Goin' AFK

As I mentioned a couple posts back will be away from the game for the next 5 weeks or so. Enjoy your holidays, everyone!

P.S. I really, really, really like pvping as a rogue, notably as a subtlety rogue. There are so many different satisfying things I can do, like kill clothies in 2-3 gcds, mess with people with sap and distract, wade into a crowd and use fan of knives with crippling poison, and vanish and get away just in time so I don't die, to come back and kill some more. I would say its the most satisfying battleground experience I've had so far. I can't wait until I'm properly equipped in pvp gear!

On Gold and WOW

So there was a big kerfuffle at the Greedy Goblin blog about him outing another blogger for being an overly-aggressive marketer. I felt kind of bad for the other blogger until he openly called Gevlon a 'twat' which is the kind of word that strips away any credibility your position may have. All of this arose around the idea of a 'gold-making guide' that you pay Real(tm) money for.

Gold is in WOW as a cap on your activity. Just as professions have crafting cooldowns and some spells have individual cooldowns, and raid lockouts are in place, gold throttles your activity. It is a necessary part of the game. But to me I can't see why gold-making is such a hot button item, and why people need to go out of their way to generate it.

To orient this post, I want to lay out my view of the role of gold in the game. In my view, only the following aspects of the game absolutely require you to have gold:

-Repairs (incidental)
-Flight Paths (especially while leveling, not so much at the level cap)
-Money to train new class skills
-Mount money (same as flight paths.)
-Talent respecs as necessary (greatly reduced with Dual specialization available)

I would also add large bags to this in that being able to carry tons of crap to vendor provides you with enough money to play.

(My gold guide)
1. Invest in large bags.
2. Vendor the crap and quest rewards, and auction the rest. (The most important step)
3. Profit!

The next category of aspects come into play mostly at the level cap. I don't think you will fully experience the game at the level cap unless you spend significant money on the following:
-Gems/enchants/glyphs
-Professions

If you are a serious player into raid progression, you will also be required to pay for:
-Repairs (from multiple wipes in expensive-to-repair epic gear)
-Consumables (flasks mostly)
-Expensive top-level enchants and gems

As far as I can see, all the rest is purely optional. I will try to explain why I feel this way for each item:

-Epic mount. You can be summoned to any dungeon (and in 3.3 instantly warp to a dungeon from anywhere in the game), as well as battlegrounds. Sure you can do dailies and farm materials faster, but I think the time saved does not equal 5,000 more gold more earned except over a very long period of time.

-Crafted gear. I have found that just playing the game will improve your gear over time. The way regeants are distributed and market-priced make them much more expensive than the benefit they provide. Pay thousands of gold for a top level item that in reality improves your overall stats by less than 1%? No thank you.

-Vanity items. Personally I have no desire to collect mounts and pets and toys. To each their own.

I basically follow my super secret gold guide I mentioned above. Any BOE items I get I usually disenchant and sell the mats or scrolls. I occasionally do a gem transmute and AH the gem, but I gave up on tailoring cooldowns (too much travel, not fun at all). I also made two large killings:

-Introduction of inscription. I hoarded herbs cheap from the AH and sold thousands of them in one day for many, many thousands of gold.

-Introduction of epic gems. I bought up titanium ore cheap over a couple months and sold it back and made thousands of gold.

Other than that, I don't 'farm'. I pick herbs in Wintergrasp if I notice them. All my alts have gathering professions, and I gather as I level. I haven't done a single non-dungeon/non-pvp daily quest at the level cap since I got the crusader title. If I need some materials, herbs etc. I am more likely to head to the auction house than go out searching for it.

I have about 15,000 gold across all my characters, mostly on my bank alt. All of my level 80 characters have flying skill and cold weather flying. On my most active characters I have epic gems and decent enchants and maxed (or almost maxed) professions. My druid, my 'main' even has epic flight. Most of my 80s have dual spec. I hope that doesn't sounds like bragging, I know many players have much more or are even at the 'cap' of 200,000 gold. I'm just trying to show I am putting out money pretty regularly and yet I have a decent amount in the bank.

Granted, I am probably above the average for the amount of time I play (20 hours a week or more) but only a very small portion of that is spent on the activity of 'making money'. I just play the game, and from that I have more than enough money to cover any expense I may have.

The whole point of this is I see 'gold-making secrets!' and 'Guides to making money'. I get annoying whispers in-game where I can buy gold with real money. I also see guides that tell you how to become the Wal-mart of your server by mass-producing glyphs (which only requires a ton of seed money, multiple alts, several addons to setup and hours a day spent posting or retrieving thousands of auctions, part of which can be done AFK, but still it doesn't sound fun at all). It all makes no sense to me, as I just play the game and never run out of gold.

Perhaps my style of play is wildly different or not in synch with the majority of WOW players, but all I do is level alts, run dungeons, pvp, and raid, hold my own in a group and play to my satisfaction and enjoyment most of the time.

Is this desire for gold the product of our commercial society? No gold=no success? Is it related to people wanting fast gold to buy gear and perks? But why raid if you have the best gear already? Why do you need money for an epic mount? So you can use it to earn the money back?

I don't want to be negative, but is it because many players make poor decisions? Buying things impulsively, or vendoring things instead of auctioning them, not having any professions at all, etc. I would think that putting a small amount of effort and self-control consistently (setting up an auction alt, not spending thousands of gold on gear you will replace soon, etc.) will benefit you greatly in the long run.

In my opinion, all the effort I see towards making gold would be much better spent just playing the game. Trust me, you'll have more than enough. And probably, a lot more fun, and a lot less stress, as well.

P.S. My rogue hit 80! And yes he has cold weather flying and dual spec...

Countdown to hiatus

Things are slowing down, as many other bloggers have mentioned. My guild has lost its top players to more advanced guilds. We still clear Ony10, VOA10, and ToC10 weekly without breaking a sweat. Ulduar10 is not worth our time anymore, even though we never killed General Vezzaxx or Yogg. My mage and druid have collected an impressive array of 10 man gear (Even though I accidentally vendored my Ony10 tanking neck and only found out the next day!!!!).

There isn't even much to get from farming emblems from heroics. That and I've farmed said heroics into the ground.

My priest hit 80 a while back, and now has some decent gear, enough to run the new Icecrown 5man runs in 3.3.

My rogue is up to 74 and coming along nicely.

It's time for a little break.

I am going to let my subscription expire on November 24th and I will come back after the winter holidays, in January. One big reason is I am going home to the US in mid-December, where I won't have time to play much anyways, and would rather spend time with my family in any case. I'll be back online in January once I get back to Japan.

I have 2 goals to achieve before November 24th:

1. Get my rogue to 80 and start earning some honor points. There's no point in running dungeons now when I will be able to in 3.3 and earn more emblems, and faster. I plan on pvping with the rogue as well, so I want to try to hit the honor point cap of 75,000 before Nov. 24th. If I cap, then I can buy some items and stay near the cap. That way I will be able to buy 1 or 2 honor pieces when season 8 rolls around.

2. Honor cap my mage for the same reason. He has about 45,000 points and is well geared, so it should be much easier.

When I do get back I will have a lot more to do:

1. Run my druid, mage, paladin, priest, and rogue through the new Icecrown 5 man dungeons, as well as the new LFG system.

2. PVP on rogue and mage.

3. *If* the functionality to mail bind-on-account items to characters of the opposite faction makes it into 3.3 (I'm still not sure), I will be able to use my accumulated heirloom gear to help my alliance Shaman and Warrior level up a bit more. I've let them be since I heard of the possible change because I would be able to level them 20% faster. I like efficiency.

4. Eventually run Icecrown 10 and 25 man raids. Seeing as this is the last big content patch, I'm in no rush to plow through it. It'll be there until Cataclysm comes out in the second half of next year (my guess).

Having a plan in mind helps put thing into context. In a way, I'm excited to have some time off so there is something to look forward to when I get back, and I have some fun goals to take care of until my sub runs out! Yay.

I do not like and will never buy Blizzard's RMT pets

In case you haven't heard, Blizzard will start selling companion pets in the blizzard store for $10 apiece. The title is self explanatory,so I shall dive into it.

1)I don't really care about pets.
This is purely subjective, as of course some people enjoy collecting and displaying pets. I'm likely to pop 'em out when I get them for a little bit, then forget them forever. It's just not an engaging part of the game for me.

2)$10 is a lot for what you get.
That's as much as it costs to play some subscription games for a whole month. I'm a monetary min/maxer (i.e. cheap) so this doesn't really jive with me. If I were to spend $10 on my gaming I'm more likely to put it towards another month of Warcraft, or towards another game.

3)This blurs the lines of content access.
Blizzard says they will never sell items, etc. that will strengthen your character. These are just cute pets. However, since WoW has launched many policies have fallen by the wayside, such as PVE->PVP transfers and name changes, the kinds of things they once said they 'have no plans for at this time'. Now they are available...for a fee. What about other content? Will there be pay-to-play zones or holiday events (buy a 'ticket' to the NEW Darkmoon Faire!)?

4)Their charity angle bugs me.
Blizzard is donating 5 of every 10 dollars from Pandaren pet sales to the Make-a-wish foundation. That will probably come to quite a sum, and I am happy for the charity and those that benefit from it. What bugs me is it seems like they are tossing on the charity to the new items for reasons OTHER than charity (self-promotion, making an overpriced commodity seem more reasonable in price). Its almost as if they are using the charity as an excuse to introduce RMT commodities to a subscription game. "See, a charity is involved! This makes selling you services for a game you already pay for more palatable". For a multi-billion dollar enterprise they could do better.

I'm not one to gloom and doom about the game much, I enjoy it a lot, but this development bothers me. I hope blizzard doesn't take this game and commodify it much more.

Happy 1 year anniversary Alt Fanatic!

Yay, my blog is 1 year old. I am happy to have a place to share my WoW experiences, and I would like to thank the 200 or so people that stop by every week to take a look and sometimes share their comments. Its a very tiny corner of the wow blogosphere, and an incredibly small spec on the Web, but it's my spec, dammit!! I don't have much to reflect on, this blog is more a stream of conciousness than anything, if I have piqued your interest please take a look back on my blog archive.

I don't know if Alt Fanatic is still the right name for the blog, I just play a lot, and on many characters. I am also keeping myself from making any new alts until Cataclysm rolls around, so I can experience all the new lower level content and enjoy it as much as I can. In any case, Happy Birthday tooo meeeee....

Some updates:

- I hit 60 with my rogue alt. Having only played Assassination or Subtlety specs on my previous rogue (whom I retired, as the friend I played it with on a different realm quit WoW) I played this one as Combat spec. Its really refreshing to just run up to mobs and beat them down in succession, instead of sneaking up and doing an opener into a combo. It makes for faster leveling in any case.

I just had my first taste of Killing Spree. I don't like the way it changes your camera angle 5 times as the animation plays, but it sure does a lot of damage, especially against multiple mobs if blade flurry is activated as well. When I hit 80, I think I want to devote some time in PvP sneaking around and killing people/capping flags from stealth. I always enjoyed being sneaky as a druid in cat form, but I didn't have a good 'toolbox' to do much except sneak around.

I am looking forward to trying out PvP with tools like vanish, blind, sap, preparation, shadowstep, cloak of shadows, cheat death...does anyone else derive pleasure from frustrating opponents? I always get the most kicks out of cycloning, sheeping, freezing, or slowing other players. It's nice to kill them, sure, but even if I die, I imagine them raging at me for messing with them so much. I can remember one time I chased a druid, applying slow every time they shifted, I must have slowed him 20 times! Kinda silly I know, because I was too busy slowing him to cast a damage spell, but it was all in good fun. But I digress.

-I am finding myself very averse to running heroic dungeons on my druid or mage, even for the daily quests that award 2 Emblems of Triumph. I guess I'm a bit burned out on running them, and the reward, for me, isn't worth the time I put into them. On my 'fresh' 80 priest, I still have a lot of gearing to go to bring him up to speed, but even doing the daily heroic is kinda blah. And I have no interest in farming heroics for Emblem of Conquest gear, when I can run new 5-mans in 3.3 and get almost equivalent gear AND emblems of triumph.

With my priest I have stepped into Ulduar though, and successfully healed Razorscale. I am hoping to bring my priest on further farming runs into Ulduar, VOA, and hopefully runs for Onyxia or TOC10 soon. Shadow priests are getting buffed in 3.3 it looks, so I am eager to take advantage of that as well.

My paladin has languished, and I only log onto him to transmute epic gems. I want to tank and heal with him, but I simply don't have the time or need, as my druid is a much better geared tank and healer at this point. Gear-wise he has fallen behind the content so I may shelve my druid until 3.3 and gear my paladin up a bit.

I ran TOC10 twice last week on my druid and mage. The druid run went well as a tank, it was a guild run and we cleared the instance without much trouble. Only Anub took some serious concentration. On my mage, I joined a pug and we cleared the whole thing, struggling only on Anub, and we finally downed him on our last attempt of the night. 5 Bosses is also a good amount, more than once wing of Naxx, but not as interminable as Ulduar (In that all the bosses are in one environment and its hard to call when some are clamoring for one more boss before the end of the night.)

We tried TOC10-Heroic and got promptly stomped into the ground, attempt after attempt. We will need to amp up the coordination and teamwork if we want to down these bosses in their 'true' forms. Our core group is getting pretty powerful though, we 9-manned Koralon this week instead of pugging in a non-guildie.

Hmm, that's about it for now. Let's hope I get my Sinister Squashling in the next week. It's all I need for the achievement I mostly completed, fittingly enough, about one year ago.

Burned Out???

I'm kind of surprised myself, but I found myself avoiding logging on to my main character yesterday. If I logged on, I felt, I would be dragged along to our weekly Onyxia and OS10 runs, and then we would go on to Ulduar, and I would have to heal or tank on my druid (because my guild is perpetually short on healers and tanks, what else is new), and not play my mage or priest as I would prefer. Its not that I don't need the badges or Ony drops, but seeing as I have healed AND tanked Anub 10 without any issues, what I have at the moment is certainly sufficient. I guess I am a little burned out on the combination of druid tanking/healing and the current content. I am a heavy alt-er, I guess I shouldn't be surprised playing one character so much would tire me out.

Since I'm not a hard mode kind of guy, nor a 25-man player, there doesn't seem to be much to do until 3.3 rolls around.

So I logged over to my alliance shaman and sizzled some nerubians to a crisp and dinged a level. Do elemental shamans ever run out of mana?

I am resisting rolling up a warlock...must...wait...until...cataclysm.

You can stop farming Heroics for emblems now...until 3.3

Adding Emblem of Conquest drops and Emblem of Triumph daily quests helped bring many people back to heroic dungeons, for better or worse. As nice as it was to have something to do between raids, it still feels a bit silly as we steamroll through instances to grab 3-5 emblems. Well, you can all stop, for now. The reason is in 3.3, these instances, designed for people with blue gear, will drop emblems that can be used to buy items that have almost twice the amount of stats of any blue gear. That's quite a gear gap.

Of course, this will help new characters gear up faster, but won't it be strange for a new level 80? To go from this to this? Seems like gear whiplash waiting to happen. I can't quite pinpoint it, but it seems throwing out any curve of gear progression will produce players with a limited understanding of itemization and what gear is best for them. There are still players rolling need on epics in heroics (ilvl200) when their current item is from H-toc (ilvl219) or better. Perhaps this design is for the alt-ist in mind - my priest looks mighty funny at the moment with a mix of blues and Ulduar level epic gear, but at least I am familiar with the gear and what to do with it.

As tempting as it is, I don't think I'll be going back to heroic dungeons just to farm emblems, though. The reason is there will be three new 5-man dungeons in 3.3. On top of getting emblems for the heroic version, they will drop a myriad of high-quality items (lvl219/lvl232) that will make it worth my while. Plus I don't have to kill Loken for the 200th time.