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

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