Why I won't be posting for a few weeks

Just an FYI - I won't be able to post for a few weeks, but I've got two worthy reasons why:

Reason #1: Hits Stores tomorrow (March 28, 2007)!

Special Edition:

Regular Edition:

Here's a trailer for the game that doesn't give away too much but does give you a sense of some of the pretty big actors in the cut scenes as well as some gameplay footage:

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (2 minutes)

No.... not Philadelphia!

Maybe it's a good thing I'm getting out of town because here's -

Reason #2: I'm leaving on a much deserved 3 week vacation on Saturday. Check out these old posts to see how I've given a WoW-Spin to my previous sight seeing jaunts:

• WoW is a Theme Park - The California Trip
• Viva Lag Vegas - The Vegas Trip

Hopefully when I get back I can issue the Wow-Is-A-Theme-Park - Florida Edition. Til then - Happy Hunting!

.

A while ago I was reading one of my favorite blogs: afkgamer. His last of 5 tips on starting an alt(#5 - "Don't tell your guild") reminded me of the time when I gave myself away just by my punctuation.

You see, I was suckered into logging into one of my super-secret-alts to help a friend (Friend-A). We grouped up and went about leveling him in tailoring or some such. (I know help leveling a profession probably sounds absurd in WoW, but we come from SWG -- it's what we know.)

One of our other friends (Friend-B) logged on and, as was our habit, Friend-A immediately (forgetting my super-secret-alt was grouped) invited Friend-B into our group. Crraaaap.

I tried to exit stage right asap without engaging and having to reveal who I was. I simply said:

Gotta go. Bye.

And logged. Yet somehow, Friend-B knew it was me. How?

Later when he asked, nay, told me that was me, (and not wanting to lie to this particular friend I fessed up), I asked him how he knew.

"The period," he said. "You're the only one that uses it."

Apparently, it's not just that I'm a careful typer. You see, I have this thing about not wanting to emote. (Seriously, it just looks dorky.) So whenever someone says something funny, I say:

lol.

Not:

lol

An important difference to an emote-o-phobe. Because with "lol" you emote the laugh. With "lol." you don't. And thus I was known for using a period, a super-secret-alt's identity was blown and the term "emote-o-phobe" may now humbly make its way back into gaming obscurity.

Flakey

There's something about the level of detail you can find that gives me pause:

Alt Codes (aka Special Characters)

How do you type special characters?

Here's How:
Each special character is assigned to a number sequence. But they have to be keyed while you hold the alt key down.

Alt-156 will get you £.
Alt-21 will get you §.

So holding Alt down with my left hand, I type in the number sequence on the number pad with my right. Once I lift up the alt key (after finishing the number sequence) the special character appears. I have tested this in World of Warcraft on my PC. I am not sure if this works on a Mac.

Numlock: If you have any problems, make sure your numlock key is on. For those who still have autorun bound to numlock and that suddenly starts you running just hit "w" or "s" to stop you while keeping numlock on. Then, when this is all said and done, remap autorun to Mouse Button 4 (you know the little one on the side by your thumb), if you have it, and thank me in the morning.

Here is a table of special characters you may find useful if you ever have to type a character's name that includes a special character(s):

The Table:

A	á=160 Á=0193	à=133 À=0192	â=131 Â=0194	ä=132 Ä=0196	å=134 Å=0197	ª=166
AE	æ=145 Æ=146
C	ç=135 Ç=128
Œ	œ=0156 Œ=0140
E	é=130 É=144	è=138 È=0200	ê=136 Ê=0202	ë=137 Ë=0203
F	ƒ=159
I	í=161 Í=0205	ì=141 Ì=0204	î=140 Î=0206	ï=139 Ï=0207
N	ñ=164 Ñ=165
O	ó=162 Ó=0211	ò=149 Ò=0210	ô=147 Ô=0212	ö=148 Ö=153	º=167
U	ú=163 Ú=0218	ù=151 Ù=0217	û=150 Û=0219	Ü=154
Y	ý=0253 Ý=0221	ÿ=152

Links:
Additional websites with the codes and characters:

• A table with description of the Unicode/Hexidecimal values.
• Another table from yellowpipe. (I had originally discovered the three digit codes one by one myself back in the days before you could Google this stuff but I only got through the three digit codes. I found this yellowpipe table helpful to add the four digit codes.)

Blizzard's Naming Policies: (Which generally only say you cannot have a name that is complete "Gibberish")

• Naming Policy
• Naming Policy on wow-europe
• Update (August 2009) - When paying for your name change, Blizzard now says that "Your New Character Name cannot contain special characters and must follow the World of Warcraft Naming Policy." (link)
  

Some Blue Posts (courtesy of WoW Blue Tracker) about Names with Special Characters:

• Names with special characters will have to be changed if reported (August 2006)
• Extended ASCII is not permitted in names (February 2007)
• A helpful Mod for clicking names (Also February 2007)

Now, let's all go report some Gold Sellers!

Although if you've been reading along you know I'm too lazy to do it unless they get snippy...

Update 10/3/2007:
Cyrillic Character Change in Patch 2.2.2

We wanted to inform players whose character names contain letters from the Cyrillic alphabet that they will receive an automatic forced name change upon the release of patch 2.2.2. Allowing the input of Cyrillic characters in names was the result of an accidental code change. We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Cyrillic characters will still be usable in the in-game chat, however.

More on the Coloring Books

How-To
For those interested in making your own coloring pages you can boil the technique down to these two steps (using Photoshop Elements):

• Under the menu Filter -> Stylize -> Find Edges


• Under the menu Enhance -> Adjust Color -> Remove Color

There are some other things you can do to try to remove some of the extra lines but essentially, that'll get you the picture. The tricky part to making them printable is to crop them to an appropriate size.

More Pics:
Here are some more pics I didn't bother to crop to fit exactly on an 8.5 x 11 paper (typical in North America):

Wallpapers

Too often when I'm flying from here to there or I just see an interesting sight, I'll turn off the HUD and snap a few screenies for my PC's Wallpaper. Here are some (with a little stylization for my own taste):

From the "Whew!" Files

I did make it:


There are three sets of feet in this picture of my running for my life in Un'goro. Mine (and the bubble protecting them) and the 2 mobs chasing me:

WoW Coloring Book

I'm surprised that Blizzard hasn't put more staff on the whole WoW Merchandising thing. Sure there's the clever hat with the exclamation point but is that really how they're going after our discretionary spending? Where's the lunch boxes? the Halloween costumes with the picture of a night elf on the chest? ok maybe I'm dating myself here, but how about a coloring book? Kids still color, right?

Unfortunately, I can't draw for crap, but I can do a few things with Photoshop. I took a few screen prints to see if I could turn them into coloring-book pages and here's how they came out:

I guess it would be a bit of a change to have kids coloring in their honorable kills. But hey, there's still WoW-ios the delicious part of an otherwise complete breakfast and WoW-Legos still to be negotiated and wrung for all they're worth.

300 WoW Video

This is a WoW guild recruitment video that capitalizes on the 300 craze going on right now (my HSX stock in it doubled!).

World of Warcraft - "300" Doom Supremacy movie trailer

Video: Snacky's Journal Episode 1

Another video I found on YouTube; not bad:

Snacky's Journal - Episode 1


I particularly liked this one for the excellent production values. Great sound, focus, and that little bit of suspense (just a little).

Update 7/31/07:
Episode 2 3:57:


Episode 3 (PSA/Preview) 1:12:

Video: University of Stormwind

I just came across this on YouTube recently but I think it's been around for awhile:

The University of Stormwind

Lunar Festival Pictures

A few more pictures captured during the Lunar Festival Event in World of Warcraft:

An Elder (Precariously?) Near a Fireworks Launcher


Decorations:


Red Envelopes from Elders I Visited the Previous Day:


This Character is still in his Hallow's End Costume:


Some Portraits of Elders on Display in the Cities:

Orgrimmar:


Thunder Bluff:


Stormwind:


Undercity:

I am a Pro at Wasting TIme

Half the time (more?) I don't kill a single thing when I log on. I just play around with the holiday freebies. This day I decided to combine the Elune's Light from the Lunar Festival with some left over Rose Petals from the Love is in the Air event:



Then stand back and enjoy the results for a bit.

I'm in Your Armory - Lookin' at your Gear

So, the Armory... Information on every character on every realm (above level 10) has been loaded into the website for all the world to see - (as soon as the world can get the site to load). You can see Character Profiles, Guild Profiles, Arena Team Profiles and Arena Ladders.

I won't really get into it, particularly since the forums were just a flame-fest, but I'll say this: WoW just got a little less Casual (again).

Links:

Forum Thread (This is the updated thread with a link to the first one.)

wowinsider asks "Is the Armory Site an Invasion of Privacy?"

p.s. I can't take credit for the Snowclone title - this forum poster (#133) made me lol with it.

Lunar Festival - Decorations

Some decorations I captured during the Lunar Festival:

The Staple Decorations - Fireworks and Lights:
Stormwind:

Undercity:


Paper Lanterns & Fireworks:

Lunar Festival - Reference

Here are some valuable reference sites for the Lunar Festival event:

• Blizzard's Official Lunar Festival Page
• wowwiki's Lunar Festival Portal page
• wowwiki list of Elders & thier locations
• A One Page guide from Mortal Ken (via Blizzplanet )

p.s. Gotta love Photoshop's Photomerge feature!

2007-March Events

From the Events Calendar for March:

Event	Dates
Darkmoon Faire (Mulgore)	Mon Mar 5 - Sun Mar 11
Lunar Festival	Fri Feb 16 - Thur Mar 8
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin!	Mar 2 - Mar 5
Call to Arms: Eye of the Storm!	Mar 9 - Mar 12
Call to Arms: Alterac Valley!	Mar 16 - Mar 19
Call to Arms: Warsong Gulch!	Mar 23 - Mar 26
Call to Arms: Arathi Basin!	Mar 30 - Apr 2

Calls to Arms occur during most weekends, starting on Thursday night at midnight and continuing until Tuesday morning. During a Call to Arms, emmissaries from that Battleground will be found in the major cities, and honor/faction rewards for performing objectives in that battleground are increased.