This is it guys. If you want to be eligible as a potential candidate for the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm closed beta, make sure your opt-ins are all set-up and updated!

How to Opt-In for Cataclysm closed beta:

1. Have a World of Warcraft license attached to your Battle.net account. Meaning, you MUST have a World of Warcraft account.
2. Upload your current system specifications to Battle.net. You will need to download and run the beta opt-in application to update your system specifications.
3. Check “Warcraft Universe” in the Beta test I’m interested in portion.
4. Click Update preferences.

And that’s it! Let me remind you though, that just because you opted-in doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll get an invite for the Cataclysm beta testing. It just means that you’re expressing your interest to be a beta tester.

Maybe if you cross your fingers and pray hard enough to the geek gods, your prayers will be answered.

Woohoo. Cataclysm Beta testing is almost here. This just means that Cataclysm is commiiiinnngggg!

Here’s a little geek tip I’ve come across just recently. This video was posted almost 3 years ago, but I bet your badoodles not a lot of people are aware of this. I sure wasn’t!

Now I’m actually scared of using those free Wi-Fi at the malls! Thank the geek gods I check my e-mail via Apple Mail on my iPod Touch when I’m using free Wi-Fi. But I wonder how safe that still is.

I gotta admit, hackers are damn cool, but you got to hate them some time, especially when you’re a victim!

And now, I even watched Jay Leno just because I heard that Robert Downey, Jr was going to be the guest for tonight. I don’t even watch Jay Leno! But it’s ok, the 15 minute interview was well worth it, hehe!

You geek boys are probably disgusted by all my squealing right now, but the Ironette Dancers performed, too. So I guess that’s something to look forward to.

But what really prompted me to write this blog post was Robert Downey Jr’s really cool sneakers (aside from him being so hot) ! I had to google Iron Man sneakers but nothing similar to what he was wearing came up. I WANT ONE!

Fortunately, he did mention that it was sponsored by Nike so atleast I know where to look. I wonder if they made it specially just for him, or if they’ll ever sell that in the market. I seriously want it. Pair it with the cute Iron Man x Tokidoki cap and you get a geek chic outfit!

Seriously, I can’t decide whether he’s more appealing in normal clothes or in the Iron Man Suit, haha.

Hopefully, new screenshot teasers will come out since more people will be play-testing the new expansion. I’m sooo envious of those alpha testers! Unfortunately though, it’s not open to the public and is only available to friends and family of Blizzard employees, hence the name “Cataclysm Friends & Family Alpha”. So if you get any email claiming to give you access to become an alpha, it is most probably a SCAM. Mmmkay?

Any Blizzard employee want to adopt or marry me? Haha.

I have to be honest, I’m really getting bored out of my mind in World of Warcraft at the moment. I haven’t been logging in much, except for our raid times which is around 4 times a week, for around 4 hours a day. That’s 16 hours gameplay total for a week. That used to be my number of hours played in a day, haha!

My other guildmates are getting bored, too so I’m not surprised that they’re not logging on as often as they normally do. Well, that can’t be avoided! This is the lull that happens before an expansion.

Oh, but fortunately for those who are still hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft and can’t log off, Children’s Week is up! Going around and touring Azeroth orphans will probably entertain you for a day, and multiply that by how many alts you have, you’ll have enough to do for a week.

But that’s given that you haven’t done Children’s Week last year, because if you did Children’s Week last year, the quest line in Dalaran does not reset so that means you won’t be able to complete Children’s Week this year. Sucks!

Anyway, here are more Cataclysm screenshots I found all over the internet. Nothing too great, but I’m mildly intrigued by the screenshots of the dark, rainy towns. I wonder if those are the starting areas of the Worgen class?

Before you continue reading on, let me remind you that this post contains a few spoilers (SPOILER ALERT!). Just warning you, because I don’t want to be the one spoiling your Iron Man 2 fun. You were warned!

1. Opening scene, when he jumps down from the plane. I got goose bumps when he landed on his knee in the middle of the stage. Same feeling I got when I saw the scene in Iron Man 1 when he first saved that middle-eastern country, city, town (or whatever, forgot the name of the place!).

2. Iron Man suitcase / Iron Man mobile suit. OMG, I want one of THESE! Self explanatory.

3. When he squishes holograms and plays with them, hehe. I know, my description sounds a little bit dirty doesn’t it, haha. But if you watched both Iron Man movies, you know what I mean. To be able to interact with computers (I want my own JARVIS! I want one!) and data that way is just waaaay geek-gasmic. I hope to the geek gods I’d still be able to experience that technology in the near future.

4. Fight scene with Iron Man’s laser death move. Lasers and two Iron Man suits beating up Iron Man drones. If that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is. I just didn’t like how they beat the villain. They could have done a better fight ending than that. It reminded me of Care Bears, for some unknown reason.

5. Thor teaser at the end of the movie credits. Again, self explanatory! I can’t wait for the new Thor movie. I sure hope it’s going to be as good as Iron Man!

I had a serious case of Iron Man 2 hang over, that I had to watch Iron Man 1 on DVD when I got home, hehe! Aaaaaah! Iron Man 2 rocks! And again, Robert Downey, Jr. is HOT, hehe! Ok, for the geek boys, you will have your fair share of eye candy with Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow.

Did you like the Iron Man 2 movie as much as I obviously did? And what were your favorite scenes?

Tokidoki is known for being a brand most girls go ga-ga over. And if you add Marvel to the whole equation, it just elevates the geekiness to a whole new level! RAWR!

These Tokidoki x Marvel caps from Tokidoki are made of awesomsauce! For the geek boys, if you wish to transform your significant other into a geek, get her one of these! She doesn’t have to know the Marvel bit. Just tell her it’s Toki Doki and I promise you, she’ll wear it with no questions asked!

I’m totally loving the Iron Man cap, especially with Iron Man 2 hitting the theaters today. Woohooo! I can’t wait to see the movie!

Unfortunately though, these caps are out of stock at the Tokidoki website at the moment. Sad face.But atleast we know something as cool as this exists!

Where to buy: Toki Doki
Price: $35

Jejemon (n): Usually seen around social networking sites such as Friendster and Multiply, jejemons are individuals Hu LyK 2 TyP LyK diZS jejejeje;

Jejemonn (n): Anyone with a low tolerance in correct punctuation, syntax and grammar. Jejemons are usually hated or hunted down by Jejebusters or the grammar nazi to eradicate their grammatical ways.

Jejemon (n): an offshoot of the subculture popularity of Pokemon and while the latter means “pocket monsters”; Jejemons are often seen as “Jejeje monsters” for their ability to turn off and annoy people with their “foreign” style of writing.

So are you a Jejemon or a Jejebuster? Hahaha!

Unfortunately, not everyone finds this issue amusing. Some may find it a bit elitist and rude.

But come on, you HAVE to admit, reading that kind of text on the internet is just really annoying! I can understand losing a few vowels when you’re sending an SMS on your phones since you only have around 140-160 characters per message. But with phones nowadays having QWERTY keypads, and phones being able to automatically separate messages longer than 160 characters in 2-3 messages, people really don’t have any excuse but to use proper English.

And besides, this is the internet for goodness sake, and there is no character limit on the internet!

ThIs StYlE oF WrItiNg WaS cUtE aGeS aGo, like circa 1995. But not anymore! It’s the year 2010, honey, and right now, proper English is geek chic. Now if you need to communicate with a JEJEMON, fortunately for JEJEbusters, there’s a JEJEMON Translator!

News about the changes in the raiding system came out last Monday and a lot of my guild mates started shouting, “The sky is falling!” causing a bit of uncertainty in our guild come Cataclysm.

In a nutshell, Blizzard is planning to implement the following changes to the raid system when the expansion comes along:

• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will share the same lockout.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids difficulty will be as close as possible to each other.
• 10-Man and 25-Man raids will drop the exact same loot, but 25-man will drop a higher quantity of items.
• Normal versus Heroic mode will be chosen on a per-boss basis in Cataclysm raids, the same way it works in Icecrown Citadel
• For the first few raid tiers, our plan is to provide multiple smaller raids. Instead of one raid with eleven bosses, you might have a five-boss raid as well as a six-boss raid.

My guild is a casual raiding guild (with around 20-30 regular raiders) so news of having a single lockout for both the 10 and 25 player modes came as a shock. Even though we have regular 25-man raids during weekends, we have 2 10-man raids that are very important to our raid progression, as well.

Our 10-man raids serve as venue for us to be familiar with the fights, and of course to get gear so we can be ready for the 25 man raids. The 10 man raids definitely make our lives easier since the only thing we have to worry about is the group synergy, since we already have the gear and the experience.

Basically, with the new changes, if you want to do both 10 and 25 man raid in a single week, you will need to do so on two different toons.

And for a casual raiding guild, that definitely poses a problem as not everyone has time to actually level up and gear 2 different toons so early in the expansion.

I’m sure though that the hardcore players and guilds out there are rejoicing, like, “FINALLY, we get to be L33T again!” I have to admit, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion was definitely casual-player friendly. Too casual-friendly, I think! So even though the new Cataclysm changes are appearing to be a bit hard on casual players, I personally think Blizzard is just balancing it all out for the hard-core players, too.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned after 5 years of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard is definitely an expert when it comes to game balance.

For some weird reason, I see the R2-KT as some naughty little robot girl trying to be one of the big boys. Lol.

[ Image property of ~MSipher ]

I am now currently addicted to Hotel City, another time management Facebook game app. Augh, when will this madness end!

Hotel City is pretty similar to Restaurant City or Cafe World, except that you are taking care of a Hotel. You can hire friends  as your staff and you can decorate every room of your hotel, from the furniture to the wallpaper.

What I like about Hotel City:

• It needs less maintenance compared to other games like Farmville or Cafe World. While the other games require you to track multiple crops, dishes or employees, Hotel City only requires you to take note of when the shift of ALL your employees end. You can actually let them work for 24 hours straight (woohoo slave driver!), so basically, you only need to log in once a day in Hotel City
• Hotel City is very light on the system even though it’s a flash-based app. I noticed that every time I load Cafe World or Restaurant City my laptop (I’m using a MacBook Pro), the temperature of my mac would start climbing up to 68C from 61C
• It doesn’t eat up a lot of your time since you have the option to log in every 24 hours. But if you’re meticulous about decorating each and every room of your hotel, well, that’s another story.

Right now, the game is at its beta stage so be patient if you encounter a few bugs and errors every now and then!

Oh, here’s a tip on how to make money in Hotel City: remember to visit all your friends hotels, especially for the first time because you get a +1000 first time visit gold bonus per friend. Plus, a friend might be hiding a bag of gold in their hotel!

Play the Game: Hotel City

“Earn a Murkimus, Become a Vanquisher and Complete for over $200,000 in Cash Prizes!”

I thought, “What the hell is a Murkimus?” After clicking on a few links, I got the answer:  a Murkimus is an exclusive Armored Murloc in-game pet.

AMG! Let me say it again, an ARMORED Murloc in-game pet! Screw the $200,000 cash pricez, I just want the pet, haha!

So World of Warcraft PVP fanatics, the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament in the US is now open for registration. Register now to secure your slots.

For first timers, here are a couple of things you need to know on how the World of Warcraft Arena tournament works:

• There is a registration fee of $20 to join the 2010 Arena Tournament per World of Warcraft account.
• You will need a team of 3 people since the matches are in 3v3 Arena format. You can actually play 2v2 or 5v5 matches for FUN, but only the 3v3 ladder results will be rewarded.
• New level 80 characters will be created on the special Arena-only realm, and you will be able to customize them with PVP armors and weapons provided. You may create up to three (3) customized level 80 characters.
• Accounts should be upgraded with the Burning Crusade and Wratch of the Lich King expansions to be able to register in the tournament.

Participants of the 2010 WoW Arena Tournament will have the chance to win the following prizes:

Global Championship

• Winning Team – $75,000
• Second Place – $30,000
• Third Place – $15,000

Regional Finals

• First Place – $15,000
• Second Place – $6,000
• Third Place – $3,000
• Fourth Place – $1,500
• Fifth to Eight Place – $600

Woohoo! Exciting. So to those who are joining the 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament, good luck!

Read more: 2010 World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Information

Just the other day, a few friends and myself were having a discussion about the various addicting Facebook games. One guy said he’d rather die than play that sissy Farmville game. To which the girls replied that Mob Wars suck and Farmville is the best, haha!

Then another guy said, he’d probably start playing Farmville if they added zombies and the zombies can attack other farms.

I guess Playforge (the makers of Zombie Farm) heard his prayers since basically that is what Zombie Farm is all about!

It’s pretty much like Farmville. You plow, you plant seeds and you harvest. But unlike Farmville, aside from planting crops to make money, you can plant zombies to make your zombie army and have them invade other farms!

Zombie Farm is playable offline or online.

If you have a Facebook account, you can connect to Facebook so you can play with other Facebook users who have installed this app on their iPhones, iPod Touch, and iPad.

The best part, it’s FREE! Oh, except when you have to buy Brains, which is the counterpart of Farmville Cash.

Download: Zombie Farm via iTunes

Four years later, I have two level 80 Priests (Undead and a Blood Elf, I re-rolled to a BE because I wanted a prettier toon and race change wasn’t available yet, hehe), a level 80 Blood Elf Paladin, a level 80 Tauren Druid, and a Blood Elf Hunter that is stuck at level 77 plainly because I’m too sick and tired to level her up.

Suffice to say, with those many Horde alts, I pretty much have all the Horde quests memorized to a ‘T’, and I will probably jump of a cliff if I have to go thru the Wrath of the Lich King quest for the Horde side AGAIN for the nth time.

However, since things are becoming slightly boring and routinary in WoW, with people just waiting for the Cataclysm Expansion, the only thing to spice up your WoW life is to level another alt. But since the thought of leveling another horde makes me want to puke, I had this great idea of leveling up an Alliance toon!

Hence the birth of Zeexie, my pretty Draenei Shaman! I’ll eventually transfer her to Horde when I reach level 80, though. But for now, I’m appreciating the Alliance scenery and slowly enjoying leveling her to 80.

Some thoughts about playing for the Alliance side:

1. Alliance player aren’t all the bad. I had this misconception that Alliance had more annoying players since there was this misnomer that more kids play Alliance. I’ve beginning to think that’s not entirely true ever since Horde got the Blood Elf race and all the kids transferred to Horde side. So far, the Alliance Trade Chat has been quite friendly and actually made more sense than Horde Trade Chat.

2. Blizzard definitely spent more time on designing major Alliance towns. I don’t know if its the novelty of a new experience, but I personally think that Alliance towns are waaaaay prettier than Horde towns. Definitely way bigger, too. And I don’t know about you, but the mere fact that Alliance has the Tram trumps any mode of Horde transportation! I’m so envious! Horde zeppelins are cool, but I prefer the pretty Alliance boats.

3. Gnome and Dwarf Tanks are annoying. They’re just so tiny!

4. The prices for items in Alliance Auction House seem to be cheaper. Probably because there are more Alliance players? More supply, so cheaper prices?

So far, that’s my life as an Alliance player! I still yet have to fully experience being an Alliance, like in PVP and in raiding so I can’t really say I’m an expert on Alliance life yet. But so far, I’m having a great time.

How about you? Have you ever switched from Horde to Alliance, or vice versa? Which “community” did you like more?

I must say, contrary to an old post about the Wii Fit in FG before, I personally find  the Wii Fit a fun (and geeky) way to exercise!

Like most Wii Games, you start out by making your own Mii (if you don’t have one yet). And then you step on the Wii Balance Board for the Wii to be able to extract some personal data like your weight and BMI. If you are sensitive about your vital statistics, you can put a password on your Wii Fit account so that other people won’t be able to see your weight. It even has a pet stats for your pets! Unfortunately, you can only weigh your pets and your pets definitely can’t participate in the exercises and game, hehe.

After that you get to choose a training from four different categories: yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance games.

The aerobics and balance games are very fun and you can choose from a variety of games like Hula Hoop, Rhythm Boxing, Stepping, Running, Soccer Heading, Ski Jumping, Skate Boarding and Snow Boarding.

Here’s a less embarrassing video of my fiance playing the Soccer game.

I would have preferred posting the extremely hilarious video of him playing Air Humping Super Hula Hoop but I don’t want to scare people away, hehe.

The yoga and strength training exercises were just too boring to do though but it had potential, if you had the time and discipline to make your own work out regimen.

After each activity or exercise, the Wii Fit will give you a score of how much calories you burned. The numbers are probably not accurate, but it is a nice basis on how much effort you’re actually putting in for exercise.

However, if you are serious work out fanatic, don’t expect too much from the Wii Fit. Nothing beats a regular work out at the gym. But I personally think that it’s a great way to keep your blood circulating and your heart pumping after spending a day in front of your TV or computer playing video games.

[ Images and video by GeekGirlManila ]

1. Go Black and White. There are some photos that look good in color, but there are also some photos that become more powerful when turned black and white. The best photos to turn black and white are those photos that have high dark and light contrasts, and/or shadows. Black and white is also good to use if you want to convey strong emotions in a photo. Since there are no colors to distract you, you only see what the photo is really all about.

2. Lomo-fy it! When in doubt, lomo-fy! Sometimes, giving a photo that over-saturated, colorful, whimsical feel is a good way to make a photo look better. This technique can be used on casual snapshots which don’t really require a photo to be technically perfect (i.e. good cropping, good and sharp focus). You can download Lomo Actions for Photoshop from the Internet, by the way.

3. Go HDR. HDR (or high dynamic range imaging) is a technique that allows greater dynamic range of luminances between lightest and darkest area of an image (via Wikipedia). In MY terms, it  simply makes your photo look like a nice, artistic painting. There is a manual (and hard) way of applying the HDR effect to your photos. You basically need a tripod, and you need to shoot the same image in different exposures (i.e. -1, 0, +1, the more range the better). Then you merge them into an HDR image.  That sounds a little complicated, right? But don’t worry, you can actually download free Pseudo HDR actions for Photoshop all over the net. Using HDR is best for landscapes and places. I’ve tried using it on people and portraits, but it didn’t turn out so well.

4. Crop it! Sometimes, the only thing a photo needs to become a stronger photo is good cropping. When I took photography lessons a few years back, one thing I learned was that a good subject makes a good photo. Make sure that your photo has one focus. Too many subjects in a photo can make it look cluttered and usually, removing some elements can actually improve a photo. Like the photo below for example. The girl on the left does nothing for the photo since I was taking a photo of my two cute nieces. So better if I just crop her out.

5. Sharpen. Like cropping, sometimes, all you need to improve a photo is by sharpening. Sharpening increases contrast among the elements in a photo and makes objects pop out and even improve color. Beware with over sharpening though since it might give your photo too much noise, making it grainy. But! Sometimes, adding noise to a photo is good, too, and actually gives character. See how the panda looks more alive, and the color back is more pronounced in the photo below.

There are actually other editing techniques out there, but these five (5) are the ones I use most of the time. My most favorite technique is using a High Pass Sharpen action (which I sadly can’t find the link where I originally downloaded it from), paired with cropping.

But you know, as much I love editing photos and could spend hours and hours editing, when it comes to photography, the best photographs are those that barely need editing at all. So remember, when taking a photo remember these 3 basic rules (which I learned from Photoworks): Have a theme. Emphasize it. Simplify.

[ Photography by GeekGirlManila, photos taken with a Lumix LX3 ]

]]> http://www.forevergeek.com/2010/04/5_techniques_to_make_your_photos_look_good/feed/ 0 http://www.forevergeek.com/2010/04/woweekly_cataclysm_class_change_previews_are_out/ http://www.forevergeek.com/2010/04/woweekly_cataclysm_class_change_previews_are_out/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:07:54 +0000 Lia http://www.forevergeek.com/?p=17306

Well, most of the classes anyway. Class changes for the Shaman, Priest and Warlock were released yesterday April 7, while today, the class changes for the Warrior, Death Knight and Rogue are coming out.

Tomorrow, April 9, you can look forward to the Cataclysm class changes for the Hunter, Druid and Mage. And unfortunately for Paladin players, you are going to have to wait for another week because Pally class change previews will come out on April 16. That’s a pretty long wait so I’m guessing the Paladin class is going to undergo some major changes!

If you want to read more on the class change previews of the specific class, here are the links:

• Death Knights will tank as Blood in Cataclysm
• Death Knight Class Changes
• Shaman Class Changes
• Warlock Class Changes
• Priest Class Changes
• Paladin Class Changes
  
• Warrior Class Changes
• Druid Class Changes
• Hunter Class Changes
• Rogue Class Changes
• Mage Class Changes

Also, Blizzard will be modifying the Dispelling Mechanics for a bit. Some of the changes that could happen will be the following:

• Protection and Retribution paladins will lose their current ability to dispel magic.
• All shaman will lose dispel disease and dispel poison in exchange for Restoration gaining dispel magic.
• Restoration shaman, Restoration druids, and Holy paladins will need to talent into their defensive magic dispels.
• Shadow priests won’t be able to remove disease in Shadowform.
• Mage, hunter, and warlock will retain their current dispel mechanics.
• When possible, we’d like to combine dispels into a single action. For example, the druid ability to dispel curses and poisons might be a single spell with a Restoration talent that also allows it to dispel magic. This part of the design isn’t finalized, however.

From the looks of it, Blizzard is trying to veer away from the jack-of-all-trades model the classes turned into, when Wrath came in. While I totally think this is a great idea to make the gameplay more interesting, I just hope that it doesn’t make the game extremely complicated to play.

If I remember correctly, gear planning for Paladins during Vanilla days was horrible! I just hope that the gameplay doesn’t go back to that kind of complexity.

Gosh, just reading about the upcoming Priest Class Changes are giving me goosebumps! I definitely can’t wait for Cataclysm.

I survived April Fool’s 2010, but I didn’t go unscathed. My Facebook News Feed was bombarded with notifications of friends getting pregnant and getting engaged and I’ve probably replied a sincere “Congratulations!” to a couple of them. Gah, like what I told another friend, I’m a sucker for these things!

Aside from the usual fake pregnancies and fake engagements, I’ve come across five online April Fool’s joke that I found quite hilarious:

• Ben and Jerry’s Virtual Ice Cream. A really quite obvious joke, but funny nonetheless. Now if anyone DID lick the virtual ice cream on their screen, well, THAT’S funny!
• Google changes it’s name to Topeka. Another prank that’s quite obvious. Google is most likely poking fun at the mayor of Topeka, Kansas who unofficially changed his city’s name to Google for the month of March.
• Unicorn Meat. Another obvious joke, but I found the Unicorn Meat Chart pretty hilarious. For love, you must eat the underside of a unicorn! The recipe for Savory Unicorn and & Heirloom Tomato Bruchetta is a nice touch as well.
• Google Translate for Animals. Oh, yeah. Google made me take a second look at this. For a split second there, I was pretty intrigued with how they developed this so-called app, haha.

And the best one one since I really believed it for a couple of mins

• Starbucks Listens to Customer Request for More Sizes. The most awesome joke for this year (in my opinion anyway). I can see Starbucks really put a lot of effort in it, with their photos and a production of an extremely LARGE Starbucks paper cup! Did you see the lady with the Plenta Starbucks cup on her head? How can you not laugh at that?

Thanks to Mike Abundo as I’ve come across these jokes via him. What a prankster! And yes, he was one of those who got “engaged”. Touche!

I am, however disappointed with Blizzard since they are also known for their awesome April Fool’s joke. But looks like they didn’t participate this year. Sad. Scratch that. Apparently, Blizzard had a lot of April Fool’s joke for this year but I just wasn’t aware of it. It required going to the forums and since I was in-game most of the time yesterday, I didn’t get to know about it, hehe.

How about you? What funny April Fool’s online joke have you come across?

But before I found out that there was a loading screen bug, I thought my add ons were the culprit for the slow loading time. Currently,  I have the following add ons installed:

• Atlasloot Enhanced
• Auctioneer
• Deadly Boss Mods
• Decursive
• GearScore
• Mik Scrolling Battle Text
• Omen Threat Meter
• Rating Buster
• Titan Panel
• X-Perl Unit Frames

I was so annoyed the other day that I actually considered just uninstalling all my add ons, or maybe at least trim it down to let’s say, 5 add ons max. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to decide which 5 add ons to keep!

The following would be my Top 5 Add ons for WoW:

• Deadly Boss Mods – definitely a must if you are a serious and hard core raider. Deadly Boss Mods has come a long way since it also has warnings for 5 man dungeons now.
• Decursive – if you are healer, or a class with a decursing ability (like mages), this is also a mandatory add on to have. From the name itself, it will make decursing a piece of cake.
• Titan Panel – being the obsessive person that I am, Titan Panel helps me see all the information about my characters in a glance, from my money to the durability of my armor.
• Omen Threat Meter – While this is a useless add on for a healer class, it is definitely a must for tanks and dps classes.
• X-Perl Unit Frames – I definitely think it is a must to have a unit frame add on (especially for healers), and my choice would be X-Perl Unit Frames. I guess I like how it was designed since it makes it easier for me to see which people are getting damaged and those who are needing heals. There are however better unit frame add ons out there, like PitBull and Grid.

If WoW had an add on limit, what 5 add ons would you install?

First and foremost though, if you don’t know what GearScore is, it is an add on that allows you to gauge a player’s gear level. It removes the need to manually inspect a player’s gear by clicking on him and checking out his gear, or by alt-tabbing and checking out the WoW armory.

All you have to do is mouseover a player in the game and it will scan and calculate the player’s gear level and show you the player’s gearscore via a tooltip

At first, I found it to be a really great add on since I used it in gauging myself. I was able to see how much better geared I became every week. Basically, it was mostly for self satisfaction.

But lately, ever since it became popular, more and more people are taking gear scores  a little too seriously, to the point that it’s not even funny anymore.

Imagine being kicked out of a Forge of Souls (FoS) dungeon simply because you have less than 5000 gear score. I know that maybe a little extreme, but yup, it HAS happened to me before! Imagine getting kicked out in the middle of the run, and you’ve already been saved to the instance! I wanted to scream and pull my hair out since I wait for 15 minutes to get queued and I end up getting prematurely kicked out of the run.

Just because you have low gear score doesn’t automatically mean you’re a noobie. I’ve seen a lot of people with extremely high gear score do poorly compared to a toon with a lesser gear score when it comes to the damage or healing meters.

Admittedly, I’m guilty of being too discriminating when it comes to gear score sometimes. Like last night for example, at Pit of Saron. There was this druid tank who had 3000 gear score. I wanted to kick him out because I thought his gear was pretty low. But lo and behold, I was pleasantly surprised to see he could hold aggro pretty well! He a very good tank given that he was under geared. The healer was working overtime though to keep him up since his health points were pretty low but we still were able to clear instance with no wipes. Just proves that gear isn’t everything.

So to those who are very discriminating when it comes to GearScore, I think you should take other things (like damage and healing meter performance) into consideration first before judging that someone is a noob simply because of his low gear score. Probably when it comes to major runs like 25-man Ice Crown Citadel, it is okay to be critical, but when you are just running 5 man heroic instances, omigod, just relax!

Probably one of the biggest change that is going to happen when the Cataclysm expansion comes out is the implementation of the Mastery Stat System.

For those who have been stuck in-game and have not even browsed the internet about the upcoming expansion, Blizzard is bringing in the Mastery System, a set of new game mechanics that will allow players to make their chosen talent trees more unique.

Here’s how the system works: As you spend points in a given talent tree, you’ll receive three different passive bonuses specific to that tree. The first bonus will increase your damage, healing, or survivability, depending on the intended role of the tree. The second bonus will be related to a stat commonly found on gear desirable to you, such as Haste or Crit. The third bonus will be the most interesting, as it will provide an effect completely unique to that tree — meaning there will be 30 different bonuses of this nature in the game. This third bonus is the one that will benefit from the Mastery rating found on high-level (level 80 to 85) gear. – MMO-Champion

Pretty interesting, I must say. I believe it’s going to make gameplay a whole lot more interesting and fun. The Mastery Stat System will allow similar specced toons to become better in different things and to be played differently. It actually reminds me of the days of Vanilla WoW.

I remember the days when it took 2-3 different priests to buff the whole raid. Not because buffs then we’re given per party, but it was because some priests had better or more improved Power Word: Fortitude. Same with Divine Spirit. Back then, you really had to sacrifice whether you want to be a better healer, or contribute more to raid by giving better buffs. You really had to think about how you want to spend your talent points. Back then, you can really feel and see the difference between a Discipline priest and a Holy priest.
Nowadays, I feel like the classes are too “all-around”, if you know what I mean. If you gear similarly-skilled players with the same level or kind of gear, they will more or less perform the same during raids. For me, there’s no sense of uniqueness and that’s what I missed during the days of Vanilla WoW.

It’s like the game is getting too “formulated” and strategies for killing a boss are getting too linear.

I remember the days when not all rogues can sap mobs because a rogue may or may not have Improved Sap. It definitely made the game more fun to play since you had to think of different strats. The proposed Mastery Stat doesn’t exactly work that way but I think it’s definitely going to promote diversity when it comes to developing your toons and they way you play them.

Well, that’s my ‘initial’ rambling and understanding about the Mastery Stat System. There’s actually no definite explanation on how the Mastery System exactly works, so we can only muse and speculate the moment.

[ Image via MMO-Champion ]

As of this writing, I am currently at 1.75MB of 77.3MB of Patch 3.3.3. Still a long way to go! If you’re on the same boat as I am and you’re noticing that your download is a bit slow, don’t panic, fellow WoW geeks. The patch download is only for preparation when WoW 3.3.3 actually goes live, which will probably happen in a couple of weeks. Like maybe next week, or next next week, or next next next week. I can’t really give a definite schedule since even Blizzard itself hasn’t given a specific date on when it’s going live. But at least we know Patch 3.3.3 really does exist! (Yes, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus!)

Here are some of the few things we can expect from Patch 3.3.3:
PVP

• Increased Honor for an Honorable Kill for characters of all levels.
• Random Battleground system. Quite similar to the LFG system for dungeons and pretty much works the same way. No more Daily Battleground quests as well. Instead, you get bonus rewards for choosing the Random Battleground option

Dungeons and Raids

• Players can FINALLY skip initial introduction in Culling of Stratholme as long as you’ve completed it at least once. (Thank the geek gods! Good bye Arthas babblings!)
• World Event bosses are now accessible through the Dungeon Finder. We can finally get a chance to acquire those very rare World Event items even though they’re not in season!
• Dungeon Deserter debuff increased to 30 minutes from 15 minutes!

General

• Several raid buffs have their ranges increased to 100 yards, up from 45 yards.
• You can now trade your Frozen Orbs for other trade goods.
• Tier-10 4-Piece Set Bonus adjusted for some classes.

Looks like we’re in for a lot of goodies this coming Patch 3.3.3! For a more detailed look at the patch notes, you can visit the Public Test Realm Patch Notes.

Just the other day, I heard people talking in trade chat about how the Blizzard Authenticator was only good for getting the Core Hound mount. I was intrigued, since in my opinion, I think the Blizzard Authenticator was a good way of keeping your account secure. I thought they were just the usual whiney Azerothians who had nothing else to do but whine about how Blizzard is messing up the game in one way or another.

But apparently, someone created a trojan that could actually intercept the authenticator codes and enable the hacker to change your password, empty your account and sell your stuff! How interesting! The trojan works the same way key loggers work.

When you’re infected with the trojan, the following happens:
When you log in your WoW account and you’ve entered your authenticator code, the trojan will intercept the code, send it to the hacker and send a wrong code to Blizzard. When that happens, you’ll get an error and the hacker will get the correct code and use that code to access your account.

Tsk, tsk, and just when we thought our beloved WoW accounts (which we’ve probably spent a good chunk of our life on) are safe!

To know whether you have the trojan, be sure to check if you have the file name “emcor.dll” on your computer. It will probably be at “C:\Users\(Your user name)\AppData\Temp”, but if you don’t find it there, try to do a whole scan of your PC using your virus scan just to be sure. Better safe than sorry!

While this might discourage you from spending $6 on an authenticator, I would still suggest you get one. While an authenticator might still get hacked, it still gives added protection to your accounts. Also get/invest on a good virus scanner. Or atleast regularly scan your computer and update your virus scanner religiously so that your computer will be protected.

With the introduction of the new LFG system, Blizzard has changed the way of leveling from level 70 to level 80. Before patch 3.3.0, the best way to power level to any level is by questing. Just by doing quests the whole day and in the most efficient manner. If you don’t understand what I mean by ‘questing in the most efficient manner’, check out the quest leveling guides made by Joana. Her guides can get you to level 80 in the fastest way possible!

But with the new LFG system, people are leaning towards leveling thru instances. Just queueing the whole day, doing the same instances over and over until you ‘DING!’

While some people like to grind instances to level, I normally level by power questing. But after leveling let’s say, 3 or 4 other toons, you kind of get sick and tired of doing the same quests over and over and OVER, and reading the same stories and lore again and again.

I just finished leveling another toon to 80. I leveled this toon by instance leveling and it just makes me think of the pros and cons of leveling a toon by either power questing or by going to instances.

Leveling by Questing:

• You get more money from the quest rewards and by selling the item rewards that you don’t need.
• If you’re careful enough, you spend less on repairs since you can avoid quests that are too hard to do.
• You don’t need to wait for anyone else.
• You get more reputation by doing quests for the different factions

Leveling by Instances:

• You get better gear from instances.
• You get to know how to play your toon in a raiding environment. It took me a while to get used to tanking on my paladin since I was playing him as retribution from level 1 to 80.
• You get emblems and other cool items like mounts (i.e. Oculus and Utgarde Pinnacle)
• No need to run all over Azeroth since all you have to do is queue. But then you have downtime since you have to wait in queues.

For now, I’ll probably be leveling with instances, unless I plan to level an alliance toon (since I don’t know the Alliance lore yet). But when Cataclysm comes, I’ll probably go back to power questing again!

Another World Event is up! The Lunar Festival is basically the WoW version of our Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is usually celebrated on the first day of the lunar calendar of the year. And for this year, February 14 was the start of the lunar calendar. Fascinating how Valentine’s Day and the Chinese New Year coincided, don’t you think so?

Anyway, there’s really nothing new about this year’s Lunar Festival. Same old, same old. All you have to do is visit all the Elders in ALL of Azeroth! I kid you not! As a Horde player, I had to brave the major Alliance cities namely Ironforge, Stormwind and Darnassus just so I could visit the Elders stationed there. Same thing for Alliance players. You have to go deep inside Orgrimmar, Undercity and Thunderbluff to get the coins from the Horde Elders.

Here’s a nice guide from WoWHead to make your traveling a little more efficient. Trust me, it’s going to make your life a whole lot easier!

After you’ve visited all the elders in ALL the zones, you’ll have enough Coins of Ancestry to buy yourself a Lunar Festival Dress or Pant Suit to complete another achievement.

You’ll also need to kill Omen to get Elune’s Blessing, but that’s pretty easy to achieve. You don’t even need a group. Just hang around as a group is killing Omen and when it dies, just stand on the corpse and you’ll get the blessing as well.

Well, that’s pretty much it for the Lunar Festival. Not exactly my most favorite World Event since it requires soooooooo much traveling! In the guide I shared, it said it’ll only take you 4 hours. Don’t believe it! It took me around 6-8 hours just to finish the whole thing, rawr! And since I’m a sadist, I decided to do it the whole day! Big mistake. I got a WoW overdose and had to take a day off from the game, hehe!

The Lunar Festival will be around for 2 weeks, so take your time in trying to complete the achievement!

It’s time for another world event if you guys haven’t noticed the sappy decorations in-game and people running around with hearts on the heads or little Peddlefeets following them around!

The Love is in the Air world event started a few days and I’m relieved they made a couple of changes to the activities. I remember the Valentine’s Day even was quite different last year, like you had to collect cards and stuff. I didn’t bother doing them since it seemed so hard and bothersome. This year, they made the [Fool for Love] achievement a bit more bearable to do.

Anyway, one of the more interesting changes they made is the addition of the new holiday boss called the Apothecary Trio. I’ve been religiously killing this boss since the world even started hoping to get the Big Love Rocket mount. Unfortunately, it hasn’t dropped for me.

I’ve tried pugging the Apothecary Trio boss yesterday and I wanted to bang my face on the keyboard like 100 times. The experience was horrible. The Apothecary Trio wasn’t your typical tank and spank fight and had a few mechanics you had to understand. Pugging it probably wasn’t the best decision but if you are desperate, here are the steps how to kill the Apothecary Trio, explained in the simplest way possible.

1. Talk to the quest giver. You will get a Standard Apothecary Serving Kit which contains two potions: the Cologne Neutralizer and the Perfume Neutralizer.
2. At the start of the fight, the tank and the healer should drink the Perfume Neutralizer, while the dps should drink the Cologne Neutralizer.
3. The tank will take Apothecary Hummel (purple aura) and face it away from the group. DPS group will take down Apothecary Baxter (green aura)first.
4. When Apothecary Baxter is down, dps should drink the Perfume Neutralizer and start killing Apothecary Hummel.
5. By this time, Apothecary Frye is running around and throwing vials of perfumes and cologne on the group. You can avoid the clouds, or just step on clouds with the same immunity. Adds will be spawning, too, but you can just ignore then and concentrate on getting Hummel down.
6. When Hummel is down, take down Frye, and then that’s it!

Hopefully, all the people in your group will have their summons and you can repeat it 4 more times! Aside from getting a chance to get the Big Love Rocket mount, you can get The Heartbreaker, the Toxic Wasteling (pet), the Vile Fumigator’s Mask or the Forever-Lovely Rose. You can also get a ilvl 226 neck piece which is similar to the badge reward ones!