Jul 23

Why is it always so easy to identify noobs? And also liars?

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1. Weekly WoW Bash: How to Spot a Noob
2. Weekly WoW Bash: Yes, You Do Need Help
3. Weekly WoW Bash: Sounds Like a Raid to Me
4. Weekly WoW Bash: Like Playing a Hunter
5. Weekly WoW Bash: Do I Gotta Explain It?

Jul 22

Brand new, straight from the WoW General Forums:

We’re pleased to announce a convenient upgrade to the way that mounts and vanity pets are handled in Wrath of the Lich King.

Players will be able to “learn” a mount or non-combat pet much like learning a spell, recipe, or new ability, and these creatures will then show up on a new Pet tab within the Character Info section of the interface. Players will be able to access and preview their learned mounts and vanity pets through this tab.

Once learned, the pet icon or mount icon will no longer appear in bag spaces or bank spaces. This inventory space will be made available once again for other adventuring needs. Pets can still be set to hotkeys by dragging them to the hotkey bar, much like any other spell or ability.

THANK YOU BLIZZARD!

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1. The Death of the Epic Mount Quests
2. Travel Speed: Travel Form vs. Mount
3. New GM Chat Interface
4. PTR 3.0.8 Live
5. Under Development: Ulduar

Jul 21

We’re all so full of Rash of the Itch King news that we can’t stand it, right? Being an Altoholic, I’ve read more posts about class changes than I can remember the details. Of course, I’m trying to hold back–I’m opted in for the Beta, but still not sure if I’d do it or not. I like things to be a surprise, but then again maybe I could get this itch to make a Death Knight out of my system early in the beta and get on with my life.

At any rate, being a code monkey, I was browsing around the UI and Macro’s forum and came upon a post describing the changes to the API for addons, etc. in LK. One exicted me greatly:

Key bindings, macros, and many UI settings are now stored on the server and will be available wherever you play.

How cool is that? If this could somehow be extended to addons too, that would be really exciting!

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1. Paid Name Change
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3. PLAYXPERT Beta Released
4. WotLK: Now With More References!
5. My Plans for WotLK and Beyond

Jul 21

I’m sure you’ve read that the beta doesn’t have a NDA on it. I’m sure you’ve read the tons and tons of notes coming out of the beta. I’m not going to join that crowd, you’re tired of it by now.

I did a lot of battlegrounds over the weekend. I’m saving up for the Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix, which won’t increase my survivability except in that I’ll get a huge DPS upgrade. I’m still saddened by the abysmal performance of the Alliance in the battlegrounds (except, most of the time, AV). In my ideal vision, you should win approximately 50% of your BG matches against simarly geared and skilled teams. 50% is about what I’m sitting at for AV. AB? Not so much. WSG? Mostly losses. EotS? Oh God, don’t even go there.

I’m not sure what it is. Is it just that Alliance tends to be younger and doesn’t understand the need for cooperation and following instructions? Is the Hode on my battlegroup better geared (well, they are, that’s another story). Do we just happen to get a lot of premades? Whatever the reason, we lose a lot. Especially in EotS and WSG.

That being said, I did have a couple pretty epic matches. Two friends and I were doing the BGs, and one WSG match that lasted a good while was very close, and I don’t feel bad about losing it at all.

At any rate, I saved up 13,000 honor on Friday (I was off work), and took the weekend “off” and leveled my rogue. I’ll get my hunter back into the BGs soon and save up the rest of the honor.

Other than that, not a lot happened. Kara didn’t come through at the usual time, and later when a guildy got a run together I was shopping, so I missed Kara altogether this weekend.

I’m still trying to decide who I want my main to be. My druid is most geared, but I’m not great at tanking (at least in PuGs), and I’m not sure if I want my main to be a tank for WotLK. I’ve played a hunter at end game, a druid at end game, and a warlock at very near end game, as well as a mage to about 40. To me, the most fun and seemingly interactive style of DPS is on the druid, so I’ve been playing my rogue a bit, getting her to 70 as a possible “main.”

What do you think? Who do you want your main to be in WotLK?

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1. The Slightly Deeper End of the Big Kids’ Pool
2. Preparing for WotLK
3. BA Shared Topic: Preparing for Wrath of the Lich King
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5. My Plans for WotLK and Beyond

Jul 15

So, as you probably know, patch 2.4.3 is out today. Lots of people have reported on mounts at 30 and rogue nerfs and warlock buffs… but there is one change that truly, truly makes me happy:

Zoning into an instance on a PvE realm will now drop your PvP flag.

Blizzard, I love you.

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1. 2.4 Hits the Tubes
2. This Just In: 2.4 Hits the PTR!
3. Arena PTR Open
4. Patch 2.4
5. Big 2.4 PTR Changes!

Jul 15

It’s not hard to spot a PvP noob. Some mature language.

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1. Weekly WoW Bash: No One Listens to That Rule
2. Weekly WoW Bash: Yes, You Do Need Help
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5. Weekly WoW Bash: Do I Gotta Explain It?

Jul 14

[Edit: Mystery solved, answer at the end of the post!]

There is something strange about this screenshot, and it’s not just that Alliance practically steamrolled the horde in Arathi Basin (though that is rare). Check out the chat box.

I said “[Demonic] archim”? I meant to type “bahaha” after killing a particulary nasty Warlock with a fellow defender of the Stables. At first glance, all I saw was the “archim” and thought my hands weren’t on the home row, and said such in /say. But then, I realized, that wouldn’t have come out “archim” anyway, and also, I spoke Demonic?

The majority of the people who saw this probably thought, “Oh, he typed ‘/s [Demonic] archim’.” But, I didn’t. At least, I didn’t think I did. I even hit enter to bring up the chat line, then alt+up a few times to check what I typed:

So what happened? What was it that made me speak in Demonic? I am, after all, only a Night Elf Hunter.

[Edit] Thanks to my good friend Marcelo for pointing me to http://www.wowwiki.com/Curse_of_Tongues:

Actually causes the target to speak Demonic in emotes and chat. A CM on Blizzard’s official forums joked on how coders spent time coding this curse to do just that.

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2. Even a Single Kara Pugger
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Jul 14

I’ve been working pretty darn hard to get my Earthwarden, which requires Exalted with Cenerion Expedition. About half-way between Revered and Exalted, I went and started looking for all the old CE quests I hadn’t done in BEM and Netherstorm. I was 10% away when I found a run for Heroic Slave Pens, which I knew would tip me over the edge.

The SP run fell through near the end. I had 10 Coilfang Armaments in my bags, which would not get me there. Then, out of the blue, a guildy mentions a quest in Zangarmarsh: The Count of the Marshes. It’s one of those “kill a mob, get a quest item, use it to start the quest” type thing. That quest, with my 10 Armaments, go me there with an excess of exactly 30 rep.

So! I now have my excellent tanking staff (would have been my DPS staff too, but I recently got lucky and got the Stranglestaff as well). I’m a happy druid!

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Jul 14

72 elite? 5-man group quest? Bah.

(Note: Recount says my DPS is 1612.4. This session started when I decided to start doing all the elite quests I had previously skipped in Netherstorm, including Breaking Down Netherock and the In Search of Farahlite chain. Aparrently using Swipe a lot makes your DPS go up!)

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Jul 14

My small, casual guild does Kara on Friday nights–assuming we have the people. For a small guild like ours, this is a genuine concern. If we’re very close, we’ll try to PuG a person or two in to fill our ranks, first asking friends of the guild, then moving on to *gulp* total strangers.

This past Friday, we had the “pleasure” to group with a holy paladin named Garence. I put “pleasure” in quotes because it was not a pleasure at all. If you don’t read any further, know this: I recommend never, ever grouping with him (Shadowsong US).

Read more… »

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3. Sartharion the Onyx Guardian Down
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