I’m not going to go into a lot of explanation. I’m just going to say thanks to those of you that made WoW an awesome place to be. I’m not going to promise I’ll never be back; I’m not going to promise I will. Only time will tell, for now.

I’m going to leave the blog running, but I probably won’t put a whole ton of effort into keeping it up to date and such. Likely, I will eventually have to either upgrade it or bring it down due to security risks.

If you wish to get in touch with me, check out my tech blog at http://binarymuse.net. Once again, thanks a lot, and farewell.

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1. New Blog Azeroth Rule
2. My Blog-o-Versary
3. A New Domain Name. Yes, Again.
4. My Decision about Outland
5. Ding 68!

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To Do Before Patch 3.3

• Save up/smelt a bunch of Saronite Bars so I can transmute it all to titanium once the transmute has no cooldown
• Save up 8 Crusader Orbs in preparation for possibly making my death knight tank my main character (for the 245 chest) done
  
• Read up on each of the encounters in the new 5-man dungeons
• Read up on current strategies for the available Icecrown Citadel bosses
• Research gear upgrades from the new heroics

To Do After Patch 3.3

• Transmute the Saronite Bars (above) into Titanium, make Titansteel for the 245 chest (above) done
• Farm heroics for Emblems of Triumph for T9 level gear on the death knight
• Run each of the new 5-man heroics, hope to be able to start the Quel’Delar chain

What do you have planned for 3.3?

Related posts:

1. An Evening of Upgrades
2. Mod Madness: Altoholic
3. Patch 3.0.8 Notes Updated – Highlights
4. Different This Time
5. Not Joining the Bandwagon

What Is It

Chill of the Throne is a buff, similar to Sunwell Radiance in BC, that allows all enemy mobs in Icecrown Citadel (coming in 3.3, currently on the PTR) ignore 20% of their targets dodge. Essentially, if you are tanking IC, you can subtract 20% from your total avoidance; however, boss hits will be adjusted to compensate. Let’s continue the disussion.

Why Is It Here?

A couple people from WoW’s development team explain why they are implementing this spell, and Ghostcrawler discusses it a bit more. To summarize, tank avoidance is too high. This is primary because the team that planned out Wrath’s gear did not count on having hardmodes with higher item level gear–in the end, the gear people have is better than the gear the development team thought it would be. This means that, in order to offer any chance of a challenge to a raid, the hits that do actually hit the tank (ie, the ones that are not avoided) have to hit really hard in order to have any chance of killing the tank. What you end up with is healers having to time their big heals to land right after a bit hit (or else spam their biggest heals) and tanks that are unable to reactively use cooldowns.

Ideally (and Ghostcrawler has stated multiple times that this is the aim for Cataclysm), damage from a raid boss should be lower but more consistant (”smoother”), and the challenge in keeping tanks alive should be healers having to worry about running out of mana (i.e., not overhealing) and tanks having to use cooldowns more retroactively.

So, to try to push things that direction for the last raid of this expansion, Blizzard is nerfing avoidance artificially and also nerfing the amount of damage the bosses do (resulting, basically, in lower avoidance but higher mitigation, albeit mitigation via less damage), hoping to smooth out all these giant spikey hits while still creating a risk that the tank will die.

What It Is Not

This is not a worse nerf for druids than other tanks. Let me repeat myself: druids will not suffer worse from this nerf than other tanks. “But druids can only dodge!” you might say. Well, let’s take a look here.

Theoretical (i.e. made up) Avoidance Outside Icecrown

Adjusted with 20% Less Dodge

It’s easy to see that both tanks end up with the same amount of total avoidance. Now, you could go and make arguments about dodge being better than parry for certain tanks, etc. etc. but the main point is that other tanks are being hit just as hard as druids.

Another Note on Gear and Item Level

Guys, just because new gear has a higher item level does not always mean it is better. Ghostcrawler has said time and time again that it’s not designed that way–gear should be a choice, you shouldn’t be able to train a monkey to buy all the newer, higher item level gear and be a better tank/healer/DPS than you were. (This is part of my issue with gear scores in general.)

This public service announcement provided to you by The Altoholic.

Related posts:

1. Two Runes Enter: Stoneskin Gargoyle vs. Swordshattering
2. Role Consolidation, or “Great, Now I’m Useless”
3. PTR 3.0.8 Live
4. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Gear
5. So, You Wanna Play a Death Knight: Tanking

We actually talked today about adding an item level 300 shirt that did absolutely nothing but mess with mods that attempt to boil down players to gear scores.

The interesting part, though, is the next post, in which he elaborates a little, and I agree 100% with his point. Emphasis below is mine:

The ubershirt solution would be pretty easy to bypass unfortunately.

Ultimately, we’re really not that interested in trying to shut mods like this down. Players will always have the Armory and to a lesser extent Inspect with which to judge other players.

It’s not an easy problem to solve. On the one hand, we can recognize that there is value in being able to determine if that guy you are considering for your pug is much less experienced and talented than he claims to be and is going to drag everyone else down and cause other players to leave. On the other hand, the WoW community seems to have become so obsessed with efficiency and so adverse to wiping that there is, in my opinion, an unreasonable demand for player skill and gear requirements even for relatively easy content. It’s one thing if your VoA tank is in all blues. It’s another if you’re asking for Ulduar gear for your Naxx run.

Many players are perfectly reasonable. However we’ve all run into That Guy who takes any attempt at measuring his awesomeness in the game (gearscore, achievements, dps meters) way too seriously and looks for the same in others.

While I agree with the OP that some people really do seem to be obsessive about their gear scores and much, much less about their skill or attitude (two things that are, in my opinion, much more important), what I’m really interested in is the other point GC makes.

Last night, a guildie got mad and quit a ToC 10 Normal run because we wiped four times on Northrend Beasts (each time at a different spot), even though we were running in the “second group,” a group put together by a couple of go-getter non-officers when the “official” Thursday ToC 10 run filled up. Apparently, four times is far, far too many times to wipe on Northrend Beasts.

Now, I can understand getting frustrated when people make the same mistakes over and over, won’t listen, etc. But many, many times this isn’t the case. Many times, some of your players just aren’t as geared as you’re used to. Maybe they’re new to the fights (as was the case in this ToC 10).

So my question is, what is it that has made the WoW community so “obsessed with efficiency and so adverse to wiping?” I will share my opinion: I believe this is mostly because of the decreased difficulty in content in Wrath. Things are much easier, on the whole, and people have become accustomed to facerolling through anything but the hardest content–any semblance to something that may be the slightest bit hard or even take a little effort is too much.

What do you folks think?

Related posts:

1. Pissed, but for Different Reasons
2. Forum Post of the Week: The End
3. Two Pugs Enter: Stupidity vs. Ignorance
4. Why Gearing for Naxx Matters to Me
5. Dual Specs Not Dead Yet

Discipline in PvE is all about healing via mitigation. You won’t have the throughput or super-strong AoE that a holy priest is capable of, but you have plenty of tools to be a powerful healer and a very strong single-target healer. Furthermore, your used-up shields will count for zero overheal (because the damage they absorb uses up the shield before the target starts to take damage again!). Let’s go into detail.

Power Word: Shield

Power Word: Shield is the bread and butter of the discipline tree. A large number of talents are designed around making PW:S faster, more powerful, or cause additional effects. Even Weakened Soul, designed to keep you from shielding too often, ends up providing a benefit in the end. Let’s take a look at some talents in particular:

• Improved Power Word: Shield: Pretty straightforward, directly increasing the amount your PW:S absorbs.
• Soul Warding: One of the cornerstones of the discipline tree, Soul Warding completely removes the cooldown on and reduces the mana cost of PW:S.
• Rapture: Another defining discipline talent, Rapture is one of the primary ways in which you will regain mana during a fight. This is one of the reasons discipline priests gem for intellect instead of spirit.
• Borrowed Time: In addition to providing 40% more spellpower toward your PW:S (it already uses 80.68%, according to WoWWiki), it also provides you with 25% haste until your next spell–and Penance (see below) doesn’t eat the effect.

Divine Aegis

Divine Aegis is, most simply, a miniature Power Word: Shield that appears on a target after you heal them with a critical heal. The mini-shield absorbs an amount of damage equal to 30% of the amount of the heal, including overhealing. Disc priests favor critical strike chance, so this is a very nice talent. If you crit multiple times before DA is consumed, the effects will stack, but only up to 125-times-the-level-of-the-target (10,000 for level 80 targets).

Renewed Hope

Renewed Hope is a very nice raid-wide buff that gets applied whenever you cast PW:S (which is often–this buff should be almost at 100% uptime). It provides a raw 3% damage mitigation to the entire raid. Go to your WWS/WoL log for a fight, look at “damage taken by raid,” and figure out 3% of that. You “healed” approximately that much damage just by casting PW:S every 20 seconds! For my latest Mimiron 10 kill, this was just shy of 100,000 passive healing. It is important to note, however, that the buffs don’t stack with multiple disc priests.

Renewed Hope also increases the critical strike chance of Flash Heal, Greater Heal, and Penance (your three primary throughput spells) when the target has Weakened Soul, easing the pain of not being able to shield the target again.

Penance

Penance is one of the most recognizable healing spells in the game. People who have never seen a discipline priest in action will whisper you, “What is that spell you cast that goes pew pew pew?”

Image courtesy of Wowhead

Penance is a channeled spell. It heals in three ticks, each capable of a separate crit. The first tick hits immediately, the second one second after the start of the cast, and the final two seconds after. Penance is a very strong single-target healing spell, and also stacks Grace (see below) to three stacks all by itself.

Grace

Grace is a buff that appears on a player when you heal them with Flash Heal, Greater Heal, or Penance. Grace can only be on one target per priest at a time, just one of the reasons disc priests excel at single-target healing. At three stacks of Grace, you will heal your target for an additional 9% (other healers do not benefit from the buff). As mentioned earlier, Penance can stack Grace three times on a target in a single cast.

Power Infusion

Power Infusion is a fun little spell that is pretty straightforward–reduce mana cost and increase casting speed by 20% for 15 seconds. I usually find a caster DPS who knows how to use it properly and use it on them every cooldown, complete with an addon that notifies them that they have the buff. (On a side note, it also has one of my favorite looking animations in the game).

Pain Suppression

Perfect for those predictable big-tank-hits, Pain Suppression decreases damage taken by 40% for 8 seconds. It also increases resistance to dispel mechanics, a very PvP-oriented effect.

Typical Talent Spec

Your stereotypical disc healing spec looks very similar to this 57/14/0 spec. A few of the talents, especially in the holy tree, can be moved around, but that is a discussion for another post!

Gearing and Gemming Choices

Discipline priests will focus on critical strike chance for more Divine Aegis procs and bigger heals, intellect for a larger mana pool and better mana regen via Rapture/Replinishment/Shadowfiend, and spellpower for general throughput. You won’t find discipline priests going for a lot of spirit, as it does less for us than our holy brethren. Disc priests usually aim for approximately 10% haste without raid buffs, so that the magic 15% haste (which reduces the GCD to one second) is achieved in raids.

Assessing a Disc Priest’s Performance

Any good healer knows that glancing at the healing meters is not a good way to assess healing performance; however, this is even more true for discipline priests because of the way they do a lot of their healing: via absorbs. Absorbed damage isn’t recorded in the combat logs, and thus not reported on addons such as Recount (however, there are addons and combat log analysis tools that attempt to accurately capture and display this information). For this reason, disc priests will almost always be very low on the meters.

For example, let’s take a look at the same Mimiron 10 kill I mentioned earlier.

As you can see, based on recount’s numbers, I did less healing than the restoration shaman, who was on the raid, and considerably less than the holy paladin, who was on the main tank. Had I been main-tank-healing, my effective healing would be even lower. However, let’s take a look at a graph generated from the numbers provided by World of Logs, a combat log analysis tool that takes disc shields into account:

As you can see, Power Word: Shield and Divine Aegis accounted for 429,473 healing, almost 45% of my entire healing for the fight, skyrocketing the amount of healing I did. Also, remember that since shields are damage absorption, any shield or DA proc that is used up has absolutely zero overheal. Here’s a screenshot of my overall healing for the fight, so you can see how things played out a bit more:

I hope you learned something from this humble article. Disc is a very strong PvE healing spec, especially on a single target (such as a tank). Spread the word: discipline priests aren’t just for PvP anymore!

Related posts:

1. Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking
2. These are the People in your Raid
3. Foray into Multiboxing: RAF Experiment Done
4. Another Change due to PvP Balancing
5. Baby Healer Dings 80

As usual, the first day was topped off with a costume contest, a dance contest, and a voice contest (sound-alike, this year). They are always a lot of fun, and I’m always amazed at the amount of really, really good costumes. The winner this year did an incredible job! Here’s a photo, from WoW.com:

You can’t see it very well from this picture, but her teeth are wicked–super long and sharp. It really had a dramatic effect on the costume.

Tonight, of course, is the Ozzy concert! Should be a lot of fun. I also plan on playing some Diablo III and my friend wants to try out the new races’ starter zones, so we’ll probably do that as well.

So far, tons of fun. Time to go to the convention center!

Related posts:

1. Blizzcon 2009: Day 0
2. BlizzCon: Day 1
3. Blizzcon 2009 Tickets Available Soon
4. BlizzCon, Here We Come!
5. BlizzCon: Day 0

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1. BlizzCon: Day 0
2. Blizzcon 2009: Day 1
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4. BlizzCon, Here We Come!
5. Blizzcon 2009 Tickets Available Soon

Thus, Nice Try was born! From the Curse.com page:

Everyone knows that no-good hunter or rogue that’s always trying to get people killed by using Misdirection or Tricks of the Trade. Don’t fall prey to their wily ways–install NiceTry to automatically cancel both these buffs when they are cast on you! Watch them fumble for Vanish or Feign Death the first time you automatically cancel their buff and they proceed to attack XT-002!

It’s available for download at http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/nicetry.aspx or via the Curse Client. I will be getting it out to other addon sites eventually. If you have ideas for the addon, let me know!

[Edit] Now also available at http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=14476.

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1. Mods for 2.4 Coming Around
2. Two Pugs Enter: Stupidity vs. Ignorance
3. Mod Madness: Altoholic
4. Qualitative vs. Quantitative Performance Analysis
5. A New Domain Name. Yes, Again.

I’ve been playing my new healer like crazy, as I’m really getting into the vibe of the spec and healing in general–it’s been a lot of fun. In my opinion, Trial of the Crusader is a really run raid, but I’m just getting into Ulduar for my first few times so that’s been exciting as well.

Be sure to check in for Blizzcon, as I’m sure I’ll have news–or at least commentary–on what’s announced.

PS: Here’s hoping for a Diablo III beta key! NO you can’t have it! >.<

Related posts:

1. I Can Haz BlizzCon!
2. BlizzCon, Here We Come!
3. Under Development: Ulduar
4. Blizzcon 2009: Day 1
5. BlizzCon: Day 0

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1. Most Incredible Machinima Ever
2. Letter from War: The Plaguelands
3. Weekly WoW Bash: How to Spot a Noob
4. Into the Beta
5. Letter from War: A New Threat

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1. Best Debuff Ever
2. Problems with Dual Specs and Action Bars
3. New Life Tap Getting Another Look?
4. Heroic/Raid Saves in 3.1
5. Model Viewer + Free Time = New Signature

On a non related sidenote, I would also like to point out that the old Emerald Dream maps that have been in the game files for years have been slightly updated throughout the 3.2, and in the Build 10072 of the PTRs the Map.dbc file with some of the settings for each zone was updated to make it a 40 Players max zone.

Take it for what it’s worth, folks.

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1. News and Such
2. WWI News
3. Patch 3.0.2 Today
4. Blizzcon, Cataclysm, and Stuff
5. Early Spring Cleaning

The following day, I started healing heroics. I felt like I could heal H VH, and it went quite well. The group I was in decided to run CoS and asked if I could heal–I said I’d be willing to try. Somewhere along the line, the group decided to try for a drake run–I was pretty skeptical, as my gear isn’t super great–a few iLvl 200 blues, a couple crafted epics, and a bunch of 187 and lower blues–even a couple green quest rewards! But, they said “hey, let’s give it a shot and see what happens.” Not long after, and The Culling of Time is ours! No drake for me, which is fine, as Allianya can’t even fly yet! After H CoS I healed H UP and it went well also.

Yesterday included such excitement as DPSing H DTK (and I pushed just over 2000, which I was very happy with, and included Oh Novos!), and then healed H HoL (with Lightning Struck and Shatter Resistant) and a Defenseless H VH (not a big deal, I know) and an H UK (with On the Rocks).

Overall, I’m really enjoying healing, especially as Disc. The playstyle has really clicked with me and I’m having a lot of fun, and the successful runs have helped instill a little confidence, so I’m not terrified to go looking for a heroic to heal! I look forward to working on my gear pretty heavily in the near future and getting raid-ready!

Related posts:

1. Decisions
2. Why I Love Druids
3. An Evening of Upgrades
4. Preparing for WotLK
5. Foray into Multiboxing: RAF Experiment Done

However, WoW does not update the action bar for your second spec. I leveled through my 60’s mostly healing instances on my priest. Almost every time I visited the trainer, I was in my healing spec. During those visits to the trainer, I learned all my new spells, not just my healing ones. So, when at level 68 I finally switched back to my shadow spec, none of the action bar buttons for this spec had the correct rank of the spell on them. I did not notice for a level or two, after I was becoming frustrated with how hard it was to kill mobs.

So remember–if you’re leveling up with dual specs, each time you train, it’s worth it to switch to your alternate spec and check to see if any of the skills you just learned need to be updated on that particular set of action bars.

This public service announcement is brought to you by BinaryMuse.

Related posts:

1. Dual Specs Not Dead Yet
2. Clarification on Dual Specs at the Class Panel
3. The Death of the Epic Mount Quests
4. My Day as a Tree
5. Double-Specs Not Dead Yet

Stonewhisper from <The Rat Pack> on Scarlet Crusade:

Mounts are 20, flight at 60… this is insane. Pure insanity. There’s no other way to describe it. All those months, years of grinding and leveling, farming gold, silver, copper… rendered meaningless. Everything I know about life now… soon to be gone. Just with this simple announcement.

So yesterday, resolved to my fate, I spent the day with the wife and kids, trying to keep up a strong appearance but knowing inside everything I held dear was coming crashing to a halt. Last night, as I kissed them all goodnight I silently wept at the losses I was about to suffer for this injustice. Eventually nature asserted itself and I drifted off to my final sleep as a whole being, as a man of pride and honor.

I awoke early but was afraid to open my eyes and face the desolation that my world had most assuredly become. But then… I felt a movement. Daring myself to peek at the horror that awaited me (dear God… mounts at 20…), instead… I see my daughter in bed next to me! Next to her, my wife was still here as well! I gasped in stunned disbelief as I noticed a brightening outside the window… the sun! It was indeed rising yet again! The sun… my son… wait, he wasn’t here! Fearing the worst, I burst into his room, and there he lay, still sleeping, still here… all was well!

Could it be… could it be true?! Is it possible that people getting mounts sooner and easier than me really won’t affect my life or… wait! The game!

It seemed an eternity as the computer booted up and the game loaded. Finally, the character screen… they’re all there! Can it be? Yes! Nothing is changed! No missing gold, mounts, honor… all of it still the same!

Can it be true? Can people have things a little easier than I did and my world not end? I dare now allow myself a glimmer of hope…

TL;DR: In no way, shape or form does allowing people to have an easier path to things today diminish or negate what you have already accomplished. You have nothing to cry about.

While people who disagree with his point will use his severe sarcasm to dance around the point, I find that he makes an excellent statement. I don’t fully understand why people have such a sense of entitlement–”I couldn’t have this nice thing so neither should anyone else.” Play the game, have fun, and leave everyone else alone. As stated by Zarhym: “Mount change announcement not ruining your life? We must fix this bug in an upcoming patch.”

Related posts:

1. Patch 2.4
2. Why do We WoW?
3. Playing with Others
4. New Life Tap Getting Another Look?
5. Letter from War: A New Threat

Overall, the expirement went really well. I took the paladin along the path of retribution and just used Righteous Fury to hold aggro, while the priest went holy for improved healing and some DPS talents like Divine Fury, Searing Light, Holy Specialization and Surge of Light, along with Glyph of Smite. Mobs died quickly, and after the paladin got the replinishment effect it was difficult to run out of mana on either toon.

At level 56, while I was in the Plaguelands leveling, a guildie offered to run me through Scholomance and Stratholme. I gathered up all the quests and off we went. By the time we were done, both characters (the priest especially) had some nice blue (and a purple!) gear, and was about 30% from dinging level 61. So, now I’m taking my time leveling through Outland, with a focus on getting professions up to speed before I set foot in Northrend.

The experiement was a lot of fun, and though I considered doing the same thing with more characters (and I might in the future), for now I’m eager to get my priest to 80 and into heroics and raids, and my budday Neal and I are still doing our RAF with other characters.

Related posts:

1. Foray into Multiboxing: Introduction
2. Foray into Multiboxing: Dual-Boxing with Recruit-A-Friend
3. Foray into Multiboxing: Part 1
4. Foray into Multiboxing: Part 2
5. Levelin’ Like a Madman

Sometimes it’s fun to visualize websites as being actual places you can walk in. I like to think of the WoW forums as a sprawling building with wings, courtyards, and meeting rooms for example.

General Forums: A room filled with picketers and angry protesters. A handful of people are desperately raising their hands and telling everyone to remain calm as the Blizzard gods have not forsaken them. A troll jumps in and yells “Blood Elves rule!” and a violent riot erupts. The people who actually enjoy the game step in then immediately turn around, desperate to hop on the next boat back to Azeroth.

WoW Getting Started: A shining and grand hall. Bright-eyed innocent new players step in and are greeted by smiling veterans, covered in armor more wild and fantastic than the naïve newcomers’ wildest dreams. Envision the jedi academy and Hogwarts combined.

Guild Relations and Recruitment: A big job fair. Numerous new lowbie guilds have small booths with free pens that nobody seems to pay notice to. The big raiding guilds have bouncers outside their exhibitions which tell people in tier 6 that they’re not on the list. There’s a bar and free shrimp.

PVP: You open the door and an axe flies out followed by sounds of crashing and fighting. You slam the door shut and back away.

Suggestions: A courtyard where one can see throngs of people standing on boxes and preaching such mad things as “crabs as a playable race!”. Onlookers crowd among these boxes with keen interest. Several cry “heresy!” at the preachers and throw fruit.

Tech Support: An infirmary filled with sick patients. Doctors dressed in blue scrubs rush about trying to assign treatment. A person donning a t-shirt marked “Linux” sits patiently while his doctor looks sadly at another physician and whispers, “There’s nothing we can do for him…prescribe morphine.”

World’s End Tavern: Pretty much as it sounds: A smoky, ale-laden tavern in the middle of the woods, filled with adventurers of all sorts looking to share stories and learn of the land’s lore. Every so often a naked mad man wearing nothing but a playstation 3 t-shirt jumps in and calls everyone freaks.

Class Forums: A series of adjacent rooms with different groups meeting in each. As you pass by the paladin room, you see a guest speaker discussing his latest book, “Seriously, We’re Pretty Friggin’ Awesome.” A Death Knight cuts a warrior at the vending machine line.

Off-Topic: There is a large heavy steel door at the far end of the hall. You push its icy surface open slowly and peer into the quite dark void. You take a step in and hear the moaning and screaming of the forsaken souls banished to this dark realm. Before you can run away, the floor collapses into a writhing mass of outstretched arms and hands that begin pulling you under. As the darkness surrounds your vision, you swear you can hear Cher playing in the background…

Of course I’m exaggerating some stuff here for the sake of humor. If anything the forums are fun and diverse webpages to visit and I enjoy posting and reading within them. Let’s just hope for the love of physical safety that it never becomes realized as an actual physical domain

Related posts:

1. Moving Forward
2. Patch 2.4: People are Far Too Optimistic
3. Arena PTR Open
4. These are the People in your Raid
5. Role Consolidation, or “Great, Now I’m Useless”

In a group, the experience awarded by mobs drops due to the fact that it was easier to kill in a group. WoWWiki covers the math in detail, but in simple terms:

XP Gained = Mob’s XP / Number of Group Members * Modifier

Modifier is a constant that changes based on the number of people in the group; it’s higher in larger groups, so as to not punish people as much for running instances with full groups, etc. While playing solo, or in a two-person group, Modifier is 1.

In the end, assuming a two-person group (which is what I was running), and also assuming both characters are the same level (which they were), each character receives half the experience that a player killing the mob alone would receive. This makes the leveling experience when dual-boxing slower, and makes questing not only more efficient than grinding mobs, but practically required to make any decent headway at all.

However, Blizzard introduced once system that flipped that world upside down: Recruit-A-Friend. It was intended to get new players up to level more quickly so they could play with their high-level friends; the high-level friend would send an invitation, and for 90 days, the two accounts would be linked. For the duration, characters on both accounts receive 300% XP from everything assuming that (1) they are grouped together (2) they are relatively close to each other, and (3) they are within 3 levels of each other (if not, only the lower character gets the 300% XP).

So, the higher-level friend would create a new alt with his new WoW-playing noob buddy, and for every mob kill get 150% normal experience (the experience is split, making it 50%, and that is tripled, making 150% total), and 300% experience for every quest.

This is huge.

A friend and I have been leveling a few alts using the Recruit-A-Friend system. It is really… really fast. The 300% XP from quests is amazing–I’ve had quests give me half a level or more worth of experience.

At the same time, I’ve decided to dual-box again, this time using Recruit-A-Friend, during the times my buddy and I aren’t playing our RAF characters. 150% XP from mobs makes it much less painful to do, ie, quests where each character has to loot a certain number of items, and the 300% XP from quests makes practically every quest worth doing. Last night I started another pally/priest combo on my new server, and when I logged off they were level 10. I’m still using the same technology from my previous posts, so if you’re interested, be sure to check out the other posts in this category.

As time progresses, I’ll post some other information, tips, and tricks.

Related posts:

1. Foray into Multiboxing: RAF Experiment Done
2. Foray into Multiboxing: Part 1
3. Foray into Multiboxing: Introduction
4. Foray into Multiboxing: Part 2
5. Patch 2.3 and the Experience Curve

BLIZZCON^®2009 TICKETS ON SALE MAY 16

Exclusive coverage of Blizzard Entertainment^®’s gaming convention available through DIRECTV^®satellite TV service and Internet stream

IRVINE, Calif. – May 5, 2009 – Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that tickets for its fourth BlizzCon^®gaming convention will go on sale May 16. Live coverage of the event will be available as a DIRECTV^®Pay Per View event and, for the first time, as an Internet stream. BlizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment^®’s Warcraft^®, Diablo^®, and StarCraft^®game universes. The event will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on August 21 and 22.

“BlizzCon always offers us a great chance to meet players and celebrate our shared passion for gaming,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to delivering another entertaining and memorable experience to all attendees and to those joining us from home.”

In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, BlizzCon will offer an array of activities, including discussion panels, hands-on playtime with upcoming games, tournaments, contests, and more.

Tickets to the convention will be priced at $125 USD each and will be available for purchase from the official BlizzCon website at www.blizzcon.com beginning May 16. For those unable to purchase tickets on that date, a second block of tickets will go on sale May 30.

To streamline the ticket-purchase process this year, the company has made upgrades to the Blizzard Store, including a first-come, first-served queue system and a fixed time limit for completing purchases. Also, those interested in attending BlizzCon can simplify the purchase process by registering a Battle.net account at www.battle.net before ticket sales begin.

Due to its popularity last year, the DIRECTV^® BlizzCon Pay Per View event will return in 2009, available to existing DIRECTV customers for $39.95 USD. The event will again deliver a minimum of eight hours of live HD coverage from the show floor on each day of the convention, including exclusive interviews, demos, and more. In addition, gamers around the world who are unable to attend BlizzCon will for the first time be able to purchase the Pay Per View event as an Internet stream, also priced at $39.95 USD (pricing may vary by region). DIRECTV customers who order the televised event will receive this Internet stream at no extra charge, allowing them to watch in the format of their choice. Anyone who orders the event will also receive this year’s BlizzCon-exclusive World of Warcraft^® in-game item — to be revealed at a later date.

In addition, in the weeks ahead DIRECTV will offer a BlizzCon promotion for those interested in signing up for the DIRECTV television service. New subscribers through this promotion will receive the DIRECTV BlizzCon Pay Per View event, the Internet stream, and the BlizzCon 2009 World of Warcraft in-game item for the price of becoming a new DIRECTV customer.

To keep pace with the continued growth of World of Warcraft as well as development on other Blizzard Entertainment games, the company is currently hiring for numerous open positions. More information on available career opportunities can be found at www.blizzard.com/jobs.

As BlizzCon draws closer, further details about the show, including ordering and programming information for the DIRECTV BlizzCon Pay Per View event and Internet stream, will be announced at www.blizzcon.com.

About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft^® and the Warcraft^®, StarCraft^®, and Diablo^® series, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment’s track record includes eleven #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company’s online-gaming service, Battle.net^®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active users.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Blizzard Entertainment generally uses words such as “outlook,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “might,” “remains,” “to be,” “plans,” “believes,” “may,” “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimate,” future,” “plan,” “positioned,” “potential,” “project,” “remain,” “scheduled,” “set to,” “subject to,” “upcoming,” and similar expressions to help identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales of Blizzard Entertainment’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Blizzard Entertainment’s ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms (including next-generation hardware), declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Blizzard Entertainment’s products, adoption rate and availability of new hardware and related software, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry standards, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Blizzard Entertainment, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, vendors and third-party developers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates, integration of recent acquisitions and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, Activision Blizzard’s success in integrating the operations of Activision Publishing and Vivendi Games in a timely manner, or at all, and the combined company’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits and synergies of the transaction to the extent, or in the timeframe, anticipated. Other such factors include additional risk factors identified in Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

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