New Design

So what if I have nothing to blog about anymore. It doesn't stop me from re-designing my Layout;)
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Truly Epic Class Quests

One part of Wow I have always enjoyed are the Epic Class Quests. I have been involved in nearly every one so far.

Lok(Rohk)'delar, Hunter Quest
This was quite the achievement for any hunter. You needed drops from MC, Ony and a rare drop from Winterspring (or from Azurgos) and you had to defeat 4 demons without aid. Then there are Greifers/Noobs that will assist you and de-spawn the Demon. I helped out on this quest 3 or 4 times, mainly with Buffs and Clearing the path.

Benediction Quest
Requires an MC Drop and a rare(expensive) World Drop BOE. Quite a good quest but not in the league of the Hunter one. I helped when you could use the Trinket to see the spirits.

Warlock Epic mount Quest.
This one was quite expensive and included a DM run that was not that popular. Though the boss did drop a good Tank Gun so it was easy to find a tank for this. I have only assisted with a bit of this but I think it was well designed.

Paladin Epic Mount Quest
This quest included a Scholo run where you needed to properly use judgements to kill the Wraiths. Was a great deal of fun. Beld came up with a Stealth type run so we didn’t need to clear trash. It involved Invis Pots and DI'ing the Rezzer after running for your life. Good quest design from what I saw of it.

Epic Flight Form Quest
I think this quest had one of the best theories but lacked the Implementation. The idea is you had to kill bosses that had weaknesses based on the 3 specs. So by using a specific spec/tree you would find it easier. I have completed this one 3 times. I think the idea was dead on but I found it a bit easy.

What’s Next?
What I would like to see is a truly epic version of these quests designed for every class. A quest that requires a great deal of skill and knowledge of all three talent tree's/roles of your class. It should be hard and be a real achievement. The reward should be unique but not loot. A title for instance or a Unique class mount.

How would it work?
The quest chain should test you in each role that you could fulfil in PVE and can also include any other skills or abilities that suit. Lets look at an example, you guessed it, with Druids.

Starting Quests
Travel Forms Part 1
Race across a course that includes Water, Lava and Underground areas forcing the best use of Cheetah, Swim, Cat and Flight Forms. There can be sections where you get shot down for Flying. There should also be sections that require you to go from one form to another. i.e. Flight Form to Cat Form (to survive a fall) then Sprint and go Cheetah when Sprint runs out. Should change forms enough to require innervate.

Travel Forms Part 2
Air Tag. There would be a very large "roofed" stadium/area where you can fly. There is a Bird Seeking Ball that travels a little faster than your Flight Form. Shifting to caster causes the ball to continue in a straight line. You need to keep away from the ball for X time limit without hitting the ground (Ground would kill you). There could also be obstacles to slow the ball down. De-buffing the ball may also slow it down.

Pre-Requisites: Travel Forms Part 1

Feral Part 1
Successfully Rawr Bomb five targets.

Pre-Requisites: Travel Forms Part 1

Feral Part 2
With an NPC Tank and Healer, The Tank holds a Boss. You DPS. Ad’s randomly spawn, you need to switch to bear, grab the add and drag it to the tank, then continue to DPS the boss. There should be a chance to Battle Rez at some point as well.

Pre-Requisites: Feral Part 1

Bear Form Part 1
Hold Agro on a Boss while being healed by an NPC. Other NPC's will be doing high DPS and Threat. This would scale based on the Druids Gear. There should be occasions when you need to use your "Oh Shit" abilities.

Pre-Requisites: Feral Part 1

Bear Form Part 2
Hold Agro on 10 mobs. You also have 10 Healers with very low health (One hit to kill). You need 8 healers to keep you alive. If you lose 3 healers you will probably wipe.

Pre-Requisites: Travel Forms Part 2, Bear Form Part 1

Cat Form Part 1
Stealth through a group of mobs without being seen.

Pre-Requisites: Feral Part 1

Cat Form Part 2
With an NPC Tank and Healer, uphold a certain level of DPS. Threat control would also be required. Would Scale with Gear.

Pre-Requisites: Travel Forms Part 2, Cat Form Part 1

Caster Part 1
With an NPC Tank and a Healer, DPS and assist Healing the tank while maintaining De-buffs. Should be a 50/50 split. Should require a Hybrid Resto/Balance Spec.

Pre-Requisites: Travel Forms Part 1

Balance Part 1
With a NPC Tank and Healer, Uphold a certain amount of DPS while maintaining De-buffs and controlling threat. Full (and swift) use of Eclipse Procs would also be required. Monitor Healers Mana for innervate. Battle Rez would be required.

Pre-Requisites: Caster Part 1

Balance Part 2
Kite and Crowd Control two mobs for a certain time. Would require Entangling Roots, Hurricane and Sleep etc. Would require timing to get around diminished returns.

Pre-Requisites: Balance Part 1, Travel Forms Part 2

Restoration Part 1
Heal an NPC Tank in a Boss Encounter.

Pre-Requisites: Caster Part 1

Restoration Part 2
With NPC Tank and DPS's, Heal the Tank and DPS's in an AOE style boss encounter. Would require De-buffing (Curses and/or Poisons). Curses or Poisons should either Mind Control or Damage after x seconds.

Pre-Requisites: Restoration Part 1, Travel Forms Part 2

Other Pre-Requisites
You would need Heroic level gear for all specs to be able to complete the quests. All encounters would scale up with Heroic Level Gear used as a base line. All Quests would be Solo only.

The Reward?
The rewards could start by completing Individual Tree's or Segments of the Quest-line, Like Feral, Resto, Balance or Travel, so you can complete the Feral Component (inc Bear and Cat) to get a Title like "Beast Master". Completing the Travel Form line could grant a title of "Path Finder". Completing all the Quests would give a title like "Arch-Druid" and a new Flight Form, the Phoenix with a 310% speed.

Summary
The idea here is to have a quest line that feels truly epic. It should not be easier for End Game raiders or for more casual players. Regardless of the content you are seeing, the quest line should be a real achievement.

Let me know what you think?
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I Like a Challenge

When I was playing Warcraft, I had the most fun when I was challenged.

History
Back in the Vanilla days, I three-manned Strat Dead Side with two friends. Shortly after that I two manned Scholo on a Stealth run with another Druid. Then in BC I three-manned Heroic Durnholde with a couple of guildies. It was great fun. There is a certain satisfaction that comes with accomplishing something a little out of the box. Sure, I doubt I was the first to do any of these things, in-fact it was a Pair of Mages completing Scholo that gave me the idea to try it with another Druid.

What If?
This got me thinking. If I was still playing today, what sort of challenges would I like to try?

Deadmines...
Yep, you heard me right. Deadmines. I am not talking about some post Cataclysm type Heroic revisited but the Original Deadmines. However I want to do it with a deference.

Raiding Deadmines...
Well this just sounds easier. But wait, there is more. The level requirement for entry into Deadmines is Level 10. Yet the recommended level is 15-20. I want to raid Deadmines with 10 level 10 toons. IMHO this would require proper playing and not just Zerging, but I could be wrong.

But Wait, There’s More!
If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, lets take it a step further. I would want to Multi-box the whole thing. That’s Right. 10 Players. 1-2 Tanks, 2 Healers and 6-7 DPSers. Its like raiding Hogger but with Less Chaos!

Possible?
Who knows, and unfortunately unless its been done already, we wont find out. Blizzard capped most 5man instances to 5 a year or so ago. Oh well, I’m not playing wow anyway so I’m not missing out.


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Customer Service Conclusion

Well it looks like I finally got lucky. After my last post I posted an extremely specific email asking to unlock Account 3.

The Magic Email
Subject: Account3
Hi Account Admin Team,
When my Account was hacked, my Account3 account was BANNED/LOCKED or SUSPENDED.
Can you please UNBAN, UNLOCK or UNSUSPEND that account?
Please do not recent the password. The account was hacked Months ago and it has already been reset.
Please do not restore any characters. They are fine and have been restored already.
Thanks in Advance,
Shane Chandler

Finally Done?
We yes, even if they did reset my password AGAIN.....

Razorbax
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Time for a Change

Much like Andrew before me, I have decided to diversify my Blogging topics. Though I no longer have the time to play Warcraft, I find I still really enjoy blogging.

New Blog?
Nope, for some strange reason, no doubt due to years of playing Warcraft and Druids, I still have an affinity for www.ThreeDruidNoob.com and Razorbax so I have decided to stick with them.

New Layout
I have decided to go for a new template, again. Mainly to help signal a change but also because the old template was getting slow to load. If you are reading from RSS, why not pop in and have a look? There are a few empty spots here and there that I will gradually fill in. Just Bear with me until then....(I could not resist)

Subjects?
Well I do still read a lot about Warcraft, so there will be some content now and then. I will basically write what ever springs to mind and that I want to share or think others may find interesting. You might hear about my Post Grad University Studies, Work stuff, Home life or anything really. I will not however be one of those bloggers who shares everything and anything, like the reality TV of Blogs. That's just not me.

That will do for now.

Cheers,
Razorbax
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The Right Way

I don't like to be the complainer that is completely negative. I always try to acknowledge the issue and if I can suggest a solution.

Constructive Complaining
If someone says "I do not like your Blog", you cannot do anything about it. There is no feedback for you to validate what that person is telling you. If however thy tell you "Your Java Preview Panel loads really slowly", you can easily validate it and decide if you want to change.

A couple of years ago, I saw a link back where a blogger from UAE (I think) could not see my blog correctly because the government had blocked the member files for my ISP, so non of my java, images or CSS was loading. I decided to move to Google Sites to store these files and I easily remedied the problem.

Put your Money where your mouth is...
Well since I just posted a couple of critical posts about blizzard support, I thought I should at least look at the issues they face and how things might work better.

The Problem
You can't have a Solution without a Problem. Defining the problem is an issue many business' face. In my instance I think the problem is "My Account was hacked.".

The Scope
What is the effect of having my account hacked?
1. Loss of Control
2. Banned Account(s)
3. Deleted Character(s)
4. Deleted/Lost Items/Gold
5. Guild Bank Items/Gold Stolen
6. Payment Information

The Solution?
Lets look at having a single process that covers all the possibilities. Having one process simplifies the work that needs to be done and will improve the end result.

Workflows.
Lets have a go at a Workflow for the Account Admin team to improve the customer service after an Account has been hacked.

1. Email the Customer with information relating to security and privacy. Reset the customers password. This is already done well by Blizzard.
2. Explain the restoration process they are about to go through.
3. Check the account(s) to see if they have been banned. If they have, send to specialist to investigate.
4. Check if Characters in those account(s) have deleted characters. Restore them.
5. Check if the characters have lost Money/Items. If they have, send to Character Restoration Specialist with a List of Characters to have items  Restored for each account. Also include Guild items that were stolen.
6. Check for modified Account Information. If this info has been changed, Send to billing to fix payment/customer information.
7. When all these actions are completed, an email should advise the customer everything has been done and allow them to verify before closing the case.

Assumptions
I have made a few of those based on my interactions with Blizzard. I think in some cases this may take more time but in the long run there would be time savings for resolving issues on the first try.

Shortcuts
There are points in the workflow where you could produce a quick fix, I believe blizzard has something like this, and have the option of doing a full restore if the customer wants.

Cost Savings?
Sometimes you may not see cost saving right off the bat, but I would guarantee the resulting improvements of Customer Satisfaction would be worth their weight in Gold.

Razorbax
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LOL?

Me to Account Admin
Hello Account Admin Team,
Please read this carefully as this request has been asked half a dozen times now.
When my account was hacked, one of my accounts, Account 3, was Banned/Locked for unsavoury activities. Can you please unlock this account.
Please do not reset the password. It has been done half a dozen times.
Please do not Character Restore, this has been done Twice.
I hope you can help.
Razorbax

Account Admin to Me
After a thorough review of World of Warcraft account “Account 1” , we have determined that the registered user does not appear to have been in control of the account at the time of the charge that was contested by the financial institution; as a result we will waive the chargeback(s) that you were previously notified of.

At least I get Account 1 back... Now if I request to have a character Restored on Account 1, will they unlock Account 3?

Razorbax
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The Cost of Customer Service

As you know, my Warcraft Battle.net account was hacked a month or so ago. Since then Blizzard has wasted a bit of money with me. Why wasted you ask? Lets see.....

First Contact
I described my problem as follows.
My account was hacked.
Account 1 - 2 Toons - CC details from Hacker.
Account 2 - 1 Toon
Account 3 - 1 Toon - Banned,

First Result.
All four toons from the accounts have had their items restored.
Account 3 still banned.

Next?
Well I didn't bother to follow up after that, since I am not playing for now, and it was an account with a lvl 65 pally on it, I was not too bothered.

Email from Blizzard
I receive an Email from Blizzard telling me that the Credit Card Payment had been disputed, as suck my Account 1 would be locked with a Negative Balance. I cannot use that account until "... be repaid via a United States money order for the full and EXACT amount of the disputed funds: 14.99"

Second Contact.
I now describe my problem as follows.
1. Please reverse this decision since it was a hacker and not me. (Account 1)
2. Please Unlock Account 3.

Second Result.
1. Not our department. Email Billing.
2. (nothing)

Yep, they ignored my second request.

Third Contact Part 1.
I emailed Billing letting them know what the problem was. Also pointing out the difficulty in paining with a US money Order from Australia.

Third Contact Part 2.
I replied to WowGM to say you ignored the second part of my email, can you please unlock account 3.

Third Result Part 1.
"Sorry, since you played the account you are stuck with the charge". When I reply with the US money order difficulty, he Closes the Case.

Third Result Part 2.
"We are unable to Verify the reported loss of assets but we have restored 195 Gold to the character on Account 3.". I am not sure who reported this loss but it has nothing to do with my Locked Account.

Fourth Contact......
Yep, I responded "Thanks for the prompt response but the account is still locked...."

Fourth Result?
"Please Contact Account Administration". Following this response I received 3 Satisfaction Surveys..... THREE... Three people still can not get it right.

So where are we at now?
Since I put in my original Request to Unlock Account 3, I find myself with Account 3 remaining locked. I have received 25+ emails, including a lot of customer satisfaction surveys, and Blizzard still has not even rectified this simple problem.

Conclusion?
Sure, Blizzard has not wasted that much time with me, but if you think about it in terms of the millions of users, Blizzard are just throwing money away. Given that it is well known that customer make more money from return customers, things do not bode well for Wow.

Razorbax
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When the Hacker Pays

It's been a year since I last played Warcraft. Imagine my surprise when I received an email from the Blizzard account management team that my one of my accounts had been banned for Abuse of Economy. I have a Battle.Net account with 4 linked accounts.

Scam?
At first I thought it was an email scam, so I typed in the Accounts Managment URL to log in and change the password. And guess what? The timing was perfect.

Disclaimer.
I want to say in advance, that I know the benefits I am about to share are most definitely Ill Gotten Gains. But I feel better that people who get hacked get their goods returned by Blizzard, at least I hope they do. But there is also no way of knowing where to return the ill gotten gains.

The Timing?
It turns out that at the time I changed the password, I locked out that hacker after upgrading two of my accounts to WotLK and setting up a monthly subscription with his Credit Card. I guess he wanted to play my toons as his own and actually take over the account.

So Free WoW, is that it?
Not Quite. He also has around 25K in Gold and Herbs just sitting there for me. How Kind. Not only is he going to pay to keep my account going, he has also given me lots of Gold;).

So am I Back?
No, not really. My Nephew likes to play so I will play with him when he visits, other than that I might end up with an hour or two free each week. We will see.

I have to say though, I am really glad this didn't happen when I was still active. Two of my toons were stripped down and after three weeks have not been fixed yet and my 4th account is still banned.

On the brighter side of things though, If the hacker is reading this. Thanks;)

Razorbax
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Nap Time?

One Month ago I Resurected my Feral Druid with a Thirty Day Game Card and hit North Rend. Today that Thirty Days ran out. Thirty Days is a long time. A lot can happen in thirty days. Beld told me he leveled his Warrior from 70 to 80 in 2 days. How did I do in 30 Days you ask?

Week One.

When I decided to start playing again, I knew I would be limited to a few hours a week. In the first week I actually managed to play a few times. It was OK. It wasn't great, just OK. I managed to get to about 90% through Level 70. Not to bad. I was happy with that.

Week Two?

Week Two, where do I start.... Well I didn't. I had a few things get in my way. Uni started back and what spare time I did have I spent with my Family.

Week Three?

I'm starting too see a pattern here. Again I don't manage to set aside any time for wow.

Week Four?

ZZZzzzzzz. Four weeks of wow. I didn't even manage level 71.

What Now?

I still like the idea of playing Wow. I still like reading all of my Wow Blogs that I subscibe to. It's just that given the choice, I would prefer to spend time with my family. For now, my beloved blog is going to have a Nap. I hope I will be back to it and to wow but time will tell.

Until then, Keep up your Adventures and I will contiinue to read about them.

All the Best,

Razorbax.
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Memories

I have talked about it before, but one of my top memories from back in Vanilla was when I Tanked Ony as a Feral Druid. This was just shortly after 1.8 when Feral's finally became useful. I still have the fraps of it at home.

Then.

Back then, Onyxia was a great encounter on so many levels. There was a full bodied quest line required to get Keyed and the encounter itself was fun and you didn't need to spend 4 hours at it.

Now.

At the end of BC, there was a Dreamstate Druid who solo'd Onyxia. I also have some friends who quite easily Duo and Solo it just for kicks. It even used to be a great money maker.

Soon?

Wow.com has just scooped the information about the Return of Onyxia in patch 3.2.2. Personally I can't wait to see what they do with this.

GJ Bliz!

Razorbax
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Another Day, another Template

Yep, That's right. Even though I have only had the new template for a few months, I decided to change it again. It is nearly where I want it to be. I just have to learn a bit more about hacking Blogger Template.

Enjoy


Razorbax

PS. I would love to hear what you think. 

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Dream Group

I have often thought about how I would play if all I did was Multi-Box. If by some strange twist of fate, I became a full time Warcraft Player. Personally, I would like to try and get the most out of the game that I could. I think you would have to in order to stay interested and not Burn Out.

 

PVE and/or PVP?

My main focus would be PVE. I have never really gotten into PVP. Truth be told, I am pretty crappy in PVP as well. I get all anxious and I am a sore loser. I don't mean that I say anything mean to anyone the beats me, I just get really annoyed and pissed off. So it’s easier to just stay away;).

 

Dual-Boxing to 5-Boxing?

If I am going to Play PVE, then the best way to do that is to 5-Box. Now I don't mean to play solo all the time, but it is easy to just drop a toon and replace it with a rl character. I could end up doing instances with just a single toon or all 5 with anything in between.

 

Classes?

Well to start with, I would have at least one of class. In fact I would have between Three and Five of Every Class. My goal would be to table every possible PVE combination in a 5-Man group.

 

Tanks?

To start with, I would have one of each Tank Class, Druid, Warrior, Paladin and Death Knight. And just to mix it up a little, I would also add a Hunter and a Warlock, since they have Tanking Pets.

 

DPS's?

I can keep this nice and simple. Three of every single class.

 

Healers?

Now I am going to complicate things just a little here. I will start of with one of each Healer, Druid, Priest, Shaman and Paladin. I will add to this a Discipline Priest and a Shadow Priest. I think the Discipline Spec is a viable PVE healer. The real stretch is the shadow Priest. I would love to see if four Shadow Priests could heal a Paladin Tank.

 

Results?

Forty Two characters spread across 5 accounts. I think if you were to actually do this, you would use RAF to get the most out of your levelling and plan who to Grant Levels with. Thankfully its almost free to get those DK's to level 60 so that simplifies things a little bit. I would say you would end up spending some cash on some transfers as well. The main thing however, you can now field any possible PVE group and at the very least, farm heroic's with four viable and full groups and dailies with six 5-mans and four 3-Mans.

What would you do?

Razorbax
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Achievements for Blogger

For the last few days I have been working on an achievements Widget for Blogger. Wordpress has a plug-in but there is just nothing for Blogger. There is even interest over at Blog Azeroth. I am not going to let it stop me. If I can't find something premade, I will try and do it myself.

Work in Progress.

I started by looking at the importing my characters achievement URL from Armory into Excel.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-achievements.xml?r=Nagrand&cn=Razorbaxftw

I found the information I was after, which was the id and title of the achievement tree. This is what the XML Looks like.

achievement categoryId="169" dateCompleted="2009-07-14T09:01:00+10:00" desc="Become a Grand Master in first aid." icon="spell_holy_sealofsacrifice" id="135" points="10" title="Grand Master in First Aid"

Learning Java and XML.

I now had to learn how to pull data out of an XML sheet and display it in HTML. Java looks like the way to go. I experimented a lot with the code and finally came up with the information I was after. After three days of work on this, I have however, hit a stumbling block. I can get the code to work in a webpage by itself, but it won’t work as a HTML/Java Gadget.

Want to Help?

I made a post over at the Dual Boxing forum, since there are a lot of programmers that participate, so if you want to help out or offer any advise, check the post out here and either reply or leave a comment here.

Razorbax
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Digg n Buffd in Blogger

I have recently added both Digg and Buffd into my Blogger Template. It took a bit of playing around but I finally got it to appear how I wanted it to. The main issue I had was I wanted to show the Digg and Buffd counts on both my main page, which contains the summary posts, and also on the individual post pages. This is what I ended up with.

The Code.

Firstly, I apologise for not entering the Text of this code, I could not for the life of me work out how to convert it to HTML without blogger killing it. Anyway, let’s go through the segments of the code. The Blue part is for framing it where I want it. The Red part is for Digg. The Green part is for Buffd.

1.0 This places the icons on the right side of the page.
2.0 This is the variables for the Digg java script.
2.1 The URL that will be used. Using data:post.url ensures you are using the URL of the specific posts.
2.2 This is for the compact view. Delete it if you want the Bigger Icon.
3.0 Here is the Script for Buffd.
3.1 Here is the URL that will work with Buffd.

There we have it.

I chose to place it before the line that said the following.

div class='post-footer'

As long as you back up your original template first, it’s easy enough to play around with the formatting.

Razorbax
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Games within Games

There are quite a few games you can run in Warcraft as Mod's. The ones I have seen are usually limited to either solo play or One vs. One. Where are the group games? Well, after reading a post from a little Gnome, I had a great Idea.... AFL, the Mod!

How would it work?

This could get a little complex, but here we go. We will use a Raid Group to get the configuration right. Firstly, you would need a playing field. This would need to either be based on a Set Location, using co-ordinates to workout everyone’s positions, or you would need ten volunteers to actually stand around the field to define it. Alternatively you could simply use six people and not worry about boundaries. Let’s go with the six people to make things easier. Place three people each into groups three and four. One person represents the Goal and the Other two people represent the Points. So the Points stand on either side of their Goal. We then have a 7th player, the Umpire (aka Raid Leader) sitting in group five.

The Teams.

The teams would consist of five players each, divided into Group One and Group Two in the Raid. We will use a simplified version of the Positions. The Three Positions will be Centre, Forward (two players) and Back (two players). The Centre's will be the Team Captains, and they would need Raid Assist. They will define which player holds which position using the Mod to do so. This is how it would look.

Roles?

The Centre's and Forward's are going for the Goal, while the Back's are Defending the Goal. The two goals should be a good distance away from each other to make for better games. The Mod would come with its own "Vehicle Bar" with various abilities based on if you have the ball and your position. This would be things like, Handball, Kick to Player, Kick for Goal, Mark and Tackle. You could also add something like Punch, with the Ref having a % chance of catching you and giving the other team a free kick.

The Mod

The Mod would work out what happens when you do a particular action. For example if you kick the ball to another player, who is being defended, there would be a % chance of the ball going to the other player. Go for a Goal and you have a % chance to score a goal based on the Distance and if there are defenders in the way. There would also be a % chance for it to miss the Goal and score a point or even for the defender to "touch it" and it goes through for a point. To start the game, the Umpire would "Bounce" the ball and it would go to a random team based on the timing that they use the "Mark" ability.

The Ball?

You could even use a actual football. The Mod would control who gets the ball thrown to them. Now I am sure to any non-Australians reading this, you are either very confused or asleep, but I am sure this Mod could be developed to suit Hockey, Soccer (aka football) or Rugby.

Class abilities?

To make things interesting you could use certain class abilities, Dash, Sprint, Intercept, Bubble etc to make things even more interesting and add the element of Team Composition to the whole equation.

Thoughts?

Even though I am not into AFL all that much, I think this would make a pretty cool Mod. So if you know any Developers out there, why not give them a nudge;)

Razorbax
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Action Bars Part Three

In Part One and Part Two, I spoke about using Macro's to add a Shift or CTRL Modifier onto the action bars to fit more functionality into the your Action Bars. Now I am going to look at Custom Paging and how we can use Bartender4's Custom State Headers.

What is a Custom State Header?

I'm glad you asked...

The Custom State Header in Bartender4 allows you to control the paging and the visibility of bars by using any macro conditions supported by WoW.

Basically what it allows you to do is control the paging and visibility of your Action Bars with simple conditions. It's just like writing a /cast macro but instead of using the Spell name, you use the Action Bar number.

The Code?

At first glance, this can look pretty complex, but here it is.

[Nostance]1;[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;[Stance:1]4;[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;[Stance:3]6;[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

Let's start by breaking down each condition and explain what it's doing.

[Nostance]1;
This line isn’t really required but basically if you have no Stance, Caster Form, it will page to Bar 1.

[Nostance,Mod:Shift]2;
If you are in Caster Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 2.

[Nostance,Mod:CTRL]3;
If you are in Caster Form with the CTRL key down, page to Bar 3.

[Stance:1]4;
If you are in Bear Form, page to Bar 4.

[Stance:1,Mod:Shift]5;
If you are in Bear Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 5.

[Stance:3]6;
If you are in Cat Form, page to Bar 6.

[Stance:3,Mod:Shift]7;
If you are in Cat Form with the Shift key down, page to Bar 7.

[Stance:3,Stealth]8;
If you are in Cat Form and Prowling, page to Bar 8.

0
If no other condition has been met, do not page the Action Bar.

Please Sir, I want some more!

There are a lot of options available when it comes to Custom State Headers. You can have your action bar change based on your Target being Hostile or Friendly, In a Party or Raid, In Combat, and even based on your current Spec(Dual Specs). Here is some more information on Custom State Headers, Macro Conditions and Stances.

Conclusion?

There are a few factors that will assist in choosing if you should use Conditional Macro's or Custom State Headers. Custom State Headers require more Action Bars. As you can see from my example, I am using the first eight Action Bars, only leaving me with 2 more bars for the rest of my UI. If I also wanted to introduce Action Bars based on my Dual Spec, I would use every Action Bar on just 10 buttons. The issue with Conditional Macro's is the can be somewhat limited. For example it can be difficult to get Autoattack and a Spell cast in the same macro when using Modifiers. You also need to initially write the Macro and then change it whenever you make a change.

I will leave the decision to you.

EDIT: Looks like a few things didn't work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences.

[Stance:0,nomodifier]1;[Stance:0,Modifier:Shift]2;[Stance:0,Modifier:CTRL]3;[Stance:1,nomodifier]4;[Stance:1,Modifier:Shift]5;[Stance:3,nomodifier]6;[Stance:3,Modifier:Shift]7;[Stance:3,stealth]8;0

1. Mod didn't work, use Modifier.
2. Nostance didn’t work, used stance:0
3. The conditions are read from left to right and stop when a condition is met, therefore had to use "nomodifier".
4. If "Nomodifier" doesn't work, I will reverse the order and put the Shift/CTRL arguments first.
5. Fingers Crossed.

EDIT2: Looks like a few things still do not work. Here is the new code and I will explain the differences. Hopefully it will all work now.

[Bonusbar:3,Nomodifier]4;[Bonusbar:3,Modifier:Shift]5;[Bonusbar:1,Nomodifier]6;[Bonusbar:1,Modifier:Shift]7;[Bonusbar:1,Stealth]8;[Nomodifier]1;[Modifier:Shift]2;[Modifier:CTRL]3;1

1. Stance:1 (Bear) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:3.
2. Stance:3 (Cat) did not work, replace with Bonusbar:1.
3. Stance:0 (Caster) did not work, moved to the end with no stance argument, just Nomodifier or Modifier.

Razorbax
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Game Commander Pro

Game Commander Pro is a new application on the Multi-Boxing scene. It has some great features like GUI Macro Creation. Check it out.
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My New Pet

As I mentioned in my minipost, I decided to pick up a Ghost Saber for Razorbang. Over the weekend I started the grind to get it. It turns out it was not quite as easy as I thought and I learnt a few things on the way.

Level 19.

I started the search when I was still level 19. I had read that the Ghost Sabers are either level 19 or 20, so I thought I would go for the odds. As it turned out, by the time I found my Saber, I was already level 20. That's a good thing as the Saber I found was level 20.

No Pet?

Since you cannot tame a new pet when you already have a pet, the first thing I did was dismiss my existing pet. This turned out to be a big issue. I am quite the Hunter Noob and killing the Naga's in the area became very time consuming.

Dismissing Pets.

I decided that I could have a pet on Passive and just dismiss it when the Saber spawned. I figured this would be a good solution. It turned out OK in the end.

The Grind.

My guess is I circled the camp around 50 times and looted about 10 or 15 figurines until the Saber finally spawned. When it did spawn, I was a little too slow in dismissing my pet and I was already down to 70% health by the time I started taming. As a result I died with about half a second to go.

Corpse Run.

I had no idea if the Saber would despawn or when, though I had read they did despawn at some time. I ran as fast as a corpse can, back to my body. As I resurrected, I saw the Saber fade from view. Thinking I had missed my chance, but not ready to give up, I quickly Ate and Drank up.

Tame Beast.

As I walked down the hill to where my corpse say, I really thought I had missed out. It appears my little Ghost Saber can stealth. This time I was ready for it and I got my little kitty.

Next Time?

Train level 20 skills and get Freezing Trap.

Razorbax
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The Early Bird...

I had planned to Upgrade my Feral Druids account and apply a game card on the 15th when I get paid. As part of that plan, I wanted to see what characters I had and which servers they were on. I also wanted to look at the Scroll of Resurrection to see if I could pass on some free time to a friend. While checking this out, I logged into account management and found something rather interesting....

WotLK Free Trial.

It seems that there is a free 10 day trial available. The best part of this was I was able to activate all four accounts, sell of junk and gather my gold. I managed to scrape up around 500g. I was also able to empty out my mail boxes, which is required if I plan to transfer additional toons later on.

UI Setup.

The other bonus was being able to setup my UI in advance. When I had planned to start playing, Beld was going to join me. I could imagine that we would waste the majority of our first night just setting up my UI. Now all I have to do is Transfer my toon and copy a folder or two.

Medivh!

I plan to play on Medivh when I return. Though I have some good RL Friends on Nagrand, they raid and I really don’t see myself getting any real enjoyment with their toons carrying me through everything. I still have a few characters sitting on Medivh, so once I had finished setting up FTW, I logged onto Medivh. I still have a 20 Warrior, 16 Hunter and 40 Rogue. I have always wanted to get the hunter up so I decided I would use my Hunter as my Alt when Beld can't play. I managed to get three levels thanks to some guildies doing VC and Stockades Runs for their alts.

Not what I Thought.

While I was reading up on Paid Character Transfers I stumbled across this little gem.

Customers with expansion accounts cannot transfer characters to a non-expansion account. The reverse is accepted.

Now I always thought that if I was to transfer a toon from one of my other accounts, I would not only need to activate it, I would need the Xpack as well. Not the case. Though I am not sure if I need to activate the other account, it seems like I don't, at least I don't have to pay for a wasted Xpack.

Thoughts?

I am not completely happy with the Action Bar setup that I planned out. I think it may take some getting used to. As with most things I do, this blog included, I guess its just a Work in Progress.....

Razorbax
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