Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 155 - Thank you!

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.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Shadow Priest get shadow heart.

Levelling Tiiaa, my then 56 mage to get her up to level with Virinya. Decided to start doing the dailies for 8the Love is in the Air Holiday. She had to go to Everlook to ruin the crown

Aprillian was doing the necklace quest

Friday morning - ran toons to SFK to do the deathstalker quest, just a few mobs to fight & horses. Rogue with 1 lp, opened chest.

Got Tiiaa to 58 just by doing necklace and Ruin the crown

Aprillian did Heroics Friday night, her DPS is better: http://aprillianer.blogspot.com/

Aprillian & Vrishna

Vrishna

Ashayo

Raiding - 10 man
Crazy Train - Razorscale, Freya down on 3rd attempt, had a crack at mimiron
- Moved on into ToC. Got Northrend Beasts down on 3rd try, Jarraxus easily. Hit a wall on the faction champs.
- Weekly Razorscale - achievement for grounding on 2nd round
- ICC rep clears. Tried marrowgaw, got through to 2nd bone storm. Not ready yet.


DwP 10 - Festergut down. Rotface- grrrrrrrrrrr
XT for weekly - did it in hard mode, as well as pulling XT while trash mobs were up

The Hundred Club - Naxx with no frost resist gear.
Just Can't Get Enough - kill 18 abominations in phase 1 of Kel'Thuzad fight

DwP - Ashayo - ICC. New offhand and waist. Did well with DK dps subbing in as off tank.
Got the weekly ICC raid done again by using invisibility on both rotface and festergut
Tried going deep affliction ; didn't seem to make much difference. Trying SpellPriority mod.

Raiding - 25 man
Guppers - Indefinite hiatus due to number. /sad

DwP 25 - VoA
- ICC - Marrowgar, 1-shot deathwhisper, Downed Rotting Frost Giant. Messy fight - spreading disease with immunity. Gunship battle easily. Saurfang - finally got him down in 25man with 11 seconds before enrage timer. Woot!
- Decimate on Stinky in 25 man is lethal. Had armies of the dead tanking it in the end

Lunar Festival
Elders - Pud travelling ; got all world Elders. Working on dungeons.
Did we get exp for coin 'quests' last year? (Sad that not getting exp on lower level alts ; just 75 rep)

Misc
Ashariss - bought Chest heirloom. Ran AN, Nexus, and Old Kingdom ; put on 8 bubbles

Crazy how fast PTR patch notes affect economy. Frozen orbs went from 5g to 25g overnight

Jeppy

Very sad Love is in the Air is over. I have been making tons of gold and nice chunks of XP. I managed to get my original 2 Boulderfist Paladins to 67. 1 my level on them and I can pass down cold weather flying.

Took advantage of the mass drop in price of bracelets. A 2 gold item has the potential to make 11 gold profit on an 80.

It is official I suck at Jousting. I also made the rookie error of attacking the commanders rather than lieutenants.

I want to thank NevikJames for a link to http://neviksnotebook.com/2009/08/15/jousting/ which gave me some good advice. I also want to thank GettingWorse for some excellent chat during the twisted nether live recording.

Hopped over to the UK servers to do the dailies for the pet on my main and hooked up with some long lost guildies. Took my alt mage from 62 to 73.

The druid team is now level 27 (slow levelling due to holiday stuff and UK messing about)

Started an Orc hunter team over on Earthern Ring in my RAF team.

Facing the prospect of another game effecting my WoW time. Weird feeling of itchiness when doing other things

Emails

Email #A from Kurly

So, I cant quite remember the last time I sent you all an email, but I do know its been a while. I can tell that a lot has been going on in my personal life, and I have not been able to devote as much time to the WOW world as I had in the past. Now things are slowing down (sans my 40th birthday on March 3rd), and I hope that I will be able to get back into the swing of sending these emails on time, so that you don't read them weeks after I send them!!

I turned most of my alts to either tanks or heals. Mizezdanverz and Ahbygsisse have been taking here and there and I have to say that everyone in every group has been in have been very patient, helpful and complementary. Although Gnomeregon is the Occulous of that level. Have you ever been through Gnomeregon, ALL of it? Its massive and no-one seems to know where to go, people drop out right away and when we try we get lost and after a 30 minutes of wandering around people leave.

SIgh!

So between tanking and rolling a shammy, the game has taken on a whole new life. Also, I rolled a priest on POH. So if you see her (Sizzawakyra) please giver her a wave....and mail her a mana pot!! LOL

XOXO
Kurly

Email #1 from Heatly

Hello ctrl alt wow dudes and girl!

Never emailed into a podcast before but I figure I'd give it a shot. I am a pretty serious hardcore raider and raid 4 days a week. That being sad I also have 6 toons at level 80 and a few 60s coming up the rear. I was just wondering on how each of you manage your time in the game with so many alts. I work 40+ hours a week and am in the process of planning a wedding and sometimes feel like there isn't enough time in the day to give all my alts the love they deserve. Also on a side note I would love to here updates on varishnas (I'm sure I butchered that) progress in leveling. I can't wait to here about his adventures when he hits 80!
I actually have a few other topics/questions for you to answer on the show but I think I'll save those for next week.

Love the show! keep it up and don't listen to all those Debbie downers the interruptions are classic and the drunken episode is pod casting gold.

For the Alliance!

Heatly (darrowmere)

P.S. I'll take the game card if I am lucky enough to win the drawing

Email #2 from Xamot

Hey there C.A.W Crew… so sorry I didn’t supply the answer to my quiz in my last email, yes it was the Twins from the GI Joe series. As you said, google is your friend J

So my question today has to do with the next expansion or better yet the lead up to the expansion. So what is do you guys think will come prior to launch of Cataclysm? Do you think there will be a buildup towards the prelaunch event?

I was thinking that what would be cool is if they had incremental patches that would implement some of the old world changes, for instance the split that is going to happen to barrens could start as a small crack and slowly build bigger and bigger. They could have NPC’s in barrens that could build a makeshift bridge over it when it gets too big to either jump over or jump over on a mount. Or have extra lava begin to flow from Black Rock Mountains… I think something like this would really make this “cataclysm” not so much of a logoff at 11pm Tuesday, log back in on Wednesday morning and everything is changed. I don’t think that would be very immersive, now a slow degradation of the world over time would be. I think seeing the orcs begin to reinforce Orgrimmar would really be cool and make the feeling of impending danger even more evident. Now I’m not saying all of the old world would see slow buildup, but certain areas where there’s going to be serious landscape changes could begin to see destruction is near and that something is happening that is not good.

What do you guys feel about something like this? Do you think you’d be up for a slow buildup to the impending doom?

Was just thinking.. great show and take care!

-Xamot

Level 75 Enh/Resto Shaman

Email # B from Curme

Hey CAW crew,

Thanks for the tips on starting out. I'll try the starting areas in the couple pairing you suggest and see how it goes. For the prize, I'll take the free month to try out this crazy dual boxing thing. Thanks again and I'll update you on the progress.

For the horde!

Curme

PS in case you want to know:
Curme: islands in desolation sound BC - German name I believe
Curufin: crafty elf (silmarillion)
Anarion: isildor's uncle, died in the escape (silmarillion)

Email #C from Bidkar

Greeting Ctrlaltwow crew,

Bidkar, undead mage here. I haven't written in awhile because "real life" has been rather hectic. Apparently I'm a money tree for all repair people. I guess I'll have to go back to dancing and "art" films pretty soon.

I finished up Storm Peaks on my mage and got the achievement for that. I go back every Sunday morning and finish quests on my mage. Someday he'll have them all done. Bidkar runs the cloth cooldowns every time, but I'm thinking about laying off those. I have 4 stacks of ebonweave, 3 stacks of spellweave and 3 stacks of moonshroud. I think that's enough for anyone. I tried to sell some on the auction house, but it's undercut like crazy with the cloth, so I think I'll just make bags.

My warlock, Allerea, dinged 80 and hit 450 in her jewelcrafting. She runs the jewelcrafting dailies and the cooking daily. I was doing the icy prism every day on her, but I stopped that for awhile because I have 19 stacks of rare gems and 16 stacks of the uncommon gems. I'm trying to cut back on my pack rat tendencies.

Joash, the druid, moved to Northrend after sticking it out in Outland til he was 72. I was really enjoying questing out there this time, but I really love professions and I wanted to level his alchemy. His alchemy is now 450 and he is doing the Northrend Research and making an epic gem every day. He also runs the cooking daily.

I started playing the Yancy the hunter and Sagrado the priest again when the "Love is in the Air" event started. I had them do the dailies associated with the event and a few quests in the general area of the Crown fellows. Yancy moved from about 24 to level 37. Sagrado the priest went from 17 to 30. The priest is turning out to be a very interesting toon. I really like the spells he picked up at 30.

Jehi, the paladin, finally hit exalted with the Kirin Tor. I sent him out to farm the charms for the bracelets associated with "Love is in the Air". I went all over Northrend trying to farm charms after they had nerfed the drop rate. I found the best place to be in Crystalsong Forest killing the Crown fellows. I should have been able to figure that out because everybody else was farms there too, but hindsight is 20/20. I think Blizzard might want to rethink that next year because I have never had Dalaran lag since I got my new computer, but it sure lagged this week.

My death knight continues to languish in Dalaran creating glyphs for everybody.

I tried out Star Trek online. I really liked the ground missions, but I just couldn't get the hang of flying in space. I could not tell if the ship was moving or not, but I think I could work that out. The reason I didn't start playing STO was because all the time I was playing I was thinking "I have to hurry and finish this so I can play WOW". I got frustrated and cancelled my preorder of STO. I can only play MMO at a time.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I have one more thing I want to ask about. You may have discussed this already but it doesn't stick out in my mind. It's about the disenchanting when you are in group. It really bothers me because I just don't understand why it is ok to use someone's profession against their will other than the "Blizzard said so"reason. I am not a greedy or selfish person. I carry extra bags and gold in my bags when I go to the lowbie areas so I can help out people starting the game. I have never charged for enchanting or porting because I really like helping out other people. I just don't care for having something taken from me. If one really wants something disenchanted, go level enchanting. Part of the reason I started so many alts is because I really wanted all of the professions. I would be happy even if they just made it an option for the enchanter to participate or not. It is wrong to just take a portion of a person's profession away against their will. I do not think I am entitled to someone else's work and I do not think they are entitled to mine. Anyway, I was wondering what you guys thought. Sorry for going on and on, but it really does bother me.

Thanks for the great podcast and your patience in my wall of text.

Thanks for following me on twitter Aprillian! Vrishna, I am so sorry to hear about your cat. I know what it's like to lose a friend like that. It still hurts me every time I come home and my dog Lucy is not there to greet me. It's like a part of your life is missing.

For the Horde, El Jeppy and Glanthur!

Bidkar and his alts

Email #D from Madoran

Ctrlaltwow,

You all have deserved an e-mail from me a long time ago, but too much work and too much WoW kept me distracted. I just wanted to say that I love the show and I appreciate the time you put into what is very evidently a labor of love for all of you. I hope you don't let schweppe's review hurt you too much. It is merely a sign of your growing popularity since you cannot please all of the people all of the time. I remember when I first subscribed to the show that I was tempted to unsubscribe after the first listen since I was looking for end-game raiding information. But I just could not hit the unsubscribe button. After I few more shows, it dawned on me why I could not unsubscribe. Among the dozens and dozens of WoW podcasts, this one was the only one I could describe as 'delightful'. So let the other podcasts have the 'explicit' tag, the detailed end-game strats, and the regimented formatting. You just keep doing what you love and we will keep listening.

(no prize entry necessary)

Minsc lvl 65 Night Elf Hunter and Boo (his giant miniature space hamster... err Bear)
Madoran

For the Alliance

Email #3 from Maudit Winner

Hello all at the ctl alt wow

My name is Maudit in game or Dan in reality. I wanted to shoot you a quick note about how I deal with playing wow in my family.

I am a father of 2 soon to be 3. I started playing wow with my first child about 4 years ago when she would be up at night doing midnight feeding thing. I use a bottle when feeding children like you other listener said as well. Anyway she seemed to like basking in the glow of azeroth as much as I did. We kept up the playing together as she grew up and when my son was born he to was introduced to WoW in the same way.

I play a healing priest and after a few wipes when a critically needed heal was cancelled by a small hand jamming the keyboard a no touching while we play rule was invented. This worked until my girl started talking. Imagine my surprise when my two year old let me know she needed a character to play.

This gave rise to Eeyor the druid. I macroed the dance button and the shapeshift button to the keyboard taught her the buttons and away she went.

Now my daughter and son love to go help me save my friends from the bad guys in dungeons and hearing them tell the mobs to "go to sleep" is quite fun.

My latest adventure/surprise was when my daughter saw the blood elfs and asked to play one. She made the choices on everything. Two things the toon had to have were a headband and blonde hair like her. So now we are working on her DK in helfire. She is quick enough with the keys now to take single mobs by herself. However her steering of the camera is enough to make you get motion sickness.

Love your show and look forward to listening.

Maudit and CO on the scryers and sentinals server.


Thank you

Shout Outs & Thank You

Momomoments

Hello,

Hope you are all doing well and had a busy wow week as I have.

For my priest Moheal, the daily grind of random LFG to get frosties continues, I am working on my 3rd tier piece and for our guild we are starting 2 groups for ICC. The group my priest is in we are raiding Sundays for now and any other day we can muster in. I am working on my druid as I mentioned before to heal for the group that is going to give it a go Fridays.

On my druid I am level 61, I would be higher if I did not have to spend time on my 80s but still going at a good pace. For our guild weekly old dungeon fun we did AQ20, or shall I say AQ6, as it was my 61 druid trying to heal (please laugh here as it was funny) and 5 80s. I only died about 12 times or so :)

But it was fun. Yes my heals meant nothing to 80s as I only max heal at 3k now but I am only level 61 you know. I have leatherworking and skinning on the druid and looking forward to the day I can make the drums(you know the drums that wonderfully buff the group). I just do not know if I am able to use multiple drums with one character.
You know in wow you just cannot have enough buffs!

That is pretty much all I have this week.

Thank you as always for your great podcast and reading my emails and of course thank you for your kind words.

Have a great time in and out of game.

--
Mo