I’ll be bringing you my experiences and opinions, as well as screenshots and possibly video. I’m still not sure if I’ll do the video, but short video snippets might be fun.

My goal is to provide at least two posts per week devoted to my Cataclysm Beta experience. ...]]>

I’m going to start blogging about my experience in the Cataclysm Beta. Since I have been fortunate enough to get access to the beta, I’ve decided to share my experience with all of you beyond just talking about it on the WoWphiles Podcast.

I’ll be bringing you my experiences and opinions, as well as screenshots and possibly video. I’m still not sure if I’ll do the video, but short video snippets might be fun.

My goal is to provide at least two posts per week devoted to my Cataclysm Beta experience. We’ll see how well I do keeping up with that–so it will be your job to kick me in the butt if I get behind.

So stay tuned for my first official Cataclysm Beta blog post coming this week.

This week we’re going to look at leveling guides; specificly, Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and an alternative.

Let me start off by saying that I emphatically do NOT recommend Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and I’m not going to give you a link to the official Zygor site. If you still want it after listening to this segment, you can find it easily enough.

Zygor’s Leveling Guide is an in-game guide; that means it’s an add-on. It also is sold, not supported by voluntary donations. That means it’s in blatant ...]]>
Segment 26: Leveling Guides

This week we’re going to look at leveling guides; specificly, Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and an alternative.

Let me start off by saying that I emphatically do NOT recommend Zygor’s Leveling Guide, and I’m not going to give you a link to the official Zygor site. If you still want it after listening to this segment, you can find it easily enough.

Zygor’s Leveling Guide is an in-game guide; that means it’s an add-on. It also is sold, not supported by voluntary donations. That means it’s in blatant violation of Blizzard’s terms of service for add-on developers.

I quote:

1) Add-ons must be free of charge.
All add-ons must be distributed free of charge. Developers may not create “premium” versions of add-ons with additional for-pay features, charge money to download an add-on, charge for services related to the add-on, or otherwise require some form of monetary compensation to download or access an add-on.

“Zygor” wants $80 (currently discounted to $60) for this add-on package. Frankly, that’s just too much even if it didn’t violate the TOS.

Zygor’s guide is technically beautiful; it has cute little animations to show that it’s doing something, it gives you waypoint arrows, and it does help you find the necessary quests for leveling. That said, however, it takes up as much add-on memory as the free alternatives which I will outline here, and tends to get in the way when you really don’t need it.

Enough said about that; here’s how you can get all the same functions without spending any money (although I do encourage you to donate to the add-on authors who accept donations):

1. Download and install Carbonite from the Carbonite add-on home page.
2. Download and install Lightheaded (see my previous review, Segment 25, for details) from WoWinterface or other sources.
3. Open your favorite Web browser (which I sincerely hope is not Internet Explorer) and go to Jame’s Leveling Guides.

Another option is to go to WoW-pro.com and get the WoW-pro leveling add-on.
You will still need Lightheaded and TomTom also.

In order for any leveling guide to be effective, you really need to start using it as soon as you create a new toon; but the Jame’s guides make it somewhat easier to start in the middle (after making a few levels) than Zygor does (another plus for freeware/donationware add-ons).

In conclusion: You can spend money to violate Blizzard’s terms of service, or you can go with free/donation-supported add-ons to do the same thing. It’s up to you. I know which I choose.

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Yarn of the Buccaneer,” by Pierre Langer and Scott P. Schreer.

Download the MP3

General leveling tips:

• Obtain bags as soon as you can. There are many quests that have you gathering items, and you need someplace to carry those items.
• …Members of The Gathering can get bags out of the Guild Vault, or whisper Valkillmoar or Leftbank. The rest of you are on your own.
• If you aren’t using a guide, pick up as many quests as possible when you get to a new zone
• … and complete as many as possible before running back to turn them in.
• Avoid dungeon quests unless you have a regular group with whom you’re leveling together.
• Avoid Sven in Duskwood unless you like traveling a lot and getting very little reward for the effort.
• Make a “bank toon” who will stand around in a capital city and handle auctions and banking for you. The mail system works well and your bank toon can make boatloads of gold from gathering profession items.

This week we’ll look at a very lightweight add-on that adds speed and accuracy to your questing.

LightHeaded is a very simple add-on that displays quest information and comments from Wowhead in-game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on a quest. Data is only loaded when you first request it, so you can be sure you’re not using more memory than you need to.

Lightheaded supports TomTom, MapNotes, and Cartographer2 and Cartographer3; by clicking coordinates shown in LightHeaded, you can automatically add a ...]]> Segment #25: LightHeaded

This week we’ll look at a very lightweight add-on that adds speed and accuracy to your questing.

LightHeaded is a very simple add-on that displays quest information and comments from Wowhead in-game, eliminating the need to Alt-Tab when you get stuck on a quest. Data is only loaded when you first request it, so you can be sure you’re not using more memory than you need to.

Lightheaded supports TomTom, MapNotes, and Cartographer2 and Cartographer3; by clicking coordinates shown in LightHeaded, you can automatically add a waypoint to your map.

Lightheaded has a few slash-command options as well, which are detailed on the add-on’s WoWinterface page.

As of 28 March 2010, LightHeaded included comments for more than 8200 quests.

All in all, this is a very useful add-on that is essential for finishing quests quickly.

You can get LighHeaded from WoWinterface.

Music for this segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and is entitled “Between the Bookshelves,” by Michael Genato.

Download the MP3

This week we’re going to look at two small add-ons; one just for fun, and one to help you get the junk out of your bags and put some jingles in your pocket. Both of these are considered outdated, but they continue to work and so I continue to use them. Remember to check the “Load out of date add-ons” box in the add-ons window before entering the world.

AutoEmote is a just-for-fun add-on which will automatically issue emotes back to the people who ...]]>
Segment 24: AutoEmote and AutoProfit

This week we’re going to look at two small add-ons; one just for fun, and one to help you get the junk out of your bags and put some jingles in your pocket. Both of these are considered outdated, but they continue to work and so I continue to use them. Remember to check the “Load out of date add-ons” box in the add-ons window before entering the world.

AutoEmote is a just-for-fun add-on which will automatically issue emotes back to the people who emote to you. It has a built-in cooldown period so it won’t issue an automated response before the cooldown period is over. The cooldown is triggered whenever you type in a /emote or upon an automated response emote. This lets you interact with others via emotes and not have the auto responses interrupting until the cooldown period is over.
It also offers a delayed response function. The delay makes automated responses wait for a few seconds before firing off. This gives the impression that you are typing out the response, instead of an automated one.
When someone emotes to you an emote that isn’t on your auto-response list a default response back is given, which you can set to be whatever you like.

AutoEmote offers a UI interface for users who would like to edit their settings like: the cooldown period, response delay time or emotes; and even add new emotes to their response list.

AutoEmote has not been updated since 2007, but still works and is available from Orgrimmar.org

AutoProfit will sell all your grey items (and any white items you’ve added to the “junk” list) with one click when you visit a vendor. It also has an option to delete all (use with caution), or to delete lowest, which deletes the lowest valued item in your inventory. You can modify the options by entering /autoprofit options in the chat window. Again, this is considered an outdated add-on, but it’s working for me and I really wouldn’t care to do without it!

AutoProfit is available through WoWmatrix, and from GameGuidesOnline.

Music for this segment is from FreePlayMusic.com and is entitled “Mixed Emotions” by Todd Haberman, John Loeffler, and Scott P. Schreer.

Download the MP3

This week I would like to tell you about a mod that will help you keep your bags organized, and also let you check all your various storage spaces on the realm when you are pretty sure you have an item, but can’t remember where you put it.

ArkInventory (or “AI”) as it comes “out of the box” allows you to have one large virtual bag instead of the vanilla WoW default of a bunch of smaller bags. Without any custom configuration on your part, it also ...]]>
Segment 23: ArkInventory

This week I would like to tell you about a mod that will help you keep your bags organized, and also let you check all your various storage spaces on the realm when you are pretty sure you have an item, but can’t remember where you put it.

ArkInventory (or “AI”) as it comes “out of the box” allows you to have one large virtual bag instead of the vanilla WoW default of a bunch of smaller bags. Without any custom configuration on your part, it also allows you to see everything in your alt’s bags, your bank, your alt’s banks, and even the Guild vault. However, in order for this part to work, you will need to log in to each alt once after installing AI and open your bags and bank. At least one toon will need to look in the Guild vault also. AI takes a “snapshot” when you open a bag or bank, so the Guild vault snapshot may not be up-to-date if you haven’t checked the actual vault lately; this is still better than having to travel to a capital city or beg a guildy to look for crispy spider meat, however.

AI also allows for customization of categories, and the creation of rules to further customize your bag display. For complete information, I recommend you download and extract the Local Help Files from the AI home page on Google.

In addition to the direct download from Google, you can get Arkinventory through WoWmatrix, from WoWinterface`, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and is entitled “White Mule Breakdown” by Kelly Weeks.

Download the MP3

RaidBuffStatus is an add-on to check, show and report on the complete buff status (including flasks etc) of a party or raid. It shows the information on a dashboard much like XRS. It can report via whispers and to raid ...]]>

That will buff right out.

RaidBuffStatus is an add-on to check, show and report on the complete buff status (including flasks etc) of a party or raid. It shows the information on a dashboard much like XRS. It can report via whispers and to raid chat. In addition it provides a talent spec window which also shows any special abilities such as improved spirit.

However it is quite unlike XRS, Bigbrother and most other buff checking add-ons. It was the first released add-on to intelligently, in an automagic way, know what buffs to check for. For example only if there is a Mage will it check for intellect buff and it does not check the buffs of those not in the same zone. As much as possible is automatic.

add-ons like XRS require lots of initial configuration. RBS works with no configuration out of the box. However RBS now features a Buff Wizard to help new user non-raid leaders to configure only the buffs they need to be displayed.

RBS can do the buffing for you such as your self and party buffs with a quick alt-click.

RBS supports add-ons like Titan using LibDataBroker.

RBS even has a twitter account, so you can keep up with news about the add-on. There are a number of videos available demonstrating the use of RBS, and it is actively maintained.

You can get RaidBuffStatus from WoWinterface or from Curse.

Music for this week’s segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and entitled “Warriors and Knights” by Scott P. Schreer

Download the MP3

SkillScore is a lightweight addon that will let you quickly check a player’s experience in specific raids.

SkillScore is a much more useful indicator of a player’s experience than GearScore, because it doesn’t depend on the luck of the Need or Greed roll. SkillScore will tell you how many times the player has completed ICC 10 and ICC 25, for example.

Similar to GearScore in the abbreviated mouseover display, SkillScore will give you a much more detailed tooltip by pressing . SkillScore caps the score for ...]]>
Segment 21: SkillScore

SkillScore is a lightweight addon that will let you quickly check a player’s experience in specific raids.

SkillScore is a much more useful indicator of a player’s experience than GearScore, because it doesn’t depend on the luck of the Need or Greed roll. SkillScore will tell you how many times the player has completed ICC 10 and ICC 25, for example.

Similar to GearScore in the abbreviated mouseover display, SkillScore will give you a much more detailed tooltip by pressing . SkillScore caps the score for each raid at 1000.

You can download SkillScore from WoWinterface.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Virtuoso” by Akihiro Yamamoto.

Download the MP3

The Pros and Cons of Real ID
We look at positives and negatives regarding Real ID.

Talents and Specializations
Blizzard announced a complete overhaul of the talent system. We discuss.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Lightheaded

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LoreDucation with Evinrue
Evinrue discusses the first couple volumes of the World of Warcraft comic book.

Are you leveling or planning on leveling a new toon? Are you trying to plan ahead and get enough gold to get your riding skill and mount at level 20? Did you take two gathering skills so you can do that? Good plan! Did you take Herbalism and Mining? Not so good, since you can’t detect Herbs and Minerals at the same time!

There’s a solution for you (can I say “There’s an add-on for that?”) – as well as for hunter and druid tracking, and fish ...]]>
Segment 20: WetSpot

Are you leveling or planning on leveling a new toon? Are you trying to plan ahead and get enough gold to get your riding skill and mount at level 20? Did you take two gathering skills so you can do that? Good plan! Did you take Herbalism and Mining? Not so good, since you can’t detect Herbs and Minerals at the same time!

There’s a solution for you (can I say “There’s an add-on for that?”) – as well as for hunter and druid tracking, and fish and treasure tracking. Unfortunately there is still no free beer tracking, so go AFK and get one out of the fridge when you need to. The add-on is “WetSpot.”

According to the author, spatton, if you are a herbalist and miner, while riding through a zone you can change between tracking for herbs and then tracking for minerals every 5 seconds. Or if you are a hunter in a battleground, you can switch between tracking humanoids, beasts, and hidden every 3 seconds.

You can choose whatever tracking methods you wish to look for – unknown spells will not be available to you. That means non-hunters won’t see the hunter stuff, and non-dwarves won’t be able to see the beer treasure method. If you have not learned the spell yet, the option will be disabled. WetSpot also detects when you are in a city, and will disable itself accordingly. When you exit the city, it will turn itself back on.

The options frame allows you to turn the on-screen bar on or off, and control the tracking methods used and the speed of rotation.

You can get WetSpot through WoWmatrix, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Candyflip” by Felix Miklik

Download the MP3

Some time before Patch 2.0.3, way back in the beginning of 2007, Blizzard incorporated the basic concepts of the add-on Scrolling Combat Text into “vanilla WoW.” Newer players probably have no idea that there was a time when you needed the SCT add-on to see combat hits scrolling up from the center of the screen.

While the now-built-in floating combat text is a big improvement, it could be even better. That’s where Parrot comes in.

Parrot allows you to adjust the start and end points of your scrolling combat text, ...]]>
Parrot

Some time before Patch 2.0.3, way back in the beginning of 2007, Blizzard incorporated the basic concepts of the add-on Scrolling Combat Text into “vanilla WoW.” Newer players probably have no idea that there was a time when you needed the SCT add-on to see combat hits scrolling up from the center of the screen.

While the now-built-in floating combat text is a big improvement, it could be even better. That’s where Parrot comes in.

Parrot allows you to adjust the start and end points of your scrolling combat text, make it scroll in an arc to the left or right, and add text triggered by specific events (such as the Warlock ability “Nightfall”).

This may not seem like a big deal, but try Parrot for a week and you’ll wonder how you ever played without it. The author’s notes list these features:

• Can change fonts
• Multiple scroll animations to choose from
• Choose what events you want to see and where
• Customize how you want to see your info
• Show spell or ability names and icons
• Create as many scroll areas as you want
• Suppress events you don’t want to see
• Create custom triggers

You can get Parrot through WoWmatrix, from WoWinterface, or from Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Pirate’s Hook,” by Tillman Sillescu.

(Link for the MP3 to be added here)

Have you spent hours flying aimlessly around Storm Peaks, trying to find the Time-Lost Protodrake? Wasted days in Sholozar Basin, looking for Loque’nahak? This week’s add-on detects rare mobs for you, alerting you when you get within detection range.

Before installing _NPCScan, you’ll want to clear your game cache. The add-on’s Web page explains how in detail, but the short version is “delete your cache folder.”

When a rare mob is found, _NPScan wil alert you with audio, flashing the screen, and providing an animated targeting button. There’s a “test” ...]]>
_NPCScan

Have you spent hours flying aimlessly around Storm Peaks, trying to find the Time-Lost Protodrake? Wasted days in Sholozar Basin, looking for Loque’nahak? This week’s add-on detects rare mobs for you, alerting you when you get within detection range.

Before installing _NPCScan, you’ll want to clear your game cache. The add-on’s Web page explains how in detail, but the short version is “delete your cache folder.”

When a rare mob is found, _NPScan wil alert you with audio, flashing the screen, and providing an animated targeting button. There’s a “test” button in the add-on’s main interface so you can see what it looks and sounds like before it detects any of the rares.

There are several customization options, also, allowing you to add your own alert sounds, and add or remove NPCs from the detection list. Other options are available, which I won’t go into here; you can find them in the add-on’s menu.

All in all, if you want the rare achievements, or if you are a hunter hoping to tame a rare mob, you want this add-on.

_NPCScan can be installed though WoWmatrix, or downloaded from its own site on Google, or from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Wild Discovery,” by Simon Brewer.

Download the MP3

Bonus material:
While looking up pictures of NPCScan for this post I stumbled across NPCScan Overlay. _NPCScan.Overlay is an addition to _NPCScan that adds map overlays for rare mob patrols. When you search for a rare in _NPCScan, _NPCScan.Overlay will show where it patrols until you find it. It works similarly to keithgabryelski’s Rare Spawn Overlay, but supports the minimap and has a much smaller download size, along with a few new features.

You can get _NPCScan.Overlay through WoWmatrix or from WoWinterface or Curse. Be sure to keep both add-ons up to date! The easiest way to do that is to use WoWmatrix.

Happy hunting!

Let me start by saying “Thank you!” to Tonkah for the tip regarding the “freeze on training” bug. Disabling the Wowhead Looter add-on fixed it for me. However, it didn’t work for a friend who runs Fubar; possibly that’s difference that matters.

This week we’re going to talk about an add-on that may seem redundant; in patch 3.1.2, Blizzard introduced the equipment manager. The equipment manager “can… be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically ...]]>
Outfitter

Let me start by saying “Thank you!” to Tonkah for the tip regarding the “freeze on training” bug. Disabling the Wowhead Looter add-on fixed it for me. However, it didn’t work for a friend who runs Fubar; possibly that’s difference that matters.

This week we’re going to talk about an add-on that may seem redundant; in patch 3.1.2, Blizzard introduced the equipment manager. The equipment manager “can… be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically switch your gear when you change your talent spec, but it will allow for an easy gear change between them,” according to Ghostcrawler on the official forums.

If you have a serious memory limitation, you can get by with the equipment manager. However, if you want more functionality, and finer control over your outfits, I recommend Outfitter.

Outfitter provides some automation, as well; for example, it will automatically switch between gear sets when you mount or dismount, and can be set up to change your “Tracking” skill with different outfits, such as Track Minerals when riding, or Track Fish when you have your fishing gear equipped.

Basic setup of Outfitter is very easy, although the advanced functions may not be immediately obvious. It’s reliable, stable, and well worth the small memory footprint it requires.

You can get Outfitter through Wowmatrix, or from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Rambling River” by Steve Glotzer.

Download the MP3

By this time you probably have a slew of add-ons helping you level up, keep your bags organized, make a killing at the Auction House, and make a fast getaway when your latest AH victim realizes that wool cloth really isn’t worth 35 gold a stack. You’d probably like an easy way to keep all those add-ons up-to-date, wouldn’t you? I knew you would.

Other than manually checking every add-on at the site where you originally got it, there are several effective methods of checking for, ...]]>
Keeping Up With Everybody

By this time you probably have a slew of add-ons helping you level up, keep your bags organized, make a killing at the Auction House, and make a fast getaway when your latest AH victim realizes that wool cloth really isn’t worth 35 gold a stack. You’d probably like an easy way to keep all those add-ons up-to-date, wouldn’t you? I knew you would.

Other than manually checking every add-on at the site where you originally got it, there are several effective methods of checking for, and even installing, the latest versions of your add-ons. There was a time when you could do it with just one simple package, but we aren’t going to dredge up old feuds this week.

First, if you get your add-ons through WoWmatrix, Curse, and WoWinterface – the three places I always recommend – life is going to be a lot simpler for you. Why simpler? Because they each have semi-automated updaters.

Curse.com provides the Curse Client. Of the three, it’s my least favorite, because of two things: It requires you to have a curse.com account (and as a computer professional, I am always suspicious about what information might be collected in this way), and secondly, you can only update one add-on at a time if you don’t pay for a premium Curse account. However, the client is functional, although slow and riddled with ads (which you won’t see if you use an ad blocker like Hostsman or the MVPS.org hosts file, thank goodness).

WoWinterface provides (or possibly just works with; I’m a little unclear on who actually owns it) the MMOUI Minion. Since the Minion is written in Java, it will work on Windows, OS X, or Linux; but it is also slightly slower than a native application would be. However, it’s still faster than the Curse client, and it will let you update all available add-ons with a single click. The Minion is still in beta as of this posting, but it seems stable and reliable.

Lastly, WoWmatrix. The WoWmatrix updater is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux, and it’s pretty fast, and again allows for a single-click update of all add-ons. It’s also got a couple of ads, but again, like the Curse client, they will be blocked if you use Hostsman or the MVPS.org hosts file. They’re not as annoying or intrusive as the Curse client ads, though. You will find that there are a number of add-ons that WoWmatrix can’t update, due mainly to a dispute with the Curse site. Overall, however, I like WoWmatrix best of the three.

All three updaters have the ability to mark an add-on as “ignored” and thereafter will not try to look for updates for that add-on.

And now, how to run them? Well, I run all three. First, WoWmatrix; then MMOUI Minion; and lastly the Curse Client. I run them in this order so that, if WoWmatrix or the Minion has updated an add-on, I can mark it as “ignored” in the Curse Client, and save myself the trouble of updating individual add-ons one at a time whenever possible. For the same reason, if WoWmatrix gets an update, that add-on will get marked “ignore” in the Minion; there’s no point in updating it twice, and the Minion can be a little finicky about versions. Because updating in this way is so much faster than the old methods, I check for updates every day before playing WoW.

One huge warning: NEVER EVER let a third-party program run WoW for you. If you do, that program may stay resident, and that’s how keyloggers work. You don’t want your WoW account stolen, so feel free to trust everyone, but ALWAYS cut the cards (if I may throw a poker metaphor out there).

And now I have to go update my ninety add-ons. Boy, this is a lot easier than it was back when I had a hundred thirty-seven add-ons, and no updater package!

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Sporting Update” by Phil Garrod, Reed Hays, and Scott P. Schreer.

Download the MP3

If you have have made any effort at all to learn about the World of Warcraft achievement system, you are probably aware that there is an achievement for obtaining fifty mounts. There’s another for one hundred mounts. There are also achievements for fifteen pets and for fifty pets. Breanni has even created a guide to the vanity pet achievements over at WarcraftPets.com

But how do you manage all those mounts and pets? What’s the point of having dozens of them if you can’t show them off? ...]]>
GoGoMount and GoGoPet

If you have have made any effort at all to learn about the World of Warcraft achievement system, you are probably aware that there is an achievement for obtaining fifty mounts. There’s another for one hundred mounts. There are also achievements for fifteen pets and for fifty pets. Breanni has even created a guide to the vanity pet achievements over at WarcraftPets.com

But how do you manage all those mounts and pets? What’s the point of having dozens of them if you can’t show them off? Don’t worry! There are two add-ons which are designed to make it a real pleasure to have lots of mounts and pets.

GoGoMount allows you to bind a hotkey, or create a macro, that will randomly choose an appropriate mount and “get it out of your bag” for you. If you are in a no-fly zone, GoGoMount will put you on a ground mount. If you are in a flyable zone, you will mount up on a flying mount. And if you are in the water and have a fast water mount, such as the Sea Turtle, GoGoMount will bring her out for you. A second click dismounts you.

GoGoPet randomizes your vanity pets for you in the same way, choosing a different pet with each click.

While technically out-of-date, both add-ons continue to work and behave well in WoW 3.3.3

You can get GoGoMount through the WowMatrix updater, Curse, or Wowinterface.

GoGoPet seems to be exclusive to Curse.

Music for this segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Highway Patrol,” by Scott P. Schreer and Eric Roos.

Bumpers are from Frogpants Studios, by Scott Johnson.

BONUS NOTE:
Here’s a macro that will select a mount if you are in a mountable area, or a vanity pet if you are not, and cast Aspect of the Pack if you have that capability:

MACRO 53 "GoGoMount" Spell_Magic_PolymorphChicken
/click GoGoButton
/click GoGoPetButton
/cast Aspect of the Pack
END

The only parts you need are the lines beginning with a slash – the rest are snipped right out of my macro cache file.

Download the MP3

EasySerum is an add-on to help you do the daily quest Troll Patrol: The Alchemist’s Apprentice in Zul’Drak which gives Argent Crusade reputation and is one-quarter of the lead-in quest. It is a great quest for leveling as well, because there’s no risk of dying. EasySerum has been tested by yours truly and works perfectly under patch 3.3.3

Although Carbonite does have a built-in helper for this quest, EasySerum does it better. Where Carbonite gives you a waypoint arrow and tells you which shelf and item to ...]]>
EasySerum

EasySerum is an add-on to help you do the daily quest Troll Patrol: The Alchemist’s Apprentice in Zul’Drak which gives Argent Crusade reputation and is one-quarter of the lead-in quest. It is a great quest for leveling as well, because there’s no risk of dying. EasySerum has been tested by yours truly and works perfectly under patch 3.3.3

Although Carbonite does have a built-in helper for this quest, EasySerum does it better. Where Carbonite gives you a waypoint arrow and tells you which shelf and item to look for, EasySerum tells you exactly which case to go to, numbering them 1 through 4 in a clockwise direction, looking down on the room. Shelves are numbered top-to-bottom. EasySerum avoids the top shelf (“shelf 1″) because it’s hard for Gnomes, Dwarves and Elves to reach, and also “prefers” the right-hand store room, because it’s closer to the Alchemist’s cauldron.

One caution: When you’re getting an item off the shelf, make sure it’s actually in your inventory before you move!

You can get EasySerum from WowInterface or Curse.

Music for this week’s segment is from Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Majestic Brilliance” by Steve Kornicki.

Download the MP3

Are you dual-specced? Have you recently leveled? Do you raid? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may find RankWatch to be a useful add-on.

RankWatch will monitor the spells cast by you and other members of your party or raid and warn you (or them) if you or they are using a downranked spell. It will also tell you what new spells you can train each time you gain a level.

Except for reducing threat, there’s no longer any advantage to using downranked spells, ...]]>
Segment 13: RankWatch

Are you dual-specced? Have you recently leveled? Do you raid? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may find RankWatch to be a useful add-on.

RankWatch will monitor the spells cast by you and other members of your party or raid and warn you (or them) if you or they are using a downranked spell. It will also tell you what new spells you can train each time you gain a level.

Except for reducing threat, there’s no longer any advantage to using downranked spells, so you will most likely want to get the highest rank you can on your action bars. While Blizzard “fixed” the action bars long ago, so that the highest rank of a spell appears on your hot bars automatically, this does not work reliably for dual-specced toons; if you aren’t getting the DPS or HPS you expect, you may be using downranked spells without knowing it. RankWatch will let you know.

You can get RankWatch throgh Wowmatrix, from WowInterface, or from Curse.

Music for this week’s segment is provided by Freeplaymusic.com and is entitled “Leather and Steel” by Tillman Sillescu.

Download the MP3

Infinite Ignore
Tired of watching all the spam in trade chats, but your ignore list is full? This is for you then. Infinite Ignore is exactly that, an ignore list that has no limit.

Features
+ No cap on the number of people ignored.
+ Hooks directly into ignore/unignore commands
+ Ability to import your existing list from WoW
+ Ignore list carries across all toons on the realm
+ If you are sick of the ...]]>
(Script lost; I will transcribe as soon as possible. Meanwhile, here’s the author’s comments:).

Infinite Ignore
Tired of watching all the spam in trade chats, but your ignore list is full? This is for you then. Infinite Ignore is exactly that, an ignore list that has no limit.

Features
+ No cap on the number of people ignored.
+ Hooks directly into ignore/unignore commands
+ Ability to import your existing list from WoW
+ Ignore list carries across all toons on the realm
+ If you are sick of the little voices in your head, you can ignore yourself too =D

Slash Commands (/inig)
import – imports your ignore list from Blizz
reset – clears your ignore list
list – lists the names of people you are currently ignoring

To Do
TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!…. I mean, take over the ignore screen (social frame)
- or -
Create a GUI from the ground up. Haven’t decided how I’m gonna go about doing this yet.

You can get InfiniteIgnore from WoWinterface, or from Curse.

Download the MP3

There’s no excuse for it. Seriously. Even if you can’t cook, you can buy food items from vendors in every city, town, and 1-shack settlement all over Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend, and you don’t even have to think about restocking; get the FreeRefills add-on and spend fifteen seconds setting ...]]>
Segment #11: Free Refills
Last week on WoWphiles, Jason mentioned Anea’s blog post entitled “I am not your heal bitch” in which Anea justly complained about players not preparing for random dungeon crawls by stocking up on food beforehand.

There’s no excuse for it. Seriously. Even if you can’t cook, you can buy food items from vendors in every city, town, and 1-shack settlement all over Azeroth, Outland, and Northrend, and you don’t even have to think about restocking; get the FreeRefills add-on and spend fifteen seconds setting it up.

FreeRefills does not, as the name imply, make your goods free of cost, but it does make stocking up free of the need to think about it. Here’s how, in easy step-by-step form:
Open the vendor window where you will buy whatever it is you need.
Open the chatline and type “/fr addstack” and then shift-click on the item you want to keep stocked, followed by the quantity of stacks you want to always have on-hand.
Hit “enter.”
Done! FreeRefills will now, every time you open a vendor window, check to see how much of your items you have, and if it is below your desired quantity, buy enough to refill your supplies. If, however, the vendor sells in stacks of 5 and you have, say, 57 and want to keep 60 on hand, FreeRefills won’t buy any, thus avoiding the problem of bags full of consumables in excess of the number you really want.
If, in the future, you no longer need the item in question, you can just use the same “/fr addstack [item]” with a quantity of zero.

FreeRefills will also restock out of your bank. This can be turned off, although I can’t see why I would ever do that. One terrific way to make use of this feature is to keep potions that you use a lot of stacked high and deep in your bank, but only carry the one or two stacks you expect to use in an instance. Then when Auction House prices are low for your potions/scrolls/flasks/beverage-of-choice you can stock up and refill the bank.

FreeRefills will work with anything sold by vendors; candles, food, drink, Arcane Powder – anything at all. And it’s excellent for keeping your lower-than-raiding-level toons stocked up so you don’t find yourself low on health, out of food, out of water, out of bandages, and having to run through a gauntlet of Fel Orcs to get to the nearest friendly town without at least filling up your health (and mana, if you use mana).

So, in summary, FreeRefills can help you stay alive, help your healer keep you alive, and make other players think you’re more courteous than you really are, because you always show up with food, drink, and reagents.

You can get FreeRefills from Curse.
Music for this week’s segment is from FreeplayMusic.com and is entitled “Just Enough” by Stephen A. Love and Scott P. Schreer.

Download the MP3

Guest voice by Victoria Tietjens

Advanced Trade Skill Window (which I herinafter refer to as “ATSW”) is a complete replacement for Blizzards tradeskill window with more overview and special functions.

This replacement, which works for all tradeskills, including enchanting, provides you with:

- a better overview
ATSW is bigger than the standard window, resulting in a much better overview over the thousands of items you can produce. Additionally, it lets you sort your recipes either by groups (as in the standard window), alphabetically ...]]>
Segment Number 10: Advanced Trade Skill Window

Guest voice by Victoria Tietjens

Advanced Trade Skill Window (which I herinafter refer to as “ATSW”) is a complete replacement for Blizzards tradeskill window with more overview and special functions.

This replacement, which works for all tradeskills, including enchanting, provides you with:

- a better overview
ATSW is bigger than the standard window, resulting in a much better overview over the thousands of items you can produce. Additionally, it lets you sort your recipes either by groups (as in the standard window), alphabetically or by difficulty. Alternatively, ATSW even lets you create your own groups and sort the recipes the way you like!
ATSW also has a filter function: enter something into the filter line and ATSW hides all recipes that don’t contain the text you entered. But this filter function can do more: it’s a powerful search function that can filter for minimum/maximum level requirements, producable item counts, item rarity (color) and reagents necessary. If, for example, you wanted to search for recipes for items made from iron, at least level 20 but no higher than 40, and green or better, you could enter a simple formula (explained in the radme.txt file) and have just those recipes displayed.

- more comfort
ATSW has a production queue: you can queue several different items and have them all produced automatically by just clicking one button. If you’ve ever had to wait for a number of parts to be made before you could make the item you really wanted, you’re going to love this.

ATSW is able to consider items you have to produce in order to use them as reagents in the production of other items. So: if you need item A to produce item B, you don’t have to manually produce first item A, then item B. ATSW does that for you: you just tell it to produce item B and it automatically queues the production of item A and – afterwards – item B. If you are missing some reagents to produce both items you get a message telling you exactly which reagents you need.

ATSW helps you when telling your friends what reagents you need for a specific item: just click on a recipe with your shift-key pressed and the chat line opened and the reagent info will be added to the chat line.

ATSW shows you what reagents you need to process the whole production queue. It even tells you how many of each reagent you have in your bank, on alternative characters on the same server (in this case, it can even tell you on which characters) and which reagents are buyable from merchants. In case of buyable reagents ATSW can automatically buy all missing and available items from a merchant when you are speaking to him.

Most of ATSW’s functions are available from buttons in the Gui and are self-explanatory. There are also some commands you can enter from the chat line:

You can enable (or disable) a specific trade skill; for example, if you don’t have a toon that knows blacksmithing, you’d probably want to disable blacksmithing in ATSW.

The “reagents” command will display a reagent window that displays all reagents needed for all saved queues on all characters. It also allows you to fetch all necessary reagents from your bank. This window can also be set to appear automatically whenever you are at your bank in the ATSW options. Imagine not having to take notes about what to buy for your engineer when you’e on your bank alt!

And you can delete all your saved queues. This might come in handy if you have, for example, saved a queue with a character you deleted.

You can download ATSW from WoWinterface.com or Curse.com, or get it with WoWmatrix.

Download the MP3

This week we’re going to look at an add-on that will help you dominate the economy on your Realm. AuctionLite is the add-on for the day traders of World of Warcraft. While not as comprehensive as the bettter-known Auctioneer, AuctionLite has a lot of functions that make working the Auction House a lot less of a chore.

AuctionLite adds some new tabs to your Auction House interface. Instead of being limited to searching for all gems, or blue gems, for example, if you know ...]]>
Icesnake’s Add-on Emporium, Segment #9: AuctionLite

This week we’re going to look at an add-on that will help you dominate the economy on your Realm. AuctionLite is the add-on for the day traders of World of Warcraft. While not as comprehensive as the bettter-known Auctioneer, AuctionLite has a lot of functions that make working the Auction House a lot less of a chore.

AuctionLite adds some new tabs to your Auction House interface. Instead of being limited to searching for all gems, or blue gems, for example, if you know the name or part of the name of an item you want to buy, you can use AuctionLite to search on that name or partial name, and it will list all matching auctions, complete with prices per item and per auction. If you’re buying, then you can bid on one, several, or all of the auctions, or buy them out. AuctionLite will also track historical prices so you can see at a glance, after a little history has been built up, if you’re overpaying or getting a bargain.

If you are selling, you just drag the item to be sold into AuctionLite’s “sell” interface, and it will search for all current auctions for that item. You can choose how many stacks, and how many items per stack, you wish to sell. AuctionLite will automatically undercut current auctions, or, if there are no current auctions, and no history, triple the vendor price. You can adjust prices to suit yourself before placing the auction.

AuctionLite will also add tooltips to items, with vendor and auction prices, and disenchant values. You can also instantly view your own auctions on the Auctions tab.

AuctionLite even has a “favorites” feature to help you find items you want to buy faster.

AuctionLite is also multilingual; as of this post, it is available in English, French, German, Korean, Chinese, and Russian.

You can get AuctionLite through WoWmatrix, or from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music for this segment was provided by FreeplayMusic and is entitled “Sly Jackal,” by Hal Goldstein.

Download the MP3

Guest voice by Rakeleer Frostfyre

Continuing in our not-necessarily-for-raiding vein, this week I’ll tell you about not one, but two add-ons: AchievementSnap and DingRecorder.

I’m sure that everyone has heard the old “screenshot or it didn’t happen” taunt. Some people won’t go look up the facts on the Armory, but you can post a screenshot on Flicker and they’re perfectly happy to accept that as proof. AchievementSnap makes sure that you will have a screenshot of every achievement you earn after installing it, ...]]>
Welcome to Icesnake’s Add-on Emporium, Segment Number 8.

Guest voice by Rakeleer Frostfyre

Continuing in our not-necessarily-for-raiding vein, this week I’ll tell you about not one, but two add-ons: AchievementSnap and DingRecorder.

I’m sure that everyone has heard the old “screenshot or it didn’t happen” taunt. Some people won’t go look up the facts on the Armory, but you can post a screenshot on Flicker and they’re perfectly happy to accept that as proof. AchievementSnap makes sure that you will have a screenshot of every achievement you earn after installing it, and, thanks to the way WoW creates filenames for screenshots, you’ll have a nice timestamp for the achievement as well.

DingRecorder does exactly the same thing when you level; it automatically takes a screenshot, so you will not only have proof (as if being level 80 isn’t enough to prove you were level 15 at some point, or 55 for DKs), you’ll have a timestamp to prove *when* you leveled.

There’s not much to the configuration of these mods; for AchievementSnap, you can toggle it on or off, and set minimum and maximum levels between which it will be active, although why you would ever want it turned off is beyond me. DingRecorder allows you to show or hide the User Interface, show your /played information (or not) and send a message to Guild chat that you’ve leveled.

AchievementSnap is available from WoWInterface.

DingRecorder is available from WoWinterface, Curse, and through WoWmatrix.The Curse version seems most up-to-date.

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplay Music and is entitled “Witches Approaching” by Patrick Smith.

Download the MP3

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Features Update
We recently got word from Blizzard about some of the features of Cataclysm being changed and/or removed. We discuss.

Cataclysm Raids
We bring in Evinrue to discuss Cataclysm raids and bosses and the lore surrounding them. We start off with the new Caverns of Time: War of the Ancients raid.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Auto Emote and Auto Profit

Listener Email & Comments
We mention ...]]>
Path To Nowhere.

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Features Update
We recently got word from Blizzard about some of the features of Cataclysm being changed and/or removed. We discuss.

Cataclysm Raids
We bring in Evinrue to discuss Cataclysm raids and bosses and the lore surrounding them. We start off with the new Caverns of Time: War of the Ancients raid.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Auto Emote and Auto Profit

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

DeclineDuel, or “DD,” does exactly what the name tells you: When someone challenges you to a duel, DD will decline it. If you’re the kind of player who prefers to limit her dueling to specific places or times, then you’ll want to have DD installed.

DD has a few options, invoked using the /dd command, including setting the add-on active ...]]>
Welcome to Icesnake’s Add-on Emporium! This is Segment Number 7, and I’m going to depart from the must-have raiding add-ons to introduce you to a small, utilitarian add-on called DeclineDuel.

DeclineDuel, or “DD,” does exactly what the name tells you: When someone challenges you to a duel, DD will decline it. If you’re the kind of player who prefers to limit her dueling to specific places or times, then you’ll want to have DD installed.

DD has a few options, invoked using the /dd command, including setting the add-on active or not (so you can accept duels when you want to), setting specific messages to send to the challenger, and setting “PMS mode,” which can be downright brutal when it auto-declines.

Overall, this has to rank as one of the simplest yet most useful add-ons I have used. If you don’t want to have to spend all day declining duels from the second-best warrior or warlock on your server, then DeclineDuel is the add-on for you.

DeclineDuel is available from Curse.

Music for this segment was provided by FreePlay and is entitled Backforce, by Tillman Sillescu.

Download the MP3

According to the author’s description, Loracks DK Optimizer will help you to optimize health regen, DPS, and threat. I know from my own use of it that my DPS has at least doubled, and my health at the end of each melee is a great deal higher than it was before I installed this addon, so I ...]]>
This week we’re going to look at a mod that does for Death Knights what Mage Fever does for Mages; that is, help you to optimize your spell rotation while in combat.

According to the author’s description, Loracks DK Optimizer will help you to optimize health regen, DPS, and threat. I know from my own use of it that my DPS has at least doubled, and my health at the end of each melee is a great deal higher than it was before I installed this addon, so I am confident that it does, indeed, perform “as advertised.”

Loracks DK Optimizer adds a “click-through” window (that is, it won’t get in the way of your mouse when you’re trying to click on something in the field of play) which will suggest, using spell icons, which spell or attack you should use next. The main icon is largish, in the center of a rectangular area, and lesser spells will appear near the corners as smaller icons, to help you remember to cast such things as Death and Decay. The main icon changes according to how much runic power you have available, distance from your target (e.g., melee or ranged), and which aspect you are currently using. Some of the suggestions change so quickly that you have very little time to react, so it’s a good idea to be very familiar with the locations of your hot keys. Of course, that’s probably a good idea anyway.

Loracks DK Optimizer is a lightweight add-on; if you’re playing a Death Knight on a computer with limited memory, this is *the* must-have mod for your DK.

Loracks DK Optimizer is available from Curse and through WoWmatrix (and the comment shown in WoWmatrix is hilarious!).

Music for this segment is provided by Freeplay Music and is entitled Army Angels.

Bonus image

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Mage Fever is a proc and buff notification addon for mages. It was designed to be simple, light on memory, completely stand alone, and easy to use. Developed by a mage for a mage, it is specifically tailored to help make the most of a mage’s damage output and manage their spell rotation. Mage Fever is an addon that is extremely flexible and fit for any mage. Mage Fever is designed to visually stand out when needed, yet invisible when not, through uniquely colored ...]]>
Guest voice by Ensoph Frostfyre.

Mage Fever is a proc and buff notification addon for mages. It was designed to be simple, light on memory, completely stand alone, and easy to use. Developed by a mage for a mage, it is specifically tailored to help make the most of a mage’s damage output and manage their spell rotation. Mage Fever is an addon that is extremely flexible and fit for any mage. Mage Fever is designed to visually stand out when needed, yet invisible when not, through uniquely colored notification frames with background timers which can be placed anywhere on the screen.

Mage Fever keeps the raiding or PvP mage on top of her game. Decisions for spell rotation will be much easier to make with all mage procs being much easier to see. Scorch and Living Bomb debuffs are tracked with timers so you will be able to constantly keep that debuff on your target; you will know whether to cast one more fireball or refresh the living bomb. You will know when you are guaranteed a critical strike due to Fingers of Frost or a free fireball from Brain Freeze.

Mage Fever is suitable for all specs – Fire,Frost, Arcane, or Hybrid, and tracks Clearcasting and Mirror Image in addition to the basic procs and buffs. It also has a unique multi-target Living Bomb tracker.

Download Mage Fever from WoWinterface or Curse.

Music from BeeMP3.com, Rihanna and “Russian Roulette”

Download the MP3

Grid is an essential tool for healers. Anyone who has been in a raid knows that, many times, there is way too much going on during a fight to look at the standard raid array to see who needs healing, who has a HoT on them, who ...]]>
This week we’re going to take a look at a simple yet powerful aid for healers, called Grid. I will also mention a few enhancements to Grid, and a link to a tutorial on how to get the most out of Grid.

Grid is an essential tool for healers. Anyone who has been in a raid knows that, many times, there is way too much going on during a fight to look at the standard raid array to see who needs healing, who has a HoT on them, who needs a new HoT, and so on. Grid gives you exactly what the name says – a grid of party or raid members, showing their health status. The grid is clickable and allows you as the healer to quickly target the player who needs your attention right now. As with Decursive, Grid can make the second or two difference between a successful fight, and a wipe. One point I would make is that you will almost certainly want to change the default font size for text within the squares of the Grid; it’s easy, and it will make it much easier to read what’s actually printed.

Enhancements:

GridStatusLifebloom shows the Lifebloom counter, colored by the number of stacks on your target.

GridStatusHots shows your other HoT counters, colored by time remaining.

GridIndicatorCornerText allows you to add counters to the corners of your Grid squares.

Keeva has done a very nice tutorial on getting the most out of Grid, including a couple of enhancements. Follow the link below.

Music for this segment was furnished by ArtistDirect.com and is titled “15 to 20″ by The Phenomenal Handclap Band.

Download Grid from Curse or Wowinterface

Enhancements are linked from the tutorial by Keeva.

Download the MP3

Those of you listening to the audio segment will probably notice my voice is rough and more nasal than usual; sorry, I’m just starting to get over a sinus infection. Here’s the text for those who wonder what I actually said.

Decursive is a mod which makes affliction removal easy, effective and fun for all the classes having this ability.

It’s easy to use. Decursive configures itself automatically for your character class. It works straight out of the box; no configuration is required, although advanced options are readily available. Decursive is ...]]>

Those of you listening to the audio segment will probably notice my voice is rough and more nasal than usual; sorry, I’m just starting to get over a sinus infection. Here’s the text for those who wonder what I actually said.

Decursive is a mod which makes affliction removal easy, effective and fun for all the classes having this ability.

It’s easy to use. Decursive configures itself automatically for your character class. It works straight out of the box; no configuration is required, although advanced options are readily available. Decursive is suitable for both casual and hardcore players.

Using the advanced options, you control what you want to dispel, and who gets priority. You can filter out afflictions you don’t want to cure or that are useless to remove by class, such as afflictions affecting mana on non-mana classes. Some are preconfigured.

You choose what you want to dispel – magic, curses, poison, diseases, and charms. This allows you to share the cleansing work with other players effectively.

You can prioritize or exclude members. This lets you keep players, classes, or raid groups in a specific order so that you can polymorph, cyclone, or hex a mind-controlled tank, or decurse a cursed healer quickly.

Decursive supports magic charm effect removal for Shamans, Priests,
Hunters, and Warlocks. Your cleansing spell cooldown is displayed to maximize your dispel speed.

An automatic blacklist will prevent you from losing time on players that cannot be dispelled because, for example, they are out of line-of-sight.

There are many more features which are covered in depth at the Decursive home page. Suffice it to say this is a must-have add-on for raiders and instance runners who need to cleanse harmful effects from their teammates.

You can download Decursive from its own home page at 2072 productions, or from Curse.com (how appropriate is that?).

Intro and outro for this segment provided by FXhome.com, created by Sharp. Background music is by Mark Mosher, entitled They Walk Among Us, to promote his new album, Reboot.

Download the MP3

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Talent Trees
MMO-Champion has links up to Cataclysm talent trees for Priest, Druid, Rogue, Shaman. They are up over at their new site Wowtal.com

How To Make Fishing More Interesting
Our listener Kurg brought up the idea about how to make fishing more interesting: let’s discuss.

Pay More Get Less?
We discuss a topic that came up about a player who believes that Blizzard is charging us more and more and giving ...]]>
Ooh, Cataclysm Talent Trees

Get the Stormrage Audio book Free Courtesy of WoWphiles and Audible

Cataclysm Talent Trees
MMO-Champion has links up to Cataclysm talent trees for Priest, Druid, Rogue, Shaman. They are up over at their new site Wowtal.com

How To Make Fishing More Interesting
Our listener Kurg brought up the idea about how to make fishing more interesting: let’s discuss.

Pay More Get Less?
We discuss a topic that came up about a player who believes that Blizzard is charging us more and more and giving us less and less.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week to bring us the addon: Arkinventory

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LorEducation with Evinrue
Evinrue joins us to talk about the lore behind Queen Azshara

I have noticed a big question lately has been: how can blizzard make fishing more interesting? One suggestion might be to make fishing more in depth like a crafting profession. For example, fishing lures could be created by recipes. A player could make certain lures with recipes and those lures will have an effect on their fishing such as: an increased chance at catching a ...]]>

This post comes to us courtesy of our listener Kurg from the Kargath server. He has some ideas on how to make fishing more interesting.

I have noticed a big question lately has been: how can blizzard make fishing more interesting? One suggestion might be to make fishing more in depth like a crafting profession. For example, fishing lures could be created by recipes. A player could make certain lures with recipes and those lures will have an effect on their fishing such as: an increased chance at catching a certain type of fish or an increased quantity of that type of fish, catch special fish that give you abilities such as: water breathing, faster swimming, water walking, etc.

There could also be epic lure recipes that can drop from dungeon and/or raid bosses. The epic fishing recipes could do things like give you the ability to fish faster, fish with greater accuracy, fish up artifacts associated with archeology, or other items that are vendor trash but sell for a lot gold so that fishing can be a viable way of making gold other then putting fish on the Auction House.

Some lures could be shallow lures that will fish up certain fish and items, and other lures could be deep running lures. With this idea fishing will be more in depth and a potential way to spend time advancing your character with archeology or some other trade skill tie in, as well as catching larger quantities, fishing faster, and making gold.

As far as the fishing mechanic Blizzard could give more control over the cast. Blizzard could allow you to control the strength and accuracy of the cast. Perhaps when you begin to cast, a small slider bar pops up with moving markers; one marker moves up and down the slide scale, and one left to right, each controlling the strength and accuracy of the cast. The closer you get these marks to land in a small identified range the more accurate your cast is and the better your catch is. The Epic lures could affect this mechanic also and could slow it down to give you a better chance to get the mark to stop where you want, or make the margin for error a little bigger to obtain the perfect cast.

With the addition of more water in certain zones in Cataclysm, more water mounts could be introduced. Players would also be able to fish from the backs of these water mounts. Fish pools may spawn only in areas accessible to people with water mounts.

It’s possible that some or all of these ideas will either make or break fishing for people. If the process made less people fish, fishing becomes more valuable seeing as the fished up items that could be sold on the Auction House would be rare and most expensive. The downside to less people fishing is that Blizzard would probably not like this–seeing as how they like to get as many people involved in as many facets of the game as they can–and would want to find a way to get more people involved..

Fishing does however, need some sort of makeover to help make it a more rich and rewarding experience. In it’s current state it still feels to much of a grind without enough fun and variety to make it worthwhile.

The Gathering
The WoWphiles official guild for friends and fans has been created. It’s called The Gathering and it’s on the Lightbringer server. Get your level 1 alts ready.

News
BlizzCon tickets are selling out and Gnome and Troll quest lines not going live 3.3.5

PvP Class Balance
Blizzard again tackles the topic of how to balance classes in PvP

Stefon the Travel Correspondent
We are joined by Stefon who gives us some places to see in Azeroth.

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of ...]]>
Can You Spare Ten Silver?

The Gathering
The WoWphiles official guild for friends and fans has been created. It’s called The Gathering and it’s on the Lightbringer server. Get your level 1 alts ready.

News
BlizzCon tickets are selling out and Gnome and Troll quest lines not going live 3.3.5

PvP Class Balance
Blizzard again tackles the topic of how to balance classes in PvP

Stefon the Travel Correspondent
We are joined by Stefon who gives us some places to see in Azeroth.

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

LorEducation with Evinrue
We discuss what would be a good Caverns of Time instance in Cataclysm and also the theory of whether or not Elune is a Naaru.

Murlocs are real!
Handfish species of fish that look like murlocs.

Remote Auction House details
Thanks to a comment from Hiruu, we got to the bottom of what the charges are for in regards to remote services.

Healing in Cataclysm
We look at how healing is changing in Cataclysm.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week with the addon RaidBuffStatus

Evinrue’s NPC of the Week
Evinrue is back with her segment to tell us about Keristrasza

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, ...]]>
Murlocs are for realz!

Murlocs are real!
Handfish species of fish that look like murlocs.

Remote Auction House details
Thanks to a comment from Hiruu, we got to the bottom of what the charges are for in regards to remote services.

Healing in Cataclysm
We look at how healing is changing in Cataclysm.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake is back this week with the addon RaidBuffStatus

Evinrue’s NPC of the Week
Evinrue is back with her segment to tell us about Keristrasza

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Staying interested until Cataclysm
We talk about some things we are doing to stay interested and keep the game fresh until Cataclysm comes out.

Mobile Auction House
The Mobile Auction House is coming soon: is it worth the money?

Female Worgen Screenshots
Are they killer werewolves or sexy foxes?

Putricide Strategy
We give you our tips on the Professor Putricide encounter in Icewing Citadel

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Predicting the Bosses of Cataclysm
Evinrue joins us to talk about what bosses we might be facing in Cataclysm

Cataclysm Professions
Blizzard officially released information regarding Cataclysm profession changes. We put our two cents in on the subject.

Good Cop / Bad Modem
Blizzard flexes their NDA muscle and we discuss

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium #21
Icesnake is back this week with the addon SkillScore

Listener Email & Comments
We mention some of the things that you, our great listeners, had to say this week.

Ruby Sanctum
We give our thoughts on the upcoming Ruby Sanctum.

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The WoWphiles Guild
We answer the question about whether or not we will start our own WoWphiles guild.

When will Patch 3.3 be released?
We talk about the possibilities of how soon patch 3.3 will come out.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake brings us this week’s addon: Omen3. We also discuss another threat meter that we use.

Are you burned out?
Dealing with and avoiding burnout with WoW

Icecrown lore
This week’s lore segment ...]]> Preparing for Patch 3.3

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The WoWphiles Guild
We answer the question about whether or not we will start our own WoWphiles guild.

When will Patch 3.3 be released?
We talk about the possibilities of how soon patch 3.3 will come out.

Icesnake’s Addon Emporium
Icesnake brings us this week’s addon: Omen3. We also discuss another threat meter that we use.

Are you burned out?
Dealing with and avoiding burnout with WoW

Icecrown lore
This week’s lore segment with Evinrue looks at the story of The Lich King, Icecrown citadel and the bosses we will encounter.

On more official business the podcast will be coming a day late due to the Holiday so we can all spend some quality time with our families in the real world… Today’s epic quest – eat so much turkey you pass out.

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Night Elf Mohawk
I pity the fool that doesn’t experience the Mohawk Grenade in game.

Shadowmourne revealed
We discuss the new legendary weapon Shadowmourne and talk about why legendary items don’t scale with level.

Plight of the new tank
So you want to tank but no one will let you? We talk about the struggles of new tanks starting out.

Really??
Our own version of SNL’s Really skit, where we talk about Blizzard’s ...]]> 5th Anniversary Retrospective

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Night Elf Mohawk
I pity the fool that doesn’t experience the Mohawk Grenade in game.

Shadowmourne revealed
We discuss the new legendary weapon Shadowmourne and talk about why legendary items don’t scale with level.

Plight of the new tank
So you want to tank but no one will let you? We talk about the struggles of new tanks starting out.

Really??
Our own version of SNL’s Really skit, where we talk about Blizzard’s realization of class imbalance for arenas.

WoW 5th Anniversary
We take a look at where the Warcraft lore has gone over the past few years and where it will go in the future.

To give you an idea of my qualifications, I have been playing RPGs since 1976 (Dungeons & Dragons first edition!), and MMORPGs since Everquest (the first one). I’ve played through EQ, Asheron’s Call, Diablo II, and now World of Warcraft (remember when “raid” meant “level 58+ ...]]> I’m thinking of doing a weekly column for WoW add-ons, if there’s any interest in the listener/readership here. The idea is that I will try them out and recommend them for general use or specific classes, along with links to where you can get them.

To give you an idea of my qualifications, I have been playing RPGs since 1976 (Dungeons & Dragons first edition!), and MMORPGs since Everquest (the first one). I’ve played through EQ, Asheron’s Call, Diablo II, and now World of Warcraft (remember when “raid” meant “level 58+ in Zul’Gurub?” I do). I’ve been a testing engineer and low-level (e.g., code assembled by hand into machine language) software developer, with published programs “out there” since Compute! was a magazine. I raid at least twice a week now, and run a smallish Guild.

So… Anyone want to see this feature? Or shall I forget it and go back to taunting Yogg-Saron?