Mar 22 2013
So PAX East 2013 opened with a bang this morning – Blizzard announced their free-to-play strategy card game for Mac, Windows and iPad. Billed as ‘deceptively simple yet especially engaging’ for players of all background, this game looks to be fun, fast and addictive. More
Mar 4 2013
In a few short hours the realms will be pulled offline and the new patch will be playable by the time the realms come online. Well, “playable” at any rate. Bazinga! Thing is, for the first time in the history of the game, I managed only about a week of 5.1 and as excited as I am for Warcrafty stuff – and itching to get to BlizzCon with wifey this year – I’m just not feeling it for this one quite yet. Or am I just subconsciously resisting? More
Aug 18 2012
I’ve been soloing Kara now since early Wrath days back in 2009 and the only boss to ever provide people problems to this day (and likely for years to come) is the chess event. So I decided to write a guide that will help those that are still struggling.
Understanding the game is pretty important. With no idea of what really is going on means you can’t develop or adapt your strategy when Medivh cheats. That bastard! Each side has the traditional 16 chess pieces. These act like vehicles you find Wintergrasp or Tol Barad or some of the latter raids. Each piece has four abilities: a movement, change-facing, and two special abilities. On top of this, pieces not under your control will automatically melee enemies in front of it and attempt to use their special abilities. However, uncontrolled pieces will not be able to move.
Every time you change pieces you incur a debuff preventing you from controlling another unit for 10-seconds.
Whoever kills the other’s king first is the winner, which will soon be you!
Medivh, as mentioned earlier, cheats and that is what throws an element of unpredictability into this guide. Understand his scoundrel ways, however, will give you a greater chance to succeed. He cheats in three ways:
1. Bloodlust: Grants 50% increased damage to all allied humanoids on all 8 adjacent spaces, does not affect self. Cooldown 15 secs.
2. Heal his pieces to full. Yeah, not cool but whatever it takes to make him feel better, eh?
3. Sets several squares currently containing your pieces on fire. This is the really nasty one!
- Jump in the King (Llane for Alliance, Blackhand for Horde) to start the encounter. Cast Hero/BL and immediately jump out.
- Get in the 2nd pawn (Footman for Alliance, Grunt for Horde) from the right (Horde, near side, Alliance, far side). Move it up one space. That clears a lane for your Rook (Elemental for Alliance, Daemon for Horde).
- Move your Rook diagonally one space (everyone who plays the actual game of chess cries at this point and possibly their head explodes at the thought of a Rook moving in this manner). Medivh usually pops his first cheat around this point.
Note: If your Queen (Conjurer [A], Warlock [H]) gets fire-squared then move her ASAP. You Queen is vital to success here. Your bishops will should auto-heal your king, so you can mostly leave them alone. However, if you get hit by fire squares twice in a row then they will be pushed to get him healed up. It still is possible so fret, yet.
- Repeat the Pawn/Rook steps on the far side.
- Move the Pawn in front of your King foward. This will allow you to move your Queen out and provide the King 2 places to go to get out of fire – forward or to the side.
Note: If Medivh is really pushing his cheats you may need to move this pawn before the second Rook to give you time. Raid awareness is everything here.
1: Move your King out of fire. If you’re in the King, before you leave, cast Heroism/Bloodlust if it’s not on cooldown.
2: Move your Queen out of fire. If you’re in the Queen and you’re going to leave for a higher priority task, before you leave, target the opponent’s King and cast Rain of Fire/Poison Cloud if it’s not on cooldown.
3: If you have not done so, move your Rook into the space created by the earlier pawn move.
4: Move the pawn in front of your Queen out one space to create more room to handle your top two priorities. This also semi depends on how the fight is going. I have won not doing this and I have lost not doing this and all because I was not being smart about raid awareness.
5: Get in the strongest available piece and attack the opponent’s King. This will either be your Queen, or if the unthinkable happened to her, the Rook closest to the enemy King. You may need to move the piece you’re in into range.
Note: When you’re using the Queen to do damage, make sure you’ve targeted the enemy King.
Now there is differing opinion on if you should take out Medivh’s Queen first before taking out the King. I have found in recent days just nuking his King is sufficient to get your professor plum purples to xmog and unlock the final boss of Kara.
By making sure you don’t get overwhelmed and keep aware you will down him within a couple of attempts the first time. It is rare now for me not to one-shot this ‘boss’ with the exception of a really stinky cheat.
Good luck!
Aug 16 2012
It is finally here. The long wait is over. MoP releases Sept 25th and the pre-patch one month before. I, for one, cannot wait. Monks, Pandaren, War. Epic. More
Jul 26 2012
So if you didn’t hear the big reveal yesterday, Mists of Pandaria, the next expansion in the World of Warcraft saga, will be released on September 25, 2012. In about 3 weeks time Blizzard will be releasing the CGI trailer (something I always look forward to) and I suspect the pre-patch will be available shortly after to prepare us for the storyline to come. It should be a lot of fun with the addition of the monk class, a complete overhaul of the talent systems and pet battles for all those companions collected over the years. The regular and Collector Edition are available to order on Amazon now (order now, pay when it ships – and you usually get it the day of release which is super nice!) and the digital version of these are available from the Blizzard store:
We’ll definitely be getting the CE version to add to our collection of deluxe box sets. As well as the pet and mount (that come with the Deluxe Digital Edition) the hard box set includes:
I can say, without a doubt, that the art book and CD have always made the CE worth it. I just started using my Cata mousepad a couple of days ago and my wife has used her Wrath mat at home and Cata mat at work. The DVD (a Blu-Ray as well this time) has always been informational and worthy of a watch to get a peek inside the Blizzard HQ and it is fun to see the passion that the developers have for the game. You get a real sense that it isn’t just job but a hell of a lot of fun too! Check out the preview trailer from BlizzCon after the cut: More
May 31 2012
Daniel Lanza, who hails from Boston, New York, first conceived the idea of a new tabletop game when he was 15 years old. Now the New England Institute of Art alum spends all of his spare time producing his life-long dream… and is getting ever closer to seeing its fulfillment with Zodiak.
D20: What inspired you to start working on your own game?
Dan: It was a time when everyone was playing some sort of tabletop game - either Pokemon, Yugioh, Magic, Raw Deal, Showdown, Versus - you name someone in my home town of Annadale on Staten Island was playing. So I started experimenting with my own games and it grew from there. It is more than just a card game now, though. Zodiak revolves around using miniatures and having its card as more of an engine. I never got the chance to play the likes of D&D or Warhammer until college so I guess that was what took Zodiak from just cards to miniatures.
D20: So what is your elevator – or, more appropriately I guess, ‘back of the box’ – pitch for the game?
Dan: Zodiak is a tabletop game that is designed to bring out the player’s play style and unique strategies. The game allows you to decide who does what, how it will work, and the overall importance of each unit. The game has a base element similar to chess while using enchantment cards as an engine to help create chance and turning points in the game. You could say it’s the best card game since chess!
D20: Okay, so you have Units and Classes that make up your army?
Dan: Right. You start with seven active Units composed of the four Classes – basically each Unit is given a Class assignment – and each Class dictates how that Unit will move, attack and their overall purpose.
Apr 16 2011
One of the best player-made in-game events I think I have ever been involved in. So much fun! Over 300 level 1-5 undeads storm Stormwind on a run from Orgrimmar. (led by a couple of high level toons to protect us from natives and wildlife on route).
Apr 15 2011
Aeuros and Gooba school some PvPers in the art of 2v2… while in a 3v3 arena. I can only imagine the tears that flowed from the trolls!
Apr 8 2011
About a 1m22s after this pic was snagged Magmaw dropped deader than dead!
See the map? See that little green dot on the east side? That is our awesome hunter and this guy deserves props for getting us a crazy achievement on our first downing too. GJ Program! Just 23 others and we get our Drake of the East Wind. 
And apparently I have an action keybound to the same button I use for screengrabs so when I fired off a couple the UI yelled at me. D’oh!
Mar 18 2011
New strat for this week from last Friday:
A single mushroom will take out that damned Magmaw!
Boss fight tactics #1.
