We were somewhat surprised with the pvp element for the meta, [School of Hard Knocks].  What we thought would be the most difficult part turned out to be the easiest.  In Warsong Gulch , the alliance came into our flag room, picked it up, and them dropped it for us many times over.  We did have to yell at a one or two idiots who took that as a sign to try to kill the alliance rather than let them be, since they were trying to help us, and we were returning the favor for them.  In Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin , it was the same.  The only hard one was Eye of the Storm .  There, the Alliance were zerging the flag, making it hard for us to get our achievements done.  Ultimately though, we did it, and are happy.

We still would like to get the Dalaran Orphan quests done, but are still bugged.  We did them when they put them out in 3.2, but since they still haven’t been reset, we can’t do the other ones.  Here’s hoping they fix them.

There’s more to talk about, raiding and such, but I’ll save that for another post.

/logout

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL3le-fDlVY

And today, WoW.com posted another one of Bullworth’s latest, this time a parody of Mythbusters.  Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FQ1Scd4feA

Kind of tired tonight so not much to talk about, but I do want to post some thoughts on upcoming things later.

/logout

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltM5jHIJFw4

/logout

Their exact reply:

“Dear Timothy,

Thank you for getting back to us.

We apologise that we are unable to sell you a new cable to replace the current one which is faulty. This is because we do not sell them in loose or individual units since all our parts and accessories come together as a whole package.

Best Regards,

Sherry Z
Worldwide Customer Response
Creative”

Really?  Really Creative Labs?  You don’t sell replacement accessory parts?  What kind of bullshit is that?  You don’t have a spare usb cable for the headset laying around?

Now yes, I realize I could go out and buy another cable somewhere, but I really like the braided cable this comes with.    What the hell Creative?  You can’t put a cable in an envelope, charge me a nominal fee, and send me a replacement?

Bah

Pissed off at Creative now

/logout

Last night, Theshat and I were in a random heroic, and wound up in Utgarde Keep .  Right after all the buffs were distributed and we all fed on a lovely [Recipe: Fish Feast],  the tank, who had something like 56,000 HP and a gear score of well over 5800, announced “Fair warning, I like to chain pull this place”, and before we could say anything, he proceded to charge in and pull every single mob in the hallway..ALL OF THEM.  As we’re trying our damnedest to DPS them all down,  of course, we each pull a few off of him and we all end up wiping.  Oh and did I mention he was a Death Knight?  So, after we wipe, he doesn’t apologize, he just said “sigh..I guess normal way then”.  And after we again all buff up, he starts pulling, and before we even finish the current batch of mobs, he runs ahead to the next batch, leaving us all behind, the healer frantically trying to keep us all healed  AND HIM AS WELL, as we’re getting damage because he stopped tanking the group and is working on the next group already, out of the healer’s range.  Then, as we’re trying to DPS things down, he keeps running ahead to pull even more, taking the mobs with him that we’re trying to kill, pulling them out of the range of us casters who have to stand still to cast.  To top things off, he kept on /tapping his foot at us for being “too slow”. Yeah, I couldn’t wait for that one to be done to get away from that clown.

The other kind of tank I really hate is the “hostage” tank.  We’re in ToC heroic 5 man, about to work on The Black Knight, when the tank suddenly announces “Roll greed on the [Frozen Orb] or I let you all die.”  He refuses to pull until some of us say yes. Then of course, once the fight is done, we’re all waiting for the roll to see what he does.  He didn’t roll,waiting for all of us.  So, I figured “hell, I never agreed”, and rolled need.  We all knew he had every intention of rolling need on the orb.   Everyone rolled need too, so he got pissed and left (and of course, he didn’t win the orb).   I’m so glad that 3.3.3 will change that to greed only.

The last kind of tank I can do without, is the ones who when we’re about to go up against a final boss, doesn’t check to make sure everyone is ready.  We were in Azjol-Nerub , about to go up against Anub'arak.  I hadn’t crossed over into the platform yet, as I was about 1 seconds behind everyone else.  The tank charges, and the wall goes up, separating me from the rest of the group.  So, they have to 4 man the boss, and the healer has the balls to call me a noob.  If the fucking tank would have waited one more second, I would have  been on the platform and ready to fight, but no, the tank had to be in a rush and not ask if we’re all set.

Ok, rant over.  Overall though, we ended up running 7 dungeons yesterday and 4 on Saturday, totaling 11 on the weekend.  Not bad overall.

/logout

And, here’s my entire WoW plushie collection:

That’s all for now. No news yet today.

/logout

]]> http://www.spiritfiresrealm.com/2010/03/15/plushies/feed/ 0 http://www.spiritfiresrealm.com/2010/03/12/creative-labs-world-of-warcraft-headset-wireless-edition-a-review/ http://www.spiritfiresrealm.com/2010/03/12/creative-labs-world-of-warcraft-headset-wireless-edition-a-review/#comments Sat, 13 Mar 2010 02:55:07 +0000 Spiritfire http://www.spiritfiresrealm.com/?p=231 By no means am I an expert audiophile, nor a sound engineer.  I am a gamer and entertainment enthusiast who likes the most realism he can get in sound.   This review is written as such.   If you’re looking for a professional reviewer, look elsewhere.  I will be as objective as possible.

Ever since it was announced last August, I’ve been anticipating the availability of the Creative Labs WoW headset.  Today, I finally received mine.      I ordered mine through Amazon.com on Thursday for a retail of $159.99, and after overnight shipping, it came to $181.95.  Your shipping cost may vary and tax of course, depending on where you live.

So after opening the huge box from Amazon, here’s what I got.

Inside the box, going clockwise from top left we have:  the headset itself,  a storage bag (which has two internal pockets with Velcro to keep them shut, a small flat head screwdriver to pop out and change the lenses (below the screwdriver),  the USB dongle,  a USB charging cable,  a quick-start guide, and the detachable microphone.

Note that there is no driver disk included.  I’m ok with that.  Instead the quick start guide tells you where to download the driver.  That ensures you will always have the latest driver when installing for the first time.   Installation was very simple.  First before I did anything, I plugged in the headset to a free USB port with the charging cable to get that started, like it recommends. (Well, before I did even that, I changed the lenses.  Mine came with the Alliance glyphs installed.  I quickly changed that to Horde.)  Then, after downloading the driver,  I plugged in the USB dongle to another port and did the pairing.  Pairing was easy.  Hold down the connect button for 3 seconds on the headset and release.  The lens should flash blue.  Then press and hold the connect button on the dongle for 3 seconds and release.  The lights should stop flashing then.  After pairing, I installed the driver and then rebooted.  That was it.  All done.

While rebooting, I put them on.  They fit snug, and are very comfortable.  They are a little heavy, but I quickly got used to them.  They cover the ears very well, closing out a lot of outside noise.

So, after that, I went into the Audio Control Panel, and started making adjustments.  First, I set the color of the lenses to red.  They’re cyan by default (or at least it was on mine).  Next I went to the THX section.  There I turned on the various settings.  There are five options:  Crystalizer (Enhance music and movies to make them sound livelier), Surround (Control the level of audio immersion in music, movies, and games), Bass (Enhance the sound quality and bass of any speaker system for a better listening experience), Dialog Plus (Enhance the voices in movies for clearer dialog), and Smart Volume (Adjust the loudness of your audio playback automatically to minimize sudden volume changes) .  I turned them all on, and set them all at middle (50%), which I adjusted later while playing.

Next I checked out Game Audio.  This section allows you to enable VoiceFX (to change your voice) and enable the EQ.  There’s about a dozen presets and you can of course adjust each slider on your own.  It has a few WoW races you can chose from to change your voice to.  I was a tad disappointed there wasn’t a Tauren to chose from, but maybe in a future update (hint hint Creative?).

The last section is for key bindings.  You can set up key bindings to do different things in game with your headset, such as turning on and off the various THX settings, turning on and off RGB color cycling, and so on.  Note that if key binding is enabled,  they will be locked out of other applications.  The warning is also present on the key bindings page.

So, the main reason you’re here is you want to know how they sound.  After all, panels are nice, but sound quality is the key.   Ok, well,  I have to say, I am not disappointed in the least.    I had an eargasm the first time I logged into WoW.  As I walked, I could hear every little sound.  I could litterally hear the grass crunching under my feet.  I could hear the subtleties in the water fountains in Dalaran.  I then went up to Argent Tournament to do a little combat.  I swear, it was like I heard the game correctly for the very first time in the five years I’ve been playing.  I can’t emphasize more how phenomenal this headset sounds.

Now, in game, I had to make a minor change to be able to hear the full 360 degrees of sound.  Under the sound options, I changed it from default sound device to the headset device.  If left to default, I couldn’t hear full surround sound.  That may be because Windows still sees the default headphones as 2 speakers only.

Next, I tested the headset to watch a movie.  I wanted to chose something that would have a lot of sound effects and dialog, so I chose the new Star Trek movie.  I used a Blu-ray version of the movie with Cyberlink PowerDVD 9 Ultra.  After a couple of minor tweaks in the software to make it play 6 speakers rather than 2,  the movie came to life.  Again, sound quality is phenomenal.  I got so engrossed in the sound, I forgot to stop the movie after a few minutes and ended up watching the entire thing.

After the movie, I put in iTunes and played some of my mp3s.  My music library ranges from hard rock, classic rock, classical, jazz, blues, country, metal, and video game soundtracks.  I played a wide range of my music library to get a good eclectic mix.  Again, the sound quality was impressive.

I only have one real complaint about them.  The wireless range doesn’t seem to go very far.  I can go about maybe 20 feet away before they lose signal.  My kitchen is about 50 feet away from my computer, so I can’t go all the way there to get a beer or soda while playing.   Now, your mileage may vary.  My computer is in the corner of my room, so I have to go past a few walls to get to my kitchen.  You may have better range depending on your home’s layout.

The wireless runs on 2.4GHz, but it doesn’t seem to affect my wireless router.  I imagine it was made to be outside of the range of the 2.4Ghz channels that most routers use.

As for the microphone quality, I got onto Skype with a friend and talked for a little while. She was able to hear me very clearly.  I had to bend the microphone slightly to come closer to my mouth.  The noise cancellation works very well.  She said she couldn’t hear any background noise, not even my fan I have running behind me.  I could hear her very clearly as well, better than I ever could with my old headset.   I played with the VoiceFX for a few minutes, which incited a lot of laughter on her part.

Overall, I have to say this headset exceeds every expectation I have had while waiting.  Of course, I will keep playing with it and if anything changes I will certainly let you all know.  I’m not going to give a number rating, because I think those are bs.  Instead of a number rating, I will say that they are definitely worth the money (If you can’t afford the wireless, the wired version is $119.99).