Loot Card Giveaway: Landro's Lil' XT

Ever wanted to get your hands on one of those cute voiced robots that are bent on destroying trains and constantly remind you that they're ready to play? Now is your chance! Here's how you can win one!

The contest is a joke contest. I want you to e-mail me your BEST and most ORIGINAL WoW-Themed joke. This contest will be judged by me. The deadline to enter is Monday at midnight (EST). Winner will be announced sometime Tuesday. I will post all the jokes entered as well as the winner!

Just to reiterate: To enter you must e-mail me your joke. PLEASE PUT "JOKE CONTEST" IN YOUR SUBJECT. Not in the comments, or twitter, or anything. E-mail it to me. With the joke please include a name you'd like to be referred to as, for example your WoW character or even a fake name, whatever.

Please e-mail me at asilwensadventures@gmail.com

One entry per e-mail.

The winner will receive the code via e-mail after I have announced said winner. The most original and funny joke will win.

Have a question? Let me know in the comments below. Good luck!

Let's Talk About Portals!

I want to bring back up the discussion about portals in Cataclysm (and I promise I will make NO Portal references in this post! /pinky swear). Remember when Blizzard announced the removal of city portals and everyone lost it? People started complaining and got out their sandwich boards and started screaming the sky is falling. Those were fun times. Then Cataclysm hit and we were introduced to our new portals that would take us to each of the new zones once we got through a certain point of questing in that zone. I haven't really seen anyone bring up these portals in comparison to the old ones. What do I think of the new portals? I love them more than the old ones.

I guess I can see a problem with alts and them not being able to travel as easily, but why is that necessary? The game doesn't require you to travel across the continents, especially with the new questing and zone design. I'm trying to stay as unbiased as I can be on this topic (because I hate alts and don't play them) but I really don't see how this hinders playing alts that much.

Compared to the city portals, these new zone portals seem way more important. I mean really, when's the last time you went to the Exodar (if you're Alliance). If anything you only went there to get closer to one part of the world. Which is now done easier with the convenient and much better decorated portals we have today.

Let's compare:

As you can tell by the map, before Cataclysm we didn't have that much of a range of where we could go with the old ports. Now we could pretty much take a portal that will put us close to anywhere we need to go. And if you REALLY need to go to Darnassus, just find a mage. I'm sure you'll find one easily. And if you can't find a mage, roll one.

And to all the people who freaked out: I hope you feel silly. These newer portals are way better. I love them. If I could I would marry them and have little portal children with them. That's how much I like them.

And with that we've reached the end of the post, and there were no Portal references. I'm proud of myself, really. I guess you could say this was a triumph.

Battleground Basics: How to Win Warsong Gulch

I've been doing some battlegrounds lately, trying to get more honour to get a full PvP set so I can look like a real guild leader of a "PvP" guild. I usually just queue by myself, or with a couple of friends. This can be incredibly frustrating because a lot of people don't understand basic concepts. And I can't help but think if only people would just think then we'd win way more. So I have decided to write up a few public service announcements with general tips and tricks to each of the battlegrounds. I'll start off with the first one you encounter: Warsong Gulch.

Don't Fight in the Middle

This might be the simplest of advice, but it's the most important. I see this all the time. People sit in the middle and just endless run in and fight. Ignoring all objectives. Battlegrounds are for objective based PvP, if you don't want to go for objectives go organize world PvP. I play battlegrounds to win, and so do a majority of the player base. Not to farm honourable kills. No one cares if you're making some super sweet PvP video and you want to camp their graveyard for "crazy awesome 1337" footage.

Does this mean to keep running if you get attacked? In most cases yes, absolutely. I get away most of the time. If they chase just make them follow you to an objective, then kill them with friends! This way you can kill and be productive at the same time, pretty awesome I know right.

Objectives in Warsong Gulch would be anywhere near a Flag Carrier (either enemy or friendly), your base (defending your flag if it's there), or enemy base (trying to get flag back). Anywhere else and you're just wasting a player spot.

If You Aren't Geared Don't Grab the Flag

Pretty simple as well. Let someone less squishy take it. Unless you're a druid/shaman who are just going to transport it to the base, then pass it to someone else.

This rule should be ignored if the flag is dropped and someone needs to grab it, then anyone should grab it if they can. It could save the game and make you e-popular for a few minutes!

While Carrying the Flag Prioritize Getting to Your Base Over Fighting

The way I see it, in most PuG battlegrounds the flag carrier should worry more about getting to safety/capping flag then fighting their way across. Just keep trying to run. Simple as that. The reason I bring this up is because when I PvP in non-arenas I do it as Holy, and whenever I shield as holy you get a sprint. So I hate when I give people sprint, only to seem them no longer running but instead trying to pick off that one person to get their one honour kill. 

Kill the Healers

I mean this one is pretty obvious in any scenario, but if you seem to be beating on that flag carrier and he doesn't seem to be dying, you might want to switch to the healer. I really shouldn't have to say this tip, but hey I've seen so many people not doing it so I figured I should bring it up.

Don't Take the Sprint Buff in the Tunnel When You're Running in to Grab the Flag

This drives me crazy. I see this a lot. People grab the flag when they run in. Why not save it for the flag carrier when they're running out of the tunnel? I mean sure they could be planning on not exiting through the tunnel, but if the buff is up I don't see why you shouldn't.

Also if you're not carrying the flag and there's a friendly flag carrier near you, let them have it. Please? For me? Thanks.

(I guess I should also note to flag carriers: don't run too far away from your healers. It's a team game and going off on your own will make you die quickly in most situations. Use your head.)

When Assaulting Enemy Keep to Get the Flag Back, Go in Together

Going in one by one will get you no where fast. Group up outside, then go in. Use battleground chat to be organized. Organization and communication win games.

Don't Farm the Graveyard When You're Winning

It's really unsportsmanlike for one, and secondly it gets you no where fast. Most people do BG's to get honour. You get more honour if you finish the game quickly then queue for another one. Trust me, it's true! So don't farm the graveyard, it makes me sad inside whenever people do.

 Now keep in mind these tips and tricks don't work in every BG, and pre-mades may have different strategies. This guide was to help you in general, for when you solo queue or queue with your friends. Also, I am not saying I am the best player in the world by giving these tips. I am just trying to give advice to players that may be confused about the purpose of battlegrounds. I hate losing when people do dumb things. So if you want to win, following these simple an obvious tips will immediately improve your performance in Warsong Gulch and make you a way better team player!

Hardcore and Casual: Why I Hate These Words (And Recruiting!)

I am the guild leader of my guild Windfall. And I have been dealing with a problem some of you can probably relate with. We are wanting to be a PvP guild that is successful. I consider success to be known on the server as a PvP guild and have a good reliable rated battleground group (high rating). I didn't see this as a stretch, but as I'm finding it's hard to find footing in the "PvP guild" world if you have no "gladiators". People care about silly things like that. Because apparently only good players have that title. It couldn't be that there are good players who have been PvE this entire time and are finally trying PvP.

My friend, Alarguss, is in charge of setting it up and recruiting. He has asked my help in recruiting and I have copied his macro for recruitment. Here it is:

<Windfall> is a PvP guild looking to fill the rest of our Rated Battleground core group. Still currently looking for active hardcore PvPers looking for rated BG's and arenas. PST for more info!

It's not that bad. However, we hardly get any whispers from this. One word sticks out to me in this message though. Hardcore. What does hardcore say to the public? Because to me hardcore says living, breathing, eating PvP. Like if you don't have full PvP gear there's no way we'd even look in your direction in terms of recruitment. Like if you had never been above a 2k rating in arenas you don't deserve to exist near us. I guess I wouldn't say elitist, but just crazy dedicated/serious. I might have a jaded perspective, but this is what I think when I see that word, and I can't be the only one.

This isn't how my guild is though. We hardly have any people, we aren't doing anything organized right now due to lack of numbers, and no one in my guild has ever been a really huge arena fanatic. So whenever we do get recruits, they leave very soon after. So I wanted to change the style of recruiting to get more numbers. I have been a guild leader for many years and I know the best way of recruiting is to get a broad range of players than sort from there. So I made a new recruitment message:

<Windfall> is a casual PvP guild looking for active PvPers to fill our ranks so we can start rated BG's and guild Arenas. PST for more info!


Oh crap.

Without even thinking I went to the opposite side of the world and used the dreaded C-word: Casual. This wouldn't be a bad thing if people didn't ruin that word. In the past if I've ever even mentioned my guild to be casual I get a wide variety of people I don't want.

There's a good kind of casual and a bad kind of casual. The bad kind of casual is unreliable, because making raid/BG times reliably is taking this game "too seriously". The bad kind of casual doesn't see whats wrong with passing on participating as a guild in mandatory raids or rated BG's to play their alts. The bad kind of casual doesn't take time on their own to improve their gear, and only waits for organized guild events to get geared. These examples are real from my experiences in the past.

This is the kind of player that gets attracted to casual guilds. This is not to say all casuals have this mentality, but a majority of them do. So how do I describe a guild that wants to be in the middle of hard core and casual in 255 characters (To fit in my recruitment macro)?  A better question, what word could we use to describe this?

Do we even need to make a new word? Yes. If we didn't we'd have to somehow change a public's definition of hardcore and casual. This would be impossible. It would be like trying to get me to play an alt. It's just not happening. The only reason there's a problem is as I've noticed over time people would rather focus on the negatives over the positives, I mean even I did it earlier in this post. Instead of paying attention to the fact that not all hard core players are elitists, or that not all casual players are terrible, a majority of us remain ignorant to the fact that there are good players of both categories.

I know what you might be thinking; why does this matter? Well it shouldn't. But as I've seen it matters to the general public, and as much as I try to portray how it shouldn't matter what other people think of you and play how you enjoy playing, I have to worry in this case. Why? Well because where do you think I have to recruit from? Ah yes, the public.

So how do I fix my problem? I think I might have a solution:

<Windfall> is a PvP guild looking for active PvPers to fill our ranks so we can start rated BG's and guild Arenas. PST for more info!

Removing the buzz words could possibly help. Would it mean the people that respond will be the exact kind of people I look for? No, but it's a start. And I guess that's one of the jobs of being the guild leader; having to sort through all the people to find the pieces of the puzzle that fit just right. Or having to take a wrong piece and fix it until it almost fits until you find the missing one.

However can we fix the problem in general? It would take a while but I don't see why not. Making hardcore less powerful and "scary" of a word would just take a few players to just calm down, take a deep breath, and stop berating players if they even think about doing something wrong. Or casual players to just stop using "casual" as an excuse to not try harder. These kinds of people are the exception currently, but if enough people change the ways of the stereotyped hardcore and casual players it'll become the norm. Than a tidal wave of change would happen in the player-base.

Guest Post: Vulpixie's Cheap Shot

This is a guest post by my friend Vulpixie (formerly Galfrid). He has been wanting to contribute a sort of a weekly rant post for my blog to fill the void that is my anger and frustration, seeing as I am reasonably calm a majority of time when it comes to everything. A lot of things easily enrage him: wiping on Maexxna, miniature golf, skateboarding video games, and this week feral druids. Please leave some feedback in the comments, as if people like his posts he shall continue them! Enjoy!

I started playing WoW 5 years ago around patch 1.1. I’ve raided during every expansion at least a little bit. Played a hunter in Vanilla and BC, and a druid all through Wrath. Currently I’m playing an Assassination rogue and loving it. I’ve mainly been focusing on pvp, due to our guild and the condition of heroics (40 minute queues just to fail). I’ve been in quite a few guilds and done enough in the game that I believe I can make an honest intellectual opinion about this game.

However, there are many things in this game that I can’t stand, and my guild mates will be the first to say that I love to rage about things. This week my rage cannon is pointed at the state of feral druids in pvp right now. In my opinion, as a rogue, THEY SUCK. Now, I have no idea how they fare against other classes, I can imagine mages could do quite well against them. So this is all from my perspective.

 First off: Me being assassination I do not have nearly as much mobility as I could as, say, a subtlety rogue. And because of this, I cannot stand toe-to-toe to a feral druid. Them being able to shift out of crippling effects, and the fact that they run faster than me just makes them so hard to hit. But the mobility is the lowest on the totem pole of suck that they have.

Second: 8k Ticking Bleed effects. This is what really gets me to my breaking point. Let’s just say I’m trying to kill someone in Tol Barad. Like a shaman, I love tearing into them these days. I open up and start wailing away, then BAM! Mangle, rake, rip and I’m screwed for like 15+ seconds. They hit like a truck, and those being bleed effects I cannot do crap against them!
Even if I get the druid low, he can pop bear form, get rage and get health. If it gets to this and I still have vanish I will gtfo. I will avoid a fight with a feral if I have to, but if I tell it’s a baddie, I’ll tear him a new one and enjoy the crap out of it.
 
Now maybe I’m just really bad and need to l2play. Either way, feral druids will continue to piss me off.

How to avoid getting "Burnt Out"

We all know that feeling. The hesitance of logging in. The feeling that your WoW activities are starting to become lack-luster. It's a slippery slope no doubt. Once burn out starts to set in there's no going back, at least not for a bit. However there are ways to slow your descent into getting burnt out. I have played WoW for about four years or so and I have only taken one short break from the game (was like a month) and have never canceled my subscription. How do I stay playing and not tire of the game? Gather round, friends, and let me help.

If you feel you're starting to grow tired of the game but still want to play, follow these tips to help combat the burning. However the best way to beat getting burnt out I find is to just play something else, don't force yourself to play. That's the simplest advice I can give. Don't force it.

Play Some Alts!

 If you have fun playing your goblin shaman alt play it! Who cares if it doesn't get your Therazane rep up, do it anyway! This is another very simple yet key way to prevent getting bored. Mix up your game play. Doing dailies every day may be productive but it will make you hate the game. The endless grind of raiding can also do this. Am I encouraging you to skip raids to play alts? No, not at all, just play them in your spare time if you happen to be in a guild that has organized raids.

Play How You Want To!

I'll tell you a quick story first. A couple months ago, back when ICC was in it's stage of giving a 30% buff and everything was steam roll and puggable, I ran a raid with the most peculiar paladin I had ever met. He was technically protection talented but his play style matched a tri-spec player. No joke this guy, as I watched him on boss fights, would at one point run up and start doing DPS on a boss then after a minute or so would run out of melee and start healing people. After healing for a bit he then went back in melee range and started going at it again, doing more DPS. On fights with adds he would be our off off tank, randomly taunting adds when he wanted to. This happened with every boss. He ignored boss mechanics, and just did what he wanted to that moment. Needless to say, it was his first character.

Despite his play style being not very helpful to the raid, I can guarantee you one thing about that paladin. He had more fun than any one of us in the raid. And that is the point of my story. Play how you want to. With the new talents and glyphs there's more opportunities to play how you want to. Unless you're in a top world guild you don't need to min/max, I promise you this. If you're a disco priest and love reflective shields even though you're a raider then spec into them!

(For the record I don't encourage hybrid play like the paladin in my story, it doesn't help the raid. I encourage playing how you want to... as long as it's still helpful to the raid =P)

Whenever my old guild did the Saurfang fight in ICC I would always build a fort of vanity items since we didn't move in that fight. My way of fighting the monotony of ICC.

Ignore Productivity! Do What's Fun!

People get stuck in this rut where they feel that they must be doing dailies or getting gold, anything that furthers their character in that way. I don't get this. I understand getting gold is fun for some and if that's so that's awesome. Doing dailies is boring however and will make this game feel like a job instead of a game. This is a game after all. Play it to have fun! Who cares if you're not making gold or chain running heroics, if you're having fun you're doing it right!

A good example of this is my friend and I the other night flew to Orgrimmar on my touring rocket and tried to find a troll death knight to kill since it was the last class/race combination for one of our guild achievements. We could find one but then got distracted by playing a game where I'd drop him out of my rocket and try to catch him before he'd plummet to the auction house where all the hungry hungry Horde were waiting. Then after doing that for a while we tried to race from the western entrance of Org to the main entrance on land mounts and see who could get there first/alive. This went on for an hour or so. Did doing this make us gold? No. Did this get us rep? No. Did we have a ton of fun? Absolutely. Don't forget to take some time from the daily grind to have fun! If you need some ideas for fun, I have a few suggestions.

Try Something New!

I always make sure there's at least one thing I haven't done or done in a while so that I have something refreshing to do when I'm feeling burnt out. For example all through Burning Crusade and Wrath I did a lot of PvE. In Cataclysm I'm focusing more on PvP since I never really focused on it before. This is keeping me interested in the game, it's new territory for me. Another good idea of something new is to try role playing. Get past the mentality of "lolRP" and just immerse yourself. You might surprise yourself by how much you enjoy it.

Don't Force Yourself to Play
Let me suggest a game to play while you are waiting for your interest in WoW to reappear:
League of Legends (My names Asilwen on there if anyone else plays, add me on there!)

These four tips are simple yet effective. The most important of them is to remember to always have fun. This game is not a job, it's a game! I can't stress this enough.

I Despise Dungeons

I'll go ahead and say it: I'm not impressed at all with Cataclysm dungeons. There are only two things I feel like Blizzard did right with Cataclysm dungeons:

1. They made interesting/challenging boss fights.
2. The overall difficulty of heroics.

Everything else I feel like is just either wrong or not new. Allow me to elaborate on my loathing.

I've done my fair share of heroics in my days, but I've only done a few Cataclysm heroics. However, I have done enough. Someone asked me last night if I wanted to do a heroic and I hesitantly accepted. I had planned on doing some BGs instead but I wanted to help and play with my friends (since he's DPS and I'm heals so we'd get exponentially faster queues). After we waited about six minutes or so and we all accepted the loading screen appeared; informing us of our fate. Last night it was the Stonecore. I can tolerate that dungeon because it's a known fact that I'm the last boss of the Stonecore. It's like my second home.

What I can't tolerate though is the length of dungeons. It's not the difficulty that gets me about heroics, it's not that at all. Not to toot my own horn or anything but I think I'm a pretty good healer and haven't really faced a heroic boss that pushed me past my skill limits (gear limits maybe). I do not like the fact that it takes my groups an average of an hour and a half to do heroics! That's way too long for a dungeon in my opinion. Here's a list of things I could do in an hour and a half that would be way more fun:

• Archaeology
• PvP: In an hour and a half (assuming all BGs I'd do last for twenty-five minutes which is the longest BG I've been in recently) I could get at least three battlegrounds done!
• Not do heroics
• Read Asilventures
• Dailies
• AFK in *insert major city here*
• Watching virtual paint dry
• Anything.

This is my major complaint about heroics. They're too long. Heroics are like going mini-golfing with your friends. It sounds like a great idea at first than by the time it's over everyone walks away frustrated and angry at the person who suggested it. Meanwhile the people who got holes-in-one try to validate the lost two hours of time by celebrating their arbitrary triumph (holes-in-one = gear upgrades in this simile).

However I don't complain with no reason. If I ever complain (like I am right now) I provide a solution. As I discussed with my guild mates about my hatred towards heroics they brought up a point that goes as followed: 

"Wrath heroics were short and easy. Cataclysm heroics are hard which makes them long. And most people would rather have harder and longer dungeons than short and easy."

True, Wrath heroics were short and easy for the most part. But what I don't understand is why we can't have hard instances but short in length! Why don't they design dungeons that are only like at max three or four bosses and have like two or three trash pulls in between? Everything in the dungeon can still be as challenging as it is today, but in half the time. This would give us the best of both worlds, essentially making the Hannah Montana of dungeons.

Take for example the last four bosses of Halls of Origination, or the top floor if you will. This is how dungeons could be designed and would make them not last forever. Four easily accessible yet difficult bosses with two challenging trash pulls in between. The top floor of Halls of Origination would be the perfect instance if that's all it was. Another great example would be Trial of the Champion. It had interesting boss fights and a perfect length. If they made it harder it would be perfect.

Now am I suggesting we get rid of trash all together? No, not at all. It would make no sense from a logical or lore stand point if there was no trash anywhere. I'm just saying to reduce the amount of it. Less trash means less wasted time. Time is money, friend.

Advanced Dungeon Etiquette: Vote Kicking

With the addition of the Dungeon Finder tool came the option to vote kick members of your party. While a majority of the time you won't need to worry about this whether it be you have a good group or just are running with your friends and not PUGing. However if you are just solo queueing you may run into a situation where you might have to vote kick someone. Today I wanted to discuss when it's a good idea to kick your fellow party members and when you really shouldn't. Kicking for no reason isn't cool, and isn't funny. Seriously, don't do it when it's not needed.

Consider this post to be a sequel to my original post on Basic Dungeon Etiquette. 

When To Kick Someone...

AFK

 Now we all have to leave the computer once and a while, it's a fact of life. But any longer than ten minutes of being AFK for me is too much. If you have to leave your computer for longer than that don't queue, that's just how I feel. Some stuff happens I understand. There are exceptions. Just ten minutes is wayyy too long. Before you queue you should always expect the dungeon to last at least an hour. That's at least what I do. Don't have an hour of time? Don't do a dungeon. Simple as that!

Harassment

This is a fairly obvious one. If someone is harassing you because of any reason at all vote kick them asap. I don't care if you are doing 7 DPS that is no reason to textually attack someone. I see things like this all the time. I'd rather have the bad DPS over a jerk.

Also, if you are the person being harassed report it to Blizzard. You'd do us all a favour to get a person like that banned.

Unwillingness to Learn

If someone enters the group and says "I've never done this place before." this does not mean they should be kicked. Take initiative and explain things. Explain fight mechanics, trash pulls, anything that will help your group succeed! (See here for more!)

However, if after explaining whatever needs said and the person still doesn't get it after numerous wipes, then you have reason to kick them. This also goes for anyone who blatantly ignores mechanics and wipes the group due to stubbornness.

For example: I ran a group with a death knight tank from the random dungeon finder (who was clearly a product of the Wrath of the Lich King era) who had neither done the instance before or knew what CC meant. We had a perfect group for CC too (a rogue/mage/hunter). I then took the time to explain what CC meant, marked every trash pull, and explained what was to be done to each mark. Still after spending countless minutes telling the tank that he should only worry about "Skull" and "X" he still continued to purposely break our crowd control because "it wasn't necessary" and "he never used to have to do that". Meanwhile our healer (me) was crying because I would always have to use cool downs on trash pulls to keep our AoE minded tank alive. Needless to say we kicked him by the time we wiped for a third time on trash. We gave him many chances and he failed every one.

That story is a good example of when someone should be kicked for not learning. He was stubborn and didn't want to change how he wanted to do things despite the fact we kept wiping because of it. Oh and did I mention that he blamed me for the wipes?

When You Shouldn't Kick Someone...

When it's Their First Time Doing the/a Dungeon

If it's someones first time doing a dungeon that doesn't mean they're terrible. Take this opportunity to help them. If, as I said above, they don't listen or follow directions, then you can kick them without guilt. Always give people a chance, no matter what.

If You Think Their Gear isn't Good Enough

This is not a good reason. Not having a certain item level doesn't make someone a bad player. Good players with bad item levels can out DPS bad players with good item levels.

They Won An Item You Wanted

I haven't seen this much, but it's happened. This is childish and immature. Guess what?!?! Loot drops again! It's crazy I know, but hey it does! Who cares if you've ran it fifty times straight and you feel like you deserve it more. I know I don't!

The Tank is Pulling Too Slowly

Calmly ask the tank to pick up the pace. Don't just jump to kicking them from the group. Patience is key when it comes to the random dungeon finder.

When You Should Leave a Dungeon Group...

I hate to say it, but sometimes you have to leave a group. I don't condone leaving as you should prepare to do the dungeon before you even queue. But alas some situations call for it. Here are some situations that I have deemed acceptable for you to leave without feeling rude.


If You Need to do an Extended AFK

Politely explain to your group the situation, they might even want to wait for you! Each group is different as is every situation. The worst thing ever is when someone just drops group out of the blue.

When Your Group Really Can't do it

This is tricky to tell. But if wipe after wipe you seem to not be making progress, tell your group you don't think the group can down the boss or what not. Bring up a discussion on how to fix it. If no solution is presented, explain that you will be leaving. There's no sense in beating your head against the wall if your group isn't geared enough to do a dungeon. Some bosses are relentless. There's no shame in bowing out while you've still got gold for repairs.

When You Shouldn't Leave an Instance...

Any other reason! (With few exceptions!)

If you queue for a dungeon, finish it! I don't care if you only needed loot off the first boss or anything. Leaving after a boss didn't drop your loot you wanted is being a selfish jerk. Sure finding a replacement isn't hard anymore with the random dungeon finder, but that doesn't make it okay! Don't be a jerk.

Sure these "rules" for vote kicking are just my opinion, but that doesn't mean a majority of the players don't agree with me. Be nice and be smart, bottom line. Dungeons are a team activity. You work as a team. People seem to forget this.There's nothing worse than queuing with a selfish jerk that abuses vote kicking or leaves early, so don't be that guy! And if you follow my advice, you won't be!