And you can download the full movie (36.8MB) by right-clicking here.

“Now…if I could just get rid of these stupid green boots.”

Well, the thing is LJ, they’re not stupid; they’re pretty sweet. Yes, they are a quest reward, thus popular and Green. But color indicates rarity, not power.

What would be an blueish upgrade? Let’s do some research, shall we? Let’s ask ourselves: What boots drop in normal 5-person instances that would be worth pursuing:

How about the Boots of the Outlander? These drop from the first boss in Mana Tombs and are pretty and blue. But are they an upgrade? Not really, especially if you’ve already invested in an agility enchant for your SGBs.

Next, the Sky-Hunter Swift Boots. Much better, yes? First boss in Sethekk Halls coughs up some pretty hunter-gear, right? Well, the SGBs give 16+48=64 RAP and teh SHSBs give 25+26=51 RAP, a noticeable decrease if you choose the blues over your greens. Yes, the blues give more crit, due to the greater agility, and more intellect and MP5, but they also cost you some stamina. An “upgrade” in the truest sense of the word? Not totally, no. This is a side-grade and a trade-off, not an upgrade.

Finally, let’s look at the Outland Striders which drop from the first boss in Arcatraz. Now these have to be an upgrade; look at that attack power and crit rating! Ah shucks, they have no agility at all. The SGBs have more RAP than these, can you believe it? Another stamina-for-intellect swap is all these boots really provide, same as the SHSBs. If you’ve enchanted your SGBs and are saving gold for your flying mount, do you really want to plunk down more payola to enchant a cross-grade piece of gear?

Guess we have to go Heroic-Mode to find an upgrade for our greenies. OK, let’s look:

Heroic Botanica. Get all the way through it, take down Warp Splinter, and you might get some Boots of the Endless Hunt. Finally, an upgrade with each stat, hooray! See! 26+48= 72 RAP, MP5, and a stamina-for-intellect swap… what? Another cross-grade on stamina and intellect? Phooey. Yeah, these are technically an upgrade, but it sure would be nice to run the longest heroic instance and get an epic drop completely better than a greenie quest reward.

Heroic Ramparts! Wow, we love this place. It’s the first Outland instance we ran and were completely impressed with the difference between it and all the Azeroth dungeons. Well, welcome back Kotter, take down the first boss, and hope you get a pair of Wild Stalker Boots. Oh no, they’re blue, but they have no agility. Again, they’re not an upgrade, are they. /sniffle

Wrong-o! They have +Hit Rating, foshizzle! For Karazhan, you’re going to need +Hit against those level 73 bosses. These slippers have got high RAP and a goodly chunk of +Hit. You’ll lose Crit, for certain, but if you’re Missing your shots, it doesn’t matter what your Crit Rating is. Hit the Kara-boss first, worry about Critting later. For a newly-appointed Kara-raiding hunter, the WSBs are a really nice upgrade to those greenies. Get your agility enchant on them and head for Deadwind Pass.

Once you get through Chess and Nightbane in Karazhan, you’ll be watching to see if Ferocious Swift-Kickers and Fiend Slayer Boots drop. As your Hit Rating progresses, you can choose which of these boots to equip. If your Hit Rating is not into triple-digits, wear the FSBs. If your Hit Rating is approaching 142, go ahead and slap on the FSKs.

Boot-progression, Lady Jess. We hope we’ve given you some appreciation for those SGBs you’re holding your nose at and have an idea of where you’re going next to upgrade them. Grats on the Kara run, we look forward to more tales.

Tchann is a mainstay on the World of Warcraft customer service forums and has communicated with us his her thoughts on the ban-wave. His Her writing is clear, concise, and bereft of warlock-bashing. In spite of these short-comings, we asked if we could reprint some of his her conversations with us. He She relented, and thus, please quit your yapping and pay attention as Substitute BRK Day presents: Lessons From Tchann.

“The recent banwave focused on automation within the game. There are several degrees of automation that Blizzard finds bannable, ranging from delay mechanisms (/in) to third-party programmed gameplay (Glider). All of these are at the very least potentially actionable.

“Blizzard requires that we play based on what is possible through their .lua scripting code. When they find something possible through that code that they deem inappropriate, they will change the mechanics of the game to disallow that code from working. Bans do not usually result from exploiting code that wasn’t meant to work, although sometimes they might slap people with a warning - something I expect to see with the /in command, since Blues have cautioned us against using it.

“The next step up from that contains the special keyboards and keypress software. The keyboards themselves are perfectly okay to use, as is the software that makes them work. What can get a user actioned is when they use the macro software to include delays, since that bypasses Blizzard’s .lua code in order to automatically perform an extra action. The same goes for the keypress software in which you constantly hold down one key to spam a single action. This is the level of automation that Blizzard begins banning at.

“Then comes the botting programs. There are multiple kinds, not just Glider, and this latest banwave occurred after Blizzard included new Warden code to detect Glider in patch 2.4.2. Here is where things can get really tricky. Some botting programs will continually run in the background of the system, even if they are not currently being used, and Warden will pick up on that.

“There has been a slew of posts on the Customer Service Forum from players pleading innocence to have their accounts restored. As some of the threads progressed, the posters began to confess what might have gotten them banned - either they were sudden realizations of mistakes made, or admissions of guilt.

“Some of the things we’ve seen so far include:

- usage of keypress software
- afk botting
- downloading botting software out of curiosity for the code
- playing on a computer that has botting software installed
- botting
- hacked accounts

“It is also possible that some software out there is returning a false positive for a botting program. As with the Cedega issue, it took players discussing the problem en masse with Blizzard and Cedega to spur a resolution, one which culminated in overturnings of bans and an official apology. Nothing of that sort has yet to crop up, but as I said, it is possible.

“In the end, there is absolutely nothing to be lost by contesting the ban. If the player has an idea of what might have gone wrong - hacking, using the computer of someone who bots - then that is a firm standing ground to start from when contacting Account Administration.

“The one thing that should be kept in mind when contesting a ban is that your hands *must* be clean. A closer look at your account can bring things to light that may be unrelated but still actionable. But if someone is truly innocent, the odds are definitely in their favor. Blizzard does not want to drive away honest players, but they do take a hard stance on the activities they deem illegal, and the banwaves represent that.

“Your guildmate mentions having called Billing. Billing and Customer Service are unable to aid with overturning bans. That all rests with Account Administration, which is only reachable through email. Since the banwave hit, AA is going to be flooded with emails, so it will take a while to receive a response. Repeatedly emailing them is unnecessary - just one that calmly (that part is crucial) explains the argument against the account action. And then, unfortunately, patience is required.

“Please let me know if there’s anything I can explain further, or if I did not state something clearly, Tchann”

So by now you’ve all probably read about what happened to a guidie of ours, yes? He got slammed with the Blizz Ban Hammer for “cheating*”, getting caught in the same net as the Glider-folks. Our erstwhile, miniature, whirling dirvishette of awesomeness has pretty much covered the feelings of our guild, so we’re not going to repeat them here.

Succinctly, Lamaa is not a cheater*. Lama is Good People. Unfortunately, we think Lamaa cheated*.

“What’s the deal with the asterisks, BRK?”

The deal with the asterisks is: we’re very unsure of what Blizzard considers cheating*, we think the vast majority of warcraft-players don’t know what Blizzard considers cheating*, and we’re quite positive that Blizzard isn’t exactly forthcoming about what cheating* is.

“Cheating is doing stuff that Blizzard says you cannot do! Dummy!”

OK, what can’t you do?

“Well, everything that’s in the user’s agreement.”

Yes, and what are those things.

“You mean, like a list?”

Yes please, a list of all the stuff that’ll get you banned.

“Um… gold selling?”

Yup, that’s one.

“And… account selling.”

Two.

“Naughty named-toons?”

Not normally a bannable offense, but it could be, if Blizzard so chose, yes.

“Botting!”

Four, very good. And where in the user’s agreement do you see any of that stuff?

“Um… is it there?”

You bet it is. Have you ever read the user’s agreement? Probably not, right? Well, let’s dig right into the most juicy parts, shall we?
There ya go. Do not attempt to host the game yourself. Do not interfere with your client or the server’s communications. Don’t mess with the game files. Don’t mess with their servers, foshizzle.

Do not use any software designed to modify the WoW experience, or else.

Or else?

Yeah, or else; Ban Hammer-time.

And how does Blizzard know what you’re doing? Do they put cameras in your dorm room? Do they hire spies to infiltrate your home?

Nope. They bot you.

Their game, their rules, they’re watching you. Don’t like it, don’t play.

And not only are they watching what you’re doing, they’re reading and recording what you say.

So there ya go. Hope those private-chat conversations of yours that Blizzard has recorded don’t get subpoenaed by your ex-WoW-widow.

Now what is it that Lamaa did that was fell into the ban hammer-able category of, “…third-party software designed to interfere with the World of Warcraft experience”? Was Lamaa a Glider? Pfft, no. Was he a spammer, a leecher, a doofus, a power-leveler? No on all counts.

He did, however, own a G15 keyboard. And what comes with the G15 keyboard? Software. And what does that software do? It allows the user to make use of its macro keys to send in-game commands in much the same way as an in-game macro, but without having to write an in-game macro.

Was Lamaa writing G15-botting macros?! No, he wasn’t. He didn’t even use those keys.

But he did had the G15 software installed, and Blizzard knows the G15 software has been used to interfere with the World of Warcraft experience previously.

Our opinion: Blizzard banned Lamaa for owning a G15 keyboard and following its directions to install the keyboard’s software, regardless if he actually used the keyboard software’s ability to cheat*.

Is that right?! We sure don’t think so! According to Blizzard, just having that software on one’s computer is cheating*. Plug in the keyboard, the software and libraries load, and now you’re running illegally.

Is it within the scope of the user’s agreement that they can ban him for this? They most certainly think it is.

But is it Right.

Of course it isn’t right; it’s totally Wrong!

Look Blizzard, if you don’t want people to use the G15 software - we’ve noticed that the keyboard itself is perfectly fine - how about writing a little code that will disable the G15’s software and giving the user a little pop-up window telling them what’s going on.

“Hey guy, your G15 is spiffy, but people have abused the software it comes with in violation of the EULA. You want to use your G15, go for it, but we’re going to kill the G15 software right now, capice? Press OK to continue or Cancel to exit the game.”

Lamaa did not cheat* and he’s not a cheater*. However, he was using software that Blizzard considered cheating*. It sucks and blows and Blizzard should be ASHAMED at how it’s treating it customers! Nuking the Gliders is one thing, f-ing with people who didn’t have a clue they had inadvertently installed cheating* software is ignorant and rude.

What other software is out there that Blizzard could consider cheating*? A C++ compiler? A bandwidth monitor? Video-conferencing apps? Nobody has a clue, and Blizzard, to our knowledge, does not have a list of unapproved applications and utilities.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but Blizz, we need to see the laws before we can comply with them. A non-inclusive list of stuff we shouldn’t have running would’ve saved Lamaa, a bunch of other people, and your company’s reputation, a lot of flak.

Do we want Lamaa back in our guild? D@mn right we do. Are we only writing this screed because the massive ban hammer episode affected us personally? Most certainly. We’d much rather be discussing what the WotLK alpha has shown for us hunters and our pets.

But for us, this is a Big Deal and, since it’s Our Blog, we’re going to write about it. We’re probably not going to help Lamaa at all, but we certainly hope someone at Blizzard gets their head out and fixes this situation.

Blizzard, Warcraft is a game, but the people in it are not.

IMPORTANT EDIT: If it turns out the G15 sofware is not causing the ban, well then something else is amiss and we haven’t a clue what it is. And neither does Lamaa. And that stinks, too.

The Rating Buster data is showing the difference between this cloak and our Shade of Aran Drape of the Dark Reaver. Holy wow, we’ve had that thing a long time. With that cloak, we finished the last three bosses in Kara, Gruul’s, Maggy’s, 3/4 Tempest Keep, 6/6 SSC, and one boss in Mount Hyjal. The old cloak deserves a good retirement.

“But resilience! That’s PvP gear, BRK!”

Well, it is, certainly. However, we are Ignore Armor fiends and are easily willing to trade 17 Hit Rating and 12 RAP for 20 Crit Rating, 131 Health, and 112 Ignore Armor, foshizzle. We’re sitting pretty with 595 Ignore Armor, and we luvs it!

Ignore Armor or Haste for PvE… we’ll have to look in to that.

Would we like another piece or two of the new BoJ armor? Maybe. Are we willing to scrounge 100+ BoJs to get it? No way, Mr. Canseco.

Sometimes, it’s just plain ol’ tough being a married dwarf.

When TJ tells you she yells at us at 4pm every day, she’s not kidding. Today was a shriek-fest.

Johnsonville brats are not sausages. So sayeth BRK, so let it be done.

BRK’s Boy: “Daddy! Let’s play Scooby Doo! I’ll be Scooby Doo, the puppy can be Shaggy, and you can be Fred!”

BRK: “OK, Scooby Doo!”

BRK’s Boy: “Daddy! Fred doesn’t say ‘Scooby Doo’, only Scooby Doo says, ‘Scooby Doo’!”

BRK: “Well, what does Fred say?”

BRK’s Boy: “Nothing! Well, he does say, ‘Let’s split up’.”

Three words that let you know you’re in Florida: Caution, Burning Swamp.

Two words that let you know you’re in Florida: Gator Jerky.

Even if you tone down the Dueling Waterbottle-Lightsaber Battle with the girl from Systems Analysis, your boss will still get mad.

When Mrs BRK works late, ham and cheese crackers, fruit cocktail - extra cherries - and milk is a nutritious dinner for a child.

We haz them.

A good friend of ours recently took our advice and hired a BT-guild to get her a Amani War Bear mount. Cost her 5000 gold and she’s giddy. Each member of the raid earned 555 gold for 45 minutes work. Why aren’t more Tier-6 guilds doing this?

It is much more fun to kite the Mount Hyjal add-waves into the NPCs than it is to DPS them down. Our position on the damage meter may go down, but our enjoyment-factor skyrockets.

Having to do DKP-bidding during those same add-waves is a colossal PITA.

Watching your warlocks and mages break 2000 DPS on the Mount Hyjal add-waves makes our 1400 DPS look pitiful, which it really isn’t. Tuskbreaker plus a 3:2 Steady/Auto macro is pretty incredible, even we must admit. Yes that macro gulps mana like a Shuttle consumes liquid oxygen, but it’s really impressive to see those DPS numbers go up.

We are considering going dual-wield so we can use two Superior Mana Oils. We’d have to pass on the cloak we’re about to get, though. Veddy, veddy intewestink.

Do we need to do a new WoWWebStats movie as well? We don’t think so; it’s very intuitive nowadays.

Actually, it was for something else entirely.

And if you want, we’re totally screwing around with this. Again, we’re noobing it up hard-n-fast here, don’t expect anything to work properly, if at all.

Our guild, Aetherial Circle, is lookin’ fer some people. Again. We need the roughest toughest, rootenist, tootenist, doggone shootenist hombres, east, west, north AND south of the Pecos.

Resto druid or shaman. Keep our raid alive and you’ll get all the phat loot you want.

A mage. Yes, you heard us, we need a raiding mage. Now there are lots of mages out there, so we’re going to be really picky about this person. Lots of DPS but able to control their aggro. Aggro Management, squishies, that’s the key to raiding as a mage, and you’d better be able to handle yours.

No, not handle *yours*, you pervert.

Typical AC raiding stuff applies. We raid Wednesday, Sunday and Monday, 8pm EDT to 11pm, sometimes 11:30pm. We use the SWAPS DKP system. You must be fully Tier 4 or equivalent geared. Some experience in SSC and TK would be nice but not mandatory. Pre-server-transfer interview will be followed by a heroic instance run, at which point a guild-invite will be issued, assuming no problems are unearthed.

Aetherial Circle is a casual raiding guild. We will not be raiding more than three times per week. We do not do guild-organized PvP. If you want to experience SSC/TK/MH and beyond, meet our class and spec requirements, are willing to transfer to Drenden, and think you can deal with the nuts in our guild, send an email to recruitment@aetherialcircle.com, or bigredkitty@gmail.com.

Include your armory link, a gear list - in case we catch you in farming gear, etc. - and a brief biography of your raiding experience.