Is this thing on?

Hi world. Long time, no post!

According to MerriamWebster,

ap·a·thy
Definition:

1. lack of feeling or emotion : impassiveness
2. lack of interest or concern : indifference

Part of my online hiatus was the dreaded "Real Life" raid boss. I pulled too much aggro -- Work, Volunteer, Family -- at the same time and they combined to wipe me. Another part of it is an annual down-cycle; late February and March are a rough time for me. Some years are easier than others, but this year was rough. But, I can't place all the blame for my sabbatical on Real Life.  A large reason for being AFK has just been plain apathy within the game of Warcraft.  I haven't been doing much in the game, so I don't have much to write about from my game experiences. I've struggled to actually care about anything current (5.2 is totally foreign to me - I'm still digesting 5.0 and 5.1!) in the game.

 Let's quickly break down my WoW status:

1. I'm not on a progression raid team by choice.
2. I'm exalted with all the base MoP (patch 5.0 and 5.1) factions (except for a few Tillers and Nat Pagle, but who has time to fish enough to get chummy with Nat?)
3. I've done more daily quests than I ever want to do again.
4. Pet Battling is an occasional past-time, but no longer as addictive as it was.
5. I don't have a PVP set, and if I want abuse I can queue for heroic 5 mans; I don't need to be the squishy on the BG.
6. I may run an occasional LFR, but I'm not confident in my command of the class mechanics and I'm unwilling to spend the time to min/max with sites like Elitist Jerks to squeeze every last ounce of DPS from my character. As a result, I'm shy to queue for an LFR.
7. I've got one level 90 with an iLevel even high enough for LFR; the prospect of repeating all that rep grind and gear grinds on alt 90s is overwhelming.

I don't mean to be negative, as I still love playing WoW. I'm just doing other stuff than most of the bloggers are writing about.

1. I'm gearing my new 90s via scenarios rather than instances. Less stress, shorter queues and I simply enjoy the scenarios.
2. I'm leveling alts. I had seven 85s in Cataclysm. I'm up to three 90s in MoP. Time to pass some love along to some other toons.
3. I'm experimenting with low-level PVP. Holy hell is the level 10-15 bracket fun!
4. I'm relying on OpenRaid for my older content raiding needs. 

Point 4 there is really quite cool. The achievement junky in me adores OpenRaid, mainly because:

• I have actually completed Firelands (10H and 25H) and I'm closing in on the Meta.
• I got my 10m and 25m ICC meta drakes from OpenRaid events.
• Except for a few bad apples, the folks I've met via OpenRaid are friendly, helpful and just plain cool.
• I'm reminded of JD's Laid Back Raids, which I will sorely miss.

So...
I'm going to attempt to put organize the events I enjoy doing and post 'em up to OpenRaid to see who else may be into the same stuff I'm into.  I've even started a new guild called <Swiss Cheesements>- on Borean Tundra (US) as well as on OpenRaid - with the express purpose of doing 'outdated' achievements. The first event is planned for 5 May and it's an all Death Knight 25m raid on ICC(H).  Can you just imagine 25 Armies of the Dead swarming a boss?  I can't wait!

Some of the excitement is back and I'm looking forward to seeing how this part plays out.

Godmode in ICC

Years ago, I was playing Diablo II quite a bit. I know, I know, that was a decade ago. That's not my point. The point is that D2 had an Easter Egg or cheat depending upon your perspective that allowed your character to become invincible and unable to be killed. I remember having a ton of fun blowing through content knowing I was unable to die.

But this is a WoW blog, and there are no cheats within Azeroth!
Ah, true. But, tell me.... have you taken a raid to Icecrown Citadel lately? I've set up some weekly meta runs (we've done Glory of the Ulduar Raider and now working on Glory of the Icecrown Raider) for the old drake achievements.

At level 90, the fights, even at Heroic mode, are trivial. However, I would not say they are all brainless. Actually, the largest challenge on some fights is to not to too much damage! Consider our guild fun run  Sunday night...

The Lower Spire

Getting Boned by Lord Marrowgar was pretty much a given. All you have to do is DPS the boss. At level 90, he dropped before he could cast a single bonespike.
But then, dealing with Lady Deathwisper's Full House proved to be a bit more of a challenge. We had to wipe the first attempt because we pushed her into phase II before we had enough of the cultists up to qualify for the achievement.  The act of wiping required the enrage timer to actually incur enough damage to offset our warrior's regen (thanks to Second Wind)!  The second attempt on Lady D went as follows:  a single hunter dropped her shield to 20% and stopped. Nobody else did ANYTHING but get wailed on by adds. After three rounds of adds spawned (we didn't count the individual adds, just the number of waves), then we opened up on Lady D and got the achievement.
The gunship battle went as follows: a warlock and a hunter jumped across and stayed across. The pets fought Saurfang for aggro. Pretty much cakewalk for I'm on a Boat.
Same for Saurfang himself. I think we killed him before he could even summon blood beasts, so I've Gone and Made a Mess should be a done deal.

The Plagueworks

For Rotface's Dances with Ooozes and Festergut's Flu Shot Shortage, all you do is burn the boss. On Professor Putricide, whoever drives the Abomination should just slurp up slimes. Again, the Professor was only able to summon one ooze before he died, so this one is pretty straight-forward and you'll easily get Nausea, Heartburn, Indegestion....

The Crimson Hall

On the blood council, The Orb Whisperer is a DPS race. Instead of using the intended mechanics of collecting blueberry adds and taunting, keeping the beach balls up in the air.... Pssh.  Just nuke Prince Keleseth. The encounter will be over before another prince activates!
We did hit a challenge on Blood Queen Lana'thel, however. There were 4 people that needed to be bitten for the Once Bitten, Twice Shy achievement. We almost had to wipe because we dropped the boss to 20% before the second vampire bite. It doesn't sound hard, but it is difficult to resist hitting back and just letting a boss wail on you, but that is exactly what we had to do. We're coming back for the 2nd kill needed for those that don't want to be bitten, but that should be a bit easier to do.

The Frostwing Halls

We failed the Portal Jockey achievement because we missed a portal. Next time, we'll have a dedicated healer take the portals and then back up DPS jump in so that we get each portal as it pops. The adds outside are trivial, so DPS just unleash and it should be cake.  Meh, live and learn.
I was personally missing All You Can Eat, but at 90 this one's also a no-brainer. Just DPS. You'll kill Sindragosa before the stacks even have a chance to reach that high.

The Frozen Throne

Finally, the Lich King. We were going for Been Waiting a Long Time for This and too just concentrate on the Meta instead of also dealing with shadow traps from heroic mode, but we still failed the meta even though we killed the King. After reading up, the approach we'll take next week is as follows:

1. Use 2 dedicated tanks (we used a DPS warrior, and while health wasn't an issue, aggro was). 
2. One tank is on the Lich King (solo taunt). Second tank targets all the ghouls (little ones and big ones). 
3. When Necrotic Plague is cast the first two times, those raid members run away from the entire raid to be dispelled -- so that the Plague disappears. When the third plague is cast, that raid member runs to the growing pile of ghouls to be dispelled (so that the Plague jumps to a ghoul).
4. Each remaining Plague that is cast needs to run out of the raid and get dispelled so there is only only Plague active. 
5. Wait... well for a Long Time. The achievement is named appropriately. 
6. Don't rely on the Lich King buff from Plague to monitor the number of stacks --- try to monitor on the actual impacted ghouls (this is where we failed!)
7. One Plague hits 30, then burn Lich King.  

We failed because we had two plagues active, one at 14 stacks and one at 18 stacks, but that didnt count.  However, we did earn Neck-Deep in Vile because we pushed the encounter directly from Phase I / Transition to the end.  Huh?  Yeah... Ranged stood in the Remorseless Winter and kept beating on Lich King, getting him to 10% and the insta-death before we even saw Phase II with Valks or Phase III with Vile Spirits.
I know this content is old. I know the Lich King has been solod. But you know what?  It was a TON of fun to casually go back and farm achievements for guildies that had never seen the content. I still love Icecrown and it remains one of my favorite raids in the game.

My Week(s) in Pictures

So I've been dabbling in various aspects of the game over the past few weeks. My obsession with Pet Battles has dwindled to a healthy "Oh that's a nice break" rather than the mega "I must tame them all!" mantra. I can get a little manic when it comes to this game, and I was pretty into the whole pet battle thing -- so much so I burned myself out.

Enter the "it's a new fiscal year and my IT department has money again" in January and work has been nice and busy lately. The double combination of faffing in game and not having much game time has made for some interesting sessions.

Consider my paladin questing in Townlong, and I'm told:

How does it KNOW?

Luckily, my skin's a bit on the thick side, so I was able to shrug that one off. Not too long after, I got my dynamic duo 'chiever:

Ta Da!

Now that the pally was at 90, it was time to experiment with some solo raiding. I have gotten out the the grind for mounts, and I've started clearing Kara again in hopes that the horse drops. No such luck.  After running a few scenarios and getting some halfway decent blue drops (and getting rid of my mostly quest greens), I've been able to solo AQ and not get stuck at the Twin Emperors. I tell ya, that was a heavy feeling of impotence to not be able to pass those two.  But now, I've gained exalted rep with AQ and picked up a nice set of flying purple people eater mail mogs, as well as gotten lucky in AQ with each of the pets needed for Raiding With Leashes.

Same with Molten Core, though I *still* need to slog that one out for rep for a few more months thanks to the brilliant decision to only award rep from boss kills!  Ugh! But, that and Black Wing Lair have been generous with pet drops, and all I've got left is Naxx. And the bosses in Naxx are not being pet friendly with me.  I need all Naxx pets.  /sigh

Speaking of Naxx.... It's a bit irrelevant, but it's still an achievement:

Only 2 Expansions Late!

The funny thing was no matter how I tried, the only way I could get Shocking! was by soloing and not having anyone else there to muck it up.  Hmmmm. =)

Then, I figured let's actually do some new - current - content.  So I checked in with the Shieldwall and started that. All I can say is "Whoa!" I'm liking the story line bunches and I'm looking forward to getting in and doing the dailies (in my case the bi-dailies) to advance the story line.  I had seen Navi mention about this cool achievement from the Shieldwall (once I actually got caught up in some blog reading, but that's a different story) so I had to try my hand.  I got lucky, and on my second day I got my Dudes achievement!

The Achievement Name is cooler than the Achievement itself

I'm currently swapping back and forth between my Alliance Warlock and my Horde Druid to see which one will get the 3rd and 4th level 90 achievements on my account. After playing primarily Alliance characters, the Jade Forest from the Horde side is pretty cool. Plus, those ookin' Hozen make me laugh with the stuff they say.  As I was exploring the clickies in a base, for example, I uncovered this literary gem:

Those ookin' Monkeys can pen a hai-ku!

Oh, and the inn-keeper at the hozen staging area?  He's called a Hozen Bed-Haver.   Epic!

Old Raids, FTW

The best thing about 5.1?  For me, it's content from old raids. I am absolutely loving not having to form a raid to enter older raid content. I'm working on the Raiding With Leashes, but still not getting lucky on my drops for the pets.  However, I did manage some achievements I've been wanting for years. Yes, literally, years.

Did someone say Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker?

Woot! My first ever legendary!

Took several runs in Molten Core to get the bindings to drop, but after all they did finally drop.

I'm figuring out AQ as well.  Along the way, a nice boost to reputation:

Yay! The good dwagons like me!

And that pretty much sums up what I've been up to for the last month.  Working, casually slogging through old raids and just kind of puttering around. It's been low stress and quite fun.

Happy (belated) Winter Veil to each of you!

Achievement feed issue

If you're using WAFB to showcase recent achievements, you won't actually see the achievements themselves.

I'm looking into this, but when I check the Blizzard site I'm getting the same error. See, I'm using the Achievement API to display the specific achievement's name, description, criteria, etc.  There seems to be an issue getting anything to return on the Achievement API (official forum post here if interested).

I'll be monitoring responses and if necessary will make any updates.  My hope is that this is purely temporary and will resolve itself!

Happy achieving!

WAFB Update

Expanded Details Example

As is the case, the more you muck about with something, the more comfortable you feel.  I've updated the WAFB gadget to include localization on the US and EU servers.  If anyone is actually reading this on the Korea (KR), Taiwan (TW) or China (CN) servers, I'd love feedback if you can actually use this or not. I simply have no means of testing on those servers.

The WAFB page has been updated with the new configuration instructions.  Thanks so much for all of the feedback!

Spontaneity and LBR's

I caught a blurb on the news this morning about this blog called STFU, Parents.  It targets people without children and pokes fun at those with kids who do nothing but talk about their kids. It's all good: those without kids will not fully understand my life, and I get why some wouldn't want to hear parent stories.

Trust me, this isn't one of those stories.

However, I AM a parent. And as a result, my life has changed. It's no longer my own! No longer can I roll out of bed on a Saturday at 2 pm in the afternoon after staying up to watch the sunrise.  Those were fun times, but they ain't happenin' any more for me. Now I'm going to bed early so I can get up with the kids for the bus.

My free time is limited; I grab it when I can. I stopped raiding because I couldn't commit to WoW any where near what I want to commit to in my real life. I don't sign up for any guild raids. I rarely sign up for OpenRaids, especially since pandas and pet battles.

But sometimes, even Grown-Ups can be spontaneous. With some help, that is.

I want to give some public lovin' to JD over at Amateur Azerothian. I'm just settling down to waste away some time battling critters when my Real ID pings.  JD's wondering if I'd like to join a LBR crew in Mount Hyjal?

Ummm.  Heck yeah!

I had a blast. The folks in an LBR just rock. Everyone's there to have fun, chat, and collect mog drops or recipes and it's so... Woodstockian. Zen. Rad. Totally-flippin-awesome.  You get the idea.

During the run, I also picked up an achievement I've been grinding towards for a bit: 50 Exalted Reps. And in looking up that link, I now see there's 70 Exalted Reps with a new title:  the Beloved.  Yikes, I've got a new goal:  Cibolero the Beloved.  But, I digress.

Without that ping from JD, I would have had an ok time that night. With a little nudge from a friend, however, that okay time became a great time. It felt great to be invited. It was fun participating. It was totally unexpected. That's why this game is so damn addictive; you never know when greatness lurks around the corner, but it's always possible.

To Tome With Love

KILL THE WABBIT!

For those of you wondering WTF?!?  Check this...

Finalized Achievement Feed for Blogger

Well... the brains at Google are reviewing my work to ensure it's acceptable, but I've submitted the achievement feed you can see off to the right over to Blogger for actual inclusion in the Blogger Gadgets.

In the meantime (or assuming it's rejected for some reason), you may add this by performing the following steps.

1. Copy this source code (hosted on googlecode.com as wow-blogger-achv):
   http://wow-blogger-achv.googlecode.com/git/wow-achievement-feed-for-blogger.xml
2. Open up your Blogger blog in Layout mode, and click Add Gadget in the section you want the achievement feed to display.
3. Click "Add your own" and paste in the source above.



Paste in URL



4. Enter the configuration parameters.



Enter your choices

1. The Character information (region, server, character name)
2. The formatting information (to keep styling consistent with your view).  The default styling is populated, but these are CSS style entries (Hex Colors, font-family, etc).
3. If you do not want to show the full character name, un-check the Show Character option.
4. If you do not want to show icons in the list, choose the 0px icon size.

If you experience any issues, hit me up here or on Twitter!

Thanks!

Achivement Feed Gadget

I'm looking for some volunteers...

I have written an achievement feed in Google for use within the Blogger platform, and it works for me, but I'd love some feedback from others before posting it all official-like.

If you care to help out...

First, /hug. You are awesomer than awesome.

Second, please edit your blogger design and add a gadget to any sidebar / section area. So far, with me?   This is just like adding a regular gadget.

Here's where its different: Click the "Add Your Own" option.  I promise, there is no malicious code here. Nothing's gonna break your blog!

Copy this hosted XML (Go go google gadgets!):

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104245060944445812083/wow-achievement-feed-google-gadget.xml 

Paste that into the box and click Add By URL.

There are fields you need to complete -- character name, geographic realm (I've only tried with US, so any EU players feedback would be simply fantastic) as well as some formatting so that it looks consistent with your overall theme.

Any issues?  Let me have 'em in the comments.

You guys rock!

Discovering OpenRaid

Where the hell have I been? How did I have no clue that there was a group that coordinated cross-server raids? If I had only known this sooner, my inner achiever would be ever so much more satisfied, but alas! Ignorance prevailed. Huh?

Check out OpenRaid. The basic premise of this is to allow folks across servers to coordinate the available raids -- vanilla stuff like Molten Core or Blackwing Lair all the way up to the original cata raids (To4W, BoT, BWD).

This raises the possibilities in my raiding from slim to probable, and it's huge for me.  Why?  Simply because I can't allocate a consistent time each week to raid due to my personal schedule. It's not fair for me to ask a raid team of 9 or 24 other folks to include me and then not be available reliably to help the progression. As a result, the only raids I was able to run (outside of LFR) have been random trade chat encounters. Sometimes, those go well, and other times not so much.

Enter OpenRaid. I can search for a time where I know I can be online. Then, I can either browse for raids being run (PVP or PVE) during that time and sign up. It's that easy.

Granted, there is some setup. You need an account with OpenRaid, and you need to prove that you own the character(s) you want to raid with. Depending upon the raids, you may also need ventrillo access, but I look at that as pretty standard stuff.

My only complaint? OpenRaid sends me an email when a raid leader approves my participation in a raid. I'm now all excited!  I was all set to run ICC 25m on Friday night. Well, you can also be un-approved if that raid leader needs to bring in guildmates or other friends. So, I was camped out at the entrance to ICC at 9:45 pm for my 10:00 start... and I waited... and waited... and waited... and at 10:05 I tabbed out to check OpenRaid. I had been un-approved (but there's a gap that you're not emailed letting you know that you've been un-approved).

I admit, I was disappointed that I had planned to be online and run a raid. After moping and cussing for a few minutes, I started searching more and found another ICC 25 last night.

Why it works?

I think the reason why OpenRaid works is that you have reputation points. Once your raid completed, you rate the raid leader AND the other participants. So if the Raid Leader was a jerk, downgrade them. If a player was cluelessly unaware and unable to follow any level of instructions, downgrade them. I believe that the online reputation points makes players perform at their best -- after all, you will be graded, right?

Oh if I only knew about this a few months ago, I'd probably have a few more meta's under by belt.  /sigh

Hoping to see you in a cross-server raid soon!

Your Very Own Blogger Achievement Feed

I've been struggling with Blogger to display a feed of recent achievements for my main character. There is a gadget available that other WoW Bloggers are successfully using, but no matter what I tried it just wasn't working for me.

Maybe I could make one up? Some Google searches led me to Blizzard's Website and Mobile Feedback forums. There are some great examples of tricks which are mostly PHP solutions to retrieve from the Blizzard APIs.  However, without my own server, PHP is not an option. I needed a JavaScript option to stick into a HTML / JavaScript Gadget. A post by Brawrz outlined a method for realms. Now we're cookin'!

After some trial and error, I'm happy to have an achievement feed over on the sidebar for my main character, a Worgen Hunter.

The Achievement Feed Source

Should you wish to recreate this for your own Blogger site, here's what I did.

Update the Template

First and foremost, we need to add an external script to the template. In Design mode, select the Template option. Then, Edit HTML. You'll be cautioned against this route, but go ahead and proceed!

Search for the ending of the <head> element in your template.  Just before that </head> element, insert these lines:

1. <!-- JQuery Script -->
2. <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.5.2.min.js"></script>

Create the Gadget

Back in Design mode, now we need to go to the Layout option and add a new gadget: HTML/JavaScript. Give this a title and then in the Content section, place the following code (replacing your realm and character name in lines 7 and 8):

1. <div id="charProfile"></div>
2. <script type="text/javascript">
3. var intMax = 10; // define maximum number of achievements to display
4. // assemble the JSON URL
5. var bnetRegion = "us";
6. var bnetUrl = "http://" + bnetRegion + ".battle.net";
7. var bnetRealm = "REALM_NAME"; // borean-tundra or velen for example
8. var bnetChar = "CHARACTER_NAME";
9. var url = bnetUrl + "/api/wow/character/" + bnetRealm + "/" + bnetChar + "?fields=feed&jsonp=?";
10. $.getJSON( url, function( data ) {
11. // format the base character profile data
12. var strCharProfile = "<div><h4>Total Points: " + data.achievementPoints + "</h4></div>";
13. // write the string to the div
14. $(strCharProfile).appendTo("#charProfile");
15. // initialize counter at zero
16. var intCount = 0;
17. // loop through each feed entry in the JSON source
18. $.each(data.feed,function(f,feed){
19. // only output the feed entries that match the ACHIEVEMENT type and
20. // ignore the loot drops and boss kill entries.
21. if (feed.type=='ACHIEVEMENT') {
22. if (intCount < intMax) { // this is an achievement, so ensure we haven't exceeded our max
23. // assemble the icon image source url
24. var blizzIcon = "http://us.media.blizzard.com/wow/icons/18/" + feed.achievement.icon + ".jpg";
25. // assemble the wowhead.com tooltip lookup
26. var wowheadUrl = "http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=" + feed.achievement.id;
27. // format the achievement entry string - icon and link
28. var strFeed = "<div class=\"charProfile\">" + "<img src=" + blizzIcon + "></img>" + " " + "<a href=" + wowheadUrl + ">" + feed.achievement.title + "</a></div>";
29. // write the achievement entry to the div
30. $(strFeed).appendTo("#charProfile");
31. intCount++; // update our good count
32. }
33. else { // we hit more than counter so terminate the .each loop
34. return false;
35. } // end counter if
36. } // end ACHIEVEMENT match if
37. }); // end $.each
38. }); // end $getJSON
39. </script>

Define the Output

First, we define a container in our gadget to contain text. Line 1 creates a <div> and assigns a unique ID to that <div> called "charProfile".  Later, after we've created a string of text and formatted that string with HTML markup, we add that string to the existing <div> with the ID of "charProfile in Line 14.
By the same token, we format another string with the actual achievement feed data and add that string to the existing <div> in line 30.

Get the Data

Next, we're lookup up a character's profile using the Blizzard Community Platform API. Years back, you used to be able to retrive character data from an XML / RSS feed.  No longer! It's all good, though. The forums have some great examples on how to use JQuery to grab the JSON data from the API.

In this case, I wanted the summary of total achievement points and the ten most recent achievements completed.  So let's get cracking.

The URL for my character and region is created in lines 5 to 8, and then line 9 retrieves that data from BattleNet and saves it in an object named 'data'. Great, we have data! Uh, we've got a lot of data. Let's pick out what we want.

Rinse and Repeat

Line 18 starts looping over the results; specifically the 'feed' entries in the results.  For each 'feed' entry contained within the source 'data', we have a function that does something with that selected feed (and it's children). This is where you get the achievement's ID, icon reference, timestamp and other bits.

Validate Selection

However, the 'feed' contains a combination of achievements, boss kills and loot drops. We don't want all that, so how do we skip the unwanted result entries? I'm sure there are more elegant ways, but we're going with the if ... else construct. Line 21 checks if the current 'feed' entry selected above in line 18 is for an achievement. It it is, let's handle it. If not, don't do anything and loop back up to select the next 'feed' element.

But wait, there's more! Not only do we only want achievements, but we only want up to a maximum of ten to show. Otherwise, the entire side bar is achievements!  Line 22 checks that we have not already selected more than our maximum value.  If we are over our max, we don't continue looping through each remaining 'feed'. Nope! Line 34 terminates the loop as soon as we've successfully read our maximum entries.

Display the Goodies

For the output, a sub-heading is written to the gadget first, and then we'll write each selected achievement read during the each loop. Furthermore, with the graciousness of Wowhead's tooltip script, we can link the achievements in a nice pretty tooltip. We're borrowing Blizzard's media by using the reference to the icon within. That's the function of lines 23 - 30.

All in all, I'm happy to have an achievement feed in Blogger. I'm sure that there are more refined ways of accomplishing this, and I may give an actual Google Gadget a go, but for the moment I'm happy.
Thanks for stopping by!