f13.net

With no advance warning, we are now patching. Servers are supposed to be up around 10am PST.

I love the smell of clusterfuck in the morning.

Edit: BlizzTorrent sucks.

Happy Holidays!
The holidays are here and the citizens of Azeroth are celebrating the
occasion with festive decorations and winter time activities. Keep an
eye out for some fun and exciting surprises throughout the world!


New Dungeon - Maraudon
In the vast gray of Desolace lies the earthen tomb of Zaetar, fallen
Keeper of the Grove and son of Cenarius.  Zaetar rejected his Keeper
heritage when he joined with the princess of the chaotic earth
elementals, Theradras. Their unholy union gave birth to the misshapen
and cursed centaur, who promptly slew their father for his part in
their misbegotten creation. Fearful of Cenarius' wrath, the
grief-stricken Theradras sequestered her dead lover's body in her
secret sanctuary, the Crystal Caverns of Therramok, where she watches
over him to this day. Travelers who come to Desolace have little
trouble spotting Zaetar's tomb, for the blessing of nature that
permeates his being transformed his resting place into a verdant
paradise of flora and tranquil pools. Today, this tomb is now trodden
by the hooves of Zaetar's children, who have claimed this great cavern
as their sacred stronghold Maraudon.

Maraudon, a level 40-49 dungeon in Desolace, is now open and ready for
business.


Cloak & Helm Graphics
There are now interface options that let you not display your helm
and/or cloak on your character. These options will allow a player to wear a
cloak or helm, but not have it show up in the game world. The check
boxes to control this functionality are in the Options menu under
"Interface Options."


General
- Players will now receive credit for killing a monster even if
they die during battle.
- Players will now be able to purchase and train mounts from other
races in their faction. However, you will first need to obtain
"exalted" reputation status with that race in order to do so.
Mounts of the opposing faction are not available for purchase.
- A "Looking for Group" channel has been added. Additional improvements
in looking for group functionality will be added in future patches.
- Daze chance has been reduced in degrees depending on the level of the
monster versus the level of the player. Thus, a monster will have a
better chance to Daze a player equal in level than it would Dazing a
player five levels higher.
- If you die in Molten Core, you will now be able to retrieve your
corpse at the Blackrock Depths instance line.
- Several instance bosses and sub-bosses have had their levels slightly
lowered.
- Giant Clams in the Vile Reef now drop Blue Pearls.
- Spell Reflection no longer reflects abilities.
- You can initiate a trade by dropping money onto a player.
- You can no longer select targets while under the effects of charm.
- Most non-elite creatures in non-instanced areas of the world have had
their hit points slightly increased starting from level 20.
- Messages in the chat window provide feedback when you are getting
drunk or sober.
- Skill gain messages will no longer appear for auto-ranking class
skills when you gain a level.
- Training costs for all classes are in the process of being rebalanced.
For this patch, training costs have been adjusted for the Rogue and
Warlock classes and we will be making similar adjustments to all
classes in the future.


Talents
- Damage bonus for the Warrior's One-Handed Weapon Specialization
(Protection tab) increased to 2% per rank.
- Amount of threat generated by Shield Bash when Shield Discipline is
active has been increased.
- Mortal Strike changed to deal weapon damage + a flat amount (85, 110,
135, 160) instead of percentage-based damage. Additional ranks
available on Warrior trainers.
- A bug causing the Hurricane talent to not require channeling has
been fixed. This spell now correctly requires channeling.


Player versus Player
- Gurubashi Arena - The arena in Stranglethorn Vale has been changed so
that free-for-all PvP will only take place on the floor of the arena,
and no longer in the stands or on the entrance ramp.  Please keep in
mind that on PvP realms, members of the opposite faction can still
attack you anywhere in the arena because Stranglethorn Vale is a
contested area.
- There is now a short countdown before a duel starts.


Professions
- Fishing for high-level zones has been restored.
- Monetary value of fished items sold to vendors has been significantly
reduced.
- Chances of acquiring green weapons and armor from fishing have been
reduced.
- Fishing profession now requires a minimum character level, like the
other professions do.  Any character who already has a fishing
profession past the intended level will not be affected.
- The recipes for Heavy Mageweave Bandage, Runecloth Bandage, and Heavy
Runecloth Bandage can be learned by visiting your faction's Artisan
First Aid questgiver.
- Sell prices on Runecloth Bandages and Heavy Runecloth Bandages have
been reduced.
- Expert First Aid books moved to a more appropriate vendor for the
Horde. New vendor is still within the same general area as the
previous one.
- Spider Sausage added to cooking trainers.
- Negative effect on Fletcher's Gloves has been changed.
- Alchemists' Stone effects have been changed.
- Gnomish Death Ray ingredients have been changed.
- Small Spider Legs drops have been increased to aid night elf cooks.
- Embossed Leather Boots are now correctly marked as Soulbound.
- Enchant 2H Weapon with Intellect is now correctly giving +3 to
Intellect.
- Enchanter's Cowl minimum level to use set to 28 instead of 38, as was
originally intended.
- Decrepit Darkhounds are now skinnable.
- Bloodstone Ore was made easier to mine.


Items
- The damage effect on Deathblow, Diabolic Skiver, and Pendulum of Doom
is now considered physical damage instead of Shadow damage.
- Area effect of Piccolo of the Flaming Fire has been reduced.
- Common shields sold at the shops have had their levels shifted to
provide for a greater variety of choices.
- The damage effect from Circle of Flame no longer gets increased by
items with fire bonuses.
- Area effect on Explosive Rockets has been reduced.
- Damage over time effect on Demonshear should no longer be increased
by items with Shadow bonuses.
- Effects from Stormstout, Trogg Ale, Raptor Punch, and Keg of
Thunderbrew Lager no longer stack.
- Enriched Manna Biscuit now regenerates mana correctly.
- Wolfmane Wristguards are now Uncommon instead of Common.
- Lowered stats and armor on the Forcestone Buckler, which is rewarded
from the Compendium of the Fallen quest. Existing Forcestone Bucklers
have not been modified.
- Smokey's Explosive Launcher and Smokey's Fireshooter from When Smokey
Sings, I get Violent quest have been improved. Additional item reward
added to this quest as well.
- Heart of the Scale should apply the correct Fire resistance now.
- Fixed a bug that caused Wildheart Boots to have duplicate stats.
- Loamflake Bracers now have stats.
- Effect on Cloak of Flames has been reduced.
- Dog Training Gloves are now Uncommon instead of Common.
- Murkgill Murlocs in Stranglethorn no longer drop Encrusted Tail Fin.
- Fixed texture on Rageclaw Belt to look like a belt instead of pants.
- Armor values for some Leather and Mail armor between levels 15 - 36
have been slightly changed to address an error with armor values.


Quests
- Many Stranglethorn Vale quests had their experience rewards changed
to be more in line with the difficulty of the quests. Some
Stranglethorn Vale quests were also increased in difficulty, due to
increased kill requirements or balance changes to the quest target
creatures. The Green Hills of Stranglethorn and Big Game Hunter
quests also now reward different items upon completion.
- Two new quests added to Desolace involving the Kodo Caravan.
- Number of centaur required to kill to unleash Warlord Krom'zar in
the Barrens Counterattack! quest has been reduced to 20.
- Time limit for the Counterattack! quest has been increased to 20
minutes.
- Thazz'ril's Pick is now easier to spot.
- Bloodfury quest in Stonetalon Mountains is now marked elite.
- Catch of the Day quest in Desolace now requires 2 Bloodfish instead
of the previous 5.
- New quest rewards added to the Allegiance to the Old Gods quest in
Ashenvale.
- Wildhunter Cloak reward item from the Ashenvale Hunt quest has been
improved.
- Vagash in Dun Morogh now properly shows his Elite status.
- The Encrusted Tail Fin quest item now only drops off the Saltscale
Murlocs in Stranglethorn.
- The Bloodfury Ripper's Remains quest item now only drops off the
Bloodfury Ripper in Stonetalon Mountain.
- The Blueleaf Tubers requirement of the Barrens’ Blueleaf Tuber quest
was decreased to 6.
- Quest text for the Elemental War quest is changed. It no longer
implies that a choice of rewards is available.
- The Summoning Shadra quest level has been increased from 50 to 55,
to reflect the level of Shadra.
- Quest related drop items from A Sample of Slime quest and a Batch of
Ooze quest have been reduced in value.


Druids
- Entangling Roots: Rank 4 moved to level 38.
- New Spell: Gift of the Wild (Level 50) - Longer lasting Mark of the
Wild spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent to cast.
(Spell is available via loot drop only.)
- Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 65% to 180%.
- Dire Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 125% to 360%.
- Hibernate: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the
effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15
seconds.


Hunters
- Hunters can no longer sit while under the effects of Feign Death.
- Disengage will cause the Hunter's target to immediately check for a
new target.
- Hunters will no longer show mana while they are under the effects of
Feign Death.
- Claw: Ranks 3-8 focus costs increased to match ranks 1-2.
- Beasts under the effect of Beast Lore will now display whether they
are tameable or not.
- Pets: Bite and Claw tooltips now list the damage that is dealt when
the pet is content. Actual damage is unchanged.
- Scare Beast: Beasts now have an increasing chance to break free of
the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than
15 seconds.


Mages
- Portals: Each portal spell now has an individual cooldown.
- Polymorph: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of
the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than
15 seconds.


Paladins
- Sense Undead: No longer available via the trainer; quest reward only.


Priests
- Power Word: Shield: Now usable on party members only.
- New Spell: Prayer of Fortitude (Level 48) - Longer lasting Power
Word: Fortitude spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent
to cast. (Spell is available via loot drop only.)
- Mind Control: Can no longer be cast on tapped targets.


Rogues
- Backstab will automatically target the nearest enemy if no target is
selected.
- Distract is now effective against creatures that are already distracted.
- Sap: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the
effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15
seconds.
- Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was decreased.
- Vanish will now break root and slow effects.


Shaman
- Earthbind Totem: Added a 15-second cooldown.


Warlocks
- Warlock demons have a wide selection of names based on the demon
type. This only affects new demons; existing demons will keep their
names.
- Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels.
- Death Coil won't give health until it actually hits the target.
- Death Coil will only give the amount of health that it actually
drained from the target.
- Create Soulstone: Reduced the Soul Shard cost from two shards to one
shard.
- Curse of Shadow: Increased duration from two minutes to five minutes.
- Curse of the Elements: Increased duration from two minutes to five
minutes.
- Fear: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the
effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15
seconds.
- Devour Magic (Felhunter): Fixed a bug where the felhunter would be
healed every time the spell was used, in addition to the healing
gained from successful dispelling.
- Tainted Blood (Felhunter): The reactive effect no longer causes
threat.
- Training costs adjusted. Total training cost was decreased.
- Enslave Demon: Can no longer be cast on tapped targets.



Warriors
- Warriors will start swinging after performing a Slam attack.
- New Ability: Pummel (Berserker Stance) (Level 38) - Instant attack
that causes damage and interrupts spellcasting for a short duration.
- Shield Bash: No longer usable in Berserker Stance.
- Intercept: Cost reduced from 15 rage to 10 rage, damage reduced
accordingly.
- Bloodrage: Now generates 10 rage immediately and 10 rage across the
duration.
- Improved Bloodrage: Now reduces the health cost of Bloodrage by 25%
(rank 1) and 50% (rank 2).
- Berserker Stance: Now increases critical strike chance by 3% instead
of granting 10% melee haste. Extra damage taken reduced from 20% to
10%.


Mac
- The vertex and pixel shader based graphic options have been
reactivated on certain combinations of drivers and GPU hardware. As
Apple releases future improvements to drivers we will continue to
re-test and re-activate features on a case by case basis. A more
detailed list of which driver/hardware combinations are enabled for
shader capabilities, along with any known bugs will be posted on
the Tech Support forum. Further optimization work on the client is
ongoing, and we welcome your feedback at wowmacteam123@blizzard.com.
- Added reverb to sound effects when a player is in enclosed spaces.


User Interface
- The Minimap arrows that point to locations/players/etc. are now
easier to see.
- Tooltip information on players and monsters in the game has been
expanded.
- Alternative keyboard types (such as Dvorak) will now work correctly.
- Macros that cast spells will show spell feedback (e.g. cooldowns,
etc.) on the action bar.
- Lua single line comments now work in script blocks embedded in XML
files.
- There is a new user interface to enable and disable add-ons for the
current account, available at the character selection screen.
- FontString has a new attribute, "maxLines,” which is used to limit
the number of lines the FontString will render.
- Any text that goes beyond the extents of a FontString will be
truncated and replaced with "..."


Miscellaneous
- When a player breaks the surface of the water going up (i.e. heading
out of the water), the camera will move to the above-water position
regardless of whether or not the player is holding down the right
mouse button.
- The visual effect for unlearning talents will happen after you accept
the dialog instead of immediately.


Bug Fix
- A bug with bandages has been fixed. Previously, only the lowest rank
bandage (Linen Bandage) was working correctly in that it brought up a
channeling bar and required you to remain still while bandaging. All
of the other bandage types (Heavy Linen through Heavy Runecloth) were
working incorrectly, but have been fixed to operate the same way that
Linen Bandages do.
- Cenarion Vindicators no longer summon Forces of Nature as quickly.
- Severed Dreamers no longer summon Nightmares as quickly.
- Several elite creatures that were missing their elite tags have been
fixed.
- Will of the Forsaken is no longer grayed out on the action bar while
you are fleeing.
- The Emerald Dragon Whelp will assist you when summoned.
- Aquatic creatures will no longer eventually teleport to you if you
harass them from land.
- Undead players will no longer be invisible when they first log in
after watching the intro cinematic.
- Fixed the rotating animations of the crystals in Un'Goro Crater.
- Reginald Windsor's yell can be heard during The Great Masquerade.
- Kodos in the Barrens will no longer stomp incessantly while in combat.
- The Ward of Laze is now summoned at a more appropriate level, instead
of level one.
- Some elite creatures in outdoor areas of the world had higher than
normal experience modifiers, and were corrected to award the proper
amount of experience.
- Rare creatures in many of the higher level outdoor zones will now
use their appropriate combat abilities.
- Autoloot has been fixed to work with skinning.
- Fixed durability display on vendor buyback items.
- Some creatures in the outdoor world had much less armor than
intended. This has been corrected.
- A bug causing war stomp to not affect some targets within melee range
has been fixed.

Gotta love the power word shield nerf, I cannot count how many times i have saved someone's ass by getting off a Pws before some Night elf Michael Jackson wannabe ganks someone. Or when some sorry troll is running for their life away from a mob about to destroy them. But Not like i can do anything.

*unzips and pisses in the wind*

Yeah for giving credit to dead group members, that was just a stupid bug. Yeah for reducing costs for training, although not yet across the board, hurry that part up please. Yeah for druids getting bear form help. Yeah for Stranglethorn quests getting an xp bump. They were way too low IMO.

I'm indifferent about the changes to warrior. The talent changes don't really do much and the berserker change is only slightly better.

I'm not happy about the fishing nerf. That basically makes it useless. Way to go Bliz, you shot that fun little part of the game in the foot.

Thank fucking God. We just got hit by this last night. Our venture into Scarlet Monastery (they keyed part) went awry when we got screwed by that among other things.  On top of not getting credit for killing Mograine, the GUY NEVER ACTUALLY DIED. He just sat on the floor bugged not being able to be killed after we 86'd him.  And Herod, jesus, talk about your undercon. He mopped the floor with a two 41+ shaman and a mage.  We were just unprepared for the shit he pulled on us.  

Quite a frustrating night kicked off by a frustrating bug.

Edit: Looked at a spoiler site.  Apparently we must have interupted queen bitch dominatrix from resurrecting the commander (since he never came back to life or he hid in a spider hole somewhere).  So, that bugs the instance.  Beware.



Damnit, I've already done most  of them (except for the pirate and naga quests).



My friend will be estatic that he can fish again.  Fishing drops key components needed for higher level alchemy and he's been stuck at his level for quite some time now.   Really, fishing never should have been a cash cow and I don't think they care enough to make it so it's impossible to bot.

I'm really, really looking forward to trying that Spider Sausage.

And the armor buff for my bear form is a welcome change.

So holy fucking christ, I forgot that certain torrents don't work on my network because my router is fucking retarded and won't forward the ports it says are forwarded.

Anyone have a seperate .torrent tracker I can use w/ Azureus or maybe a private download?

There is no other tracker that I know of.

I don't understand why they don't give fileplanet an exclusive agreement for stand-alone patches.  Seems like it could be lucrative for both parties, and no make me tear my hair out trying to fix my router.

Also, I love how they take down the forums for maintainence everytime a huge amount of players might log on to post.

SNOWBALLS.

Also, level 36 elite green yetis, take a WILD GUESS at their names.


Cmon Rasix, Herod is a damn joker. We beat him at 36!

They are leaving my Paladin alone.  I'm a happy player.

Questing in Strangle?  Yeah, too late for me now by just a week.

Fishing?  I still haven't brought myself to do that for any real length of time.  Although, I eventually will start doing it if it means getting more resources for my blacksmithing habit.  Daddy's got to have more pearls, iron and gold!

WoWVault *shudder* had a few links in their forums.

At your own Risk. (http://vnboards.ign.com/WoW_General_Board/b19789/80490151/?40)

Will verify in a second (260kbs on one of those links).

Edit: Verified.

You too, eh?  I wonder why I happened to pick the seemingly most unprofitable pain in the ass tradeskill.  Think I'm at around 187 blacksmithing and around 212 mining.  Nothing tends to sell if I put it up for sale. Nothing I make tends to better than drops that can be had at that level and most stuff is a PITA to make.  Meanwhile my friend is basically bathing in gold doing alchemy.  Of course, my failures could be due to the market not really supporting multiple blacksmiths all trying to sell crap at the same time (quite a few at or above my level).

I should have been an engineer. Dyamite is fun.

/derail

Drop blacksmithing and start up engineering. Mining is big time needed for engineering. My Hunter has engineering around 200 on Earthen Ring right now. Explosive sheep are fun. Goblin jumper cables are fun. Making your own ammo when you're a hunter is luv as well.

Ackpth!

Frost Shock doesn't work on Paladins level 40 and up. And with earthbind totem now unspammable, I can't snare Paladins.

They's beating me up something fierce, even when I outplay them considerably. Funny though, how I agree with the Earthbind nerf. Spamming it was too cheezy.

I can put up a link to the patch download if anyone else is interested or those other links don't work.

-sigh- the thing I hate most about patch days: trying to get Cosmos to work again

However! The cool new AddOns interface lets me turn off all the crap I don't use! :) :)

There's a great little program I use called Actual Search and Replace so I can update all my .toc files in one quick shot. Or you can try to guilt Righ into doing it for you.

Number of the day is: 4150.

Yah I updated those, but now I get errors when I try to reset my cosmos settings and everything is jacked. I'll probably just disable everything except the basics until they come out with a new version.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~avj/WoWUpd.exe

It hasn't eaten my hard drive and there haven't been any new charges on my credit card, so I guess it's ok.  And you can trust people from the Netherlands... right?

Blizzard's updater bitchslaps every computer on my network off the internet. It sucks even for bittorrent.

People have been posting mirrors to the new version of Cosmos since the cosmos site sucks donkey balls:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-interface-customization&t=16037&p=1&tmp=1#post16037

I jacked mine up when I tried to auto change all those numbers (don't ask), so this worked better.

Thanks for the number Rasix, where did you get it from?

Oh and I suppose I should thank Signe for the little program too.

So this is what it feels like to be an after thought.  :(

It's usually posted patch day on the UI Customization forum on the WoW site.

Did anyone happen to try disabling the P2P part of the downloader for the patch? Just curious if anyone got better download speeds with that. (I forgot to try, but was only getting ~30kps).

No you don't -- it caps it at like 8 Kbytes/second when you check that box. It's basically Blizzard's way of saying "You don't want us leeching your bandwidth? Fine enjoy your sucky download speed."

It's better than not being thought of at all like, well... I can't even remember who else has posted in this thread besides you and Rasix. Although one has an avatar of a guy in a green hat. Why I remember that one I could not say, but there it is.

If it helps, you are foremost in my mind of all f13 posters at this very second.

?

Edit: And I'm never Not thinking of Signe. If I were her, I'd be scared.

I like Signe usually, except when she recommends I throw myself on a sword to remove Bruce from the equation.

And the only time I think about her is when I want the shaved cat pic back. BRING IT BACK DAMN YOU!

Her new avatar is much better. I wish it were full-sized.

That said, the shaved cat was a second rate limecat.

Mine is a dancing monkey, what do I know. Me likes the animals.

(http://www.tokenasians.com/news/limecat.jpg)

I love the host name on that mirror.

Holy fuck this is the worst patcher EVAR

What'd you expect? Battle.net?

Of all the suckiest patches in all of the suckiest games, this one does not rate anywhere near the top. What are you smoking?

Edit: ah yes, read it too fast. I'm going to go smoke something.

He said PATCHER, not patches.

Seriously, a lot of developers at AGC were scratching their heads over Blizzard's idea to use a BT-type system for patch distribution.  It just didn't seem like a very smart idea.  And they were right.

Bruce

Are you coming on to me?

Good idea, bad execution.  Less bandwidth for Blizzard to pay for, faster (theoretically) downloading of patches (your pool of BT seeds is the 250k or whatever the subscription numbers are now).

Now it's time for them to realize that their BT client sucks and either release one that's worth a flip, or scrap the whole idea.

I've yet to encounter a problem with D/L speed on patches… …zippety-zip, and I was in game playing in no time yesterday…

Once I disabled every ounce of firewall from my computer I was able to d/l within 10 minutes.  Not a big deal from my viewpoint.
/shrug

I'm not going to reduce my computer's security to download a game patch, when every other game patcher has no problems achieving great speeds over my connection.

Took almost two hours to download the 36ish MB patch. That's ridiculous. I guess WoW is safe for dial-up, because that's the same speed broadband users are getting...

Blizz's patcher blows.

Count my vote for stringing up whoever thought this miserable excuse for a patcher and flogging them with a cat-o'-nine tails.

Four hours later, I was able to log in and spend another hour attempting to fix my GUI. Four hours waiting on a 30-odd meg patch. And, NO, I"m not going to drop my hardware firewall for some patch. I don't have to in other games; it's not going to happen with this one.

VERY bad design on Blizzard's part.

I didn't have to compromise security at all or lower firewall settings...

Considering I'm not even sure on where to begin dropping firewalls, messing with my router ports, or doing whatever else is seemingly necessary to download 40 megs, I don't think this was smart on Blizzard's part either. Hell, I'm considered somewhat saavy in the computer world, I know others don't know this stuff.

It takes two minutes to set up the policies for port forwarding.  It takes 30 seconds to enable them. 5 minutes for the patch.  30 seconds to disable them.  8 MINUTES OF HACK TEH GIBSON.  

Anyone not doing this to "fight the system" is a fucking wanker.  

But yes, it takes some computer savvy, which is sick and wrong for Blizzard to assume people have (I'm actually being serious here).  You shouldn't require anyone to be able to set a static IP and understand the basics behind port forwarding or know a nerdy friend in order to deliver content updates to your game.  

But just a helpful hint for anyone out there having trouble: there's usually a mirror or two posted on patch day. In the General forums, so yes, bring steel wool for your eyes afterwards.

I'm not sure how not lowering your security for 10 minutes to download 40 megs actually hurts Blizzard or sends any message since you went ahead and sat there for 2-4 hours anyway.  I'm sure they are really hurting and care because you've done that to yourself.  The only thing they will care about is people quitting over this (which I'm guessing you aren't prepared to do.)

I guess some value 2-4 hours of their play time more than others.

Yep, I'm cancelling my subscription now. There's a number of reasons.

1) Blizzard allows custom UI creation, but has so far proved unwilling or unable to not break custom UI's with every patch, back into beta. I don't care how easy it is to fix (if you know what you are doing), if you aren't going to bother to try to keep your patches from breaking custom UI's, why bother supporting custom UI's? Fuck you, #1.
2) $14.95 a month, $50 a box, and you can't bother to provide a REAL PATCHER? Bittorrent is a great idea IN THEORY. If you want to steal music or download TV shows someone digitized from their Tivo. Downloading patches on a commercial game. NO. This was in no way, shape or form a good idea. It was a monumentally stupid fucking idea, actually. The fact that it probably saves them money on bandwidth makes it an even more galling idea. Fuck you, #2.
3) It does still have technical issues. I can't play it with an overclocked CPU without it crashing once an hour. I don't know why. CoH plays just fine, with a game that uses a much more technologically advanced graphics engine. Fuck you, #3.
4) My wife has been bored with the game and stopped playing for the last week. I bought it partly to play with her. This is probably the most important reason, the one that makes all the others mean something.

It's a good game; not robot jesus or anything, but I don't feel like paying $15 a month for what it offers. Buh-bye WoW, hello CoH.

Again, the things it does that may be easy to fix for a computer-savvy user are ridiculous. This isn't 1999, when it was ok to put up a 10-page web page detailing how to script a macro in EQ that taunted, made some pithy comment and sat your character down automatically. We've seen customizable interfaces from the likes of Shadowbane that were less fucked than Blizzard's. Even HORIZONS had a normal patcher.

Or the backwater way:

Step 1: Unplug router - plug in cable modem directly.
Step 2: Power up
Step 3: Right click on software firewall programs icon in lower right corner and click on "Disable."
Step 4: Download and install patch
Step 5: Reconnect router and reboot

Done and Done.  Yes, this is a pain and shouldn't have to be done.  However, 2 minutes of my action versus 2-4 hours of inaction on my part is even more unacceptable IMO.

LLFM!!!!

Ignorance really is bliss. You have no idea how bit torrent works.

Enjoy the wait.

Or, learn how it works, open the correct ports, and download the patch in 3 minutes, like I did. Using Blizzard's patcher.

Or, you can cry on a forum about how it's REDUCING YOUR COMPUTER'S SECURITY. Jesus, that's b.net quality stuff right there.

I only had problems with Blizzard's patcher when I was using a router - I took it out of the equation since I cancelled XBox Live and had no need for it, and haven't had any problems since. The patch last night took maybe 10 minutes to DL, if that.

I followed their help pages and was able to set up port forwarding on my router and configure my software firewall in about 10 minutes. Went from getting 2kb/s to nearly 90kb/s at the end of the download.

Apparently, not the same stuff you are.

Eh, I just waited the 20 mins or so it takes for some enterprising hacker to make me a stand-alone patch.

Then I downloaded it from a mirror.  Took about 6 minutes.  Another 2 to install.

My router will not work w/ bit torrent at all, and it's a huge cluster fuck to 'unplug from router and plug directly into modem'.  Xbox, Vonage, 2 computers.

Snowballs are the shit.  Greif city, but love...

Find someone that's crafting.. WHAMMO.   Good fun.

I gave up engineering on my hunter the 5th time my jumper cables exploded rather than rezzing the victim. I had a 1 for 5 success ratio with them. On paper they look handy, especially with a class that can feign death, but in reality they suck ass. And having to go back into the hell that was gnomergan to get more fused wiring every time they blow up in your face wasn't fun. (The beta trick of killing a target dummy and looting fused wiring doesn't work anymore, and the drop rate off shredders is .000001 I think. Even in Gnomergan the drop rate is like one per trip.

I didn't get into throwing bombs or land mines much because I can already drop traps and the time taken to throw stuff that goes boom takes away from my firing the bow. But mostly, it was the success rate on the jumper cables that pissed me off. That, and the need to keep every ancient material around in the bank. When smiths move on they dont get recipies calling for copper bars, leather crafters don't have to keep a stash of light leather unless they want to make newbie armor for someone, but even 225+ engineering items want copper bolts.

Plus anything useful in engineering requires engineering skill, making it the least useful trade as far as selling stuff to others.

Just my 2cp on engineering.

..the fuck? I wasn't even really bitching, just reporting how long it took. The "ridiculous" part was about the length of time vs file size, not the fact that I was so put out not getting my junky fix or whatever. So slow without altering my settings is a crappy patcher, imo. No other patcher has that problem.

And no, I won't change my security settings just for a game patch, no matter how easy or quick it is. I shouldn't have to. It's not a 'statement' against blizz or anything moronic like that. It's just my security policy.

If it wouldn't patch at all, I'd just cancel the game, there are plenty of games. As it was, I just sat back and learned a few new tunes, no big deal.

Yep. Doesn't mean shit to me. You guys like to blow things out of proportion, imo.

(http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/oliphant/oa048.jpg)

Engineering  & hunter just seems useful only in the guns/ammo aspect unless there's a craftable goggles that gives boost to agility and  ups your ranged attack/damage.... ....and even guns & ammo are only used by what, 2 potential classes - hunters & warriors (can any other class use a gun?)... ....alchemy & herbalism might be a better deal, potions can be used in combat (until that is nerfed ;( ), and Tauren get herbalism bonus (though it doesn't seem that significant or even as good as gnomish engineering bonus) and higher end alchemy stuff seems to be in demand for both consumption and crafting of other products....

....my main (hunter) has the skinning/leatherworking, leatherworking up near 150, and will have to take that wind rider deal to TB to see if I can find a trainer there...

Yes, I'm having fun with an Engineer Rogue that uses a blunderbuss for pulling.  Fuck that throwing knife crap.  He's a sniper.  Have to spend 10s at the Weapon Master, but that's no shakes.

Went to train polearms @ Undercity and then discovered to my dismay that it cost 1 gold...

THEY NERFED POLY!! HATE WORLD DIEl;hka;oieguoi;a_((WE!@!@#@$

Ah, I suppose it was too good to last.  Although I wish Blizzard would've thought of the fact that we are the weakest class in the game when it comes to taking damage and we NEED our CC more than a Rogue needs his 30 sec Sap for basic survival.  But whenever a Rogue whines about finding a mage he couldn't one-shot, we get nerfed...true in Beta and true now.  I predict in the next patch we get Frost Nova taken away because a rogue only wins 10,000/10,001 gank attacks against mages and in the other one someone used Nova to beat him.

Good call, Ras. Guess I was channeling Cecil, as the kids say these days.

My undead warlock is an engineer. Mostly just for fun, screw effectiveness. Oh, and that net-o-matic sounds pretty nice, since warlocks don't get a snare spell.

Hmm. Can't log in.

Also, people are idiots. I've been slaughtering fleshrippers for small eggs and buying stacks of holiday spices to make gingerbread cookies...and then selling 5 of the things at the AH for 20 Silver apiece base.

5 of a fucking cooking item that takes ONE cooking skill and an easily found item to make, selling for 20+ Silver.

My present sucked, I got 10 light leather.

My present sucked too: linen bolts. Especially since I need non-bolted linen for first aid. Dick.

I switched to leatherworking too. I went with dragonscale specialization but havent found any patterns worth a damn yet and don't plan on paying 20 gold in the auction house for one, especially with my experiences trying to sell tough scorpid armor. Tough scorpid is made for hunters. Mail with lots of agility, but do you think it will sell in the auction house? Had to put a pair of legs up for 3 days to get rid of them. And the return compared to the time it takes to farm up 15-20 scorpid scales to make them is minimal. I think the real money is in farming the patterns. People go nuts bidding up patterns to rediculous levels.

I saw a pattern for a tribal leather piece that's a set, ie extra bonuses with more pieces. The one I saw only had 2 pieces to finish.

You're only selling them for 20s? On my server all auctions for 5 small eggs are set at 50s starting bid, 1g buyout.

And people are buying them.

On the hunter & profession boards, it seems that there's quite a bit of disappointment with high-end leatherworking, especially for hunters... ....that is, that the quests and killing requirements for gathering materials is insane (which isn't so bad in itself) but that the stuff made once you've labored for it, is inferior to a lot of the dropped stuff at those levels... ....but  I don't have a clue, I'm a turtle leveler, still in my 20s....

All professions seem to complain about high level stuff. The only useful profession I've seen at high levels seems to be Enchanting.

It seem that Blizzard let fileplanet host the patch if you are still waiting...

Forum link. (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=458691&p=1&tmp=1#post458691)

heh, speaking as an enchanter (though not an uber one yet) I have to say that I am not finding it usefull as a trade skill right now. Its a fucking HUGE money sink, since I usually end up disenchanting all the shit I find instead of selling it.  Not to mention that the semi random nature of most enchanting drops means I am always short of certain key reagents.

Then, theres the fact that getting people to pay for enchantments is like trying to rip their arms off.   That, and I have absolutely NO clue what a given enchantment would be worth. I mean, what do I charge to give someone a +30 armor enchantment to their cloak?  +5 strength to bracers?

Ahh..the spirit of christmas alive and well, people screwing each other over for profit!

There have been threads about enchantment prices on the WoW boards. People typically agree that the prices the markets will support is currently low. Beta players point out that towards the end of beta 2, prices were over one gold per +1 on a weapon. Enchantment is a loss leader at lower levels and early in the server economy - people don't have enough money and they are changing their equipment too often. Enchanter is only a subset of players, all of whom will ultimately want their super-vaulable rare weapons and armor enchanted at high levels. So it's money gouging glory in the mudflated endgame.

Really good low and mid-level items usually can't see too well for the reasons you gave - people switch too frequently. Why would I pay a bunch extra for some extra weapon damage when in another 3 hours of play I can just get a better weapon?

One thing about FFXI was that earrings, rings and to a lesser extent armors (boots, gloves, etc) could be worn for a pretty long time. When I was level 30 or so a lot of my equipment was level 15, because of the various bonuses it gave me. For example if you get a ring of +dex, you probably won't have access to a higher tier one for 15-20 more levels.

On the other hand, if equipment becomes obsolete quickly enhancements aren't going to be worth much until you are at end-game, or at least to the point where levelling takes quite a bit of time.

That is also true of WoW. I still wear a lot of items I've made for myself as a leatherworker, and they are level 19 or some such (i'm level 29). I certainly go through weapons faster than anything else, but I've only changed rings once and don't change the rarer stuff often; like headgear or cloaks or belts.

I bought a blue-colored (rare) mace - level 26 - for 1.5 gold and I've not run across anything better since then and probably won't for another 3-4 levels.

Do you play a rogue?

I pretty much buy something new every level.  Keeps me awesome and stuff.

Yes.

asl?

Yah I play a rogue, but I don't actively look for something to buy. I might look for a new mace or dagger every couple of levels, but for armor I tend to just take either the best item I can make (or a friend can make) or the bestest quest item I've come across.

I do have 8 gold just laying around, waiting for that rainy day. I really do need a new dagger, maybe I'll buy one for myself for Christmas.

Focus on the slow-speed high damage/hit daggers if you plan to use instant-cast skills a lot.

That's what I got maces for. ;)