Keeping Up With the Jones' (or the Orcs, as it were)

Well, I've been scarce on my Alliance toons since 3.3 dropped. I really want to get back to getting some gear on my little gnome, but everyone in my main's guild has been so busy pugging and running the new instances for gear/badges, I've been forced to do the same on my main (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Coilfang&n=Nosnum) so as to remain a viable raider, as we're getting back into raiding after a two-week hiatus. So I apologize once again to my ADS friends for taking another extended leave, but the big dawg's (or Undead Rogue) gotta eat!

This Is ADS

I made Ertris a little going away gift by using some Photoshop magic to create a Guild Officer portrait. I think it came out pretty well, but I look a little too short :)

Total Coolness

My son showed me a site that he happened across that allows you to create custom posters of your toons. Through some deal with Blizzard, this site is able to access imagery of your character to produce a poster that shows your toon as he appears in-game, which is way cool. The site is http://www9.printwarcraft.com/homepage.html.

Above is an example of Nosnum the Mage...

Live Long and Prosper (but please don't procreate)

In case you hadn't heard the news (check out "Ert's Corner" from the main webpage), Ertris has decided to hang up his Wow cleats at the end of January to go play Star Trek Online.

Now, since Ert is my brother, this makes complete sense - the man is the biggest Star Trek geek who ever lived. He once used Christmas Lights and lego blocks to create a mock bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise in his bedroom closet; he collected action figures, models, ANYTHING. But for those of you who don't know Ert in real life, I'll make it easier for you to understand - these are his kind of people:

I Pity Da Fool!

Hand grenades that change your likeness into that of Mr. T? What else needs to be said??? I PITY DA FOOL!

Its Almost Here!

The 3.3 patch is just around the corner, and along with the talent point reset that everyone always loves so much (NOT), there are new features galore - new 5-man dungeons, new raid and LFG queueing, cross-realm party matchmaking, etc.

You can read the PTR patch notes here: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html - always a good read!

Raiding Made Easier

I honestly don't know if anyone besides Ertris or AJ read this blog, but on the off-chance that others in the guild do, I wanted to take the opportunity to implore you to download both Deadly Boss Mods and the Ventrilo client, if you haven't already done so - I've even added links to the main Guild Webpage to make it as easy on you as possible.

DBM is one of the most useful add-ons you'll find for WoW. As long as it is enabled, it will load automatically whenever you go into an instance, and during boss encounters will keep you apprised of things like enrage timers, boss cooldowns, etc. and warn you of impending doom from boss special attacks. You can even tweak it to give a special alarm when you have been specifically selected by the boss as the victim of some debuff or attack. Additionally, the latest versions of DBM also incorporate battleground assistance measures to keep track of things like flag, tower, or graveyard capture timers - making it easy to announce this information to the rest of your BG team by simply shift-clicking on the timer.

Ventrilo is a powerful VoIP tool that enables voice communication over the internet. Why is this important? Well, in five-man instances it isn't so much, but as we progress into 10-man raids, the boss fights become much more intricate and require split-second coordination and reaction, not to mention lengthy explanations before engaging the boss - explanations best given verbally rather than textually. And if you've ever used Vent you know that it is much clearer and option-laden than the built-in WoW voice capability.

So, please - for your sake and the sake of your raiding partners - please download these tools as soon as possible.

-Nosnum

Breaker, breaker, we got Roadkill...

Congratulations to all of the ADS'ers who took down Flame Leviathan - we rock:

• Ertris
• Chetdonnelly
• Atiajulii
• Deadeyedana
• Bigthumper
• Nyctii
• Escaper
• Cazer
• Nosnum <--- (Me)

She Kind of Looks Like My Mother-In-Law...

Congratulations to everyone on the guild's first successful 10-man (and woman) run on the Obsidian Sanctum. It was a very impressive first outing, with only one wipe on the final boss encounter, which is almost expected when most of the group had not seen Sartharion before. And as I've come to believe, while the boss encounter videos you can find on youtube are helpful, until you actually experience a given boss fight, you really don't get a good feel for it. So enjoy that warm glow that comes from a job well done!

Sapphiron? DEAD; Kel'Thuzad? DEAD

I apologize to my Alliance friends for my long absence, but there were some things I really wanted to accomplish in the game, and completing Naxxramas and getting in to see the Ulduar content are tops on the list. Well, I've (finally) knocked off KT, and been fortunate enough to down five of the bosses in Ulduar (although I don't have a complete section of bosses down yet - we've spread around and left the hard ones up), so I feel like I can step back and take it easy on my main once again...

Oh, and that's me in the picture above, sitting on the corner of Kel'thuzad's throne :)

A Decent Society, Take II

As noted on the guild news page, Ertris got his account back. Unfortunately, Blizzard could not simply re-constitute the guild as it was pre-hack, so it had to be reformulated and former members re-invited. All of the guild bank materials were mailed back to him, and Ertris went ahead and purchased a fourth bank tab.

Just a reminder, authenticators are a great way to defeat hacks - the device issues a random, one-time password that changes every login, and would be almost impossible for anyone to defeat (one-in-a-gazillion). These can be ordered from Blizzard for only $6.00, or can be downloaded as apps onto devices such as iPhones and iTouches. I already have mine on order!

The graphic above is in honor of our new (albeit, temporary) guild logo. DeadeyeDana is in the process of designing our permanent logo.

Vaunted Leader Attacked!

Hopefully, some of you DS'ers will see this post. Ertris had his account hacked, and it looks like the evil-doers kicked everyone out of the guild, and probably did a guild disband. Ert is trying to get it all straightened-out, but if you log in and see that you're no longer in the guild, you'll know why...

WoW and Pop Culture

I was shocked - absolutely shocked - when a guildie who had recently acquired a passion for the television show Lost (my personal favorite) and been around Sholazar Basin told me that he had never noticed the Hatch in Bittertide Lake with the Lost numbers listed on it. When I first laid eyes on it I knew immediately what it was and laughed out loud at the ingeniousness of the in-game joke; a tropical island with a hatch, etc.

This got me thinking about what other 'Easter Eggs' and in-game jokes that I may have never noticed might be out there - and boy, are there plenty. Here's a pretty good listing of them: http://www.wowwiki.com/In-jokes_and_references/games,_TV_and_movies.

Some of these you've probably come across and recognized them for what they were, but some might have gone right over your head, like they did mine.

Cataclysm

Well, the rumors are running rampant about the expected announcement of the next WoW expansion at BlizzCon this weekend (World of Warcraft: Cataclysm).

Perhaps the most comprehensive set of rumors is on MMO-Champion (http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=92919.0) , but if even half of what I've read is true, then Azeroth is going to look very different once the expansion loads. Better grab those screen caps while you can!

Wait, which way...?

I hope Luela doesn't mind me having just a little fun at her expense, but she, myself, Ertris, Atiajulii, and Chet were running heroic Nexus today when she got killed. The fight ended and she was running in, and the poor girl got turned around - many times. She must have realized she went the wrong way when she ran into that 81 leet Dragonkin (lolz). Anyway, Luela's famous (infamous?) sense of direction strikes again!

Let the Battle Be Joined!

So I was just messing around on my Undead Rogue this weekend, when I happened to fly over Chumz, the guild leader of Red Dawn (Human Mage), the arch-enemy of my Horde guild, in the Storm Peaks. Before I could get to the ground and stealth to act on our guild's standing kill-on-sight order (for any members of Red Dawn), he had hearthed his butt on out of there.

But since we knew he was on, our GM logged-onto his Alliance spy toon to find out where he'd gone. Turns out he must have hearthed to Dalaran, then gone to Borean to help out some guildies, because there were three of them in that region. Like good members of the Horde, about 7 of us formed-up and flew on out there to do a grid search.

I managed to stumble upon him again, apparently helping out with the Harold Lane quest (why an 80 mage and an 80 hunter needed to help a 78 shaman on this quest I'm not sure), and then it was ON. We flew in and wiped he and his buds without mercy, and picked em off on rez as they tried to skulk away. However, the call had gone out and more Red Dawner's flew in, and we proceeded to rumble for the next 90 minutes just east of Amber Ledge. About the best PvP fun I've had playing WoW - just a giant furball of all races and classes beating on each other :)

Meet the Guildie, 1st Edition

Okay, okay, I am going first so no one can be afraid of being the first...

Name: Nosnum
From: GA (Atlanta)
Age: 40
Toons: Nosnum, Philipjfry


Where did "Nosnum" come from: Its my last name, reversed :)

What's your main and why did you choose it? Nosnum is my main. I chose to play a mage because I’m lazy and ranged DPS is the way to go for lazy peeps. He’s a gnome because they have the most subtle dance moves in the game, aaawwwww yeahhhh!

How did I come to choose Hydraxis as a realm? Got tired of my big brother Ert begging for me to come bail him out of all the tight spots he found himself in.

When I'm not playing WoW I'm... working, kicking my dog, or beating my kids. I also enjoy a good book, Braves baseball, and fine Bavarian wheat beers

Words of wisdom: don’t eat yellow snow, never eat at an Italian restaurant in Bangalore, India, and never never ever visit a website spelled out in bodies in Stormwind

Trial of the Crusader

So I ran the new 3.2 Trial of the Crusader instance (on reg) last night and discovered that 3 of the bosses for the achievement can only be done on heroic (I guess I know what I'll be doing tonight).

Its nice to see all of the skill acquired in jousting with Champions is finally being put to good use, though this is only done in the first part of the instance, and the rest of the fight is on foot, as per a regular instance.

All in all, its a quick dungeon, and there's some decent loot even on regular mode. If you don't have any tier gloves or starter epic weapons, bop in here and you can pick some up fairly easily.

Ulduar

I ran Ulduar for the first time last night, and I have to say the opening boss (Flame Leviathan) is THE most fun boss fight I've encountered in any instance or raid, anywhere or at any time.

Because the fight relies purely on the use of different types of siege vehicles, your fighting abilities matter very litte. More important is your ability to coordinate with the other members of your raid. Since I may never have enough money to be able to afford to build or purchase a Chopper, riding one in this venue was a sweet reward.

Because of numerous wipes (this was my guild's first Ulduar attempt, after all), I had the chance to be the gunner in a demolisher and be launched onto the deck of Flame Leviathan (human cannonball!), be the gunner in a siege engine, and to buzz around in a chopper laying down oil slicks and picking up other raid members on foot.

I HIGHLY recommend this fight, for pure entertainment value, if nothing else.