Original Newb

Start Wars: The Old Republic Game Footage

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Probably the most anticipated MMO since World of Warcraft is Star Wars: The Old Republic. Why are people looking forward to it when Star Wars Galaxies turned out to be such a loser? Well, first there's the pedigree. Star Wars: The Old Republic is the successor to two of the best Star Wars games ever made, and arguably the best rpgs ever made (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights). These games are well known for strong characterization, engaging stories, and player choices that define the gameplay. So it's no wonder that people are excited about an MMO made by the same company (Bioware).

But the billion dollar question is: can they pull it off? There's no point in listing all of the MMOs that have just missed the mark. Nor is there reason to cheer or rant about Blizzard's dominance in the MMO market. It is what it is. But in many ways, Bioware will be contending with players expectation as much as outside competition.

Bioware isn't helping itself with the lofty goals it's laid out for itself. Not only are we dealing with Star Wars in the last unsullied area of the mythos, but Bioware is making a ton of genre bending promises. First, complete voice acting. All players and non-player characters will be completely voiced. This is pretty big, because one of the things that sold and sunk Age of Conan was the voice acting, or lack thereof. The first 20 levels of Age of Conan was hailed as groundbreaking and amazing. But once players leveled out of Tortage, they found the rest of the game, voiceless and unappealing. Second, player choices that matter. In pretty much every single MMO, choice isn't even an option. You either do the quest, or you don't. With SW:tOR not only are you given choices in your quests, but these choices will have an impact on future quests, character development, and quest rewards. This is the last step before player altered persistent worlds, where player actions have a direct influence on the game world for each other.

To add more fuel to the fire, Bioware has released a producer's walkthrough video, which is hosted at IGN. This video details some of the features I mentioned above, and has some really kick ass combat footage. The sith warrior looks plain sick. Head over to IGN.com and judge for your self. this is the first of 4 parts in the video series.

Original Newb #11

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Original Newb #10

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:34:00 +0000

One of the things in the Warcraft lore that I've always been interested in, and would like to see more developed, is the Earthen Ring. I think a group of shaman battling evil doers on behalf of the ancestors and elements is kinda cool.

Original Newb #9

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:41:00 +0000

I love Death Knights as much as the next guy. But doesn't it seem like we're fulfilling the Lich Kings vision by repopulating the world with them?

Original Newb #8

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:23:00 +0000

Well, it's starting to happen. With the help of working on webcomics, WoW is starting to pull away, once again, from Age of Conan.

Original Newb #7

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:14:00 +0000

Despite less play time, World of Warcraft and Age of Conan have provided inspiration for today's webcomic.

Don't Delete that App: Blizzards Customer Service

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:09:00 +0000

For several years I had the good fortune to work for one of the greatest comic book and gaming chains in the country, The Fantasy Shop. Seriously, if you're ever in the St. Louis area, do yourself a favor and check them out. Any of their stores are great, but the St. Charles one does have a nice wow-factor going for it. Anyway, during my time there I was taught a lot about customer service. That might seem odd, since the comic and gaming industry is one renowned for it's snobbishness and antisocial behavior. Pretty much every other comic shop I walk into ends in the same way, me wandering around, ignored by staff, and walking out emptyhanded. But Dave and Tim at the Fantasy Shop saw customer service as a way to build and grow a business in a tough industry. Since my time there I have developed an ideal of professionalism in general, and how customers should be treated in particular.

Another industry not well known for how it treats it's clients is the MMO industry. Just check the message boards of any of the major MMOs on the market, and you'll see a ton of posts complaining about service. Yes, a ton of these posts are QQ, but it just shows what a challenge customer service is, and that these companies sometimes struggle with it. Since I'm writing a post about customer service and Blizzard, you might think this is just another QQ post. Let me assure you it's not. My interaction with their customer service is completely a result of my own actions. And in the end, Blizzard did come through. It just took some time, and unfortunately might've cost us both my desire to Warcraft again.

I love my iPhone. I'm a total geek over it, and any time I find a new app to add to it, I geek even harder for it. When Blizzard announced a mobile authenticator app for the iPhone, at the cost of nadda, I was really excited. I downloaded it, and had been using it since it's release without any problems.

Cut to June 19th when the new iPhones came out. Of course I have to get the new one. I had been rolling with the 2G for nearly a year and a half. Got my wife one, too and we were going to give my old one to her father. In my excitement to jump into the 3GS world and fully divest myself of the 2G, I started transferring all of my content to the new phone, and reformatting the old one. For whatever reason, I completely forgot about the authenticator. Call it a brain fart, or what you will, but I knew right away that when I tried to log in, the new phone would not have the old authenticator linked to it.

So I was locked out of my account. I couldn't get in game, couldn't log into battle.net. Nothing. So I called customer service. I explained the situation to the customer service guy. He asked me the security questions, asked me to try the new authenticator to see if it had the same serial. But of course it didn't. Then he asked for my original game key I used to create my account. This is where it started to get frustrating. I have in my apartment three different copies of World of Warcraft, but none of them are the original. I made my account when I was in Iraq, and passed the discs on to at least two people so they could try it out for the 10 day trial. So the rep couldn't remove the authenticator from my account. While this was a frustrating requirement, this is why I had the authenticator. It shouldn't be easy to get into the account without it. The rep said what he could do was send me an email that would tell me how I could remove the authenticator from my account and that it should take about 10 minutes.

Hours later I still haven't received the email. I'm still locked out. I do find another WoW box though, so I call up Blizzard to see if this was the original. I go through the entire story again with another rep, and same result. He'll send me an email, I should get it in 10 minutes.

Monday I still haven't received an email. But I did get two surveys about my customer service experience. I'm getting frustrated. I spend some time working on other stuff and start downloading Age of Conan. My buddy Dr. Heitnutts left WoW and is playing it, and I've heard that the game is a lot more stable now. I decide to send an email to Blizzard's customer service detailing all that's happened.

By the next Friday I've been getting a lot done offline, playing some Conan, which has been improved. I still want to get into my Warcraft account, at least to turn off the billing, but I still haven't heard anything from their customer service. I give them another call, this time I'm talking to a rep called Nahm. This guy turns off my billing, sends emails to two of my email accounts, and waits until I've received them. When it didn't look like I was getting them, he sent them again. He then gave me his contact info so that I could get credit for the time I missed playing. In short, he did everything a customer rep should. I felt like he, and by proxy Blizzard, cared about my problem. And he took care of it. I followed the instructions in the email, and my account was unlocked in less than 30 minutes.

Sadly, or maybe not, now that I have my account back, I don't feel much like playing. A lot of info has been put out about the next patch, and even though I only missed a week or so, I feel a bit behind. I've been really digging Age of Conan, and WoW definitely shows it's age after playing Conan. Plus, there are so many interesting games coming (Aion, APB, Champions, SWKOTR, etc). Which is why this blog isn't WoW-centric.

Of course, Blizzard won't miss me. But it took me three customer service reps to get a good one. Even after getting a good one, I'm still not sure if I want to keep playing. One has to wonder, even with millions of customers, can a game getting long in the tooth afford to have 2/3 of their customer service experiences end poorly.

Original Newb #6: Customer Service

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:27:00 +0000

This is the thing I like about doing webcomics, combining things that don't necessarily go together. We've got a decapitated tauren, a telephone, a rat. About the only thing that makes sense is the bird pecking out an eyeball. Expect more of that in future webcomcs.

Original Newb #5

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:29:00 +0000

Who killed the cow? Does it have anything to do with Blizzard's customer service department inability to tell me how to get the authenticator off my World of Warcraft account? Or perhaps with all of this free time I've had a chance to give Age of Conan a second look? Either way, looks pretty serious. Look for future webcomics to find the answers.

Original Newb #4

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Seriously, what makes tying a bandage made out of frostweave any harder than doing it with linen in World of Warcraft? Or is it that we want to keep going back to the sexy blood elf nurse for lessons? Sure beats that dead guy in Arathi.

This webcomic reminds me something Frazetta would do if he was that guy in "My Left Foot".

Defense Cap for Newb Death Knights: Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:32:00 +0000

The last three articles we have been going over what the defense cap is for Death Knights in World of Warcraft; what is the defense cap; what we can do to reach it. Now that we know what the defense cap is, and how to get closer to it with craftable items, let's take a loot at reputation rewards, emblem gear, and heroic drops. These items are going to make-up the bulk of your gear. And some items are indispensable.

I would put the priority of attaining gear as reputation, drops, and then emblem gear. You need to be running heroics really to get all three. However, the first item you might consider getting doesn't come from reputation, emblems, or reputation. Seal of the Pantheon drops from the last boss in normal Hall of Lightning, Loken. And it only drops in the normal version. Don't be like so many others, punishing themselves by running that place over and over in heroic mode hoping to see it drop. It won't. Unlike in the Burning Crusade, heroic versions of max level dungeons have their own loot tables, and do not drop loot from normal modes. What's so special about Seal of the Pantheon. Well, it has a crap ton of defense on it, in a slot (trinket) that is not overcrowded with items you need to tank. So if you can get it, great. If not, don't worry about it. There are plenty of other ways to get defense.

Now that you're 80 and able to run level 80 dungeons and heroics, you'll need to champion a faction by wearing their tabard. Wearing a faction's tabard gives you reputation points for each kill in a level 80 dungeon. This is a nice bonus in addition to doing the factions quests. There are two factions you should be working on right off that bat. One has a tabard, the other doesn't, so you don't have to worry about which one you'll champion in a dungeon. The first is the Argent Crusade. They have quests in Zul'Drak and a little base camp in between Crystal Song Forrest and Ice Crown. The reason why you want to level this rep first is because they have the only tanking enchant for head items, Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector. This enchant gives you a nice stamina and defense boost. Other reputations have head enchants, but this is the only one suited for our tanking needs. If you want a dps enchant, I recommend the one from Knights of the Ebon Blade. They also have quests in Zul'Drak and Ice Crown.

The second reputation you should be working on is the Sons of Hodir. Why? Three reasons really: #1 lots of gold can be had from doing Hodir dailies; #2 shoulder enchants. This is the only place to get shoulder enchants in Northrend, unless you're a scribe. If you're a scribe, ignore #1 and #3, because your shoulder enchants are better. #3 reason is that the story line and quests are pretty cool. As with the Argent Crusade, you'll want the defense enchants: Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacleat honored and Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle at exalted.

Let me add that you don't need to be level 80 to raise your reputation with these factions by questing. Sons of Hodir is available once you can fly in Northrend at level 77. Argent Crusade becomes available once you're able to do quests in Zul'Drak.

Other Factions you might be interested in are the Wymrest Accord for Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions, which is a very nice tanking cloak with hit. You might ask, why do we need hit or expertise? Because we generate threat by hitting things. If we miss or our enemy dodges, we don't hit, don't generate threat, and someone is going to pull threat from you and wipe the group. The Kirin Tor have some nice boots at exalted, but most likely you'll have emblems to buy boots or have found some in a heroic way before you get exalted with Kirin Tor.

So we're working on reputation by quests and championing, where should we go for heroics? A nice place to start is Azjol Nerub. It's a quick dungeon, that has a lot of different elements to it. There is a mini event with the first boss, poison clouds with the second, and the third boss has a couple of mechanics that challenges everyone. But it also has a nice trinket and a nice belt. The trinket Essence of Gossamer has a nice stam buff and an on-equip ability that is only marginally useful. The tanking belt, Ancient Aligned Girdle is nice because it's surely an upgrade to what you already have, it has the word girdle in it, and it saves you from buying a tanking belt with emblems.

Besides doing heroic dungeons, I recommend you get into VoA and Emalon groups. These are raids in Wintergrasp that only involve the bosses Archavon and Emalon. You should start off doing these raids as dps. Only offer to tank if you're defense capped, and confident in your ability to tank these raid bosses. They come in 10-man and 25-man flavors. I got my T7.5 chest while dpsing in a 25 man VoA.

Lastly, I want to talk about emblem items. There are a few theories about how to spend your emblems. If you're regularly running Nax and/or heroics, how you spend them won't make too much difference. Some people suggest saving up so you can buy your T7 chest and gloves right off that bat. I disagree with this because there are other slots you'll probably need to upgrade first, and T7 just isn't that great. Wnat your T7 gloves? Just run Obsidian Sanctum. There are always pugs going, if you're guild is not.

So what should you spend your hard earned emblems on? Well, if you're still under or just over the defense cap, you can buy at the cheap, cheap price of 15 emblems Sigil of the Unfaltering Knight. Thi sucker boosts your defense rating by 53 when you cast Icy Touch. It procs 100% and lasts for thirty seconds. Even if you're using the glyphed Howling Blast, you should be able to squeeze in an icy touch at least once every 30 seconds. This should probably be your first emblem purchase.

Like all specs, there are a set of tanking boots, belt, gloves, chest, necklace, and trinket to purchase. In what order your purchase them should depend on where you need the upgrade most. If you're defense capped, you might need to get the avoidance from the trinket. IF you're still wearing old blue boots, that might be where you need to go. Only you will know what hole you need to fill. If you feel like you've made a mistake, you have two hours to return the item.

This concludes the four-part discussion on gearing the Newb Death Knight. While there are certain things that have to be done by the book, suchas attaing 540 defense, I think it's evident that there is a lot of room for personal choice on how one gets there. The main benefit of tanking as a Death Knight is that it's fun, and little different than DPSing; only as a tank you have an entire group or raid supporting you. I hope I've answered more questions than I've raised, and that the path of the Death Knight tank has been made a bit clearer. For further, and more advanced information, I recommend the forums at www.elitistjerks.com.

Original Newb #3

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:35:00 +0000

Many people laugh at the idea of a Tauren riding a hawkstrider in World of Warcraft. Some were upset that Blizzard even allowed Tauren to ride other faction mounts. But the first thing I did when I hit exalted with Silvermoon City was go out and buy all my hawkstriders. This webcomic is what happened.

Original Newb #2

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:24:00 +0000

This is my second webcomic. I think I'm getting a little better at the initial drawing and tracing, but I don't know that I like the solid coloring. And of course, there's no background. Work in progress.

Original Newb #1

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:50:00 +0000

Alrighty, my first webcomic. How primitive. They get better.

Defense Cap for Newb Death Knights: Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:29:00 +0000

I feel like, to a certain extent, that I need to advocate for Death Knight tanking in World of Warcraft. There are a crap-ton of Death Knights out there, as I'm sure everyone has noticed. There's nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. The Death Knight is an incredibly fun class to play. But despite all of the Death Knights out there, there are still too few tanks. Yes, there are even fewer healers, and when Blizzard decides to make a healing class as fun as the Death Knight, you can be sure I'll be advocating people play that. So why should any Death Knight tank? Because tanking as a Death Knight is little different from DPSing as a Death Knight. In fact, I'd say it's the closest to DPSing any tank class gets. The only real difference is that you need to watch your cool downs a bit more, and of course you'll be getting hit, a lot.

Last post I talked about using Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. It adds 25 to your defense (not defense rating), which would set you at 425 defense total, with the goal of reaching 540 by level 80. To reach 540 defense skill a Death Knight needs to accumulate 690 defense rating. Defense rating is that stat listed on all of the tanking gear. 4.918 defense rating is roughly 1 point of defense skill. Thankfully, because of Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle a Death Knight only needs 115 defense skill, and that means only around 566 defense rating to hit our goal. Trust me, it's not as hard as it seems. (this information comes courtesy of www.elitistjerks.com).

One of the great crimes perpetuated on newb Death Knights is that every DK starts with zero professions. They get riding skill, some weapon skills, but no professions. This makes it tedious to level a new profession, and to start making cash right out of the gate. There is a lot of debate about what professions any character should have. Some believe that one should start with two gathering professions until 80 to maximize their income. Chances are though, if you have a Death Knight, you already have a sugar-daddy or sugar-mamma, and you don't need a DK to earn its gold. The professions I recommend you start out with are Blacksmithing and mining. Mining will always make you money, and you'll get an HP buff as you skill it up. A little extra HP is always welcome to a tank.

I recommend Blacksmithing, for a couple of reasons. First, Blizzard has made it easier to skill up. It's still not the greatest, or the cheapest, but it's not as bad it used to be. Yes, all of the gear a blacksmith can make, that anyone would want, is bind on equip. Which means you could just buy the gear I'm about to list. And if you want to do that fine. But it's not a bad thing to be able to use what you can make, without the hassle of finding it on the Ah, or braving trade chat. In addition, the ability to add sockets to your bracers and gloves is pretty huge. In addition, if you want to drop mining at level 80, and pickup Jewel crafting, you've got a pretty nice combo.

The following gear is all the tanking gear that any Blacksmith not in Ulduar can make. In a lot of cases, there are better alternatives that aren't too difficult to be had. So think of this gear as gap fillers. A few of these pieces you'll be wearing for awhile just because you're waiting on some dungeon drop.

The Cobalt set is your starter tanking set. It's relatively easy to make, and covers every major piece you need. Wearing the entire set (minus shield) will net you 288 Defense Rating, 329 Stamina, 6973 Armor.

The Saronite set is the next step up, and with some of the daunting pieces, could last you into heroics. Wearing a full set of Tempered Saronite will yield 300 strength, 543 stamina, 11,052 armor and 410 defense rating.

The two daunting pieces combine for a total of 2139 armor, 84 strength, 153 stamina and 159 defense rating. There are a few pieces, like the dautning legplates and the tempered saronite belt that you might be wearing for a while. That's ok. That's what they're there for. Shoulders in particular can be hard to replace.

The Tempered Titansteel pieces are your big mamma-jammas. Make these when you can, but notice that, especially in the case of the helm, the defense is a bit lower than other pieces you might find. But look at all of that stamina. These pieces should probably be switched to when you've already achieved 540 defense. These pieces are intended to boost avoidance and health pools via the high stam and sockets.

So those are the craftables. There are some new recipes dropping out of Ulduar, and if you have a guildie that can make them, or you can buy them off the AH at a reasonable price then do so. Those are item level 226 items. You will not be replacing them for a long time.

Next article I'll be talking about reputation items, and my recommendations for how to spend your first heroic emblems. There are a lot of good choices available to any tank. But as we'll see, choosing the right one is just a matter of priority.

Defense Cap for Newb Death Knights: Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:23:00 +0000

Last post I started talking a little about how to gear up a Death Knight to reach the defense cap in World of Warcraft. By defense cap, I mean the amount of defense you need(540) to no longer be critable by a raid boss. One thing that all newb Death Knights can do to help them in tanking, is to start tanking early.

Since Death Knights were released, everyone has been saying that Frost is the Death Knight tanking spec. People were saying this before the expansion was even released, and anyone who said otherwise was a noob. Well, those people are idiots. Yes, Frost is a very good tanking tree, but all the trees are capable of tanking. And newb Death Knights would do themselves a favor by taking advantage of this fact.

I recommend that all newb Death Knights with any interest in tanking start early. This doesn't mean speccing yourself complete to tank. If you're in frost presence, and you have some tanking gear, you can tank any non-heroic instance easily. If you want to take some of the tanking talents, you can do so without it gimping your leveling. I recommend leveling unholy this way. You'll do plenty of aoe damage to keep aggro, and boneshield is a nice talent for mitigating damage with a short cooldown.

Tank early so you can learn the job and mechanics of DK tanking. And tank early to lay claim to any tanking loot that drops. As you level, you'll finding tanking quest rewards far and few inbetween. Take those items when you can. Don't worry about missing out on a DPS item. DPS gear practically grows on trees.

One of the tanking items I took early while questing was Regal Protectorate. And I'm still using it now at level 80. Are there better options available at 80? Of course there are, but I haven't been lucky enough to see them drop. But before 80, you'll be hard pressed to find a better trinket, especially one to get you to 560 defense. Also, make sure you hold on to your Signet of the Dark Brotherhood. This item doesn't directly contribute to your defense, but it's a nice little boost to your avoidance. It's doubtful you'll find anything to replace it for tanking before level 80.

Next blog post I'll talk about craftable gear and emblem loot. The first will fill any holes you have to make it possible to tank heroics. And heroics will be wear you cut your teeth and get you gear to tank raids.

Defense Cap for Newb Death Knights: Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 03:19:00 +0000

A week or so ago I made a Draenai Death Knight to familiarize myself with the class after so many changes. Well, not too long after I decided, what the hell, and jumped on my level 80 undead DK. I specced him frost for tanking. Most of the time I've played my DK it has been as dps. I started early on as unholy, and then thanks to some pioneering people on elitistjerks.com, I moved on to frost/unholy dw. And I loved it. Sadly, blizz has made some changes to the talent trees making that build not as viable as it once was. Anyway, I didn't have the best gear as dps, but I did pick up a few pieces. But I also picked up a few tanking pieces. So I've started on the path of DK tank as a primary spec, and dps secondary. But the 560 defense cap is in my way

A tank's primary job is to stand in front of monsters and such, and get hit, and keep them from hitting other people. Small wonder it's a high demand job. Few people want to get hit, and fewer people are good at taking a hit. To a certain extent this is a good thing. There are only three jobs in World of Warcraft: dps, healing, tanking. But generally you only need 1-3 or tanks, and 1-4 healers, depending on the size of your group and the level of encounter. So if the player base was evenly spread among three jobs, you'd have a lot of people sitting out.

Fortunately, tanking and healing are hard, so few people want to do those jobs. Interestingly enough, the difficulty of one is inversely proportional to the skill and gear of the other. One of the ways tanks have for making everyone's life easier is to be defense capped. What does defense capped mean? Well, technically it's a misnomer. I don't think there's an actual limit to the amount of defense a character could have until it returned no positive benefit. When people say defense capped, what they really mean is uncrittable.

Just like a player, a monster (and in this case a boss) has a chance to critically hit a player. This critical hit does extra damage. Since a boss already hits for a ton, being hit for a ton x 2 is even worse. That's 2 tons. But with proper talent choices and gear selection, a tank can have such a high defense rating such that a boss cannot critically hit that player. The defense that tank needs is 540. Beware though, there is a difference between defense and defense rating. Usually, on a piece of gear, like a shield, it'll say that it increases defense rating by x. However, it's not important what the tanks total defense rating is. What's important is how that defense rating is converted into defense. So if one were to get a shield that raises defense rating by 50, it will only raise defense by a portion of that amount.

So how does a tank, a DK tank in particular, get to 540 defense. In many ways, Death Knights are similar to Druids. Death Knights can't use shields, and they have a presence which acts a bit like a Druid's bear form by adding to health and armor. Both classes tank by a combination of mitigation and avoidance. That means by decreasing the amount of damage taken and avoiding damage altogether. Unlike druids, though, DKs cannot spend talent points to make them uncrittable.

Death Knights have a unique ability called rune forging that allows them to inscribe a rune upon their weapon. These runes do things like increase the Death Knight's chance to parry, or add a chance to increase strength. The one Death Knight tanks, especially newb Death Knight tanks are interested in is the Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle. this isn't quite as good as having a defense talent, but it is pretty nice, and unique to the class. This increases the Death Knight's defense by 25 and total stamina by 2%. Look at that again, increases the Death Knight's defense by 25. Not defense rating. Defense. That's a pretty sweet place to start as a wannabe tank.

Starting with absolutely nothing but a two-handed weapon to put a rune on, our DK just went from 400 defense to 425. We still have 115 defense to go. In the next part, we'll do a little digging on elitistjerks.com, plus some of my experience on gearing quickly to hit the cap. Then we'll talk about how to gem and enchant that new gear.

Game Fuel Battle Bot Pet

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:06:00 +0000

In case you didn't know, Blizzard has teamed up with Mt Dew to sell a World of Warcraft themed soda. As a part of that promotion, you can get your own battle bot vanity pet from the game fuel site here. Just click on the icon in the lower right hand corner and it'll redirect you to a battle.net site. If you already have a battle.net accout (and you should), just log in and you should get your battle bot pet in the in-game mail. If not, you'll need to sign up and convert your World of Warcraft account to a battle.net account.

Greatness

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:09:00 +0000

The Darkmoon Faire is back, and I finally got my Darkmoon Card: Greatness for my hunter. It has an on-equip effect of increasing your agility by 90, and when you deal damage has a chance to increase agility, strength or intellect (which ever is highest) by 300 for 15 seconds. In other words, this trinket is a beast.

So far, with limited testing during dailies, this trinket seems to proc just about all the time. It has a pretty distinct animation, so you know when it does proc. I'm not sure what the internal cool-down is, but I'm guessing it's between 30 seconds and 1 minute.

There is some debate on whether this is the best trinket for survival hunters. But there is no debate that it's a very good trinket, and for someone at my gear level, it's a great trinket. It cost me 5k gold, which was money that was going to go to my priest's riding skills. But with dailies, and two farming classes, raising that money again by the time my priest is 77 shouldn't be too difficult.

This trinket is great for survival hunters because our primary stat is agility. It increases our crit and attack power, and we have a multitude of talents that increase our agility buy percentages. So the more agility we have, the more it can be increased by things like Expose Weakness.

I don't know if there is any other class that benefits from a Greatness trinket (which can be had for any of the primary stats) as much as a hunter. Perhaps one of the melee classes/specs.
After spending 5k gold, and having to wait for two weeks for the Faire to come back, I'm definitely not feeling any buyers remorse. This is a trinket that will pay for itself until at the least next patch, or further depending on my own progress. I recommend those who can afford it, particularly hunters, to get one for themselves.

Tolerance

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:34:00 +0000

Last week I took the plunge and aligned myself with another guild. This guild is a mix of raiding and social, with I'd say close to 100 or more active members in various states of the game. Their is an Ulduar group, groups running Nax, and then others leveling. I brought my hunter in, because if I raid, that right now is the character I want to raid with.

So far I've done 2.5 quarters of Nax with this guild (I wasn't able to finish with them because I was watching Pontypool with the wife. It rocked, go to Jerk Sandwichto read my review). The loot gods were against me, and I didn't get anything to improve my hunter. However, I've found something a little bit better: a fun atmosphere for playing. Gchat is adult while not being adolescent, which means the fart and dick jokes are of a much higher quality. People are more than willing to run instances, heroics, or whatever. So far it almost seems too good to be true.

I went ahead and brought my priest in because good gchat makes leveling more enjoyable. But today gchat took a turn for the strange. There was a certain young Death Knight who lately has had a lot of questions. Questions that one might consider newnish. There's nothing wrong with that, even though players with Death Knights must also have another character of at least level 55. It's possible to reach max level and still not be an expert on most or any parts of the game. But what was strange was his claimed experience and the questions he asked.

First, he told us that he had a level 80 mage and a 70 warlock, but those characters were somehow hacked by his girlfriend. But then he'd ask questions like: what level is Ulduar? What level is Eye of the Storm? How fast could he make 20k gold to buy a mammoth? Now those are newb questions. And that's ok. But then he asked what was the fastest way to level 61-70 on his Death Knight. I told him that Blizzard has made it so amazingly easy to level in Outland, his best bet is just to go there and quest. He said he was a grinder, though and wanted to know where to go. I tried to persuade him again, that there was probably no way faster to level (while remaining sane) than to quest. And then he asked "But what is Outland?"
This is one of those defining moments that seperate a newb from a noob. Had he been a brand new player asking this question, then it's a legitimate newb question. But this is coming from someone with at least two characters 55 or higher plus, including or in addition to an 80 mage and 70 warlock. I asked how he could have such characters and not know what Outland was. He claimed to have been powerleveled by friends through instances, none of which he could name.

Sadly, gchat started to go into inquisition mode. I say sadly, because the kid was asking for help and I wanted to give it to him. But I don't think he wanted the kind of help I had to offer. I think it was clear to everyone that this kid was some noob who bought or stole his characters. He had know idea how to really play them, or even why, because he was a knew player who had thrust himself into a level that he wasn't ready for.

I told him, I didn't care how or why he got his characters to where they were, but that if he really wanted to get better, the best thing he could do was reroll and start at level 1. Some people took this the wrong way and thought I was cutting him down (to their amusement) and he thought I was being an asshole. But really I thought it was the best solution for him. He threatened to quit, again. I guess he had done this before. But the guild leader beat him to the punch and gkicked him.

I don't make it a habit in getting into other people's business in the game. But when they ask for information or help about in-game matters, I try to provide the best answers I can. I didn't judge this kid for what he may or may not have done. But this kid was definitely a noob, because he wanted to shortcut his way to the end. He wasn't concerned about being proficient in his class, and to be honest he wasn't interested in really playing the game. He just wanted the goodies at the end. Like I told him, if he's going to have the gall to buy a character, at least learn how to play it. And that's what separates a newb from a noob. His questions were appropriate for his experience, but not for his characters. Had he been a little more receptive to those trying to help him (and not just me), he could have benefited from learning something AND having those high level characters. Instead, he'll either quit the game, or bounce around from guild to guild, bugging the hell out of everyone he meets.

Original Newb

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Yesterday I was doing a heroic AN with my DK (the undead one). There was another DK there taking for us. I asked him if he needed the plate belt that dropped from the last boss, and he said all he was after was a tanking trinket. I asked him which trinkets he was using now when this shaman says "What difference does it make? It's personal choice really anyway."

I said "I was just wondering because I was building a tank set and wanted to know what I should be looking for. And what? Are you his mother?"

"She's my girlfriend," the dk said.

I LOLed.

Later on I suggested that she use another earth totem than Strength of Earth because it overwrites Horn of Winter. She got defensive again and said that her totem was more powerful and that she knew how to play and wasn't a noob. Her boyfriend then whispered me to leave her alone let her do what she wants. I got the idea that's how things usually went in their relationship. I obliged, but told him to tell her that someone giving her advice isn't the same thing as calling her a noob.

To be fair, there are a few things that could have prompted her reaction, none of them having to do with the kind of person she is or their relationship. WoW culture, and maybe online culture in general, has gotten really vicious with the newb/noob label. People attach a lot of value to not being one, and being called one is quite an insult. It's generally assumed that new players are born into original newbness, and they can only cleanse themselves by either showing proficiency in the game, or proficiency in trash talking.

To be proficient in the game, one doesn't need to top the dps charts, or heal an entire group without ever running out of mana, or any other measure people use to inflate their epeen. It just means to do the things that makes everyone's life in the group easier and don't interfere with their fun: attacking the right target, don't pull threat, keeping the tank healed, etc. Now there are two types of people that have trouble with this. There are people who are new to the game and/or are little practiced in grouping. These people are usually referred to in the benign form Newb. With practice, these people will become proficient and productive members of the gaming community.

The second group of people are noobs. These are people who either know how to play and choose not to, or don't know how to play and don't care. They feel that to compensate for their noobness they can trash talk and denigrate anyone that calls them out on it. If you've ever visited the Warcraft official forums or your realms trade channel, you know who I'm talking about. These people are borderline sociopaths. They expect the competent to carry them through content. The rest of us, we spend our $15 a month to have killing monsters, getting loot, and socializing with one another. They spend $15 a month to make sure we don't enjoy doing any of those things while we're in their company. In short, they are not saved.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a Newb. We all were at some point in the game, and we all are at some thing in our lives. Perhaps it's because we live in such an info-centric culture that we have developed this anxiety towards ignorance. But we can't let this anxiety keep us from learning or teaching. Because knowledge is the only salvation from original newbness.

Arthas

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:49:00 +0000

I just finished Reading World of Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich Kingby Christie Golden. It's a relatively short book that tells of Prince Arthas' corruption and rise to the Lich King.
*some spoilers after the break*

First off, I want to say that Christie Golden writes the most readable Warcraft novels. Her style is swift and to the point. She doesn't waste words with saccharin or purple prose. And while her plots, I would assume, are laid out for her. She makes an admirable attempt at seeing that they're credible. With Arthasshe continues in the same dependable way.

There are a few things that bugged me. Probably the biggest is thesize of print and spacing on the page. I put off buying this book for a while because it just didn't seem worth it. I expect a hardback, especially a $25 hardback to have a lot more meat that this one did. And I find it strange that a character as infamous as Arthas would have such little to be said of him. I could imagine that time was an issue of getting the book out for the WotLK expansion. And that's understandble, but if there was more material, maybe a trilogy should've been in the works. Either way, twenty-five dollars for this kind of story is a bit steep.

Another thing that makes the price tag seem too much is that aside from a few chapters about his childhood (which do little to tell us of the man he becomes) and a chapter at the end, most of this material is already known. We already know that he was the type of guy to slaughter a town full of people. We already know how be became the Lich King. What we want is the why. And frankly, a general feeling of inadequacy doesn't seem to be a very satisfying answer.

I could give you a short retelling of the story, but I'll boil it down to this. Much like Anakin Skywalker, Arthas will do whatever he has to save those he cares about. He is seduced by the dark side and becomes Darth Vader, I mean the Lich King.

Like Anakin, there are two major mistakes being made here with Arthas. The first is that no one really cares what this character is like as a boy. We like this kind of character when he's force choking someone to death, or stealing their soul with a big ass sword. If you can make a child version of that character just as cool, you've accomplished something neither George Lucas nor Christie Golden could.

The second mistake, also seen Anakin, is this idea that the vilest villain has some good little boy inside him. Why can't he be a creep? You know the kind that you heard about as a kid, that buries kittens up to their necks then runs them over with a lawnmower. From what we know of Arthas in Warcraft III, I don't see why he couldn't have had that kind of background.

But how do you make that kind of character the hero of a novel? Simple: you don't. Make his parents or a sibling the hero for having to put up with the sick little shit. Show from their perspective how this adored little boy is really the anti-christ and all he needs a suit of armor and a bad ass sword.

Just imagine the real turning point for Arthas when he lies in the snow with his crippled horse. Instead of weeping and vowing he'd never let anything like that happen again, he wonders how long it will take that horse to bleed out. Or how many other bones he could break before it would finally lose consciousness.

Sigh, so my biggest problem with the book isn't actually the book. The problem is that the book isn't the book I wanted it to be, and Arthas isn't the Arthas I wanted him to be. Not to mention, once he's the Lich King he then killed the only interesting part of him (not the little boy).

I have to wonder what this book might have been had Christie Golden more time to craft new material, enough to fill an actual book. But I imagine it still wouldn't have been the book I wanted to read. And Arthas would still have been a little boy who just wanted some affirmation from his father.

Leveling a Death Knight (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:48:00 +0000

I made a DK last night on Arthas, because my rogue was feeling a little lonely. I leveled a DK when the expansion lost, mostly to see their starting area. But I was hooked and leveled that sucker all the way to 80. It was my first 80, did quite a bit of naxx (as in went on a lot of naxx runs, our guild wasn't great at finishing them).

So why make a new one? Well, the DK has changed quite a bit, and I've leveled a few characters since I started playing mine. I abandoned my DK because at the time we needed healers so I switched to my druid. That's probably the worst thing I've done in the game, to be honest. Because I switched from a class and a role I really enjoyed to one I didn't enjoy so much. And instead of getting more healers, I saw DK after DK get invited to the guild. At one point we had 16 level 80 DKs.

Anyway, I could go back to my original DK, but I feel like I don't know the class as well as I did since the changes. And their are some aesthetic reasons. As much as I love undead, they're one of the worst looking classes in plate. I hate that it always looks like I'm wearing shorts. Which is too bad, because undead have the best laugh and the best dance (though the best cheer goes to belfs).

So I'm going Draenei for now. I've joined a raiding guild with my hunter, so that's my main. But I think if I get used to playing DK again, I might dust off the undead one.

The Discipline of Healing

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:47:00 +0000

Last night I did a little bouncing around onn my characters. I spent some time in STV with my dwarf rogue and leveled him up to 42. The first 40 levels or so I went the typical combat spec route. Now I'm hemo spec. Partly because I was bored with combat, and partly because that rogue is on a pvp server. So far it hasn't really been that more interesting or efficient than combat, but it's served me well in a couple of pvp situations...

Not really. Everytime I'm come out of the shadows with a cheap shot, the hordie has just stood there until they died. Admittedly, I don't play on Arthas that much, so maybe there's some treaty I'm not aware of. The only pvp action I've seen has been situations like that, or getting destroyed by the same low-life rogue haunting STV's flight master. He had about twice my hp, so I'm guessing he's only in his low 60s.

But what's up with the rest of the horde? Just so we're clear, I'm generally not the type of ganker that waits until his prey is in battle with 2-3 mobs and at half health. I actually waited for this ret paladin to finish his kill, and get his mana back up. But he didn't fight back. Very disappointed. Maybe he won after all.

After waiting forever to get a group for Uldaman and being told my dps wouldn't be high enough for ZF (wtf is the world coming to where we gear check for lowbie instances), I jumped on my 64 priest on Earthen Ring.

One of the coolest things about this priest is that he's no 65, and he's barely done any of the Zangarmarsh quests, and he still has a few HFP quests left over. I think I'll be able to hit 68 just by finishing Zangar and then hitting Terrokar or Nagrand. Howling Fjord isn't too far off.

I spent the 1k gold on this character for duel spec and it's been worth it. I have duel spec on 4 characters and it's been worth it on all of them. While I'm still not all that jazzed about shadow, healing as discipline has definitely been interesting. Last night, after waiting about an hour for the instance server to let us in, we 4-manned Slave Pens. The group was made up of a DK tank, two ret pallies, and me healing. For most of the instance all I did was cast shield, with an occasional Pennance here and there, just because it's a cool looking spell.

In many ways discipline healing reminds me of druid healing. Power Word: Shield acts like a hot on a cd in many ways. So it's just a lot of waiting for damage spikes. Which is what I like. All through TBC I healed on my paladin and it was a constant spam fest. Paladin healing might be different now, but I wouldn't know because I refuse to do it ever again.

One of the things that bothered me with the changes to the druid in the last couple of patches was how nourish was practically being shoved down our throats. Lifebloom was being nerfed (kinda) and nourish was being buffed. Even though I don't have the T7 nourish bonus, I do like using it over regrowth (which had been my fill up heal). It's quick, and with 4 hots on a target, it hits pretty good. And now that it works with wild growth, it works pretty good in group healing situations.

At 65, I can see the similairities between discipline priest healing and resto druid. So why bother with the priest? Two reasons: the first is aesthetics. Most of my decisions in the game come down to how things look. Considering you have to look at your character for hours, I think it's important to enjoy how that character looks and how it plays. Resto druid has two things going against it. Obviously the Tree form is pretty ugly. Beyond not ever seeing the character and gear enhancement, unlike other players, it's just a crappy model. Not only is it a crappy model, but it's a crappy model players have been slaughtering since level 10. I don't want to look like a mob, especially one that butt ugly. The second thing going against the resto druid is that none of their spells really have much of a visual flair. The tree lifts his hands, and then the target is healed. Not impressed.

Priests on the other hand, have the benefit of cool looking gear you get to see all the time, and a couple of spell animations that are a lot of fun. Pennance just looks bad ass. It's channeled spells that sends swirling light at the target. And when it hits the target, it visibly shakes them. If I remember right prayer of mending has a nice effect, too. But haven't leveled enough to use it yet.

Those things might seem minor, but that's how I roll. I think as time goes on, and we play this game more and more, the reasons we play and how we play change. It's important to know what you like about the game, and not get caught in playing the game you liked yesterday, but playing the game you like today. And if there's no game you like playing today, then it's time to find a new game.

WoW Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Barnabas Danglewood) — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:45:00 +0000

WoW.com (formally wowinsider) has posted two articles about the new druid forms found here and here. Like a lot of druids, I've been waiting for this for a long time. My first character was a nelf druid named Gritz, who is still languishing on Turalyon at the lowly level of 32. Of course, IMO, nelf druids have always had it pretty good because their cat forms and moonkin forms are far superior to the tauren forms. But I do have an 80 tauren druid who is at times my favorite class, and my least favorite. Part of that is due to forms.

I realize that shape-shifting is one of the signature moves of the druid, but years of looking at the same form (that looks terrible) for years tends to drive one crazy. So with these new forms, I'm happy to see them.

And disappointed. Why disappointed? Well, first they're only doing cat and bear. I'm a tree druid, and it is by far the ugliest. I remember when I first heard about ToL, I was expecting some akin to the big as ancient protectors by Darnasus. Sadly no, we got a dying sprig of broccoli. They said that they'll be coming out with forms for trees and laser chickens later, but I really have to wonder how long it takes to design new forms and animations.

As for the look of the new forms, right now my verdict is a big "meh". Yes, they look good. But not great, not 4 years great. But... I'm reserving judgment until I see the new animations.

That being said... I'm not really playing my druid much. Since I quit my guild I've taken a long break, and then kinda played around with my thousands of alts. I'm playing my 41 dwarf rogue on Arthas. I like dwarves. Wish we could somehow bring them to the horde. Rogue, warrior, priest, and mage are the only classes I haven't really leveled up, with my 72 mage being the highest. I enjoy playing the rogue, but wonder if dk makes them kinda obsolete. I stopped playing my shaman, because dk does melee so much better, and I used to think that enhance shaman was one of the most fun class/specs.

My priest is 64, and while discipline is an interesting way to heal, I've been underwhelmed by shadow. I had always heard such great things about it, but it seems so much like a weak lock.

I don't know that I'll ever level a warrior. Once again, what's the point? I have a druid, paladin, and dk. Can't see any real reason to level one.

That's it for now. Send gold to Eglstiltskin on Arthas.