23. what does a gbank tab of pyrite ore look like?

This!

The above screeny shows what happens when you prospect an entire gbank tab of pyrite ore.

That’s right folks, with their general “non”-epicness now revealed I’m deciding what to do with 12243 pyrite ores.

Now I know you’re wondering how much gold I invested into this pile? Hard to say but I started a long time ago and usually bought only when ore was low. I also remember getting a pretty good run on 150-200 stacks around the 45g mark. So taking all this into account I’m thinking about 45k gold to get my many stacks which is an average stack cost of 75g max.

The interesting question is what am I going to do with it now? Turning some ore into pyrium bars is a definite. But really, 50 stacks of pyrium is probably enough. Following this I’ll have 10243 pyrite ore to prospect into gems and volatile earths. Stats for ore and bars, based upon the prospecting above, will be 925 rares, 2028 greens and 4087 volatile earths. So 612 ore stacks gets turned into 168 gem stacks and 50 stacks of pyrium bars.

Future of the gem market
Bang – gems gems gems will hit the market when 4.3 drops. Why then? Cause most people will hold onto their ore in the vain hope that Blizz might change their minds and make epics drop from ore after all.

They won’t. Winding the process for epic gems back to BC is not an accident. It’s an attempt to maintain or possibly save the future of raiding for this game. Blizz has decided that there are now some things you simply won’t have unless you raid. I’m cool with that as the vast majority of players do not raid in any regular manner. It’s interesting from a social perspective but I’ll save that post for another time.

I will however wait until the PTR drops to prospect my ore… just to be sure. ; )

So pyrite stockpiles will be prospected and rares will flood the market having a reasonable but not huge take-up in the short term. Prices will drop, potentially plunge for some time. Expect to see cut rares as low as 30g a piece for at least a month or two. Some greens will be transmuted causing Heartblossom to spike early but the rest will be turned to dusts and essences via DEing.

Uses of volatile earth
Have a look here for uses of volatile earth.  I’ll be focussing on some bloodthirsty gear, BS gear, chants, smelting hardened Elementium and BS weapons. Even with this though there’s going to be an aweful lot left over. Prices are going to tank – maybe as low as 2g per.

Chant mats post 4.3
Will be plentiful and cheap but limited by items such as heavenly shards and maelstroms. I’m thinking we’ll be seeing dusts and essences tank at about one month after 4.3 with a slight rise over time following before they tank fully at the end of the xpac. Just remember that if it involves dusts there’ll be a far greater capacity for most people to make it and prices will drop.  Heavenly shards and maelstroms will likely rise in value as cheap mats moves new crafters towards trying their hand in the chants game.

My strategy
I’m not buying any more volatile earths. O.O There will be a glut on the market for earths and a drop in BS gear and the like that relies upon them. After a review of vol earths I’m not even sure that buying up what gets dropped on the market will be a good idea.

I’m going to trade all the JC tokens I’ve been putting together in preparation for epic recipes in for blue recipes.

I’m going to create a dedicated jewel alt, equip them with some big bags and keep 10off each cut on hand, posting morning and evening 3 per.

I’ll be shuffling green gems to dusts and essences and creating scrolls for every enchant I can and posting 5off on my jewellery alt.

Then I’ll be laughing at that hilarious punchline with the rest of you. It’s my hope that Blizz knew all along that pyrite was ‘never’ going to be prospectable for epics. I for one would not hold it against them if they came out and admitted it.

Stay liquid folks,


Mogul.

22. transmogs, blogs and addons... oh my

Here's a few sites I'm following at the moment as I look for some great gear for my lock and mage:

1. The Visual Roleplay Gearlist - great site with a variety of 'looks';
2. Disenchanting Azeroth - simply brilliant, I can feel the science seeping into my transmog experience + there are a bunch of very elegant pictographs (Really hunny, I'm just reading the articles).  Just weapons so far it seems;
3. Wowpedia Tier Set Lookalikes - as it says tier lookalikes and where to find them;
4. MogIT is an addon that seems to tick all the boxes (not road tested it yet but looks great) - this is where I found it originally;
5. Disiplinary Action on lock, mage and priest sets;
6. Gnome Warlords - a fantastic site for early tier gear pictures.  Not updated since 2007 but if you're a gnome mage, rogue, warrior or lock looking for pics of tiers 1 to 6 then this site is for you!

Now what I personally will be going for in terms of armour is anyone's guess at this stage. Certainly on my current server there's little chance of getting in on one of the older raids. I can grind for the weapon I want though...

May I introduce Spellfire Longsword which drops from Mennu in the slave pens. I cannot wait to see what this sword does with Power Torrent on it.

Stay liquid folks,


Mogul.

21. pet swap

I love my vanity pets! My old main has 100+ and is still collecting. Not having all my furry, scaly, feathered, shelled, gaseous, globulous friends on my new main is quite regrettable.

What can I say, I think the little guys are fun and I love to go quest for something new to bond with. This in mind it won’t come as a surprise to your folk that one thing I have not done and will not do is buy the micro-transaction pets.

In all there are eight micro-transaction pets I could purchase at this time. Had I grabbed them all Blizz would be $110 better off and I would have eight new shinies (and two freaky furry toys for the kids). It’s better this way though, cause these guys would only made me angry. WoW pet collecting from the outset has always been about venturing into the world to find your new friends. There are guides to read and websites to survey; devotees take the quest for acquisition very seriously indeed.

So along with sparkle ponies and disco lions, no pretend pets for me…

In direct contradiction to the above then here's an idea.  One thing I might buy from Blizz as a microtransaction, one purchase I’d strongly consider making would be a bulk pet xfer. All my pets from my old main xferred to my new main so that I could enjoy them. Those old buddies that ventured with me in the past could now gain a new lease on life accompanying another member of my crew.

That would be cool!

But what do you think? Would you pay to xfer your pets en masse to a new toon, or would depriving your old main of all those pets they worked so hard for seem somehow unfair?

: )


M.

20. have choppers will travel

Hey guess what – my Alliance Vanguard rep grind is almost over. Soon I’ll be making choppers as part of my server exit strategy. Thing is they’re resource-hungry buggers.

For 1 chopper:
12 titansteel bars – (3 titanium bars + eternal shad/fire/earth)
40 handfuls of cobalt bolts
2 arctic fur
1 salvaged iron golem parts
8 goblin machined pistons
1 elementium-plated exhaust pipe

For 10 choppers:
120 titansteel Bars which is 120/120/120 eternal shad/earth/fire and 360 titanium bars
400 handfuls of cobalt bolts
20 arctic fur
10 salvaged iron golem parts (vendor Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 3000g) 30000g
80 goblin machined pistons (vendor Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 1000g) 80000g
10 elementium-plated exhaust pipes (Roxi Ramrocket – K3 – 1500g) 15000g

I have enough of saronite ore to make 178 bars of titanium (yes, I did indeed have 2800 saronite ore - been holding it in one of the gbanks since the end of Wrath) and I have another 120 or so actual bars (again, someone offloaded very cheap titanium stacks at that time) so likely about 60 to find there. I’m short on the shadow eternals by about 40 but have heaps of Earth bought for JC/DEing. Fire is also good.

2 cobalt bars give 1-3 bolts so conservatively it’s about 3 stacks of bars per chopper or 30 stacks which I almost have. It’s an easy farm though as no one is looking for these materials any more so the rest shouldn’t be a problem.
I have about 8 Arctic furs and they’re tradeable for borean leather so and I’ve got more than enough to meet the requirement.
Then I’m down to the cost of 10 choppers worth of vendor mats which is 125000g.

I’ll keep one for Shortcut of course, he’s earned it. : )

It will be strange to see the stockpile I’ve held from Wrath for so long disappear to be replaced by shiny choppers. I’ll have so much room!

Stay liquid folks,


Mogul.

19. transmogrifying, epic gems and the long awaited punchline

Olla compadres!

Blizz has been spouting off about the goodness that will be 4.3 and I for one am excited! The option of transmogrifying my lock’s appearance is something I’m looking forward to with great anticipation. I have a feeling it’s only going to be tier gear we’ll be able to refashion to, which will be a shame, but I’ll still take that as a great step forward. I wonder whether you’ll only be able to transmogrify to gear you officially have the levels to wear or whether we’ll see level-one mages in T11?! I hafta say I’d be interested in starting at T1 and working my way up. : )

A side note: will this new age of transmogrification usher in druid forms with armour? I think not. bearform druid sitting in a field here>

Now, if 4.3 really does represent the ultimate or even the penultimate content patch before an xpac release next year then epic gems must surely be just around the corner. Either this patch or the next.

In Wrath epic recipes were available via the same tokens blue recipes were purchasable with. JCers everywhere have been saving up their tokens in the hope that the model will repeat itself. The previous model to Wrath was the placement of recipes within a large new quest hub. As we’ve just had one of those (a large new quest hub that is) I think there’s a likeliness that the hording of tokens we’ve all been doing may come to fruition.

Personally I’ve got over three Gbank tabs loaded with pyrite ore stacks so you can bet I’ll be glued to the patch notes as they appear in more detail. Many of those stacks were bought at about 100g each but many also were purchased for as low as 40g a stack (thanks be to you O now-banned-AH-stacking botters). So I’ve got an investment there of around 25K which conservatively, when epics drop, could garner around 100K.

This is of course the punchline. Pyrite is commonly known in RL as Fool’s Gold. So if this is really a gigantic joke perpetrated by Blizz to catch AH-players out then we’re in for a laugh soon I think.

Time will tell my friends.

; )


M.

18. Didn't you see the sign that said...

 "DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!?"

When I was younger and at the beginning of my gaming journey I played AD&D. Those are my roots. Myself and a Group of guys (usually about five of us including the DM) would spend our Saturday nights rolling dice and living in a fantasy world populated by intrigue, danger and fast food. The rest of the weeknights would be spend thinking furiously about what our characters might get up to on Saturday next. It was wonderful!

When I was older I found WoW. During BC there was limited automation. Guild members talked over chat but then moved through the world together to meet at the summoning stone. Trade chat was full of people putting together PUGs or looking for crafters. Guilds were smaller then, your Tribe knew each other pretty well and cooperated to get things done. The intimacy of a Group was not there but so many other things were: community, shared vision, shared fortunes, a sense of identity, the thrill of venturing out into the world together to accomplish tasks. Good times.

WoW has now entered a more Global era. Players queue randomly (and anonymously) for greater rewards in 5-mans and PVP; portals whip us around the world without us ever having to touch down. It’s definitely easier. In this Global phase guilds have morphed into bulky entities as the guild XP-chase necessitates larger player pools to build levels quickly. This has produced an ennui in casual players, a certain dulling of focus and lack of connectedness. These current times are a little directionless, but with the ramping up of dailies and achievements a little too led, consequently… not so much fun.

This post sounds like a lament but it isn’t meant to be. I still enjoy this game but I’m finding there are fewer ‘reasons’ for me to play. I think this is down to simply not feeling I’m actually achieving anything. We appear to have moved from an environment where just getting around the world represented an achievement in itself to one where things have been made so easy that activities feel like pointless busy work.

What’s your take on this evolution? Time for Blizz to take a few steps back to create something not quite so easy?

Oh and… Hi! Nice to be back.

: )

Mogul.

on hiatus

Hi there folks, wowmogul is going on holiday.

In my absence there will be nobody at the helm so please stand clear as wowmogul careens around the blogosphere, scraping the other blogs' paintwork and generally creating mischief and mayhem.  I’ll be putting together posts during my downtime (including a juicy 3-parter I’m currently working on) and may even lurk comment-wise around some of my fave WoW gold blogs.

Where am I going? Nowhere! : ) I’m simply unplugging while I prioritise some RL projects for the next 6 weeks or so.

Stay liquid folks,

Mogul.