Here’s a video to explain why this is:

This is an awesome switch over. Be excited. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my NEW CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/NilesyRocks

Oh, and as a bonus treat, my Amnesia: The Dark Descent part 2 video was released yesterday. This is the LAST video in the series WITHOUT ingame sound. Enjoy!

It’s Nilesy here. Sorry for the lack of updates recently, been completely swamped with work and overtime to make some extra money. As a sidenote, would you guys and girls dislike it if I just posted random thoughts on life/movies and not just games? Reply in the comment section.

Anyway. Horror.

I don’t do it. I’m a massive wuss. I just get very scared very easily at the slightest thing. My mind is filled with twirlies and swirlies and fairies and buttons. I do not like the idea of infecting it with monsters and ghosts. However, peer pressure has won out and I have finally conceded to play Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

I’ve gotten a lot of requests to play this game. Panda initially made a load of his subscribers berrate me, and then a few of my own did too. And you guys know me, I love a bit of fan service. So I figured I’d give it a play. Two videos were made (so far…) and yeah, I was terrified. 42 minutes of gameplay and I’m probably not even past the “tutorial section”.

Anyway, if you wanna see me acting like a huge, massive wimp, then feel free to watch the video below. Many yelps and cries to be found.

We’re fine. We’re FINE.

PS A new t-shirt is out in my T-shirt shop for the Amnesia: The Dark Descent videos! “LOL NOOB” can be seen and bought by clicking “Store” in the top tab!

Hey true believers,

This is going to be a short blog post with a run down on what the hell I’m doing, what videos I am and am not currently making, which videos are kind of “retired” and what videos you can expect to see from me soon.

Alright so let’s start off with the biggie.

World of Warcraft

I practically cannot record any WoW footage. Right now, I have nothing to record. My character is shitty and I physically do not have the time to gear up my character. I don’t even have time to do dailies. I haven’t even logged in for like a week. I’d love to play it, but I’ve been doing so much work that it’s been impossible. Plus, recording WoW is impossible either way. I don’t know what Blizz has done, maybe increased the engine capacities or something, but my PC can’t handle the fraps footage. So World of Warcraft is kind of out of the question for a while.

Dynasty Warriors Online

The game started to bore me slightly. Plus, there was a massive fuck-up on Machinima Realm where my newest Dynasty Warriors video (a few months ago) which was Part 2 got no views. Right now it has about 1,600 views. I have 4,000 subscribers. Kind of depressing. So for that reason I have put it on the back burner for now. Maybe I’ll make more in the future, probably definitely will, but right now it isn’t a priority.

CrimeCraft

The CrimeCraft videos were going to be a few. But I had a massive fuck up. While recording part 2 the audio jacked up so I needed to re-record certain parts of it. I have the files on my desktop ready to do it but I’ve just lost enthusiasm for it. Not for any community reasons, just because my computer is so untrustworthy that it really really angers me. Along with the CrimeCraft issue I also lost another 40 minute recording of pure narration. Because my PC is terrible. Drives me insane man. So when I think of CrimeCraft I think of that and it boils my blood. When I get the chance, maybe some time this week, I’ll finish it up to part 2, part 3 and onwards will be dubious. Depends if I still have the free subs which CrimeCraft provided to me.

Hero 108

The Hero 108 series with Panda kind of died because of my job. We’d both really really love to make more but we’re both really busy. Panda makes videos tonnes and so do I. But, mostly I’m working. My day job doesn’t pay very well but I sadly can’t live without it. For the month of January I’m going to be taking as much overtime as I can to pay off debts/go towards a new PC. Only option I have right now as it’s my only source of income.

Starcraft 2

Since I’m a pretty bad player at SC2 (so far) I’d quite enjoy to keep making the Starcraft 2 Secrets videos. You will definitely be seeing more of these. They’re popular, fun and easy to make. Probably none in January but I’d say definitely in mid February.

DC Universe Online

When I get the time I’ll definitely be playing more. Early February for more videos of this.

World of Tanks

Probably never. It was a terrible game. Maybe in very late beta stages, but not even considering more.

Chillout Sessions

The “Zen Bound 2 Chillout Session” originally started as a joke between Panda and I on vent. I was inebriated *cough* one night and put on a ‘Zen Master’ voice on vent while playing Zen Bound 2 and Panda, equally inebriated, thought it’d be really funny if I managed to get it up on Realm. So I did. But, I’ve actually had really good feedback on it. People have told me it really calmed them down and that they actually used the video to de-stress. That’s so cool! I even have some future games planned. So, more Chillout Sessions? Yes. Next one maybe early February.

Rift: Planes of Telara

Now that the NDA for Rift: Planes of Telara has been removed I can talk about it. I was playing this early December and made 2 videos. These will both be up on Realm in early January. Don’t know about Rift? It’s currently closed beta. I was invited to test it and will be doing more videos on it in the coming months. But, like I said, 2 parts will be up early/mid January. Don’t know the game? Find out more here: http://www.riftgame.com/en/

Star Trek Online

Yep, that’s right. As a Press reviewer for Cryptic Studios, I will be making playthrough reviews for Star Trek Online. I originally tried to make these videos but had series issues frapsing it. I’m unsure if this was a game issue or a PC issue. Whenever I tried to fraps/change display settings the game would crash and need to perform a repair check which took 20 minutes. After the 3rd crash I gave up. I just need to focus some time on setting it up. I’m a huge Star Trek fan so it’ll be fun. This’ll be coming mid February.

Indie Games

I’ll be making an effort to play indie games and make playthroughs of them. Octodad was incredibly fun and was one of my most favourite videos I’ve made. Even I think it’s funny. Hope that doesn’t sound arrogant but if you can’t find your own stuff funny, is it really funny? But yeah, Octodad was a great laugh so I’m going to be playing more indie games. Late January/early February.

Exclusive: Machinarium

Thanks for reading my blog. For this reason you’re getting the exclusive announcement of my new playthrough series. All through January you’ll be watching my playthrough of Machinarium. I have made 6 parts so far. I made all these today (a real pain in the ass, editing all day). The reason I have made so many is that I am going to be working overtime (9am – 9:30pm) every day for the next 2 or 3 or 4 weeks. I wont have time to play/edit games. So yeah, they’re all made. Machinarium is awesome awesome fun. Puzzle solving, problem solving, awesome graphics. Don’t look it up, just wait for my videos. First one should be in the first week of January and all throughout the month.

Hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you wanna know how to support me… here’s a few ways how:

1. Subscribe to Machinima Realm. Whenever you see one of my videos uploaded, click it, leave a comment and hit the “Like” thumbs up icon. Because I’m working so much I might not make an MSPaint video until 5-7 hours after the video has been uploaded. If you Like and comment when it’s uploaded, then you can Like the video again when I upload my MSPaint notification vid to my NilesyRawr channel! This really, really helps.

2. Tell your friends. Seriously. Virality and word of mouth is my bread and butter. Plus this gets me more subscribers and helps in my application to YouTube to become a partner (fingers crossed).

3. Add my videos to your favourites list. This all contributes to my video statistics and helps me gain popularity by ranking me higher in YouTubes “Most xxx today” charts.

4. Be active. Be vocal. Be nice and be awesome.

5. Donate. This isn’t for everybody. I’m not begging or forcing you to donate to me, just saying that if you want to you definitely can. The donate button is in the menubar at the top.

6. Enjoy my videos. It’s why I make ‘em!

7. Leaving comments like “Nilesy for premiere director” on Machinima Realm videos would not hurt at all

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this blog post and that the information finds you well.

Til next time, Nilesy out.

The winners of the Christmas Card competition have now been announced! Congratulations to the winners!

I will link all of the winning material below, make sure to drop a comment to congratulate them! Everybody has won one of 10 limited edition hand drawn crayon Christmas cards!

Good job!

There is no ‘ranking’ of the winners, just 10 winners.

***Click on an image to see it in FULL SIZE!***

Here they are in NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Darkness surrounded Nilesy as he sat in the hard drive of Liam’s computer. He was very bored, as Liam had forgotten to upload his new video to YouTube, and was just sitting there. He flicked the brim of his wizard’s hat absent-mindedly and sat down.

Hours seemed to pass… where is Liam?

Just as he was about to give up hope, a red, black and white light shone down upon Nilesy. Nilesy looked at the ground and saw the YouTube logo around him. He stood up quickly and looked at the light, squinting to see the source.

A hole seemed to open up, and Nilesy was sucked up through it, propelled out into the wide and unending ocean of the Interwebs. Nilesy was tossed about by waves of pop-up ads that, no matter how hard he tried, F5 just couldn’t defeat. He was pulled down by a current of last minute internet sales. He was rained on by spam emails offering pills in “Natural Mage Enhancement.”

Just when he was about to give up hope, Nilesy spotted a small boat that was coming his way. As it passed him, he grabbed on and swung himself up into it. There on board was his best friend and comrade, Panda. Panda gave him a slap on the back, and told Nilesy to take the helm.

Nilesy grabbed the helm, and guided them both through the torrential storm of the Internet. Eventually, they came to an island the size of the Internet in 2006, but Nilesy didn’t know its name, though it looked familiar.

Panda looked over to him and said, “Nilesy, it’s YouTube, do you not remember?”
Nilesy shook his head no, and looked back to the Island.

It was massive, mostly taken up by videos of people “failing” or videos of cute kittens. Nilesy wondered if there was a small slice of land on that island with enough room for him, and Panda of course.
They landed on the island, and disembarked.

Panda looked over to Nilesy, “We need to get to the top.”
Nilesy agreed, but it would be tough going.

They cut through the thick underbrush of music videos, and limped through the hot desert valley of Call of Duty videos. They swam through cool waters of undiscovered music artists and reveled in the glory of the artists of YouTube.

Finally, they came to the base of the mountain, and were met by a large, terrifying creature. It shrieked and shrilled, and Nilesy had to cover his ears. How could anyone find this entertaining?

Soon, the creature passed, seeing that they were not entertained by his shenanigans. Panda and Nilesy continued up the steep unforgiving slope. People saw their trials and tribulations, and soon Panda and Nilesy were gaining subscribers by the thousands. Some would seek to demean their videos by posting rude comments or something to do with a boy called Bieber, but Nilesy and Panda pressed on.

Soon, they reached the top, and Nilesy discovered that it was not just a mountain, but a volcano. Nilesy gazed into the inferno, into the fiery depths of hell itself. If he slipped, he would surely perish.

A deep rumble shook the earth beneath their feet. Nilesy looked up and saw the magma float up and into the air to form a face; the face of NigaHiga, the most formidable man on the Island of YouTube.

Nilesy thought, and conjured up the greatest spell he could muster: MS PAINT. He and Panda combined their all-powerful magic, and blasted NigaHiga with a spell. NigaHiga resisted the attack, and Nilesy and Panda were flummoxed. Nilesy got an idea, and produced his magical guitar of awesomeness, Panda did the same. He brought the Pick of All-Encompassing Rock down across the strings, and a beautiful yet terrible sound came forth. Nilesy began shredding a most electrifying solo that seemed to rip the air apart. With a scream, NigaHiga seemed to begin to implode. The very earth seemed to be ripped apart by the power they wielded.

NigaHiga was no more, and Nilesy and Panda absorbed his latent power and subscribers.

Nilesy and Panda turned and looked out over the Island that they now controlled. What would they do next? What wouldn’t they do next?

Above is a link to the announcement video, if you just watched it on YouTube you don’t need to watch it again!

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS (Remember to email me!)! AND WELL DONE TO EVERYONE ELSE WHO ENTERED! YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE!

YOURS CAPITALISEDLY,

NILESY

I’m sorry for the recent lack of content and posting. This is not something which you should come to expect from me and my website, but is a direct result of the recent World of Warcraft expansion (Cataclysm). Basically, I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, but I know I need to do *a lot* of it.

With Cataclysm everything’s changed. I was reading some website the other day and it said I needed something around 1750 Hit Rating. My face was like this at first: but then I confirmed it with a friend that this was a true statistical requirement and my face changed to this: D;

So yeah, I’m having a lot of difficulty getting to grips with everything. That and the fact that my two profession choices, Alchemy and Engineering, seems to be two of the most ballbreakingly expensive to level up. Excuse me Blizzard but I must clearly state that I’m not very partial to paying 3000 gold for 1 skill-up. Hey guys let’s sell Azshara’s Whatevers and Elementium Bars for 1000 gold each. TROLLOLOLOLOLOL. Incase you can’t tell, I’m mad.

I’m not mad at the lack of content. That’s awesome. What I’m mad at, and it’s only passively so, is the lack of anything beneficial I received at the end of Wrath of the Lich King. When Wrath of the Lich King ended I felt as close to “completion” for my character than I have ever really felt in this game. I had some great gear, wonderful understanding of my class, both in PvP and PvE (though PvP was never my strongsuit I did always understand the theory behind mage PvP), some great achievements and some even better memories.

Then Cataclysm hit. Now, I’m not naysaying it’s awesomeness. The concept which Blizzard have come up with is truly remarkbile and has required so much work that it’s stunning they managed to pull it off. What I’m kind of upset about is the fact that I have basically been reset to a standard player again. I spent a lot of time boosting my character, my only character, to the heights which he achieved, only to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under me.

So maybe it seems like I’m whining without suggesting ways which this could have been avoided. Sure, I can go into that for a bit.

First of all I would have really appreciated it if I felt my gear which I had fought mercilessly to get had been able to actually tide me over slightly. What’s the point in all that heroic 277 gear (Wrath) endgame if you don’t get to use it ever again? I would’ve much rather had it so that the majority of that gear could be replaced IN Cataclysm heroics, not beforehand during questing. I was literally laughed at by people for keeping my set pieces to retain my set bonus on my 4-set 277 heroic gear. Diabolical. Sure, maybe I’m being a noob or something, but this is just how things are for me!

My gear looks like I was just shit out of a 13 year old’s first attempt at a Machinima film edited in Windows Movie Maker. I feel like I’m a fucking ghost of my former self. Which is sad, because it’s a game, but really it’s another aspect of me, which is probably true for all players of WoW who really invest time in it. I feel like my avatar is being laughed at, made fun of. Kind of sucks right now.

I’m sure things will get better. They have to. Farming heroics relentlessly and doing silly dailies, maybe. But there’s just so much to do, it’s overwhelming. I don’t have much time left either. I go back to work on the 20th of December. If I didn’t have to go back to work I’d feel a lot better about this whole thing. I could sink 1 day per “thing” in my mind, but right now I’m trying to rush everything into the 7 days I have left all the while continuing to produce Machinima Realm videos for you folks out there. It’s tough, man. Anyone want to invest £15,000 in me? That’s about my wage a year, and if you did invest then I would be on call 24/7 for punchlines and MSPaints! Use the Contact module above if you’re up for it!

But yeah. This isn’t the most productive blog post, but you know what, I don’t care. Sometimes the light doesn’t shine all that brightly. If you want to hear about me and my experiences then you gotta hear about the bad ones too. Otherwise, it’s just bullshitting. You take the good, you take the bad, you take ‘em both and there you have the facts of life, THE FACTS OF LIIIIFE! Singing and stuff. Shit yeah.

Anyway thanks for charitably reading this post. Hopefully we’ll have more actual proper content up when I learn to Cataclysm.

/cry!

Nilesy

We’ve got a fun post for you all today! Earlier this afternoon Machinima.com released one of my latest gameplay videos, which is on a little indie number called Zen Bound 2. Zen Bound 2 was made by Secret Exit Ltd and costs a mere £3.49 on Steam.

The idea for playing Zen Bound 2 came from one night when chilling out on Ventrilo with Panda and the Kunga boys and girls chatting about, myself being softly inebriated and feeling like spending some money. I’m unsure how exactly I found it. I might have just searched Steam for “chill” or something, but I did. I bought it and rocked it out for a few levels and found the style and gameplay to be both unique and engaging. It was a different kind of puzzle game. The company markets it as a game without any stress, but this isn’t strictly true.

There’s some stress, you can indeed fail at the game if you run out of rope. The game centers around your ability to cover a wooden animal in paint by wrapping string around it: the string sploshes paint on the animal as it wraps. However, you also have a rope meter, in how much rope you are given to complete the task, and you can (as I did) use too much and have to unwrap your creation and restart. So yeah, it might be a dumb little chill-out game but it’s no walk in the park, is what I’m saying.

Either way, it’s a good laugh if you just wanna chill out and click your mouse for a good 20 minute. Let me just come out and say it. If you smoke weed, you’ll enjoy this game. Soft music, nice shading, easy camera movements, satisfying puzzle solving, it’s all there. It’s almost the definition of a stoner’s game. However, don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game. You don’t have to be a stoner to play the game (but it helps).

I’d recommend the game to anybody really. Great stress relief and a fun little game to play when you just cannot be fucked with all the other high octane games out there. Hope you enjoyed the video and this post, catch you guys another time.

Nilesy

Merry Cataclysm to you all. I hope you all had a wonderful launch day and that you’ve had amazingly awesome fun questing and exploring World of Warcraft’s newest expansion. This blog entry is not going to be about all the awesome fun you are going to be having over the next year with Cataclysm, or the uber bosses you could one day down, no, my post shall be a slightly bitter report of last night’s activity circa 12:01am, the time of the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

For the past 4-5+ months now Blizzard have been promoting the digital download of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. This is something brand new for us. For expansions such as The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King you were forced to either attend a midnight opening to get on the game as soon as possible or you had to wait for your preorder to arrive in the post. Due to the fact that during TBC and WoTLK people were obtaining their games in a wide manner of ways, then when the servers for each expansion did come up everything worked kind of alright. Not everybody had their copies of the expansions yet, so the servers had some breathing room, and as tens of thousands of people trickled into the servers hour by hour, upon receiving their games, they were able to sustain themselves for the most part. That, however, did not happen in what shall now be known as The Clusterfuck of Cataclysm.

At 12:01am all turrets were manned and all pylons had been generated to rock and roll into Cataclysm. Everybody had their digital download. Everybody. The people who didn’t were in the severe minority and in this instance do not bear considering. At 12:05am there were talks that some servers had begun to receive a server wide message. This server wide notification was a message which told all users that Cataclysm was now live and that they need to relog to activate it. All users. All servers. Everybody relogged. At the same time.

At 12:06am the entire World of Warcraft community was thrown into turmoil as they were forced to stare at the words “Connecting…”, “Success!” and a blank loading screen for the next 20-30 minutes. And for those ven unluckier, upwards to an hour. This threw whatever “Realm First!” preparations some had made, some very expensive preparations, out the window. Now, reader, you may be thinking that I am very pissed off I didn’t get whatever realm firsts that I was after. Truth be told, I slightly am. Personally, I was going for Realm First! Mage at 85, but was stuck at the loading screen for an initial 25 minutes. I don’t have too many bad feelings about it though. My competition for the Realm First was great and we were neck and neck for a good long time, serious PvP and camping kept me down and I guess the better half won! This is my opinion on the standing that Blizzard failed to achieve from what we all expected.

Now, we all know why the servers didn’t work. The servers didn’t work correctly because everybody was logging in at the same time. This isn’t Blizzard’s fault though, how could they possibly predict that? No wait, they could. As stated previously, they had advertised and bigged up digital downloads for so long. They knew the massive, massive impact this would have on the login servers. They knew that any Realm First achievements would be solely based on who was lucky enough to slip through the login servers. They knew this and did nothing that could have prevented the crippling downtime that some people experienced.

And that is a damn shame. Frankly, the whole thing was embarrassing. I am stunned that it even happened. I can understand it possibly happening for an initial 1-2 minutes, but for it to go on for as long as it did is astounding.

Now, after the servers were back up, everything was going fine. People were levelling and having a decent time. We shall ignore the fact that the servers crashed every 1.5 hours, forcing a client restart, and move on to what happened to the Guild Levels at 6am.

At 6am server time (Europe), from what I can tell, almost every guild which had levelled up well was reset. Following this reset a message was sent server-wide notifying the guilds that they had levelled faster than was expected/than was intended, and so *all of these guilds were reset to Level 1*. This is unbelievable. The guild perks which allow you to gain more XP than another player are crucial when you are attempting to level to a Realm First! 85, and Blizzard can easily just turn around and wipe it all away? I mean, how did this problem actually arise? World of Warcraft was in beta for so long, with as many as 130 guilds at any one time testing the guild levelling system, even after guilds had been reset multiple times on the beta they still levelled back up. Our guild, The AB Cool Club, which was founded by myself and HybridPanda even levelled all the way to Level 25. How could they not have foreseen this problem?

I find it hard to believe that they couldn’t. And so, with the reset, 5% increased XP/5% increased mount speed was lost, and the battle for Realm First became all the more harder. For the record, dear reader, at this point I was eating a Pot Noodle and watching Seinfeld ’cause I knew I was out of the running for Realm First, but I still found Blizzard’s actions to be outrageous.

And so in conclusion I’d like to state that I find that this is a clear failure to launch on Blizzard’s part. For such an imperative moment in their history of gameplay, for them to drop the ball so hard on such a vastly important thing for millions of people astounds me. I expected much, much more.

I would like to hope that the Americans have more luck, but then I read this on MMO-Champion.com this morning:

Originally Posted by Bashiok (Source)
We’re aware level 80 characters aren’t gaining experience and it’s being investigated.

Sigh.

I sincerely hope this is not a sign of things to come in Cataclysm, and was merely an opening blip on Blizzard’s radar (one which many players have payed dearly for).

Thanks for reading folks, as always if you liked this article then hit the Facebook button (and other community buttons) to share the article to your Facebook, and feel free to leave a comment below to discuss it further. What was your experience at the launch of Cataclysm? Tell us more!

Good luck levelling,

Nilesy.

It’s only 23 hours til Cataclysm hits the servers and goes live, and I’m curious, are you all ready to hit 85?

For those of you who are, well done! I hope your levelling experience is awesome and fun. But, for those who aren’t prepared, I’m going to discuss a few helpful hints and tips to hopefully streamline the process for ya. Also, for those who are prepared already, if you’re planning on hitting “Realm First!” then maybe these tips will help you too!

Tip 1: 25 Quests Completed

Did you know that if you have 25 quests already completed, yellow quests that is, that when Cataclysm hits you can hand them all in? Make sure you hit up the Argent Tournament Grounds, Knights of the Ebon Blade, Skybreaker (flying boat in Icecrown) and the Storm Peaks giants and complete 25 daily quests. When it’s about time for the servers to go live, instead of being in Stormwind to pick up the first Cataclysm quests, leave yourself in Storm Peaks/Icecrown and run around the questgivers and hand in all the quests. From what I have heard, this should net you about 40% of a level and allow you to skip over Vash’jir during the levelling process (which is a balls slow zone to level in).

Tip 2: Update your addons

Make sure all your addons are fully up to date. This is imperative. If they aren’t, on the launch, there could be complications and Lua errors that could set you back 15-20 minutes when you’re trying to fix them. After your addons are fully up to date, go into your addon list and deactivate all addons you will not be using while levelling. Here’s some examples of addons you will not need while levelling: Deadly Boss Mods, Atlasloot, Recount, and so on.

Tip 3: Consumables, consumables, consumables.

To make the questing experience quick and easy, make sure you stock up on lots of consumables. I would recommend 10-15 flasks, buff food, runic mana potions, runic health potions, bandages and (if you’re not a mage) copious amounts of food and drink (including the new ranks while are available at vendors and innkeepers). Use your consumables frivolously. Do not be shy! Spend 200 gold now and get to level 85 that much quicker. It really is worth it.

Tip 4: Addons to help you level

There’s lots of addons which will make levelling easier for you. These addons automatically loot items for you, turn in quests, vendor gray items, tonnes of stuff. Check out your Curse client or www.Curse.com to find out more, search for levelling addons.

Tip 5: Windows Updates

That’s right, Windows updates! They are incredibly annoying and always want you to update your computer. Here’s how they work. Windows Updates are generally set to Automatic by default. This means that in the background Windows will download security fixes/updates without you asking it to. After the updates are installed it will request for you to allow your system to restart. If you’re racing to 85 then this is something you do not want to do. So, my tip for this is to do a Windows Update right now and then make sure Windows Update are not set to Automatic. To disable this (on Windows XP), click Start, go to Control Panel, open Automatic Updates and set this to Off. You can change it back later if you want.

Tip 6: Stock up!

Easy one this one folks. You’ve got one day, so get down the shops and get yourself some supplies! I would recommend: Cheap battery acid energy drinks, Pot Noodles, miscellanious candies and sweets and bags of crisps. My favourite crisps at the moment are the Philleas Fogg Salt and Balsamic Vinegar. Fucking yum!

Tip 7: Levelling Specialisation

Make sure your spec is ideal for levelling. Never level with a bog standard raid spec, unless you don’t want a realm first. Myself, as a mage, I was raidspec Fire. I have now respecced to a Frost build which I hope will help me level quicker. Do your research and respec accordingly. It’ll cost about 40-50 gold to respec and might make all the difference between hitting Realm First and not.

Tip 8: Know your teleports & hearths

Know exactly where you can and can’t get to. Make sure your Hearthstone is set to a good place. If you begin in Hyjal, the innkeeper in Hyjal would be a good idea. Use your brains and you’ll go far.

Tip 9: General system maintenance

Easy and simple one. Make sure your PC is running well. Make sure your air vents (fans) are nice and clear and that your PC is ready to be kept on for a good 24+ hours. Make sure your recycle bins are empty and you have a hefty amount of disk space ready and rolling. Ensure your start up processes aren’t too bulky and run a virus scan and an ad-ware scan to clean your system up nicely. The faster your PC runs, the quicker your loading screen, and the quicker you can complete your next quest.

Tip 10: Good music, good friends, good times

I’m not going to tell you not to go and be crazy trying to get Realm First. I completely understand people will and will want to. But, you don’t have to go it alone. If you have a ventrilo for your guild then try and get all your guildies online to chat to each other. Or, if you don’t, try and find an empty vent and get all your mates on. In fact, here you go. I have found an empty vent server which you guys and girls can use to chat to each other while levelling. Hostname: 94.75.238.76 – Port number: 4330. This ventrilo has no password. This isn’t my vent, I just found it randomly, so only use it for levelling up to 85.

And hey, if you don’t like chatting then maybe just line up some kickin’ tunes. Make sure it’s high-impact energetic music though. Fuck off, Coldplay!

And with that, I’m all out of tips. I hope this has helped you guys and given you all some ideas on how to level quicker and more efficiently in Cataclysm! I’d love it if you could post a comment below if you have your own suggestions, and hit the ‘Facebook’ icon if you want to link this to your friends on Facebook to help them level quicker too!

Thanks for reading folks,

Nilesy/Liam