About Me

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I am a devoted Husband, Father, tax payer and I am an Alliance player whom as of late, find myself with quite a bit of downtime, thus deciding to write about my adventures, gripes, questions and discussing anything and everything that is WoW. I sincerely hope should you stumble across my humble WoW blog that you enjoy it and I encourage and welcome your feedback. Cheers!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Blogger Problems

Well folks until Blogspot fixes the problem with Fonts and Layouts I am forced to put a hold on blogging and writing articles, I need a fix from Blogspot until I can move forward as the page is not very legible as it is.  I'll post again once a fix has been found and applied.

Thanks.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Sigh...

So I've been working on customizing the blog page but am having a bit of trouble, I've searched through the help pages and just can't seem to find an answer to my query.  The blog design is coming along but for the moment is just not what I want it to be.  I'd like to get my own custom image as a background that doesn't scroll with the body of the page.  So a fixed background custom image.  Closes I got was to get my custom image in the background, but it then appears tiled rather than a full screen of the image, so once again, not what I want to have.  Second, when I do get my custom image up (tiled still rather than a full screen) I still can't figure out how to get it to remain fixed in the background rather than scrolling, I tried removing the code line "Repeat" at the end of the background image code section, but that didn't work...

Any suggestions?

Update: Found the solution and that part is now fixed... now onto the other problems I'm having with column widths and placement.

Update May 14th:  Well as you can see, I've managed to fix a couple of little problems I was having with the background image as well as column widths, for some reason beyond my paygrade, some of the editing funtions don't want to respond as they're supposed to so I've had to edit the HTML in the editor directly to get things to work, so far so good, the one thing I want to try and solve now is the Text color on the blog, for the Body as well as Links and all the text color's are wrong, the Page Layout - fonts and colors tab which is supposed to make it easy simply doesn't respond to what I'm selecting for colors, I've searched the problem, I have noticed others having the same problem with Blogger behaving this way, though can't seem to find a work around that works.  Also, many times people will post a solution using HTML editing, but the line of code they tell you to find often isn't the same code as what I have.  So anyone with a solution, feel free to let me know! 

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

ICC Progression

Last night's ICC 10 run was nice and smooth, raid set-up 2 healers 2 tanks and dps.  I was OffTank yesterday and my brother in-law Maintank.  Everything was nice and smooth, first pull at 9pm sharp as planned and by 11pm we were done with Rotface leaving us to start on Putricide on Thursday, so a total of 6 bosses down in 2 hours and only 1 wipe on Rotface and that was just downright bad luck when the maintank was kiting around the big ooze...  Nicely done.

No new shiny tank gear yesterday, only thing that dropped for tanks was the Cloak of Many Skins (which I have already), though I did get a nice new mace for my Holy offspec.  I am the new proud owner of Lockjaw.  Very nice healing mace. 


Looking forward to Thursday, we've been stuck on Prof. Putricide for a couple of weeks now bringing down just below 30% so I have a feeling we'll get him this week.  I have the role of the Abomination, and no problems there, one thing that is hurting is the lack of ranged DPS in our group, there's tons of love for melee dps though in our guild and certainly no lack there.  Soon I will bring in my warlock and put my tank on the shelf for a little while since our 2 maintanks still need gear from ICC, perhaps I'll do first and second wing as a tank, then swap out for my warlock... we'll see how that works out when we get there... for now, I need to level him 7 more levels and quickly as we really need the range DPS on Putricide... it would really help out the guild. 


On that note, I sent myself the chest piece for the Bind on Account Heirloom gear and was sad to see that it is not an upgrade, but very pleased to see that my Voidheart set from Burning Crusade at level 73 is still better than any drop I've seen in dungeons or through questing so far.  I imagine by level 75 I should be replacing it entirely, but what with gems and enchants and the set bonuses I still have yet to find anything to replace my gear, frankly I'm content as I worked damn hard to get that set, along with some of the pieces I got from our Black Temple runs back then...

All in all, yesterday was a fun time.  More to follow on ICC 10 man later this week.


Tuesday, May 11, 2010

What's this new thing called GearScore...





Ok so I've discovered that "Gear Score" is a new thing in WoW. Items now gained from either questing or adventuring in Dungeons have an assigned Item Level or more commonly referred to as ilvl, giving your character a total gearscore of X where "x" = numbers say for example 5,000.

I fail to understand the necessity for this though. You will hear this often from me, since I am a returning veteran of the game, but, "back in my day" (gotta hate the cliché) you had to rely on your own common sense to know if an item was an upgrade or not, and whether it was good enough to sustain you in a raid or an instance. Most cases when everyone did their job properly it really didn't matter what you had on for gear... hell I once ran through BWL naked for shits and giggles with only a sword and board (funny as hell), but our healers weren't laughing if I recall correctly, don't know why...

It's important for people to remember, that your gear has nothing, I mean nothing to do with how you play. I was told I shouldn't tank 5 man heroics when I just hit level 80 and was just slightly over 3 thousand Gear Score the pally (Ret) asked me if I wanted him to tank, ok so I made the healer sweat a little and perhaps he/she actually had to "play" and be a little challenged, but I calmly replied with a question... "Have we wiped yet?", he answered with the obvious "no", I continued "tell ya what bud, when I cause a wipe cause I don't know what I'm doing, then 2IC take over... until then, I got it thanks." I hated that I even had to answer that but the truth is, I can do my job, the healer only has me to worry about, if he's healing someone else, their not doing their job, unless the obvious encounters that have AoE dmg and there is a bit of dmg being spread to the rest of the group, but I really really hate that people rely so heavily on your gear to determine if you're a good player... So far since being back I've heard people talk about how hard instances are and how high you have to have your defense and your gearscore and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH (thinking of the Charlie Brown show and what's his name who we never understood... ahhh damn this memory of mine"... I can't stand it... please stop the agony!!!! Ok, so my gear now is adequate and I am making life a bit easier for the healers, but seriously, people! stop it with the madness!! Your ilvl and the gear you wear aren't what make you a good player, worse then that one, is when someone says, "dude! look at my gear! I'm wearing 10 man ICC hard mode gear... I know what i'm talking about" which I've been told in an instance before, to which I replied "Dude! any monkey and his uncle can be carried through an instance!, I'm not impressed... " He didn't like it, nor I him... I will say on a positive note I love the new Dungeon Finder group system, and especially the "Vote to Kick" option... a wonderful tool.

I remember a time when we actually had to coordinate with 39 other people and clear trash that is far more less forgiving then trash is today, at least according to my memory, but as previously established, that's not always reliable... hell if you tried to AoE the crap outta Molten Core or Black Wing Lair to get to the bosses you'd be wiping all night, until things got into farm mode and the gear was better, we actually had to strategize (yes that is a word, look it up), we need a plan for just about each room or hall... When we played, it required skill, a minimum of gear is all that is required, i.e., if you can enter the instance, then you've most likely acquired said minimum... so to all that insist on high gear scores to run a 5 man heroic, I say... LEARN TO PLAY BETTER and rely less on gear. /endrant.

Back to WoW!

So after 2 years of having left WoW in search for another MMO I am back. Unable to find anything giving me a fraction of the fun and pleasure that WoW brought me, I re-activated my account to join 2 of my brothers in-law playing in the guild Knights of Camellot on Shattered Halls.

At first I wasn't sure if I'd simply transfer my level 70 warlock over for a mere 25$ of my hard earned money and since it had been so long since I played my lock, I really wasn't in the mood to start playing a level 70 and not knowing how to play anymore, so I rolled a new character keeping the name that has been with me since my very first character... Eridian.

Choice of Class. This time around, I decided to go back to tanking, though not with the warrior, I had heard that since the release of Wrath of the Lich King that Paladins were great tanks, and performed extremely well in the new expansion and had lost that "Buff Bot" status they once had. So hence Eridian the Protadin was born. Having previous experience tanking at what I would arguably consider much more difficult encounters then those I've seen thus far, I felt totally comfortable with my choice, and when it comes to tactics within instances, I am at ease. That being said, I needed to quickly brush up on the class and abilities and spell rotations and so on... Having done my research I found several sites that I could access during the day from work when I wasn't busy and by far the best one I found was over at http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com, thanks for being there for me guys! Truly a great forum for new paladins and old alike. Most of all, they don't flame you for being a noob.

Now a level 80 Paladin (prot), running ICC 10 man with the guild and loving it. Since I'm the guild's 3rd tank, and not always needed when the 2 maintanks (one being my brother in-law) are present, I am pretty useless to the raid, so I ended up transferring 2 of my characters over to Shattered Halls, my Warlock (now renamed from Eridian to Erilock) and my Shammy and making Blizzard that much richer in the process. Currently I am working on getting the 2 of them up to 80 and in some decent gear to have more flexibility when we do ICC through means of farming Triumphs on the paladin to deck them both out in Heirloom gear. I managed to find one vendor for a few pieces, I will have to ask guildmates to guide me a bit to get more as apparently there is 6, I am not sure if there are anymore than that. If so, let me know! I'm but a few 5 man heroic's away from getting my lock the chest, though I'm unsure when it will become worthwhile, my worlock was quite well geared in BC when I left the game, and at level 73 still haven't had a drop in instances or from quests that have been worth replacing my existing gear with the exception of my weapon and I think I changed something else, though can't remember what it was... At anyrate, if it's not better at it's scaled level of 73 than what I have now, hopefully it will outgear what I have on soon.

On tonight's menu, get in as many 5 man's in for triumphs as possible before ICC which starts at 9pm. If there is a spot for me in tonight's raid, I'm hoping for some new upgrades, thus far I've only been able to get my hands on a good cloak for tanking.



Introductions and a bit of History.

Hi there, and welcome to Minus 50 DKP! My name is Eric and I'm your host. I started this blog mainly to put down thoughts and pass the time, should this ever become popular and I end up getting readers, well.. let's just hope you enjoy it! nuff said! I'm 35 yrs of age this year (2010) and have been playing World of Warcraft since 2003, yep, a whopping 7 years of my life! In the beginning I played with my girlfriend (who is now my wife), and for a couple of years it was pure bliss, get up in the morning and go to work, come home and have dinner with the GF and then we'd get on the PC's around 19h30 and play 'til 11pm. Sadly my wife no longer plays the game anymore, although she did create a Female Human Mage on my account who is now lvl 4... maybe there's still hope? I doubt it though as we have 2 beautiful kids who go to bed around 19h30 and she is tired by then, and has just simply lost the flame which I still have.

When I started playing the game I created a NE Warrior, levelled and became the main tank for my guild at the time. To situate yourself in time, I was playing in the days of the "original" Leeroy Jenkins - I tanked for several years, tanking raids such as Molten Core and Black Wing Lair 6 nights a week... right up until Burning Crusade came along... By then I had gotten sick of tanking and wanted to take on a more relaxed stance in raiding, I looked around and envied the casters, it looked like so much fun, I looked at the Paladin's who seemed so awesome as well (back then they were considered mainly buff bots and flash of light spammers but still they looked awesome). Finally I decided to go with the Warlock, I then levelled and played the warlock just before BC came out to get him up to 60 ASAP so I could be eligible to enter the Dark Portal with the rest of my friends and experience the new content.

I had seen just about everything that Burning Crusade had to offer and then got bored. I started to feel that there was just TOO MUCH (sry caps!) to do and not enough time to do it. With the release of these "Daily Quests" and my quest to get my very own Nether Drake and the farming of Black Temple, there just was not enough time in the day to allow me to do it all, thus I started to get angry and resentful that there was so much content and not enough time to let me do it all.

I eventually left the game as it was consuming WAY too much of my time and was starting to affect my career (what with arriving late in the mornings, and leaving early all in the name of WoW)... that is when I decided to give a new game that was coming out a shot with one of my friends who felt the same as I did, enter "AGE OF CONAN". I'll save that for another post. Without entering in details I'll sum up by telling you that I went on to get a toon to max level in Age of Conan followed by levelling a toon (actually several toons) to cap lvl in Warhammer Online, and then again in AION.

As you can see, I chased and searched high and low for another MMO that would bring me the same satisfaction that WoW brought me, but to no avail. WoW simply has the product that satisfies the masses and me included, and I simply missed (and still do) the days of getting 39 other people into Ventrilo and coordinating a raid in a Dungeon... the good 'ol days.

So that's where I come from in WoW in a nutshell. Cheers!

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