Farming For the Charger Tips

Looking for something to keep you busy while you wait for the flaming dragon to give us more content?  Well why not head up to Stratholm dead side and farm for Baron Rivendare's Deathcharger mount?  This mount is the only skeletal mount available for alliance players, and a very snazzy looking one for both factions to own.

To get the mount you need to run the dead side of Strath, take out the 3 Ziggerat bosses, the NPC's inside of each, kill the Aboms outside the Baron's hideout, kill one really big Abom, some skellies and then the Baron himself to see if you have hit the 1% die roll.

Here are a couple tips that might help you in your attempts for the mount.

1. At level 80 you can avoid most of the mobs simply by skirting them and keeping your distance.  Here is one odd fact about classes that can stealth such as rogues and druids; The zombie mobs can detect stealth, and for some reason they will see you even though your level is greater.
2. Once you enter the Slaughter Square where the abominations are go ahead and grab as many as you want.  Try to leave one near the door to the Slaughter house however.  Once all are dead pull him to the door with your back to the door.  As soon as he is dead get ready to move inside.  Kill Ramstein the Gorger, then the adds.  This saves time on the run, as well as keeps a nasty bug from keeping you from a chance.
3. Once done with the run you can reset by quing for a random BG.  Run it for the honor, then exit the BG.  You will be standing at the door to dead side.  I like this method as a way to kill 2 birds with one stone.  Even if you enter a BG and /afk out you will more than likely run out the debuff by the time the next run is done.

Hope these tips help in your goal.  Might also take some time to chat in general while in the instance.  You will more than likely not be alone in the zone.

Good hunting.

WoW Cataclysm Cinematic!

Just WOW!

What is the Magic Word Blizzard?

I have yet to discover the magic word to get a beta key.  I was lucky to get a spare key from someone through Twitter for wrath which gave me access to the beta.  I played, filled out bug reports and made posts about the new features along with videos.   But that was a great fluke and someones kind heart at the time.

So Blizzard, what word do we use?  How do we get in to contribute to the community?  It would be great to keep interest in the game and report on it.  So. . here is hopping. . praying and holding out the notion that real testers are better than 12 year olds who load up, play 20 mins then QQ about it being broken. .  Its BETA!!!

Thanks for letting me rant :)

Welcome back BRK!! But ARG!!!

This is late in coming but I want to welcome back Big Red Kitty to WoW.  We missed you but are VERY glad things are working out.

But I have a BONE to pick!  I was all happy and fine with letting my hunter sit. . I leveled him all the way to 80 and he was my main toon for years until I retired him.  Between falling in love with other classes (Prot Pally and Resto Druid) I retired him. . And was HAPPY. 

Enter Cata. . I was all set to re-roll my lock as a worgen and you go and start posting all these videos of the hunter and I’m like. . GRRRR BRK!!!!!

Now I am wanting to re-roll a hunter.

THANKS!!!



Thanks Daniel. . look for a new hunter come opening.
Everyone check out BRK’s Youtube feed and his blog!  He is back!

24 Hour Maintenance? Why?

Many noticed yesterday when they logged in that a slew of servers where getting their turn at a 24 hour down time for maintenance.  A few in my guild, my daughter included, were very disappointed at the loss of being able to play.  She just got to Northrend for the first time and is excited to get to 80.

The question was asked as to why these servers where down for 24 hours and why this set?

To answer that lets look at why this is happening.  Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere everyone is aware that Blizzards third expansion, Cataclysm, to World of Warcraft is in the works and more than likely going live around October.  This new expansion is adding lots of new features and expanding some things like phasing that we saw added to the game for Wrath. 

New features means new demands on an already aging server infrastructure and code base.  Upgrades are inevitable and needed to make sure we have a smooth gaming experience.  To do this they have to take live servers offline to either upgrade software, hardware, network hardware (Oh I hope the Boston data center gets a much needed backbone upgrade!) or all the above.  A few weeks ago a slew of servers had their turn and now its my servers turn.

So the next question is. . Why these servers?

That is simple.  Batlegroups.  Huh?

Blizzard uses Battlegroups to divide servers up into groups.  The most visible use of these battlegroups is when you que for a Battle Ground.  You will be placed into a BG with people from other servers within your battlegroup.  Now with the inclusion of the new Looking for Group system you can enter an instance with someone from your battlegroup just like you did in BG’s.  But did you know that there is a reason behind the servers in a battlegroup?   Its not random, its about where the hardware that your server sits on is located.

Battlegroups are clusters of servers that all reside (presumably physically) on the same server hardware box at one location.  These locations are called datacenter’s.  For the US market Blizzard uses four datacenters spread across the country.  Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.  WoWWiki has a wonderful page showing the datacenter and battlegroup break down. 

If you look at the list of today’s 24 hour downtime and compare it to the wowwiki list you will notice that it’s the Boston Datacenter’s turn for this downtime.  The Boston DC houses the Nightfall, Retaliation and Stormstrike battlegroup.  June 8th saw 24 maint for the Los Angeles datacenter while Chicago followed suit on 29th of June.  With today's that leaves the Seattle DC left and all will be upgraded. . to this point.

This is a good thing.  As I told my daughter and guild mates, its better to have 24 hours down now than 2 to 3 days down due to issues that we have seen in the past during other expansion releases or major patch roll outs. 

Personally I still hold hope that network bandwidth is increased to the ageing Boston DC.  Looking at another link on the wowwiki site you will notice that a good number of original servers are on the Boston DC.  West coast players, especially California, has a rather high ping traveling across the country to the Boston center.  Sure you can play on a LA or Seattle realm but for some of us the old servers are home. 

So in the end 24 hours will give you time to. . .

• Write a blog post
• Reorganize your social media presence
• Take out the trash for your wife
• Work on your UI (once the other servers come back up)
• Or just spend time with ones you love.

See you all soon

New Talent System!! YUM! Nom Nom Nom

It’s always fun or fail when someone the age of the answer to Life, Universe and Everything tries to use netspeak/meemespeak in a title.  But let’s talk about talent!

Blizzard released a new version of the Cataclysm beta this week introducing the new 31 point talent system.  The system streamlines our choices with some major features.

The first thing you will notice is that, well, you only have 41 points total now to spend on your spec.  This is a change from the current 71 points.  O.o  That is. . . .brilliant.  No more spending hours looking at your talent sheet wondering if you need to spend a point in aspect of the useless.  The devs wanted to remove a lot of the redundant or useless skills that can be folded into a passive or specialization talent (I will discuses the new specialization system later, once I wrap my head fully around it.  Sort of hard since I don't have Beta access :(  )

Another new feature includes having to chose at level 10 what tree you plan on using.  As it stands right now on live you can start putting points in any tree of the talent page.  So for example you could put 1 point in Prot, 1 in Holy and 1 in Ret as a pally.  This more than often creates a build that is. . lets just say. . less than effective. 

The new system forces you to chose.  So if I chose to level protection I would chose the protection option.  The nice thing is a new graphic will show you the key features for each choice you make.  After choosing which tree to specialize in you begin putting points into that tree.  The points will come now every other level instead of the 1 per level we currently have. 

THE BIG WARNING

This is just the first view of the new system and subject to change as the beta moves forward.  Do not take any of these trees as gospel, yet.

I have set up a Google Wave with some of the new builds.  Google Wave allows us to edit and add to a living document showing some awesome user created builds to kick around.  If you would like to participate in the wave just ask manorton@gmail.com for an invite.  I have to do it this way until we figure out how to open the wave up for people to simply join.

Check out the talent calculator at WoWTal.com  Just be sure to not spend over 41 points.  I did this the first time and thought my combat spec rogue was VERY OP, lol.

Google Wave does not yet support embedding waves in Internet Explorer.

Please open this webpage in Google Chrome or Firefox to view the wave.

RealID, The Aftermath or is it?

I am still working on a way to put down how I think the RealID on Official forums debacle thing played out.  Some will know that I was in favor of the "idea" of the system and even went so far to post comments on fellow bloggers blogs.

My biggest concern, and remaining nagging feeling, is the signal to noise ratio of the debate, or rather, scream fest.  I still firmly believe that the baby has in fact been tossed out with the bath water and that as a community of social beings we still have a lot to learn about the "bigger picture."

But it will be some time before I can honestly put down all my thoughts on this subject.  Instead allow me to link a few great posts that have allready been made on the subject.

First be sure to head on over to The Instance Podcast and listen to Scott and Randy discuss the issue on the topic.

The Instance #196 – The Rage! It Burns Us, Precious!

Leafshine: Lust for Flower
Adam over at Leafshine has a great post about the subject.

RealID, Social Theory and Blizzard's Community Problems

I will continue to add posts and content with good material.  WARNING, I going to do my best to not post whine or QQ fests.  We need more than anything good open conversation on the subject.

GearScore + Anon = Net Bullies or Skill > GS

Back in the good old days of Burning Crusade I began to get discouraged when I hit 70 on Paravel, my resto druid.  Why? Because I would look to join a group doing a heroic or raid and they would demand that you had a magically determined bonus healing stat.  Often time this stat was pulled out of the “wow forums floating cloud of trolls”. No real science or crunching of numbers determined what made an effective player. And more times then not it would be a number that could only be reached by already being one of the few who have cleared the highest content at the time.

I mean really, does it make sense to demand gear from Sunwell for a Kara run?  Does it? O.o

Fast forward to Wrath.  We no longer rate a player on spell power, healing power or AP but instead on something even MORE mystical, Gear Score.  It started with sites back at the close of BC that would guess at an items gear score and create a data base to try and rate your characters place on a progression bar.  Site like http://be.imba.hu/ were tools where you could look up your level 70 toon, see missing enchants, gems, get suggestions for your class and build.  All and all a very helpful tool if you used it to work on your progression.  However things changed

The problem started when competing sites raised up on the net using different formulas for coming up with their base score.  Remember, the scores at this time where a mystery, and value that enhancements, set bonuses, mixing and matching for stats, were all guess work. With this arose no standard of a “gear score”.  One group would ask for a GS of 1000 when another would ask for 750.  The issue being that depending on what site they used the 750 could be a better geared player than the site that provided the 1000.  Talk about a headache.

Enter a mod author who, more than likely had good intentions, that released an in game mod that would make a GS based on a math of his own.  His statement was that it was not the end all to be all, but DOWNLOAD AND USE MY MOD!  Drama can be so fun to watch in the mod community at times, especially when someone wrote a mod to break this mod and the rumors and flame wars flared.

But, I digress, so what else is new.  Issue is back.  If you don't have a GS of XXXX you cant come and you get kicked out.  This problem and mod leaves out some important information, like player skill.  I have said this before, but I would take an under geared skilled player over a noob or jerk in gear any day on a run.  The argument that you must have a high GS to clear the highest content is negated by projects like clearing ICC 10 in all blues!

If you know how to play your class and work with others you can and will be successful.  If however you expect to be carried through a run to get better gear but have not a clue how to play then you are more than likely the one who stands in the fire, misdirects onto a clothie, or taunts the boss off the tank at enrage.  It does not matter if you have the highest gear in the game at that point, you still fail at the game and cause issues within your group.

I know you are probably wondering where the bulling part comes into this argument, and well you should.  If you have a slightly lower GS than the “floating cloud of trolls” have determined for that hour, and you end up in a random LFG group, you could be exposed to behavior you would never see in a face to face social environment.  Just stop it people, treat others with respect please.  How much more enjoyable our gaming life would be if we could just learn to get along and not be jerkwads.

GearScore is a tool, and measuring stick, not the end all.  What we really need is a mod that will take gear score provided by Blizzard, enchants, gems, set bonus and all into account, along with rating and notes into account so its not about a bottom line number but more.  Oh wait, their is *smile*

Enter Elitist Group (used to be Sexy Group, from the same author who did Sexy Map and Sexy Cooldown)

Again, EG is just a tool.  I will write a review and tutorial soon covering its usage and how to maximize the information gained from it without being a jerk.

Just remember that we play World of Warcraft for fun.  So does the person on the other side of that avatar, treat them as you would face to face.

Lost and Bored – Need New Goals

I have been feeling a since of being lost of late.  I just hit another goal of mine, to get Bricklethumb, my dwarf hunter, to level 80.  This makes my 4th 80 in WotLK, which according to some would label me hardcore.  I am not so sure I am hard core, but I do like to push myself in all areas of my life to see how well I can do.  It is part of the “gamer DNA” that is in me.

I have been splitting some of my time between WoW and Lord of the Rings Online right now.  While I seek a new place to serve, resumes out, making follow ups, and finding it hard to find employment as a 40 year old geek who has been in ministry for over 20 years, I have had to much time on my hands.  So Instead of the joy and fun I have always had in my chosen form of entertainment, much more stimulating that TV, IMHO, I now face a wall I, and others, have or are facing.

What to do now?

As  I logged on WoW last night discussion started in guild chat on what to do.  This is where some frustration sets in.  We often spend way to much time just trying to decide what to do.  Added to this issue is that two of us have multiple toons to help the guild out.  I have a tank, healer, and two DPS.  Iss, a good friend, has a healer, tank and DPS.  We both do not mind playing whichever character is needed, but sometimes to put our personal goals on hold to help out. . But that is what we like to do.  On top of this, we have 1 to 2 to many for a five man group. So someone has to sit out.  Normally you would think that people would whine and complain about this, but our guild is different.  We fight over who will sit out to make sure someone else has a go at it.  *smile*  I love that in them, even though it prolongs getting things done.

So I finally bit the bullet and made a list of people who where going to go do an instance that 2 people needed for quests.  I jumped on Vent where Iss and I got a chance to talk before and after the instance.  He made a very good observation after asking me a pointed question.

“So, your getting bored with the game too?”

The answer is yes and no, and the funny thing is we have both gone through this before.  When I started playing WoW I got to a point where things became boring.  I was not in a guild that raided and I had pretty much done all I could do alone or even in the small guild we had.  So when I heard about Lord of the Rings Online I jumped at it.  We left wow, headed to LotRO and formed Redeemed, our kinship on the Gladden server.

While there we met a player who joined our Kinship named Issichar, or Iss.  Iss was from WoW and bored and came to LotRO.  Iss was the kind of guy that was helpful and giving, a perfect fit for our group.  Several others either came with us from WoW or met and joined us while there.  But after a few months we started to hit the “So, your getting bored with the game too?” wall.  Most of us headed back to wow.  New content helped, and then the promise of WotLK. 

But, I ramble.  So lets bring things back to point.  I am not the only one feeling a since of loss, or boredom.  We are waiting for our guild to catch up, and desperately need some new people if we are ever going to hit up 10 man, let alone ever want to see 25 man content.  In the mean time what do we do?

The observation that hit me between the eyes was when Iss said that with ADD/ADHD he needs goals, once those goals are hit its sort of . . hit and miss. . .roam around. . get bored.  BINGO!  He hit it on the head.  My first character to 80 was Paravel, my healer.  Soloed her the 10 levels as resto, was fun.  Valimonde, my tank, leveled with Tanya’s mage, so we would get levels when we could.  I rolled Digory, my Death Knight and while not working on Val, got him to 80.  Then Val and Tatiaana (Tanya’s mage) hit 80.  Some gearing up . . all goals. . .pvp for Dig.  Then bored. 

Ok, no problem, let me level Brick.  Pushed him from 73 to 80 in 2 days.  Hit goal. . and . . . and . . . .

/run LotRO  - work on new character  - not many people around
/run WotLK – sit at character sheet and stair at what character to play.  Log one in. . .do daily. . get bored . .

/sigh

So . . . what is one to do?  How does and can this affect other areas of our life?  If we lose our goals, or hit them, what next? 

Let me know what you think?  Are you bored?  How do you overcome it?  Game, Life, Church, Family, whatever.

Questing Together and Random Couple Thoughts

Last night Tatiaana, aka Tanya, and Valimonde, aka Mike, got  a long awaited chance to do some leveling.  With the holiday's upon us finding time to sit down and play together has been difficult to say the least.  Then it seems when we do get time to play we are so beat that we fall asleep while questing.  It is rough getting old sometimes.  *smile*  But we press on.  Why?  For a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, Tanya and I have been married for 18 years.  We enjoy spending time together, even when it is in short doses.  With all the distractions in our lives it can be hard to find a get away, or place to just run away and be silly or have a ball.  Playing a game we can afford to do that.  *snickers*  She wont let me post the pic of us running through the tunnel linking Lock Modan with the Badlands as we traveled to free one of Father Winter's deer.  Seems the tunnel was rather hot and our armor sort of fell off while we where riding through.  You know. . silly things.  *looks over shoulder hopping Tatiaana does not thwap me in the back of the head*

Another reason we enjoy it is the challenge.  Mike is a goal oriented, strive to do all you can do, learn every skill you possibly can, teach others if they wish to learn kind of player/gamer.  Tanya is a puzzle and problem solver gamer.  In the past these two styles did not always fit, but as we play and work together not only in game, but over the past 18 years of this thing called real life, we have learned how to take the differences and complement each other.  I am the one who knows how to kill a boss.  She is the one who knows how to get to the boss if its a puzzle.  It is these differences that help us enjoy ourselves even more as we play together.

Gone are the days of parking ourselves in front of the television watching mindless dribble.  Now we park ourselves in front of the computer interacting with other people who are playing a game just like us.  Some may find it silly or possibly juvenile for adults to find so much enjoyment in a game.  Recently World of Warcraft has been shot at by some pretty crazy allegations from the head of the FCC to would be competators in the MMO marketplace.  The facts are that a ever growing number of adults in the United States, as well as the world population, are starting to turn to video games as their preferred means of entertainment and social interaction.  Can and should it replace going out and meeting friends face to face?  No. . it should not replace such activities as seeing daylight.  It is however just as legitimate, if not more rewarding at times, than spending hours in an activity that might otherwise be dull and boring to you.

Tanya and I love to play.  I am more into the game by far than her.  Some might even think that we are obsessed.  Honestly the nature of such games is made to keep you playing.  To keep you pushing yourself to become better than you are now.  TO achieve and reach forward.  To work together and break down complex problems.  To. . well, you get the picture.  The game reflects life.  It is what you do with it, how much time you put into it that matters.

I digress.  Back on topic of playing together.  We found time after a long two weeks of grabbing an hour or two.  Last night we helped the guild run Nexus, Tatiaana got her Red Christmas Hat.  We hit 76 and are very close to hitting 77 and getting our wings back.  She is home today and we hope to get some "quality" us time in.  

Take time with your spouse or significant other if you play with them.  One of the best words of advice I can give to help you enjoy your time together is this.  Communicate.  *smile*  Talk, discuss, work out small issues so you do not get frustrated if your partner does not play the same way you do.  After all. . . that is the best advice for couples in the "real world" as well.

Frosty the Deathknight was a jolly happy soul

Those of you who have known me for some time will understand my deep love of odd or non normal specs for a class.  I love the challenge of making a looked down upon rotation work, and I actually giggle when I can show that given the right player, any spec of any class can be useful in most situations.  With that said let me introduce you to Digory my frosty Deathknight. 

Let me take a quick step back before heading in to deep.  When the mention of the Death Knight class was introduced by blizzard I was one who . . well . . .I did not care really.  To me it sounded dark and foreboding, nothing like any of the characters I like to play.  Then they said you could tank or DPS with them.  Tank?  Without a shield?  pffft, the protection paladin side of me said.  I did not have any intention of playing one. 

Until I got my beta key.  While jumping for joy at the prospect of testing out Paravel, my restoration druid, on the beta I quickly found I had to wait and wait and wait for the character copy to go through.  So . . what to do. 

Shoot. . Ill roll a DK and see what all the fuss is about. .Ill probably hate it.

The opening quest set and starter zone I have to say and others have was . . . FAN STINKING TASTIC!  Oh my word. . By the end of my 58th level Digory, his name on the beta as well, had not only received a awesome armor set, but he had been redeemed!  W00t for character/life changing events.  But that is another story for another time, and I promise a few that I will post the RP side on the blog soon.

While playing my death knight I went with the frost tree.  Every one would cry out in /general, lrn2ply noob, every one knows blood is for dps, unholy is for pet and ice if for tanking!  I was worried at first, I had no intention of tanking with Digory seeing I have a perfectly good tankadin in Valimonde.  But, don't laugh, for rp purposes Digory had to stay frost.  And I am glad.

Frost is starting to prove itself as a viable DPS build.  I started reading articles and watching videos about frost.  The most information I gained was from a great post "Frosty DPS Discussion" over at Elitist Jerks.  You can head over and read all the discussion.  Some great information on builds and attack rotations.

Right now I am not shooting for many stats but attack power and strength.  It seems that quest rewards have been good to me and at the moment I am starting to see some fantastic numbers.  Last night my guild went into Nexus.  Our levels where all close.  DK 72, Tank 72, Marks Hunter 72, Disc Priest, 72, and a 78 Ret Pally. 

As we started the instance I worked hard to not pull agro, hit the tanks target and start my rotation of:

PS -> IT -> BS -> BS -> OB -> FS
PS -> IT -> OB -> OB -> FS

And here is what I saw at the end of the night. . To say I was happy would be an understatement:



At level 72 (I dinged 73 after the run and doing the Wrathgate event.  RPFIT!) I can say I am loving my frost Death Knight.  For a person who would normally get a DPS fix from my ranged hunter or mage, doing damage up close and personal is exciting and new.

As for a spec that is not looked favorably upon by others. . Well BOOYA!  Love doing cool things with the uncool!  But I will be uncool again as I run around and find more and more Frosty DK's.  Its Awesome, and why I love this game!

So, if you want to push the boundaries, if you want to have fun, if you want to be the type of person to show those who laugh at you that you can be good, no great!  Then try a spec others say sucks.  Give it a try, if you don't like it, its only a few gold to go back to the cookie cutter.

79 Around the Corner and Other Fun

Tatiaana, aka Tanya, reminded me this morning while I was grumbling about server maintenance getting in the way of leveling, that I had not written on the blog for some time.  So . . .  *smile*  For all our wow readers, a wow update.

We have both been rather busy since the release of Wrath of the Lich King.  Bethany and I waited at Gamestop at midnight on the 12th in anticipation of going home with the 2 pre ordered copies we had purchased.  Unlike reports from some on well known podcasts, who obviously live in some strange places, we had over 300 people at our little Gamestop in Yuba City California.  It is always intrusting to see the people who share a hobby with you, even one as involved as World of Warcraft.

Tatiaana was already asleep when Bethany and I got home, and Bethany headed right to bed.  I cracked open the box, inserted the DVD and upgraded my account.  Blizzard put in some great lore facts and story background in the installer.  It was finished and I was ready.  But what to do?

Who do I log in?  Do I get Paravel into Northrend and start questing?  Do I get Valimonde in position with Tatiaana?  No that was out of the question as I decided that Valimonde and Tatiaana will level together.  Or do I roll my Death Knight?

I had run the DK starter zone while in the beta so . . .Digory, my 70 frost mage, had been rerolled and has become my Death Knight.  Now, for those wondering, no, you do not have to delete a toon to make a death knight. You simply must have a character that is at least level 55 on the server you start your death knight. You may only have one death knight per server.  Digory, my mage on another server, has been retired, Jadís is my new mage that I am leveling with Bethany's Shaman Benniah.

I began the quests and hit level 58 in just a little over two hours.  Was time to go to sleep.

Tatiaana and Val started questing the next day in Borean Tundra but did not like the zone.  It was drab and . . well. . blah.  Tatiaana ported us to Iron Forge and we then set of for Howling Fjord and oh we where so happy to do so!  HF is BEAUTIFUL!  The quest lines are so lore filled it is. . .amazing.  We where loving the progression and flow. 

When Tatiaana is at work I have been able to work on Paravel.  I decided to go ahead and work on the BT zone with her to give me more of a mix of things.  Leveling as a solo resto druid in the old game had issues, but I have found that I am able to survive and move along at a pretty steady pace.  Considering I am half a level away from 79 I think that Blizzard has done a good job with the reworking of talents and builds.  Just wish they would add more mana regen gear :(

I am working on getting Tatiaana to write on the blog in the next few days.  She has really enjoyed the expansion, and the two of us are having the time of our lives just spending time together.  Some may look at the two of us as strange or wierd, but when we are spending time playing a game together, communicating, talking to others, working together, we come away with a sense of accomplishment that we would never get from sitting in the livingroom watching hours of television.  If you play wow, or any other game, and your spouse does not. . even if they are not interested let them sit down and try it with you some time. . Use the guest pass. . They may not take to it but you will be surprised at how great a time you can have playing with your significant other.  I will make sure to poke her about putting in her thoughts on this topic since I am the "gamer" in the couple.

WARNING Fake Blizzard Phishing Scam!

Please pass this along!

I just received this email as well as others in my guild.  This is NOT from blizzard.  It is a Phishing attack trying to get you to log into a system which will provide your username and password to them to log in and clean your account out.

The email claims you are trying to sell your account and wants you to log in to verify you own it.  When you follow the link it does not take you to Blizzard but instead to an off shore server where they will capture your information.

 

Steps to resolve following the email.  It looks like this (URLS have been altered to prevent anyone from linking to them.)

Blizzard@ic04.XXXXXXXX
to gcfsmeagol
show details 9:54 AM (4 hours ago)
Reply
from    Blizzard@ic04.XXXXXXX
reply-to    Blizzard@ic04.XXXXXXXX,
Account@ic04.ic.cz,
"Services <acc"@blizzard.com
to    gcfsmeagol@hotmail.XXXXXXX
date    Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 9:54 AM

subject    Account Notification

Greetings,

It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell/trade your personal World of Warcraft account.
As you may or may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement of Blizzard Entertainment and World of Warcraft.
If upon further investigation you are indeed attempting to obtain monetary profit against the terms of the user agreement, your account can and will be disabled. Blizzard has the right to consider legal action if necesarry, based on the severety of the action.

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This is NOT from blizzard and is very dangerous. 

If you fell for it please log into the official warcraft account site and change your password right away. If you find you are locked out contact blizzard.  Also report this to blizzard so they can follow up.

QQ More Noob – WoW and Church

A friend asked me last night. "So, you don't like emo do you?"  My answer was, "No, is it to much to want people to learn how to adjust to real life and not expect everything on a plate?"  And it got me thinking.  Right now is an example of lots of over privileged people crying that the world is ending because something they "CHOOSE" to do is being impacted by REAL WORLD issues beyond the control of the programmers.

For those of my readers who do not know what is happening, well, World of Warcraft is launching its second major expansion tonight.  In the process of getting ready a lot of changes have been made to the game system, a system that I think far to many people take for granted.  You know, the same people who have no idea the work that goes into that Hot Mocha they just ordered at Starbucks.  The same people that if you ask them where milk comes from they will answer, "the store."

In a game with over 11 million subscribers it becomes a hotbed of whiners and QQers (For those not up on the lingo, just isolate the QQ and tell me what you see.  *smile* )  Not only does Blizzard have to balance the customer support nightmare but they have to make sure things go smooth tonight with the launch. 

Ok, so some hiccups nailed them when they applied whatever implantations of the software server side yesterday.  Ok they spent all day, and even part of today with the servers down to make sure people end up happy.  I would HATE to be in the shoes of the technician who are trying to get things back up.  Especially when EMO kids are complaining.

I had a little spar with someone on the official forums.  I made a simple comment about how I would rather have the down time when it happen than come home from Gamestop tonight, load the game and not be able to enter Northrend.  The reply I got was, and I paraphrase:

"OMG Blizzard SUCKS!.  I pay $14.95 a month to play this game.  I expect my cell phone, cable TV . . . blah blah blah.  to work. . .Blizzard is the worst!"   

I would have laughed but this attitude just struck a raw nerve.  Here is a person, who thinks the world owes them something, complaining because their life is impacted for a short time.  The feeling is that his "INTITLEMENT" gives them the right to make over reaching over generalizations.  And we wont even talk about the laps of common sense.  Ok maybe a little.. . Just that morning our Comcast Cable went out. Had no Internet for the first 6 hours of the day   O.o  IT WAS THE END OF THE WORLD   /slit

But I digress. 

The issue is not that Blizzard has failed.  heh, I dare anyone to show us that they could run things any better.   .  .  . *still waiting*

The issue is that people need to relax, enjoy life, go outside some times, and enjoy what is around them.  Realize that things happen and we just have to deal.  Do we always like it when a storm comes through and knocks out power for 2 days?  Heck no. . But do we look back at the quality time we had with our family when we could not hide in a corner with a T.V. or computer or . . . Oh yea.

So, to all the emo QQ'ers who are going to quit the game over this.  I have one thing to say.

There's the door. 

*smile*  I know. . mean. . But serious!

And now for those expecting something about the church, after all, I did put it in the title.  Well, just reread the article, replace the word Blizzard with your churches name and wala. . . .

Let's not be emo QQing noobs anymore!

/rant

Grr, I lied, Turning Rant back on after talking to a guild mate in Gtalk Dori, before posting this.

One thing that REALY disappoints me is that some of the very same people who where yelling the sky was falling and they where going to quit took advantage of a glitch when the servers did come up.

Once servers rolled online apparently you could purchase select PvP gear that used to require a high personal rating.  The price was messed up, most likely from a careless oversight in the rush to restore databases.  So when people found out they did they told Blizzard about it so it could be fixed.  WRONG

The took a virtual ROCK and tossed it through the window of the department store and walked off with the item, all the time justifying it by saying Blizzard sucked and made them wait to get back online.

ARGGG.  Ok. . I'm going to finish now before this becomes a novel on the social ills of idiots.

Love you all. . .its going to be a good day no matter what :)

Midnight WoTLK Release - Ill Be There

For those of you in the WoW universe you know that Wrath of the Lich King is coming out tomorrow at midnight.  Bethany and I will be at the Gamestop in Yuba City at 10 PM 1070 Harter Rd # 102.  If you happen to be in Northern California, and by chance going to be in Yuba City, come say hi.

Is Arthas Closer? Extended Maintenance Time

Blizzards has posted a note on the log on screen.

We encountered some issues and need to extend the maintenance.  We currently estimate that all realms will be playable by approximately 1:00pm PST.  Thank you for your patience.

I am speculating that we will see the next large pre expansion event.  It only makes since after the popular plague.  I do hope so. . I'm getting bored. . Need more fun story line driven fun.

The Prot Paladin and You!

I know I have written a lot about Paravel and her lovely, wonderful, active tree form lately.  I also know that you might be wondering just what has happen to all the news about Resto Druids.  Well that will all still come.  BUT. . .I have recently dusted off my shield and mace, and brought Valimonde back into action since patch 3.0.2.  And right from the start I have to say.

I FREAKING LOVE PROT PALLADINS AND TANKING AGAIN!!!!!

Blizzards has finally given protection speced paladins the tools needed to do everything we have always dreamed of.  They have given us at least two new talents that have turned the tables on all those old stuck in the mud, this is how it has always been done, warriors out there who say Paladins can tank 5 mans but never a raid. 

One of the bigest concern and arguments used against paladin tanks on larger raids has been that. . you use mana.  A tanking situation is a careful dance of agro managment and mitigation.  In order for a paladin prior to the patch to stay ontop of the threat list he had to do holy damage.  To do holy damage he had to use his skills which would use mana, lot's and lots of mana.  When you run out of mana you are unable to do your spells and before long that mage in the back starts to overtake your threat.  If you are unfamilure with what happens when a mage, or any other class, over takes your threat on a boss, well, lets just say it looks a lot like the floor.

It was because of the mana issue that many old school raiders would never allow a paladin to tank raid bosses.  To some extent they had a valid point, however, I have seen some fantastic tankadins prior to the patch porve the sceptics wrong. 

So, what to do about mana?  Blizzard answerd our issue with this.  Greater Blessing of Sanctuary

This new spell, which is only in the protection tree, offers a wonderful solution.  What does it do?

1. Reduces damage taken by 3%.  This may not sound like a lot of damage mitigation, but every bit helps, and frankly, this is not the reason it will be the only blessing I use.  This is:
2. Gain 10 rage, 20 runic power, or 2% maximum mana whenever the target blocks, parries, or dodges a melee attack.

O.o  Let me put this in real world terms.  The new guild I am in just did our first Kara run Saturday night.  I seldom had to drink.  When we got to Prince on the roof we had one slight misshap.  Many of our team had NEVER been in Kara and did not know the dance with the enfeble.  We ended up loosing half the raid, BUT, we 5 maned prince and got him in one shot.  I tanked him with only 5 members for more than 3/4 of the fight.  When he died I looked at my mana bar.  It was full! 

This allowed me to keep at least 1K TPS (Threat Per Second) on the boss at all times.  So mana is no longer an issue for a tankadin.  It should also be noted that Warriors, Druids, and Death Knights will also benifit from this blessing when they are off tanking to us paladins.  :)

The next tool that Blizzard has given us is our 51 point talent *drum roll*

Hammer of the Righteous

Oh how I LOVE this new talent.  This is a new AOE, err. . well 3 target Melee atack that gives the paladin up to 4 times (NOTE, tool tip is being changed to reflect the real 4 times damage with 3.0.4 as I write this) your main hand damage per second as Holy damage. This attack causes HIGH treat. 

Perfect!  What we have always needed!  In normal situations a tankadin would use his Avengers Shield to get a head start on frontloading threat.  Only issue with the old method is a very long cool down on Avengers Shield makeing it nearly useless to climb back on top of the threat list once you started to slip.  With HotR we simply nail the mob every 6 seconds to not only build threat on them, but on the mobs next to them then you are AOE tanking.

I have to admit I am aprensive to write about HotR.  I am so fearful of others crying about it. You see. . I belive this little gem has made the prot spec fun again in more areas than just tanking.  It has helped to increase tankadins over all DPS.

In our Kara run I was 4th on the DPS chart!  I have NEVER been above another DPS class no matter how bad their gear was before patch. It was just not my build or skill set.  Now I am wraking up 2.5K avenger shield pulls, 1.5K to a whopping 3K HotR crit.  Its. . its. . just AMAZING!

And then!  PVP!  OH MY WORD!  Forget how over powered Ret Paladins are in BG's.  In previous days I would take Val into BG.  I could live a long long time, but kill nothing!  Now. . .Arms and Fury warriors run from Prot Paladins.  Ret Paladins end up screaming WTF when a prot nails them into the ground with HoTR and a few avenger shield tosses.   ITS AMAZING!

In conclusion, (You know, I was taught to never end a message or post like that :P )  I am so excited to play my tankadin again.  It is so much fun.  We are still having the OH WOW factor.  Just last night we took a 65 fury warrior, and a 66 Enhacment shaman into Underbog.  It was cake.  We planed to do Slave pens as well to get the quest done for them.  We where done in no time.  Tatiaana, my wifes mage, had to go at this point, but Mel, my healer and I said, why not do Steam Vaults.  When all was said and done, even with under level DPS, we did all three colfaing instances in under 2.5 hours!  WOW!  I can not wait to hit Northrend.

Here is to all the protection paladins out in the world.  Education will prevail and we will be given the chance to do what we always knew we could, or always wanted to do.

Loving, Guild, Patch, Kara, Coffee, Vent, Tanking, A Certain Mage . . .

Last night I ventured into the musty spooky halls of Karazahn for the first time since patch 3.0.2 was released with my new guild.  A little over a quarter of our raid had NEVER been in Kara up to this point.  Besides the completely new people to what many call the “entry level” raid instance, about three of our other members where on classes that they had never brought to Kara.  Typically one would hunker down for a long night, or at least a split day run of Kara when running with new players or classes that had not got their raiding legs under them yet.  But not tonight.

I am not going to take up page after page rehashing each and every boss.  However I will say that we one-shotted every boss, with the exception of Mirkblood, the new boss that is only in game for a couple more days.  It took us 2 attempts to figure out the rhythm.  When we did take him down on the second try it was a thing of beauty.  Instead I want to talk a little about the discussions and perspectives that players have concerning the expansion, and what the game will be like.

Blizzard has nerfed boss health and damage output as well as buffing player/class skill sets.  After the first pull of horses on the bottom floor a smile crept across my face.  I have dusted off Valimonde, my protection paladin, and transferred him over to be with this guild. I will be leveling him before I level Paravel, my resto druid.  As a tank with new groups I often pull the mobs to myself and zoom out my camera so I can get a feel as to how the group works and thinks.  In past experience on the simple trash pulls many a pug or new group will wipe once or twice just getting to the first boss.  Not this time.  After we cleared to Midnight, I had confidence in the abilities of our guild.  Each person filled their roll as if they where champions.  Thank you Blizzard.

I am completely in favor of the new philosophy, or at least the newly publicized philosophy to make the game about the player and not the class.  Many of us know of that guy decked out in T5/T6 gear but could not DPS/Tank/Heal a fencepost to save his life.  He may have been a charity case or carried by a guild/raid with people who just took over for his lack of skill.  We also know those players who excel at playing, have a good grasp on how the mechanics of a fight play out, but might not have the greatest gear, mainly because of that little thing called, LIFE.  If last nights run with the ease of care we cleared Kara is an indication, we will be unstoppable in our pursuit of fun and joy in a game that, frankly, sometimes can suck the fun and joy out of you when you are pushing to hard to hit that ubber skill mark.

We have 10 days until we can set foot on the shores of Northrend and begin our leveling and questing to hunt down the Lich King.  In these 10 days I plan to continue to get to know my new guild mates, learn more about the changes to my class (I WILL be posting an article on Prot Pallies soon!  THEY ROCK!) and ramping up for more fun.  Oh, and also leveling an alt or two to help with professions.

To all my guildies on The Scryers in Thought and Memory I tip my hat. Job well done friends, job well done.  Now let’s go kick Arthas’s tail!

Multibox Light Show!

Was chatting with a friend when in the middle of Stormwind on The Scryers server 5 shaman showed up to give us a light show.

[gallery]

Busy WoW day.

Its been a while, but the fun in the game we love to play is back.

Tanya's mage hit 70.  I grabed this screen shot and made a wallpaper



Let me know if you would like the wallpaper.

And the Scourge invasion was in full swing.  I hopped on Val and was able to get revered with the Argent Dawn and get a tabbard.  Great time indeed.



Great time indeed.  Now all is left is to rais the funds to move, Para, Val, and Tanya's mage to The Scryers to begin our new journey with Thought and Memory

Looking forward to the expantion.  But for now. . Sleep time.  Then. . a hard day ahead.. But all will be well.