Must.....Get.....Rock Band......

I Now Pretend To Be Educated

Alright then. After a little more play time with ForumWarz I think I've got a rough feel for what's going on. As such, I'll attempt to give some semblance of a review.

ForumWarz is a free to play browser game that essentially simulates the internet. Yes, I'm serious. It's a game on the internet about playing the internet. You get a choice between three classes: the Camwhore (think MySpace girl or forum drama queen), the Emo Kid (think average WoW forum poster), and the Troll (think average WoW forum poster). Each class gets their version of health and mana that they use in the "pwning of forums".

What I mean by pwning forums is that you get missions to go to ridiculously themed forums and troll them with various attacks (pop culture spoilers, ASCII art, internet memes, etc.). After dealing sufficient damage to all the forum's threads you have successfully pwned the forum. There are various other missions you do such as having to cyber an aging old man pretending to be a 16 year old schoolgirl for a fetish picture or attacking forums with malicious code (just like the internet).

All in all it's a fairly good parody of the internet if you can understand the references. The scripted IRC chats and online stores are a nice touch. I would not recommend it to those easily offended however. You'll need a bit of thick skin to enjoy the game. For me personally I think it's certainly a good game to try out at least once. On the other hand I do prefer the humor and culture references in Kingdom of Loathing a bit more than this game. Man I love those stick figures.

I'm Slightly Unpleasant

Heeding the advice of Broken Toys I went to try this little browser game. It's got it's moments of charm. I think I'll try it a little more to see more. Below is my guy. I would have picked the camera chick but that'd mean I'd have to wear lip gloss to get my head in the game.

I Have A New Favorite Show

I must find out how to watch this show on it's regular airings. I haven't laughed this much in a while.

Need More Weapons

WoW isn't too horrible in the weapons variety. The problem is that the recurring theme is getting old. For rogue's case raiders use swords, pvp uses maces, and in comparison not as many use fist weapons. It's getting a bit tiresome how it feels like everything is homogenized. Let's mix it up a little! Add in some new weapon types. Something!

On second thought, that would mean I would have to groan at the inevitable spamming of "epic flail".

Petitions

So the other day I noticed that my classmates sould get student petitions for summer classes. This vaguely reminded me of WoW petitions in the forums for some silly buff or nerf to some class. When I thought about it, I realized that it's better if you use a petition for something you really really want.

If I could pass a petition for a single request, I would ask for a pony. In particular, I would ask for a little farm bred Shetland pony with a little midget man to ride him around like the Pony Express to deliver mail in some dreary office setting. Even better, the midget would make cutting remarks to anyone in general on a regular basis.

I would call it my Little House on the Prairie.

Fascinated Clicking

I've posted before on how addicting it is to Stumble. It's really amazing to find all these things you never knew about before. After a good amount of time toying with the thing I've got a fair size of cool sites I found. You can see my profile in the Stumble link I added on the bottom of my sidebar.

Edit: Thinking html code is equivalent to forum code for linking and whatnot makes me sad. Also, here's a really weird drawing.

Forum "Questions"

It strikes me as rather silly that I have a blog called Forum Zombie yet I have not made a single entry about forums. Go figure. So to fill in that bothersome criteria we've got this post.

One thing I would like to see on a forum is little games. There are some around already but threads like that don't happen often. What I would like to see is a game modeled after Whose Line's "Questions Only".

Here's what I mean:


In a forum you would basically divide the posters into groups and have them ask each other questions. The first to respond would keep the questions going with the original poster until one of them slips up. I would give a time limit on how long you had to respond before someone takes your spot.

Now in a forum it would take a little more time in responses. Of course due to that there would be more time to actually formulate a question so you might see less rotation of players. I was thinking of a hard cap of 3-5 minutes before someone else had to take your place in responding. I would have to try it out to get a better feel for the best time limit. All in all it's something I'd really like to try.

Nerd Pickup Lines

Nerd girls exist right? I'm pretty sure that's the case. What I was thinking was a clever way to determine if the girl you're trying to woo is another person of science. As such, some nerd pickup lines.

Chemistry
Hey baby, what say we make like atoms and form a covalent bond?

Yeah, I'm a lot like oxygen. I like bonding with two atoms the most. Bring your friend.

Electricity
You look like an unfluxed inductor to me. What say we go to my place so I can turn you on and make the current flow.

Sure I've got protection. See? I'm connected to ground.

Coding
I've set up a while loop that won't stop until tomorrow, just like me.

So after compiling some python what say we go for some java?



In retrospect, I think I've figured out why I'm single.

Insert Revalation Here

This one's gonna be a bit of a stretch, but it's proof I'm probably crazy.

I've been thinking about art in general. It could be a book, a play, or maybe a painting. Everybody has this idea in their head about what they want to do to get attention, so they go out and make the preparations. They think long and hard on their idea and how to make it good. For some they'll think of almost nothing but that idea and how to make it the best thing ever.

Then comes the curtain call. You've written your book, done your dance, and painted your masterpiece. You're drained of your idea and you've barely got anything left for the time being, but you're happy it's finally out there in the world. Everything now falls on the audience to determine whether or not they like it.

In my mind, what I just described sounds a lot like poo. Think about it. When you've had one of those really big meals you can bet you're going to be in the john for a while. It's a bit of a struggle, but you're more than happy to get that big one out of you. In some cases you're quite proud of your work and want to show your (very very close) friends. You might get some glitter or shape it into a happy face for effect.

That is art.

On second thought, I may have just described pregnancy as well. That's kind of weird.

I'm A Devious Mind

So apparently I have discovered I had inadvertently suckered about 100 or so people into stumbling upon my blog because I have an entry titled "2.4 badge loot". I'm very sorry. I did not think that people would use Google for the latest patch news when there are excellent sources readily available. I also did not think that I would be listed as the 9th result in such a search. How the hell did that happen? At any rate now you know the linked websites exist so you may be better informed.

Originally I had thought the spike in traffic was from my comment in a game developer's blog. At least for a brief moment I could dream that my witty humor would whisk me away to some magical land where people snort pixie sticks for game ideas. I think I'll go back to trying to entertain the one regular reader I do have. Maybe one day I'll know who they are and why on earth they find me interesting.

So I've Been Thinking

Yes yes, a dangerous thing indeed. I was thinking about how every now and then you can find people with tattoos related to their life. It might be a lover's name, a troop's emblem you served with in military, or maybe the phrase "insert here" for some of the freewheeling folks.

In particular I've wondered what a really awesome tattoo for your related work field would look like. For some reason the idea of a rough and tumble looking biker dude with a tattoo on his arm saying how much he rocks at physics makes me giggle. Even better, some C++ language in some sort of nerd humor with the code set on fire or something. I'd really love to see a big biker dude sporting that.

More Sidebar Links

I've found some more interesting Dev blogs I'd like to add. I think I'll also add in a section for artist's sites.

Psycochild is a dev who gives out weekly design challenges for his readers. I like that this can help give some perspective on the industry.

Captain Cleaver/Daniel James is the man behind the addictive Puzzle Pirates.

Sara Jensen is a designer for game balance.

For art I'll tack on the Banksy and Sons of the Storm links from earlier and add in a new one I recently found.

Random Ramble

(Edit: If you have been referred here by some search engine, this may not be what you're looking for. This link should be what you're after.)

The 2.4 badge loot has now been fully disclosed via a vendor over in Sunwell Island. As expected, it does in fact cost more badges to buy BT level gear than the SSC/TK/ZA gear released in 2.3. At this point I'm really questioning what the point is. Blizzard already made it clear that the next expansion was most likely going to hit the shelves this year. As soon as that hits we're looking at yet another gear reset, thus nulling the gear you collect badges for.

Now if you only do heroics for badges, I don't think you'll be getting any of this gear any time soon. The people who raid might be looking at an upgrade every 3-5 weeks. The kicker of course is that you'd be raiding t4 content yet again. Now I've done Karazhan. It is long and filled with quite a bit of very boring trash. The concept of farming entry level content long past it's original date of clearing seems wrong to me. Back at level 60 people dreaded farming a boring trash filled place known as Molten Core, but they did it for almost two years for their T2 legs and Thunderfury drops. Sound similar?

I'm really not a fan of the time sinks for gear that Blizzard keeps churning out. So long as I've got the gear to handle the expansion's entry level zone I'm set. Why bother getting any more for PvE if you never raid past Kara and Zul'Aman? Maybe this one's beyond my understanding. Does anyone out there have any insight?

Time For Old School

Last Saturdays was interesting. The Horde made a pug to Naxxramas and I got to tag along on my paladin. For those who don't know, Naxx is a 4 winged 40 man raid dungeon that was the pinnacle of level 60 raiding. For me it's another raid I never got to experience in the level 60 days. Suffice to say it's rather fun when people form raids to do this content at 70. I suppose that's one of the reasons Blizzard's making Naxx the entry raid for the next expansion.

So there I am playing healer whack-a-mole in Naxx. We managed to get the four wings done without much of a problem. The 4 Horseman did wipe us, but we came back and beat them. After the wings were cleared we went up to fight Sapphiron. Surprisingly enough he's still a challenge for level 70s. For me, the hardest part was trying to heal with all the graphics overloading my computer. Believe it or not, but it's rather difficult to get a good heal off when you're playing at 1-3 frames per second. After enough wipes we called it a raid and all went to bed. Maybe next time we'll wear some frost resist.

A Shout Out To My Homies

Er, not really. If you've ever checked out some of the links on the sidebar you might have noticed that not everything is exclusively a WoW guide or information resource. Several of them are blogs by people who either work in the game industry (Jennings, Freeman, Weathers) or have been longtime game bloggers (Tobold, AFK Gamer). I like reading them every now and then because I want to see the bigger picture. I could go to the WoW boards and beg for a "blue" response as to why Skill A is now 5% less powerful than before or I could read the collective viewpoints of the people who make games like that and form my own conclusions. Option two makes me seem less like a needy brat, so let's go with that.

Here's some new links I plan to stick on the sidebar:

Relmstein is another MMO player with some fairly good insight. I like him.

[GM] Dave is a guy who gets to deal with Final Fantasy Online customers. These are his stories.

Gord is Gord. His stories are long history, but they are the stuff of legends.

I'm Gonna Need Those Reports By Monday

So this blog has been running for what I imagine to be two weeks now. I think in those two weeks I have gone from completely incompetent about blogging to moderately incompetent about blogging. Let's have a parade.

Sometime last week I realized that it would be rather pointless to blog without knowing if anybody was actually reading. To that end I went out and got a traffic counter to see what's up. In particular I found a free counter that'll give me a cap of 500 page views and will simply overwrite the oldest data should I hit the cap. That doesn't sound to bad really. What I found most interesting was the range of data it could show me. Let's check out some of the data.

One of the things this thing can do is show a map of everyone who visits the site. According to the map there I have a reader in Warrington, England and one in Berlin, Germany as well as a majority in the US. I seem to have a reader up in Montreal Canada. Is that you Fep?



Moving on, we'll check browsers. It seems a majority use varying versions of Firefox. I really can't help but be reminded of this one graph. A few of you use Internet Explorer and some use Opera or Safari. I can't say I've ever used Opera or Safari. What's that like?


So that's about it really. You can check out some of the stuff yourself on the link at the sidebar. Some of this stuff is rather interesting.

Where's Dr. Ruth When You Need Her?

So apparently Sunwell raid boss Brutalicus has been renamed to Brutallus. I can't really say I know why. Maybe some Blizz dev read my blog and thought they had a twisted sense of humor. Bugger if I know. Anyways, I'm rather disappointed at the name change. The old name required some modicum of creativity to get a joke out of. This new name just makes me think someone will write naughty limericks. Then again maybe that's just me.

There once was a gnome from Dallas........

So I Hear Hell Froze Over

Now some of you folks may not realize this, but I dislike WoW PvP when I'm alone and in a battleground. I ran in good (emphasis on good) premades back in the day and it's rather hard to come back to PvP knowing it was more efficient and fun (emphasis on fun) with a bunch of not so braindead people who would laugh at my horrible jokes.

Good times.
/reminisce

Back to the topic of this post. I'm doing PvP again for what I suspect to be an excuse to get away from the horror that is grinding dailies daily and hoping the LFG tool will give me 4 people with at least some semblance of competence. Apparently if I get the not so bright folks in a battleground I will at least get some honor as a consolation prize. Unfortunately said prize reminds me of those annoying Participant Ribbons you get for coming in last place at a sport. Great, now I have the image of little children giggling as they collect said ribbons in an attempt to turn them in for a prize much like the Chuck E. Cheese game ticket racket. Sadly that's WoW PvP in a nutshell. You may start getting a hint as to why I'm not into PvP.

At any rate, I'm doing PvP with my horrible-for-PvP talent spec that's actually designed for PvE. This is a novel breakthrough, but unlike PvE, the thing you're trying to kill realizes that by moving around he has a chance to live longer. Because of this I'm about as useful as a can of soup with two forks duct taped to the side. Suffice to say that's not very fun. In a search for fun I went and tried something completely out of character for me. I actually specced out of Combat and went heavy into Subtlety. It's a novel idea really, investing heavily into a talent tree that was designed for PvP. So after this experimental change and tried it out in a battleground.

You may not realize this, but I was actually having fun.

Fun. Yes, I said it. fun in a PvP setting. Apparently making the logical leap to realize that it's not as entertaining to fit the circle peg into the square hole as it is to pick up the square peg and dink around with that for a while. Go figure. So now I've got this cool little move that lets me make ninja vanish teleports of win. At this point I'm half tempted to make some anime refference to Bleach or Naruto about super fast movement, but I won't. I've got better.

Hattori Hanzo. Hanzo was always my favorite ninja. No school like the old school.

So after playing with a heavy Subtlety build I realize that it's rather intricate really. For those non-rogues out there the best explanation I can give you is that I'm essentially playing a real time game of chess against an opponent where I have to consistently think at least 3 moves ahead in order to win. It's a very fancy dance. This is especially true when two good rogues fight each other. You're looking at both rogues at the exact same time using Cheap Shot to Gouge to Kidney Shot to Blind and than Vanish to start the dance again. It's an amazing experience. After thinking more of the way of intricate dance fighting I'm reminded of another game I would play that had an equally intricate fighting style. That would be Raphael of the Soul Caliber series. Raphael was a rather complex character that took some quick thinking to really flesh out his entire range of moves.

You know, when I put the two together I realize I just suggested I was a French ninja. I have the urge to get some french toast throwing stars now. It's the weapon you can eat!

I Love Paul Barnett

Whether or not I actually go out and try Warhammer, I've got to admit that Paul Barnett is a fascinating person to watch explain things.

New link of a link of a thing Barnett explains.

This time, he explains MMOs.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Here's a fun picture of what the weather looks like outside:
So apparently I did not get the hint from last night's loud thunderstorm that I should pack a umbrella on my way to campus (college). Little did I know the dark clouds would decide to make it's joyous cloud tinkle just after I had finished lunch.

Wait, can clouds tinkle? Would that mean that thunder would be like a fart and lightning would be what happens if you hold a lighter near the cloud?

At any rate, I'm sopping wet and dreaming of the better days of high school where it wasn't a miniature city and you only cared about the rain when you had to walk to the trailer park classrooms (classrooms on trailers, all hail public school systems) or when you left for the day. Then I remember that high school had big halls and tiny doors. Getting through that kind of socially awkward mob in 5 minutes never was that fun.

You know, high school sounds a lot like the WoW forums........

I Keep On Falling In Love With You

So a few days back I discovered Stumbleupon. It's quite fascinating really. It shows you these wonderful websites that you may have never known about before. After I showed it to Madget yesterday he showed me the results of his fascinated clicking. Suffice to say I'm going to feel dirty if I ever have to call him on the phone.

Here's the coolest site I found.

Voltron Rocks

For a very long time now one of my realm's forum posters has had a quote of mine in his sig. The quote was just a post I made on some thread, but it did have a reference to a recording I had made at the time as well. To my knowledge said poster has never heard the recording that gave birth to his sig:

"They kill my bosses with gnome orgies and Voltron powers......"

So without further waiting, the recording.

Recording of Awesome

+10 win points to Madget and Scyllah for helping get this to work.
-15 win points to Scyllah for scarring my eyes forever.

Baby It's Cold Outside

So I'm looking at the boss models people over at mmo-champion found with the 2.4 patch. Given as how the first boss, Kalecgos, has held raiders at bay for the moment I can only assume that one boss who caught my attention will be there.

His name is apparently Frostlord.
Happy looking fellow, isn't he? It seems that one of his drops is that nasty looking scythe of his. I half expect some Grim Reaper roleplay in the future.

What really caught my attention is that he's 4th in the line of what I would describe as Elemental Lords. We've already got Ragnaros, Thunderaan, Murmer, and now this chap. Now my first impression after seeing the first two was that they were going for a Captain Planet approach. They would be fire and air respectively. Murmer (sound) threw me for a loop, but with this quasi-water type thing I'm starting to wonder if there's a Captain Planet lord down the line.

We could name it after Ted Turner.

Linky Linky

This is awesome.

On another bit, I recently found out the guys who did the sketch "Boot to the Head" also did some other good ones. Here's a few.



They were all audio, but I like that video version best compared to the others.



There was a WoW version of that one.



Conjure manna biscuits takes on a whole new meaning now folks.

Oh Noes!

Note: This isn't related to WoW. Those who think I'm sticking to just WoW related topics are mistaken. Sorry.

So a few days back I'm browsing through the net and I discover that Dynasty Warriors 6 is slated to release the 19th of this month. Given as how I don't actually own a 7th generation console (Wii/Xbox 360/PS3) I won't be getting the game any time soon. In this case I decided to check out Youtube to see how things were from the Japanese release. Based on videos, I have made some conclusions.

The Good

• You can call for your horse.
• You can level up mid-mission.
• The story isn't a complete rehash of it's predecessors, but does in fact have some changes.
• No "fog of war" in the distance.

The Bad

• Significant changes to the characters' fighting styles were made.
• Some notable characters are no longer playable.
• The issue with enemy mobs fading in and out of reality still exists.

Now this is just me, but I really like the old school character designs. I applaud Koei for trying to mix things up a bit on a franchise that's suffered from stagnation, but in doing so, they killed some of the life the game had. In the previous games many characters had several unique and interesting styles of play. In this game it feels homogenized in my point of view. Many of the unique weapons were replaced with a spear or other polearm.

Here's a vid of the new character designs:


Those who've played earlier versions may recognize some of the changes. I'll make a couple examples for those who didn't.

Here's one of my favaroite characters, the astoundingly flaming Zhang He on the right. As you can see, he's got arm claws and makes WoW's paladin look like the most masculine entity in the world. Need proof? I refer you to the video below.



See that? Fruity. In retrospect I sort of understand why not only did I like this character, but also why I raided with a paladin in WoW. I may be on to something. At any rate, in this new game they removed his "cat fight" claws and gave him another generic polearm. You can probably pick him out in the video shown earlier. He's the fruity looking one. It's hard to miss. Really really hard to miss.

Personally, the one thing that got me was the change to Pang Tong. I loved that guy. His move-set, his design, everything. Then I saw the new design along with his moves. Now he's just some yeti...............thing that waggles a stick around. Suffice to say I'm disappointed. I'll just stay content with my older version while waiting to see what Sucker Punch does to Sly Cooper 4. There's still hope.

Information Overload

Well folks, it's time. Patch 2.4's PTR notes are up and running. The notes can be found here. As you peruse them, you may see some notable notes worthy of a hip hip hurrah.

A representative of the Keepers of Time has been spotted at the World’s End Tavern in Shattrath. Players in good standing with the faction will be granted ease of passage to the Caverns of Time.

This really helps with speedy travel. WoW has always had a problem with that.

Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.

It's pretty nice for those spirit based class, but I'm a little bummed it does not regenerate mana like mp5.

Ritual of Summoning can be used to summon players into instances if they meet the instance requirements.

Speedy summons. Very nice.

Diminishing returns on honor for kills is being eliminated.
Honor will now be instantly calculated, and available for player use.

Improving the honor grind by speeding up the process. That's good.

Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter Hyjal. Players will no longer require an attunement quest to enter the Black Temple.

There's a little bit of animosity from this by some raiders, but this is a wise move. The "hardcore" raiders have had months to get BT done. After this amount of time making the sandbox more accessible will certainly help retain subscriptions. Not only that, but heroic badges will also give BT quality gear (source). Because of that it's much easier to have the gear to tackle the dungeon.

You can find more information such as pictures and blue posts here. The weapons and armor naturally range from silly to cool. There's one thing that interest me in particular though. It's a new mount attainable through the trading card game.


It's like Wile E. Coyote decided to play WoW and wanted to ride in style. *meep** meep*

I Like Big Butts And I Cannot Lie

Continuing with the armor diatribe I thought it would be fun to point out another matter of "scale". For those of you that don't know, Princess Theredras is the ugliest thing to have ever existed in WoW. She's the final boss of the 5 man dungeon Maraudon. You can see a picture of her on the side there. Yep, she's a looker alright.


Anyways, this brings me to the armor bit. On of her drops is a pair of plate leggings. Now on a dude they don't look too bad really. They look like a regular pair of leggings. On a chick however you get a different look. Now what I want to know is why it's possible to wear a bikini like that from a creature like that. Weird, huh?

I've Figured It Out

You know all those logical inconsistencies that happen when you play a MMO? You know, armor off a wolf, a weapon off a guy that fights unarmed, or even the whole concept of "pulling" a mob group while the next group not 20 feet away just stands there and lets them die. Well, I've figured out a way the mobs can stick it to the players that come kill them.

The answer? No more "one size fits all" clothing.

Think about it. When you kill a dungeon boss and he drops loot, you may get a piece of armor. What you may also notice is that same armor that fits your Tauren like a glove would also fit a Dwarf. Weird, huh? Anyways, if all armor was by default sized only to fit the stature of a Gnome, then most dungeons would never be cleared for lack of sufficient gear on the players. Well, Blood Elves might be able to wear the armor, but that's a given.

Another Brick In The Wall

So I'm getting back into the swing of drawing. I haven't really done any serious artwork for years now. Anyways, my current little project is drawing landscapes. On paper, drawing a brick building doesn't sound too bad, but then you get into the practice of it. Believe it or not, but the actual creation of all those little bricks on a wall's surface are rather time consuming to draw. Maybe next time I'll just draw drywall. I've been around drywall enough, it doesn't seem too difficult to detail.

In partial relation, here's a couple artist's sites I visit from time to time.

Banksy
He's a graffiti artist in England. His history can be found here. I rather like some of the things he comes up with.

Sons of the Storm
It's the art site for some of Blizzard's artists such as Samwise Didier and Chris Metzen. Visit it if you don't already.

I Cast Magic Missles At The Darkness!

Going through Jeff's older posts led me to some funny quotes from Madtoad's DnD group. I liked them, so enjoy.

• Quote-Hammer
• The Deadland's List
• Original Wednesdays
• Thursday Nights at Ben's
• Compiled Small Quotes Sections
• Ventrilo-y Goodness
• Travis, Wednesday Night Goodness

Ice Ice Baby

So the other day I'm doing an Arcatraz run with a frost mage. One of my habits is to inspect other people's talent specs to see how well they allocated their points. This particular mage didn't seem to have a firm grasp of the Frost tree for two reasons. Not only did he (1) take Frostbite without Shatter, but (2) he did not take Arctic Reach.

Now my mage is only in the 20s, but I like to think I have a good grasp of how some talents can work together. Look at Frostbite and Shatter. They have synergy because Shatter allows for more damage when a target is frozen from either Frost Nova or Frostbite's chill effect. See that? Synergy.

Not taking Arctic Reach was something I really don't understand. By increasing the range of your abilities you increase the area around your body in which you can attack. A larger circle of influence sounds good to me.

That's all for now. Maybe next time we'll find a group with a fury warrior who uses 2-handed weapons or a hunter who gears up for strength.

Move Aside, Eddie Izzard

PvP is fun in some respects. You get to match wits with other players and pummel them into the ground. When one normally thinks of PvP in WoW terms we think of spec, gear, and skill. What you don't hear much about is underhanded tactics. That's what I'm here today about.

You may have realized this, a phenomenon in which each class has their own gear set which makes them easily identifiable. Brown armor? Druid. Fuel exhaust shoulders? Hunter. After a while it's not hard at all to spot who's who at a quick glance and respond accordingly. What I like to do however, is change things up a bit. There is one distinct feature that separates rogues, hunters, and warriors from everybody else. They don't have gear that looks like a dress.

So what do we do before heading to the PvP killfest? Simple!

With a getup like this there is a fair probability some poor fool will mistake you for a mage or other spellcasting class. Just sit back and watch those warlocks try to stop you with Curse of Tongues or Drain Mana.

Good times.

Quick Tips For New Rogues

In a MMO there's quite a few things that the manual won't really tell you. In fact there are several nuances you'll need to pick up as you play. Here's some things I learned when leveling. With any luck you will take these lessons to heart when you start up your own rogue.


Vanish can be used outside of stealth. Ignore the tooltip's description of "improved stealth". You don't put it on your stealth bar and use it when you are having a really hard time sneaking around. Also, don't leave it on your stealth bar for 30 levels.

Having a dagger in your mainhand means that while you can use high damage moves like Backstab and Ambush, your damage from Sinister Strike will suffer. As a result, it's a bad idea to start the fight with Ambush and do the rest with Sinister Strike. Using Gouge or Kidney shot should give you the opportunity to position behind the target for Backstab.

Don't use Deadly Poison when trying to Gouge.

Evasion, while handy against melee opponents, does not mean you can evade a mage's fireballs Matrix style.

Don't spec Dagger Specialization and Sword Specialization at the same time.

Tapping the Sinister Strike button like a hummingbird on coffee does not make the energy needed for the skill regenerate any faster. It will just kill your keyboard.

Using Pickpocket does not mean you are stealing the loot they would have dropped when you killed them.

Feint will not help you in solo play. The tooltip's "enemies are less likely to hit you" does not mean that you will evade their attacks.

Strength, Spirit, and Intellect are not good stats to actively pursue as a rogue.

Expose Armor is not a skill you use to literally remove your target's armor. You can leave that all girl npc camp now.

So there's some good tips for the rogue just starting out. Post your own tips.

Who Loves Chef Boyardee?

We have our first blog request it seems. One of our readers wants to know the eating habits of the undead as well as my phone number. The phone number part's wrong, but I'm a sad and lonely man who needs to dream sometimes.

Yeah.........

Now where was I? Ah yes, zombie food. For those of you in the know, WoW's undead have a racial ability called Cannibalize. Think of it as a free bandage you looted off of that annoying hunter who tried to steal your mining node. What some people don't know is that there are certain intricacies that go with the eating of sentient flesh.

What is cannibalism?
Technically cannibalism is the eating of another of your kind. Ethically it's frowned upon to eat the flesh of another, but I have the solution for your moral conundrum. If you apply this to WoW terms, in reality it should mean a player's race eating it's own. Now while it's true that most undead's taste buds have long since died, we don't really want another guy's intestinal maggot colony moving in on the tapeworm family we've got chilling out in our stomach. Because of that we go out and eat other races' bodies. They're just lying there after all. Since they aren't actually the same as you it's not really cannibalism. Undead don't have cow horns or pointy Spock ears, so they really can't count as undead. Congratulations, you're ethically free!

What about taste?
In the circles of eating fresh man-meat, there's certain hierarchies of taste. Trolls for example refuse to eat gnomes and dwarves due to the fact that their heads come pre-shrunk. To undead, gnomes and dwarves are excellent. Gnomes are really tender like veal and dwarves come marinated in ten different kinds of alcohol. Night elf is something like fancy dining. Sure the meal looks pretty, but it doesn't have much substance. Now the real meal you want to try is the new entree, the Draenei. They're like surf and turf incarnate. Want seafood? Eat a dude. Need some goat meat? Draenei chick's your choice.

That's really all about an undead's eating habits in a nutshell. Now you know.