About the header/icon:
http://community.livejournal.com/wow_ladies/12137402.html?view=197877946#t197877946
Artist is Krystina Haggerty or “Tigrin” and you can find more of her work here: tigrin.deviantart.com
Icons cost ~$5-$7, just email her at krystinahaggerty(at)gmail.com
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Who the hell is Coldbear?
http://quickarmory.com/?n=coldbear&r=Ravenholdt
Probably in pvp gear muahahahaha. Besides, won’t tell you much. Go use Rawr or Askmrrobot or SimulationCraft or those stupid idiotic dumb rebloodytarded badly-named misleading “BiS” lists.
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About the blog:
Fun cool stuff. Feral. PVP. PVE. Raiding. Movie-making. Images. UI. Geek. Nerd. The “Best of WoW” series that turned into just a list that I wish I knew how to put a bit more spotlight on since that’s where the REALLY COOL STUFF is at. This blog is also meant to help feral players work together on common problems, instead of each one of us solving them separately on our own – so it’ll be a doodle pad and playground for me to get some wow wiki and film projects off the ground. I don’t really care if you read my stuff or not, though it’s kinda fun sometimes to see how people get here and what web searches bring people here. Yes, I’m vain and self-centered and if I hadn’t started this I’d still be polluting various forums way too much.
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About the blogger:
Swedish, born 1974, feral player, in and out and in (?) of the US military. Wow moviemaker with ~150-200,000 views. No machinima, no drama, just cool stuff. DPS mainly, used to tank a lot, now I tank a little. Laughing Skull started a NE hunter December 2004/January 2005 (?) b/c I wanted another Diablo 2X Strafe Amazon. Got hit over the head and told to go Horde by Josh Reid. Tried some classes, but gotta have mobility and speed and stealth and druids get speed at 23 and travel at 30 and never looked back (ONE). Nox Aeterna. Banana Babiez (oh god horrible name, good people though, and Coldshot was our own – no joke – rl radio DJ to make MC runs go much better) – feeder guild to the infamous Banana Boyz.
Good times, bad times. Healing MC and BWL as feral, hiding my spec. HT4 baby yeah. What you wanna tank?? Laughed at in vent. Internet idiots. Herd mentalities and entrenched prejudices. Why are you wearing Fire Resist gear to tank in ZG?? No, we wiped, bring the regular tank or call BBZ. Watched Leeroy fight in the UC throne room. Races to the World Dragons, running interference for BBZ raids. Me and 5 BBiez against 40 Pals For Life hell no oh wait they killed the dragon and are porting out GET THEM HA HA GANKED THE GUILD LEADER WOOT. 5 ferals to endgame-give-or-take – long story, coming soon. Wiped the raid in seconds on Vael when I landed a crit Regrowth on the tank the millisecond after he pulled but before he got a hit in. Broodlord down. Movies. Forum wars. Three years later I now have a bit of respect for Ben Schultz.
Quit. Came back. Maelstrom RP-PVP is much more mature, tried Alliance, had to be feral druid again (TWO) – but hot damn Alliance cities are so much nicer and the Onyxia questline is just AWESOME.
Quit. Came back. Pre-made guild for BC to be called <Synergy> …original mmyeah maybe not. I then knew what the biggest Wow pve movie-making challenge ever had to be, and that I would be the man who would complete it. Have to tank. Have to feral (THREE). Oops no rp-pvp server with BC launch. Pre-made go *poof*. Oh well, which one was most recent – ah, Ravenholdt. Ok, go Horde, they’re coolest and usually the underdog. Filming, tanking all the way to – oh crap, new computer (iMac), now I can record without the UI showing! Woooot! Oops, can’t figure out how to get the old footage to transfer. Finally figured it out, but by then I’d already RE-leveled (FOUR) and re-recorded it all. Awwwww hell, the server really is crazy unbalanced. 2:1 Horde to Alliance ratio. The world pvper in me can’t stand to be on the overdog side. Oh well, transfer two Horde druids to TVC and reroll Alliance druid (FIVE!) and start the filming all over again.
Sverige
Rootbear
Tanks
Coldbeer
Coldbear – “Cold” is taken on an inactive account afaik. Meh. I dig the Colbert report, but hadn’t thought of it.
Damn, to get the latest raid footage and whatnot I’d have to get in a raiding guild. No way in hell I’ll make it into Uther’s Hand or Synergy. Missed the AQ gates drama, busy leveling. Oops, I did make it in. Raiding and filming with Aliyrra and Grimble and crew. Mad help from Grimble over the year or so that it took to finish the movie, started by running RFC with Alliance characters at an appropriate level. Karazhan with Eighty and Lithe and Sarador and Meowia and Katzeus.
Bachelor’s is SFS from Georgetown University, Master’s in National Security Studies over the internet while in and out of the Gulf back when the missiles started flying (bit of a scam, is how I got that degree). Swedish, English, used to speak French, German. Somewhat chequered past. Crossfit. Ex-Ironman triathlon addict. Rugby. Aussie Rules. San Diego Lions ARFC. Tokyo Crusaders RFC. Göteborg a.k.a. Gothenburg. Singapore Wanderers RFC. Ex-Navy Diver, you can take my rate and rank but you can’t take the knowledge out of my head. One thousand nine hundred and thirty-two feet below the surface of the water. Funny the sound that leaking oil makes when it’s under pressure and spraying at you in a enclosed hard diving suit 1,500 feet below the surface. They don’t give medals for the things I’ve done but damn some of it was nuts. Atmospheric Dive Suit Pilot. Work drama. Hate and discontent, bitterness and jaded as all hell. Very low tolerance for poorly worded or ignorant criticism. Big fan of John Gabriel’s “Greater Internet ****wad Theory.” JFGI. Google it.
This doesn’t really fit in anywhere on the blog, so here goes anyway. WordPress gives me a fun little ‘Stats’ page where I can see a graph of people accessing this blog and what they click and how they get here. Kinda wish I could make it public.
Here are some searches that lead people to this blog and made me go “WTF?”:
filmovi avandar
sulfuron slammer pvp
rarw showing t10 as downgrade
hysteria discussion choices elitist jerk
where can i turn in badges for t10 gear
a a warrior without a trinket should you
is emblem of frost gear t10
34 dps wow
space art imagesize:1440×900
defeating coldbear
draconic dude
what is cb wow
stfu clock wow macro
So I can’t shut up. BFD.
References:
http://www.ensidia.com/muqq/blog/4078/
http://www.legacyofsteel.net/oldsite/arc27.html
http://gadgetress.freedomblogging.com/2009/11/22/memories-of-warcraft-from-the-people-who-built-it/27383/
Tigole in Legacy of Steel. Pissed off about EQ and improved that model in building WoW, which pissed off Muqq of Ensidia in a very similar fashion. Samwise Didier yelling “For the Horde!” at the first Blizzcon (re: faction pride).
This is the game I would have produced (not nearly as commercially successful as WoW or EQ).
No loading screens. None. One, seamless world. Ok, fine, some loading between continents b/c you just can’t fit it all on one server. That loading screen is a semi-static no-UI scenic panorama of the people on the boat or somesuch, riding off in the distance. World dragons and instances are protected by layers of mobs that close around a party to avoid pvp in a pve environment. NPCs that will only start helping or continuing a thing with X amount of people. Transport long distances, get past a gate or w/e.
No floating text.
No big shiny explosions from a primary attack like Mangle. Exception: heals have to be graphically cool to make up for the not-so-cool “player job” of supporting other players. Come to think of it, to hell with the trinity of heal-tank-dps. Any monster that picks the most heavily armoured dude and only beats on him is just stupid. Self-heal, leech, w/e. Chaotic fighting.
Flying in game is cool – but that’s a big achievement and only for a few people on each server. You can get knocked off the mount – roads are still safest from mobs and fastest, and the airspace above them is sort of clear. Still danger from other players and mobs and wind and weather and cold.
Don’t like spontaneous pvp – get thee to a pve server.
Every village/city capturable. No mobs or NPCs spawn out of thin air – they run in from caves or distance or roads or w/e and take over the town and the opposing quest-givers move to a zone further back. Unbalanced servers helped by WG-style reinforcements and more NPCs and free server xfers to only X faction.
Static BGs are open-world.
“PVE” content is still repeatable with the same-style loot, but the names of the end bosses and the loot is randomized, you will NOT kill the same guy over and over and over again. He’ll have a new name and new face but act sort of like the old guy.
Bounty-hunting on players. Opt-in only feature.
No faction transfers. Shaman on Horde and Paladins on Alliance.
Third faction, occasionally allied to one side or the other, changed by player actions and some producer-driven story-telling, neutral-to-allied-to-hostile patch to patch.
Remember when your pvp trinket was your only “out” from opposing CC or w/e? Back to that, sort of. Maximum of one other “out” from class skill/ability. No more of this “let’s give everyone 8/10 types of skills”.
No general or trade chat. Notice-boards in all villages and cities. /Yell and /say and /whisper are 100yds, 10yds and 1yd and subject to environment noise. Trade boards and mail.
Epic is epic. Common gear is commonly used.
Very very little instantanenous travel. Horses need care. Tauren cannot ride ostriches. If it looks too small to ride, you probably can’t ride it. No massive-looking shoulder pads or over-sized weapons. No scaling of weapons. Gnomes will not be able to life a 5-ft battleaxe. Weapon sizing is intuitive and not complicated, but still hidden.
All NPCs have day and night cycles. At night there won’t be much activity in most major cities, but you’ll still be able to get X done, just from a different dude not necessarily in the same place.
Death penalty is about the same, loot some gold off opposing player, and maybe one piece of gear. Enchant one piece of gear that you really really don’t want to be looted off of you.
Faction pride and server pride re-instated. Opposing-side nemesis. Allied guilds.
20p raids. A few 10p raids. 5p dungeons.
No +agility on a sword. Weapons have things like speed, balance, durability.
Clothing and armour has weight, restrictiveness and effectiveness against weapon-types.
The original WoW got the fantasy and technology balance right. Guns are restricted to dwarves and gnomes. Motorcycles and trikes? Forget that ****. Spaceships? Nope. The only portal you’ll see is the Dark Portal.
No more hub cities. Zeppelins and ships between major cities.
No enemy portrait and mana/health bar. Blood flowing from wounds. Character looking tired and beat-down.
Persistent skeletons and semi-persistent tracks in snow and mud.
Critical hits give chance to stun.
Laying down gives slightly better chance to not be detected and no indication where you are to the opposing player that manages to target you.
Yellow question marks? Right out.
Big UI stuff? Not happening – a bar of abilities and easy emote buttons. No combat log. No floating combat text, just a double-big graphic indication of a critical hit. Easily available numbers for those who like to crunch them, but hidden from the default user.
Curses and poisons should be easily viewable graphically, on the characters.
No floating icons above people’s heads.
No DK-like graphic stuff like Army of whatever – everything that crawls out of the ground leaves a pit or churned-up gravel or w/e. Graphics effects from spells and whatnot that interact with the environment has to fit instead of clip like WoW’s overlays.
Maps available in your backpack only.
Quest-givers and everyone else is attackable. Karma’s gonna get you, though. Guards. NPCs will give you directions to whoever can offer you employment.
Arrows and missiles don’t go through trees or hills.
No aggro radius bullcrap. If a mob can see its friend get attacked it might or might not run for help, or aid its friend.
Dungeons cities and huge areas can be attacked piece-meal. Forts are defended reasonably logically, not by NPCs standing around in small, easily conquered groups.
Graphics clipping – hell no. No more weapons cutting your leg as you walk, or dragging in the dirt. No more legs and robes going straight through a mount.
Collision avoidance – in crowded areas you’d be able to walk straight through friendly players, or push a button and get through players or NPCs once in a while. But with enemy players around it’d be locked hard. Therefore, melee characters and shieldbearers defend the casters/ranged behind them. No more kill a dragon and then run around inside his corpse. If that giant died and dropped on top of you, then you probably died or suffocated, so get out of the way.
Friendly fire. Don’t get in front of those arrows or firebolts. Needs reworking to avoid griefing. Put a FF damage limit or inability to keep firing on friendly targets, together with an inability to shut down an annoying “I hit a friendly player!” voice emote.
Encourage class/race-specific guilds somehow to some small extent. Secondary “club” membership maybe.
Option to turn off the targeting text above NPCs/players’ heads, together with the targeting circle around their feet. If you do this, your own name and the circle around your feet will go away for people targeting you. Option enemy/friend sensitive to avoid issues in PVE raids. Anyone lying down will automatically have it turned off and not be available for tab-targeting unless they say something or move.
Some of your images were uploaded to WoWWiki. If you want them removed you can say so on my talk page there (or on the talk pages of the images below): http://wowwiki.com/User talk:Fandyllic
Here are the images:
http://wowwiki.com/File:Coldbearbanneredit minus text.jpg
http://wowwiki.com/File:Cbicon.jpg
I’m the guy who uploaded them.
Hey Coldbear, Tenj here. Thanks for including some of my stuff in your best of WoW PvP video. I only caught wind of it months later when a friend told me about it. I’ve since retired from WoW for the time being but maybe in the future I’ll be back. Didn’t know you were ex-military; I was active duty for some time but now in the NG. Anyways, thanks for your service, great videos, keep it up!
Ya, no worries.
I’m out of WoW and out of the military, too. Still collecting a paycheck, though. Been meaning to continue the “Best of Wow Pvp” series, but full up with getting a real job and other projects right now.
Peace, man.
I don’t know if you still check your site but I do……..hoping to stay in touch even if once in a blue moon. You are still one of the best people I had the pleasure of knowing somewhat in WoW.
It was re-watching many of your videos lately that made me decide to dust off the poor little druid I created over 5 years ago and try to learn how to play her. Feral of course, is there anything else? lol I must say I am enjoying it more than I thought I would.
This is Merilda btw, although I have added an extra r to the name and am on Shadowmoon US now. I have 2 other rogues max lvl now, soon to be 3. Did create and lvl’d up a DK to shut up those that complained about all of my rogues, lol.
Well, just wanted to say hi. Thank you for being my inspiration and a friend in WoW. If you ever pop back in game, say hi. I think you have my email also. Take care!!
Hi back! I’m rarely if ever on this blog anymore, but I check MMO-Champ when I’m bored …every day. Haven’t played in 2 years now, and won’t be back unless they make it a world again. All the flying and the convenience and the menu’s and the teleporting and the loading screens got to me. I’m still slowly working my way through a “Best of WoW Pvp” series, see WCM.
I *am* looking forward to http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/ though!
Hit me up on Facebook if you care. http://www.facebook.com/parjlarsson