Flux

Updated Changing Your Look to include growth effects.

Updated Casual versus Hardcore to include our new definition of Dedicated.

Updated Having a Title that the new patch title may not be available after the Shattered Sun Offensive event, so make sure you are ready to pick it up.

Updated Changing Your Look to include Orb of Sin’dorei and Orb of the Crawler from patch 2.4.

Updated Grouping for the Best to include Sanctity Aura.

Updated Grouping for the Best with a missing Hunter buff.

Updated Getting Around Fast with the Stormwind to Theramore teleport.

Changed old update titles to use more flup.

It’s an embarrassing fact of life. And most have had it or have given it to someone else, PvP Disease. It starts when a player, and you know who you are, joins your party or raid who is flagged PvP. And it quickly spreads like the plague when others start buffing and healing. Of course if you play on a PvP server you are immune, or more accurately you always have it.

Why is this a problem? There is of course the annoyance of getting ganked outside an instance or whereever you are grouping up. This particularly bothers healers and tanks who can’t always fight back. But more importantly when some players are flagged and some are not, it interferes with group buffs. This can cripple your groups effectiveness. And players typically will eventually have to buff two or three times to work things out which costs reagents and generates real life aggro.

What can you do? It is incredibly easy to stop this disease. Take a ride from any flight point. As soon as you do, the PvP flag is immediately removed.

Note that in patch 2.4.3 any time you zone into an instance on a PvE server you are automatically unflagged. The problem only occurs now for groups outside of instances.

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It’s a debate that has been around since the beginning. Is someone a casual or hardcore player? What does that mean?

Confusingly some players use this to compare how much time they play instead of how they play. This leads to phrases like ‘Hardcore Casual Player’ or ‘Casual Hardcore Player’. Some players even use it as an insult or compliment, depending on if they want to point out how good someone is or how little real life they have.

I am going to use Casual and Hardcore to describe how you play. And I’ll use Daily, Regular, or Occasional for how often you play. For example, someone who plays everyday but isn’t playing to ‘win’ is a casual daily player. Someone who plays to win but does not play often would be a hardcore occasional player.

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Strange things breed in the corners of the internet. For whatever reason two reoccuring spawns appear in World of Warcraft global chats. The amazing abilities of Chuck Norris and what movies Murlocks are starring in.

They either drive you crazy or makes you laugh. Like an earthquake building up pressure, players regularly engage in one or the other and sometimes both. Both the annoyed and the enthusiastic responses feed these omnivorous creatures.

Chuck Norris Facts

For those who don’t know who Chuck Norris is, you should or he will kick your ass. Around the year 2005 previously unknown facts began to surface. While some of these may seem to mere mortals to be impossible, given our experience with the World of Warcraft we now know that such feats are possible.

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Updated How to be a Loot Ninja with a new technique. Shadowing!

Updated Crowd Control - Marking for Five to include new abilities that don’t break crowd control.

The World of Warcraft is several different games in one. But there always seem to be three stages to the game. Leveling, gearing, and achievement. Let’s take a look at them so we can refer to them later.

The first time you played WoW, when it hooked you, was the Leveling stage. There were many new things to see and do. The world was wide open. And there was virtually no grinding. You would spent most of your time adventuring solo and probably played casually. Of course, if you had already been through the leveling stage once and went to make another character the second or third time probably seemed like a grind. Eventually you hit the maximum level and things changed.

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Describing where things are can be difficult. This is partly because you can’t reach your hand through the screen and point. Everything from where something is on the map, where you are when your friends aren’t in the same area, or just describing where to stand during a boss fight can all be deceptively difficult. Fortunately with mods, macros, or even some special items you can make things easier.

Let’s take a look at some.

Flare Marking

There are four different color smoke flares that you can buy or create. What makes these useful is that you can throw them on the ground up to 50 yards away. This is can be helpful for various fights where you need to point out exact placement positions before starting but you can’t get too close. They can all be made by engineers. The red, white, and green ones can be bought in limited quantities from vendors. For the purple one, you’ll have to find an engineer. They can’t be used in the cities but they can be used in battlegrounds where people have been known to make walls of smoke to hide behind.

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There is a place, up in the mountains far away from the battle between the Horde and the Alliance, where kids play and grow up unaware of the war. It’s near the Throne of Elements. And who knows someday one of those kids might claim it, if the farmers ever leave.

There are several places in the World of Warcraft that are just fun to see. Let’s go take a look at one.

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