Back in black!

So I think I'm going to try to pick up the reigns again.

Team NoobSnap is starting a 3v3 arena team!

Elemental Shaman, Blood Death Knight, Shadow Priest.

We will kill anyone and everyone. Expect news.

So keep checking back, non-existent readers!

Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=Halo3ODSTE3

You go there right now. I'll probably have a full review at the end of the week. E3 time is pretty exciting, huh?

105.9 The Brew

Thats right, a radio station.

These guys are in Portland, and there are no commercials ever. EVER.

http://www.1059thebrew.com/pages/10000.html

They play popular 80's songs, and rocks all the time.

I haven't changed to another station for days now.

WoW: Noblegarden

Noblegarden, the WoW equivalent of Easter, came out today on all realms. Most of the goodies and achievements having to do with Noblegarden will be earned by collecting eggs that spawn in one of the 10 racial "Level 5" towns throughout Azeroth. Opening up those eggs will yield a Noblegarden chocolate, which can be used to buy rewards needed to complete parts of the holiday. I guess we can expect to see ALOT of traffic to these zones. Then question then comes up, where will be the best place to go if you want to compete with the fewest people?

I for one will be heading to Bloodhoof Village. Whether it will be heavily populated or not, I don't know. But I'll probably be farming those damn eggs for awhile tonight.

WoW: Storm the Gates of Naxxramas

As you may not know, I play a Tauren Shaman ( who I'll introduce soon). But, in recent months I've been trying my darndest to take every possible opportunity I get to find raids groups and experience the content Naxx 10 and 25 have to offer. In fact, my very first time in a multi-boss raid instance was only a few months ago, when I ran Naxx 10 with an excellent group of my guildmates, including our guild leader Maui (aka Randy Deluxe). Since then I've completley cleared Naxx 10 a couple times, over the span of a several groups. I've yet to see all of the 25-man version, since groups for it within the guild are harder to find. I have picked up some excellent upgrades to bring me closer to being completely decked out in Epics.

They include:

- Eruption-Scarred Boots
-Retcher's Shoulderpads
- And two Tier 7 pieces: Heroes' Earthshatter Hauberk and Heroes' Earthshatter Gloves

(The Tier 7 stuff I didn't actually get directly from Naxx, instead I earned the Chest token from Emblems of Heroism, and the gloves dropped off of Sartharion from the Obsidian Sanctum.)

All that's left to purple-ize is a trinket, namely the Mark of the War Prisoner and the helm I'm wearing: Battle Mender's Helm.
I'm actually sort of glad I haven't found a purple upgrade for my hat, because I absolutely love the way it looks, and the stats are pretty kick ass too, especially after being enchanted.

This coming week I will probably have minimal time so the possibility for raiding is uncertain.

Skinning

So, I'm coming up to the point that happens in every ones life... I realized there was absolutely no way I was ever going to afford my level 30 mount. So I did the only logical thing, which was pick up skinning and sell the skins I get! Unfortunately I'm level 27, but I have to kill the tiny animals in the noob areas to get my skinning up. So I spent the last hour killing level 8-9 Dragonhawks and Springpaws in Eversong woods. It was pretty much a genocide.  D.H.E.T.A. won't be happy... But the good news is that I get to go to the Barrens to raise that skill some more!! I've already been practicing the native language: "who si giong t oMANKRIKS WIFE????????///"  Pretty good, huh?

WoW: New five-man instance to be added in an upcoming patch

Last night, Blizzard blue-poster Zarhym made an announcement on the WoW forums confirming the introduction of a brand new five man dungeon in a future patch. Whether or not this instance will make it into the next large content addition is uncertain, but its likely to be sooner rather than later (I hope?). Zarhym stated that the new dungeon would be similar to Magister's Terrace, which was a dungeon released in patch 2.4 during the Burning Crusade days that dropped gear on par with that from Tier 4 raids of the time, like Karazhan. At the time, Magister's Terrace was considered the most difficult 5-man in the game, and our new dungeon will likely follow the trend.

If our successor to MT is going to be able to claim to be a true group-breaker, what has to happen? The current status-quo on Wrath dungeons has been that trash mob encounters are simply AOE fests, far different in style from most dungeons in BC, where planned crowd control and carefully timed pulls were usually a necessity. Blizzard seems to be emphasizing that they want more focus to be put into the creation of elaborate and boss encounters, rather than having you palm your face over and over as the PUG you are running Underbog with wipes on trash for the fifth time. However, plenty of players voiced their dissatisfaction over the ease at which trash mobs could be downed in both 10 and 25 man Naxxramas raids, as well as the various dungeons throughout Northrend.

With the release of Ulduar, a large difficulty jump in end-game raiding has taken place. Trash mobs are again very capable and willing to kill you. Its my guess that our child of Magister's Terrace will contain a combination of challenging in between fights as well as complex and inventive bosses. Or, we could just end up with Heroic Wailing Caverns...