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Allison Robert

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Shifting Perspectives: Cat 101, part 3

by Allison Robert on Feb 9th 2010 (13 hours ago)

Shifting Perspectives: Cat 101, part 2

by Allison Robert on Feb 9th 2010 (13 hours ago)

Shifting Perspectives: Cat 101

by Allison Robert on Feb 9th 2010 (13 hours ago)

Every week, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting druids and those who group with them. This week, we are polite, professional, and have a plan to kill everyone we meet.

There's a bit of a gentlemen's wager going on here behind the scenes at WoW.com; the author of the weekly feature that gets the most hits by the end of the month will get cookies from Elizabeth Harper.

And I like cookies.

The following is a list of titles that were subsequently rejected by the editors for inclusion in this week's edition of Shifting Perspectives:

Shifting Perspectives: Naked women playing Cataclysm alpha.
Shifting Perspectives: Paladins suck.
Shifting Perspectives: Everyone should be nerfed but me.
Shifting Perspectives: Gear Score is amazing.

Filed under: Druid, Analysis / Opinion, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives

Upon logging into World of Warcraft, I immediately...

by Allison Robert on Feb 8th 2010 (1 day ago)

Last week Eyonix started a poll on the forums asking players what they do directly after logging in (all of the options are listed in the picture above). For me, it's no contest -- before I do anything else, I always pop the friends list up to see who's around. The only time this doesn't happen is if I'm logging on in a rush for the night's raid, but I try to limit the number of times that occurs. Reading this poll has made me realize the extent to which I depend on my bank alt for mail and AH-related business; my main very rarely needs to check her mail.

If you're interested in responding to the poll, it'll be running for another day or so, and you can find it here. Because it's on the official forums, you'll be prompted to log in to your forum account before replying.

Filed under: News items

Lich King weapon drop changes

by Allison Robert on Feb 8th 2010 (1 day ago)

Although this probably won't affect too many of us in the near future, Blizzard is already tinkering with many of the stats supplied by the Lich King's weapon drops. A community manager on the Korean site posted about upcoming changes to one Lich King-10 and four Lich King-25 weapons, and Boubouille's posted a translation with help from user Locriani. A lot of raiders had been surprised at the itemization decisions, and as a raiding healer, I've seen a lot of commentary concerning the uninspiring presence of MP5 on the Royal Scepter of Terenas II. Blizzard's specifically addressing these concerns.

The following is the list of changes Blizzard's planning to make to Lich King-25 weapons:

Royal Scepter of Terenas II: MP5 replaced with haste rating.
Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas: Critical strike rating replaced with haste rating.
Heaven's Fall, Kryss of a Thousand Lies: Armor penetration replaced with haste rating.
Fal'inrush, Defender of Quel'thalas: Haste rating replaced with armor penetration.
And on Lich King-10: Stormfury, Black Blade of the Betrayer: Armor penetration replaced with expertise.

We're not sure when these changes are going to go live, but we'll update you when they do.

EDIT: The changes have been confirmed by Ancilorn on the EU forums now as well.

Filed under: News items, Raiding

Breakfast Topic: What are your plans for Love Is In the Air?

by Allison Robert on Feb 7th 2010 (2 days ago)

The yearly holiday Love Is In the Air went live today, and with it a host of new features -- a new boss in Shadowfang Keep, several revamped achievements, and overall a lot of spit-and-polish on a holiday that had been extremely frustrating to many players in 2009. Last year, your ability to get the meta Fool For Love done was entirely dependent on dumb luck over a 5-day period. Blizzard's looking to blunt the impact of RNG this time around by extending the holiday and introducing a much less painful means of getting the achievements.

So what are your plans for Love Is In the Air? Does your main already have the meta from last year, or were you among the unlucky souls doomed to keep getting the same candy drops? Are you planning on hitting the new boss in Shadowfang Keep? And are you, like me, just ecstatic that you don't have to spend days hoping for a Peddlefeet pet to drop?

Note: A few of us were around as soon as the holiday went live, and our FAQ on Love Is In the Air and OverAchiever on the holiday's achievements have now been updated to reflect the 2010 event. They'll be expanded later today with more information on the holiday questline and the new Shadowfang Keep encounter.

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

Love Is In the Air FAQ

by Allison Robert on Feb 6th 2010 (3 days ago)

Update: This article is being heavily modified as of 3:00 am Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, February 7th. Please bear with us while our intrepid author runs around Azeroth getting information!

The 2010 Love Is In the Air holiday doesn't much resemble its 2009 version; Blizzard's eliminated much of the frustration surrounding RNG and item drops, and overall things are a lot more fun This FAQ covers all of the questions we think will be most helpful to readers concerning the holiday's mechanics. If you have any questions not answered here or in our OverAchiever guide to the holiday's achievements, please drop a comment below and I'll try to make sure it gets answered!

Help! Where do I go to get started?

Head for any of your faction's major cities in Azeroth (Stormwind, Ironforge, the Exodar, or Darnassus for Alliance, and Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, Undercity, or Silvermoon for Horde). New goblin NPCs (most from the Crown Chemical Company) will have popped up around the more heavily-trafficked areas (read: AH/bank) with quests and information.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Achievements

The OverAchiever: Guide to Fool for Love achievements, Page 2

by Allison Robert on Feb 5th 2010 (4 days ago)

The OverAchiever: Guide to Fool for Love achievements

by Allison Robert on Feb 5th 2010 (4 days ago)

Update: This article is being heavily modified as of 3:00 am Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, February 7th. Please bear with us while our author makes her way through all the holiday changes!

The in-game holiday Love Is In the Air begins Sunday, running February 7th (3:00 am server time) through February 21st (3:00 am server time) this year. Doing most of the achievements related to the holiday will reward you with the meta Fool for Love, the title "the Love Fool," and one more notch in the long trek toward What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.

Love Is In the Air has been markedly changed for 2010; Blizzard's eliminated much of the painful RNG that drove players up a wall in 2009, and right now you can expect a rather cool and fun little holiday that's not entirely unlike Brewfest in its approach to achievements. You can do dailies and other quests for Love Tokens, and buy holiday items from vendors in addition to enjoying some stuff that's just for fun.

But you're here for the meta, right? We all know you want that drake. Before we get started, I would advise reading our FAQ article on Love Is In the Air if you're not already familiar with the holiday.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Achievements, The Overachiever

Breakfast Topic: Terrible things

by Allison Robert on Feb 2nd 2010 (7 days ago)

Back-channel team discussion these past few days has been reminiscing about the Warcraft series' best bits of lore, and eventually discussion turned to the things that we wish Blizzard had revisited or expanded. Zul'jin came up, with people a bit uncomfortable that the great story promised by the Zul'Aman trailer didn't transition to the actual raid very well. "Both Horde and Alliance had perfectly good reasons to raid it," Rossi observed. "Instead, we go there because someone wants to plunder Amani riches."

That made us think about all the stuff we do in-game that kind of makes us...well, bad guys, for lack of a better term, and we started wondering -- what's the worst thing that player characters have done (or been asked to do)? Setting Teron Gorefiend loose has to rank pretty high up there. Then there's that torture quest out in Borean Tundra, which squicks people to this day. While we're on the subject of Borean Tundra, nobody particularly liked thinking about a daily quest offered in Coldarra, or the ugly results of Horde questing in Howling Fjord. If you wanted to look at the whole "player evil" thing from a larger perspective, you can even make a case that player-generated PvP is, within the context of WoW's lore, one of the more significant contributions to faction antagonism and war.

So what's the worst thing that your character has done -- or, failing that, the thing that you still feel the worst about? I've already got my pick.

Filed under: Breakfast Topics

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