Thank you

 

Greg Ghostcrawler Street lead systems designer for Worlds of Warcraft announced today that after six years of working at Blizzard Entertainment he will be leaving the company. During his time with Blizzard Greg was responsible for a lot of monumental changes in the game. Some were popular, some were not. To Greg's credit he was never afraid to try new things or take the heat if those things didn't work. If something in the game just wasn't up to snuff Greg would be one of the first people to point it out (you just can't beat trolls to the punch). Aside from his many contributions in game, I think the greatest thing that Greg ever did was make himself available to us. Good, bad or just down right trolly, Greg listened to what we all had to say on twitter and responded to us. He did it with humor, he did it with style when most game developers wouldn't be interested in hearing what gamers have to say and I respect the hell out of him for it. Thank you Greg for all the wonderful things you added to the game we all love and for listening to us bitch. Best of luck with whatever comes next and you will be missed.
-Morison

Dungeon Dos and don'ts.

So here's the thing about being in a dungeon. Dungeon groups are made up of three DPS, a healer and a tank those five people are part of a team. As you may guess, things will always go more smoothly if those people work together and follow some simple dos and don'ts.

• The tank sets the pace.

In theory the dungeon guide should set the pace but the truth is that the tank is the one that is running head first into the baddies.  Let him decide where your heading and how fast you'll get their. Trust me it will make things go more smoothly. If this is not followed and the DPS decides to attack new enemies (pull) then their can be consequences, leading to the next rule.

• If you pull it, you tank it.
  

It's very hard to tank, if you make it any harder by drawing in new enemies then you deserve to get smacked around. It's what I like to think of as a learning opportunity.

• If your group can't kill it, don't pull it.

The other side of the coin of the previous rule is, that the tank sets the pace but it dose him no good to pull the entire room at once if the DPS isn't strong enough to kill the baddies before the healer runs out of mana and they all get killed. Start out slow and work your way up on how big a group you pull.

• A group lives and dies on it's healer.
  

If the healer dies, everyone else dies. So protect them no mater what.

• If the healer says "OOM" you stop till they say it's time to go again.

OOM means "out of mana" If the healer has no mana then they can't heal anyone in other words please refer to the previous rule.

• No abuse

Even if your group wipes, don't grief anyone. Remember what your mom told you; "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all.

• Take criticism
  

If your entire group tells you to stop doing something, or change something. Say thanks and do it. Either it will make things go more smoothly or nothing will change and no one can blame you.

• Say thank you.

At the end of your dungeon run say thank you. Even if the group sucks, say thank you. Good manners help.
The most important thing to remember is your their to have fun, and not let your fun ruin someone else's. Play nice with the other children and they'll play nice with you.

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
  -Morison
 
 


 

I want to do all the things.

Cataclysm has earned a reputation as Warcraft's worst expansion despite it's many quality of life improvements (I'm looking at you hunters). Cataclysm gave us transmog, void storage and Looking of Raid. What it didn't give us was adequate end game content, as a result most of us spent the better

part of the last year of the game leveling up alts. Mists of Pandaria on the other hand has given us worlds of things to do at end game; nine heroic dungeons, six normal dungeons, six heroic scenarios, fifteen normal scenarios,  five heroic and normal raids, thirteen raid wings in LFR, four wings in flex raid, nine challenge mode dungeons, nine world bosses, battleground, rated battlegrounds, arena teams, pet battles, transmog runs, proving grounds, your farm at Halfhill, professions, secondary professions (cooking, fishing and archeology ) thirteen reps to grind, brawler's guild and of course leveling alts. That's a lot to do, and with no content seeming to be removed plus the introduction of Garrisons coming in the

new Warlords of Draenor expansion it doesn't look like we'll be lacking for any content to keep us busy. This very point spawned a conversation with a guildie recently. He was saying that he was practically dreading the new garrisons feature coming with the expansion because of all the extra time he will have to spend on them with all his extra characters. It was this conversation that got the hamster wheel in my brain turning. At what point dose this stop being a game and starts being a job? I understand wanting to do everything. Blizzards very good at creating compelling content that we all want to take

part in, I also understand wanting to get the most out of the characters that you've leveled up but their are only so many hours in a day and only so many of those can be allocated to playing a game (stupid work wants me to actually earn my paycheck). So where do you draw the line? How much is too much? I think the answer is that you need to scale back when you start to feel obligated to do things in the game not because you want to, or because it's fun but because you "have too". We have been given all these options so that we don't run out of fun things to do. It however was never intended for us to do

all of them at once on eleven characters. If you feel overwhelmed just playing through your dallies on all your alts, maybe you should just play one or two characters at a time. Limit yourself to things that make you happy. When you start to dread the log in screen then it's time to stop playing, or at least stop playing it the way you are.

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison

Tune in Blackwing Tune in Blackwing

For those of you that are new to wow or just newer then Burning Crusade we're very used to the idea that when we want to raid all we have to do is get our team together and head into the instance but that wasn't the case back in the early days of Warcraft. In both the original Worlds of Warcraft and Burning Crusade you had to meet certain requirements before you could enter a raid. If a player beat a dungeon (for our purposes Blackrock Spire) You could enter the raid instance that was actually located within the dungeon it's self.  It was like a reward for beating the dungeon. The problem with this is that if you died in the raid you would be sent outside the dungeon instance and would have to beat the dungeon all over again before you could re-enter the raid. Anyone who's ever been on a progression raid team or even done LFR can tell you why that doesn't work. So Blizzard came up with this "brilliant" idea called attunement. By completing a quest which included beating a

corresponding dungeon and locating a particular item in said dungeon they would be able to attune themselves with that raid and in essence be able to enter it from a separate location. This was before Blizzard decided that the better idea was to just let players go right into the raid (Thank you Blizzard). Somewhere in the past couple of patches Blizzard added new rare battle pets as loot drops to some old raids giving old and new players reasons to go back and see this old content. The only problem is that if you weren't around for these raids the first time you wouldn't have attunement, and the knowledge of how to get attunement is like a theremin, no one has a clue how to make it work. I tell you all this to give context to my story of failure and guide that I'm going to give everyone.

About a week and a half ago I decided that I would try and collect some of the new pets from the Blackwing Lair raid. Not having played during original WOW I didn't have attunement So I headed into Blackrock Spire thinking "Oh I'll figure it out". I was very wrong. As a point of fact I actually got lost in the dungeon for forty-five minuets and had to have a guildie come and tow me in to safety so to speak (Thanks Kell). They helped me clear the dungeon so that I could click the stone at the end and get attunement. Problem, I hadn't picked up the quest to get it so all our work was for not. Sadly she had to go and I was left on my own. I not being able to find the quest giver (Their isn't one for this particular quest. More on that later) was forced to look up this quest and where to get it online. Sadly the website I went to listed almost all the information about this quest incorrectly (costing me another forty minuets) it was around this point that one of my other guildies heard me using some four letter words and asked me what I was doing. You see the quest ( Blackhand's Command) drops off  Scarshield Quartermaster located outside the instance but inside Blackrock Mountain (right where my curser is in the image below)

Accept the quest and proceed into Blackrock Spire. Complete The upper Blackrock dungeon. After you kill General Drakkisath You will spot an orb behind him, click it to complete the quest and earn

attunement. This will allow you to enter the Blackwing Lair raid instance at the opposite end of the hallway from Blackrock Spire instance by clicking on the orb without have to go through any extra steps.

Remember always look before you leap, do your research before you try something your thoroughly unfamiliar with and enjoy.

Remember we're all noobs, Some of us just fly the flag a little higher.

-Morison

Do you want some candy little troll?

Do you like to travel? Do you like free experience gains? What about gold? Achievement points?

By this point you have probably guessed that I'm talking about the Hollows End holiday. In game holidays can be fun but what I'm writing about it for is some quick exp. gains or gold farming. Hollows end is that magical time of the year when strangers offer us candy and it's actually okay to take it. During this in game holiday players can go to inns and trick or treat. Almost all inns in the game will have a quest granting candy bucket. Trick or treating at all faction appropriate inns will grant a player a series of achievements as well as small holiday items. Achievement points are great but I'm more concerned with getting more toons to level 90 and getting more gold for my level caped main. Low level characters gain 3,218 experience points per bucket. Level caped characters get 9gold 92silver 50coper per bucket. When you multiply this by the 133 faction appropriate inns (Horde side. Alliance will have to do it's own math) that you can collect from it adds up to  427,994 experience points or 1,319gold 80silver 33copper. Ether of these things can be achieved while taking rides from flight point to flight point and waiting for your dungeon queue to pop. For a more complete guide to all the available inns go check out the guide on WowHead; http://www.wowhead.com/news=221823/hallows-end-2013-guide-october-18-november-1#hallowsend-pandaria
Seems like a good use of your down time. Besides you get candy...I love candy...

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison

I can do what with my what....

Back at the tail end of Cataclysm Blizzard introduced the core abilities tab in our spell books. This was a brilliant idea, it gave people that were new to the game or just new to that class an understanding of where to start with their rotation and  eliminated a lot of confusion. The downside is that people now only look at this core abilities tab and ignore all sorts of other abilities that aren't necessarily designed to optimize damage or healing out put, but they do serve some amazing functions. In fairness to blizzard this was a problem before they created this tab. Most wow players are in such a hurry to get to level cap that we often miss new abilities as we get them. I will give you two examples from my own class. As an elemental shaman I have an ability called Shamanistic Rage and it looks something like this;

Shamanistic Rage Instant 1 min cooldown Requires Shaman (Elemental, Enhancement) Requires level 65

Reduces all damage taken by 30% and causes your skills, totems, and offensive spells to consume no mana for 15 sec. This spell is usable while stunned. Much to my shame I had been playing a max level shaman for over a year when I stumbled over this ability in my spell book. Some how I had been in such a hurry to hit level cap that I missed a cooldown that would have saved me a world of problems with mana management and getting my butt handed to me by mobs. I know use this ability off cooldown when I'm casting chain lightning so that I burn down the mobs and not my mana. The second example I'll give you is an ability that I knew I had but had never really seen the point in using. Far sight. Far Sight 3.5% of base mana 1000 yd range 2 sec cast Requires Shaman Requires level 36 Changes the caster's viewpoint to the targeted location. Lasts 1 min. Only useable outdoors. This ability may not  scream awesome but it can save you a ton in repairs while your leveling up. This ability is ideal for quests where you have to retrieve a bunch of things rater then having to wonder through the enemy infested blue splotch on the map hoping to find what your looking for you can just stand back at a safe distance and look around to find what your looking for. It also works great for getting around in areas where flying isn't allowed (The Thunder Island, or The Timeless Island) without getting killed buy mobs that you may not be geared to handle. also with a 1000 yard range theirs not going to be a lot of places you can't reach with it. Despite all this awesomeness I have never know a single shaman to keep it on their action bars. I'm going to change that right now. If you want to get the most out of your class brush the dust off your spell book and read up on all the abilities you haven't been using. Who knows their might be a gem in their just waiting. Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher. -Morison

I'm back....

Some months ago I stopped blog posting about wow when I thought that no one was reading. I however was wrong. I recently server transferred to Kul Tiras so I could join Twisted Empire. While I've been their I found out a lot of things.

1) adult beverages can make raid night a lot more fun

2) When you have a large group of very friendly and helpful raiders your guild can feel like home.

3) I apparently had more readers then I thought.

It is at the suggestion of some of my new guildies ( Thanks Kell) that I pick my blog back up again. I am going to clarify for those of you readers that don't know. I am dyslexic as a result their will be issues with some of the spelling and what not. If this truly bothers you I am taking volunteers to be my editor. I'm hoping to keep posting fairly regularly hear after. If you have any comments, questions or newbie moments you want covered you can reach me on Twitter @morisonwow .

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison

What to wear, what to wear...?

One of the things that's hard to get a handle on in wow is understanding what cloths your characters were, which pointy things you hit people with and what stats are most important to you. this is actually just a introduction to this topic. I will be doing a series of articles sporadically going through each class till we've covered them all. Keep a eye on twitter, to kept in the know on when the new articles are posted.
Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison
@MorisonWOW 

Help I need somebody!

Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we just have to ask for help. As I mentioned on the blog last week, frost mages get a pet, and that's awesome. It's less awesome however when they stop helping you and you can't get them to start again. I know what your thinking..."You have your pet set to passive, switch it to assist and your done". Well, I tried that.. In fact, I tried a few different things. If you run into problems with your pet there's a few things you can try. Log out and log back in. This can fix a number of different issues. If you don't want to log out you can click open the chat window and enter the "/reload" command. This will reload the user interface and will serve the same purpose as logging out and logging back in. If these options fail you may wish to check your addons. At this

point your going to want to log out, open curse client and log in to that. Check to see if you have any addons that need to be updated as a out dated addon can effect your game play in unexpected ways. If you don't want to go through all this you can go to your character select screen and click on your addons button. This will open a window showing all your addons and whether or not they're active or out of date. You can then make sure the "load out of date addons" box is not checked, then log back into the game. If the problem is still not fixed, it's time to call for help. If you find yourself in a situation in the game where there's

something wrong and you have exhausted all your options on how to fix it your self (and at this point we have) it's time to put in a ticket to Blizzard. Click on the "game menu" button and then click the help button. At the bottom of the left bar you'll see a "Open a ticket" button. Before you click the button though you should read through all the FAQs that are available to make sure that your issue isn't listed there and can't be solved without further wait or issues (ours however isn't there. I've checked). So now we click file a ticket. A second menu will pop up including two other options, our is at the bottom still. At this point your going to want to type in as

much information as you have on the situation with out rambling. Remember specifics help to locate the problem. After you click submit it's time to play the waiting game. With there being somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000,000 players in the Worlds of WarCraft it can take a while for a game master to help you. In my case, it was two days. Eventually when you log on to whatever character you filed the ticket with you will have a notice in the upper right hand corner of the screen saying you have a response. When you click on it you will see your ticket as well as the Game Master's response. If they need more information give it to
them. If not and they've solved you problem you can just close the window. In my case, it was a simple matter of me having accidently right clicked one of my pets abilities which allows you to dictate when they use their attacks but turns of their auto attack.

Make sure to watch where your clicking your mouse and don't be too proud to ask for help.   
Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison

Can I keep him?

One of the really cool things about frost Mages (no pun intended) is that they have a pet to help you DPS. Mages aren't the only ones with pest of course. You also have Hunters and Warlocks of all specs, as well as Unholy Death Knights. There are a few simple rules to remember if your just starting out with one of these classes or specs.

1) Make sure your pet is summoned.
If your not used to having a pet you may forget to summon them all together before a fight and this will obviously have a negative effect on your DPS.







2) Make sure your pet is set in the right stance.
All pets have three stances; passive, defensive and assist. Having your pet in passive stance will make it nothing more then a giant vanity pet. It will follow you and do nothing else. In defensive stance your pet will only attack enemies that attack you or your pet. This is a good stance if your trying to avoid pulling agro. Assist is the stance that you will most frequently find yourself using. In assist stance your pet will assist you, but it wont start any fights you aren't looking to get yourself into. Being in the wrong stance can reek havoc on your game play or that of any group your in. Few things in this game are more humiliating then making it all the way through a dungeon only to realize that your pet was on passive the whole time and now your DPS is in the toilet ( for the record I've never done this, but I have gone through a dungeon without my pet helping at all, but more on that later).

3) Just like no means no. Stay means stay. If you use the move to command on your pet, they will not move from where you send them until you hit the follow button or they're dead. So don't forget your pet, or you'll find yourself running into fights solo.





4) Your pet has it's own abilities and spell book worthy of your attention. Your pet will have it's very own action bar and powerful spells that will help you dish out a world of hurt. Depending on which one of these pet welding bad asses your playing these spells could be a big part of your rotation, utility abilities or major cool downs. Ignore these at your own parole.

5) Pet abilities can not be placed on your action bars. Don't be greedy. You have your own abilities for your action bars, pet abilities are separate. These belong to your pet and they will only work on their action bar. Just go ahead and key bind the abilities that you need.

There is far more to the use of pets then these simple intro rules, but these pointers will get you started going in the right direction. Pets can be a lot of fun, they look awesome, and can really increase your DPS. Just don't /hump leg anyone and it should be smooth sailing from here.

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison

But readings so hard.

I've been playing Worlds of Warcraft sense Wrath of the Lynch King, and in all that time I've only played Horde, so at this point I really don't "need" to read quest text as I have run all the quests so many times that I know most of them by heart. However I recently found myself starting a, dare I say it, Gnome. Not surprisingly I don't know any of the quests and my habit of not reading the quest text was working against me. The first problem I  had was getting to the Iron Forge air field. For those of you that are unfamiliar this area is entirely surrounded by mountains with no paths or tunnels in. I figured this out after wasting ten minutes looking for one or the other. I then made a very big newbie mistake. Instead of checking my quest log, which can be found in your control bar or by pressing the "L" key, I asked in guild chat how I was supposed to get there. Now, understand, my new guild knew that I was new to the Alliance and was very nice to me and answered my question in a polite manor.  I however felt like a fool when I realized that I could have saved myself the embarrassment

by simply checking my quest log first. Had I done this I would have seen that there was a NPC half a zone away (near where I had picked up the quest) that would fly me to the air field. So I had to walk all the way back on my tiny gnomish legs. You would think this would be enough annoyance, embarrassment and time wasted to get me to re-learn this lesson, but oh no, I'm special and I don't mean Special K kind of special I'm apparently talking water wings for eating soup kind of special. Within the hour I found myself working on a quest where I was supposed to kill thirty dark iron dwarfs. I set about the task running around killing dwarfs  all the while thinking  "man this is taking a really long time, and this is a lot of killing for a low level quest". It was at this point that I noticed their was a item icon next to the quest name and tracking information on my screen. This time I thought better of it and popped open my quest window and sure enough their was a item I was supposed to use to kill them that would have made the quest take a fraction of the time it already had. Save yourself a lot of grief, and time please follow my advice but not my lead on this one and read your quest text.

Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.

-Morison

Stupid am I. I'll show you!

I saved most controversial for last. This is one of the most common forms of unintentional trolling, and how it's not seen as trolling has always eluded me. In Warcraft there are many places where a player shouldn't stand. As previously discussed, you shouldn't stand in the basic campfire, where the enemies re-spawn, or in AOE (Area of Effect) pools of damage. These AOE pools of  damage are usually called the poo or the stupid. These pools can cause heavy damage to anyone standing in them. The poo is frequently dropped by enemies in dungeon and raid instances. Obviously it's very inconvenient for your healer to have players standing in the poo. Aside from being completely avoidable damage it's also a terrible drain on your healers mana, as well as being a distraction from the task of healing the rest of the group that isn't doing their very best to get themselves killed. Given these facts it's very easy to see why players would think standing in the stupid is a form of trolling, it's a little harder for players to see where the trolling is on the other side. You don't have to look any farther then the famous healer quote "I don't heal through stupid". Your calling the other player stupid, how is this not trolling? I know what your thinking "But they are stupid, their standing in poo!". This is a mistake that we have all made and no player should get yelled at for the first time they do it.
We never know what's happening on the other side of the monitor screen. This player may be having lag issues. If your a new player that has not encountered this mechanic in a fight before you might not know what's happening and end up getting yelled at for your lack of experience. Also who amongst us hasn't had a bad case of tunnel vision while trying to top out the DPS meter. Part of the problem is that there is no accompanying sound that comes with this damage and if you have your graphic settings are set low the visual indicators might not be so overt you might not be able to see it. This coupled with the fact that in dungeons and raids players aren't used to watching their own health bars as theirs a healer that's supposed to watch that for you. Don't worry folks I'm not just here to criticize, I'm here to educate. New players head to your browser of choice and type http://www.curse.com/client. Your then going to download the client. Once that's done your going to open the client on your computer and go to, get new mods, and type in GTFO (stands for, golly thanks for oranges [thanks Koltrain]) into the search bar. Download it, this ADDON will make sure you know when to get out of the poo by making the most annoying noise possible when you are standing in it. From this point on you will never stand in poo again, if not to save your characters life points then to save your ear drums.

So remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison         

I'm just not crazy about those boots.

Just like last week we're going to talk about a way in which people accidently troll other players. This week we're going to be talking about I level snobbery. For those of you that don't know, a I level/ILV/I score/gear score, is a rating placed on gear by Blizzard in order for players to gage it's relative quality. These ILV's are also used by Blizzard to gate content. At various points in the game (most notably at end game) certain dungeons and raids require not just a minimum character level but also a minimum ILV. Blizzard imposes these requirements like a carnival has a height chart you have to measure against before you can ride the really dangerous rides. This helps to keep players from getting in over their heads. There is however a few problems with this system, as with all other brilliant systems, it involves people and free will. Therefore, we're screwed. The problem breaks down into two sections; snobs and newbies. We'll start with the snobs as this is the more obvious form of trolling. Some players think themselves better then others and impose their own set of

  requirements for this gated content. These players, at the start of a encounter, will use the gear inspection function in order to decide if the other players meet up to their standards. If a player doesn't meet their standards they will remove them from the group by one means or another. Typically this is done by using the vote to kick function. Players manage this by controlling the majority of a group with ether friends or guild members. This allows them to kick any player they want for any reason with total impunity. This can also be done by controlling key positions in the group, such as the tank and healing positions, and refusing to start the encounter until the people they don't like are kicked out of the group. Rather then wanting to wait in the outrageous raid ques, the other players in the group will let themselves be bullied into being bullies. Truth is these players think their performing a public service by kicking the under geared player before the encounter starts. That way the group doesn't have to lose worlds of time and gold to gear repair from repeated wipes. As well intentioned as these players may think they are, Blizzard put the actual standards in place, and if it was good enough for the makers of the game it should be good enough for any of us. New players have to play in increasingly difficult content in order to get better gear. That's how progression works. We were all the new guy once, try and remember how it feels. Additionally just like the old saying goes, the cloths don't make the man, it's the man that makes the cloths. So let new players, play and they might surprise you. The flip side of this coin is that as a new player you shouldn't just jump right into the new content as soon as it opens up just because you can. I can drink a whole gallon of milk in five minutes, that doesn't mean that I should. In fact, just like the raids and dungeons, this would end in a truly unfortunate and squishy way. You should continue to farm the content you are currently working on, get as much gear from it as possible before moving on to the new hotness. This will make sure that you and the rest of your group stand a far better chance of completing the content and doing so in a timely manner. It will also help to make sure that you have more fun doing it.



Remember we're all noobs, some of us just fly the flag a little higher.
-Morison