The Lords of Nordrassil

It’s a new year (it’s still January, so that counts, right?), so it seemed like an appropriate time to have a new look for the Lords of Nordrassil website too. The change includes an upgrade to the forum too, so you may need to update your bookmarks. Everything should still be there in the forum, now on the latest version, so some things might work a little differently.

Any comments on the design, or problems encountered, please let me know in the comments.

A couple of months have passed and with the Winter’s Veil incoming this seems like a good time to stop and take a look at how the achievements have been progressing.

No changes at the top of the table, but some movement in the mid ranks.

The achievements were taken on Sunday afternoon and there’s some interesting latest entries there. Quite a few from the newly release Icecrown instances and from the recent Pilgrim festival. A few people are clearing out ‘classic’ instances, while others seem to have spotted a festival I missed and got a Children’s week prize.

A final honourable mention goes to Besti for two reasons – firstly he’s the only non-level 80 in the list, beating quite a few of his top level rivals – and secondly as it looks like he snagged a trip to Blizzcon 2009, or at the very least managed to beg, borrow, buy or steal ‘Grunty’ the Murloc pet from someone who did!

Patch 3.3 is here at last and we have now begun to run the new Icecrown Citadel instances and to confront the Lich King. However I for one had missed the trailer that sets the scene until I spotted it in an article commending the story-telling in Wrath of the Lich King on Gamers With Jobs

The Fall of the Lich King trailer is an epic introduction to the new Icecrown Citadel instances, featuring the Lich King, Frostmourne and the army of heroes gathering outside the Citadel seeking justice.

The trailer is available on youtube (and can be switched into HD mode), or for download from the official World of Warcraft website.

As chasing achievements is key part of the WoW experience these days, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the guild stats on the armory to see who our top 20 achievers are.

The results are below – I’ve also included the latest achievement to see what we’re all working on – hover over the latest achievement to see the details.

There’s lots of brewfest, as expected, but a fair mix of other things too, across PVP. instances, exploring, questing, collecting etc – including some pretty cool achievements. Also no-one in the list has the same latest achievement, which works out a lot more interesting than if we had 20 Brewmasters

I might revisit this list in a few months to see how the standings have changed…

A quick warning of a ‘noob’ mistake that I realised I’ve fallen for and that could affect anyone levelling with a dual spec.

Thanks to BigBearButt’s post as I had no idea about this – you should read his post, he tells it way better than me .

When you learn new ranks of spells these days, the spells on your action bars automatically update to the new rank (you used to have to do it manually). However when you learn new spells, the auto-update onto your action bars only happens for your current spec.

So if you always pick-up new spells on your main spec; on your second spec, the spells on your action bars could be several ranks behind. You then need to update the spells on the second spec action bars manually.

And I was wondering why my discipline spells felt a little underpowered compared with the holy ones… Worth taking a few minutes to check your spell ranks if you’ve levelled at all with dual spec.

Also a point came up in the comments on BBB’s post that you need to talk to the trainer in both specs to ensure you pick up all the available new spells.

The Lords became an explorer’s guild earlier in the month with an off the map trip to an island south of Tanaris. Many thanks to Mia for organising the tour and keeping us pointing in the right direction. Click the pictures below for full sized versions.

This weekend is Blizzcon, hotbed of major announcements. And as expected, the big news this year is the announcement of the next WoW expansion – The Cataclysm.

The latest details are on the new Cataclysm website, although I’ve taken the liberty of reposting some of the highlights below:

• Two New Playable Races: Adventure as one of two new races–the cursed worgen with the Alliance or the resourceful goblins with the Horde.
• Level Cap Increased to 85: Earn new abilities, tap into new talents, and progress through the path system, a new way for players to improve characters.
• Classic Zones Remade: Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever and updated with new content, from the devastated Badlands to the broken Barrens, which has been sundered in two.
• New High-Level Zones: Explore newly opened parts of the world, including Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj’ir beneath the sea.
• More Raid Content than Ever Before: Enjoy more high-level raid content than previous expansions, with optional more challenging versions of all encounters.
• New Race and Class Combinations: Explore Azeroth as a gnome priest, blood elf warrior, or one of the other never-before-available race and class combinations.
• Guild Advancement: Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements.
• New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds: Take on PvP objectives and daily quests on Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone, and wage war in all-new rated Battlegrounds.
• Archaeology: Master a new secondary profession to unearth valuable artifacts and earn unique rewards.
• Flying Mounts in Azeroth: Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms like never before.

Sounds pretty good to me – the idea of changes to Azeroth and visiting old questing areas sounds like a lot of fun and a nice change from the ‘new continent’ rountine. Only having 5 new levels seems like a plan too – maybe it will help them to get the next expansion out a bit quicker?

The new guild advancement feature sounds interesting too – I’m looking forward to hearing more about how that’s going to work.

This announcement is a little belated, but as most of you are aware, that in the last couple of months, I (Durathor) have taken on the GM role for the Lords of Nordrassil following Railor’s decision to stand down. I’d like to thank Rai for the incredible amount of effort he’s put in, from taking on the GM-ship back in 2006 when there was barely a guild at all and building the guild to what it is today.

I’m not going to rush to change any of our guild policies or how the guild operates, but would be interested in any thoughts and feedback people have. In particular I’ve started a couple of threads on the forum: one to discuss what people want from the guild (e.g. raiding, somewhere to chat etc), and another to post any suggestions that people have.

The general feedback so far is that a friendly guild that performs occasional group activities such as raiding. To support this, please feel free to use the in-game calendar to organise instance runs and other events. Also if you encounter a friendly player who might want to join the guild please ask – guild officers and level 80’s are able to invite new members. And of course please keep up the friendly chat and helpfulness in guild chat – that’s part of what this guild is all about.

Cheers
Dur

There has been an effort to minimize the time guild members need to read various boss tactics and strategies regarding Naxxramas raids.  So inside the forum on the Guides thread you will find a new topic regarding the Boss encounters.

For every Boss there’s the abilities and a small overview of the fight. This will eventually give everyone a head start. Please feel free to add to the strategies or read further on relevant sites.  The use of wowhead is heavy, any credits to them.

The Lords are back into the raiding business.

The two constructs of Naxx are nearly cleared and we march for the other two. Considering the amount of time we spent on this I have but to congratulate all those who participated thus far and put an effort into it.

Voa will also become a steady run as some will be able to update their gear and gather some emblems. Put runs up and remember not to be saved into the instance.

Invitations for raids are restricted to Grand Knight ranks for the time being. We expect all those attending the raids to have a relative knowledge of the Boss fight, be prepared with food, pots and lots of coffee.

For those who don’t have the Grand Knight rank but want to participate, feel free to talk to an officer or the GM, as we highly value the desire to help the progress of this guild.