Anyone who knows me online might have been wondering why I haven’t been playing Wow very much recently. Well it’s all thanks to Fallout 3 (and Christmas) a fantastic FPS open world RPG. I would suggest that this game is just as addictive, if not more so because it something completely different, as wow.
Fallout 3 is set is a post apocalyptic alternative earth where a world devastated by nuclear war is fought over by various faction of different moral standings. Throughout the game you level up your character and customize it to match your play style though skills and perks. Additionally your every action has an impact on the world, altering who you can talk to, how people will react to you and how the world appears. Overarching this is Karma a measurable indication of your actions in terms of good and bad. Karama has the most impact on how you experience the game, massacre settlements, enslave people and eat corpses and you will be unwelcome at towns and loved by slavers. However if you help out strangers, rescue people and kill slavers you will not only be rewarded by some of the townsfolk but a bounty will be placed on your head and Mercenary forces will start to hunt you down.
Combat can take several forms, you can fire all your weapons freestyle or you can enter V.A.T.S when essentially pauses the game and lets you allocate where your next few shots will land. This system is limited by your AP a regenerating value which determines how many shots you can fire in V.A.T.S at that time. The ability to sneak give you the option, to a limited extend, of back stabbing people or just sneaking past them and you can sometimes talk your way out of a fight. The mechanics also include the ability to critically hit, disable limbs and head shot.
The world is immersive, the game smooth and beautiful and the story engaging and complex but Fallout is not without its flaws. The worst so far has to be the poor AI, enemies seem to either charge straight at you or stand and shoot. Difficulty is only ensured by the toughness, damage output and number of enemies or a lack of ammunition. To make matters worse quite often enemies don’t path well around corners, obstacles and walls. On several occasions I have been able to take out Minigun wielding Super Mutants by trapping them in rooms and bouncing grenades in to them. I would have liked to see the enemy use cover, attempt to surround you and other simple but challenging tactics. My other annoyance was that upon achieving a new level you have to choose your skills and perk immediately this resulted in several very unwise choices that are irreversible. Allowing the player to skip assigning them immediately and return later and the ability to reset them (perhaps at a very high cost) would have been an excellent addition.
Overall it is a fantastic game well worth the asking price and the significant time investment. You can visit the official site with plenty of information about the game or visit the game Wiki which has details about all the skills, perks, quests, characters etc.
Images from the Fallout 3 Official Site
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tangent Time - Fallout 3
Patch 3.0.8 for Protection Warriors
For the last few weeks a new patch 3.0.8 has been on the Public Test Realms, this patch includes a couple of notable (positive) points for Protection warriors.
Targets will now agro on the use of any spell/ability, this change seems aimed at Warlock and Priest damage over time spells which can take a moment to actually damage a mob, during this time it can be stolen by another player. However it also means we can now “tap” targets with Taunt and Demoralizing Shout which will make gathering up groups of mobs a bit easier in a competitive environment.
Two new enchants are to be added which fill some enchanting gaps for tanking classes. Enchant Weapon - Titanguard will add 75 stamina to a weapon and will be the best tanking enchant available. The second is Enchant Bracers – Major Stamina which adds 40 stamina to your bracers, this supplements the existing bracer enchants which add 15 expertise or 12 defense (Burning Crusade enchant that you might you if your desperate for defense).
An increase to the range of Taunt, from 20 yards to 30 yards, is the only ability change for Protection Warriors. This will be useful for a few fights where you are required to pick up lots of spread out mobs and in picking up mobs which have appeared from behind your party.
Presently there is no indication of when this patch will go live but considering it has been on the PTR for a while now it shouldn’t be too long.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Child's Play
You may have heard about the Child’s Play charity, it was established in 2003 by the guys over at Penny Arcade to raise money for sick children. Now thanks to this charity gamers and industry organisations work together each year to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars (though this year they hit 1 million) which is directed to hospitals around the world. I would encourage everyone to donate to this highly worthwhile cause!
You can donate via PayPal by clicking the image above.
Sadly the Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital was not added to the list of receiving organisations this year. Additionally I did not get an opportunity to run the fundraising event I had hoped to. I guess there is always next year.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Continued Raiding Success
Thanks to some on the spot raiding The Children of Stormwind now have another two raid instances under their belt. Last night a brave band of ten took on the Obsidian Sanctum and The Vault of Archavon. Both bosses fell with only one wipe each and Archavon was only really due to an evade bug and some messy taunting from myself.
The ease with which we completed both of these encounters leads me to one of two conclusions. Either raids are easier or the guild has gotten a fair bit better. I am inclined to think that perhaps it’s more of the former than the latter as there were plenty of silly mistakes made throughout the raid. Additionally although people are working to improve their play I think we still have a way to go maximising our characters performance. However that said we have improved, the guild as a whole have already attempted and begun to succeed at raid content which is a big step. We are also helping each other with crafted items and instances runs more than I saw in the Burning Crusade. Most importantly I am seeing enthusiasm again, gone are the days of running Karazhan for the hundredth time for now everything is new and exciting.
Naxxramas - The Arachnid Quarter
On the 15th of December the Children of Stormwind made their first foray into Naxxramas. The evening began with some minor trouble with the other tank and top healer being at a Christmas party but after some stumbling around we found a PUG healer and got started. The raid is made up of four parts which must be completed to unlock the final bosses. In the two hours we were there we downed the three bosses in the Arachnid Quarter, Anub'Rekhan, Grand Widow Faerlina and Maexxna. We had a few wipes on Anub’Rekkan and Maexxna as we sorted out exactly what we needed to do but the Grand Widow Faerlina when down first shot.
The six epic items dropped were all made excellent use of with Lil getting the best deal and winning two items. For a “stuck our head in and see how we do” attempt we did very successfully. We plan to try again next weekend, this time with more serious game faces and hopefully clear another wing in addition to the Arachnid.
PS Elfarol your going to hate the Arachnid wing, true to it’s name there are a lot of spiders and with you now insisting on this retribution business your going to be getting pretty close to them.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Wrath of the Lich King
It was a dark and stormy night when our car charged into the lot of the local Westfield. We escaped the cold outside into cavernous concrete and glass megalith where Electronic Boutique is housed. A short discussion with the staff and we emerged with the numbers 34 and 35. The wait seemed an eternity barely relieved by a call from fellow guild mates in the same situation 1000km away. Then a line formed, watched over by the local store manager dual wielding foam short swords. We were to wait as such until the appointed time. Meer minutes before our turn to collect that which we had waited so long for a sodden rider enters and removes his helm revealing a manly Duke Nukem esk head with metal band drummer beard. Tek finally appeared and in the nick of time; risking the wrath of the noob hordies surrounding us we snuck (as much as you can sneak a 6 foot guy in wet leather). We entered together, diverged our recepts then raising our fists in victory as we emerged with our copies of Wrath of the Lich King. A brief hiatus ensued as we had a catch up with a guy I had only ever seen as a cute night elf female promising the next meeting would involved alcoholic beverages of some variety.
The journey home was framed with brilliant lightning strikes almost as if mother nature was providing a backdrop to our upcoming adventures. Installation was smooth and provided an opportunity to source drinks, snacks and read the art book. Then finally the we were in, starting on our long path to the destruction (or redemption?) of Arthas. 
First glimpses of Northrend revealed ice, penguins and the ominous spectre of Utguard Keep leering over Howling Fjord. Then as time passes, monsters and dragons are slain, Titans ridden, seeds pooped out, flags planted and levels dinged. Zones come and go and the trail of corpses lengthens. But from Utguard all the way to Icecrown the Arthas is ever present. Sometimes directly some times not and even once though a loop hole in time. The world changes around us as we participate in history. Assisting King Varian Wrynn take the Undercity, leading the spearhead for Highlord Tirion Fordring of the Argent Crusade and establishing a foothold in Icecrown for the Knights of the Ebon Blade.
Until at last in the heights of the Storm Peaks the final level is obtained eight has finally been reached. But still the end is not in sight, there are many more foes to vanquish, quest to complete and raids to clear. But soon Arthas, soon we will come for you.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Ironarm the Explorer
At level 79 I sat down at my PC one evening with only 30-40 minutes to play. My internet was playing up so I knew questing would be frustrating. So I jumped onto my Nether Ray and finally got around to completing the World Explorer Achievement.
I was pleasantly surprised at how little time it took my to clear up a couple of missing areas and explorer the majority of Icecrown and Stormpeaks. The achievements rewards a title and an epic tabard. Additionally I received about 5% of a levels worth of experience.
Stormpeaks looks stunning, I am very excited to go and try some quests there. However I am not sure what the purpose of Crystalsong Forest is, there are two camps but no quests.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Open Apology
Sorry I have not been posting, too caught up in Wrath. I have taken a lot of screen shots so expect some pretty posts to come.
Read Full ArticleThursday, November 13, 2008
Direct Download Patches from Bigpond
I have had my problems with our Telstra Bigpond internet connection but they may be redeemed yet. Bigpond’s game section, Game Arena hosts all the World of Warcraft Patch files. Anyone who uses a Bigpond internet connection can subscribe to Game Arena for free. Game Arena host all sorts of patches, mods and map packs, all unmetered (ie it doesn’t count towards your download limit) and all at a very fast download speeds.
This is a great benefit for those of us who are cutting it close to our download limits and it means that if you ever need to reinstall wow you can get all the patches quickly and without maxing out our internet. Speaking as someone who has done this on at least one occasion, I am very happy to make this discovery.
Additionally you will need the 3.0.1 - 3.0.3 patches to upgrade to Wrath so if you deleted you can re acquire them here.
As an addendum I am cursing myself for not looking on Game Arena for World of Warcraft related content when I first got Bigpond.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
A time goes by
It seems that everyone, Blizzard blues included, are wishing away the time between now ans Wrath launch. Players are spamming trade chat, guilds chatting away about non nonsensical rubbish and Wow Insider is speed posting pictures and random mutterings. To help keep you entertained, please see the below picture of Ironarm posing in his Paladin Undead Killing plate armor of doom and such.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Arthas Attacks
Arthas has made his next move running up to the Release of Wrath of the Lich King.
FOOLS OF STOMWIND! HEAR ME, NAIVE CHILDREN OF THE ALLIANCE! TREMBLE AND KNOW YOUR DOOM, FOR THE LICH KING'S GAZE IS FIXED UPON YOU!
Attacks have landed in Stormwind Harbour for the alliance and the Valley of Honor for the horde. The event lasts about ten minutes during which you can fight frost wyrms and abomonations. Neither enemy is perticually hard to vanquish and currently there is no rewards.
It is disappointing there are no quests linked to this event. The idea of fighting off attacks for your boat ticket would be amusing to say the least.
What i found most interesting was the appearence of Broll Bearmantle and Valeera Sanguinar who fight along side the king in the arena. I would recomend reading the comic book to fill the background of where the King has been. Read Full Article
Shield Block
Reading a Wow Insider article the other day I noticed something quite interesting about the warrior ability shield block. Improved shield block used to increase our block chance by 75% for two attacks. With the removal of crushing blows and thus the need for crushing blow mitigation this was changed to increase out block chance and value by 100% for 10 seconds with a 60 second cool down. Initially I didn’t understand this change and perhaps others missed it too. This means that for 10 seconds every minute (talented down to 40 seconds) you are blocking every attack and your block value is doubled.
Now I have a block value of around 800 depending on which gear I am in so for a quarter of the time I can be reducing incoming melee attacks by about 1600 plus a 30% chance to double that again. In addition attackers will be hit for between 250 and 500 damage thanks to Damage Shield. Viewed from a damage/AE tanking perspective, if we add Thunder Clap, Thorns and Retribution Aura (do they still stack?) mobs should be sticking to us like we well... glue.
For you amusing reference please see the above image as to how useful this ability if to clearing whole instances with one pull. Here you can see everything in Wailing Caverns that didn't die on the way to the last room. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, thanks to changes such as these I can be second on damage charts in heroics, out DPS arms warriors in arena and well kill stuff. Sure I am not perfect and some times I get a bit big for my boots. For example pulling 3 shadows of doom as well as 5 or 6 non elites while your team mates are fighting off horde warlocks is a close call. Also 6 heroic elites is my maximum so far with the 7th (a Cobalt Serpent) wiping the group.
Playing a protection warrior really has got a lot more fun. You really feel like you are involved while tanking and you are no longer an easy target in PvP. A lot has changes recently and personally I am loving it.
Monday, November 10, 2008
New Children of Stormwind Site
We have updated the Children of Stormwind website. The new site, based on my design, looks much better and has a great new application form.
A lot of people spent time making this happen and you should all be really proud of your efforts!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
DIY - Wow Items
Have you ever wanted to make your own spells or items? Well where there is the internet there is a way. Wow Item Creator allows you to do just this with the excellent Flash based item creator. You can make spells, abilities, weapons armor and other items with items stats, use abilities, restrictions and flavor text. In fact the final result can look so good you could easily confuse it for the real thing. The Luck Dragon you see above was made in response to a comment on our guild forums. But I originally found this when trying to make an example Spell Power item before any existed in the game.
I would encourage you to jump on and have a look at some of the items people have made, my personal favorite so far is the Illidan Cookie, and have a go for yourself. While you are at it you can rate my Luck Dragon, even though I want to change the use effect to “can only be summoned in Outlands, Northrend or Fantastica”.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Tangent Time - Team Fortress 2
Welcome to my new weekly (hopefully) column ‘Tangent Time’. I have found that often a fair amount of time can go by without anything of significant note happening in wow. This column will help to round out this blog with regular posts. When there is lots of interesting wow news, say for example the Wrath Launch, then expect ‘Tangent Time’ to be temporarily forgotten.
So onto this weeks topic, Team Fortress 2 (TF2). TF2 is an online multiplayer FPS which started it’s life as a player made Half Life mod. With the release of the latest Half Life (are we up to three now?) Valve redeveloped TF, gave it a graphic overhaul, made new maps and added some new game play types. TF2 is a class based game; there are nine classes, three offensive, three defensive and three support. Each class is quite unique both in terms of play mechanics, has obvious strengths and weaknesses and a distinctive character. My personal favorite is the Pyro an offensive class which uses a flamethrower. Pyros are a fast, low hit point class who at close rage (especially from behind) deal large amounts of damage. If you can pop out of a corridor behind a few enemy players you can easily wipe them all out but you wont last in a frontal assault (conditions apply).
There are two reasons that I have been really enjoying this game recently. Firstly is that it is fast paced and fun, you can power through a game or two in ten or fifteen minutes. Secondly is achievements; the achievements are really addictive and they are worse than wow achievements in that completing TF2 achievements will unlock extra weapons for your characters. Who wouldn’t want an axe wrapped in barbed wire!
TF2 can be purchased as part of the Orange Box or individually in stores and via steam. It’s a fun game and hopefully will soon become part of our regular LAN rotation.
In closing I provide a link to a fantastic Machninma Ignis Solus.
Images from in game and The Orange Box official website.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Blog Changes
Over the coming weeks I will be making an effort to update the look of my blog. I never really intended to use the standard Blogger template for so long but have had trouble deciding on a new theme. You will probably see lots of alterations, colour clashes and weird graphics. Do not be alarmed.
Read Full ArticleMonday, October 27, 2008
I have done a bit of forum reading, apparently we can expect a conclusion to this event pretty soon. There is a lot of fuss on Blizzards Official Forums, I would go so far as to say it’s the worst I have seen it. However there is light at the end of the tunnel, apparently both the King of Stormwind and Thrall have disappeared. and before the king left he talks about a powerful holy weapon. Happenings are a foot.
Read Full ArticleI can only hope...
Presently I have a very narky and slightly QQ post sitting in my blog post drafts. At the moment the Zombie Invasion world event is causing me a lot of frustration. But there is a reason that I haven’t posted my angry article. I am trusting Blizzard to take this event somewhere good and quickly. The concept is solid, plagued grain is a nice reflection of what happened in Stratholme and the undead slowly taking over the world. But from this we need a climatic conclusion.
Hints are coming that the Alliance (and I suppose the Horde too) are working to retaliate. Elfarol posted an interesting transmission from a Gnomish Wireless Unit and Wow Insider has a few hints from faction leaders. Hopefully Blizzard will pull this off and there will be an epic conclusion which kicks Wrath off with a bang and swamps out the frustrations insured by rampant ganking zombies.
EDIT: People are getting really annoyed now, apparently there have been a lot of complaints in guild chat. Perhaps I should post my QQ article anyway.
Friday, October 24, 2008
The Evil Dead!
Although I have not entered the world for a day or so, word is out that Arthas is making his move against the Alliance and Horde. Diseased creates of wheat have arrived around Azeroth those who catch the infection form them will, unless cured, turn into a zombie. Thankfully the Argent Dawn have healers in the major cities who can cure you of this horrific disease but it will only be a matter of time before even they are turned.
I plan to form a party of defenders to help contain this menace, concern remains that although Ironarm is tough and has a resistance to disease he will be turned by shear weight of numbers. We can only hope that a powerful force will appear and assist us as it appears that the zombies are getting stronger.
Roleplay aside, this could be an interesting and at the same time a very annoying event. I will need to investigate which NPCs can be infected and whether that will make them hostile. Hopefully the placement of Agent Dawn forces will help to mitigate this and ensure the game remains fun. Should the Auctioneers, Innkeepers and quest givers get turned life could get quite frustrating. The fact that people are complaining that paladins, priests and shaman are cleansing them surprises me. As far as I can see the main reason people want to be zombies is to attack others and cause havoc. Dispelling the disease seems like a great way to stop them from doing that.
Should you wish to join me, in the defense against the zombie infestation, then have a look at the guide on Wow Insider for some tips on staying alive. We will NEVER give up we will NEVER surrender! For the LIGHT!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Straglethorn Vale Fishing Competition
I might have a comtender for my best in game moment, today I won the Stranglethorn Vale. In fact I won it on my first try. With only a moment to choose a reward (you don't win untill you complete the quest)I picked the Arcanite Fishing Pole, reading all the text for the Hook of the Master Angler probabily would have lost me the competition and in retrospect the rod is a better choice anyway.
I must thank Elfarol for his assistance, explaining to me that I need to set my hearthstone to the Booty Bay, showing me a good spot to fish, scouting my next pool and generally hanging around to give me Crusader Aura and make me a less appealing PvP target. Really it was him and a lot of luck on pools respawing in good places that won it.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Patch Woes and Wonders
Last night I should have finally got to dip my toes into the new patch and take Ironarm for a ride with shiny new talents. Sadly I didn’t, instead I spent all night looking at installer bars, downloads, scans and technical support forums. You see Blizzard decided that people with Vista needed to shift their installer directory to avoid patching problems, except that every time I tried to, I got an error. Apparently I wasn’t alone; there were a small number of other players with the same or similar problems. Out of 11 million players that’s not really all that bad, it’s just very frustrating it had to happen for such an exciting patch. Most normal people would have just uninstalled wow and started from scratch, great idea except my internet is capped until Saturday. It would take until Saturday to get all of the patches again. So after trying all the resolution steps I could find I raised a ticket. They will probably tell me to reinstall it but it’s worth a shot.
So the long and the short of it is I missed the best bit of the patch. I missed the jump on the early Inscription benefits, the guild chat as people acquired achievements and the discussion of awesome new abilities. Alassiel said she would come home tonight and let me play on her laptop, so I should get to see it tonight, but I will feel guilty for every minute of her play time I steal.
On a brighter note Alassiel completed the achievement Leading the Cavalry and I would be confident in saying she is the first person in the guild to get an Albino Drake (see picture above) congratulations!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Patch Incoming
Did you notice the extended maintenance period tonight? Our server will be down from 8:00pm to 8:00am, Jubie’Thos server time, to implement the “Echoes of Doom” patch (3.0.2).
Included in the patch will be:
- Access to the new profession Inscription
- Two new arenas: The Ring of Valour and The Dalaran Sewers
- Changes to the world including the Stormwind Harbour
- Barbershops
- Achievements System
- New Talents, Spells and abilities
- Changes to the buff system
- The beginning of a world event…?
This patch is huge (1.17 gig to be precise), and contains some massive changes. If you haven’t looked at anything about this yet I strongly recommend you visit the Wowhead Talent Calculators, perhaps look over some of the coverage on Wow Insider or check out the official patch notes.
I was really looking forward to making it to the max Inscription level before work but unfortunately I will be lucky to even load into the new patch before work. Additionally downloading the patch four times (on my old computer, on my new computer, on Alassiel’s computer and for the PTR which I never even entered) has capped out my internet connect so I’m playing on what is essentially a dial up connection.
Image from: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/underdev/index.html Read Full Article
Sunday, October 12, 2008
BlizzCon Blog Posts
Thanks to the coverage on Main Event I have written a pile of blog posts over the weekend. You can find links to all of these via this post. They are aranged in the order I wrote them.
Day One
BlizzCon Begins
Mike Morhaime Interview
Class Discussion
Blizzard the Company
Starcraft 2
World of Warcraft World Design Interview - Alex Afrasiabi
Ghost in the System
The Contests
Day Two
World of Warcraft PvP Panel
Jeff Kaplan Interview
Interview with Felica Day
World of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids
World of Warcraft Gameplay Panel
Closing Ceremony
It's a Wrap
Because these posts are based on the Main Event coverage I don't have pictures to associate with the posts so my apologies for the walls of text.
It's a Wrap
Well BlizzCon is over, the coverage anyway. I really enjoyed watching all of the coverage, there was plenty of great information on the World of Warcraft and Direct TV did an excellent job of the coverage. Sure I missed a couple of panels but even if I was there I would have missed tons of stuff. I was also surprised how much I enjoyed hearing about Starcraft and Diablo. I will defiantly be picking up a copy of Diablo 3, it looks like an excellent game. I get the impression that Diablo is like playing through a really good fantasy novel. I don't really understand how it works but it seems that you can play through it with a friend. Perhaps Alassiel will get a copy too and we can play through it together.
Starcraft also looks really worth getting; I used to play a ton of real time strategy games and really enjoyed them. The inclusion of a branching quest system and compelling story might just win me back into that area. Of course the best bit of all gaming is playing with a friend and the same will go for Starcraft so I’ll have to con my old RTS buddy to grab it as well.
The highlight would have to be Warcraft panels, I enjoyed them the most. Only one thing was completely missing, that was the 3v3 Arena competition. Watching professionals in the arena would have been quite a valuable incite. Hopefully I will go to next years BlizzCon then I can get to experience it all first hand.
Closing Ceremony
Paul Sams closed up the evening with a farewell, video highlights reel and thankyous to the Blizzard guys who worked hard to put the convention together. This was followed by Kyle Kinane (comedian) who livened up the crowd with some humour vaguely related to the convention and Blizzard but just generally funny. Patton Oswalt, also a comedian, followed him with more humour. Less amusing, in fact much less amusing more inappropriate and annoying. Patton was the voice of Remmy, surprising because he didn't seem to be able to go for long without swearing or saying something really uncool. How this guy managed to score such a high profile gig is beyond me.
Thankfully the Level 80 Eilete Tauren Chieftains were a lot better, in an amusing kind of way. The band is made up from Blizzard employees; they certainly got an excellent response from the crowd. They played The Power of the Horde, Terran up the Night, Rogues do it From Behind, Night Fall, Diablo(Raise some Hell) and I am Murlock. Their show also had some semi stand up sketch stuff as well. Nice work guys!
To close up the days coverage was Video Games Live. Video Games Live is a live orchestra, band and choir which perform the music from video games. The performance included music from all the Blizzard games past and present and it was all absolutely fantastic. In fact I was taken by how much just the music stirred my emotions. A perfect way to close it all up!
World of Warcraft Gameplay Panel
A star studded line up took on a barrage of player questions. Due to the huge variety of topics I have bulleted some of the most interesting points.
The panel did a good job answering the player questions, they also too some of the crap without breaking a sweat. One question which wasn't answered “why does it cost me $70 to have a tiny authenticator shipped to me?”, I guess I’ll have to ask that on the forums.
World of Warcraft Dungeons and Raids
This panel opened with discussion about how they made sure that the dungeons tied closely to the lore of Wrath of the Lich King. Pushing the story is just as important as kills and loot. They also wanted to make shorter unique instances that still had a feel of being epic and important. They have constructed the dungeons so that they are in very large spaces but the actual playing space is smaller. There was a fly through of Halls of Lightning which showed some of the excellent detailed elements of the dungeons. One of which was windows which give you a view out into the surrounding zone and continue to give you a feel of space. Unique boss models will make bosses feel special and give them some importance.
Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom, another five man instance, again works very effectively to make you feel like you’re in a huge space. There is a lot of background story which will be new to many players from this zone. This area is where Naxxramas was originally from, you can see this in the architecture. Also if you don't like spiders you really won’t like this instance. Phasing is also used in Ahn'kahet, the last boss fight will do some really interesting things with this technology where each player will have to fight their own group in a different phase. Once you have killed all your phases enemies you can then help others meaning your healer won't hate this encounter.
Moving to raids, they are learning from and building on Burning Crusade. The first raid they discussed, Chamber of Aspects, is an expandable raid. Depending on how many of the mini bosses you take out the main boss will be easier or harder and will have different loot tables. Then they looked at Eye of the Eternity, sadly they messed up triggering the event by attempting it real time while invincible, apparently the boss knew this so wouldn't engage them... opps. Well apparently when it all starts to go to hell the Red Dragon flight turn up and help you out.
What about loot? Well Heroics will have much better loot than standard dungeons not the current situation where most of it was the same. They are also working to tweak the badge system to have two different badges allowing for purchase of different tiers of gear and avoiding people well through the end game 'farming' badges. There will also be separate gear sets for 10 and 25 man raids but they will be interchangeable for the same set bonus and a couple of these set items will be purchasable with badges.
Interview with Felica Day
Felica Day is the star and creator of the web series of “The Guild” and a big fan of Blizzard. She announced that they are working on a second season which will air in November. The Guild were hosting a panel but I believe that this is not included in the TV coverage package. You can find more information about their new series and join their community at http://www.watchtheguild.com.
Read Full ArticleJeff Kaplan Interview
This interview was more of a recap of some of the panel information and information released during the beta. He also discussed upcoming content patches, of which there will be plenty relating to Wrath of the Lich King and that we could expect siege weapons in PvE. They have also started planning work on the next expansion. He also gave a very clear indication of how fast the levelling from 60 to 70 would be, currently it takes about 5 zones to get to 70. When the level change is put in place on Tuesday it will take only 2-3 zones. For players still fighting through the last few level this will really help them make it before November 13th (14th for us). I have mentioned Jyade and Bhoni before, well they are in their mid 60s at the moment so this change is for you guys, you can make it!
Read Full ArticleWorld of Warcraft PvP Panel
This panel launched straight into it showing off the new arenas. There are two new arenas in Wrath of the Lich King both of which have some very different elements from the arenas we see at the moment. To begin with both have dynamic elements. The Ring of Valor will have four moving pillars which will block line of sight and can be stood on to get out of melee combat. There is also two fire strips which damage you breaking up the arena floor into three sections. The Dalaran Sewers also has dynamic element, a pillar of water in the centre of the arena. A few people expressed concern about these dynamic events when this was originally announced. However a lot of the concern related to the randomness of them triggering, which has been changed to a static timer. I think it will be interesting even if it is somewhat tricky. Dalaran Sewers had a couple of other points, it's really quite small and the majority of the arena is on a platform accessible from two points, that could make it tricky for melee who get knocked off. Additionally you can't mount in this arena, although you can use travel and ghost wolf form. Both of these arena are also interesting as they will force players out into the arena. The Ring of Valor, via the lift which drops the teams really close to each other and in the Dalaran Sewers if you try to stay in the starting pipes you will get knocked out on to the floor.
The coverage stopped right after the arenas section but Strand of the Ancients was discussed in the following short interview. In response to player feedback it will be a 15v15, as opposed to 10v10, battle field with an assault and defend scenario.
There was another later interview about PvP, Cory Stockton talked about the new content for PvP. Lake Wintergrasp will offer a raid instance for when you win the zone and the rewards have been improved from the BC world PvP rewards. The improved rewards and the raid instance are designed so that players will continue to return to Lake Wintergrasp. Rewards includes mounts, gems and items you can hand down to your alts. The raid boss will drop a piece from any of the armour sets excluding head and shoulder items. Lake Wintergrasp will also include NPC aspects similar to Alterac Valley and daily quests.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Starcraft 2
I know this is a Warcraft blog but I feel it would be valuable to mention one of the other major announcements from BlizzCon. The Starcraft game play panel began with some nice game cinematic and story background. This was followed by a short game play demonstration. The game looks quite nice and fun to play from the small amount I saw and it is backed up by an excellent storyline. They have also steered away from a linear sequence of missions toward a system where you have choice of different missions which can be taken in your own order.
The big announcement is that Starcraft 2 will in fact be a trilogy of games. Each will have a campaign for one of the factions and each campaign will be an epic story line.
Oh and they showed a new cinematic! I like Blizzard's cinematics.
The Contests
At BlizzCon they have several fun stage contests, costume, dance and/silly. To begin there was the costume contest. There were some stunning and extravagant costumes, obviously a lot of people have spent a great deal of time working on them. Some of the Draenei costumes were very effective also by picking a simple armour participants were able to craft them really well. There were some very cleaver costumes such as a paladin bubble hearthing and a tauren hocky player and a few good double entries such as a hunter and their pet.
The entries were overwhelmingly Warcraft related, with only a couple of Starcraft and Diablo entries. Additionally most of the entrants were female.
My favourite and the winner was the female Draenei shaman in season three arena gear on a full size animatronics riding turtle complete with shield and weapon.
Original song and movie contest presentations were also made. Neither the songs nor movies were shown so I can't judge them. The only exception was the over all winner Snacky's Journal 4. I have seen some of the Snacky's Journal episodes and they are quite good. Hopefully they post all the songs and movies on the Blizzard site for us to see.
Sorry I was enjoying the jokes too much to dictate them into this blog. Well except this one “what class in World of Warcraft do women like the most... male enhancement shaman”.
These were followed up by the 'profession' comedian Jeff Lewis also know as Vork from 'The Guild', You Tube, TV show. Finally the day was closed off by the MC presenting the winners of the /silly (the shaman joke got 2nd). The only contest remaining is the dances; the footage appeared to cut off as though there was more about to happen so I can only assume that will be broadcasted tomorrow.
1:30pm
EDIT: A very short dance contest package was aired Sunday morning, a girl doing the undead dance won but there was plenty of other great entries.
EDIT 2: Snacky's Journal was show later on the second day of coverage, it's very well put together, amusing and very deserving of it's overall winner status.
Ghost in the System
Well I’m up to 40 minutes of “Normal programming will return as soon as possible”. Occasionally ill get thirty seconds or so of coverage and then it drops. Hopefully it's will solidify up again soon.
It's getting better but I am still missing bits here and there. A bit disappointing for a paid service.
World of Warcraft World Design Interview - Alex Afrasiabi
Questing has evolved from Burning Crusade. In Northrend there is more involvement from the big bad (Arthas) so even if you never get to raid you should still be very aware of his presence. They have learnt from their mistakes in the Classic and Burning Crusade games. The use of phasing is also making a difference to the world and to quests. This is most visible in the Death Knight starting zone. Some things to do with changing the environment are now possible thanks to this revolutionary technology and we should start to see these in Northrend. However they have had to be very careful with this as bad use of phasing could really confuse players. For example if players on different steps of a group quest chain can't see each other they would be very annoyed.
An interesting note which arose from viewer question was that there are no world bosses in Northrend because of some of the player collision (PvP and Griefing) issues that have arisen with them in Azeroth and the Outlands.
Alex also revealed that there will be a world event attached the patch next Tuesday. In Alex's own words “All kinds of craziness is going to happen... your going to have a reason to go to Northrend”.
Blizzard the Company
Something I noticed from the walk through of the offices, sure they are showing off on international TV, but they look fantastic. The look and feel of the complex was wonderful and it had a strong sence of branding. There was plenty of pictures on the walls, statues relating to their games and it was obvious the staff loved their jobs.
Blizzard now have nearly 3,000 staff, for having that many people Blizzard do a pretty impressive job keeping secrets. That’s says something about the commitment and loyalty of their staff something that would be the envy of many other companies.
An addition motivation to stay with Blizzard is their 5 year service award a sword, ten year service award a Lordaeron shield and fifteen year service award a ring. From an HR perspective Blizzard's massive popularity and peoples desire to work there is a double edged sword, they must get some excellent applicants for every job but they probably have to sift through thousands of applications.
Class Discussion
The class discussion, conducted by Greg Street (Ghost Crawler) and Tom Chilton, for the World of Warcraft started with Death Knights. Some explanation about where the class has evolved from and touching upon runes and runic power. The starting zone for Death Knights will be a zone worth playing through just for the experience, even if you don't want to level all the way to 80. Something that was very interesting is that the talent trees are less task specific. Apparently you can use any tree for either DPS or tanking.
Greg then started to go through some changes to the classes. There were some excellent explanations about how and why they had made certain changes; i'm not going to detail everything as there was a lot of information. He touched upon shadow priest DPS, discipline healing ability in raids and the removal of racial talents for priests. Mind sear is apparently a popular new ability among Blizzard staff. Moonkin were covered, discussing mana and crowd control and DPS issues. This brought a smile to Alassiel's face. There was a huge reaction to Paladins by the audience; in fact they got their own slide in the presentation.
Warriors have been the main tank for a long time, they wanted to make sure that warriors were still desired, but not the exclusive tank, after the removal of crushing blows. They also wanted to make sure that there were “fun things” to take in the protection tree in addition to the mitigation abilities. A desire was expressed by the designed to maintain a very clear difference between the different tanking classes while ensuring they all have the tools they need.
In terms of groups, flexibility was addressed. Ensuring that more different class/talents were viable in raids, focusing on the idea that you were bringing the player not the class. They didn't want the game to be about buffs and potions but gear and skill. Player skill will be the most important reason to chose someone for a group. The implementation of spell power will make life easier for healers when soloing. The same goes for threat generation based more on damage, for tanks, as opposed to high threat abilities.
Yes, they are working on a dual spec system. They want you do be able to swap talent spec mid raid but they don't seem to have too many details yet. Obviously not a system where you can swap from arms to prot and back again I the middle of an arena battle but they don't want you to have to head into town every time you need to swap. On top of that they want to improve the UI to support different gear sets. Implementing something like outfitter or item rack where switching gear sets easily while still keeping these sets in your bags.
Mages, rogues and warlocks were the source of the most questions. Lots of points were mentioned, I started tuneing out sorry, making mages do more DPS isn't at the top of my priority list. Sadly no questions were asked about warriors or priests.
Mike Morhaime Interview
Direct TV interviewed Mike shortly after the opening speech. A fair amount of focus was placed on Diablo 3, but there was also some discussion of the upcoming film, apparently there is a script. Mike gave no strong confirmation to anything, which isn't too surprising. There will be another BlizzCon at some stage and yes there is another MMO in development but, apparently, we won't be hearing much about it for a while. We can also expect more ads along the lines of the ones staring Mr T and William Shatner, one of the celebrities has the initials OO, could that be Ozzy Osbourne? There was also a video of his office; it was touching to hear how the company was founded on a loan from his grandmother.
Read Full ArticleBlizzCon Begins
Time counts down, fifteen minutes to go. It is 4:45am and I haven't really slept all that well. The excitement builds as the coverage hosts banter back and forth about the upcoming day. It seems like this weekend should be a coffee drinking, sleep lacking, marathon.
Finally the opening ceremony begins, and a humble Mike Morhaime apologises about the ticket debacle, apparently they sold 15,000 tickets in 15 minutes, and welcomes the audience. Its a tough crowd and even getting a sentence out is tricky with repeated interjections of cheering. After his opening spiel there is a highlights reel from WWI earlier in the year in Paris. This is followed with a replay of the Wrath cinematic. Then some Diablo news, another class is announced for the third game, The Wizard.
Mike did a great job, gamers are a tough crowd and without a massive ground breaking announcement he was somewhat unarmed. Sure a new class for Diablo 3 is nice but that only satisfies a portion of the crowd. This is however only the introduction perhaps the panels later in the day will hold more Warcraft information.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Welcome to BlizzCon
“BlizzCon is a celebration of the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises and the communities that surround them. This two-day event will contain Q&A panels featuring Blizzard Entertainment developers, social events for players and developers to meet one another, and hands-on gameplay featuring your favorite Blizzard Entertainment games.”
This weekend BlizzCon will be held Anaheim California. In fact as I write this Blizzard fans are swarming around the area collecting entry badges, checking into hotels and stocking up on energy drink. I was shocked to discover last night that not everyone knows what BlizzCon is, well, it’s the place I wish I was right now. There will inevitably be major announcements, excellent displays and most of all, thousands of people who share my passion. All entrants will also receive goody bags with some excellent items in them. Sadly BlizzCon didn’t coincide with when I was in the US so it will have to wait until next year before I get to go.
However, I am lucky enough to be able to watch the live coverage on Main Event (Pay TV) thanks to Alassiel’s mother. There is no internet connection there but I will be writing posts to put up as soon as I get home. Expect to read about all the major announcements as you brew your coffee Monday morning. Read Full Article
Ask a Question Rules
So there is a competition at Blizz Con to have your question asked to the developers. 20 people will get their question answered as well as a cool prize. However there are some weird restrictions as to who is eligible to enter. Normally it is restricted to only the US, so to see Australia listed at all was nice. However if you live in the sates of Queensland, Victoria or ACT you are not eligible. Firstly who ever wrote this need to revisit their geography, the ACT is a territory not a state. Second why are Qld, Vic and Act not eligible. It just makes no sense!
There is a reason I’m annoyed about this. Alassiel and I have purchased the Blizz Con coverage on Main event (pay TV) and I wouldn’t have minded getting a question answered. Also the purchase of this coverage is supposed to entitle you with a cool in game mount and I am worried this will set a precedent of my state not getting our mounts.
If you are wondering my question is “What is the next gen MMO you are working on?”
Why
I would like to preface this post by say this is not a justification for playing the World of Warcraft, I have no desire to justify what I do with my time. It is instead an explanation as to why many people enjoy this game so much.
Throughout my life I have never been the center of social circles. I am not the person who is at the top of everyone I knows party invite list. This isn’t a case of being left out but instead relates an innate need to be important. Essentially it is the desire to be popular.
In major contrast is my life in the World of Warcraft. As a protection warrior and one of the top tanks in my guild, a list of desired party or raid members will often start with my name. The very nature of the game means that a tank is required in every group and although I am most certainly not the best tank in the game, I have built a reputation within my guild as a good player who is friendly, fun and reliable (well I hope I have anyway).
The World of Warcraft is essentially a club house; you can log on at almost any time of day or night and have a chat to one of your friends. People are there when they have free time and want to do something or when they are just hanging out. If you feel like it, you can organise an event at the drop of a hat. Subsequently you can avoid the scheduling and time conflicts that always seem to occur when planning to go out for lunch/dinner/drinks with friends or family. You can also avoid situations where none of your friends don't answer their phones and you are bored or lonely. Flexibility and freedom are they key here and they exist without upsetting or annoying anyone.
The nature of my job also means that any feedback I get relating to my work tends to be negative. In addition, involvement in my projects by other members of my department and my manager is very low. So essentially I work alone with very little positive reinforcement.
Again this is a large contrast to the World of Warcraft. Most of my time there, is spent working in teams or at least five and although criticism is often dealt out it is generally balanced with praise and congratulations when goals or targets are met. Almost every raid or group is ended with “Thankyou everyone great run” and although for some people this is a hollow statement they feel obliged to write, within our guild as well as for many pick up groups it is sincere. This leads to a situation where the rewards, in this case emotional, are greater when achieving goals within the game than when achieving goals in real life.
There are other hobbies which create situations very similar to this. When compared to other aspects of your life, you might get more satisfaction from playing in your local football team; receive a bigger emotional reward from your progression in a martial arts club or a more significant feeling of belonging at a war gaming tournament.
In a situation where I got more of these things from my work life then perhaps I would find less value in the time I spend in the game. This may mean I should look for a new job or change the approach I have to my current one. However that would not change the fact that my presence is often more desired in the virtual world than the real world. It provides an excellent platform and venue for casual, convenient, social interaction which fulfills my desires to socialise. Finally, on this platform we have built a community to which I have a strong sense of belonging.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Welcome to the fold
This week saw Elfarol, whom I have mentioned many times on this blog, start up his own blog. Welcome to the wonderful world of random thoughts on paper or should I say screen. I would encourage everyone to check it out, he is a great writer.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Nothing to see here
My wow life has been pretty boring of late. I haven’t had a huge amount of time to play and what time I have had has been spent on getting my new computer running. Re-installing Warcraft from scratch and then getting all your addons macros and key binding right takes a surprisingly long time. When online I have been working on completing quests i’m aiming for the Seeker title) and getting my fishing up to scratch.
Sadly all my fishing time has been a bit of a waste. If I had waited until Wrath apparently I would have needed significantly less catches. However once Wrath hits the last thing I want to do is level fishing from 250.
Finally I put in my annual leave from for the 14th of November in today. Alassiel has moved around her shifts so we will both be able to get in there for at least day and work as leveling nice and fast.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Draenei on a Kodo
I finally managed to get one of my characters a Great Brewfest Kodo! Squiggle received this drop after having downed the boss about 50-80 times between both characters. The mount fits perfectly with Squiggle’s size and overall looks really good. I have included a picture without shadow form active because semi see through purple haze really doesn’t do it justice.
Sadly I had just swapped over to Squiggle so a guildie could have a go tanking it, so I didn’t get it on Ironarm. I guess I will just have to find Ironarm his own unique mount… perhaps a polar bear complete with murloc?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Protection Warrior Talents in Wrath
when the happened before Burning Crusade I was caught by surprise (I was a noob back then) and wasted this great opportunity. I do not plan to let this happen again so I have been working on some nice talent specs for Ironarm (and to a lesser extent Squiggle). Now that I am reasonably confident no massive changes are on the way to the protection warrior talents I going to outline my choices so far.
I have looked at two specs, one to go with at level 70 and one to aim for at level 80. These specs are based on many assumptions, mostly I am assuming that with an increase in the damage output of protection warriors that generating rage will be less of an issue. In addition I do intend to take the Glyph of Heroic Strike which will also help with rage generation.
These talent specs are also based on the assumption that I will be running a lot of high level dungeons and raids. I have had to balance the need for AOE tanking and utility that is great in dungeons with the survivability and single target threat generation of raiding. I also do not intend to PvP with these builds even though it would be fun to try.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
The future of gaming interaction?
One of the major newspapers in my city reported on a very interesting new technology today. The Australian founded company Emotiv has designed and constructed a wireless neuroheadset.
Called the EPOC this headset will allow a computer to interpret your facial expressions and your emotions as well as you cognitive actions. Essential you will be able to interact with objects inside a virtual world without a keyboard or mouse and these worlds will be able to no only react to you interaction but also you moods, emotions and expressions. This is done by 16 sensors mounted in the sleek white headset which will apparently be available for sale to the public later in the year for the small price of $300.
Currently this technology works best with their in house game (untitled) but it does come with software that allows you to use the headset with other games. This could mean that in a few years instead of pressing “2” on your keyboard to cast a fireball you just have to imagine casting a fireball and your in game avatar will start casting. The concept can be quite hard to get your head around but it all comes down to controlling something that happens on your computer by thought. Without having tried the system I can’t speak for is quality, for example it might actually be quite slow to respond, however now new technology is perfect.
Implications for people with disabilities is huge, a device such as this could allow people who struggle to use a computer because of a physical disability complete free access to what is these days an essential part of life. In five years time will everyone be using a device like this to control their computers? I don’t know, but I would tip this a technology to watch if only because it would be really fun to try at least once.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Inscription - Accessing good information
I am happy to see that the Inscription profession is finally taking shape. Just recently the skill levels and reagents for Inscription items/spells have been fixed so they fit with the levelling of other professions (for example every Glyph is no longer made with Moonglow Ink). Subsequently Inscription levelling guides are starting to come out giving an indication of how many herbs you should be farming/saving. Based on rough calculations you will need at least 50-60 stacks of herbs to take your inscription from 0 to 375. Although this seems like a lot, it is about what I expected it to be.
As Blizzard still have not seen fit to give me a beta key my information is based on what I can find from internet guides and wow head. During these investigations I have found one excellent website, El’s Inscription. This gives really good explanations of Inscription abilities, spells, items, glyphs etc. There are a lot of other guides out there but many are incomplete and inaccurate. I had hoped to put together a leveling guide for Inscription but unless information from reliable sources become complete I don’t think it would be worth the time. I will however be on the lookout for more excellent sources of information as I am planning on leveling up Inscription as soon as I possibly can and want to be prepared.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Gruul's Lair - The Dragon Killer is Dead
Despite the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, being less than two months away The Children of Stormwind are still making some progress through content. Over the weekend we achieved another guild first by Downing Gruul the Dragonkiller. Despite lacking our raid leader Skyer, the run went off very well. Our only major hold up was replacing a couple of players who DCed just before Gruul and didn’t re-appear. The group wasn’t entirely from our guild, we did have a few ring in whom we are very grateful to for their assistance. The full list of participants is included below.
As the expansion approaches it seems that the Children of Stormwind is getting larger. It is a rocky time for many guilds, most are not making any progression and in many cases have completely given up on raiding. The focus for a lot of players is getting ready for the expansion. In line with this The Children of Stormwind are working on forming a progression raiding group. This team will be made up of players who consistently perform in raids. The idea is to form a core group who work well together to forge the way into Lich King ten man raids. It will also be something members can work towards if they are interested in raiding. Last week we had two great groups running side by side, this generated some amusing banter as comments were made back and forth in guild chat about their groups progress. This seemed to push people to work harder and subsequently my group got all the way to prince only skipping Nighbane, Illhoof and Netherspite.
I appologise for the quality of some of these screen shots, uploading them to Blogger seems to make them very dark and hard to see.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Talk Like a Pirate Day
Have you seen a lot of pirates wandering around your capital city? Well it is International Talk Like a Pirate Day (TLPD) and to celebrate Blizzard have added NPCs to Shattrath as well as all the capital cities, who will turn you into a pirate.
They can be found in front of the portals in the center of Shattrath or out the front of the bank in a capital city. I understand there is also a party on in Booty Bay featuring Dread Captain DeMeza. 
This discovery made my day; I only remembered it was TLPD when the announcer on radio mentioned it. Thankfully the radio is my alarm clock to I was reminded before the day was over. At first I thought the pirates I saw wandering around were just fans of the day with spare Hallows End wand or Deviate Delight. Then, thankfully, I was in Stormwind to do the daily fishing quest and for some reason wandered over to the bank. Seeing some pirate NPCs a small spark of hope flared, this bloomed into a raging fire of joy when I talked to them and got turned into a pirate.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day was invented by a couple of guys in a racket ball court in 1995. They explain the whole story on their website if you are interested. I have followed if for a few years now but I am still working on getting my co workers to answer their phones in pirate voices.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Authenticator
So authenticators are now available to Australia, you too can protect your account from hackers for the low price of US$6.50. So I signed up to the Blizzard store, selected myself an authenticator and a second on for Alassiel put in the payment information and then just about fell off my chair. Shipping and handling for two tiny authenticators is US$77.81! How could two authenticators cost so much to send?
I mentioned Authenticators in a previous post. They are intended to provide an additional layer of defense against hackers by requiring you to enter an additional code generated by the Authenticator every time you log in.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Achieveing Something
With the pre-content patch download at home while I work away and the release date for Wrath announced I think it is time to have an in depth look at a couple of things. Achievements were announced quite a while ago to mixed feeling from World of Warcraft players.
To a certain extent achievement keeps a record of things you have done. You can keep track of how many quests you have completed, how much of the world you have seen. This might encourage you to go back and visit somewhere you have never been before. When I looked at “The Keymaster” achievement I realised I had never been to Dire Maul and subsequently I don’t have the key obtained there. Completely bizarre things will also be tracked for example /loving critters and reading different books.
For some players this might be an additional time sink they don’t need, feeling they have to go back to Straglethorn Vale to complete the Nesingway quests might be something they really can’t be bothered doing. Well the great thing is they don’t have to. Achievements do not reward anything you “need” just things you might want. In fact at the moment rewards are limited to titles and a vanity (non combat) pets. Many players will enjoy the time sink aspect, achievements provides many goals that all players can reach, even if they can’t raid, compete in high level arenas or log in for large blocks of time.
One thing you may want is a title, Ironarm still clings to his old “Sergeant” title and Alassiel invested a lot of time getting her new title. Achievements is bringing several new and exciting ones. You could be “the Seeker”, “the Explorer” or the “Flame Warden”. With enough time and dedication any of these could be attained. Blizzard are introducing new ones too> Personally I would like to see “the Drunk” (rewarded from It’s Happy Hour Somewhere) or “the Coward” (for declining duels).
Some achievements will be easy, some hard but Warcraft is all about filling in time, making and reaching goals and having fun, achievements is just building on this and providing some new paths to take.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The 13th of November 2008
What will you be doing on the 13th of November 2008? Well I will be popping over to EB Games to collect my copy of Wrath of the Litch King. Yes you got it the date has been announced! Well that or Wowhead are playing a really cruel joke on us all.
Will it be enough time? Will Priest still suck in November? Stay tuned to find out.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Neglected no more
Poor Ironarm has been feeling neglected, all my efforts to get some nice (read decent) gear for Squiggle has resulted in Ironarm only emerging when desperately needed and even then pretty much only for raids. Well now that Squiggle has his epic flyer, setting him up for Wrath of the Litch King, I have switched my focus back to tanking.
I started off with a run though Heroic Magister’s Terrace; I really want that nice trinket. Not my best performance, but we did make it the whole way through. As per usual I was having trouble tanking the group pulls where I was holding three plus mobs. I noticed over the course of the run that if the crowd control was pulled off right at the very start of an encounter I was fine because I could take a few steps back use thunderclap and cleave without fear of breaking anyone’s spells. I didn’t always pull it off resulting in a few “you broke my polymorph” comments. The trinket didn't drop.
The following day off I went to Heroic Shattered Halls. I was concerned with how this would go because I had struggled with the multi mob fights the day before and I knew Shattered Halls would be harder. Sure we had a few wipes here but there were defiantly more successes than failures. Through some of the areas I was holding five or six mobs without too much difficulty. The highlight had to be the last boss, through both attempts we lost two of our DPSers very early on thanks to some unlucky cleaves (I think I should review placement for next time). This left Elfarol healing, Alassiel trying to Kill Bladefist and myself tanking both Bladefist and the adds as they streamed in the door. Sadly we failed the first time because I wasn’t able to pick up the ranged adds who would mana drain Elfarol and Alassiel but the second time we pulled it off. It was very satisfying to watch all those adds run back out the door after Bladefirst went down and think to myself “wow I was holding ALL of them”.
After our Karazhan group fell apart on Sunday evening, a tired and still sick Ironarm agreed to tank Heroic Blood Furnace. Certainly not a performance as stellar as Shattered Halls the previous evening, but another success. Credit has to go to Clinn whom on the second boss did some excellent blinding, kiting and stunning to help control the waves of angry orcs who precede Broggok (the eye of doom).
In summary I acquired 13 Badges of Justice, several shards and a pile of junk shoulder high. I am completely unsure what to do with the badges, there is defiantly more tanking gear I could get with them but it seems a waste with Wrath of the Litch King so close. Perhaps it would be better to turn them in for gems which I can sell on the auction house? Then again some new gear might help with Zul’Aman.
Images from Wowhead
Friday, September 5, 2008
Inscrption - Pigments & Inks
Slowly but surely more Inscription Information is coming out. One of the core components of Inscription is the process of milling. This is where you take 5 herbs of the same type and crush them together to make two to three pigments. There are currently fifteen pigments on Wowhead with each coming from a different group of herbs. Each of these groups of herbs has a common and rare pigment that can be obtained by milling them.
Alabaster Pigment - Commonly obtained from Silverleaf, Peacebloom, Earthroot and Mageroyal
Dusky Pigment - Commonly obtained from Bruiseweed, Straglekelp, Swiftthistle and Briarthorn
Verdant Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Bruiseweed, Straglekelp, Swiftthistle and Briarthorn
Golden Pigment - Commonly obtained from Kingsblood, Wild Steelbloom, Grave Moss and Liferoot
Burnt Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Kingsblood, Wild Steelbloom, Grave Moss and Liferoot
Emerald Pigment - Commonly obtained from Goldthorn, Wintersbite, Khadgar's Wiskers and Fadeleaf
Indigo Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Goldthorn, Wintersbite, Khadgar's Wiskers and Fadeleaf
Violet Pigment - Commonly obtained from Ghost Mushroom, Groomsblood, Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Purple Lotus, Sungrass and Firebloom
Ruby Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Ghost Mushroom, Groomsblood, Arthas' Tears, Blindweed, Purple Lotus, Sungrass and Firebloom
Silvery Pigment - Commonly obtained from Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage and Plaguebloom
Sapphire Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Golden Sansam, Dreamfoil, Mountain Silversage and Plaguebloom
Nether Pigment - Commonly obtained from Outland herbs (not yet specified)
Ebon Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Felweed, Mana Thistle and Netherbloom
Azure Pigment - Commonly obtained from Northrend herbs (not yet specified)
Icy Pigment - Occasionally obtained from Northrend herbs (not yet specified)
At the moment Milling herbs will not give you skill points however these pigments are used to create inks and this process will give you skill points. Currently there are 17 inks which use a variety of these pigments.
Ivory Ink - Made from 1xPeacebloom
Silver Ink - Made from 1xSilverleaf
Moonglow Ink - Made from 1xAlabaster Pigment
Hunter's Ink - Made from 1xVerdant Pigment 2xDusky Pigment
Midnight Ink - Made from 1xDusky Pigment
Lion's Ink - Made from 1xGolden Pigment
Dawnstar Ink - Made from 1xBurnt Pigment 2xGolden Pigment
Jadefire Ink - Made from 1xEmerald Pigment
Royal Ink - Made from 1xIndigo Pigment 2xEmerald Pigment
Celestial Ink - Made from 1xViolet Pigment
Fiery Ink - Made from 1xRuby Pigment 2xViolet Pigment
Shimmering Ink - Made from 1xSilvery Pigment
Ink of the Sky - Made from 1xSapphire Pigment 2xShimmering Ink
Ethereal Ink - Made from 1xNether Pigment
Deathletter Ink - Made from 1xEbon Pigment 2xEthereal Ink
Ink of the Frozen Sea - Made from 1xAzure Pigment
Snowfall Ink - Made from 1xIcy Pigment 2xAzure Pigment
These inks are combined with Parchment to make Glyphs and Scrolls however all of the one listed at the moment use Moonglow Ink which I am assuming is an error. So the specifics of making the Glyphs remains a mystery.
Posts
