Appetite For Destruction

Following on from Queen, we have those Party Animals from Los Angeles, Guns 'n' Roses. A band that burned so bright in a 4 year period and then disappeared as quick as a line of coke and a bottle of Jack Daniels in the GnR Green Room.

The Queen Pop Culture references are firmly wrapped together in a quest hub, the Guns 'n' Roses references are a bit more dispersed, although 3 of them appear as Scenario achievements.

 

 

 

I was first alerted by the "We've Been Dancin'" achievement and started singing along before noticing the sub titled "Aid Master Brownstone in the construction of the Pandaren defenses in the Scenario 'A Little Patience'".

 

This then set me off in the pursuit of other Guns 'n' Roses references. So far I have found the Ulduar Raid Achievement "Lose Your Illusion" 

 



and the Level 25 Quest in Stranglethorn Vale, "Welcome to the Jungle".

Jump

Might as well

I have often discussed stat inflation and how gear can very quickly make challenging content trivial. I was not however expecting the size of the jump from my last upgrade. My hunter gear is starting to become a little more epic as the weeks go by and I have put a temporary halt on my levelling project.
My gear is self made Leatherworking PvP set, with Jewelcrafting Rings and Necklace, rounded off with a Crossbow from Arena of Annihalation.

The general recommendation for people gearing up, is to Valor cap each week (1000). This was not working for me because The max amount of Valor that can be owned is 3000 and I had no reputation at a suitable level to spend any of it.

My current rep grind is based on Golden Lotus (boo hiss) and Operation: Shieldwall. Raising reputation to Honored with Operation: Shieldwall is an absolute doddle when compared with the Golden Lotus (more like Golden Sloth).

I was expecting the rewards at Honored to be Justice points, but discovered that the available gear upgrade was in fact the Signet of the Shieldwall. What surprised me most was the iLevel of the Ring being 496.

If you compare this to the last expansion most of my gear was 397, and this appears to be high in terms of the current status of the expansion.

 

I have already stated that I was wearing an entry level Jewelcrafting ring: The Roguestone Shadowband.

 

+ 238 Agility
+ 356 Stamina
+ 231 Crit
+ 345 Mastery

- 305 Hit

 

These are not small incremental upgrades, they are monumental leaps in stat inflation, and it explains why newly levelled 90's are doing 25K DPS and the people with Epic gear are doing 100K DPS.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when you consider that the Delicate Primordial Ruby adds a whopping +160 Agility plus any socket bonuses.

Now it is starting to make sense about all the talk of Mega Damage. I am just curious why we needed to jump from 450 - 496 in such a small time frame?

Dude (Looks Like A Lady)

I recently posted about my on going struggles with Tempest Keep, and I kindly got some hints and tips from the Grumpy Elf and from a fellow Guildy, Diana. Now Diana has posted comments before and I wasn't entirely sure they were one of the same. This time Diana posted as Raffles / Diana leaving me with no doubt as to who had commented.

Now I am 99% sure that Diana is actually a man and is the partner of the former Guild Master / Mistress. Now to be quite honest I had no idea that anyone from the Guild actually read this blog because I have never really promoted it in Guild Chat, but I do have a link on Facebook. Which if anybody wants to befriend me on Facebook they are more than welcome.

The point of this post is really to empathise that we have no idea about the people behind the pixels, but as I am on PvE server and a Role Playing server, I generally accept people at face value in Guild Chat. I am almost sure that I can even point Diana out in a photograph, because he uses a real account on Facebook and not like me who hides behind my internet persona. One of the reasons I do that is because I am of an age were people are slightly wary of a 40 something male who spends most of his spare time playing and writing about a computer game, and the irony is that my brother makes a living as a professional Chess Player and can freely flaunt his activities.

Now I have occasionally written about my friends who my wife befriended whilst playing the game, because I think they felt sorry for her. Both of them used to play only female characters and I would quite often get them mixed up in my head, and it was a godsend when we started using Ventrillo to communicate instead of party chat. I once asked him why he only played women in game, and is response was that he spent hours looking at the backside of his character and preferred to look at the female form rather than the male version. All of this is ironic because he usually played druids and spent most the game as a Big Bear Butt or a Gnarly Tree.

My wife always used to say that we had no idea who we are talking to in game, and that sweet teenage boy who was struggling with his exams, could easily be a hairy arsed trucker called Dave. In fact my wife came a cropper with that saying when it turned out that one of the Guildies was a trucker from Sweden.

I have no issue with people playing a character of the opposite sex, in fact I suggest you try it just to witness how men (boys) treat women very differently in this game. I personally have 6 female alts and only 5 male characters.

 

I remember before going to University, that I had the opportunity to be whoever I wanted to be and could make up a stories to accompany my new self. Invariably we all settle for the same person we are and have always been. Whilst still being largely anonymous on the internet and in game, we still exude enough of ourselves to let people see the real person behind the pixels.

Fat Bottomed Girls

"Are you gonna take me home tonight?
Ah down beside that red fire light
Are you gonna let it all hang out?
Fat bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round"

 

Queen
 

The 70's have a lot to answer for. The above lyrics from the 1978 single "Fat Bottomed Girls" is from a different age, long before such things as Political Correctness. The song is written with great panache and is firmly tongue in cheek, but I am fairly certain it would not be released for general consumption by present day Music Executives.

 

Anyway this is just a side issue, and today's topic is the Operation: ShieldWall quest hub. Using the ever reliable Icy Veins, I have discovered that I was doing the Domination Point quests last night. I have done these quests before but never noticed the quest titles:

 

 

Quest Giver	Quest	Reputation
Sky Admiral Rogers	Hammer to Fall	150
Sky Admiral Rogers	We Will Rock You	150
Tinkmaster Overspark	A Kind of Magic, followed by Don't Lose Your Head	450
Mishka	Under Pressure	150

In case you are having problems identifying the common thread with these 5 quest titles, they are all Queen songs. Even though I am not familiar with Don't Lose Your Head. It looks like Dave Kosak or somebody in his team is a big Queen fan.

 

Coincidentally, the quest given by Farmer Yoon last night was "Red Blossom Leeks, You Make the Croc-in' World Go Down" In case you don't get the reference it taken from the title of this post.

 

 

 

 

Eat The Rich

This is old news but it is in reality it is always quite pertinent. Back in November, The Golden Crusade published the findings from its WoW gold survey. This is not about the buying of Gold but about the virtual wealth of WoW players.

The survey was reasonably publicised, providing that you were sufficiently interested in virtual wealth in the first place to visit Gold making / Auction House sites (and WoW Insider). This makes the data from the survey slightly flawed but the findings are interesting anyway.

The following is the major summary from the report:

• The average player gold is 302,593
• Median player gold was 80,000 gold
• 81.63% of players are below average

The first thing that jumps out from these figures is that 302,593 is a lot of Gold that people have accumulated for this to be average. This argument is immediately dispelled by the fact that nearly 82% of the player population does not have that kind of money and that the distribution curve is skewed very heavily in favour of the Mega Rich amongst us.

This is of course exactly how things work in the Real World. Using the figures that were compiled at the start of the New Millennium, the richest 1% owned 40% of the world's assets. In WoW the richest 1% only own 25% of all the wealth.

All this at a time of massive inflation in Azeroths prices, and Blizzard's recent tinkering with resource spawn levels will result in higher prices across the board for raw materials and finished goods which involve Ghost Iron , and Trillium ore.

With the rampant inflation of previous expansion materials, I have been able to offload the cloth in my Bank for a nice chunk of change. Now is a nice time to sell your old stock. I have also just a quick look at the price of copper ore and single copper ore will set you back 1-2 Gold or 20-40 Gold a stack. This is inflation in action and of course the cost of Pandaren mats are free fall now we are 2-3 months into the expansion.

The one item I have been unable to get in any quantity and I am not prepared to pay Auction House price is for Golden Lotus. It seems so scarce yet so important in every recipe and transmute required by Alchemists. Thanks to the Orcish Army Knife, I have moved from mass production of Spirits of Harmony to Enigma Seeds. When I have gathered enough Golden Lotus, I will eventually have a play around with Alchemy, and maybe there is a future post in there somewhere.

Solitaire

A lovely range of knitwear

Patch 5.1 brought many minor changes to the game, one of these changes is the ability to enter one of the older raids without being in a a raid group. Many of these old raids have been furnished with vanity pets.

I like to accumulate achievement, but I will not normally go to great lengths to achieve them, and will not sit for hours waiting for rare spawns, or attempting things like the School of Hard Knocks. Some things are just not worth the effort.

There are two achievements that have been bugging me for a long time one of these is Higher Learning from WotLK and Outland Raider from the Burning Crusade.I have almost given up with Higher Learning, but with the new changes and the additional 5 levels I thought it was time to try and finish off Tempest Keep.

 

For those of you who need a reminder, here is the description of Tempest Keep from WoWwiki

 

"Tempest Keep is a former naaru fortress in the Netherstorm in Outland. This crystalline fortress is now ruled by Kael'thas Sunstrider, the lord of the blood elves, and dominated by scores of his brethren. The structure is divided into three wings - satellites of the gigantic structure - with the fourth wing, the Exodar, now in the world of Azeroth as the Draenei capital."

 

There you are, I have learned something new today, I had no idea that the Exodar was connected to these structures.

 

Just for the record, and to prove I am not a total numpty, my only issue with this raid is the final fight with Kael'thas Sunstrider and is band of merry men (and women). The fight is broken into 4 phases, with the first being a Turkey Shoot as Kael'thas sends out his troops one at a time to be slaughtered.

 

The second phase used to be problematic when Kael'thas launches his arsenal of 7 Legendary weapons. Due to burst damage these can be dispatched very quickly as level 90.

 

The third phase is where the problems began. Kael'thas resurrects his 4 advisors who all attack en masse. This in itself is not a big issue, but they like to use mind control and due to there only being one attacker that was me everytime. The net result is that I ended up in a daze wandering around in the AoE damage until death.

 

Now I am not a proud man, and I am more than willing to accept advice, because I am stuck at this juncture and would very much like to complete this labour of love without bringing in a second person. Any ideas would be gratefully received.



Gang of Four

Saturday witnessed Ding number 4. My warrior limped into the home straight after becoming unable to assist the Klaxxi and Shado Pan any more. Deaths were becoming far too frequent and the quest My Father's Crossbow proved to be too much for a warrior to handle. With 3 mobs lots of knockbacks, I guess I am not that kind of Warrior.

It is slightly odd that the two melee classes that I have levelled so far, start of in Jade Forest as juggernauts and end up in the Dreaded Wastes as cowering idiots. A little sprinkling of PvP plate is all they need to rejoin the fray.

A recap of the levelling times:

1. 25th September - Release Date
2. 16th October     - Ding 1 (22 Days) - Hunter
3. 8th November   - Ding 2 (23 Days) - Shaman
4. 19th November - Ding 3 (11 Days) - Death Knight
5. 1st December    - Ding 4 (12 Days) - Warrior

11 - 12 days seems to be my natural timing for levelling, Ding 4 also had the benefit of 8% WoW Anniversary and part of the levelling was after the 10% increase in Quest XP.

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Operation: ShieldWall is active and I have managed to attend on two occasions. The starter quest is straightforward, and King Varian Wyrnn is on hand to kick Hordie bottom. This was a nice gentle introduction but I was a little annoyed that the Horde Hunters have the Volley Spell. I want it back.

I am utterly amazed at the speed of the builders in Azeroth. It is no wonder that StormWind could not afford the services of van Cleef. A complete citadel and port fortress in the blink of an eye. The first days quests were nice and easy, but day two in the cave was an absolute nightmare. I was getting repawns on top of respawns and it was not very easy to work out what the objectives were.

The scenario did nothing to add to the storyline and I have no idea why the new citadel was being overrun by the Horde. I guess now is a good time to research that one.

"The Horde has infiltrated Lion’s Landing. You must rescue all surviving able hands and rally them to the front gates of Lion’s Landing to hold back the Horde reinforcements. Protect Lion’s Landing."

Ok still known the wiser. The Horde are obviously better at subterfuge than the Alliance. I am pretty sure I would spot green skinned, thickset orcs trying to blend into a largely Human camp.

The jury is still out on these new dailies, I will see what the other quests will bring.

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I have always been confused why the best fishermen (and women) in Azeroth can not hit a cows arse with a banjo. I mean as a Zen Master with a skill of 600 and various other skill addons from hats and rods, why can I not hit a fishing pool at 20 paces every cast? The same logic also struck me with the Tiller Farm. As a skilled farmer I find it annoying that I have to clear a shedload of virmen, everytime I dig up my crops, and then I have a field full of crap to deal with when I plant the seeds. I can cope with all of them with the exception of the Green Tentacle which drives me to distraction. The most I have seen was 8 on a full farm. I can see the Tillers will be dropped like a stone when I no longer require Motes of Harmony.