Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 187 - Oops We Did It Again 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.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Gnomeragan retaken?

Did the Free At Last Quest on Epril from last year's Hallow's End

Ran my level 16 Dranei bank alt hunter around to try to get to 20. Dinged 17 doing candy

Putting all my toons in my secret channel, when they log in, you can see it.

Monday Morning got the Reins of the Headless Horseman on Aprillian

Tues morning = Maintenance and I totally forgot about the EU patch download. Tried to do it last week but it took so long. Says 5 hours for the download of the downloader

Rode around with level 1 RAF doing candy baskets for the exp

Aprillian & Vrishna

RAF again. Call the guys in the white coats

I got TWO rockets ! Ask Aprillian WHY ?!?

Vrishna

41 on the twins. Doing the southern end of Stranglethorn Vale now. In between a few instances with Aprillian.

Virinya got the "Reins" but I guess everyone else did as well. Can fly in most of Dalaran. Also got about 5 squashlings but can only use 1. (sniff sniff)

Bus commute to Hades ..... AAAAHHHHHHH !!!!! Public Wi-Fi Shmi-Fi.

Ashayo

Hallows End
-----------

Jekle got Sinister Squashling
Glaciuss got Sinister Squashling x 2
Ashariss got SS
Pud just needed Sinister Squashling - got it in a treat bag, but logged out.

Shadowthrone got helm, broom and REINS in one bag (Kind of fitting since he still has the laughing helm and pumpkin sword from last year equipped.)

Pud got broom and REINS in one bag

Pud finally got the SS and Long Strange Trip!
Ashariss got Hallowed achievement

Crazy Train
-----------

PP & Sindy down
Working on LK - a horrid night of disconnects and lag and horrible buggy behavior

DwP
----

Also working on LK and also having issues with disconnects and lockups and ending up in different instances. But perseverance paid off, and we killed him, getting a bunch of us new titles
Got the Undying achievement
- started with Saph & KT
- 4horseman easy
- Left 3 folks stay out with Safety Dance
- No hunter for Gluth, but killed before decimate
- nearly lost 2 people on Thadiuss that missed the jump - Redband and Blankenship


Levelling
--------

Glaciuss hit level 80. Only learn Mastery. Not even a talent point. Dinged picking a flower. Very anticlimatic!
Persisting with questing in Icecrown - intending to complete it one last time before Cata

Jeppy

Now THIS is a problem http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/882513?page=3

Violated and not in a good way.

Ummed and Ahhed over BlizzCon stream kind of glad I saved the money (ish)

How fast can you login and out of 10 accounts?

No to extra slots.

Lots of self hating geeks and nerds out there.

Emails

Email #1 from Wingy

a big hi de ho to all of the caw caw crew.

I had a suggestion since all of you all are mad PVP'ers and love doing it live!!!
I think you should all do a random battleground and record it. I would love to hear your reactions at killing and get killed.
oh i can hear it now.
April takes in 4 dk's, Verishna takes in his duel pallies, jeppy brings in his chopper possee, and Ashayo brings in his druid.
April and Verishna run off together one way towards the hut of love. Jeppy rides off in search of herbs and mining nodes and Ashayo stealths off and finds a cnr to hide in so he doesnt get killed. hehe.

April, can i have a gumball.. thanks !!!!

I would love to tell you a story that happened whilst i was running SM with Berat some while back.
We que up for a random and got the Cathedral. The group is going well when out of the blue this player in group says 'Whats this ghost thing here, it seams to be following the mage?' As berat and me are vent we decide to have some fun. and we reply ' What ghost thing?We cant see any Ghost thing?' There is alot of laughing between us when i throw the haunted memento to berat. And we hear the player say 'and now it is following the preist'. Berat then throws it back to me. Laughter ensues between us as we chat to each other in party chat about this haunted ghost.. the ghost in the darkness... THE END.

and now for what ive been up to on winterhoof.
I am now level 65 on my mage. It seam like only yesterday Berat and i were questing in Exodar. I duel specd her as it was only 100g and went down the fire tree.. Im still prefer my tanking frost spec though. Im loving the portals and teleports i can create. picked up the shat teleport and waiting to hit 66 for the portal.

oh another story
Slave pens.
We qued for slave pens and it popped. Berat was stuck on the loading screen.. For some stupid reason the tank decides to pull and he wipes the group. I saw what was happening and zoned out. Berat finally got in, and I said to the tank perhaps it would be nice to wait for the healer before you pull.. all he can say to that is Rez !! we ignore him  as Berat is waiting for a plz. this goes on for atleast 5 minutes.. the rest of the group can see what we are doing so they are giving him heaps too. mean while i crack out the leather balls and we are all playing our own game within a game waiting for this tank to say please. the game was to make sure you are not the person holding all 5 balls.. we finally resed him when he said please and we went on to
Question: do you create games to play whilst playing?

well story time is over and i must go to bed..  night night

Wingy
 


Email #2 from Moranith

Hi ctrlaltwow gang,
  Moranith here again.
  To answer your question you had about my emil in episode 184. I picked up the T10 paladin healing set.


Email #3 from Aleara

Audio from Aleara

Email #4 Blitzkriegg

Hello ctrl-alt-wow (plus Juno this week!)

I'm a big fan of the show - please please don't scare me anymore by talking about what you could do if you weren't 'keeping it clean'.  I think the show is more impressive by how much you make me laugh without an explicit tag.  Just sayin'.......

So, I am a huge altoholic, and after listening to you all talk about dual-boxing, I want to give it a try.  First thing I did was go to your show website, figuring you had some FAQs or links or guides or....something.  But I couldn't find anything.  So I checked out wow-wiki, and an internet search, all of which made my head hurt. 

Do you have a list of addons/software/websites/tips&tricks that you could put on your show website to help a dual-boxing wanna-be?

thanks!

For the Alliance!
Majrpayne, Blackwater Raiders

For the Horde!
Blitzkriegg, AIE Guild, Earthen Ring

and all those alts thanks you as well.... 


 

Email #5 Warpoet from Warpoet


Greetings Ctrl Alt WoW Crew,

First, let me thank you for continuing your podcast during the recent lack of content. Everyone's love of the game never seemed to waiver. 

Second, Aprillian, no need to drain souls, out of combat you can do Soul Harvest and get all your shards back.

Third, on my iTunes review. Experience and Inexperience may have been the wrong words to use. Was not my intent to insult anyone. Vrishna brings a fresh set of eyes to the game and the podcast.

Finally, Juno's Bumpers Great!!! Love The Show, Keep Up The Great Work

/roar Warpoet  For The Alliance!!!


Email #A Kurly

Hello all!
Part 1

So.....what shall we talk about....hmmm??  The patch from hell?  Maybe, perhaps, a little?  After finally learning how to play my priest...and play her very well I might add.....along comes 4.0.1.  I wont mention the other things...you know....disconnecting every time you click on a soul well, or an item or anything else....never mind getting stuck in the loading screen to and from battle grounds and instances....never mind "line of sight" not working correctly in Warsong Gulch to the point of being killed by an arcane blast in the Alliance grave yard from someone hugging the cliff....never mind that Mages have become the new original DK's because they can kill you in .05 seconds....and rogues are back to being the most hated character in the game if you are in a bg under level 39.  So all of that not being mentioned I logged on the few days following the patch, only to find myself logging out after 20 minutes and for the first time in two years seriously considering canceling my account.  I knew that changes were coming and I knew that they were going to be big changes, but I didn't not expect the utter demolishing of the way I know how to play.  The amount of bugs that continue to happen (sound being totally out of sync, having to wait through 4 or 5 res cycles in a bg before you actually res, and being penned in our grave yards in battle grounds) finally got to me. 

 

Part 2

Shortly after I started wow I was asked to sign a guild charter after I had just created my Paladin.  I had no idea what a guild charter was, but I was offered two gold and said yes, than immediately whipped out my manual (yes, I used to reference the manual) to see what I had just done.  The Guild was Mana is a Myth started by a young couple in Seattle.  It was primarily a leveling guild, but a large number of the members had hit level 70 and they were doing raids that I was not able to participate in as I was much to low.  That guild disbanded but I stayed in touch with that young couple over the years until we created Rabid Kittens, which now houses all of our wow buds.  I went to Seattle last week, met them and their four year old daughter and had one of the most wonderful vacations I have had in a long time.  We met another one of our guildees and we all had a great night out.   We also played some WOW and were it not for them, I could very well still be contemplating canceling my account.  Big Shout to Whillen, Bella and their little chip monster, and Mount Rainer is one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen.

Conclusion

I am now starting to get back into a groove and my WOW is back to being fun! It has been a trial by fire, but after the initial scorching things started to fall back into place AND me and some people in my guild have decided to go to Blizzcon next year.......another WOW vacation??? ....Werks fer me!

 

Peace out all of you hot messes!!

 

Kurly

Email #B from Acaldraa

Hello Ctrl Alt Wowers,

Acaldra here writing in for the first time in a very long time. My last month or two has been amazing busy and I just haven't been able to find the time to write in. Of course, Ctrl Alt Wow still stays as one of my number ones when listening to my iPod. 

To quickly summarize what I have been up to as of late, I spent the week and a half before the patch frantically buying out any herbs I could get my hands on and making them into inks and then promptly into glyphs. Once the patch hit, I was selling glyphs for insanely high prices! 150g a glyph? Sure why not! My only regret is that I had more time to prepare and was able to post sooner after the patch dropped. I ended up coming out a little over 14k richer for only a few hours of work on my end, not bad! On a completely different note, I have been raid leading "Cloudy with a Chance of Purples" in ICC 25. We have been having lots of fun as a of late, clearing 10/12 in two nights. Now we are extending to try and finish off Sindragosa and Lich King before the expansion drops. 

As a wrap this up, I have a question for you guys, do you have plans on raiding come Cata? If so, what are they? I know I will be doing 10 man in the form of harder core progression. 

All the bests,

Acaldraa and Acaldro

Paladin/Dk of AIE

Email # C from Iceflow and Caoboi

Hello CAW Crew and Happy Hallow's End!  Sorry for the Jeppy size email.  

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope you all are having a ton of fun playing WoW.  Hallow's End crept up on Caoboi and I this year.  Well actually all of the events seem to creep up on us since our mains already have the purple drake and we aren't worried too much on getting them on our alts at this point.  But I've jumped into Hallow's End with a slight bit of gusto this year. 

There is an achievement I still need.  The one where I get all the masks.  I figured this will take me another couple of years since I'm not camping out at my computer and trick or treating every single hour.  I do it when I can and I still need seven masks.  Caoboi needs the same.

We have been running the Headless Horseman every day on all of our 80s and....Cabooi got the reins the other day!  He's super excited and this has been his primary mount ever since he got it.  I was feeling slightly guilty for having the reins for years but now all of the guilt is gone!  

Since Iceflow already has the Headless Horseman Reins and she's capped out on justice points, I'm doing it for the gold and the possible masks that I can get out of the pumpkin bag.  And by the way, that is new this year.  Last year, you couldn't get the masks from the Headless Horseman so that should help out with that quest.  This is my favorite holiday so I'm actually doing it on my alts as well.  I'm taking it easy though so I'm not stressing about getting all of them.

I too miss the PvP fights outside the Scarlet Monastery Dungeon.  I remember I got my Make Love Not Warcraft Achievement on a dead alliance last year.  Ahhhh memories.

There is are temporary bug fixes for the cog mouseover bug. 

There is a macro to turn your tooltips off and a macro to turn them back on.

Turn Off Tooltips
/script GameTooltip.Temphide = function() GameTooltip:Hide() end; GameTooltip:SetScript("OnShow", GameTooltip.Temphide);


Turn On Tooltips
/script GameTooltip:SetScript("OnShow", GameTooltip.Show);


But there are mods for this as well but the macros are a quick lightweight way for me to deal with it.

Iceflow finally obtained her Ravasuar mount and Iceflare is a couple days away.  I guess I'll do it on two more toons.  I heard a reliable rumor that it will not be able to be acquired after the land changes in Catclysm.

I worked it out and Iceflow needs 1,325 more Crusader's Seals before being done with the Argent Tournament Dailies.  Getting 13 seals a day, that will take me 102 days.  Obviously this will get done way after cataclysm but it will get done.

Caoboi has started another shaman, this time enhancement, named Shibboleet.  His Shaman started at level 25 and got to level 37 all in one day.  He urges everyone to start alts if you want an easily leveling process before Cata comes.  Afterwards, all the mobs will be adjusted for the increased power.

I have been leveling my shaman who is now 69 and is questing in Northrend.  I'm having a ball in Borean Tundra and level 80 is getting close.  I will be sad that the journey will be over for her.

Well you all take care and we hope you all have as much fun in WoW that we have.

Iceflow and Caoboi


Email #6 from helmar

Howdy CAW!

Just listened to your latest episode and wanted to follow it up. Changing the EQ does work, thanks for the suggestion. I want to make it clear though, I love the Juno segments. Also, I'm not British, I type with my iPhone cause I listen to the show at work and don't want to forget to email you guys. Which is why I said me ears instead of my... Not sure how it happened though.

Anyway! I also want to tell you why I joined the Scryers realm instead of the realm y'all suggested. I stopped play WoW for a while but wanted to get back in. I'm much more of a social player and a friend told me to join her server and the Excessus guild. I soon understood why she likes the guild. They're very friendly and active. They even have things for lower level toons to do.

Oh! I'm also trying to make The mad dash to 80 before Cata. I've actually never gotten past 60, so to just hit 70 would be fine with me. Yesterday I leveled from 51 to 54 just doing Call to Arms for two hours. I'm a bit worried that I'm missing stuff like tanking gear by not going into dungeons, but I hate not going without guildies. What do you think?

Helmar from Excessus on Scryers



Email #D from Nevik

Greetings JAVA!

You know, I think I'm really starting to like this "the world is coming to an end" thing. Quartermasters everywhere are having fire sales of their best gear regardless of stature.

"Here want some tier 10? Whatcha got? Justice points? Sure, I take that. Here you go, it's yours. Now scram!"

Maybe I'm missing something in regards to these justice points, but I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps they're just stockpiling all these points for trade on some tummy rubs or something, who knows?

Anyhoo ...

As you can imagine with the great fire sale of 4.0.1 I've been able to find amazing deals on gear to kit out my rogue. It's like a dream come true and the dps he's able to pump out now in heroics is crazy. Maybe not caster dps pre-nerf crazy, but crazy nonetheless.

There is a downside to all of this though, my poor baby rogues and mage over on Winterhoof have sorely been neglected. But at least that neglect will come to an end soon ... at least if my daughter doesn't nag me to play her blood elf hunter ^^;

Yes, that's right. My daughter is now playing WoW. I control the mouse and movement and read out all the quest text for her, but she controls the killing and has gotten quite good at it.

We've only hit one snag, she wants a black n white tiger and doesn't want to be a night elf. So it'll be awhile until we can tame King Bangalash in Stranglethorn.

At least she's FOR THE HORDE!

Nevik

Sent from my iPod

Shout Outs & Thank You

From WhoFirst


Ty so much for the pet! I can't tell you ty enough for the time and energy you put into your show.

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 186 - Congratulations, Your Mind Has Been Expanded

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.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Can't believe my level 26 Warlock who could summon yesterday, can't summon today.

Mage has portal, teleport button. Mana lollipop

Bought another enchanted broom and sold it for 950g on Alliance ah - Made titansteel bars with Epril. Sold all stockpiled glyphs Mi had in guild bank. Found I had another guild I had forgotten about - Lone Sentinal - has one DK in it

Sent Mollyshot the mats for Mechano Hog

The Flight Path map is bigger - Tracker changers0.

I can Summon a Felguard but not a portal at 3

Spoops orphan candy quest is available

Aprillian & Vrishna

Ran Scarlet Monastery with the twins.

Hallow's End with Virinya

Vrishna 

Virinya soloing in the Storm Peaks. Made over 500 gold this week. WOW ! I think it's GREAT that I can still experience content AND get paid for it ! The daily, Overstock, at K-3 killing the fleeing mobs. I have to learn to read the actual quest. Was running around killing, TRYING to kill, these running mobs. Actually FINISHED the quest. Found out it was a daily and realized that part of the quest was laying down mines ! LOL SO much easier ! Virinya completed many of the achievements for Hallow's End including killing the Headless Horseman and Sinister Calling. Just 4 more to get the title.

Level 38 at the end of this week.  The twins did Tricks and Treats of Eastern Kingdoms all on their own and everything in Kalimdor except Winterspring in Everlook. It is great to get so many new flight paths !Tried to get there through Azshara. Actually got the better part of the way before getting killed by high level mobs. Then tried SWIMMING from Darkshore past Moonglade to get there. That was an hour of my life I can never get back. So, finally asked Aprillian and she tells me to go through Ashenvale .... (sigh). If only I had looked at the damn map FIRST ! The path into Felwood looks REALLY obvious now, in retrospect !  Like to give a shout out to Dosi & Norynna. (Same person, different alts.) My first CtrlAltWow guild invitee.

Love the water in 4.0 but sadly had to turn both my video setting to their lowest setting to avoid IMPOSSIBLE lag in Dalaran. I guess we need new computers !

Ashayo

4.0.1

- Quest items now have yellow border
- Blizz announced long-strange-trip drakes won't be 310% any more. But not so! yay!
- Transmute timer now truly daily - resets midnight server


DK Tanking
- Blood tanking seems ok

Druids
- spirit gives hit - need 446 for hit cap - I have 1100
- according to elitist jerks, mastery not beneficial, and haste much better now than crit
- gems: brilliant (red) , reckless (yellow) , purified (blue) - if only for meta activation, plus a nightmare tear
- reforged some crit/hit off into haste

Lunar Shower - increases Moonfire damage ; more if you move, up to 3 stacks
Prime Glyphs - insect swarm, moonfire, wrath
Major Glyphs - starfall, focus, innervate

Ashariss had 7500 Justice points, so bought
- T10 DPS Chest
- T10 Healing Shoulders, Robe, Helmet, Legplates
- Purified Lunar Dust trinket
- Idol of Lunar Eclipse

Pud bought Heirloom gear.
- Heirloom mail shoulders, chest, 1h mace, int trinket

Inscription
- Tried Northrend Inscription Research - and learnt something new!

Mage
- Water elemental now dismisses when you mount up - no more trail aggro

Warlock - Destruction
- Start with Soulfire - 15% haste when mob above 80%
- After Conflag , cast Incinerate and Chaos Bolt (reduce by 30% for 15 sec)
- Shadowburn at end - will get soulshards back if mob dies in 5 sec
- use Soulfire - talent that adds 7 sec dot (though Imp fireball does it too - doesn't stack)
- keep Immolate up - increases damage of Incinerate and Chaos Bolt
- Aura for Empowered Imp - next Soulfire to be instant
- Warlocks now useful in Lich King fight to stun Val'kyr? Shadowfury stuns enemy in 8yds for 3sec and Shadowflame glyph slows by 70%
- Getting 7k on a target dummy only self buffed.


Crazy Train
- Restart ICC
Buggy night. Deathwhisper event started without getting near her.
Cannons in gunship bugging out - no interface. Stuck in combat after end of fight
Rotface died in record time - 2min 56, fell over -- and disappeared
Wiped on Blood Queen at 23% - no bites up!
Oneshot Dreamwalker

PoH
- More heroics for Glory of the Hero. Tranith got it, Wemb just needs dehydration
- Gruul's & Magtheridon

Hallows End
- Did Southshore quests in 1st hour - strong alliance resistance - nice as tank
- Got helm in first bag
- Still had pumpkins from last year to get Check Your Head achievement
- Chol had wisp wand ; last one I needed
- Just need sinister squashling - praying RNG is nice.

DwP
- Tore through ICC , now facing the LK again

Jeppy

100 gold for dual spec = sweet

Where's my wolf!

2 seater rocket > Chopper?

Is it just me or do holidays bring out  a lower level of DBag?

Shakes....shake....shake

Emails

Email #1 from Londrik

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo, Vrishna and Jeppy

So I wrote a number of weeks ago telling you all I had been farming
for enough gold for my Tundra Mammoth. Well after toiling away I
finally made it and have been loving having a repair bot and vendor at
my fingertips. It is very useful and I do enjoy giving rides to
friends whenever I can. Once I finished up with that I ended up
focusing on my Warlock which in less than two months has made it to
level 58 and is questing in outland. This is a record for me
considering it took me over a year to get my DK to 80. Granted I have
heirlooms and the random dungeon finder to thank for that.

So the 4.0 patch launched today and besides being distressed by the
fact that all of my addons are broken I am impressed with some of the
new additions to the game. For one I think I like some of the UI
changes in the glyph and talent trees. I also find it a lot easier to
pick the talents that make the most sense for my toon. My favorite
thing so far though is the fact that my ghoul is like the hulk and
when he gets mad he grows into a huge monster and just kicks butt.
Also I have an ENTIRE bag free now because my warlock doesn't keep
soul shards in his bags anymore. Oh happy day!

What are some of your favorite additions so far to the game?

Londrik of the "Want to Date My Avatar" Guild
Dragonblight US Server

Email #2 Aleara

Here's a submission for you, April! I hope it's not too long. It's about a minute.

Hugs!

--
Aleara Jackley
alearajl@gmail.com
Aleara's Hobbit Hole blog/podcast: http://alearajl.blogstpot.com



Email #3 from Helmar

Hey CAW!

/waitsforthecaws

Ok, so I think I figured out why the Juno part of the show hurts me ears. It's a mixture of three things:

1) Podcast or Skype quality might be bad for playing a recording. I'm not too sure about this one, but I never have a problem with listening to you guys talk.

2) I have awesome headphones. This could be a huge factor as the sound quality for my headphones is amazing. Also, I turn them up loud so I don't have to listen to the bad whisper singing of my co-worker.

3) I have really good hearing for audio. Don't believe me? Jeppy (at least I believe it's him) has facial hair and is constantly rubbing it. Aprillian, please let that go.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with it. I just lower the volume a bit. Thank you Juno for your concern!

Helmar of Excessus on The Scryers

Email # A From Iceflow and Caoboi
Hi CAW Crew,

Caoboi and I hope that you all are doing well.  It feels like forever since we've written but that's because so much has been happening.  Caoboi and I are avoiding the panic that has been spreading through our guild like wildfire.  There are way too many speculations with regards to guilds over 1000 so we've chosen just to wait and see.

The big news is the patch.  Since the patch, I haven't had a lot of time to play my alts because I'm feeling like I have to learn how to play my mains all over again. It has been a flurry of activity trying to get my mains back up to speed.  Caoboi farmed for inscription mats before the patch but instead of selling them on the AH for a tidy profit, he opted to help guildies by making them glyphs.  Isn't he awesome like that? 

Iceflow is all talented and glyphed out and I'm still trying to get used to her new abilities and the new rotation.  Luckily we raid tonight so I'll get to try it in order. 

And the patch has changed so much!  Good and bad!  The couple of things I like:  1) The water is sooooo pretty now!  Smooth like glass and very believable.  2) I also like how when I ride my headless horseman's mount onto Krausus Landing, I don't have to dismount and mount back up to fly.  I can just take off!

The things I don't like about the patch (that I hope will get fixed):  1) There's a bug when you die in Icecrown, you go at walking speed as a ghost.  Very annoying.  2)  Some of the name plates of the mobs are invisible.  I get surprised very easily that way!

I am soft capped on Justice points (what the badges turned into) so I can't get anymore until Cataclysm.  That takes a bit of the pressure off of me trying to run heroics anyway.

So this week and probably next will be spent on getting our many many alts ready to go.  I imagine it will take awhile.

We hope you all are doing well.

For the horde and the alliance

Iceflow and Caoboi


Email #4 from Curme

Patchmegadon

Hey CAW crew,

While I knew that the patch was coming and that it would completely change things, I don't think I was ready. With 5 toons at 80, and dual specs on each, I was immobilized by all that had to be figured out. So instead of actually working on the toons, I simply sold glyphs and epic gems for a ridiculous amount. I also realized that I need to create glyphs for all my toons, my wifes toons, and figure out how to spec her mage (dual spec as well) and if I need to move around any of her gems. Fortunately my raid worthy toon is warrior tank, so I don't really have to do much gem switching. However, I've heard that threat is kinda low, so I'll have to relearn that. End result? I didn't run a single heroic dungeon, spec any of my 80's, or try and figure out how to play them. Their just parked in their home cities near their class trainer. Rather than trying to deal with that level of thinking, I brought out my lvl 24 rogue, specced back into subtlety and proceeded to one-shot ambush mobs in the Barrens and Thousand needles while earthquakes rolled and rolled. I dinged 4 levels in a couple hours of play time and decided that its way more fun to face roll than deal with min-maxxing. By the way, recuperate is officially OP,  rogue DPS with a HoT. Just a suggestion to anyone overwhelmed by the patch like myself. Grab a lowby or roll a new toon, and quest for the uncomplicated joy of it. Sure I'll get around to speccing my toon sometime, maybe even a couple of them, but I have absolutely no motivation to learn how to play a blood tank, frost DPS, disc priest, prot pally or even relearn my warrior tank for the moment. Too much work.

Curme

PS. In your show a few weeks back you talked about where you put abilities on the hot keys. I realized that I had every single toon and every single spec set up differently. Since I mostly tank and heal I don't have a rotation per se, but I think I'll take that into consideration when spec them out this time. The only nice thing about have them set up differently is that for every toon, I know immediately that I'm doing something different and that helps get the brain engaged.

Email #5 from Mandrageron

There I was... then Lich King released the Spouse Agro!

Greetings,

There I was... on the verge of getting the two main's to 80 before our favorite hostess.  As I prepared to sharpen my skills and begin help build up the Argent Tournament the Lich King released a hidden 5th column upon my hero's the dreaded spouse argo.  "Arthas!"

Now close to 16 months later I've made my return to North-rend I find that several things have changed...

- my favorite show about Alt's has dabbled with Space (made it to Captain myself before I retired)

- has four talking heads with two new voices

- Quad boxing with 5 tunes?  Does that mean that the show is really done with one person doing all voices while the 5th character online?  If so amazing pipes to get those accents down.

- Confused on when my Blood Elves let their inner Dwarf's come out.  I remember paying to make the change on one tune but I swore my Level 73 Hunter was still a Blood Elf and not a gun toting short person from Iron Forge.

- Not to mention trying to remember what all of those buttons due, not to mention all of the talent changes actually do or if my old guild even exists anymore!

love the show,

Mandrageron, DK Sentinal Server

Email #6 from Agruvona

hunter pets in Cataclysm

CAW CAW:  hey, how's it going?

Here's something I never thought I'd say:  worms are so cool!

Frostheim from Warcraft Hunter's Union has been doing a lot of research on Cataclysm and he came out with a preliminary list for how hunters might fill out their stables.  He suggested getting a worm (not to be confused with serpents) for solo PvE because they're tenacity pets and it looks like worms are the only pets that will have a real AoE attack, which matters a lot, since bears lost their Swipe with the latest patch.

I got a L72 Jormungar worm from the Crystal Vice chasm in north-central Dragonblight and I took it to Sholazar Basin to grind some leather from the beasties.  And OMG it was a scream!  (I can just hear Juno shrieking about it!)  The worm's AoE attack is called Burrow Tunnel (or "burrow" something).  The animation makes it look like it's boring a hole straight into the ground, and once it started this attack I could hit Multishot till I used all my energy (usually about 3 Multishots in a row).  Most times that left me with nothing else to do but get out my skinning knife.  On my L80 hunter with some pretty trashy gear (yeah trashy but pretty, at least for a troll) and my worm at L78 I could handle 3 or 4 L75-L76 mobs at a time no problem:  crocks, gorillas, serpents, whatever.  The worm rarely had trouble holding aggro.

So then I took the worm over to Ice Crown to try it on some of those "converted heroes" you have to kill for the Tournament quest givers.  The "converted heroes" come in crowds of 7 and they're high 70s or 80, but if I did things right and had luck I could handle them too.

So anybody wondering what to do with all those new stable slots definitely you should try a worm.  Check them out at Petopia.  They're pretty cool looking and the tamed ones are huge compared to most pets, even compared to most Taurens.  And they don't leave nasty trails of slime behind, like some slugs we all know LoL.

Happy hunting:

Agruvona of Terokkar

Email #7  from Boozah

Hi ctrlaltwow! I thought I’d drop this email by to tell you how I play World of Warcraft for the competition.

Basically it all started back in the year 2005, it was the summer, and even thought I was 13 and should have been full of life running around playing football (or soccer as some of you may know it as) and other outside activities with my friends, I found myself cooped up in my downstairs cupboard screaming “THEY’RE ALL CAMPING B!!”. Me and my friends, agile as we we’re, played computer games instead of playing in the sun. Summer of 2005, the summer of Counter Strike: Source.

So yeah, all through school I played console games, it was only when I moved into secondary school that I got converted into the geek I am today. Counter Strike: Source was the culprit, me and my friends all decided to play, and struggled to do so on our terrible computers that our dad’s used for work. Integrated graphics? It may as well not even be called that, running a game on very low is just terrible. We managed to find a free TeamSpeak and so we would wake up, get a bite to eat and then head to our PC’s for a full day’s worth of gaming, also by being 13 alcohol didn’t really interest us and so going out partying on the nights we’re never considered as an option.

Then, one day a friend came round to my house with a small, thin looking game box. It was entitled “World of Warcraft 14 Day Free Trial!” and I was like “What the hell? World of Warcraft, man that game sucks, FPS is the way forward”. He replied with “No man, seriously you have to play this game, I mean it’s a bit laggy in main cities and our computers are just good enough to run it, but it’s so worth it, my Brother has just started playing and it rules man!”. I took up his advice and within three days not just me and my friend had started playing, but all the guys who played CS:S we’re now on TeamSpeak shouting something along the lines of “I’m sick of this Warlock, I’m making a Warrior”.

Fast forward to 2010 and you get me and all the same guy’s all playing on the same server, raiding as a guild. Awesome right? Although I’ve been left school for 2 years now and I’m in a full time job, and people have just started University (I’m from England in case you hadn’t of guessed by now) we all still manage to get around the obstacles to play this fantastic game together. That’s how I play World of Warcraft.

You see, many people play with guilds, but are these guys you go to the pub with on a Friday night? Are these people you sit down with on a weekly basis with to play poker? Didn’t think so, playing with friends is the only way I play WoW. Now obviously in our guild there are plenty of other people we play with, it’s needed for the synergy of raiding, but as long as the original gang are raiding with the addition of other players, that’s fine with me.

I don’t really play solo play, I mean I do do the odd daily quest here and there, but it’s mainly done with one of my IRL friends. We all feel this way and this is the way we feel most comfortable playing. We sometimes have LAN’s were I’ll get all the lads round to play in my house on a weekend, we’ll have some cans of lager, get in a curry or a Chinese takeaway and then farm heroics, and there’s no need for TeamSpeak when your tank is like 2 feet away!

Even if we’re levelling alts, we’ll do the 300% extra xp so we can quest and instance together. That’s how I play World of Warcraft; I play with friends, thanks for taking the time to read this entry into the competition!

Newcastle, England, UK

a.k.a Boozah on Stormscale EU!

Shout Outs & Thank You

MoMoMoMoMOoooomoments:

Momomoments - sick mo is not a good mo/wow wow wow they have done it again!!!

(Intro to the latest mobook for Ctrl Alt Wow!)

Hello all,

I have missed you and missed emailing in so you will get an extra long email, are you prepared!? Contrary to what that Illidan says I think you are prepared :)

Prior to the patch I was able to get more playing time than usual and I was able to get some dailies and random heroics in.  The guild I am in with my mains is starting to pick up a little bit.  There are more people on than the last few months which is nice.

Most of the last 2 weeks I had a litch king type plague and this past week I was off as I have plenty of pto left to burn for this year.  Instead of going somewhere I just had a staycation, meaning I just stayed home :)

I dont know about you but I am ok with that.

So with all that time and being sick I was able to get even more wow time and than Blizzard drops a bomb on me baby!

(Chapter 1 - Patch me baby!)

This latest patch has to be the best patch I can think of; yes it has lots of bugs but come people, what doesnt have bugs.  Even beds have bugs!

I have read on the internet universe about so many people quitting wow, how bored they are, how they hate this patch, how they dont care about cataclysm!?!?!

I am sorry they feel that way as I do not.

One reason I think this latest patch was so exciting to me was that I was staying away from any spoilers; not on purpose, just worked out that way.  Many of the things on the patch I had not heard or read about.  On the other side, similar to Vrishna's reaction, it is annoying to have everything reset pretty much but as you all have stated this only happens what once a year or two?  I think its worth it.

On to the patch: the talents, wow!!!

For me its like a new old game :)

Right now I would say my main has been Moheal for a long while now, holy healing troll priest and he was drooling from his tusks!

There are a few things missing from before for a holy priest but wow wow wow all I can say.  I see the holy priest as the new druild resto healer.  When I am healing, I always have at least 2 DOT heals going, mainly because of my mastery.  Each of my heals also heals for a specific % amount for 6 seconds! This is a big deal for me and I love it so far.  I know we will all get nerfed at least twice I think before the patch but thats ok.  I healed VOA right away after I was able to fix my ui enough to heal.  Yes I healed with the wow UI and with no healbot!!! I know blasphemy! :)

So in VOA as you can imagine everyone was a noob and not playing well but that did not show as the dps was dpsing like they never have and i was healing with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my chair (not really).

I need to back track a bit, on patch-tuesday I actually spent most of the night as I was having so much fun spending talent points on my Feathermoon characters.  Now that is only 15 characters of many many many more! I have lots of more fun times ahead and I love it!

It was so exciting and fun to read and learn all the new talents.  I just need to learn how to Master each character :) a Momaster if you will.

I would say the hardest class for me right now to momaster are my hunters.  I just need to get used to the focus and rotation but OMG the changes!  Pets at level 1! No ammo in my bags!! Christmas in October!

I was also able to work on my Druid/Mage pair, they are at 73 now, real close to 74.  I have moved onto Grizzly hills.  I love that zone, it looks cool, AWESOME music and just so lively and green.  One of my favorite zones in WoW.

(Chapter 2: Mount Hyjal)

I was on my priest and I saw a message in trade chat of course (dont ask me why people ask for raid stuff, lfg, etc in the trade channel) for heals for Mt Hyjal.  I dont know if any of you have done that but I have not.  Mt Hyjal I think was an end game raid for BC after Black Temple, is that correct?  Well either way I have never been there so I said I will help and I was able to drag my mage too, level 73 mage! It was fun, minus the cluster-(fill in the black) of putting 20+ people in a raid and making sure they follow the raid leader.  we were able to complete it and get the achievement.

I suggest trying it when you can or when you can get 20+ people together.

(Chapter 3: advantage...?)

Someone was gloating in trade chat that his vanishing powder was selling in the AH for 5g a stack.  Now I know people should know better but do you all think people should take advantage or exploit others like this?

I say no but you know it will still happen :(

(Chapter 4: JP for you JP for me)

Do you know if there is a cap on Justice points?

(Chapter 5: MoHallow's End!)

YES! Hallow's End! THE BESTEST holiday event and Halloween = best holiday of all!

As you can guess I like Hallow's end.  Like many of you I am doing my best to log in each day, every hour when I can :) to trick or treat myself and to run Headless Horseman.

On Monday I started on my priest and worked my way down through my 80's but wow was I having issues with lag and  dc'ing.  I know I was not alone but any of your and your servers part of this nightmare! :) get it nightmare!

As soon as I would zone into the HH instance I would get dc'ed.   However let me tell you on one of my hunters; I zoned in and dc'ed as I mentioned.  As I am trying to get back into the game which is taking a real long! time! I finally zone in to find the fight is over :( I apologize to the group and surprisingly they were not mean.

I found the pumpkin in my bag and clicked on it and was expecting noting...first I get the HH's mount!! YES!! and a flying broom! AWESOME!!!! I get grat's from the group (again surprising) and we all leave the instance.

I really would like to take as many of my non 80's around to check in the instances but not sure how many I am able to complete the achievement on.  I just want the loot and treats and the xp is nice.  At level 60 I am getting about 5700 xp; I do have heirloom gear on so I am sure that helps.

Chapter 6: The END (play the Doors song "The End" here) :)

Well if any of you are still alive in game and awake in real life thank you for your patience.

On non-wow-because there is more to life than wow rant, 

I need to provide a public service announcement because I like to help others after my and Gretchen's misery.

If you did not know laptops do not like water; in fact I do not know any techno-gadget that likes water unless they are waterproof.  My other half Gretchen has had the macbook I bought for her for, hmmm since the last macbook came out, I forget how long that is.  Anyway, she spilled water on our kitchen counter and the lively water rolled its way into the cd slip of her macbook and drowned her laptop (named gbook) :(

yes sad

and I have replaced her laptop already because she has the moprotection plan as she calls it (why do relationships cost so much money!?) and she promises not to drown her gbook.

So please remember, keep water or any liquid away from your devices.

thank you and take care

For the "waterproof" and WOW!

--
Mo


The Addicted Podcast Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=160464701811

http://foxtrot.com

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 185 - Patchmegadon

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.

Hello Darlings!

 

Just want you to know that I am still working on the bumpers!  Just been busier than I thought here...hehehe...but we'll get them, no worries. 

 

*big hugs*

 

Juuno

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Paid for the Blizzcon feed

Loving the new 3D gallery on the Amory app. Did some AH transactions

Aprillian & Vrishna

Ran Gnomeragan, again

Elevator mishap.

Vrishna

The twins reached 34. STILL no dragon in Twilight Grove. Finished discovery of Duskwood. Found cavern in Raven Hill Cemetery.

Ashayo

Jeppy

Emails

Email #A

Howdy howdy howdy Vrishna, Jeppy, Ashayo and Aprillian,

Bidkar the Snowman here.  I found my Winter Veil disguise and now have added snowman dancing to my repetoire.  I bought 10 stacks of snowballs last Christmas so I have plenty work with.  Bidkar bought low and sold medium on the auction house.  I would just like to remind people not to put netherweave bags on the ah for a low price.  Some snowman will buy them all and sell them for a reasonable profit.  Also, for everyone who lists pages and pages of single items, STOP IT!  Nobody likes it.  Just because your mother and father were first cousins doesn't mean the rest of us should suffer.

I worked on leveling my death knight, Altheah to 80.  As of this email, she is at 79 and a half, so hopefully by the time you read this she will be 80.  I had contemplated changing her race from troll but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  She was a toon I brought over from Auchindoun because she had maxed Inscription.  I have such fond memories of Auchindoun and want to keep them intact I guess.  I'll just have to block out her annoying traits.  I'm still learning to appreciate the class for what it has to offer but my death knight is turning out to be quite fun.

I also discovered this week that priests are great at pvp. I was in Orgrimmar on my priest Sagrado and the Alliance made their move.  I always defend Thrall when he gets attacked as all good Horde do.  I will not be defending Garrosh, so he better grab his ankles and take it because I think he's gonna be on his own.  I don't think too many people will be rushing over to help him.  I think he will get the same treatment as the leader of  the Blood Elves. That poor guy rarely gets any help at all.  Anyway, I did pretty well on the priest killing the Alliance.  It always amazes me how powerful priests really are.

I bought epic flying for my warlock Allerea and will be buying epic flying for my priest.  I still haven't bought the mechano-hog.  I think I may just wait until my engineer can buy the recipe for himself.  I also renamed my Traveler's Mammoth to Twinkletoes.  I grew up on a farm and we had a cow named Twinkletoes.

That's it for now.  I hope whoever was ill is feeling better.  Have you heard from Glanthur or Blade yet?  Just wondering.  People sure come and go quite a bit on podcasts.  I always wonder what happened to them.

For the Horde and For the Alliance!

Bidkar and his many alts

Email #B

Hi Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna, and Jeppy!

Iceflow here again to tell you what Caoboi and I have been doing in game.  I'm only three weeks behind in the podcast (just finished episode 181) so I'll be caught up soon.

I'm sure you all have talked about the devastating news about the 600 toon cap on the guilds.  This has thrown my main guild AIE of Earthen Ring into a tizzy (do people still say tizzy?).  Everything is up in the air right now but I know that my toons on ER will have a home somewhere.  Because of the panic, Caoboi and I joined Pants on Head with our level 1 paladins and my level 60 Druid and his level 70 priest.  Everybody was super welcoming and I look forward to spending time with them.

We've been too busy with Coren Direbrew and other business to get over to our toons, on Winterhoof but we've been itching to to get over there.

So I can't talk about how lucky Caoboi was during Brewfest anymore.  During the whole event, I got the Kodo twice on my priest, the kodo on my paladin,  and the kodo and the ram twice on my hunter Iceflare.  Unfortunately, my main, Iceflow, wanted them more than anyone.  Sadly she came up empty this Brewfest.  Oh well, there's always next year.  Caoboi didn't get anything on his main either.  I guess we are pretty lucky after all.

My main, Iceflow, has been diligently working on her argent crusade seals because I want all the tabards, mounts, and pets.  I'll be working on this for a while yet but it's a goal for me to work after.

I've started the quest to get the ravasaur on my rogue and my druid.  There's a quest in the chain that dictates that you have to get poisoned by the ravasaur.  I was having a hard time on my rogue because she was killing them super fast even with no weapons.  Caoboi came up with the great idea of taking all of her clothes off.  It worked like a charm and I got my 20 poisons in no time.  Only my husband would come up with the solution of me getting naked.

Caoboi already has his ravasaur and he's working on his druid's ravasaur.

On the raiding front, our 25 man killed the Lich King for a second (and probably final) time last night for everybody who wasn't able to kill him the first time.  With the raiding changes coming in patch 4.01, I think our 25 man will go the way of the dodo.  That's fine with us.  It gives us more time to play our alts.

As always, no need to put me in the contest.  We hope everybody is doing well.

Iceflow and Caoboi


Email #1 from Moranith

Hi Aprillian, Ashayo, El Jeppy and Vrishna.
An lets not forget about Juuno (How you doing!).
I have enjoyed the show you guys put on and want to say thanks for all the good time.
Moranith here a level 80 Protection/Holy Paladin on the Cenarion Circle server.
My real life friends got me to play Wow last year and then stopped playing. But I stayed
and got a lot of four alts to level 80. I have a level 68 Blood Elf Priest but saving that for
Cataclysm before I start to level her again.
My friends are thinking about coming back for Cataclysm and am thinking of playing a Goblin or Worgen.
At the end of Sept I got invited to join the guild Doomtidings. I was assigned into one
of the guilds raid groups as a tank.
The next day I was told to report to Orgrimmar for a gear upgrade. Daemonus the guild
leader made me  Breastplate of the White Knight, Saronite Swordbreakers and Pillars
of Might. So I wont to thank every one in the guild for the upgrades.
That night I was the off tank for my first ICC 10 man run and got the Neverending Winter, Broken Ram Skull Helm and the Ashen Band of Greater Courage - Honored.
I copied my toon to the PTR and found out how much the Paladin Teir 10 healing set would cost in Justice Points.
Do you think it would be a good idea to save the Emblem of Triumph and buy the set for a off set since I am duel sped?

Email #2 from Kephas, (not key-phas) :)


Hello C.A.W. crew!

Thanks again for reading my story. I just wanted to send a quick email to explain how I use a an xbox 360 controller. In order to use a wireless controller you will need this device:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=xbox+360+pc+controller&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=9984239196350938768&ei=PuOtTOy-NIbGlQeU3_GcBQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD4Q8wIwBA#

Or you can simply use a wired controller. The driver should install automatically upon plugging it in. All you need now is software to bind keys to the buttons on your controller. I use a program called Pinnacle Game Profiler. It costs $19 one time and is supported with updates and continues to add new features.

http://pinnaclegameprofiler.com/

With a few keybinding changes in game and a few addons, I've ended up with a pretty nice setup.

~Kephas

PS: Kephas, (not key-phas) :)

Email #C Whofirst

The alt crew,
Well I guess here is an unexpected part 2 to my first email. I am sending this on my droid phone and I guess they need to make the buttons bigger so I don't press 4 of them at once.
Anyways I was just saying ty.  I was so nervous sending in my email that my heart was racing.  I don't know how an email can do that to me when I am a _____ and deal with way more stress stuff on a daily bases.  I sent the email and I calmed down but then I saw in the show notes that you actually read it!  I coundnt listen to the show fast enough.  My heart raced and I began to get very warm when I heard that you had reached the email section of the show.  Many things were going through my mind and of couse they all ended badly.  When you reached the end of my email I felt calm and relaxed and decided I better do that again sometime.  What a rush lol, still can't believe I got that worked up over a simple email.  Also ty for rolling my number, I will take any of the pets.  THANK YOU so much for your hard work!
I moved an alt to winterhoof in hopes of joining the guild.  He is a 58 druid that is tree/boomkin of course lol.  His name is whonow since for some reason I was on one of those kicks.  I joined the caw channel but no one was on to add me but will continue to check.  I signed up for a twitter account just so I could join the guild but I really have no idea what I am doing on it.
Well thanks again and I can't wait to hear your next show.
Whofirst thunderhorn

Email #D from Kurly

Hello All!  My but its been a few weeks since I have sent word of my many adventures in Azeroth!  But, life as you know, sometimes happens.  For the most part its been a busy couple of weeks.  Viranelda's recon mission has ended.  Disguised as a Tauren she was sent by Elune and was happy to report that her Druid brothers and sisters of in the Horde are, indeed, offering proper worship.  She has since been returned to her Night Elf body, and resumes her fight.  (okay....enough RP there)

 

Elsanelda was able to obtain enough Heirloom Items to allow for the creation of three clothies when the expansion hits.  She, too, has returned home. 

 

My Priest, Mhetzo, is part of a 3V3 team my guild has been playing in arenas and we have been doing pretty okay.  She is in mostly 251 pvp gear and the other night in a few battle grounds I was able to watch with utter, glorious, maniacal gratification as most of the other players could barely scratch me....sweet, sweet joy!

 

In a recent podcast Eljeppy made mention of multi-boxing in BG's.  Over the last year or so I have been part of BG's with people multi boxing and it never really turned out all that well. 

 

In one, there was a warlock running around with three other warlocks clearly on follow, this was in Warsong Gultch so that one person was making up 40% of the team.  He was able to put four spells on every toon he chose to target,  and clearly that target died, which was great if that target was the flag carrier.  However, it was so clear what was going on that everyone on the opposing team targeted his "others" and alternate res cycles had the guy waiting for all four of his toons to res..  We lost every bg he was in.

 

In another, someone had three Paladins two running Ret and the third Holy.  It worked out really well at first, but once the other team figured it out, it was the same thing.  It seemed that each of the toons were working independently but as soon as one died...the other two stopped.

 

These are just the examples I have seen, but as you can see they did not go so well.

Anywho......My best, love and great big furry man hugs to you all!!

XOXO
Kurly

Email #E from Grim


My name is Grim... and I'm still an Altoholic

G'day everyone,

I recently got dragged back in to playing WOW a bit more on my tired old laptop computer by all the Cataclysm news, BlizzCon news etc.  Anyway, although I'm not multi-boxing anymore I'm enjoying trying to complete my 'set' of 80s (only rogue - lvl 63 right now - warrior and mage to go) as well as continuing the looooong rep grinds towards 'the Exalted' title.  By the end of the week I will be at 38 exalted reps and that is where I'll have to stay until Cata.  My problem is I don't have a regular enough schedule to raid and therefore I haven't got any of the reps from the higher level raids such as ICC-Ashen Verdict.  Also, my mind came close to exploding when I discovered what it would take to go from Hated to Exalted with Aldor!

No real point to this email.  I just wanted to let you know how listening to the show helps give me ideas for activities to pursue in game.  It also allows me to live the 'raiding experience' vicariously through Ashayo.  Thanks mate!

Take care and STOP HITTING EACH OTHER! :-)

- Grim.

p.s. please don't include me in the roll for prizes.

Email # F from Eranth

Trying to Catch up

C-A-W Crew,

I’m sorry it’s been a while since I dropped you a line, Aprillian & guys.  I hope this missive finds you well, and we’re not missing anyone, [read: Jeppy.]

On to the Eranth-Update:  The game card you sent me for being the lucky number was very nice to have.  I tried to be sure to get ample use it of it on the schedule I’ve had lately.  And, it’s interesting, because I checked last night, and I think it’s been a couple of weeks since it expired now.  I was pondering what to do when it expired, when only a couple of days after it, I discovered that this was this new entry in my Battle Net account….  [Quick, Vrishna, distract Aprillian…….]  I’d been selected to get into the Cata-Beta.  (Sorry Aprillian, I just don’t know how to transfer such things…I’m sure it was a fluke, an accounting error! Yours got lost in the mail, perhaps?)

So, as a result, I haven’t let re-upped my game time, but instead have been focusing on the Cata-Beta and working to diligently report bug and relay the ‘average causal player’ opinion on the current build of the software from the Hunter perspective.  The quest I took has me spun off in the underwater content.  And, I have to say, I’m not sure you’d like it, Aprillian.  So far, it’s sorta a struggle, since pets don’t seem to work the way you expect them to underwater.  The animations aren’t right [Note to self: Report pet animations underwater], they seem to have trouble staying on target in a 3D environment, the mobs tend to get slowly reeled back into you for no apparent reason.  However, I can report that some of the story lines and quest lines are pretty nifty thus far…y’know, when mobs and pets aren’t falling through the ‘floor’ in some places. ;-)

By now, you’ve probably discussed some of the recent kerfuffle Blizzard has raised with the first 600 toon, and now 1,000 toon cap on guilds.  Of my Earthen Ring toons, I have 2 that are still in AIE, and ..um, 3 that fell out due to inactivity.  I’m a little torn on if I should bite the bullet and re-up a game card and try to get them back in before 4.0.1 comes in, but that could be Tuesday, and I imagine by this time I won’t be able to get my alts back in before then.  However, if the patch doesn’t come down this week, I probably should, I suppose.  However, being one who tends to concentrate on one toon, or just a couple of toons at a time, I feel badly that I’m either working on the Cata-Beta and wasting a game-card, or feel like I’m not holding up my side of the deal by not working some on the Cata-Beta while keeping my toons up. Oh, the slings and arrows!  (See, Aprillian, this whole Cata-Beta is a double-edge sword!)

At any rate, I should wrap up my blathering and let you get on to other emails.  However, if you’ve got some suggestion to my conundrum, I’d certainly be open to other points of view and thoughts on the matter.

“Be well…”

Eranth
Tauren Hunter of AIE on Earthen Ring


Email #3 from Thadeos

RAF & Multiboxing

I've recently RAF'd myself so I can get 8/10 characters(2 slots left for a worgen and a goblin) on my second account. I've never actually duel boxed before, i've boosted myself with a higher character. basically I'm just wondering what software you use for key cloning and other such things. If there's another episode where you've gone over this that'd be much appreciated :D I don't really get the wall of text on wowwiki and it seems like I have to pay for the software..

Also do any of you pvp as you level? Me and my friend are levelling a lock and pally and so far we've done pretty well. The pally is the first healer I’ve tried in pvp and I always seem to be top of the healer list since there are generally no healers in low level bg's. we got wrecking ball, well I say we, I healed him and he ran around doing what locks do dot dot dot fear etc. oh people get so annoyed when you get the flag hold midfield wsg and farm kills now they can get exp from pvp. :P

Thadeos 80 Death Knight - Lightbringer EU



Email #4 from Agruvona

Greetings you Awesome Pod-peoples:

So I was just in normal mode Pit of Sauron, (where I got Item Level 219 Epic shooter Rimebane Rifle weeeeeee!!!!!!) but we had this tank who died twice in the first two pulls, and he remarks, "Gee, I guess I'm really undergeared."  And somebody answers, "Probably."  And because had a really good pug full of people who understand that nobody's perfect, and WoW is not a game of "perfect," we go on from there to finish the dungeon. 

So then later I go look at the tank's Armory page and I notice the guy has no shield.

OK, so correct me if I'm wrong but if you're a WARRIOR and you're TANKING you ought to be carrying a SHIELD, right??? or every mob that comes along is going to BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF YOUR FACE AND SNAP ALL YOUR BONES IN HALF AND PAINT THE WALLS AND FLOORS WITH YOUR BLOOD!!!!

I mean, maybe I'm just a dumb hunter but it seems to me that if you can carry a shield, HEY!  TRY IT SOMETIME!!!

Happy hunting  :>

Agruvona of Terokar

Shout Outs & Thank You

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 184 - Brewmaster Everybody

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.

From Juuno:

Yay! I had to get this done early because we're going to a zombie exhibit at a museum tonight, and we're volunteering at an animal thing all day tomorrow... gar!  Anyway, I hope everyone's doing great!  =D

 

*big hugs*

 

Juuno

Can we avoid talking about Cata 12/7/10 or 600 member guild cap? NOPE! That's what the rock stars call 'content' :)

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Easiest Title Ever!

Some converted gnomes turn into bunnies instead.

Took Trexrar into LFG. Did RFC 2 times at level. Took Elyte into a random to get better gear

Went to transfer Tøp from inactive RAF account on Winterhoof to ER to be big sister to my alliance toons. Found out she was guild leader

Was in Halls of Reflection when there was a glitch, relogged, was still there but unpartied.

"You are in the Wrong Zone" Error

Doing VH, kicked again because I told the tank to chill after he complained about my DPS. I mean no one was dying.

Aprillian & Vrishna

Gål riding on Elyte's rocket. Elyte summoned and Gål shows up. Did Steamvault and got to first boss. (FINALLY !   whew !)

Vrishna

The twins are on to Darkshire and Stranglethorn Vale. Why are the quests in BootyBay that lead to Stranglethorn SOOO deadly to the toons that can accept them. I'm telling you, those quests on the southern end of the Vale are WAY tough !  Doing some exploration and got around to Ironforge. Found all the quests for Gnomeregan and had to go as I was about to out-level it. Hence the twins coming out of seclusion and asking Aprillian to game with me again ! So the twins join CAW on Winterhoof and the family gaming re-commences !  Completed 250 Quests while turning in quests for Gnomeregan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtYyfrlSRBI

Ashayo

Brewfest
- Jekle got shanker and mace in one bag, and ram and kodo in one bag
- Asheal - got [Greedy] achievement

- Remote : Asheal,
- Tankard : Hiide, Ashayo
- Kodo : Shadowthrone, Asheal

Crazy Train
- Really getting the hang of defile and valk now - 40%
- A night of being beaten by the lag boss


DwP
- Heroic Saurfang after a few false starts
- Now clearing to Lich King. Working on Sindy - stuck at 10%, beaten by lag boss
- RS - one shot Halion
- Sarth 3D ; gratz to Sigurn on mount

Weekly
- Sarth 3D on Jekle ; gratz to Nikkto on mount. (Lost with a 94)

Misc
- Glaciuss his 75 in Dragonblight. What do I do with frostfire bolt?
- Hardest quest in game? "The Storm King's Vengeance" - kill Thrym
- Questing in Hinterlands - forgot about good group - mobs seem plentiful

- Very entertaining conversation with someone who wanted to be Gerped into AIE

Jeppy

Beta

Hogger gets banged up!

Heroic battle of Westfa

Flying in Old World NEVER GETS OLD!

Missing addons though - especially Ark inventory.

Started a Goblin - stopped at level 5. The feet are freaky!

Ran non heroic Dead Mines. Lots of nice changes

Differences between EU and US Brewfest. No Pink Elek or Wolpertinger hunt on EU

Mario got the kodo.

Emails

Email #A from Iceflow

Hello Aprillian, Ashayo, Virshna, and Jeppy,

Iceflow, here, writing another email although I hope this one won't be as long.  I wrote a previous email but I forgot a huge huge huge piece of news!  So just disregard the last email.  I hope everything is well with all of you.  I am continuing to get caught up on the podcasts and I'll be delighted to hear my emails read when i finally hear them.  I'm up to episode 178 so I'm going along at a steady pace.

I've been having fun on WoW even though other games (Final Fantasy XIV) are threatening to take my gaming time away.  I've been doing Coren Direbrew on all four of my 80s everyday and the only mount of gotten is on my level 80 priest Iceprayer.  She got a Brewfest Kodo.  Too bad I hardly play her anymore.

I thought I was done with Brewfest achievements since my main, Iceflow, already got the achievement drake but I had missed drinking one of the beer of the months back in July so I missed out on the Brew of the Month achievement.  So I had to work to get 200 brewfest tokens to buy the membership again for this year. I finished that last night and I'm done with brewfest events except for Coren since that only takes a couple of minutes for each toon.

Caoboi received another Brewfest Ram on a toon that already had it.  I told him to spread the love.

My 25 man raid team, Not In The Face, is trying to kill the Lich King again for other members and we got so close last night.  The closest we got was 19%.  We'll be at it again next week.

The big news that you all have been waiting for (or maybe not.)  My ten man raid group Not In The Face finished the raiding meta achievement by killing the Lich King on the Second try while completing the achievement on him. That earned us the Reins of the Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquisher.  It's an awesome bone drake that looks just like a smaller version of Chillmaw (or Chillymaw for Aprillian).  And one little detail that was so cute, it has a hoop earring in it's left ear.  Crazy huh?  So I can truly say I have beat the game (for now anyway).

I'm eager to play on the Winterhoof Server again.  My hunter and Caoboi's priest are in need of playing.  Maybe I can find time to play this weekend.

I'm very excited about Cataclysm and I hope you all are too.  I love how the game continues to be fresh to me.

I hope to see you all in game.

Iceflow

Email #1 Agruvona

Hello CAW peoples:

I just had to write about Juno's segment in ep 183 where she tells about the hunter macro she uses which combines lots of things into one button, including "assist tank," "petattack" and casting Hunter's Mark.

I had a macro just like this and it's great as long as you're grouping with normal tanks, or you know how your tank does business.  But then came the day when I pugged with a tank who hit his TAB key 50 times a second and my one-click macro had my pet running all over, attacking things that weren't even in the fight.  In fact on several occasions I ended up sending my pet after mobs we had yet to reach because the tank was targeting mobs ahead of us even as finished a fight.

Believe me, it got to be a real mess.

So what I did is write one macro to "assist tank" and cast Hunter's Mark, then I LOOK to make sure what the heck I'm targeting before I send the pet anywhere.  I have a second macro that tells the pet to attack and it also starts my bow shooting.

[[[And how dare that pug kick the lovely and awesome Aprillian.  What a bunch of FAIL-tards!!!!]]]

Good hunting  :>

"Agruvona of Terokkar"

Email #2 Kephas

Dearest C.A.W. Crew,

As a new listener of the podcast, I just want to share with you how much I enjoy listening to you guys discuss WoW. It is a delight to hear all the stories from people doing all sorts of things in game. Major props to you guys for what you do for the community. Allow me to share a little about my WoW experience.

I have been playing Warcraft for about four years. My main is Kephas, a level 80 paladin in AiE. I recently obtained Shadow's Edge with the help of my 25 man raid team, "Kick 'em in the ding ding." I recently started tanking and am now tanking an ICC 10 man, "Rockin' the Faceroll" and a 10 man Ulduar team, "Nonsense and Shenanigans." I love all my teams and the folks I run with are awesome! On the side, I've been achievement hunting. I recently finished Loremaster and was able to farm up Timbermaw and Cenarion Circle rep in the process.

I am a grade A altaholic. I have 8 80s and a 68 all on Earthen Ring and all in AiE. (The officers love me.) I plan to get my 68 rogue to 80 before Cata rolls out. Once Cata hits I plan to roll a goblin shaman.. If that's not enough for you, I am looking for a home for my alliance army of dwarves and worgen. Winterhoof looks appealing...hmm.

I have been visually impaired since birth. In spite of my limitations, it's not all bad. I get to do a lot of volunteer work for the community and I get to play a lot of video games. Mostly video games. :D Gaming is a perfect fit for me. When I started playing wow, I realized that I would need to find ways to help me play the game. For starters, the font was way too small for me. This problem led me to the discovery of addons and I've been finding new ways to improve my UI ever since. On top of that, I play the game with an Xbox 360 controller. I know it sounds crazy, but it works great! But the greatest help comes from the people I play with. I owe a lot to the AiE community and friends I've made in game for always being there to help me. People are a great asset and I would not have made it this far without their help.

Thanks for listening to my story.

~Kephas of AiE

Email #3 Kedehyrn

Brilliant show, recent alt-aholic

Dear CTRL ALT WOW crew, Apprillian, Ashayo, Jeppy and Vrishna! This is Kedehyrn on the US Zanagarmarsh server. I’ve been an avid listener since episode 174 and love your show! I just finished listening to Episode 183 and was pleased to hear my review read out on the show!

I’m slowly becoming an Alt-alholic since my first toon a Ret Pally dinged 80 back in July from just questing. I even got the 1000 quest achievement! After puging endless heroics and as I hadn’t run more than a couple dungeons before 80 + 1 or 2 battle grounds and miss a lot of other stuff I made some alts. Currently have a level 26 undead lock, a level 60 Orc DK and the other day made a B.Elf Shadow Priest.

Anyway, loving the show even more so since my itunes review back around episode 178, keep up the good work folks!

For the Horde and for CTRL ALT WoW!

P.S. Kedehyrn is from original Welsh Celtic language spelt ce’ed hern meaning “Battle Lord”.  

P.P.S. Apprillian was the first podcaster to not stumble on my toon name :D

P.P.P..S. also a regular listener of BOE and The Addicted.

Kedehyrn of “Cause For Concern”guild and my alts of “The Relentless” guild.

(there was a merge for people’s mains & 80s to increase raid running availability)

Email #4 Songofreedom - Staghelm

Hello Ctrl Alt WoW,

         First off I'd like to say I LOVE the podcast, It's by far my favorite. I cannot level with the in game music so I always have a podcast on. Anyways I stumbled across an older show  called "How I WoW" and listened to all the old episodes and to my surprise I heard April on it. It was nice hearing how she started and all the other games she played before WoW. Well, here is my question to you all. How do you deal with so many alts? I've got a few myself but I lose all interest in them when I start a new one, and when I try to go back to play them I forget what I'm doing and get put off from playing them so they end up collecting dust. Also is there any zone you hate but always end up leveling in? Like for me I HATE the Dustwallow Marsh but there are so many quests in a small area I cannot skip it. 

Well back to questing for me and I just wanted to thank you all for making these shows. (I also checked out that Bind On Equip podcast you all talk about and must say I really enjoyed it, but your podcast Is sooo much better) 

Email #5 Crozey

How yooooou doin'? hehehe

Yoyoyoyoyoyo Ctrl-Alt WoW Crew

Hope you’re all shiny guys.

Firstly, a big thanks to Ashayo for reading out my email a couple of
months ago. That saw me promoted to officer in my guild which was
super fun… for about three weeks! Then there was a bit of a guild bust
up all over Real ID (can you believe that?) and so I decided to take
my multiboxing madness over to a PvP realm for some peace and quiet.

Anyhoo. I started multiboxing five different classes from scratch
about two months ago and they’ve now made the dizzy heights of the mid
sixties. Its great fun questing and doing instances at level (just
done the slave pens) and I’m getting to see a lot of Outland content I
haven’t seen before which is excellent. I’m a bit of a quiet player,
preferring to get lost in my own world as opposed to being part of a
big guild and so I started up my own guild ‘House of Rhonin’ with a
membership of just me, me, me, me and oh yes me!

So I have a couple of questions. Firstly to my fellow potato, Jeppy.
Do you multibox on a PvP server mate and if so, if you see an opposite
faction character do you happily pummel them with all your toons that
you’re playing? Its weird, I’ve always felt like I have an unfair
advantage and so don’t tend to attack single alliance toons (other
than one dude the other day when my five toons ran past him and he
started doing the chicken dance at me! What could I do???)?

 The second question is to Verishna. You doing much end content with
your level 80 mate?

Oooo and one last question. Do you have a Ctrl-Alt WoW guild set up on
the EU realms? If so it would be fab if I could join up. I have to
admit I’m twitterless so am hoping an email is sound.

Thanks guys for your amazing podcast, I always really enjoy listening
to all of you. Take care and stay shiny

Crozey
Aka. Quortothious, Bladefist EU

 P.S sorry for the wall of text!

P.P.S Thought this would make a good prize for a fellow listener. Let
me know who wins it and I’ll send it out to them when its released:

World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm [Hardcover]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Warcraft-Shattering-Prelude-Cataclysm/dp/1416550747/ref=pd_rhf_shvl_3


Email #6 Whofirst

Hello fellow altoholics,
Just want to start off by thanking you for taking the time to make such a great podcast.  I am glad that you have decided to stay with a longer than normal show as it really helps my time at work fly-by.
I was listening to the last show and had to laugh when the topic of in game drinking was brought up.  I was healing a 25 icc run on my druid when a player dropped a keg of ale.  I clicked on it several times not realizing that my screen was getting fuzzy.  The next thing I know I see all these blurs running to Rot to start the fight.  I found that I could not run in a straight line and not see anyone or really anything on my screen. Some how we managed to down him with only a few deaths.  Guess know I know I need to build up my ingame tolerance.
I know that everyone on the show has at least dual boxed and I have also tried it.  I thought it was fun and continue to do it.  I just want to bring up an issue that I recently had when running an icc 10.  I am part of a small guild that has about 12 people in it.  We had a raid setup for wed but only 6 people could make it from the guild so we decided to pug a tank and 3 dps that we needed.  We found enough to fill the spots and started the raid.  The tank that we got had a 6k gs and was a kingslayer and had a friend that he wanted to raid with us.  The friend had a 5k gs and had a very similar name to the tank.  We questioned him about dual boxing and he said that he was 2 people.  We kept track of the 2 and found that the 2 were infact the same.  Of course he denied this. He was kicked from the raid but we were unable to find another tank to continue.  The night was a waste and now everyone is locked because of that idiot.  I wish people would be smarter about when to dual box so that everyone that doesn't get a bad name.  Do you think it pays to talk to his guild leader? I would just like to get your thoughts on it.
I have several alts on many different servers and planning to make one on Winterhoof.  I am interested in joining your guild and will look you up sometime.
Thanks for all that you do.
Whofirst 80 Druid tree/boomkin, whothought 80 Mage, Thunderhorn server and many alts on to many servers

Juuno's Lament

There are few who’d deny, at what they do they are the best

for their talents are renowned far and wide

When it comes to podcasting in the early morning light

they excel without ever even trying

With the slightest little effort of their Warcraft charms

all they say, to my ears, sounds so sweet

With World of  Warcraft chatter  and hilarious jokes

They have swept your little Juuno off her feet

Yet week after week, it’s the same routine

And I grow so weary of  waiting for Monday

And I, Juuno, of Korialstrasz

Have grown so tired of hiding my dismay

Oh somewhere deep inside of these bones

An emptiness began to grow

Only two and a half hours of Control Alt Wow

I must get more somehow

She’s a master of comedy,  the diva of altaholics                                         

And Aprillian is tres sexy but not smutty

Vrishna is her man and he doesn’t kill bunnies

He can be serious as a heart attack or nutty

And Ashayo is the meat, the grit of the show

He’s a delicous truck load of Awesomesauce

Yet no animal nor man, can sound like Jeppy can

With that voice and manner he is simply boss.

But who here would ever understand

That their number one fan-girl with the constant smile

Would tire of waiting, if they only understood

She’d listen every day if she only could

Oh there’s an empty place in my ipod

That calls out for even more Control Alt Wow

I’ve  listened to all the episodes from last year

But it’s not enough to stop these tears

Shout Outs & Thank You

Mini Mini Mini Moments

Hello all,

I have to confess :(

I have been, oh sooo bad!

I have not been paying any attention to wow at all as Civilization V has consumed my life! over 20 hours of it so far in just 2 weeks.

For that and for the coming weeks I do have to apologize.

I know I will get back to wow one of these days,  I did actually log in once this week, hope that counts :o

I will send you an email soon with good content but now I must get back to mocivilization as they may revolt!

And the Germans, English, and others are coming after my land!

For the Civilization!

--
Mo

iTunes Reviews

Shout Out on The Addicted Cast

Leralond EU Server: Azjul Nerub from the netherlands

Hi guys,
Leralond again, the past donation was aimed at hypno, the donation of this friday is for cypher. now go and get your gamecard and play WoW Cypher! and keep up the great show! greetings, Leralond EU  server  Azjul Nerub ps: All hail to the noble Vrishna