Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 121 - Baby Come Desecrate My Fire

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

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

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

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

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Got 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.

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

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