Arthas' underpants

Here's a chuckle, I'm sure you'll enjoy. Meanwhile I've ordered a new Dell Studio desktop. Contains an Intel Core I7, good ATI video card, a heavy 6 GB of ram, and comes with a Full-HD 23" monitor. Hopefully this crap will be a thing of the past then. It's currently at the delivery service (UPS probably), so it should be arriving soon(tm). Ghouls I've started working on a Deathknight alt, I must say,,, the class is ridiculously overpowered. As a rogue you run up to a mob (two or three if you got cooldowns available) and kill them reasonably fast. Sit and eat if needed, the continue. As a mage you gather up a nice group of mobs, AoE the crap out of them, spend a few minute looting and drinking and then find another group. Much like this guy. As a deathknight however.... I've started mine as blood which seemed nice at first, but you gain more health than your maximum hp could ever hold. At the recommendation of a friend however, I went ahead and took the unholy path. Aside the insane and obviously useful grinding talents which improve your speed. You can still use death strike and Blood presence. It was AoE like nothing else. Run into a pack of mobs the size of which most mages do, but end up with full health at the end. No need to eat or drink afterwards. It's fast! If you haven't already made use of the "free" level 55 character for the sake of your professions, you should certainly give it a try for the sheer fun of it.

Don't tell your future boss

If you're going for a job interview anytime in the near future, "don't" tell him you play World of Warcraft.

Why not?

Well, aparently some head-hunters have been told to avoid recruiting people who play World of Warcraft. How silly is that!

There've been other news posts in the past exclaiming how some of the people with top-job functions have played World of Warcraft for a good while, even been guild leaders. Even how WoW can teach players project and time management skills that they might otherwise not learn in school. (Strange, but, ok.)

So, if you were to apply to a job there, you're not likely to get hired because some head-hunter's boss has the notion that all gamers are slackers. Pfff. Where DO they get these ideas?

Update: Turns out the story was in fact wrongly interpreted by a large number of news sites, and cascaded across the internet as a result. See here for details.

Original src: Tweakers.net / intermediair.nl (Dutch sites).
Also see: Geekologie on the same subject, werblog games as social software and warcraft identity.


Some Site updates

Entrecard widget removed on the side. I haven't really got time to keep up with it, and currently it's not giving much extra traffic. So I've decided to remove it for now.

Chatbox removed. It simply wasn't seeing enough action. The idea was sound, but it was attracting more spam than actual comments. Don't fear, you can still leave your regular comments to each blog post just like always ;)

Having removed those two, the site seems to load a bit faster as well.


Poll end

How fast did you reach level 80?

Less than 3 days - 7 (3%)

Under a week - 44 (24%)

Under 2 weeks - 39 (21%)

Under 3 weeks - 19 (10%)

I'm taking it slow - 72 (39%)

Some interesting numbers. A lot who want to reach level 80 fast have done so in under 2 weeks (83 : 45%), then there's a large gap of about 7 days for 10%, and all the rest are taking longer 39%.


Another poll then

How much time do you spend in raids each week? 10 man, 25 mans, either.

Myself, I'm in a raid group around 3 hours 5 days of the 7 day week. Usually more. Some may spend even more time, some less. How about you?

Busy busy busy

Alright, progress update: We've been mostly working on the 25-man version of Naxx, but since the lag on the thaddius fight is SO RIDICULOUSLY bad, and the fight seems to be quite tightly tuned, we've not managed to properly take that guy down yet. Other guilds on aszune are complaining about the exact same thing, so at least we know it's not just us having the problem. Over the weekend, and last night we figured the 10 man naxx needed a proper cleaning as well. And so we did. Sadly his reach doesn't seem to glow when enchanted... lame.

Naxx25 : In progress

Trade skills : In progress

Alts : In progress, slowly

Kalu'ak reputation : In progress

Frenzyheart reputation : In progress. The blue item is pretty cool.

Sons of Hodir reputation : In progress

Video card problems : Not so much in progress. Huh, video card problem? What are you talking about? Well, here's a few pics to give you an idea. The problem usually occurs after an hour or two (weekends are funfunfun playing like this!) and the symptoms change every few minutes. It's probably overheating, but since the pc is starting to get rather old (going 5-6 years now) it's getting time to replace the whole thing anyway. So, that's in progress, sorta. Achievements 25 tabards, should be doable right? It's a bit tricky though. You need a lot of different tabards, and to get some you have to go all the way to exalted. Getting Exalted with all 4 battlegrounds.. no thanks. There also seems to be a bug with the loremaster / explorer tabards, they don't count when you pick them up from the mail. You'll have to page a GM to get them added to your total. There's a nice list on the wowhead page, which basically shows you that there's:

12 tabards from TBC factions to be had at exalted. (one extra if you're crazy enough to get both scryers and aldor)

4 tabards added at honored for the WotLK factions.

4 from "other" sources

5 from PvP

1 from a quest for each faction. Only for blood elf / draenei it seems.

2-3 from achievements.

8 from the damn loot cards

4 that are no longer available Here is the full list. So, in theory, even without the 8 from the loot cards it should be quite possible to get that achievement. 28-32 tabards, or 40 if you get all the loot cards. That's a lot of faction grinding though... Especially the PvP ones can be quite dull. The only really annoying part of this achievement, is that you can't see which ones you've already got unless you keep them all in your bank. Fat chance at that. Linky Here's an interesting link to wow-achievements. It shows the players in the world with the highest achievement points. It was bound to be done sometime or other, but there's a lot of people with over 6000 points already, even one with 6365 already... Go outside and see the sun sometimes... Also, WowJutsu has been updated. It's still showing the same weird inaccuracies as before, but it's still interesting to keep around. Same for wowrankings and even wowprogress. Funny You ever seen the "carebears"? If you're an average 14 year old you may be thinking I'm talking about PvE.. Well you'd be wrong. Look it up. For all you slightly older readers, here's a hilarious link. The comic is called Bear Nuts and it's basically a carebears parody. Notice the icons on their front. Also worth checking out is Nerf Now, it's a comic which focuses on games as well. Starcraft and team fortress among others. Be warned, it might not be suited for the very young readers. Not like you care though right? Ah, and do you remember Mr.T's night elf mohawk? Well, he enjoys Flavourwave too. I pity the fool who eats frozen food.

Engineering, lacking?

I'm going to be cheap and post a reply I did on the MMOC forums, hopefully the info reaches blizzard somehow. Be it trough the official forums, or blue people reading this. Let me know what you think. So, what's wrong with engineering you ask? The only "real" problem currently with engineering, and to some extent tailoring, is the lack of self buffs. Not actual buffs etc, but look at these other professions:

Skinning : crit bonus worth about 25 stats

Mining : Stamina bonus worth about 25 stat points.

Herbalism : Herbalist only herb consumable which gives ~ 32 stats if seen over time-cooldown. Also a small self heal which is awesome.

Alchemy : When flasks are used provides ~32 stats more than the default flask.

Inscription : ~ 32 stats worth better shoulder enchant

Blacksmithing : 2 bonus sockets worth about 32 stats

Leatherworking : ~ 32 stats worth better bracer enchant than the default one.

Enchanting : 2x16 = 32 stats worth for ring enchants.

Jewelcrafting : 3 awesome multicolor jewels which will provide ~ 21-32 stats when socket bonusses are kept in mind. Craftables exist for all professions, most are worse than the ilvl 213 items from heroic raids. Which is fine. However

Tailoring : Only ~ 12 stats better cloak enchant than the default

Engineering : Glove enchant that's 2 stats WORSE than the maximum available ones. That is the main thing that's bothering me right now about engineering. And I really don't see why blizzard didn't give us something on par with the other professions unless they simply forgot.... As it appears there's awfully few patterns for engineering to begin with. Especially compared to JC and Inscription. Zero rare drops, and no pattern vendor at all. Do we need to wait until patch 3.1 then? Also, the last leveling part from 435-450 is quite silly. Not to mention that there's no goggles available for several class specs. Poll end Poll question : Did your WotLK box arrive on time? Well, did it?

Yeah ! :D - 78 (64%)

No... :( - 43 (35%) An awful lot who didn't arrive on time. Bad planning, poor delivery service, bad luck? New poll up: What professions does your main have?