Filed under: Contests, WoW TCG

This is one crazy fun loot card we’re giving away today. Papa Hummel’s Pet Biscuit increases the size of your non-combat pet to regular pet size. But it also enlarges Hunter and Warlock pets to super-size. Think of the fun you could have.

To enter, leave a comment on this post before Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 6pm ET. No age or location restrictions on this giveaway. Anyone can enter! One winner will be chosen randomly and will receive a “Papa Hummel’s Pet Biscuit” loot card.

Countdown to Wrath Giveaway: Day 5 – Papa Hummel’s Pet Biscuit loot card originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World of Warcraft is a beautiful place.

The different zones are so … DIFFERENT! There are many types of areas depicted, from deserts to lush tropical areas, from grasslands to wastelands.

Flying Past The Sunset

In wandering through my Screenshots directory, I found one of my Azeroth-based toons mounted on a flyer, flying past a beautiful sunset. I thought I’d share it here, and ponder…

Who programs the beautiful sunsets and sunrises? Did they do every zone, or were there multiple people doing it? Whoever it was did a great job

My Favorite Place For Screenshots

Truthfully, although the picture above is beautiful, Nagrand is my favorite place to take snaps. The beautiful contrast of the blue sky next to the green grass on the ground has long been my favorite background for taking pictures of my own characters in-game when it’s the character I’m trying to display (vs something else in the image). I fly up onto one of those floating islands, and get some great shots.

I’m sure you’ve seen a few of them around!

I had some network issues in the past while, where my Internet disconnected entirely, knocking me off of the game and off of Vent at the same time.

Swimming Mid Air, No Mount, after network D/C

It happens periodically – one’s ISP gets attacked with Denial of Service attacks and all the bandwidth for the users is used up, and it appears as if you’re offline.

Or of course, you HAVE been knocked offline – either way, you’re not able to get to the rest of the world because of what is happening.

If you were in-game at the time, and especially if you were flying on your mount, this time of disconnection can be used for a little bit of fun. And of course, because it’s a simple net disconnection, it’s easy to repeat by simply pulling out your network cable or disconnecting from the Internet with the game still running.

Doesn’t That Disconnect You From The Game?

Yes, but your local game doesn’t realize it for a few minutes, which allows you a bit of time to play around and laugh at what happens.

So, what should you do when you’re disconnected, to have a little fun?

Swimming over Nagrand while disconnected from server

The first thing, of course, is to mount up, disconnect, and then fly to your heart’s content, exploring places like caves which would normally dismount you or be full of mobs that would gang up and kill you. You won’t be dismounted, and there are no mobs, because you’re not connected.

The second thing is to mount up, fly up high and disconnect – then dismount and “swim” around in the air, at the speed of your mount! (it looked pretty funny since I’ve got an epic flyer and was swimming FAST).

Another thing you can do is start fishing. When your line is in the water, disconnect, and then run around and see just how long your fishing line will stretch!

Have fun with it. Let me know if you find some fun things to do when disconnected, too

PUG Raid Of Serpentshrine Cavern

So, last night after waiting on standby for the guild’s Sunwell Raid (first boss down!), a guildmate asked if anyone was interested in joining a raid going into Serpentshrine Cavern.

Our realm has a constant stream of these PUG raids going on now – SSC, Tempest Keep/The Eye, Black Temple, Hyjal… and of course Zul’Aman, Gruul’s, Magtheridon and Kara. Every week it’s easy to get into a decent run, if you’re decently geared, and this week was no different.

The raid was lead by a guy who is well-known over the past few months in our realm for putting together decent raid PUGs, having strict entry requirements and a solid friends list to call upon to fill out the ranks. I had run with him before, so I didn’t have to do the whole “gear check” thing – just headed to Zangarmarsh and towards the summoning stone for the Coilfang Reservoir dungeons.

Familiar Faces

When I was invited to the party, a few familiar names popped up and said hello, including a couple of Priest Healers I had been in the raiding guild with when I was raiding on my Mage back in the Jan-May 2008 timeframe. It was great to see them again!

One of them mentioned their spellpower unbuffed, which now represents their +healing, and it was around +1250, so my comment was “doesn’t that make you feel weak saying that?”, and the other Priest agreed – they had gone down from some 2300-2400 +heals to +1250 spellpower just like I’d made my 2k-1k drop, so they knew what I meant I personally was at just under 1090 spellpower unbuffed during this conversation.

So, since the conversation had been opened, we all discussed our various important stats – spellpower and MP5 (mana per 5 seconds/mana regen) while casting being the most important. It seems like the other two hadn’t figured out a spec yet to have their MP5 be decent, but I’ve got it going pretty well.

When I first re-spec’d after the patch, I thought I chose a fine spec until I looked at my MP5 while casting and saw how horribly neutered it was (I think it was at 54). I re-spec’d again with more in Discipline and got back to normal at around 202.

Four Bosses Downed, New Trinket Obtained

I haven’t been in many raid instances with this toon so I like these PUGs for the fact that I really can’t find gear anywhere else other than Heroic Badge rewards now. Anything that drops in Heroics or Karazhan is worse or equal to what I have. Zul’Aman still has gear for me but I don’t get into there very often.

Oct 16/08 SSC Healing Recount

We ended up taking down four bosses during the raid, but the raid leader didn’t feel confident with the group makeup to take on Lady Vashj, so he called it – which was fine by me, it was after midnight already.

I got a great Priest Healer trinket at one point: Earring of Soulful Meditation

Both of the Priest Healers I raided with 8 months ago were still looking for this trinket, so I felt very fortunate to have been top roller!

PUG Rolling Rules vs Raiding Guild Rolling Rules

In fact, after being awarded the new trinket, one of the healers asked me what had become of my Mage, because they were wondering if this Healer was a new Main or if it was still my Alternate toon.

In a raiding guild scenario, the rolling rule is “mains over alts”, but in a PUG the only rule is “main spec over off spec”, so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway if the Mage was still my main.

Of course that doesn’t stop people from feeling some type of “right” to a piece of gear, especially one they’ve been vying for for many months.

Oct 16/08 SSC Overhealing Recount

Recount Results For Healing and Overhealing

I made sure to take a screenshot of the Healing and Overhealing results for that raid, because even though there’s no proof that they’re real and haven’t been doctored in some way (ie: by me not resetting my meters), I know they’re not, and I was happy with last night’s result.

I was pitted up against three healers who outgear me but use around the same healing specialization/talents that I do, and I not only Outhealed them but I had a lower Overhealing % and less deaths.

But, to be truthful, I know that one of the healers could crank out a lot more if she wasn’t AFK for 10 minutes at a time and on /follow…