Monday, May 24, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 168 - Oops We've RAF'ed it Again

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.



Logo Contest - Win a Celestial Steed courtesy of Juuno.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian
Ran Scarlet
Spent frost badges on a new belt for Aprillian. Went from Strip of Remorse to Belt of Omission

Got Aprillian to 60 Champion seals and 200 stonekeeper shards. To buy some Heirlooms. Found out DK's has to be 60 to transfer. My Night Elf DK was close to 60, 2.5 bubbles away.
Aprillian & Vrishna
New RAF - Aprilian Referred AprilWow1
AprillianWow1 Referred VrishnaWow1
VrishnaWow1 Referred AprilWow2
Vrishna


Ashayo

Crazy Train
- Clearing through to Rotface pretty easily now (so 6 out of the 12 bosses). Working on Dreamwalker. Still having the occassional fun wipe at 1% or lower
- Gratz to Zooey who won 4 bits of loot in first 3 bosses

DwP
- Been working on Sindragosa. Last week we were consistantly getting her to about 10%. Tried zerg method (ignoring ice blocks), but didn't have DPS
- Solador pulling 23.5k dps on Sindragosa trash
- 16%, <1%, DEAD!
- Had to go back and clear rest of bosses, and now working on the Lich King

Weekly Raid Quests
- Anub'Rekhan in 45 seconds
- Pud/Ashariss - Patchwerk weekly
- Marrowgar has been weekly on Jubei'thos, making it tough to get on alts.

Misc
HoS coming up as "random" time after time.
Tried random on Pud - got HoR. Tried but failed. Disbanded and requeued - got HoR. Swapped to alts - got HoR. !!!

Ashariss - Spent about 900 stone keeper shards that were collecting dust to buy 52,000 honor - and upgraded neck item from i200 to i264. Might be meant for PvP, but everything on it is a massive upgrade, even for PvE

Pud - 56k honor and 1700 stone keeper shards. What to do with them?

Ashield - Oracle dailies - the hare gives you a speed boost. Revered with Oracles - bought 1st egg.

AT dialies - the Converted heroes can be pulled 1 at a time even in a pack, as long as they arnt' moving

Pud - [Looking for multitude] - got my perky pug and plenty of pets ach.

Ashariss - Pit of Saron - Engraved Gargoyle Femur - massive staff upgrade. Gave me the [Epic] achievement

Asheal - VOA 10 with Acaldraa

Ashield - HoS. Dings 79

PoH - Pud ICC 25- Exalted with Ashen Verdict. Marrowgar down after a rough start. Won i264 tanking legs
Jeppy

Emails

Email #1 from Zakoo

Hey its Zakoo..I love the podcast, you guys bring me many hours of laughter..About a month ago I bought vanilla wow for my girlfriend..In about a week her 30 days will be up, im trying to convince her for me to buy the month for her but she won't allow it. I think she will accept it, if it was a gift. so i come to you if i can compete in you free month of wow. Love the podcast, FOR THE HORDE (ps, i also listen to ctrl alt trek, great job on the podcast)

Email #A from Ma Kee Ling

hey ctrlaltwow crew!

im really happy for all of the mage love that you gave in the last episode :-) you last show was really really funny! i was giggling all throughout my morning commute. i hope you can get molly back in the show again. especially tempeste, her voice sounds really hot ;-)

i havent been doing much in game (aside from leveling my alliance toons via dungeon finder), but i just wanted to chime in and tell you guys that i love you show and i look forward to hearing more every week.

i feel im in a point in the game where factions do not matter as much as when i started playing. the most important thing in game for me now is to have fun, regardless of weather it with my horde or alliance toons. who knew i would end up like this?

thats it from me for now. thank you vrishna for having my back when it comes to pronouncing my name ;-)

for the WoW!

twitter.com/makiling_mage


Email #2 from solidratt

hi solidratt here from warsong well i have be lessening for 1 month and find i never get tiered of all your funny banter! i gust wish you made 2 pod-cast a week so i would have more to listen to me and my Friends have a little guild called clan of the moo bear! there is only three of us but we have fun and have Meany alts we love to take are time to go Thur dungeon but find that we all ways run in to that one warrior or death night that just has to run Thur it as fast as possible we will ask them to slow down but that do not so we ask them to slow down or die lol and as all ways They die and say NICE TANKING or NICE HEALING and we just laugh and they leave well it mite be mean but we just want to have fun and not be rushed well i got to go well have fun with your alts solidratt FOR THE FUN !!

Email #3 from Hibblo

Hey Ctrl Alt WoW guys and girl Hibblo here again just emailing you back to let you know the 80's I have are Hibblo 80 paladin and Óren 80 Death Knight but I am more then willing to level my horde paladin instead of being a weirdo looking Dreani, thanks for reading out my last email love the show, Hibblo level 80,Deathwing Server EU


Email #4 from Christina

Dear Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy and Vrishna:

Greetings, my name is Christina Brown. I am a new listener. I heard about your podcast from an acquaintance of mine last week during a 'Ladies of Leet' U-Stream session. I do not know if I should enter the contest since I am a new fan. But if I am not intruding, I would love to tell you some of my WOW story.

I have been playing WOW since January 2008. I have 3 main toons: a lv 80 destro lock main, a lv 80 mutilate rogue, a lv 72 feral tank main/resto offspec druid, and a future, non-existent discipline priest (hopefully by lv 80 she will be discipline pve main/shadow pve off-spec)

You can call me a casual/end-raid gaming kind of gal. I quest. I pvp bgs. I pwn. I pretty much do anything except achievement farming. I find it very time-consuming. I have done TOC, some ulduar, naxx, and barely got around ICC because as of February 4, 2010, I took my break. Since my graduation from college last May, I have been unemployed. I have volunteer work now, but I have yet to land a paying internship or job so I had to leave WOW. Although I have not been on WOW for over three months does not mean I am not aware of the new changes to Cataclysm and the 3.3.1-3.3.3 patches. I even blogged my own Catalysm recommendations. Every week, I go on Wowhead.com, WOW forums, and listen to WOW podcasts like Ctrlarlwow for the latest developments.

If I were to win or given a chance to win a month's worth of WOW, I want to come back fresh and ready to roflmaopwn people and end-game content. I would level my feral/resto offspec druid to lv 80, level my druid's enchanting and inscription professions to 450 and possibly start making Darkmoon cards to sell and give to my main toons, level a discipline priest in preparation for Cata, play some bgs, obtain new ICC 10 and 25 gear, and start earning more gold. I would play when I do not have volunteer work every week to keep me happy and busy. So this is my WOW story. I look forward to becoming a fan! FOR THE ALLIANCE! ^_^

Sincerely Yours,


Christina Brown
http://lightcameradrama.blogspot.com (Blog)
http://twitter.com/iChristina2010 (Twitter)



Email #B from Kurly

Hey folks....tis yer old buddy Kurly here!! I hope all has been well!! So, my altaholizim has reached a new high (or ow depending how you look at it). As I have mentioned before my home guild is on Norgannon and me and a core group of 4-6 have a great time running together in our guild Rabid Kittens. I have ten toons in that guild. I decided to turn on my own horde guild for those times when I feel like running alone (usually while I am watching recorded programs on my DVR) so I have a little Horde guild on Ysondre, Living Dead Gurls, with six toons. One of my guild mates in Rabid Kittens decided he was tired of loosing in PVP and rolled a horde guild on Anderhol, so I naturally created toons in his guild to show my support! I have four toons over there.

As all but one of those toons are female I decided to roll all male toons on another server, creating five Horde and five Alliance on Earthen Ring. I was careful to create only one of each class and race, and i level those toons here and there. Every class that can be a tank I am going to roll as a tank, as taking is the one role I have been avoiding.

Um.....thirty toons.

Lord.

You all are the best!!

Peace and hugs and brightly colored bugs!!

XOXO

Kurly

Email #5 from Parxyr

Hello Ctrl+Alt+WoW!

I won't address anyone by name as there have been recent concerns over who gets the nod first in an e-mail intro. :)

I recently stumbled upon your podcast and I just wanted to say thank you for the ongoing saga of open debate and humor over the wonderful world of alts, err, warcraft. You guys add a very welcomed discussion and occasional dysfunction that is light hearted and spirited, and steps away from the elitist conversations that happens on so many other discussions on the topic of WoW. I think that some people manage to forget that at the end of the day this is a game we are playing and not a second job. The game was designed to be fun, and it actually saddens me a bit to know that there are people out there that have simply forgotten this fact.

I did want to respond to a topic covered in a recent episode regarding angst-ridden reactions to potential newb grouping elements in the LFD world we now live in. As someone who started as a Night Elf Hunter then ran through several instances as a follow-along DPS'er DK that has transitioned into the tank role in my recent alt (a mid-70's BElf Prot Pali running around on Alexstraza trying to find the pew-pew button), I'm actually discovering what it means to really run through a dungeon for myself. I'm not the dungeon leader by any stretch of the imagination as I'm trying to re-learn the fights with a controlling and positioning eye rather than a "ooh, look at the shiny" and "keep out of the black spot of death" eye. In that vein, I would hope that people could all just relax for a few short moments and have a sense of patience for those trying on new roles. We were all newb's once, some of us perpetually so as we keep rolling alts and trying different specs. People just take a moment, smell the freshly rotting corpses in the Plaguelands, and have fun already! ;)

By the way, I'm looking forward to my rocket as I'm just now starting up a RAF session with my kids in a second account for the first time. I'm looking forward to the fun, and to teaching them the game as this will undoubtedly be a new style of playing for me.

Please do keep up the good work as this is a refreshing element to my week and it makes my commute just that much more tolerable.

Yours,

Parxyr


Email #C from Nevik

I will come straight to the point: emus? Really? Emus?!? /sigh

Even after I extend an olive branch on behalf of chocobos everywhere you, Vrishna, decide to up the ante? Chickens are one thing, but tossing the emu card on to the table is something else altogether.

These transgressions from the chocobo-hater can no longer be ignored. Something must be done to curb the misguided hatred Vrishna spews on the podcast. It simply does not befit Ctrl Alt Wow nor Vrishna himself, an otherwise upstanding individual ... (that is if you ignore his incessant interrupting of Sir Jeppy)

We will have to begin Vrishna's rehabilitation from chocobo-hater to chocobo-lover in earnest and as soon as possible, lest more hatred spread to the podcast community.

Yes folks, hatred is contagious and we must put a stop to it! Our dear Cyph-o from the Addicted has recently succumb to this vile mentality of slandering the magnificent name of the chocobo. We cannot allow any more of our beloved podcasters to fall victim to this cycle of hatred! Let us transform Vrishna from a beacon of hatred to that of love, warmth and acceptance.

Let your voices be heard and your message clear to our dear Vrishna. Chocobos are as magnificent as we are in this World of Warcraft and should be treated with love and respect. Isn't that the golden rule, Vrishna? To treat others as you would want to be treated?

Just think how you would feel, Vrishna, if the chocobos slandered you. It wouldn't feel good now, would it? What wrongs have been done unto you, Vrishna, by these beautiful and magestic creatures?

I hope you, Vrishna, take a deep, long look at yourself and realize the err of your ways. Otherwise, my friend, there is a dark road in front of you. One that could possibly involve aversion training not unlike what Alex DeLarge subjected himself to.

I beg of you, Vrishna, to put aside your hatred and pull yourself away from the edge of the cliff, the cliff of hatred. No good can come that. Embrace the chocobo, Vrishna, and they will embrace you.

That is all.

Nevik

Sent from my mini-iPad

Email #D from Acaldraa

Hey ctrl alt wow crew,

Acaldraa here ready to blabber for a minute or two about my week. So this week has defiantly been an interesting one for me. First off, I went into ICC 10 and downed Festergut, Rotface and Professor in only 3 attempts. Defiantly interesting for me as I ended up tanking Rotface and Professor P. No Phat loots for myself but I got the plague wing achv. This was on Wednesday night. However, monday night, I hopped in an ICC group right before the lockout expired and we powered through it, going 6/12 is just under 1 1/2 hours. Pretty good for a Pug IMO.
In other news, I had a few questions for the hosts;
1) Will you be leveling any professions in the craft fair?
2) If you had to chose one zone to be unaffected by Cata, what would it be?
Lastly, 3) Why are Paladins the best tanks, healers AND dps in the game? It just seems a little unfair? Just saying

Well hope you have an awesome week in-game and out and I cant wait to hear your response,
Peace,
Acaldraa
Alea Iacta Est

P.S. Im sorry... Aprillan. I got you into an ICC 10 and we were rocking through the trash but then my friends laptop at school started to freak out and DC me... Maybe another time or i'll get a Mifi? School wifi can be fail

Email #E from Bidkar

Greeting CtlAltWow crew,

Bidkar the mage here. Not too much to report but here is the rundown.

Allerea, the warlock, is finally exalted with the Kirin Tor. She did it the hard way, earning her way with the cooking daily and a bit of rep from doing the jewelcrafting daily.

The Alliance druid and priest are now 25. I went through most of Auberdine and moved on to Astranaar. I'm not going whine about Astranaar here, but I will just say I did not enjoy the area. I moved the duo over to Darkshire and am much happier there.

My other horde paladin, Lael, is now 29 soon to be 30. She's close to being ready to team up with my other horde mage Jehus. She's been running through Razorfen Kraul, Razorfen Downs and Scarlet Monastery with my 80 paladin. I'm still addicted to Scarlet Monastery. I like to go through and aggro every mob I can find in each area then mow them down.

A bit of CtrlAltGeek. I received my ipad and am enjoying it very much. I think it was money well spent for me. Currently reading quite a bit on it. The ipad is actually easier for me to read with than my Kindle.

Really enjoyed Molly from last week. I added her podcast to my list of must listens.

Have a great week!

For the Horde and For the Alliance,

Bidkar and his many alts


Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMoments

Hello all,
hope everyone is well and you had a great week.

For my wow news, I once again had a few days without RAF :(
Before the weekend is out I will have the pally/mage up to level 55 and I would like to start a few other pairs on other servers.

I did spend a little more time on the level 80s and 70s characters. For my priest, our guild started our own ICC25 last Sunday and we will try to keep it going each week. First time around it was not bad even if we did not get too far. Also my priest ran ICC10 with the guild during the week but not on Friday (we spent a fine Friday out at a sushi bar, do you all like sushi?) oops sorry I will save that question for the Addicted podcast :)

With the raids we are running it seems as though people feel they not getting some of the loot they deserve. Loot drama, maybe but some complaints are valid. I do not have any great suggestions on how to distribute loot. I basically think if, for example, there is a priest loot the priest or clothies roll for it. If I end up losing it, well I lose. Not everyone feels that way and we do need to come up with a loot system (so someone else can complain about that too, just a horrible circle of life, I mean wow!).

The big mo news of the week was on Thursday when I was on my priest and trying to get in a raid to get the weekly question done (Ignis was the quest). Looking in the wonderful chat, there were a few people looking but when I would send them a whisper I would get nothing. Another person replied back asking for my gear score, achievements, and if I know the fight! Yes I ignored him, I mean come on!!!
So I asked again in looking for group, yes what a concept as I see asking for it in trade chat. A few people replied back saying yes I need the weekly; in guild a few said the same. The only thing that made mosense was to put a raid together, yes I dare say I put my first raid together as a raid leader! CRAZY!
We had 10 people in no time, yes crazy! I tell my guildy, who was in a failed attempt at the weekly, not to blame me if this raid fails too.
We get to Ulduar, summon people, get in the instance, and start the trash clear. It is going fast, I mean fast, we are clearing things up like its RFC or Scarlet Monastery.
I say in guild chat "well this is going well" and my other guildies find out I was leading a raid and could not believe it but happy :)
We get to flame leviathan, the big machine boss; he looks like a Zamboni to me. We kill him in no time as well! Loot pops up and I say in raid chat to just please need if you need and DE if you do not need. That is simple enough for me and we were off to the mobs before Ignis. We did wipe on one of the trash because this zerg druid, he or she said they were a zerg druid!, the druid just rushed in and grabbed i groups :) yes in Ulduar, good thing the druid was humbled and we appropriately cleared the trash mobs (I hate calling them that as they are not trash, they are hard but the popular name is trash mobs) and we downed the boss in no time as well.
I really could not believe it that I put that raid together. Even though I really did nothing as raid leader, it was a fun experience which I do not want to experience ever again!
For my job I have to manager people and I do not want to do that out of work, in turn in wow or any other game. Even though I did manage my own guild the first few year of wow, raid leading is not for me.

I told my guild master, raid leader, friend, that I so appreciate how he leads our raids and I do not know how he does it. He does want some other people to step up to lead raids at times so he can just do his tanking or dps but he also enjoys what it entails.

Oh oh I have dragged on again, I hope I can wake anyone that fell asleep.
Hope Ashayo is back and it was great to hear @randysmolly

I will say my goodbyes and have another great week.




--
Mo


From Dan

Hello ctrl alt wow guys and girl

Heatly here

Just wondering if you were going to send me that 1 month free I won a while back, Sorry I havnt written in a while but I have been listening while at work. The reason I'm asking is because I cancelled my account about 2 months ago due to money issues and "prioritys" but then I rememebered I had won that card so I checked my email but I never got it. would love to get back in the game!

Thanks

Sorry about the spelling I'm running out the door!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 167 - I Choose Who Rides My Rocket

With Molly of Ladies of Leet - http://ladiesofleet.com

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
Ran Manatombs with Epril & Tiiaa, Tiiaa dinged 68. Aprillian send her the Tome of Cold Weather flying and started Tiiaa's Taxi Service. Took a level 40 Shaman around Northrend.

Missed a few days of DH on Aprillian.

Tues was no maintenance, which was nice. Ran the Weekly Raid with Gufoni & Arezzo from Postcards of Azeroth.

Wed put some work in my RAF. Bought a trinket for RAF. Used Sebastian, level 62 hunter to run 11 & 13 through Insignia quest in Skull Rock & RFC

Thu/Fri did Wailing Caverns and started Shadowfang Keep. Finished with 18 & 20

Saturday did SFK and finished 20 & 22, used Tiiaa to transport them to Orgrimmar
Aprillian & Vrishna
Tiiaa & Vrishna started the Nessingwary quests in Nagrand. Tiiaa couldn't do the other quest until she went back and did the Assassin.

Wed Aprillian Quadboxed while Vrishna healed. We did two Randoms, Drak'thor Keep & part of the Nexxus.

Did Quests in Nagrand. Rocket comes in handy.
Vrishna
Alas, wow burnout. Curse you Netflix!

Ashayo
No Ashayo This Week!
Jeppy
Operation Winterhoof

29 Days

Just over 191 hours played

so an average of 6 1/2 hours a day

1248 earned levels

248 Gifted levels

25 level 60s + 5 between 34 - 42


Misc stuff

8276 cloth
4912 skin
316 green items
7 blue
1 purple (brightwood staff)
614 murloc eyes

Emails

Email #1 from Grothgar

Hi CtrlAltWoW Gang,

Just wanted to get an update to ya. At last report I had 8 80's, working on my ninth. I am happy to report that my Warlock turned 80 last week, Woot. I know Altaholic maximum. Oh well, what else would I be doing, LOL. I also had a very productive week. I got the 264 pants for my druid, the 270 pants on my mage, the 251 pants on my Warlock, as well as the 264 cloak, and finally the 264 cloak on my warrior. Just an average week :)

Secondly, I am also the proud owner of a magnificent Celestial Steed. Its awesome, especially on my Pali at 310 speed.

Last, but certainly not least, Congradulations on the new 80 in the group. It was a real treat following your progress throughout.

I wish you all the best. You guys are what makes playing this game a real joy. Real people who play for all the right reasons, and genuinly try to make a difference. I may actually roll a new tune to join you guys....:)



Until next time

Grothgar "the Elder"

Email #2 from Bearbehindu

Subj: Brit altaholic

> Hi team of Ctrl Alt Wow: Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna and fellow Brit Jeppy
> from Bearbehindu, a balance Druid swinging his sword for the Horde on Lightbringer realm EU.
>
> Just wanted to drop a email to say how much I enjoy your podcast. I have been listening to you guys chat about the subject I love for the last couple of months now and I don't care what others say, the shows are not long enough. I mainly listen to the show whilst travelling on the train to and from work in London and the cheery chat gets me set for the day and calms me down for the evening after work. However, the smiling and laughing on a quiet carriage has gotten me some strange looks on the train. Most of the booted and suited English people on the train think smiling in the morning is a definite sign of madness and laughing in the afternoon in a public place is against the law.
> But I digress.
> I am now the ripe old age of 49 and started playing WOW a few years ago just as BC came out. I quickly found that I needed to learn a new language before I could really understand what was going on LOL ROFLMAO, and to start with found it difficult to communicate with these strange MMO ppl, who think you should understand what is going on or you're a noob. I also found my somewhat slow reaction times and mashing of keys, whilst trying to drink a glass Pinot Grigio were not the required specs for raiding or serious PVP (why is it some people don't like it if you try to fish in battle grounds). However, what I did find out was that I was afflicted with being an Altaholic and in love with levelling. I now have 5 level 80s (A Druid, a Shaman, a Rogue, a Priest and a Mage) and 2 level 70s ( a hunter and a Pali). Not as many as you guys have but I take pride that the first two toons were levelled to 70 on a PVP server, which does somewhat slow down the act of questing. Plus the fact no one told me there were things called addons that could help me quest until I got to 70. You may boo as they are all Horde except one Alliance Mage who is sitting unloved and un-played in the Dalaran square, but I prefer the horde quest lines and the feel of the cities. Hopefully over the next few months I will be able to get the 2 70s to 80 before Cataclysm comes out, so I am free to try out the new Goblin race by levelling a couple of warlocks. Yes, thats right, not only am I afflicted with being a Altaholic, but since listening to your show I have now started playing around with dual boxing. At the moment I am using a Imac and MacBook Pro which I have convinced to share the same keyboard, oh the joy of one key two hits and the mobs are soon dead. And for this I must thank you, and Aprillian I agree the rocket mount is great.
>
> I have also become a great fan of the looking for group system and try to do as many as posible. However, sometimes i feel like a stressed parent on a museum trip, with 4 unrully children running uncontrolably into the exhibits trying to make for the nearest exit. It seems the only crowd control required these days is for the group: "ITS THE TANKS JOB TO PULL!" I shout as the dk dps goes running off. /cry /moan. Oh the stories I could tell, think I could write a book "How to anoy pugs and influence them".
> The one thing that does sadden me though (wipes tear from corner of eye and tries not to look like an unloved Mage abandoned in dalaran) is that I live in a wow free zone, no matter what I try to do I cannot convince any friends or relatives to play. I even tried bribing my teenage nephew with a free account, but my brother insists that playing 10 hours plus a week will affect his college work, go figure. Also my efforts to find a real social guild to join, who share my love of levelling and alts has proved fruitless. I have tried several guilds on EU servers, but the players only seem to be obsessed with getting to 80 as quick possible, gearing up and then arguing who is going to be in what team for raiding. If you know of any such altaholic guilds, especially Jeppy, if you know of any on a EU server, I would be grateful to hear about them. Although, if I can find out how to play on a US server, I would be happy to transfer some toons to the US server. (spoz it means creating a new account. How sad another rocket mount.)
>
> Well it has been nice chatting to you and hope you are not too bored with my ramblings. Here's to you continuing with the great work and making me laugh.
> For the Horde!
> Kind regards from yours truely
> Bearbehindu (the Druid)
> Bearfacesham (the Shammy)
> Bearbones (the undead rogue)
> FatherTedd ( the shadow priest)
> and
> Cåtweazle (the lonely Mage)
>
> Sorry for any typos, small iPhone vs fat fingers.
>
Sent from my iPhone


Email #3 from Jede

Subject: What an amazing podcast!

Hello CTRL-ALT-WOW,



This is Jede (pronounced JED-E) on the Steamwheedle Cartel server. I am an 80 human warrior; however I have many many many alts. This is the first time I have contacted the podcast, although I have been a listener for a few months. I must confess that when I first started listening I thought I wouldn't end up being a long time listener like I have been with other WOW podcasts such as World of Warcast and The Instance which I have been listening to since 2006.



I have to say that attitude all changed though - there is something so incredible about your podcast, the way you guys interact, the constant laughter and merriment and the fact that if one of you guys don't know something specific about the game, you have no problem with that - in other words you don't have the elitist or trade-chat attitude that is so prevalent in the game. Of course this wouldn’t apply to Ashayo who seems to know pretty much everything!



I am now hooked on your podcast in a way that I can only describe as addicted. Even if you show is well over 2 hours like it has been the past couple of weeks I am totally bummed when it ends and can't wait until next week for more content.



I have to admit that I think I have a bit of a man-crush on Vrishna. Now let me explain as I am male, heterosexual, married with children and like it that way. But there is something about Vrishna that draws me to him. I think part of the reason might be that unlike the other 3 hosts, he isn't a beautiful woman or has a deep Australian accent that girl’s go crazy for. It seems the hosts who seem to get all the attention from callers and emailers are everyone but Vrishna. I like how he always seems to be in the dog house with Aprillian and I like the way he laughs a bit too hard at his own jokes (which are funny btw). Also it was cool how he worried so much about whether he should need an item in a dungeon! By listening to Vrishna also on CTRL-ALT-TREK (did I mention I also listen to that podcast and I don't even play that game?), anyway by listening to him over the months he reminds me of myself a lot - just seems like a great laid back kind of guy, who is sometimes nice to a fault. Anyway I hope you don't take offence to this Vrishna.



To sum up I wanted to say how amazing your podcast is and I hope you guys continue for years to come. I did want to ask one thing: on last weeks show Aprillian mentioned that she was going to start up a recruit a friend again soon. Now I have never multi-boxed or recruited anyone (although like I mentioned I do have multiple alts and have had more than 1 account active at a time but I started all of them before this recruit a friend began by Blizzard). Anyway Aprillian if you are looking for someone to recruit so you can get the bonuses without having to start another account I would love to do that as I have been thinking of starting some fresh toons on servers that I have never been on and the 300% XP would be cool.



Thank you for listening to this and keep up the great work. One last thing. You have mentioned about people contributing codes to the podcast or sponsoring. I looked at your site and can't figure out how to do this; any info would be great as I would like to give something back considering all the enjoyment you have given me.



Have a great week in Azeroth!

Jede


Email #A from Makiling

hello ctrl alt wow crew, makiling here

i just listened to your latest episode, and i wanted to congratulate vrishna on his pugging experiences. his encounters witht hedifferent kinds of players in game remind me so much of my early days in wow. i to asked the same questions that he had, but i didnt have a wonderful group of friends to play with, so i had to discover the answers for myself. but as i am learning in game, it is very much like life: a continuing learning process.

my week in wow involved the children's week. i was only able to get the title on my mage, and the process of getting it was filled with tribulations. the pvp part of the meta that was the most difficult was the eye of the storm one. the alliance were incredibly organized in our battlegroup. this was compounded with the queue times reaching up to 2h. i spent the time waiting to get into bgs doing quests in outland where i got the zangarmarsh and terrokar forest quest achievements. it took me 6 days before i got into a group where a rogue stole the flag from the alliance and dropped it near our base. i picked it up, then turned it in to get the achievement and the title, but i was then yelled at for stealing his flag! he did not announce anywhere in chat that he dropped the flag for his friend, so my feelings of great relief for getting the achievement were mixed with confusion on the accusations against me. all in all, i am glad that this holiday was over.

i wasnt planning on getting all the achievements for my other toons, but i wanted to get the pets. but when i logged into the game, i didnt find the exclamation marks on the orphan matrons. the holiday was over. i was kinda bummed out, so i decided to level my alliance toons. my night elf druid tanked sunken temple the other day. i think i last did that instance 2 years ago. i had forgotten where the stairs lead and how the bosses and mobs worked. it pays to get grouped with a healer who knows what to do. we almost wiped in the group that mind controls players, but we finished the instance with no wipes.

so now i am waiting for the fire festival to finally get my violet proto drake. the in game maps of the revamped zones look really exciting, and i hope we will all be around when we experience them in cataclysm.

thats it from me for now, for the horde!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email # B from Gongrim

Childrens week

Hi all at ctrlaltwow

This is Gongrim here and yes I am that mad I listened to your whole back catologue :)

Being self employed and working on my own atm I listened to 5 or 6 episodes a day over the coarse of several weeks.

Now to the subject of my e-mail. As a guild several of our members do the holiday achievements. So we all grouped up and set off on our pvp adventures. It was the beginning of the holidays so we thought we may have a good chance to get them done as most people would be trying to do the same.

We first went to arathi basin first then WSG and pretty much everyone just took it in turns capping a flag.

We then tried EotS and the first time we run here was a wipe fest the horde just rolled over us none pvper's. So we queued up again and this time we ran in to a lot of horde who where doing the quests so we basically took turns again till we'd all got this part of the achievement.

Lastly we attempted Alterac Valley and boy was this a hard one. After our first failed attempt we sat and talked it through on our vent server. We made the plan to head for the second horde tower as less people seemed to go straight there.

After 5 or 6 attempts most of our group had got the achievement, apart from me and a Dk. We called it night there as it was getting late.

So the day after the dk managed to capture a flag. Which left only me, I made sevral more attempts that night to no avail. It was getting very frustrating getting so close only to get stunned by a sneaky rogue or paladin or death gripped away by a dk.

I spent pretty much the rest of the week trying without much luck. Before finally managing it the day it was due to finish.

I must say the one good thing to come out of this week has been the amount of honor I have gained I have been able to regem both specs on gongrim my warrior and make some extra gold selling other gems.

Enough rambling from me this week :) keep up the good work

Gongrim dragonblight EU

PS thanks for the lucky roll last week I think I will choose the month of wow as my prize and save it for my planned RaF
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media

Email # 4 from Melvyl

Subject: Some Brief as I can make them Comments

Hey Aprillian and the Guys,

A bunch of topics I wanted to comment on, so I am going to try and
keep this short as I can:

This is my philosophy on Heroic Loot: Wrath has been out for 18
months. At this point, most of the stuff that drops no one wants -
they are just hoping someone in the group is an enchanter. If you need
it, Need it. If you think you may use it, Need it. If 2 people need
something, you can either work it out or keep it. Chances are, most of
the group won't care. The exceptions: Loot from the ICC 5-mans is
still very popular so just don't be a jerk. If I get something cool on
the first drop, I sometimes pass on everything else.

Congratulations to Vrishna on healing your first Heroic as a Paladin.
As I mentioned last time, before 3.3 I hardly ever got the chance to
run anything, and was usually too nervous to run a Heroic. Last week,
I queued for a random and got Utgarde Keep. It went really well, and
when we got done, everyone decided to stay together and queue up
again. This time we got Halls of Reflection - which I had never
completed on Normal even. It was nerve-wracking and tense and took all
my concentration but we got through it with only a single death and
never close to wiping. That was probably my favorite WoW moment thus
far. And ironically I earned the achievement "500 Dungeon & Raid
Emblems" on Melvyl while I was there.

I said last time I was going to write about my experiences on leveling
a Druid. After failing at solo-balance and solo-feral, I respecced her
Resto and leveled from 26 on all the way up to 80 - lots and lots of
Dungeon Finder. I am really enjoying the totally different style of
healing, and I have balance as an offspec which is a lot of fun as
well.

And finally: After a year, I decided it was time to get serious about
getting Lyvlem to 80 over on Jubei'thos. So I loaded up my shadow
priest with heirlooms and Sceadua is now hanging out on Jubei' while
he finishes up the trek to 80 and she can help out with any any of his
enchant needs. Then she is moving on to Earthen Ring.

Keep up the great work.

Melvyl of Aerie Peak

Email # C from Nevik

Guten Tag Aprillian, Ashayo, Jeppy! ... and *cough*Vrishna*cough*

Oh alright, I'm only teasing, Vrishna. You were never truly "dead to me," but perhaps we can work on that chocobo hatred of yours. It's possible that after feeding some gyshal greens to one of those magnificent creatures you would understand my fondness of them, but I digress.

Vrishna I wouldn't worry too much about gear in random heroics, but it's great to hear of your tales of selflessness. I've happily traded an item to another in greater need or where it would be a larger upgrade for them than me. I think you did the right thing in terms of karma by giving the "main-spec tank" dps'ng warrior the loot you had rightfully won.

If you're really looking to gear up, chain-run /normal/ Trial of the Champion or the ICC 5-mans. That's the absolute quickest way and will get your healadin into a position to where she can heal any heroic. Just make sure that someone brings an enchanter to DE all of the loot no one needs ^^;

Anyhoo, I'm still away from the game but the urge to come back grows stronger every week. Thoughts of running around with a goblin hunter, dwarf shaman, troll druid and tauren paladin dance in my head.

Too bad I have to wait for Cataclysm to come around, but I'm sure I'll be back before then. I still need to kill the Lich King with my rogue and death knight as well as become battle-hardened in pvp with my priest once more.

Oh, before I close out this email I will risk brevity to address Juuno's solicitation for goblin and worgen tank/healer team ideas.

For the goblin team the only tanking class available at level 1 is warrior. As for the healer, I'd definitely suggest going with shaman as the goblin shaman totems are pure win.

For the worgen team I think you should go with two druids. If you both roll druid, you can switch off tank/healing duties as necessary.

Until next time, I'll be lurking in the shadows as usual

Nevik


Email #D from Bidkar

Greetings Vrishna, El Jeppy, Ashayo and Aprillian,

This week Bidcar and Alehta, my ally raf hit 60. I think the Alliance experience has been a good one and I am continuing it with a new ally raf. I started a night elf duo, Matou a druid and Pretre, a priest. I used Google translation for the names, in theory Matou is french for Tomcat and Pretre is french for priest. Picked night elves because I am interested in the lore associated with them after reading "War of the Ancients". Turns out night elves can be more than hunters! By the way, all I have seen so far in the starting areas are night elf hunters. In this case, the cliche is true so far.

It seemed to me that some of the Alliance areas for questing seemed very lacking in depth. Now that I pondered it for a bit, I think it's because on the Horde side I know where to pick up all the side quests. The only ally city I really went regularly was Stormwind so I think I missed quite a few quests. The Hinterlands and South Shore stand out in my mind as extremely short in quests. I am still extremely glad I started Alliance toons and think it was time well spent. The Alliance need a cool place like Orgrimmar to hang out though.

My horde warlock ran out and did her jewelcrafting and cooking dailies of course. I took Bidkar out on Saturday to work on his explorer achievement for a change of pace. Now I know where the legendary Karazahn. Bidkar has finished the Eastern Kingdoms and only has Kalimdor to finish.

I am looking forward to Jeppy's report with this week's conclusion of recruit a friend. Do you keep all the accounts once you are finished or do you transfer certain toons to your original accounts? I am curious what all of you do once raf is done. I know you mention transferring toons over, but it seems that would get expensive after a bit. Do you just pick out your favorites to transfer over?

I ordered my ipad, which is not really Wow related, but CtrlAltGeek isn't on every week so I'll just report that here. I think it will turn out to be quite useful and not just a "toy" as so many people report. My thanks to Aprillian and John from Warcraft Outsiders for their information which helped me with my decision.

Ooops, almost forgot, I also learned not to group with toons name "Bungholeoh". He begged and begged me to group with him in Stromgarde. I didn't really want to because I am not talented enough to do that when I am dual boxing plus his name seemed to indicate a certain lack of intelligence. I was right.

For the Horde and For the Alliance,

Bidkar and a couple of his alts

P.S. Do you ever hear from Blade anymore?

Email #5 Hibblo

Hey Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna and Jeppy. Hibblo from the DeathWing Server EU here longer, time listener first time emailling in, love the podcast, well here's my question. I'm an altaholic with two 80's but I have a few low level character and I want to level another to 80 but I can't decide which to go with, so I thought i'd ask you's. here's a list of my characters levels

70 Warrior

29 Mage

12 Hunter

20 Druid

60 Rogue

5 Priest

8 Shaman

60 Warlock

20 Paladin

I want you's to choose what character for me to get to 80 and i'll do it no matter how low or high the character, if yu don't want to choose just get Ashayo to do a random roll

Well if yu do thanks for reading out my email and i'll try and keep you updated with the character. Keep up the podcast and can't wait to see what you's choose.


Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMoments

Hello all,
Hope everyone has had another wonderful week in game and out of game.

I have had a slow wow week as I have wasted a few good RAF days unfortunately. I was still able to get my pally/mage past level 50. The ret pally and ice mage really make a great pair. What other good dual boxing pairs do you all like? I know Shamans are common but I am looking for other combinations.
I am enjoying the mage which I may try another mage and another class combo because of the food/water/portal making options. I guess the nice aoe dps too :)

For the big boys and girls (that is the level 70s and 80s) just lots of the usual stuff. Icc for my priest and hopefully for my 80 hunter on Sunday. We did our usual Icc 10 Friday night which I was a bit late for. We had to pug about 4 spots and one of the pugs was this dk. In guild chat we were commenting how this dk's dps was so low. How low you ask!? I was out dps'ing the dk! Well I was dps-healing as there was a priest healing but she was not geared so we decided I would be the 3rd healer and do what ever else I can do.
What I have done for a while now is dps when I can even in raids (but especially in instances) while I am the healer. I was out dpsing this dk on most fights, except for the bosses. You know what, we understood this dk was gearing up so we did not say anything bad in raid chat, we worked with the dk. Is it bad we were talking in guild chat about this person, well I say no as we were able to get this person 1 piece of gear, the weekly raid and badges they did not have before which I think should count for something.

On my hunter that is 77 I have tried to do the JC daily but that doesnt always happen. He is slowly making the trek to 80.

One little story I do have to share just happened last night, as a guildy wanted to get a few more heroics in for more badges. I logged in my warrior and we joined LFD as dps and waited....waited...waited! It was about 15 minutes when I changed to my prot spec so we can finally get into the instance somewhere. Now, I do need to remind you, I have tanked before in original wow and BC; not so much in wrath.
It seems as though I always get into a bad pug or get paired up with people that just are, well to keep it clear NOT NICE! Not willing to work with a noob motank. So after I switched to tank spec, rejoined LFD and after 2-3 seconds we were in of course one of my least favorite places AN! (Azjol-Nerub, it should be call Azjol-mo's a noob). We zone in and no joke, the first thing out of this shammy was "hey tank your gs is low! this is going to take a while!" Exactly what you want to hear right? I said yes it is, and of course the other dps had already pulled the first mob. we work out way to where the mobs are before the first boss. Now I know I need to pull one group at a time but I charge in and aggro'ed 2 groups and we die because the great shammy healer was complaining instead of healing. I have healed through that with bad dps and tank; no its not ideal but it can be done. The shammy is complaining the entire time of course and I just tell him he can tank if he wants to or just work with me.
We get the first boss, get to the 2nd boss, and guess what!?
Some people believe one of the hardest achievements is:
Earned the achievement Hadronox Denied for 10 points
And we were able to get that! (I do not think it is that hard on my priest but that is just me)
The great shammy healer did not have it either, so in party chat the chah'ching sound and text went off for out achievement.
He is laughing (by emote and chat!) and says oh wow I cant believe we just got that, that is one of the hardest achievements!
*sigh*
We carry on to just before the last boss, Anub'arak, who I hate so much and I will tell you why!
As we are waiting to get the last pair of mobs, 2 dps was lagging behind so I was waiting. The shammy of course is telling me to go go go! Seriously what is wrong with some people I ask!?
We finally start the boss and my issue with this hated boss is that he had this pound, which I guess simply he pounds anyone in front of him into the ground. As a tank I guess you just need to walk through him just before this happens and if you have him face the group well = wipe. :(
We have him at about 40% I think when I get caught in a pound and die.
But wait! something wonderful happened, after more complaints the shammy left!!!
We rez'ed, I apologized to the other 2 dps while my guildy was saying dont worry about it and making me feel better.
We were able to get a holy pally in and finish with just the next try.

I know I should not let that shammy or anyone else get to me but even when I was working on my healer while leveling or gearing, certain people you may group up with will just make the game not fun at all!
If I can say anything from my experience, best option is to just keep quiet, keep trying if the group is willing to stick around and some good will come of it. I do believe it in that, and karma too. In game karma does exist I believe.

Well that is plenty of rambling, so thank you as always for a great podcast.
Have another great week and please be kind to others, never know when that other is a fragile motank :)

Take care

--
Mo

Thanks from Brian

iTunes Reviews:

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 166 - QQ for BG's

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 166 - QQ for BG's

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
I want a rocket mount on a higher level toon. Thinking I want my level 80 hunter to have one, but can't make new toons on that account. Went through and deleted a bunch of toons.

Did TOC and got [Embrace of Madness] a 219 chest piece to replace my Ebonweave robe, a 200 chest piece. GS went to 5045.

On Tues morning, got up with Vrishna, ran Tournament dailies. After maintenance I took Tiiaa and Epril to Sporegarr to rep grind so Tiiaa could get the quest. We got to the last boss and Tiiaa died. Boss despawned before she could run back.

Wed morning, summoned Tiiaa to Coilfang while riding rocket with Epril. Epril's client crashed, when she logged back in, she was in Coilfang.

Dual boxing RAF with a hunter/rogue. Finished most quests razor hill. Upgraded RAF account to 10 day BC trial. Created Belf and summoned one then other. Questing in Falconwing square, level 4 rogue with GS of 907 wants to duel.


Aprillian & Vrishna
Ran part of 2nd coilfang, Underbog. Killed final boss but Tiiaa died. So had to go back in.

Did Underbog like 10 times, finished twice.
Vrishna
Culling of Strathholme ... 1st time pugging alone. How do you choose need when everything is going on SO fast ! Chose need on my first item and had a whisper from a party member asking me to give it to him because tanking was his main spec. He greeded it also. He was dpsing in this pug, but then realized that it WAS tank gear and I was healing so maybe I shouldn't have needed it either. So I gave it to him even tho I'm sure it would have been my first upgrade playing at 80 in a dungeon. What is the etiquette. What should I do. HELP ! But it was fun and tank only died twice and THAT was only 'cause he wouldn't wait for me to mana up before running ahead, getting to 25% health before I even got close to him ! Tried to kick a member literally right before the last boss. Thought that was a wee bit offsides.

Ashayo
Weird cursor lag on 2nd monitor

Children's week
- Started with good co-op in WSG to drop flag. But then a pre-made that farmed us for honor and wouldn't let anyone get the ach
- Got the pet from all of Org, Shatt & Northrend
- Lots of frustrating waits for failed BGs
- Queue for random and hope for one we need. Finally got into EotS and managed an easy cap.
- AV Call to Arms - so easy to finish off .

Crazy Train
- Festergut 50k wipe, then killed him
- Rotface - 22%, lost 6 and was kiting for ages before we wiped at 2%
- Marrowgar (was weekly)
- Deathwhisper (won off spec head)
- Frost Giant - ICC weekly
- Gunship
- Oneshot Saurfang
- Oneshot Festergut

DwP
- One shot Blood Princes.
- Blood Queen - trouble at the fear phase without resto druid healer. Really bad luck with fears and timing of bite/fear. Got her on last try of the night
- Putricide down ; awesome job by healers
- Sindragosa attempts ; wipe from being frozen, wipe at phase 3, phase 3 (25%), 17%, 19%

Misc
- Ashield - Argent Tournament / Oracles. Gundrak - won cloak upgrade
Thought I was smart by teleporting to dungeon immediately after killing a mob and another was running at me. HAHA, I thought. Until I finished the dungeon and teleported out and 4 mobs jumped me.
Ding 78 - can now wear the Ornate Saronite set that I'd made earlier
- Pudendal ; Continued levelling Blacksmith , got to 440. Last 10 points are hard
- Had enough of BG's and queued for heroic - got Halls of Reflection. 1000 Emblems on 1st boss in HoR
- Super fail AN as tank on laptop
- Pudendal - ICC 25 man Pants on Head. Marrowgar down, won [Bryntroll, the bone Arbiter]. Deathwhisper down. Gunship battle down with a mis-start, and 5 missing

Jeppy

Variety is the spice of life - I have therefore been RAF levelling. T-4 Days.
Emails

Email #A from Acaldraa

Hey guys,

Acaldraa here once again with my weekly ramble. First of all, I hope that by the time this is read, a raid containing myself, Aprillian and Virinya will have taken place and fun times will have been had by all. Today I wanted to talk about gearing up when you first hit 80 and method in which you can do such a thing. Please note that this is from a PVE side of things as I have no idea what the heck I am doing in PVP. (Not that my PVE knowledge is that much better ^^)

Anyways, first you want to chain run Normal TOC 5 from some iLvl 200 epics. This can be done at level 78 and beyond. Next, move on to Heroic TOC 5 and some ICC 5 normals. After you feel comfortable, move up to ICC 5 heroics and maybe a raid or two. Also, farming the dungeon finder randoms can be a great way to get fast badges. Once you hit 80, try to do the weekly no matter what your gear level as you will be with people that over gear the place. Also, doing your daily random heroic can help to bring in the frosties. For items that you might not be able to get w/ badges, look at the conquest or valor vendors, they might have what you need. Also, you can spend some honor for things like necks and cloaks. Hope that this helps those who might be gearing up.

On a more personal note, this week has been a pretty good one for myself. I have run VOA and ICC on 10 and 25 for maximum frosties, also the weekly. Also, I was lucky enough to tag along to the SIN raid group that is lead by the almighty Dills and contains the like mr extralife himself 0.o. We cleared TOGC 10 with only 44 attempts remaining. Also, in ICC 25, I got a BOE 264 cloth wrists that I am currently trying to sell on the AH. The current market price seems to be around 12-13k =0. Maybe I'll buy a hog...

Well that's all for now, thanks for reading my email,

Acaldra, Champion of the Frozen Wastes
Holy/Prot Paladin, Cohort of Alea Iacta Est


Email #1 from Eskimojoe
Re: Tiiaa
April, April, April.... /sigh :)

I thought you learned your lesson about using Attack Power items with
a caster when you got that AP trinket for Aprillian.

Poor Tiiaa.... :(

I should contact Mage Protection Services and have Tiiaa taken away
from you and sent to a good home.

List of Cruel Offenses against a Mage.

1. Casters should never, never-ever, never-ever-ever gem or enchant
attack power.
2. "Frost" Mages specialize in "Frost" damage, so use "Frost" bolt as
your primary nuke. (not Arcane Missle)
3. MP5 is a healer stat. Replace those gems with a Spellpower,Haste,
or Crit gem or even some mix of +spirit. (see #5) If you stick to
casting mostly Frost spells in your Frost spec you shouldn't have mana
problems.
4. A tanking cloak is not helping no matter how much SP you enchant it with.
5. Sure Glyph of Frost Armor seems like a good idea for a Frost mage,
but Glyph of Molten Armor is a must have for all mages to get that
sweet crit bonus.
6. Book of Clever Tricks is more of a Druid Tank off-hand item, go
with the Hellfire Book until you can find a better off-hand item.

Frost is a great spec for leveling up, pvp, and soloing. Since you're
probably not going to solo or pvp with Tiiaa, respec into the talents
that work well for muti-boxing.
(51 pts in frost and a few points in fire to help Fireball or
Frostfire bolt damage from Brainfreeze as you level. Once you hit 80
move those extra 20 pts into Arcane to get "Torment the Weak")

Remember Frostbolt is your primary nuke. Spam Frostbolt constantly
until Brainfreeze or Deepfreeze procs. Deepfreeze is priority when it
procs.

I hope you don't mind me poking fun at you. I'm just trying to help,
plus I know you'll have more fun playing the mage once you see how
much DPS you'll do with just a few changes.


Eskimojoe
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Khadgar&cn=Eskimojoe&gn=Disciplined+Anarchy

Email #B from Matthew

i have been wanted to start Multiboxing i have one PC with two displays what software do i need and how do i set it up?

Email #C from Tedrah

Greetings to the fantastic Ctrl Alt WoW hosts.

Really love your shows. They make the work day fly. And they are always so informative. For example, I had no idea that Nessingwary got around so much. Do you suppose he has a gnome in every port? Maybe he single handedly fathered all those children running around during Children's Week.

Wanted to say grats to Vrishna for doing his first raid. It's a whole new world now. Now you have to start keeping flasks and buff food on hand. Naxx is a really good place to get your feet wet because there is such a good variety of fights with lots of different mechanics.

Wanted to briefly say, shame on you guys for not telling Aprillian about the engineering AH in Dalaran, lol. I don't have an engineer and I was helping a friend level his by farming mats. He told me to meet him at the AH in Dalaran and I had no idea what he was talking about. I'm very jealous of the engineers and their AH.

Ashayo said he was working on the Oracle quest chain and I was wondering if he, or any of you have done the Frenzyheart reputation chain? I have exalted with Oracles and have gotten all the pets and flyer from the eggs and am wondering if I should switch to do the other side.

I got a real kick out of Jeppy's Hogger griefing. Made me want to head to Elwynn Forest and give it a try. Unfortunately there is no logging in from work.

A little about my week in WoW

Sunday I ran to the orphanage and grabbed a child to take to the battlefield. It's always good to show them mayhem and carnage. For my efforts I was rewarded with my long awaited Violet Proto Drake.

Monday it occurred to me that I hadn't touched Teodora since she hit level 68. So I promptly logged on Tedrah, bought a Tome of Cold Weather Flying and mailed it off. Thank goodness those will cross faction. I spent Monday night flying around Northrend opening up the map. I got an entire level out of it and my Explorer's Tabard. So Teodora is now 69.

I did manage to get into the Unbroken progression raid Tuesday and we made a couple hours worth of attempts on Sindragosa. Each attempt was better than the previous one and we can consistently do phases one and two without losing anyone now. Phase three is a dog of the female persuasion ( does that meet the clean tag okay?) we'll get it eventually. Hopefully next week.

That's about it for my week in WoW. Again, great podcast you all. See how I didn't say 'guys' there? Wouldn't want to bring down Aprillian's wrath. But you know, if Juuno hadn't done that we wouldn't know she has such a nice singing voice.

So this is Tedrah, level 80 hunter,
Joslynn, level 73 Mage
Pettrah, level 75 DK
Teona, level 63 Shaman
Teonna, level 63 Priest
And various others saying

For the Horde!

Email #2 from Thegatorwife

Greetings to the lovely and witty Aprillian, the Aussie- licious Ashayo, the talented and humorous Vrishna, and the "maker of sweet dreams" Jeppy. I also have to admit that Ashayo's voice has inspired a few sweet dreams as well. I just got thru listening to episode 165 and as usual it was great and once again my coworker who I share a cubicle with thinks I'm a little spun, as I tend to laugh out loud sporadically for no apparent reason. On the topic concerning the length of your podcast, IMO they don't last long enough. You guys and Aprillian(notice how I acknowledged you)have such great chemistry together. Each show is better than the last and my work week is not complete until I've had my crtlaltwow fix. I haven't done a whole lot in WOW this last week or two, but I did get my Loremaster achievement and I finished my Children's Week achievement. That leaves me one more to go for the Violet Proto-Drake. I'm so happy for Vrishna and all his accomplishments this past week and kudos to you Ashayo for taking our little fledgling on his very first raid. It makes the experience a little less daunting when you're with someone you know. All I can say about Jeppy's little stunt in Lakeshire with Hogger and the pet from hell running amuck and killing all the unsuspecting lowbies in the area, PRICELESS !!! That was totally awesome in a twisted kind of way. I've got to go try that one myself now, what can I say I'm a little twisted myself, but in a good way. Well I guess I've bent your ears enough for now, keep those podcast coming. Love you guys. For the Horde(most of the time)and for the Alliance(some of the time).

Moondance on Sister's of Elune
Thegatorwife on Twitter


Sent from my iPhone

Email #D from Xanndar

RET PALLY NEEDS HELP!
Good Morning Everyone!

It has been a while since I have been in contact with you, but I am
back and have a little more time to be able to dedicate to listening
to podcasts and playing WoW again like I used to. I have recently
taken a job that takes me away from home Monday - Friday and so at
night I sit in my hotel room praying the hotel Wi-Fi doesn't kick out
and I can play WoW without interruption.

Last night I was able to go on a guild run into ICC. They made it all
the way to Sindragosa prior to last night's raid. Well to make a long
story short, my Ret Paladin main Xandarr (Lovingly referred to as
Double R, for reasons I might explain if asked) has a gear score of
just over 5100 but could not do the DPS needed to really assist the
raid. Know everyone knew this going in, and the guild said that they
would help me to gear up or do whatever to make my DPS crush all
others. But I am trying to do what I can and asking the experts what
can I do as far as spec builds and gear that could make me better for
ICC?

Here is my armory page:
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Crushridge&cn=Xandarr

Talents , glyphs, gear... you tell me what I can do and what the guild
may be able to help me do to be better DPS for them. Also, is there a
different Spec that I might need for Raiding that my current Ret spec
I use for dailies and PUG instances?

I am putty in your very capable hands.

- Elder Xandarr (Double R) of the Crushridge US server

SHOUT OUT TO Spírítus Ímmortalís Guildies!


Email #E Telonnord

Dear Ashayo, Virshna,Jeppy, and our illustrious Aprillian.

It is I, Telonnord the rogue. I apologize I could not send this sooner, but I am in process of being deployed overseas to Iraq so there has been little time to write a response to Aprillian's commentary.

Gentlemen, I would like to apologize for creating such a stir. The undue stress I cause you was not intentional. (Heh-heh-heh.)

I did not realize that our dear Aprillian would take her lineage so seriously. I had no idea her temper would be so short. I did leave a note in Addillian's mailbox informing him of my findings. There's been no reply as of yet from the gnome warlock, but I did hear a rumor he got himself a new small, yippity pet and named it Aprillian. It has a bent pointed ear and a crooked, fanged tooth. At first, it would just ignore everyone who tried to reason with it, but eventually, he taught it to sit up and beg not to be kicked from random dungeons. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Well, on a brighter side I am glad to say that I have started making some gold with a small side business. Thanks to Aprillian's reaction, "Email4" t-shirts are now springing up all over Azeroth. Check them out at a local vendor near you. (I hear gnome sizes are selling like hotcakes!)

Continue with the good work everyone.

As always, disarmingly yours,
Telonnord
80 Human Rogue
Burning Blade

Email #3 from Gongrim

How I wow and feedback
Hi all at ctrlaltwow

Firstly I recently discovered your podcast along with others including your friends at BoE. Having listened through your back catalogue I would like to congratulate you on a great show.

Its great to hear your different views on aspects of the game through your own knowledge and experiences.

I plan sometime in the near future to start a RaF account for the mount and to help me level yet more alts :) I understand the basics of running 2 chars to together for the better xp bonus then passing levels back etc. But am a little unsure on how you actually set your machines up to run them ? Is there minimum requirement cpu memory graphics wise to try this ? Which ways do you guys actually do this and what would be the best resource to read up and plan how to do it.

Lastly how I WOW :) I started playing wow about 6 months before WotLK came out. When I first started I had no idea how big and engrossing the lands of azeroth could be. I started several characters trying out there starter abilities till I settled on a dwarf warrior named Gongrim ( nothing like doing it the hardway for a first char )

After fighting my way through the starter areas and moving on to the human areas I made my way to lakeshire where I met a few people and joined my first guild. We then proceeded to level making our way to outlands just as WotLK hit, working our way to 60 then 70 then on to 80.

Sadly most of the people I had levelled with drifted out of the game due to personal or family reasons. And the guild fell apart. So I was left at 80 without much clue what to do next.

So after much research and wasted time doing not really much I decided I wanted to see some of the raids I had about.

So I struggled to gear up my warrior in heroics learning all the tactics as prot or as a arms dps I started getting the itch to start more chars so I levelled a hunter priest and paladin getting them all to 30ish. Always going back to my main the warrior but he never seemed to progress much. So I started on my hunter again levelling him to 65 so I could level 2 more profs to max level.

With the advent of the new LFG I decided to try my warrior again. So I found a new guild that where recruiting to raid and geared him up using the emblems and started by doing the weekly raid and VOA. 3 months later I am now an officer and play most nights and just recently completed ToTC 10 and started in ICC and have done the first wing in there.

I have also since levelled my hunter to 80 and and am gearing him up on the nights I'm not raiding helping others out in the guild as much as I can passing on any knowledge I've got.

I have learnt so much in the last 3 months playing with my new guild so I would like to give a shout out to them.

Thanks to all in Degeneration X Dragonblight EU server.

Well that's enough of my rambling keep up the good work on the podcast

Gongrim 80 Dwarf warrior
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media

Email #F Bidkar

Hello CtrlAltWow crew,

Bidcar, level 41 human mage Winterhoof server here. This week my ally raf duo hit 41. Bidcar teleported around and picked up all the portals he could. The only old world portal missing now is Darnassus which he can get at 50. I'll pick it up just to have it, but are there any major quest chains associated with Darnassus? I have not come across any yet and have yet to see any reason to go there. It is nice to look at though. Anyway, they are now in Duskwallow Marsh, which I love, and happily questing there.

I spent my Saturday Wow time playing my death knights. The night elf dk is 61 and the dranei dk is 62. I wanted to earn enough gold to pick up the next level of riding for the ally duo. I really like how they are playing, though I still get bored with them after a bit. I think I am implementing a proper rotation but I still feel like I'm rolling my face across the keyboard.

I did my jewelcrafing dailies and cooking dailies on my Horde warlock. I finally ran out of dark jade after all this time, so she had to scrounge up some ore to prospect. Bidkar ran out to Shattrath to pick up the orphan quest. He made some portals along the way for the people who needed to go back to Shattrath. Bidkar loves to make portals and I think all mages do even if they might not care to admit it. I never charge people for a portal. It's fun for me and that's enough.

So far the ally experience has been quite nice. I'm finding the ally people to be exactly like the Horde folks, go figure. Every day the trade chat gets vile about the time school gets out, but I do not find it as offensive as the Horde trade chat. A higher class of filth I reckon. I enjoyed Elwynn Forest. Lakeshire got on my nerves a little, but it was still fun. I loved Darkshore and found it to be the best ally zone so far. I still want to impale every night elf I see though. Old habits die hard.

Aprillian, give Jayson a pat on his head for me. My sister's dog has a similar situation and he's 16 and going strong, though a bit gray now.

Have you heard from Glanthur?

I hope everyone has a great week.

For the Horde and For the Alliance!

Bidkar, Bidcar and his many alts


Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMoment

Hello all,
Hope everyone has has a fine week and Happy Mothers day to all mothers out there.

What a fun leveling week I have had with my RAF and Pally/Mage combo :)
They are level 31 so far and by the time the weekend is over they should be 35 at least.
I still do not know what I will level next and how I will use the level grants for the RAF on feathermoon.
Also I have been trying to figure out what other server I will create characters and get some more leveling done.

For the big kids, my 80s, just a few random LFG's, and our ICC 10 run Friday for my priest, we are trying to work on making progressions on different wings and work with everyones schedule. We shall see how that turns out.

Last week Ashayo was talking about his failed pugs and how he always gets Gund. on his randoms.
For my priest it seems as though I only get a few select dungeons as well; either HOS (at times HOL), Gund. and that is it!
Not really random if you ask me.
On my hunter is seems she only gets HOL/HOS mainly; as you can imagine I am sick of that but still need frosties on her and my warrior. Thankfully my warrior at least gets other instances than just HOL or HOS.

Going back to my pally/mage for a second, I had a blue drop (forgot the name already) and I was a second away from disenchanting it (but I did not). I check the auction house just to see if it was worth anything (I have auctioneer turned off on my low characters). You will not believe it, there were 3 other auctions there, ranging from (roughly) 90 gold to 150 gold! So of course I went below that amount and within a second of posting it someone bought my item.
Now I am trying to understand, do only twinks buy low blue items? Or people leveling might by items, low blue or purple items? And, why?! Any opinions you all have to share about this? And if you are ever undercut, well I would say I am sorry, for me I was just trying to off load it and I have to believe the person that bought that piece probably put it right back on the ah.
Write us at ctrlaltwow@gmail.com
Visit us at http://ctrlaltwow.com
Well that is all from me this week. Happy leveling or what ever you are working on in wow and have a great week.

Oh one quick note, if you have not checkout the Cataclysm screenshots on the wow site, please do. They are unbelievable and I do not think they are spoilerish :)

Bye

Monday, May 3, 2010

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 165 - I've Got a Rocket to ride

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
Logged off Tiiaa, on to Mi, then back to Tiiaa and stuff she had sold was still available for buyback

Leveling a mage is fun. They aren't just taxis & food vendors. Tiiaa hit 65 and now has the portal to Shat.

Levelled Engineering on Tiiaa, got to 375 on Wed afternoon. Lo & behold there's an AH. Used Epril to do mining stuff, making [Mining: Smelt Adamantite] [Mining: Smelt Felsteel] [Mining: Smelt Hardened Adamantite]

By Friday Tiiaa was 405 in Engineering and I'm broke. made [Gyro-Balanced Khorium Destroyer] for an enormous amount of money.

Did HoR, Why the corner?

Got Don't Look Up Achievement - Clear the hallway before Scourgelord Tyrannus in The Pit of Saron on Heroic Difficulty without anyone taking icicle damage on the first try.

Heard about first on the Instance at http://theinstance.net/
http://elitistarmory.com/US/Earthen%20Ring/Aprillian


Aprillian & Vrishna
Dualed boxed with Tiiaa/Sebastian and Vrishna in Outland. Funniest thing was when we wiped, I laid there while V ran back and waited for her to rez me.

Ran beginning of Hellfire Citidal, great xp for Tiiaa. Took Elyte, level 75 DK as tank. Later took Tiiaa through Slave Pens, did pretty
Vrishna
Hellfire again. Sorry Sanman. Ashayo's invite to Naxxrammas. My first raid. WOOT WOOT !! Healbot & the understudies.

Ashayo
Crazy Train
- Saurfang down before 2nd mark.
- Two shot Festergut
- Couple of practise runs on Rotface
After reset - hit revered with Ashen Verdict.
- Marrowgar - tank neck upgrade
- One shot deathwhisper
- Gunship - lost a tank twice, two dps, still won
- One shot Saurfang after only 1 mark
- Festergut - wipe at 20k

DwP
- 2shot Dreamwalker. Asheal won off-spec staff (has hit, and 2 gem sockets)
- Blood princes down - Ashayo wins new chestpeice
- Blood Queen down - this week on Asheal
- Cleared trash to Sindragosa ; was told we could move out to reset - she came through a door to wipe us. Got her to 27% on first attempt
After reset ICC - 15% buff
- Weekly was to keep Donavan alive on Deathwhisper fight.
- 1st wing + Festergut, Rotface, Dreamwalker. Attempt at Putricide (main healer out) - Got him down to 3%


Heroics
Pud
- H ToC, OK

Ashariss
- H PoS - very fast run with Temp, Kealar, Tallon, Wing
- UK, UP, CoS, HoL, Gundrak

Other Dungeons
Ashield - Gundrak pug - lost tank and a dps before 1st boss


Other Raids
Asheal - weekly Instructor Razuvious,
Asheal - Won t-10 gloves - again (both pvp and pve this time!)
Ashayo - weekly Instructor Razuvious - with Vrishna!!
Pud & Ashariss - Noth
Noth (weekly) on Shadowthrone (to fill numbers)
Tried Sarth +1 drake ; wipage

Misc
Pud - PoS ; hate it when puggers refer to you by class "hey dk, you gunna roll on that trinket"
Ashariss - proc'ed 5 x Kings Amber transmute - woot!
Ashayo - Gear shuffle and re-spec. Bought the triumph hit trinket and had over 500 hit. Respecced back to destruction from affliction without taking 3 points in suppression.
Levelling BS on Pud - up to 400 - can make socket for hands and bracers. Nice little increase on gear score.

Doing oracle chain on Ashield - dinged 77 when I saved the injured rainspeaker Oracle
Soloed Artruis the Heartless and Zepik the Gorloc Hunter - took 8 minutes

Jeppy
T-11 Days of RAF. Levelling and griefing.
Emails

Email #1 from Vern

hey all

I was listening to the latest show and wanted to write in again. First off GRATS to Vrishna on his first 80. I think its great you healed H halls of stone. I am a healer and been running heroics since back when you got emblems of heroism for it. I have to say the fight in HoS when you fight the computer with Brann is one of love and hate. I've wiped at the last minute multiple times there. sometimes even after dying we would find we had lived long enough to complete the encounter.But I love the lore part and the fact that Brann is hacking an ancient computer, whats not to love.
I am also interested in what happens with multi player mounts in phased areas.Most of my problems with phasing right now happen when I try to summon people to ICC using the stone.I'm sure Ashayo knows what I mean. I have a mammoth mount so I am going to see what happens this week.

One more thing. some of you were discussing the crappy system in place to exchange BG marks for honor. Heres what I did. After you buy at least one token, put it on your hot bar. then you open the vendor window and buy more, but use the hotbar button to consume them.
This way you don't have to close the vendor window to use them up and its just a matter of how fast you click and button push.

Thank you for a wonderful podcast.

Vern

Verneesha -Ally priest on Runetotem
Menasor- holy pally PoH


Email #2 from Makiling

hey guys, makiling here

i just listened to your latest episode i thought i would chime in with you guys with what i've been doing int he world of warcraft. a few days ago i was listening to one of nicole spag's podcast when i heard her talk about her several lvl 80 pallies. couple that with virinya's trek to 80, i suddenly thought to myself "maybe i should try leveling a pally." before that thought came to me, i was enjoying leveling my night elf druid who is now lvl 43 (yay for epic land travel). i'm still playing her as Bear Form in random dungeons, so i decided i would play my pally as a tank too. it was a good thing i had 1 slot left in the realm where my lvl 80's were. but when it came to choosing what race my pally would be, i knew i didnt want to play another blood elf, so i had to play alliance. and among all the races i had to choose from, the draenei were the ones who caught my fancy. i made a pretty draenei pally female, and named her Kagandahan (filipino for "quite pretty").

it wasnt to say that i've been neglecting my horde toons. on the contrary, they were of great help in gearing her up with heirloom plate and a 1-handed sword (for when the time comes that she will be wielding a shield). and most importantly, i needed my mage to enchant her gear. through my research, i found that there was a +strength to weapon enchant from the thorium brotherhood, but i needed to be friendly with them. so i spent some time doing quests around searing gorge and opening up the turn ins for increasing my rep with the brotherhood. it was a good thing the mats to turn in were relatively cheap in our AH, but when i got to friendly, i found that the vendor for the enchant was in the Grim Guzzler in BRD. so i trekked down the instance, bought the recipe, and bought the mats for the weapon enchant for my baby pally.

i wasnt really not a big fan of the melee classes, and before this toon, i had never played a pally. but after playing her for 10 levels, i have to say: PALLIES ARE OVERPOWERED! mobs going down in 2 hits? i had never experienced such a thing with my mage, lock, or druid! (especially not my druid) well, it could be also due to my gear, but i finally understand vrishna's excitement with the class.

the "buffs" pallies cast are in general quite confusing at first, but i hope my excitement for them will continue as enthusiasm for learning more about the class. she is lvl 11 as of writing, and i hope to get into my first random dungeon as soon as she hits lvl 15.

thats it from me for now. i look forward to your next show as always

for the pallies!

twitter.com/makiling_mage

Email #3 from Lidaron

Hi VAAJ, (Virshna, Aprillian, Ashayo and Jeppy. sounds like Badge)

I have been listening to ctrlaltwow for a while, and remember when it was just Aprillain and Ashayo. I think Virshna and Jeppy are the icing on what could be described as a yummy cake (or the choc chips in your cookies April). The dynamic you have between the 4 of you is really fantastic. It is nice to see you have loads of fun playing wow and making the podcast. I have just listened to Episode 163 with Tempeste and would hate to see you loose your clean tag. Maybe Temp is a bad influence on you April or you just can't help yourself as it makes for loads of fun.

More Ctrlaltwow

More fun

Wazzagnome
65 Blood Elf Warlock

Lidaron
80 Undead Rogue

Jubei'Thos
Pants on Head Guild

PS here is a little sound grab I made for the Plushy comp (Yes I know its too late ; ). I tried to turn my Aussie accent up to 11. Thats 1 more than the rest.

Crikey!!!!


Email #4 from Acaldraa

Hey guys, Acaldraa here again with a few quick tips.

I took a look at Virinya armory and I have a few quick suggestions, change your glyph of Seal of Light to Glyph of Beacon of Light. When healing, always have Seal of Wisdom up. Make sure to judge a mob with seal of light every 20 seconds. This way your passive 15 percent haste buff will stay up and you will be rocking some raid healing. Also, gem 16 int in every slot. My policy is to never use epic gems if the item is below level 219. Lastly, here is a revised talent build that I suggest you use- http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sxA0gM0sVu0tgdxZVdbx:dIwczM
This will improve your healing by a good amount. On a more technical note, I took the extra crit in order to help with illumination procs.

In other news, I had a good week in game and out. In game wise, I have been doing my daily X-Mute and have gotten 16 gems in 7 days just from some lucky procs. On the raiding front, I solo healed Festergut. An extremely traumatic experience but we got through it and the 11k HPS was amazing for my ego.
A quick note to the crazy train raid group, I hear y'all keep wiping at >1%? Well here's what you need to do to get that last little boost. Make sure everyone is flasked and uses potions during the fight.

Thats all for now,

Acaldra, Champion of the Frozen Wastes
Alea Iacta Est

P.S. Keep the podcast long! I love long shows. Please however, keep 'em under 4 hours, I cannot do more than that.

P.P.S. Aprillian and Virshna, we need to go on a raid at some point, Aprillian can be the leet dps and Virinya and I can heal it. Maybe a VOA and/or TOC 10 man.

Email #5 Gamlix

Hi guys,

Grats Vrishna, first of many I don't doubt.

Thanks for reading my email a couple of weeks ago, it was great to hear that some people are making an effort to catalogue from a player perspective Azeroth pre-Cataclysm.

In answer to some of Juuno's points, I have an 80 Death Knight Tank, not great gear any more, but I ran Naxx quite a bit pre-Ulduar. I Tank in Blood and faced a lot of criticism from people who should know better that it's possible, back then everyone tanked in Frost because the original plan for the talent trees was Blood single target dps, Frost Tank, Unholy AoE dps, at least as far as the beta leaks said. This seems to have stayed in the collective unconsciousness of the wow community and you will face some prejudice based on their misguided views of the trees. You can tank in any DK tree, but each one will use different abilities. It is not necessary in this game for everyone playing to run the optimal spec as dictated by stats monkeys, play the game the way you want to.

As a sole point on that tank's side, not that he was entirely right, but Frost dps is tailored for PvP burst damage, so it is entirely possible that you pulled off an awesome combo, maximised your dps, pulled threat and the facerolling tank couldn't keep up, it's him that should L2P, not dear Juuno.

I loooooooove the dungeon finder. Having come back after a few months away a couple weeks ago I am finding levelling now to be a string of dungeons, which I love, rather than a grind, which can be a bit dull.

Thank you for your time again folks,

For the Horde!!!
Gamlix of The Sha'tar

Email #A Johnathan

Hi there again sorry for the late reply
One week of wow wow where can I biu that!!!!

How about the plushie it's edible nom nom nom i'm kidding I love across from you PST Asia jk

Uh I already I have 2 month gamecard
If u hve anymore I tunes card i'd be happy but in other words.it's it urcchoicr

Sent from my iPod or my fake iPad


Email #B from Tedrah

Hello Ctrl-Alt-WoW,

Just wanted to drop a line to my favorite podcasters, the ever effervescent Aprillian, her Healer-in-waiting, Vrishna, the charming, El Jeppy and the awesome, Ashayo.

First and foremost-- Congratulations to Vrishna!! Yay for 80. Fantastic achievement. You'll like life as an 80 and I really enjoyed hearing about your PvP defense of Tranquillien. You did great to only die once during the skirmish.

Second, I really enjoy the audio messages from Juno and completely understand her obsession with Jeppy. You might want to add a segment at the very end where silver tongued El Jeppy could read the ladies a bed time story, lol.

Grats to Ashayo for exalted with The Ashen Verdict. You had lots of fun raiding recently. How you manage raiding on more than one toon I'll never know.

Lovely Aprillian, I am so jealous of your new rocket. Saw the twitpic and had to suppress the urge to start a new RAF account. Also, I'm enjoying your Ctrl-Alt-Trek high jinx as well. ( don't tell anyone I've strayed a little, lol )

My week in WoW has been kind of exciting. After Friday's 25 man raid with Unbroken on Sisters of Elune I had enough frost emblems to get my four piece set bonus.

I gave in and bought a Celestial Steed. I love my sparkly pony.

Going to be trying out Arena Tournament play with a couple of friends. That should be interesting.

I'm working on trying to get my alliance hunter, Teodora, to level 75 before the Gnomeregan event. She hit 68 and is now in Northrend.

Then last night I was able to fill in an empty spot in the Unbroken Tuesday night 10 man progression raid. They had locked out the raid last week so we started with trash clearing before the Blood Queen. We downed both the Blood Queen and the Dreamwalker encounters for the first time. Took three or four attempts for each. Then we took a quick look at Sindragosa. Made a couple attempts, but that one's going to take some practice. Hopefully I'll be able to ninja a spot in next week's Tuesday night raid.

Well I've gone on long enough. Thanks you guys for the great podcasts. Keep them coming.

This is Tedrah from Unbroken on Sisters of Elune signing off. For the Federation! Oops, For the Horde! (disregard first cheer)

/no need to put this email in contest, just enjoying your banter, no other incentive needed (group hug)

Sent from my iPhone

Email #6 from Riku

Dear Ctrl+Alt+Wow

I'm sure you guys get these all the time but becouse of the no money paradox my Wow account has gone inactive. I seem to think you guys might have had one of those magical one month WOW game time cards and i was cureous if there was something i could do to earn that. If one so exists. i'm a fantasy writer/poet so if you wanted something i would gladly do anything necessary whether it be writing or voicing a segment for the show or some kind of writing.

Main reason i ask is because of my date of birth is in May and i'd love to get a char to 55 before then :) Any way even if your dont have a card i'll still add my writing to the show if you wanted it. Thanks for reading the E-mail i love the show

Sitting and watching from the emerald dream
Riku

Email #7 from Alate

Hey ashayo, aprillian, jePpy, and varishna I was listening to the latest podcast. when I heard ashayo read the email of the guy who "corrected" his dk's gems. My main is a pally tank so I can lend an opinion on the subject. Ashayo dks do get mitigation stats from strength however generally gemming all stamina, or mostly all stamina is usually the way to go. In icc eh (effective health) is the way to go, its a little complicated to get into here but in short terms armor+stamina=WIN.

Sorry for any grammar mistakes I wrote this on my blackberry.
Alate, level 80 dwarf prot pally,
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Email #8 from Crash

Hello ctl alt wow crew, crashoveride writing in again. I head that april has a mifi from verizon, and was wondering if you could share your expireance using it for wow. Life has been crazy latly, and I would like to play on my laptop while away from home. Can you please share your thoughts on connecting to wow with the mifi, is it fast enough, do you have a data cap that you go over, and anything else that might help decideing if this is the right choice for me.

Thanx for the great show!!!!

Crash

Email #C from Bidcar
Thanks for the donations

Greeting Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy and Vrishna,

Bidcar, level 20 human mage, Winterhoof server here. This week I started a mage and paladin to level with my recruit a friend. I started on Winterhoof by the suggestion of Jeppy. The toons are both level 20 and doing well. I felt like I was moving too slow, but Jeppy twittered he has the same problems on the Horde side, so that made me feel better.

I met a familiar face while passing through Goldshire. I went into the inn and I saw a gnome death knight named April. Just kidding, she was a Dranei. I thought it might be Aprillian but thought probably not, the world is too big for that. Anyway, she offered a gold to sign her guild charter so I did. Later on when I saw that I was kicked out of Ctrl Alt Wow guild I realized it was Aprillian. Aprillian said it was a small Azerothian world and apparently it is. I also started a couple of death knights so I could have back up if I needed it. I don't think I will, paladin and mage are a pretty powerful combo.

The Horde side of things went well. My recruit a friend duo of warrior and shaman are resting up in Orgrimmar after their rapid rise in power. I used the earned levels to take my hunter to 60 and gave the rest of the levels to my second mage. Probably shouldn't have gave the levels to the mage since it separates him further from the new paladin, but live and learn.

I started a blood elf paladin to pair up with my second mage. I haven't been playing them since I am concentrating on the Ally side of things. The only thing I have really been doing on the Horde side are the jewelcrafting daily and the cooking daily. I also have a slight fascination with running my low level paladin through Scarlet Monastery with my level 80 paladin. I love seeing what random loot will drop. I do the fishing daily for the same reason, I love opening the fishing bag and seeing what goodies drop out. I got a epic +30 stamina gem the other day.

A few weeks ago Bidkar, the life challenged mage, was in Thunderbluff when it was attacked by the Ally. I immediately went to the aid of Cairne as good Hordies do. The only toons that came to help Cairne were me and another mage. I didn't think it was going to go well for us, but I was willing to give it a shot. There were only about 5 ally so it wasn't a big raid or anything. They had a druid, paladin, rogue, warlock and death knight. We made plans to take out the druid first then hope for the best. They started their attack on Cairne. We blasted the druid into the next world then took out the rest of the group quite easily. I didn't see any "resist" pop up so I don't think they had much pvp gear on. When I see "resist", I know I'm done for. I thought we did quite well for two squishies. Cairne was saved and the Tauren rested easy that night.

I picked up my touring rocket like everybody else and took my warrior for a ride around Northrend. He picked up a bit of xp from discovery so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I wanted to see how the phasing would work so I took him over to the Argent place closest to Dalaran. He disappeared after a bit on Bidkar's screen, but Bidkar didn't disappear on the warrior's screen. I wonder if I could dual box with him through the phased areas now?

I really enjoyed hearing Tempeste on the show a few weeks ago. I always enjoy her on Bind on Equip and it was nice hearing her on Ctrl Alt Wow. She's the star of Bind on Equip for me, so it was a nice surprise crossover.

I really enjoy Juno's audio clips. Probably not as much as Jeppy, but close. If you could get Juno and Mo to do guest hosting, I think that would be a really fun show. Just a thought.

For the Horde and as much as it may pain me, For the Alliance!

Bidkar, Bidcar and his many alts

Email #9 from Xesu

Hey guys, Xesu of AIE here.


I was wondering; what alts are you guys planning on making for Cataclysm?

I was thinking Goblin and Worgen priests (I have a problem, I know) but, after 3 endgame priests, I can't get away!


Thanks so much for the awesome show.
Xesu

Shout Outs & Thank You
Momomoment
Hello
The fine crew of Ctrl Alt Wow and listeners.
Hope you are all doing well.
Happy May already!
And Happy RAF!!!!
Oh how fun it is :) Christmas in May until July for me :)
Yes I have started a RAF and my priest Moheal was the recipient of the fine new taxi and has started the Motaxi service. And of course the fun rid of flying straight up in the air and dismounting. That is always fun except when you hear your guildy yelling over vent when they hit the group..."splat!"
That flying mount is really fun, anyone on Feathermoon, if you are hord side, I will give you half off for motaxi ride :) (promotion only good for a limited time, must show id and NO GNOMES! thank you)

In wow, for my priest Moheal last Sunday I was able to some how win the roll for Althor's Abacus!!! It is a shiny awesome healing trinket. I was speechless and thankful :) and I was able to get Purified Lunar Dust with my frosties, it is a nice trinket as well.
Our guild had to cancel Icc10 Friday so some of of my guildies somehow talked me into doing a pug Icc 25, wow if I may say so, do not do it!
What a horrible waste of valuable leveling time!!!

For my RAF I had so much trouble creating my characters, names and class. I always like to have nice mo-creative names and wow this time around it really took me about 20 minutes to create my characters and I am still not happy. I first created a female Blood Elf Pally names Atoosa and a female Orc warrior names Geyah. A little mo-lore for you, Geyah is Thrall's grandmother. (I did say little, so I hope you did not expect more lore than that).
But I did not like the pally/warrior combo and I will be making a mage.
I am sad. Sad because i wasted several days of RAF time :( I have catching up to do and lots of it!.

I also created a pair on Winterhoof so I may bother ElJeppy and Bidcar. I created Rostam, human male warrior and Tahmineh, a human female priest. The two names are from Persian Mythology, checkout wikipedia if you are interested in learning more.

I think I have typed enough and I am sure you are tired of reading. Thank you for reading my emails and I love when Aprillians says "MOMOMOMENTS!!!"
Good times
Thank you as always for your great pod cast and I forgot one thing, the title of my email is from a few tweets I had with our old friend Xandar2112 on twitter, and also Molsan. They were chatting about podcasts and I was informed or I found out that I listen to way! to! many hours of podcasts!
Those two stated they average about 8 hours a week (or so) and I average that in a day sometimes.
So I think I need to join the PAA - podcast addicts anonymous.

So until next week and I will let you now how my treatment goes.

Take care

--
Mo