8.1 – Let’s Go!

“That’s me: an old kazoo with some sparklers.”
Bette Davis

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8.1 — Let’s Go!

Oh goody, we love new patches!

Kaylriene has a nice piece up today called Tides of Vengeance – Does it fix WoW?. The write-up is a very nice over-view and opinion on our new content and mechanics.

So, as I write this the servers are down. The worker-bees are pulling levers and banging on the engine to get it all to go. The servers should be up this afternoon but I’ll be at meetings and then we raid tonight. Soooo … I might not be able to enjoy the goods until tomorrow. Pity.

My first stop is almost always MMO Champs. Patch 8.1 – Tides of Vengeance Live Today is a very good and ordered presentation. It is loaded with links and jumps to more information. Patches have a lot of stuff!

For me, the temptation is always to run and do the new stuff like the warfront Darkshore thing. However, as a steady and mature adult, I do try to plan and prepare as much as possible. A-hem!

My characters need to get caught up with the new things offered.

• It is a must to start by visiting the profession trainers. New recipes are being added for all of the crafting professions and then rank two of the recipes are offered at the representative group — The Tortollans have the rank two cooking stuff. So, each character will probably have to visit every quartermaster after visiting the trainers first.
• Alts can learn flight paths! This will be awesome and a must first-thing when logging in. For Alliance it is called 7th Legion Scouting Map. BUT, I don’t know where to buy it and that is frustrating. Maybe the heirloom vendor in Iron Forge? Is it an heirloom like the other flight paths for Eastern Kingdoms? Maybe the 7th Legion quartermaster by the mission boat? I don’t know.
• Two new vendors will be found over where we do the warfront and island stuff. One by the warfront table will sell stuff with the new currency 7th Legion Service Medal earned at the warfronts. The other is by the island table and I’ll visit this guy soon — I have some Dubloons!.
• My inscriptionist will have to visit the 7th Legion quartermaster (I believe) to get the new 7th Legion rep contract rank two. We have paragon rewards after earning 10,000 rep points beyond exalted. So, I’d guess rep contracts will be sold always and forever from now on?
• My main is exalted with the Champions of Azeroth. So, now my alts can get a benefit and a big jump on their neck pieces. How? I can’t find out. Is it a quest chain or do I have to know to visit Silithus? We’ll get it figured out.

New patches are fun and breathe life into the game. Players begin logging in more often to see what is offered. Let’s hope that the new islands, warfronts, raids and incursions can sustain us until 8.1.5.

It’s in the Cards

“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.”
Nora Ephron

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It’s in the Cards

Patch 8.1 is in one week and I’m not making a flask or potion until then. The number of required mats should be reduced and so I am, a bit gleefully, stacking materials until the day.

The RNG system works, I got one pet on an Island Expedition! Now I am addicted. I filled the bar last week on two characters and will do the same this week. 8.1 will give us an improvement to let us clear the island however we want. The current strategy is to go in on Normal and camp the Horde ship and keep them pinned until late in the game when the ships begin to arrive and you can target them; trolls, pirates, etc.

Because of the daily emissary quests and the monstrous amount of materials needed for raiding flasks and feast, I have not done a Timewalking dungeon since the last expansion. Many players flip through their Alts to do the first one for the 500 badge reward only. The increased time needed to clear the dungeons was a mistake and a big one.

• I out-gear the weekly world boss and don’t do that.
• I out-gear the warfront and I won’t do that again.
• I out-gear the daily emissary and only do the 2000 gold one.
• I out-gear the freaking Heroic raid! Unless a piece is titan-forged, I’ll be giving it away. Hopefully the AOTC is this week for our team.

Patch 8.1 does bring a new Warfront that looks different and therefore fun. Instead of a “kill 20” it will be four daily WQs which will get us to come back, I hope! The rewards match the ilevel of Arathi but will go up with the new season (Jan 22?). I’ll definitely go looking.

Patch 8.1 will have three-a-day turn-ins for the now two Warfronts to get AP. I think this is a little sneaky since we will be much more likely to do all three instead of pick and choose like we do now – or skip it altogether which we also do now.

The timing is good, very good for this lull. The new patch will give us some to mess around with like incursions replacing WQs in our home zones but also will leave lots of free time for the holidays. Many players simply disappear from Dec. 20th to Jan 3rd-ish.

And, for the first time, my Inscriptionist is trying to make a Dark Moon trinket. For a while I was selling the extra cards on the AH but after way too long, it seems that certain cards are rare; the four or the eight. I don’t even want the trinket, I wanted to see what the experience was like to make one.