world of warcraft Archives - HuntsmansLodge.com

So What’s Your Story?

November 23, 2009 By Garwulf 20 Comments

With the World of Warcraft 5 Year Anniversary now underway, it prompted me to reflect back upon when I first started exploring the World of Azeroth as a level 1 Hunter. It was sometime in February of 2006 when I emerged at the starting zone in Teldrassil… and well, the rest is history. Here I am 3 years and 9 months later, not only still actively playing the same character, but maintaining a website devoted to the game and my beloved class. I guess you could say I was a little drawn in at first and never really lost interest. 😉

My wife gave me WoW as a Christmas gift in 2005, but I waited a few months before installing it. I honestly wasn’t all that interested in it to tell you the truth. I put it on my Christmas list mainly because I had heard that it was a good game at the time for benchmarking PC performance. Up until that point, the only computer game I had been playing was Diablo II LOD. Although I enjoyed the hell out of it, I’d been playing it for 5 years or so, and was starting to take notice of some other games I’d seen reviews of online. One of them was WoW. [Read more…]

A Much Needed Break

June 28, 2009 By Garwulf Leave a Comment

Although my unfortunate computer troubles last week caused me a lot of grief from a business standpoint, it did provide me with a nice respite from WoW. I had been feeling pretty “bleh” about a lot of things in-game prior to last week, so this 8 day reset came at a nice time.

Even though it didn’t seem like much was going on with the blog, I was actually pretty busy behind the scenes. In fact, I deleted well over 4k words of unpublished posts I had been working on. Ultimately, I decided they weren’t necessary and I didn’t want to come across as bitter or disenchanted with WoW.

My malaise began when my 2v2 partner split our team unannounced, then joined up with a Gladiator Rogue so he could get his 2H weapon. The Rogue carried him to 2k, then left the team. My former partner has not only been absent from arena since then, he’s barely logged on at all. That was over a month ago. >.<

We worked our asses off trying to get our 1850 rating, which we ultimately would have attained, considering we spent a lot of time between 1800-1850 and made it as high as 1846. Once we’d have cracked 1850 it would have felt like a nice in-game accomplishment. When he left to queue with this infamous trade-spammer Rogue on our server, I realized he didn’t care about much else other than the illusionary status of having his S6 2H.

I guess sometimes I expect too much of people. Whether it be the integrity of people I know in-game or the misconduct of randoms, I let myself get disappointed too often. I suppose some of it has to do with maturity, considering I am after all a geezer compared to most of the people on here, but I also see my behavior and demeanor in WoW as a reflection of myself IRL.

Unfortunately, I think many people see it as an avenue in which they can behave poorly with little consequence. Rather than be courteous to others, a lot of players enjoy being complete asses because they get off on it for some reason. Sadly, I feel it’s also a way for a lot of people to demand recognition or to inflate an ego that is suffering terribly IRL.

Anyway, after my partner left our 2v2, I realized he’s just like the majority of people in WoW who primarily play for the perceived status that goes along with higher ilvl purple shinies. That mindset irritates the piss out of me. To me, the glory behind getting the nice loots is realized when you accomplish these feats with quality people. I look at an upgrade as something that will allow me to help our guild’s raiding progress, or to further my arena team’s rating, not something that I’m going to strut around IF with.

Oh well… to each his own. I think people make the game more enjoyable, but some feel that loot and validation is all that matters.

Alright… enough mister pouty pants…

I’m back, recharged and ready to rock. My wife and son are out of town for the next eight days, so that means daddy can get some nice raiding in this week. Well, provided I get all of my work done first. 😉

Patch 3.1.3 Goes Live Today

June 2, 2009 By Garwulf 18 Comments

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.3 is being implemented today on live servers. Thank goodness!

For those unaware, this is the patch that’s going to buff Hunters and nerf others. 😈

Hunter’s Mark is being buffed from 300 RAP up to 500 RAP at level 80. This means that when fully talented and glyphed, Hunter’s Mark will now be worth 750 RAP. Yikes! 3/3 in Improved Hunter’s Mark will now be a must for raiding MM. I’m strongly considering 3/3 in IHM + the glyph for BM in arena. 450 more RAP vs. marked targets will help our burst out a little for sure.

Marksman Hunters are receiving a huge buff by having mana reduced by as much as 25% for Aimed and Chimera Shots. This will help Marksman Hunter’s mana issues considerably, and may possibly result in putting Marksman at the top for Hunter raiding specs.

Here are the official patch notes:

( 😀 Indicates changes I’m… well… happy about!)

World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.1.3

Death Knight

Frost Presence: Armor bonus is now 60% down from 80%. 😀

Druid

Improved Barkskin: This talent now also grants 80/160% additional armor while in Travel Form or not shapeshifted.
Improved Tree of Life: The armor bonus to Tree of Life Form from this talent has been reduced to 67/133/200% bonus armor. 😀

Hunter

Hunter’s Mark: The ranged attack power bonus from this ability has been increased from 300 to 500. 😀
Master Marksman: This talent now also decreases the cost of Aimed Shot and Chimera Shot by 5/10/15/20/25%. 😀

Paladin

Eye For An Eye: This talent now deals 5/10% of the critical strike damage taken by the paladin back at the attacker. 😀
Hand of Freedom: The base duration of this buff has been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. 😀

Rogue

Overkill: Talent redesigned. Now increases energy regeneration by 30% while stealthed, and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth.

Warlock

Chaos Bolt: This spell no longer ignores damage reduction effects of the target. 😀

Warrior

Blood Frenzy: This talent now provides 5/10% haste instead of 3/6%.
Bloodthirst: Cooldown reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds, and rage cost reduced from 30 rage to 20 rage.
Juggernaut: This talent now also increases the cooldown on Charge by 5 seconds. 😀

Items

Death Knight PvP Gauntlets: The chance to refresh a Frost Rune when casting Chains of Ice has been removed. When equipped, these gloves now generate 5 additional runic power whenever Chains of Ice is used.

Raids & Dungeons

Ulduar – Mimiron

The flight time of Rocket Strikes has been increased, and Rocket Strikes will try to prefer players at range.
The Leviathan Mk II component of the V-07-TR-0N will become stunned during Phase 4 when the VX-001 component begins to cast the P3Wx2 Laser Barrage ability.
Proximity mines now deal less damage and have a lower duration. A small arming time has also been added so proximity mines will not immediately detonate on creation.

Bug Fixes

Druid Tier 8 Balance Set: The 4-piece bonus no longer has its effect consumed by Starfire casts in progress when it triggers. The chance for the effect to be triggered has been reduced down to 8%, as it was originally inflated to compensate.
Ice Layered Barrier: Upgraded to item level 232. In addition, the stats in the tooltip have been correctly adjusted to 78 spell power, 48 haste rating, 16 mana per 5 seconds, 52 Intellect, and 50 Stamina.
Pulsing Spellshield: The stats listed in the tooltip for this item were incorrect and have been adjusted. This item provides 69 spell power, 34 haste rating, 42 critical strike rating, 45 intellect, and 45 stamina.

World of Warcraft Video Contest

May 20, 2009 By Garwulf Leave a Comment

Xoxide World of Warcraft Video Contest

This just in… The fine folks over at Xoxide.com asked me to hype their latest contest, so here goes…

If you’re not familiar with Xoxide, they are a leading manufacturer and supplier of computer cases, pc cooling systems, gaming accessories and more. Their website is a pc gamer’s wet dream. Check out Xoxide.com here.

Xoxide is putting on a WoW Video Contest, where three Grand Prize Winners will receive a SteelSeries Special-Edition World of Warcraft Mouse and an Exclusive Gaming Gear Prize Package. Official details are as follows…

Xoxide is proud to kick off the summer season with the launch of its latest contest, the World of Warcraft Video Contest.

Contestants will submit entries in three separate video categories that pay tribute to the legendary Blizzard game.

The categories will include:

Live Action Role Playing to your favorite WoW sequence.
A WoW Celebrity Commercial Parody spoofing an existing WoW ad, or by impersonating a totally different celebrity
Comedic Dubbed In-Game Sequence in the style of Red Vs Blue, where you dub your voice over the characters.

The more ridiculous the video is, the greater the chance of winning!

How To Enter The WoW Video Contest

Shoot and Edit Your Video
Upload it to your existing YouTube Account (if you don’t have one…make one!)
Make Sure to title your video with “Your Name – Title – Xoxide WoW”
Head over to the Xoxide WoW Contest Page on YouTube.
Underneath the Video, simply go to “Post a Video Response” to add your submission.

That’s it…you’re automatically entered!

Three Grand Prize Winners will receive a SteelSeries Special-Edition World of Warcraft Mouse, as well as an Exclusive Gaming Gear Prize Package.

The contest ends June 30th, 2009, so get your submissions in today! Winners will be announced on July 1st.

So there ya have it. If you’ve had some clever and outrageous idea for a WoW video, then now’s the time to create it. You’ve got less than six weeks, so get crackin’!

I can’t verify that these mice are the shiznut, but I can tell you that my Logitech G5 is the business.

Hit That Mouth With Soap

April 25, 2009 By Garwulf 8 Comments

Trade Trash

Edit: 04/25/09

I created this post after a long night imbibing with friends, so it was perhaps a little too candid. Something set me off in game, so I just logged off and decided to vent. I toned it down a bit for the kiddies. 😉

Parents need to seriously wake up and watch what the hell their kids are doing/saying on these MMO’s.

I can only hope and assume that the most assinine, racist and sexist remarks that I’ve read in Trade chat have come from an unsupervised and misguided 12 year old. Although that’s not an optimistic response, I’d rather it be true, than realize this crap’s coming from the nation’s norm, as far as today’s youth is concerned.

I for one, am getting pretty fed up with this stupid-ass bulllshit that kids are allowed to spew in Trade, due to their lack of supervision. Foul F**king language is acceptable, but this racist, redneck, and narrow minded bulls**t that I’ve seen lately has no place in my game.

When did it ever become cool to make fun of the mentally challenged..?! I’m sorry, but I never got that memo. Every time I see some twit use the term “downy”, I want to not only poke his eyes out, but smack his parent(s) upside the head and ask, “what the f**k are you doing..?!”

Err… I’ve got a bee in my bonnet.