Zanderfin's Wow "Casual" Raiding

My UI Sucks

2009-07-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

That's the funny thing about inspiration: you never really know when it's going to hit.

I was playing Wizard101 with my kids last night. (I think I've mentioned that I play that on occasion before.) It's a very whimsical game. The combat speed is good for my 5 and 7 year olds. At any rate, it's a very minimalistic UI. As you can see from the Screen Shot here on the right, there's really not much to it. You have your basic health and mana in the lower left corner. You have your xp bar in the bottom center. Chat and interaction buttons are found in the upper left. A compass and the options button (that also opens up all spellbooks and gear and such) is in the bottom right. (This picture is actually a little old since they've added your various "hearthstones" near the compass.) And I have no idea what it is in the upper right corner; mine is a link to go buy the game or get a membership. (We've always just bought areas when we're ready to go to the next area.)

So, it may not be fair because the combat system is completely different, but after putting the kids to bed, I logged on Wow and started to compare. Holy crap I have a lot of buttons! With 12 standard ones, then another 24 laid across the entire screen just above those, and then another 24 on the right side... And with my shaman (as with my mage for that matter) every single one of those is taken up with something important. Which is actually quite humerous since I know I'm not casting 60 spells!

So, let's focus on the shaman for a second. 3.2 will take care of a lot of these problems since I have a lot of extra buttons just in case I need some random totem. Then, I'm not really sure I need all 3 shock spells. (Well, technically there are 4.) Especially when I'm in Resto (which is only when I'm in a group in an instance).

I know I've put off completely redoing my UI because on my standard screen (non-wide) there's just not a lot of real estate, but really... that's exactly the reason why I should do this.

I really need to go look up my blogging friends' posts. I know I've seen a couple people that have had some great approaches to fixing the UI. Then again... maybe I can put it off so that 3.2 doesn't break all my add-ons. lol.

Browser Usage

2009-07-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

Today's post is almost completely non-Wow related. I was reading about Google's new operating system and decided to check out Chrome. It's pretty schnazzy, but Firefox is still my #1 choice. One of the big bonuses is that Chrome seems to load everything really fast. But Ad Block-up Plus (an add-in for Firefox) means that I never have to see all the advertisements... also means that they don't actually load. So, I'll be sticking with Firefox for that reason alone. (Doesn't look like there's a way to block those yet for Chrome. I could be wrong.)

But it seems that I'm not alone in this. According to a small sampling of data from Analytics from my Blog, I.E. isn't the clear cut winner as the media would make you believe. Then again, I doubt the average WoW player (or at least the ones that would be searching for anything they would find on my blog) is anything like the average Internet user. I'm guessing that we're just a slightly be more technical. And with just under 50% of us using Firefox lately, I'm sure that's the case.

Midsummer Festival Flop

2009-07-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not really big on the whole holidays achievements. I think it's really cool that there are holidays in Wow that change the game up a bit, but they're simply not my cup of tea. And every time a new holiday comes out, I forget that for a bit, get all excited to get the achievements for that holiday.

Midsummer Festival was no different. I was all excited about getting this achievement done. With our truly more casual raid schedule, I knew I'd have plenty of time to get it all done. I got the Tabard for both Leiandra and also for Zanderfin. And I even set out to extinguish all of the fires. The key word there being "set out". I got the one in Orgimmar. And then the ones outside of Exodar and Darnassus. There was even going to be the bonus that I could finally finish the Explorer Achievement... which I've never gotten around to doing.

There's a reason I've never done the Explorer Achievement. Because running around the world for these meaningless points is boring. And unless it's a really cool title like "Leiandra, Slayer of all that is Evil"... I'm probably not too interested either.

So, once again, I didn't get the achievement for the holiday. And I'm okay with that. A lot of people enjoy those, and that's fine. It's just not a part of the game that I'm particulary into. I do like however, that you can go back and see when you did certain things. I can tell you when my toons hit 80, for example. Or when I first cleared a certain dungeon. Very cool. But the points for the sake of points... I'm just not that into it.

Healing Through: The PvP Edition

2009-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

In my attempt to gear up Zanderfin, my resto druid, a bit faster, I've resorted to looking at some PvP gear choices. The thing is: it's not going so well. I find that I feel like the Black Knight after his arms have been cut off. I still try to do something, but it feels rather ineffective. With Earth Shield still up and Riptide cast every chance I get, I'm still just prolonging the inevitable when I'm the only one left guarding a point in AB.

Honestly, I really don't know what to do as Resto besides heal. As a mage, pvp was so much easier when I had a pocket healer. It certainly makes sense that I need to have the same as a healer. But I'm finding that Pug pvp is probably as frustrating as Pug groups. People running all over the place and no organization... It's just frustrating. I guess the only thing that makes it slightly less annyoing that running instances with a Pug is that it usually doesn't last as long.

So, I'm really looking for suggestions here. If I can't get anyone to stick by me, what do I do? I'm thinking the best thing may be simply to start Resto ('cause that's what I want to do), but if nobody will stick by me or leaves me in the dust, whatever... I should use my dual spec and go back to Enhancement. Sure the gear's not quite as good, but may seem to make more sense.

Thoughts?

Putting the Casual Back In Raiding

2009-07-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

I really don't know where to start with the whole 3.2 Patch. Everything that I hear about it seems to be good. I'm sorry, but if there's somebody that's whining about Emblems of Conquest being handed out in Heroics (and all the lower raids) and Emblems of Triumph being handed out through Daily Quests... well... what did you expect? You're obviously Hard Core... and better than all of us (see whut I did thar)... and you'll get your upgraded epics way before the rest of us. So, simmer down, clown.

But one of the best things for casual guilds is the ability to extend raid lock out times. Honestly... one of the best things ever. Take our casual guild now. We run once per week, and generally about 3 hours. It's enough to clear Ulduar's first 4 bosses. And that's about it. There's no way we'd be able to clear Naxx in that amount of time. But in two weeks, completely possible. On our schedule, we'd be "clearing" Ulduar forever and still never see progression in. (Well.. we can skip bosses, but that's not the point.)

The hardcore people still get to be hardcore, but it really opens up some of the deeper parts of raid instances to more casual players. Great move, Blizzard. I wish I would have thought about this myself. (And if I wasn't lazy, I'd dig up the link where I did think this up, 'cause I'm 95% sure I posted about it. I'm 100% sure I've thought that it should have been done before now.)

How Big is Yours?

2009-06-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

In light of the recent Burger King ad in Singapore, I decided to play on words a bit with the title. But just so you know, it has absolutely nothing to do with that ad whatsoever.

I am not a chronic switcher. I've been on the same server since I started playing World of Warcraft years ago. I have a small handful of toons on other servers, but I don't think any of them have gone over level 10. I've had Leiandra, my mage, as my main from the very beginning. She's been in 2 guilds. I got my priest to 70 because I leveled shadow (wannabe mage?). I got my shaman to 80... well... maybe that's been the most out of the cookie-cutter thing I've done in Wow. lol. My druid got stuck at 60 (back with the cap was 70). My rogue got to 40, but I didn't really much enjoy the class. Paladin, warlock, and hunter all got to about 30. I got a DK to 68 back in beta, but haven't done more than create one on live.

So, last night, a couple friends signed on that I haven't seen in awhile. They raided with us awhile ago, but RL got a bit too hectic, and so they settled on a smaller server with his brother, but they still have a few toons on Bronzebeard. In our conversation, they said that I should "totally transfer a toon over to" their server. Ultimately, there's no way I'd make any of their raid times (they start at 6, and I can't usually get on until 8), so it won't happen. But they were talking about all the benefits of being on this smaller server. And it really got me thinking.

Bronzebeard was one of the original servers when wow was first lauched back in November 2004. It's certainly never been one of the cutting edge servers as far as progression goes, but there's always been a healthy population of people. We've had a small share of drama (who hasn't heard about Vinkar?), but on the whole, I assume we're pretty average.

But more on general terms, I think there's always going to be positives and negatives for both small and large population servers. The only way you'd really be able to know what another server is like is to spend some serious time there. But with the majority of my friends (both RL and only met in-game friends) on Bronzebeard, it's kind of hard to think about leaving.

We did have a brief guild discussion about other servers. Two guildies actually started playing Wow on Horde on another server. Actually... they started on the same server. They said they should have had me try Horde. Hmm... maybe one day I'll get a Horde toon above level 10.

Deadly Boss Mods: Revisited

2009-06-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Bless WowInsider's heart (or Wow.com as they're now called). They are a great source of information. They compile so much from so many sources. It's just a shame when they miss little things. Like they're little post about Essential addons for raid leaders. The very first mod they list is for Deadly Boss Mods (good). And as is mentioned, it's kind of a necessity for all raiders. But the most important part of that suite for a raid leader doesn't come from Curse as is linked on their site.

Oh no... the most important part comes from the Deadly Boss Mods downloads page. They're two extra packages called "Spell Timers" and "Raid Lead Tools". Let's see the description, shall we?

Spell Timers
"DBM-SpellTimers is a small but powerful addon that uses DBM timers to show spell cooldowns from raid members. It is fully configurable through a simple GUI so you can easily add new spells."

Want to know when Heroism is up? Or how about who cast Rebirth, and who's still on cooldown? Or how about anything with a significant cooldown? (Yep... even portals. lol.) Yeah, kind of important for a Raid Leader to know. Go get this one.

Raid Lead Tools
"Raid Lead Tools uses the DBM API (especially the kill/pull detection) to manage your raid and DKP. You can export tracked raids to eqDKP with just a few clicks!"

Now, I've actually used CT Raid Tracker for this functionality. (Found here... used to be hosted on Curse.) But it sure sounds like a useful Raid Leader Mod to me. :)

Point being though.... the Spell Timers are WAY better than having to ask, "Whose Battle Rez is up?"

Edit: I didn't even mention the best part of these additional mods. Not sure which one it is, but one of them gives a mass invite to all guildies. Saves a ton of time when you have exactly 25 (or less) on. :)

Finding Old Quest Chains

2009-06-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday my big ordeal to pick up the quest chain I had going for Wyrmcrest Accord. I jumped on my shaman last night and saw somebody advertising for the group quests. (Keep in mind these are level 72-ish quests that I just didn't get around to doing when I was about 72. I'm now 80 with the then active spec of enhancement.) So, for easy gold, I decided to help out, and actually do the quests as well.

One guy leaves our full group, so the group leader goes looking for in general chat for somebody else. "Let's just do them, I'm sure I count as 2 people," I say... in general chat. Oops. lol. But yeah, we did just fine with 3 lvl 72's and me as a lvl 80 for these 3- to 5-man quests. lol.

At any rate... once I finished those, I decided to go look for that quest chain again. I look in my quest log... "Hey, what's this quest... that's... part of... the chain I was looking for." Sigh. The quest giver for that quest was in the area just West of Wyrmcrest Temple. A place that I had flown over previously, but didn't see the question mark because I flew by too quickly. So... yeah. I found the chain.

Picking Up Old Quest Chains

2009-06-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

I'm very much enjoying healing 5-man content on my shaman. I'm actually looking forward to a night when we need a healer for a 10-man raid so I can try my hand out there. But I also find that there's a bit more work that I'm going to have to put in to my shaman. He's got maxed out Mining (yeah, Toughness) and I'm still working on Jewelcrafting as a kind of side project. But the immediate focus is reputations.

And if you play a healer, you probably guessed that my first faction is that of the Wyrmrest Accord. The item "need" that won't go away until next expansion is the Arcanum of Blissful Mending; there's really no other substitute for it, so I need to get Revered. The Gavel of the Brewing Storm is a pretty good upgrade for my weapon, but I really should just have a guildie make me a Titansteel Guardian.

So, I went off questing in Dragonblight, which was a zone that I kind of 1/2 skipped. These level 72 quests are pretty easy for a level 80, so I just decided to do as many as I could. But after finishing most of them, I realized that I should probably finish the ones over at Wyrmrest Temple since I knew those (and the dailies) would be Wyrmrest rep. Only problem is, the dailies weren't available to me. A quick jaunt over to Wowwiki tells me that I need to start the quest chain off of an item drop over near Stars' Rest.

Long story short, I kill the guy and can't find it. I no longer have any quests over at Stars' Rest (completeted those ages ago), and can't seem to figure out the next step. The only place I didn't check was down in the Tuskar camp, but that quest seemed optional. I'll have to check there tonight.

Anyway, the whole point is... it's a pain to pick up quest chains you stopped months ago.

Lies From a Dealership

2009-06-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, I promise this is the last thing I'll post about a car dealership. But I thought the following was hilarious and I needed to share.

Once my car was ready, they told me so and that I could pay the cashier. Nothing else was said. Nothing. So, upon signing my receipt, I get the 4-page invoice. A couple of interesting line items.

Page 1
"Customer has been advised of needed
maintenance - Problem Found - OIL PAN IS
LEAKING , CUSTOMER WAS ADVISEDDECLINED AT"

Page 2
"RPS Red - power steering system needs immediate attention"
"RBS Red - brake fluid needs immediate attention"

Page 3
"84741 INSPECTION 0.00 COMPLETED CUSTOMER DECLINED RECOMENATIONS AT
THIS TIME SEE RECOMENDATIONS"

Their typo's aside, I'm pretty sure they're saying that they told me about the problems, and I declined to have them fix them. (A) They never said anything about any problems, and (B) Yes, I would have declined for them to fix the problems, but that's not the same thing as I actually did decline.

Also of note, I'm sure they were supposed to fill in the date/time or phone number that they let me know the recommendations. I didn't selectively quote the Invoice... they simply didn't include that data on my copy of the Invoice.

After that, my next favorite part is the following (I took out the caps for readability this time): "Very soon you will receive a survey regarding your service experience. At Temecula Mazda we value your opinion. We are committed to your satisfaction. If for any reason we have not earned a 'very satisfied' rating on all the survey questions, please let us know so we may address your concerns." Oh, I will Hine Temecula Mazda, I will.

Misleading Marketing: Car Dealership Edition

2009-06-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

I just needed to vent, and this is the best place I know to do it. For those that know me, I'm generally a pretty well-informed car guy. I may not know the exact specifications of your '65 Chevy, but I'm generally up to speed on current products. I usually view the car dealerships and sales people as tools that get in the way of what I want. I distrust them at every corner. Heck, I don't even trust their mechanics if I take my car in for warranty work. I generally equate them to the level of politicians. And given that I think California is almost going to financially fall into the ocean because of the current politicians we have here, my opinion of them (and the car dealerships for other reasons) are about the same.

Last week I got a phone call from my local Mazda dealership here in Temecula: Hines Mazda. They offered me an oil change and car wash for $9.99. "Great!" I think, but the catch is they're only open Monday through Friday. Because of my commute, there's generally no way I can make it here during their business hours, so I decided to pass. I was actually due for an oil change, so it would have been perfect. BUT... my older son had "Donuts for Dads" today at Kindergarten, so I took the day off, and I went ahead and scheduled my oil change as well. (I'm actually writing this from the dealership.)

Not only does the oil change include their 50-point (or whatever) check (which is a bunch of marketing crap for "we glanced under the hood"), but it also includes a free car wash. (With the rain clouds looming, that really isn't much of a draw for me today, but whatever.) Admitedly, that's probably worth about $35 -> $20 for the oil change (what I normally pay) and $15 for the car wash. But the advertised price was $9.99.

So, I bring my car in, get the paperwork, and the estimate is $15. "Umm... excuse me?" I say, "Why is this estimate of $15?"

"Oh, that's the standard tax and disposal fee," he replies.

(So as to not crit with a wall of text, I'll omit the conversation I had with the check-in guy, and the Service Manager, Art.)

I'm a little peeved off at the 50% increase in price. The coupons I've seen are a set amount with usually a disclaimer with more for V-6 engines. But they've included hazarous waste fees. Well, Art, the Service Manager here at Hines didn't think this was resonable. His response was that with sales tax going up and hazardous waste fees, this was perfectly normal. I have no problem paying taxes, but this is essentially akin to a hidden fee based on what the marketing person, Debbie, told me. And how does a 1% increase in sales tax even factor in to a discussion about a 50% increase???

What is the whole point of a $9.99 (or in reality $15) oil change and car wash? They're losing money on it either way. The point is to get people in to the dealership mechanic so that they can see the dealership is a nice, clean, fast place to get your car work done, and the people can be trusted too. Well, actions speak much louder than words, Hines Motors.

So, whole point of this tiraid is this: don't take your car to the dealership for anything unless it's guaranteed 100% free (e.g. Waranty stuff). Even then, see if you can take it to your local mechanic, and they'll get reimbursed for it. (I believe some waranty work can be done this way.) Oh, and if you're actually buying a new car... go through Cars Direct or something so the dealership gets less as well.

Be warned, I'm in no mood to defend this. So if you post something that's contrary to my point (e.g. all the coupons I've seen don't include hazardous waste), I reserve the right to delete the comment out of spite.

Basic Tank Hints: Defense

2009-06-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was laid up in bed for most of Saturday and all of Sunday. It was plenty of time to quest my shaman to level 80 (from about 77, I think), dual spec him as a healer, and run a couple of my first heroics as a healer. It's pretty much a different game playing as a healer vs. my normal role of DPS. And I enjoyed it a lot.

We first ran Heroic Violet Hold. It went very smoothly. The only casualty was a mage that pulled agro. (That would so be me in normal situations. lol.) I got a minor upgrade with Moragg's Chestguard, and also the Design: Thick Autumn's Glow.

A little bit later, another group went to go do Heroic Nexus. While it wasn't the worst run ever, I now have a more complete understanding as to why healers can't keep up under geared and incompetent tanks. After a number of wipes (I wouldn't consider any of them my fault), we finally made it through. I did make it out with the Bands of Channeled Energy, but lost the roll for the Design: Deadly Monarch Topaz. And I lost the roll to the tank who also got the Flame-Bathed Steele Girdle and the Bulwark of the Noble Protector. Yeah, that's right... the tank got the 3 items from the last boss.

But at any rate... here's the issues I had with the tank. Tanks, pay attention here.

Tanks need Defense rating. It's kind of a basic stat for you guys. For Wrath for Heroics, tanks need a minimum of 535. For raids, you need 540. Heck, even in BC you needed 490. Our tank had 305. I could see every time he got crit because his health would be fine, and then it would drop to almost dead.
Know where your healer is and don't get too far ahead of him. Sure, it's our job to keep you alive, but if we stayed behind to look at loot, we're probably not ready for the next pull.
And along those lines, if your healer doesn't have mana, you might want to wait until he does before you pull.
Pull, don't charge. This warrior had a love of charging. He'd charge on almost every pull. Which would pull multiple mobs, which would cause wipes. Furthermore, charging at the mobs that are right before a boss has a high likelihood of pulling the boss. Trash mobs aren't meant to be pulled with the boss. I'm just saying.
If other people that have more knowledge about the instance ask you to do something, you might want to listen. Maybe, just maybe they know what's going on.

10-Man vs. 25-Man

2009-06-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

In thinking about this topic, I really had to do some introspection about how I am as a gamer. Am I the type of gamer that wants to see every level, so I simply put the game on easy mode to be able to burn through a game in a couple nights? Or am I more of the type that wants all the bragging rights because I've beaten a game on ultra-extreme tough mode?

The answer is: It varies with every game.

A lot of games, I will simply play through on easy. If I enjoy the game, I'll bump up the difficulty so that there's more of a challenge. If it gets too insanely difficult though, I'm out. Some games will unlock additional content or levels if you play the game on these more challenging modes though.

Take the Guitar Heroes series, for example. (Hope I remember the skill levels here.) Easy is good for people to start learning. But I enjoy music, and I've played guitar for a few years, so in short time, that level got quite boring. Medium is a bit more hectic, but with practice, most people can probably do this level. Hard is where the boys and men are separated. You have to put in some practice to be able to move your fingers around now. And Expert? Well, that's just insane. Maybe that's what separates the hardcore from the casual. lol. When I was playing Guitar Heroes, I generally played Medium/Hard. (Once Rock Band came out, I haven't purchased any more of the GH series.) I really saw no point in getting a finger cramp from attempting Expert.

Rock Band, on the other hand, didn't make the difficulty quite so rough, in my opinion. With practice, I think most people can do Hard, and Expert is simply knowing the "real" song. I generally play Rock Band on Hard/Expert. The difference is attainability.

Well, I played both those games and skill levels for my own personal satisfaction. I don't play Expert on songs to show off amongst my friends. No, I do it because it makes the game more fun when I have to struggle a bit. But there's certain solos that make me want to simply restart the system... oh, and I fail almost instantly on those.

Now... what the heck does that have to do with 10-man and 25-mans? First off... they're not equal. It's more difficult to do the 25-man runs, so you get better loot. I would expect that. But I would also expect your options to be the same (which they're not). So, if you get a trinket in 25-man that increases your spell power by 111, then you should be able to get the same trinket in 10-man that increases your spell power by say... 98. But that's just not the case.

Naxx loot has 4 trinkets for 10-man and 8 for 25-man. Furthermore, not all classes can get 2 legitimate trinkets from them. Like what would I do with the second ranged DPS trinket from Naxx as a mage?

Anyway... the whole point is that I've starting asking myself: do I care? And if I do, why?

I've made fun of a buddy of mine because he's still in mostly blues. I've suggested a few upgrades, even crafted ones, but the cost simply doesn't justify the upgrade. And he does pretty good DPS. He obviously plays his class well, but he just doesn't devote that much time to raiding to be able to get full epics.

And the whole point of the game is that I want to have fun. I want to hang out with my friends. And maybe every once in awhile, I get a gear upgrade. But mainly, I want to see the content, or... I want to finish the game. I think because of TBC and original wow, I still have this leftover mentality that I have to be in 25-man raids. But really... I just don't care that much. Furthermore, I'd be perfectly happy if I was simply running 10-mans with my 9 closest friends, and hopefully somebody (doesn't even have to be me) gets an upgrade.

So don't let the mob mentality make you do things you don't want to. It is a game, so make sure you're happy while you're playing it. Do what makes you happy.

p.s. If running 25-man content makes you happy, then by all means... go for it. This was in no way meant to bash or discredit anybody else's idea of fun.

Twitter

2009-06-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Just in case anybody is wondering: I will not be Twittering.

That is all.

Failoc-alpse Broken

2009-06-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

I was on a daily conference call this morning that I had to be on, but is really quite pointless for me to be on. So, since I had to be 1/2 brain dead for the call, I figured I could be 1/2 brain dead to play Failoc-Alypse. Quite humorous that Blizzard is willing to laugh at, at least some of, their mistakes, and even make a game out of it. At any rate... I think I broke it.I got bored and started using more charge attacks. Then the charge just kind of took over the screen. Must be the same code they used at the beginning of Wow when people would cast spells and then appear to have their hands raised until you logged out.

Movie Review: Forever Strong

2009-05-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Okay... absolutely nothing to do with Wow here. I guess that's what happens when you take the last 2 nights off of Wow. lol. At any rate...

I don't go out to the movies very often. With 4 young kids, we just don't make it out very often. But Netflix is our friend. :)

So, we randomly glance through movies that are coming out to see if there's anything that might be interesting. I'm generally a big fan of the sports movies that are based on real life events. Probably why we requested Forever Strong. Even though it's about a sport that I know mostly nothing about, Rugby.

If you like movies such as Remember the Titans, Hoosiers, The Rookie, you'll most likely enjoy this movie as well. Yes, it's about Rugby. The official web site is RugbyMovie.com. But you don't need to know anything about Rugby to enjoy the movie.

It stars Sean Faris as the main character. It also has Sean Astin (aka Samwise Gamgee, Rudy, and Mikey Walsh). One of the outtakes was a group of people in a crowd watching the game that included Sean Astin, and they started chanting "Rudy".

So for those that need to know more and are too lazy to go check out one of the links, here's the synopsis from the official site:

Rick Penning (Sean Faris, Never Back Down) lives life just like he plays rugby; fast, hard-hitting and intense. When life on the edge lands him in jail, prison ward Marcus Tate (Sean Astin, The Lord of the Rings) offers him a chance to get back in the game by playing for longtime rival teaml, Highland Rugby. Reluctantly Rick joins the team where he must adopt the grueling training schedule and uinque code of conduct that highland's legendary coach (Gary Cole, Office Space) demands. Egos clash and bitter competitors struggle to find the meaning of "team."

As on-field battles rage, hearts are challenged and loyalties are tried. Rick Penning decide if between the life he lived and a life that stands before him. With a national championship on the line, he will learn that the greatest victories are born in the heart.

p.s. That was verbatim from the site. 10 points awarded for pointing out each of the 3 grammar/spelling errors. Is it really that hard to proof-read something that goes out on a professional site about a product you're trying to sell?

Translating EQdkp-Plus

2009-05-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

So, one of the mods for our web site that I've been playing with for months now is EQdkp-Plus. It's a pretty spiffy DKP handeler/tracker, and there's a lot of great features in it as well.

The major reason that I've played with it for months and not implemented it was because a lot of my testing of stuff like this goes on at work. (Believe it or not, it is slightly work related.) Long story short, I spent a lot of time trying to get my local machine to get through our proxy's here at work so that I could even install EQdkp-Plus. I wanted a protected environment where I could work out all the kinds. But since I could never figure out the reverse-proxy, I ended up throwing it up on our guild site in a test directory.

At any rate... that's not the point. The point is, is that they're looking for help. They're looking for people to help translate EQdkp-Plus to other languages.

Now the product itself is free, but comes with banners. For a donation of 10 Euros (about $14 at present), you can get a key to unlock that. For over 50 Euros, you get access to next versions, and for over 100, you get free support.

OR...

If you help translate now, you get a free Developer's Key which means that you have access to it all. So, if you know a foreign language, go over and help out here. The scary thing is, I'm at least one of the people that is a validator for Portuguese. Hope there's not huge differences between the Brazillian Portuguese I know and the Portugul Portuguese that some of the European people might be using. Furthermore, I hope I can remember enough to be accurate. lol.

Mountain Dew Game Fuel

2009-05-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

I decided to shamelessly plug the Mountain Dew Sweepstakes. I'm not even sure I'm really interested in any of the prizes. I guess if I won the Headset, I'd pass it along to one of my guildies. (Poor college students, recently married, and I'm sick of hearing the echo when one of them talks. For the record, she's sick of it too.) Then again... I probably wouldn't say No to a free notebook computer either. But so far, the odds would probably be about 1 in 11,250 chance. And that's on the optimistic side. I'm guessing that a lot more people will sign up and try for that drawing. So, by advertising, I'm actually lowering my chances to win. lol.

The really funny thing is that there's almost 3 times the amount of people that want the notebook computer vs. a trip to Blizzcon. The trip is valued at about $3000 whereas the notebook is only $2000. Once again proving that we're all lazy and we don't really want to leave our homes. lol.

At any rate, go sign up, click on my banner and I get credits... and worst case scenario, I think we'll all get a little pet. (Just what I always wanted... another in-game pet. /rolls eyes)

Five Facts About Mages

2009-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quick, fun link to pass along. Euripedes over at Critical QQ posted a funny (and true) post about Mages. Go over there and check it out.

Uber Death Knight (in Defensive Gear)

2009-05-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Primogeniture has basically undergone a bit of a change lately. To make a long story short, we've had some issues with numbers, so we're basically down to 10-mans for awhile. Last night, however, a few of us got together to run something to help (hopefully) gear up some of our healers a bit better.

Unfortunately, with the holiday, we didn't quite have the "required" 10-people. So, what do we do? Turn to the /lfm tool!

We were at 8 people, so we needed 2 more. We had the flexibility to just get 2 more DPS (some of our DPS were dual spec'ed as healers). Turns out we got 2 Death Knights.

So, we head over to Naxx to run through as much as that as possible. One of the DK's, we'll call him EbayKnight, discovers that he's magically in a different instance then we are. He's running around looking for Mr. Bigglesworth, but the rest of the group sees him alive right in front of us. EbayKnight remembers that he's already saved this week and leaves group. "Hey," we thought, "Why don't we just take his instance since it's Tuesday and it's obviously not going to get used." I ask which bosses are left, and he said that they cleared 3 quarters. Sweet! We'd actually get to finish off the last bosses in a small amount of time. So, we invite him back and he's thrilled.

Head in to Naxx. Yes, yes.. I want to be saved. But then we realize that all of the quarters are cleared since the lights are lit up. A quick jaunt up to Kel, and he's dead too... and all of us got saved to a cleared Naxx run. UGH!

Well, not really this guy's fault, right? I mean, how was EbayKnight to know that the other 9 people cleared it (and obviously without him)? So, let's go kill Emalon.

Wipe after wipe, we were just struggling. We realize off the bat EbayKnight is trouble since he never runs out for the Lightning. He also doesn't switch targets. And finally he helps to string the Chain Lightning as much as possible. Furthermore, the guy consistently does about 980 DPS!!! 9-manning Emalon, we could do, but that's without all this extra raid damage that he's causing. He wasn't on Vent (another point against him), so we told our healers to stop healing him. But it just doesn't happen. Finally somebody has the bright idea to look at this guy's gear. FULL TANK gear! Yep, every piece has defensive. So, we start asking him about it.

"So, EbayKnight, you got any DPS gear?"

"I'm wearing it."

"No, you're wearing tank gear. DPS gear doesn't have defense rating like tank gear does."

"Yeah, well my friend says I do fine in DPS."

"Okay... this ain't working." I think we left him with, "It's not you, it's us." lol. Got a rogue in there, and 1-shotted it.

So, yes... the title is mocking him. And Death Knights may be the new Huntard class.

Soldier in Pink Boxers

2009-05-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

Picture dated May 11th. From FoxNews on May 22. Go check out the article.p.s. 3 posts in 1 day. I'm making up for lost time. lol.

Going to BlizzCon 2009

2009-05-22T07:32:00.000-07:00

By the way... I did secure a ticket last Saturday to go to Blizzcon 2009. I think I'd like to be a bit more social this year than I was last year, so if anybody would like to hook up, I'd love to meet a few of you. But just a few. lol.

Add-On: Guild Tax

2009-05-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I have not tried out this mod yet.

It seems like forever ago that I made a post about a Guild Tax for the Guild Vault. But just this morning, I got a comment on that post about a new mod that was developed by walking_fishy. It's called, quite simply, Guild Tax. It appears to be this developer's first mod. It was uploaded on 5/20, and 2 days later, it already has 36 downloads. (For a no-name mod, I'm guessing that's some pretty good marketing... or one person just downloaded it 36 times.)

The idea is this: By default, there's a 5% guild tax on "Small Change" (money off of mobs) and Quest Rewards. When you go to the Guild Vault, it's automatically deposited. And anyone in the guild with access to the Guild MOTD can change the tax to whatever they'd like.

But here's the nice thing about his philosophy: first of all, it's kind of on a volunteer basis. Each individual has to install the mod, so that means that they're agreeing to donate. It's not like this money is being taken straight out of somebody's loot either... you don't want to pay, simply don't visit the guild vault.

Next thing as you can see from the Screen Shot (from Curse) is you can disable any part of it. Planning to do a bunch of dailies for your own epic mount and want to save up? Disable the Quest Reward Tax Collection. Have a huge tax that you simply can't pay at the moment because you need to repair your red gear, but need to get a flask from the vault? Disable Bank Deposits.

I see it fitting along with how I play perfectly. I always mean to contribute to the Guild Vault, but since I usually have another officer take care of that, I usually forget. So, I think, I should contribute a large amount, but then I'm poor because I just Dual Spec'ed (or whatever reason you want to insert here).

For those Guild Leaders (or members) that want to make sure others are actually getting taxed, there's also a whisper command:

If you whisper a player who has the Guild Tax addon with the command '!GuildTax' you will get a reply with that players settings and their total tax paid.

So, bravo, Walking_Fishy. I'll have to check out this mod tonight.

XT-002 Deconstructor the Easy Way

2009-05-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

I really haven't written much about Ulduar. Let's face it, I really haven't written much at all lately, but that's besides the point. The point is, that I'm coming to you today to give you a HUGE pointer for taking on Deconstructor in Ulduar. He's so easy, that he's essentially the new Loot Pinata for 3.1. Even more so, he's a robot, just like another Loot Pinata we used to know in TBC.

So... this "guide" assumes you've already killed Flame Leviathon (which is really the first Loot Pinata in Ulduar), because you have to have killed him in order to get to the next 3 bosses. I'm also not going to regurgitate what you can find on many other strategy guides out there. Go check out one of those guides for how to deal with the different abilities and what they are.

Come to think of it... this is really less of a "guide" and more of a "really, really big, helpful pointer". I'm guessing that the guildie that came up with it read in on a web site somewhere, I just don't know where that is.

All of the guides that I've run across tell you to tank Deconstructor on the stairs, at the top of the stairs, or at the bottom of the stairs. This is absolutely incorrect. Here's the secret: Tank it between two of the scrap piles on the side. Either side will do.

"But Leiandra? Won't the bots come out and heal Deconstructor immediately?" Nope. That's the beauty of this positioning. And maybe I'll be the one to bring this to Blizzard's attention so they fix it (lol.. like they're seriously reading my blog), but when Deconstructor is tanked close to the scrap piles on a side, neither one of those 2 piles will spawn adds.

Done it on 10-man. I've done it on 25-man. Both ways, you only have to deal with 2 piles of adds instead of 4. It makes the encounter much more trivial. PLUS... those slow bots have to walk all the way over to the other side before they can do anything. Trust me. You're gonna thank me for it.

Reputation Leveling: aka Argent Tournament Dailies

2009-05-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

Another great side bonus of doing the Argent Tournament dailies is the crazy amount of reputation and gold you get from doing those quests. Assuming that you haven't gotten the Champion Title with all of the factions yet (which I don't think is possible just yet since it takes 5 days for each one) here's what you get:

Each of the 4 daily quests for the home city that you're currently working on give 13g at level 80 and 250 reputation for that city, and 25% of that towards the other home cities.
Each of the 4 daily Champion quests give you 250 Argent Crusade reputation, and either a Champion's Purse or Champion's Writ.

So, if you do these 8 dailies (2 sets of 2 can actually be done at the same time, so really it's more like 6), you get 1000 reputation for the city you're working for plus 250 reputation for all other cities, 1000 reputation for the Argent Crusade, 52g, 5 Champion Seals, and then either 40 more gold from the Purses (4 x 10g each) or another 1000 reputation plus 250 for other cities once you become champion if you get the Writs.

Let me sum it up another way:

Either up to 5000 total reputation and 52g - or up to 3000 total reputation and 92g.

At least those are the totals while you're working all for home city reps to Champion. Not sure what happens when you're Champion with everybody. Still, on the path there, you can get up to 100,000 reputation! (Don't check my math on that last one, I already know it's a bit off since you're not completing Champion Quests on your first path to Champion.) Oh, and that's about 1,000g as well. Granted, we're talking about 20 days of dailies, but since I still find them fun, I don't mind that as much.