This was fun. I got to die twice as quickly from being stomped by Thrym.

Continued...

Anybody who’s ever been to the Forge of Souls has probably seen Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls. And anybody with a brain in their head will probably be able to figure out that Bronjahm is really a tribute to James Brown, the Godfather of Soul.

But what’s really cool is just how much work Blizzard put into this boss character. In addition to looking like James Brown and making a lot of James Brown-style noises (“Wabadoooo”) look at his loot tables:

• Lucky Old Sun, named after his song “That Lucky Old Sun”.
• Bewildering Shoulderpads, named after his song “Bewildered”.
• Seven Stormy Mornings, named after his song “Stormy Monday”.
• Minister's Number One Legplates, from his nicknames “Soul Brother Number One” and “Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk”.
• Cold Sweat Grips, from the song “Cold Sweat”.
• Papa's Brand New Bag, from the song “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”.
• Nighttime from the song “Night Time is the Right Time”.
• Papa's Brand New Knife, possibly a reference to when Brown attacked a repairman with a steak knife.
• Love's Prisoner, from the song “Prisoner of Love”.
• Weeping Gauntlets, from either “Oh Baby Don’t You Weep” or “Willow Weep For Me”.
• Eyes of Bewilderment, after “Bewildered” again.

Then, of course, there’s the music that plays when you fight him. If you’re like me and have the music turned off, you probably missed this. Just type it into the game and listen.

/run PlaySoundFile("sound\\music\\zonemusic\\icecrownraid\\ir_BronzeJam.mp3")

I love Blizzard.

Continued...

Sometimes, you've just got to kill penguins.

Continued...

I encountered this bizarre graphical glitch when I took my hunter Inebrius (still lvl. 67) into the Netherstorm for the first time. It was probably caused by a slight malfunction in one of the swirly sky textures and its transparency. I suppose it's also possible (nay, likely) that I am The One.

Continued...

Well, here's my brand new video I alluded to in yesterday's post. You can see a higher-res version on the new Baluki Facebook Page.

In it, I demonstrate the ins and outs of the sport I invented, called Beam Jumping (or Baluki's Beam Jumping, if you're going to try to form a league). Think of it as a mix of skydiving and darts.


I worked pretty hard on this one, and it's actually pretty long. I can't tell you how many times I threw myself to my death, just to entertain you.

I managed to whip it all up on my ancient copy of Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 (they're up to version 5 or something by now) and once it was all done, I had a hell of a time getting it to render right. And THEN, once I had attempted to render it about 20 times (which took about 2 hours each time, though once it actually took 12) the program just wouldn't load the project anymore, so I thought I was screwed. Finally I figured out that I had to run it in WinXP Compatibility Mode (I'm "rocking" Vista) and run it with Administrative permissions. Oy.

If you've never seen my previous video, "Baluki and the Ring of the Law!", here it is too. I made it about a year ago (pre-BC) in Windows Movie Maker, which didn't give me any trouble at all. (I used WMM because I couldn't get Premiere to install at the time.)

Continued...

Cower in fear, for the time of the Dark Shaman is here!

Continued...

I'm just glad I was one of the ones *creating* the pile, not cleaning it up.

Continued...

I was questing in Dalaran while playing my Belfadin. I noticed a beam leading up to a chimney, and I wondered if I would get stuck if I tried to jump in.

I did.

Continued...

Poor Gahagan. He got killed in mid-air over Ogri'la. He died so high that I couldn't even reach his body to rez him. It's impressive, really.

Continued...

Supertotem
14,000 mana
You and your party members receive extra agility, strength, spell damage, spell crit, spell hit, and resistance to fire, nature, and frost spells. Also restores health. Also reduces melee and ranged damage taken. Also periodically absorbs one harmful spell, causes damage to nearby enemies, breaks fear & sleep effects, removes poison and disease, causes your weapons to do additional damage, reduces your threat to enemies, slows nearby enemies, and taunts nearby enemies. Will also summon a Molten Elemental to protect you.
Lasts 2 minutes. Has 5 hit points.

Continued...

Yet another fun thing to do in Outland:

1. Fly up the center of the beam of light in the center of Shattrath until you can't go any higher.
2. Dismount.

I got so high up that I couldn't see the ground anymore.

If you want to be a pansy, I guess you can use Slowfall, or a parachute cloak, or even a Noggenfogger if you're feeling lucky.

UPDATE: If you happen to have the X-52 Rocket Helmet, if you activate it at just the right time, you can survive the fall. Theoretically. I haven't been able to time it right so far.

Continued...

This thread on the shaman forum is great; instead of complaining in the usual way ("omg blizz, wtf!") someone came up with the idea to write our complaints in haiku form. There are some pretty funny ones on there.

And of course, I had to write my own. I think I wrote more than anyone else in that thread, actually.

Haikus are quite fun, because they're easy to write, and they sound profound.

Continued...

Whoa, big elf.

Continued...

What does this remind you of? Heh.

Continued...

The GMs are clearly insane.

By the way, I was reporting some goldsellers and spammers. Do your part!

Continued...

Can you imagine a book of Murloc baby names?

Continued...

Moments later, I fell right into the middle of them.

Continued...

Here I am in human form.

Continued...

Hey Gronn! Lookit the bear! Tasty, crunchy bear! Mmmm.

I can't believe Rexxar lent me his bear to use as bait.

Continued...

Ha, take that Nefarian.

Looks like he overdosed on giant rock spikes.

Continued...