Advent Gamer

A newer direction, I am Advent-Gamer after all.

2010-03-28T15:16:00.003-04:00

Excuse the Spartan look of the page, I am still pondering the look for my new direction.

Lucky for me my wife is a slight gamer/geek, so I have moved from PC gaming and started to play on my console a bit more. I don’t know what other tactics married men use to be able to get those few precious moments alone to get to that last boss, that next level, or that next item. Since if I do play a game it is a two player or a single player game she really enjoys. The games she likes to play are RPG stuff, yes she played WOW, but in a play to gather whatever dropped manner. There was no focus on end game or PvP, lewt in general was fine but not the phat lewt that came from that uber boss. She got me briefly into Facebook games like Farmville and now Ponzi. Damn you Farmville, enticing me to do a lower graphics version of World of Dailycraft!

Geeking out my son on something is something I don’t want to choose for him. Though he watches and learns, he will have more of difficult time pulling the wool over his old man’s eyes when it comes to technology, at least so I hope so. Which I see is a problem with some parents and their children. That might be a story for another time. Not wanting to entice him with the spoils of being older, there was just one day he would not stop fussing, refused a snack, juice and all the other parenting stuff that I tried. So I decided to play a bit of Little Big Planet to take a break. I started playing and he started grasping for the gaming controller, that made sense since I keep them all up high and he was underneath that area fussing. Then it dawned on me to get him his own, so I took a old (ceria PS One) one that was non-functioning took out the cord and gave it to him while I goofed off for a bit. I know the day will come when there will be lessons about the Konami code and down, down-right, right, and punch. As much as I am trying not to, guess I am turning him into his geek enabler now, I must restrain myself and let him choose his path.

Since I have little time for gaming I have a game que that just won’t quit. Prioritizing seems to work but some of the other titles get shuffled near the bottom when publishers decide to release a game. I have chalked up quite a few to the, ehh I’ll just watch the highlights on You Tube (that was what I did to see end game for the current WOW stuff). I have tried Gamefly, but most of the time there are certain titles I would rather play on the computer, mainly any FPS or RTS. I played a bit of Dragon Age on the 360, then I saw it running on a PC and it looks like it runs way better. PC games aren't rentable yet so I have put some FPS games in my que like Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2 and Borderlands. Since my system preference is the PC which is not really cheap when you can buy and trade current games on consoles. I guess when it comes to game usage I can what is it, L2P w/controller. I know there are devices that simulate that experience, but I see reviews from websites say one thing, then those who bought and review it say something else.

Recently I have just finished Bioshock 2 on the PC, I will join those who have already reviewed the game and say the story wasn't as strong as the first one for sure. Though it was nice to revisit Rapture, I was nice to pretty much everyone who tried to kill me and I obliged the request of the guy before the last part of the game. I haven’t decided if I am going to re-play it just to see what the ending will be like when I am greedy and full of vengeance. One of the main reasons I haven’t started or am wanting to replay Bioshock 2 is I am now involved in playing the latest story bearing the Final Fantasy moniker.

My poor blog, picks up and dust off

2010-03-22T15:47:00.002-04:00

It has been a while since I poked my head in here. At first I was here maintaining and speaking my mind. Then the next thing I know, life decided it was too easy and needed a change. Almost everyone I know has a routine which they do in life: wake-up, eat, work, eat, game and snack, shower, then sleep – repeat that seemed to be mine. Then I got married, became a parent, and doing more college has shelved most of the extra time I used for gaming.

I have joined the ranks of quite a few people out there who are burnt out after four years of World of Warcraft. Seems like the blog-o-sphere has died too, that or they have moved on to the “tweet” system, with most of the ones I followed have stopped or are playing something new themselves. Next for me in my WoW life, being in one of the oldest guilds on the Icecrown server and unable to help them progress I found myself as a very casual gamer. Without being able to raid and see the end-game made Mezane more of a daily grinder with only the time allowed to log-in and do the dailies. Trying to get a group that flowed seemed difficult at times. It made me wish I did what Galoheart did and amass a friends list from doing dungeons and gaining a reputation that allowed for quick grouping and cohesion.

While about in real life, meeting new people I ran into a small group that had their own guild. Since I wasn’t doing much for my old guild I switched. I helped them get bank tabs, organized their stuff and used their stuff with their permission to gain them gold. It lasted a bit then they stopped playing and we had more offline meetings than on and it has been that way for about almost a year now.

I have not decided if I am going to continue to blog more in the future or not. It has been on my mind a bit, but my direction right now still seems kind of lost. Since I haven’t read about many parent gamers I have been thinking about that route or the “just another gamer blog” where I share about what I am playing.

Cornita's Really?

2008-12-02T14:33:00.000-05:00

Let me set the stage; I am in the military and I also live on the installation. There is a store called the Class Six, it sells alcohol and in good quantities too. It is the best place to buy beer, wine, or sprits most of the time. There is one more reason why it is a popular choice to buy there, no taxes on the purchase.

This past holiday I needed to buy some beer. The wife came with me so we can do some shopping. As soon as we finished our other shopping the time came to go buy some booze. We headed to the Class Six, worked our way past the pallets of wine that they were selling for the upcoming feast and headed to the beer section. I am not a picky drinker, but there are those which I just head straight to, for this holiday week a case of Heineken is where I found my hand. Then suddenly I heard a voice over my shoulder “No, I don’t like Henieken, let’s get this 48 pack of Cornita instead” I turned to see the wife pointing a stack of beer cases with a parrot is a beach scene with the words “Cornita” in the same calligraphic fashion that Corona uses. Then I looked at the price, $20 it read on the sign above the cases. As I looked at it, something seemed off. It looked like Corona’s packaging, but I wondered why it didn’t just say “Corona” instead of “Cornita”. I am use to thinking when I buy beer the dollar amount per beer, so I was thinking this might be a good deal.

Now I get this case home and open it so I can put some bottles in the fridge to get cold. I grabbed a bottle and pulled it out and my jaw dropped. I see why it is called a Cornita now, the bottle cap said Corona alright but the bottle itself is 7oz. Now everything clicked in my brain, I should have paid more attention in Spanish class. So instead of drinking from the bottle, I grab two and pour them into a glass add a lime. Then head off to the computer and load WoW.

Happy Birthday Advent-Gamer

2008-11-01T08:15:00.001-04:00

I have joined the ranks of so many other bloggers. I have maintained this blog for 1 year. I know I have stopped playing and moved onto other games, came back and am waiting for the new expansion. I feel this still is a great accomplishment to still think about a project that was started and continued upon even though breaks and pauses.

When I started this blog I really had no direction on what type of information I wanted to put down on these digital pages. Readers that have followed along notice that I mainly wrote about the things that have been happening to me as a gamer within the MMORPG of World of Warcraft. I wrote only a couple of how to’s and what I thought worked as a good paladin spell sequence. There was an idea I wrote about a while back about giving players more names for themselves, which in a way has kind of happened. With the achievement system you can get a name that describes the player that you are. I do hope for something that could explain your spec in your name, such as Mezane The Righteous Defender, would let you know I was a tank, and it might lead to more informed decisions for players who are looking for a certain spec. Just an idea.

To this day I really have no clue what to write about and I want to break away from the normal, “this is what happened to me now” mantra. Without being too silly in writing I might try changing the way I post and put my information out there.

I would like to give a special thanks to Ardent Defender, Blessing of Kings, An Old Druid’s New Druid and Heal-Stab-Dot. Thanks for linking to my page and giving me feedback on what I have written. If there any I have forgot I am sorry and haven’t seen a link coming to me yet.

Raiding Achievements

2008-10-30T15:59:00.003-04:00

Creativity waits for no one and hits most unexpectedly. I had a bunch of idea’s drifting in my mind when I thought about things to blog about. Now that I have somewhat of a chance to sit and type, those idea’s are now just fragments of what they use to be. One thing that I wanted to write about was the visiting of the old raids before Burning Crusade was released. So here it goes.

I am looking forward to Wrath and am counting down the days. Till that time there are lots of events coming up. In game I have been going back and grabbing those achievements I never got and raid places I have never seen. Since there will be a “start over” in guilds were players might switch to certain toons being their main and guild leaders not in recruitment drive to get members so new content can be completed. I gathered most all of my toons back to the original guild I started with on the server Icecrown. So Mezane and Eerc are once again in the same guild but my hunter is still in a goof off guild.

Now that the patch has been out for a few weeks I have gotten over 1k in achievement points by doing the Hallowsend quest, still can’t get em all…the damn mask and squashling elude me still. Maybe when I am level 80 I can solo the hell out of the place to get what’s left. Raid achievements on the other hand have become rather easy to get. The guild put up times to raid the old 40 man dungeons, but not many signed up. When it was time for raid invites, I got the invite into the group there was near 40 players from the splinter guilds and old players who used to raid these places together. I wasn’t expecting the mass I would see. It was very fun to go back to MC with a near full raid of 70’s in T5+ gear. Ragnaros didn’t last that long to the massive amounts of DPS he had pummeling him. The next day the guild headed into BWL and the true king of Black Rock died, sadly so did I, my paladin bubble did not save me from his DOT.

And the day after that it was AQ40, since I never been in here I just followed the leader and tanked what was in front of me…though the other tanks taunted the mobs off me, making me more of a DPS role. We did well till we got to the twins. Walking into the room I thought I was playing the wrong game, “the eye of Sauron is watching” I typed in raid chat. Some got what I was talking about. Anyway most of us have never seen the fight, so we did our best after it was explained, though as a paladin I was overlooked to tank the caster twin since only magic could hit him. They died the 2nd time around and we pressed onward.

“Hey the eye has tentacles, what type of hentai is this” I typed while the explanation ensued on how to fight for C’Thun. It was almost a true statement cause the raid was nearly raped. Thankfully most of the ranged DPS didn’t get killed and this achievement was completed.

Now it was the weekend and a raid for Gruuls was posted. It was a gimme fight since most of the players had seen these fights more than they like to recall. We charged in and wiped…*sigh* what was that? There was some new folks in the crowd who never done this so it had to be explained. Then we pulled and only 1 or 2 players died om the second try. Got my badges and went to wait for the rest of the raid to do the next pull. Got to Gruul explained the fight and I didn’t expect the fight to be over as quick as it was. All I remember was the pull, a ground slam and shatter, then a few seconds later he was dead. With the bosses life nerfed and added DPS of tanks and other classes who knew it was going to be this easy. We then decided to go to Mag’s layer, so rinse and repeat this paragraph except for the wipe.

It was lots of fun just to kind yell “LEEEEERROY!!” and actually mean it with really no consequence while raiding the old 40 mans. Though it looks like I won’t finish all the achievements to get the dragon mount reward till I am 80 with some purples and can get other players and raid the Sunwell. Till then, here’s to waiting.

All too familiar

2008-10-20T15:43:00.001-04:00

I am trying to enjoy the new patch. The realm I am on seems to die in the evenings. What I have been able to play I have enjoyed, to some extent. Since my server was dead pretty much all of Tuesday, I went to the server of Spirestone. I have an alt there that I made back when a friend of mine said he was playing, he didn’t last long, and also it was the only server that was up that I could play.

The only thing I really could do was check out the lower level things, so I looked for the Inscription trainer and looked at how that profession worked. When I got the skill I looked at what all was made and what was needed since things have changed. I’ll decided to wait till Wrath comes out and make a inscriber, that will give me a couple more weeks to gather the herbs I need.

Now that was done I took my level 6 mage to where Darlan was suppose to be and see the crater left behind. I teleported from Silvermoon City walked out and saw the new Zeplin tower and thought how that platform will look on Nov 13. There is a picture on the WoW website which shows a ship full of characters heading to Northrend which came to mind when I had that thought. Back to traveling, I followed the road to Silverpine Forrest then headed to the water to swim to the bubble and realized I didn’t have frost nova to escape the level 15 mobs. So my toons death was all too soon realized, then I decided to just look at what was left behind as a ghost. Yep, it’s a crater. Maybe there will be more I can check out with my higher level characters once my server came back on-line.

On 15 of Oct, I finally got to play my Pally and Priest. I was debating on specs for my Pally but decided to go deep once again into the Prot tree once again but my last 10 points or so I really couldn’t decide where to put them. So I grabbed improved might and others that could bump my dps. Later as I goofed around with buffs, Kings helped out spell damage and showed about +30 more then I went to check out my physical damage and noticed I have 1k AP and 1.1k buffed. I have yet to get a damage tracker and test out which is more viable. I might just leave the theorycrafting to other players. Same with my priest, I went full into the shadow tree. I did a little goofing off with the SSO, saw the new animation for Mind Flay and saw some crits. It looked interesting but I wanted to play my pally more.

When I was playing Mezane again I checked my achievements and saw that I had 500 points. Then I started exploring what all was out there to be achieved and was baffled about why I didn’t have credit for Gruuls and Magtheridon. I have gear from both bosses and I can’t get a GM to give credit for those. That and I was missing pretty much all lower dungeons. These are just a few things I noticed seemed to be missing. Some are probably true, but looks like they are easy to get. Time to pally hax those lower level dungeons and get those points back as well as get the explorer achievements, all while grabbing herbs. I think it is possible for my pally to solo scholo, DM, and strat. I never done it but have seen videos of a pally doing a 10 min start run.

Dual Boxing

2008-10-02T16:36:00.002-04:00

I think of myself like all the other WoW players out there, which would be just chillin and goofing off with no real intent on getting started on any grand adventures. Some are focused on PvP to get some amour and /or possibly work on their twitch movement so that they have more situational awareness while in game. Some, like myself, are just going about gold farming. Doing SSO dailies and possibly other quick ones around the Outland environment, so that when WotLK drops, we will be spending gold either on plans, auction items, or new spells. Although, once you start questing in Northrend the gold will flow again but possibly in a more liquid fashion, that once you get gold you will turn around and have to spend it. I remember the release of TBC and how it played for me, so getting more than what I have now seems important. I thought of many ways to maximize my income. Since I really only have 2 70’s and 1 that is almost 70, my mind wandered a bit.

Dual Boxing came to mind, for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about. You take two computers (essentially) and two WoW accounts and play them both at the same time. I have done this in the past were I would borrow someone’s account and help a lower toon of mine out, but I never exploited it to any extent. Until now, my wife had a 70 hunter which she no longer plays and has told me that I can use her account. Countless possibilities ran though my head, the first was how I can use both the accounts and get twice the dailies done in the short time it takes to do them. I didn’t want to do this with two physical computers. I have done it on my laptop and my PC before, but switching between a slow laptop that can play the game in windowed mode with the graphics all at minimum made me wince. Virtual PC, playing two instances on the same computer, this seemed the most enjoyable route.

My geek mind planned out my actions. I could get the free Virtual PC 2007 (VPC 07) from Microsoft, load an older OS I have laying around and boom, and I am in business. Since I have done this several times in the past it shouldn’t be a difficult task, or so I thought. I got the program installed, started up the program, then made the images I needed out, strode up to the next step of installing the OS I was going to use, and Vista gave me the finger. Huh? I looked blankly at the screen which told me I didn’t have the proper OS to do this. Yes, RTFM in a sense, at the download page for VPC 07 it says supported OSes, which pretty much include all except Vista Home Pro 32 bit and below. If I am reading the pages correctly, if I use the 64 bit version I’ll be all set but the arguments I have read say that 64 bit computing needs to grow up.
Am I stuck? Nope, there is something else that works. Almost all the current versions of Windows have user accounts. Set up two accounts without passwords making it easier to switch between. Then, start up WoW on both user accounts. This works, but I haven’t looked at the resource draw it takes. I still am able to maintain full graphics with no slow down. What makes it tough yet bearable is, you can set one character to follow the other. The down side to this is you can’t effectively switch between the two accounts fast enough just in case there is trouble.

I wonder if I should fully activate the second account and use it for Wrath, that way I can level my Pally and a Death Knight. If this is the case I defiantly need get everything on one screen. I will have to tinker with some idea’s.

A Warm-up

2008-09-17T15:28:00.001-04:00

Ah, that was a nice break. I was able to play some other games and give my thumbs a workout. Metal Gear Solid 4 was fun and cleared up a lot of answers. Soul Caliber 4 brought back memories of going to an Arcade, thanks to on-line play. As I played SC4, I never set up mic use, but I can tell that some players talk too much (smack talk maybe). I could tell this since up by the characters name there was a mic icon that lights up when they spoke. I thought I was going to play Spore but after some not so good reviews, the creature creator will remain the only part of the game I have. Now back to the task at hand.

News has traveled to my ears and eyes that Wrath of the Lich King will be out November 13, 2008 with patch 3.02 before that, I have been pretty close in my estimates when patch 2.3 was released. I guess correctly on the number for this upcoming patch and Beta was released in July not the next patch. And all this information has made me revert back to thinking about toons and who to level first. Eerc I think will get stabled and I’ll focus on either Mezane or a yet to be named DK. I know with the DK I will get some decent DPS to level with as well as niche tanking. Although, with the new game play changes I have been reading, playing a Prot Pally looks more fun than before.

Here at advent-gamer there has been some serious thought about the professions of each toon. Eerc my Enchanter/Tailor, Menji the Engineer/Miner, Mezane with Herb/Alcymist and the DK I will make might use Inscription/JC. Since I didn’t pick up JC when TBC came out, I decided it might be best if I get both this time around. There is also a possibility that there will be changes to their professions. Such as Mezane I’ll drop herbalism and pick up blacksmithing. Menji I’ll drop engineering and make him a total gather. This way I have all bases covered. Eerc will just gather the Enchanting stuff so I am not getting gouged in the AH since I should be able to get max enchanting even at level 70.

Another thought is some possible role changes. I’ll change Eerc from shadow to healing. The DK I have been debating what to do with. Since I like to tank and have been missing it for a while now. I’ll level the DK blood till I get familiar with terms, usage and how Tanks will work in 3.02+. Then switch to the more mage Tank spec. Now it is a matter of which toon I will call my main.

Beta WotLK

2008-07-04T08:50:00.002-04:00

Yep it is official. As I check to see when my last playable day was on my account I saw something new. Yep a sign-up for the Beta opt-in. I am not here to phish or anything but those that do have a WoW account.

Go to your account management page and there should be a icon for the opt-in.

If I get selected then it looks like I'll will have to come back and play. Till other news.

Sayonara, Adieu, Adios, and Farewell

2008-06-24T12:41:00.001-04:00

I couldn’t think of a good name for this post. Since there are many things floating around in my head I’ll be jotting them down and hopefully make some sense out of what I have been thinking.

Around Monday in the humid Tampa weather while running my routine of 4 miles (the weekend beer and pizza won’t go away if I don’t). I started thinking about World of Warcraft. Then my mind linked from that thought and turned to Galohearts blog about goals (yes it was written almost 1 month ago). “Have I set any goals in WoW?” I wondered. My biggest goal is to see the Black Temple. Eerc is in a guild that does Black Temple, but hasn’t been actively participated in those raids. With my Pally it was to at first get 70, then get gear to tank, tank Karazhan, be a tank in a 25 Man, and the goal I was on recently was to accumulate the 2.4 gear and some mix it in with some 2.3 gear. That way my gear was high enough to tank most of SSC and TK or maybe even start Hyjal.

While the guild Eerc belongs to is progressing very well in Black Temple (Illidan is in their sites now) and is getting ready to start experimenting in Sunwell Plateau. There are just no raid spots for Eerc so I mainly use him for SSO dailies. There is about 10-15 DPS, 5 Healers, and 3 extra tanks that wait for spots in those raids. When I sign up I’ll be waiting listening in Vent to see if I am needed and I’d just be sitting there. What about Mezane? The alt guild I have her in had great ambitions. The guild’s leader was shooting for starting SSC and TK. But since the merger they lost 5 healers and others in the guild have slowed their playing down and haven’t been signing up for any raids. Which has left me to do Kara and ZA with an occasional pug for Mags and Gruul. My desire to go forward in WoW has pretty much died. I don’t feel like doing much in the PvP aspect. So now, WoW is on the back burner. Now I’ll be joining the ranks of those who are waiting the next expansion.

Giving up this past time, I’ll do something I haven’t done in a while. Pick up a console controller. My console of choice is the Playstation 3. Now that there are some better games that have come out I’ll focus on some of them for the time being. Mainly Metal Gear Solid 4 and Devil May Cry 4. Then mix it up with Spore and Starcraft II when they come out.

Good-bye WoW, for now. Till Northrend is open and players are all focused on getting level 80.

Death Knight Races

2008-06-22T09:46:00.002-04:00

There is a passage that’s been stuck in my brain since I last read it. In the lore Blizzard says on the death knight.

“Unlike Gul’dan’s death knights, modern death knights consist mainly of paladins who lost their faith and pledged their souls to the Lich King in exchange for the promise of immortality. Death knights who fall in battle are soon raised again to continue in their master’s service.”

The line “modern death knights consist mainly of paladins who lost their faith and pledged their souls to the Lich King” keeps sticking. When I analyze this part of the sentence I think of the different races that could be a death knight. Since it mentions paladins the only races that can be one are human, dwarf, dranei, and blood elves. So will these races be the only ones who can be a death knight?

My next thought on this is, if there is a blurring of the lines that can happen. Let’s say you can pick any of the races that can be a death knight then choose a faction. That Kinlmight be interesting. I know other bloggers that have some similar ideas Kinless being one. Though I am reading into their thought at the end where it says something like it would be interesting if death knights could talk and trade with one another.

Two words stick out like a sore thumb “consist mainly”. Which could suggest that the other death knights that where created by Gul’dan could be around. Since Blizzard did not use words that would encompass all death knights. That could broaden the selection to all races. So we might possibly get pink haired female gnome death knights out there. If this was the case it would give credit to the Orc death knight I saw in a phising video.

The last sentence makes me wonder if you won’t have to do a corpse run when you die. That would be interesting in PvP but I think that ability would be disabled while in battlegrounds. Even in a raid that could turn out badly. Well only time will tell when things happen till then I’ll keep doing my thing and just play the game.

Mana! Mana!

2008-06-10T19:52:00.004-04:00

A funny little musical number about Shadow Priest. Thanks to the guild website for this forward.

Though the video above is still very funny, it gives a nod to possibly the originator of using the tune in a World of Warcraft way.

More Milestones

2008-05-29T15:25:00.003-04:00

Instead of writing about my Kara and ZA exploits as post every couple of days. I kept those experiences to myself. As of now I am very happy with where my Paladin is. She is fully decked out in Kara Purple with two pieces of 2.4 badge loot and T4 Shoulders. I have a Vengeance deck in waiting till the Darkmoon Fair comes to town. Well, it is not coming to a town near me but to Alliance territory. I think the new trinket will finally allow me to be able to be a tank in ZA with this new alt guild. Every time I have signed up for ZA they got scared when they looked at my gear and got one of their Main Tanks to come. Last time they looked at my gear I had the Shoulderguards of the Bold and Mark of the Ravenguard. One requirement they seem adamant on is Tanks having 18k Hit Points buffed. I was about 1k shy of this. So till I met this requirement I have been, what feels like, just tagging along in the T4 dungeons. This tagging along experience I’ll talk about shortly.

Some notes on this new guild for my Paladin. The members have done most of the T4 dungeons (Gruuls, Mags, and SSC), with a few that have seen TK. All the members of the previous 10 man guild joined this other guild, with the guild master becoming an officer in the new guild. Now that we got situated and signed up for raiding for the first time we started off with Mags it was a wipe at first, then a kill the next. Afterwards we went to Gruuls layer, 1-shoted the High King and got me the T4 Shoulders. Then to Gruul himself we got him down on the 2nd time. Since it looked like most of the guild is in T4 or better gear they decided to skip SSC. So we started doing TK but had problems on Void Reaver and this is the progression I am at with this new guild.

Loot distribution is done via point bidding. All 10 man and greater dungeon loot require bidding. The system being used is called BEROG. I have never heard of this system so I am not sure if it is a different system or not. I have heard my friends taking about the EQ days and a point system similar to this. They way it works is you get points for showing up on time, filling in spots, helping lower leveled guild members though dungeons, and killing bosses which are worth so many points each. When I merged in I was awarded some points, which will allow me to bid on gear. The one thing I am seeing that could potential be a problem are those who haven’t been getting upgrades and accumulated quite a few points. Looking at the guild forums I can see how many points others have. The vets of the guild have the most points, so in the future what prevents them from bidding so many points that it will just make newer members have 0 again?

I mentioned that in the some 25 Mans I felt like I was just tagging along. On the Mags fight I had some use. The pulls were left to the other Vet Tanks of the guild then on the Mags fight itself I was to tank my caster and click the cube, easy peazy. In Gruuls Layer I more or less spot healed and did DPS. I was used as a tank on the pull before Gruul, but the other pally decided it best to use Avenger Shield to get their mob, which took my mob with it…so I had to front load as best I could to get it from them. Since I have never seen how a pally tank does pulls like this in a 25 Man. I would think that Judgement of SoR would suffice enough to get aggro and start building on it. Both boss fights, I just ran to the boss did Judgement of SoW and whacked their heels spending mana to Concencrate and do Judgements. I guess the thing I should keep in mind is that on some fights I did have a purpose and as long as I didn’t screw up all is well.

Paladin Progression

2008-04-30T12:13:00.001-04:00

Last week was my first time in ZA. We didn’t do too badly for ourselves. Despite me having a power failure right before the bear boss. They downed him before I came back, so I missed out on him. Though I came back right in time for the run up to the Eagle boss. While I was out of power learning what it was like in the 1900’s. The alt guild kept wiping on the run up and I think they had 1 attempt on the boss. I progresses and all went well, AoE tanking that FTW. Got to the Eagle boss and died then he dropped a DPS caster ring. I enjoyed the 1 shot. Next was Jal’ani the lord of the Dragonhawks, it took many tries but we got him down. My job was to AE the dragon hawks, the problem I ran into was them wandering though my concencration and to a healer. Then keeping Concencration up when he throws the fireballs everywhere and still gather the hawks. He dopped Mail Armor, it looked like a nice hunter piece and can’t remember what it was. We eventually worked our way to the Lynx boss, which we only got 1 attempt in then called it quits. Got him down to Phase 2, I didn’t grab the Lynx quick enough and the raid wiped. Not bad for a first run I say.

On my gear progression I got a lot of good upgrades these past 2 weeks. Got the Chest piece from Nightbane (yea more stam). I also hit Exalted with SSO and I haven’t even done a Magister Terrace run yet. But I got the shield, which is only 1 iLevel up from the shield I had. The shield block rating helped push me over the uncrushability rating I need without regents of any sort. I also made the Tanking trinket for Alcymest, with the 40% added to pots when you take them. That trinket is good and nearly tops me off in Mana when I take that pot. Last upgrade I got was the new boots for, since I was wearing greens still.

Now I would like to talk about guild mergers. This is the first time I have been involved when two guilds decide to join. The guild Mezane is in has a good solid 10 members that raid 10 mans about once a week. This other guild wants to proceede and start hitting up some 25 man stuff. I have seen em already. But not from a Tanking prospective, hopefully I will be an asset and be used to help this guild progress, but who knows.

Full Steam Ahead

2008-04-15T20:21:00.003-04:00

Bring on the new content. Now the guild Eerc is in got Kael down in TK. Then we poke our head into Mount Hyjal and down two bosses. At the rate of a new boss kill a week The Black Temple is now set squarely in our sites in the upcoming month. Only a few more tweaks here and there then both MH and TK are on farm status. With taking away the keying requirements to get into these higher dungeons it is allowing the more casual guilds to progress even more.

I wonder what brought on these ideas from Blizzard. But I like what I am seeing. Instead of those top 10% of players on a server getting to the high end game. They seem to have extended it to about 35% or so. Basically giving a larger spectrum of top players that are also more casual to see more.

This concept I think works with what Blizzard wants to give its players. Meaning that you can be a weekend Warrior, almost literally. WoW in comparison with a few MMO’s that where out at the same time allowed a player to level quickly. Then you could explore some hard dungeons with 20-40 people. The only real tough keying was getting into Onxyia’s layer.

By taking away those keying requirements Blizz is taking away from the lore of the game? I don’t know of any who play for the lore. There are those few players who can tell you all about the things that don’t jive right with the story and tie-in’s with the game. That’s about it, maybe more on the RP realms you would find these engrossed individuals. To me when you key your toon, you are learning about what you are about to go up against. Think about the Karazhan keying quest chain. From a role-playing perspective you are in Shatterath then start a converstaion with Apprentice Tarrerel and he ask you to go to Medivh's dwelling, Karazahn and talk to Archmage Alturus. Then one thing leads to another where you are there believing that there is some strange powers inside and you must gain access. But you can't, you must collect the fragments to a key that will open the door for you. All the fragments where put in safe places, well safe at the time. You get all the fragments, but then learn that the only people that can give you access are dead. So with the power of one of Nozdormu: The Timeless One you are set back to a time when Medivh was alive. Then you go back to Shatterath and Medivh show's up then gives you his key. All of this to bring you back to Karazhan and explore what went wrong and the powers that are there.

For me playing the game I know now that I can play my toons a little bit each day and when I get to a transition point I can move on. Now without worrying that I have to quest to get keyed then get those around me on the same page to continue or vice-versa. I know the guild Eerc belongs wasn’t even thinking about Hyjal or BT before patch 2.4. Most of the members are casual and not even keyed. So thanks to Blizz and lifting key requirements we can progress and those who want a title and to know more can do the quest chain.

Ahh the Anvil is Done

2008-04-09T17:06:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the double post. But this one is special. On the server of Icecrown we got the anvil on this day. I was there when it happened. Screen shot or it didn't happen? Well here ya go. I think mine is just like everyone else. Same type of crowd around the NPC. But mine comes with GM comments so enjoy.

After playing a bit I learned that my friend was on-top of the NPC. What happend to him you ask? Well the GM decided that Everlook was a nice place, so there is where he was teleported. It just makes it a minor annoyance for the player. But my friend was livid, saying he saw the warning and moved away from the NPC. This day was also a good day for my enchanter. As people stood there I barked enchants and made some nice gold.

A Day of New Stuff

2008-04-09T17:04:00.001-04:00

Ahh, it feels so nice to join that Epic Flying Club. I used to curse those who had their Epic Flying mounts and doing dailies, always beating me to the mob, item, or whizzing past me on the wind rider. Once I got the gold, I asked the question to myself. Which toon do I want to have this mount? My pally since she is an herbalist, but can’t kill stuff quickly. Should I give it to my Shadow Priest? He can DPS the mobs but doesn’t gather that much.

After this debate I decided to get the mount for my pally, just because I can re-spec and still DPS and 20% mounted speed increase is haxxors. So off to Shadow Moon Valley I went. Plopped down my 5k gold for the skill, then grabbed the Swift Red Windrider. I changed my macro to reflect my preferred mode of flight travel. Then bam, off I went…did a B-line straight to the Skyguard to pick up the egg bombing quest. Then I thought about the new Shattered Sun offensive quest, zoom…off to Shatterath. Picked up all the quest there and went to Nagrand took the readings and then I was off to Ogr’lia. Next I did the two non-combat quests. They where cake-sauce easy. Then I thought about the last 2 quest I had, the kill and find type of quest. I flew back to Shatt, went to Silvermoon City and to the Pally trainer. Clicked unlearn talents and proceeded to look at my options for DPS.

As a blind man at a strip joint I tried to figure out how I wanted to spec for DPS. So I did a 31/0/30 spec, thinking that I could use Holy Shock as a pulling spell (insert hysterical point a laugh)…then hearthed back to Shatt and headed to Mana Forge B. Not knowing a good spell sequence and looking at my gear that barely had any +spell damage. I got close to a mob and pulled about 2 more than I expected. So my first pull as a hybrid holy/ret spec consisted of 3 mobs, haha, no biggie I done pulls like this as Prot spec no sweat. Well with my DPS not looking so great and my health dropping faster than I am use to. Bubble, bandage, heal…conencrate then reapplied SoC. Phew got them all done… none had the plans. Hmm, time to rethink my pulling strategy. I got me a loan mob, I attacked and lost nearly 1/4 of my life and Mana. With that I think I am going to drop most of the Holy stuff and go deeper into the Ret tree. I gingerly went around till I got the plans then moved to BEM to get the Mana Cubes (Diceptacon Energon Cubes anyone).

After all this I analyzed my gear, I got most of the Blue PvP gear except the helm, since the current helm I had more +str, I got the Dispair from KZ had it enchanted with AP, the gems I choose for the gear where AP and Int. I read a lot from other Pallies that have done Ret spec complain about the +spell for their tree being useless. With this thought in the back of my mind, I choose what went into my DPS gear. I am going to keep my spec till I have to tank KZ on Friday. But when I try Ret again, I am going to do more research. Then start on the Netherdrake quest line just to recoupe the gold and get my other toon up to par now.

Patch 2.4

2008-03-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

As I write this patch 2.4 is currently being applied to my computer. So it is time to make the UI rounds. I think I will try AG Unit Frames, and gather the usual deadly boss mods, Omen2, Atlas, Atlas Loots, Pally Power (A decent one stop place to to buff a party) and Decursive. Usually I get a damage meter, but I am going to hold off on this and see the how the new system works. This is a small list by others standards and too much even for some purist. Though I think those purists should at least at a minimum get Omen or a equivalent threat meter.

This latest patch has brought me into deep thought. As the time between patches grows. I begin to think forward “Is there going to be a patch 2.5?”, as I stewed on this I did a little mental math. Since BC came out there has been a X.1 patch almost every 3-4 months (roughly). With that the next patch could push around June/July. Some parallels come to mind, the trailer came out about the same time (in August to be precise). So when the next patch comes out will it be 2.5 or 3.01? I guess since there is no word on Beta I wonder about Blizzard’s statement in which they state they want to release an expansion every year. Or if there is no Beta and they just do straight to release I wonder how it will affect those playing. All the little tid-bits we get on pretty much anything about what is coming out, comes from the PTR or the Beta. So when the patch or the expansion is released anyone who has kept up with the readings can log in and now know where to get started with the new stuff. I am sure the general chat will be blown-up.

As of this paragraph, I have had some game time with the patch 2.4. When I logged off my server was at 25%, that was at about 1030 pm est. That isn’t too bad, so we should have access to the new badge loot here soon. All the new dailies that I have done are easy, they are rather quick to accomplish. The few that you do in Outland, the reward of gold, a green and if you are lucky a Badge of Justice (it loots from the pouch you receive when you complete the quest). I thought that it was common, but the last 2 dailies I did with the same faction did not give me a Badge. My last thought on the dailies is, 250g if you do them all. Not a bad haul, and with luck will help me move my purchase of an epic flyer sooner.

Between Guilds

2008-03-21T08:48:00.003-04:00

Since moving my alt Meazane (Main?) from a big guild and put her into a small guild that likes to PvP and focus on 10-Mans. I am starting to feel at a loss of which guild to show allegiance to. Eerc, whom does a majority of the raiding, seems to have been put on the back burner. When 25 Mans happen in my favor happen, I enjoy them (meaning I am picked to go). With that I don’t want to leave and loose my standing also.

The guild Eerc belongs to raids 3 times a week. When these 25 man raids happen, they are usually before a work day. So Tues, Thurs and Sun. Not the best of days for me. Another factor is that I am not actively participating in the new bosses fights, so I am not learning how to do them. I read the strats and listen to what the officers say. They have recruited like crazy and now have a wait list to raid. For me there is no familiarity with the fights in TK or past Lurker in SSC. So would I get chosen to go? I am sure that I am looked at as a competent player (just not dedicated maybe). I have been with this guild for two years now. But just because I have been with the guild doesn’t guarantee me a spot. Though I am told shadow priest are always need (Even the top Horde guild on Icecrown needs them). With my position I don’t see many perks with the position. The perks I know of are being able to sponsor new people into the guild and having access to some bank items. My feeling is that I am in good standings and feel as though if I left and came back it would be a long climb back to where I am now.

Mezane on the other hand, I have a lot more fun with and wasn’t able to play her as much in guild dungeon runs and10-mans. This current guild I have her in is getting used a lot in Karazahn as of late. This is allowing me to gear-up and hopefully transits some how to ZA and maybe tank a 25 Man. This would be awesome. Since that would be the last thing I haven’t done yet. I have raided as DPS and Healing already. As of late I need to work on my skill. I tried running a couple of heroics to get my chops back. Well those didn’t go to well. I have just forgot most of the pulls, that and I tried tanking them like their normal counter parts. That didn’t go to well. That and I was not utilizing my group properly. So I wasn’t getting the CC done properly. Making myself look bad and the guild I was with. It got down to my gear being red, and then I used my rule, then called it quits. So I need to do some training.

The guild I have Mezane in wants me to move all my toons to their guild. But at most all they want to do PvE wise is 10 Mans, nothing bigger. I still want to see the 25 Man stuff, like BT, Hyjal and now Sunwell. Though I think if it doesn’t happen the guild I have Eerc in might have an BC/OWC (Burning Crusade/Old World Content) type of run in the future. So when I am lvl 80 I’ll try and get a group together and run those once 25 mans that I didn’t get to see. I don’t see a problem now, but I think that it could cause problems later on down the road. There’s my dilemma, stay how I am now or move all my toons under the same guild. Speaking of OWC, I wonder if I can set up a BWL run.

Stories from Karazhan

2008-03-17T18:01:00.002-04:00

It was an interesting night for me and my Pally in Karazhan. I am very proud of where I have gotten with her. I tanked most of it, except the two bosses that do crushing blows. With a Fort Flask my total defense was sitting at 97.5% (need 102% for uncrushable). That, coupled with the fact I never tanked a boss that did crushing blows, I figure I need to work on my rotation a bit more so those type of hits don’t occur/connect. With some more work and patch 2.4, hopefully I will be able to attain the proper defenses. It was a good run, and I’m looking forward to next Friday. It would be nice to get a useful drop this time.

Content with the success with my Paladin, the next day I decided to find a PUG for KZ with my Priest. It wasn’t too bad since I was there with a Hunter I knew. He was first in damage and I was second. The DPS consisted of a Rogue, another Hunter, and yet a third Hunter. One Hunter was in all PvP gear, did decent damage, but could have used some BRK advice in doing groups. The other Hunter…well lets just say he was doing close to what a Tank normally does for damage. One tank had the HP but didn’t even have 490 Def. Some of the healers were barely pushing the +800 healing mark. I could have wished for better geared players, but that might have been pushing it - these guys where there for gear. Who am I to judge, since I was PUGin it also. I bet they were glad to have a couple decently geared players.

It seemed to start off well. The clearing to get to Midnight went clean, no wipe fest happened. The Hunter and I started joking around. Then, we get to Midnight and one of the healers had to bail due to “Mom Aggro”. Sigh. So, the group tries to round up another healer, and we eventually got lucky. So the Prot Warrior does his thing, starts getting hate from Midnight. But by this time, too much time has passed and there are re-pops. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the focus switched to the add, DPS it down then switch to Midnight. But that didn’t happen. Most of the DPS stayed on Midnight while the OT picked up the add and the Hunter and I helped to DPS it down. Attunmen spawned then a wipe ensued. However, fortunately for me, the Hunter that was doing about as much damage as the Tank decided to leave and make me Raid Leader. The group proceeded to look for a DPS to fill in, and we got another Rogue. We re-cleared to Midnight, and did the fight like it is supposed to be done. I changed the loot to Master Looter, which I guess gave some players a sigh of relief. One player explained in Vent that since I came from a reputable guild, he was not worried. Guess I’ve never thought about my guilds reputation, and not sullying their good name. But I didn’t disappoint, everyone got their loot and was happy.

On to Maiden – yes, I said Maiden. The Tanks didn’t feel comfortable with the group to give Moroes a go. Who could blame them? Would I trust a PUG to properly kill things in sequence and keep certain mobs in CC? So here came the first pull and something didn’t happen correctly. The AE pack just killed our Tank, the OT couldn’t get aggro and those with AOE abilities (except the Hunter I know) weren’t using them. So we wipe again. I was able to make it to the entrance, avoiding another increase to my repair bill. Then the OT left. /palmface, *goes to LFG channel again*. We got ourselves another Tank, and continued the push forward. We got to Maiden and some of us explained the fight. The healers said they had Decursive, but somehow I ended up doing DPS and all the Dispelling. Lucky for them I’m a team player. The fight went well until the first repentance. I suggested to the Paladin healer to use Blessing of Sacrifice to allow him to keep healing. Well, the Tank died due to lack of HOTs and healing, and another wipe ensued. We get back into position and try again. This time, the Rogues said F**k it and ran out when they where getting low on health and bandaged themselves. Again I did all the Dispelling all while doing my DPS. Maiden went down and those new players were curious as to why I switched it to master looter at 5% of Maidens health. Again, the same player from earlier explained my creditability being associated with a certain guild. Loot got handed out, no gripes. /Cheer

About this time I had had enough. It took nearly 4 ½ hours to get this far. I had hoped to get the Opera event before calling it quits. Still, I said I would help clear the Blacksmith so everyone could repair. Unfortunately, on our way down, the dancers you have to clear to get to Moroes re-popped and I died. I came back, made good on my promise, then quit.

I guess the moral of the story is to stay calm and not crack under pressure. Also, always come prepared in all aspects. Meaning: be repaired, have regents, have permission from parents, and have some gear that makes you useful. I don’t know how well most of this will be met by my fellow players. But my limit is, once my gear is red in a PUG, I’m done.

Acknowledgements to my lovely editor :)

Back in the Fray

2008-03-12T19:39:00.001-04:00

Ahh, took a nice caesura. But I am back at the keyboard in more than one aspect now. Some life altering things happened to me these past two months. I official entered into fatherhood. My baby son is not old enough to farm gold but is very interested in what daddy is playing. :D

During these two months my gaming time has nearly stopped. I thought that I couldn’t play WoW any more so I stopped and moved onto Lord of the Rings On-line. Thought I could be more casual with that game and a friend asked me to give the game a try. Though not a bad system, starting over was just very difficult. That and the player base seemed very few and far between. I was thinking about changing my blog to a LORTO blog. Cataloging my experiences and what I learned on how to play. But have come to my senses and have returned to WoW. With a new skill in baby handling and playing one handed.

Now that I am back into WoW, my guild has downed Vashj. Huzza! Though I was not there for the kill, I am still there cheering them on. Eerc has now become a goof-off character for me. Not really using him properly and need to starting doing dailies and starting playing the AH. To finish collecting gold so at least one of my 70’s can get a Epic Flying mount, maybe sometime before WotLK. My Pally on the other hand I wanted some better gear, has since deguided and joined a alt guild which I know 2 other’s IRL in this new guild. They are really small but raid KZ on Friday’s at 7pm. That is a much easier time for me to shoot for than during the week as of recently. During my last KZ run I got a lot of Healdin plate and one Prot piece. The Prot piece was a major upgrade to my headpiece. I should probably start bringing my priest on these runs to get badges so when I am able to sign up for 25 mans. I will be useful in the raid and not be hiding in the DPS. The 2.4 badge lewt looks awesome. This new badge lewt I am hoping is silencing those “WELFARE EPICS” cries. So in essence no matter if have the numbers to do 25 member content you can still get gear to better yourself. Now if you so happen to get into a 25 member raid you can contribute, at least a little but read the strategies before you go.

Other reasons why I haven’t been updating my blog as much is cause now where I work they have blocked all blogsites. (Sigh) no BRK, Ardent Defender, Blessing of Kings, or any other’s I read on my blog-roll. It is quite upsetting considering usually the rule of thumb where I work was if the web-site took a lot of bandwidth away from the amount the workspace needed it was blocked. Mainly streaming media and game sites where blocked. When I get home I want play games and relax with my son. But I’ll keep the info rolling, they can’t stop me from pre-editing my blog’s info. Now I just copy and paste other blogs for me to read later.

Missing Out

2008-01-18T09:15:00.000-05:00

Finally some down time in my life to relax and blog. Though this breather will be short lived, things are still looming for me that need accomplished. The wife is ready to pop and I am strapped to my phone when I am not at home. This situation is further complicated by the fact that we are moving from my small cramped one bedroom apartment to something much bigger and more accommodating for a family. All of this is leaving me little WoW time and Raid time. I have been just doing small task in game when I get a chance. Been doing my dailies and getting gold, (about 100g a day) so soon I will be able to get my epic flyer. I am taking all the advice from other bloggers about saving up for that mount. Just stay focused, don’t buy stuff you can live without and have a “garage sale”. While doing my “garage sale” I found that Void Crystals sell for much less than Large Prismatic Shards. Guessing the market demand for those is very little considering there are not many enchanters out there with the plans that use them. I use to be good at making money from the AH, and could probably write how to watch the market and use the add-on Auctioneer to aid you.

My guild is doing awesome; though like my subject states I am missing out. I haven’t been signing up for Raids recently for certain reasons. The way my luck would have it my wife would be going into labor when the guild is in the middle of learning the new content. She does play, but find’s it uncomfortable to play her Huntard on the puter. Since I haven’t been participating the guild I belong to finally got Mags down, then went to TK and has progressed to Solarian. Another night within the same week they went into SSC downed Hydross and Fathom-Lord. Quite impressive! The good news is when I can sign up for these raids I can see these new fights, I listen well and read the strats. So I’ll be the good mana battery and not be full of the suck.

Last I would like to talk about my guild bank I just created. Since I have never made a guild or have ever been part of the officer ranks to use the controls it was new to me. I made my level 1 alt, gave him 200g then proceeded to go around the beginning area’s getting signatures, though payment, asking and just sending the invite to anyone around. Finally got all signatures I needed, I ran back to Ogrimmar, tuned in my letter then , was made. “So this is what I am missing out on.” I mused to myself. The new guildies I just made where all not on. Then proceeded to /gkick everyone out. The power was intoxicating, I then went to the guild bank, plopped down my 100g and got the vault opened up. I made the rounds on all my toons and did my best to fill-up my new bank. But now I have tons of stuff I can sell, keep, or save for later with spaces opened up on my other toons for crafting items, armor and quest items.

Musings on the Death Knight

2008-01-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

About 1 year ago the The Burning Crusade came out. Since then most have worked on the new system and know a lot of it’s in and outs. Got behind theories and tested them to see if they work. All of this will start again when they put out a patch 3.01 or something like that. One thing that might be interesting to see is a new trailer for RotLK soon. Maybe a release date? Some are already talking about making the new Hero Class the Death Knight. For me I dunno, it depends. If I have the play time to work out the questing/ long grind to 80 I will. I think a Blood Elf paladin turn Death Knight would just seem so like a Blood Elf (ehh, they like the power). Reading around sounds like there is nothing that says you can’t start one from the get go, or if it will be like the Netherdrake was for BC for a while.
What knowledge is out there about the new class is they can be either a DPS or a Tank. I was thinking how they would work as a tank? The first thing that strikes me is they use no shield. So that right there says they are going to have some sort of damage mitigation similar to a Druid. But they seem to gather the ability to do spells/special attacks in much the same manner as a Rogue or Warrior. I am going to lean more on the Rogue for energy use but probably not at the same speed. This idea should fall in line with the use of the Runeblade. When blocking I wonder if there will be some type of protection mechanism for crushing blows. Lots of parry and dodge? If you play a tank already you know what I am talking about. The goal for getting progression out a good tank is getting enough defenses to push getting hit by a crushing blow off the chart.
So thus far these are just speculation. Keeping in mind this is going to be a hero class and they are going to have some strong abilities. As far as damage thrown down, I am guessing white/yellow, in much of the same way as a paladin, maybe. As far as lore, the Horde will want power of Death Knights to protect what they have. Alliance wants the power of Death Knights to bring down Arthas.

1000 Page Loads

2008-01-07T07:10:00.000-05:00

I am truly amazed at myself. I did not set any milestones for when I started blogging. Going though my stats something stood out, I noticed my blog reached the 1k page load mark. Another milestone if you may, is that this is the longest and most amount of writing I have done. I tried Myspace, that didn’t last long, maybe about 2 weeks tops. Most personal writings I have tried to keep never made it past the 1 month mark. So if there is something you like to talk about and care enough to write it down. You will continue to do so. Also the fact when I check my stat page and see others reading and coming back to read what I am putting down keeps me coming back to write more. My popular pages are my Mount Macro page and A Better Tankadin . I think the Tankadin page could be rewritten cause my views have changed just a bit with some enlightening.
Those who do come back, I am still working on the lore. It has turned into a much grander project than I thought. I am debating of how much and how to tell the lore. I was thinking of breaking it down further than something of a sightseeing tour of the world with things explained. Maybe character lore, like why each of the classes exist and how they came about. Another avenue I thought about was the NPC you run into throughout the world and where their ties lie.
On a personal side I would like to work on my style more. There are those out there that make it work for them. BRK has got an interesting sense of humor. This is a little off topic but I just learned this when the weather got very damn cold for Florida I might say. He lives just up the road. I am in Tampa and he is in Orlando. Anyways when coming up with a style that works I feel as though I run into a problem of coping others. After reading other bloggers for so long I think I might start using their type of writing style. Maybe, I am more scatterbrained piecing together ideas that made sense to me but I don’t translate them well to the written word. A side note I would like to add about coming up with your own style. I watch anime and by far my favorite one is the series Ghost in a Shell – The Stand Alone Complex. In a nut shell at the end you learn that it is hard to be an original when so many will copy you, with that it will be hard to prove you are the original. I think that is deep stuff once you get into it. Simply put I need organization and flow. Last thing for me is to get away from using “I” so much.
A few words on my gaming. Still playing WoW, though not as much as I use to. I finally got my Org'lia and Skyguard quest out of the way so I can do more dailes (better late than never I guess).That way I get me some more gold to get my epic flying mount, about ½ there now. For the times when I am not in that world I have been playing Assassins Creed and FFXII. I got to a point where I was stuck and didn’t feel like grinding out levels to continue in Final Fantasy. I must say it feels good telling your party how to attack and how to heal. Instead of that PUG where you are like “Do I need to come over there and push the buttons for you!?!?”. Assassins Creed is kind of neat as far as how you interact with that world. But something seems off and I can’t quite put my finger on it. /shrug, oh well.
Happy New Year’s to all!!

Different Guild

2007-12-26T06:50:00.000-05:00

I have no plans on leaving my guild. The problems I run into are rather pathetic and I had an idea about a type of guild that allows players acquire more of what they want. That was probably a very oxymoronic statement but hear me out.

Make a guild that has dues or pay for membership. When you are paying a guild to be with, you are paying for services like being able to get players for a dungeon crawl. When you are raiding there will progression as well as loot to be gained for all. For skill-up and items that are in the bank they can be purchased with real money. This guild would consist of a crew of people all with a certain job such as guild banker, guild tank, guild healer, guild DPS and of course guild leader. The main thing is a system to allow players to go farther and not be stuck where they are.

My targets with this idea are those casual gamers. Without going into a long discussion about whom a casual gamer is. These people are those who work and come home and put in between 5-12 hours a week. Most of who always talk about wanting to make that 25 man raid step and do more end game content like The Black Temple and participate in Mt. Hyjal. To me it seems like those who make a living by playing the game like a job. Those are the ones who are earning T5 and T6. Another group to consider is those who belong to large guilds of 100+ players that are active. There might be a few guilds out there who smaller but are very organized that are up there too, but I haven’t seen much of them.

Getting into those high end game guilds is difficult. Most have a try out sessions but if you don’t have the DPS, TPS, or HPS you are more than likely not going to make it. Another factor to add to this is if they accept you and you are fully purpled from KZ and the guild is working on The Eye or even The Black Temple. Will you make the cut for when they raid?

The next argument I would see coming is skill vs. time. In this sense of skill, I would describe it as the ability of the player to perform under conditions to help the guild or group to progress forward. In the sense of time, the longer you play the higher the armor types you can achieve. Blizz has taken some steps toward rewarding those with skill by having those tough bosses drop tokens. Another way Blizz is rewarding those players with skill are the badges. To acquire badges you have to have the proper group make-up and be with other skilled players.

Those who are time type players do get good gear i.e. crafted purples, honor items and in a sense arena gear. Time players usally go for things that are for certain. An example of this is if I kill Fire Elementals, Water Elementals, Ogres, and Spiders I will get mats to make a purple cloth piece. Before patch 2.3 players figured that they can can just run the battle ground of Alterc Valley and get honor by doing nothing. Over time they get part of what they wanted then tried to get where they wanted. Now with purples, they could start doing Arena or get accepted to do Raiding. Granted they where missing a couple vital stats as long as they performed they could move themselves into the skilled category.

Back to my main topic of a guild that you pay to be in and the negative I see in this is. I think it would cater to those time players, who get the satisfaction that they know they will get to raid and get gear and progress to see more end game content. This also might not be a bad thing. With this those time players could evolve into skilled players with the knowledge of players around them and those to help them along. One more things is making sure those in the guild do progress. Either way I am sure there is business model that could be set up that would help players progress and be successful.

This isn’t a new idea. People sell accounts all the time on Ebay, then you wonder why this T5 Geared out or 2000+ Arena rated player has no clue as to what they are doing. Or you have a gulid mate that just buys lots of things off the Auction House and you wonder where they get the gold to do this from. Paying with the Dollar, Euro, or Canadian Dollar for digital items seems to be very lucrative. But there has to be a way that doesn’t give rise to hackers to sell gold to make real currency. These thoughts make me wonder if a guild idea like this is possible. Most idea’s I have stated are generalizations. I am sure each thing I mention can be nit-picked apart and be chalked full of “what if’. Just something to ponder next time you think “it would be cool I was in a guild that can go to (name end game place here) ”.

Lore – Background Info

2007-12-20T09:32:00.000-05:00

This is the very core of how all was made. Where almost all the WoW Universe got its start from. Sources include books and the games that have been released by Blizzard Entertainment. The website is a history of Warcraft from the origins and will bring you to the present day in the latest release of the Burning Crusade. Chris Metzen is one of the people directly involved creating the Warcraft Universe. Authors Richard A. Knaak, Christie Golden, Jeff Grubb and Keith R.A. De Candido have contributed greatly to this growing universe. Doing the media in the following sequence, with the PC Game Warcraft Orcs & Humans as the center, or 0 point you would take this timeline below:

-10,000 years before Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
War of the Ancients Trilogy: The Well of Eternity (Richard A. Knaak)
War of the Ancients Trilogy: The Demon Soul (Richard A. Knaak)
War of the Ancients Trilogy: The Sundering (Richard A. Knaak)
-1 year before Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
(Novel) Rise of the Horde (Christine Golden)
0 Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (PC Game)
(Novel) The Last Guardian (Jeff Grubb)
6 years - Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (PC Game)
8 years – Warcraft 2x: Beyond the Dark Portal (PC Game)
10 years – (Novel) Day of the Dragon (Richard A. Knaak)
18 years – (Novel) Lord of the Clans (Christie Golden)
19 years – (Novel) Of Blood and Honor (Chris Metzen)
20 years Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos
23 years Warcraft 3x: The Fronzen Throne
(Manga) The Sunwell Trilogy: Dragon Hunt (Richard A. Knaak & Jae-Hawn Kim)
(Manga) The Sunwell Trilogy: Shadows of the Ice (Richard A. Knaak & Jae-Hawn Kim)
(Manga) The Sunwell Trilogy: Ghostlands (Richard A. Knaak & Jae-Hawn Kim)
24 years – (Novel) Cycle of Hatred (Keith R.A. De Candido)
25 years – World of Warcraft
26 years – World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
?? years – World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King

Note: All info can be accessed on www.worldofwarcraft.com

Winter Veil

2007-12-17T08:22:00.000-05:00

Ahh, it’s that time of year again in WoW. Some new things this year, mainly if you are a Leatherworker or Tailor you got plans in the mail from Blizz. Not all that hard to get mats and make. Green Winter Cloths if you are Horde and Red Winter Cloths if you Alliance. Some players are making some good gold off this, but meh, who am I to critique how they want to make gold. I made a couple and sent one to my Paladin, it didn’t look to great on my Undead Priest. But on my Female Blood Elf Paladin, down right kinky. I haven't seen pants yet, but I see NPCs wearing the same thing, but with pants. Thanks Blizz for the fan service?

Questing is the same ole quest again this year. All are easy except for the Greench, who seems to be always camped. The best way I found to do this quest is to go and log out where he spawns when you are done playing for the day. Log in the next day, or early in the morning and no one is around, usually. Then take him down.

In PvP there are now hand packed snowballs that can me made in AV. They seem harmless, but when used properly can be very deadly. They last 5 mins and knock back a player a good 20+ yards. A tactic I have devised is to use is when in combat around certain area’s where there are some nice cliffs. If your opponent is between a cliff and you, use that snowball and send them flying off the cliff and usually they die from fall damage. If you are defensive, they are good for stuns or keeping melee at range. I am sure there are other things they are used for, but this is what I have been using them for.

On a side note, with those same snowballs, for fun. I want to grab about 10 then leave the BG when in Orgrimmar. Then go to the bank, usually this is where the gold spammer sits, and proceeded to pelt him with these hand packed snowballs. I haven’t tried this, maybe when I am in a bad or losing BG I might try this.

Lore - My Start

2007-12-13T15:16:00.000-05:00

Something I have wanted to get into more about but haven’t is the lore of the game. I have read a few sources but never tied them together in the game. Bloggers I read have found their niche on other subjects. Since I have just started my research, writers on blogs about the lore subject seem rare. So here is my attempt.

MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is the genre which WoW falls under. Most players don’t get into the Role Playing, even on those servers dedicated to it. Myself, I tried role playing for giggles, but didn’t last long. When Burning Crusade came out I told myself I would level slow and read the quest and learn why those NPCs where there. After I was done with Hellfire Peninsula going into the lore was forgotten about. All I was worried about was getting gear and getting groups to get XP and gold. Now that I have 70’s and have other toons that range from 10-30.

Now I am back for another round to learn more about the WoW universe. I started with a google.com search, with the simple words “Warcraft lore” (yes with quotes on search). It got lots of hits, so it looks like there is a lot on the subject. The first link I went to was the one on the very pages of the World of Warcraft home page. After refreshing my memory on the situation, my goal for writing this is to reference the in game things a player can go see for themselves. I don’t know how well this will turn out. There is a number of growing materials out there that take place in the WoW Universe so it should be an interesting journey. I would like to say this is not the main subject I am going to write about, just a project I hope goes well.

Palladin Spell Sequnce

2007-12-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

Holding aggro is the staple of being the tank. Each class does it differently, yet at the same time have similar ties. With a paladin is its all about Righteous Fury and holy damage. This is why I love playing my pally, the ability to just front load aggro when needed.

In 5-mans it is easy though there are those classes who seem to generate aggro very quickly and can catch-up and pass a well geared Paladin. What I am about to lay out is also dependant on your gear. I am on the belief of more +spell damage the better. Others will argue this but as a Blood Elf I get the choice of using SoB. SoB needs a good amount of Attack Power and Str to make it effective in being a aggro building tool. Again this is my opinion, since every time I use that spell others will take aggro and I am spamming Advent Defense to get aggro back. But my pull sequence is SoW (this first seal will change depending on how much aggro others make) Avenger Sheild, Concencrate, Judgment SoW, SoW then HS. As long as others are aware of where they are in the aggro picking, I usually do this rotation with guildies. Since I know most of them have Omen (a really good threatmeter which I recommend over KTM). I love this because I can run a dungeon and not really worry bout mana. With the other seals I can do the same things but I am more reliant on a healer to keep my mana up, but I usually end up drinking after about the 3rd to 4th pull.

For those groups where I gotta stay on top in the aggro picking. I use the order of this: SoR or SoC (I use SoC mainly on boss fights), Avenger Shield, Concencrate, Judgment, SoR, then HS (or I throw HS right before the mob hits me, which usally falls after Concencrate or the Judgment). With this rotation I usually sit around 600TPS. But this is very generic.

13 Lessons I have learned in WoW and other Games

2007-12-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Since I am new to this blogging scene. I have been reading the other authors and their 5-12 things that have changed them or real life lesson learned. But none tagged me. Since I think I have about 5-10 regulars that read. I am sure some of them are those I have on my on the right side of the page. Galo left a more open ended invitation. So though I am not called out by name, I will write. Since I am a gamer after all and have been that way for…about 22 years. (Yes I am counting from when I played games on the Coleco and Atari systems).

13. There are a lot of creatures that missing the organs you need.
12. Guild's are the best "glue" for groups.
11. Where there is beer there is info or intel that can be gathered.
10. Stomping on Mushrooms doesn’t always make you bigger.
9. Going into random people’s houses and talking to them then stealing things from their house is just not right. (But there was an elixir there!)
8. Whistling underwater for you pet is harder than it looks.
7. If you’re not a druid, swimming in water like a dolphin and jumping 3 feet out of the water is also nearly impossible.
6. The best group configuration is one that you think isn’t going to do well, then turns around and does something you don’t expect. Some examples of this, A group of leather wearers and below and my favorite one was a Paladin tank, Warlock and 3 Shadow Priest.
5. Zerg rushing, cause no one likes a turtle. (If I where to translate this to everyday speak don’t procrastinate or do not put off what you can do later when it could be done now.)
4. Some times you have to kill yourself to get a good vantage point in a deathmatch. (Quake rocket launcher hopping or pogo)
3. Shazzbot!!
2. The Cake is a Lie!!!
1. “WASD” is how you play the game! (Or a good keyboard and mouse)

For those reading I hope you get most of these.

Edit: Thought of 2 more when I hit "publish post".

Just one of those Days

2007-12-06T08:18:00.000-05:00

I know this will seem kind of out of sequence, considering I just posted a couple days ago about being in a heroic. With that, I did my vacation got back was still writing on my idea’s. When I was gaming it was with Crysis, so my WoW time was really at a minimal of checking the AH and the Mail. Crysis is done, didn’t prefer the Halo 2 ending though. I came back to WoW and started playing more in depth this time; I went straight to BG with Mezane to just work on some DPS type armor. I like the idea, of being able to get the S1 stuff this way, since S3 is out. It allows for new players who want to start doing Arena not to be constantly pummeled after the gates open or in my case work on an off-set type of armor. But I digress on this and others have gone into great detail about this subject. It’s a long read, but full of good views at http://altitis.blogspot.com/2007/12/s3-and-welfare-epics-dead-horse-redux.html
After playing for about an hour or so that I may get back into the swing of using my left hand to do damage. A new recruit decided to start a KZ raid. Since I haven’t done any raids since 2.3 came out I thought I would jump at the chance. All was well when we entered but for me. I was the weakest link, yea it’s tough to admit it. But once you do you can learn from it and become better, well as long as you don’t constantly repeat the mistake. I am just going to run down the list of “opps” moments.
First were the horses before Attunemen, the first few pulls where nice. But as we progressed on before the rest of the group was ready I was standing too close for the next pull and I would body pull. So no good aggro was built up for me, then everyone use to a pally pull just went to town and I was running around trying to get aggro back. This happened a few times. On the Attunemen fight, we had 9 and the 10th person was in the middle of being rezed and here I do another newb mistake. I made the wrong click on Midnight thus starting combat everyone quickly adjusted to my opps. Since we where doing this with 3 healers and 1 DPS was already down, it was a long fight.
Onto Moroes, well since I still need to figure a better way to do the pulls going into the banquet hall. I let the OT do the pulls, I watched and thought how I can throw the shield or just body pull the mob I wanted. Well once the tougher pulls where done up in the banquet hall. I did the rest and could not get the pull I wanted; usually I got a waiter and the AOE pack. During the Moroes fight, I did the first pull and we wiped. Dunno if anyone was paying attention or something, no shackles where done, and the OT didn’t grab the OT mob. Again I’ll take credit for this wipe though I had no leadership so couldn’t check for readiness. 2nd time I didn’t have enough aggro for Moroes, so I became OT for him, but wasn’t front loading enough to get the aggro I needed to stay under the other tank, so as soon as he got stunned another wipe ensued. Though we got him on the 3rd try and I got a upgrade.
Maiden, well by this point the OT was getting frustrated with my spotty performance. So I got demoted to OT. All was well till the Maiden fight. Since we didn’t have but 2 pallys he did healing duties on the MT and I was left to Dispell the rest of the group.I have been too reliant on Descursive for these type of fights. I didn’t have Cleanse anywhere on my hotbar, toolbar, or anywhere that it could be clicked. I didn’t catch all the Holy Fire’s and we wiped about 2 times before I realized that Descursive wasn’t showing the status of the entire group I was in. So I went back to ye-old-look-at-the-screen-and-watch-for-the-animation-spell.
This experience showed me that if you take a break. Make sure you are fully in the swing of playing before raiding. Also keep all UI’s that are used constantly up to date. Guess I need to get wowace, so it updates for me and I don’t have to rely on my brain to remember to get important UI’s. Though the guildies I did this with said it wasn’t too bad. I still felt that I could have done better as a player.

A Better Tankadin

2007-12-05T07:06:00.001-05:00

After doing a few Heroics I started thinking of the idea why Paladins have a pull that jumps to 3 mobs. Most other tanks usually have a pull that just does one. Being a Tankadin your hallmark is big aggro quick. Once you throw your shield you know you have good aggro built up on three mobs. Two if it hits an unlucky cockroach or rat. This single pull idea seemed more relevant in Karazahn. That or I just need to re-evaluate how my pulls need to be. Anyways here is an idea.
Make Hammer of Justice not be usefully just when the mob is low on health. But wait you might ask, what about the skill to reduce the timer and making it to powerful for PvP? I can see a paladin doing what a caster would do to melee; keep throwing hammers till the opponent reaches striking range. It seems like this is the hardest part of balancing out the paladin for PvP. One fix would be good for PvE, but would make a paladin do more DPS earlier on in PvP. That or it might be very insignificant in PvP combat. I have friends that do Battle Grounds and Arena and say they use it when the can. For something that can seem minor I imagine there is more that goes into these spells and making sure no matter how you spec players are on some what equal ground. Where the cool down reduction points are in the protection tree it makes it easy for hybrid spec to get at.
My next thought is on the ability to stun or interrupt an attack more often. With the current system you can stun every 2 mins or so. I think something like a shield bash would be nice, something that would make it where a mob couldn’t cast for 5 sec. I only suggest this cause of those bosses or mobs that need interrupts to kill more fluidly. Again make this spell farther down in the protection tree or something.
Last on my list of things to make a better Tankadin is something where you can use HS though being silenced. I was thinking of good way to implement this. But I can’t think of anything that would make sense for a Pally to use. The way I think of a pally is a character that cast spells to their weapon for combat. Spells in their own sense can be silenced. Maybe some sort of mental connection to certain spells that allow them to be cast when silenced.
With all this said and done I know that blizzard doesn’t want to make all the classes play style the same. Cause if Paladins had the same things that a Warrior has, then why not just roll a Warrior and not worry about the mana problems. Even good Warriors have problems on raid bosses, they got to remember to up their shield block enough to not get crushing blows and still generate aggro. It’s all about adapting and to overcome. Blizzard I am sure doesn’t want to make the fight where all you have to do is sit there and push 3 buttons after their cool downs. Though there are some fights that are like that.

Back in the Fray

2007-11-29T08:51:00.000-05:00

Ahh back with the fast interwebs again.

Did some house keeping on here, added a bunch of links to other Wow bloggers and fixed my mount macro. Fixing the macro didn't take that long. Instead of having the last Aura I wanted to cast come after the dismount command I made it part of the /castsequence. I am sure there are some older programmers out there who would have looked at what I did and say why I didn’t write it this way to begin with. What I mean is I kept the text to a minimum and used less of the lines provided.

Since I was on vacation my WoW time has been minimal. I sure playing on a 900 ping rate is doable and others are use to it. I am not use to it at all. Since I got back I haven't logged in, I know blasphemy. Recently several games I have been waiting for have come out and I have since started playing them. Crysis being one and I’ll probably start playing Assassins Creed and Need for Speed Pro Sport around January. I sure hope blizzard doesn't release Starcraft II and The Wrath of the Lich King close together. I am sure they won't, too much of a good thing at once. Since there really is no word out that sets a concrete street date. I am sure that when WotLC comes out it will be like when BC came out. So till then raiding, questing and grinding will continue.

On Pause

2007-11-19T14:31:00.000-05:00

I am on vacation getting the turkey and such with family. The mount macro I have is getting looked at so when I sit down and figure it out I'll fix the commands I have already typed out. Patch 2.3 came out and I started writing about the observations I had, but by the time I get it up the patch will have been written about by many already out there. Other than these few thoughts I'll be into writing more later.

Brewing Thoughts

2007-11-13T09:01:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday the guild decided to raid Magtheridon. We are currently stuck getting the transition at 30%. It was a rough day, we could not get past the 2nd round of clicks. The first couple of times I thought to myself “alright getting out the cob-webs”. By the third or so wipe I decided to make it a drinking game. Every time we wiped take a shot, with Vodka being the choice of drink. It has been a while since I have done any drinking type game. So I decided to get other players involved. After the next few wipes I typed *takes a shot of vodka*, which soon caught on and got guildies involved. Needless to say we continued to wipe and I was sloshed by the end. No we never got past the 2nd set of clicks. Also I wasn’t a clicker, and I know for sure I didn’t cause any of these wipes.
Playing drunk at the keyboard is no problem for me. I think my skills become greater. Back in the days when I lived in a dorm and my friends and I would set up Lan parties and played death matches. I would swear the action got slower making the fraggin easier. Those who where not as drunk as I would watch the action unfold and would say it seemed like our twitch movement fighting and fraggin just seemed impossible. I would say the more interesting fights came from playing Tekken 3, Dead or Alive or Guilty Gear X. In the two 3D fighters just listed Grab->throw->counter moves happened a lot, too much in any normal battle. In Guilty Gear X, combos would never reach 3 hits or attacks would be at the same time. All the good old days, but I digress. You can think to yourself nah, just grand stories that have grown from drunken banter.
Back to drunk and at the keyboard playing WoW. I decided to duel other’s to see if I got any better at PvP. Well the answer to that is no. Guess I have gotten so use to PvE that any skillz I thought I had where just shot. Maybe I should be sober and do more battlegrounds to get better.

Sterotyping II (Not your typical role)

2007-11-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

As you can tell from the Armory pretty much all the toons I play don’t fill their typical roles. Eerc is my DPS, Mezane is a Tankadin trying to reach a main tank status. Tamuz (not listed) is a druid in works who is going to be my healer. I Guess that I don’t like to play what is expected. I am sure everyone has a top pick for whom should do what.

This idea has been stated before on blessingofkings.blogspot.com and maybe a couple others though some healers don’t think to do this. Though I think that players with more gaming experience will start this but I think once the patch comes out where +heal will convert some to +spell damage. Well those bored Paladins, Priest, Druids, and Shamans can damage the mob more between heals. I know it happens to some degree, the keyword was “more”. But maybe not as much as the tank on the damage meter. They can basically do what a shadow priest does essentially but with less damage and more heal and no mana regen.

My thouhgs on Mages, Hunters, Rogues and Warlocks is there is no denying they are DPS. Do they have a non-typical role? I think to some minor degree yes. Their main lables are CC and damage. Though some are better for CC than others. Usually players and depending on the dungeon prefer a certain classes when it comes to CC. How about mages as tanks? Yes again, in the High King fight in Gruuls Layer. Warlocks when fighting demons have awesome CC. Though when they spec for PvP these classes get more choices. Either through hybrid or even the 40 point tree, both are very effective.

When looking for a tank players prefer to have warriors. This to me seems like a major stereotype. Players are use to the Warrior as the tank cause all they have to do is watch for a couple sunders then they can attack. Paladins can tank, but due to having the lesser amount of health than a Warrior or Druid they don't seem to get in many groups. Evey pug I have done is always worried, the wispers I get are mainly "you don't have enough health to tank" or "your armor isn't high enough". Maybe this is just a problem the Horde has now since the paladin is relatively new to them. Not too many Horde members have seen a Tankadin. But what some seem to fail to realize is that with a Tankadin, you don’t have to rely so much on CC. Currently when you are in a group looking for a Tank people ask Warriors first, then Druids, and last Paladins. One day this might change.

The always hard to find healer. I think it must be really hard for MMO companies to get players to make healers. They are always needed, but seem to be lacking. I think the sequnce when looking fora healer usally goes as follows. First Paladin (not too many Ret or Prot’s seems like), Priest, Druid, and then Shaman. To get away from the wack-a-mole syndrome some player will initiate themselves in combat. Though from what I have seen, you don't need a 40 point tree healer for them to be effective. Which allows them to DPS a bit for leveling. Though it seems like there are more variants for healers, not to many take up the role.

Stereotyping Characters

2007-11-06T10:27:00.000-05:00

I had an interesting conversation with another gamer a while back. They played WoW then moved onto Lord of the Rings Online. Sharing a mutual interest I told him the classes I play and he kind of scoffed at the idea of a Shadow Priest. I thought that was kind of odd, but that is the way he feels that character should be played. His response was something along the lines of “priest (cleric’s) aren’t a utility class, they are healers”. I kind of shrugged then changed topics.

Eerc my Shadow Priest is my 2nd toon that I got to 60 after my hunter. I have played this toon the most. After playing feverishly I reached 60 right before Burning Crusade came out. So I only got to sit at 60 for about one month in which I got a taste of the old End Game content like MC, AQ20 and ZG. I kept him shadow spec after seeing some cool videos of Shadow Priest used in raids (there was a good one that showed the Attunmen fight in Kara, seeing 250 healing a tick while Mind Flay was being cast *drool*). Though I had spell gear and healing gear I was utilized as a healer in any group with no problems. Burning Crusade released, Hellfire Peninsula was a bustle of activity. Constant spamming of “can you heal for us” I would reply “sure” thinking that all was good and I could heal these new dungeons like I could the old ones. Wipe after wipe I learned that just because I am a shadow spec priest doesn’t mean I can easily heal 5 mans. Now I am much savvier in my skills as a player. Doing a dungeon crawl now I would now ask for a Healer instead of a certain class. What makes one class better at healing than another? If you know how to heal and are good at it why worry? I think the run from 60-70 with everyone else on Icecrown taught me so much about how to play a MMORPG effectively.

Now with this new found knowledge that there are really there are 4 types out there Tank, DPS, Healer and Hybrids. I think which ever you choose to be, you should be on par or close to the others that can do the same thing with specialties asside. I think this is where Blizzard kind of wants to take their game. A thought I once had was PvE is your where spend 40 points in the tree of your choice. Hybrid specs are more for PvP for the versatility of which 2 trees. My last thought on hybrids is that if they are well geared in an area of one of their trees maybe except for tanking. They are viable choice for Healing or DPS in 5 mans. After playing a healer then defaulting into a DPS class due to spec, I wanted to try something new, I re-rolled Mezane, my Blood Elf Paladin. The idea of being able to grab 4-6 or even 8 mobs at a time and killing them all at once seemed like a cool idea. Now here she is 70 and from reading around it seems that Tankadins are nothing more than the 5-man kings. Sure you can do Karazhan and if you have a guild that trust you then Gruul or even Magtheridon. I wish to prove these nay-sayers wrong but till certain things are “fixed” it might be a while. All the while playing these characters every time I am asked to join a group usually the first thing I am asked is can I heal. I am not saying it is wrong to ask if I can heal, but it does get stereotypical.

An idea I had to alleviate getting asked to do something I might not want to do or spec to do. Label yourself as a certain type of player with a title to your name. I know it already exist, if you do a lot of PvP or Arena you get a title to show how good you are. But there is not so much for the PvE gamer. So added to the different titles you can choose for yourself you got your PvP titles, Faction Titles, and Dungeon Titles. Let’s say I do a lot of dungeon runs and would like to associate myself to do that. Since I am a tank I could choose a title like Defender, Protector, or Vanguard (Or something more WoW sounding). Now when that Pug needs someone they can check their title then ask more appropriately hey can you _________ for us.

Mount Macro

2007-11-04T16:37:00.001-05:00

Edit: Fixed Marco for 2.3

After doing a few pugs with healadins and ret-pallys. I got tired of seeing Crusader Aura always active from someone. I do understand we (yes I call myself a paladin) sometimes forget to change the aura we have on from traveling. So I searched to web for what others have done. Alas, looking over many websites published I didn't see many that included using the Paladins aura. So here is what I use.

/castsequence Crusader Aura, Summon Charger, Retribution Aura
/dismount

Notes: You can change "Summon Charger" to a flying mount also, just type in the name of the mount you want. An example would be Blue Windrider, if you have problems, mouse over the mount you want. The name you want is how it is spelled out exactly on the mount. The way this macro works is you have to click the icon you make for this 3 times. The first time will Change your aura to Crusader Aura, then will summon a mount, and the last click will perform the dismount and change to the aura you tell the macro to change to. In this example it will go to Retribution Aura.

New Patches

2007-11-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

I played a little bit yesterday killing time till I had to go a birthing class with my wife. After clicking the icon for WoW, then seeing the familiar start up page I saw the progression bar appear for a patch to be downloaded. After seeing this so many times before hand I looked at what was to be downloaded. “Patch 2.3, huh” I mused to myself. Next i started to dissect the reason why the 222Mb patch was being downloaded now. This is not the first time a patch has been pushed out way before it is released.

Obviously the first idea is so that everyone would have the information when Blizzard decides to active the patch. 222Mb isn’t small (I am sure I’ll laugh at this size download in the future) and you get the info from multiple servers. If you ever use Bit Torrent, then the idea is not new to you. As you download the file, small chunks of the file are easy to transfer and don’t hog too much bandwidth on sending and receiving. I am not sure if once you receive the file you will become a seeder (someone who has the file and helps share it). So while you are playing WoW there is some access to the folder which it downloaded to and you help upload the file. That is pure speculation; I have no proof or read anything about it.

Now you have the file. This is where I have questions and some thoughts on them. Technically you now have most if not all the info for the patch. When does Blizz send an active command? The one argument I have heard is so they can refine the patch or that it is not ready. If this was the case why did they just push me 222Mb of info to my computer? If it is an open ended file I can understand, but usually it isn’t. Another random thought is Blizz can possibly push info for the next expansion out this way too. They could contain stepping stone information. I do know this happens because before Burning Crusade came out a friend of mine made a private server which we explored and saw some behind the scene stuff. Usually the day a patch is activated I get the download screen, it moves at speeds that resemble what I hope a Fiber download would look like. Knowing where I live and my connection, 222Mb does not download in the 2.5secs. Then the file starts its routine of installing. Then I begin to read stuff that has been out there for months before hand. Making sure I didn’t miss something I read the info for the classes I play.

My final thoughts on this are it’s like a carrot they hang in front of you. Patch notes are released on the web you might drool or you might throw your keyboard across the room because your class will get hit with the nerf bat. That makes you play more to possibly compensate for changes. Then you see the blizzard downloader for the next patch (uhh-ohh or hurrah), it’s that much closer. You play more and talk about the upcoming changes. Anxiety might build till the patch comes out then it does and the process starts all over.

The Reason I Blog

2007-11-02T08:48:00.000-04:00

I figured out something in my sub-conscious. Usally at work I would talk with my coworkers about the video games we played. Though I played on a diffrent server than those I worked with most of the talk was about WoW. During the down times or while I was turning a wrench, the person next to me was always a gamer. We would swap stories, give strategies that we have read or figured out on our own, and brag about the phat lewt we got.

Since I got a new job and sit in an office with 2 other people. They are older than me and I can’t really classify them as gamers. We share some common interest mainly cars. I can’t converse with them what I did last night in WoW or any other game I happen to be playing. So blogging is filling that need.

My Experience

2007-11-01T17:49:00.000-04:00

Ehh, two post in the same day? I had to put more info about me out there. My experience’s with MMO’s was some what limited. The first one I ever played was Tribes. Though some might disagree, it was a place for quite a large number for the time to get together and frag each other. I next moved onto Asherons Call 2. With notta clue how properly build a character I just put points where I thought they should go. The only terms I know how to describe the type of player I was is a Hunter without the pet or a Ranger. I had a bow and duel wielded, in simpler terms a DPS class. I quickly dropped that game for Planet Side, which I thought was really fun. I forget the stats for how many players a continent could hold, but I remember playing a few times where it was like 100 vs. 100 vs. 100. Then I dropped that to play a bit of Star Wars Galaxies, as I was with Asherons Call 2 I did not have any direction. I just started picking up professions and tried earning currency. Then they revamp the game play (a.k.a made Jedi something you picked, not earned), which made me quit. This brings me to where I am now with WoW.

Now here I am playing WoW. I started about 3 months since it came out. It is an easy system, though I still managed to muck up the first character I played. I was trying to make a toon like I would a character in a console RPG. I first made an Orc Warlock, got into a guild on Manoroth (PvP) well more like was told to join this guild. I laugh at myself when I go and look at this character and how unknowledgeable I was at the game. It was really bad, I had no clue about the stats or how to play the character well.

I left Manaroth since a friend of mine decided to quit while I was still addicted. So I switched servers to play with the people I worked with, about 6 of them played and other people around where I worked played as well. Starting over on the Laughing Skull Sever (PvP) I rolled a hunter. Instantly accepted to their guild, it wasn’t too bad everyone seemed willing to help out. I progressed to 60 slowly. Not that it was a bad thing but as I learned about end game stuff. It proved to be difficult for me because I never had a character in any MMO that was end game level. So I was lost for what to do at 60 and not knowing how to progress. All I heard about was Molten Core and Onxiya. Getting attuned proved to be difficult. Members in the guild seemed not help others to get to MC or beyond. So I was just a name in greenspam. The real life people I knew barely played or when they where playing were just interested in progressing themselves, moved time zones and didn't play at the same time I played or just quit playing. I vowed to myself I would help those who needed or wanted to progress. Getting tired of the cold shoulder from that guild and basically having done quest I could solo I thought I would quit WoW.

About this time my High School friend was marrying my sister. Gamer himself and was showing interest in playing WoW along with other friends I knew in High School. I yet again switched servers thinking it would be for the best and I would be around players my level. Since I have made that move, it is where I have stayed for about 2 years now. The guild I am in now calls themselves Peons No More on Icecrown (PvE). Not a bad guild I would classify it as a friends and family guild with easy going raiding (3 times a week). With Karazhan clear, Gruul Clear, and working on Mag’s and SSC. We aren’t at the very top of the server as far as content is conerned, but we are not at the bottom. They let you play the spec that you prefer, but still could use more healers.

About the Gamer

2007-11-01T17:20:00.000-04:00

Hello World,

I am a casual yet avid gamer (oxymoronic? Maybe), most of my game time is spent in World of Warcraft (WoW). Let me describe why I think of myself as a “casual yet avid gamer”. The way I look at it, there are those who come from work grab a beer from the fridge, sit down and watch TV. I fill what some would call their “TV time” with gaming time instead. There are no commercials, interesting storylines and stimulates complex thinking. Some games other than WoW I have played are Bioshock, Heavenly Sword (which I played for the storyline and thought was interesting), and The Orange Box for PC. All the games that are bundled with The Orange Box I played Portal and beaten with most of the achievements unlocked. Half Life 2: Episode 2 was nice, but I still want to know more about the mysterious G-Man. On a side note to Portal I found it interesting how it took place at Black Mesa’s rival company Appeture . I think there might be a connection that might be shown in the 3^rd episode between the Portal game and HL:2. Next on my hit list will be Crysis.

Now for the direction I think I’ll take for my blogs. I would like to better myself at communicating, so the harsh dose of reality from other readers critiquing my writing and spelling should make me better. After lurking for a while on blogs such as http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/ and http://bloodpaladin.blogspot.com/ as well as http://bubble-hearth.blogspot.com/ . I too play a Paladin; I am a late adopter to the class. After playing Eerc, my level 70 Shadow Priest the longest. He is my main, but I find myself loggin into my BE Paladin more. These blogs have inspired me to write down my thoughts. I think my blogs are going to be more about playing WoW as well as the other game I might be playing when I am not playing WoW. If you have read to here I am glad to have entertained you for the last minute or so. Drop by again and read more.

Advent Gamer

A newer direction, I am Advent-Gamer after all.

My poor blog, *picks up and dust off*

Cornita's Really?

Happy Birthday Advent-Gamer

Raiding Achievements

All too familiar

Dual Boxing

A Warm-up

Beta WotLK

Sayonara, Adieu, Adios, and Farewell

Death Knight Races

Mana! Mana!

More Milestones

Paladin Progression

Full Steam Ahead

Ahh the Anvil is Done

A Day of New Stuff

Patch 2.4

Between Guilds

Stories from Karazhan

Back in the Fray

Missing Out

Musings on the Death Knight

1000 Page Loads

Different Guild

Lore – Background Info

Winter Veil

Lore - My Start

Palladin Spell Sequnce

13 Lessons I have learned in WoW and other Games

Just one of those Days

A Better Tankadin

Back in the Fray

On Pause

Brewing Thoughts

Sterotyping II (Not your typical role)

Stereotyping Characters

Mount Macro

New Patches

The Reason I Blog

My Experience

About the Gamer

My poor blog, picks up and dust off