My Hardware

I finally got around to taking a photo of my Hardware Setup. This is what I am running.

Main PC
Core 2 Duo E6600
3 Gig 6400 Ram
Dual Nvidia 8600 GT (512)
Samsung 226BW 22" WS
Viewsonic 19"

Slave PC
Core 2 Duo E4600
2 Gig 6400 Ram
Nvidia 8600 GS (512)
Samsung 2243BW 22" WS

 

Now for the Photo....

Razorbax

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I Need Bunny Rabbits !

It has begun!  The adventure of Beld and his 3 gnome friends is starting to take shape and I look forward to conquering all of Azeroth with a mixture of Pally tanking, Lock Uber DPS, death, slaughter, mayhem and a bunch of cuteness thrown in.

I have resisted the urge (mostly through lack of time) to level Beld past 60 and have decided that I will begin boosting with him at that level and when I need a break from the monotony of running instances over and over I will take him out solo and level him a bit, and of course gear up for making the multiple mob tanking easier and easier.

I have decided to run all three gnomes from the one computer and keep the tank and main toon Beldarion running alone on my home desktop machine.  The second machine I have got is a laptop so I can take it with me anywhere I want.  It is a Dual Core 2.4, 4GB ram, and 8400M dedicated video card and although I haven't run all three accounts just yet I think it will be up to the task.  I guess time will tell and if it doesn't work out then I will get a second desktop machine dedicated to the task.

I have followed Razor's advice (I really don't know why I do) and am levelling each gnome up to level 10 individually.  From my previous experience the mage Bedsnukes was easy, fun and quick.  But the locks are a completely different story.  Beldsdots was first to level 10 and after reading all the forums on how overpowered locks are I sort of assumed I could round up all the mobs in the whole zone at once, one shot the lot of them and ding 10 levels at once.  Locks are NOT overpowered below level 10 and I spent an awful lot of time running back from the graveyard.  They also kill a hell of lot slower than mages at the same level.

But I need bunny rabbits!  My level 70 gnome (which all the others are based on) has had her snowshoe rabbit with her wherever she has gone since level 5.  It is a sight to see a gnome warrior with bright pink pigtails tanking Netherspite or Tidewalker with the bunny rabbit hopping around behind.  Once I get three rabbits for Beldsdots, Beldsfears and Beldsnukes I think I will have a lot more success.  If not, I will still look pretty darn cute.

One by one the team is meeting up at Goldshire.  Azeroth, prepare thyself.......

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Rule #1

There are many rules that govern us and that we abide by for our betterment either as individuals or as a community. Some we set for ourselves and others are set by our peers. There is how ever one rule that we should all take notice of.

Don't Upgrade Hardware before a Raid.

Yesterday I purchased a pair of Gigabyte 8600 GT Cards and a new USB headset. Now I have been dissecting PC's for years so you would think installing a pair of graphics cards would not be very difficult. To make it that much easier, I was upgrading from 7600 GT's so I didn't even need to load new drivers.

The Install.

Quick and easy operation. The new cards are fanless and the large heatsink was very close to my DTV Card, so I removed it. Also plugged in and installed my new headset. All looked good. Load wow and start playing.

5 Minutes Later....

BSOD, Yep, good old Blue Screen of Death. To cut a long story short, I swaped lots of things around and put my self in working order for the start of the Kara run, though unfortunatly I crashed just before Curator. I messaged the Raid Leader apoligising and asking him to replace me. Then I returned my PC to how it was. I will not Shelf it until the weekend.

Guild Drama.

Its that time again. I have not really discussed our occational drama's in the past. The issue in my eyes is an uncertain guild goal. We have always called ourselves a Family Guild that Raids. The issue is we have people that want to raid more and be more serious and we have people that want to have the fun/family aspect. I am not to worried. As a guild we have been around since Release.

Razorbax

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It’s Arrived!

FedEx delivered my new toy last yesterday. My X-Keys Pro has finally arrived. Nice quick delivery as well. I ordered it on Friday and received it on Wednesday.

Installed.

This was very simple. Installed Software, Plugged in X-Keys and reboot. I had a nice list of keys to use for binding already so I was ready to go.

Was it good for you?

Unfortunately I had a Kara run last night so I didn’t really get a chance to play with my new toy. Tonight will, hopefully, be different. I do have to do a Heroic with a friend for his Kara Approval, but hopefully that won’t take too long.

More on X-Keys.

There was not really a good template for labeling the Keys available so I made my Own. Clicky. It’s made to scale so you just fill in what you want and print it out. The Blanks are just Blank until I decide how to fill them;).

That’s all for now.

Razorbax
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50/50

I got my new PC back on the weekend. While I was reasonably happy with it, it did not quite live up to my expectations. When running three instances of Warcraft at the same time, the performance is not what I would expect. I had two baby windows (640*512) running on one monitor and a full screen running on the other. While the babies had around 30 fps each, the full screen was only on 10.

Multi Boxing.

Back to the old style and things are working great. My Main Box runs at 60+ fps and my Slave Box runs two Mini Wow’s at 30 to 40 fps each. I will get around to screen capping the layout once I have my X-Keys Pro installed and Configured. I managed two levels last night after I re-set up everything again.

Druids.

I think it may be time to shelve the Resto Druid for a little bit again. With the news of the Badge rewards I think I will have to start Badge Run’s on my feral to get some the pretty purple pixels.

Razorbax
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Things are looking up

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week. It is really hard to think of things to write about Wow when you aren’t playing.

Upgrade.

I will hopefully be getting my nice new Core 2 Duo today. I am hoping it will be fast enough to run three clients on the one machine and still get nice FPS. From what I have read about other users experiences it should be able to run five. I also placed an order for my X-Keys Pro today, though I have had to order it from the US, since the only Australian Reseller only sells the PS/2 version.

Shammies.

Since I have not been able yo Multi-Box I have just spent a little time deciding on Professions.
Razorslax – Skinner/LW
Razory – Enchanter/LW
Razorw - ?/LW

I have not yet decided what to use for my last Profession but I will think on it. Maybe Ill go with Herbing, though I do not look forward to going back to the starting area’s to work it up.

Razorbax
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Learn2Key Bind

A friend of mine is a self confessed noob. Some may think this is a bad thing, but since he knows he is no good he accepts he has a lot to learn. This is so much better than the person who cannot play but thinks they are god’s gift to Warcraft.

The Basics.

I caught up with my friend on the weekend and was watching him play. After watching him for a little bit, it was easy to establish how he could improve drastically just by changing his key placement. He plays a Rogue. One thing I noticed was he clicked his control and “Oh Shit” abilities, Vanish, Blind, Gouge etc. There was always over a second or two wasted in remembering where he had to click and dragging his mouse over there.

Recommendations.

After chatting with him a little about how he plays, we discussed his bindings. I think this fits into most players, until they decided to complex combinations to reduce buttons and binding even more. This is what we came up with.

Keys 1-5 are used for frequent abilities.
Shift 1-5 are used for less frequent abilities.
Q and E, including Shift Q and E, are ideal for the Oh Shit and CC abilities that you need to have there at an instant.
Make sure you bind your Mouse Buttons as well as the Tilde “~” Key.

In the short term it may take a while to get used to the new layout. In the end however the improvements will be dramatic.

Custom Keyboards.

I was lucky enough to get a Merc Stealth Keyboard for Christmas of my fantastic parents;).

There are also other variants like:

and

I personally think these Keyboards are fantastic for Warcraft or just for any Gamer in general.

I must admit though, I love my Gadgets.

Razorbax
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A Week without Warcraft

As I mentioned my main PC died last weekend. I have decided to take a mini break while I get it back up and running. Obviously this does not stop me thinking and reading about all things Warcrafty.

Arch-Druids.

Phaelia was kind enough to inform us about the (possible) next Hero Class. I really have no idea how they will implement this. When the idea of Hero Classes was first mentioned, I thought it would work by sacrificing one tree to enhance another tree. For instance if I was a Feral Druid, I would Sacrifice my Balance Tree to gain more Feral Talents.

For Blizzard to start a new class though, means they will have something rather unique. Personally I look forward to it and I would jump at the chance to experience it.

On the home front, I have been seriously looking at getting a X-Key Pro. For those that are not familiar to this technology, it is basically a Keypad that a lot of Multi-Boxers use. You can program any key on your keyboard to exist on this keypad.

This is an example of a Druid configuration. I plan to design a layout that suits both my Shamans and my Druids. It is still a work in Progress (since I have not even ordered it yet) but the general idea is to use similar skills for the one button. For example I could use Wrath and Lightning Bolt on the same Key.

UI and Buttons.

I plan to display this in two ways. Firstly I will use Bongo’s to set up the UI so it appears the same as the Key Layout on the X-Key Pro. Secondly I will actually Print buttons to stick on the X-Key Pro. I will use the graphics from WowWiki to create custom icons that are Half of one spell and half of another. I think this will allow me to easily recognise the bindings I will use.

I think that will do for now.

Razorbax

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