Oh man, is Machinima giving me a chance?

Sooo I sent this email out to Machinima's new channel "MachinimaRespawn" 2-3 weeks ago, if you don't know who they are, Machinima is one of the biggest gaming channels on youtube. They've featured one of my Call of Duty videos on their channel before and because if that it has over 150,000 views. This was a long time ago, and the community has gotten quite a bit larger since then. Any way, back to my email.

I sent this - "Would you be interested in posting WoW videos on your channel?

I've been watching Machinima Respawn a lot lately and I noticed that there were no videos from MMOs that i've seen on this channel at all. World of Warcraft has over 11 million players and i'm suspecting that having some WoW videos up on your channel would not hurt at all to bring in a wider audience. I'm not really talking about "Machinima" because I know that would be better suited for the other channel. I was thinking something more along the lines of raiding content.

Recently a new raid dungeon has opened up in WoW by the name of Icecrown Citadel. Because it's so new, not all of the bosses have been released yet. Blizzard seems to be adding them in every few weeks. I currently play on the highest rated PvE type server in WoW in one of the highest rated 10 man guilds on the server for raiding progression. I would be able to provide videos for each of these bosses very soon after their release in many different forms, depending on what you would like. For example, videos with my personal commentary towards the fight which would explain strategies to defeat the encounter or my opinions on it. I could also provide videos with simply my guild's communication on vent during the fight which could also be helpful for players who are trying to beat the encounter. As i'm typing this i'm uploading a video to my channel now for one of the bosses that was just released, Blood-Queen Lana'thel whom is the 9th boss to be released in ICC. In this video you can see the boss encounter in the highest quality that is possible for me to provide, as well as hear how my guild communicates in the process. Another options would be what I call "cinematic fights". Basically taking a boss encounter and editing it down to captivate and entertain the viewer rather than to teach them how to complete it, I will add an example of this style of video to this message.

If you feel like any of these style of videos would be something your community would like feel free to get in touch with me either here on youtube or email me @ walterhopkins37@yahoo.com

I appreciate your time and I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Walter"

Today when I checked my message on youtube, I actually got a response!

"Hey Walter,

I am actually an avid WOW player myelf... er, myself. So you're talking to someone who is very familiar with ICC and all aspects of the WOW world in general.

Respawn is a new channel for us so we are still figuring out exactly how we are going to use it. Personally, I agree with you about Raid content going on Respawn as opposed to Machinima. We have actually been discussing this very topic in the office. I'm copying this message and sending it to the rest of the team because I think it is a very succinct argument for putting WOW raid videos and the like on Respawn. So thank you on a very personal and professional level because this message will help us as a company.

As for making a video or a series about WOW Raids - MAKE IT. And make it good! Really good! Being a hardcore WOW nerd myself, I would love to see more WOW videos so long as they meet our standards. Right now, we are featuring a ton of MW2 videos because that is the majority of what is being submitted and what has been done in the best quality. I would love us to have a really, really high quality series on Respawn that shows not just what the WOW community can do with traditional machinima but what we do as Raiders (and PVPers and Arena and everything else). If you are the man for the job, let's see it. I'll copy/paste the Respawn submission rules below.

Upload your video to Dropbox.com
- Download the Dropbox application.
- Place your video in the Public Folder.
- Right-click the video file in the Public Folder.
- Select Dropbox
- Copy Public Link
- Paste the link in an email and send it to Respawn@machinima.com

This is a link to our pre- and post-rolls and the Respawn handbook. It will download them to your computer for your use: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3908001/Respawn-Handbook-PrePostRolls.zip

Thank you again for this message. It is going to help us going forward.

Cheers,
The Machinima Team"

This is a pretty big chance to get my name out there and I'd be dammmmmned to pass it up.

Oh I nearly forgot.

I applied to fusion, one of the highest rated guilds in all of WoW. Always ranked as one of the highest guilds in the US & so on. Here's the bulk of my application, I thought it turned out pretty well if I'm honest.




Describe your experience and ability with each of your specs:

A few months into WoTLK I was raiding on the EU servers for my friend that was not able to play the game because of computer/financial issues. Players who didn't raid would lose their spot in the guild. So, not ever playing or knowing much about the Shaman class. I raided and full cleared Nax 25 for about a month and a half as a resto shaman.

After returning to the US servers I re-rolled a shaman (my old main is Pallytime a t9 geared holy paladin) and I have been enjoying it quite a bit.

On my own character I've healed through most, if not all of Nax 10/25 OS 10/25 and Ulduar 10/25.

I geared my resto set up a bit first so I felt more useful being in a raid while I was working on a DPS set.

My elemental set (main) T8-9.5 and I have successfully and competitively DPSed nearly all current content.



Previous MMO Experience:

My first mmo was sadly Everquest Online Adventures (PS2) at the age of 13, which I played for ~ 2 years. In that time I managed to get 4 characters up to the level cap and cleared all of the (little) raid content available. Then I moved on to FFXI also on the PS2 for about a year and a half until I switched over to the PC version. After I made the switch to PC it became a slippery slope of MMOs. I've played Star Wars Galaxies, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Everquest 2, Vanguard Saga of Heroes, Age of Conan and more than I care to think of now. I have however, been playing WoW non stop since the launch of BC.


Other Video Games Played:

I used to play Halo 3 simi-competitively, went to a few local tournaments, that kind of thing. I am currently playing Team Fortress 2 on a semi-regular basis as well as the new Batman. Really holding my breath for the new Call of Duty.


What You Hate:

Whelps


Raid Experience (list all raid instances, including Pre-TBC):

Karazan
Gruuls
Mags
The eye
Nax 10-25
OS 10-25
Voa 10-25
EoE 10 I would do 25 but no one ever seems to want to.
Ulduar 10 13/14
Ulduar 25 9/14
ToC10 5/5
ToC25 4/5
ToGC10-25 0/5


WoW Related Websites You Visit (how often, for what info, etc.)

http://www.mmo-champion.com/ - Once a week or so, to see the upcoming content to be added to WoW.

http://tankspot.com/
http://www.stratfu.com/ - I visit these when ever I have a question or need a refresher about certain boss fights.

http://elitistjerks.com/ - I visit this when I have a question about my class/spec or when new class changes hit the PTR to see how they effect things.

http://be.imba.hu/
http://wow-heroes.com/ - I visit these two websites when I want to see how my gear stacks up to the others in my guild. Also when my shaman (MFPT) hit 80 I was just using them to track my progress.


What You Have to Offer:

As of right now (October 20th) I am the 10th ranked Horde Elemental Shaman according to wow-heroes.com. This is based upon gear score alone and is not something I generally brag about because it's all about the DPS. Apart from that, I can offer a damn near 100% raid attendance, I honestly can't even think back to the last raid that I have missed. I also am very knowledgeable in all of the current content boss fights, I have even come up with my own strats for certain boss fights to better compliment the guild.


Raiding Guild History (brief summary of experience and time spent in each guild):

Shortly after hitting level 70 I joined a new guild "Iron Legion". That guild stayed around until early WoTLK during my time in that guild I raided up to 3/4 in The eye, clearing all content lower. During WoTLK our numbers in IL decreased by quite a bit and was doing mostly 10 man Nax and OS.

After IL I joined "Kore". Their gear wasn't up to par by any means but, most of the guild was friends of mine from BC Iron Legion. I was soon promoted to raid leader. Over time we collected gear and refined everyones skill and clearing Nax weekly nearing the approach of Ulduar being released. However, our numbers were dwindling again and because of that, Kore was merged into "Deceit" which is where I have been since.


Reasons For Leaving Current Guild:

Our attendance started to dwindle so we upped our recruiting. They brought in a lot of new players just to bulk up our roaster and didn't really pay much attention to the gear of the player. Because of that, I feel like we have taken a large step back in progression. Wiping on bosses we had on FARM 3 months ago isn't fun for me.


Reasons to Join Fusion:

When I hear fusion I think of efficient, determined and successful raiders and that is something I would really like to be a part of. Knowing that people aren't being carried but are part of an equal team will be refreshing and a very nice change of pace.


Why should we accept you (Over other applicants)

You should accept me over other applicants because, I'm constantly trying to refine and improve my DPS and you can count on me to attend every raid.


Any Additional Notes

I haven't really ever grouped with many fusion members except for Zevyn, on both his shaman and his hunter. I know that's not a lot to go by, but I felt that when I was in his raids, I did well.

Also, I know that I have massive amounts of hit currently. I'm working on acquiring additional gear, mostly trinkets, to level that out a bit.

I would also just like to take this time to thank you for taking the time to read my application and I look forward to a response.

& wouldn't you know, never heard anything back.

It's been a while.

Let's see, let's see.
First of all I'd like to think everyone that's reading this a happy Thanksgiving. I enjoyed a full day of it because my parents are separated. Ate way too much I'm sure.

Well, a few things have happened since my last post. It turns out I was approved by google adsense, which is the way youtube would pay me through the partnership program, but I wasn't approved as a partner. They said that I couldn't prove that I owned the rights to the song used in the Best Addon Ever video. I did say when the video was submitted that I didn't add the music in, it was playing inside of WoW but that didn't seem to make a difference.

Since my last blog I have posted two videos.

Achievement Time 2



Achievement Time 3



Both of which aren't taking off as well as I would have liked, but, I can't complain too much.

I have a small list of ideas that I've been throwing around in my head for the next achievement time videos.

Gundrak 3 first bosses at once.
Ulduar Ignis + razorscale
Nax DDR + spider wing
Thyrm does wintergrasp

Not sure if I'll actually work on any of those, only time will tell.

Let's see what else...
I was kicked out of deceit, the guild I was a raid leader in for 6 months. For 1 running a ToC25 on what I was lead to believe was an off week and 2, "not caring". Of course showing up to every single raid for 6 months, sometimes raiding 7 days a week proved that I didn't care, right?

I'm in a new guild now by the name of Nova. It is run by my very good friend Sasha and as a lot of members that I used to play with durring BC. It has a very chill environment and we are able to clear content with PUGS that deceit couldn't do with guildies lol.

Pallytime the youtube partner?

I've always really wanted to be a partner on youtube. Getting paid to make videos would be one of the greatest things I could ever ask for. I can't even begin to put into words how much I would like to do that as a living.

I've applied for the partnership program on youtube twice during my three year membership on the site. Each time getting rejected for non specific reasons. If I were to be approved, advertisements would appear around my video and I would be paid per click or per 1000 clicks.

Today, when I came home from work though, I had an email in my inbox saying that because of my "Best addon EVER" video recently becoming "popular" on youtube they would like to accept that video to the program. Before that happens though, the video has to be reviewed by someone inside youtube and sadly if they find it in any form of copyright violation it will be removed.

Needless to say this makes me a bit nervous. I don't feel like there would be any reason for the video to be removed. After all, there are people like WoWhobbs who is a partner that posts WoW videos on a pretty regular basis. But, this video does contain a song from final fantasy 7. So, i'm not sure.

Hopefully my next post will be a happy one and not a sad one.

Pallytime's Personal Holy Paladin 3.2 BiS Gear

So, I had a little spare time today, after staying up for the entire night. So I took a small portion of that time to put together a BiS list for myself. I suppse I should explain my play style first. I am a crit fiend. My stat priority is Intell - Crit - Haste. I see mp5 as a useless stat because I can do spam healing for more than 10 minutes while not going low on mana, without mass amounts of mp5. Also it's worth being said that I'm only including items that are currently in the Wowhead database as of August 27th 09.
That being said, let's start from the top shall we?


Head
Turalyon's Headpiece of Triumph

Neck
Pendant of the Shallow Grave

Shoulders
Liadrin's Spaulders of Triumph

Back
Pennant Cloak

Chest
Merlin's Robe

Wrists

Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers

Hands

Liadrin's Gloves of Triumph

Waist

Blue Belt of Chaos

Legs

Turalyon's Greaves of Triumph

Feet
Boots of the Courageous

Rings

Signet of Manifested Pain
Etched Signet of the Kirin Tor

Trinkets
Soul of the Dead
Pandora's Plea

Also considering
Eye of the Broodmother

Main Hand

Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings

Shield
Wisdom's Hold

Libram
Libram of Renewal

This should leave me with
32k mana
~3k spell power
~50% Crit chance with holy spells (Will be more for certain heals)
~50% haste
~230 MP5
Now all that's left to do is to stress out over drop rates. >.<

Achievement Time Episode 1 is here!!

After lots and lots of technical errors, I'm prod to present Achievement Time Episode 1, I hope it was worth the trouble >.<

Youtube messed up Achievement Time audio!

I finally get the video rendered and uploaded on to youtube and about 50 seconds into the video the sound cuts out. It wasn't for long, but it was just long enough to throw off the audio for a few seconds for the entire video. If you know anything about my editing style I like to make things happen with the music. So, things such as clip transitions were completely thrown off by this. This video is proving to be one of the most frustrating.


As a side note though, a user on youtube by the name of ubopgrader suggested that I show the route we used to kite Thrym in the first episode. (Click to see full size)

It took about 45 minutes or so to walk the entire thing with him.