It started like it always did, some flashes of light on my screen in places like Dalaran and Sholazar Basin. I put off cleaning my video card, even though I knew I would have to eventually. As the weeks went on, I got more flashing, more artifacts showing up, and finally when the flashing was noticeable on my bank alt in Stormwind, I knew it wasn’t just a regular cleaning that my video card needed. I couldn’t log in and do my dailies anymore because the flashing was unbearable. Usually I just use a whole can of compressed air on it and blow out the fans and anything near the video card, but this time that didn't solve the problem.
We tried running a video card stability test on it, and after 6 mins it crashed. Then we tried running it again, this time keeping an eye on the temperature and it hit 80* C within 3 minutes. Not good : ( So, we took the side off the case and broke out the vacuum and pulled huge chunks out of the inside of the card. Gave the whole thing a thorough cleaning and voila! No flashes! No artifacts (or as I like to call them, helmet kabobs)! Yay! Now I can turn my spell detail back up…
The split server decision
When I first started playing WoW, on release day, there were a bunch of us from City of Heroes that decided to stick together and play this new game together. We decided on 2 servers, Argent Dawn for Alliance characters and Silverhand for Horde characters. Just in case one server was down, we’d have another server to play on. Well as anyone could have guessed would happen, no one really played on both servers. Most people who rolled Horde on SH are still on SH, people who rolled Alliance on AD are still on AD. It’s just too hard, honestly. You miss out on so much when you try to do that, and at least for me, I’m very monogamous with my characters - I play one until I start playing another one. I don’t switch gears that quickly to play different classes effectively.
So, fast forward 4 plus years and I’m still playing on Argent Dawn. I have a small network of people I play with, and everything is hunky dory. However, I am mostly fresh off a transfer back to this server after moving to the Kirin Tor server shortly before Wrath released. I followed a group of friends to KT who had similar playtimes and were very casual and liked to have a good time on vent/guild chat. This meant I was leaving behind a server and friends I had known for years. I participated in the KT realm forums and organized many raids to accomplish For the Alliance! I did meet some good people there, and still keep in touch with one of the people I went there with. Eventually, I transferred back to AD after about 5 months on KT; I just never felt like part of the community and was missing playing with some of my friends and my family.
I’m just curious how other people are able to play on different servers. I wish I could, because then I could have my cake and eat it too, and omg I love cake : ) As it is, I think I’m going to concede and actually level another toon with my friend from KT. I hate leveling, and swore I’d never do it again - it’s so painful, the rep grinds, some of the quests are so boring, ugh. And knowing me, I’ll fall into the trap of wanting all the achievements on that toon as well. Arggg. At least I won’t be starting over from level 1. I have a warlock that is 25, and is the guild leader of my alt bank, essentially. Ah well, only 5 levels to go for a mount! At least that is a plus…
I have some RL friends from high school who I lost touch with during college. Of course, during college WoW came out and didn't even know the others were playing and we rolled on different servers. Now we are friends again but we are both officers in raiding guilds so neither group can up and move. We have alts on each other's servers that we play - well - when our main server is down. But thats really it. I can't bring myself to level an alt on THIS server, let alone ANOTHER server!
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