The Warlocks Den Forums - Blogs

The Nude Project

Rokzilla — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:54:19 GMT

Hello! My name is Rokzilla and I play an Undead Rogue on Kil'jaeden. So, Season four of Arena has been going on for a month now and I've lost interest. I don't even think about PvP anymore, I'm just waiting, and waiting, but for what? Wrath of the Lich King? What will that bring me? Just... another... grind. A never ending pit of grinding. Sure, the first month or two will be amazing because everything is new and interesting. But it won't be that new because it'll all be spoiled by people in beta, which I'm not apart of, unfortunately.

So, I'm sitting at my computer, thinking, trying to decide if I should just quit WoW and move on to another game. I do play Counter Strike: Source on the side, but nothing professional. I've been tempted by everything at E3 and considering moving back to console when Fallout and Gears 2 comes out. I eventually find an old link in my bookmarks, Warlock's Den. Back when I was a hardcore noob Orc Lock on Coilfang, my home server, I used The Den to learn about my class at the time and it was very helpful to me back then. I see on the main page a link to a thread named Naked Warlock Project? and I check it out. I'm pleasantly surprised because I think how fun and challenging it could be to level a Warlock from 1 to 70 completely naked and then PvP with it, which I know is possible. And that's that. This Friday I'll start my Nude Warlock. I'll fraps every step of the way and I'll even stop at each level 19 bracket and do some PvP. I'll make movies, put up blog posts here
and hopefully, everyone can enjoy this journey with me.

- Rokzilla

So.. What now?

BloodElfArmy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:27 GMT

As I mentioned some time ago, I changed guilds recently..

I happened to be playing my Holy Priest, Th�a, doing some heroics when one of the party whispered me, do I want to join his guild?

Well, I did some research and decided that, yes, it was time that Th�a got into Raiding. She's got just about good enough stats and gear to start Kara with a good group.

SO I transfer and we're doing our first Kara run on Saturday, if we're picked, that is.

Rhiadana, though... I was doing the final bit of Netherwing dailies to get the Netherdrake and noticed a call for the Daily Heroic, Slave Pens.
I thought, Why not? and whispered the guy.. he asked What's your SpellDamage, so i told him and that was the last I heard!

So is nearly 800 Shadow damage too low to run Heroics?

DO I *really* need to respec Destro and mindlessly spam shadowbolts?

How about a 41/20 Affliction Destro build?
Just so I can run dailies for the gold.

Episode 3 Details

DrkSnpr14 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:05:51 GMT

So here's the story. I had the script all written up, but then I just kept coming up with ideas. More and more kept popping in my head, to the point where it's just to much for one episode. So now I'm working on revising and cutting some for another episode, so it's still gonna be a while. I just came up with some new ideas and stuff last night even, so it's more of a work in progress. Just want to make it the best it can be

Also, I've been spending a lot of time exploring what I can do with this new software (greenscreen FINALLY!), which opens a lot more for me creatively to work with. Instead of just a talking figure, I can really flesh this thing out with some scenarios and such.

All of my current time though has been spent in game promoting Night of the Living Dead, which is THIS SATURDAY. Trying to really push and get as many people aware as possible so we get a real good turnout. I won't lie, I'm kind of hoping to crash the server >:D I'll also be recording the event with fraps to cut together into a video post later on, so even if you couldn't make it you'll see what went down.

Rhiadana, still

BloodElfArmy — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:05:59 GMT

So, my idea that once I had Rhia up to 70 and got the Epic mount, I'd have loadsa time to get my other alts up to 70.

Seems that's not going to happen..

I just logged on to make some Shadowcloth and do the Netherwing dailies.. really.

Then someone asks for a group for the Cipher of Damnation quest which has been in my log for ages.
I'm in the Netherwing mine at the time, so I reply and get invited. There's only them and me. One rogue and one Warlock aren't going to do it.
So, I suggest that a tank and maybe a healer and possibly some more DPS might be a good idea.

See, I've been here before. You join someone else looking for the quest, get all excited and then it turns out that there's no tank or healer for an hour and a half.

So, I continue killing flayers and ravagers and collecting ore carts and even, to my delight, a Netherwing Egg..

Suddenly, 3 members join the party, tank healer and mage and everyone is like, "Come here NOW he's here" and "We're starting now"

So I hustle out still in Orc costume (but with the Netherdrake hehe.) and we go and kill Ruul and the Dragon he rode in on. Then we all fly off to hand in that bit, fly over the other side of the zone to get the next bit and then kill the Firelord.

Result!

I never did get to complete the Netherwing dailies.

Chapter 10 - The Prisoners

Pernicious — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:46:19 GMT

�Awake then, are you?� A snide voice asked, �Yes, well then. Margaret would you be a dear and fetch some water for our guest?�

Pernicious could hear his voice, and the sound of somebody walking, a door opening, and then closing. His head ached and throbbed and it was just too much for him to open his eyes just yet. He barely managed a quiet groan.

�You've been apprehended trespassing on Alliance held territory, we also have your friend the Tauren, and your demon is being held in stasis. Every time we release him he tries to burn our buildings down. Quite an annoying fellow, you know?�

Pern could hear the man inhale deeply and slowly exhale, shortly after the sent of smoke wafted past his nostrils. Then he heard the sound of a chair sliding across a hard floor, and then footsteps approach him.

�Not a very talkative bunch, you and the Tauren.� Pernicious felt the man grab his jaw and turn his head from side to side. �What your feeling wont go away, you'd do well to just get used to it. We've dealt with your kind before, Warlock. The wizards of Dalaran placed a spell on your mind to prevent your casting. Your no better than a farm hand now.�

Pernicious forced his eyes open. The sudden surge of light that assaulted him forced them shut once again. After a moment, he eased them open again and let them adjust. He was tied to a chair in the center of a wooden room. A large window was open letting in pure sunlight that reflected on the hard wood floors. The man standing in front of him was tall, muscular, and looked very intelligent. He wore blue robes with white accents. Across his chest was a velvet tabard with a gold eye that had three arrows pointing down from it like tears.

As Pern studied the man, a woman entered the room carrying a tray with glasses and a pitcher of water. She walked over to the table, set it down, and began filling the glasses. Pern returned his attention to the man.

�That tabard, So I'm in Dalaran?� Pern said with a weak voice as he looked around.

�Of course not, don't be ridiculous. Your in Lordamere Internment Camp, where you'll spend the rest of your days until the powers that be decide otherwise. Your friend has already been released into the camp yard, but I wanted to question you personally.�

�What is it you want?�

�You were found carrying a bag containing jewelry that appeared to be made with Bloodstones. They weren't Bloodstones, however, what were you planning on doing with them?�

Pern sat up strait in his chair and leaned forward, using the movement to mask the puzzlement crossing his brow. The warden leaned forward eagerly to hear what he had to say.

�I was...� Pernicious began, �I was going to wear it.�

The man sat back in his chair, clearly not pleased, and Pernicious smiled inwardly at himself.

�You horde are all the same. Think your so cleaver. Well, we'll see how you do after a few days in the camp!� The man stood up angerly and slapped the water out of the womans hands sending it toppling across the floor of the room. �This one gets no food or water until he tells the truth! Guards!�

Two soldiers quickly entered the room, followed by a Mage wearing the same tabard as the man had. They seized Pernicious, untied him from the chair and harnessed his hands behind his back, and pushed him forward out of the room.

The Internment Camp was old. Only a handful of buildings remained standing. There were two watch towers positioned on either side of the camp yard, and soldiers positioned all around them. The camp itself consisted of a large wall built from the trunks of trees that had been pushed into the ground side by side around the perimeter of the camp. One building resided in the camp, and it looked as if it were about to collapse any minute.

Kodec sat in the yard, propped up against the wall. A few members of the Forsaken sat scattered around the yard and in the building. Pern was untied when he entered the yard and wandered over to where Kodec was.

�So,� The Tauren said gruffly. �Your alive.�

�Yeah, but I got this splitting headache.� Pern rubbed his head knowing there was little he could do about it. �Supposed to keep me from casting any spells.�

�They don't seem to know what to make of me. Just lead me in here like cattle.� Kodec said slowly.

They sat in silence for a few hours. Pern concentrated on ignoring the throbbing in his head, while Kodec slept. Then a bell tolled and the other prisoners seemed to gather together in the center of the camp. Kodec and Pern got up and joined them to find out what was going on. A small group of guards and Mages entered and the prisoners all lined up side by side in two lines.

Two guards walked over and escorted Pernicious away from the group. The rest of the prisoners were given their evening meals and sat down to eat. The guards stood watch over Pernicious until the meal was over, then left.

When Pernicious rejoined Kodec, the Tauren handed him a hunk of bread. �Here, eat this.�

�Thanks.� Pern ate the dry bread as quickly as he could to avoid being spotted.

They both sudden came aware of the other captives looking at them, over their shoulders, around corners, trying to remain inconspicuous. After a while of this, and eventually ignoring them, Pern and Kodec settled down for the night. Inside the building were a series of cots all pushed close to one another and all appeared to be occupied by various Forsaken bodies.

�I was thinking of sleeping outside anyways,� Pern said, and the two found a nice spot in the yard under a tree to sleep. Of course neither of them could sleep under the circumstances. Pern found himself close at one point, but was disturbed by a soft rustling sound from behind him. A quick glance found Kodec also alert but unmoving. The sound would come and go, but always sounded louder when they could hear it.

Kodec sprang to his feet and dashed around the tree and Pern did the same. They found themselves face to face with another Tauren. Pern noticed that this Tauren had a brown and tan hide, shaggy hair, and one of his horns had been broken off.

�It is you,� the Tauren said looking at Kodec. �I wasn't sure when I saw you earlier.�

�What?� Kodec stammered.

�No Tauren can mistake a Bloodhoof when they see one.�

�Bloodhoof?� Pernicious asked.

�Who are you?� Kodec said, ignoring Perns question.

�My name is Tronk Thundercleft. Human agents from Stormwind put me here.�

�Then you are the one we came looking for!� Pern started. �What happened to the Bloodstones?�

The Tauren's eyes widened and he looked around quickly to see if anyone was close enough to hear. �You must guard your words in this place, not wise it is to speak of the gems. It's not what you think, Those undead I'm trapped here with had the gems, stolen from Sylvanas herself! I was lead to believe these were unclaimed gems, and was attempting to purchase them for our shaman back at Thunder Bluff.�

�I see,� Kodec said gruffly. �So these Forsaken here are traitors to their own. Fitting they should end up here.�

�What should we do now?� Pern asked.

�I've learned that the humans plan on sending the gems off to be studied. I was trying to figure out how to escape this place and recover them on route when you two showed up. That makes things easier, I thought. After all, no prison standing can hold a Bloodhoof for long eh?� Tronk laughed heavily and slapped Kodec on the shoulder. Pernicious raised a brow in confusion.

�My friend here had a block put on him, he cannot use his magic,� Kodec explained. �I fear we may not be as useful as I believe.�

�The humans don't have the ability to block your magic, Blood Elf. They simply placed a pain in your head that acts up when you try. Push past it and you'll regain control, you'll see. Now, as for the escape,� Tronk pulled some twigs and a rock toward him and set up a crude model of the camp.

�We'll need a diversion here,� Tronk pointed to an area along the wall in the back of the camp. �That will have to be your duity Pernicious.�

�My duty, what am I to do there?�

�I do not know, but whatever it is it must be enough to pull the guards away from their posts and give you time to meet up with us at the front. Kodec and I will be here,� He pointed again. �I discovered this part of the wall to be weak, and the two of us should be able to remove this part of the wall with little trouble.�

�Very well,� Kodec said. �When shall we begin?�

�We must wait until the couriers leave, I estimate they'll be gone tomorrow afternoon.�

�Tomorrow night then?� Kodec asked.

�Aye�

Pernicious glanced toward the back of the camp, the pain pulsing in his head had become sharper. How am I going to create a large enough distraction when I can barely think?

Pern grinned, an image of Nirzip entered his head and an idea began to form amidst the pulses of pain.

________________
To be continued...

Fun with WarcraftRealms: the CensusPlus Project

Warpy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:45:20 GMT

Censusplus is an add-on I first found in CosmosUI, long ago. When you run it, it uses the "who" command to collect data about everyone in your faction who is logged on at a given time. After you've collected what you feel to be a pretty representative sample, you can open the results page and get a pretty good picture of your side of the server. Your "who" database grows every time you do a census and you have the option of pruning old data every so often. You were encouraged to upload your database to a website called WarcraftRealms where a troll named Rollie would do something mysterious with it.

At first, these results just seemed vaguely interesting, but when I talked to other players about class balance it helped to know which races/classes are the most popular, because it was the only metric we had back in WoW 1.12. Back in October, 2006, this is the kind of argument I'd get into on Blizzards' Warlock forums:

Whiny mage: "Warlocks are totally overpowered."
Warpy: "Then why are we so rare?"
Whiny mage: "Huh?"
Warpy: "Only 6% of the level-60 Alliance toons on Kul Tiras are warlocks. At least twice that many are mages. I predict that Blizzard will really buff warlocks, druids, and priests in this upcoming Burning Crusade expansion in order to balance out the classes. Popular classes like mages, warriors, and hunters will be lucky to be ignored."

Anyone remember WoW 2.0? Blizzard's data, collected directly from their own servers, is quite a bit better than WarcraftRealms'. Hunters were popular with players, but apparently not so likely to enter instances, especially raid instances, so they did get some significant buffs. We also had considerably more Alliance than Horde overall, which I think explains the choice of the wildly popular Blood Elves as the new Horde race. It worked! Warlocks are up to 9% of Kul Tiras Alliance toons as of July 2008 (and mages are down to 10% ^_^).

Rollie's own research apparently focuses on concurrency: total player activity and how it varies with time of day, season, release of new WoW content, release of rival games, and so forth.

WarcraftRealms has lots of useful ways to display data, and they tend to rely only on recent entries. Since the data are provided by volunteers, some realms don't have enough data for one faction or another to give meaningful information. To figure out which realms have adequate data, look at the big list at Realm Data > US Stats or EU stats. Much like the Blizzard list, you can get in-game, it will tell you the realm type, time zone, and population level. It will also give you an idea of how often each faction of the realm is censused (which tells you how reliable WarcraftRealms data is for that faction). Adequate census levels are green, problematic ones are yellow, and unreliable ones are red. In the example below, Warcraftrealms has good data for the Alliance side of Aegwynn, but inadequate data for the Horde side.

If you are thinking of leveling a toon on a PvP realm, the WarcraftRealms table also tells you the ratio of Alliance: Horde activity. If you want the cachet of leveling a character on a PvP server without most of the hassle, roll Horde on one of the following as of July 2008:

Blackwing Lair - 1:2.5
The Forgotten Coast - 1:2.7
Anub'Arak - 1:2.5

If you are Alliance, you have to do it the hard way. Horde players tend to be outnumbered on PvE servers, and Alliance tend to be outnumbered on PvP servers. In fact, things got so bad on Thaurissian that Blizzard actually let Alliance characters from high-population PvE servers transfer over. However, a server in real trouble is likely to have become low-population, especially for the weak faction (for example, Onyxia, as of July 2008) and may not be contributing much Censusplus data. If older data ever become available, it would be interesting to see how various PvP servers have changed over time, but you can watch Thaurissian recover day-by-day (Alliance activity is up to almost 1/3 that of the Horde, as of July 2008).

To get a close look at any server, go to Realm Data > WoW Census and select your server and faction.

The ratio of level 70's to earlier levels will give you an idea of how "serious" versus "casual" the faction is.
It will also list the biggest guilds in terms of total XP. The very biggest are likely to be made up of casual end-gamers with lots of alts, but your top raiding guilds will be in the top fifteen or so.

One surprisingly important tool is the Character History link (also in Realm Data). If the character's name hasn't been changed and they've been on a server(s) with a reasonable level of Censusplus volunteerism, there's a record of them. You need to know the character's whole name, but you don't actually need to know the server, race, etc. unless you will have trouble sorting them from other toons of the same name.

It can be used to determine if a character server-transferred (requires a little deductive reasoning), how fast they leveled, how long they've been playing, and most importantly, their guild history. The following history is from a night-elf priest who applied to a guild I was in (name left out to protect the guilty). This guy changes guilds more often than he changes his socks! And he swore up and down that he is not a "guild-hopper." :shock:

Warcraft realms also has:

Guild rosters, and lists of ex-members
Downloadable *.csv files with the total character counts (by race/class/level) from each server, but only recent data are availableLively forums and handy links and articles
Limited PvP data collected by users of the WR_killing fields mod, but not too many interesting reports yet. So far, it's just individual BGs/arenas and an overall summary of all BGs in Azeroth and with very limited data. Still the Horde are winning WSG a lot. >:|

Warcraftrealms doesn't do anything with the Armory (and predates it considerably). It relies entirely on volunteers using the Censusplus mod to collect data and then upload it. Many realms, especially low-population ones, don't generate enough data for one or both factions to give reliable numbers. Until recently, Censusplus didn't work really well if the user had a lot of of other mods, especially Ace mods. That would be most of us raiders.

However, Rollie wrote a new version and released it last month which seems to be working better. The only problem I've found is if you open the social window while taking a census, Censusplus will keep opening it(had that in the old version too). So hopefully, there will be more participation and lots of useful new numbers. You can run it in two modes. The command "/censusplus" opens the census window and you can issue commands and see results there, or "/censusplus take" will just take the census in the background so you can farm, etc. If your character enters an instance (includes battlegrounds and boats), the census will stop. You upload your results outside the game, either by using Uniuploader or just logging in to Warcraftrealms and following the directions.

All screenshots kidnapped from http://www.warcraftrealms.com/

Rhiadana

BloodElfArmy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:24:07 GMT

OMFG PHAT EPIX LEWTS!!!

.. sorry about that....

I been wanting a run to Sethekk Halls for a while now, because my Lower City rep was a bit lacking. 1012 lacking to be precise, to get to honoured. Also, I was missing the Shadow Labyrinth key so that was two good reasons.

Finally got a run on Sunday afternoon. yay!

So we start off... nothing really complicated for a Warlock to do here.. no Demons to banish and we had a Hunter trapping and a Priest Shackling. Or we did at first.

Some drama ensued when the tank complained that the hunter wasn't trapping (despite him not actually marking for traps, what are we, psychic?) and kicked him and then left. This was oh, about 2 minutes in, so I had dire premonitions about how the rest of the run was going to go.

We leave the instance to go back to the stone to look for another tank and a 5th member... what happens? We get the original tank and Hunter back.. don't ya just love PUGs?

Anyway, we proceed back in and it all goes quite smoothly...
I'm watching the rep bar slowly increase..
We come to that room with the non-elite birds.. AHAH! I cry, SEED OF CORRUPTION TIME! (Well, it makes a change from dot dot dot incinerate incinerate dot dot) and I have a grand time, seeing how many Seeds I can unleash before the fireworks start (5 was the record) Only 2 rep for each one but it was fun. Then back to dot dot dot incinerate etc..

I even had fun, sort-of, getting mind controlled and watching the AI trying to figure out what to do.. First time it tried Shadowbolting the tank.. evidently the 3 second cast was too boring for it, so the next time it tried rain of fire.. if it had thought about it a bit, it would have just dotted everyone else up.

We get to the end boss and I carefully explain that he will teleport to a random member and to hide when you see the AOE warning... I get polymorphed 3 damn times that fight...sigh. Comes with topping the damage meters I suppose.

He eventually drops with just me and the tank alive... people don't seem to understand "Hide when you see the AOE warning"

Ikiss drops the [Trousers of Oblivion] so not a bad result really...(And yes, I got Honoured with Lower City and got the key).

I'm also now Friendly with Netherwing so I now have 5 dailies to do for them...Netherdrake, you will be mine, oh yes, you will be mine.

Haldis, my other Warlock, is now level 27.
Why another Warlock, you ask? Well, I wanted to see if the Affliction / Destruction spec was any fun, but I really like Demonolgy/Affliction for PVE soloing and don't want to respec Rhia until I'm not soloing any more. So that's why another Warlock.

Now Rhia has her Epic flyer, going back to running everywhere is sooooo booooring..

Rhiadana

BloodElfArmy — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:02:09 GMT

Well, I now have, after running around the Isle of Qel'Danas for two weeks, managed to acquire just about 5200 gold (actually, I'm just 153 gold short, but I can easily borrow that from another character)

So, this evening I'kll be heading over to Shadowmoon Valley and picking up a nice, Epic Flying Mount. Haven't decided on a colour yet..

Then, oh joy!, I get to start the Netherwing Quests to get to Exalted with the Netherwing for the Netherwing Drake..there are a lot of Netherwings in that sentence, aren't there?

I do think I'll be taking it easy for a while though.. this last two weeks have been non-stop doing the same set of quests every day. If I never see the Isle of Qel'Danas again it'll be too soon.

I want a T-shirt that says "I got Exalted with the Shattered Sun and all I got was this Neckpiece"

The [Pendant of Acumen] is quite nice, I suppose..

So, while I'm working on Neutral to Friendly I'll probably do the Outland-based dailies (Those don't go to the Island).

Actually, doing the quests in Shadowmoon will be quite handy as I still need to make Shadowcloth for the Frozen Shadoweave set.

AND! hopefully I can play some of my other characters as well.

Rhiadana

BloodElfArmy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:26:38 GMT

It's just a daily grind at the moment...

Doing 18 or so dailies every day trying to get that 5200 gold for the epic flying mount.

Only need about 600 now, so Rhia can finally get some rest.

of course, the whole object of getting the epic flappy, was to be able to do the Netherwing quests in order to get the Netherdrake, so Rhia may very well just be doing a different set of dailies!

I did move all my stable of characters out of the current guild and into a new one.

To say this new guild is small, well, lets just say that my stable had more characters in it than the guild had members.

Still, they seem a nice bunch..

Top 10 WoW Memories

Warpy — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:14:04 GMT

This is a response to the Blog Azeroth Top 10 WoW Memories challenge, which they nicked from Tankspot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 35 Yards Out

Finding your first murloc and realizing how much you hate them.
Some Things Are Best Forgotten

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but my most impressive memories were not of specific dungeon runs, but of stages that my toon(s) and I went through. Everything blurs together for me! Also, Warpy's formative days were before The Burning Crusade came out.

1. Warpy's early explorations: They got him killed a lot, but I had fun! No idea what was around the next bend until I actually got there, unlike your modern player who levels according to a script. I did an earlier blog entry about these.

2. My first guild: Kul Tiras was about a week old and Warpy was level 14 and scurrying through Goldshire on some errand or another and received a random guild invite from the Council of Ragnarok, which I deemed him ready to accept. We were all brand new players and knew absolutely nothing about the game. Other than that, we had little in common except that we were leveling and enjoying ourselves! The dwarves taught me about fishing, and our GM was into PvP and regaled us with tales of his exploits. I had crazy ideas about using Warpy's abilities to advance the guild:

Warpy: "If two of you come with me, I can go to different places, and we can summon the whole guild to get the flight path!" Only Aliseas took me up on that one.

Once we tried (3 DPS) to run Deadmines. We didn't get to the instance, and I was really struggling because I hadn't figured out how to zoom in my camera.

Warpy: "Hey, if I give you all healthstones, you can use them to get hit points back."
Deatharrow: "No, hearthstones are soulbound."
Warpy: "It's a healthstone. Warlocks make them. Look!"
Deatharrow: [Trade cancelled]

As far as I know, we never ran a single instance as a guild, but guild chat was great. And we had a tabard that half of us couldn't afford!

3. My first sight of Horde: I was working on the Succubus quest chain, and had to get to the Barrens; knowing only that they were SE of Ashenvale. So I sent Warpy to eastern Ashenvale at level 20 and there were all these skull-level hostile Horde! I had no idea of the difference between a PvP and PvE server. I managed to aggro the guards at Splintertree Post and get Warpy killed yet again. I snuck around in the woods for a bit, but couldn't figure out how to ninja past the Mor'shan orcs.

4. Meeting NooYawk: Warpy was about level 30 by then, and NooYawk was asking reasonable questions in Hillsbrad to find quest-givers, quest objects, etc. Everyone howled "Go look it up on Thottbot", which he insisted was boring and impersonal. I answered what questions I could, having learned most of the answers the hard way myself. NooYawk turned out to be an older player like myself, liked fishing, exploring, and questing. We ended up helping each other with quests and information.

5. Farming UBRS keys: Eventually, I moved on a guild that was preparing for end-game, Aes Sedai. It had no website or Vent/Teamspeak though. As a warlock in WoW 1.10, I had a tough time getting groups for instances, as the guild only ran Strat and Scholo and had lots of mages with better DPS and better crowd control. So I leveled up doing solo quests mostly. We did have a GM with plans to gear us up who organized run after run through Lower Blackrock Spire, but Warpy was allowed to come to provide soulstones. I finally managed to persuade my guildies to accept healthstones! Each run would usually net us one needed gem on the average, so it took a few weeks before the first UBRS run.

6. Aes Sedai breaks up: Once we got UBRS on farm and had enough gear to start ZG, our best players, including the GM, left for real raiding guilds, you know, the ones that were in... Molten Core!!! It wasn't really a case of callousness on their part; there had been a lot of drama, which I mostly missed, and they went to different guilds because they'd had it with one another. I was not ready to raid or to move on at that point, so I did not look for a new guild. I'd made a lot of friends in Aes Sedai, and they were pretty much gone. I actually retired Warpy, and started leveling a rogue, who was invited to a new guild that NooYawk belonged to.

Sadly, that guild really was not getting ready to raid, and politics drove NooYawk out shortly after I joined. So I farmed dreadsteed mats, and watched guild chat, and never got to know anyone there. Just as I was farming the last of the gold for the dreadsteed mats, Warpy got an e-mail from with 25g attached. Nooyawk was quitting the game and deleting his toon, but first he'd sent 25 gold (a fortune before TBC) to everyone on his friends list.

7) Getting Warpy's Dreadsteed: It took three months to farm the mats, and once they were done, I had no solo activity left for Warpy (no PvP). I could not get anyone to to run Dire Maul (I had never been there or to BRD), and I knew that once he got the dreadsteed, it was either take up raiding or retire Warpy permanently. I was able to join a PuG ZG with Eternal and enjoyed the raid, so I applied to another Real Raiding Guild (TM) that was advertising for warlocks and that some of my friends from Aes Sedai had gone too two months before. I explained in my app. that there were a few things I'd need to do before I'd be able to start raiding.

They accepted me, and I got to know them pretty quick because there were two events that happened the same week on Kul Tiras: Scourge Invasion (patch 1.12) and the Opening of the AQ Gates, which gave me an opportunity to group with a lot of my new guildies in a kind of casual setting. I advertised a DM: East run on their web site. A few folks signed up (notably Archy and Wrath) and we all collected our Dire Maul keys from a certain imprudent imp. Archie had to explain Banish to me, as I'd never used it before. I ended up running BRD, UBRS, and a number of other instances with those guys, and had to completely relearn how my character worked. Turns out Warpy had all kinds of crowd control potential that we never knew about in Aes Sedai. Daigan helped tank the last Dire Maul run, and Warpy got to run all around IF on my new dreadsteed.

8) Warpy's first "Real Raid": Eventually, I collected enough gear to attain the minimum 150 FR requirement, and learned enough about warlock-group skills that I felt ready to sign up for "real raids" in Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair. Before I could do that, there was a hue and cry in guild chat: "Must have one more warlock for BWL!" The top raiders had just done their first few wipes on Razorgore, and it was so far out of my league that I didn't know where the entrance was! However, there were no other spare warlocks about, and they had to have 40 toons. I'm sure I did very badly, and I got lost (Alz managed to rescue me). But the raid wasn't cancelled, and it gave folks a chance to practice the encounter. Molten Core and the rest seemed so easy after that one.

9) Getting Exalted with CE: In patch 2.0, it became much easier to earn rep with factions. But I'd done almost all of the quests before then, so Warpy had no exalted status with anyone. But we were running a lot of AQ20 by then and I'd finally won all of the bits of the Implements of Unspoken Names set. Warpy had respecced to felguard, and just needed that Kris of Unspoken Names. He was running Field Duty quests like crazy and was the scourge of the Twilight Prophet. We did one last AQ20 run, but people had gotten a little tired of raiding at that point, and that was the last one before TBC. Warpy had about 20,300/21,000 Cenarion Circle rep.
at the end of the raid, so I just stayed up late had him haul silithyst until he'd finished. The next day, I log in with my shiny new gear:

Monaloca and Keriandrim: "Hey, let's go beat up more Abyssal Templars!"
Warpy: *sigh*

10) The Great Meltdown: The Real Raiding Guild (TM), unlike many of its kind, survived the coming of TBC and prospered, conquering Karazhan and the heroics and getting deep into TKTE and SSC. However, drama reared its ugly head again and this time I was in the middle of it. At one point, I left the guild and returned, but things just got grimmer and grimmer, and I was playing Warpy less and less. I was looking around at other guilds, and had decided I'd have to transfer servers, but had no real contacts or leads at that point. I leveled my rogue to 70, and found I really enjoyed playing him.

I'd set up a Shadow Labs run with Cell, Kem's alt, a new guildie, and a PuGee, and we were having a good time getting feared about the room by Fel Overseers, when Cell whispered me a warning that guild chat was about to get a little distracting. There'd been so much nasty stuff said and done in various channels and on the website in the past few months that I wanted nothing to do with any of it. Well, several of the friends who'd persuaded me to rejoin the guild suddenly up and left just as we were killing the first boss (I don't remember if he dropped Jive's idol). Guild chat got pretty ugly at that point, with some pretty lousy things being said about the people who had left. All I could think was "It's over, it's finally over. I can leave now. Thank God."

Cell and Griphon invited me to the new guild that was forming. So just before we get to Grandmaster Vorpil, Cell and I left the old guild, much to the consternation and distress of the new fellow. Our former GM, who was beside himself at that point, ordered us off the vent server. It was really a nice run, meltdowns aside, with fun people; we got a ton of quests done and the Karazhan key fragment for my rogue.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...

Pernicious — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:27:03 GMT

Just wanted to say, I'm not threw with the Chronicles of Pernicious. I've just once again become uber busy with deadlines at work, deadlines with my freelance work outside my primary job, keeping up with my health, fixing my marriage (which ties in with the health thing), AND my guild finally hit Black Temple! There's just not enough time in the day I tell ya.

Anyways, I got a bit more to write on the next chapter before I can put it up. Hopefully soon. I also have an idea for a guide that I want to whip up for the den. We'll see how that goes, that one will take a while to piece together.

Anyways, just checking in with you all.

-Pern

A Romagoth Story - Chapter 4 Vindication

RomaGoth — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:27:17 GMT

A Romagoth Story - Chapter 4

Vindication

After the battle against Interrogator Vishas and his minions, the party managed to clear out the majority of the Scarlet Monastery with few difficulties. There was an extended battle with the master of the hounds, "Houndmaster Loksey", and Apolis was near death after being bitten by two of the hounds. Luckily Kouretes and Ireni were quick thinkers and managed to come up with some salves that stopped the bleeding. Although light-headed and weak, Apolis continued on with the party. Forced to stop often, the party knew time was becoming an issue.

"We don't want to be here after dark", said Kouretes. They all knew this to be true, as the undead multiply into literally the thousands after darkness falls throughout Azeroth. This is especially the case in abandoned and cursed areas, and the Scarlet Monastery fell into both of these categories. Unable to make eye-contact with him, Ireni managed to obtain a health stone from Romagoth before they started out again through the courtyard that leads to the Scarlet Cathedral, home of Mograine. As a matter of fact, none of the others had made eye-contact with Romagoth since the torture chamber incident. Suddenly, having had enough of it, Romagoth stopped abruptly and whirled to face his friends. "What is the problem with you guys? I thought we were friends. Now none of you can even make eye-contact with me?" said Romagoth. "If you don't want me around then just say so. I can take a hint."

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, then Apolis spoke. "It isn't that we don't want you around. We are just in shock from before. We have never seen you act like that, and I know I speak for all of us when I say that it was frightening." Kouretes and Ireni nodded their agreement. "What did you expect me to do, let you guys die?" asked Romagoth. "I am a warlock, this is what we do. We kill. We create pain for our enemies. We take joy in these things." Romagoth turned and swept his arms in a circular motion towards the Monastery. "This place is evil. The denizens of the Monastery have caused great pain and suffering to many people, including my family and to me. They will now pay for their actions." Suddenly his eyes glazed over for just a split second, then a Scarlet Evoker fell off the roof and landed with a loud thud directly in front of them, eyes staring lifeless towards the darkening sky. "If we don't kill them, they will surely kill us. This one," Romagoth said, pointing to the Evoker on the ground, "had his black magic fixed on you, Druid." Ireni shuddered, not only at the idea of that Evoker trying to kill her, but also at the ruthlessness Romagoth was showing. She was beginning to see him in a new light, as if she had never really known him before this day. In fact, the others were thinking the exact same thing.

"He's right," said Kouretes. "We should accept him for who he is. I apologize." Apolis and Ireni both nodded their heads in agreement and muttered something that nobody could hear. "We need to get Mograine and leave this vile place before dark" said Romagoth. "Let's get going".
They approached the massive Cathedral doors and Romagoth pulled out the Scarlet Key. The doors swung open, revealing a very large room separated by pillars and numerous pews. There were at least thirty Scarlet Crusade followers in the room, and they were mostly broken into groups of three. Kouretes immediately realized the best method for victory in this room involved taking each small group down in quick order. With a nod to the others, Romagoth threw a shadow bolt at one of them and pulled him back towards the large Cathedral doors. The ensuing fight was short, and in no time the room was completely empty, save for Scarlet Commander Mograine at the very front of the room at the alter. Bodies littered the Cathedral floor, and Romagoth could not help but revel in the sight of it. He chuckled softly to himself thinking nobody could hear it. Apolis, however, DID hear it and cringed a little despite himself. He was also enjoying this, but not to the same extent as Romagoth obviously was. In any case, they now needed to take out Mograine and finish what they came here for.

"Let's do it." said Kouretes softly. "Are we ready?" He looked at each of his friends, and when they nodded he moved towards Mograine. Romagoth remembered Mograine. He remembered him very, very vividly. "Stop." said Romagoth. "I will start this. He ordered the murder of my family and he will pay for it. I have been waiting nearly a decade for this moment." The burning hatred in his eyes forced the others to take an involuntarily step backwards. Kouretes looked to Apolis and Ireni, and they both nodded. "Do it your way, Roma. This has always been your battle." Kouretes said without hesitation.

Romagoth looked at each of them, then he looked at Mograine. Suddenly he blasted him with a shadow bolt, and yelping with the pain, Mograine came rushing towards them with a look of pure hatred on his distorted face. Throwing shadow bolt after shadow bolt, Romagoth barely felt the pain as Mograine sliced his shoulder nearly to the bone. The hatred was consuming him, and he knew it. He didn't care. Suddenly, the fight stopped and they were all motionless. He was unable to move or to act. The body of Mograine was lying motionless nearby, and High Inquisitor Whitemane was performing a ritual that was both sinister and twisted. "Rise, my champion". said Whitemane. Then Migraine's body rose from the ground, and to the complete surprise of the entire party, he turned towards them and attacked! Just in time, Romagoth was able to move again and dodged out of the way, avoiding a wicked slash to the head. Now they were forced into fighting both of these Scarlet fiends, and things became a bit muddled for a few seconds. Then Whitemane fell to the ground with a shriek, and Romagoth saw a large sword tip enter through her back and come out of her stomach. A bright flash of light nearly blinded them all as Whiteman's screams echoed within the Cathedral. Romagoth had not noticed until now that Commander Mograine was motionless near the door to the back room, and his blood was already drying on the floor near him. There was no sound except for the friends' heavy breathing. Finally, they began to look around at the carnage and at each other. Suddenly Apolis chuckled softly and they all began laughing uncontrollably. Kouretes had a nasty gash in his left leg that had gone clear through his armor all the way to the bone. His helm was also cracked in three places and his mace was broken and twisted on the floor nearby. Ireni was missing part of her right boot, and her cloak was ripped nearly in half. Romagoth had a black eye and his staff was broken in half. He also had that nasty cut on his shoulder from earlier. Apolis was in the best shape, as he stayed away from most of the melee combat. All he had to show for the fight was a split lip and his hair was sticking straight up in the air.

The laughter dwindled as they took a look at each other and realized that they needed to leave the Monastery quickly before darkness falls. A few bandages and potions later, they were ready to move out. None of the others wanted to be the one to ask Romagoth if he felt vindicated in any way for the complete destruction they brought upon the Scarlet Monastery, so the matter did not come up.

As they rode off towards South shore, Romagoth paused to look back at the Monastery one last time. His eyes glazed over for a few seconds and he heard the screams again. The rage was almost too much for him to bear, and he nearly fell off of his Felsteed. "Death. Destruction. These are the only things I know in life anymore. Are we really all that different in the end?"

Putting heels in his Felsteed's side, Romagoth rode off to catch up to his friends, who were already at the main road and were waiting for him. None of them saw the eyes watching them depart. None of them saw the smile of satisfaction on the face without a face. "Someday, Romagoth, you will be mine. Your body, your life, your soul. Will. All. Be. Mine." He cackled loudly and spread his wings into the night sky before flying into the darkness.

To be continued��

Add-on Purge Time!

Warpy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:59:42 GMT

After a couple of poorly timed crashes and a better understanding of how much lag reduces my DPS, I took some some time to purge my UI and add-on folder with fire and sword. As much as I'd love to delete the whole folder, I've been using more and more add-ons since I began raiding. There are now some features that I can't get on without that Blizzard will not provide.

So, I need to decide what I really, really need as I pare down the collection. My current UI is a version of All Deuce UI (from over a year ago) and is still undergoing some changes. Almost all of these are available from WoWInterface. I also rearranged on-screen elements so I could focus my attention a bit while combat is going on.

Things Warpy must have:

Coordinates - This started the whole mess (SimpleMiniMap)
Threat - (Omen)
Single Bag/Bank - (ArkInventory, probably going to be replaced with something smaller)
Movable/Hideable Frames - Built in to many add-ons (Bartender3, XLoot & AgUnitFrames)
Raid Warnings - (oRA2, BigWigs)
Timers - (DoTimers includes seduce, Cooldowns, Quartz)
Info - (_AmmoFu, _DurabilityFu, _MoneyFu, ScrollingCombatText if only for immunity warnings)
Gear Switcher - (ClosetGnome)
Diagnostics - (!BugGrabber, BugSack, _PerfomanceFu)

Optional:

More Info - (_ClockFu, Dr. Damage, Mendeleev, Rating Buster, _XPFu, _HonorFu if it weren't buggy, InFlight)
Convenience - (Sell Junk)

Believe it or not, Warpy got to level 45 or so without the use of a single add-on. Coordinates were the breaking point. After my initial n00b phase, I was leveling with the help of Thottbott (there was no WoWwiki in those days) because looking for needles in haystacks is boring. My firsy experimental add-on package was CosmosUI, recommended by Thottbot (no link, it's had problems), but Cosmos broke badly when patch 1.10 went live and it wasn't helpful enough that I ever bothered to go back. When I joined my first raiding guild, they required CTRaid, so I installed that, and tried CTMod. CTMod changed my UI unhelpfully and was a pain to configure, so most of that went away. When KTM (KLH Threat Meter) came out, the guild recommended that too. We also went crazy with SWdamagemeters, a very bad idea as it turned out.

Around that time, I discovered Necrosis, which turned out to be a fantastically useful compilation: timers, soulstone-expiration warning, fear-immunity warning, shard count, and collapsible button menus. WoW 2.0 broke all add-ons, and created an opportunity to try new ones as they became ready. A guildie recommended the All-Deuce and enabled us to download it from his site as Curse and WoW-Interface were under siege. Too much stuff, like any compilation, but relatively easy to update (WoWAceUpdater automated software) and configure. New versions of All Deuce UI come out now and then, but the major add-ons are the same.

Bad experiences:

Automaton - unpredictable, then deadly
Autobar - so powerful, but buggy for long stretches
Damage meters - distracting. Use WWS because you can't look at it in combat.
3-D model viewer - waste of screen! Use WoWModelviewer that works outside of the game
Necrosis - It's tricky to update, and one version conflicted catastrophically with the intolerant SolarianAlarm, which was required by the guild at the time. By then, all of its functions were duplicated by other mods.
Censusplus - It's a wonderful little toy, about which I will write in the future, but it doesn't play well with Ace mods, which make up much of my UI. :cry:

Future investigations

Bongoes - Is it really better than Bartender?
Onebag - hopefuly less memory than Arkinventory
Something to let me move my debuff icons to the bottom of the screen that will be less work than Elkbuffbars
Eepanels 2: I need a replacement for Skinner, which worked at the time of the screenshot, but has since perished.

Just a short update

BloodElfArmy — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:27:50 GMT

It seems like a while since I last posted, so here's one.

Rhia is doing the dailies - 18 approximately every day if I can get the group for the heroic. (14 badges so far) and also levelling Fishing and Cooking.

And.. um...y'see.. it's like this.. I wanted to see if Affliction spec was fun, but I didn't want to respec Rhia because, well I like the demonolgy spec and so, well...

I rolled another Warlock.

Sigh.. well, that's all my 10 character slots on Moonglade.

When WotLK comes out, I'll have to select one for the ultimate sacrifice.

So, another female blood elf Warlock. (Why female blood elfs, you ask.. has this guy got some sort of fetish?) well, yes, since you ask.

Two reasons.
1 I like the Female blood elf looks.. If I'm going to be looking at this toon for a couple of hours at a time, it better be something pleasant to look at.

2. The Blood elf starting zone is far and away the best early levelling in the game. Nothing else comes close.
You can go from 0 to 21 in the zone, get some pretty decent gear for the level and the scenery is really well done. All the quests are short distances from their quest hubs so there's little meaningless running around.
There are 4 Elite group quests, 2 are solo-able by most classes at the quest level or one higher. The others require at least a 2-man and a good 5-man same-level party

It all helps new players learn the game a lot better than trying to level through the Barrens or Silverpine.

Anyway.. all this is just trying to justify my Alt-a-holism.. :)

See you soon..

Stupid Nature

DrkSnpr14 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:27:18 GMT

Yes, I realize it's been almost a month since episode 2. I feel really bad for not releasing anything for so long, so I thought I'd explain why.

I suffer from some terrible allergies, and for the past 2 and a half weeks, I've felt like complete garbage. I've got some horrible hay fever, and it just won't quit. I live in a rural town, and all the fields have started cutting hay (hooray...) I'm taking Claratin just to get out of bed

I've written up the script, a long time ago to, but I just don't want to record audio and have me sound like crap, 'cause I think these questions deserve better then a half assed effort in order to just get the video out the door.

You guys took the time and thought to ask me these things, and I want to give you something worth watching, is what it comes down to. Until this hay fever clears up, I won't be recording for episode 3. In the mean time, I'll likely start drafting up episode 4