zeroinitiate - A World of WarCraft Rogue Blog

Real ID. When Blizzard announced that it was implementing it back in the day I thought it was pretty cool. I’d be able to communicate with my real-life friends across factions, realms and even games. It sounded like a convenient way to keep in touch.

Then the patch arrives and here comes the implementation. Frankly, I don’t like it. It just feels wrong to see my real name displayed in-game like that. Sure, my real-life friends know who I am and my online persona is not too different from how I actually am but that isn’t the issue. There’s a reason why we have avatars and usernames. We don’t want everyone to know who we are. We want to play the game and interact with other people yet still remain hidden under the anonymity of our toons.

By revealing that they want to implement the Real ID system to the forums as well, Blizzard is effectively removing our choice to be anonymous. You want to post? Then you have to identify who you are. It’s going to be an effective way to remove trolling, sure, but it’s also going to kill their forums. It’s not worth revealing who you are just to ask where Mankrik’s wife is or how to tank properly.

Now, I don’t post in the forums very often. In fact, I rarely visit it. My reasons are purely circumstantial; at work, where I am most likely to view it, our corporate firewall is blocking it. At home, I’d rather play the game than go to the forums. In short, this issue doesn’t affect me directly. This leads us to the simple solution: if you don’t want your real name displayed in the forums, then don’t post there. It’s as easy as that. Yet here we are, raising a collective voice.

I’m going to end this with a question. What if Blizzard/Activision goes further? For example, what if they automatically create forum accounts with your Real ID readily available and they modify the ToS so that it’s mandatory, something you have to agree to in order to play their games? I know I’m creating a possible worst case scenario here but it’s a thought. I’ve been a fan of Blizzard for a long time now but this whole mess makes me think that it’s having an identity crisis wherein it wants to be the Facebook of gaming.

I broke my iPod last week. I was installing an update for an app. It prompted to reboot. When I did, it gave me the recovery screen, the one that told me that I should plug it to iTunes. I slept it off since it was late in the day. When I woke up, I plugged it in and got no change in the error. It was then that I knew that I was in trouble. My authenticator was in my iPod. If I didn’t get it to work, I wouldn’t be able to play WoW.

So I hauled my ass off to work, figuring that I’ll try to resolve the problem there. iTunes needed to download the recovery software needed to restore my iPod back to factory settings so that was the first thing that I tried. I then found out that our corporate firewall blocked iTunes from doing so so I had to try something else. How about a manual download of the recovery software, I thought. So I did, downloading the latest version for my iPod Touch. I went back to iTunes, tried to load it and it gave me another error. A little digging revealed that it was caused by a digital signature issue that Apple stopped using. Which meant I was stuck.

It time to think out of the box. What could I do to force my device to load the restore software? I already had it so I figured there must be some other app out there that would do it. I found two other things but they also failed miserably. I was a little tired at that point. If I gave up on the problem, I was looking at the possibility of bringing it to a service center then waiting at least a week before I could get it back. It wasn’t a prospect that I was looking forward to.

I don’t know what led me to it, but I eventually found out that my iPod Touch wasn’t a 3G model. It’s a 3rd gen device, sure, but it was only 2G. I had been using the wrong restore software all along. I then downloaded the correct one, went back to iTunes. This time, there was no digital signature error because Apple was still using it for this version of the software. After a few minutes, my iPod was restored. From the start of the repair process to the end of it, I spent 6 hours fixing it. It took forever, but you’re looking at someone who had zero knowledge when it comes to fixing iPods so I just took it for what it was.

When I got home that day I installed my apps and songs. It was then that I found out that my authenticator was out of sync so I still couldn’t log in. I informed the officers in my guild and filed a ticket with Blizzard to sort things out. I just found it incredibly ironic that the very thing that was securing my account was also preventing me from accessing it.

And now, for the nitpicking.

Redirect (available at level 81): Rogues will be getting a new ability to help them deal with changing targets. Redirect will transfer any active combo points to the rogue’s current target, helping to ensure combo points aren’t wasted when swapping targets or when targets die. In addition, self-buff abilities like Slice and Dice will no longer require a target, so rogues can spend extra combo points on those types of abilities (more on this below). Redirect will have a 1-minute cooldown and no other costs.

This is a nice, welcome change. We won’t be wasting time building up combo points on fights that have a lot of target-switching, which then mean that we can do finishers more often. Too bad there’s no mention of transferring Deadly Poison stacks though. It wouldn’t make sense but it would be convenient.

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Logging on to WoW has become an adventure of its own lately. All of my addons obviously became outdated after patch day, so I tossed caution to the wind and checked the “load out of date” box anyway. Only one of them wasn’t working. Unfortunately, it was an addon that was responsible for how the bottom half of my UI looked. When my screen finally loaded, it looked like someone had walked all over it. I had no choice but to disable it. I did so with a heavy heart though. It was kgPanels. What made it tough was that I used it to design a custom UI of my own. I’ll check for an updated version and see if there’s a way to save it.

I’m also running into the loading screen problem. I’d log on, select a toon, then wait for the loading progress bar to go from left to right. If this was the first time I ran WoW since I turned my computer on, it would fill the bar to the max then stop there. It will not load the actual game screen. I have to shut down WoW then reload it. It works fine afterwards. Our guild’s main resto shaman, Itsuki, told me that he was also running into the problem so at least there’s the consolation that it’s not only happening to me. Is anyone else running into this?

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I hate to say it, but I saw it coming:

• The base damage bonus from Hunger for Blood has been reduced from 10% to 5%.
• The bonus damage rogues gain from attack power for poisons has been decreased. This applies to Instant Poison, Deadly Poison, and Wound Poison.

[Source]

Dinaer posted that the number crunchers at EJ are saying that this means a 7% decrease in damage for Assassination. I was doing nearly 7K on Festergut last night. The nerf brings that down to 6500, give or take. The actual numbers are still out so I’m waiting for the results. While I expected the nerf, the manner in which it was implemented is disturbing. Rogues are doing too much damage? Nerf HfB AGAIN. Nice. Thanks for making us WoW’s guinea pigs.

Happy holidays to everyone! I hope that you guys got your Merrymaker title by now. Icecrown is on its second week and we’re all going to have to catch up with the content once the holidays are over.

I find it odd that I’m actually nursing a toothache right now. I first felt it a couple of weeks ago and when I finally consulted my dentist, I was told that an extraction was necessary. I’m fine with that. However, she was going to go on vacation which meant that we would have to postpone the procedure until Monday. In the meantime, she gave me painkillers to medicate through the problem.

So here I am, spending Christmas with a tooth that’s nagging me worse than any mother-in-law would do. If the pain becomes unbearable, I reach for my pills. This isn’t exactly the way I pictured my holiday to turn out.

Back to rogue matters: make sure that you check the EJ forums regularly as 3.3 progresses. A recent example of why it’s important is Instant Poison’s rise to becoming the main hand poison of choice, even if you’re running Combat. I tested this on my last 25-man raid and the results were very, very clear. I was even asked by two of the people we PUGged in how I was doing that much damage. Funnily enough, the point I was trying to bring up in my last post was raised.

PUG rogue: What’s your rotation? (Note that out of personal pride I never ask this from a fellow rogue. I feel like I’m not doing my job if I’m getting out-DPSed and I don’t know why. I don’t mind getting asked though, like in this case.)

Me: SnD, HfB, Mutilate, Envenom, Mutilate, Envenom.

PUG rogue: Oh. You changed specs.

Apparently, he was asking about my rotation as Combat. By the time he asked, we just downed a boss so I was in my Assassination spec. I then told him that I go Combat on trash and use whatever cooldowns are available during the fights, which is exactly what I wrote about last time.

So, how have your fights been? I like the changes because rogues are doing so much damage right now. Still, either Blizz nerfs Assassination or they buff Combat. I’m hoping for the latter. Our hunter is starting to complain though. He made a comment about how poisons are “cheap damage” at the moment. It’s actually a little funny. Back when Ulduar was relevant he was saying my damage was “all from Fan of Knives”. If it isn’t one thing it’s another, I guess.

Enjoy the holidays, folks. See you after the break.

Now that 3.2 is out, emblem farming is the trendy thing to do. I know that some of you don’t like the way Blizzard is practically giving away epics, but what can we do, you know? Might as well go with the flow.

I found myself in a curious situation a couple of weeks ago before the patch came out. After doing a quick gear check, I saw that there were no upgrades available for me in terms of Conquest emblems. I was done. For someone who only raided Kara in BC, it was quite a shock. I’ve never had this much gear before.

After the surprise went down, I looked at the Triumph emblem vendor and checked what I needed to do next. Maybe that’s a question you’re also asking yourself. I mean, which gear should you get first? The answer lies in a spreadsheet. Grab one that’s ready for 3.2 and check what you should get. As much as I would like to get the 45-emblem shoulder piece, breaking the 4-piece Terrorblade set bonus hurts my DPS too much so I’ll have to settle for something else. Right now, I’m set to get the ring then the thrown weapon.

3.2 is all about upgrading your gear. Like I said, Blizzard is practically throwing them at you so run those heroics when you can. Do the daily heroic, farm heroic Trial of the Champion till you’re blue in the face. This is our chance to catch up with the content. Might as well take advantage of it.

2008 Worldwide Invitational Announced

The fourth Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational is coming to Europe! The event will be held at the Porte de Versailles Exposition Center, Paris, France, over the 28th and 29th of June 2008. Open to gamers from around the world, the Worldwide Invitational will feature a wide variety of activities, including:

• Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
• Artist and developer signings
• Professional eSport tournaments and casual tournaments for attendees
• Hands-on play with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II
• Merchandise and other products based on the Blizzard Entertainment game universes
• Silent auction
• Musical performances
• And more…

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