Monday, July 27, 2009

The Joy of Jousting



We're almost through the first gauntlet of jousting here at the Argent Tournament. It was a shaky start, but that's been addressed and since then we've been undefeated. How is this possible? People have been mentioning the tip in various posts, but what we've been doing is this:

1) Challenge Opponent (after putting 3 shields up).
2) As he walks to the center of the ring, spam 2 and immediately close into melee range.
3) Spam 1, changing to 2 as the opponent walks away and immediately close to melee.
4) Weave in 4 to keep shields up.

Basically, do not charge and stay close so the enemy can't charge either. Keep shields up, spam shield-breaker as the enemy turns away. It sounds more complicated than it is, and while it does take a little longer than regular jousting, it pays off for two reasons - one, it's safer, and two, it works even for those who are latency-challenged.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Achievements Suck

After going over the Achievement system in WoW, my conclusion is that they're not really all that useful. However, I feel that Foamy the Squirrel says it much better than I ever could.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

World of Warcraft Movie Just Got Awesome



According to several internet articles, (this being one of them), Sam Raimi - of Spider-Man and Evil Dead fame - will be directing the live-action version of Warcraft. WoW-Nerds have been chomping at the bit for this movie for ages. There's no word on a script, but with Raimi being firmly attached to this movie, it's only a matter of time before this thing gets off the ground in a big way.

The big question is - will this movie be more Lord of the Rings? Or will it end up simply being another Dungeons and Dragons? Personally I can't see this movie doing well. The backstory isn't as interesting or original enough to appeal to the general public, and if you want a movie to do well, that's who you market it for - the General Public. NOT WoW fans.

How can this movie be saved? Thrall and Hellscream need help. They need the Rokk. And who could possible handle the daunting task of playing the sexiest Tauren this side of Awesomeville?



Groovy.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Argent Tournament

Imagine our surprise when a letter arrived in the mail.



Really? Argent Tournament? Kinda thought that was a bit of a low level to start this particular questline, but what the Hell. This was one great big hunk of Tauren that wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, regardless of level.



After flying to the scene, there were only a couple of daily quests available. One requesting fetching wood, and another asking for stone. Repairs, building and such. (Apparently these quests will no longer be available after patch 3.2 as the Colosseum will be complete.) After that, we were invited to enroll in the tournament itself. Huzzah!



We were then trained on the finer points of jousting on the back of a bird. For now, the quests are for mugging training dummies. After we gather up 15 Aspirant's Seals, we'll really start throwing down - Rambo Style!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Fly Like An Eagle



Wishes do come true! Hello Mr. Pinchy!

That gem was soon followed by a Ding 77!

Good stuff. I spent the 1k gold to get the Cold Weather Flying. It's slow going, but at least I can take to the air. Fingers crossed, I'll get my epic flying in short order.

I also noticed that patch data is starting to download. Will 3.2 drop next Tuesday? Probably not. But I would guess we'll see it before Blizzcon.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Cleaning Out The Basin



Ding 76!

Do not pass Go, go directly to Sholazar Basin.

I dropped all my quest and went straight to the Basin. A few reasons for this:

- Quest hubs are easy to find, and since the zone is so small they're easy to burn through.

- Mining nodes are easy to find, and easy to farm. Money money money!

- Proto-Drake faction farming. Maybe getting the the Drake on Rokk won't be as much of a waste as it was for my Hunter. You know you have burnout on a class when you get a rare mount drop and you still don't care enough to play the character.

To celebrate, Rokk made his second Mr. Pinchy wish -



Stupid bloody lobster.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Wrought

I don't know if this has been posted anywhere yet, but if it hasn't WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!



There's plenty of good messages here, people -

1) Cross Faction transfer can be a good thing, especially if you're held prisoner by your own faction.

2) Cute chicks are nothing but trouble.

When Wishes Come True



I'm not sure how it happened, but Rokk somehow almost made it to 76 in one day. Granted, that wasn't fully devoted to leveling at the time. There was plenty of RL stuff involved - family time ( + rep there), gym time (cause not all gamers are fatties, fatty), and chores (those gutters won't clean themselves). Then there was some auction house goodness (damn you Epic Flying) on top of it. Yet somehow, Rokk stands a few bubbles away from 76.

That wasn't easy. Once midnight rolled around, I was just throwing myself at quests to finish them. Didn't read them, didn't care. Just grind, quest, finish, rinse, repeat. I did consider taking my mind off things with some fishing, and ended up landing Mr. Pinchy on my third cast. With a Fishing skill around 240, that was crazy luck.

Naturally that luck didn't hold out when I made my first wish.



Hey, you're not a cute pet! Why are you not a cute pet?! Why are you attacking me, stupid combat non-pet!?

After running headfirst into the game for seven hours straight, I felt like I should write something despite having what feels like some degree of brain damage. Yet here I am, blogging with the words and pictures - screenshots no less! That's dedication, kids. In fact, I was so impressed with this post that I sent a copy to my good friend Lindsay Lohan. I bet she was thrilled to read it!

Monday, July 6, 2009

The Sky is Falling... On My Head


Somehow, amidst all the hoopla of rebuilding shelves in the basement and hauling giant sheets of wood up and down stairs more times than I care to admit, we dinged 75.

To celebrate this festive milestone, I decided it was time to go to Sholazar Basin and knock the bottom out of the Mining profession. This had a twofold purpose: One, epic flying is just around the corner, and the greatest Death Knight this side of a server crash doesn't have the muffins to pay for it. Mining will help to do that.

Okay, there's not much of another reason. Rokk needs moolah. Mining makes moolah, either by itself or through Blacksmithing. Hooray.

Did you know the southern part of the Basin is filled with neutral animals? Yeah, so did I. That's why I went there. I did a number of laps, scraping the bottom of the Basin (see what I did there?) and picked up a few stacks of Saronite Ore.

This is more difficult than you might imagine.

I have bitched about this before, but when I get my WoW on during the week, I'm doing it away from the Fortress of Rokk-itude. I'm forced to play on an internet connection that bounces off a satellite dish. That's right, I use the Internets from Outer Space.

Consequently my latency tends to jump up into the 6k range, with a Framerate of 1. Not 1 frame per second, one frame. Had I the power to grab the Internet, I would have thrown it out the window. But since it was beaming in THROUGH the window from the SKY (disliking the sky now), I'd just be sending it home while I lay on the floor in the fetal position with fudge in my shorts and foam in my mouth.

I know what you're asking. "Rokk! How could things possibly get any better!?"

The fun came in the form of every Billy badass from the Alliance side deciding to kick me in the left testicle. Why only the left? I'd blown the other one watching Rokk stutter along at Warp Factor Geriatric for almost an hour.

Oh sure, it was different people. Different guilds. But like clockwork, an ore would pop up on my mini-map and just as I rode up to it, a Human or Nelf or Space Goat would swoop out of the SKY (see a trend?) and snatch the ore from betwix my fingers. Even in the screenshot for this post, you can see a damn helicopter flying away because I won an ore race by having the thing pop under my feet during one of the freeze frames.

Somehow, through a zen-like patience built through a technique of deep breathing (beer, not air), Rokk not only capped his Mining but he managed to round up enough ore to get to his next level of recipes in Blacksmithing.

Where do I go to get the new recipes?

Dalaran.

I Hate The Sky.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Whose Side Are You On?


A Blue post came down the tubes a few days ago from Nethaera, and in it he/she discussed their upcoming money-grab service.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/1/18031079410-factionchange-service-in-the-works.html


We wanted to give everyone a very early heads-up that, in response to player requests, we’re developing a new service for World of Warcraft that will allow players to change their faction from Alliance to Horde or Horde to Alliance. There’s still much work to do and many details to iron out, but the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm. Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we’re pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it.

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won’t disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules involved with when and how the service can be used. The number of variables involved increases the complexity of implementing this service, but we plan to take the time needed to ensure that it lives up to expectations before officially rolling it out. We’ll go into much more detail on all of this here at http://www.WorldofWarcraft.com as development progresses. In the meantime, we wanted to let you know that because this type of functionality requires extensive internal testing well in advance of release, you may be seeing bits and pieces of the service in the test builds we use for the public test realms moving forward.

Updated* 7/1- Due to the many questions that have come up with the announcement of this new service, we wanted to take the time to answer the ones we can at this point in time.

Q. Will we be able to switch between the races on our own faction?
A.. No. Players will only be able to switch to a race of the opposite faction.

Q. Will I be able to choose the race on the opposite faction that I want to change to?
A.. Yes, but you will only be able to switch to a race that has your class type available to it. So if you play a human paladin, you’d only be able to change to a blood elf paladin.

Q.How much will it cost?
A.. We do not have further information on this at this point in time.

Q.Will I be able to switch back to my original faction but a different race?
A.. No. You will only be able to switch back to your originally chosen race.

Q.. How will the switch between reputation, gear, mounts, etc be handled?
A.. We’ll have more details for you at a later point in time, though we plan to keep these as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible.

Q.How often can you change your faction?
A..We do not have any information to share on this at this point in time, however we will have restrictions on the frequency by which players can change their faction.

Q. How will this affect the balance of Horde and Alliance on the realms?
A.. We are taking great care in how we implement this new service in order to maintain balance between the factions on the realms but do not have any further details to share.


Didn't Blizzard say this would never happen? Oh wait, it doesn't matter. After all, people went to their cesspool-like forum and cried (or QQ as the kids say these days). What else could they do? Game too hard? Cry and Blizz will nerf it. Think a class is more powerful than your own? It isn't that you're a terrible player. Heavens no! You're a precious little snowflake! Just bitch and complain and Blizz will take care of it.

*urgle*

Sorry, had to choke back a rant there.

Actually, maybe there is a benefit to being a switcher. After all, it's a great way to lose weight!