The Great Game by Penny Arcade is wonderfully perverse. They’re awesome.
Bloody typos.
Category Archives: Humour
WoW Hammer launches, go have fun, share, party
There is a new wow site launched, with a slightly different bend to the typical wow blog/info site – named WoW Hammer. Instead of straight patch notes or official news WoW Hammer focuses on content related to World of Warcraft stories, screenshots, the experiences of players, and any funny events.
WoW Hammer – Where the joy of play meets the joy of life.
It is a less serious place to share WoW related stuff.
The editors are keen to engage the World of Warcraft community as the source for the material, and are taking contributions. So if you are interested in contributing and sharing interesting stories I can heartily recommend chatting to the eds. They’re friendly folk.
The post rate will likely be daily updates from material already sourced from some contributors, and (for the sake of openness) I’ve happily already contributed an article which I am hoping to see published shortly.
Go have a read, it could be something great. TyphoonAndrew.
Thassarian, you’re doing it wrong man.
Don’t get me wrong, Thassarian is one heavy dude. I have a lot of respect for a fellow Death Knight, especially one who faced up against Arthas. But Thassarian, you’re doing it wrong.
Dual wielding in Blood presence makes no sense, but I’ll forgive him; he’s only level 72 after all. He has a long way to go before getting to 90.
This is one for the original DKs. Found while leveling my lowbie Shaman through Wrath content.
Happy Killing, TyphoonAndrew.
Perma-Ban Realm
I saw a blue post responding to the idea of creating a small island or prison for the WoW accounts that get banned and permabanned.
As a silly expansion on that idea how about:
- A set of stockades in front of major cities where the toons are captive for their non-permanent bans. We can go there and throw fruit, let our pets relieve themselves on them, and generally celebrate these people as being shamed.
- A wall or book of the unhonorable which lists the characters on that realm who broke the terms of service so badly they are banned permanently. An example that their behaviour is not tolerated.
- Or if the folks are still playing but banned for a time, then give them a specific realm of shame where they can login but they cannot login anywhere else. These characters are “stuck” at level 1 and cannot chat or communicate outside that realm. Kind of like putting all the convicts on the same boat and shipping them to Australia.
- Perhaps an in-game debuff that marks all character when they are unbanned for a while…”disgraced”.
I know that reads like rewarding the negative behaviour, so not the best. Just a thought.
TyphoonAndrew
Too many Feasts
One of the Insidious regulars is a great guy nicknamed Pepsi, and he’s the wonderful guy who always brings the feasts. Last week he must have had a few spare…
Old news is good news
Some thoughts on what is now old news…
Valor points are not being reset (huzzah) to Justice points, and patch is set for 5.2 If you’re able to spend and then earn the valor for an upgrade it is still worth it, just don’t upgrade an item you’ll replace early (trinket, ring, etc) once you get into the new Reps. I shot a stack of Justice points on a basically useless heirloom item for a Shaman, because I have little else to purchase with them. Justice are pretty dull at the moment once you’re past a gear level. That is ok in the most part, but it would be nice to do something good with them.
In 5.2 we get new reps to grind out, new gear to loath the drop rate for, and new dailies to make the drop rate seem a secondary concern. Less yay, but something to get into.
New raids look good, in a way that is a new visual presentation (cybernetic aztec dinosaurs with lasers…..roar) and also a new set of mechanical challenges. Good news. Lore/RP wise it will be an interesting patch if only because we get closer to finding out why Garrosh goes bananas and why Jania does not follow suit and smash a few cities. I know she’s taken the road less traveled, but Garrosh is going to need to do some more shitty things before the rest of the horde will use him as an end-boss. He’s been an unmitigated arse so far and the horde racial leadership are happy with that. Well the ones who are alive are anyway.
Oh, and Wrathion! He continues to give the heroes gifts and boons, as we continue to follow his agenda. I feel that either he’s a major player i the end of this expansion, or the major NPC in the next expansion. It would be great to see a character transverse the expansions so that during Mists he helps and rewards, and then in the next expansion we see what and why he did particular things. I can’t help but think his goal is to restore the Black Dragon flight, and that might be brilliant or could be a total disaster for the players. It would be especially good if Wrathion is actually a creature of leadership, but not a “corrupted bad guy”. Sure his view might be different, and lets see him as a leader for the future stepping into the empty shoes of the other flights now that they have left.
The season 13 pvp gear for Death Knights looks nice, particularly the shoulders. The help is less so, but overall ok. The Shaman set is great, and stinks of a HP Lovecraft touch. Creepy Shamans.
Happy Killing, TyphoonAndrew.
A weekend without WoW
I had the pleasure this past long weekend of going for a trip to the beach. There is a majestic holiday spot along the western coast of Victoria called Lorne, and a mate’s family has a house there. A modest five bedroom place that is hard to resist… So we packed up the 6 month old, a small mountain of her bags, and the odd package of civilized rations (wine, chocolate, bagels, salami, olives, etc), and drove out into the non-Internet.
Being offline in this manner was great and it was insane how much of a decompression you can fit into a few short days.
As those days passed I started to contemplate the impact that 4-5 days away from WoW might have on my lifestyle, and it was pleasing to think that the game will be waiting. Initially I felt the tug of the login screen. I did not want to miss out on my dailies, instances, and scenario runs. I have a drive to participate in LFR each lockout so to get the small drop chance of upgrades from some bosses – especially a weapon drop from Elegon.
Then as time passed I accepted that I could not get online. My gaming machine was a 2.5 hour drive away, and I didn’t really wish to stop relaxing to ramp up into a run. The friends and family were entertaining and except for the poor sleep a person gets when their child does not know the new place much, we had a great time. The break was excellent.
Upon returning late last night I could probably have logged in for some dailies or a quick scenario, but it seemed I would be somehow cheating on the holiday experience (or perhaps shortening it) by getting into a typical night of gaming.
Instead I read my book, and let the anticipation build. A side affect too was the positive reaction from my family in not spending a night in front of the glow of the screen.
Tonight is a gaming night, and I’m really looking forward to it. I can almost taste the queue timer for LFR as I type, the sting of the wipe, the glory of gold in the loot-bag. 🙂
Got flasks and mats? LFR zerg, just DPS you tard (just kidding).
My thoughts on gear from the recent post proved true too, as the Insidious regular raiders have boomed ahead in gear levels, and are now consistently above 6666 score on WoW Heroes. I think this is fantastic as it means that they’re seeing the successful encounters to lead progression along. More gear means more capacity to win through the earlier bosses in good time, and also should allow the later/harder bosses to be attempted more successfully each lockout. It might not occur in one or two cycles, but it should happen.
With the new Heart of Fear open for investigation there may also be a new source for some early boss kills. At the very least that means Valor and chance of loot.
Great times ahead.
Questgiver PSA
What do I know about other classes and specs?
With the change in classes in the patch today we have all sorts of new stuff to learn. As a PSA I offer the following advice on the spec and classes. A sly review of the classes might be (ahem) useful.
DKst – Essentially there are two types, those you need to listen to because they are Tanking and they help the Mages and Hunters decide who dies first; and the rest. The first are called Blood spec, the second are called whatever you like. When I play my non-tank DK he names used are: “stop tunneling”, “move”, and “deathgrip it you tard!”. Most Dks do not know what DK stands for, but would guess Death correctly because its a leet word. Probably means Death Killerz.
Druids – Too many types, and way too many on the server. Lets face it – everyone has a Druid, and generally only the good ones get taken to raid; that is ex-trees and bears. Cats are misguided Rogues, and Boomkins are Mages who ate too many fish feasts. Get at least one in your raid and make them change spec every 3-4 trash pulls, they love that. Why else play a hybrid?
Hunters – There is only one type, and thankfully they will have no excuse to roll for non-missile weapons after patch 5.0. Handy at times for traps, and hated for the same reason. They perform their best at range, and I find the best range is about 10 miles from the raid team. A quick review of the armory indicates that Int and mana are still issues for some Hunters, so take one to a raid at your own risk.
Mages – Apparently the hardest class in wow to play well in Warcraft. I asked them. There are three types and many sub-types, but all you need to remember is that they can supply a buff and food, although both are rare. Arguments about specs is what keeps the Mage community flowing, and if you want to distract one then either get the Hunter to MD the boss to them before the pull and blame them, or tell them that an alt spec is superior and they need to re-work their toon. Typically awesome dps, and the class colour (blue for the cheap seats) looks wonderful in screenshots which is really all we need to know.
Monks – sorry what? I killed heaps of these things in SM over the years, and yet they keep persisting. As a class they will be uber powerful at everything they try, and will become the new DKs for MoP. This means they will stay awesome through they first two tiers of raiding until we’re meant to get serious about it, then they’ll be nurfed harder than Paladins on patch day and all the Monks will consider rolling back to their paladins. As they are new just assume that every monk can do all things, and yell when they can’t read your mind…you know, like Druids.
Paladins – Almost the definitive hybrid class, as they wear plate so they are less girly than other hybrid classes, but still somehow wear dresses. And no, it’s a dress not a kilt. They are made up of confused Priests which heal, confused Warriors who tank, and confused DKs who stand behind the boss and whine about moving out of the bad. Take one of the first two types to your raid. With the update to buffs we’ll likely see some really cool transmog sets and “roleplaying” in the Deeprun Tram, but very little real Paladins in raids.
Priests – the best healing class in the game with Holy, and the best animation in Shadowform. Shadow pets, shadow powers, shadow spells; see a pattern? A Shadow Priest is just emo enough to compete well with a Warlock, but not enough to re-roll DK. Way too squishy, so smack them first if you have to kill one in a team. Their most irritating feature is that their class colour is white, which makes pasting class notes from websites a two step process (one more step than they deserve). I’m sure there is a petition out there somewhere to make the class colour charcoal, so the SPr will be happy. Oh and I didn’t mention Disc spec as if you do they don’t shut the hell up. Sheesh. Put them on mute.
Rogues – Until the release of the legendary item in late Cataclysm the Rogues had gone on strike and refused to attend raids, generally being replaced by Death Knights and confused Shamans in melee. Maybe they were stealthed? If you like being sneaky and standing behind people then you will like the Rogue class and are also probably a creepy little sod. Who likes that? Makes my skin crawl. They are known for very effective stuns in pvp and for bringing nothing to the raid; ever.
Shaman – Totems are still awesome, and very confusing to non-shamans. Just assume that whatever buff, effect, or spell you need can be supplied by a Shaman and tap them on the head until you get it. Take one along, at worst they have a self res so you can wipe faster the next time. Spec wise they have more choices that is fair given they were a novelty idea in the original beta which was taken too seriously by some horde and would not shut up. Sometimes confused for Mages in screenshots and damage meters; if you see a blue bar that is doing less dps its a Shaman.
Warlocks – Incredible lore and bloody incredible emo whiners. Now I wouldn’t mean to offend, but Warlocks are just so easy to pick on that it is a shame not to. Ask a Warlock what happened post TBC to the class then walk away from the phone. In MoP they have been tweaked and buffed, primarily by updating some animations and spell effects. Very important stuff. Also voted most likely to re-roll Mage when they realise that Warlock rotations are god-awful complex, and Mages have a UI with two buttons. Oh, and they get the succubus pet which has two roles: dps and fap-fap-fap.
Warriors – A Warrior Tank is a god amongst insects in the tanking community. First and last the Warrior will stand with you through every wipe and res, until finally they crack the absolute shits and tell everyone how to play. Often they are right too, as they’ve watched the mistakes so often. A tank’s role is to stand still or walk slowly backward, and the dps try to spin in circles and roll Need on every two handed weapon in the game. They are a simple class for a simpler time, before DKs, Monks, and all the other pixel based distractions which is not old school raids. A Warrior will always be able to complete the sentence, “back in my day…”.
So yes, essentially I am unburdened by too much class knowledge. Enjoy the patch today.
Great things in the wow blogger community
Meeting up with friends is a big part of why I play MMO games, and on a lazy Sunday afternoon I had a new experience within the blogging community, where fellow bloggers reached out and said hello.
It started when an odd whisper arrived from a toon named Miniices. For the most part I don’t mind odd whispers, but I am wary of the gold beggars and time wasters who frequent the mailboxes and dancing poles. Sometimes I’m short with people because the waste time.
This was absolutely nothing like that, in fact it was the total opposite. There is a great blogger named Navimie, from The Daily Frostwolf and she collects bloggers by way of NaviSpam. Her style is to contact a blogger and get screen-caps and have discussion with them. I am honored that she wished to chat and get some screenshots with me.
How awesome is that! I am very chuffed.
Apparently because I’m hopping around between too many alts, I was a little tricky to find (heh 6x85s). Clever Navi send a message to our GM named Genowen (who is aka The Untamed Hellcat) and Gen assisted her by pointing out that I was fooling around on my Paladin named Diamon at the time; and then joined us for the meetup too.
We met, chatted, and then the obligatory screenshots began, and it was all dancing fun from there on. I can’t say I didn’t laugh seeing a Tauren, Blood Elf, Night Elf and Draenei /bow’ing, /cheer’ing and generally being silly with each other.
As we chatted and flew around we were joined by Dragonray from Azerothian Life which is another blog that I really enjoy. So there were four keen wow’ers having a catch-up beneath the warm glow of the Shattrath crystals-guys.
The girls got to chatting, but having a four month old child meant that I could not stay and banter with them. The experience has left me feeling impressed and happy. Meeting new folks is good, meeting new people where the respect and admiration is mutual is fantastic.
Refs:
Diablo 3 patch … What exploit?
Aside
Aside … Diablo 3 has a mini-patch 1.0.3a to address some small issues, and it reminds me that I’m out of the loop in terms of game exploits (via wowinsider).
Fixed several gold and leveling exploits
Gone are the days of getting out a hex editor to snaffle straight 24 stats in Bard’s Tale 2. I wish I knew more about the exploits they were fixing, just to have cool insight into how it worked. Darn it.
It is no longer possible to create fake achievement links.
Ha! I’m sure there was some comedy gold in there due to that, the odd complaint, and perhaps a dummy spit. Fixing it is a fair thing though.
Witchdoctor – Zombie Bears should no longer become stuck on objects with which they shouldn’t have collision.
But they will still be stuck on items for which they do have collision? Whew! Why do they get stuck, instead of either pathing to the toon?
You know a game is wonderful when the collision mechanics for Zombie Bears is a consideration. This note alone should be a marker for people to try the game. Now if it was Zombie Bear Cavalry then the world would play. Or Feral Zombie Bear Tanks with Guns!
Go read the rest, I’ll stay here and create more silly Zombie Bear notes.
Happy killing, TyphoonAndrew
Education of trade and whisper…
I found wowbash a little while ago, and this example is incredible. WowBash is worth the look.
Education of the Trade channel
Bad Guild Apps
We see guild apps now and then without knowing the person beforehand; and there have been a few more since the guild got to 6/7 in Firelands. Often I am reading this:
Basically skilled player with too many alts, seeks 9 or 24 other people to carry me through the content until I have either too much homework, a girlfriend, or am grounded.
I prefer communication via chat, and won’t talk on vent unless you’re into lowbrow dick jokes. Given how wonderful my mother thought I was until I reached puberty, I reserve the right to ninja the loot I want, and bitch if not taken on raids, granted loot, or if the guild’s female members don’t reciprocate my clumsy flirting enough with me.
Please have no other high maintenance players.
My plan is to get geared up via your runs. Please also change your Wednesday raid night to Thursday, as that better fits around my schedule.
regards,
Lolazorin, Champion of the Murloks
Based of a comment I made at Matticus blog. Happy recruiting.
Play WoW without WoW?
Its Tuesday and I was thinking that its odd sometimes to have a free night and actually have time to play a bit. Run a few dailies, maybe start some prospecting, or even just be silly in Stormwind. I know the downtime could be used for WoW downtime too, but I like the odd casual game experience; playing when you don’t have to can be fun after all.
It has me thinking that Blizzard could publish a side game which can be played without the entire game files which advances your toon in some way. A mini-game for the patch period.
Now this could:
- Advance a skill, such as Archeology, Fishing, or other secondary profession, perhaps with the limitation that you keep the skill-ups, but don’t get the drops?
- Would probably need to be restricted to an activity which does not generate or consume a game world asset like gold or ore.
- Perhaps the activity does not interact with the WoW characters at all, but is a side game, a mini-game?
- Could also grant another meta reward, such as an odd title or some achievement points relating to the degree of dedication the player has.
- Would the offering of something trivial but entertaining be seen as a time waste, a good PR tool, an e-peen leaderboard?
- Would the same little form of entertainment be viewed differently if it required an additional fee? Like Farmville for WoW… But then applying a fee almost declares that the assets or stuff gained should translate into the game.
I can see why it won’t happen – cost prohibitive, would need to be billable, etc; and the opportunity for a small dev to offer a mini-game to Blizzard is probably bantered around the web every month in some form or another.
To me though it still has merit, and the opportunity for a link up is there. Create a link between the Warcraft franchise in the WoW game with the other forms of Warcraft; the cards, books, etc. Use the otherwise captive attention span of the millions of subscribers to consolidate the brand and experience even further.
Overall as an alternative for tonight perhaps I’ll just go browse for a few good games that are silly and entertaining to muck about with, or go get one of my books and curl up in bed. Not like the housework was going to get finished anyway (wink).
Lastly for all those folks and partners of gamers who look forward to Tuesday as a special break from the everyday addiction, have you seen the WoW Widow t-shirts? Take a look..
Happy Gaming.
A good shirt for all those wow widows out there. Tuesday is attention day?
Cata as a Gift
The Cataclysm release date has been confirmed as Tuesday 7th December. Now the interesting and totally self serving thing about this is that it is also my birthday, so I’m really pleased. Thank you Blizzard for the thought, such a wonderful gift. I’d hate to think of how the scale of this gift could be topped, – kidding.
But I have a issue: How am I meant to be playing the expansion (or downloading the last patch and waiting) on my birthday when my partner and family probably expect me to be talking to them that day?
Well the reality is that we will all be patching that day, and that Tuesday will probably mean more like Wednesday or Thursday. So as long as (a) it all goes smoothly, (b) I can get online, and (c) I can create a reasonable build; it will be a great birthday week.
“Cataclysm includes the best content we’ve ever created for World of Warcraft. It’s not just an expansion, but a re-creation of much of the original Azeroth, complete with epic new high-level adventures for current players and a redesigned leveling experience for those just starting out,” – Mike Morhaime
It is safe to say that I am very excited, even if you ignore the hype and flashy improvements there is still a lot of new and strange things to explore. I expect we will see a return of some players to the game due to this in the short term.
Happy hunting.
Genowen’s Unobtainable Mount
I have a guldmate who is literally obsessed with mounts, and finally got her Bird mount from the Sethek Halls. Grats Genowen.
This is the one item that I think she’d never get tired of, and would strike fear and loathing into her guildmates. Which is kind of par for the course. I’m thinking of Nesty (one of the resident Shadow Priests) as the target for this.
“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!”
Go read the some spoilers from wow.com’s article on the new instance coming soon in the Dragon Shrine, a few small spoilers in there but nothing event changing. Kind of flavour spoilers.
“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!” – Somebody in the script department was not thinking; this is a dragon? A powerful creature? Beast of legend? No, not really very impressive.
I bet at least 25 blog posts, and a few podcasts will have this as their names.
WoW Pod – Player housing in RL
Hows this for an odd concept: a WoW Pod where you play wow.
The WOW Pod is an immersive architectural solution for the advanced WOW (World of Warcraft) player that provides and anticipates all life needs. Inside, the gamer finds him/herself comfortable seated in front of the computer screen with easy-to-reach water, pre-packaged food, and a toilet conveniently placed underneath his/her custom-built throne.
Talk about taking immersion to the next level. So impressive, but so wrong at the same time. I love it. No way in hell I’d ever buy one, but 10 points for style.
What does this tell us about the creators?
– might have too much time
– might love the game, a lot
– have a sense of humour
– you can never go too far
– parody and truth are borderline
I wonder if they have a subscription / rental option where the design is still tailored to your toon.
And they refill the goodies, clean up the crap (literally?), so you can game longer, stronger, harder than ever?
Found via wow insider, and one of the commenters actually said this:
But apparently they bothered to plumb in a toilet, suggesting we all play with our pants around our ankles. Strikes me as a gimmick rather than well thought out.
Um, dude this is real….totaly….for sure….no parody here….never satire….
O.o (non-wow)
Being a PM for a website development company, we get all sorts of requests. This is closer to madness that I am used to.
I had a maintenance email from a client who wants us to update a page in their website. Part of the task is to update a link to a new Pdf, which she said was attached to her email.
I open the email and she has attached a Word doc with an embedded image of the pdf, which is open on her desktop. Yep, she viewed the pdf, took a screenshot, pasted it into Word, saved, and sent it to me.
O.o
Screenshot it, or it didn’t happen…
Not sure if I should change the link from the old Pdf to the new screenshot. I’m not even sure how I wrote the “you forgot the pdf” email back to them without snarkyness. One challenge at a time.
The Ultimate Hardcore Game
I’m reading a lot about how WoW is becoming too easy, and the Hardcore folks are not happy. It is apparently now catering to casuals, school moms (not that they can’t be hardcore, but that is another url), and face-rollers. The dual spec in 3.1 is just the most recent item to illicit this response.
OK then Hardcore players… you tell me – What would be the broad design guidelines for the most Hardcore MMO?
Lets write a list that will scare the drooling face-rollers back under the house, and make the hardcore players salivate with delight. Continue reading
TyphoonAndrew's - Eye of the Storm 
