Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 179 - ZZZZ

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 179 - ZZZZ


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.

Juuno

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Ran Slave Pens with Shaasha

Winterhoof down for 24 hr maintenance, went to Jub Jub: Hey Zooe, Teo, Foog. Ran my 20 something pally through SM with Aprillian the DK.

Flew Gål in Elyte's Rocket around Hellfire Pennisula
Aprillian & Vrishna
Scarlet Monastery
Defeat the Scarlet Crusade within the Scarlet Monastery.
08-15-2010

* Bloodmage Thalnos
* Arcanist Doan
* Herod
* Scarlet Commander Mograine
* High Inquisitor Whitemane


Vrishna

SECRET

Ashayo
Raiding

Crazy Train - 2% wipe on Putricide!
Reset - tore through lower wing
Got the weekly residue quest - all rushed to hand in after rotface - including Temp as our loot master , forgetting to hand out the loot
Messy Blood princes, but one shot
Messy Blood Queen (I moved away from Zooe as he was trying to bite me), but one shot anyway
8 of 12 bosses in under 2 hrs. A good night.

DwP - Got down Helion in RS
ICC - Heroic Deathwhisper ; with seconds to go before enrage timer. Was dead for phase 2 - Nikkto and Sigurn ROCKED the healing. Won heroic dps gloves
- Heroic Gunship
- Back into RS after reset - one shot Halion
Weekly - Ignis - easy mode

Heroics

Ashariss - Finally completed a HHoR - Temp healz and Zooe tanking in a random. Spent most of the waves after the 1st boss dead, but we completed without a wipe

Misc
Ran Gnomer - voluntarily! to get the Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky schematics as recommended by Molsan. easy peazy!
Running normals with Bugger, Molly and Vyv. This rogue asked who was tanking, because Molly had a shield. I said me. Bugger said me. I then patiently explained that Molly's 2h was in the wash. He left.
Mage - Stonard portal

Dranei - Escort of Demolitionist Legoso takes forever - I died twice and ran back - only to have him die. Took about 20 mins. Don't get credit for all the elites killed on the way - presumably if he does too much damage.
Finished the zone, and still 18
But wait! Found two items in my bags that start quests - [A map to where?] and [The Bloodcurse Legacy]
Dinged 20 on handing in the introduction quest at Auberdine
Bought riding and an Elekk - then went to trainer and got free Warhorse. D'OH

Jeppy
I slept and slept some more...
Emails

Email #1
I know my email last time was short. It was not a snuff film at all. I wanted to share my pain with all of you. They have become too big of a distraction. These will be the next ones to go.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x3HoEyz7Rs


It's time. This is 5 years of work. ( the female human is 72. You'll see in the next one). Am I overreacting?

Email #2 from recycleddk

hey guys
heya my names rob. i play on eu boulderfist and kor'gall. i have a hunter,deathknight,paladin and a preist. out of all my preist is my fav. i only got it to 80 other day but really enjoying it. I meant to email you saying about i never heard about wow podcasts untill now but came across yours and really enjoyed it keep up the good work.
ah yes from some of the other emails they explained their weeks and all ive been doin this week is playing priest. i got the gearscore high enough to go into an icc pug on my realm and 10 man got a few drops then went 25 man and got niblung.
lol and yes im reading this now and i love your english accent as i am english lol :).
i play pvp realms atm i used to play on aliance on boulderfist but had a falling out with almost evryone on the realm so as revenge made a horde preist to kill evryone that hates me and its working hehe and yes its a bit psychotic i know but its pvp.
i love my hunter to bits. shes a female nelf on kor'gall. i just got her to 6000 gearscore and now im kinda bored of her to be honest.
i would love to stay in touch with you guys ill make sure i download the next podcast keep up the good work
oh yes if you would rather refer to me as a toon name they are
recycleddk,moomoo,gecko or zeezee
xx

Email #3 from Eranth

Aprillian & Gang,



Before I forget, because it’s been one heck of a week, I wanted to get you an email before I listen to the show you did today and Aprillian likely tries to give me my lumps for not sending this missive sooner.



First, and foremost, I need to growl and shake my fist at both Ashayo and Bidcar. I’ve been working the Mysterious Egg for months now, and still haven’t gotten those delightful Reigns yet! Curse the two of you…(where’s a warlock when you need one?) Curse the two of you and or making it look like it’s so easy to get those Reigns of the Green Proto Drake! Argh!



Secondly, I’m afraid I haven’t been up too much over the course of the last week. (I hope to correct that some in the coming week, but it’s hard to tell since this coming week looks horridly busy!) But, it all started when I was hit with a two fold whammy on my laptop with the LCD going bad, and my OS load corrupting while trying to install a Blackberry software package. (sigh) I had to ship the unit off to get the LCD replaced, and then had to re-load the OS and all my software thereafter. I haven’t re-loaded everything yet, but I’ve (obviously) got email back and of course I’ve restored my World of Warcraft directory. :-)



That’s mostly been the exciting extend of my ‘lost week.’ Hopefully after I hear the podcast for this week I’ll have more to report. Or maybe something different to report!



“Be well…”

Eranth

AIE Hunter on Earthen Ring


Email #4 from Betla


This is Betla, from the CAW guild on Winterhoof, and I would like to submit a tabard idea (attached) for the contest! Its similar to the tabard on the CtrlAltWow.com site, because I think the icon of an octopus is great since it represents all us altoholics trying to play all our toons and/or multiboxing. :)

The colors are just ones I picked cuz I liked the combination, they don't really mean anything. Hope you like and hope others are also submitting and we all get something great to wear! :)

Take care,
Christian aka Betla


http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/n6UeUARRIoe-G1FIGkaxetIsbGbTF2dk6PZCGRkHNiE?feat=directlink

Email #A Zooe

Hi Aprillian
its zooe here I am honored to have won and would love a panderan monk pet
ty
zooe

Email #B from Melvyl
Hey A A E V,

It has actually been 3 months now since I wrote you last.

Quick Summary (complete with a pronounciation guide for the hard ones
this time);

Sceadua ("sha-doe-wa" - sceadu was Middle English for Shadow) had
traveled from Aerie Peak to Jubei'thos with heirlooms and a Tome of
CWF when last I wrote. Lyvlem ("Lyv-lem" which is actually Melvyl
spelled backwards) of PoH reached 80 with just a bit of work.

She then visited Earthen Ring where Adversaria ('adversaria") was
happy for both the heirlooms, a Tome of her own, and some much needed
gold. She began the race to 80 when....

I took 9 days off for a trip to Italy - making that my longest time
outside the game.

Back at home and Adversaria found the Mid-Summer Fire Festival in full
swing. A quick bit of pole-dancing and she blazed her way up to 80.

And then two thing unexpected happened...

1) My Alliance Guild on Aerie Peak is really starting to take off. We
are actually getting groups together to run heroics nearly every
night. We actually had experienced a new never-before seen problem
last night: two people wanted to tank

2) I had a Frost Mage named Searsi ('sear-see") I was fooling around
with but I didn't really expect to level very far. It took too long to
get groups in the random dungeon finder as dps-only and I was terrible
at soloing with her. I could only solo things several levels below
her. I didn't think she was ever getting out of the mid 30s. And
then...

All of a sudden, everything just went into focus. I finally figured
out how to break my melee habits and attack from long range, when to
use frost nova to freeze things in place, when to back up out of melee
range, and even better, I got the water elemental. That is a total
game changer. I was actually doing quests in Winterspring killing
things 3 or 4 levels higher than her. I still made mistakes and died
on occasion but it was totally different than before.

So anyway, thanks to the Fire Festival, she started climbing up. And a
couple of weeks ago, she reached lvl80. Since then, I have been really
enjoying gearing her up and learning the intricacies of Arcane, which
is fun to play but would have been a nightmare to level with.

Melvyl - who now has 7 80s and far too little time

p.s. As always, this one can be left out of the contest and lettered
rather than numbered.

Email #5 from Skral


The final frontier was apparently not STO, I'm in Wow now

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo, Vrishna and Jeppy-

Prepare yourself for this email, I have been sipping on a very large iced coffee for the last half hour and now am completely wired.

Aprillian and Vrishna may remember me as Skral, a listener of Ctrl-Alt-Trek. I was the guy that was listening to your live show and a live cigar podcast one Friday night at the same time on Ustream. I was even writing in both chat rooms at the same time. I didn't want to choose between two shows I liked. ;)

I hate to report that I hit a wall with STO and cancelled my subscription. And so once again I had to fill an MMO void.

I had always steered clear of WoW because I thought it was just full of Emo twelve year olds. But I remembered how Aprillian, Vrishna, and Bouvi, as well as many emailers to that show, were also WoW players. And of course, everyone who was a part of that show rocked! That gave me hope that maybe WoW was worth another look. I thought I would listen to a few episodes of Ctrl-Alt-WoW to get more of a feel about the game. I'm enjoying the commentary of Ashayo and Jeppy as well. I may actually be prepared to play as a level 80 when I get there if I keep listening to the show. And I've noticed a +2 Spreadsheet ability score increase since I've started listening as well.

I downloaded the trial, and after a few days of playing, my wife got curious and did the same. Based on the ten day trial, I have concluded that the Emo kids are actually closer to 14 years old. ;)

But despite that, we had a blast during the trial and each decided to subscribe. We are concentrating on characters that we recently made on the Venture Co server, dropping our Alliance characters on the old server and going Horde.

Now that we have Burning Crusade, my wife can still have her pretty Blood Elves while I have my Forsaken and Orcs. I have noticed the rate at which players have approached my wife's avatar in game and asked her to be their girlfriend has dropped off significantly since we joined our new faction and server, which seems to be a big plus for her. I assume that this is because the players are a little more mature in the new faction...because let's face it, Blood Elf ladies are still smoking hawt after all.

For the Horde!!!

-

I don't reuse my MMO character names at all, so Skral is dead. I love random name generators. So rolling now....


Email #C from Mattdiox

Hello Ctrl Alt WoW Crew.
Mattdiox here with my usual brand of potato nonsense.

Now I tried to remember all the questions you asked about my girlfriend in the last show but I only remembered some.
No she doesn't play WoW though she has agreed to try it.
Aaaaand that's that only one I remember.

I haven't played all that much WoW this week for no reason in particular I have just been doing lots of stuff.
My priest did reach 73 which is brillo-bananas.
I did order a book by Yatzhee Croshaw the guy behind Zero Punctuation. It is a parody of sorts of the MMORPG scene. Sounds hilarious and the writer is good at ZP so why not read his book I thought.

And since I have massive writers block I wasn't able to write a ghoul store for you guys. I'm sorry but my brain just wouldn't allow any ideas through this week. I was probably just dreading another 6 hour shift at work.

I'm not obsessed with potatoes! Well yeah okay I am.

There will be a ghoul store next week I promise, well that is if my writers block kicks it.

Lots of love and writers block.
Mattdiox - For the British!
P.S . . . Nah I can't think of anything for a P.S

Bloop!


Email #4a from Betla

Hello Ctrl Alt Wow gang!

This is Betla, your friendly curvy female Dwarf rogue, from the CAW guild on Winterhoof! "HAIL!" I have a question that I'm not sure if you all have covered in one of your many episodes, but I thought I would ask anyway!

We all know that we ALL love alts! I know I do, especially when they are shiny freshy new alts at level 1. I love new alts because I have always created alts after I have found some sort of inspiration for their race, class and name.

For example, I wanted to try a hunter once, so I created a female Blood Elf hunter named Kasmina. My idea for her was that even though she was a Blood Elf she had always loved animals as a child and knew she would grow up to protect Silvermoon as a hunter, and figured she should train with the master hunter race (in her opinion) the Tauren! So as a super low level Belf I leveled her up just enough to gain her ability to train a pet, and decided she wanted a different pet than the standard lowbie Blood Elf zone pets. So I hoofed her all the way to Dun Morogh to get a pretty white juvenile snow leopard. It was a long, harsh and lonely journey to the snow capped valleys of Dun Morogh, but she finally made it. Almost about to collapse from exhaustion she trained a nice leopard whom she named Sugar and then quickly hearthed her lowbie behind to Mulgore to begin her TRUE hunter training through the Tauren starting zone. Fast forward about 40 levels and she eventually got her Exalted status Thunder Bluff and is now riding pretty on a kodo and know the Tauren, her mentors, respect her. :-)

Sorry for the long story, I was just curious about your own alts' backgrounds if you maybe create any for them and wanted to share!

Hope you are all doing well!
-Betla!

Email #6 from Nightlion

Hi Java!

Just wanted to write to you guys really quick... add this in where ever if u plan on reading my last email just wanted to give u all big props and high fives for I guess it would be last weeks show now. I just litterarly finished listening to it and you guys had me in stitches towards the end.. which is sort of a bad thing cause my family is sleeping and I was trying to keep quiet... I guess I can't listen to your show anymore at 11 O'clock at night :p Vrishna you should give Jasper a treat for helping you with the Aprillian attack at the end... though I think if you guys got into a fist fight even with Jasper by your side Aprillian would still win sorry Vrishna. Also give Jasper a hug for me... some people like Ashayo... some like El Jeppy... my favorite on your show is Jasper because he always makes me laugh.

Just to add in on this week real fast... my hunter has a few nice purple pieces but he isn't ready for raiding yet... one more week probably... my druid, Nightlion, started off going into ICC where the group fell apart because of computer problems then the second night no one showed up (probably not the right grammer but I don't really want to look it up right now... its an email right... no needs grammer) so we cancled the raid. Tonight on my pally we headed into ICC were our guild master (who is normally our raid leader) couldn't make it so I was given the raid leader spot (whoot!) we didn't do to bad... died once on marrogar... almost wiped on deathwhisper and then got saurfang down on the 3rd and final try. :) I did such a great job that the officer that gave me the raid leader spot bumbed up my rank in guild... only place to go now is officer and im crossing my fingures that i can do well and help out the guild enough to get it.

Really quick thanks Temp for the advise I'm going to try it tommorrow's (well now its today's) raid.

Good luck questing this week... For the Horde, Alliance, and Everything in Between!
Nightlion


Email #D from Nevik
Hiddie Ho JAVA

I dun gone messed up. I've completely derailed my rogue leveling project by transferring my draenei mage from Whisperwind to Winterhoof and remembered just how much fun it was to play as a frost mage. After getting her the glyph to permanently have a water elemental as a pet I proceeded to go from 63 to 66 without so much as a thought of logging into the rogues.

Then once rested xp ran out, I made things worse by deciding that perhaps I should have gone with herbalism instead of mining with the dwarf rogue. Picking flowers feels so wrong for an ale guzzling killing machine, but the benefit of having a heal-over-time ability will turn my dwarf into a demi-god.

Despite being sidetracked I have gotten around to spending some time on jub jub and the experience of the LFD tool has left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm not sure what it is about the Vengenace battlegroup, but the ratio of fail pugs has been extraordinarily high.

What gives Vengeance? Is it the fact that there are a high number of PVP realms in the battlegroup? Do PVP realms make for bad teamplayers? Are there any decent tanks in the early levels? Are there any patient healers? Aren't chocobos the greatest? Do I ask too many questions?

Anyhoo, For the blood n' thunder and the Dwarven Ale!

Nevik and his many rogues.


Email #E from Kurly

is your good buddy Kurly here wishing you all the best that WOW can offer!! And with so many toons to manage these days........YEECH!!

So, I hope things are going well with the guild on Winterhoof. I have logged in a few times over there and haven't met anyone else online. I'ma hope to transfer one of my 80's over there to get my toons all geared into some heirlooms, and to do some runs with you folk...oh the joy the joy!!

Although I have a tank and a DPS on Winterhoof I think my primary focus is going to be on the holy priest. Of all the priest talent trees it is the one I have avoided, so I think I am going to keep her out of BG's and just run her in dungeons and questing!

I have left my toons on Ysondre to their own devices by transferring Viranelda (Vera-Nelda) my traveling level 80 Druid over to Earthen Ring and signed her up for AIE. So please please look for her there and say hello!! Since my other guilds are primarily PVP and leveling guilds its going to be fun to see what I can accomplish with her in AIE.

I have one toon left on Anderhol my Undead Death Knight, Mizzezdanvers (Mrs. Danvers). She is 72 know and I think I am going to pop her over to Ysondre as I feel like she needs a home.

So lots of content to play, lots of people to play with! I of course want to shout out to my home guild...Rabid Kittens/Norgannon.....I am hand with them almost everyday, and I am so grateful I have met them all!

I hope you all have a wonderful day and I look forward to seeing you on Winterhoof or Earthen Ring!!

XOXO
Kurly


Email #3a from Eranth

Aprillian & Crew,



I thought I’d take a few minutes to put together a little missive. This week has been a terribly rough one for me. Last Sunday I managed to throw my back out and while by Thursday I was able to get back into doing some work again, the following Saturday night it’s still got some spots that are stiff and occasionally sore. Anyone whose had their back out knows it makes things really difficult when you try to stand, walk or sit down, let alone lift things besides ones own body. This makes getting work done painfully difficult at best.



Being out of commission, I haven’t had much opportunity to work the dailies and random heroics, let alone try to find my way into a daytime raiding group again. However, as things have been going, I started to review my gold pouch and realized it’s getting lighter and lighter. As a result, I’ve had to cut back on several things, which I wish I did not have to. However, it is a foolish man who seeks to build a tower, but does not first count the cost.



Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I have, for now, pulled back from my subscription to World of Warcraft.



I will miss the friends I have made there. But, I also believe that friends do no go away simply because you lose track of one another. Things will get better and I’ll get back into the swing of things.



Until then, I’m not certain if I’ll continue to listen to my World of Warcraft Podcasts, or if I’ll continue to keep up with Twitter, as that’s primarily been meant to listen to chatter with fellow AIE folks. (I do hope I’m lucky enough to get back before the next character purge, and don’t have to go through getting back into the Guild.)



With the ‘extra’ time on my hands, perhaps I’ll be creative and put forth some prose to share, short stories and such. At least that’s what I hope I am able to do.



So, before I close this missive, thank you Aprillian for waiting for me last week. I’m sorry I didn’t get you my previous message before it was time to record.



Until I see you once again.



“Be well…”

Eranth

Hunter of AIE

Earthen Ring



PS – Aprillian, don’t forget, …open the mug, drink the coffee, CLOSE the mug, put it back down. /grin

Email #F from Acaldraa

Hello Ctrl Alt Wow folk,

Acaldraa here, with my first email in a few weeks. I apologize for not writing sooner, life has been pretty hectic as of late. Between lots of RL stuff popping up and raiding, I haven't had much free time as of late. Twice I have meant to go for a raid, taken a quick "nap" before hand and ended up sleeping through my alarm and missing the raid. But on the raiding progression front my 25 has down BQL and we are currently wiping on the Lich King repeatedly. To top it all off, I respected Ret and have been playing a lot of BGs.
On the DK front, I was asked to tank some heroic ICC. This was quite interesting considering my buffed HP in ICC is only 50k and I still didn't have a few set. Lord M hit like a truck, Lady D was pretty easy, Gunship was gunship (got an awesome 264 axe) We ended up doing Death-bringer on normal and Rotface on heroic. We finished the night getting Fester and PP on normal. Well that's all for now.

All the best,
Acaldraa


Sent from my iPod, sorry for any spelling errors.
Shout Outs & Thank You
MoMoMomements

Hello all,
Hope everyone is well and I am sorry I was not able to email in as yes the life bug has bitten me again.
My wow time has decreased but I am working on that :)

I know you will cover this, or at least mention it, but did you see the Cataclysm collectors edition?! I don't know about all of you but I will make my attempt to get one.

Two episodes ago a caller was mentioning one of my emails and how some people watch the recount healing meter and how recount does not count healing absorption. Well all of you disc. priests there is a solution for you!
Skada is an addon, better than recount since for healing stats you are able to keep track of healing and absorbs done. A guildie, yes she is a disc priest, told me about skada a while ago. Believe it or not you really can see a good disc priest out heal a Druid. Yes I know that really means nothing in the big picture but hey a little fantasy within a fantasy is not so bad is it. This is what I mean: in wow and in life, I like to play with all the numbers in our life. So for example, a LOOOOOOONG time ago this fine host that is not on your show anymore (GLANTHUR!!!) mentioned he likes to level his reputations until they are at 1000 exalted. Well there are so many things you can apply this to. I like all of my characters to have their weapons skills at the max, which I think is 400 at level 80.
So do any of your or the listeners play fantasy wow?!
Am I crazy?! ok you don't have to answer that.

Also in groups or raids I use the damage/healing meter like my own little fantasy wow (or like fantasy football :)
So just to have fun I post to my guildies in a raid the # of deaths we have had. Let me tell you in a bad night that can break the ice at times :)

I also wanted to say a late thank you to Nevik and Bidcar. A few weeks ago they were so nice to give me bags, gold and a guild invite. Thank you Gentlemen!
What I do when I create a new alt or when I am RAF ing, I like to make the large backpacks, 16 slot bags, you know the old school wow brown bags. Why do you ask? Why use the 16 slot bags over the 20 or 22 even!?
Well for me many times I don't play the alt for a while or ever! and for RAF I usually do not use that account again. I may transfer one or two of the characters I have leveled on a RAF account but many times they are just left there (play the sad music here) So if you use the non boe bags you can keep passing them around.

Also I have once so far transferred a character from my main account where I have many heirloom items to go around. So I pass a full set and than some of heirloom items to my lock, transferred her to my 2nd account and now that account has heirloom items. Granted they are cloth items but I can still use them with any character and they can be even with my main account character.

Another quickie, I of course listen to Molsan's great shorty casts and he mentioned he uses a particular key client for dual boxing. I still am more comfortable with just tabbing or on my desktop i have 2 screens so I just click between screens. One problem I still have is the video options, especially with two wow's running. My system can handle the ultra setting but again I have noticed that my frame rate, fps, is red when I have it on ultra. For a while now I have had my video settings on medium because I would get kicked from wow until I made this change to medium setting. I cannot explain it and it is really sad. The game looks unbelievable in ultra setting. Any thoughts? I will recheck my video card drivers but I am sure they are up to date.
Any one else having video issues?

Hope I jumped around enough for you on this email and the many topics.
Have a great time everyone

Take care


oh let me say once again of course thank you for your great work and I love your momomoments introductions, always makes me laugh out loud and I dont care where I am! and "who is it from?" "Mo!" LOL
So thank you again.
You all are the BEST!

--
Mo