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Last week, President-Elect Obama appointed two net neutrality advocates to co-chair his FCC Transition Team. One of them, Kevin Werbach, who is an assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics, also happens to play a game that you all might be familiar with, World of Warcraft. Checking out his personal blog reveals not only his Armory Page, but also a few interesting tidbits about his experience with the game. According to the armory link given on his website, he is a level 70 Tauren Shaman specced Resto. Now, at only level 70, it seems like he’s been a little too busy…

Many players have been griping that the gear they have seen on their first five levels towards 80 have not been good enough. Generally speaking, these players are decked out with Tier 5/Season 3 gear, or better. Heck, one of my characters has a combination of heroic/Karazhan/Season 2 and their set is still going strong. Blizzard Poster Bornakk even addressed the lack of upgrades by stating that those with concerns should “keep leveling and keep instancing, you’ll find upgrades soon enough. :)” The flip side to this discussion is that this is exactly the opposite situation…

While there is plenty of serious news and questions coming out of the recent release of Wrath… there is a bit of a tangent I need to discuss. It is something awful that has cropped up that I have been blissfully sheltered from for the last several months. It is the reemergence of the DING. Let me just say I hate it when people say “ding” after they level, I absolutely despise it. With Wrath out and everyone leveling again our /g is once again filled with people begging for attention over their virtual accomplishments. There are certainly some dings that are less annoying than…

It looks like the fans’ reactions all of the fun white background, cut to machinima “What’s Your Game?” commercials with the likes of Mr T and William Shatner have spurred Blizzard to create a couple of new ones. The first is in the vein of the Mr T commercial with an audible director cutting in the middle. The second is more of a one liner with Steve Van Sandt of the Sopranos that harkens back to The Godfather: Part III. Check out both videos below: Of the two, I prefer the Ozzy commercial, but I have to say the Mr T one is my favorite of the bunch. I can just see Mr…

Most players who care already know what the Tier 7 loot is going to look like.  The loot from the retuned Naxxramas - which, by the way, has already been beaten - will be styled after the look from the old Tier 3 of vanilla WoW’s Naxxramas 40.  Styled doesn’t mean copied however, with Blizzard confirming that their will be some model upgrades and modifications, as evidenced by the difference in 10-man and 25-man varieties, which can be as little as a color palette swap. But what about beyond Tier 7 you ask?  Well, if you purchased the Collector’s Edition of Wrath of the…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Contests Blizzcore is a relatively new blog about Blizzard and World of Warcraft, and they emailed to let us know that they're kicking things off in style over there by giving out one of the most prized items in all of Azeroth: a Spectral Tiger Mount from the trading card game. To enter their contest, you just have to run over there and leave a comment on their post. As you probably know from entering our own contests over here, it doesn't get any more simple than that, and we like simple in all of its forms.Definitely…

Filed under: Hunter, Rogue, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Phat Loot Phriday, Wrath of the Lich King Last week, I asked what you all wanted to see here, and the answer I heard most was "leveling upgrades through Northrend." So we're going husky (around size 72-79) for a while -- here's a nice attack ring from an instance that levelers will probably be hitting up this weekend.Name: Jedoga's Greatring (Wowhead, Thottbot, Armory)Type: Rare Ring (Unique-Equipped, which means that you can only wear one at a time)Damage/Speed: N/AGallery: Phat Loot Phriday Continue reading Phat Loot Phriday: Jedoga's…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Factions, Guides, Wrath of the Lich King Throughout the lifespan of Ask a Beta Tester (now The Queue), people have asked if there are any factions like the Aldor and Scryers. Are there two factions like that, you get to pick one or the other? The answer is yes, but they don't play as big of a role. They're less prime players of the expansion, and more lolcat comedy relief.I'm convinced that this situation in Sholazar Basin isn't to be determined by which faction you like more, but which faction you hate less. The two warring factions are The…

Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Economy, Humor Good news, EU players -- now you can store your ale in a WoW stein also. 3 Point Entertainment, the group responsible for making those official World of Warcraft beer steins, has announced that they are now selling the steins overseas as well, meaning that even EU players can spend $80 on a cup that won't even fit in your cup-holder.We kid -- at $80, these things better be nice, and they probably are -- each one, we're told, is handcrafted and made of "fine grain stoneware," whatever that is. The company says that…

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Expansions, Factions, Guides, Wrath of the Lich King Reputation in Wrath of the Lich King works a lot like it did in The Burning Crusade, except refined. Most of your reputation will come from dungeon runs and questing, and not grinding mobs off in some random corner of the world. At the same time, they've thrown in some 'extra' hooks to some of the reputations that make it pretty different from what it used to be, for better or for worse. That's what we'll be digging into here.FactionsThe Horde and the Alliance each get a set of factions: The Horde Expedition…

After wiping a few times on the first encounter (ack), we managed to plow our way through the instance without a hiccup. This was a nice, fast instance because there was hardly any trash between the bosses. Managed to get myself [Life-Staff of the Web Lair] - pretty nice, eh? It is kinda ugly, but those stats are WAY too good to pass up A pretty nerve racking instance to heal, especially being the only class capable of healing. But we managed

This was a very cool looking instance. The final boss was a bit of a b*tch, but we managed to get her after the trouble. I don’t think I got any loot (Can’t really remember!), but this was a nice instance, because you could decide how you wanted to tackle it It didn’t have a defined start. I figured seeing as I was healing, I should respec. Good idea, but it will start to get expensive…

Been focusing on leveling so much that I haven’t gotten around to posting about the new instances. I won’t say much, I’ll just show you the good screenshots that I took (PS: some of them will be ‘clickable’ to view at a larger size). I managed to get myself [Holistic Patchwork Breeches] and [Skein Woven Mantle], and some good quest item loot. Pretty nice looking instance Stay tuned for The Nexus and Azjol-Nerub!

It came. It is new and shiny. So I took some screenshots, as I always do Click for larger view Borean Tundra. That’s all I’ve done so far… I haven’t been to Howling Fjord just yet - I’d like to be there now, but I’ve been in the queue to get into Nagrand for at least an hour, and my estimated time is still another 27mins. /snore Sorry about the lack of posts lately - as mentioned earlier, I’ve been finishing my studies. I’m now officially finished! So hopefully you will see more posts from me, and I’m still trying to get Josh to post more…

I know that the scourge plague has finished now, but I thought I might still share this image that I took whilst I was on my way to uni earlier this week: Yeah. I’m lame. But a lol’ed a little to myself

Taunt has a 20 yard range Mocking Blow and Berserker Rage are usable in Defensive Stance 540 Defense is required to be Uncrittable at 80 Block Rating isn’t useless anymore because Shield Block is on a 40/60 second cooldown You won’t get Crushing Blowed at level 80 Concussion Blow does 75% of your Attack Power in Damage even if the target is immune to Stuns 2 Strength = 1 Block Value (used to be 20 = 1) Resilience still helps you become Uncrittable

Long time readers will remember the original post on using Critters to gain a little rage boost and keep you in combat to prevent rage decay. This all really just ties into the concept of Rage Floating which I’ve touched on in the past too. After Patch 3.0’s nerf at level 70, we were all basking in rage and it didn’t seem like we’d have to worry about rage ever again. Well I don’t know about you, but I can still rage starve myself if I try. If you can’t, you probably aren’t Heroic Striking or Cleaving enough. With more aggressive use of HS and Cleave,…

As many of you probably know, I’m not a fan of leveling. I don’t have any kind of guide for leveling from 1-70 here because I never plan on leveling a Warrior from level 1 to 70 ever again. It’s just not what this site is about. That being said, I’ll let it slide this 1 time to share with you the guide that I’ll be following from 70 to 80 courtesy of Xav of Premonition. Xav’s Instance grinding to 80 outline For those looking for something a little less party oriented and a little more solo oriented with a bit more advice, check out Ciderhelm’s Wrath…

Now unless you’ve been under a rock the last while, you’ve no doubt noticed that Shield Wall went from having a 30 minute cooldown to having a 5 minute cooldown along with Retaliation and Recklessness. What you may not know is that whereas in the past these all shared the same cooldown making it so you’d never use Retaliation and Recklessness, now they don’t and as a result, you should be using them. Retaliation The safer of the two, once you’ve loaded up the boss with 5 Sunders this ability can give you a nice burst of damage. A word of caution though, the…

You might remember a while back I gave you a picture of what talents to avoid in the pre-3.0 spec world. The image below represents what talents you should be avoiding at level 80. It should be noted that just because talents such as Impale and Piercing Howl are shown as available at level 80 does not mean that they should be pursued at level 70. (In fact, I’d suggest avoiding entertaining either route until you’ve got access to more talents.) It’s true that I’m suggesting you can access a number of talents that are very situational. This is acceptable as long as we…

Sitting in my chair today I realized I have WAAAAY to many toons to play.  I have my level 70’s Jugzwei and Darrken who I woud like to level to 80 I have 2 DK’s, one alliance(gnome cuz they just look funny) and one horde.  Both of which I am leveling with Koara’s Mages, her alliance Mage and her horde Mage.  We also have a few weeks left of our recruit a friend which we need to finish up.  All in all I have tons on my plate and the problem is what should I focus on. Too many choices and not enough time.  Rotating between them seems to be the popular choice lately. …

When you are able to log on, WotLK is all we ever wanted.  But due to the influx of people returning for the expansion just logging on is hard enough.  I have the luxory of working off hours so the times I log on the queue is non-existant but during primetime hours i personally have seen 600+ queues and some have reported higher. All I can say is that WoW has never been bigger or better, and the reports of Max exodous due to other games are greatly exaggerated, WoW is not going anywhere!

Updating the blog has been on my to do list for a few days now but with work and other RL factors I just haven’t been able to do it.  At this point we stand at a crossroads of what to do and where to go with the blog. I had originally planne don using the blog to track the progress of whoever I decide to level throughout Wrath of the Lich King and I still plan on doing that but I would also like to narrow down the scope of the blog.  Start focusing on one thing.  I love the altism premise I have been using but it is a big chore to undertake when leveling so many different characters.

Not like every blog in the world doesn’t have it’s downtime, I have had myself have experienced a rather long drought in worthwhile ideas for posts.  I have been pretty busy with work and real-life so I haven’t been able to accomplish much in WoW. Koara and I are still working on some alt leveling.  We have our Shaman/Rogue combo at 43/42 respectively.  As opposed to waiting for them to hit 60 to start our next coupling of Lock/hunter we decided to spread our time between the two groups at once.  Due to the massive amount of leveling we have done lately we decided to go…

Out of everything expected with the most recent patch, my most looked forward to feature was the barbershops.  I was quite hasty when creating Jugzwei at first and thought a mohawk was going to be pretty sweet.  I got board of it quick and grew tired of looking at him.  Now with Echos of Doom released I can change that.  So now behold Jugzwei in his new Rasta braids and new tusks!

I can't wait for the expansion to hit, but before it does I have a question. Once I get WotLK how do I get my character to Northrend? (...)

I have been getting a lot of questions asking about the World of Warcraft achievement interface, so I put together this video breaking it all down. (...)

This posted by Ghostcrawler states that not all the class changes in 3.0.2 will go live today. Not very good news today while waiting for the servers to come back up. (...)

I did a quick video rundown of all the new stuff coming in patch 3.0 Hey guys, I just spent all day today downloading/installing/patching the new World of Warcraft patch 3.0. (...)

While checking out Brewfest today it became clear to me that some people would really like to know how to make more tickets with the Ram racing event. Here's a quick video on how I do it. (...)

I played forever last night until 3:30am and got one some more after work. No harm in eating dinner, doing some chores, and watching Kitchen Nightmares with the wife, right? Ha! After a couple of minutes, it gave me an estimate of 43 minutes with 1143 left to go. I started writign this post and came back to a 78 minute wait! Forget it… I headed on over to another realm, such as the sunny pastures of Velen to play Deadr, who has been stagnant for a year at 67 up in Netherstorm. Time to take him across on the zep to see what life is like as a horde in Northrend. I’ve got my…

Here it is, boys and girls! The big day has arrived. I got to my local GameStop at 11:15 and there was a line of people up around 150. By the time we were all there, I’d say there were 200 present to go home happy campers and gamers. By campers, I mean those total losers who got their game 8 minutes before me. Yes, 8 minutes. Lord knows what time they got there, but I spent all of 53 minutes of my life getting my copy. The saddest thing I saw was a kid about 12 years old trying to be cool by being there at midnight. The problem: his 40-year-old mom wearing a man’s wife-beater and…

Since WoWace.com stopped working and pissed me off to no end, I found an alternative and got my addons updated in about 3 minutes from discovery to WoW loading up. It’s available for Mac (Leopard and Tiger), Linux, and Windows for free! Can’t beat that, and now I can start playing again. I’m 24 hours behind and ready to catch up.

My Mac has been downloading the update for about 2 weeks, now. One was 1.17GB and the other was 390MB. The patch notes from the PTR look like they transferred over, but I didn’t do a line by line comparison. To my amazement, the patch installed and brought up the login screen with the new animation. I recorded it using Jing. It’s 180MB, but worth the wait until the end… you’ll see why!

I don’t know about you, but I’m pumped about the big patch day tomorrow. It’s slated on the login screen for a 12-hour maintenance window. We’ll see how long they really stay offline, but it will be well worth it. I remember the fun we had when they released 2.0 before BC came out, and this has even bigger gameplay changes: haircuts, no melee spell interrupts after two hits, and ratings affecting spells and melee. Here are the full PTR patch notes, to fill you in on what is most likely going to be in the game tomorrow evening: World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.0.2 The…

Mages. They used to be a dime a dozen. Our second highest level Mage is Stop (clocking in at a health level 4!) There’s generally two places to recruit players from: On server: This is the typical route most guilds will go through. Off server: A little tougher and a little rarer. Players that transfer are generally a good breed. I’ve delegated Sydera to the role of recruiting off server. So far, she’s done an excellent job scouting out players and prospects. She’s a lot more familiar with the process and the effort required with offserver players. When guilds recruit off server,…

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. - Newt Gingrich I’ve scheduled a tentative 10 man Naxx on Saturday. We’re projected to have around 8 players that are capable of reaching that level by then. After that, I’ll have no choice but to pug the other 2 slots. Since I’ve hit 80, I’ve started working my way through a few heroics to try and get some badges. Let me tell you, it is not easy. It has been such a long time since I had to work this hard to heal. I have to drink after every pull. Every cooldown needs to be noticed and…

While some of us (ahem, Matticus) are already level 80, most WoW players are still in the thick of the leveling process. I thought it might be interesting to share some of my impressions so far with all of you, and of course to invite everyone to add their own thoughts and ideas. Here’s what’s been going through my mind so far. 1. The art is amazing! Everything feels sharper, more rich, more detailed than previous versions of the game. 2. I love the shadows. The world has a depth that it never did before. 3. I really appreciate quests where I don’t have to kill 6 of this mob…

I hit level 80 last night around 8:45 PM. Most of the player curve is around the 74-75 area so I’m considered “ahead” of the curve. Although I could credit my leveling speed to my “Asian racial (25% extra stamina when really focused on a goal, cooldown: once every 365 days)”, there’s a few things to keep in mind if you really want to get to 80 as fast as possible. Note, you’ll miss out on a lot of the lore and the story. But I’m proceeding on the assumption that it is not a primary concern. Accept all quests in the area without reading the backstory. 4 out of 5 times, the…

Time to catch up on some much needed sleep. Shutting off all my alarm clocks. ***SECURITY FOOTER*** :: Thanks for reading a post from World of Matticus! "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky Back to our Regular Blogging (Ding)

Like everyone else I have been trying to play as much as I can over the past 4 days or so. Graylo is now a couple bars into level 75 and running through mobs like a mack truck. My alts are obviously resting except when I need them to DE something or check the AH. Overall my experience has been good, but I would like to go over some of my first impressions.My Build:As you know I listed my planned leveling build in a post a couple of days ago. On Wednesday I raided right up until I went to get my copy and in my excitement to get to Northrend I forgot to respec before I got on the boat. This…

OMG Nerf the President of United States Achievement.Its not fair that only one person gets to have it every 4 years and some people can get it twice. Not all of us have the time and money to work 16 hours a day for 22 months to get an achievement.All Blizzard does is design content for end game raiders and the most hardcore of players that don't have real lives. Why does Blizzard habitually ignore more casual players? If blizzard doesn't remove this achievement and title or nerf it so that it is available for every one I am going to cancel my subscription and quit the game.(Sorry, guys. I had…

You know it's funny. We attempted KJ on 3 different nights before Monday. The first night we consistently got him down to 40% but realized there was a problem with our positioning and where the Shields were being cast. The second night we spent another 3 hours and almost killed him. Several attempts were below 10%, the best of which was 4%. We just needed to iron out a few kinks. Our third night was just an hour this past Sunday. We didn't expect to kill him that night because we didn't have a full raid and just wanted to practice collapsing. All of this lead up to Monday night that is…

I don't know about you guys, but with the expansion coming out in less then a week I am starting to feel a little nostalgic. Now that the game is about to move on to a new chapter it is hard not to look back at the 2 years we played the Burning Crusade and think about both the highlights and the hard times. Here are some of my highlights and lowlights from the BC era of WoW.Favorite 5-man Instance:Shadow Labyrinth - The reason I like Shadow Labs is the variety of bosses. There were all fairly different and definitely presented a challenge before I would fully raid geared. I know a lot of…

Wrath of the Lich King is being released in just over a week, and I think a lot of us are starting to think about how we are going to level. With that in mind I have come up with a little guide talent guide for moonkin looking to level from 70 to 80.IntroductionIt is important to remember that leveling is different then raiding. Both play styles are technically PvE, but the nature of the fights are fundamentally different.Raid builds are created for maximizing personal DPS over the long hall and buffing raid members to increase raid wide DPS. Survivability is important but predictable. As…

Im one of the insane levelers. Not entirely insane to already be 80, but Ill be there tomorrow afternoon no doubt.I've slept about 6 hours in the past 48. My stomach is in knots, my eyes are throbbing, and I'm not sure if I can feel the fingers on my right hand. Its okay though, I'm about to ding 78 and all is right with the world.When this grind is over, and boy is it a grind, the real game starts, and I can sit back and relax.Are YOU enjoying Wrath? Its certainly something to take your time with and enjoy, even if I'm not :)

It feels like Christmas.Like a Christmas in which your parents forgot to put presents under the tree.I can only hope that this server bullshit is fixed soon and that Wrath goes accordingly.I'll see you all in Northrend!

The day is approaching, or should I say the night?I've had my copy pre-ordered from my local Game Stop for some time now.I'm going to stand outside in 20 degree weather, first in line, and get Wrath of the Lich King. I'm going to brave the server crashes! Stay up all night!With my brand new case of Bawls!Bawls Gaurana is quite possibly the best energy drink ever created. Not only is it delicious (like a fruity Sprite) but it's in cool packaging, it picks you up and keeps you going.... and... Its entirely promoted as a geeky Gamer Drink.Combined with my Bawls, a fresh bag of coffee, a brand…

While I don't have anything all important and number crunching awesome.... I do have a rant.Wild Growth, the new druid AoE Healing spell... was one of the few things I was really looking forward to in Wrath. I mean, REALLY looking forward to. Yesterday I was extremely distraught to read this."Based on feedback from this forum, elsewhere and our own brainstorming, what we are thinking about right now is something like a 6 sec cooldown for Circle of Healing and Wild Growth." - Source and MoreSomething about this just doesn't sit right with me.I've been healing on my druid for only the BC…

Several classes have gotten new abilities recently that give them an aoe knock back. I have two of these classes, one being my elemental shaman. While I love this knock back, Thunderstorm, bunches and bunches..... it really pisses me off when its used inappropriately.Things knock backs are great for, aoe farming, pvp, getting a mob off you in certain circumstances during instances.Things knock backs suck for... Raiding. During Hyjal the other day, nothing pissed us tanks off more than people knocking back 10+ mobs while they're being tanked. Theres no point to doing this, and simply throws…

I logged onto my priest for a bit last night. I still have a few of those elite quests in Hellfire Peninsula to do, but I'll be skipping those for a while and moving on to Zangarmarsh for a bit.I noticed on my way there that I was 1 experience point away from hitting 64. This seemed a little weird to me, but I think what happened is that with the new faster leveling from 60-70 I would have hit level 64 with the amount of experience I had already into level 63.I sort of expected in that situation that they would leave you at the same percentage of the way to the next level that you were at…

As you may know, my WoW time is fairly limited, and as such I have to find ways to get the most out of the time I have to play.One thing I hate doing is traveling long distance, and this game requires a lot of it, so I find ways to travel without cutting into the time I could actually be leveling. The best way to do this is to use those little windows of time you have where it isn't enough to really play, but you don't have anything else to do in the meantime, or just where you can't give it your full attention but you can check in every so often.Some examples of this are maybe you're waiting…

Do I ever expect to get every class up to the level cap? No way. I would say my only aspiration is to get one character to the level cap before another expansion comes out and raises it on us again.Right now I have my druid sitting at level 70, but for some reason I'm not particularly excited about taking him to Northrend. I'm not even really sure what my hesitation is. Everyone says it's awesome, and I know it will be, but I'm just not a big fan of dealing with crowds of players all doing the same quests.I'd rather wait a bit, work on other characters in the empty Outlands (well not too…

Remember how I said I'd be happy with getting that mage to 55 by the end of this week? Well apparently I wasn't going to be happy with that, so I got her to 55 yesterday. Not only that, but I also managed to finish the death knight starting zone with my human, then made an undead DK and went through the whole thing with him.How did I find the time for that, you ask? Well Sunday I decided to play some soccer with some friends. Ended up spraining my ankle, or just bruising it really bad. Either way, I could barely walk yesterday, so I decided to stay home from work and let it rest. I'm…

After getting off work last night I stopped off at Best Buy to grab the expansion. As expected, they had a full display right at the entrance so I didn't even have to go searching for it. I got home and installed while changing and getting ready for the hockey game. By the time I left it was fully installed and patched, although I ended up missing the first few minutes of the game because of it.Fast forward to later that night, after the game, and I decided to load up WoW for a bit before bed so I could create my death knight and see what all the fuss is about. Logged in and went to configure…

So it appears that kitties will be getting an AoE ability: Yeah, if I can offer a suggestion, please don’t disregard a player’s argument just because their class is good in aspects of the game you care about that the OP may not. We think we are going to remove the cooldown of Fan of Knives altogether. There are just too many PvE situations where rogues feel at a disadvantage without a reliable ranged attack. The example that came up recently is Meathook in CoT:Stratholme and having the spawning zombies causing pushback on your healers. Rogues can FoK once and then have to run over…

With the release of Wrath of the Lich King and the new level cap, many Trees have found themselves donning a suit of feathers and Moonfire-spamming their way to level 80. Coincidentally, the U.S. celebrates its annual Thanksgiving next Thursday, November 27 or — as many affectionately term it — "Turkey Day." In celebration of this holiday, I’d like to encourage visitors to send me screenshots of their feathered selves … or some variation of, be it in Northrend or elsewhere! The submission requirements are similar to those for this year’s earlier Arbor Day…

To steal a page from Kalon's excellent FAQs for Bear and Cat, I've written a Tree FAQ. This FAQ should hopefully bring Restoration Druids up to date with all the changes to healing in Wrath without requiring them to read dozens of posts with multiple iterations of talents and abilities that may or may not be obsolete. I know there are things that I have left out or forgotten, though, so I'd really appreciate if readers could contribute their own questions — and answers, too, if you have them — in the comments. I'll sort through them all, do my best to provide answers, and add them…

While waiting for our Lich King installs to complete, Mr. Phae was nice enough to explain to our dog why she wouldn’t be getting much attention from us this week. He summarized the epic, arcing plotline of Arthas and Northrend as such: There was some guy in a big sheet of ice. And he froze some other guy. And now we have to fight ‘im. Sometimes I’m not really sure why we’re on a roleplay server. Original Post from Resto4Life | Resto4Life Tree Shirts! The only shirt slot with +20 Spirit!

Posts I Loved We’re So Heroic by Nicole Chartrand Here are a selection of my favorite writings from other blogs: The Day the World (of Warcraft) Stood Still Posted just before the recent Presidential election here in the U.S., Rhoelyn provided a wonderful parody of the conflict between Azerothian “politicians,” Saurfang and Vargoth! Loves it! Despair Aendi provides an RP-based perspective on the recent zombie invasion. A must read for anyone who found nothing but aggravation in this world event. Moonkin Builds: Leveling to 80 Don’t just take my word for it. If you’re looking to…

QuestHelper is definitely one mod you must not be without if you are leveling your character. Best of all, not only does it work in Vanila WoW, and the Burning Crusade, it works for Wrath of the Lich King too! Since I haven’t had any alts (until the refer-a-friend promo) and leveled a character in awhile, I don’t know of any other alternative mods to this, but this mod is amazing. It seriously makes questing 20 times easier. No more need to alt-tab in and out to look at WoWHead or Thottbot. Everything is there for you in-game. You can download this nifty little mod here at Curse…

I got my achievement for obtaining 50 different non-combat pets the other day. This wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, and now that these pets no longer take up my precious bag space, I went and hunted some down. First off, WarcraftPets will be your bible for this achievement. It is an excellent resource for all things, everything to do with non-combat pets. Read it, loved it, bookmarked it! For me, I only had to hunt down the remaining 20 or so pets I needed to reach 50. The first thing I did was teleport to each Major City except Ironforge. In Darnassus and Exodar, there was a pet…

“Prince Keleseth, of the San’layn, is the Scourge overlord of Howling Fjord and the ambassador to the Vrykul. Prince Keleseth is also the first boss of Utgarde Keep. Utgarde Keep is the first dungeon hub located on the shores of Lake Cauldros in the Howling Fjord of Northrend. Inhabited by the Vrykul (led by King Ymiron), a half-giant Viking-like race bent on proving their strength to the Lich King, they are raising the most worthy of their warriors to serve him beyond the grave here at their main base of operations. Utgarde Keep is the first 5 man entry level dungeon of Utgarde…

Don’t Panic! I’m still alive! Well there has been lack of activity here lately, and you all know why. Wrath of the Lich King was released last week, and like many players out there, I’ve disappeared. I’ve been devoting all my free time running around Northrend doing quests, killing mobs, and killing Horde. Fun times. I’ve been taking my time, and enjoying my travels through Northrend. I am in no rush to get to level 80. I took my time leveling in the Burning Crusade expansion, and I will do the same with this one. I am currently only level 72, and half way to 73.

I sure did accomplish a lot of stuff that I’ve put off when I realized Wrath of the Lich King was being released today. While everyone was out stockpiling mats for their professions, and doing dailies to save up gold the day before, I am finishing up some of the few goals I have set for myself. Goal 1: Level Tuanass to 60 Remember that goofy looking Tauren from Halloween? With the Refer-a-Friend promotion running out of time soon, me and my friend decided to go back and level up some characters. Tuanass was my next target. And by “leveling” I meant have a level 70 Warrior…

Just like many many others i've stepped on to the Lich King's soil yesterday... i had done it before in the beta but this time it actually mattered.What else was new was that i was actually gonna do some questing and not just pass through area's but would go to where ever the quests would take me.In just half a level of XP i've already seen quite a few things i missed when glancing the area before and many of the quests are really good fun, something i couldn't have commented on earlier aswell.I'm more a picture-guy though... often a movie is more about how pretty it looks then the storyline,…

With the zombies gone i was thinking just how it was and what a shame it would be that this would be gone and lost to us now, at least untill they decide to re-use it for the next expansion.And suddenly an idea sprang to mind: A Zombie Battleground!Maybe you could see it as a PvP thing but with some tweaking i might actually be on an idea here.Imagen people joining the Zombie Battleground, let's call it the Mall for now.... it wouldn't matter what the Alliance-Horde ratio was but the server tries to balance it a bit but if queues become too long it will be less and less worried about the…

I've been a jerk this weekend... and i had more fun that i had in such a long time in this silly game.I'll start with confessing what i did first, i found it quite creative but i'm guessing i'm not the only one who thought of it..First you would get infected by the zombie debuff, after 10mins (later this became 5 and is currently even shorter) you would turn into a zombie. Faster if you would bubble, iceblock, use stoneform or.... die. What i would do is get infected in Shattrah and then take my flying mount and would go find a player in Hellfire or Zangermarsh, the trick was to find a…

Zombies in Wow!!! How cool is that?I'm assuming here you have haven't totaly missed it, for those who did and didn't read it anywhere else: part of the expansion "opening" is a spreading plague which will turn people into zombies which can only be cured by death.Being a zombie gives you a bunch of new skills (and disables your regular) and you have the ability to create more zombies from players and npc's, that is if they don't kill you first! Zerging like a good pack of zombies is the secret as been shown in many movies already.Phase 2 has already started making it easier to get infected…

That's what we are dealing with currently... we all feel like gods, superheroes if that's more your thing... we're so bloody overpowered and Outland's content has been downranked so bad that without any challenge you do the things which were challenging before.People are pugging Gruul now and by pure force they kill the boss in recordtime, not slowed down in any bit by lack of knowledge, experience or even skill.Suddenly every guy and gal in greens can go cause havoc in Karazhan and see content they never had dreamed of seeing... it's a good thing i guess and it might even gear out a few…

Many will agree, Blizzard has done an amazing job on spicing up the quests available in the latest expansion. There isn’t as much of the “Go here, kill 30 of these, and come back” quests that we’re used to, but rather a small smattering of these quests interspersed with quests that have you flying dragons, operating tanks, dropping bombs, collecting objects and so on. In addition to the new types of quests that are available in abundance, Blizzard has also introduced what they call “Phasing” to quests, wherein players participating in certain chains will…

Frequent visitors know, I seldom post screenshots. Not because I don’t like them or don’t think people are interested (although, you may not be for all I know), but mostly because I forget to take any most of the time. Sure, I get screenies for big events like boss kills, final dings and so on, but that’s usually it. I do have a few other “miscellaneous” screenshots rotting on my hard drive, though, and finally decided to share. They don’t go back very far, character history-wise, since I switch computers or reformat hard drives so frequently, but hopefully…

If you’ve set foot in Northrend, you’ve no doubt encountered a number of new factions already. Blizzard has delivered on their promise of making faction grinding much easier in Wrath–purchase a faction tabard at Friendly to wear it into any dungeon to gain reputation with that faction. But, which factions should you be gaining rep with, and why? Let’s take a look! The Argent Crusade The Argent Crusade Quartermaster, Veteran Crusader Aliocha Segard, can be found in Icecrown. Cloak of Holy Extermination - Honored Zombie Sweeper Shotgun - Revered Boots of the Neverending…

Since release, I’ve played on what many refer to as a “carebear” server, and that’s the way I liked it. Sure, I’ve made alts on PvP servers before to see what all the fuss was about, and generally enjoyed the experience. But, none of these alts made it past level 30, as so the experience was extremely limited at best. Now I find myself uprooted from Medivh, my carebear home, and replanted on Ner’zhul–a PvP server on the infamous BG9. Let me give you a small taste of what questing has been like for me here, with a foray into “Live…

As you’ve probably noticed, like many others, I disappeared into my little nerd dungeon Wednesday night to install and enjoy Wrath of the Lich King. Monday brought with it a return to reality and the resumption of business as usual. There are, however, a few noteworthy occurrences that have happened since then that you may wish to be privy to. Most notably, I have transferred to Ner’zhul to join Matticus and company in Conquest. The decision to leave Medivh, a realm I have been on since release, was not an easy one. It was something I had given much thought to over the past…

Eee! My Mirror's Edge "Runner's Bag Bundle" was waiting for me at my doorstep when I returned home from work. The bundle included the game and a limited edition Timbuk2 messenger bag. The outside of the bag: Inside flap: Inside flap, detail:

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed delivered the main thing I wanted and expected out of this game: to be a super powerful bad ass character that uses Force powers to kill and destroy stuff. I finished it about a month ago on Apprentice and got the Jedi ending. The game play stayed true to what I experienced in the demo. My main problem with the game play was that sometimes I found myself fighting enemies off screen. This was irritating, however I got used to it. One game play feature I wasn't too keen on was the timed button combinations you needed to execute to do special moves on bosses. I…

I just finished my first play through the Mirror's Edge demo. My impressions are positive on the whole. My main problem with Mirror's Edge at the moment is the control scheme learning curve. The transition from 2D platformers to 3D platformers has been difficult for me. I'm actually not that skilled at first person or even third person platform games. The Metroid Prime games, which are in first-person perspective, had very tight controls for the most part, but the more difficult jumping areas frustrated me because I couldn't see my bloody feet. It was the same with Star Wars: The Force…

Something odd happened to me this week. Early one morning, my internet went down for a couple of hours. I tried resetting my modem to no avail. I was irritated because I'd have to take time out of my day to call Comcast and tell them to fix my internet. I posted a tweet on Twitter to vent my frustration:brinstar: OMG. I have no internets at home. Comcast, you suck! I never had these problems with Verizon or AT&T DSL.Later on, my internet access returned. However, I'd received an @reply to my tweet:ComcastBill: @brinstar send me your account info i can help?Holy crap! Comcast tweeted at…

Blogs.com is a relatively new site created by Six Apart that wants to help readers find the best blogs around. They also feature Top 10 Lists from "celebrity bloggers and influencers" to help readers find new blogs. They have a section under Entertainment that collects lists of gaming blogs, too. I was recently invited to be a guest author there to contribute a list of 10 game blogs that I enjoy. My Guest Top 10 List is right here. I couldn't include absolutely every one of my favourite game blogs, but this list in general reflects the kind of content that I enjoy reading.

Judd W asked for some tips on tanking as Retribution. So here are some. Retribution tanking works pretty well in 5-mans, as Protection armor now has a fair amount of strength on it. Your biggest problem is that you are missing most of the mitigation talents, so your healer has to be prepared.Make sure Righteous Fury is always up. Because Ret has extra threat reduction from Fanaticism, keeping RF up is crucial. I refresh RF if it goes below 10 minutes.Wear Protection Armor and a high-DPS 1-hander. Stamina, Defense, and Strength are your key stats. I've found that good tanking gear usually…

I forgot to mention that the new Repentance is very useful, especially when tanking as Retribution.It gives you a ranged pull that's also Crowd Control. It's like sheep-pulling, only the mobs run towards the tank instead of the mage.I'm so used to Repentance being mediocre in PvE that I didn't even have it on my bar and was just body-pulling. Then there was a pull where I could not get close, and I remembered Repentance had been changed, so I pulled it out and it worked beautifully. I used it a lot for the rest of the instance.

I finished up Borean Tundra today. Coriel is now 72. I did take a brief detour to Howling Fjord and did the first few quests so that I could do Utgarde Keep. I've done both Utgarde Keep and Nexus now, tanking as Retribution (in protection gear).Tanking as Retribution isn't too bad, but you're definitely squishier, and sometimes your health can drop very fast. I'm thinking about switching to Protection, but I like Ret for general solo questing.One thing about Retribution soloing is that it is much easier with Seal of Command. Seal of Blood does more damage, but the recoil means you have to…

The quest The Art of Persuasion in Borean Tundra was a bad call on Blizzard's part.I was okay with the Death Knight torture quest because it fit the Death Knight thematically. But this one is just out of place. Especially ironic considering the quest giver states, "You see, the Kirin Tor code of conduct frowns upon our taking certain 'extreme' measures - even in desperate times such as these" as the reason he is handing the prisoner over to you to be tortured.My immediate thought was, "Hello, paladin here!"It's especially annoying because it's on the main line to Coldarra and the Nexus. If…

Dear people on General Chat/Forums,Ever notice how anyone who plays more than you has no life? And anyone who plays less than you is not dedicated enough to deserve epics?It's amazing how you managed to hit that perfect balance.

Very quick note.. I’m currently spec’d hybrid Siphon Life/Felguard.. but I miss my true affliction roots. I stumbled upon a little tidbit. Things of note.. only lasts 12 seconds.. so you can’t use haunt to easily get two stack. If you’re 5/5 then a two stack adds 10% damage to your dots.. and reduces hots on the target by 30%. Add to that.. Haunt added 20% more damage to your dots. So 30% more damage from your dots.. nothing to sneeze at. So.. if I were toying with an inkling of a rotation.. I’d be tempted by something like: Shadow Bolt, Haunt, other dots, repeat…

I’m starting to not like this. Well ok… leveling has been ok but not exactly challenging. I’ve been distracted the last few days and haven’t really done much in the way of leveling.. but really I want to talk about instances. So far I’ve done Utgarde Keep, The Nexus, Azjol-Nerub, and Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom. The only one that was even slightly challenging was The Nexus.. and that was only because the pugged tank did not understand tank kiting. Even then, we ended up killing the last boss when the Ret Pally picked her up. I was level 72 when we did…

Do your dailies! But I’m leveling That’s no excuse!! Do your dailies! Yesterday, while I was 72 I did 4 dailies, they each gave me ~10g and 20k xp. Yes. 20k. This morning at level 73 I did the Isle dailies. The quests from the first two buildings gave 8.5k per quest. The quests from the last building and the inn gave 12.5k xp each. I think I got 1/4 of a level. I’ve only quested in Howling Fjord and barely started Dragonblight. So far I’ve found the following dailies: Break the Blockade Alliance Westguard Keep, Howling Fjord. Take painfully slow blimp in slow circuit…

I have made my first cut of a pre-Naxx gear set. Oddly, it doesn’t look too hard to acquire. Most of my pieces are pretty good already. I just need to fiddle a few pieces into place.

It turns out I’m totally out of practice with leveling. I keep getting full bags.. or noticing that I’m running out of shards (I’ve resolved to use Spellstones and Soulstone myself constantly). And what’s the deal with picking up 8 different kinds of food? My bags over floweth with 1-2 pieces of “stuff you eat”. I’m a warlock FFS.. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.. well except for Blackened Basilisk. Speaking of which.. I’m so totally eating basilisk while I level. I have 3 stacks in the bank.. that should last me until…

I just caught this over at MMOG Nation. Was not expecting Tabula Rasa to close. I figured they would fight it out for a good while before they ended up deciding to pull the plug. To the Tabula Rasa Community, Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we’ve achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn’t performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but…

Zubon sent out a call to the blogosphere to shake the dust off the ancient tomes of code and review old games.  It was a toss up between two of my favorite oldies: Sacrifice and Alice, and since mpb did a good job old-reviewing Sacrifice that leaves me with… American McGee’s Alice Alice was the nodal point between the flurry of id Tech 3 (Quake3) engine licenses and Lewis Carroll’s works residing for all to pluck in the public domain.  Add in the estranged imagination of an ex-id Software employee and an old Nine Inch Nails musician and strip away any Disney taint and…

“We just really wanted to shatter the cupcake-pizza dichotomy. It’s just existed for too long.” - Asa Wilder, on the origin of the “cupzza.” Hat tip to The Blog of Diminishing Returns via Marginal Revolution. Marginal Revolution also links to the second place: “If reports are true and Barack Obama is really going to tap widely respected CBO Director Peter Orszag to head up the Office of Management and Budget … then I believe that would make him the highest-ranking blogger in the history of the United States of America.” The Onion AV Club has a…

A friend has been encouraging me to try WoW. I think he just wants a zebra. I was considering it until I realized what a ghost town the lower levels would be with the expansion pack coming out. Packing invitations for friends in the expansion box seemed silly even before this stuff. Maybe in a few months, after the initial burst of leveling and raiding, but I see WoW catering to returning accounts from now through Boxing Day. There is not a place for new players. Well, there is, but it is a vast, lonely field at the end of a long queue. : Zubon

Still digesting it all, slowly, but I can offer some quickies. Longer lasting impressions might follow at some point. - Yes, Death Knights are cool. - Some folks are complaining about itemization. This ain’t like Burning Crusade, where the greens you got in Hellfire were better than your epics from Naxx. From what I gather, 71-75 items are only slightly better, and in the vast majority of cases only sidegrades, assuming your character did a minimum of Karazhan, Magister’s Terrace or Outland instances. Blizzard smoothed out at least the first half of your Northrend journey in terms…

In this week’s addon corner, I am taking a look at buff displays. When I rebuilt my UI, I wanted something that offers me a lot of screen estate. Most buff displays use bars, which I have used for a long time, but I wanted something more minimal. That’s how I ended up with Buffalo. At first glance, Buffalo looks exactly like the default buff frame, with the important difference that you can move buff, debuff and weapon buff frames whereever you want them. I use three horizontal lines as display, right underneath my Fortress Data Broker blocks. All you get is an icon for the…

Welcome to my 100th blog post! As always, thanks for reading, and for this great occasion, I’ve done some extra legwork. WotLK has brought us many factions, offering rewards. I’ll try to take a look at rewards to help me decide what reputation to grind first, and hopefully that’ll help you readers too. I can’t really make any weighted decision yet as I don’t know what else is available per crafting and drops yet, so take this as what it is: an overview of neutral faction rewards. Horde and alliance specific rewards will be posted separately soon. Argent Crusade:…

As I am leveling, I will write short guides about all the leveling instances in Northrend, with particular focus on tanking tips for trash and bosses alike. At the moment this is all about normal instances, but once I hit 80, I will update to include changes for heroic mode. These guides are not intended for experienced people, but for those who maybe just started tanking and are looking for some advice. Utgarde Keep Utgarde Keep is a level 70-72 instance located in Howling Fjord. It’s low in difficulty, very linear, and easy to clear. Inside you will find three boss encounters, with…

What happens when a WoW expansion is released after 1.5 years since the last one? As blog author you lose all your readers and you stop blogging. No worries, I am still alive and kicking, but just like everyone else I am busier playing than usual. While powerguilds like the new TwentyfifthNovember have already cleared all WotLK content, I am enjoying my sweet and slow ride. I am actually leveling three characters at the same time. My main is Kadomi, she’s 73 now. My shaman is 71, to do instance runs with the other half who did indeed switch to her feral druid as new main. Tagging behind…

I am famous, I am. Blizzard can claim otherwise, but there is no doubt now. Check out the new level 80 female orc warrior avatar of the official forums: Remind you of anyone? You betcha! Now back to your regular WoW while I sit restlessly at work, eager to get home to plaaaaaay.

Night Elf (yay!) with 33% of the vote, followed by Human (25%), Gnome (16%), then Dwarf, Troll and Undead (8% each). No votes for Blood Elf, Draenei, Orc or Tauren. New poll is up.

Is it Salvador Dali? No, it's yours truly after a trip to the barbershop and a monocle from 'mella, who got it as a reward from the daily fishing quest. This morning I was lucky enough to meet the somewhat scary Meaniehead, a Death Knight gnome and relative of the delectable (and at times scarier) Gothclaw. Let's just hope her horse doesn't stop too sharply with that spike there...

OK, so I think it's kinda sad that there are already lvl 80s on Runetotem (and no doubt other servers), but... poor Jason :D

I've added Phantomortia to the family photo and given her posting access to the blog. I look forward to her adventures - plan now is to cycle between her, Phantargua (now 65) and Phantowyn until they get to 70, with all existing 70s (currently me and 'hernea) doing dailies. At some point after that we'll all hit Northrend. :)For the record, the picture (ignoring the Faire vendors right at the back) is, back row (l-r) shaman Phantojinn, paladin Phantargua, Phantomella's mage husband Discohorror (*drool*), rogue Phantomella, priest Phantovesta, hunter Phantohernea, Phantohernea's warrior…

...the plan *was* to park 'mortia until later, but she decided to do the DK quests yesterday, ending up at 58 and having rotten fruit thrown at her in Stormwind until the King accepted her into the Alliance. The Battle of Light's Hope Chapel was rather impressively done :) Here she is by the Phanto spot with her cat, Arthas...There's a lot in WoW that makes you laugh out loud but just sometimes there's something that makes you laugh and really, really makes you applaud whoever at Blizzard thought of it. 'Mortia was in Ebon Hold tonight when she saw this NPC on the flight master platform... I…

It looks like an FPS, controls like an FPS, surprising you like an FPS, but it is no FPS.  I knew this going into it, sure, but here I am, a few hours into the gameplay and wishing it was an FPS. Here are two YouTube videos that go along with what I’m saying.  The author of videos has been catching a lot of fire because of his stance on Fallout 3.  Personally, I tend to agree with him.  If you have a gun and shoot an enemy in the head, that enemy should die, regardless of the “level” of the gun or enemy.  But, that’s just my opinion that FPS combat mechanics are…

Destructoid posted that Microsoft’s digital distribution system for the PC, cleverly named Games for Windows Live Marketplace (GWLM), will be launching soon.  Currently, the most prominent digital distribution platform is Valve’s Steam, which has certainly evolved since its original release. There are also websites that provide digital distribution like Direct2Drive, which is actually fairly reliable, but they don’t really hit the same market as Steam or GWLM.  Steam and GFWL offer online community organization, social networking, stat tracking, and a ton more. This…

My PC review for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is online over at CheatCC.com.  Background story time!  Command & Conquer: Red Alert was the first RTS game I ever played on a PC.  My older brother had a copy of it on his old HP 8400 years and years ago.  I played it all the time, partially because of how cool I thought it was and partially because I didn’t have any other games. I also remember playing the Playstation version called Red Alert: Retaliation.  An old friend and I even setup two Playstations on two different TVs right next to each other to play cooperatively.

Valve released the Left 4 Dead Demo to all those individuals who have preordered the full game.  It was first playable last night and I got a chance to sit down and play through it with a friend.  I’ve been anticipating this game like crazy for a long, long time now, but it isn’t everything I was hoping for.  Let me explain. First, the only ways to play in the demo include the cooperative mode, which involves only 2-4 survivors teaming up, and single-player, which involves just you.  The versus mode isn’t playable, and that is the one that puts 4 survivors against 4…

If there’s one thing that could possibly keep me from playing all the new games I’ve acquired lately, it’s spending 7+ hours in a restaurant/bar watching the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles.  Finding a place that actually has a Bills watch party is too rare to pass up.  Oh, and the company wasn’t half bad either. But, now that my weekend is over and my “big day out,” has concluded, it’s back to the norm.  There are some interesting developments happening.  Apparently, NCSoft has FINALLY incorporated a first-person mode for Tabula Rasa.

but I’m just taking it easy for a bit. The last couple of months have seen me experience my own, slightly less intense, version of a global financial crisis by getting hit by a massive and unexpected bill, which was compounded by the Aussie dollar falling through the floor like a chunk of superdense neutron star. Adding to this was my bank somehow finding a way to increase my mortgage repayments despite the interest rate dropping by nearly two percent. And on Friday last, someone reversed out of ninety degree parking into my car as I was sitting at the lights. Doh! This unfortunately…

Shouldn’t that be the other way around? Blizzard doesn’t seem to think so. For some reason, Blizzard have decided to release Starcraft 2 as three separate games, with the campaigns for Protoss, Terran, and Zerg each being a separate game. It also appears that each game will be released as much as a year apart. In an interview with Blizzard Lead Producer, Chris Sigaty, MTV Multiplayer Blog goes into the reasons why Blizzard are taking this particular path. What worries me is the multiplayer aspect. The interview tells us this about multiplayer. However, if you want particular units…

The last few days have seen the release of Blizzard’s Achievement system for World of Warcraft. A system that has been copied directly from Warhammer Online. Okay. Maybe it’s not quite that bad. I am being a little facetious. There are a lot of similarities between Warhammer’s Tome of Knowledge and Warcraft’s Achievements. But then, there are similarities between the system Warhammer uses, and the Lord of the Rings Online Achievement and Title system. Even LotRO doesn’t get off cleanly regarding plagiarism charges. They are certainly not the first gaming system…

If you protested about Spore’s DRM, then the EA CEO reckons that about half of you are pirates. In an interview at Gamasutra, Riccitiello says this about the people protesting the heavy handed DRM that EA included in Spore. ‘I’m guessing that half of them were pirates, and the other half were people caught up in something that they didn’t understand,” he says. “If I’d had a chance to have a conversation with them, they’d have gotten it. Since I protested about the DRM in my article about DRM being Dumb, Rude, and Mean to the people who are…

Well, the last couple of days in Warhammer Online have been a bit dramatic. Casualties Destruction guild has had a bit of a turbulent time. It turned out that our initial choice of server was also going to be inhabited by the Goons. The Goons, for those of you who don’t know, are a guild that rose to prominence on Eve Online and has the declared aim of making life so bad for other players that they quit the game. To a Goon, that’s PvP. To everyone else that’s griefing. The members of Casualties felt, that even if they are on the same side, we didn’t want to be…

As soon as you can safely quest in Dragonblight (about 72 I'd guess) do it. And then get to the Wyrmrest Temple in the dead center of the zone. And then do every quest you can.At some point, you'll be sent out to Fordragon Hold. The gooodness is about to happen when you're sent there.There will be an AWESOME cut-scene (and you'll get an achievement) and then you'll be sent on an uber-cool new quest. I don't want to spoil with too many details but it involves attacking a well-known capital city.Do this. Just trust me. It's worth it.

Okay, bad pun in the title. But I've finally made it to Dalaran and thought I'd share ways in.The One That Doesn't WorkThere's a floaty run in the Crystal Song forest. Clicking on it (it gives you the gear icon) takes you up to Dalaran. Except, this won't work unless and until you've used the rune that's already inside Dalaran.The Easy OneJust level. Once you hit 74, a Kirin Tor mage in one of the quest towns will have a quest open to you. You'll get an easy port to the city with a quest to activate the run inside so you'll be able to head up from Crystal Song Forest (see above).The Cheaty…

Each of us playing in the expansion has a difficult choice to make right out of the gate - to which of the starter zones in WOTLK will we go? For those, like me, with a severe case of altism, it's easy to take characters to both places and compare and contrast.Borean Tundra has a strong draw for Alliance players since the boat from Stormwind goes there. Howling Fjord is reachable from Menethil Harbor, just a short flight from Ironforge. But, with most of us hearthed in Shattrath and wanting to be there yesterday, Borean's closer proximity to a major city might make it more favorable to…

I know it has been over one month since anything was posted on this blog. I apologize, but during that month I had a micro-discectomy which has greatly relieved the chronic pain from my herniated disc. I'm on the mend, and can stand to do extraneous things like play WoW and think about my blog now instead of always thinking about pain. Additionally, during the hiatus, the latest expansion has hit the steets of Azeroth. Yes, the Wrath of the Lich King is here.Let's talk a little about the expansion. The experience is very much like Burning Crusade expansion in its first weeks. Common courtesy…

Let's face it, I'm totally going to be this guy here.I leave bright and early (oh so early) for California tomorrow morning. While I'm normally awake around 5 EST, tomorrow I'll be leaving my house an hour earlier than that to head off to catch a 6:30ish flight. And if I'm leaving at 4, that means I'll need to be up at 3.It's already after 9. I'm not tired. Nope not one little bit.Hopefully I'll be able to sleep on the plane. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.This puts me in mind of a personal story. One Christmas Eve when I was about five, I was laying in bed basically dripping…

When I left home to be who I amSome people said "No Way"But I laid it all down, gave everythingIn my head rang the words that my father saidYou're never farI will be where you areand when you come to meI will open my arms Welcome Home, youI know you by nameHow do you do?I shine because of you todaySo come and sit downTell me how you areI know son, it's good just to see your face.Those are lyrics to a song call "Welcome Home" by Brian Littrell, and my way of saying I've finally gotten off the fence and decided to return to my old guild of Mal Katai. In the end, I decided that I just couldn't…

I was wondering what I would blog about today since I didn’t do hardly anything in game last night. Luckily, a comment to one of my other posts filled the need quite nicely.I started Comment Moderation when people started using my comments to advertise websites. As recently as this week, I’ve had to reject comments that were nothing more than an add for a Power Leveling service.In the year plus I’ve run the blog there has only been one comment that I haven’t published, and even in that case I did publish it, but then deleted it.I say all that to preface this post. I have chosen to not…

As you hit level 80, you need to start thinking about gear and caps once again. As a Paladin tank there are a couple of caps you need to think about.Uncrittable CapThe first and most important cap you want to reach in your gear is being uncrittable, which comes from Defense. At level 70, you needed 490 defense to be uncrittable. At level 80 the bar is raised and you need 540 Defense which equals out to about 689 Defense Rating. To quote Neo, "Whoah". It's a metric ton of defense needed. It is something you will need to actively work towards in your gear, but it is completely attainable with…

I had a lot of fun last night questing in Howling Fjord.I headed over to the goblin who was in a dingy with a pirate flag. I immediately thought of the last scene in Pirates of the Caribean: Battle At World's End. In this scene Jack Sparrow has scene his beloved Pearl being stolen by Barbosa. Jack gets into a dingy and raises the pirate flag and starts singing 'Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates Life For Me'.I took a boat ride from the Goblin's first mate over to the Pirate Island. There a whole string of quests opened up.I thought the plane the Dwarves used to send me from Valgarde to Explorer's Point…

Over the weekend, I started thinking about what I wanted to do as far as a Guild. The main villain of Burning Crusade was Illidan the Betrayer, although at times I felt like that title could have been my own.I’ve basically got it narrowed down to two choices. Those are either going back to a guild I was formerly with, or starting my own guild.I’ve been unable to decide on which of those two choices I want to pursue despite giving myself several deadlines. As each deadline approached, I would graciously gave myself an extension.I realize that no one other than me can make this decision,…

That pretty much sums up the problem if pets (Lock+Hunter) don't scale a bit better---as LVL80's will deck out in better and bigger gear in the coming months.I was doing the you-know-what-quest with you-know-who-npc at the attack on the you-know-where-zone at the time of the pic. Having that much HP and doing that much damage with simple ticks of Rain of Fire made my poor, unscaling Felguard feel left out with his original HP/MP and damage values.I have a few ideas/brainstorms in my head on what kind of patch Locks would need to keep up to par with every other class as everyone levels and…

My Arena buddy Kaiden, who hasn't been on at all for any of the 3.0 changes, finally logged back in yesterday after installing Wrath.Which meant he was a little excited in guild chat:--One day, a Dwarf Hunter heard that the best ale and port came from a special pub located in Silvermoon. Of course, he had to see if this was true for himself, so he set out from Ironforge with a handful of supplies and his trusty pet crocodile, Clamp.He finally made it to Silvermoon, and though he was tired, his trip wasn't finished just yet. The Blood Elves would not welcome a Dwarf of his kind in their fair…