WuphonsReach Blog

So, Corish is L66 and a half, my PMC set is about done (about one more week of farming) and I'm running out of excuses to level up. But one of the goals of getting to L70 is also that I want to be ready for Karazhan. (Kara is a...

I'm getting ready to push Corish to 70, but I also want to see if I can arrive at 70 ready to create a set of PMC gear. I say "set" because there are pieces that go together (belt, robe, shoulders), but it's not a full-fledged set with 5+ pieces....

http://wow.incgamers.com/characters/hunter/index.php- Introduction to the classhttp://wow.azzor.com/368/hunter.php- Good article about the role of hunters within groupshttp://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=98760050&sid=1- Talentshttp://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=122442926&sid=1- Fumi's pet guidehttp://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=92479389&sid=1- Macros (although I don't use any macros other then /petattack and /petfollow to control my pet yet)http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11982932&sid=1- Hunter talent treehttp://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=11871317&sid=1- PvE damage FAQhttp://www.goodintentionsguild.info/hunters.html- Pet abilities, level requirements, and what mobs you'll have...

Dark Legacy ComicsWell worth a read if you've played WoW long enough to get most of the in-jokes.

So, after 2-3 failed attempts to crawl Gnomergan, I finally managed to find a PUG that didn't blow chunks. Of course, it probably helped that we had a 37 rogue and I was a 40 priest (with the other 3 players in the 29-31 range). The mobs in there start...

So, after leveling a lot more, I'm reconsidering some of my spec choices from earlier. While I don't have to re-spec yet, I'm shuffling some priorities around but still proceeding down the DISC tree.The big change so far is putting 2 more points into Shadow (total of 7). Which gives...

Well, I figured my luck would run out eventually on PUGs (pickup groups) and it did. Last night, I did Deadmines (a.k.a. VC or Van Cleef) for the 3rd time. It was almost a level appropriate group (except for a 40-43 hunter) where everyone was in the 20-24 range. Except...

Last night, I decided to give up on the Tailoring skill and switch to full-time gathering. I already have my Skinning skill trained up, but I needed to now train up Mining from level 1. This basically involved going to Stormwind, talking to the mining trainer, buying a pick, then...

I like healing. There's a lot of personal joy / amusement to be had by pulling someone's fat out of the fire. I get great enjoyment out of saving younger players when they get a bad pull just as I happen to be running past. That, and it's fun to...

So my brother finally figured out my priest's character name last night (Corish). What he was doing up at 2am, I'm not sure... the only reason I was up that late was so that I could meet with an officer from Maelstrom at one of the drinking establishments in Stormwind's...

Note: This is with (3) points in Improved Renew (which makes Renew 15% more efficient).Renew(3): 201 hp over 15 sec for 105 mana = 1.92Lesser Heal(3): 143-165 hp, 2.5 sec cast, 75 mana = 1.91Heal(1): 304-351 hp, 3 sec cast, 155 mana = 1.96Power Word: Shield(3): Shields 161 hp for...

I'm just getting started as a priest, and I'm overwhelmed by the number of acronyms used when discussing talent trees. So it's simply not sinking in. Also, because I'm trying to plan out my spec trees for lower levels (when you only have 10 / 20 / 30 points to...

After thinking things over a bit, I've come up with a few things that I either need to read up on / or have explained to me / or do differently.1) I need to keep my AC buff running at all times. My normal AC is around 215 and the...

So, I got sucked into my first party tonight in WoW. Up until this point, I'd been just soloing as a priest with my trusty wand and a relaxed pace. Any healing done was expected ahead of time (since I knew when I'd be taking damage). While I have healed...

Moon Guard is both a role-play (RP) server as well as a relatively young server (6-9 months?). So the population is somewhat low, yet a lot of folks have already made it to level 70. Still, there seem to be some established guilds that I have my eye on applying...

So, like I said in my last post, I thought it was the rogue's life for me. Well, I changed my mind. To be honest, it wasn't the class that I expected to end up playing and I was always thinking in the back of my mind: "cleric!". But I...

So, being one of the herd, I went and tried downloading World of Warcraft. After seeing that the download would take a minimum of 9 hours, I decided to go out and buy the retail box instead. I also picked up The Burning Crusade expansion pack as well, on the...

It can be difficult to get started with Oblivion once you have Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (OOO) installed. In the default Oblivion, all of the creatures in the game are leveled with you. So at low levels, there are very few creatures out there who can kick your tail (and conversely,...

So earlier this week, I started running level 3 missions in earnest. There's a definite step up in difficulty, loyalty points, reward ISK, and bounties between L2s and L3s. Things were going well, until I was working on a 10-part storyline mission. The last (10th) mission in the series involves...

(See also my previous attempt at a walkthrough.)The Carrier level is a rough follow-on to the first level. Instead of having a jungle's worth of room to maneuver, you're stuck in narrow hallways or exposed on a ship deck. But even on the second most difficulty setting, it's doable. The...

Going back and playing a bit of Far Cry again, this time in 1600x900 widescreen windowed mode. It runs very well on more modern hardware (I'm using GeForce 7 series). I've also tried out 1280x720 fullscreen and 1680x1050 fullscreen. Anyway, enough of that, let's talk about the "Training" level in...

Note: Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (OOO) or one of the other mods that I have installed plays with ingredient weights. So the un-modified version of Oblivion will result in higher potion weights. Note that the first potion of a particular name and strength sets the weight for all other potions created...

When you first start out, potions are the key. However, because you can only identify the first attribute of any ingredients, there's not many potions that are useful. Carrying capacity (weight concerns) are also very important early on. So this list concentrates solely on potions that are very lightweight with...

I've been playing a bit of Oblivion the past few weeks. While it's a real bear to get running at anything approaching decent resolution (1280x720 is still a bit choppy, even on a SLI GeForce 7950 rig), it's very involving.Oblivion Domino Day - Hopefully someone did this with the CE...

When you first start out, potions are the key. However, because you can only identify the first attribute of any ingredients, there's not many potions that are useful. Carrying capacity (weight concerns) are also very important early on. So this list concentrates solely on potions that are very lightweight with...

A few screenies from vanilla Oblivion. These are from the City Isle area surrounding the Imperial City.A pair of shots showing the outside of Bravil (south of the Imperial City).

So, I've been in EVE for about 45 days now. Which is about the point where you can say that I don't feel like a complete rookie / newbie anymore. EVE is very much a write-your-own-story kind of MMO. While there are some pre-built goals, it's mostly up to you...

Mining (resource gathering) is a popular pastime. It can be a bit boring, so folks like to turn it into a group event. Between in-game chat and voice chat, it can make hours seem like minutes.

Someone is using a Giant Secure Container (GSC) to advertise something in Russian.Pictures of my new Caldari Osprey mining cruiser.

Misc pics from Eve Online.This is from a fleet op during the war with MULTI. They declared war on our corp (alliance) so our alliance typically fielded a fleet or three and went hunting for MULTI members. This particular image shows a bunch of ships traveling together during warp so...

Almost got my first PvP kill last night.Myself and another corp buddy had been mining for a few hours. This typically involves watching a movie IRL while you keep an eye on corp chat and local chat. Especially since another corporation had declared war on us and has bribed CONCORD...

Got into my first industrial ship in less then a week of play. Industrial ships are the haulers in Eve Online. Regular ships have limited cargo capacity while a hauler might have 10x more cargo capacity. The downside is that an industrial ship is very weak (little to no offense/defense)...

Two more images of my Caldari Condor:

The 2 week trial is decent, but eventually you'll want to upgrade to a full account (trial account has certain, minor, limitations).However, you can't jump straight from a trial account to a 3/6/12 month account. You have to purchase the first month for $20, wait a day, then switch your...

Skills - Skills determine what equipment / ships you can use or how good you are at using them (bonuses to various attributes if you have better skills). One nice thing about Eve Online is that skills train in real-time, even if you're not logged on. So if you're busy,...

And a pair of images after getting out of the tutorial stuff.The first picture is my Caldari Bantam, which I use for mining. Has decent cargo capacity for a newbie craft (3x more then my first rookie ship) but is rather slow for a frigate.The second image here is my...

A few more pictures from the tutorial missions.

Starting to climb the nasty mountain called "learning curve"...Plan on spending your first 8 hours of play getting lost, possibly blown up, learning the interface, asking newbie questions in "Rookie Help" or "Eve University", and finding your way around. The top tips off the top of my head are:- Do...

Played Eve for a few hours today. The tutorial is definitely *not* optional for a newbie, unless you have someone IRL to guide you. It's a lengthy tutorial. The first introduction will take about an hour and the first training mission can take 30-60 minutes. Not that I timed it....

Here are some good examples of the *scale* involved with Eve Online.The first shot is a little rough with no sense of scale because I didn't realize that the view was changeable at that point of the tutorial. But the later shots should give a better idea of the scale...

I've been flirting with the idea of looking into Eve Online. Because I want something new to muck with and I hear that Eve doesn't have the grind as bad as traditional MMOGs. In fact, when you're training a skill it happens in real-time, even if you're offline.The download for...

Pulled these numbers off a spec sheet for a Seagate 750GB Perpendicular Recording drive.# Number of Discs (physical) 4# Number of Heads (physical) 8# Bytes Per Sector 512# Areal Density (Mbits/sq in) 128,200 Mbits/square inch# Track Density (TPI) 145,000 tracks/inch# Recording Density (BPI, max) 926,000 bits/inch# Recording Components# Recording Method...

After my business trip this week, which involved a lot of driving, I've changed some of my impressions of my car's new JVC deck.

Yesterday morning when I was set to travel back from Long Island I went to change the CD in my old JVC KD-SH99 car stereo. For a year or two now it's been having trouble ejecting CDs (typically only ejecting halfway), but this time around it went completely kaput. I...

I picked this up from the bargain bin this week. It's a 3D animated film that I hadn't heard about and ran across in some random fashion. If you can get past the slightly sub-par animation you get a film that is a very unique take on the Little Red...

Finally installed Frotz on my linux server and downloaded the free copies of Zork from Infocom. Brings back memories (I got a chance to play the original Zork back in the early-80s).Maybe I'll setup guest accounts for friends who want to play...

Next up is the past 8 days (05192006_0629 to 05262006_0629) which covers 5/18 to 5/25 after the time limit was changed to 45 minutes/round. Some of the log file sizes look funky, so the match length estimate might be a bit "off".159 matches over 8 days = 72 min/matchesLooking only...

Looking at the 14 days of log files from the release of Beta #3 until I changed the time limit to 45 minutes (from 35 minutes). Specifically, log file 05042006_0629 to 05182006_0629.First up is the search for "ExitLevel: executed" which gives me a count of the number of matches played...