Sunday, March 31, 2013

And the story continues....

    Hi folks. Sorry about my absence. I ave been a bit under the weather and also trying to prepare for Easter. Family always comes first with me. So I hope you understand.
     As of late, there is alot of speculation about what's going on in 5.3. Personally, I like to only talk about the features they anounced, not the ones that others datamined out of the PTR. Like the three spec thing that has gotten alot of buzz of late. Blizzard still hasn't anounced it as a feature, and even more have not confimed it one way or the other. They most certainly have implied that it's not going to becomereal though. Which is a good thing.
    But the thing I think that they really need to change is not the fact of how many specs you get, but the kind of Specs ythat you get. All classes should have two roles that they can perform. If that is done, then the queue times will be much smaller as everyone will be playing the class they love and still fill all of the needed roles.
    I would take Combat Roogues and give them the tanking option. It's in the decsription of combat rogues that they can go toe-to-toe with the opppenent. Lets just follow through and actually make that a reality.
   Hunters with thier pets are also a natural option for tanking. But I would give the tanking to the Survivalist spec. The name lends itself to it. And, in my experiance, hunter utlitarian abilities are never used. People don't let survivalists setup and be good and it. But if they switch it around and make Survivalist the guys that does all the things that tanks do, Survivalist with their pets could be very well liked and loved. With a tanking pet, it would be like having two tanks for the price of one.
   Mages could be healer types. I would use the Arcane spec for that. It would be the very thing that would make Arcane different and defined from Frost or Fire. I also think that Frost could be turned into a tanking spec with out too much trouble. But I think healer would be a better choicefor the game. Frost as tank makes more sence though.
    Warlocks n the Affliction spec could also be healers. Who better to remidy sickness than a person who can cause them? It makes logical sence that if you can make people sick that you would know how to cure the sickness. Just incase you get sick yourself. some of the demons could be good tanks too if beefed a bit, so Demonolgy could be turned into a tanking spec. But I would rather not do that.
   All other classes, as I can remember at this time, have either dual or triple roles to them so would not need any further modifications. So what do you guys think? Let me know. Turn in tomorrow to find out what I write about then.
  

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Problems and Solutions for WOW

     So has I have been playing in this new patch, I have been noticing my anger and frustration level rising with playing my main in the new area. This is do to the quest bosses looting problem, in part.
      What I mean by the problem is this, I pull a quest boss on my own. I grind the bosses health down to 10% or less. Someone bepopping along sees me fighting the boss, joins in and boss dies during my kiting efforts. Since they weren't kiting the boss they are right there at the body, they loot and then take off. And I, the guy that had done the work to kill 90% of it on my own, gets a portion of the gold and no loot. And the portion of gold I get is EQUAL to the guy that popped a hit or two and killed the boss. I think that is wrong and not fair. And causes undo stress for people to do work on these things alone and fail to get any of the loot. And people in the game are not kind or fair, which is a sad state in itself, towards those players.
       In my opinion, anyone who battles the bosses should get their own loot. And the amount of loot would be controlled by how long that person was involved in that particular battle. Any change that makes it so that everyone who is attacking the guy gets their own loot should be used. I think will make it so that people will join earlier in the fight to maximize their loot chances and don't make the hardest working person feel like they got screwed.
       The other problem I have been dealing with is the derth of interrupts on my Hunter. I get sent to battle some dudes that self-heal, and every time I using silencing shot, during it's cool down, the mob gets to cast again the heal. They are now at full health and I am starting all over again. Scattershot does not always work on mobs, and so I got one chance to stop it, but it's temporarily and they will get a period of time that they are free from any chance that I can stop them. So they get their heals in and so I have to work them down again. In fact, I tried so many times that I have figured out that I can't do it without using a pet that can interrupt them. So if they could change this so that either I get more interrupts or the heal less often would be best. Then people with low number of interrupts would have a chance to get them solo.
        The only other thing that is bothering me is collecting of the Secrets of the Empire tokens. I have done this for three weeks now and have gotten 6 of them. I didn't get any in the first week, and second week gave me two. SO while I am getting more every week, it still is very rarely gained. At this rate it's going to take me another 7 weeks to get the 20 I need. I think a better drop rate needs to be implemented for these things. But I feel that Blizzard would never consider this.
         So that's what I have for today. Tune in tomorrow to find out what I will have to say next!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Hunter News

   So, apparently in PTR, Hunter's are going to get 50 stable slots. Hunter's have been wanting to have more pet slots so that they can collect the new rare pet styles out there. Even I have had to drop pets to open slots to get the new pet types I wanted. It was an agonizing and disappointing thing to do. This change would mean that I can get 1 pet for every pet family I want and still have 11 spots for just looks that I like. I think that this is great change, but doesn't go far enough. I don't see why we need to have a cap at all. Why not just limited just like Battle pets, where you can only have 3 of each pet. So why not just limit us to three of each family. In that way everybody can get just the looks they like and still have space to pick up some optional looks for changes in taste.
   The PTR doesn't seem to contain any further changes to Hunters at this time. I think that this one change is big enough that any other change might just get missed for awhile. But who knows?
    Tune in tomorrow and I will talk more about things that bother me in game. While it may seem like I will be ranting, I actually will be trying to define what bothers me and what could be done to fix it to my satisfaction.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Weekly WOW Report

    So this past week has been busy with news related to WOW.  A new game called Hearthcast based in the WOW universe, several hotfixes and released patch notes for 5.3. Busy, busy, busy folks there at Blizzard. So lets get into it.
     Hearthstone announced at PAX East.
              So Blizzard has decided to create a collectible card game that is online only. The setting is WOW. You take on the persona of a "champion" from WOW lore and duke it out with another person sling spells and sending minions in. The board and cards all have animations to trick out the look of the game. And as you play you get to collect more cards. It is free game with the option to buy cards. I see this as a brilliant move. Not only will they create a new casual game that looks visually stunning but they are also introducing more people to WOW. I am sure that as people play Hearthstone they will learn of WOW and this will help drive subscription to WOW. It also will let younger kids start getting a feel for the game and for WOW parents to get their kids involved in WOW without having to get them a subscription. The game itself looks good enough to me to give it a try. And once it works on my iPhone it may very well be the game I play when I am bored and not at home. I do think that a pet battling game or a Sunsong Ranch game would have been a better use of their time. And I think it would draw more people into the game that way. But that's just me.
     Hotfixes
              So several hotfixes have been released over the past week. The one of major note is the nerfing of Oondasta's hp. After making sure that CRZ friends can't loot the boss, they reduced it's health. I think for low pop or under pop factions, this is a good move. It gives them a chance to kill this boss. High pop servers and factions just made it easier for them. Oondast also spawns more often so that means that everyone has better chance at it. The rest of the hotfixes are just balancing issues for the most part, or nerfs to content that proved more deadly than planned. All good to me.
     5.3 Patch Notes
                So the patch notes came out for the next expansion. New content was expected. The changes to PVP was not. I think the removal of PVP Resiliance is good start. nd if PVP Power only is found on PVP gear then this will make make each gear type (PVE vs PVP) King in their respective fields. I know lots of people are complaining about world pvp still favoring PVE gear. But I look at it this way. You chose a server in which the 'environment' or 'world' is free for fall for gankers. PVE gear should be king everywhere but in the PVP gladiatorial combat locations. Now if they can just make it so that uppper end PVP gear and the upper end PVE gear are the same iLevel then I think the balancing act would be completed. And this new notion of elite gear being for prestige only is pure bunkery. That is not reason to get it. And for me, would not be worth my time. If I want the gear to have a unique look, I would just transmog it into what I like. Elite gear has to have stats on it to make it elite otherwise it's just gear. Nothing elitist about it. Nothing to drive an elitist to get it. I think PVP is starting down the right path, but still needs to work on some of the details, and rewards.
       So that's it's for news for today. Tune in tomorrow to find out what I talk about next.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Update on Characters 4

   So yesterday I left no blog. I am sorry but I got busy with life. It was family outing day. In the end it meant that I was just to tired to put forth thoughts onto electronic paper. Now, things like this don't happen often so this should be a rare occurrence. Now on to today's post.
     Airholen has valor capped with ease. I now run the PVP dailies as it goes. LFR was kind in that Ji-Kun dropped my new tier of legs. No world drop of my boots in the raid occurred nor did Jin'Rokh drop my trinket or the Council drop my tier gloves. So I am still trying to gear. I did get enough valor to buy my Shado Pan Assault 522 trinket. So my iLevel is now up to 496. I also got to kill a couple of Elites on the Isle and work on my PVP currency by doing the PVP Dailies. At last check my server had 70% completion for Stage 3. So I am looking forward for the next stage to open up. I have been a little disappointed in this stage so far.
    Asmodea has had little done. She is still level 83. And I gotten a better dagger for her. I have also pushed her Herbalism and Alchemy.  So she is almost ready for Pandaria. Otherwise I have done very little with her.
    Zombee and Sisteric I have been logging into this week rotating the Duty Officers missions and converting the dilithium into Zen Points. I need 1065 Zen Points to open up 4 more character slots and I have 974 currently. So I will get the 4 slots before the new expansion came out. The game has also upgraded the UI a bit so that it is easier so what rarity your Bridge Officers are. So I have been updating and changing the personal with an eye to getting better quality people.
    Danic, on the other hand, I have actually been running mission on to get him leveled up. He is level 46 and is a Rear Admiral Upper Half. I also have been upgrading the bridge crew to be all but one character as very rare. I also took a new pick of Danic since reaching the new rank. So expect to see the new picture in the next couple of days.
   I really haven't played any other games. So that's all of the updates we have. Tune in tomorrow to hear what I have to say about WOW news for this past week.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Brave New Worlds

    So yesterday, Blizzard announced thier new game at PAX East. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is a collectable card game played online. All of thier promo videoes do include the fact they played Magic:The Gathering. So this is a stab and competing with Magic:The Gathering Online. They have announced that they are going to offer it for free and that extra card packs are purchased for a dollar. All in all it's a great plan I think. And the game, so far, looks very fun. The grafics are very flashy and colorful. And the cards draw heavily upon Warcaft spells and creatures. Once this game comes out, I will be giving it a try just for the sheer novelty of it.
    Earlier in the week I reported that Star Trek Online was coming out with a new expansion. This expansion will make the Romulans a playable faction. It also will be changing up Klingons so that you can play them from level 1. Other changes will be implemented, like that your first character doesn't have to a Fed. New rep to garner to fight the Tholians with. Empress Sela returns being voiced by the original actress. A new Enemy will be added and upgrades to the interface, including customizables options. They also look like the talents and skills will get a revamp and upgrade. And a new level of specialization for the skills will be added. I can't wait to see what that may be. Currently the skill system is very confusing and not obvious in what it can do for you.
    Tune in tomorrow to find out what I will talk about next.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Green Acres

     So player housing has been a topic that has been floating around for some time in WOW. People love it or hate it. I love the idea and wish it had been present from the beginning. But MoP has brought us the the beginnings of it in Sunsong Ranch that becomes yours in 5.2. But there is more potential there. Potential that needs to be added I believe. So here are my thoughts on player housing.
    Using Sunsong Ranch, we take the house and add a upper floor for your bedroom, to get your rested pvp bonus. Downstairs you have the kitchen. And larder to store cooking mats. And then you use Nomi, the cooking apprentice, and give him a daily order to cook one of your recipes that you have. Nomi will cook that recipe till it runs out of mats in the larder, Nomi then could take 1 minute per skill point needed to cook the recipe at white. This means that something that fails to level you any more at 500 will take 500 minutes or  8 hours and 20 minutes to make it. This will be nice to have but will never flood the market without you taking the initiative and make it yourself.
     The apprentice concept could be expanded to all other crafting professions. The gathering skills would not apply here. And you would need to buy specific storage containers for each profession to store the mats for your apprentice to do it's thing. Again the apprentice can only work on those recipes that you actually know yourself. Can't teach him to do things you don't know yourself. And these same areas that the apprentice use could be used by you to give you a bonus to your crafting skill. Of course, the trade off is that the apprentice can't use the area while you are using it.
     Gathering professions will not have anything to gain from being on the farm, so you will need to go out into the world to get your mats. Archaeology obviously needs to be out in the world also.
     Get a barn built and now you can look at your mounts walking around on your farm. Or maybe just the top five you like. Gives you something else to look at on your farm than just the dog and cat. The Barn could also be a stable for hunters to swap out their hunter pets.
     In the house you could have rooms where Spare tabards are kept, a trophy room, more general storage and maybe even a manikins to put armor on for display purposes. You could also place an option to put screen captures on the wall as pictures for decoration. You could even have place where you keep scrolls and books that you have picked up along the way.
     Now I know people say that we would all be staying in our housing then, but that is rubbish. Right now, you could hang out on the farm, a separate instance, and queue up for anything and just wait, or craft while waiting. But not very many people do that because it's boring. You need to go out into the world to experience the content. To collect mats and advance the story line. To gear up and grind rep and do pet battles. Even to play the Action House you have to go to a city. So giving us a house to store things does nothing but make people happy and give people more reasons to travel the world.
    And Sunsong Ranch doesn't have to be the only place. You could have housing in each main city. This would give a reason for people to go back to those cities. Draenei get a free house at say level 60 in Exodar. And once you have Exalted status with a faction you could spend 30 k gold to get a house at that factions cities, and suddenly you have people go out and about grinding rep with factions to buy houses in their favorite towns. You can have storage boxes be unified between all the houses like the banks. But the apprentices are in specific homes. And you can only have 1 apprentice for each profession you have.
    Let me know what you guys think about these ideas. And you can tell me any Ideas of yours, I would like to hear them. I like speculating on features that could be added to improve the experience, so tell me your ideas.
    Tune in tomorrow to find out what I think about Blizzard's new game announcement, and more about STO's expansion announcement.
   
   

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Ji-Kun, Bird of Paradise

   So I queued up for the Forgotten Depths. After waiting for 30 minutes, I got in at the point to face off Ji-Kun. Darn it. Really wanted a shot at the Bow from Tortos. But I go ahead and try out this part of the raid just to get the experience of fighting the boss. The raid leader apparently has done it before and told us how the fight needs to be conducted. I opted not to do the flying part. We start up the boss and we get him down to below 10% and we wipe. Quick reassignment of more people people to flight mission and we tried again. Low and behold I down it. I get the failbag. SO I use a Mogu Charm for a re-roll and I get my Tier 15 LFR Leggings. YAY! And then I compare it to what I have and it is 2 ilevel worse than what I have on. I got the legs for Tier 14 Normal from the Sha World Boss. And then I double upgraded them. That makes them slightly better than the new tier 15 LFR. Boo hiss!! So I guess I am going to hold on to my leggings till I get a second piece of tier 15 LFR so that I get an actual tier bonus to replace the tier bonus I would loose by going to three piece or less. So I guess I have to wait till I get I take another shot at The Council this week since I haven't gotten to them this week in the first wing of LFR.
     I used a Lei Shen Treasure Key last night too. I was able to get a little over 86 gold, some elder charms and 5 ancient manuscripts. The manuscripts you turn in to get Kirin Tor rep tokens, I am Exalted with the Kirin Tor already. These tokens are bound to account, so I mail them to Asmodea, my Level 83 Rogue. I opene them up on her and I was able to use them to get Kirin Tor rep. On top of that, it now allows me to select that faction to focus on for my first dungeon run. So know I am gaining rep for the Kirin Tor at level 83. I will be Exalted with them before I even get to Pandaria. Yay Team!
    Other news that has made me happy, Star Trek Online has officially stated what the next expansion will be. And the part of the announcement that makes me the happiest is the fact that I will now be able to make Romulan Captains. Romulans have been my favorite race in Star Trek. And now I get to be an officer and fly warbirds. I am so excited. I am going to have to dedicate more of my time towards my STO characters to get dilithium so that I can sell for Zen points to but 4 new character slots. That way I can make all the the Rom characters I want to.And then I only need to get 2 slots more to be able to make the three characters per faction.
    So tomorrow I am going to delve into my thoughts on how WOW could implement player housing. Tune in if you want to find out what I think.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

ToT-ering off to LFR

   SO I ran The Last Stand of the Zandalari again last night. No gear dropped  I even used a Mogu Charm on Jin'Rokh, but I don't get anything of use. In fact I am only getting gold. So I haven't seen any failbag help either.
   My server had unlocked Stage 3. So I got to run the single man scenario for it. It was cool. I liked it all the way to even the last boss where I almost died, but did win the day. The dailies that opened up after that was disappointing though. There really was not many for the new area that was opened up. And I didn't get a real feel for a continued story line out of it. I did get to help out in a kill on a rare elite in the new area which did give me key to the treasure trove. And once I completed the dailies for the day the Arcane thing netted be a blood orb. So I am gathering a decent amount crafting materials for my alts now.
   I also have gained exalted status with the Kirin Tor. Which allowed me to buy the Kirin Tor tabard and the Golden Primal Direhorn mount. Made it my ground mount of choice now.
   Tonight I plan to run Forgotten Depths. I hope to get the bow off of Tortos and my leggings from Ji-Kun. I will do more stuff to works towards Valor cap. But I expect to cap soon at this rate. And then Asmodea will be leveled.
    Tune in tomorrow to see how wing two treats me.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Rebuilding a Guild in WOW Part 6

   So how do I recruit people for the guild?
  Forums on Battle.Net is one way. Spamming trade chat doesn't seem to be my style, but I need to do some of it. So I need to figure that out.
   Attempt#1    The DarkSiders Guild is looking for friendly achievement oriented players. We are a level 10 guild with 7 bank tabs.
   Attempt#2    Come join the The Darksiders. We are a level 10 achievement oriented guild with 7 bank tabs. Join our friendly atmosphere to get ahead in achievements.
   Not sure which is better, but I am going to try both this evening. I am going to get all of this implemented over the next couple of days. Once I get members joining, I will update this blog about it. I also will try and make a weekly update about the guild, much like the characters get right now.
    Tune in tomorrow to see how well I did in LFR last night. (Hoping for gear!)
   

Monday, March 18, 2013

Update of Characters 3

     Airholen is still running the 5.2 content Stage 2. I am valor capping and then doing the PVP dailies. I have gotten to Exalted with Wrathion and working on the last bit to get Exalted with the Kirin Tor. I also have Friendly status with the Shado Pan Assault. I am working on getting enough valor points together to buy the new gear from the Shadow Pan.
     Asmodea is now level 83. She is running the Cataclysm normal dungeons. I am still working towards 90. She also got the guild to level 10.
     My Star Trek Online characters have just been doing the Duty Officers rotations since there is a special event going on to gain more experiences from the Duty Officers. Danic has gotten a new very rare duty officer because of the event.

     So that's what I have done with my characters this past week. Tomorrow I will talk about my guild efforts some more.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Rebuilding a Guild in WOW Part 5

   Thinking about rules and such, I came to the conclusion that I probably won't kick a toon out of the guild except after 1 year of inactivity. Now if people put in the character notes for the guild that they are an alt of another character, then as long as at least one of the characters from his/her stable is played in the year then all the characters are safe. I think a year should be more than long enough to account for any home problems, vacations and financial issues. It also allows for people to focus on one alt at a time and not feel like they have to jump from character to character.
     I think I will put one person in charge of maintaining the guild bank. We will have the ability to organize it and will get to put out requests for materials when they are low. I also think I should have a Darth of Professions and he/she could have one Padewan per actual professions. That way we can keep up on all the things you can do with that profession for our members. I hink it will also give us, as a guild, a way to get all of the best constructed gear for people who are gearing up or optimizing thier toons. It will also help collectors get the pets and mounts that are made.
     I think tomorrow I am going to input this all into the guild website and then put it in the game. That's once that is done, I will start a recruitment drive and see if I can get anywhere with it.
    Tomorrow's blog will be about wat I have been doing with my characters. Tune in to find out.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Rebuilding a Guild in WOW Part 4

   So I think that rules will be a slow developement over time. So I am going to go into quild structure.

   Current ranks are Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, Lord and Guildmaster.
   I'll keep the tittles for now, and add Padewan before Journeyman and Darth after Master.
   Inititates are what members are when they first join the guild. They wil have no access to anything but will be able to view the bank tabs. I will will alllow them to deposit things and gold to the guild bank. To rise to Apprentice they have to gift the guild 10 gold. This is not to enlarge our coffers but to have a visible means to show commitment to the guild.
    Apprentice will have limited access to guild bank items and gold. They are still in the learning phase for the guild. To advance to Journeyman, at the first monthly officer meeting after being a Journey man for one month, they are reviewed by the officers and detirmined if they merit advancement. Criteria will be what they have done for the guild, how they have treated guild members, how they have comported themselves with others and any reports that other guild members having to the officers about that person. If the Officers feel it wise, the person will be advanced.
    Padewan will have increased access to the guild bank. They will be members that are expected to help the guild and it's members. Majority of the guild should be this rank. Advancement is case by case,  and done so at the request of an officer during the officer meeting.
    Journeymen are assistants to the officers. They are not officers but are the pool of people that are filling in for officers when they are not present. They are not an officer rank themselves, but they are from who all officers are chosen from when the need arrises.
    Master is the first of the officer ranks. There will be one master per class. The person chosen for this position demonstrated a level of understanding about their class they they could answer most any question. Duties will included checking in on everyone of their class to make sure they are doing okay and have no issues. They will need to gather reports on Apprentices and attend monthly officer meetings to determine guild member advancement.They will also assist any Darths in running guild events as needed.
    Darth are members with a desire to organize and run acheivement runs, raids, challanges and tourneys. There will be Darths of Raids, Dungeons, Pet Battles, Challenges and Holidays. The Darths wll organize events and activities to keep the members engaged in the game or even to help them to thier goals. Advancement is determined by the Guildmaster based on all the recomendations of the officers.
   Lords are just all of my alts. Created so that I could accomplish things without having to jump onto my main for everything.
   Guildmaster is my main.

   So that's the ranking structure. Until I have members, not sure if I will have any other structure needed at this time. Tune in tomorrow to see what I come up with next.
   

Friday, March 15, 2013

Rebuild a Guild in WOW part 3

    So today, I still have not gotten any feed back. Forging on...
   
    So what I need now is a mission statement. Let's see....
    
     The DarkSiders is a guild of acheivemet oriented people. We help others to gain these acheivements when possible. A certain level of respect to all players is expected. We are here to enjoy the game and have fun.

     I like that one. That I'll keep.
    
     So I need rules.
     No griefing others. (I hate that)
     Be kind. No need for name calling.
     Be helpful. When someone asks for help, at least tell them what you know. If you have time, go and help them directly.
     Don't be afraid to ask for help.
     Don't be afraid to admit that you don't know something. I am sure that there is no one who knows it all.
    

    I don't know what else to put in here about rules. I think I need to think some more on this and then add to it.
    Next would be to place a structure on the guild, including how one advances in the guild and such.
    Tune in tomorrow to find out my thoughts on this.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Rebuilding a Guild in WOW part 2

    At the time of me writing this, I have received no feedback on my thought process so far. So this next step is still all me.

    After my posting yesterday, I continued to think about other aspects of it's makeup. I know that I want to be alt friendly. I am concerned about language but not to the extent of saying family friendly, so I just want a low level of cursing.

   So now I think I can say that the vision for this guild is a friendly achievement-oriented leveling guild. So next would be to create a guild description to fill out the recruitment form.

     Attempt#1:
     The DarkSiders is an achievement oriented leveling guild. Our goal is to help people level there characters and build ourselves up to complete all of the achievements. We help each other gear up and complete questing. Talking in chat is encouraged but not required. Helping your fellow guildies will be expected at certain level, but not to a point that it overrides your own fun in the game. Contact Airholen to answer any questions that you may have.

      Attempt#2:
      We are a friendly guild. We will help you level and finish your achievements. We expect all our members to help our guild members accomplish the same things. So if you want a friendly guild that will help you level up, gear up and achievement up come join us. Contact Airholen if you have any questions.


    So what do you guys think? Let me know. Tomorrow I will probably cover a Mission statement and maybe start on guild rules. Please let me know how I am doing with this and feel free give me any feedback.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Rebuilding a Guild in WOW part 1

    SO I am going to write things up as I go as I try to figure out how to revamp my guild and get to become more than what it is.

    First off, I want to take stock of what I do have. I have 7 tabs in the guild bank. I have a tabard. The guild is currently level 9. I have created a guild page.

   So that means the guild has up to level 9 guild perks to offer. We have tabards, including the tabards that gain guild rep. We have some money. And I have a lot of stuff in the guild bank. So this is what the guild can bring to the table.

   So what do I want to do with this guild? I guess I should start of with what do I find as fun in the game. I currently run lfr, heroics and scenarios to optimize the gear my main has. I make things when I think I can profit from it or when I don't have the mount or pet. I work on getting all my reps. In fact I work on anything achievement based. SO I guess the fun things for me is achievements and the gearing up.

    SO how does that translate into a guild? Well, gearing is very much tied to leveling. And achievements are tied to just doing stuff. Same for making things. All of that could be covered by leveling. So, I think that I need to focus on leveling. And once we get some level 90s in the guild we can set up achievement runs. I like the guild also to be more focused on working together to get what people want than on hardcore mentality of pushing for the best ratings in raids.

    SO is this a good idea then? Being a leveling guild? Tomorrow I will work on what the guild description should be and what the mission statement should be. Tune in to help me out further. And thanks to all who will help me.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

A Casual Players View on Patch 5.2

   So I have been playing the 5.2 patch since it dropped. I also have been reading blogs and listening to podcast about patch 5.2. And I have some impressions about the game.
 
     Story from the Alliance side
     So I have seen and heard a lot of people complain about how there didn't seem much of a story lead in to the Thunder patch. I think that they aren't look at it the right way. Story wise on the Alliance side, Jaina Proudmoore has already head to the Isle of Thunder with the Kirin Tor fleet. You, being a hero of note, are sent to assist Jaina in her efforts. This is a military campaign. You are a considered as a military tactical asset and so are sent to to be used as such. Once you speak to Jaina, you are sent to three regions to assist in the efforts to destabilize those regions to allow the Kirin Tor to get a beachhead established. It fits the unlocking method that is being used in this patch. At this time, Stage 2 has been opened. This establishes an actual fortified position for the Kirin Tor to attack from. Currently you can choose to either do PVE or PVP oriented dailies. Now, I have only had one day at this, so I choose to do PVP dailies since by valor was already capped. The series of quest involved are oriented towards harming the Sunreavers or rescuing Kirin Tor forces or resources from the Sunreavers. I actually had fun doing it and, just like in Stage 1, I was able to complete all the dailies in about an hour. This allowed me time to look at working on an alt.

     Difficulty and Time Involvement
     So I have been seeing a lot of the people stating that the quests are difficult on the Isle. I have been doing the dailies since day one and I have not found any of the quests to be difficult or time consuming. So far, about an hour of my time is dedicated to the story line quest. After that, I am free to do collection runs or Alt leveling. I am having more fun since patch 5.2 than since MoP dropped. I don't feel like I am so hard pressed to get everything I see necessary done. I feel like I am advancing and yet having the time to do things I feel as fun on the side too.

     Nuts and Bolts
     What I mean by "Nuts and Bolts" is the mechanics of how things works. I have so far been disappointed by the "increased" drop rates in old MoP raids. So far all I have gotten from them is gold. So no change has been experienced. I have even did a Sha run, but it still has no change in appearance to me. The only thing I can say is for the Hunter, the Hunter's Mark being auto applied from my shots was a happy change. I find the recent change to stop Cross Realm help from looting the new world bosses really sucks. I usually can  only get help from cross realm friends. And I don't have the money to move my toons to a new server.

    Overall Impression
    So I have to say that I have preferred this patch over 5.1 or even 5.0. I think that this level of involvement is almost right. I could see having maybe 5 more quests to do would be nice. I think it would also be better if I could do both the PVP and PVE versions of the quest if I so desire. But otherwise I think this patch has done more to make the game fun and to make it feel less grindy. Thanks Blizzard!

   So tomorrow I am going to start a new direction for a few posts. I am going to go over my efforts to make my guild better than what it is now. I want use the blog as a sounding board for me to figure how to do that. I asked this question of the Epic Podcast crew and their response, in their latest podcast (#8) has given me thought. I want to have feedback on this too. And I hope that you all will help me. Please tune in and help me rebuild a guild.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Update for Characters 2

   So today I will go over what I have done with my characters in the past week.
   First off I have not played hardly any of my alts. I have been concentrating on Airholen since 5.2 has come out. Airholen has been running the dailies on Isle of Thunder. It only takes an hour a day to run them. I like them. There seems to be a random selection of dailies for each of the three regions in the first section. I also got over to the Isle of Giants. There are no quests or dailies there to do. It purely is a farming location. Kill Dinos and Dinomancers and get loot. So far, I have been able get my Ancient tome to tame a Direhorn. I have my Direhorn pet. I have also collected 3 of the 4 pets you can get from the Dinomancers, those darn kneebiters have alluded me so far. I have not collected any of the dino mounts so far. I have tried but not been successful. I also have collected a little over 500 dino bones. That is after three days of slaying dinos. All I can say is there is only so many dinos I can slay before I loose intrest in the game.
     And that is when I switch over to Asmodea. So far I have got her to level 80 and doing content in Mt. Hyjal. So far, I have hardly done anything to advance anything. Though I do have to say that Asmodea has now acquired a theme for her. I am always going to keep her weapons looking like Tankards O' Terror. I have the Brewmaster title selected for her and she will be transmoging the rest of her gear to bolster the image of a drunken brawler. I have yet to figure all the parts out for her, but that's where I am headed with her. I do feel it's appropriate that my first character that I decided to always transmog for looks is a female character. She will have her own fashion sense. I may even starting doing fashion posting from her perspective. I will have to see.
     So that's what I have done so far this past week. Tune in tomorrow as I will give my impressions on 5.2 as I have experienced it to date. I also will included the impressions, information and feelings that I seem to be getting from other sources in the WOW community over 5.2.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

The death of a Warlord

    So as I was about to log off, somebody said in chat that they were looking for a group to go take on Warlord Bloodhilt. Bloodhilt is the guy you have to kill to complete the 5.1 legendary questline. It took 1 Tank, 1 Healer and 4 DPS to take this guy down. But we did it. And we only wiped once. The trick was to stack up on him. Kills hos most damaging attack, a type of charge. And it looked like it made healing so much easier. It was a long fight too.
   Even though I am happy I got past this point, I am unhappy that I had to do this at all. For quest chain to find out if your are the best hero ever, having to get others to best the other side didn't seem quite in line with that thought process. And not to overlook the fact that only those doing the quest get any real reward out of it. And then there is the issue of casual non-raiding player even being able to gather a group together strong enough to complete this quest. This is just something a soloist just can't so themeselves. That sucks and completely goes against the grain of playing the game my way, they have so proudly declared for this expansion. Hopefully Blizzard will re-look at this questline and revamp it so that a soloist does have a chance to complete it. You never know.
    On better a better note, my server was 74% complete on unlocking the next stage as of last night. I expect on Tuesday that it will be unlocked and I can move on to new dailes. Along with finally being able to LFR. Yay!
    So that's all I have for now. Tune in tomorrow to read about my character updates for the week.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Here's my Direhorn!

      So Last night I got my direhorn hunter pet. YAY! So now I have three dinos, my spirit beast and my rock spider for active pets. I think this will look cool when I call stampede.

      So now all I have to do with Airholen is the dailies, which tak about an hour, the random dungeons and scenarios, for the rep and the valor, and kill dinos for the dino bones. I think this will allow me time to play Asmodea because Dino hunting is a bit repetative, and that gets boring after a while. So I like the fact that Alts at this stage become more feasible to do because the time sink is not as great. Hopefully Blizzard, and the WOW community at large, will take this to heart when doing further content patches.

     Well, that's all I got for now. Tune in tomorrow to see what it may bring.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Where's my Direhorn?

   So after two days on the Isle of Giants slaying Dinomancers, I have 5 pet drops and no hunter book. I really want to get this so I can build my own dino squad. I think that this would be fun to have as a stampede group. Calling forth a group of lizards all at once to maim and slaughter those pesky npc's that get in my way.
But, alas, the RNG gods are failing to be kind to me. I wonder just how long I have to wait to get my direhorn? I have already scoped out all the direhorn looks and choose which one I want. So, hopefully, I will get it by the time I get those 9999 dino bones for the mount there. Besides I would also need another 999 bones to get the porcupette pet too. So I have some time since I have less than hundred bones so far.

    My server was at 44% complete to unlock the next stage when I was on last night. So we are chugging along fairly well, I think. At this rate we should have the next stage opened in 4 days. That should be good. It would mean that I can start getting into LFR about the same time.

    I have LFR Heart of Fear part 2. So far the supposed increased drop rates seem not to exist since I am still only getting gold, even with coin drops. Got to run the treasure vault too. It was interesting. Gained over 80 gold, 8 elder charms and some ancient scrolls that you can turn in for Kirin Tor rep. Maybe tonight I will get better luck.

So that was night in WOW. Hope your doing better than me. Lets see what tonight brings. Tune in to find out.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Isla Sorna err... Isle of the Giants?

     So welcome to Jurassic Park! We spared no expense. Except for a reason to go there. There is only going to be two types of people going to the dino island: Collectors and Hunters.

    Collectors have pets and mounts to get from here. And Hunters will need to get the Manual so that they can tame a Direhorn. People that don't care about collecting pets or mounts have no reason to go. There is no quests, and since you are facing elite 90 and 91's, non-90's would find it hard to be there. Groups will probably have an easier time of it than soloists. But either way should be viable.

    Hunters need to slay Zandalari Trolls, and lots of them, to get that book to teach you how to tame a Direhorn. Once you can tame a direhorn, then you have your choice of colors to go tame. Also the Devilsaurs have new colors here too. So you can get one in the color you wanted.

    I have not gotten my book yet, but I have picked up 2 of the little raptor pet drops so far. And I have learned just how difficult it is to kill the full grown dinos over the hatchlings. And it was very weird for me to be working along side a horde hunter going through this content together. No talking, but we helped out each other as we progressed through the island.

   So that's my first take on the Isle of Giants. I do not know what I will be covering to find. Tune in to discover what it might be.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Look at the pretty Island...

   Hi everyone, today I am going to give my impressions on the patch after one trip through it.

   I jumped on to Airholen and traveled out to The Isle of Thunder. I was able to pick up the starting dailies and started my explorations of the island. Killing the Zandalari and Saurok was not too difficult on it's own. But I did come across the rare spawns and quest npc's. So far either they were grayed out or, if I did fight it with another person, they got the loot and not me. So the sharing thing doesn't seem to be working. But in about an hour, even with the island as populated as it was with toons, I had completed all of the first stage of dailies. The missions are varied, and interesting to me. And seemed logical and well thought out to me too. Being turned into a Saurok was funny to me because my pet was also shape-shifted into different creatures each time. The funniest one was when I saw my cat become an ooze. As a hunter it was fun to have a ooze running beside me, a pet I can't get as yet. I did find it nice that my mark was auto-placed on the targets I attacked. It did seem to up my dps up a little bit. But once I was done with the dailies, I queued up the LFR, Random Heroics and Scenarios. I did not see anything change in my drops in Heart of Fear, nothing but gold again. I didn't get to the Isle of Giants. So today I will be trying that out.

    Hopefully I will be able to report about that tomorrow. Tune in to find out.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Tankards, who knew...

    So Patch 5.2 dropped, but it's still patching as I am talking to you now. But I do have something that I do want to talk about. Asmodea and her tankards. So lets get starting.

      Asmodea, for those who don't remember, is a Human Rogue. I level her after I have Valor capped Airholen. Currently she is now Level 80 and running in Mount Hyjal. When I have made level 80, I tried running Hyjal with the current gear. And I got pasted multiple times by the elementals. Her ability to fight was completely hampered when compared to Northrend. So I went to the guild bank and took a look for gear upgrades. And I found a few pieces of armor  And then I found my weapons, a pair of Tankards O' Terror. These are Purple quality  iLevel 226 one handed maces that look like giant sized beer steins. This brought a smile to my face and giggle to my lips as I thought about using the pair. So I equipped the tankards and the first thing that I noticed was that the tankards didn't show on her hips. And once I pulled them out, it was just comical to see this dainty female human rogue carrying around two huge manly, rugged drinking mugs. There is no way you would think that a slinky sneaky rogue would be walking around bonking people on the head with these huge things. As I ran through Mount Hyjal with these tankards, I actually got giddy watching her fight. I was happy with what I was seeing, as well as she was kicking butt and taking names, gold and anything else that was possible to loot. This has left an impression on me, enough so that I plan to always transmog her weapons into these Tankards. And to further the motif, I have given her the title "Brewmaster". Brewmaster Asmodea and her duel Tankards O' Terror. I have even taken a picture of her and will be putting it up later on.

      I hope you enjoyed my discussion about my fighting Brewmaster. Since Patch 5.2 has officially dropped. I definitely will be playing it after the realms are back up and I will let you know how Airholen fairs in the new area. Tune in to find out how I do.

Monday, March 4, 2013

WoW 5.2 coming tomorrow?

   So I get online and look around at my normal sources and see that WoW 5.2 data is already released on the Ask Mr. Robot gear optimizing. I find this disappointing in that I will not have completed upgrading my Yaungol Gloves. And the other reason why I am a little unhappy about this early of a release is because now I will be having to start the gearing efforts all over again. So, I don't plain to take a pic of Airholen at this point. I will wait til I am all geared for 5.2. It also means that I will probably be playing Asmodea less as I run all the dailies and such for Airholen.
    Even so, I still would like to go over the merits and flaws of Patch 5.2 from my purely biased point of view. Some of it will deal directly with Hunter and Rogue changes. And some of it will deal with what changes they did to non-class specific stuff that I deal with.
    First off, Having the Island unlocked by the server efforts means each servers hard core raiders will control content for all players. Which is great for those servers will world class professional raiding guilds. But those servers with no professional or hard core guilds in their faction, they may never get the content unlocked. Unless they plan on nerfing this for low pop servers, or for server that are too heavily balance for one faction. Otherwise, I think only hardcore servers are ever going to see the whole island.
    I am really bothered by the way the legendary quest line is progressing. It starts off as an PVE quest, but then it forces you to PVP and the last thing, before 5.2 gets released, it requires you to form a a raiding group to take down a raid-like boss. This sucks as I am soloist PVE player. I do not have a raiding guild. I have tried getting a group together for it, but that has so far not gotten enough people to win. And now, in 5.2, every thing I have gained so far is chucked out the window with the bath water. The sha weapon will be weaker that any gear gained in the new patch, the sha gem can't be put in anything new. In fact, the only thing transferable is the extra socket for the weapon. Which I can't get because I have to defeat the raid level world boss. This legendary quest line is anything but fun and exciting for me to progress in. In fact, once Asmodea gets to 90, I see no reason to do it for her as there are no rewards worth it at this time.
    Marked for Death Glyph is removed and it's effect is now baseline. I like this but this goes to the point that I feel that every hunter is losing it's uniqueness. Since this is becoming baseline, it goes to show that they didn't create enough useful options to compete with this ability. It's going baseline because all hunters use it, All hunters use it because it's just to useful not too. In fact the only reason a hunter would't have this glyph is because they couldn't afford to get it.
    All the hunter changes are mostly buffs to damage, or elimination of focus costs to certain abilities. I find these simple changes just to try and give hunters some umph in PVP. It should make things better in that are of play as well as for the solo efforts against older content.
    Rogue changes sum up to one thing for me, throwing becomes a viable way to fight with a rogue. This gives rogues an option to stand at range and fight rather than constantly running after each target and trying to get behind them. It won't compete with actually standing toe to toe with the target, but it makes it worth it to have Deadly Throw. I think I am going to have a lot of fun with it.
   
     So that's what I have for now. Tomorrow, if patch 5.2 comes out, I will probably be talking about my impressions of the changes on Airholen. Tune in to find out.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Up dates on the Characters

    So I am going to try and do a little update here about the characters I played this week.

     As Patch 5.2 approaches in WoW, I have just mainly been Valor capping Airholen. According to Ask Mr. Robot, I am only missing 2 peices of gear to be fully optimized. I need shoulders off the Windlord in Heart of Fear and a pair of boots from the Operation Sheildwall. I am using the valor to upgrade my Normal Mode Tier peices first before they take it out. I only need to do one more upgrade, so I hope that 5.2 doesn't come this tuesday. Once I have all the gear I will take a photo op of him.
     Also in WoW, I have gotten Asmodea up to 79. One more level and I leave Northrend and head to the Cata realms. Asmodea's gear changes so often that I haven't felt like geting a pic of her til I get to 90. Maybe I will take a pic at 85, like the other characters I have up.
     I ran some missions with Zombee last night. I got back into the groove of things, which was nice. But we couldn't complete the Terradome Mission, which sucks. Sisteric and Danic I reviewed and resent their Duty Officers on missions but did nothing else with them.
     I didn't get to Wizardry at all this week. So Dan Zombee is unchanged.

     So I think I will do this weekly, unless something happens that I just got to say something about it. I think tomorrow I will talk about some of the changes that are coming in the games I play, as I understand them. Tune in to see what my opinions are.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Dan Zombee, Human Fighter

    This is a new game that I have been playing, Wizardry Online. It takes an old school game, Wizardry, and puts in the MMO relm. I started playing it just to see if they tried to keep true to the original game. They did a fair amount of that but they also updated it. And those updates make it interesting enough. The biggest thing that sets this game apart from WOW is it's claim of permadeath. What really that means is if you die, you have two attempts to resurrect your body. If you don't succeed on the second attempt, that character is gone for good. And everything on it. This game also has a meta leveling aspect, called your Soul. As you advance the story, your Soul retains your progress. So that means you don't hve to retread the story line for every character, you just have to level it so that it can progress the story line. This game is free to play, and you can have three characters that way. The store you can purchase vanity items mostly and more bag space so far that I have seen. I only have one character in the game right now.

Stats for Dan Zombee
     Name: Dan            Soul Name: Zombee           Soul Rank: 2            Level: 5
     Class: Fighter        Alingment: Lawful         Lawful 120    Nuetral 0      Chaos 0
     Strength: 12      Vitality: 10     Dexterity: 11     Agility: 8
     Intellect: 6        Piety: 9           Luck: 10
     HP: 237            MP: 31            GP: 85               OD: 100/200
     Physical Attack: 5                    Magical Attack: 0
     Physical Defence: 48               Magical Defence: 18                 AC Eval: 9
     Skills:
             Bash: 2/7          Defend Stance: 3/7          Self Heal: 2/7


     Just to put some perspective on the info above, You only need a Strength of 9 to become a fighter. As you level your stats have a random chance to change. They can go up, down or stay the same. Dan, as I have furthered his adventures, has gotten dumber as I go deeper into the dungeons. I don't see magic using in his future. His piety is where it needs to be for a Preist and his dex and luck give him a ecent chance at theivery. His AC is decent, but you need it lower. In fact negative numbers is where you want to be. AC controls how hard it is to hit you. GP, or Guard points, is a mechanic to allow your sheild to take damage instead of you. It sort of replacement hp while block with a sheild. Once it runs out, you have to wait for it to regenerate before you can block with your sheild again. OD powers special moves. You have to do things to charge it up past 100.

     So that's my Wizardry character. Tomorrow I think I will do a general news day on the state of the characters. Tune in to fnd out what I have been doing with them.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Danic, Starfleet Science Officer

     So today will be about my third and final Star Trek Online character, Danic.

Character Information for Danic
     Name: Danic                 Nickname: Danic             Rank: Rear Admiral (Lower Half)     Grade: 43
     Race: Vulcan                 Sex: Male                        Career: Science Officer

     Active Ship:
            Name: USS Trailblazer     Designation: NCC-94062      Class: Trident Deep Space Science Vessel
            Crew Compliment: 478

     Bridge Crew:
            R'shee                   Rank: Commander           Quality: Uncommon
            Race: Andorian      Sex: Female                     Career: Tactical Officer
            Departments: First Officer and Security          Stations: Away Team and Tactical Station I

            Thon D'vov           Rank: Commander           Quality: Common
            Race: Andorian     Sex Male                         Career: Engineering Officer
            Departments: Engineering                              Stations: Engineering Stations II

           Nire                       Rank: Commander           Quality: Very Rare
           Race: Trill              Sex: Female                      Career: Science Officer
           Departments: Science                                     Stations: Away Station and Science Station I

           Sug Shaaliz           Rank: Commander            Quality: Uncommon
           Race: Bajoran       Sex: Male                         Career: Science Officer
           Departments: Medical                                    Stations: Science Station II

           Derip B'zoph         Rank: Commander           Quality: Very Rare
           Race: Andorian     Sex: Male                         Career: Tactical Officer
           Departments: Tactical                                    Stations: Away Team

           Sehedula Jazaz      Rank: Commander            Quality: Common
           Race: Betazoid      Sex: Male                         Career: Engineering Officer
           Departments: Operations                               Stations: Away Team and Engineering Station I

     So the crew of the USS Trailblazer is low on the quality scale, which means that they will get replaced. All of my characters are trying to have Very Rare quality for all of the crew. The ship also is almost all standard Starfleet phasers and photon torpedoes for the ship tier it is. Nothing outstanding or unusual with lots of room to modify still.

     The primary goal of this character is to get to max level. Once there, he will start doing ops to gear up and generate dilithium to assist in the account wide efforts.

     Tomorrow I will go over my Wizardry Online Character, Dan Zombee. Tune in to find out about him.