So I took Lukar through some BG’s today, hoping to get a Spirit of Competition, we’ve won 4 games now, but no reward yet. However, this round was awesome, second on the dps charts, as a 27 shammy. Also, 2nd most HK’s, 3rd most killing blows, and only 1 death, a very solid round. Also, the image got clipped, but I killed the FC once too. Probably one of my best BG’s. That’s all for now.
-Brian
First of all, Blizzard finally got their act together, and now has Lukar listed on the armory. Finally!
Secondly, my career in multiboxing has come to an end. A) I started to feel like WoW was becoming a job once two characters were involved. I had to pay complete attention, and I wasn’t using either character to their fullest. Also, my lag was above 1000ms the entire time I was multiboxing yesterday, and I was d/ced twice. My internet just can’t handle two instances of WoW. Also, once I get to school I have a 10gb/month bandwidth limit, and I’m sure running two characters eats it up that much faster. So I did the smart thing, and returned to singleboxing, and gave Lukar some much needed playtime. I ran a few quests in stonetalon, they almost became gray, and got into a razorfen kraul group. I was unlucky both in drops and rolls. There were two nice drops I could’ve used but missed them, won cloth robes, which sadly will be an improvement. He is halfway to level 25, and I have a substantial, not to mention unhealthy, block of time set aside for WoW coming up. Today is the last day of my internship, and I going over a friend’s house, and we will be playing WoW from 6pm until 3pm the following day, minus time for eating and sleeping. If I still want to play WoW after that, I know I can make it to level 70.
So I have run into a problem, or well the blog has run into a problem. Now that Bremere has slowly fallen to my number 2 toon, and I really don’t have much of an intention to go back to alliance side on Dark Iron, I think Lukar is my new main. I plan to roll a priest on Hydraxis named bremere, eventually, but not til Lukar gets some significant leveling done. So in order to erase my own confusion, I will no longer be calling myself my ingame name, enter Brian, the mysterious blog writer. dun dun dunnnn. Yea anyway, seeing as how this is my last day of work and all, I’m reflecting about what I’ve learned over the past three months, and ya know what, I’m doing that for WoW too. So expect a post later on what WoW has taught me/what I’ve learned about WoW. That’s all.
-Brian
R.I.P. Multiboxing ala Bremere
August 14, 2008 – August 18, 2008
R.I.P. Bremere the blogger
July 24, 2008 – August 19, 2008
Wow, has it almost been a month already? That is exciting. I’ll have to do a special blog post on sunday.
So my group makeup is a pally and a druid, both level 8 currently. I’m wondering which would be the best tank and which would make a better healer for leveling purposes. The druid is going feral, and the pally is probably going ret, haven’t made up my mind yet. What’s your opinion?
To start things off, if you don’t recognize the significance of my title, you need to go read 1984, it’s a great read, I just read it a fourth time this summer, and I still notice new things everytime I read it. George Orwell is a very good writer, plus he got me an A on my final essay for last semester’s english class. Boo Yah! Back to why I’m writing this post. Be prepared, this is more of a RL post as opposed to a WoW post. Stop reading if you don’t care about RL blogs, I understand.
The Good News: I leave to go back up to school in a week! I’m very excited, and am tired of being home to be honest. I know what you’re thinking, but no, I play WoW more during the school year than over the summer. Interning takes up way too much of my day, and getting up at 6:30 means I can’t play too late into the night. For whatever reason, Ithaca NY just feels like home to me now, and I started to miss it within the first month of summer.
The Ok News: I tried multiboxing last night, and while I didn’t fail exactly, I definitely didn’t succeed. I didn’t realize how involved multiboxing is, especially if you don’t want to pay for anything. I opened up a trial account, linked it up with my current one, and rolled a BElf Pally and an undead Mage. I then downloaded AutoHotKey, which makes sending keystrokes to both windows of WoW possible. Unfortunately, I don’t want to have to cast something on both characters most of the time. So I configured it some CTRL + a number sends to the mage, and the regular number sends it to the pally. I then ran into problems with autofollow staying on, or assist/targeting messing up. While I’ve never made a macro before, I seem to be getting it down. The autohotkey script reminds me a lot of java and/or matlab, so hopefully my progress speeds up there. Hopefully I can get the bugs worked out on this sunday, no WoW today or tomorrow, have to go meet my girlfriend’s extended family for the first time…kinda nervous to be honest. I enjoyed multiboxing, but right now it seems complicated. Maybe I’m doing something wrong. I noticed I would melee for awhile and forget that I could use my mage. I think I might reroll with a priest and a druid, or priest and pally, so I can just use the priest for healing, and not have to worry about it. Cat Form might be tricky though. I have 9 days now until the trial runs out, and my decision to stick with it will come on day 10. I don’t care about not being able to trade or mail things, I will let the trial pick up all the vendor trash/loot we can’t use. Should hopefully work out for the best. The problem is, I then have to get a key to upgrade the account, so there is $20-ish right? Then get a month free while paying $15 for my main. Then pay for one month at my normal rate, so $15, and I get a free month on my main. Then the next month I pay $30 in subscriptions, and then at that point I transfer the priest over, since the 3 months will be up. And that costs $35. So in three months of WoW, I’ll pay $115 to Blizzard, but hopefully have two new level 60′s. And WotLK will be coming out, so then I just have to grind to 70 and experience endgame.
Normally in that span I’d pay $45, so I’m paying $70 to get triple XP and two 60′s. The other option, which is what I think I’ll do, is cancel the other account after the second month. There is no reason not to keep it for two, since I’ll get a free month on my main. And in 2 months + 9 days, I think I can get to 60 with triple XP, unless I am mistaking my playtime. I think it’s worth it, but I have to convince myself in 9 days that I know what I’m doing in Autohotkey, and that this isn’t a big waste of time. Also I can then give my shaman 30 levels, effectively getting him to level 53, so that’s extra sweet.
The Bad News: Ok so being up at school has one adverse effect. I think my blogging time might decrease. I’m going to try and stick with it, but I do most of my blog reading, writing, and planning during work. So I’m going to try and stay as active as possible, so all four of you can continue to read my rants, such as this one. I’m sure I’ll be posting some good stories from the Big Red sporting events and parties. Unfortunately, none of my friends at school play WoW, which kinda sucks, and if they find out about my multiboxing, I might get busted on a few more times but w/e.
So to sum it up, unless someone is planning on starting up a second account and wants to play that character, for now, on Hydraxis with me, I will be giving Blizzard some of my hard-earned cash. I probably won’t have another post until Monday, seeing as how I’ll have a busy weekend. Sorry, not much I can do about it, but Monday’s will be a good one, I promise.
That’s all for now
-Bremere
P.S. Lukar still isn’t in the WoW Armory, and I have sent Blizzard two emails about it, this is ridiculous. I’m close to calling them up.
So I recently was reading a post on Dazed and Confused, and he brought up the idea of starting a second account to multibox with, and eventually transfer a character or two over. It’s an intriguing idea, but I wouldn’t do it to the same extent he is planning on, if I decide to do it at all. I am going to try multiboxing tonight, with a trial account, and see if I even enjoy it or not. Basically everything I know about multiboxing came from drz196 who seems to know what he’s doing. If so, then I just need to decide on classes. I don’t think I can afford to transfer over too many characters, so it will probably only be one team, unless I get to 60 faster than I expect I will. I’d like some input on possible class synergies here though. I already am leveling my horde shaman, so that’s out of the question. I’m leaning towards rolling a druid, + something else. The druid will be the quasi-tank, when needed to be. Maybe I’ll level another priest. Then I will have 3/4 of the healing classes leveled. Any opinions on this one?
Eve Online occupied my time for a solid three months. And I definitely didn’t quit out of boredom. Eve Online is a space MMO, and character customization is minimal at best,visually that is. Right from the start, you have a few very important decisions to make, and if you choose wrong, it could take days or even weeks to fix your mistake. Eve Online, which I’ll be calling Eve from now on, doesn’t have levels. It has skills. You always are learning these skills, even when you aren’t in the game. This is good and bad. It means that the casual player can progress at about the same speed as a hardcore player, at least skill-wise. However, you can’t queue your skills, so if you are at work, and you finish learning Electronics 2 around 11:30, you will be wasting at least 4 or 5 hours, depending when you get home. There is a lot more to skills, but I could write for a long time about that mess. So you start out in a junky tier 1 frigate, which can’t really do much for you. You have a variety of paths to pursue from the start, many of which I tried. With one account, you can have up to 3 characters, but only one of the those three can be training a skill at a time. I had two accounts and it worked out well for me. One was a dedicated miner/crafter. There are asteroid belts which are mineable, and you can easily spend your entire career mining. The crafting profession I have some experience with, and it wasn’t very profitable, at least early on. If I took it to the end I’m sure I could’ve made nice money. Then there is the fighter route, which most people take. What’s the point of having a spaceship if you can’t fight? Even within the fighter route, you can try to pilot a capital ship, which needs a whole armada of support but can take down bases. You can go for a large solo fighter, like a battleship or battlecruiser. You could go for a stealth ship, or a support ship. You can even just specialize in a small, and incredibly fast interceptor. They all have pros and cons, and I changed my mind a lot, but ended up in a battleship. It was so much fun, but I became obsessed with it, to the point where I had my skills laid out a week ahead of time. The problem is, that you are fighting a losing race against the old-timers. If you started playing today, and focused on the fighting path, you could never surpass someone who had taken the same path as you before you, unless they stop training it, or they quit. So people who have been playing for years have a huge advantage on all the new players. With time, the differences become less, but they are still there. The fighting isn’t too complicated, you press a button, and the weapon is auto fired whenever possible. There are a few tactics which take sometime, but for the most part, it’s who has the tougher/faster ship and who was luckiest. There is one more role, and that is going down the path of a CEO. Basically, the guild leaders of Eve. Their skills improve corporation size, what races can join the corp, etc. It’s a great MMO if you are looking for something less fantasy and more scifi.
Also, I’m working on a post about multiboxing, and whether or not I will do it, should be up later today.
Have any of you played Eve before?
-Bremere
I’ve done SFK twice this week with the same pally and priest, and I have noticed a few things about them which I don’t like, and it has spawned this list of what not to do in a PUG. I’m going to try and leave the obvious things out, like being a ninja.
1. Don’t be Afraid to Speak Up: This is probably my biggest problem in a PUG. Most of the time when sometimes drop which I can use, and it would be an improvement, but I can survive without it, I just roll greed. I usually have a hard time speaking up about rolling need on a green. If you don’t say so, this BoP blue might become vendor trash, or that BoE becomes someone else’s profit. I lost my opportunity to get Rethilgar’s Shoulders not once, but twice, to the priest, who is either DE-ing them, or vendoring them because I didn’t speak up.
2. While in Combat, Focus on Combat: Don’t start looting things the second the first mob of the group is down. Not only is it frustrating to see the loot rolls on my screen, the group is either losing dps, a tank, or healing because you have to see what <insert mob name here> dropped. To a lesser extent, this applies to skinning/mining/professions in general. I am guilty of this one unfortuntely. I will run around skinning mobs, while the group moves on to the next pull. If you are going to gather or craft something, make sure you tell the group.
3. Just Because You Have the x Profession, Doesn’t Mean You Get the Loot: I’d like to hear what your opinions are on this one. I’m getting annoyed at how everyone seems to be a JC and thinks they can roll need on all the jewels which drop, and some even go so far as to loot on any ore which is found. I couldn’t care less about them looting some copper or tin, but I like to stockpile the jewels up and either AH them or send them to a JC in my guild. And with this priest from SFK, I suspect she wasn’t even JC. If you agree with this, how far can you take it? I’m sure there are some over-zealous enchanters who have rolled need just to DE stuff.
4. I Don’t Care About Your Alts: This one bothers me so much. I hate it when people start to brag about their other toons. Big deal about having 5 70′s, it doesn’t make up for your crappy dps. The only time I’d want to hear about your alts, is if you are going to get on one to give us a free run, or because it’s around our level and it will better complement our group than the current character. I’ve been in groups where there is a huge debate between which person is better, based on how many 70′s they have. All that means is you have more time on your hands, or have been playing longer. Longer playtime != more skilled. Any sentence that starts with “I have a level 70 <insert common dps>, and this is how you need to play your class.
5. Attempt to be Civilized: The PUG group never benefits from you making a lame your mom joke, or perpetuating the anal <insert skill here> fad. Comments like, how does my rogue have more hp then you in bear form, also never help. I never openly humiliate someone in party/say/guild chat. If I feel the need to crack jokes, which happens often, I do so in whisper mode, or just to myself. If someone feels like they are being picked on, they won’t be happy, and the group is going to suffer. Offering them advice can be tricky, many players don’t like being told how to play their class. And berating them in party chat won’t help them see your point of view.
6. Know What to Expect: Let’s face it, you are in a PUG. You’re going to get stuck with all kinds of people, some good, some bad. Your tank might afk during the middle of a fight, your healer might be passive aggressive and let you die on purpose, you might have a hunter who wants to melee, or a mage who thinks wanding is their best form of dps. You have to roll with it all. If you want to control the unknowns, then get a group of trusted friends or guildies, don’t rely on the LFG system.
So that’s my two cents on lowbie PUGs, I guess it’s probably much different at the high levels, so maybe there will be a followup once I get to some new instances. What tips do you guys have for PUG Manners.
Well not exactly, but I feel like I’ve found the right class for me. I’ve never had the pleasure of topping the dps charts, but man it felt awesome beating my hunter guildie on the chart. I will choose to ignore that I had two levels on him. Enhancement was a definitely a good choice, it’s still fun to solo, and I’m not chained to instances, like my holy priest. I’m not at level 18, and can’t wait for ghost wolf, and water totems. I attempted WC but the group fell apart once the 38 Lock decided to leave without so much as a see ya later. I healed for the group, which didn’t quite feel right, I don’t like only having one healing spell. Not to mention a lack of a HoT. We fought up to Lord Cobrahn, the lock left between Lady Anacondra and him. Once this drops, and the level 16 lock wins the roll, he decides that we are wasting our time. I would really like to try and get the whole Embrace of the Viper set, but I have a feeling it might be out of reach. I’ve already /gquit once and joined an adult only one, which so far is an improvement over the last guild. They seem to be very friendly, and there are a lot of active players around my level. Whether I stay in this guild long term is up in the air. I think my best chance to see end game content will require me to join a raiding guild, but I will have to see if I even make it to 70 before the WotLK.
-Lukar
I wanted to link my armory page, but I’m not on it apparently. Maybe I leveled too quickly for Blizzard.
So I just rolled a Horde Shaman on Hydraxis, figured I would try out a PvE server. It took awhile to pick a race, but in the end, when I think shaman, I think Orc. I’m up to level 9, so I’m about to start picking a spec, and I’m torn between enhancement and elemental. I know enhancement is the chosen spec for levelling, I’m just not sure that’s the route I want to take. I guess I’ll have to choose fairly soon though. I hope to test out his healing in RFC or WC soon, whether it’s as the main healer, I’m not so sure. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the Horde so far, but I remember getting burned out with the Barrens last time I played WoW. Hopefully I am at a decent level by Sunday, due to having barely anything scheduled to do this weekend. Gonna get some quality grinding in. I guess that’s it, I’ll probably write something about another MMO tomorrow, while I’m getting work done on my car.
-Bremere
So I’m kinda burned out with the Alliance currently, and I’d like to try some Horde fun. I’d like to go to a PvP server, with more Alliance than Horde, and a low – medium population, that isn’t flooded with 70′s. Any suggestions?
