Loyalty?

Are you loyal my friend? Do you strive to make other peoples experience the best. Or are you watching your own interest and tend to frown at people taking other ways? Recently I started to question my own loyalty. For what purpose is I’m loyal. Since my loyalty often mean I get dragged into things in little interest for myself. Or in things I would have seen being done differently.

I been a member of a guild in over a year now. A year when I seen people come and go. People I laughed with, people I helped. People that left the guild in pursuit of more rapid progress but said they will keep in touch. Guess what, they didn’t.

The guild had a rough stretch a while back and seem to be coming in another tough time. But at the moment I feel less inclined to stay and ride it out. I been there before, it was damn lonely. It was dark, it was depressing. And if it happens again… well I do love my friends. But for my own sake I can’t take another time like that. It just left me feeling shattered and hollow. And I still can’t really have the same relationships with the people who weren’t there during that time. The trust is broken. So things aren’t the same.

What do I want to say with this post? Well, how often to do you see your friends’ perspective? Do you receive in the same amount as you give? If not, what can you do to mend that. Good relationships doesn’t just happen, it’s something all have to work for. Loyalty is a nice thing, but don’t abuse that bond. I got much joy through my loyalty. But also, made sacrifices for staying in the same guild. Most of us "long-timers" have at some extent done so. I feel that loyalty starting to crumble now. Mainly because they abusing the bond we share. People are finding it to hard to see other people point of view and are not working on the bond with other people. And thus, the guild is once again sliding

So dear reader. a few thoughts I would like to share. Respect that people sometimes want to take another path. Don’t exploit other people’s hard earned resources. Be helpful, but don’t let yourself been taking advantage of. For other peoples gaming experience do take responsibility coming prepared in suitable gear as an example. Your friends won’t mind helping you if they truly are your friends. But remember thaat they might be sacrificing things to do so. The best thing for the guild might not always be in favour for you.

1st OS10 raid

RAWR!

After some recent inactivity on here o thought it would be a good time to put a post up on the successful AD raid to OS10.

Now originally we only wanted to go share tea and biscuits with sarth but the mobs around him were far from helpful. Ever gone to reception somewhere and the receptionist is rude abrasive and just utterly useless and leaves you with the desire to rend and destroy? Well thankfully that kind of thing is legal on warcraft so after much shashing, bashing, crashing, stabbing, slashing, flinging of spells, insults, arrows, dung, and whatever else came to hand we pretty much destroyed the majority of what got in our way.

Now strangely there were 3 drakes around the outside, imagine these as those head office places in a workplace who think themselves above everything else and just sit around gawping aimlessly into nothingness. They clearly hadnt had much exercise as we mopped them up without really any problems and we all had a good laugh screaming and shouting at them for being ineffiecient. Despite the final drake being a bit of a pain and caused a death or 2 due to some very annoying adds we pulled though very well indeed :)

Then we came to Sarth.

Now Sarth is usually a docile harmless innocent pacifistic dragon by nature hence why we were there on a social call for tea and biscuits but Sarth was clearly very upset that we had butchered what we suppose could of been his family in some respects. So instead of being greeted with a large tablke full of scones and biscuits like we origninally wanted we were greated with much shouting screaming flailing claws fire elementals sarths chilli breath and walls of lava, which I add now has absolutly NOTHING to do with the swift kick to Sarths happy sack from me, it was self defence! HONEST! but anyway after a bit of a slugfest sarth flops over dead and reveals his horde of cookies. Which seemed to have been rather small for what we expected so a few of us got some pretty loot, most of us got some 3rd degree burns, and ive still got a broken toe :)

So enjoy the kill shot taken by myself and you all go have some fun now :)

DamoFez

Hes not dead hes resting :P

Sunfire’s borean leather grinding guide

I have never been able to make money on my crafting. Probably mainly because I don’t seem to know the market well. I either under price or horribly overprice. And I just find it to be a damn annoyance running from the mailbox to the auction house when auctions don’t sell the first time. As a consequence of this… I never have been very wealthy. And buying any crafting materials quickly drains my funds to about dirt poor level. So, I learned to grind grind grind for my materials. And someway along the way... I even started to enjoy it. Now it still can be tedious work. And depending on what you trying to extract from the big assed hairy and weird smelling rhino in front of you… you can either be very lucky… or end up killing the rhinos whole family tree without catching a glance of what you want.

I have listed the most normal drops. These drops are normally stackable in stacks of 5 or 20. The price per stack will help you prioritize what is more profitable to keep if you need to free bag space and is far from a vendor. Running back and forth to a vendor all the time will effect your effective grind time and make it less profitable. Basically… its better grinding none stop for 40 minutes then during those minutes take two trips to a vendor. So I strongly recommend having as much free bag space as possible when you start your grind. Also set a goal with your farming session. Either set a time, or how many stacks of leather you want before quitting or just make a plan to stop when you run out of bag space. I usually have 4-5 stacks of borean leather as a goal. And that takes about 80-100 kills.

Farming borean leather
Every skinner seems to have their choice of grinding spot. I myself find the zone Sholazar basin to be a very nice place. The skinnable creatures are in good numbers all over the zone, and you never have to move very far to reach the next creature. Cold weather flying is not required. Since its counts as a 77+ zone it’s nice to at least be at level 74-75 for this farming. As a level 80 hunter I usually just put my pet on aggressive and melees all mobs. I find that they still die fast enough and I don’t have to spend any money on consumable items as ammunition (Yeah yeah, so I’m cheap… what’s it to you)

Disclaimer. Prices are from the 9th of september 2009 from Wowhead
All these creatures have a 99% chance for borean leather, and 1% chance for arctic fur. So in theory you should be able to get one arctic fur per hundred kill. In theory that is. Sadly reality hssvern’t really given my that odds lately.


Crocolisks and cobras
This area is directly below Wildgrowth Mangal and west of it. Basicly just west of River’s Heart but not stretching as far as Nesingwary’s base camp. I’m particularly fond of this place because it’s easy for me as a hunter to grind. I just can put my pet on aggressive and keep busy with minimum down time. The creatures are close to each other and I normally can keep myself busy all the time and with minimum movement required between one kill to the next. So one hour grind could really give you value for your effort. And 99% of the time… you get to farm alone here.
Emperors cobra 75-76 note: doesn’t drop any meat
Loot: Rubicond Scale 81% stack of 20=3g90s
Hollow fang 19% stack of 5=1g23s75c
Mangal crocolisk 74-76
Loot: Severed flipper 81% stack of 20=3g90s
Chilled meat 60% droprate, stack of 20 =30s
Colossal Jaws 19% stack of 20=4g95s

Rhinos and dreadsabers
Keep above Nesingwary’s base camp up to the area up to the Maker’s perch. And keep of the left of the Suntouched pillar. Going beyond that are is a waste of time. The longer you have to move for the next creature, the more waste of time. This area I often find more populated with other players as well… so the time between kills can considerably grow and you basically spending to much time searching for your next target… and probably at the same time getting annoyed over your competition. But the side loot of rhino meat really can make it worth it if you are a cook like me or just want to make an extra income from the auction house. So I still recommend making a pass over that area to see how heavily farmed it is at the moment. Under the right conditions its prime farming ground for borean leather and rhino meat.
Shardhorn Rhino 75-76
Loot: Stinking Fur 80% stack of 20=3g90s
Rhino meat 50% stack of 20=40s
Pearly horn 19% stack of 5=4g95s
Chilled meat 5% droprate, stack of 20 =30s
Dreadsaber 75-76
Loot: Serrated Fang 81%, stack of 20 3g90s
Chilled meat 60% droprate, stack of 20 =30s
Indurate Claw 19%, stack of 20=4g95c

Gorillas
Judt east of the frenzyheart hill and all the way to the mountain wall. As a hunter this grind spot is less appealing because the most common gorilla, the hardnuckle forager isn’t by default aggressive, so having pet on aggressive doesn’t automatically attack them. So it’s less effective grind for me in the long run. Now, a guildie of mine really enjoy this area. I myself am not too fond of the ape family… so even killing apes doesn’t really appeal to me since they have a knack of annoying the hell out of me. But the density of the population makes it a good grinding area. Unless you like me just gets to annoyed with their apy-sounds this is also a good and easy farming spot
Hardnuckle charger 72-77, hardnuckle forager 76, hardnuckle matriarch 77
Loot: swatch of gorilla hair 94% droprate, stack of 5=31s28c
Chilled meat 60% droprate, stack of 20 =30s
Hefty barrel 5%, dosnt stack 49s75c
Vicious fang 0,3 stack of 20=3g12s4c

Bear retriever

I must confess. Standing behind a furry behind makes me feel nice and snug. As a hunter one of my first pets was Mama, a brown furry bear from the Silverpine forest. As a tiny little blood elf that was quite a travel for me. And then to find my Mama... a bear of suitable color and... of level so I would have a shot at taming her. She didn’t gave up her freedom easily. She nocked me off my feet with her huge rams.

A few levels laters the original Mama war replaced with a white one. That trek also was something of an test for my blood elf Sunfire’s determination and stamina. Mainly cause I missed the spawn spot the first time and ended up exploring the whole Dun Morogh before I found my bear, Mama. The bear that would be my most trusted and faithful companion through many adventures. But Sunfire's main reason to set loose her original lovely Mama was cause of the baby blizzard bear. That little fuzzy white bear cub most certainly needed a true mother. And now, Mama truly lived up to her name.

But my reason to love the bear goes way beyond just their looks and adorable mothering abilities. Mama never failed me. That furry bear behind always kept me safe. She kept my party safe aswell and it wasnt to uncommon while we where leveling that I got asked to bring Mama along. Sometimes to OT... sometimes even to MT our odd odysees towards the ever so distant I-will-not-reach-it-this-lifetime-level-80.

So, we established furry bear behinds saved my pretty blood elf on sevaral occasions. Sometimes that furry bear behind didnt belong to my Mama... sometimes it belonged to a druid. Now, the tanking role never truly appelaed to me. But the form a druid could take... now THAT really appealed to me. But vain as blood elf... suddenly undertaking the tauren form to become a fuzzy bear. Now that was asking a lot. So it really took me a long time before I finally rolled a tauren.. and not deleted it.

But yes, finally my tauren was born... and nothing else then the bear form was desired. The nervous part was now to try.. tanking. Now im always been a ranged class. Hunter, ranged. Mage, ranged. Priest ranged... etc. So i never truly got the hang of meleeing. It all seems so messy to me. But now... I would be the furry behind for the group to rely on. And so, the slobbering tank was born. My baby druid Valrhona. Now, my tanking experience cowers a messy run in RFC and a run in WC. So, I’m still just a baby druid. But I truly got a new found respect for the role of the tank.

First of all, all I really am is a slobbering golden retriever basicly. I go wag my tail stump and fetch the mobs for my group. But things never goes as this no-brain-all-good-intent bear retriever wishes. I think hey that group we can easily side-step... Suuure, 3 seconds later my lovely partymembers managed to pull that group.. So now the little bear retriver start frolicing between mobs ... drooling and jumping trying to fetch the aggro. Honestly, how do you tanks out there do it? I charge in and think this is goes great... But behind my furry buttom things tend to go out of hand. I need to install some rear mirror on my horns or something... I mean come on! How can you manage to make such a mess behind me all the time... its just distressing. So I’m still in in learning.. trying to figure out everything that can go wrong and go bouncy bouncy between all targets, slobbering as much as I can and trying to get them to spank my behind instead of eating the face of the lovely healer. I probably never will learn to really love melee, but I suppose I can learn to deal with it... cause after all...

I’m ze bear retriever, I lick your face! So spank me Azeroth.

And whats the point of this post? Well, I *heart* bears. Deal with it


Me and my trusted Mama out on one of our odd odysees. Mama being the bear and Im being the lovely bloodelf figure in some red mismatched red outfit to the left of some unknown orc and tauren... The pretteh blood elf boy sitting is a darling guildie

Pugging Hell

PuGs...God I hate them, don't you?. They're all full of obnoxious morons with the social graces of a cesspool, effing and blinding and hurling accusations of being a "fukin Nub" around left right and centre. The uberer-than-thou dps are too busy flooding /party with Recount scores to move out of a muddy puddle let alone fire, poison, lightning or deadly melted cheese; the tank, replete with with 19,000 health, 520 defence rating and at least 40% dps gear sticks to mobs like a well-lubed penguin sticks to an iceberg; and the regularity with which the manarexic healer hollers "mb plx!" is matched only by his earnest whisperings to the warrior/rogue/death knight asking "got any waters? Im out".

So reviled are these excercises in self-torment than at least half of my regular instancing amigos flatly refuse to enter anything with less than 80% of the group sporting guild tabards, and from their horror stories you can understand why. I, on the other hand, soldier doggedly on. It's fair to say that I learnt my tanking chops pugging northrend normals and heroics during a dark era of guild history when attendance plummeted and there was much talk of migration to greener pastures. Thankfully, there was light at the end of the tunnel and our motley crew are now trundling along better than ever. These days there is little need for anyone of us to enter the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Looking For Group. On the odd occasions when it's a quiet night in Dalaran, others I know will turn to alternate pursuits, often centred around the amassing of vast stockpiles of shiny crafting mats for our guild horde. For myself though, being pretty much able to heal any 5-man the game has to offer, I like to get drafted into a ragtag PuG from time to time and experience some of the 'colour' of the WoW community. Call it a masochistic streak I guess. Most of the time such runs range from 'competent but mind-numbingly dull' to 'dear lord how did these so-called 'people' ever learn to operate a computer'. It's a harmless passtime, and it keeps my therapist in business.

Once in a while though, you get a night like Friday.

Friday was one of those quiet evening. A few mute guildies were gently questing in outland, and gchat was slowly clogging itself up with all the tumbleweed blowing through it. After advertising myself suitably in LFG I was drafted into group heading for the Utgarde instances. This did not turn out to be a good start to the night's frivolity. Three of our party seemed to know each other or at least, were socially inept enough to consider 'Shit man ur dps is lame xD' a form of polite greeting, and somehow managed to combine suits of full epics and stellar dps numbers with a complete lack of that most important of player qualities...'knowing what the fuck to do'. Never before have I simultaneously experienced crushing boredom at having to pay no more attention to the tank than to keep the ES/RT double team ticking away gently, and nail-biting desk-pummeling rage-terror of waiting to see just how the terminally squishy dps (two rogues and a class-traitor of a shaman) were going to try and wipe the group next. Needless to say, as soon as Ingvar's reanimated head had fallen from his shoulders I bid my companions tormentors a hasty and ironic 'great run guys, cya around' and fled to Dalaran in search of a better group or failing that, a stiff drink.

As it turned out I got both (see footnote). Responding to a cryptic "LF1M Healer for VH hc" I figured it couldn't go much worse. If I was wrong and it turned out that it could get much worse I reasoned, I wouldn't be in there long and anyway could always feign a disconnect. I didn't notice anything special about the group until we got to our second boss, the big angry voidwalker with his semi-invisible minions (can't remember his name...look it up if you care more than I do i.e. at all). Now usually this fight is a race for the dps getting him down before I can no-longer heal the amount of damage from the adds. In guild we tend to approach complex and delicate game mechanics with a patented 'if you hit it hard enough it will probably die eventually' strategy. I settled down for a close run fight.

He went down after 32 seconds.

Cyanigosa took 46.

"Fast group" I thought.

"That went well" I said, "want to try CoS?"

I don't know exactly what it was about the group. We had an apparently inexperienced Paladin tank (he claimed to have just started this tanking lark...a fact I assume to be lies, since he barely, though only barely as you shall see, put a foot wrong all night), a kindly Warlock who filled my girlfriend's normal role of healer guard on the trash, a DK and I think a rogue as well, and of course yours truly in healer mode. Certainly, we all knew the tactics, and were decked out in pretty universally good gear. As one of the party commented, it's so nice to have a group where the dps all pull good consistend numbers (none of them dropped below 2.5k all night) and a tank/healer combo that know what they're doing (oh stop...). For some reason we just meshed or clicked or bonded or something else of a suitably copulatory bent. As it was, we reached the gauntlet with 10 minutes on the clock, running well and feeling confident.

As we entered the gauntlet, three things made me slightly nervous. Firstly, we had established at the beginning of the run that if the bronze drake mount dropped, I would be getting it. Secondly, I was at this point 2 Emblems of Conquest away from being able to afford my T7 shoulders. If we got to the boss, I would get them tonight. If we didn't, I wouldn't. Thirdly, as we leapt down the stairs towards the burning streets of Stratholme, the tank said this...

"I'm gonna pull loads here, make sure you keep up".

We wiped.

We rezzed.

We reached the gauntlet (again) with 4 minutes to go.

3 minutes later, still tailing the last ghoul who was resolutely chewing on the rogue's back, we emerged from the gauntlet at a dead run, and pelted towards the Infinite Corruptor. The game seemed to stutter briefly as 5 players popped all their cooldowns at once and BLASTED THE LIVING BEJESUS out of that dragon 'till there wasn't any bejesus left to blast. After our whooping and hollering party had moved on towards Mal'Ganis (pausing only to kill the ghoul who was still doggedly trailing us), an Infinite Dragonkin in blue overalls and a baseball cap shuffled out of the glowing time portal, and began to slowly mop up an Infinite Corruptor-sized greenish smear from the cobbles of Market Row.

As one of the group commented, "Now THAT's what I call heroic". Another, rather excited shaman was heard to hoot, "I didn't even know that was fucking possible!". It's true. I didn't.

PuGs: 99% Shite... 1% pure Gold. I hate 'em... but by God I love 'em.

P.S. Pedants among you will notice that I did not mention a stiff drink. "Clearly" you will think, already composing some indignant tirade as as your mouse strays towards the comments section, "Clearly so wrapped up is the author in the excitement and suspense, so concerned is he with putting in all those dynamic paragraph breaks, so distracted is he by his fairly unimpressive and probably grossly exaggerated achievement, that he has forgotten to tie up the one loose end that drew us into the thing and made us really engage with the story. What of the promised stiff drink in the fifth paragraph? What about that eh? We demand the truth God-dammit!". Well there's no need to be like that about it. I could tell you I got so high on the rush of the kill that no stimulation, virtual or physical could ever satisfy me again. I could tell you how I descended into depression and alcoholism, that the stiff drink was a forboding hint at the shame and degredation that was to follow. I could tell you how every night I drown my sorrows in a whiskey bottle, and how I drift into unconsciousness repeating the same words over and over, "Glad you could make it, Uther... Watch your tone with me boy, you may be the prince but I'm still your superior...There's something about the plague you should know...This entire city must be purged...I order you...I'm sorry...I can't watch you do this...".

Or I could say that I had a small celebratory snifter of port before bed. Whichever you think is more likely.

Orange out.

Guild Heroic Rankings

Terribly cheeky of me I know, but I'm going to half-hijack Cursor Vivat to post some new rules for my guild regarding placement in heroic runs. Any guildies looking for The Rules (TM) should skip down to the heading below. For the rest of you, some backstory.

In my wonderful little guild, I hold the rank of Raid Leader jointly with cursorvivat.com contributor Damofez. We have unofficially elected to divide responsability somewhat, with me taking on the duties of Heroic Officer (or Guild Hero as I really wish it was called) and him acting as Raiding Officer (Guild Raider?). As a guild a great deal of our time is spent running Northrend heroics, as we are still in the pre-raid gearing stage, looking to expand our roster of raid-ready level 80s. Thanks to some concerted bullying recruiting of late we have started to see a fair few guildies reaching the level cap on their first characters, and understandably wanting in on our regular heroic runs (9.30 server time, bring cake and scathing wit). This influx of fresh meat has begun to put pressure on 5-man spots which we were previously struggling to fill, and so I have attempted (possibly disastrously) to come up with a fair and impartial way of settling any 'situations' that might arise.

It is my hope that these rules will not be needed for 99% of the time, and will have no noticable effect on the way we run heroics on a day to day (one might even say daily) basis. Whether this is the case remains to be seen. Suffice to say, I'm fully prepared to drop 'em like a newborn child if they turn out to be more trouble than they're worth.

The Rules (TM)

All level 80s are being assigned to one of two ranks for instance runs. The basic rank for all new 80s will be Reserve. In order to be promoted to the higher rank of Core, players will need to fulfil certain criteria related to their role (i.e. dps, healing or tanking). If you want to start running for the Core team, let me (Zambazo) know and I'll keep track of the heroics that you run.

Hopefully this will make no difference to the way we run instances whatsoever. It's just supposed to provide a fair way of resolving situations that might arise, particularly since we've got a large number of new level 80s just starting to want spots in runs. If you have any questions or concerns, please ask me about it :)

Requirementsfor promotion to Core rank:

- Must be a full guild members

- Must have been online within the last month

- Must fulfil the following, depending upon role:

- DPS: 1500 dps or more consistent across 5 DIFFERENT instance runs

- Healers: 10 runs as main healer OR more than 3 runs and the expressed approval of the healing lead

- Tanks: 10 runs as main tank OR more than 3 runs and the expressed approval of the tanking lead, and also be capped at 540 defense rating

Positions are allocated by SPEC, not by character or player. Thus if your dps spec on one character qualifies for core promotion, this DOES NOT necessarily mean that you're tanking off-spec or any of your other characters will automatically be promoted as well.

Players who wish to run Heroics will be given priority as follows:

1: Core Team Tanks or Healers

2: Core Team DPS

3: Reserve Tanks or Healers

4: Reserve DPS

5: PuGs

Final choice of players is, however, subject to the group leader's discretion.

Team rank will be posted in the players' officer notes, to find out your rank ask an officer (they rarely bite).

Good hunting in them heroics!

O.W. (Zambazo)

News

Hello there and welcome to the azeroth news!

Recently there has been no new posts due to many problems from various sources but there is no need to worry!

Why am I so confident you ask? Well instead of the usual boring presenters, today we have none other than General Tuskiness himself presenting the news! *fanfare*

RAWR!

Greetings denzins of Azeroth!

I am the warmonger general Tuskiness DamoFez! And now ill bring you up to speed!

The Guild known as Ancient Dominion is reaching soaring new heights! But there is tension within!

Several new heroes from the guild are reaching the highly esteemed level 80 and are competing with each other for heroic spots! The officers are having to come up with new plans to keep everything controlled, you can cut the tension with a butter knife! And with sarth still at large the guild needs to gather its heroes quickly to tackle the dangers of the Obsidean Sanctum! And not to far away the vile masterminds of Naxxaramas are plotting a new scourge invasion! Ancient Dominion must act quickly to save azeroth from all the dangers which lie within!

So terrible are these perils which face Ancient Dominion that their heroes are having to work day and night perfecting 2 paths of war! Priests not only train to heal but also train to cause harm and damage with the dangerous shadow magic, warlocks are plying more effort into both affliction and destruction to become more dangerous than ever, hunters are spending longer with their pets for beast mastery and still training themselves for marksmanship and survival aspects, paladins are spending the daytime hours perfecting the arts of war and the night time hours praying to divine gods to enhance their healing powers, mages are risking their very existances by alligning themselves to 2 elements and rogues are tackling a more straight forward combat regime aswel as the stereotypical stealth approach. I personally as a warrior am currently continuing my mastery in protection while supplimenting it with specialist arms training. But even after all this the situation is still dire at best.

With all the new bloods reaching the correct criteria to join us in the fight to save azeroth from the evil powers which seek to destroy it from within, we must be strict and push harder for perfection. And to make matters worse the credit crunch has hit azeroth! Citizens all over the world are struggling to make ends meet with their incomes and outcomes, there just isnt enough gold to get everything done! Farming is becoming more of a nessesity daily with the high demands for high quality gear and such short time to obtain it all.

The final training phases are nearly over soon we have no choice but to brave the Obsidean Sanctum and take the 1st step towards thwarting the evils which seek to destroy Azeroth.

So much to do.

So little time to do it in.

Now i must leave you and join the front line to prepare for the assault!

The fate of azeroth rests in the hands of few, we can only pray that they succeed.

DamoFez

SUCCESS!

RAWR!

The fez is here in all his mighty tuskiness!

FINALLY! some nice tank loot dropped for me earlier today in Violet Hold heroic.
Some rather tasty legplates nom!

So what i lose 6 defense rating? (im about 12 over the cap atm anyway lol) i gain 13 strength and 30 stamina! not to mention the nice bonus of an additional 200 and something armour :)

Another point worth mentioning.

FARM TRIAL OF THE CHAMPION ON NORMAL DIFFICULTY!

Ive got a lovely tank trinket from there called the black heart or heart of darkness or something silly like that. 134 stamina! and gives a proc which increases armour bu 2000 and something. very nice for a tank and it procs often!

So now ive given a rather lighthearted post about some success lets hear about somebody elses success?

And dont dispair if you havnt had much loot success recently, your time will come!
(provided you start farming heroics with me hint hint nudge nudge lol)

So ill end this post on a happy RAWR! a RAWR of triumph!

His high-general-warlord-master-of-arms-incredably-amazing-tuskiness

DamoFez

Ways to keep your healer happy

This is a response to Sun's post from the other week. It's a short list of tips designed to foster a more harmonious relationship between warlocks and their beloved healers, because heaven knows Blizzard has provided us with a lot of ways of making them very very cross.

1. Don't use Hellfire

Hellfire is one of our 4 AoEs, (the other three being Rain of Fire, Shadowfury and the awesome Seed of Corruption).

I would like to qualify this somewhat. I would not necessarily suggest banning the spell from the castbar, but opening up with the full 15secs of this spell in front of an unprepared healer is likely to result in your death and a bemused and befuddled healer. Anything that causes you to suffer extra damage beyond that which is flying around the dungeon already as part of the programmed encounter is unlikely to endear you to the healer. The healer's priorities are to keep the tank(s) alive and to mitigate the unavoidable damage that exists as part of the mechanics of a group encounter, be it in a dungeon or raid. Healers are not there to pour their mana into replacing your health just so you can make the floor glow orangey-red while harming yourself.

Having said that, if you do feel you need to use the spell for whatever reason, let your healer know in advance m'kay? And when you discreetly whisper: 'Oh great and benevolent one, is it ok if I use Hellfire in the next encounter?' - do check that they actually know what the spell is and what it's going to do. There are a lot of spells out there. This one is a little bit special/sadistic, and if one considers the mana cost to the healer as well as yourself, in my opinion it isn't worth it.

(My only thoughts on when it might be useful are in those odd situations where a warlock tank is required and the warlock needs to establish threat not only on the special boss/mob, but also on any adds he/she may have. The fact that this spell ticks every one second, has a large radius and that you are likely to have a dedicated healer, means that it could be a very useful tool for quickly establishing and building threat on more than one foe.

2. Don't be a Life Tap idiot.

Life Tap is wonderful. It is even more wonderful with Glyph of Life Tap especially now that the duration of the buff effect has been increased to 40secs from 20.

It is again though, something which lowers our health pool and is a very good way of pissing healers off. Warlocks who go oom and then Life Tap to gain a full mana pool back are inconsiderate idiots. A healer's mana pool is not there to compensate for your own. If the healer has to waste mana healing you to full health because you've tapped your health down to near nothing, then all you are doing is passing the mana deficit on to your long suffering healer.

However, we do need to use Life Tap to gain mana, it's one of our class defining attributes that we do in effect have two mana bars, a green one and a blue one. Even more so now with the glyph of Life Tap providing that rather lovely buff, Life Tap is not so much a utility mechanic as part of our rotation. My best advice for maintaining cordial healer relations is to try to only tap when you're at full health, and when you're not nearly oom (or if you're Affliction specced, anticipating when Haunt is going to return to you, and getting a tap or two in before it does). Tapping when you're down to about half mana has the advantage that should something go wrong, you can Drain Life to gain the health back.

Also, if after a wipe you re buff, get your pet out and then Life Tap to full mana while waiting for the healer to heal you back to full health, rather than eating/drinking/bandaging/using a lightwell - you are an inconsiderate idiot and should go and buy 2 stacks of Honeymint Tea, one for you, and one for your long-suffering healer, to symbolise all the drinks they've had to chug down because you haven't bothered using your own.

3. Situational Awareness

Short Notes:
Fire = Ouch! Burny! Don't stand in it
Dragon = At the front -> Ouch! Burny! At the back -> Ouch! Swipey!
Strange moving objects in boss fights = Ouch!

Some damage, such as Loken's aura, is unavoidable. That is the the sort of damage your healer is there to heal you through. Some damage however, is avoidable, and a lot of boss fights have some elements which will require you to move, even if it means your perfect rotation (and thus your super l33t awesome-to-the-face dps) will be ruined. That's fine. Live with it. Everyone else will have to move too. The point I italicised just then, is that moving out of the damage is something you can LIVE with. Staying in the poison cloud, or the fire will probably kill you, and you can't do any dps if you're dead.

Of course, no one is perfect; sometimes you will stand in bad stuff. Sometimes you won't notice the giant green poision cloud in the new 5-man Argent Tournament dungeon (hint: turn spell detail up a fraction), that's ok, most healers will forgive occasional stupidity. However, if they see you time and again in fire and void-zones, and you're not RP-ing a masochist on an RP server, they're going to think you're lazy very quickly, and might not bother wasting mana healing you through gargantuan amounts of damage.

Remember, if your excuse is always that "you didn't notice", you may find yourself dead, with the healer's only response being that "they didn't notice" you were dying.

4. If you're an affliction warlock, use Corruption

Affliction warlocks get Siphon Life available to them at level 30. If there's a lot of damage flying around, bung it on a mob. Every little helps.

5. Be nice (this is for everyone)

If you're taking damage, or the group is wiping a lot don't just blame the healer. If you're personally taking a lot of damage, look to see if you're standing in bad stuff, and consider using potions/health stones until you can politely ask the healer if you're doing something wrong. If the group is wiping, ask in party chat if anyone has any suggestions or strategies to improve the whole group's performance. Being rude to the healer, especially unjustifiably so, is likely to leave you with no healer to be rude to at all.

If all of that fails, buy your healer kittens, a flower, or maybe a stack of mp5 food, trust me, you'll be covered in HoTs and able to Life Tap to your heart's desire if you do that!

TUSKED FURY!

RAWR! FEEL THE WRATH OF AN ANGRY PROT WARRIOR!

Now as we all know once you hit 80 instead of being given the chorus of congratulations you deserve its an entirely different story. Keeping in mind this is a general view not a guild based view as guilds will often shower you in the praise you so rightfully adore and why shouldnt you?
But anyway onto more pressing and infuriating matters!

RAWR!

That just had to be added lol.

But anyway once you hit level 80 instead of people saying congratulations you are suddenly expected to have all the best gear in the game. Naturally once people start ripping into you you start to think, hang on a minute, ive only just hit 80, I dont get T9 posted to me the second i hit 80! I have to work towards it! But oh no! thats just not good enough for those elitists out there is it?

They seem to find it so difficult to remember that once upona time THEY had only just hit 80 and had crap gear and wernt very capable of doing much. But now that they have been carried by generous people (who really shouldnt do that for jerks like that it only increases the weight on their shoulders as the ego swells and attitude deteriorates further) and therefore have some pretty spunktastic gear.

My warmongering tuskiness (DamoFez) has worked very damned hard to max out both mining and armoursmithing so i can create the best gear creatable in the game which naturally i have done so and equipped. Im now sitting rather cosy on a nice 24.5k health and fully def capped meaning that in theory I can tank pretty much anything the game throws at me. And if you look into the actual game mechanics of WoW it is designed in a way that my character CAN do what he wants to do but its the players that ruin it.

For example: There is ALWAYS (without fail except for guild runs) a complete idiot who belives that if he is top DPS the he is god. There is usually always a tank or healer reminding them that they are not a god and there are in fact the cause of a wipe. Also in the cases of a PuG raid there will be a Main Tank (MT) and an Off tank (OT) now just to be completly clear here the MT takes the big nasty bosses who hit harder than that girl who kicked you in the nuts with them horrible pointy shoes and generally demand the full attention of a main healer while the dps pick away at the nasty big bad boss. The OT is just as important ,although somewhat underated, and their job is to tackle any adds (maurding annoying interfering friends of before mentioned nasty boss) and in many raids can also take an entire healers attention aswel. You will always be able to tell if a raid will fail because some smart arsed tank who has clearly got his head stuck so far up his ass he has gone WAY beyond the lightswitch ,and is randomly looting the alcoves of his rectum for whatever hints of glory he belives to be there, who belives they can furfil both tasks.

My advice in this situation is leave the raid instantly save yourself a costly repair bill.

But alas do i head my own advice? of course not im a tank im not known for my intelligence, just the ability to get hit hard and still stand there with a stupified grin on my face.

One perticular event like this springs to mind during a 10 man raid to the Vault of Archevon (VoA10) I was called in randomly as a PuG OT. Before even joining I told the leader my gear was just about heroic ready, I had 22.5k health at the time, was fully def capped (over infact i was on 549 when def cap is 540) but being the kind person I am I was willing to give it a go to help them. Once i arrived there i noticed something most closly described as a nemesis. An annoying druid tank who seemed to think he was amazing enough to take on the entire world all on his own and if he died it was simply the healers fault. Not really the sort of person you want to work with. In all honesty I would rather smear my genatalia in fish paste and dangle them in a pool of hungry pirahnas, but thankfully for my manhood i decided to try the raid.

As soon as people heard I was the OT instantly people started bickering and moaning but i thought to myself it doesnt matter I will show them I can take a good kicking and still be standing we will see when we get to that boss! Alas things didnt quite go to my fantastic tusky plan. Quite far from my sharpened tusky point in fact as the MT decided he was so amazing he could do both MT and OT himself. How i wish i paid attention to my own advice and just left. Naturally after 1 whole painful minute everybody was dead. And surprise Surprise it was silly druid tank himself who died 1st leaving me to try and tank everything myself (which i did a better job than him i might add).

Of course after the wipe all these elitists needed somebody to blame as they are all so elite it cant possibly be their fault can it? No surely not they are elite they do everything right they are the almighty! Or so they let themselves belive at any rate. Hence i am immediatly kicked from the group and thrown many whispers of various insults which I need not go into here, despite my witty retorts the insults just kept on coming. Seriously how do you stop these people with the social grace of a pubic louse from harrassing you? Even ignore doesnt work they get somebody else to pass their messeges on for them!

Feeling shunned upset and most certainly demoralised I decided to see what other gear I could find cheap on the general market. I did happen to find some rather tasty shoulders which set me back a hefty 550G. Something which caused pain at the time but I have recently discovered they are actually valued over 1k so im rather happy about it now. To top it off i decided to scrap my block rating bonus from my boots and create my own boots with a bigger stamina boost. After arranging for a few enchants (curtosy of my incredably beautiful mage MagixFez) i had bumped my health upto 24.5k. Now feeling somewhat better for myself I decided to pursue the game the same way i usually do. AVOID PuGs AT ALL COSTS!

Although occassionally you will meet genuinly kind nice players in PuGs its just a lot more likly you will meet a group of elitist jerks who will only boo and jeer at your every move so im guessing the moral of this post, despite to relive my own stress, is to try and avoid PuGs as much as you can stick with your friends and Guildies (who usually are your friends hence why you are guildied with them).

Well now thats out of the way im curious to hear what you all think of my 1st serious post and perhaps ill add others as time continues. Until then.

Live Free Die Well

DamoFez

"U come heal us is AN"

Healing, oh bittersweet joy. Random whispers from unknown players... all assuming that you will jump to the chance to go healing.

You know, i do love healing. But it isn’t always a joy. There is this thing called PuG. Something I shun like other people shun asparagus/gnomes since I hit level cap. Why is that you might wonder? Personally it’s my view that the healer has the worst time in a bad PuG. When the tank is undergeared, the dps is trigger happy the healer is a wet puddle on the instance floor, struggling to keep the joke of a team up. Not seldom to the sneers and accusations from the group. A good tank is always a good tank and can save a party from the most disasterous mayhem of loose aoe and a stray shot pull. And as an dps... you proabably get a few remarks and probably some comment about inadequate dps... even if the tank/healer is horrible undergeared/lack skill/social manners. But it’s no way near as distressing as going as healer.

Now healing a group of friends and /or guildies is a whole different story. Everyone know their place and their task, there is no competetion. You know people take steps to keep you safe in all situations. That they will come to your aid when you been foolish and managed to pull half an instance cause you had a case of YDD. In a party of friends I know that I might need to be ready to put an extra HoT or basicly everything I have in stock on a player that might hit a crit spree and suddenly have a face full of mob. For a friend we have that extra care.

In a PuG... Mr Platebrain tries and swat a mob to death with what must be a blunt stick while the dps managed to 1, pull an extra group and patrol 2, didnt let tank build aggro so all mobs plays tag with the dps... with a special set of rules. In a PuG no one cares if the warlock you never met before dies (except the warlock) cause of meter psycos. Well... almost doesn’t care. I do have my pride as a healer. But some people just cant be helped. You never know what you get in a PuG. But I want the safety in knowing that the tank keeps an eye backwards that my friends in case of need will forget all about dps and number ratings and rush to save me from a squishy death. So it’s a huge safety.. and often a lot of fun to go with friends.

But yet, as fond as I am of them, some of my darling guildies/friends doesn’t seem to know exactly why I get an allergic reaction when the subject PuG comes up (or someone mentions instance achivements... another of my big in game allergies). Something my dps friends doesnt seem to grasp is how big the toll is on me as a healer. Or the frustration of a bad PuG. Healing a badly geared group, or a party of hotheads is absolutly exhausting. A typical PuG is very spammy for me. I’m almost always casting something and must be fully focused the whole time. It’s 100% or people start to drop In a PuG you often get more fragile players... the gears often aren’t up to heroic instance standard. Or you just get morons that think pulling aggro of the tank is a proof of their awesomeness and that makes my job very hard indeed. Two hit and your dead not defense caped tanks/badly geared trigger happy dps usally means I have to keep HoTs ticking on multiple targets, PoM jumping around, shields and heals. So suddenly I need to be psychic aswell and know when to throw heals on the little eager glass cannon before he pull aggro from the tank. And apart from that I need to protect my own rear, focus on all life bars and from the partys position be prepaired from additional hazards and mobs. It is very draining to be that attentive and aware. And at the same time I’m being called “noob” and other nice things from ignorant players that doesn’t have a clue how healing works or what I’m going through.

Healing isnt hard, but it’s intense. If my focus drift I can easily loose a player in a heart beat. So I just have the energy to carry a PuG through an instance. And not to mention the costs of all mana potions and drinks I use up during a run... The mana it takes to keep them up just is ridiculous... Especially compaired to a nice smooth guildrun.

So, just say no to PuGs... and be nice to your healer. Or you will find yourself without a healer. Cause I know for sure dps is so relaxing to play in comparison

Orange 1, Blogger Nil.

Note to self: Don't try to import blog articles directly from Google Docs into Blogger. According to the Troubleshooting guide, the differences between Documents and Blogs are resolved during the transfer process by a cutting edge conversion module know as "html-code rape-o-matic 2000". Unfortunately, further probing on my part lead me to discover that this does to carefully written and formatted blog posts what a bag of angry stoats does to, well pretty much anything. I retrieved my shredded and soiled post a few hours later and repaired it with the aid of Microsoft Notepad's Special Medicinal Cure. Unfortunately (again), I forgot to include the anti-stoat kernel in the new html, and thus was my post cruelly mangled a second time. Now, at long last I have defeated the evils of Blogger and uploaded something vaguely resembling the article I originally wanted to write. Victory is mine. Until next time we meet in battle Google, fare thee well.

In other news, my good-for-nothing broken sh%$£y fu&*£d-up laptop is still not back from the repair shop. Lyriel and I are off to the zoo tomorrow, and thanks to my now critical Wowdrawl I shall be resisting the urge to set fire to all furry beasts in a 30 yard radius in order to harvest their precious hides with a spork.

Until my next post, most probably from some kind of PETA correctional facility, I bid you adieu. Stay safe, and eviter les hermines.

Orange.

Where, oh where has my little 'lock gone?

Or…

Men are from Azeroth, Women are from Outland.

Edit: Apologies for repeated posting...attempting to defeat the evil format-monster of doom.

"We're not in Kansas any more"

I used to love Quest Helper, back when it was still being updated. Its genius I think lay in essentially removing the need for players to worry about the potentially tedious business of finding their way around. Epic migrations across the vast continents of Azeroth became a simple matter of following the twinkling yellow line towards your quest's end. Just like in that other adventure where they follow the yellow line, you could skip merrily along with your companions: shiny tin men, furry lions or leathery scarecrows desperately lacking for brains. From time to time you might have needed to dodge assaults from flying monkeys, but in terms of navigational complexity questing was about as challenging as taking candy from a gnome (and yet somehow just as fun).

That perhaps the most downloaded and depended-upon addon to emerge from the wow community was essentially an in-game GPS suggests just how important travel and navigation is in this game. I love speeding across the ever (and often abruptly) changing landscape on Charles the dragon, but I have found that for some of my friends travel can become an awkward and disrupting nuisance. It's an old (by which I mean borderline sexist) cliche that women can't read maps, but it has become something of a running joke in our guild that two of our female members spend most dungeons at the back of the group, missing exits, taking wrong turnings and in extreme cases, entering instances from the wrong end. Prejudiced comments aside I think the question of whether men and women do genuinely differ in the way they 'think' is of interest to a great many people. Since Wow has such an uncommonly large female player base, it must have something that other games lack to attract not just women, but all people who are not usually big gamers. I've decided to do a bit of research to find out what Science (with a capital 'S') has to say about this, using my 2/3 of a psychology degree as a point of reference. Read on...if you dare.


Human Mating; Electrodes; Imagination

In psychology persistent differences between groups of individuals are called 'Individual Differences' (we're an inventive bunch), and this term is applied not just to divisions of gender, but also race, age, or any other measurable factor one might care to investigate. This is an important point, since although many of the studies I have come across deal with differences between the sexes, in all cases the researchers (being good scientists) qualify their findings as trends rather than absolutes. It is entirely possible that some men might perform cognitive operations in a distinctly 'female' way, that is to say, with biases or tendencies more commonly found in women. And of course the reverse is true, all as a result of the random nature of human mating (have you seen human mating? It's a pretty random affair). Some women can read maps. Some women can read maps better than some men. Some men can talk maturely about their feelings, appreciate Sex in the City, and walk past a field of sheep without feeling the need to go 'baaah'. It's called the bell curve bitches, welcome to scienceville.

Amongst my psychologist buddies, we have a little test we like to administer when people ask about navigation and sex. First we attach a few electrodes to the scalp, and administer a small electric shock (this isn't in any way relevant to the test but it makes us feel better). We then ask the person to give us directions from say, their house to the local pub, and whilst doing so to think about how they visualise the route taken. Let's kick up the interaction a notch now (BAM!) and get you to try this. As you are probably a WoW player, I'd be interested to try this with some virtual landmarks. The kind of route to request is one that is not too complex, but equally one not so familiar as to be thoughtlessly accessible. I suspect most of you will be large and mighty level 80s by now, long since departed from old stomping grounds in Eastern Kingdoms or Kalimdor, so how about you describe the route between your main's racial starting area and his or her local capitol city. Directions need to be clear enough for someone who's never even heard of Azeroth, and while you give them pay attention to what your brain is doing.

The two most common responses are as follows: Some people see themselves moving through the landscape in smooth motion, possibly as a dot moving across a map. Others see a series of static 1st person pictures, akin to a slide show of key landmarks throughout the journey. I'll tell you later which is characteristically female and which is male. Of course, you might not see it like either of these. I have come across a few people with entirely different descriptions, and considering how complex and mutable an organ the brain is this is hardly surprising. I also have a sneaking suspicion that the 3rd person perspective used by 99% of WoW players might skew the results somewhat. Anyway, let me know your answers, especially if they fall outside the archetypes I described above. Ask your friends. Spread the good word of psychology to the masses.


Euclid played a Shaman?

Anyway, enough with the fascinating but irrelevant, now for some real science. In 2002 some researchers from the universities of York and Saskatchewan gave participants a real-world navigation task (also called 'wayfinding') in which they had to find an unfamiliar location on a university campus based upon one of two types of instructions. Half the participants were told key landmarks to aim for (Head for the physics department, take a right at the large hadron collider, don't stand in the void zones black hole) whilst the other half were given so-called 'Euclidean' instructions (100 meters north, 30 meters east etc). Overall they found that men made significantly fewer mistakes than women, and tended to reach their destination quicker. Further separation of the results showed that the differences were largely due to women having difficulty when given the Euclidean-type instructions (there was little difference between the groups guided by landmarks). Further testing with a pen-and-paper task involving plotting a route on a map grid found similar results. The patterns of results suggested that men could use both strategies well in either situation, whereas women tended to only be comfortable when using the landmarks. Now right away this starts to seem a little bit like what I got you to do earlier with the directions, and indeed the common finding from self-report questionnaires (and highly unscientific blog articles) is that women tend to use the landmark strategy in imagined and real life situations, whilst men concentrated on the Euclidian aspects of a route.


On the Inversion of Penguins

Obviously in most real-life situations we have the option of using whatever strategy we like, and so such clear differences don't emerge. But psychologists like to try and isolate them becuase that way they get to play with the shiny machines (we do so love our shiny machines). In the wayfinding study they managed to find a correlation between participants' performance and the well-studied process of 'mental-rotation', which is basically what you do when you try and imagine an upside-down penguin. Unfortunately they couldn't persuade the university of Saskatchewan to let them carry a very expensive shiny machine around the campus suspended a few inches over the participants' heads, luckily some more psychologists who really loved shiny machines (and probably computer games too) went on to give participants wayfinding tasks in a computer-simulated 3D environment, which was itself inside a large and extremely shiny functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI). In doing so they produced some quite extraordinarily shiny pictures scans which basically showed that participants who were better at mental rotation were not only better at map-like, Euclidian learning, but importantly showed less brain activity (at least in certain areas) when doing it. This would indicate that men tend to be better at navigation because they don't have to use their brains as much when interpreting the geometric and spatial aspects of a route. Extrapolating slightly this might mean that in real life they are better able to use both this information and useful landmarks. Women by contrast are perhaps inclined to rely more exclusively on landmarks, because it requires less cognitive effort for them than processing Euclidian information.

At this point once again I should like to point out how none of what I'm talking about is meant as an absolute. One of the most convincing explanations for men's greater spatial ability is based on the fact that during early infancy, female brains develope faster in the left hemisphere than male brains. The left hemisphere is fairly well established as the 'language half', which is why girls tend to learn to read and write faster than boys. However, this early advantage tends to slow progression in the right hemisphere somewhat, at least when compared to boys. The slight advantage persists into adulthood, and so we at least partially explain, in a roundabout sort of way, that girls get lost more because their brains aren't as good as boys'. I guess is turns out Mother Nature actually possesses the egalitarian sensibilities of a bigoted Victorian male.


Dénouement (Horses)

Anyway, to drag the article kicking and screaming back to WoW, what implications might this have for the game? Well, probably none to be honest. Though one of the most consistent ways of finding sex differences in navigational ability is when testing with 3D interactive simulations, a great deal of this can likely be put down to the natural law that girls don't play computer games, so aren't as used to them. It's easy to forget this as a WoW-gamer, especially if you're one of the ones who is a girl and/or has a girlfriend. I suspect that women who play WoW might be a lot better at navigation than their non-gamer sisters thanks to all the practice they get in a pretty challenging environment. Coming back to the female guildies I mentioned at the start, though they do still provide the occasional amusing anecdote (half and hour to find the exit from Halls of Stone anyone?), they have got so much better in the year or so that I've been playing with them. Of course to be sure I'd have to test this theory...any volunteers out there?

So congratulations Blizzard, your game helps women overcome a centuries-old prejudice caused by an intractable biological disadvantage. If Nature is a sexist Victorian, Blizzard are chaining themselves to railings and being run over by horses (You go Ghostcrawler!). Crass generalisations aside though, it is still the case that men will have a natural advantage in an integral aspect of Warcraft, which makes me wonder if there might be something Blizz could do about it.

One study I found showed that sex differences are exaggerated in environments that are spatially ambiguous. To cite a WoW example, ever tried to talk your girlfriend out of Sunken Temple? As far as I know mine's still down there. Symmetrical dungeon design or particularly featureless game zones are, I think you'll agree, often the most irritating or boring areas to play in, and I suspect this may stem from having to spend ages working out where the hell you are. Blizzard's dungeon maps are a fantastic addition to the game, but I know that many of my guild mates, particularly the female ones, find them next to useless. Maybe they could be improved, particularly for girl gamers by adding some landmarks like the ones you see on those beautiful northrend zone maps. What the hell let's go crazy with the recommendations, cover the whole map in landmarks. Add tooltip images with screenshots or artwork views of important features. Give those Blizzard artists something to doodle in their lunch-breaks, "500 thumbnail sketches of castles, mountains and exciting trees from a player's-eye-view please. Yes Gary I know they all use the same models...we think that may be part of the problem". Make all this an optional overlay so that the boys can turn them off if they want to flex their Euclidian man-brains, and you've got yourself a big fat feature for the next patch. Thank me later Blizz, I accept Emblems of Conquest and cookies. Mainly cookies.


Orange.



References

Saucier, D. M., and Green, S. M. (2002). Are sex differences in navigation caused by sexually dimorphic strategies or by differences in the ability to use the strategies? Behavioural Neuroscience, 116(3), p403-410.

Shelton, A. L., and Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2004). Neural correlates of individual differences in spatial learning strategies. Neuropsychology, 18(3), p442-449.

Coluccia, E., and Louse, G. (2004). Gender differences in spatial orientation: A review. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(3), p329-340.

Coluccia, E., and Martello, A. (2004). The role of visuo-spatial working memory in geographical orientation: A correlational study. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, 3, p523-552.

Sunfire joins the ranks

Well since the other introduced themselves it’s polite of me to try the same. Hello, I’m Sunfire, and I’m an altholic(commanding an army of slightly confused belfcharacters). But that’s not my only problem, oh no. I never been a real gamer. For starters i’m a keyturner. Jeeeez, I just cant shake the habit of moving, turning and navigating with the keys. I often click abilities aswell. As an altholic I play a multiple classes and I really need to play a long time consistenly to start using the fast abilty commands. and even then its sporadic... and usally not using more then 3-5 abilities at most.. then I need to click to find the other skills I might need to use. And by some reason... whenever I tab to get the next target I have the nack to pick a mob far away from the one my group is currently bashing/chopping/burning/scolding/freezing/having a disco of pretty murderous aoe light on.

So why people put up with my is still a bit of a mystery. But I suppose the key is to blame lag/closest hunter or other party member of your choice. Or gnomes, you can always blame gnomes... Shifty little buggers.

What I will write here, I really dont know yet. It will certainly not be theorycrafting. Say a number and see my brain shut down in seldefence. Hitting level cap is somewhat frustrating if you just want a simple answer telling you how much of each stat to aim for... and only get formulas and shifty answers in return. And try ask a guy how much penetration you need when you just happen to be a female player... Yes not a very mature response...

So, to try and get back to the subject... what you cant expect from me. Well misspelling and some very odd typos for a starter. Other then that I hope to atleast dont dissapoint my fellow writers here on the blog... The rest of you lot, baaah, cant be bothered to care what you think. You probably play alliance anyway. Unless you play horde your opinion is insignificant.

Damn, I lack a catchy signature.... Waily waily

RAWR FEZ!

So after much stress i finally work out exactly how this whole thing works. Im tellin ya im far to busy either combing my incredably sexual belf hair or admiring my trolly tusks depending on what im doing of course. Somebody give me an idea what to post since im somewhat stumped at the moment :P

My Two Golds'-worth

Welcome to Cursor Vivat, oh gentle and sexy reader, a blog which could at this stage turn out to be about pretty much anything. One reason for this post is to provide a general introduction and game plan, more for the authors' benefit than anything else. The main reason for it is that my other first post was a 2000+ word discussion of the psychology of spatial navigation as it relates to the gender divide in World of Warcraft, which I felt would be somewhat jumping in at the deep end, if said deep end was in fact a volcano, possibly containing sharks. Flying sharks. Flying sharks on fire.

Anyway, throughout the course of this little endeavour you will hear from me, my lovely lady Lyriel, and hopefully two of our guild mates and good friends, Sunfire and Damofez. The others will I'm sure introduce themselves once they get posting (or just launch straight away into vitriolic tirades against their latest moron-filled Pug), and hopefully once you know a bit about us that will give some idea of what we are likely to be writing about. To illustrate, I play a troll shaman as my main, and so will probably end up writing on such topics as healing, zapping people with lovely lightning, the joy of tusks, or the importance of Mojo in a modern consumerist society. I have also for a long time filled the role of guild tank with my death knight, so may on occasion throw some tin-can love into the mix or rage about omen-blind dps and why they should be burnt at the stake.

Finally, aspects of my 'real life' (for want of a better term) may sometimes worm their way into my posting. You will probably hear a lot about my take on psychology in World of Warcraft, as I study this at university. My next post for example will be on why girl-gamers can't find their way out of dungeons, as I feel a good way to start my blogging career would be to alienate half the demographic. Anyway, that's all from me. I hope you enjoy reading Cursor Vivat, whatever it turns out to be. Once we know ourselves, I'm sure we will let you know. Untill then, bon voyage et evite les squales.

Orange.

Hello world, it's me, Lyriel

Hi, I'm Lyr and most of the time in game I can be found playing a Warlock as despite having been playing for just over a year, it's the only class I've managed to play all the way to 80. I'm probably going to be writing mostly about the various aspects of the warlock class and making terrible jokes (idea for a potential email response column: "(Curse of) Agony Aunts"). Apart from clearing Naxx 10 Arachnid Quarter once, and an incredibly lucky VoA where both bosses dropped warlock tokens, I don't raid, yet I still try to provide competent dps, and many of the blog posts will be focussed on how to play as well as you can without being a full time raider clearing Ulduar 25 every night.
I am absolutely dreadful at pvp and avoid it like the (ebon) plague, so there is likely to be very little in the way of warlock-based pvp advice.


As well as cackling, green-fire filled posts, I intend to muse pseudo-philosophically on issues such as world-building, real life stories and events that lore and races are based on, and the ubiquitous tropes about girl gamers. I'd also like to write about some of WoW's music as it is extraordinarily good, but I wouldn't hold your breath for that post - in fact if you suffer any shortness of breath while reading Cursor Vivat I would recommend checking for stealthed rogues using Strangulate on you. Outside of WoW I love kids' literature and fantasy literature and any combinations thereof, as well as the usual interests in comedy, good bands, trashy american tv such as Gossip Girl and giraffes.


It just remains for me to say that you're very welcome into the hive-mind of our guild, we all hope you enjoy our ramblings and maybe even find out things to make WoW (even) more enjoyable and that there's a real post coming up in the next few days. So long darlings, and thanks for all the feesh,


Lyr