Noobs of the Year

So with it being New Years Eve this was a very special edition for the Reader Post this week. I wanted you all to submit your votes for the Noob of the Year. Of course, you couldn't just say someone without saying something as to why this would be the case. So as I expected I got so many submissions for this it was almost too much to go through. It seems everyone wants to make sure they get their say on who should get this "award". Anyways without making all of you wait here is the top 10 vote getters.

10) Darowen. A tank that seem to have trouble with some of the simplest tasks such as putting bosses in the correct location when asked. Holding aggro after more than enough time and of course listening to advice was almost near impossible. Here is my favourite submissions vote quote "I always loved it when she yelled over vent I'M TRYING when she was just standing in place doing nothing". Congrats Darowen here is your achievement for getting 10th place.

9) Red Shirt Guy. You see I don't really understand how Red Shirt Guy is a noob since all he did was tell it how it is and wanted everything to be correct. But I don't control who people vote for. Here was my favourite vote quote "The least he could do was to make sure he knew how to talk into a mic. I swear to god that is the only reason this got any press because he seemed like he was a total moron, but yet knew more about the game then makers." So here you go Red Shirt Guy your achievement

8)The Lich King. So apparently many people think the Lich King is a noob because he had so many opportunities to kill us and chose not to. Then, of course, the very people he let live come and kill him. Kind of ironic isn't it? Anyways here is the voter quote. "If only I could have seen Arthas' face when he realized Tiron got out of that Iceblock. You should have just thrown him off the edge." So here you go Arthas your achievement

7)The Server Ragnaros. It seems that everyone knows they are in for a treat when they have to group with people from this server. You would think this could be one of those situations where a couple bad apples spoil it for everyone, but then I wouldn't receive story day after day of how bad the players from Ragnaros were. "I swear Blizzard must have some sort of secret IQ test they do when they pick your server and if you fail they force you to play on ragnaros". So congrats Ragnaros you earned this one.

6)Riders of the Sparkle Pony. You know I said I was never going to do a blog topic on this again because the uproar caused by this mount was nothing sort of sensational. Who can ever forget the TRH: That retarded horse video. Or this pony is what spawn Nub Tales on to us all. I know when I see someone on one of these horse I just shake my head and do a real life facepalm. "the best thing I ever heard was from the TRH video "you can now pretend you killed Algalon" I wonder how many people shoot themselves for paying $25 for that stupid mount". So you sparkle pony riders here is your achieve.

5)PvPer with no PvP trinket. This was forever immortalized in the Nub Tales episode Rockhorn. Where he says "What kind of scrub PvPs with no PvP trinket" So with all of the of the submissions with this I guess it really should be awarded to our pal from that video Killmeo. Congrats to all you nooblet pvpers with your non trinket wearing selves. Be proud you made it to #5 and earned this

4)Wrath Babies. With Cataclysm upon us and the game getting back to a more skillful and diffiuclt style of play we have all seen them among us. The Wrath Babies who really have a clue at all how to play the game correctly. Here would be one readers explanation of her encounter with a wrath baby "It's really hard some days, not to bang my head on my desk. I'm trying to be a teacher here. A raid is only as good as its weakest link, but I tell you, when you get comments like that, you just think, No wonder we're called 'hunt-ards'." So congrats you Wrath Babies you have earned spot #4

3)Soad. Now people didn't vote directly for him in all the cases they just stated someone qho died over and over without a doubt to Sindragosa's Blistering Cold spell. Since Soad was nominated for the same reason I am sure he would be glad to be the namesake for them all. For some people the concept of running away from a dragon that is going to cast a giant explosion must have been difficult. It was always a running joke for me that if Soad's house was about to explode he would not make it out. He would stand there stare at it and when he died he would wonder what the hell just happened. "Really one of the easiest concepts. RUNAWAY seems to be so difficult for people. Sometimes this really makes me scared for the future of our world." So congrats to all of our Blistering Cold buddies, but Soad is going to take this one and wear it proud!

2)Metapod. I don't think there has ever been a player who thought he was the greatest gift to anything and then was in fact so horrible. Metapod is like the Kayne West of WoW. Whenever you enter an argument with yours truly make sure you have some semblance what you are talking about. Also starting a forum thread saying you are the greatest warrior WoW has ever seen is really not the way to get people to think you are something. The first step to that would be, of course, trying to not be a horrible warrior. "I have never seen someone so horrible think he was god greatest gift. How does something like this actually happen?". Congrats Metapod on #2 and of course this achievement

1)Bagellord. With an overwhelming victory Bagellord has been crowned Noob of the Year for the second year in a row. I just don't know what to say about a guy who has basically done it all in the domain of noobishness. There can really only be one Bagellord. Now I didn't get this following story from someone who voted for Bagellord, but it is a Bagellord story nonetheless. "As I do once a week, I had went to the mall nearest to my work for my lunch break. I was on my auction house app as this kid, roughly around 14, walks up to me to comment on myself playing WoW. Since I was with a coworker and did not want to spark any conflict between us I politely talked to this young boy. He had seen one of my characters on Llane and proceeded to tell me that he had played on Llane with his (and I quote) "..deathknight where everyone knew him.." thinking about who it may have been I had made up an excuse and went back to work early....... Never in my life was I this terrified..... Could it have been baggellord??" Congrats Bagellord on another successful year.

So there you have it everyone. The Noobs of the Year chosen by you. I want to thank everyone who put in a submission and everyone who throughout the year has participated in the Reader Posts. Happy New Year!! May this coming year bring you everything you are looking for.

Gauss Noob Moments Of The Year

So with tomorrow being the Gauss Nation's submissions for Noob of the Year I figured that today I would prove I was indeed human and tell you all my noob and /facepalm moments of the year.

Raid Leading: My guildies will want me to included this one for sure for my inability to switch the raid to 25 man or turn on master looter. It seems to be the case that I have to be told over and over again just to make sure it gets done. Have no fear though because now I have a mod that does all those things for me!

Celebration: When I received my Shadowmourne I spelt wielder and Shadowmourne wrong in my Real ID Status. Yes and I will never hear the end of it.

Ring or Neck: I got into a discussion with someone about where they got their neck. I kept asking and asking and they seemed to have no clue what I was talking about. I kept telling them the name over and over again because this would have been a real upgrade for me. After 10 minutes I was informed it was not a neck it was a ring, in fact it was actually a ring I had equipped myself.

Blood Queen: So during this fight like all good DPS warriors I switched to defensive stance during the air phase so the healers didn't hate me. That wasn't the problem, the problem is this. My "8" button on my defensive stance bar is taunt, and "8" on my berzerker stance bar is intercept. Well when she landed I forgot to change stances and taunted her and ended up wiping the raid. One moment I wish I could yell at myself.

Dalaran Ring: So most if not all of you know about my Pally Set I created to show my thoughts and opinions about gearscore. What many of you don't know is I bought the Dalaran Ring for this set. The problem being I bought the wrong ring. I ended up getting the one with spirit all over it. So yes I spent 17,000g on the wrong ring for my useless set.

Turtle: I don't know if this counts, but I would say casting over 20,000 times in Northrend pools and not getting this thing must mean I some how some way suck at fishing.

So there you have it. Some of the Noob Moments of my year in WoW. Check in tomorrow to find out what people had to say about who should be the Noob of the Year.

Guild Reputation

So I understand that allowing the guild to gain experience too fast let's guilds level up too fast for Blizzard's liking and could cause what they think will be an imbalance. I have accepted that Blizzard isn't going to change their stance on this, even if I think just increasing the experience per level would really be the fix they were looking for. Well enough of that rant I know that isn't going to change. Guild Reputation is what bugs me. Why is there a weekly cap on this? This can actually turn out to be bad for the people who actually go out and do things for the guild since it doesn't keep a storage of rep earned when you were over the cap.

For example, someone does their dailies everyday and gets exalted with such and such a faction. What does someone do when they get exalted? Well they stop doing the dailies. They were getting rep every time they did the quests until, of course, they reached the cap for the week. The point is they still did the quests each day for the rest of the week because they wanted their reps up. Let's use me for an example I am exalted with Dragonmaw and Therazane. I don't want to do these dailies anymore because I am exalted.

Dragonmaw = 5 dailies x 30 rep each x 7 days = 1050 guild rep a week lost
Therazane = 7 dailies x 30 rep each x 7 days = 1470 guild rep a week lost

So I am punished for not being a casual player and losing rep each week for dailies I do not have to do anymore. I now have to find another method besides these to get this 2520 rep each week. Is this at all fair? So Blizzard for some reason doesn't want people to work hard for their guild and actually earn it. Why not have some sort of bank option if you want to hold people back each and every week.

Is this intended? Is it supposed to favour the casual player? I just think it is really a slap in the face for the people that keep up with what they are supposed to.

You Fail At Dailies If...

Happy Tuesday everyone! Tuesday being everyone's favourite day of the week, because it is Fail Day. Like honestly, who doesn't love Fail Day? You read the lines and you either laugh, tell a friend of yours Gauss ripped them, or look around and be ashamed because that is all on you. Since it is the start of an expansion and everyone is up and doing those wonderful reputation grinds I thought this was the prefect fit. So shall we?

You Fail At Dailies If...

• You don't do them
• You didn't know there was a portal to Therazane's Throne in the Temple of Earth
• You keep trying to get those food supplies in the ruins of Thundermar when it is under attack
• You kill Pebble
• Hit the crystal and stand around and wonder wtf you are supposed to do now
• You bitch and complain someone tagged Glop when you started the event
• You don't /wave at the opposite faction kills adds while you blow up the keg
• Tank kills you while you are swimming looking for crates
• Your prisoner in Farson Keep is more retarded than the average prisoner from Farson Keep
• The worm of death kills you
• You let the swim speed buff run out before starting the fishing daily
• You are leveling your cooking from 0 using the cooking daily
• You attempt to do the unlockable Tol Barad dailies when it is 20 minutes to the battle
• You don't laugh every time you get the quest "Magnets how do they work?" quest

and finally

• You don't enjoy whacking pygmies with a mallet

That is it for this week hope you all enjoy it. Keep on doing those dailies and getting up those reps everyone wants you to get up. And, of course, ride your camels with pride.

Ask Gauss

So I realize today is not Sunday. So to all you people who are going to be a smartass and tell me that it is not Sunday, please don't would rather have my inbox filled with something else. Anyways, even if it is a day late it is time for Ask Gauss. The post where I answer a couple of the questions I have been sent throughout the week. So here goes

How does Winter Veil rank among your WoW holidays?

Well it is not my favourite, but I really enjoy how Blizzard gets all into it with the Christmas trees and such. This year it has been even better. Running around doing archaeology and seeing all the smaller towns decortated you see and realize that now it just just not main cities and towns with the decorations, but everywhere. Even some random village out in Stranglethorn has Christmas Trees flanking the steps. Maybe this is the direction Blizzard is taking making holidays a game wide thing and not just isolated, and if this is true I will be all for it.

So it has been a few weeks what do you think of guild leveling?

Well I love the perks and I love the possible rewards, but I am thinking the actual ability to level seems too easy. Any active guild is going to max their XP each and everyday. So it is going to be every guild is 25 or they will be a guild just starting out. I don't know how they could have made this any better, because really it works the same way as character leveling accept there is a cap on daily XP so it evens everyone out. Maybe this is the thing that bothers me. There seems to be no advantage to the people who work harder on a daily basis. Oh well cannot please everyone I guess.

Did you get everything you wanted from Great Father Winter?

No, the bastard didn't send me a turtle.

That is it for this week. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is having a great holiday. For the next Reader Post I am going to go on with something that I started last year. I want your submissions for Noob of the Year. Send in the story and we will try to top the list from last year.

Boxing Day

So in Canada and other places throughout the world it is Boxing Day. A holiday, which has many points of origin, but comes down to the fact that it was given as a break to workers for their work throughout the year. No one really recognizes Boxing Day as that anymore. Most people see Boxing Day as a day where anything and everything is on sale. So I decided today I was going to apply Boxing Day logic to WoW and show you how some of all these "Sales" don't make sense.

So you know those mats from the Burning Crusade that you still haven't been able to sell. Well make a trade macro and say 80% off just to get people to whisper you to see what you have. Then, of course, they check it out and realize it is a bunch of crap no one needs.

You pawn off all the items you have made for getting your profession up so you can get more gold to craft your blues and epics to sell them at ridiculous prices.

You log on early to sell your goods just to get people to do so as well. This therefore gives you the false sense of sales on that day because you started 8 hours earlier then any other day.

You have 20 people all on mammoths all trying to get their mail from the same mailbox all at the same time. Everyone is yelling at the other to get out the way when if you all weren't selfish bastards you would realize you could do it one at a time.

So there is my little Boxing Day fun. If you are in the realm of Boxing Day are you hiding out at home or have you ventured into the great beyond? As a note Ask Gauss is being pushed to tomorrow because sadly with the holidays I haven't had enough time to go through all the questions and pick ones that I felt fit in the time situation I was in. So don't worry It will just be tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Gauss Nation. In classic Gauss fashion I will not say Happy Holidays because I celebrate Christmas and not any of those other holidays. I have never been one of those for political correctness. So once again Merry Christmas may all your kills be honorable.

So I Realized

So I realized I myself had a Bagellord moment. That is I gave the same topic for the Reader Post in back to back weeks and I didn't notice till yesterday. So what does this mean? Well since it is Christmas eve I thought I would share instead my 3 favourite WoW Christmas Machinima videos. May you all have a happy and safe Christmas.

Cranius: Greatfather Winter


Legs: Out in the Cold


Oxhorn: Oxhorn's Christmas Tree

Hotfixes

I don't know about all of you, but I love reading the Blizzard hotfixes. Not just because I want to know if they fixed things like the recent MMR Arena bug, but I like to read what messed up things were gong on that people discovered. I really just picture this person sitting at their computer trying to find bugs so they can complain about them. Here Are some interesting bugs from the last little bit I wanted to share with you all.

• The sell prices for the 7th and 8th bank tabs purchased with guild level 5 are now 0.
• Bladestorm now deals 150% normalized weapon damage as advertised. It was incorrectly dealing 100% normalized weapon damage.
• Mekgineer Thermaplugg is also no longer immune to taunt.
• Silverbound Treasure Chests can now be opened
• Players are no longer able to go At War with the Dragonmaw faction.
• Players can no longer buy the opposing faction's mounts in Alterac Valley.
• Lava Surgers were caught red-handed showing no loot. Showing no loot of an almost broken nature. This will not do. (They now drop loot and can be mined.)
• Baited Black Drakes were Deathwing wannabes and doing way too much damage with their fire breath. This damage has been reduced to ensure there is only one king of pain.
• It is no longer possible for an ill-mannered person of the opposing faction to one-shot a flight trainer in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, which in turn made the 500 players standing on top of the flight trainer with their mammoths really sad.
• There is no longer a School of Fish in Elwynn Forest that like to think of themselves as in "testing," nor do they yield Peacebloom when fished. This School of Fish is no longer a part of the counterculture and will no longer give you flowers when fished.
  

and my favourite

• Random, mean level 15 deer appeared in Teldrassil to the shock and awe of low-level players. They have been replaced with level 1 fawn.

See now you are all going to want to read the bug fixes just to find out what people have spent their time doing.

Tol Barad

So let me first say that I enjoy this zone quite a bit. The daily quests, although time consuming, are not free money since they are not super easy. This to me is a good thing because players actually have to earn the gold from the daily quests. So as a daily quest zone this is much better than the previous attempts of the Tournament Grounds and the Island of Quel'Danas. So I think Blizzard wins in this regard.

Now the other purpose of Tol Barad is the PvP zone. The battle itself is a lot of fun and I have never had a bad time participating in it. The fight isn't too long and it is a more open war type of battle than Wintergrasp, which was all about vehicles and blowing things up. Also the way to balance it between sides and not have a tenacity buff was a great idea. Being on a server that is very Alliance heavy it got old really quickly. One of the main problems with Wintergrasp was that on even terms and not a group full of idiots and morons there would not be problems in taking Wintergrasp back and you would get a pretty even split. So basically even if you did everything you could it was hard to defend on even footing.

So with Tol Barad they changed this and make it much more strategic and the problem which at least from what I have seen and what I have heard from other servers is that Tol Barad is extremely hard to take. Now this has been great for us Horde side on my server because we have controlled the zone probably at least 95% of the time. My fear is that on some servers because this is a hard zone to take there will be boycotts and the faction that keeps getting the short end of the stick will just not partake in the battle. This would make an extremely well designed and thought out zone all for not, and no one wants that.

You Fail At Cata Heroics If...

So it is another Tuesday, which means it is Fail Day, and who doesn't love Fail Day. It is in our nature to laugh and poke fun at others for our personal enjoyment. So I see Fail Day as a service to everyone. I know you can all send your thank you cards to me whenever you wish. So without making you wait for the good stuff any longer here goes.

You Fail At Cata Heroics If...

• You are a healer who didn't spec into cleanse magic
• You are too good to interrupt
• You are amazing at speading friendly fire damage
• You stand and look to the heavens when beams of light appear
• You attempt to hex or polymorph an Undead
• Mobs that explode constantly throw you off the edge or pull more trash
• You frequently say "There is a teleportor?"
• As the tank you tell someone the wrong CC to use and then complain when they use the one you said
• The concept of standing in the triangle so you don't die is a difficult one
• You lost your camel
• You wonder why everyone is yelling at you when you are casting blizzard
• Kill adds?
• You get a rez timer attempting to play Super Mario Brothers in Deadmines
• You are wearing dps gear to tank with because that is all questing gave you

and finally

• After 45 minutes in a queue you take a bio break only to come back and miss the queue

That is it for this week all. Keep on doing those heroics or bashing your head against a wall. Well for some of you those two options might be one and the same...

The Worm

So I am willing to bet with just reading the title here most of you know exactly what I am talking about. Anyone who has quested in Deepholm knows of "The Worm". For those of you leveling and you were glad to be done with the quests which dealt with you dealing with "The Worm" well hate to to you this but you have a surprise waiting for you. You see Blizzard has this thing with dailies and I swear when they choose dailies they pick the quests that bothered you the most and want you to do them every single day. So if you want your Thearzane rep you will be making frequent trips to the cave of "The Worm" unless you just get rep by using the tabard, but who does that anyway?

.

I have seen countless people to die to this worm. I almost feel bad for them, but then it is not like it doesn't run in an unknown pattern. My problem is always I see the worm go by and I think for like 10 seconds if I have enough time to make it around without it getting me. Then, of course, when I decide "yes" it is too late and then the damn thing catches me. I swear Blizzard puts things like this in the game just to piss me off. It could be worse though I could have to get a Pristine Yeti Horn everyday.

Ask Gauss

So it is Sunday and just like every other Sunday it is time for Ask Gauss. The time of the week where I go through my questions I have received throughout the week and answer the ones I think you all would be interested in. If you still don't know how to send in your questions it is simple Just email them to gaussafication@gmail.com and really that is it and I will do the rest. So without waiting any longer let's do this weeks questions.

What have you disliked about Cataclysm so far?

Simple, healers who have been unable or haven't tried to adapt. You see in Wrath health pools were at a point where if you weren't healed up right away to max then you would be seriously in threat of dying. In Cataclysm this is much different. Health pools have been increased substantially so that this isn't the case. Their is absolutely no reason for healers to make sure everyone is topped off anymore this will just lead to them running out of mana and unable to survive the encounter because of it. This is the major issue in heroics besides people being stupid and standing where they shouldn't be. This healing situation is intended so healers better get used to the new way of playing and not mindlessly healing.

What is your opinion on raiding at this point in the expansion?

Well one of the main problems I faced in Wrath was I push raiding right from the start. There was great success when we did it. I was part of the first 10 man clear in Naxx, the first horde 25 Naxx, first horde Sartharion, first Malygos, and first Sarth 3D. So the success was something that went very well. Problem was there was a long break till Ulduar and I had basically burned everyone out on raiding in the first tier of content. People quit the game, people started to play casually, and so on and so forth. I really didn't give people a chance to enjoy what the expansion had and rushed them into everything. Yes there was success, but then we were playing catch up for the rest of the expansion. So I have decided this expansion to ease more into it. I think this will get people really ready to raid when it happens and with Christmas close by I think they will also be thankful for it. I also think this will be much better for success in the future, but I guess we will have to wait and see for that.

Have you been killed by Deathwing yet?

This seems to be having the same issues of me getting a beta key.

That is it for this week. Remember to send in your questions and I will answer them. Whatever you may have been told I am not a mind reader. For those waiting for it the next Reader Post will be about your favourite achievement thus far in the expansion. Enjoy what is left of your weekend and the time left before Christmas.

The 5 Man Fun

So it is Friday which means it is time for the weekly Reader Post. The post where you send in your stories for the topic given. This week I asked you to send in your stories regarding the 5 mans in Cataclysm that you have been a part of. There was really no holding back and I really enjoyed reading them all. Sadly, I couldn't post everything that was sent in, but here are some of them.

I like heroics. I really do. There is a lot of fun to be had in doing a few heroic instances before a raid. I am all for making instances a little longer, but honestly, this is overkill. Things need to be toned down a touch, because there's no fun in bashing your head against a brick wall for five hours in nothing more than a heroic instance.

I was in Halls of Origination a tank with bane of the fallen king wipes on the first trash pull. The tank leaves. The other dps leave. Its just me and the healer, with 3 mobs mad at us. With some mage OP kiting skills i managed to 2 man the mobs it with the healer...then he left. Then 15 minutes for new people to join the group only to leave at the first boss after 5 wipes.

My pugs have been great all nice people motivated and ready to kick some ass. This all seems to end when the instance stops loading and we are looking at one another.

By far the best moment of this expansion was in Grim Batol when we were doing the drakes and a guildie of mine for some reason or another decided to "dismount" off his drake. He fell right down the pit in the centre where the drakes fly over and died. The thing was though he kept falling and falling and couldn't release. 10 minutes passed and he was still falling into the black abyss. We were all on vent laughing so hard at him. I thought about feeling sorry for him but then I realized he would have had to click to get off the drake.

I had a great time in heroic Deadmines. Mobs were CC'd no one stood in fire dps the adds, didn't stand by rotten food, made it through the lazer boss, and swung on the ropes to get away from the bombs better than anyone could have ever expected. Then I realized that I was day dreaming. I was actually in Deadmines for 5 hours had to full repair 3 times and not matter how many times I bashed my head into my keyboard it didn't make the pain go away. I would like it to be known there is hell in the World of Warcraft and it is Heroic Deadmines.

That is it for this week hope you enjoyed all the stories. As always if you want to get your submissions in for the Reader Post look for the topic every Sunday during Ask Gauss. Hope you all have a great weekend don't forget to get your Christmas gifts.

The Pain Of Being A Tauren

So first let me say that I love being a Tauren and really there is no other race that I would have chosen. I love the lore behind them, where they have come from, and who can forget Cairne the tauren of taurens who inspired me to roll one. With that though there are things to expect when you play a tauren.

• You can't mount up and run into buildings
• When bridges have overhangs you won't fit under them without dismounting
• Whenever you are on a mount you will some how be in someone's way
• You are not very stealthy
• Your boots are more like anklets
• Cramped spaces make it hard to do anything

So of all those things let us go back to the last one. Blizzard for Cataclysm has made Shadowfang Keep a heroic instance. This is great. We can go back and visit an old instance and an instance that was hardly ever visited by those of Kalimdor descent. So what is the problem with this? Well Shadowfang keep is a very cramped place. Being a Tauren in this instance is extremely difficult. Blizzard has this thing with self adjusting the camera angle to benefit you. In spaces such as this, as a tauren, this is a nightmare. I am zoomed in to have a rafter in my face where I cannot see anything that is going on. I can be perfect one instant and take a step one way or another and I can no longer see anything except a wall. I am finding myself on the bosses unable to actually see any of the bad stuff I shouldn't be standing in, and it is very frustrating.

Does Blizzard know about this problem? Over the years they have had to know that this has been an issue and it is above and beyond the little things above that I have come to love about being a Tauren. I shouldn't have to use and item that shape shifts me in order to actually preform and not look like an idiot in an instance. I really have no suggestion on how to fix this except maybe making the ceilings slightly higher, but that is it. This truly is something that is a detriment to actually being able to play the game effectively.

Archaeology

Well whats to say of this new secondary profession of ours? Well I have a few things to describe it. Time consuming, boring, mind numbing, and makes you think of suicide. You see I have completed some very grindish things in WoW. I did Argent Dawn rep the old fashion way with the cauldron quests, Timbermaw when it was insane, Cenarion Circle when it was all about cultist suits, and who can forget being a High Warlord. So to say the least I have done many things in this game that have been extremely grindy.

So why is it then that this is just so painful for me, and I am only at level 68 with it. I am not saying that I won't be leveling it up because we all know that it will happen anyway. Maybe you all have had issues doing this as well. I know it is something new and I should be more excited to do it, but sadly no. It could also be that I am just collecting things and not really making anything out of them at all. So who knows maybe when I start making things rather than collecting seemingly useless things it will get much better, but we shall see.

You Fail At Cataclysm If...

So Tuesday is upon us and what does that mean? Fail Day, of course, and really who doesn't love Fail Day? You are either laughing your ass off or completely insulted, and either way that works for me. We have been playing Cataclysm for a week so I think I would throw these fails out there.

You Fail At Cataclysm If...

• You roll disenchant on a BoE blue in an instance
• You have attempted to fly over the great divide while heading to an archaeology dig site
• You couldn't do the seahorse quest in Vashj'ir
• You died to the Whale Shark
• You are spam healing in instances
• You died more than once to Geddon
• You are running in Deathwing's fire attempting to get the achievement
• You still are not using CC
• You are not in the guild for the benefits
• You are complaining in trade that no one is doing the Northrend weekly raid
• You repeatably ask why you cannot get more rep with you guild
• You don't enjoy cutscenes
• You buy greens off the Auction House to replace your current gear
• In Vortex Pinnacle you fall off

and finally

• You enjoy Heroic Deadmines

That is it for this week. Hope you enjoyed this week's edition of fail. Be sure to poke fun at your friends and guildies if they made the list. Happy grinding!

Old Spices

So I don't think there is anyone who doesn't enjoy the Old Spice Man commercials. They are not only absolutely genius but amazingly awesome. So what does this have to do with World of Warcraft you ask? Well that is simple Cranius and Legs have teamed up again to give us this.



So yes I certainly laughed at this countless times and kept watching it. My only complaint is that instead of "I am on a horse" should have been "I am on a kodo" would have made it that much better.

Like always if you seem some great machinima let me know about it. Or if it is machinima you created tell me about it. I love watching what the warcraft community has to offer and what they put together.

On that note send my your Embersilk I am leveling Tailoring still.

Ask Gauss

So it is Sunday and what that means it is time for Ask Gauss. Another first for Cataclysm. For those of you who don't know Ask Gauss is a weekly post where I go through questions I have been sent throughout the week and answer them for everyone. Well not all of them, but a few. To send in your questions send them to gaussafication@gmail.com and I will answer them regardless of it is during Ask Gauss or just a reply email. Shall we get to it?

What is your thoughts of the current instance design?

I am liking them a lot. The few randoms I have done people are still in the the Wrath frame of mind were CC is not needed and everything can just be grouped and AoEd. Also people tend to not listen to encounter design even when you try to help them out. Then again that will always exist in randoms because you know everyone is better than anyone else. I am also much happier with the increased in difficulty. People can't just rush in and do heroics once they hit 85 and get away with it. This was something that was a major issue in Wrath and I am glad they fixed it. So overall it has been great to grind some new instances with some raid boss type mechanics in 5 mans.

What was your favourite quest?

I am assuming this is not to include questlines and just a quest that stands alone as completely epic. The answer to this is simple. Kill 1000 gnomes with a giant ball of fire. I turned my sound on full blast and just listened to the little bastards scream for their lives. Now there was a little slip up when I got stuck in a wall, but then I just got another flaming ball of fire and mass killed some more gnomes. So no matter how simple or easy this quest was it was fun as hell.

What and where did you ding 85 with?

Just a quest in Twilight Highlands not even an exciting quest. I believe it was a transfer to a new hub quest.

That is it for this week. Hope you all are having a great time with Cataclysm as I am. Next week's Reader Post is going to be about your adventures in the new 5 mans. As always you have until Thursday night to get them in. Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

What I Disliked About Questing and Leveling

So it is the weekend and I thought since many people will be getting a chance to play a lot this weekend I decided to tell you all what I have disliked about the questing in Cataclysm so far.

Phased Nodes Are On The Map: Ever try to find a fishing pool you know is there but you can't reach it. Apparently when you are phased nodes can spawn on either end of the phase. I really don't know if this was a problem in Wrath, but it has happened already a few times to me so far. I have no problem with nodes being on one side or the other, but when I am tracking such a node it would be great if I didn't track the ones on the "other side".

Harpies: need I say more?

Leader of the Troggs: For anyone who has quested in Deepholm you know exactly what I am talking about. How many leaders of the troggs can there really be? It seemed like at one point you were killing the leader of the Troggs every third quest.

Spawn rates: In the starting zones this is a great idea especially for the masses of people. It makes the questing experience so much less aggravating then when you are spending 10 minutes at a time waiting for a mob to spawn. I know the spawn rates are temporary, which is also a great thing, but having the insane spawn rate in Twilight Highlands caused many deaths. I know some servers are more populated than others and it would probably be difficult to adjust spawn times per server per zone, but this was getting very frustrating in the later zones.

Was Too Quick: It just took people way too short a time to get to 85. I have no problems with the amount of content but getting slightly less experience probably would have made the experience that much better.

Well that is pretty much what I disliked. How about you? Be sure to let me know your thoughts. Enjoy your weekend and Cataclysm.

My First 24

So it is Friday and time for the first Reader Post for Cataclysm. This week I asked people to submit their stories for the first 24 hours of Cataclysm. I wanted to know all about their experiences. So let's begin.

Thinking I could get a head start on leveling, I had completed quests in Icecrown in advance, with the idea that once Cataclysm went live, I’d turn them in and get a small chunk of XP to get rolling with. I had heard reports that Blizzard was going to nerf the amount of XP these quests gave to discourage people from doing just that, and it seemed they did so, as I didn’t get a single point of XP for the 23 quests I turned in. As it turned out, this just was a bug that stopped people from getting XP for a short period of time, as other people were able to turn in Icecrown quests for XP a few minutes later. But I got a huge chunk of gold for turning in the quests, so it wasn’t a loss by any stretch.

I had a bunch of friends over and we decided to have a drinking game. The game was whenever someone stole one of our mobs then we had to take a drink. Let me say we were drunk out of our minds by the end of the first hour. I'd tell you what else happened the first 24 hours, but for some reason I cannot remember it.

I decided to go for the realm first fish and proved that there’s a bottomless pit of jackasses who play WoW, one guy had nothing better to do at 1AM than try to grief me by parking his mammoth on top of my fishing line. This is why you showed up for the midnight launch? To run around and be a dick to other people? No stranger to this type of stupidity, I threw some Baby Spice on the guy to shrink him, which apparently earned the dumbass’s respect. “haha baby spice pro move”. As I sat there blazing through fishing, I watched server announcements for many of the Realm Firsts for other professions fall quickly. Cooking was gone within five minutes. Skinning took about a half hour, followed shortly by mining and then herbalism. Fishing finally fell at 2AM, with me trailing about 15 minutes behind. A little bummed but not surprised, I headed to Hyjal to finish up the fishing achievement and get some useful catches for the new cooking recipes, and then called it a night.

I spent a lot of time trying to get ahead of the curve, but I also wanted to make sure that I was experiencing the zone. One thing I regretted about Wrath was I zipped through all of the content and didn't pay attention to the lore of the zone. I tell you, you have gotten me extremely interested in the Lore and I made sure this time around I enjoyed it. I was rewarded because at the end of my first 24 hours the epic event with Ragnaros in Hyjal was just amazing.

I just found it amazing at how fast people were leveling and gaining the realm first achievements. I was just getting into deepholm when I got the message that 2 people had leveled to 85. I could have sworn I was going as fast as possible. Sure there were times that it took me a little time to find some things, but honestly enough that someone could gain 2+ levels on me that quickly? So in the first 24 hours I realized that next time if I want to be even close to a realm first achieve I have to have a real plan.

That is it for this week hope you enjoyed it all. As always if you want to get in on next week's Reader Post look for the topic during Sunday's Ask Gauss post and then send it on in. Enjoy your weekend and Cataclysm.

Land Of The Cutscene

As promised today I am going to talk a little about my questing experience. So if you don't want any spoilers I would suggest not reading this. Now since I said something don't mass mail me and complain that I spoiled things for you.

So far Uldum has been my favourite. It started out with a pretty entertaining cutscene where you are captured and the break yourself out. You go on to help the empire of the Tol'vir to defeat their enemies in which you participate in some great quests. Also not your average quests these were extremely well designed and entertaining, but this wasn't even the best part of the zone.

The best part of the zone comes from our pal Harrison Jones. I don't think there has ever been a better questline in WoW. Blizzard really wanted this questline to have a great story and be done right and they achieved this by having countless cutscenes. Some of them even just for the most minor of details, like traveling to a new quest hub. It comes down to a point where there is a cutscene after basically every quest you complete. Now the quests from this line are some of the most fun and craziest you will ever do. There is a bombing of a mountain side, an epic escape where you are the gunner of a plane, a mission impossible type bombing quest, show down with a crazed beast, dressing up as an officer to increase work production, you are almost killed by a firing squad, and so much more.

I have heard so many people are skipping Uldum and going right to the Highlands. Don't. This is by far the best zone and collection of quests Blizzard has ever come up with. Well worth your time, trust me.

Alliance vs Horde

Well I was going to do a post today on some of the cool things I have done in Cataclysm so far. But then I thought many of you might not have had the chance to see these things yet and I may be playing spoiler even if it wasn't on purpose. It would be more of an "oh you should make sure you do this quest because the event at the end is really cool." So instead of dealing with the "OMFG YOU RUINED IT ALL FOR ME" mails and such that I would be sure to get I was wondering what I should really post about on this the second day of the expansion. Well that is when I came across this video from Alliance vs Horde. For those of you who don't know Alliance vs Horde is basically a copy of the PC vs Mac commercials just redone for WoW. This is, of course, their Cataclysm spot and it really was extremely well done. So have a look.



Tomorrow you won't all be safe you have had another day and my questing exploits will be upon you!

You Fail At Waiting In Line If...

So I waited in line to get my Collector's Edition Cataclysm. It was freezing outside, but it is Canada so I guess that is to be expected in December. It is Tuesday,which means it is Fail Day and it is the first Fail Day of Cataclysm. So let's get to it.

You Fail At Waiting In Line If...

• You are there bragging that your guild cleared Naxx
• You were the only person in line for 6 hours because you thought the need to start waiting at 4pm
• You show up with doughnuts hoping to get a better spot in line
• You are that guy walking up and down the line for a smoke
• You forgot your wallet and couldn't buy the game when you got inside
• You tell everyone you play a Male bloodelf and are proud of it
• You sat in a spray painted chair with the Warcraft symbol on it
• You let your girlfriend convince you to go home when you only have to wait 20 more minutes
• You were a random drunk or high guy who preached to the lineup about John Lennon's death anniversary coming up
• You were actually one of the people in line for Inception
• You said no to the free stuff offered to you
• You bought the strategy guide
• You were behind the guy who got the last collectors edition
• You left your lights on and your car wouldn't start when you went back to it after you bought the game

and finally

• You waiting in line in the freezing cold when you could have just downloaded it.

And that is it the first Cataclysm Fail Day. Happy leveling

Wrath Of The Lich King

So today is the last official day of Wrath so isn't today the best day to do my sum up of the expansion. Going to break this into categories which are rather particular, but will do the job.

Leveling

Now I don't play alts but compared to the madness of the Burning Crusade initial leveling experience this was much better. Two separate zones made this much easier. Not to mention I really enjoyed how they modeled the zones to have their own story while questing. It gave that sense of accomplishment, and I think those who maybe are into their alts the sense of accomplishment.

PvP

In Vanilla and the Burning Crusade I was a real avid PvPer. I have always enjoyed the conflict between the Horde and the Alliance, as is known but my love of the lore of this game. In Wrath I wasn't really into Arena because I found that it had become too cookie cutter and that even the best skillful players could not compete with average players who were playing certain combinations. Arena to me is suppose to show the PvP skills of the player not their ability to form a group that can counter pretty much anything brought at them. So I didn't really participate in arena and therefore had no real interest in doing Battlegrounds besides random nights with guildies, when we were just messing around. Wintergrasp was fun but I just found it got old quickly and by the time they fixed the issues it had players were set in their ways

There was one aspect this expansion that I tried to bring back. This was World PvP. With the achievement "For The Horde" I started a weekly tradition on the weekends where Gauss' Armies this time not compose of the guild "Army of Gauss" but a random collection of guildies and people from trade would stomp our way through to kill the leaders of the Alliance. This was great fun and I look forward to going forward with this in Cataclysm.

Raiding

Well Naxx was a level 60 raid revamped for level 80s and it just wasn't difficult enough to keep the people busy before the next tier. Sartharion was a great raid and really let us experience hard modes for the first time. Something that as we saw later in the expansion was a big thing. Malyagos was an amazing encounter design besides the fact that there was not a way to practice phase 3 and the drakes didn't scale with gear from the start. Overall the first tier was just too easy because of Naxx and left people waiting way too long.

Ulduar was simply a great instance. It was extremely well put together and well thought out. The hard modes were in fact designed well although you kind of had to figure out how to get to them on your own. Also I enjoy the fact where a hard mode is not identical to a normal mode how you to do things differently because it is harder. Some of the best encounters of the expansion were in this instance. Yogg Saron being at the top of the list. I congratulate Blizzard on a wonderfully designed instance.

Trial of the Crusader, what can we say about this? Well the normal mode was a joke. So much so that my guild took 10 people who could do nothing and we sold the gear to them. The hard mode was in fact REALLY hard. There was too much randomness to the encounters on the hard mode though. Something which I think prompted them to think differently about how Cataclysm raiding would be. Tanks getting one shot on Beasts because the healers spamming were just off was just simple unfair. Not to mention how on Faction Champs there was just so much randomness you knew one of the random things was going to happen sometime. Congrats Blizzard though on Hard Mode Anub truly a great hard mode even if it was x10000 harder than the normal version. I like the idea of the instance, but I think most would agree probably the least liked raiding instance Blizzard has ever created.

Icecrown Citadel was to me basically everything I expected it to be. The landscapes were well created and all the encounters were thought out extremely well. The only problem? We were doing Icecrown for a year and the fact you had to kill Lich King before doing any hard mode fights. Sure you could turn it on or off for specific bosses, but still with some hard modes being easier than Lich King himself on normal it only makes sense to allow you to do the hard mode at least after defeating the boss on normal once.

Ruby Sanctum was a very good transition raid. The trash gave us a look at what we need to get ready for in Cataclysm and I hope the actually boss mechanics are something we see more of in Cataclysm where there is a lot more awareness rather than just nuke the crap out of the boss.

Overall I enjoyed raiding this expansion. Sure some of the content was easy, but the top level content was top level content. I hope they learned from their mistakes as they always seem to and we can have a great raiding experience come Cataclysm.

Lore

This is really the first expansion they have taken it really seriously, and I enjoyed it. Phasing helped a lot with this as well. Quests connected with one another and told every story. Like I talked about with the specific zones having its own individual story which connected to the main story of the expansion. Some people were disappointed with the way things ended with Arthas, but I think doing the Shadowmourne questline and the items in the sealed chest really told the story. So I will give Blizzard the thumbs up on this one, great job.

So those are my thoughts on Wrath Of The Lich King. Time to bring on Cataclysm!

Ask Gauss

So here it is the last Ask Gauss before Tuesday and for all of those living in a box Cataclysm is upon us on Tuesday. I got a lot of questions this week about all things Cataclysm so I hope my choice of things to answer is helpful.

Where do you plan to level up to start, and are you going to instance grind?

I don't care what they have done to make swimming less of a pain. Increasing the speed and all of that. To me it seems like madness to level up essential in a starter zone underwater with an insane amount of people. This I believe will make me want to hate life. So I will be starting in Hjyal not that I eventually wont be going to Vash'jr to do the quests. It will be like Wrath when I went back to do Borean Tundra.

I have never been a fan of leveling using instances. I have always preferred to explore the Lore of a zone not to mention instancing just doesn't level you as quickly. Also with each zone having their own story I want to finish that story before I move on, but I also don't want the quests to be too low of a level when I complete them. Also another thing that questing gets you is ahead of the pack of people. Regardless of what zone you start in there is going to be mass amounts of people. Many of these people will stop and do instances several times. If you don't well then you get ahead and you can quest more peacefully and in a less crowded environment.

Will you be to busy leveling and grinding to post?

I will still be posting daily and really I think a lot of the posts will be a fun read. I am not going to post guides or anything like that because that really isn't my thing. If people ask, of course, I will tell them about my experiences and what I found to work out better. I will leave the guides to the people who write them. I will be more talking about a bugged quest mob that I cursed at for hours, the stupid deathknight who did something predictable, the rogue who ninja'd my quest mob, the warlock who tagged every mob in the zone, and who can forget the mage who is complaining about how hard leveling is. So let's just say typical Gauss stuff that you have all come to enjoy reading on a daily basis.

Do you plan on doing a Blog about your experience at the midnight launch?

I had not thought of this at all until you mentioned it. I think I can make this happen.

That is it for this week. As always if you would like your question answered you have to send it in. To do so click on the link at the top right of the blog or send them to gaussafication@gmail.com. Also this coming Friday's Reader Post is going to be who your first 24 hours of Cataclysm was. Don't hold back just tell it all.

Enjoy what is left of your weekend.

Citizens Of Azeroth Behold

So after the last little bit Blizzard has been having rewards unlocked for those participating in the Darkmoon Faire Fortune event. Over this time period concept art, desktop backgrounds, Lore, and of course the making the Cataclysm Cinematic have been released to us. This was until a couple days ago when the final reward was unlocked. It being this



The description as follows: A fly-through of the epic environments players will explore in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

We have all been able to see the zones that are currently in the game. Except I guess the ones we have yet to visit. I along with many others did not receive a beta key regardless of all the complaining I did to get one. Therefore, I haven't had the pleasure to see the zones such as Uldum, Twilight Highlands, Deepholm, and so on. One thing I got from this video is the Throne of Four Winds looks absolutely amazing. In my eyes just looking at it, it is by far visually the best thing Blizzard has ever made. Just makes me can't wait for this Tuesday.

A Whole New World Of Fun

Happy Friday everyone. The start of the last weekend before Cataclysm is live. This is your last chance to get everything together before the expansion craze takes over. Being Friday though it is time for the weekly Reader Post. This week I asked people to send in the times they died or got lost in the new Azeroth. Think this will make everyone feel better.

I know you are going to call me an idiot, but I honestly spent like 45 minutes trying to get across the Great Divide by jumping across. I almost did it a few times. Is this on purpose by Blizzard to give you the hope of making it and you try again and again. Still now the only way I know to get across is by going all the way around. Can't wait till we can use flying mounts and we can just fly over.

When doing the quest in Southern Barrens from the High Road I accidentally clicked off my rope buff and plummeted to my death. Yes rather embarrassing.

I jumped from the top of Orgrimmar to the Valley of Wisdom, because I refuse to wait for those slow ass elevators. Didn't I some how manage to hit the little bridge and add to my death by falling total.

There is this daily fishing quest in Stormwind where you have to swim around and grab things in the harbour. They didn't inform us that there are level 85 fish who have decided to make a home in the harbour now. Lets just say only Pallys will be doing this quest at the moment.

I got kill by Deathwing in Winterspring thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I was taking a bunch of screenshots with the fire and everything. So I finished all my quests and decided to head to the Swamp of Sorrows. Being a mage I opened a portal to Stonard ported in and the skies went red and Deathwing came by. Let me say it wasn't as cool the second time.

That is it for this week. If you want to be part of next week's Reader Post look for the topic during Ask Gauss on Sunday. Enjoy your last weekend before Cataclysm is upon us.

Cataclysm Print Ad Contest

So I don't know how many of you have been paying attention to this, but some of these are just plain epic. What am I talking about? Did you read the title? The Cataclysm Print Ad Contest. Basically, the contest is to create a Print Ad for Cataclysm. Always great when the name of the contest tells you what you have to do. The entries I have seen have been all of the following heartfelt, funny, offensive, and thought provoking. I have enjoyed them so much I thought I would share some of the best with you here.

And there you have it. Like I said quite amusing. 5 Days till Cataclysm are you prepared?