Before 60: World of Warcraft Tips

Karma is two things to me:

The thing that keeps me from getting mad at not getting a specific outcome from a specific person.

And

A third-party addon developed for World of Warcraft.

I’ll be talking about the second incantation of Karma here. You’d have to find me in a more philosophical blog to be talking about the first incantation of it.

Karma The Addon, What’s It Do?

Basically, it lets you award or remove “points” from other gamers, so as to remind you next time you interact with them how you already feel about them. The other gamer doesn’t get notified, and there’s no “Karma sharing” function as far as I know, so really, it’s just for you and your own memory.

Personally, I guess I’m a bit of a snob. Certain behaviors annoy me and since this game is about fun to me, part of why I’m using Karma is to help improve my own fun and lower my frustration. Namely, I am in a large guild with my 60 now and want to have SOME kind of understanding of who I’m going into instances with so I don’t go in repeatedly with people who annoy me. Mainly people who are selfish in a team situation, wanting to play like they solo instead of working with the team in a smooth way. I figure it’s not too much to expect at level 60 that ‘for the team’ etiquette would have developed.

Where To Find It, Basics Of Use

I found the Addon here and it installs like any other Addon. To get the command list once it’s installed and you’re re-logged into the game, do /karma.

Unless I’m actively partied with someone, I have to manually add them to my karma list before I can give or take karma points from them. There doesn’t seem to be a quick and easy way to do it from the Karma GUI (found by doing /karma window) but the command to add an online person to your Karma list is:

/karma addmember [player name]
ie:
/karma addmember Valdesta

Then from there, I tend to go into the GUI view (/karma window, find the person in question, and do the Karma rating changes manually with the slide bar. I also put in notes to remind myself why this person has been given or had karma removed. The interface is pretty self-explanatory once you get to it, I believe.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t cover the whole “same person, alt toon” thing but copying and pasting isn’t all that hard once you learn this is just another alt you’re dealing with…

Determining Points Given or Taken

Everyone on your Karma list starts out at 50, so those below 50 are effectively “below average” in your determination, and those above 50 are “above average”. I don’t think Karma can go outside of the 0-100 range, either.

So then, I’ll be giving points to some players and taking points away from others, and I have to figure out what my strategy is going to be for that so I get consistent, useful results over time. This is going to be the thing that takes the most mental time now that the Addon is installed. How much do I give to or take from people in terms of Karma for their actions which I personally deem to be ‘for the team’ vs ‘for myself, screw the team’? I don’t know the answer to that yet.

Right now, tho, I think I’ll award 1 point for everything that makes me think “Hmm, that rocked” and 5 points for everything that makes me think “holy shit, THAT ROCKED!”, and just reverse the sentiments for deductions. It’ll be interesting to see how all these complete strangers online start to stack up now that I don’t have to worry about ever sharing the information or doing anything about it other than avoiding instance parties with the ones who really really suck!

I’ll let you know how it goes :)

One of the coolest things about being a Hunter is the fact that at level 10, you’re able to tame a pet that will fight and grow alongside you until you replace it with another pet somewhere down the road.

Unfortunately, the level 10 pet quest has some quirks to it that make the process challenging for folks new to the Hunter game. Thus, this entry was born!

I’m writing it from the perspective of a Troll or Orc on the Horde side, but the general premises would apply no matter what race and what area you get your quests from.

Getting The Quest

As a Troll Hunter, I got my quest (”Taming The Beast”) in Razor Hill from the Hunter trainer in the bunker across the street from the Inn. If you’re curious, the trainer’s name is Thotar.

Having gone through this process before, I now know that there are three stages to completing the taming quests:

1. Taming The Beast - Dire Mottled Boar
2. Taming The Beast - Surf Crawler
3. Taming The Beast - Armored Scorpid

and then upon turning in #3, Thotar sends us off to the Hunter Trainers in Orgrimmar to get the last piece when it comes to Spellbook-based pet commands:

• Tame
• Call
• Feed
• Release

Once all of these steps have been completed and you’re able to Feed your new pets (Feed being the last ’spell’ you learn while in Orgrimmar), then and only then will you be able to head out into the wild and tame a beast who will remain by your side and operate as a full-blown Hunter pet.

Finding The Right (Quest) Beasts To Tame

As with any of the rest of the World of Warcraft quests, the quest mobs in question are very specific mobs. Therefore, trying to tame a Pygmy Surf Crawler is not going to count towards taming a Surf Crawler. I believe it was the Hunter quest that lead me towards my introduction to Thottbot.com, a website with a simple search engine that’s full of mob and item location data (complete with maps) and a plethora of other information.

I strongly suggest you use Thottbot throughout your Warcraft gaming, and for that reason, I’ve made the links up above when referring to the quest mobs. Find a line entry with a high number of kills, and then click on “Map” to the left of the kills number, and you’ll find the most recent places that that type of mob was found and killed by other players. It’ll never pinpoint something for you, but it sure makes finding mobs and specific drops easier than it would be if you had to rely on your friends and guildmates to point you in the right direction!

How To Use Your Taming Rod To Tame Beasts

Now that you know where to find your first beast for the Taming quests, maybe you’ve even got a Dire Mottled Boar wandering around in front of you… how does this “Taming Rod” work?

The simplest way I’ve found to use it is by putting it into my Action bar (bottom bar with the 1 2 3 quickactions), and use it from there, since it’s not required to actually “wield” the rod in order to have it work. I’ve dragged the rod from my bag into QuickAction slot represented by the number 0, and now for the actual taming steps:

1. Find a Dire Mottled Boar and TAB until you’ve targetted it. Don’t attack, but get close enough that the QuickAction number on your Action bar (number 0 for me because of where I put the taming rod) turns from red to white.
2. Activate the taming rod through your Action bar QuickAction (for me, the number 0, or by clicking the bar on my Action bar)
3. Wait until your tame succeeds or fails.
4. If it fails, repeat Step 2 and 3. If it succeeds, return to Razor Hill to turn in your quest and get the next step.

Summary

Those are the very basics for the process of completing your Level 10 Hunter Pet Quests. In part two, I’ll cover more details, including:

• How you know if the tame is working/has worked
• Turn in your quest, or fight with your new pet first?
• Dealing with Taming Wand replacement and its quirky nature
• Staying alive during taming

Part II has been posted, continue on…