Grumble N Autumnn

Raiding Addons

2012-04-22T01:18:00.004-07:00

There are thousands of addons you can get for WoW but there are a few that are especially good for raiding. Some guilds make some or all of these mandatory for raiding.

Deadly Boss Mods (DBM)- DBM helps you out by announcing various boss mechanics. This can include warnings to move or timers for various mechanics. DBM will sometimes audibly count down to events which helps the raider move before they take a lot of damage or before an event. It will also announce spells and debuffs cast and changes of phases. DBM also works for instances and battlegrounds.

GTFO - GTFO is a great addon in addition to DBM. GTFO will make a sound if you are standing in something on the ground, get hit by something your not suppose to, or generally dying in some way. It is nice because you will hear the sound and know you have to move out of something even if you are focused on healing or rotation. Another perk of the addon is that it warns you of things outside of raiding also like getting fatigue or drowning.

Recount - This addon keeps track of DPS, Healing, Interrupts, CC breaks, and a handful of other stats. This addon isn't something mandatory to raid but it does help keep track of the dps or healing you are doing in relation to others in your raid. You can click on each member and see what spells they were using to do damage and heals and you can in turn use that to help figure out your own rotation. You can also see the main mobs the person is DPSing or healing. This can be very useful if certain members are not changing targets during a fight.

Omen Threat Meter - Omen is an addon all raiders should have. It shows how much threat you have on a mob. This is extremely important for tanks and DPS. If the DPS sees they are getting too close to the tanks threat they can stop DPSing until their threat goes down or can Misdirect or Tricks of the Trade threat to the tank.

Healbot or Vuhdo - Both of these addons deal with healing and decursing. You don't use both. Choose one or the other. Quite a few people prefer Healbot but test out both if you haven't used them before. You can set up your healing spells and cleansing spells to mouse buttons and shift/ctrl/alt modifiers. Instead of having to click on each person to heal them you just click on the addons raiding frames to directly heal them. Using one of these addons is much more efficient and easier to heal than manually clicking a raid member then clicking the healing spell you want. You can also see debuffs on all players, a quick view of everyone's health, and which players have died.

Omni CC- This addon changes the count downs of your buttons. Instead of seeing a clock dial counting down your buttons you see a number. Instead of having to guess how much time you have before a button can be hit you can just look at the number and know if you have time to hit another spell before the cooldown is up.

Tidy Plates - This addon was made for tanks but it has expanded to be helpful to all classes. It adds a health plate above a mobs head. You can change the style depending on what info you want to see. If you are a rogue you can have it show the timers of your bleeds and poisons. If you are a tank you can show the mobs you have a lot of threat on and which ones you are losing threat. DPS and heals can see if they are getting too much argo on certain mobs. The plates can change color depending on how much threat you have on a mob and also if there are any raid markers on the mob. The plate will change to a certain color marker such as white for skull, red for X, and yellow for diamond.

Rating Buster - Sometimes when looking at gear that dropped it is hard to decide which is better, what you are wearing or what dropped. This addon helps with showing how your stats will change. It takes into account your class and spec. You can see what stats you lose and what you gain. It also shows resilience, mana, armor, and health changes.

Raiding Guidelines

2012-04-22T00:51:00.002-07:00

You are a part of a guild. Act like it.

If you only go on raids that benefit you people will take notice. If you only raid until you have what you want and then stop going to that raid you may not get invites to other raids you want to do. If you are going to guild raids then continue to go on guild raids to help others get the gear and achievements they need. If you act like a pompous jerk then you will be treated like a pompous jerk.

You may not go on a raid you signed up for.

A raid leader must first invite the tanks and heals. After that they choose the DPS that signed up. Under normal circumstances DPS will be added according to the time they signed up. Sometimes invites are based on needing Melee vs Ranged. In some cases like progression or off specs needed a better geared/raid aware person or person with needed off specs will be added instead of first signed up.

If you sign up for a raid then show up. If you sign up tentative you will be taken into consideration after any accepted people are added. If you really want to go but you are not sure if you have to work or will get back home in time from something then let the raid leader know and it will be their choice if your tentative response is considered an accepted.

Be prepared.

Sometimes the raid is graced with a person or people who will supply raiding food tables and flask cauldrons. Do not rely on these always being available. The people supplying them have other things to do in the game and may not be able to make up enough for every raid. Something you can do to help out with this is to get supplies needed to make them and put them in the guild bank. Then raiders can look in the guild bank for mats they don't have and make up meals and cauldrons. Remember the raid feasts are BOP once made and the flask cauldrons are bound to your battlenet account. Don't make up a ton of feasts on a toon you do not raid with or cauldrons on a battlenet account you don't raid with.

The seafood feast requires Highland Guppy (2), Lavascale Catfish (2), Fathom Eel (2) per meal.

The flask cauldron requires Flask of Steelskin, Flask of the Draconic Mind, Flask of the Winds, Flask of Titanic Strength, Deathblood Venom (8). This is basically all cata herbs and volatile life.

Show up ready to raid.

If you show up to a raid stoned or drunk don't be surprised if you are kicked from the raid. Yeah sometimes its funny to have a drunk person in raid but if the raid keeps wiping because your impaired ass is killing people off then you will be kicked.

Learn the fights.

If we are doing a raid you haven't done before there are a million Youtube videos on how to do the boss fights from every classes aspect. Taking a couple minutes to glance at videos will give you an idea of what the fight is like and can help you with tips and tricks for your class.

If there are certain raids that you just cant get a hang of or just hate the raid don't feel like you have to sign up for them. If you are getting frustrated just let the raid leader know and they will see if they can get a replacement. If you down right cant stand the thought of going into Naxx then dont sign up for those runs. Either through guild, friends, or pugs the raid can find a replacement for you.

Listen to the raid leader.

If you are not the raid leader or the raid leader hasn't asked for your opinion then shut up and let the raid leader do their job. If you learned a trick in a pug group and think it would be helpful in the raid then mention it to the raid leader and they will take your input into consideration. If you are not the raid leader and are trying to set up placement of people for a boss fight 5 trash pulls away just shut up. People tend to have a short attention span and it is easier for the raid leader to set up pulls at the boss than for 3 people to shout out commands and confuse the rest of the raid.

When you agree to sign up for a raid you are agreeing that you are willing to put the cyber life of your toon in the hands of the raid leader. If there is a boss that instantly kills the first person to attack it and the raid leader says you are that person then you run in and die. If you find out that you don't like how the raid leader is running the raid then no one is forcing you to join any of their raids in the future.

If you get to a boss and the raid leader starts to explain the fight listen. Do not say you are going afk and then get back after the fight is explained and ask how to do the fight. Personally I would kick the person on the spot. If you need a break ask for one. Don't just say afk like you know what you are doing and come back and say that.

Keep vent clear.

Listen to the raid leader when they give orders on how vent is to be used. If it is a run that's on farm and lol-easy then you will probably be able to have fun and joke around. If it is a fight that requires people to hear orders or people are learning the fight then keep vent clear except for people the raid leader designates. Some things the raid leader may assign vent role to include decursing, calls to offtank adds, or timers. When a bunch of people try to talk on vent at the same time the voices are mumbled up and it is hard to hear what people are saying.

Also please don't yell in vent. Some people get headaches from being on vent too long because of people yelling about random things. You may be really excited about something but please try to stay within average decibels. There is no need to yell things like you have died. Healers can see you have died and usually a couple different messages pop up that you have died.

Don't start pulling shit before the whole raid gets there and before the raid leader says to start.

It is great that you have the initiative to get to the instance before everyone else but if you start pulling before the raid gets there then you are just being an ass. In some retro raids the trash mobs are easy to solo but some raid members may be going to get rep or rep drops. We have also had retro instances completely cleared and last boss killed before the whole raid gets there. Something like Mags and Gruuls are very short instances. Wait for your raid. If the raid is too slow getting there for your liking by all means leave the raid and do the instance by yourself.

Know your role.

Not all raid leaders know what spec you have and what gear/skill level you have with certain specs. If on a raid signup the raid leader asks for role then send them an ingame mail saying what specs your toon is and what spec you would rather play in. If you are offspec tank but don't know any of the fights let the raid leader know. You will not be forced into a role you are uncomfortable with. Also know that if possible the raid leader may allow you to use the raiding time to learn a new spec. Some really good tanks and healers can come out of an understanding raid that allows them to learn.

Don't waste the raids time and gold.

It is one thing to learn how to do a fight. It is another to wipe over and over again because of stupid shit. If you cannot grasp the concept of raiding mechanics on retro raids then don't expect to be accepted into progression raids. In progression raids there needs to be people who are willing to learn and give a shit about the game.

Don't point fingers.

The raid leader isn't stupid. If someone keeps messing up they know about it. Going off on a person in raid chat or vent does nothing to help the situation. You are not gods gift to raiding. You will screw up big time too.

Just because you can raid the LFR doesn't mean you are geared and experienced to raid.

The looking for raid option is the lazy mans way of getting gear. LFR is no different than getting into a battleground. Yes, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You can stand in whatever you want, take the hits of Faiding Light, and stand in the stomps and still live. If you put a trained chimp in front of a computer it could do better than some LFR people. True story. If you are fully LFR geared that just means you are lucky at drops. If you do well in dps or heals what would happen if we took into account how much damage you took or how much overheals you did? Just because you can survive the LFR does not mean you are ready and able to raid Firelands or regular Dragon Soul.

Guidelines for Raid Leaders:

If you have something that is on reserve then let people know that on the calendar. It is rude to have 10-25 people show up and then let them know a highly prized item is on reserve. If you do reserve items limit it to 2-3 items a raid and switch around people the reserve it going to. No one wants to go on raids just to gear up the raid leader and their friends week after week.

State loot rules before the raid starts. With some raids you may want people to need all items over 185 item level to try to get people the Needy achievement. You may have everyone greed and only need items the actually need or for items they want to transmog. State if people should need on items like mounts, quest items, or bags. It is usually better for everyone to need on such items so there isnt confusion when it comes time to roll.

If you do loot master you may want someone you trust to handle that. You have enough in your hands running the raid. Let someone else deal with tells and rolls for loot.

If someone is being rude in your raid then warn them. If they continue then kick them. There is no reason for a raid leader to have a headache or be fuming because of some jerk. If you dont like what a person is doing say something. Raid leading is suppose to be fun, not a nightmare.

Guild Names

2011-07-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

With the introduction of the Guild Bank back in patch 2.3 there has been a huge influx of guilds in Warcraft. Most of them are personal bank guilds. It is nice to spend a small chunk of money and have an extra guild with 2-4 tabs of more space for all the stuff we collect.

With creating a guild we are stuck in the same situation of the character creation screen. What is its name? Some people go with a favorite saying, band, movie, or location in game. I have two bank guilds, Hordecore Pwnography and Razorfen Down Syndrome.

What are some of the funny guild names you have seen? Below is a list of a few I've seen over the years that stuck out.

Nagas Gave Me Harpies
Vendor
Burns When I PVP
She Said She Was LvL 18
Built Horde Tough
Crits and Giggles
Gnomeland Security
And Two Stealthed Rogues
Bovine University

Hunter Rep Rewards - Cata Edition

2011-06-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

With Cata Hunters have a lot of options of rep rewards to help gear up for Heroics. Once you become friendly with a faction you can wear their tabard in level 85 instances to gain rep and there are also quests you can do to raise rep. The only faction that doesn't reward rep for wearing a Tabard is the Tol Barad factions. Here is a brief list of Hunter related gear.

Dragonmaw Clan/ Wildhammer Clan

Zone: Twilight Highlands
Quests: Once you have done some of the quests in the zone you will have access to 5 dailies that grant a total of 1,250 rep per day.

Snarling Helm - Revered Head

Guardians of Hyjal

Zone: Mount Hyjal
Quests: Doing all the quests in Mount Hyjal will bring you up to Revered.

Acorn of the Daughter Tree - Revered Neck
Treads of Malorne - Exalted Boots

Ramkahen

Zone: Uldum
Quests: All of the Ramkahen related quests are located in Uldum. There are also 2 dailies which will grant you a total of 1,000 rep per day.

Belt of the Stargazer - Honored Belt
Arcanum of the Ramkahen - Revered AGI Head Enchant

The Earthen Ring

Zone: Vashj'ir, Deepholm, and Twilight Highlands
Quests: All of the zones above contain quests related to The Earthen Ring faction. There currently isn't any dailies related to them.

Mantle of Moss - Honored Shoulders
Softwind Cape - Revered Cloak

Signet of the Elder Council - Exalted Ring

Therazane

Zone: Deepholm
Quests: Once you have completed most of the quests in Deepholm 6 dailies will open up for you for a total of 1,500 rep per day. Once you hit Revered another 2 dailies will open up but only one is available a day for another 350 rep.

Lesser Inscription of Shattered Crystal - Honored AGI Shoulder Enchant
Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal - Exalted AGI Shoulder Enchant
Terrath's Signet of Balance - Revered Ring

Hellscream's Reach / Baradin's Wardens

Zone: Tol Barad and Tol Barad Peninsula
Quests: You will get 5-6 dailies in Tol Barad Peninsula a day netting you 1.3500-1.500 rep depending on how many you get. If your faction controls Tol Barad you will get an additional 2-3 dailies in Tol Barad.

Baradin Grunt's Talisman - Honored Trinket
Dagger of Restless Nights - Revered 1HS
Ravening Slicer - Revered 1HS
Sky Piercer - Revered Ranged Crossbow
Spear of Trailing Shadows - Revered Polearm
Unsolvable Riddle - Exalted Trinket

Day 8 - Least favorite dungeon and why?

2011-06-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

Though there has been a lot of great content through the years Warcraft has had it's share of completely crappy content. With the release of Cata there is one instance that makes me cringe every time I go into it, Throne of the Tides. For some reason my computer hates that instance. Whenever there is someone who has something on them that makes their character not fully appear that toon is under the ground on my screen. Being a Goblin whenever I am in Camo this happens and my Ghost Wolf also appears under the ground. The puddles of slime that appear with some mobs are also under the ground which makes it hard to see them because I can only see the top part bubbling. Even with completely upgrading my computer and making sure my video drivers are updated I still have this problem.

With the older instances it would have to be Blackwing Lair. I dont mind the instance as a whole. It is the first boss fight that I hate. Razorgore is so buggy that it seems like the raid stops before it even starts half the time. Grumble and I went in there last week to try to duo the instance but we couldn't get control of the orb for the fight. After about 45 seconds we would explode. After looking up the fight on WoWHead we learned there is another bug that makes the raid die instantly once the mind control over Razorgore ends. It just seems like a terrible fight to start off a great instance. I would like to run it weekly but hate the repair bills because of no fault of our own.

WoWathon 2011

2011-06-28T10:11:00.001-07:00

One thing I have learned from blogging and just being active in the Warcraft community is how we stick together and how big of a heart gamers have. Starting June 30th a group of WoW gamers are going to have a WoWathon to raise money for Child's Play Charity. Child's Play raises money to buy electronic and board games for childrens in hospitals around the world. This gives children who are undergoing scary treatments a way to get their minds off their condition.

At 8am on June 30th they are going to create a Worgen Druid and Hunter duo (best classes evah!) named Chyld and Playy on Lightbringer-US. They will be leveling up their toons to 85. They have a goal set of $800 by the time they hit level 20 and an overall goal of $10,000. They have welcomed people to make toons with them but said they will keep groups near their level so they aren't power leveled.

If you would like more information please visit their website WoWathon. You can donate by clicking on the ChipIn widget on the sidebar of their webpage or the one I placed in the side bar of this page. You can also check out the Child's Play website for more information on the organization. In addition to monetary donations Child's Play is also looking for volunteers to do things such as hook up and maintain gaming systems at local hospitals.

Day 7 - Favorite dungeon and why?

2011-06-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

There are so many good instances in Warcraft. With the Cata there were a couple of revamps which added some interesting game mechanics to lower level instances. I like how Blizzard has changed things so not every low level instance is just a tank and spank.

As for my favorite instance it would have to be Black Rock Depths. During BC I used to run that instance over and over getting enchanting mats. In under 2 weeks I was able to buy fast flying for both Grumble and I. I like the fact that after the split at the beginning the instance is very linear but when someone new runs it doesn't seem to be linear. The instance is very organized chaos.

I also like the fact that this instance was the first one that involved any type of game mechanics to get through it. You have fights with adds, fights involving a whole group of mobs coming at you one after another, and the room where you have to get the torches and light the braziers within 5 minutes or your torch will go out.

Life Chat Headphones

2011-06-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

(This is not a paid advertisement. This is my personal review on a blog related product.)

A couple weeks ago I went out to look for a new set of headphones because my old ones were about 2 years old and constantly had a tone which was annoying. In the past I would always get Logitech headphones and they have always worked well for me especially since I refuse to buy headphones over $40. The store I went to had just stocked Microsoft Life Chat headphones. The ones I saw were $25 so I thought WTH I'll try them out.

When I was looking at them I liked the fact they were well padded. I have noticed when you use foam a lot of the sound is diffused so you have to turn up the volume to make up for this. My old headphones were always kept at 70-100% volume where these Life Chat ones I keep at around 20-25% system volume.

Another pet peeve is the volume control and mute buttons headphones have in the middle of the wire. What usually killed all other headphones I had was the wires inside that casing would come apart. When I would take apart that casing the wires were usually all frayed and up to 20% of them weren't even soldered correct. With the Life Chat headphones the connectors to the mute/volume are very sturdy. They probably aren't as good as a $150 set of headphones but they are much better quality than the others I've tried in the under $40 range.

The sound quality of the Life Chat phones are excellent! I usually keep my in game sounds low and when I'm flying on a drake my headphones rumble slightly giving me a bit of immersion feel. I have played around with various types of music and it has a lot of bass and completely clear sound quality.

This is the first time I have done a review besides replies on online stores from products I've bought but I have been so impressed with the cost and quality for these I had to let you all know. 8o)

Day 6 - Time Played

2011-06-07T04:10:00.000-07:00

Today is total time played. I have only listed Autumnn and Treeana because they are my main characters I play. All through BC Autumnn was the only toon I played. Once LK came out I started leveling Treeana and she was 80 for the last 9 months or so for LK.

Raiding 101 - Mechanics

2011-06-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am going to start a new series on basics of raiding. There are a lot of raid mechanics that has been used in previous expansions that are being brought back in Cata. With how many new players in LK tactics of older raids are not known to them. I am hoping this series will help you out when raiding. Know that not all of these apply to every boss fight. These are just guidelines that tend to repeat throughout the game.

Don't stand in front of the boss.

Unless you are the tank you shouldn't be in front of the boss. Many times bosses will have a cleave or cone effect that will cause a lot of damage to anything in front of it. Tanks have stats to help decrease this damage and the healers are focusing on them. A stray DPS standing in front will likely get one shot.

Dragons tail swipe so don't stand behind them.

Many of the dragon type bosses have a tail swipe which can cause a lot of damage and sometimes do a knock back. If you are a melee DPS don't stand any further back than the dragons hind leg. If you are ranged or a healer stand off to the sides or at the very least stand near max range behind the dragon.

Don't stand in stuff on the ground.

If you see the ground rumbling or some kind of fire or slime on the ground don't stand in it. Sometimes there is some sort of warning that something bad will be on the ground and other times it will just appear. Move away from these areas asap. Another thing is stuff falling from above. If you see stuff dropping on you then move out of the way. There are a few instances where you shouldn't move out of stuff on the ground like Shade of Aran in Kara's fire but those are few and far between. 95% of stuff on the ground should be moved away from.

You can't DPS or Heal when you are dead.

Not all fights are a DPS race. Some involve so much movement and environment awareness that slow and steady is the best option. If you are putting total focus on your rotation then you are not paying attention to the fire ball heading towards you. An old term for DPS was Glass Cannon. You can deal out a lot of damage but you can take very little. Blizz uses a lot of different mechanics and some are to throw people off of what they think is normal. Think of Heigan the Unclean in Naxx. Before you can DPS you have to master the dance so you wont die.

If you have to click something be there before hand.

This is another DPS flaw. There are some fights like Magtheridon where you need to be at a certain location to click on an object during the fight. When using an addon like DBM go to that location early enough so you are standing by the click for a few seconds at least. Don't try to DPS as much as you can and cut the travel time to the item short. You never know when there will be a knock back or stuff on the ground you have to run around causing you to take more time to get to the click.

If you are to CC then that is your main focus.

If you are in a fight where you need to CC a mob, such as the Moroes fight in Kara, then your main goal is to keep that mob CCed. You doing slightly less DPS will make up for a mob running around smacking healers and wiping the raid.

Not all bosses have argo tables.

I mentioned Shade of Aran before and I will again here. There are some bosses that are not tanked like how we are used to. Some pick a random person and they have no threat level. On these types of bosses the DPS can do everything they can to top out their DPS so long as they pay attention to other game mechanics such as stuff on the floor.

If you are sucked in you need to get out fast.

General rule is if a boss is able to suck you to them you need to get away from them as soon as you can. We have seen this with Shade of Aran in Kara, Karsh Steelbender in Blackrock Caverns, and Asaad in Vortex Pinnacle.

One of the best things you can do when learning a boss fight is to check out web pages or YouTube channels that have write ups and videos. Don't just read one write up about a fight because many times they will list only one tactic and usually have a lot of numbers and theory crafting which is just too much info for the first time raider in an instance. Watch a few videos and once you have the fight down pat then you can go back to theory crafting of the fight.

Day 5 - Fav Raid

2011-06-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of really fun raids in Warcraft. I love Kara, old ZG, Molten Core, and Black Temple. One night I just loved back in BC was our Gruuls/Mags night. I cannot pick one because both of those fights were awesome! I have added some videos of those fights at level. These were taken when Autumnn and Grumble were Alliance - Shandris.

Gruul's Lair

Magtheridon's Lair

Day 4 - Meaning/Significance behind your character’s name?

2011-06-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

Todays question, actually yesterdays but I missed it, is what is the meaning behind your characters name. When I first started MMOs in Everquest my main character was a Woodelf Druid named Autumnwynd Ravensoul. I named her this because Autumn is my favorite season and with her being a Druid I felt in her lore spirits would travel in the wind to speak to her.

Then in 2004 our second daughter was born and I named her Autumn Rainn. Autumn for the same reason and Rainn because I viewed Rain as a symbol for life.

When I started playing WoW I couldn't get the name Autumn because it was taken on my server so I changed it to Autumnn. Now that I have server switched she is now Autúmnn.

Day 3 - Favorite race and why?

2011-06-02T05:07:00.001-07:00

I have played both Alliance and Horde in the past 4-ish years I have been on Warcraft. Ally side I cannot say there is a race I like to play. I usually picked Night Elves in the past but I didnt really click with them and I hate the male model and position in Nelf society. If I had to create another Ally I would choose a Worgen.

Horde side I like all the races. I have had quite a few Taurens and my alt Hunter is a Troll. My new love is the Goblins. Autumnn has always been an engineer and the fact Gobbies are tinkerers is very appealing. I also like their small size. Being a Tauren I had to dismount to get through doors and running some instances like Shadowfang Keep were problems with the Taurens large size. I like how Goblins can get through anything and should always be expected to have a bomb in hand.

Day 2 - Favorite class and why?

2011-06-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever I play a MMO I usually end up going with 2 classes, Druids and Hunters. When I played EQ I had a Druid main and a Beastlord alt. Now with Warcraft my main is a Hunter and my main alt is a Druid. I never could get into playing cloth classes. I would like to know I can take a few hits and live. I also haven't gotten into playing plate classes. Plate classes in my mind = a tank. I know they can DPS and heal depending on the class but in the back of my mind I keep seeing a tank strobe light going off.

I like the Druids and Hunters because they are nature based. They are friendly with animals and can usually be found somewhere out in the woods. This is how I am in real life.

In Warcraft my favorite class would be the hunters because I like the fact they are a ranged DPS and also the ability to collect pets. Each pet I tame and use are tamed for a specific reason. I like the idea of the Dark Ranger Hero class and it reflects in my pet choices. I have a Ghost Wolf and a Slime as my main DPS and Tanking pet. I also have an array of ghost animals in my stable. I like the idea of almost being a hybrid of a Hunter and a Warlock.

Day 1 - When did you first start playing?

2011-05-31T05:14:00.000-07:00

I started playing Warcraft in Jan 2007. It was about 2 weeks after the release of The Burning Crusade and also about the same amount of time after my first server Shandris was created. I started playing MMOs in Dec 1999 with Everquest. My husband and I played that until 2005. My main characters there were a Druid and a Beastlord. With the release of WoW in 2004 it really hit Everquest hard. A lot of people on my server Antonius Bayle left EQ to play WoW.

My first character was a Troll Hunter named Jayla. I leveled her to 35. My husband wanted to play ally side so I made Autumnn, a Nelf Hunter. We have since then switched our mains to Horde. Now both Jayla and Autumnn are 85 and join the ranks of Treeana, my 85 Druid and Hellmaiden, my 82 Deathknight.

RIP Oniuki

2010-12-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

This past month the members of Hellions-Shandris lost a guildie and friend. It was something that took us by surprise. Our guild leader was told he had a heart attack. It was news to make your body go numb because he was only 35 years old. It made me stop and think about my own life.

Oniuki was a gamer through and through. Before playing Warcraft he played Everquest. It was really nice having another Evercrack addict to talk about old times with. In WoW he was known as a an achievement nut and strive to complete as many aspects of the game as possible. It wasn't uncommon for him to post retro raids so others in the guild could experience content that is usually skipped over.
A guildie mentioned last night he told some real life friends he lost someone close who was online and he received a "ho hum" attitude from his RL friends. I can understand this attitude from a person who isn't online much. Yet if you are online with the same group of friends sharing the joys and sorrows of life you become close. Our society is switching from an in-person mentality to a social networking one. I speak to friends and family more online than in person anymore.

As time passes more and more younger people are having heart attacks. They are people who generally seem healthy. In July 2009 my husband Grumble had a heart attack. He was 40 at the time. Thankfully we got to the hospital in time and he had no muscular damage but has 2 stints in his heart to keep those spots from collapsing. A week later a coworkers wife who was 39 had a heart attack. She survived but for over a month she was on life support and then sent to a nursing home to help her regain the ability to do daily activities.

So why are young people at a higher risk of heart attack than in the past? Our society is actually smoking less than in the past but it still is a risk factor. There are two points that have drastically changed; what we are eating and what we are doing.

People today are turning to premade food more than home cooked meals. Some precooked meals can be generally healthy but more and more premade foods have a whole slew of ingredients to make them cheaper and last longer. One big offender is salt. A person should have anywhere from 2000-3000mg of salt a day. One Cup-A-Soup aka ramen noodles have around 1000mg. That is 1/2-1/3 of your daily intake from just one serving.

Another bad ingredient in food today is trans fats. Not all fat is bad. Poly- and mono-unsaturated fats are considered "good fats". Saturated fats on the other hand clog arteries. A basic example is when looking at fats if they are liquid at room temp they are generally OK. Fats that are solid at room temp will probably be solid in your body. Trans fats threw this off because they are unsaturated fat with trans-isomer (E-isomer) fatty acid. Because of this fatty acid added to the unsaturated fat it causes the bad cholesterol in your blood to go up and the good cholesterol to go down.

Eating healthy does not mean having to eat expensive. Many store brands like Walmart brand and Dollar Generals brand usually do not contain bad ingredients like trans fats or MSG. If the only thing you look on food packaging is if it contains trans fats or not you will be helping out your body.

Another thing todays society is doing more of is sitting on their butts. Gamers, either PC or console, are big offenders. Thankfully with products like WII and Kinect the gaming industry is trying to get people up and moving around while still playing enjoyable games. You don't need to get a gym membership to stay healthy. Walking or biking instead of driving or walking up and down stairs are easy ways to raise your heart rate.

Usually heart attacks do not happen the way movies and TV portrays them. They usually start off slow. Because of this it makes heart attack dangerous to younger people because they try to shrug it off thinking they just have really bad heart burn. If you have pain in your chest, either sharp pains or feeling like your chest is constricting, cold sweats, trouble breathing, and/or pain in your jaw, neck, or extremities call 911 or head to your nearest hospital or doctors office.

MMOs and the Real World

2010-12-04T12:51:00.000-08:00

I saw the video below on Facebook this afternoon. It talks about the vast amount of gamers in the world right now and what kind of impact it has on real life. There are currently about half a billion gamers in the world right now and it is expected to increase to 1.5 billion in the next 10 years. What does this mean?

It means there is a huge amount of young people growing up in a world of computers. They are learning skills previous generations did not. They are learning ways of economics, tactics, problem solving skills, self worth, and social skills in a whole new light.

How does this have an effect on the real world? Let's start from basics.

Young people today are learning computers and electronics much sooner than previous generations. I am 31. I was born into a household with a hacker as an older brother. My first computer I experienced was in 1983 when he brought home one that talked. I was completely amazed. I then turned to Atari 2600. I learned how to count by playing Blackjack on it. Not all kids during this time had some sort of computer or gaming system to play. Today children are given computers before they can even talk. Todays generation have LeapFrog and other learning systems before they can effectively use them. Babies are being accustomed to using electronics before they can walk.

I didnt have a typing class until my freshman year of high school. In 1993 my high school only had basic typing and one DOS class. This continued until I graduated. My generation did not have the mass computer skills they do today. Because of the internet and gaming my typing words per minute is around 55 WPM with 95% accuracy. I was lucky to hit 15 WPM starting out high school. Todays kids, though they use slang, type at a much higher rate then the general populus 20 years ago. Typing skills has gone from a trade skill of middle aged women typing up papers for companies to an every day skill.

If you look at the founders of large internet businesses you will notice they are all of the younger generations. They are no longer the 50+ man who has money to throw around. They are in their 20-30s. Facebook, Myspace, YouTube. All were created by younger people. Armadillo Aerospace was founded by John Carmack, who is the creator of games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake. This company has won awards for their sub orbital space craft. Since the demise of NASA, private companies are our key to space travel, exploration, and research.

At least since Everquest was popular there has been college theses papers written on the economic and social impact online games have and how they could be used to better the real world. Gamers started out with the stigma of being non social fat 30 year olds living in their mommas basement. This is no longer the case. The gamer generation has created a huge social network. Whether it be from Facebook or in game, gamers have a much larger friend base and communicate with friends than their parents had. Families and friends are much more close knit because instead of calling every you know to tell them you are sick or your child won a prize at school all you need to do it log in and say "Hey, guess what!"

Games have taught the younger generation econonimic skills. What are the mottos of auction houses and bazars? Buy low and sell high. Farm the items people need. The harder it is to get an item or the more you need of it the higher you can sell it for. A person playing Warcraft will look at a situation and come up with an idea on how to make a profit. Before the last patch people were scrambling to get Zul'Grub faction before it was taken out of the game. Getting faction items was not hard for a level 80 to do solo but it took time. Time = Money.

How can these economic skills be transfered to the real world? A person could look around and see what people need that isnt advailable to the populus. Live in a small town without a place for people to sit down and talk to neighbors? Start up a coffee shop or diner. Buy products at a lower price and resell them at a higher one. If you have any sort of craft skills you can make up a lot of product and sell them on the internet.

MMOs also teach leadership skills. There have even been reports of people putting the fact they are a guild leader or officer on resumes. If you can succesfully run a guild or be a raid leader of a 25 man you have learned how to lead a group of sometimes unruley people. A good GL/RL can lead a group of people to achieve a common goal. They can problem solve situations and turn them into a positive result. Two guildies fighting can be viewed the same as two coworkers fighting. If you have a firm grasp of leading then you can lead your guild through an instance clear in a productive manner the same as leading your team of coworkers to finishing a project by its deadline. I am not saying just because you are a guild leader you should have a production managers position just because of that fact but MMOs can give you the skills to help you achieve a supervisors position.

So what have you learned through MMOs that you feel have impacted you in your daily life?

A New World Awaits

2010-11-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

So Cata will be released in less than a month. I get a feeling of excitement and a bit sad with all the things taking place. I have been running around the older zones lately getting various achievements and leveling alts. I go to all my favorite spots and have to wonder if it will still be there in a few weeks.

Blizzard has always looked at other MMOs and learned from their mistakes and their good points. One complaint about Everquest is the fact that there are so many zones but most of the lower level zones had no one in them. A years ago when Kunark was released the hit zone for the level 20s was Lake of Ill Omen. You could head there at any time and see 10-20 groups there fighting for spawns much like how the Barrens is in WoW. Then more and more expansions were released and the older zones were forgotten. Many EQ players wanted the older zones revamped so they were more popular. Granted Sony revamped a handfull of zones but overall the older zones laid unused.

Thankfully Blizzard isnt letting the classic zones end up in a screen shot graveyard. By updating these zones they are not only adding new content to old stomping grounds but they are also able to update the coding of these zones and 3d objects so they look better and load better.

Many people scream about how easy Blizz is making the game. It is a chant that has been heard for years. Yes they make it easier for the casual player but they need to do this to keep up with new and returning players. I started playing WoW right after BC came out. I leveled only my hunter Autumnn during that time. Even though I focused on one toon and had her to 80 within 9 months or so I didnt really get to see the raiding aspect of the game. I raided Kara to exalted and then some. I raided Gruul and Mags and got to see Void Reaver and Lurker fall once. Even with spending all my time with one character I only was able to raid about half of BC content at level.

With WOTLK I was able to raid much more and have the option of leveling other characters. During my LK time I have been able to raid up to Sindragosa on both my Hunter and Druid. I also have been able to level up another hunter and a DK to 80 and a shaman currently about 55. Also in LK we had an explosion of PUG groups. At least on my server there wasnt many pugs in BC and when there was it was failed Kara runs even when Sunwell was out. The increased use of PUGs have been a godsend to casual players who cannot raid with their guild because of slots or schedual.

The class changes for Cata has been both hated and loved by all. Personally I dont mind the changes of the Hunter class but I am uneasy about the changes to the Resto Druids. I want my tree back blizz! I have been leveling a Shaman the past few weeks and have fallen in love with their healing style. The release of Cata might just be the thing to get out of my safe zone and try tanking with my druid.

What changes in Cata have you seen that you love or hate?

Blog Cleanup

2010-10-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have gone through old posts and have deleted anything that will be out of date with the next patch and expansion. There is no reason to keep things like gems, enchants, raid pots, ect when they will be completely obsolete very soon. Until Cata comes out I will be focusing on Hunter basics and maybe post a thing or two about changes we will see.

The March 18 Movement - Bloggers should not be killed

2010-03-17T10:56:00.001-07:00

On March 18, 2009 Iranian blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi died in prison. He committed no crime besides blogging about the world around him. Some of us are from countries that recognize free speech but some are not. On March 18th help stand up for fellow bloggers.

Grumble has been Haxored

2010-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

Well the gold spamming bastards got Grumble. We have never shared our passwords so it was a keylogger. He hasnt played since the New Years and deleted his WoW folder a couple of days ago and it was in there apparently because no scanners are bringing up anything. His account is perma banned atm. His lvl 80s just have badge gear on and our alt guild bank is near empty. We have 4 tabs of mostly WotLK stuff and some BC items and 90% of it is gone. They only left us with the created food and AQ scarabs.

Everyone shell out the 6 bucks for an Authenticator. We have been saying for the past month we were going to get some for our accounts but we waited too long for one. Don't say "it will never happen to me" because we thought it wouldnt happen to us since we have played Everquest for 5 years and Warcraft for 4 years with no hacks.

Pugs

2009-12-29T04:13:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks people have been scurrying around getting badges and loot through the new LFG feature. There has been some cheers and jeers and anyone in a guild or listening to Trade chat has heard people venting, laughing, or praising their pug groups. Here are a few tips for those who are pugging.

Dear Mr RP Pally,

When doing H HoR with you it was funny when you did a bunch of emotes at the start but on the first pull you failed big time. You are suppose to AoE to get all the mobs pissed off at you. Yes the group knew the waves were LoS pulls but letting the mobs kill off people before the pull because you were trying to prove some kind of point was stupid. What was it you were trying to prove?

1337 people,

Yeah you will get some people in your group that have a 2-3k gear score. Usually this is just one person. Do not tell them to get better gear before doing heroics because they are in the gear from quests and normals and are ready to step into heroics. So what if you are doing 30-40% of the damage. So long as the person is trying and is not standing around doing nothing, they are attempting to get better gear through heroics and badges.

Busy people,

If you are in a situation where you need to keep going AFK then maybe this is not the time to be pugging. Your group does not want to wait around while you get your lunch out of the fridge.

To healers and tanks,

Now I have dinged my druid 80 on christmas and currently have a little over 4k gear score. I have worked hard for that. I know that I can heal all heroics through H ToC but the new ones I am unsure of. If you feel you are thrown into a heroic that is rough for you then tell the group to start with. Yeah you may get bitched at by some jerk but it is overall better to let the group know you are unsure of the instance than to play it by ear and hope for the best. You will get more cheers admiting it may be too hard for you than to try to act uber and kill off the group on the first 3 mob pull.

To "Off tanks,"

Yeah you are a plate class but unless you are the tank in the group you should not be getting as much damage as you are. The only time you should be tanking a mob is if one strays away and is attacking someone else in the group. Enable Target of Target or make an assist macro. An easy way to do this is to make a macro /assist focus then when you join a group target the tank and type /focus. This will make you assist the focused tank and you dont have to mess around with changing names in the macro.

Best memory of WoW

2009-11-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

So Blizz has released a mini website in honor of the 5-15 year anniversary of World of Warcraft and Warcraft. There is a video of the game designers talking about what their best memory of WoW. What is your favorite memory.

Mine is when the AQ gates opened on Shandris. I believe it was Dec 26th of 2007 when some guildies and I were roaming around when we noticed server wide messages of the event in Moonglade was finished. We headed down to Silithis for the hell of it to see if anyone showed up. Sure enough there were level 70s down there heading to the gate and logging out.

We went to the cities and yelled out what was going on because according to the server forums people were going to do it on New Years Day. About an hour later there were probably 200-300 people at the gates party'in. It was really cool because for the first time in my game experience that many Horde and Alliance got together for one goal... lots of blues. LoL

Someone rang the gong and everywhere was invaded by bugs and giants. Our guild joined up with a few others and took out some of the big Anubis type mobs outside and the big bugs in the tunnels. A couple of us stayed up until the wee hours of the morning farming the crystal spawns for lots of blues for our alts and the auction house.

Great Power Auras Tutorial

2009-11-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to get together a good Power Auras tutorial but I came across the one posted by Garwulf over at Huntsman Lodge. It is an excellent guide and anyone who is interested in using Power Auras or need some help with getting a good setup should check it out.

Extended Tuesday

2009-11-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

According to Enthati we will be having realm mantaince tomorrow.

We are performing our weekly scheduled maintenance this Tuesday, November 17th, beginning at 5:00 AM PST. No realms will be available for play approximately between the hours of 5:00 AM and 11:00 AM PST.

And as far as the rolling restarts today:

As you may have already noticed, we are currently initiating rolling restarts for all realms. These restarts first began at approximately 9:15 AM PST and will continue until each realm has been restarted. We anticipate each realm being down approximately 15 minutes.

Thank you for your patience as we look to complete this process as quickly as possible.

This restart is unrelated to weekly maintenance, but rather an unforeseen issue which required a rolling restart.

UPDATE: A guildie of mine was hacked into last night in the early hours. There has been a lot of comments in trade chat about others being hacked into last night. Also in the Customer Service forms there are people saying they had the same thing happen. Looks like the sudden rolling restarts may have happened to fix a security breach.