May 2013
1 post
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August 2012
2 posts
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May 2012
2 posts
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“There are four difficulty levels after Normal, and the game is designed to take...”
– If anyone needs an explanation why to play Diablo 3 or why to play it more than once through, this is it. From Joystiq’s review.
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April 2012
6 posts
5 tags
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Rookie Mistake by a Veteran Developer
I have been a Bioware fan since I first fired up Baldur’s Gate. Ever since then, I’ve bought every one of their titles (almost) and regarded them as nearly untouchable. No longer, and today’s SWTOR 1.2 announcement is why:
Free In-game Legacy Tauntaun Ram for all active subscribers. YAY.
Active accounts with a Level 50 character will receive thirty days of game time for their...
1 tag
7 tags
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February 2012
3 posts
5 tags
7 tags
Maybe whining really works?
A few days ago, I got all pompous and tweeted this:
If you recall, there was a fairly large response from the community about Bioware’s implementation of flashing cooldowns. They were supposedly making some people sick. Sick, as in *puking* sick.
This just in: Soon warcraftic.com will be selling pacifiers.
I think we all want Bioware to progress the game’s user interface (UI)....
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January 2012
5 posts
7 tags
SWTOR Force Poke: E4 - Let's Talk UI
Since the last episode, Bioware released some encouraging footage of UI enhancements and customization options coming soon(TM). In this episode, hear my thoughts on why we all want some type of UI customization, how it’s great (yet controversial) for end game players, and why it’s going to take some time.
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Quick thoughts on the Kingdoms of Amalur:...
The Kingdoms of Amalur demo (xbox) left me with mixed feelings. The demo is actually a 3-month old code-base (according to a recent interview), but I couldn’t help but wonder if they should have waited on releasing the demo - or blatantly call it a beta demo. It felt unpolished and navigating the inventory / items menu was a bit more time consuming than it should have been.
NPC...
SWTOR Force Poke: E3 - Wait, I'm a Healer?
7 tags
Skyrim TESVAL vs SkyBoost
Quick comparison of two fps improvement options for Skyrim. The game is a horrible CPU hog. These mods fix that.
TESVAL is an in-memory code patch for TESV, aiming to fix CPU inefficiencies. SkyBoost boosts your Skyrim via replacing most bottleneck code parts in the executable at runtime.
Both great options. Use the one that works best for you. This video shows which worked best for me and the...
SWTOR Force Poke: E2 - Sith Career Decisions
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SWTOR Force Poke: E1 - Don't Feed the Seh-run!?
In this first episode of Force Poke, my lvl 11 Sith Inquisitor is about to head to the Empire Fleet to meet with his new master. Before that, he has to go feed Seh-run. Not sure what will happen here, but hey, he’s hungry and is short on acolytes to eat.
December 2011
2 posts
9 tags
Epic Skyrim: E1 - Three Must Have Mods
New episode of a new series! I’m looking to do a mashup of Skyrim commentary and a review or two of various mods in each episode. Let me know what you think.
November 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Skyrim Werewolf Transformation Ceremony
Thought I’d throw together a quick video on the werewolf transformation ceremony.
Please be aware - *spoilers ahead*. After you become part of The Companions guild, you speak to an NPC called Skjor at night, and he takes you to the ceremony. I haven’t yet romped around as a werewolf, but will have more footage on that soon.
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August 2011
1 post
12 tags
WoW AddOn Spotlight: DockingStation
DockingStation is a display platform for LibDataBroker (LDB) based plug-ins. The display is provided through panels, each having sections (Left, Center, Right) corresponding with how a plugin is justified within it.
This is an alternative to other “infobar” type addons such as Chocolate Bar, Titan Panel, and FuBar. Head over to Vranx.com to see some other options. He has a really...
June 2011
1 post
1 tag
New Job. Coming back soon.
Hi all. I have been severely absent from the WoW community lately. This is something that most everyone probably didn’t notice, but it has been a crazy time IRL.
The past couple months have been fun, busy, and stressful - mostly in my professional life. The company I was working for decided to lay off 90% of the Boston-area office in May. It was a relatively typical acquisition scenario,...
April 2011
2 posts
7 tags
Patch 4.1.0 - Back to Warlockery?
If it isn’t obvious enough, my main (and original) WoW toon is a Warlock. After I got him to 85, I started playing my 73 Rogue alt religiously. Mostly because I wanted to push her through the low 70s and finally hit 80, which I did the other day. I have to say, during that time I had a blast. She tears through everything in her path. It was a very nice change from being frustrated by the pet...
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WoW AddOn Spotlight: ForteXorcist
ForteXorcist is a powerful utility AddOn that tracks spell timers, cooldowns, warlock soulstones / healthstones, party and raid messages, cc interrupts, and more. It was primarily created for Warlocks, but several other class modules are available such as Priest, Druid, and Paladin. The Warlock module is the most mature out of all of them, but I regularly use the Rogue module and hear most...
March 2011
3 posts
7 tags
WoW AddOn Spotlight: Threat Plates
This week’s AddOn spotlight covers Threat Plates. Threat Plates is an extension of Tidy Plates. It provides extensive nameplate configuration options for DPS and Tank roles relative to threat management. Overall, I enjoyed these nameplates so much that I will most likely keep them active over the default Tidy Plates layout.
Note that the current state of the AddOn requires Tidy Plates...
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How to Make Custom Frame Borders (featuring...
The intent of this video was to be brief. Kind of like a “quick tip” style video. Well, that failed and it ended up longer than I would have liked. One thing I need to work on is brevity!
Featuring PocketPlot, a mini-map customization AddOn by Seerah at WoWInterface, I show you how to modify the default frame borders in WoW to something a bit nicer. This involves a small AddOn...
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WoW AddOn Spotlight: Tidy Plates
This week’s AddOn spotlight covers Tidy Plates (beta) 6.1. Tidy Plates is a powerful nameplates enhancement AddOn that has unique configurations and themes for DPS and tank roles. It also includes several handy widgets that attach to the nameplate, such as combo points, “tug o’ threat” meter, and party range.
My main is a warlock and I love having *my* debuffs show up on...
February 2011
2 posts
7 tags
4.0.6 Demonology Warlock Spell Priority / Rotation...
This is a quick update to the original cheat sheet I posted back in November 2010 for 4.0.1. All credits go to killo100 from the Wowhead forums for putting the spell priority list together in his Warlock FAQ sticky.
I lightly formated it for printing and quick reference. Hey, we needed to kill a few more trees, right?
Download: 4.0.6 Demonology Warlock Spell Priority / Rotation Cheat Sheet
...
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WoW AddOn Spotlight: OPie
Fellow addon junkies! In this spotlight video, I’m bringing you a few minutes of OPie goodness. OPie is a radial action button addon that lets you bind groups of actions in the form of a ring that appear and disappear via a keybind or mouse click. It creates animated rings of buttons that are *independent* of your action bar buttons. Don’t worry about overwriting anything on your...
December 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Three Warlock Pet Management Macros
Like every responsible demon owner, I keep my pets off auto-cast as much as possible. To help control them, and avoid button clicking, I have three macros which I swear by. These are bound to three keys: Shift-A, Shift-S, and Shift-D. Of course, you should change these to whatever works best for you.
Primary: (Shift-A)
/cast...
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Temporary HandyNotes Fix
Updated Dec 31, 2010 Please refer to the FAQ that Isharra put up on WoWInterface. Xinhuan has started updates on HandyNotes over at WowAce.com - soon this patched version won’t be needed. Updated Dec 23, 2010 no need to add compat code to each HandyNotes addon. Please use the HandyNotes (tempfix) version from Isharra. If you use HandyNotes_Mailboxes, she also has a fixed version of that up....
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Five Things to Consider When Creating Your UI
Before you unleash Deathwing on your stock World of Warcraft UI, ask yourself; what do I need to change to make my in-game experience better? “Better” can mean lots of things. Better visibility of cooldowns? Better way to view your target of target health? Better quest tracker? Better font?
It’s tempting to fall into the trap of adding custom textures everywhere, dancing...
November 2010
1 post
1 tag
4.0.1 Demonology Warlock Rotation Cheat Sheet
Update 12/26/2010 - This will be updated for patch 4.0.3 once I hit 85. The core rotation remains the same though with a few insertions.
While Demonology is *much* more fun in 4.0.1, there’s more buttons to manage and priorities to consider. It’s not just CoE, Corruption, Immolate, Shadowbolt spam. We have to consider the new Felguard AoE and ranged stun, extra demons, and a finicky...
October 2010
2 posts
1 tag
Pimp your UI - Best Unit Frame AddOns
One of the first things any player should do is modify the default Blizzard Unit Frames (player, target, tot, focus, pet, raid, etc). There are many great things about the Blizzard interface, but their unit frames are not a highlight. The most recent 4.0.1 patch has issued some improvements, but they still do not compete with the third-party addons available.
Some options to get you started from...
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Acute AddOn Panic Syndrome
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…!
No it’s not. We all hate it. Major patch days. It’s the one time addon fanatics are at a disadvantage. We have to wait for our favorite addons to be updated before we can do anything substantial other than crying in a corner. Luckily, most authors have been keeping up with changes on the PTR and are well ahead of the game....
August 2010
1 post
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Warcraftic UI: Down with the sickness
Maybe I should be in a treatment program for World of Warcraft interface customization addiction. Ok maybe I’m not that bad, but the time I spend toying with the interface outweighs the time I spend playing the game itself. Neverending creativity from the community of addon developers fuels my desire to streamline and improve my game interface. If you get a look on the major addon sites,...
July 2010
1 post
1 tag
RealID Must Die.
» July 9 2010 - Blizzard officially killed requiring the exposure of real first name and last names on the official forums. Some of below still applies still though.
Communities are powerful. They take extensive amounts of time to build, nurture, and establish. It’s the currency of any online product or service. Communities can carry you through tough times or bury you just...
May 2010
1 post
1 tag
Demonology Warlock Guide (3.3.x)
*This guide was not created by me*
Short post, but this video really helped me understand how to spec and play a Demonology Warlock in 3.3.x. Optec (original post here) put this together in December 2009, but the fundamentals still apply. Watch and learn, all you misguided Warlocks. Demonology leads the way. The core build is Meta/Ruin.
April 2010
2 posts
1 tag
AddOn Spotlight: guSmallBuffs
guSmallBuffs shanpu (3.3)
If you are looking for a lightweight buff frame addon with a slightly tweaked style, check this out. This is the most unique reincarnation of the buff frame that I’ve seen so far. If you check out the screenshot, you will noticed a few really sexy things about these buff frames.
There is a slight 16:10 feel to the icons, contrary to the normal square (due to...
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AddOn Spotlight: QuestRouterLite
QuestRouterLite Lyncks (3.3)
With QuestHelper and TourGuide both suffering their own demises recently, QuestHelper slowing development and TourGuide going pay-for-use (ugh); interactive leveling addons seemed pretty much dead. Yes, there’s Carbonite, but it modifies the default UI more than I care for. What do we do? I feel cold, hold me. The latest white horse of the addon world is...
March 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Get Your Authenticator
I found out the hard way today that my home system is not nearly as secure as it should be. When the authenticator first came out, I snickered at it. Really, why would *I* need an authenticator? Look at the picture. That’s my level 80 Warlock (main since 2004), nearly stripped naked. Inventory, bank, badges, equipment (except shoulders, legs, and hands for whatever reason) and some guild...
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AddOn Spotlight: Raid Icons
Raid icons hankthetank (3.3)
Nice set of alternate raid icons by hankthetank. If you are bored looking at the same flat 2D icons, give these a whirl. All you have to do is add a subfolder in your Interface folder. These will not appear in the 3D environment unless MPQ modification is involved.
Get it here: WoWInterface
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What's Your Reason?
World of Warcraft has been a funny thing for me. In all my time playing since 2004, I only have one level 80 character. Zomg, fail, you say? This post is for all of us tortured 30-something gamers. We have a significant other, 1.5 (needy) kids, house or apartment, bills, debt, the list goes on. Real life comes into play much more frequently than it used to it seems; kids grow up, houses change,...
