WoW Players

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Okay, I am attempting to jump into the world of Azeroth for some sword, sorcery, and RPing happiness.

 

Problem is, being the computer expert that I am, I am of course having installation issues. :unsure:

 

I have gotten to the part where I set up my account, but cannot get past the "handshake" start screen, the game says "updates are complete" and then the game pops me out into the Blizzard patch download screen, which I completed already (at least I thought I did). I have not gotten to the character creation process yet, only my account set up. Its like a loop affect.

 

I rec'd a long list of troubleshooting options from tech support. One interesting thing was the fact that past users that use certain privacy and firewalls experienced patch installation issues; I myself rec'd a "your computer is behind a firewall" at one point during the installation/patch process. I am hoping this is "my issue".

 

I uninstalled the game, and plan on reinstalling it after some tweaking to my firewall/privacy service so I can download the patches. Hopefully, this is the issue and then I will get the game installed fully/ with no problems, etc.

 

I was just curious - any WoW players here experience something like this? Or does it sound familiar?

 

Thanks!

 

Kansas >^..^<

[STSF_BluRox 0]

Okay, I am attempting to jump into the world of Azeroth for some sword, sorcery, and RPing happiness.

 

Problem is, being the computer expert that I am, I am of course having installation issues. :unsure:

 

I have gotten to the part where I set up my account, but cannot get past the "handshake" start screen, the game says "updates are complete" and then the game pops me out into the Blizzard patch download screen, which I completed already (at least I thought I did). I have not gotten to the character creation process yet, only my account set up. Its like a loop affect.

 

I rec'd a long list of troubleshooting options from tech support. One interesting thing was the fact that past users that use certain privacy and firewalls experienced patch installation issues; I myself rec'd a "your computer is behind a firewall" at one point during the installation/patch process. I am hoping this is "my issue".

 

I uninstalled the game, and plan on reinstalling it after some tweaking to my firewall/privacy service so I can download the patches. Hopefully, this is the issue and then I will get the game installed fully/ with no problems, etc.

 

I was just curious - any WoW players here experience something like this? Or does it sound familiar?

 

Thanks!

 

Kansas >^..^<

 

A few patches back, I had to start disabling my Norton just while I was playing. Just remember to turn it back on when you're done and go back to your regular internet browsing.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

A few patches back, I had to start disabling my Norton just while I was playing. Just remember to turn it back on when you're done and go back to your regular internet browsing.

 

Thanks BluRox - if I actually get to the point of playing, I'll keep that plan in mind. McAfee (mine) along with Norton were specifically mentioned in the tech suggestions as having problems with regard to WoW

 

I love gaming, but you know: computers are install, patch, possibly issues, this that and the other thing. Consoles? Buy the game, pop the disk in and boom, you're off and running.

[LoAmi 0]

I haven't played WoW, but it looks like it requires you to open up one or more ports on your firewall. Completely disabling your firewall is a Very Bad Idea™; If you're using a NAT (network address translation) router [this is how most home networking routers work], you may have to set it up to do "port forwarding" from the Internet to your computer.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Completely disabling your firewall is a Very Bad Idea™;

 

After considering all these options, other options, and getting in touch with the inner troubleshooting tech nerd for about a week - - my thoughts as well. It may work out taking down the Firewall temporarily to install and play, but yes, that's one of those things that scream "Stuff Can Happen". In my gut, I know if I'm having issues btw my PC protection and the game, it will be an ongoing problem, and I'm not sure if I have the desire to constantly deal with it. Even reconfiguring the router has no appeal. Translation - Patience has left the building. :unsure:

 

BluRox, LoAmi, thanks for the input!

 

Basically, while I would love to go WoWing, this game is falling into the not worth it computer category. Upside, if I can't return it, I'm only out twenty bucks. I love RP gaming, and fantasy RPing still holds a special place in the heart, and WoW is a prime target for some fun, but there's a point where you go "nope". Out of the few PC games that I do have (and enjoyed), WoW takes the cake for tech problems at this point.

 

I think I know why I returned to console gaming about a year ago. PC games are cool, but some can be way high maintenance.

 

Thanks again for the venting topic if not the help!

Kansas >^..^<

Edited October 12, 2006 by Kansas_Jones

[Travis Kroells 0]

if I can't return it, I'm only out twenty bucks.

 

Hmm...you gotta love today's "unreturnable open media" policies. I recently bought dead rising for my 360. The game was ok, if only because of zombies, but it wasn't worth the sixty bucks. Long story short, I have to drive to Best Buy twice now, (wouldn't be such a hassle if the nearest one wasn't 30 miles away) at least I get to exploit another loop hole in the system though :unsure:

[Arthur (Rackle) Dragoon 0]

I love WoW....I play WC3, but unfortunatly not WoW.....I wish I could....BTW:My favorite race it Tauren.. MOOO. But,since i don't have it...i am of no use.

Edited October 14, 2006 by Arthur (Rackle) Dragoon

[Kansas_Jones 0]

I recently bought dead rising for my 360. The game was ok, if only because of zombies, but it wasn't worth the sixty bucks.

 

I really shouldn't admit this publicy, but I love anything zombie. So, when "Dead Rising" came on the radar, I filed it under "games I'm going to get if I get a 360". However - after seeing one preview where the main player character mows down zombies with an...umbrella? Riiiiiggghhht. Uh, no. Sounds as if I surmised

correctly there Jamie.

 

I love WoW....I play WC3, but unfortunatly not WoW.....I wish I could....BTW:My favorite race it Tauren.. MOOO. But,since i don't have it...i am of no use.

 

I have never played any of the games, but I very much like the Warcraft novels, and the The Art of Wow book is extremely cool. If WoW had worked out, I was planning on going with Orc, possibly Undead (Oh look! Another thing I shouldn't admit), and generally I tend to lean toward Shaman/Mage or Rogue in the RPG class area.

[Cptn Corizon 0]

::prefers nightelves himself::

[Kansas_Jones 0]

::prefers nightelves himself::

 

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the pointed Rihan type ears?

 

Nightelves and elves are always cool, but there's probably like a million of them running around in any given MMORPG game. Now, give me cat warriors? Oh, then we have a ball game. Not that I'm biased or anything...noooooo...not here.

[will_marx 0]

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the pointed Rihan type ears?

 

Nightelves and elves are always cool, but there's probably like a million of them running around in any given MMORPG game. Now, give me cat warriors? Oh, then we have a ball game. Not that I'm biased or anything...noooooo...not here.

 

 

::tosses Kansas a big ball of yarn::

 

Just ignore the female half-elven Rose Knight of Solomnia from Toril in the background, standing next to the aged cleric of Corellian Larethian, standing next to the Rose human Knight of Solomnia, also from Toril, standing next to the human fighter in the kilt with the claymore and bandolier of alcohol, standing next to the juvenile gold dragon.

 

Gotta love liberal DMs.

[Cptn Corizon 0]

Speaking of WoW:

 

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention

 

By Adam Pasick Mon Oct 16, 8:17 AM ET

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.

 

"Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise -- taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth," said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

 

"You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there's no mechanism by which you're taxed on this stuff," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

 

The increasing size and public profile of virtual economies, the largest of which have millions of users and gross domestic products that rival those of small countries, have made them increasingly difficult for lawmakers and regulators to ignore.

 

Second Life, for example, was specifically designed by San Francisco-based Linden Lab to have a free-flowing market economy. Its internal currency, the Linden dollar, can be converted into U.S. dollars through an open currency exchange, making it effectively "real" money.

 

Inside Second Life, users can buy and sell virtual objects from T-shirts to helicopters, develop virtual real estate, or hire out services ranging from architecture to exotic dancing. Up to $500,000 in user-to-user transactions take place every day, and the Second Life economy is growing by 10 to 15 percent a month.

 

"Ownership, property rights, all that stuff needs to be decided. There's just too much money floating around," said game designer Sam Lewis, who trained as an economist and has worked on games such as Star Wars Galaxies. He is currently lead designer for an upcoming game from Cartoon Network.

 

"The tax laws don't know how to behave because these are virtual items: ones and zeros on a database we're allowing you to play in," he said.

 

Even if it is inevitable, Lewis is not exactly looking forward to having real-life tax collectors enter the virtual world.

 

"I'm a designer that thinks any sort of boundaries or rules actually give you an interesting challenge to overcome, but I don't particularly want the IRS coming in," he said.

 

The rapid emergence of virtual economies has outstripped current tax law in many areas, but there are some clear-cut guidelines that already apply. For example, people who cash out of virtual economies by converting their assets into real-world currencies are required to report their incomes to the U.S.

Internal Revenue Service or the tax authority where they live in the real world.

 

It is less clear how to deal with income and capital gains that never leave the virtual economy, income and capital gains that in the real world would be subject to taxes.

 

"Let's say the IRS decides they want a valuation of your assets. We don't have a stock market where we can as of the 31st of December, these assets went up, these went down," Lewis said.

 

Miller, of the Joint Economic Committee, who became interested in the issue when he began exploring some of the virtual worlds in his free time, said he has an open mind about how real world tax authorities should interact with virtual economies.

 

"We are starting with a blank slate and going through the various dimensions of virtual economies, and seeing where they might intersect with public policy," he said. Miller hopes to have a rough draft of a report done by the end of the year.

 

But first, he has to educate some of his colleagues.

 

"I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is. The idea of Second Life or World of Warcraft or some of these other synthetic universes, they have trouble wrapping their head around it," he said.

 

However, there are probably some on Capitol Hill who won't require much explanation. "I can almost guarantee that there are some members of Congress spending time in Second Life or World of Warcraft," he said.

 

(For more coverage of Second Life, where Reuters is opening a virtual news bureau, go to http://secondlife.reuters.com)

 

 

Personally, I think the IRS needs to take a deep breath and come back to reality.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Speaking of WoW:

Personally, I think the IRS needs to take a deep breath and come back to reality.

 

That's ridiculous. WoW is a virtual world with a non existent economy - fake money, fake goods, fake transactions. Actually, the IRS needs to take a deep breath and then go take some NyQuil. You'd think there'd be more important issues then worrying about virtual fakes.

 

Hey Will - you forgot the former female Rose Knight gone rogue with the Hex Sword that is forever attached to her and her family through a curse!! (or something like that).

[LoAmi 0]

You'd think there'd be more important issues then worrying about virtual fakes.

 

It's not quite that simple. Once something "fake" can be translated to and from real dollars, it isn't fake anymore. When the amounts of the transactions are small, it really doesn't matter much. Under the current system, income becomes taxable when it gets translated back into real dollars. But, think about this: an individual's tax rates are decided on a yearly basis. You can make money by selling goods in a virtual world and then effectively set your income tax rate lower by waiting to transfer the virtual money into real money. I'm sure that's not the only way to manipulate the system.

 

Out of curiosity: Has anyone ever considered what would happen if the company maintaining the virtual world suddenly closed up shop? Does some significant amount of money just get lost in a virtual netherworld?

[will_marx 0]

 

Hey Will - you forgot the former female Rose Knight gone rogue with the Hex Sword that is forever attached to her and her family through a curse!! (or something like that).

 

Not one of my D&D PC's, Kansas. There was the one Solomnic Knight who put on a Girdle of Gender Change, thinking it was one of Giant Strength. I have the card somewhere...

[AndrewLyon 0]

WoW problems, who do you call? :unsure: Yes, it is I, Andrew Lyon, A.K.A Packhunter.

 

Best advise I offer when it comes to patchs is DO NOT USE THE AUTO DOWNLOADER. Check your presently version and bring it up to code slowly. BTW if you plan to raid get Vent.;-)

[Arthur (Rackle) Dragoon 0]

Did you get regular WoW?Or WoW Burining Crusade??BC just came out...so.

[KhreRiovtRex 0]

Did you get regular WoW?Or WoW Burining Crusade??BC just came out...so.

 

Wrong--

 

Wow went public 11/23/2004 (after extensive Beta testing), and BC is not scheduled for release

until 11/28/2006 (Though that date has already been backed up several times). If you already have WoW, you can try to get into

the public beta for BC, but I believe it's pretty full at the moment.

 

I'm still trying to talk the

local EB into a midnight opening so I can get started, and if not, I may have to change my order to a different store that will.

 

BC is an expansion pack for WoW.

[Tyana 0]

I know when I have that problem with City of Heroes it's usually a corrupt download. When it's happened I've had to uninstall and reinstall CoH entirely and that usually does the trick. :/

 

I've had the same problem with SL but all I do is downloaded the updates manually and don't use the auto updater in that case.

 

Don't know about WoW though, I don't care for it that much. But I'll ask a few people I know that play it religiously and see if they can suggest anything to help.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Don't know about WoW though, I don't care for it that much. But I'll ask a few people I know that play it religiously and see if they can suggest anything to help.

 

Thanks much Tyana, but I did end up not keeping WoW; I have a low tolerance for games that require high maintenance, so it really wasn't worth the blood pressure issue to try this way and that to get WoW up and running. I like to go, get the game, pop the disc in, and then I'm off and running. Which might explain my foray back into console gaming from the PC a year ago. ;-)

[Tyana 0]

Thanks much Tyana, but I did end up not keeping WoW; I have a low tolerance for games that require high maintenance, so it really wasn't worth the blood pressure issue to try this way and that to get WoW up and running. I like to go, get the game, pop the disc in, and then I'm off and running. Which might explain my foray back into console gaming from the PC a year ago. ;-)

 

My PS2 broke a few months ago. Cracked it open and repaired it temporarily which lasted about two months. Just enough time to get enough of my GTA San Andreas fix. Something about doing a driveby to Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" had me laughing my ass off and realizing just how sick I was at the same time. Which only helped to make me laugh more and do it again until it completely broke. Just threw it out recently when I moved. Since then I figured a clean reinstall of PC games was just cheaper.

 

At least until the PS3 hype cools down and the PS2 price drops. That is unless someone feels like dropping a half grand to get me a PS3. Heh. Then I'll go back to console gaming. For now I'll stick to occasional CoH/CoV and SL.

[AndrewLyon 0]

I know when I have that problem with City of Heroes it's usually a corrupt download. When it's happened I've had to uninstall and reinstall CoH entirely and that usually does the trick. :/

 

I've had the same problem with SL but all I do is downloaded the updates manually and don't use the auto updater in that case.

 

Don't know about WoW though, I don't care for it that much. But I'll ask a few people I know that play it religiously and see if they can suggest anything to help.

 

For what its worth when my old 633 was on its last legs, I purchased a Cube for the same reasons. Mind you now with the Wii, doctors might be ordering you to buy one for improved health. Imagine 20 hour marathons where you have to move?

[Tyana 0]

For what its worth when my old 633 was on its last legs, I purchased a Cube for the same reasons. Mind you now with the Wii, doctors might be ordering you to buy one for improved health. Imagine 20 hour marathons where you have to move?

 

Pfft!

 

Powerpad for Nintendo anyone?

 

When I want to move I go to the gym. If I want to wave my arms I'll get a job directing traffic or landing planes at the airport. At least I'll get paid while doing that, as opposed to paying for a Wii console to do that.

Edited November 26, 2006 by Tyana

[Kansas_Jones 0]

Mind you now with the Wii, doctors might be ordering you to buy one for improved health. Imagine 20 hour marathons where you have to move?

 

 

Powerpad for Nintendo anyone?

 

When I want to move I go to the gym. If I want to wave my arms I'll get a job directing traffic or landing planes at the airport. At least I'll get paid while doing that, as opposed to paying for a Wii console to do that.

 

I had those same thoughts! Typically, when I play its anywhere from 3 to six hours (weekend). Waving that little Wii controller around for that long? Nope, dont think so. Likewise, if I want to work out I head to my gym as well.