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Glitch to the rescue!

2011-10-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

I've been playing Glitch for a few days now. It's fun, in a really really, casual sort of way. Considering you can learn skills without ever even logging in to the game!

Give it a shot at Glitch.com.

Name Generation

2011-07-12T13:29:00.000-05:00

I've always been a fan of having other people do good work for you so here is a great online name generator.

Online Name Generator

It does nick-names, character-names, even random project names for those dreaded but un-named projects at work that tend to go on and on for years without end.

Video Game Free Speech Ruling Aftermath

2011-06-29T07:35:00.001-05:00

Video Game Free Speech Ruling Aftermath: "On Monday we discussed the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that a California law banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors was in violation of the First Amendment's free speech protection. By now, both sides of the debate have had a chance to respond to the Court's ruling. Congressman Joe Baca and CA State Senator Leland Yee pledged to continue the fight for stricter controls on the distribution of violent games, while others cried, 'think of the children.' Game industry groups were unsurprisingly pleased with the decision, but warned that this won't be the end of it, and asked lawmakers to stop wasting time with such legislation in the future. An article at the NY Times points out how the ruling highlights the lack of clear evidence supporting either side of the debate, and Time notes the Supreme Court's double standard, asking, 'Why does the court treat violent images and sexual images so differently?' Finally, an editorial at Gamasutra reminds us that even though most game developers are breathing a sigh of relief, many would like to see the industry shift toward something more creative and meaningful than violence.

Companion / Vanity Pet Sales To Spike

2011-03-02T13:56:00.001-06:00

Companion / Vanity Pet Sales To Spike: "From Cold's Gold Factory

WoW Companions
Patch 4.1 PTR Data

Vanity pet, or companions as they are now called, sellers should start to see a spike in sales with the new achievements for companion collectors. Coming in Patch 4.1 are 2 new achievements. These achievements will be awarded for collecting 100 pets and 125 There are also 5 new Vanity Pets coming soon.

New Companions
Landro's Lichling

Landro's Lil' XT

Nightsaber Cub

Panther Cub

Winterspring Cub
New Companion Achievements
Petting Zoo

Menagerie
Companion Pets Sales Spike

If you aren't in the vanity pet market, then now may be a great time to enter and start dabbling in this market. This has long been a very lucrative market on my server, especially if using the neutral auction house to trade cross-faction. Players just love collecting things likes mounts and vanity pets. There is ALWAYS a spike in sales of companion pets when new acheivements are introduced into World of Warcraft. These achievements will spark an increase in sales of these companion pets as early as...already. Players that are already aware of the incoming achievements have begun to start pushing for those new achievement quantity requirements.

Read More.."

Grid Updates

2011-02-23T20:53:00.002-06:00

If you haven't noticed, Grid has received some great updates with Cataclysm. Clique has been updated many times but Grid has just recently been given a face-lift (well, the options have). The interface is much easier to understand and much more intuitive. I encourage you to take a look if you were puzzled by the interface in the past. Personally, I like the mass amount of options and wouldn't trade it for Healbot any day of the week. The new interface really makes those options more available and easy to understand. Go try it out, NOW!

Grid and Clique: a healer's dream.

Cataclysm Hunter Macros Guide

2011-02-21T08:20:00.005-06:00

Cataclysm Hunter Macros Guide:

View other WHU WoW Cataclysm hunter guides.

Macros are a way to combine several actions into one, and automate simple, common tasks to make life a bit easier for your hunter. Different hunters use different macros, and differing amounts of macros. Some hunters will just have one or two macros and live happily on it, while other hunters will almost never use a single ability out of the spellbook, preferring to use macro’d versions of them.

Here are a handful of useful hunter macros, distilled from the collected wisdom of the WHU. I don’t use a whole lot of macros for my actual gameplay, personally. I have my Misdirection macro, aspect dancing, pet management, and various utility macros for setting raid icons, assisting, etc. I have, however, included several popular hunter macros here in addition to the ones I use.

If you don’t see the macro you’re looking for, drop a note in the comments. The WHU is filled with wise and knowledgeable hunters, and if it’s possible to do, I’m sure one of us can supply you with the macro you need!

Hunter Macro Shortcuts:

Misdirection Macro

As a hunter, one of your jobs is to misdirect to the tank. We also sometimes use Misdirection at other times when our threat is getting a little scary. My preferred way to manage Misdirection is to set the tank as my focus target (just target the tank and type /focus) and then use this macro to handle my Misdirection so that I never have to switch targets. This macro will cast Misdirection on your focus target, but if you don’t have a focus target it’ll misdirect to your pet instead for seamless group/raid/solo misdirecting.

/cast [@focus,help][@pet,exists] Misdirection

Aspect Dancing Macro 1: Switch Aspects as Needed

This macro will let you easily swap between Aspect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Fox with the push of a button. If you’re in AotH, it will put you into AotF. If your in fox, it will swap you over to hawk. If you’re in any other aspect, or no aspect at all, it will put you into Aspect of the Hawk. Simple and effective:

/cast Aspect of the Hawk

/cast Aspect of the Fox

Aspect Dancing Macro 2: Switch to Aspect of the Hawk for Instant Shots

This macro combined with the previous one is probably the best aspect dancing solution I’ve seen. This macro will automatically force you into Aspect of the Hawk any time you’re casting an instant shot. If you’re already in Aspect of the Hawk, it will not change or remove your aspect. Ideally you want to create this macro for every one of your instant shots, that way you’ll automatically, instantly, switch into hawk for those shots that you can cast on the move.

/cast !Aspect of the Hawk

/cast Explosive Shot (or whatever instant shot the macro is for)

Note that you do not want to do this to automatically swap into fox during steady/cobra casts (though you can, of course). With the recently buffed Aspect of the Hawk attack power, you want to be in hawk any time you possibly can — so you’ll have to manually swap to fox when moving.

Trap Launcher Macro – 2 Button Press to Launch a Trap

It is currently not possible to macro your trap launcher to just one button press — sadly. We can, however, macro it into a two-press macro, so you just have to tap this macro twice and you’ll get the green targeting circle.

/castsequence [nomod]reset=3 Trap Launcher, Freezing Trap

Pet Management Macro

We hunters love our pets, but that doesn’t mean we have to have half an action bar cluttered with pet commands. This macro will do the following: if you don’t have a pet out, it will summon your pet. If your pet is out, it will cast Mend Pet. If your pet is dead, it will cast Revive Pet. If you right click on it, it will dismiss your pet. Note however that this macro will only call one of your pets, the one specified by which Call Pet you use (Call Pet 1, Call Pet 2, etc). So you have to have the right call pet command, alas.

/cast [nomod,nopet]Call Pet 1

/cast [nomod,target=pet,dead]Revive Pet

/cast [nomod,pet,nomod,button:1]Mend Pet

/cast [nomod,pet,nomod,button:2]Dismiss Pet

ZOMG Kill Now! Macro to Blow all Hunter Cooldowns

As a hunter, you have a lot of cooldowns and pet cooldowns available to you. This macro will blow them all at once, useful for big burn phases in boss fights. If you have specific racial abilities you can add them on here as well — as long as it doesn’t trigger the global cooldown, you can keep piling them on until you hit the character limit.

/cast Rapid Fire

/cast Call of the Wild

/cast Rabid

/cast Bestial Wrath

/use 13 (activate trinket)

/use 14 (activate the other trinket)

/use 10 (activate gloves if you’re still using the eng glove tinker for whatever reason)

Deterrence Macro to Cast and Cancel Deterrence

Deterrence is a fantastic hunter tool, but often you don’t want it up the entire duration — once it’s done its job, you’ve got shots to fire. This simple Deterrence macro replaces your Deterrence button — hitting it will cast Deterrence for you, but if Deterrence is already up, it will take it down. Just be careful not to spam it!

/cancelaura Deterrence

/cast Deterrence

Macro Modifiers

Just a couple of macro notes that you’ll likely want to use in your hunter macros. These are just a couple of commonly used lines that you can toss into your macros:

Show Tooltip

#showtooltip AbilityName

Make this the first line of you macro (obviously “AbilityName” is the name of the ability — Explosive Shot, Mend Pet, whatever) and the icon for your macro will automatically be the icon for that ability. So if you use #showtooltip Explosive Shot, then regardless of what you put in your macro, the macro will have the Explosive Shot icon.

Note that while you get the icon, you will not see the default UI timer on the icon, nor will it light up for special abilities, like Killing Streak or Lock & Load.

Pet Attack

/petattack

This line will tell your pet to attack your current target. Some hunters like to have this macro’d in with their shots to ensure that their pet is always attacking the same target they are. Personally, I prefer not to, because there are times I deliberately do not want my pet to attack my target, so I prefer to control my pet manually.

Stopcasting

Some hunters like to macro a stopcast command into their big hard-hitting shots, like Kill Shot, Chimera Shot, etc. The idea here is that if you started casting Steady Shot or Cobra Shot when you shouldn’t have, it doesn’t matter. When you hit your big shot it will automatically stop the steady/cobra cast and fire the big one off. Just add this line before your shot:

/stopcasting

Personally I don’t like to do this. I’m a button spammer, and I’m hitting my next shot a fraction of a second before it’s necessary and I don’t want to cancel my casts with only 0.1 seconds to go. If I do screw up and cast steady/cobra at the wrong time, I just twitch my character to cancel it. But mostly I just don’t cast cobra/steady when I shouldn’t.

Mouseover

/cast [target=mouseover] AbilityName

When you press this macro, it will cast the ability at whatever target you are currently moused over, even if you don’t have them targeted. In this way you can turn any macro into a mouseover macro.

Talk

/s whatever (say)

/p whatever (party)

/y whatever (yell)

/rw whatever (raid warning)

You can always modify your macros to announce what you’re doing — this is particularly common for CC abilities like Freezing Trap or Wyvern Sting. You macro in an announcement that you’re CCing so people (in theory) know not to attack it. You can also modify this by announcing the name of your target with the %t command like so:

/s I’m trapping %t so don’t attack it. Or else.

Set Raid Icon

You can also have your macro automatically assign a raid icon, or lucky charm, to your target (assuming you have permissions to do so).

/script SetRaidTargetIcon(“target”,8)

The number 8 on the end is the Skull icon. Each icon has a different number.

Clear Macro Errors

Sometimes you’ll have something in your macro, like using a trinket, that puts up an annoying error message every time you use it when that ability is not ready. This command will make it so that error doesn’t display.

/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

I can't shake him...

2011-02-17T20:58:00.000-06:00

Kinda funny... my Pally with 280% flying and Crusader Aura can out-fly fireballs from mobs in Hyjal. I actually had to stop so the fireball could catch up to get this shot.

Account Security

2011-02-17T14:44:00.000-06:00

Blizzard has posted a new account security page for Battle.net. You should all take a look. Having your account broken into is no fun at all.

But I Like the Lich King Dungeons

2011-02-08T15:25:00.000-06:00

What kind of BULLSHIT it this? So now all of my 80+ alts can't do Lich King dungeons? Is it that hard to get people to do the new content? There are a lot of achievements and drops (drakes) that I want from Lich King dungeons. Now I have to go to each zone?

It seems they developed the random dungeon finder for a reason and that wasn't to force us to do specific content, it was so we could do things easier.

Not to mention I don't always have time to spend 2+ hours on new content. Sometimes I want to be able to do a quick instance and enjoy the older content. Some of us don't get to spend hours a day in the game. What a load of crap.

Give me back my dungeon finder!!!!

Mining Obsidium and Experience

2011-01-22T13:52:00.000-06:00

I am still on the grind for an epic ride on my pally. I have almost 30 stacks of obsidium now so I hope that will bring in close to what I need. As a nice by-product of the mining process I am 3/4 of the way through level 80 with nothing but experience from collecting. I haven't done one quest. It should make thing easier when I start questing, I guess. I'll be a little ahead of things if it matters much. I have stuck to a simple pattern of mining around a few nodes in Mount Hyjal. I can usually avoid people and get almost a stack per route. Now, if I just had more time to play.

Spiritual Guidance: Holy Priest 101, part 1

2011-01-05T14:19:00.001-06:00

Spiritual Guidance: Holy Priest 101, part 1:

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for discipline and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

This week, I'll be continuing our healing priest 101 guides with a version for holy priests. If you're a new or novice priest who wants to heal as a holy priest in dungeons or raids, this is the guide for you.

In Cataclysm, holy is one of the most versatile healers a player can choose. Our core ability Chakra allows us to switch between strong, single-target healing and AoE healing. Holy is an ideal spec for players who want to be able to heal in all sorts of different situations.

Spiritual Guidance: Pre-raid gear guide for holy and discipline priests

2010-12-27T13:06:00.003-06:00

Spiritual Guidance: Pre-raid gear guide for holy and discipline priests: "

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Dawn Moore covers healing for disc and holy priests, while her archenemy Fox Van Allen dabbles in shadow. Dawn also writes for LearnToRaid.com and produces the Circle of Healing Podcast.

So you've gotten your priest to level 85 and now you want to get geared up to heal raids, huh? Not sure what dungeons to run or what tabards to wear? Not sure where to start or too lazy to go to Wowhead and find out the information yourself? Spiritual Guidance is here for you! This week I'll be listing off all the gear you can get your mitts on before you can get into raids.

Before we get started, you should know that when you first hit 85, you'll only want to run a handful of normal dungeons to get your average item level high enough to queue for heroic dungeons. Those normal dungeons are Grim Batol, Halls of Origination, and Lost City of Tol'vir. The other normal 5-man dungeons only drop 308 and 316 item level gear. Once you can queue for heroic dungeons, you'll see level 346 gear in all the dungeons. Normal mode raid gear is 359, but you can get a handful of 359 gear without raiding, either through crafting, reputation, or drops. Got that? Okay, let's get to the priest-specific stuff now.
Continue reading Spiritual Guidance: Pre-raid gear guide for holy and discipline priests

Worgen Ho!

2010-12-16T22:37:00.000-06:00

Meet Wilgrane, my worgen mage (in training). This will be my first attempt at a mage. It was a difficult decision to go for a mage but with 2 pieces of cloth heirlooms and no plate heirlooms (for a warrior) I couldn't resist. I also have 2 viable tank classes that I don't use as tanks because I dislike it so much. I think it is more a lack of desire for melee combat. Maybe it's the whole fantasy game genre or the fake feel of the melee combat, I don't know. I have always enjoyed ranged DPS or healing more than physical combat. Now that Meralis is no longer around I am also without a tutor. With all the assistance of Blizzard and the new quests and dungeon finder it shouldn't be too difficult though. I think between this guy and my Pally I should be able to stay in the rested experience range on both characters. I have my Pally to 81 and quite a bit of rested to chew through now that my mage is "feeling normal". The hardest part with the mage is getting to an inn after questing. I can always recall to my bind point but that can make for a long run to get back where I was questing. Now, on with the show!

Experience Boost for my Holy Pally

2010-11-30T08:46:00.004-06:00

I just have to take advantage of the new experience boost from 70-80. After getting my Lock to 80 and a 5k gear score I am now working on my Paladin. I started at 70 and have already passed the halfway point to 74 in just a few days. With the Blizzard provided boost and a couple heirlooms (even if they are cloth, they still have int. and crit.) I am at +40% experience, that's really nice.

I must say I am impressed with his healing ability in the new 4.03a world. I know it's a big change for most Holy Pallies but speaking from someone who has never healed as a Pally, it's not bad at all. I have decent burst healing, I can heal on the run and I have have numerous "oh shit" buttons. The only thing I am lacking is a HoT. I am really thinking about glyphing for the HoT with Word of Glory just to try it out. We'll just have to wait and see how things work at 85. I hear it's a whole different world (never tried beta or test realm).

Cataclysm: Part 4 of the elemental invasion is live

2010-11-15T17:00:00.001-06:00

Not on Ghostlands, yet.

Cataclysm: Part 4 of the elemental invasion is live: "

Cities are under attack. Elementals are invading the capital cities of Orgrimmar and Thunderbluff for the horde and Stormwind and Ironforge for the alliance. It's madness in the streets and it is awesome. Defend the cities by closing rifts and freeing trapped and scared citizens. We do not know if the bosses are up yet, and it looks like it is not live on all servers yet.

Diablo III: The Demon Hunter

2010-10-24T13:40:00.001-05:00

Diablo III: The Demon Hunter: "

Aaaand the final class reveal for Diablo III. It’s the Demon Hunter, a class which which Blizzard describe as a conventional ranged class with a dark twist. So a kind of sexy dark-magic ranger with dual-wielded crossbows, then. There’s a trailer for the class below, mixing FMV with a bit of in-game stuff. Looks pretty Diabloy. Diablo-ie. Diabloey. Hmm.

Looks like my Druid will be my Cataclysm main

2010-10-14T10:08:00.001-05:00

Here is my link for 4.0 Resto notes. Looks like this will be the route I take in Cata. My priest is my "closet main" I guess. He is my old-school main but I just think Druids will be more fun to play in Cata. Plus epic flight form in Old World is going to be a LOT of fun.

http://treebarkjacket.com/patch-4-0-guide/

Welcome to the new, new WoW Insider

2010-09-16T08:30:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the new, new WoW Insider: "

I'll spare you all the tortured cataclysm analogies this time and just get straight to the obvious: WoW.com is now officially WoW Insider again, this time at our new address, wow.joystiq.com. What does this mean to you, loyal reader? It means updating your bookmarks, RSS feeds and enjoying our address changeover contest.

There may be some broken links here and there or something that won't load while the changeover completes. If you find something broken, send us a tip. Thanks for being patient during the transfer."

Cataclysm currency exchange rates

2010-09-16T08:19:00.003-05:00

Cataclysm currency exchange rates:

"Blizzard has released the currency conversion rates for the upcoming Cataclysm changes. Remember that these conversions will take place when patch 4.0.1 is released. There will be a 'soft cap' at the conversion, so all your work won't just disappear, but there will eventually be a hard cap. Check out the original post for a detailed explanation.

The Cataclysm currency conversion rates in brief are:

To gold:

Emblem of Heroism = 5.5 gold each
Emblem of Valor = 5.5 gold each
Emblem of Conquest = 5.5 gold each
Badge of Justice = 1.833 gold each

To honor:

Old Honor * 0.024
Old Arena Points * 0.85
Battleground Mark of Honor * 2.976
Wintergrasp Mark of Honor * 19.08
Stone Keeper Shard * 1.6
Venture Coin * 3
Spirit Shard * 1

To justice points:

(Emblems of Triumph + Emblems of Frost ) * 2.75"

Pinball Magic for the iPhone

2010-08-24T10:47:00.001-05:00

Pinball Magic for the iPhone: "Fwoosh! Clack-clack-Clack DING! Clack-clackety-clack. The iPhone's death cries?

Not if you have New Potato's latest toy, the Pinball Magic. The dock transforms your iPhone or iPod Touch into a miniature pinball machine.

Pinball Magic comes with flipper buttons, a ball-launching plunger, a credit/select button, and an LED-lit animated backbox. The legs fold for easy transport. You will need to download the free app to play.

The app uses the iPhone's motion sensors to support tilt detection, so jostling the tiny machine works like the real thing. The game offers four possible multi-ball modes, end-of-ball and replay bonuses and advanced multi-level and multi-player competition.

Priced at $39.99, New Potato says it will be available online 'August 2010' and Best Buy is also accepting pre-orders.Those folks better get cracking, though, there's only seven days left!

"

Raid Rx: 5 reasons why you're not getting healed

2010-08-19T19:43:00.001-05:00

Raid Rx: 5 reasons why you're not getting healed: "
Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related. If you're looking for more healing advice, check out the Plus Heal community.

You ever reach a point in the game where you just want to throw your arms up in the air, throw in the towel and cease all casting of spells related to healing? I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been there myself on more than one occasion. Not exactly my finest moments, I'll admit. Moments of frustration aren't exactly legitimate reasons not to heal. But as a healer, you'll come across moments in your healing careers where you have to make a split-second decision. Will it be action or inaction? Choose carefully, because the well-being of the raid depends on it. Sometimes inaction (or at least, not healing) is the correct choice. Besides, you might have some druids around that can bring players back to full with Rebirth. (If you're looking for some tips on the ideal usage, here's a guest post I wrote on Rebirth procedures from the perspective of the druid, the raid leader and the player getting the resurrection.)
Continue reading Raid Rx: 5 reasons why you're not getting healed

Healing Burnout

2010-08-19T19:41:00.000-05:00

I guess I am in a burnout stage. I log in to heal but I just can't bring myself to queue up. I don't know if it's boredom or what but I just can't seem to get into it. I should start reading up on Cata stuff. I know it's right around the corner. I guess I'll just have to start workign on the Shaman again...

EPIC Maelstrom

2010-07-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

This is pretty funny. I must say that is one reason I've played Wow for so long. The developers really have a good sense of humor.

The Maelstrom is probably epic enough for you now

Around Azeroth: The unfrozen tundra

2010-07-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

Around Azeroth: The unfrozen tundra:"

Nephrolepis of <Strife> on Cenarius (US-H) sent in this picture from Amber Ledge in Borean Tundra, along with a note. "If you stand near the edge of the great cliffs, you can see the sweeping auroras ease themselves across the sky, along with the occasional dragon, of course," she writes. "Standing there amongst the flowers and greenery, it is easy to forget that you are in the snowy north. The wind gently bends the grasses, the distant calls of mammoths and woolly rhinos echo over the plains, and your pet pink plainstrider named Floyd relieves itself in the bushes nearby. Ah, such is the life of the mighty hunter."

Do you have any unusual, beautiful or interesting World of Warcraft images that are just collecting dust in your screenshots folder? We'd love to see them on Around Azeroth! Sharing your screenshot is as simple as emailing aroundazeroth@wow.com with a copy of your shot and a brief explanation of the scene. You could be featured here next!

Remember to include your player name, server and/or guild if you want it mentioned. Please include the word 'Azeroth' in your post so it does not get swept into the spam bin. We strongly prefer full screen shots without the UI showing -- use Alt Z to remove it. Please, no more battleground scoreboards, Val'kyr on mounts or pictures of the Ninja Turtles in Dalaran. Older screenshots can be found here."

Raid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?

2010-06-18T17:34:00.001-05:00

It's not impossible, just harder. And why make things harder just to prove you can? I use Clique to make it easier and avoid huge cumbersome macros. Does that make me less of a healer or just lazy? I use Grid because it's just easier to set up compared to the default raid frames.

I don't think it changes your knowledge or performance. It's just a matter taking shortcuts or a different route to get to the same place.

Raid Rx: Is addon-less healing possible?:

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand pooh-bah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI-, macro- and addon-related.

I see a fair number of emails and messages about this topic. Is it possible to heal without using any addons of any sort? Naturally, the default user interface (or UI) includes a limited number of features where this is possible. Is it recommended in dungeons or raid instances? No, not quite. I've seen opinions from some players where they practically insist that healing without addons should be the way to go. Anyone who does use addons is relying on a crutch. I don't think that's quite fair to say. It's not like these addons are scripts or anything that can 'think' and heal for you.