Monthly Archive for December, 2008

Licensing

Published
by
Yashima
on December 19, 2008
.Tags: , 4 Comments

I am very sad.
I was very happy.

What happened?

I wrote an article that was so useful to people that it immediately got more hits than any other article on this blog. Joy!

I noticed however they all came from their rss readers or other blogs. Nobody got there through search results. So I submitted my blog to google after  a test confirmed that google does not really know my site.

I waited some time and then I did the test again with that popular article. What do I see? No search results pointing to me. One to MassiveBlips which is fine with me as they link back to my site and only quote, not copy though I would prefer to see a direct hit. The sad thing was the other result: Some other “blog” took my content without even attributing it to me. This has happened to me before. I produce some guide and people steal it. That is the reason my herbing + alchemy guides have yet to be updated and published on the blog.

The page I am talking of is mostly full of copied content from people like me, Aurik (they took your nice Winter Veil article) or even WoWInsider … I have not looked further. I am angry about this. They even have a funny disclaimer page full of mumbo jumbo legalese just in case someone wants to complain about them copying stuff which clearly shows they know what they are doing (the page is full of gold selling adds). If you want to complain you need to provide them with the following:

A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;

Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;

Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material;

Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail;

A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

So there it is.

When moving my blog here from Blogger I forgot one thing: Creative Commons. It might just have stopped them. Or not. As of today all this blog is licensed under a creative commons license again:

Brought to you by Yashima from “Yashima Plays” @ http://wow.delusions.de

Wrath: Overview of Daily Quests Level 75-80

Published
by
Yashima
on December 18, 2008
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Some time ago I wrote the first part of my Daily Quest Guide for Wrath. It gave an overview of all dailies available from level 70-75. Now we are level 78 and looking for more interesting things to do, despite not yet having reached Exalted with the Kalu’ak (we both want the epic fishing rod!).  So here is the second part of the list of dailies in Wrath. I hope I didn’t miss anything – I have not yet done any of these since we have little time to play due to Christmas preparations.

Valiance Expedition

Knights of the Ebon Blade

The Wyrmrest Accord

Argent Crusade

Kirin Tor

The Oracles & the Frenzyheart Tribe

Note: you can’t have Orcales + Frenzyheart Rep at the same time. There is a quest to swap your rep between the two tribes:

From Oracle to Frenzyheart: Frenzyheart Champion lands you at Honored (or even higher?) with the Frenzyheart & Hated with the Oracles. The other way round goes here:  Hand of the Oracles. Both quests seem to be repeatable every day. You need to have been Exalted with both for this achievement: Mercenary of Sholazar. Very cool idea :)

The Oracles

Frenzyheart Tribe

Non-Reputation Quests on the Skybreaker in Icecrown

Miscellaneous Non-Reputation Quests

PvP Quests in Wintergrasp

These don’t award reputation but Stone Keeper’s Shard

Brought to you by Yashima from “Yashima Plays” @ http://wow.delusions.de

Spy Technique vs Bitch Mode

Published
by
Yashima
on December 15, 2008
.Tags: , 2 Comments

We were questing in Grizzly Hills yesterday and I was in follow-mode while chatting with a guildie about whatever issue there was.

We’re just killing some mobs, I suppose it was a killquest. Killing mobs, chatting …. thinking about what needed to be done for dinner … then I get another whisper:

Someplayer to me: “You doin’ this quest Blablabla?”
Me to Someplayer: “Can you please ask Teno, I am just following right now!”
Someplayer to me: “But you have group lead!”
Me thinks: “Wtf?” (he was right)

He kept nagging me. I gave the lead to Teno. Then bitch-mode kicked in, I hit the Starfall button, pulled all the mobs in the area, waited a while and died.

By then the conversation with the guildie was over and I proceeded to tell Mr. Get-On-My-Nerves-When-I-Am-Busy “Sorry what was it you were asking? I was chatting with someone else!”

I am really not a very social player when I am playing while my mind is not really on the game. I just want to be left alone.

He should have caught the hint after my first answer that it was not a good time to try and want something off me. It was not even as if there were not enough mobs or we were AoE-Pulling with Starfall before that. He just wanted to get the killquest over with faster. I kind of understand that …

When I am bitchy I need to put up /dnd I guess. But most people think that their specific problem needs to be adressed right then and I rarely see people respect the /dnd tag.

My real question is: how did he see I was group leader? Or was it just a good guess? I asked Teno and they had not been whispering before.

And why on earth is everyone always whispering me? Because I play a female toon?

Shortly after the “incident” I logged off.

Me to Someplayer: “I need to log off now, bye!”

/g Bye all!

Brought to you by Yashima from “Yashima Plays” @ http://wow.delusions.de

Be Feral with 15 Howling Fjord Quest Rewards

Published
by
Yashima
on December 9, 2008
.Tags: , , , , 0 Comments

As I wrote below I respecced Yáshimá to feral yesterday. Now I have been feral before and enjoyed playing the spec a lot. There is just one problem. She is an Enchanter. What do Enchanters do with gear they don’t think they’ll need anymore “because I’ll just level her Moonkin for a while?”

So now I am in need of any kind of item to replace items with Spellpower.

Here’s my selected (Alliance) quest + quest reward for the easiest route to have a full feral equipment again within hours of arriving in Northrend. I’ll choose a single quest reward for each slot, I will also try to choose the easiest quests to achieve this. (Basic WoWHead search I am using for this). Many of these quests involve short chains … because most often a reward is only given after doing 2 or 3 things for a person.

Note: There are no idols available as quest rewards in the Fjord.

There are quite a few quest chains involved. Especially if you “lust” for the blue trinkets you will have to complete 2 complete quest hubs. Personally I will probably do all quests in the Fjord a second time (Yashima has already completed them and now Yáshimá will), maybe I will just switch the order of some of the hubs I’ll do a bit now that I know where I can expect which reward.

Most often you can also try a few other ways to obtain loot: do an instance run or two, contact your favorite crafter, scan the AH or hope for world drops that fit you. This is just a list of stuff that you can get without need for lucky rolls or farming mats which should be fine for all you Alts out there.

If you manage to get into a group for a run on Utgarde Keep, there are two quests you should take with you:

Lonely Chicken turns Cat

Published
by
Yashima
on December 9, 2008
.Tags: , 0 Comments
Yáshimá

Yesterday I started playing a bit with Yáshimá and quickly noticed that I wasn’t having much fun soloing with an under-geared, low-level moonkin. [And yes: Alts are mostly for solo-play - especially when I don't know how long I'll be in the game.]

I had to drink a lot, take breaks, I wasn’t able to choose a lot between abilities and damage cycles.

In a group with Tenobaal her big sister Yashima is able to use a lot of her different abilities. With a Hunter and a tank pet we’re effectively a nice 3-man group and can take on many challenges. We AoE a lot, try large pulls, big elite mobs etc..

As solo Moonkin I noticed I had to really try and pull mobs solo because the most mana efficient – and therefore fastest – way to kill them was

/castsequence Starfire; Moonfire; Starfire; Starfire; Starfire

Becomes boring quickly. So … without waiting for more feral quest rewards to appear or level 70 to “just happen”, I beamed over to Moonglade and told my teacher “I’m not a chicken at heart, please let me be a kitty again!” I took me then about an hour to spend my talent points and configure my macros and buttons.

The talent spec is probably not particularly bright, I just looked real hard at all talents and decided wether they were good for a solo-ing cat druid or if they were supposed to be bear or group talents. I didn’t even buy Shredding Attacks (yet …) because in my mind I wasn’t using Shred much for solo-ing. I quickly noticed how sorely I missed the talent.

I bought some gear on the AH and was happy to see I had a little stash of high level items hidden away on an alt for later use. 2 Enchants later I was good to go.

My theory of endless energy being faster for solo leveling proved true and it is also much more fun to stealth around. Added Bonus: being one of the papery professions – Scribe & Enchanter – I can always use the Humanoid Radar in Cat Form as I have no Herbs or Minerals to look for.

From Screenshots 2008

What kind of player am I?

Published
by
Yashima
on December 8, 2008
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Or what the Armory tells you about me by the type of Achievements I have completed:

From Screenshots 2008

You can quickly find out that I like exploring the world and that I focus on Professions and Questing mostly. I’ve also done quite a few of the “fluff” achievements in the “General” tab. I am not much for farming (Reputation), PvP or raiding.

I assume that in about a year or so the “World Events” will be filled mostly.

What does the Achievement overview tell about you? Is it fitting?

Ding 77 & finally flying … again

Published
by
Yashima
on December 8, 2008
.Tags: 2 Comments

We dinged 77 last night and after way too many encounters with a certain undead rogue – believe me if I get a chance to get back at him I will. Then we ported home to Dalaran and learned to fly in Northrend. Actually we wanted to log off right after that … what happened instead:

Suntouched Pillar
Sholazar Basin
Purple Trees

Flying around all over the place … discovering beautiful vistas and hidden places. Azeroth surely is a different place if you can fly.

Icecrown
Stormpeaks

Finally there was only Stormpeaks left and so I went there and looked at these incredibly high mountains – picking a few herbs along the way.

I had already explored all of Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms and Outland another day and when I finally reached Frost Hold – the last stop of my travels, I had seen all there was to see:

Exploration Complete!

I got the Northrend Explorer’s Tabard and the World Explorer Achievement in one go, just like that. I even managed to take the screenshot (without using an addon) and then I did I nice photo shoot with my new title. Actually my first title besides the old PvP title:

New Title

1st Blog Anniversary & Wrathgate

Published
by
Yashima
on December 6, 2008
.Tags: , , 4 Comments

A year ago I wrote

I have started several blogs and do have a non-gaming blog as well. Ever since I started playing WoW in early 2005 I wanted to have a WoW related blog. So this is it.

I wasn’t sure if it would work out, but one year later I have over 150 posts on the blog and even a few regular readers :D

I am still playing the game I have enjoyed for nearly four years (Euro launch was in Februrary) now and with Wrath it’s more fun than ever.

Yay! I made a few fireworks with my new DK Engineer and I’ll celebrate in-game with a few drinks.

Apropos more fun than ever. As many people have noticed the quest content has improved massively and we finally completed the already legendary quest chain on the Wrathgate a few days ago and it was as good as people said it would be. More below the image and after the cut.

Wyrmrest Temple, View from a Dragon, From Screenshots 2008

Attention: maybe there are a few spoilers on the most epic quest chain currently in the game below the cut. Read on if you can take it. You have been warned!
Continue reading ’1st Blog Anniversary & Wrathgate’

Fluffy Dalaran

Published
by
Yashima
on December 5, 2008
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Things I found on sale in Dalaran that made me go “Aawwwwhhh!”

Moonkin: Level 80 Starting Gear

Published
by
Yashima
on December 5, 2008
.Tags: , , , , 0 Comments

So here’s my plan for minimum effort to obtain a nice starter set of spellpower items to heal and dps at level 80:

Since I will of course also be running an instance every once in a while each and any of these items can be replaced by what I can obtain through instances. I just hate to depending on winning a roll on an item that doesn’t even drop every time on a boss.

What I am wondering while looking through items: is there no Hit Rating + Spellpower Gear???

The most stressful will probably be to camp the AH for the BoE items and get to Revered with the Kirin’Tor. Currently I am half-way to honored thanks to the Cooking quest. We have already finished most of the other quests that award Kirin’Tor faction. So I’ll have to champion them at 80. I have no idea how hard the Sons of Hodir reputation will be to earn …

Update: I already managed to snag the boots and the off-hand and I am finally making my new Alchemist’s trinket. I decided that in direct comparison for “leveling items” I will keep my S3 Wrists and S3 Chest instead of choosing the items selected above. I’ll see if any upgrades come when they came :)