Howdy folks, just wanted to let you all know i will be AFK for three week, we are going on a holiday!
Expect more posts from me after the 18th of August. Hopefully I don't miss too much critical WotLK information.
PS yes I do use a G15 Keyboard.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Away From Keyboard
Friday, July 25, 2008
Don Carlo's Famous Hat
Scratch that, this post should be called Squiggle’s New Hat.
The poor guy he must be getting really annoyed that people keep chasing him down and killing him, and his pet dog, just to steal his hat. It is a nice hat so can you really blame us?
The fight that was quiet easy for Alassiel and Squiggle but we failed twice with Ironarm. Oh well Alassiel got her hat and I got one too. We were surprised to discover the summoned wolf can be buffed with Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit resulting in a giant wolf.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Non-Combat Pet and Mount Changes
If you are anything like Alassiel, and to a certain extend myself, half you bank if filled with non-combat (or vanity) pets. They there is your mounts, I only carry two but I know some carry several more for variety purposes. All of this adds up and, if on top of that, you are a Warlock or Hunter and have a whole bag slot taken up by arrows or soul shards or even a druid with 5 sets of gear (yes I’m talking about you Skyer) then every spare slot counts. Blizzard have decided to help you out, starting in Wrath of the Litch King non-combat pets and mounts will count as spells and subsequently not take up space in your bag or bank. Better yet it means in a single instance you could cycle through every one of you 50 different “favourites”. To make this work each non-combat pet or mount will actually be an item which you consume to learn the spell. Hopefully you will get an extra tab in your spell book to accommodate all of these new spells or the general tab could become very cluttered.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wrath of the Litch King - WTF!?
Wrath of the Lich King - WTF!? from Justin Gedzus on Vimeo.
This amazing video was created by DG-Productions, you can view the Warcraft Movies page here.
This video shows previews the vast continent of Northrend, some of the areas appear unfinished but over all an excellent preview.
Inscriptions - The Herbalists Best Friend
Finally some solid details about the new profession, Inscription. Based on the inscriptions spells on Wowhead and the information on Wow Insider Inscribers will defiantly be using herbs in their profession. There are also some examples of the Glyphs that could be made including one that allows mages to polymorph into a baby penguin. However Glyphs won’t be the only thing they can make. According to the WotLK Wiki they will be able to make the following:
- Inks and Parchments which are Reagents for other Inscription recipes.
Scrolls which enchanters can use in a new process allowing them to sell enchants on the Auction House. - Scrolls that increase stats (similar to those that can be looted).
- Glyphs that improve spells and affect minor cosmetic changes.
- Runewords which are temporary armor enchants similar to Mana Oil.
- Runes of Power which are reagent based spells similar to engineer’s grenades.
- Card items the purpose of which is unknown.
For further information you can refer to my previous posts on Inscriptions, look at Wow Insider, look at the WotLK Wiki or do some searches on Wowhead. At the moment the spells for creating Glyphs and other Inscription items and all over the place, ass soon as I find a good list I will link that too.
In the mean time I’m off to collect me some Peacebloom. Read Full Article
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Virtual Team
Every night groups of people join together with a common purpose. Small or large these groups, although never really knowing each other, work as a team to achieve an objective. Some succeed, some fail and some devolve into arguments about noobs and riding turtles. But through all of this is the fact that we are all on the one side (well on of two technically). These virtual teams work with people from a broad ranging background, young to old, new to experienced and eager to apathetic. Rarely are there leaders and more often than not people will openly confront or debase anyone who displays an opinion. Yet these groups made from a random pick up of players will mostly function successfully as a team. But why do these teams work?
I am referring to the pick up groups that participate in dungeons, raids and battlegrounds and I find it fascinating. Pick up groups are the real world equivalent of randomly selecting a bunch of people from a recruitment company, putting them in a room/office with a task or project. Then telling them that if the succeed they will each get a voucher they can spend at K-Mart. Such a team would have huge difficulties such as clashing personalities, lack or overabundance of skills, motivation issues and communication difficulties. In a real world situation people will be quick to judge each other according to how they look. A virtual world is a level playing field and discrimination is much less likely. To a certain extent even insults land less of a blow as they are directed at a players avatar not them selves.
I have of course over looked some major factors here, to start with a pick up group, in a five player instance example, isn't completely random. Who ever starts the group has a set of roles in mind and will select players according to these. All the participants have a common goal in mind and for the most part have a good idea what needs to be done to achieve this. Even in a battleground which is a much more volatile environment everyone knows what the goal is (to beat the other team) and what the conditions are to achieving this. In addition to this battleground groups which are formed before entering the fray have an increased chance for victory becuase once again the group or team has been formed with a make up in mind. On top of this in a lot of groups where someone is acting completely out of place, whether it be under performance or harassment, a group leader can simply remove them from the group.
There are a few important lessons here which can be learned for both areas. Firstly a virtual world team shows that clearly defined roles should be highly valued. In addition to this a clear and easy to understand objective is also critical. In many real world organisations this is not the case. Communication is an area where a virtual team could learn from a real world team. For example a virtual world team using voice chat will perform significantly better than one only using text based chat. In conclusion when you are forming your next group think carefully about the roles of those involved, set clear objectives and communicate with your team mates.
What is wrong with our server?
The tragic situation of our server, Jubei’thos, doesn’t seem to be coming to an end. Not that it is limited to just one server but seems to be an issue for Oceanic servers in general. It probably all began back when everything slowed down to a snails pace while honour rolled over, then we had the constant disconnections and lag spikes with patch 2.4 that went on for weeks. Now it seems to be happening again, with large lag spikes and the server crashing.
Last night we had two wipes in Karazhan because of this and not long ago the same thing happened in Gruul’s Lair. But that wasn’t the worst of it, last night we experienced something completely different, which led us to calling an early end to our raid.
At first we just though it was another lag spike but it when on and on, I sat and watched Gothicminx casting Flash of Light and Stragoth running in place for well over fifteen minutes. We could type in chat but couldn’t control our characters, log out or even raise a ticket to a GM. A couple of players forced the program to close (Alt F4) but then couldn’t get back on their character in the raid even though they could log onto other characters. The GM ticket issue was by far the weirdest, I would write a sentence and then it would disappear and I would have a blank page again. I eventually managed to raise one by typing it in note pad and copy pasting it into Wow. An early end was called to the raid and I went to have dinner, when I got back I was disconnected and have yet to be back on to see what happened.
This is just the tip of the ice berg, there are a large number of posts on the official forums including Stragoth’s petition and as people experience the pre expansion slump this is really not helping.
I’m not an expert in the area but there is one very obvious thing which might be part of the problem. If you look down the list of US servers they all show up as mostly medium populations, when you look down the oceanic list it’s all red with High, Full and Locked. In fact we only have one which isn’t. Perhaps over population is part of the problem.
I am sure Blizzard are well aware of the consequences of lag, crashes and technical glitches. They would see the anger and annoyance on the forums that people have died or can’t progress in raids because of raids. Hopefully they understand that they have created a huge immersive world that people get very involved in and when this virtual word doesn’t work like it should the consequences can go past a few gold and some lost progression time.
Finally I wonder what Wrath of the Litch King will really give us? A great expansion with heaps of new content or just worse lag in a different location.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Beta is on it’s way
Blizzard has created the Beta Test page (beta.worldofwarcraft.com) indicating the Beta Tests are close. You can also see patch notes as published by Wow Insider here.
The Beta Forums are also live here.
It appears that some invites have already gone out to European players. Invite codes are not account specific so if you get a beta code and you want to give it to me please let me know via comment, in game or through our guild forums.
A Sense of Achievement
Blizzard has just announced another feature for Wrath of the Litch King, Achievements. This is, in essence, a statistics and records page that rewards you based on meeting certain objectives. To begin with there will be around 500 different achievements that fit into one of three types and about eight categories. Each achievement will yield you points and in same cases a title, tabard or vanity pet.
The three types are:
Simple – a one off task
Progressive – a staged achievement that has rewards at 5,10,25,50 etc
Meta – may require you complete a set of achievements
The categories include:
PvP – There could be a lot of variety here from winning specific numbers of matches in a row to loosing duels to Rogues
Dungeon and Raid – Rewarded for downing instance/raid bosses
Professions – Based on reaching each new tier of a profession, perhaps also the ownership of patterns I can see it know “Squiggle – Supreme Shirt Maker”
Quests - Completing a set number of quests and hopefully also completing significant quest chains
Events – Achievements relating to events such as All Hallows
World exploration – How much of the world have you seen?
Reputation – Based on your faction reputations
General – The fun and silly ones
There will also be a Feats of Strength section that shows old world achievements such as old PvP ranks and acquisition of rare mounts. This will yield no points and as with all the achievements will be rewarded retroactively.
Achievements looks like an solid and highly entertaining addition to the game. Being able to see what percentage of the map you have explored, how many arena matches you have won in a row or which instances bosses you haven’t downed yet is probably just the tip of the iceberg. There are all sorts of statistics, relevant and otherwise that Blizzard could track and it would be interesting to know. Then we could do things like have guild competitions on who can kill the most rats/blood elves/etc or all roll a new toon and see who can explore the most of the world in 10 minutes. If they include PvP kills by race I can already see the gnome hunting score boards now. The really fun ones like giving out ten hugs will be the best; hopefully they have some truly absurd tasks there like taunting opposing faction leaders or killing sheep.
I do have a couple of concerns, mainly what they are going to do to clearly differentiates achievements from quests and what the points will be used for. These will probably be answered in beta testing so we will have to wait and see.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Zul'Aman and Gruul's Lair
Another successful venture was made into Zul’Aman on Friday night, the first three bosses down again. It would have been more successful with perhaps at least the first of the timed chests however two of the group members (including one of the healers) were plagued with disconnects one of whom eventually had to be replaced. In fact the majority of our wipes were because of the panic that enviably occurs when the main tank healer disconnects.
We also revisited 25 player raids on Sunday night with our second attempt at Gruul’s Lair. It seemed that the latency gods were not favouring us this weekend. After clearing to the High King we all sat and stared at each other running on the spot for ten minutes before the whole server restarted. Once it had we needed to reform our group, survive the large number of horde killing people out the front and then reclear. A couple of attempts later the High King fell Protaa, Myscha and Mudoken were rewarded with tier four shoulder tokens and Lililthelle with a new helm.
Sadly Gruul himself was not so easy; our best attempt got him to 5%. Once again I couldn’t seem to stay alive where Skyer managed to with Gruul pushing over 200% damage increases. The decision was made to let Skyer main tank Gruul but we ended up calling it when a mob respawned right as the pull was started. I believe there is a very good chance we can down him next time though.
A group of us also created a guild premade Warsong Gulch which was quite lucrative. We flattened several teams three to nil but our best effort was in one game were we messed up the start and let the horde capture twice only to come back with three straight captures of our own. It seems that a 19k hit point druid tank makes an excellent flag carrier.
Officer’s meetings are now being held weekly on every Monday evening, this allows us to address new and ongoing issues and generally keep in touch.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
A Tinge of Blue
I just noticed another indication Wrath of the Litch King is approaching. In the picture below have a look at the colour behind the logo. Where it used to be a complete green glow it is now half green half blue.
Oceanic Realm Forums
If you haven't visited the World of Warcraft official page or forums today you might not know that we have our own forum. You can find them here.
According to Bornakk
"This forum is here to provide a friendly and focused environment for Oceanic players to discuss all aspects of World of Warcraft with one another."However I suspect that they will be mostly filled with two things, people complaining that Oceanic Realms are treated worse than US ones and people who think it's cool to attempt to belittle Oceanic Realms.
One point that was brought us was whether we would get a CM or at the very least a MVP who would be responsible for/represent the Oceanic Realms. Perhaps thats something to watch out for. On a separate note this could be a sign that Blizzard are starting to take us more seriously as customers. Read Full Article
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
"Certainly, one can understand why many people would prefer existence in a Virtual World (VW) to existence in the "real world." Unlike Earth, in VWs there is real equality of opportunity, as everybody is born penniless and with the same minimal effectiveness. In a VW, people choose their own abilities, gender, and skin tone instead of having them imposed by accidents of birth. Those who cannot run on Earth can run in a VW. On Earth, reputation sticks to a person; in VWs, an avatar with a bad reputation can be replaced by one who is clean."
Quote from Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier by Edward Castronova Read Full Article
Friday, July 4, 2008
WotLK Beta Opt-In
Did you know you can opt in to participate in the Wrath of the Litch King Beta? All you have to do is visit the official World of Warcraft website and go to the Beta opt-in page. From this pool a random selection of people will be chosen to participate, so even if you haven’t opted-in yet you still have time. Good luck everyone!
I have chosen to opt-in and would be ecstatic if I get to participate. I have no intention of playing through to beta end game but an opportunity to check out the world and see the new abilities first hand is just too good to pass up.
If you do opt-in be VERY careful of any emails you receive confirming your acceptance. There will lots of fake emails going around saying you are successful with links to key loggers and dodgy sites this is called Phishing. If you get such an email check the Blizzard forums and big news sites such as Wow Insider to confirm that Beta invites have gone out. Also carefully read the email, look for spelling and grammar mistakes, strange links, incorrect graphics and other errors that you would NOT get in an official email. There are some excellent websites for more information on this such as APWG and the Microsoft info site.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Midsummer Thankyou
A very short post to say thank you to everyone who helped out Alassiel and Me during the Midsummer Fire Festival. My thank you will take the forum of a haiku
Heroes join to fight
The Frost Lord is defeated
Still no mini pet
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Championing – Some changes to reputation in WotLK
A decent amount of information about Wrath of the Litch King has come out of the Worldwide Invitational held last weekend. Thanks to Wow Insider I just found out some details on another measure to make life simpler in Northrend. Everyone has at some stage in playing World of Warcraft had to grind reputation with a specific faction. This may be for an item or recipe, at the moment I am trying to Squiggle reputation with Sporeggar so in 2.4.3 he can make 28 slot herb bags.
By using/wearing a specific item (probably a tabard) from your chosen faction you will gain some reputation from them when completing tasks for another faction. For example I could wear a tabard for the ‘red’ faction while clearing a dungeon associated to the ‘yellow’ faction and get some ‘red’ faction reputation along with the ‘yellow’ faction reputation you would normally get.
Hopefully this will make people more willing to participate in a wide variety of different areas and instances; shifting focus to drops as opposed to faction alignment. It is unlikely this will be implemented retrospectively so Azeroth and Burning Crusade reputation will have to be gained with the current method.
Sorry I couldn't think of a good picture to use in this article and I am on my lunch break at work so I can't screen shot one.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
First Week of Season 4
The forth and probably last arena season as level 70s is now almost a week in and last night Triptych made is debut. We were concerned that with everyone’s ratings reset to 1500 we would be fighting teams well above us in terms of gear and ability. However it turned out to be one of the most successful and enjoyable evenings of arena play we had participated in. Our rating hit a record 1524 at one stage and when we finished for this week was sitting on a respectable 1518. Sure we only won just over half our matches but we were working very well as a team, and are building a good set of strategies.
Our first goal is to reach a rating of 1600 so we can all get some season four pants, it’s not going to be easy but it is achievable. Over our 17 games last night our losses were almost all to teams which will climb the rating ladder very quickly. Hopefully the next few weeks will see more accurate match ups and all the team’s ratings get sorted out. In the mean time I must get back to some battlegrounds and continue to improve Squiggle’s gear.
*EDIT: It turns out leggings only require a rating of 1550, the robe requires 1600.
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