We're Back!!!

Ohhhh MY GAWDS.... I can't believe it!!! On 5/29/10 I wrote a blog post about why BG brackets should be shrunk to 5 levels per bracket so that it becomes easier for every level to properly participate in combat.

Today I was reading blog posts and what did I find but "New Cataclysm battleground brackets unveiled; Arathi, Eye, and Alterac available at lower levels"

I think we are back in a whole new way!

Curious....

I'm actually curious if there is anyone reading this... I am not sure how I expected to keep a blog roll going... while writing is fun to me, it's not quite something I do a lot of unless I know I have a real audience and even then it's sometimes difficult for me to continue to perform. There are only so many things to write about... maybe I will continue this blog just on a weekly basis or so and post my thoughts about the upcoming events. Hopefully Cataclysm will bring more in the way of PVP on low level characters. we will see... until then, I will continue writing occasionally.

Almost a month....

It has been almost a month since I last posted. I have gotten my life in order and have been working a great deal lately. Which means very little wow play... but I have been working more and more WoW time into my schedule. My raid team on my main is somewhat falling apart leaving more time for other projects (Like this one!) I would like to welcome two new members (from my mains guild) to the horde guild, we now have Maxarms and Sassiigirl as members, hopefully I may be able to get them to give us a guest post or two about what it is like PvP leveling as an Arms Warrior or a Priest (not sure if Sass is going shadow or a healing spec). So tonight, 8/15 we are back to PVPing on the horde side.

Expect more information to be forthcoming as the summer winds down to an end.

Back to the Grind Stone

Well for the next couple days I am back with my face in a book. BUT there is a light at the end of this tunnel... As of Wednesday I will no longer have a 4 pound book strapped to my hip and I will be in Clinicals meaning I will be back up and running again YAY!!!

Wish me luck!

Some Surprises are worth waiting for!!!

I promised a surprise a couple weeks ago. Then some life got in the way. BUT I was able to get everything worked out this weekend to finally get it worked out to properly deliver on my promise!

Before we get into this I want to give a huge thanks to Markco of 20kLeveling.com and JustMyTwoCopper.Org.

I have taken many of his tips and been able to maintain a decent gold amount with very little effort on Nordrassil. This has made my life much easier when it comes to buying gear for my BG excursions. I also have no worries about when it comes to leveling and being able to afford my talents.

So without further ado, 5 questions to help any Strict PVP Leveler start making gold quickly and efficiently!

: I've been a huge fan for several months now, I go back and read as much old posts as possible and I am an avid listener of Castaclysm and Call to Auction. So let's dive right into it.


[Chrgr]: I've seen your posts about your mage on KT, I know you mentioned white quality shoulders as a good break in, but what else would you suggest to break into the AH for someone who doesn't travel the world doing quests or instances?

[Markco]: Enchanting dusts.

[Chrgr]: You highlighted the Snatch feature in a recent blog post. How much gold should someone starting out have before starting to resonably use the snatch feature in Auctioneer?

[Markco]: You can use snatch with only a few silver if you wanted to, but I would recommend resale scans before you get into snatch. Snatch is meant for profession manipulation.

[Chrgr]: Are there BG specific items that can be used to make gold in the AH?

[Markco]: Free action potions.

[Chrgr]: How do you determine the duration (12, 24 or 48 hours) of your listing?

[Markco]: Very complicated question, two quick examples: glyphs 12 hours, bags 48 hours.

[Chrgr]: And finally at what point do you transition from just Auctioneer to other addon's like QA3 etc.?

[Markco]: Once you use professions to make gold instead of just flipping.

[Chrgr]: Thanks again! It's always a pleasure.

Hmm... can't honestly say I've been taking full advantage of some of his tips, until now that is! I will be getting my hands on the materials to make some Free Action Potions starting tomorrow morning! Also I think I have found that second profession for my bank alt of a Death Knight, Enchanting! I also have to say I was always curious how the "professional" auctioneers chose what type of durations to use. I always seem to post on 48 hours and just let it sit. I am going to be trying to post a few of the more critical things (like Glyphs) on a 12 hour scale and see how that does. I'll keep everyone posted on that! I am also going to be re-reading Markco's posts on QA3, Auctioneer and the Snatch Tool.

I also recommend to anyone looking to make some good amount of gold before Cataclysm and going into Cataclysm to go and pick up Markco's 20k Leveling Gold Making Guide. No matter what level you are you should not be without the ability to purchase the items/spells you need. Make sure you can afford your mounts at 20, 40 and 70 (Both regular and Epic flight!). Don't prioritize your spells or gear based on the amount of gold, or god forbid silver that is in your characters pocket.

So thanks again Markco, and remember guys, Check him out on Castaclysm and Call to Auction as well as his blog at JustMyTwoCopper.Org.

1:7 = Bad Win Ratio

So WSG saw TLDNR and KTALGSTO today over several hours (about 4). It was nice finally getting to sit down and actually having some play time again. But, it also seems that the coordination available today was sub-par at best. We won our first round and lost 7 from there.
The picture shown is of the winning team. And before you say "you probably had more 16-19's than the other team" I should point out that we had 4 people above level 16 and the other team had half of their crew above level 16. It was truly due to how much coordination was happening between those people that were of higher level and the fact that the high level characters knew their role in the game, to retrieve the flag and return it. Where as every round afterwards the high levels seemed to just sit in mid-field farming honor kills and allowing the level 10-13 to try and "win it". And while we may have had a few good attempts, it was made very clear that we were not meant to carry the flag. And 5 out of 7 times we lost 0-3, when we probably could have at least given the Alliance a run for their money.

So, if you have a character on Nordrassil, either Alliance or Horde doesn't matter, and would like to try and make things happen in these BG's hit me up at TakingBackPVP (at) Gmail.Com and we can setup an invite. At the moment it's still only me and KTALGSTO/Tinibubbles in either guild, so we would welcome the company. And once we have at least 5 people in either guild we will begin to schedule PVP premade events.

Real Life Taking the Wheel...

Ok so I have been letting Real Life do the driving lately. Some might know I have been somewhat unemployed for the last 4-6 months. Why I say somewhat is because there are jobs out there that I could do, but my transportation situation went head over heals, also I have been considering a change of fields from Construction, and as of the last two weeks that opportunity has come about. I am currently entering into the Health Care field, I have been taking a very intense C.N.A. class as my first step towards a new career path. This is why I haven't been posting, I haven't had the opportunity to even come online really. BUT, I do have a new video program that I am hoping will work for recording since the last one kind of sucked. So after Wednesday I am doing Clinicals, meaning no more book work, no more class rooms, just eight hour work (Volunteer) days until the end of the month, but what this also means is a very set schedule. So I can start back onto the things that I enjoy, the blog and PVP. YAY!

Lets just hope no more hot weather hits, or else my love for water will flare up and I will probably find myself at the lake or a river for the week ends.

Anyways, that's my update and I hope to get more content out very soon.

Lure of the Fire Festival

Why is it, whenever a Holiday comes around with PVP centered events, PVP centric people become in high demand despite 90% of the locations not requiring any real PVP?

I have found that I am often requested to assist in PVP centric events due to my aggressive take charge nature that keeps me coming back and trying to kill the opposing faction. I didn't require doing any of the Fire Festival stuff this year on my main, yet I have participated in about 2/3 of the actual events, including assaulting each of the opposing factions major cities. Which only Undercity required any real PVP, the rest were just guards, this included Orgrimmar which did have people guarding the flame, but they focused on me and not my companions, making it very easy to deal with.

Now I'm not complaining I love PVP, especially world PVP, I only plan on PVE realms for the ease of leveling through quests (which I despise), and the fact that there are less people camping certain locations that I enjoy gathering (when I enjoy gathering). So, when the next holiday with PVP centric events comes around I recommend all of you take charge murder's offer your services to the less fortunate (for a nominal fee of course).

I'm sorry....

With real life getting in the way this week and my schedule being completely blown I have not had the time to finish the "special surprise" I had promised earlier in the week. I am still hoping to get it done but in a little be longer time frame.

Thanks for your patiences guys.

Much RL...

There has been a lot of RL happening lately. Being Unemployed in RL is annoying and I am also trying to change industries. So hopefully through the weekend I can get another post our two up, and maybe some more PVP time with video's!

WSG at level 11

Video of last nights fun and games

OMG... I'm Dying

No not in PVP (that's pretty typical actually, me and the Spirit Healer even have a secret hand shake at this point). I just got back from getting my new mountain bike and I ended up riding 7+ miles home.

Here's a little secret... I haven't ridden a bike in over 6 years, and when I did at that time it was just down to the "corner store" about 4 blocks away, and no they weren't long blocks. So in all reality I haven't rode a bike with any serious intent in over 12 years. And today I decided "I'm super-duper I can ride 7 miles! No problem!" ok, just letting everyone know. PROBLEM!!! And what's sick is I've lined myself up to go for the rest of the week to and from appointments in our town on this bike! that's at a minimum of 7 miles each way! Totaling 14+ miles a day!

I officially request an application to be committed. But anyways, I'm home and I am prepping to get the video from last night in order to be able to post it on Youtube, so hopefully I will have another post coming out later this evening. Though I'm going to pre-apologize I only have Microsoft Movie Editor at the moment, I am cheap and I haven't found a really good Open Source option to utilize, so if anyone has any advice hit me up at TakingBackPVP@gmail.com

Moar PVP

We made our way into WSG on Chrgr and Tinibubbles again this evening. Had one miserable failure and then a pretty decent, we were up against evenly leveled opponents and I had some fun chasing down level 14 hunters and teaching them what the backside of a warriors hand feels like as I pimp slapped them.

Having a pocket healer is so awesome!

I also got some video of the 2nd encounter. As well as a screen shot of the winning team. Those will be in a post tomorrow!

Special Treat

For those that have stumbled across this blog so far, I apologize that I have had to take about a week off, things have gotten real hectic in reality, but hopefully I will be smoothing them out in short order. Also I am hoping to have a special treat so keep and eye out for that in the very near future, Also expect a revival of the Level 29 Arena teams concepts. So stay tuned, I'll definitely be back.

Cross Battlegroup BG's?!

Wow is all I have to say.

While sifting through many Wow.com articles I actually stumbled across this one after reading about the War Games article.

Yet another post by Mr. Tom Chilton that sends chills down my spine. I am now waiting for him to say that BG's will be in brackets of 5 levels (which with the level cap being 85 still makes sense to me).

We're currently expecting both normal and rated battlegrounds to be cross-battlegroup (within a region) for the launch of Cataclysm. So, players queueing from anywhere in North America (for example) could play vs players on any North American battlegroup, etc. This applies to all regions, not just North America.

Here is the source.

War Games

Hello,

I'm back, kind of.

There will probably be a bit of a delay on any more PVP related posts due to a compatibility issue with windows 7 and my wireless card, at the moment I am posting from my laptop which, while great for browsing and posting to my blog, isn't that great for WoW. Can we say 13 FPS in the middle of the night when no-one is on?

Well, aside from that I am happy to make mention of something I stumbled across on the WoW.com blog, pertaining to a War Games style PvP option that may come sometime in Cataclysm. Now remember, they haven't said it's for sure, but rather "something they are working on". Remember dance studios?

Here's the quote from Tom Chilton:

---

Q u o t e:


Too bad. Cross-server BGs were one of the things that, while convenient, overall have hurt the game and it's sense of community.

At least an option to only queue on-server would be nice.

---

We're simultaneously working on a "war games" mode for battlegrounds that allows groups to challenge other groups to a battle in a specific battleground (including horde vs horde and alliance vs alliance). Granted, the rewards aren't significant, but it's more for players to be able to have fun battling their guildmates and friends or for players on a server to throw down for the sake of pride and bragging rights. ... You'll still only be grouped with players of your language, although your opponents can be from whatever part of the region, regardless of language.

Here's the source.

This is very exciting news for anyone that likes organized PvP and has been wanting some more organization in BG's, especially with rated BG's coming into play in Cataclysm.

2 days of no PVP

I don't believe we will be able to get into any BG's and I think we will be lucky to even get online tomorrow, but maybe Thursday. I am finally giving in and installing Windows 7 on our computers. So wish me luck.

Boo to Playitall Media Player

Well, there was going to be a video... I say was because when I went to go preview it I realized it was FREAKIN HUGE (4gb which is max for AVI). So I went on a search for a good program to chop it up and make pretty macaroni art out of it. But anyways, during my search I stumbled across a video player boasting to be able to play larger AVI files. So I downloaded it, ran virus scan etc. It was clean... CLEAN. But, it still didn't work. I'm not one to keep a program around if it's not going to do the job I've tasked it for, so I went and uninstalled it. Well without any warning of "you should close everything before uninstalling" or anything like that, it proceeded to punch holes in my registry pertaining to ALL of my file associations. I was unable to run any .exe files, .com files or any other software files, I was able to open pictures, but that was about it. I couldn't even run regedit or get to the command prompt from Start>Run. Luckily for me I still had firefox open and was able to locate a help file that had some registry files to reallocate file associations. This worked, for the most part.

This morning I went back to searching. And I came across yet another realization. It also corrupted my avi file association and all of my Windows Media Player codec's.

So I say Boo to you Mr. PlayItAll coder. And I recommend anyone who has this get rid of it, but be very careful about it.

PVPing evening of 6/6

So we were able to attempt 3 BG's in out 90 minute time frame on Chrgr and Tinibubbles. This was very interesting as the first one was against a 5 man Horde premade (didn't realize they still existed). The 2nd had a warrior on our side that decided the level 10 was a better flag carrier than him (a level 19 warrior with Ress BoA gear). Both were miserable losses. Tini didn't want to continue, but I smoothed it over and suggested we do just 1 more cause I was certain I would hit level 11 if we did.

So we ventured into the third and final battleground of the night. All but two people were level 15 or below, this did my heart good to see so many low levels trying to attain some experience through PvP, what else did my heart good was that there were only 3 people from the same server on the Horde side. Well the two level 19's went straight for the flag, one branched off and started picking off low level horde while myself and Tini followed the level 19 priest to the flag, he picked it up and we covered his attempt to go cap. Well during this time the Horde had gotten our flag. But by the time we had gotten back to base someone had reclaimed it and we capped. 2nd Horde flag snatch happened within seconds and as I was approaching the base of the Horde GY I suddenly saw a hunter in a pink dress careening past us. At first I was like "GO GO!!" and all excited, then suddenly I realized this person was blinking and wasn't stopping with the speed. Not to mention they didn't have the speed buff from the main tunnel. My suspicions were confirmed when someone else asked what the deal was with the speed hack. Upon further watching this person as they ran back out of our base to drop the flag right infront of the Horde base it was confirmed that they indeed were using a speed hack, and indeed was wearing all white gear and one of those pieces was nothing more than a pink dress.

Hopefully I will have the video up on Youtube by the time this goes out, or within a day from it. We did win, but I feel a little dirty about our second cap, but the other two captures were 100% legit! AND we did in fact ding to level 11 tonight. So after Memorial Day weekend and a bit of a tough week on our mains we are back in the swing of things.

Real Quick

I want to give a shout out to Gelvin over at Greedy Goblin. He has done something many would consider impossible. He has assembled a group of people of such substantial quality that they are officially clearing ICC 10 in all blue gear. They have done Naxx, Ulduar, ToC, Ony, and now are working on progression through ICC10, they have downed all 4 bosses from Storming the Citadel and then moved on to down Rotface and Festergut, and then last night they downed the Blood Council. To many this is an amazing feat, where others are probably still non-believers. I truly wish I was on a EU account each time I get these posts. BUT, I would like to mention that there is a US version still trying to get under way. You can find them by following this link. I am personally a part of it but truly I think we need more supporters on the US side, so if you have any interest in making WoW history in the US, take Gelvin's Undergeared guild as a motivation, come get your blue gear and help us start working on content on US-Forgotten Coast-[A]