4-25-11
I did a write-up for altoholics doing Noblegarden last year, so I'll just link that post.
Even though I had a whole year to do Desert Rose on 6 toons on Darrowmere, I only recently got Clockwrkmage and Psilentkill the titles. I guess I just haven't cared to run them around to the different zones.
But if you want a title for your characters, this is THE 2nd easiest one to get, other than "The Patient." Be glad to get it while you can, because next week is Children's Week, which has the dreaded achievement "School of Hard Knocks." I'll take the orphans out on all 30 of my toons to work toward Veteran Nanny, but I'll only concentrate on the toons that are high enough for Utgarde Pinnacle to do the School of Hard Knocks.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Weapons make the Man (or Woman)
Ever since Bloodshrike (hunter), Pallormortis (DK), and Banesidhe (mage) hit 85, I started doing the Tol Barad dailies. Bloodshrike got a pole-arm, Pallormortis got a sword, and Banesidhe got a kick-ass staff. Most of the weapons from the quartermaster are ilevel 346 versions of the ilevel 333 weapons given from this quest in Twilight Highlands.
When I first started doing them, I was totally excited about the rewards. Heroic level weapons, without having to step foot in dungeons? Sweet! Then, my paladin Clockworknyt, my warrior Bullkathos, and my rogue Thrillkiller hit 85, and started questing there, and I realized, "what the hell am I doing?"
Here's the breakdown on getting commendations to buy stuff from the quartermasters. There's the weekly PvP quest, which gives 3 commendations and 200 honor once a week.
In the Northern part, there's 6 daily quests that you can complete for 6 commendations (for the most part). You can usually pick up another 3 commendations if you log in at 3 AM (after having done the 6 dailies earlier than 3 am), when they have quest givers switch their dailies, before the daily quest reset at 4 AM.
In the Southern area, if your faction wins the battle, you can pick up 3 static daily quests, and then 3 rotating dailies that involve collecting quest items, killing mobs, and killing a boss mob. The thing is, the rotating dailies CAN change each time your faction wins TB that day, so you can check back each time to see if you can complete more quests.
However, it takes a while to do some of the quests, especially the ones that have a high mob kill count. If you figure a half hour each for Northern and Southern, that would be an hour for each toon. Figure 12 commendations for a toon on normal days, 1 hour spent. With 85 needed for a ilevel 346 weapon, that's at LEAST 1 solid week of dailies, with 6 to 7 hours spent.
With 6 85's, that's not happening. Especially if you want to get the 200 commendation Drake, you'll hate yourself for wasting the 85 commendations.
Enter Blacksmithing. As long as you have the mats, all you have to do is pay the BS for the Chaos Orbs, and you get instant high-level weapons. The reason I'm going on about weapons is because without them, it feels like your fighting monsters with a dull butter knife. My rogue Thrillkiller had dual level 81 blues, and trying to take on even one mob in Tol Barad would take me down to 1/4 health. Even my mage had more killing power and survivability when he first started doing those dailies.
So I'm going to change my tactics.
1)No more saving for the weapons, just the mount.
2)Take any quest that only asks you to kill a named mob.
3)Avoid almost any quest that has a high kill count. The only exception would be the kill count quests in the Southern Peninsula that are coupled with going into the caves for the named bosses. Avoid the infantry kills, take the crocolisk quest.
This should reduce the amount of time spent on each toon from 1 hour to probably 25 minutes, with only a small loss of commendations.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A Dirty Little Secret
3-22-11
Don't tell anyone, ok? (looks around nervously)
I actually like questing in WoW. Unlike about 95% of the population, I quest to level up. On each of the 3 servers that I have guilds on, it feels like I have to beg, plead, cajole, or even threaten to get people to get quests done to get guild xp. Since a lot of them don't bother trying to group together to do BG's or dungeons, questing is their only option to actually contribute to the guild, and get paid for doing so.
I've even dropped the requirements to get paid, from 250 gold each 250k gxp, to 50 gold per 50k gxp. This allows lower level toons to get paid much more regularly.
Despite all that, on Demon Soul, with my level 4, 80 member guild, probably about 20 of the members are still at 0 gxp. One dear little frost mage logs in daily to do a few solo BG's, doesn't say anything, then bounces.
To me, leveling solo thru dungeons or battlegrounds is boring. Yes, questing can be boring too, but every so often you'll stumble across a quest that makes you laugh, or makes you sad, but in a good way (Little Pamela's quests in Darrowshire for example).
The original thought for this post was questing. I have kept all my toons in Orgrimmar or Stormwind for the past 3-4 months now, with only sporadic forays by select toons to actually go questing in zones, just so I could level them all slowly with the daily cooking and fishing quests. Yup, of the 3 85's, and 3 84's on Demon Soul, none of them except Pallormortis has done any serious questing in Cataclysm zones, and Pallor only did Mount Hyjal and Uldum by the time he dinged. I think it's time for a change.
I'm going to make a point to enjoy the game again, instead of just having each day be about the same dailies x20 for each server.
Surprisingly, I'm not going to drop my policy of paying guild members for their contributions to the guild. I have way too much gold, won't ever spend it all, and despite being jaded from being constantly exposed to the trollish behaviour of immature people (see Penny Arcade link), I......still like helping people.
However, I don't like being used. When a guildy will constantly ask for a port, and I'm playing my warrior, that's kind of annoying. Or begging for gold/bags, that stuff drives me up a wall. But I love explaining how to do a quest, how to make gold, how to grind rep, where to find a difficult NPC, or where to go to find how to spec their class.
All I ask for is appreciation, just a simple thank you. I stopped answering questions in Trade long ago, those little attention-deficit moon units will spam a question, ask why nobody answers it after 30 seconds, then won't even say "thanks" after you do give them an answer. WE DON'T GET PAID TO HOLD YOUR HAND, WE'RE TRYING TO ENJOY OURSELVES TOO!
Monday, March 14, 2011
What do YOU call it? Part One
3-14-11
So, I'm taking a night Economics class, and as an exercise for myself, I wanted to share some terms that I've learned, and how they can relate to WoW. The first definition is the textbook one, the second is the Warcraft equivalent.
Scarcity -
1. The limited nature of society's resources.
2. The limit of a server's materials.
Economics -
1. The study of how society manages its scarce resources.
2. The study of how servers use or sell the materials that are farmed.
Efficiency -
1. The property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources.
2. This is shown by the "invisible hand" of the Auction House regulating prices. If materials are easy to get, the price will steadily drop from the initially high price. If the material is rare, but the AH price gets too high from gold-gouging Goblins, players won't buy it, and the price will fall to a lower equilibrium so the seller doesn't keep wasting deposit fees.
Equality -
1. The property of distributing economic property uniformly among members of society.
2. No WoW equivalent.
Opportunity Cost -
1. Whatever must be given up to obtain some item.
2. Grinding rep, gold, winning battlegrounds.....mainly it equals time.
Rational People -
1. People who systematically and purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives.
2. Playing the Auction House, doing dailies every day to get rep with a faction, and those who research to find the best rotation/spec/gems/glyphs/equipment for playing. Players who aren't Morons & Slackers, as Gevlon would say.
So, I'm taking a night Economics class, and as an exercise for myself, I wanted to share some terms that I've learned, and how they can relate to WoW. The first definition is the textbook one, the second is the Warcraft equivalent.
Scarcity -
1. The limited nature of society's resources.
2. The limit of a server's materials.
Economics -
1. The study of how society manages its scarce resources.
2. The study of how servers use or sell the materials that are farmed.
Efficiency -
1. The property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources.
2. This is shown by the "invisible hand" of the Auction House regulating prices. If materials are easy to get, the price will steadily drop from the initially high price. If the material is rare, but the AH price gets too high from gold-gouging Goblins, players won't buy it, and the price will fall to a lower equilibrium so the seller doesn't keep wasting deposit fees.
Equality -
1. The property of distributing economic property uniformly among members of society.
2. No WoW equivalent.
Opportunity Cost -
1. Whatever must be given up to obtain some item.
2. Grinding rep, gold, winning battlegrounds.....mainly it equals time.
Rational People -
1. People who systematically and purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives.
2. Playing the Auction House, doing dailies every day to get rep with a faction, and those who research to find the best rotation/spec/gems/glyphs/equipment for playing. Players who aren't Morons & Slackers, as Gevlon would say.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Social, gold, and drama
3-8-11
I recently found the magic word to recruiting people was "social." I know I'm not as anti-social or introverted as Gevlon seems to be, but I had thought that just talking about how much gold they could make by leveling alts through my guild would be enough to get people to join. Boy, was I wrong.
People in trade chat talk about how broke they are, but will do nothing to change that. You can tell them to take up dual-gathering, do more quests, or even to loot everything and sell it to the vendor, and they will just continue on as they have been, ignoring everything that you've told them.
You can tell them that they'd make 10,000 gold from leveling from 60 to 85 in your guild, based on the 40 million plus xp that they'd need to get them to 85, and they would only be interested in your guild level.
You will find very few people in the game who are actually, truly interested in making gold. In most cases, not because they need it, but because it's almost a mini-game within WoW itself. Mysscia in my baby Horde guild on Darrowmere is one of the exceptions. I've had fun talking to her since the moment she joined, and she will try out any of the ideas I suggest to her. I told her about the pools of fire in Mt. Hyjal that you could fish for Volatile Fire, and she went and fished there for quite a long stretch of time. I recently told her about the Darkmoon Fair selling herbs from old world, Outlands, and Northrend, and she camped that vendor for the next couple of hours.
I have always stressed that my guild Wraith Flight on Demon Soul was a leveling guild. I made no promises that it was a PvP or raiding guild, but apparently the guild no longer fit 2 members today. One of them left after he had made a very off-color remark, and I had said that this wasn't trade chat. He said "Oh, I didn't know this was one of 'those' guilds," and /gquit.
Another one, Indorath, had been with the guild for a while. He was almost to a million gxp, but apparently he wasn't having fun questing anymore, and wanted to do dungeons. He had also /gquit the guild a few days before based on some drama with another guild member, but because of another member stepping in and mediating, he re-joined.
I had/have no problems with members doing whatever they want, but I'm also going to do what I want, which is to do dailies, post stuff on the AH, and whatever else I feel like doing. I don't want to be pressured into doing dungeons with other guild members, just because they're bored of questing. I've also stayed away from the Cataclysm dungeons because I have heard they take wayyyyy longer than Wrath dungeons, and I can't have another time sink that my OCD mind will be compulsively drawn to do.
I want this guild to be a fun, friendly, mature place to be, with members stepping out to join other guilds after they've gotten to 85 and outgrown questing. I also want it to be an amiable split, no harm, no foul, with them wanting to recommend us to anyone still leveling to 85.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The state of the Guild(s)....or, apparently I'm autistic
3-2-11
Wraith Flight on Demon Soul recently dinged level 3, helped by my relentless recruiting in trade chat.
/2 Want to earn some extra gold while leveling? I would appreciate the guild xp for my personal guild. I pay 250 gold per 250k gxp. I also pay for all repairs from the guild bank.
I've gotten about 29 members who AREN'T me now, with several high levels who I have paid about 2k gold each during their leveling through Cataclysm zones. I've had quite a few lower level members quit suddenly, when they realized they couldn't just level in dungeons AND get guild xp at the same time, not to mention the low amounts of xp/gxp you get from lower level quests.
I've been greeted with a lot of skepticism, some puzzling questions (see pics), and a general dawning of comprehension about how people level nowadays. Even though Blizzard re-designed all of Azeroth, most low levels seem to level primarily through dungeons, foregoing questing entirely. How do I know this?
Guild xp. Hit your guild icon, select the Roster Tab, and View All Guild Activity. Most low levels that briefly visit my guilds will get a few thousand xp, then stop. They'll still level up, but get no more xp. That means they are either leveling in battlegrounds, or in dungeons, neither of which grants gxp unless they were grouped with 2 other guild members from my guild (as far as I know).
Warshrike on Daggerspine and Psychrometrics on Darrowmere are proving to be a bit harder. On Daggerspine, I think we just have a small Alliance population, so they've already settled into the mega-guilds, and don't want to leave. It could also be that I usually don't log into Daggerspine until late at night, and post my recruitment macro while I'm doing the cooking and fishing dailies.
Psychrometrics on Darrowmere.....despite the fantastic efforts of my one high-level member Mysscia, it's slow-going. I haven't been able to attract any other people willing to grind xp for my guild. Again, I should probably try recruiting earlier in the day.
I've come up with a new macro that I'll be trying out.
/2 Want to earn some extra gold while leveling? I would appreciate the guild xp for my personal guild. I pay 250 gold per 250k gxp. Guild repairs. BTW, you could earn over 10k gold from me while questing from 60-85.
How do I know that? Google "how much experience from 80 to 85," 2nd site, scroll down to the table.
You need 4,722,000 xp to level from 60 to 69, another 17,651,500 xp to get from 70 to 80, and 20,494,000 xp to level 5 levels from 80 to 85. Total is 42,867,500 xp
If you divide by 4 to get guild xp = 10,716,875 gxp. 1000 gold per 1 million gxp, minus losses of xp earned by killing mobs/gathering......it would still be a hefty chunk of gold.
Hopefully that will spark some discussions in trade chat, which will lead to more members for me, once people realize what other guilds aren't doing for them.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Waaaahh!
2-20-11
I had already talked about some quests getting marked obsolete, but I found some more that are even more of a bummer. It appears that any quest that would make you travel the world was ruthlessly eliminated. In general, I agree with the decision. It wasn't fun picking up a quest in Stranglethorn that told you to go to the Hinterlands, when you had so many more quests left to do in STV. Then, if you put it off until you finished STV, it was already gray, making it next to worthless.
However, in particular.... I for one enjoyed doing 2 particular quest lines, especially since they both shared a couple of zones. The "A Yeti of Your Own" and the quest line that ends with "It's Dangerous to Go Alone" are now marked obsolete, and cannot be completed.
Edit: On further digging, you can still get the Yeti schematic for engineering, and complete the "A Yeti of Your Own" by following the quest line from Lilith the Lithe.
But the Linken quests are gone, which does suck. My girlfriend's 16-year old sister Molly is starting to get into WoW thru seeing her friend play it, and was intensely wanting to see the Linken quests after I had told her about them. She had grown up playing the more recent Zelda games, and was anxious to see Blizzard's homage to them in the game. While they have additional references to other games now, like the Atari Joust! game that you play in Mount Hyjal, nothing comes close to beating Blazerunner to get the Tri-force, and getting the Master Sword and boomerang as quest rewards.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Ding! I leveled my guild!
Yup, on January 29th, on Demon Soul, I leveled my stand-alone guild. The release date of Cataclysm was December 7th, so after a month and a half, I had accumulated the 16.6 million of guild xp needed to advance to level 2. That's not easy, btw. Here's a link to Wowwiki's guild advancement tracker.
Unless you're a level 85, it feels like any quest you do is a drop in the bucket. My 2 level 85's (Bloodshrike and Pallormortis) get 17,350 guild xp for each of the daily fishing and cooking quests in Orgrimmar and Dalaran, so logging on to them for about 15 minutes to do the quests is usually one of my first concerns.
Granted, I don't spend too long on each character, and since a few of them had recently gotten to 80 before Cataclysm, they were still working on their Crusader titles from the Argent Tournament, which, no matter how high of a level you are, only reward about 5k guild rep.
I am considering outsourcing, though. Basically, advertising in trade "Looking to hire leveling mercenaries, 500 gold per 1 million guild xp, repairs fully covered by the guild." That way, they get to do whatever they like, be it PvP, heroics, or just questing, and as long as it gets guild xp, I'm happy.
Monday, January 24, 2011
I think I'll skip graduation this year
1-24-11
I was reading J's Cache's archives, and I was struck by something interesting. In Mount Hyjal, the last quest chain you start actually LOCKS you out of gathering in the south-east corner of the zone. The second quest in the chain is Graduation Speech, and for any toon that's a gatherer, you DO NOT WANT to complete it.
There were at least 10 nodes of Obsidium ore there that my DK Pallormortis can no longer obtain, since he did all the quests in the zone. The only benefit you get from doing the rest of the quests in the chain would be XP and gold (duh), and some ilevel 272 green armor from Might of the Firelord. The quest rep isn't enough to tip you over to exalted, you'll still have to run dungeons wearing the Hyjal tabard to get to exalted.
I've only done Hyjal and Uldum with my DK, but I believe I noticed something similar in Uldum. When I was just going there to gather, I seemed to find a lot more nodes on the north side of the Obelisk of the Sun mountain. My memory sucks, so I couldn't tell you when that stopped. Probably after I did most of the Brann quests, but don't quote me on that.
What I'm wondering is......wtf? Why punish people for completing quest chains? I'm all for phasing, and seeing the landscape and structures change as you progress through a zone. I even would like to see more nodes open up as you help clean up a zone, as a reward for doing what you're supposed to do in the game. This basically rewards you for being a half-ass who leaves zones as soon as they ding high enough to go to the next one.
If you think about it, it even rewards gold farmers (the real ones) who powerlevel to the max level as quickly and cheaply as possible, then spend their time gathering to be able to sell to players and the AH.
I was reading J's Cache's archives, and I was struck by something interesting. In Mount Hyjal, the last quest chain you start actually LOCKS you out of gathering in the south-east corner of the zone. The second quest in the chain is Graduation Speech, and for any toon that's a gatherer, you DO NOT WANT to complete it.
There were at least 10 nodes of Obsidium ore there that my DK Pallormortis can no longer obtain, since he did all the quests in the zone. The only benefit you get from doing the rest of the quests in the chain would be XP and gold (duh), and some ilevel 272 green armor from Might of the Firelord. The quest rep isn't enough to tip you over to exalted, you'll still have to run dungeons wearing the Hyjal tabard to get to exalted.
I've only done Hyjal and Uldum with my DK, but I believe I noticed something similar in Uldum. When I was just going there to gather, I seemed to find a lot more nodes on the north side of the Obelisk of the Sun mountain. My memory sucks, so I couldn't tell you when that stopped. Probably after I did most of the Brann quests, but don't quote me on that.
What I'm wondering is......wtf? Why punish people for completing quest chains? I'm all for phasing, and seeing the landscape and structures change as you progress through a zone. I even would like to see more nodes open up as you help clean up a zone, as a reward for doing what you're supposed to do in the game. This basically rewards you for being a half-ass who leaves zones as soon as they ding high enough to go to the next one.
If you think about it, it even rewards gold farmers (the real ones) who powerlevel to the max level as quickly and cheaply as possible, then spend their time gathering to be able to sell to players and the AH.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Didja know?
1-22-11
Waaaay back when, I had written some posts about faction specific recipes, notably the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe quest. I just wanted to inform you that those hard to obtain faction-specific recipes are essentially GONE.
Tasty Lion Steak from a level 30 Alliance quest and the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe from a level 1 Night Elf quest have been deemed obsolete, and can no longer be gotten. However, the Moongraze Tenderloin recipe, from a level 4 Draenai quest, can still be gotten, it would just take more time to level a throw-away toon to level 4.
However, if you do happen to have the Spider Kabob or Tasty Lion recipe sitting around in your bank, they will sell very well on the AH. I just recently sold a Tasty recipe for 1,500 gold, with another one priced at 22k-25k to make it look more attractive. And on Wowhead, a commenter said that he sold it for 10k gold, with no advertising.
On Horde side, my main items for grabbing off the AH and selling on Alliance side had their drop rate jacked wayyy up, making it very hard to sell them reliably for a decent amount of gold. Yup, Elixir of Giant Growth and Savory Deviate Delight would probably not be worth bringing over to Ally side anymore if you're on a high-pop server, since there will be so many other Allies leveling up alts in the Barrens now. On a low-pop PvP server though, there's not as much competition, so if you bring them over, have one alt post a few at lower price, and have another alt post them at a much higher price, and they'll sell....eventually.
On a different note, 2 pets are no longer available post-Shattering. The Smolderweb Hatchling from the quest En-Ay-Es-Tee-Why(Nasty), and the Worg Pup from Kibler's Exotic Pets can no longer be obtained. This doesn't have anything to do with making gold, since the pets were BOP, but for all pet collectors out there, it's kind of annoying.
Waaaay back when, I had written some posts about faction specific recipes, notably the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe quest. I just wanted to inform you that those hard to obtain faction-specific recipes are essentially GONE.
Tasty Lion Steak from a level 30 Alliance quest and the Kaldorei Spider Kabob recipe from a level 1 Night Elf quest have been deemed obsolete, and can no longer be gotten. However, the Moongraze Tenderloin recipe, from a level 4 Draenai quest, can still be gotten, it would just take more time to level a throw-away toon to level 4.
However, if you do happen to have the Spider Kabob or Tasty Lion recipe sitting around in your bank, they will sell very well on the AH. I just recently sold a Tasty recipe for 1,500 gold, with another one priced at 22k-25k to make it look more attractive. And on Wowhead, a commenter said that he sold it for 10k gold, with no advertising.
On Horde side, my main items for grabbing off the AH and selling on Alliance side had their drop rate jacked wayyy up, making it very hard to sell them reliably for a decent amount of gold. Yup, Elixir of Giant Growth and Savory Deviate Delight would probably not be worth bringing over to Ally side anymore if you're on a high-pop server, since there will be so many other Allies leveling up alts in the Barrens now. On a low-pop PvP server though, there's not as much competition, so if you bring them over, have one alt post a few at lower price, and have another alt post them at a much higher price, and they'll sell....eventually.
On a different note, 2 pets are no longer available post-Shattering. The Smolderweb Hatchling from the quest En-Ay-Es-Tee-Why(Nasty), and the Worg Pup from Kibler's Exotic Pets can no longer be obtained. This doesn't have anything to do with making gold, since the pets were BOP, but for all pet collectors out there, it's kind of annoying.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Guild....Alone
1-18-11
Back in Wrath, I wasn't just a one-man army on 3 servers, I was also about 4 guilds on each server. Whenever someone advertised they were giving a guild away, or selling it very cheaply, I'd snap it up with a low level toon, which was usually a shaman (LW), warrior (BS), or whatever toon had Jewelcrafting on that server.
I like planning ahead, so when I found recipes for the 350-450 range for my crafters, I stockpiled them. LW/BS/JC recipes are usually the most prolific in my opinion, and so a guild bank was a perfect place to store those recipes until I could level the toons up to be able to learn them.
Fast-forward to Cataclysm, and guild perks. I hate waste, and having my quests/looting/kills/crafting count for a guild that I don't care about is just wrong. Besides, it's much nicer to have any of my toons being able to access all of the mats in the main guild bank.
So, I'm trying to consolidate my toons back into my original guilds - Wraith Flight on Demon Soul, Warshrike on Daggerspine, and Psychrometrics on Darrowmere. I've cleaned out or learned recipes in those guild banks, and then sold them for a profit, or at least took a slight loss on what I paid for the tabs. My Ally guild on Daggerspine is 10/10 again, and the 2 Horde guilds on Demon Soul and Darrowmere are almost re-united, with only a couple of toons on each server with a TON of mats and recipes stuffed in their stand-alone banks.
I guess I was inspired to write this because of another solo Wow'er. In it, Skaut was talking about the impression she got that if you're not in a huge guild, you're not going to get anywhere. I respectfully disagree.
After about a month, I'm not level 2 on any of my guilds, but I'm not at 1% either. On Demon Soul, with all my 80+'s, I'm at about 80% to level 2, with an average of 300k experience added the total each day. It could be more, it should be more, but again, my dogged persistence in avoiding waste. I wanted several of my toons to finish out getting the "Crusader" title from the Argent Tournament, the tabard for teleportation, along with the most interesting of the Argent mounts (at least to me), the Dragonhawk.
On Daggerspine, JUST from doing the cooking/fishing dailies, with 10 level 45-60's, I believe I'm around 10% or more.
On Darrowmere, JUST from doing the dailies, with 8 level 30-50's, I believe I'm at 18%. Granted, this belies the title of the post, since I'm not alone in the guild. A very nice person joined the guild after we had a long conversation about how Cataclysm got rid of unnecessary quest items, and they have been graciously allowing me to gain the benefit of their questing XP. Thank you!
Back in Wrath, I wasn't just a one-man army on 3 servers, I was also about 4 guilds on each server. Whenever someone advertised they were giving a guild away, or selling it very cheaply, I'd snap it up with a low level toon, which was usually a shaman (LW), warrior (BS), or whatever toon had Jewelcrafting on that server.
I like planning ahead, so when I found recipes for the 350-450 range for my crafters, I stockpiled them. LW/BS/JC recipes are usually the most prolific in my opinion, and so a guild bank was a perfect place to store those recipes until I could level the toons up to be able to learn them.
Fast-forward to Cataclysm, and guild perks. I hate waste, and having my quests/looting/kills/crafting count for a guild that I don't care about is just wrong. Besides, it's much nicer to have any of my toons being able to access all of the mats in the main guild bank.
So, I'm trying to consolidate my toons back into my original guilds - Wraith Flight on Demon Soul, Warshrike on Daggerspine, and Psychrometrics on Darrowmere. I've cleaned out or learned recipes in those guild banks, and then sold them for a profit, or at least took a slight loss on what I paid for the tabs. My Ally guild on Daggerspine is 10/10 again, and the 2 Horde guilds on Demon Soul and Darrowmere are almost re-united, with only a couple of toons on each server with a TON of mats and recipes stuffed in their stand-alone banks.
I guess I was inspired to write this because of another solo Wow'er. In it, Skaut was talking about the impression she got that if you're not in a huge guild, you're not going to get anywhere. I respectfully disagree.
After about a month, I'm not level 2 on any of my guilds, but I'm not at 1% either. On Demon Soul, with all my 80+'s, I'm at about 80% to level 2, with an average of 300k experience added the total each day. It could be more, it should be more, but again, my dogged persistence in avoiding waste. I wanted several of my toons to finish out getting the "Crusader" title from the Argent Tournament, the tabard for teleportation, along with the most interesting of the Argent mounts (at least to me), the Dragonhawk.
On Daggerspine, JUST from doing the cooking/fishing dailies, with 10 level 45-60's, I believe I'm around 10% or more.
On Darrowmere, JUST from doing the dailies, with 8 level 30-50's, I believe I'm at 18%. Granted, this belies the title of the post, since I'm not alone in the guild. A very nice person joined the guild after we had a long conversation about how Cataclysm got rid of unnecessary quest items, and they have been graciously allowing me to gain the benefit of their questing XP. Thank you!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Where the HELL are my bombs?!!!
1/7/2011
Ever since my main Bloodshrike on Demon Soul started out, I have been in love with engineering. I dabbled a little bit with mining, skinning, herbalism as secondary professions to his Alchemy, but once I realized the true power of engineering, I made almost every toon after that have Engineering as one of their professions.
Engineering does 2 things.
One, it gives you limited access to abilities other professions have, if only for a limited amount of time, with a cooldown.
Two, it gives you explosives! I had been seduced to WoW from Diablo 2, where I had developed a build for characters to give any class Zeal, which was a multi-hit or AOE (crap, I can't even remember what AOE stands for anymore, whatevers, it hits any monster standing close to you) build.
I figured out that bombs would shave off at least 10% of a monsters hit points in one blast, more if you powerleveled engineering to the max whenever you hit the level caps to advance the profession.
Of course I'm not going to rage-quit over this, but it does seem like they neglected a major portion of both specialities of engineering. Goblin engineering is about bombs, they go boom! Gnomish engineering is about trinkets, they go snap-fizzle-zap-aaaaargh aaargh it burns!
Basically, we got a modified mote extractor in the Electrostatic Condenser, but it only works for gatherer/engineers, not just any engineer.
The Dragonling is a generic trinket that any class can use since it adds mastery, and the combat pet bonus aspect of it is pretty nice.
The Bolt Gun is a useful interupt and damage dealer, but it's single target only and requires 1 Handful of Obsidium Bolts each time it's fired.
The belt upgrades are awesome,you might want to put them on different belts to keep in your inventory. Target Dummy, Nigh-Invulnerability Belt, and the Gnomish Cloaking Device.
The glove enchants are ehhhh, again being ideas from Wrath. Armor, Runic Healing Injector, Runic Mana Injector, moar Intellect/spellpower, and a combo of the Gnomish Lightning Generator Trinket/Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket in the Tazik Shocker. I'm not much of a fan of tying up a glove enchant on an average of 50% more healing/mana from potions though.
The Loot-a-rang is awesome, being an original idea that could definitely be useful if you kill an enemy that's fleeing, or on a hillside. I love the fun items in engineering.
Bigger Bags - Toolbox and Tacklebox. Really? There's people out there that go fishing enough to warrant needing a 36 slot bag for it? I just hate being forced to make 3-4 of these to level up engineering, because all other engineers have to make 3-4 of these as well, making them useless to sell on the AH. I only usually need 1 engineering bag with me, and maybe 1 in the bank to use for extra mats or bombs.
Scopes - Hit rating and Haste. Heh, just glanced at the Safety Catch buyout price in Wowhead, which said it was about 2 gold. That's 100 gold or so worth of mats that you're just giving away. I hate being MADE to make stuff that I'll never use. I probably won't be able to use all the scopes I've made on my hunter, not to mention my Rogue/Warrior/Paladin/Death Knight that soon will be maxing engineering as well. Granted, I should probably be just selling the mats right now, and wait until prices come down before maxing professions, I'm just kinda bitter that you're forced into making extra stuff for no benefit. Remember the Gnomish Army Knife? An awesome item that should have sold well, but made worthless by making it the most economical way of skilling up engineering.
Guns and Crossbows - Throat Needler and Volatile Thunderstick. Sell them at a loss, yay!
Pets - Actually, I might take back what I said about the toolboxes and guns. If you make sure to visit your appropriate specialization trainer at 475, the 2 new pets might actually give you a profit (it looks like they stop giving skillups by 500 though). From Gnomish trainers - the mechanical rabbit. From Goblin trainers - the Fel REAVER!!
Food and lures - Even though Kaliopes guide says to do the lures from 510-521, I'm looking at the guild achievement of putting out 5,000 feasts or whatever, and thinking that the BBQ might be a better option.
edit - Oh yeah, remembered later that AOE means Area of Effect.
Ever since my main Bloodshrike on Demon Soul started out, I have been in love with engineering. I dabbled a little bit with mining, skinning, herbalism as secondary professions to his Alchemy, but once I realized the true power of engineering, I made almost every toon after that have Engineering as one of their professions.
Engineering does 2 things.
One, it gives you limited access to abilities other professions have, if only for a limited amount of time, with a cooldown.
Two, it gives you explosives! I had been seduced to WoW from Diablo 2, where I had developed a build for characters to give any class Zeal, which was a multi-hit or AOE (crap, I can't even remember what AOE stands for anymore, whatevers, it hits any monster standing close to you) build.
I figured out that bombs would shave off at least 10% of a monsters hit points in one blast, more if you powerleveled engineering to the max whenever you hit the level caps to advance the profession.
Of course I'm not going to rage-quit over this, but it does seem like they neglected a major portion of both specialities of engineering. Goblin engineering is about bombs, they go boom! Gnomish engineering is about trinkets, they go snap-fizzle-zap-aaaaargh aaargh it burns!
Basically, we got a modified mote extractor in the Electrostatic Condenser, but it only works for gatherer/engineers, not just any engineer.
The Dragonling is a generic trinket that any class can use since it adds mastery, and the combat pet bonus aspect of it is pretty nice.
The Bolt Gun is a useful interupt and damage dealer, but it's single target only and requires 1 Handful of Obsidium Bolts each time it's fired.
The belt upgrades are awesome,you might want to put them on different belts to keep in your inventory. Target Dummy, Nigh-Invulnerability Belt, and the Gnomish Cloaking Device.
The glove enchants are ehhhh, again being ideas from Wrath. Armor, Runic Healing Injector, Runic Mana Injector, moar Intellect/spellpower, and a combo of the Gnomish Lightning Generator Trinket/Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket in the Tazik Shocker. I'm not much of a fan of tying up a glove enchant on an average of 50% more healing/mana from potions though.
The Loot-a-rang is awesome, being an original idea that could definitely be useful if you kill an enemy that's fleeing, or on a hillside. I love the fun items in engineering.
Bigger Bags - Toolbox and Tacklebox. Really? There's people out there that go fishing enough to warrant needing a 36 slot bag for it? I just hate being forced to make 3-4 of these to level up engineering, because all other engineers have to make 3-4 of these as well, making them useless to sell on the AH. I only usually need 1 engineering bag with me, and maybe 1 in the bank to use for extra mats or bombs.
Scopes - Hit rating and Haste. Heh, just glanced at the Safety Catch buyout price in Wowhead, which said it was about 2 gold. That's 100 gold or so worth of mats that you're just giving away. I hate being MADE to make stuff that I'll never use. I probably won't be able to use all the scopes I've made on my hunter, not to mention my Rogue/Warrior/Paladin/Death Knight that soon will be maxing engineering as well. Granted, I should probably be just selling the mats right now, and wait until prices come down before maxing professions, I'm just kinda bitter that you're forced into making extra stuff for no benefit. Remember the Gnomish Army Knife? An awesome item that should have sold well, but made worthless by making it the most economical way of skilling up engineering.
Guns and Crossbows - Throat Needler and Volatile Thunderstick. Sell them at a loss, yay!
Pets - Actually, I might take back what I said about the toolboxes and guns. If you make sure to visit your appropriate specialization trainer at 475, the 2 new pets might actually give you a profit (it looks like they stop giving skillups by 500 though). From Gnomish trainers - the mechanical rabbit. From Goblin trainers - the Fel REAVER!!
Food and lures - Even though Kaliopes guide says to do the lures from 510-521, I'm looking at the guild achievement of putting out 5,000 feasts or whatever, and thinking that the BBQ might be a better option.
edit - Oh yeah, remembered later that AOE means Area of Effect.
Friday, December 24, 2010
And now for something completely different
12/24/2010
Lovers Drugs - "Into the Light"
This is a video by Lovers Drugs, the 4th incarnation of a Bay Area group that I first saw while I was living up in Sacramento. They initially attracted me because I could actually hear them clearly in the club, whereas most live bands I've seen couldn't be heard coherently unless you were outside the club walls.
Over the years, I've gotten the chance to get to know them more personally, as my brother has helped them out by being their road manager, key grip and gaffer (whatever the F that means), and general go-to guy for any construction project they need.
We're from completely different worlds, yet the same type of passion that I have for WoW, they have for music. I took 6 years of piano while growing up, and it was a struggle every day for me to sit down to do my half hour of practice. These guys play and think about music constantly; it's what drives them and brings them happiness.
That's the same level of passion that got me theory-crafting in Diablo 2, to develop my crushplosive variant builds, or the barbarian singer build. When you really love your hobby, no amount of time spent on it seems to be too much.
So, if you have a couple of minutes, give them a listen. They're a well-polished group, have a catchy song, and they're really, genuinely nice people as well.
Lovers Drugs - "Into the Light"
This is a video by Lovers Drugs, the 4th incarnation of a Bay Area group that I first saw while I was living up in Sacramento. They initially attracted me because I could actually hear them clearly in the club, whereas most live bands I've seen couldn't be heard coherently unless you were outside the club walls.
Over the years, I've gotten the chance to get to know them more personally, as my brother has helped them out by being their road manager, key grip and gaffer (whatever the F that means), and general go-to guy for any construction project they need.
We're from completely different worlds, yet the same type of passion that I have for WoW, they have for music. I took 6 years of piano while growing up, and it was a struggle every day for me to sit down to do my half hour of practice. These guys play and think about music constantly; it's what drives them and brings them happiness.
That's the same level of passion that got me theory-crafting in Diablo 2, to develop my crushplosive variant builds, or the barbarian singer build. When you really love your hobby, no amount of time spent on it seems to be too much.
So, if you have a couple of minutes, give them a listen. They're a well-polished group, have a catchy song, and they're really, genuinely nice people as well.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Spring...I mean, Winter Cleaning
12-21-2010
The Cataclysm has hit, and that brings changes for not only max level characters, but low level toons as well. Blizzard went through their quests with a fine-tooth comb, and marked oodles of them obsolete, and can't be obtained or completed. This is a very good thing, don't get me wrong.
However, hidden among the hundreds of "kill 10 rats, come back, turn it in, go back to the exact same spot and kill 10 Elder rats" type of quests were some quests that I had come to rely on at certain levels for fast XP and sometimes rep.
Wool (12), Silk (26), Mageweave (40), and Runecloth (50) turnins are gone. At those levels, my toons would make the rounds of the capitol cities, turning in 60 pieces of cloth to 5 different NPC's, and gaining a good chunk of rep and XP in the process. Those NPC's are now goooooone. Sell your stockpiles of cloth, use them in Tailoring or First Aid, but you can't use them for rep anymore.
Next up, we have a quest located in one of the busiest ganking spots on a PvP server, Stranglethorn Vale. It used to take 14 seperate pages to do all the quests needed for the Green Hills of Stranglethorn Vale, now it only takes 1 page. Sell any and all pages in your bank, even old page 14 won't work for the new quest.
Blasted Lands had about 5 quests with extremely low drop rate quest items, doable at level 45. It was a nice XP boost if you did it right at 45, bringing you almost to 46 if I remember correctly. Basilisk Brain, Blasted Boar Lung, Scorpok Pincer, Snickerfang Jowl, and Vulture Gizzard were all needed to finish the quests, in varying amounts. The Vulture Gizzard drops were particularly horrendous. Toss them, you can't sell them. Here's an example of how many I had saved up, on my baby Horde server Darrowmere.
And finally, Argent Dawn rep. I wanted rep with factions as soon as it was possible, and I wasn't high enough to solo instances yet, so I started collecting the quest items. Dark Iron Scraps, Bone Fragments, Crypt Fiend Parts, Core of Elements, Savage Frond.....I collected them all from the AH, when they had a low bid of a few silver for several. Sell them, you can't do anything with them.
Anyone wanna buy some Dark Iron Scraps?
Surprisingly, the Craftsman's Writ quests, even though marked in Wowhead as obsolete, CAN be still completed if you have the writ and items needed. My warrior Bullkathos did the Stonescale Eel one last night, and instead of being given the choice between Insignia of the Dawn or Insignia of the Crusade, he just got a straight 150 rep. Dump the Insignia's btw, you can't redeem them anymore.
Am I mad that Blizzard got rid of these quests, making the items useless? Hell no! I'm glad that we no longer have quests that require 12 raptor heads, and all the raptors you kill in the Barrens seem to be headless. Random Number Generator items should be on important stuff, like Rivendare's mount. It shouldn't take an hour to do one simple quest, and Blizzard finally recognized that.
The Cataclysm has hit, and that brings changes for not only max level characters, but low level toons as well. Blizzard went through their quests with a fine-tooth comb, and marked oodles of them obsolete, and can't be obtained or completed. This is a very good thing, don't get me wrong.
However, hidden among the hundreds of "kill 10 rats, come back, turn it in, go back to the exact same spot and kill 10 Elder rats" type of quests were some quests that I had come to rely on at certain levels for fast XP and sometimes rep.
Wool (12), Silk (26), Mageweave (40), and Runecloth (50) turnins are gone. At those levels, my toons would make the rounds of the capitol cities, turning in 60 pieces of cloth to 5 different NPC's, and gaining a good chunk of rep and XP in the process. Those NPC's are now goooooone. Sell your stockpiles of cloth, use them in Tailoring or First Aid, but you can't use them for rep anymore.
Next up, we have a quest located in one of the busiest ganking spots on a PvP server, Stranglethorn Vale. It used to take 14 seperate pages to do all the quests needed for the Green Hills of Stranglethorn Vale, now it only takes 1 page. Sell any and all pages in your bank, even old page 14 won't work for the new quest.
Blasted Lands had about 5 quests with extremely low drop rate quest items, doable at level 45. It was a nice XP boost if you did it right at 45, bringing you almost to 46 if I remember correctly. Basilisk Brain, Blasted Boar Lung, Scorpok Pincer, Snickerfang Jowl, and Vulture Gizzard were all needed to finish the quests, in varying amounts. The Vulture Gizzard drops were particularly horrendous. Toss them, you can't sell them. Here's an example of how many I had saved up, on my baby Horde server Darrowmere.
And finally, Argent Dawn rep. I wanted rep with factions as soon as it was possible, and I wasn't high enough to solo instances yet, so I started collecting the quest items. Dark Iron Scraps, Bone Fragments, Crypt Fiend Parts, Core of Elements, Savage Frond.....I collected them all from the AH, when they had a low bid of a few silver for several. Sell them, you can't do anything with them.
Anyone wanna buy some Dark Iron Scraps?
Surprisingly, the Craftsman's Writ quests, even though marked in Wowhead as obsolete, CAN be still completed if you have the writ and items needed. My warrior Bullkathos did the Stonescale Eel one last night, and instead of being given the choice between Insignia of the Dawn or Insignia of the Crusade, he just got a straight 150 rep. Dump the Insignia's btw, you can't redeem them anymore.
Am I mad that Blizzard got rid of these quests, making the items useless? Hell no! I'm glad that we no longer have quests that require 12 raptor heads, and all the raptors you kill in the Barrens seem to be headless. Random Number Generator items should be on important stuff, like Rivendare's mount. It shouldn't take an hour to do one simple quest, and Blizzard finally recognized that.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Congratulations to all Realm Firsts!
12/10/2010
And I mean that sincerely. I had been hoping to snag at least one, but it wasn't in the cards. The snafu of the Cataclysm launch had me try logging out at about 12:05, and I wasn't able to get back in until 12:20. I quickly used my mats to powerlevel to 525 cooking, but someone already got realm first on that.
Unfazed, I immediately used my ring to teleport to Dalaran, determined to go for realm first in fishing, and hopefully fishing up a Rat that had been eluding me for so long. I ran into someone else down there with the same goal, and he was maintaining a 15 skill point lead on me for the hour I was down there, so I switched gears again.
Maybe, I could get Realm First Archaeology?
I picked up Archaeology, slung my surveying pick over my shoulder, and headed out. I was following Kaliope's guide/suggestions, so I made sure to wait until level 75 to start solving artifacts, but I probably should have waited longer.
I would really, REALLY recommend you do most of your Archaeology before 85, because at least you'll get some XP for digging up fragments, and that's about the most exciting thing that will happen to you during that time. It's basically a LOT of traveling, followed by a mini-game of Minesweeper when you get to the dig sites.
Like Kaliope says when surveying "The survey tool has an indicator light on it, which glows in one of three colors depending on your proximity to the artifact you are tracking. Red means you’re pretty far away, but the large end of the scope is pointing you in the direction of the object. Yellow means you’re getting closer, but probably at least 50 yards away. Green means the object is very close, within 40 yards of you."
My take on it was "Red-mount up and fly for about 3 seconds in the direction of where the telescope is pointing. Yellow- mount and bound forward for about a second of flight time. Green- start spamming the survey tool every 5 feet, while enjoying the 5 second cooldown that Blizzard has on it."
-Tips to not go mental while surveying. Kill stuff! There's a guild achievement for critters killed, so while you wait for the cooldown, kill those level 1 critters you see roaming around.
I think I got to about 225 Archaelogy in my first 12 hours of play, and that was pretty hardcore grinding too. After that, I had some prior engagements to take care of, so my time doing Archaeology was pretty spotty during the week. I had some free time today, and wasn't sure if anyone had gotten the Achievement yet, so I decided to go all out and try for it. I had gotten to 420 skill level, when all of a sudden, the Realm First message popped up. The annoying thing about it was that I had just seen that guy in Zul'Drak, and he had whispered to me, but Infinite Ignore had blocked it, which meant that he was a regular Trade Troll, which I normally ignore. If he was a normal player, I would have whispered congrats, but people that make a practice of being idiotic in trade chat I have no respect for.
At least I'm not self-pressured to only do Archaelogy now, I can play my other toons!
And I mean that sincerely. I had been hoping to snag at least one, but it wasn't in the cards. The snafu of the Cataclysm launch had me try logging out at about 12:05, and I wasn't able to get back in until 12:20. I quickly used my mats to powerlevel to 525 cooking, but someone already got realm first on that.
Unfazed, I immediately used my ring to teleport to Dalaran, determined to go for realm first in fishing, and hopefully fishing up a Rat that had been eluding me for so long. I ran into someone else down there with the same goal, and he was maintaining a 15 skill point lead on me for the hour I was down there, so I switched gears again.
Maybe, I could get Realm First Archaeology?
I picked up Archaeology, slung my surveying pick over my shoulder, and headed out. I was following Kaliope's guide/suggestions, so I made sure to wait until level 75 to start solving artifacts, but I probably should have waited longer.
I would really, REALLY recommend you do most of your Archaeology before 85, because at least you'll get some XP for digging up fragments, and that's about the most exciting thing that will happen to you during that time. It's basically a LOT of traveling, followed by a mini-game of Minesweeper when you get to the dig sites.
Like Kaliope says when surveying "The survey tool has an indicator light on it, which glows in one of three colors depending on your proximity to the artifact you are tracking. Red means you’re pretty far away, but the large end of the scope is pointing you in the direction of the object. Yellow means you’re getting closer, but probably at least 50 yards away. Green means the object is very close, within 40 yards of you."
My take on it was "Red-mount up and fly for about 3 seconds in the direction of where the telescope is pointing. Yellow- mount and bound forward for about a second of flight time. Green- start spamming the survey tool every 5 feet, while enjoying the 5 second cooldown that Blizzard has on it."
-Tips to not go mental while surveying. Kill stuff! There's a guild achievement for critters killed, so while you wait for the cooldown, kill those level 1 critters you see roaming around.
I think I got to about 225 Archaelogy in my first 12 hours of play, and that was pretty hardcore grinding too. After that, I had some prior engagements to take care of, so my time doing Archaeology was pretty spotty during the week. I had some free time today, and wasn't sure if anyone had gotten the Achievement yet, so I decided to go all out and try for it. I had gotten to 420 skill level, when all of a sudden, the Realm First message popped up. The annoying thing about it was that I had just seen that guy in Zul'Drak, and he had whispered to me, but Infinite Ignore had blocked it, which meant that he was a regular Trade Troll, which I normally ignore. If he was a normal player, I would have whispered congrats, but people that make a practice of being idiotic in trade chat I have no respect for.
At least I'm not self-pressured to only do Archaelogy now, I can play my other toons!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Gathering in Cataclysm
12/06/2010
As you get ready to head off to the new zones, you might want to bring along some secret weapons. The Gatherer enchant for gloves was introduced in WOTLK, but there are some other items that could help you as well.
Herbalism
Pattern: Herbalist's Gloves, sold to Allies only in Ashenvale, gives a passive +5 to herbalism. Add the Advanced Herbalism enchant to them, and you've got +10 to Herbalism to be able to pick herbs higher than your regular herbing level.
Mining
I haven't forgotten about Mining, either. Either put the Gatherer enchant on a pair of level 60 gloves, or Advanced Mining on a level 1 pair of gloves. But that's not all! If you happen to have engineering, and happened to go Goblin spec.....you could make the Goblin Mining Helmet for an additional +5 mining.
Skinning
Gatherer on gloves, and maybe make 1 or 2 trips to Blackrock Spire for your skinning knife of choice, depending on if you can dual wield or not. That's +15 or +25 skinning to add to your skinning level, so if you happened to come upon some higher level beast corpses that other players left behind.... it's all yours!
Of course, you wouldn't be using these tools all the time, but it's nice to be able to give yourself a little jump on the competition if you need to.
As you get ready to head off to the new zones, you might want to bring along some secret weapons. The Gatherer enchant for gloves was introduced in WOTLK, but there are some other items that could help you as well.
Herbalism
Pattern: Herbalist's Gloves, sold to Allies only in Ashenvale, gives a passive +5 to herbalism. Add the Advanced Herbalism enchant to them, and you've got +10 to Herbalism to be able to pick herbs higher than your regular herbing level.
Mining
I haven't forgotten about Mining, either. Either put the Gatherer enchant on a pair of level 60 gloves, or Advanced Mining on a level 1 pair of gloves. But that's not all! If you happen to have engineering, and happened to go Goblin spec.....you could make the Goblin Mining Helmet for an additional +5 mining.
Skinning
Gatherer on gloves, and maybe make 1 or 2 trips to Blackrock Spire for your skinning knife of choice, depending on if you can dual wield or not. That's +15 or +25 skinning to add to your skinning level, so if you happened to come upon some higher level beast corpses that other players left behind.... it's all yours!
Of course, you wouldn't be using these tools all the time, but it's nice to be able to give yourself a little jump on the competition if you need to.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Realm First!
11/30/2010
With Cataclysm around the corner, we have the opportunities for rare Feats of Strength; namely, Realm Firsts. Since I don't raid, I'm not going to worry about those. However, I would like to go for realm first on some professions.
Since I do have a lot of alts, doing the daily cooking quests in Orgrimmar or Stormwind nets me 1-2 Chef Awards per day, per alt, per server that I'm on. Now, on Demon Soul I'm going to try to have Bloodshrike get the Cooking and Fishing Achievements. Fishing I'm gonna try to get by fishing in the Dalaran Sewers, and hopefully I'll get the Rat while I'm doing that.
As for Cooking, with 9 other alts doing the cooking quests, and getting the crates of meat, that allows me to have access to a bunch of meat at the start of Cataclysm, which I'd probably not be able to get without leveling up to 81-83 first.
Now, I mentioned that I'm doing it on all my servers. Why? Two reasons. I've always been a sucker for Dailies, because I know where to go, and what to do. Especially when I have more than one alt doing them, I have my routine down to a science by the 4th toon. This allows for fast, easy XP and gold for all my toons.
The second reason is that if you're not going to use the meat, at the start of Cataclysm, I'm positive it will sell for ludicrous amounts of gold on the AH, to other people going for the Realm First, or just desperate to level up cooking for some reason. Since my highest toon on Daggerspine is 63, and on Darrowmere my highest is 52, I'll be selling the meat.
Save it until the day before Cataclysm drops, and post it late at night, so it's ready for people to buy buy buy!
With Cataclysm around the corner, we have the opportunities for rare Feats of Strength; namely, Realm Firsts. Since I don't raid, I'm not going to worry about those. However, I would like to go for realm first on some professions.
Since I do have a lot of alts, doing the daily cooking quests in Orgrimmar or Stormwind nets me 1-2 Chef Awards per day, per alt, per server that I'm on. Now, on Demon Soul I'm going to try to have Bloodshrike get the Cooking and Fishing Achievements. Fishing I'm gonna try to get by fishing in the Dalaran Sewers, and hopefully I'll get the Rat while I'm doing that.
As for Cooking, with 9 other alts doing the cooking quests, and getting the crates of meat, that allows me to have access to a bunch of meat at the start of Cataclysm, which I'd probably not be able to get without leveling up to 81-83 first.
Now, I mentioned that I'm doing it on all my servers. Why? Two reasons. I've always been a sucker for Dailies, because I know where to go, and what to do. Especially when I have more than one alt doing them, I have my routine down to a science by the 4th toon. This allows for fast, easy XP and gold for all my toons.
The second reason is that if you're not going to use the meat, at the start of Cataclysm, I'm positive it will sell for ludicrous amounts of gold on the AH, to other people going for the Realm First, or just desperate to level up cooking for some reason. Since my highest toon on Daggerspine is 63, and on Darrowmere my highest is 52, I'll be selling the meat.
Save it until the day before Cataclysm drops, and post it late at night, so it's ready for people to buy buy buy!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Mission: Impossible Turkey
11/27/2010
I was peacefully enjoying my friday night daily chores, when suddenly my Goblin iBrick beeped to tell me I had e-mail.
See, I'm a member of Wraith Flight, a super-secret Orgimmar organization, used only when missions are too dangerous for the Kor'kron Vanguard to handle. We're the best of the best, expected to get the job done, no matter what. It's not all bad though, we have access to all the best Goblin and Gnome engineering has to offer; the trick is to field-test extensively beforehand, so you don't rely on equipment that will explode every 5th time you use it.
The message read:
Shrike, I have a last-minute mission for you. Pilgrim's Bounty is almost over, and I need you to disarm some bombs we had inadvertently placed under Bountiful Tables in the enemy capitals. We'll provide you with a disarming device, but your butt needs to hit those chairs before tomorrow night, or we'll have another incident with the Alliance to deal with.
As always, should you or any of your WF force be caught or killed, the Overlord will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Shrike. This e-mail will self-destruct in five seconds.
-Garrosh
Shaking my head, I put the iBrick down on a handy table, and stepped away. A few seconds later, a puff of smoke hissed from the device, and it melted into a useless puddle of goo. Damn, I had just gotten all my contacts into that one!
I hopped on my favorite ride, and headed up to Felwood, since 2 of my targets lay in that direction. If ONLY I had gotten this message a week earlier, it would have been a lot easier. See, Darnassus has a table in the middle of the city, and Exodar has its table just within the city walls. A few days earlier, a massive tsunami had ravaged that coastline, destroying the the Auberdine port which serviced both cities. Since that time, they had been on high alert, and also called out the city watch, which meant that the guards would be a lot more vigilant than normal.
Along the way though, I stopped off to buy a souvenir. Hey, business trips don't mean you can't take time out to enjoy yourself!
I had bribed one of my Alliance contacts for info, so I was able to plan out my route beforehand. I left from Darkshore's highest north-western point, and used a potion to book it across the sea to Rut'theran Village. After spending a few minutes on the non-moving boat at the eastern dock, I checked my notes, and found that I needed the boat at the western dock to get to Exodar. After approaching the middle of the dock, I hopped on, and rode to Azuremyst Isle. I circled around to the north, plunked my butt down, and headed back to Darnassus. I got around to the back of the portal, got into the city, got killed, but rezzed at the graveyard in Teldrassil. After the bomb was disarmed, I hearthed back to Orgrimmar, and considered my options.
I could take the portal in Cleft of Shadows to the Dark Portal in Blasted Lands, and then go to Stormwind. Or, if I had a teleport device, I could run from BRD to Searing Gorge, and go through the Stonewrought Pass tunnel to Loch Modan, which lets out into the Valley of Kings. From there it's an easy run to Ironforge. However, after checking our inventory, it seemed that one of other team members had the device, so I headed to Ironforge first.
Those city guards are buggers! I ran up the hill almost directly south of the gates, as there's a way up the hill that allows you to come out right where the tables are. However, the 2 guards there are intensely watchful, and it took at least 5 times to get the timing right to get into a chair.
Three down, one left. Hearthed back to Orgrimmar, then Blasted Lands, then rode to the gates of Stormwind. After all that, it was almost a letdown to see the tables unguarded, and easily accessible outside the city.
Man, the things I do for my faction.
TL-DR....check the comments on the last page for tips on how to do it. I had let it go until the last day, kinda QQ-ing Blizzard for having level 85 guards RIGHT on top of the tables, but figured I'd give it a shot. I was able to do it for some of my toons, but since I have things to do today, I won't get all of them done. Ehh, it's not part of the meta, so I can do it next year, when I've gotten them to 85.
And you Alliance only players can suck it! Orgrimmar - outside the gates. Thunderbluff - outside (apparently there's a great wall blocking Mulgore that you can ride around the right side of). Silvermoon - outside. UC might be the only place you might have problems. Check here for tips.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The Shattered (Patch 4.0.3a)
11/24/2010
The Shattering hit servers today, to a lot of mixed emotions. New content, yay! Portals in Shattrath and Dalaran gone, boo! I had known they were going to be gone, but theory and practice are two different things.
The portals being gone are something that makes being an altoholic really, REALLY hard. Getting one toon to traipse around the continents for a holiday event can be time-consuming, but imagine trying to do 30 of them. With the portals in Dalaran, if I needed to travel to or around different capitol cities, I'd go to one directly from Dalaran, then hearth back and log out. Do the next toon, repeat. It was a time-saving technique that I had gotten used too, since by the time I was done with the 10th toon, the 1st toon would have their hearth back up.
If you have daily quests that will be used by max level toons, who generally have their hearths set somewhere in Northrend, why oh why would you have those dailies take place in Orgrimmar? The cooking tokens from the Orgrimmar cooking dailies will be used to buy level 450 and UP cooking recipes, which lowbie toons won't be making use of for a long time. So, it's expected for 70-80 toons to come back to Orgrimmar to do those dailies, every day, then get back to where they want to be, which is in Northrend or Deepholme or whatever.
Aaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
Whew, enough venting. I also wanted to recap where I am with some toons. Bloodshrike missed out on Loremaster by only 13 quests in Zul'Drak, and all of Grizzly Hills. I should have kept more in the loop, but I was kinda excited by being able to gear up my newer 80's with the elemental invasion bosses. He also missed out on getting his Shen'dralar rep to exalted, along with Zandalar. I had plenty of librams and Pristine black diamonds, I just had slacked off on getting the BOP Blood of Heroes/Skin of Shadow/Frayed Stitching. I should have just let one day of dailies with my other 80's pass, and concentrated on that rep grind. I turned in about 22 librams in Dire Maul about an hour before the servers were supposed to go down, then headed to Zul'Gurub to try to max out my Zanzibar rep. Got there with about 15 minutes to spare, but the instance portal wouldn't let me in, even though I was in a raid group with another 80. "Instance could not be found" my ass! The instance is right in front of me!
Ah well, C'est la vie. I'm not going to let it worry me, instead, it'll be nice to get those librams out of my guild bank(s).
I figure I might as well do a recap on my servers, since this is a fresh start to the world.
Demon Soul
Bloodshrike - lvl 80 Troll Hunter
Bullkathos - lvl 80 Tauren Warrior
Thrillkiller- lvl 80 Orc Rogue
Bonescourge - lvl 61 Undead Warlock
Banesidhe - lvl 80 Undead Mage
Kukoshakaku - lvl 58 Tauren Shaman
Clockworknyt- lvl 72 Blood Elf Paladin
Morticide - lvl 45 Tauren Druid
Burizadokyan- lvl 48 Blood Elf Priest
Pallormortis- lvl 80 Orc Death Knight
Daggerspine
Clockwrkmage- lvl 63 Gnome Mage
Preyonyou - lvl 41 Draenai Priest
Tsuris - lvl 56 Draenai Shaman
Aosdanasaoi - lvl 54 Night Elf Rogue
Hangfire - lvl 48 Night Elf Druid
Panzergishi - lvl 55 Dwarf Warrior
Kishigishi - lvl 53 Human Paladin
Ryoushigishi- lvl 55 Dwarf Hunter
Gwiddonyn - lvl 53 Gnome Warlock
Doomslinger - lvl 42 Night Elf Hunter
Darrowmere
Bloodshrike - lvl 53 Blood Elf Hunter
Clockwrkmage- lvl 39 Blood Elf Mage
Psilentkill - lvl 41 Blood Elf Rogue
Didactylos - lvl 32 Blood Elf Warlock
Gavelofpain - lvl 34 Orc Shaman
Wartraveler - lvl 35 Undead Warrior
Misericorde - lvl 35 Blood Elf Paladin
Ghostflame - lvl 30 Blood Elf Priest
Gimmershred - lvl 34 Tauren Druid
Annihilus - lvl 31 Undead Rogue
The Shattering hit servers today, to a lot of mixed emotions. New content, yay! Portals in Shattrath and Dalaran gone, boo! I had known they were going to be gone, but theory and practice are two different things.
The portals being gone are something that makes being an altoholic really, REALLY hard. Getting one toon to traipse around the continents for a holiday event can be time-consuming, but imagine trying to do 30 of them. With the portals in Dalaran, if I needed to travel to or around different capitol cities, I'd go to one directly from Dalaran, then hearth back and log out. Do the next toon, repeat. It was a time-saving technique that I had gotten used too, since by the time I was done with the 10th toon, the 1st toon would have their hearth back up.
If you have daily quests that will be used by max level toons, who generally have their hearths set somewhere in Northrend, why oh why would you have those dailies take place in Orgrimmar? The cooking tokens from the Orgrimmar cooking dailies will be used to buy level 450 and UP cooking recipes, which lowbie toons won't be making use of for a long time. So, it's expected for 70-80 toons to come back to Orgrimmar to do those dailies, every day, then get back to where they want to be, which is in Northrend or Deepholme or whatever.
Aaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
Whew, enough venting. I also wanted to recap where I am with some toons. Bloodshrike missed out on Loremaster by only 13 quests in Zul'Drak, and all of Grizzly Hills. I should have kept more in the loop, but I was kinda excited by being able to gear up my newer 80's with the elemental invasion bosses. He also missed out on getting his Shen'dralar rep to exalted, along with Zandalar. I had plenty of librams and Pristine black diamonds, I just had slacked off on getting the BOP Blood of Heroes/Skin of Shadow/Frayed Stitching. I should have just let one day of dailies with my other 80's pass, and concentrated on that rep grind. I turned in about 22 librams in Dire Maul about an hour before the servers were supposed to go down, then headed to Zul'Gurub to try to max out my Zanzibar rep. Got there with about 15 minutes to spare, but the instance portal wouldn't let me in, even though I was in a raid group with another 80. "Instance could not be found" my ass! The instance is right in front of me!
Ah well, C'est la vie. I'm not going to let it worry me, instead, it'll be nice to get those librams out of my guild bank(s).
I figure I might as well do a recap on my servers, since this is a fresh start to the world.
Demon Soul
Bloodshrike - lvl 80 Troll Hunter
Bullkathos - lvl 80 Tauren Warrior
Thrillkiller- lvl 80 Orc Rogue
Bonescourge - lvl 61 Undead Warlock
Banesidhe - lvl 80 Undead Mage
Kukoshakaku - lvl 58 Tauren Shaman
Clockworknyt- lvl 72 Blood Elf Paladin
Morticide - lvl 45 Tauren Druid
Burizadokyan- lvl 48 Blood Elf Priest
Pallormortis- lvl 80 Orc Death Knight
Daggerspine
Clockwrkmage- lvl 63 Gnome Mage
Preyonyou - lvl 41 Draenai Priest
Tsuris - lvl 56 Draenai Shaman
Aosdanasaoi - lvl 54 Night Elf Rogue
Hangfire - lvl 48 Night Elf Druid
Panzergishi - lvl 55 Dwarf Warrior
Kishigishi - lvl 53 Human Paladin
Ryoushigishi- lvl 55 Dwarf Hunter
Gwiddonyn - lvl 53 Gnome Warlock
Doomslinger - lvl 42 Night Elf Hunter
Darrowmere
Bloodshrike - lvl 53 Blood Elf Hunter
Clockwrkmage- lvl 39 Blood Elf Mage
Psilentkill - lvl 41 Blood Elf Rogue
Didactylos - lvl 32 Blood Elf Warlock
Gavelofpain - lvl 34 Orc Shaman
Wartraveler - lvl 35 Undead Warrior
Misericorde - lvl 35 Blood Elf Paladin
Ghostflame - lvl 30 Blood Elf Priest
Gimmershred - lvl 34 Tauren Druid
Annihilus - lvl 31 Undead Rogue
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Spirit of Sharing
11/21/2010
While I've seen some people complaining about having the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday in the midst of the Cataclysm ramp-up; honestly, they're probably also the ones that started complaining about the event screwing up Orgrimmar by the second time it happened.
But think about this for a second. Not only are there easy dailies for your alts to accomplish, with mats you can pre-make to hand in, there's another bonus for us achievement hunters.
Sitting down at the Bountiful Table and eating each dish 5x will give you the Spirit of Sharing, which is a HUGE bonus on some lengthy rep grinds. I believe you need about 80 + librams of rapidity/protection/focus to get exalted with Shen'dralar, which is 80 x 500 =40,000 or more rep. With 10% bonus, at 40 turnins, you're already at 22,000 rep, instead of 20k, putting you 4 librams/mats ahead of the game. So, this could make the rep grind only around 70+ librams, instead of 80ish. And when you're hunting for Blood of Heroes or either of the other BOP mats for the librams.....it could be your sanity on the line.
While I've seen some people complaining about having the Pilgrim's Bounty holiday in the midst of the Cataclysm ramp-up; honestly, they're probably also the ones that started complaining about the event screwing up Orgrimmar by the second time it happened.
But think about this for a second. Not only are there easy dailies for your alts to accomplish, with mats you can pre-make to hand in, there's another bonus for us achievement hunters.
Sitting down at the Bountiful Table and eating each dish 5x will give you the Spirit of Sharing, which is a HUGE bonus on some lengthy rep grinds. I believe you need about 80 + librams of rapidity/protection/focus to get exalted with Shen'dralar, which is 80 x 500 =40,000 or more rep. With 10% bonus, at 40 turnins, you're already at 22,000 rep, instead of 20k, putting you 4 librams/mats ahead of the game. So, this could make the rep grind only around 70+ librams, instead of 80ish. And when you're hunting for Blood of Heroes or either of the other BOP mats for the librams.....it could be your sanity on the line.
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