Monthly Archives: September 2008

Playstyle

Fix your UI in advance!

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Patch 3.0.2 is close on the horizon – if it’s not here within the next couple of weeks I’ll be surprised – and your UI is going to break. That’s right, all those lovely addons you use are going to stop working!

…well, most of them will.

And the big addon sites are always hammered on Patch Day; UI-Breaking Patch Day will just be that much worse. You can forget playing with your preferred UI if you haven’t done something about it in advance.

So! Download and patch the PTR client, transfer your most important characters over, and set to work rebuilding your UI now. Sites like WoW Interface make note of addons that are WotLK compatible – which means they should also be Patch 3.0 compatible.

You’ve got two ways of doing it:

  1. Copy your WTF folder and the contents of your Interface/Addons folder to the equivalent places in the PTR client folder, and try to fix it a bit at a time, replacing addons as you establish that they’re broken.
  2. Start with a blank canvas, no settings files, and download brand-new copies of appropriate addons from your download site of choice. Build the UI from scratch.

The second option is the method I’m going to choose myself, and I’d recommend it in general, just to make certain there are no legacy files persisting to cause incompatibilities and grief down the track. (The exception is ItemRack; I have a lot of different sets with only a few differences between them, and I really don’t want to have to make all those gearing decisions again.)

Step 1: Think!

When you do it, first identify what kind of addons you’ll want.

  • a unit-frame mod?
  • an action bar mod?
  • a raid-frame mod?
  • a threat meter?
  • a DPS/performance meter?
  • a gear set changer?
  • a map mod?
  • a boss mod?

Those are the common mods most people are likely to want; have a think about other key features of your UI – whether stylistic (like a reskin, font replacer or viewframe mod) or functional (like a DoT timer, a chat manager or a combat text mod) – and whether they’re absolutely essential or whether you can afford to install them later.

Step 2: Research and Download!

Once you’ve made those decisions, you’ll be better-equipped to navigate the “WotLK Mods!” sections of your favourite addon sites to try and find mods that will do what you want. Don’t be surprised if your favourite mods haven’t been updated for WotLK yet – many mods get abandoned around expansion time, and others are slow to be updated. You might have to get creative when looking for addons that will do what you want – remember that many addon names aren’t very informative, so check out anything unless you’re sure you don’t want it.

Step 3: Profit!

And then, once Patch 3.0 goes live, rename your WoW Addons and WTF directories and copy the equivalent folders over from the PTR client – everything should work fine, and you’ll have a minimum of downtime. (Just don’t delete your old addons and wtf folders until you’re sure everything’s working perfectly, just in case.)

Happy interface-overhauling!

Humour

What Didn’t I Know?

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Larisa of the Pink Pigtail Inn posted some entertaining stories today, recounting times when she found out she “had it all wrong”.

I never committed any of the (very entertaining!) faux pas on Larisa’s list, but I made plenty of my own – and I wasn’t even new to MMOs!

For instance, a friend who shall remain nameless (I’m looking at you, Ror!) told me that killing critters decreased your reputation with your home city and guards would attack you if you did it near them. I believed that one for about forty levels!

Or how about the fact that I was levelling leatherworking and skinning on my paladin, because I thought leatherworking sounded like fun?

Or the fact that I bought the whole Imperial Plate set for my paladin, and wore it as my main armor, despite the fact that I considered myself a healer? (Let’s not even talk about the fact that I started off healing Molten Core with a Retribution spec, and thought having a high mana pool was more important than that silly low “mana per 5 seconds” thing.)

I’m not alone, of course – we’ve all made mistakes like that. I canvassed the BlogAzeroth Chat people for some of theirs.

Saresa of Destructive Reach told us:

i think the dumbest thing that I ever did (that I haven’t posted about) was to insist on walking or riding EVERYWHERE up to level 45 or so… I was stingy and thought that if I flew everywhere it would send me broke.

Sar may feel better to know that I used to refuse to send mail because I worried about the 30 copper cost.

Euripedes of Critical QQ related:

A while back, I believe I was in my mid 40’s, I found a bunch of Furblogs in Azshara. Just standing around… so I killed one. “Reputation with Timbermaw decreased by…” What the hell is a Timbermaw?

So I grinded these furblogs for about 5 hours. They had excellent cloth drops.

So then, a few levels later, attempted to get to Winterspring… and there was this stupid tunnel full of these damn furblogs! So I ran through, in ammy my fiery prowess, burning them all down until I emerged from the other side bloody, beaten, and damn well hated by furblogs everywhere.

To this day, my reputation with them is at Unfriendly. It took me a long, long time to grind that reputation back up to Unfriendly.

(I’m kinda glad I never hit Azshara until I was 60, else I might well have done the same thing.)

So the next time you nub it up, remember: You are not alone!

Game Info

Inscription Guide Revised – Levelling

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Note: this post contains spoilers for Patch 3.0.

This is the second of a two-part guide to Inscription, the new tradeskill being introduced in Wrath of the Lich King.

Last Update: 10 October; WotLK beta build 9056.
If you have questions, feel free to contact me.

For the full list of Inscription recipes and the complete Inscription Guide, download the guide as a PDF file here: inscription12.pdf. (The full guide is in PDF form because frankly, it’s almost impossible to format all those tables as a blog post.)

Otherwise, read on for the “short” version!

Continue reading Inscription Guide Revised – Levelling →

Game Info

New Jewelcrafting Patterns for Honor

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Eyonix has confirmed that the “new Honor items” are cloaks and trinkets, upgrades over the current cloaks and trinkets but not huge ones.

However, on the 3.0.2 PTR tonight I also espied a Jewelcrafting vendor in the Stormwind PvP vendor area, selling 12 uncommon gem cuts for 1250 Honor each.

All the gem cuts are for Northrend gems, require 350 Jewelcrafting to learn, and create PvP-focused gems. They are:

  • Durable Huge Citrine: 7 Spell Power, 6 Resilience
  • Empowered Huge Citrine: 12 Attack Power, 6 Resilience
  • Lucent Huge Citrine: 6 Agility, 6 Resilience
  • Mysterious Shadow Crystal: 7 Spell Power, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Mystic Sun Crystal: 12 Resilience
  • Opaque Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 2 mp5
  • Resplendent Huge Citrine: 6 Strength, 6 Resilience
  • Shattered Dark Jade: 6 Haste Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Steady Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 9 Stamina
  • Stormy Chalcedony: 15 Spell Penetration
  • Tense Dark Jade: 6 Hit Rating, 8 Spell Penetration
  • Turbid Dark Jade: 6 Resilience, 6 Spirit

These haven’t been posted anywhere that I’ve seen, so I’m not sure if they’re truly intended to be on the 3.0.2 PTR – it’s an excellent use of Honor points, to be sure, but the Northrend-level mats rather make me doubt that they’ll be released before WotLK. I hope my doubts are wrong!

Playstyle

Optimism is a beautiful thing.

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So, I’m sitting in Stormwind on the 3.0.2 PTR server, relearning Inscription for my Inscription levelling guide, and I’m idly watching trade chat go by.

The number of people who expect Northrend to be in the 3.0.2 patch is astounding. I mourn for the lost arts of reading comprehension.

(In other news, yes, this means the Inscription levelling guide will be here shortly. Glad I held off; there have been a number of changes made very recently.)

Game Info

Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells

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Note: this post contains information on Wrath of the Lich King. And in addition, it’s a bit speculative because it’s discussing things that may still be tweaked, nerfed, buffed, folded, spindled, mutilated, digested, adjusted, rejected, abolished, emasculated, disembowelled, inflated or otherwise amended. This is a beta, after all.

There’s been a lot of talk around the blogosphere about the changes to existing Paladin spell mechanics: in particular, the way situational Blessings are becoming Hand spells, and others are disappearing altogether. Now it’s time to take a look at what’s new, not just what’s different. I’ve held off on this post, since so much has been in flux, but now that Holy is officially not likely to change too much more, let’s take a look at what’s in store.

Continue reading Holy Paladins in Wrath: New Spells →

Playstyle

That was AWESOME.

10 Comments

Well, that was fantastic fun :)

I’m still doing Warsong Gulch at the moment, because I need 90 tokens – 30 for the Black War Elekk and 60 for the tabard – and I’ve got about 20. Oh, and rep… slowly, slowly.

My last game:

Warsong win

If more battlegrounds were like that, I could really enjoy them – an epic battle, fighting back and forth for control of the flags, and a fun team to play with. (And the three top DPSers were my guildies, which was gratifying :))

68 tokens to go…

Wishlist

All This Honor’s Burning A Hole In My Pocket

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So, Eyonix announced today that Honor points and Marks of Honor will be wiped clean when WotLK goes live. As you can imagine, the tears are deep enough to drown in – the resulting thread is up to 48 pages already – but Eyonix does offer a small consolation:

For those with unspent honor points prior to the release of the expansion, we will be offering a few upgrades and special rewards in next content patch solely for purchase via the honor system.

Rather than cry about it – and trust me, I’m disappointed; I’ve got 20,000 points to spend – I’d rather optimistically contemplate what they can implement in 3.0.2 for me to spend my Honor on. If the whole point of the Honor reset is to avoid giving people a big gear advantage at 80, the majority of the new items are likely to be for flavour and style – there’s no point giving out upgrades when the only people who need gearing help for levelling to 80 probably don’t have much in the way of stockpiled honor either. So, here’s some brainstorming from my pal Vikos and I for some appealing Honor dumps:

1. Make Black War mounts cost Honor, not Marks – or put in alternate/variant mounts that cost Honor, not Marks.

2. Battleground Flasks that last through death, purchasable with Honor points. Actually, I think they should implement these anyway.

3. Non-combat pets! Little mini Frostwolf Cubs, Alterac Lambs, Chillwind Harpies, and other PvP-themed pets.

4. Guardian minipets or trinkets, like the much-loved mechanical yeti – they could summon little dwarven battle-tanks and horde bladethrowers, or labourers and peons like the NPCs you see in Arathi Basin.

4. More battle standards – how about ones that give you 5% extra honour or experience on all kills in their vicinity?

5. Novelty trinkets – how about an Orb of Deception-style trinket that allows you to look like a battleground NPC of the opposing faction, or one that disguises you as a node flag? (If you can turn into a tree or a crate, why not a flag?)

6. Consumables other than potions – temporary weapon oils or stones, for instance, with PvP utility.

7. Tabards. Of course I was going to say tabards, but it’s not a bad idea! There are BG-specific tabards for WSG, AV and AB – what about an Eye of the Storm tabard, or some general PvP tabards? We haven’t seen those for a long time.

8. Clothing and dress armor to match the Battlemasters, battleground NPCs, and battleground weekend barkers.

Update: Well, there’s some wasted opportunities. WoW Insider have just posted the new Honor-purchased items, and they’re very uninspiring – cloaks, trinkets, and the unbinding of Honor-bought gems. Yawn.

Game Info

Brewfest – Preparing For Achievements

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Note: this post contains spoilers for Patch 3.0.

Patch 3.0.2 is expected to herald the introduction of the new Achievement system, so for many of us it’s time to start planning ahead and working on Achievements for which we can get retrospective credit.

There are a number of Achievements centred around the current seasonal event, Brewfest. With a bit of careful planning, you might well be able to get credit for a number of these achievements from Brewfest 2008, instead of having to wait for next year.

Please note that this is currently in development, and could change wildly at any time. Achievements have appeared and disappeared frequently during the Wrath beta; these may suffer the same fate.

Also, please note that the Brewfest is a fun and original seasonal event, and the following guide is a very dry and analytical way to maximise a certain kind of reward. Don’t forget to actually play the Brewfest content, too. Get drunk, clobber Dark Iron dwarves, have fun! If you’re looking for a good guide to the Brewfest in general, I recommend Dwarf Priest’s “Beer Me!” guide.

Brewfest Achievements

Achievements You Can Complete In Advance

  • Direbrewfest – kill Coren Direbrew, the Brewfest special boss in Blackrock Depths.
  • Down With The Dark Iron – defend the Brewfest camp from the Dark Iron attack and complete the quest, “This One Time, When I Was Drunk…” (which is the quest that becomes available every half-hour after the Dark Iron attack).
  • Disturbing the Peace – while wearing 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing, get completely smashed and dance in Dalaran. Obviously you can’t complete this until WotLK goes live, but you can get the clothes in advance so you won’t have to wait for Brewfest ’09.
  • Does Your Wolpertinger Linger? – obtain a Wolpertinger pet. In Brewfest ’07, the Wolpertinger was a Brewfest quest reward – this year it’s purchasable from the Brewfest vendor for less than 50 silver.
  • Strange Brew – drink the nine Brewfest beers. These beers are sold by the various brewmasters around the Brewfest camps; however, like the foods, they only last 2 days. The same trick of mailing them to an alt and then returning them should work, however.
  • The Brewfest Diet – eat 8 of the Brewfest foods. These foods are sold by the various vendors around the Brewfest camps; however, they only last 2 days. They’re not BoP, however, so you can buy them and mail them to a banker alt, and leave them sitting in the mail (which doesn’t cost any lifespan), and mail them back when Achievements go live.
  • Have Keg, Will Travel – obtain a Brewfest mount. Last year’s Brewfest Rams count, as do this year’s rams and kodos dropped by Coren Direbrew.

Achievements That Will Have To Wait

  • Drunken Stupor – fall 65 yards without dying while completely smashed during the Brewfest Holiday. Unless 3.0.2 goes live before Brewfest finishes, this will have to wait for Brewfest ’09.
  • Brew of the Year – sample 12 beers featured in the Brew of the Month Club. You join the club by handing in 200 Brewfest Tokens to the Brewfest Vendor, and every month you’re mailed a new sample of beer.

    Each beer only lasts 14 days, so I’d recommend leaving them sitting in your mail (which doesn’t cost duration) until Patch 3.0.2 hits, and then drinking all the ones you have saved up – however, finishing off the achievement will have to wait twelve months unless the beers are indeed available from a vendor who sticks around after Brewfest. (Update: I’ve just checked the vendor, and she only sells one brew at the moment – so either she sells only the brew of that month, or only the brews that have been release so far. Either way, you’ll have to wait the full year for this achievement.)

  • Brewmaster – complete eight of Brewfest achievements (all of the above except “Have Keg, Will Travel”). The reward is a “Brewmaster” title.

    Obviously, as Drunken Stupor and Brew of the Year can’t be completed when achievements go live, neither can this achievement – and nor can any achievement which requires it (like What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been, the overall World Events achievement which awards a Violet Proto-Drake mount).

How To Do The Achievements

Food and Drink

Buy one of each type of Brewfest food and drink from the vendors, and mail them to a bank alt. Leave them sitting in the bank alt’s mail; return them after 29 days, and mail them off again if Achievements still aren’t live. Once Patch 3.0.2 goes live, mail them back to your main character and consume each one. This will complete Strange Brew and The Brewfest Diet.

The Brewfest Camp

Apart from normal questing, there are two important things to do in your faction’s Brewfest camp. The first is to buy a Wolpertinger pet from the Brewfest vendor if you don’t have one from last year, for Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?.

The second is to stick around until the hour or half-hour, and help defend the camp from the Dark Iron dwarves by throwing beer mugs you pick up from nearby tables. Once you’ve defended the camp, you can click on a piece of leftover Dark Iron machinery to get the quest that will give you the Down With The Dark Iron achievement. This quest is repeatable daily and awards Brewfest tokens; see below for more details about tokens.

Kill Coren Direbrew – A Lot

Go and see Darna Honeybock in Kharanos (for Alliance) or Slurpo Fizzykeg on the road to Razor Hill (for Horde), and get the quest to find the Brewfest spy in BRD. You’ll need to be level 65 to get this quest. Head to BRD, zone in and just to the right you’ll see some Dark Iron dwarves digging around some rubble. Kill them and use the consoles, and you’ll be transported via Mole Machine to the Grim Guzzler bar within BRD. The spy is just around the corner; he’ll give you a follow-on quest to insult Coren and kill him.

Coren drops a quest item which you hand in for Brewfest tokens, and completing the quest will ensure that your kill of Coren will be credited for Direbrewfest when Achievements go live. Coren also drops the Brewfest Ram and Brewfest Kodo mounts; you’ll need one of these to get credit for the Have Keg, Will Travel achievement. There are no concrete figures on drop rate right now, but it’s looking fairly low – probably less than 10%. You’ll probably need to kill him quite a few times – each person can trigger the event once a day (on the standard daily quest reset timer) so a normal group can try five times a day for a mount.

Get Brewfest Tokens

Brewfest Tokens are used to buy things from the Brewfest vendor, and can be gained from a number of quests, some of which are repeatable. You’ll need tokens to complete the Disturbing the Peace and Brew of the Year achievements.

  • Disturbing the Peace, completed after Wrath goes live, requires you to have three pieces of Brewfest clothing. The hat (available in four colors) costs 50 tokens, the boots or slippers cost 100 tokens, and the dress or regalia costs 200 tokens – so completing this Achievement requires 350 tokens, minus the cost of any Brewfest clothing you got last year.
  • Brew of the Year requires you to join the Brew of the Month Club, which costs 200 tokens.

Ah, but how to get tokens? The WoWwiki Brewfest page has a listing of all the Brewfest quests, but in short:

  • If you have any Brewfest Tickets left over from last year, you can exchange them (at a 1:1 ratio) at the Brewfest vendor.
  • Killing Coren Direbrew the first time awards 40 tokens.
  • Completing one of the Barking quests (riding around the city on a special ram) awards 15 tokens, repeatable daily.
  • Completing There and Back Again (ferrying 3 kegs to the Brewfest camp, non-repeatable) gives 15 tokens.
  • Completing keg runs awards 2 tokens per keg you ferry back; typically you should be able to do 10 kegs or more in the time limit. This is on a 12-hour timer, separate from daily quests, so if you time it right you can get 40 tokens or more a day.
  • Completing the daily quest to defend the Brewfest camp from the Dark Irons awards 15 tokens.

Thus, you get 55 tokens from non-repeatable quests, and can easily get 70 tokens a day (or more, if you’re good at ram riding) from repeatable quests.

Checklist

As a summary of everything above, here’s a quick checklist to help you get the biggest Achievement bang for your Brewfest buck:

  • Buy one of each Brewfest food and beer, and mail them to a bank alt. (Strange Brew, The Brewfest Diet)
  • Buy a Wolpertinger if you don’t already have one. (Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?)
  • Do the quest that becomes available after the Dark Iron attack on the Brewfest camp. (Down With The Dark Iron)
  • Kill Coren Direbrew. (Direbrewfest)
  • Kill Coren Direbrew repeatedly until you get a ram or kodo. (Have Keg, Will Travel)
  • Gather 350 Brewfest Tokens and buy three pieces of Brewfest clothing, minus any you have from last year. (Disturbing the Peace)
  • Gather 200 Brewfest Tokens and join the Brew of the Month Club. Leave beer samples in mail. (Brew of the Year)

Happy drinking!