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Castcounting macro counts your spellcasts
Xalit is entertaining himself before the expansion by crafting some macros, and he's come up with a pretty clever one that will count the number of times you cast a certain spell. He's got a few different versions (including one that pushes the total out to "say" occasionally), but here's probably the most helpful:/cast Water Shield/run i="Water Shield" if ws==nil then ws=0 end t=GetSpellCooldown(i) if t==b then else c=0 end b=GetSpellCooldown(i) if b==t and c==0 then ws=ws+1 c=1 endWhich will both cast Water Shield for you (obviously, you'll have to change the name if you want to count casts of a different spell), and then use:/run SendChatMessage(ws,"SAY")To kick the count out to the Say chat channel. Naysayers among you may say "well that's pointless," and they're kind of right -- it doesn't really matter how many times you cast something, and the macro doesn't do anything else for you besides update a variable to keep track of that number.But it is interesting to see just how many times, say, you pressed the Fireball button during the raid last night, and maybe there is some use for this information somewhere (maybe checking the frequency of use or viability of certain spells or trinkets?). Might be a good macro to have when you want to know more about what you're casting.
Ask WoW Insider: Cashing out Badges
Time once again to put the considerable brainpower that you, dear readers, have to good use (and by good use we mean other than making funny things about the Failoc). It's time once again to Ask WoW Insider. This week we have a question for you from fordarkness over on WoW LJ -- it's about Badges of Justice, and just when and how would be best to cash them in before the expansion.Obviously, the expansion isn't going to bring in new badge vendors that we can use these for.... Epic level 70 gems will probably still be around and used for your intro raiding gear, but chances are they'll be replaced pretty quick too.I'm debating liquidating my badges into gems, nethers and vortexes and selling them on the AH. Of course, there's the issue of "how soon is too soon" and "what if the patch puts in some new vendor items", along with "I need to get the items out on the market before it becomes flooded and no one wants them due to the imminent release of the LK expansion"!So whaddaya think? If you have extra badges, liquidating them into Nethers and Vortexes isn't too bad an idea, since even Badge gear might be overtaken by green gear a few quests into Northrend. But then again, even crafted gear that uses those items might end up being useless within the first few levels, so what's a Badge hoarder to do?What's your plan for getting rid of the Badges you have left? Are you just going to spend them as you need them and see what solutions present themselves when Wrath arrives? It would be interesting if Blizzard, say, offered an XP reward in exchange for them after level 70. Or have you already liquidated your stock by selling out Primal Nethers on the AH? What happens to your Badges when the way to Northrend opens up?
Some literary humor for your Saturday in Warcraft
Here's two bits of literary fun for your Saturday afternoon.First, earlier this week, I saw this nice little piece of fan fiction over on WoW Livejournal. I'm not usually a fan of fan fiction, but this one just explains so much. And I really do hate those things, too.And then yesterday, swampers put together this terrific little Shakespearean parody in the World of Warcraft style. "To quit, perchance to /afk" -- that's great. "Out out, brief arena match -- life's but a walking Shadow Priest, a poor player, who struts and QQs while the tank goes down, and then runs OOM."Great stuff. Literary humor is always fun, and mixing it in with WoW makes it even better. Laugh and enjoy.
Breakfast Topic: Themed names
Emy on WoW Ladies LJ is asking about +hit gear, but I'm actually more interested in the second question posted: How many among you have named all your characters the same way? I'm not a theme-namer -- most of my characters are named after whatever popped in to my head when I created them, creative or otherwise. But some players like to give all their characters the same suffix or prefix on their names, or name them all after something in common (Emy names her characters after stones, so "Garnett", "Ameythyst," and so on.I've always thought that we should have some way of tracking which player owns which character, either within the guild interface, or within the game at large -- though people probably have privacy concerns about that, it's interesting to me to see people playing different alts and how they act differently. But theme names are one way of showing that characters are all part of a larger group, without actually revealing those ties to anyone not in the know. It's a cool idea -- almost makes me wish I'd put a little more thought into my characters when starting out.So: do you have a theme behind the names of your characters? Did you plan it out or did it just happen? And is it clear (they all have the same root) or is the theme known only to you? What, if any, are the ties between the names of your different characters?
Parents just don't understand WoW
Rufus Honker IV over at the World of Warcraft LJ has joined a very small, elite community. Like Amanda Dean and Blizzard staffer J. Allen Brack, Rufus plays WoW with his parents. Of course, the elder Honkers make some "newb" mistakes along the way. Mom's got an ammo pouch on her Warrior, and Dad's bags are packed with obsolete crafting materials, outdated quest items, and even gray vendor trash. Rufus's post isn't a complaint. It's more an endearing sigh that "Parents just don't understand WoW." He ends the post saying that they may be noobs, but they're his noobs. His parents look like they've embraced the game, and seem pretty cool to go on about their merry way in Azeroth. (I can't help but wonder if they have feelings on "welfare epix.") I think my own father would be even more helplessly lost in Azeroth, and would cause me no end of frustration. But, I'd gladly handle that to hang out with him that readily. Maybe it's my advanced age, but if you get to do something like this together, you should probably treasure it while you can. Rufus seems to be doing a good job of that.
WoW, Casually: Finding forum help
Each week or so, Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player who has 2 hours or less to play at a time.This week, I answer some Reader Mail from Arjun.Hi Robin,The writing style of [WoW Insider] is always upbeat/positive, which is great. I thought I'd ask you your opinion of the official WoW forums, especially the realm forums. What do you think of them? Should casual or newer players try to avoid them at all costs? I've been playing casually for about a year, and have two 70s (Ally Mage and BE Tankadin). I posted to the forums that I'm looking for a new guild, casual in focus. It's amazing what happens, but not in a good way. [Here is the forum link.] What would you recommend to your readers about the official WoW forums?Thanks,ArjunMy answer is after the jump.
Describing WoW in four words
Theantipoet of the World of Warcraft LJ community has a challenge for us in the spirit of the ten word and Wow-ku challenges: Sum up the Burning Crusade raiding game in four words or less -- his was "Fire bad. Tree Pretty." The community stepped up to the challenge quite nicely, offering answers that ranged from the obvious ("You are not prepared!") to the cynical ("Let's just farm badges"), and from the silly ("Making Coffee -- Kael's Talking") to the sublime ("Sometimes there is fire"). Myself, I think my raiding experience on my Druid can be best summed up thus: "Damn Dire Bear butt!" Seriously, whenever I tank a boss, that is all I see. The scenery gets boring. And furry. When it comes to my Hunter, I think it would be something like: "Why won't Wolfslayer drop?" The rifle never dropped for me. Of course, we hardly need to stop there. Why not expand the challenge to what you're looking forward to the most in WoTLK ("Fear my undead army!"), or what is frustrating you about your trade skill ("Drowning in Mithril Spurs"), or an ode to your favorite quest reward("Alliance has Boot Flasks!")? Give me your four word descriptions in the comments.
Licensed to play WoW
Wil's new license plate, as seen over on WoW Livejournal.Also see the discussion here, the frames over here (if you don't want to actually have a custom plate), other suggestions (most of which seem like bumper stickers -- "My other car is a griffon"?) here, more discussion here, and many different WoW-related custom plates here.Not sure what it is that drives us WoW fans to adorn our cars with inside jokes and lingo from the game, but it does seem to provide a fun hint of Azeroth while driving around. If you've got something cool on your car not seen here, send it along to us, and we'll add it into the gallery below.%Gallery-20183%
Getting back into the game
Knightless is having the same problem I'd guess quite a few players have -- her interest in her character is flagging a bit, and she's trying to figure out a way to get more involved in what she's doing in Azeroth. This is an interesting situation, because at this point, with almost any other game, the player would just leave and go find something else to play (and actually, I can say from experience that sometimes taking a short break from the game completely can rebuild your interest in it), but things don't really work that way in World of Warcraft -- responsibilities to your guild and the people you've met in game will keep you around even when your interest is low.So what tips can we offer Knightless and others who are looking for ways to refresh their interest in the game? Rerolling is a big one -- I've always found that picking up a new class you've never played before can get you to look at a game in a different way. Running an instance that you haven't run in a while is always fun, too -- it only takes a little while to level up a character to Deadmines or Wailing Caverns levels, and both of those instances always renew my interest in playing through Warcraft. Running guild activities or contests are always fun, too -- especially since Knightless is a guild officer, she could organize some lower level runs or some "grind days," where guildies all get together in groups to level each other up.Any other ideas for reviving a flagging interest in playing a character that you feel a need to play due to responsibilities or other connections in the game?
A guide to instances
Recently we created guides to help WoW Rookies understand how instances work and their role in them. Author Palintheist over on Livejournal has done the same with a funny, informative guide to running instances for players new to World of Warcraft. Some highlights:"Mob: No need to ask the Godfather for forgiveness - a mob is a word for monster. Also known as creep.""Healer: Who's keeping the tank from floor-hugging? Your powerful, puissant, never-to-be-offended healer. Seriously. Several classes can play this role and they all find it pretty much a thankless task, as people are very quick to blame healers when people die [but you won't, because you know better!].""Pat: Don't look around for someone androgynous - someone is warning you that a patrolling mob is coming closer and will probably [if it hasn't already] attack you. ""Buff: Keep your clothes on. Really. ""Inc: If there's no time to type "pat" or "adds", sometimes you'll see "inc", for "incoming". [Why is inc faster than pat? No idea.]"Go take a look, it's not just written with its tongue in its cheek, it's actually pretty informative for new players to the game. Save time the next newbie run and just send them the URL.
WoWDailies.com might have your daily quests for you
This is an interesting idea, though I'm not quite sure it will work: An enterprising guild (that Kimberly from LJ is in) has put together a site called WoWDailies.com, which is basically a list of what daily quests are available on which realms for any given day. As an idea, it's a good one -- pull up the site, and you can see what daily quests are available (BG, fishing, cooking, and instances) on your realm that day.In practice, however, it's easier said than done. The site relies not on info from Blizzard's servers, but from visitors to the site -- just click a realm name and you can input what quests are available. But anyone can do that, and there's no accounting for whether the quests are real or not (I accidentally entered some probably false information). I think the quests do reset every day, so at least if someone enters the wrong quest it only stays up for less than 24 hours, but still, you have to trust that what's up there is right.In fact, I'm surprised Blizzard hasn't created something like this to check every day -- they've got a calendar of BG weekends, so it's natural that they'd somehow let us check what quests were available out of game, and maybe even be able to plan instance runs ahead of time. At any rate, until then, WoWDailies will have to do. If you're lucky enough to have someone updating your realm correctly and on time, it should be a good resource.
Sticking with just one character
We've done a lot of talking about alts here at WoW Insider, and if I had to guess, I'd suspect that most of our readers tend to be what most of us writers are: alt-a-holics, with many, many classes and levels of alts, sometimes even spanning across servers. But not everybody is like us-- some people, like the Nameless One over on LJ, have only one character. And to tell the truth, I kind of envy her a bit.I've known a few people who have only played one character in the game ever, and in my experience, they've done great-- all the money they make goes directly to them, they never have to redo rep runs, all the keys they collect never have to be collected again. If you are an altaholic, think about all the gear you've gotten across the board and all the time you've sunk into other characters-- people with just one toon get to put all that time and effort into just one character, and get to reap the rewards.There is a lesson here, however, even for us altaholics. I've often found that if I really want to level up one of my alts, the switching just can't happen-- I have to choose one character and stick to it. All the money I earn stays with that character, and my only goals while online are for that character alone. And when I focus, and put effort into just one, that's when things actually get done. I, like many players, get bored easily-- if I had only one class ever, I would have had to give up on this game a while ago. But when it comes to earning gear and leveling fast, the best strategy I've found is to sit down, focus in, and play like you have only one character.
Breakfast Topic: What's your anti-class?
We're not talking about drugs here, and I don't mean to ask what class you just can't seem to beat in PvP. Nope, today's topic is a little more humbling and personal. Charly over on WoW Ladies wants to know: what class can't you play?Me, I've never been able to play a Paladin to my satisfaction-- despite my obvious concerns (which have come up before and which I won't belabor here), the class just never vibed with my playstyle. Warlock is another one that, for whatever reason, I've just never been able to play past about level 10 or so. It's not that I think they're bad classes-- it's just that I personally just don't vibe with their playstyle.What about you? Are there any classes that you just can't seem to play and get into? What's your anti-class?
How are those Heroic PUGs coming?
Lane asks a good question on WoW LJ that I'd like to ask you as well-- how are those Heroic PUGs coming? With the recent changes to reputation requirements for Heroic dungeons, there's probably a whole lot more players out there ready to run Heroics and looking for groups to do it with. But as classically unorganized as most pick up groups are, and as much concentration and skill that Heroics require, I can't imagine a Heroic PUG would ever been a good time, unless you got really, really lucky. Heck, I have enough trouble running with a normal PUG-- a Heroic PUG seems like it would be hell and a half.I'm sure it's not impossible-- if you've already got a good tank and some good CC, you can probably PUG a DPS or Healer and do OK. And I'm sure that, just like real PUGs, every once in a while, you'll strike gold and get a group that really has it together. But as easy as badges are to come by nowadays, I have to stand in awe of the people who still go for Heroic PUGs. How's it going out there?
Easy macro for getting your coordinates
Here's an awesome tip from amib over on WoW LJ. Sometimes, we all could use a little location check from time to time. While I usually am OK with finding quest coordinates, every once in a while, I'd just kind of like to know where I am. So here's amib's tip-- a macro that will easily and simply tell you (no addons required) where you are in game./script px,py=GetPlayerMapPosition("player")/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(format("( %s ) %i,%i",GetZoneText(),px *100,py *100));(As commenters have noted, the formatting is weird here on the blog-- it's meant to be two lines, both starting with script. The other line breaks will need to be taken out.)Just put that on a button, call it "Where am I?" or something like that, and then click it to get your current ingame coordinates in the chat channel. Considering how poor my addon-updating abilities are, that's perfect.Of course, there are lots and lots of addons floating around that will do this even better-- showing your coordinates and cursor coordinates in the window, and all kinds of other ways. But if you only use coordinates every once in a while, and never remember to update your addons, this little macro could be pretty useful to have.
Breakfast Topic: Resemblance
Just a quick question this morning, from Indigo on Livejournal: if you compared the way you look in real life to a WoW race, what would you be? Indigo would be a Female Dwarf, and I'm sure lots of people would be human. Who would be a Tauren? Actually, now that I think about it, Samwise Didier, lead singer of Blizzard's L70ETC, would be a pretty good Tauren. But only because Pandaren aren't in the game yet.No doubts here-- I'd be an Ogre. Just the one head, but considering my height and size, you can call me High King Mike. I can definitely break out the dance, though, at a moment's notice.
Show your support for Hordes or Allies
These are awesome, and yes, I wish I could buy one, too. Cypher shows off these ribbons she made over on livejournal, and says that whenever she drives around with the Horde one on her car, fellow Hordies scream "For the Horde" at her as she drives by. Sounds about right! For the Horde!But she says she made them for her and her roommate-- does she keep them both on the same car? I don't know how the whole "Blizzard-created logo" copyright thing would work (and I'm not quite down with putting stickers on my car), but selling both of these as magnets would be a great idea. Very awesome.
WoW Ladies community, mods come out from hiding
The WoW_Ladies livejournal group is one of my very favorite WoW communities, so I was disappointed to see last week that their latest posts were closed to everyone but members of the community. They'd been dealing with an expanding audience lately (brought on partly by attention from WoW Insider), and apparently there were a few issues arising among the membership.But the community has started posting again (bringing about this completely awesome crochet Draenei), and the mods (formerly pretty unknown-- I've been watching them for a while, and I had no idea who was in charge over there), have made a very public statement about the future of WoW_Ladies. In addition to taking a more high-profile position, they have said that the recent closing was not their choice, but rather either a glitch, or the work of someone not a mod. And they've landed on a great compromise: all posts will be public by default, with an option for each poster to lock them to the community only. They've also made the very great choice of leaving the community open to men-- some men with significant others, they say, "like seeing the women here post - it helps them identify with their partners and helps them get ideas on how to join." Personally, I completely appreciate a place where a woman's perspective on the game gets placed front and center, rather then consigned to a minority, as in many other games media outlets.The other good news is that they're working on a brand new layout for the community, so it seems like things are jumping over there. We're glad to see they made it through the drama, and are back as one of the most intelligent and interesting groups in the WoW community.
Breakfast topic: Hand out some buffs
theantipoet asks a great question over on Livejournal:If "you could buff any class -- any class but your own (your main or mains if you've got multiple) -- which class would it be and how would you buff them?"I'll say that if you want cool points on this one, you should stay away from any classes you play regularly-- for me at the moment, that'll be shaman, rogue, and hunter. I really like anti's answer of priests-- they are QQing a lot, but there is no reason they should be DPSing while paladins heal in raids.Personally, I'd hook up prot warriors a little bit-- right now, their DPS is such a joke that the only way they can really play is in instances. I'm not saying that we should give them tons of DPS-- that would mess everything up in PvP-- but just a little extra DPS would let them solo, and wouldn't unbalance PvE groups that much (since it's likely that if the group makeup is right, the prot warrior's DPS will still pale in comparison to your regular DPS class's hits).A buff like that isn't really necessary, but it's an interesting thought experiment to see where you might make positive changes that don't actually affect you. So if Blizzard suddenly gave you the chance to buff any class except your own, what would you say?
Donkey Kong scales college, students search for hammers
Some extremely inventive and intrepid students at UC Santa Cruz decided to recreate a scene from Donkey Kong on the side of their E2 building on campus, using nothing but colored Post-It notes. The result is a comparitive study in awesomeness and the power of procrastination. We can only imagine that this was spawned during some late-night "we should be working on that paper ..." session.The finished product is fairly impressive. Check out more pictures here, and the Livejournal entry with even more pictures here. As one LJ commenter summed up nicely, "Pretty rad especially considering they were either in diapers or not even born when this game was popular." We're waiting on the inevitable YouTube video showing the construction of this thing, sped up and set to some popular alternative song.
