Sunday, April 11, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 162 - UP Up and Away

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 162 - UP Up and Away


Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna 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
Got kicked from Halls of Reflection
Aprillian & Vrishna
Witnessed the confrontation of the factions with the Lich King at Galakrond's Rest ( is that the Return to Angrathar in the Veteran of the Wrathgate achievement? )and helped to free Undercity from the Scourge. While fighting, had what turned out to be a very fruitful hunch. I was trying to level up my skill in two-handed axes. I said to Aprilian as much and asked if we could level fighting skills while fighting a fight where you can't get damage. She didn't know, so I switched weapons, and lo and behold ...it worked ! The Aprilian said, "I wonder if you can do the same with unarmed!" Sure enough, that worked too ! So we both sheathed our weapons and leveled up. SERIOUSLY leveled up our unarmed. I went from 1/375 to 340/375 ! Aprilian similarly rocketed upward. You can't beat dumb luck ! Or stubborn curiosity.

Dailies dailies and more dailies !

Found the slide from Blue Logging to Venture bay

Got ganked while questing there

Changing order of quest numbers

Dinged 77 finishing up Grizzily Hills.

FLYING AGAIN ... although never allow a Tauren o follow you.

Vrishna

Finished all the quest lines in Borean Tundra after finding Naxxanar. That was cool. Got to just shy of 77 at the end of that one.

Took the Taunka refugee from Borean Tundra to the camp in Dragonblight. Found barrel full of the bones of an unfortunate rider of rapids below the falls near the Westwind refugee camp. The river from Wintergrasp that goes over a STEEP drop and then divides Borean Tundra from Dragonblight.

A couple of fun achievements this week ! Quests and exploration for Dragonblight and Grizzily Hills. I see that I missed one site in Borean Tundra and need 4 quests to lasso those in.

Ashayo
Noblegarden
Got my chocolates returned, despite abandoning ticket
Got the meta on Pudendal, again with thanks to Tempeste for porting me around.

Raiding

DwP 10 man
Blood Princes down after only 3 tries. Won wand upgrade for Ashayo. Working on Dreamwalker.
Zoomed ICC 1st wing, Working on dreamwalker. Switched it up and tried 4 healers - 94%

DwP alt night. Jekle for the weekly. ToC - Beasts and Jaraxxus, and VoA fire boss - all done only with Druid healers. Trying to figure out why we couldn't keep Solador alive on his druid tank - after several wipes, he realized his gear was all broken

Crazy Train
Onyxia, VoA
ICC - Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Gunship.

"PUG"
Ran ICC 25 with Ralff's trash group - hit exalted on Asheal. Very nice ring with gem socket. Switched to Jekle and put on several more bubbles.

Raid Weekly
Ashayo, Asheal - Instructor Razuvius
Pudendal, Ashariss - Razorscale

Misc

Ashayo - Looking at currency as per Molsan Method, and bought Ashayo Black War Mammoth with stonekeepershards. Probably save the rest for heirloom shoulders in case I want to level something later.

Ashariss running heroics
Enough emblems to get i245 hit/haste trinket, which has helped alot
Kept running heroics. Strangely got two full Jubei'thos groups twice in a row. CoS (won the drake), Drak'Tharon, ToC, Gundrak, Forge of Souls.
Got [Better off Dred] with Hyp, Zooe, Teo, Act
Ran enough heroics to get another 50 emblem 245 trinket for Ashriss - int/spell power ; got [Superior] achievement

Ashield
Kept getting Azjol'Nerub over and over - including once where finished less than 1min before maintenance
After getting AN again, got sick of it and queued for VH. Much better group, exp and completed with less hassles.
Gave in and bought heirloom chest and shoulders using combination of champion seals and heroism emblems. Also bought the spell power trinket.
Venture Bay dailies to get the libram and trinket. (Shoutout to Reyan - nightelf druid in for helping with bugged Venture Bay)

Pudendal
Normal dungeons to level Philthmonger, chose Oculus, then a random - which was Oculus.

Oracles Report
Pud got the reins of the Green Proto-drake!

Pants on Head
Malygos to 4%. Even with geared group, the mechanics of the fight is hard for people that haven't done it.
Ashariss in Naxx; Arachnid qtr. Construct qtr


Jeppy
Winterhoof army assemble!
Emails

Email #1 from Acaldraa

Hey Ctrl Alt Wow crew,

Acaldraa here. I hope that all of your weeks have been great and you have had loads of fun in-game and out.
I felt compelled to email in when I heard about Jeppy's situation with his son. I feel that because his son has put in what seems to be a substantial amount of time into the characters in questions then they are his unless he says otherwise. I personally enjoy leveling a lot but feel that the game starts at a whole new level when you reach endgame and his sons has adventured in that for what seems to be quite an extensive amount. Yes Jeppy did level them but then he gave them to his son when he went to go play on the US server's. However, if Jeppy is dabling in the Paladin arts I would like to offer my services in any spec/role. Feel free to contact me on twitter or via email.
On another note, I have been switch my specs around a lot these last few weeks experiments on what roles I would like to play in raids. First it was Holy/prot then holy/ret then back to holy/prot. Currently I am going to stay with Holy/Prot as they seem to be the two most needed roles in a raid. However, I do quite enjoy going and AOE'ing in ICC and doing 10k DPS =P. Nothing better for the ego then that. On the Holy side of things I re-gemmed for SP from int and then back to int, blowing about 3.5k gold in the procces on gems, glyphs, enchants and librams. I think I might take a step back from the paladin and try some more RAF and get those 60's ASAP!
Lastly, I have a few things to add about raiding. 1) Never stop casting! This is very important if you're looking for max dps. For example while you are waiting for your dots to tick down, line up a shadow bolt and never refresh dots before there final tick. Also, gem and enchant all of your gear. It might be costly but you owe it to the people you run with. Also, drain soul executes are a lot of fun *hint hint

Well thats enough for now, thanks for reading my ramblings,
Acaldraa of AIE

PS Shout out to Rawrcast, this past week I won 4 loot cards from them in an epic live call in to the show! Thanks a lot guys!

Email #A from NevikJames

Greetings JAVA! (If you're keeping score in terms of the order of importance of every one's initials, there isn't one!)

Despite my continued alt'ism with my "console toons" I wanted to write in to share my opinions on Jeppy's morale (and ethical?) dilemma. On one hand they *are* his toons that he, himself leveled, but on the other they have been almost exclusively played and geared by his son.

At a glance it looks like quite a pickle (mmmmm pickles ... well at least my daughter would say that, I hate them personally) as reuniting with his estranged toons seems like the inevitable conclusion that I'm going to run with. But before we (the plural we) dive in, let's ask Sir Jeppy a couple of questions.

What purpose will you put these toons to?

How acquainted are you with the class mechanics of these toons?

The answers to these questions should provide enough substance to answer the dilemma all by themselves. If you're looking to just mess around in 5 mans or farm with them, then you should have nothing to worry about, even if you're far removed from the class mechanics of the toons.

If you get called out in a 5 man, you could always feign an excuse such as "Sorry guys, I haven't played this toon in awhile and I have a *LOT* of toons, it'll all come back to me." A little white lie won't hurt and with everyone substantially over-gearing 5 mans it isn't going to matter anyways.

Now if you're looking to explore 10/25 man raid content I'd advise caution. Having well geared toons will translate into expectations that *you* know your stuff and know the encounters you'll be facing. Even if you're doing older raid content, the expectations will be there and should you not live up to them, you're going to be the target of ridicule.

So you need to think about how important it is to see Wrath's raid content right now or hold off for Cataclysm to experience it. If it is important to you to see it while it is still relevant, well then my friend you're going to have to do your due diligence.

Scour the Elitist Jerks forums as much as you can stomach, watch tankspot videos and whatever else is necessary to give yourself a crash course in TOC/ICC raiding. You might be able to skimp on a few of these steps should you find a good group of raiders that might be forgiving and understanding of your situation.

So now that I've answered your dilemma with questions, I'm sure I've probably only "voiced" your own thoughts on the situation. At the very least having me act as a sounding board for what you're already leaning towards will give you the confidence to approach this situation. I wish you the resolve to do what you've already determined to do.

Now that I sufficiently didn't "solve" Jeppy's dilemma, I do have another question unrelated to the issue at hand: "How goes your jousting endeavors?" Bidkar's email reminded me that you were have issues and I hope that the advice I sent you proved helpful. Anyhoo, I've carried on long enough.

"I'm Crusader Nevik, and this is my favorite ctrl alt podcast on the internets"


Email #B from Makiling

i would just like to give my 2 cents about jeppy's dilemma by putting it in a different perspective using the RAF analogy. i had been playing my mage for the longest time, but when my RAF buddy got different toons to 60, he was able to grant me enough bonus levels to bring my druid from 10-60 in a snap. so there i was, with a relatively high level toon that i had no idea on how to play because i had not gone thru the process of leveling him. it's something built in the game, and i think its similar to having a toon that was "gifted" to jeppy by his son, dont you think? if they're a bunch of toons that jeppy has not played the end game before, isnt it the same as getting a high level toon from RAF?

well, thats what i had to say about that.

in other news, i've found that noblegarden is a world of a lot busier on the horde side of our realm. on my druid, i was practically alone in the dwarf starting area! but i did notice that the spawn rate seemed to be higher. i got the title on my druid today, with the Desert Rose in the badlands as the last one i got. but i thought i might try getting the jenkins title later since im near BRD. i want to get the tome of polymorph rabbit for my mage so i can make a random polymorph macro for when im in BG's XD

speaking of BG's i was going to ask you guys if vrishna has gone into the BG's from the new expansion, since i remember you guys doing a lot of AB back when you started. i hope to get to hear about your stories on the next show.

and finally i wanted to tell you guys how excited i am for the new RAF mount. the passenger rocket is awesome! and im sure we will be hearing a lot of your stories on how you plan to get it on your alts. but is this a setback to vrishna's grind to 80? time will tell..

thats all from me for now, for the bunnies!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #2 from Grothgar The Noble

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna, Jeppy, and Jasper,


I wanted to send a note to let you all know how much I enjoy your Podcast. I downloaded the previous 6 episodes to get a little background,

and could not be happier with the results. The Brit, and Aussie, flair are brilliant. The "real" quality, questions, side notes, and quick wit, and

occasional burning soup, make it very enjoyable. Well enough sucking up, LOL. (hint, authenticator would be smashing :))


A little background on me. I started playing WOW in Oct. 07'. I currently have 8 80's, 5 Alliance, and currently 3 Horde, with 2 more at 73. My

goal is to have all 10 80's, and all professions maxed when Cataclysm comes along. I think I can be categorized as an Altaholic, or simply mad, as

it was put :).


Like you guys, I thoroughly enjoy the game. Most of my 80's are over 5k GS, but have yet to venture into ICC. No real reason, just getting all

to the same level of gear together. I only have 1 toon I do the Holiday achievements on, and he (my Pali) will be getting his violet Drake after the

children's week, Woot. I dual boxed 4 of them to 60, but ground the rest.


I play on the Scarlet Crusade, US Server, but started out on PVP, so have dabbled in most areas. I will list my toons below, and keep up the

great work. You guys are all awesome...............

P.S. I do keep a spreadsheet to track all weeklies and raids, LOL.

Gravey 80 Night Elf Hunter
Biscit 80 Human Warrior
Ardonious 80 Tauren DK
Segwick 80 Undead Priest
Phylan 80 Draeni Shaman
Grothgar 80 Dwarf Paladin
Heartwood 80 Night Elf Druid
Stavross 80 Troll Mage
Merlon 73 Orc Warlock
Haegin 73 Draeni Palidan

Sorry no Rogue, cant seem to do it, maybe with the new classes...........

All The Best

Grothgar The Noble


Email #3 from Alex

Hello All,

Great show, I'm a big fan... I have a general question here: I noticed that April uses a MacBook Pro with a second monitor; this happens to be the set up I aspire to. I am in need of a new machine and I'm planning to buy a MacBook Pro as soon as they are updated. I have heard more than once that Macs are no good for gaming due to some noise about the graphics card not working to full potential or what not. The question I guess is, do you notice any difference using a Mac? I'm not into the quad multi recruit an Alt schizophrenagebia so I assume your using more "machine" than I would playing one toon on one account. Just curious about your thoughts and any advice/opinion would be great.

Thanks for your help,

Alex

P.S Sounds like you have your hearthstone set to the southern Mass/Rhode Island area. I'm from RI!!! Ocean State FTW!!!

Email #4 from Telonnord

Dear Ashayo, Jeppy, and Vrishna from Telonnord.



I am writing to you gentlemen because I feel you need to know a little unknown fact about Apprillian.



This issue starts with my first alt of over 4 years - Addillian the warlock. Addillian is a gnome warlock, and as a warlock - has been mysterious about his background. He is reliable and deadly, and has this funny laugh when amused by his own wit. He can be bossy and nosey, and must always have his way.



I have just started listening to your podcast this week, and I must say that this is the first WoW podcast that has me laughing out loud. (Most just bring out a polite smile of amusement.) I truly enjoy your podcast. Keep up the great work! But the important point is that once I heard Apprillian laugh at her own witty comment, I thought it sounded eerily as if I was hearing Addillian. That put the bug in my ear: “Apprillian - Addillian…two warlocks with similar laughs….hmmm?”



But I digress… so being the excellent rogue I am, I did some digging. After pain staking research, special payoffs, and a few accidental deaths along the way, it has come to my attention that several generations back, apparently, there was a union of sorts between two warlocks in a long forgotten instance; one being an alliance member and one a horde member. The result was fraternal twins of two races – as strange and unnatural as this sounds – but magic is magic. (I don’t claim to know anything about the ways of warlocks.) Time has passed and the secret has been long since been buried, but now the wonderful truth can be revealed.



So it is my conclusion gentlemen that..…Apprillian and Addillian are distant cousins!!!! Yes, Apprillian is part gnome! The evidence is irrefutable from the similar names, professions, laughs, singular wit, and the need to always being right. (Not to mention her need to unsuccessfully dominate her small dog which, on a subconscious level, is akin to a gnome….poor Jasper.)



I offer you gentlemen this nugget of information. Do with it what you will.



Regards,

Telonnord

80 Human Rogue

Burning Blade



P.S. – Apprillian, if you are reading this >>>>> “These are not the droids you are seeking.” Forget you read this.

Email #5

I recently found your podcast and am working my way through from Episode 159, great work, and awesome to hear other people are Altaholics. I have been playing WoW for almost 4 years and have done a bit of hardcore raiding, when I played a lot, a bit of social raiding when I played less, and am now back to levelling alts because I can do that whilst looking after my newborn son in the sleepless nights. Feel free to edit out some of my toons if you list them, I have rolled way too many.

The Sha'tar (EU)
Gamlix, Orc Shaman 80
Tujingo, Troll Death Knight 80
Khularis, Belf Paladin 72
Rajingo, Troll Hunter 71
Muradrin, Tauren Warrior 69
Craghoof, Tauren Druid 37 - levelling at the moment
Gamaroth, Belf Mage 35 - levelling at the moment

Darkspear (EU)
Lethin, Undead Warlock 80
Gamlix, Orc Death Knight 60
Khulula, Troll Rogue 50
Ignatio, Belf Mage 34
Khulhorn, Tauren Hunter 32
Craghoof, Tauren Druid 25
Porphyrion, Undead Priest 16

Darkmoon Faire (EU)
Mchavoc, Dwarf Priest 35
Scitheras, Draenei Warrior 35

Plus a whole host of others, 40 in total.

Well, back to my point, you may have covered this on a previous podcast, but I was wondering what you guys were thinking about the coming Cataclysm changes changing the Olde World? I have mixed feelings, whilst I can see the attraction of redesigning Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms to improve them for alts or new players, I will miss them when they are gone.

My first 60 (Gamlix) dinged grinding around the Temple of Arkkoran in Azshara, and post-cataclysm this will be a low level zone, ah the memories!

I would love to know what you guys think, and hear some of the inevitable tangents.
For the Horde!

Email #6 from Bozlee

Hi Jeppy,
After hearing last weeks podcast and how your son geared up some toons you lvled to 80, I was interested to hear what you usually do with your toons once you get them to 80. Do you leave them in their greens and blues and start new characters? or do you level their professions?
I have a number of 80 toons and I like to deck them out in purples and then move on to the next alt. I have one favourite which is a Tauren hunter named Bozlee on the Thaurissian server, he was the first wow character I created and I have a soft spot for him. His gearscore is 5.2k, which is the highest I've geared a character. I've done no raiding with him , just dungeons.
To answer your question from last week, I see no problem with taking over a fully geared toon as you've put in the effort getting it to 80 and have a good knowledge of it's class mechanics.
Love the podcast,and I look forward to it every week. Thank you,
Bozlee The Tauren Hunter :)


Email #7 from Ruker

I love your podcast. It's on my "must listen to" list every week. I play a Holy/Shadow dwarf priest on Azuremyst, and I pug the daily herioc almost every day. I enter pugs as healer and dps, but I have never been picked to dps. Even after almost one hundred pugs, I'm always the healer. Either there is a severe healer shortage or Blizzard knows I suck at dps. When Aprillian made that warlock rez comment on episode 161 I spit my coffee out. Wow how true, I'm a healer and I always rez the warlock first. I have much love for warlocks, scratch my back and I'll scratch your back. Fourty-six years old and for the Alliance.
Jonathan M. "Ruker" on Azuremyst US

Email #C from Bidkar

Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy and Vrishna,

Bidkar, undead 80 mage here. I only played on 3 toons this week. I have been working more than usual, so it cuts into my Wow time.

I have a had a great time dual boxing. My warrior, Abihu, is now 24. I went Fury with him, but I think maybe I should have gone Protection since I am using him as a tank for my shaman. If you want to insert your opinion here it would be fine with me. I keep going back and forth on that subject. My elemental shaman, Zabbai, is now level 25. He keeps getting ahead of the warrior, so I take the warrior through an instance on my paladin to even out their levels. I wish there was a way to turn off the xp gain from heirlooms. I mainly like the heirlooms for the stats, not the xp gain.

The warlock, Allerea, is now exalted champion with Silvermoon, Orgrimmar and Undercity. I'm still working on the Argent Tournament. It's going faster than I remembered from previous toons.

I have also learned to try keep my mouth shut on Twitter because some people actually read what I write. I always figured no one would notice me among their 700 followers and I could just type out whatever dopey thing went through my head. Then Jeppy read my Noble Garden comment out during the show and my face turned bright red. Also while listening to "This is Outcasted" Chris read part of what I wrote when I swam out to the Maelstrom, once again making me turn bright red. In real life I am very shy and try to keep a low profile. Oh well, I hope I learned my lesson.

I really do enjoy Twitter. Nobody I know is ever interested in anything I'm interested in. They think it's funny that someone my age plays Wow and that the shows like Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek are silly. At least on Twitter I get some interaction from people who are interested in the same things I am. It was nice to come back from seeing Clash of the Titans and having a little chat about it with Jeppy and Cypher. For the record, I don't mind Bubo as a mechanical owl, I just didn't care for the plot device. The owl itself was cool. I would hang with Bubo.

Congratulations Vrishna on 77! The rest of the way to 80 flies by now, so try to take your time and enjoy it.

For the Horde and For El Jeppy and Glanthur!

Bidkar and his many alts


Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMoments

Hello
Hope you are all doing well, the fine podcast people and the listeners.
Another week and yes another week of WoW QQing as you all know from all the expansion news and info.
Sounds familiar doesnt it? Were we not going through this before wrath.
Well as I was stating on twitter, just like everything in life, the QQers have to exist or there would be a void there.
For me, I like all the news so far and yes that even includes all the challenges ahead of healers.
I am sure we will adapt and/or it will not be as bad as we all say it will but come on people just chillax!
You know we are only getting a small portion of the new things to come.

For example, the Druid info came out yesterday and all the Druids out there lost their leaves! Do you really thing that just because Druids are not receiving any new healing spells that the other changes will not be significant? Am I just drinking the wow coolaid or what?
Perhaps I am but that is why we love this game.

Slow week in wow for me. Last Sunday a few of my guildies were able to get into an ICC25 group and we will be doing that every Sunday I believe which should be fun.

I am not sure how many of you have been in a raid let alone a 40 or a 25 raid. I did 40 raid a few times with original wow and in BC not so much. In AQ40, that was crazy! Chaotic.
The entire time I was saying where am I? what am I doing??? But it is chaos fun. I do recommend getting into a VOA 25 raid, for just the experience, well :) the loots too :)

Oh and also just the dynamic of a big group like that. You think a random LFG is a fail pug, well get into a voa 25 and watch someone do something wrong, raid wipe, and a few people say a nasty comment in raid chat and leave!
HUH?
haha
Well I will not get into that now, that is an entire mess of email talk in itself.

My hunter missed ICC again this Friday and yes she is mad as mad as a Blood Elf can get! (she will get over it)

My druid and mage pair are in Northrend but my mage is still 67 because she does not have the heirloom gear.

OH MY GOD!!!
HOW can I FORGET!!!
How about the new RAF flying mount!!!!
WOW
Come one Ctlr Alt Wow listeners, we will all be doing RAF once again :)

I cannot wait, the only problem is that I think I have max characters on my 2 accounts :(
So sad isnt it, I really cannot delete but I will have to.

I wonder if the new mount will come right before the expansion. hmmmm

Oh on one more thing (I know Im dragging this along) you all have seen how in game we have had tremors because of the expansion of course. Well, in California we are experiencing the real life version, except it is just plan weird and disturbing and in life I dont know of any Cataclysmic events coming until 2012, do you all know of anything to come?

Thank you to my new facebook friends :)
Twitter followers :)
and Thank you to the Ctrl Alt Wow crew for always making me smile and just improving all of our lives.

Have another great week and I will catch you all on my MoRocket!

All ABOARD!!!

--
Mo


ItsAdamDavidson: @Aprillian April , you jepster aschayo and the grishnaaar brighten up my week keep up the good work ;)

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http://twitter.com/ItsAdamDavidson/status/11946986693



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