A Hunter's Story

Facelift!

2009-12-16T15:23:00.003-05:00

Lookie, lookie - a facelift!

I stuck with blogspot for ages just for convenience, since it's where I started, but I finally got around to putting it on my own webhost, thus the upgrade to wordpress. So you should already be in the right place if you're using the right url (www.xantherblog.com) then you're set. If you're still using the xanthersz.blogspot.com one, then please come on over and update your url!

3.3 Woes

2009-12-15T13:17:00.001-05:00

As with every patch, comes the inevitable glitches. They’ve already done a mini patch fix, which is good. But the fix I’m really hoping for? The Call Stabled Pet bug. Yes, if you are using this ability while using the random dungeon finder beware. It doesn’t seem it’s a problem if your entire group is from the same server, but it definitely is when you have cross-servers. The bug? The 5 minute cooldown goes up to 25 days. Mine’s now down to something like 22 days, and still ticking. I’m curious though – will the GM’s answer my ticket before the CD is up? I’ve had it open for days.

Now, a guildie had another problem and put in the magic key words since it was a more immediate problem, which got him a GM within an hour or so (If you don’t know the key words, I won’t tell you. And no, I’m not going to cheat and use them in my ticket since the issue is just an annoyance, not crucial – it’d be like skipping in line). While he had the GM, he asked about my issue (they asked if he had any other questions, so that works, right? Lol.) and they said yes, it’s a known issue and to keep doing what I am (using a regular stable, and leaving the ticket open). But it begs the question – if they have the system in place to track for key words and phrases… why don’t they use it for known issues? Wouldn’t it be great customer service (in comparison to what they have – certainly there’s even better than this small thing I suggest) if they found the key words for this glitch, then auto-replied with a status update, saying it’s a known issue and instructing you to stay/not stay in the ticket queue? Or anything? If someone in my office took more than 1 business day to reply to a customer, that might be ok depending on the issue and whether or not they got back within 2 business days. If they did it to more than one customer, or if they were like Bliz and don’t respond for days on end – then there would be consequences. It’s just plain terrible customer service.

Luckily, it’s not that big of an issue, and only really just an annoyance. Hell, it goes back to the days before the ability existed. So my frustration is more, once again, with Bliz’s poor customer service than the actual issue. Probably because my own field is directly related to Customer Service, but oh well. I expect glitches, especially when making changes of the caliber they did. I just also expect some measure of Customer Satisfaction be included in their Customer Service.

He's Big, He's Blue, and He's Mine!

2009-12-14T14:37:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, my wife went to scan for Arcturis for me, while I went real quick to check Sholazar for Loque. Amazingly enough, he spawned right in front of her! Heart racing, she puts him in roots, and tells me to hightail it over. She’s calmly holding him there and I’m on my way over, when Hardtobrake, a tauren, comes in. He starts trying to tame it, even though she’s already tagged it and is obviously holding him for someone. Somehow he managed not to tame him, and my wife kept him holding Arcturis. So then, the tauren decides to kill Arcturis – even though she’s emoting him to stop, begging him, etc. Wtf? Seriously, if you come across a rare-spawn that you know hunters around Azeroth are trying to tame, why would you kill it rather than let someone else tame it, especially if they tagged it first? Thus, the inevitable happened – he and I were forced to compete and camp the spot together until the next spawn. Because of that, I award him the following achievement.

I mean, honestly, it only hurts you to be a jerk like that. And then after killing Arcturis, he tries dualing her, taunting her, etc. Of course, he probably forgot he was a 77 and she was a well geared 80 when he flagged himself PvP, lol. He didn’t make that mistake twice. I’m happy to say, though, that the next day when I was camping him (I’d run a dungeon, check for the spawn, see afore mentioned huntard there, then go do another dungeon, lol) – he did spawn. I’m sitting there watching a movie, and he spawns right in front of me! Quick concussive shot & tame, and he was mine! Immediately fed him to get some happiness up, then thanked the other alliance hunter (I apologize, I forget your name – I was a bit preoccupied, lol!) who had come over probably 30 minutes prior. He said gratz, and as he saw I was already camping the spot – he let me tame Arcturis without a fight. Damned decent of him, and much appreciated that there are polite people on the server. And YAY! He’s my first Spirit Beast. I’ve now seen King Crush twice, but no Loque. Maybe luck will hold out and I can find Loque soon too. And fyi, if you’re looking for a spirit beast, Arcturis is your easiest bet, since he spawns in the same place every time. Simply camp the spot long enough and you’re essentially guaranteed a pet (provided some jerk doesn’t kill him first).

Thoughts on 3.3

2009-12-09T11:54:00.000-05:00

Sooo I did have time to jump in last night. Conference call got done early, and I just stayed up way too late. Aside from the typical patch-day nightmares (“Additional instances cannot be launched…”, Dalaran nightmare lag, etc.), it was pretty good. The new instances are fun, and a bit of a challenge. I even picked up a new crossbow! Rest of the stuff was mostly shaman gear (no one could use) or tank gear. Very nice, is dungeon queuing that lets you port right from dungeon to dungeon. Also nice is the random heroic option, which means we don’t have to sit around going “what dungeon do you want to do?”.

But nicest of all… It looks like the Hunter Misdirect is finally fixed. Not only that, but AoE Damage seems to work as well. Thus we’re no longer limited to pulling 3 mobs weakly onto the tank – we can actually AoE a group onto them! Or more importantly, once we hit MD, we can actually lay into a target without fearing that we’ll be pulling agro by our 6^th shot… Yay!

Now if they just fix it so we can actually get the schem atics for epic ammo… I understand that it’s epic ammo – should take a little effort to get. But after ages of gnomish/goblin engineering not really mattering, it seems so random to make bullets go to one and arrows to the other. Not to mention, why does the schematic have a rep requirement and the ammo not? Doesn’t that basically defeat the purpose of trying to get the schematic? I mean, to get the bullets, I don’t need the rep, but to make the bullets someone else needs to get the rep. Just seems a little weird to me. Seems the schematic and the ammo should both have the requirement. Oh well. I doubt I’ll buy the ammo, and at some point I’ll get the rep up and then I’ll make them. So not a big deal. Just seems a little odd.

3.3 Live

2009-12-08T13:06:00.000-05:00

I should be excited, except I have a full day of work, conference call this evening, and MBA to do. I guess that means that 3.3 goes live for this Hunter tomorrow instead… More comments on the patch after I have a chance to see them! Lol.

RL WTH?

2009-12-07T14:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, first the WoW. If you’re going for Exalted w/ Bloodsail, find some friends or cross your fingers that there’s someone else as insane as you at the same time. The 2 guys we’re farming it with are nice & fun. Half the time, only one of us is actually at the computer killing Jazzrek, but we just stay in a raid group so when we afk out, and log back in, we’re still in the group. Then whoever is around kills him, and everyone gets the rep. Much nicer if you don’t have to always be there – and it works both ways!

Onto the WTH… So we have a database, that tracks everything about everyone. Well, not everything, but you know what I mean. contact info, giving history, grades, degrees, employers, and so on. Basically, everything is supposed to be recorded in it, so that all of us who have access, can pull the data we need, when we need it.

So knowing that there’s a particular department here that doesn’t do a great job of inputting the data, I always do one or two things on the side to make sure I actually have the data I need. I also train people to let me know when they stumble across something I should know, so that they inform me – anything I can do to get the necessary data. So now that I have my 90% solution, as accurate as I can get, I pull the list from the database to cross-reference. My list has 22 names. A little low (usually closer to 30 at this time of year), but still probably pretty accurate. The list I pull? Had 1. WTH? Out of curiosity, I run the same report for the list I should get in late FEB. In late FEB it should have ~380 names. Right now it has 150 (it should have 0 right now…). And 12 of the names on my list (the ones that should be on the original list I pulled that only had 1 name), are on the FEB one! W T H? ? ? ?

I know, probably confused everyone with this, but let’s just say the math doesn’t add up. I swear, someday I’ll just make everyone elect me King. Then I can solve problems like these by hiring Lifeguards for the gene pool…

Sick

2009-12-03T08:24:00.001-05:00

So at least the perk to being sick was that we got our Bloodsail rep up a bit. Watching movies, and killing Jazrek. And now we have 2 others who joined us, lol. Makes it easier now too, since they’re also watching for him to kill him as soon as possible. Though if you have to be sick, don’t be sick on a TUE so that you can log into WoW, lol. Yet for some strange reason, Nazgrel wasn’t down when I woke up on TUE. Weird! Oh well, back to work now… At least it’ll seem like a short week, since I went in MON, and now just THU & FRI. Then a weekend! Yay!

Wow he has free time...

2009-11-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/player-gets-all-achievements-shadowed-unit-frames/

Yeah, I’ll just let you read it yourself. That guy must have no life! Of course, imo, he still hasn’t beaten the game because he hasn’t done that with all the races and all the classes… But that’s just me. For some reason, I’d like to think that it’s different to play a druid healer and a dwarf rogue, so to beat the game you’d have to do all those achievements on both characters. And since a paladin tank is different too… Yeah, you see where I’m going with this.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll get back to blogging more often soon. Been too busy at work to do it in the past few weeks, then last week was vaca… Quick shout out and thanks to the nice Ogre who helped Lady X and I get the turkey minipet. Didn’t really have any time to log in over the vaca since we were visiting family in KS, so Ogre helped us finish up the parts we didn’t have time for.

The Grind...

2009-11-13T10:43:00.001-05:00

Haven’t really had much time to play WoW recently. Though we did start up 2 rogues for the Insane title. Stupid junkboxes… But since we’re on multiple accounts we can still get the 5 rep every 7 min while leveling the rogues. Though it goes much faster doing the dungeon grind. We’ve found it pretty effective and efficient to take 2 80’s in. One rounds up one area & hurricane’s. The other goes into the other area and does the same. Then loot. You’d be surprised how much gold you pick up from the mobs and from selling the trash! The shoulders & chest pieces help too. 20% exp boost. Got them up to 24 so far. I wonder how far we’ll get them this weekend, after working on the MBA & all.

TY!

2009-11-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to toss out a quick thank you to all veterans and their families. Now that you’re done reading this blog post, take a trip over to Applebee’s and let them thank you with a free entrée!

Beds

2009-11-05T16:08:00.001-05:00

How true, lol...

Long... Time....

2009-11-03T16:21:00.001-05:00

Ok, so 5 rep every 7 min, when you have 20,500 rep to go ‘till exalted takes FOREVER!!!

Typical Dungeon

2009-10-27T16:02:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I think this pretty much sums up the 3 types of people in a dungeon/raid:

D'uh!

2009-10-23T10:14:00.001-04:00

No wonder the dude is so annoyed at us! I mean, he lost his head, it keeps flying away, and we keep digging him up from his grave just to kill him and leave his headless body lying in the middle of the street. I'd be pissed too!

Holidaiz Repetitive?

2009-10-19T13:09:00.001-04:00

Ok, they’re fun. They break up the same old day to day. They take us to places we don’t ordinarily go, and get us to view content we don’t otherwise see. But sometimes I get the feeling that it is repetitive. Maybe that’s because I play multiple characters, but maybe because it’s the same thing every year. Like running kegs back and forth, or cleaning up stink bombs. No offense, but couldn’t they add something new each year, instead of just upgrading the boss to a higher level? Change something maybe? I guess the assumption is basically that you’ll do it once or twice and then be done. I guess they do add a new holiday from time to time, but I dunno. Just sometimes seems to be repetitive.

Lolz

2009-10-16T14:00:00.001-04:00

So last night I was running a dungeon w/ the guild. Did a quick run before I had to go back to work. Figured they’d pug out the spot, do a dungeon, and I’d be home again and able to jump back in for another dungeon later. Well, I got home sooner than expected, to which my wife says “hurry up and sign on, our 5^th dc’d so you can help take out the last 2 bosses.” I figure cool, so I jump back in and help take out the last two. Then everyone went to have dinner (why do they all eat so late?!).

So I’m bored, looking around and realize I only need 4 more badges for new gloves for my tank. Sweet! So I hop into lfg. After not too long, I get a wsp asking if I want to do Heroic Nexus. I figure that’s perfect - it’s a quick, easy run, done it many many times, and gets me the badges. Turns out the group was pretty good and we busted through pretty quick. So we’re on Keristrasza, and I figure I already have the achievement but I should still hop and keep the ice down to make it easier on the healer. Then we down the boss and I get two achievements – Intense Cold and Heroic: The Nexus.

WTH?

Oh crap, I guess I’ve never taken Datouv into the Nexus before! Lolz. I guess that’s the prob w/ alts – you never know which ones have been in different dungeons and which achievements they’ve completed. Oh well, guess I needed to take Datouv in there after all! And he got his new gloves, so doubly cool!

The Grind

2009-10-14T09:22:00.001-04:00

So yeah, we’ve started working on Bloodsail Buccaneers rep. Figure it’s something easy to do, just takes a while. We’ve been working on ~4-5k rep per night before getting bored and doing something else. I mean, the achievement is cool. But is it worth it? I think it will be eventually. You know, once we’ve gone insane. But considering this whole thing also helps us towards another one it ain’t bad. I’ll tell you though, if we do ever manage the insane title… Yeah, that’s probably the last one I’ll wear for a long time!

Viral Marketing FTW

2009-10-09T18:00:00.000-04:00

Was cool enough I had to share...

Haxxors Suck

2009-10-09T10:30:00.001-04:00

Oy. So another hacker grabbed an account in our guild. Sucks that it happens, but the really frustrating thing is that this happens all the time and Bliz’ only response is retroactive. I mean, accounts are hacked all the time – if I ran Bliz, I’d have an automated system that detects Hacker behavior, and immediately suspend an account pending confirmation from the owner. It would at least limit some of the damage and cleanup necessary. Yes, you’d probably flag a legit person once in a while, but I’d rather that than have to deal w/ as many hackers as there are.

Eventually we get everything back (though this time they haven’t given it all back. Had over $3k in the bank and they’ve only sent us $500) but if they could catch hackers in the middle of wiping everything out, they’d then be able to log IP’s, connection info, etc. And all automatically. Then that would help them actually catch and eliminate hackers.

I mean, how hard is it to setup a system that auto-suspends an account when it w/d’s everything possible from the guild bank, sells everything or mails it away, then logs another character, does the same, and all within 30 min of each other? Add in some controls for email addresses if they’re changed during that period, and so on.

But oh yeah, I forget… It’s easier to just say “your account and password are your responsibility”. Best customer service ever. Yes, everyone should follow good password protection procedures. But even if you follow them… Someone can still hack your account anyway.

Random ToC Note

2009-10-06T10:21:00.001-04:00

Random interesting note since the patch, where we can now skip all the hooplah at the beginning… If you haven’t been in ToC since, you don’t get the option to skip. After you’ve seen it once, you then get the option to skip.

I find that interesting. Why? Well, my guess is the intent behind it is so that people will actually watch the opening at least once, since Bliz put the time in to code it. However, the only people that will watch it are the newbs who have never been there before, unless they’re going in with a group of friends (or a PuG) who have been through it. Well, either them, or the sadistic annoying people who start it just to be a pain, lol.

I just think it’s funny that they put so much time into coding an event like that, which everyone does their best to skip. Even before we were given the option, we found ways of skipping it and speeding the process. I won’t complain though – it was rather a waste of time after watching it that first time…

Pets now eat food!

2009-09-29T11:43:00.000-04:00

'nother cool thing I had 2 sec to post... Coolness!

9 Circles of MMO Hell

2009-09-29T10:47:00.000-04:00

Thought I'd drop this in real quick:

AFK

2009-09-28T08:31:00.002-04:00

Meant to put this up last week, but never got the chance… This week will be far busier than last, so here’s my AFK sign. Have no fear – I shall return!

Ain't if fun!

2009-09-22T08:54:00.001-04:00

Yes, I’m lovin Brewfest. I know, I already got Brewmaster on my 3 – 80’s (on the first day of brewfest of course, lol). But the keg tossing, defending the camp, and Coren are just fun to me. It’s probably also because we make it into a guild event, and have everyone bring in any alts they have/want to bring. But it’s also cool because he has some pretty good loot. In fact, one of our shammies was pretty stoked to pick up the Tankard. Another guildie picked up a remote, so that makes porting easier now that another char has it. We also saw the Kodo and Ram drop in the same kill. Which makes me wonder how his loot works… Is it that each special item (mounts, remote, etc.) has a chance to drop, and we were just crazy lucky to have the 2 mounts drop at the same time? Or did they change it now so that the ‘mounts’ have a chance to drop and you either get both, or get none? I have no clue, but we have a guildie keeping track of every drop we get. She did it last year and it was cool to see that we ran it something like 87 times… It was also fun to come up with our own approximate drop rates, based on the runs and loot we received, since we ran it so many times. Last year’s rates (by our method) was approximately:

Dark Iron Smoking Pipe - 23.2%
Empty Mug of Direbrew - 15.1%
Balebrew Charm - 11.6%
Brightbrew Chamrm - 10.4%
Coren's Lucky Coin - 15.1%
Direbrew Hops - 25.5%
Direbrew's Shanker - 3.4%
Direbrew's Remote - 6.9%
Swift Brewfest Ram - 5.8%
Great Brewfest Kodo - 3.4%

So not perfect, but probably relatively accurate. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out this year. Except, we can’t run as many times since some of us (myself included) are working 15 hr days, including weekends. Why oh why does brewfest have to come during my busiest time of year!

Mmm, fast...

2009-09-21T14:56:00.001-04:00

Yay! It’s nice! For those getting it this week, gratz! For those who have to wait a holiday or two, hang in there!