Microsoft to buy WOW/Blizzard/Activision!

In a shocking move, Microsoft will purchase WOW's parent company for about $70B U.S.D, according to many sources the head of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, is unclear if he is staying at the head of the company after the final approval of the sale is complete. 

According to Reuters, this is the biggest gaming deal in the industry's history. This would lead to approximately 17% of all gamers using one of the new conglomerates at Microsoft brands. 

What are your thoughts on what impact this will have on World of Warcraft and other beloved Blizzard games? Will this be the end of WOW or could the addition of Microsoft revamp the love for the game that seems to be slowly losing it's base?

Too Late, so Sorry!

This is not the 1st time this has happened to me, and I'm guessing it won't be the last time either. Looking back it happens far to often so maybe I should just get more posts out when I get the, "Hey that would be a great blog post".  More about that later.

Almost immediately after I posted my last thoughts last night, I ran into the info about Blizzard giving close to $2.5 Million the Red Cross for their Super storm Sandy relief effort. I think that is just amazing. I actually went and bought the pet for that purpose and blogged about it. Here is the complete story here ~ The Cinder Kitty ! (source)



Why didn't I post it, well, I was on the tired side and wanted to get into an LFR, and I must say, it was a very productive night for me in WOW. I finally after about 4 years got my Amani Battle Bear. I narrowly lost it in TBC and really never gave it a serious go in Cata when it was fresh.

After doing some browsing, I seen a story of a level 80, yes I said 80, who was soloing MSV (certain bosses) In this video and MMO-Champion thread. Blizzard has fixed the issues that allowed him to use the coding mechanics to do this. Good on the chap for completing this, it really is (armory) a breath of fresh air after posting about my "major" issue I had in my last post.

Well, to make a long story short, I ran into a video that talks about EVERYTHING I wanted to mention, so I was beat to the punch by maybe the most adorable person in WOW. The one and only Panser Smash. So Panser, please forgive me for sharing your info and giving you pub in my writings, but you are always entertaining and sure to put a smile on everyone's face when doing your videos. Thanks for what you do. All the info was spot on (aside from the 12 man raid oops!) and I was just a bit too late. I'd love to continue talking about what is already out there or I could just post the YOUTUBE video that is already made. So please check the video out and I'm sure she would want you to subscribe to her channel.

Enjoy!

Just another DK.

Inept!

I've never denied it, I'm a bad DK. I laugh at myself for just how bad I am. Being a solid DK has never been a priority. I mean for as good as I am at tanking, DK tanking came easy but as far as what a DK is really capable of I'm not that kind of player.

I've had some really newb moves with this toon.are laughable and legendary. I had hit level 80 with Khasey and never reforged her weapon, why you ask? I didn't know how to open the book that allowed me to pick. I had to ask while in Ebon Hold. It caused a bit of giggle in local but yep, that's me. That isn't even the worst one. I had asked my guild to get a good group together so I could run ZA/ZG with people I know. I didn't want to bring a group down, at least not with strangers. One the way to the bank after the run, a guildie asked me over vent, why I didn't have the DK only flyer. I was stunned! I was like, "dude, stop messing with me". He assured me, he was not messing with me and that they sold a DK flyer that was like a bone gryphon. I went to the trainer after having him give me directions and bought it. I was amazed.

See, I'm not the most pro DK out there. I've always marveled at good DK's that could use all their tools to perfection. I know there is some, not many but those guys are good! I've played with a few that made me marvel the class. I've also had a few people who stopped playing because of how OP the class is. Needless to say they are a tad polarizing.

I tell you all this because I'm leveling my DK as my second to 90. Believe me when I say this, the second time around it is going faster. The killing speed that she offers is AMAZING. Much better than a ret pally offers. I go with a pretty stock UI and don't really worry to much about all the tricks and tools but they are on the bar.

I"m leveling straight DPS this time around. I'm really kind of over tanking for strangers that have zero inhibition on what they feel they need to say to complete strangers. So I que as DPS and just do my job.

I have even read a blog on how to increase my DPS and what kind of stats I need to be a good DPS toon.

Me EPIC?

So today, I went in and did Shado-Pan Monastery in a PUG.It wasn't great, even at lvl 87 I was killing in DPS. I did about 26K DPS or about 6k more than the next high DPS. This might be a long run I was thinking. After clearing to the last boss and pulling him TWICE, I was even on that horrid fight still about 5k more DPS. We had a ranged DPS pulling 6800 DPS, yes at lvl 88 a Warlock hit 6800 on that fight. He dropped group and we got another lock. Mid fight our tank died, then dropped group. I was going to Rez him but he was gone.

I thought oh jeeze here we go again. I didn't want to give up. If you have ever read my blogs in the past you know I do NOT like to give up on a fight. It kills me to not try it completely before you die.

My instinct kicked in. I pushed blood presence, grabbed the boss and tried to maintane aggro as best as I could. The healer died! I'm like we'll this is it. I had enough Runic power to battle rez the healer, and we got pulled to the ORBS. I pop'd army right after that happened. I was taking a beating and had zero blood runes to hit Death Strike, so I sacked my ghoul and hit  Ice bound fortitude and helped with the Orbs as the boss fought. Boss was at about 1 million health. I figured we could do this..,. and we did!

(ok for those that see my DPS for this fight, remember I was running for my life for most of it, brez'n the healer and poping army while trying to avoid damage LOL)

Right after the fight, WOW, great job and AWESOME came up in party chat. Not for me, just for us, for 4 manning a boss that we all thought we were going to die on. Can you imagine a 5 man group acting together and to get a job done. Most of the time we take it for granted but every once in a while a run comes around like this that tells you even if you aren't good on this toon, you can still pull some amazing things off because you don't want to die.

Not bad for just another DK and I had FUN doing it.

I AM IRON MAN!

Not really, nor do I intend to sign up for this challenge. Below are the rules for this contest (source) and they seem pretty steep. It really shoots at the hard core crowd wanting a challenge and allows those who don't want the end game to be everything.

Not sure if there is an official title, price or achievement. This seems like something that will keep you involved and make you work hard to finish and it won't be easy.

There is a huge thread if you click the source link up above, I'm sure like most WOW threads, there is plenty of bickering and nit wits placing their two cents in a conversation. It does however seem that there will be lots of people giving this a go to start with.

ENJOY THIS!

RULES below:

Players across Azeroth have recently embraced a new, very personal achievement: leveling a character "Iron Man" style. What started out as only a small movement, this bare bones, no-frills style of play has now transformed into a community-wide call-to-arms known as the Iron Man WoW Challenge, inviting World of Warcraft enthusiasts to see how close they can get to level cap with only the barest of necessities.
The goal of the Iron Man WoW challenge is simple: level from 1 to 85. The catch, however, is that you must accomplish this task without the assistance of talents, class specialization, stat-improved gear, professions, buffs, item enhancements, or other players. And if you die? Well, then it’s back to square one.
Here are some of the latest rules:

1. All gear employed must be White or Grey. Also, no Heirlooms of any sort.
2. No transfer of gear, items, or money from any other character (yours or others).
3. No gear enhancement(s), thus no socketed gems, enchanting or reforging. Exceptions exist for class abilities (example: rogue poisons).
4. No specializations, talent points, or glyphs. This restriction also applies to talent points for pets.
5. No professions or secondary skills. An exception is made for First Aid.
6. No potions/flasks/elixirs (except those labeled as quest Items).
7. No food buffs or other external buffs (this includes buffs from items and other players).
8. No grouping or assistance from other characters, even if not grouped.
9. No dungeons/raids. No battlegrounds/arenas.
10. No guilds. An exception is made for Iron Man guilds. No guild perks.
11. No Recruit-A- Friend activities. The intention of the challenge is that it be done without assistance.
12. No add-ons that assist in combat and/or leveling.
13. THE BIG ONE: No deaths. Character death for any reason disqualifies the character.

Permitted:
- All mounts
- All bags/containers
- All quests (including holiday and daily quests)
- You may train and use all your class skills (including your own buffs)

Interested? Awesome! To sign-up for the Iron Man WoW Challenge and discuss your progress with fellow participants (once you get started), head on over to the official forums. Additional rules and details can also be found on the unofficial Iron Man WoW website, hosted and moderated by players like you.

Farewll to a few

This is sort of an odd post but seeing as I don't play a whole lot at the moment and don't have in game news or insight to what is really going on. I wanted to take a minute to say good bye to a guild I don't really know but that has been a major source of entrainment and laughs in my playing of this game.

In fact, I was in a guild and had a pretty good in game friend that used one of Sebudai's quotes every raid. I no longer talk to that guy but any time I see the below picture or anything that resembles one of these quotes, he pops to mind. So I guess this post has a tad of duality to it. Goodbye to Juggernaut and Skreebo.

The reason I write about this is, Juggernaut of Mal' Ganis was a top 5 guild in the world at one point. The recently stopped raiding, recruiting and to the best of my knowledge lost most of their members. I've sent an in game mail to Sebudai to see what happened but I got no response. I know guilds come and go, but this leaves me wondering how many long time, vanilla guilds have split apart during Cataclysm and the lack of content?

I think my very favorite one is:

It's not rocket surgery

but I still giggle like a school girl every time I read:

As a guild we struggle with these mobility fights, I'm not sure why we do.If you need practice jumping then you can go find a cliff and jump off it or something. 

In other happenings:

4.2.2 seems to be flying upon us meaning 4.3 is close. It seems this Xpcac has gone by very fast.  I'm pretty interested in the extra bank storage but I don't like that you lose all the gems and enchants. And you can bet your bottom dollar I will be rocking the T6 look all the time! and my hunter will be in T4. I'm pretty excited for these changes.

Thank you to those who congratulated me for my one year as a blogger. For some reason I can not sign in to respond to posts. Odd!

I'd also like to say goodbye to the guy who invited me into the guild. He was my tanking partner and a very knowledgeable guy. I've tanked with some good tanks, knowledgeable people and people who care about the guild. But Life had the best grasp of three at the same time. He always did his home work, had his gear perfect and without being an officer he ran just about everything within the guild and didn't complain. He had to for personal reasons leave the game for an undetermined amount of time. I'm sad to seem him go, with him went his RL friends which wasn't a shock but it took a pretty geared healer and a fill in raider.

Life take care buddy.

To my readers, I will try and post up some more stuff soon. This summer has been SOOOO busy?

WoW is 6 years old and Quotes to live by.

WOW is 6, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! and on this anniversary we get an offical blog with a ton of feed back:
World of Warcraft’s 6th Anniversary!

by Blizzard Entertainment // Nov 17, 2010 3:00:00 AM UTC 766
World of Warcraft turns six on November 23rd, 2010! It’s been a truly incredible six years, and we’d like to thank you all for joining us on this momentous occasion. To celebrate, players that log into the game between the dates of November 30th and December 14th will receive a feat of strength added to their Achievements. We look forward to another great year ahead and many more to come!


http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1136962#blog

Now some reading material that is useful:

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mark Twain

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Theodore Roosevelt