30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 2

Hi folks – below is part 2 of this series but a little something about patch 4.3, which dropped this morning, before I get going. Chaos orbs are currently tumbling onto the server like so many over-ripe plums, sugary sweet from been kept in storage for so long and needing to be eaten soon. But hold off a little. Currently on Frostmourne there are 600 auctions up with the buy price dropping already from 325g each to just under 200g each. I’ve heard reports from other servers that orbs are as low as 100g. The stockpile of these items could be huge indeed – personally I’ll be waiting until the orbs on server hit 100g or less before buying up a few stacks. A reasonable loss could still be made buying at these prices but not a total bath.

Now onto the post.

how to enjoy playing WoW - part 2

Keep it simple

Log on – log off
Try this: log in to WoW with something you want to do, something discrete with a fixed end point. If you’re levelling it could be gaining a level, if you’re PVPing it could be doing one BG (okay, maybe two), if you’re PVEing it could be doing an instance. Once you’ve completed this task hearth back to the inn and log out from WoW. Now, go do something else. You’ve had a nice time playing the game and stopped playing before you get frustrated and begin trolling /2. Playing this game in short bursts keeps it, and you, fresh.

Don’t be leet
You want a miserable time? Then focus totally on one element of the game for an entire xPac (ie, raid progression or dare I say it… gold making. No wait, I don’t dare ; ) The cutting edge in this game is where the hardcore meme says you need to be. Leet also comes with a social obligation – if your leet mates are doing something you will have to as well. Before you know it your time is not your own and the time you spend is based upon someone else’s “WoW view”, not yours. I’m not saying don’t do hard things (see post tomorrow) but whilst hard can be fun don’t burn your precious time for leetness unless you’re really enjoying yourself.

Keep it simple
Do one thing at a time. I’m levelling my priest at the moment and it’s a bunch of fun. I love learning the new skill, both the getting of it and the exercising of it. Doing one thing and focussing on it provides a beginning, middle and end to a process. Flipping from toon to toon is not restful and will likely decrease your enjoyment.

Last part of this post incoming tomorrow folks.

Stay liquid,


Mogul.

30. how to enjoy playing WoW - part 1

As time has gone by I’ve become increasingly phlegmatic about this game called WoW. Below are a bunch of ideas as to how to enjoy WoW. The intention is not that you do them all at the same time; many are contradictory if taken together. They’re simply a bunch of things that I’ve thought about as I tailor the way I play this game to counteract the built-in methodologies that Blizzard employs to keep you burning your RL time on their game and correspondingly keep your wallet open and your sub active.

In order not to crit you for 9000 with a wall-o-text this post is in three parts.

Stop it before you go blind
Counterintuitively, one of the best things you can do to enjoy WoW is to stop playing it! WoW is designed to get you to sub each month and keep you playing repetitively, reinforcing the habit. As such like many MMOs it employs various techniques to keep you in; large MMOs are not always working in your interests. Take a month off and see what else is happening in your life. At the very least you should be able to monitor and control the amount of time you spend and keep it to a level that’s fun. Grinding anything for 10 hours at a time is ‘not’ fun.

Don’t grind (and the exception: grind when the grinding’s good)
WoW is a grinding game. Everything is set up to entice you to carry out actions on a daily basis. But doing the same things on a daily basis, especially when you may not enjoy them is not called a game, it’s called work. Grind if you think the reward is good and worth it but don’t simply move from one mindless grind to another.

Try new stuff
Try different specs, modes of play (pve/pvp) – work to the strengths of the game. Try not to get hung up on ‘perfecting’ your art. Blizzard deliberately ‘unperfects’ your art at each xPac (and recently at each patch) so perfectionism in WoW is a losing game. Wow is large, complex and pretty interesting, built to try to meet the needs of as many players as possible so launch into it and try something new!

More tomorrow folks.

: )


Mogul.

29. update update update...

Olla folks!

Here we go:

Gold
I’ve sold one of my Raptor mounts I bought for 80K… for 142K, giving me a 55K gold profit.
I’m buying all the reasonably priced mats I can for the crafting pvp armor with the upcoming patch.
I’ve stopped selling glyphs on the new server – I’ll tell you why later, but basically it’s a lifestyle choice.
My store of pets, bought for a max price of around 2K each, continue to sell on this large server for around the 4K mark.
All ten of my choppers I brought to the new server have sold putting about 165K back into my pockets – should have made more but I had thought I’d be struggling to move ten.
The gem market is dead on server with blues going for less than 5g in some instances – I’m posting but not competitively, holding back to see what joy the patch brings.
I’ve become a flipper in the pet market, best flip so far was for 6K on a Disgusting Oozling – I’m also flipping regular vanity pets; big server numbers mean that competition occasionally drops blue pets down to around the 1500-1800g level. I pick up two or three at a time when this happens.
I’ve been playing around in the transmog market, buying up anything interesting in the less than 300g market (unless it’s a really good deal). We have a single poster who is capping and regulating this market so I’m focusing on the rarer items to ensure exclusivity. I’m thinking of posting these in two bands, 750-1200g and 1000-1500g.

Toons
I levelled my hunter to 85, set up macros and keybinds and got him into resilience gear ready for 4.3.
I’ve topped out my lock for justice points and honour points ready for the new PVP season. It’s going to be a close match between him and my hunter as to who I preference; hunters are ‘fun’ in PVP with a lot of utility in the class.
I’m levelling my priest. It is a bunch of fun. I’ve got my priesty up to level 44 as I write this having levelled through instances as smite spec since level 36. This is the first time I’ve ever played heals and I’m finding it very rewarding. I’ve had only one wipe so far and liken this style of heals to kitty dps in terms of timing and managing cooldowns. Who’d have though I’d get into healing in such a big way. It’s fun to see all the old instances and one of the joys of levelling this way is you have great gear through drops whilst healing pugs which is unpredictable and fun.

Stay liquid folks,


M.

28. combats pets I’d like to see, in order of incredulousness

Run you fools!

Combat pets are on the way and that got me thinking, what new pets would I really like to see going at it?  The answer is below placed, as promised, in order of incredulousness:

Tiny t-rex – I don’t know why… wouldn’t ‘you’ like a Tiny T-Rex? You’re a hunter and have the TCG Savage Raptor mount and your T-rex pet, now you just need a tiny T-Rex pet.

Wriggling bag – every now and then some 'thing' escapes and crawls to join the fray

Hairless cat – comes with definite Mr Bigglesworth overtones

Helper monkey – an archaeology pet, has wings ala Wicked Witch of the West monkey army and a little cap - only... it's NOT helping!

Piranha – it runs on stubby little legs and when within 10 yards of a water body dives in and a red mist rises in the water ala Borean Tundra cooking quest.

Balloon animal – 5 different types of balloon animal, can try for a different type every 10 minutes, animation has character making little squealing rubber sounds and crafting animation.

: )


M.

27. 2012 is the new 1985

2012 is so 1985

Giant pandas? Really Blizz?!

I actually laughed out loud when I read this. My interwebz reading is often focussed on gold making and sometimes I miss this kind of information. I am mildly surprised that the prospect of giant panda bears doing Kung Fu (no doubt sporting a Jack Black-ish persona in an astonishingly similar manner to recent celluloid) evaded my notice but there you are.

Soo… nerd rage abounds over the announcement. Stalwarts believe that this is a bridge too far in terms of game lore. I’m assuming that these same folks were not keen on giant blue space goats falling from the skies during BC. : )

For myself I’ve never played a goat, they’re hokey and odd, but I love that they’re around and I love that the pandas are coming to join us (welcome panda bothers and sisters, the bamboo’s over there…) – you’re telling me that large hard-drinking and eating rolly polly teddy bears are joining the game? Great! I may even play one. Vive la différence!

And the other thing that I like from my Blizzcon reading… ? War with the horde! Whacking the horde is going to again come back into vogue (although for some of us it never really went out of vogue) and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t think it’ll take any concrete form – evidence suggests that there’ll be no new world PVP zone ala Halaa, Wintergrasp or Tol Barad but as a meme I’m all for the spice it’ll inject into Alliance/Horde relations.

Now, onto this post’s title and the graphic above. Back in 1985 TSM brought out Oriental Adventures. I was a keen AD&Der at that stage (yes kids, gather round and hear a tale from the days of yore… ) and we were all interested in something very new: the prospect of taking the gaming system we knew and loved and converting it to something that was unfamiliar and fascinating. There were new weapons, new classes, new locations and a new concept called honour. The very differentness of Oriental Adventures was what drew us to it. Campaigns were written by friends where ‘oriental’ met the standard western milieu and were great fun. The out of place hero in the new locale is very contemporary, just think Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon. ; )

Mist of Pandaria and Oriental Adventures for me juxtapose quite neatly. MoP is very ‘different’ to the WoW we are familiar with: it introduces, amongst other things, unarmed combat (although I think Brewmasters use polearms, details are a bit sketchy as yet), healing through combat and of course large panda bears. In the long term though as future xpacs roll out it will become simply part of the levelling experience and an added layer of complexity to the game. It won’t break anything as WoW is an evolving beast, much as early dice rolling games such as AD&D were plus we’re talking unfamiliar and fascinating folks which is always a drawcard for peeps who like MMOs. Reactionaries may game quit over this but if they do it’s a mark of a woodenness that WoW, as a game, can probably afford to loose.

Stay liquid guys,

M.

26. you can't take it with you

Wanna bet!

The move is made folks.  : )  I've brought five toons over to Frostmourne and let me tell you it's great!  There are folks dueling outside SW, both AHs are veritable hubs of activity and there are over 30k auctions up at any one time.  I can tell already that I've made a loss on a bunch of things that I had little choice but to convert my gold into on Thaurissan but there's items that'll draw a good profit as well.

I'm apping for a good PVP guild which hopefully I'll get into as I'm keen to get into some RBGs but mostly just loving being on a server which is so vibrant; I was able to get my bank guild sorted from some helpful guys in the human starting zone.  An extremely different experience from what I've been used to on Thaurissan where everything had to be done the hard way.

I've been out to Tol Barad to do the dailies to get a feel for the world(ish) PVP and had the odd experience of the Horde quietly turning the other cheek as they got on with their dailies.  On Thaurissan the general rule was to get in hard and often as you knew anyone you turned your back on would be back later with friends looking for the Alli 'rare spawn'.  Here I was questing alongside other Alliance - unheard of!  I actually had the opportunity to take a few Horde down but didn't - without the huge faction imbalance it felt odd.  I'll have to get used to that.

So here's a look at what I came over with.  You'll notice that only four toons are shown - got to keep a little mystery  : )

Stay liquid folks,


Mogul.

25. a poet by any other name...

...would smell as sweet!

I had 15K gold left over the 250k and decided to put it to good use - the poets of Thaurissan delivered.  A four-line poem was required with prizes of 5k for the winner, 2k for second and 1k for third.  I also did four honourable mentions for 250g each.


This was an absolute blast and really got me thinking about what sort of experiences we make for ourselves in MMOs.  Anyway, now's not the time for philosophising, onto the poems.


The winning entry was posted by Savahna and had a great visual quality to it and made me laugh  : )

Second prize was Yokono's effort - nicely done!

Lastly this gem from Victim:

This comp was a great way for me to remember this server where I had so much fun raiding and PVPing.  A great bunch of creative, fun people.

One last one before I go - loved this:

That was a bunch of fun - thanks guys!

Stay liquid (but only to 250K),

Mogul.