Update - Pictures fixed, I'm extremely stupid.
Addon Spotlight - Archy (by
Simca)
While Archaeology is a relatively new profession, there are already several very promising addons out there. Perhaps the most interesting and functional of them is
Archy - Archaeological Assistant, commonly referred to as 'Archy'.
Archy's general purpose is to make everything in Archaeology easier to use. It has a display (regular or LDB) which will show you what you are working on for all nine cultures and which you are able to solve (with and without keystones). It will also show you which dig sites you have active on every continent, and for what culture every dig site is for!
While the other features of Archy are useful and help to set it apart from others of its kind, the most important part of Archy is arguably its node database (or more precisely, the ability to collect nodes and make a node database). At first glance, Archaeology nodes may appear to be random within the dig sites, but in reality, they are static. It is completely random which nodes you will get, but each node still has a set location. Knowing this, and realizing that there is a large variance on the survey tool at a "red" distance (up to around 90 degrees in either direction), you can quickly figure out where nodes are located based on only one or two surveys for small to medium dig sites. Archy capitalizes on this by collecting all of the node data into a database; after you loot fragments, Archy will mark the spot you looted them from on your map.
Additionally, Archy provides a color indicator for users new to Archaeology, or ones who like guidelines. It appears by default (but can be easily disabled, if you wish) when you cast survey, and as you move towards the next position, it will track your distance from the last marker. For example, if your survey's color is yellow, an indicator icon will pop up with a number of yards (measuring the distance between you and the previous survey) and the current color. As you move forward, the number of yards will increase, the the color will eventually change to yellow. Since your color is yellow, you can stop at that point and survey again. When you combine this with the node database, finding fragments becomes easy! Do be warned that unlike the node database, this system is not always accurate. Some dig sites seem to have more difficult "color rules" than others, and it will take the author a while to account for all of the different rules for each site.
Archy also features
TomTom integration. When you finish your current dig site, it will send the coordinates of the next dig site to TomTom. When you arrive at the site, you can even have Archy play a sound to indicate your arrival. This is very helpful if you enable the "Sound in Background" option in the Sound options of World of Warcraft and then alt-tab while you are flying. You can then go faster than flight paths, since you are traveling in a straight line, and be notified when you arrive so can catch yourself from going too far.
The Daily Blink - Mysterious Fortune Card
There was an interesting update on the
The Daily Blink a few days ago.
If you do not catch the reference, it means you never heard of the
Mysterious Fortune Card in-game!
This card is very easy to craft and doesn't create any useful item. So ... what's the point? Gambling! When used, your newly created
Mysterious Fortune Card will have a chance to turn into one of the following items:
Yes, you're reading that right, by crafting this very very simple item you can get an epic card that
you can sell for 5000 gold to any NPC!!.
Sadly, the chances to actually get that card are incredibly low and your chances to leave the Auction House with more money than when you entered are the same as with any casino. But if you're feeling lucky ...
Thrall: Then and Now
Originally Posted by
Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker)
Fortified citadels lay in ruins. Ancient forests burn brightly in the light of the setting sun. Arid stretches of desert, once known to claim even the most hearty of travelers, now house fertile oases teeming with new species of flora.
The Shattering changed a great many things. While the landscapes of the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor may have been the most visibly affected by Deathwing's return, many of Azeroth's heroes have also undergone drastic physical transformations of their own.
One of the most notable metamorphoses in Cataclysm is that of Thrall. Thrall He's worn many titles in his lifetime: slave, gladiator, shaman, chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan, and, most recently, warchief of the Horde. Now, as the son of Durotan puts down the mantle of warchief and takes up the simple garb of a shaman once again, we take a look back at his journey and the events that shaped him into the orc he is today.
The orcish Horde was once a demonic weapon of indiscriminate slaughter -- a far departure from the orcs' proud and shamanic origins. Thrall's rise to become Horde warchief, however, changed everything. After escaping from his enslavement by the human Aedelas Blackmoore, Thrall helped rally the remnants of the Horde, revitalized the orcs' shamanic traditions, and established a refuge for his embattled race in the arid land of Durotar. In the years that followed, the image of Warchief Thrall bearing the legendary warhammer and battle-worn black armor of the late Orgrim Doomhammer was etched in the minds of friends and foes alike. All that the Horde had become -- its courage, its strength, and its honor -- Thrall embodied.
When Azeroth's elemental spirits grew increasingly erratic just prior to the Shattering, Thrall was torn between his worldly responsibilities as warchief and his spiritual duties as a shaman. Ultimately, he followed his instincts and entrusted control over the Horde -- and everything he had labored to build -- to Garrosh Hellscream. Thrall also shed the armor that had come to symbolize him as warchief and donned the simplistic robes and prayer beads of a shaman. While Garrosh has made questionable changes to the Horde in recent times, Thrall remains focused on allaying the forces that threaten to tear Azeroth itself apart. Some members of the Horde might want him as their warchief, but the world needs him as a shaman above all else.
We'll be examining other key characters' transformations -- including those of Garrosh, Anduin Wrynn, and Magni Bronzebeard -- in the months ahead, so come back soon.
Microsoft Kinect with World of Warcraft
An interesting video surfaced on
Slashdot today, of course it's just a technological demo but it's always fun to see the cool things people manage to do with WoW.
Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies have developed software that enables control of PC video games using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. Their toolkit, known as the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), emulates custom-configured keyboard controls triggered by body posture and specific gestures. This video shows a user playing the online game World of Warcraft using the Kinect. Potential applications of this technology include video games for motor rehabilitation after stroke and reducing childhood obesity through healthy gaming."
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Heroic Dungeons Difficulty
Players were conditioned at the end of Wrath of the Lich King to mow through Heroics at lightning speed. Not only were they too easy to begin with, by the time Dungeon Finder came out players greatly out-geared the majority of these dungeons.
The reality is that it makes sense for Heroics to be a true and necessary stepping stone into raiding. They are more difficult at the beginning of this expansion's lifespan than they were at the beginning of Lich King. We like it that way. We want you thinking and trying new approaches through trial and error in order to succeed, just as groups do while raiding.
As new tiers of gear are released and new raids open up, Heroics will naturally become easier, but that provides little good reason for trivializing them now. This is true even if some groups -- particularly pick-up groups -- lack the patience, will, or teamwork necessary to succeed.
We prefer that skill and character power provide the edge in Heroic dungeons, rather than supplying simple boss fights where mistakes are so easily forgivable.
Will it test you to play at your best and communicate effectively with your group? Certainly. Should Heroic dungeons be tuned down so failure is rarely a real possibility? That doesn't sound like interesting design to me, nor would it act as a good catalyst for compelling, strategic, and social gameplay.
[...] You might have to spend more time in normal dungeons than you did before if you want a very relaxing dungeon experience right now, before you jump into Heroics determined to succeed with ease. The difficulty of this expansion is on a different level right now, but it's still nowhere near the gap between five-player dungeons and raiding which existed in the original release, and to a lesser extent The Burning Crusade.
If you expect a quick, mellow run through Heroic dungeons -- which provide quite powerful gear given we're on the first Cataclysm raid tier -- this early in the entire lifespan of this expansion, you might want to consider collecting items and gear via normal dungeons and other means before regularly hopping into the Heroic queue. They're not super-unfriendly toward casual players, but they do require casual players to exercise skill and proper social/leadership skills. (
Source)
Daze / Dismount
Granted, there are plenty of creatures out there that provide a completely trivial challenge for your character in terms of power/level which can daze you. Even still, knowing how to path around hostile creatures (or now fly over them) seems like it should be somewhat meaningful. It's not that hard to avoid being hit by creatures while mounted, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have to care at all about where you're going.
Regardless of level, the world should still feel alive and present some sort of threat, even if that threats merely involves slowing you down en route to your destination.
[...] I don't really follow the logic that you feel it's unnecessary that you can't just gather as many mobs on you as possible in an area with no threat of being knocked off your mount, or slowed down while running. Should it really be considered an inconvenience that a bunch of mobs striking you can do nothing to slow you down? It seems like you could then apply the term "inconvenience" to a lot of aspects of gameplay, but at the end of the day removing those inconveniences would start to dull down the game. (
Source)
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