Yesterday I broke down. Since I have returned to WoW since playing... well still playing EVE Online I decided a couple of things. 1) No more hardcore raiding. I have a job. 2) Minimalistic addon approach.

Everything was going great until yesterday when I broke rule 2 like a Ninja surrounded by perfectly good necks. I was perusing the curse addon site and lo and behold something catches my eye. Mobmap. Sounds innocent enough ok... checked it out... requires a download from Curse plus going to a secondary website and downloading a database. *Warning Bells* NEVER DOWNLOAD ADDONS FROM UNKNOWN SITES. However feeling confident that Firefox + Noscript would protect me in the event of a key logger attempt, I checked it out.

So far so good and I have to say I am impressed. Mobmap adds a button to your map that gives it thottbot like prowess. Simply click the mobmap button, enter the name of the npc your looking for and it shows up on the map thottbot style. Looking for the mob you need to kill, or who to turn the quest into... etc etc. It comes complete with databases for quests, mobs, items, recipes, harvestable nodes, etc.

I recommend reading the instructions and being careful. I have not done anything to confirm that parts of this mob are safe. I did not use the auto updater either. So far everything is legit and this is quite possibly the biggest time saving mod I have. Its especially useful when playing on the road where I do not have the luxary of dual monitors as I dont have to leave WoW to thottbot something. Not to mention that anything I do lookup in game is displayed on my map and mini map.

Definitely give this addon a look and comment on your experience with it.

~Cerias Shadows

Meebo just opened a new feature called meebo rooms. Basically glorified aol chat rooms. However they do have a couple of tricks up their sleeves. One is the URL sharing. You can type in a URL to a video and meebo will parse it load the video and let everyone else just click play or auto play it based on your settings. I opened a room for RogueSpot.com and embedded the chat program here.

This will be a sort of trial run if people start to use it then well keep it... Ill stay in it while at work and chat from time to time.

See ya there.

~CS

So it looks like I am going to be able to make the RogueSpot T-Shirts happen. I have started a new thread where I am posting design ideas... there are a total of 4 through out the thread and I will revise them as I get more input. The saying isn't finalized feel free to suggest better or tweak the ones we have. Feel free to comment on the logo portion too. I will not be using the graphical logo for roguespot (see top of page) unless there is an artistic rogue out there capable of redoing the logo at 300 dpi and if you do that please shoot me the Photoshop files. :-)

~Cerias Shadows

Looks like Ming has posted a new thread in the Rogue Forums. He gives a full description and run down of what the video contains and who it features in the thread.

Download the Video

This video focuses on the state of 1 vs 1 Duels against other classes. It touts that the opponents are all very skilled players in arena combat and very well equipped. Im still waiting in que to be able to stream it but Id like to know what everyone else thinks about this video. Is the portrayal of the Rogue class in 1 vs 1 pvp accurate?

~Cerias Shadows

We have all seen it. If you have played for more then 2 minutes in any zone inhabited by more then one player in wow you have been barraged by gold sellers, power levelers, and honor point farmers. It's all super cheap, safe and confidential. If you believe that than I have some Ocean front property in North Dakota for you.

On the matter of it being safe I can say for verifiable fact that gold farmers are not safe. I have a real life friend who was falling behind his friends in levels due to work and real life considerations. He was sucked in and considered it fair play to use the leveling services to catch up with his friends. I mean they were offering 50% off and promise not to use any illegal 3rd party apps to level your character. Ignoring my warnings about the vices of illegal power leveling he kept me up to date on his progress. His toon was leveled from 60-70 in record time and he regained control of his account with out a hitch. Two weeks went by before I received a frantic call. "Dude... Blizz banned my account." Blizz banned his account and attempted to ban any account linked to his via credit card information. The ban is described as irreversibly permanent. He lost several high level characters. At least 2 level 70s and several others in their mid 40s and 50s and all the raid gear he had earned. The reason cited: Illegal 3rd Party Applications Detected! I happen to know that he plays with the same hardware as I do (nostromo n52) and the same mods and macros in game. He quickly came to the realization but it was too late. Lots of /played time down the drain.

Now that I have bored you to tears with my personal accounts of why not to use the services let me explain briefly how to solve this problem. I will put it in bold and make it blue to give it that authoritative blizzard feel.

Revert the free trial back to the way it used to be. When you buy the game you get 1 ... read that ... ONE free trial to give to a friend.

Right now anyone can register a burning crusade free trial. Simply reverting to the old ways. Will cause the trend were seeing to decrease rapidly. Because while its a great business decision to buy and sell some gold on a purchased account. Spamming once is not as effective.

If Blizzard is already hooked on the amazing returns they are seeing from their free trial program than a compromise can surely be reached. Do not allow free trials to chat in anything but /SAY. This allows basic communication. Do not allow trial accounts to use the AH, trade with players, join guilds, or anything else that has the remote possibility of fostering illegal money laundering or sleezy advertising.

Yes this is a crack down on players who are using their free trial account legitimately as well. But the decision must be made by Blizzard. Do they allow their current paying customer base's experience to degenerate into a purple haze of illegal activities advertised through their own game? Will Blizzard step up and revert to their previous trial system with a few alterations? Your users have spoken Blizzard the current situation is unacceptable.

Edit: Based on Comment feedback I agree it would also be acceptable for trial accounts to be able to speak in party and raid chat.

~Cerias Shadows

If your a veteran of RogueSpot you probably won't even notice the change. However new users and lurkers should be aware that in our effort to fight the spam! We have installed a new mod that will limit the posting of URL's until the following conditions have been met.

You must be an active member for 24 hours! (Account confirmed able to login)

-AND-

You must have posted one link free post previously.

The moderators have recently been keeping track of all of our recent spam messages. Instead of deleting them we have been saving them like antique collectors. No were not cracked in the head! But after looking over all the free offers and purchasing several copies of Pamela Anderson's internet videos I believe the new methods should eliminate 99% of the spam on the boards.

This is our hope. The dream of our moderators. Fight the SPAM!

~Cerias Shadows