As of last night, I still had no gear. I had made some gains in the Auction House and spent the majority of the night running around Thousand Needles, swinging my Mining Pick or in Ironforge swinging my Blacksmith's Hammer. By the end of the night, I had made some good gains on both Mining and Blacksmithing and ended up logging out with 19 silver and some change to my name.
I get up this morning to go and pick up my daughter and, as always, check my Blackberry for texts and emails. I see that I have 11 new emails. Figuring on about half or more to be spam, as usual, I found that all 11 were from Blizzard. They had restored my characters! I start reading through the emails, finding that they had restored each character on every realm that was hit by the asshat that had ransacked my account.
I logged in after getting home and found that, while I hadn't been restored in the same way that my boss had (all items and gear, plus 75 Emblems of Triumph, 15 Emblems of Frost and 2500g to each level 80), I had been restored to exactly as I was Sunday evening and was more than happy to get it.
I still hold malice for the jackass that did this to my account and would delight in giving him a swift punch in the nose should I ever meet him. However, my week was brightened with seeing Valoren restored to his usual glory.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Slash and dash
This past Friday, our GM decided to trim the fat from our guild. He had made a calendar invite in-game with everyone in the guild invited to it. If you didn't respond to the invite, you were kicked from the guild. We lost one relatively active player due to this but he knew the consequences of not responding. Everyone else was players that show up every once in a while, or not at all.
This has trimmed our guild down to 40-something members, including alts. Has this helped recruiting efforts? Not really. Not at all actually. It seems to have rededicated several of our members to showing up more often than once a month or so. The slashing part of the title definitely holds to this action but alas, is not the topic of this post.
Monday morning, my account was hacked.
I usually get up for work about 7am, which gives me about an hour to get some play time in. Usually poke around the Auction House for a bit after doing my daily random dungeon for my 2 Emblems of Frost. I woke up to my alarm clock and cell phone both going crazy. I checked my phone and saw I had a text from my guild mate and coworker who does the same thing I do every morning, except he does his about an hour and a half before I get up. The text said "Your wow account has been hacked. Guild bank cleaned out. Watched it happen but couldn't kick you". In case you're wondering, he couldn't kick me because we both rank the same in the guild as officers.
I threw my clothes on, ran downstairs and tried to login (not really sure why) and found it wouldn't accept my password. The bastard had changed my password too. I get some more details from my friend. He said the guy spoke Chinese (he translated what he said. Came out roughly to "My mom eats shit") and was logging in and out of my toons rapidly. He managed to kick my two alts in the guild but the damage was done. I assessed the damage from the Armory online. He had stripped me clean.
I finally logged in last night and found that, indeed, I was bare. The only thing he had left me was gear that was unable to be sold to vendors and my quest items. He threw my quest items in the bank, cleared out what he wanted from there (Saronite and Titansteel bars), sold anything and everything he could from not only my main, but my alts and the guildbank. He also hit my characters from Mannoroth and sold anything and everything he could from there as well.
I had known people who had experienced an account compromise like this and they ended up getting everything back from the GMs, just takes a few days. Before I left for work on Monday, I had already filed my ticket for restoration and our guild bank was requested for restore Monday evening. What I had not counted on was the feelings of fear that it had implanted in me. I ran complete system scans on my PC for any trojans/keylogger software that may have been hiding and zipped a file that I suspected may have led to the compromise before changing my password and adding an authenticator back to my account.
I still am somewhat afraid to sign in to my accounts, for whatever reason. I honestly can't find a good reason. I'm always careful with my passwords and now that I have an authenticator, it shouldn't be an issue anymore, just as it has for the past 5 years.
If you don't already have an authenticator, I just became an advocate for them. I urge you to pick one up and use it and save yourself this stress.
And for the bastard that decided to do this to me: I hope you enjoyed the first and last time you saw the inside of my account. Enjoy living under your desk where your slave-driving, gold farmer boss keeps you. Despite you causing me some unneeded stress in my life, I'll continue to enjoy time with my family, drive my Swedish convertible, live in my townhouse and sleep in my Ikea bed. Things you'll never hope to have. Eat shit, asshat.
This has trimmed our guild down to 40-something members, including alts. Has this helped recruiting efforts? Not really. Not at all actually. It seems to have rededicated several of our members to showing up more often than once a month or so. The slashing part of the title definitely holds to this action but alas, is not the topic of this post.
Monday morning, my account was hacked.
I usually get up for work about 7am, which gives me about an hour to get some play time in. Usually poke around the Auction House for a bit after doing my daily random dungeon for my 2 Emblems of Frost. I woke up to my alarm clock and cell phone both going crazy. I checked my phone and saw I had a text from my guild mate and coworker who does the same thing I do every morning, except he does his about an hour and a half before I get up. The text said "Your wow account has been hacked. Guild bank cleaned out. Watched it happen but couldn't kick you". In case you're wondering, he couldn't kick me because we both rank the same in the guild as officers.
I threw my clothes on, ran downstairs and tried to login (not really sure why) and found it wouldn't accept my password. The bastard had changed my password too. I get some more details from my friend. He said the guy spoke Chinese (he translated what he said. Came out roughly to "My mom eats shit") and was logging in and out of my toons rapidly. He managed to kick my two alts in the guild but the damage was done. I assessed the damage from the Armory online. He had stripped me clean.
I finally logged in last night and found that, indeed, I was bare. The only thing he had left me was gear that was unable to be sold to vendors and my quest items. He threw my quest items in the bank, cleared out what he wanted from there (Saronite and Titansteel bars), sold anything and everything he could from not only my main, but my alts and the guildbank. He also hit my characters from Mannoroth and sold anything and everything he could from there as well.
I had known people who had experienced an account compromise like this and they ended up getting everything back from the GMs, just takes a few days. Before I left for work on Monday, I had already filed my ticket for restoration and our guild bank was requested for restore Monday evening. What I had not counted on was the feelings of fear that it had implanted in me. I ran complete system scans on my PC for any trojans/keylogger software that may have been hiding and zipped a file that I suspected may have led to the compromise before changing my password and adding an authenticator back to my account.
I still am somewhat afraid to sign in to my accounts, for whatever reason. I honestly can't find a good reason. I'm always careful with my passwords and now that I have an authenticator, it shouldn't be an issue anymore, just as it has for the past 5 years.
If you don't already have an authenticator, I just became an advocate for them. I urge you to pick one up and use it and save yourself this stress.
And for the bastard that decided to do this to me: I hope you enjoyed the first and last time you saw the inside of my account. Enjoy living under your desk where your slave-driving, gold farmer boss keeps you. Despite you causing me some unneeded stress in my life, I'll continue to enjoy time with my family, drive my Swedish convertible, live in my townhouse and sleep in my Ikea bed. Things you'll never hope to have. Eat shit, asshat.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Raid night failure
Raid night for our guild came and went. I logged in early to make some preparations. At 8:50, there was still only 3 of us. At 9pm, there were 4 of us. One person's phone was turned off. Another was having internet issues. Our guild leader's new work schedule prevented him from making it. We waited until about 9:10 and no one else showed up. Ulduar was a failure. Razorbacks raid night was a failure.
We managed to PUG into an Onyxia 10 run. Originally I was to main tank until it was learned that my supposed off tank was barely hitting 25k health raid buffed and was eaten alive by the whelps. I threw down a Death and Decay after I felt he had enough time to grab them up and immediately pulled them off of him. We booted him, which he understood why. We brought in a Pally tank with about 10k more health than me. I was put into OT role while he MT'd. Long story short, we spent the next hour and half wiping. Partly my fault as I couldn't seem to get my ass out of the Deep Breaths. We ended up getting her down to 0.6% and wiping. The raid leader called it.
We were exhausted, frustrated and for a couple of us, our egos bruised. Myself, I was not only frustrated at myself for not moving from the Deep Breaths but also rather disappointed in my guild. Most people had not even bothered to answer yes or no to the invitation.
This has spurred our GM to trim the fat from our guild. He has decided that any inactive members will be booted from the guild as of 1-15-10. He's tired of being a parking lot for alts and inactive members. He has decided that we are going to be an active, casual raiding guild, which is fine by me.
We managed to PUG into an Onyxia 10 run. Originally I was to main tank until it was learned that my supposed off tank was barely hitting 25k health raid buffed and was eaten alive by the whelps. I threw down a Death and Decay after I felt he had enough time to grab them up and immediately pulled them off of him. We booted him, which he understood why. We brought in a Pally tank with about 10k more health than me. I was put into OT role while he MT'd. Long story short, we spent the next hour and half wiping. Partly my fault as I couldn't seem to get my ass out of the Deep Breaths. We ended up getting her down to 0.6% and wiping. The raid leader called it.
We were exhausted, frustrated and for a couple of us, our egos bruised. Myself, I was not only frustrated at myself for not moving from the Deep Breaths but also rather disappointed in my guild. Most people had not even bothered to answer yes or no to the invitation.
This has spurred our GM to trim the fat from our guild. He has decided that any inactive members will be booted from the guild as of 1-15-10. He's tired of being a parking lot for alts and inactive members. He has decided that we are going to be an active, casual raiding guild, which is fine by me.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
New year part deux
So here we are in the year 2010. New challenges in the real world and in Azeroth. While our guild isn't quite ready for ICC10, unfortunately, we are making our guild debut in Ulduar this Friday. Sure, we're only 9 months late and there's probably not a whole lot of gear that could benefit our core group of mains from there. Most of us are mostly T9 geared. Gear isn't the point of going.
Part of us going is the weekly raid quest is for Flame Leviathan. Last week the raid was XT-002 Deconstructor. Since Flame Leviathan has to be cleared out before you can get to Deconstructor, those of us that have done the fights know the basic idea of what to do on these two bosses.
This leads to the second part of why we're going into Ulduar. While we may have the gear to probably go into Trial of the Crusader, we don't have the raiding experience together. We all usually join in on raids where we can since we don't usually have the numbers to form our own. Many of us want to raid and we've decided that since 3.3 and changes to the way PUGs can be formed, it's a lot easier to pull in extras for raids and as such, we should do so.
We were rather apprehensive as to if we could actually ever do Ulduar but seeing as how these two bosses were rather simple, even for a PUG group, we have decided to give our first raiding venture in about 6 months up to Ulduar. We anticipate needing to pick up a couple players here and there to fill out our ranks, probably healers. However, we also are anticipating the possibility of being able to field all Razorback 10man raids again on a regular basis. We have had several members return from hiatus and one of our lower level recruits is nearing 80 on her DPS DK.
The time seems right for the Razors to come back into raiding, even if it is on content that's over 6 months old and no one is really concerned with anymore.
Comments left below!
Part of us going is the weekly raid quest is for Flame Leviathan. Last week the raid was XT-002 Deconstructor. Since Flame Leviathan has to be cleared out before you can get to Deconstructor, those of us that have done the fights know the basic idea of what to do on these two bosses.
This leads to the second part of why we're going into Ulduar. While we may have the gear to probably go into Trial of the Crusader, we don't have the raiding experience together. We all usually join in on raids where we can since we don't usually have the numbers to form our own. Many of us want to raid and we've decided that since 3.3 and changes to the way PUGs can be formed, it's a lot easier to pull in extras for raids and as such, we should do so.
We were rather apprehensive as to if we could actually ever do Ulduar but seeing as how these two bosses were rather simple, even for a PUG group, we have decided to give our first raiding venture in about 6 months up to Ulduar. We anticipate needing to pick up a couple players here and there to fill out our ranks, probably healers. However, we also are anticipating the possibility of being able to field all Razorback 10man raids again on a regular basis. We have had several members return from hiatus and one of our lower level recruits is nearing 80 on her DPS DK.
The time seems right for the Razors to come back into raiding, even if it is on content that's over 6 months old and no one is really concerned with anymore.
Comments left below!
Monday, January 4, 2010
New year, new spec
Happy 2010 to all, hoping that the the holidays have treated everyone well and have recovered from the festivities of December 31st/January 1st.
2010 is sure to some big changes for Azeroth. Icecrown Citadel is hinted at opening a new wing tomorrow (1/5/10, wow.com), the rest to follow within the coming months. After Arthas has been dethroned, another major content patch will be readied and setting the events leading into Cataclysm into motion.
As for myself, the new year has brought my family outside the game a bit closer and resolved some issues there. Inside the game, it's brought me to 3 new pieces of gear (neck from Heroic Halls of Reflection, T9 tanking helm and tanking sigil from Emblems of Frost), my first venture into Ulduar and as of this morning, a new tanking spec.
I have left the frozen realm of the Frost tree for the warm crimson pools of death in the Blood tree. Shocking I know.
I've been noticing when I compare DK tanks on my server of Zul'jin, there is a large majority that are Blood tanks. I know that all 3 trees were capable of tanking but how well Blood actually did seemed to be lost on me. Being as I've not really raided in almost 2 years, I've not been exposed to enough DK tanks to know. Most of the DK tanks I've been with have been Unholy or Frost. Now it seems that Unholy has fallen out of favor as a tanking tree and Blood may be in line to take it's place and form a larger user base. Frost still holds ground as a good all around tanking tree and I think it may always do so. It seems that Frost will possibly be in favor of DKs just starting out tanking due to the strong threat and strong damage reductions.
Blood on the other hand offers strong threat but not as much in terms of damage reductions. Instead, Blood relies on self-healing and beating the snot out of the mob you have. There are some damage reducing talents but not as strong or as many as there are for Frost. While the tank will actually be taking more damage, the amount of healing coming in from attacks and properly executed Rune Taps make for some very nice heals. I used Rune Tap in my Unholy build when I played with it and it makes for some really nice heals.
I haven't been able to try out the spec yet and most likely won't get to until tomorrow morning but we'll see how it works out.
Happy 2010 to all! Leave comments and questions if you have any!
2010 is sure to some big changes for Azeroth. Icecrown Citadel is hinted at opening a new wing tomorrow (1/5/10, wow.com), the rest to follow within the coming months. After Arthas has been dethroned, another major content patch will be readied and setting the events leading into Cataclysm into motion.
As for myself, the new year has brought my family outside the game a bit closer and resolved some issues there. Inside the game, it's brought me to 3 new pieces of gear (neck from Heroic Halls of Reflection, T9 tanking helm and tanking sigil from Emblems of Frost), my first venture into Ulduar and as of this morning, a new tanking spec.
I have left the frozen realm of the Frost tree for the warm crimson pools of death in the Blood tree. Shocking I know.
I've been noticing when I compare DK tanks on my server of Zul'jin, there is a large majority that are Blood tanks. I know that all 3 trees were capable of tanking but how well Blood actually did seemed to be lost on me. Being as I've not really raided in almost 2 years, I've not been exposed to enough DK tanks to know. Most of the DK tanks I've been with have been Unholy or Frost. Now it seems that Unholy has fallen out of favor as a tanking tree and Blood may be in line to take it's place and form a larger user base. Frost still holds ground as a good all around tanking tree and I think it may always do so. It seems that Frost will possibly be in favor of DKs just starting out tanking due to the strong threat and strong damage reductions.
Blood on the other hand offers strong threat but not as much in terms of damage reductions. Instead, Blood relies on self-healing and beating the snot out of the mob you have. There are some damage reducing talents but not as strong or as many as there are for Frost. While the tank will actually be taking more damage, the amount of healing coming in from attacks and properly executed Rune Taps make for some very nice heals. I used Rune Tap in my Unholy build when I played with it and it makes for some really nice heals.
I haven't been able to try out the spec yet and most likely won't get to until tomorrow morning but we'll see how it works out.
Happy 2010 to all! Leave comments and questions if you have any!
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