I drowned blissfully in the violent oceans of Information Technology way back in 1992. The topic that got me hooked? Hacking and IT Security, I was compiling evil code, and I admit to testing it when I was but 13 years old. I’ve seen computing equipment that a lot of you have never seen. Ever since then my passion for IT has consumed me, every free minute was spent on IT related activities. Be it reading, trying out stuff, coding, in short I just lived and breathed IT for a very long time.

I was determined to work in the Private Sector as soon as I could, and luckily I landed a good job at my first attempt. The people I worked with were nothing short of exotically wonderful talented driven “Kuwaiti” IT pros. (And I admit, I lucked out on that one too.) No fabled Newspapers and Tea there… No sire, it was pure hardcore IT freaks, working away in some dark shunned corner in the most infamous hidden away room of some nameless ruthless corporation.

When I look back today at how I got started, and remember all those people that helped me get to where I am today, It brings tears to my heart. And often I wish to go back to that time, and perhaps do even better than before. But another important realization I made, is that IT has changed. My personal and professional attitude towards it has changed a lot too. I went through the phases of “I am the almighty powerful “ROOT”, and all you dumb ass users can go to hell” to the “Im sorry sir, whats your user name again? AHa … so its hgber eh? Um yeah” rm -rf /home/hgber/* “*cough* Um yeah sir, it seems the backup system failed yesterday and somehow your home directory has been deleted”

User: “Nooooooooooo…….”

Sysadmins.. you know what im talking about, and we’ve all been there…. or were tempted to be evil, common admit it at one point in time, maybe even till this very day you thought to yourself, Im a Domain Admin/Root user…. The admin-complex…. we all had the bug

In recent years It dawned upon me what IT really was, it was not a matter of personal preference. It was not a matter of what flavor of Linux/Unix you liked. And which you thought sucked. Or if your a Paladin of Microsoft or the Dark Knight of Open Source. It was not about how “you” would do it. It was not about you hating the sales manager, or the marketing manager cause he has no idea about what s/he is talking about.

No not at all. Information Technology is all about end user education, its about “helping” the corporate business get from point A to point B, smoothly, and efficiently, and last but not least cost effectively. How does IT do this you ask? They do this by effectively using the latest technology to enhance your business process.

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Well I finally decided to upgrade my wordpress installation from v2.2 to v2.5.1.

All I can say is … WOW…. what a pleasant change. I barely recognize the backend UI anymore.
The upgrade was painless, and quick. Some of you might have noticed the errors while browsing my site.
One of these days Ill install the maintenance plugin…. maybe… *grins*

My favorite item is the “Publish Status” this allows me to publish/unpublish posts. Very handy.

I must admit it, Im a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game addict (MMORGP). I practically buy them all, regardless of how bad they are. And I always get the collectors edition if its available. The only exception to this rule was Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), cause I could not see the value in it, I feel it was a half assed effort in capitalizing on the LOTR identity with a half assed shoddy game.

I would not recommend AOC as the solution to WOWs mundane play style. But its certainly worth it if based purely on the brilliant scenery you can explore in the world Hybornia. If you got a fetish for hot pixel chicks/guys, AOC wont let you down. But if your expecting a meaningful and rewarding game play experience I would hold on till Warhammer Online gets launched. If you love game art, then I can certainly recommend the collectors edition, the soundtrack is very sweet too. Amazing celtic type music on it, some tracks are just plain horrible, but the rest is just sublime.

AOC is not your typical MMO, to advance your class skills you have to complete in an instanced single player world of Tortuga. So basically a lot of your time between level one and level twenty is spent playing alone. With no help from groups. In my opinion that just blows. If I wanted a single player RPG I would have played Oblivion.

If your a hardcore MMO gamer, you will play this game only to excel with the goal of being the best of your class. And probably loose interest within 2 to 3 months. But *shrugs* its hard to please the hardcore gamers. If your a casual player I dont think you will be dissapointed with AOC. In general I think it caters to the mass market.

My favorite tracks so far:

The Dreaming - Ere the World Crumbles
The Lure of Atali

Anyways back to the topic at hand, AOC::CE arrived today, curtsey of Aramex & Amazon. If I never play the game the Art book alone is worth the USD 120 (plus shipping and handling) that I paid for it.

The collectors edition contains:

• Hand-finished, metal-embossed oversized collector’s box with inlay page and individually numbered holographic sticker
• Leather map of Hyboria (faux) 14″ x 20″
• The Ring of Acheronia (exclusive in-game item)
• Unique Bonus DVD featuring trailers, behind the scenes, developer diaries, and rich artwork
• Official Age of Conan soundtrack CD
• Art Book (128 pages)
• Five free guest passes giving friends online access to the game for a limited time
• The Drinking Cape (bonus in-game item)
• Age of Conan :: Comic Book

To truly enjoy this game I would certainly recommend a powerful Gaming Rig. Dual PCI-E Nvidia Cards, 4gb of Ram, and a dual core or quad core processor.

Some things of note (In case you did not know):

1.) AOC have implemented a Combo based combat system, this means playing one handed will be difficult, and you are more involved with the keyboard.

2.) Healers do not get love in AOC =) Trust me …. WOW healers will not enjoy AOC healing classes. In fact the primary healing class in AOC is the Priest of Mithra, lets just say its more efficient to burn your mana on Nukes than it is to heal and engage in melee.

3.) There is nudity or *ahem… cough cough* animated nipples. So conservative people should take note of this.
For the pervs among us “Yeeeehaaaaa” for the rest…. Nipples dont make this game any better than it is. But thats just my opinion.

Age of Conan is brought to you by the same team that made Anarchy Online, Funcom.

Bottom Line:
Sound 4.5
Graphics 4
Gameplay 3 (too many bugs at this time, game gets old pretty quick, skill progression is mundane)
Overal: Just barely makes the cut

External Links:

Funcom - The creator of AOC
Official Website of Age Of Conan
Gamespot Review of AOC