Well, it Hasn't ALL Been Work and No Play

Sunday, May 18, 2008 by C. Carter

I have had some recreation time. Yesterday, Frank (Vhoki) and I played paintball with some guys I graduated from high school with. Check out my war wound! :)

I got WTFPWNT!

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Not Much to Report and My Absence

by C. Carter

The past few weeks have been rather slow on the guild front. I did schedule a week for Karazhan - each night logged to accommodate everyone's schedules - but we never had more than 3 - 5 70s on at any given time. It's never been our plan to be a raiding guild, but I've had numerous people tell me they want to raid, yet never sign up through GroupCalendar, or even log in on a regular basis. It's a bit frustrating and (if I'm going to be honest) perplexing.

These past few weeks I have been loaded down with real life responsibilities, and I apologize for my lack of presence. To be honest, gang, it's not going to get any better for me insofar as to when I can log in and not. College begins for me in August, and I have more freelance design work on the horizon.

I'd hate for people to leave Frequently Reported under assumption, "since the GM isn't logging on, the guild must be belly up." I assure you this is not the case! We have many players in our guild with varied levels of success and accomplishments, and all these milestones have been attained through the wonderful chemistry and "family" that defines our guild.

At any rate, if it needs to happen, I can turn over the GM position to someone with a sense of responsibility for the guild at large. Please put some thought into who you would like to see as Interim GM if it comes to me having to take an extended AFK period. Send me in-game mail or comment this article with your thoughts.

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Dates Set for BlizzCon 2008

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 by C. Carter

October 10-11, 2008 is the officially announced dates for BlizzCon 2008. Tickets for the 2 day event are $100, located an Anaheim, CA.

Not much more information is available at this time, but this is always a huge event... oftentimes featuring some mind-blowing news about the next installment of World of Warcraft.

Stay tuned as further details are released, or check out the official site.

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2.4.2 Live

by C. Carter

As reported on MMO Champion, all European Severs have had 2.4.2 seeded to them and are live now. We can expect the same, today, after the extended scheduled maintenance is complete.

They are seeding the patch now (per my screenshot), so feel free to grab yours ASAP and prepare for they typical Server crashes, jacked UIs and bugs we've come to associate (and love) with PatchDaze™. Here are the Patch Notes (IN UR FACE DROODZ! SCARE BEAST FTW!):

Druids
  • Talent: Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.

Hunters
  • Aspect of the Viper: This ability now grants an additional amount of mana each 5 seconds equal to 35% of the hunter’s level.
  • Boar Charge: This ability will no longer make Growl cast immediately after it generates excessive threat.
  • The pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power and now scales with the hunter’s Attack Power.
  • Dire Ravens in Blade’s Edge Mountains are now tameable.
  • Scare Beast: The range on this spell has been increased to 30 yards and it is now instant cast.
  • Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5).

Mages
  • Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
  • Completing the quest “Arcane Refreshment” will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
  • Polymorph: Mounted creatures will no longer remain mounted while polymorphed.
  • Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
  • New Teleport/Portal: Theramore and Teleport/Portal:Stonard spells are available at portal trainers in their respective locations. You must be level 35 to learn these new spells.

Paladins
  • Flash of Light and Holy Light will now work properly with castsequence macros.
  • Seal of the Crusader: This ability now increases the damage dealt by Crusader Strike by 40%.
  • Talent: Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
  • Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.

Priests
  • Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
  • Mana Burn: This spell can no longer trigger effects that require the target to be struck with a critical hit.
  • Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
  • Talent: Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.

Rogues
  • Ability: Blade Flurry: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.
  • Talent: Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.

Shaman
  • Ability: Frostbrand Weapon: Rank 6 damage has been increased very slightly.

Warlocks
  • Drain Soul: Channeling of this spell will now always stop when a player target dies.
  • Pets: Using a sacrifice effect to kill your own pet will no longer trigger effects that should only occur when killing an enemy.

Warrior
  • Sweeping Strikes: This ability can no longer hit critters as its secondary targets and will now use a proper range calculation for all secondary targets.

PvP
Arenas
  • If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
  • If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

Professions
  • All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
  • All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.

Enchanting
  • Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
  • Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.

Engineering

Jewelcrafting

Leatherworking
  • Completing the quest “The Journey Has Just Begun” will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
  • Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.

Quests
  • The categories for the quests “Wanted: Sisters of Torment” and “Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael’thas” have been fixed to now properly read as Magister’s Terrace.
  • The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests “Who Are They?”
  • Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest “The Rescue” should now respawn more frequently.

Dungeons and Raids
Black Temple
  • Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.

Karazhan
  • Nightbane’s Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.

Magister’s Terrace
  • Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
  • Kael’thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
  • Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
  • Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
  • The doors in Heroic Magister’s Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.

Sunwell Plateau
  • Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.

Tempest Keep: The Eye
  • Void Reaver’s Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.

Items

User Interface
  • The guild log scroll bar will now properly display.
  • Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
  • Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
  • Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
  • For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.

World Environment
  • Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
  • The dragons in Blade’s Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.

Mac
  • Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
  • Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2x00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
  • Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
  • Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
  • Cinematics playback is working again.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
  • Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
  • Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
  • Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
  • Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
  • The Vengeful Gladiator’s Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
  • The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, “Sense Demons” which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
  • It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
  • Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
  • Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
  • Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
  • Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
  • Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
  • Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
  • Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.

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More WotLK Information - The Nexus

by C. Carter

Located in the Borean Tundra, The Nexus will be a premier Instance for the expansion. Featuring two 5-person Instances, a 10-person Raid and a 25-person Raid, this dungeon is sure to be one of the first places to conquer when the expansion is released. Click on the link to get a fist-hand look: link.

Speaking of the expansion, it appears Blizzard is gearing up for beta testing. Pretty exciting stuff!

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Radd AFK Tuesday Night

Monday, May 5, 2008 by C. Carter

There is a Karazhan raid tentatively scheduled for Tuesday night, and I encourage everyone to get together and have a throw down in there. I will not be logging on until later in the evening due to the fact I am seeing Iron Man with my father at 5:00 PM Server Time. I will be able to log in around 8:00 PM Server Time to say howdy.

In addition to tomorrow night, I have also scheduled Kara for every night this week. Our raiding nights will be based upon the number of log-ins we have, and this should allow everyone to choose the nights best for them. By no means do I expect to raid every night this week! I'm just attempting to make the schedule as open as possible. :) Please download GroupCalendar at your earliest convenience.

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2.4.2 Upcoming and Implications

by C. Carter

This is complete conjecture on my part, but I believe a big patch is incoming within the next few weeks. In my opinion, 2.4.2 is right around the corner, with main indicators being the first world kill of the next-to-last boss by SK-Gaming (EU) yesterday and the significant progression on the final gate by our server.

Currently, Bonechewer is about a third of the way through on Stage 4 (32% as of 2:16 PM Server Time today). Last week, at this time, we were only around 12%. Incidentally, the quest for progressing Stage 4 is obtained from Mar'nah and is called [70Daily] Discovering Your Roots.

So what does this mean? When 'chewer finishes the final Stage, it will most likely coincide with the major patching of 2.4.2. Primarily - for smaller and less-progressed guilds such as Frequently Reported - this means we'll have access to epic gemstones from the vendor on Isle of Quel'Danas (which Ielle will be able to cut) as well as the start of Arena Season 4. Those so inclined will be able to vendor purchase S2 Gladiator gear.

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Omen Update

by C. Carter

Omen has gone to version 72650. You can get it by clicking this link: download.

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Karazhan and Shattered Sun Offensive

by C. Carter

Due to unforeseen circumstances for me, as well as a lack of available participants, Karazhan was not ran this weekend. We will tentatively try to get a raid together this week. The even will be determined by the number of level 70s we have logged in, and thus, will not be formally scheduled. Feel free to PUG tonight, since Kara resets tomorrow.

Quite a few Frequently Reported members are coming down the home stretch on their Shattered Sun Offensive rep. Let's see if we can't get a few folks exalted. Congratulations to Erick for being the first FR member to attain this reputation accolade.

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Weekend Raid Reminder and ZG Recap

Saturday, May 3, 2008 by C. Carter

The DrunkRun last night in ZG was a lot of fun. There was quite a bit of goofiness and fun for the entire run, but between the "D Rule" implemented by Dannielle and a head start by most raiders, many of the seven raiders called it a night around 9:00 PM Server Time. We did manage to kill Snake, Spider and Bloodlord, though - sorry, no Raptor Mount drop. After two tries on Tiger, with no one to kick the priestess, we threw in the towel. Many thanks to Dannielle, Mike, Ken, Liz and Erick for coming. Also, a shout out to Jen of PaG for coming a long and adding some heals.

Because of some of the funny things said last night in Vent, I'm going to trty to find a Quote of the Day feature for Blogger.

At around 2:00 PM Server Time, invites will go out for Karazhan. If I am not on at that time, I will be shortly. Anyone can - and should - start the invite process without me. At 5:00 PM Server Time, PaG will be heading to Gruul's, and I would like to go there as well, spaces permitting.

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DrunkRaid... Zul'Gurub Style

Friday, May 2, 2008 by C. Carter

As scheduled, we'll be hitting ZG tonight for some relaxation and fun. Loot will be Group Loot, with the exception of Bloodlord and Tiger Boss.

Invites will go out at approximately 5:00 PM Server Time. All players with characters level 55 and up are welcome to join us. If you are not of legal drinking age, you are still invited to participate. For the drinkers, we'll come up with some obnoxious rules to ensure a drunken stupor.

As we planned with our failed first run (hey, there were girls involved... right Frank?) three bosses will be on a Master Looter with a (1-100) roll by the entire party. One epic ZG mount per person, please - no doubling up! For the people completely out of the loop, those items are:

See you there!

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Season 4 Hits PTRs, New Rating Requirements

Thursday, May 1, 2008 by C. Carter

Per MMO Champion, the Season 4 has been unveiled on the Public Test Realm. Also, a clarification on rating requrements was posted by Slorkuz on the WoW European Forums. The requirements seem pretty darn steep.
While Season 3 is still going strong, we wanted to announce ahead of time the rating requirements that will be present for arena items once Season 4 begins. We also wanted to give everyone a heads up to some changes that will be in an upcoming patch, altering how points are gained and players are matched in the arena system. The patch with these changes is scheduled to release before the start of Season 4.

First though, the rating requirement changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:

Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:

Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:

Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.

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Role Play for Rep - Children's Week Starts Now

by C. Carter

May 1 to May 7 is Children's Week, an annual event in World of Warcraft. It's quick, easy and fun - I wrapped up both sets of chains in about an hour total time.

First, head to Ogrimaar and grab an orphan for some nice Horde rep, low coin (75 silver per turn-in at level 70) and a pet (I earned Mr. Wiggles... check the screenshot for dual wielding pet pigs!)

Then head to Outlands, pick up your tyke in Shattrath and earn some EZMode Lower City reputation and some coin (7 gold, 59 silver per turn-in) and another pet! I chose Sleepy Willy... he has one eye.

A quest guide is located here: link

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I Spoke too Soon - Omen Updated

by C. Carter

Omen has updated to version 72207, so you should update is as soon as possible. Please do NOT download this AddOn from Curse or anywhere other than where the author specifies. Namely...

You should only install Omen using WowAceUpdater or from ZIP files located at http://files.wowace.com/Omen... the only legitimate release platform is the WowAce SVN repository and files.wowace.com
See you all tonight!

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