The Shadow Troll

Mad for Mithril?

theshadowtroll — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:00:19 +0000

The prices for mithril bars are crazy on my server at the moment as you can see in the screenshot below. It seems that this metal has replaced thorium as the expensive old world material on my auction house and I am more than happy to sell it for these kinds of prices.

Question of the Day

Are mithril prices similar on your server?

Why do you think it has overtaken thorium?

Twas Bored…

theshadowtroll — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 08:00:16 +0000

SO I GOT MY PENCIL CRAYONS OUT! =D

Questions of the Day

When should I start my career as a professional artist?

Am I a cool cat in real life?

Sorry for the randomness, I promise a more useful post tomorrow!

Bugged Quest – “Test at Sea”

theshadowtroll — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:00:44 +0000

Hey guys,

A few days ago at level 70 I decided to head over to Howling Fjord to hand in a few quests I had picked up during Utgarde Keep. I then decided to leave the Boring Borean Tundra behind for the time being and quest here. One of the very early Horde quests “Test at Sea” is actually broken at this point in time. It won’t allow you to use the quest item needed to bomb the incoming Alliance Ships (Blizzard prefers Alliance?!). After checking wowhead I realized that this quest was indeed bugged and I sent the following GM Ticket:

I thought it might be useful to show this just in case any of you find this quest to be bugged in the near future. Make sure to ask politely for the GM to complete the quest in your log and you will not miss out on the XP or the Loremaster Achievement you are after.

Finally we arrive in Northrend!

theshadowtroll — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:00:24 +0000

Outland passed me by so quickly I don’t really know what to say. By this time I was expecting to be able to moan about how much I hated the experience but it was great. The combination of having a flying mount and very little downtime meant that I sped through each zone and raked in the XP. I had memories of Outland being this horrible grind to level 68 so I could quickly escape to WOTLK content but it was quite the opposite.

Anyway I headed over to Orgrimmar to clear my bags and make sure I was completely ready for Northrend and hopped onto the next Zepplin. My destination was Warsong Hold:

"Throm-Ka, Troll! Welcome to Warsong Hold. My heart swells with pride to see that such a distinguished hero of the Horde has answered the call of duty!"

I’ve always enjoyed the WOTLK quests and I look forward to starting them after I finish this post. I now need to start looking out for gear that might actually come in useful during the Undergered project. This means I need to pick which reputations to improve, which zones to visit and which dungeons to enter.

Forum Post Friday – New Armory = No Privacy?

theshadowtroll — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:00:58 +0000

Each Friday I will pick a forum post from the World of Warcraft EU forums and discuss it. I will pick the post from anywhere within these forums depending on what I find interesting, funny or just rather annoying.

Please click here for today’s forum post!

Summary

This post is started by a player that believes that the new Armory feature that shows your character’s activity has serious privacy implications and there should be an option to disable this from being displayed to the public. Although this post quickly turns into a flame war I think it is an interesting topic and it certainly has some people worried.

My Opinion

I personally think that a small but vocal minority are overreacting to the situation and are either embarrassed of how much time they spend playing WoW or trying to hide something from people they know. I love the new armory and think Blizzard have made some great changes to its functionality and it makes me want to use the armory more often. However I think it would be an idea to include an option to disable the activity feature just to appease the players that find it such a breach of privacy and I’m sure it can be done very easily.

And guys, if you are really that concerned about the armory and its lacks of privacy just don’t give away the name of your character to people that you know.

Personally I am not worried about people knowing that I Completed step [Fjord Rat] of achievement [Pest Control] yesterday and you are all welcome to check out my armory here

Interesting Replies

Dalaila (Original Poster) writes:

Q u o t e:
So, what are you afraid of?

“I don’t like that people (friends, parents, my son, my wife, mu husband, my sister, my boss, my roommate, my colleague, my guildmante, my guild officer, etc) can just peek at my page to see when I play and how much I play. I just ask the option to disable it.

Would you like to use Messenger or any other IM tool without such an option (“invisible mode”)?

Would you like if your email messages were able to auto-respond to the sender “email read!” without your permission?

I do not have to hide anything but I want to be able to decide what to do of the time I spend on WoW. That’s my business, not a “worldwide” one.“

Lyonesse writes:

“Well, you always could see it. Just check the achievements tab… It’s just on the frontpage too now. I don’t care if other people see how much I play. That’s my business. I guess it’s only a problem when you told people you were doing something else, or called in sick, and then play WoW instead…“

Jenaaki writes:

Q u o t e:

the internet offers you anonymity.

you don’t need “privacy” because no1 knows who you are. sersiously.
get over it.

“You’re sure, Chris?“

Questions of the Day
What are your thoughts on the new Armory design?
Is it a breach of privacy?
Should there be an on/off switch?

Why do I always pick the good guys?

theshadowtroll — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:00:39 +0000

When entering Shattrath you have the opportunity to start the quest A’dal which eventually leads to yourself deciding if you want to be a part of the Aldor or the Scryers. I’ve just completed that seres of quests and decided to help the proud Aldor, the defenders of the Light!

Neither faction really offers me any reason to pick them in terms of gear or useful items, I’m level 67 and will soon be leaving behind this alien world. However I realized I couldn’t pick the Scryers, I just couldn’t do it. They are not an ‘evil’ faction but they are obviously not the ‘good guys’ and I would feel incredibly guilty if I decided to pick them. Looking back at my past characters I realized that I had only ever picked the Scryers once and that was because I had decided that I really needed that particular shoulder enchant for what I intended to do.

So maybe I just have a slight phobia of Blood Elf males (who doesn’t?) but this trend does not stop with Shattrath. I remember with one character I actually managed to get the Green Proto Drake from the Oracles and then realized I no longer needed anything from this faction. After much consideration I decided to reset my reputation with the Oracles and join the Wolvar to see if there was anything I may find useful and pick up a couple of achievements. That lasted about two days before I went crawling back to the Oracles and begged for forgiveness.

I was now beginning to realize that I had a problem. Looking at other games where I had to decide between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ I came to the conclusion that I was indeed a goodie two shoes. I have played games such as Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights, Black and White or even Mass Effect and never even considered stepping outside of my comfort zone. I’m such a failure!

Questions of the Day

Do any of you guys have the same issue?

Why do you always pick the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ guys?

Am I turning into a Roleplayer?

A new name and a new blog

theshadowtroll — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:36:48 +0000

Hey guys!

I have just made the transition from my old blog to this new and hopefully better location. I decided to move my blog because I felt that the previous name did not really fit my blog and hopefully The Shadow Troll will suit me a little better. I have also changed from using blogspot.com to wordpress and I definitely prefer this setup. It feels a lot more up to date and although I’m very new to blogging I have a whole lot of features to keep me entertained.

Transferring all the posts I have written so far was far easier than I thought it would be but I imagine there might be a few mistakes here and there. I will try my best to modify these but please let me know if you notice anything amiss in my previous posts.

Well this was just a quick post to explain my decision and hopefully you enjoy the new blog!

Chris (The Shadow Troll?)

Why I love to Mindflay!

theshadowtroll — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:03:54 +0000

- We can literally fire lazer beams from the palm of our hands. What else do you want from a spell?!

- This spell reduces the movement speed of your target by 50% whilst pumping out some heavy damage. People often undervalue how useful this can be. In PvP you can use this spell in so many different ways and the fact that you are dealing damage can often be just an added bonus. Mind Flay can save your healer friend from being killed by that Arms Warrior or it can slow an enemy down as he tries to approach you whilst your DoTs tick away at his HP. Mind Flay is amazing in PvP!

- Refreshing Shadow Word: Pain whilst dealing damage = profit

- It is actually one of the cheapest spells to use in terms of mana compared to how much damage it can deal.

- Melting of faces

Some of you may notice that you are accidentally recasting mind flay before the previous mind flay had finished. This means you are missing out on the last ‘tick’ of damage and therefore wasting time and mana. This macro can help:


#showtooltip Mind Flay
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Flay] Mind Flay

This allows you to spam your mind flay spell without allowing yourself to cast until the previous spell has finished channeling.

Level 60 means Dispersion and Wings!

theshadowtroll — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:02:48 +0000

Reaching level 60 means I now have access to two very important things, both of which make my life a hell of a lot easier:

Flying Mount

Being able to use a flying mount at level 60 instead of 70 is so great when leveling through Outland. Anyone who has leveled trough Outland will understand how frustrating it can be to have to fight your way through packs of mobs to reach a quest item instead of flying over them and collecting it. Unfortunately I can’t afford to use an Epic flying mount just yet because I have put very little thought into gold making. To be honest I am far too used to making gold using maxed out professions such as Enchanting or Inscription. I am selling everything I find whilst leveling but apart from that I am not really worrying about gold too much.

Dispersion

Dispersion is one of the spells I have been looking forward to since I started this character and I have now gained it via the Shadow talent tree. It solves two problems shadow priests may find whilst leveling: Survivability and Mana regen. Combine this spell with the Glyph of Dispersion and you will see a huge change in your leveling experience. I no longer have to worry about mana after every fight and I o longer have to worry about getting squashed when I pull too many enemies or have to face an elite mob. As I mentioned on Friday this spell no longer looks quite as awesome but I am willing to forgive Blizzard simply because it makes my leveling process so much easier.

Through the Dark Portal

theshadowtroll — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 07:02:16 +0000

I finally hit level 58 and forced myself not to cheer when I realized I could leave the old world quests behind. I made my way to Undercity and cleared my bags, leaving a few essential items: My trusty Mining Pick, a few potions and my hearthstone. Then I happily cleared out my quest log leaving a blank page ready for Outland. Finally I made sure all my professions were ready (300+) and wasted too much gold getting the last few points for my Jewelcrafting. I was now ready to head through the Dark Portal!

Outland awaits! A magical world of strange looking quest reward gear, demons and flying mounts.

Extra note: Don’t forget you can now use a portal from any major city to teleport directly to the Dark Portal. You don’t need to actually travel to the Blasted Lands anymore.