The Rokk Says... - A World of Warcraft Blog

Game Over

2010-05-03T21:27:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but there's not much going on here.

That's because I'm over on the new site, where there's not much going on. But it's new, so you should check it out: Herc the Merc

Epic Fail

2010-04-20T22:29:00.004-05:00

It would appear that my apathy towards the new items going up in the Blizzard Store led me to drop the ball on a couple of items. First, Lil' XT is the new vanity pet that went on sale, not Lil' KT as I reported. Also, the Celestial Steed has a price tag of $25, not the $20 I said.

No comments to correct me, though. Guess folks were too polite to point out my glaring errors.

Cataclysmic Events? Only For The Overdramatic.

2010-04-19T21:33:00.006-05:00

I'd throw twenty bucks at this just to keep it from haunting my dreams.
It's been a busy week, but to be honest I just haven't been bothered. All week I've been listening to podcasts discussing the various class changes coming in Cataclysm. Some players rejoiced at the changes, others complained that everyone got something good expect their class.

Well that's all well and good, but people tend to forget that these are not etched in stone. That's what the Beta is for. The Dev's will run these changes in-game and see what's going to stay the same, what needs to be tweaked, and what's going to be removed outright.

So before you fall in love with your upcoming talents, just remember this: Blizzard also promised you a Dance Studio. Nuff said.

You can find a list of the Cataclysm changes over at MMO Champion.

Space Ghost approves of this mount.

Yep, Blizzard added two more pets to their Store - Lil' KT and the Celestial Steed. Once again, the player base lost their minds. The Steed, a full-blown mount that scales with your Riding Skill (both on land and in air), was the more expensive pet this time around at $20.

You know, I'm not even going to bother discussing this thing. I've covered this same, idiotic garbage when Blizzard did this the first time. The arguments haven't changed at all, so I see no reason to rehash the same old trollop.

After looking at everything, there's not a whole lot that needs going over. The big stories of the week were either things that may or may not happen in full, or have little impact on the game.

Ideas Make My Thinking Box Hurt

2010-04-12T00:50:00.007-05:00

I have been contemplating various ideas with this blog, given my limited playtime and rather obscure feeling towards it and its players. But it's late, I'm tired, and I have a splitting headache. Perhaps I will take some time to gather my thoughts.

Edit: If you would take a moment to add a comment to this post, I would find it very helpful. It doesn't have to be anything relevant; leave a comment mentioning the weather in your neck of the woods would be fine. Let's just call this a social experiment, shall we?

Starcraft II Perks for WoW Players?

2010-04-10T01:02:00.006-05:00

The word that is making the rounds is that Blizzard will be releasing a Starcraft II Collector's Edition. As is their custom, the CE will have things like Concept Art book, Soundtrack CD, a "Making of" DVD, and a USB Stick that looks like dog tags.

All this for One Hundred Dollars.

Not interested, huh? How's this for a hook - if you happen to be a World of Warcraft subscriber you also get an in-game mini-pet: THOR!

Zounds! The God of Thunder is no man's pet... unless his name happens to be Stan Lee. Make Mine Marvel!

No, not that one. The Starcraft Terran one -

No magic hammer here folks.

And people those the Monk Pet was expensive. Ouch.

Fixing Stupid

2010-04-02T11:54:00.010-05:00

Stupidity knows no bounds.

When a game with a player-base as big as World of Warcraft, it is inevitable that you're going to share time with someone that has "Thinking" as a second or third language. The kind of person who saw no problem with eating paint chips as a child.

Don't stand in the what again?

Then again, you will also meet people who simply don't care about the socially accepted rules of the game. These gems of humanity will do things like ninja-loot gear, gank mobs from you, and otherwise pee all over everyone else's social gaming experience. (Editor's Note: Would they really be considered Ninjas? A Ninja would steal something and you'd never know it was them. Pirates would rob you blind, and do it to your face.)

Also, Pirates can be kinda sexy.

You see these people outside of the game as well. Sometimes you run across a rare specimen that has qualities of both!

Burning Ninjas?

For an example of such a creature, let's put on our safari hat and wade into the thick nerd jungle that was the recent PAX East event. Much as you would expect to find at a gaming industry convention, there are the anxious army of gamers (and probably the funk that goes with it) -

Cosplayers -

Industry panels where players can ask developers and designers questions.

It was at the Enforcement on XBox Live panel that we catch a glimpse at this rare breed of both stupid and arrogant gamer.

At about the forty minute mark of the panel, 20-year-old Justin May approached the mic and asked if his Gamertag could be unbanned. When asked why his tag was banned in the first place, he told the panel that he played Forza 3 "early", and during the minute long discussion it became clear that May obtained his copy of the game "illegally". Mister May should not be expecting to receive his MENSA membership card anytime soon.

Justin May - Criminal Mastermind

Dejected, May did not want to leave PAX East empty-handed. One of the games being showcased at PAX was Atomic Games' upcoming title "Breach", scheduled for a Summer 2010 release. It will be a download-only title for the PC and XBox Live. However, May decided that it would be fun for he and his friends to be able to play the game "early", so he plugged his laptop into their network and started downloading the code for Breach.

"The suspect did admit to us several times, including as he was doing it, that he was stealing the code. He said to myself and several other team members, after being caught, that it was not a big deal, he just really liked the game and wanted to play it with his friends," David Tractenberg, a spokesperson for Atomic, explained.

Perhaps something good can come of this. With someone this witless in custody, one can only hope that Science gets their hands on him. Maybe, with a little luck and a lot more separating into easy to study pieces, May can best serve society as a whole by discovering what makes him tick. With this vital information, one day we might just be able to "fix stupid".

Oh wait, May isn't in custody. He skipped his court date because he was busy playing Modern Warfare 2.

At this rate, May could end up being studied in a way that he'll find most uncomfortable.

At the end of the day, there's more than one way to deal with stupid gamers.

Killing Those Who Admire You

2010-03-30T18:47:00.003-05:00

Markco, you beautiful bastard you.

Faeghleis, a member of the Call To Auction Podcast crew (consider it required listening), is stepping away from the game until Cataclysm. However, since Fae is such a gentleman, he proposed a contest in which competitors would create a level one character, track him down in a cave located in the Dwarven starting area, and open a trade window with him. The first person to do this would receive TWENTY THOUSAND GOLD!

Simple, yes? Of course, there was one catch - Markco!

Now what happens when the shocking arrogance of a guild of Level One Alliance folk take on a humble yet throat-ripping PVP Monster, all in the name of TWENTY THOUSAND GOLD? Peep out the video and watch the fun.

Blizzcon 2010 - Here We Go Again

2010-03-25T20:11:00.004-05:00

The writing was on the wall back in February, and now it has been confirmed - so sayeth the official Blizzcon 2010 Website:

If you've been holding your breath waiting to find out when and where the next BlizzCon would be held, then... you've probably passed out by now. But if you've just been patiently watching for an announcement, then we've got good news for you: BlizzCon will be returning to the Anaheim Convention Center on Friday, October 22 through Saturday, October 23! Just as in years past, BlizzCon 2010 will feature an exciting mix of discussion panels, tournaments, hands-on gameplay, contests, and much more. Check out the announcement press release, and keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com in the months ahead for further details, including ticketing information.

I was stoked about the possibility of attending last year, only to end up being denied. However, as Blizzcon '09 wrapped up, I started preparing to attend Blizzcon 2010.

I am excited. Nerds Unite!

Eyes Wide Open

2010-03-20T00:59:00.004-05:00

Recent events have prompted me to share this story with you. There's a good lesson to be had, and one that many gamers need to be reminded of.

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning.

He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.

He collected $32.

When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

My additional thoughts would only be that so many people do things because they are "fashionable" that they forget to look at things with their own eyes, listen with their own ears, and appreciate anything with their own hearts.

Source: WashingtonPost.com

Be your own person, and take that person for a walk today. Spring is just around the corner. Step away from Raids and Dailies and take a look at the World around you. You could be overlooking something, or someone, very important.

Picking a Peck of Podcasts

2010-03-15T19:16:00.005-05:00

I know I haven't written in awhile. I've been putting in some long hours an the True Grind that I call work. What can I say? I like getting paid.

I've also been a little slack in keeping up with the goings on in the WoW community. I have to deal with poor internet connection when I'm working out of town, and limited internet time when I do manage to squeeze in a few hours at the homestead. Trying to catch up via blogs is quite time-consuming (I like reading many blogs) and I generally try to avoid things like the World of Warcraft official forums because I value my time (and I don't speak "paint-sniffing hamster").

However, one of the perks of my job is that I have long commutes to and from work. Yes, for me that's a perk. No, I'm not well in the head. Moving on. This commute gives me the opportunity to listen to as many podcasts as I can. In fact, I often don't have enough time to listen to them all during my three-plus hours of travel time a day. What I'll end up doing is slapping the iPod buds in my hears while I'm killing time in the evening (shopping, cleaning, etc).

I admit that podcasts might not keep me on the cutting edge of gaming news. I might be a few days to a week behind, depending on when I download them from ITunes, but 99% of that news either doesn't affect me or doesn't concern me to the point where I feel the need to immediately address the issue.

Plus, there's times when I just want to be entertained. Just like WoW itself, with all its theorycrafting and min/maxing, the bottom line is having fun (and not Deeprun Tram fun like that one time with that drunk lady gnome with the sweet, cottn candy hair and full red li-)

*cough*

Allow me to share with you a couple of my preferred listening podcasts:

- The Instance: About a year and a half ago, the evening before I was to go in for LASIK eye surgery, I searched iTunes for a World of Warcraft podcast. LASIK laser eye surgery would allow me to live without my glasses for the first time in decades. It meant I had to make the small sacrifice of spending twenty four hours in darkness to help the eyes recover from the procedure. I knew I wasn't going to be able to read, and playing WoW would be out of the question (twitch twitch). The next best thing would be to listen to people talk about WoW. Hence, my search for a podcast.

During my search, I came across The Instance. I listened to part of one of them, and immediately downloaded about the previous fifteen episodes. The next day, after lasers burned my eyes, I joined the gamer stereotype for one day only and crawled into the basement to get my (audio) WoW on.

About a hundred episodes later, I'm still a fan.

I joined their guild.

I'm still entertained by Scott and Randy. They give me the news, tips, and are a pleasure to listen to. They support the fans that support them with a guild, giveaways, and let's not forget the yearly Nerdtacular event.

- CASTaclysm: A recent addition to my playlist, CASTaclysm is a podcast hosted by Thunderer, Jhaman, and Markco With two arena competitors and a PVE dynamo, CASTaclysm covers a wide variety of topics including making gold via Markco's two copper, so to speak.

Two podcast from my playlist. Put them on yours.

World of Wifecraft

2010-03-07T19:35:00.003-06:00

It's only a matter of time, gentlemen.

On Work, Play, and Submarines

2010-02-28T22:59:00.002-06:00

The vacation is over. And by "vacation", I mean "time not spent at my job".

Since the beginning of January, I've been attending a work-related course at one of the local technical colleges. That meant I was home every night. THAT meant I could get my WoW on with more frequency!

Naturally my wife loved that. She's sweet.

In that time, what did I manage to accomplish?

- Geared my three 80s in various quantities of T9 gear, courtesy of the LFD system.

- Slapped some heirloom items on alts and levelled them up a little.

- Swapped professions on a few characters and powerleveled them up.

- Made and lost (see previous comment) copious amounts of gold.

Not a single character has set foot in a raid. Not yet, probably not ever. Or at least, not in the forseeable future. You see, now that my course is over I must return to the glorious workforce. That means spending most of the week out of town. Back in the fall, I took a laptop with me and in those cold, lonely evenings I would log into World of Warcraft on an Internet connection that felt like the equivalent of strapping the signal on the back of a carrier pigeon.

Seriously. I would get disconnects if I even thought about scanning the Auction House. I would be half through combat before my character started moving. I didn't even think about running the Argent Tournament dailies. It was that bad.

Over the holidays, there was a bit of a computer mishap. As a result, the laptop must now stay in the City while I travel to the Country to work. I am curious to discover how long it takes before I start twitching. Seeing as how I haven't logged on very often over the course of the weekend, I'm not sure I'll miss it very much.

I wouldn't say I've hit the wall. There's still plenty that I can do, and I'm not even on a Raid team. I did try my hand at tanking on my baby Druid. I loaded him up with Heirloom items, read a few blogs so I knew what to do, then queued up as a tank.

As someone who has run LFD's as three separate DPS classes, it's ridiculous how fast tanks get groups. It's also funny to watch baby DPS classes act the total fool. I ran two groups back to back, and in both cases we had wipes because everybody that could do damage, immediately targeted the nearest mob and started unloading on it. They didn't try to pull it, they tried to solo it.

Well and good until they see they've just pulled three mobs each.

By the time I rounded them up, there were usually a few people dead (including myself at times). After that, they had the nerve to ask where the healer was.

Uh, he was doing his job - keeping the tank alive.

Anyway, with that out of the way for the time being, I'm back to the Real Life grind. Maybe during the time away I'll be able to sneak onto a computer somewhere and round up some ideas for blog content. I was going to put something together regarding the Authenticator-protected account getting hacked, but it hasn't generated the widespread chaos I expected. In fact, it's been addressed (at least, as good as it can be).

Until later in the week, here's something for you to chew on - If you thought Bear Tanks with freakin' rockets strapped to their butts was funny, wait until Cataclysm drops and you can go down on... submarines!

Boom De Yada

2010-02-23T17:55:00.001-06:00

Don't ask silly questions. Just watch the video.

Blizzcon 2010: Coming Soon?

2010-02-22T22:59:00.007-06:00

It's getting to be that time again.

Last year, people were questioning if there was going to be another Blizzcon so soon. After all, Blizzcon '09 had just wrapped up and Cataclysm had been announced. The player base was in a tizzy as they left the convention with visions of New Barrens and Grunties dancing in their heads. Would Blizzard have another convention right on the heels of the announcement of WoW's big expansion?

That question appeared to be answered in November when a Las Vegas hotel mistakenly posted that they would be hosting Blizzcon in July of '10. The posting was quickly yanked, but it was enough to get people vibrating. It might have been a mistake, but at least it meant Blizzard had been toying with the idea of another convention.

Fast forward to February. Another posting, this time back in Blizzcon's old stomping grounds of Anaheim. Word of a October 22 Blizzcon emerged, but much like the Las Vegas posting it was quickly taken down. However, the venue still shows that weekend as "open" when every other weekend around it is booked. Seems strange, unless they have something booked and just don't want to tell folks about it.

That, and Jay Mohr tweeted that he was hosting Blizzcon - a tweet that was quickly removed.

I bring this up because it was around this time last year that Blizzcon was announced for 2009. As I said at the beginning of the post, it's getting to be that time again. Will we get a Blizzcon announcement, an official one this time, within the next month or so?

Where the Real Money Is

2010-02-17T22:29:00.003-06:00

Walk with me while I take you on a journey.

First stop is HERE, where we learn that Upper Deck has lost the license to World of Warcraft - Trading Card Game. Blue Poster Zarhym had this to say about it on the World of Warcraft Forums:

As some of you may already be aware, we will not be renewing the World of Warcraft: The Trading Card Game license with Upper Deck. We want to assure you that we are committed to supporting the TCG, and players can look forward to new content and strong organized play support in the near future. We will share additional details about the game’s transition to a new partner as soon as possible. For those awaiting tournament prizes, we will ensure you receive them.

So Blizzard is leaving Upper Deck. Which is funny, because to hear them tell it Upper Deck dropped Blizzard due to poor sales.

The card game seems popular enough. Listen to anyone who talks about it and they seem to know a guy who knows a guy who plays. A few people will come out and tell you that they have personally tried the game but just didn't get into it. Sounds like Upper Deck's poor sales claim might have some footing after all. Locally I've tried to find packages of cards but they're incredibly hard to come by. I've even looked on eBay and found cards online. Since I don't play, I don't know if the value placed on these pieces of colored cardboard is worth it. But the loot cards that come with the game, well that's another kettle of fish.

Now let's stroll over HERE, where Blizzard gives the Make-a-Wish Foundation a 1.1 Million Dollar donation, raised by the sales of the Pandaren Monk pet found in Blizzard's own Pet Store. For two months, half the money from the sales of the Monk went to the charity. Needless to say, alot of people bought that Kung Fu Panda.

See where I'm going with this? No? Okay, let's make one more stop. Here we are at the Blizzard Pet Store itself. Don't mind the smell, Game Developers tend to kick up almost as much funk as gamers at Blizzcon. Now if you look to your right, you'll see the Blizzard Pet Store FAQ. Scroll all the way down to the bottom where the question is asked about people being able to buy weapons and such.

"As with the pets, mounts, and other items players can obtain through Loot cards from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, Pet Store pets are purely cosmetic and just for fun."

Back to my story about eBay. Look up the TCG cards and see how much they sell for. Now look up TCG Loot cards and see what those sell for. You do the math and figure out where the money can be made with the TCG itself.

I suspect that the TCG will go on, and I suspect that it will be Blizzard itself that will release the game. I also suspect that there won't be any loot cards to be found in any of those packets. All loot codes will go on sale in the Pet Store (or Loot Store), and any money lost on the TCG itself will be reimbursed by the Loot sales.

That's right: within the next year, you too might be able to ride off into the sunset with your very own Spectral Tiger Mount... if the price is right.

Secret MMO - Not So Secret?

2010-02-12T22:39:00.005-06:00

Wasn't I just talking about Bobby Kotick? When will I learn to keep my head in the sand, so I avoid digging up more reasons to really dislike this guy?

During the quarterly conference call, The 'Tick dropped some knowledge about a good way to make money using his M.O. of milking people when they like something. He's got a popular franchise, and a good way to generate revenue. Why not put those two together? When asked about Call of Duty, from Kotick's own heart he stabbed at thee -

"If you think about the success we've had in other product categories on subscription, you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise."

Monthly subscription to play Call of Duty? Is there some what they could turn CoD into the new Mystery MMO, ensuring Bobby's river of blood from the player base to his hungry lips? I'm sure there is. They was talk of making the new Mystery MMO more modern, more futuristic. "Call of Duty: Future Warfare" perhaps?

Bobby Kotick Loves You

2010-02-11T21:23:00.006-06:00

Bobby Kotick is a bit of an asshole.

He's also a smart businessman.

Activision's latest love-child, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" sold over $1 billion dollars worth of product worldwide. They also have another profitable franchise in Guitar Hero, which is also a strong earner. After all, you don't really need to reinvent the wheel with Guitar Hero expansions. Just add different tracks, reskin the models, and release it as Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, or Guitar Hero: Money Grab.

In an article written in Ars Technica, the author described what hard lessons were gleaned by the success of Modern Warfare 2. I read it over, felt an unfortunate case of deja vu, and immediately felt the grip of Kotick on my stomach.

Clearly his aim was off. The man generally makes his money by grabbing players by the proverbial testicular region.

The Bottom Line:  You Will Pay

There was a backlash from the PC gaming community when they were told that the PC version of MW2 was going to cost $60. That's the same price the console version sold for. Traditionally, when a PC version of a console game is released it sells for less. Players were expecting a $50 price tag for their PC copy. They lost their minds when they heard it was not only going to cost as much as the console copy, but it wasn't going to have the dedicated server option that most PC multiplayer games allow.

Activision was well aware of the controversy this was going to create, and they weren't concerned. They claimed their new matchmaking service would more than make up for the anger the PC gamers were feeling, and they sang the praises of the IWNet system. Yet for all their talk, they never addressed why they raised the price. Never tried to justify the increase. They could just as easily have kept the price tag at $50 and introduced the new system. It would have taken the sting out of the inability for players to host and mod their game, and eased them into the new system. Try to maintain a little goodwill with the more hardcore players.

Instead the "hardcore players" were slapped in the mouth with a price hike, then kicked them in the groin by stripping away the hosting options. If you were a PC gamer, you were going to pay what they wanted you to pay, play how they wanted you to play, and damn well like it thank you very much. So why the price hike?

Bobby Kotick knew the players would pay. And they did. If the illustrious Robert K had his way, he would have raised the price even further.

World of Warcraft has this stink all over it.

It started off small at first - server transfers (PVE/PVP to PVE), name changes. Minor types of things. Then came full Character Customizations (including OMG SEX CHANGE), complete Server Transfer service (OMG PVE to PVP), Race Change, and Faction Change. Some were services that had been requested for a long time. Others were things that the player base was told would never happen.

Bobby K: Can I make a buck by offering this service?

Developers: Well, yes but we said -

Bobby K: Peon, make it so. Also, find me more ways to liberate these player-type people from their disposable income.

Pet Store, I'm looking at you. Folks paid $10 for vanity pets that did nothing except make noise and annoy other players in their group or raid. Okay, the Pandaran Monk gets a sliver of a pass because he bowed when you bow to him, and more people need to learn that kind of respect. However, they are completely unnecessary, and don't give me that garbage about using them to buy the non-combat pet Achievements or the fact that the Monk was partially for charity. The charity lasted a couple of months, and the price never went down after it was over. And between getting a Pug for running PUGs and a baby Corehound for owning an authenticator, Blizzard is practically throwing these pets at you. You don't need to spend $20 for two more pets.

But people will. They will shell out that money for a lousy ten Achievement Points. At least they get something out of the deal, other than the pet. Other people will fork over the cash because the pets know Kung Fu, or occasionally zap nearby critters. They are cute, and Blizzard knows there are people who will pay for cute.

To accentuate the fact, they're going to be adding cute Plush Pets to the store. These are real, physical items that you can prop up beside your keyboard or monitor so they can watch players diddle their keys or stroke their mouse. The plan is to release a Wind Rider Cub and a Gryphon Hatchling for purchase, with a code attached to each to get a matching in-game pet. You can bet these things are going to cost more than ten bucks.

You can also bet that people are going to pay whatever it costs. Many will complain, but many more will buy them.

However, none of this directly affects game play. The corporate mouthpieces will tell everyone that these paid items are just extras. You don't need to buy them. They are not important, nor will they ever be. Theoretically, they are correct. The player base is far from what could be called "rational thinkers" when it comes to such matters.

Right now, Blizzard is playing by the rules of engagement. If players stopped buying these extras, Blizzard would stop putting them out. It's like cigarettes. They stain your teeth, make you clothes stink, give you the breath of a bus depot ash tray, have no redeeming qualities at all, and will most likely end up killing you straight to death. If people would just stop buying them the cigarette companies would go out of business.

Yet here's the WoW player base, lighting up again and again, all the while complaining about the people who simply make the cancer-sticks available. As if "we wouldn't buy these things if Blizzard would just stop offering them" is somehow a valid excuse.

Here's the punchline: Bobby Kotick doesn't care what you think.

In fact, Bobby doesn't even play videogames.

The man is in it purely to make a buck, and does so quite well. The key is that he knows the weakness of the player base. He knows that you will pay if he dangles the right carrot in front of you. First, it was vanity pets. On the horizon, a premium service IPhone app that will let you access the Auction House from your IPhone. This won't be the last money-grab to come down the pipe, either. You can bet on that, if you have any cash left over.

Are any of these pets/services/novelty items necessary? Absolutely not.

Can you play World of Warcraft without buying them? Of course you can.

But will you?

Or will you squeeze your authenticator between yellow-stained fingers and light up?

The Main Man

2010-02-07T02:09:00.003-06:00

I have a problem.

I'm a Main-a-holic.

I know what you're thinking. Most likely, it's something along the lines of "He's done gone crazy. He must mean he's an Altoholic."

I posed the question to the Twitter-verse: If you two-box characters, would you consider both characters to be your Main? Granted, I didn't get a single reply but it's still a good question.

People have "Mains" and they have "Alts." Alts are the toons that get played when the Main gets a little stale, or when they "just need a break." The mistress they court when they tire of the "ball and chain." The Mains are the characters that get first crack at the good gear, have more /played time, and are the characters that the player associates with as "their own".

It turns out I have three characters like that. All of them enjoy killing - a Hunter, a Death Knight, and an Arms/Fury Warrior. Each of them have different tools, different methods to get the job done. Each of them, special in their own way. I have tried to designate one of them as my central focus, my "Main". Hasn't happened yet.

This is not as cool as you might think.

Playtime is tricky, especially with the LFG Tool in full effect. That's three characters that need to run dungeons to get their Frost Emblems. Three characters who need their T9 gear. Just getting that done can take a couple of hours, depending on the queue time to get into the dungeon.

The wait time is not always in vain. One might run their Tournament Dailies, while another fishes to earn gold and round up mats for stat food. Another might take that earned gold and use it to level up professions.

At any one time, one of the three is working on a profession. What a gold sink. When you have three Mains, you want to make sure they have the best gear they can get their hands on. That means buying epics, or mats to make epics. Those are the kinds of purchases that doesn't leave much leftover change to throw at a profession. Is it really that important to max out a profession? You want the best for your Main, right? When you've got two DSP Plate class, those extra sockets help out for gemming. Every little bit helps.

Only the best for the Mains.

My entire evening can be spent jumping between those three. It takes management skills I really don't want to have to use when I'm playing a video game. Each of them needs their Frost Emblems. Two need to work on making gold for the third, who happens to be burning it up with getting his Blacksmithing off the ground. Oh, but he also has to work on his Argent Tournament dailies to get weapon upgrades. Then again, Tournament dailies are good gold so one of the other ones should be working on that as well. But how many times can you joust before you just want to gouge your eyes out?

I've put serious effort into each of the three. I've put in time, gold, research. I get them what they need. I get them the best things I can, with what I have. They're like my kids.

Now I just want my kids to lock themselves in a room and fight until there's only one survivor. He will be my Main.

Since I cannot find a way to make that happen (damn it), my only other hope is that one of them really needs to get my attention. One of them needs to break away from the other two in some form. Maybe a huge weapon upgrade puts one of them head and shoulders above the rest. Something. Anything.

This is how burnout happens. Right now, I can't let my kids down.

... sounds like I've already reached "full scorched" status between my ears.

Tales from the PuG - You Are Not Your GearScore

2010-01-31T23:55:00.009-06:00

"Do you know what your GearScore is?"

I honestly had no idea, and said as much.

"Yeah, neither did I." Rukgut shrugged his big green shoulders and looked down at his pet Blighthound, a smouldering scamp named Dexter. "Still not too sure, actually. Didn't care before, don't rightly care now."

He plucked a blade of grass and studied it for a moment before wadding it into a ball. He sighed and flicked it away. Dexter's ears perked up and he snapped at it as flew by him. "Apparently that mess of numbers means the World to some folks though."

We shared a bench in the Antonidas Memorial Garden in Dalaran. Despite being only a few yards away from the hustle and bustle of the Horde's Bank of Dalaran, Rukgut sat alone in the garden. It seemed that was how he preferred it, being alone like that. Just a Hunter and his pet. An Orc and his Dog. There was just a hint of a smile visible from beneath his helmet, watching his pet Blighthound sniffing at a white rabbit. The softer side of a sniping killer.

For as long as I've know him, Rukgut has never been quite right in the head, even for an Orc. The fact that he's a Grand Master Engineer says all that needs to be said about the Hunter. Still, despite the fact that he's been in so many Pick Up Groups that he has been awarded the title "the Patient", he proudly wears the title "of Orgrimmar" over his head. He's proud of his people, not the people.

Crazy, but not stupid.

"I'd never been in the Oculus before, but I'd heard the stories. People get scared. Say it's too hard. Turn tail and run before they even give it a chance. I figure, what's the worst that can happen, right?" He nudges Dexter's rune-scarred haunch with the toe of his boot. A smoky mist escapes the Hound's nostrils. "We've never been afraid of anything."

Tweeddledee, a blond Blood Elf Rogue, rides up to us. She's a guildmate of Ruk's, and the Orc rises to greet her. "Gimme a second." He walks over to her, Dexter anxiously following behind his master. The Rogue hands him a few stacks of leather, and a few moments later he hands a thicker stack back to her. The Rogue departs and the big Orc makes his way back to the bench. "Sorry 'bout that. Just helping out a guildie. Where were we?"

GearScore, I remind him.

"Yeah. Bad enough that I'm in the Oculus, but I'm running it with a bunch of strangers. To add to my aggravation, I'd just started training as a Marksman and was still getting the hang of shot rotations and such. Strangers or not, I owed it to these people to bring the pain as best I could."

Actually giving a damn about doing his best for a bunch of strangers. See? Crazy.

"We get the pleasantries out of the way, the tank runs out like a madman to start the fun. I send Dex in to help out, bring my rifle up to my shoulder, and someone in the group asks if I've been eighty for long. That seemed like a strange question to ask. The kind of question someone asks when they think you don't know what you're doing. I hadn't even pulled the trigger yet, so it's not like I'd had a chance to do something wrong. I asked why he was asking."

"Your GearScore is kinda low, so I was just wondering."

"Just wondering." The Orc spits the words out as if they were made of, well, whatever an Orc might find distasteful. Feces-covered balls of Fail, perhaps. "This guy had never met me before, had no idea what Dex and I could do. Instead of waiting for us to prove ourselves, he summed up our total experience and skill by the amount of crap I was wearing."

What did you say?

"Nothing. I wasn't going to argue, get into some kind of dick-waving contest. What was the point? We were there to fight dragons and dragonlings, not flare our egos at each other. I let my rifle do my talking for me."

And did it speak well of you?

"According to another stupid batch of numbers, I had the top DPS in the group." He smiled again. Fangs creeped out from between his lips. "Maybe those numbers aren't all that stupid."

I take it you're not a fan of GearScore.

"Don't really see the point of it. I'm sure it has a purpose. Real important to brainy folks. Raid Leaders, probably. Make sure people can handle the content or something. But the fact that I was wearing three pieces of Windrunner's gear of Conquest, not to mention some Deadly Gladiator gear, all that gets boiled down to a number that someone uses to judge how well I do my job. That's bull. I can kill just as well as anyone. Better, if the mood really strikes me."

Rukgut turns his head and watches Taurens and Orcs, Blood Elves and Trolls, hurrying in and out of the Bank like ants in an ant hill. "It's why I don't have much use for folks, y'know? They have it backwards. Make important stuff seem useless, and the useless stuff important. Appease the Ego, not the Brain. I don't need that kind of clutter in my life."

For an Orc Hunter, he makes alot of sense.

"You are not your GearScore," he tells me. "I wish more people would understand that. Understand that there's more to life than pretty Epic gear. You can't judge folks by what they wear. See what they can do before you look down your nose at them."

I watch Ruk as he reaches into his backpack and pull out a bloody slab of Salted Venison. He tosses the meat to Dexter, who anxiously gobbles up the chunk of seasoned flesh. Some people need to be the top of the Recount charts to be happy. Others need to have a high GearScore.

Folks like Rukgut seems happy just facing a new challenge with good people. Or a burning dog that smells like sulphur, as the case may be.

The Pug is The End

2010-01-24T03:39:00.004-06:00

For the past couple of weeks I've been working on gearing up my Arms Warrior. The mighty Tauren is in line for a server / faction transfer to play with some people I know IRL. I wasn't sure how long I was going to maintain the grind, forsaking my other characters for the Warrior. He's been fun to use, and I've enjoyed running the LFG tool with him. Still, was I going get him a full T9 suit before making the move? Or, how would I know when it was time to let my other characters sink their teeth into the Emblems and mouth-breathers who farm them?

It came as a bit of a surprise. I'd forgotten that he'd already earned his title "the Patient" (he doesn't wear the title - why would he?), but I hadn't been paying attention to how close he was to the next part of the Achievement.

Woah.

After returning from the completed PuG, the mighty Warrior checked his mailbox. Seems the jokesters at the WoW Dev Team decided to celebrate the achievement by taking a small, rodent-like canine and stuffed him in a box.

Looking down at the slobbering, bug-eyed pooch and watching it drag its butt across the snow, it hit me. Time to take a break. Perhaps the Tauren might put in his papers and ship off to Parts Unknown in the near future. His departure will cause some adjustments to be made in those left behind. Being an Inscriptor & Jewelcrafter was nice, but maybe the Inscription will have to be replaced with Blacksmithing. More gold going his way...

... and he'd just picked up Epic Flying, too.

Authentic Security

2010-01-17T20:37:00.004-06:00

About ten days ago I was reading my favourite World of Warcraft tabloid site, WoW.com. One of their bloggers, Adam Holiski, was going apeshit about a leaked Blizzard policy regarding restoring items and characters on accounts that have been hacked. Another one of his articles suggested that Blizzard wanted to make it mandatory to have an authenticator attached to every account, and that it was a "virtually forgone conclusion that it will happen."

Dramatic. No evidence to back most of this up except the word of an unnamed source. But one does what one can to draw viewers to an ad-driven site.

I've read many of the account security arguments, how Blizzard should just give everyone an authenticator for free if they want to make sure accounts are secure. Others say they'll play the game how they want, and Blizzard isn't going to tell them what to do. The paranoids usually trickle in and say it's all a conspiracy, that the whole thing is just a scam from Blizzard to get more people to buy the authenticators.

Jesus. The player base is stupid and lazy, while Blizzard is greedy and uncaring.

I have an authenticator on my account. I have protection for my computer, the cyber condom as it were, that I downloaded for free. It always updates itself, and it has thrown a red flag on a couple of sites that had potentially harmful content.

Not a peep on Two Girls - One Cup though. Lesson learned.

It's obvious what the player needs to do to make sure they keep their account safe. Many don't do it, but it's not because they don't know what to do. Again, lazy. So is there something Blizzard can do to improve account security?

Adding an authenticator to every shipped box of Cataclysm will not cure the problem. It might help the paranoids who think Blizz is just looking for another way to get cash out of them. God knows we want those people happy and, more importantly, playing the game.

You can take an authenticator and place it in every sweaty gamer palm, but that won't get them to go through the procedure of attaching to their account. Yes, it is a stupidly simple procedure to do so. But many of the folks who play this game are easily boggled, and the concept of typing a serial number into a text box sends them around the bend.

What I hope they don't do is to make it mandatory to have authenticators. That way, my account will always be safe. The people who hack accounts spend all their effort designing fake web pages and writing bogus emails. They're not using brute-force hacks, they simply troll the waters and hope they get a bite. When they do, they get the info they need or drop a keylogger on the Darwin-nominee's system and wait for the account info to roll in. So that fifteen character password that's changed all the time, mixed with letters and numbers, that seems virtually impossible to figure out? Well that's getting sent right to the Hacker, who will immediately change it to "sucker" once he slaps HIS authenticator on the hacked account.

With the account-acquisition business booming, there's no need for Hackers to step up their game and try to beat authenticator-protected accounts. They will continue to pick on the easy prey, rather than try to improve their methods. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

There is no valid excuse not to have an authenticator. The cost is the same as a burger and fries at your local fast-food joint. If you don't want to give your money to Blizzard, you may find out that it's easier to protect your pride than it is to protect your account. If you're worried about breaking it or losing it, well you probably aren't reading this anyway because you've lost your keys and are locked out of your house.

Another perk of having an authenticator is being superior to others. I logged on to my guild toon today and watched a guildie's girlfriend post that his account had been hacked. She wrote in CAPS to make sure her point got across. She was promptly Silenced because of the "no caps" guild policy, followed by people pointing out that THEY have authenticators. Don't you want to be one of the cool kids in your guild, who can thumb your nose at people who don't have authenticators? Sure you do.

Bottom line is that there's two ways to make sure your account remains safe. You can either constantly change your password, install malware and virus protection, make sure it is always up to date, ensure you only log onto your account on a computer that you know is equally as protected as your own.

Or get an authenticator.

Hackers aren't putting in much of an effort to hoodwink the player base. You can walk to stay one step ahead of them.

But for those who have trouble putting one foot in front of the other, I thank you. Folks like you will ensure Hackers never have to break into a jog to catch the rest of us.

Remember Kids - If you're being chased by a grizzly, you don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun your slower friend.

WoW - The Porn Killer

2010-01-12T18:17:00.004-06:00

Who would have thought it would be the Night Elf mailbox dancers to take down the Adult Entertainment Industry.

One of the strangest challenges porn faces is competition from online games like World of Warcraft, though the connection may at first seem random. “It is all entertainment that you are getting involved in the same way as porn is entertainment,” said Aiden. “I won’t say everyone, but a lot of people in the industry play videogames. The games are competition for porn. Fans jerk off to porn and are done, but you can keep playing a game.”

Aiden (no last name, this is porn!) should know, as he is also Webmaster for his wife Belladonna’s successful site EnterBelladonna.com. As for his online gaming, his wife wants him to cut back. “Yeah, my wife and I occasionally argue about the amount of time I spend playing.”

Link HERE

The Tale of Tragon

2010-01-02T18:11:00.003-06:00

There's hundreds of stories that come out of PuGs. Some of them are uplifting, showing the better side of humanity that seldom gets representation in the World of Warcraft. More often, the stories reflect the more common, ignorant and self-serving side.

This is the story of Tragon, the Human Warrior.

Tragon happened on the group as it was running Utgard Keep. They'd suffered numerous wipes and, as was often the case, when the going got tough, most left the party. There were two from the original party - a DPS Pally and a BM Hunter. It was a non-heroic group, mostly around the 70 range, except for Tragon who was 69. Clad in greens and a few blues, gemmed as best he could, Tragon asked how far along they were.

"End boss", the Hunter said. "We wiped on Ingvar the Plunderer."

It was the first time tanking the heavy hitter, so the group was somewhat prepared for hiccups with Tragon. There were two or three, which resulted in party wipe after party wipe. Each time meant a long run back to Ingvar. Plenty of time for reflection on what went wrong, and after the second wipe, who was to blame. The Priest took some heat, but Tragon was constantly getting crushed during the encounter. People weren't coming out and saying it, but the feeling was there that maybe, just maybe, this lowbie Warrior wasn't going to be able to pull it off.

The tension finally bubbled over, which lead to a dick move by the druid who pulled Ingvar and then dropped the group. (Why did you do it, Skunktank of Scarlet Crusade? Were you trying to wipe the group? Or bug the encounter? Or does being a jagoff just come naturally to you?)

Even with all the chaos swirling around him, Tragon kept his cool. He never complained about late heals. He never tried deflecting criticism. He never showed that the repeat wipes were getting him down. He was in it for the long haul, despite being the lowest level in the group.

The Priest finally showed doubt when a Warlock joined the group, and said they'd never pull it off because the Warlock was within 1k Health of the tank. I suppose that means FAIL in some languages.

Tragon didn't know that language. He soldiered on, encouraged by the Shaman who was confident they'll score the win the very next pull. With that, Tragon charged forward...

Tragon held firm but died during the Undead Ingvar phase. So did many others. But the group didn't wipe, they held strong, and managed to pull out the win. Achievement for Tragon - Utgard Keep.

I don't know if he got any loot from Ingvar. What I do know is that he never showed doubt in himself. He never offered to drop the group so they could get a better geared tank. HE was the tank, and by God he'd be the one to get the job done. That's the sign of a good meat shield, and that "never give up" attitude is probably why there's such a tank shortage.

After all, the easiest route is to drop and get a better group.

Unless you're Tragon, vanquisher of Ingvar the Plunderer.

Taking a Chance

2009-12-31T11:53:00.003-06:00

Maybe it was a late night thing. Y'know, lack of sleep makes you do silly things sometimes.

Maybe it was curiosity. A "what would happen if?" kind of thing.

In any case, last night I decided to my try my brand new 80 Arms-specced Warrior in the Dungeon Finder. He was mostly geared in blues that Rokk had crafted for him, with a green Axe in his hands. I didn't know if his gear total would be good enough to get him into Heroics, or if his poor weapon would keep his DPS to the point where he would be allowed to stay if he did get in.

Poof, he got the call - Heroic Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom.

The initial few moments were oddly tense for me. Would someone notice the Axe the Warrior was swinging, do a gear check, and vote to kick? I pushed the thought from my mind. I would stay alert, mindful of my surrounds and rotations, and prove that I was a decent player looking to gear up rather than some scrub just along for the ride.

Like most PUGs, the folks were quiet. At the start, two people asked the Mage for an Intel buff. Other than that, not much was said. We trudged along, wiping out pack after pack. I was a little disheartened at my lack of killing prowess - the Mage kept AoE burning everything down. I had Recount running but not up, which I felt was probably a good thing. That Mage had to be right at the top, standing firmly on my poor Warrior's throat in the process.

We dropped the first Boss without much issue. Then, moving along, we picked up an extra pack during trash pulls and somehow the Mage was killed. We fought through, cleaned up all the adds, and I took a second to check my inventory while the Mage was rezzed.

Seconds ticked by. The Mage hasn't released. He was just lying there. Was he AFK?

I was a little surprised when we started to move on. I passed by the Mage's corpse. "That's our AoE DPS guy," I thought as I moved by the prone body. "What's taking so long in getting him back?"

The Paladin pulled the next pack without the Mage. The whole time, party chat remained silent. Why wasn't the Mage asking for a rez? Or even releasing so he could run back to the instance? Why wasn't the group saying anything to the Mage?

That's when the window popped up on my screen: Vote to Kick.

Just as quickly as it came, it disappeared. The Mage left the group.

"He wasn't very good," said the Paladin, finally breaking the silence.

He wasn't very good? He was burning down the packs! He wasn't pulling adds! What had he been doing, or not doing, to be considered "not very good" in the eyes of the party?

A second thought jumped up and slapped me in the face. The first time I die, I'll probably be left hanging and then gkicked. I had to be at the bottom of the DPS charts, so why keep me around when they'd probably have a better chance at getting someone with more punch in their punch.

We advanced, and it finally happened during a fight with some bloated humanoid thing. It released a poisonous gas cloud that I thought I could fight through. I couldn't. I wasn't paying attention to my health. It killed me.

Here it comes, I thought. Here comes the kick...

It wasn't the "Vote to Kick" window that popped up. It was the "Ready for Rez?" window.

Really?

The Priest apologised and made the obligatory "dangerous fart" comment. I said the death was my fault because I tried to light a match. That earned a couple of chuckles.

From that point on, I probably died five times. Two of those were on Boss fights, which were party wipes. There never seemed to be an issue with getting a rez when I solo died. When the party wiped, the Priest actually waited for me to zone in and ran back to the rest of the group with me. Nobody made any comments about the noob DPS Warrior. Nobody flashed a Recount result after a Boss fight. After all was said and done, my Warrior walked out with a new weapon:

I also came out feeling very lucky to have been running with some understanding strangers. This morning, I logged on for a second to check the Recount results. Had I done better than I thought I had? Did I have a stronger showing on the DPS chart, something that warranted the group keeping me around?

Hell no. I was fifth in line, right above the priest. Triple Digit DPS.

Yes, I was that guy.

Sometimes it pays to take a chance.

Too Much of a Good Thing

2009-12-31T03:13:00.004-06:00

After much banging of head against keyboard, my Warrior has dinged 80.

And for the first time, I actually wish he hadn't levelled so fast.

A couple of weeks ago, I was so tired of getting him levelled that I took the plunge and picked up a Levelling Guide. It was good. Very good. For the first time, I was doing quests I hadn't done with either Rokk or Rukgut. That in itself made the acquisition worthwhile. Plus, my boy was eating up the XP. He even had the Heirloom shoulders with the 10% XP bonus.

Then Patch 3.3 rolled out and things went down the tubes.

Dungeon XP has always been good. So you take good XP and combine it with groups that like to blitz though encounters, and you get some quick levelling.

Too quick. Before I knew it, I was outpacing the guide.

On the surface, that might not be a bad thing. After all, he's getting closer to 80, right? Isn't that the point? Does it matter how he gets there?

It does if he bypasses all the phased content.

As luck would have it, he dinged 80 just as he received the quest to unlock the Sons of Hodir. I tossed him some relics to increase his rep with them, and he soon was able to reach Revered. That unlocked what would be an upgrade in the shoulder department. At 650 rep per 10 relics, it was easy.

However, the anvil is not back where it should be to unlock the dailies for it. That means he has to continue to quest, just to unlock more content. Which also means he has to do the questline to unlock Ebon Hold. That means questing without gains (other than cash, I suppose).

What should have been unlocked during natural progression, now has to be unlocked out of necessity. Piss.

The silver lining, though, is that I may try to use the Dungeon Finder to level my baby Druid. No questing, just instances. Curious to see how that little experiment goes.

But for now, Ding 80 x 3!

Economic Darwinism

2009-12-28T10:44:00.006-06:00

It's always someone else's fault.

What is it about admitting you made a mistake that drives people around the bend? Is their ego so fragile that the slightest bruising has them slathering for justice? I don't know when it happened, but there came a point when society decided it was better to be a victim rather than a fool. And so, the idiot wheels continue to turn.

Late for an appointment? They blame the stupid cop who pulled them over for speeding. It had nothing to do with the fact that they waited until the last minute to leave home.

Missed the deadline on that big report for work? They blame the terrible cold they came down with the day before the report was due and couldn't get started. Somehow the part where they had three weeks to get it done manages to be overlooked.

Instead of accepting the fact that they made a mistake and learning from it, they pull their knees to their chest, curl up into a ball, and weep. "It's not my fault," they cry to anyone within earshot. They feel they did nothing wrong. They are simply a victim of circumstance.

Circumstances that they created. Again, a small matter that gets swept under the pity rug.

Now the poor victims are at it again. This time, they're crying the blues about purple.

With the release of Patch 3.3, a new faction was introduced to the game - the Ashen Verdict. This faction is related to the (also new) Icecrown Citadel. To grind this beast, you have to run the instances/raids associated with ICC. Plenty of nifty purple recipes can be purchased from the Ashen Verdict Quartermaster, including the two new ammo types - Shatter Rounds and Iceblade Arrows.

This new ammunition is very good, and very cheap to make. However, the controversy surrounding these ammo types comes from people using the Auction House. It would seem that there are some devious bastards out there. Generally when one posts character-created ammunition to the AH, it is done in stacks of 1000. These monsters are posting these new ammo types in stacks of one hundred, instead of the one thousand, but charging the full one thousand stack price.

I'll give you a minute to catch your breath. Take your time. Better? Let's continue.

The unfortunate victim of this so-called scam doesn't have a chance. They buy their arrows, rush to the mailbox, and are horrified when they find out they've paid too much for what amounts to one-tenth of what they were expecting. And who can blame them for being deceived? It must be the Sellers, who exploit the Auction House UI. Quantity numbers are truncated when they get too large, making it difficult to tell the difference between the two types of stacks. Really, there's no way to tell that the scam is in place.

Unless you pull your head from your sphincter.

Is this a scam? Well, if it is then it's the worst scam ever. All you need to do, if you don't want to be taken in, is read. But that's the problem right there. People don't want to read. They just want to click and click, and go on their merry way. They're lazy, and don't want to make the slightest effort. That's why people put Ice Cold Milk up on the AH for ten gold after buying it from a vendor for one silver, and make an insane profit. People don't want to research. That takes reading. Effort. Minimal, but effort nonetheless.

These evil sellers. They are the problem here, not the mouth-breather who can't take the fraction of a second to read some numbers. Even that isn't so much the issue as it is the buyer who loses their mind over being "conned". They were fooled into buying the short stack. How could they have known? It isn't their fault!

One-zero-dot-dot-dot, One-zero-zero. Who knew that's all it would take to melt brain cells? This is why Gevlon never has a shortage of Moron screenshots on his site.

Oho, but what of karma? Is the Seller going to be hurt in the long run? Will people not trust them anymore for perpetrating such a horrible injustice on the AH public?

Yeah, right. Think about it - if a Buyer can't take the time to tell the difference between a zero and a dot, do you think they're going to pay attention to an entire string of letters that form some character's name?

At the end of the day, the Lazy end up broke and with bruised egos. Sellers who short-stack continue the practice because people continue to fall for it.

Human Nature at its finest.

My Present Wasn't Under A Tree

2009-12-26T11:17:00.008-06:00

Now that the holiday season has begun it's death spiral, all the presents have been unwrapped, and I curse the sweets and spirits that have punished my body over the past seventy-two hours, I can catch my breath (wheeze) and reflect on some of the in-game events I have been privy to.

Winter's Veil

Haven't done a thing. Not one present, not one snowball. Nada. Don't care.

Dungeon Finder

Hello new best friend.

I'll be honest, I have never been a big fan of groups. Guildie groups, the rare time it happened, were bearable because they're a good crew (amazing for a guild our size) and forgiving to those who were more solo oriented. Don't misunderstand, I know what to do in a group. I assist the tank, kill what needs killing, keep control of my pet when I'm using my Hunter. It's just the people that annoy me sometimes.

Especially in PuGs.

Not so much with the Dungeon Finder. In fact, it plays to one of the more powerful drives in the WoW player base - Greed.

In the days pre-DF, you'd get a PuG and be picky about it. After all, it took time to put these things together and you essentially got one shot at clearing the instance for Emblems of Triumph. It could be slow, painful, and not very much fun.

Fast forward to the PuGs of the Dungeon Finder Era. Emphasis on FAST. First, it takes no effort on the player's part to find a group. They simply queue up as the role they want to play, then carry on with their business until they get a tap on the shoulder saying "Excuse me, but your group is ready."

Next, a teleport to the instance. No more summoning, no more waiting around for people to arrive. Everyone's there at the same time, ready to go.

The pace of these things are quick. People like to rush through them so they can queue up for another one as fast as possible, getting the most emblems they can. It's like they ducked into the bathroom to drop a deuce with their laptop resting on their thighs, and need to get their Triumph emblems before they flush.

This quick pace means people aren't too picky. The Dungeon Finder ranks characters by gear, so people aren't carrying lesser-geared toons through the instance, but they don't sweat that dude with the less than amazing DPS. They just want to get through the instance and start a new one. I have yet to see anyone be kicked from a group for sub-par DPS.

Needless to say, I've been having fun with the Dungeon Finder when I've had the time to use it. I've been testing the water with my Hunter, just to get the hang of dealing with people. Some, like the druid who humped Rukgut's wolf to kill some time, were more interesting than others.

Bloodybull, I will find you and you WILL be paying pup support.

Today, after stacking run after run through instances like a fleet of drunk sailors on a hooker during shore leave, I ended up with a few pieces of quality T9 Gear -

Those are the types of presents I can handle over the holidays. I've seen new content that I'm sure I'll be sick of seeing. I've met horny druids and and silent drones who storm through encounters without saying a word. I've gathered gear that'll be more than sufficient until the next expansion, and I'm gaining experience that can't be shown on a bar.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Happy Holidays.

Brief Friday Update

2009-12-12T02:51:00.006-06:00

This has been my reaction to Patch 3.3 so far, and I haven't even done anything yet.

No, scratch that. I've been updating addons that have been mysteriously bringing up errors despite working properly post patch. Damn it.

Game-wise, I've logged next to no time yet. Anxious, in a morbidly curious kind of way, to jump into the PuG system and see what kind of car wreck comes out. While I'm at it, I will probably level up my warrior in both his xp bar and professions.

Speaking of professions, I'm about ready to dump inscription on my warrior. Originally I started it just because I heard you could make some scratch with it. Also, and almost more importantly, you could get the awesome shoulder enchants without having to grind up Sons of Hodir faction. Did it once, would rather french-kiss an electric fence than do it again.

Patch 3.3 comes along, and now reputation-obtainable buffs (a la SoH Shoulder Enchants) are bind on account. Therefore, Rokk can buy them and send them to everyone else. That, coupled with my lack of researching for the Warrior's inscription, and I'm considering getting him something else once he reaches 80.

Money Can Make Your World (of Warcraft) Go Round

2009-12-03T23:03:00.006-06:00

I was listening to the WoW Insider podcast recently, and during their discussion regarding what people would like to see in Cataclysm, one of the listeners emailed in to say that they would like to see more character slots per server. Many people already have ten characters on a server, and with two new races being introduced they’re going to need more. Okay, maybe the word “need” isn’t the right word there. It should be used here: these people “need” help.

It was around this time that Turpster, somewhat jokingly, mentioned that since Blizzard is getting their feet wet with the whole “microtransaction” business model (oh god not this again), maybe they could allow people to throw down a few bucks and unlock some character slots. One certain Michael Schramm protested this suggestion at first, stating it wouldn’t happen because microtransactions are not supposed to affect game play.

A failed argument (sorry Mike) but that got me thinking a little more about it. What exactly could Blizzard add to WoW in microtransaction form? To find the answer, I did what World of Warcraft often does – ripped off ideas from other MMO’s. In this case, I simply went to the most recent success story of microtransaction-based games. This just happened to be a certain Dungeons & Dragons Online.

At first wash, DDO does have many functions that definitely affect the game, albeit in minor ways. There are things like limited use (charges) items that give a minor buff to xp or loot gained, for example. However, I do feel there are things that Blizzard could introduce for a few dollars that don’t affect gameplay, yet players would shell out real cash money for. So with this inspiration, I came up with a few suggestions.

- Shared Bank Space: Instead of having players go through the whole “offering 5gp for guild signatures” to get a guild, then boot all the people from the guild just to get a huge guild bank, let players buy one. On the one hand, it could bear an impact in that it lets profession gurus load up on mats. On the other, people could just as easily mail their junk to alts, or guild bank alts.

- More Hairstyles: Players want their characters to shine like unique little snowflakes. They would pay for more hairstyles, different colors.

- Cosmetics : Makeup, or tattoos. Tell me this wouldn’t be a hot ticket item.

- Dance Studio: This is a no-brainer. People have been BEGGING for this since Wrath came out.

- Veteran Status: Okay, now this one should be less of a microtransaction and more of a paid service. I’ll put this here just for clarity sake, but essentially what this does is allow the player to start a character at a higher level on a new server. My suggestion would be allowing someone to start a character at 55 (same as the starting level of Death Knights), limited to a character class that the character has at 56 and up. Have a 58 druid and want to start a new one on a different server? Pay the cash and get a 55 druid, clad in what would be generic greens. Unlike many other items, services, and transactions, this one is something that people HAVE actually asked for and HAVE admitted they would pay for it.

What about you? What kind of microtransaction / service would you pay for?

Fighting the Social in Social Gaming

2009-11-30T20:46:00.004-06:00

The "DK" stands for Death Knight. Wonder what faction she is?

I don't like the Alliance.

When I think of the Alliance, I envision some hawtness lying atop a mountain of gold and clan in nothing but purple epics. So, they're like me... only with Blizzard's favor.

C'mon, we all know there's little nods throughout the game that gives the edge to the Alliance. Off the top of my head - the Lorekeeper achievement, for example, which had the Alliance needing fewer quests completed to get the title. The second most obvious fact has to be Alterac Valley. Really, the Horde get a log cabin fort while the Alliance gets a Keep with - wait for it - A BRIDGE THAT CAN BE DEFENDED?!

The most obvious fact, though, is that the Alliance is good-looking. You've got ruggedly handsome Dwarves, the sleek Night Elves with glowing eyes and a somersault jump, Humans (hey look, my toon looks just like me, no wonder they're the most popular!), and the cute-but-annoying Gnomes.

Oh yeah, and the Space Goats. Guess every family has that fugly relative.

Horde? You've got the green and angry Orcs, the Tauren-cows, Zombie-folk, and the Rasta/Dennis Rodman Trolls. The Blood Elves are the best-looking of the bunch (and the most widely played Horde race... coincidence?), but their personality leaves much to be desired.

Maybe that's why I prefer the Horde. They're always a bit of the underdog, fewer in numbers and less-preferred for more superficial reasons. Hell, even their leveling zones are dismal and ugly! People, carrying their vanity over from the Real World, want to play the cute characters. Any wonder the top three races played are Humans, Blood Elves, and Night Elves?

Screw you, Society. I spit on your lust for the pretty, and your disdain toward those who don't meet your eye-candy standards. Let's worship Megan Fox, flock to see her in sweat and grunt in Transformers, despite the fact that she can't act. The flop that was "Jennifer's Body" gives me a slight hope in humanity. Very slight.

All this leads me to a dilemma. I (me, the man behind the keyboard) have been offered a spot in a Guild on another server. They're a progressive raiding guild, smaller but a good bunch from what I've been told. I was invited by one of my wife's co-workers. Real Life contact. People, plain and smelly and wonderful. He told me they'd run me through some five-man content, get my feet wet, and go from there.

I'm currently a member of the biggest guild in North America. The guild has multiple raid teams. But it's easy to get lost in a crowd of five thousand, and for the most part I don't really care. I do my own thing, do guild runs when I'm able. If I were to disappear, I'm quite sure I wouldn't be noticed. That is, of course, until I submit my segment for the AIE Podcast (coming soon!)

However, I'm at the point where I've done pretty much all the solo content there is to do. Sure there's quests and such, grind out some achievements, but there's no point. It doesn't advance my game at all. Playing the auction house was a nice distraction, as was leveling up various professions. Rokk now has two pieces of Deadly Gladiator PVP gear, and with the gemming I've been doing I notice he's melting face like never before. It'd be nice to put all that power to better use than just killing the same daily mobs over and over again.

I have a Warrior that I might consider sending over, though. He's almost 80, and Rokk could gear him up so that he'd be less of a liability. Maybe run a few WG's to get some honor gear. He's a mighty Tauren slab of killing-meat, and I've grown quite attached to him.

The guild on the other server is Alliance.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Do I join the Beautiful People, in hope that I may break the anti-social cycle that is my solo WoW play? Or do I spite "The Man" and keep my Bull just the way he is, a solo engine of destruction?

Progression

2009-11-20T13:20:00.007-06:00

Back on the net, back in the game. New motivation there, strides to be made.

For example, Rokk has been doing it big in Wintergrasp.

He's amassed enough enough of a bodycount to pick up an upgrade.

From there, he knocked off a couple of reputations: Exalted with Sons of Hodir and -

Gemmed some gear, shoulder enchant SoH, and put a new killing tool in Rokk's hand, made by Rokk's own hands.

All this in the past 24 hours. How was YOUR day?

Halls of Lightning

2009-11-16T07:44:00.013-06:00

When you have multiple characters, you sometimes forget what they have and haven't done as far as progression. However, I do know that Rokk appears to have gotten into the swing of the PVP concept of Wintergrasp.

He's becoming quite the adept killer.

Now in the wee hours of the morning, when a call went out to run heroic Halls of Lightning, a still-blooddrunk Rokk answered the call.

With the band of merry guildies, Rokk went forth and began to lay waste to Loken's minions.

Eventually, after crushing bodies beneath his feet, Rokk finally heard the words of the treacherous and deceiving Loken.

The battle raged, the body fell, and Rokk's first heroic instance had been completed. What did he have to show for his efforts?

It wasn't all about achievements. He did get an upgrade for his tanking set.

Success!

Where You At & What You Killin?

2009-11-15T12:58:00.009-06:00

Rukgut! What have you been up to - uh, where's your shirt?

I have great abs. Felt like showing them off a little.

That's a lot of snow behind you. The cold doesn't bother you?

Mind over matter, friend. Mind over matter.

Well clearly you've lost your mind, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Got it in one.

I hear you've got a new pet that you're leveling up.

I'm trying a Survival spec, and thought I'd get a pet that'll hold my target down while I unload in its face.

That sounds dirty and wrong.

Says you.

Fair enough. What kind of pet did you get?

Got myself a nice blue crab.

You... you have blue crabs? That might not happen if you put your shirt on, and stopped tramping around with Tauren women with loose morals.

I have a gun, you know. A big one. Lots of bullets. And my crabs can be terminal.

Rokk, on the other hand, decided to take the plunge and get his PVP feet wet again. This time, he participated in the Big Boys version - Wintergrasp.

He actually did quite well for himself -

Might play with this for a bit, see what kind of gear he can get.

Don't Hate The Game, Hate The Player

2009-11-05T13:49:00.009-06:00

Two posts in one day? Don't blame me, blame Blizzard.

Actually, blame the player-base who seems to be losing their minds over nothing. Again.

According to blogs and forums across the World of Warcraft landscape, Blizzard has gone and done the unthinkable. They've opened the Pet Store, which allows players to spend Real Life Money for In-Game Items!

I fire back with a resounding yawn. They did the same sort of thing with the Race Change service, and I think the Orc racial affects the gameplay a little more than watching Kung Fu Panda bust a move.

What about the Faction Change service? For lifetime Horde players, it gives them the chance to play an entire half of the game that they'd never seen before. Ditto for Alliance to Horde transfers. That affects your gameplay more than Lil' K.T. zapping critters while you fish, or whatever you people do when you have your vanity pets out.

In those particular cases, you don't GET an item for your money - the CHARACTER is the item. More importantly, those purchases will have an affect on how you play the game. It might not be on a large scale, but it certainly has a direct bearing on the game. A vanity pet, no matter how gosh darn cute you find them, will not. Ever. They're about as game-breaking as changing your Blood Elf's hairstyle.

The masses saw what the scheming Blizzard was trying to do and cried out in true Nerd Rage fashion. This is a slippery slope for Blizzard! How long until you can buy epics or gold! HOW LONG?!

According to the Pet Store FAQ:

Does this mean you'll be introducing more services like this in the future? Will you be introducing the ability to buy epic weapons/etc. in the future, for example?

As with the pets, mounts, and other items players can obtain through Loot cards from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game, Pet Store pets are purely cosmetic and just for fun. Like other paid services we offer, such as Paid Name Changes, Race Changes, and Character Re-Customizations, the Pet Store service is entirely optional and intended to provide players another means to enjoy World of Warcraft in a way that isn't detrimental to the game and that doesn't detract from the gameplay experience for players who choose not to use the service.

Hey there, overly dramatic WoW-Player Base, choke on that. M'kay?

But... but Blizz said there'd never be Faction Changes either! Or PVE to PVP transfers! What about that? Blizzard can't be trusted!

Paranoia is fun. Don't look now, but the Black Helicopters are circling your domicile.

What? They are?

There was a market for every one of the services Blizzard offers today. That means there was a public demand for it. Public. So many Players requested/demanded/begged for these things, Blizzard decided to offer them at a price. If they were going to waste development time on these non-essential services, be it Faction Changes or Vanity Pets, there had to be a great number of people who wanted it.

Remember that when you want to blame Blizzard. The Player Base put things in motion. Blizzard simply greased the wheels. Good on them for making a buck off of people who "need" these non-essential services.

However, Blizzard also showed they money does not make them completely stupid. They realised that introducing those services would not affect the gameplay experience. Players might have lost their minds when "carebears" could level up on PVE servers and then come to where the "real" game was, but the game itself was essentially intact.

Raiding is hard! Instances are hard! The public demands epics! I wanna buy my epics!

Allowing the ability to buy epics would undermine gameplay in that it would take away any motivation for players to play the game at all. At max level, getting decked out in purples is (apparently) what it's all about. If you could just buy yourself a suit of epics, there would be no motivation to do the raids...

... or run the instances

... or get to max level

... or play World of Warcraft.

In answer to the Great Stupid Question - Blizzard will not let players buy epic gear or weapons. Ever.

However, there WILL be more micro-transactions coming, and I suspect they'll be alot more interesting than vanity pets.

Well, most vanity pets. Now where did I put my wallet?

Back to the Grind - Again

2009-11-05T10:04:00.004-06:00

I'm bad at this blogging stuff.

Why? Yes, general lack of topics posted on here has much to do with it. What has caused this hiccup? The same thing I've complained about before, and that's progression. Once the level progression is finished, what's next? Professions? Capped. Gear then, yes?

That's the point Rokk & Rukgut are at right now - they don't NEED better gear. Hell, Rukgut tends to run dailies and general PVE nonsense without a chestpiece. I suspect he's a little on the crazy side, what with the whole "running around in the snow without a parka on" and such.

Raiding and Heroics is a good reason to get gear, but even when you're in a guild the size of Alea Iacta Est, it can be tricky to get a group. Raid groups, you're better off trying to put one of your own together, and frankly I don't have the time or energy to run anything like that.

I decided to go through my many toons and found one that I'd like to level up. Another hunter, this time, but one on the Alliance side. It's interesting that I've run two characters to 80 and have never seen Northrend from the Alliance side. Different server too, so it's Gold Farming as well as leveling. Professions are needed, so those need work as well.

It's like finding a whole new game.

The Guild - Halloween Style!

2009-10-31T11:55:00.002-05:00

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&vid=ddf6390f-44b9-4eb7-a872-cf22a5bcd3bd" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Bonus Episode: Halloween!">Video: Season 3 - Bonus Episode: Halloween!</a>

Race Change Goes Live

2009-10-27T19:51:00.004-05:00

What is the Race Change service?
Our Race Change service is designed to allow existing characters the opportunity to change their designated race while staying in their existing faction (Alliance or Horde).

Can I use the Race Change service to change factions?
No, faction changes are handled separately through our Faction Change service. For more information, visit the Faction Change FAQ.

How do I begin the Race Change process?
To begin the Race Change process, please visit the Account Management page, select the Race Change option, and carefully follow the instructions provided.

How much does this service cost?
Each Race Change costs $25.00 USD (not including applicable taxes). This covers a single Race Change for a single character.

Is this service taxed? If so, how can I tell if my purchase will be taxed?
Players in select states in the U.S. may be subject to taxation when using our Race Change service. This list includes, but is not limited to:
- New Mexico
- Texas

Can I change multiple characters' races at once?
No. The Race Change service only allows one change per transaction. If you would like to change multiple characters' races, you will need to pay for each one separately.

At what level can I change a character's race?
Characters level 10 and above are eligible for a Race Change. Death Knights will be unable to change their race until level 60.

Will this service allow me to customize a character and select a different name once its race has been changed?
Yes. Each Race Change purchase will also provide the target character with an included re-customization and optional name change.

Am I allowed to choose any race regardless of what class I play?
No, the new race you choose must be compatible with your current class.

Can I use this service to change the character back to its original race?
Absolutely; however, this will require purchasing another Race Change.

Will I be able to select Cataclysm races and class combinations for a character once they're available in game?
Details are not available at this time. As development continues, though, we hope to provide more information.

How often can I change a character's race?
You may change a character's race every three days.

What happens after I initiate a Race Change?
Once your payment has processed and after you have remained logged out of the game for at least 30 minutes, you will see a new button to the left of the character's name upon next login. Clicking on this button will allow you to select the character's new race, as well as customize the character's look and name. These steps will greatly resemble the character creation process.
To complete the Race Change, press the button labeled "Click to change your character's race" and confirm your selections. If you do not wish to change the character's race immediately, you may do so at a later time.

What will happen to the character's old name?
If you opt to change the character's name, the name will be locked from use on the realm for 90 days. You are not required to change the character's name, though; this is simply an option we provide included with the Race Change.

What will happen to the character's equipment when I change its race?
Equipment will be unaffected by the Race Change.

What will happen to the character's mounts when I change its race?
Mounts which are not considered race-specific will remain unchanged by this process. Race-specific mounts will be exchanged for a cross-race equivalent. You can view a full list of race-specific mounts and their equivalents here.

What will happen to the character's non-combat pets when I change its race?
Non-combat pets will not be affected by this process and will be available once the character's Race Change completes.

What will happen to the character's achievements when I change its race?
Achievements will remain unchanged by this process.

What will happen to the character's titles when I change its race?
Titles will remain unchanged by this process.

What will happen to the character's reputation levels when I change its race?
Upon changing races, the reputation level associated with the character's previous race will be switched with that of the character's new race.
All other reputations will be unaffected by the change.

What will happen to the character's quests when I change its race?
Quests which are active in the character's log at the time of the Race Change will be cleared and all quest items associated with these quests will be destroyed.

What will happen to the character's flight paths when I change its race?
All flight points are unaffected by the change.

What will happen to the character's "Friends" and "Ignore" lists when I change its race?
The character's "Friends" and "Ignore" lists will be unaffected by the change.

What will happen to the character's Guild and Arena team(s)?
A character's Guild and Arena team will be unaffected by the change.

Can I use the Race Change service if I am a Guild leader or Arena team leader?
Yes. The character's Guild and Arena teams will be unaffected by the change.

What will happen to the character's honor and Arena points?
Any honor points, Marks of Honor, and lifetime honorable kills will not be affected by this process. Earned Arena points will carry over, as well; however, any pending Arena points accrued after the last maintenance period but before your Race Change is initiated may be lost.

Where will the character be located after the Race Change is complete?
Once the Race Change is complete, the character will be moved to the capital city of its new race.

What will happen to the character's Armory profile?
Once you have completed the Race Change process, the character's Armory profile will be updated to reflect any racial, gender, or name changes. Please note that our Armory system is still in beta at this time, so the character's profile may not immediately display the updated information.

Will this service share a cooldown with the Character Transfer, Character Name Change, or Character Re-Customization services?
No. The Race Change service will not share its cooldown with any of these services.

Will this service share a cooldown with the Faction Change service?
Yes. If you perform a Race Change, you will not be able to perform a Faction Change for three days.

Can I purchase a Race Change for a character that has a pending Name Change or Re-Customization or is in the process of being transferred?
No. Before you can initiate a Race Change for a character, please complete any pending Name Changes, Re-Customizations, or Transfers. These pending transactions will prevent you from initiating a Race Change.

When will I be charged for the character's Race Change?
You will be charged immediately upon pressing the confirmation button on the Race Change page.

Is there any way to cancel a Race Change while the process is pending?
Because your payment method will be charged immediately upon confirmation, you will be unable to cancel the process once you have pressed the confirmation button and the Race Change process is underway.

Is there any way to reverse a Race Change once it's completed?
No. Once a Race Change is done, it is permanent. You may, however, purchase another Race Change to switch back to the original race once the service cooldown time has elapsed.

The Rokk Gets His Pumpkin On

2009-10-18T15:30:00.006-05:00

Generally speaking, I don't go in for the World Events. I guess that always had something to do with the fact I was never level capped when the event came along, so I never got to play with the big boys. Maybe it's the cold, maybe it's the pain meds, but I thought Rokk would go and give this thing a try. Maybe not the title, but at least pick up a few achievements.

Boy did he.

First, he helped save Brill from burning down. Take that, Headless Horseman!

Then he took the fight to the Scarlet Monastary, kicked down the doors, and punted Mister Pumpkinhead through the uprights!

As a reward for his pumpkin-bashing, he picked up the Sinister Squashling & Hallowed Helm:

To celebrate, Rokk binged on candy:

That's right, not all events are wholesome and classy...

Free Epic

2009-10-14T22:38:00.006-05:00

If there's two words in a WoW Gamer's language that'll send raiders around the bend muttering things about casuals, it's "free epics". The concept that someone who doesn't raid as often, or at all, can get gear that compares to what hardcore raiders can pull down, is a stiff kick to the epeen. Luckily such thing matter not to me, as I just got out of the shower and came to realise that I don't care about the size of my epeen. But I digress.

In this case, the free epic I'm referring to is an epic mount. I know everyone loves the green proto-drake, and why wouldn't they, but this mount is one you don't need to grind faction for. No, this one is as simple as running a daily. That's right, click on a blue exclamation mark, run a quest as simple as one you ran as a newbie orc, and you too can be the proud owner of the Reins of the White Polar Bear

Rokk's Tip of the Day - When running the daily quest "Maintaining Discipline" in Brunnhildar Village (which happens to be the one that got Rokk his Polar Bear mount), you can swat Exhausted Vrykul even if someone else happens to be fighting them at the time. Just run up and give them a tap. It'll count towards the six you need.

Be Kind To Questgivers

2009-10-07T19:10:00.015-05:00

Running Daily Quests is great Exercise

I have a new meta-game in World of Warcraft - Speed Daily Runs. The object is to see how fast can I burn off all 25 Daily Quests.

There is a method to my madness. The main motivation being cash money. I'd been playing the Auction House because, well, I don't raid and I haven't run more than a few instances. I therefore needed something to take up my time. Money makes even the virtual world go round, and sometimes it's just as much fun to count gp rather than xp. Also, epic flying won't buy itself, so to the AH I went. I bought low, sold high, and more importantly sold smart. Made some gold, lost most of it leveling up Rukgut's Engineering (twitch spasm twitch), and decided to try a new approach.

After falling off several mailboxes (very few are Tauren approved - who knew?) I developed a different strategy.

There are those who say that "Doing the Daily Quests" is the path paved with gold once you reach 80. That's well and good, but those blue exclamation points are all over Northrend. You could easily cap the 25 Daily Quest limit, but you'd be zipping coast to coast, eating up time that could be used doing something productive like farming mining nodes, filing toenails with a belt sander, or whatever happens to float your boat.

A little research showed me the way to make the most of my Daily Quest run, in the least amount of time. In fact, it was theoretically possible to use all 25 Daily Quests in under two hours. That's about 400 gold with vendoring and such. Do that with two 80's and I've got two words for you: "Cha" and "Ching".

In search for the gold, and the quests, I noticed something. When you reach 80, those pesky yellow exclamation points don't disappear. In fact, you might have to do some of those quest to unlock DQ hubs. That's what happened when Rokk tried to follow the same pattern that Rukgut did for his DQ speed run. Rukgut had taken a little more time getting to 80, and completed more quest chains. Rokk, with the finess of a prison riot, laid waste to the content with the sole purpose of reaching 80. Quest chains lay bloody and broken in the snow. NPC's held their tattered rags against their soiled flesh, feeling dirty and used as they trembled in the wake that the Rokk left behind him.

The Engine of Destruction reached 80, unsympathetic. Now he's eating some crow as he goes back to unlock Daily Quests by finishing quest chains left behind. That's always fun, especially when the person who is supposed to have the DQ doesn't have any quest at all to give you.

The Rokk's Tip Of The Day: Either show some tact and patience on the way up, or you'll have to show even more patience on the way back through the content.

Was it worth it? Well, 600gp for a couple hours work isn't too bad.

A Day's Work For A Day's Pay

2009-10-05T11:34:00.002-05:00

Cash is King, Baby. So says Arthas.

I caught a Youtube video on the weekend which described how one would go about burning off all 25 Daily quests in just under 90 minutes. In that 90 minutes, the narrator pulled in about 400gp in the process through quest rewards and vendoring greys.

I had some time on my hands, so why not? Let's see how well this works.

Rukgut was voted as "Most Likely To Have These Dailies Unlocked". Rokk pretty much bulldozed his way to 80, so things like questlines were more of a punchline to him. Ruk was somewhat more attentive, so I suspected he'd be the best one to use to test this out.

Day One: Not as successful. Turns out there were a number of dailies that needed to be unlocked. However, my 90 minute block did net me about 400 gold. That was pretty much from quest rewards, vendoring greys (as well as quest items).

Day Two: A little more success. Hodir's Spear, phallic reference aside, can suck a dick. That's one quest that will be skipped.

Day Three: Not all the dailies were unlocked, but enough for me to make a go of using up all my Daily Quest spots. Two hours later, Ruk was 300gp richer and had completed 19 of the 25 Daily Quests alloted for him. Not bad, not bad at all.

Some tips and notes -

Is there a more effective way of earning gold? I'm sure there is. But when you put yourself on a timeline and go in with a plan, you are constantly busy. Always moving. For people who feel like they've "hit the wall" as far as casual endgame play goes, this is a nice little distraction. Plus, for folks who have a limited time to play, knocking off all the daily quests and making a nice chunk of change in the process ain't nothing to sneeze at.

The Rokk's Tip Of The Day: The Daily Quest Spy Hunter is available from the Sons of Hodir upon reaching Honored status with them. It's pretty easy, simply kill three dwarves that your Spirit Wolf sniffs out. The Wolf moves sloooooow and can take quite a while to sniff out a dwarf, especially if there are a few people running the quest in the area. To make the Wolf move quicker, hop on your flying mount. The Wolf will not despawn, and will move at your mount's speed. So if you happen to have a flying mount with 280% movement speed, your Spirit Wolf will sniff out dwarven spies 280% quicker. Just make sure to keep an eye on him as he sprints around in the snow!

Patch 3.3 PTR Notes

2009-10-02T15:42:00.006-05:00

Patch 3.3.0 - Icecrown Citadel.

Or as I like to call it, "Nothing that affects me in the slightest." I guess it's different if you're running the content. Someday maybe. Someday.

Less crying, more updating!

As far as Death Knights go, there's not a whole lot coming down the pipe in 3.3 so far.
* Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle: There is now a 1-handed version of this rune in addition to the current 2-handed rune.
* Talents (Unholy) - Night of the Dead: Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 45/90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

Hey, Rokk runs primarily as Blood! Naturally you can see how the upcoming patch, at first glance, simply has me anxiously awaiting its arrival!

/sarcasm.

Scanning, scanning... oh hey glyphs.

# Glyphs

* Death Knights - Glyph of Icy Touch: Instead of granting additional runic power, this glyph now causes Frost Fever to deal 20% additional damage.

Wow. Patch 3.3, huh? Think I'll go fishing.

Hey Blizz! Everquest Has Something For You!

2009-09-25T18:26:00.008-05:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I’d played Everquest in the past. In fact, it was my first MMORPG (and only, other than World of Warcraft). When WoW was first released, many an EQ guild found itself gutted after the mass exodus of the player base to this new game. It wasn’t just the shiny new game that prompted people to leave in droves. It was frustration with their old game, the seemingly non-existent customer support by Verant/Sony, and glitches in general.

There was also the leveling problem with EQ. Unless you were part of the Holy Trinity (Warrior, Cleric, Enchanter), it was hard to get groups. Most classes could solo to some extent, but it wasn’t very practical at all. There were very few quests to do, and the ones that could be done didn’t reap the rewards that WoW quests do. Players didn’t level up doing quests, they hit a zone and stayed there killing mobs.

Recently I read about a new introduction to the game that I wouldn’t mind seeing Blizzard steal for WoW. I mentioned one before in the specialty server that allowed players to create characters at a higher level. This new function I read about would affect the leveling process, and with Cataclysm coming out and the revamping of the 1-60 zones, now would be the perfect time to introduce this concept.

The concept is Mercenaries.

In Everquest, there are two types of Mercs - Tanks and Healers - that can be hired from a “Liaison”. Rather than a player waiting around for a group, they can “hire” one of these Mercs. They level with the player, come with their own gear that also improves as they level, and can be upgraded via quest chains. Tanks can solo reds from 1-60, which helps new players who want to catch up to their friends to level quicker. The higher rank the Merc is, the better abilities he has. There is an Upkeep cost every fifteen minutes or so, where gold is deducted from what the Player is carrying. If they can’t pay, the Merc despawns until the Player has the cash to pay.

It’s a gimmick that I think would work just fine if carried over to WoW.
Mercenaries would be a great leveling tool. Right now, if a low level player is trying to complete a quest that needs two or more people, they’re hard-pressed to find someone to help out in the pre-60 era. It’s also much easier to burn through content if you have a pocket healer, or tank, to cover your ass. Even sweeter if that extra body doesn’t reduce the amount of XP per kill, yet still manages to level up at the same rate as you. Sure there’s no social banter, but for the more militant-minded levelers who don’t care to chat it up while they grind away killing raptors or boars, they can let their money speak for them.

Mercenaries take cash, baby. Blizzard rather enjoys adding gold sinks to the game. Seriously, twenty grand for a Mammoth that comes with Vendors? Well, Blizz can make the higher ranked Journeymen Mercs as expensive as they want. Players will pay if it helps speed up the leveling process, and for the casual players who don’t have heirloom items for alts, they’ll run their AT Dailies to fund their lower level toon’s progression.

Mercenaries don’t criticize. One of the things that makes a PUG as much fun as a Gabriel Gonzaga-styled kick in the balls is being told you suck. Tank can’t hold aggro? Healer lets someone die? DPS is low on the Recount charts? L2P N00bzor, or whatever the kids are saying these days. You get the idea.

But with a Merc, Players develop skill without worrying about comments from the peanut gallery. A Tank with a Healer Merc can learn to hold multiple mobs, keeping his TPS high enough to overcome the Healer aggro. Healers with a Tank Merc can learn to work on heals and buffs, as well as the rare perk of actually leveling as a Healer rather than a Healing DPS class. DPS can run with a Tank Merc and learn to control their aggro, or run with a Healer Merc and learn to keep their DPS higher than the Merc’s healing aggro.

Players learn while they level, and level at a speed fast enough so they don’t get bored, yet slow enough for them to learn what their abilities do. Sounds like a good idea to me.

I can’t wait for Blizz to steal it.

Holding Your Brew... Fest

2009-09-20T23:51:00.008-05:00

Nice night for a thumping.

No, not THAT kind of thumping. I'm talking about fighting. A nice, barroom brawl.

It was an evening of first for The Rokk. First time tanking (eat that, Coren Direbrew), and basically Rokk went with his DPS rotation while wearing some tanking gear he made, and doing the whole fight in Frost Presence. Nobody died. Hooray. Not bad for the first time out, but it helped to run it with understanding guildies. You guys rock.

As for a reward, a nice trinket!

Nice bit of Stamina on that. Also, a little extra perk -

Hawt, am I right?

More "Inspiration" for Blizzard

2009-09-19T14:01:00.007-05:00

Mayong Mistmoore will pwnzor ur face!

A couple of days ago, while on "Modified Duties" at work (stupid fractured elbow), I decided to make the most of the computer usage and started looking at Everquest. I mentioned in a previous post that I played EQ for years before coming to World of Warcraft, and I suppose I was feeling a little nostalgic.

Of course, since the computers are for "corporate use only", most of the sites I found were blocked. However, I did come across two rather interesting tidbits that had been added to EQ since I left. Like the Guild Hall, I predict that it is only a matter of time before these tidbits become incorporated, in some form, into WoW.

I'll pause for a moment and explain the Guild Hall concept for those who have not played EQ. Essentially, the Guild Hall in EQ is a phased zone, accessible only by your guildmates, that looks like a big Inn. There are vendors there, as well as profession aids like forges and tailoring looms. There is a pool that accellerates HP and Mana regen. Most importantly, IMO, there is the Guild Portal. Beside the portal is a Gnome that you buy Porting Shards from. Those shards are for various zones in the game. You buy the shard, hand it back to the Gnome, and it sets the Teleporter beside him for that zone. That Teleporter remains active for several minutes, or until someone else comes along and changes the Teleporter destination by handing the Gnome a new shard. Great for when you have to get a whole raid moving, or if you just want to get somewhere in a hurry and you don't have a pocket Mage to send you on your merry.

I don't know what the Guild Leveling process involves in Cataclysm, but don't be surprised if something like this comes down the pipe.

Now back to fuctions that EQ currently has, that Blizzard should steal for their own game.

The Mayong Server - This server in Everquest is what has been called the "51/50" server. Characters created on that server start at Level 51, with 50AAs (Alternate Advancement - see "Titans, Path of the" in the upcoming Cataclysm expansion). They also start out with a full spellbook (as applicable) as well as Flawed Defias Armor.

What does this mean for WoW? Well, they could create "Veteran" servers which could start much the same way. Characters created on these servers would start at, say, level 58 (much like DK's exiting their own starting zone). They would have standard gear, maybe blues, and would spawn in the newbie zone. It would be a short run to a capital city, where they would have preset flight paths (like Death Knights) that they could use to continue their adventures in higher zones like the Plaguelands, or take the portal to the Badlands to hop into the Outlands.

To keep things from getting out of hand, or to allow for all of the content to be used, perhaps only one Veteran character would be allowed per account. Once that Veteran character has been created, all subsequent characters would be level 1.

Would Blizzard go for this? Sure, why not. Players would get to try different classes at a higher starting level, but only on these select servers. If they liked them, they could pay to transfer the character to another server (Blizz <3 $$). The mechanics are in place with the DKs. This is one of those things that I'm fairly confident will come to pass at some point. After Faction Changes went live, I wouldn't put anything past Blizzard.

There was another function that I noticed, and this one I would bet cash money dollars that it will be in the game, probably sometime after Cataclysm drops. But I'll save that idea for another post, because content is fun.

Against The Odds

2009-09-18T11:29:00.004-05:00

Cho'gall.

It's a PVP server I've been hearing about. Turns out that the one big Alliance guild that was on the server decided to tuck tail and leave. The result? The Horde outnumbers the Alliance about 10 to 1. That's an interesting dynamic.

Curious, I decided to pop in to take a look around. I rolled up a dwarf and went for a walk over to Ironforge. Crickets. That place was as empty as Shattrath on every other server. The AH was a joke, and by "joke" I mean "empty". Example? I had a Hordie do a search for Plate Armor, in the lv 71-80 range. Six pages of results, with plenty of purples. On the Alliance side?

Four ITEMS.

This place is screwed.

Yet for some reason I was curious. Could The Rokk come to this server and make some kind of difference on the Alliance side? Did he care?

So as a little social experiment, the Rokkalypse has come to Cho'gall. Now there's the Alliance, the Horde, and the Rokk.

Back To The Grind

2009-09-13T21:42:00.004-05:00

Well the doctor has been good enough to allow me the limited use of my right arm again, so after about six weeks of farting around I'm back to work starting Monday. The drawback is that I will be out of town, with a satellite internet feed, and limited WoW access.

So how did I spend the last of my free time? Well, The Rokk went out and got himself an orphan. Kind soul that he is, he went ahead and took a little Oracle squirt out for a stroll. The kid liked it so much, he wanted to stay. Cute.

I was listening to Octale and Hordak vs The World during the week, and Octale made what I felt was a good point regarding tanks. During my downtime, I've often seen groups looking for a Tank to run heroics, yet quite a few DK's looking to DPS. I get the fact that many Death Knights are looking to build a tanking set. At least, that's what the story is.

Rukgut got in a few Heroic groups, DPS'ed his face off. In that time, I came to the conclusion that tanking is a mindset, not a class. Some players are tanks, wanting the responsibility of keeping the group alive and so on, and some don't. Rukgut was glad to simply sit back and pew pew. I don't think Rokk is going to be that way. I want him as a tank. Maybe the time has come for him to start puttering around and just get in there and tank. Take a chance.

There's another situation in-game that has come to my attention, but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I'll have to investigate a little further, but it is certainly bringing certain thought processes to light.

Beatdown

2009-09-09T19:16:00.006-05:00

I decided to experiment a little with my Prot Warrior. He with the cool name. What's your name, big guy?

Me am Therokk.

See that? Damn clever I say. What do you like to do for fun, Therokk?

Me like watching dirty movies on TV.

An Orc after my own heart. But what ELSE do you like to do for fun?

... me am kill things?

YES YOU AM KILL THINGS! Wonderful!

The cranially challenged to to the snowy peaks of Alterac Valley, and at level 64 he was raking in about 40 Grand in XP per win. Each win took about fifteen minutes. He tried one final rush with a group that decided it'd be better to hang back and play Defense. How'd that work out Therokk?

Not so good.

No?

No, but me got achievement for Thousand Honorable Kills.

That's wonderful. Good for you. He also made roughly twenty thousand in XP for that loss, which took 34 minutes. What lesson does that teach us?

Therokk smash?

What else?

Therokk win?

Yes. There's going to be those mouth-breathers who think "LOL FARM LOL". Blitz, win quick, start another one. In the time that Therokk had his loss, he could have fit two wins in there. What would you rather have? 20K or 40K XP? Honor farming can be done in the top bracket, where you actually get a boatload of it at a time. Can't buy anything useful from AV from what I can see, but it's something.

New Profession - Gold Sinking!

2009-09-07T11:59:00.004-05:00

Rukgut! What brings you by the Undercity today?

Oh nothing much. Just thought I'd see where the greatest auction house trader in Azeroth worked his magic.

No magic, just hard work, The AH never sleeps, so neither do I.

You... don't sleep?

Sleep is for the weak.

Is that why you came to the Undercity? Light won't bother you?

Not exactly. Bathroom breaks are for the weak too.

Hence the green water around the bank. Gotcha.

Since, as the goblins say, "time is money", if you'll excuse me.

Uh, there's actually another reason I came by. I was thinking about changing professions.

You have my attention. Go on.

Well I was thinking about picking up Engineering.

You have lost my attention. Get out.

But -

Get. Out.

Look, Engineering can help give me utility. I can feign death and rez people in five-mans or raids. I can build cool gadgets!

Where's my stabby stick?

Robots! Jeeves! I can help people with this profession!

No, not pointy enough.

... I can build Mechano-Hogs. To sell.

I'm putting the Orc-Sticker away. Now you've come to me because?

I need some starting capital. I don't want to farm the mats.

No, of course not. How much do you think this is going to cost me?

I guess a thousand gold for starters.

*thud*

Hello? You okay over there? *sniff sniff* I think you made some green bank water.

* * *

Ruined... ruined...

Hey Mister Banker sir!

Tell me you built a bike! Tell me you have something I can sell!

As a matter of fact, I do.

Mechano! Hog!

Well, almost. I'll be able to make it very soon.

But... gold! Money! All gone!

You can sell these. I've got plenty of them.

... Gnomish Army Knives? I couldn't give these away! The market is flooded with them!

Oh. So you're saying they aren't useful?

No, I wouldn't say that.

P-put that knife down! Get away from me you crazy -

Stop running! And don't try to FD, Hunter! I'll keep stabbing you anyway!

PVP - Player Versus Playing

2009-09-03T22:01:00.004-05:00

Ah, the Ogre Shadowknight from back in the Everquest days. Good times.

Probably somewhere beyond a half decade ago, back in my EQ days, Sony had released an expansion that was said to be more group friendly. Everquest was a group-based game for the most part (unless you were a Druid or a Necromancer), and one of the more common complaints was that new players couldn't group with their friends who had been playing for quite some time. That level five toon couldn't hang with the level sixty, and it killed the fun for everyone.

Sony's solution? They made instances available that would allow people of varying levels to group together. To do this, everyone in the party would zone into the instance and be transformed into creatures of the same level, say level ten fairies. Those fairies would have to complete a set of objectives that might take fifteen minutes to complete. They would complete the mission, zone out, and receive a bulk of xp that was proportional to their level. For example, a level 65 character could receive an entire AA (Alternate Advancement) point worth of xp, which was the equivalent of the xp needed to ding level 51.

Even with the lockout that was eventually added, this was a very good way to level. High level characters could group with low level friends, embark on a mission, and earn a lump of xp as well as the chance to roll on a chest that dropped at the end of the mission. The chest drop scaled for the character's level once they phased out of the mission. Not bad for maybe fifteen minutes of work.

The problem that quickly arose was that characters were leveling too quickly. People were starting off at a very low level, and in a day or two they'd reach max level. Since they were leveling as fairies and not as warriors (or whatever class they were playing), they were capping out without knowing the first thing about their class.

Even worse, their gear was horrible. No mob drops, no quest rewards, nothing. All they had was what they could buy from other players in the Bazaar. So not only did these people know nothing about their class, they didn't even have adequate gear to make up for their shortcomings. And so, the game floundered for quite some time while Sony nerfed the XP to the point that no one ever ran the missions at all.

Fast forward to the latest patch, where characters can now earn XP in battlegrounds. I ran one with a 60 prot warrior I'd been flummoxing around with for awhile, and the xp was pretty much more or less what I could have accumulated running quests for the same amount of time. That was BG's that lasted 15 to 30 minutes per.

From what I've been hearing, though, the big gains come from the 70 to 80 brackets. Bigger xp gains. A toon could log in at 70, run a few dozen BG's and walk out closer to 80 than they could have if they'd been questing.

Problem? Well, there's no gear gained. You can buy it with honor, but you'd only pick up what, one or two pieces in ten levels? BG's don't ask a player what their DPS is like. On a battle realm like ours, you're thankful if your faction can field the same number as the opposition. You want bodies, not gear checks.

Skill? By level 70 a person should have an idea of what they're doing. But there's going to be those mouth-breathers that will /afk their way through the last ten levels, assuming they started BG leveling at 70 rather than 10.

I've read a couple of stories like this - a person groups with someone to run a heroic, and not only is that person terrible, but their gear eats donkey balls. An Armory check on the toon reveals they'd completed few if any Northrend quests, and zero instance achievements. They leveled by being a body in a BG.

Will this be a game breaker? Will BG Babies be the next round of Fairy Folks?

I doubt it, but it's something to think about. Until that sweet XP gets nerfed, smoke 'em if you got 'em. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a ski vacation planned in beautiful Alterac Valley.

The Big Dog Cometh

2009-08-31T23:08:00.008-05:00

I had heard that Wolves were largely considered the "best" non-elite pet for Hunters. Their howl buffed the Hunter, while they did plenty of damage on their own. Being that kind of schmuck who has to see things for himself, Ruk dismissed his 79 cat and tamed himself an 80 Wolf. Back to Silvermoon City, and back to the Heroic Training Dummy. Ten minutes later, the numbers came in.

Wait, what?

Not only does the Wolf beat the Spirit Beast's numbers, it comes in just barely behind the Devilsaur.

Let that be a lesson to us all - Corehounds might be large, but the Wolf is the real Big Dog.

Don't mess with the Big Dog.

Veteran Snowflakes

2009-08-29T10:24:00.005-05:00

Over at the Rawrcast website, Kenny D posted a story regarding the fifth year anniversary pet and how many long-time players were bitter about it. More specifically, the fact that anyone can log on during the given time and receive the pet. There was no reward being given to players who had been around for the five years.

I read as much of the original post over on the WoW forum as I could stand. Apparently, the longer you play World of Warcraft, the more credibility you have. On what, forum boards? I try to avoid the WoW Forum Boards if I can, but the odd time I've had to delve into that sewer I've seen people trying to prove their point by laying out their resume - What do you know! I've been playing since Beta!

I've got a news flash for these Five Year Players (or FYP) - the game you play today has changed quite a bit from the one you played in Year One. Mechanics have changed. Talents have changed. So while you might know a thing or two about a thing or two, you've been learning and re-learning just like people who have been playing for two, three, or four years. However, FYP's want to be given something in-game so that they can stand out from the riff-raff "newbie" players. They want to be special, unique snowflakes.

Bullshit. Just because you've played this game for five years doesn't exempt you from being any less of a mouth-breathing yutz than a six-month player.

Get. Over. Yourself.

Should long-term players be rewarded for their support? Sure, why not. But does that reward have to hang off your shoulder like the Medal of Honor? Why not make it something that benefits the player's character rather than his/her ego?

Since Blizzard seem to have no problem borrowing game mechanics from other games, I think they should use something like the Veteran Rewards that Everquest uses. Every year that the account is active, they receive another reward. EQ has been going for ten years, and this is the lineup they currently have:

1st year – Lesson of the Devoted: The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour every 20 hours.

2nd year - Infusion of the Faithful: The player enjoys maximum resistances and statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power. Usable once every 20 hours.

3rd year – Chaotic Jester: Summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes and will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. Usable once every 20 hours.

4th year- Expedient Recovery: All the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. Usable once per week.

5th year – Steadfast Servant: Summons a creature that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone. Usable once every 20 hours.

6th year – Staunch Recovery: The player is healed with health, mana, and endurance fully restored. Usable once every 3 days.

7th year - Intensity of the Resolute: Surrounds the player in a glow of energy and increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals substantially for 1 minute. Usable once every 4 hours.

8th year – Throne of Heroes: The player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby. Usable every 72 minutes.

9th Year – Armor of Experience: The player is granted several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Usable once every 20 hours.

10th Year – Resupply Agent: Summons a mechanical merchant to the player’s side who sells supplies and buys loot. He will stay up for 10 minutes or until dismissed by the player. Usable once every 20 hours.

Nothing game-breaking there. Some of the rewards aren't exactly earth-shattering, but double xp for half an hour a day sounds reasonable to me. Of course, this won't get a /bow in-game or on a forum board because, hey, everyone can't see the FYP'e ePenis. But for those who are above that kind of silliness, it's a nod to their support.

Elite Fight Club

2009-08-26T13:16:00.008-05:00

Rukgut now has two elite Ferocity pets. That's not necessarily a problem, but should Ruk decide to get his group on, or maybe step up to raids and such, he's gotta bring the pain. Pain, in this case, via a pet. Beast Mastery 4 Lyfe, bitches!

To determine the pecking order, Ruk put his two prized scrappers - T-Rex and Spirit Beast - to the test. In this case, test being the Heroic Testing Dummy in Silvermoon City. Nobody goes to Silvermoon City.

Both rounds of testing would be the same. Both sets of pets would run with everything they'd be running with out in the World (maybe not in a group setting, so Growl stayed on for both... okay, I forgot to turn it off. Bite me.) Ruk would lead with a Hunter's Mark, Serpent Sting, and then simply auto fire. Ten minute rounds for each.

Nord, the T-Rex of Pain, stepped up first. Ten minutes later, he had his numbers.

Next, Spirit Beast who happens to also be named Rukgut. Fun fact, you can name your pets after yourself. Who knew? WTB Pet name change! Ten minutes later...

A clear-cut winner. Will that matter? Hard to say. Some folks don't like the Devilsaur in a group because he tends to eat up alot of real estate. Time will tell the tale on this one, but I've got a hunch both of these wicked beasts will see plenty of action.

Fail

2009-08-25T12:14:00.005-05:00

Bored + Internet Surfing = Redesign Blog Template.

Pros: Looks better, feels better.
Cons: Graphics editing needed. Photoshop is not my strong suit, Paint Shop Pro is what I was a whiz at. What worked before doesn't work now, and using a different computer to edit images and such, with one arm, is very frustrating.

If the realms do not come up soon, I will probably end up having some kind of breakdown. Interwebs, save me from myself!

Taurens Rule - The GM Said So

2009-08-25T09:11:00.007-05:00

Patch Tuesday, arm still on the med, and I'm bored. Luckily, I happened upon wowbash.com, which definitely helped take the edge off.

The pills helped more.

('''\(O.o)/''') - Scary Bear!

Interesting Spawns

2009-08-25T00:21:00.008-05:00

The Rokk grouped up with some guildies and took the hurt to Drak'Tharon Keep. It was our first instance, first real guild grouping, and it was great experience. Of course, The Lich King showed up at the end of our run and talked a whole lot of trash. Regardless, the run went so well we took a spin through Gundrak for dessert!

In other (Hunter) news...

Skoll. Mine.

We just happened to be flying by one of the spawn points and decided to manually click the rare mob macro I'd set up. Suddenly popped up. Frantically I tried to find him on the map, since there were plenty of yellow neutral dots on Rukgut's map.

I quickly set down and instantly noticed a drake mount was nearby. A quick icon sweep over it revealed it to be an 80 Dranei paladin. I was worried. Why was he just sitting there? Oh crap, he wants to kill it for the Achievement!
(Turns out Skoll wasn't part of the achievement, but I didn't know that at the time.)

Where the Hell was my Frost Trap? C'mon c'mon, dismiss the old wolf pet! Tame, frozen... Skoll is going to be mine!

It was right about then, while I watched the seconds tick down, that I saw movement to my left. Two Alliance Hunters stood there and watched. Were they there the whole time? Or did they just show up? Didn't know, but once the taming was over one of them came up and pet my new pet. Got a cheer after that, but of course I had no idea what they were really saying -

There was no gloating on our part. We simply took our new pet out for a walk, while I stood up from behind my keyboard and rode out the adrenaline dump from taming a rare pet that I'd spent months looking for (Spirit Beast, not necessarily this one.)

Don't Make Me Get My Main

2009-08-24T12:40:00.002-05:00

Winner of the Blizzcon 2009 Movie Contest.

Cataclysm - For All The Wrong Reasons

2009-08-22T13:36:00.009-05:00

Well it's official - Blizzard has announced their new expansion. But I don't think they chose the right title. I think a more accurate name would be something like "Cash-aclysm" or "Cat-Alt-clism".

"Cash-aclysm" comes from the fact that they increased the race/class matrix to be more all-emcompassing.

This change simply encourages those people who want to do the upcoming "Paid Faction Change" to do so, by giving them more options, lore be damned. I don't care about lore myself, but I'm pretty sure the Night Elf Mage kinda goes against that sort of thing. Blood Elf Warrior? Really?

So for all you Hunters who want to switch to Alliance, you can pull out your wolf pet and be a wolf-man yourself! All you Pallies that didn't want to be a froofy Blood Elf, well saddle up with a slab of Tauren awesomeness! Just give Blizzard your monies and you have more selection of cute or crass, whatever floats your boat.

Now for the "Cat-Alt-clysm" name, I think that one has some legs. First, most of the changes coming in this expansion encourages people to play alts. They introduce two new races, with phased starter zones like the DK's starter zones. A nice gimmick, mentioned in their FAQ:

Yes, we are creating all-new level 1 to 15 starting zones for both races. Players will start their adventures with the worgen in Gilneas, which was sealed off behind the Greymane Wall. Goblin players will start on the Isle of Kezan and then head to the Lost Isles in the South Seas before joining the mainland. Each starting experience will be presented in a fashion similar to the death knight starting area in Wrath of the Lich King, and these starting zones will make extensive use of our new phased-terrain technology.

Next, the revamp the 1-60 zones. Why, when they've spent so much time and effort to get people to blitz through that content in the past to reach the level cap? Again, from their FAQ:

As we developed new content and expansions, we learned a lot of techniques to provide players with a better game experience--but the majority of the new content we were creating was for high-level characters only. We felt we could apply the lessons of Outland and Northrend to improve the gameplay experience while leveling in the original two continents. Imagine revisiting a familiar zone like Darkshore only to find Auberdine destroyed by the cataclysm--and then discovering entirely new towns and quests in other parts of the zone.

Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms are central to World of Warcraft lore, and we want those areas to remain an important part of the game, not just a place to train or auction. Our goal is to make questing, leveling, and the overall story more fun for new, returning, and existing players. By redesigning areas of the original continents and introducing new content that matches or exceeds the quality of Wrath of the Lich King, we can revitalize the nostalgia and coolness of Azeroth.

So they want you to make alts. They introduce the new races, hook you with the gimmicked phasing intro, then show you all the pretty new zones they've made. Know what would help the leveling process even more? Flying.

Yes. While the original Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor weren’t designed for flying mounts, we’re redesigning the continents with flying mounts in mind. However, we’re still determining whether there will be any restrictions on where you will be able to fly, at what level flying will become available, or whether you’ll need to do anything to unlock it. We’ll share more details about this in the future.

Changing flying levels again? Guess if it helped getting those DK's through the Outlands, it'll help the new number of Alts that will be starting out in the old leveling zones.

Now granted, many of these changes will affect players whether they get the expansion or not - old content changes will happen regardless. Buying the expansion unlocks the new races, new zones, and new level cap. Doesn't seem like all that much, does it? In fact, given all the changes that will be happening game-wide, the expansion itself only provides what seems like a fraction of the new content that is coming.

Rest assured, whether you buy the expansion or not, one thing will be certain: you will be a victim of the upcoming CatALTclysm whether you like it or not.

Blizzcon

2009-08-20T17:33:00.007-05:00

Blizzcon weekend is upon us, and I'm already training for Blizzcon '10. That's right, training. I'm going to stand longer, binge harder, and probably out-funk any gamer nearby, baby.

Also, I've got to be in peak condition when I come face-to-face with this guy:

Ghostcrawler is dangerous. Yes, dangerous. He comes from a fighting people.

C'mon, don't tell me he doesn't look like Fedor Emelianenko:

Ghostcrawler lays a beating on people on the forums, Fedor does it in the ring. They're both capable of KO power, one of them with his wits, one with his mitts.

The Video

2009-08-17T22:24:00.001-05:00

... and yes, yes I do. Or at least Maurissa Tancharoen.

50 DKP Minus!

2009-08-13T16:29:00.005-05:00

In honour of the return of Onyxia, the one and only Skeleton Jack posted this youtube video. It's an oldie but a goodie, the birth of many catch-phrases such as... ah screw it, you'll know 'em when you see 'em.

The Wall - Part The Second

2009-08-13T00:12:00.007-05:00

That's a good looking sword right there. A steal at only 25 Champion's Seals!

Most DK's swing the Titansteel Destroyer once they hit 80. We can make one if we wanted to. But since we're not buying pets or mounts with our Seals, might as well get something out of the jousting efforts.

This is the second toon I've taken to 80, and I've found the same thing happened. Ding 80, and the enthusiasm fizzles out. I thought that, with my hunter, it was just burnout on the class. After all, between all the servers I've had characters on I've probably gone through over 200 levels of Hunter. Hecksticks, Rukgut even got the rare Proto-Drake from the Oracle's Egg and even that wasn't enough to get me psyched up to play him.

Maybe running Rokk through some instances might help. Problem there is that I'm running WoW on my laptop, and I've found that my system bogs right down during Chillmaw fights. I can't imagine what it'd do during a raid, or a heroic for that matter. Wonderful.

Feeling a bid dejected, we decided it was time to round out some skills. Well, fishing had fallen behind and it had the potential to be a good money-maker. Why not?

Mid-cast, someone runs up to me out of the blue - I shit you not - and they feel the need to let me in on the server's worst-kept secret:

Fantastic.

New Races in WoW? Prove it.

2009-08-11T11:54:00.004-05:00

Hey! Did you hear about the new races that are being introduced in the new expansion?

I haven't, and neither have you. There's been speculation, but not a single official post has come out on the subject.

Not. One.

Some data miner on the PTR found Halloween masks for Worgens and Goblins. Someone else ran through the formula that, since only playable races have been made into Halloween masks in the past, Worgens and Goblins MUST be playable races in the future!

Any facts to back this up? Not really. Is there any proof that these masks have even gone live? Doesn't matter anymore. Now that WoW.com has broken the story WIDE OPEN by simply stating that the next expansion will be called Cataclysm, and the two new races are Worgen and Goblins.

Ballsy, unless they have proof.

Why sure they do. They link to two websites that offer theories, not facts, to back up these races. They then say they have "sources close to the situation" which confirm the theories.

I call Bullshit on all of this until a) there's a Blue Post to confirm it, or b) word comes down at Blizzcon.

Watch The Guild

2009-08-10T16:24:00.002-05:00

For all you XBox 360 folks, go to XBox Live and download The Guild's new music video - "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar". It rocks, and I'm sure there's a few of you nerds out there who probably touched yourself while scoping out the Nelf Mailbox Dancers.

I'm not judging, I'm just sayin'

http://www.watchtheguild.com

Busy Day

2009-08-08T10:18:00.004-05:00

Know your Role, giant Jabroni!

Damn it, you kids play nice or I'll slap the frosty blue off of you.

Ding 80. Phew. Now we can start playing this bitch!

Bent But Not Broken... Okay, Maybe a Little Broken

2009-08-06T18:35:00.006-05:00

Sometimes it's a little embarrassing when you admit to people that you play World of Warcraft. You get a look like you just admitted to rampant buggering of livestock. In my case, the look of disbelief that I get comes from the fact that I don't look like someone who plays WoW. I'm not obese, therefore I keep myself in above average shape as far as gamers go. I practice personal hygiene; no gamer funk for this guy. Mrs Rokk was worried I'd let myself go once we got married. "I can't," I told her. "I have a stereotype to break."

Fast forward to last weekend, when I hopped on the wife's mountain bike and began my 6K trek to the gym. Knowing what little regard traffic has for pedal-pushers, I opted to take a bike path. There were signs up for this particular path, making sure both pedestrians and bikers alike knew the other was on the path.

I'm progressing down a hill at a rapid pace, knowing I have a long incline waiting for me around the blind corner ahead. So I wasn't expecting to have to slow down anytime soon. Of course, that was until I rounded that corner and came face to faces with a line of senior citizens who happened to be taking their pet grandson out for a walk.

The Rokk Says: When approaching a blind corner, always stay on the right so that people can get by you. DO NOT WALK SIDE BY SIDE LIKE YOU'RE LEADING THE PRIDE PARADE!

I knew I couldn't get by them, and there were trees on either side of the path. Oh yeah, I wasn't wearing a helmet either.

Apply front and back breaks. Hard.

Sadly, the front brakes held a little more.

Rokk-et into the dirt.

I will take partial blame for the accident. I should have slowed down a little more when approaching the corner. I had slowed down to the point where, if I could have, I would have been able to hug the right hand side of the path and whistled by the Old Train.

They were fine. I ended up with my right elbow fractured, and a few cracked ribs.

While it is possible to play WoW with one hand, I haven't tried jousting or any of the major daily quests. I'm typing this whole mess with one hand. Until I find out if I'll be in a cast or needing surgery to repair my busted wing, I know one thing for sure - I won't bitch about my situation. I won't bitch about my game play.

Once again, I'm breaking the stereotype of the average WoW player.

"QQ" my ass.

Patch 3.2 Drops Today

2009-08-04T10:50:00.005-05:00

Huzzah... I guess.

Well here's some of the changes coming up for Death Knights -

* Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.
* Blood Plague: Damage done increased by 15%.
* Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
* Frost Fever: Damage done increased by 15%.
* Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
* Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
* Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.
* Talents
o Blood
+ Bloody Strikes: This talent now provides 5/10/15% increased damage to Blood Strike instead of 15/30/45%.
+ Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.
o Frost
+ Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 3/6/10%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
+ Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
+ Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
+ Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.
o Unholy
+ Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
+ Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
+ Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
+ Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 20% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

Even better... BUG FIXES!!

* Anti-Magic Shell: The tooltip for this ability will now reflect modifications from the Magic Suppression talent.
* Blood-Caked Blade: The damage from this talent is no longer normalized to weapon speed.
* Chilblains: Icy Clutch can no longer miss when Frost Fever hits, however, when Frost Fever is dispelled Icy Clutch will also be dispelled.
* Dancing Rune Weapon: The rune weapon will no longer cast Corpse Explosion.
* Desecration: No longer causes unnecessary combat logging.
* Horn of Winter: Learning rank 2 of this ability caused players to unlearn rank 1, such that it no longer appears in their spellbook. It is now possible to relearn that rank, and death knights will no longer "forget" rank 1 when they learn rank 2.
* Lichborne: The buff from this ability can now be cancelled.
* Raise Ally: Using the Gnaw ability while under the effects of this spell will now initiate auto-attack. In addition, the damage done has been changed from a flat value to a percentage of weapon damage.
* Raise Dead: This spell will no longer give two errors when the casting player lacks the reagent to cast it.
* Rune of Razorice: Each death knight can now have his or her own copy of this debuff on the target.
* Rune of Spellbreaking: Tooltip now indicates the effect from this enchantment does not stack with other effects which reduce the duration of Silence effects (including not stacking with a second copy of this enchantment). In addition, now reduces damage from Holy spells.
* Rune of Spellshattering: Now reduces damage from Holy spells.
* Summon Gargoyle: Corrected the inaccurate tooltip which claimed a Gargoyle could last up to 40 seconds, when in fact 30 seconds has always been the maximum.
* Rune of Razorice: Corrected a bug where this applied to frost damage done by others.

Edit: the maintenance time has been extended to 3pm PST.

The People's Champ

2009-08-01T09:34:00.006-05:00

Finally the Rokk has laid the Smack Down on the biggest Jabroni walking around the Argent Tournament!

Okay, so not really. However there was much smack that was laid down in ample quantities. The Black Knight was just the first. Once we qualified for Champion status, and had already beat the rest of the Horde representatives, it was time for the Alliance to get theirs.

Ding!

And then, once the smoke had cleared and the dust had settled, we proved what we'd already known, and the good Tauren of Thunder Bluff came to realise -

We are the People's Champ. You're welcome.

The Joy of Jousting

2009-07-27T21:35:00.002-05:00

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.

Achievements Suck

2009-07-24T20:08:00.004-05:00

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.

World of Warcraft Movie Just Got Awesome

2009-07-22T20:27:00.005-05:00

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.

The Argent Tournament

2009-07-18T19:36:00.006-05:00

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!

Fly Like An Eagle

2009-07-16T06:04:00.003-05:00

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.

Cleaning Out The Basin

2009-07-13T14:33:00.005-05:00

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.

Wrought

2009-07-11T10:09:00.004-05:00

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

2009-07-11T01:13:00.007-05:00

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!

The Sky is Falling... On My Head

2009-07-06T20:09:00.006-05:00

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.

Whose Side Are You On?

2009-07-01T17:11:00.006-05:00

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!

Super Freak

2009-06-27T15:25:00.002-05:00

This video is probably fake. The reaction captured on it, however, most likely exists in many of the mouth-breathers that make up the WoW Player Base.

Patch 3.2 PTR

2009-06-19T02:39:00.005-05:00

The latest PTR changes for Death Knights. Huzzah!

* Due to significant talent changes, all death knight talents will be reset for players.
* Blood Strike: The bonus damage this ability receives from diseases on the target has been increased to 50% per disease.
* Chains of Ice: Now reduces movement by 95% instead of 100%. The main effect of this change will be that targets of Chains of Ice will not have to re-issue a movement command to continue moving.
* Frost Presence: 10% bonus health reduced to 6% bonus stamina.
* Frost Strike: This ability can now be dodged, parried, or blocked. Weapon damage bonus reduced to 55%, down from 60%.
* Icebound Fortitude: Cooldown increased to 2 minutes.

Talents:
Blood
+ Dancing Rune Weapon: This ability now has a fixed duration of 12 seconds (which can still be modified by its glyph) and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Veteran of the Third War: Stamina bonus reduced to 1/2/3%.

Frost
+ Blood of the North: Reduced to a 3-point talent. Increases Blood Strike and Frost Strike damage by 5/10/15%. There is now a 33/66/100% chance whenever you hit with Blood Strike or Pestilence that the Blood Rune will become a Death Rune when it activates.
+ Lichborne: Duration reduced to 10 seconds, and cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
+ Threat of Thassarian: New 3-point talent. When dual-wielding, your Death Strikes, Obliterates, Plague Strikes, Blood Strikes and Frost Strikes have a 30/60/100% chance to also deal damage with your off-hand weapon. Off-hand strikes are roughly one half the effect of the original strike.
+ Toughness: This talent now grants 2/4/6/8/10% armor instead of 3/6/9/12/15%, placing it in line with similar abilities of other classes.

Unholy
+ Desecration: This talent has been reduced to 2 points for 25/50% snare and no longer increases damage done by the death knight. It has also been moved one tier earlier in the tree and its spell effect has been made more transparent.
+ Desolation: New talent. This talent is in the position formerly occupied by Desecration. It causes Blood Strikes to increase all damage the death knight deals by 1/2/3/4/5% for 12 seconds.
+ Scourge Strike: Weapon damage bonus reduced to 40%, down from 45%. Damage increased by 10% per disease on the target, down from 11%.
+ Summon Gargoyle: The gargoyle now flies lower to the ground, making it susceptible to melee attacks. This ability now has a fixed duration of 30 seconds and a fixed cost of 60 runic power.
+ Unholy Blight: This talent has been redesigned. It no longer deals damage to nearby targets. Instead, when you deal damage with Death Coil, the target will take periodic damage for 10 seconds equal to 30% of the damage done by Death Coil. This damage accumulates in the same way as Ignite and Deep Wounds.

If it wasn't almost 3am, I'd probably have more to comment on this. But really, at this point is it any kind of big deal? It isn't live yet, so nothing is gospel.

Star Wars is Looking Good

2009-06-19T02:29:00.008-05:00

E3 had some info on the potential WoW-Banger. This guy had some more.

Seriously, WoW will be fine. But this might be something to look at, assuming it isn't all flash and no meat. But I suspect that just might be the case.

Instances Are Fun

2009-06-16T10:13:00.005-05:00

A growing number of players are complaining (I'll pause for a moment so you can get over the shock of that statement) that they can't get an Instance started up. Since most of these people are 80 and working through Heroics, I don't feel sorry for them. I'm an elitist that way.

Anyhow, Blue Poster Vaneras posted this over on the EU forums -

We are aware of your feedback concerning the limit on the number of instances. This limit was set up some time ago in order to preserve the gameplay experience of players who are already inside instances. Allowing too many instances to be opened at once would eventually have a negative impact on performance, which was definitely noticed and reported right here in the EU forums. This limit is still in place today for the same reasons. However, we are working on a more permanent solution for instance performance. This can take a lot of time to plan, implement and test -- so it is not something we can resolve quickly, other than using the limit currently in place. But we do wish to assure you that we are very much aware of your feedback and we continue to monitor the situation. We will inform you about the longer term solution as soon as we have more details to share.

I've never understood Blizzard's approach to situations like this. They touted Wintergrasp as the "Ultimate Epic PVP Experience", allowing for huge armies to battle each other. They then take steps to nerf the piss out of it because too many people were using it, thereby bogging down the servers. Now too many people are starting instances, bogging down the servers. Did someone not stop to do the math? Or were they too busy rolling around in their giant mountains of subscription money to realise that they might have to slap some more system tech onto their network to handle the growing load on it?

All I'm saying is that if Blizzard doesn't poke someone down their corporate food chain with a sharp stick to get them to pay attention, the only load they'll have left is the one growing in the player base's collective pants as they cancel subscriptions in pouting protest.

The Rokk - MIA?

2009-06-15T15:39:00.005-05:00

In case anyone's been curious (or looking at the page for that matter), I have been off getting myself married & honeymooned. A few days in Las Vegas with Mrs Rokk, a few more enjoying the beach in California, and a final day back in Vegas before heading home. I didn't even take my authenticator with me. Probably a good idea to avoid playing video games on the honeymoon when only one of the two people play at all.

Blizzard? Meet Your Competition.

2009-06-05T09:18:00.004-05:00

Every time a new MMO with any kind of name value comes down the tubes, people predict it will be the big WoW Killer (Warhammer I'm looking at you here) . Generally I don't even look at these other games, because I just don't care. Fluff and such won't draw me to a game. If it was all about the fluff, I probably wouldn't be playing World of Warcraft.

There's a new game on the horizon - Star Wars, the Old Republic. I'm not saying it's a WoW Killer, but if they put as much effort into the game as they do their trailer, it could very well be a WoW... uh... Injurer.

The Crab Has Spoken

2009-06-03T17:33:00.005-05:00

Ghostcrawler had this to say in regards to DK armor nerfage -

As I explained, we compared DK armor, health and avoidance to other tanks, and found that the DKs ended up in better shape than other tanks even if you totally ignored cooldowns. When you consider cooldowns, things are even more skewed.

I just didn't want potentially disgruntled players to perpetuate a myth that DK armor got nerfed because their cooldowns were too good. DK armor got nerfed because their armor was too good. Many players (some DKs even) argue that the cooldowns are still too good.

The short version of how we got there was that some glyphs and set bonuses ended up being better or worse than we imagined, block ended up mitigating a lot less damage than we envisioned (before the Ulduar bosses actually existed), and because effective health ended up being way more important to progression than any other aspect of tanking.

I'm sure there's a metric ton of DK's out there who are outright pissed at this. To them I say, suck it up Princess. Mind you, Rokk is wearing the Hell out of quest greens and those aren't getting him killed yet. He might get the stink-eye from the androgynous Blood Elves, but that's like having Richard Simmons and his legwarmers get all up in your grill about the shirt you're wearing. That's when you take your Volkswagon-sized Mace and pound his head into some location south of his belt line.

Consequently, Ghostcrawler did have a thing or two to say about Paladin gear -

Q u o t e:
I feel that this crusade against Paladin Healers is unjust and if you could take another step back, take your dev team, and run Ulduar on some premades (given everyone knows how to play correctly, but honestly I sometimes wonder with some of the patches you guys roll out) then you will see that each class has a specific role. While not all roles are quite as pigeon-holed as a Holy Paladin, I do believe that this is as about even as you will let us become.

Oh, come on. All of these "If you'd just play my class, you'd understand" comments are a bit silly. We designed your class. We know how it works.

The issue that started all this was paladins saying "We don't want MP5 on our gear." The designers designed you assuming you'd have MP5 on your gear -- I know; I was there. If you are effective without having MP5 then it probably means you are going to be too powerful at some point because you are able to replace a less-powerful stat with a more powerful one without missing the loss of the less-powerful one.

Imagine you could prune every less-useful stat off your gear. Imagine you could trade in armor, Stamina and everything else for just spell power and crit. Do you think you'd blow away the other healers? I do. That's more extreme than giving up MP5 for more crit, but carries similar risks from a game-balance perspective.

Healers should care about Spirit (druids and priests) and MP5 (paladins and shamans). It's fine to care about Int and crit too, but if you're ignoring Spirit and MP5 and aren't missing them, then something isn't working right.

Sometimes this guy knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

Patch News

2009-06-02T13:15:00.003-05:00

Since I've been quite an ass lately, I think I might as well toss a couple into the post. Get it?

Patch 3.1.3 drops today. Highlights for those DK's who are not 80 and raiding? Brace yourselves!

Death Knights
Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%.
Items
Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

I felt the Earth move there.

Who Cares?

2009-06-01T17:26:00.004-05:00

Over the weekend, there was a "big deal" being made about some paladin blogger who was not who she said she was. Ferarro was discovered not to be the girl she claimed to be, but a blogging identity who had been shared by several people over the course of the past few years. This, of course, was an atrocity. The person lied about who she was, and over the course of a few days some story came about which outlined the possible reasons for the deception.

What I don't get is: Why is this a big deal?

I don't play a paladin. Maybe they're made of softer, fluffier stuff. I have no idea. What I do know is that Ferarro's site gave (from what I could see) a wealth of information to paladins. Does the fact that the person posting that information is not the same one in the profile pic make that information invalid?

"OMG she's not the chick in the pic? You mean the the person I rubbed one out on... is a LIE? Does that mean Prot Pallies are the suck too? My World has been turned upside down!"

If that is you, may you pull the lever to the Ejection Seat while flying a helicopter. Seriously. The gene pool does not need this kind of contaminant.

WoW.com had just done an interview with Ferarro, and from that this whole thing came to light. I can see them making a bit of a stink about it, for no other reason than to clean the egg from their face. But for the rest of the "Blogging Community" to get into some kind of uproar is Just Plain Dumb, as the kids say.

At the end of the day, I don't think this is about lying and trust. I think people just don't like to have their illusions called out. For the Hunter community, BigRedKitty was a cult icon. But once his new blog came out, and people came to realise that he wasn't really a dwarf, well the illusion faded. As entertaining as his new site is, I doubt it gets the hits the BRK site did.

Well, that and it isn't a World of Warcraft site.

People should just enjoy the fact that someone, regardless of who they really are, is collecting information that will make the play experience a little better for the player base in general. More important than that, is the player base doesn't have to do the legwork.

It's cause they're lazy, y'know.

So Close

2009-05-30T13:06:00.004-05:00

I was at 320 or so when they ran out of stock.

Shit.

Weekend Update

2009-05-30T07:40:00.005-05:00

- Rokk dinged 73 yesterday. Thank goodness. It was nice to see some kind of progression, and it was even better to see the better internet connection which let me progress without getting killed in the face repeatedly. I have the option (read: quest) that takes me to Grizzly Hills, but it might be more beneficial to keep working on the Wyrmrest Accord rep. Doesn't really matter either way I suppose, as long as there's XP to be had.

- Took Rukgut for a spin, and to farm some goodies for the AH. You know you have burnout when, despite the fact the character has a green proto-drake, you still can't get yourself to use him.

- Only a few hours before Blizzcon Tickets - Round Two. I'll have my finger hovering over F5, and the other four fingers will be crossed.

Finally, The Rokk Has Come Back...

2009-05-21T21:49:00.006-05:00

... to Blizzcon 09?

Color me surprised. I might be going to Blizzcon after all.

The soon-to-be Mrs Rokk, who doesn't play WoW or any MMORPG, told me I should go. Why? Because I said it was something I'd like to do once in my life.

Yep, she's a keeper.

Now there's just the matter of getting a ticket on May 30th.

Dude Where's My Ticket

2009-05-16T08:21:00.004-05:00

I was having some problems getting into WoW last night, so I grudgingly popped over to the WoW Forums (or as I like to call it, Shithead Central) to see what the bug is. Turns out the Battle.net authenticator nonsense was keeping people out, or something like that. When you've got a handful of blue posts out of 38 pages of mouth-breathers, bitching and moaning that they can't get online to play their video game on a Friday night, it's not a good sign. A pre-crisis to those lucky SOB's who will be getting their tickets to Blizzcon 09.

Tickets go on sale at Noon CST. I suspect connection issues after that point as F5 buttons tap faster than the fanboy can fap.

The Rokk hit 72 last night. All right. Two more levels until he can get into Dalaran.

The Real Hard Mode

2009-05-13T18:51:00.004-05:00

This past week I came to grips with the fact that I had two options:

1) Level on the weekends when I have a better internet connection, and reach 80 sometime around Christmas.

2) Suck it up and do what I can during the week, enduring a horrible internet connection.

Option 2 is the way to go. Option 2 is about as much fun as masturbating with a cheese grater.

Combat is a real treat. I engage, start my rotation, and everything just kinda... sits there. I silently hope that I've killed the mob while I lag out. This happens pretty much on every pull. You also tend to die alot when you can't fight back properly. Rotations go out the window, and instead of "lol /faceroll across the keyboard" it's "WTF /HEADBUTT MONITOR".

Masturbating. Cheese grater.

The upside? The Rokk is almost at 72, and I'm really feeling like I'm earning levels the hard way.

With A Bullet

2009-05-04T15:17:00.004-05:00

Since it looks like my weekends are the only decent leveling time The Rokk will have, I had to make the most of it. Sunday evening he started with not a drop of XP into 70. Today, dinged 71.

Borean Tundra has an insane amount of quests.

Only Fifty Clams

2009-05-03T22:49:00.003-05:00

They're practically giving blues away.

Winterfin Retreat needed The Rokk's help. If there's one thing I know, it's that you can't discriminate. If they've got an exclamation mark hanging over their head, any quest they have is as good as someone else's, regardless of race, creed, or faction.

Except Alliance. They can go pound salt while pissing up a rope.

Anyway, there's a Clam Vendor at the Winterfin Retreat. While running quests at the opposing Winterfin Murloc camp, you easily scrounge up Winterfin Clams. In fact, in the time it took me to finish up Oh Noes, The Tadpoles! and Them! , I easily rounded up the 50 clams necessary to purchase what was pretty much an upgrade from the axe I was using -

Not only that, but if one wanted to make some easy gold in the AH, you simply have to get 100 clams and hand them in for a Siren's Tear which usually sells well (100g last time I looked).

U Wanna Fite?

2009-05-02T16:55:00.004-05:00

Rukgut, who has now more or less become my farming alt, managed to get his Unarmed skill to 400. He earned the achievement "Did Someone Order A Knuckle Sandwich", which was pretty much how he earned it - bare knuckles on eggs.

Fun Tip: Attacking Primordial Drake Eggs in Sholo Basin is a great way to skill up your lower weapon skills. Just be sure to have a better weapon at hand in case one of the mama Drakes decide to come by to check up on her eggs. While you're beating it into an omlette, she'll make you into some cajun-styled bite snacks.

As far as The Rokk goes, I'll be levelling him on the weekends and working on his skills during the week. Given the poor internet connection I have to work with during the week, it's the best way to get closer to 80 sometime this year.

BM Hunter For Life

2009-04-26T16:44:00.003-05:00

Or at least, until I can afford dual spec.

However, until that day comes (or until I overcome the burnout that has hit Rukgut), he will be The Rokk's sugar daddy. But to do his job well, Ruk needs his spec. Post 3.1, he's going with a 53/11/7 Beast Master spec. Now as far as rotations go, I picked this nugget of knowledge up over at Aspect of the Hare -

The WotLK Hunter Shot Rotation Compendium:
Last Updated: April 21, 2009 - Patch 3.1

Beast Mastery:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting - Kill Shot - Arcane Shot - Multishot/Aimed ShotSteady Shot
Pike’s Notes: Not just Steady spam anymore, although I see plenty of non-hunters and even hunters running around who still think this is the case. Heck, I saw BM Hunters on the receiving end of mockery regarding this just today in trade chat. They are, I am pleased to report, quite mistaken. Beast Masters may not have quite so many shots and stings to juggle as the other specs, but they still have plenty to do and when you combine this with a Bestial Wrath glyphed and talented almost down to a minute, and your Kill Command which is on a similar cooldown, you’ve got lots to play around with as well. (optional– can be a mana hog so works best in conjunction with Replenishment) -

This rotation depends largely on Glyph of Steady Shot– Steady is still a large chunk of your damage as a Beast Master and because it is so weak you need to do everything you can to pull it up, and yes, that includes keeping Serpent Sting up.

The rotation is adaptable on the fly to account for mobs that are nearly dead (when the cooldown for refreshing a Serpent Sting would not be worth the extra Steady damage), as well as deciding to put off Serpent Sting if Arcane and Multi are off cooldown, for example.

Marksmanship:
The Shot Priority: Serpent Sting (one time only) - Kill Shot - Chimera Shot - Aimed Shot - Arcane Shot - Steady Shot
Pike’s Notes: One of my favorite attributes of the Marksman spec is that you don’t have to worry about refreshing Serpent Sting– Chimera Shot does it for you. It will spoil you rotten, I promise.

Note that Multishot is typically not in your rotation as a Marksman– it shares a cooldown with Aimed, and Aimed will generally pack a larger punch for you in the case of most current Marksman specs. However, if there is more than one target, and the tank has a good hold of them all, swapping in a Multi for Aimed will in fact result in a DPS increase. (This is the case with all three specs).

Use Readiness wisely, it can be used for great effect to get double Kill Shots after a trinket pop, for example

Survival:
The Shot Priority: Black Arrow - Serpent Sting - Kill Shot - Explosive Shot - Multishot/Aimed Shot (optional) - Steady Shot
Important! When Lock and Load procs: Be sure to squeeze one Steady or Aimed between your two “instant” Explosive Shots– that way you don’t overwrite your own Explosive Shot DoT. (You may also opt to “wait” between Explosives if you don’t have an instant ready– see the comments in this post for details.)
Pike’s Notes: This is me being biased, but with the introduction of Black Arrow and the current encouragement to use Multishot or Aimed, Survival has gotten a lot more fun and interesting for me in 3.1 than it was, well, pre-3.1. The overall “rotation” feels like a weird cross between Beast Mastery and Marksmanship, with a side dish of “random” tossed in, and it might take some getting used to but it’s certainly not boring.

Black Arrow is interesting as it cannot be “refreshed” like Serpent Sting: it has a pretty hefty cooldown even with talents that reduce that cooldown. Still, it’s a not-too-shabby DoT and also a big DPS booster, and also your source of Lock and Load procs, that should be kept up anytime it is available.

Explosive Shot is still your ace in the hole here. You are more encouraged to use Multi/Aimed as Survival than as a Beast Master because you are more mana efficient and can probably afford it. Play around with it and see if it works for you.

Killing In The Name Of...

2009-04-23T17:18:00.004-05:00

The most electrifying Tauren currently hanging out in Borean Tundra.

Seeing as how I'm on my WoW days off (stupid rural piss-poor internet that makes my eyes bleed) I've been doing some reading. Reading, as it turns out, is a good thing. When you read, you learn things. Things such as the stealth nerf to Death Strike. On the one hand, I'm glad to find out about this. I've been dying because I keep expecting DS to slap a bunch of health back on me, but that bar barely moved after 3.1 which had me concerned. Now on the other hand, Blizzard nerfed DS. Oh well, one less ability I have to worry about. Let me tell you, when you've got multiple mobs pummelling you, getting back 5-15% really isn't going to do much more than let the mob hit you just one more time before they pry your chest cavity open and see what makes you tick.

For the record, The Rokk runs on a delicate balance of Awesome and Win.

Oh, and I once again missed the memo where our talent points were refunded. Again.

So. Spec hunting. Oh yeah, and of course all the listed specs are for T7, level 80 raiders. Good times.

Searching, searching. Oh what the Hell. This one looks good. I found it over here.

A build that works similar to 50/0/21, but adds the ghoul permanently to your mix. It sacrifices the 10% damage and 10% ArP from Blood Gorged for filled talents in Unholy, and a permanent buffed ghoul. This build is very easy to manage and intuitive to play, showing similar numbers to the other specs in dps tests. There is debate as to it's scaling potential, as a Ghoul automatically means increased scaling from all your stats (as they would apply to yourself and the ghoul). The extra point can be placed in a 1pt talent in Blood (Vampric Blood, Rune Tap, Mark of Blood), or used to finish out Epidemic. Always renew Unholy Blight before using DC if it's about to/already has run out.

Rotation:
DS-IT-PS-HS-HS
HS-HS-DS-HS-HS

DS can be used before applying diseases due to its independence from disease multipliers. This also immediately gets your 10% AP buff up from Abomination's Might. The position of disease application in this rotation is why only one point of Epidemic is needed.

I decided to build the Blood tree first. Of course, being on the poor interweb access means I have to wait until Friday to see how this pans out in a pre-80 build.

One Good Day

2009-04-19T22:50:00.008-05:00

The Rokk had, what many people would call, a good day.

During a round of questing, I hooked up with Betray from the guild Ruin. He told me about some gear upgrades through questing, so I backtracked a little and finished the quests I just wanted to blow off.

The end result was twofold:
1) Ding 69!
2) A serious weapon upgrade!

There's probably more to be said, but I'm tired and a little hung over from yesterday.

A Whole New World

2009-04-18T07:58:00.005-05:00

Now The Rokk likes a good quest. Okay, maybe it's not the quest so much as the phat loots / gold / universal adoration that comes with it. But after landing at Warsong Hold and grabbing a few of the quests, a few deaths later I'm wondering WTF? Perhaps the Unholy spec I found isn't holding up that well against mobs 68-69. Maybe it's just partial resists due to level disparity. Who knows.

The bottom line is that The Rokk has picked up a few nice pieces already - we're talking chest, legs, and weapon upgrades without ever leaving the Fred Flintstone-like rock quarry that surrounds Warsong Hold.

Oh, and The Rokk says this: Not just anyone can ride a Magic Carpet and still look cool.

Reputations are made by searching for things that can't be done and doing them

- Frank Tyger

3.1 Adjustments

2009-04-16T22:43:00.007-05:00

Well, due to the reshuffling of the spec trees, The Rokk had to change his Unholy spec around a little. Luckily, Skeleton Jack came through once again, despite a tweak here and there. More to come on this post once I have a chance to get some sleep and get back to the big city, where I'll have some decent internet connections. At least that way I'll be able to test the spec properly.

I've been hard-pressed to find a DK blog that provides the guidance that Skeleton Jack does. For many of his or Geist's posts on specs, for example, they list not only the spec but how to allocate points at various levels. This is a huge help for those DK's who aren't 80 and wrapped in the sweet embrace of T7 gear. In fact, for one of the most popular classes out there, you're really hard pressed to find a decent site/blog that covers the DK class. SJ has the market in his death clutch (see what I did there?). Hopefully someone steps up at some point and helps out the cause.

Hey, don't look at me - The Rokk has a ways to go yet. Although now that dual spec has gone live, I'm definitely considering grabbing a frost spec too. That's assuming there's gold to throw away.

Until something magical happens, here's a few blogs I googled -

http://www.avengingwrath.com/
http://my.opera.com/dkblogdesign/
http://www.isheepthings.com/blog/death-knight-outland-gear-guide/
http://www.creeptheprophet.com/page/Death-Knight-Resources.aspx
http://www.deathknight.info/
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/dkirunes.aspx

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.
- Blaise Pascal