Breakfast Topic: WoW on the go
by Josh Rose 
Nov 20th 2010 at 8:00AM
All of us have a life outside of Azeroth. People always say how much more important real life is than the game. However, if we say we are going to be somewhere in the game, shouldn't we take that commitment as seriously as one in the real world? If we tell our guild or friends we will be there for a raid or to PvP, shouldn't we do our best to not let them down? Isn't telling your WoW friends that you will be somewhere and simply not showing up without any notice just as bad as if it were your real-life friends?
Since I am a tank for my guild, I pretty much have to be at almost every raid. In order to make raids when not at home, I have raided on laptops and at other people's houses, just so I don't let people down. By not always playing on my home PC, I have learned to be a minimalist with mods as well as learning what the minimum settings I can still effectively tank with. This has allowed me to maintain most of my real-life and in-game commitments.
Have you ever had to play WoW outside of your own home to fulfill your social obligations? Do you have a gaming laptop for this purpose? Have you played at a friend or relative's house on their PC? Do you have different UIs or mod setups for your PC and laptop?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Swifteye Nov 20th 2010 8:05AM
I play with the default UI (yes, yes, bring on the n00b sucktard comments!), so that isn't a concern for me.
I've also played the entirety of my WoW career on this laptop, which is nice because I can take it wherever I need to go and not have to get used to a new setup.
I have tried to play WoW on friends' desktop setups a couple times, but the different keyboard just kills me. Funny really, considering the whole reason I started WoW to begin with was that I bought this laptop after my desktop rig croaked, and I could not for the life of me get used to the new keyboard layout in my *previous* MMO, so I went looking for a new one. Glad I did!
Julien Nov 20th 2010 3:40PM
You n00b sucktard.
Cowy Nov 20th 2010 8:12AM
Off topic, on topic for picture:
Tis the season, though it hasn't snowed here yet.
My inner kid is going "YEahh! Snoooow"
and my adult side is going "Noooooooo. I drive!"
itsthebrent Nov 20th 2010 8:31AM
I do the same thing. For some reason I still get excited when school is cancelled when it snows... I'm 24 with a career. lol
Baba Nov 20th 2010 8:46AM
Living in the UK ftw then :) , I get to go "yeeeahhhhhh snow!" and "yeeeahhhh snow has failed to ruin my driving plans for today because of it's inability to get deeper than my first finger-joint!"
BubblePriest Nov 20th 2010 9:34AM
I saw the picture and shuddered. I moved from the Midwest to the East Coast three years ago and am dreading going back.
Kurtis Nov 20th 2010 9:44AM
I think the picture is really telling us, if you're a trucker who plays WoW, you should conveniently stage a blizzard so you can make your raid time.
lantern314 Nov 20th 2010 8:16AM
I use the same UI, but I don't usually bring my G-13 keypad with me.
The biggest change I notice is the lack of center button running on the trackpad.
A few days ago I started downloading the updates on the laptop only to have it tell me the hard drive is full. That may mean no WoW for me over Thanksgiving.
Andostre Nov 20th 2010 10:23AM
You probably already thought of this, but if you haven't delete any old patch files in your main WoW folder. Those files take up a lot of space, and they're really only useful if you have to reinstall.
Acorania Nov 20th 2010 2:11PM
I have found it easier to just copy your WoW folder over from another comp onto the laptop. This means it only uses the space it actually needs, not the greater amount needed during installation.
On a side note it also copies over mods and settings which is nice.
pancakes Nov 20th 2010 8:14AM
I played WoW on an open wireless network on a laptop that blurred the line between computer and high-end toaster once, so I could log in to get an anniversary pet.
Kimkim Nov 20th 2010 8:40AM
Haha, gotta admit I chuckled at the toaster comment :) My laptop is the same - it once overheated so much during a raid that the paint on the palm-rest literally melted onto my hand; now my laptop has a palm imprint! Cooler helped the problem, but it still reaches stupid temperatures :(
Bfree380 Nov 20th 2010 8:32AM
I end up bringing my whole desktop (no speakers, just the headphones) with me when I visit my family for the holidays and whatnot. But only if I have a raid planned, and I am needed to heal or tank.
Josin Nov 20th 2010 8:35AM
If I'm away, my guild can get another tank to fill in. I'm a guildmember, not an employee.
Ricohardt Nov 20th 2010 8:40AM
Sounds pretty judgmental. The point of this is you tell someone you're going to be somewhere or do something, and then don't. You let someone or some group of people down, does it matter whether it was an online activity or not?
Josin Nov 20th 2010 8:49AM
Um... or it sounds like the attitude of a responsible adult?
If real life presents an issue where you can't log in to play a game... it's real life. It takes priority. Granted, I'm a proponent of letting your guild know you won't be there, as I DO recognize that it would be rude to just no-show without notice.
But seriously, anyone who can't prioritize their real, everyday life over in-game commitments should probably take some time off to get perspective.
Skizzit Nov 20th 2010 8:55AM
There is a difference between being away and just not showing up. I can understand RL coming before a game, but the nature of raiding in this game requires 10 or 25 people to all log in ready to play for at least a couple hours at a specific time. There is a certain amount of required commitment to make that work.
If someone simply fails to show up cause they decide to go to a movie or hang out with friends or what not and not raid is totally their choice, but they have no grounds to get angry when they finally do log in the following week to find themselves without a raid spot.
Noselacri Nov 20th 2010 9:24AM
For once, I'm not annoyed to see Josin commenting.
Real life > WoW at all times.
Which is why I'm in a guild comprised mostly of responsible adults. If we have to pug people for a raid, we pug people. If we put off a raid, we put it off.
My social life, my work life, my family life and my education all come before a game. If I'm hanging out with friends, or home for the holidays, I'm not bringing a computer to play on. If I'm on vacation, I'm not logging on.
Josin Nov 20th 2010 9:29AM
"For once, I'm not annoyed to see Josin commenting."
:(
Was this before the "Week of Sacco" or because of it? I like to think that most of the time, I'm pretty helpful on here, and usually have something reasonable to contribute.
Literaltruth Nov 20th 2010 9:45AM
I agree with you broadly. The only proviso I would make is I MUST tell my guild that I'll be away.
Just not showing up is incredibly annoying. We had a tank that would do that in a 25m guild I was in once - though he didn't do it a lot before we kicked him out. It really pissed me off because our guild times were tight for me in terms of getting back from work - I had to basically race back home through the rush hour to get back in time (my guild wasn't in quite the same timezone as me so raids were quite early in the evening). I would sometimes decline attending social events like parties because I would want to raid and, as a healer, I would feel bad that I would be stopping other people from raiding. He showed no such consideration.
That's a personal choice on my part, choosing one social activity over another. However, it would piss me off no end to have done that - or to have rushed home and made it by the skin of my teeth - and find that one or two people had just decided not to show up because they went off and got drunk / went to see a movie / watched TV instead was deeply frustrating.
We had a guild website with a forum to let people know about non-attendance and I would check it before I would leave work to make sure we were still on and I would post if I wasn't going to make it...but the people who wouldn't even bother with that just showed no respect to the lives and compromises that the other 24 people might have made to be at raid.
RL is, of course, > Game....but that doesn't mean you should just totally blow off the commitment you made to the other people in your guild when you decided to join a raiding guild. It's a game, yes - but a game with real people on the other end of it.