Saturday, June 7, 2008

Boom is dead: "The Warrior Who Tanked a Server"



There are two different groups of folks who visit this blog. Those who only know me as "Boom, who plays Twenty Totems" and the rest who know me as "Boom".

While this is really a Goodbye post for everyone, it will be directed mostly towards those who knew me as "Boom". Those are my friends.

I have left WoW. The short version is why, is this: My life has been full of wonderful change recently, and now it needs my attention. WoW has been a wonderful part of my life for four years, but it's time to move on.

This means saying goodbye to my guild, my friends, and my server... Argent Dawn. I love this server. The community is fantastic, and as I'm mentioned before, they have been nothing but supportive of even Multiboxing on both sides of the fence.

My main toon, Boom, is the guild leader of For Horde. Boom is fairly well known on AD for the RP events, and PvP I've been a part of. I have a long list of wonderful friends, and knew I couldn't just log out. So I decided to stage Boom's death.

That's easy enough. Have someone march me into Stormwind, and have at it. But that's no fun... how about the last person to land damage on Boom gets 5000 Gold?

Now you're talking.



It began as I logged onto Boom at 11:15pm last night. I was already held "captive" in a stable, just SW of Goldshire. A few Alliance found me pretty early, and they seemed to know what was happening. I got the first of many /hugs, /salutes and /loves I'd get that night.



Eventually my executioner arrived with his team. Center of Renamed. I /bow'd then /surrendered to him. They were all such great sports about this. I was so excited to see how this would go. Center dismounted, along with his crew, and we all /walked towards Stormwind. I had hoped there would be alot of people when I got inside, but I was in for a shock as I approached the gates...



They were everywhere. An enormous group of flagged Alliance, all waiting for us to arrive. They quickly gathered around and started walking with us. Unfortunately, as the guards started to beat me up, I autoflagged, and I was quickly wiped out by the crowd.



The plan was to have a group of Priests Mind Control me into the square out in front of the AH, but with all the people around, the Priests just couldn't MC me fast enough. We knew this might be a problem, so I simply ran back to my corpse.



When I arrived, there were even more folks standing around. One player took a census of Stormwind during the event, and found 1000-1100 players (Alliance side only) at any given time!

I knew it would be unlikely that the priests would MC me before I died again, so I instead found a quiet corner, rezed, popped a health pot, and mounted. Then I rode into Stormwind, and got to the Tree in the square, where an even larger crowd was waiting. I'd guess I lasted 2 seconds, but that's being optimistic. :)



The image above is one of my favorites... yes... that's a Frog on the back of a Spectral Tiger Mount, leaping over the mess. (close up here)



As I ran back to my corpse a second time, I got a whisper from the last person to land damage on me in the square... Molimo of Black Phoenix, and of M L H... one of AD's greatest Arena teams. (recently featured on WoWInsider.com)

Molimo was very nice, and said "Hey, I don't know how this works, but I think I just killed you, and everyone is telling me to contact you."

I explained that the plan was to wait until Center calls for the execution, and that he'd have to get back to his toon and wait. He could of complained, but instead was very understanding, thanked me for running the event, and went back to wait with everyone else.

Just before I got to my corpse, something epic happened. No... Legendary. I found out there were two full 40man Horde raids (plus some stragglers) waiting outside Stormwind, preparing to rush in and rescue Boom. (If you're into RP, don't miss the thread about this event on the AD forums.)

Before I could rez, they stormed the city, and ran head long into the giant mob of Alliance. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in game.



Just as I thought it couldn't get any better, a third group showed up. But they were coming from the TRAM! This was unreal to see.


*Thanks to Icharus for the image

The fight was absolutely insane. While everyone was dying, I arranged to meet Center and his team of priests in a small tavern where I could rez in safety... but when I got there, no one else was there. I whispered to our mutual contact, and asked where they were. Turns out we simply couldn't see each other. That's when I noticed I couldn't rez.

I ran back out into the battle (as a ghost) and noticed everyone had stopped moving. They were all animating... some running in place, others casting etc. But they were all stuck in one place. The chat channels exploded with "WE DID IT! WE BEAT STORMWIND! BOOM IS SAVED!



Then the server died..... I'll say it again...


Legendary.

I knew then my plan was flawed, and there was no reasonable way for me to get into town, and wait for Center to start the event. There were just too many people. But I wasn't about to let 5k rot on my account, so I decided to give it to Molimo. He didn't play by my rules, but he wasn't malicious about it either. I gave it to him because he did hit me last, and was nice about it when I told him he had to do it again.

There of course was some griping on our forums by a few kids, but it didn't bother me. As I told them...

This was for fun folks. The Gold wasn't the point. It was PvP... it was RP... it was WOW. If you spend the whole time whispering others about gold, who got it, who deserved it, or whatever, you were asleep for the party. The rest of us were having a GRAND OLD TIME! ^.^ (you can read my whole response here)

A while after the server came back up, I quietly jumped on Boom one last time, told my friends goodbye, then rezed in Stormwind. This time I ran to the tree I was supposed to be at, and stood there until I was dropped by the crowd that remained.



A small group of Alliance surrounded my corpse, and all knelt together. I was so touched. Not just by that small group, but by the response from this server... MY server. So many wonderful players, all in one place. If you're ever looking for a home for a new toon, you simply can't go wrong with Argent Dawn.

Then I logged off.

I've canceled all five accounts, and I'm moving on with my life. I want to thank my friends for being exactly that.. friends. Especially when I needed them most. Thanks for the fun and the laughter. Thanks for the hard work, and the effort you put into building the greatest guild I've ever been in.

Safe travels.

For Fun... For Friends... FOR HORDE!

Boom

Thursday, May 15, 2008

From Shaman to Pirate in 2.5 hours: There be Pirates here!


The Bloodsail Buccaneers. Oh don't act like you don't know who I'm talking about. You know them as well as I. You've forced them off the beaches of Stranglethorn Vale. You've fought your way onto their ships. You've passivly slain their sailors on your quest for more xp, and a few extra gold. And why? Because some stupid goblin in Booty Bay asked you to.

Maybe it was more than that. But I sincerely doubt it. Like so many other times, you chose to mindlessly slaughter those in your way, simply because someone with a yellow exclamation point over their head told you to. Bah.

The Twenty Totems are different. We do things... differently. (which is why we're so different) We, under the leadership of Thrall, seek a higher ground when choosing our fights.

Ask us to slaughter pigs and harvest their intestines? First show us guilty pigs. Tell us to poison Aldor soup? First prove to us it will actually work.


Ask us to murder countless guards in Booty Bay... First, kind sir, you must promise us a cool hat... one that summons a rare pet... and maybe throw in a sweet pirate outfit. Yeah. That would do it. FOR THE HORDE!

It's sadly true. Promise me something that looks cool, and I'll likely grind the same mob over and over, hours on end, just to look slightly cooler. Which was the first reason the Bloodsail grind intrigued me.

Second reason, came from a tiny note in a Bloodsail guide over at warcraftpets.com. Along with excellent tips and details, I found this gem...

FYI FYI: For those who can dual-box (play two accounts at once), this grind is much faster. You can either earn Bloodsail rep with both characters (costing you twice as much to repair your Steamwheedle rep later on), or grind with just one character and use the other as a heal-bot. Just keep your healer ungrouped and she/he won't lose or gain any rep. (Of course, this option only works with healing classes.)

Hmmmm. So, if you "Dual-box", it's really easy... (/queue scary music and laugh manically)

I did some more research and learned a bit more about this grind before I got started. Here is what I learned.

The Bloodsail Buccaneers are typically passed by most players as another group of mobs you need to wipe out to clean out your quest log. But the Devs thought they'd bury a few treasures within their ranks. As it turns out, if you build up your reputation with them, they'll make you a pirate.

The pants, boots, shirt, belt and most of all, the Admiral's hat. The hat, is the real reason folks decide to join the Bloodsail Navy.

Besides being a very unique design, the hat is also the only thing in game tha can summon the Blood Parrot. I'd comment here that it's just another re-skinned parrot pet model, but come on... PIRATE HAT!

Now the only way to build up your rep with the Bloodsail Pirates is to slaughter their enemies. (seems to be a re-occuring theme in this world) So who are their enemies? Well, that would be pretty much anyone occupying Booty Bay. And right now, that's the goblins of the Steamweedle Cartel. No problem right? So what if we kill a few guards in Booty Bay?

Well, as soon as you start doing that, news will travel fast. Then you'll find it impossible to visit some of your favorite goblin hangouts. Specifically Gadgetzan, Ratchet, Everlook and of course, Booty Bay.

In the past, this was a bit of bad news for those who needed to travel.

And there are more than a few quests that are available only in those towns. And the only way to get back in the good graces of the goblins, meant a grind that was many times worse than the one to become a Pirate in the first place.

But times have changed. Outside of each of these cities you'll now find a Bloodsail Traitor, who, for the price of a few cloth, is willing to strut around the goblin towns, telling stories of how brave you are, and how you've done great things for goblin orphans, and that you've admitted publically that your... uh.. "courage" is alot smaller than any goblins. (small guys love it when you assume they're bigger than you)

After you hand over enough cloth, you'll be seen as a hero by the goblins once agian.

So now, the only real pain is the initial grind, involving the endless pull, kill, eat/drink, pull, etc. of Booty Bay Bruisers. My hopes were, that with 5 shaman, I'd be rushing through guards at a faster rate than most, and find my boys in pirate hats in the span of an evening. For once... I was right.

2.5 hours. Yup. That's it.

But it wasn't just my endless supply of whoop-ass in a can. It was also a side effect of the multiboxing grind. We very rarely quest. We spend most of our time in instances, burning through endless mobs, collecting sweet sweet blues from the bosses. So none of my shaman had done any questing out of Booty Bay, (they didn't even have the flight path yet) so my standing with the Bloodsail Pirates wasn't all that bad to start with. WOOT!

Using the guide from Warcraftpets, I initially setup by the blacksmith shop, and attempted to take advantage of the "endless spawn" that the writer told me to avoid. She was assuming I was there alone. I wasn't. I brought twenty totems.

I killed the first guard, but he didn't come back. So I moved a bit further in town, and killed somemore. Suddenly, I was surrounded by a sea of Bruisers. I discovered very quickly that these guys had the potential to kill me if I wasn't careful. So I simply focused my fire on the lowest one, and used CL whenever it was up.


A couple times I'd pull too many guards at once, start to get low, then simply pulled out five Fire Elementals, which promptly put them all to bed. That was always fun, and drew a small crowd each time.

I found two spots that worked fairly well, which I've illustrated below.



Here I planted my main where the Bruiser spawned, and left the rest of my team at a safe distance, insuring I didn't trigger a mass spawning.




Whenever the guard would stop spawning at the blacksmith, I'd simply turn around and camp at this spot on the ramp towards the dock. This would also trigger a short burst of bruisers for a while.

But to be honest, I should of simply kept moving further into town, stopping every time a large guard group was pulled. I don't doubt that if I did this again, I could of knocked another hour off my time. (let me know if you can do it quicker than I have)

After I hit friendly with the Bloodsails, I headed over to "Pretty Boy" Duncan, who sent me to Fleet Master Firallon on one of the ships off the eastern coast. There, I got my free pirate outfit, and a quest to kill 2 quest givers at the top of the Booty Bay Inn.

It took longer then I expected to fight my way there. For you hordies, I would suggest simply riding up to Grom'gol (be sure you have the Booty Bay flight path) and fly into BB. You'll be attacked by a bruiser or two when you land, but it won't be anything you can't handle. After that, the two npcs you have to knock off, are right next to your flight master.

After that, you head back and collect your Pirate Booty. (hehe... booty)



Luckily, there aren't alot of reasons to go back to the goblin towns now that you're hated. But if you really feel a need to talk to the goblins again, 200g-300g worth of mats will put you back in their good graces. And that's what, 2 days of dailies?

pfft.

For now, I could care less what the Steamweedle Cartel things of the Twenty Totems.

They didn't promise me a cool hat.

Boom


Sunday, April 27, 2008

This is What Multiboxing Looks Like



You know... I've never been quiet about the fun involved in showing off 5 Shaman at once, or 20 Totems for that matter. Or 5 dancing puppies, or 5 chain heals or whatever. It's cool looking. It's hilarious. It's fun. There's just something ridiculous about that many totems on the screen at one time.

Now I've seen my twenty totems on screen about 4 billion times at this point. But I simply wasn't prepared for our new "Family Photo" we took on Saturday.

Twenty Totems is proud to announce the names of our final two members. Torstien and Belec.

As you can see from our Armory listing, we are now 20 Shaman strong. Don't strain yourself, I'll do the math for you... that's 80 totems. BLAM!



Oh, and this is 20 Puppies. Who doesn't love 20 Puppies! We totally need to change our guild name to that.

We gathered for the first time outside of Orgrimmar. Turns out there are other people who use the front of Org (go figure) and at least one of them is a 12 year old guild leader, who thinks its funny to run his mount through our group for about 20mins until his rather mature guild member (a nice rogue I can't remember his name) convinced him to simply let us take our screenshots. Thanks rogue! If you want to be in a guild with decent people, you're welcome to come join For Horde.



After we got our front door shots, we decided to have a dance party. But come on! You can't have any decent kind of party outdoors in that weather! So we looked for a good place to "Drop Totem" and party down... So we lit up the AH. :) It was fun for us, and a good way to punish the heretics who insist on playing WoW with crappy video cards.



I know leveling 5 Shaman to 70 blows sauce. (moldy sauce at that) So I was really encouraged to see all 3 new members burn their groups up to 24+ in the first couple days. And while they admit it's not that fun, we all agreed that after getting together, we can't wait to do it at 70.

There are so many thing we want to try. MC, ZG, Kara, PvP both BG and World. There are just so many fun things ahead of us, and I truly believe I found the perfect 3 people to join me. Thanks again guys.

Boom

PS. I want to apologize to the poor shaman who kept following us around, and struggled to get /cast multishaman to work after I insisted that's how we did it. >.< /evilgrin

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ask the Twenty Totems: Some basics

Beyond the comments, you'd be surprised how many emails I get. Many are still waiting for me to have time to respond. I assure you, I'll get to them all.

I was answering one this afternoon and realized I was creating useful content for a single person, when instead I could post my replies here for all to enjoy, absorb and shoot down (when I'm completely wrong).


So here we go. Our first letter is from Goodie.

Hello,

Hi.

I play a dwarf rogue on Nordrassil, and have gotten quite bored with the game, and I'm looking into multiboxing, and I was wondering about a few things.

Sure! Wasup?

Question one: is it possible to multibox without buying more than one computer? As in, having one screen open, and being able to click the buttons on one WoW character, and have the same abilities activated on the minimized window. (not sure if thats clear, if it isn't, please tell me and I'll try to not get so jumbled)

You sure can. As a matter of fact, I run 5 accounts on 3 machines. On the two machines that each run two accounts at once, I could simply minimize one as you suggest, or better yet, use a program called Maximizer, which allows me to split my screen in two, and have one copy running on the top half of my screen, and another on the bottom. There's more info at www.dual-boxing.com... just search the forums there.


Question two: is it possible to multibox with two different types of character, I was thinking shaman and paladin.

Multiboxing is just sending key presses to multiple copies of WoW. It doesn't care what toons you use, which class etc. However, you only really control the movements of your main toon, while the rest follow. That means that while your main can be a melee class (like your Pally), your "drones" need to be ranged DPS/Healing to work well. A Tankadin/Elemental Shaman group is actually pretty common. (if you're a coward of course... DPS4LIFE!)


Question three: if the first two are possible, is it possible to do them on my macbook? (no, I am not a gamer, and so I don not have a gaming computer)

On a what now? :) While I don't game on a Mac, I'm actually a huge Apple fan. However, I don't know exactly what programs are available to you on Mac. I know you can use Synergy, but I don't know about broadcasting your keystrokes to WoW. Maybe someone can answer this in the comments this week.

If not, just type "Mac" into the forums over at dual-boxing.com and you're sure to find the answers there.


Thanks for your help,
Goodie

Hey... I'm here for you. Just you. And well... the other person that reads my blog. /yell HI MOM!

Boom

80 Totems: The position is filled



Well, I have to be honest... I was overwhelmed by the response to my last post. I asked for other multiboxers to submit an application to me, if they'd like to level up 5 Shaman with the Twenty Totems tag.

After going through each and every PM, I narrowed it down to two players who seemed to be a good fit for our little Shaman project.

Twenty Totems now has 20 Shaman! When I checked this morning, the three other groups were at level 20/23/28ish. That's amazing. We'll have an army of lvl70 Shaman in no time! :)

I'm hoping to get a screenshot with everyone this Saturday, at which time I'll post it here, and introduce each group. Check back Saturday!

Boom

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Twenty Totems Gets a Bit Hotter



I know many multiboxers take up the hobby as a way to separate themselves from other players. It works. Once you get your gear moving, even with 5 shaman there's very little in game I can't do outside of 10+ man instances. Even Heroics.

But I'm not one of those boxers. I love playing with other people. That's probably why you're more likely to find me in a BG or clearing out Goldshire than by myself in an instance somewhere.

It's true I run one of the largest guilds on Argent Dawn (www.forhorde.org) but because I wanted my boys to wear the tag, I'm rarely in guild chat anymore.

But I've been pretty happy with my setup so far.

This week, a Dual-Boxing.com regular, Zaedra, sent me a PM. She's been leveling a 3x Gnome Warlock team (yes yes, I know... Boom's favorite) and just acquired 2 new accounts. Most of her friends are on Alliance, but she shares the same love of AD Horde players as I do.

After a bit of negotiation, I welcomed her 5 new Troll Shamans into Twenty Totems.

Welcome Zaedra!
(and grats on lvl10 btw. That's 10 totems, with 10 more to go!)

Our hopes are that as she levels to 70, we'll be able to attempt even crazier things with 10 Shaman, than what I've been able to accomplish so far with 5.

This got me thinking. What if I welcomed in 2 more players, 5 shaman each. 80 Totems anyone? :) Half of an AV... a full multiboxed AB or EotS. Maybe we could clear Molten Core together. The possibilities are endless.

So here's the deal. If you are a multiboxer, and would like to roll 5 shaman, horde side, on one of the greatest servers this game has to offer, I'd be interested in giving you a home in TT. I only ask that you be 21 or older, have at least a few months of multiboxing under your belt, and come with an understanding that you're gonna get to 70 on your own. I'm not offering you any help. Just a home, and a hell of a cool tag under your shaman's names. (if I may gloat. :)

If you're interested, PM me over at www.dual-boxing.com

For now, I'm just glad to have
Zaedra around, and look forward to the possibilities.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Multiboxing Alterac Valley: Earning My Hammers



As any of the Armory trolls can tell you, the Twenty Totems have been running around in some pretty embarrassing gear. Hey, ya gotta start somewhere right? The worst being my weapons. Mainly the boys were still sporting the Azure Lightblade, a healing dagger from a quest in Nagrand of all places. Yes, the stupid thing has only 48 spell damage, and I'd be an Alliance Pally (total idiot) to actually enchant those things. So I didn't.

So when I started PvP this last weekend, I had one goal in mind. 25,200 honor. That, and 20 Eye of the Storm Marks, would finally get me my Gladiator's Gavels. Now THAT'S worth enchanting. :) Speaking of, now that we (as enchanters) can merge 3 small prismatic shards into 1 large, I had just enough mats to enchant all 5 Gavels with Major Spellpower. (for the bean counters, that's about 1500g in enchanting mats based on AD prices. My wallet hurts.)



The 25k honor didn't turn out to be the problem. It was the tokens. I hate EotS. As I've discussed here before, any BG besides AV, due to the number of players, is really rough on multiboxers. But I wanted my maces. I tried two matches, and lost huge, and got screamed at by my own team. (of course) I had to try something different.

I decided it was time to hit the trade channel and ask for pvpers. I got two. Both of whom ended up running MANY rounds with me. I warned them up front that I was running EotS, and that we would be losing today. We never lost once. I'll go into the strategies we discovered in another article, another time.



Not only did I get my maces yesterday, but I also realized each Shaman had about 30 Alterac Valley Tokens IN THE MAIL. That means they each had 100 in their inventory. So I decided it was time to change mounts, and grab one of Thrall's. (Thrall was the War Chief of the Frostwolf Clan... learn2lore noob)

I want to thank the players who jumped in and went pvp'n with the Twenty Totems on Sunday. I have their names written down at home somewhere, and I'll post them when I find them.

They helped me realize that with a little communication, AV doesn't have to be me only source of pvp fun. Heck, maybe I'll sneak back into WSG someday soon...


By the way

The very talented Boylston over at Lightning Overload (one of my favorite multiboxing blogs) wrote up an excellent BG guide for multiboxers. Check it out here. It's worth the read.