Open Letter & Videos

I was pointed to a very good thread in the suggestion forum: A letter in support of RPing. Read it, spread the word... i doubt it will change much, but kudos for the initiative and the post!

Talking about WoW videos... after the cool Blackwing Lair The Movie from Curse-Guild i recently saw another great movie about BWL. The German guild Concilium created a long video: Concilium VS BWL. The recruiting part in the beginning is a bit lengthy (you start to hope hes not recruiting all 40 people *g*) and in the end you think the creator smoked too much Fadeleaf, but else it's another very well made video about BWL.

On a sidenote, i forgot to mention the Manual of Revenge VI as the third warrior book to be found in AQ20. Talking about AQ20, you can download a video about it from the guild Hadouken here:
http://aksb.com/ardente/AQ20Man1&2.wmv
(quite a bad movie but shows some boss fights)

50 Lucky Red Envelopes in the mail... 50 Lucky..

This morning i collected the last coin i was missing. The one in Maurodon can be gathered by a lvl 60 without fighting any mobs - depending where Rotgrib is lurking. ;)

So now i got all 50 coins... a bit disappointing tho, as nothing special is happening and no special letters arrived after collecting all. I also think they should at least have offered a new cooking recipe (does not have to have a new food buff, just a crazy name and funny icon) for those that are neither tailors nor engineers. Not sure yet how I'll spend my coins.

First thing today was to page a GM (aka customer service) as i wanted to know if they fixed Omen. The GM had no idea the encounter was bugged and could not tell me if it was fixed, but wanted to pass the info along. *sigh* Does anyone else think they should use a better CM to operate their information flow? I also think they should send you an ingame mail after they fixed an encounter you reported as broken - would save some time of checking it over and over again.
Just by chance i went to Moonglade, and surprise, the fight against Omen was just going on! I took my sword and jumped into the battle. He has a nasty AoE attack, but the graveyard is not far away. After killing him you need to stand in the light beam to recieve your buff to complete the quest - it's taking forever, so just stand in the light until you get it. The Elune's Lantern you get as a reward produces Elune Stone, one every 24 hours. I think it's a great flavour item and compared to the Elder's Moonstone they are not bop and you can trade/sell them. Great fun in my opinion... perfect spotlight for player made events.

On a sidenote about Ahn'Qiraj, Tigole confirmed here that the legendary mount can only be obtained during the ten hour war event, but the rest of the quest and the four epic weapons can be obtained after the gate is open as well. There are also three quests (1,2,3) only available during that war event. Those give you 800 reputation with different factions and you do not have to kill the large raid bugs at the hives to complete those quests.

Lunar Festival - Gotta Catch'em All!

Today the Lunar Festival started... in all main cities there are areas where you can watch cool firework launchers in action. Those look really great! There is a quest which rewards you with an invitation for the "real" celebrations in Moonglade. Unfortunately this quest is bugged... it was for me in the beginning. I had to abandon it, take it again in Stormwind and finish it in Ironforge to get it working. *sigh* The great thing about using those teleport beams is, they work in both directions... and in Moonglade are the beams maybe 2m apart. Regardless of the 8min cooldown on the invitation, you can save some time with using them smart.

All over Azeroth are Elder Ghosts spread out, some at very remote locations. If you talk to them you gain from each a Coin of Ancestry. In total there seem to be 50 Elders, so you can gain 50 of those coins. The coins you can use in Moonglade to "buy" stuff. Engineers and tailors will be very happy, as they can learn new recipes - schematics for portable firework/cluster launchers and pattern for the red version of those festive dress/suit.

So far i collected 49/50 coins (I was too lazy to get the last one tonight), but alas no new recipe for alchemy or cooking. Some hours after each visit of an elder they will also send you a lucky envelope that can contain lucky rockets or moonstones (you can use to "summon" one of those beams). The biggest quest connected to the festival is the raid quest for Omen. On Argent Dawn we could not test it yet, as the quest is bugged and we can't summon his servants or him at all. The GMs said it's being investigated but the whole day Blizzard was not able to fix it. *sigh* In the sum up a nice festival and great fireworks tho.

If you need help finding all the elders, have a look here:
Coins of Ancestry
list of lunar fest elders

Warrior Reading Material

From what i hear about the AQ20 instance, all "improved skill" class books and glove enchants can be found at the bosses there. The two interesting ones for us warriors are Manual of Heroic Strike IX (increases melee damage by 157) and Manual of Battle Shout VII (increasing the attack power by 232). So let's hope the war preparations are finished fast, so we can begin with the games. I'm not sad that Argent Dawn is not the first server, when i hear that still some boss encounters in AQ seems to be bugged.

On a sidenote, many guilds on servers started raffles to motivitate their server population to participate more at the war efforts. Now some GMs say that's like illegal gambling... can you imagine such a stupid thing? Here is one link that shows how Blizzard works... or not. ;)
AQ War Effort Raffles illegal?!

Just a little bit more garlic...

So I'm traveling in this remote swathe of land and stop for a bite to eat at this tiny & ugly hut. The country wench owning that place welcomes me for some coin. All i said was: "This stew could use a little bit more of garlic..." and look what this witch did to me! Hopefully the physician in Ironforge will fix it.


Referring back to Vaelastrasz, i saw a funny post from Tigole mentioning the top 10 most dangerous monsters (measured by number of killed players):
1. Vaelastrasz the Corrupt
2. Defias Pillager
3. Stormpike Bowman
4. Korrak the Bloodrager
5. Ancient Core Hound
6. Gadgetzan Bruiser
7. Defias Trapper
8. Cat (refers to tamed hunter pets aka PvP kills)
9. Stormpike Guardsman
10. Blackwing Legionnaire

New rumours about using the scepter for the AQ gong say, that the time window to use more scepters (after the event has already started) is ten hours. Not that much, so better coordinate your server efforts.

I saw more screenshots AQ related here:
www.aq.stealgames.com

*pssssst* He is sleeping...

Yesterday we went to Blackwing Lair for some fun. We finally managed to kill Razorgore! The fight in his room is very chaotic - the task for the raid is to crowd control 40-50 mobs while someone controls the dragon and breaks all the eggs. Once all the eggs are broken, the mobs flee and the real fight against Razorgore starts. Sounds easy? Right.
For the fact we only started to visit BWL recently, we made good & fast progress. The fight yesterday was very clean in the first part, only one person dead at the start of phase II. After the fight one of our tanks could enjoy his new Spineshatter

After Razorgore we went into the next room to face Vaelastrasz the Corrupt. Hes a huge dragon and is sleeping when you enter the room - so all can move around freely, as long as they don't make too much noise. *wink*
Vael has the nasty habit to "burn" through the tanks. We had some serious fun in this encounter and got him to 16% (he is already down to 30% when you meet him) - not bad for the first time. It was a bomb-astic night. =)

On a sidenote i tried out a new masterloot addon, which gives you a better interface to assign loot to the raid members. I'm a bit reluctant to try out things like this, but the code and mod seems to work very well. I'll do more testing soon. You can find the mod here: Easy Master Loot

Some more news from Ahn'Qiraj reached me. The person who uses the scepter on the gong will not only be granted with the legendary mount, he can also choose one of the four weapons from the screenshot. Indeed an epic reward. O.o
So far i know that one player on horde and one player on alliance side used their scepter. I'm still waiting for confirmation if more then one person from the same side can use it during the war event.

The first reports from AQ20 yield, that you can get the improved class skill books from those bosses. In addition groups found the Formula: Enchant Gloves - Frost Power and Formula: Enchant Gloves - Healing Power in there.

Blizzard posted some screenshots for the gate event here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wareffort/medivh/

I also found a new video link, but had no time to watch it yet:
AQ Fraps video

Gates of Ahn'Qiraj open on Medivh

Yesterday night the gates of Ahn'Qiraj opened on Medivh. While the bearer of the scepter was stuck in queue for over two hours, hundreds of players were waiting at the gates in Silithius. After the gong was used, a massive war spread out.. and not only in Silithius! While brave adventurers fought the evils coming through the gates, other were fighting the colossal bugs that appeared at the different hives. All over Silithius horde & alliance were fighting the ancient evils.

Reports came in, that in areas near Silithius, like Southern Barrens, Tanaris, Feathermoon, etc. massive Qiraj resonating crystals emerged from beneath the earthen crust, guarded by Qiraj Defenders. The war spreads over Kalimdor and it is up to us to hold the lines.


Apparently the person using the scepter on the gong will be granted with a legendary mount: Black Qiraji Resonating Crystal
Rumours say that all owners of a scepter can use the gong to obtain that mount, as long as the war rages (approx. three days). From test server we know, it is also possible to find the mount inside the AQ instance. The legendary mount is a purple bug, you can ride also outside of Ahn'Qiraj.

To enter AQ20 or AQ40 there will be no attunement quests needed once the gates are open. Here is a link to the first movie from the opening, not a very good one but gives some impressions. We can expect longer videos to show up during the next days... and the server Mannoroth is close to open the gates as well.
Video: AQ Chaos

In the sum up, not only the event itself but also the incoming reports from the AQ instances sound like a lot of fun...

How a Gold Farm Works

I stumbled over an entry at TerraNova called How a Gold Farm Works. They refer to a topic about item/gold dupes in an Everquest forum. The interesting part is, that a guy is discussing who describes how his gold farming business worked and about the impact on the gaming economy from buying & duping gold.

On a sidenote, i added SpeakEasy to the list of mods i use. With this addon you can create a category of phrases and it will say/yell one randomly. Perfect for battlecries and such. I also switched MTHelper with TankAlert, which is far better to use.

What is happening?

If we talk about the opening of Ahn'Qiraj, it seems NPCs troops are arriving en mass. Horde and alliance dispatching infantry, riders and large war machines to Silithius. Players are reporting large troop movements which increase every day. We're all eager to see what happens next...
While the players from Medivh are discussing about when/how they should use the scepter on the gong. As apparently there were major issues with the servers not being able to handle so many players in the same area and idiots disturbing those events. So the server is split between those that ask for an "open" event and those that say it should take place during off-hours to grant at least a good video and ensure the server will handle it.

If we talk about Blizzard & technology, i don't know... still lots of European players have huge latency issues, I'm one of them. During peak times latency jumps through the roof. It seems there is an issue with traffic being routed to the datacenter in france, but until today Blizzard did nothing to fix it. If the posts in the technical forum grow too large, they get deleted and a new one is opened. O_o

If we talk about Blizzard & dealing with ingame issues, I don't know either. Recently they deactivated the Super Egg-O-Matic as players used it together with a teleport hack to level up very quickly. This exploit has been known since over two month. Then we all see the auction houses getting flooded with rare books from Dire Maul and Aces of Warlords - rumour on the street is there are places at the king encounter you can exploit so he can't hit you. I hear lots of talks about it, the AH is still full of books. How long does it take for Blizzard to investigate those things?!?

Content related there is a silver lining. Beside the upcoming AQ, we see the first screenshots from Karazhan (dungeon located within Medivh's tower) from the Expansion and soon we'll be celebrating the Lunar Festival (27.1.-14.2.) on live servers. Seems the event is related to chinese celebrations. So we can expect lots of fireworks and collect some interesting items as well.

Medivh first server to finish Ahn'Qiraj War Effort

The server Medivh (US) finished the Ahn'Qiraj War Effort as the first server - congratulations! As the last items needed were some low-level bandages, all high level players took one evening and annihilated instances like The Stockades, Deadmines, etc. After all materials were handed in... nothing happened. O.o
It will take five days for the caravan with the supplies to reach Silithius. So the clock is ticking...

Apparently there were some major issues on the server, as hundreds of players created level 1 alts to join the large groups at the gates. The queues must have been around 1000+ during the night. Blizzard reacted, closed charachter creation and GMs would teleport all low-level chars out of Silithius if the server become instable.

On a sidenote, Blizzard's official war supplies status page seems not to be updated that much... it still shows Medivh at 97%.

Tranquilized Yeti

Forgot to mention i got myself a Tranquil Mechanical Yeti. It's one of these miniature Yeti's we all love that much. During the first days he looked in the wrong direction, but Blizzard fixed that fortunately. His idling animation is fun to watch, hes playing with his toes - you have to watch that! - and sometimes roaring fiercely. I assume business with them is slow, as the Ice Thistle E'ko can right now only be obtained by horde and in addition Yeti's do not show up in the miscellaneous category at the auction house. O.o

On a sidenote, i helped a guild mate with his mage water quest in DM and got myself a new hat: Clever Hat. Looks like the Master's Hat, but with a hatband around it, very nice.

Now we have the first contest on Argent Dawn to motivate people to fuel the war supplies efforts. Insight started a contest similar to the ones we already read about. I think it's a nice idea, although personally i think they limit the prize a bit too much. Nontheless interesting for some i can imagine. Heh, i have my Breastplate of Might already. *grins*

Talking about contests i just decided to make my own raffle in my blog, just now. If you read this and are the first person from Argent Dawn (EU) to post with your character name a comment, you'll win your own Yeti! Yes, that easy and simple... good luck. =)

Thulf is the Master Cook!

Finally i got the Recipe: Runn Tum Tuber Surprise in Dire Maul, somehow i always lost the rolls so far. This time my group was nice enough to pass on the recipe. Thanks guys! This was the last recipe - beside the new epic one, which does not really count - i was missing. Now Thulf knows all cooking recipes in Azeroth. That's 79 recipes in total! Beside the DM recipe, of course the horde side ones were some of the most difficult to obtain. Especially the Recipe: Dig Rat Stew, as it is a horde quest recipe. But after weeks of trading and exchanging favours between merchants, i got it. So the next on my list will be the epic recipe from Dirge, once the gates are open.

Concerning cooking, i lately saw this list some may find helpful:
A List of Foods That Give Buffs

Recently i tried fishing in the new "Patch of Elemental Water". It's worth stopping if you pass by one... you can fish Elemental Water, Globe of Water and Essence of Water from them.

On a sidenote i updated the links for the Discord mods to the right with the adress for Lozareth's new website.

Also saw there is a post in the Blizzard Bug Forum reporting class specific issues they are aware of:
Currently Researching - Class Specific

Celebrating Paladin Changes

Since Patch 1.9 i always wanted to create this animation, but had too much to do with updating my mods, etc. So here it is, the official Paladin changes celebrating anim. Haha.. i know most paladins will hate me know.. *chuckles*

On a sidenote, I added another link to the AQ scepter quest links:

All That Remains - Scepter of the Shifting Sands

Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops

Some days ago i was browsing through the WoW database websites and found this: Recipe: Dirge's Kickin' Chimaerok Chops. Woah! An epic cooking recipe.. O.o
After investigating further, two things were clear: a) It's most likely a recipe from Dirge Quikcleave (butcher from Gadgetzan) and b) Chimaerok's are elite 60-62 (you need two people to kill them), you find on the Isle of Dread (south from Feathermoon).

After these finding, we gathered some guildies & friends to investigate this matter further. We also killed Lord Lakmaeran, who is a tough bastard. *grins* We found some meat used in the recipe, but no further hint for the recipe. I was traveling around with the Chimaerok Tenderloin in my pocket to visit every cooking related NPC i could think of.

Since a few days i know it's related to the opening of the AQ gates, but back then it was a mystery to solve. We had a fun day trying it. Too bad Blizzard only added the opening quest lines, IMO they should add "secret" quests at remote locations in between. I also think there should be special quests available to those, who know *all* recipes for their tradeskill or something like that.

Talking about the AQ opening quests: There is a long questline for high-end raiding groups to obtain the scepter you need to use the gong *after* all the supplies for the war have been collected. On Argent Dawn, unfortunately we don't see many updates in the realm forum, but i researched some and am posting you links from others forums/guilds. The questline will stay available after the gates opened, so maybe some of us can do it later. It all starts after you did the first "discovering" quest near Anachronos, when you go back you get a quest to bring the head from the Broodlord. If you bring back the head (only one player can loot it), you get a new quest where you can show you are worthy... you have to reach neutral with the Brood of Nozdormus. You reach this, by farming the bugs in Silithius. For every 200 Silithid Carapace Fragment you can "deputize" another team member and make them an Agent of Nozdormu. Only Agents can collect the fragments and only the player with the main quest can hand them in. Now you know why Silithius is so crowded during these days.

After you reach neutral the real fun begins, it seems to be an awesome questline full of lore and fun events. Here are several links if you want to go on reading about it and see some screenshots and movies:

Guild Fires of Heaven quest update
Ahn'Qiraj: Scepter of the Shifting Sands from Original Gangstaz
AQ Quest Progress from Blighted
Elitist Jerks update on Ahn'Qiraj
All That Remains - Scepter of the Shifting Sands

It is also funny to see that some raid guilds try to motivate their server population to participate in the war supplies effort by organizing great prices... ranging up to your own Molten Core run where you can bring along four friends and loot whatever you want. Heh, if that's not a price. =)

Fires of Heaven Contest
Hominii Nocturni Contest


On a sidenote, finally Blizzard managed to get up their own "official" ranking for the war supply hand-ins. Guys, What took you so long?!?
Ahn'Qiraj War Effort Rankings (Argent Dawn)

Ragnaros extinguished!

Finally, after weeks, we got a good go at Ragnaros. No server latency issues, a full raid and time enough on our hands. We took him down in the second attempt, very clean fight only two or three dead. Great job all - that was fun, let's do it again. *winks*

I discovered that the fire lord himself has no sense of fashion unfortunately, my new Dragon's Blood Cape is butt ugly. Ah well...

Disgusting Oozeling

I was collecting herbs in the Plaguelands and got attacked by those pesty slimes. To my surprise *cough* the slime drops an Oozing Bag. Inside this bag i found a Disgusting Oozeling. This small new pet follows me around since... The debuff is quite funny because a lot of people passing by try to cure you. Also the Oozeling is running beside or next to you instead of behind, like most other pets.

Ahn'Qiraj War Supplies

Some players started to upload data for AD as well, now you can find a nice graphical display of the progress here:

Ahn'Qiraj War Supplies EU-Argent Dawn Status

Of course Thulf is doing his part to supply the war. I handed in some more herbs and had a quite interesting discussion with one of the suppliers about how they use the herbs in the war. Sounded a bit like biological warfare.. i have to inquire more about it.

Yesterdays run in Molten Core was successful. I got a new toy to play with: Earthshaker. Fighting several mobs with it is just plain fun... great for grinding. Finally i also won the Recipe: Major Rejuvenation Potion. It's not that useful in my eyes, 'cause it's quite expensive to craft, but being the collector i am, it was great nontheless.

On a sidenote I added ChatMats to my mod list and also SuperMacro (I used MegMacro before, but that's out of date now).

The War is coming

Wow, that was patch day madness yesterday... and with all the changes in 1.9 of course many mods are screwed up. Because of the load on the large addon-websites, they all took down the normal wesbites to prevent their servers going up in smoke. I was lucky enough to snatch the new version from the Discord mods just before ui.worldofwar.net went down again. Took me some time to configure them new. Let's hope the rest of the updated mods will be available soon.

So the preparations for the large war in Silithius have begun. Tons of resources alliance and horde want to collect to open the gates. It's a huge grind for the whole server... some cheeky voices say it will give Blizzard at least approx. one month so they can iron out the bugs in AQ. ;)



Argent Dawn War Status
Server Comparison on complete status

I'm still fiddling around with my mods and try out the new patch, so I'll update more about it during the next days. I definately like the new transmute recipe.. 10 min. cooldown is well worth the 10.80g i payed for it. What can you do on a patch day when all mods are screwed up? Exactly, we went to kill Onyxia... =P
It went well despite the patch trouble and Seishiro, a guild mate, got his "brand" new Quel'Serrar.