WoW and I

[LavCat]

This is more a lounge thread than a WoW thread, I think.

I haven't done anything WoW related since the start of whatever the current expansion is called. I took perhaps six or eight characters through the opening sequence, and thought "this is not fun".

Before the expansion I had brought two characters to 90 hardcore, and had, oh I don't remember, maybe 14 at max. I haven't done any serious raiding since WotLK. Every guild I've ever belonged to, except possibly my own, has imploded or left me betrayed and disenchanted. Almost all of my WoW friends are gone -- at least one of them has died -- or they come back only for a new expansion, or play at drastically more normal hours than I am on.

It's not that I've been spending time with other games, I haven't. Not even my beloved Wasteland.

Nor is it a matter of cost. I've been keeping my two WoW accounts paid up. Now that I'm on social security it's not so much a question of WoW or food.

What brought all this to mind was the upcoming renewal of my WoW accounts and the fact that my computer sound seems to have died this afternoon. I don't know what to do.

[kandrathe]

You will want to fix your sound issues eventually anyway.

Whether you keep on WOW is more a question of value. Marching through Draenor was fairly fun the first few times. I have a few toons leveled to 100. Two I play multiple times per week. The others provide crafting/mats/skills support as needed.

Do you have any toons on Stormrage, cuz I'd hang/help you out if you just want to be social?

[Bolty]

After 10 years of WoW, I know this: what you get out of WoW is what you put into it.

Guilds come and go, as do people. The key thing is that everyone you meet in WoW has one thing in common with you: they play WoW. So you have a common starting point at the very least. Unless you are willing to put in effort into finding and playing with people who share other in-game or real-life interests with you, you'll eventually run out of such people and thus lose incentive to play.

The game isn't fun enough as a solo endeavor to keep anyone interested past the first 3-12 months when it's all new and fresh to them. After all, it's 10 years later and we're still collecting bear asses - kinda hard to get past the core point of the game. What keeps it fresh and interesting is the people you play it with. (As a side point, this is why I think LFR is bad for the game.)

My happiest memories of WoW are always around the things I did with other people, never the things I did on my own. I continue to make those memories today - I just had a really fun raid week and I have that pumped-up feeling at work simply because my raid team defeated a bunch of pixels that, in the end, means absolutely nothing.

I've uprooted a number of times now and embedded myself in different guilds. Even swapped Alliance to Horde. It's not an easy thing to do; when you meet a whole new group of people there will be some you like and some you don't. But it always keeps things interesting!

[LavCat]

I agree that people are the point. It was always nice seeing someone pop up on my friends list that hadn't logged for years. Most recently the person I first did arena with. Sometimes I wonder what happened to MongoJerry again.

Almost all of my characters are on Stormrage (Alliance). Half a dozen or so are on Tichondrius (Horde).

The sound is again working. Don't know why. I didn't do anything to fix it.

[RadTang]

I've played WoW a bit (free 20-lvl demo). It was nice experience (I have only bad experiences with any multiplayer) though the game was certainly too easy. Exploring the world + questing + killing monsters makes you way too OP. I wish that it could be cheaper - I don't mind buying the client (up to Pandaria expansion) but the fee for playing is way too high for me. That's why I think about playing on private servers. Plus, it would be nice to make few friends And I've enjoyed the previous Warcraft games (done mostly for story, kind of marathon. I do it again, then maybe I will go WoW for longer).

My 1st char was troll hunter (dat cool theme on da startin' island !) and second - human priest. I had even one of the cool items - forgot the name now, the cheapest one for 50 Darkmoon Faire tickets. Nice bonus.

[LavCat]

My computer sound is out again.

[Hammerskjold]

My computer sound is out again.

How is the computer sound set up? Onboard audio, separate audio card etc.

[LavCat]

My computer sound is out again.

How is the computer sound set up? Onboard audio, separate audio card etc.

Auzentech Home Theater card. Auzentech is long out of business. I realized when the audio goes out it is actually playing at a very low volume which sounds like it's off. The problem seems to happen occasionally when the computer comes out of sleep, but I am not positive. OS is Windows 7.

The sound has been OK for more than a week.

[Hammerskjold]

Auzentech Home Theater card. Auzentech is long out of business. I realized when the audio goes out it is actually playing at a very low volume which sounds like it's off. The problem seems to happen occasionally when the computer comes out of sleep, but I am not positive. OS is Windows 7.

The sound has been OK for more than a week.

Hmm, unfortunately most I can do is a shot in the dark since I haven't had a separate audio card setup for a while now. And you likely already went through the basic checklist\troubleshooting procedures already. But just in case. Found this page with possibly the driver for your card if you don't have it already.

woops, my original post contained the wrong link to the possible driver, your OS is win7. Here's the hopefully correct one, that is if you don't have it already.

http://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?..._langue=en



May or may not be Win7 sleep mode problem like you mentioned, at least from what googling gave me. Other than not using sleep mode, or resetting the sound drivers when that low vol glitch happens. Does it even give a "driver error" message of any sort? Does it affect all the audio output, digital and analog, both?

[LavCat]

Auzentech Home Theater card. Auzentech is long out of business. I realized when the audio goes out it is actually playing at a very low volume which sounds like it's off. The problem seems to happen occasionally when the computer comes out of sleep, but I am not positive. OS is Windows 7.

The sound has been OK for more than a week.

Hmm, unfortunately most I can do is a shot in the dark since I haven't had a separate audio card setup for a while now. And you likely already went through the basic checklist\troubleshooting procedures already. But just in case. Found this page with possibly the driver for your card if you don't have it already.

woops, my original post contained the wrong link to the possible driver, your OS is win7. Here's the hopefully correct one, that is if you don't have it already.

http://www.touslesdrivers.com/index.php?..._langue=en



May or may not be Win7 sleep mode problem like you mentioned, at least from what googling gave me. Other than not using sleep mode, or resetting the sound drivers when that low vol glitch happens. Does it even give a "driver error" message of any sort? Does it affect all the audio output, digital and analog, both?

I'm using the most recent driver but I have copies of two older ones. I saw no sound related errors in the logs. I have no way to test the digital output, unfortunately.

I think I ruled out sleep because the sound went out while in WoW yesterday. (It seems that sentence could be read two ways.)

[Hammerskjold]

I'm using the most recent driver but I have copies of two older ones. I saw no sound related errors in the logs. I have no way to test the digital output, unfortunately.

I think I ruled out sleep because the sound went out while in WoW yesterday. (It seems that sentence could be read two ways.)

I wished I could help you more in finding the glitch. If your other components like speakers\headphones are ok, and barring anything on the output connections themselves or something physically damaged on the card, or possibly needing a re-seat reset. It's definitely a strange gremlin.

[LavCat]

I'm using the most recent driver but I have copies of two older ones. I saw no sound related errors in the logs. I have no way to test the digital output, unfortunately.

I think I ruled out sleep because the sound went out while in WoW yesterday. (It seems that sentence could be read two ways.)

I wished I could help you more in finding the glitch. If your other components like speakers\headphones are ok, and barring anything on the output connections themselves or something physically damaged on the card, or possibly needing a re-seat reset. It's definitely a strange gremlin.

The problem has come and gone and come back again, but for the last week or more it has been broken. By turning everything analog up full I can hear in Wow. But when I switch to CD player without turning the volume down I almost blow the speakers. Just ask my neighbors.

[LavCat]

This afternoon I was in an area with a lot of combat sounds. All of a sudden the sound output went from an impossibly low volume to deafening, with a strong subsonic oscillation (motorboating, not to be confused with waterboarding, for you technical folks).

I thought I was attacked by Sargeras himself, and half the burning legion.

[LavCat]

I've played WoW a bit (free 20-lvl demo). It was nice experience (I have only bad experiences with any multiplayer) though the game was certainly too easy. Exploring the world + questing + killing monsters makes you way too OP. I wish that it could be cheaper - I don't mind buying the client (up to Pandaria expansion) but the fee for playing is way too high for me. That's why I think about playing on private servers. Plus, it would be nice to make few friends And I've enjoyed the previous Warcraft games (done mostly for story, kind of marathon. I do it again, then maybe I will go WoW for longer).

My 1st char was troll hunter (dat cool theme on da startin' island !) and second - human priest. I had even one of the cool items - forgot the name now, the cheapest one for 50 Darkmoon Faire tickets. Nice bonus.

Sorry that I didn't answer sooner, but if questing seems too easy,
quest solo on a PvP server.

[kandrathe]

I've played WoW a bit (free 20-lvl demo). It was nice experience (I have only bad experiences with any multiplayer) though the game was certainly too easy. Exploring the world + questing + killing monsters makes you way too OP.

It wasn't always so. The heirloom gear is OP, but the focus now seems to be more getting to level cap. As they have pushed the max level higher, it distorts the lower level game. It's tuned for competitiveness at the max level. The lower level questing now is either for those who want to play for the lore, or a means to level up. As Lav indicated, if you want the thrill of the risk of dying you will need to play PVP or play at max level.

I wish that it could be cheaper - I don't mind buying the client (up to Pandaria expansion) but the fee for playing is way too high for me. That's why I think about playing on private servers. Plus, it would be nice to make few friends And I've enjoyed the previous Warcraft games (done mostly for story, kind of marathon. I do it again, then maybe I will go WoW for longer).

I guess it's relative. I see it more as the cost of two or three fast food meals in a month. It's entertainment time. Compared to seeing a movie in the theater? I know I get more value from WOW, and I can chat while controlling the plot.

My 1st char was troll hunter (dat cool theme on da startin' island !) and second - human priest. I had even one of the cool items - forgot the name now, the cheapest one for 50 Darkmoon Faire tickets. Nice bonus.

My first is still my main char, a night elf hunter who tamed a moonstalker runt in Darkshore and named it Felix.