Shared Topic: What do you do when your raid is canceled

Raids don’t work out every night. Sometimes, after you’ve scrambled to get all your work done for the night, after you’ve grabbed your drinks and your snacks, you excitedly log into the game only to find out that there just aren’t enough people available/the server is throwing a hissy fit/aliens have temporarily taken over your guild. Disappointed but not discouraged, you turn to your backup plan for the night. If you have one.

To make sure that, from now on, everyone will always have a backup plan to turn to when their raid is canceled, Deyndor from Swift Retribution suggested last week, that as a Shared Topic, we blog about what we do when our raid is canceled.

So I was talking with Eda on twitter tonight and she mentioned that she’s had 4 raids in the last 2 weeks get canceled. And that got me wondering, what do people do when their raid is canceled?

I’m sure there will be the mundane like farming stuff or running heroics, but I’m sure there are a lot of people with some really interesting and fun things too. Maybe you invade an enemy capital by yourself. Maybe you go play an alt. Whatever it is, share it!

Participating were:

Glassofwater-in-one-word from Not So Overpowered

Cornelious from Techadin

Qieth from Qieth’s Quips

Jyorore from Barkskin

Elkagorasa from Elkagorasa the Casual

Morynne from Marks 365

AChloryn from War(craft) of the Worlds

That Priest from Barrens Chat

Zahia from One More Alt

Anslym from Totem Tossing

Artie from Blade Barrier

Pewter from The ‘mental Shaman

Redhawk from Redhawk’s Gaze

Manroth from @Runtime

Angelya from Revive & Rejuvenate

Tryssta from The Snobby Blood Elf

Deyndor from Swift Retribution

Sindei from Six Inch Heals

This week, we go down a different path and share our crazy WoW tourist stories about the different cities and towns we’ve spent time in during the course of our adventures. We talk about the best and the worst the civilizations of Azeroth have to offer. To take part, write about the topic in your blog and report back to the thread at Blog Azeroth!

Short on ideas? Check out these other upcoming Shared Topics at Blog Azeroth!
The Explorer Task
Helping New Players
Getting Ready for Cataclysm…or Are You?

Resource Site Spotlight - Power Auras

This is a popular one. I’ve never recommended this to someone without having them tell me they ended up loving it.

http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/powerauras-classic.aspx

Basically, this lets you customize light-up auras on your screen that respond to pretty much anything in the game. Standing in the fire? Write a power aura to tell you about it. Abilities off cooldown? That too. Manage a rotation, monitor buffs and debuffs, track trinket procs, inform you when your pet/main tank/etc. is low on health. This is just the surface. It’s infinitely customizable, and frankly a lot of fun to use.

Below is a screenshot of my hunter with her “standard” power auras up. I have other ones for unique situations, but this is what I’m generally looking at while raiding (never all at the same time, however). The larger ones monitor large proc-based buffs so that I can stack cooldowns.  And the green dots track my rotation shots, so I’m never hitting the wrong button or staring at my cast bar.

The only drawback is that there’s a small learning curve. Once you figure out how to customize them, it’s cake, but it takes a little while to get there.  But for its potential usefulness, it’s a small price to pay. Several satisfactory tutorials exist with a simple google or youtube search.

(Editorial Comment: Please make sure to virus check your computer after this or any downloads onto your computer. There is no information at publication date that this site or its applications are harmful in any way, but caution should always be exercised.)

Episode 86 - Constructively Rant-Table

Look Out Below! Blizzard dropped a raid bomb and the rants are dropping like flies. We welcome Lissanna from Restokin, Bellwether from 4Haelz and Stop from The Stoppable Force to sit and discuss, in a kind and gentle manner… Wait.. who are we kidding here? Fists Flew! The Gloves Came Off! This was no kiddie pool, baby! Ranting and Raving about the proposed changes to Raiding in Cataclysm, our esteemed group of expert prognosticators uses their most prognosticatory prognostications to tell us all about the death, and/or life of 25man raiding in the next expansion. Ok, that’s enough of that. Listen to the show, you don’t want to miss it!

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— Continue reading Episode 86 — Constructively Rant-Table —

Shared Topic: Leveling 1 to 10

What do you think of the very beginning of the leveling process, those levels between 1 and 10? For last week’s Shared Topic, Guthammer from Guthammer’s Last Stand invited us to comment on that level bracket, on what we like about it, on what we like less and on what we’d suggest to improve it.

A while ago Blizzard came out with the stat that 70% of its accounts don’t ever make it past level 10. While I am sure that Blizzard can put in some great analysis of their game, I am also sure that they would love to hear more player feedback on the new level experience.

Now I realize that most of us are far from newbies and we won’t be able to get into a newbies mind set perfectly (heck I am 10 years out of newbiehood for MMOs and 5 years out for WoW), but I think we can all add to the dialog about those first 10 levels, what works for you and what doesn’t.

Participating this week are:

Guthammer from Guthammer’s Last Stand

Lissanna from Restokin

Windsoar from Jaded Alt

Glass of Water from Not So Overpowered

Cornelious from Techadin

Nebz from For Shatts and Giggles

Strumwolf from Strumwulf’s Page of Stories and Ideas

Shodaran from Shodaran’s Law

Zahia from One More Alt

Talfrund from Leveling Resto

Saga from Girls Don’t Play WoW

Anslym from Totem Tossing

Jaedia from The Lazy Sniper

Redhawks from Redhawks’ Gaze

Sindei from Six-Inch Heals

This week, as a Shared Topic, we talk about what we do when the unfortunate situation of a canceled raid occurs. What do you do when your raid in canceled? Write about it on your blog and link back to it in the thread at Blog Azeroth!

Want to join in on a different Shared Topic? Check out these upcoming topics:

The Best & Worst Cities and Towns
The Explorer Task
Helping New Players

Episode 85 - A Win Wyn Situation

It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. A time for endings and a time for new beginnings. Twisted Nether Blogcast mourns the loss of the Hunting Lodge blog/podcast while celebrating the new projects emerging from it’s ashes. Brigwyn and Daewin join Nib and Fim to recount tales of the past and reiterate hopes for the future.

SPONSOR

UGT-Servers.comUGT Servers! Ventrillo Servers for Your Guild!

— Continue reading Episode 85 — A Win Wyn Situation —