Honor's Code

Please note there are major spoilers for the Alliance Broken Shore scenario contained in this blog post. ***SPOILER ALERT***    ***SPOILER ALERT*** The King Returns My Dearest Mylra, I’m sure by now, even in Deepholm, you’ve heard of King Magni’s return. While it thrills me to see him moving again, I am relieved he is allowing the Council to remain ruling Ironforge. The last thing this world needs is another War of Three Hammers and you know better than anyone how my heart would be divided in a such a conflict. I could never stand against my fellow Bronzebeards, nor could I take up arms against your Wildhammers. With the Council still in place, it will not look odd or out of place for a Wildhammer and a Bronzebeard to be seen strolling together through the Commons. It is hard to believe it has been four years since we first met far above the rocky surface of Deepholm. So much has happened in that time: the rediscovered of Pandaria, then the reopening of the Dark...

You ever read something and identify with it -- like the person was telling you your own story. This  happened to me reading the comments on the Officer's Quarter post " The repentant quitter and the wandering officer " on Blizzard Watch. User Fyresparxx said this: Guild searching often makes me feel like a hooker. (Am I allowed to say that?) I want a mythic tank slot more than anything else. Those slots are really hard to come by. Which often makes me consider what I'm willing to do to get one. I've raided with guilds I actively dislike. I've put up with abusive environments and rampant guild drama. I've tolerated corrupt leadership. I consider joining guilds I know for a fact that I won't enjoy. But I want that tank slot. It's like a drug. I need it and I'll do just about anything to get it.  I would say I feel more like a mercenary. I've never had any ambitions of being a Mythic raider, but I understand the craving for a tank spo...

Welcome to Patch Day! It looks like a longer maintenance today (as expected) so if you need a suggestion passing the time, I'd start with reading up on the changes if you haven't already. I've got both a Protection and Retribution guide up on Blizzard Watch. After that, I'd recommend the Legion comics. They are well done, and the Madefire Motion Book editions bring them to life with music and movement. My favorite was  Fault Lines , but A Mountain Divided was solid as well. Highmountain: A Mountain Divided Nightborne: Twilight of Suramar Magni: Fault Lines I got pretty much everything done I wanted to last night before I logged off. I didn't make a huge amount of gold, but every little bit helps. I sent out the team on one last gold gathering mission. I'm assuming the rewards won't change for an active mission and I'll still get the gold for the last time. We'll see tonight. One mount I've been able to use in Beta that I'm goin...

Tonight is the last night before everything changes. I expect the servers will be somewhat unplayable tomorrow. The maintenance for these large patches often gets extended and then when the servers do come up, they can be a little unstable. In preparation, I've been working on liquidating my Garrisons on my 4 'mains' : Honors, Kishuf, Theogrun and Rophe. I'm keeping more Primal Spirits and Garrison Resources on Honors because I'm still trying to level up his Jewelcrafting. Thank you to everyone on Blade's Edge selling near vendor priced Blackrock Ore. It's making leveling his profession much easier. Blizzard Watch has a good guide on getting all the gold you can out of your Garrison before the patch. All 4 guys have dozens of Salvage Crates ready to go to unload all that sweet, sweet Transmog gear, but once again, having them scattered all over creation makes it more difficult. If I get a cool Plate item on my Tanaris toons, Honors on Blade's Edge ca...

My next task was to run Memtest86 and Check Disk. Both utilities reported no issues. That was the first bit of good news I had had from the computer in a while. At that point, the issue was narrowed down to either the video card or the motherboard. I ran down to a local 'chop shop' (that's what I call a store that sells computers and used computer parts). For $20, I was able to get both fans and a cheap video card (RADEON 4600 512MB). I replaced the rear exhaust fan, but had some trouble getting the case off to access the front fan. I left that for later and kept the case open with a regular desk fan blowing in it. I replaced the video card, fired her up and installed the drivers. Word came up without an issue. Okay. I tried GiMP. No problems. No crashes, no blue screens. That was already an improvement over what I had been getting. I took a deep breath and started testing my games. I started small with Hearthstone which should be less taxing on the video card than anyt...

I was merrily doing my Garrison chores one fine evening when the screen changed to this wonderful technicolor display. The sound froze and then the screen turned blue and filled with a bunch of computerese. I recognized from the file name that one of my ATI RADEON dlls was the culprit. I shut down and restarted and everything came up fine. I chalked it up to a glitch and after a few moments started up WoW again. When the blue screen returned, I knew I was in trouble. I dove into trying to figure out what was going on starting with the video card drivers. The card I have is a RADEON 6800 series and they stopped supporting it back in March, but I tried every driver available for it on the ATI website, even the beta ones. No driver I tried made any difference. My next thought was to see if maybe, somehow the video card had become loose in the PCIe slot. I didn't how that could happen, but at that point, my main goal was "what", not "how". As soon as I touche...

Thanks to a contest run by the good folks over at WoWhead, I am now in Legion Beta. This blog post is Spoiler Free. Legion goes live in 82 days. I leave for vacation in 79. If you are thinking, that's great, plenty of time to play, you'd be wrong. If I try to break out the laptop and fire up WoW during this vacation, Mrs. Hammer will ensure that the Happiest Place on Earth isn't so happy. My goal with Beta is to both enjoy the story and figure out where everything is. When it is live, I'll be going as fast as I can in order to catch up. It's hard enough securing a tank spot. There's two and only two per raid. Being behind won't help. Hello Beta Logging into Beta was a jarring experience. I've been using ElvUI or Spartan for so long, I had almost forgotten what the default UI looked like. Character copy isn’t implemented yet so you get a stock Level 100 of your chosen class. Sure, I can call him Honors Hammer and make him look like Honors Ham...