last weekend after editing the show I headed into Lower Blackrock Spire, I have upgraded a couple pieces of gear over the last month thanks to badges and honor and decided it was time I finished soloing it to get my Upper Blackrock Spire key. While getting to the final boss was a piece of cake, the boss itself, Overlord Wyrmthalak, wanted to be a pain in my neck. my first attempt on him ended with me dead and him at 1% health, yes I said one attempt. My second attempt ended with him at 6% health and me dead and angry at my bumbling fingers hitting the wrong keys and allowing myself to die on something I should obviously pwn. Needless to say, I finally called out for help and Sathios, a level 70 hunter came out toadd that last little bit I needed to finish off Wyrmthalak, Then I went and soloed Emberstrife and back to LBRS to finish up the quest and get the ring that is the key. Woot! Now I can start trying to solo UBRS...might need help there too.
Then of course, I have started playing alot of Bejeweled with the new release of PopCaps official WoW Addon. I challenge you all to a bejewel off!!! fear my leet skillz, lawl!!! Anyway, it silly and my wife actually asked me why I continue to play WoW if I'm so bored I'm playing Bejeweled...it's a legit question I suppose.
Use your honor before the expansion!
As many of you have heard by now, Blizzard will be doing a complete honor wipe with the release of WotLK. This means any honor you have left when you log out Nov 12th will be gone when you log back in on Nov 13th, Lich Kings scheduled release date.
Blue poster, Eyonix, had something to add to the subject:
For those with unspent honor points prior to the release of the expansion, we will be offering a few upgrades and special rewards in next content patch solely for purchase via the honor system.
These items are cloaks and trinkets ( four of each for your theorycrafting pleasure ) And according to MMO Champion, the honor purchased gems are also undergoing a serious change, they won't be bind on pick up or unique-equipped anymore and players will be able to sell them at the AH.
Corrections and changes
Last week we reported a few things that either turned out to be untrue or were changed this week
First up, Blizzard has changed the requirement for the Leading the Cavalry achievement which yields the Albino Drake mount as a reward from 75 mounts down to only 50. This makes this achievement much more accessible to more players.
Next, Steve and I discussed Brewfest last week ( which we will be doing more of this week ) because Brewfest was only a day old at the time, we had spent that time preparing for the showing instead of ingame experiencing the content for ourselves. therefore, we reported what our sources had told us about the Boss and how to get to him. After releasing the episode however, we found that there was indeed a shortcut to the boss in BRD and that both mounts had a possibility of dropping for both factions.
Thanks to Evieloot on Laughing Skull and Teel from the Naughty Secretz guild on the Azuremyst server for clearly that up for us.
I guess we Schrammed it up on that one.
Speaking of wild rumors...
When asked, players who have been around since before the release of the Burning Crusade will often speak fondly of the Undead Invasion that occured just prior to and during the introduction of Naxxramas. Speaking personally, this was without a doubt my favorite in game event and I would love to see alot more of things like this on a regular basis in WoW. blizzard has hinted at the Undead invasion becoming an annual event which had people wetting themselves with joy, but alas that never happened and now that we can all see the new calendar we see its not listed there as a scheduled event ( though why an invasion would be announced or even annual makes no sense lorewise ) That being said however, Kisirani, a blue poster recently decided it was time to get us salivating all over again.
Responding to a poster who was concerned about the the necrotic runes still in his bank after so long and others responding they had long since deleted theirs ( Its been almost two years after all ) Kisirani said:
Still have your Necrotic Runes?
No?
Pity...
To which Springfoot of the Spinebreaker server posted:
This was why I had originally called it inconsiderate. Since the last scourge invasion, I have rolled 3 three new classes, deleted them, rerolled, transferred servers, left the game for 6 months, transferred back, reinstated characters...
I suppose I just find the time scale Blizzard is operating on to be inconsiderate. It's a little like telling someone "Hold onto that 2005 quarter, sonny! It'll be worth a lot of money someday." Sure thing, grandpa.
Interestingly enough, I believe both my mage and priest have a ton of those Runes on them - only because I don't play those characters anymore.
To which Kisirani replied:
If people chose to get rid of the runes, that's certainly their choice. I can understand wanting to free up bank space, certainly, particularly over the space of time.
Many people playing now never had the chance to get those runes, and if you have none you're right on par with them.
But I don't lie when I say the Necrotic Runes are going to have a use again... quite soon.
The important part of this is the last part of his statement: the Necrotic Runes are going to have a use again... quite soon. If this means we will see another Scourge invasion in the near future, I am all for it. but I hope Blizzard expands upon the previous event and creates something more immersive and even more fun than the last time. Blizzard has a tendency to revamp things a bit sometimes its better sometimes its not. I certainly hope they get it better this time because the Scourge invasion was hellafun.
Steve, have you seen Goriladin?
Hunters, if you don't have http://www.bigredkitty.net/ in your favorites by now...well, then you are a noob. But you don't have to remain a noob. Go to http://www.bigredkitty.net/ right nwo and save that website to your favorites. then ofcourse watch the Gorriladin video. yes, that's right, Gorilladin. AOE grinding for hunters in WotLk will be easier than ever before. Go watch the movie and learn 2 play. Big Red Kitty has long been one of the top hunter resources on the web and thsi latest edition proves he isn't slipping in the slightest. That http://www.bigredkitty.net/. Learn it, love it, live it.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
September 6th, 2008
This is how a Universe is born.
At the time of this recording it is September 6th, which means tomorrow is September 7th and that can only mean one thing. After 7 years of development, Will Wright is finally releasing the hugely anticipated Spore. In just the last few days, I have seen the Spore commercial on television, seen articles on it in major media and even heard a report on it on National Public Radio. Some posters out there are claiming to have played it already and the news is not good. According to these sources, it gets repetious and boring fairly quickly, but I am going to urge all of you to run out and buy it anyway. And Ill explain why.
There are very few games out there that are truly innovative. And if anyone has been listening or reading my blog ( no one reads my blogs boohoo ) you know I believe innovcation to be one of the two most important factors in gaming today. Spore offers two such innovations. First it has found a way to send large amounts of information in very small packages which allows for the second: Once a player enters the space exploration phase of the game, it reaches out across the internet and grabs planets from other players from all over the world. This means that as long as people play the game there will always be more to explore because Spore is the first ever virtual infinite universe in the history of man. The very concept is mind boggling. In addition, it is estimated that within a month of release, the number of creatures created by players within this virtual universe will exceed the number of species currently inhabiting the Earth. The metaphysical implications of this are too many and far too fun to discuss here, but the vision and scope of this project are immense and This is something we in the gamer community should support. So get out there, buy your copy of Spore. Support innovation like this and demand the same out of the box thinking from other developers.
Content Patch coming within weeks
A big thanks goes out to Eyonix for recently letting us know that a content patch is coming within the next few weeks. It may even be live by the time this podcast hits Itunes. Just as before Burning Crusade hit store, Blizzard is patching in a bunch of content prior to the release of Lich King. And while the list of things he gave us was not comprehensive, he did said Blizz will post the full patch notes when they're available. And I for one am happy to see Blizzard patching these things into the game soon as it means Lich King cannot be far behind.
here's the list:
Stormwind Harbor will be added
Babrershops added and functional in capital cities ( I think this means Org and Ironforge only...or is Stormwind the ally capital? I dont know. )
Something about zepplin towers outside of org and tirisfal glades. Theres zep towers tehre already so they must be getting a redesign to accomodate the new zepplin paths to Northrend.
Two brand new Arenas!! with new layouts, terrain hazards and moving ( yes moving ) obstacles....Oh I hope there two spike walls that clamp shut at crazy speeds and send little gnome parts exploding across the arena!!!!! I might actually do arena if I could see that once in awhile
Guild Calendar ( About time!!! )
hunter pet skill revamp so all you hunters can relearn the way your pets work PRIOR to trying to grind out another ten levels in Northrend
And last and certainly not least Burning Crusade players will be able to learn and skill up Inscription to 375!!!!! Once they have Lich King they can take it up beyond that as will all crafters.
So we will be able to skill it up, but no word yet on if we will actually be able to USE the inscriptions prior to Lich Kings release...seems like there will be a huge outcry if that is the case, so we'll just have to wait and see.
Now does anyone remember how long between the last content patch hit and Burning Crusade was released?
Four European servers close!
With patch 3.0 four EU realms will close for good. The realms, Molten Core, Shadowmoon, Stonemaul and Warsong, apparently were the homes to the vast majority of Russian players who have now migrated to the new Russian servers and left these realms ghost towns. Characters still on the servers will all be given free transfers to as yet unannounced EU realms.
New 1 - 60 record set: 19 mins 34 secs. Thanks Recruit a friend.
A wow player named Bryan has posted a video at Gametrailers.com under the name bwonderve which shows him leveling a level 1 paladin to 60 in under 20 mins all while in stormwind, and it wasn't a hack. Hows it done? All with Recruit a friend. Seems BryBry leveled two characters to level 60 using the 300% exp gain, then used those two characters to grant 60 levels to the pally. A crowd formed as the mass dings occurred and it was obvious some were perplexed.
jmathews said: so you still needed to make two other characters lv 60 right? seems kinda pointless to me...
bwonderve said: Those 2 extra characters get 300% experience, it only takes 1/3 of the work to level them up.
I get 3 characters for less than the work of 1 at regular difficulty.
Could ComCasts new Bandwidth cap lead to something far worse?
Internet Service Provider Comcast has had a long reputation as an enemy of the peer to peer community. There have been many reports over the years of Comcast sending out letters of warning to customers stating the customer was using too much bandwidth per month and they needed to stop. These customers were paying for "unlimited" plans but that didn't seem to deter Comcast. Without stating a hard cap, they have been known to disconnect customers in good standing ( meaing they paid their bills ) after Comcast deceided their badwidth comsumption was too great.
Well, recently Comcast announced all customers would be held to a maximum of 250 GB bandwidth per month. Now this worried alot fo WoW players and Eliah Hect over at WoW Insider posted an article to ease their fears. Currently. a MMO player even a very hardcore one would not use up a 250 GB cap in an entire month of play. But what happens when other ISP's begin follwoing suit?
Eliah Hect took into account only WoW play, which is great for most of us, I on the other hand have a family. A family that loves their internet. My kids are crazy for XBox Live, I love to download podcasts...alot of podcasts, I record a podcast, I play WoW, My wife absolutely loves streaming video, I love WoW movies...and all that has me wondering if my family might hit that 250 gb limit some month down the road, especially when my kids get a little older and start playing MMO's of their own.
250 GB seems like an awful lot of bandwidth, but is it alot when divided by four heavy internet users all uner the same roof? That leaves my personal bandwidth use limited to 63 GB a month and that should be enough right?
But what happens when other ISP's follow Comcast's example and limit bandwidth...but they limit it lower...at say 200GB or 100GB. And with the local or regional monopoly most cable companies enjoy, how will this limit us as players of MMO's? Or even just internet users?
The internet has almost completely replaced Television for me as a source of entertainment. Any limiting of the entertainment worries me. What about all of you? Contact us at Thegrindpodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think. Operators are standing by.
At the time of this recording it is September 6th, which means tomorrow is September 7th and that can only mean one thing. After 7 years of development, Will Wright is finally releasing the hugely anticipated Spore. In just the last few days, I have seen the Spore commercial on television, seen articles on it in major media and even heard a report on it on National Public Radio. Some posters out there are claiming to have played it already and the news is not good. According to these sources, it gets repetious and boring fairly quickly, but I am going to urge all of you to run out and buy it anyway. And Ill explain why.
There are very few games out there that are truly innovative. And if anyone has been listening or reading my blog ( no one reads my blogs boohoo ) you know I believe innovcation to be one of the two most important factors in gaming today. Spore offers two such innovations. First it has found a way to send large amounts of information in very small packages which allows for the second: Once a player enters the space exploration phase of the game, it reaches out across the internet and grabs planets from other players from all over the world. This means that as long as people play the game there will always be more to explore because Spore is the first ever virtual infinite universe in the history of man. The very concept is mind boggling. In addition, it is estimated that within a month of release, the number of creatures created by players within this virtual universe will exceed the number of species currently inhabiting the Earth. The metaphysical implications of this are too many and far too fun to discuss here, but the vision and scope of this project are immense and This is something we in the gamer community should support. So get out there, buy your copy of Spore. Support innovation like this and demand the same out of the box thinking from other developers.
Content Patch coming within weeks
A big thanks goes out to Eyonix for recently letting us know that a content patch is coming within the next few weeks. It may even be live by the time this podcast hits Itunes. Just as before Burning Crusade hit store, Blizzard is patching in a bunch of content prior to the release of Lich King. And while the list of things he gave us was not comprehensive, he did said Blizz will post the full patch notes when they're available. And I for one am happy to see Blizzard patching these things into the game soon as it means Lich King cannot be far behind.
here's the list:
Stormwind Harbor will be added
Babrershops added and functional in capital cities ( I think this means Org and Ironforge only...or is Stormwind the ally capital? I dont know. )
Something about zepplin towers outside of org and tirisfal glades. Theres zep towers tehre already so they must be getting a redesign to accomodate the new zepplin paths to Northrend.
Two brand new Arenas!! with new layouts, terrain hazards and moving ( yes moving ) obstacles....Oh I hope there two spike walls that clamp shut at crazy speeds and send little gnome parts exploding across the arena!!!!! I might actually do arena if I could see that once in awhile
Guild Calendar ( About time!!! )
hunter pet skill revamp so all you hunters can relearn the way your pets work PRIOR to trying to grind out another ten levels in Northrend
And last and certainly not least Burning Crusade players will be able to learn and skill up Inscription to 375!!!!! Once they have Lich King they can take it up beyond that as will all crafters.
So we will be able to skill it up, but no word yet on if we will actually be able to USE the inscriptions prior to Lich Kings release...seems like there will be a huge outcry if that is the case, so we'll just have to wait and see.
Now does anyone remember how long between the last content patch hit and Burning Crusade was released?
Four European servers close!
With patch 3.0 four EU realms will close for good. The realms, Molten Core, Shadowmoon, Stonemaul and Warsong, apparently were the homes to the vast majority of Russian players who have now migrated to the new Russian servers and left these realms ghost towns. Characters still on the servers will all be given free transfers to as yet unannounced EU realms.
New 1 - 60 record set: 19 mins 34 secs. Thanks Recruit a friend.
A wow player named Bryan has posted a video at Gametrailers.com under the name bwonderve which shows him leveling a level 1 paladin to 60 in under 20 mins all while in stormwind, and it wasn't a hack. Hows it done? All with Recruit a friend. Seems BryBry leveled two characters to level 60 using the 300% exp gain, then used those two characters to grant 60 levels to the pally. A crowd formed as the mass dings occurred and it was obvious some were perplexed.
jmathews said: so you still needed to make two other characters lv 60 right? seems kinda pointless to me...
bwonderve said: Those 2 extra characters get 300% experience, it only takes 1/3 of the work to level them up.
I get 3 characters for less than the work of 1 at regular difficulty.
Could ComCasts new Bandwidth cap lead to something far worse?
Internet Service Provider Comcast has had a long reputation as an enemy of the peer to peer community. There have been many reports over the years of Comcast sending out letters of warning to customers stating the customer was using too much bandwidth per month and they needed to stop. These customers were paying for "unlimited" plans but that didn't seem to deter Comcast. Without stating a hard cap, they have been known to disconnect customers in good standing ( meaing they paid their bills ) after Comcast deceided their badwidth comsumption was too great.
Well, recently Comcast announced all customers would be held to a maximum of 250 GB bandwidth per month. Now this worried alot fo WoW players and Eliah Hect over at WoW Insider posted an article to ease their fears. Currently. a MMO player even a very hardcore one would not use up a 250 GB cap in an entire month of play. But what happens when other ISP's begin follwoing suit?
Eliah Hect took into account only WoW play, which is great for most of us, I on the other hand have a family. A family that loves their internet. My kids are crazy for XBox Live, I love to download podcasts...alot of podcasts, I record a podcast, I play WoW, My wife absolutely loves streaming video, I love WoW movies...and all that has me wondering if my family might hit that 250 gb limit some month down the road, especially when my kids get a little older and start playing MMO's of their own.
250 GB seems like an awful lot of bandwidth, but is it alot when divided by four heavy internet users all uner the same roof? That leaves my personal bandwidth use limited to 63 GB a month and that should be enough right?
But what happens when other ISP's follow Comcast's example and limit bandwidth...but they limit it lower...at say 200GB or 100GB. And with the local or regional monopoly most cable companies enjoy, how will this limit us as players of MMO's? Or even just internet users?
The internet has almost completely replaced Television for me as a source of entertainment. Any limiting of the entertainment worries me. What about all of you? Contact us at Thegrindpodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you think. Operators are standing by.
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