Monday, November 23, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 142 - Dings 80

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Got Auruk's LW up to 430.

Took Aprillian, Epril & Auruk to do the protect the Hourglass quest and the Quest in Emerald Dragonshire. Died horribly while fighting the dragon at the end. There was an unguilded Blood Elf priest named Jaszmin in the area. She actually tried to heal us/me during the Battle. When I ran back to my bodies, I thanked her and asked her if she was doing the quest and she was, so I invited her and she "healed" and we didn't die.

Can't see Auruk Korgon vanguard. Did some dragon quests

Did a bunch of Dailies on Tues went to bed with one bubble left. It was very very hard. Got up and did the puppy daily, then the 3 dailies near the dock and dinged.

Aprillian still having problems logging in

Tri boxing Grizzly Hill Daily. Did Thane on Auruk using Aprillian just as Ashayo helped Aprillian do the question on his new Proto drake.

Did the dailies in grizzley on Friday finishing before going to work. Did 11 dailies on Auruk. Scared to leave Aprillian in Dal, but then realized she didn't need to be left in an inn. Put her on the carpet in the air and logged.

Got advice on making Frostsavage set from Önnab

Ashayo

Onyxia pet whelpling for logging in on 5th Anniversary - 22nov 2009

10 man Raiding
Cleared 10 man ToC. Tried beasts in heroic mode ; couldn't even get first boss down before the 2nd bosses come out. More gearing up to do.
Ashayo bracer and boot upgrade in one night.
Twin Valklyrs in 3 min 1 sec - 1 sec off speed kill
VoA - mount dropped again. (2nd time only that I've seen it)

25 man Raiding
- Onyxia
- Got [Fragment of Val'anyr] from Ulduar. Randy hasn't been with us latelys, so I ended up with it.
- Didn't use SK because of so many non-regulars - Won wand with a 10. lol
- Great night in ToC. One shot beasts, jaraxxus, and faction champs, Twins 2 shot, won Merlin's Robe pattern

Rock the Horde - Pants on Head
SSC - Lady Vash - One shot, but down to about 4 out of 21. Several 80's in the group. Must've been crazy at 70

Pud has had a great time tanking this week. Heroic Nexus scored a nice tanking head peice. Did Heroic UK with the BoE guys and finally got down Ingvar. Ran ToC , but we seem to get stuck on the Paletress. Healing + fears = lose.

Scrounged some more gold and titansteel together and got [Spiked Deathdealers] made - tanking boots from Ulduar pattern requiring Runed Orbs

Argent Tournament continues - now Champion of Orgrimmar.

Pud - AQ20 - record time. Got to Twin Emps in AQ40 super easy, but then could not hold aggro on them on the swap

Started a hunter with OJ
Pilgrim's Bounty - achievements this year

Glanthur

Emails

Email #1 from Rahkwa

G'day from downunder!

I was just listening to Ctrl Alt WoW #140 and just thought I would drop you a few notes.

I'd be more than happy to run an instance with you, Aprillian. I am usually with my hunter friend so that would make 3 of us plus how ever many more you are multi-boxing at the time.

I too have the Venomhide Ravousaur as a combat pet and a mount on my Troll Hunter Sinfjotli(Sin-fee-ot-Lee). There is a circumstance when you will see both of them at one time. There is a battle ground pet bug that if you enter a BG when mounted and then leave the BG at the end with the pet out you will have both your mount and your pet out.

The addon "Viper Notify" is your answer when it comes to accidentally leaving your aspect of the viper on.

BTW Aprillian: Beat you to 80 :P
I was level 75 at the start of November and heard about "Black Friday" (shh don't tell anyone) so I set about trying to get, Rahkwa, my Tauren Death Knight to Level 80 so I could be involved. I dinged 80 at 2am 13th Nov 2009 (UTC+1100).

Thoroughly enjoying the show and you audio editing is getting quite good. I must say you have much better sound quality than another WoW podcast I listen too (WoW Insider).

--
Rahkwa (80 DK) / Xelandra (75 Priest) / Machiavelly (65 Rogue) / Sinfjotli (60 Hunter) / Albiorix (39 Warlock) of Alea Iacta Est on Earthen Ring US
+ 33 other alts on various realms US/Oceanic/Latin America (Including quite a few Alliance)

Email #2 from Makling

hey guys, makiling here

i was quite surprised that glanthur was not in your show this week, as i was looking forward to the lore part of the show. (also you mentioned at the start that you were having him lar on, but i guess something came up). i just wanted to share something about the lore. the world of warcraft website has a timeline of the history of Warcraft, and it shows how and where the old warcraft games and WoW is related. but i noticed that there was a series of manga that came after warcraft 3 and WoW, and i was fortunate enough to know a friend who happens to have the comics. i was able to read them, and i have to say that it gave me a greater depth of insight to the lore and the world of warcraft. i wont go into what the Warcraft: Sunwell trilogy had, but im hoping that glanthur will tell all of us about it in his lore segment.

my epic pug stories did not end with my last email. almost immediately after i sent my last email, my priest was able to get into a city raid group, and got her very own black war bear! we started on a saturday afternoon and went through exodar, darnassus, and stormwind without any resistance at all. but it was when we reached ironforge that we had a problem, when a member of the raid left the group and tagged the king of ironforge! he then logged out, but the boss was grey to our group, but it was too late before anyone noticed as we did not get any achievement. we were bummed out, and could not do anything and went home with our heads bowed down in disappointment. but the next day, the raid leader of the city raid started another group going. this time, i was able to invite earl, my raf buddy who is still 70. but the leader didnt mind having lowbies tag along. he got the achievements as we went along, and we all got the [For The Horde!] achievement after downing the dwarven king. it was pretty awesome and i was really happy for him.

after that, my priest got into another raid, this time a 25 man toc which was mostly a guild run pugging for healers, and we got through the whole thing without wiping! i didnt get any phat loots, but the funny thing is that instead of motivating me to go and do more raids until i get the best loot that i can, it motivated me more to level my alts. the way i see it is that although getting into leet pugs to see the end game content is a really cool thing, the overall satisfaction with the game still depends on the individual playing it. and for me, leveling alts is what im enjoying more. this kinda ties in with the question you posted on the last episode from the bladed edge, because my answer to him would be that if you want to find something to do in the game, then you should look inside yourself as to what makes YOU happy. it may sound all philisophical or something, but a good example of this is listening to podcasters talking about wow, with Ctrlaltwow as a representative. aprillian and ashayo hit the target when they said that this game has a lot to offer, its just a matter of figuring out what you want. and every week, we hear their stories on how they authentically enjoy the game, because first and foremost, they know for themselves what they want to do, and what makes them happy.

thats my 2 cents about that, keep up the good work!

for the horde!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #3 from Nostalgic

Greetings again CtrlAltWoW crew! I believe this is my second attempt at an email. Not used to emailing from my iPhone.

I wanted to add my two cents worth about hitting 80. Back durring BC I raced to 70 as quickly as I could on a paladin! When I hit the level cap I started gearing up for Kara but very quickly lost interest. I think being so focused on leveling caused the dreaded burn out. I ended up messing around with alts for the rest of BC. The same thing happened to me durring wotlk, but I took it alot slower this time around and about half way through leveling to 80 on the same paladin, I had a break and played mainly alts for a few months. It was durring this time I started multiboxing for the first time.

Anyway to make a long story shorter I learned that the part of the game I like is the leveling and exploring aspect. I've started totally from scratch with four fresh accounts and have decided I'm going to try and finish every zone in 'old world azeroth' with my multiboxing team and alts, before cataclysm changes everything!

So far I'm having a blast! I'm really enjoying learning to play a warlock and I had forgotten how fun a paladin was to level. The point of my wall of text is this, not everyone plays WoW for the end game! Some people get to caught up on hitting max level and miss out on so much that the game has to offer. I think Aprillian should level until she's a sliver away from 80 and then just stop there and never ding.

Keep up the good work guys!

Nostalgic of WhyIMultibox.blogspot.com

Email #4 from Vern

Hello Aprillian ,Glanthor , Ashayo and Vrishna

I Am a big fan of the show and wanted to write in to thank you for the hours of entertainment you provide me and to share some things about my WoW experiences.

My Main is a night elf priest on the Runtotem US server named Verneesha (everybody calls me Vern for short).

I have been playing the game for over a year straight and I really like it. I love healing, I have always played a healing role in dungeons and raids, even when I was leveling in shadow I was still able to heal dungeons at my level. Now I am a officer in a casual raiding guild that was formed with friends I made in game. I wish we were further progressed in raiding but its ok, i play more for the social aspect and the fun and not to be better than others.

My priest is fairly geared out now and I am trying to concentrate on some Alts. I made a Druid and sent him a bunch of heirlooms and he is up to 25 now. I also made a paladin blood elf on Jubei'Thos named Menasor and I really like the pally.Hypnotoad invited me into PoH and i got a warm welcome from Tempeste . My plan is to be a healer and a tank. So much I want to do, So little time.

Anyway

Here’s a funny Experience I would like to share.

I had just logged in on my priest and a guildy asked me if I wanted to do the daily

Heroic dungeon, I said sure, he told me it was violet hold and I got an invite. I was already in Dalaran ,I grabbed some candles and picked up the quest as I made my way over there. I got inside the instance and noticed the doors where shut, I figured they must have started without me. I talked to the lady to let me in and when I got in, to my surprise, I hear the voice of the last boss yelling out, I saw her come out and turn into the dragon. My fellow guild mate didn’t mention they where having problems and I was left wondering where the healer had gone. I quickly jumped in and finished the fight with them but if I was a little later we would have to start from the beginning. We downed her quick ,I looted the quest item to complete the daily and was done. That’s the fasted I ever completed the daily heroic. I think the healer disconnected and they fought on for a while. In the end we all got lucky.

Thanks again and keep it up

Vern

P.S. I like Outlandish too, I think those guys are very creative

Email #5 from Leralonde

Wow Aprillian,

congratulations on dinging 80!
never thought you would beat me to it :)

greetings to Glanthur and Ashayo too,

(i love the lore segment)

keep up the podcasting!

Bye

Leralonde

lvl 78 druid on EU server Azjol Nerub.

Shout Outs & Thank You

Mommomoments

Hello Ctrl Atl Wow gang, hope you are all well.

Grats once again to Aprillian on hitting level 80, it feels good right?! and I know you will not say what does Aprillian do now, there are things you can do like heroics and even some raiding! :)

And many thank you's for the AWESOME intro or sound bit for momoments!! THANK YOU!! :)

I had read a tweet from Glanthur about taking a sabbatical from wow and I know it goes without saying that his friends and fans will support him 100%.

For some people this may be an extreme idea but remember everyone has a different play style and most importantly wow does affect each of our personal lives, some more than others.

To Glanthur, hope you succeed in what you are trying to accomplish and if you ever decide to come back to wow or not, we hope to still hear from you.

In the last cast I think the question "what do you do to take time away from wow, or if you quit wow what do you do"

for me it is just trying out other games, console games, and other pc games and yes even other non-game things.

It is important to take time away if you are just not feeling the game anymore, it is not fun for you or if you are bored. I have read on twitter that some people are bored but at the same people cannot believe this game is 5 years old and so many people play it. I think it comes down to Blizzard getting so many things right that mmo players wanted in a game. In the last 5 years I have read/heard so many people complaining about wow but they still play. I don't think they are just complainers, I think they want to make the game better, better for themselves!

Remember millions play this game and blizz cannot make all the people happy at the same time.

For me in wow, I have move more characters to feathermoon, yes that is my main server now. It is sad in some ways as I played on balanzzar for many years! And I had jumped on there on my main main, big daddy of all mo characters, motauren, my first wow characters, my warrior. It was nice to chat with some of the old server friends. I also moved my other hunter over, he is only 76 so I can get some fun leveling.

Motauren is not specced at all, so i was able to get him into a naxx 10 mini run, we downed about 3-4 bosses and he was able to score a nice upgrade in weapon, a polearm. As a arms/prot spec he has a ways to go to be a grand warrior and fight Arthas! or they call him the Litch King for some reason or another.

oh speaking of the king, when do you think the patch is coming out?

to me it looks like it can be coming either December 15th or they may wait to release it in January.

In non-wow things, Star Trek movie DVD came out, so watch the movie if you have not. I still say Wrath of Khan is still the best with Undiscovered Country/First Contact, in Star Trek movies.

I was supposed to try Star Trek online but their batch just would not get past 79%, I may try again this week, they have another closed beta session.

It would be great to test out Star Wars online. :)

Well it is time for some football once again on this find Sunday.

To Glanthur, let us know if we can be of any assistance in anything we can do for you and to the rest of the gang and listeners happy wowing, Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate or just simply have a great week!!

--
Mo

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 140 - To 80 or Not to 80 That is the Question

xCtrl Alt WoW Episode 140 - To 80 or not to 80 that is the question

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG. Contest Ongoing send an email to ctrlaltwow@gmail.com telling us how you play WoW, either as an altaholic or dealing with it in your family life to being placed in a drawing for a month free of WoW or in game pet or a $10 iTunes Gift Card or an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Still having issues on just Aprillian. Mostly gets kicked after logging in, finally in after 2 or 3 tries, no matter where she is.

Aprillian did dailies in Grizzly hills and dinged 79. Loving the dailies

Continuing to do the baby Raptor quest, oh and Sebastian got a Venomhide Ravasaur as a pet.\

Loving Grizzly Hills dailies, doing

Cold weather flying gets you flying when dead?

Craziest quest: sparksocket's tools wow

Finished Winterspring quest with Vrishna on Sebastian.

Aprillian went to the Crater to do the Venomhide Raptor Quest. Levelled up her unarmed skill

Ashayo

Raiding - 10 man

Ulduar
- Yogg-Saron : got to phase 2 a few times. Crazy fight. Spent about 3hrs in total, making slow progress.
- Touch a cloud and another mob appears
- Kill tentacles. dps have to go through portals and dps mobs without looking at skulls

ToC
- Nice wand for Ashayo

Raiding - 25 man

Ulduar
- Clean run through to Hodir - then wiped at 4%. Got him down - after he enraged!, and got [I have the coolest Friends - 25 player]

VoA
- Cleared

Toc 25 man - got down Faction champs. longest fight ever!

Pants on Head
- Tanked CoS on Pud - and dinged 80 when turning in the quest at the end!
- Tanked HoL

Other
- Northrend Alchemy Research - should I be doing it to get random flasks even after I've learnt all the elixirs?
- Jekle - For The Horde. /walked out of IF
- Pud - VH, Gundrak, Grizzly Hills dailies - Wemb dings 80

Glanthur

- Nozdormu and The Infinite Dragonflight

http://www.wowwiki.com/Infinite_dragonflight

http://www.wowwiki.com/Nozdormu

Emails

Email #1 from Eranth

Gang,

With the addition of the new vanity pets to the Blizzard Store, you might consider adding those to your list of items folks can choose from if they ‘win’ from Ashayo’s /roll’s. J

--Eranth

Email #B from Makling
hello fellas, makiling here

i just listened to you latest episode, and i have to say it was great hearing from vrishna. glanthurs lore segment was quite interesting too, and i hope to hear more from the lore behind the dragons.

right now, my wow time is spent doing cloth cooldowns on my mage, daily dungeons on my priest, and pugging voa on both of them. i also want to get my herbalism up on my lvl 61 druid so she can pick herbs in outland. i guess thats the problem with getting refer a friend bonus levels, the profs don't scale with them.

earl, the friend i referred, recently dinged 70. but they have yet to get the wotlk expansion due to some financial problems. so im helping them out with some rep grinding in outland. we started the quest line for the netherdrakes, and i recently did the quests for the ogres in BEM. it may be a good idea for others to start doing them, since achievement chasers will need to open them up for the winters veil title.

finally i just want to share something i discovered in altaholic. it gives a tooltip that shows if other toons have learned a recipe! its perfect for buying recipes with a bank alt without switching between toons that have the profession.

thats it from me for now. keep up the good work!

for the horde!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #2 from Nostalgic

First Time Writer

Hi Aprillian, Ashayo, and Glanthur

Ive been listening to the podcast for a while now and thought id write in. I think you guys do a great job and your love of the game really comes through. Ive really enjoyed listening to David/Vrishna over the last few months and hearing the story's of a newcomer to the game. It reminds me of when i started out!

I wanted to thank you because your podcast is partly responsible for firstly getting me back into the game, and secondly inspiring me to start my blog whyimultibox.blogspot.com. Shameless plug I know!

Also I managed to 'get hold' of the first episode of 'V' despite living in the UK and really enjoyed it! Thank you for mentioning it on the podcast because I had no idea it was being made.

Keep up the good work!

Nostalgic of whyimultibox.blogspot.com

Email #C from Karen

Well, we now know that if you move a toon to an account so you can make a DK, make your DK, then move that 55+ toon off the account, the DK survives (as pretty much everyone thought). My husband has brought his mage back to his account and all is well.

Oh, and the only account that we share between us is my daughter's account, so I guess we're okay EULA-wise. We're both pretty sure that I did start my first toon on his account and then transferred that toon to my own account, but that sort of transfer isn't possible now (because the name on the account is different). So maybe they made that change since we started playing.

One more story about playing with spouses and real life friends. We have Friday morning WoW'ing with our neighbor across the street. My husband and I take our laptops over there and we have a wifi party and play WoW. We are all altaholics and are playing lots of different toons, so we have a rotation of who gets to choose what we're going to do. That way if one of us is working on a particular toon, we can get the others to help us out. Mostly we instance, though I'm thinking a few group speed runs through AT dailies would be fun as well. I may do that the next time it's my turn (not for three more weeks, today I chose to take my gnome DK through Ramparts).

Oh, and how about those in-game pets for sale in the Blizzard store? I already have my Lil K.T. and my Pandaren Monk and I love them both. My horde pet collector now has 95 pets (and if I could get the last two crocolisks to drop from the darn BC fishing daily, I'll be right on schedule to have 100 by the 3.3 patch).

Keep up the great work on the podcast! I'm glad that Vrishna's participating,

Karen

Shout Outs & Thank You

Mommomoments

Hello everyone,

it is great to hear David I mean Vrishna with Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur. Now it is truly Alliance beat down, sorry Glanthur, just kidding of course.

It has been great hearing about the couples that wow and the lore segments, I know I am enjoying it and I am sure all the fans are too.

For me in wow, as I have been wanting to play more, now it seems like guildies are staying away from wow. I know it will change soon and we will be doing more heroics, raids, and even starting on some alts again.

I was able to get in this week to do a little guild heroic race, we were intending to have different groups start at VH and see who can get through the heroics the quickest but it did not really happen as planned so we went to Onyxia-10.

Now I have usually been the main healer or perhaps one of 2 in raids. There is a 3 healer geared well but they were not on and 2 other priests were on and they were going to heal. Ohoh, I was disc/holy spec, I got rid of my shadow spec!

Well of course I went the only route that I could think of, I changed my disc to shadow, rescpeced while the guild was waiting on me.

And surprisingly I was averaging 3500dps or around there, again not sure how accurate recount is sometimes. One reason I changed to just healing specs was because I really was not getting or liking shadow. The spell rotation, how to get the most of my dps. But for what I did I guess it was not bad and if I can improve that I can actually be an ok than a good/great dps priest.

Now I know I was not the first person to sacrifice my own personal liking for the guilds benefit but I am wondering how many of you have done that or said no. I am curious because I have to believe is some cases changing specs to dps should not automatically equal to being a good dps for the raid.

Also a question for Mr David, snap I mean Vrishna!

is doing instances, have you joined a pug group yet, one that you did not know anyone, in the level 70s, and any interest in checking out the raids?

Another short post for me again this week and until next week, thank you for the great podcast and to the listeners spread the Ctrl Alt Wow word!

Happy gaming!

--
Mo

----

just listened to the podcast and heard that we won! We already have authenticators, but a month of WoW sounds great..

thank you guys SO much! We love your podcast!

thanks again..

sofialorena and matadora :)

Twitter:

(@BigBlueDragon):
11/4/09 9:39
@ctrlaltwow omg almost fell over when i heard glanthur do the intro! It wasnt bad, i just wasnt expecting it.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 139 - El Día de los Muertos WoW

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian & Vrishna

Aprillian running around Northrend getting candy on short maintenance day.

Started a DK on JT with David, it was hard at first. But then he started liking it, enjoyed being evil. The final battle with Arthas was confusing

Dinged 78 on Aprillian

Went into Warsong Gulch with Aprillian, forgot to use fear, it wasn't even on my toolbar, until someone whispered me.

Decided to create a DK on Wyrmrest Accord so I could ride Glanthur's mammoth

Did Friend or Fowl on Epril

Got 100g from Glanthur on Wyrmrest Accord

Solador, 80 Belf Rogue invited me to HH, I got the helm and a ring [The Horseman's Seal]

Doing dailies on Aprillian

Ashayo

ArkInventory tip:
Create a rule as follows to split out the equipment in your bags that are not part of an outfit
equip() and soulbound() and not outfit() and not equip(Tabard)

outfit(dps) or outfit(tank)

Hallows End
- Pud hit 75 mid week and tried to get some epics, but all that dropped was spellcaster rings - 8 times in a row!
- Lost a day because I went over my ISP cap and got shaped. Luckily, upgraded next day.

Raiding - 10 man
- Asheal @ ToC - off night. started late. called in subs. wiped unnecessarily
- Asheal @ ToC - cleared easily.next night after reset, muuuch smoother. Just goes to show how much it helps to have a team that works well together.

Raiding - 25 man
- Onyxia - Asheal won helm [Aurora of Transcendence]
- ToC - Won a Trophy of the Crusade - allows purchase of better tier gear. Very close to getting down Faction Champions. Bought [Zabra's Robe of Triumph] - 245 chest peice. Also had enough triumph badges to buy [Zabra's Shoulderpads of Conquest] - 232 item. Required major shuffle of gems and made up a new hit set for shadow

- Guppers tried Sunwell Plateau, as we only had 20. Kept wiping on dragon boss that puts down a cloud that turns players against the team.

Pants on Head
- Pudendal started doing Venture Bay dailies since he hit 74. Got a new sigil and a tanking cloak in only two days. (TIP: For "Smoke 'Em Out, round them up and toss smoke bomb)
- Did all the usual quest chains - Wrathgate, Oracles, have started Sons of Hodir. (got Chol killed when doing the proto-drake leaping quest)
- Dinged 77, got cold weather flying and have started Argent Tournament.
- Pud tanked VH (nice gloves and pants upgrade because I /yelled abuse at Blizz for the shaman drops!)
- Pud tanked DTK and Gundrak
- Got [Northern Exposure]. The mob was green because I had a quest disguise on. Instinctively cancelled the disguise - in the middle of several mobs.
- Always have trouble with "The Storm King's Vengeance", where you ride on the back of Gymer the storm giant and kill 100 scourge and 3 bosses. Even using the storm clouds, seems difficult to do alot of damage without dying.

Crazy Train

Serpent Shrine Cavern
- Leotheras the Blind - one shot!
- Fathomlord Karathress - one shot!
- Morogrim Tidewalker - one shot!
- Good try on Lady Vash ; needed more ranged for striders

Glanthur

- Dragon Aspects overview and Alexstrasza

Emails

Email #1 from Paul

Love the podcast, only began listening yesterday.

Could you tell me the realm you play on – I tried searching through the archives and twitters – couldn’t find it.

Keep up he awesome podcast

Regards

Email #A from Kurly

Tiz yer faithful bud Kurly, wishing you all the best of the best...and I hope you're Halloween baskets overflow-eth with sugary goodness!

Its been a fun week! Me and my buds in our guild (rabid kittens) have been terrorizing battle grounds all over the Stormstrike battle group. The five of us consist of a hunter, two rogues, a priest (shadow) and a warlock. They way we have been doing it for the last week has been working out amazingly well...so much so that were are pretty much 1 for 1 every time we hit Warsong Gulch.

Myself, the priest and the warlock constantly engage the enemy, annoying to such a point where their focus changes from getting the flag, to killing us. During these battles the two rogues will sneak off to the enemy flag room, dispatch any defense (if their even is any) and grab the flag. Usually after the first capture the rest of our team is on board and win after win is upon us.

In other news...I am beyond excited about the new LFG system. I could not even tell you the last time I found a group to do any dungeon. I know pugs can be a nightmare, but they can also be a lot of fun as it was always one of the ways you got to meet some great people and lets not mention the leveling and the phat loots!!

I have also rolled an new toon, a mage that I have named Itsabitsa (I am very proud of that name!) She be a gnome (I am sure you are shocked) and the second mage I have ever rolled. I had a Blood Elf mage that I deleted a while back that I think was level 21. She is level 11 now and I have been having a lot of fun on here and I am excited to see where she takes me.

Thanks you all for the great podcast!!

Yours always!

The Kurly Q

Email #2 from Erik

Hello.
(Bear with me on the grammar)

Thanks for a really good show. I have noticed that people have a habit to look a bit strange at you when your on the tram or walking down the sidewalk and just have to laugh out loud.

I'm playing on Defias Brotherhood whit my Bloodelf Paladin, my 5 other lvl 80's and my 2 5 man multibox teams that just hit 60 (have bean some slow months on work). Altoholic, what is that?

Havent lisend for that long, but I'm working my way back in the PodCast history. Usually I dont send to many mails, but now i have a reason. I would like to issue a warning.

WARNING
When you do a Faction Change (at least on a PvP server) you loose all the faction specific quests you have done when working your way towards the "Loremaster" and "Seeker" achievements.

I transferd from Alliane to Hord for a month ago on Defias Brotherhood. I have the 2k Quest achievement but only 1457 quests on my way to the 3k Quest achievement. This shows that i "lost" at least 543 quests, but i think its closer to a 1000 quests.

Here is a link to my Armory achievement page:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Defias+Brotherhood&cn=Mistreaver&gn=Deserters

Here you can see that I have the 2k one but only half way on the 3k one and that should not be possible if I havent lost some thing on the way.

Some thoughts.

They remove the race specific quests when you transfer so you cant do a tactical transfer to finish of Loremaster just by transfer and have a hole lot of "new" quests to chose from (starting zones and so on) instead of having to do the last hard to find quests you need to get the Loremaster of "The Old World".

I'm typing this mail as I'm waiting for the GMs response, so I may send a new mail in an hour, or 6-7 with the speed Blizz response tho tickets, whit some enligthement on this.

Thanks again and I would like to do a shout out to Blackwyrm on Defias Brotherhood and the Guild Deserters.

Best regards.

Erik

PS. I just got my Thundra Mamut and noticed that when you dismount the Goblin vendor, Drix Blackwrench, he some times says,

"Hey, yea, I've always wanted to be stranded somewhere."

Would be nice if you guyes could find out if he sayd the same before Cataclysm was announce.

Part 2:

Hello.

This is an follow up on my faction change mail.

In short: You will not lose any achivement you already have but any faction specific quest will disappear. Thats how I ended up with the 2000 Completed Quest acivement but only half way to 3000 Completed Quest.

I'm a bit lazy so i will just attach a screen with the chat, feel free to post the screen if needed.

Best regards.

Erik

Here is a link to my alt guild Deserters:

http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Defias+Brotherhood&cn=Mistreaver&gn=Deserters

PS. If this mail dont make the same show as the first one. I would like to make a new shout out to Blackwyrm on Defias Brotherhood EU (forgot the EU in my last e-mail).

Email #3 from Super

Dear Aprillian, Ashayo & Glanthur,

Hello there Ctrl Alt WoW Crew! My names Ryan, but in Azeroth, I go by Superflous, or Super for short! He’s my level 80 human mage on the Staghelm server. I’ve been listening to your show for a long time now, and have really been enjoying the varying playstyles of Glanthur, Ashayo and Aprillian! With the recent discussions about having loved ones joining you in WoW, I decided to talk to my boyfriend about it and see what his opinion of it was. Turns out, he actually had played for a little while, having a level 28 Night Elf Druid, but cancelled his subscription, because it “didn’t grab him.” Well, I let him roll a Death Knight on my account, and he’s been obsessed! It’s so funny to have phone calls or IMs asking me about items or quests or a mob, it’s terrific. Unfortunately, he has yet to open up his subscription again, it’s a little sad that we can’t play together at the same time. Usually, I’ll be studying while he’s leveling and then we’ll switch back and forth, but it’d be very cool to level with his DK. I just happened to have a 57 Hunter, waiting for him. His birthday is coming up, so maybe that’ll be his present haha! Or maybe I’ll just get a second account, because I’ve been actually quite curious to try dual boxing. Great show! Keep up the Great Work, and maybe I’ll roll up a toon on Earthen Ring and go and visit AIE! Keep on Loving the Game and putting out a Wonderful Podcast :)

Sincerely

Super

Email #B from Karen

Hey everybody, great podcasts, as usual. I'm really enjoying hearing from other couples that play together. My husband and I play together and have pretty much since we started the game (very soon after it launched).

Ted played first and I made a toon on his account (Elsa, my level 80 horde hunter) and soon after I got my own account and Itransferred her over to that account. We leveled several of our toons together and have had toons that only play with each other.

Now that we have several 80's and are working on Alts, mostly we instance together or bring another, higher level toon to help out with group quests. We've actually found that leveling goes faster solo these days, so we don't quest together, but we have our computers where we can talk while we're playing.

Ted was more of the gamer before WoW, though I did play Diablo. He played a lot of different first person shooters (well, as many as he could find for the Mac). We've both played D&D (paper and pencil RPG, that is) since way back and WoW pretty much took the place of our monthly D&D sessions. So much easier to get on the computer and play for a bit. No one needs to be the DM and figure out the adventure, etc. And we can play with friends and family that aren't local.

We have a very small guild of real life friends and family, so we know everyone we instance with and knew them before playing together. We've had luck with the Headless Horseman this year, helping several people in the guild get their title. Still haven't seen that mount drop though.

Our daughter plays a little bit, which brings me to my question. Our daughter doesn't play much, but her main is a DK on her account. The only reason she was able to make a DK is that Ted transferred over a mage from his account (who was 55+). He dual-boxed his mage with a DK on his account for a bit, but isn't really doing that any more. He would like to transfer the mage back to his account (to be able to give him cold weather flying and heirloom items) but what will that do to our daughter's DK since there won't be a 55+ character on that account any more?

I figured if anyone would know, it would be Aprillian.

Keep up the great work on the podcast. I'm really enjoying Glanthur's lore segments. I've even been reading the quest text sometimes instead of just clicking accept and seeing where my guide points me.

Karen

Email #C from Kyle

Hey all!

Just finished listening to episode 138 (as of this typing the most recent one) and on hearing the shoutout for me I was touched. Yes, you figured me out, not that I kept my identity all that secret - I have been supporting BoE also. How could I not! They're the yang to your ying. Or however that works. The money comes from being a crazy work-a-holic, well that and the special massage with free happy endings for the Wych.

Speaking of episode 138 it highlights oh so much what I love about your show. You include everyone, you like everyone, and all you want to do is just play the game and have fun. It's comforting, if only there were more people in the world like you. Also unlike other podcasts you don't talk at the listeners, you talk with them, invite them over to your place for cookies and just chat and laugh about your misadventures and swap stories. I'd like to think your show more like Ellen DeGeneres' morning talk show. As for BoE, they're more like Conan O'Brian's late night show - hilarity with a touch of naughty.

I've been meaning to mention that my shaman has recently hit 80! She was my first alt and is now my second level 80 toon. It was an emotional moment, I remembered when I created her and all the areas I went through (made a point of visiting everything my main the priest had not gone through). Those last four levels went by so fast, going through the story in Zul'Drak, opening up the Hodir dailies, and finally spending the last level or so in Icecrown trying to get some goodish gear. Now I'm splitting my time between getting her ready to run heroics and gearing up my main some more, because now that my shaman hit 80 I'm all of a sudden interested in getting my priest above Naxx-level gear.

Finally I'd also like to mention that I've loved Glanthur's lore segments. There's so much depth to this game, it's fantastic to finally learn about some of it. I've also loved your couple's episodes, though it's also a tad bittersweet since I'm not coupled with anyone. Unless you include the cat, but then that'd just make me that crazy cat lady down the street.

Thanks so much for all you do, keep it up!

--Kyle

Email # D from

Hello everyone Megadan here. I've Been enjoying the show for a few months now and figured it was high time I wrote in. I'm not an altahlolic i'm more of a raider but I do have a few alts. Megadan level 80 Human Warlock is my main, MegLadan 80 dwarf Paladin, Megalove 36 night elf priest, Megaprick 21 Druid. Oh yeah I also got a level 77 Undead Warlock called Mypenus in PoH. Ever since I started playing him I have found the lore around The Forsaken and Sylvanas rather interesting. If Glanthor wanted to cover any of this in his awsome lore segment that would be nice. Love the show, please keep them comeing.

Megadan

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momomoments

Hello all,

Hope everyone had a great Halloween and Hallows end.

I was not able to treat as much as I really wanted to but still fun and this year I only did the Headless Horseman once (well one day of 5 runs).

Its ok as before we know it it will be Thanksgiving here in the states and the 5th anniversary of WOW.

WOW!

5 years, many of us have been playing most of the 5 years and some for a little less but is it amazing, this game has been part of our lives for that long!?

I think it is amazing. I am excited to see what else is to come in game and get to playing it more often as the last month my playing time has decreased dramatically and I am down to one account!!! yes oh noes!!!!

(by now Aprillian may have passed out over the thought!)

Well one reason I have suspended my 2nd account is, well the first reason is that ever since wrath (WOTLK) it has been harder to run both accounts on my laptop. It is a gaming laptop but I guess running 2 wows now really slows it down.

I have tried some things to see if I can still do it but I dont want to mess with the way my molaptop is. So I am back to the soloing, isnt that crazy!!!???

(again imagine Aprillian gasping and sitting there with her jaw dropped down to the table!)

Other reasons are that with raiding, well hopefully getting back into raiding and doing heroics, I will not be able to dual box.

And another reason is that I am paying for Aion, and even though I am not really playing that now either :( and may suspend that account, I just need to concentrate on my main account and characters.

A little non-wow stuff, any of you watch Flashforward on abc? It is not a bad show, give it a try. Right now I really like Sons of Anarchy, great show on FX; I think it is a mix of the Shield and Sopranos.

Also V will be starting next Tuesday, any of you V fans?

I hope the new show is good; the original in the early 80s was very cheesy as they say but still, sci fi stuff is always fun.

Well I will keep it very short this week and hope this email makes it out to your next post.

Thank you and Happy gaming!

And Sci Fi ing!!!

--
Mo

(@nevikjames):
10/28/09 14:46
@ctrlaltwow There is no doubt that @glanthur deserves the Grunty. It would be a travesty if he doesn't.

https://twitter.com/nevikjames/status/5237358708
Sent with Tweetie

Nick (@Nicktv):
11/2/09 22:32
@Glanthur you can get to this airport above IF in patch 3.2.2.

https://twitter.com/nicktv/status/5382200004
Sent with Tweetie

Nick (@Nicktv):
11/2/09 22:33
@Glanthur I have been

https://twitter.com/nicktv/status/5382208088
Sent with Tweetie

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 138 - The Couple That Plays Together Stays Together

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Running around getting xp from candy buckets. Parked a couple of alts in Brill

Primall got a whole level and hit 60

Going to Outland, had to check each toon to figure out if they were Aldor or Scryer

Sunken Temple, back 3 times. Did the Hunter's quest the 3rd time. All the homework paid off. It was the first time I've completely fini

Exclamation in Dalaran in the Alliance Inn, but there is a 2nd inn in Ledgermain and a 3rd in the sewers

Ashayo

Hallow's End
- Started a shaman to see how many levels could be gained with candy buckets. (Chose a shaman because EVERY instance we run, pretty much all that drops is shaman gear)
- 40 exp @ level 1, 84 @ 2, 130 @ 3, 180 @ 4, 230 @ 5, 270 @ 6, 320 @ 7, 350 @ 8, 390 @ 9. - [Tricks and Treats of Azeroth]
- Shadowthrone doing HH. Just need squashling

10 man ToC with Asheal
- Cleared easily. Talk of starting heroic mode, but the leap is quite significant
- Nice healing trinket

Onyxia with Asheal
- Nice offheand that summons a skeleton for 1 minute

VoA with Asheal
- Black War Mammoth dropped in VoA

10 man Ulduar with Ashayo
- Won tier gloves on Freya
- Finally got down General Vezax - won underworld mantle

25 man Ulduar with Asheal
- Freya down - eventually! woot! First time
- Tried Mimiron a couple of times - got well into 4th phase, but couldn't finish him off.

25 man Onyxia with Ashayo
- Guppers hits Onyxia 25. Had to leave before we got her down, but was doing better and better every try and getting well into 3rd phase

Pants on Head
- Pudendal tanked Drak'Tharon Keep - more shaman!
- Tried tanking Violet Hold, but got the boss that shoots everyone with shadow damage balls, and only one person can attack them. Blurg! Went off and did Azjol'Nerub instead.
- Pants on Head first foray into 10 man naxx. Got down first two bosses in Spider wing, wiped a couple of times on the last boss, and Blizzard pulled it's usual stunt and shutdown instance servers in Australian prime time.

Crazy Train wandered into Serpentshrine Cavern
- Got down first boss after a couple of tries.
- One shot Lurker Below

Glanthur

Lore Topics: Eonar and the Dun Morogh Airfield

Next Week: The Dragon Aspects

Glanthur hit Loremaster of Outland - FINALLY!

Emails

Email #A from Kurly

I hope that you are all well and that your quivers are always full!!

So you may recall in my last email I said that I had been playing Aion, well, I am for the most part back to WOW. My two level 80 toons have been relaxing in Dalaran (participating in an occasional Wintergrasp) and I have been living life through two of my alts. Dordanka, my level 42 Dwarf Female (yes...a dwarf female) Hunter, and my level 31 Draeni Female Warrior. My best wow buds (a couple in Seattle) and I have been leveling together in battle grounds, powering through lower levels (such as 30-35), and then hitting level appropriate instances using one of our higher levels toons as a tank, so that we can gear up! Fun Fun Fun!

My hunter is spec'd into Beast Mastery and even at lower levels I was always in the top five damage do'ers!

My warrior is another story. All of my toons are primarily casters and melee is a lot different. Its taken me a year to get my bg legs on my casters and starting from scratch on my warrior is going to be a great challenge and I look forward to figuring it out.

Any who...thank you for the great podcast, and you all have a great day!!

Yer Bud,

Kurly

Email #1 from Sofialorena and Matadora

Hi you wonderful wow players,

I know you joke when people say you are their favorite podcast, but you guys rock. It is so refreshing to here people play for the love of the game. Being a queer woman of color with tattoos, I feel lost in a sea of vanilla at times, lol. I loved on the addicted when Aprillian brought up the absence of black vampires... I also enjoyed hearing Glanthur talk about dealing with homophobia in Wow.

My domestic partner and I have been playing Wow together for over a year now and had a laugh when our alliance guild figured out we were two women who were gay. We have many groups of toons we play together: a female draenei hunter and female draenei paladin, a female night elf rogue with a male night elf druid, a female blood elf warlock with a male blood elf priest...with other ones we play on our own. We have fun learning how to level different combinations together, and although it is mostly fun...it does bring out the evil child inside at times, lol. We have been together over 5 years and rarely argue..unless it's "what are you doing? I'm dying!" We know you guys were looking for couples to interview..We were on an episode of Spouse Aggro "double date" once, and we are in the Epic Dolls guild on perenolde as well as the blades of azeroth on gilneas (alliance)...We really love your podcast..thank you for being so real!

Email # B from Makling

hello fellas,

first of all, i want to commend the lore part of the last episode. but if i can make a topic suggestion, i would like to hear more about the dragonflight or the different dragons in game. i have a feeling it will tie up with the topic about the titans and their involvement with the world of warcraft.

to tell you about my WoW week, my priest had dinged 80! i was surprised to get an in game mail of potions and freworks. since when has blizzard been doing that? but the other cool thing that happened is that she got The Halowed title before she dinged! i was able to get into a Headless horseman group that was kind enough to let me join when she was just 76. she got the achievement of killing the HH, and that drove me to get the other achievements. had already gotten the toothpick and the squashling pet from last year, so there wasnt much left for her to do. i did experience the bug where i couldnt click on the candy basket, but after a gm ticket and a day i got the achievement and the title!

my original plan of playing my priest holy and discipline didnt pan out very well for me. im having a hard time doing dailies in disc spec, so im sticking to holy and shadow. within 2 days of hitting 80, i was able to get the Superior achievement. this is in contrast to my mage, wherein it took her 3 months to get that achievement! times surely have changed.. but then again, it helps to have a few thousand glad to gear her up quickly (it was money i didnt have when my mage hit 80).

my co-worker really appreciated he free month of wow from you guys. but the cool thing about it is that since our accounts are linked, i also get a free month! so thanks again guys =)

my co worker shares his account with his younger brother and they alternate with the playing time. but earl, aarons younger brother has more play time and was able to level his toon faster. and you know what that means? more bonus levels for me! the druid i made is now lvl 60 thanks to the bonus levels from the toons they made.

so now i have 2 level 80's and a now lvl 61 druid. i found myself switching between toons to look at who had which profession and gear. this is where an addon i remembered you guys were using came in. altaholic is a really awesome addon for people with alts. and now i recommend it even if you dont have alts that are at max level. the amount of information it provides is astonishing, and really useful.

thats if for now from me. keep up the good work!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Shout Outs & Thank You

Hi April, etc.

I just listened to the podcast and was delighted to hear I won. Since I already have an Authenticator, I'd love to claim the free month of Wow. All the best,

Thoryx

We sent him a month of wow.

MoMoMoments

Happy Halloween!!!!

Yes it is almost our favorite holiday in game and out!

Well ok for me at least :)

Of course in game we have Hallows end event with the Headless Horseman in the Scarlet Monastery and all the achievements to boot!

And candy and more candy! And costumes, tricks! Oh my!

For me in game surprisingly I have not done the HH yet, but perhaps I will get it done this week.

On my Druid level 18 I am trying to visit all the inns for the tricks of the different zones. He is getting about 800 experience for each one done and getting experience discovering the zones.

That is always good.

I had asked on a blog post and will ask you all this,

How many players do you think are still or just starting to go after the for the meta achievement?

I know many people are tying to get the quest achievements done before the next expansion.

On my hunter on feathermoon I have been working, when I feel like it, on some exploring achievements and with Hallow's end and trying to visit all the different inn's, I spent some time exploring. In my travels, I found many areas that I never remember seeing either on the map or with any character. One area that was very interesting and would like others to visit is in Arathi Highlands. This area may have been part of the game since the beginning but I do not remember it and do not recall ever being there. South of Stormgrade Keep, outside of the south walls are some mountains which you should travel around towards the ocean. You will find a little cave which is really a passage way to Faldir's cove, huh!?

What is that!? Well perhaps Glanthur would like to do some home work for us since we don't :) eh Glanthur, huh huh what you think!?

Well as you come out of the passage way you will see a cove to the left, just go into it and you will see a very cool (same as all the other pirate ships in wow, but I like them!) pirate ship. There are quests there too. Land Ho! which you get from an Ogre Lolo the look out (love the names, lol) which leads you to Shakes O'breen, the captain it looks like from his hat) and Deep Sea Salvage (the goblin called First mate Nilzlix). There are some other quests too, level 40 quests. Oh this does increase your Ratchet rep and decrease Bloodsail rep.

Well it is football sunday for me!!! GO BEARS!

Have fun all and hope you get the Leper Gnome costume as I think they have the best laugh and train sound in game!

Happy Trick and Treating!

Shout out to Kyle

Twitter Stuff

AhigaBG: @Aprillian I am probably too late but my wife plays WoW she is a hunter Saelnis-blackhand server she is very good. Sorry still catching up on podcast.
AhigaBG: @Aprillian Sorry my tweet seemed vague. I was responding to your question on episode 136 asking "Do u play wth a spouse or partner"
AhigaBG: @Aprillian absolutely! She is now more obsessed with the game than I am. She has even started her own raiding guild "no I have not joined"

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 137 - With Iceflow & Caoboi

Hi Aprillian and Ashayo,

Iceflow here from Earthen Ring server, AIE guild! (Best guild in the world woot!) This is kinda long so you can give the shortened version if you talk about it on the podcast hehe.

I just got done listening to the episode where you wanted to hear about couples who play together. Well my fiance, Caoboi, and I play WoW together daily and I thought we could give some insight. First I'll give you some background, then my insight, and then his.

We met on WoW over two years ago (holy crap time flies!). I was on my troll rogue and he was on his tauren shaman. We became friends and then more. I lived in Kentucky and he was in Nebraska so WoW became a place where we really could spend time and it was awesome that way. Luckily, now, he is in Louisville with me and we play all the time together. We even got engaged in Nagrand and in person simultaneously. That's why WoW will always be special to us.

Iceflow's perspective:
I love playing WoW with Cao. One of my favorite things to do is to roll alts with him. There's something about starting out on those quests with him, doing the exact same things are awesome. We are both seasoned players so we always know what to do without asking. We seem to flow as one when we roll alts. That sense of oneness is probably what I like most. I laugh at him because he immediately sends bags and golds to his alts and he laughs at me because I tend to go hardcore on my toons and live off quest rewards and drops. I feel like playing WoW with him is spending true time with him which is why we play everyday. So for me, WoW is more than a game. It has strong sentimental meaning to me.

I also love to raid with him. Whether he's tanking the faces of mobs on his pally tank Kukui, or he's healing and pew pewing on Caoboi. He's so talented and it makes me smile. He also makes me feel good when I raid and that I'm worth it. Plus he doesn't roll on gear if I get a high roll. He's pretty awesome like that.

Caoboi's perspective:

WoW for me turned from an "escape" from life to a pass time that I enjoy playing with Iceflow. Beforehand WoW was an escape from issues that were going on in life until I met Iceflow on a new server where we both just happened to reroll after Burning Crusade came out. I love playing WoW with Ice and spending time with her. Many couples spend time doing other stuff and we choose to use our time playing WoW and doing other things outside of game. A lot of times people ask me how have I played the game so long, I promptly answer it's really easy when you are playing with someone that you love and they have the same interest.

It's awesome watching her tweak her badass Rogue, Iceflow, to max out her dps and having her healing me with her priest, Iceprayer, as I'm tanking on my pally. When we're rolling alts its funny when we gain a level we still say "gratz" to one another when we ding. Its these things that make playing wow so fun. If I didn't play with Ice, I don't know if I'd play as much as I do now...it's really hard to imagine playing WoW any other way.

Iceflow and Caoboi

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Took Epril back to Silvermoon city to buy some low level mounts, she got the 10 mount achievement. Thought I took my Undead DKto brill but couldn't buy mounts.
Tried to do some argent Tournament on Aprillian, went to Silverpine Forest to do the beginning of the Black Knight quest.
Also did the kill 8 scourge quest. Got nervous that some were level 80.
Tried Learning Aid, and another Addon Control Panel (heard about it on the Instance)
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/05/28/gnomegoggles-learning-aid/)

Vrishna & Sebastian ran around Tanaris doing the Field testing. Didn't know if it would be something David could handle/enjoy. He surprised me.

Decided to venture into Sunken Temple. Found out there's a lot to it. Had to do some homework. We died a lot. Until I finally convinced David to let me bring Epril. Of course she was overkill.

Started doing the Nessingwary quest when Vrishna wasn't on. No xp for the most but wanted to get the achievement. Was able to buy the pages on AH.

Still trying to do the "homework" for Sunken Temple. Did the Screechers for the guy in Steemwheedle and then went into ZF to get the tablets. And then back to Steemwheedle and now to Hinterlands. We played while David had down time at work.

Hallow's End took me by suprise

Ashayo

10 man Raid
- Ashayo @ Onyxia - won warlock head peice. Took the opportunity to re-gem my gear. Added some more haste/crit
- Trial of the Crusader - cleared on Ashayo for first time

10 man raid
- Asheal @ Ulduar
- FL, XT hard mode. Kologarn - Disarmed - killed both arms, Mimiron, Hodir (won tier legs), Razorscale - A quick shave

25 man raid
- Asheal @ Ulduar. Had a couple of cracks at Mimiron, but early deaths (and lockouts) prevented downing.
- Asheal @ Onyxia
- Asheal @ ToC25, Got Faction Champs down for first time, couldn't do Twin valkyries - hard to dodge orbs
- Ashayo @ Ulduar - wipage on Kologarn. Can feel the frustration at a big backward step in progression.
- Ashayo @ Naxx - Trying for Naxx Immortal run with 20 people, but one person died on 4 horsemen. Missed the fast kill of Patchwerk by 1 second, after 2 people died. Still got quite a few achievements, including Subtraction on Thaddius, Safety Dance on Heigan, Arachnaphobia, The Hundred Club, The Dedicated Few, Just Can't Get Enough

Professions'n'stuff
- Ashariss dings 68 5 mins before shutdown - Now master transmuter
- Made decision to level JC on Pud. Oh man! The price gouging!
Drew the line at the prices being asked for thorium, so went farming. Cave tunnels in south winterspring don't dismount you anymore
Hit 350 - learnt close to 60 new cuts!!!!!
Hit 450 on Sunday, with very little gold left. Started auctioning stuff - ran out of money for deposits! Never been poorer.

Hallow's End
- Flying around for exp on Pud and gold on Shadowthrone. Dinged 74 on Pud from candy. Really not sure what toon, if any, to go for the achievement on.
- Did HH and got the sword (summons pumpkins) and helmet (laughs). SM was COVERED in skeletons

Pants on Head
- Shadowthrone - BWL
- Finished ZA. Was still reasonably tough.

Glanthur

"Who hath summoned forth Aman? Ah, I see you toil with relics of the past. Be warned that even your creators are fallible. Digging too deep into your past might bring an abrupt end to your future."
- The Titans and Aman'Thul

Emails

Email #1 from Craig

hello gang of ctal alt wow

Just wanted to say that I have been listening to your show for a wile now and yes i tried to duel box but sadly it did not work for me.....but maybe next time. I do however have 3 lvl 80's on kilrogg tannara my pally srpooptroop my mage and raldreion my dk I also have a few toons on eathen ring twotuntotems my lvl 30 orc shammy in the great guild of A.I.E and ashberry my poor lvl 67 unguilded DK and i have to say so far Earthen ring has been a great realm to play on and the people in A.I.E are great. As for you pod cast i have to say that i love it the way you can split shows and mend them together is great and
Glanthur's lore segment is great has not really being into the lore i find what he talks about interesting and the ausy (hope i spelt that right) side with Ashayo is great considering the time difference and i have to say that Australia is my favorite country and i hope that someday i can take a trip there, And then there is Aprillian every time you laugh it puts a smile on my face and with her duel boxing ways although i did see you log off from aie with Aprillian i thought wow there she goes, but when you mix all three of you together it makes for a GREAT podcast that helps my threw my grueling 8 hours of work

well until next time I have been twotuntotems....for the HOOORED!!

P.S. sorry for the wall of text maybe next time i will have something better to say.

signature craig

Email #2 from Illuminee

Hello CtrlAltWoW Crew,

I have been playing wow since launch and at first I thought wife agro was gonna get me in deep water. But I found a quick way around this A few months into my wow addiction I let my wife make a toon on my account. Not thinking that she would play it for more than an hour before logging out and deleting her toon. Well to my surprise she took to playing the game like a fish to water. At first this became a different kind of problem, Yes the wife agro was gone. But it was quickly replaced with a battle over playing time. She managed to get into the raiding aspect of wow really quickly and this was becoming a real problem. Since at that time we only had one computer and one account. Her raiding was interfering with me leveling toons which is probably my favorite part of the game.

We finally decided to fix the problem with play time by getting two accounts another computer and upgrading our internet connection so she could be on raiding and I could be on leveling. Now a days though we are leveling toons together in the same guild and we are just now starting to get back into the raiding aspect of the game. It is generally a nice thing to be able to look beside you and Yell "Heal me, Heal me...To Late I'm dead" You would think this might cause a problem but it really has become a running joke that if anyone is gonna die in a raid it will be me and she is trying to collect the life insurance. We hardly ever play without one another now so if you see a druid standing over a dead body laughing you know that is us.

Illuminee 80 Paladin Hellscream US
Nightuu 80 Druic Hellscream US

Email #A from Makling

hello fellas, makiling here

i loved the lore segment in your last show. i too would never have thought that the tiny dwarven base in the barrens had such a big part in the lore. i hope to hear more from glanthur in the coming weeks!

i had recently made a decision to devote my wow time to my alts. what it means is that i wont be doing dailies or raiding on my main. but i have to say, that i have been having fun! i used to wonder how people can level several toons concurrently, when you have the awesome raids in the endgame. but i guess im in that phase in my WoW life where leveling alts is more interesting than raiding. i had decided to use the bonus levels from my refer a friend on a druid. i plan on making her a tank, to complete my roster of having all the roles needed in a party (my mage for dps, my priest for healing). but i do have a question about bonus levels and the druid quests: is there a need for me to do them to learn my druid skills, or can i just get them from the trainor?

while leveling my priest in borean tundra, the general chat got in to a discussion on how to play a priest for endgame. they say that dual speccing discipline and holy would make for an awesome healer in any situation, and that you can just do discipline for doing dailies. i wonder if any of you have an opinion on this? im thinking of doing this so that i dont have to save up hit gear for shadow spec.

hope to hear from you guys soon

for the horde!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #B from Keelhaul

Hey guys. Even though I haven’t wrote for some time, I am still listening. J

I really enjoyed the last show, especially Glanthur’s lore. That was so interesting. I had always wondered about the little dwarf outpost in the southern barrens and thanks to Glantur I have a lot more respect for an area I use to just run by on my way to 1,000 Needles or on the way to one of the Razorfin Instances. Please expand on this as you continue to discover more lore G.

Since I have last written, I have transferred my Tauren druid to another server to play with family and friends and I also had to transfer factions. I was a bit concerned but the transfer went perfect. Great job as always guys keep up the good work!

Now for the first time….

*ahem*

FOR THE ALLIANCE!!

-Keelhaul

Now Nelf Drooid

Gilneas Server

Clan of the Bear guild

PS. Have you guys ever wondered if the small crowded area everyone is jammed into before Eye of the Storm smells different to Gnomes? I never thought about it until I became a Nelf. *shrug*

;)

Email #3 from EvilElleon

Aprillian, Ashayo, & Glanthur,

In episode 136 of Ctrl Alt WoW, you asked for emails from couples who play WoW. Well, here's my response. :)

Hubby and I play WoW together. He had started playing several months before he met me back in 2006. I wasn't stranger to gaming, but I was more into spending an entire weekend playing games like Civilization or the Sims. I know, sounds a bit girly, but what do you expect, I'm female. I will say, I wasn't above luring a Sim into a swimming pool and taking away the ladder, to create Sims ghosts. It's my evil side. :)

Anyways. He kept saying he thought I'd like this game. I wasn't sure, because the idea of playing with other people rather annoyed me. I don't like to be told what to do. Well a few months into the relationship, I came down with Mono. I was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. Hubby stayed over to take care of me, so I let him install WoW on my computer to give him something to do while I was sleeping for hours on end. I watched him do several dungeons. (I think he was trying over and over to get his Pally helm from Scholomance.) It was interesting. So he brought his old computer to my house, set it up next to mine, and bought me my own copy of WoW to try. The idea was, a WoW subscription was cheaper than going to the movies a couple times a month, and besides, with Mono, I was too tired to do much else.

When we started, Hubby let me pick what toon I wanted to try. I picked a Night Elf Druid. Hubby's main is a Human Holy Palladin, so I wanted to stick with Alliance. Plus, I just can't play Horde, they're too unattractive. (Though I will agree with Aprillian, there is that one female Orc face that IS cute. Unfortunately, you stare at the toons' behinds when you play, not their faces.) Hubby rolled a Night Elf Warrior and he walked me through questing together. We played for awhile with these toons, exclusively together. But then I started getting bored. He'd go run a dungeon on his Pally, and what was I supposed to do? So I rolled a Night Elf Holy Priest, and that's who I stuck with.

Hubby and I have very different playing styles. He loves to raid and do dungeons and the occasional pvp. I can't stand pvp. I mean, come on. A holy priest pvping? That's pointless, I'm too squishy. I love questing and interacting with people in chat or vent. I'm not big on raiding, mostly because whenever I get into a raid group, people suddenly think they can tell me how to play my toon. I hate so I avoid raiding. I haven't been in a dungeon since taking a few stabs at Kara sometime last year. Hubby and I both have several alts, though I have seriously more than he does (I think I'm at 25 and he's at 10.)

Usually we only quest together if I have some quests I need help with. However, we often spend our evenings playing WoW seperately, but on our side-by-side His-and-Hers PCs. We have lots of fun. He laughs as I crab at whatever npc has squished me, and I make fun of his guildies in their raid vent. I call him my "Knight in Shining Pally Armor." When we were on our honeymoon in Walt Disney World, and Princess Aurora asked me "Did your handsome prince slay a dragon for you??" I was able to reply "Why yes he did!" How many girls can say that?

Keep up the fabulous podcast!

** EvilElleon

Email #C from Bidkar

Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur,

Bidkar, undead 80 mage here. The last few weeks my toons got a few things done. My mage got the "Leading the Calvary" achievement. He now rides occasionally on the albino protodrake. I still prefer the magic carpet, but the protodrake is a nice change of pace now and then.

My paladin is now at 80 and grinding out reputation. He's exalted with Silvermoon and Undercity so far. He also killed a rare mob, a first for me. He was mining in the Scholozar Basin and noticed an unusual mob. It was Loque'Nahak, mate of Har'koa. Of course, he killed it without a second thought. Picked up a nice blue cloak, 23g and a rare mob achievement. I never had the opportunity to kill a rare mob before so it was very exciting. The kill was made all the sweeter by finding out Loque'Nahk is highly desired by some hunters as a pet. Sorry Glanthur!

I haven't been able to write much, but I still look forward to your podcast every week. Keep up the good work!

For the Horde and for Glanthur!

Bidkar and his many alts

Email #4 from MCWild

hello ctrl alt wow. fellhand hear again or as ashayo calls me mcwild.

just listened to your latest podcast and yet again you entertain us alt aholics.

i have been leveling my alt named after grandchild number 2 isaac.but needed some druid time so started a tauren druid too. called milkee yep he looks like a dairy cow.

my wife sam.hidihi. as been leveling her horde priest too. yet agian in the the battle grounds. she enjoys pvp and now that you get xp she is on to a winner.

if you are in need of opinions from couples that play then no problem. we have both been playing for awhile. myself since the days of vanilla wow and sam about 6 months after.we both enjoy the game in different ways sam likes the social side of it and battlegrounds while i like the quests and story line.both of us have got 2 lvl 80s and lots of alts spread across many realms.

we group together when needed but a lot of the time we do different things sam may be pvping in a bg while i am rep grinding or doing dailies.but we both know that if needed we are only a portal away to help out.

love the show and if you need guests or got questions on how we play be sure to ask

by the way on twitter my name is orkinzi the name is to do with my job.

keep the shows coming and look forward to the next one

fellhand aka mcwild

Email #5 from Bobthehunter

Hello Aprillian, Glanthur, and Ashayo.

First let me start by saying thanks for such an enjoyable podcast. You help fill the hours of tedium at work.

In episode 136, you discussed the fact that there are guns in the World of Warcraft, and that they somewhat dont quite fit. One thing that history has taught us, is that any time there is war, there is an advancement in technology, unfortunatly the advancements are usually in how to kill the opposing side quicker with less casualties on your own side. With war and constant skirmishes being a day to day occourance in Azeroth, it makes sense that gunpowder and guns themselves have been invented.

On another note, my immediate family fits right in with your last 2 topics you've asked about on the show. My Wife and I both play WoW togeather on a regular basis, with my computer desk just across the room from hers. We have level 80s, enjoy raiding in our casual raiding guild, her on her mage, and me on my hunter, and are currently working on leveling up a bear tank and discipline priest combo.

We were also brought in Via the Refer a Friend program, both of us being referred by my mother. I first started just over a year ago, at about the beginning of last year's brewfest, with my wife starting soon afterwards. We grouped up all the way to level 60, and beyond, and my Ma got a level 60 mage out of the process.

Well, I've babbled on long enough. Thanks again for the podcast, and heres hoping for many more.

Bobthehunter{priest,pally,warlok,rogue,shaman,warrior,druid} on Muradin (US) in the guild First Assault Division.

Email #D from Eranth

Hail and well-met, Guildmates Aprillian and Ashayo!

Greetings Glanthar!

Here we are, on the first day of Hallow’s End. I’ve been busy with a great deal of Reality lately, but I’m sure you’re all well aware of how that sort of thing goes.

However, I have managed to finally finish daily quests for all the major factions at the Sunreaver’s Pavilion in both regular and exalted forms, as well as reaching Exalted status with the Sunreavers, opening those daily quests. It wasn’t that long ago that I was looking for ways for a casual player to pick up a title or two. Since then I’ve managed to pick up 8, which is pretty spiffy. Oh, and Revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade.

I’m seeing more and more purple drakes out and about, though not tons of them. I’m pleased to have the nether drake, which did take a while to achieve. So, Ashahyo, have you taken many folks ‘over the edge’ in your Hog yet? Or is it just too many to count anymore? :-)

I’ve managed to run a few ToC runs, including one heroic one where I think we kept having issues because I kept pulling Agro as a big DPS magnet. However, I have picked up a few purple items along the way with ToC. I still have some blue items I’m running with, but I’ve managed to get at least past having any green items.

I’m not sure what my next little ‘goal’ will be and I’m open to suggestions. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Earthen+Ring&n=Eranth

Many thanks for your input and good luck in your endevors!

--Eranth

Beast Master Hunter of AIE

Earthen Ring

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momoment - Slow Mo Week

Hello all,

hope all is well.

It has been a slow wow week for myself because of work, Aion and playing some xbox.

I did want to say a follow up about last weeks email, when I wrote about my priest Moheals and holy healing and how I or other holy healers can be number one in healing.

Ashayo is very correct in saying that it is hard to rate one priest healer against a druid or a shamman or a pally healer. Also, I should have been clearer but when I said number 1 in healing, no I don't believe it is or should be my or anyones goal to just top the healing charts; the main goal as you mentioned is to make sure your tank or raid does not die and the raid is successful. In spirit of good competition and just personal improvement the only other way I know to see how I am stacking up is by checking the heals. I think another thing I forgot to mention was the overhealing stat. We (healers in our raid groups) try not to be #1 is that as overhealing is not good either. But again this only come up in our guild where we know each others playing style and can worry about improving little things and still be very successful.

Our guild has been a little slow too as many people are not playing for various personal reasons.

I have been trying to gear up my hunter on Feathermoon and also have a druid, at level 18, Xarantaur which I started a few months ago. I am farming cooking mats on him for my hunter but also want to work on leveling him. A little mo lore,

Xarantaur is in names after the NPC Xarantaur, he is in storm peaks, he is over 10000 years old. He was one of first taurens to be trained by Cenarius (he has a big lore history and perhaps Glanthur can dive into that later :)). Xarantaur was also immortalized by Norzdormu (a dragon with yet another long lore history...hint hint Glanthur :)).

Ok enough history for now, even though I love history, real or fantasy game even though I am really not much of a lore person.

Thank you always for your podcast and take care everyone,

--
Mo

iTunes Review

Monday, October 12, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 136 - Easing our Brewfest Hangover with a Little Lore

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Did my favorite cooking daily on Auruk. Ledgermaine: cook 4 Northern Stews and find a jug of wine.

Took out Relaq, her hearth is in Shat, Scryer's tier. Very empty there.

Tried to do SFK with my level 48 Druid and had no idea what I was doing.

Can't sell damaged items on the AH

Hate the fact that expired recipes sales look the same as a sale

Installed new authenticator app

Wanted to do some new toon summoning for JT, had David create a toon and had Jyz summon his toon and he summoned my toon. Went to get the FP, no Green Exclamation mark. Toon already had FP to Shat from the Portal

Went crazy with RAF with David. Got so focused on getting up before it ran out. We decided to try Scarlet Monastery and died a lot

Running ZF over and over again on non rested XP --Sebastian and Vrishna ding 44

Sat night decided to farm leather in Shimmering Flats after going to Thrallmar to become a Master Skinner - Used triple boxing to summon

Ashayo

Misc
- Finally caved in and got Hiide to do Battle for Undercity.

Pants on Head
- Pudendal tanked half of Zul'Aman. Quite a bit tougher than Karazahn.
- Taking out alts and guildies to get the 20 slot bag from ZA
- Pudendal - Tanked UK, Azjol'Nerub at 71
- Gruul's Lair, one shot Mags with 15, and a bunch of people who hadn't done the cube clicking
Dinged 72

Raiding - 10 man

- Onyxia 10 man on Asheal - so of course Warlock head dropped
- Toc 10 man on Asheal. Got the faction champions down again. And cleared the instance again :)
- Ulduar 10 man on Ashayo - did some hard modes, and got as far as Mimiron
- Gods must want my priest to go shadow. Won gloves (2nd piece) of the Shadow set (Zabra's handwraps). Actually better than my healing gloves.

Raiding - 25 man
- DWP Ulduar 25 man - Mimiron down one shot
- Got Hodir down to 7% on 1st try. Got him down on 2nd try.

Special - Venture Bay
When I first encountered Venture Bay, the NPC was an alliance Westfall Brigade defender. So I just assume that was the alliance town in Grizzly Hills and never went back. Deadlyvyv was talking about the sigil he bought with venture bay coins, and it finally dawned on me that I'd missed an entire quest hub - and a daily quest hub at that.

[Grizzled Veteran] - 9 PvP daily quests.
Got 56 coins on first day, and bought a sigil

Which prompted me to find this mysterious log flume ride. It starts with Darok at the Blue Sky Logging grounds.
But when I try to use it, I get "You are busy and cannot use the taxi right now". No, I'm not in combat.

Levelled Ashariss to 67 ; heading to Netherstorm

Shoutout
- Asked Grimrok to prospect a whole bunch of saronite ore to get gems to help me level alchemy. Not only did he do that, but he sent me a whole swag of other gems to help as well. A very generous altaholic - 4 80's just in Pants on Head

Glanthur

Lore Segment - Uldum and Bael Modan

Emails

Email #A from Nevik

Greetings Ctrl Alt WoW crew,

It's your friendly neighborhood rogue Nevik weaving some more eviscerates into his weekly rotation. This time I'm going to try some brevity this week as I don't have much of a topic to be verbose with.

Life has been pretty hectic this past week and I don't have a whole lot of in-game happenings to report on. My wife and I got a couple hours in over the weekend and finished off most of the quests left in the Ghostlands. We're now debating between questing in Kalimdor or heading out to the Hillsbrad Foothills.

Barring too much alcohol consumption or Cenarius dying (the Whirlwind battlegroup has been very unstable this week) we're hoping to hit 30 this weekend so I can finally jump back to original tankadin. My wife has even logged in a couple times while I've been at work to explore Undercity and work on her herbalism.

I'm really hoping that we jump into a dungeon or two with other folks as I'm dying to get my tankage on. I've almost always been a DPS fiend and even my DK has been mostly DPS. Well that /was/ true but I've been working fiendshly to gear up my DK for being a tank (he's almost there @531 defense).

When 3.3 is finally dropped into our laps I will be immediately respecing my DK's tank spec to become a dual-wielding tank ... with dual Tankard O'Terrors. The image of tanking with two tankards just seems perfect to me so I made sure to obtain them for my DK.

Other than grinding regular Trial of the Champion on my DK, I spent some time on my rogue for dailies and even dusted off my priest for some time. Should the instance servers continue to act finicky I might be spending more time on my priest. I am feeling that urge to get her to 80 and start pvp'ng with her again.

Well that should be enough weaving for this week, I'm going to go attempt to hop on the PTR.

Nevik

Email #1 from James

Greets and salutations,

I started playing WOW about 9 months ago. After deciding I liked the game I went looking for some podcasts to listen to on my way to work. Ctrl Alt Wow is best I've found so far. I like hearing real, though eccentric, people talk about playing the game. I am looking forward to the new lore segment. I am an old roleplaying gamer. I got my start with Role Playing games before we had computers. The back story was always an important element to any great gaming experience.

My only problem with the podcast is that my commute each way is about 30 minutes. A 30 minute podcast on WOW would be hard to do. There is too much going on in the game. A 1 hour podcast would be ideal. The 2 hour podcasts are too long, butI simply don't know what you could cut from show to shorten it. I like it all. Maybe I could try to find a longer commute, but that would cut into my playing time.

I have roughly 9 toons on the Kirin Tor server in the USA. I am currently concentrating on SilverDome a level 68 Dwarven Warrior, RubyDome a level 27 dwarven Hunter, and RavenWriter a level 20 Human Mage. The rest are anywhere from level 60 to level 10, there are just not enough hours in the day.

Keep up the good work.

Long Live the Alliance

Email #2 from Thoryx

Hi controlaltwow,

You asked in a recent show how Hunters can keep track of their ammo levels now that we don't need ammo pouches. I also had this problem and decided to do a little research and found the quick and easy solution WITHOUT the need of an addon. The regular WoW ui does it for you. Just drag any of your ammo icons from your bags to an open hot bar space. I did that and quickly discovered that I had 4,000+ bullets in my bags. I was afraid that the basic WoW ui would only count up to 1,000 but that's not the case after all. So there you have it, a quick and easy solution to never running out of ammo unexpectedly. Thanks for a great podcast!

Thoryx
77 Dwarf Hunter on Greymane

Email #3 from -Fayth

I have to apologize, I haven't written for a long time! I even have about three weeks of show archives to check up on! :( Life kinda picked me up by the foot, shook me really hard and then flung me against a wall! o.O But I should have Glanthur's pics sent later this week ... I am *so* sorry it's taken me this long!

Hope you three are doing well, and I look forward to catching up on the podcast!!

-Fayth

Comment #4 from Gnomer

Comment:
A thought about your forgotten skills.

It was a pain even when respecing at 80...

if you are leveling a toon, as I am currently,especially if it's dual spec, it's a complete nightmare.

I have been using a mod called Learning aid (some info here at an old post of mine: http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/05/28/gnomegoggles-learning-aid/)

Use it and you problems will disappear...

Gnomer and Out!

Email #

Shout Outs & Thank You

Thank you #1 from Karen

Hey Ctrl-Alt-Wow Crew,

Karen, here, sending out a belated thank you for the birthday shout out you gave me almost 2 months ago. It really made my day and helped lift my spirits during a trying time.

Hopefully, that stress is behind me and I've adjusted my work-life a bit to decrease the stress and give me more time for the important things in life: family, friends and WoW.

I've had more time to play lately and am getting back into the game. Still only have two 80's. Those two are busily grinding gold and champion's seals at the Argent Tournament and handing out goodies like heirloom items to the next toons in line. I'm working on leveling my resto/boomkin druid, he's become my favorite toon, a tauren whose nickname is Gentle Bin. He enjoys blowing things up and healing in equal amounts.

I'm looking forward to Cataclysm and, yes, most of my guild (4 out of the 5) have already reserved names for our Worgen and our Goblin.

Thanks for creating an awesome podcast every week. Ctrl-Alt-Wow goes to the top of my podcast list whenever it shows up.

Karen

MomoMoments

Hello all,

hope you are all doing well and sorry for not emailing for the last episode.

In my wowing, on my priest Moheal, on feathermoon (check him out on the armory, he just shinned his tusks :)) I finally made the executive decision to go back to holy so I am dual speced disc and holy and let me tell you, HOLY HEALS!

I missed the holy spec! I had mentioned before, I leveled holy up to 76 and in the time I was disc/shadow spec, I tried and tried to get used to shadow spec but just could not enjoy it. Cannot explain but somethings are meant to be and well some not like shadwo spec!

If you have played holy spec on a priest at level 80 you will know what I am talking about and if you have not played a priest at level 80, let me tell ya!!! It is so fun to throw a renew on a party member and have it be enough to heal them, oh but wait, its even better to flash heal on an avg of 6-8000!!! now that is fun and AWESOME

BUT WAIT there is more

How about when you greater heal (is that what is called?!) for crits of 22-24000!!! OH SNAP Holy moheals!!!!

Yes I enjoy healing is that so wrong :)

Now I wonder how that rates with other purpled out healers? Please let me know if I am below avg or soso healer, just based on the numbers.

For you three and the listeners, please let me know your opinion and how do you grade your healing?

Now I have a question, how do you judge on your performance, when you are healing? I have been trying to grade myself since i have good gear now (as good gear does make it so much easier) and of course try to get better where I can.

I think for a healer a top grade should be given to how the tank or raid heals are going = did the tank die and was it the healers fault? I have to say before I was at fault many many times but lately, like the past 2 weeks, in Onyxia (which we downed in about 3-4 tried, very fun) Ulduar a few times, Naxx and of course Heroics, I would say just a few times I was at fault for losing the tank.

Hey I dont think that is too bad, is it?!

Another way is through recount or any dmg/healing meter and through numbers out at people, like I did above :(

Now I have not posted the heal meter to my groups but for my own personal interest and because I have no other way to see how I am doing, I have been #1 ever since I switched to holy spec!!! isnt that cool! :)

before I would at best be #2 as disc spec.

Well, I think that is enough on mohealing. :)

Because my priest has no dmg spec, I moved my hunter to Feathermoon too, her name was Mochi but I have to change her name and I also dual speced her survival and beast mastery. I will be using my hunter to make some gold as raiding/heroics is not cheap (buying flasks and gemming up your gear is not cheap!).

Well hope you are all well and hope your dental surgery is much better now Aprillian.

Take care all and happy wowing!!!

(oh I was finally able to do For the Horde!!! on moheal yesterday but on a rp server it is not as fun as it is on a pvp server, still fun to get the bear mount :))

--
Mohammad Ouranos

Thank you #2 from David

Hey guys and gal,

Sorry it took so long to write this, but things have been hectic. I wanted to write and thank you all for your donation to Extra Life. It is much appreciated and rest assured all 24 hours will be played lol. Also I would like to let you know that I will be making hourly updates on my blog on the day of the marathon at bigkidsatplay.com I realized today that I was not following Glanthur on Twitter. I remedied that and I am now following each of you. Keep those shows coming and I'll be listening.

Thank You Again
David Davis
http://www.bigkidsatplay.com

http://www.bigkidsatplay.com/2009/09/extra-life-fundraiser.html

https://waystogive.texaschildrens.org/netcommunity/bigkids

iTunes Review

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 135 - Last Call Extended by Two Days

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Thinking about the levels Vrishna will have to give. Want it to go to a class I couldn't normally level. Looked at what I had, lots of silly low levels, hunters & warlocks. Saw Shemain, level 17 Shaman. Decided to level her with another higher level alt. Brought out Primall, who used to be a bank alt but leveled with a previous RAF to 58. Was running Shemain to Stonetalon for a Shaman quest, Primall passed the Stable Master in Crossroads and decided to bring out a Wind Serpent. It was level 27 in the Stables, but when she brought it out, it was level 58, cool. (Purplevein put a dead pet in the stables).

Dinged 37 with Vrishna on Sebastian

Ashayo

Ashayo got the 200 tickets, the Autumnal Acorn Ale, and [Brew of the Year]

Raiding!
ToC 10 man
- Got down the faction champs and Lightbane/Darkbane
- Got down Anub'arak and cleared [Call of the Crusade] 10 man
- Won [Perdition] staff

VoA
- Won tier shadow priest leggings

Ulduar 10 - hard modes
- 2 towers up on Flame Leviathan
- Kill the heart on XT [Heartbreaker]

Ulduar 25
- Got as far as Mimiron. Bashed on for a few times, but MT kept getting dc/ed

Onyxia 25 man

Guppers - Took Jekle to heal (Won belt in VoA)

Pants on Head!
Pudendal continues to enjoy his foray into tanking. Started off in Northrend and tanked Utgarde Keep and Nexus.

Shadowthrone - Daily Heroic (UK) with PoH, Normal ToC - new head and chest peice

Levelling Alchemy on Ashariss

Questing with Asharis in Blades Edge Mountain. A bit harder with mobs 3 levels higher.

More Coren Direbrew multi-runs

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #1 from Matdiox

Hey guys.

I just thought I'd let you know that I am missing WoW already :3 (How weak willed is that?!?)

Although I miss it I am sticking with Aion cause it is just ..... too ... good!

I love listening to the show and I am currently waiting for that point that I am so out of touch with WoW that you guys will mention something and I will just be like .... "Wuh?"

Lot's of love.

Mattdiox. (The mature english kid ;) )

P.S

I found someone that doesn't have Itunes ... I had to throw them out of the village.

Email #A from Kurly

So, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news...I have tried Aion, and er, um, I ah.....kind of like it. Some wow buds were testing it on beta, and when it went live this past weekend I bought it and have been playing. I am happy to say that its a lot of fun and similar to wow to make it an easy transition, but different enought to make it fun an challenging. I am excited to be playing a cleric that that wear mail....fun fun fun!

Okay...enough of that. I bit the bullet with my Druid by dumping Feral Cat, and going with boomkin. This after several weeks of mulling it over, pissing and moaning about all the time wasted....blah blah blah....logged on to talentchic...did the deed and jumped horns first into Alterac Valley to see what would happen. As a cat, she was in all Hateful gear, and a boomkin she is in all blues....and her DPS easily blew away cat DPS. Now, I know that this more a ME thing, as I have been one shot by Cats in the past. So I can only assume that boomkin is the way for me. My mouth nearly waters at the thought of what kind of DPS will be doing when I get her in some purples!! Please managing the gear is much easier with boomkin/tree v cat/tree.

So, that being said....wow may not be seeing quite as much of me but I will still be around and although Aion may be new and shiney...it just aint WOW.

Peace and big long hugs and mason jars full of pretty bugs!!

Your bud...Kurly

PS...you all still doing interviews with listeners??

Email #B Makling

hey guys, makiling here

thanks for picking me for the roll! im sure my co-worker will appreciate a free months worth of wow. as of writing, he has already upgraded his account to burning crusade, and his hunter is lvl 27. we haven't been playing together much, but i try to help him out whenever we're both online. he has been through wailing caverns and had finished most of the quest in the barrens. apparently, doing all the quests in a zone is his thing. i didn't want to give him gold, but i wanted him to have money to buy his first mount, so i suggested he go do gathering profs. i gave him a netherweave bag, and gave him some options: he can use it, or he can sell it in the AH for money to buy a mount and the rising skill. he went and sold the bag for 9g and had enough money to buy all the mounts available to him.

i really enjoyed hearing david's experiences in the game. when you've played as long as we have, the things in game become automatic and unremarkable. raiding becomes a numbers game, and running dungeons become as common an event as driving home. but hearing the experiences of new players, its almost as if i can see the game through their eyes and it makes the game look fresh once more. i get the same feeling when i talk about the game with my coworker. from the graphics to the mechanics, he is loving the game a lot. i really appreciated what you did for david by letting him run the instance first at par with his level before running him with your main. il probably do that with aaron so that he can experience the dungeons while he is at par with his level.

in other news, i got to do sarth 25 with 2 drakes and onyxia 25-man with my mage. we wiped a couple of times on both occasions, but was able to get the achievement for both. i won the gem bag from onyxia, bum am hopeful that the refurbished helm will drop for me someday

the priest i started with aaron is lvl 19, but im keeping him at that level because im planning on making her a priest twink, especially now with the ability to turn off exp gains. i want to experience what the all the fuss is with twinking ;-)

thats it for now,

for the horde! (and for glanthur)

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #C from Nevik

/* Do not include this email in the weekly drawing */

Greetings again Aprillian, Ashayo, and Glanthur

After listening to the latest podcast I figured I'd share my own RaF experience. First I'll give a brief history to give my story a little bit more flavor. I've been playing WoW since launch and my wife has shown zero interest in joining my exploits in Azeroth.

She's not an anti-gamer as she enjoys puzzle games and assorted cute'sh games, but she does have a brief history with playing Diablo II and she is really looking forward to Diablo III. Yet she didn't share my interest in MMOs.

To her, my obsessive nature with MMOs turned her off to the idea, yet as I found more of a balance in my life with WoW I started to see a tiny interest grow within her. Granted that WoW has held my attention for close to 5 years now, I guess maybe it could just be pure curiousity (she is a psychology student afterall) but she shocked me when she asked about trying the game out.

I got her setup with a trial account and we rolled human warlocks on my sister's former server. Unfortunately I didn't get her trial setup through the RaF program, so I ended up having to send her a new trial and start over so we could make use of the RaF program. Fortunately we only made it to level 6 without it, so restarting wasn't a hard pill to swallow.

With the second trial we again rolled human warlocks as she was still not keen on rolling a "vanilla" horde race. We scorched through the beginning area and hit level 8 within an hour or two. Our second expedition also benefitted from her growing proficiency with movement, but unfortunately we got too busy to continue the journey before the trial ran out.

At that point she seemed indifferent to continuing the experiment, but there was just a shred of interest that gave me enough justification to go out and surprise her with the WoW:Battlechest and continue things proper.

We promptly rolled blood elves on my home server of Cenarius so I could more easily twink her out. This time I decided to create a new baby paladin to better compliment her warlock even though I already had a level 30 paladin. I figured I would just delete the new baby paladin when we dinged 30, and I could pick my old tankadin back up.

Having a better starter experience with the blood elf starting area in terms of quests and aethestic beauty was beginning to draw her in. We blew through the starting area and I could tell that my wife was getting more into playing but we ran into the problem of outleveling the content we were doing.

One really important thing that I discovered, as did Aprillian, is that it is /VITAL/ that your fledgling wow-playing significant other feels like they're contributing and not being taken a long for a ride. By outleveling the quests we were doing, I was killing things far too fast for her to get any enjoyment out of playing a warlock.

So instead of grinding the grey quests out for little reward in-game and out, I made the decision to start skipping them and move into level-appropriate content. For our blood elves this meant moving into the Ghostlands and this held an unexpected surprise for me: mushrooms all over the place. (My wife loves cute mushrooms)

My wife fell in love with the Ghostlands not only because of the mushrooms, but also because we were fighting level-appropriate mobs and her DPS became quite an asset to the quests we were doing. We were able to duo Luzran (a lv21 elite abomination) at level 19 and she felt quite a sense of accomplishment out of that even if she didn't yet completely comprehend the concept of elite mobs.

Unfortunately we work opposite shifts to better accomodate the day-care of our daughter so we haven't had much chance to play together since last weekend. Before we concluded our play session from last weekend we dinged 20 and trained our non-chocobo (that's a Final Fantasy reference Aprillian) mounts and proceeded out to Orgrimmar for Brewfest.

This weekend should prove to give us another opportunity to play together and I think she's on the verge of creating a new toon to play by herself when she gets a chance. I feel that it is just as important for her to explore on her own as it is for me to help guide her, so this bodes well for her acclimation to the game.

Okay, I'm getting a little long-winded so I'll save a detailed update of my own exploits in Azeroth for another day ... but I'll share something in brief, or as a teaser I suppose. I've decided to nurture my growing alt'ism by creating a shaman and sugar-momma death knight on Earthen Ring and joined the illustrious ranks of Alea Iacta Est.

Until then Lok'tar Ogar!

Nevik, Kroven and Schmelzen on Cenarius

Troven and Trovenia on Earthen Ring

PS. Great job Aprillian on pronouncing Schmelzen and glad the phrase "weaving in eviscerates" made you giggle!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 142 - Dings 80

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 140 - To 80 or Not to 80 That is the Question

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 139 - El Día de los Muertos WoW

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian & Vrishna

Ashayo

Glanthur

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 138 - The Couple That Plays Together Stays Together

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Twitter Stuff

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 137 - With Iceflow & Caoboi

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

"Who hath summoned forth Aman? Ah, I see you toil with relics of the past. Be warned that even your creators are fallible. Digging too deep into your past might bring an abrupt end to your future."- The Titans and Aman'Thul

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momoment - Slow Mo Week

Monday, October 12, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 136 - Easing our Brewfest Hangover with a Little Lore

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

MomoMoments

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 135 - Last Call Extended by Two Days

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Shout Outs & Thank You

Auruk Twitters

Twitter Updates

Notes about Ctrl Alt WoW

Blog Archive

Aprillian

Ashield and Ardrion

Ctrl Alt WoW Video Bar

Aprillian's Twitters

Auruk Twitters

Twitter Updates

Send Email - Find our Archives

Blogs Mentioned in the 'cast

Find us on iTunes

Home

Podcast we listen to:

Our Twitter Accounts

Ctrl Alt WoW

Subscribe To Ctrl Alt WoW RSS

Our in Game Photos

"Who hath summoned forth Aman? Ah, I see you toil with relics of the past. Be warned that even your creators are fallible. Digging too deep into your past might bring an abrupt end to your future."
- The Titans and Aman'Thul