Monday, July 26, 2010

It's Been a While

Gah! I have not been here in a while! My apologies! There just hasn't been much going on in the World of Warcraft to blog about. Summer is slowly hazing by and I have lost a little interest in the druid that I was leveling up with Amo's shaman. So I resorted to grinding heroics to emblems to try to put together a makeshift tank set on my paladin. None of my toons tank so it will be a new experience. As for the parody that I was talking about...Amo said he would help if I finished up the lyrics...which still aren't done yet. I think I'm just having a summer writers block, because I can sing the chorus and a little bit of the first verse in my head so...its just a matter of writing it all out. I'm hoping for it to get done fairly soon.

Oh one little tiny thing that I did do a few days ago...I completed the paladin chain quest to get the Blood Knight Tabard. And it lemme tell you it sent me on a while good chase and a half.I wound up having to get the key to Scholomance...which I think is safe to say that it is now my favourite vanilla WoW instance. I love the art and the concept of it. Shame that you have to do such a long quest for the key...and that no one ever does it anymore. I had to get the key to grind up some Dark Runes which I found out have a low drop rate.But pathetic long grinding story short, I have my tabard so yeah :P

If anything else interesting happens you will be sure to see it here...and hope that if something does happen that I have Fraps open :P

That's it.
-Cyphale

Saturday, July 17, 2010

U Bai Gold!

Ah, there is nothing better than a late night update no? Well I got a few lil things I wanna post up here before the day is through. First, Exxy I read your blog about 5 mins ago...and I can't comment >.< :P Second, remember that little parody idea I said I was kicking around in the last post? Well I asked Amo what his thoughts were and he was game for it ...and he said yes ^^ Now I would just have to write the lyrics for it...which won't be that hard...most of them I have stuck in my head at the moment :P

In guild news, we had our first raid last night...and in return we got some recruits. For our first raid and having to spam trade for an hour...we did well. We got up to Rotface but our DPS was a little weak so we didn't down him. However it was fun and it went well. We were planning to go again next week but...in some sad news Amo's computer died today :( We were about to enter a 3v3 match...and he Dc'd :( So it will be lonely without him...however I won't have to suffer long...I have 2 days left before my time card runs out...so Amo...your computer timed its breakdown right :P

My last lil bit of news is something that I find a little humerus, however some others probably won't, but I don't really care. :P Have you ever been in a city, and seen a bunch of level 1 characters dead...and realized that the way their bodies are positioned spells out the name of a gold selling website? This usually happens in the most populated city on your server, on my server its Orgrimmar. Amo and I were lucky to be in the right place and the right time. We saw about 40 level 1 trolls all aligned in Org, and then they would all /sleep. Now this isn't the first time I've seen this...but usually the spammers log out so their bodies just stay there. But today it was a little bit different, as I said before they didn't log out, they just /sleep'ed. So...Amo and I decided to have a little bit of fun with this (now this was before his computer died.) Now Amo was playing on one of his alts who was a tauren...so he got on his mammoth mount and would not move over some of their letters that they were trying to make. Now me...oh good ol' me...Exxy and Amo wouldn't expect anything less of me...but I really don't have any respect for gold spammers at all. They hack the game, they make needless problems for GMs so it gives the people who have real problems longer wait times, and I can't speak for the next blood elf...but I'm sick and tired of the whispers I get daily from random level 1's telling me that my account is in jeopardy. So what did I do? Aside from mounting on my Grand Black War Mammoth and not moving off of some of their letters, but I started to whisper back some of these gold spammers. I figure that they take the time to select me and annoy me...I might as well return the favour right? :) And I did. I selected at random most of the level 1's and at first I just whispered gibberish to them...but then I got a little vile.  After Blizzard took their decision not to implement RealID on the forums...I gained much for respect for them...and I didn't want some no life hack their game. I'm not going to repeat what I said here...but I found the replies I got rather odd. I would say something and they would reply with a sequence of numbers like "7777777" or a sequence of numbers like "zzzzzz". I got from videos from when the spammers came...We drove them off once then they came back later but we drove them off again :D So expect some videos...after some extreme editing :P

So here is the update for the night...I was going to keep it short but...some of the best made plans sometimes don't work out :P

-Cyphale

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Damnation!

Is the name of our new guild! :D Things with Anguish didn't exactly work out...The fact that our GM quit and didn't tell us had a little something to do with it. So Amo and I some of our other lovely friends decided to make another guild. It just formed yesterday so we have lots of recruiting to do. So if your on Anub'Arak feel free to pop in :D

In other news that I should have mentioned a while ago...I decided to scrap "Please Don't Stop the Heals" The lyrics were good...But I don't have a Rhianna voice :| And I seem to have writers block for the other song I was going to do. However I recently got an idea for another parody...which I think I could pull off. Not gonna go into details yet, I must discuss with some more with Amo...I would need to borrow his lovely voice for a little part in it ^^

So in my spare time...that I'm not writing or exploiting Amo and I have joined Exxy in Outlands. She is loving her DK while Amo is leveling up a shaman and I am leveling up a druid. My druid was only the second character I ever made but I got her up to 55, then left her to make a DK with Amo and his friends then I returned back to my druid and got her to 62. I then wanted to keep playing my DK and that is how we get to where we are today. If I hadn't of made my beloved Cyphale my druid would be my main...but I'm aiming to get my druid to 80...I just love druid healing...so many more spells to choose from...instead of 3 on my pally :P

So that's just a little update...Expect more explore and random videos in the mean time as I work on a new parody.

-Cyphale

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Voice of the People Is Heard

We did it!

I have just been informed that Blizzard is NOT going ahead with the plans to make your real name necessary on the forums! The post I read said that basically Blizzard was seeing just how many people cared about this issue and how many were upset. So they listened, and this makes me have a little bit more faith in the company. There will still be changed to the forums, like being able to rate posts and whatnot but you will still be able to post as your character on both the Starcraft and Warcraft forums.

Mike Morhaime, co-founder and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment said that Blizzard is 100% driven by the people to make their games and their forums a nice place for players. As much as I am happy about this decision...I just can't fathom why they would think of doing this in the first place. But it is over, rejoice my fellow WoWers in knowing that your privacy is now safe once again! I think this is a good step in Blizzards direction, whether they actually cared about their players happiness or whether they just cared about how many subscriptions they were losing we will never know.

In some other less important news...while all this was going on I decided to make a few new videos. No they are not parodies (however if the RealID issue had persisted I did have some song ideas kicking around for that :P ) They're just videos I got while exploring.

This first one is what exactly the other side of Silvermoon City looks like. Its rather nifty...I didn't expect there to be NPCs there but there were.



The next video I did was a little more risky...You know that part of the Dead Scar that goes right through Silvermoon. There are closed off doorways leading to here but you can't get in...well ...I did :P I did not use any hack codes of any sort. I'm not revealing how I got here but all y'all need to know is that I was here :P And I got a lil video for you guys. As circumstances played out, I didn't get to go here on my DK so I was on my lock. The name will go undisclosed because if you couldn't tell form my last post...I like my privacy :P




Well I hope you all enjoy the videos and are basking in the happiness of your privacy being kept...I know I am :)

-Cyphale

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Nerf Privacy

Ok Blizzard...you really done it this time.

I can deal with the 3 day GM responses when my toon gets stuck somewhere, and I guess I can keep filling my ignore list with names of the level one gold spammers...but if I have an issue and I can't access help in game...why should I have to use my real name if I want an answer? Doesn't that take away the point of an MMORPG? (Mulit Million Online ROLE PLAYING Game) Role playing - The act of taking on a new roll...a roll that is not yourself. I'm sensing a little bit of a contradiction here.

This game...back when I started, you knew people by their characters and nothing more...but ever since the release of RealID, I can't help but think that I'm on FaceBook and downing Lich King at the same time. I like the concept that they were after...being able to talk to your friends cross realm and cross game...but why go and tamper with the forums?

Granted, Blizz's reason for this is to stop people from making rude and inappropriate comments on the forums...initially its to stop what you and I call "trolling." But Blizz if you didn't already figure this out with all the gold spammers making level 1 characters and trying to sell gold, with them sending in and out of game mail to players trying to disguise themselves as official Blizzard advocates or with them hacking. to make a ton of level 1 characters...hack them to make them either speed to a city or just teleport there with world commands, have them jump higher then the game would allow and then kill themselves one by one to create the name of a gold selling website...trolls and hackers will not give up. Blizz thinks that by revealing everyone's real name that you would be a bit more cautious to what you say...because your not as hidden as you once were, and that may be true for some...but for some others...they just don't care. Others might go on to make an assumed name also...See Blizz? This isn't as foolproof as you thought.  The only way for them to...and I'm not suggesting this...but like anything with the internet...the only way to get it to stop is to shut it down completely. No forums = no trolls? Not exactly...they would go onto other websites to have their fun...but as long as its off Blizz's hands I don't think that they care.

There are roughly over 10 + million people playing WoW, and there will be some name overlap. People with common names (i.e. John Smith) will not be the only ones with the same name...saying that this brings up the case of identity theft. Blizz is only creating more problems for themselves. If a hacker, for whatever reason wants to pick your account...now that they have access to your gold and epics...they also have access to your FaceBook, MySpace...and hell if they really wanted to...get your credit card number. Thanks a ton Blizz...because of your game... I know have to cancel my credit cards and whatever else a hacker would mess with. With social networking sites such as the two mentioned, it is up to the user what they want to display. With MySpace you make a user name that other users will know you by. Now whether it is your real name or not is YOUR own choice. FaceBook, is not quite the same...but any smart person would know that they are adding their friends and their friends only. If you add (a) stranger(s) that you have never met before then YOU are putting YOURSELF as risk. I can see how this makes FaceBook and MySpace liable to say that if a conflict were to ever arise that its "not their fault." Blizzard however, is subjecting our personal information WITHOUT our approval. So then does this mean if I get hacked and my personal information screwed up, and if I check my WoW account and find that it too has been hacked can I blame Blizzard and expect full compensation? No, because they will find some loop hole to make it "not their fault"

Which, while we are on the topic of privacy...As some of you know, I am a female gamer. And as sad and narrow minded it is...females playing video games is looked down upon still. If I have a technical problem with the game, and must report it on the forums I have to use my real name. Now I won;t reveal my name here but there are just some names that are not unisex; they are either a male of a female name and mine is one of them. If someone were to see my name then they would know I am a female. Just by seeing what other players (men for the most part...unless there is some same sex discrimination going on that I don't know about) and how they react in trade chat whenever the phrase "girls DO play WoW" is brought up, I am going to be hesitant to dare to post on the forums. And for any men whose reply to that is "women don't belong on the forums anyways." Just because we have an anatomical difference does not mean we're inferior...grow some balls and don't be an idiot.

And as an expansion from the above paragraph, as a girl I am not just scared about getting picked on and being told to "quit my bitchin' and get back in the kitchen." I am also scared of being cyber stalked. It does happen and it is very real, not just to women...to children too. Its not just as simple as right clicking and selecting Ignore. Google search your name and if you have FaceBook or are on another social networking site that has your real name...Bing! The sound of finding a new victim. With today's day and age, no one is ever completely anonymous on the internet...however this is just like spoon feeding hackers and other sickos the information of billions of people.

As much as I am conserend for myself and the safety of other players...if this change does go into effect there is another group of people that most tend to look over who are at risk. The GMs. The official blue post I read said that along with players, GMs will have to use their real names when posting as well...I guess this is Blizz's pitiful attempt at trying to make this seem more fair. Now why would this be a problem? Well, I was browsing the Customer Service forums a little while ago. The GMs there are referred to as Pandas...because all CS GMs use a Panda as their avatar. I was reading a post where some people were inquiring about what being a "panda" requires. And a CS GM replied to this, he went over the high school expectations, the experience you should have...the people skills and so on ...Then he went on to say that when making up their GM alias, that their name must not have any hints to themselves in real life, and for a good reason. I can't imagine some of the crap GMs must get when they cannot fulfill someone request. Now, that was all to protect safety...but I guess Blizz is throwing that all out the window.  Its funny because I could have sworn reading somewhere in the ToS that my information would not be given out...silly me.

Now all of this because they were sick of dealing with trolls? I'd love to hear their logic. "Let's put the entire WoW at risk just to stop gold spamming."  Blizzard, this isn't as happy go lucky as you think it to be. These are people's lives and identity's you are ever so carelessly toying with. If this does end up happening, I'm sure there will be less action on the forums...meaning that there will be less general discussion from the good players who just want to chat about the upcoming changes to their class. And I'm sure that there will be people who would quit because of this change. I am not going to quit...but so help me...If I have to start using my name in trade chat...I'm done.

-Cyphale

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The End of Midsummer

Well yesterday marked the end of Midsummer, and of course my internet chose last night to crap out :P But I did get some videos of some fireworks and other Midsummer related things. I have posted the fireworks  video on YouTube...and I will upload the others soon. I mus say, if your leveling an alt...Midsummer is the time to do it. If you have any heirlooms the XP buff you get from ribbon dancing stacks. So I got my mage from 30-50 during Midsummer. Oh yes, in the video that I got of the fireworks, the fastest way to get the Thunderbluff was to port there, but then you'll see me trying to get a better camera angle...that is when I tried to slowfall off the flight tower. I was aiming to land back in Thunderbluff but I landed on the tip of a tree...which gave me a surprisingly good view.:D




-Cyphale