Wadi

Not so secret trade alliance hmmm

2009-04-16T02:42:00.001+02:00

Talked to one of the old guys on msn:

hehe

trick is to skim the cream

not to toil for it

we prolly got uncut gems for a hundred k in stores now

waiting for next pvp season

riding 15k motorbike

pvpers have no control over cash ok

They just but no matter of the cost

Almost a year have gone

2009-03-16T05:42:00.003+02:00

Since I canceled my account.

I dont, usually, think much about wow but for some reason I decided to check out old the good old webpages about wow - including official forum.

I did get a lump in my throat when I saw that some of my old friends, who I played with when I started out on Dragonmaw, still seems to be enjoying themselves.

What I miss most is being part of the comunity. Even if Im in RL is married with two kids I still miss walking through the gate to hell with my friends.

Its not realistic form me to come back this year as Im very busy with work and school but maybe in the future I will be able to come back or play something else if it turns out everyone left.

Oh and I just pissed off Eir I guess. I sms her 04:20 am :D

Lies

2008-04-05T23:37:00.000+02:00

http://www.srac.cz/

Durkhorn Y2K

2008-04-02T00:59:00.002+02:00

Future just got worse,

hopefully there is a cowlevel

You are not an officer

2008-03-14T03:35:00.001+02:00

Frozen in Time

2008-02-11T23:17:00.000+02:00

I played this game since the day it was released and during that time I seen many people come and go, lately I been one of them.

Some people however, they come back, and when they do usually they find friends and foes are the same (only with better gear).

Unlike in real life when people venture in the world in different ways, in wow everyone is still around doing what they usually do.

So whenever you take a break as long as your friends are around u still have a place to return to

More grinding

2008-02-08T01:13:00.001+02:00

Had some really good mining today. What worries me is the continuing drop of gem prices.

Elunes stamina gem used to be well over 50g, they are now down to 35g and seems to keep dropping.

Since I dont buy gems to cut, but rather mine everything myself I will always make profit but ofc I want as much as possible.

On the other hand I think once Sunwell us up the demand for potions will increase again and I got plenty of those in my bank.

Chaser migrating

2008-02-05T00:16:00.001+02:00

Chaser will migrate to Stormscale this week to further enhance his pvp.

I known him since the early days in Mayhem and we always been on a very friendly basis.

Famous for his childish ranting, and spamming hes also one of the very best, if not the best, warriors I ever seen.

For a very long time he was the guilds mt through Naxx, before switching over to dps role after we passed Gruul.

An avid pvper he started focusing on arena last season, building up his experience and gear before moving up and be top rated in all brackets.

His only limit is his occasional lack of disciplin which I hope he will correct... altho he is a warrior not a paladin.

:)

2008-02-02T22:45:00.000+02:00

Seems the bug was fixed as I recieved a few mails with birthday greetings.

Today

2008-01-31T11:54:00.000+02:00

is my birthday.

But my mailbox is empty.......

I made a ticket and I hope they fix it before I log on tonight......

Paladins never die - we just regroup

2008-01-27T02:56:00.000+02:00

This month its been two years since I left Ghost and even longer since we first ventured into Molten Core.

I still see some people on forums and in Shattarat a few times.

They seem happy :)

Hack and beg or just beg?

2008-01-25T03:10:00.001+02:00

Tabula Rasa at a second glance

2008-01-23T16:37:00.000+02:00

The interface is less intuitive then in wow. Even for a experienced gamer it took alot more effort to sit down and play the first time. The interface is also less customizable, or maybe thats also a less intuitive part :/

The crafting system is bascially just a complicated mess with lots of funny names.

Its a strictly pve game altho its my understanding there is some fake pvp around, similar to pvp on a pve server I guess.

While having a farily good mix of different quests, kill xx of yy, go and deliver, scout that etc, the overall background story isnt well presented. Unlike some of the epic chainquests in wow the quests in TR doesnt deliver at all.

On the other hand I just got a big laser chainrifle so the game doesnt fail completely.

Actually its a quite nice game.

Reunited with Vlad and Cenari I played the first 13 levels and I had fun all the way.

Part of it is the feeling of a new world. You dont know what to do or what you are expected to do and everything is new. Like when you took the zepelin the first time :)

The best part is the gameplay tho. While being a pve based game the enemy is everywhere. While you are able to teleport between mapped bases you more often then not have to walk outside and yes there are roads but they are far from safe.

Going from direction A-B and getting there alive is a major obstacle. Unlike in wow the mobs can show up everywhere by teleporting or jumping down from their scoutships.

There is a war going on and Tabula Rasa places you in the middle without any battlemasters in between to protect you.

Wadi 2K

2008-01-22T04:42:00.001+02:00

I played some Tabula Rasa today fragging people with my .. lowlevel shotgun :(

After just moving out from the tutorial area I dont think this will be the wow killer, hell the reason I bought it was because it was on a 60% discount in the store.

But in all fairness one cant compare Tabula Rasa with wow because I played wow since its release and on a fairly advanced level.

The things I thought about Tabula Rasa the first hours of gameplay, confusing, lack of interaction with other players, pretty linear.. that can be said about the first hours of wow as well.

Noone likes to go back to lvl 1 and picking those apples in Valley of Trials do we?

Still from what I heard Tabula Rasa seems to me more geared towards the casual single player so there will be more visits for there,

and at least I got armor that covers my belly button :/

Sheer boredom and unfairness

2008-01-19T01:06:00.000+02:00

I never told anyone but my first character was a tauren...

When I started out I made a warrior and I remember just seeing Thunder Buff before I grew tired of the class and tried my luck elsewhere.

In the recent boredom I decided to try out a shaman, once again starting in cowland. I already seen the orc/troll starting area and the belf, so I thought I try out cowland once again.

Once again its so much better to have some kind of dps while you level. There are just too many of those "Kill xx of yy" to pass on the dps.

On the other hand when it comes to instancing you really need healers so this obviously hurt healers leveling. I remember when I leveled my first real char, a troll priest, I went holy all the way and I often had trouble the last leveles in an area.

I would often ask in generalchat but most of the time people didnt bother taking me unless we were going to an instance.

I think Blizzard should encourage more teamplay with healers. Possibly by increasing the party bonus and by putting more quests with "minibosses" in the game.

Now its usally a few in each area, wouldnt hurt with a few more

Tuesdays are better

2008-01-15T11:53:00.000+02:00

It was perfect timing.

A late day and it wasnt monday anymore when Chaser asked me to "CUM ANDH HJEAL MEH IN AV VERY NYCE MR" so me, Eir and Taljin aka Zeljin, joined and managed to get into the same AV game after a few tries.

Since they buffed Belinda horde usually loses AV since Galvin dies alot faster so us four went to defend the poor orc. Chaser then killed the entire enemy raid by himself, including my childhood hero Mockavest, before going up to alliance base and in the meantime killing everything that moved, npc or player, and a few bots as well.

Oh

And guess who kept him alive.....

ps. Kaveria u are fat

I hate mondays

2008-01-15T00:20:00.001+02:00

Mondays should be banned from the calendar.

Hacking and Slashing

2008-01-14T03:02:00.000+02:00

Appart from ebaying another problem thats gotten bigger is hacking.

You log in and find yourself naked without a healthstone and no gear or money. While I never had a problem with GMs there are certainly enough horrorstories around to make you want to avoid a full characther restoration.

I would suggest people to be very carefull about their computer security. There are plenty of free information on the internet and with a firewall and anti virus program you should be just fine.

Also avoid to click strange links from the forums. While the mods are usually removing bad links it takes a while and they dont seem to work during late evenings/weekends.

Besides most links seem to be about allyscum raiding and who would want to see that?

Have guns will travel

2008-01-11T09:06:00.000+02:00

I did a heroic BM run yesterday with only guildies and I found I had a hard time healing.

Im happy I popped a mageblood before going there because it was on the verge of not being able to heal so the next time I gonna bring a flask.

Altho I think I can blame the fact that we did have two rogues in the grp and I was busy chatting as well :/

Im a little teapot...

2008-01-09T03:53:00.000+02:00

.. short and stout! *dances humiliating dance*

As I said earlier I grew tired of grinding after seeing I had 10 000 gold, I havent even done anything with my full mining bag. I guess its like bench pressing 100 kg in the real world, I mean who cares if you press 105 or 108 kg as long as you are over 100

In a similar way I have around 10 700 gold now since I still do most dailies and trying to complete all quests in my log as well.

So three days ago I respec to holy to do some instances. Its been months since I was serious about that so I was surprised that alot of people are doing the daily heroic quests. So far I found pugs all three days within a reasonable time and they actually seem to work pretty well too.

I know for a fact that I had 8 heroic badges when I started and now I have 30 and I dont feel like I have been grinding. Its the same with honor, I managed to accumulate 33 000 honor without much effort.

For sure its slower then the old "keepittogethermustfarm15badgeseverydayand5000honortoo" but its more fun.

Oh btw

The guy who whispered me "Can u come to heroic Mech, whats ur spec" and answered "Oh :(" when I said I was holy..... if this been an US server I would have sued you for prejudice mr!

School time

2008-01-06T08:50:00.001+02:00

Time to go to school.

My son is starting out at St Louis School, Chachoengsao.

The school was his first choice and while very proud Im also very worried. The school is demanding and for the first time he will travel quite far from home.

At least the school pick up the students and bring them to school in their own cars, and even better they bring them back.

There is really no way of knowing how he will react starting out in a whole new school but I told him that if it doesnt work out he can change school to one closer to his home where he will know some people.

I also told him to shut up and make friends. Just as I did in Silvermoon Academy.

Hm I actually did arena as retri

2008-01-05T05:20:00.000+02:00

with Darkhorn (2 man warr/retri pala) and I think we stayed at 4-6 in games.

That actually means we won 4 games even tho we only a bit resil and are very unused playing.

Well I done lots of pvp but never as retri and I always failed big in 2 man anyway.

Darkhorn on the other hand always failed ever since we first met at lvl 12 when he was getting beat up at the Sludge Fen.

Oh well.

We were quit far from being competitive but we had loads of fun. Thats an interesting aspect of the game.

When we made it back to 1450 I was just as happy as when my previous teams made it to 2100+..... almost.....

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T20:28:00.001+02:00

Last New Year I was in Ashenvale but this year I discovered how good the mining was in Nagrand so I spent New Year there, only taking time off to go to Booty Bay and watching the fireworks.

Every New Year I ask myself the same question: What have I done this year?

And depending on the answer I get I might dare to ask the next question: What shall I do this year?

The past year has been pretty good. I was able to see all instances except Black Temple and I did a lot of pvp too in the arena.

Now its just a matter of waiting for the expansion and preparing. Once PTR is out for the expansion it will be a matter of farming stuff for power leveling etc.

Recently I haven't been playing much compared to what I did in the past. Mainly this has been because of working but even when I had time off I found myself doing other stuff. I think the game has changed for me.

Before I had to do allot of things or well.. allot of farming, in order to be able to do what I wanted. Now the game is mostly of a social character and I can log in and do what I want whenever I want.

Even tho I wish I could turn back the time a bit to raiding I think I got the best part of the deal anyway. Playing for fun.

I seen many people during the years I played who didn´t manage the situation when they had to turn less then hardcore usually selling their char and logging off forever. So far I managed to avoid that and is still having a good time altho not as often as I used to.

Soon a new year

2007-12-28T02:55:00.000+02:00

Things should be back to the normal the next week at least in regards to my playtime so I figured its time to make a few New Year resolutions.

1. Stop helping people.

2. Stop helping people.

3. Stop helping people.

Most of the times I try and help people it usually ends up in a wrong way or I regrett it in other ways.

A wise man once said "The road to hell is filled of good intentions". He obviously played a lot of wow.

One example was when I returned to wow after a 6 month break just prior to tbc. I was delighted to see most of my old friends still there but I also learned one guy had quit out of boredom because he didnt get a chance at raiding as he wanted altho he was very active.

Of all who came from Ice Crown he was the only one who was able to but didnt venture into MC and further so... seeing the need of paladins in the new era I sent him an email and asked him to come back ensuring him that he would see plenty of raiding in a guild that would swiftly move into Serpentshrine Cavern and beyond.

So he did come back and everything went quite well until he dropped under the radar and in the end he sent me some links on msn to pages devoted to gaming addiction.

I felt very sad about this but he still drops in once a week playing and from the occassional chat on msn I think every problem he had with the game is sorted.

Christmas at last

2007-12-25T02:08:00.000+02:00

In mid december I passed the 10k gold mark so farming lost its appeal.

When I got my laptop I figured I go mining from work but so far I mostly been leeching AV. I feel it doesnt matter if I have 10k gold or 15k gold, what difference does it make?

I guess the old truth about the only people not caring about money are the ones who have it.

Anyway after the New Year I will work a little bit less and I guess things should be back to normal again.

I am a leecher

2007-12-23T03:47:00.000+02:00

Every night when Im working I unpack my latop at 00:30 and go to AV and leech for a few hours and chatting with friends.

Its unethical, undignified but still quite effective.

Even if I benefit from leeching I think Blizzard should make it much harder or even impossible to leech AV.

wtb Santa

2007-12-22T03:52:00.000+02:00

Today when I logged in after a few days abscence sweet Eir had sent me a christmas gift and it was gift wrapped too!

Its small things like that.. giftwraps.. seasonal festivals... that makes wow standout from other games.

I think I will send gifts to all my friends this weekend so Im forcing them to send me gifts.

Yeh thats the christmas spirit!

Knowing what I know today....

2007-12-15T02:42:00.001+02:00

what if I had to start all over once again?

It may sound presumtious but I would probably make quite similar choices if I had to venture back to barrens.

Looking back since early start the balance between the classes have been changed a bit but how we view them has changed even more. During my time in the game some classes have gone from new sheriff in town to deputy dawn.

When I was around level 40 wiping were quite usual, especially as you later moved up to Scholo, Strat and UBRS. In fact a ten man raid in Scholo would often wipe a significant number of times so during a brief period of 2-3 months shamans were very high in demand and it was almost impossible to get a shaman. In fact I know a few who actually rerolled shamans just to have an easier time to get into groups.

Rogues on the other hand always seemed to have a hard time. Not so much because of the class but rather because they were quite common.

And noone wanted hunters back then.

However healers usually had it quite easy to get into groups, especially dedicated healers like myself if I may say so.

In fact for MC guilds starting out the biggest problems was usually to get recruit healers.

By being a healer I had a good start and it was much easier for me to see more of the game then it was for the average rogue.

Shifting interest to arena after TBC I experienced the same thing. I wasnt better then any other paladin but I was one of the few who focused on pvp, after all most paladins quickly powerleveled and started raiding, so after a few months in the salt mine I finally got the chance to play in a top team and it worked out pretty well.

Once again I saw more arena then the average rogue or hunter did.

Now busy in what is the dawn of my playtime I shifted focus again to farming things so the retri spec comes in handy. Every healingclass have a dps spec, while obviously far behind a normal dps class its enough for this kind of soloplay, while the average rogue would find it hard to bandage enough to be able to heal in raids.

Early mornings

2007-12-11T04:16:00.000+02:00

So it was early morning and I had just got back home from work when I headed over to the faire to hand in my deck of cards for the trinket.

I figured this was a great time because the faire was outside Stormwind but hopefully all gankers would be sleeping

When I turned in the deck I figured I see if he sold any nice crap and indeed two gems for 12g each, a red and an orange.

I guess these odd times compensates me financially for the lack of interaction with other players. Besides Nagrand is always nice when its empty and all rich veins are up!

Thx Santa !

2007-12-09T00:39:00.000+02:00

Finally got my laptop delivered today so I can play from my work.

At last those veins will be mine from 0400 to 0600 weekdays :D

The numbers

2007-12-01T20:49:00.000+02:00

Cost of paying wow every month - 12.99 EUR

Cost of having great friends - 4 hours of missing sleep every night

Seeing some lvl 68 rogue in green gear tell Obie "Dude u need to get a 2nd glaive" - Priceless

TOS: A sheep in sheep´s clothing

2007-12-01T02:49:00.000+02:00

A major part of the wow experience is to meet new persons and do stupid stuff with them, but as you meet new persons old persons often fade away. Some slow and some faster.

For typical leveling guilds this is usually very evident towards the end of your leveling period and when you start out doing the endgame content. Players seek out guilds that have the same profile as themselves.

I think I was in a great guild when I leveled but as it turned out the only active people were a priest, three warriors and a rogue which made it kind of hard to do instances together. Even if only Darkhorn remains from those days, we managed to venture into Molten Core together before splitting up.

Anyway hardcore guilds face another problem.

The lure of ebay.

Lots of people, like myself, have jobs and save loads of money because we spend most of our sparetime in Azeroth. However lots of players are students or high school students or dont work fulltime.

While they certainly win in DKP they probably fall behind on the income tax.

So when they are at the end of the road with all the best gear they can have and they can get loads of money from ebaying there isnt really anyway to stop them.

While illegal according to Blizzards rules its obvious the controls arent functioning well enough. If a high percentage buyers would get caught there wouldnt be a market anymore.

Having seen it happen over and over again I would urge guilds, including my own, to take a more agressive stance towards ebayers.

- Making sure all ebayers are properly reported in a neatly typed report.

- Making the ebayed character known within the community.

While the guildbank certainly make it easier to avoid the obvious pittraps it would also help if you distribute the loot more evenly. While DKP is fair and square perhaps a guild would need, for example, several guildenchanters as opposed to one?

- If someone ebayed his last character. Dont allow the player back into the guild with his new char. There really isnt any guarantee he wont do it again. (No names mentioned here).

Picking up the pace

2007-11-30T00:21:00.000+02:00

I slowly learned my ways around the veins.

When I first started I would average about 40 ore in one hour, now I usually get at least 140 in the same time. Thats exactly one vertical row in my miningbag so its fairly easy to keep track of.

The difference is increased knowledge in where the veins are located. Together with lots of hard work thats all you need to herb and mine and the better you mapped the area the easier it will be.

Another thing that is important is the refining.

Prospecting and cutting if its gems and potmaking etc if its herbs. I know 2-3 people that are JCs which I usually pay around 20-50g depending on the number of ore I want prospected, the green stuff and the dusts will cover it when I vendor them and since I often prospect quite a lot its best to pay ofc.

I usually sell my gems uncut because I dont watch AH enough to know what gems are hot and which arent. And I really dont want to deal with people more then necessary so I just put the gem on AH a bit lower then some of the cut gems (usually a bit lower then the most expensive gems but higher then the cheapest). I noticed alot of JCs buying and I dont mind that at all cause I get to sell my stuff quick and easy and the more buyers the better it is.

But the bottomline is. Refining always pays off and the more refining you do obviously the more money you can make.

The same goes for herbalism. On Frostmane the average AH price for super manapots are 11g buy out while a stack of Dreaming glory and Felweed both go for 10g each so if you buy three stacks and make 20 pots you have just made yourself an extra 10g.

If you like to hoard like me, without farming herbs too active, I usually grab whatever crosses my path when I mine, you can pick up like mats for 500 pots per week and then you find yourself a proccer and its all set.

This is where your network comes in be it guildies or friends. The more of the chain you can cover the more money you can make and that goes for all of you. Sometimes I sold plain ore to my friends too, like a few hundreds, and in return they cut stuff for me when I need.

Things like that will get you far.

Like someone once said. Friendship based on business is better then business based on friendship.

Prospecting

2007-11-27T04:51:00.000+02:00

Today I prospected 500 adamantite ore since I wanted to be ready for the s3 craze and I got the following.

The green shit and the dust was vendored for 50g, and the rest should sell on wednesday.

I also did my first tour to ZA and was a bit disapointed. While I certainly enjoyed killing trolls the whole area had a very ZG like feeling in terms of look. While the bosses very animated and fun I dont know why Blizz couldnt make a new totally new area. For example a new instance in Winterspring, but maybe they save the snow landscape for the expansion.

At least Sunwell is comming soon and that will hopefully be new, while not going there Im looking foward to start selling all my herbs.

Patterns

2007-11-26T02:40:00.000+02:00

We always try to find patterns in everything we see.

Sometimes there is a hidden agenda to find and sometimes its just our brain that cant handle the randomness and invent one.

Watch my hp and fishing skill (without buffs) and take a spin :D

I didnt swap my gear just too my fishing rod instead of my sword....

Art of making gold part 1 basics

2007-11-24T00:42:00.000+02:00

Im afraid that what I will write first will be a huge disapointment, at least it was for me, there is no such thing as goldmaking secrets.

And there is no such thing as a secret trade union on Frostmane server :/

I chose herbalism and mining since I dont have any need for crafted gear and the problem with selling crafted gear is that its get obsolete quickly.

Nowadays you will be lucky to get a few hundred gold epic patterns, on AH, that would sell for thousands of gold before summer. Not to mention how much you would have to pay for the actual item.

While there is a constant demand for epic legenchants they are quite rare on the open market, usually you will sell them cheap to your friends or guildies.

There are obviously several advantages with crafting professions but to start with mining and herbalism:

The good thing is mainly that there will always be a demand for herbs and ore and usually its quite steady. Basically pots, flask and elixirs are used quite a lot in raiding and ore will always be wanted for gems as people upgrade the gear and by blacksmiths too ofc. If you try and make money by gathering you wont ever loose money altho u might make less then u hoped for.

The bad thing with gathering is that its quite timeconsuming. No more jumping on the bankroof and chatting when you can farm and chat. I spend almost all my time online nowadays by farming or doing old quests for gold.

The main thing about making gold is actually to spend less. Its just as in real life :/ At least stay off AH and buy from friends or guildies, the best is obviously to farm by yourself.

The major problem with gathering is that you need refining if you want to make the best cash.

Take ore for example. On my server, Frostmane, adamantite ore usually sells between 20-25 gold. While prices has rised a bit due to Season 3 and Zul Aman they will proabably drop back to normal next month.

If you farm 100 stacks, which usually take about two evenings, you will get around 2200 gold which is quite nice especially if you repeat it twice!

However if you prospect them into gems you get in average 80 blue gems and some 150g worth of powder and green gems. Depending on how lucky you are with hitting the right color of the gems you should average at least 40g per gem, which is 3200 gold.

In reality you usually end up with a higher average plus you will get some gems while mining too.

To start your mining or herbing career just download an addon which marks whenever you gather and get to work. I prefer keeping sharing off, not because I am afraid people will steal my spots, but because I want to keep the map clear so I easily can make my own pattern to fly.

Taking a break from wow...

2007-11-19T03:55:00.000+02:00

for three days while visting my parents :)

The first week as retri (lol) havent been that bad at all. Like I said the dps is still worse then normal dps classes but on the other hand its enough to do normal grinding and ur pretty close of being able to dpsing in instances :D

Theres basically two big differences for me now,

the first is the lack of "must dos" and the second is that Im making money the first time since I started playing this game.

Its really hard to say which I appreciate most.

Gold is usually never a problem to spend but if ur not raiding u dont spend much in terms of repair or upgrades on ur gear (enchants, gems etc) but well having large stash of gold is a pleasant problem.

RL gtg!

2007-11-17T20:34:00.001+02:00

Does this game change the way you are talking in rl?

Life is easier as retri

2007-11-16T06:17:00.000+02:00

Finally I can kill the mobs around a vein without using all my mana and half hp just to see some ally scum flying down and ninja it while I fight to ninja the vein.

So far its been quite relaxed days. I log in and do some dailys, farm some and doing a few quests.

I also done two heroics as a retri while Im still struggling with the positioning as dps and everything else for that matter, as far as I can judge the new patch really improved our dps.

However

You still rely quite heavy on getting the first crit. Most of your dps comes from stacking Vengeance and if you dont crit you got only your autohit.

Crusaderstrike obviously help a great deal with the lower cd and all but since they nerfed our spelldmg itemizationwise on the arena gear it feels a bit like your back on square one and half again. No matter what most retri paladins will rely on pvp gear, at least in the begining.

So basically we are still in a situation where we need procs and crits to get the job done altho with new Vengeance we get a bit more predictable dps... once we start stacking it.

Heroes last stand

2007-11-14T19:46:00.000+02:00

Someone once said heroes may not be braver then anyone else. They are just braver 5 minutes longer. I always think of that when the gates to the arena open :)

Yesterday we played what I believe was our last games in 5 man, ending at almost 2050 rating.

Not to bad since we played only 4-5 times in almost two months. With some practice I think we would have been really good.

Day ended 9-1, with our only loss being avenged three times. In the rubbermatch they dropped Snikch within seconds and in spite of Blessed Resil he went down from 80% to 0% but as we fought on I found room to ress him and the game was pretty much over after that.

If the first two seasons been setting the trend the interest for arena will probably grow bigger the closer the end so later next spring I might join a new team again altho time will tell.

I will probably have to farm honor up to cap again for stocking up to after the expansion :/

The summer 2½ year ago

2007-11-11T01:44:00.000+02:00

Excerp from Wadis warjournal 2005-06-25

"Yesterday was raids day. Did a complete StratUD raid and before that I did a complete Scholoraid. You think *any* items I wanted would drop? Ofc they didnt. After Strat everyone went to UBRS but I have already completed my quest for the Oxnia key while my guildmate Trust had not so I gave my spot to him"

Back in these you raided Stratholme and Scholomanche if you wanted to complete them and the scheduled guildraids were going to Upper Blackrock Spire not to Black Temple but what can be seen from my warjournal entry that day life wasnt so much different back then.

Raiding - waiting for drops - raiding - getting attuned for next raid - raiding - waiting for drops

At lvl 57 or 58 I started going to the last instances in the old world, Stratholme, Scholmanche and Ubrs. In those days there were only two guilds capable of raiding Molten Core and they didnt accept any applications so the chances of me going there was nonexistant so I always thought getting to 60 would be the end.

Turns out it wasnt the end. Not even the begining to the end but perhaps the end of the begining.

Same summer me and Eir would get our big break and join the third guild going to Molten Core and from there we went from not getting past the two first giants to farming Black Temple, or at least one of us are chainsmiting Illiadan :/

The obvious reason to stay in the game are the social aspects but while this is probably the biggest single reason truth is you would experience those in most mmorpgs so the question is more why you chose wow as a veichle to explore these sides of gaming?

Truth is that in spite of the faults people generally attribute to wow its simply the best game out there.

Its easy to start playing with a very intutive gameplay and a highly configurable UI. There are many ways of advancing your character by grinding, questing, raiding, instancing or pvp and because of the high population even causal players find it easy to group up with players.

Further the support from Blizzard is outstanding in terms of webpages, forums, ingamesupport and most important of all: a huge number of additional content. I recall being surprised when Dire Maul was released as well as the seasonal quests as well.

When people are discussing newer games, billing them as the wow killer, they usually forget the value of being able to run the game on almost any computer. Having to invest in a 2000 EUR system to meet the requirements of the game is an easy way to limit the playerbase.

Looking into the future

2007-11-10T04:08:00.000+02:00

A couple of thousand years development hasnt changed much. Female paladins still wear armor that doesnt seem too protective be it ur health or reputation :/

Speaking about armor I have gathered almost all my retrigear now and is busy getting enchants. By looking at other retri paladins in the armory, that I found in the forums, I think I got resonable gear on part with Kara gear at least.

Speaking of Hellgate: London I Vlad and Cenari both plays it (alot) together with alot of other ex Ghosties, so I figure I check it out one of these days.

While not strictly an mmorpg and still being very bugged it seems to have its good sides too, among others the fact that you can soloplay it quite well. Since the game interface for social contacts is underdeveloped anyway you dont have much choice it seems.

In Wow there is a distinct limit how far you can go while soloplaying. Depending of course exactly how you define solo play you are generally limited to charity epix (the ones u get from repetable soloquests) as well as crafting and drops and repwards from pre raiding.
Technically you cant do instances alone either but even most casuals get there eventually.

Having played solo the last few days I been a busy bee mining and herbing while not doing much else. As soon as the current season is over I plan to spec retri and do all quests that I have left (which is a lot) and probably some serious farming.

Im looking foward to blackmailing the tradeunion who doesnt exist for more info and besides I already decided that for next expansion I probably want to spec retri so I need the gear anyway
for leveling and money is always good. Should need be I can always spec back to holy if I want to pvp more since I have my old gear left.

What I really liked so far is that I dont really have to rely on other people. No more sitting and waiting or calling people and no more times to keep up with. Even if I only have 45 mins to play I can still log in and do something, not only stand in Ogrimmar and jump on the bankroof.

I am a holy warrior

2007-11-07T01:43:00.000+02:00

I almost completed getting my retri gear now. Usually pvp gear is rather inferior to pve gear, for pve purposes but since retri (pvp) gear so far lacks resil the difference between season 1 gear and Kara gear isnt as big as for other classes.

I picked up mostly season 1 gear and all honor gear, belts, boots and gloves plus a nasty 2h sword also from season 1 so as soon as I get the sockets and enchants done Im good to go.

Since I most likely will level as a retri in next expansion this gear will always be good to have no matter what. Since I still have my old gear I can go back doing healing as well so nothing is wasted.

I really looking foward being able to kill mobs at mines and herbnodes without having to spend so much time zZzzzzZ.

Not to mention Im finally a holy warrior, like paladins in other games.

End of the road again

2007-11-06T02:30:00.000+02:00

With only a few weeks left of season 2 and while collecting gear for season 3 I had every intention on being there for season 3 as well.

However recently I am unsure if I will have the time to participate in yet another season as my workload has almost doubled in real life. While arena doesnt take that much time the problem is everyone usually have days they cant play on and the days off tend to overlap quite badly.

As it looks now I will probably have to step down from my arena teams next season. While I still be playing quite a bit it will be on odd hours and outside raidhours ofc.

This means I cant really go back to raiding again, besides I couldnt compete with the younger and better geared generation of new paladins.

So for the next few months I figure I will take up the art of making money. I was pretty well recieved when I spoke to the sneaky secret trade union on the server.

At least I wont be broke again.

Pfft

2007-11-04T00:20:00.000+02:00

Team got together today and dropped back to 1950.

It started quite well but soon got worse after we tried tweaking the strategy a bit. We then got a loosing streak of four games and we generally played a bit unfocused.

Noone seemed to know exactly what to do but last three games we won quite easy and I think we will be ready to push 2050 tomorrow.

Good thing was noone cracked up even if we all played quite bad but the worst thing was I lost 20g to alliance scum Rawex due to a bet, when his team beat us :(

Screw Expressen.se

2007-11-02T05:39:00.001+02:00

I was gonna purchase a banner at the Expressen.se, the internetpage of a swedish newspaper, so I ordered the text to look like this

"Are u imba warlock? Black Temple farmguild on Frostmane (EU) server in need of one imba warlock for future raiding. We welcome x realm app".

and a link to http://www.omega-point.eu/

I figured it to be just a cool thing but the scummers answered me:

"Your advertisment has been declined. Please make sure your ad doesnt:

violate the law of the country it will be published in

has objectionable content

violate the website rules

I guess noone likes them locks

Kaveira ur fat

2007-10-31T20:10:00.001+02:00

Eir Chronicles part 3

2007-10-31T19:58:00.000+02:00

.... should be completed ... quite soon....

Are u a badass warlock?

2007-10-31T17:02:00.001+02:00

In such case Omega Point might need u.

The deal is simple.

You pwn over time and raid 6 days per week between 1845-0100 or something like that.

In return u get epix and have to farm shitloads of consumables.

Heres ur chance of getting on the gravy train for future expansions by joining a guild that has BT on farm since months.

Apply on OP webpage

Ur talking to me?

2007-10-31T02:56:00.000+02:00

UR TALKING TO ME??

After a few losses and three discos we sorted our playing and ended the week at 2004 rating.

I think our teams greatest strength lies in our ability to analyze opposing teams and figure out a way to counter them.

This was very evident when we lost the first game to a team and went on winning two or three consecutive rematches.

All you need is a strategic mind and people willing to listen. People that are able to carry out the tweaks.

A few months later then anticipated the game can finally start.

I never been to BT

2007-10-27T02:00:00.001+02:00

I killed off whole Kara, and SSC, and some bosses in TK including the last one and one or two bosses in Mt Hyjal and Magtherion and Gruul ofc, but I never been to BT.

Since Im not attuned I assume I will never see it either even at later levels.

Having cleared all instances in the old world except Naxx where we only made it to Thadd I first thought I would feel bad about not making it to BT and I guess for a while I did or at least it felt like a failure.

Further the only reason I seen content after Kara is that sometimes I was called in as a reserve since guild had problems for a long time with paladins so as long as I remembered to buy reagents for greater blessings they would invite me.

I would usually have a great time not so much for the loot but for the experience in itself. In the old world we would sneak into Naxx and play Frogger and I would take a good look at the place while still there, in similar ways I would sometimes show my friends how AQ40 looked like when the place was cleared.

So in many ways I been lucky seeing more then the average person would see.

I wasnt so much aiming to tell u about myself rather about the practice of buying gear.

Nowadays several guilds sell epic loot from the instances they have on farm status.

I bought some crafted gear but never gear that dropped. Some people frown at this practice I think its great for those people that never had the chance of getting so far being able to raid.

However imo dont buy gear just for the loot.

If you arent raiding the last instances you probably wont need the best gear and Im pretty sure Kara is possible for most people to go to. Not to mention alot of gear can be obtained from heroics, rep, badges, crafting and pvp and after next patch there will be even more gear from badges, a new 10 man instance etc.

It can be argued that you always need better gear even if you just jump on the bankroof in Orgrimmar, the point I want to make to all casuals out there is if you feel you want to see more of the game by all means buy a raidslot and get an upgrade at the same time.

But usually its quite expensive buying gear. The prices are usually a more then considerable stack of gold for a normal casual.

And many casuals gear up so slow that by the time they are decked out in the best gear pre SSC its patch time with a whole new bunch of easy obtainable gear.

So think twice before buying any gear like this

I got 65 000 honor!

2007-10-26T22:55:00.000+02:00

The cap is at 75k.

Its AV weekend today and until monday night.

Things doesnt look to bad at all.

Lets hope they introduce some more bgs next expansion, that are more playable then Eye of the Storm. Most likely I wont have to spend all my points but can save some until I hit level 80. At least that was how things worked this time when tbc came.

Or I can spend it all and get more points to save :(

Finally

2007-10-23T03:36:00.000+02:00

Seems like things are on the right track again. Today a new mage signed up for the team so once again we are five players and we got some games going. We lost the first but and then managed to lose some more games but in 15 games or so we increased our rating with 100 getting to 1890, I always said that the arenagame starts at 2k so we are always there.

With our current setup of mage, holypriest, hunter, warlock and me games are usually longer then Im used too and this time around we play control and not burst.

What makes this kind of playstyle very hard is the fact that you play long games and you must play perfect all the time while in a burst team things usually eases up after 30 seconds when you killed someone.

Nevertheless we had great fun and with more playtime Im sure we can start playing again.

We lost our first game to a team we then beat two consecutive times. Obviously all kinds of melee damage are at a slight disadvantage to us as we have both a nova happy mage and a hunter but overall there arent many setups that we have a huge advantage over, on the other hand we usually arent too much of a disadvantage either.

It all depends on how we play, and what kind of decisions we make which makes the analysis of why we won and ever more important why we lost very important, and i think we got that part covered quite well.

The post fight analysis and the tweaking before next game should we face a similar setup were good. We managed to quickly come to the conclusion how we should handle the situation and we usually managed to stick to the plan in next games.

Playing wow for fun

2007-10-21T23:21:00.000+02:00

While poor captain Snikch been busy recruiting a replacer to our team, I been playing wow for fun.

I bought the game the first day it was for sale in my country and been playing since then. Looking back there was something special with the first time when u ran around in Barrens and everything was new. I recall that I used to think that after Uldaman things began to change and I shortly thereafter joined Mayhem guild and I guess the rest is history.

Im not sad at all that I been doing what I done for the last years and I wouldnt want to change it. But still since team is grounded and I have 1k gold and everyone is busy waiting for the new raidinstance or new patch or both I decided to create a mage and go back to the time before you had to farm anything, raid anything, show up at specific times, skip food and pee in a bucket :(

Thing with alts is, often its very easy to once again get caught in the circle of demands where you just run frantic between quests.

I was overjoyed that Eir joined me with some wanna be paladin and we spent a few hours per day running around and pretending everything is new, well at least me. So far we havent run into any quests that we needed to find more people to do and this hasslefree kind of play sure beats the lfg channel.

Im sure we all have these moments in RL too. We want out from the rat race and return to easier times in high school. Thing is we cant do that and if we try we are sure to mess up our lives but we can easily do some make believe about seeing Ghostlands for first time.

Now motherfucking Snikch (with all due respect) better sort our team before we have to do first instance :(

Just like real life

2007-10-18T13:42:00.000+02:00

Mr Cityhermit did complete his thesis about World of Warcraft, in the end his paper was namned "Just like real life."

I guess that gives a hunch about his findings...

Conclusion
When discussing the possibility of contemplating online games as spaces that are orientated around particular activities instead of an unreal technological dimension, the first activity that comes to mind is doubtlessly play.

Johan Huizinga notes how any game is by itself an act of demarcating a space that is detached from the drudgery of quotidian life by noting that play is not an “ordinary” or “real” activity but “It is rather a stepping out of ‘real’ into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own” (Huizinga 1955 p8), the feature of play that allows it to have a disposition of its own is its assumed interruption of the appetitive process and its occupation of a sphere superior to the strictly biological process of nutrition, reproduction and self preservation(Huizinga 1955 p9).

I have addressed the problem of approaching ludic space as a pedestal while discussing Aarseth’s ludologic approach, although the focus on ludism has the virtue of eliminating notions of ‘cyberspace’ by emphasizing the activity performed in these spaces, it still fails to notice the reality of the appetitive process involved in spaces such as WoW.

The closest theoretical explanation of the appeal of online games is possibly Georges Bataille’s discussion of the inutile.

In his voluminous work concerning the necessity of excess in the formation of a truly human economy, Bataille discusses the generation of glory by the Aztec civilization through the excesses of human sacrifice: “A mes yeux, ce mouvement est ce qui nous anime quand nous somme assoiffÈs de gloire” (Bataille 1976 p193).
Battaille essentially celebrates all inutile activities as producers of glory and joins voices with Nicholas Rose in condemning contemporary bourgeois economies for sanctioning glorious and inutile conduct in favour of utile or ‘enterprising’ behaviour (Bataille 1976 p200, Rose 1998 p150).
Bataille’s sophisticated account of the necessity of excess in human systems may be very elaborate and inspiring, however like previously discussed theoretical approaches, the lack of participant observation is the main problem with Battaille’s argument, hence the fictitious image of Georges Battaille trying to convince a pious
Aztec that human sacrifice is a glorious act of inutilty remains amusing.

I have tried to argue in this paper that there is no reason to be equally amused by the sight of a clinical psychologist or a social theorist, who is trying to convince a WoWer that their affection to the game corresponds to either the rise of a new dawn in terms of the experimental possibilities of the environment, or to an apocalyptic epidemic that results in the complete loss of the players concerned.
We have seen the abundance of the activities that are conducted in WoW under the umbrella of play, the nature of these activities are only available to those who are willing to participate in them as opposed to contemplate them from the outside.

Finally I believe the participatory understanding of games like WoW is absolutely crucial to ensure the success of future policy on the field. Considering the attention given to the problem of ‘addiction’ and the increasing disputes between companies that manufacture the games and the companies that sell in game goods for real money.

The necessity of deciding on policy will eventually become inevitable, my hope is that these policies will be informed more by solid participant research capable of accounting for the diverse range of activities involved in these online spaces than they will be by abstruse theoretical accounts detached from the real experience of the real people in question.

The addiction...

2007-10-17T23:02:00.000+02:00

So after waking up late and slucking I realized I only had about an hour before having to go to work. Not having the heart to farm more then a few AVs I decided to make a mage alt just to feel the power of blowing up people.

Said and done I started to fireball (amg) lvl 1 critters before moving up to higher levels and higher mobs, slowly exploring the world and starting to replace my grey gear with white gear.

The thing is for every white cloak with 5 armor I found or pants with 9 armor, it felt so nice.

First green item felt like first epic from MC.

Some guy wrote that a rose is a rose no matter what u call it and I guess thats true for upgrades too....

... and addiction

52 badges and counting

2007-10-16T23:54:00.000+02:00

Another farmday is over and the count stops at 52 badges and around 40g in repair costs.

Farming for badges feels a lot better then farming for drops because you are guaranteed a badge once you down a boss.

I tried for a long time to get the devout set, but the head never dropped in whats probably close to 100 times. I even seen the epic staff drop from the magister but no devout.

So far the farming has gone pretty well and with this pace I will be set next weekend with my 200 badges :D

40 badges and counting

2007-10-15T18:44:00.000+02:00

After two days of farming I got 40 badges, and this day isnt over yet :)

One of the major problems for any mmorpg is to balance casual content vs hardcore and increasing the number of rewards one can get for badges is a good way of dealing with this problem.

After 2.3 even people that doesnt raid will have the chance of getting epic armor, while there arent any weapons there are plenty of chances to get those as well without raiding.

Even if they gather badges a lot slower then hardcore players they will certainly have the chance to fill their slots with epics and this also provides a good way of getting started with raiding.

Fact is raiding is possible for most players even if all cant get into a guild that farms BT. This will smoothen over the gear requirements because often when a spot becomes free in a guild they normally want people with a certain level of gear from raiding.

This is a way to break that evil circle of not being able to raid because they havent raided before as well as adding lots more fun.

Even for hardcore players there are items that are well worth their badges and it also makes it less painful to obtain offspec gear so its a win and win situation.

PTR!

2007-10-14T23:27:00.000+02:00

With the release of the info gathered from PTR I realized it was time to go back to heroic badge farming.

Im cursing myself for buying so much crap, like a shockadin trinket, before so I wasted around 60 badges that would come in handy now.

I know for sure I will need at least a new trinket and a new libram and the trinket alone is 65 badges I think.

They will now drop from bosses too but not knowing how much I will raid and the fact that i want them as soon as possible for pvp makes badgefarming a must.

I think I made 10 heroic badges today and at least one run went smooth. One of the advantages for me, being in OP, is that there are usually people doing heroics and if not its usually easier to get groups when people see my guildtag.

While it might sound proposterous its a simple fact.

Just like myself when Im looking for groups or being asked, the odds increase if I see a guildtag I recognize (for being fairly good).

Im not sure what to say about the pve/pvp mix.

Once again the best pve weapon is the arena one, well least until the next 25 man is released and this time its harder to get them, but not too hard. On the other hand you probably need stuff for heroic badges if you want the best pvp gear.

While there are valid arguments for and against, without choosing sides it seems to come down to the fact that if u want to be the best u have to take on all comers.

World without Warcraft

2007-10-09T18:38:00.001+02:00

Browsing through the web you find numerous MMORPGS, while most are small there are also serious competitors to WOW behind the corner.

However, so far noone is even close to the number of subscribers that Wow have.

The reason is that the newer games simply lack the fanbase to compete with Blizzard in terms of subscribers. Games like Conan or Warhammer has their appeal in America and Europe but are virtually unkown in Asia. The same can be said for Asian producers too such as Ubisofts game which I tried in Thailand. There is also the a cultural barrier in terms of looks and gameplay which for example Ragnarok suffer from.

Appart from Blizzard the most successful company is NCsoft who made Lineage, Guildwars and City of Heroes, but World of Warcraft alone are almost 2/3 bigger.

Games like Everquest have only roughly 400 000 players compared to Wows 7 million players. Smaller games like D&D online have around 100 000 players and classic games like Ultima have roughly 20 000 players.

The financial reality is that you need to be a heavyweight if you want to tangle with Blizzard. Simply put the sheer size and quality of the game as well as internet presence will cost a fortune if you want to compare to Blizzard.

For example Interplay suggest a 75 million USD budget for a Fallout MMORPG and if they start working today the beta will be avaliable in 2010. Hopefully the game havent aged too much by then....

Most likely we will see lots of games going belly up the next five years before sorting out who will survive.

For the poor developers looking to get the big break by making a game like wow.... the usual strategy is making a free version thats full of bugs and hopefully attract enough players to be able to charge people for removing the bugs.

However since most players compare with comercial games its usually a painful experience playing these free games.

Best is probably to either find a heavy niche like the MMORPG about Rome who has around 5000 players who hopefully will start paying soon (well actually while the game is free you purchase gold for rl cash so I guess they get on) or make a simplistic game with good gameplay and some unique twists.

Dont forgot people still enjoy playing Tetris.

Honorfarming :(

2007-10-07T15:25:00.000+02:00

I hate honorfarming.

While the new pvp system with new items added every season makes a lot of sense the problem is that you are forced to go back to same bgs over and over again.

Dont get me wrong its great getting some friends and go whack people in the head but pwning in premades are just a small part of a big farming nowadays.

Imagine going back to MC over and over again beacuse tokens for T5 and T6 and T7 dropped there.....

Alot of things have improved since the introduction of bgs, but if they added more rewards it wouldnt be this bad.

Why dont upgrade the old bg rewards to lvl 80 and add a few honor stuff for epen only like new tabard which actually looks good, perhaps a funny mount, things like that....

Tonight we dine in PTR

2007-10-03T17:29:00.000+02:00

or not?

With the newest raidinstances soon to be released in PTR there is an upcomming discussion in the guild, if we should raid at PTR or not.

Since our guild cleared all existing content, having BT on farmstatus, it would make sense of preparing for the next instance.

The opinion is divided but I personally think its the right thing to do.

There is nothing wrong with reaping the rewards from farming BT but even if you do there should be plenty of time to raid PTR.

While many people see the easy epics as a reward, and there is nothing wrong with a handfull of epics to show off, people need to realize one thing.

All gear becomes obsolete.

Thats why you need to get new gear thats fatter.

And in order to do that as smooth as possible it pays off preparing.

Its as simple as that.

When they introduced arena you could play skirmish games live, long before they were implemented. Me and Tuzak, among other people, spent many hours practicing the different arenas.

Just as I, and many others, have gone to PTR several times to test new BGs or differernt changes to pvp.

Not because we didnt have good gear but because we knew once the changes would be live the race for new gear would start and those in pole position better be prepared.

A new angle

2007-10-02T16:03:00.000+02:00

So to summon up the first week of pvp, even if we only played twice, things look promising at a 28-4 rating.

If you browse through the forums most people seem to think paladins are easy to play in arena, but nothing could be more far from the truth.

While its true few paladins go down first, especially in 5 man, most teams aim to control them and can often do so with ease.

The mandatory felhunter as well as nasty fear rotations, counterspells and other cc quickly eat away our bubble and trinket. After all my own team yells, with a certain pleasure, "the paladin has bubbled" and Im sure thats true for the other team as well.

Our games nowadays are longer then Im used too. Before I would just bubble and then watch someone die, now its a race between teams to drain mana forcing me to be far more active.

I have to loose the sight of enemy casters for all kinds of cc and avoiding manaburns as well, while at the same time staying within sight to heal.

Its much harder then last season, and in order to reach the top this is something I have to become a lot better at. So far I havent caused any losses, well maybe one, but its been closer then comfortable.

I read some forum sig stating that "if you dont succeed at first, dont parachute" or something like that.

In First breath after coma you succeed at first. period

Game is afoot

2007-09-30T21:13:00.000+02:00

Aiming at doing around 20-30 games per week we fell short of that goal when we started with a 19-2 record the first time we played but there is no rush.

Things went rather smooth as we wore down the other teams casters by draining their mana and taking turn controlling them.

Im now more confident then ever that we will reach the top, if not the very top, just like last season when we would gain rating every time we played.

The obvious question is what does this team have that others I played with are lacking?

I would say that the answer is simply communication.

Individual skill is not to be underrated and obviously you need a great deal, but teamwork is needed to make it to a higher level.

Paladin - Warrior - Shaman

2007-09-28T22:47:00.000+02:00

My 3vs3 have been stuck a while just below 2K.

While we havent played that much but I think not even a lucky string will be able to propell us much higher.

Having played with the same setup last season, paladin - warrior - shaman, Im very familiar with the strength and weakness.

Only difference is that we now have an resto shaman as opposed to a enhancement shaman last season.

This means games are often longer and we often win by outlasting our opponents. It also means both me and the shaman must take a more offensive role interrupting the other teams healers or sometimes offensive players as well.

Having far less dps is a problem however since we are very weak against teams with any kind of cc. Having to deal with a mage or a druid is usually a problem and if they combine their powers with another class like hunter things are stacked against us.

Obviously the nerf of bof and bos hurts a great deal.

Today we faced a fellow Frostmane team, Salli, Helvetica and Ithius, a mage - sp- (dirty) rogue team and things went quite well until I had burned both my trinket and my bubble and used bos, at that time I was forced to use bof and thus overwrote bos and since they nerfed the cd time I couldnt recast it and was chained sheeped.

Last season we could get the lucky bloodlust windfury procc (amg).

In order to win our mounts and the gladiator title we battled until the last hour winning and loosing. In what turned out to be our last game we met a druid, paladin, warrior who had beaten us twice. The paladin had full T5 pve gear and could outheal me alone, together with a druid it wasnt a contest but as it happened a minor misstake from the druid made it possible to catch him in casterform just at the begining of the game and he died due to a few lucky crits.

With our current lower dps I dont see such thing happen.

Overall our setup is fairy stable, usually with an advantage vs other melee teams such as rogue - warrior - paladin, but first there arent that many teams around anymore and second you lack the edge making me to believe this is a setup for around 2k, just as we are.

Hopefully I might be proven wrong

Im waiting u loose

2007-09-26T18:54:00.000+02:00

Team is now full with me, holy priest, SL warlock, hunter (ranged) and warrior (MS) and today I got my new caster shield from arena so what can go wrong?

Actually considering the nerf of paladins backbone, bof, alot can go wrong but since we have a hunter it will hopefully tip the scale to our advantage anyway.

If you cant beat them join them :/

In the team I only played with Snikch and Rossen before so it will take a while to learn the other peoples playstyle. I figure we will play a few times before we hit 2k rating and we have to tangle with the big boys.

You got mail

2007-09-23T19:53:00.001+02:00

When I logged in today I had mail.

An invite to a new team formed by the man behind Italian Haircuts which I played in last season.

Needless to say I signed up right away, not wanting to miss the chance of being back on track again.

Getting back on track

2007-09-21T00:16:00.001+02:00

For the hundred times this season my arena team is on its way to getting inactive.

*sigh*

In spite of having 5 non raiders our 3-4 days a week are slowly drifting away to cramming in a few hours the last possible day. :/

The situation in my 3 man is even worse because I teamed with two raiders there so theres seldom any chance to play.

My work sometimes requires me to work evenings but usally I can play at least five days during prime time which *should* be enough.

I joined the team in good faith because I was tired of the inactivity and whining in other teams but since the trend of inactivity seems to continue I dont know what I will do next :/

World of Warcraft finally over

2007-09-12T12:42:00.000+02:00

Black Temple cleared, like a month too late, hopefully it will be on farmstatus soon.

But for now the game is actually over for some of us until next content patch.

And Im not gladiator this season gg

AFK

2007-09-03T05:15:00.000+03:00

Will be more or less constant offline for two weeks starting today. I had hoped to be able to present part 3 of Eir Chronicles but had a unexpected busy weekend at work (I normally write both the story and the blog when Im at work), altho I aim to complete it during my mini vaccation I probably wont post it until Im back.

I might post shorter whines, but see u when Im back.

Im in the arena getting free epix part 2

2007-09-01T01:37:00.000+03:00

So

Once in a while it pops up like some kind of disease you cant get rid of.

"The omg free epix in arena but I cant loot epix while wiping at trash" discussion.

Forget the fact that, assuming u get a 5 man together, you hardly get any points from a 1400 rating after the nerf under 1500 (to prevent people from making new teams each week), or that u will need a minimum rating to be able to purchase weapons at new patch.

Like I already said everyone who whines about how easy it is in arena are the ones who seldom goes there, just as people who says pve requires no skill are usually not raiding.

In fact most, and here I mean something like 80% and probably more, of all top teams are have been raiding or used to do. There are notable exceptions but quite frankly most oldschool pvpers havent been too sucessfull in arena because arena requires a higher degree of coordination and teamwork.

Being able to wtfpwn 1vs1 is secondary.

Now what people usually dont realize for some reason is that pvp and pve are very different.

In pve u fight versus mobs and raidbosses. As hard as they are they are also static. The bosses wont ever be harder, most likely they will be easier and easier when you gear up and learn the encounter. So to prevent people from farming Black Temple first day after release they limit the speed which u can get epics.

Thats why we have one week resets on instances, lots of trash, attunenements and lots of different setu requirements.

In pvp you fight other players. Since Wow is so gear dependant the best would be if all players would have same level of gears. However that would remove the incentive so what instead was to make the gear resonably easier to get even for new players. The current pvp system allows for equality while leaving room for gear advantages.

Thats why u can get gear even by losing both in arena and bgs, altho at a much slower pace.

Thats why we have reslience, a stat thats more or less useless in pve, to separate the two kinds of gear.

Quote Chasers (Omega Point guild management) comment on an application (without smileys)

"Laff lol u only got gimp pvp gear wtf lol"

Oh and if u been pve since TBC release and still havent gotten epics its not pvp thats ur problem tbh.

The lost season

2007-08-31T23:57:00.000+03:00

For some reason just about every team I join this season goes inactive.

I lost count of teams I left when we havent been able to play 10 games one week, sometimes perhaps it was premature but since Im only doing pvp 10 games per weeks is my minimum standard.

Oh well Im soon going away for two weeks myself so I guess I cant really point fingers.

As long as I have 5000 arena pts and plenty of honor set for next season things will go well. I havent been able to purchase the last merciless pieces but on the other I do have 3200 points so I could, Im just waiting a bit to see if they will patch soon so I can buy the shield.

Thats a good thing with these seasons.

There is always a next season.

If you fall behind on pve you have a much harder time to catch up, unlike pvp u not only wrestle with gear problems but also attunements making it hard to close the gap once u fallen behind.

While I struggle in the scrubleague around 1700-188 and just collecting points to be good to go next season.

One thing that bothers me is that I might not be able to be gladiator again, altho I do have high hopes for my 3vs3.

Priests and Paladins part 1

2007-08-28T18:02:00.000+03:00

I decided to give a friend, who just made it to Outlands, a bit help in doing a few quests and instances.

As it happened my old priest and him were the same level so after years of playing paladin I got a few new insights. I tried shadowpriest a few times but frankly I never been comfortable with playing it, much in same way I always preferred holy spec when I played paladin.

Thing with priests compared to paladins, and I refer to healing, is that a priest has several more options. Hes a more versatile healer then paladins and require a less onedimensional playstyle then paladins....

Or to put it simple.

When it comes to healing priest is plain sucky compared to paladins.

Its almost impossible for paladins to gain healing aggro, while it seems to happen all the time with priests even with fade. Thing is most groups, especially pugs while leveling, arent especially good. You have tanks that cant tank and you got dps who cant count to "several sunders", in fact they cant count to one much less wait, so they are prone to overaggro and you people fail in all ways to protect the healers.

Under those circumstances a paladins aggro management with no healing aggro as well as bos are enough reasons to not bring a priest.

Things like gearissues and skillissues often forces you to spamheal the tank or the tankwannabe just to keep him alive so forget about controling your own heals.

A second thought is your high surviability, even if mobs start to hit you most of the time you wont be twoshotted like some poor clothie. You can even use taunt to protect people who draw aggro.

While priests might be more versatile their buffs arent. Its really nothing wrong with extra stamina, but the different blessings are generally more helpfull since you can strengthen your partymembers in their role.

And then there is the manaefficency....

Mother Shahraz down by Sluckers

2007-08-27T16:38:00.000+03:00

A full filofax too late Omega Point managed to kill Mother Shahraz.

Finally.

Hopefully they can clear Black Temple before next 25 man instance will be ingame

No updates this weekend

2007-08-24T21:32:00.001+03:00

/Out of town

Eir Chronicles part 3: tba

2007-08-24T00:42:00.000+03:00

Will be live around 2nd sept.

As things are set in motion Eir reunites with an old friend.

"How did you get past the guards?"
"I'm Eir."
"That doesnt answer my question."
"Actually it does."

(teaser np)

24 as retri

2007-08-22T18:14:00.000+03:00

Basically I rushed to get to 70 and since then i been busy doing either raiding or in later days arena (and jumping at the bankroof in Org ofc) so I have loads of quests left to do.

Since one of the stupid warriors went afk during weekend and I dont usually raid I spec retri and decided to do some quests for gold and to see how retri felt.

My gear for retri isnt that great. A few epics, some crafted blues and some crap. But what tha heck I got to hit ppl yeh.

The general impression is that Vengance, and above all the Vengance buff, is most important for substained dps.

In a way similar to how a warrior would build rage (but not as good ofc) you would be able to build vengance stacks on the target, buffing all dmg output with each stack.

Combined with the lesser CD of Crusader Strike retri is on its way.

Relativly the dps is still alot worse then other classes esp considering the reliance of crits or SoC procs. Every third mob or so nothing crits and nothing procs leaving you standing there autohitting :/

It wasnt a good experience being on top of the healing and then struggling to get lvl 66-67 mobs put away. While my gear leaves lot to wish I still had some 1500 AP and its a lot better then the newly baked lvl 70, not to mention the crapgeared leveler who the quests I did were intended for.

......

Once you geared up resonably you will obviously be in a better position but since you then will be aiming for bigger tasks, heroics, raiding, I think retri still will miss the mark and remain a leveling spec and a gimmick pvp spec

80% of all palas are holy spec gasp

2007-08-20T01:26:00.000+03:00

According to a recent breakdown at http://www.worldofraids.com/ where statistics from armory was analyzed data from 4663 lvl 70 paladins were captured and they roughly diveded like this:

Holy 83,4%
Protection 7, 18%
Retribution 9,41%

The reason for the heavy holy dominance its becuase holy is the generally accepted spec for rading and for arena teams.

There are alot of ongoing discussions in the paladin comunity about how crappy everything is... I mean the fact that holy is overrepresented because you are forced to spec that way to be able to get into raids.

The thing is most sane guilds... I mean end guilds enforce specs for all classes.

Lets say for example that you are a warrior who will raid as a tank. Can you guess which spec you are required to have?

Even among classes that are supposed to deal damage even in raids there are special things to observe.

A shadowpriest must pick up the aggroreducing talents and as a warlock you better drop your soullink spec and park your Felguard in Shattarat.

Certainly you can preform quite well with offspecs such as retribution or elemental in raids.

However "quite well" is what you bring when you raid Kara together with alts and pugs.

To be able to constantly dig deeper into new instances and down new bosses you need the best possible setup and spec.

There is no reason why this should be more offensive for paladins then for other classes.

Eir Chronicles part 2: The rain

2007-08-19T04:23:00.000+03:00

Im the Omega Point guildmaster.

But what does that mean?

Its not like picking up the gladiator title. I have the deepest respect for everyone who prove themselves in the arena. But for them it all ends once they leave the arena.

Similar if you made a name through raiding like some of our guildmembers have done. As soon as the raid is over they go back to jumping on bankroof in Orgrimmar.

The point Im trying to make is when the day ends for most people all they have to do is to look after themselves and get ready for the next day. but being the guildmaster takes over your whole life. It doesnt have an end. I give you an example.

On my leave of absence I had decided to go back to the old world and was enjoying fishing outside Crossroads. Once a very busy hub it has now been reduced in importance and quite frankly it has seen its better days. It still serves as a hub for Barrens, its just that Barrens doesnt get many visitors anymore most are just flying past it.

Crossroads nowadays are reduced to a mere memory of a time when Barrens were yet undiscovered. The reason I vent back there is just about the only reason one can have for returning to Crossroads. The fishing. Located within the area are different oasises where you can enjoy fishing in solitude.

I was standing alone at Lushwater Oasis when an orc walks up to me in front of his little mob of henchmen. People who enjoy fishing normally dont seek out each others company and they usually dont use large swords to catch the fish.

"You are Eir, the guildmaster Omega Point?" he asks.
I know he already knows who I am.
"That would be me yes."
He gives his entourage a quick glance. "Im Kraul, I want to join your guild."
"Sorry," I said, "We are full at the moment but if you leave an application to our recruitment officer we get back to you when we have any openings."
The standard speech for unwanted. He knows we never get back to him, and I know he doesnt want to enroll. We both know the other one knows but we keep acting.
He finish the play by saying "So howbout if I had your job?"

Indeed he has a big sword and wield it quite well, but not well enough to back his insolence. The fight was over before it started. The outcome was already determined.

During my short stay here theres already been several of these minor interruptions. All dealt with swiftly and with ease. It was my second week in Crossroads doing daytrips fishing. The first week you make up your mind to buy a small house and stay forever, but after that it goes downhill a little bit every day.
Apart from giving an helping hand to inexperienced people who just arrived to Crossroads with wide eyes, just like I did long ago, these sporadic bursts of insolence were the only variety in my mundane stay here.

By the time I packed my things and headed back towards Crossroads it was raining. I knew this kind of rain. I knew the taste of it, the smell of it. It was prophetic and I was a connoisseur of that particular rain. I didnt possess the power to see the future in a classic way but sometimes omens came in the rain.

The rain tasted immediate death.

About time something else happened.

I urged my tiger to go quicker as I hurried back to Crossroads.

Some thoughts about pvp

2007-08-19T03:07:00.001+03:00

The last month I tested lots of different setups with different teams.

Since I dont really do 3 man for points and since gladiator race hasnt started yet, or well it actually seems Im kinda off the track right now I tested lots of stuff.

Today me and two guildies did a paladin, warrior, feraldruid team.

It wasnt really that bad. We ran into some problems with teams who packed lots of cc but generally it worked quite well and we had a good time.

Some thoughts about resilence.

Its really THE stat you want when you do pvp so starting to do arena without it is just painful and you will probably have to "waste" a season to gear up before you cant aim for higher rankings.

It sure hurts the casual player but in the long run its logicial. Just as you cant expect to progress in the pve content from scratch there isnt really a reason why such would be the case in pvp, not when they have introduced the system with seasons to update pvp gear.

With full pvp gear Im as gimped in a Black Temple raid as someone in full t6 would be in arena the moment they would start hitting him, which they usually do quick when they see hes pve geared. I would have to go back to Kara, SSC and TK to gear up if I wanted to be able to replace one of our paladin raiders, so why should one of them be able to replace me?

Today I promise to grind some honor

2007-08-18T06:00:00.000+03:00

Yes I rly do :/

I feel kinda bad because a warrior friend, who I used to do pvp with, has been asking me like 3-4 times but I always been busy doing something else :(

Like helping friends with a quest or doing arena.

Oh well if hes online tomorrow I gonna ask him

Omega Point looking for dps warr/feral druid

2007-08-16T17:16:00.000+03:00

If your interested in joining worlds 67th raiding guild feel free to drop a note at our webpage or whisper Meathead inside the game.

Link to recruitment post at realmforum

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=508640917&sid=1

As the world turns

2007-08-16T00:20:00.000+03:00

After loosing both my epen and 200 pts rating in about an hour I kinda wonder whats wrong with warriors?

Plan is simple.

Our fearless leader, Musashi, calls a target and all three warriors zerg it down.

For some reason it didnt happen in three hours. There was always a warrior busy soloing something else then the target.

"I almost had him"

To further that insult this was our only playday this week as one warrior is going afk, same as today I guess with only difference this warrior wont be logged in.

Well the guilty know who you are so repent you mothersluckers.

Today our guildmaster, Makedon, left the guild after deciding to quit the game

Omega Point will now be run by Eir and Meathead,

Since both already had a large influence over Omega Point its business as usual, but it will be interesting to see what eventually will come out of the new leadership.

Each leader always leaves his or hers imprint and in this case I hope they leave many for us.

The return of the epen

2007-08-13T22:06:00.001+03:00

Finally recaptured 2k rating in 5vs5

The game can begin!

So easy

2007-08-13T02:17:00.000+03:00

So today we gained 150 rating in two hours with our 5 man, staying at 1955, winning 15 games and loosing 2.

The reason was that the warriors managed to actually dps the same target Oo

With this newly gained insight progress was made rapidly and for the first time Im quite confident that we will pass the 2k limit very soon

As a minor note Omega Point managed to down some Essence of Souls guy :)

Heroics

2007-08-12T04:55:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I did BM and Old Hillsbrad heroics.

No raid on Saturdays so after doing some arena me, Eir, Meathead, Gon, and some poor trial who prolly felt forced to show his skills to the two officers in grp went down there.

As I never done any of them in heroic mood I was looking foward to seeing some new stuff, but
actually I didnt really notice any difference at all from normal instances.

Most likely the gear of everyone has improved a lot since before summer when we struggled at doing heroics.

Someone in the grp said they would introduce more things to buy for the badges next patch, of higher quality.

While I think this is a great idea it also means you get better stuff for doing same things. Like if they let T6 drop in SSC all of a sudden.

It servers the purpose of letting people that doesnt raid stay in the game and not fall behind too often. People that raid Black Temple arent really affected by this, and people who raid but still havent made it there can still do heroics.

I would, however, be happier if they introduced a few more 5 mans, harder then present, with better loot.

That kinda would make more sense

Gurtogg Bloodboil vs OP movie

2007-08-10T11:18:00.000+03:00

You seen it before.

Boss goes down to nice music.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SERZQAMH

Damn nice music tho and the movie is made by a pro,
unlike lots of movies u can actually see what happens.

Eir Chronicles part 2:Tba

2007-08-10T03:12:00.000+03:00

Part 2 is due late late late next week :/

I got imba tanking gear :(

2007-08-09T16:46:00.000+03:00

When the expansion was announced I started to think about leveling, while its still at least 6 month left I would need a whole new gear assuming I would like to level with something else then holy spec.

After testing some at laggy ptr server I decided to level with retri spec so I will take some time farming retrigear, as well as loads of consumables.

When TBC hit I had 3 full bankalts with pots and elixirs of different levels and they actually helped quite a lot so I plan to do the same again. The long timeframe allows me to farm just a few each day.

I realized looking through my bank that I have almost a whole tanking set, including sockets and enchants, that I prolly never gonna use. I mean I prolly wasted well over 1000 gold on a gear I prolly never gonna use.

So the lesson for future times is screw tanking gear and just get retrigear as 2nd gear for leveling and for soloquesting and stuff. I still got all quests left in Blades Edge as well as many in Nether and Shadowmoon, I plan to do them prior to expansion once I got my retrigear complete.

I guess I keep stocking up on tanking gear just in case tho I wont enchant them or socket them

Bloodboil downed by Omega Point

2007-08-08T00:43:00.000+03:00

Sluckers managed to kill yet a new boss in Black Temple!

Gz and dont wait so long next time, get people who are online instead ^^

KISS*

2007-08-07T02:40:00.000+03:00

*keep it stupid simple

After 3 hours in arena today we had gained 6 rating, after first loosing over hundred. We started out with a tactic based warriors lolcharing while shaman found a target and deep purging it, then he would call and warriors would intercept the main target (now deep purged) and use all the rage they built to kill target.

It didnt work and there isnt a chance in hell it will work cause warriors are stupid as hell.

So for the last 45 mins when we won back all rating we lost, and got our additional 6 points, we screwed tactics and let the warriors just charge.

It worked well when they hit the same target so thats what we gonna practice next :/

I have to say Im quite impressed by peoples attitude tho. Not to say my other teams this season hasnt been serious. But I already played over 100 games with this team first week, which I think is more then I played with all previous teams together, and there is also a higher degree of planning with this team.

Whatever floats your boat but I like an enviroment where you can constantly plan ahead.

Next we plan to win

Eir Chronicles part 1: The thirst

2007-08-06T09:13:00.001+03:00

Its something with raiding that makes me want to drink water afterwards.

The last month I always had to drink large amounts of water once I got back to the base camp. Not the conjured crap but but real fresh water, as fresh as you can get in this twisted place.

For months we been doing expedition raids to the Black Temple in search of lost information and relics. For every piece of dissociated knowledge we uncover the closer we get to finally put an end to Illiadan the Betrayers corruption of this land. For each relic we obtain we grow in power and I fear we also become closer to what we fight.

When I was in Warbound, I used to cry for weeks when I lost a friend in battle.

That was long time ago.

The chance to own relics from Black Temple has filled our ranks with recruits eager to die. It was when I decided to stop learning their names I stopped crying. Since then I dont fight together with friends, I fight together with markers on a tactical map or a number in a attack sequence.

We all been reduced to pieces in the puzzle to unravel Black Temple and with the sort of recruits we get nowadays theres much puzzling left.

My thirst seems to become worse for each raid. This night I couldnt stop until the pain in my stomach forced me to stop and I have a high tolerance for pain. I had already decided to ask Wadi for her opinion the next day, but now I rushed over at night. She is one of the Blood Knights participating in the campaign.

She is one of the most gifted healers I ever seen, which is why I hasted over to have her opinion right away.

Walking through our encampment nighttime was at best confusing. Horde warfare has always been based upon a high mobility, favoring open camps that can either be abandoned or quickly disassembled according to the situation. Even in a base camp used for months, like this, we still stayed in tents.

Furthermore we never cared for exact planning, usually what happened was you put up your tent next to someone you wanted be around and that way the camp would quickly grow in an almost random pattern.

My throat was dry.

Following the twisted path of tamped rubble that ended in a paved road I soon came upon the the blood elf area.

A small village of magically enhanced red and gold buildings deep behind a wall of stone. It had enough magical light to make the buildings appear glowing.

Blood elves prefer fortified encampments of stone that resembled Silvermoon in the appearance.

Since their camp was inside ours they skipped the moat, probably feared it would get soiled, but just like all large numbers of blood elves at the same place they had insisted on building their own fortification.

Unlike us, their warfare is based on the use of their fortifications to keep their armies supplied and rested. Overall they are more defensive then we are. Even when they were the aggressors the first thing they would do when they entered enemy territory was building a walled camp and then typically they leapfrogged forward a bit and built a new camp.

Scholars believe the explanation for this doctrine is the fact that there are relative few blood elves compared to other races. That could very well be true as far as I know.

I never heard a satisfactory explanation to why they like Silvermoon the way it looks or, even worse, wants to recreate it everywhere.

I entered through the reinforced gate. The area was bathed in the the reddish light from their magical torches making me think of a painting of a fire I once saw. Just like the in the painting someone has overused the color palette now. A Blood Knight approached me from the gatehouse, his mean face carved in stone, his eyes missing nothing.

"Mylady Eir, an unexpected pleasure". It seemed a long time since stone face had any pleasures and I dont think he had one now.

"I need to see Wadi in an urgent matter."

"Certainly Mylady, he bowed slightly, please follow me." He turned around and led me deeper into the compound, past the major buildings, to the barracks in the back.

Blood elves believes living together is essential to discipline, unit cohesion, and espirit de corps, hence they normally built large barracks where entire

units, according to their way of organizing, slept, ate and practiced together.

Like most barracks the one we entered had a sleeping hall with straight rows of beds and the rest was divided between storage areas, dining hall, and a common arena.

Wadi met us as we entered.

As all blood elves she was a smallish sort, slender limbed, quite handsome in a childlike way. Always when I met her I got the urge of cuddling her like you do with dolls. So far I have resisted because I knew she would be seriously offended, but I have already decided to do it one day. Wadi flickered a glance at my escort who quickly left us.

"Hey Eir, how are you?"

"Fine I guess," I said and tapped my finger to my ear.

"Walk with me," Wadi said and motioned for me to follow. I followed her rustle of silk through a few straight hallways before we entered a storage room. Rows of backpacks hung from the wall in what appeared to be a planned order. There was nothing to drink in the room.

Wadi closed the door.

"What is it?" her eyebrows asked.

"Im dying of thirst, Its been getting worse. The last week its been hell"

Wadi grimaced "Thats why you here? You know I deal mostly with combat injuries"

"I am in combat every day!" I snapped. "You think I come to you first? I asked the best priest in guild, she didnt find anything."

She looked at me intensly.

"If there would have been bodily harm Im sure I would have noticed it." She twitched her neck. "But what I see .. I seen it happen lots of time during long campaigns, people often pick up bad habits. However there is a simple cure for that."
"Oh rly?"

"Leave us for a week, go back to the old world to one of those cozy troll villages you keep telling me about."

I held back a snort. "Its obvious you dont realize the consequences of this suggestion of yours."
"What I do realize is all must repay old honordebts, make sure you find one to repay where you can fishing without need for melting faces.
She twitched her neck
"It will be just fine Eir ... provided I wont see you for a week.

After arming that bomb she left me.

4 Warlords and 1 gladiator

2007-08-04T01:02:00.000+03:00

So the team I recently signed up for played for the first day today, winning 9 games and loosing 4.

The team, which have 4 HW, is built around 3 warriors and a paladin and a shaman and seemed to work quite well.

There are lots of rooms for improvement but our setup beat a warlock/shadowpriest team thrice and a few others quite common setups and we gained quickly gained ranking before we ran into our anti setup with hunter and frostmage.

Double AOE cc proved to be our bane and we lost 1-4 versus that team, dropping around 20 pts each loss.

Fortunally hunters are quite rare in 5 man so I dont expect this weakness to be much of a problem.

As for the future everyone seems focused on arena and we discussed tactics alot during play so we are already working on improvement.

I remain carefully hopefull of this season.

Northend is comming

2007-08-03T23:38:00.000+03:00

They announced the new expansion at Blizzcon :)

It was the usual u expect from an expansion with new level cap to 80, new skill cap at 450, new outdoor pvp and a new continent with more mofos to grind and new places to raid.

In arena the days tend to float together in one huge ssdd and while the date hasnt been announced yet for the release I think they should wait a bit. Most guilds are only just now moving beyond SSC and me personally have so much to do in terms of rep and things to see and I dont think Im alone having those thoughts. It would be like if the TBC was released just after they released Naxx when most people still were stuck in BWL.

On the other hand even lots of casual players dont have enough to do, they probably seen lots of Kara buy now and if they cant raid 25 man they prolly seen enough of the normal dungeons as well and the heroic ofc. And the hardcore raiders have soon cleared BT so they are in a similar position now.

I myself dont really do instances anymore unless I go there with friends and have a sluck time cause I done them all quite a loot incl heroics.

Three things was really interesting tho.

First the concept of a hero class. By doing quests you unlock the ability to create a new character, a Death Knight, which will function in a different way then normal chars (more heroic I hope). The information was quite sparse but when the PTRs are up Im sure someone will explore this better.

The second thing that caught my eye was the new profession Inscription which allow you to alter the way your spells function. You could for example alter CDs or critchance. Hopefully my heals will have shorter casttime and bigger critchance :) I always been a lazy farmer but I will be farming stuff to level this proff for sure, provided it works out as it seems.

The last is the ability to customize your chars apperance, not only looks, but also emotes and dancing. This lack of customization has been a major drawback in wow and the introduction of this feature means Blizzard been listening to the critique and are ready to do something about it. It also means I might get rid of this damn dance :(

Eir Chronicles

2007-08-03T04:53:00.000+03:00

Well I started writing and first part should be up and running monday :(

So

2007-08-02T16:05:00.000+03:00

Late tonight I signed up for a new team.

We are still waiting for one shaman to be recruited so it probably wont be up and running before next week, in the meantime I will play with the guildteam 5vs5.

I was told that once BT is cleared we will cut down on raiding to a few days per week, I assume only doing BT, and instead be more pvp oriented while waiting for next raidinginstance.

This Omega Point dreamteam would indeed be fun to play in, but it seems that if it will be made after BT is cleared we have to wait.

One of the reasons I signed up with the new team is cause it has Bigbeef in it. Hes been gone during summer but popped up on msn the same day I was told my current team will be disbanded. He and I struggled with my first team before it went inactive so it will be interesting too see how much we learned since then.

I still think my current team disbanded too early we only played three times before people started to question the setup. But I guess thats the hard part of arena loosing and then comming back to winning again, I remember my old 3vs3 team last season how we droped from 2100 to 19oo ish in one day but we kept playing and came back to become gladiators.

Anyway this will be the fourth team and I hope my last this season. All I wanted was a fairly active team with people that doesnt raid so we could play more often. Its naturally more fun to be at the very top but tbh just around 2k will do, you get the gear sooner or later anyway.

Pfft ofc we must be at the top !!!

Arena team disbanding :/

2007-08-01T00:35:00.000+03:00

My new team took a blow today so we probably be disbanding the team tomorrow, or at least rebuild it with new players.

What happened was that some people werent really happy with our primary setup or the fact that we were six people and therefor basically had to switch to a secondary setup for all people to get their games.

I think Im already contracted with a new team tho, I hope I know more soon.

I been thinking about the the complaints that Shadowpriest/Warlock teams are OP.

As I did play in such a team last season I can certainly vouch for its deadliness.

We would always gibb the enemy warrior within a few seconds and we had a holy priest in our team, most of todays 4dps teams use double affil lock.

Like Snikch commented on the setup and the plan last season, since most team have a warrior its a reliable strategy to kill him first and with this caster heavy setup you have the tools for it.

The thing is many teams doesnt have a response to the UA lock and the quick burst or they fail to understand how to beat such setups.

If teams without a warrior were more common together with dirty rogues, lets for the sake of the argument say a two rogues would be the backbone of arena in the same way as warrior and paladins are now things would be much different.

Then you could see setups like rogue, rogue, mage, paladin, hunter which are anti-caster enough to counter 4 dps caster teams.

Right now the caster based teams beat the warrior based teams who beat the rest which are random based teams :)

So 4 dps caster with shadowpriest/UA lock isnt OP, they are just existing in a metagame where they usually beat most teams around and where teams that beat them are quite rare.

If they continue to be popular we soon see more rogue teams rising and then its just a matter of time until someone will say that rogues are OP in 5 man ^^

Closing the gap to warrior tanks

2007-07-30T05:25:00.000+03:00

Apart from how we function paladins have less migation then warriors, around 6% (me and numbers) and we also have less hp, around 1000 hp.

Instead we have higher blockrate with holy shield (which really doesnt matter), AOE tanking abilities (ok nothing to AOE) and ranged taunt as well (which no warrior mt complained about lacking so far).

The lesser hp however could easily be fixed by altering our talent Anticipation. As of today it will become redundant with endgame gear.

Halmir provided the following maths and the example below: (from paladin forum)

A paladin in mostly Kara gear would have:

14.5K health unbuffed
510 Defense
103% avoidance with Holy Shield

So that they are only in fact 2.6% avoidance away from 490 defense & 102.40% avoidance without having anticipation and thats with Karazhan gear.

One suggestion would be to alter Anticipation to also give stamina. Since you would need to be in tanking gear there would be minimal pvp concequences.

Anticipation changed to Hardiness: Increases your stamina by 10/20/30/40/50% of your defense value above its base amount.

Which gives the paladin somewhere around 700-1000 hp.

Warriors have the same problem ofc, and while I just would like to screw them I guess u could give them +hit?

Anticipation changed to Cool Name: Increases your hit rating by 10/20/30/40/50% of your defense value above its base amount.

Which would give them circa 4-5% +hit

I wonder

2007-07-29T01:25:00.000+03:00

I wonder why Im at work when my guild said I could MT Gruul.

On the other hand first time tanking Gruul with 18 man raid with alts and friends. Im sure I would have failed and then they would have blamed the paladin tank.

I made 1.2k gold the last week thanks to lots of dailys and two Primal Might procs. I also managed to do some mining. While it might not be much gold its big cash for me.

I wonder what to do next week when I wont get the sweet 80g extra from dailys mailed to me :(

Wtb a plan

2007-07-28T23:39:00.000+03:00

While playing today we didnt make the 2k mark I wanted and not only that I have to say we are far from making it and even if we did in some mysterious way we wont last long above it.

Its still only second week and my high hopes remains for the team and I guess this setback will make it even funnier to start pushing ranking.

Major problem right now is the lack of plan or rather when u do like we did today, win and loose, u start secondguesing and changing plan for every new game and sooner or later u end up confused.

We havent found a plan yet that works but when we do I make sure we keep it