Back in Black

Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in.

Cliched. I know.

Two boxes are sitting next to me on the desk... World of Warcraft and the Burning Crusade expansion. I can hear them whispering to me. They want me to install them on my computer. Ah, but I know better then to rush into installing the game on my Vista PC. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I'm braving Blizzard's forums to research the recommended install process. Short of reformatting and loading XP, my best bet is to run the installer from the administrator account, install the game to a new folder outside the Programs folder, and run the game and any patches as an administrator. I think.

But before I start my adventure in installation, I want to take a moment to sketch out why I'm putting Lord of the Rings Online on hiatus and restarting WOW.

I'll avoid beating any dead horses and whine about why I left WOW. I've been out of the game for eight months and I miss the game. WOW has its flaws, but the game simply gets more things right than any other MMO I've tried since leaving eight months ago. I don't want to go totally fanboy here, but WOW is just a great game. Also, I played Horde only (except Dranei) so there's plenty of content to explore.

Another reason is WOW will perform on my system. You see, I don't have a real video card. Not yet at least. Maybe if I'm a good boy Santa will leave me something under the tree, but for now I'm stuck with 128 MB of integrated graphical crap. I started WOW on my old PC with 64 MB integrated before upgrading the vid card, so I know what to expect.

LotRO doesn't perform unless the game is on the lowest graphic settings. The game is beautiful but I can't play it that way. Ugh. My choices were ugly looking or horrible playing. I wanted to love LotRO like how I loved WOW. I tried. I did. I'm not trying to slam LotRO, but the game didn't click for me.

The 2.3 patch comes out next week with its casual player goodness. Project Fubar at work ends next week. So here we go. Back to Azeroth. Fingers crossed.