World of Warcraft » The Brew Hall

It’s About The People

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft 8 Responses »

Feb 252012

This week I had as much fun raiding as I’ve had in a long time. There was no new content added to the game, no bug fixes, and no increase in buffs. Blizzard didn’t change a thing about the game itself, and yet this week as a lot more fun.

Our guild was fortunate to get an influx of players from another guild, and our 25-man raid team was bolstered substantially. The players were from a guild that I was part of briefly during Wrath. They’re a tight-knit, fun bunch of folks, and frankly, I was shocked that they would disband their guild and join us. These guys are real-life friends who’ve been playing MMOs together since Everquest. They decided to make the move because they were having issues filing their 10-mans and wanted to be part of a bigger group so that they could raid more consistently.

With the new folks on board we proceeded to clear Dragon Soul in 25-man normal and will probably start looking at hard modes. Previously our best 25-man progress was Ultraxion. That’s three progression bosses in one week.

I think we sometimes forget just how social MMOs are, and that the people we surround ourselves with impact our enjoyment of the game more than any new content the developers can create.

I haven’t guild hopped much on this realm, and when I did make moves, I made a point not burn bridges, and that has paid off. In fact, when I look at our guild roster I see players from every guild that I’ve been in on this realm.

So as this expansion winds down, and you find yourself bored or not having as much fun as you’d like, ask yourself, is it the content or the company you keep?

And with that I leave you with a couple of images from our raid this week.

Despite the influx of new players we continued to do things in typical Bucket List fashion. The first image is from our Spine of Deathwing kill. It’s very early in the fight, and if you look closely you’ll see we’re down one hunter who managed to disengage off Deathwing’s back. He did this on our first Ragnaros kill as well. We view it as a sign of good luck.

The next image is of our Deathwing kill. It’s a long fight and we already had three wipes, two in which we had him at 5%. It was almost assuredly going to be fourth wipe, this time at 1%. With only our bear tank alive, he had the wherewithal to switch to cat form, and was able to pull the damage necessary to bring him down. It was quite the surprise to see the the Destroyer’s End achivement pop-up. Not the prettiest kill, but that’s just how we roll sometimes.

Podcast Woes

Podcasts, The Hunting Party Podcast, World of Warcraft No Responses »

Feb 022012

Euripides posted an update regarding the technical issues we’ve been having with our podcasts. We apologize for the delay in getting them out to you. The good news is things should be resolved and all of our episodes are published and available for download. Currently your best option is to get them through iTunes. We’ll get the official site updated, but it looks like it will be a manual process. You can read Euripides update below.

Hey folks, sometime recently, our FTP server stopped working. It was bound to happen eventually, but I suspect our hosting provider simply turned us off. We were doing 50GB a day of FTP traffic on a virtual private server, and I think that’s the definition of a “bad neighbor”.

We toyed briefly with an account at uploadingit.com, who advertises 100GB per day of transfer (probably enough most days), and to their credit, they even privately offered us an increase for the days we publish the show so long as our average stayed under 100GB. Unfortunately, they’ve been fraught with downtime lately, and as we were uploading the show to them, they went down. Right after I posted that the Kruf episode (116) was working again.

We considered cloud storage from a few different vendors (Amazon, and the likes) but with our monthly 1.5TB of FTP traffic, it’d have been way too expensive. We also considered Libsyn and Podbean and other types of unlimited bandwidth podcasting hosts, however they charge by the amount of shows you have available at one time, and we wanted to keep the whole show downloadable. Also, their pricing structure seems to reflect that they do most of the legwork involved in setting up a new podcast, but we don’t need any of that. We only needed someone to serve our files.

Anyways, I remembered that the space upgrade at wordpress.com was in fact considerably cheaper than a lot of the other hosting options out there, and while they had had flakey downtime and latency issues two years ago when we used them, I’d heard good things about them since. Long story short, we’re going to be using the wordpress.com hosting service from now on. If you ever have issues playing the podcast, please get in touch with Euri by email.

Patch 4.3.2 Today

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft 2 Responses »

Jan 312012

Finally, we’re getting patch 4.3.2 today. This of course is the one that brings us a fair amount of Hunter buffs. It also brings the 5% nerf to Dragon Soul. Those guilds that have hit a wall in their progression now have hope of continuing further. Our 25-man team has been stuck on Ultraxion, and our 10-man has been stuck on Madness. We should be able to clear both those humps this week. /fingers crossed.

Here’s the recap of the Hunter buffs.

Aspect of the Hawk now grants roughly 35% more attack power.
Deterrence now also reduces damage taken by 30% while active.
Black Arrow now ticks every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, as opposed to every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. The total damage dealt by the ability is unchanged.
Lock and Load no longer benefits Arcane Shot, nor is it consumed by Arcane Shot.

Decent buffs overall. We get a little increase in survivability via Deterrence. We’re encouraged to used Black Arrow over Explosive Trap in single target situations, as it will now proc the same number of Lock and Loads. And we’re free to use Arcane Shot during Lock and Load.

Then there’s the boost to attack power via Aspect of the Hawk, which in turn buffs the One With Nature talent.

Overall Hunters should see some improvement in the Dragon Soul raid. Will it be enough for the truly high-end progression guilds to bring Hunters over some other classes? We’ll have to wait and see. I will say this though, if you’re not in one of those “world first” minded progression guilds break out your hunter, pew pew, and just have some fun.

News From the Front

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft 4 Responses »

Dec 212011

Let me start with a quick apology for last week. I fully planned on being there for episode 111 of the Hunting Party Podcast, but Skype did not want any part of it. I think the technical issues are resolved, so if we’re a go for Christmas Eve, then I’ll be there. I’m also working with Euripides to get some of these episodes cut and out the door.

I’m on my second week of raiding since coming back from vacation and things are moving along nicely. I’m in that awkward 12.5 stage. I’ve acquired a few good pieces of T13 gear, but haven’t quite shed all of the T12 yet.

Between the raid finder and our normal runs I’ve acquired six upgrades including weapons and the 2-piece set bonus; can’t wait to see that in action. It looks like I’ll acquire two more items from badges this week. I just need to decide which two.

Getting all of this gear is great, but with everyone running LFR with their alts, gemming and enchanting this stuff is a nightmare. There isn’t much on the AH, what is there is exorbitantly expensive. All told I need nine red gems, a yellow gem, 2H weapon enchant, chest enchant, leg enchant, shoulder enchant, glove enchant, eng. tinker for gloves. On top of that I’ll have reforge everything.

In many ways it’s no different from any other tier. It’s just that in the past I don’t recall the upgrades coming so fast and furiously. Good problems to have, unless you need to have it all ready to go in about 30 minutes.

Good Hunting!

Easy, But Fun

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft No Responses »

Dec 032011

The first week of patch 4.3 was fun. Our 25-man guild gave the raid finder a try on Tuesday night. We figured it would be easy, but had no idea just how much of a roflstomp it would be. Unless you’re decked out in heroic Firelands gear you’ll want to run this each week for the tier pieces alone.

After we ran LFR, we had enough time to give normal modes a look. We one-shot the first boss and came back the next night and got a second boss down. We should have progressed further, but we had a little trouble getting the orb mechanic down. I guess you whipper-snappers are just too young to remember Pong. He should be a one-shot from here on out.

The next evening we put a 10-man together and knocked out the first four bosses. I’ll be surprised if we don’t close out this week 5/8. Dragon Soul normal is definitely easier so far than Firelands. It’s a lot more fun too.

We’ll have to wait and see what the hard modes are like, and if normal modes will even get a nerf this time around. All-in-all this may be a very quick tier, with more guilds attempting hard modes than ever before. It really feels like Blizzard wants to close out this expansion quick and get us over to Pandaria.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 109

Cataclysm, Hunting Party Podcast, Podcasts, World of Warcraft No Responses »

Dec 032011

Chuck Norris and patch 4.3.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

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You can now stream our show onto any mobile device through Stitcher.com, for those of us who prefer something like Android to the iPhone. As always, here is the iTunes store link, the Hunting Party Podcast feed, and the direct XML feed. If you email us comments or questions, we’ll read them on the next show. Send an email to huntingpartypodcast@gmail.com. Also, we love iTunes reviews. So please drop by iTunes and mention what you thought of the show.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Patch 4.3 – The Hour of Twilight

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft No Responses »

Nov 292011

It’s almost been a year since Cataclysm launched, and we’re now finally able to face Deathwing himself. I’ve enjoyed this expansion, but not as much as I did Wrath of the Lich King or Burning Crusade. That’s not to say it hasn’t been fun, but I’m happy to push towards the end and make my way to Pandaria.

Tonight the march to defeat Deathwing begins. I plan to stick with Survival for my raiding spec. I have my Surestrike Goggles and Blunderbuss of Khaz Modan ready for transmogrification, and I’m ready to give the Raid Finder a try.

Honestly this is the one feature that interests me the most. I haven’t heard too much chatter about it, but if it works it will change the way we raid forever. I’m really rooting for it.

As you sit and wait for the servers to come back online, I leave you with a look at the official Hour of Twilight Trailer.

SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!

Cataclysm, World of Warcraft 3 Responses »

Nov 202011

Chuck Norris is a Hunter. ‘Nuff said.

Hunting Party Podcast, Episode 107

Hunting Party Podcast, Podcasts, World of Warcraft No Responses »

Nov 172011

This week, we discuss the deluge of Hunter news that Blizzard cast upon us. We have an update on the fate of the Serenity addon, and we clear out the mailbag.

Here’s the site where we host our shows live.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If you don’t do syndicated podcasts, and just want to download this week’s MP3 and play it on your player of choice, click here.

Joining the Darkside

World of Warcraft No Responses »

Nov 112011

If there’s one thing I love as much as Hunters, it’s Star Wars. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, then you’re probably aware that next month, BioWare will release it’s new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. And I plan to be there for it.

Not only am I planning to play TOR, I’m already writing about it. That’s right I’ve joined the gang over at Force Junkies to help them deliver the the best Old Republic coverage this side of the Outer Rim. My first article – Choosing Your Class in Beta: Try Before You Buy is available for your reading pleasure.

Additionally I have my own personal TOR blog called The Cantina (seemed appropriate given the Brew Hall). If you planning to play TOR, then I encourage you to head over to Force Junkies.

So what does this mean for me, Wow, the Brew Hall and the podcast? Absolutely nothing. I’m not quitting Wow, in fact I’ve signed-up for the 12-month subscription plan and look forward to beta testing the new expansion.

I’ll be there each week for the podcast, and have already started gathering information for episode 107. I’ll continue to raid and help run my guild, and when the mood strikes I’ll post here.

So thank for you reading my blog, listening to the podcast, and remember to drink your Darkbrew Lager.

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