Bad Reputation

Reputation and Dailies have been the most controversial subject during this current expansion. There are more Dailies than anyone could have imagined was possible. The last 2 patches have introduced 3 new factions and a set of Dailies with both patches. Operation: Shieldwall and the Dominance Offensive were generally well received and I think that most people can handle doing one set of Dailies for 2 or 3 weeks before moving onto something else.

Thinking back to the launch of MoP, Blizzard could easily have phased in the various Factions, giving us a month to complete the major Factions of Golden Lotus, Shado Pan, Klaxxi and the August Celestials. The rest of the Factions which are more optional could have been left in place like the Tillers and the Anglers. The downside to this is the huge area required to house thousands of people all grinding in the same area. Blizzard have managed 3 times now, so it is perfectly feasible.

1. Firelands Invasion
2. Operation: Shieldwall / Dominance Offensive
3. Isle of Thunder

A series of initiatives have seen Blizzard moving slowly towards helping out the people who have more than one character. The commendation system was the first attempt, which doubled the rep from doing the dailies on additional characters after your main had reached Revered. The reward was nice but it did not address the root cause of the problem, which was that nobody wanted to the Golden Lotus first time, never mind a second time.

The Sunsong Ranch which was starting to feel a little jaded after such a promising start was given a new lease of life with the Work Orders. I personally like this idea, but the implementation of the quests is terrible.

1. Communicate with a post to choose the faction you want to cosy up with.
2. Dig up and plough your plot
3. Buy a bag/pack of seeds of the right type (this is a huge improvement)
4. Plant 8 of these seeds
5. Complete the pop up Quest
6. Accept the next phase
7. Put Character back into the Ranch Hut
8. Logoff
9. Wait until the next day
10. Logon
11. Come down stairs
12. Think about whether you still have that quest or do you need to visit the cart to accept quest before those plump juice Witchberries are picked
13. Hand in quest at cart

The implementation of accepting a quest one day and then having to accept it again the next day is very bloody annoying to say the least. The Fruit and Veg that is sitting tall and proud and is whispering to you to harvest me now, will set you back a day if you accidentally pick one in the wrong order.

I am doing these work orders on 4 characters and have only had problems on one character. I raised a ticket with Blizzard saying that I had the quest already and it didn't register on two separate days, so I had missed 2 days rep. The Blizzard GM who took 2 days answer gave the standard answer, that I was doing it wrong and I was an idiot for raising a ticket.

Why is it only a problem on one character? why did Blizzard feel the need to Hotfix the way it was working if there was not a problem? and for godsake don't treat your customers like noobs.

Along with these 2 reputation improvements there is also the BoA drops from the Land that Time Forgot, and the Grumpy Elf has been moving his characters on swiftly through this method. Last night I discovered there was a fourth method, which I had forgotten about which is championing a Faction in Scenarios and I presume 5 mans. If you have not yet found this facility it involves pulling up the Reputation tab and clicking the star next to the Faction of your choice. The scenario load screen will remind if you have not set it up yet.

As individual initiatives they don't amount to a great deal, but combined they offer a reasonable solution. I have even started doing some regular dailies again because the rewards seem so much more tangible than the 100 rep per quest that the Golden Lotus used to offer.

Always The Last To Know

As part of a follow up to a conversation I had with the Grumpy Elf, I rushed off to complete my Kirin Tor Offensive quests. Instead of my usual, click an orb, and go and kill 12 Mogu with bad breath, I was to join Vereesa Windrunner in an Aerial Assault on Shaol'mara. Apparently they needed a champion such as myself. How could I disappoint Jaina in her hour of need, and besides flattery will get you anywhere.

Needless to say the Aerial attack force ran into some serious problems and Vereesa and myself were left to complete the mission on our own. The inevitable ambush happened immediately after falling out the sky, and after dispatching the herd of raptors with their Mogu trainers, Vereesa ran off into the jungle. I decided to hang around and skin the huge mound of raptors lying in front of me. I felt that it is my civic duty to clean up after myself. I also need the leather for my discovery program of all the new PvP gear (iLevel 458 in case you thought you were missing out on something).

Vereesa and Bob, broke the barricades and killed the Bosses, the second boss in particular is a long drawn out affair, not particularly difficult just long and a little tedious, being chased around by a giant floating shield. All of this activity takes place inside a solo scenario, and to be honest I am really enjoying the solo scenarios, so big kudos to Blizzard for introducing them.

Vereesa Windrunner for a major character in Blizzard Lore and a Ranger to boot, was utterly outclassed by Bob the Hunter. When facing 2 mobs, I took one guard and she took the other, and after polishing off my guard, I would need to assassinate her guard as well. Perhaps I am just used to Jaina and Varian, who when the mood takes them can slice through the Horde like a hot knife through butter.

Bob has now created a new base for Jaina to setup camp, and I now seem to be running grinds on 2 different factions. There is the Kirin Tor Offensive and the Shado Pan Assault. I only discovered this when I asked if anyone in guild wanted to help me smash a generated Elite which states that I need several mates to help me, suggesting the trusty Tank, Healer and 3 DPS combination might be required. The answer from everyone in guild was what my rep was like with the Shado Pan Assault. Why are they asking me these daft questions? well it appears that I am the last to know, and that after a little light reading I discovered this little nugget of information.

"Trash will only grant reputation up to 2999/3000 Neutral."

The Elite that I am able to summon by combining 3 blue rocks (apparently they are known as Shan'ze Ritual Stones), will take me into Friendly territory with the new Raid Faction, and judging from the gear available, this is something that I really want to do.

Lucky Man

The Kirin Tor Offensive is my current chief motivator. I am neither excited or bored with these quests yet. The differences in the quests are so infinitesimal, kill 10 Mogu or alternatively, kill 3 Mogu with bad hair, 3 with with bad teeth and 3 with bad breath.

The reputation grind is closer to Golden Lotus than the Anglers, and Revered looks like it might take weeks.

On the plus side, I am yet again making full use of the Sunsong Ranch. I have no intention of doing Dailies on alts, but I can manage to grow a few vegetables for a daily reward. The farm is slightly more manageable with the 4 seed planting and the half hit point Virmen, after you have ploughed them down. Bursting crops seems to be a more common occurrence than previously but then they need to be replanted, and I am no longer holding stacks of single seeds.

With the changes to this patch I have been able to push the last mile for exalted status with the Anglers and the Klaxxi. Having completed the Klaxxi through work orders I decide to see if there was a finale to the grind. I was not disappointed and my reward was the Seal of the Windreaver.

Doing the Kirin Tor, means that I am positively overflowing with Elder Charms of Good Fortune, and it was at this point that I discovered that they only stack up to a max of 20. To make space for some new ones I decided to stand in line for the lengthy wait in the LFR. I was surprised to see another option in my list for Heart of Fear, and I was lucky enough to notch up a Garalon kill by joining at the end of a run.

Having used up the grand total of one Elder Charm, I immediately chose to run LFR Mogu'shan Vaults. I find this raid utterly tedious, the trash turns this into one big boss fight. This time I was rewarded with 3 items Stonemaw Armguards, Wildfire Worldwalkers, and Fetters of Death. Belt and Bracers replaced PvP items and the Boots were a sideways upgrade. What was more shocking was the iLevel of these items, iLevel 476, is less than the ring for completing the Klaxxi rep grind at iLevel 489. Operation: Shieldwall is relatively easy to grind to exalted and that offer iLevel 496. It appears that LFR is nothing more than a way of obtaining 90 Valor points to add to that all important 1000 weekly Valor cap.

Is this good design? personally I think that Valor is becoming the only way to gear a character, and until they make it so that you can Valor cap in 3 nights, then alts are going the way of the dodo. My guild wants me to take up Healing duties in raids, but at the moment I am too focused on my Hunter, to gear up a second character. This is bad for the game, and alt Healers and alt Tanks are needed to reduce the long waiting times in LFR and LFD.

My hunter is still wearing 4 Blue items and we are up to the second patch in the expansion. The worst thing is that the gear make such a huge impact to the DPS, and I expected an increase between 10-15 K for the 3 new items, and when I get a decent weapon the figures will go through the roof, and then maybe, I might not be such a sitting duck on the Island of Giants.

New Kid In Town

Patch 5.2 is upon us, and as usual the Europeans are 3 steps behind. The only advantage I can see to this scenario is that the EU servers also get the bug fixes applied at the same time as the patch, and in general the Europeans see a far better transition than our North American brethren.

In short I have no addition insight to the new patch that other bloggers have already discussed, but what else am I going to talk about?

As usual I was going into the patch fairly blind, I did remember to tick the load out of date addons, but did not update them in advance. That is a job for when I have completed this post.

The pop-up quest to take you to the new Island is standard fare for all new content and is a good starting point. Just in case you have not visited the new zone here are the intro steps:

1. Fly to Shado Pan Garrison in Townlong Steppes
2. Accept a tour to Thunder Island
3. Land on boat, click on orb
4. Accept quests and attempt one of the three hubs
5. Troll area is heavy on the respawn but it seems to be more manageable last night than the first night
6. Sarok is the quirky area where you get polymorphed into a bouncy humanoid reptile
7. Mogu area is heavy on mobs and there are, the nasty Wailing Banshee women, that we met doing the Golden Lotus Dailies. The problem is they don't always drop out of the sky to offer themselves to the melee classes (and pets). No pet aggro and Hunters are surprisingly squishy.

At the moment this area is taking a long time to complete, but I expect this to be streamlined with better gear.

I have not yet visited Jurassic Park Island, but after reading BBB, I expect a visit in the very near future. Every hunter will sporting a new dino in various colours, in the upcoming weeks.

Last night, I was lucky enough to locate one of the new treasures chests. One of the rewards from the chest was a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen

 

This key starts a quest chain to the single player scenario, which you will have heard about because it involves looting as many chests as possible without dying a horrible death. I almost get the feeling that Harrison Jones is going to come to our rescue, if they hadn't over egged that pudding in the last expansion.

 

Apparently the latest news is that, you can loot one of these key each week. I am nervious of wasting the key and so I plan to fully investigate the traps before wasting the key and being stuck in the first room.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patch 5.2 is more than just 2 Islands, but I am unlikely to be stepping into the new Raid any time soon, no doubt the LFR requires iLevel 500 or something daft.

 

The feature that caught my attention was the ability to get my hands on some prime real estate over at Sunsong Ranch. Master Yoon, after being accepted by the Tillers is too busy to look after the farm (Like he ever did anything). The workorders was my primary motivation, and the chance to get my reputation up with the last few factions.

 

"One of the great new features in 5.2 is the ability to take over the Sunsong Ranch farm in the Valley of the Four Winds. You can do this by talking to Nana Mudclaw after reaching Exalted with The Tillers, and unlocking all 16 plots of the farm. When you take over the farm you can begin taking work orders for specific factions in Pandaria, allowing you to earn reputation with them simply by planting, harvesting, and delivering the items you grow.

The way your receive work orders on the Sunsong Ranch farm was changed recently which may cause some confusion. If you've been doing your work orders you probably have logged in and had the second work order in the series automatically pop-up in your quest list. This has been changed, and from now on you’ll receive the quest when you start harvesting your plants, or when you interact with the drop-off crate."

 

Bashiok

 

My Hunter is able to complete work orders for every faction, but my alts only get a couple of choices, Operation:Shieldwall and the Klaxxi. It would appear that you need to advance your reputation to a certain point before you are eligable for Work Orders.

 

 

Staying in the Halfhill area, I also noticed the same quest that attracted the Godmother's attention

 

 

I assumed at the time that the Pandarans had found a good use for gunpowder like the Dwarf fishing quest were you throw sticks of dynamite into the water. No, this quest is to fish up 5 Golden Carp!
This is the fish that seems to have 2 uses, one is for the Grocery Bundle and the other is as a Vendorfish.

Speaking of fish, the Nat Pagle special fish seem to be a lot less rare than previously. I may even have caught enough to be exalted with him before the expansion is over.

Mansion On The Hill

Player Housing is something that has been floated around as an idea for WoW since it started, that and the Dance Studio. Personally I have no interest in my characters being able to do Break Dancing, the Hokey Cokey, or the Mash Potato. I can tell you now that I do not look good on the dance floor whatever the Arctic Monkeys might say.

Player Housing as always been an idea that added nothing to the game, even the idea of keeping trophies from famous victories over Hogger, it just didn't fire my imagination in the slightest. That was until now, when I read Big Bear Butt who is positive bubbling with enthusiasm at the moment, if you haven't read it then get over to BBB and read Putting the Pieces Together. The whole idea of what player housing could be will be transformed in the space of a few hundred words. I always envisaged it being a dreary house in Stormwind/Ironforge etc... a room downstairs and a bedroom upstairs, the house littered with trophies, but it does not have to be that way.

I am now seeing a fortified tower on the borderlands, and it is your presence that is stopping the Horde from streaming over the hill and attacking the Alliance citizens who are eking out an existence on the edge of civilization. Not only do you have the chance to grow your Tower into a borderland Citadel but you have random events to deal with, these could involve:

1. Storms destroying property
2. Repelling invaders
3. Hunting dangerous wild beasts
4. Settling local disputes
5. Presiding over allegations of witchcraft ( flashback to Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
6. Taxing the local farmers and traders
7. Heroic Quests for the Holy Grail

It would not be dailies as we know them, because these are solely for the purpose of maintaining and growing our personal fiefdom. The sky is the limit as to what can be added to this function and as BBB pointed out the technology is actually there, and you could even use the use the minecraft style building techniques, obviously with graphics more befitting the number 1 MMO and not a game that looks like it was designed in the early 1980's.

In fact you could even add elements of the original warcraft series with Peons/humans mining and chopping trees so that you can build an army to take down the opposing army who are busy doing the same thing on the other side of the valley.

WoW can become a one stop gaming experience with meta games all over the place, we already have Plants V's Zombies, Pokemon, and Farmville. I am excited and it's not even a real feature, I guess I will just have to make do with a new patch.

Oops! I Did It Again

World of Warcraft is a large game, with complexed coding that has evolved over 8 years. Sometimes a small tweak here can cause a big ripple over there. It is the Chaos Theory (Butterfly Effect) of computer games.

Last Thursday there was a bug fix patch, which annoyed me enough to write about it, but one of the consequences of this was the return of the Zen Pilgrimage Return Bug. Zen Pilgrimage is the Monk spell that allows the Monk to return for training and more importantly to pickup the Enlightenment buff. The bug stops you from returning to the nearest graveyard to were originally port from. The spell tooltip says it has a 30 minute cooldown but the return should be available anytime.

To maximise the uptime of Enlightenment I would travel to the current quest hub, then take the Pilgrimage so as not to lose time travelling whilst the buff was up. The only option was to Hearthstone and start travelling from there.

A quick Google search of the bug suggests that it was present at launch and I am guessing this will occasionally reappear from time to time. The fix was quickly reapplied before too many people noticed, and to be honest I think it is funnier, than annoying.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a side note I would like to second the motion proposed by the Confused Elf

"Dear Blizzard, you are invited to remove the reputation requirements from gear and patterns, thank you, the people that pay you.

There is your written invitation. Now fix it."

Altoholics rise up and storm the Citadel at Anaheim.

What's Going On

Thursday 28th February 2013, What's going on? I have logged in to be faced by a wait screen with no sign of life, no indication that something is happening.

 

Is it really too much to let us know, that there is fresh updates for the upcoming 5.2 patch. Even Microsoft give us more information than that when we accept our frequent updates.

 

A few minutes later the download screen appeared, but not before I considered  closing the application and running the repair feature. We all know the patch is due, but it is still rude not to inform us that this might take some time. If you say 10 minutes and the patch is installed in 2 minutes then you look super efficient and you have surpassed the customer expectations. Say nothing and we look for problems where there are none.