We all love our time in the game to look great but there are times when we may either need that extra boost of FPS (frames per second) or just can’t see something on the ground we need (like a quest item). Straight from Daostrasz’s Realm is just how you can setup a couple macros to make your screen look like the two seen below, one low rez and the other high rez.

Edit: Now that I’ve added lightbox to show images, I see how dark these are, either look at the larger size or this week i’ll add lighter images.

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   I’ve added two buttons to my HUD so on the fly I can change back and forth, I laugh everytime I see the low rez, it makes me think someone is cutting all the grass in the world. Check out the link above to see other settings that Daniel has laid out for us. Here are the 2 main listings for the /macros

My “Min Detail” macro looks like this:

/console showDetailDoodads
/console showLowDetail
/console horizonfarclip 1305
/console farclip 177
/console groundEffectDensity 256
/console detailDoodadAlpha 100
/console characterAmbient
/console maxLOD 2
/console SkyCloudLOD 1

My “Max Detail” macro looks like this:

/console showDetailDoodads
/console showLowDetail
/console horizonfarclip 2112
/console farclip 777
/console groundEffectDensity 256
/console detailDoodadAlpha 100
/console characterAmbient
/console maxLOD 3
/console SkyCloudLOD 3

Large sized

   Coming from other games where you could change the look and feel of the game with addons, one of the first things I did when begining WoW was checkout all the mods & addons. The image to the right is a screenshot of my current HUD, as you can see, I have all the info I need on my screen, any buttons I need are there and important ones have shortcut keys to them and I feel the layout works (for me).

   Now I’ve gone to some extremes completely changing things around, but usually players will just install one or two addons, such as, to show their current quest or their Aggro, but there are thousands to choose from. My favorites are Auctioneer (helps make me Gold!) and Fubar, which will hold many many other addons within it (see top and bottom bars in screenshot). I plan on adding a post every so often on differend addons and what they do, but till then, check out these sites for World of Warcraft Addons. http://www.wowinterface.com/ & http://wow.curse.com. For auctioneer check out http://auctioneeraddon.com/

   This week started Darkmoon Faire in Elwynn Forest. This is the first of this event that I’ve been able to attend and I’ll have to say it was fun. Not fun as in I spent hours playing around in the area but it was a fun time away from grinding or questing. To be able to do something a bit different once in a while is probably one of the things that keeps players on WoW.

   I started hearing about the faire in Ironforge when I was given a ticket to the faire by a vendor walking around by the bank. I had a few items in my bank that said “turn in at the darkmoon faire” so why not go? When first ariving to the area where the faire is, you notice crowds of people, both Alliance and Horde are welcome (but sometimes things get out of hand and the entire town of Goldshire becomes a battlezone.. See images below) A couple of the fun items at the faire are the Steam Tonks, you control them and attack other Steam Tonks, but what I like best are the [Heavy Leather Balls] you can buy and then throw at other players, it goes straight into their pack, so you see these balls flying everywhere.. good fun

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   Turning in items (usually 5 of each) will give you tickets to turn in for a prize, many of the turn ins I had 4 of the five so I bought the extras on AH just to see what my prizes were. I ended up with enough tickets for [Minor Darkmoon Prize], [Lesser Darkmoon Prize] and a [Darkmoon Storage Box]. The 2 prize bags had mostly worthless green items in them only worth a couple silver and the storage box had 14 slots, but nothing extra special about it. None of them worth spending your hard Gold on. Here is a list of the turn in items so you can be ready for the next faire in 3 more months.

   This weekend I decided to do a little fishing in the Stranglethorn Vale Fishing Extravaganza. This tournament starts on Sunday afternoons at 2 -4pm server time. At 2pm there is a yell from Booty bay announcing the start of th tourney, then pools of “tastyfish” will start to appear. The way to win is to be the first with 40 “tastyfish” and turn them in at BB.

   To fish in Stranglethorn Vale (STV) you only need to have 225+ fishing skill but those under level 40 may want to bring a higher level friend for protection from some of the beast. at level 60 the beast will stop aggro on you and there will be no worries, but for those of us way under that, watch your butt!

   There are different objects and gear one can wear to make their fishing even better. First there are lures that you can buy from the fishmasters, these will usually add +10 - +25 to your fishing but take awhile to use. There are many other fishing rods that can be used like [Nat Pagle’s Extreme Angler FC-5000] or [Arcanite Fishing Pole], fish finder books that you can catch and even gloves enchanted to up your fishing skill [Formula: Enchant Gloves - Fishing] and dont forget your [Lucky Fishing Hat].

   When the tourney begins, you will see the pools start to show up, remember these pools only hold up to 5 of the fish you need, so make sure you cast right into the pool, only take the 5 and if someone tries to share your pool, leave at 4, so not to waste time. Having your hearthstone set for BB is also a good idea to save you from running back and someone getting there before you.

   With the right gear and practice you may win, I didn’t but it was my first time. If you don’t win, that’s ok, there are also other special fish to catch for some elite fishing gear. Hope to see you along the shore…

   One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn and still gets me in WoW is dying. Being an old school game player I do everything I can to keep from dying, reason being is that games use to have penalties for death. I can’t tell you how many times i’ve lost XP or had to go find my corpse and get my equipment off of it. (picture running into a group of beast in my underwear). But this isn’t true in World of Warcraft, there are no penalties or xp loss, the worst part is the time it takes to run to your corpse and sometimes you’ll get a 10% durability loss on your equipment.
   This doesn’t mean go into a raid or group not worrying about a wipe or just yourself dieing, but it does mean it’s not the end of the world, take a deep breath and say it’s ok to die, it’s ok to die… There do you feel better?

When watching chat in cities or with a group, alot of the times users will use an acronym in their chat, what do all these mean? What area are they talking about? and what’s WTS in SW but heading to STV?

Well over at the forums on Allakhazam, Jordster. With contributions from Seoman, Riggy, Monkydung and many others have made our life a lot easier..

Here are a couple, but head over to Allakhazam forums for the complete list.

Trade
WTS - Willing to Sell
WTB - Willing to Buy
WTT - Willing to Trade
Mats - Materials (usually meaning bring your own and I’ll craft)
OBO - Or best offer
PST - Please sent tell

Outdoor Geography and Cities

Major Cities:
Org - Orgrimmar
UC - Undercity
TB - Thunder Bluff
SW - Stormwind
IF - Ironforge
Darn - Darnassus

Towns
GG - Grom Gol
BB - Booty Bay (neutral city)
Gadget - Gadgetzan (neutral city)

Zones
STV - Stranglethorn Vale
STM - Stonetalon Mountain
EPL - Eastern Plaguelands
WPL - Western Plaguelands
SOS - Swamp of Sorrows
WS - Winterspring
1k - Thousand Needles