How low can you go?

Hehehe. Yeah. it's a negative post title but it's really about how low the talent trees go down now that it's gonna hit 71 points in WoTLK.

I'm very excited about all of the new talents and spells. I wish it were tomorrow!
Only knowing what I know now, this would be my build for druid:
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=0pzruZZf0IhruxVuVIst

I tend to push certain balance tree talents if I know I'm not the only druid in the raid to incorporate the hit reduction debuff Insect Swarm and although it may be marginal, to add TPS to the tanks by buffing thorns.

Of course, everything we know about each class always changes in the new expansion. :)

Raiding the Lore

(current wallpaper)

We only got two solid attempts in at Archimonde last night. Internet issues kicked in for the raid just as we were getting a rhythm down so we ended up heading to TK for T5 shoulders instead.

I don't follow the Lore much etc so I have found that going into these instances has been part of a story telling journey for me. Instead of reading about the lore, you get to experience it which is really cool. It takes awhile though to get out of the mindset of "there's a mob, kill it, heal the raid" and to take a step back and look at the larger picture of the epic battle that's going on...especially in Mt. Hyjal.

It is by far my favorite instance. Most of the people in the raid HATE the waves of mobs before each boss because if you wipe, you have to repeat the eight waves of mobs...but for me, that makes the battle even more significant.

I was looking at wowjutsu the other night and seeing the percentage of guilds who have been to each instance. Out of 4,322,347 players (84,595 guilds), only one instance has close to 100% clear and that's Karazhan. The next closest is Zul'aman with 62.63% and then it just goes downhill from there.

It's a shame that some of the best content in this game goes unseen and un-experienced by the majority of the wow players out there. I think WoTLK 10 man equivalent instances are a good step toward correcting such an unfortunate situation for the casual player's game.

Postcard from Nax

Bringing it old school baby! hehe. One day I'll see the insides of that joint. WoTLK!

Postcards from Around the World (of Warcraft)

Azgalor and T6

Tonight, we downed Azgalor, 4th boss of Mt. Hyjal and the first of the T6 bosses.
It was a pretty straight forward fight but the real beauty of it is that we got to try Archimonde, the final boss of Hyjal.

He's a really fun fight and the environment is cool. We only got him down to 59% at best but for our first night of attempts it wasn't too bad.

PS. my druid gloves didn't drop off Azgalor so no T6 for me yet :)

Green Grass Grow

Before


After


Thanks again to Sean who sent me this Graphic Macro. It was a pretty amazing difference. I think I had all my setting turned down pretty low at one point so apparently I've been missing out on the details of my environment!

/console groundEffectDensity 256
/console groundEffectDist 140
/console detailDoodadAlpha 100
/console horizonfarclip 2112
/console farclip 777
/console characterAmbient 0
/console smallcull 0
/console skycloudlod 3

Postcards from Deadmines

I love details in this postcard! The mining pick stamps are my favorite!

Postcards from Around the World (of Warcraft)

Thanks for the gear!

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose guild has this common problem. A few people who think the entire purpose of the guild is to help gear their character(S!!!) up.

And I'm not even saying that I have a problem with gearing multiple people's toons up at all. I don't mind. My issue comes with their attitude about getting the gear. Once they get the gear they want, they are long gone. You will never see them turn around and actually USE the gear to help others run the instance or raid.

It's like somewhere in their jacked up rule book it says, "Get gear, shelve toon"

Never mind to actually think that loot should be gotten in order to help make each run easier and easier. Instead I've seen it countless of times, a quick couple runs through kara or gruul while being COMPLETELY carried, grab the loot they need, and then never be heard from again. Not to mention taking advantage of the people who actually put the instances on farm.

I am really looking forward to the WotLK. 10 man instances all the way! No more opportunities to get used like the dumb sap I am right now.

Fat Lady Sings

ding.

Hell has frozen over, I have a level 70 shaman!
I'm completely clueless as to whether she'll be resto or elemental in the future.
My guess is resto because healers are 100% needed. :(
It was fun leveling her with elemental spec though. PEW PEW!

/played
5 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes, 46 seconds

Sales Guy vs Web Dude

I know this video is spreading like wildfire, but it's too good for there to be a chance someone might miss it!


Created by http://thewebsiteisdown.com/

better to watch it from original site.

Economic Dump

Because of the daily quest limit being raised to 25 and a whole new set of extremely easy quests to run through on the Isle (doubly so on PvE servers), there has been an economic boom in the game. I can really only speak for my own server but I bet the trend has been similar through out all realms.

Influx of money on my server has meant inflation. Everything after Patch 2.4.0 has doubled and tripled within months. Ease of money has made people lazy about farming goods and more inclined to farm gold instead. This has created a supply shortage on basic goods like nethercloth, netherweb silk, primals, thick clefthoof leather, heavy knothide, cobra scales, etc.

For example:
(20) Thick Clefthoof Leather (Pre 2.4=50g, Post 2.4=120g)
(250) Mark of Sargeras (Pre 2.4=150g, Post 2.4=530g)
(1) Primal Life (Pre 2.4=10g, Post 2.4=28g)
(1) Cobra Scale (Pre 2.4=12g, Post 2.4=32g)


And even things that you would think would drop in prices like Void Crystals or Nether Vortexes all doubled as well.

There just hasn't been that much money you have to sink anymore into the game besides gems and enchants mats. People used to buy 1000s of golds worth of patterns but now you can get equivalent gear and weapons via badges.

That's why I think the Gigantique 22 slot bag is one of Blizzard's solutions to helping money dumps in our economy. A lot of people complain about AH fees but that's also one of the largest ways Blizzard dumps money from our economy....well that and Repair costs.

I also imagine for PvE servers, the inflation must be worse. On our server there is a huge detriment to doing daily quests and that's massive gankage. Since we're overrun by horde, it makes it a little less enticing to head out to the Isle on peak hours.

I would love to see the statistics on how many of those 2000g and 3000g rings are sold based on server...pvp, pve, rp. I must say that'd be an incredibly romantic gesture to give someone a 3000g ring. On our server though, you'd probably get ridiculed for it. Maybe it's time for ring graphics to appear on characters. I'd also love to see neck pieces as well. Wow, I digress. LOL. I guess economic talk doesn't hold interest that long. hehe.

I have no doubt that WoTL will have a 22 slot bag pattern available for tailors but what those mats might be and how expensive they might be at first, getting a few bags now and helping the economic dump isn't a bad short term solution. Besides, as my friend who bought nine of those bags said, he'd probably make up the money and then some in daily quests before the expansion.

FYI, get your first epic flying mount before you splurge on bags! It'll help you regain the gold faster!

Haliscan Set

[Haliscan Jacket]
[Haliscan Pantaloons]

Found the patterns for the rest of the set!! You can buy the pants and chess piece tailoring patterns in Steemwheedle Port.

Charro set complete. It is AWESOME!

Tankadin Guidelines

Mostly for reference. This is a really great guideline for Protection Paldadins.

http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t21425-paladin_protection/

example:
Basic guidelines

* Your most basic tanking rotation will generally be Holy Shield > Consecration > Judgement > Holy Shield > etc.; note that there is a period in which you're not really doing much after Judging, this is a good time to use any extra abilities if applicable. That includes using Avenger's Shield or Hammer of Wrath on a boss that allows for it, as well as obviously using Exorcism if your target is undead or a demon.

* Always try to figure out a position that you can use Consecration. Not disturbing crowd control is even more important, but nine times out of ten you can find a spot where you can use Consecration without having to worry about accidentally breaking crowd control. Consecration is responsible for a very large amount of your threat, easily 25% or thereabouts, so dropping it is usually the least preferable option.

Don Carlos Club

Last night after the raid, I saw this horde with this awesome hat on. [Don Carlos' Famous Hat]
which not only looks totally awesome but summons a ghost wolf pet. I read on wowhead that it's a 100% drop rate and that you can reset the instance since you didn't kill a boss.

It's a guy named Don Carlos who roams around the roads in Durnholde. You have to run it in Heroic Mode for the hat to drop.

So Felix tanked the guy for me on his druid and I healed and dps'd. We were able to do him 2 man fairly easy. I just kept his wolf pet slept the entire time. After that, I ran another few times with more guildies to get them hats as well.


Then we went to the World Tavern's Inn and knocked a few Dos Equis back. LoL. J/K but we were laughing so hard we might as well have been.

Anyhow, this hat is the sh*t!

Kaz'rogal down!

Things are definitely going better this week. I still have my irks of course. It's not all cake but things are far more controlled and pleasant. Tonight we only had 6 healers so we opted not to attempt Vashj. However, our dps was amazing so we went to attempt Kaz'rogal, the third boss in Mt. Hjal.

After our third attempt, we downed him. By the end of the fight, we had one rogue left alive but a kill nonetheless. :) None of the jae guys got loot off of him. It's nice when your badge gear surpasses Mt. Hyjal loot.

[Belt of Seething Fury]
[Black Featherlight Boots]

Leet or Gimp?

If you're a freak about gaming, you generally tend to want to always find ways to give yourself an edge. A lot of use mods and hot keys to help boost our gameplay. In FPS, it's common belief that the mouse and mouse pad can make the difference between a frag and pwnage.

One of the largest snags I've found in WoW about gameplay is having easy access to as many hotkeys and bound macros as I can stand. If at all possible you can bind everything to 10 keys, you make your wow life that much simpler. A lot of people even use gui mods to further simplify access to their essential keys. Even though I use an ergonomic keyboard, I still find it difficult playing certain classes to have everything ideally accessible.

I'm currently looking at the Zboard Merc Stealth Illuminated Gaming Keyboard. However, I'm very hesitant to move towards non-standard methods of gaming. One of the main reasons I refuse to use anymore gui mods in WoW is that I became dependent on their structure. And when a patch killed the mod or when the mod became obsolete, I'd have to reconfigure everything again.

Also, from peer to peer computer, it's easy to adjust if you're not dependent on certain interfaces. However, that's easily solved by always carrying a usb keychain of your WTF and Interface folder.

Do I want to become dependent on a certain type of keyboard? It would definitely be gimping myself if I ever had to stop using it. Muscle memory is pretty key in playing Arenas for sure.

Healthy Dose of Escape

Of course after I release the Why I still Play WoW episode, the Diablo III announcement was placed on the load screen of WoW. I was like wtf?

I guess it makes a lot of sense though right? If people are going to leave your game for awhile because they're bored or need a break, why not let it be to another game you create?? hehehe. Go Blizzard.

Anyhow, I finally got a chance to watch the trailer and the demo of gameplay. I'm very excited about the gameplay interaction with the environment. Being able to use the environment makes it that much more immersive. I hope it's a slight preview of WoTL game play changes.

Another great thing I always loved about Diablo and why I think it's going to make a nice break from wow is class relations vs game environment. You are able to travel with whatever class combination you want. You aren't dependent on a tank and healer (all hail the health pots and now the new health globes). Actually getting to play the class you want to play instead of what is needed, VERY desired break from the structure of WoW.

Just listening to the demo, that distinct Diablo white noise, the echo, the sound of loot coins brings me back to the co-op days of gaming.

I'm looking forward to the release and HELLO DIABLO III network party!

Case of the Missing Badges

Mystery solved. I kept wondering about my 105 badges or so that got stolen when I was haxed. It was the only thing that I lost completely from that night. When I discovered them missing I kept having a hunch that the hacker wanted to use my badge to buy epic gems.

However, I pushed the person off my account as they were flying my character in the middle of Shat. Then it hit me last week that they probably bought something from the vender in shat with my badges, not the Isle.

So I went back to the screenshot I took the night I got hacked. I wanted to keep a record of everything they took. However, I also, took the screenshot AFTER I had put everything back.

Sure enough, the person withdrew 3 nether vortexes out of the guild bank and I deposited 10 back. 15badges x 7 Nether Vortexes = 105 badges. Rat bastard!

What I'm going to do with 7 Nether Vortexes, I dunno. ;\

Complete 180

(screenshot from last week's alt raid in gruul/mag)

Well after a disastrous week and a half of joint raiding, the GM of cykos and myself had a long @ss talk. Basically boiled down to please change or we can't raid together anymore. Simply put, most of jae didn't want to deal with it anymore.

So this week has been a complete 180 turnabout. I'm so very happy and pleased. I thought it was going to be a lot harder to get him to do a character change but he did it. Even though we wiped like a million times on Vashj Saturday, he stayed calm. No outcries or screaming or SKULL F...ing.

And this Tuesday we had an awesome raid. We got stuff organized and more stream lined...which I'm happy about because I'm pretty anal about raiding. I'll even start assigning rez groups if I have to.

Anyhow, I'm really happy about the attitude change of our raids. They are so much more pleasant now and we can go back to enjoying hanging out and raiding again. Here's hoping it holds out.

Invisible

(current wallpaper)

You ever get that urge to get on your wow account and accomplish a few things. You know, like finally sell that stack of herbs on the AH or finally clear out your bank toon or knock out those 25 daily quests to make up for the money you spent on repair bills?

But as soon as you log in, someone wants something or people want you to do things or there is yet another something or other that needs to be taken care of? And while you always have the option of always turning people down or turning them away, it just feels rude. I just really wish there was some kind of anonymous mode you can log into wow on.

Maybe it wouldn't even have to make your character anonymous but rather block all indicators that you're online. If they happen to see you in the WoW environment fine, but at least they can't know you're currently available the second you log in.

I know that it seems retarded to want to be anti-social in a social environment, but sometimes it would be nice just to enjoy the game on a personal level... even if it's just for a little while.

Gloves came off

Well things finally came to a head today. I knew it was either make or break.
So I had a full on talk with the GM of cykos. On a personal level, he and I have always been friends. But I had to lay it out for him today.

I had already given him one talk about his abrasive manner and attitude. But I kind of skirted around how much it effects us.

He and I had a pretty long talk tonight and I said "I have no real delicate way of saying this..."

and went into the negativity and harmful effects his attitude has on the raid. Because honestly, I know we can do this fine if we can just get the guilds back on track. And the only way to motivate people after this past horrible week is to make a REAL change. I spent a good ten minutes going into how our guild is simply pulling away from their guild because they simply can't handle his attitude.

The yelling, screaming, etc has to stop. And after I spit it all out, he seemed to understand. Of course at first he was taken aback by the onslaught. His entire background in life has been military where screaming and yelling is standard. It will be difficult no doubt for him to make a character change, to truly change. But after we spoke, he seemed like he wanted to really try. He wants to make this work as much as I do.

I told him I can't make my guys want to raid but you can help me make our experiences better. The style he's been trying hasn't been productive and it's obvious. I pointed these things out to him.

He says he's going to make a change. I think the next week will tell. If he can just stay more self-aware, things will improve. Everything you do and say as a raid leader has a huge impact on the rest of the guild. If you're angry or upset, it really effects how everyone else feels.

And with our guys, the loot and seeing content isn't worth spending two days suffering per week. So yelling and screaming has the adverse effect that he's intending it...

We shall see. I'm hoping for the best.

Skull F This

Hmm. I woke up this morning even more upset about last night's raid.

"WTF is wrong with you guys. Are you NOT listening?!!!! SERIOUSLY, you guys
need to wake the F up!!! Are you trying to wipe us on purpose?!!! For F*ck's sake! YOU GUYS are NOT paying attention! We're going to quit if you guys can't get your SH*T together! There is about to be some serious SKULL F*ing if you guys don't get your head out of your *sses!!!"

Okay. So if that's what you heard on a NORMAL basis in a raid....you think you'd be motivated to keep going, get better?

Some people, maybe the answer is yes.

For my guild. No way. We're all adults. Law degrees, graduate degrees, engineering, medical degrees. We see that form of talk as just immature and nothing more than rantings of someone with little degree of self awareness.

It used to be moderate and always half joking. Lately, it's just been pure rage, frustration, and negativity coming from him.

I'm having a hard time co-leading anymore because he goes into angry mode so quickly now. I try to counter as much as I can by just pushing the raid through with what we need to do and try push forward. But when someone is constantly yelling in the background, the negativity of the entire raid just gets worse and worse.

I'm at a loss. ;( I keep racking my brain as to how to fix this.

Our raid make up last night consisted of 5 healers. Only FIVE healers for Mt. Hyjal!!! And he kept telling me that we weren't gonna make it because our DPS was too low even though it was actually the highest it's been in weeks. Also, that it was impossible to do without a prot pally.

We one shot this boss the first time we ever attempted him. It's just distressing finding myself in this sinkhole. I have to find a way to get this crap in check.

Jinxed myself

LOL. Okay, so since I recorded the last podcast, the whole guild alliance thing has been going through some huge hurdles.

I have no idea what is happening either specifically. That's what I get for saying what's what before the fat lady sang.

Those cultural differences I kept talking about...well, they're becoming more and more acute each week. I keep trying to torque the pain train as best I can but it keeps rearing through.

Tonight I argued with one of their guild members about the difficulties of letting people bring in alts. Yes, it's lovely to have an array of geared alts to help the guild out. But when only one is truly geared and the rest are only average, it's not fair to the rest of the guild to only have one person subbing in just so they can gear up. If that was the case, I'd have a whole raid full of alts and we'd never progress anywhere.

That being said, he was pretty bitter at me about it. My real problem was that it was MY problem and not the cykos guild leader's... I shouldn't be arguing with his guys about the rules. But I guess since I was trying to enforce the rule, it was ultimately my problem.

Also the abrasive nature of the raid leading. It's getting to be too much for most of the jae guys. They just can't get used to the vast amount of negativity that rains down. Every mishap, every mistake, and even every triumph is usually bracketed with a negative comment.

I'm a pretty patient person but I'm just having a hard time trying to keep a good balance. I'm actually losing people now because they don't want to expose themselves to cykos. And the few people I've manged to sub in...well god, they're never coming back because of all the screaming and cussing and crying done by the cykos guild leader.

I spoke to him about it earlier this week. Telling him that my guys just can't take it. And for Saturday's raid he seemed to do better. But today....it went straight back to the way it was.

I like the guy.. don't get me wrong. Like I said, it's just the nature of how they raid..it's their style. He's a funny and nice guy on a personal level...but on the raid level, my guys are about to just walk away from me if I keep exposing them to this type of behavior.

I'm doing my best to keep the peace and calm both sides down. It's just getting harder each week.

And not only that...we have problems on our own end. Our guys aren't taking the consistency of raiding seriously. Some want to only come for one day out of the week because two is too much or they can't handle staying up till midnight. And I have to respect what they want but at the same time, with THAT casual an attitude, I can't seriously host a progression raid. It's just not going to happen if we can't bring our numbers to the raid.

That being said, I'm really hoping we can turn things around soon. I'm actually thinking about recruiting people to the guild again. Maybe if we get Vashj down this weekend, morale will improve and we can get on track again.

Such a crying shame because we were doing SOOO unbelievably well.