Archive for September, 2009
Authenticator note! New iPhone, new serial?
Posted by Brunty in Uncategorized on September 23, 2009
A note to anyone using the Authenticator on the iPhone (I would guess it’s the same on an iPod Touch but I can’t comment)
When I restored my previous iPhone from a backup (created from the same iPhone) the Authenticator worked fine, no serial number changes and I was happy as Larry.
Fast forward 2 days, I’m taking my iPhone into Apple to get it looked at. I get a new phone and when it’s home and restored from the backup I created just 2 days prior. I load the Authenticator app and am presented with the screen showing the serial number and notes about the authenticator. I checked the serial number with the one I’d written down from before (a part of me decided it was necessary in case things went wrong) and they were different. I jump onto the WoW login screen and the error box alerting me that the information entered is not correct appears.
So now I’m trying to phone Blizzard, but apparently they’re so busy I can’t even get onto the waiting list to wait to speak to someone.
*UPDATE* I contacted Blizzard and sent off the required information on Thursday 24th Sept (account details, scan / photo of a piece of government-issue Photo ID etc) and I’m waiting…
-Brunty
My UI in parts. Part 1: What do I want to achieve with my UI?
Posted by Brunty in Addons & UI Related on September 12, 2009
I’ll be going through my UI as a tank in separate (more manageable) parts structed like so:
- What do I want to achieve with my UI?
- Positioning, spacing and visibility.
- Unitframes: What they mean and what they can do.
- Action bars, keybindings and (useful) macros.
- Other essentials: ‘Meters’ and Monitors
- The ‘frilly’ stuff.
The addons and elements of my UI function for a DPS-offspec too, but as tanking is my main spec, I would think it’s fairly obvious that my UI suits that aspect of my game first and foremost.
So, what do I want to achieve with my User Interface?
I’ve seen many UI’s from players that need many addons, and just seem to cram them on-screen as much as they can. Now if that’s the way they want to play, I can only try and convince them to tidy things up a bit. Whenever I’m adjusting a UI, or looking at ways to make things a bit cleaner, I always think of the phrase: “don’t stand in the fire” as my primary objective. If I can’t see what I’m standing in, I’d be waiting for a mod / addon to alert me to it, I prefer to trust my own eyes (as good as mods are, it’s just one of those things) so a clear view of what’s around me is necessary. So for me, I want to achieve a UI that’s functional, has all the elements and mods that I need, but with clear viewing room and good visibility. I play on a 1280 x 800 screen, so I’m lacking in the pixel-department compared to say a 19″ or 22″ screen (1440 x 900 or 1680 x 1050 resolutions) but that doesn’t mean my UI still can’t fit, work and look good.
I won’t elaborate much more, I think I’ve covered the points, possibly even rambled on a bit more and avoided the point somewhere along the line.
Coming in Part 2 of this series of posts will be explanations of my positioning, spacing and that all important visibility! There’ll also be more diagrams & pictures!
Before I go, I shall include a picture of my UI with some annotations of what’s there, just to give you all an idea of what the game looks like for me.
The UI on Schnoobins
-Brunty
Do you ‘focus’ in WoW?
Posted by Brunty in Addons & UI Related, Mods on September 11, 2009
I’ll admit it, for a long period, I didn’t use the Focus Frame. Partly due to the fact I used AG_Unitframes as my unit frame addon and it (for some strange reason) didn’t support the Focus Frame for me. I tried setting it and would simply get a message that it had been disabled with AG_UF and to use it I’d have to disable the unit frames and go back to the standard Blizzard ones.
I’d heard good things about using Focus Frames, being able to track the health and ‘actions’ (such as casting, target switching) of a mob whilst you deal with others but I’d always got by without it and never thought it could be so useful that I’d have to do something about it.
I recently changed my unit frames addon to ‘Pitbull’, it has the Focus Frame enabled (and is accessed by typing /focus while having a target selected). Not only is Pitbull more customisable, but I’ve realised the power of the Focus Frame. I’ve setup a hidden bar with keybindings for a macro:
/focus [target=mouseover]
I have this key-bound to ‘Shift-F’ and all it does it use my current mouse-over target to set my focus, no need to even switch targets to create a focus and enable my focus frame!
So what can you now do with a focus frame?
In terms of a boss fight, it can be as simple as tracking the HP of a boss while you deal with adds, pair it with a nice cast-bar addon and you can track casting of the boss to (for interrupts if needed) as well as tracking the focus’ target to ensure that it’s targetting and / or attacking the right thing (which will mostly be me as a tank).
You can setup macros to use your focus target to cast abilities, again without switching targets, an example for a rogue or hunter could be using Tricks of the Trade or Misdirection respectively. As such they could set the Main Tank as their focus, then without needing to switch targets, they can cast their respective abilities on them to help boost threat etc.
There are many other ways to use your Focus Frame, so in what ways do you use yours? What do you have showing for your focus? Cast bars? Focus’ target?
-Brunty
Glory of the Hero
Posted by Brunty in Achievements, Dungeons & Raids on September 10, 2009
I’ve been going for my [Glory of the Hero] achievement for a while now, on and off whenever I run heroics. Generally I run with the same healer (a rather awesome Paladin) and there’s not a lot we couldn’t do.
Except for [Watch Him Die] … we tried zerging, control with 2 tanks and after trying a good 20+ times over months we stopped. My pally friend has subsequently done it with some CC on one of the watchers so I’m hopeful I can get it done again soon.
There’s only a few more to go, the [Less-Rabi] achievement has been a pain, nearly had it once and the lag-monster killed my connection, I DC’d half-way through a cast and we missed. But we shall keep trying.
The last achievements I need are the Oculus ones. The ones I’m looking forward to the least, it should be easier now the drakes scale with gear, but still. I hate that place. With a fiery-passion!
-Brunty
Brunty has earned the achievement [Can has blog?]
Posted by Brunty in General WoW on September 10, 2009
Welcome one and all!
I’ll direct you to the ‘About’ page if you wish to know a bit more about me, otherwise stick around here and we’ll tell tales by the campfire!
Well, here’s some of my WoW history (copied from an e-mail I wrote a while back, updated since then!)
I started playing WoW back in September / October of 2007, a couple of close friends played and pestered me to join them. I rolled a Human Rogue (Shajona) and slowly levelled him to 70, the day I hit 70 my guild took me into Kara and the raiding bug hit me. We raided twice weekly through Kara eventually moving onto Gruul and Maggy around mid-summer of 2008. After we’d decided we had them on farm status we hit SSC and it pretty much beat us down, so we hit TK instead. Downing Loot-Reaver and Solarian but not really progressing any further on the other bosses. We attempted them, but the proved to be a bit too tricky for the majority of players we had.
We waited for the 3.0 patch nerf to hit and went and cleared through the content we’d previously been unable to take, I don’t believe we downed any final bosses but we just wanted to see what the fights we’d attempted were like. After we did those we gave BT a try as lots of our members wanted to see that place before WotLK hit.
When WotLK came about I started levelling my rogue, at level 73 I got a little bored and decided to see what all the fuss with Death-Knights was about, well the Rogue hasn’t really got a look-in since that day! I played the DK (Schnoobins) as DPS but always kept a set of tanking gear available if needed.
In May / April (I forget when exactly) months ago I quit my old guild (DeMons), of which I was a founding member, officer, webmaster and I lived with the 2 GL’s who set it up. The reasons for leaving I shan’t go into here.
The 2 ex-GL’s and another Senior Officer (also a founding member) left as well, we formed a new guild to play casually, and just have fun. As such my main-role and main-spec was now for tanking and I build up a half-decent set of gear for it too.
Whilst in this small casual guild, one of the paladin healers (who is one of the single best players I’ve played with) left to join a very high-ranked (#2 at the time) guild on the server. He informed me they were looking for a new tank, I applied, not holding much hope and after a couple of interviews with the Guild, Raid and Class leaders, I read the words: “I’d like to give you a try as a trial tank, you up for it?” to Which I replied: “Yeah! That sounds awesome!” but in my mind? “Oh shit… this is going to be intense.”
That night? First raid with the guild, clearing up an Ulduar-25 run they’d started earlier in the week, the 2 bosses left? General Vezax and Yogg-Saron. I’d never even downed XT-002 on 25-man and not seen past Auri..Auryi… that cat woman on 10-man! *gulp*
So, raiding with them went well. As well as it could go for a few weeks until 90% of the raiders upped and left. Some server transferring, others joining other guilds. For various reasons out of anyone’s control, the guild fell apart.
Now I’m back with the Guild I was with when I started this game (I was a level 5 founding member of it!) and it’s fun, they’re up to Yogg-Saron on 10-man and just last night I was tanking with them in ToC-10 normal dowining The Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus.
So that’s that, a big ol’ wall of text but it gives some background. I shan’t write much more as you must be rubbing your eyes from starting at the computer screen.
So for now…
/hugs /love and all things purple-shiny
-Brunty