Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 150 - Not Only Did Tempeste Listen, She Came!

Aprillian, Ashayo and Jeppy 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.

This episode of Ctrl Alt WoW is brought to you by Vern of Runtotem server. Thank you for your generous donation.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Went Dungeon hopping Sat morning. Scared because of my low gearscore.

Recent Achievements
10 ( 01-09-2010 ) The Kirin TorEarn exalted status with The Kirin Tor.
10 ( 01-09-2010 ) Somebody Likes MeRaise a reputation to Exalted.
10 ( 01-09-2010 ) Drak'Tharon KeepDefeat the bosses in Drak'Tharon Keep.
10 ( 01-09-2010 ) Heroic: Drak'Tharon KeepDefeat the Drak'Tharon Keep bosses on Heroic Difficulty.
10 ( 01-09-2010 ) Oh Novos!Defeat Novos the Summoner in Drak'Tharon Keep on Heroic Difficulty without allowing any undead minions to reach the floor.

Recent Achievements
10 ( 01-10-2010 ) Snakes. Why'd It Have To Be Snakes?Defeat Slad'ran in Gundrak on Heroic Difficulty without getting snake wrapped.
10 ( 01-10-2010 ) Heroic: The OculusDefeat The Oculus bosses on Heroic Difficulty.
10 ( 01-10-2010 ) Northrend Dungeonmaste rComplete the Northrend dungeon achievements listed below.
10 ( 01-10-2010 ) The OculusDefeat the bosses in The Oculus.
10 ( 01-10-2010 ) Heroic: Utgarde KeepDefeat the Utgarde Keep bosses on Heroic Difficulty.

Finished the Thunder Bluff Valiant and became Aprillian of Thunder Bluff!!
Bought some rep to also get Aprillian of Silvermoon. Jousting for the Orcs. Making it a habit to get on, do the dailies at least. Still can't fight the Valiants. Sorry Nevik.

Wed, levelling up my

Did a bunch of random heroics. Bought Leather & Shoulder BOA.

Sons of Hodir

Roleplayed in RFC

Aprillian & Vrishna

Go to email #1
Wow! Just wow. Alts galore. Started seeding "shudder" alliance toons.

Vrishna

warlocks are cool ! Lynea is another reason for Aprillian to get upset. I love it ! Sister loves wow! Night elf starting area is BEAUTIFUL !

Ashayo

On Vacation!

Jeppy

Finished up Borean Tundra (Nothing boring about Borean) - Hated all the DEHTA stuff. Half the fun of WoW is killing animals of all shapes and sizes.

Finished up Howling Fjord (I've toured the Fjord) - much better than Borean. Some excellent quests.

Been trying to do some dailies.

Hit 74 finished playing today about 40% from hitting level 75

A series of mishaps

Dancing in my murloc costume and got ganked http://www.livestream.com/jeppytv

Hearthstoned into middle of ocean, died of fatigue and ressurected in Westfall - Joy.

Fell of the bombing blimp.

Riding the harpoon - forgot Farlaine was on follow. He plummeted to earth and squish DEAD!

No helmet = mega noob

Emails

Email #1 from CelticLucas

Good day, Ctrl-Alt-WoW!

After listening to episode 149, I am excited to bring you a challenge that I have been thinking about for a couple of weeks. But first, a little background. I currently have 7 different toons between 30 and 80, and I am not ashamed to say that 5 of those are gnomes, and none of them are Horde. I am coming up on my own personal 5 year anniversary of playing WoW, and looking back, most of the toons I have ever had have all been gnomes. From the moment I first logged into vanilla WoW, I fell in love with those quirky, short, inquisitive characters, and I'm always the one to hold the Gnomeregan banner high as others around me chat about their utter dislike for gnomes. I have had a few Horde characters in the past, but none of them have continued very far.

On New Years Eve, I created a human priest with the idea that I would level him only through the new LFG tool. Currently, I am level 38, and will be 40 very soon. This is the fastest I've ever been able to level a toon, and I'm still quite surprised I can level a toon without ever having to leave a major city. Leveling is quite fun, and I'm slowly becoming addicted to healing! It's a huge change from my 80 mage, and I actually think its much more of a challenge to play.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a challenge for you all. In episode 149, Aprillian and Vrishna mentioned they would soon be rolling Alliance characters. My challenge is this - come to Boulderfist-US, and roll a gnome. I will provide full sets of frostweave bags, as well as some gold to get of you established. In return, I will come to Jubei'Thos or Earthen Ring and attempt to level my first Horde character to 80. Your gnomes can be any class you wish, even if you do choose to speed ahead with a death knight. I will let all of you decide which race/class of Horde I am to level.

Thank you all for bringing a little bit of brightness to the WoW community!

CelticLucas/Atreyoo

Email #2 from Zenator

Hello Control Alt WoW,

I was listening to ur New Years Eve show and one of you mentioned that Blizzard should make "bind on account" items into "bind on battlenet" items. Well, just a few days ago I opened an in-game ticket asking that I be allowed to transfer my two heirloom items between toons since I have two separate WoW account merged on Battlenet and the toon I wanted to transfer the items to was even on the same server as my other account. The GM's reply was that he would not be at all surprised if that feature will soon be allowed by Blizzard! But for now it's still not permitted and he couldn't transfer the items for me. So, the good news is that it seems like we might get the feature; I'm predicting at around the time of Catacylism's release.

Another suggestion I have for Blizzard to make leveling alts easier is to either modify how rested xp works, or even by allowing players to buy rested xp with in-game gold, emblems, or through some other means like griding daily quests or dungeons. Lord of the Rings Online gives players something called "Destiny Points" every time a toon gains a level. Then players can spend those points on several types of temporary game enhancements, like more rested xp. This would be a great addition to WoW and encourage even more alt leveling by veteran players.

Thanks again for the wonderful podcast.

Zenator
80 Draenei Hunter on Greymane

Email #3 Steadyhands
Good morning Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy, Vrishna, and Glanthur,

I love the podcast, but, really loved the holiday podcast. Vrishna and Aprillian's laugh made me look like a weirdo on the Subway in NYC.

I am writing to you for the first time to speak up for all the adult Alliance players. I am a 38 year old father of two who loves to play my main, Waspsting, a newly dinged 80 Draenei Enhancement Shaman as well as a wide range of alts.

On the Boulderfist realm, the notable alts are:

67 Draenei Unholy DK-named Hellgrinder
54 Human Affliction Warlock-named Blacklite
46 NE Assasination Rogue (my first toon-aptly named Steadyhands)
32 Human Frost Mage-Brenneka
25 NE Feral Druid-Warstaff
22 Dwarf BM Hunter-Cloudpuncher (my favorite name)
14 Human Disc. Priest-Slowjinfizz

I have recently attempted to level Horde alts the highest of which is a level 14 Undead Warrior-Waspting (on Earthen Ring). Honestly, I like him and could see myself enjoying him further.

The reason I cannot get into playing horde is:

All RL (adult) friends play alliance
Horde races live in Shanty towns or in bile with the exception of Blood Elves.

I hope this dispels the myth that Alliance are all minors. As I twittered Aprillian, I extend an invite to anyone interested in rolling a Alliance toon in Boulderfist. I can show you what it feels like to have indoor plumbing in your towns. Keep up the fantastic work. If you ever need a guest to represent the kindness, humility, and just plain fun of Alliance, Im your guy.

Grab you sword and fight the horde,

Steadyhands aka Waspsting of the "Is Ganksta" guild, Boulderfist Realm

--
http://steadyhandimagery.com
http://daveortiz.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steadyhand/

Upcoming Projects:
internovel.com

Email #4 from Flynte

You wanted to hear how some of your listeners played WOW, so I thought I'd share my experience.

I have 3 children ages 5, 1 and 2 months old. I generally don't get to play until after 8:30 pm when the 2 older kids go to bed, and there aren't any other tasks around the house that need my attention. I also get to play when I am up feeding the baby in the middle of the night, which is usually around 3 or 4 am. The majority of my play is done with one hand while I am holding my fussy 2 month old son with my other arm. I am unable to join any Raids, and usually unable to PUG any instances. I cant use any voice comms because my SB Audigy sound card is temperamental, besides, who really wants to hear a screaming kid on their vent server?

I am very addicted to WOW, but much of the content is off limits for me because of my gear level and I am usually rolling solo. My game time is generally spent grinding quests or working on achievements.

Thanks for reading,

- Flynte Level 80 Ret Pally on the Fizzcrank Realm.

Email #5 from Donna

Dear Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy and Vrishna,

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to hear my e-mail read on your podcast yesterday as I was driving down the road to my next pet sit. I was so sure that amongst the hundreds of e-mails you must receive every day, mine would never be picked to be read (wink)! Thank you and especially to Jeppy for enduring through the boring length of it! I will be more considerate this time. Oh, and please relate to Ashayo upon his return that my husband and I very much remember that we had joined AIE quite some ago with other characters but hang our heads in shame because we were kicked out of the guild due to lack of activity. "Toon ADD" is the direct result of our altoholism. We see a new realm open up and our eyes glaze over as we quickly establish our presence on it with new toons, hence sometimes neglecting our other toons. We apologize and it took us quite some time to get up the nerve again to join with new characters. We strive to do better this time.

Taking the cue from your other e-mailers, I guess I should tell you what I have been doing in game. Currently, my level 80 Orc Hunter, Botswala, is working on her Loremaster title. Botswala is my achievement toon. This particular achievement is turning out to be a lot more difficult than I anticipated. Especially the Loremaster of Kalimdor part. I thought that it would be pretty straight forward and believed that there would be an abundance of exclamation points just waiting for me to click on. How wrong I was. You actually have to do some research. And having an excess of toons makes it difficult to remember what quests you did on what toon. So often I feel like I've already completed some quest only to realize it was on my other toon! The Carbonite mod has been a huge help with this dilemma. They have this nifty little yellow button on the quest tracking list you press called "Questgivers" that puts little icons on your map showing the locations of all NPCs that hand out quests. Combine this with your quest history log to make it that much easier. This week I found an NPC in Thousand Needles that began the "Test of Faith" quest line. This is a Horde quest line only unfortunately. It runs from levels 26-30 and takes you all over the map. It is a great quest line that introduces a lot of the lore of the game. It would be quite difficult at level as you will be headed into dungeons and killing quite a few pretty difficult mobs, so bring along some friends. It is really fun and if you are struggling with finding quests to complete your Loremaster achievement, this quest line will boost your numbers by quite a few for Kalimdor. A little hint for the quest line, make sure to read the books. Anyway, maybe you already know it, but it was new and interesting to me and made me realize that just because I have my explorer title, that doesn't mean I have seen all the game. There are hidden nooks, caves and paths to explore that offer up all kinds of rewards. So now I am up to 618 quests out of 685 for Kalimdor. Quite a few more to go. Any tips from you or your listeners would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great week in game everyone. Travel well and don't let the Murlocs bite.

Donna (aka Botswala, Zingaya, etc.)