Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 95 - Crashin Thrashin Winter's Veil

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

What We've Been Doing

Aprillian:

This has been my best week ever.

12/22/08 @ 2141 server time, Aprillian dinged 68.

At the advice of Glanthur and Ashayo, she headed to Northrend. It was great and overwelming at the same time. I enjoyed Howling Fjord, the quest were different and fun and I read the quest text. Only got a little confused by the two quest you have to fly to. The first time I did the bombing ship quest, I didn't realize I was suppose to drop the bombs from the air, so I flew out and back and had to go again. Each quest were intricate and not the normal kill and loot and return. I loved fighting side by side with our own NPC's.

Plenty of herbs in NR.

I loved the dudes in Baleheim, they were suppose to be these nordic giants but their hair looked like dreadlocks. I hope we get that hair style in the game the next exp.

Joined a level 70 for the quest and she immediately popped up Free for all and so I left the group. Plays with her boyfriend, ended up being pretty cool.

I continued to play just Aprillian. It was very hard to do, I kept wanting to have my skinner with me or a miner.

Summoning Felguard when current one loses health.

And on Christmas eve she dinged 69. I loved the New Agammand and the gathering of the body quest. The one where you went into the plagued village and made one of those UC guard things and then exploded on the plagued Valkri guys was fun.

I am loving the feel of Northrend. Got to the Tusky people, the icebergy look is cool
Pumped to get to 70.
Christmas day, grinding so hard in NR, it's crazy. Aprillian dinged 70 on Christmas even on her lunch hour

Starting to have Space management issues.
Bought another Guild Bank tab for We Live to serve

Did my first Daily. I suppose I need to go to that island now. And no, I am no hurry to get to 80. Went to put on my first gem and it didn't work.

I am loving flying. Aprillian bought the Mythic Spellthread from Scryer, and made one

Encountered Queues on Sunday night.

Monday I pulled both Epril and ThePrimall and Auruk down to Nagrand. Epril is 63 and Theprimall is 62, so they can't do any quests, but they just followed Auruk and helped him when needed

Making money on the AH



Talked with nieces and nephews about WoW at Family gathering, way cool

Glanthur

Ashayo

Full week!

A second 80 - Asheal dings!

Topped and tailed by instance runs on Death Knights. Looks like I'll be levelling just by running instances.
Running them with 3 DK's, 1 Hunter, and Jekle for heals. Ramparts, Blood Furnace, Slave Pens, Underbog. Already 63.
Tried keyclone with two DK's but because they are both melee, it is hard to position them


Professions:
- Stopped 'learning' from daily inscription research. There are only 60 minor glyphs - 6 per class. You just stop learning ; it doesn't say anything useful like "you know them all"
- Levelled inscription to 425 so I can use the epic offhand. (Ponfarr PM'ed me to say that restriction is being removed in the next patch. YAY)
- Cooking achievements to get over 3000
- Sous Chef - 100 recipes ; good money making in AH by looks of it


Daily quests:
- "Aces High!" Wyrmrest quest opens up at 80. Fairly tricky vehicle quest (flying dragon). Much easier in a party - or dual boxing with key clones
- Started doing Oracle dailies - three, but varies each day, and an achievement to do them all. Egg that hatches into things including pet or mount... waiting!

Respec!
- Changed Ashayo from affliction for 1st time ever. Now a hybrid Destruction/Demonology. DPS much improved. Increased from around 800 dps to 1500. Started running some Heroics with Ashayo, and the difference a strong group makeup makes is significant.

Missing:
Siphon Life
CoExhaustion
Dark Pact
Unstable Affliction
Haunt

Gained
soul link
Fel Domination
Demonic Empowerment
Summon felguard

Heroics
- Azjol'Nerub ; trash on first boss tough without cleansing - humbling
- Utgarde Keep - easy
- Drak Tharon keep - achievements - Better off Dred, Oh Novos! (Palatinus mad tank, Onassi mad healer)

Random note of the week: Can fly onto Zepp while leaving Borean Tundra enroute to Org

Asheal has managed to heal some more instances: Ran Halls of Stone in Storm Peaks. It includes very "Indiana Jones" type event, followed by a long lore discussion. Quite interesting!
Tried helping out with healing in Riversky's Naxx group on Asheal
Managed to down 4 Horsemen, Patchwerk, and Grobbulus (first time kill)

Winter's Veil Presents! Love having so many alts - got all the presents easily, including jingling bell and both red and green winter helpers.
Had decided the jingling bell was most rare, then logged onto alliance and got four of them!




Emails and PM

From Blade

Hey guys... "Professor" Blade here...

In my quest to optimize my characters with well-put together macros, I hit a stumbling block.
Also... there's a bit of a snag coming up for hunters in patch 3.0.8... we / they are losing a fair chunk of dps.
Yeah yeah... I know there arer some hunters out there that are saying 'It's not THAT bad'... but I will counter this naivete with 'It's bad enough when they're buffing a class like Deathknights... making it even easier to /roll your face across your keyboard to win.
But I digress... Ol' Blade's not here to rant about silly things out of his control... I'm here to give an edge to the players that still like a little bit of challenge to their game.
Those of you that have interracted with me in game will probably know that I vastly prefer to play my Hunter over my Deathknight... because I find the Hunter more challenging. (Seriously! There's are two two-handed tanking swords out there!)
That said... of late I was playing around with some macros in anticipation of the upcoming nerf... attempting to figure out how to keep my hunter's dps in the acceptable range...
Aspect of the Beast. Have you noticed the new changes to it?
It used to be a pretty useless Aspect... only making you untrackable... useful in PVP, I suppose... but not anywhere else.
NOW, however... it's got an extra little boost. +10% to pet damage.
THIS changes everything. I have that little treasure up almost all the time now.
I've also jury-rigged some macros together to cast different Aspects when I used different attacks or items...
For example... whenever I mount up on a land mount or my flier, I cast Aspect of the Viper... I won't be in combat ANYway, why not get a big mana regeneration boost while I'm moving from Point A to Point B?
The problem came when I linked the macros to the spells I wanted to cast... I'd cast the spell once, and all was good, then I'd cast ot again and the Aspect would turn off!
What to do?

I searched and searched and finally found my answer deep in the archives of some long-forgotten tome in Ironforge...
(Not really, but it sounded good, didn't it?)

An Exclamation Point. !
Put an exclamation point in front of your macro text... what this does is makes the command 'sticky' and will cast it only if it's not on/active already.
For example... here's the one I've put together for pet attacks:
/cast Hunter's Mark
/cast !Aspect of the Beast
/PetAttack

The exclamation point in the second line keeps the Aspect going no matter how many targets you send your pet after... and as Aspects cost no mana, all you'll see is the Aspect popping again and again as you switch targets.
If you leave out the exclamation point, you will toggle the aspect on and off each time you switch targets.

Here's another one in the event you're hopping on and off your mount, but not in combat...
/cast !Aspect of the Viper
/cast Swift Green Wind Rider

This will keep your Aspect on whether you hop on or off your particular mount of choice.

Oh... as a final tip for hunters? To get used to the upcoming nerf, play almost 100% with Aspect of the viper on... the huge damage reduction will make the 3.0.8 patch seem not so bad.

Hope that helps!

And now a little something from Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket...

With everyone doing achievements and running hither-and-yon across the old world doing the old-world dungeons, you will inevitably find yourself in Gnomeregan. As an Alliance, it's easy to get there... get yourself to Ironforge, exit the main entrance and run west. As a Horde, you've either got one heckuva run ahead of you, or you can do a small quest chain starting at the Engineer shop in Orgrimmar. First you have to take the quest 'Rig Wars' from Nogg, then Sovik (the goblin engineer) offers a second quest that sends you to Booty Bay to talk to another engineer there (Scooty)... from Scooty you get a little device (Goblin Transponder) that will 'port you to Gnomeregan. Getting back is an entirely different matter, though.

While killing mobs in Gnomeregan, you will eventually happen across a White Punch Card. These are used to access different areas in Gnomeregan based upon their colors. You can change the colors of the cards by using special machines called 'Matrix Punchographs'... but that's not the secret.
Each color of card has a different string of binary code on it. I'm not going to type them all out here... but I *will* give you the translations...

White Punch Card: Thrall and Jaina sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Yellow Punch Card: If you can read this, you're standing too close.

Blue Punch Card: The gnome king wears night elf underwear.

Red Punch Card: Help! I'm trapped in a binary punch card factory!

Prismatic Punch Card: Message to Castpipe: your laundry's ready for pickup.

Second... I know Ol' Blade's been a little hard on the Alliance of late... so I found this little goodie to follow the theme of last week's bank NPCs... All you Hordies out there will have to roll lowbie Alliance toons or sneak into Ironforge like I did...

There's three bankers... all of the Stonemantle Clan... nothing noteworthy about the name Stonemantle... but wait... it's a first-name thing again, isn't it!
Very astute, my young apprentice... their names are Barnum, Bailey and Soleil.
Barnam and Bailey are probably the more commonly known... from Barnam and Bailey's Circus, naturally... Soleil is from the Cirque du Soleil - an acrobatic circus.

This gets me thinking, though... how much respect can I truly give the Alliance faction... when they have former circus clowns as bankers?

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Blade




PM

Previous PM | Next PM

Message subject:	Weapon Leveling
From:	Ponfarr
Sent at:	Tue Dec 23, 2008 7:44 am
To:	Ashayo

Message
Heard your last podcast. I leveled my polearm skill against one of those heroes in Blasted Lands (you said Netherstorm or Shadowmoon I think....dont know about those guys), but last night I tried again on my gun and found out (like you) that they changed that for those guys too. However, I did read about another method which I have not tried yet. Go fight the healers (monk or something) in Scarlet Monestary. They will continually heal themselves during the fight. You should use a low level weapon with low damage.

Email 2

'ello! Marrly, on the Eonar realm, here writing again.

Randomly I got to the big eight-zero within a few days of getting the expansion but that is random info. Sadly I never got my artisan Flying training but by my odd luck I got myself the epic engineering plane (A monetary setback) and the bronze drake from the Cavern of Time Culling of Stratholme Time run. Fun...

But onto My real question:

I myself Can only barely run WOW application once on my computer at the lowest settings. How do you manage to run two or more Wow apps at once? I am frankly confounded about it

Ctrl Alt WoW is Giving Away WoW Minis

We orderd some of the Booster Sets and are giving them away.

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 94 - Winter's Veil's is Here Again

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 94 - Winter's Veil's is Here Again

Listen to the Podcast to see who won the choice of a free month of WoW or an Authenticator.

What We've Been Doing:

Aprillian

Had 2 sex changes - Theardrion became Epril and Rifire became Auruk

Brought Death Knights to Nagrand and did some other fp's in Outland with Aprillian

DK can kill mobs 4 or 5 levels above them.

Decided I wanted to do some instances with my DK's, tried Hellfire Citadel, doable but lots of time is needed and concentration. Then I tried upper and lower Black Rock and then Strolohome in EP. It was fun, but then I went back to Nagrand with Aprillian and Auruku

Got Ding Recorder Addon and Epril dinged 63 but it didn't show the interface so all you see is her in a could of ding dust. Read the info and found out how to turn on "show interface"

Got my Figure Print of Aprillian:

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll317/AprillianAIE/AprillianFP.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll317/AprillianAIE/AIETabard.jpg


Bought a Sun Scope +40 Haste for Auruku and found out he couldn't equip it, needed a level 70 or above. Been carrying the crossbow from Nessingwary in Nagrand. Shoutout to Mollyshot for putting the scope on for me.

Got TheJasper up to 275 in Enchanting and now can de Outland Greens


Glanthur

Finally got to exalted with Kalu'ak. I love the penguin! Now I need to farm fishing. I also got ALL of my weapon skills to 400 that I had - including unarmed. I got the "Knuckle Sandwich" achievement. Also got "Ultimate Triage" which was unexpected and cool.

Disappointed about lack of dailies for Argent Crusade. I want the gun, but it'll be forever until I get enough rep through the dailies to get it.

Should be exalted with The Oracles within 12 days. I have a Mysterious Egg that I'm hoping will hatch into a Green Proto-Drake. I doubt that it will.

Respeced my Unholy Death Knight, Herid, to Blood and my Frost Mage, Palanor, to Arcane.

Working on getting my pet bear, Dov, to 80 on Glanthur.

Got all confused with my DK in Hellfire. I kept wanting to ride into Honor Hold - but they don't like Horde very much there. Old habits die hard.

Also, will be getting a better microphone after Christmas with expected Christmas cash. I'm having an inferiority complex compared to Ashayo and Aprillian's sound quality.

I was affected by the Comcast/Verizon issue. It was so frustrating! I hope that they figure out what the cause was. Yeah, Comcast. .


Ashayo

Ran Violet Hold on both Asheal (as healer) and Ashayo (as dps)
Ran Oculus on Ashayo - lots of fun doing the last boss while flying!

Ashayo dinged 80 in Sholazar Basin (shortly after getting the Nessingwary achievements)

Levelling Mining to 450 on two miners for titansteel cooldown. Fairly easy in Sholazar Basin.

Death Knights questing in Outlands - ran Ramparts & Blood Furnace

Levelling Jewelcrafting - tough around 410-420

Levelling Alchemy - research once a week
- nice trinket for level 75
- tough at 420 - green to 425, then can transmute earthsiege diamond (no cooldown!)

Levelling Inscription - learnt epic offhand at 400, but can't use till 425 :(

Ashayo just waiting on Crashin' Thrashin' Racer to complete Winter's Veil achievements

Winter's Veil questing is resulting in some nice presents in the mail!
- tailor green suit
- enchanting frost weapon
- lw gloves
- green holiday shirt
- elixir of frost power


Emails:

Email 1 - From Blade
Hey April!

Feel free to edit as necessary... I did this one a bit 'on the fly' and grabbed a bunch of screenshots.
Let me know when it's 'too much'... lol

Michael



Hey guys... Blade here...

Congrats to all the winners of the contest (and kudos to those who contributed)... it's always interesting to see the variance in lifestyles of Warcraft players...
Now... Ol' Blade's been doing some looking around... and has decided - for all you folks that have found your way to Dalaran and are less than impressed at how laggy it is... - to take you on a tour of the sewers...
Why?
It's a little less congested with mindless drones running around bogging up the server... and THAT's just the NPCs!
(See? I didn't say ANYthing nasty about Alliance players there at all! "Diplomacy" for the win!)

So... find the stairs up to the flightpath... see the hole-in-the-wall beside it?
That leads down. There's a few of these tunnels scattered around Dalaran...
Beneath the hustle-bustle of the lag-infested metropolis that is Dalaran, there is a different place...
Lots of darker-looking wizardy types like these guys... personally I think they've read one too many Harry Potter books (whatsit... "Nock-Turn Alley?")... but that's just me... they're dressing to fit in, you see...
The Dalaran sewers is a darker, quieter place where Ol' Blade and other rogues and nefarious ne'er-do-wells like me can relax... kick back... and not have to pretend we're 'For the Light' or other such nonsense...
We're creatures of shadows... and the sewers is a nice dark place...
However...
You'll want to be aware of where you step in the sewers... there's enough water here to hold a shark (probably for any unwary goodie-goodies that stray too far in the wrong direction... or maybe someone needs to 'get rid' of something... either way... Segacedi's been here long enough that the locals NAMED him...
There's huge sewer rats... and alligators waiting to take a snap at you...
Dunno what's in that area with the big chunks of meat... maybe it's something we use to spook the tourists...



Lots of rats, though... I caught one unfortunate fella while I was trying my hand at fishing... caught a couple of these Magic Eaters, too... don't know what they do yet...
Oh... while we're on the subject of 'Mysterious Things with Unknown Properties', you may in your visit to the sewers find one of these 'Underbelly Elixirs' sitting around on the ground... they have unknown properties and only work in the city of Dalaran... I've heard they have transformative properties...
Speaking of transformations... I've been meaning to talk to the locals about this level80 rat I saw... it seems he's gathered four level 1 turtles to him and they've all been exposed to whatever oozes are on the ground in the sewers here...
Maybe he'll teach them some form of combat training... and they'll grow up to become master rogues... 'ninja' turtles, if you will...
All he has to do is name them... I'll suggest a list of Renaissance Painters as possible choices for him... Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael come to mind...

Yep... we rogues all stick together... for example... I've been meaning to talk to Nisstina here about her stealthing skill... it's not quite so effective when your pet worg pup is standing out in plain sight for all to see...
But Ol' Blade loves his fellow rogues... which is where I'm leading with my tip... a macro specifically for the more-subtle among the rogues... the Shadow Step.
Now, if you've used Shadow Step, you'll know that it poofs you directly behind your target - the utility of it is clearly of the most benefit for anyone that uses daggers, though I have heard of its use in Garotting someone as well - which is not dagger specific.
You non-dagger folks can adapt this macro to suit your needs.
If you're specc'd enough into the Subtlety tree and use daggers, then Improved Ambush is a must-have due to its fairly massive bonus crit potential... and you will most likely have Premeditation (a talent that adds 2 combo points to your target instantly).
Here's the macro I've been using to a great deal of success:
/cast Premeditation
/cast Shadow Step
/cast Ambush
Seems simple enough... and they're not all on the same timer or global cooldown, so when I pop it, and they're all ready to go, I instantly poof behind my target, and BAM! Ambush them (most likely a crit) for an easy 4 combo points!
Add a final combo point here if you prefer, I do or don't depending on how much health my target has... Kidney Shot, then zip behind them (cause here you should have upwards of 80 or more Energy) and Backstab them twice... if they aren't yet dead, they're pretty darn close!

To sum it up... it's a macro that has helped me immensely... I get awesome burst damage and have MUCH more survivability than I did when I was using two swords in the combat tree. Seriously... I theorycrafted it and attacked combat dummies and everything!

And now...
Something from Ol' Blade's Easter Egg Basket:

Something I just noticed... when you're in the sewers of Dalaran... pull up your map. It says 'Circle of Wills' in the center... anyone know anything about real-life human anatomy? The 'Circle of Willis' is a collection of arteries at the base of the brain that provides a number of different supply routes for blood (and nutrients) to GET to the brain... Interesting that the circular hub (with lots of fluid) beneath Dalaran is named very similarly... perhaps the 'mind' of Dalaran could not exist without the 'Circle of Wills' in the sewers providing sustenance to it?

This one's for the Hordies out there... if you're an Alliance player (and you know who you are...) you will either have to be really sneaky or roll a lowbie Horde toon to see this. Inside the bank in Undercity the four bankers are named Ophelia, William, Randolf and Mortimer respectively. The sneaky thing here is the fact that they all have the same name: 'Montague'.
Is it a reference to Shakespeare? (You know... the Montague family in 'Romeo and Juliet')
Ah, my friends... that is what we call a 'red herring'... the REAL secret is in their FIRST names...
'Randolf' and 'Mortimer' were the big shot banking brothers in the 1983 movie Trading Places with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy. 'Ophelia' was the love interest character played by Jamie Lee Curtis. 'William' is a probable reference to Eddie Murphy's character 'Billy Ray'.

That's all for now...

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Blade


Email 2 from MO

blizzard might fix this by the time you record again but for the mistletoe buffs,
if you make a macro you can get double buffs:
ew
/kiss
/targetlasttarget
/kiss

just make sure you target a revealer and than another revealer

happy holidays


mo
PM:

Message subject: Ctrl Alt WoW show
From: Ponfarr
Sent at: Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:59 am
To: Aprillian
Message
Listened for first time today on my iPod during drive to work.

The free month contest - I may have missed something, but what are you judging the entries on?

Enchanting - Is there a mod or something that can tell me if my bank mats will only make grey enchants, helping me to decide to AH those mats?

Mic Switch - I was looking online to find a gizmo that would allow me to key the mic in ventrilo using a foot switch that would replicate the keystroke. I found many, of a wide price range. Do you know anyone who uses these and could recommend one?

Thanks

_________________
http://tales-from-tyberiuss.blogspot.com/

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 93 - Witness Protection Program

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 93 - Witness Protection Scheme

New weekly prize contest - enter a drawing to win one month's play time.

What We've been doing:

Aprilian

Got Aprillian in Nagrand with Rilfire and grabbed every quest I could find. Using Cartographer and Gatherer. Funny thing is when Rilfire arrived, she had no ammo, just had her do hunter's mark and send in her ravager while Aprillian and her Felhunter did the rest. Picked up the Nessingwary quest
Monday morning, off today!! Did some of the Nessingwary quest and Aprillian dinged 66.
Tuesday morning, no maintenance, just server restarts. Sent ThePrimall back to Thrallmar to level up herbalism, she was 300+ but needed 315 for Dreaming glory in FW. Sent Theardrion back to Kalimdor to mine thorium and truesilver for JC. Although I'm sure I could just do quest in Outland and use all the gold I make to buy the mats I need.

I was in Dalaran with TheJasper enchanting DK getting stuff from the WLTS gb. He was leveling by doing the speed enhancement to boots and putting them on scrolls. There was someone in trade chat saying they were giving away all of their mats, he mocked TheJasper for being only 221 in Enchanting

Took Aprillian out in Nagrand solo on Friday, then Rilfire.



Ashayo

Witness Protection Scheme - $15 per toon!

Warlock Spellstone / Firestone - applied to weapon since 3.0.2 !!
Blessed Wizard oil and Superior Wizard Oil (58) can't apply to weapon - "too high"!

Trying to get Asheal to catchup to Ashayo - heal Nexus, dps Azjol-Nerub and Grundrak

Asheal 77 - training + cold weather flying + epic flying + mount 6800 -> 184

Matahorn dinged 80 on hunter - helped with Ring of Anguish in Zul'Drak (Ring of blood achievement)

Matahorn pointed out -explore before you hit 80 for the XP:

Ashayo the Explorer (easy with flyer)

Death Knight overpowered examples:
58 DK vs 55 Elite Devilsaur - hardly lost any health
vs lvl 60 Elite stone guardian - I got down to about 60% health
Soloed Baron Char ( was reasonably tough, but I'm a noob DK )

Ashayo ran Drak'Tharon Keep - FUN - turned into ghouls on last boss ; DK type attacks

Discovered you can JC dailies at 70 ; just need to kill a level 70 mob, plus some green gems.

Wyrmrest daily - can dual box after 77 with flying :)

Fo' Grizzle my Shizzle - 75 Grizzly Hills

Started Sholazar Basin - quest to open flight path

Mining ; 450 at level 70 on Ashield ; saronite ore. Found a titanium at 448 :(

Don't forget to check for reputation rewards:
Kirin Tor - Honoured - Dalaran
Horde Expedition - Borean Tundra / Howling Fjord
Wrymrest Accord - Dragonblight


Glanthur


Email

iTunes Review

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 92 - The Contest Reading

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.


What We've Been Doing

Glanthur:

Wrathgate from an alliance perspective. Warning, some spoilers

Ashayo
Completed Dragonblight questing this week - achievement "Might of Dragonblight" (130 quests)

Ashrune, my unholy DK completed the starting zone and is out picking flowers before heading to Outlands

Ashayo dinged 77 and bought her cold weather flying ; but still riding until Asheal hits 77 also

Factions vs gear level
eg Wrymrest Accord in Dragonblight - hit Honored at 75. Great blue waist peice for honoured - but you have to be level 78

Ashayo & Asheak got Tuskarrmageddon achievement ; epic fishing pole and penguin pet, and upgrade chest peice (only needed honoured, but needed level 76)

Grizzly hills - Four daily that flags your for PvP - Blue Sky logging grounds.

Conquest Hold - pit fighting ; very average cloth rewards. Where's the real replacement for Ring of Blood?


Aprillian:

Took the twins to Outland for the outland loot, but soon scurry back to level up herbalism and mining.

Theardrion-Glacierthief Theprimall-Ratmasher

Tuesday morning and evening running around the crater for TheArdrion and Arathi Highland for thePrimall. Of course Theardrion had a quicker leveling because he got points for smelting

Dreamt about farming ore and herbalistm in Arathi Highland all night Tues. But couldn't right click on nodes.

Thursday both Theardrion and Theprimall got to 300 in mining/herbalism. Sent them to Outland. Did go to Stonebreaker but then skipped to Falcon Watch

9days left on Tuesday, so by Sun 5 or 4 days left on the mail returned from the great Mail debacle.

Friday and Sat morning had Theprimall and Theardrion in Falcon Watch with Rilfire skinning. Did the collassal and the demonic essence and freeing the hooded people. Using the rod to reduce the big Vamithrax like guy. Both went back to Ebon Hold to train and use a runeforge. Much harder to level herbalism than mining.
Theardrion dinged 62.

Sat Theardrion-Grubreaver Theprimall-Dirtleaper

Aprillian got 2 shards once so far with the soul shard minor glyph

Moved stuff to ally side, selling a lot.



The Contest Reading and Results

Thanks to everyone who submitted entries. We got a lot of good responses.

Honorable Mentions


Heya Ctrl Alt Wow folks!

I just thought that I'd enter the contest to win the CE for Wrath of the Lich King, So, here is my story:

If I remember correctly, it is basically how do you balance WoW with home life.
As a married man with a wife who does not play WoW, I sometimes find it difficult to get time in to play without getting into trouble. However, as my wife teaches a night class on Tuesdays, I can usually play then and not have to worry about anything. On other days, it becomes more difficult, what I have to do is play when she is watching TV shows that I dont particularly like, or when she is busy correcting exams or working on her dissertation.
I try to make at least a couple of nights a week that I dont play at all so that I can spend time with her, even if it is just lying down on the couch with her watching TV while she corrects papers during commercials, and on weekends, she will usually sleep in so I can get a couple of hours in in the morning also.

I basically just try to strike a balance between getting my addiction in and keeping my marriage intact.... I will always walk the dog with her on the weekends and we do the chores together, so I don't get yelled at for playing that damn game while she is doing all the work.
Anyway, I hope that is sufficient, I am certainly not the best writer on the planet, but maybe that wont matter for the contest! Keep up the good work on the show.

Numnug
(Aka Steve)

________________

Greetings, Aprillian and Ashayo

Please consider this my official entry into the contest.

Yours is one of about three or four WoW podcasts that I am subscribed to on iTunes, but it became my favorite after only a couple of episodes. Your laid back approach to the game is one that I can appreciate because I am a very casual player. I have been playing for a couple of years. I once thought that creating too many alts was a sign of some degenerative mental condition. I don't know if it is or not, but at least I know now that I am not the only one that does it! Most of the other WoW podcats cater to the hardcore player who might be focused solely on one class or one activity. CtrlAltWow shows that there us much to appreciate about the game itself.

I play on the Moonrunner server. My main characters are Faluciel (70 night elf druid), Conoreyna (70 human warlock), and Either (67 night elf death knight).

Wrath of the Lich King has renewed my love for this game (it was starting to falter a bit after some glaring issues I had with TBC).

The only problem I have with your podcast is that it makes me want to create even more alts and I need to focus on my death knight!

Take care,

J

Third Place

Good evening to both of my awesome voice accented podcast host.



This email will be for entry into the Wotlk collectors edition contest. It’s a brief story on the rise of my death knight. Just a quick reason for the story if you don’t mind: I transferred servers and a friend of mind actually was using my toons name as a place holder in case we ever decided to move there. Unknown to me at the time I had to change my name and decided to spell my rogue’s name backwards (Suoidisni). Of course I soon found out who was holding my name and didn’t want to pay for another name change; however I decided to create a death knight with the original name. When I heard of the contest y’all were putting on it gave me a great chance to come up with a brief background history on how my rogue dies and becomes a death knight since the DK has my real characters name.



Side Note: Suoidisni (the newly named rogue – which is my main) is Nsidious’s (formerly the rogue main but now a death knight) sister but I didn’t have time to go into that since it was already getting long. And I know how the death knight story line ends but once again I didn’t want to have y’all reading a book. Spoiler: Suoidisni and Nsidious reunite.





Stun – You’ve met my rogue!



Pressure builds in the confines of your grip. Blood seeps through and begins to wash dirt from your hands as you tighten the grasp around your weapon. Eye’s fixed in time, unable to move beyond their current direction. Lungs fight for each burst of air. You plead with your body to take another breath….but….it doesn’t come.



Your entire body becomes conscious to a truth the brain denies. It’s here. The sound was unmistakable…..stealth….stealth….These words reverberate as they carve their way through the dark layers of your mind.



Your eye lids slam shut. Nothing left to see in this world…quiet…sleep now….

…….

…….



There was a time I fought for the betterment of the horde. But that changed the day we killed Illidan. The battle quickly approached its foreseen conclusion when I was struck by the dark barrage. As my life slipped away I was comforted knowing we had plenty healers with the ability to resurrect me. But the cast came to late and in those waning moments The Lich King took me….the only part of me that matters.



Now my heart is exceedingly wicked. Filled with hate, I act with no remorse. The world you have created sentenced me to this existence.



*Plagued by unclear voices in my head*



No…no this is more than I can take.


… But look what it did to me..

How can I ask for forgiveness? That which I refused to give, how shall it ever be mine? … It pushed ...but …No, no you pushed... No you can’t have my heart anymore…. No you earned your spot in hell now go there and be content. Forgiveness will not be yours. Salvation shall not receive you. I will give my all to bring you death. You’ll decay in my hate. Let those you love witness your eternal damnation as they drown in your blood. I hate you, you caused this. I’ll deliver your soul to hell. I hate you… I hate you… I hate you…..



voice “in·sid·i·ous”



I loath the embrace it has on my heart. But far beyond the sun I lay in shadows. I pray that true death finds me soon.





Another Death Knight has been born!











Suoidisni – Insidious

For The Horde… O wait wait a min!


Second Place

Hello to Aprillian and Ashayo (and Galanther - sorry on the spelling if it's wrong),

I've listened to your show for a long time and I have written to your podcast before, many many lunar festivals ago. I thought I'd touch briefly on the subjects you mentioned you were interested in hearing about ( thoughts on WotLK and "how do you manage to play WoW and deal with your home life.")
First of all, I lead a ridiculously busy schedule so there are times when I won't even get to log on for a month or more. Without boring everyone too much on the banalities of my life, I'll just mention an overview of why that is. I work 2 (sometimes 3) jobs and go to school full time. I also spend about 2 to 3 hours per day in commuting back and forth. In addition I study, write papers, and share the responsibilities of owning a house with my girlfriend. This leaves me with an average of just under 4 hours for sleep per day. Last week alone I found myself awake for 41 hours strait writing term papers after I had slept just 5 hours two days prior. Even with all of this, I love to play WoW. I play Alliance on the Khaz Modan server, where I have two level 70's (Amaging -Gnome mage; Evilpurger - Human priest), a level 55 (Moonguard - Draenei Pally), a level 42 (Whiskeylover - a drunken Night Elf hunter), two level 19 twinks, and my newest toon: a level 57 DeathKnight named BlightFallen.
I don't have a good enough computer to dual box but I'd love to try it. The majority of my character leveling comes from the summer time and holiday breaks. I have been playing from near the beginning; I started just a few months after WoW's initial launch and have played on my own pace. I rarely have time to spend on the game so unfortunately, I've never raided, played an arena, seen any sort of end-game content, bought an epic flyer, or anything of the sort. I don't cry about not being able to see some content or that I can't get all of the coolest gear. Things in life often require hard work. I put in an enormous amount of effort into my life in the real world in hopes that someday it will pay off for me. The "end-game raiders" that have all of their reputations maxed and nothing but epic and legendary gear have also worked very hard and deserve to have something to show for it that others don't have. I enjoy WoW from beginning to end. I still enjoy the original content better than Burning Crusade although I do like what I've seen so far of Wrath...
I also bought the BC collector's ed. and was there for the midnight launch of both expansions. I'd really like to win the Collector's set for WotLK to get all of the great content Blizzard provides both in and out of the game.

Thanks again for providing a great show for me to listen to while I drive. I am up everyday at 4am and get on the road before 5. Have you heard the radio shows available at that time of day? Your show, and others like it, provide me an escape from a hectic life as well as keeping me informed about World of Warcraft news when I can't get time to play.

Sincerely,

Bryan in Phoenix

Winner

I've been meaning to write to you guys for a long time (since Brewfest, basically).

I have to thank you for passing on that tip about being able to buy an epic brewfest mount if you had the normal mount from the year before. My tauren druid really hates the kodo mount (he feels that they are a rollover risk, have you ever seen how much they lean when they hit a slope?). So, he diligently collected his tickets a year ago and got a brewfest ram and he was very happy.

He was also content that he would be able to work on collecting tickets again this year and get an epic version (even though he isn't ready for the epic yet, since I have so many alts). Then he heard the news that you couldn't get a brewfest ram this year. He was devastated. I never thought to just go to the ram dealer and see what he had, what was the point?

But after your episode on Brewfest mounts, I hopped right on and bought him his shiny, epic brewfest ram. Now I just need to get him to 60 so he can actually ride it :-)

As for how I WoW and how I mix it with my personal life, both my husband and I play WoW. We also both work for ourselves (he's a computer consultant, I'm a web designer). That can be a bad combination, when you feel much more like playing Wrath of the Lich King than finishing up a client's website. It's also hard when he has time to play at home (he does most of his work at the client's location) and I have to work :-(

But it helps when he spends some of his time helping my toons, like picking herbs for my scribes. We both have lots of alts, have always played Horde and Alliance fairly evenly, and run two very small guilds of real life friends and family. We don't instance much (we joke that we are the masters of four: four-manning the five-man instances because we can't get enough people together).

Our parents and the rest of our family don't understand our hobby, but we have managed to get several friends and our nieces into the game, so we can talk WoW with them. Of course, sometimes we get yelled at (like at the Thanksgiving dinner table) for talking about stuff no one else can understand. That didn't stop us from telling all the undead female jokes from the game ;-)

At home, WoW pretty much takes the place of watching tv and going to movies. We consider it a very cheap alternative to doing things like eating out. Our 11 year old daughter plays, but not very much, which is good. She's more into DS and going out with her friends.

We're really enjoying Wrath and the Death Knights, the only down side is that I'm very busy with work (which is great), but all I want to do is play WoW. Family and real life definitely trump WoW time, which is one reason we don't do many instances. Though we do play a lot, we don't have set times we play and we often don't play for very long at a time.

Thanks for doing the podcast, it's one of my favorites. Keep up the great work. I don't multi-box, but I love hearing tips on managing lots of alts.

Karen
Elsa - 71 Orc Hunter, Arathor
Bast - 70 Humaon Warrior, Uther
+ 4 other alts that are actively being played right now.

Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 91 - Death Knights 101 and More

Aprillian and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

Write us at ctrlaltwow@gmail.com
Visit our website http://ctrlaltwow.com

Contest entries are rolling in. Prizes WotLK Collector's Edition. Second Prize CE minus key code. Third Prize Blizzard Authenticator. Discuss entries on next week's episode.

What We Are Doing:
Aprillian

Got my Death Knights ThePrimall and TheArdrion out to Silvermoon to train herbalism/inscription and mining/jc. We ran up and down the scar collection nodes of ore and herbs.

I also spent some money buying stuff for my herbalist/inscripter

By Friday morning TheArdrion was up to 126 in JC and 161 in mining and ThePrimall was 104 herb and 160 inscribe.

When I left for work TheArdrion was 129 in JC and 204 in mining. ThePrimall was 147 in herbs. All from running around Hillsbrad and up in the caves of Alterac Mountains.

Friday I decided to get Rilfire my level 63 Tauren hunter skinner/LW trained in Skinning after 375, for 35g and took her first out to Falcon Watch to kill boars, she picked up a purple ravager.

Sat morning quad boxing. ThePrimall in Hilsbrad picking flowers, came across an elite dragon Narillasanz, got a nice green piece for one of my enchanters to de. TheArdrion was in the cave in Alterac Mountains. Had spent the early morning getting JC to 200. Sent Rilfire to Nagrand to grind Skinning and had Aprillian in Terrakor forest grinding netherweave.

Also doing exploration on Theprimall, she fully explored Arathi Highlands and Hillsbrad foothills

Saturday, decided Veyle, my rogue, should be levelled so she can pick lockboxes. Took her to tanaris at first with The Ardrion, but the DK was too high. So I got Primall, level 55 hunter and

Pulled out the Jasper to level Enchanting and was going to bring Velye home to make a silver rod but one of my bank alts


Ashayo

Hours cleaning out mail before it was deleted. I really should housekeep that stuff more often! Glaciuss disenchanted a bunch of level 68 gear, and got Northrend mats from them!

Tanked Utgarde Keep on Ashield

Completed the Wrathgate quest line on Ashayo and Asheal - Hint: Wait for Thrall at UC if event in progress.

Tuskarr dailies - Should be exalted by Wednesday!

Levelling mining - Need to get to 75 on Jekle and do JC dailies for tokens. Need to research new profession traits like that.

Group quests in Dragonblight - Three of them that then open up a 5-man with a nice blue reward. (Don't start the event again by talking to quest giver!)

The Old Kingdom. Tanked by a DK. Last boss is cool - Phase out and fight each other pvp style

Quests are becoming more immersive. A quest in Dragonblight has "future me" turn up to help. Future me.. level 80. "keep us alive and get some better equipment" "look at you, no wonder I turned to drinking"

Discovering more dailes - Daily flying fight in Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight (can't /follow when on these quest type mounts)

Shaman Hinterlands - old school stuff!

Re-specced my Priest from full Shadow to Holy/Shadow, with aim of being able to heal instances. Yet to try to determine success!

Emails

Hey guys... Blade here...

I confess... I have tried dual boxing...
See... the thing was... I bought my copy of Wrath like everyone else did... hung out in a lineup and everything... but what I had forgotten was that I super-jumped the gun last year... the DAY they released word that Blizzard was working on an expansion... I went to my local store and tossed them a down-payment for the Collector's Edition.
Totally forgot about it, though... and bought my non-Collector's copy from ANOTHER store....
The local store didn't do 'refunds', only 'in-store credits'... and I didn't really plan to purchase any other games... mainly 'cause ol' Blade has barely enough time to play WoW let alone dumping time into console games...
So I had two copies of Wrath.
What to do?
Totally stumbled my way through the sign-up process... and still haven't figured out the RAF thing... (a little help?) ... but I made a few new toons and have been toying around with them... I took Wolf all the way back to Orc Kindergarten to start helping another Hunter... and I'm quickly realizing that it may be a very long slog.
Rolled a warlock team... and they're kinda fun... I'm looking forward to the huge gobs of dps they'll be unleashing in the higher levels... the new hunter, too... but I have to figure out a way to level him faster...

And now for something I like to call...
Blade's 'Sneaky Trick of the Week'...

Tricks of the Trade...
A Rogue skill you get at level 75... reads as follows:
"The current party or raid member becomes the target of your Tricks of the Trade. The threat caused by your next attack and all actions taken for 6 sec afterwards will be transferred to the target. In addition, all damage caused by the target is increased by 15% during that instance."
That's pretty nifty... naturally... you all can clearly see the benefit in a raid... the more uber-dps you are as a rogue... pop all of your damage boosting trinkets and skills... build up the charge, then pop this on your tank... shaboom... you literally FEED your tank a ton of threat!
But... here's one to ponder about... does anyone know if this works on SPELLS?
Like the majority of Paladin threat?
Or other spells... specifically healing spells? Hmm... well... yeah... that puts an awful lot of potential threat on your healer... but who says you even have to attack during that 6 seconds of time? Drop that on your caster, and stop attacking for 6 seconds... they, in turn get 30 seconds of +15% healing? Hmmmm!
Got one of those super-damage glass-cannons known as Mages? Heck... anything that is insta-cast (or fast enough to cast a few times within the 30-second window) should benefit from this buff...
Or... if you have a darn-good tank, who's to say you can't use this on yourself? Or on another dps who might be a little lower on the damage list than you, my fellow 'shankers from the darkness'...
The possibilities are endless...

From the Easter Egg Basket...
A hit...
Bambi... sorta... here's a couple of screen shots... of Bambi(na), Bambina's Mom, Bambina's rabbit pal, Thudder... and their skunk pal Flora...









Oh... the 5th screenshot? Uh... that's just one from my private collection... I don't know HOW that got in there...



A quick little FYI for you all though... clearly those characters are a not-so-subtle reference to the characters Bambi, Thumper and Flower (and of course Bambi's mom)... but here's something you may not have known... a fellow by the name of Felix Salten wrote the book Bambi in 1923... Disney eventually made it into a movie in 1942.
Which... is a long time ago... 66 years to be exact.

And a miss...
This is one you'll have to take ol' Blade's word for everybody... this is apparently no longer in the game...
(Ol' Blade hasn't talked turkey with a troll in some time...)
If you played Horde... (if you haven't you should... if you don't... well... let's just say there's a special place for you...) anyway...
If you played Horde previous to Wrath of the Lich King... we're talking a while ago now... you will have toyed around with the races and their emotes... to see which ones you like or prefer... and you will probably know about the male troll's predisposition to sound not a little - let's call it - "rastafarian".
Typing a slash-silly command, you might have heard the following:
"I kill two dwarfs in the morning. I kill two dwarfs at night. I kill two dwarfs in the afternoon, And 'den I feel all right.
I kill two dwarfs in time of peace and two in time of war. I kill two dwarfs before I kill two dwarfs. And 'den I kill two more."
If you look hard enough, I'm sure the interweb will provide you with that very quote...
This a reference to the Toyes' song "Smoke Two Joints"... it was apparently removed owing to "legal reasons" presumably related to copyright, although it is also possible that Blizzard was pressured to cut the joke because of the content that referenced a song that made reference to drugs...

That's enough for this week... gonna respec Blade and see if I can't catch up a few more levels...

As always, an awesome podcast guys!

Blade