More Christmas Presents

Just a quick update for this week... it has been a busy one - inside and outside of WoW. Being on holidays I have actually had more time to play and it has been a bit of an achievement fest! Firstly - as Syrana pointed out in our Christmas treat - the Winter's Viel achievements have been a blast - and easy to complete in the small time frames. The two worries I had being Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la and With a Little Helper From My Friends... For Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la I spent most of the time following round a horde druid or death knight who did all the killing part and then I just looted... not that it was any problem doing the killing (I did do one). Although a pro tip I noticed on wowhead afterwards... you don't need to do the lead in quests any more - you can just start in Ogri'la and do The Crystals quest.

With a Little Helper from My Friends - this wasn't too bad in the end mainly because of one killer Alterac Valley battleground where I racked up 36 honor kills before succumbing to the onslaught... and picked up Damage Control in the process - Beacon of Light I love you!

Apart from that I finally ran Pit of Saron with some guild mates... and it was an interesting experience. Certainly a good challenge after the ezimode healing that most of the regular instances have become. It took us longer than I expected - with a disconnect and me wiping the group once (followed by another wipe)... but some interesting mechanics (like the run up to Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Lastly I've been doing some tanking again (and incidentally used the random dungeon finder by myself for the first time... ending up in Oculus, which only took about 45 minutes) - switching Keluin over to Holy/Prot and it is good fun - even tho I still feel like I have no idea about pally tanking (what do you do with a caster pounding on you from a distance?). This came about because as part of the Blog Azeroth Kris Kringle I wrote for Righteous Defense about how I think Protection Paladins are probably the best class for playing WoW in an Hour. Have a read of the post over there - WoW in an Hour: Protection Paladin

Kris Kringle/Secret Santa post from Syrana

Happy Merry Winter Veilmaskah, all you WoW in an Hour readers! This is Syrana, an evil warlock with a heart of gold (just don't tell anyone, k?), from Sideshow & Syrana. I'm here to bring you a fun, holidayish post as part of the Blog Azeroth Kris Kringle shared topic. I'd say I'm Gameldar's Secret Santa, but as you can see... my present is arriving a tad late (and a little dinged up, I might add).

So, let's see, what are some fun holiday activities you can do with limited playtime?

There's certainly the Winter Veil quests and activities. Blizzard seems to understand the importance of having this in game holiday last for half a month so that we can enjoy the holidays in game and out without too much trouble.

I dare say, though, little Metzen is horrible with directions. How exactly does he end up in the desert every year?!

Back to my point, the Winter Veil quests are quick and easy to do. Hey, you even get presents if you don't do any of them! What's not to love?

The achievements to earn the Merrymaker title are also quite doable in small allotments of time. Even if you don't get them all done this year, you can easily finish them off next year. Honestly, I think Merrymaker is one of the easier and quicker titles to get. It's very time friendly. I earned it last year (Merrymaker Syrana... a warlock... /giggle) much quicker than I thought I would!

If you want to try and finish it up before it ends this year (or heck, even for future reference on any characters) you'll want to check out this great guide put together by Brajana of Mend Pet!

Now, if you are like me, even if you have only an hour or so to play for the night sometimes ya just want to kinda hang out in game. I'm notorious for logging in just to chat or play the meta-bag game.

Here are some fun ideas to pass some time and spread holiday cheer (no wand needed!):

1 - Dress up in those winter clothes. As long as you aren't in a snowy part of Azeroth, you won't catch cold. Stock up on some mistletoe and snowflakes. Hang out at the inn and /kiss passers-by and sprinkle them with mistletoe or snowflakes. You'll be surprised at how cheery that makes those around you!

2 - Wrap up random grey items in wrapping paper and mail them to your friends and guildmates. Who wouldn't want a very pretty rock, a rusty shank, or a bottle of rum? They'll laugh. They'll cry. Just be cautious of any return packages.

3 - Have the Winter Veil Disguise kit that turns you into a snowman? Put it on when in a hot climate zone and yell "I'm melting!" Someone will come to your rescue.

4 - Play reindeer games. I'm not entirely sure what those consist of, but use some holly to change your mount into one and... play!

Thanks for reading! Sideshow and I (Syrana! You forgot already?) wish you all happy holidays! Also, be sure to check out the Twisted Nether post that is keeping track of all the lovely Secret Santa guest post gifts!

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone! Wishing you all the best for the silly season from a Paladin with a silly hat... (yes I managed to do some work towards the Winter's Viel achievements - soloing normal Nexus).

WoW in an Hour: Holiday Achievements

Just a quick aside to start with - as mentioned last week - I was looking to do the raid weekly again this week. The astute might be able to tell that my early Christmas present above is the candles that Ignis drops - Pauldrons of Tempered Will. However it did take me longer than an hour all up. It was an evening for birthday celebrations in Singapore (where a vast majority of the guild I'm in reside) - so a fair number of my guild members weren't available. So it took about 40 minutes to form a group mixed in with pugs and then about 40 minutes to down FL and Ignis (we had to clear the towers because the event was started with the Lore Keeper instead of Brann). And now onto the topic of the day: Holiday Achievements

Holiday Achievements or the World Events heading in your achievement tabs are that interesting beast that potentially give some nice (if purely from a flavor perspective) rewards. I'll start out by say that I'm am a jaded lover of these events... and it all begins with Hallow's End.

Mellow-dramatic voice on

Back in the times of yore - otherwise known as October 2008 - I had recently finished leveling Coaz and Gameldar to level 70. Along comes the Headless Horseman and I joined the masses clamoring to take his head and any loot that might be with him. I ran and ran and ran the daily quest to kill him as much as possible, and in between ran all the other quests and tasks to compete the achievements including annoying my wife by logging in every hour I could to trick or treat. And what happened? I was one random drop and one successful roll away from becoming Coaz the Hallowed. To come so close and not get it was frustration in the extreme. In all the times I ran the daily killing of the headless horseman (across two characters) I only saw the Hallowed Helm drop once and I lost the roll (knowing my luck pretty dismally too). And it is a bitter pill I still taste today.

Mellow-dramatic voice off

Holiday Achievements in an Hour

Completing the holiday achievements if you only have an hour can be rather hit and miss - there are a number of factors. If you have an hour a day there is a good possibility you could achieve them (with a bit of luck). If you only have a couple of hours a week (like me) then it's likely you'll have to wait till next year (or the year after) to complete it (Coaz is still waiting for the helm... I was still baby wrangling this October - not to mention he isn't quite 80 yet).


I'll break it down to what I consider the pros and cons of the holiday achievements:

Pros

• They can be fun!
• They get you to branch out and do things you don't always do (it usually gets me back into some PVP)
• The achievements (such as The Tricks and Treats of Azeroth and The Fires of Azeroth) are a great way of getting some easy XP and gold for those characters that aren't riding the level cap.
• The holiday bosses add a bit of variety and spice to your normal kills, and have some interesting mechanics too.
• It can be a good excuse to do something you've been meaning to for a while - for example power leveling Keluin's cooking (see the screenshot above). Although it also can mean inflated prices for the materials.
• The loot dropped from the holiday bosses is usually pretty good gear if you have time constraints that stop you grinding out the equivalent from raiding/dungeons/emblems.
• The titles, pets and mounts that are awarded are cool.
• You are getting into the community spirit.
• Who doesn't like throwing snowballs at Blood Elves!

Cons

• Random loot is random loot (and then you have to win a roll)
• An hour cooldown is a long time if you can only play for an hour and need a lot of random items. (Note: you can trade the items from kissing under the mistletoe - but you can't mail items with a duration!)
• To do all the sub achievements for a meta achievement is a time consuming process - if your time is limited it may be better to spend it doing something else.
• The holidays always seem to end just before you've done that last thing.
• Random loot is random loot
• Random loot is random loot

The pros probably out-weight he cons here - so I'd say go ahead and get involved - but be sure to do so with the proper expectations in mind!

In general I have avoided doing the holiday achievements (because of my jaded history...) but this year I'm getting into the spirit of Winter Viel and doing as much as I can. I'm not expecting to finish it (Fa-la-la-la-Ogri'la I'm looking at you! I'm not sure I have the time to do all the lead-up quests), but I'll give it a hearty go and if I get some extra time (since I'm on holidays) who knows maybe Keluin will be a little Merrymaker!

P.S. As I'm going to be on holidays I probably won't post next week - but we'll see what presents Great-father Winter brings!

My Warcraft Year in Review Meme

This is a shared topic from Blog Azeroth started by Bible of Dreams. I've not tagged anyone... since I'm new to this WoW blog thing and not sure if anyone follows... but here goes:

1) What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you'd never done before?

End-game. I did reach the end-game is both Vanilla and the Burning Crusades - but both times I didn't take much part in it (who wanted to party with an under-geared (and clueless) hunter in Vanilla?). To list something completely unique it would be main tanking raids (Naxx and some XT/Razorscale in Ulduar).

2) What was your favorite new place that you visited?

I really enjoyed the parts of Ulduar I did see and Storm Peaks as a whole. The epic scale of the place really set the tone for the raid.

3) What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

More time to play? Actually I had some time to play in 2009, but not recently. Perhaps a better want is the ability to be satisfied with the amount of time I can play.
In game however it would definitely be epic flight at least for Keluin... must concentrate on saving up those coppers.

4) What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Having a second child (although the props go to my wife there - my achievement was not fainting during the whole process)... and still being able to play WoW. Also being focused enough on one character to gear up a warrior tank and tank raids...

5) What was your biggest failure?

Not downing Malygos with the guild... actually that wasn't really a failure - we did really well working as a guild... just couldn't bring it together in the last days before my daughter was born.
Apart from that - probably my self-discipline on my WoW playing time before my daughter was born. There were some late nights in there that really shouldn't have happened.

6) What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Doing somewhat regular raiding... and also returning to playing after a break - which I wasn't sure what/how that was going to happen.

7) What do you wish you'd done less of?

Searching for a good guild to do some raid with that fit my time schedule (or lack there of)... chancing upon them while doing my Argent Tournament dailies was such a lucky draw!

8) What was your favorite WoW blog or podcast?

Hmmm a tough one. I culled my reader when I stopped playing to give myself a good break... and I can't remember all I was reading before then. Yakra's Mirror Shield (and his warrior guide that started on wowhead) probably was one of my favourites. I was sad to see him stop.

9) Tell us a valuable WoW lesson you learned in 2009.

That you can play, have fun, make some progress and not let WoW dominate your life even if you only get to play for a few hours per week... however it is still a lesson in progress to be content with that amount of time!

WoW in an Hour: Raiding

My play time this week has been slightly more haphazard and disjointed than normal (can you establish 'normal' in 3 weeks?). We had a busy weekend involving slogging round the shops doing Christmas shopping and surviving searing heat (which subsequently killed the air conditioning) resulting in some unsettled kids and then add to that some other distractions as I posted recently. But I had a couple of goals for the weekend:

a) Complete the Pit of Saron
b) Do the raid weekly - this week's Noth the Plaguebringer Must Die!

Pit of Saron didn't happen - but I did try. I used the Dungeon Finder to get into the instance and got allocated a group that was already 1 boss in. I decided I might as well and was disappointed to see I couldn't continue the quest line to open up the Halls of Reflection because I needed to talk to Jaina before we began. The group was great - the tank was running at over 2k dps, and the dps were hovering around the 4k mark... healing was a breeze. But then we found there weren't any bosses - the instance was bugged. The tank immediately left and it all fell apart. As I had specifically set that dungeon it meant I was saved to the instance. ARRGH.

However - I did manage to do the raid weekly. I logged in and coincidentally another guild member was also looking to do it. We quickly filled a pug and went in and wiped the floor with Noth and all his skeletons. We had three healers and 1 tank... so rather than healing I spent most of my time throwing down consecrate and holy wraths with the occasional holy shock and FoL to fill in the spare time. In retrospect I probably could/should have switched over to my ret spec and done some attempted proper dps. But the whole process was over and done in about 20 minutes!

My raiding didn't end there - on Sunday night I logged in to see most of the guild doing the raid weekly. I was to late to do it with Gameldar - but since there was enough people online I convinced them to take a noob to conquer Onyxia. I killed Onyxia in the 40 man version back in the day on Coaz (ahh the memories of completing the attunement quest chain - corpse running through Wintersprings!) but I spent most of the time either completely lagged out, disconnected, or dead - so I have only hazy recollections of the encounter (I remembered Onyxia as being much bigger in those days... but then again she probably is to a dwarf!) We pugged a couple of DPS and called on a sibling to help tank then headed into her lair through Dustwallow Marsh. It all went off without a hitch and I got myself a nice 22 slot bag as a reward for keeping the offtank alive! Again the whole process came in well under an hour - probably taking 30 minutes in total.

The experiences of the weekend have confirmed to me that only having an hour to play doesn't mean you can't raid. Certainly you can't be at the forefront of raiding, but if you set small goals and/or focus on the smaller raids (I would imagine all four bosses from VoA could be cleared - well when the fourth boss is available in under an hour). Keep in mind - you do really need to be with a group of people that are willing to work with your schedule. If you did join a raid that was expected to last at least a couple of hours then it's not fair on the others to abandon them after an hour. I guess the other factor was that we had no wipes - if we had wiped more than once on Onyxia then completing it wouldn't have been achievable within the time.

The Raid Weekly

I think I love the new raid weekly. Why? There are two reasons:
1. As a limited time player it means that groups will be willing to just run the raids to do the weekly - achievable within an hour.
2. Given that it'll take less or about the same time as a heroic dungeon the rewards are fantastic - 5 Emblems of Frost and 5 Emblems of Triumph plus any emblems you get for killing the boss and any lead-up bosses.

The one downside is that given my current gear there'll be weeks I can't partake in the expedition - I'm not geared enough (except to be carried through) Trial of the Crusader or Icecrown Citadel (as the Raid Browser confirms).

The following are the bosses that need to be killed from week to week (wowhead search):
Icecrown Citadel
Lord Marrowgar

Naxxrarmus
Anub'Rekhan
Instructor Razuvious
Noth the Plaguebringer
Patchwerk

The Eye of Eternity
Malygos

Trial of the Crusader
Lord Jaraxxus

Ulduar
Flame Leviathan
Ignis the Furnace Master
Razorscale
XT-002 Deconstructor

The Naxx ones are straightforward. They are the first boss in each wing and so there is only minimal clearing to do... with perhaps Instructor Razuvious proving the most difficult because the 'tanks' need to know what they are doing.

Lord Jaraxxus and the Ulduar ones (bar Flame Leviathan) both require killing the previous boss - which adds a bit of time, but should still be done within the hour. Ignis and Razorscale are optional bosses - so from that perspective if your guild is clearing Ulduar then they could leave those for when the time constrained individuals are online! This week is Ignis for me - so I've asked my guild to schedule the raid weekly at a time I can get on. So we'll see how it goes. I'm guessing there won't be any other Ulduar raids run this week so I'll have to join to clear Flame Leviathan too.

Hopefully when Malygos comes up it'll also mean that I get to finally complete Champion of the Frozen Wastes on Keluin. We got so close before my daughter was born, and likewise if I do manage to kill Ignis this week I'll get The Siege of Ulduar.

Raiding in an hour as a way of raiding

The best raiding guilds actually spend less time raiding than other guilds. They go in and get their business done and then leave. In theory there is no reason why you couldn't have a guild that only spends an hour raiding in any one session. The progress will be slower, but with the ability to extend the raid lockout it would be possible to complete full raids in time. Yakra (miss your thoughts!) has a post about this: Time Spent Raiding - where he is talking about the difference between hardcore and casual raiders.

LOKI raids three nights a week, for three hours at a time. With less then nine hours a week, we did every boss from Gruul to Illidan, between February and September. What I would say makes us "hardcore" - is that those three hours are the most focused effort possible.

If everyone came to the raid prepared and ready to go - then there isn't any reason significant progress can be made, even in a small amount of time. A lot of the time raiding is spent discussing who is doing what and where and when... and waiting for people to arrive. The beauty of the raid weekly back to Naxx is that because people out gear the place and people are familiar with it, it progresses so much quicker. This is probably one of the bigger frustrations of the guild I'm in - there isn't a structure to it, so raids usually take a bit to get off the ground and a lot of discussion on each boss is required (on the other side of the coin they are also friendly and helpful and have invited me and helped me out even though I am way behind them gear-wise).

... so anyone interested in a WoW in an Hour guild?

WoW in an Hour: Play another game

Play another game?????? Am I really saying that? 

No - I haven't come to the conclusion that you can't get enough out of WoW in an hour that you should give up and play another game. Rather I just want to give a cheer (bloggedly) to the final chapter of Tales of Monkey Island being released last week.

My wife and I have been adventuring with Guybrush Threepwood (Mighty Pirate^TM) for a while now and are back into the thralls of LeChuck for the final and thrilling conclusion!

WoW in an Hour: Dungeoneering

Upon logging into WoW on Sunday while my kids were asleep I got asked by a guild mate if I wanted to heal the daily heroic - Drak'Tharon Keep - I responded in the affirmative with the caveat "as long as it is a quick run" - figuring I had over an hour to run it while my children were being diligent sleepers. He assured me it would be and after pugging an extra DPS we headed into DTK.

It was a quick run - with out any major hiccups except my death when the pugged DPS pulled a second group who saw me as the beacon of light and promptly decided I should be snuffed out. Being a little bit rusty I wasn't quick enough on the Divine Shield and ended up watching the shammy in the group cover the heals for me until the mobs were dead. We also managed to pull off the achievement Better off Dred without having to try - although I did need to cast a few Holy Lights for a change.

Timing wise it was all over in about 40 minutes - perfect timing as I had just clicked on the mage portal back to Dalaran when my son woke up (early and not happy... but such is life). Including the travel time and waiting for the mage to log in it was about 50 minutes. Do-able in an hour - as long as you can form a group immediately.

However, as luck would have it, I had some more time to play that same evening and I logged in to find the tank from the previous run (I've been friends on WoW with him and his wife since we ran Azjol-Nerub as fresh faced level 72s) was waiting for me to reverse roles and tank while he healed with his extended family making up the rest of the numbers. His family were all new to end-game (and coincidentally) all Death Knights.

Comparing the runs

From a death count perspective - no one died and we got it done. It was probably a more interesting run too, since due to their inexperience, ghouls pulling mobs, kamikaze runs into enemy tererotory and some general mayhem were relatively regular (that got me back into the groove of tanking and being situationally aware). However the run took almost two hours to complete (thankfully I had more time this evening - and admittedly about 15 minutes of that time delay was because I had to AFK to take care of family and move rooms etc).

The difference? The players - with a mix of gear and experience making the difference. Recount showed that I was the top dps the whole run as the tank (I think it is the first time I've tanked since the block buffs - I was liking my DPS!) and we also had to stop and explain the fights a bit more.

Can it be done in an hour?

I would say yes - but with a major caveat - it depends on the group and the instance. If you are with poorly geared individuals then it might be worth sticking to the shorter instances, if you are running with your uber-geared raiding guildies then by all means go for it. 

Pugging? It comes back to the luck of the draw. With the release of patch 3.3 and the changing of the default badges dropped by heroics I imagine that there are more of the better geared players running heroics again. Also finding a full group as a pug has traditionally been a slow process - always LF tank or healer. With the new rewards for pugging , and a larger player base through the cross-realm (i.e. battlegroup) LFG tool I would assume that finding a group should occur quicker (it took about 10 minutes for a heroic Forge of Souls group to form last night -  the 'Random Heroic' option I imagine it would be quicker). Also starting the instance will be quicker with the teleporting directly to the instance. Depending on the instance - I think it would be at least polite to say that you'll need to go by X time and give them the option to boot you if they don't think it can be done by then.

Time Estimates

The following is my take on the different dungeons and whether than can be done within the hour:

WotLK Dungeons

In general most of the WotLK dungeons can be completed within the hour. Some like The Violet Hold and Trial of the Champion are designed to be quick instances carrying you through on a timer (after my second DTK run on the weekend I blasted my way through the Trial of the Champion with some guildies in under 15 minutes... I'm not even sure we saw phase 3 on the Black Knight).

The others, like the Culling of Stratholme are clearly designed to be done quickly given achievements like The Culling of Time, and on average with a good group they would come in well under the hour mark.

Those that I would say would be hard pressed to be completed within the hour - The Oculus and Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom. The Oculus has been nerfed with this recent patch - and I've only ever run it twice so others might be better to give an estimate of the actual time it would take if the players knew what they were doing (I certainly didn't the two times I ran it). If the objective of OK is just to complete the requirements of the Random Dungeon daily - then it can be done by skipping the two optional bosses.

BC Dungeons

Timewise - The Burning Crusade instances should all be doable within an hour (I can't comment on Shatter Halls, The Botanica and The Arcatraz as I have never run them). I remember when leveling up my (holy) paladin during the incursion of the Death Knights post WotLK release - we blitzed our way through them in next to no time (for example it took something like 15 minutes for The Slave Pens).

Classic Dungeons

Looking at the older dungeons the design goals were certainly different. The old end-game instances were all rambling affairs that had multiple paths to choose and different ways to take. I remember runs of Blackrock Depths that would  go for 3 hours and I never ever did a Emperor run... Alliance side the first instance you hit - The Deadmines would always take at least an hour and a half. Instances weren't meant to be completed in that short a time.

That said, all the old world instances took a nerf in about patch 2.4 - and I admittedly haven't run many of them since that nerfing (and buffing of the loot) happened. so I'd be interested to know how quickly they can be done. 

So I would recommend giving it a go and seeing how you do. Obviously if you can get a regular group of geared/experienced players to run with then you'll have a better success rate of finishing your dungeons. 5 mans is one part of the game that I really enjoy - and I look forward to taking part in them when I can.

WoW in an Hour: Patch 3.3

It is expected that patch 3.3 - Fall of the Lich King - will be released this week or at the latest next week - just in time for all that holiday madness. The following is just a quick review of the more interesting points for those with a limited session time for playing WoW.

New content

A new three winged dungeon has been added called The Frozen Halls. It has three separate (5 man) instances that are unlocked in sequence in which you get to battle the Lich Kings minions and also (if you are unlucky) you meet with the Lich King himself. The good thing - they are reportedly short instances taking about 30 minutes each - so assuming you have/find a good group you'll be able to do one of these within your hour time frame. They also reward higher level item gear to help you gear up quicker with item level 219 (Ulduar 10 man level) dropping from normal mode and 232 (10 man Trial of the Crusader level) for the heroic versions.

There is also a new raid that is huge... and therefore generally beyond the scope of an hour of WoW... that culminates in the battle with Arthas himself (I haven't read any spoilers...)?

Finally there is also a new epic quest chain to recreate and purify the ancient blade Quel`Delar - although this will require being able to
a) get the drop from monsters within the new 5 man instances (or it may be bind on pickup so if you have the cash to spare it'll be purchasable on the AH),
and b) require you to finish the 5 man instances.

But the reward is an item level 254 weapon which is on par with the new raid content weapons.

Leveling Help

A number of changes have been made on the leveling front to help you squeeze the most out of your hour.

• A number of new character changes to make those lessen those run around activities you need to perform (e.g. learning some of the weapon skills, dual wielding for rogues, etc), also the chance to be dazed when running away has been reduced so less deaths = quicker leveling.
• Increased health and mana regeneration - slowing down as you get to higher levels
• Spell costs for lower ranked spells have been reduced
• The mage, warlock, and priest classes no longer have an increased chance for their melee attacks to be glancing blows; and the damage penalty due to their glancing blows is the same as for other classes.
• Reduced cooldowns on a number of the long cooldown spells - most notably Reincarnation and Create Soulstone to aid you with coming back to life if accidents do happen.
• However a bit of a nerf is coming for Lay on Hands - when cast on yourself it will also cause give you the Forbearance debuff - not so bad a change, but certainly won't help when trying to solo big nasties with your paladin.

Also a number of changes to assist in getting some of the Northrend reputations:

• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30% Argent Crusader, Alliance Vanguard, Horde Expedition, Kirin Tor, Knights of the Ebon Blade, The Sons of Hodir (as well as more reputation rewarded from quests), The Wrymrest Accord
• Commendation Badges which award reputation with various Wrath of the Lich King factions can be purchased with Emblems of Triumph in Dalaran.

As an added benefit if you already have a character with exalted reputation with the appropriate faction the top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase).

Quest changes

There is a whole new quest interface integrated with the map. It should be a great help in speeding up the questing process without the need for memory heavy add-ons like QuestHelper/Carbonite. I'm pretty sure I'll still be using Tour Guide but the new map features will certainly be a great help!

Also there is a new function available QueryQuestsCompleted that add-on developers will turn into some masterful tools for being able to track and find all those annoying little quests you've missed along the way (I'm hoping Tour Guide will also take advantage of this).

Dungeon Changes

As with patch 3.2 the release of the new content will change the default Emblem to be dropped to be Emblems of Triumph, and the new raid content will drop a new badge - Emblem of Frost. Playing catch up should be easier - combined with the new loot piñatas introduced with the three new dungeons (ok... there is an increase in difficulty too!).

There is a whole new Dungeon system being introduced with the integration of a cross-server looking-for-group tool. The old form of the daily heroic quests are now a thing of the past being replaced by a 'Random Dungeon' option which you get nicely rewarded (2 Emblems of Frost) for using the first time you successfully complete a dungeon per lock-out period (day). That does mean that you could end up getting a dungeon that isn't easily completed within the hour (depending on the group - I'm going to look at 5 mans more in my next post) - but even if you by some unlucky chance get The Occulus then you'll be pleased to know it has been nerfed - bosses are easier, some of the trash removed (those nasty 5 mob pulls are now nasty 4 mob pulls) and the scaling of the drakes from item level has been increased.

From a time limited perspective the new cross-server pug tool (called Dungeon Finder) should help you find a group quicker with the pool of players being increased to those in the whole battlegroup. However, as always, a pug group could still mean that you end up with a bad group of people - so it could be a mixed blessing - however there are minimum gear requirements on the harder dungeons so that worry will be evened out a bit. Additionally you will now be automatically teleported into the dungeon so no more travel time for those out of reach places. On the down side if you get a bad group (or a bad dungeon) you will get slugged with a debuff like the one when you leave a battleground early that will stop you using the tool for 15 minutes.

Finally, meeting stones will now be usable by anyone higher than level 15 - so if you want to do some old-world dungeons with friends you can be summoned from anywhere!

As a final note on the changes there is a new weekly event the Kalu'ak Fishing Derby which is the Wednesday evening equivalent to the Sunday Boot bay fishing competition. So if you can't make it on a Sunday you might have a chance on a Wednesday night (neither work for me!).

WoW in an Hour: Time Management

I spend a lot of my time dreaming... no not sleeping but rather that head space where you think about what could be. Usually this coincides with what I'm focusing on at the time - which lends me towards an obsessive pattern of behaviour regarding those things I enjoy. WoW is no exception and that is part of the reason I've cut back on the hours I play.

However such dreaming (or rather planning) is a useful tool when play time is limited, at least when it is within the bounds of reasonable expectations. By planning what you want to achieve in your hour of WoW it allows you to get to the business of 'doing' as soon as you log in. Setting small goals and then achieving them makes it so much more rewarding, and despite the limited play time you can actually feel yourself progressing - have I made those two XP bubbles that I wanted to make, did I finish the Wrath gate lines of quests (which is my aim for tomorrow on Coaz)? It may be as simple a goal as 'Play a round of Alterac Valley'.

In terms of goals I tend to have four types:

1. Short term goals

This is what I mentioned above - something achievable in a session of play.

On a side note - this is one reason I enjoy leveling - the rewards are constant and consistent, rather than the gear gathering in the end game which relies so much on chance (although Emblems go a long way towards bridging that gap).

2. Medium term goals

This is something that might take you a few sessions of play or so. One of my medium term goals is to finish those last three levels for Coaz to finally hit 80. Then maybe get that reputation and dailies out of the way to turn Keluin into a Crusader.

3. Long term goals

What do I see me doing in 6 months of play? My long term goals tend to be rather vague, but will usually influence some decisions made now. For example my next leveling goal after Coaz is to bring my druid up... all the way from level 22 where he currently resides. To that end I bought the leather heirlooms shoulders and chest (and they could also be used by the last of my plate wearing brethren that I haven't leveled yet - the Death Knight). 

Long term goals are also more likely to change - I haven't finalised which character I'll level next. Pragmatically leveling my Death Knight or Warlock will be a quick process given they are already closer to the goal... but I'm really liking the flexibility in terms of roles that the hybrids bring and the druid is the king of this.

4. The dreams

These are the 'what would I do if I didn't have to work, didn't have a family, decided to dedicate myself to WoW' thoughts... the ones that if I'm thinking pragmatically will never get off the ground... and occasionally form into a level 1-5 alt in the appropriate class. Sadly, in reality this is where any dreams I have of leveling a Horde character sit...  

Having set goals, laid out our best plans, come play time that doesn't mean that it is how it is going to happen. I'm all for being flexible - and that is one of the wonders of playing a game involving and revolving around other people. Last Sunday I ended up leaving Coaz sitting in the middle of a cave trying to get some spit on him by some Jormungar to go and join a Trial of the Crusader raid. In the past I would often drop what I was doing to tank some instance - we'll see how that pans out, but I'm guessing I'll be the same - willing to go help and interact with others when the need arises. That is the joy of the game for me - not the perfect execution of a plan - and so I'm willing to slow my progress to that end.

Time Tools

There are a few tools that I would recommend to assist with your time management. I'm not proposing to pull out MS Project or the equivalent and make a complete plan!  But there are a couple of things that I think help a lot:

1. The WoW Calendar

If you want to be involved in what is coming up in the World of Warcraft then it is worth looking ahead at what events are happening. Then you can be well prepared. You can access this either in game or via the armory.

2. Tour Guide Add-on

I love this add-on! Tour Guide is a framework for creating an in-game guide with the idea being it'll guide you through the steps of whatever task you wish to achieve (that someone has written the guide for!). Guides exist for many of the world events too!

With the coming changes in Patch 3.3 to the quest markers etc this isn't as required - but combine this with Jame's leveling guide and your leveling process is as streamlined as it is going to be.

3. Lightheaded Add-on

Another one of my favourite add-ons, Lightheaded brings the power of wowhead to your ingame quest log. Coordinates and tips to those sticky quests are right there without having to worry about alt-tabbing, or squinting to see that game in windowed mode!

4. Parental Controls

What you see in the image at the top is my parental controls settings. This isn't something that will help you make the most of the time, but rather make sure you stay within those arbitrary limits that you set. To stop myself from staying up late I've set them up to kick me off by 10pm. My guild mates find that amusing... but given that they are a guild that usually starts raiding at 10pm - it is good to have that fallback protection from the temptation to join them. If you really lack the discipline - I suggest using it and giving someone else the password! As one of my guildies (who is also a parent) said "they are called Parental Controls" so use them to control yourselves parents!

Crusader Calculator

Just a quick post to highlight one of the tools I've written - the Crusader Calculator. It is an armory tool that takes your Realm and Character name and examines the reputations and achievements to determine how far you are from getting the Crusader title - in terms of the reputation you need to acquire.

Given the splash over affect of reputation gains with the Alliance/Horde factions (you get about 25% of the other factions when you gain reputation with one faction - 250 Stormwind reputation nets you 63 Ironforge, Darnassus, Exodar, and Gnomeregan Exiles reputation) doing extra Valiant daily quests for a faction could result in you achieving your Crusader title without having to resort to cloth turn-in or visiting the beginner zones.

If you are like my characters - the number of daily quest turn-ins would result in at least another 21 days of doing all the dailies - therefore you can also set the maximum amount of turn-ins and any reputation required beyond that is displayed in terms of cloth turn-ins (and the total amount of runecloth required). The results for my paladin Keluin are in the picture above.

Note: I use the term turn-ins rather than Valiant's Seals because the daily that takes you out of Icecrown rewards two tokens, but the same amount of reputation.

The armory currently has an issue with Horde reputations (The Sunreavers never show us) so the calculation there isn't working - but if you're already exalted with them, then this will be taken into account. In reality you'll get the required reputation with The Sunreavers just by doing the Valiant dailies with each Horde faction.

Final Note: I haven't yet tested this with the EU armory - I'm assuming it is the same as the US one. I'll add it to my TODO list...

WoW in an Hour: Managing Expectations

Limited play time means having to approach WoW with two things in mind:
1. Planning goes a long way

I'll going into planning later - but suffice to say that if you work out what you want to do ahead of time you'll use your time better... which leads into point...

2. Expectations matter

WoW like many things in life rewards you for the time you put in. But (at least I'm hoping) it will still reward you even if you don't have as much time to play... as long as you curb your expectations to the time you have available. You won't be able to conquer the end game, you won't be able to have all latest and greatest gear - but you should be able to relax, enjoy yourself, make some (all-be-it slow) progress and see all the vast things that exist in WoW. In many respects I'm looking forward to the change.

If you were to classify me as a gamer I fit right into Bartle's Exploration category. In WoW this still holds true - I like to see and do all there is to do. On my main realm I have one character of each class (at differing levels... I still haven't run deadmines with a shaman) - I have at different points in time raided, roleplayed, PvPed, played in the arena, have all the professions. The one gaping hole I have here is that I have never really been able to play on the Horde side of the fence (but I put that down to pragmatism of having limited timed so it makes more sense to level my alts in an environment where I already have resources available).

When you apply the Explorer philosohpy to raiding however it gets a little murky because there has to be some dedication and focus to be able to get the gear to be able to do so (and even more so when you're a (warrior) tank... which is what my main is). So when I finally got WotLK at Christmas I put aside most of my explorer tendancies and focused on my warrior almost exclusively so I could finally get into raiding (and it's always easier to find a group as a tank - which as I learnt as an undergeared hunter dps back in Vanilla WoW and hence rolled the only tank available at the time).

So when I hit 80 I had expectations and a goal in mind... and after six or so months of hard work gearing up - I finally got into a guild that was doing some raiding and got to experience all those nice goodies of raiding that I hadn't been able to previously. But that was after a good while of frustration searching for a guild (I play in the minority of the minority in terms of time - and I wasn't able to start raiding the minute I got home from work).

But now? Raiding - I could do because I had the time to put into gearing up, finding a guild and being able to commit to raiding more or less regularly. Now I don't have the time to even really start and finish a 5 man dungeon (although I did 'help out' my guild with a 10 man ToC for about 30 minutes - help out meaning I filled the last slot and did some bad dps... I've never actually geared properly for a dps role and I'm way being - despite that we did down Northrend Beasts a first for me!). However being so focused - most of the extra things you can do in WoW fell by the way side. So while I enjoy raiding and the gearing process (though I'm unsure that I would gear up a tank again...) I am looking forward to being able to explore the rest of WoW - solo some of the old world content, get an epic flier - and subsequently fill up my stable, finally become a chef, become Dora, and lastly (or maybe firstly) do some leveling of those alts.

We'll see if I can manage my expectations.

WoW in an Hour - what the?

Life has changed for me again with the birth of my second child - a beautiful baby girl... it means that WoW is back on the back burner... something I can fit in around all the things I need to do as a dad for a girl who likes to mostly feed and sleep. After putting my son to bed, cleaning up the house, and helping my little girl to sleep I might have an hour available to play WoW before I should get that much needed no-you-can't-be-overtired-and-grumpy sleep.

I've been solidly in the 'casual' camp of WoW... pretty much the whole time I've played it (almost 4 years with a bit of a break in the middle). I've not done much raiding - 2 partial runs of MC, a bit more of ZG and a couple of lag infested runs of Onyxia back in Vanilla WoW, maybe one full run of Kara in BC and finally some more substantial efforts in WotLK with a guild that raided when people were about rather than being nice and structured. While I played most nights I couldn't guarantee I would be on - nor what time I would be on. Still I managed to down all of Naxx, get pulvarised a number of times by Malygos (*sigh* my guild tried and tried just before my break with the birth of said daughter - still no Champion of the Frozen Wastes), do all of the siege of Ulduar + Kologarn (although not much time on Ignitus ... and nothing successful), and have one night of beating our undergeared bodies against the Trial of the Crusader... in which we saw and promptly wiped to Acidmaw and Dreadmaw on our best attempt.

However, I again will take a step back from all raiding (I might be able to manage the occasional VoA... we'll see) and sit well and truly into the WoW on a (time) budget camp. And in the process thought I would blog about my experiences... and potential advice I have to others that might be (or will soon be) in the same situation as I am.

Just as a side note - for those of you looking for an instant fix - you might garner some ideas for playing WoW casually from wow.com's semi-regular WoW Casually column.