&D has passed away.

I only had the chance to meet him once at a convention in the UK and he came across as friendly and kindly gamer who was dedicated to the hobby.

I was reading the posts on Monte Cook’s site and many cite D&D as defining moment in their lives and I am no exception. It was my Grandmother’s idea to buy me the Red Box D&D for Christmas. I had never seen a game like it and I read feverishly and forced my father and brother to play the beginning adventure. And so my hobby was set. Playing D&D and Call of Cthulhu during my school days this lead to me joining the Role Playing Club of Brighton Polytechnic which had the catchy name of BURPS . The friendships made there still stand today 15 years later and also my career would not be what it is today without D&D

I hope that Wizards of the Coast honour him in some way and there has already been a post on the BBC website about it

Many of the Fantasy games around today have based on ideas from D&D and it has created a hobby which many Geeks have been involved in.

As someone quoted ‘I guess he missed his roll to save.’

Sengir

This weeks website is run by a friend of mine and is a fan site of the writings of HP Lovecraft and all of the spin-offs.

These include the great Call of Cthulhu Role Playing game which introduced me into the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. I have run many adventures based on this world and as the main time line is based in the 1920′s and 1930′s which makes a great time to role play. To imagine what these games are like, picture a cross between a horror movie and a murder mystery. The great thing about the style of adventure is that the players have to use their brainpower to solve the mystery. This does make for some very funny gaming sessions and some great quotes.

The actual stories written by HP Lovecraft are mainly based in the 1920′s and 1930′s and many based in New England which is where he lived. Some of the stories have been made into films, probably the most famous is the cult horror movie ‘Re-animator’. There are also some computer games base on his stories like ‘Alone in the Dark’

Miskatonic.co.uk has got lots of news and information so go and check it out

Sengir

Week 4 – Age of Conan MMORPG

I have spent far too long playing MMORPG’s -Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, starting from the great game ‘Dark Age of Camelot’ which is still running today.

Fast forward 5 years and now this area of Video Gaming has grown hugely, the leader is now World of Warcraft which announced it has 10 million subscribers this week. I play on the Europe WoW Servers and main character is called Shantak (A nod to the great writing of HP Lovecraft) but after playing WoW since the beta I need to play something different. So looking around at the upcoming releases and from chatting with friends my search lead me to Age of Conan.

So Age of Conan is based on the Conan books written by Robert E. Howard and so provides a really rich world in which to base the game and this has been one of the successes of WoW in that the lore of the world is used to create the world. It also used the races of the world to create the player characters.

So the recent news is that Age of Conan has been delayed till 25th of May in order to polish the game – so they say!! The website has got got some information on the races and characters, and there are forums for discussing the game.

I am looking forward to playing something new and exploring the new world they have created.

Sengir

Week 3 – Warcraftmovies.com.

Being a big fan of World of Warcraft it is great to see what people can do with a game to create interesting videos. warcraftmovies.com is one of the best collections of movies. I have a couple of personal favs:

Tales of the Past 3

Illegal Danish 2

The files are quite big but worth the download

Sengir

Week 2 – This weeks pick is a great site for those who like films and music – www.play.com – I have used this site for a number of years as is has a US site which allowed you to get the Region 1 DVD’s before they came out in the UK. Now this problem has dissappeared in that DVD releases are pretty much the same on both sides of the Pond.

The interesting thing about play.com is that it is based in Jersey, tax haven in the Channel Islands which means the prices are cheaper than buying in the local retail shops. They also offer free postage and they also refund any costs on returns which is great customer service.

The site has increased over time and now has Computer games, Console games, Gadgets, and Books.

Check them out if you need the latest DVD to watch.

Sengir

The Internet – a vast growing mess of peoples views, criminal scams, social networking, and the ultimate shop.

I spend far too much time surfing the Internet but this has introduced me to many interesting sites. So as an easy way to check out this blogging idea I hope to post a new web site every week.

So this weeks site is http://www.stumbleupon.com/ this great site has a simple idea – find random sites on the subject of your choice. There is no preview of the sites so you find some NSFW (Not Safe For Work) sites but on the whole they are safe.

One of the great addons they have is an IE or FireFox toolbar which allows to go to the next website, vote on site in ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ rating, sending the site via email to any of your contacts and other options.

I used it mainly for websites but there are options for images and videos too.