Although  the first two issues still exist after two expansions,   the last one was lifted in  Patch 3.0.8 . (http://www.wowhead.com/?patchnotes=3.0.8-ptr)

After this news, I jumped for joy and ran headlong into the battlegrounds to earn marks of honor for the Black Battlestrider.  Mind you, the first problem mentioned was, and of course still is, in effect.  I probably spent ten times longer earning those marks than ANY Horde player in WoW.  By stroke of luck, my last battle was one in which the Alliance swept Warsong Gulch in a three-to-zero victory over our opponents.

I went to the war-mount dealership and purchased a fully stocked, 0% APR financed Battlestrider with no interest till 2011!

Although I can’t go around corners faster than five mph without rolling the thing, I’m still damn happy with it!

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=18093

I was able to learn how to Solo Onyxia!!  While this fearesome <sic> creature used to require 30-40 60′s to take down, she can now be bested by only a few number of courageous <sic> heroes.   The fight is actually not that difficult… it is just long as she has over a million hit points.   The big concern was phase 2, where she flies in the air and whelps come out.   I wiped on the first attempt, but I got the hang of it, and on 2nd try I got her down in about 30-45 min.  I’m not sure what other classes are capable of soloing, besides druid and maybe a lock.   I know people have done it at lvl 70, but those were crazy 3 hour attempts.

She had quite the treasure for me as well, netting 159g, several epics, and an 18 slot bag.    I prob won’t do this by myself again anytime soon, as 1 or two dps would speed things up greatly, and would still be making a good amount of gold.

Somebody’s mad!

She’s down

As far as getting Wrath goes, all I can do until I get a real job come next year is offer my commissions to you guys, and then take the one job from an obligated brother-in-law.  Even that won’t get me there.  Is there ANYTHING else I could do?  I’ll take suggestions.  I would like to obtain Wrath before the next expansion is announced.

Almost there...

It’s been a slow, and rather lame-ass march, but it at last seems like I’m closing the gap to that epic 5,000 gold in World of Warcraft that shall guarantee me the right to ride a flying mount capable of speeds in excess of 279% percent my normal running speed.  They are true SR-71′s of Outland, and after being badly beat to the finish line by Brian’s wife, Kim, I’m more anxious than ever to prove that I don’t totally suck at earning fake money.

Ironically, however, it seems that real money is holding me back from my position as a flying ace.  My WoW account runs out on the 7th of October.  I’m still kicking my self for not having been able to save up the 5k over the summer, but pulling off a stunt like that would require me to live as a hermit in an Internet accessible cave high in the Andes Mountains above Chile.

I have a plan to reclaim my glory though.  I’m going to re-open my status as a commissioned artist with a few tweaks to make dealings more streamlined.

Firstly, I will no longer be doing fully-photoshopped pictures unless someone requests so and has the means to pay fifteen dollars to me.  I find myself excruciatingly slow in photoshop, especially when under pressure.

Secondly, The standard commission will cost eight dollars, and consist of a very finished looking pencil drawing of either the client as a cartoon character, or something that they request.

On a lesser note, thirdly, these commissions are NOT caricatures.  They are drawings of people and/or things in a cartoon style of my own, not drastic accentuation of facial features.  I’m not a guy working at a mall kiosk.

Of course, I’m not asking anyone who reads this if they’d like to commission me.  You all already fall into my “Do things for free” list.  However, encouragement would be psychosomatically helpful. ^^

The simplest way to run two instances of WoW

Brian had mentioned on more than one occasion the practice of “multiboxing” which as best as I can define: a single user running two ore more World of Warcraft accounts at the same time.

I had always precieved that there was a certain level of complexity to operating two machines at the same time (multiple keyboards/mice, using KVM, etc.) however, it’s really quite simple:

• World of Warcraft permits mulitple instances as-is.
• WoW also has a ‘Windowed mode’ for reducing your gaming experience down to a manageable 1024×768 or even 800×600 window.

Now the final ingredient to this recipe is my trusty 1st-generation G15 keyboard:

Equipped with a gratuitous 18(!) macro keys (which was later revised to a manageable 6 in the second revision), setting ready-made commands up is a snap:

For this demonstration, my “slave” account is my wife’s level 62 priest who makes a good heal-bot <g>

The basic multiboxing strategy is as follows:

1. Set ‘slave’ character to follow the ‘master’ character – this is accomplished by hard-coding the sequence into a G15 macro titled “Follow Me”:
   1. Alt-Tab, to change focus from the master window to the slave’s window.
   2. “/target <character name>” this command, hard-coded to the master character’s name guarantees the right character is being followed.
   3. “/f” – to set the slave character to follow
   4. Alt-Tab  to return focus to the master’s window.
2. Use slave healer & support functions when necessary – this requires the use of multiple “G-Keys” my personal preference is to use two macro sets (M1 and M2) one for solo multiboxing, and one for full group use.  This is accomplished in much the same way that the follow command is accomplished:
   1. Alt-Tab
   2. F1, F2, F3, F4, or F5 to select the desired party member (note: use one G-key per party member)
   3. Cast desired spell
   4. Alt-Tab  to return focus to the master’s window.

Note that during battle, healers need to be standing still to get their heals cast, so be sure to use the “stop follow” command

So the layout for a priest command set on the G15 would go something like this:

This layout resides in memory set one (M1) on my keyboard its purpose is for soloing with the multibox slave assisting the master.

Set 2′s (M2) macro layout focuses on full party play such as instances or group quests by switching up the layout to cover heals/buffs for up to five party members Note the use of two major spells in columnar format:

Note that the importance of the Start/Stop Following Master commands is not to be underestimated!  To avoid interrupting healing spells during cast, the slave needs to be stationary.  Forcing the master to remember to hold still during critical healing moments is not an effective way to go about it, quickly “parking” the healer with the “Stop Following” (Alt+Tab, down arrow, Alt+Tab) command resolves this.

The categories of achievements include PvP, PvE, world exploration, professions, and character development. Some are simple (give 10 hugs), some are very difficult (completing high-level raids). Additionally, there are “Feats of Strength,” very difficult or now-impossible achievements that don’t show up if unearned. The Feats are worth no points.

However, Blizzard plans to allow even more achievements:

• Miss an important family event to run Heroic Botanica
• Camp on the library wi-fi and be found guilty of a misdemeanor while leveling an alt
• No-show to your job 5 days in a row because of late raids
• Drop out of college to make more time for your guild
• Win a 3v3 match while on the toilet
• Pay a Chinese Kid 39 bucks to level your alt to 70
• keylog someone’s account and steal their gold, the ultimate PvP!
• Suffer a nervous breakdown after hitting the “delete Character” button on your main
• Overdraw your checking account by setting up an auto-pay on wow subscription
• Grant a sexual favor in trade for epic mount or gear