Communal Laptops

I'm part of a large household of computer game players. We have a total of 3 working laptops, 2 working desktops and a few more computers that for one reason or another aren't working, but could. We have a total of 5 family members and a few close friends, any of which might be on one of these computers.

There isn't one computer dedicated to my WOW play.

The best computer right now is Syylia's new laptop. I love playing WOW on it, but it'll disappear in another month when she goes off to teach in Korea for a spell. And she'll be taking the laptop with her and play WOW there. And Skype home and all that other stuff. This means I must not let myself become dependent on her machine. I recently installed Ventrilo and now realize I must take it off. She doesn't use it or like it.

My older boy is the one that got us into WOW, but his interests have moved on. WOW is on his laptop, but the machine is up in his room, as is one of the desktops. Those two machines aren't easily available to me.

The old desktop ran WOW until 4.0.1 came out. Now it no longer meets requirements. The old graphics card is at fault, I think. It shouldn't take much to upgrade, but I can't easily justify elevating that in all the priorities.

That leaves "the old laptop". It was a leading edge machine a few years ago, but y'all know what that means. It now overheats easily; the power cord is fraying; the battery won't hold a charge; and the hinge is dying. So it isn't so much a laptop as a small desktop with a flat-screen monitor that can flop down. This was Syylia's old laptop and sometimes we'll refer to it as my younger son's, but it's like an embarassing hand-me-down shirt that's out of style. He really deserves a better machine. That's one of those budget items with higher priority than the desktop graphics card upgrade.

Kayyos plays WOW. He's a 13 year old boy that loves playing his Death Knight with friends. He may reach 85 soon, but he won't be ready for Heroics, never mind raiding. We compete over computer time, although we'd like to play a pair of characters together. He's going to miss Syylia's laptop even more than me.

One of the non-working machines is my wife's laptop. Her machine technically runs, but the hinge broke and the frame around the screen has fallen apart. It can't be used or repaired. A replacement for it has even higher priority in the budget.

So for now, I'll be using "the old laptop", despite the loud noise from it's hard drive. I can put any add-on I like on it. If I want to re-map the keyboard, I could, although then Kayyos will complain, but in theory I could do that and might yet.

I've noticed other folks talking about the problems with their machine and upgrades, but you don't read too many blogs talking about fights over machines. I'm guessing most folks have clearer ownership of machines. In our house, they're a bit more community property. The gaming systems here have a similar status. The PS3 and Wii are officially my older boy's, but they're set up in the family room and everybody wants game time. The XBox is Syylia's, but of similar status. My wife's games tend to run on the Wii. Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon are her favorites. The older systems, like the GameCubes, have drifted to individual's bedrooms. Since Christmas, the most popular game has been "Plants vs. Zombies", more even than Epic Mickey, and they've left the laptops much freer in schedule, but that won't last.

Well, enough rambling.