World of Warcraft

I’ve lately had a hankerin’ for some more time in World of Warcraft (WoW). So a few nights ago I went to the WoW Web site to restart my account.

I typed in my information, clicked Continue, and got nothing. The same page just reloaded with the information fields blank. So I typed everything in again, clicked Continue, and got nothing again. Well that was aggravating. Oh well, I gave up.

Then tonight (August 5) I had the urge strike again to go into WoW. I went to the Web site again.

I typed in my information, clicked Continue, and got nothing. The same page just reloaded with the information fields blank. So I typed everything in again, clicked Continue, and got nothing again.

I grabbed the phone and called the WoW customer service line. Customer service is closed Sunday evenings.

I stared at the computer screen for a minute, thinking, they sure make it hard. I wondered if upper/lowercase makes a different in the fields. I hit the caps lock key and retyped in my information again. Clicking Continue worked this time. My account was reopened and I was ready to start up the game.

I found the game icon in my files, and started it up. The auto-launcher opened and had to download some updates—it’s been a few months since I last played, so I expected there might be an update. The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game. Then the launcher had to download another update. The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game. Then the launcher had to download another update. Oh come on! The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game.

This time, though, I actually got the game screen, not just the launcher. I had to accept the license agreements for the updates, and then I finally made it to the login screen. I typed in my name and password, and clicked Login. My whole computer locked up. I waited a few minutes to see if it would unlock on its own, but no luck. I had to turn off my whole computer (losing the blog post I was writing in the process—so I wrote this one instead).

The computer came back up, and before I started WoW again, I started writing this post. And I saved it at this point before I went any further with WoW, just in case things locked up again.

I logged into WoW. Well, it didn’t lock up this time. I made it past log in. But then the application started downloading a patch for the game.

So far it’d taken about thirty minutes of my time, and I wasn’t in the game yet.

The software downloaded, and then automatically started updating. Once the update was complete, the launcher restarted—I was losing ground. And then began another download. And then automatically started updating again.

Then the launcher restarted, stopped, and restarted again. Then restarted again. I clicked the Play button, and it took me to the game login screen again.

Well, wonderful. I’d at last, for real, finally made it to the actual game. I could see my characters ready to play.

If I lost you through all of the above, then you feel pretty much like I did. It took me about 45 minutes to get into the actual game, through numerous downloads and updates and restarts. I typed this post as it was happening. If I hadn’t been typing this as it happened, I’d have no idea how many times the game downloaded and updated—and even having typed it all, I have to go back and read and count to figure it out.

Geez. I’ve kind of forgotten what I was getting back into this game for, now.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com