Monday 1 September 2014

Let There Be Rock


Recently, I have wanted to write but with nothing going on in game, and not being invited to join in with the popular kids on Beta, I am been left to twiddle my thumbs on my own.

Last weeks break news (in my house) was that my wife is taking tentative steps to playing again. Her Panda Hunter nestled in the Alliance fold on a different realm to myself is struggling for bag space and money. My wife was never the best with WoW Gold, so I have been playing a big daddy role on my son's Night Elf Death Knight in an attempt to make money for my wife to smooth the levelling process.

The Realm is Kilrogg-EU and it is already connected to what appears like 3 other servers. I am used to a low population server so seeing such a flurry of activity everywhere I go is quite an eye opener. I choose to use a Death Knight to make money because it is the highest level character on that Realm.  The high the level more options for money making there are. On my low population nobody needs Peacebloom, Earth Root and Silverleaf, so they tend to sell for coppers or vendor trash. Once the herbs are of a level to be milled for the Inscription inks, they start to acquire a value. On Kilrogg everything sells, There is high demand and high supply but every sells and at good prices.

My other profession for money making is Mining. On every server there is always a demand for Copper Ore and upward, and on Kilrogg there is money to be made. The problem with 2 gathering professions is trying to keep them synchronised. There are more plants to be gathered, but mining gets a boost from smelting. Blizzard have not always kept the ores and plants together at the appropriate levels, which means that you are mining in areas where you cannot herb yet and vice versa. The trick is to find the zone that best suits both gathering professions. In the Hinterland I found at least two herbs that should not have been in that zone, with the zone being designed for level 30-35 it should not have herbs that require 275 Herbing skill. It is probably a throwback to the old zone or at least it contains some rogue code.

Bind-on-Account as proved to be an absolute godsend with all characters sharing Mounts and Pets as well as the Heirloom gear that is now available via mail. If like me you have never done this, simply open a mail, write the name of the character add a hyphen and the realm name, and it should look like this "Bob - Bob's New Server".

My original target was quite modest, to raise around 50 Gold so that I could buy 5x Netherweave Bags. This 16 slot wonders are still brilliant sellers many expansions after they should be. The combination of size and price, guarantee the perfect sweet spot. From my experience the price fluctuates between 7-15 Gold, so I was delighted to sell my copper bars for a huge mark-up and to buy my bags for 6 Gold.

I made around 100 Gold in the first session, and this was to be settling in period. I next decide that I could make more money and be more efficient if I could fly around Azeroth. This meant 30 minutes doing Outlands quests to get to level 60 (from 58) and then discovered that Flying was 250 Gold. A few more quests to gather the money and I was able to fly around Honor Hold. After going back through the portal I was disappointed to find that I still could not fly in Azeroth. I headed back to Stormwind, completed a quest with the Mount Trainer in Stormwind and wrongly assumed that I was now able to fly. I jumped off the Gryphon nest and plummeted downwards towards the Stormwind moat.

It transpires that I need to cross a palm with 250 gold to gain another licence to fly. Azeroth seems to require more paperwork than a French Bureaucrat. It might seem odd, that in order to make money I am spending money, but it transpires that 500 Gold to level my professions is money very well spent. Even on a slow flying mount the results are very tangible. I am now able to mount, fly up the side of mountain, dismount and then get my pick out of my bag and work the node until it is completely empty. I am not at a position where accidentally bumping into mobs is a problem, but it is nice to avoid any kind of drama, when I am only interested in the loot and not the mob guarding it.

I have found it completely compelling game play, to maximise the resource gathering in zones that are as comfortable as a pair of old slippers. I have need to research mount trainers, and consult with profession guides, and from my perspective, Blizzard still needs to go along way to help new starters through a fragmented series of expansions, and it now seems like giving out max level characters is one way to avoid this problem.

One thing I can take away from the weekend experience is that I am looking forward to Connected Realms on my main server. However with the extra players comes an increase in the number of jerks and fun suckers that you will encounter. It is interesting that twice my wife was subjected to Ganking, and Corpse sitting on a PvE server (why was this ever a thing on PvE servers?), and the other Horde favourite of find a bunch of low level Alliance players and then kill all the quest givers. If Blizzard is genuine about stopping the fun suckers, then making the NPC's into Steven Segal (Just a lowly cook), would be a nice twist.

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