Warhammer Offline

After I wrote the post below, I realized that it will probably only be interesting to PC gamers.  If you’re not a hardcore player of PC games, you can probably skip this post 

A few weeks ago, I bought the new MMORPG Warhammer Online.  I love the game, but unfortunately, I had to cancel my account.  While it’s nice to eliminate a $15 per month recurring charge from my bills, that’s not the reason I canceled.  Rather, I finally became so fed up with the poor performance of the game that I had no choice but to stop playing.  I didn’t want to, but the performance issues were so severe that they ruined the game for me.

I should note that the system I’m trying to run the game on is pretty beefy.  It’s 18 months old and doesn’t have a dual-core processor, but it has 2 GB of RAM and dual 256 MB video cards connected via SLI.  That should be more than good enough to run even a brand-new game with some of the detail settings turned down.  My system meets not only the minimum requirements to play Warhammer Online, but it exceeds the recommended requirements in many areas.

There are several reasons that I believe the problem is with the game and not my PC.  For one thing, if I set the graphical resolution to the minimum and turn all of the detail settings as low as they will go, the performance is exactly the same as it is when I’m running at maximum resolution and maximum detail.  The fact that the game doesn’t run any better when I turn down the graphical settings tells me there’s something seriously wrong with the game engine.

Another reason I believe the problem is with the game is that a lot of other people are having the same problems.  I’ve read a lot of posts on message boards where people with better computers than mine aren’t faring any better.  There doesn’t seem to be a common thread among the folks that are having trouble, either.  Users of ATI and nVidia graphics cards, Intel and AMD processors, and Windows XP and Vista have all reported problems.

Finally, while I realize it is a slightly older game, LOTRO runs great on my PC at high resolutions and high detail.  So does another new MMORPG that came out just a few weeks before Warhammer Online called Requeim: Bloodymare.  To draw another comparison, BioShock runs great on my system as well.  In fact, I’ve never had performance problems with any game on this computer other than Warhammer Online.

Something else I find puzzling about Warhammer Online is that there aren’t a lot of opportunities to provide feedback to the developers or to interact with other players, especially when compared to other MMORPGs.  There aren’t any message boards on the official Warhammer Online website at all, something I’ve never encountered with any other MMORPG.  Something else that jumped out at me was that when I canceled my WoW and LOTRO accounts in the past, they thanked me for the time I spent as a customer, assured me that my characters would still be on their servers if I ever decided to resubscribe, and in particular, they asked me for my feedback as to why I was canceling and what they could have done better.  When I canceled my Warhammer Online account, I clicked the cancel button and it basically said “OK, your account in canceled”.  I know that some people would find it refreshing that it is so easy to cancel an account, but it bothered me that they didn’t even give me the opportunity to provide feedback if I wanted to (which I did).  It’s as if they don’t care if players cancel their accounts.

In my last post, I discussed how I was considering buying an XBOX 360, and I can now say that I’ve done it.  In my next post, I’ll discuss the reasons that I’m transitioning from the PC to a console as my main gaming machine for the first time since such a thing as a PC came into existence.

Generation XBOX

While I own a PlayStation2, I’ve primarily been a PC gamer ever since such a thing existed. However, I now find myself considering buying an XBOX 360. That’s something I never thought I’d do. When the original XBOX came out, I was one of the people who thought it was nothing more than a stripped-down PC.

However, I’ve recently realized that my gaming PC doesn’t meet the recommended requirements for new games that are coming out – despite the fact that it’s only 18 months old. Several of the new games I want to play are available on both the PC and XBOX 360. I checked to see how much I’d have to spend to get a new PC that will do what I need it to do and also be a viable gaming system for at least 3 years, and the cost was staggering – over $4,000. An XBOX 360 Elite is one-tenth the cost, at $400. So, it’s easy to see why I’ve begun considering the XBOX. It’s a much cheaper alternative to play the games I want to play.

That brings me to some questions I’d like to ask my readers:

1. What are the advantages of an XBOX 360 over a PS3, and vice versa? Which do you recommend?

2.  If you have experience playing both the PC and XBOX 360 version of the same game, what differences should I expect to see when playing a given game on the PC vs. the XBOX 360?

3.  I found a peripheral that will allow you to connect a keyboard and mouse to an XBOX 360 and play games that way.  If you have experience doing this, does it work well?

If you have any answers for me, please post in the comments!

Election Day

Today is Election Day in the United States.  I usually don’t follow or discuss politics very much, but I wanted to share a few thoughts on this important day.  I’m not going to get into which candidates I support; I just had some observations that I wanted to share about the election and voting in general.  I’m going to do this in the form of a Q & A, because I think it will be easier to follow that way.

Q:  Do you think everyone should vote?

A:  Yes, I do.  I used to have a different view on this.  I used to say that it is everyone’s right to choose whether they vote or not.  I argued that if you don’t think any of the candidates are good, then you shouldn’t have to vote, and that you shouldn’t be given a hard time about it.  While I still believe these things, I also think that everyone should vote.  As I’ve gotten older and learned how many people in the world don’t get to vote on who should lead their government, I’ve come to realize how fortunate we are that we have this right in the United States.  If you don’t like any of the candidates, I still think you should vote for the one that most closely shares your views.

Q:  Do you ever feel like your vote doesn’t matter?

A:  I used to.  There have been times that I didn’t vote (mainly in local elections), and the excuse I used to ease my mind was that my one vote wouldn’t have made a difference.  However, I came to realize that if thousands or even millions of other people feel the same way and none of them vote, then that does make a huge difference.  I now vote with the confidence that my vote matters just as much as anyone else’s.

Q:  Isn’t there a really long wait in line to vote in some elections?

A:  Yes.  I don’t have any answers as to how the process could be improved, but it seems to me that something could be done speed up the voting process.  Even in some of our more hotly contested local elections, I’ve heard of people having to wait in line for 2 hours to vote.  Due to work, family, or other responsibilities, there are some citizens who legitimately don’t have that much time to wait.  It would be a shame if someone in this situation didn’t get to vote because the wait was too long.

Q:  Are you going to encourage us to go vote?

A:  Yes! I’d like to encourage every U.S. citizen to vote today if you haven’t already done so via absentee or early voting.  And that goes for every Election Day, not just this one.