Book Review: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

Vol’jin: The Next Karate Troll? 

With all the juicy drama and tension that has been boiling within the Horde, I couldn’t wait to read
about Vol’jin, the leader of the Darkspear trolls. However, it left me disappointed from its lack of any believable tension. That’s probably the biggest weakness of the book—the characters are dull, the tension is dull, and even the “climactic” conflict against the Zandalari and Mogu forces is dull because I didn’t get a sense of urgency from the tranquil pacing of the book.

Pros:

·         Good insight into Pandaren culture and the two contrasting ideologies.

Chen Stormstout is somewhat of an alien among his own people because he is so adventurous. There is Huojin (live in the moment, act) and Tushui (meditate, inner harmony) that exist in each person. Different people will lean towards one, but the goal is to find balance between the two. I got a strong sense of Pandaren norms and how they preferred to live out their lives. It kind of reminded me of the domestic hobbit lifestyle. Lots of food, lots of booze, lots of farming, and very little adventuring.

·         We get to see Chen Stormstout fall in love.

I had to wonder what an interracial relationship between a Pandaren and a human would spawn. And then, Pandaren + Tauren = ???

But no. Even Chen is a traditional Pandaren who likes his Pandaren women.

·         Internal character development.

We get to see Vol’jin, Tyrathan, and Chen Stormstout grow in this book. It’s too bad that they got along a little too well, because it would have been a lot less dull to read about them hanging out.

Fighting doubt. The shas are physical manifestations of our inner demons, and doubt is a big one. Tyrathan, after his traumatic experience, suffers from a lot of self-doubt and deals with it throughout the novel. I thought this development was insightful to human nature, as it really is a battle that exhausts the soul.

Vol’jin’s identity crisis. Going from the pre-Karate Kid troll to the post-monastery-trained Vol’jin, while his changes were extremely predictable given the circumstances of being in a monastery boot camp, learning to adapt in the transformation from old to new is a meaningful concept that’s explored in this book.

Chen Stormstout’s alienation. As a well-traveled Pandaren, Chen’s a bit of an outcast in his own society. Many Pandarens love him, some look down on him, and most think that he’s a little odd for having adventured outside of Pandaria so much. It’s this feeling of being an outcast among your own people because you don’t follow norms dictated by your own culture. Anyone who’s ever lived overseas of their motherland for a long time can relate to this.

·         A critique of imperialism.

This part was genius. The Mogus imperialized the Pandarens a long time ago, and living conditions were awful for the exploited pandas. The Pandarens managed to overthrow their oppressors, but have adopted a lot of their influences in architecture and culture. The Zandalari have teamed up with the Mogu, but it’s obvious to both parties that the Mogu are stronger and more powerful. The Zandalari trolls aspire to become like the Mogu and this is shown with a particular Zandalari commander who does his hair the same way the Mogu do theirs, even dyeing it to the right color. It’s gross. There are many parallels between Mogu imperialism and the consequences of colonization that we’ve seen in our own world. We see this when people living in a formerly colonized country aspire to look, dress, and live like their former oppressors.

The Art of Warcraft: Warlock

The Art of Warcraft
In order to be successful in pvp you must recognize each class's character animations and icons. Be on the lookout for spells relevant to your class and learn how to counter them. This guide updated for 5.3 mist of pandaria.

Know Your Enemy Class Guides
 Death Knight
 Druid
 Hunter for class pvp guide click here.
 Mage
 Monk
 Paladin
 Priest
 Rogue
 Shaman
 Warlock
 Warrior for class pvp guide click here.


Important Warlock Cooldowns
For the most part warlocks have three major defensive cooldowns, Unending Resolve is a baseline spell for all warlocks and the other two are chosen via talents. I have posted below the most common and need-to-know spells that warlocks use.

Unending Resolve

The Warlock hardens his skin, reducing all damage taken by 40% and preventing his spells from being interrupted or silenced for 8 sec. (3 minute cooldown)

. 

Warlocks can feel like tanks at times. But after they have blown their defensive cooldowns, they rely on CC and portals to stay alive. Unending Resolve is mostly used defensively but warlocks will sometimes use it to cast Chaos Bolt, summon a pet, or demonic portal.

Try not to pop offensive cooldowns while they have Unending Resolve because the warlock will probably not die, and don't waste interrupts during this cooldown.

The Art of Warcraft: Positioning in Arena

"The terrain is to be assessed in terms of distance, difficulty or ease of travel, dimension, and safety."

--Sun Tzu

When it comes to being new to arenas, knowing how a particular map works will help you strategize around it, in terms of LOS, avoiding CC, and knowing where your positioning is the strongest and when it is the weakest.

Distance 

The distance between your entrance doors can determine how the beginning of your match will play out.

This is quite true in the following circumstances:

Warlock Portals: Many warlocks like to summon a portal in the beginning. Usually, this can prove to be frustrating for melee when they are about to close in for a kill--the warlock teleports to the portal, and the melee is forced to either switch targets or chase the warlock (usually not a good idea if the distance is too big--you could end up running into the enemy and put your own teammates at risk as they have to move out into the open to heal or protect you).

So, what does this have to do with the distance of between your entrances? In certain arena maps, it IS possible to stop the portal summon, given the right circumstances. Usually, having a teammate with a ranged silence or stun is useful--hunters and DKs for example.

• Blade's Edge Arena - The best portals are cast from one side of the bridge to the other. These can be stopped if you go straight for their side of the bridge at the beginning (instead of going through the bridge).
  It's harder to stop a portal if they cast it on the bottom or closer to their entrance.
• Dalaran Arena - Usually possible to stop the portal here. 
• Nagrand Arena - Possible, if you go by mount. However, the entrance is so far that the teammates have a better chance of stopping you before you make it in time to silence/stun the warlock. 
• Ruins of Lordaeron - These are nearly impossible to stop, unless the warlock is slow.
• Tiger's Peak - The entrances here are relatively far from each other. If the warlock stays behind the pillar and casts the portal sideways, it can be hard to stop. Otherwise, it is possible if one of your teammates has a speed increase or if you go in by mount. 
• Tol'viron Arena - See Nagrand Arena. 

Know Your Enemy: Warrior

How to be Good in Arena

In order to be successful in PVP, you must recognize each class's character animations and icons. Be on the lookout for spells relevant to your class and learn how to counter them. This guide is updated for 5.3 Mists of Pandaria.

Know Your Enemy Class Guides
 Death Knight
 Druid
 Hunter for class pvp guide click here.
 Mage
 Monk
 Paladin
 Priest
 Rogue
 Shaman
 Warlock
 Warrior (For class PVP guide, click here.)

Avatar

You transform into a colossus for 24 sec, breaking all roots and snares and increasing your damage dealt by 20%. (3 min cooldown)

Warriors will sometimes spread out their offensive cooldowns if they are CC'ed during their one-shot macro. If that's the case, don't use all defensive abilities at once and counter each offensive cooldown with your own defensive cooldowns.

How to win hunter 2's

I've been helping people cap their 12000 point cap doing some 2's. Here is a quick video explaining how to almost guarantee a win. I will be posting higher mmr games when summer starts.

Warrior Pvp Guide (5.3)

Welcome, this is a beginner's guide for people starting out in pvp or
recently came back from a hiatus and need a refresher on stat priority. Updated for 5.3.

Mindset and General Arena Tips

As a warrior, your job is to tunnel damage as much as possible while at the same time keeping track of cc and preventing it from lading on your healer. Use charge to prevent sheeps and fears form landing on your healer. Always eat hunter traps with intervene/safeguard and always spell reflect cc.

For the most part you want to fear on cooldown but watch out for fear ward, have your partner's dispel it if possible. And remember shockwave can be used to cc healers too!

Talents

Avendawn IV

Strike With A Vengeance!

Hunter Pvp Guide (5.3)

Welcome, this is a beginner's guide for people starting out in pvp or recently came back from a hiatus and need a refresher on stat priority.

Mindset and General Arena Tips

Hunters can dish out loads of damage, but that isn't what makes hunters deadly. Hunter's play an interesting role in arena, they are a hybrid between support and cc machine. Treasure scatter-trap, don't let your opponents dispel or eat traps. When facing shadow priests or retribution paladins make sure your teammates cross cc while you scatter-trap the healer. Also don't forget to use your pet's growl ability to eat shamans grounding totems at the right time.

To be the best hunter you can be, you need to get over yourself and stop going for top damage and spend your time trying to remove someone form the game every 30 seconds for as long as possible. Your goal is to have somebody as your focus at all times while at the same time using master's call and roar of sacrifice to your teammates.

Patch 4.3 came with hunter burst and pet cc nerfs while at the same time receiving increased sustained damage trough aspect of the hawk. Binding shot was also added to the marksmanship arsenal while beast mastery lost intimidation, making marksmanship the closest it has ever been to being viable since the launch of Mist of Pandaria.

Talents

HGST Travelstar 7K1000 Benchmarks

Are SATA III Mechanical Drives Better Then SATA II?


Solid State Drives
When it comes to normal hard drives, mechanical limitations prevent them from taking full advantage of SATA III speeds providing little to no benefits over SATA II. Only solid state drives can take full advantage from SATA III connections since they contain no moving parts and are not bound by the same mechanical limitations.




Mechanical Hard Drives
When it comes to laptops, you need to check with your manufacturer to see if they accommodate SATA III. As bad as that is there are almost no known 2.5" SATA III hard drives in the market. It's understandable since SATA III provides almost not benefits over SATA II in mechanical hard drives. However, as technology increases and solid state drive become more popular, more laptops are starting to accommodate SATA III connections.




So What Benefits do SATA III Hard Drives Provide Over SATA II?
It's good to note that SATA III mechanical hard drives are not a complete bust. Below I compare an HGST Travelstar 7K1000 2.5" 1TB 7200 RPM SATA III 32MB hard drive and an old Seagate Momentus 2.5" 750GB 7200 RPM SATA II 16MB hard drive. The HGST Travelstar 7K1000 is one of the few 2.5" Sata III hard drives in the market. The benchmarks reveal slightly higher speeds by the SATA III hard drive and a significant increase in burst rate.


HGST Travelstar 7K1000

HGST Travelstar 7K1000

HGST is the first company to make 2.5" SATA III hard drives for about the same price of a SATA II. For this reason I would highly recommend this hard drive to any laptop owner looking for a bigger hard drive.

Seagate 1TB 5400RPM Solid State Hybrid Drive Benchmarks

Are Solid State Hybrid Drive's Worth Their Price for Laptops?

Solid State Drives

Solid State Drives are extremely fast but are still quite expensive per GB of memory. A 120GB Solid State Drive is about $1.00 per 1 GB of memory while a 2.5 1TB Hard Drive is about $1.00 per 12 GB's of memory.

Solid State Hybrid Drives
Solid State Hybrid Drives are a compromise between price and speed. They are a cheap way to increase your computer's load times for a modest price. A 2.5 1TB Solid State Hybrid Drive goes for about $1.00 per 8 GB's of memory. The benchmarks are similar to that of normal hard drive, but the magic happens when you start using the device. Solid State Hybrid Drives remember your most accessed files and  programs, loading them faster and faster each time. 





I did some bench marking on my Seagate 1TB 5400 RPM Solid State Hybrid Drive with HD Tune and the first test reveals that the transfer rate is similar to that of a normal laptop hard drive. No surprise there since these kind of drives only speed up your your access times. 

First Test

Second Test

In the second test you can see that access times are drastically reduced to that of a SSD. You can expect access times to decrease each time you use your drive as it remember's your most used files.

Seagate 1TB 5400RPM Solid State Hybrid Drive SATA 6Gbps 64MB Cache 2.5" benchmarks

From these benchmarks you can see that benchmarking doesn't give you accurate results since they don't take into account the "solid state" part of hybrid drives. You can expect faster loading times and normal write speed but you wont be able to test them through benchmarking.

How to Increase the Amount of Storage Memory in a Laptop

How to use Your CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay for Another Hard Drive

Most computer user's have moved away from cd's/dvd's and are instead embracing the digital age by downloading software directly form the internet. This includes anything from your standard anti-virus to movies and much more.


You can actually increase your storage memory by removing your dvd drive and replacing it with a second hard drive.  These specials caddy's can go for anywhere in between $5.00 to $40.00. You will also need an extra 2.5 sata hard drive of your liking.

What you need:

• SATA 2nd HDD Hard Drive Caddy
• A spare hard drive
• Laptop
• Screwdiver
• AOMEI Partition Assistant (optinal) 

For this example I will be using the ASUS g73sw BST-6 but most laptops follow the same procedure


Step 1: Unscrew the backside cover.

How to Speed up or Slow Down Clips in Sony Vegas

Sony Vegas Pro 12 Tips

Normal Speed

Slowed Down

To slow down videos in Sony Vegas hold the ctr key and extend the length of the clip. You can tell by the squiggly line in the center of the clip that the speed of the video has been modified.

Speed up

Alternatively, hold the ctr key and shorten the length of the movie in order to speed up the video.

How to Record Video Games for YouTube!

How to record video games, render, and upload to YouTube

Before we get into the meat of it you have to see if your computer can handle recording gaming footage.

What you need:

1. Middle to high-end computer
2. Hard drive with fast write speeds or multiple hard drives
3. Recording program like Fraps or Xfire
4. Editing software like Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere

Step 1: In order to record gaming footage you need some form of video capture program like fraps or x-fire. Fraps is the most popular because it records in high quality but beware because it takes up a lot of hard drive space. Remember to record full screen for optimal frame rate.

Note, if you are having lag issues you can alleviate them by doing some of the following :

• Record footage to another drive. If your game is on C:\ then set your fraps folder to D:\
• If the drive you are recording to is too slow you might have to upgrade to one with faster write speeds
• Lower your settings from Full-size to Half-size, the quality will be the same but smaller
• Turn on Vertical Sync within your game which will help with lag, but can severely reduce frame rates

Avendawn of the Alliance

Be the Light in the Darkness

This is Justice! By the Light be purged.

Avendawn the Berzerker

Strike With a Vengeance

The drums of war ring loud throughout the kingdom, who will pick up arms? Who will bring justice to the land?

This is Justice! By the Light, all evil will be purged.

Avendawn the Lightbringer

Strike With a Vengeance

In the midst of chaos and the imminent threat of the Horde, A hero emerges. Purging the land and bringing peace to those who seek it.

How to Install Car Mods in Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV - Car mods

How to install car modifications into your game. Try to stick to only a few car mods in order to avoid the "taxi bug," or install one of the listed bug fixes.

What you need:

• Patch 1.0.7.0
• GTAIV Mod Essensials (unless your game is mod ready)
• SparkIV
• Your car mods,  each will need a .wtf and .wtd file
• Handling Values
• gta4 real traffic taxi texture fix chikamru OR trafficload vfinale
• Winrar or similar
• Remember to back up your files

Directions:

Step 1: Update GTA IV to patch 1.0.7.0

Step 2: Extract GTAIV Mod Essensials

Step 3: Copy the contents to C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV

Step 4: Extract the car files you downloaded, doesn't matter from where from as long as you have one of each that end in .WTD and .WTF. For this example we will be replacing the patriot with an H2 Hummer.

Step 5: Open Sparks IV

1. Go to browse
2. Scroll down to GTAIV\pc\models\cdimages
3. Double click on vehicles.img
4. Click import and search for the .wtf and .wtd you extracted in step 4
5. Click save
6. Repeat steps 1-5 for any vehicles you want to add.

How to Install Left 4 Liberty: Infection

How to Install Left 4 Liberty: Infection

Enjoy installing Left 4 Liberty: Infection! Turn Grand Theft Auto IV into a zombie game!

What you need:

• Patch 1.0.7.0
• GTAIV Mod Essensials
• Winrar or similar
• L4LIv5.1
• Remember to back up your files
 

Directions:

Step 1: Update GTA IV to patch 1.0.7.0

Step 2: Extract GTAIV Mod Essensials (Unless your game is mod ready)

Step 3: Copy the contents to C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV

Step 4: Extract L4LIv5.1 and copy the contents (see below) to C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV\scripts.

• Left4Libertyv5.1.vb
• Left4LibertyFireBullets.vb
• Left4Libertyv5.1.ini
• Left4LibertyFireBullets.ini

Step 5: Press F7 to start the mod.

GTAIV Realistic Car Pack v4

GTAIV Realistic Car Pack v4

-A side by side comparison. For installation guide click here!

Note that some cars have been mixed up and will probably not get fixed for a while so let others know if you have a solution for the issue. This guide was put together via trainer and should more or less represent the type of car you will spawn as supposed to its original counterpart. Enjoy!

Admiral - '10 Bmw 7 Hamann F02 by VIT@LIK1993

Admiral

'10 Bmw 7 Hamman F02

Banshee-    '03 Dodge Viper SRT-10 V2.0 by Deadyshka

'03 Dodge Viper SRT-10

Banshee

GTAIV Trainer Installation Guide!

Grand Theft Auto IV Trainer Installation Guide!

Simple Trainer Installation Guide

What you need:

• Patch 1.0.7.0
• GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1
• GTAIV/EFLC SIMPLE NATIVE TRAINER Version 6.4
• Winrar or similar
• Remember to back up your files

Directions:

Step 1: Update GTA IV to patch 1.0.7.0

Step 2: Install GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1
This will do 3 things that you need for modding GTAIV

1. It will install xliveless and ScriptHookDotNet
2. It will install ScriptHook.dll
3. And it will install 2 sample mods:
1. Simple Income: 1.0.0.0
2. And Bodyguard Script v1.4.0.0B

Step 3: Delete the sample scripts (GTAIVMODBodyguardScript.net.dll - GTAIVMODBodyguardScript - GGTAIVMODSimpleIncome.net.dll) from the scrips folder located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV\scripts. The Trainer will have all the features you need.

Step 4:  Extract the trainer, and copy trainer.asi and trainer.ini into your GTAIV directory.

Notes: Try to avoid installing older versions of this mod as they can cause instability and sometimes crash. Press F3 to bring up the trainer interface, specific instructions can be found in the readme file.

Downloads

GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1: http://www.gta4-mods.com/tools/gta-iv-mod-setup-1001-f16937

Winrawr: http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/3000-2250_4-10007677.html

GTAIV/EFLC simple native trainer Version 6.4: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=392973

How to Install GTAIV Realistic Car Pack v4

Grand Theft Auto IV - Car mods

How to install car modifications into your game. For a side by side comparison between the new cars and the originals click here!

What you need:

• Patch 1.0.7.0
• OpenIV
• SparkIV
• GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1
• Realistic Car Pack v4 [USE 4SHARED Version]
• gta4 real traffic taxi texture fix chikamru OR trafficload vfinale
• Winrar or similar
• Remember to back up your files

Directions:

Step 1: Update GTA IV to patch 1.0.7.0

Step 2: Install GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1
This will do 3 things that you need for modding GTAIV

1. It will install xliveless and another ASI loader
2. It will install ScriptHookDotNet
3. And it will install 2 sample mods:
1. Simple Income: 1.0.0.0
2. And Bodyguard Script v1.4.0.0B

Step 3: Delete the sample scripts (GTAIVMODBodyguardScript.net.dll - GTAIVMODBodyguardScript - GGTAIVMODSimpleIncome.net.dll) from the scrips folder located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV\scripts.

Step 4: Extract Realistic Car Pack v4 files

Step 5: Copy every file from the Realistic Car Pack v4 to its corresponding folder in your GTAIV directory EXECPT FOR THE FILES american.gtx, newveh.img, and vehicles.img!

Step 6: Use OpenIV

1. Go to file, create new archive, GTA IMG Archive(.img), save it as newveh, in the location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Rockstar Games\GTAIV\pc\models\cdimages
2. Close OpenIV

Step 7: Use Sparks IV

1. Go to browse
2. Scroll down to GTAIV\pc\models\cdimages
3. Click on newveh.img
4. Click import and search for newveh.img in the files you extracted in step 4
5. Click save
6. Repeat steps 1-5 but instead of newveh.img chose vehicle.img

Step 8: Install Traffic Load by extracting the files into your GTAIV directory or simply  copying mscr100d.dll, Trafficload.ini and TrafficLoad.asi to your GTAIV directory. This will remove the taxi bug and generate cars more randomly.

Step 9: Create a notepad file with the following  text and save to your GTAIV directory. Save as commandline.txt. This will help load textures regardless if you run the mod or not.

-norestrictions

-nomemrestrict 

-percentvidmem 100

-memrestrict 681574400

-memrestrict 629145600

-availablevidmem 2

-noprecache

-novblank

That should be all you need to run Realistic Car Pack v4. There may be some redundancy in this guide but this is how i got mine to work and it should  be 100% guaranteed to work for you if you follow the steps. Make sure your computer is up to date and your graphics card can handle the new car textures. ALSO MAKE SURE YOUR GAME DOES NOT HAVE ANY CARS IN ANY SAVE LOCATIONS. 

DOWNLOAD LIST:

Realistic Car Pack v4: http://www.gta4-mods.com/vehicles/realistic-car-pack-v4-f8054
4SHARED version-> http://www.4shared.com/file/_9eSzADy/Realistic_Car_Mod_Pack_V4.html

OpenIV: http://www.gtagaming.com/downloads/gta-iv/tools/11030

GTAIVModSetup1.0.0.1: http://www.gta4-mods.com/tools/gta-iv-mod-setup-1001-f16937

Spark IV: http://grandtheftauto.filefront.com/file/GTA_IV_Spark_IV;116155

Winrawr: http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/3000-2250_4-10007677.html

Trafficcload vfinale: http://download.gta-expert.it/gta-4/scripts-asi-lua-net-vb/9951-trafficload-vfinale-asi.html

gta4 real traffic taxi texture fix chikamru: http://download.gta-expert.it/gta-4/scripts-asi-lua-net-vb/9951-trafficload-vfinale-asi.html

Trafficload Vfinale: http://download.gta-expert.it/gta-4/scripts-asi-lua-net-vb/9951-trafficload-vfinale-asi.html