Ctrl Alt WoW

Monday, July 13, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 123 - Ctrl Solo WoW

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 123 - Ctrl Solo WoW

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 an Authenticator, they are back in the store.

/Salute to Leala, Salty Kat, Stardancer and Epic Dolls. We also have a special guest.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

I got right on Ashayo's challenge from Episode 122 and Dinged 74 in Coldarra. Aprillian grinded mobs in Shcholazar basin and then went to Venomspite.
The lovely Tempeste looked over my gear and offered me some suggestion.

Got whisper by:

And decided to go back to Agmar's hammer to do the quest there. Got the group quest and spent hours either finding the first two, Deathtalon & Gigantaur and then hours dying trying to Quadbox Keldonus. But after 8 attempts, I got him.

Spent the rest of the week grinding Aprillian to 75. Made it out to Grizzley Hills.

Dinged 75 on Sat morning. Changed into outfit the lovely Tempeste helped me choose.

Ganked and corpse sat by Colossal Abomination in Kor'Koron Vanguard

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #1 from hypknotoad

Hi Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur,

Hearing Aprillian say she hadn't taken advantage of the fire festival last week, I thought I'd share my commiserations. I too could have done so much more but unfortunately seeing I wasn't playing this time last year I didn't really know what was going on. The first week consisted of getting the burning blaze buff every half an hour and thinking, 'What the hell is that?' Then after some quick research I discovered the fires were all over Azeroth and the dailies where in the cities. By the end of the holiday my hunter (the prince fan) Purplevein gained maybe two levels going around the fires and doing the odd daily but my priest, who I really want to get to level 20 to continue his enchanting, was the biggest disappointment. I'm sure he could have leveled to 25 doing fires or even dailys ahh well maybe next year.

On the subject of raiding, please try to do it! I'm sure Jeppy could write you a spreadsheet that would get you there in no time! I can't wait to hear Aprillian gearing up with epics and who knows before long you could be multi-boxing Ulduar :P

Love the show guys,

Purplevein (hypknotoad)
Jubei'thos

Email #2 from Makiling

hello fellas, Makiling here

i write this with a heavy heart as i had just came back from a heroic naxx pug empty handed.. but then again, that is the risk of playing in pugs. i have been pining for the valorous chest piece, and lost to the roll, 100 vs 95. i was also hoping we would finish the whole thing, but failed at thadd, and the raid eventually gave up. better luck next lockout.

but the reason for my writing is that i want to cheer April on into getting to 77. you can do it girl! do not get discouraged by the things you hear from the whining 80's. getting to end game is another game in itself, so to speak. i started playing at the burning crusade expansion and i enjoyed the grind to 70 back in the day, but end game at that time was even better. i also feel that way now at level 80, and im sure you can tell that by the letters i send. so grind on! im sure you can get to 77 and even to 80 in 2 weeks ;-)

for the horde!

Email #3 from Anonymous

Hi Aprillian, Ashayo and Glanthur! I LOVE the show and listen to it religiously. You (Aprillian) mentioned a podcast that I wanted to check out, but I can’t remember what the name was. You said it was put on by pretty young guys but you also mentioned that they are very knowledgeable about WoW. Can you please email me the name of it? Thanks, I appreciate it.

I’d love to learn more about WOW. I’m a Horde at heart. My sister and her boyfriend got me started playing. I can’t keep up with them. They have several L80 characters while I have been working on my warrior for months and I’m only up to L36. Recently my coworker and her boyfriend (and a few of their friends) began playing Alliance characters so I created an Alliance one too. I sure miss the Horde but I’m very happy to be playing with friends. I always preferred playing solo but last week we did the Deadmines, The Stockade and Shadowfang Keep together and to my surprised I LOVED playing with them. We may attempt Razorfen Kraul tonight and I can’t wait. I always felt intimidated to do a dungeon with others but now that I have a group of people that I know and trust so I feel confident to get in there and make mistakes without upsetting anyone. I’m having so much fun with my friends that I am levelling up WAY quicker than I was levelling my warrior.

We are all around the same level and learning at the same pace. Everyone is so great that when one of us goofs up pretty badly the rest of the group makes fun of that person in a good-natured teasing way. Maybe it’s because we’re just a swell group of people lol, or maybe we’re like that because we are mature enough to make a serious effort but also support (or tease each other) through this learning process. We range from the ages 26-36.

You, Ashayo and Glanthur are so funny. I love the humour on your show. Keep the podcasts coming please. I appreciate all the time you guys put into getting them out regularly.
Ctrl-alt-Wow is #1 on my list of WOW podcasts.

P.S. I thought your appearance on BOE was great!!! I laughed so much.

Thanks Aprillian.

Email #4 from Bidkar

Aprillian's game play is great!

Greetings Fun Loving Aprillian, Sophisticated Glanthur and Urbane Ashayo,

Bidkar on the Auchindoun server here. I just dinged my first 80 a few weeks ago and am still feeling little lost, but I will find my way. I am seeking out dailies so I can purchase my epic flight and trying out the Argent Tournament.

I am writing in response to your call for opinions on Aprillian's style of play. I think her approach to playing is perfect for her. I share her style of game playing and regret much of the way I played in the beginning and wish I had went thru slower.

I look forward to hearing from the three of you every week, but especially thrill to hearing Aprillian's week. She is genuinely having a great time and it shows up in her infectious laughter and happy approach to the game.

I think Ashayo and Glanthur just want her to have fun in the end game like they are, so I don't mean to disparage what they have said, but I think she should have fun on the way to end game and then have fun at the end game.

The three of you have the best podcast!

For the Horde and for 1 Alliance! (I'm on a PVP server so I have a dislike for all Alliance except Glanthur)

Bidkar and his many alts

Email #5 from Patrick G.

Good afternoon

With Epic Dolls now falling by the way side (just listening to there last one now). What is your take on the state of the game ? What is your interpolation of all the changes that Blizzard has made and keeps making. Are we on easy mod and when will they make instance and dungeons soloable ?

My take/spin on the changes is Blizzard is in total defense mod with WOW. They are making it easier and easier to play with each patch, bending to the will of all the whiners out there. I believe Blizzard is doing this in order to hang on to as many subscribers as possible until there next MMO.

Why else would Blizz keep making the game easier with each patch?

And have you guys thought about how you guys are going to adapt with WOW’s decline?

Me personally, I am getting board to tears with WOW, they are making the game too easy. There is no more fear about running into that odd eliti that was walking around in almost every zone.

That’s all for now

Regards,

Patrick G

Email #A from Brandon

Subject: Earlier Podcast

Hello, I subscribed to your podcast and wanted to start listening to it, but I can't find any way to get to your very first podcasts. IS it possible to find all of your podcasts on iTunes?
http://ctrlaltwow.podbean.com

Email #B from Vala

Well hello ctrl alt wow
Valathilia here
So I love the Latin/Italian accent glanthur gave my last email, I didn't think it was possible but you proved me wrong. LOL. So my guild naxx was stolen again, we invited some pug and we down 5 bosses with him and finally we left off on KT. So I decided to call it a night a pick up in the morning, well the guy got his own raid together and stole our run and I got pretty upset but than I remember that this is just a game with a reset timer. And we made the best of it and just did VOA for the chance of t8. :) and I hate healing on my Druid and it's boring to me compared to vala so I decided I want to be a doomchicken. Well love the podcast
For the horde
-vala

Email #6 from Fayth

Hello, Aprillian, Glanthur, and Ashayo

I'm sorry this email is so long! I've been a steady listener of Ctrl Alt WoW for about a month now. Weeks ago I had a super long day at work and I loaded up my ipod with archived episodes of "How I WoW" - and episode 6 is where I first heard of Aprillian and her podcast.

Even though it bothers me to admit it, I have to tell you that the very first time I listened to Ctrl Alt WoW, I didn't like it! o_O Awful, I know, but hear me out!! You see, I'm a raider and I spend at least an hour ever week reading specialized blogs or haunting the class boards at EJ to keep my main character at the tip top of the game. I remember saying to myself as I listened, "How can you play wow and not strive to raid? Why on earth would you do the holiday quests and not be after the meta achievement?" Thinking this podcast is not for me, much to my shame, I hit the unsubscribe button and never gave it another thought.

Or did I?

To make a long story short, the small bit of Ctrl Alt WoW that I did listen to stuck with me for a couple weeks after I unsubscribed. After listening to a particularly depressing episode of a well-known wow podcast, I really needed something to lift my spirits. I turned back to you guys! This time I approached Ctrl Alt WoW with a totally different attitude. I ate up every word you three said about your week in WoW and what all of your mains and alts did. I couldn't WAIT to get home from work and log in - not to prep for a raid, but to simply have fun playing the game I love. I even dug into the archives so I could keep listening to Ctrl Alt WoW while waiting for the a new update.

I love listening to the friendly horde vs alliance banter between the three of you. One of my favorite elements of the show is how well you all compliment each other - you're not afraid to ask each other questions about game mechanics or classes that you're not familiar with. That sounds like a simple thing, but you will rarely hear other wow podcasters say things like, "I don't know" or "how did you do that?" This is one of the many aspects that makes Ctrl Alt WoW unique. I also adore the fact that Aprillian isn't afraid to mention other wow podcasts by name. She's directed me to at least two other wow podcasts, Bind on Equip and Outlandish. Aprillian, I'm not sure if I should thank you profusely or seek therapy. :P

And the relationship you have with those crazy characters from Bind On Equip is wonderful! Ctrl Alt WoW is the yin to Bind on Equip's yang! Excellent job pitch hitting for last week's BoE, Aprillian! I had that episode on my ipod at work and you and Temp had me laughing so much that my co-workers thought I was losing it.

I'd like to tell you about my characters and alts. My main is a discipline priest. She was my very first character even from my 10 day trial and she's the one that I take into end-game raiding as well. When I'm not raid healing, I'm probably on my lvl 80 ... ready, Glanthur ... dwarf hunter!! Any time I log on her I instantly feel very relaxed and sit back to play the game for fun. She's my farmer and fisher so I don't stress too much about the details of her spec or gear. My final higher level alt is a paladin. She's now 71 and I tanked for the very first time the other day. I played 2 ranged classes since vanilla wow, so actually running straight to the boss was very new to me!

I noticed that my personality actually changes depending on which character I'm logged in on. I tend to be very quiet, reserved, and down to business while I'm praying my priest. She will never be seen doing anything overly foolish and she will never, ever, do the Grizzly Hills poop quest. When I'm on my hunter, I tend to be more chatty and looking for ways to have fun and play around in game. She almost knocked the outhouse down doing the poop quest! And my pally ... I'm noticing that I'm more assertive and sometimes downright aggressive while I'm playing her. She tends to leap into any situation without planning or thought. I don't know if she'll do the poop quest or not ...

And just a quick note to Ashayo about your hunter not keeping aggro, here's a thought: that pesky "cower" bug is still in the game. More often than not, if my pet drops aggro it's because that stupid cower button is stuck on auto in the pet's spellbook, even though I made sure it was off last time I was logged in.

Again, I'm so sorry for the wall of text, but wanted my first email to you guys to be a good one.

Best wishes for the three of you,
Fayth ... this is for Glanthur ... For the Alliance!!

(P.S. - I thought about doing a webcomic for my warcraft characters, but I just don't have the time. The attached pic was going to be the cover image.)

Shout Outs & Thank You

Shoutouts

MoMoments

Hello,

Thank you for your great work as always and for reading my emails.

I also want to thank you very much for reading my emails and it is my pleasure to email to your fine podcast and help spread the CtrlAltWow word, which I think is altaholicism, right?

On my main, main! :) the first character I created, Motauren, 80 warrior who is the big daddy of the guild and all of my characters on the Balanzzarr server in Uptown Tavern guild (and I don't think I need to say he is a tauren but in case you did not already guess it from the name) he is a tauren

Well I was able to get the achievement for looting over 10,000 gold from quests! isn't that crazy! Well I pondered where all the gold went since I only have about 4k on him. Also I was able to get to exalted on The Sons of Hodir clan, FINALLY! But now I have started the Hodir rep grind on my priest Moheal and 80 hunter Mochi (oh don't tell Ashayo, they all have the green proto-drake from the oracles).

Aprillian, I vote NO if you don't want to get to 80, or at least not right now, don't do it. Take it at your own pace.
Don't worry, Mo has your back :)
And yes I am saying it and I have 3 level 80's and many other 70s, 60s and other many other characters of various sizes and levels.

Hope you get what you are setting out to do if it does end up being 77 or 80 or whatever you want to do.

Question for you and all the listeners (it is non-wow but still MMO related): what other MMO would you like to play, no restrictions, let your imagination loose and one that you would lose wow time to play?

Perhaps its the Star Wars one, or Star Trek, Hello Kitty, X-men, anything. I am curious what you 3 say and also what listeners may say.

I would love to see Harry Potter and on Twitter this week I did see a few updates from people that it may happen, but we will see.

Just wondering, you know, deep thought by Mo.

Quick comments-
Trueblood is a good show, and season 2 started slow but when you do see it you will still be very sucked in!
As a wow/altaholic, I am also a podcastaholic and lately some of the other best podcasts and podcasters have said goodbye to wow and/or podcasting.
I would like to say goodbye to Elunes Grace once again and Epic Dolls podcasts; both are greats podcasts that will be greatly missed and the hosts as well.

Thank you to all podcasters and to our favorites Ashayo, Aprillian, and Glanthur.

Have another wonderful week.

--
Mo

Thanks #1 Prancelot

Hi guys and gal,

I never win anything, lol. Thanks so much but I'm going to pass on the prize and let you give it to someone else. I love the podcast and can't wait each week to hear you guys cut up and have a good time! Keep up the fun!

Thanks again,

Prancelot

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 122 - Crash & Burn

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 122 - Crash & Burn

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

Bunny hopped RAF around Outland's for the fires. Tiiaa the Mage hit 50 & Drame the Druid hit 40.

Got the Porcelain Bell out of the Fishing bag & sold it for 100g-

Ran UBRS with POH, excellent time.

Doing dailies on Epril I got [Mendicant's Robe of Mendacity] from a Revenant, it's blue.

Did Ahune with Ashayo & totally embarrassed him.

Tried hard to get Flamekeeper. Gankage in outland. Got 400

Ashayo

Oracles Report - 1 x Yolk, 3 x Cobra Hatchling

Faction change announcement! Could bring over some ex-alliance toons to PoH
Raid soulbound items tradeable - great for master looter issues!

Ashayo subbed in for an experienced Ulduar 10 man group.
- Plenty of achievments including [Shutout] [Unbroken] [Nerf gravity bombs] , [Nerf engineeering], [The Siege of Ulduar]
- Won Ring and neck, both with hit ; need to regem, as now over the hit cap (Yay!)
- First time fighting Crazy cat lady (Auriaya is too hard to say)
- First time fighting Hodir - awesome fight - alot of moving and watching, but got him down (well, down enough to make him friendly)

Ulduar - DwP 10 man on Asheal. Kologarn and Auriaya (crazy cat lady) took a few tries

Naxx 25 ; last week, heading to Ulduar next week. Loot went to one clothy, or off spec or DE'ed.

Got my mind on a Mechano-Hog
Levelled another miner to get another titansteel c/d
And before you know it ... Ashayo is riding a Mechano-Hog with thanks to Mollyshot

Still doing Argent Tournament most days on the 4 80's.
- Jekle gets [The Winds of the North] - exalted with Horde Expedition, makes 10 Exalted reps

Both Deathknights hit 71 this week. Yay!

Because of 3.2 where titanium ore will be prospectable, miners are farming for the ore ; the result is alot of saronite ore on the market, so it is quite cheap. Used the opportunity to level blacksmithing from 430 to 440. This then allowed Ashield to make Jekle a Titansteel Guardian.

Splashing out on upgrading Jekle ; Actually bought blue chest and epic boots off AH. Bought neckpeice with heroic tokens, made titanium spellshock ring with JC, and another level 200 ring, Wispcloak made by Chinstrap, and enchanted everything (yay for having an enchanter to DE and hoard mats)
Already had an offhander to go with the new 1H mace

Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower (+28) 4 x Infinite dust, 1 x lesser cosmic essence
Boots: Greater Spirit (+18) 10 x Infinite dust, 1 x Greater cosmic essence
Bracers: Greater Spellpower (+23) 8 x Infinite dust, 4 x lesser cosmic essence
Chest: Super Stats (+8) 4 x Infinite dust, 2 x lesser cosmic essence
Main hand: Exceptional Spellpower (+50): 10 x Infinite Dust, 2 x Greater Cosmic essence

Head: Revered with Wrymrest Accord: 30 spell & 8 mp5
Shoulders: Inscription of Dominance : 23 spell (30 stonekeeper shards)

Added over 700 bonus healing (Went from around 1000 to over 1700)

4th July bear run

Glanthur

General:

- Faction Change? I'll just level my toons the old-fashioned way.

- I could play a female Tauren.

Glanthur:

Arlaerus:

Arlaerum:

- Finally duel-specced AND purchased epic flight. Next stop, 77.

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #A from

Aqui Esta
Valathilia

Como estas CtrlAltWow? Pues esta semena fue tan feliz . Yo y mis amigos fuimos al Naxxramas, era mucho trabajo.... because it was there first time. So I had to teach them all the fights but there quick learners. The run isn't finished we still need to down sapphirion and kel'thuzad. The healers are having trouble getting behind the ice blocks, but I will have no doubt we will down it on Monday. Btw glanthur I think you did a great job at reading my email. Well I hope you guys have a great week. Great podcast and keep it up.
For the horde

Valathilia

My friend sent me this.. It's playing wow on a different level
Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rid4pS131M

Emaill #1 from Prancelot

Well I am definitely an altaholic. Much like Aprillian it's going to take me years to reach level 80. I just love playing all my characters and love the old world content as much as the new stuff. I've listed my alts below to give you an idea of how bad my addiction really is. My Alliance toons are on Sentinels and my Horde toons are on Wyrmrest Accord. One of these days I may try multi-boxing.

Love the show. All you Glanthur haters are just jealous that he's an Alliance pwner!

For the Alliance/Horde!

Prancelot

Character	Class	Level
Alliance Characters
Archard	Priest	72
Chronostat	Rogue	69
Chromaton	Death Knight	70
Damnum	Druid	70
Erbag	Mage	61
Gladiator	Warrior	77
Oakish	Hunter	27
Pentapolis	Warlock	71
Verus	Paladin	73

Character	Class	Level
Horde Characters
Archie	Hunter	76
Chrysos	Priest	72
Devian	Death Knight	59
Prancelot	Paladin	77
Sindoman	Warlock	26

Email #2 from Keegan the straight
hey still loving your show and Aprillian, i have never heard you say bad language before until i listened to BOE! i loved it! just thought i'd point out, if the BOE guys have alliance listeners that play on dubai'thas, wont they be expecting thewm to come and raid the cities? :(

Email #3 from Makiling

hey guys, Makiling here

thanks for talking about your loot system on episode 120, i was surprised and glad to hear about more loot systems out there. i was wondering if you can post a link in your show notes where you got them, or describing them so i can read up more about them.

in the last 2 weeks i killed 3 dragons for the first time. the first was malygos on a 10 man pug. i had only seen the youtube fight videos, but did not realize that the 3rd phaze was quite disorienting and we wiped a couple of times but eventually finished her. the next dragon was sapphiron on 10 man naxx. it was in another pug with the last 2 bosses remaining, and we one shotted both saph and kt, and i got the Champion of the Frozen Wastes title!

the 3rd dragon was Oyxia, we 5 manned him with a couple of 80 dks and druids and a 74 hunter. this leads me to my interesting discovery/tip: since bosses like onyxia have become quite easy, you might want to go and farm them for gear since the boss drops some boe stuff. i gave my lvl48 priest some pants that dropped from onyxia, and i would imagine that other alts would also benefit form her other drops.

of course this would all be invalidated if you went up the levels quick enough to get gear from outland and northrend, but since i dont play on my alt until i get all the stuff i want done on my main, it would be nice to get my alt some nice stuff to use.

finally i'd like to give a shoutout to Cannibal Brigade guild for inviting me to their 10 man ulduar run. i got in from the iron council to mimiron, and it was great considering it was my first time with the keepers!

for the horde!

Ashayo says: Check out Suicide Kings here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Suicide_Kings

Email #4 from Aleara

Hey Aprillian!

Seeing as how you are the multi-boxing maven *grin* I've been trying to find a decent add-on, or set of add-ons, for multi-boxing.

I thought I had heard of one, but for the life of me I can't remember the name.

As you may remember, I have two accounts/characters. I have trouble with the secondary toon loosing follow, quest acceptance, etc.

I appreciate your gentle patience with this funny old Hobbit. Hope to talk with you soon!

Your faithful Hobbit and Twitter buddy,
Aleara Jackley

http://wow.jafula.com/addons/jamba
Email #5 from Falkork

Hello the Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo.

My name is falkork I am a level 72 resto Druid on the Quel'Thals EU server. I have been absent from the PoH guild for A bit as I have had the itch to raid. I hit my deathknight who was 76 and 2 days of "Jeppy like" pure grinding and questing I hit the magic level of 80!!
Before I knew I was not only congratulated on my ding but my guildies had pulled together and got me a set of boe epic dps gear. The next day I was invited to a guild EoE (Maligos) and I am now hooked on raiding.

My next lift would be my beloved Druid and maybe one of my other 20 alts above 30 across 4 servers (I'm a altaholic but my attention span can't hanndle duel-boxing )-: )

Anyway miss hanging out with you guys (and lady) and hope to see you In /boe soon.

Falkork.
FOR THE ALLIANCE :-)

P.S. Love the show

Shout Outs & thank you's

Thank you #1 From Kurly

So how about this New England weather? Is it not awful!! I am thrilled that I won the draw and again I would like to donate 1 month of free WOW back to the show! Maybe you could use it to help refer a friend!!

I had four days off from work this past week and I was able to get my Druid, Viranelda, up to level 69 from 62. It was an interesting few days. I was able to level my skinning over 400, went from 50 gold to over 900 (I am not sure how that happened but yay!!!), and a kind donation from one of my buds allowed my to dual spec, and I chose resto (my primary spec is feral). I healed a few instances in the Outlands and I liked it a lot. Its very different from Priest heals, but, I think I have it worked out.

She is in Northrend now and has just started questing.

The other night 9 people from my guild went into various BG's and what a great time we had. We owned Warsong Gulch. It was great!

Thanks so much for the great Podcast!!

Kurly

Thank you #2 from Karen

Woot! I'd love the sandbox tiger if you still have it, it would be perfect for my main on Alliance side, Bast. As she's named after the Egyptian goddess of cats (and other things), she's collecting all things cats.

Just a quick note: my pet collector, Elsa, got her 75th pet with the scorchling and now has her little fawn. A big thanks to my guildie, Anodda, who gave me a cobra hatchling (my egg just refused to hatch into that). Elsa now has 77 pets, since she got her last Argent Tournament pet, the Mulgore Hatchling.

She may not be the most leet hunter out there, but she has a little fawn bounding after her.

Karen

MoMOments

Hello CtrlAltWow folks, Aprillian, Glanthur, and Ashayo.
Thank you once again for your wonderful work.

I am writing this email on a Monday, a day after I had yet another horrible experience on my priest healing heroics.
Well as Aprillian has stated previously, I too am not a big fan of Raiding but would not mind experiencing it.
I try my best to experience it when I have a chance and hope it is a good experience.
Heroics is, well kind of the same thing, I know to raiders (laughing cackling at me now) Heroics is a joke but for me they are pretty hard.
Also, if I can plug Xandarr's blog again: The Experienced Noob at http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/
I bring that up because I wrote for him a while back about knowing your limits.
Well of course you cant expect me to listen to myself so I do try to help out guildies when ever I can and forget about the noober gear and skills.
Last night, Sunday night, I was asked by a guildy to heal H CoS: Heroic Culling of Stratholme, very interesting, at times fun instance, which I hate doing on Heroics!
We had good dps, and a DK tank (first time tanking he/she told us after the instance) and tank did pretty well I think.

Long story short we started and after a few waves, I was doing ok but when (don't ask me the mini-bosses name because I don't know what it is) one of the mini-bosses comes out after a wave of mobs we downed, I was low in mana (one of my many problems) so tanked died = WIPE!!!

Repeat step 1. a couple of times, after I was told kindly by the group not to let the tank die, which I did not reply back because I think that is the point of a healer right? not sure I could be wrong!

Well one of the dps ers was a shadow priest, main spec being disc. healing with Naxx gear, WAY more heals than I had. This person, hope they don't mind me mentioning them, Zerroth switched to his disc spec to heal.
I switched to my shadow spec and we started again.
Things were ok, one or 2 semi wipes but the heals came through.
AND the dreaded post of recount was posted!!!
I wanted to ask my guildy what the FRAK (can you say this on your cast?) doing post that because I was last in dps with about 10% of total dps.
Yes I know, cant rely too much on recount but after the dps post, the healer, Zerroth, :)
asked in party chat: MO
I replied: Yes
At this point I am laughing and thinking what will be said, will I be kicked out of group, how I hate instancing, and thinking FM WOW L (you can use your imagination what that means and if you dont know I can email the BOE gang and let them know.

So I am expecting Zerroth to just let me have it and be all mean
BUT
WAIT
NO
This fine Chap was very helpful, he/she let me know what spells to use, what not to to raise my dps up to about 13-14% of dps, yes that still sucks but with greens/blues/and purple gear it was a great improvement and because of him I said I will check out discipline spec again for healing.

So Aprillian, there is hope for us as there are good people in wow and I don't think Zerroth listens to Ctrl Alt Wow but if I am able to get a roll for a prize this week, I would like Zerroth to get a chance; if not well I still appreciate the good/nice people of wow.

And I hope everyone is still awake and will say good day.

Thank you and happy wowing!

Shoutout No #1

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 121 - Baby Come Desecrate My Fire

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Respecced Jyz, got tired of her lagging behind. Found it was better to have them all have the horsey thing.

Ran around getting fires, completed Eastern Kingdom with Quad. Got ganked coming off the Grom Gol Zeppelin

Took Epril for JC & Fishing Dailies.

Decided to use my RAF for a bit. Took Tiiaa the 47 mage and Drame out for Flamage. They were in BB went to FP and saw Drame didn't have Stonard. Tiia hadn't trained Stonard portal yet. She got it and was able to bring Drame there who didn't have the FP. Spent break time get Drame and Tiiaa fires. Road from Razor Hill to Crossroads. Ally was killing FP over and over again.

Went to BlackRock spire.

Ashayo

Oracles - 2 x White Tickbird, Protodrake whelp, aged yolk

Spending alot of time on Midsummer Festival
- Experience points are *much* better at 71 than 70
Level 71 pally - 10050 exp for honoring horde flame / 20100 for desecrating
Level 70 DK - 6250 exp / 12640 for desecrating
- Ashield dinged 72 putting out fires
- With ones in Azeroth that I missed last year, and the fires in Northrend, Ashayo had enough blossoms to buy the clothes for the pole dance.
- Sold the shoulders back for 100 blossoms. (With the change that lets you get a refund for 1hr)
- You don't need to buy 40 Juggling Torch's. They are not consumed, so 10 is ample.
- When Midsummer started, I completed "A Thief's Reward" again (did it last year) and got [Crown of the fire festival]
- After they reset the quests, completed it again (without actually doing anything), and now have 3 of them!
- The bug fix reset all fires, even the ones I'd already done this year, so Ashayo went around and got another 350 to get the pet.
- You have to do the torch tossing and torch catching before you can use [Juggling Torch]
- Dual boxing fires - one on ER and one on Jube'thos
- Shadowthrone (PoH DK) did all the fires, and went that extra bit more and got the Flame Keeper title. 1st Title. 1st Tabard!

Argent Tournament
- Asheal - Exalted Champion of Sen'jin (Makes 10 Exalted reps) Just TB to go.

Ulduar - Won a new head peice! [Collar of the Wyrmhunter]
Naxx 25 full clear

Glanthur

Quiet week

Respeced to Blood on Arlaerum again. Going to stick with it this time

Had a guild meeting on the burning ship dangling in Howling Fjord

Still doing Argent Tournament dailies on Arlaerus

Got ganked on Glanthur while doing the fishing daily

Coryenne, a guild mate, pointed out a place to fish in Wintergrasp that's TECHNICALLY in Dragonblight 12, 40

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #1 from Inacan

Hello fine people of C-A-W.

Just a lil note to help April with her fishing.

When I fish I shrink down my screen for WOW and then watch TV on Hullu.com or something in another small window.

As long as you can click when u hear the bobber sound your golden.

I was able to watch the entire 2nd season of "The Guild" while leveling my Pali's fishing.

It kind of takes the boring out of leveling fishing.

Happy Fishing,

Inacan

Email #2 from LANVAL

Good morning Aprillian and Glanthur. Good afternoon Ashayo :P
My name is Lanval and I am a Human Paladin from the Durotan server.
I send you this email in response to Aprillian's request for the listeners to share their raid's looting rules. Well, I believe that my guild has a very successful looting system. Keep in mind we are a Casual Raiding guild. I don't think it has a fancy name or anything but it goes like this:
You are allowed to /roll on 2 pieces for Main Set, 2 for Off Set and 1 Tier Set. If the gear reaches to last call (meaning no one rolls main or offset) then anyone is free to roll as long as you can use it. If not, it is then disenchanted and the crystal is thrown into the guild bank. Now, some classes do NOT have an off spec like almost all strict DPS classes which include rogues, hunters, mages, etc. so, they get 2 Main Set and 1 Tier Set. For the most part we are all friends and dont argue with loot so if a DPS wants to roll on a third piece, they are usually given permisson to roll in order compensate for their non off-spec-ness? Sure I'll make up that word. BUT, others are given priority over the item if its a main set.
So, in conclusion, DKP sucks :P

Keep up the awesome job. Love the podcast!

FOR THE ALLIANCE!
-LANVAL

-HAVE A NICE DAY! :)

Email #3 from Kurly

Hello boys and gurl. Sorry I have not been in touch. You havent seen me on POH for awhile (Kurliemoo and Ahbygsissie) as I have been leveling a Druid on another sever. She is one of my oldest toons and after my priest hit 80 I spent a lot of time playing all kinds of toons, and had a great time. For the time being I have focused my efforts on her and I have been having a lot of fun!

My Priest was able to purchase her the shoulders found in Wintergrasp (the ones that are bind on account and its stats go up with each level), and between thost, being rested, and the Summer Flame Festival exp boost are managing to get about 50% of exp each time I play. I have spec'd her Feral, and are looking forward to dual spec'ing resto.! This, of course, would require that I make and are able to hold on to more than the 100g I have thus far. I had about 600 when I hit 60, but used it purchase a "very fat mount"....so much for using the Druid travel form...bummer...I like that cheetah but its not fast enough as of now.

I am also having a lot of fun in Battle grounds on my priest! I have racked up about 760 points of resilience and tend to annoy the stuffing out of rogues who can no longer kill him in two shots. Now, I am able to fend a rogue off long enough to get help or irk them enough to move on...great fun! I am wicked excited for the new battle ground the recent purchase of a video card had completely changed the way I play the game, and I cant believe how gorgeous it is!!

Anywho...enough of my WOW for now. You guys are the best!!

So long now from another New Englander!!!

Kurly

Email #A from Turbos

Hey everybody!!

I got my Ctrl Alt WoW contest prize in the mail today!! I have to admit, I did check the mail practically everyday since I won, but you all have such great timing. The day I got my prize was the day I got the last part I needed to finish building my new computer!!

Thanks for the advice Ashayo. I got the ati card and its working perfectly. I'm also running wow on windows 7 and it runs much smoother than it did on vista! I am a mac person at heart, but it seems my wallet usually leans towards the pc ><

I also wanted to thank you April. In the last two weeks I started selling pets on the neutral AH and have made 500g already!!

I'm still working my way through all the archives. I'm almost exactly 1 year behind, and I have to say the show is tons better with Ashayo, but it I miss Glanthur so much, I'm glad he's back full time now in the current podcasts Okay, I almost like you that much Glanthur.

I did have one quick question though for you all though, I did just finish building my new computer, but I haven't decided which kvm switch to get or if I should just keep my current set up with 2 keyboards and 2 mice .... mouses ... ??? Any suggestions?

Email #4 from Saakin

Hello ctraltwow crew!

I have been listening to the show for a while now and I love it. When you guys talk about what you guys do in game is awesome. If you guys could talk for hours and hours I would listen to it. Since work is so mundane I would really enjoy an 8 hour show :). I could always dream. And BAH! To the person who said your show is too long. Hey, there is a thing called pause. I have a couple stories to share with you that may bring a smile to your faces :).

When you guys said in the future that people would be talking about downing what boss at the water cooler and look away to the person who watches TV. Interesting enough this is similar to my present. At work there is a group of us who would sit at lunch and talk about our wow stories, talents and theorycraft. We are all at different levels of play casual, casual raiding and hardcore raiding. The funny thing is we all play priests on all different servers :D. Sometimes other people who aren't in the know would tag along with us to lunch and stare at us blankly when we talked about wow. Ya know we would try to include them into our conversations about sports and tv but that would only go so far and the topic would always go back to wow. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the we don't feel weird that we are gamers it's who we are. And no one can change that.

My next story is about my wife. I have been playing wow since day 1. I met my wife, my girlfriend then, a year after wow came out. I couldn't play as much as wanted to since my attentions changed to her. She knew of my addiction and learned to deal with it. In those first couple of years on nights when she would come over and hang out she would understand that it was raid time and whatnot. She would just chill on the couch and watch tv while I played. Over the years it was stream of balances between her and wow. More attentions to her of course. Until the inevitable happened I bought her an account. We decided to level together and I would help her through it. I picked a priest and she, a hunter. We leveled and leveled and soon she was addicted. So addicted in fact, she passed me in leveling. I think it was at the moment she picked up Giggity, the original tiger skin from stv and has kept him through many battles in Kara,Tempest keep, Ulduar,
Bgs and Arenas. Giggity has always been at her side. There many other pets she would say but there is only one Giggity. The funnest moments i have in wow is with her. I smile everytime when we run things together and hear, "Wheres my heals? Where's Giggity's heals? Oh if you let Giggity die your sleeping on the couch!" And now she is leveling an alt Mage that is level 79. And i know laughter and fun times will ensue. I have created a monster and I love it. She won't admit that she is a gamer but come on. What do you guys think?

Sorry for the wall of text. I would like to give a shoutout to my wife Unaa 80 Draenei survival hunter on Deathwing - US. We celebrated our 1 year anniversary on June 22. I love and thank her everyday for being with me. If you can just read the shoutout, she would get a kick out of it.

Saakin
Holy Priest Deathwing US of

Shout Outs & itunes Reviews

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 120 - WTB Clothes for Burning Hot Pole Dance

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Got Enchanting up on my DK on Jubethos, and working on Inscription on Aprillian. Did cool down on cloth on Aprillian on ER

Fishing, fishing fishing
Had to go to a funeral on Friday, interacting with family, particularly in regards to WoW was draining and infuriating. Brother made fun of intro so I turned it off. Sat I listened to Epic Dolls Episode 67 Out of Game Relationships and Leela and Catarina touched on many of the same things I was feeling.

Ashayo

Glanthur

Blood or Unholy. Discuss.

Argent Crusade changes...I'm looking forward to the Silver Covenant hippogriff. That's the mount I THOUGHT I was getting with my 150 champion marks. Oh well. I guess I'll have two hippogriffs.

Patch 3.2 Changes - not really being affected that much.

iPhone debacle!

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #0 from Bryson

Hey guys! just entering in the drawing for a free month of WoW! thanks!

Comment #1 from Aleara

Name: Aleara http://alearajl.blogspot.com

Aprillian! Ace Ventura?? It’s not just a guy thing…I used to be a big fan of the first movie. The second, not so much, but it was okay. lol

Austin Powers? *sigh* Doesn’t your hubby let you out??? lol

Love the show, however.

See you on in PoH!!!!!!!

Email #A from Ariisa

Greetings once again Aprillian, Ashayo, and Glanthur,

Thank you so much for choosing my email to win your contest. I would gladly accept the 30 day free wow timecard, and tell everyone I know about your show.

As for Ashayo....since you had such a difficult time saying, Ffffffor the Alliance, It must be said..... Oracle report, First egg........ Green Proto-Drake Mount. :)

Alliance ftw!

Keep up the great show. I look forward to many more.
Ariisa Resto Shaman

Email #2 from Karen
Just wanted to drop a quick note to say that we'd love to hook up with Secondaid when he's here at Blizzcon. We'll be there both days, taking the family and the guild (5 out of the 6 full time members will be there). Two of our guildies are staying at a hotel right next to the convention center. My family will be traipsing home each night to deal with the menagerie we have at home. So, pass on my email address to him or however you want to set that up.

I'm settling into a schedule of work and play time now and feel like I'm making some progress with my toons, just can't play as many as I usually like to, but concentrating on a few seems to do the trick. On the horde side my highest level toon, Elsa, level 80 Hunter and pet collector, is doing the Argent Tournament, making money and buying pets. The only one she has left to buy is the Mulgore Hatchling. I'm working on leveling up my Resto/Boomkin druid, who's level 62 now and having a blast, especially when he's running instances with his DK buddies. On the alliance side, I'm trying to get my level 75 warrior, Bast, up to 77 so she can start the argent tournament and start earning some gold on that side. These last couple of levels seem really slow, but I'm making progress.

And, I have a story about why you should play WoW with your niece (or maybe nephew). I got a whisper from my niece, who left our little casual guild for a raiding guild, asking how long I was going to be on that evening. I said awhile, why did she ask? She was helping her guild put together an OS run and wanted to know if I was interested. Well, I had to look up what OS was since I was pretty sure it didn't stand for Operating System as in Mac OS X :-) and I said, Count me in and do you have space for your Uncle as well? She did and we headed to Obsidian Sanctum, that's the one with all the dragons.

We only had 17 people, we were doing it on heroic (which I only found out when I got the achievement at the end) and me and my husband were terribly undergeared, but we helped a little with our measly dps and tried not to die too often. Those walls of flame are easy to see, hard to avoid. And we prevailed.

I had one very noob moment where I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to get back in the first time I died and held up the raid because of that, but I eventually found my way. It was a great experience, but might be too much for our older nerves, though the group we ran with was very well organized and well spoken.

And we got to go because of my niece, so a shout out to Vanderios in Run to the Door on Arathor, thanks for inviting Auntie Elsa and Uncle Apropos to the raid and to your guildies for being so welcoming.

Karen

Email #3 from Dragster

Dear, ctrl alt wow crew when i play i usualy keep focused on one character at a time but then i want to play another class and reroll from,Dragster P.S. if i win give glanther an ally mini!

Email #B from Vala

Hello Guys
Valathilia here

Well I want to start off by saying I hope all of you had a good week. :) So this week was really boring all I did was level my paladin which I am hoping to have him be 80 soon. I also paid for my best friends and azok's lv60 mounts. Even though Blizz is lowering the price in the next patch I didn't want to wait. Well great podcast and keep up the great work.

For the horde
-vala

Email #4 Makiling

hey guys, Makiling here to tell you some stories from my WoW week

i find it sad that april has no intention of raiding as from the last episode. but i completely understand her, as i felt that raiding takes a certain level of commitment to do. i consider myself as a casual player, but as it turns out, raiding as it is now can accommodate people like me. i think this is because there are a lot of other people like me, who would like to see endgame content but cant play full time, and the game has enough material for us.

i have a question for glanthur and ashayo, how do you distribute loot in your guild raids? in the past few weeks, i have been getting guild invites from people in the pugs that i join in. the thought of being in a group that regularly clears raids is really tempting, but i am hesitant because the thought of using dkp or other loot distribution system is a turn off. and i think this is mainly because of my casual gameplay. i would rather gamble on a roll to a loot, and possibility of getting ninja'd. thats my 2 cents on that, what do you guys think?

earlier this week i got into karazhan for the very first time. it was a pug that wanted to farm the recipes and get the achivement, and i have to say that it was a really awesome raid instance! i finally understood what all the rave and contrast to the present content was about. it was nicely done and the bossess were really creative.

i got Northrend Dungeonmaster and Northrend Dungeon Hero this week after doing Heroic Halls of Stone and Heroic Old kingdom. i finally understood why it was so hard to find a pug for these. i died more times in old kingdom than in my first time with emalon!

finally i'd like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to all the dads and to my friend Dambuhala who celebrated his brithday yesterday.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 119 - IRL The Fifth Continent of Azeroth

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.

Europe can get the iphone/ipod touch app on the store

What We've Been Doing:

Excited about:
AIR DATES
August 21-22, 2009

Internet Pay Per View includes:

* Over 16 hours of live Internet streaming coverage

* Exclusive interviews and commentary

* Exclusive interviews and commentary

* Main stage presentations including opening ceremony

* Tournament coverage and team highlights

* BlizzCon 2009 exclusive World of Warcraft in-game pet, Grunty the Murloc Marine.*

Mid Summer Fire Festival Starts 6/21

Aprillian

Finally hit on 300 on mining/skinning and herb. Headed out to Outland, going silly ways. Having a hard time deciding home places.

Did Hellfire Ramparts and .. with Grimrok and Pird. Excellent run. Good loot, every toon I had dinged.

Fri morning Power trained V in Enchanting, got her from 70 to 240. Used mats bought on ally AH with pet money.

Ran RFK and RFD with Mibechina had a blast.

Took my alliance toon to Exador to get an elephant. While there, I decided to see if I could find a blood elf mask, and found the blood elf almost right away and he dropped the mask. Amazing.

Getting ganked while doing Neutral AH is a pain.

Ashayo

Oracle Report: 3 x white tickbird, 1 x proto-drake whelp (still miss a heart beat when I get the whelp)

Ashield & Anomander in Borean Tundra. Anomander hit 70 - first DK to do so.
Engineers can "mine" mechanicals to get some basic engineer mats, such as handful of bolts.
Deadlyvyv has taken up tanking. Healed Nexus on pally.

Bought an Elwynn Lamb off neutral AH for 1800g - bargain!

Asheal 25-man naxx - tier shoulders to make 4-set bonus. Maui & I managed to 2-priest Instructor Razuvious
Killed Thaddius after he enraged (normally is insta-wipe)
Full clear again. (Welcome back Onassi!)

Ashayo 25-man Ulduar - Flame Leviathan, X2, Kologarn, Razorscale, Ignis the furnace master
Heroic: Shattered - Defeat Ignis after shattering 2 Iron Constructs within 5 seconds
The Siege of Ulduar - 4 bosses
No cloth ; a caster ring - rolled a 7. go me!

Power Auras Classic mod ; http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx

Plenty of Pants on Head fun. Ran Blood Furnace again with some low 60's. Shadowthrone hits 68 - and is off to Northrend!

Hiide's pet bear was untalented. Noticed after I kept wiping on Chillmaw after the pet died.

Lowbie action! Ran Zul Gurub on my mage. The turtle polymorph book dropped, but as there were 4 mages, I passed. But I did win Hakkar's heart, which is a nice trinket.
Run through Maraudon by Retsmile with Solador and Ostira on alts. Soooo rusty on the shaman!

Power Auras Classic mod ; http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx

Glanthur

- Got to level 67 on Arlaerum

- A couple more days until the Argent Hippogriff

- Missed a lot of raids due to real-life

Bladed Edge

Hey all, Blade here...
First... allow me to be JUST a little controversial... it seems that the upcoming patch changes bode well for mounts.
Your first mount (the +60% speed one) will be obtainable at level 20. For a LOT less gold than we paid way back in the day...
Yeah... level 20.
Why not "right away upon character creation"?
Apparently THAT would make things "EASY"...
The 100% land speed mount will be available at level 40... yes level 40... for a lot less gold than we paid for it way back in the day...
Ahh... Ol' Blade remembers when level 40 was THE level to get to... 'cause THAT was when you got your 60% mount.
And it was awesome.
Ah well... what's the point of working towards goals anymore, right?
But I was gnashing about mounts... back to that...
Wait for it... it gets better.
The slower of the two flying mounts (the one that we bought at level 70 that flew at an abysmally slow 60% land speed) will now fly at 150% of your land speed (60% while on the ground), cost significantly less than they did before - with prices being conditional to the faction reputation levels - and is available AT 60!
Yes... you heard me... level 60 is the new flying mount level-to-reach.
Gee... I wonder what class spurred THAT little amendment to the game...
The 280% (and up) speed flying mounts are still a level 70 property... with faction reputation affecting the prices here as well.
Anyone else feel like they're spoon-feeding us?
I mean... okay... granted... places like Outland are a little tedious to get around when you only have a 60% land speed mount... but who goes there before 60 these days anyway?
Give me a break... What player CAN'T get to level 20 in just under a few hours if they push? Half a day of play and you have you mount already!
A few more days in, and you're riding faster! Level 60 and you can fly!
Think about all the content in Outland that people are going to skip over because they simply cannot see it. That somewhat-treacherous run between Hellfire Peninsula and the Zangarmarsh? Not so threatening anymore when you can fly over the whole enchilada after a few measly quests in Hellfire... assuming you didn't stay in vanilla Azeroth until 60.
Apologies, True Believers, it's not often Ol' Blade gets a burr in his side about these things... but how much easier can they make things?
What's next?
Every new toon rolled gets a free level 80 epic weapon... JUST for being a Death Knight?
I mean... should we now THANK all the QQing Death Knight players who are kvetching their little hearts out that they couldn't fly in Outland as soon as they rolled their characters?
(oops... and non-DKs... let me not be discriminatory to those who play characters who actually have to do more for dps output than /rollface on their keyboards...
Although... the murmurings on the wind say that a certain kind of Shaman can melt the face of an equally-geared DK...
Was there a sudden patch change that Ol' Blade missed? Or are Shammy players uncharacteristically quiet about their buff... so as to both AVOID the nerf bat (when other classes QQ) and PWN the DKs at their leisure?
Mysterious... Ol' Blade's gonna find this elusive Death Shaman and get the dirt on them...
Get it? Dirt? Earth totems?
/sigh

Ah well...

Onward!

From the Dirty Little tricks Department...
Let's talk professions... everyone knows (or should know) that in order to make decent amounts of money (at least BEFORE Blizzard made making gold so easy that all you have to do now is /roll your face on your keyboard...
Wait...
Is THAT why people made Death Knights? To make easy money?!?
It all makes SENSE now!
...
Well not really...
But... these days... with daily quests all OVER the place... it's SO easy to make gold that it's not really worth having two gathering professions... and maybe that's why Blizzard planned it that way...
Not a lot of trick this week... this time Ol' Blade is going to leave it up to you... you gotta do a little snooping on your own... but there's TONS of websites out there that
Awww... fine... here's a few items that are rather invaluable for certain classes at certain levels for certain quests...
For the lower-levels... let's look at engineering... the Deadly Blunderbuss is always an item that is sought after, as it is a quest-item requirement for a quest in Ashenvale... at least it is on Horde side... it's been a long time since I did anything in Ashenvale with the Alliance other than pwn the Astraanar guards...

orc.mp3

For you tailor-types... Warlocks need a robe called 'Robes of Arcana' in order to complete a quest chain to acquire a fairly decent at-level cloth item called Enchanted Gold Bloodrobe... Aprillian should recall where to pick up the pattern for the Robes of Arcana...
Jewelcrafters... as soon as you can, buy the pattern for ANY of the epic rings or necklaces with your daily quest Jewelcrafting Tokens... the price difference between the materials (even bought off the Auction House) and the final Auction-sold rings (or necklaces) is still really nice... especially if you;re a few thousand gold short of buying whatever it is you need several thousand gold to guy...
Pretty much ANY epic armor or weapon will make a blacksmith SOME money... the prices have come down a little since the launch of the Lich King expansion, but dropping the occasional Titansteel Destroyer onto the Auction House is still a decent side revenue if you don't have the game time to sit and do tons of daily quests...
The trick here, folks, is to find a small niche... and explot--- err... milk it. It may not make you a constant stream of money, it may make you money only once before the revenue from it dries up... but there's money to be gained by people who are willing to spend it.
The trick is... giving them what they want and making them think it's invaluable.

Onward!

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...
For a bit of nosthalgia... Ol' Blade's taking you back to the old world...
Waaaaaaay back in the days before Northrend and arenas... heck... even Blood Elves and Space Goats... err.. Draenei... the profession skill maximum level was 300. Now that's not all THAT remarkable, except when you stop to think about the fact that there were two NPC mobs in the game that required a skinning skill level of 310 or 315 to skin them!
Everyone's favorite five-minute boss - Onyxia - and a creature known as The Beast in Upper Blackrock Spire.
Now... how did we do it back then? With our teeth?
We had a little help back then... when you downed The Beast - which was a fairly significant thing back in the day - it dropped an item - a dagger - called Finkle's Skinner. Having a look at the item description - it adds +10 to skinning!
Hey... it was a big thing back in the day... it was essentially required in order to skin the hound... and the drop rate at first wasn't 100%... so sometimes you COULD skin The Beast... and sometimes (as luck would have it) you couldn't.
The thing about Finkle's Skinner is that it's the property of Finkle Einhorn... it even says so in the item description.
This little treasure makes an off-hand reference to the movie Ace Venture: Pet Detective... Ace Ventura (played by Jim Carrey, a fellow Canadian) makes the revelation that "Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is Finkle!"isted as property of Finkle Einhorn, alluding the revelation in Ace Ventura- "Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is Finkle!" in discovering that the character Ray Finkle had assumed the identity of Lois Einhorn - a female detective.
You had to be there...

Next, let's talk about Mojo, baby...
No, no... we're not DIRECTLY referencing Austin Powers (the Mike Meyers series of movies... incidentally, Meyers is another Canadian)... but you might think we were when we're finished...
See... Mojo is a rare blue frog non-combat pet that you can only get from the Zul'Aman instance... and it's not easy.
See... you have to have an Amani Hex Stick (they drop from the trash mobs in Zul'Aman) and THEN you have to use it on a Forest Frog. Sometimes the frog will transform into a chest or into a limited-supply humanoid vendor... but SOMETIMES... if you're LUCKY, you'll get Mojo, baby!
yeah.mp3

The frog will appear in your inventory without any rolling from the raid! Yay!
It gets better... if you /kiss Mojo, he will transform you into a frog for 15 seconds and start whispering sweet nothings in your ear!

I thought you'd never ask!
This won't take long, did it?
I promise not to give you warts...
There's just never enough Mojo to go around...
Your lily pad or mine?
Now that's what I call froggy-style!
Feelin' a little froggy, are ya?
Listen, , I know of a little swamp not too far from here...

Naughty!

oh.mp3

As always... an awesome podcast guys!

Loremaster Blade

Emails

Email #A From Villathalla
Hello guys
Valathilia here
So I hope you all had a great week :)
Well to start off I had too switch guilds due to the my old guild leader disbanded the guild and took all items from the tabs...talk about a jerk LOL oh well I found a great guild that's barely starting to raid so it's kinda great :) btw I am gonna start selling the horde champion pets to the alliance but I am going to use my alliance toon to promote them, can I get in trouble or will it be ok?well thanks for everything and love the podcast
- peace
Vala

Email #1 From Ariisa
Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo, and Glanthur,

Just wanted to drop a quick note to say how much I enjoy the show, and to say "Thank You" for taking the time to bring the goodness of wow to so
many others.

Looking forward to the possibility of the ctrl+alt+wow trio unleashed on BOE :)
(come on boys you can do it too!)

Ariisa, Resto Shaman
For the Alliance!!

Email #2 from makiling

hey guys, this is makiling

real life has been hectic for me, so i had just listened to episode 118 yesterday. all i can say is that i hope you never get tired of reading my letters on your show. and in return i will do my best to provide you with my own stories about wow that i want to share with the community.

a lot has happend in the past few weeks in wow, not all of them happy. my friend who introduced me to wow has decided to cancel his account. he said he had to choose between WoW and WoW minis, because the tournament schedule and raiding times were in conflict and he chose to play WoW minis. our guildies were surprised, and saddend by the loss of our tauren tank and shammy healer. but he was more than that to me and so i comfort myself with the thought that although he may not be with us online, he is only a phone call away from me..

i played with my priest and got her to lv 40 and dualspecced shadow and holy. i must agree that healing instances with healbot makes it quite easy. i must say tho that playing as a healer takes a different mind set. i just hope that there will be enough people that want to run instances in the long grind lv 58.

my main (lvl 80 mage) has also seen a lot of action this week. i got into normal and heroic ulduar pugs and got an upgrade to my belt! however, i felt bad at one point because i rolled for a cloth helm (that turned out to be a healing helm) and won. so if the priest who was in our raid is listening to this, i just want to say that im really sorry. we got to deconstructor in heroic and auriaya in normal. it was really fun and in grateful that the leaders were forgiving enough to let me join. i can finally relate to your ulduar stories in the show, yay!

i also got to lead my first raid pug this week. i wanted to start a heroic OS, so i got a healer and a tank in LFG, ad filled the rest of the spots. it was an interesting experience of getting multiple simultaneous WIM (wow instant messenger) windows pop up in my screen and scrambling to reply and invite people. it gave me an appreciation to what raid leaders in pugs do, and i salute all who do this and pull it off! we got to 21 members and the majority decided to go do it. i got summoned last, and we pulled off OS with 0 drakes =)

those were the highlights of my WoW week.

looking forward to your next show!

MoMoments

Hi,
so sorry I have missed emailing the last 2 episodes but would like to take this email to comment on the last episode, #118.

To what Ashayo stated, about your spells on your action bar are not the up to date spells and ranks, so true!
It happened to me on my priest; he hit 80 and has dual spec holy and shadow.
I wanted to try out Disc spec so I went to the trainer and paid him 20 gold!!! and hated every minute.
So once I respecced and was working on my disc action bars, I noticed the same thing Ashayo noticed: the (I think it is) Prayer of Fortitude, the one where you buff the group with stam/spirit. Well it always needed Sacred Candles and I had 80 of them! Yet on the action bar it was red 0 = I had not reagent.
I hovered over it and it said I needed devout candles!!! WHAT!!! Whats next pumpkin nutmeg pie candle!?! (dont tell anyone I have one of those at work all the time! hey there is nothing wrong with that!) Well to end this long story, I had to fix all of my spells as there were not up dating and I do not know if it has to do with dual spec.
Now I need to check all of my 60+characters, well maybe just the ones I play.

Ok now onto the statement Aprillian made: "Raiding is not for me" and the reasons you mentioned = I AGREE!!!

To me nothing is worse than you see in LFG " LFM for Naxx, link your stats, spec, gear, SSN, DOB, your salary history....."

Well I am the same way, if I cannot get into Naxx or whatever you know I am fine with that too.

Some one asked me and I also heard it on a podcast: if you dont raid what do you do?"

Well believe it or not WoW is more than raiding or even instancing I believe.

Without going into all the details, which Aprillian knows many of the things we all can do besides the precious Raiding,
and as I commented on @brigwyn blog, there is no one right way to play. This will be a long lasting argument,
discussion, whatever you may want to call it.

So Aprillian I am glad you are one of our designated representatives as there will always be more non-raiders than raiders.

Now as you mentioned, if we all can find a nice group, guild, or pair up with our friends than I think it will be a fun experience.

Now I need to get back to work as I am writing this at work.

Thank you again for a great work week in and out to all of you and all of our wonderful hardworking podcasters.

If you can once again plug our good friend Xandarr and his blog: The Experienced Noob (http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/), Thank you.

Take care all till next time
--
Mo

Monday, June 8, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 118 - Status Update

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.

Special Guest ElJeppy of http://tengnomes.blogspot.com/ and Rawrcast http://rawrbitchrawr.blogspot.com/ and updates on http://twitter.com/eljeppy

And our Blizzcon reporter Secondaid http://twitter.com/secondaid

What We've Been Doing

Aprillian

Futureflow said Aprillian and Elyte have terrible specs.

Ganking in STV and Tauren Mills

Can't decide what to do with the DK's. Decided to get gathering professions to 300, i.e. 1 miner, herbalist and skinner and then head to the portal.

Doing JC, cooking and fishing dailies Sun in between levelling DK's on PVP. Lag on ER in Dalaran was crazy, check my video settings and they were turned up to the max. Reset them to medium, no lag and still beautiful picture.

Aprillian did the pup daily for the first time. She'll have to do it more often.

Took my ally alt on the PVP server to Dolanar to get the spider recipe.

Played around with Bartender4

Levelling up the DK's Professions. Went into BRD with a POH guildie and again the next night with the guildie and 2 teenage boys.

Went back again Fri morning, first with a POH guildie and then finished with just my 4. It was great. I love that area

Missed a couple of days of JC/cooking/fishing dailies, did log on Aprillian to do cloth cd and did a JC daily on Sat.

Discovered Burning Steppes on 2Dk on Sat. It was so much fun. Got ganked by a level 80. Found a guy in a corner with a quest for BRD

Sun morn, before getting going on the 4DK, did JC daily on Epril on ER, and ran Auctioneer on all

Ashayo

Went over monthly cap ; extreme lag on Earth Ring. Despite Oceanic realm being in USA, was high, but acceptable. Except hearthing to Dalaran causes disconnect.

3.1.3 - Nothing of note

talentchic and glyphchic are now www.wowpopular.com, and also includes gear, enchants and gems.

Oracles: yolk, 2 x cobra hatchling, white tickbird

Jekle H HoL - Greedy achievement - but so did Ralff and he won dagger!

AT - Jekle earned Exalted Champion of Sen'jin
- Should be an achievement for joust the 4 champions without healing between each fight!
- Hiide dings 80.. and becomes Champion of Thunder Bluff - and Exalted with Thunderbluff, Exalted Champion of TB, and 5 Exalted factions (courtesy of Champion's writ)
- Asheal - Asheal of Silveroon

J&H got up to The Drakkensryd quest - leaping from drake to drake. Was going to leave Hiide on the quest, but it's hard to kill them in melee as a hunter.

Started questing on DK / Pally duo.

Naxx 10 - Took Jekle as Boomkin with the awesome DwP raid group. Gear galore! Did Arachnid , Plague and most of Construct.
- Watchful eye - offhand hit rating
- Caster legs and bracers
- Feral staff and bracers
- Tier shoulders!
- Safety Dance first time!

Noticed some weird things with Druid action bars - Gift of the wild wasn't highest rank on my resto bars. On a hunch, went back to trainer.
As Boomkin, he didn't offer anything. But toggling spec to resto, he offered higher rank of wild growth.

Realised that Asheal had overtaken Ashayo in gear rating. Asheal had enough emblems of valor to buy the cloth wrist peice, which are BoE.

Dual-boxed nearly 3 quarters of Naxx-25. Apart from the Safety Dance, not that hard.
Was a few DPS short, so brought in Ashayo. Basically put Asheal on follow and setup a couple of macros to cast Prayer of Healing and Greater Heals on main tank.
Nearly lived through safety dance, but follower died with about 5 seconds to go. Healing Loatheb is really easy

Pants on Head fun - 5 DK's in Blood Furnace - Grimrok was 80, so far too easy. Vyv, Cypher and Gribbles
Did it so easily, we tropped off to Slave Pens and wiped that clean as well! Followed by Underbog the next night.
Then had a crack at ZG! 8 DK's and a mage walk into ZG and whooped ass, until we got to Hakkar...

Glanthur

/cast [target=focus] Sacred Shield

/cast [target=focus] Beacon of Light

/cast [target=Arlaerus] Sacred Shield

Continued raiding in Naxx 25

Missed out on some stuff this week due to real-life.

Arlaerus and Glanthur are done with Argent Tournament for a bit

Arlaerum is level 63 now. Waiting for more rested XP before continuing again

Bladed Edge

Hey all... Blade here...

It's all about Raids.
See... Ol' Blade is in the position where he doesn't get to go on raids... hardly *ever*... so any time I GET invited to a raid... it's a nervous-making proposition...
Here *I* am... *clearly* under-geared in comparison to these harder-core members of the raid... I'm in blues and some low-grade purples... they raid three or more times a week and are fully epic'd out.
So I want an 'edge. (Doesn't everybody?) How can I come close to performing adequately enough to be possibly invited back as more than just 'eye candy'?
Not that Ol' Blade doesn't cut it as a magnificent specimen of eye-candy... but still what to do to get invited back to a raid?
Be prepared... have your potions ready to be consumed... have your armor fully repaired, be as buffed up as you can get - it shows a certain level of initiative...
Oh... and to my fellow stalkers-of-shadows...
Let's talk poisons.
No no... you aren't going to murder the Raid Leader in some sort of Shakespearean homage and take his place... Ol' Blade is merely talking about just applying the poisons to your weapons... what you DO with the weapons after that is up to YOU, my fellow rogues...

orc.mp3

#showtooltip Deadly Poison VII
/use Deadly Poison VII
/use [button:2] 17;16

The first macro allows you to left-click it to apply the poison to your main hand... right-click the macro and the poison (in this case Deadly VII) will be applied to your off-hand.
If you left-click the macro, it applies Deadly Poison to your Main Hand, or if you Righ-click it, it applies to your Off Hand. I also made a slightly more robust version of the macro so that you need less macro icons in your UI for all your poisons:
We can even gussy it up a little... with more than one poison option... simply by adding an option to press the shift key...

#showtooltip [modifier:shift] Crippling Poison II; Deadly Poison VII
/use [modifier:shift] Crippling Poison II; Deadly Poison VII
/use [button:2] 17;16

Play with those a little... and you can even add a third or fourth key option (like Ctrl or Alt... wow!)

Get it?

/sigh

And... a little raid-minded nudge for my fellow practitioners of the stealthy arts... when you're running solo, you're probably quite adept about acquiring a little more free money through the "five-finger-discount" of pocket-picking your humanoid targets...
But what about when you're raiding?
How often do you remember to pick the pockets of the humanoid trash mobs?
When you're standing shoulder-to-shoulder with uber-celebrities like Ashayo, Aprillian or Glanthur of Ctrl Alt WoW... Maui and Gerp (Randy and Scott from TheInstance Podcast)... Wemb, Wych and Temp from the BindOnEquip podcast... or just standing beside such radiant beauties as Aprillian and Tempeste... If you're like Ol' Blade... you end up forgetting ALL the time...

orc.mp3

Most of the time, rogues start a combat scenario stealthed... and a lot of the time, you can manage to get into a nice position before you engage the mob (I.E.: jump OUT of stealth)...
Ol' Blade has his own specific macro for THAT kind of scenario... but for most raiding-style rogues, you've specc'd a little differently... but still use daggers...
'Cause Ambush is a disgusting opening move.
So here's one for a would-be Ambushing raiding rogue:

/cast Pick Pocket
/Stopcasting
/cast Ambush

Two hits of the button, and you never forget to rifle the target's pockets before you stick him between the ribs!

Onward!

From Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...

Yeah... with all these rogue macros... like Ol' Blade, you too should be staring into the mirror at a whole lot of awesomeness!
Speaking of mirrors... I'm reminded of a few references to the movie The Matrix... you know the one...

kung_fu.mp3

We've all seen the occasional item that makes us chuckle or smile... it usually mostly vendor loot that we sell without a moment's hesitation... but sometimes this stuff has a little more resonance...

Like some of the stuff that you can find in Northrend - specifically, if you're lucky while fishing in Dalaran, you'll fish up a key that unlocks the trunk near the entrance to the Violet Hold instance... *then* you might be lucky enough to find some [Crude Eating Utensils]...
Look closely at the caption...
"There is no spoon."

spoon_boy.mp3

Would it break your faith in the Matrix, true believers, if Ol' Blade told you that I, infact, FOUND the non-existant spoon?

[Bent Spoon] http://thottbot.com/i5370

Truth is... that little gem can drop from just about any humanoid in the later-teens levels... in Ghostlands, Barrens, Westfall... or any other similar place!

Or... maybe Ol' Blade just PUT it there to mess with your minds...
Hotwired into the Matrix, Ol' Blade is...
Whoa.mp3

Here's a little extra one for everyone...
Go to your World of Warcraft folder (I can't recall where it is on a Mac... but on a PC, it's your C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft)... then open the \Data\enUS\Documentation folder and check out each of the manuals.
Not only is there a wealth of information there for people who are just starting to play... perhaps some good reminders for those of us who have been playing from around the game's inception... but there are also some little extra 'gems'...
LIke this one:
Open the manual for the Lich King expansion... then scroll down to the 'Special Thanks'...
There's one 'thank you' that kinda stood out to me...
A thanks to:

HanSolo for shooting first
blaster.wav

That it's for now... as always... an awesome podcast, guys!

Livin' on the 'Edge... this is Loremaster Blade... leaving the Matrix for another week...
leave_matrix.mp3

Emails

Email #1 from Karen

After much analysis and several strategy sessions, my guild sat down this morning to try and get Blizzcon tickets. We had our battlenet accounts set up, we had our payment method entered, we were logged in to the store and on the ticket page. At 9:55 we started hitting command-r to refresh the page, while hovering our cursor over the spot the button would appear (knowing that we shouldn't take the time to choose 5 tickets, just mash the button).

The page came up and I hit the button: queue position 68, pretty good, I thought, until my husband yelled from across the room that he was in position #1.

He was in immediately, changing the quantity, putting in his security code, making the purchase (while narrating it to me) and we have 5 tickets for our guild to go to Blizzcon.

So, if you'd like the mature gamer's take on Blizzcon this year, I'll be there and would be happy to write up or maybe even record something.

Karen

Email #A Turbos
Hey Everybody!

How was your week? Sorry I missed the show this last week, I was out visiting family in CA, but don't worry I'll be all caught up by the next show. I only noticed myself really missing WoW once while I was on my trip, but it was really jam packed. What was the longest you guys have been away from WoW? What did you do to get your wow fix or did you just enjoy the time off?

One other thing, before I left for my trip I picked up an [Orb of Deception] this is my favorite fun little item. I have one on three of my characters. What is your favorite vanity item?

Thanks again for the great podcast!

Turbos

PS Did you check out the new mountain dew contest with horde and alliance flavors? http://www.mountaindewgamefuel.com/

Email #2 from Jason Keegan

heya guys,

I loved how you guys invited temp to the show i think you should do it more often!

I would like to tell you my latency is no longer over 800ms it is back to the good old 150-200 range :)

anyway i am a big fan of BOE and would love if you guys had temp on again in the near future

Sincerely, Jason Keegan(or as Wych, Wemb, and Temp know me, "Keegan the straight")

Email #3 from Faghleis

Its been a while since I wrote to you guys so I think its time for a bit of an update...
When I last wrote i told you of how I had signed up for a RAF account. Well... I just got a bit too caught up in raiding on my main untill this last week when I looked at how long I had left. It said that it expires on 6/7/09, which to us australians that is the 6th of july. Wow was i in for a shock when i moused over how long i had left to see 8 days left....
In the last day or so I have managed to get my pally druid up to 50, with 5 days to go. Hopefully I'll get them at least to 60 before it runs out. I also have to get my 27 priest up to 30 so he can get the most out of the grant levels but that shouldnt be too hard.

April, in ep 115 you mentioned one of your toons auto declining party invites. This was caused by a patch breaking twoboxtoolkit. unfortunatly this addon dosnt seem like its being updated any more, happly though there is a fix in the comments section for the addon on curse or wowinterface.
Ill write again soon and let you know if i make before the RAF runs out.
Note to self.. if doing RAF again.. dont waste it....

Faghleis, Khaz'goroth US

Email #4 from Makiling

hey guys, this is Makiling

belated happy birthday glanthur!

thanks again for reading my email on air. to tell you a bit about me, i started playing wow last year after my friend at work introduced me to the game. i used to play those free mmo's but after seeing wow, i was instantly hooked! we used to talk about what we did over the weekend, and always had animated conversations about the game. he left work late last year, but we still meet up in game. we dont have the long talks we used to have, because we're busy playing. and no one else here at work has any interest in WoW. podcasting was a great discovery for me, because it takes the place of hearing people talk about this wonderful game. and now this interaction between me and you guys is something i really appreciate.

regarding the thing about typing while moving with the WASD keys, i really don't type while moving. its like with ashayo where ive got the middle mouse button for autorun and use the mouse for turning my toon.

to tell you about my week in WoW, i finally got revered with the oracles and got my first egg! im hopeful that my first egg will be a proto-drake, because it seems that the green drakes are quite prolific on our realm. but i'd still be happy if it turns out to be a pet.

our guild doesn't do any any regular raiding, but i've been lucky with the pugs in our realm i can easily get into VoA and OS pugs, and this week our pug did 1 drake up and pulled it off! im happy for you guys for getting into ulduar regularly, coz the only hope for my getting epic gear is through the slow accumulation of badges.

but these difficulties don't diminish the fun i'm having with the game, and im sure its the same thing with you guys. so until next time. dark lady watch over you!

Email #5 from kilrogg

Hello guys,

Sorry i have not emailed in a while, i got my second RAF account going so have been BUSY
i dont have as many toons as aprillian but am getting there, I am doing my best to level another warlock, but dont think its in the cards right now, i don t know, i just cant get into it. Im dual boxing the lock with another pally which has been fun.

I have been burned out on raiding so I have not been doing Ulduar every week. My main is a resto druid, if you remember from my last email (its been a while) - im dual spec now - moonkin/ resto and killing much faster now while soloing.

I got my pally to 77 and dual speced him too, prot and ret. I think ret is almost as OP as a DK and I love how fast I can drop mobs.

Got my priest to 71, that is the one i was masochistically leveling holy, I respeced Disc for a while and found that much more mana efficient, and easier for soloing, makes a great tank healer, but harder to group heal.

I started a DK in Pants on head, Fuzbie so say hi. Blood spec currently , I love unholy tho so I may switch soon.

Hunter is 64 still, not getting much play.

my current project is my Shaman, anyone else put off buy how may buttons a shammy has, I have too much to fill m\yu bars. I respeced elemental last night and am loving it, I kill so fast, ill be out of hellfire in a jiffy, hes 59 as of writing.

I am sure i missed a toon or two so I apologize to them, lol
happy hunting -
ghitta - 80 Resto Druid
kilrogg US - For the alliance !!!!

PS - april - the wowheroes site is for level 80s so dont feel bad if you have a low score!
(till u hit 80 anyways, lol)

Email #6 from Dav

Hiya CAW peeps.

I’m one of Glan’s guildmates (Main is Davnika). He’d mentioned the podcast a few times in our OOC chat and on vent, so I figured I’d give it a listen. Was grinding out levels on my shammy last night while listening to a few episodes. Ya’ll seem to have a good rapport with each other. Makes me wish *I* was on a podcast like that.

I’ve been playing since Feb of 2006, and have way too many toons (Two 80’s DK & Pally, a 73 mage, two 71’s Hunter and Priest, a 70 Pally, a 67 Priest, a 65 Shaman, and two in the low 30s Hunter and Warlock, all on Wyrmrest Accord (5 alliance and 5 horde, all in Saga [there’s a horde branch], plus a 22 on my old server). I’m one of those “dirty casuals” in that I don’t understand the hardcore raiding mentality. I remember hearing about guilds in Vanilla WoW that would require their members carry pagers in order to all be on call to raid. That just scares me. That’s the danger of a game like this – it is quite addicting as is, but when it becomes a job…

Anyways, I like the atmosphere of your show. Nice and casual, enjoying the little quirks of the game. I play it to unwind and get away from the daily grind, as I work in small business, which can be intensely stressful. It’s great having a guildie giving Saga props. It really is an incredible guild, and the recruitment policy is second to none. It pays off, as everyone gets along extremely well, and there is almost zero drama.

Keep up the good work!

- Dav

Comment #7 from lolagranola

Name: lolagranola

Zerg doesn’t have to do with being overpowered. It has to do with expendable units overwelming by sheer numbers. If you “zerg” in AB, it means that you leave little to defend and send everything you got to a single node. If you zerg an instance, it means you plowed through at a breakneck pace.

Email #8 Valathilia

Hello All
Valathilia here :)
Oh boy ... This week was busy. So I got to heal ulduar again and it was alot easier but I roll to low so I only got one gear upgrade :) btw I have question- I am currently using healbott to help me heal, is there any other good healing add-on's that any of you prefer? In other good news my Druid is now lv60 but it's hard to play wow ATM since I am graduating, I got Alot to do but no time. Well love the podcast.
For the horde
-Val

Thank you's and Shoutouts:

Thanks:

From Kurly
Hey April,
I am thrilled that I won the roll this week, as like Glanther I never win anything. However, my TOONS (please note Ashayo) and I would like to donate the month of free WOW back to the show. If you know anyone that is struggling financially please feel free to send them my winnings.

You all are the best!!

Peace.

Kurly!

Shout Outs

From Worldofwarcraftjunction.com

Hey Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo,

I've added your podcast to WoW-j, an index of WoW information I've been working on. You are listed in the Media (Section/Menu) > Podcast (Category).

Lasitus

Worldofwarcraftjunction.com

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 117 - Glanthur Dings

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Found out about the DK flying mount. Spent almost 2k to get it on my two DK's on ER, Love it.

Still grinding professions on PVP DK

Elune's Grace Podcast has done their last episode.

Made [Titanium Earthguard Ring] on JC on ER, sold for over 800g, nice.

Friday ran 4 DK on pvp server through WC. Got achievement, skinning up and some herbs and greens.

Ashayo

Oracles: 2 x Tickbird Hatchling, White Tickbird Hatchling, Cobra Hatchling

Jekle healed the end of Heroic CoS - just the gauntlet and Malgannis. Nice epic leather wrist - actual healing gear! And got the [Needy] achievement! Felt a bit bad for the Boomkin druid that had done the whole instance.

Shadowthrone - Ding 63 ; ran Ramparts and Blood furnace with 3 other DK's - massively overpowered. Later ran 5 man DK Ramparts - no healer!
Headed back to Thrallmar to find an alliance attacking the town. Mowed him down ... twice.

Ashayo - 10 man raiding ; tried Malygos - got to phase3 a couple of times, but couldn't beat him. Also tried 1 drake OS, but couldn't manage that either.

Naxx 25 - Asheal; nice offhand healing , and boots - [superior] achievement.
Cleared it! 1 shot sapphiron, 3 shot KT
Won priest tier head peice :)

Ulduar
- 1 shot Flame Leviathan
- Xt-002 deconstructor ; 6million left out 22.5million 1st shot, down 2nd shot. Achievement [Heroic: Nerf gravity bombs] (no one died from gravity bomb)
- Ignis the Furnace Master, few wipes, down to 45%. Loose adds causing the most issues.
- Kologarn; only two attempts, also unsuccessful

Jekle healed Heroic UP - great run with Retsmile, Solador, Ostira and Deadlyvyv

Pally Healing! ?

Glanthur

Have been leveling Arlaerum when I can. Still only level 60. Man, Death Knights are POWERFUL.
Have been doing the Argent Tournament dailies on Arlaerus and am now done with them on Glanthur
Glan got the Elywnn Lamb pet. Tragic. Awesome. Tragically awesome.
Ulduar Progression: Flame Leviathon, Razorscale, XT-002, and Kologarn are down.

Bladed Edge

Emails

Email #1 from Zebestes

The large wooden structure in the valley of wisdom next to Thrall's building is a recreation of Mannaroth, a demon that was killed by Grom Hellscream in The Third War just south of Ashenvale. The event occured in Warcraft 3 in the orc campaign. Grom and Thrall were alone facing the demon that enslaved the orcs to the demons in the first place. Grom takes a valiant swing and pierces Mannaroth's armor, killing him, but also mortally wounding Grom. In honor of his fallen comrade, Thrall erected the structure and hung the broken armor from it.

I haven't heard anyone answer the question yet, so I hope it helps!

Zebestes- Earthen Ring-US

P.S. I rerolled on Earthen Ring and I'm leveling this druid. I hope to be in AIE soon!

Forward

Email #2 from Thundyr

Hey again guys!

Well in reference to your responses from last week, it seems that with the over all view of how I left my guild was a poor departure, and I would probably agree for the most part perhaps it is why I asked the question. In my defense I would like to offer you a explanation, but in the efforts to keep this short I will spare you many specific in depth details.

Needless to say there were recent changes in the guild that were from my opinion something we had previously discussed would never happen, a guild alliance for one. I can not say that this was the catalyst, but contributed to a change of the overall feeling of the guild, and its direction. I would also add the reason for me leaving on my own was to avoid the tendency I have been become a custom to seeing in the recent past with the leadership, that would be the difference of /gquiting on my terms or being /gkicked on theirs.

I think I would have stayed, or posted my feelings if there were core of people I had connections to, though due to the a major departure of officers & guildies weeks earlier there was really no one left that I could connect to, or at least didn't know I was leaving already.

One thing I feel confident in, or at least I have a good feeling about being a fan of BOP as well, and hearing some of the goings on from Temp & their drama is if she was more aware of specific details perhaps it would not seemed such a drastic measure.

I guess it is really a error on my behalf in the way I posed the question in the first place, because the answers both Ashayo, and Temp delivered are probably more in line with opinions on what should happen, of course where I went wrong is I asked having all the history behind me.

Just so you know I did not move on to a raiding guild, me & my girlfriend have a guild of our own with just the two of us & our alts, and we both are enjoying playing once again.

Thanks guys, as always it is great hearing you!

-Thundyr

Email #A from Gareth

Hey hun, just heard the Podcast and was shocked to hear i won again.

Seeing as i have won once i will pass on this but what you can do is next time your out for a walk and go past a flower shop, step inside and buy yourself a rose. And that would be my thank you to you for making a great Podcast.

And yes i am in the alliance but no i don't live in my parents basement, i am 28 years old not a snotty nosed 12 year old kid living in my mothers basement like some people lol

Hugs Gareth

Email #3 from Valathilia

Hello guys
valathilia here
So this past week alot happen...
Valathilia finally did ulduar and it was super hard XD I hate having dps not listening but I gave them a break since it was there and also my first time but seriouly we wiped on each boss more than five times, I am not saying that I wasn't to blame as well but it really just came down to following instructions especially with that boss that's a twist of the saphh and the final Nexsus boss. But in other news my Druid is now 50 and finally got my trents and tree form, I am excited about that. But enough about me I hope you all had a great week and I finally tuned in to BOE and wow they are funny, 5minuets into the show and there talking about a sausage fest LOL well love the podcast and keep it up
-for the horde

Email # 4 from Makiling
hey guys, this is Makiling,

thanks for reading my letter on your episode! i've been writing to the different podcasts that i listen to, but this is the first time one of my letters was read on air. so april, have you tried playing with the WASD keys? do you find it better than using the arrow keys? i guess if you played first person shooters like half life and quake, you would be using the WASD keys for WoW too, but i understand why you would try playing it otherwise. anyway, i just wanted to share that i finally got a death knight out of the starting area this week. im really not into melee classes, and although i have a couple of toons in their late 30's, i mainly focus on my main who is an undead mage. so now im using my death knight to hang around the neutral auction house for when i have some stuff i'd like to sell to the alliance. but the good thing about finishing the ebon hold story line is that i finally understood all the references you make to that quest line =)

thanks again! for the horde!

Email # 5 Kurly

I hope that you are all well! As always your podcasts have been great fun to listen to, and with the BOE Ctrl+Alt+WOW crossover, I am enjoying them all that much more!

I made the grand decision to delete some of the tunes that I knew I was never going to play. I had some duplicate classes that were turning out to be a huge waste of time to play on, so I took a deep breath, typed "D-E-L-E-T-E" and amazingly enough my house did not catch fire, nor did I go spontainiously blind. One of the advantages of being a toon whore is that you really do get a feel for the class or classes that work best for your individual style of play. And, now that I am getting into PVP, having a basic knowledge of how other classes work can certainly be an advantage when you are fighting one.

I rolled a toon on for Pants on Head (Kurliemoo) and having been having a wonderful time chatting and running with those hot messes from down under.

Some other WOW buds of mine (a couple across the country in Washington State [I am in Boston]) have rolled toons on another PVP server and have been having a great time running around together leveling them.

Let me stress that I think you all being guests on BOE is a universal requirment!!

Please keep the podcasts comming. I look forward to listening everyweek. You are all beautiful!

Peace

Kurly

ShoutOuts and Blogs

From Xandarr2112

It has been a while since we have spoken so I thought I would drop you a line and see how things are going!

I got an interesting comment from my wife at lunch yesterday. I was sitting there eating my grilled stuft burrito from Taco Bell when she said "I want you to move forward with your podcast." Talk about my jaw hitting the table. I almost dropped my beefy goodness that is my burrito. This is the first real encouragement I have received from my wife when it comes to "That Game." She said it isn't that she doesn't like the game it is just the time I waste playing it. So cutting time down to weekends has paid off!

I am looking for someone to assist me in doing a podcast. I even extended an offer to our good friend "MO." Please pass the word onto your other listeners that I am looking for a tech erson who knows how to record better than I do, and I am also looking for a female perspective as well. http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/2009/05/looking-for-cohost-recording-specialist.html

In addition to that we finally have a Horde Side experiment up and running. Thanks to the Bind on Equip gnomes I have an experimental guild forming using toons without "sugar daddies" and we are running Instances "at level." You are welcome to join us anytime! http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/2009/05/experiment-log-measure-twice-cut-once.html Guild application is at the bottom of the blog.

Thanks again for all your support and I look forward to joining your ranks!

--
Xandarr
http://twitter.com/Xandarr2112
http://theexperiencednoob.blogspot.com/

Monday, July 13, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 123 - Ctrl Solo WoW

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Aprillian's game play is great!

Shout Outs & Thank You

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 122 - Crash & Burn

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Shout Outs & thank you's

MoMOments

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 121 - Baby Come Desecrate My Fire

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Shout Outs & itunes Reviews

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 120 - WTB Clothes for Burning Hot Pole Dance

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Monday, June 15, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 119 - IRL The Fifth Continent of Azeroth

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Monday, June 8, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 118 - Status Update

What We've Been Doing

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

Thank you's and Shoutouts:

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 117 - Glanthur Dings

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ashayo

Glanthur

Bladed Edge

Emails

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Auruk Twitters

Twitter Updates

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Aprillian