I Want You To Want Me

I want you to want me, this is not some desperate plea on my behalf, but is a reference to the current Reputation grind, that is making lot of people hot under the collar. Cataclysm was a big failure as an expansion and the overriding complaint was that there was not enough to do at max level.

MoP is the polar opposite, with more new features than ever before and a bucket load of dailies to accompany the long reputation grinds. Ultimately we have ended up with the game we all wanted to see, but this has confused many people who see everything as a challenge that must be completed.

1. Level to 90
2. Max out Primary Professions
3. Max out Secondary Professions
4. Achieve minimum of Revered with all Factions
5. Obtain all the best gear and patterns from the Quartermasters
6. Gem and Enchant your gear
7. Transmog your gear so that it looks amazing again
8. Keep your farm up-to-date for the Spirits of Harmony
9. Complete the New Scenarios
10. Complete all the 5 Man Heroics
11. Plunder the LFR once a week for gear upgrades
12. Start Normal Raiding
13. Cap your Valor points for the week
14. PvP for some high octane griefing
15. Do Pet Battles for relaxation
16. Obtain as many Achievement points as possible
17. Purchase as many mounts and pets as possible
18. Level the next alt
19. Start the sequence again

In reality we should be concentrating on the parts of the game we enjoy, it is not a competition to see how quickly we can burnout. I am not stressed that I have not completed everything, I am still enjoying levelling my alts. The Godmother is not enjoying the alt levelling and the daunting rep grind for essential profession recipes. This is not the first expansion where important recipes have been gated, and in Cata I was unable/unwilling to do the Molten Front any more so that my engineer could craft some decent scopes. This time it looks like Tailoring bags might be a grind too far for many altoholics.

The Godmother has synthesised the alt levelling process, which The Grumpy Elf devised and I have tried to refine.

1. Jade Forest main storyline (unless you want to the optional extra hubs)
2. Skip Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang Wilds
3. Summit of Kun-Lai
4. Townlong Steppes
5. Dread Wastes at level 89 (Can be quite challenging at times)

After expansion 5.1 drops the alts should gain extra rep from Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes providing your main is already revered.

An alternative to doing Dread Wastes at level 89 is waiting until you hit level 90, then buy a complete set of PvP gear and the whole process becomes so much easier. I have noticed a huge reduction in the time it takes to kill mobs, and my hunter struggles to get a Kill Shot off in time, now that mobs are committing Hara-Kiri.

The stat inflation on gear is as rampant as ever, and the quests have changed from quite challenging to the equivalent of skipping through the forest and picking wild flowers. Multiple mobs can be handled easily and Elites can soloed by my pet whilst I skin some beasts and complete the daily quest objective. Why do the gear stats need to grow so quickly and make the content superfluous?

On a lighter note, the Tillers now love me and so does Lorewalker Cho. I just need the rest of them to want me.

In The Midnight Hour

The most popular features of the new expansion appear to be The Tillers Farm and Pet Battles. The Godmother is fan of both, but I sensed a little cooling of her enthusiasm for the endless battle against weeds and Virmen. I have yet to reach exalted but at revered you get help in the war against nature with the addition of a pesticide machine ("Thunder King" Pest Repellers), and watering system ("Jinyu Princess" Irrigation System). Looking up Gina Mudclaw's vendor items, it appears that I am still missing the ("Earth-Slasher" Master Plow). In order to keep the farm going for the whole expansion it may require a fully automated system for removing weeds and Virmen to complete the set, with a possible UI change which would show the 16 slots on one side and the available seeds on the right, similar to the Glyph system and you simply allocate the seeds to the correct slot. After several weeks of tending the farm, we deserve a life style enhancement.

My game time at the moment revolves around the Realm midnight reset, with the European servers being set to CET or Paris time, it means that I get 2 hours play, before logging through all or some of my characters for the farm harvest and replanting. This works quite well for me, with the intensive levelling or grinding dailies (could also include Heroics or scenarios) before the midnight curfew. After midnight I can do some of the following:

1. Tiller dailies, plant and harvest the crops.
2. Craft new gear for characters or level professions.
3. Enchant or gem my new gear.
4. Auction House activities.

This way I can slow down my gameplay before bedtime, rather than doing PvP, clean teeth and jump into bed with my head still swimming with classic victories or more likely demoralising defeats.

Last night was slightly different in the fact that I pushed on with levelling my Shaman long after my bedtime. The reason is down to Titan Panel, which displays the estimated time for completing the current level, based on the amount of XP gained in the current session divided by the time spent playing. I find it about as reliable as what I refer to as "Microsoft Time", this is much better explained by the comedian Eddie Izzard.

"Would you like a software update? And you go, Yeah. Yeah, I'd like one of those. Its like a latte thing. Yeah, why not? And then time becomes a different thing. Time becomes weird as it downloads. 5 minutes to download. 4 minutes to download. 3 minutes to download. 9 minutes to download. 2 minutes to download. 7 hours to download. 6 seconds to download. A light-year to download ."

That tantalisingly close number in Titan Panel, persuades you to keep going, even when your body is saying no. The problem with dinging 90 or any max level for that matter, is that you want to setup all the gizmo's. There are 2 rings and a necklace for starters and you can at last get rid of all those Lorewalker items clogging up the bags, and in order to that you must purchase flight training. The list is endless but you must stop somewhere or risk not making it into work.

I have now got 2 level 90 characters and of course the choices and demands on my time get worse not better. It also seemed quicker levelling the second time around, but does this match the reality?

1. 25th September - Release Date
2. 16th October - Ding 1 (22 Days)
3. 8th November - Ding 2 (23 Days)

The statistics look bad, but I have taken a 7 day vacation in the middle of the 2 dings and I am still actively alternating levelling and rep grinding so I am relatively happy with the time scale. I still believe that I can further refine the tips provided by The Grumpy Elf, based on the fact that the XP rewards for Kun-Lai Summit are so much greater than Valley of the Four Winds and Krasarang Wilds.

Steroid enhanced Space Monkey with a rather fetching umbrella

Golden Brown

Day by day, I am learning new aspects about the new expansion. Yesterday I discovered that I can craft rings and a necklaces with my Jewelcrafter, and duly crafted 2 rings and a necklace for my hunter.  This is a huge benefit to myself, but apparently not every body is quite so happy the way it was implemented. I am not very happy that they stuck the recipes in a far flung village in Jade Forest without any indication, unless you go clicking on every NPC that you pass. The Grumpy Elf is more concerned that the iLevel of the crafted jewelry is not high enough or comparable to the other professions.

Following up a lead from Grumpy's comments yesterday and at the insistence of the Orcish Army Knife, I decided to check out the Leatherworking PvP gear. PvP in a PvE world was always frowned upon, but Cataclysm made it the obvious choice for newly dinged level 85's. In Mists of Pandaria the gear does not even lose any stats to accommodate the PvP Resilience, and PvP Power, they are all in addition.

I originally thought that the leatherworking patterns had been hidden behind a rep grind, and maybe the Epic gear still is, but I was able to purchase PvP recipes at the Shrine of the Seven Stars from Tanner Pang for the extortionate price of 1 Spirit of Harmony. I say extortionate because in 6 weeks I have only managed to collect 9 Spirit of Hamony and there are 8 items in the PvP set. If I have to spend all my spirit of Harmony on recipes there is going to be nothing left to create Epic items later.

I am still a fan of the crafting gating but this is a rather mean amount of Spirit of Harmony to collect in the time period. The other aspect is that other characters will collect Spirit of Harmony with no use for it. At the very least it needs to be Bind on Account.

New Bling Master Hunter

The Contender's gear looks something like the above, with the exception of the chestpiece which is covered with the Tabard of Summer Flames. I have no intention of transmogging my gear for a while yet, so that I am stuck looking like the Bling Master on an edition of Pimp my Hunter.

Anarchy In The UK

"Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot... "

 

Nursery Rhyme (Trad)

 

Tonight is Guy Fawkes Night or Bonfire Night in Great Britain. Just in case you are unaware of this special event, it is to mark the events of  5 November 1605, when a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England's Parliament on 5 November 1605, when the King would be in attendance.

 

During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on 4 November 1605, Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder - enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble - and arrested.

 

The night time is marked by the lighting of bonfires, and the extensive use of fireworks and these events take the form of organised firework displays and private garden parties. Due to the festivities being at nightime and in particular it is loved by children, so that many of the larger events take place on the nearest Saturday to the 5th November. That is 2 days of fireworks going off all night with the prospect of 3rd tonight.

 

Unfortunately WoW does not have a special holiday for this event, and if I am not mistaken neither does Independence Day and Bastille Day, which is a shame.

 

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Today I am going to discuss Jewelcrafting after reading a couple of blog posts and discovering something new about the trainers.

 

Tobold started the ball rolling by discussing the current state of Jewelcrafting. The 3 points that Tobold makes are:

 

1. Lack of Gem slots
2. Spirits of Harmony
3. No Epic jewelry (Rings and Necklaces)

The lack of Gem Slots, is definitely a problem, when most people have made a huge pile of them leveling up only to discover there is no market for them. Spirits of Harmony is a design issue which I do not have an issue with yet, but I will if they don't become Bind on Account later in the expansion. The lack of Epic Jewelry is part of an issue that I have raised before in that not all professions are treated equally.

The last part dovetails into a post and a video by Faid, in which she discusses the point that because the profession recipes, trainers and research are scattered throughout Pandaria that it is a full time job keeping up with all the professions in the game. The information that Faid shares, are that in the Jade Forest in a small settlement that you briefly pass through there is a Jewelcrafting trainer who provides all the recipes that require Serpent's Eye and the iLevel 450 Blue Rings and Necklaces. This is the starting set for newly promoted level 90's and Blizzard have practically hidden the NPC unless you go and research the missing recipes.

Currently there is too much to do in game without having to research every class, every profession and every other facet of the game. It is not a game breaker but this kind of information certainly makes things easier at the start of an expansion.

Brothers In Arms

Just in case you are curious as to how I get the titles of some of these posts. My last article without a musical title was the 18th June, and all subsequent posts have followed my signature "Rock 'n' Roll Warcraft". Here is a small insight into how my mind works and my thought process for the current post.

1. Find a topic
2. Scour my mind for music titles, songs and album names
3. Lines from a song

The choice of Brothers in Arms comes from the topic the Tillers. The Tillers are farmers and I want to talk about my farm. Oddly enough I don't know too many songs about farms, and I refuse to use Old McDonald. One option was "All Together Now" by The Farm but the one that kept popping into my head was "The Fog On The Tyne" by Lindesfarne, but that is just wrong because it's farne and not farm.

The choice of "Brothers in Arms" comes from the lyrics to the first verse:

"These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to me
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms"

 

Mark Knopfler

 

The imagery of the mountains and valleys, and the farmers leaving their families and their farms to head to war, seemed to echo the turmoil facing the peaceful farmers in the Valley of the Four Winds.

 

Anyway back to Warcraft, I have not partaken in Pet Battles for the sole reason that I have got too many other things to worry about, I have not investigated what mounts and pets are available, and this is just the icing on the cake for when I have completed the more important priorities, like levelling, rep grinds and gearing.
 

One article that did attract my attention was the Terrible Turnip from a WOW Insider post dated 31st October.

 

"Unfortunately, whether or not you can get your hands on the Terrible Turnip is a matter of luck. It isn't a pet you can catch out in the wild and it isn't a pet you can acquire via boss drops or a trip to a vendor. The Terrible Turnip can only be acquired via your player farm in the Valley of the Four Winds. Any time you harvest one of your crops (and as far as we know, it's any crop), you have a small chance to loot an Ominous Seed. Plant that seed, and the next day you'll find a fully grown Terrible Turnip, ripe for the picking."

 

I had just looted an Ominous Seed the previous night and planted and still I didn't make the connection, it was only when I went to harvest the Ominous Seed that the penny dropped. I felt I should go back to investigate what I had been fortunate enough to receive. This appears to be a very important Battle Pet for capturing rares in the wild. I will place in storage until such a time that Pet Battles seems more appealing.

 

The other big event was achieving Revered status with the Tillers. This was a bit of a surprise, I was expecting a much longer reputation grind. I have purchased my Irrigation system and automatic bug spray which should make life a little less stressful down on the farm. I also just noticed that the Godmother wrote about it on the 8th October, which puts me 3 weeks behind the curve.

 

Undercover Of The Night

Last night was a change of pace from the usual Rep Grind. I thought it was about time I became best buddies with Lorewalker Cho. It was supposed to be a one hour to Exalted romp, but I am guessing that you already know that is not how it turned out.

I decided to use the WoW Insider guide, which contained all the information I needed but not necessarily in the correct order. The guide uses a map of the best route, but the co-ordinates are in story order not in flight order. The other major stumbling block was working out which sites I had already visited.

My first issue was that the co-ordinates on the on screen map work better if there are no quests outstanding in the zone. The only question mark was at the Arboretum in the Jade Forest, which it turns out was the prequests for the Order of the Cloud Serpent. I decided to tackle all the yellow exclamation marks and would stop when I got to the Dailies.

Next interruption was the nearby digsite, which resulted in the completion of the Spear of Xuen. These weapons are Bind on Account and can be used by multiple characters in the leveling process, I was very excited as a Hunter until I remembered that they don't use Polearms anymore. The only other user of a two handed agility weapon is a Druid, and I play balance. Disappointment all round.

Luckily I was able to concentrate on the job in hand and completed Explore Jade Forest, Fish Tales and Hozen in the Mist.

Moving onto Krasarang Wilds, I picked off the missing stories, but probably not in the most efficient manner possible. I struggled to find the cave, which is always a problem with co-ordinates and is one of the reasons for the universally hated Vashj'ir in the Cataclysm expansion.

Valley of the Four Winds created more distraction in form of the Tiller Dailies before picking up the story in the tunnel in between Mists in the Veiled Stair and Kun Lai Summit. Fortunately you can collect the story without getting off your mount. I have already been daft enough to traverse that tunnel on foot at Level 88.

In Kun Lai Summit, I paid a visit to the Temple of the White Tiger, were I picked up a quest to the do the new version Ring of Blood, Crucible of Carnage etc. This time it stuck behind a Scenario, so just out of curiosity I needed to have a sneaky peak at the Arena of Annihilation. I like the scenario concept and it makes sense to the Arena of Annihilation with 2 other people who want the same goal instead of dragging out a load of Guildies to complete a 5 man quest which most of them will have already done anyway. This is a great improvement for alts, and a nice iLevel starter weapon will come in very handy.

To round of the evening I picked up Explore Kun-Lai Summit and the achievement Ballad of Liu Lang. A very different evening but a real sense of progressive instead of trying to push up a rep bar by a couple millimetres.

By the way, is there anyway to shut Lorewalker Cho up?

Scary Monsters

It's that time of year again! Children adore Halloween, and adults hate it. The festival has grown in Britain over the last forty years and now closely resembles the American version, with the use of Pumpkins and Trick or Treat.

All Hallows Eve is the night before All Hallows Day (All Saints Day). The origins of the festival have become shrouded over the millennia, but it is essentially a Christian festival which as with most festivals borrowed the best bits from the existing Pagan festivals. Who would want to convert to a new religion if it meant losing your favourite festivals.

The Pagan Festival marked the end of Summer and the beginning of the darker days of Winter. It would coincide with the end of the Harvest period and would signify scarcity of food and less hours of daylight to work the land.

The Christian version was based around the concept of the dead souls crossing over from purgatory to the other side. Wikipedia states the following,

"It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world."

The jack-o'-lanterns were originally made from turnips and were designed to represent the tormented souls trapped in purgatory trying to escape. The Americans with their much more suitable local produce of squashes and pumpkins now provide the most defining aspect of the whole festival.

My children are geared and ready with my son planning to go Trick or Treat in his skeleton costume, and my daughter stays at home to answer the door to the trick or treaters.

In Azeroth the Hallow's End Holiday is coming to an end and will provide one last chance to permanently seperate the Headless Horseman head from his body. He also has some nice rings, a plate Helm and my favourite mount in the game.

Personally I have yet to take on Nearly Headless Nick this year, due to my vacation and having some bad gear (the embarrassment of being bottom of the DPS table on your main).

Enjoy your night and don't eat too many sweets.

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango.
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very fright'ning me.