Eric Replied

Tasting the Forbidden Fruit
There’s a Druid (Landencow - the only 70 Druid) in my guild that wanted to try out Druid+Warrior. So what makes this Forbidden Fruit? Well, there’s the stigma of Druid+Warrior being such an easy-mode combo. There’s very little strategy. Keep the warrior healed on occasion, Chain CC, and close out the foe when the time is right with even more CCs. It’s been said in a certain holy scripture that,” A Druid can indefinitely chain CC someone until they’re out of mana . And it’s just way too overpowered (Amelio 9:4).”

There’s truth in what he says. Good druids know how to daisy chain every CC together - Cyclone x2, Entangling Roots or Bash, Recast Roots, Cyclone more (I make no claim to understand the CC rotation in its entirety, but I know it goes something like that).

Comparison to Shaman and Paladin
Well, there’s no comparison really. A Paladin partner lets me live for a long time, but really has no way to CC the opposition. A Shaman partner gives me some strong opening healing, but can’t break any CCs. The druid is incredibly mobile, can CC, can escape snares, and can get rid of some debuffs. The hybrid power of druid shines the most in this limited use bracket, and that’s probably why it works so well in 2v2 and 3v3.

A quick look at top 5s teams shows that Druids aren’t quite as popular. This happens because in bigger fights (5s and BGs), players can focus more on one specific role instead of covering multiple roles as in 2s and 3s. Alternatively, this is why Paladins and Resto. Shaman come up short in 2s and 3s. They are great straight healers, but when it comes to switching jobs (CC, DPS, Cleansing), they lack the flexibility.

Current Results and A Prophecy from Amelio
Well, 11-2 in the opening night to get to 1632. One loss when I d/c’d after intercepting, and another to a mirror team that sported a mace instead of sword (Apparently Druids fall to Maces). Every win was casual and very easy going. Very few heals ever landed on the DPS target, and even when they did, it was far too late to save the match. Paladins, Shamans, and even Priests couldn’t handle it. AR/Mace Rogues were laughable at best and for some reason, they were out in full force that night. Every AR/Mace Rogue looked the same. S2 Helmet, 2 Gladiator Maces, and always blowing every CD right at the start of the match (even Cloak of Shadows!).

The only consolation is that the first 200 rating points to 1700 is typically a bunch of lower end players (despite their full S2 gladiator sets) so I’m expecting it to get more difficult once skill starts to come into play.

“Congrats on 2500 Rating (Amelio 17:11).”

Far from it, but I have faith in the scriptures. 2500? Not this week; with some consistency, I think 1850 is just a hop and skip away.

An Introduction to Synii (Undead Priest) - Eredar Server
My friend Eric has been endlessly harassing me to contribute to his site since… well, I guess since he decided that he was making a blog. And I’ve firmly held to the belief that I really don’t have anything to say and I certainly don’t have anything worthwhile to say.

“Talk about user interfaces,” he would tell me. That would be fine except every idea I’ve ever had has been inspired by someone else’s user interface. Then talk about addons themselves he would reply. There is plenty of that to be found elsewhere is my typical retort. So, in the end, what do I really have to say? I’m not sure. This will likely end up being some evil bastardization of interface design and addon choices.

I’ve certainly got nothing new to say on either topic, but Eric insists and here I am. What qualifies me to critique design and tell you preferable addons to use? Absolutely nothing. I’ve gone through numerous (read: more than I could possibly count) iterations of interfaces in the futile search for the “perfect UI.” There isn’t one. There are interfaces that get the job done (functionally), there are interfaces that look great (but usually fall short in functionality) and then there are interfaces that do neither (read: Blizzard UI).

Why Customize WoW’s UI?
Most people are happy with what they (or others) have created, but in my case, I’m usually not.  My satisfaction comes from trying to discover the middle ground between style and substance.  As in everything, it’s finding where the fulcrum between need and want are. What information is absolutely necessary? What could I do without? How do I process information? Do I see numbers or pictures better? What is my focus in-game? PvE or PvP? All of these factor in how I choose a layout. Simply put: you can have the most unique UI, but if it isn’t practical, then it doesn’t matter.

So, all that being said, what do I really have to contribute? For some: not much. For others: maybe quite a bit.

You won’t see me pretending to be Hal, Caith, Tapestry, Saeto or any of the other numerous interface designers who truly bring something unique to interface design, but you just might see me bring some insight into overall design and perhaps help with your own interface. Now, on to the first of potentially many addon tricks.

Changing Font
Subtle changes sometimes provides the biggest impact in interface design. What more subtle change to implement than font? There are thousands of fonts to choose from and you don’t even need to download any addons to change them. There are four fonts that WoW utilizes:

• ARIALN.ttf (chat, numbers and login screen)
• FRIZQT__.ttf (main font)
• MORPHEUS.ttf (quest and mail font)
• skurrri.ttf (damage font)

  

Now that we know which font does what we can better understand what it is that we’re changing.

1. The first step is to create a folder named “Fonts” and place it into your World of Warcraft directory. This should be C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Fonts\ by default.
2. Find the font you want to utilize and place it in the Fonts folder. Rename it to whichever of the above you’re trying to modify. For example, if you’ve decided on using Adventure for your damage font you would rename Adventure.ttf to skurri.ttf.
3. When you log in, you’ll see whatever font you’ve decided upon.

It’s Not All About the Font
There are a few guidelines you probably want to follow when choosing a font. Your chat font should be something easily readable. Now, this may strike you as common sense (and if it does that’s good), but I’ve seen some very unreadable chat fonts chosen.

I, personally, use Myriad Pro as my chat font and it has served me well. The possibilities are endless, though, find what works for you. I, personally, prefer my main font (FRIZQT__.ttf) to be very similar (if not the same) to my chat though obviously you can use whatever. I use the same guidelines when choosing all of my fonts, I don’t want to have to struggle to read my screen at the expense of making it “pretty.”

Skip the File Swapping - Get the Mod
There are other ways of changing fonts, as well. You could always download and install Clearfont2 which comes with several different font packages and there are several more to be found in the Clearfont2_FontPack. Clearfont2 is a great package for those that want results without the time investment of trying to find that perfect font.

Go Beyond Fonts
Additionally, if you’re trying to change the font of a specific addon, SharedMedia is absolutely fantastic. It pools all your WoWAce2 fonts, textures, and sounds. What’s so special about this? Now you can use those fonts across all your other mods which gives you uniformity across your interface - a sorely underrated attribute. There is nothing worse than seeing 10 different fonts on 12 different statusbar textures spread across an interface. But that’s a topic for another day.

-JM

It had been difficult pulling our 5v5 team together to get ten matches in. We had been sitting at 1794 (28-9) record. Like many other teams at this point in the season, we had been desiring the golden 1850. The goal eluded us once in the past. We made 1830-something, but fell back with two losses in a row.

Last night, we made the push. The run began optimistically with Crazzymike in the Resto. Shaman slot going 3-1 before switching out for Oblivions.  Like previous attempts, we got to 1840-something (so close), but we’d hit a loss or two, and fall back down to 1810.   We finished at about 3AM to go 12-7 which took us to 1853.

So the choice, as I alluded to, several days ago the choice was sword or mace.  If you didn’t notice in the giant picture above, I did indeed pick the S3 Vengeful Gladiator’s Greatsword.  Sword makes the most sense for both my style and my spec. - Big Burst Procs.

Next up:  1850+ for my 2v2 and 3v3s.

-ERP-

I think it wouldn’t hurt to go over what I think Blizzard did right with World of Warcraft (WoW). I’ve been a WoW player for about a year and a half now. I spent something like six months as Alliance on Eredar, and then another year as Horde on Eredar. Here’s to another year of WoW.

And there’s a good set of reasons that urge me along for the upcoming year:
+ Consistency in new content - New stuff keeps the game fresh!
+ Consistent attempts to “balance things out” - no job really ever stays at the top forever.
+ Little Details around Azeroth and the Outlands - Flavor Text, Little bits of Lore, etc.
+ The game is tuned to run on a variety of systems and not just the nextgen PCs.
+ Blizzard is always improving the way the client works.
+ The game caters to a wide variety of people - it’s not just about hardcore players.
+ The game stays lighthearted while still being very engaging at times.
+ Looking to the community for consistent feedback.
+ Testing their game publicly before patching.
+ Smoothness in Battle Mechanics - Many people might not even realize how well this is done unless they’ve played many of the other games out there.

Oh, and the biggest factor for why I enjoy WoW so much is summed up by Calencia:
“The one thing Blizzard has done well more than any other MMOG I’ve ever played–you get to feel like a badass from the get-go. When you first zone in, you’re not naked. You’re not armed with a sponge bat and dressed in paper underwear. You don’t spend your first hour stomping on cockroaches and stabbing rats and other non-heroic tasks.

No, in WoW, from the first moment you’re taking on bandits or zombies or pony-sized animals or demons. You feel heroic, even though at level 1 you’re the farthest thing from it. ”

Yup, that’s right.  Everyone gets a chance of actually looking impressive.  It’s not a “hardcore” player thing only.  Every player has the opportunity to become a hero… or something like it.

Here’s to you, Blizzard. Great job. You’ve made the game a template for others to copy for years to come.

Inspiration: Elitist Jerks Forums - Things Blizzard has Done Well

-ERP-

Resto. Shaman + SL/SL Warlock (Me) + Marksman Hunter +
Shadowstep Rogue + Frost Mage

8-2 on “opening” night with losses to full gladiator geared teams.

In a land full of 2345 combos (Warrior or Rogue + Ele.Shaman/Holy Paladin/Disc. Priest/Frost Mage), we’re taking a ragtag setup and trying to make it work.

Some might look at the setup and immediately think, “Where’s the bubble? Where’s the pain supression? Where’s the defensive dispel?” In many ways, every team is missing some key ability that would increase its power (to over 9000). Unfortunately, there’s a limit to both how many people can be in an arena and how many resources are actually available to play arena.

All is not lost, though. There are many factors that make this team incredibly viable:

+ High CC Capability
> Fears
> Curse of Tongue
> Silence x 4
> Movement Impairment x3
> Scatter Shot
> Blind
> Rogue Stuns
> Frost Nova
> Polymorph

+ Mana Drain Capability
> Warlock Mana Drain
> Hunter Viper Sting

+ Burst Capability
> Hunter Instants (Arcane Shot, Steady Shot - sort of, Multi Shot)
> Warlock Instants (Deathcoil+Shadow Trance)
> Frost Instants
> Bloodlust

We’re looking forward to trying this in the future.  Four DPS teams have become a little less common in recent times due to the priest buffs for disc., but with this setup, I feel we can tie up the healers long enough to drop at least one person.  There’s a large amount of pressure points that our setup can connect on that would make it really difficult for attackers to play offensively.

Another interesting thing to note is that the teams we fight never seem to know who to attack first.  This setup has some level of “surprise” to it.  Confusion can always help in battles.

-ERP-