Winterveil is here!!

Yay winterveil is here!! More freebies this even is so cool they made sure that even the lowbies have fun presents! Here's my loot list across servers each of my "mains" have some combination of these if not all. Me and my alts spent the time opening presents so yep this is where alt0holics get more loots

red helper
green helper
jingling bell
snowman kit
preserved holly
Recipe: Elixir of Frost Power
Recipe: Enchant Weapon: Winter's Might
Recipe: Winter's Bite (bS)
Recipe: Gloves of the Grandfather (LW)
Recipe: Holiday Shirt
Recipe: Snowmaster 9000
Recipe: Red Winter's Clothes
Recipe: GingerBread Cookies

Guild Application Accepted!

So yep! The good news is in! I got the guild invite and my friend even made sure to be online and send my the ginvite himself. Wow i'm flattered.

After reading the website, archives, forum chatter, raid issues etc I have come to the conclusion that thier loot system needs work as well as thier raid sign ups. there's no advance signup sheet wtf? how can you expect your raiders to just be online and ready to raid on raid nights not knowing if they even get to go? Loots! they use a loot council combined with some strange dkpish type. They do not yet have a dkp system to handle loots. All that says if if we like you then you'll get loots. Luckily I'm not a raider so this doesn't affect me. Still a raiding guild should have offline raid sign ups, loot system, and a staple list of raid leaders, website with a section for each class too.

whatever as a nonraider this is none of my business but sheesh ..it seems so disorganized! Ok I'm biased since I came from a formerly really well run, organized guild who's GM was technically capable of making his own website so that's where I get my standards for guilds.

I know about thier guild from reading forums so sometime this week it will be a meet the guild type thing where I log on and see what else people are doing and "volunteer" to help. Yea they ahve a 2 week probation so if you don't work out then you're out.

I am now a non-raider inside a strong raiding guild. Hehe I get to show off my elite guild tag! As a nonraider I dont have any online requirements other than the ones I set for myself which is once a week leveling with a friend and chat up all the other people that aren't in my guild but I enjoy their company too.

i'm going to write a guide on how to find a good guild!

Raid Etiquette 101

Raid Etiquette 101: How to behave in a raid and rolling on loots. Yea while it's self explanatory to some clearly there's a bunch called noobs who need this info but hopefully after reading my guide they are now educated an no longer a nub.

I use to have a whole section on just raid behavior ..but then the guild rerolled along with all my info. The new priest lead doesn't like to be so formal but I see it as me being on top of things so people dont need me to be holding their hand because I've linked all my personal knowledge in text form on our forums.

*These rules are for in Guild Raids please scroll to the bottom for special notes on PUG (pick up group) raids. I believe these raid rules or raid etiquette apply to any and every raid.

1.) PRERAID: PREPARE:
1a.) Research - you have read about this instance/raid and know what to expect and do. www.Wowwiki.com, www.bosskillers.com

1b.) Gear Check - Is your gear good enough for this instance? check out which boss drops what to upgrade yourself Kaliban's Loot List. http://be.imba.hu/ is a good estimator on your gear and what instance you're ready for. Personally I think numbers need to be a bit higher as some of the tank numbers aren't strong enough.

1c.) Repair - make sure you are fully repaired and have at least 50g for repairs, bring a repair bot if you have one.

1d.) Consumables - did you bring a few stacks of your class reagents, mana pots, buff foods, oils, and about 2-3 stacks of food/waters. Sure you might have a mage but then what if he leaves.

1e.)Addons - are you using the most uptodate addon that your raid's running with? my raids at the very minimum needs (deadly boss mods, omen, and ventrilo) DBM and Omen need to be updated every 2 weeks or so because your raid is using those numbers to figure aggro and such. Test these things out earlier so you're not like brb need to fix addons meanwhile the whole raid is waiting for your arse.

1F.) signed up on raid forums

1G.) Loot rules - read up on your guild's looting policy or ask if it's in a pug. Dont go if you dont agree with it or like it.

2.) VENTRILO / RAID CHANNELS
2a.) channel and Vent silence during raids, only the raid leader should be talking and everyone else listening. Vent is for the raidleader to give directions and call shots in raid. I dont care what cool stuff you have to say save it for after the raid because while you're speaking you're also making it hard for other people to hear directions from the raid leader.

2a1.) Keep text / vent chatter to zero and specific raid channels should not be used by nonraiders it is not your frat channel. If invited or you just wanted to listen in ask permission first and do not speak you are there as observer only.

2b.) Be courteous in raid channels and vent - if you can't use it with you mom, grandma or kids then dont speak it in vent. These are people and some of them will have children or family in the room. Save your frat talk for another time when it's not raid and you're iwith your friends.

2c.) Dont' give out your guild's vent passwords to random pugs, friends or what not. Every guild has "public" vent channels that they use for the random run. A password is private and meant only for guild members. there's nothing like having a stranger interrupting your raid or spamming vent just because he has the password and can do whatever he wants.

2d.) raid channels are special channels that are used in raids to give out directions like healers usually have thier own channel so if you're dps then you shouldn't be in there to start. First off you're not healing 2nd its privacy if they want to vent on how your crappy dps is making it hard for them it's thier right. AND never ever post in there in if you're not a raid healer that's inside that raid because you're clogging up the channel.

3.) LOOT RULES
- Every guild has thier own so make sure you understand it. Its rare for guilds to use need/greed but it happens.

need - if this item is going to be a upgrade for you BUT look around is this going to be a side upgrade for you or a big one if it's only a small upgrade pass and let the lesser geared person get it. Off spec (ask if anyone minds that you take of offspec).

need 2: can i need on 2 items for the same slot? no unless no one else needed the item. Its only polite that you pass on items for the slot that you won an epic for especially if it's from the same raid.

greed - you want it for shards or vendor gold.

Main vs. alts -- while i like the idea of mains getting prority but alts are in the raid so if it's a need/greed thing then all roll. DKP favors mains over alts.

**not following these rules will make you a loot whore and have everyone in the raid mumbling how you're greedy and selfish because that's what you're doing you're rolling on every possibly wearable item because it's an "upgrade" no matter how small. So be nice. Look around if you see someone else needing it and they really could use it and it's a huge upgrade for them but would give you 25 more spellpower do the honorable thing and hit pass. Your guildies will see that you took a small loss to help a guildie get a big upgrade. Benefits - you'll get invited to raids more next time.

• 1: WoW Wiki - Loot Systems
• 2: WoW Wiki - Main Looter
• 3: WoW Wiki - Group Loot
• 4: WoW Wiki - Looting While In a Party
• 5: WoW Wiki - Need Before Greed

4.) ATTENDANCE -- be on time.
4a.) sign up for the raid and try not to delist at last min unless it's an emergency

4b.) Delist if you're going to be a noshow

4c.) Lateness - be on time but if you know in advance that you're going to be late tell the raid leader, park your toon outside the instance however RL is not obliged to hold your spot so don't take it personally if you're spot is gone by the time you logged in.

4d.) Leaving early - don't do it plan your real life issues better so you have that 2-4 hour block of unintterupted time. If you know you need to leave early and someone else can stay the entire time it's polite to give your spot to the other person who can be there the entire time.

Otherwise if you need to leave early take the extra step to find your own replacement make sure they are also cleared to raid that instance. You whisper the raid leader with the names of the possible replacements so he doesn't have to look around.

4e.) Attendance - some guilds have required a certain # of days you need to raid and some don't so read your guild's info. Regardless show up on time and plan to stay until the posted raid stop time.

*Real life emergencies happen - so whisper the raid leader explaining the situation, then immediately hearth your toon out of the instance and drop raid. Staying inside the instance can mean that your raid cannot bring in a replacement. Obviously use common sense if your kid just fell down a flight of stairs you take care of the kid first then follow up with raid later.

Tips: have 1 bottle of water ready, 1 roll of bounty, and some easy to eat and hopefully healthy snacks. People have 3 needs: food, water and restroom break. So take care of these before raids if possible so you dont need to interrupt raids with bio break brb. At the very least do your bathroom stuff because you can always eat at your deak.

Kk i dont want to hear how you pooped in your pants or some other creative thing because that's just sick. RL>Wow and in this case bathroom break bio break >wow

5.) (I will add more as I think of it)

Post Raid Rant "BWL"

Still waiting on me application on alliance side otherwise horde side I went to BWL with a full clear in 1.5 hours. I got 3 epics (priest T2 and some hat) and was a bit annoyed at this warlock who rolled need and won both the Shadow Wing Focus Staff and Staff of the Shadow Flame all in one raid it was like no way! like why do you need 2 epic staffs when you just won the first roll 10 mins ago when clearly there's another person in the raid who could really use it?

Ok rant done. I will not mention this again. I'm sure his friends will talk to him in private about it because loot is serious business in WOW. I think he didn't know better or he's a loot whore and I don't roll with the latter.

wee I decompressed with a very funny web-movie series "The Guild" ah i just got reminded why I don't raid much these days! I totally lose perspective on stuff for a few minuets.

yay watching "The Guild" is good for relaxing aka no thinking about lost raid loots I think this is the reason why I don't raid. I get too involved with raid and loots etc.

Great web series I really like how these people made their passion about wow into a career jump starter. The actress Felicia Day? she's one of many in the Hollywood realm but with the guild she's jumped up a few levels and is noticed by top directors and made it into regular people's vocabulary.

New Guild Application

Updated Jan 2, 2009: My druid got accepted into the guild.
--------------------------------------------

So .. for the first time I am seeing the guild application from the other side as an applicant. I already know of this guild from friends who are in this guild and I see them raiding it up in various instances. While I am no longer a raider I'd still like join this raiding guild as a nonraider rank because it makes me happier to think that I too am in the same family as my friends rather than just in my friends list. Also raiders are better players overall than nonraiders and if you've pugged enough groups you'll notice the difference. My goal in this guild would be to play casually and join in the ocassional heroics or random raid spot in thier farm raids vs. having to pug from scratch. It takes alot of time and many wipes for me to build my list of good players so joining a guild is a shortcut.

Its very rare for nonraiders to be invited to a raiding guild because what you want to do is completely different from what they do. Ordinarily I would advise against such a mismatch of game play. However I am a former raider who went casual so I can still enjoy the ocassional raid and have top notch skills to go along with it.

I'm a lone wolf type player of sorts where I do not depend on a guild to run my instances of finish my group quests so this sort of arrangement suits me just fine. For the most part I will be doing my own thing and on ocassion participate with a farm raid or instance with friends. Player quality in a raid guild is higher so this saves me from the pug who doesn't know that his chain lighting is what's breaking my sheeps or that raid leader who didn't know Gruul was a 25 man starts whopping and hollering that this Gruul raid is a go because he just got the 10th person.

Overall since my alliance guild rerolled I've logged in an kept in contact with my friends though I didnot join thier guilds because there just wasn't any reason to as I was leveling hordeside. I am lucky that my friends are raiders and officers so my chances of getting in is much higher. Still it's good to put in an application and take thier app seriously. I could get rejected but still it gives the impression that I am not special and am applying just like they are.

I spent the most time on question #5 Are you a hardcore raider? Why do you want to join us? What did you do on wow last week & what did you you accomplish. Why should we NOT invite you. What would you do if you saw a lost child? Describe the sky?

Answer: you see all those questions are asking one thing are you a raider, do you have the commitment to be a raider and what do you do to prepare for it.

I understood the question and answered it with something that reassured them that I have strong player skills however do not have the time/interest to raid and that I only want to be in the guild with my friends. The unspoken part was, "I wanna join so I can tag along with your heriocs and farm raids" This is be rare as I really don't care to raid that much

Anime & Manga101

Okies I'm not going to get into the legal aspect of anime subbing or watching. Officially it's illegal to download anime, fan sub anime and generally anything you get for free is all illegal so listen to big brother and pay for anime. However personal view is that anime should be open to fan subbers and such provided they dont charge for thier services just like how we have so much free information out there. Think public library free? yes!

Software:
Bitcomet (bittorrent downloader) most anime are in torrent form: http://www.bitcomet.com/
VLC Media Player: I use so the subtitles show up (right click to load video track if it doesn't do it automatically).

Anime Sources (fan subbed)
http://baka-updates.com/releases.php

Manga Sources (fan subbed)
http://www.mangavolume.com/
http://www.onemanga.com/
http://www.mangafox.com/

Completed anime series / DVDs
http://www.boxtorrents.com/browse.php (this has soundtracks too)
http://www.animesuki.com/series.php#g (soso site)

Anime Review Site
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime
http://anidb.net/

Episode List (anime airing schedule for completed and ongoing series)
http://epguides.com/
http://anidb.net/


My Anime Favorites! (click here)

Wow Wake up call?

WOW : its been losing its pull for awhile now. It takes alot of effort to level and most of the time I dont really want to log on. I think wow's reached a cap for me a while back in the BWL days after raiding up all those epics it burnt me out. I later on got this temporary job that had me working 70-95 hours a week for 8 months straight so that was me being forced to go coldturkey on wow and raiding because after working 12-16 hours a day you're basically a zombie that only cares about food, water, bathroom, sleep and trust me you'd even turn down a hot guy or gal because you're that tired. Then afterwards I just didnt' have the desire to raid anymore or deal with guild drama on who gets drafted or guild invited so I now log on as a super casual who instances exactly once a week and levels an alt in between. So I have alot more time than I did before which I try to put to good use I now read alotmore than I use to, Blog, draw, explorer new career options and think. I could be working out some but lazy so will do that tomorowo.

Also on wakeup calls .. either you take action and wake yourself up or let it happen on its own either way it will happen if you're an addict and using wow to avoid RL issues. If you run out of monies well internet cuts off, food runs out so no more wow otherwise try to fix RL while using limited WOW as a support system.

Think about it would you rather be a thirty something or godforbid 45ish, singled or divorced, bumming it out in your parents basement/garage because its the one room they can't rent out to subsidize your ass and you dont have a job because your too busy wowing? You skip showers, eat junk, dress shabbily and now antisocial as you no longer know how to communicate with RL poeple anymore. At some point you will wake up and look around and see that all your friends have good jobs, families, and you compare it with your self and see that you have nothing but a few characters with epics. (purple colored pixels). You may not be able to handle that kind of self realization and you either look for something stronger to numb the pain or wake up and get your act to gether and do something with yourself.

Is WOW evil then? nope not by a long shot there are things that are worst than wow but at the same time wow isn't exactly something you want to be addicted to. The important thing is to see that you have a problem and then figure out how to fix it then take action. 5 letters (who, what, when, where, why, how)

Do you tell your coworkers you play WOW?

Okies *kick* back to reality ! yes and no. There are dangers to "coming out" to your coworkers that you play wow friends too but honestly it's a different world and its best to keep it separate.

You dont really want your coworkers/bosses making a toon on your main's realm and spying on you would you? Imagine you call out sick to play wow and next thing you know a work spy has logged on thier level 1 toon and reports to your boss that they see you instancing, raiding and otherwise seemingly well OR worst they engage you in conversation and you let drop that you skipped out on work to play WOW. Walla info gathered and now your RL work job is in danger. You are probably oblvious to the fact that people have a paper trail to your activities and its just a matter of time until they have enough to fire you.

5 Legal reasons to fire you:
while it's illegal to fire you for playing WOW nonstop however when your WOW life interferes with your RL that's when it's time to stop and takes things into perspective.

Play too much you neglect your health, family, friends and work. Work while ranking last its because that is the last thing that will make you hit rock bottom. Read your employee handbook all the rules in there are also what can be used to fire you aka as in you didn't follow the contract you signed.

1.) using work internet for personal use (checking guild forums, raid boss infos, wow forums etc)
2.) excessive lateness or leaving early: you stayed up until 4am downing a boss so didnt' hear your 6am alarm clock
3.) poor work product: you're rushing a job because you've got to get it done by 5pm for your 6pm server time raid and turned in crappy work.
4.) insubordination - lack of sleep, wow withdrawal will probably make you snappier, grumpier to your coworkers and one of them probably your boss.
5.) abuse of sick days: you call out too much and your boss can prove you weren't sick at all but raider.

Note: have i ever told anyone at work i play wow? hells no. I trust no one and frankly could do without the RL drama. I do know a few people who actually play WOW with their coworkers and end the night with a see you tomorrow Sam. One guy played with his boss and powered leveled him and such .. that I think is a little too much.

TV shows for Warcraft? radio too? omg

zomg there's a WOW web sitcom called "The Guild" ! made by gamers for gamers. http://www.watchtheguild.com/

---other shows with warcraft featured:
Southpark's Warcraft : http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1008/
Simpsons (warcraft show)

WOW radio
WOW network
WOW movies: http://www.machinima.com/film/view&id=30858

WOW is all I have to say .. did the whole world just get dipped in wow? is it true? gone are the days of keeping your WOW addiction a secret? and we can take wow breaks just like people take smoke and coffee breaks?

Thanksgiving & WOW

yay turkey massacre. LOL anyways this is the one day that everyone eats turkey and Boston Market makes a killing. Well I for one will be showing up early like 11am to buy my stuff because last year they ran out of turkeys/side orders and the only option was to buy a cold turkey that they've defrosted out of thier freezers.

WOW time? I'll log in briefly to say happy thanksgiving to guildmates then go offline to celebrate with family it wouldn't be right to be wowing while family is celebrating.

Ah well i guess i'll start planning for xmas celebration. Lets see this year I might organize another holiday gift exchange or not. I haven't decided yet as this would be alot of paper work on my end not to mention that I am relatively unknown outside of the officers and GM. Ah well heh me the quiet leveler.

I wonder if there's a similar event on wow .

Multi / Dual Boxing Class Combos

I'm going to list some resources and tips for you multi boxers out there. Some of my info is stuff i've gleaned from www.dual-boxing.com (everything on software, tips, class combos).

My personal set up is:
1.) warlock / priest 2.) priest/priest 3.) druid/druid
hotkeynet is my software (free) - you'll have to learn how to write macros and figure out which cast order to use. I use one computer/monitor and have both windows minimized and set at diagonals with the main window at 75% size with 2nd window at 40% just enough to see where i'm going.

For the most part I find that classes are easier to use if you pair them up based on melee to melee and caster to caster. 1 dps /tank class with 1 (healable and rez class). I am copying that post because its something I use alot and rather not see it lost because they deleted the post.

----------COPY and pasted from dual boxing site----------------

Carebear Leveling High-Level Classes, from Best to Worst

1. Paladin: by far and away, the best carebear to have. First, he can heal, resurrect, and Cleanse. Second, Blessings are versatile buffs for whatever class he needs to support. Third, Righteous Defense can keep up to 3 mobs off of you at a time. And last, and somehow best, is a Paladin's non-offensive Judgment of Wisdom, which can help Priests, Shamen, and Hunters regain mana quickly.

2. Priest: very good support capabilities. Again, he can heal, resurrect, cure disease and magic effects, and adds the Power Word: Fortitude buff, which is very handy. As above, it is a big crutch that he will be unable to Power Word: Shield your lowbie without being in a party, but acceptable. Psychic Scream more than makes up for it, to keep mobs away from the ranged or caster lowbies. Last, don't forget that Shadow-specced Priests have Silence.

3. Druid: great support, especially for melee. A druid's heal-over-times are superior, can cure poisons and curses, and Mark of the Wild and Thorns are great buffs. He can only resurrect once every 30 minutes, though. Bear/Dire Bear form plus his Growl, Demoralizing Roar, and Challenging Roar lets him keep mobs off your lowbie very well with little damage to himself. Also, this is the first class with some form of crowd control: Hibernate works on beasts. Don't forget to use Faerie Fire for melee support, but avoid Entangling Roots as it damgages your target slightly.

4. Shaman: somewhat good. He can heal and resurrect, but not being in a party hurts since you cannot get any major benefit from his totems. Stoneclaw and Earthbind totems seem to work well, as does Purge. Water Breathing and Water Walk are good occasionally.

5. Warlock: king of the crowd control. He can't heal you, which is a big step down, but he can Fear and Seduce while you kill, so you shouldn't be taking much damage. Curse of Tongues, Weakness, Exhaustion, and Elements all do not damage the target, and will not be downranked, so fire away.

6. Warrior: slap on Defensive Stance, and get ready to taunt. Battle and Commanding Shouts require a party, so literally the best thing you can do is keep the mob off your lowbie. Use Bloodrage then Taunt, Demoralizing Shout, and Challenging Shout. Hamstring works to keep them in range, but make sure you don't damage them.

7. Mage: starting to get pretty bad. Mages can Polymorph, summon food and water, and buff Intellect, but after that almost all of their abilities affect themselves or damage their targets. Avoid Frost Nova for the latter reason.

8. Hunter: no buffs. Freezing Trap and Improved Hunter's Mark are the only things worthwhile here.

9. Rogue: Sap only.



Team Leveling Combinations

What you're looking to avoid here is one toon who needs to stay at range, most notably hunters, and one who needs to be up close.

* Druid/Druid: one bear, one cat, no problems.
* Druid/Hunter: pet tanks, cat and ranged dps.
* Druid/Mage: bear tanks, mage dps but not enough to pull agro.
* Druid/Paladin: ret pally tanks, cat dps.
* Druid/Priest: shadow priest will pull agro no matter what, so keep it flayed during cat dps.
* Druid/Rogue: cat and rogue stunlock for the win; use Cheap Shot -> Pounce -> Kidney Shot.
* Druid/Shaman: try grace of air and strength of earth for hot cat dps.
* Druid/Warlock: voidwalker tanks, dot dot dot, cat dps.
* Druid/Warrior: fury war tanks, cat dps.
* Hunter/Hunter: use dps pets and go all out, nothing will ever reach your hunters' melee range.
* Hunter/Mage: pet tanks, both dps.
* Hunter/Paladin: do not use.
* Hunter/Priest: keep it flayed or feared, with a dps pet.
* Hunter/Rogue: do not use.
* Hunter/Shaman: unless you can stomach the elemental tree and stay at range, do not use.
* Hunter/Warlock: voidwalker tanks, dot dot dot, ranged dps.
* Hunter/Warrior: do not use.
* Mage/Mage: try to vary your builds for double debuffs.
* Mage/Paladin: difficult, but let your ret pally get a little agro before your mage attacks.
* Mage/Priest: deadly combination; keep it flayed or feared.
* Mage/Rogue: keep it stunlocked while spamming frostbolt.
* Mage/Shaman: difficult, but let your shaman build a little agro before your mage attacks.
* Mage/Warlock: deadly combination; voidwalker tanks, dot dot dot, spam frostbolts.
* Mage/Warrior: use defensive stance if you have trouble holding agro, but berserker should be fine.
* Paladin/Paladin: are you retarded?
* Paladin/Priest: try to keep the ret pally tanking, keep it flayed.
* Paladin/Rogue: backstabs galore!
* Paladin/Shaman: windfury + seal of command = critastic.
* Paladin/Warlock: ret pally tanks, dot dot dot with Succubus or Imp pet.
* Paladin/Warrior: fury war and ret pally won't take much damage.
* Priest/Priest: deadly combination; consider one build with Shadow Weaving and another with Blackout.
* Priest/Rogue: keep it stunlocked and flayed.
* Priest/Shaman: difficult, but let your shaman build a little agro before your priest attacks.
* Priest/Warlock: deadly combination; double the fears, double the dots.
* Priest/Warrior: defensive stance will be necessary to hold agro.
* Rogue/Rogue: stunlock it but always have one rogue backstabbing.
* Rogue/Shaman: deadly combination; windfury stunlock for easy kills.
* Rogue/Warlock: voidwalker tanks, dot dot dot, backstab when you can.
* Rogue/Warrior: keep it stunlocked with a fury war ripping it up.
* Shaman/Shaman: unefficient, but use two enhancement builds for quick kills.
* Shaman/Warlock: voidwalker tanks, dot dot dot during windfury dps.
* Shaman/Warrior: windfury'd fury war facemelts so well he barely needs the shaman to attack.
* Warlock/Warlock: Succubus and Imp/Felhound until you both get Felguards, then don't even bother dotting. :)
* Warlock/Warrior: voidwalker tanks in front of fury war, dot dot dot.
* Warrior/Warrior: double your fury war, double your fun.



Tips

* Macros are your friend on your carebear. Use the /castsequence reset=X command whenever possible so you're not wasting time trying to remember where you left your flash heal, and put /target Lowbie /follow at the end of every command.

* Follow TOS - don't use software that hack, script or break TOS otherwise GG to you. Chances are if you have to ask is this legal answer is no.

* PvP Servers: be ready for pvp or just die. Get some pvp macros lined up and read ahead on what to do with each class.

keywords: 2 boxing, duel boxing, dual boxing, multi boxing, multibox, 2 box

Instance Etiquette

Okies i'm sure ya'll know how to instance. If not in short all instances groups need this combination:

1.) level appropriate (look up the instance at www.wowwiki.com)
2.) group make up: 1 specced tank, 1 healer, 3 dps (you can pick hybrids or off specs)
3.) establish loot rules before you start and master loot if needed. (need=upgrade, greed or DE the rest).
4.) observe good etiquette (respect others and zero tolerance for noobs, jerks/bullies)
5.) enforce the rules.

If you're a dps class..then you'll just have to deal with the fact that there's a billion dpsers out there and you're not that important. The solution is form your own group so you can control the balance as well as not get group removed because "someone's gf wants in" really? didn't think so its more like you got dumped for someone with better gear.

I armory people to check their gear / specs before inviting because it makes my runs smoother. Tanks must be specced and geared while healers can be off specced provided they are on the higher end of the instance and are decently geared.

Use wow's ignore list to put notes on people who are really really bad, ninjas or jerks. This way you'll never have to group with them again even accidentally.

How to find people: if you're not in a decent sized guild then you need to pay attention to people you group with and if they're good players friendslist em and make a note that they're good tank or healer. Otherwise join LFG ask in that channel and do your own search type /who warrior 80 cityname and whisper everyone that shows up. Ask if they'd be interested in coming to your X instance before sending out an invite. Nothings more annoying than a group invite. IF the answer is yes go armory them then offer a spot.

Tip: dont be afraid to use the party kick command: /kick name or target name and rigthclick pick remove from party.

There are a few situations where I will immediately kick someone no second chances. For the most part it's 1 warning and then a kick. (Example: ninja looting you need on everything that drops, Language you cuss up a storm and are disrespectful to people in group). Ninja looting i can fix by Masterlooting it and make a decision if you need the gear or not because clearly you can't be trusted to decide for yourself. Language you get 1 warning unless you pissed me off.

Summary:
Level appropriate, group make up, loot rules, mutual respect.

Enjoy!

Oh yea and I've never had trouble finding a group for my instances even as a poorly geared mage. Why? there's several hundred people on at any given time so there's bound to be someone who wants to do that instance.

Leveling Guide

Stay in the old world as long as possible because outlands is pvp gankfest. It's damm annoying if you're trying to quest and at 64 its alot easier to clear quests. hehe and i suspect that the starting zones don't penalize for higher ups going there until like 66 or so because at 63 my toon's starting quests were yellow. Group quests/instances love a higher level toon who's wanting to run it.

addons:
carbonite, map coord and thottbot.com or wowhead bookmarked when you need to look stuff up

Other:
1 water bottle, some snacks on hand.

Suggestion:

levels 1-55 (none - do whatever)
levels 55-63 (clear out all the old world quest zones 50+ because hellsfire will be extremely hard with the gankings and pvping going on. Not that pvp is bad but it's not efficent if i'm trying to level and quest. Oldworld places are ghost towns so they're perfect for leveling, questing and zomg mining, herbing. feralas, WPL, EPL, Silthus.
level 64-71: go to outlands and start at hellsfire
72+ : go northrend

WOTLK easy?

hmm wolkt isn't that hard it seems i see level 80s already and the expac came out 11/13 today is 11/17 thats only 4 days! Geez .. these expacs are fast! Geez i'm still working on my level 55s and 29s but thats the way it is some people need the challenge of powering through the content.

I personally enjoy the journey to level cap and become quite bored at the top since I am unwilling to raid and dont really pvp. So whats to do at the top? go raid the AH and the random alt. Before i didn't really have a wow limit but now I do. So after a 2.5-3 hour instance that's about it for me so its unlikely i'll be hitting another instance or quest but i will take the time to make sure i'm logged out at an inn or preferably nearby my next quest zones.

account hacked! wtf! and router too! damm router .. how should i know who hacked what first but there was an email in my inbox that says password reset along with a temporary password.

Man this sucks .. I had my wow time carefully planned out tomorrow is lowbie night. What I am concerned about is a keylogger on my computer vs. my info somehow getting out there. it is extremely unlikely that I accidentally requested a password change as shoot I didn't even know which email was linked to that acct.

Bliz closed on sundays too!!

WOW down

waaa the world is ending! okies not really but i did have plans to speed level some alts say 2 day before expac but with servers down all day yesterday and probably today it's not likely.

Sigh there goes my i dea of a level 60 priest ready for wotlk

Free S2 PVP gear .... NOT

Wee free S2 arena gear! late last night a blizzard bug allowed free S4 weapons without ratings and free S2 arena gear for priest and warlocks. I guess it wasn't meant to be but since so many people picked up the free gear blizzard will just extend the offline time and remove it from people who got it vs. suspending everyone who got it. Doing 3 day suspensions the night before Xpac wouldn't sit well with thier customer base. Oh well but damm! it was fun for a few mins. Lets see new epics on a level 19 priest alt !

Fact: bliz will remove the gear from people to got it for free and will not be penalizing people.

Event: Shadows of Doom (Free Epics)

Yay Blessed Regalia of Undead Cleansing 4/4 the full set on me mage on server 2. Either way I've be come the super casual player which goes *shrug* if I dont have the best gear otherwise I'll just gear up from the special event epics and occasional expansion freebies. heh it's nice to be in a raiding guild as a friends/non raider status finding groups is easy! if you're asking how to get in .. welll i'm a special case grandfathered in from my position in old guild as priest lead so ... i'm one of the few nonraiders and super casual mains. I dont donate much to the guild bank but at the same time I dont use the guild bank contents.

Contact Me

how to get in touch with me?

Post your private message in this post as a comment. (All comments are moderated so only I will see your message). Make sure to include your contact information otherwise I can't reply. This contact info post is for legit reasons to need to talk to me

Why do i do this? I rather not have my personal info posted all over the web

F.A.Q (Frequently Asked Questions)
Sample of questions that I will not respond to:
Can I see your pic? Gimme your phone number, What's your main's name and server, Can I have some gold?

My Profile

I'm one of the exotic girl gamers in WOW easy on the eyes, ears and a very good player. I'm a living myth .. like really a girl in WOW? yep! I made this blog so my WOW personality has a place to vent and talk. Over time I've picked up many priestly, healing, raiding, tricks and like to share them.

I have purposely avoided naming names, servers and other identifiable information as another blogger once said the world is a small place. I think I wouldn't be able to blog as freely if my identity was blown so anonymous it will be. Also RL and WOW need to stay separate. You know how it is. Professionally .. well who wants your boss to know about your WOW habit.

Update:  7/4/2010  Sleepy priest has come to an end after nearly 2 years I started blogging in december 2008.  This blog has been very therapuetic for me in terms of writing, talking, it was as if I had my own personal shrink. In writing down my WOW experience I've managed to record my experience and well I think in a few decades long after my subscription to blizzard has expired or perhaps the company no longer exists this will be my proof that I existed as a gamer, raider, priest lead .  Scary how one can go from hardcore raider to nearly nongamer.

I have enjoy my run as a raider priest, casual player and as a super casual well there's nothing much to post so I've decided to announce my retirement.   I am undergoing training as a RL healer and also redirected my writing passion to blogging about oh my current situation as a real healer in training.

Occupation:
Aspiring 3d Modeler - excellent conversation starter .. Everyone thinks i'm a model 
Artist!  I damm well gonna make some lunch money out of this cuz I'm an artist dammit. I sell my art!
Student  -- RL healer in training

I have a few projects that I've come up with: comic stripe, mini manga, anime creation and movie clips. I'm hoping some of these projects will mature into portfolio quality work.. and now if i caa only get started on all of them vs. lettting them die before it gets off the drafting table


Need to contact me? Leave a comment with your info. All comments are set to private

Hallows Eve event! a pet!! dammit no mount!

I picked up a squashling pet on these toons so far:

server #1: druid + priest have it.
server #2: none
server #3: level 10 priest got it in her trick/treat bag. Now that was aweseome to see a blue pet in a lowbie's bags. This priest is leveling via the RAF aka myself and will be xfering to server #2 the extra 30 levels will be granted to the even slower leveling druid alt.

Okies a fast update here. I've be slacking off the posting here mainly as I don't have any new wow revelations. i'm an altoholic and once i hit the level cap i retire the character and repeat however since i'm a non-leveler it will take me a long long while to get to the level cap. Perhaps its the fact that I've been playing wow since 2005 and this is player fatigue. I didn't even read the patch notes and still haven't read it. 3 years time i've gone from a hardcasual>raider>super casual oh and it's been in the same guild so technically gosh these people are the same ones from 3 years ago! amazing some have gotten married, kids etc. Addiction is best when it is managed in yummy doses. There was a time where i actually believed that wowing 14 hours a day was a lifestyle and that i was taking a break .

Event: Hollow's Eve

woot free epics and even a mount to be had!! okies blizzard out did themselves this time with all the freebies

WOW Musings

i've come to the conclusion that 70% of WOW people are rude, obnoxious, and immature. I now ignore trade chat unless I need it otherwise it brings me to thier level if i respond and that annoys me. If you notice the more your respond the they up the rudeness and you do the same. Guess what? even if you started on your unknown alt . pretty soon you'll start acting just like the 70-90% of the jackasses on wow and then what's the point? youve become the enemy. 30% are the more mature crowd .. its a matter of finding them they exist on ever server.

Anyways there is always more stuff to grind etc rep, gold, gear, unique items etc.

There is a direct connection that the more wow time you do the more your RL falls apart.

Otherwise I have a rule that no wow until 9:30pm server.

WTB - ZA Bear Mount (completed)

Date: 10/12/08
Item: Amani War Bear (ZA Mount)
Price: 23,000 gold

So I realized at the last min that I did want a bear mount and that I'd need both level 70 and an insane amount of gold. Too bad there was another bidder some guy willing to pay 20k so instead of bidding him up 1k at a time I went and dropped a 23k bid. Good lord i didn't think i'd have to clean out the piggy bank for this but today is sunday and basically the last reset for this as tuesday is patch day and which will take this mount out of the game. Otherwise yes I just dinged 70 on my mage (main on server #2). Luckily i'm good at making wow gold so I could afford the 23k but it's still expensive. Otherwise I got no less than 4 tells asking if this was really my main and if i bought the gold. There's this stigma to being rich in wow it's like everyone who has a lot of gold is a gold buyer.

What I really wanted to say was... well you raid endgame bosses and I raid the AH so what's the problem but that would be rude and would have probably gotten me kicked from the raid on the principal of losing face.

The raid was very smooth and the basically carried me the 10th man through the instance and it was completed in under 20 mins.

How to buy a bear mount 2 days before patch.

Have 30,000 in the bank and be prepared to fork over 25k but dont tell em that just start with the starting bid of 8k

Whisper all the top 3-5 raiding guilds on your server asking very politely if thier guild would consider selling you a bear mount. Take down names and ask if they knew of anyone who is running it if their guild won't or can't do it.

I got 1 guild who said thier guild isn't the type to sell runs. So i whispered 4 other top guilds and they all referred me to the same person. a paladin from the server's top raiding guild.
Luckily as i was about to log off for the day i saw someone from that guild going WTS Amani Bear mount pst. .. so i whispered and got invited into party with the raid leader and the other bidder and we bidded in party.

Anywayz on any given server there is usually 1 guild who is capable and willing to take an extremely undergeared person.

Raid experience: 10/10
lol i've never "bought" a run through before so this was a bit nerve wracking but both parties came out happy as I got my mount and each raider got 1270g and 11.5k to their guild bank.

Lets see their raid leader supplied all my potion needs, i even got heals and rezzes when i died due to low stam, i didn't really dps much so much as trying to stay alive .. even resorted to using mana shield for myself. it was at malakazzar i died as it really was must have 8-9k hp. lol they did remark oh mage is still alive! of course .. i am a former raider and do have some memory of that boss.

Sigh there went my goal of 218k in game gold per character. Well gold is there to make the game more fun so instead of farming to get goldto buy pots to raid I get gold to have fun. I actually prefer to just stare at the nice gold coins coming in than spending it. Its always good to have alot of gold on hand just in case something of interest pops along and it's down to who's got more gold.


Btw the going rate for 23,000g Gold is: $458 USD. Sigh

Ding 70! Finally Mage is at level cap

Okies for the new peoples the word DING is used as a verb to say leveled. I finally hit the level cap of 70 today 10/12/08 at 5pm server time. I was doing a steam vaults run to clear out another part of my karazhan keying. Lets see 2 hours later I am a proud owner of an Amani Bear mount. Price 23k gold and I am now one of the average WOWer who can barely afford his or her mount.

Ah well i'm a casual AHer and an even more casual wow player with altitus .. so you see i have no interest in raiding but round 2 i will plan my epics buying a little better so i 'm not paying 3x the going rate.

gah i'm poor!! My fortune has dwindled to 2k hordeside and 4k alliance side .. that's 6k gee

Mount Collection

Okies I have a small menagerie of mounts. Yes these are spread out over 3 severs and 4 toons. Lets see .. i enjoy collecting gold, cute looking pets, cool mounts and even cooler enchants! Okies mounts and pets are like the permanent items of wow as you upgrade out of gear at every expac.

Lol okies i have plans to grind the bloodsail bucaneer's gear and captain's hat. but that's me. I like to have things that people go Ooo .. want!

SERVER #1 (RPPVP-Alliance)
Druid 70 got the Winterspring Frostsaber in January of 2006
Priest 70 got Fiery Warhorse's Reins in April of 2007

SERVER #2 (RPPVP-Alliance)
Mage 70 got the Amani Warbear (paid: 23,000g) in October 2008

SERVER #3
Priest 40 got the Zhevra Mount in September 2008 (refered myself)

*Collectors Edition pets: WOW, BC, WOTLK

Brewfest Event & Phat Epics

ZOMG it's that time of the year FREE epics from blizzard!! lol I think i'm gonna try for a kodo mount. Ah well no kodo but I picked up 1 brewfest ram on me shadow priest. Oh well its better than nothing

Food for WOW Addicts.

I'm on a tangent of eating goodness. As much as its a distraction and annoyance I need to eat 3 meals a day with 2-3 snack breaks built in. There are a few requirements for eating and WOW. After writing the drinks part I just realized that wow eaters are basically eating like babies .. spillproof, bite sized, boneless, nongreasy, single handed. ... but we is limited by 1 hand, zero attention to eating. Well gotta eat 3x a day or risk

Ideally you want to be eating healthy meals, with fruit veggies and not fastfood, junkfood vs. hot pockets, chips and cookies, icecream because it's bad enough you're sitting on your butt and not burning calories.

PRE-FOOD Prep
1.) napkins or a roll of bounty paper towels nearby
2.) 2 sheets of white computer paper as a make shift placemat to catch any crumbs, splatters, grease spots
3.) 2 water bottle or mug with water for drinking and post lunch clean up

FOOD REQUIREMENTS
1.) Eeaten single handed
2.) Bite sized morsels or cut it into bite sized ones
3.) Portable or in a bowl big enough to not spill anything.
4.) Boneless
5.) Nothing messy, greasy or that falls apart think hard tacos, pizza
6.) Easy + fast to make (5 mins tops)
** multivitamin: take 1 aday this should cover anything you missed eating if you were slacking

DRINK REQUIREMENTS
the goal is spill proof drinks so use lids, adult sippy things "waterbottle with mouth pieces" or mugs.

1.) water bottle with a closeable cap or mouthpiece, heavy mug.
2.) other beverages either finish it, put in water bottle or put it far out of reach
3.) icecream: eat it in a cup
4.) Coffee: use a lid

SNACKS
again bite sized, preportioned, healthy choices over junk food eat these between meals. I eat a mix of healthy snacks and junk foods so i wouldn't recommend following my snack ideas.

CONCLUSION: eat 3 balanced meals using the above ideas.

Brunch Recipe: Asian Noodles with Grilled Shrimp

Hi hi,
well i've been doing alot less wow and more other things like catching up to anime, explore new anime, work on my artwork skills, learn new software and make yummy brunches. I admit it's still rare that I would go all out creative with lunch so today's an exception. I used a lot of subsitutions so it was actually surprising that it turned out so good.

Issues: recipe called for lime I only had lemon so used it and forgot how much bigger my lemon was to a lime so sauce was a bit sour. I offset the sour peanut sauce with 1.5 tablespoon of sugar :)

Today's "Brunch" was Noodles with grilled shrimp, garnished with celery bits, carrot shreds and peanut sauce. I came up with this idea while staring at the fridge for what to eat .. either something fast and boring or something fast exotic and tasty. I was limited as to what i had in my fridge there's no way i'm going food shopping just to make brunch so at worst i'll eat oatmeal to keep my stomach quiet.

RECIPE: Noodles with grilled shrimp, garnished with celery bits, carrot shreds and peanut sauce. (prep time 10-15 mins)

1/2 pack of *Instant noodles
1/2 stick of carrots shredded (used potato peeler)
1/3 stick of celery cut in very thin slices
1 thin slice of onion (coulda skipped)
5 pieces of shrimp grilled and sliced in 1/2 (can sub in any meat)

Cook noodles only until "Al Dente" - firm to the bite. Drain put in your bowl. *shrimp: wash, peel, devein, grill until just cooked. Then add all the other ingredients on top and lastly spoon some peanut sauce & soy sauce on top of it. put as much or little as you wish. Noodles you can use 1 full pack or more depending on how much you can eat. Anything past 1 pack you need to up the ingredients. which is fast.. becareful not to overcook that's what ruins the flavor and texture

RECIPE: Peanut Sauce (from http://www.chow.com)

* 1/2 cup natural-style creamy peanut butter
* 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
* 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
* 1 tablespoon soy sauce
* 1 small garlic clove, mashed to a paste
* 1 teaspoon chile-garlic paste
* 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
* Juice of 1 lime
* 1/4 cup water

Gold Farming -- 87 page thesis

Gold farming! btw dont buy gold it's against TOS and my own rules as well.

Awesome there's some really indepth analysis on this WOW gold farming business. Oh it's a $1 billion + dollar business so very profitable. http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/di_wp32.htm

Trade channel -- WTF Chuck Norris?

Ok trade channel WTF is everyone talking about Chuck Norris? This guy is ancient!! I vaguely remember him from old movies from when I was a wee toddler .. yet everyday trade chat is spammed with people going CHuck Norris!! this that and whatever. Those peoples probably haven't even watched a single chuck norris action movie but think it's a cool way to spam.

PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers

So yah this pve = pvp server transfer is way over due but being that everyone has a max level character or more the gear is semi balanced. I think this is just another way for them to get more monies by attracting inactive people who's guilds, friends have rerolled and the only reason they haven't played is because they can't bear the grind from 1-70. Everything has to do with monies so yah this is a hefty untapped market so why not make it easier. Blizzard makes monies from the xfers, new accounts, reactivated accts etc.

Me? I dont care either way as I only have 2 high levels on 1 alliance rppvp server and 1 horde on rppvp server then 2 very low level horde alts on an pve normal server so even if i wanted to I dont have spare toons to transfer :) oh i'm cool with that btw I dont like leveling so you wont see me leveling the same classes across servers. The one exception was this one .. as I am rather fond of my guild, GM and some friends so priest + warlock it is again.

BTW people who pvp well are better players overall because they have faster reaction times, better situation awareness, and knows both thier own class and all other classes very well so they know the capabilities of each class. To top it all off all this is done in split second decisions. So anyone QQing that PvP servers/poeple sucks are just the losers who can't pvp wont learn how to pvp then spends all thier time QQing. Hey I suck at pvp but you know what? I learned some pvp self defense things.
------------
PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers Now Open

Do we need to say more? You can now transfer your characters from a PVE server to a PVP server if you pay for it.

Providing a smooth and enjoyable experience for all players is always a priority for us, and we are continually re-evaluating our policies and programs to do so. As the state of the game has matured substantially since the inception of Paid Character Transfers, we will now be allowing PvE-to-PvP transfers on a full-time basis to provide players with more mobility and freedom to easily play with their friends.

Keep in mind that all of the other standard cooldowns and restrictions will continue to apply; we’re just opening the option to transfer characters on Normal realms to Player-vs.-Player realms. Please review the Paid Character Transfer FAQ (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20558&rhtml=tr...) if you have any questions on how this service works.

You can use this service at any time by visiting your Account Management (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/) page and selecting the “Paid Character Transfer” button.

Happy news for everyone wanting to move their characters from a PVE server to a PVP one, that's for sure!

Thoughts?

Duel Boxing & Casual players!

So i've decided to become a casual player .. by cutting down the total hours of play time per week. What this means is that I need to be efficient in my play time and get as much leveling in as possible vs. losing time farming or chatting. Solution: duel boxing! http://www.dual-boxing.com

These days as I make sure to log out at an inn that's in my quest zone and do a shattrath hearth only when i need to move between continents vs. boating. Farming is a time sink so what i do is log in my 2 boxing twins at the same time and plow through my quests based on what it is and location so if i can't find the quest spot because of it's geography think barrens great lift area I will skip the zone and move on the next zone because spending 30 mins to look for something then guess maybe you need to double back or figure how how to get to the top part is a waste of my time.

So if it's a kill quest or red i'll tackle those first. one of the benefits of duel boxing is that I can easily clear the red quests because I have synchronized dps due to me linking the spells by cast time, spell damage type. While both toons are clothies that means niether of us can tank but with focused dps even higher level red mobs go down very fast. The alt is always dpsing the same target the main is due to the /assist macro and life tap is both an auto follow command, asks for a renew and also turns the alt in the right direction for dpsing mode so it's facing the mob.

Mods: I use hotkeynet its a 2 boxing software that passes commands from the active wow window to the second wow window int he background so when i press button 5 both toons are pressing #.

Anyways with synced dps every spell is a double cast so as long as I can get 1 cast off you're actually getting hit with double the damage, twice the dots, debuffs, and fears. ZOMg i just try this out in pvp! Anyways sadly it's on a pve server so leveling it's just mobs and me vs. real people. for kill quests I let my pet find mobs to kill and leave it on agressive I just follow the pet and dps whatever it's targeting.

This 2 boxing can be interesting but as soon as people realize that the priest is an alt on auto follow it's probably fairly easy to quickly disable the priest as I am a soso pvper to start so add in the alt i can't switch fast enough.


My spell set up is: VW tank or if easy mobs Succubus dps.

MAIN: Warlock ALT: Shadow Priest
#1 life tap /tar main /fol main /cast renew
#2 shadow bolt (2.5 sec) mindblast (1.5 sec)
#3 corruption (1.5 sec) mindflay (channeled)
#4 curse of agony (instant) shadow word pain (instant)
#5 immolate (2 sec ) vampiric embrace(instant) or smite (1.5 sec)
#6 searing pain (1.5 sec) smite (1.5 sec)
~ (orders alt to cast a fast heal on me) for emergencies

S. Priest (alt)
#1 /tar main /fol main /cast renew
#2 /tar main /cast flash heal
#3 mind flay
#4 shadow word pain
#5 mind blast
#6 smite
#7 holy fire

WOW Space

What's my WOW space look like?
heh well it all depends on which day of the week and what i was doing before WOW.

There are things that will always be on my desk even after a clean up:
2 mugs with water and something else: If it's on hand i'll drink it so my way of staying hydrated
Calculator: for calculating AH prices
white paper: for quest coordinate scribbles
2 reference books: non wow related left overs before i switched to wow.

My desk is glass which makes for an easy clean up post artwork or spills or post lunch. Hehe previously i had a wood desk and by the time i was done with it it was multicolored .. accidental ink spills, splashes.

Okies that's it. pictures will come as soon as i find it ..

Life of a WOW Addict

Ok this was written 1 year after the event .. I was the wow addict in question in case you wasn't too sure. Wow enough and you will see a pattern either in yourself or people you know. This applies to raiders and altoholics who level alt after alt across servers.

Raiders who raid because they're trying to avoid RL responsibilities .. then their RL falls apart and they raid more to avoid feeling pain and the negative thoughts that go with it. Family life goes to hell because someone isn't pulling their weight. Next thing you know that WOWer is clocking in 16-20 hour wow days raiding up instances, then farming to pay for raiding and more times to socialize with their wow friends whom they couldn't' talk to because they were raiding. In order to raid this much you'd be on the computer the moment you wake up, eat breakfast at your desk while you check you wow mail, toons, dailies, then lunch then dinner and take very fast breaks for bio break aka toilet break. Food is eaten in front of the computer leaving crumbs all over the places along with accidental spills therefore attracting roaches and other vermin. Shower becomes optional and you can't remember if you showered or not and if you did was it yesterday or a few days a go. You ignore your phone, email, aim, skype, real paper mail because you're always busy instancing. Family .. they' soon become annoying background noise as you no longer join them for meals since you're too busy with wow to notice that you are the one acting weird being holed up in your room glued to your computer nonstop

Weird? oh definitely you live to wow from wake up until sometime in the early am hours when everyone's finally logging off and then you remember oh .. maybe I'll see what everyone else is up to but then they're asleep and you're too tired to give it much more thought.

when you are exhausted and pass out to sleep either on your bed or at your desk. After a while your RL friends forget about you because every time they call you can't talk, when they make plans you forget or don't respond .. all because you're busy raiding or wowing something up. God forbid you have a significant other .. soon you'll be a singleton cuz he' or she would have had enough of being ignored for pixels and dumped your ass. Work if you had a job you'd have been fired or no the way because wowing 10 hours after work means you're putting in 3-4 hours of sleep and have poor work performance and hopefully you're not also surfing the web on work time looking at wow sites.

Oh i forgot to mention mail. Your real life paper mail piles up which you can't get to anyways, bills don't get paid unless they're on auto deduct from your checking, Late to work, poor work, get fired, you're actually relieved now you can wow a bit, if you're lucky you'll have unemployment checks which is bad now you have no reason to work until one day the bank calls to say you've not paid your credit cards in a while and can you make a payment now otherwise they will be forced to send it to a collections agency. Oh yah and need i say you ignore your phone because it cant be good if people are calling can it? either you owe monies or possibly friends or family trying to get you to log off?

Whoever thinks wow is not an addiction is wrong it is.. but as with any recreational substance controlled use is required. I will post some signs of wow addiction and if you fit the category then you know what you need to do. Either you make something of your life or you will have spend years if not decades on wow and be living in the basement of your parents apartment. Should one day you wake up .. you'll look in the mirror and go OMG how did I get so old? Why haven't I anything to show for my time, no monies, no job, no good job, career, family.


HELPLINE INFO:
http://www.wikihow.com/Break-a-World-of-Warcraft-Addiction
http://www.squidoo.com/wowaddicts

Solution?
1.) admit you have a problem then go fix it. Come on that's what school was for to teach you problem solving skills.
2.) identify career goals and steps to take.
3.) get into a schedule and stick with it. wake up 7am, work out 8am,

When you do take some time to think about your life .. which mind you has now become a mess it gets very depressing and it hurts. What to do? is it to be dirt poor and play games all day until they cut your electricity and Internet for lack of payment? No? good think again what do you want to do? I'm sure it has an answer because back in 3rd, 5th grade or even high school they'd have asked you what do you want to do and I'm sure you gave an answer and it wasn't to be a bum game player living off other people because he cant' afford to work due to gaming.

bite the bullet go log off, shower, make and eat real meal at the dinner table, sleep 7 hours, jog for 1-2 hours then sit down and really think what do you want to do in life? look at your finances, open your mail, fix up your resume, and lastly go get a job in your career path if not any will do. If you still have unemployment checks left good for you now you can get paid to retrain. If no unemployment checks then any temp or FT job will do. Sure you'll hate the job and that's the point .. and you will work hard in that hated job, do excellent work, get paid minimum wage and while you're working think about what skills do you have that can get you a better job. if the answer is none then think where do i want to be and what do i want to do and how do i get there. The monies from this crappy job is going to pay for schooling or training to get you where you need to be. Yes work hard, do good work, impress your bosses and only leave when you have something better lined up. Keep at your goal and one day you'll have arrived at the goal and can look back and go wow i have come far.

Support system? family and close friends .. WOW friends you'll have to keep at a distance as they are actually part of the problem. Get their off line info aim or what not and chat there if there's nothing to talk about other than wow then that's that.

So in short .. Wow in moderation. ERm maybe I should change it to Blog in moderation too? WTF it's 3:15am and I'm still talking .. i logged off wow at 2am! geez

How many hours do you play?

For this answer to be accurate you need to be brutally honest with yourself. get a mod that tracks your play time by session and total play time and use a stop watch. Then step back and ask yourself what else could i be doing instead of wow.

so my casual wow isnt that casual at all it's pretty hard core if you go by the hour count.
casual 5-10 hours a week
hard core: 15-20+ hour a week

I dont even raid and I just did 4 hours of wow in 3 separate parts. 2 hours checking ah alts 2 hours questing and if you add 6 more hours you'd have yourself a FT job. Geez if i spent that much time on a hobby i'd be a professional.

I will be knocking this down to 5-7 hours a weekbecause this is silly 28 hour of wow a week if we're doing 4 hours a day?

Wow enough and you start to see a pattern either in yourself or others. Sadly but true you as the addict will be the last to see the problem and may even deny angrily it if others point it out to you.

Post Holiday Haze

Okies your slacker priest here went on over drive and in 3 days picked up 2 levels on her mage so it's now a level 65 and also got 1.5 levels on her RP alt twins .. which aren't so little anymore at level.

So yah wow addiction still has its moments. Well the way I see it is that WOW has its purpose and it's to create a safe haven for you to recover from daily stresses and decompress but over use this "Med" and it becomes a vicious cycle of wow to get a

WOW Log: Hours played

Hi hi,
welcome to my wow log -- this is me being accountable to the time i spend on wow. I will update this page every day as it shows how much time i lose to WOW. Whew I forgot this thread even existed!


2/7/09= 3 hours
-----------------------
----------------------
9/4/08 = 4 hours (3 separate times)
9/5/08=2 hours (1 chunk)
9/6/08=?
9/7/08=?
9/8/08=?
9/9/08= 5 hours
9/10/05=2 hour
9/11/08=2
9/12/08=
9/13/08=
9/14/08=

Where have you been?

Hi hi again,
like the title says , sleepy priest i've been on hiatus from blogging and have been working a new career prep.. erm and leveling alts.

I am now leveling a mage hordeside 62 and leaving it for a bit cuz omg leveling is hard and a bit lonely now that friends are a bit busy or burnt out from wow.

On my 3rd server aka the reroll one my old guild's GM made a special effort to set aside 1 weeknight a week called alt night to help a few very late comers level u They even made alts at the same level as myself and a few others. It is not a run through and it gives me an opportunity to get those instance quests out of the way without having to pug or beg a run through. Personally I hate asking a higher level to run anything and no one learns anything in that run. When it comes to groups unlike some people who will spend hours going anyone need Xyz I can put my own groups together in 5 mins ..but it's more fun to run with old friends than a random pug.

I'm impressed .. they actually made time for little me! I'm not that important in the guild these days .. i log in say hi .. chat some maybe some leveling and log out. meh i've mellowed in wow terms i'm content with a little of everything ( instance a bit, pvp some, alt some and maybe once every 2 months raid some) I use to be a former hardcore raider .. raided 5 nights a week!! 2-3 progression raids, 1 farm instance and maybe another random raid. hmm that probably contributed to some of my poor work performance at times. youknow nod off atwork with screw ups that either I did or someone else made .. but i cant' be sure because i'm that tired.

Anyways I need to prep for a gnomer run next week .. heh luckily I have a good knack for AH so even w/o making an effort I have 130g at level 28 enough to pay for 2 level 30 mounts for me and my alt. I'll see if i can double my gold by week's end. oh did i mention i hate farming and refuse to do it?

heh well no doubt i'll be ok goldwise .. as I've always had alot of gold on both the original main server, 2nd server so server #3 shouldn't be an issue.

what kinda gamer are you?

So we gotz gamers and we gotz gamers! what kind are you? Take this test & compare it against your RL personality:
Bartle basically says there are 4 types of players - social players, explorers, achievers, and killers. http://www.gamerdna.com/quizzes/bartle-test-of-gamer-psychology/take

Real Life Personality Test:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JungType.htm
http://www.keirsey.com/

RL personality: ISFJ Introverted with a mix of dreamer/achiever
Gamer Type: Solo 80% Group 10% and background noise social 10%. Goal oriented

I would much rather solo than listen to someone else's chatter... where i'd probably go ballistic and go STFU i didnt' join group to listen to you talk or I'd go group kick then replace, too noisy, next pull plz. kk thx for group bye now. I do instances to complete a quest for the nice exp .. so far it's not fun at all to listen to people talk and if someone says do you have voice chat .. i am likely to say no I dont think it's needed just follow the kill order: skull>X>Circle etc.

As proof of my achievement oriented self! I own a few rare items that will survive future expansions: Full T2, Reins of the Winter Frost Saber and Fiery Warhourse Reins. I also have most Pre-BC and BC raid Enchants, a member then class lead level of a prestigious guild so there! accomplishments! A personal fortune that rivals our 300 member guild bank's 5 tabbed contents and gold combined. Erm yah we're talking big numbers.
Reins of the Winterspring FrostsaberRiding (75)
Fiery Warhorse's ReinsRiding (150)

Addons & Mods?

Today I'm going to talk about mods and wow. I'm a mod minimalist because less mods = less breakage come hotfix and patch time. There are 3 types of mod users: Anti modder (zero used), Minimalist, Medium, and Heavy. I personally know of 1 player who uses over 120 different mods and another that uses zero.

I'm going to list em alphabetically and raid mods are absolutely required if you want to raid at all. I keep these mods updated as while I dont raid I like to be prepared so on the off chance I am in the mood and there's a raid slot it's not like what? eh? mod where what how or worst oh mod's acting up brb in 20mins.

Where to get these? http://wow.curse.com is it safe? yes but still have your anti virus ready.. this site's been a staple of wow users since like forever.

Raid Mods:
Omen Threat Meter - your threat vs. raid
Deadly Boss Mods - raid boss annoucements
Group Calendar - schedule stuff with your guild
Ventrilo - aka vent your voice speak system that is like a conference call so you know what's going on in raid.

Personal Mods:
Auctioneer - shopping hello! yes profit and lost etc need.
Carbonite - quest mod that marks on map, tracks your gankers
CTmail - bulk mail opener
FuBar-UI mini bar on top showing stuff like gold for all toons, profit, durability, loc
Gatherer - tracks all your gathered nodes and marks it on your map (herbing/mining)
Hotkeynet - passes commands from wow window 1 to wow window 2, no alt tabbing. for duelboxing use. You need to get use to the super fast "blink" that's the computer alt tabbing for you.
Map Coords - shows X,Y coordinates on your map so you can use thottbot for help
Outfitter - 1 button gear switch for pvp, raid, healing etc
Proximo - targetable list of your arena opponents name, class and level
WIM - wow's own aim like chat window and spam blocker
Quest Annoucer - annouces to party your quest status and when you've completed a quest

Okies that's the list of my mods: 15 mods but I only use 7-8 of them. if need be I can work with just 1 mod: map coords lol that one sadly is required as I dont have a good sense of direction so need it to find my quest spots.

Olympics: Beijing 2008

Yay Olympics!! there's a WOW version of course as there are with every major occasion. You can follow the olympics live here:

http://en.beijing2008.cn/
http://www.nbcolympics.com (videos / photos)
http://youtube.com/beijing2008 -- non US sites only

WOW pays tribute to the Olympic Games with the Spirit of Competition August 8 - August 24. Rewards are:

• [Competitor's Tabard] - Obtained from losing or winning a battleground. You MUST stay for the full duration of the battleground.
• 'Spirit of Competition' Small Pet - Obtained from winning a battleground. Every time you win a battleground, you have a 50% chance this pet is mailed to you. It is summoned by a [Gold Medallion]. There is only one color available at the moment. The battleground you play doesn't matter, but winning does.

Here's a screenshot of the cool pet: doesn't he look like mushu from the disney movie: Mulan? Oh i got this pet oh my first and only BG in ages. So i'm not going to grind it on any other toon.
vs.

Google made a GPS: WOW map?

Google WOW maps? omg this is cool! ok not that useful.. as you'd have to alt tab or click tab outside of the game but .. if you really wanted to know what FPs connect to which ones and where to go herbing /mining i guess its good. lol as you can see i neither mine or herb.

http://mapwow.com/

Class Leads: Whuz tat?

Title: Class Lead
Definition: one person selected to represent their class.

Job Description
Interview potential applicants of that class, Advise others of the class as needed, make raid drafting recommendations, set raid requirements for the class, diplomat between class and raidleaders as needed. During raids one of of the healing class leads (priest, pally, druid, shaman) will take on the role of a healing lead directing, assigning healers to various groups and making sure coverage is good. Raid leaders know that in every raid there is 1 healing leader typing out orders in the background so they don't bother to assign healings.

Class leads are very important for big guilds as these people are selected from thier guild as the point person for all questions relating to thier class. Being the best priest won't win you the class lead slot. This position is usually given to someone who is well liked, good with people, a respected member, and knowledgeable about thier class, not afraid to stand up to raid leaders, gm. They're a buffer of sorts.

How did I get my class lead slot? (Me as the last priest class lead)
1.) needs to be a main .. no one will stand for an alt being class lead while the main goes raiding on his mage.

There were 3 competitors! zomg "G" was an up and coming raid leader, "S" was a strong advocate of S. Priests and lastly myself "E" a quiet person who knew her stuff. The others were too polar for the spot. "G" has a habit of offending some while getting his point accross, "S" well we all know his view .. it's shadowform or nothing. Lastly myself as "E" my easy going nature meant I got along with most of the officers, other leads, raid leaders, GM, and the guild. knowledgeable about my class .. i dunno there are at least 3-5 more knowledgable than me in all areas lol.

Anyways I had the stamp of approval from the previous class lead. HEh i guess I had the personality for the spot and learned the rest asap.

The piont of a class lead is that sometimes the class has an issue and instead of going to the GM or officer they go to thier lead..this is to free up the officers for bigger matters.

Otherwise I've organized our class forum's postings into 2 main stickies.
1.) Raid List who is cleared to raid what instance and armory link to thier gear - this way raid leaders can draft w/o waiting for feedback from me. I work so can't be online to answer stuff.

2.) Raid requirements (it's long but I did some research and came up with numbers that our priestly members need to meet before they start raiding. Basically i took a hardcore raiding guild's numbers and down ranked it a bit. This was so sucessful that our hunter lead copied it lol and i'm sure Raid leaders appreciate having all the info at thier finger tips so there were no more drafting mistakes of under geared people

3.) Library - links to reading material on specs, theory crafting, raids, you name it. This reading info would cover everything you can think of to ask your class lead .. so when i'm offline which is plenty people know where to go to get the info.

Guild hiarchy is sometimes like a goverment or company:
GM> Officers >Raid Leaders/Class Leaders>Members
CEO>Vice Presidents>Board of Directors>Department Heads>Employee
President>Cabinet Members>Senators>Govenors>Mayor>Citizens


------------------------------------------------
update: 8/26/08

I am now a retired class lead and have been since the guild rerolled a few months ago.. as the lowest leveled main and nonraider I stay away from suggestions comments and anything along the lines of advice. There is no way in hell any guild can have a class lead who does not raid there is only so much you can do from theory and it seeds resentment among the raider priests how they can have a lead who won't raid yet tells them how to raid. As non raider and lowbie .. i get to do whatever I want and not get drawn into the drama.

Anyways .. i point people in reading directions if they ask otherwise I just do my own thing. you know that is what it means to be retired. lol i guess i'm really in a special group .. i'll never be the average player even if i am the lowest level main. So I get asked for advice every now and then and now i'm an retired advisor since people are getting comfortable in thier class slots.

If needed they can even look up my old posts as class lead .. which i wrote up so all questions can be answer w/o me being online. Okies updated .. they took the old site oflfine. Ah well I'll recreate it here later

Guild Shopping !! A How to Guide:

Ok guild shopping i mean this in a good way. Before you join a guild any guild there are a few thigns to do.

RESEARCH: PREP WORK for Pre-Application

1.) what do you want to do in wow? raid, pvp, pve, small groups?
2.) watch trade chat .. see how members of the guilds you're interested behave .. if someone is acting like a jerk in trade no doubt he will be the same in gchat and annoy the hell out of you.
3.) invite people from guilds you are interested in for instances, pvp, or ask if they are intersted in going to xyz instance. This is to test player skill, personality, see how they react to a wipe and show off your stuff.
4.) repeat this 2x that should be enough time for you to get to know them and show off your stuff.
5.) by now hopefully you've made a friend or are on friendly terms with a few of your target guild .. ask about application

APPLICATION:
Things to look for, questions to ask, and what to share.

1.) Ask to see thier website and read everything, listen in on thier vent during a raid or instance,
2.) What's thier loot policy ? read the fine print see if it's something you can live with
3.) How do they pick slots for raiding? Do they have mandatory raid or wow time requirements?
4.) Do they have a class lead? Ask to talk to him or her via chat. Does the class lead sound like he knows his stuff? Open to suggestions or what not because that's your immediate supervisor.

While all this is going on you should be watching for is how people present themselves, is it l33t chat, loot linking, cussing, sexually derogatory wording racist etc. Would you be friends would these people in RL? Do you like hanging out with em?

POST Application: wait 1 week if no reply whisper an officer asking for an update, if it's in progress then wait a bit. no you dont' say invite me now! when ? now?. lol you may get the kick before you've been accepted.

Seriously a guild application is like a job application. What can you do for us? Why us? Who are you? Show us your personality. Read your app over! Spell check? Grammar? proof it? If you're like WTF why should i do all that this is just a game. Well then if that's your attitude then you wont fit in here cuz we take our game seriously and if you can't be bothered to make an effort why should we? Anyways a guild is a group of like minded people and if you dont agree with a guild starting from it's application ..then you dont' belong here.

Me? lawl I am an expert because i've been on the interviewing end as class lead and RL tons of job interviews. As class lead my job was to make sure that everyone I screen fits in our guild in both personality, policy, and goals. I only dealt with priests and alot of times it was listening and reading between the lines. I also reread our guild charter to remind myself who we are and what are our guild goals and ideals. This is to avoid the warp that is me. So yah. fun stuff.

Anyways with all this said this is how you find a good guild.

Life as an Unguilded Lone Wolf

Hi hi,
Life as an unguilded or a member of an inactive guild is a bit different than guilded. I enjoy the quite and peace but when it comes to instances its a pain cuz now i have to find the people, armory them then if spec and gear pass hopefully the player skill is there and they're aren't too weird.

So far in my groups I've met 1 super whiner, rude people, incompetent people and good players. So it helps to be group leader here so you have absolute control ofthe group. One thing that I will do is group kick people who are rude and or ninjas. Oh and pugs cannot be trusted so Master Loot stays on in case an epic drops or something cuz after someone ninjas kicking em does no good so keep this on.

Lawl while i dont' care about bop blues others do but epics that I don't want to see ninja looting and a little ML saves alot of drama. My rule of thumb is 3 deaths or 3 wipes and i'm done. I don't really care if it's a wipe, accident or whatever because if its early on that's just a sign that this group cannot handle the bosses so i'm better off with a new group.

Oh and lack of maturity .. if I join a group where it looks like a frat house well .. ok I can deal with it so long as I'm being run though or something BUT if it's a regular group i give you 1 warning and will kick on the 2nd offense. A few things that will earn you a kick from me : ninja afks, extended afks, bad connection, wipes caused by you, cybering, sexual harrasment, ninjaing, racist etc.. basically the same rules that any mature /decent guild will apply will hold in my runs.

Anyways that's the ramblings of a lone wolf ..the way i see it blizzard is forcing the loners to socialize with the rest of wow's population with these quests inside instances which are worth a ton of exp.

Meh I'm sure I can get into any guild I want... even the creme of the crop raiding guilds. Except I have no intention of handing over that much time to a guild. Dunno .. my first and only guild was that elite, mature, organized that I dont think there are many if any that will measure up so I dont' join any. lol you know originally when I first came to wow I decided that I want to be a member of one of the server's elite guilds if only for the guid tag so bro did some research and picked this one.

Well it was fun. Thank for the fish! Sadly but true things change as do people. I can't say if i've changed or if it was the guild. logic says it was me ..I became a casual wower and lost interest in raiding.
-------------

update 8/26/08
btw as an unguilded level 1-70 toon people are so rude as to send you a random guild invite or worst shove a guild charter for me to sign. I use an addon to block them then whisper them 3g per signature and pretty soon i'll up it to 5g. Not that I need the gold but if people can't be bothered to whisper first and offer gold for my annoyance then I can't be bothered to sign. Or you'll have these pug groups that will send you a guild invite w/o saying anything it's like hello? do you not see something under my name? there's a reason for that. good. kk bye

Divided Loyalties: Did your guild reroll?

Whenever someone says reroll the first thing that comes to mind is what? how am i going to pay for everything w/o my AH Alt sugar daddy?

Recently my guild went inactive and rerolled onto hordeside. I did not go with them .. to me it felt like a sense of trust was betrayed .. you do not just take 2 years' worth of friendship, raids and just reroll w no discussion and what not.

So where did i go? lol no where and everywhere. I made a 2nd account rolled a level 1 on hordeside a placekeeper alt, and retreated in to my AH alts. and said screw this I'm going to do what I like best and that is making gold scoring a good deal and level with some RL friends/family. I only raided out of loyalty to the GM .. raiding was done for me some time in the AQ40 twin emps part. When T2 went out the window I was sad but with no end in sight .. I can't just reroll onto a new server to relevel from 1-70 just to raid? WTF that is not fun

So this leaves me in a tight spot. Some of my friends are still there .. while another bunch went to the new pve server so I made a compromise and got a 2nd wow account and rolled my alt on that acct so I could keep in touch with friends on both servers in my limited time. It's just like AIM with it's chat screens. downside i don't level at all

lol the side benefits are fun! PVE=Cross faction AH ! PVP= something about a little alliance or horde spy.

I now manage 5 AH alts: 2 on each server and faction and 1 on my guild's new server.
leveling 2 alts 1 on main server, 1 hordeside, 2 mini alts RPing as twins on my guild's reroll.

Funny i think i'm the lowest level main there ... i'm sure the guild will make a name for itself and admission will be selective. lol a normal level 5 can't possibly get in. I'm grandfathered in from old guild so the minimum level, gear and application stuff dont apply to me. Though the new members will probalby go WTF? how did this lowbie get in?.

Anyone back to the subject on gold. I didn't have any on this new server so it was a bit different. BUt hey i have 20g and level 15 ! that was from a few hours work on 1 day. erm i over priced a few things and cleaned house.

Some of the problems people had when they rerolled was that not everyone felt they fit in me i wanted some time off for myself so I purposely stayed in our inactive guild and didn't really log on much. othertimes were spent in the AH, leveling very casually a mage, pally. all on different servers.

Funny but the guild who i would call home is on the low level RP twin's server. I log in and get hellos .. otherwise my toons on other servers are all business elfs making it in gold and the occasional pug.

-----------------
updated 8/26/08

the former people left on old server reformed until a new guild tag but soon that too got disbanded and off people went to hard core raiding guilds or another big casual raiding guild type or RP guild. I didn't join them because I felt that w/o our old GM and the bunch it's not the same and if that's the case I'd much rather solo and only chat with people on my friends list and not have to deal with the other jerks in guild chat. as a free agent :) I dont care about drama or who's who so long as I get my loots or in my case peace and quiet.

Anyways .. i get lonely in wow and went over to other reroll server and tagged along with the GM and the bunch it's fun.