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's Awesome Segment:
The Way I WoW
Special Cata Beta Preview from Eranth
Hail and well-met, friends!
I twittered at Aprillian to ask if this missive would be alright to send, and she gave permission, so if it goes south, it’s all her fault. ;-)
First, let me say I’m going to try to keep this review as specifically spoiler-free as I can. I’ll try to talk in general terms to give you an idea of how things go, but I don’t want to give too much away. If you want more details before you get there, I can give them, you just have to ask me to share.
With that said, let’s be off!
Chapter 1 – 80 to 85 Content
I played from the Horde side, of course, and started with bringing my main over to the test server and proceeded in a way I thought would be ‘normal’ for me if it were live. My intention, of course, was to do that and report bugs along the way. There are three main quest chains or directions you can go from the start, Underwater, Underground and Mountain Top. I picked up all three of the start quests, but stumbled off towards the Underwater section.
Of course, as you’ve seen already, the new graphical updates are pretty keen. And the underwater is no exception to that statement. While I’ve been working on the Beta, I’ve let me game card lapse, so I haven’t seen what the 4.0.1 content looks like in the regular environment yet. I understand there are still a few bugs in some of the underwater areas that I was seeing in the Beta. I hope that gets sorted out and corrected before 4.0.3 goes live.
Unlike the fine Aprillian, I don’t have a high-end iMac to run things on. However, the 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop that I’ve had for a couple of years now with 3G of RAM and 128M video card seem to run the game well enough still. The new part of the program that senses your horsepower and graphics works much better in this version. It only allows me to access the two lowest graphics settings on the slider bar in the video settings. Even with the next-to-lowest setting, it runs rather well, and is moderately peppy. I’ll be curious to see how things look under load with lots of people standing around in an area like Dalaran.
Chapter 2 – Underwater
The underwater content was the buggiest part of things that I ran into, as a Hunter. There were issues with sending my pet to do my bidding, and he’d just reel the mob back in, slowly but surely. Or, he’d go out there and then just come right back, sometimes dragging the mob with him, sometimes just by himself. This seems to be related to having an X, Y & Z axis on which characters, pets and mobs move in, opposed to just the X and Y of things going on on-land. This was probably the biggest bug I ran into.
As for content, I felt like they’ve done a very good job putting the quest lines together, making it pretty straightforward about how the string of quests it supposed to play out. While most everyone will say that the Beastmaster Hunter is Easy Mode for soloing, there was still some thought that was required to get through things.
The story line you follow, takes you all over the underwater area, bit by bit, piece by piece, with very little back-tracking going on. The first half is about survival, but the second half is really some very good content that takes you back in time to learn about some of the past, and helps you understand why some things are the way they are now.
Wrapping up the end of the storyline, your character participates in a video cut away which leads you to the end dungeon/raid. None of which I’ve participated in, as I was pretty much soloing everything. Overall, I like how they put your character in the final bit of story at the end, even though it’s pretty much a cut-scene that you’re watching.
Chapter 3 – Underground
The underground portion of the quests was a little buggy getting into, and I had to reset my client after dying while entering the content. However, it’s during this content that we find out what Thrall is doing, and why Garoush is in charge. (No, I’m not going to tell you too much more about that, unless you ask me.) In my mind, I like how they’re making that shift in leadership, even if I prefer Thrall to Garoush.
While in the underground, we’re dealing with what is left behind after Deathwing has popped out with all his hardened plating. Again, here the story line is very concise and linear. From A to B to C to D. In a few places they give you several sets of quests you can run off to do in different directions, but the ‘red herrings’ are simply short two or three quest chains that you’ll end up doing, even if you come back to them and then go off in the right direction of quest chains.
Here we’re also exposed to the cult that’s been corrupted by our friend Deathwing, and seen how they’ve been twisted to helping get us the Deathwing of today. Additionally, we get to do some heroic deeds to save the world, as well as partner up with some of the Ancients from way down below. Some helpful, some not, others mostly indifferent and would just be glad when we’re gone.
While the cut-scene for this one isn’t as epic, to my thinking, as the underwater one, it’s not bad either. I like their continued use of cut-scene like work. There’s also a new dungeon/raid here, which I also did not get to do any of the content for.
Chapter 4 – Mountain Top
For this last bit, we travel to the top of one of the mountains, previously off limits. Here we find interesting things, including the fact that half the mountain is on fire! Again, the follow thru here is very good with linear quests. I recall only having to double-back once, but that was basically to check in before I was sent off to another area to continue the quest chains.
On the mountain top, you garner the help of several ancients, as well as infiltrate the cult whose been in league with Deathwing. There you stir up some trouble, get them to wholly trust you, then use that trust to rescue an important figure. With all that set right, you’re able to play a key role in getting a foothold where we can strike at the heart of Deathwing’s right hand guy.
Again, all of this content was solo-able, without being required to group up, save for the dungeon/raid that’s at the end of this content as well. The cut-scene in this leg of quests integrates very well, and there’s a piece about two-thirds of the way through that really made me sit up and smile. They work hard to make you feel like you’re a very key part of the story. They make the story very personal to you. You’re epic! You’re heroic! You feel like you’ll be on the short-list when it comes to replacing Garoush.
Chapter 5 – Wrapping it up
Finally, to put things together with a little bow, I have to say I really like the way they’ve made is straightforward to quest, very linear. No quests running off all over the continents, just one after the other. You can sit and run the chains easily in succession, or you can get in and run a few quests, get back out. There were absolutely NO multi-character quests, you could solo all of the content.
The use of cut-scene-like sections that include your character make it feel very personal for you the player, as well as for the character. While all three legs are tuned so that you can go any way as level 80, I would save the Mountain Top section for last. To me, it seemed the most epic for the character, more personalized. The other two sections feel much more related to one another.
For me, I was able to just do quests and hit 85 just a few quests before the very final few quests. There wasn’t any need to go grind out a lot more mobs than what’s involved in quests. I haven’t extensively fooled with professions, so I can’t really speak to them, however what little I have seen leads me to feel like there isn’t going to be a lot of grinding there either as long as you’re paying attention to those skills along the way to 85.
The one downside I really came away with was at the end, after the last quest chain was finished, I’d reached level 85, I went back to get my last level of training, checked out my last new skill, then sorta looked around and wondered, “Wow…that was sorta epic. What’s next?”
Epilogue
Well, again, I asked Aprillian if I should send my review on the Cata-Beta, so if everyone is worn out, you’ve had to pause, go have a drink, a little nap and come back to finish this, …it’s all Aprillian’s fault! ;-)
But, in all seriousness, I think folks will enjoy the upcoming Cataclysm content. While I’ve been busy the last couple of months working on the Cata-Beta, I’ll probably soon be picking up a new game card to get back into the regular game. I understand there’s a little bit of content that’s leading up to the Cataclysm release, and I’d like to see that. And while I’m usually online during the day, and not in the more busy evenings, I do miss seeing folks online, both with AIE and with Ctrl-Alt-Wow.
Finally: Always remember, don’t ever forget – Aprillian, be sure you closed the coffee mug. :-)
“Be well…”
Eranth / Lionchild
I twittered at Aprillian to ask if this missive would be alright to send, and she gave permission, so if it goes south, it’s all her fault. ;-)
First, let me say I’m going to try to keep this review as specifically spoiler-free as I can. I’ll try to talk in general terms to give you an idea of how things go, but I don’t want to give too much away. If you want more details before you get there, I can give them, you just have to ask me to share.
With that said, let’s be off!
Chapter 1 – 80 to 85 Content
I played from the Horde side, of course, and started with bringing my main over to the test server and proceeded in a way I thought would be ‘normal’ for me if it were live. My intention, of course, was to do that and report bugs along the way. There are three main quest chains or directions you can go from the start, Underwater, Underground and Mountain Top. I picked up all three of the start quests, but stumbled off towards the Underwater section.
Of course, as you’ve seen already, the new graphical updates are pretty keen. And the underwater is no exception to that statement. While I’ve been working on the Beta, I’ve let me game card lapse, so I haven’t seen what the 4.0.1 content looks like in the regular environment yet. I understand there are still a few bugs in some of the underwater areas that I was seeing in the Beta. I hope that gets sorted out and corrected before 4.0.3 goes live.
Unlike the fine Aprillian, I don’t have a high-end iMac to run things on. However, the 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop that I’ve had for a couple of years now with 3G of RAM and 128M video card seem to run the game well enough still. The new part of the program that senses your horsepower and graphics works much better in this version. It only allows me to access the two lowest graphics settings on the slider bar in the video settings. Even with the next-to-lowest setting, it runs rather well, and is moderately peppy. I’ll be curious to see how things look under load with lots of people standing around in an area like Dalaran.
Chapter 2 – Underwater
The underwater content was the buggiest part of things that I ran into, as a Hunter. There were issues with sending my pet to do my bidding, and he’d just reel the mob back in, slowly but surely. Or, he’d go out there and then just come right back, sometimes dragging the mob with him, sometimes just by himself. This seems to be related to having an X, Y & Z axis on which characters, pets and mobs move in, opposed to just the X and Y of things going on on-land. This was probably the biggest bug I ran into.
As for content, I felt like they’ve done a very good job putting the quest lines together, making it pretty straightforward about how the string of quests it supposed to play out. While most everyone will say that the Beastmaster Hunter is Easy Mode for soloing, there was still some thought that was required to get through things.
The story line you follow, takes you all over the underwater area, bit by bit, piece by piece, with very little back-tracking going on. The first half is about survival, but the second half is really some very good content that takes you back in time to learn about some of the past, and helps you understand why some things are the way they are now.
Wrapping up the end of the storyline, your character participates in a video cut away which leads you to the end dungeon/raid. None of which I’ve participated in, as I was pretty much soloing everything. Overall, I like how they put your character in the final bit of story at the end, even though it’s pretty much a cut-scene that you’re watching.
Chapter 3 – Underground
The underground portion of the quests was a little buggy getting into, and I had to reset my client after dying while entering the content. However, it’s during this content that we find out what Thrall is doing, and why Garoush is in charge. (No, I’m not going to tell you too much more about that, unless you ask me.) In my mind, I like how they’re making that shift in leadership, even if I prefer Thrall to Garoush.
While in the underground, we’re dealing with what is left behind after Deathwing has popped out with all his hardened plating. Again, here the story line is very concise and linear. From A to B to C to D. In a few places they give you several sets of quests you can run off to do in different directions, but the ‘red herrings’ are simply short two or three quest chains that you’ll end up doing, even if you come back to them and then go off in the right direction of quest chains.
Here we’re also exposed to the cult that’s been corrupted by our friend Deathwing, and seen how they’ve been twisted to helping get us the Deathwing of today. Additionally, we get to do some heroic deeds to save the world, as well as partner up with some of the Ancients from way down below. Some helpful, some not, others mostly indifferent and would just be glad when we’re gone.
While the cut-scene for this one isn’t as epic, to my thinking, as the underwater one, it’s not bad either. I like their continued use of cut-scene like work. There’s also a new dungeon/raid here, which I also did not get to do any of the content for.
Chapter 4 – Mountain Top
For this last bit, we travel to the top of one of the mountains, previously off limits. Here we find interesting things, including the fact that half the mountain is on fire! Again, the follow thru here is very good with linear quests. I recall only having to double-back once, but that was basically to check in before I was sent off to another area to continue the quest chains.
On the mountain top, you garner the help of several ancients, as well as infiltrate the cult whose been in league with Deathwing. There you stir up some trouble, get them to wholly trust you, then use that trust to rescue an important figure. With all that set right, you’re able to play a key role in getting a foothold where we can strike at the heart of Deathwing’s right hand guy.
Again, all of this content was solo-able, without being required to group up, save for the dungeon/raid that’s at the end of this content as well. The cut-scene in this leg of quests integrates very well, and there’s a piece about two-thirds of the way through that really made me sit up and smile. They work hard to make you feel like you’re a very key part of the story. They make the story very personal to you. You’re epic! You’re heroic! You feel like you’ll be on the short-list when it comes to replacing Garoush.
Chapter 5 – Wrapping it up
Finally, to put things together with a little bow, I have to say I really like the way they’ve made is straightforward to quest, very linear. No quests running off all over the continents, just one after the other. You can sit and run the chains easily in succession, or you can get in and run a few quests, get back out. There were absolutely NO multi-character quests, you could solo all of the content.
The use of cut-scene-like sections that include your character make it feel very personal for you the player, as well as for the character. While all three legs are tuned so that you can go any way as level 80, I would save the Mountain Top section for last. To me, it seemed the most epic for the character, more personalized. The other two sections feel much more related to one another.
For me, I was able to just do quests and hit 85 just a few quests before the very final few quests. There wasn’t any need to go grind out a lot more mobs than what’s involved in quests. I haven’t extensively fooled with professions, so I can’t really speak to them, however what little I have seen leads me to feel like there isn’t going to be a lot of grinding there either as long as you’re paying attention to those skills along the way to 85.
The one downside I really came away with was at the end, after the last quest chain was finished, I’d reached level 85, I went back to get my last level of training, checked out my last new skill, then sorta looked around and wondered, “Wow…that was sorta epic. What’s next?”
Epilogue
Well, again, I asked Aprillian if I should send my review on the Cata-Beta, so if everyone is worn out, you’ve had to pause, go have a drink, a little nap and come back to finish this, …it’s all Aprillian’s fault! ;-)
But, in all seriousness, I think folks will enjoy the upcoming Cataclysm content. While I’ve been busy the last couple of months working on the Cata-Beta, I’ll probably soon be picking up a new game card to get back into the regular game. I understand there’s a little bit of content that’s leading up to the Cataclysm release, and I’d like to see that. And while I’m usually online during the day, and not in the more busy evenings, I do miss seeing folks online, both with AIE and with Ctrl-Alt-Wow.
Finally: Always remember, don’t ever forget – Aprillian, be sure you closed the coffee mug. :-)
“Be well…”
Eranth / Lionchild
What We've Been Doing:
Aprillian
Found a rift on Aprillian.
Don't help if it's not your elemental - reduces xp
Citizen's everywhere are big wuses
Second phase, new quest in orgrimmar
Auruk never gave her pet talent points, then realized I hadn't called my other 3 pets. Went to stable master and had to move them in to a slot, but couldn't move my rhino
finding realm you are on
Aprillian & Vrishna
herbing XP for ALL
Vrishna
crazy xp on all my toons. this is starting to feel like work
CT
- Tried RS ; did trash bosses, some attempts on Halion, but game and vent lagged killed us
- Heroic ICC - 4% 1st go on marrowgar, basically 8 manned, Down 2nd go.
- Won heroic Enforcer's Claymore
- Normal deathwhisper (not enough melee dps)
- Heroic Gunship (even though Wemb & Temp d/c'ed , Temp died, Vyv died)
- Won Heroic boots
- Tried Heroic Saurfang, but ended up doing in normal mode.
DwP
- Crazy Cat Lady
- Hodir - under 3 mins
- Freya - all 3 minibosses still up - knock on wood, knock knock, and knock knock knock
- Thorim - with Sif still up
- Tried Mimiron - firefighter - that's alot of fire!
- Razorscale. Doing Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare (Have 25 dwarves killed by her breath - got 19 in first fight, done in 2nd)
Misc
- ZG ; many many runs to kill raptors for pet; finally got one
- Killing tiger boss for mount - no luck
- Levelling priest - rifts can be useful ; elementals helped me kill all the mobs in New Hearthglen
- Maxed out enchanting from mats ; just needed eternal earth
- Doing old world instances on Pud - never did them as a DK
- Cataclysm quests ; still waiting for something as epic as scourge attacks pre-Wrath.
Email #1?
Good afternoon.
I was doing some research on the company Trek Alliance on NPros.com and discovered that it was no longer in business.
I then went searching for reps that were with that company and came upon your email here:
http://ctrlaltwow.blogspot.com
Email #2?
Dear ctrlaltwow,
I love you.
Sincerely,
Bigbluedragon
Email #3 from Agruvona
Hi CAW crew:
I just had to write after hearing Janine's email in episode 188 where she talked about getting a MacBook Pro for $5000, like she's worried if this is enough computer to play Wow.
So, Janine, all my techie friends tell me that, for a video game, WoW doesn't really demand a lot of a computer. And I'm the proof. I'm playing on a six year old Dell with a Pentium 4 processor and a cheesy video card I got at Best Buy (four years ago) for like a hundred dollars. I think the machine originally came with 500 mb of RAM and I doubled it to one gig. Woooo, does that sound like awesome power?
Sure, I've got the video settings turned way down, but the game still looks nice. And, seriously, even if you have money to burn, I wouldn't invest $5000 in a laptop because laptops get dropped, desktops do not.
Now if I had $5000 to burn I'd spend 2 or 3 on a desktop designed to be very very upgradeable and then I'd save the rest for buying upgrades in years to come. And, just imagine, you'll have plenty of extra cash if you decide to buy a few dozen sparkle ponies too.
But that's just my two copper.
Happy Hunting,
Agruvona of Terokkar
Email #4
Hello CAW crew, Majrpayne here again. It's Majrpayne only this week - Blitzkriegg and the other alts are on hold for now, I would really like to get Kingslayer BEFORE Cata comes out, and the Major - my Pally tank - is my only toon even close. Trying to get through ICC-10 with Pugs is frustrating, and we wiped on Rotface last night 3 times before realizing that one of the DPSers that was not on Vent, also wasn't reading the text chat, and wouldn't run to the outside when he got a little slime attached onto him. Ah well....
I am worried about El Jeppy. I was horrified to hear that he was violated for 68,000 gold! Wait - SIXTY-EIGHT THOUSAND GOLD! I have trouble imagining that.
I waited all week to hear more - did they find out if the thief was a hacker? was it someone El Jeppy had talked to on the phone? Most important, did Blizzard do anything????
And in this weeks podcast - the subject was completely not discussed - instead, El Jeppy is drinking, destroying children's easter candy, wants to talk about Vegas whore-houses and is working on some side-project..... I am very worried!
C
I hope El Jeppy is O.K. - and please let us know if you've gotten any money back.
For.... El Jeppy?
Majrpayne, Blackwater Raiders
P.S. There were a few audio glitches when El Jeppy was plugging his side project, and, even after listening twice, I really didn't understand what he was talking about.
http://napodpomo.ning.com/ http://metatalks.com/
Email #B from Emporerwang
Email #C
Hello Control, Alternative World of Warcraft crew:
Email #5
Yola JAVA J,
I threw in the extra J just in case Junno is there, or would it be J JAVA? Who knows... Anyway, I have a few questions regarding RAF and multiboxing; I'm seriously considering becoming "one of you". Question 1: does the exp gain and level granting start with the free trial or when the second account is bought/activated? Question 2: I believe RAF lasts three months? Can that be activated on the second account with a pre-paid card? I'm thinking yes, but just checking. Question 3: does anyone know if Blizz will do the same deal they did on black friday last year? That would help Love the show and thanks for any help.
Izaak of PoH, Jub-Jub
Ps. I'm with you guys (and Aprillian), I'm excited about Cata, but I'm having so much fun right now. Ten different classes? 30 specs? Not to mention 10 races? COME ON PEOPLE!!!
Sent from my iPhone
Email #D from Iceflow and Caoboi
Hey CAW crew!,
Email # from Bidkar
Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo, Jeppy and Vrishna,
Bidkar, master of boogie here. A few weeks ago, I bought the Savory Deviate Delight recipe after waiting for nearly two years for it to drop. Now Bidkar can do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. Of course I am referring to the ability to dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever since I can be either a human ninja or a kitten loving pirate. Speaking of kittens, check out Big Blue Dragon's videos of Petunia. Petunia is one of the cutest kittens I have ever seen. The cat versions Aprillian and Vrishna are pretty cute too but the videos of Petunia make me laugh every time I watch them.
Bidkar has been working the auction house in between dances and has been fairly successful. I was able to purchase the 310 speed for five of my 80's . I didn't buy the 310 for the death knight for right now. I like the death knight much better now, but I know I won't be playing her for months so what's the point in tying up the gold when I could play the market?
After several weeks of farming ore in Outland, I decided to go back and start leveling a toon again. I picked my human warlock Ashcroft on my home server because I wanted to use my heirlooms. I find that I have grown accustomed to the pace of leveling they afford hence I am reticent to level without heirlooms. I am extremely spoiled, I will freely admit. Ashcroft has leveled from level 27 to 65 (almost 66). I am tentatively planning to move her to Winterhoof with her heirlooms once she hits 80 so I can work on my toons there. That will leave me with a free spot for my goblin rogue. I was so disappointed that Blizzard isn't planning on giving us additional character slots. Ten is not enough as you well know. I guess it could be worse, so I will be thankful for what I have. The new water looks nice and I can land on it, so I can be thankful for that.
I also have a nice auction house story to tell. A couple weeks ago I was browsing the auction house enchants to see what was popular currently and I came upon two high level enchants that were priced for 90 silver. I bought them on buyout so I could return them to the owner because I knew he had underpriced them by accident. I could relate to the situation because a few weeks earlier I had done the same thing with a dragon's eye. I kept an eye out for the fellow for the next few days but he didn't show. A few days more I had just about given up when to my surprise he showed up standing right next to me in Thunderbluff. I asked him if he had listed the enchants for 90 silver by accident and he said he had. He said not to worry about it, but I told him I bought them so I could return them to him. So I gave the enchants back to him and went on my way. A couple minutes later he chased me down by the bank and gave me a Lil Bombling to thank me for saving his enchants. I was so excited because I always wanted one of those but was too frugal to spend that much gold on a pet. He really was a nice guy, his toons name was Laien.
I just thought I would tell that story to balance out all the other stories of people being silly about loot in dungeons etc. I think most people are nice, we just have a tendency to notice and remember the unpleasant ones. I try to remember the nice people I meet and forget the rude ones. Just makes life a bit more bearable I think.
I hope everyone has a great week!
FOR THE HORDE and for the alliance!
Bidkar and his Savory Deviate Delight
P.S. My whole family uses the word "reckon" and we aren't hillbillies from the deep south. We live in Michigan. Maybe it's a Michigan thing?
Email #6 from
Hi guys
Been a while since I emailed you and I really wanted to tell you about this crazy thing that happened to me the other day. Sorry for the Jeppy size wall of text but I really wanted to do this story justice.
I was flying around on my level 76 Alliance Druid on Barthilas the other day, minding my own business questing in Zul’Drak when a level 80 Kingslayer Horde hunter flew up to me. I immediately flew high into the air so he couldn’t dismount and shoot me from the ground. The hunter followed me up nice and high and did the usual /spit, /slap, /chicken at me. The he dismounted in the air, Shot me a couple times then activated his engineering parachute...It only took a few seconds for his serpent sting to kill me and it was very disheartening when my corpse plummeted past him as he lazily floated to the ground.
Now Alliance are heavily outnumbered on Barthilas and the horde are merciless, so getting ganked is nothing new to me and I don’t usually get too upset, but I must admit I was pretty angry as I was doing the corpse run. Unfortunatley my body had landed in the middle of an open courtyard with only one set of ruins in range to ressurect. This must have been rather an obvious spot to res as I only managed 2 or 3 steps before hitting the trap the hunter had left hidden in some grass, which one shot me and sent me back to the graveyard....
I was really raging at this point, I wanted to reach into the screen and throttle this hunter, so when I got back to my body I didn’t res. I Afk’ed and got a drink and a bite to eat to calm down a bit. I went back to the game 10 minutes later and managed to res and fly off without any trouble.
It wasn’t more than a minute or 2 later that the NPC in the Amphitheatre of Anguish yells out over the zone that some dude was starting the event. The name of the challenger wasn’t the hunter that had just ganked me but I had this funny feeling he might be there so I decided to fly over and check it out. Sure enough I was right and the hunter was in the pit DPS’ing the first boss. He was helping his Guildy friend a level 76 warrior and must have been feeling pretty confident as he didn’t even have his pet out. Now I would never normally mess with the other faction when their doing a quest, it’s just not how I play the game. But I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even think twice this time. I immediately landed outside the pit far from the hunter and changed to Boomkin spec. I dotted up the tank and only had to cast a couple of wraths and he died in around 10 seconds. The hunter immediately got aggro and the boss rushed over to him. I don’t think he was too sure what was happening because he dithered for a few seconds and then tried to run away. I jumped into the pit and dotted him up then spammed moonfire on him as he was running. I think at this point he realised what was happening as he turned back to start shooting at me but luckily the boss killed him before he could get a shot off. The boss despawned as soon as the hunter died and I immediately changed to Bear ran over to his corpse and sat on his face, /LOL’ing at him the whole time. To add further insult to injury I even got my make love not warcraft achievement by /hug’ing him before he released. Then I logged out.
It was absolutely beautiful. I was laughing so hard in real life my wife had to tell me to shuttup so I didn’t wake the baby. Only problem is im scared to log back onto that toon now. I may have to consider a server transfer lol.
Have any of you guys ever had a similar situation where youve managed to turn the tables on someone ganking you and gotten some delicious revenge? Or have you ever been a bit naughty and been the one to gank someone else (although you all seem far too nice to do this to anyone).
Anyway thanks for a great show I never get tired of listening to you guys. Hope Juno can join you more often I love hearing her on the show.
FOR THE UNDERDOG
Brad aka Nighthaunt, Pants on Head Jubei’thos.
MomoMomoments
What a Lag it is
Hello all,
Ashayo
CT
- Tried RS ; did trash bosses, some attempts on Halion, but game and vent lagged killed us
- Heroic ICC - 4% 1st go on marrowgar, basically 8 manned, Down 2nd go.
- Won heroic Enforcer's Claymore
- Normal deathwhisper (not enough melee dps)
- Heroic Gunship (even though Wemb & Temp d/c'ed , Temp died, Vyv died)
- Won Heroic boots
- Tried Heroic Saurfang, but ended up doing in normal mode.
DwP
- Crazy Cat Lady
- Hodir - under 3 mins
- Freya - all 3 minibosses still up - knock on wood, knock knock, and knock knock knock
- Thorim - with Sif still up
- Tried Mimiron - firefighter - that's alot of fire!
- Razorscale. Doing Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare (Have 25 dwarves killed by her breath - got 19 in first fight, done in 2nd)
Misc
- ZG ; many many runs to kill raptors for pet; finally got one
- Killing tiger boss for mount - no luck
- Levelling priest - rifts can be useful ; elementals helped me kill all the mobs in New Hearthglen
- Maxed out enchanting from mats ; just needed eternal earth
- Doing old world instances on Pud - never did them as a DK
- Cataclysm quests ; still waiting for something as epic as scourge attacks pre-Wrath.
Jeppy
Emails
Email #1?
Good afternoon.
I was doing some research on the company Trek Alliance on NPros.com and discovered that it was no longer in business.
I then went searching for reps that were with that company and came upon your email here:
http://ctrlaltwow.blogspot.com
.
My question is, have you moved on to another company? I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Larry
My question is, have you moved on to another company? I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Larry
Email #2?
Dear ctrlaltwow,
I love you.
Sincerely,
Bigbluedragon
Email #3 from Agruvona
Hi CAW crew:
I just had to write after hearing Janine's email in episode 188 where she talked about getting a MacBook Pro for $5000, like she's worried if this is enough computer to play Wow.
So, Janine, all my techie friends tell me that, for a video game, WoW doesn't really demand a lot of a computer. And I'm the proof. I'm playing on a six year old Dell with a Pentium 4 processor and a cheesy video card I got at Best Buy (four years ago) for like a hundred dollars. I think the machine originally came with 500 mb of RAM and I doubled it to one gig. Woooo, does that sound like awesome power?
Sure, I've got the video settings turned way down, but the game still looks nice. And, seriously, even if you have money to burn, I wouldn't invest $5000 in a laptop because laptops get dropped, desktops do not.
Now if I had $5000 to burn I'd spend 2 or 3 on a desktop designed to be very very upgradeable and then I'd save the rest for buying upgrades in years to come. And, just imagine, you'll have plenty of extra cash if you decide to buy a few dozen sparkle ponies too.
But that's just my two copper.
Happy Hunting,
Agruvona of Terokkar
Email #4
Hello CAW crew, Majrpayne here again. It's Majrpayne only this week - Blitzkriegg and the other alts are on hold for now, I would really like to get Kingslayer BEFORE Cata comes out, and the Major - my Pally tank - is my only toon even close. Trying to get through ICC-10 with Pugs is frustrating, and we wiped on Rotface last night 3 times before realizing that one of the DPSers that was not on Vent, also wasn't reading the text chat, and wouldn't run to the outside when he got a little slime attached onto him. Ah well....
I am worried about El Jeppy. I was horrified to hear that he was violated for 68,000 gold! Wait - SIXTY-EIGHT THOUSAND GOLD! I have trouble imagining that.
I waited all week to hear more - did they find out if the thief was a hacker? was it someone El Jeppy had talked to on the phone? Most important, did Blizzard do anything????
And in this weeks podcast - the subject was completely not discussed - instead, El Jeppy is drinking, destroying children's easter candy, wants to talk about Vegas whore-houses and is working on some side-project..... I am very worried!
C
I hope El Jeppy is O.K. - and please let us know if you've gotten any money back.
For.... El Jeppy?
Majrpayne, Blackwater Raiders
P.S. There were a few audio glitches when El Jeppy was plugging his side project, and, even after listening twice, I really didn't understand what he was talking about.
Email #B from Emporerwang
El Jeppy there are no legal bothels in Clark county where Las Vegas is. However they are blegal in other countys in Nevada. I drove on I80 from Salt Lake City to Reno for 5 years, there are legal brothels from Wells NV to just outside of Reno. No I have never been to one. The "ladies" who work there are always getting on the CB and trying to get us Truckers to come in. It's pretty funny to see how some of them respond to bieng asked if they do "that thing in trade chat that can get you banned" you were talking about last show. Well time to go now love the show, keep up the great work.
Email #C
Hello Control, Alternative World of Warcraft crew:
Aprillian, The almighty empress whom we must obey
Vershna, The deity that must be worshipped!
Jeppy, The Sovereign who must be idolised.
And Ashayo! The man himself who can single handedly lift a thousand beavers with one hand!
It's Mattdiox I hope you're all well.
I decided to write out the email this week because I am no where near as good as Juuno at Monologuing out of character. So here it is in all its . . . stuff.
Coming back to WoW is a strange thing, especially when you are straight away engrossed in leveling again. I'm not saying it's bad it's just strange.
The new talents have -it seems- boosted my DPS. I didn't take note before hand so I am guessing they have gone up due to the speed I kill monsters. Is 1200DPS good for a level 77 Shadow Priest?
While I was away I read a book that sort of takes the whole culture of MMOs and puts it all into a really funny story. If you have heard of Zero Punctuation then that doesn't actually effect it really. The auther is Ben 'Yatzhee' Croshaw who makes Zero Punctuation.
I thought it was really funny and decided to recommend it to you guys.
Yes I am still with Claire. So whoever is still in the pool is still in it. She hasn't stolen me away from WoW, I in fact only see her at weekends and the odd evening during the week. So the only person to blame for my not playing WoW is me. I just haven't had the will to play. Though I do now so everything is all right!
I am glad you all enjoyed Nac and hearing my voice. Now all you need to do is go to the Otaku No Video website on 7PM Est 9pm GMT to see what I look like.
Although it has nothing to do with WoW I thought you guys as podcasters would find it a little interesting.
My Podcast partnered with the Otaku No Video youtube channel. We appear on each other's shows and promote each other. But what we thought is the Anime podcast community is similar to the Anime community itself. It's fragmented. How can anime become popular in the Western World if the community is so spars?
So in an attempt to spread the word better. Myself and Brent from Otaku have decided to contact as many of the anime podcasts we can and try to get a round table going. All working together we can help spread the word of anime better.
Anyway, that's all the news I have for this week.
One last question.
Would you like me to do Ghoul store regular or Nac? I can't do both because I don't have the time and I would rather not switch between both.
Oh also, Would you prefer it if I spoke my emails? I dunno if it will save time or not.
Lots of love, potatoes,priestly awesomeness and some extreme wall of text powers!
- Matthew
P.S Ashayo I know you have a female character, can you help give me a reason as to why I play one too? I do it in all my video games where I can choose. I don't know why but I just do.
P.P.S I saw a contortionist on the way home from college last week, it was neat.
P.P.P.S Jub Jub!
P.P.P.P.S What zone are you most looking forward to exploring once it has been changed in Cata?
Px5.S Juuno can I have an internet cookie?
Email #5
Yola JAVA J,
I threw in the extra J just in case Junno is there, or would it be J JAVA? Who knows... Anyway, I have a few questions regarding RAF and multiboxing; I'm seriously considering becoming "one of you". Question 1: does the exp gain and level granting start with the free trial or when the second account is bought/activated? Question 2: I believe RAF lasts three months? Can that be activated on the second account with a pre-paid card? I'm thinking yes, but just checking. Question 3: does anyone know if Blizz will do the same deal they did on black friday last year? That would help Love the show and thanks for any help.
Izaak of PoH, Jub-Jub
Ps. I'm with you guys (and Aprillian), I'm excited about Cata, but I'm having so much fun right now. Ten different classes? 30 specs? Not to mention 10 races? COME ON PEOPLE!!!
Sent from my iPhone
Email #D from Iceflow and Caoboi
Hey CAW crew!,
Iceflow and Caoboi here to tell you how another week has been going for us. As far as our mains go, our raid group, Not In The Face, is on our way to get another title and achievement. The Herald of the Titans Achievement in Ulduar. That's the one where you have to kill Algalon with nothing higher than 226 level gear and 232 level weapons. And Algalon only hangs around for an hour after he spawns and the achievement is going away after Cataclysm comes so we are on a definite time table. Of course I had deleted all of my gear at that level so I was feverishly farming ICC regular instances for gear. I finally managed to get it all. Caoboi was a little better off as he had kept some of his gear from that time period. We'll be working on it for the next couple of weeks so we'll keep you updated on our progress.
As far as our alts go, Caoboi's Shaman is level 63 and mine is level 72. But they have both gotten put on hold for, what else, more alts. Caoboi race changed his warrior from an orc to a Tauren and it has renewed his interest. He is level 66 and he plans to catch him up to my shaman so we can quest and instance together in Northrend. As for me, I have started a....warlock! This is the class that I can never seem to play more than 15 levels but I'm determined that Icefel is going to stick around. She's now level 9 and it's very very easy. Maybe I can learn something from Aprillian ;)
I like all the elemental and cultist quests that have been going on. I make sure to do them diligently on Iceflow but my alts don't really get to them. I think I might even enjoy them better if I actually read the quest but I don't really have the patience for that. I can't believe that Cataclysm is so close! I'm very excited as I know you all are too.
We are having a blast playing WoW as well and I agree with you Aprillian, if you aren't having fun, you are doing it wrong. Caoboi wants to add in that he's always looking for tips for warrior tanks if you all have any.
Well, have a great week in WoW and see you all in game.
Iceflow and Caoboi
Email # from Bidkar
Greetings Aprillian, Ashayo, Jeppy and Vrishna,
Bidkar, master of boogie here. A few weeks ago, I bought the Savory Deviate Delight recipe after waiting for nearly two years for it to drop. Now Bidkar can do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. Of course I am referring to the ability to dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever since I can be either a human ninja or a kitten loving pirate. Speaking of kittens, check out Big Blue Dragon's videos of Petunia. Petunia is one of the cutest kittens I have ever seen. The cat versions Aprillian and Vrishna are pretty cute too but the videos of Petunia make me laugh every time I watch them.
Bidkar has been working the auction house in between dances and has been fairly successful. I was able to purchase the 310 speed for five of my 80's . I didn't buy the 310 for the death knight for right now. I like the death knight much better now, but I know I won't be playing her for months so what's the point in tying up the gold when I could play the market?
After several weeks of farming ore in Outland, I decided to go back and start leveling a toon again. I picked my human warlock Ashcroft on my home server because I wanted to use my heirlooms. I find that I have grown accustomed to the pace of leveling they afford hence I am reticent to level without heirlooms. I am extremely spoiled, I will freely admit. Ashcroft has leveled from level 27 to 65 (almost 66). I am tentatively planning to move her to Winterhoof with her heirlooms once she hits 80 so I can work on my toons there. That will leave me with a free spot for my goblin rogue. I was so disappointed that Blizzard isn't planning on giving us additional character slots. Ten is not enough as you well know. I guess it could be worse, so I will be thankful for what I have. The new water looks nice and I can land on it, so I can be thankful for that.
I also have a nice auction house story to tell. A couple weeks ago I was browsing the auction house enchants to see what was popular currently and I came upon two high level enchants that were priced for 90 silver. I bought them on buyout so I could return them to the owner because I knew he had underpriced them by accident. I could relate to the situation because a few weeks earlier I had done the same thing with a dragon's eye. I kept an eye out for the fellow for the next few days but he didn't show. A few days more I had just about given up when to my surprise he showed up standing right next to me in Thunderbluff. I asked him if he had listed the enchants for 90 silver by accident and he said he had. He said not to worry about it, but I told him I bought them so I could return them to him. So I gave the enchants back to him and went on my way. A couple minutes later he chased me down by the bank and gave me a Lil Bombling to thank me for saving his enchants. I was so excited because I always wanted one of those but was too frugal to spend that much gold on a pet. He really was a nice guy, his toons name was Laien.
I just thought I would tell that story to balance out all the other stories of people being silly about loot in dungeons etc. I think most people are nice, we just have a tendency to notice and remember the unpleasant ones. I try to remember the nice people I meet and forget the rude ones. Just makes life a bit more bearable I think.
I hope everyone has a great week!
FOR THE HORDE and for the alliance!
Bidkar and his Savory Deviate Delight
P.S. My whole family uses the word "reckon" and we aren't hillbillies from the deep south. We live in Michigan. Maybe it's a Michigan thing?
Email #6 from
Hi guys
Been a while since I emailed you and I really wanted to tell you about this crazy thing that happened to me the other day. Sorry for the Jeppy size wall of text but I really wanted to do this story justice.
I was flying around on my level 76 Alliance Druid on Barthilas the other day, minding my own business questing in Zul’Drak when a level 80 Kingslayer Horde hunter flew up to me. I immediately flew high into the air so he couldn’t dismount and shoot me from the ground. The hunter followed me up nice and high and did the usual /spit, /slap, /chicken at me. The he dismounted in the air, Shot me a couple times then activated his engineering parachute...It only took a few seconds for his serpent sting to kill me and it was very disheartening when my corpse plummeted past him as he lazily floated to the ground.
Now Alliance are heavily outnumbered on Barthilas and the horde are merciless, so getting ganked is nothing new to me and I don’t usually get too upset, but I must admit I was pretty angry as I was doing the corpse run. Unfortunatley my body had landed in the middle of an open courtyard with only one set of ruins in range to ressurect. This must have been rather an obvious spot to res as I only managed 2 or 3 steps before hitting the trap the hunter had left hidden in some grass, which one shot me and sent me back to the graveyard....
I was really raging at this point, I wanted to reach into the screen and throttle this hunter, so when I got back to my body I didn’t res. I Afk’ed and got a drink and a bite to eat to calm down a bit. I went back to the game 10 minutes later and managed to res and fly off without any trouble.
It wasn’t more than a minute or 2 later that the NPC in the Amphitheatre of Anguish yells out over the zone that some dude was starting the event. The name of the challenger wasn’t the hunter that had just ganked me but I had this funny feeling he might be there so I decided to fly over and check it out. Sure enough I was right and the hunter was in the pit DPS’ing the first boss. He was helping his Guildy friend a level 76 warrior and must have been feeling pretty confident as he didn’t even have his pet out. Now I would never normally mess with the other faction when their doing a quest, it’s just not how I play the game. But I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even think twice this time. I immediately landed outside the pit far from the hunter and changed to Boomkin spec. I dotted up the tank and only had to cast a couple of wraths and he died in around 10 seconds. The hunter immediately got aggro and the boss rushed over to him. I don’t think he was too sure what was happening because he dithered for a few seconds and then tried to run away. I jumped into the pit and dotted him up then spammed moonfire on him as he was running. I think at this point he realised what was happening as he turned back to start shooting at me but luckily the boss killed him before he could get a shot off. The boss despawned as soon as the hunter died and I immediately changed to Bear ran over to his corpse and sat on his face, /LOL’ing at him the whole time. To add further insult to injury I even got my make love not warcraft achievement by /hug’ing him before he released. Then I logged out.
It was absolutely beautiful. I was laughing so hard in real life my wife had to tell me to shuttup so I didn’t wake the baby. Only problem is im scared to log back onto that toon now. I may have to consider a server transfer lol.
Have any of you guys ever had a similar situation where youve managed to turn the tables on someone ganking you and gotten some delicious revenge? Or have you ever been a bit naughty and been the one to gank someone else (although you all seem far too nice to do this to anyone).
Anyway thanks for a great show I never get tired of listening to you guys. Hope Juno can join you more often I love hearing her on the show.
FOR THE UNDERDOG
Brad aka Nighthaunt, Pants on Head Jubei’thos.
Shout Outs & Thank You
MomoMomoments
What a Lag it is
Hello all,
hope everyone is doing well.
Since Hallows end ended I have not logged into wow, WOW!! Well not on purpose, just a bit of life getting in the way of life and wow.
I am not sure how you all are but some times when I come home from work I just want to crash on the couch and watch tv (tele if you are from Jeppy land :)) or even sleep.
Exciting stuff huh!
Well I did get a chance to finally log into the game and wow was it laggy. I was in Dalaran but I am usually not laggy there.
I noticed some new things in Dalaran, like the Archmage Antonidas, a cool hovering statue. Also some cool blue flowers I did not notice before. I was trying to find the elemental quest, I was lazy so I didnt look online, so I was on my rocket riding all around Dalaran. I ported to Org and was riding around Org. I noticed hovering lamps I assume in Org, which again I have not seen before. It is the little cool things that make the game cool :)
Well of course (just as in real life) I took the long way to find the quest giver where most Org quest givers are, close to the entrance as you all know I am sure.
I quickly noticed a level 83 character, I thought it was another player but of course that is not possible; it was an npc of course! He is a Troll named Earthcaller Torunscar, from the Earthen Ring?! The server or the actual ring?! Im so confused!?
Well I started the quests and finished it on my priest first.
To my surprise, in my travels (on my priest) I finished the Nesingwary quest line and achievements, funny and strange. I had that quest for along time. With all the quests I made over 150g in no time! good times :)
One other note, when did Garrosh replace Thrall in Org?! I know that was going to happen, but did Garrosh already take Thrall down? Just wondering.
It is always good to hear all of you, Aprillian, Vrishna, Ashayo, Senor El Jeppy, and to chat with you on twitter or facebook, also Juno and other emailers/listeners.
Please have fun in and out of game and For the World of Warcraft!
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