Kotaku: Why I Don't Play World Of Warcraft, Make Me A Gladiator Starring Jakkdan Of Rampage, What Are You Buying On Black Friday?

Unfortunately the 5 year anniversary for WOW is not all praises, as Kotaku made a rather disturbing post on "Why I Don't Play WOW".  Kotaku is THE most popular gaming blog out there today, with Alexa ranking 1133, first on Google when you search for "Gaming Blog", and the only gaming site on my Blackberry as they have a fantastic RSS feed with full articles.  I skimmed through it and some of those sore losers out there are plain embarrassing.

I feared its monthly drain on my budget. - Stephen Totilo, Deputy Editor, Kotaku

I guess Kotaku really doesn't pay very well.  When $15 actually becomes a factor in a "deputy editor" 's monthly budget, it is time to find a new job.

I'd much rather use that money on a night out with my girlfriend - Shaun McIlroy, U.K./European Editor, One Last Continue

$15 barely buys me a pair of lunch specials + tax/tips at low end Chinese restaurants, if it buys you a night out your girlfriend must be dirt cheap.

Not sure how much time a week a WoW player plays but I bet it's close to 20 to 25 hours. No Thanks! Oh yeah, and that South Park episode helped keep me away. - Juan Perez, Editor-in-Chief, Perez Start

Typical taco eating wife beater running a no name site with a ghetto name, yeah I can stereotype too!  I had more traffic running WOM on Wordpress and a $5 a month Godaddy account, you can probably make better burritos than blogs.

There isn't enough time for me to have a social life, go to college, get enough sleep, and play WoW the way they seem to. - Fergus Mills, Senior Editor, The Koalition

What is up with all those titles?  The editor-in-chief's, the senior editors of low traffic sites.  Maybe WOM writers should start give themselves titles.  Let's just say one of the better raid guilds on my first server (and this was managing 40 men raids) had a guild master from MIT, his girlfriend was also from MIT and was one of the most active class leaders in the guild.  Get off the high horse, there are people who manage their time well enough to do more in 4 hours than you do in 8.

Forget about how I met Estel and how WOM ended up as a very solid offhand weapon for me.  During my break in summer 2006 from WOW and played other games, my monthly expenses actually sky rocketed.  I had to update my graphic card, I bought a modded Xbox, custom joysticks, etc.  It wasn't long before I decided that no game comes even close to the satisfaction you get from WOW.  There is no RPG, single player or MMO out there with a better combat system or talent tree. 

And whether you are looking for epic boss encounters with a large/medium/small group of players, fighting other players at a very high competitive level, or just take it easy and build up a character at your own pace, WOW has it all.  It is a virtual world that brings the best and worst out of people, just like what you would experience in real world when greed is at work.  It is a great way for kids to learn real life lessons without real life consequences.

Make Me A Gladiator Starring Jakkdan Of Rampage

This idea was put on the back burner for a while as not many people are willing to fraps and show their wins/losses to the world.  I admire Jakkdan of Rampage's courage as he posted matches from his 2100 TSG (warrior/DK/paladin) team for the world to see!  Hope more people will follow suit.

Armory: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Cho%27gall&n=Jakkdan

Wins: http://www.filefront.com/14976239/TSG---3v3---11-21---2.1k---Wins.avi/



Losses: http://www.filefront.com/14978763/TSG---3v3---11-21---2.1k---Losses.avi/



I don't play DK myself but it is clear Jakkdan did tremendous homework with his.  He has a very impressive UI.  For people who don't plan on going to LAN's, there is no reason not to use as many UIs as possible as if they improve your performance. 

Since this team is not above 2200, they are all using the tier 1 relentless weapons, and many slots are still in season 6 gear.  This is the type of team that should benefit most from daily BG's offering 25 arena points.  TSG really needs top gear to shine.  I will leave it to people who actually play TSG to comment on what they can do to improve as a team.

About Jakkdan (Yes, there are successful people who actually play WOW!)

A little about me. I'm 26 years old and have been playing since April 2005. I would consider myself a gladiator IRL as I have had success at just about everything I do. I graduated from college with two degrees 3 years ago and have a great job at a well known company as a software engineeer to show for it as well as a beautiful wife and house. I was also a very good football player at a small college (played all four years, earning all conference honors 3 of them) and know the value of watching film, which is what my goal is with these Fraps recordings.

I have never taken arena 100% serious and this is the highest I have ever been rated. In Vanilla I loved PvP and reached rank 8 and 9 on my horde characters but I was still in school and playing football so I never had the time to push for HWL but I frequently ran in the HWL WSG groups on Kil'Jaeden on my rogue and priest. I also had an alliance hunter that I raided with on Arthas and have a lot of memories of some of the first PvP movie legends (Pat, Maydie, Mute, etc).

In TBC I switched to playing my priest full time and really got into raiding hardcore starting on Cho'gall, moving to Azgalor, back to Cho'gall, and then to Ner'zhul. I arena'd casually all four seasons as shadow and disc and I was able to get to 1800-1900 as SP / Rogue and also as Disc / Lock in S4 (I still have nightmares of Dru/Rogue haha). At the end of S4 I transferred back to Cho'gall because I had a lot of friends there only to discover when I walked out in front of Org for the first time that all of the top pvper's had decided to make it their home as well as I saw Brutal Glad after Brutal Glad running around.

When WoTLK came out I had just gotten married so I decided to quit raiding altogether and played very casually leveling my priest. After hitting 80 and doing a little arena I decided I wanted a new experience but I didn't want to level from 1 so I created a DK and worked on getting geared for the last half of S5. In S6, a friend of mine leveled a druid and I helped him get geared up and we were able to hit 1850 for our T1 weaps playing Frost DK/Resto and then my druid promptly quit playing (I made a partial BG vid of how OP frost was here http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=121211). This season I was able to talk a warrior friend from my guild who has never taken arena seriously or been rated this high either. We then found another guy from our guild who has a pally alt to put together a TSG comp that has been doing pretty well.

Already a gladiator in RL, make him a gladiator in WOW!

What Are You Buying On Black Friday?

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving dinner.  My mother, like most first generation Asian American parents, does not know how to cook a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  However, her unique ability to combine American/Chinese cooking more than makes up for it.  From honey glazed turkey wings to steamed fish/crab, it was quite a feast.

Tomorrow, I have the unfortunate task of watching my 3.5 month old daughter, as Estel will be taking her mother to a Black Friday shopping trip.  My mother-in-law is going back to China around Christmas time, I won't miss her cooking but I will definitely miss the amount of work she did to keep us sane over the past a few months.

I personally hate the crowd (and besides, the best deals are after Christmas anyway) so I usually do my shopping online.  Online retailers are doing amazing and Amazon specifically is eating everyone's lunch.  According to Internetretailer.com, Amazon 2008's 19.2 billion was more than Staples, Dell and Office Depot (next three spots) combined.  Dell specifically is really struggling, falling behind Acer in market share (go China!) of all companies.

In any case, I find myself hitting Amazon first on every purchase, do a quick search for the best selling items with at least 4 stars in ratings, and I usually buy the model with least bells and whistles.  I have to buy a GPS for Estel and I am probably going to pick up the Garmin 285W which is a newer version of their super popular 260W for $10 more thanks to Black Friday.  $129 is a fantastic deal!

Amazon probably got 70% of my online shopping dollars for this entire year.  How are you guys shopping on Black Friday?