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This post is part of Blog Action Day, in coordination with Weblogs, Inc's Green Daily, a blog about living green and well at the same time. Visit Green Daily every day to learn how to live like a Tauren-- with minimum impact on our Earth's fragile environment.
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the RL environment, but there are some lessons that we Earthlings can learn from some of the Azerothians -- namely the Taurens.
Taurens live in harmony with the environment. I would also include Night Elves in this discussion, but they tend to have a greater impact on Azeroth -- everything seems to become all flowery and full of trees. While this may be a pleasing effect, who is to say that it is better than the way they originally found the land?
You get the idea when looking at the Tauren lands, that if they were to up and leave Mulgore, the evidence of their civilization would be gone in a matter of years. They certainly would have left a minimum of damage behind -- perhaps some slight deforestation.
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
We all know that Real Life takes priority over WoW and if you don't, you need to hang out with Captain Obvious more often. Even if you have all of your obligations taken care of before sitting down to play, however, sometimes a Spontaneous Real Life Interruption (SRLI) can occur and you find it hard to break away from WoW to resolve it. Maybe you're in a raid or getting revenge on that ganker or fighting the quest boss -- the SRLI doesn't get the attention it deserves. Subsequently, the most responsible, attentive people can have responsiveness issues when faced with an ill-timed SRLI.
Of course, not all SRLIs require immediate attention, but you are not always able to ascertain that without taking at least some attention away from your WoW activities.
So, remember this basic rule when faced with an SRLI: It's OK to AFK.
Why is it OK? Because death in WoWhas a very minor penalty. It really is only a penalty of convenience and the ramifications for ignoring SRLIs are usually far, far worse. It's OK to AFK because WoW death is EZ mode MMO death.
Tom Chilton aka Kalgan has been promisingbuffs for Ret Pallies since BlizzCon. He specifically has stated that there would be changes made so that Retribution would be more than just a leveling spec, such as sustained DPS instead of just burst and less reliance on Spell Damage as a stat.
Retribution Pallies are definitely getting some love in patch 2.3, but is it enough and is it balanced? Many Paladins on the forums say no to both. They want Spell Damage to go away as a need for Pallies and a way to manage threat and they want these changes in 2.3.
Wolfblitzer calls Kalgan out as a liar in his very popular protest post, quoting from our BlizzCon coverage directly (though without credit). He also claims that Kalgan had promised to talk about threat reduction for Ret Pallies soon, but that the post was deleted.
Blue poster Drysc stated (accurately) that there was no date or patch number associated with all of the changes discussed previously. His full response to the protest is after the jump.
At BlizzCon, every time someone mentioned Warlocks during the panels, the crowd would boo. On the forums, the cries of "Nerf Warlocks!" were loud and frequent. Now, in patch 2.3, some Warlocks are saying that Blizzard has listened and nerfed them. Danakha posted a breakdown on the forums of the Warlock changes and his analysis of them, stating that Blizzard listened to all the complaints and acted on them. His main problem with 2.3 is this change:
Drain Life and Siphon Life now reduce the amount healed when the warlock is affected by healing reducing effects (e.g. Mortal Strike, Wounding Poison).
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new Macro Guide. This guide includes a basic description of what Macros are as well as how to create them.
They have also included some really good Macro references, such as the numbers that correspond to bag slots as well as the numeric values of inventory slots.
Though it is mostly a wall of text, they do list some helpful examples to illustrate the basic concepts. Here is their example for chaining together instant spells:
Do all of those "/stopcasting lines" seem a bit redundant considering they separate spells and items that are cast instantly? Well, Blizzard thinks so too and they will be unnecessary as of Patch 2.3. Not that /stopcasting will be defunct at that point -- it is still good to put at the beginning of a macro, so that you can cast a spell without getting an error if you are already casting another one.
While this guide won't replace more in-depth guides until they publish Part 2 with details on higher-level macro functions, it is still nice to have an official macro guide to turn to for basic macro creation.
Yozozo claims on the forums that he is able to complete 17 keg runs for the Alliance version of the There and Back again quest for Brewfest and is backed up by others who say they complete an average 15 keg runs per attempt. On the Horde side, 11 to 13 seems to be the average for the high achievers.
I've run the quest on both factions, and it does seem easier on the Alliance side even though the Horde version has more apple barrels. Is it shorter? Is there a better time bonus? Are the goblins wearing Dwarf masks a handicap? Or is it just perception?
I definitely think the Barker quests are easier on the Alliance side. The Ironforge course is in a complete circle without any backtracking and you can jump down the mountain a bit to cut the circuit short at the end. You have to backtrack a little in Orgrimmar and there is no shortcut to the Horde quest-givers.
What is your opinion? Is there an Alliance bias for the Brewfest quests or are the Horde just worse at motivating Rams?
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or people with questionable ideas that you just don't want to expose your children to. I find it odd, therefore, that so many parents let their elementary school age children play WoW unsupervised. They must see it as an electronic babysitter like television or single player video games rather than what it really is: having your child be babysat by 9 million potential weirdos. These children attempt to get much needed guidance and attention from whatever stranger happens to be nearby. But players don't know how old unknown, needy players are -- they just see them as a nuisance and verbally abuse them accordingly.
More than just exposing children to negative influences, these parents are missing out on a great opportunity to teach their children some very important life lessons. Children go to school to get educated, but they are supposed to learn their values at home. I believe that playing WoW with your children can be a great way to instill them with some very basic yet important values. My daughter is not even preschool age yet, but when she is ready, I plan to play WoW with her -- probably after playing Toontown and maybe CoH first(there's no death, just defeat). I will play MMOs with her because I've seen the result of parents actively playing MMOs with their children. For example, there was Bigmo.
Blue poster Vaneck announced on the European Forums that Alterac Valley would be undergoing some major gameplay changes in Patch 2.3.
In order to emphasize strategy more in AV, they are introducing the concept of "reinforcement count". Both teams will begin with a starting number of reinforcements which can be reduced in various amounts according to what is lost. A team loses when its reinforcement count is reduced to zero.
The death of Drek'Thar or Vanndar will still end the game, as all reinforcements will automatically be eliminated. Losing towers and Galvangar or Belinda will cause significant amounts of reinforcements to be lost. And staying alive will now be very important as player deaths will reduce the reinforcement count by one.
To quote Vaneck:
Defending your own teammates, towers, and key NPCs will be an important aspect of maintaining team resources and achieving victory in Alterac Valley.
The Barker quests for the Brewfest are fixed for almost everyone at this point. Unfortunately, some people are still unable to get credit when riding near flags and Blizzard is looking into it. Blizzard CM Drysc and Event Developer Kisirani have been giving updates for fixing the Bugfest.
If you are still having trouble with a Barker quest, here is some info for making sure it's not you:
You can only do one Barker quest a day. Double check your Daily Quest total in your Quest Log to make sure you haven't already completed it.
There are two competitors vying for your barking prowess, but once you work for one brewer, the other won't offer you the quest until the next day.
If you failed it, you can abandon the quest and try again.
You have to be on your Rental Ram when going past the flags or else you will not get credit. Once you get all four flags, however, you can use your mount to race back to the brewer.
One of the many exciting changes announced at BlizzCon was that free Spell Damage would be added to healing gear. The purpose of the change is to make it easier for healers to enjoy the solo PvE content in the uber gear they have picked up in groups and raids. Too many healers change to lesser geared alts after raids are over, for example, instead of being able to quest in their +Healing epics.
It was confirmed last week that the change will occur in Patch 2.3 and the extra Spell Damage will equal 1/3 of the +Healing stat on gear. So, for example, an item with +75 Healing will have +25 Spell Damage added to it without reducing any other stats.
Some confusion has occurred, however, about just how generous Blizzard was going to be with the free Spell Damage. Forum poster Bridge requested a link to prove that "this includes enchants, gems and set bonuses".
Most guilds don't have this problem, but if you have a guild with over 500 members, the guild UI reports incorrect information. The member status is no longer accurate with over 500 members and not all of the members appear on the roster.
Guilds are functionally limited to 500 members. There is no cap on the number of members in a guild so you can invite more than 500 but the UI will not support it.
This may change in the future but it is not considered a bug.
I briefly had a character on Dark Iron in the Knights of Arcadia, the first of the Penny Arcade guilds <insert fangirl noise here>. The UI issues over 500 members got so unwieldy that they split it into multiple guilds.
Do you think WoW should support the functionality of guilds over 500 members? Or do you think Blizzard's resources are better spent elsewhere?
Brewfest is currently live in Oceania and the U.S. and so far there have been some issues:
Brewfest didn't start on time.
The setup crew appeared when patch 2.2.2 went live, but the event didn't go live until midnight. Unfortunately for some servers, it didn't go live then as well. It seems that if your realm time is different from the timezone where the server resides, your Brewfest will go live according to the server location time and not the realm time. For example, U.S. East Coast servers that are located on the West Coast had their Brewfests begin at 3am.
It appears that quite a few of the hotfixes originally intended to go out with 2.2.2 were not applied properly as the patch went out with the maintenance today. Many of these hotfixes are now being pushed out.
You should now get 2 tickets for each keg you return for the keg delivery quest. "Bark for the Barleybrews!" quest reward should be 15 tickets. "There and Back Again" quest reward should be 10 tickets. "Pink Elekks on Parade" quest reward should be 40 tickets. You should be limited to 25 "keg protector" buffs.
Each week, Robin Torres contributes Azeroth Interrupted, a column about balancing real life with WoW.
Omigawd! I sound like such a twinkie on our WoW Insider Podcast. I'd like to blame playing dozens of levels as a female Night Elf with all that bouncing or blame my move to The Valley this year, but a good friend assures me I have always sounded like a twinkie, even though I'm not one, so it's ok. Regardless of my twinkie status, I had a great time with Mike and Turpster and we got to discuss all sorts of interesting stuff. And, when it comes right down to it, it's all about fun.
That's the reason why we play video games in general and WoW specifically: fun. Otherwise, why spend so much time immersing ourselves in Azeroth and Outland, if we aren't enjoying ourselves? I get the idea from the comments, forums, general chat, guild chat, etc. that there are a lot of people playing the game who are currently not having fun, however. I'm not talking about the restlessness most of us are feeling in the extra long gap between content patches. There are many vocal people who seem to be very unhappy, even with all of these fun changes coming up in the next few weeks -- or because of some of the changes. So, if you aren't having fun, why are you still playing WoW?
To celebrate the arrival of WoW's new integrated Voice Chat in Patch 2.2, Blizzard is giving away 40 Logitech Digital Precision PC gaming headsets a week for the next 5 weeks. The winners each week will be randomly selected according to how long they have had an active account. Those who have only been playing for 3 months can only win the first week. The final week is for players who have been active for 15 months or more.
How do I enter? Just keep your account active.
Who is eligible? US Citizens who don't live in states like New York and Florida where it is prohibited. There are other people who are ineligible, so please check the sweepstakes rules page.
How do I know if I've won? They'll choose your character with the most played time and list the character's name and server on the WoW main site. Then they will notify you by email within the next 5 days -- so make sure the email that you have listed in your account info is current. Will Voice Chat be enabled and working on my server by the time I'm eligible to win a headset? The first week ends October 6, so we all should have had Voice Chat enabled on our servers by that time. Theoretically.
We all know that Real Life takes priority over 
Tom Chilton aka Kalgan has been 
At 
Blizzard has introduced the first part of their new 
Kids on the internet is (or at least should be) a pretty scary thing for parents. There are predators, perverts or 
One of the many exciting 
