Scalable Instances

Why oh why can't Blizzard make instances scalable to the number of people who enter?(It should be noted that my main is covered in "welfare epics" and my other 70 has simple blues and greens because this is all the content I have time for, not because of leet puprz)

It burns me up to think of all the content in this game that I will NEVER see. There is absolutely no way most people will ever get to see the best parts of the game. I don't care about the gear. I just want to see the zones and experience the fights.

I don't understand why Blizzard does it. Why do they develop so much content only to restrict it to the few people who have the time to spend 4-5 hours a day playing? Don't we all pay the same amount? Why can't instances be scalable? I don't expect to have the time and flexibility to be able to be the first person to see the new content but sure as hell want to see it eventually!

It happened first with BWL and Nax when TBC came out. These places are all but deserted now. Now it is destined to happen again with most of the BT, Eye and who knows what else once WotLK is released. I guess I can always keep raising my rogue in hopes of stealthing parts of it at level 80.

Raid vs. Pvp Rewards -- The Real Answer

I understand Raiding takes a lot of time and effort, Pvp does too. I also understand the people who excel at these deserve to be rewarded properly. But rewarding them with "better gear" is not the answer. Simply because as soon as the next batch of content (Pvp or Pve) comes out that gear is just trashed and any sense of accomplishment is gone. They need to be rewarded with "unique gear" (not just in color). Something along the lines of the "Champion of the Narru" or Gladiator titles. Or perhaps the "Purple Trophy Tabard of the Illidari" (I know that is not raid level gear, just an example). And I don't mean unique as in just one drops each time you take 5 hours to kill one boss. I mean unique as in each raid member gets a "My guild made it to the Black Temple and all I got was this lousy teeshirt" kind of deal.

I still have my Benediction staff because it's unique, not because it's a great staff. I don't use it but I can whip it out and cart it around to show it off as an accomplishment in the game. I'm sure the same goes for many GM staffs.

If Blizzard would stop re-shading and upgrading stats on old gear and work on unique equipment/rewards this whole argument would go away.

I know there is the whole argument about performance issues and character models and how much RAM is required but that just doesn't make sense to me. The idea of unique is that there aren't thousands of them. If there were a few people on each server it wouldn't create that much overhead (the unique mounts for example).

How many people on each server get to see the real end game content? Is it too much to ask that they can show it off for more than a couple months? In Arena Pvp you have titles with some meaning why not more of this in for the raiders? Perhaps this gear does exist but is indeed so rare that most people never even seen it.

It seemed for a short time there we had a distinct division between Pvp and Pve rewards. There was the title system for Pvp, restricted barracks, and officers quarters. There was unique gear for raiders (tiers 1-3) and unique Pvp gear. I think the problem started when Blizzard got lazy and started merging this gear (the graphics anyway). At least the weapons haven't fallen into this trap. It is usually easy to tell a Raider from a Pvper by the weapon they carry. Why can't armor be the same way?

There is clearly a distinction between playing style, there should be the same distinction in gear.

Blog links added

I added a load of Blog links on the right side. Too bad I can't list them all. I may add some as I get a chance to read them. I chose the names that stood out and looked to be active. Hopefully some will return the favor.

NoGold.org

I recently found an ad for NoGold.org on the main Blizzard site and immediately joined. The site offers a list of active gold sellers for Webmasters to use with Adsense to filter gold sellers from their sites. I quickly updated mine. Google's filtering mechanism doesn't allow for wildcards which can make it difficult due to the large number of sites and possible URLs. Hopefully this can raise awareness and put some pressure on the business that continues to plague the gaming industry.

Non Combat Pets

There are two types of pets you can have in WoW: agressive and non-aggressive. Aggressive pets are pets who can do damage. They are the Hunter's tamed beasts, the Warlock's summoned demons, the Engineer's created combat toys (dragons and chickens and yeti), even mages and priests have minor pets in The Burning Crusade. Non-aggressive pets are just graphical pets that follow you around. You can have both types out at the same time. This guide is centered around non-aggressive pets (my hunter is only in his 40s). Throughout this guide when I refer to 'pets' I am referring to the non-aggressive type.

Pets are usable by either Horde of Alliance although obtaining some of them can be difficult. The neutral auction houses are always a viable option but be prepared to pay more.

There have been many new pets added with The Burning Crusade. I will gradually add what information I can get. The main addition is a vendor in the Stormspire in Netherstorm. This is a neutral location where you can buy snakes, rabbits and my favorite; the mana wyrm. Some of them are quite expensive but worth it if you ask me. In the Exodar you can buy very nice different color moth pets. These are much nicer than the collectors edition Nether Drake (we got the shaft). Many other interesting pet quests have been added including a magical crawdad that requires a high level fishing.

Dianius' Pet Guides

World of Warcraft's tamable pets

Mind Vision Antics

Mind Vision
Originally uploaded by loatswil

I was bored while waiting for the AB queue the other day so I started using Mind Vision on various NPCs. It's amusing to see how far you can get jumping from one to another. You can even use rabbits and squirrels to get around. I managed to get all the way to Searing Gorge when I grabbed someone who jumped on a griffon. There must be a distance limit at some point. Here are some interesting facts about Mind Vision.

• You can recast on the current subject just by retargetting them
  
• You can use any NPC including rabbits, snakes and squirrels
  
• Screenshots will cancel the spell and take a screenshot where you are standing, not from the subject
  
• The subject can see the spell on them but can't cancel it
  

I will update this as I discover new facts about the mystery behind Mind Vision.

Miss Danna and Beer Goggles

Miss Danna
Originally uploaded by loatswil

Miss Danna and Belbi's Eyesight Enhancing Romance Goggles make for an interesting pair.

Grid and Clique

Update - 01-11-23

So, they finally rolled this into the game via Keybindings. You can finally configure Click Bindings in the game. I'm not sure when it was added, but it works fairly well aside from Macros. The frames seem to eat the click when using Macros so the spell is just cast on yourself. Maybe I'm just not doing it right. I'll keep experimenting. But for now, one less addon!

UPDATE - 06-23-2018

I no longer use Grid, but Clique remains a part of my Addon list. I just don't think Blizzard will ever bake that functionality into the game.

First let me say that I am not a huge Addon fan. I have a few but I consider myself a minimalist at heart. Currently I use Auctioneer, Bagnon, Recount, Grid and Clique. These are the few Addons that I have been unable to do without or replace by some function of the default GUI.

I have a Druid, Priest and Pally all in their 80s so I've been around the block when it comes to healing. I don't have a lot of Raid experience (outside of Molten Core) but I've done my share of heroics (haven't we all).

I have heard it all before "If you can't heal without mods then I wouldn't want you healing in my raid..." blah blah blah... Well, I am sorry but using the default interface just limits what you can do. If Blizzard didn't want you to be able to change how targets appear when they were out of range, they shouldn't have built the function into the GUI and made it available to Addons.

The main reason I use Grid is because I can see all the raid targets and know who I can and can't heal/decurse/dispell with 1 single click. I can tell if they are out of range. I can tell if they have a HoT on them. I can even tell if they have aggro. That just can't be done with the default GUI. Cataclysm has brought some improvements on this but it's just not hte same clean interface you get with Grid.

With the default UI raid window sure I can drag groups out. I can even drag classes out to be on my screen. But, I can't tell when they are out of range and I can't tell what buffs/dots they have (without targeting them). Grid allows me to do that very easily. It can even filter DoTs to show only the ones I need to worry about.

Clique allows me to assign up to 8 spells to each mouse button (left or right). At first you want to disable all unit frames aside from the ones associated with Grid (under Clique's options). This way you can still target and right-click targets just like normal and mouse-overs only apply to the Grid.

Click
Alt-Click
Shift-Click
Cntrl-Click
Alt-Shift-Click
Alt-Cntrl-Click
Cntrl-Shift-Click
Cntrl-Alt-Shift-Click

This gives you an amazing array of options for single click mouse-over casting. You don't have to worry about targeting or even pressing a function key. This can also be done via macros but you have far fewer choices. I can leave my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand on the mouse and heal, heal heal!

I try to make all my actual healing spells different variants of the left-click and utility spells all on the right-click. This way I can have renew, gheal, flash heal, PoM, penance/CoH, and binding heal all on my left-click and buffs, shield, dispell and cure disease on right-clicks.

Couple this ability with Grid's status display and it makes healing very easy and efficient. I am constantly on the top of the healing chart in any BG (unless I defend a tower or something).

Give it a shot. I guarantee you'll be hooked.

--Wil

Tankspot Grid Tutorial
Basic Grid Options
Shadow Weaving Grid Config
Configuring Grid - Youtube

Auction House Antics

Auction House Antics
Originally uploaded by loatswil

A guild-mate showed me how to get on the balcony of the AH in Stormwind the other day. It can make for quite a show.

On route to SW

Elwyn Forest
Originally uploaded by loatswil

Quick screenshot of Elwyn on the way to Stormwind.