Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
Last weekend, the World Wide Invitational rocked our world with tantalizing news about the next expansion... and of course Diablo III, but this column isn't called "Diablo, Casually" or "Blizzard Fangirl" so we'll just talk about Wrath of the Lich King. The amount of information we gleaned from the WWI is pretty overwhelming, so let's just go over the items that I think affect those of us with limited playtime.
First of all, I think the biggest news was for the individual classes, so check out the news from the Dev panel. As a Druid, my 5-man instance viability will improve with indoor Entangling Roots and the possibility of an out of combat res. Many of the changes will make it easier for us all to find groups faster which means we can get more done in the blocks of time we have to play.
When I started playing World of Warcraft, I decided to start off by making a TaurenHunter. Mostly because every single game I've ever played, I am usually a healer-type character. I decided that I did not want to be the healer this time around, but I was far from ready for the tank job, so I went halfway into what I figured would be a decent solo and damage support class. I was so unprepared for what playing a Hunter would be.
One of my major obsessions, however, was to find a pet that was an uncommon sight. I did not realize at the time that Echeyakee was a Horde side quest, and was really excited at having gotten a "rare pet" when a friend offered to help me tame him.
Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
If you haven't bought into the whole Midsummer hype yet, allow me to try to convince you. This year's Midsummer Fire Festival is possibly the most casual-friendly WoW event. Still you may ask, to paraphrase a guildie, "What's so great except for a useless pet?"
Sure, I got myself a Brazier of Dancing Flames, but I had the blossoms burning a hole in my pocket anyway, so why not? Midsummer is really about every other reason we play the game: progressing our characters, seeing the world, supporting our faction and, most importantly, fun.
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. Even if they are mysteriously conglomerate faces...
Continuing our jaunt through Black Temple, this week's Ready Check looks at the Reliquary of Souls, also known as the Essence of Souls (RoS or EoS for short). How often is it you get to fight three oversized faces joined together? Savour this opportunity now...
You'll encounter RoS by making your way through Black Temple, usually after either Teron Gorefiend or Gurtogg Bloodboil, depending on how your guild prefers to do things. Let's take a look at the fight.
Each week, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.
Almost every column, I talk about Welfare Epics since they are specifically designed for casuals to get their purplez on and I just assume that you all know what I'm talking about. But Dave recently sent in a question asking what they are and I realized that if I didn't write for WoW Insider, I probably wouldn't know either.
Though some people say they heard the phrase before this, the first time I heard it was at BlizzCon. Jeff Kaplan, aka Tigole, started off the Dungeons and Raids panel by saying that the panel wasn't for people with their Welfare Epics, but for people who actually earn them. Now, I think he was partially just being funny, but I also think he was speaking up for the Raiders who are upset that all of the work they put into conquering the PvE endgame content is for naught when any casual player can pick up purples that are equal to or better than gear that drops off endgame bosses.
Welcome, my friends, to the second installment of Macro Anatomy. In this episode we'll be going over some basic macro commands and I'll introduce some simple macros for you to learn and play with.
Before we move ahead, I wanted to reiterate an important change to many macros since the release of Patch 2.3 for those of you who are already writing and using macros. The /stopcasting command is no longer necessary between instant-cast, non-GCD spells. An example would be the following macro:
Previous articles found on this site may feature macros that still contain this command. So, feel free to remove it when you copy and paste said macros.
Now, let us move onto the "Crawl" portion of our Crawl-Walk-Run approach to macro writing.
For many, the role of the Healer is something to be avoided all together. For the few, however, healing is a meaningful, rewarding and challenging job, albeit an often-thankless one. Being a healer also tends to make one a popular player. This popularity can wane at higher levels if you don't pick up on a crucial principle: your job is more than just healing. Depending on your class, you will have other duties that include keeping buffs on your companions, de-cursing them, stepping in front of the mage if he or she draws aggro and the list goes on. Addons are one way that the aspiring healer can shift some focus towards his or her other duties. By taking some of the busy work out of casting healing spells, buffs and keeping the party free of curses, poisons and/or diseases, programs like Healbot Continued can take you from being a good healer to being a stellar and indispensable member of any group.
Healbot Continued uses the embedded Lua scripting language to reconfigure information vital to healers. This retrofitting presents an easily manageable interface that helps you maintain a greater degree of situational awareness. For many of you wondering how this works, it's simply a matter of our program, Healbot Continued in this case, listening to the World of Warcraft client for events. In combat, information is literally flying back and forth between the player (client side) and the game server (server side). Healbot Continued simply listens in and picks out information it wants. This is true of almost all addons, which sift through event information for a variety of purposes. Healbot Continued is easily one of the more powerful addons around, as it goes above and beyond what is normally expected of healing addons.
Have you ever lost a battle because you fumbled through a sequence of actions? Perhaps when trying to run from a rogue you dropped a Stoneclaw Totem rather than the intended Earthbind Totem. Alternatively, you may have cast Frost Nova rather than Counterspell on a Warlock casting her 1.5 second Fear. Missed clicks or keystrokes have been the bane of many players. This is where the magic of macros can save you from keyboard fumbling.
Among their many uses, macros can be used to establish cast sequences, "I win" buttons and evasive action commands.
Macros are something many players have heard of, but shy away from because they require some basic scripting knowledge. For the uninitiated, macros are commands built by users to execute customized actions or action sequences. A macro, known in the Computer Science world as a macro instruction, are defined as a rule that specifies how a certain input sequence should be mapped to an output sequence. Sounds horrible, I know, so let's make it easier.
Macros in World of Warcraft, are really just new and simplified ways to do the same old things. For a Mage, this can be a Presence of Mind / Pyroblast button, the "I win!" macro for Fire / Arcane mages. From simple commands to eat and drink at the same time, to determining a target's status (friendly or hostile) and casting an appropriate spell, macros can be used to streamline game play and clean up your User Interface.
Well it didn't happen within 2007 as quite a few people predicted, but World of Warcraft has done it-- Blizzard has announced that their massively multiplayer game has hit ten million subscribers worldwide. Asia is the biggest market at the moment, with more than 5.5 million players, as compared to North America's 2.5 million and 2 million subscribers in Europe. Blizzard also says the past holiday season was a big one for them-- they picked up "thousands of new and returning players" in the past few months.
Here's a world population chart for comparison-- for perspective, Blizzard's game currently has a (paying) population about half the size of Australia. While 10 million is impressive to say the least (this game has already cemented itself a place in history as one of the most popular games ever made), just how far can they go from here? Will Wrath of the Lich King be able to bring more players out of the woodwork, or is Blizzard reaching critical mass in terms of how much attention they can attract? Will we be posting in another year that they've broken 11 million, or more?
Dinging level 60 isn't nearly as fun as it used to be. You're probably already in Outlands, smashing faces with Tier 2-equivalent gear and looking forward to your flying mount. But wait! You've still got one thing left to do in Azeroth. Yep, it's time to head back through the Dark Portal and get your epic charger.
The Alliance and the Horde have vastly different questlines for their epic chargers, and I've got to say, the Horde one is tons easier. The Alliance one is so time-consuming that it might just be easier to shell out the gold for a regular horse/ram/elephantything. But for those who really want the status symbol, The Light and How to Swing It Presents:
Getting your epic charger (Alliance)
First off: if, as you're approaching 60, you can get your hands on Runecloth, Arthas's Tears, Arcanite (actually, start transmuting your own Arcanite a week before doing the quest if you're an alchemist), Stratholme Holy Water, an Azerothian Diamond or a Pristine Black Diamond, hang onto it. You'll need it later.
Your local paladin trainer will tell you that it's time to go see Lord Grayson Shadowbreaker in the Stormwind Cathedral District. Shadowbreaker will give you two quests: Emphasis on Sacrifice is supposed to prove your loyalty to the Light, and The Work of Grimand Elmore will help you get your horse's "barding", whatever that is. Emphasis on Sacrifice is easier, so let's go do that one first.
For Emphasis on Sacrifice, you must bring 150g to High Priest Rohan, a priest trainer in the Mystic Ward of Ironforge. In return, he'll give you his Exorcism Censer, which you can take back to Shadowbreaker. Shadowbreaker will then give you the quest Exorcising Terrordale. Head to Terrordale, the city just west of Plaguewood in Eastern Plaguelands. You need to use the Exorcism Censer on green circles that you'll find on the ground. Be prepared to face 1-3 spirits every time you use the Censer. After 25 spirits, you can return to Shadowbreaker and start work on Grimand Elmore.
Welcome, my friends, to the second installment of Macro Anatomy. In this episode we'll be going over some basic macro commands and I'll introduce some simple macros for you to learn and play with.
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