World of Warcraft

If you’ve ever perused the warcraft forums, it’s entirely likely that you’ve come across a number of posts complaining about the effectiveness of pickup groups for dungeons (Or PuGs, for short, we’ll be using this term for the rest of the article). What defines a pug is that it’s a random conglomeration of players who have never had previous contact before come together to complete an instance run. Given the random nature of a pug, there is a very wide variety in how much success these groups have. Some will go off without a hitch, while others will end up making you feel like you are chewing glass after the sixth wipe. How to get through relatively unscathed? Here are some tips:

1. Have a strong core: It’s just the nature of the game that certain roles are more important than others. The fact of the matter is that being a tank or healer is a bit more stressful than say, being a mage (and this is coming from a mage) who’s sole role is to burn down monsters with a little crowd control mixed in. Always keep this in mind when creating a pickup group. Make sure your tank/healer is properly geared for the difficulty of the dungeon you are entering. A tank in greens cannot tank heroic shattered halls without a fantastic healer.

2. Be a leader, but not a jerk: If you are the creator of the pug, it’s generally your role to keep the group going and mark appropriate targets for crowd control/killing. Always utilize the marking feature and let group members know what they should be doing in advance (Mage, you have to Sheep star, for example). This helps keep things running smoothly. If something does go wrong, don’t fly off the handle. Bringing anger and attitude to a pug only diminishes your chances for success. If you are convinced your group is simply not going to make it through the instance, just accept it, apologize, and graciously leave.

3. Come Prepared: You don’t have very much control over what other players bring to the table, but you can do everything you can to make sure you are prepped for an instance run. This is especially true if you know your gear is lacking for an instance. Load up on elixirs, wizard/mana oil or sharpening stones as appropriate, and stat food. The better you do at your particular role in a group, the better your chances of success are.

If you’ve never heard Jonathan Coulton, then consider yourself missing out. He’s got some great stuff out there and a lot of it appeals to your average gamer. As such our Mid-week video will be featuring a song from him. If you’ve ever played Portal to the end..he did the end song for the game! This song is called “The Future Soon.” Enjoy!

After all, who wouldn’t want to be a cyborg overlord that rules earth? You know you’ve thought about it…right?

If you’re not sure what Mojo is, let me shine some light on the subject for you (From WoW Wiki!):

“To obtain Mojo you must use an Amani Hex Stick on a Forest Frog in Zul’Aman and be lucky. When you use the stick on a frog it will almost always turn into a humanoid who may be a limited-supply vendor, or may drop a chest with loot the raid can roll on. Infrequently the result will be instead that you receive Mojo, and the summoning item appears in your inventory without raid rolls: Score!”

The little blue frog was one of the more popular vanity pets available to players, and apparently someone discovered a bug that allowed you to obtain the pet without having to venture inside of ZA. Faced with an influx of mojos on what should have been a rare pet, Blizzard saw fit to hotfix the issue.

It’s not all bad news though, if you used the bug to get a blue frog mojo of your own, you get to keep it! At least according to Blizzard’s CM, Nethaera:

“Mojo wasn’t intended to be obtained for a kiss outside of Zul’Aman. You will need to get a hex stick and try your luck on the frogs inside Zul’Aman.

In the meantime, those who have managed to acquire Mojo will be able to keep him. Yes, you get to keep your Mojo. ”

I already obtained my own in ZA through the usual method, but I’m glad those of you who got one get to keep theirs. After all, it’s just a pet!

Warcraft players have been largely kept in the dark as development of warcraft’s latest expansion: Wrath of the Lich King, continues. Lucky for us though, it appears that new information is finally starting to trickle out!

You can find the whole synopsis and concept art here, but I’ll list the descriptions here as well for your own enjoyment!

Plague Eruptor Plague eruptors are the latest experiment of the Lich King, designed to spread horror and chaos across the world of the living. These walking corpses have quickly earned a reputation as the most destructive of the Scourge army: hyper-violent, incredibly strong, and deceptively fast. The most terrifying weapons in the eruptors’ arsenal are the myriad pulsing nodules that dominate their rotting skin. It is from these nodules that the undead plague festers and bursts, insuring that wherever the eruptors go, they quickly spread the Lich King’s apocalyptic contagion.

Nerubian Vizier The half-spider, half-humanoid viziers once served as advisors, sorcerers, and seers to the mighty nerubian spiderlords. But in the aftermath of the War of the Spider, the tables turned, and in the vacuum of their collapsed society, the cunning viziers rose to power. Utilizing their sorcery and high intelligence, the viziers have emerged as the rulers of the nerubians’ underground kingdom.

It is rumored that the viziers themselves may serve an unseen emperor, one who is destined to lead the ancient spider-people to a final victory over the Scourge. While many can only speculate as to the existence of this nerubian emperor, some continue to investigate the link believed to exist between the nerubians and the vicious insect race known as the qiraji.

Personally I’ve never been a fan of the 2-man arena teams. My own reasoning is surprisingly simple: I hate queues. I don’t like waiting in line, I don’t want to sit and stare at my queue timer as I wait to get into a match, it’s a waste of my life (ok, that’s an exaggeration, warcraft could be called a waste of life, but I digress). I even rolled to horde so I could avoid the (at the time) 10-15 minute queues just to get into a Battleground.

But my oldest brother needed to gnab some arena points, and so to make things tolerable I just had us queue up in Nagrand and flew around looking for gas clouds (or herbs, or mines..whatever’s available!) and thought I would reflect on my own experience at the 2v2 levels.

Things I learned:

1. 2v2 Arenas are for fun, not powergamers I’m not one of those min-max everything must be done precisely as I say this is the absolute best piece of gear for raw dps etc. etc. etc. kind of person. If you are that kind of gamer, 2v2 arenas are not for you. Why not? See the queue time listed above. Also, as this image illustrates, 2v2 teams earn less arena points than their larger counterparts. From what I understand this means that 2v2s earn 76% less than a 5v5 team equivalent.

2. 2v2 is not meant to be balanced. I see a lot of people complaining about X class in arenas against Y. Stop it. 2v2 arenas are not and never will be truly balanced, and Blizzard has stated that they’re ok with this. There are certain class combinations that simply will not hold up to their counterparts in a 2v2 match unless of course the opposing team is just that bad or you get lucky and blow someone up before the healer has a chance to react. Accept the fact that sometimes you’re going to lose and it won’t always be your fault. Once you get past that, you’ll actually have a lot of fun. I know I had a blast!

More to come as I gather my arena points from week to week, any suggestions on first pieces of arena gear?

This week’s video is done in Robot Chicken style (if you’ve ever watched the show!). It’s a funny collection of skits that incorporates many of the sound bits from Warcraft 3. The actual clips, however, are all from World of Warcraft. While the editing is done very well, the skits themselves are a mixed bag in my opinion, much like the show. Some are absolutely hilarious and some are just plain “meh.”

Have any suggestions for next week’s video? Feel free to drop me a line!

Well here we are, yet another Tuesday downtime for patching. Unfortunately this isn’t the patch I’m sure we’re all waiting for with baited breath (2.4) but it does bring out some nice, if minor, changes. Here you go!

General

* Some players may notice improved data load times when newly entering the world and after zoning into new areas.
* Character/NPC load times have been decreased, and now should appear faster. You’re not hearing voices, there really are people in Shattrath!

Bug Fixes

* Felspine the Greater in Shadowmoon Valley will no longer evade when engaged.
* Gutripper in Nagrand will no longer evade when engaged.
* Players will now be correctly credited with their arena points if they purchase an arena item during weekly arena calculations.
* Using a castsequence macro on a target moving out of range will no longer cause it to stop working.

Nothing wrong with bug fixes, I guess!

Being a Wii-owner myself, I often wonder what it would be like to play games on other consoles/PC games with the Wiimote. Well my curious inquiries have been answered with this new video demonstrating how to use your Wiimote to play World of Warcraft!

On on one hand, it looks like it would be a ton of fun, but the functionality isn’t quite there yet. They’ve yet to add in right-click functionality to the program, which means you’ll have to shift-click to interact with NPCs. I think this would get annoying pretty fast. Obviously this wouldn’t exactly be the best setup for PvP scenarios either, but it’s worth contemplating. Regardless I think it would be a fun activity to try. Now if only I could get it to swing my sword when I do….

It appears that Blizzard had sent some mixed messages regarding the “Grim Totem Spirit Guide” pet, one of the more unique looking pets available to Hunters and tameable only through the use of some rather complex mechanics.

Apparently, the spirit guide was summoned by NPCs in Dustwallow Marsh. These pets were the only available “spirit wolf” that was tameable by hunters, and taming them was no easy task. The wolves were only summoned with a duration of 1 minute, which meant a hunter would have to find a way to decrease the casting time of his tame pet spell (usually with the help of a shaman) in order to successfully tame the wolf before it despawned.

Now, Blizzard’s original stance was that this was not an abuse of game mechanics and that this was simply a unique, fun pet that hunters were allowed to tame, as the following response demonstrates:

“While this feature of the Grimtotem Spirit Guide wasn’t exactly intended, it was agreed by the development team that this is a fun use of in-game mechanics, and we therefore have no plans to address this issue - it will still be possible in future for everyone who wishes to tame this NPC to do so.”

Apparently (some speculate due to the coming expansion) the design team reversed that sentiment, and hotfixed the guides so that they can no longer be tamed. As per Drysc, a representative at blizzard:

“Through a hotfix we’ve recently removed the ability to tame a Grimtotem Spirit Guide. Players who have already gone through the trouble of taming the creature will be able to keep them unchanged. This hotfix only removes the possibility to tame this creature from here on.

The removal of the spirit guide has been debated within design discussions for a while now as to what impact the pet and its precedent has on the game.
The unintended nature of the taming, the undead status of the guide, appearance of the wolf in relation to the feel of the hunter class, and the complex processes of taming were all issues touched upon and discussed.

Ultimately the discussions brought us to the conclusion that this should not be a permanent addition to the pet selection available to hunters; however, those that have already tamed them should be allowed to keep them due to their efforts in obtaining one.”

If you’re a hunter, this means that you won’t be able to get the pet in the future, but you can keep the one you have! My guess is that a similar looking animal will be available for taming in the new expansion, but obviously that’s pure speculation.

I’m sure many a players saw this coming, but Blizzard has implemented a new policy for dealing with AFK players in the Battlegrounds. If you’re not familiar with the issue, many players would simply log into a battleground such as alterac valley, park their character at the starting area, and not move for the rest of the battle. Over time, these “afkers” would continue to gather honor from the players who were actually in the game fighting, and eventually would earn player vs player gear as a result.

If the forums were any indication, this problem began to spread, and recently hit a boiling point and player after player vented their frustrations over losing because of players who weren’t actually there playing, just hitting the space bar or using botting programs to avoid being flagged afk.

Here is Blizzard’s official response:

“In our continued efforts to support fair gameplay in World of Warcraft and to provide a positive experience for players, we are currently taking steps to ensure fair and enjoyable competition in the Battlegrounds. Starting immediately, we will be issuing warnings and penalties, including suspensions and the removal of Honor points and recently acquired Honor rewards, for non-participation in Battleground games.”

This is a much harder line than many players were expecting, but in my own personal opinion, implementing serious consequences to afking was the only viable way to address the issue. Originally, players could flag a player afk, giving them a debuff that would prevent them from gaining honor or a mark for the duration of the battle. The problem here of course is that it didn’t deter afkers, as most didn’t get reported and if they did, they still got at least a little honor out of the deal.

While I’m sure the problem will continue, tough actions like this from Blizzard will certainly make widespread afking a thing of the past for most players.

With the end of the day and the weekend fast approaching, I thought I would take some time to do a little experiment. Given the increasing popularity of the Warcraft franchise, I wondered if anyone had taken the time to create a warcraft mini-game of sorts. Much to my surprise there are a number of them! For today though we’re going to focus on only one, which you can find here. From what I understand it’s based on the first warcraft game, which was a real-time strategy hit in it’s day. Here’s what you’ll be looking at, but please forgive the awful appearance of the pic! It actually looks quite clean in the browser:

Certainly something fun to do to pass the time, even if the interface is just a little bit clunky. On my first mission I kept clicking on my peasants and telling them to farm lumber, but instead they’d run a circle around the forest instead (use the buttons, fool!)! Not being able to keybind commands is also something that an avid RTS player will take some time getting used to. Despite these few minor flaws, being able to play a real time strategy game in browser form is actually a ton of fun! How many missions can you get through?

Hello again everyone! While I’m sure you are all busy testing out the latest changes from the patch that went through yesterday (Personally I’m a big fan of Icy Veins), I’m still here for the mid week video, which of course I think you’ll enjoy. This week, I dug up a hilarious music video to the song “Code Monkey” sung by Jonathan Coulton, an artist who’s done a variety of interesting musical pieces and is pretty well known (at least in my social circles) for his creative music. Regardless the Warcraft video corresponds to the song perfectly and while I’m not a programmer myself, I can definitely empathize with the feeling of being trapped at your desk.

Enjoy!

As you might have noticed if you tried to login this morning before work (Not that I ever do that…for dailies..) there is a new patch today! Get ready for a long post…here are the notes!

General

* /timetest is a command that can be run to provide information on game performance. /timetest 0 turns the command off. When the command is issued, the next time a player uses a flight master to travel, certain statistics will be measured and displayed at the end of that flight. All weather effects and spawns are shutdown during the test.
* Effects triggered from being critically hit: Many abilities and talents were changed in 2.3.0 to allow them to trigger from critical strikes that occurred while the player benefiting from them was sitting.
* Quest givers with blue question marks no longer show up on the minimap.
* NPC’s who you have completed a quest for will display a question mark on mouseover rather than an exclamation point.
* The bank controls for the guildmaster level of a guild is now grayed out. A guildmaster always has full access to a guild bank and this cannot be changed.
* A “Withdraw-Repair Only” button has been added to the guild bank controls. If this is set for a guild rank, then that rank cannot actually withdraw funds from the guild bank, but they can still use that daily amount of money for repairs.
* You will now automatically stand up when attacked, even if the attack doesn’t land.
* Boat and zeppelin vendors and NPCs are back on duty.
* Reduced network latency by disabling the Nagle algorithm.

PvP

* Warmasters/marshals in Alterac Valley now increase each other’s maximum health and damage by 20%. This is a stacking effect.

Druids

* Lifebloom: When this ability is refreshed it will take on the strength of the incoming Lifebloom effect, rather than maintain the existing strength.
* Ravage (All Ranks) - Damage changed from 350% to 385%

Hunters

* Arcane Shot: Ranks 1-5 will once again deal bonus damage based on attack power.
* Aspect of the Viper effect increased
* Freezing Trap is no longer limited to one target at a time.
* Pet leveling speed has been increased.

Mages

* Cold Snap (Frost) cooldown reduced. It is now in the Ice Block position in the talent tree. This ability will no longer reset the cooldown on Fire Ward.
* Conjure Mana Gem mana restore variance substantially reduced, (Rank 5 - Emerald) now restores 2340 to 2460 mana and has three charges.
* Ice Block (Frost) is now available on the trainer to all mages at level 30.
* Icy Veins (NEW Frost Talent) decreases casting time of all spells by 20% and increases the chance your chilling effects will freeze the target by 10%. Lasts 20 sec. 3 min cooldown. It is now in the Cold Snap position in the talent tree.

Paladins

* Crusader Strike (Retribution) now causes 110% of weapon damage and no longer gains any bonus from spell damage.
* Righteous Fury: This spell will no longer cost twice the listed mana to cast.
* Sanctified Judgements (Retribution) now returns 80% of the Seal’s mana cost, increased from 50%.

Rogues

* Ambush: The damage multiplier on this ability has been increased from 250% to 275%.
* Cheat Death: When multiple attacks land simultaneously, all those resolved after the attack which triggered Cheat Death will now have their damage reduced by 90% as intended. However, the combat log will still report them doing full damage.
* Hemorrhage: Rank 4 of this ability no longer has its charges consumed by non-physical attacks and spells.
* Hemorrhage: Weapon damage reduced from 125% to 110%, but the damage debuff has been increased.
* Hemorrhage: This ability now correctly does additional damage when its debuff has already been applied.
* Preparation now resets the cooldown of Shadowstep and no longer resets the cooldown of Adrenaline Rush.
* Shadowstep now adds a 3 second, 70% movement speed increase.
* Sinister Calling now also increases the percentage damage bonus of Hemorrhage and Backstab by 2/4/6/8/10%.

Shaman

* Lightning Shield mana cost reduced.
* Water Shield now restores mana periodically regardless of how many charges remain. Duration increased to 10 minutes.

Warlock

* The health cost taken from the Warlock after using Health Funnel will now remain consistent between uses.

Warrior

* Defiance: weapon expertise will now work in all stances.
* Warriors no longer lose rage when using a macro to enter a stance they’re already in.

Professions
Cooking

* [Goldthorn Tea] was erroneously unlearned by most players who had learned the recipe. The recipe has been re-enabled and can be learned again from Neutral Henry Stern in Razorfen Downs at no cost.

Enchanting

* [Enchant Shield - Resilience] now requires a [Runed Fel Iron Rod] instead of a [Runed Adamantite Rod].

Leatherworking

* Increased the range of leatherworking drums to 40 yards. [Drums of Panic] remains unchanged at 8 yards.

Items

* [Amani Charm of the Witch Doctor]: Tooltip typo corrected.
* [Hearthstone]: The cast time on this item is no longer affected by spell haste.
* [Hex Shrunken Head]: This item now has a 20 second shared cooldown with other similar trinkets.
* [Icy Chill] Enchant: The triggered effect from this enchantment will now cause a melee slow and movement snare as intended.
* [Idol of the Unseen Moon]: This item now has a 30 second cooldown on being triggered.
* [Idol of Terror]: The triggered agility buff from this item no longer overwrites other agility buffs.
* The [Netherscale Ammo Pouch] is no longer a Unique item.
* The [Knothide Quiver] is no longer unique.
* The [Vengeful Gladiator's Grimoire] is now available on vendors.

Dungeons and Raids
Heroic Coilfang Resevoir - Steamvaults

* Combat Mekgineer Steamrigger’s Main Chambers Access Panel is no longer interactable until Mekgineer Steamrigger has been killed.

Tempest Keep - The Eye

* The number of Blood Elves guarding Combat Prince Kael’Thas’ room has been reduced.

Zul’Aman

* The Combat Amani’shi Warrior’s Charge ability now has a minimum range.
* The melee haste provided by Combat Halazzi’s Frenzy has been reduced to 100%.
* Dragonhawks in Zul’Aman can now be skinned. This doesn’t include dragonhawks that do not have loot.

Quests

* Blade’s Edge Mountains: Players accepting the bombing run quests in Blade’s Edge Plateaus will no longer cause other players in the region to stand up.

User Interface

* There is now an option to turn off the screen edge damage flash when you have a fullscreen UI up.
* You can sell stacks by dropping them on the merchant window again.
* Ready check (/readycheck) will now display a visual display of each party/raid member’s status next to their name. This will display in the Party UI, the Raid UI and the Raid pullout UI. A player will get a check mark if they are ready, a question mark if they have not replied and a red X if they are not ready or are afk.
* You can now see raid members on the minimap as dark blue dots in addition to party members which still display as light blue dots.
* You can now shift click names while the petition window is open to paste them into the petition.
* Fixed various problems with /castsequence getting stuck.
* /cast will toggle spells again unless the name is prefixed with an exclamation mark, e.g. /castsequence Steady Shot, !Auto Shot

Bug Fixes

* Characters may now possess up to five [Paper Flying Machines] in a single stack.
* Fixed “Spell/Ability is not ready yet” message when clicking quickly at the beginning of a cast.
* Fixed a server disconnect when moving the mouse over recipes in the guild bank.
* [Gnomish Universal Remote] will now work properly with the Combat Fel Cannon.
* Disconnecting a USB HeadSet will no longer cause problems with the Voice Chat dropdown menus.
* [Clockwork Rocket Bots] will no longer attack each other in Shattrath City.
* Channel changes will now appear properly in the chat log after zoning in or out of instances.
* Unplugging headphones/speakers then plugging them back in while in WoW no longer disables all sound in WoW
* If the original owner of a custom channel gives leadership away their options menu will no longer show that they have moderation privileges.
* The first custom created guild ranking will now properly show up in the Guild Control pane drop down menu.
* Control-clicking on inventory items that teach recipes will now properly display you wearing the item made by the recipe in the dressing room UI.
* Fixed an issue that was not allowing all charges of a [Field Repair Bot] to be used.
* Creatures with random player targeting crowd control abilities such as fear, charm, or sleep will now properly choose a random eligible target rather than just choosing the nearest eligible target.
* The various Hallow’s End broom mounts now have their proper real-time (rather than game-time) duration of 14 days.
* Tricky Treats now have their proper real-time (rather than game-time) duration of 24 hours.

I’m very much looking forward to the Icy Veins change but other than that not a whole lot of new things to report. Enjoy!

I know, the title is quite a mouthful, but let me explain and hopefully you’ll come to see my point. Since the beginning of the game, there have been certain classes and certain specs that the general community deems “wrong.” This isn’t to say that the particular spec/class is worthless, just that they should be doing something else instead for maximum efficiency. A great example of this was shadow priests before the expansion, in which they were a rarety because most players expected priests to heal, that’s about it.

Unfortunately, this thinking hasn’t changed with the release of The Burning Crusade, though the shunned classes and specs may have. Judging from my own experience in groups, here’s a short list of classes and talent builds I see are disdained by the general community, adnw hat you should understand when grouping with them:

1. Balance Druids When bringing a balance druid into your party, it’s important to understand what he does and does not bring to the table. Moonkin do solid DPS, but they won’t be holding their own against dedicated classes like mages and warlocks. What they can do, however, is use innervate to refill a healer’s mana bar when he/she runs oom, a hugely useful function in groups and raids. They also provide a +5% spell critical strike to all casters in their group, another function that should not be ignored. In emergency situations such as a bad pull, Balance Druids can cyclone enemy targets to keep them from destroying a healer.

2. Retribution Paladins Universally despised on the warcraft forums, Retribution admittedly used to be a sub-par spec all around. It had no utility, no significant group/raid damage buffs, and didn’t hold a candle to any dedicated DPS class. All that said, Retribution Paladins are now more viable than ever. Things to remember? Improved seal of the crusader will increase your entire group/raid’s crit chance by 3%, which is not to be underestimated in boosting your group’s damage potential. In addition, sanctity aura (if properly specced) will provide the paladin’s group another 2% in damage. Finally, though less useful, Vindication will decrease a target’s attributes by 15%, providing some much needed mitigation for hard-hitting bosses.

3. Elemental Shamans Almost every shaman I see these days is specced enhancement, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It’s important not to wirte off the lesser-known elemental spec for shamans, as they provide some very useful utility to a group as well. Totem of Wrath provides a great buff to the shaman’s group, providing +3% spell critical strike to group members as well as another vital stat, +3% spell hit. Due to a large amount of +spell damage and healing on their gear, they can heal in a pinch when a priest unexpectedly goes down or your paladin didn’t pubble in time as well.

So, the next time you are putting a group together, don’t avoid putting bringing these classes into the fold as well. They may not bring the raw damage of their more specialized counterparts, but they provide a unique blend of damage and utility that any group should come to appreciate.

Enjoy!

I know you’ve been there; you pick up the battlegrounds daily quest, hop in to the queue and upon arrival, realize you have neither food nor water in your bags. From a priest’s perspective, I can tell you just how irritating it is not having food/water to drink in a battleground after a fight ends…it is maddening.

No problem though right? All you have to do is demand water from the local mage and out pops a billion stacks of conjured mana biscuits! Not so fast, chum, you’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Here are some tips to increase your chances of receiving delicious (and free!) summoned water:

1. Be Polite Be sure to articulate your message properly when communicating with the local mage. You don’t have to say something silly like “Doth thou have water?” But you can at the very least make a complete sentence like “Hey, I don’t suppose you have some water to spare?” Most people do appreciate the politeness, and you’re bound to be more successful than “Make watr plz.”

2. Apply Buffs Before Asking This has proven to be particularly useful in my neverending quest for thirst-quenching. Always apply any buffs you can right before you ask them for water. They’ll see you cast the buffs, and will be much more receptive to your request. Often, you’ll receive their buffs in addition to some water/food as well!

3. Bring Your Own Don’t ever assume there will be a mage waiting for you in the battleground ready to dole out a refreshing table of biscuits. Sometimes there won’t be a mage at all, and sometimes, for whatever reason, the mage won’t feel like making you anything. So, rather than blow a gasket because you don’t have anyway to replenish mana/health during downtime, bring your own emergency vendor stash. Berating the person will not help, if anything they’ll get a kick out of watching you complain, so just forget them and do what you’re there to do: Destroy all who stand in your way!

While hardly fool-proof, these simple steps will help ensure a more positive and appealing experience for PvP.

Good luck!