Playble Goblin: The Blog

Hey guys and gals.

If you haven't noticed, the posting here started strong and then diminished quickly. The truth behind the matter is that I had three months off from traveling on business trips during the later summer and that's when I posted. Now for the last few months I've been busy, busy, busy with work and haven't had the mental patience to post.

Enough of that.

So I bring you PlayableGoblin.com! It's a blog started by our common friend Thornbush of Shadowsong and he's asked me to contribute. I think I'll have an easier time contributing to a blog that I don't own, and will feel no pressure to post to.

So it looks like I may post here a couple more times, but my blogs will most definitely end up being posted over at the Goblin. Plus, his blog's name is way cooler than mine.

See you there!

Echoes of Doom

Patch 3.0.2 is upon us! The good news has pulled Boyd of Shadowsong out of his dreary hibernation and he posts yet again!

That's right folks, tomorrow we can expect a considerably long Maintenance period for our beloved World of Warcraft. They will be implementing patch 3.0.2 which will bring us many new things in preparation for WotLK.

Included in tomorrow's patch:

Inscription - With the Inscription profession, the player creates Glyphs that modify existing spells and abilities. Of course there will be more to create than just these glyphs. Check it out here. (This link may not work after the expansion. I will update it accordingly if I remember it.)

Quoted from WoWWiki:
Inscription will allow players to augment the cooldown, damage, or mechanics (stun, knockback, DoT, HoT, etc.) of a spell. It will have two aspects: augmentation of abilities and spells with the creation of a new type of item ("scrolls", for example, from ink, parchment, and other reagents). Every player will get a new spell book page to which they can add six glyphs — currently, three major and three minor.

New Arenas - Expect to see some new places to battle in WotLK for your 2-, 3-, and 5v5 teams!

Raidwide Buffs - At first glance this seems awesome, but be prepared for some major changes. If you haven't read up on it, then you need to follow this link and edumacate yourself. Otherwise you'll have a hard time understanding what the heck is going on for your first couple of raids.

In-Game Calendar - Finally Blizzard has developed a calendar and implemented it into their in-game UI. Head on over to WoW Insider and take a look at all the details.

Barbershops - That's right, get ready to change the way your characters look to a small degree. Tired of that same 'ole mohawk? Need to change your balding problem? Head on over to the barbershop (located in the capital cities) and change it up!

Stormwind Harbor - Okay, if you haven't seen Stormwind Harbor yet from the Beta or any screenshots, it's pretty darn big. I only checked it out once, but I do remember a long fall when I literally jumped straight down to the docks from Stormwind proper. This is the location of the boat that will take you to Northrend. Check out the gallery over at WoW Insider.

New Talents, Spells, and Abilities - There are far too many changes coming to all the talent trees and associated spells for me to mention here. Click on the WoW Insider link to the right to check out all their coverage of the changes. Click on the Wowhead link on the right and follow the links for their WotLK site and see changes there.



So that's it for now folks. I can't wait to see you in the expansion and I'll do my best to keep the blog rolling. I've been traveling for work so much lately that I haven't had the opportunity to really cover anything.

Thanks again to WoW Insider, Wowhead, and WoWWiki for providing us with their websites and allowing me to link to them. Of course anything I link to and all pictures I post are copyrighted to their respective hosts.

IronMan DVD

My absence as of late...

Greetings all, how are we doing today?

Deep in my heart of hearts I hope that there are but a few loyal readers out there that have checked my blog daily, eagerly awaiting every new post.

Realistically, you guys only check this when I post in the guild forums that I have updated it.

I have been traveling quite a lot for work lately, and it has not even begun to slow down. I will be taking a hiatus, even longer than I've been away already. I hope to be awake enough or driven enough to make a post now and then, but until mid-October rolls around I will be quite busy.

Thanks for sticking with me. The posts shall continue, just give it time. I gotta support the little ones, you know?

WotLK: A screenshot and some musings

Greetings again all. I took one screenshot last night. Like a fool, I was so immersed in testing that I failed to take any more.

Fret not, loyal reader. After I complete the Death Knight Experience you can expect me to delete my Dwarven DK and start anew. I'll take plenty of screenshots for you then.

In the screenshot you can see the back of my DK, to include that beautiful runeblade on his back. The Val'kyr Battle-Maiden before me is one of two standing flying beside the Lich King himself. Also, if you peer into the background, none other than Baron Rivendare is also present in Ebon Hold.

Make sure you scroll down past the screenshot, as I'll let you know about the integrated threat meter, or at least what I saw of it.



As for the threat meter, I'll have to get a picture taken and post it later. It is pretty sleek, but I think it is a little hard to see if you're not used to it. In between your character portrait and health/runic power bars, there is just enough space for a diamond to appear. This diamond turns yellow when you are targeting an enemy in which you appear on its threat table. It gradually becomes more red the higher you get.

I apologize now for not having more details about that. I will pay a little more attention to it the next time I hop on.

WotLK: My first glimpse into the Beta

Last night I got my first glimpse at the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. I won't go into the details, but know that even though I cannot copy any characters of my own over (for the obvious reason) I was still able to create a Death Knight and do a little testing of my own.

I spent about two and a half hours playing last night, but only accomplished approximately 30 minutes of actual play time. I was busy filling out my opinions on the quests I completed, suggestions for a few environmental things, and reporting a couple bugs (like a soon-to-be killed Tauren Death Knight Initiate having neon green hair).

If you haven't read any articles about the beta thus far, let me tell you that there has been a lot of hype about how much effort has been put into creating the Death Knight Experience." Oh, and that's what it's called, leveling up a DK. From 55 to 57ish you are completing the Death Knight Experience. Now, in regards to all the hype, I'll agree to an extent.

First, I'm a Blizzard fan. I've been playing since Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, as well as Diablo and StarCraft. I love their style, their universe, and especially the way they do business. I am not however a fanboi like some people. I don't think every new development is "zomgbbqwtf 1337 c00l!!!!". Don't get me wrong, I enjoy experiencing all the new content, I just don't want you to think my opinions are random and the product of nothing logical, only irrational thoughts spawned from excitement.

So... what do I think of it so far? I think the hype is right. As you watch the class cinematic for your Death Knight you are immediately immersed into the story line. You aren't left guessing and confused (that is, if you've paid attention while playing the game in the past). The Death Knight Experience truly has that epic feel you would expect from the first Hero Class. There's not much more I can say besides describing each quest to you. The story, and graphics and abilities and environment along with it, is amazing.

"But Boyd? I don't care about that crap. How 1337 is the DK as a class?"
--To be frank, it's pretty pimp. If you're the kind of player that has never found your place in WoW because you have been wanting the perfect mixture of melee hacking and slashing mixed with a plethora of spells and abilities that a Paladin cannot provide, then the Death Knight is for you. I chose to put the first talent points I've received, about 18, in the Unholy tree. I will also be leveling Unholy when WotLK goes live. The rune system is very cool.

So, you have six runes. Two each of Blood, Unholy, and Frost. Attacking people with your abilities and using those runes to do so generates Runic Power. Runic Power is used for other magical abilities. Add on top of this using your Runeforging ability to create your very first Runed Soulblade and you feel empowered by the Lich, armed and ready to attack the Light with all due haste.

Okay, this post is getting long. If you have any questions about what I've seen so far, please post them in a comment and I'll answer them ASAP.

Thanks for reading yet another wall of text. Your comments are appreciated, and reading my blog is appreciated even more.

Professional Picker: Wild Growth

If you have been keeping up with all the WotLK Beta information on the web, then I'm sure you're familiar that Blizzard has been throwing in some upgrades for players with a gathering profession. So far, Blizzard had hooked up miners and skinners. Miners were given the Toughness ability, which I'm sure will have lots of Protection Warriors and Protection Paladins changing to this profession if they don't have it already. Skinners were given the Master of Anatomy ability, which any Hunter or Rogue would just love to have. On the other hand, I know some of our cloth-wearing friends that have either of these will also enjoy the benefits to be had.

I just found out this morning that Blizzard has seen fit to hook up the flower pickers in the World of Warcraft: Wild Growth. As you can see from the tool tip your local, neighborhood Herbalist will be able to heal himself, over time, once every five minutes.


Obviously, it's hard to tell at this point if it scales with anything like spell damage and healing, or if it is on the same cooldown as anything else. Luckily for me, Druids can use it while shapeshifted. It will definitely be an extra boost to help the healers out when trudging through the early instances. My only concern would be that once our HP pools start rising, how effective will this ability be?

As we're still in the beta phase, we would be fools to think that all of these new and cool changes are permanent. I like what Blizzard has going with this, and hopefully they'll develop a way for it to scale or have the amount healed boosted a bit.

Now, if only I could get a beta key to test it out...

OMG LAWL @ WoW Insider

Greetings! I'd like to announce that I've had my very first submission to WoW Insider posted on their site!

I won't spoil it here, so click the arrow below to see my submission!

Achievements - The Silver Dragon

Earlier this morning, while waiting for some rather large documents to print, I was checking out the Wrath Beta forums. I read an interesting little tidbit from Tigole that I kind of hope gets implemented.

A beta poster simply asked if there would be an achievement in regards to killing Rare Mobs in-game. Tigole responded with what seems to be an answer in the affirmative.

I know I always enjoy encounters with Rare Mobs in the world of Azeroth and Outland. My wife does, too. My perfect encounter is when the mob and I are both of the same level. I'll work extra hard to get the area clear of any adds that my be threatening, and then I'll formulate how in the world I'm going to beat this mob.

More often than not, I take them out. However, there have been some circumstances (like being a lower level character and not having my full gauntlet of abilities) where instead of vanquishing my foe, I end up as its lunch.

I'm interested to see if they make separate achievements for this by continent, or if they'll simply put in one achievement that reads "Killed all Rare Spawns in the world." The latter would be awful hard to do, and the former seems more reasonable.

So tell me, what do you think?

Recruit-A-Friend = Zhevra Mount

Well, it looks like Blizzard has implemented another system to not only award current players with a new mount and another character speedily on its way to 60, but also will gain Blizzard more subscribers.

I'm about to leave my office, so I can't elaborate any more. Check out the details here: Recruit-A-Friend Support

You can also view the announcement on WoW's main page.

Two 51 Point Talents I Love: Berserk and Haunt

I was going over the future talents of my druid and warlock when I realized just how much I'm looking forward to the respec when WotLK comes out.

Sighrez: The 51 point talent in the Feral Combat tree is Berserk. I'm really excited about this. Since my druid hasn't been 70 for long I haven't had any time to go to the Battlegrounds with him and get his Insignia of the Alliance, so I'm always very aggravated when I'm stunned or feared while trying to tank. Berserk will make my life a lot easier, even if it is on a five minute cooldown. As an added bonus, if someone accidentally pops a CC'd target and the mobs start ravaging my group, there's the three-target Mangle ability that comes with Berserk as well.



Hibbee: The 51 point talent in the Affliction tree is Haunt. This spell is awesome. It does direct damage, so it can crit, which means the potential for big damage. Add along the talent Death's Embrace and we could have some pretty large crits 'o shadow damage. Add on top of that the healing of the spell. From what I can tell, it is not DoT based. So in theory I could DoT the hell out of a target, throw on Haunt, then spam Shadow Bolt (hopefully getting a few crits in there), and it appears possible to be healed for a pretty insane amount. I can't wait to get Hibbee out there to test out the functionality of this talent.



I can test these talents and more, all I need is that congratulatory email from Blizzard saying that I've been invited to the Beta. One can only hope!

So tell me, loyal reader, what 51 point talent(s) are you looking forward to?



Links for Sighrez and Hibbee can be found to the right. -------------->

New Gold Sink: 8,000g for Dalaran Teleport Ring

Just in this morning over on WoW Insider they've published a story on something that I find both exciting and useful.



Available to us at level 80 are Rings of the Kirin Tor in caster and melee flavors. They are sold in Dalaran from the vendor Tiffany Cartier. So for those of us who don't mind the grind, it appears we'll have our very own portal to Dalaran, hopefully on a different cooldown.

Lastly, WoW Insider reports that Tiffany appears to belong to the Kirin Tor faction, so for those that can't or won't pay the 8,000g have the option to grind out Exalted and pay a paltry 6,400g.

Pictures courtesy of WoW Insider.

Siege Vehicles: LUA Information

I just read a little bit of information on the Siege Vehicles for WotLK. I won't bother typing out another long post though.

Head on over to WoW Insider to get the latest info on it. You can either click here, or click the picture below.





I'm actually quite excited to see how these work. I got to play with siege vehicles a little bit back a few years ago when I was still playing Dark Age of Camelot. They seemed cumbersome and slow, but were very destructive from what I remember.

I'm sure the developers at Blizzard have quite a treat in store for us when it comes to PvPing in Lake Wintergrasp.

Dalaran: A Bird's Eye View

I was browsing the WotLK Beta Forums this morning and found a link for this picture. Apparently the in-game map of Dalaran is not functional, so a beta tester took it upon herself to create one and point a few things out for us.

NOTE: The Alliance purportedly has an extra inn somewhere in there that the artist didn't have on the drawing.

Even More Bag Space?

Well today sure has been a busy day for Boyd of Shadowsong. Not one, but two posts!

While browsing the WotLK Beta Achievements Forum I saw a little snippet from Tigole himself. I recently informed you of the changes to Mounts and Vanity Pets, and it appears now that "Heroic Badges, BG Tokens are all getting storage space." Does this mean that all of our tabards and tokens from these completed achievements will get the same treatment? For all of us with full bags we can only continue to hope so.

It appears the story broke out a little earlier over at our friends WoW Insider. I'm sure they can provide a better look into it than I can, with their resources being much greater than my own.

Three cheers for more bag space! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

How do you ding?

If you're reading this blog of mine, you've either got at least one level 70 character or you will have one soon. Today's question is this: Once you hit Outland, how do you ding 70?

For some people, they ding 70 the only way they know how. They run around Hellfire Peninsula doing every quest they can find, eventually moving on to Zangarmarsh. After that they'll either head to Terokkar Forest or to Nagrand. Lastly, they'll finish off those last few levels in either Blade's Edge Mountains, Shadowmoon Valley, or Netherstorm. Their leveling progress may seem random to some, but as a player's only level 70 character, it just seems awesome!

Then you'll find others like me. I've leveled two characters to 70 so far, and my third is 69. I've figured out my process and what I like. I know what works best for me, which quests/zones I hate, and which ones I must hit before that final ding.

Also, you've got the niche group of players that cannot stand to quest. These are the players that grind mobs, and only grind mobs. I don't think it's a road I'll ever take a walk on, but it works great for some.

Lastly, you've got the group of people that are similar to my wife. They have 4+ level 70 characters. She knows the ins and outs of about every quest in Outland, has a very set pattern for questing, and generally zoom through those last 10 levels. This type of player rarely veers off course to hit a dungeon or spend time helping others out, focusing particularly on having that experience bar vanish.



Personally, I've found my groove. I will complete Hellfire Peninsula and Zangarmarsh in their entirety. On my second character to 70 I actually skipped lots of quests, moving between zones as I got bored. On my most recent, my druid, I completed all quests in HFP, Zangarmarsh, Terokkar, and Nagrand. I skip BEM because I really dislike the zone. At this point I'm between 68 and 69. I head straight to Netherstorm and bust out the quests there until the final flash of gold.

So, fellow Azerothian... How do you ding? What are some of the advantages and disadvantages to any certain leveling style? You be the judge.

WotLK: Mounts & Vanity Pets

It seems that, contrary to popular belief, the developers for the World of Warcraft that we know and love have hooked us up once again. CM Wyrixian of the WoW-Europe forums just informed the world that we won't have to worry about bag space or bank space when it comes to vanity pets and our mounts, be they land or flying.

What Blizzard has decided to do is pretty neat, and a simple fix for what seemed like a complex issue. Now when you purchase your mount or get a new vanity pet you won't have to worry about what you're going to take out of your bags to put in your bank. The item in your bags will work like recipes do: you simply right-click that new Cenarion War Hippogryph and learn the mount spell. They'll be added to a new Pet tab in the character sheet interface. The icon will be deleted from your bag space and you'll be good to go.

Then, I'm assuming all it takes is dragging the new spell to your action bars and carrying on as usual.

I know this is great news for all you vanity pet collectors out there, as well as you engineers with mounts galore from crafting/reputation.

The WotLK Beta

It's official. The Wrath of the Lich King beta forum is now open to the public.

I read a few posts, but it's still so new and early in the day that I don't think many people are awake and online yet. I did learn that you can't actually post there unless you have a Beta account, which is unfortunate. Seemingly the people that are posting and testing as we speak are the ones who already had Beta keys from previous events.

So the question still remains: Has Blizzard started emailing keys to people that entered into the Beta Opt-In?

I really do hope that I am selected, or my wife. I really want to just get in there and explore and see everything for myself, but more importantly I actually want to test the place out. What could be cooler than exploring the new content, examining every facet of an expansion that they've worked so long and hard on, than to critique everything that seems wrong or out of place knowing that it will only improve the quality of the game for the millions of users that will be playing in the future?

So here are my questions to you, new reader:

1.) Will you read the Beta forums often to learn as much as you can?
2.) Why do you want to be selected to participate in the WotLK Beta?



Here are some links of interest:

WotLK beta patch notes
WotLK beta General Forum

Keep in mind, you cannot post here unless you have received a beta key (and in turn, a temporary beta account). There is not a Non-Disclosure Agreement for the beta, so feel free to frequent the forums and learn as much as you can.

If I am by chance selected to test the beta, you can rest assured that I'll be blogging here about it non-stop. Only time will tell.

I thought there was a tank shortage...?

Okay, I know that people are almost always looking for a tank for a level 70 instance. Hell, there are a lot of people in between 60 and 70 that need a tank for the pre-70 instances, too.

Then why the hell can't my Bear Tank get a group for Mana Tombs or Auchenai Crypts? I know that people don't like the Auchindoun instances too much, but am I the only person who knows that the bosses in there still drop loot that can be very beneficial? I'd like to have the Idol of the Claw from Mana Tombs while finishing off my last few levels.

There are no alts in my guild, Order of the Oak, that are near my level save one paladin. Plus, PUGing is shoddy in the summer time with all the kids out of school. Will I be relegated to leveling up the rest of the way without hitting some of these instances? Will I have to struggle even harder to tank instances at 70 since no one wanted me to tank instances at 6X? Only time will tell.