Postcards from WoW, Part 1

By Shamus Posted Monday Jul 19, 2010

Filed under: Pictures 97 comments

Oh no! Shamus is turning this site into a WoW blog! The rage!

Well, I turned it into a Mass Effect 2 blog and a Fable 2 blog at various times. This too shall pass.

Anyway, round & about the World O’ Warcraft:

wow_spammer1.jpg

A spammer. Yes, I know that posting images of his shenanigans is helping him to achieve his goal and thus rewards the little bastard, etc. But this is an interesting case because he’s revealing some interesting holes in the WoW servers.

What you’re looking at is a group of level one human Warlocks, who all start in red robes. They are no doubt in the game on trial accounts. They have assembled themselves into positions in mid-air to spell the name of the spammer site.

wow_spammer2.jpg

Onlookers assumed this was a group of goldfarmers, but it was clear to me that these avatars were controlled by homemade scripts and not real people. I’m guessing the spammer didn’t have the WoW client running. He was probably running his own software that posed as the client and allowed him to control many avatars at once from the same computer. The entire group moved with extreme mechanical precision. They went from the standing upright configuration to the sitting one at exactly the same time. They moved to their new positions instantly without needing to walk there. Oh, and they were floating in the air, which is not possible using legitimate game mechanics.

What I can’t understand is why Blizzard allows this. It’s not difficult to analyze incoming positional data and perform sanity checks on it. If someone playing WoW suddenly seems to have moved 10 meters in half a second, the server should be able to spot the rule-violating behavior. Some goes for standing in mid-air.

Moving on. Thanks to those who donated to the “help Shamus score a mount” fund:

wow_mount.jpg

Also thanks for the advice from fellow players on how to work the auction house. I’ve managed to find a few key items that I’m willing to part with and that sell for a fortune. Also thanks for all the bags. This game is so much more fun when you can carry all the crap you need for cooking, fishing, first aid, and your profession tools.

And now for something completely juvenile:

wow_chair.jpg

It looks like my lizard is giving my a lapdance, but really he’s* just standing there. Pets always do this. If you sit in a chair, they sort of climb onto your lap.

* I actually think Eddie is a female. The game doesn’t normally tell you the gender of animals. But! There is this group of ghosts in the game that put a curse on you and turn you into an undead human for a couple of minutes. When this happened to Eddie, she was a female avatar. This happened on two different occasions. I should go back with a different pet and see if it ends up a different gender.

I just dinged level 30. This is an important level in the game, where you get new powers and access to the next tier of gear. But I didn’t care about any of that. The moment I leveled I ran out and got this:

wow_solomon.jpg

You can’t tame a pet above your own level, and this was the first turtle I could reach on the Alliance side. (Blood Elves get Turtles in their starting location. I actually considered trying to get there and grab one when I was 25 and tired of waiting, but I figured the trip would be suicide. I’d have to pass through hostile country, high-level areas, and Horde-side cities to get there.)

 


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97 thoughts on “Postcards from WoW, Part 1

  1. X2-Eliah says:

    The lack of sanity checks as you mentioned might actually be done deliberately, so that the server doesn’t kick you off for cheating (or do anything more serious) as the internet had a lag spike, or your cat clogged the wireless pipeline, when you are moving on your client, but mid-way of that is lost in transit.

    1. Shamus says:

      It’s certainly possible. Still, floating in mid air should be right out. This sort of monkeybusiness can really wreck PvP.

      1. Moriarty says:

        I saw a blue comment somewhere about this, blizz server can’t check all clients locations for legimity. Something about too much traffic, dalaran is a huge lagfest as it is, we certainly don’t need more roadbumps.

        1. Dys says:

          That was my first thought, when I read the post.
          Shamus has posted plenty of math in the past regarding the exponential increase of traffic in an mmo.
          Making checks constantly on everyone would surely be a heavy load, and what would it prevent, exactly? A minor annoyance.

          I’d rather have a lag free server full of floating warlocks.

          1. Jabor says:

            Sanity checking is a once-per-client thing. It’s a linear increase as you add clients, not an exponential one.

            1. Evan says:

              Exponential increase in clients traffic, not in checks. Checks might be one per player, but if the server’s traffic increases exponentially with time, then the number of checks also increases exponentially with time.

              Yeah, I can understand why they wouldn’t perform sanity checks. Slightly irritating, but definitely better than servers wasting all their processing power checking to ensure people don’t float slightly.

      2. Grimwauld says:

        Shamus,

        In the PVE world they don’t pay too much attention to mild cheating.
        On PVP servers they pay somewhat more attention to it in the PVE portion.

        And either way, they pay heaps of attention to it in sanctioned PVP. You cheat in PVP, you’ll be banned in under 6 hours, which is pretty fast turn around.

        There are certain limitations to how much you can cheat before the server kicks you off.

        (3.5 years ago)
        You could standing-warp 12 meters (a smidge more than you saw)
        You could float at armpit level of the giant elite devilsaurs in ungoro crater.
        You could moving-warp up to 500 meters.
        And a host of misc. other things.

        Exceed any of the above & you’d get kicked off and possibly banned
        Or, get caught doing it and you’d be perma banned based on your credit card.

        (I became a bad boy & cheater when I lagged out and got banned for it. Bought a new account, leveled up and cheated for all I was worth in childish, juvenile anger.)

        1. Shamus says:

          Very interesting. Thanks.

          Glad they keep an eye on PvP – that’s where it really counts.

  2. Davie says:

    I must say, despite it being spam, the idea behind the posing is rather clever. Reminds me of the ridiculous synchronized dance routines really organized guilds will do.

    1. k3rni says:

      Organized dances are already a core part of the game. Think of the Heigan encounter for example. Or Thaddius. Or anything that needs precise positioning. However, this inaccurate positioning is clearly scripted, and in violation of Blizz’s TOS, so the banhammer should be applied liberally here.

      1. Moriarty says:

        The banhammer isn’t to be feared in this case, as there are trialaccounts. If blizz bans them all, they just create new ones for free.

  3. Simon says:

    Damn you Shamus, all these posts are making me want to play Wow, after all these years of fighting the temptation.

    Just out of curiosity, if someone was to start, should we be rushing to get in before the Cataclysm changes kick into gear, or waiting until afterwards?

    1. Hitch says:

      Well, Blizzard has not announced a release date for Cataclysm. It’s still officially “soonâ„¢.” Which is Blizzard speak for, “quite a long ways off.”

      1. Nathon says:

        It will be in November, like all their WoW releases. I actually have this from a pretty reliable (but anonymous) source.

      2. Moriarty says:

        official definition of “soonâ„¢”Âť:

        “Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment's expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Blizzard Entertainment generally uses words such as “outlook,”Âť “will,”Âť “could,”Âť “would,”Âť “might,”Âť “remains,”Âť “to be,”Âť “plans,”Âť “believes,”Âť “may,”Âť “expects,”Âť “intends,”Âť “anticipates,”Âť “estimate,”Âť future,”Âť “plan,”Âť “positioned,”Âť “potential,”Âť “project,”Âť “remain,”Âť “scheduled,”Âť “set to,”Âť “subject to,”Âť “upcoming”Âť and similar expressions to help identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment's actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales levels of Blizzard Entertainment's titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Blizzard Entertainment's ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms (including next-generation hardware), declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Blizzard Entertainment's products, adoption rate and availability of new hardware and related software, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry standards, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Blizzard Entertainment, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, vendors and third-party developers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates, integration of recent acquisitions and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, Activision Blizzard's success in integrating the operations of Activision Publishing and Vivendi Games in a timely manner, or at all, and the combined company's ability to realize the anticipated benefits and synergies of the transaction to the extent, or in the timeframe, anticipated, and the other factors identified in Activision Blizzard's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.”

    2. Shamus says:

      Maybe wait until just before it drops. You want to see it again, and then see the new one. It’s amazing.

      I was flying around in the woods right outside Stormwind, looking at views that the Gryphon cam had never given me. (In the beta you can just roll max-level chars with $LUDICROUS and raid-ready gear.)

      It’s more than just a make-over, too. They are making changes to character behaviors, graphics, game balance, new areas, revamped starting areas and quests, new races. I’m still struggling to just get a handle on all the changes.

      1. lazlo says:

        I’d agree with you also because it’s likely that there will be some world events heralding the new expansion. They may be interesting to see. (the zombie plague before WotLK was interesting).

        I’ve always thought of raptors as females. The egg-laying *could* be done by only half of them, but their fabulous necklaces are a definite indicator to me.

        As for the human spammer structures, I think the motivation for them is interesting. If you’re spamming chat, Blizzard has created an easy way to right-click and report spamming, and some add-ons help to filter it out. Reporting a silent poser is difficult, and may be impossible. And hacking the game client to not show level 1 characters would be difficult and likely violate Blizzard’s TOS.

        1. Drue says:

          You can always submit a ticket to a GM and tell them the situation. Works fairly well in my experience.

          1. lazlo says:

            True, but the difficulty differential between “right-click name, report spam, accept” and “send a GM a ticket saying ‘yo, there’s, like, spammers in SW square'” straddles my point of “Meh, I’d rather go ahead and get my auctions done.”

            Of course, they could completely solve it by putting an auction house in Shatt and Dal. The spammers would have a harder time getting to those cities, and the capitol cities would be ghost towns.

            Course, the mobile auction app pretty much does that for you, it just costs an extra $3/mo…

            1. Roll-a-die says:

              Bringing the total cost up to $18 a month. Or $216 a year. IE Your new graphics card, 108 cheese burgers and small drinks from McDonald’s, 2-4 kegs, 80 boxes of pop tarts, 89 pounds of hamburger, or 16 8oz Fillet Mignon’s. :}, reality is fun isn’t it.

        2. ClearWater says:

          Oh that’s right! Just before the Lich King there was a quest that got you haunted by some ghost until you finished the quest. There’s still people walking around who never finished it and so are still haunted (probably on purpose).

          1. Ryplinn says:

            Actually, the item stayed with you once you finished the quest. Several of my characters have their little buddy following them around.

            Watching.

            Always watching.

    3. SatansBestBuddy says:

      I’m likely gonna wait till after, because it’s been so long and there’s already been so many changes since I last played that I’d rather get used to the new system than get used to the old system and have it replaced just as I figured it out.

      This is, of course, assuming my vow of never giving Activision money ever again gives out before then…

    4. Veloxyll says:

      That’s a tricky one really, cause Blizzard are applying all they’ve learnt throughout WoW’s life to the levelling experience, so it should be more fun to play at lower levels post-Cataclysm.

      That said, after going “Eh WoW, I’ll resub after Cata comes out”, I’m currently back to levelling one last time. (I resumed WoWage because nothing else was keeping me busy like WoW does, even Age of Conan just made me want to play WoW >.< )

  4. Volatar says:

    Dangit Shamus! I don’t want to reactivate my WoW account! Stop trying to make me do so! :P

    1. tremor3258 says:

      I heavily agree with this. I’m out, man! Yet they keep sucking me back in.

  5. Hitch says:

    I think all pets get treated as female by that curse. Warlock pets as well as Hunter pets. I was shocked to see my Voidwalker as a female undead pirate.

    Any luck on Mechanical Squirrels?

    1. Shamus says:

      Yes. Built one. Man I love engineering.

      EDIT: Fixed an unfortunate typo.

      1. Bryan says:

        The mechanical squirrel is what finally made my engineer profitable. I made ten of them and they all sold for 8g each in 2 days on the auction house.

        But if it weren’t for my other four alts sending him most of the raw materials throughout, I doubt he would have gone that far.

        1. ClearWater says:

          How much could you have gotten for the parts? I think it requires some Truesilver bars or something. Those are hard to find.

          1. Veloxyll says:

            Just copper and maalchite as I recall, nothing particularly daunting

      2. The phrase “man love” really ought not be used when discussing mechanical squirrels.

        I suspect you’re missing a pronoun.

  6. rbtroj says:

    Let me add my voice to those already decrying you for forcing us (at gunpoint, no less) to reactivate our years-dead WoW subscriptions. You cur.

  7. RTBones says:

    I’ll jump on the “now I want to play this again” pile. The last time I played was right at the Battlenet changeover – and even then I wasnt really playing per se (happened to be bored at the time, got cheesed off with all the changeover antics, went on to something else.) Was at a computer store at the weekend, gave in and bought a game card. A couple of random thoughts here….

    1) Patching — you know, if Blizzard says I need a patch, thats fine. But if I am going to have to patch a patch to a patch, can’t they just say “hey, your install seems a little (a LOT) out of date. Why dont you just download the new client package?” HOURS of my life wasted because of this.

    2) Interface changes — I have never been one to mess with add-ons for the UI. I have looked at a couple, and just decided I dont have a problem with the default. I am a solo player (I dont participate in raids on anything other than a one-off basis, I have great dislike for PvP, and generally dont group in my wanderings). Having said all of that, I am finding myself (so far) liking the quest markers on the map feature. Only level 8 at this point (due to wasting hours updating my install) so my opinion may change once I get a few levels on.

    1. Sumanai says:

      When I played WoW* I had 512kbit/s connection. It had been out for well over a year. It took me a few days of updating to get to play it. I felt slightly miffed at that point.

      * Only for 3 weeks of the free month. It’s nice having high resistance to Blizzard’s games. Too bad I don’t know where to sign up for help in making the antidote.

  8. Kdansky says:

    If you need more money, go and read some gevlon. Jumpstarting is the hard part, but afterwards it is ridiculously easy to exponentially grow your money until you hit market saturation (at a couple thousand gold per day).

  9. Deoxy says:

    I have never actually had a WoW subscription. Ever.

    Kind of proud of that, actually. In a sad, “my computer always sucks” sort of way.

    (I have several small children now, so it’s actual not even realistically tempting, for both time and money reasons. Maybe in 10 years or so…)

    1. Daimbert says:

      The closest I got was getting the free trial (bought a magazine just to get it, actually). Loaded it up, tried an undead warlock, thought it was okay, got into a duel and won, and decided to try a dwarf paladin. Got annoyed when there didn’t seem to be all that much difference in terms of the game or quests between the two and the different starting areas (the areas were different, but seemed the same somehow), and stopped playing. Never played it again.

      This is not like DAoC, CoH or LotRO, where I at least had some interest (but, in the end, had too weak hardware. I think.)

      1. Taellosse says:

        That’s the closest I ever came, too. I played a little in the open beta shortly before the game came out, but wasn’t compelled enough to buy it when it released. Then I got free 30 day trials when I bought fresh copies of the Warcraft III and Starcraft battlechests (I’d had them both when I lived with my parents, but somehow my younger brother wound up with the original discs–probably because he lived at home still after I moved out) a couple years back. I used one of them to play around a bit, and found the experience to be similar to the open beta.

        I’m a solo sort by preference, and the repetitive nature of the game–go kill x # of y, collect z # of q from y, now go kill the super version of y which is guarded by gobs of same, rinse, repeat–grew tiresome. It was kind of fun to see some of the different starting areas–tried a night elf druid, a human warlock, a troll warrior, and an undead something I can’t remember now–and surrounding locations, but there just isn’t enough variety or plot to keep me entertained enough to justify an ongoing expense. I’d buy it and play it if it were a one-time purchase like a regular game, but I’m not compelled enough by it to pay a subscription.

  10. bickerdyke says:

    It still looks fun!

    Never saw something like that during my WoW days. Hmmm, jast one small drop of WoW couldn’t hurt me now anymore… could it?

    And for the sanity checks:

    a) they would add up as they’d have to be executed for each player for almost every position update

    b) they would possibly screw up cases of actual teleportation (Hearthstones, moving to the graveyard, resurrection would all have to be taken into account)

    c) corpses can actually float in mid-air (but thats proably a bug, too) but it still was an intresting expereince to peek under a robe and find out that clothes and people can actually be seen through from the backside.

  11. I briefly played a Blood Elf Hunter who acquired a pink flamingo for a pet. (A rare pink flamingo can be found near the Tauren starting area.)

    Of course, I HAD to name my pink flamingo Divine!

    I like Eddie and Solomon. Good names.

    Leslee

  12. Rolaran says:

    Ironically, it’s thanks to this blog that I no longer play WoW. After reading about Champions Online, I decided to give it a try, and found I had more fun for my $15/month on Champs. So I have no desire whatsoever to return to WoW. Yeah… none at all… at least that’s what I keep telling myself…

    For the record, they’ve ironed out a lot of the gameplay flaws in Champions, but the story isn’t getting any smarter.

    1. Heron says:

      Did they fix melee powers so they’re actually useful? I wanted to play a dual-sword-wielding hero but my Darkness-based heroine (all ranged powers) was just so much easier to play… With her I hit the level cap and quit. Too boring.

      1. Rolaran says:

        Well, they gave melee a number of buffs a while back. Melee can now generate energy while they’re still out of attack range, you don’t lose energy on attacks if the target moves out of range (so no more “you charge an uppercut, target takes two steps back, you waste two-thirds of your energy bar”), the various “lunge into melee” powers got their cooldowns reduced so that you can actually keep an opponent nearby, and I think they even increased the range at which you can melee a little bit.

        1. TSED says:

          And melee got HUGE dps buffs.

          Seriously. My might main can manhandle bosses so fast the old dps classes look at me dripping with envy.

  13. TehShrike says:

    Unrelated: if anyone is interested, I am mirroring the TwentySided RSS feed on one of my own domains:

    http://error420.com/twentysided/posts.php

    All of the content is exactly the same, except that the image links are changed to be referenced via absolute URL instead of relative. (The images never showed up for me in Google Reader otherwise.)

  14. Someone says:

    Werent there turtles in Stranglethorn Vale?

    Maybe pet “gender” is defined by owner character’s gender?

    Have to join the crowd feeling urges to return to WoW. Seriously, you should put a gigantic disclaimer in red letters saying “WoW article, viewer discression is advised” before every WoW post, so that people who managed to get out dont fall into a relapse.

    1. Tizzy says:

      I must admit that Shamus knows how to communicate his enthusiasm and make WoW sound attractive, even for those of us who never played it.

      1. Sam says:

        That’s what happened with me and Champions Online. Despite the lambasting Shamus gave it, I still ended up signing up a few months back and have mostly been enjoying myself ever since.

    2. acronix says:

      Just make a google search for images of characters at levels 20, 40, and 80. You´ll be so displeased by their looks your mind will go “I´m not ever going to play something that makes me dress like a clown for 80 levels!”.

      Or you´ll go “That…that´s AWESOME!”

      1. Ryplinn says:

        Some of my friends had fun finding low-level gear that was good both in both stats and looks.

        The Dreamweave Vest can burn in hell.

  15. Jack says:

    Enjoy Southshore while you can and, despite you not wanting to engage in PvP, murder every horde you see; maybe we can still save Southshore.

  16. Tizzy says:

    I’m not a WoW player, so can someone explain to me why Shamus was so eager to get a pet turtle rather than a pet anything else? (I assume there is a wide range of choices in pets.)

    1. Jason says:

      Zombie Shamus says “I like turtles.”

      1. BaCoN says:

        They’re also the only pet in the game that can eat pizza.

    2. Hitch says:

      Hunter pets come in three broad categories.

      There are “tenacity” pets like bears and turtles that are slightly better at tanking than other other pets. That is to say, they can take a lot of damage while keeping an enemy focused on them, so the hunter can use their ranged attack.

      Cats and raptors are “ferocity” pets which deal slightly more damage than other pets, while still being able to perform their tanking function in most cases.

      Then there are “cunning” pets like birds of prey and spiders which usually have some sort of special crowd control or debuff ability.

      All that being said, I assume Shamus just likes turtles.

      1. Tizzy says:

        All that being said, I assume Shamus just likes turtles.

        That would be wise of him. Turtles are awesome!

        Thanks for clarifying this for me.

  17. Hal says:

    Wish I had thought of this before; Shamus, if you’d done the Blackfathom Deeps dungeon, you could have gotten a turtle pet ~lvl 22.

    Have you used the dungeon finder yet?

    1. BaCoN says:

      Yeah, I was gonna say this, too. Or Kresh, from Wailing Caverns, can be gotten at 18.

      Also, Shamus, you should get crabs. You love crabs. Everybody gets crabs.

      1. Hal says:

        Yes, but then he’d have had to go to Wailing Caverns, also known as “The dungeon that proves Blizzard hates its customers.”

        1. Shunal says:

          Actually, I think that title goes to Blackrock Depths.

          1. pinchy says:

            I don’t know, I at least have some positive memories of BRD (and can still find my way around even now) whereas Wailing Caverns is horribly confusing, dull and had the added downside of driving thousands of people away from the game in frustration if it was their first experience of a dungeon.

            I mean really what was more cool killing a few druids and a giant turtle in a bunch of caves or fighting fire elementals, golem creatures, a dwarven army, dwarven ancestor ghost things and an emperor (assuming your group didn’t die horribly and ragequit at the Lyceum)?

            1. Moriarty says:

              positive memories about brd but wailing caverns is horribly confusing? You certainly didn’t have to try to find your way yourself through brd.

              You can’t even compare those two adequately anyway, wailing caverns is a lowlv dungeon while brd was once endgame content.

              What’s so bad about wailing caverns anyway? sure as far as first dungeons go, deadmines are far more awesome, but caverns isn’t horrible either.

              1. Hal says:

                In no particular order:

                -Confusing layout, particularly with the multiple, criss-crossing layers.

                -Kill order for bosses which is not made clear when entering

                -Dungeon is filled with mobs (often at a high density) which are ranged casters, at a time when most tanks have no tools for dealing with such

                -Said casters often cast a sleep spell which lasts an unusually long time

                -Escort portion

                -Just dang long; because of the size, it can take a group as many as two hours to finish the entire thing (at least with BRD, there is at least a clear line to do either the Upper City or the Lower City)

                -Required platforming (you have to jump from one platform to another). The rarity of that in this game means that many people miss the jump, which can mean grueling detours

                1. pinchy says:

                  Basically you said it all for me- Wailing Caverns is a terrible early dungeon, having people overcome those sorts of things at higher level is one thing, having to do it without half our class abilities and while half the group is often still learning the game is just an exercise in frustration. Better just to wait a few levels and go to the far superior SFK.

        2. Kalil says:

          …Wailing Caverns is actually one of my favorite dungeons.
          I used to run it on my level 60 mage while waiting in the Warsong queue. The Deviant Scales and the occasional low-level Blue made me a decent amount of money. I’d also buy the leatherworking patterns off the vendors over the entrance and sell them in Ironforge for 2g apiece. Ahh, those were the days…

          Of course, I also kind of liked Mauradon, which proves I’m a masochist. I did have enough sense to despise the Princess, at least.

  18. Emm Enn Eff says:

    I believe that there is no custom client involved – it’s just a utility that edits the game client’s memory, to change the position of your character.

    Which is, almost completely client-side. It’s the reason that the game movement feels so smooth, even under laggy conditions.

  19. Lee says:

    During my WoW stint, I actually took my lv10 Alliance Hunter to the Blood Elf starting zone and got a Dragonhawk, because, well, they had me at “dragon”:
    http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/families/family_dragonhawk.html

    I did it twice, both using a ghost-walking glitch that worked at the time (the Blood Elf zone portal moved your corpse) as well as doing it the hard way and dying every 10 yards from undead bears and an orc named Noobkilla (of course).

    I later discovered that that particular Dragonhawk would have poor stats while it leveled. The solution? Have a friend sneak me into the back of the Wailing Caverns (on the far end of the Barrens) at Lv19 to pick up a Wind Serpent there:
    http://www.wow-petopia.com/html/families/family_windserpent.html

    That blue Wind Serpent is one of the few reasons I’d consider going back to WoW, because it’s one of the few rare things I’d acquired. (Rare on an Alliance, of course. Horde could gain either pet easily.)

  20. Sam says:

    I always wanted an Elekk mount back when I used to play. Never got one, and I never will. Ah, well.

    Also, I remember on quite a few occasions with my dwarf hunter where he would be sitting in a chair and my bear pet would climb right up on him so the bear’s butt was quite literally shoved into the dwarf’s face. I found it hilarious.

  21. Nasikabatrachus says:

    (Blood Elves get Turtles in their starting location. I actually considered trying to get there and grab one when I was 25 and tired of waiting, but I figured the trip would be suicide. I'd have to pass through hostile country, high-level areas, and Horde-side cities to get there.)

    You could just get yourself killed once and make the trip as a ghost. I’m pretty sure you can get resurrected at any graveyard, if my memory serves me properly. I never saw anything that attacked me as a ghost when I played. It would probably take a damn while, though.

    1. Steve C says:

      At one point you could ghost walk from GY to GY and rez. Doesn’t work anymore. Now if you try it you will be teleported back to the first GY.

  22. Galenor says:

    I always name my hunter pets after their corresponding food product. Bacon the boar, Soup the turtle; if you come across an animal which you cannot place a food product to, call it Kebab or BigMac.

  23. Mr. Son says:

    Slightly obscure tip on moving through high-level areas in WoW and only dying once!
    First, the obvious, leading up to the tip:
    When you die and release, your ghost appears at a spirit healer where you can rez, or run back to your body.
    You can run to a different spirit healer elsewhere and rez, but you will be sent back to the healer you first appeared at when you died.
    UNLESS! You log out between dying, and accepting the spirit rez. It breaks the game’s memory of where you should appear when you return to life. You only have to log out of the character, too, not the whole game.

    So basically, die on purpose. Run to the spirit healer nearest where you want to be. Log out and in again. Rez. Congratulations, you passed through an area N levels higher than you are, and only died once!

  24. Amarsir says:

    Damn you Shamus! Now I have to go and …

    wait … nope. No desire to return to WoW. None whatsoever.

    OK you’re cool.

  25. MrKite says:

    Speaking of Mass Effect 2, you still owe us an article about the good parts of the game, wich you promised to write in your nitpicking !

    1. krellen says:

      He mentioned Mordin, several times. What else is there to say?

      1. Sydney says:

        Why is the name “Mordin” familiar? Note that I don’t play video games. Grrr, I’ve heard it on this site before. That’s gonna drive me crazy now.

        EDIT: Oh wait.

      2. MrKite says:

        “What else is there to say ?”

        I’d say “Tali.”

        And the toilets separated for men and women inside the Normandy…

        1. Bit says:

          “Shepard, the woman’s restroom is on the starboard side of the ship.”
          *runs out giggling*

          Ah videogames, no matter how hard you try to be serious, someone will always find ways to make you uncannily hilarious. Raptor lapdances sound excruciatingly painful, by the way.

  26. jdhays says:

    I thought Blizzard fixed the dead body spam. I haven’t seen any on my server in a long time. The spammers used to reset the character’s position somehow. They’d move it high enough in the air so it would die on impact. See when you logout from a live character, the avatar disappears. But if you logout dead, your body stays put for two days.

    Btw, if you plan on playing for a while, you should consider getting an authenticator. For $6 you get a cryphtographic keyfob or cell phone app. It keeps your account secure from keyloggers. Just don’t enter the token into any unfamiliar websites.

  27. ClearWater says:

    I think Eddie is an (executive) transvestite. Or isn’t it Eddie (L)izzard?

    1. Shamus says:

      Heh. And I thought I’d get away with that one.

      1. Will says:

        The Internets always sees what you did there.

  28. ehlijen says:

    Yay! It’s a dinosaur doing funny things! :D

    Now it just needs lasers, like on that 80s cartoons show…

    Also, what is this WoW thing? :p

  29. Tharglet says:

    I have a gender macro I made somewhere… is an edited version of one I found online. Most creatures are of the “genderless” gender, I think raptors are one of the genderless creatures. (Don’t play WoW anymore, but I think I still have the macro)

    If I remember later, I can post it up.

  30. Mrsnugglesworth says:

    I remember my first Elekk. I got it at level 52.

    That was back when shit was real, and you got mounts at 40. And they were expensive as hell.

    I as actually one of those angry guys who didn’t like the mount level change. I was fucking pissed because about 5 days after I got my mount, the patch that made them level 30 came out. I was… angered. Then I got my level 60 mount at level 60. Because I stole money off a friend of mines account. Wooo, friendship.

    1. Teldurn says:

      Man, my time in WoW was so long ago. I left before Elekks came out. I didn’t know what they were the first time I heard it, and only found out about these mounts 2 days ago.

  31. Blackbird71 says:

    For anyone who feels like returning to WoW after reading these (myself included), if you’re struggling to find the willpower to resist re-subbing, just take a moment and consider the recent RealID fiasco, the changes to the ToU agreement, and the fact that Blizzard is selling your personal information to marketers.

    If you’re cool with all that, then by all means, go ahead and sign up again.

  32. Shiro_ax says:

    You can get a lv15ish turtle pretty easy from the barrens at lv 20ish. Enemy turf, but it’s just down Ashenvale. (By pretty easy I mean on my server where Barrens are empty, it depends on how numerous and gank-happy the horde is).

    I recommend http://www.wow-petopia.com/ for all your petfinding needs. I also recommend a white devilsaur.

    1. Shamus says:

      Hm. I wish I’d noticed that. I’m on a normal server. I wonder if I would get flagged for PvP if I entered the Barrens?

      1. Probably not. Though I’m not sure, I only play on PvP realms (though I don’t PvP outside of Wintergrasp it adds something to the risk factor and makes me enjoy the game more).

      2. ClearWater says:

        Only if you attack a guard. You don’t get flagged for entering the area (unless it’s a city). There’s a hole in the wall a bit to the left so you don’t even have to go through the main gate.

        1. Good, that is what I remembered reading.

          Looks like Shamus should have his turtle!

      3. Shiro_ax says:

        You would, but it’s been a while since I was on a normal server and my memory might be wrong.

        Experimental method: go to Bloodmyst and see if Bloodmyst is wrtiten in green then Barrens would be in red and you’d get flagged.

        1. Heather says:

          Newp. You don’t get flagged for going into any areas other than cities on a PvE or RP server.

  33. Ergonomic Cat says:

    It was always a point of pride for me to take my low level hunters to opposite starting zones for unique pets. Horde would get owls from Nelf or white bears from dwarf lands. Allies would get moths or dragonhawks or something trollish.

    I had a red ravager from the draenei lands too but I can’t feed it. :(

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