Blue: Pet Names ≠ Arena Partner Names

You know that popular "exploit" where Hunters name their pets the same as their Arena partners? The one that makes it very difficult for their opponents to target them effectively? Well, after a little bit of misinformation and confusion about where the big B stands on the matter, the issue has finally been put to rest.

In one of the first CM posts of 2008, Blizzard Blue Vrakthris states that for situations where unfair targeting issues would apply, pet names would indeed be changed. Truly a heavy-handed approach, but due to an apparent hiccup in the /target mechanism, it may be the only way to immediately remedy the issue.

When using target macros in an environment where a toon and a pet share the same name, priority is given to whichever is closer to the individual doing the targeting. In many situations, it is possible to take advantage of this mechanic to ensure that the pet is targeted and not the Hunter's complimenting toon. So as a short-term solution, forcing the Hunter to change the pet's name is really all that can be done. Kudos to Bliz for acting accordingly.

No word yet on how Bliz plans to enforce these changes, but if you're a Hunter and you're guilty of using this exploit, it wouldn't be a bad idea to preempt the justice and change your pet's name asap, lest you end up like our friend Dog the Bounty Hunter and pwned by the law. And I know this is a sad moment for you guys and all, but seriously, with all the buffs you've received lately, it's not like you need any extra help anyway! ;)

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Today's LOL: Ad Placement FTW

Saw this on the blog a bit ago and, well, yeah...


Suddenly, the fries seem a little less appetizing, am I right? Hehe.

Anyway, when the wife and I got home last night, she saw the pictures on the blog and had a very interesting reaction. I expected her to be repulsed by the images, being that she's pregnant and most foods are incredibly unappealing to her at the moment. Instead, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped slightly as she said "OMG those look so good. I want some!"

She loves them as well. =)

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Improve Your Wi-Fi Connection

Back in October, the great crew over at Lifehacker put together a list of ten things you can do to boost your Wi-Fi connection's performance. Having glossed over the list and performed a few tweaks myself, I definitely recommend giving their advice a go. Not only was my connection's range improved, but my latency decreased noticeably as well.

If you're heavy into hardcore PvE or PvP content and are strictly limited to wireless connectivity, these recommendations could prove very useful, minimizing your lag and therefore improving your performance. Heck, even if you simply want to enjoy some casual gaming or browsing from your couch, these tweaks would definitely make the experience much easier to enjoy.

Very worth it in any case, if you ask me. =)

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Trying Something New

Being that it's the holidays and a time of giving and selflessness, I decided to give away a BoE epic to some lucky player on my home server. The prize is the healing-based Lifegiving Cloak, and all people have to do to have a shot at winning it is reply to a post I made on the realm's forum. I'm not exactly sure how the quasi-raffle will go, but I figure that since my account expires on the 11th of January, it'd be a fun way to get the cloak some use. =)

Good luck to those participating, and Happy Holidays!

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Eyonix Speaks on "The Point" of Things

Almost two weeks ago on the General Forums, a question was asked about "the point" of playing WoW. The basic argument was that the game is an endless cycle, with all progress and epic gear wiped clean with every expansion, and all invested effort being pointless as a result. The thread was quickly deleted by a forum moderator, but Blizzard Blue Eyonix felt it necessary to address the issue and created a thread of his own to do so.

In it, Eyonix responds:

These are the same concerns (only x100) we saw before Burning Crusade launched. Once the expansion released though, these concerns were almost completely non-existent due to the excitement of getting an upgrade, regardless of item quality. Beyond this, here are some points to keep in mind:

Getting better gear now will give players an edge when leveling in Wrath of the Lich King, which in-turn will give them an edge in gearing up at end-game.
Having end-game epic quality gear (especially depending upon the item level), gives players an edge now.
Not all players are in epics.
Epics of high item level, i.e Black Temple epics vs. Heroic dungeon epics will last much longer.
It would be unhealthy for the game, and players if an MMO remained static and didn't evolve on all fronts.

As usual, Sir Eyonix makes a few strong points, especially related to gear longevity. I remember when I was leveling my Warlock from Level 60 to 70, much of my High Warlord raiment was intact when I hit the big 7-0, and performed beautifully even in Karazhan. It took a good while for me to replace my excellent Level 60 epics, because much of the gear I came across while leveling to 70 didn't even come close to what I already had. I'm sure the same will be said of very high-end Level 70 gear as people lucky enough to sport them work their way to Level 80 in the WotLK.

With that in mind, it's easy to understand why putting much effort into the game now and gaining access to the highest level epic gear isn't all for not just because an expansion rolls around. Much of the stuff may indeed be around at Level 80. Sure, it may only be for a short time, but the point is that it'll still be there, and will be very useful along the way.

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Warlock Food: Animal Fries

Growing up in Southern California, I've had the privilege of eating at IN-N-OUT Burger, one of the best burger joints around. They have amazing burgers and fries, and even some interesting stuff on a semi-secret (but not-so-secret) menu, which includes an "Animal Style" burger that is smothered in cheese, grilled onions, dressing, and a mustard zing that is totally ummmph. Only recently was I made aware that you can order their fries Animal Style as well, and I just picked up my first order...



Now, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that's a heart attack right there.

But as unhealthy as the fries look, they are just as tasty, and yet, probably shouldn't be enjoyed too often lest you end up like that dude in the WoW South Park episode. If you live in California or wherever else an IN-N-OUT is available, I definitely recommend trying them at least once. Hella good. ;)

Bon appetit!

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New England Warlocks?

The Patriots are 16-0; the first team to go undefeated in the modern football era. As a result, they are being called OP, and by nature and definition, that pretty much means that they understand the Warlock plight. No one I know was rooting for them, and pretty much everyone I know wanted to see them lose. People hate them, and why wouldn't they? Those fear-kiting, deathcoiling, drain-tanking Patriots seem unbeatable, afterall, and totally need a nerf. Hate and jealousy often come with that kind of territory.

Even though we are at the end of the regular season, the true test is only just beginning, as all other teams buff their ranks in order to take the Warlocks Patriots down. Will it be the Indianapolis Warriors or the Dallas Rogues? Only time will tell...

Congrats to New England and their great team. 'Lock on.

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Chinese WoW Player Burns Classmate IRL

There are a lot of socially-inept individuals that play World of Warcraft. Like many other MMORPGs, it harbors semi-extreme, "weird" behaviors quite well, mainly due to the safe house one experiences behind their computer screen. There, people can be social without being social. This provides those individuals with problem behaviors with an opportunity to interact with others, often unsatisfactorily. Just ask any girl that has ever played the game, and I'm sure they can recount several instances of awkward conversation with others, and even a bit of clingy-ness, obsessiveness, borderline stalking and other predatory behaviors. Also widespread is the unhealthy kind of competitiveness WoW seems to nurture. You've seen them... people with a RL sense of immunity and "rock star complexes" because they have a strong sense of character in a video game. Weird, right?

The latter of these two types of players, while much more frequent and taken more lightly than the stalking types, present a far more serious issue, imho. The potential for dangerous behavior is far greater, and often unexpected, which heightens the risk these individuals present. For example, a recent occurrence of "immune ego gone wild" was outlined in an article on WIRED, where a Chinese WoW Player burned a fellow classmate he had an issue with. The aggressor cited World of Warcraft as his partner in crime, self-motived to turn himself into a Fire Mage. Sure, instances like these are few and far between, but when they happen, they're truly explosive...

...pardon the pun...

So anyway, it's always sad to see behaviors like this come to a head. And while there are many questions that surround the details of the matter, it's unfortunate that it could have probably been prevented, and wasn't. If people understood the risk factors involved (kinda like a Chinese farmer rolling a Fire Mage... HELLO?!), we would see less of this kind of thing happening.

Here's to hoping for that kind of clarity some day, and every day thereafter.

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Another SotW

In celebration of gaming, Guitar Hero III, and epic tunes, here's a second SotW this week that is sure to get your head spinning. If the crazy guitar licks don't do it, the band's amazing hair will. Here's Dragonforce, with Fire and Flame. Enjoy. =)

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WTB Global Cooldown for Guitar Hero III

It's Christmas 2007, I'm a gamer, and the fingers on my left hand are about to fall off. That could only mean one thing: I received Guitar Hero III for my Wii, and am absolutely loving it! I've spent a couple of hours rocking away already, and am having an amazing amount of fun. It totally beats farming or grinding honor, let me tell ya. =P

I beat the game on Medium difficulty during my first sitting, which was great, but omg how things immediately changed after that. Let me just say, holy crap @ the higher difficulties! They are totally on an epic, insanely more difficult level of play than I thought they would be. And I know I should expect "Hard" to be more difficult than "Medium," but trust me, those words don't do the difference in difficulty any amount of justice. They should be renamed to "You can do this" for Medium, "Bend over and lets get this over with" for Hard, and "You might as well not even try" for Expert. That'd be more accurate imho.

The crazy-hard thing about the higher difficulties, and even some tracks at Medium, is the insane speed with which you gotta hit the buttons. No global cooldowns here (as nice as that would be). The fingers are always moving lightning-quick, and if you flinch for even a second, it can throw you off for the rest of the song, which would doom you to failure.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day of relaxing vacation time. I'll be trying more Hard and Expert tracks to see how far I can get. And hopefully, I won't lose any fingers in the process.

Merry Christmas. =)

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Song of the Week

Just because I'm done playing WoW doesn't mean I'm done listening to good music. And what kind of person would I be if I didn't pass sweet tunes along to you, eh? Not a very nice one, to say the least, and since it's the Eve of Christmas and all, that'd just be unacceptable behavior.

I first heard this week's SotW in a vid of a great Kael'Thas encounter, recorded by the Illidan-killing guild Invictus, of Alexstrasza. It's also a track on a an arcade version of DDR Groove 2 (I believe), and has quite a following as a result. It is KaW's Esperanza, a fantastic and booming piece of electronica. Click the link below to download or stream it, and let me know what you think. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas Eve!

KaW - Esperanza

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Banned: What to Expect from Account Admins

The carousel. The merry-go-round. The teacup ride. Blizzard's Account Administration. What do all of these things have in common? They all spin you around in circles, getting you no where fast, and maybe even a little queazy in the process. Since my recent ban that occurred a little over a week ago, I've been in contact with a few Blizzard Account Administrators trying to get to the bottom of my suspension. I was accused of using third party programs to give me an unfair advantage in my play. I disputed the claims, hoping to clear things up and prevent a similar event from occurring in the future. However, I now find myself in a cyclic pinwheel of corporate banter that is making things rather difficult. Not only are the Admin responses ignorant and lacking of any detail, but they are also quite stubborn and even a bit insulting as well -- hardly the response I was hoping for.

Here are the emails I have received from Blizzard's Account Admins up to now. I can only assume that the hollow tone is common among all letters of this type. So, if you do find yourself banned, these responses are probably similar to those you should be expecting if you decided to dispute any would-be claims against you.

Response 1

Greetings,

Thank you for your follow up e-mail regarding the account action on *~*. This account has been issued a 48 hour suspension as a result of using unapproved third party software that gave the player an unfair advantage over other World of Warcraft players. Therefore, we regret to inform you that we are unable to reverse the account action previously issued.

Any further recorded deviations of character behavior in violation of
the Terms of Use may result in repercussions up to and including account closure as outlined in the World of Warcraft Terms of Use ( http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and/or the World of Warcraft Exploitation Policy (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01716p).

Please note that due to security concerns we will be unable to disclose any further details of this investigation.

Any disputes or questions concerning this account issue can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

Thank you for your prompt attention and cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have.


Sincerely,

*~*
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/

Response 2

Greetings,

Thank you for your follow-up email. The information regarding the account *~* has been reviewed once again and determined that the suspension was indeed warranted. As such, we regret to inform you that the account action decision is final and will not be reversed. Also all information regarding the action has been disclosed in our previous emails.

Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.



Sincerely,

*~*
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/21505

Response 3

Greetings,



Thank you for contacting us regarding the recent action of your account. I understand that your account is important to you, and have conducted another investigation with that fact in mind. Unfortunately, however, I was only able to verify that the action of the account in question was justified. Please understand that these actions are only taken when absolutely necessary.

I apologize for any confusion these actions have caused, but you may wish to review our Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and our game policies (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01712p). Upon installation, all players agree that the accounts they are creating may be closed for any reason, and at any time.

Thank you for your time and understanding of our position in this matter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have regarding a different issue.


*~*
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa

As you can see from the lack of detail and empty, hollow statements in these emails, disputing your suspension can ultimately lead to absolutely no gain. Indeed, for me, trying to right the wrong has felt like a complete waste of time. I must carefully dictate my arguments while all Blizzard has to do is tell me my suspension was "justified" and call it a day. It is insulting and frustrating to say the least, and I hope none of you ever have to deal a similar situation.

I am currently awaiting another response and will update you all accordingly... once my head stops spinning, that is.

Here's to enjoying the ride.

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Transmutation Specialty Not WAI

In it's current form, the Transmutation specialty for Alchemy is a terrible joke. I specced Transmutation when TBC was first released, and I can literally count the procs I have experienced on my own two hands. Countless threads have been posted on the WoW Professions Forum since the specialty's conception, complaining of dismally-low proc rates. They are so few and far between, infact, that I can't even remember the last time I actually experienced one. What is it that makes them so rare? The poor math Blizzard used to dictate a "chance" proc occurance together with the Philosopher Stone, which is limited by it's own set of internal cooldowns. These limitations are inherent to any Alchemist performing transmutes, specialized or not. But it is the Transmute Master that is affected most, far beyond even what the quality of transmuted items should require. Thankfully, after all this time, Blizzard is finally fessing up to the matter, and is looking into making things right... sort of.

Blizzard Blue Pavonum has admitted that Transmutations are experiencing proc issues, but qualifies them as only occurring since the implementation of Patch 2.3. Personally, I have yet to experience even a single proc since Patch 2.3 landed, but I had no expectation of seeing one for quite some time, since they were so rare to begin with. Being that is the case, I find it hard to believe that this is a new-patch issue and think that Bliz being a little less than honest about the matter. But hey, at least they're finally getting around to acknowledging it and working on a fix. And no matter when it becomes available, at least we Alchemists can immediately find comfort in the fact that new there was something wrong, and that we weren't going mad after all. =)

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Tip of the Week: Warlock Suicide

Hellfire is a rarely-used Warlock ability, and with good reason. It produces a very large amount of damage, and for every tick, it also inflicts damage to the casting 'lock. Obviously not ideal in most situations. But then there are those instances where Hellfire simply shines, and that is what this week's TotW is all about.

Ever find yourself in a Battleground, knee-deep in combat and frustrated at the fact that your pet just died for the 15th time? Well, don't waste a Shard summoning another, and don't go giving the opposing team a free kill either. All you have to do is commit Warlock Suicide: Life Tap as much as possible, and top it off with a Hellfire. Bam, you're dead, standing at the graveyard, and about to res with a "free" pet at your side, and at no cost to your durability or death toll. Not bad, right?

How about when you're deep into a raid instance, and your guildies are calling for another to help summon at the Meeting Stone outside? Sick of running your responsible butt all the way back to help out? Well, don't do it then! Instead, Life Tap, Hellfire, and bam. You're dead, outside, and all you need to do is run back through the instance portal and out again. And there you are, ready to summon at the Meeting Stone in a flash.

Oh, and I can't go without mentioning the all-important "wipe" application. When you see your MT die, and you look over at KTM or Omen and see your name creeping up that aggro list, don't run around with your arms flailing. Simply Life Tap, Hellfire, and you're done. You're dead, and you've taken no durability damage in the process whatsoever. Suddenly, wipes aren't that bad anymore, are they? =P

So there you have it -- a rarely-used Warlock spell that actually has many useful applications. Check it out, get a little creative with it, and let me know what you think.

Happy Hellfiring. =)

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