Posts with tag vacation

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

My guild's members mostly reside in the northeastern U.S. and Canada. As such, the summer is a great season for us: barbecues, outdoor sports, beaches and lakes, hikes and bike rides -- it's a lot of fun! However, it's also the season where my guild's raiding schedule seems to hang by a thread. And this year is no different.

People aren't online as much. Their free time shifts around completely. Some members hardly play at all. It starts to become difficult to fill raid slots. Sometimes it becomes impossible, and we have to cancel raids for a little while.

On top of everything else, we've been plagued by a string of technical problems this year. It started out with with one of our healers getting all laggy on us for no apparent reason. Then someone's PC was attacked by an undetected virus. Then another one of our healers had their PC die mid-raid. Then a tank's motherboard exploded.

When Jackhammer of EU Frostwhisper first sent us this Alliance Northrend flight point gallery, I kind of shrugged it off. Flight points are the most traveled places in the game, by definition. Why would we be interested in something we see all the time. You take pictures on vacation, not at home. But after looking through it, I was struck by just how well-crafted these places are. From the Fizzcrank Airstrip to the heights of Icecrown, there's a lot of beauty to be found in these places as well, and not just on the back of a griffon.

It's a nice gallery, and it gives you a nice hint of just how varied Northrend is -- there are fires burning and flightmasters giving rides all over the continent, and by browsing through the pictures, you get a good look at what kinds of crevices the Alliance have inserted themselves into in Northrend. And if nothing else, it's some nice art to look through on a Saturday afternoon.

Hooray! After months of speculation, we finally have a release date for Wrath of the Lich King. The World (of Warcraft) will soon be chock full of Death Knights and Inscriptionists. There are so many things to look forward to. I can't decide which character to level first. I'll have some time.

As promised, I put in my Paid Time Off request for a few days after the release. I'm very surprised at Thursday release date, but I'm not complaining. I'm taking the twelfth through the sixteenth of November off work. I beat the release-request rush at work, so my time is approved. See you in Northrend.

Are you rearranging your schedule for the coming of Wrath?

Next week is spring break at my university. I'm looking forward to a little time off from school. I'll probably spend at least a little of it catching up on World of Warcraft. I'd love to visit someplace warm and lively for the week, but that's just not in the cards. It's amazing how Las Vegas loses its charm once you've lived there for a couple of years. It looks like once again I will be spending my spring break in Azeroth.

We asked readers where they would live if they could pick any place in the World of Warcraft in a previous Breakfast Topic. Responses varied from a floating island in Nagrand to Downtown Stormwind City. They all sound like nice places to visit, but I'd hate to live there.

I think I would head on down to Stranglethorn Vale for some sightseeing and sunshine. If you could take your spring break anywhere in the game world, where would it be?

The problem with becoming immersed in WoW is that it's hard to leave behind -- I'm at the Develop conference at the moment, and whenever there's an hour or so of downtime I'm tempted to just log in and.. you know, check auctions or something.

I succumbed to the temptation when I discovered a convenient wireless access point.. on the beach. What's the oddest place you've taken WoW? Or do you have more self-control than I -- can you leave it behind happily?

In response to our summer vacation topic the other day, the Collegiate Times has posted a list of summer vacation 'do's & don'ts' (how quaint), and coming in at number five on that list:

5.) DON'T lock yourself in your room all day playing video games. It's only acceptable to spend eight consecutive hours in a virtual fairy-land if you are doing so with another human. Instead of closing your door and giving everyone the sneaking suspicion that you have formed an irrefutable bond with your right hand, knock on the next room down and make friends with dudeface so you can combine your warrior fighting noob powers. Don't worry, Zelda's Twilight Princess will be out in November, and you will have plenty of time to hide away in the darkest corner of your room to ride Chocobos and raise your HP to "Level 9 - Congratulations! You've graduated to the shameless rank of social outcast!" - insert retainer slurping noises here.

So, does that mean that as long as you're playing games with other people, then it's ok? Is it just the Zelda games they want you to stay away from? And if so, why do they want you to wait until the school year to start playing? Something's fishy here...