Pilgrim's Bounty begins!

...as if pre-Cata invasions weren't enough, it's time again for the annual Pilgrims' Bounty world event.

The best thing about this event is the ability to raise your cooking score as high as 300 fast! You can read a little more about that here.

Join us for pre-Cata instance runs!

Every day until Cata starts there will be 'Elemental Invasions' in Stormwind and Ironforge. If the invasion is successfully stopped, portals open to short instance runs where you defeat a couple mobs and an elite boss; the portal will remain open for about 1/2 hour.

What makes this worth doing is the bosses drop some nice gear! Unfortunately, only one piece drops each run. So we're going to try and form guild runs for gear! So far it looks like the invasion start time that would work best for us is at 7pm (and maybe 9pm) server. It will take a little time to save the cities so you don't have to be on at precisely that time, and Ironforge seems to always get done first so that's usually the best place to start.

Details (including drops) can be found here under the heading 'Phase 4.'

See you then!

Another patch...

...another problem, as is usual when a patch is issued!

This time it's chat. If you log in and can't send or receive chat, try disabling the Gearscore add-on. Not sure yet if installing the new version will solve the problem.

Pre-Cata achievement...Tripping the Rifts

Blizz is starting to push the pre-Cataclysm dramatics and one involves an achievement you can only get before Cata launches, Tripping the Rifts. You get the achievement by closing one each of all four elemental rifts.

Three things are helpful for getting this achievement quickly. One is a listing of what kind of elemental rift spawns in which zone. Second is a map (with mouse-over coordinates) that shows exactly where in each zone the rifts spawn. Third is Tom Tom, an add-on that points you directly to coordinates locations so you can get there quickly.

These will help you get this limited time achievement in short order!

Will I ever WoW again?

Thanks to the geniuses at Blizzard, I couldn't play Warcraft tonight. It seems their 4.0.0 patch takes so much hard drive space to install that there's not enough space on my hard drive to make it work. I'm working on a solution but until it works I won't be able to play.

Thanks, Blizz...

Un-Cursed...sort of

Well, our web site is recovered, at least partially. Here's the new URL.

A number of the familiar functionalities aren't there, and I'm not sure if they ever will return on this site. That's why I'm looking at a different host.

I'll keep you posted.

Cursed!

The short story…we’ve lost our website.

Long story…Curse.com bought/acquired Wowstead.com, our web site host. I’ve not had a happy prior history with Curse and their poor attempt at an add-on client that was supposed to download and install add-ons to WoW. They couldn’t even keep my account log-in straight. I gave up on them in short order and simply learned to install the add-ons myself (thanks Talyra!!) or use WoW-Matrix (thanks again Talyra!).

So when it came to Wowstead I have no idea what Curse thought that they were doing, but if they tried to import the Wowstead sites they failed miserably, as evidenced by their complaint forum.

I’m trying (with little hope) to get through some thick skulls at Curse and get the web site back up. But in the end I want nothing to do with Curse and will likely move the site to another web host (like Guildzilla.com), sooner if I can’t get the old one accessible.

This is more of a principle thing than a major inconvenience. Our web page has pretty much been a static info site about The Draenei Covenant, not an active portal for scheduling and news. Still…it was our site, one that took some hours to create and tweak.

Fire Fest is back!

It's that time of year again, and if you're new to the Midsummer Fire Festival it can be confusing. but it can be a great way for leveling characters to gain a few extra XPs and get reputation across all the major race factions.

The fest really doesn't change a whole lot and Strago and I created a few blog posts to help people out a couple years ago. You can read them here, here and here.

As always, let us know if you need any help figuring this stuff out!

Calling all 80s!

Our allied guild Prevail (see post below) has asked us to register with their guild web page if you'd like to raid with them. I've already done so and it's an easy process.

First, go to their web page, www.prevailguild.com. At the top of the right column is an option to log in or register. Select Register and enter the information required (username, e-mail, create password), using the name of your raiding toon as the user name.

THe idea is to help make scheduling raids a bit more organized. Prevail and the allied guilds will begin to use the Prevail guild calendar for raid sign-ups. Please read the raid rules in the public forum, which can be found here.

Do read the whole thing. Most of it is common sense and is really 'standard procedure' for our guildies anyway. A couple highlights:

• Please sign-up for raids on both in-game and raid calendars.
• Try to view the boss fights on You-Tube before going on the raid.
• Have Ventrilo and Deadly Boss Mods installed and working. Let me know if you need help with this.

Any questions? just ask me or Edelwise; she's on our DCKotC channel (but ONLY when she's not in a raid, please!).

Hello Prevail!

The Draenei Covenant has some new friends...the guild Prevail! They excel where we haven't; creating a schedule of 10-man raids for characters level 80 and above (web page here).

It all started when Redonkulous' alt, Comeinatcha, joined Prevail. He then started inviting us to fill in whenever they needed to fill a slot or two. Nisou (my healer) even made it into one of their Facebook shots (that's me, standing off to the side trying to be inconspicuous and ending up sticking out like a sore thumb!). I've always thought we had some of the most fun players in the game, and Prevail's GM, Edelwise, seemed to agree; she invited the Draenei Covenant to 'Ally' with her guild! I, of course, accepted!

So what does this mean for The Draenei Covenant? First of all, Edelwise has joined our DCKotC chat channel (Comeinatcha has always been there). Second, our level 80 toons will receive invites to all the Prevail raids and have an opportunity to advance where we haven't been able to before; check your in-game calendars (if you're not sure how to use those please ask). Generally, raids will be 6-8pm server time on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 4-8pm server on Saturdays. These will be concentrating on Ulduar, ToC and ICC.

I can't say how cool this is for our guild. Thanks, Edelwise and Prevail! I hope this is the start of a GREAT friendship!

We're number.....85....?

Yes, believe it or not! We're ranked 85th of all Baelgun guilds for 10-man!

....at least on THIS web site. Granted it's a beta site that hasn't updated since April 4th and all that, but still...pretty darned exciting! The members responsible for this, in ranked order, are:

Strago
Redonkulous
Llilith
Nachogrande
Talyra
Dapple
Hackorit (Redo alt)
Krigarre
Pactrica
Xenokiller (Nacho alt)
Khaskassia
Raeann

It should be noted that Dapple is no longer in the guild. But at the same time, Nisou is not listed and she's been active in 10-man action...probably more than Krigarre.

A Day at the Tournament

There are losts of neat screenshot spots in Warcraft. Redo found one on top of the arena at the Argent tournament. Left to right, that's Strago (Furblog edition), me and Redo. Check it out for yourself!