Ctrl Alt WoW Episode 92 - The Contest Reading

Aprillian, Glanthur and Ashayo discuss another week of playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's great MMORPG.

Write us at ctrlaltwow@gmail.com Visit our website http://ctrlaltwow.com

What We've Been Doing

Glanthur: Wrathgate from an alliance perspective.  Warning, some spoilers Ashayo Completed Dragonblight questing this week - achievement "Might of Dragonblight" (130 quests) Ashrune, my unholy DK completed the starting zone and is out picking flowers before heading to Outlands Ashayo dinged 77 and bought her cold weather flying ; but still riding until Asheal hits 77 also Factions vs gear level eg Wrymrest Accord in Dragonblight - hit Honored at 75. Great blue waist peice for honoured - but you have to be level 78 Ashayo & Asheak got Tuskarrmageddon achievement ; epic fishing pole and penguin pet, and upgrade chest peice (only needed honoured, but needed level 76) Grizzly hills - Four daily that flags your for PvP - Blue Sky logging grounds. Conquest Hold - pit fighting ; very average cloth rewards. Where's the real replacement for Ring of Blood? Aprillian: Took the twins to Outland for the outland loot, but soon scurry back to level up herbalism and mining. Theardrion-Glacierthief Theprimall-Ratmasher Tuesday morning and evening running around the crater for TheArdrion and Arathi Highland for thePrimall.  Of course Theardrion had a quicker leveling because he got points for smelting Dreamt about farming ore and herbalistm in Arathi Highland all night Tues.  But couldn't right click on nodes. Thursday both Theardrion and Theprimall got to 300 in mining/herbalism.  Sent them to Outland.  Did go to Stonebreaker but then skipped to Falcon Watch 9days left on Tuesday, so by Sun 5 or 4 days left on the mail returned from the great Mail debacle. Friday and Sat morning had Theprimall and Theardrion in Falcon Watch with Rilfire skinning.   Did the collassal and the demonic essence and freeing the hooded people.  Using the rod to reduce  the big Vamithrax like guy.  Both went back to Ebon Hold to train and use a runeforge.  Much harder to level herbalism than mining. Theardrion dinged 62. Sat Theardrion-Grubreaver Theprimall-Dirtleaper Aprillian got 2 shards once so far with the soul shard minor glyph Moved stuff to ally side, selling a lot. The Contest Reading and Results Thanks to everyone who submitted entries.  We got a lot of good responses. Honorable Mentions Heya Ctrl Alt Wow folks! I just thought that I'd enter the contest to win the CE for Wrath of the Lich King,  So, here is my story: If I remember correctly, it is basically how do you balance WoW with home life. As a married man with a wife who does not play WoW, I sometimes find it difficult to get time in to play without getting into trouble.  However, as my wife teaches a night class on Tuesdays, I can usually play then and not have to worry about anything.  On other days, it becomes more difficult, what I have to do is play when she is watching TV shows that I dont particularly like, or when she is busy correcting exams or working on her dissertation. I try to make at least a couple of nights a week that I dont play at all so that I can spend time with her, even if it is just lying down on the couch with her watching TV while she corrects papers during commercials, and on weekends, she will usually sleep in so I can get a couple of hours in in the morning also. I basically just try to strike a balance between getting my addiction in and keeping my marriage intact.... I will always walk the dog with her on the weekends and we do the chores together, so I don't get yelled at for playing that damn game while she is doing all the work. Anyway, I hope that is sufficient, I am certainly not the best writer on the planet, but maybe that wont matter for the contest!  Keep up the good work on the show. Numnug (Aka Steve) ________________

Greetings, Aprillian and Ashayo Please consider this my official entry into the contest. Yours is one of about three or four WoW podcasts that I am subscribed to on iTunes, but it became my favorite after only a couple of episodes. Your laid back approach to the game is one that I can appreciate because I am a very casual player. I have been playing for a couple of years. I once thought that creating too many alts was a sign of some degenerative mental condition. I don't know if it is or not, but at least I know now that I am not the only one that does it! Most of the other WoW podcats cater to the hardcore player who might be focused solely on one class or one activity. CtrlAltWow shows that there us much to appreciate about the game itself. I play on the Moonrunner server. My main characters are Faluciel (70 night elf druid), Conoreyna (70 human warlock), and Either (67 night elf death knight). Wrath of the Lich King has renewed my love for this game (it was starting to falter a bit after some glaring issues I had with TBC). The only problem I have with your podcast is that it makes me want to create even more alts and I need to focus on my death knight! Take care, J Third Place

Good evening to both of my awesome voice accented podcast host.

This email will be for entry into the Wotlk collectors edition contest. It’s a brief story on the rise of my death knight. Just a quick reason for the story if you don’t mind: I transferred servers and a friend of mind actually was using my toons name as a place holder in case we ever decided to move there. Unknown to me at the time I had to change my name and decided to spell my rogue’s name backwards (Suoidisni). Of course I soon found out who was holding my name and didn’t want to pay for another name change; however I decided to create a death knight with the original name. When I heard of the contest y’all were putting on it gave me a great chance to come up with a brief background history on how my rogue dies and becomes a death knight since the DK has my real characters name.

Side Note: Suoidisni (the newly named rogue – which is my main) is Nsidious’s (formerly the rogue main but now a death knight) sister but I didn’t have time to go into that since it was already getting long. And I know how the death knight story line ends but once again I didn’t want to have y’all reading a book.  Spoiler: Suoidisni and Nsidious reunite.

Stun – You’ve met my rogue!

Pressure builds in the confines of your grip. Blood seeps through and begins to wash dirt from your hands as you tighten the grasp around your weapon. Eye’s fixed in time, unable to move beyond their current direction. Lungs fight for each burst of air. You plead with your body to take another breath….but….it doesn’t come.

Your entire body becomes conscious to a truth the brain denies. It’s here. The sound was unmistakable…..stealth….stealth….These words reverberate as they carve their way through the dark layers of your mind.

Your eye lids slam shut. Nothing left to see in this world…quiet…sleep now….

…….

…….

There was a time I fought for the betterment of the horde. But that changed the day we killed Illidan. The battle quickly approached its foreseen conclusion when I was struck by the dark barrage.  As my life slipped away I was comforted knowing we had plenty healers with the ability to resurrect me. But the cast came to late and in those waning moments The Lich King took me….the only part of me that matters.

Now my heart is exceedingly wicked. Filled with hate, I act with no remorse. The world you have created sentenced me to this existence.

*Plagued by unclear voices in my head*

No…no this is more than I can take.

… But look what it did to me..

How can I ask for forgiveness? That which I refused to give, how shall it ever be mine? … It pushed ...but …No, no you pushed... No you can’t have my heart anymore…. No you earned your spot in hell now go there and be content. Forgiveness will not be yours. Salvation shall not receive you. I will give my all to bring you death. You’ll decay in my hate. Let those you love witness your eternal damnation as they drown in your blood. I hate you, you caused this. I’ll deliver your soul to hell. I hate you… I hate you… I hate you…..

voice  “in·sid·i·ous”

I loath the embrace it has on my heart. But far beyond the sun I lay in shadows. I pray that true death finds me soon.

Another Death Knight has been born!

Suoidisni – Insidious

For The Horde… O wait wait a min!

Second Place Hello to Aprillian and Ashayo (and Galanther - sorry on the spelling if it's wrong), I've listened to your show for a long time and I have written to your podcast before, many many lunar festivals ago.  I thought I'd touch briefly on the subjects you mentioned you were interested in hearing about ( thoughts on WotLK and "how do you manage to play WoW and deal with your home life.") First of all, I lead a ridiculously busy schedule so there are times when I won't even get to log on for a month or more.  Without boring everyone too much on the banalities of my life, I'll just mention an overview of why that is.  I work 2 (sometimes 3) jobs and go to school full time.  I also spend about 2 to 3 hours per day in commuting back and forth. In addition I study, write papers, and share the responsibilities of owning a house with my girlfriend.  This leaves me with an average of just under 4 hours for sleep per day.  Last week alone I found myself awake for 41 hours strait writing term papers after I had slept just 5 hours two days prior.  Even with all of this, I love to play WoW.  I play Alliance on the Khaz Modan server, where I have two level 70's (Amaging -Gnome mage; Evilpurger - Human priest), a level 55 (Moonguard - Draenei Pally), a level 42 (Whiskeylover - a drunken Night Elf hunter), two level 19 twinks, and my newest toon: a level 57 DeathKnight named BlightFallen. I don't have a good enough computer to dual box but I'd love to try it.  The majority of my character leveling comes from the summer time and holiday breaks.  I have been playing from near the beginning; I started just a few months after WoW's initial launch and have played on my own pace.  I rarely have time to spend on the game so unfortunately, I've never raided, played an arena, seen any sort of end-game content, bought an epic flyer, or anything of the sort.  I don't cry about not being able to see some content or that I can't get all of the coolest gear.  Things in life often require hard work.  I put in an enormous amount of effort into my life in the real world in hopes that someday it will pay off for me.  The "end-game raiders" that have all of their reputations maxed and nothing but epic and legendary gear have also worked very hard and deserve to have something to show for it that others don't have.  I enjoy WoW from beginning to end.  I still enjoy the original content better than Burning Crusade although I do like what I've seen so far of Wrath... I also bought the BC collector's ed. and was there for the midnight launch of both expansions.  I'd really like to win the Collector's set for WotLK to get all of the great content Blizzard provides both in and out of the game. Thanks again for providing a great show for me to listen to while I drive.  I am up everyday at 4am and get on the road before 5.  Have you heard the radio shows available at that time of day?  Your show, and others like it, provide me an escape from a hectic life as well as keeping me informed about World of Warcraft news when I can't get time to play. Sincerely, Bryan in Phoenix Winner

I've been meaning to write to you guys for a long time (since Brewfest, basically). I have to thank you for passing on that tip about being able to buy an epic brewfest mount if you had the normal mount from the year before. My tauren druid really hates the kodo mount (he feels that they are a rollover risk, have you ever seen how much they lean when they hit a slope?). So, he diligently collected his tickets a year ago and got a brewfest ram and he was very happy. He was also content that he would be able to work on collecting tickets again this year and get an epic version (even though he isn't ready for the epic yet, since I have so many alts). Then he heard the news that you couldn't get a brewfest ram this year. He was devastated. I never thought to just go to the ram dealer and see what he had, what was the point? But after your episode on Brewfest mounts, I hopped right on and bought him his shiny, epic brewfest ram. Now I just need to get him to 60 so he can actually ride it :-) As for how I WoW and how I mix it with my personal life, both my husband and I play WoW. We also both work for ourselves (he's a computer consultant, I'm a web designer). That can be a bad combination, when you feel much more like playing Wrath of the Lich King than finishing up a client's website. It's also hard when he has time to play at home (he does most of his work at the client's location) and I have to work :-( But it helps when he spends some of his time helping my toons, like picking herbs for my scribes. We both have lots of alts, have always played Horde and Alliance fairly evenly, and run two very small guilds of real life friends and family. We don't instance much (we joke that we are the masters of four: four-manning the five-man instances because we can't get enough people together). Our parents and the rest of our family don't understand our hobby, but we have managed to get several friends and our nieces into the game, so we can talk WoW with them. Of course, sometimes we get yelled at (like at the Thanksgiving dinner table) for talking about stuff no one else can understand. That didn't stop us from telling all the undead female jokes from the game ;-) At home, WoW pretty much takes the place of watching tv and going to movies. We consider it a very cheap alternative to doing things like eating out. Our 11 year old daughter plays, but not very much, which is good. She's more into DS and going out with her friends. We're really enjoying Wrath and the Death Knights, the only down side is that I'm very busy with work (which is great), but all I want to do is play WoW. Family and real life definitely trump WoW time, which is one reason we don't do many instances. Though we do play a lot, we don't have set times we play and we often don't play for very long at a time. Thanks for doing the podcast, it's one of my favorites. Keep up the great work. I don't multi-box, but I love hearing tips on managing lots of alts. Karen Elsa - 71 Orc Hunter, Arathor Bast - 70 Humaon Warrior, Uther + 4 other alts that are actively being played right now.