Shooting Star

To bring in the Christmas Season a very special event happened in Azeroth, A new star was seen streaking across the heavens above crystalsong forest. All who saw it were amazed... but probably from the screaming that accompanied the star's decent.

In Game Calender

Here's the link on the in-game calender, so you all know the details about it. It's pretty great but right now we can't use it because so few of us can make events for the guild. Of all of us regulars had access given to our mains I think this could be very useful as we can schedule runs in advance and include things like "I won't be there Wednesday" too. If Guild Leader Sama could please give us some event making access we could hopefully get started on getting used to using this. Mucho gusto.

Speed Rep'ing

Having read my initial posts on the rep grind (1, 2), I'm sure you're now wondering, "OK, so what's the fastest way to get there?  Hands-down, the answer is championing in heroics.  This is followed by doing dailies, which is followed by championing normals.  If you're in a rush to hit exalted, get that tabbard and do as many heroics as you can.  During those few moments when you can't get a group together, do the dailies.  Only in desparation should you resort to normals.

Further Rep Grind Info

If you haven't read my first post on grinding reputation, catch it here before continuing.

In BC, once you got to the level of doing heroics, normals were nearly 100% cut out of your life.  In Wrath, though, this is not the case.

A)  You earn rep (albeit at a slower pace than heroics) all the way to exaulted in normals.  This is unlike BC where at some point you stopped earning rep altogether.

B) Turning in a daily normal dungeon rewards gold and a choice of one of four commendation badges.  Using the badge consumes it, and grants 250 rep with the faction you chose.

The badges/factions to choose from are:

Kirin Tor

Argent Crusade

(Knights of the) Ebon Blade

Wyrmrest

Here's a good reference guide to the various factions and their rewards in Wrath.  Note that Horde Expedition and Alliance Vanguard are identical versions of the same group for their respective sides, and the rewards they offer are identical.

The New Rep Grind

Disclaimer:  This post is information as I understand it thus far!  There may be some innaccuracies here, and I hope you guys will help me correct it as the true system is better understood.

Blizzard hath both giveth and taketh away this xpac. That is, while it's likely rep grinding will be easier and less tedious in Wrath, there are more distinct reps to be concerned with, and the new badges work in conjunction with rep to get you gear.  Simply collecting a mountain of badges won't get you into the good gear anymore.  Generally you must have a combination of both badges and rep with a specific faction.

Sounds more complicated so far, right?  Well this is where Blizzard giveth.  Rather than being locked in to a specific instance or set of instances to grind faction x, you now "champion" a faction and run any instance you feel like to earn rep with them.  You champion a faction by wearing their tabbard while running any level 80 instance.  If you want rep with The Buggering Brothers, you're not locked to running Buggering Brothers' instances.  Run any instance wearing a Buggering Brothers tabbard to gain rep with that faction.  Normal and heroic modes will earn you rep all the way to exalted, though naturally you'll gain faction faster in heroic mode.

Again, the one caveat is that you must be in a level 80 instance for this to work.  If you throw on the Buggering Brothers' tabbard an run heroic Nexus, no problem.  If you throw on the Buggering Brother's tabbard and run normal Nexus (lvl 72 - 74) you gain no rep.

All factions have mountains of dailys that can be done as well.  The quests may change as your rep level increases, but quests will be available all the way to exalted.

Looking for the New Shoulder Enchants?

They come from reputation with The Sons of Hordir. I wrote a fairly thorough description on how to get started with this faction over at wowdb.com, so rather than rewrite it I'll just link the page.

Improved Shadows in Wrath

/console extShadowQuality #

This is the code to access the improved shadows in Wrath of the Lich King. # is any number from 0 - 6. The higher the number, the higher the quality, but Blizzard says to not use values 5 and 6 as they are intended to be internal testing values only. Some people have reported that 5 and 6 work fine, but others have reported that they're no different from 4. The difference in performance hit between 4 and 3, and again 3 and 2 is significant. Experiment and see what you get.

Quest Japanizer

Zowie. Hardcore.

Zerg Infestation

Ok, I think a lot of us had a great time playing this map, now I want to spread the love. If you weren't at the LAN party you might not know what I'm talking about, but anyone else can tell you, it was good stuff. I'm going to be playing some games of it This Sunday with my brothers, who else has their own CD key of Warcraft III TFT to join us on Battlenet with?

WoW Reviews on Amazon... Japan!

I was just skimming through the customer reviews for World of Warcraft on Amazon Japan.  The majority of them are favorable, and it seems there's even a website somewhere that will give players a rough translation of the quest goals.  The one thing that made me chuckle was the frequency with which reviews referred to the character design being "too American."  Some say they can't build characters they like because of this.  Others say that, while it may turn some off, personally they don't mind so much.

The one thing that was a bit sad was how many people predicted the release of a Japanese version "very soon!"  I actually had the chance to speak to someone from Blizzard's international division at the very first Blizzcon in LA.  As someone studying Japanese, I thought it might be fun to have a Japanese language version of the game (as my Spore is in Japanese... sometimes it's cool and othertimes it's just frustrating.) I asked if a Japanese version was in the pipe.  Unfortunately it seems Blizzard feels that a Japanese version isn't worth the effort.  The game market in Japan is too heavily lopsided toward consoles, so going through the trouble of doing a translation wouldn't pay off in the end.  Sorry Japan, looks like you'll have to be happy with looking up the quest goals online!

Expansion

WotLK is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Release date is listed as Nov 3rd.

Grats!

So...  I hear Top Of Cool's Kara kung-fu is strong.  This is good.  This is very good.  You have done well, grasshopper.

On another note, Sept 15th (Monday) is a national holiday here, which means I'll be off work in the afternoon.  That's Sun eve for you guys.  Some kind of family thing may come up, but at this point I haven't heard anything.

The Grind

Precisely what's frustrating about so many quests...

Wow Machinima

I've been a big fan of Machinima and now and then will go out looking for additions to my collection. I did this to day and I am always amazed by the quality of work out there and just had to share. Here are a few Simply. Amazing. Videos.

Meet Pazu

Ding 70! in 9 days 16 hours total play time. He was able to get his epic flier right away, and scored the s2 mace last night, as well.

The Warcheif Debates

I got a chuckle out of this. Not amazingly funny, but kinda funny.

Make Wow better than max settigns!

I found on the forums a way to make wow look even better than the max settings for all you guys with computers that are faster than mine:

Maybe you have seen this already, but there are a bunch of commands to increase the in-game graphics beyond the "maximum" in video options.

It might have been posted before, i dont know. Just thought i'ld share it with you.

Mind you: if you do not have a high quality computer, don't bother with this trick. it will only decrease your FPS.
If you have already all settings maxed out in WoW and still feel your compter has power left to increase the quality more, this is for you.

I tested this a while ago (when i bought a new processor and videocard) and it really works well.
try it.


Gfx enhancement macro: WoW will look better
Some players found a way to improve WoW graphics by manipulating several console commands. The following macro will do the job:

/console farclip 777
/console horizonfarclip 6226
/console groundeffectdensity 256
/console groundeffectdist 140
/console smallcull 0
/console skycloudlod 3
/console characterambient 0

You have to restart WoW for some of the effects to be used.

What does this do?

• The vegetation can be seen from miles away (grass flowers etc) plus there seems to be FAR more of it.
• The "bloom" effect seems to be more vivid.
• The view distance is greatly increased.
• Everything seems to be more sharp and crisp.
• The weather effects appear to be more intense.


However depending on your hardware you might encounter some fps issues (low framerates), so here is the macro to revert the changes (you can also go to video options and pull all the detail options to minimum):

/console groundEffectDensity 16
/console groundEffectDist 1
/console horizonfarclip 1305
/console farclip 177
/console characterAmbient 1
/console smallcull 1
/console skycloudlod 1
/console detailDoodadAlpha 1

Why I'll never quit Wow...

Blizzard, you bastards.

Getting back into Kara

So my goal for the guild has always been getting into Zul'aman before the expansion comes out. With Mike and Audry's subscriptions running out and several tanks needing teir gear I think Kara is one of the fastest ways we can get to that goal, especially as we get to the point where we can clear it out (or at least get up to chess) in one Wednesday evening. Although doing heroics is also a blast, I wanted to discuss here the things that are keeping us from being able to get back in there so we can see how we can get around them.
Part of the problem is having less than 10 on or people not being able to start at a set time leaving us waiting for more. Since we've got tanking and about half of healing covered, (Once Gavin is back and the new tanks are geared then we'll have all the tanks and healers we'll need as I can heal) it should be pretty easy to find a set of substitute dps'ers; the question is if we'll pug them every night or if we should try to get a set group of people to show up each week.
Anyway, I figured it's time we start talking about
a) how to do this and
b) if you guys even want to do this.

The Blizzard splash screen

Ok since were were talking about this and more has been reveled, I just want to give us one more chance to make our bets. I think the image resembles both a protoss and arthas/lich king, but I'm thinking what it is actually going to be is a completely new game, there is some historical evidence that supports this and all the runes being from different games makes me thing that this is kinda celebrating all their old games while announcing the next thing in line. Just wanted to get it in writing with a date on it :) Feel free to make you guesses here.

Tabard design website

So I have been pushing for a new tabard for a bit, but lacked a good way fo us to reach consensus. Now I found this site and we can post our ideas here in good ol' screencaps.

Edit: Ok I can't do screen caps but the idea I like is a back background with a white top hat for the icon, and a Grey or black border. It's Cool and has a Top hat, Top of Cool!

Hidoi's Crafting List

Hey I figured it would be good to post what I can make, if you are ever looking things up and wondering. Here's the list so far, and remember I can buy any epic recipe for 40 gold, so don't be worried if I don't have one, I can buy it right away.
*To limit front page space the list will be in the comments*

World of World of Warcraft

Nice little news story from the onion.  If only this was real...

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/warcraft_sequel_lets_gamers_play

Kara madness

Congrats to all! Did a great job, glad we didn't have to leave anyone sitting out.

Is anyone interested in finishing this run? Saturday or Sunday? Lets atleast try to get curator down to get you guys some Teir 4 epix

Season 4 Release Date

Quote from Eyeonix:

We’re currently planning to end the third Arena season and begin Arena Season 4 on June 24, 2008. This exciting Arena season will introduce the Brutal Gladiator set, and will also allow players to purchase Arena Season 2 items using the honor system. Please note that we will be resetting all Arena team and personal ratings. Players will still retain their Arena points and teams with this reset. The team and personal rating will simply be reset to the default 1500, allowing all teams to once again compete for top honors with a fresh start.

Also, with the end of the third season, players on the top teams from each battlegroup will receive their end-of-season rewards. These include Arena-specific titles that they can display proudly until the end of the new season, and, for the best of the best, an Armored Nether Drake. Please also be aware that with the end of the current season, all previous end-of-season titles will be removed.

Spell Hit

Great article on wowwiki.

A spell that fails to hit is shown as a resist, though this is different than the spell resistance mechanic. Spell hit has no effect on healing spells, as they will always hit.

Glance over the whole article, then look carefully at this chart for the main thrust of things. Many of you have heard me talking too much about spell hit lately. I've also talked too much about warlocks and spell hit. First I'd like to clear up a mistake I've been making. Warlocks with spell hit problems are specifically destro locks. Afflic locks with maxed Suppression are actually doing rather well. This doesn't mean they don't need any, though. If you want to go destro, consider at least spec'ing afflic until you can get full points in suppression. My understanding is that it's an easy talent to reach. (Tier 1 perhaps?)

Since our goal is to get to Kara, when looking at the chart linked above you need to look at the column for a level 73 mob. Raid bosses are treated as level 73 for the purposes of the spell hit roll.

Thrall's Krib

Good laughs.

Focus Targets

Short but good article on wowwiki on focus targets. This in combination with an addon like quartz could have real potential in pvp.

Catching GMs with Honey

Kind GM. I writing to throw myself on your mercy. A short while ago, I purchased the Wave of Life chestguard for 100 badges. Now, only a handful of hours later, I find myself in possetion of the Golden Links of Restoration. If it is at all possible, I'd like to trade the chest back for the badges. My Wave of Life has been gemmed and enchanted, but I don't even care so much about those if I can get the badges back.

Yours,
Tat

PS - Did I mention that's quite a cunning shirt you're wearing?

-----------------------------

It worked! :-)
As suspected, the gem and enchant are not recoverable.

Event Scheduling

Please install GroupCalendar in your WoW addons. We'll start using it for event scheduling this week.

New Gear

New gear, including s4 PVP gear, is up on the public test realms. Check out the goodies.

Guild Bank

A couple points about our guild bank.

1. Never hesitate to take something you can use. We don't care if it's just a "small upgrade" - take it anyway. That's why it was put in there in the first place. If you don't the bank clogs up with crap and we have to throw it out.
2. Please stop putting green armor items in unless they have something particularly unique about them. Resist + stam items are one example of this.
3. It can be hard to go through every icon to figure out if anything new has been added. Don't do it that way. Instead look at the bank log and you can see all recent adds. There is a separate log for each guild bank tab, so be sure to look at all three logs.
   

Kara Preperations

ToC Roster
70s Class Spec Special Note
Tsunokakushi Druid Boomkin Grats on 70

Tatakikorosu Mage Ice probably will never get to run on mage :-p [tat: I protest!!]
Tatarushi Shamy Restro 1775 1817+ healing

Ageless Mage Fire

Peyrac Hunter Beast Master
Dexterfoo Shamy Elemental

Hidoi Warrior Arms OT?
DammendPreist Priest Holy This will be tricky

Alkarizmi Warlock Great DPS! may need to hold back a wee bit

Schnozbott Mage Ice
Phlegznogs Druid Feral I would like to see MT

Audrey Ayrianna Warlock

Calhoun Rogue they only have one build
Guenter Hunter may be ready in time, i would like to see a rogue in for interups

Fishmonger Hunter Survival for the traps
Maraco Priest Shadow or Disc aprox 1300 + healing or 1200 shadow damage.

This is our current lay out.
So we will focus on that soon.
Alchemists, I would like to see a small collection of basic pots in the guild bank. Things like +15 all stats, or + armor pots. Also if our tanks are not (uncrittable) We could put in some + resilience pots. Resist pots may be nice as well, however I don't think we need cauldrons.

Basic requirements we are a wee short on. I think we need 2 tanks and 3 healers. We will probably run with Phleg & Hidoi as our tanks and Healers will be Big Tat and Maraco.

We will need some gear from Heroics before we start kara. Now Season 1 gear also counts, however we need experience dealing with harder hitting mobs.

Phlegznogs, if you are aldor, look to see if there are any good tanking items for you, if you need rep, I'm sure everyone has a lot of aldor items for turn ins.

And the last thing i could think of, if both of our warlock have diffrent sized cookies, then that would save us $ on healing potions.

That is it for now, Please add thoughts and comments.

Access Changes

In order to make this blog easier to post to, I've changed the hosting configuration around. One downside is that all previously uploaded image links have been broken, but that material is old enough that I don't think it will have any negative impacts.

From this point forward, please access it at http://toc.digihotaru.com.

If there are any guild members who are not listed as users/posters, please let Tat or Maraco know ASAP. Since we're getting ready to start gearing up for Kara, this blog will once again become more active.

Shattered Sun Offensive Dailys

Rep totals for my standard rotation:
ISLAND OF QUEL'DANAS
building 1
further conversions, 150
arm the wards!, 150

building 2
the battle must go on, 250
know your ley lines, 250
the air strikes must continue, 150

building 3
taking the harbor, 250
don't stop now, 250
intercept the reinforcements, 250
ata'mal armaments, 350

OUTLAND

throne of kil'jaeden
blast the gateway, 250
blood for blood, 250

shatt
sunfury attack plans, 250
maintaining the sunwell portal, 250
multiphase survey, 250

----------
3300

Guild update

We're getting closer and closer to be able to do Heroics as a guild, we've got a great class mix going, we got most all professions represented in the guild now, and one of these days we can probably even do Kara. Yay!

Raid Makeup

Ganked from the Hyjal Forums. Great stuff.

The Raid-

You raid with these people. You work with these people. These people are closer than your family. You should worry.

The GM- He’s sacrificed his family, friends, and probably a couple of jobs to drag you through new content. When the guild isn’t performing, these decisions are in question. Prone to shooting sprees, forum flame wars, and the rapid advancement/gearing of whatever toon the guild “needs”. If you can keep your mouth shut, he’ll go emo and quit before you get gkicked. Still, you do like the guy. Or did. Before he went crazy. See Drunks, below.

The Raid Leader- When you stand in the flames, he dies a little bit inside.

The Positive officer- “That was great. Just great. You know, only 5% of guilds have even made it to Supremus, and getting him down to 67% on the second attempt is hawt.” See Stoners, below.

The Negative officer- “Jesus Christ why are there corpses under all these goddamn volcanoes? It’s Supremus for !%%*s’s sake. GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN FLAME!”

The Healing Officer- Has this job because, as the newest officer who plays a healer, he’s stuck with it.

The Guy Who Runs the Guild- He’s been here a long time. Like forever. He’s an officer if he accepted the position. He knows all the gossip and understands the politics. For the love of God, don’t make this guy decide that you are hurting the guild. The last GM did.

The Hunter Class Lead- Will tell you that it does actually require skill and preparation to play a hunter well in the end game. He lies frequently.

The Gay guy- Affects the gay accent for effect. Upgrade decisions tend to involve lengthy discussions about gear appearance. Learned to use the dressing room function before the ‘v’key.

The Stay At Home Mom- She’s around children all day and craves adult conversation. Babbles incessantly in vent, forgetting that adult conversation doesn’t usually begin with, “So I was talking to (insert name of four-year-old child) and he says…” May or may not be on speaking terms with spouse. Is muted on vent by 90% of the raid.

Mr. Mikeless- Has a microphone. Hears the conversation and directions. Once wiped the raid because he started talking most folks alt-tabbed to see who the hell was speaking. May be your best player.

The Kid- So, you messed up on this guy’s interview and nobody noticed that he was 12. But, he can play. And if he gets a little bit excited when boobies are getting talked about? Hey, he’s young.

The other kid- Remember that accountant you interviewed for the fury warrior position? And how you wondered how he’d make time to raid during tax season? He couldn’t. His eleven year old daughter took over about that time. She’s been raiding since. Mages… that’s an eleven year-old girl owning you night after night.

Stratman- Has read every strategy on the entire internet for every boss. Unable to think critically. Knows where his talk key is. Hated by the officers. Likely to play a hunter. If this is also Chick With Accent, below, guild will probably collapse.

The Drunks- The core of your guild. As raid progresses, their voices in vent are getting just ever so slightly slurred. You don’t notice because you’re trying to sound sober yourself.

The Stoners- Quietly wiping raids since the beta. They really, really, really hate having to move out of the fire. Two of them are dead under the volcanoes. They live in fear of the negative officer. They have their own channel. Try /join (insertguildname)stoners. You’ll see who’s in there. It’ll explain a lot. They’re also having more fun that everyone else combined

The Prima Donna- Requires special attention from management. Constantly whining. Plays some vital role. Might be a main tank, mage tanks, or lock tank. The officers really hate this guy and as soon as they can find another tank with 24,000 buffed HP, he’s out.

The Chick with the Accent- Is the accent fake? Nobody knows or cares. Future visits to Australia/Britian/New Zealand/Alabama are now planned by all single raid members.

The Healing Pallie- Hates healing and had to go holy to see endgame. If you raid with a boomkin, a feral druid, a fury warrior, or any non-resto shaman, you are not getting a 10 minute blessing. Forget it. He hates you. Also, see Prima Donna, the gay guy.

The New Guy- Begins most sentences with, "That's not how we did it in my old guild on Korgath." Likely to remain guilded for approximately one week. You wonder if he'll be tellign his next guild, "In my old guild, we ran TOWARDS the volcanoes.