Cute Fuzzy Meow

July 3, 2010

Cataclysm Beta, Troll/Worgen Druid Forms, Oh My!

Filed under: General — K'vn @ 11:33 am

Cataclysm has finally gone to beta and the major news sites are flooded with the latest information. MMO Champion has the lion’s share of the new information, and I have to say the first thing I went to see was the new feral forms. Troll Bear Form looks a little awkward, but the glow-in-the-dark feel works slightly better on the troll cat models. I think I’d like for my Horde druid to go trollish just for the teal cat form. The worgen bear form looked familiar, and finally it hit me: isn’t that the same bear form the druids of the claw changed into during Warcraft 3? The Worgen cat form looks pretty good. Sort of like a male version of the night elf version. You can expect me to be playing a Worgen druid (that black model, most likely) when Cataclysm occurs. I also enjoy the Worgen druid plot, though I won’t spoil it for anyone!

Speaking of spoilers, most of what I’m enjoying about the beta information is all spoilers, and I know most of my readers won’t want to read them. There are two points of interest which are not spoilers that I wanted to share, though. First, there are lv 78 green quest reward weapons that put Shadowmourne to shame. No matter how good your gear is right now, it will be replaced by greens quickly. This makes me a little sad. In Vanilla, my Field Marshal’s Sanctuary set lasted me through most of the Burning Crusade. Then my Feral Tier 6 lasted me from 70 to 80 when Wrath of the Lich King became the new hot thing. Now my Death Knight’s heroic Cryptmaker is going to be vendored in favor of quest reward greens. Oh, the shame! And yet, since I want to go Worgen druid, it is a little bit liberating to know that all are made equal.

Oh, and mounts! We have a blue post saying the Frostwyrms and Proto-drakes from Glory of the Meow Raider won’t be going away. So I can spend time at my job and fixing up my home and not worry about missing out on the Frostbrood Vanquisher mount. Also, archeology seems to include some cute skeletal raptor companions and even skeletal raptor mounts! Nice, isn’t it?

And finally, an introduction. I’ve had a guest poster who would like to post her own versions of dungeon guides here, and I said I’d be happy to have them as a party of The Cute Fuzzy Meow. With Fire Festival winding down (I hope everyone has their Ice Chip and Frostscythe!) she’ll be posting her guides over the next week or two. Give her a warm welcome for me!

On a non-WoW note, I just rewatched The Big Empty. Rachel Leigh Cook is one of my favorite actresses, and Sean Bean rocks any role you put him in. While some of the dialogue Rachel gets is a little awkward to listen to, it’s great to see such two great actors working together. Somehow I imagine Sean Bean’s roles in this and Sharpe as being less about acting and more about just being himself. “Where did you come from?” Sean Bean is asked. “Your Momma sent me. She asked me to give you this” he replies with his Sheffield accent, shooting the man again. Oh Sean Bean. Now if only Billy Zabka and Dean Cain worked so well in Dark Descent. My goal for the summer is to finally sit down and finish that and There Will Be Blood. Well, and Jeanne d’Arc and Chocobo’s Dungeon.

June 10, 2010

Gearscore, a Classic WoW Problem.

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , , — K'vn @ 4:59 am

Ah yes, Gearscore — does anything else elicit such a negative response about the current state of World of Warcraft? Or maybe it’s just me, rolling my eyes at the very concept. Is it pride that makes me refuse to link my gearscore? Is it my dislike of acronyms that makes me refuse to even respond to comments of “GS plz?” Well, perhaps. But listening to some of my friends complain about it, someone commented on how it’s a recent problem that’s cropped up. This got me thinking about how while Gearscore is a recent development, the problem has gone back to original “Vanilla” World of Warcraft. Sure, maybe we didn’t call it Gearscore back then, but the basic problem still existed.

World of Warcraft Classic, Vanilla Flavor

Allow me to take you back to the old days of Vanilla WoW. You’re running something like 10-man Scholomance as an undead rogue and you have your wonderful Dire Maul Bracers of the Eclipse, a wonderful mix of agility and attack power. Suddenly, Shadowcraft Bracers drop. There’s no Tier 0.5 upgrade quest, but my goodness, don’t they sound like something a rogue would want? You upgrade and remove your awesome agility and attack power bracers for… a huge downgrade. Why? Well, because it’s your set. You feel cooler. It sounds better. Sure, the item level is way below what you’re wearing but no one knew item level back then. Is this isolated to the casual players? Nope! Watch as an army of cats “upgrade” from their lame “blues” like Chitinous Shoulderguards to the amazing Blackwing Lair purples of Taut Dragonhide Shoulderpads. What, are you “chitin” me? Why would anyone go from the best stats for a kitty to…. attack power and stamina in mediocre amounts? Well, it was called purple fever. If it was purple and you had a blue, you rolled on it because it was purple. If it was purple and from a raid later than yours, you rolled because it must be better if it shows up later in the game, right?

I’m sure you can already see the problem here. People were more worried about where something came from than whether or not the item was actually worthwhile. People should be looking at the stat distribution and how important those statistics are, but instead they’d just wear whatever was “more purple.” The only benefit it had is that you could easily spot the poor cat druids because they were in epics while the good ones were wearing blues from Zul’Gurub and Ruins of Ahn’Qiraj. Man, I’m glad this was just a Vanilla thing…

The Burning Crusade

Except, of course, that it wasn’t. The same problem existed in The Burning Crusade, except it was more a matter of the “more purple” issue instead of blues to purples. People continued to work off of the assumption that if something came from a later instance, it must be better! Instead of taking a smart approach to gearing up, people would just grab their next set piece and work onwards. I’m sure I’m giving away that I raided as a cat druid in Vanilla and Burning Crusade, but there were some big itemization quirks and a lot of extremely dumb cats out there. Some set bonuses were amazing (Two pieces of Tier 4, lovingly called 2pc T4, granted energy per attack). Some were awful or useless (Tier 5 offered a caster increase… for cats.) I’d see cats upgrading out of extremely well-itemized gear for set pieces that did nothing for them. Then I’d see cats putting away their Tier 4 with a nice AEP value of 500 attack power for two more strength from their Tier 5, losing their set bonus. While Damage Meters are another issue altogether, surely seeing your dps plummet from your “upgrade” should be a clue? Then from a class that lives off agility many cats would take attack power idols from Black Temple simply because of where it dropped. Taking set pieces that lower your dps greatly combined with grabbing whatever gear seemed newer made it feel like I was pugging Lower Blackrock Spire all over again. What’s wrong with these people?!

Wrath of the Lich King

And now we have Gearscore. People are taking gear with a higher item level over gear that’s good for them because it inflates their gearscore. In some cases, the old problems exist exactly the same way they did before. For classes like hunters, two pieces of tier 9 gives such a huge DPS boost by allowing Serpent Sting to crit that “upgrading” to Tier 10 and losing the bonus will tank your DPS. Some of the Item Level 264 relics have a ramp up time and can fall off easily, making the 245 relics a big dps increase most of the time. Darkmoon Card: Greatness is a great example of a trinket with near-perfect itemization. It’s item level 200, but it ranks higher than a good deal of the 245 trinkets. While I could continue to list many other examples, it is worth noting that overall itemization tends to improve as the item level goes up. The important thing is to be able to think for yourself and know your class. Which brings me to the interesting problem this poses: requiring gearscore to do pugs and raids and bragging about your gearscore. This rewards players for making poor choices. Your gearscore does not show your DPS, your skill, or your experience. If you can click need on the item with the highest item level, you are rewarded by having your gearscore go up. The problem is that we use a sort of mental gearscore sometimes when people ask us about gearing up. No one worth their kitty paws would say “get 5,700 GS before you should look to Trial of the Crusader,” but we might say “Try to get some good badge 245 and heroic 232 gear before you look into ICC10.” If that player goes and builds a Darkmoon Card: Greatness, great! It probably beats their trinket. But again, I suspect giving out advice like this probably encouraged things like Gearscore.

On a tangent, I think the best bet would to be to develop an add-on or system that works off of AEP. Perhaps if we had to link our Tossk Kittypoints or Rawr simulator score it would be better. Then again, to remain accurate those are constantly being updated and worked on, and they don’t always update immediately. But at least there is some thinking going on there. At least the statistics and set bonuses are weighted. Instead of complaining (too late!), I just hope this is the direction we’re heading. I would love a mod that replaces the Item Level on the item with AEP. (AEP is a generic term for Attack Equivalency Points, basically a way of comparing stats. Think of it as “For your current gear level, how does this compare to another piece, comparing how things equal out in attack power.”)

I’d love for someone to defend Gearscore, feel free to e-mail me or leave a comment below.

April 1, 2010

Kittenlord Advice Column

Filed under: General,Newblett — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — K'vn @ 4:42 am

Okay, here’s a few tips for you new players and new 80′s. First, let’s start with the lowbie tips!

Click Alt+Z to hide your interface when taking screen shots. Just don’t forget to turn it back on again when you start playing afterward. You can also hide or add in your nameplate, pet nameplates, and player nameplates to customize what people seen in your screen shots.

Cycle through nameplates with the ‘V’ and ‘Ctrl+V’ keys. ‘V’ toggles the life bars above the mobs on and off. This can be useful for seeing who is going down fast or who has enough health to survive your diseases plus pestilence! ‘Ctrl+V’ includes friendly health bars, too, which is useful for seeing how your allies are doing. While I don’t usually keep this on, there are some specific cases where it really shines.

When questing solo or with friends, don’t forget about the /follow and autorun commands! When my fiancée, her favorite command was /follow. She even went so far as to bind her ‘B’ key to follow. When trying out refer-a-friend, my little brother made a macro with two lines, “/target Kvn” and “/follow”. Then he’d go get a drink or take a nap while I’d run us around. Well, you know, when he wasn’t riding in my motorcycle’s sidecar. /follow isn’t perfect, though, so be careful or you will get stuck on objects or be run off of cliffs. And for you solo folks, don’t forget Autorun! This command revolutionized my time as a little beta druid on Test 19 in Ashenvale Forest. I’d say the only real downside is if you forget you’re autorunning and go away from the computer. This happened to me a lot when I purchased a gryphon mount, since I’d forget it wasn’t a taxi. Oops!

Preview Talent Changes allows you to preview your talents without them being immediately spent. Some people just want to spend the points, but I know as I level I forget until I get several points and I want to see where they go. This is also handy when respeccing. You can turn this feature on by going to Game Menu (ESC) -> Interface -> Features -> Check “Preview Talent Changes.” Easy, right? Just don’t forget to commit them once you’re sure you like where they are!

And now, for the Big Kid tips.

Don’t forget about dual spec. You don’t really need to wait until 80 for this now that the new Dungeon Finder system allows you to level as a tank or healer, but I still think of this as a Big Kid thing in my mind. For the cost of 1,000g you can have two talent specs, each with their own set of glyphs. While the usefulness of this for hybrid classes is fairly apparent (instant queues for tanks and sometimes healers, having a dps spec for soloing and another for instancing), don’t write this off for other classes. A few common uses for this are to have a PvE and PvP spec, a strong solo spec (like Beast Mastery) and a strong group spec (Marksmanship), a spec with Replenishment (Destruction) and a spec for bosses (Affliction), or even a dps spec for trash (AoE-Strong) and a dps spec for bosses (single-target-strong). There are a lot of options, be creative! At one point I had a dps spec solely for the Lich King and one for everything else. Oh yeah, I’m hardcore like that.

Equipment Manager really makes dual specs a lot easier. Game Menu (ESC) -> Interface -> Features -> Check Use Equipment Manager. Considering that Equipment Manager and Preview Talent Changes are the only “Features” in the Interface Menu, you’re probably already familiar with this. While there are mods that do the same thing, I’m a big fan of using the in-game interface when it does everything I want.

Ever needed your bank or a mailbox while in the middle of nowhere? Argent Squire can help! This tip is a bit more involved. The Argent Tournament is large enough that it really deserves its own article, but one big item from there that new 80′s have no clue about is the Pony Bridle. In a nutshell, as you progress through the tournament you go from Aspirant to Valiant to Champion to Crusader. When you become a Champion, you receive the Argent Squire, a little kid who runs behind you (small pet) and will hold up the banner of the various cities you can champion. Fun, but fairly useless, right? Once you become a Crusader another quartermaster opens up and sells you a Pony Bridle using the tournament tokens which upgrades your squire, which people jokingly refer to as the “Super Squire Upgrade.” What the Pony Bridle does is gives you several new options when you talk to your squire. You can choose to repair, use him as a mailbox, or access your bank. Once you make your selection you have a few minutes where the squire will do that for you, then he runs away and is on cooldown for a few hours. While the long cooldown prohibits you from using him all the time, he can be a real life-saver. The only time you may not want to worry about him is if you’re an engineering. Jeeves the robot butler can repair/bank for you, MOLL-E is a portable mailbox, and Wormhole Generator: Northrend can teleport you to most sections of Northrend. Oh, did I forget to mention? That same Crusader Quartermaster also sells the Argent Crusader’s Tabard which teleports you to the Argent Tournament grounds once per 30 minutes. Considering the long cooldown on the Wormhole Generator, Crusaders may trump Engineers there. Of course, these aren’t mutually exclusive — there’s nothing stopping you from having all the Engineering toys and all of the Crusader Quartermaster fun items.

Get all of your level 68 or higher alts a Tome of Cold Weather Flight! I cannot stress this enough. Earlier we talked about both heirlooms and what enchants to put on them, but don’t miss that Hira Snowdawn at Krasus Landing in Dalaran will sell you a Bind on Account version of Cold Weather Flight that you can mail to your level 68 or higher alts. You only have to walk through Northrend once, friend. Cold Weather Flight works with both 225 and 300 flying, and if you learn it at 225 and upgrade to 300 you do not have to learn it again.

Create your own Vanity Guild! My soon-to-be-wife and I are always sending items back and forth. She is exceptionally good at selling items on the auction house, and so I try to send her anything I can find that I think she can sell. After awhile of doing this, mailboxes get flooded and it’s just messy. Characters are stuck with those BoP Brewfest Mugs you just can’t bring yourself to get rid of, but what do you do with those million glyphs you skilled up on that you’re sure will sell “someday?” Well, the answer to all of these questions is: create a vanity guild. If you’ve never run a guild you may not be familiar with the concept of a guild bank. For ten gold and nine signatures you can create your own guild (be sure to kick out the people who don’t belong after forming it). Then, go to the bank and you’ll notice that near the bankers in a major city will be a guild vault. For a small sum (that grows larger each time you pay it…) you can purchase a guild bank tab. A guild bank tab contains 98 slots. In general, you can get maybe four tabs without paying too much money, and then put all of your banker alts in that guild and they all have access to this pool of items. You can do this with friends or loved ones if you trust them enough, too. Hey, there’s also nothing stopping you from having a few of these — each of my bankers has his own guild bank that he shares with one of Rathakk’s bankers.

March 24, 2010

Weekly Update — Midterms have come!

Filed under: General,Personal,Uncategorized — K'vn @ 8:11 pm

Hello, internet! 3.3.3 has arrived, bringing with it a decided lack of Ruby Sanctum and Gnomish Liberation Armies. Ah well, there’s a few good things from this patch that are relevant to me (and my readers?). First off, anyone collecting pets should head over to the pet shop in Dalaran, across from the Violet Citadel. They’re selling a few new toys, but also a new small pet: the Blue Clockwork Rocket Bot. The real pet collectors should also be excited to find out that both of the (previously BoP) engineering pets have become Bind on Use, so go find your favorite engineer and get them to make you a Lil’ Smoky or a Pet Bombling. There’s a new gnome vendor outside of the Engineering Trainer in Dalaran, too. You can trade those stockpiles of Frozen Orbs in for eternals, crusader orbs, runed orbs, or even a pattern to make a new Flying Carpet (tailoring-only), the Frosty Flying Carpet. And before anyone asks, yes I dropped a profession to skill up tailoring just for the flying carpet. Every mount counts!

I found it interesting that a lot of people who find this journal were searching for information on Sons of Hodir, polar bear mounts, or the bug with Hodir Dailies not showing up immediately in Dun Nifflem. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all of those, but just in case I haven’t…

Polar Bear: Brunhilldar Village unlocks when you do the Sons of Hodir quest line. After you’ve quested there (and probably moved on to Dun Nifflem), if you come back you’ll notice they have a single daily quest. You may need to do the optional, non-Sons-of-Hodir reputation quests from the village in the houses overlooking the cliff to unlock some of them. Simply do the daily each day and you will pick up a pouch that contains salted goat milk, yeti cheese, or…. 1 in 50 shot at the Reins of the White Polar Bear Mount. Yum!

Sons of Hodir: “Help, the spear/helm/horn doesn’t appear after I’ve done the quest!” Easy fix, fly out of the village, out of it’s entire phasing area, then fly back in and it should show up.

This question was submitted by Geese of the Steamwheedle Cartel Server: “What level do I need to be to start getting Heirlooms?” Well, Geese, I would say about level 70. As the heirlooms article already covered, you’re looking at four sources for heirlooms — Stone Keeper Shards, level 80 emblems, and winning the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby. The Dread Pirate Ring from the Fishing Derby only really requires you to have Wrath of the Lich King installed. You could take a level one character, set their hearth to Dalaran, and then put them around any of the safe fishing areas in Northrend (Borean Tundra’s icebergs being a good bet) and if you catch the shark, hearth to Dalaran and turn it in for your prize. The competition happens Saturday at 2pm Server (give or take). For Stone Keeper Shards, if your side owns Wintergrasp then any Northrend dungeons you run will grant you Stone Keeper Shards on boss kills. It’s tricky to get into Wintergrasp to spend them, but if your side owns Wintergrasp then most of the time the Wintergrasp Battlemaster will have a portal to Vault of Archavon next to him and you’re set. For Emblems of Triumph, your first Northrend Random Normal Dungeon via Dungeon Finder grants you two Triumph Badges upon completion, so it’s possible for those to add up over time, too. So ultimately, you’re going to need a level 70 character to start getting anything except the ring.

The last of our questions comes from Nalbeb ofSteamwheedle Cartel, he asked about any changes in the past six months to make levelling alts easier. Well, that list is probably too long to go over, but the big one beyond heirlooms is probably to grab a Tome of Cold Weather Flying from your main and mail it to your level 68+ alts. If you have an eighty, there is no reason for your alts to have to walk through Northrend.

I’m working on the Ultimate Gnome article for after midterms this week, but I could actually use some help on this one. When it comes to most of it, I know exactly what I want to write, but I’m having trouble finding armor with a gnome theme. Goggles are a given, but what about the shoulders, breastplate, et cetera? Anyone have any ideas of very gnome-tastic armor? If so, let me know in the comments. And if you have any other questions, just comment and I’ll answer them next update (or write a guide about them if it’s a big question!).

March 17, 2010

Weekly Update!

Filed under: General — K'vn @ 9:07 pm

Welcome to the weekly update. You would think that with all that’s going on, I would be updating less, but this is a nice thing I can spend a few minutes on between studying for midterms. I have a full semesters and a ton of work to do in the next two weeks. Some of it is midterms, some of it is catching up on work from being sick and missing class. All-in-all, though, I’m loving all of my classes still — even Calculus. But you’re not here to hear about Calculus, French irregular verbs, or the Bhagava-Gita — let’s talk about WoW.

I have up two new articles this week. I probably should have spread them out, but I didn’t want to get busy and forget! The most recent article is Heirlooms Continued: Enchants. I’ve had a lot of people messaging me about Heirlooms, which led to the write the initial article. I’ve had a blast with heirlooms in game, though in a slightly odd fashion — I do the fishing daily on each of my alts, and a full set of heirlooms adds +25% xp from that fishing daily. Most of my alts, after a year and a half of fishing dailies, have nearly hit 80. The next question I anticipated being asked, however, is what you can enchant on an heirloom. A lot of people had incorrect ideas — Sons of Hodir enchants are Bind on Account, so surely they work on heirlooms from the get-go, right? — and I thought it was time for a companion article to help straighten everyone out. I think that the Zandalar Signets of Might/Mojo/Serenity are some of the best investments if you’re serious about heirlooms, but I’ve got a full list of what works when, how, and alternative choices for the harder-to-find enchants. Speaking of Sons of Hodir, don’t miss the guide that’s up from months back on how to get started — just keep in mind that reputation values have skyrocketed in recent patches.

Preceding that is another article entitled Where is Wrath of the Lich King Going? which I’ve been working on in chunks ever since my raiding guild killed Arthas on 25 man two weeks back (Hard Modes time!), dealing with the future of the Scourge and where I see them going from here. It’s pretty difficult to talk about without getting into spoilers, but if nothing else it’s amusing, well, musings. Hopefully some of you out there are interested in more than the guides!

The PTR has been quite exciting with the things the data miners have found. Mounts are one of my favorite aspects of the game, and there’s a celestial version of Invincible that’s made of stars. Of stars! Who needs nasty spaceships when you can have a magical flying pony made of stars?! I’m interested in finding out where this is from, though I need to go pad my mount totals with the pvp mount I’m missing and a few Argent Tournament Mounts.

Do you have an authenticator? It seems like lately more and more people have been hacked, and while Blizzard is being pretty good about restoring accounts, it takes a long period of time. After a friend of ours watched her little brother’s account get hacked and him sit in Storm Peaks for a few days, Sare and I bit the bullet and picked up authenticators. Word on the street is that the battery lasts 5-7 years, which is good enough for me. I thought it would be a hassle since we have two computers and we don’t always use the same one for WoW, but by keeping them nearby it’s been extremely easy to log in and I feel safer. Plus, the Core Hound Pup is adorable on our weekly Molten Core runs. Two years and counting and no Biznik’s Accurascope pattern. Next week is the week!

After Hard Modes and Mounts, do you know what I love? Small pets! And Gryphons! I’ve spent a long time looking for a gryphon stuffed animal for Sare, with many failures. I found one semi-puppet, and that’s the best I could do. Well, it looks like Blizzard has finally given into my demands, and they’ve released a gryphlet plushie that comes with a gryphlet small pet. How cute! The only thing I can’t understand is why my friends haven’t gotten me one yet? My old main from Burning Crusade was actually named Gryphlet, for crying out loud! Harrumph. Well, my only gripe with the gryphlet is the unusually large head. Is that normal? There’s a horde counterpart, the Wind Rider Cub, and except for his cowlick hair he’s adorable, too! It’s funny how the wyvern models are some of the most complained-about in the entire game, but this little Wind Rider is just plain adorable. Gryphlets and winged-kittens, who could appeal to me more?

Speaking of kittens, I do casually read a few comics some days. I’m not a big fan of most of the WoW-related comics, but the one that has kept me coming back is NPC Comic. Hopefully the artist, Mary Varn, won’t be too upset if I tell her that the reason I read the comic is for the two cats, Chloe and Bink. The druid-cat necklace is just too adorable, and I love blue cats! For the curious, I also read XKCD (it’s geeky, but sometimes I can’t help myself) and Exploding Dog (My computer background is often one of these).

Finally, I’m excited about the things on the horizon for World of Warcraft. Gnomeregan reclaimed, Echo Isles, Ruby Sanctum — bring it on! In the mean time, we’re working on Lich King 25 hard modes. We have a handful of them down with another two nearly complete. My gear is finally starting to shape up a bit so I don’t feel under dressed for the Lich King Ball. All-in-all, good times. Except for my Calculus Midterm coming up. Or the French Writing Assignments (Quelle Dommage!). Or the Gilgamesh, Book of Job, Bhagava-Gita writings coming up. Ick. Pray for me!

I suppose since the last paragraph began with “Finally” this is actually a post script, but now that the heirloom questions should be handled, what do you want to hear about next? I keep getting demands for the Ultimate Gnome article, but I need to load up WoW Model Viewer to get a good picture since I don’t actually have a Gnome with most of the items it would require. Would you like to hear about the Argent Tournament? I’ve had a few friends start it up, and someone close to me just found out you can get Champion Seals from heroic Trial of the Champion. An achievement guide? Let me know what you need, and I’ll provide it!

March 16, 2010

Heirlooms Continued: Enchants

Filed under: General,Reputation — K'vn @ 12:40 pm

Now that we’ve covered Heirlooms and how to get them, it’s time to talk about enchants. Heirlooms fill one of the following slots: Trinket, Ring, One-handed Weapon, Two-handed Weapon, Shoulders, or Chest. Trinkets cannot be enchanted, so we can exclude them. But what about the others? Well, there are a few rules for enchanting heirlooms. First, enchants all have some sort of level requirement to them. You can toss Berserking on your Respurposed Lava Dredger, but if your alt is under lv 60 it won’t ever proc +400 attack power. This leaves you with two avenues of attack: you can either constantly change the enchants on your heirlooms as the characters level, or you can find the best enchant that works right from level one and just use that. That’s what this guide is for, to help you pick out your enchants.

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March 15, 2010

Where is Wrath of the Lich King Going?

Filed under: General — K'vn @ 10:26 am

First, a warning — this article contains spoilers. Chances are everyone has either seen the final cinematic from defeating the Lich King. Maybe you clicked the new statue in Dalaran, saw it on MMO Champion, or killed Arthas on 10 man. There are also some spoilers concerning Culling of Stratholme, Warcraft III, and the Scarlet Onslaught plot in Northrend. So if you don’t want those spoiled for you, turn away now!

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March 2, 2010

Heirlooms and You!

Filed under: General — K'vn @ 12:56 am

Wrath of the Lich King introduced a wonderful new class of gear that makes levelling alts a much more pleasant experience: Heirlooms. Heirlooms are gear with a light yellow text that bind to your account. Their level, stats, and armor type is based on the level of the wearer. Often they mimic a blue of the same level, with some mail evolving to plate at 40 and some leather evolving to mail at the same level. They don’t have durability, and therefore don’t require any money to repair. While all of these things are more of a convenience, they also have one more big thing going for them: many heirlooms grant an increase in experience from quests and monsters. Wearing heirloom shoulders, chest pieces, and rings together grants you a current maximum of +25% extra experience. Nice!
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February 23, 2010

A short update that turned out to be a rant on player and specilization matching.

Filed under: General,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — K'vn @ 11:48 am

Hello everyone! Instead of a guide or thoughts I wanted to take a moment to have a personal post. I’d like to apologize for the gap over the Christmas break, Sare and I have been moving to Colorado and finding housing. She started work, I started classes. Now that we’re settled in, I’ve started posting more. I didn’t opt to make a Lunar Festival guide post because the holiday is pretty straightforward, you don’t need a guide so much as a map. While the idea of going around the world and taking screen captures of each elder is tempting, I think your best bet if you’re having trouble is to check out Wow Head’s Lunar Festival Map. If you’re in Northrend, you might want to queue up for the various Northrend dungeons that have elders. This goes double if you’re playing a dps class with a 20 minutes queue time for Dungeon Finder. If you find that you are too low to queue for a dungeon, you may need to find guild-mates to run you through. (On that note, I would like to thank Thunderbrew Guard and The Cute Fuzzy Meow on Steamwheedle Cartel for letting my little level 75 Moonkin alt tag along to Utgarde Pinnacle).

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February 13, 2010

Violet Hold, Lord of Kittens Style

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — K'vn @ 6:28 pm

Have you ever flown over the huge keep behind Gundrak and wondered what Blizzard had planned there? Have you wandered around Ahn’Kahet, marveled at its beauty, and wondered why there is so little down around Azjol’Nerub? I’ve often wondered about the things Blizzard didn’t have time to include. Ever since I heard about Legion Hold having been on the drawing board for Burning Crusade I find myself wondering at parts of expansions that never were. Lately, this tendency has had me thinking about Violet Hold.

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