So you want to apply to a guild, a raiding guild. They ask you to fill out an application form...oh dear...
The guild has sat down in the past to create a form with questions that they think are relevant to know from a person who would like to join the guild.
In every application form nowadays you will see the general information about who you are ingame ( class, spec, dual spec) and also in real life (real name, age, gender and where your roots are). Now you think this can't go wrong can it? Yes it can! It is not a major mistake or screw up, but when you see an application like this:
name: Pete
age: -
gender: -
country: UK
It serious makes me giggle, like you don't know what your age is or do you have to hide it ( too young or too old?!). And next to that, check down your pants to see what is there or if you are missing something, cause it aint that hard to figure out if you are male or female? Yea maybe I am to simple for this, but come on...these are not the most difficult questions in an application!
Now if we go further in the questions of an application form every guild asks for information for a reason. It are no questions to tease someone, it are questions that the guild officers get informations from to see if someone is a valid candidate.
If a guild asks the question "why you left your last guild/ why you are planning to leave your current guild" it is a question to see if that person will be a relaiable asset to the guild based on long term.
If the application form has the question "what do you expect from us as a guild for you" this is meant to the applicant to show he/she knows a little bit about the guild and has read the website or has informed someone about the guild. What is it that someone looks for in a guild? Only raids or also other events, lots of chat going on, help with gearing up, organising alt runs...can all be on the wish list and it's up to the applicant to show that he knows what the guild is all about before making the application.
Another one of those questions "what can you bring to the guild?" I am a joker, like to talk alot and make jokes and have fun....hmmmz....ok....this will be "fun" in a serious progression raid to have the town-clown in our middle!
"What is your raiding experience" All I was capable to raid till now....uhhh what? Sigh, fine I will check the armory, see how your rep was with factions on TBC if you ever seen BT or MH and will check the achievements earned in LK what you have done so far. The information is too minor and it would be better if an applicant mentioned what he has done so far on his current char or maybe on an alt.
"Tell us something about yourself" I like to play wow. Yea that was very usefull information! We did not figure that out ourselves yet! No we ask about you as a person, a guild is a group of individuals and we do have to try to make it work with all the different personalities, it will be good to say something that is really you!
A good friend once filled out an application form for her son, 3 years old and always present during the raids where his mum was in. This is the way to fill out an application form!!!
Name:Oliver
Age: 3 and 5 months
Gender: baby-boy
Country: Denmark
Class: Mage
Spec: Fire
Dual spec: no
Race: Gnome, cause I am tiny
What is your current guild: Not in a guild
Why do you want to leave your current guild: -
What is your raiding experience: seen all fights from the age of 1 on my mammies lap!
What can you bring to this guild: epic dipers!
What do you expect from this guild: More attention from my mum
How many of our raids a week can you attend: My bedtime is at 7 and the raid starts at 8, so I will try to wake up in time for it and don't fall asleep half way.
Tell us something about yourself: Well my mammie does not give me enough attention cause she is raiding all the time. If I am in raids too I can spend some time with her. I go to nursery every monday, wednesday and friday from 9 till 5 and play with trains and cars what I love to do. I like to chase to 3 year old girls at the nursery untill they start screaming and that always makes me giggle. I have potty training, but fail miserable in that, makes my mammie cry alot, but at least she gives me attention when she does that :D
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Social Raiding Guild
So yea it's been a while since I made a blog post. Real life has been a bit messy lately an busy at work and all that crap. Even missed all raids last week...ah well I am back for now at least and want to bore my readers with a story about the social aspects of a raiding guild. This post comes from a thing that happend a few months ago with a person applying to our guild, that person did not succeed with the application with the reason the gear was way to low for the level we are raiding now and despite that this person got angry at me and the guild that she could not join as just a social-non-raider and do heroics with the guild to gear up to our level.
I am in a raiding guild. Our focus in raiding, 3 nights a week we do 25 man raids, focussing on hard modes. On the other days we set up 10 man runs, also hard modes and basically also for the newer people to gear a bit more up where needed and 1 night a week we try to beat boses in Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 on our alts. No where near hard modes, just for fun and laughs and learning to play a diferent role.
Basically ever guild has its standards about gear and someone who has no experience and gear to join in for hard modes should know in advance that applying is useless.
A raiding guild already says it, we raid! We do not have a seperate part of the guild to just add a bunch of people to fill the ranks and blow up the memberlist with numbers, they do not have an addition to a raiding guild. However some people do not see that a raiding guild is very social. Spending alot of time with the same people in raids will make those people do alot of heroics together, form arena groups together, doing some silly battlegrounds and there are also people who are more solo playing and grinding, just what ever every person wants to get out of his free time.
Does it mean we need non-raiders as "social aspect and addition" to the guild? Well imo we do not need that. Raiders are social too, believe it or not, but they do have that skill. Maybe even more skill in being social since they work in a team at least 3 nights a week and with doing that they learn the social aspects of this game and the guild.
There are 3 types of guilds known; Raiding guilds, Social guilds and Casual guilds.
A raiding guild raids, end of discussion.
Social guild does not mean that they are the only type of guild with social people in it, no it means they have members that can't raid for any reason possible and just like to group up and chat a bit together. Most of these guilds are formed by a group of friends and have no desire to go raiding.
Casual guild this is a powered-up social guild. They intend to raid now and then, mostly 10 man instances and if they do not have enough people that are interested they just do not raid and gather up to do heroics or something else. The focus is not on raiding, but they do have a small desire to do it once in a while.
Now all 3 guilds mentioned above have social players in it and have a social side in the guild. Yes truly they all have! I am not joking here, some people may think I am talking bull, but lets be fair...WoW is a social game! People who play it are there for (mostly) social and want to socialize. So I ask again, why can't a raiding guild be social as well? What will be an addition for a raiding guild to bring in members who are not raiding, but will be there just to fill up the guildchat? Since the raiders are raiding quite some evenings, the non-raiders will not get much attention in guildchat and feel more lonely cause they are not a part of hat social-25 or 10 man-going-on-event.
Will it be fair to people to bring them in a guild to "gear-up-in-heroics" before they are ready to raid so they can get used to the people in it and the so called socialising in guildchat while the tight knit of members is busy killing raid bosses?
Will they not start to feel lonely there in guildchat while the rest is chatting in raidchat?
With all the intentions Blizzard had, gearing up a toon to start raiding is done fairly easy. Badges all over the place, enough other toons in the same position to do the heroics with. A guild is overrated in such a case. Of course you can have a bad pug now and then, but hell yea! You are being social with all kind of people by playing together. More social then you would be with just those guildies around and not being a part of the social raidchat.
The interpretation given to this does not mean or does not say that someone who wants to gear up and get ready to raid, should join a "social or casual guild" to get that gear. In no rule it is stated that you need to gear up in a guild. This is what some people think. No guild= not being social. Well start being social in a pug and learn it the hard way of gearing up with the ninja-looters, competition of other partymembers and the bad geared, not knowing their class players.
I am in a raiding guild. Our focus in raiding, 3 nights a week we do 25 man raids, focussing on hard modes. On the other days we set up 10 man runs, also hard modes and basically also for the newer people to gear a bit more up where needed and 1 night a week we try to beat boses in Ulduar 10 and ToC 10 on our alts. No where near hard modes, just for fun and laughs and learning to play a diferent role.
Basically ever guild has its standards about gear and someone who has no experience and gear to join in for hard modes should know in advance that applying is useless.
A raiding guild already says it, we raid! We do not have a seperate part of the guild to just add a bunch of people to fill the ranks and blow up the memberlist with numbers, they do not have an addition to a raiding guild. However some people do not see that a raiding guild is very social. Spending alot of time with the same people in raids will make those people do alot of heroics together, form arena groups together, doing some silly battlegrounds and there are also people who are more solo playing and grinding, just what ever every person wants to get out of his free time.
Does it mean we need non-raiders as "social aspect and addition" to the guild? Well imo we do not need that. Raiders are social too, believe it or not, but they do have that skill. Maybe even more skill in being social since they work in a team at least 3 nights a week and with doing that they learn the social aspects of this game and the guild.
There are 3 types of guilds known; Raiding guilds, Social guilds and Casual guilds.
A raiding guild raids, end of discussion.
Social guild does not mean that they are the only type of guild with social people in it, no it means they have members that can't raid for any reason possible and just like to group up and chat a bit together. Most of these guilds are formed by a group of friends and have no desire to go raiding.
Casual guild this is a powered-up social guild. They intend to raid now and then, mostly 10 man instances and if they do not have enough people that are interested they just do not raid and gather up to do heroics or something else. The focus is not on raiding, but they do have a small desire to do it once in a while.
Now all 3 guilds mentioned above have social players in it and have a social side in the guild. Yes truly they all have! I am not joking here, some people may think I am talking bull, but lets be fair...WoW is a social game! People who play it are there for (mostly) social and want to socialize. So I ask again, why can't a raiding guild be social as well? What will be an addition for a raiding guild to bring in members who are not raiding, but will be there just to fill up the guildchat? Since the raiders are raiding quite some evenings, the non-raiders will not get much attention in guildchat and feel more lonely cause they are not a part of hat social-25 or 10 man-going-on-event.
Will it be fair to people to bring them in a guild to "gear-up-in-heroics" before they are ready to raid so they can get used to the people in it and the so called socialising in guildchat while the tight knit of members is busy killing raid bosses?
Will they not start to feel lonely there in guildchat while the rest is chatting in raidchat?
With all the intentions Blizzard had, gearing up a toon to start raiding is done fairly easy. Badges all over the place, enough other toons in the same position to do the heroics with. A guild is overrated in such a case. Of course you can have a bad pug now and then, but hell yea! You are being social with all kind of people by playing together. More social then you would be with just those guildies around and not being a part of the social raidchat.
The interpretation given to this does not mean or does not say that someone who wants to gear up and get ready to raid, should join a "social or casual guild" to get that gear. In no rule it is stated that you need to gear up in a guild. This is what some people think. No guild= not being social. Well start being social in a pug and learn it the hard way of gearing up with the ninja-looters, competition of other partymembers and the bad geared, not knowing their class players.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A perfect raid
Lately a lot of drama and chatting about how to create a perfect ingame world. How do you make a guild, a raid, a party, a group of people... be perfect? No single issue, nothing to improve, all works perfect.
Ok wake up out of the dream, there is no such thing as perfect. Thank God (or in this case Blizzard) for that! Would a raid start to be boring when everyone does exactly what has been asked for, nothing to talk or discuss about after it, cause lets face it, we all love to make or create drama. Compairing your results to another person from the same class or spec is there to see what either you did wrong or the other person did wrong, where can it be fixed, what is to improve? Nope if we would all be perfect this would not be needed.
In a raid there is so much to pay attention to, so much to do, it can't be that it is perfect and there will always be people who need a poke or people with frustrations.
Starts with buffs already. It is not that hard to buff the raid or in the magic mageworld to buff 1 other person for Focus Magic. This is your ability and has to belong to your task to pay attention to. Is it needed that someone keeps saying "buff this and that buff now please"?
The answer is simply "no". It is not needed that you need someone to remind you to do your thing, it has to become one of your standard procedures. But yes people are busy with other things and have their own special order in preparation for a boss fight.
For example:
Killergnome eats the well fed buff first, then checks her flask/ elixers, after that the self buffs and group buffs and then pops her FM on Deadgnome.
Deadgnome preferes to cast FM first on Killergnome and then randomly does the other things mentioned.
In the mean time Deadgnome gets annoyed cause in the past 30 seconds there is no FM on her yet, while Killergnome is still enjoying a dinner of fresh fish to gain a well fed buff.
Annoyance will come soon if you see Deadgnome ask for a buff because she gets impatient and feels she does not need to beg for it but yet again she has no buff so lets ask who is slacking. Killergnome gets annoyed cause she is still doing her preparation in her own order and sigh...the buff will come, relax!
YAY we have DRAMA!
Irritations, a deep sigh, simply cause not everyone is the same and not everyone has the same order in doing things. This however does not mean that it has to become an issue or big argument. We have to learn to accept that everyone is different and an individual and that everyone does what he has to do but just in a different pattern.
We have to learn to be patient and try to realise that everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do without any questionmarks. But maybe it is natural that people think the worst instead of being positive about their fellow members?
There will always be people that need a reminder though. Annoyingly enough this happends. People either forget to do something or they are used to get a poke and wait for the poke to come.
In our raids we use the Big Brother addon as a reminder to take a well fed buff and a flask. Some people simply wait for that addon to be spammed before they take a flask. Some people even come up with the most lame excuses for not taking a flask UNTILL we pull the boss, cause yea...that saves another minute on the duration of the flask...uhuh...sure!!!
We raid normally for 3,5 hours. A flask lasts 1 or 2 hours, a little math calculation...you need 3-4 flasks (or 2 for alchemists) per raid. This means those people who refuse to take a flask untill we pull the boss are trying to stretch 30 minutes so they do not have to take a 4th flask. Imagine that this happends every hour, so they can spare a few minutes. A few minutes? You can never slack off 30 minutes with that! Don't be a cheap git and get a 4th flask or take some elixers with you for the last 30 minutes. It is annoying the entire raid that there are people like that. Frustrations for those who took the effort to take 4 flasks with them and rather start the pull straight away then waiting for those people to come up with their excuses again. Who garantees they will not forget to take the flask at the moment of the pull? Cause yea that is normally a hectic moment in every fight. So the drama comes after the wipe and the next preparation for take 2 when the addon spam tells the raid that whiny person did not take his flask last try...
But now to be fair and honest...if we had no people like that, if we had no drama, irritations and frustrations like that, will it become boring and dull because there is nothing to be frustrated about? Will we get in the so called marriage rut if everyone would take the same order and would do it all perfect without a poke? No questions anymore, noone being annoyed, nothing said, just a perfect preparing for a boss fight...
Ok wake up out of the dream, there is no such thing as perfect. Thank God (or in this case Blizzard) for that! Would a raid start to be boring when everyone does exactly what has been asked for, nothing to talk or discuss about after it, cause lets face it, we all love to make or create drama. Compairing your results to another person from the same class or spec is there to see what either you did wrong or the other person did wrong, where can it be fixed, what is to improve? Nope if we would all be perfect this would not be needed.
In a raid there is so much to pay attention to, so much to do, it can't be that it is perfect and there will always be people who need a poke or people with frustrations.
Starts with buffs already. It is not that hard to buff the raid or in the magic mageworld to buff 1 other person for Focus Magic. This is your ability and has to belong to your task to pay attention to. Is it needed that someone keeps saying "buff this and that buff now please"?
The answer is simply "no". It is not needed that you need someone to remind you to do your thing, it has to become one of your standard procedures. But yes people are busy with other things and have their own special order in preparation for a boss fight.
For example:
Killergnome eats the well fed buff first, then checks her flask/ elixers, after that the self buffs and group buffs and then pops her FM on Deadgnome.
Deadgnome preferes to cast FM first on Killergnome and then randomly does the other things mentioned.
In the mean time Deadgnome gets annoyed cause in the past 30 seconds there is no FM on her yet, while Killergnome is still enjoying a dinner of fresh fish to gain a well fed buff.
Annoyance will come soon if you see Deadgnome ask for a buff because she gets impatient and feels she does not need to beg for it but yet again she has no buff so lets ask who is slacking. Killergnome gets annoyed cause she is still doing her preparation in her own order and sigh...the buff will come, relax!
YAY we have DRAMA!
Irritations, a deep sigh, simply cause not everyone is the same and not everyone has the same order in doing things. This however does not mean that it has to become an issue or big argument. We have to learn to accept that everyone is different and an individual and that everyone does what he has to do but just in a different pattern.
We have to learn to be patient and try to realise that everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do without any questionmarks. But maybe it is natural that people think the worst instead of being positive about their fellow members?
There will always be people that need a reminder though. Annoyingly enough this happends. People either forget to do something or they are used to get a poke and wait for the poke to come.
In our raids we use the Big Brother addon as a reminder to take a well fed buff and a flask. Some people simply wait for that addon to be spammed before they take a flask. Some people even come up with the most lame excuses for not taking a flask UNTILL we pull the boss, cause yea...that saves another minute on the duration of the flask...uhuh...sure!!!
We raid normally for 3,5 hours. A flask lasts 1 or 2 hours, a little math calculation...you need 3-4 flasks (or 2 for alchemists) per raid. This means those people who refuse to take a flask untill we pull the boss are trying to stretch 30 minutes so they do not have to take a 4th flask. Imagine that this happends every hour, so they can spare a few minutes. A few minutes? You can never slack off 30 minutes with that! Don't be a cheap git and get a 4th flask or take some elixers with you for the last 30 minutes. It is annoying the entire raid that there are people like that. Frustrations for those who took the effort to take 4 flasks with them and rather start the pull straight away then waiting for those people to come up with their excuses again. Who garantees they will not forget to take the flask at the moment of the pull? Cause yea that is normally a hectic moment in every fight. So the drama comes after the wipe and the next preparation for take 2 when the addon spam tells the raid that whiny person did not take his flask last try...
But now to be fair and honest...if we had no people like that, if we had no drama, irritations and frustrations like that, will it become boring and dull because there is nothing to be frustrated about? Will we get in the so called marriage rut if everyone would take the same order and would do it all perfect without a poke? No questions anymore, noone being annoyed, nothing said, just a perfect preparing for a boss fight...
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Titles!
Achievements do not value anything in particulair for your toons. It gives no money, no epics, no upgrades...just a title or a pet or a mount and some points.
Why people get all crazy about it and want to be number 1 of the server in most achievement points is a puzzle to me even though I like to do achievements too!
For most achievements you need co-players. You can't earn an achievement in a battleground if the rest is not playing along. You cannot earn a raid or instance-achievement if the rest of the party members are not willing to put effort into it.
There are a few though that you can earn just by doing it solo. Noone involved, just you and your achievement list.
My mage is a so called "collector". She likes to ride different mounts, she likes to wear titles and she likes to have various pets amongst her side.
-18 Titles
-60 mounts
-69 pets
And remember last year she was just an "alt"!
A few achievements that are nice to be a bit on your own, drifting away with your thoughts and do your thing without bugging anyone to acompany you:
Explorer:
well fly around, ride around (on all different mounts ofc!) through Kalimdor, Eastern Kindom, Outlands and Northrend.
You earn achievement after achievement and in the end the title reward "Explorer".
A small tip for those who are still in levelling phase; when you reach level 60 go and fly around in the Outlands to pick up all the flightpaths and discover every area, this will garantee over 30% XP already in your level just by flying around for an hour or 2 and it will be nice to have no grey area's on your map anymore when you just start a zone. Do this as well in Northrend when you turn level 70 (you can buy cold weather flying nowadays on a lvl 80 and send this to your alts so they can fly at lvl 70 already and you dont have to wait till 77)
Chef:
Oh boy that was a real achievement to get! A female gnome with 3 pigtails and a huge chefs hat...more adorable is not possible! Well yes you have to do alot for it. Collect several recipies, doing outland dailies, northrend dailies....lots of Northrend dailies and yes even more dailies!
Cook some strange food what you would never concider to eat in real life (no the tasty cupcakes and the chocolate cake do not belong to this, but more angry herring...wtf angry herring? yes dear thats for dinner tonight...ok...:P)
They even send you into battle grounds for this title and cook for your fellow members who are about to beat a few cows and bloodelves.
You have to be lucky to collect the recipies that drop random in instances and raids.
This achievement needs time. Doing alot of dailies and be patient with drops.
Salty:
Hell yea I got this last week...finally!!!
Blizzard made levelling fishing just too easy now, no need to see my fishing buddy Nat Pagle anymore, boy he will be missed! You can start achievements and dailies, yes Northrend dailies, from the moment you ask a fishing trainer to teach you the first steps into fishing, you buy a cheap fishing pole and of you go.
Fish in a school of this, fish in a school of that and done that one!
Get all the coins out of the Dalaran fountain, boring but fun! Ever read the insriptions on the coins? They are funny and somethimes even worth a /rofl.
The hard parts of this title are not so easy to get. Sneak into Ogrimmar (or IF for the hordes) and fish this special fish. Can take 2 minutes, can take up to 2 weeks or 2 months to catch that fish and having the risk of getting raped by the opposite faction while trying to achieve this. When you manage to struggle through it, yes you can defo say you have made an achievement. Fish up the boss in Zul Gurub ( can be done solo as mage) and fish up the boss in SSC ( not really possible solo).
The 2 hardest parts of this achievement were for me to fish up a rare fish, I choose to go for the dark herring since the fish you catch in the mean time sell for a nice price on AH and the fish you get in Kalimdor or EK sell for 2 pennies.
Last but not least...win the Booty Bay fishing competition...
Sweaty Hands, nerves in your throat, saying a little prayer once in a while, swearwords at your computer screen and when you have you 40 Tasty Fish and you use your Heartstone you start yelling and screaming at your screen "com on, hurry! get me outta loading screen now!!!!" or well something like that :P ( this is the sencured version). Run out of the in, hoping noone will beat you now you came this far and deliver your 40 fish...I think I lost a few braincells during that event from the excitement :P
Diplomat:
*yawn*
This was such a boring thing to do!
Kurunai rep...well yea kill lots and lots and more ogres, collect warbeads and yea ..do this till you get exalted.
Sporegar rep...was more exciting, just do all the quests, then as lvl 80 go into Underbog and collect as much flowers as you can, delivering 5 of them gives you 750 rep so its doable in a few days.
Thimbermaw Hold...I cant see another furbog anymore! White ones, black ones, grey ones and brown ones...all boring boring boring and wait till they drop a feather or bead, takes alot of time and grinding and killing lots of teddy bears, but if you have done this you get the title Diplomat.
Loremaster:
This one is in progress, problem is to figure out where you can still pick up quests in Kalimdor and EK and it takes quite some time to go through this. Northrend is good money making to do this at level 80, every quest rewards around 10-15 gold and you can easy make 200-300 gold an hour and most group quests in the lower NR area's can be done solo.
This will be a longer term project for me, it takes up alot of time to do so many quests but along the way there are several other achievements to combine with this like "The bread maker" earn an X amount of money from quest rewards, also earn an X amount of money from looting, getting reputation all over the place, can combine it with unexplored area's and also the instances for the Dungeon Master achievement can be combined with this. As level 80 regardless the class you can basically solo all Vanilla wow instances.
Last tip of the day: Cooking and fishing levelling mostly can be done together to make it quicker and easyer. Use the fish you catch to level up cooking skill and even the low cooked food sell for more then the raw fish, you will earn back the spices you have to buy to cook it easy and even earn some money out of it.
Why people get all crazy about it and want to be number 1 of the server in most achievement points is a puzzle to me even though I like to do achievements too!
For most achievements you need co-players. You can't earn an achievement in a battleground if the rest is not playing along. You cannot earn a raid or instance-achievement if the rest of the party members are not willing to put effort into it.
There are a few though that you can earn just by doing it solo. Noone involved, just you and your achievement list.
My mage is a so called "collector". She likes to ride different mounts, she likes to wear titles and she likes to have various pets amongst her side.
-18 Titles
-60 mounts
-69 pets
And remember last year she was just an "alt"!
A few achievements that are nice to be a bit on your own, drifting away with your thoughts and do your thing without bugging anyone to acompany you:
Explorer:
well fly around, ride around (on all different mounts ofc!) through Kalimdor, Eastern Kindom, Outlands and Northrend.
You earn achievement after achievement and in the end the title reward "Explorer".
A small tip for those who are still in levelling phase; when you reach level 60 go and fly around in the Outlands to pick up all the flightpaths and discover every area, this will garantee over 30% XP already in your level just by flying around for an hour or 2 and it will be nice to have no grey area's on your map anymore when you just start a zone. Do this as well in Northrend when you turn level 70 (you can buy cold weather flying nowadays on a lvl 80 and send this to your alts so they can fly at lvl 70 already and you dont have to wait till 77)
Chef:
Oh boy that was a real achievement to get! A female gnome with 3 pigtails and a huge chefs hat...more adorable is not possible! Well yes you have to do alot for it. Collect several recipies, doing outland dailies, northrend dailies....lots of Northrend dailies and yes even more dailies!
Cook some strange food what you would never concider to eat in real life (no the tasty cupcakes and the chocolate cake do not belong to this, but more angry herring...wtf angry herring? yes dear thats for dinner tonight...ok...:P)
They even send you into battle grounds for this title and cook for your fellow members who are about to beat a few cows and bloodelves.
You have to be lucky to collect the recipies that drop random in instances and raids.
This achievement needs time. Doing alot of dailies and be patient with drops.
Salty:
Hell yea I got this last week...finally!!!
Blizzard made levelling fishing just too easy now, no need to see my fishing buddy Nat Pagle anymore, boy he will be missed! You can start achievements and dailies, yes Northrend dailies, from the moment you ask a fishing trainer to teach you the first steps into fishing, you buy a cheap fishing pole and of you go.
Fish in a school of this, fish in a school of that and done that one!
Get all the coins out of the Dalaran fountain, boring but fun! Ever read the insriptions on the coins? They are funny and somethimes even worth a /rofl.
The hard parts of this title are not so easy to get. Sneak into Ogrimmar (or IF for the hordes) and fish this special fish. Can take 2 minutes, can take up to 2 weeks or 2 months to catch that fish and having the risk of getting raped by the opposite faction while trying to achieve this. When you manage to struggle through it, yes you can defo say you have made an achievement. Fish up the boss in Zul Gurub ( can be done solo as mage) and fish up the boss in SSC ( not really possible solo).
The 2 hardest parts of this achievement were for me to fish up a rare fish, I choose to go for the dark herring since the fish you catch in the mean time sell for a nice price on AH and the fish you get in Kalimdor or EK sell for 2 pennies.
Last but not least...win the Booty Bay fishing competition...
Sweaty Hands, nerves in your throat, saying a little prayer once in a while, swearwords at your computer screen and when you have you 40 Tasty Fish and you use your Heartstone you start yelling and screaming at your screen "com on, hurry! get me outta loading screen now!!!!" or well something like that :P ( this is the sencured version). Run out of the in, hoping noone will beat you now you came this far and deliver your 40 fish...I think I lost a few braincells during that event from the excitement :P
Diplomat:
*yawn*
This was such a boring thing to do!
Kurunai rep...well yea kill lots and lots and more ogres, collect warbeads and yea ..do this till you get exalted.
Sporegar rep...was more exciting, just do all the quests, then as lvl 80 go into Underbog and collect as much flowers as you can, delivering 5 of them gives you 750 rep so its doable in a few days.
Thimbermaw Hold...I cant see another furbog anymore! White ones, black ones, grey ones and brown ones...all boring boring boring and wait till they drop a feather or bead, takes alot of time and grinding and killing lots of teddy bears, but if you have done this you get the title Diplomat.
Loremaster:
This one is in progress, problem is to figure out where you can still pick up quests in Kalimdor and EK and it takes quite some time to go through this. Northrend is good money making to do this at level 80, every quest rewards around 10-15 gold and you can easy make 200-300 gold an hour and most group quests in the lower NR area's can be done solo.
This will be a longer term project for me, it takes up alot of time to do so many quests but along the way there are several other achievements to combine with this like "The bread maker" earn an X amount of money from quest rewards, also earn an X amount of money from looting, getting reputation all over the place, can combine it with unexplored area's and also the instances for the Dungeon Master achievement can be combined with this. As level 80 regardless the class you can basically solo all Vanilla wow instances.
Last tip of the day: Cooking and fishing levelling mostly can be done together to make it quicker and easyer. Use the fish you catch to level up cooking skill and even the low cooked food sell for more then the raw fish, you will earn back the spices you have to buy to cook it easy and even earn some money out of it.
Monday, October 12, 2009
A huge step for gnome kind
The post on the blog of Matticus made me thinking a bit more. The Ulduar+ ToC 10 man alt run last friday night was also part of it and the run satrday night where I brought my mage amongst 9 main chars to Onyxia was the last bit I needed.
My mage can press out over 4K dps out of her little gnome body. On the Ony fight she managed 4.7K and overall in 10 mans she is easy above 3.5K. I was happy, after all the work, all the gearing up, buying and crafting gear...is she ready?
I had a chat with the GM and he asked me if I was ready since I impressed him with those numbers. I honestly told him I don't know. It is hard for me to judge if I can compete with the rest of the guild. "You do not have to compete, if you swap mains noone can expect you to be on top straight away, that takes some time and more gearing up!"
And so last night on our official 25 man Ulduar Hard Mode Progression Nights my little girl placed her little feet in Ulduar!
It was very strange being there on her, I was nervous as hell to make any mistake, pressured to perform. I barely said a word last night in officer or magechannel and also on vent I was quiet for 4 hours in a row (yea thats weird for me).
It was hectic and I often got confused what spells to do and where to stand and where to move to...but Mister Thorim died on hard mode and I was still alive! Exhausted from being so focused and concentrated on trying to do everything right.
It was an emotional night for me. Seeing my little girl sitting on the floor eating a fish feast that is twice her size and thinking by myself "why again did I leave her on the bench the past 14 months?" I realised I missed her around and I felt guilty for abanding her last year, feeling I have to make up for it now.
Some people can swap characters every 4 months, but I don't think they have this great emotional thing with any of their characters as I have with my little mage.
I think my priest...well not sure yet what to do with her. Like she is very good geared and I don't hate her, but maybe she will retire for a little while now.
The big step is made, I am swapping mains back to my mage and with that I hope I will start to enjoy the raids and the game more then I have done in the past few months. A difference, a huge difference to play a bouncy gnome compaired to a human priest and I am gonna make this work!
My mage can press out over 4K dps out of her little gnome body. On the Ony fight she managed 4.7K and overall in 10 mans she is easy above 3.5K. I was happy, after all the work, all the gearing up, buying and crafting gear...is she ready?
I had a chat with the GM and he asked me if I was ready since I impressed him with those numbers. I honestly told him I don't know. It is hard for me to judge if I can compete with the rest of the guild. "You do not have to compete, if you swap mains noone can expect you to be on top straight away, that takes some time and more gearing up!"
And so last night on our official 25 man Ulduar Hard Mode Progression Nights my little girl placed her little feet in Ulduar!
It was very strange being there on her, I was nervous as hell to make any mistake, pressured to perform. I barely said a word last night in officer or magechannel and also on vent I was quiet for 4 hours in a row (yea thats weird for me).
It was hectic and I often got confused what spells to do and where to stand and where to move to...but Mister Thorim died on hard mode and I was still alive! Exhausted from being so focused and concentrated on trying to do everything right.
It was an emotional night for me. Seeing my little girl sitting on the floor eating a fish feast that is twice her size and thinking by myself "why again did I leave her on the bench the past 14 months?" I realised I missed her around and I felt guilty for abanding her last year, feeling I have to make up for it now.
Some people can swap characters every 4 months, but I don't think they have this great emotional thing with any of their characters as I have with my little mage.
I think my priest...well not sure yet what to do with her. Like she is very good geared and I don't hate her, but maybe she will retire for a little while now.
The big step is made, I am swapping mains back to my mage and with that I hope I will start to enjoy the raids and the game more then I have done in the past few months. A difference, a huge difference to play a bouncy gnome compaired to a human priest and I am gonna make this work!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Holy specs
The holy priest can spec in very diferent ways.
In any way you always combine the holy tree with a few points in the disc tree as well for some various reasons.
I'd like to discuss a few different specs, used in different situations.
Raid holy spec:
In this spec the most important must-have-talents are:
- Healing Prayers 2/2
- Circle of Healing 1/1
- DÃvine Providence 5/5
- Holy reach 2/2 (optional)
Instance holy spec/ tank healing spec:
- Inspiration 3/3
- Serendipity 3/3
- Improved renew 3/3
- Empowered renew 3/3
In every holy spec and regardless of the role you have, either a casual player doing instances or a hard core raider, in the disc tree you must take the improved Inner Fire 3/3.
Next to that talent it is highly recommanded to grab a few points in Meditation and Mental Agility and ofcourse always take the Improved PW:F.
Mana regen in combat is very nice to have and there are many talents that will improve this.
Also both talent trees have a few talents that improve the healing of any instant cast or reduce its mana. You have to look at your play style if this will be something useful or not for you, but from my point of view I take all talents regarding this since I use 4 spells that are instant, knowing: PoM, Power Word: Shield, CoH and renew. Of these 4 spells the mana is reduced to cast it and the + healing is higher.
I can't imagine a priest that rarely uses PoM and renew (CoH and PW:S depending on spec) so I'd say take a few of these talents as well to maximize what you can do.
Talking about talents like Twin Disciplines, Healing Prayers, Surge of Light.
Taking the talent "Desperate Prayer" can be useful in every situation, so if you have a point to spend, that box is shouting to get that point from you. It is one of those other "Panic Buttons" I mentioned in an earlyer post :P
Of course Blizzard has some random general specs ready for you and posted on every forum. However I am stubbern and I like to know my character and learn to create my own spec by looking closely to my own playstyle.
You can random take a spec, but blizzard is rarely telling you how to use it in every situation possible. Knowing yourself and how you would react in different situations can make some difference in your spec. Will it be useful for a holy raider to put points in Improved PW:S when you have a disc priest walking around as well? Imo no, it is a waste of my points to place in that talent because I rarely use that shield. I use the PW;S purely to get the tier bonus and get an extra 500 something spellpower for a few seconds, I do not use shield to absorb damage or protect someone strongly.
Last tip of the day is to take Guardian Spirit in every spec, simply because it rocks!
/cheer
In any way you always combine the holy tree with a few points in the disc tree as well for some various reasons.
I'd like to discuss a few different specs, used in different situations.
Raid holy spec:
In this spec the most important must-have-talents are:
- Healing Prayers 2/2
- Circle of Healing 1/1
- DÃvine Providence 5/5
- Holy reach 2/2 (optional)
Instance holy spec/ tank healing spec:
- Inspiration 3/3
- Serendipity 3/3
- Improved renew 3/3
- Empowered renew 3/3
In every holy spec and regardless of the role you have, either a casual player doing instances or a hard core raider, in the disc tree you must take the improved Inner Fire 3/3.
Next to that talent it is highly recommanded to grab a few points in Meditation and Mental Agility and ofcourse always take the Improved PW:F.
Mana regen in combat is very nice to have and there are many talents that will improve this.
Also both talent trees have a few talents that improve the healing of any instant cast or reduce its mana. You have to look at your play style if this will be something useful or not for you, but from my point of view I take all talents regarding this since I use 4 spells that are instant, knowing: PoM, Power Word: Shield, CoH and renew. Of these 4 spells the mana is reduced to cast it and the + healing is higher.
I can't imagine a priest that rarely uses PoM and renew (CoH and PW:S depending on spec) so I'd say take a few of these talents as well to maximize what you can do.
Talking about talents like Twin Disciplines, Healing Prayers, Surge of Light.
Taking the talent "Desperate Prayer" can be useful in every situation, so if you have a point to spend, that box is shouting to get that point from you. It is one of those other "Panic Buttons" I mentioned in an earlyer post :P
Of course Blizzard has some random general specs ready for you and posted on every forum. However I am stubbern and I like to know my character and learn to create my own spec by looking closely to my own playstyle.
You can random take a spec, but blizzard is rarely telling you how to use it in every situation possible. Knowing yourself and how you would react in different situations can make some difference in your spec. Will it be useful for a holy raider to put points in Improved PW:S when you have a disc priest walking around as well? Imo no, it is a waste of my points to place in that talent because I rarely use that shield. I use the PW;S purely to get the tier bonus and get an extra 500 something spellpower for a few seconds, I do not use shield to absorb damage or protect someone strongly.
Last tip of the day is to take Guardian Spirit in every spec, simply because it rocks!
/cheer
Monday, October 5, 2009
Holy healing guide part II
Last time I briefly spoke about how to heal in a 5 man. In part II I like to go deeper into the holy healing aspects in 10 man raids.
Now ofcourse everything is depending on spec, gear, difficulty of the raid instance etc. etc. So I am going to try to keep this as general as possible and going from the point of view from "normal" geared and specced.
In my situation I am purely raidhealing Holy spec. This means I have placed my glyphs and spec on the focus of grouphealing. PoH, CoH and PoM are my 3 best buddies and specced and glyphed to be maxed out :)
A 10 man raid normally excists out of 3 healers, 2 tanks and 5 squishy dps. As holy priest you will be rarely on tankhealing unless your 2 healing partners are both shamans or also holy priests. Generally though grouphealing is you thing.
Always keep in mind that if you die, the group will die too, this means do not neglect yourself!
The way I try to heal in the best way in groups is with the following rotation:
1. shield myself ( due tier bonus I get a buff to increase spellpower)
2. PoM myself or any other member in the raid that is taking more damage
3. CoH targeted on the person that takes most damage either ranged or in melee. 5 People around it will receive a heal as well.
4a. If the opportunity is there I try to flash heal 2 or 3 times on those who take alot of damage before I cast my PoH. The cast time is reduced alot that way and you can heal even more per second that way.
4b. If the opportunity is not there ( like XT during tantrum or Hodir during frozen blows) then I take step 1 and 2, kick a PoH on group A followed by a CoH+ PoH on group B and throw another CoH on group A. Repeat this entire rotation from shield, Pom, CoH, PoH etc etc. at this time all flash heals, binding heals and especially greater heals can be neglected.
5. Incase no groupheals are requierd much but more single target ones, keep using that PoM and CoH, cause CoH heals also those who took a small amount of damage.
In this case use more binding heals and try to flash till you get a half-cast-time greater-heal. Never forget though to repeat point 1 and 2 in every rotation and every cooldown!
This rotation is basically used in as well 10 as 25 man raids. Of course more comes to it, like assist with renews on the tanks, renews and sometimes a shield on those who are suicidle enough to off tank as a squishy dps and do not forget the amazing spell called Guardian Spirit! Blizzard my great thanks for this spell! Besides the cool graphics of this spell it is also very useful, all you gotta do is time it right.
Well this was raidhealing in a very short compact version for the raidspecced Holy priest!
Now ofcourse everything is depending on spec, gear, difficulty of the raid instance etc. etc. So I am going to try to keep this as general as possible and going from the point of view from "normal" geared and specced.
In my situation I am purely raidhealing Holy spec. This means I have placed my glyphs and spec on the focus of grouphealing. PoH, CoH and PoM are my 3 best buddies and specced and glyphed to be maxed out :)
A 10 man raid normally excists out of 3 healers, 2 tanks and 5 squishy dps. As holy priest you will be rarely on tankhealing unless your 2 healing partners are both shamans or also holy priests. Generally though grouphealing is you thing.
Always keep in mind that if you die, the group will die too, this means do not neglect yourself!
The way I try to heal in the best way in groups is with the following rotation:
1. shield myself ( due tier bonus I get a buff to increase spellpower)
2. PoM myself or any other member in the raid that is taking more damage
3. CoH targeted on the person that takes most damage either ranged or in melee. 5 People around it will receive a heal as well.
4a. If the opportunity is there I try to flash heal 2 or 3 times on those who take alot of damage before I cast my PoH. The cast time is reduced alot that way and you can heal even more per second that way.
4b. If the opportunity is not there ( like XT during tantrum or Hodir during frozen blows) then I take step 1 and 2, kick a PoH on group A followed by a CoH+ PoH on group B and throw another CoH on group A. Repeat this entire rotation from shield, Pom, CoH, PoH etc etc. at this time all flash heals, binding heals and especially greater heals can be neglected.
5. Incase no groupheals are requierd much but more single target ones, keep using that PoM and CoH, cause CoH heals also those who took a small amount of damage.
In this case use more binding heals and try to flash till you get a half-cast-time greater-heal. Never forget though to repeat point 1 and 2 in every rotation and every cooldown!
This rotation is basically used in as well 10 as 25 man raids. Of course more comes to it, like assist with renews on the tanks, renews and sometimes a shield on those who are suicidle enough to off tank as a squishy dps and do not forget the amazing spell called Guardian Spirit! Blizzard my great thanks for this spell! Besides the cool graphics of this spell it is also very useful, all you gotta do is time it right.
Well this was raidhealing in a very short compact version for the raidspecced Holy priest!
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