Asleep at the WoW

And then he said… Let there be bits.. And there were bits.  And they were tid.  They were TidBits!

Hey there loyal reader (once again I am speaking to all 2 of you, although I think I picked up one more [you know who you are!]) .  I have come up with this idea that probably won’t happen each week (I’m just that way).  I’m going to put some links in this post to various information I have found in my quest for more WoW Web Lootz.

Here is a great article on WoW Insider by “BigRedKitty”.  It details information that everyone should know about Hunters.  Since I am a hunter, I want you to go and read it right now.. I’ll wait.  Go ahead. (Why are you still here?)

Welcome back.  MMO-Champion has more information on some Wootage discovered in 2.1 (Just some new lootz and hotfixes).

Ten Ton Hammer has information on Children’s Week which started this week.  Go get you little orphan from Shattrath and tote him/her/it around the world in 80 days and you get a brand new Non-Combat pet  (I like the elephant-like one myself) .  Also at TTH, they have a Guide to Magtheredon’s Lair. It looks pretty decent, but we haven’t even begun to think about going there
Hmm.. that’s all the Tid type Bits I’ve got so far.. I might add to the post as the day progresses if I see anything unusual.  Let me know what you think about this type of thing. Do you think it is useful or are you guys savvy enough to find all this crap on your own?

I was looking forward to 2.1. I’m sure we all were (well, except paladins). I was NOT looking forward to the possibilities of extended down-time, server restarts, addon issues, lag, etc. Of course… We did get these things. Was it worth it?

I like the new changes I have experienced so far. I enjoy the new pet HoT. I just need to remember to use it!. I haven’t yet respecced my pet (since there is no pet trainer in shat) but I will probably do that tonight. I saw the new quest line starters and picked them up (didn’t try them yet though). The feign death change is welcome (especially to my healing buddies). My biggest problem (besides the issues with not being able to login and the server restarting a few times) is with the addons.

I know Blizzard does not guarantee that addons will work in any way. I just wish there was some way for them to make sure the changes they make did not cause so many problems with them. There really should be a black box API that doesn’t change (maybe add things, but retain old calls for backwards compat). I am not sure what was changed (I do not code addons, personally) but it made some significant issues with many of the addons i had. My Bongo Bars had issues that the Pet bar never showed up! I upgraded to Bongos2 and that caused issues that I completely lost my setup of the bars and cyCircled (I think that is the name of it) doesn’t seem to work anymore with them. There were many other addons that don’t work anymore. One is DeliHunterAEP. I was using this to help me figure out the relative value of gear to my hunter (Agility Equivalence Points). I miss it..

I do realize, once again, that Blizzard has never said they would even “try” (as far as I know) to maintain backwards compatibility for addons, but it would be nice to do what they can. I’m sure we already have updates to the most popular addons already and hopefully the less known/used ones will get updates too.

In addition to the issues I was having with the addons, I did notice something else that was annoying.  I’m getting a “stuttering” in the video.  About every second, it seems that it pops back a frame to cause what looks like a stutter step or a slight pause (it might be a pause and not a frame drop).  If anyone else has noticed this, let me know.  My FPS is usually over 40, so I don’t think it has to do with video settings.  I need to try removing all my addons and see if that helps.. I tried removing some, but it kept happening. Please.. if someone can help me with this, I would appreciate it.

Enough rant… On to the next segment.. What did we do last night? —-

We again tackled Shattered Halls. A little swap around on the group though (same general makeup). Bligh (War, MT), Kezz (Magerrific), Rogue (same as night before), Priest (MH, New to instance), Me. Things went pretty well. Only wiped a few times (1 shotted all bosses). Again our strategy for the final boss played out and we downed him with seemingly few issues (from my perspective of boss DPS dude). I received a couple of drops from the bosses. None of them were “spectacular” upgrades, but they were decent. Grand Warlock Nethekurse dropped the Telaari Hunting Girdle. Kargath Bladefist dropped the Gauntlets of Desolation which, I know, is supposedly Shammy gear, but they were an upgrade to the green gloves I was still wearing.  I was hoping for the Beast Lord Handguards, but it was not to be this time. I’ve still got a ways to go to get revered with HH, so I am sure we will be back in there again soon (if not tonight!).  It is a pretty fun instance actually, once you get the pulls down.  There are some very large groups to pull in there and the “organized” chaos is something to behold.

After completing the run, I got Kezz to make me some gems for my new gloves (lowend ones for now, since I might not keep this one too long) and got a Assault enchant put on them by our Priest.  (ooh, have to remember to send him the mats from my bank toon).  I’m really thinking about taking some time to level my rogue (who is my Enchanter) so he can start disenchanting the higher end greens that are sitting in my bank..  I wish you could D/E through the trade window.. That would be pretty sweet. (Like you can get enchants on souldbound items through it).

I think that about does it for my latest raving rant.  I’m just about outta juice.  Later.

Woot.. Just installed the update for 2.1.  Of course, I have to wait until tonight to check it out!  Hope everyone got it downloaded and is ready for the fun. 

I just hope it doesn’t blow up too many of my addons.

Sooner or later you will be able to see the patch notes here.

EDIT:  In addition, MMO-Champion has a great write up of the changes.  
Later.