Gold: Lull Edition

“Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness, except greed.”
Thomas Harris

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Gold: Lull Edition

I’m not a huge fan of the gold mini-game. It could be fun to set up the Trade Skill Master addon and follow the Undermine Journal except that I’d rather play different aspects of the game than doing that.

Gold Making feels like an old thing in WoW. Today we earn plenty of gold by playing the designed game and can buy almost anything that we’d need to improve our character. The idea of visiting a gold seller to buy high-end gear feels like a very old idea. The game is designed differently.

But there is the gold sink mount in Battle of Azeroth.

I am too late to the gold party to make it but I’m willing to try. I’ve looked at some of the gold-making advice and one of the top things is simple: run gold missions on many Alts.

And I didn’t really finish all of my Alts. Many I played until I got what I wanted and dropped them. Many of you probably did complete the process and are sitting on a lot of potential.

I currently have 3.4 million across my characters on my realm. So many of them are sitting on the gold, uncollected, from the WoD heyday. If I could possibly ding six million before BfA, I’d happily drop five million on the mount and not be bankrupt going into a new expac. If I am at five or less (very likely), I’ll earn up the rep and buy it later with the discount.

I have three characters tricked out enough to do 200% gold missions and I can try to remember to look for gold missions on the board. Maybe once in the morning and again sometime later in the afternoon or nighttime.

Once upon a time, I played a game that I called Gold Rush. I’d dump the hundreds of different items that I’d stockpiled for crafting into the AH. They’d sell or come back and I’d toss them up again; especially on the weekend. However, the days of needing the older materials are gone — tailors don’t need netherweave to level up their skills any more. But, someone might need Titansteel: we’ll have to find out.

Speculation is that the gold missions will be nerfed either at the pre-patch or certainly at the drop; so during this lull I might as well exploit it as best that I can and maybe I can buy a gold sink mount someday!

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Gold Sink: Mighty Caravan Brutosaur

“There can be economy only where there is efficiency.”
Benjamin Disraeli

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Gold Sink: Mighty Caravan Brutosaur

I’m glad that the Battle of Azeroth has a practical gold sink mount. It sure beats an ostentatious spider. The Mighty Caravan Brutosaur costs five million gold or at a discount for four million gold when exalted by the Proudmoore Admirality.

I wondered out loud on Discord why anyone would want this mount. I have a Bank Alt in Iron Forge who happily runs from the AH to the mail box. I could hear the shoulders shrug as my guild master stated the obvious, “to go shopping”.

Instead of a few Auction Houses in a few major cities, imagine them on every corner like kiosks. Imagine killing time waiting for a queue to drop for the LFR while waiting in New Dalaran; typically you’d chat or even read some blogs. But, instead, you have 39 pieces of cloth, might as well toss them up on the AH.

This could change our economy for the positive. Instead of waiting for un-needed mats to stack to 200, toss ’em up now. Or waiting for a raid, shopping for that pet that you don’t own. Need some flasks? How about a gem or two? Where you might have stalled or waited, it is right there in front of you.

If you are like me, I have a lot of mats in my bank for no reason other than they might have some value. Many I have no use for, like cloth or ore, they showed up from some World Quest when I wasn’t paying attention.

This could lead to a much more lively economy, driving prices down and making goods easier to obtain. Which leads to us having more fun in the World of Warcraft!

 

The Battle for Azeroth and My Mom

“My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.”

Mark Twain

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The Battle for Azeroth and My Mom

Once upon a time, I had visited my folks for Christmas and was preparing to drive back to Los Angeles. My Mom handed me a small Ziploc baggie with a candle and a book of matches. She said, “Put this in your glove compartment. If you end up in a snowdrift in the middle of the night, one candle can keep you alive”.

The odds of me ending up in a snowdrift are pretty high. On the other hand, the effort to toss a baggie in my car is pretty low. But, in the end, it could make all of the difference: life and death.

Having a great Mom like that impacted my life, like all Moms do. And, I wish that I could have learned more from her planning and pre-planning for life. She thought ahead and executed, sometimes that effort can be very small but the results can be mighty.

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I have a bank alt with its own guild, just like you do. It has rows of cloth but now-a-days you don’t need old cloth to level up a new tailor. It also has tab dedicated to storing Hexweave Bags for many reasons. It also has a tab called Legion Leveling.

Prior to the launch of Legion I stocked up on things that I thought I’d need. And, I’ve not really thought about that tab for a couple of years. In it now are some left-over foods to regain health and some Felmouth Frenzy. Gone are the rows and rows of Goblin Glider kits and Drums of Fury.

Having Goblin Glider kits made a huge difference when getting around the starting zones in Legion. For about a year I was grateful to my pre-planning before the launch of Legion and it was … uh … smooth sailing.

So. What did I learn from that idea? First of all; we’ll be fine. The first year in BfA will be ground-bound and we’ll macro a bunch of toys to the Water Strider mount. We probably won’t need buff food from Legion or bandages or anything like that.

Pre-planning for a new expansion is always worth it because the effort to do so is small but the results could be mighty. Or not.

While exploring the new lands and questing and leveling and sight-seeing, I’ll also be keeping an eye on:

• Herbing areas and picking-paths to build an alchemist and inscriptionist. I’ll want a pair of gloves with the herbing enchant asap.
• Mining areas to build my engineer.
• Reading some profession guides on my crafters so I don’t blow through mats needlessly to get to what I want to make repeatedly.
• Find my favorite areas to fish: ease of access, lack of danger, plentiful pools.
• It will be a race and a hard-core race at that to be able to have some stacks of Bountiful Captain’s Feast for raiding in three weeks.
• And on and on and on.

How do you start an expansion? Do you mount up and ride to open all of the Flight Points? Or do you take that first quest and simply begin?

Do you have a stack of Bear Tartare and Fighter Chow and Drums of Fury and Glider Kits to smooth the ride? Or do you enter a new land with open eyes and empty bags?

My Mom would probably make some rows of Goblin Glider Kits and stack them in a bank alt tab, just in case. Even if they go grey at launch, the effort is minimal but the difference could be mighty. I think that I’ll do that too.

Recipe: Bountiful Captain’s Feast

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
Cary Grant

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Recipe: Bountiful Captain’s Feast

Before Legion, when asked about potions, flasks and buff foods; Ion dismissed it and brushed it away as something only those who min/max use. My experience is that the raid team really wants buffs of all kinds.

NB: the following is all gleaned from Wowhead’s Battle for Azeroth data-mining.
Today’s date is: June 15, 2018

The best feast food is called Bountiful Captain’s Feast featuring a whopping 91 to your main stat.

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Like most recipes in BfA, it is locked behind reputation. I see that we can buy rank two at honored and rank three at revered so I assume that rank one is friendly with the Tortollan Seekers. The vendor is Collector Kojo and, it seems, can be found in many of the zones.

Let’s look at the mats:

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Left to right, the Redtail Loach is a fish and the Frenzied Fangtooth is also a fish.

Stringy Loins are farmed off of Hexthralled Courser, found in Drustvar.

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Meaty Haunch is farmed off of the Sharptail Beaver in Tiragarde Sound.

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We also have to cook up a bunch of Kul Tiramisu. It looks like Wild Flour and Foosaka are purchased cooking mats. The Major’s Frothy Coffee is found at the Cupola Cafe in our capital and the Fish Oil is from “using” the fish that we fish up.

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The same is with Mon’Dazi. These mats seem to all be purchasable and while I believe that you can purchase Fish Oil, we might as well “use” the fish that we have.

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Finally we need Midnight Salmon. It is a bit of a mystery due to the flavor text of “These fish are most prominent during the later hours of the day”. One would guess night time and the open sea, but who knows.

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At Rank One, to make a stack of 20 of these feasts, probably enough for one raid night we need 400 Redtail Loach, 400 Frenzied Fangtooth and so on and on. A lot of fishing and farming of mats!

Notes:

• There has been some talk about our mission followers being able to do fishing missions and coming back with nets full of fish.
• The Underlight Angler will cast itself over to BfA, so we’ll have at least water-walking. My guess is that we’ll get new traits for BfA pools and that you can buy a model so no one has to go back to Legion to earn one.
• The Hexthralled Courser and the Sharptail Beaver are both skinnable, so that might decide your choice of Alt Farmer.
• At the Q&A yesterday, Ion said that the new raid would drop three weeks into BfA with the LFR and Mythic version one week after that. So, you have three weeks to get your rep up, buy the recipe, farm the mats and craft the feasts.
• I didn’t even look at the cost of the cooking mats!

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Our Guild Event

“I always thought that common sense would prevail. But on a game show, there is no common sense.”
Wayne Brady

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Our Guild Event

Last night began the first of five guild events on Thursday nights. It has been and will be hosted by one of our members and has been a few months in the planning.

Our first was pretty fun:

• We all had to make new level on human paladins and not move a step. Stacked up on top of each other for ten minutes while we waiting was great.
• No heirlooms, no heirloom mount, no flight points, no gold.
• Our task was to get to Booty Bay and buy the Senegal pet for 40 silver and return to Goldshire to turn in to our game leader.

Most of us got out our Enchanted Torch so that we’d look like a peasant mob. I regret forgetting to screen cap this stuff.

I did not win. Not even close.

I chose to earn my 40 silver by killing mobs like boars and spiders and vendoring. The hope was a green piece of gear to drop. I had zero luck but others did much better.

A few headed straight to Booty Bay, right through the heart of Stranglethorn and dying. Their hope was to beg some gold at the dock. Even with nekkid dancing, they were ignored; by accounts via Discord this was humiliating to much laughter.

The winner went to Stormwind, found a stranger who was on our realm and begged a gold. Then he went to Westfall and swam down to Booty Bay. He’d set his hearth in Goldshire and beat everyone by at least half-an-hour.

Players could also get points for Achievements. One player ignored the task and racked up quite a few points via achieves.

We rewarded first, second and third place winners with items that they chose from our Prize tab in the guild bank. Mostly toys, rare pets, mounts or stacks of flasks and then some odd bits like inky black potions etc.

The game master is throwing gold into the pot. For each participant, he tosses in 1000 gold. He’ll do this each week; so the final amount might be pretty high.

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Next week the heirloom restrictions are off. We are tasked to reach level ten during this week so that we can be invited into a raid team. He’ll be porting us somewhere with his Mage. That’s all we know.

It is our hope to get even more friends to participate and really hurt his bank account!

BfA: Developer Q&A on Thursday

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”
Virginia Woolf

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BfA: Developer Q&A on Thursday

There will be a Developer question and answer session for about one hour tomorrow. Answering will be Game Director Ion Hazzikostas.

There are forums for you to submit your question: Here is the US Forum and here is the EU Forum. You can twitter at #WarcraftQA as well.

I’ve read through the pages of questions. Noting that they’ve asked for 40 words or less, I skipped over the massive-sized posts just like the moderator.

At a glance:

• The most questions seem to be on transmog and also equipping different kinds of weapons for a class — like could a DK please use two-handed swords, or something along those lines.
• Many questions are about feedback. Some classes have had full explanations of why and how their classes will change for BfA. Players want to know if their class will get the same treatment, those who have been ignored.
• Everyone wants to know why the Mage, Warrior and Priest get the big raid buff but no one else gets something. It smacks of unfair.
• Players are guessing and wondering about Mythic Plus team compositions and who will be viable.
• And then, after that, many specific questions but scattered about like the Underlight Angler or flying or the new Allied Races. Actually, a lot on Allied races and future choices.

I asked two questions: one was about the loss of Displacer Beast and the nerf to Dash and the other was; like many others, about the Mage, Warrior and Priest getting the big raid/dungeon buffs.

I don’t expect a response to my questions and I would be shocked to receive a reply. My belief is that this stuff is mostly public relations and little hard information. It is not about accountability but instead about justification of choices.

I do have lunch time free tomorrow and I look forward to watching this session.

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There is one question that I almost asked but decided not to do so:

Lets address the elephant in the Q&A room. It is never acceptable to humiliate an employee in front of thousands of customers. It is never acceptable to joke about an employee’s job status.

Question One: Did Ion get a request to visit Human Resources after firing Lore live on the twitch steam?
Question Two: Did Lore ding a big pay raise for not suing Activision?

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I remember my shock when Lore asked about the Sea Gull affix for mythic plus and Ion shot back, “you’re fired”. Even labeled as jokes, they are never funny. That kind of power unchecked is simply wrong in the work place. Ah well, some questions by me are best left unasked.

BfA: Efflorescence

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Oscar Wilde

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BfA: Efflorescence

Our mushroom spell is a stand-out because of it’s very visual presence on the stage. The Druid Healer can and should take part in a leadership role by casting the mushroom before the pull; dungeon or raid.

Dropping your mushroom early shows the tank and melee where to take the pull, usually encouraging line of sight pulls or avoiding pathing mobs. It also signals readiness-to-play which is a big factor. Too often it feels like some players have gotten lost in their noodles along the way, but not you!

During Pandaria, the raid design was very often “everyone stack and take a big pounding” and we had a mushroom to deal the damage by being able to pump up the mushroom and then detonate it for big heals. That stacking mechanic is not as common now.

In Battle for Azeroth, we have an azerite trait that is not as powerful but does have a detonate on demand: Fungal Essence. This will be an optional choice and we’ll have to see if our raids or dungeons have a “stack and share” mechanic.

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We’ll learn or do our homework prior which encounters have stacking mechanics. If they do, then we’ll choose Spring Blossoms to jack up the through-put healing of the mushroom. If we are scattered and on the run then we might choose Stonebark for the tank or Inner Peace for more Tranquilities; handy when everyone is spread out.

NB: I end up saving my ammo. Using spells talents like Inner Peace or Flourish for big cooldown heals; either you have to know exactly when to use them or you end up saving them and really not using them or you blow through them off cooldown to jack up your numbers on the meters. In raiding progression, there might be assigned healing cooldowns but that is usually for a brief time while everyone learns the fight to avoid damage or until we gear out of the damage.

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Almost all spells, it seems, on Wowhead have a WeakAuras Export. The Weak Auras addon is a “reminder tool”, usually a bar or symbol to tell you that a certain spell is ready to use. Players tend to pack those reminder symbols tight around their characters. When we’ve played in the current expansion, Legion, Blizzard duplicated a common aura of health and mana by placing those bars right under your character.

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This export function is terrific and, again, almost any spell that you might want a reminder on with it’s readiness.