This is, I have to say, is one of the coolest things I’ve seen… and it’s on my server!

Cassie mentioned it to me, I’ve been oblivious lately to general chat… but I am so taking part tonight!

Remember that whole ‘Isle of Quel’danas’ thing we were so excited about way back when? Tons of new daily quests? A new instance? A new raid area? A new badge vendor?

Pretty cool, right?

All the servers scrambled to be the first to do tons of daily quests, as each new stage of content in the Isle of Quel’danas had to be unlocked by server participation.

And what happened?

As soon as the new Badge of Honor reward vendor got unlocked, everyone stopped caring.

Well, a couple stages or so AFTER the Badge lady is the gem vendor recipe lady… she has a quest for you to do. It’s a damn cool quest, I loved it.

You get asked to go retrieve some stuff from the high plateau of southwest Hellfire Peninsula.

The catch is, what you gotta retrieve is buried… and it requires a sensitive sniffer to figure out where the tender roots you want are located.

It’s a damn truffle hunt!

You have to fly up to that plateau… you get to tame a Ravager as your pet! Just like hunters get pets! You get him as a combat pet to send out to whack stuff, the whole thing. Very fun! C’mon, isn’t that reason enough to go?

And one of the Ravager’s special abilities is to sniff out these tender truffles… I mean roots… and then you scavenge the suckas and return to the Isle of Quel’danas and turn them in.

And if you do this quest enough on your server, the gem recipe vendor lady will… have gem recipes to sell. Epic gem recipes. NICE epic gem cutting recipes.

Windburn is, of course, a maxed out Jewelcrafter with many rare recipes, such as Solid Star of Elune and Runed Living Ruby. I wants those Epic recipes.

But… I checked last night, vendor is still at 95%. It’s heartbreaking!

And I mention this to my wife, and she tells me that one of the best guilds Alliance side on Kael’thas, as far as friendliness and progression are concerned, Vendetta, has gotten sick of it too.

And they are taking action!

Check out this post on the Official WoW Kael’thas realm forums made by Showtyme of Vendetta;

In an attempt to hasten the arrival of the gem-vendor, Vendetta will be holding a quest lottery. The rules are simple. A member of the team will be in Shattrath ready to share the quest “discovering your roots”. More team members will be at Razorthorn Rise clearing out mobs and uncovering roots for you. Simply pick up the roots you see on the ground and fly back to shat and port to Quel’Danas. Turn in the quest. A final member of the team will be at the quest turn ready to port you back to Shattrath where the original team member will be waiting for you. In exchange for doing this we will give you 3g and put your name on a spreadsheet. You can do this as many times as you have toons per day until the vendor opens. Every time you do it on a main or alt you receive another chance to win the grand prize, which is a ZA Bear mount!!!!So its a win for you and the whole server, you get 3g per day per toon that does the quest and each time you do it your name is added into the pool. Once the vendor reaches 100% the event will be complete and the lottery will be held. The winner will be notified in-game via mail and there name will be posted in this thread. The bear run will then be set up for a time convenient for the winner and the server can finally get the gems they need!!

Any questions contact Showtyme in game. The offer will start Wednesday the 25th at noon server time. in front of the portal to Quel’Danas. Good luck!

Now that’s hardcore awesome…

I love the idea of working together like that. And would I love a bear mount? Sure!

But I am going to participate in this on all three 70s I have, NOT in desperate hopes of a bear mount, I have the awesome birdie mount from Heroic Sethekk halls to love. Okay, if I won Windshadow the Bear tank WOULD be riding a warbear. It is mandatory. Sorry, I slipped into some bear-on-bear daydreaming there. My bad.

But no, I’m going to take part each day because this is just an awesome attempt by a guild of great folks to get some hustle going! Get that damn gem lady in bizness!

If you’re on Kael’thas, and you’ve been blowing off the quest… please go out there and get some move on!

Thank you, Blizzard. Thank you!

Blizzard has officially announced that they have released a new security tool, the Blizzard Authenticator, for your World of Warcraft account.

The Information page at their website explains ALL the details.

The summary?

An OPTIONAL, physical keychain dongle much like a USB flash drive that you carry with you… that has an internal chip with a unique digital code.

When you buy the Blizzard Authenticator, for $6.50, you log into your Account Security, you associate this optional device with your account, and BOOM!

You will be able to use it anywhere, traveling, shared internet facilities, you name it. If you don’t have your key, you can’t get into your account…

If the damned hackers don’t have your physical damn key, they CAN’T HACK YOU!!!!

God bless you, Blizzard. God bless you.

I be ordering two as soon as I get home.

EDIT: No, I won’t, because the news is so bleeding edge they ain’t in the store yet. But I’ll be watching daily until they are in there… the announcement says they will be at the Paris conference, and then available at the Blizzard store “in the near future”.

Second EDIT: A little more info on the system… this apparently isn’t going to be an actual, plug into the computer, USB kind of key dongle such as I use for some of my engineering systems.

Instead, apparently it uses a system that many banks have implemented called SecurID, which consists of a key generator that changes the key code it generates regularly.

When you set it up with your Blizzard account, it will ’sync’ it’s internal seed generator with Blizzard. So when you try to log in, you will be directed to input your current code… you’ll rpess a button on your keychain dongle, and the code will be generated right then, viewed on teh dongle screen display, and only be valid for a very short time, perhaps a minute. And you’ll type it in. Blizard will have their seed synced to yours, so it’ll know wqhat it should have been…

So even if you had a keylogger, or a virus… the key you typed in goes dead a minute later.

Interesting system… I want one, damnit.

Edit again… PIC! Plus, I’m including a PDF brochure from the actual device manufacturer I’ll host here… based off the “G06″ data you can see from the back of Blizzard’s Authenticator picture… vasco_dp_go6_brochure.pdf

You asked for it. You all but begged for it.

No, wait. You DID beg for it.

But it took someone with talent, and a serious mental condition to g out there and DO it.

Dax, the mastermind behind Musings of a Nutjob, has provided me with this, his much more melodious, take on Wreath of Fire.

So now, I present to you Wreath of Fire, performed by Dax, lyrics by B^3.

Enjoy!

The Family and Friends Alpha for Wrath of the Lich King is going on as we speak.

I’m not in it.

In fact, if I got all whiny, I could make a case that someone at Blizz doesn’t like me very much, if you go by the dozen-plus emails I got from them when my account was hacked Christmas a year and a half ago and my main had all of her end-game 40 man resto raiding gear wiped out, emails that strung me along for over a month before I got a final form email basically saying “We don’t believe you had any gear, so have some random greens, buy Burning Crusade, and STFU.”

And I do still have all those emails, not because I’m all bitter, but because I don’t use that email much, so it’s never had the archives purged. i fuond them when digging through my ancient email looking for my CuteFTP software activation key to install it on Cassie’s new computer.

It’s been a long time since those days. Do I feel angry towards Blizzard for this? Do I love the game any less? Well, all I can say is, read my blog and you be the judge. I think I am mature enough to differentiate between the way some folks in one small department of a company deal with customers, and the way others go about creating the game I love. I can love the game and the designers and programmers, the art folks and creative people and be a big fanboy, without having any sympathy whatsoever to their customer service department.

Now, while I won’t do anything to hurt the game, I know I for one love seeing glimpses of what’s in store, so long as there are no blatant spoilers about the lore or storyline. We all do, right?

I’m not in the Alpha. I ain’t in any way involved with them in any capacity, official or unofficial. And guess what? That means I didn’t sign or agree to an NDA.

So I have no problems with seeing the information that is being leaked from the Alpha by others, and sharing what I think is neat information that would be of great interest to you guys.

I wrote an article this morning for WoW Insider where I discuss in general terms the new Talents in the Feral Tree in the Alpha, and speculate on what this means for the future of bear tanking.

BUT, depending on if the War Tools site is active or accessible, you may or may not be able to see the tool tips for the abilities I talk about there.

So this post is going to be me linking to the pictures of the new Talents, so you can see exactly what they look like at this point in time. 

I hope you feel the same excitement when you see these Talents and speculate on the fun of using them in battle that I did. I’m sure things will change, maybe stuff will be removed or added before it goes live. It’s the Alpha, stuff will ALWAYS change somewhere.

But ain’t it cool to see it and know we get to keep tanking on?

And hey… while I would love to be contacted by Blizzard and offered the chance to interview someone about the future of Druids in WoW, or get access to a Beta, or any of a host of other things that would let me see something I could share with you in the future, let’s be realistic. I write a blog about Druids, and my audience ain’t Blizzard. It’s other Druids. And you don’t really come to me for inside scoop, you come here, if it’s about Druids, to see my cranky opinions on existing Druid stuff.

Or for drama. Or wierd stories. Sometimes, I get confused as to what the heck I’m doing here, myself.

Anyway, on to the links! (And just for Valthan, I added the text descriptions.)

• Berserk - (1/1) Removes all Stun, Fear, Snare and Movement Impairing Effects and increases your energy regeneration rate by 100% while in Cat form, and increases your total health by 20% while in Bear form. After the effect ends, the health is lost. Effect lasts 20 seconds.
• Improved Mangle - (3/3) Reduces the cooldown of your Mangle (Bear) ability by -20%, and reduces the energy cost of your Mangle (Cat) ability by -6.
• Infected Wounds - (5/5) Your Shred, Maul and Mangle attacks have a 100% chance to cause an Infected Wound in the target. The Infected Wound reduces the movement speed and casting speed of the target by 10%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 12 seconds.
• Primal Aggression - (3/3) Increases the critical strike chance of your Maul and Shred abilities by 5%.
• Primal Precision - (2/2) Increases your expertise by 10, and you are refunded -60% of the energy cost of a finishing move if it fails to land.
• Reinforced Hide - (3/3) Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%, and increases your Armor contribution from items by an additional 10%.
• Resto - Master Shapeshifter - (2/2) Grants an effect which lasts while the Druid is within the respected shapeshifted form. Bear form - increases physical damage by 4%. Cat form - increases critical strike chance by 4%. Moonkin form - increases spell damage by 4%. Tree form - increases healing by 4%. 

Seriously… enjoy!

So, hello. Welcome! Hiya! How ya doin’?

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the big bear butt and cassie.

Last night, we celebrated by going to a BBQ joint, and then got our son a t-ball bat, glove and related gear.

Note; I intentionally did NOT say that we got our son a set of balls. It wouldn’t be appropriate.

Oh, wait. What? Crap.

These days, to share an example of how a married couple incorporates WoW speech into daily life, I wanted to share this with you.

As our anniversary approached, I asked my wife what she wanted for a present.

Her answer?

“We’re not going to have an anniversary. I /mquit!”

And she SAID the “slash” part, btw.

Sad. Just sad.

I did almost die laughing, it was the most awesomeest… but still.

And taking that idea and running with it… I want to see the divorce court judge handle THAT argument.

Her lawyer; “Your honor, my client wants to keep all of her in game gold, due to it having been earned by her through farming, crafting and skilled use of the Auction House.”

His lawyer; “Objection, your honor! My client spent many hours farming mats and gave them over free of charge in order to further the plaintiff’s Auction House earnings. We feel it’s only right that half of those earnings be shared.”

Her lawyer; “Your honor, it’s true that materials were mailed over, but my client feels that the subsidizing of two epic flying skills should more than compensate for his lost time through farming.”

And the Judge says, “…. what the hell are you two idiots blabbering about? What gold?”

And you know some lawyer will say, “The plaintiff has in-game gold assets currently equivalent to $1700 if rated against gold selling services going rates and taking into account market fluctuations, your honor. That is legitimate income that needs to be divided fairly to all concerned.”

You know it’s coming.

You KNOW it’s coming, somewhere.

Happy anniversary, sweetie. And thanks for the epics! What a great present!

EDIT: Cassie has instructed me to tell you that, unlike SOME people, I do not know what gold sells for… therefore, she does not have the amount of gold that the dollar amount above represents… so hackers, piss off and leave her account alone.