Machinima Guides

I've been visiting the home websites of some of my favorite World of Warcraft movie makers and found a surprising number of hints, tips and guides. I've collected a few here:

By Oxhorn:

• The Basics of Making WoW Machinima
• Tips on Making a Good Movie
• Oxhorn's Blog - Chewing the Cud

From Spiffworld:

• How I Make My Videos and Tips For Video Makers
• Spiffworld's Brand New Blog

From Myndflame:

• Sound & Video Editing Forum
• Myndflame Interview on Machinima.com
• The Myndflame Homepage

Stone Falcon Productions:

• Tips and Tutorials Forum
• Stone Falcon Productions' Blog

More:

• IGN Beginner's Guide
• South Park Episode Making-of Interview (link via Crafting Worlds)

Some Epic Inspiration:


And for Ambiance:


Update 9/8/2007:

WoWInsider's Machinima 101: The basics

Blizzard's Letter to the Machinimators of the World of Warcraft
Source: machinimafordummies.com (the blog for the book of the same name) via wowinsider

Update 9/1/2008:

WoWInsider's WoW Machinima: The basics

The Crystals and Pylons of Un'goro Crater

There's something else you can do with all those collectible crystals in Un'goro crater. You can exchange them for new crystals with a variety of abilities, such as a heal over time, shield, AoE fire damage, buffs, etc..

Background:
You may remember the following quests in Un'goro which introduce you to all the crystals and pylons:

Crystals of Power in which you bring 7 of each color crystal to J.D. Collie, the gnome in the cave.

Visit the Eastern Pylon

Visit the Northern Pylon

Visit the Western Pylon

and finally:

Making Sense of it in which you receive the Crystal Pylons User's Manual

What Next:
The User's Manual tells you which crystals to take to which pylon, and what you can exchange them for.

Each pylon has two unique crystals it can give you back.

Each exchange will require 10 each of two different color crystals

Here's a picture at the Eastern Pylon:


And these tables show the exchanges available at each Pylon:

Northern Pylon

Turn in:	Receive:
Red	Crystal Charge Inflicts 383 to 517 fire damage to targets in a 3 yard radius	-
Yellow		Crystal Restore Heals the target of 670 damage over 15 sec.
Green	-

Eastern Pylon

Turn in:	Receive:
Green	Crystal Force Increases the target's Spirit by 30 for 30 min.	-
Blue		Crystal Spire Use: A crystal shield surrounds the friendly target, doing 12 damage to anyone who hits her. Lasts 10 min.
Yellow	-

Western Pylon

Turn in:	Receive:
Blue	Crystal Yield Decreases an enemy target's Armor by 200 for 2 min.	-
Red		Crystal Ward Use: Increases the target's Armor by 200 for 30 min.
Green	-

In what was less an experiment and more necessity than I'd like to admit, I would often load up for bear (dinosaur?) with all of my newly exchanged crystals and do some elite mob hunting. Although I should note that the new crystals and buffs that you get can be used anywhere and are not limited to use in Un'goro Crater.

Happy Crystal Hunting!

Where the Crocolisks Roam

If you're ever questing in the Wetlands and have to do one of the numerous "kill small/medium/giantsized crocs" quests I have a trick. Walk out of Menethil Harbor and make an immediate right - directly into the drink.

All types of crocs swim in this watery inlet. The young ones are closest and the giant ones are furthest. No more dodging murlocs, invisible Fen Creepers or Hogger wannabes to find one or two croc mobs.

See...? Lots of dead croc-ery goodness:

For those with no special underwater breathing abilities, I recommend a nice Elixir of Water Breathing. Some of those giant crocs like to hide near the bottom.

Giant Clams and Treasure

I'm swimming from point A to point B. I'm doing a mission in water. I'm picking up some Stranglekelp (actually most of the time it's that one). For whatever purpose I'm in the water, I love finding the undersea version of a treasure chest.... the Giant Clam:



It's not exactly treasure inside, just some clam meat, although there is the occasional pearl. This WoWWiki Link shows in an easy format which areas drop which kinds of pearls.

You may know about the Dwarf racial talent to find treasure. Well, it identifies not only treasure chests, but also clams.

Here's a photo montage of my adventure trying to establish that my dwarf's treasure finding skill will indeed find the clams:



Oh yeah, don't forget about the reef sharks. The picture above is from Westfall. An elite level 22 (very high end for Westfall) patrols the edge of the reef. How's that for a deadly surprise? And here I thought doing my duty in Westfall was killing those roaming elementals.

Guild History

To me, afkgamer is like Guild TV. It's a funny (and colorful) blog where the author often describes the Guild Drama he sees in his WoW guild.

One thing I learned from reading Foton (the author) is that a guild leader should consider keeping track of player guild applications to other guilds.

One thing I learned from my brother last weekend, is that anyone can look up what guilds players used to be in.

Check out this link: http://www.warcraftrealms.com/charhistory.php

You can learn:

What Guilds a Player used to be in

If a player name is already taken on your server

If a guild name is already taken on your server

How fascinated players are with Harry Potter

Harry Potter?

Yup. Run a few searches on SiriusBlack, Order of the Phoenix, Hogwarts, etc... and see what you think.

Bernard the Mixer

If you don't know about Bernard the Mixer (then you definitely didn't think this was funny), you haven't been to Thottbot searching for any potions lately. (I can understand why, given what I'm about to share.) Because invariably as you search for a potion there will be a weird reference to an NPC in westfall who sells it... Bernard the Mixer.

And you check for a map location...


... only to fly out to Westfall and find no Bernard. No Mixer. And alas... no potions.

The best answer I found was from a Thottbot user named Galechan who posted this a while back:

I contacted a GM about Bernard the Mixer. He does not exist. This was an NPC early on in the game, but it became so popular, people were complaining that there was never anything there, so they took him out.

Thottbot on Bernard the Mixer: here or here (thottbot's been weird this weekend so it might not load).

Auction House

I've been collecting some Auction house Posts. Here they are with some interesting or representative excerpts:

From worldofwarcraft.com
Auction House Basics

Deposit Fees. All auctions will be initially charged a deposit fee. The deposit fee is refunded upon the successful sale of the item. All successful sales are charged an auction consignment fee which is extracted directly from the final sale price. All fees are higher in Gadgetzan.

Auction House Tips

Sound. You can hit control-s to disable the sound effects if someone is making really annoying sounds in the auction house. Don't forget to re-enable them after you leave.

From wowwiki.com
Auction House Formulas

Don't lower your starting bid below 70% of the suggested amount. (70% in a factioned auction house, 79% in the neutral house.) Otherwise you risk getting less money for an item than a normal merchant would give you.

The Dressing Room Feature from Patch 1.7

Other:
WorldofWar.net's Auction Houses Guide - Includes a link to Auction UIs/Mods

Bid increments are 5% of the current bid

When a bid is made a minute is added to the auction duration.

The Day the Auction House got Bought

Auction House Bomb Video

Devilsaur Leather Hunting

Apparently Devilsaur Armor is highly desirable and players wind up farming for Devilsaur leather, often to sell for gold.

Want to try it? Here are some maps which are designed to track the path of the Devilsaurs:

• Devilsaur path
• Devilsaur Hunter
• Thottbot Link to Devilsaur Leather

Drop LFG Channel

I read a lot of complaints about the global Looking For Group Channel.
Update 6/27/06: This one was pretty funny.

And they were right. So some people are putting it on it's own tab. Or /ignoring the worst offenders.

I just turned it off since I don't use it anyway. I just right mouse clicked the chat tab and selected the "Join New Group" section and unchecked the Looking For Group chat:



Update: Blizzard Post on the Functionality of the Channel

We feel that it definitely provides a helpful advantage; however we are evaluating its current implementation and likely changing its function slightly in the near future.

Darkmoon Faire Guide

Thanks to Marc's World of Warcraft Blog for pointing out this Guide to the Darkmoon Faire.

This is the kind of guide I love. It includes:

• A list of quest items and quantities. Including those targeted at Blacksmiths, Engineers and Leathercrafters.
• A list of ticket rewards. (Turn in x tickets and get this prize.)
• Darkmoon Card information
• (Drum roll for this one) ... aaaaand... a table telling you the buff you will receive from the Fortune Teller based on the answers you give.

p.s. Thanks for the linkage Marc!

Tip Parade - Reading the Bar

One day we were out trying to kill some pirate boss in the lower decks of his ship but there were players who would kite this boss once and somehow hide and let other players (in this case us) finish him off. (I think they put a ranged shot on him and while the boss made his way around the walls to the player, he would first encounter us who thought one of our party had hit him and would gleefully kill him off and then wonder why no one could loot him.)

Durn taught me something that day that really helped. He pointed out that once a mob has been attacked by anyone who is NOT IN YOUR PARTY, his bar changes from Red or Yellow to grey. Sure enough, that boss's bar was grey and we couldn't get the credit we needed.

It was hard to picture what he was talking about at first so here are some pic's to explain.

Red or Yellow Bar = No one has attacked this Enemy yet:

Grey Bar = Someone (not you or your party) has already attacked this Enemy and will get credit for its kill:

Note - this holds in a PVE environment and you'll notice that PVP targets may show differently.

WoW Tip Parade - Unlearn Professions

I hear this question asked in the general channel a lot:

How do I Unlearn a profession?

It's actually very easy and it's free. You can do it at any time and don't need an NPC to do it. First, hit "k" to bring up your Skills sheet and find the skill you want to unlearn. Click it so that it the details for it show up at the bottom. Here's a picture of what it should look like:

Look for the circle with the slash through it in the detailed section (see arrow above). That's the button you use to unlearn the profession. Click it and you'll get this confirmation in the middle of your screen:
Select "Unlearn" and it's official. You'll see a message describing what you just did in your chat box:

WoW Tip Parade - /gquit

One of the questions I hear asked in "General" the most is "How do I quit a guild?"

Here's your answer: /gquit or /guildquit.

WoW Tip Parade - Loot All

There are a ton and a half of tips out there. I will distill the ones I know down to just a handful of the best and share them with you in this series: The WoW Tip Parade.

Today's tip is my favorite: SHIFT-Right-click.

Instead of looting your kill by right-clicking it, use your left hand to hit shift while you're doing it. Instead of just opening the loot box, WoW will open it and automatically traansfer all contents to your bags. If you don't have enough room, it will take what it can and then give you an error message.

To make this tip even better is this little factoid - it works with more than just looting. Shift-Right-click to mine your ore and it will do the mining and then open up the window and automatically transfer the contents to your bags. It also works with Herbalism, Skinning, treasure chests and mission gathering as well.

Warning - I do this so often when I'm working solo; it gets hard to mentally turn it off when I'm in a group. But it's important to not do this if there are special looting rules in your group.

A Truly Black Shirt

I present for your consideration - the Stylish Black Shirt.

Finally; a plain ol' black shirt that doesn't make me feel like I'm hookin.'

I had Briar model the some dark shirts so we can show you. She wasn't too happy about the Black Swashbuckler.


You can find other very good screen shots of other dark shirts in the comments about the Master Builder's Shirt on Thottbot. It's also a very nice simple dark shirt, but unfortunately it's a BOP drop item.

Where to find it.
The good news is that it's available for purchase for only 60 silver (before any faction discounts). The bad news is that it is only for sale in Stormwind! Unfortunately, the only way for the Horde to get it is to to hope someone wants to make some money by selling it on a neutral auction house.

Saunter on over to the Canal Tailor shop in the Trade District to find this gem.


Even better news - there's no limit to how many she has available.

p.s. I owe a thanks to my brother who showed me this gem.

Tip: Blink

If you check out this comic from GUComics and watch for a bit, it will scroll through some funny "tips."

There's also discussion on it with some "real" WoW tips here. Some of them are actually fairly useful:

Tip: If you throw away your Hearthstone, talk to any innkeeper. They will give you a replacement.

Some are good common sense:

TIP: don't pet the Voidwalker.

And some are soap-box opportunists (although with valuable thoughts I have to say)

Tip: If you are ever caught saying the words 'Chuck Norris', you will be banned. There are no exceptions.

p.s. While I was there I found their Store with some funny t-shirts, mousepads, etc..