Forged Alliance

i'm not other really sure what to think of this yet. my initial reaction is that this expansion continues to disappoint me:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 646?page=1

i would have thought they figured this out after mv / hof / toes, or maybe they just wanted to make one tier into two.

I'm actually a bit appalled that their example scenario is a guild going 6/7N Highmaul, then 3/7H Highmaul, then go back and kill normal Mar'gok. I can understand the first heroic boss being on par with the final normal boss, but half the raid instance? For the effort it takes to kill Mar'gok, they need to increase the ilvl of his loot or do something like put all of the good weapons on him (like Deathwing). That or perhaps make all of the Mar'gok loot guaranteed to proc a gem slot/warforged/tertiary. I know I got some Mar'gok loot via follower missions, but if getting it in the actual raid meant that you got procs, that would be a reasonable carrot for doing things the hard way.

Their definition of tier is also broken. If you can make a complete set of gear from an instance, that is a tier. In MSV/HoF/ToES, I'm pretty sure you had to go back into MSV to fill every slot (off the top of my head, I think the only paladin bracers were in MSV as well as trinkets for various specs). Since you can fill all of your gear slots in Highmaul, that's a tier.

I suspect they were trying to fix the 'problem' of people being upset that they missed various pieces of gear from MSV when their guilds stopped raiding it. That is entirely unnecessary since you can craft up to three pieces for your missing gear slots = they should have just put one or two gear slot voids in the Blackrock Foundry itemization and if you missed filling it in Highmaul and your guild didn't want to raid it anymore, just craft it.

In any case, my eyes are burning since I was up all night fiddling with Sony Movie Studio (the cheaper version of Vegas). On an interesting note, my current monitor is 1920 x 1200 (16:10 ratio) which Youtube and every video editing tool out there hates -- they want 1920 x 1080 (16:9 ratio). My current monitor is probably on the verge of dying; I need to find time to open it up and replace some capacitors that are probably blown. This introduces an interesting choice.

1) Buy Movie Studio 13 for $30 + buy a new 1080p monitor for ~$200. 'Extra effort' required to make my WoW interface fit the smaller resolution.
2) Buy Movie Studio 13 Platinum for $58 (the basic version doesn't export above 1080p) + repair my 10 year old monitor for ~$20 (I'd have to open it up and identify the parts to replace, but I don't predict it being that expensive). 'Extra effort' required to take apart, solder, and put together a monitor.

It's nice that the trial versions aren't crippled, so I can go through the full process. Made a lot of trial and error mistakes which is why I was up all night. Hopefully the Kromog video turns out well.

-HP

I just cut my videos height-wise to make it 1080 to match youtube's specifications. You don't lose much.

Hmm, I didn't realize that my Mac was actually 16:10 too (the retina display is 2560 x 1600). I dunno, cutting from 1920 x 1200 to 1920 x 1072 (since I use that process you linked) ended up shaving my buffs and hotkeys which I like to look at when reviewing mistakes in my rotation and boss mechanics. There still is no 'original' quality on the video I uploaded, but the 1080p60 video that Youtube downscaled looks pretty sharp.

-HP