Undini

@Tempes Magus I would be more concerned for those who actually neglect themselves 100% of the time instead of those who do it with careful thought and for shorter periods of time. The 100% no-life gamers are the ones who after years are in such a bad situation that someone else needs to start taking care of their lives as they are unable to do it alone. Games and MMOs especially do encourage this kind of behavior, which I agree is bad, but we need to concentrate our worries on the correct people.

@(Unverified) Actually I happen to be a very good friend of Kruf and I do want to point out a thing or two, even though you probably don't care or believe me.

The schedule on the site is pretty extreme indeed and is correct. The first weeks after the launch of new content are very hectic if you want to be the best and first to down the bosses. No one is claiming that it's something that one could hold up for an extended period of time and as you might notice from the style of his post, also him and all the other Paragon members know that they can't live like that for a long time.

It's worth noting that for the two first weeks after Cataclysm launch the whole guild took vacation from work so that their two parts of life wouldn't interfere with each other at all. This time the bosses lasted far longer than those two weeks so eventually they had to continue with their work lives, but now that the bosses are over their life is back to normal. You should also note that after the extreme time spent playing in the beginning of a new content release the guild actually seems to spend on average a lot less time playing than your average raiding guild. Before Cata launch I remember Kruf playing once or twice a week for only a couple of hours. Far less than the average spent by subscribers of the game. They are by no means selling their lives completely to WoW for the whole of their lives.

What comes to his success and dedication in his work life, he is very professional at what he does. I also know other people from the company he works in and I can guarantee he does his job well. I've worked with him on several off-work projects and his knowledge and professionalism in those further showcases this.

He also has a life outside of work and WoW, which I am a living proof of. I often eat lunch and have sauna evenings with him, play random co-op games together, take part in sports activities together, and so on. I'm sure the same goes for most, if not all, members of their guild.

This of course doesn't mean that there aren't anti-sosial, anti-healthy players out there. My point is that the most successful guilds and individuals often aren't from the worst end of the spectrum.

The definite favorite of all the MMO boxes I own is the Warhammer Online CE box. Sadly the game didn't live up to the same standards.

@Ocho I personally picked up WoW for real for the first time a few weeks ago at the start of the 5+5+10 sale for the game and two first expansions. I started playing with my gf and we both used the same card to purchase the games. There was some sort of a hassle with the system not recognizing our accounts as full paid accounts and my gf's account was still marked as "trial" after a few days, preventing her from using the mail or trading with anyone. After writing a ticket the first response almost made me cancel both subs at once as it first of all offered no solution saying "sorry there is nothing we can do" and secondly sounded really rude. Eventually we did a second follow up ticket with an added note asking for better service which then got escalated to a senior representative (assuming from the really well done reply) which then cleared all issues we had and made us stay in the game.

So yeah, Blizzard does have it's problems with the customer service side, but if you are ready to take some time you'll eventually get there and get your issue solved.

Finally letting Guild Wars go as an active game of mine. Since the last expansion and it's huge PvE nerf (making everything stupidly easy with PvE skills and consumables) I had been thinking of stopping game activity for a long while and had been really reluctant due to how much a community and a loved game means to one. In the end major differences in directional views with the co-leader made it possible for me to leave my guild to its own means and wonder off to other games.

I'm ok with the new looks and the better profile system, but the problem for me with this new site is the huge amount of crud at the top of the page before the actual content. That huge banner thing is really unnecessary imo.

Owning the CE's for Guild Wars (Proph+Factions) and Warhammer I definitely have to go with the Warhammer one. It's an awesome high quality box with awesome high quality content. The GW CE's are quite disappointing imo. The games on the other hand go the other way round, Warhammer being disappointing and GW my game of choice. Go figure...

Rising almost up to the level of the Warhammer CE is my StarCraft 2 CE. The quality is just as good, but slightly smaller and less epic box loses this time. The SC2 CE wins in one way though: The box was 68eur compared to the 50eur regular game release, so 18eur for that awesome CE box and content. What a steal. The Warhammer box on the other hand cost over 80eur.

This is something that I was going to come and post, but now that you've done it already I want to but extra emphasize on it:

Identify all items, including all white items, before selling them. This seriously pumps up the income from drops.

I said soloing isn't "generally" efficient. This doesn't mean that soloing doesn't work. Me and my gf have both soloed quite a bunch of the harder content in the game. However, it's not something that is efficient in some of the things you do in game (like you yourself pointed out, some missions and their bonus objectives might be slightly difficult) and it really does require more knowledge and skill in the game. For more of an average GW player it's a lot more easier and efficient to duo stuff, and if you are basically starting from scratch with the HoM points then you most likely don't have too much experience with every facet of the game.

Also forgot to comment on the soloing question. Generally I'd say soloing isn't that efficient as you are required to use henchmen in addition to yourself and your heroes, but if you have a friend you'll do great with the two of you and your heroes. I've basically only ever played the game with my girlfriend - even before heroes were released - and we've had it easy doing almost anything in the game by ourselves. Some of the tougher game areas like DoA are places where you'll generally want to have players instead of heroes, but for the purpose of acquiring HoM points you'll be able to get to 30 with one friend and heroes.