Peter's Blog

Got to level 28 on World of Warcraft, nearly half way to the ultimate goal of level 60 (until the Burning Crusade expansion raises the bar to 70: my copy is on pre-order). Bullet points:

• the game is getting more of a grind. Play is very repetative, maybe it's because a paladin can do little more than whack axes with the occasional dropping of a hammer of judgement now and then. Killing goes like this: get close enough to enemy, right click enemy, press 4 (seal of something), slight pause, press 7 (judgement), slight pause, press 2 (seal of something else), wait for enemy to die. Gets more interesting with tougher enemies (press 7, 2 a few more times) or when other enemies join the fight (press 6, consecration) but that covers 95% of fighting. When I have tried other permutations (e.g. 2 then 4) the monsters take longer to die so experience tells me this sequence is optimal.
• the paladin eventually gets a nice 'excorcism' spell that can be used against undead monsters. This is a joy, the one true nice ranged attack that can be used to draw individuals from a group for dispatch with the axe. There are various bombs an engineer can use but the bigger the bomb, the smaller distance it can be thrown: with the bronze bomb, the monster will see you and attack before you are close enough to hit it with the bomb (it's running towards me and I am standing there with a bomb in my hand). In fact, since the bombs do no damage to me I find it best to drop the bomb at my own feet to hurt whoever I am fighting. The explosive sheep is good for this, it's effectively a 'deal 100 damage now' button, but they are complex to make.
• when fighting one monster and getting low on health it is good to stun the monster and heal self during the two second window. I don't think stun is 100% reliable but it seems to work more often than not. This is no good if there is more than one monster as any damage you receive from non-stunned monsters interrupt the healing spell. My ultimate defence is always 'divine protection' which gives me time for almost 100% healing: IF I haven't been too lavish with the spells and used up all my mana! This has happened to me more than once, I fire up divine protection and discover I haven't enough mana for a healing. No other option but to start running. I haven't yet programmed myself to try the 'lay on hands' which would give me 100% health but would take all my remaining mana (any pittance is enough).
• My last attempt at Dead Mines was the usual demoralising affair. It went like this:
  • while flying to Westfall, look for group to join. By the time I landed I was invited into a group.
  • try to locate group members. Leader runs off and starts messing around duelling. After this he announces he is not doing the Dead Mines any more and leaves the group. Damn kids.
  • other members of group come and go. Lots of waiting around for a stable group to emerge that will attempt the mine.
  • finally end up in a group of me (25 paladin), a 20 rogue and a level 10 paladin (! wanted to be a twink, i.e. a weak player that comes along for the ride and grab goodies). Not a very strong group.
  • through abdications I end up as leader but twink asks to lead so I give up the lead.
  • eventually we start fighting. People seem reluctant to start fighting, I think dammit, tired of waiting and start attacking.
  • not bad progress, make it as far as shredder.
  • level 20 guy decides to stop for his tea! His character sits there doing nothing.
  • I try to tank shredder but fail: I wasn't sure whether to rely on the twinks healing or do a divine protection and succumbed. Need more practise at this.
  • couldn't get back to shredder without getting nobbled by two elite monsters on the way. No help from others.
  • a level 41 guy suddenly joins the group.
  • level 20 guy leaves group with no word.
  • I get kicked out the group. I think what happened was the twink had another character and they decided to bring it in to clean up. The twink threw me and the other guy out the group so they would get all the experience and goodies (this is why the twink wanted to be leader while exhibiting no leadership whatsoever). The whole thing has left me distrusting of group play and I haven't tried any dungeons since. Unless you play with people you know it is pot luck on whether you will get a quality team and won't get backstabbed or abandoned to fend for yourself. My current strategy is to wait until I am sufficiently powerful to tackle these things on my own. I get negligible experience and any goodies I get are probably only not powerful enough for me but I can say I have done it.

Moral: Hell is other people.

Tried using my mum's Kodak Photodock to print some photo's, thus avoiding the hassle of ordering prints online: if I only want one picture I don't have to pay £1.50 postage. Tried changing the ink cartridge and the printer refused to release it. Tried unscrewing and fiddling but it still wouldn't come out. Went online and kodak's troubleshooting faq said that with these symptoms it should be sent back to Kodak for repair.

So I bought a Canon CP510, a basic 6x4 inch photo printer in Jessops. The reviews I had read told me that the print quality was very good and apparently the prints will last for 100 years. I hate inkjet printers, cheap and nasty things and the ink cartridges always need replacing and cheap clone cartridges always have at least one blocked jet. Yuk. Hence this 'dye sublimation' thing. I also like Canon, my canon scanner and laser printer have served me well.

The CP510 is a basic model, it doesn't have an LCD display or memory card slots, it is designed to print either from a pc or directly from a camera (it has a retractable usb cable). The more expensive models have more features for printing without a pc but I am unlikely to use these.

When I got it out the box I was perturbed to see that it was obviously the same technology and mechanism as the kodak. Looking through the troubleshooting faq it didn't mention the problem I had with the kodak so hopefully they have fixed it.

I printed some photo's out and was disappointed with the results. The resolution was fine but the pictures were muddy, the colours dull. I fiddled with the settings a bit, increasing brightness, contrast and saturation but I didn't get results that were anywhere near as good as prints I get from photobox. The paper has two tear-off stubs at either end and when you hold the finished print you can feel the perforations and it is irrationally annoying.

On the whole I must say I am disappointed with it. It is ok for knocking out quick prints but for populating photo albums I would prefer to use photobox.

I'm sure everyone has remembered to update their copyright years. I just did mine here and note that this blog is in it's fourth copyright year, the first being 2004.

And they said it wouldn't last, that it would go into haitus for months and then be reinvented as a World of Warcraft drivel blog with little programming content.

During my morning, pre-work World of Warcraft session I was in Duskwood and decided to do a quick quest, a 'simple' kill 12 monsters thing. I went to the Rotting Orchard and found another guy to group with and I had my kills in about 10 minutes. What was interesting was that:

• the other guy was a level 29 human paladin (me 28 dwarf paladin)
• he had a big helmet on (my headware is +100 armour but is a daft looking thing).
• he had a big glowing sword (I use single axe so I can hold big shield in offhand for +400 armour)
• he could run about twice as fast as me

He was a very effective group member! I suspect he was twinked up somewhat.

I didn't even know that paladins could use swords, so I checked on Wow Wiki (a very comprehensive wow reference) and I can learn to use them in stormwind! I must try this, there is a possibility that swords are more effective than axes. At the very least, it makes a change and it doubles the choice of weapons available in auctions.

More things to try:

• buying enchantments
• buying grind stones to 'sharpen' weapons
• giving up engineering and becoming a blacksmith. Blacksmiths can make sword and armour. I'd have to grind it somewhat to get to a level where I can make weapons useful to a level 29 but the things I can make in advanced engineering seems more like toys. Swords and armour are more fundamentally useful.
• start an alternate blacksmith character. Possible, but I'm not sure I can be bothered to level it up.

What really annoys me is that just yesterday a monster dropped a nice big sword and I didn't think about it, I just flogged it in an auction for 1.5 gold (the most I have sold something for). I don't remember it's stats, I didn't even bother to look.

I have accumulated enough gold to buy a nice blue weapon (blue = a powerful weapon occasionally dropped by monsters) in an auction but I am too mean. 15 gold for 30% more DPS? Is it worth it? I have a hard time parting with more than one gold for anything.

Summary of site statistics for 2006, courtesy of Statcounter.

186,756 visitors! That's two or three football stadiums. An awful lot never come back though Still, I don't visit THEIR sites either.

My normal realm (Aerie Peak Europe) was down so spent the evening with my Human Mage on Darkspear.

In a couple of hours got him from level four to level eight.

Observations:

• First eight levels seem much easier with Mage than they were with Paladin. Not sure if it is because the ranged attacks are much more powerful or because I just know the enemies better. Since you attack from a distance as enemies run towards you, you already have a head start in damage. The only ranged attack the paladin has is against undead monsters and this does make raiding much, much easier: you shoot one guy and he leaves the pack to smite you. Usually as paladin you have to take on the whole pack at once, if there is a group of, say, three you have to give up.
• Trained the Mage up in skinning and leatherworking just to try those professions out. Skinning does look like a quick way to make money, skinnable animals all around.
• Since I was still a level four I started off in a noob area (Northshire Abbey). This guy comes up to me and says 'If you give me all your money, I know a spell to make you level 14'. Gimmee strength, reminds me of the wallet inspector in the Simpsons.

I contemplated moving my Paladin to Darkspear so the Mage can be a legitimate alt character and can, for example, send the Paladin free leather. However the free transfer page on the blizzard site is broken (UPDATE: you only get free transfers if the server is full and they want people to jump ship) and a paid transfer costs £15 and takes a few days during which you cannot play (horrors). May just leave them separate for the occasions where Aerie Peak is down and Darkspear is up. I could move the Mage to Aerie Peak but I have no great love of Aerie Peak and £15 is a bit steep. I could create a new character in two or three evenings.

I have no cross-dressing tendancies but you very rarely see female dwarf characters in WoW as they look a bit matronly. Could be worth it for the exclusivity. Doubt I'd be invited on many raids though, it'd be too much like inviting your mum. UPDATE: as luck would have it, saw female dwarf dressed in a bikini the very next day.

I succumbed to my temptations and some of these relate to World of Warcraft.

As contemplated in previous postings I have:

• learnt two-handed swords (as well as one-handed and polearms, should these ever be useful) from trainer in Stormwind (whoop me or something in an arms dealer shop in the trade district). Not expensive to learn.
• bought a 'combatant claymore' a big two-handed sword capable of 27 dps. It is VERY nice: peak damages of 250 can kill level 13 creatures in one strike. It is so nice going back to places where I struggled and wiping whole camps of creatures out (very Arnie in Terminator). It cost me 14 gold in the Auction House (AH) but was worth it. With it I am strong enough to raid mogrosh camp (level 20 elite monsters) and gather green items to sell in the AH. It should pay back the investment while providing some fun. The camp has a boss at level 22 with two level 20 minions that I cannot split. These are too tough for me (me level 29) to kill unaided. I still doubt I am in deadmines solo territory but I might try it someday.
• I unlearnt engineering and am power-levelling blacksmithing. I need to get to around level 150 to be able to make things that are useful to myself. So far I am about level 37. Each increase in level involves making something so I have to make 113 more items. Each of these needs materials, say 8 copper bars, so I am going to need a lot of materials. 20 x Copper is 60 silver in the AH so I'll probably do a lot of farming around lock modan. I made lots of copper bracers as they take only two coppoer bars and then destroyed them because they weren't worth selling. Now making bracers is too easy and won't make my level increase. The whole power levelling thing is about efficient use of resources.
• I can already make grinding stones that will sharpen my sword for more damage and also makes it glint. Blacksmithing already more routinely useful to me than engineering was.

One of my aims in playing World of Warcraft was to see if it really was addictive. Well, I woke up at six this morning and my first thought was, great I can get up and play WoW. Which I did, for about an hour and a half till I had to go to work (I just had to reach level 30).

I played it for four or five hours yesterday. I don't sit and watch TV, I'd rather play WoW.

I was trying to figure out what it is that keeps me interested. The game gives continual rewards while you play, you kill a monster and find goodies on it's body, you complete a quest and get a reward, every day or two you earn enough experience to go up a level which makes you more powerful, you can learn new fighting skills and can tackle harder quests. You can save up money and spend it on powerful weapons and armour, the weapons particularly giving gratification.

You can choose what kind of session you want:

• progress quests, kill hard monsters, get glory and advance the game
• go around easier levels gathering materials for making things for money
• fiddle around, make things, seeing what's available in the auction house, plan how you can make your man more powerful. Yesterday I discovered that I could buy a new cloak that had twice the armour value of my old cloak, increased my stats and made my character look more cool.
• in theory you can work on the fishing profession and go fishing. For me this is just too boring, you literally sit there waiting for 20 seconds per cast for the float to bob. I might be able to stand it if I could take my eye off the screen for a second.

The typical routine when playing is:

• I always start off in Iron Forge, a city with all the resources I need (bank, auction house, vendors, blacksmith forge). I could use Stormwind City but that is larger, harder to navigate and the graphics make me feel sick. There are advantages to leaving your character 'resting' in a city: the longer he rests, the more experience bonus you get next time you play.
• Check mail, see if auctioned items have sold. If not then either auction them again (if they are particularly valuble) or just flog them to vendors for a pittance.
• Decide where to go, do I go somewhere easy just to farm goodies for profit (e.g. loch modan, good for copper) or do I go somewhere that I will find quests at my level (currently darkshire or Wetlands).
• Fly wherever by griffin.
• Do quests/farm until inventory is full.
• Use hearthstone to return instantly to IronForge.
• Auction high level items that I don't need
• Sell low level items that aren't worth auctioning to vendors
• If I've accumulated enough items to make something then make it and sell/auction it.
• Store as much as possible in the bank so that as much of my bag space is free as possible as this means I can gather more loot.
• /exit
• Enjoy Real Life
• Repeat

One of these iterations takes an hour or two. Towards the end I normally have full bags and am deciding which items to destroy to make space for new things I plunder. The game limits the rate at which you can sell items to the vendors that you find throughout the land. Once your bags are full and the vendors won't buy any more stuff the main option left is to destroy it. Theoretically I could make more space by mailing items to myself but the mail boxes are in towns and by the time I get back to towns I am ready for a break back in Iron Forge anyway.

Conclusion: it's a very rich game, lots of depth, different things to do. It is constantly gratifying.

What is it about Barclays Bank customers that makes the phishers target them more than any other bank (according to my gmail spam list)?

• Are they particularly gullible?
• particularly rich and worth swindling?
• is the barclays web site easy to copy?
• are there more than enough profits from barclays that it's not worth copying more sites?
• do the other banks (including mine) hire hit men?

What could it be?

Spam on gmail is definitely getting worse, 30-50 messages a day. I've given up checking the list for false positives beyond a quick scan for subjects that make sense (why would I open an email with the subject 'Re: ceiling banana'?).

Realised for the second time that I have been doing something stupid in World of Warcraft. When I have upgraded my soulbound items I have been destroying the old ones because the Auction Houses won't accept them. Instead I could have been selling them to vendors.

I understand this rule is in the game engine as it stops the world being flooded with excess elite hand-me-down goodies. Selling the items to vendors effectively removes them from circulation as the vendors don't sell them to anyone else. However, ones first instinct is to sell as much as possible in auctions because the prices are better.

Another limitation on selling applies to the rate at which you can sell things to vendors: there are a limited number of slots to put your items in and these slots empty every hour or so. The slots are shared by all the vendors in the game so you cannot simply keep selling to different vendors. Without this limitation one could rapidly farm and sell items but by limiting the speed at which people can sell things it also limits the speed at which money can be made and provides a disincentive to bots.

A WoW annoyance is the spamming from people selling game gold for real-world money. I am not interested in this, I want to play the game. Apparently the people who sell the gold use bots that automate the farming.

Another thing that kinda annoys me is people who auction something and put a buyout price of 99 gold on items that are only worth 50 silver. What IS the point? Is there ANY chance that anyone is so desperate for that item that they will pay 99 gold? It's equivalent to having no buyout price (which is the default). Or is there something to this that I am missing? Is it a money laundering tactic???

UPDATE: Blizzard agree with me, in the latest patch they have altered the sorting in the lists so things with silly buyout prives are at the bottom.