Hell Hath Frozen Over...Again

Back in August over on Hunters Rhok, Phyllixia had a post about a bizarre and unexpected thing.  A wait for DPS in the Looking For Dungeon tool.  Not just a wait, but the bonus satchel for those that joined.

As I said at the time, I was astounded.  I didn't even know that they had code for that.

Well, last night I was bopping about on a hunter and thought I would do a dungeon and perhaps a short raid while I wrapped up some quests.  I open on the LFG tool and...

LFR for the Walled City with the Savage Satchel of Cooperation for the DPS roll.

What?!?  That can't be right.  Well, I sign up and as I'm happily flying around Draenor (just driving that point home) I keep that window open, to see if the bonus drops.  I've signed up as a healer before with the satchel there and by the time the queue actually popped, the bag is gone.  So I was sure it was going to happen on a DPS one.

It took a while, but finally I get in.  My DPS is comparatively low, even for me, so and I'm terrified I'm going to be booted and miss out on the satchel.  But, I think it was just that I was in a group that was beyond over-geared for this raid and I was just getting back into the rhythm of that character.  I never did great, but I improved throughout the raid as I got her playstyle back.

Whatever the case, we finished the run and I got my bag for being DPS.  500 some gold and 3 BoA Savage plate whatevers.  I'm just happy and astounded it happened.

Apologies to those that commented on my last post, I just responded and apologies I haven't written much.  I'll be back here and there.  In the meantime, keep an eye out for the impossible!

Alternative leveling - part the third of 3

Part 1 covered pet battles, archeology, and PvP while part 2 covered dungeons, material collection, and profession quests.  So far, I'd say dungeons seem the most feasible with mat grinding second.

Perhaps the final day can bring more?

Holiday Events Only

I would probably include the Darkmoon Faire.

Good - Some holiday events can really give a lot of XP so some would have a lot of leveling.

Bad - While some holidays give lots of XP, others give nothing or almost nothing, so there could be long droughts between leveling. When holidays with lots of XP are up, I'd have to truly dedicate time and energy to playing this character - which real life often limits anyways.

Grinding Only
Just killing mobs.  The very essence of grinding.  Obviously I 'd have to do some quests to open some areas, but beyond that, just mobs.

Good - Getting into a good grind groove can be fun and go quickly if you have a good area or good character for it. Good grief, could I have put "good" into that sentence more? Might get some of those rare world drops if I'm grinding out 99 levels of just fighting.

Bad - Grind. GRIIINNNDDD. No real reputation accomplished. I already have to grind out for collection quests or kill count quests so it's not like this would be new ground to cover.

Combination

Rather than just doing only one thing, perhaps limit it to some small number of the above.  For example, Pet Battles, Archeology, and Mat collection only.  So I'm out in the world but not there fighting mobs, but experiencing all of the rest of it.

Good - More sane leveling. Less grinding. More options.

Bad - Seems to steer away from the challenge aspect of things a little bit.

Quests Only

I can only do quests to level.  I included this one just to counter the grinding only - just looking to the other extreme. But, to some extent, isn't that just playing the game?  What would be excluded?  If allowed at all, no dungeon more than once.  Do the quests for that dungeon and then no more.  No grinding for mats or rep or tokens or whatever.  This one feels out of place, so I think I'll skip the good and bad.  I won't cut it out entirely, since I mentioned it before, but I don't quite see what it would be to do quests only.

___


So what was the point of all of this?  What do I get out of this?  Well, for me, I think this misses what Kamalia did with the Underpowered Death Knight.  It was interesting for me to think about but I don't think it provided me with spirit of the challenge I was looking for.

In re-reading the limitations that the Underpowered Death Knight was based on, I think I'm going to craft something more like that.  It keeps more in the spirit of what I enjoy about these games, which is coming up with characters and their stories.  Even if only in my head.

I think I'll take a few days or a weeks and ruminate some more.  Here are my seed ideas that I might combine or refine as I think about this.  I'm not sure if I like all of these but they are a starting place:

The survivalist - avoids cities (and even towns) at all costs

Racial purity - only take quests/interact with characters of the same race (that just screams elf or blood elf)

Vow of poverty - character will keep some minimal amount of coin.  Any thing else will be "donated".  Options to donate - Just giving to random characters; buying stuff off auction house, reposting for very low;  Give to guild. This might be good fit for a priest or a monk.

Backpack only - no additional bags or perhaps allow one 1-slot penny pouch and one of the 6-slot pouches.  Basically, something that a person could logically carry, as opposed to the 1 backpack and multiple giant bags we have now.

Greedy - The character will be given a gold goal for each level and they cannot level up until that gold goal is reached.  XP will be locked until then.  The money to lock XP would be given for the first level but then it would need to come from the character directly.  Given how long it takes me to make money, this would be a long challenge.  They've upped quest rewards so I'd have to look, but I'd say, you have to earn your current level x 100 gold to level.  So to get past level 1, 100 gold.  To get to level 2 you'd have to earn an additional 200 gold.  To get to level 3 it would be an additional 300 gold.  VERY slow start and not easy in the vanilla range, but it would get considerably easier as time went on.  And if successful, over a half million gold upon 100.

No repairs

Only crafted items - the challenge here would be that by the time you collect enough mats for some gear, it wouldn't have much, if any, use.

Snob - Epic items only.  If there isn't an epic item that fits that slot, it is empty or you wear the old stuff until you get one for that.  Given my bad drop rates, I'd be in empty slots or 20 level old purples.  Could consider lowering it to Rare if impractical.  At times would be very easy (cruising on purple) but challenging between drops.  No heirlooms allowed.

Only common or poor quality items.

The cloth tank - protection warrior or paladin or a blood death knight that can only wear cloth gear

The thinking warrior - warrior that can only equip weapons and armor with intellect or spirit.  Would need to decide if agility and stamina can be overlooked a high levels since I'm not sure pure single stat gear exists anymore

Shipyard Changes

So, did you read this blue comment about Shipyard changes?:

General
• Rare Naval Missions have an increased chance to appear.
• The bonuses provided by assist equipment, such as Ammo Reserves or Automated Sky Scanner, have been increased by 100%.
• Increasing the chance of success on a naval mission will now also decrease the chance a ship will be destroyed on failure. If the mission success chance is increased to 90% or greater, no ships will be lost on the mission.

Blockade Missions
• Blockade Mission duration is now 30 minutes (was 4 hours).
• Blockade Missions will respawn after 7 days (was 5 days).
• The Oil cost for Blockade Missions is now 50 (was 100).

Crews
• The bonus chance to Mission success provided by Human or Undead crews will be 50% higher.
• The bonus chance to Missions success provided by a Pandaren crew will be 33% higher
• The Pandaren Crew bonus will apply to Missions that are 12 hours or longer (was 18 hours).

The changes above are all live now. Here are a couple of notes to keep in mind:

• If you try to use a scroll that instantly completes a Blockade mission that was already in progress when we made this hotfix, it will reset the time on the mission.
• Blockade Missions that were already in progress will still need 4 hours to complete.

While I'm still not a fan of this shipyard, this will make it SO much less terrible.  I never lost at 100% but I lost in the high 90s and it was infuriating.  Such a simple thing that never should have been.

Alternative leveling - part 2 of 3

So last time I covered three leveling options - Pet battles, archeology, and PvP.

This time I want to think about using the group finder for dungeons, getting experience from collecting herbs and mining, and doing the daily cooking and fishing quests.  Hold on to your hats, here we go!

Dungeons

I would make my restriction be that I could only use the group finder, be it random or custom. I’m not in a guild that I could just hop in with other guildies when I wanted to run some, so that option is out for me. I’d, of course, have to be whatever the minimum dungeon level is, but I’m above that on enough characters. I’m not sure if dungeon quests would count as part of the dungeon or not. An argument could be made either way.

Good – Generally quick. I would get gear and money. I could use heirlooms to make it easy or only rely on dungeon gear drops. I think I’d generally lean towards gear drops only, unless I’d be letting down the group too much. I might keep heirloom gear on hand, in case I wasn’t pulling my weight. But with dungeon bags and drops, it probably wouldn’t be too bad. Reputation gains would move along for the core factions and perhaps a few others. One of the quicker options, I'd think.

Bad – Silent runs would be the norm. As it is now, I say “hello” at the start of almost every dungeon and typically get one or two responses and then nothing. It'd be soloing together, which can be okay but I'm not sure for 99 levels. I’d also be subjecting myself to a higher-than-normal incidence of the "gogogo" crowd. I can’t say why, but this feels even more repetitive than the other options. There are more dungeons than battlegrounds, I think, but it just feels more restrictive. Maybe because I’ve spent more time in the PvE world, I know many dungeons by heart.

Material collection only

Farming mats as the kids say. Mining and herbalism would be my focus.

Good – I can start at level one and collecting skill can be somewhat connected to character level. There would be a tons of mats for sale or use as I leveled. After a slow start, they would likely be self-supporting. It would be a big help to guild achievements.

Bad – I think the picking/mining skill can get out of whack with character level at times, if I remember correctly. I’d need to collect lots of mats in an area that are grey to my collection skill for the XP to level my character. They would initially need support for gear (unless wearing heirlooms) and bags. If not doing well on the auction house, I might have to play space management games. This would be a grind on a level that would be unprecedented for me.

Profession quests only

While a few professions can have dailies or side quests, I’m mainly thinking of the cooking and fishing dailies in the racial capitals. I would need to get to whatever skill level is necessary to unlock those quests. And perhaps character level? I’m not sure.

Good -They give a fair amount of experience for the investment.  It wouldn't take me long each day to do them, so the character would level slowly but I could move on to other characters quickly.  I'd be able to spend all of the tokens I'd accumulate on a lot of mats.  Money and reputation wouldn't be much of a problem.  Well, reputation of the core factions anyways.

Bad - Excessively repetitive game play.  Two quests a day.  If I included the Darkmoon Faire profession quests I'd get two extra that week.  Whee.

Dungeons seems like the most feasible one so far and I'm pretty sure that is how some people actually level.  I'm still not that enamored of it.  The mat collection path seems like it might be a nice way to make money and collect mats.  Let's see if Friday produces better leveling ideas.

Alternative leveling - part one of 3(ish)

Kaumaleia, the Underpowered Death Knight that Kamalia had been working on since 2011, has reached 100! And not just that, she got the Voidtalon of the Dark Star mount along the way. Congratulations all around on that!

While I haven’t read the entire journey yet, I’ve very much enjoyed what I have read and it really seems like a fun idea. Well, as Kamalia points out, not a lot of fun in execution but fun as an idea. I like the self-imposed limits and the spirit of the challenge.

And though I do dislike being too derivative, it has got me thinking about trying alternative ways of leveling. In principle, it would be interesting to pick one (or more) of these and try leveling some characters in this way and then writing about it for the blog. I’m not yet a committed enough blogger to do that…although perhaps this is the way I become that committed?

Whatever the case, here are a few ways I can think of getting XP and what I like about each and my concerns. I'm only covering the first 3 today, but I've got the others written for later.  Aren't you lucky?

Anything I’ve overlooked or other experiences or ideas are more than welcome.

Pet Battles
Archeology
PvP - Random battle ground finder only
Dungeons - Group finder for random or custom.
Material Collection Only - Primarily thinking herbalism and mining only
Profession Quest Only - Just cooking and fishing in my mind
Holiday Events Only - Darkmoon Faire probably included
Grinding Only - Just killing mobs
Combination of limited number of the above - Pet Battles, Archeology, and Mat collection only - the "out in the world" variant
Quests Only - None of the above. Just the lore.
 

Pet Battles

I’ve heard of people trying to level doing only pet battles. I’m not sure if I would include the daily pet battle quests. I’m thinking I would for practical porpoises*.

Good – I generally like pet battles and I can beat the computer so it wouldn’t be a total slog. Well, it would in the sense that it would take a long time but I, probably, wouldn’t hate it for quite a while. I have a large stable of pets that I could level to 25 while I level myself. While battleing, I’m sure I’d find time to collect those last few pets on each area that I seem to be missing.

Bad – With the dailies it would be a long way to 100. Without…wow, even longer. Money generation would be very low, so the character would need to be supported by other characters and pay full price for flying or riding. Unless I use heirlooms or just expect to die once in a while, gear could be an issue.

Archeology

Now, I’d need to do something to get up to 20, so that I can get Archeology, however I already have a few characters hovering in that area that I could re-purpose.

Good – Similar to pet battles, I like archeology enough to do it for a while before it would become a chore. I have never finished getting all of the various items from it. I still want that dragon mount, although that would mean I’d need to take alchemy and eventually level that too.

Bad – Travel time. To and fro. Fro and to. Again, they would need to be financially supported by other characters to make it passable in both money and gear. It’d also take a really long time on its own.

PvP

Here again, I think I need to be 15 or so to start? Not an issue on this end, but just a note.

Good – Pretty constant uptime to my memory. When I was doing Random Battle Grounds more frequently, the queue didn’t take too long to my memory. Although I haven’t done it in forever so perhaps I’m wrong? I have heirlooms for gearing already, and perhaps some other BoE gear I could use up. I have enjoyed some PvP from time to time. I might get some of those achievements, mounts, titles, and such by the time I’m done.

Bad – I don’t always like PvP. Not as a matter of skill (although more on that in a sec), but because of the toxicity and attitude that is often part of battlegrounds. Often, but not always. But when it is there, it’s just unenjoyable. As to my skill, well, I’m pretty low. Historically, I have improved as I’ve played more games. Enough to generally account for myself and not be a total carry, but still not great. 99 levels of that doesn’t sound very appealing.

That's pretty much all for today. As I said, I'll cover the others in another post.  Not only to pad my post count of course, but since this Comment-Inspired Quick Post is far from quick.

*dolphins are notorious for their whimsy and flights of fancy.

Quick Question: Keep or Sell?

What do you do with relatively hard to get, or perhaps even no-longer-in-game, not-yet soulbound items?

I have the Tremendous Tankard O'Terror on a character.  Actually, I have 3.  One is for level 100 and the other 2 are for level 90.  Assuming I keep one for transmog, which I will, is it worth it to try to sell the level 90 ones on the auction house?  On that server they were going for about 3,500 gold a piece.

So, it is something that a level 90 twink might like and since that specific item is no longer in game, it can be worth a fair amount.  But then, I don't get that item for myself.  And I have a level 90 Shaman that would enjoy using them, if only for a little bit.

See, there's the catch. If I use it for myself, I get a short time out of it, that I'll enjoy but probably quickly replace.  On the other hand, if I sell it, yay money but I don't get to use it for my bun, short as it may be.

This isn't the only item I have this issue with, just the one that came up this weekend.  I'm kind of a horder* on some things.  Too many things.

I think I spent around 500 gold this weekend saving non-quest-reward gear to a void storage because I like an item and might want to transmog it on another character. But, I'm running out of room in my regular storage so off to void storage.  Not much for a max level character per se but that'll add up fast.

Transmog closest can not get here fast enough.

I will buy all of the tabards.

I will have so much bag space.  I will not know what to do with myself.

And with some of the not-toys-for-no-good-reasons becoming actual toys...I don't care about saving reality, give me bag space!

Also, when did I become Grumpy?  And do I have to pay him royalties for blogging like this?

*For the Hording!

Friendly Mooseseses

I’m pretty sure this sums up my blogging style.

I really do try to focus and Crooked had a great definition of causal in the comments of my last post that I wanted to expand upon. Plus I still need to talk about deleting characters, LFR, and such. But a rambling comment on another site became a post. Oh well.

There have been a few discussions about Friendship Moose and all of that and the one got me to babble today was Navi’s.

#FriendshipMoose and Free Moose runs - An example of a great WoW community? Or an administrative nightmare?

I'm torn about a couple of things as far as this topic goes. Not about people offering to help though. I think that is great and as much as I personally would probably never buy a carry, I can understand the logic of selling them. Especially if carrying people (and the effort it took to get the skill level needed to carry people) causes a lot of armor repairs.

When the community steps up to do something a business or group is not doing, it reflects the good in the community. Great. But, for some people, it then kind of justifies the larger entity (business, government, etc) not doing anything to help solve the problem. They can get in the mindset of, "oh, our users/citizens will step-in and solve this issue so we don’t need to do anything". Yes, they likely will, as there are good people out there, but they shouldn't have to. It reminds me of the debate about support* services for the needy versus government programs.

Now, a moose run is nothing like support services. One is just fun optional stuff and the other can be critical to survival, so I don't mean to compare the two in terms of scale. But still, there is an obvious problem in the community (frustration over the requirements to get the moose mount) and the community is solving the problem, not the business.

But aren't people getting their mount? Yes and perhaps new raiders and good will in the server community will come of this. Those guilds and those people that do the carries will be greatly appreciated and likely respected, so there are a lot of upsides. But I still don't know that I like how we are getting there. That the community is taking a "bad" situation and improving it speaks well of the community. In my opinion, it speaks poorly of the company.

The other reason I have hesitation is, of course, the nature of a carry. I don't see it as pride or anything like that, but just a desire to not be a burden on others for something pretty unimportant. I have no problem asking for help when I need it for something important. But for something like this, it just seems unnecessary for me.  Not an opinion on others getting carries mind you.  Just for me.

I know that I cannot perform at the level needed for heroic raiding and so a carry would be my only option. And so while I’d like the moose on some level, and I’d like to be able to help my spouse get it, the effort and requirement just to get a place to be carried are more than it is likely worth to me.

I’m not saying those requirements are unreasonable. They actually seem reasonable to me but I don’t know if they are. I would assume a guild capable of carrying in heroic knows what is necessary. Whatever the case, my thoughts about the requirements were perfectly captured by Crooked:

“...if presented with requirements to participate in something, a casual is more likely to not participate…changing specs, using a certain voice chat, installing addons, doing pvp, whatever, if they don't want to do something, they would rather not participate at all…”

All of this is something of a moot discussion for me anyways, as I don't think I have a 100 on any server running these (although I haven't check recently) and those 100's I do have are not yet 710. So why am I writing on this? Well, where would you be without my wall-of-text opinions?




* or, since this was originally a comment over at Frostwolves, should that be suppourt? :)

Casual

My original name for this blog was going to be Oddly Casual but someone had already claimed it, so that plan was dashed.  Dashed, I say.

But I wanted it because I felt it described me pretty well.  My modified moniker works as well, so not too much disappointment. The point is that I generally see myself as a casual WoW player.  But am I?

That's the problem. What does it mean to be casual?

Quick note: I place no value judgement on casual or any type of player.  This is not an evaluation of good versus bad but just me trying to define what a casual player is.

What's in a word?

Does a casual:

- Use Wowhead?
- How about Mr. Robot?
- Add-ons?
- Read blogs?
- Write blogs?
- Read Blizzardwatch?
- Read forums
- Get silver proving grounds?
- Use LFR?
- Use the group finder for non-LFR raiding?
- Have the legendary cloak or ring?
- Do the brawler's guild?
- Complete Long strange trip?
- Have the Draenor gold looting achievement?
- Have heirloom equipment?

This is obviously far from an exhaustive list and were really just some of the first things that came to mind.

Let me lay out two examples, myself and my spouse.

We both use Wowhead to look up quest chains, items, achievements, mounts, pets, bosses, etc. I'm probably more savy with navigating it but we both use and get around fine.

Neither of us use Mr. Robot.  I only became aware of it a year or so ago?  I'm 99% sure my spouse has no idea what it is.

Both of us had security concerns about add-ons and didn't use them for a long time. I only started using add-ons a few months ago and while I love the few I have, I actively try to avoid getting them and am still a bit wary of possible exploits. When add-ons break due to patch updates, I can sometimes find how to fix them but other times not.  The spouse has no add-ons and no plans to use them anytime soon.

I read a limited number of blogs and, obviously, write this one. My spouse hopes to find time to read mine.

I read Blizzardwatch but not all of the time or exhaustively. The spouse does neither.

I generally avoid the forums, although occasionally I risk my sanity and check things out.  The spouse is wiser and never does.

I have succeeded in silver proving grounds on my mage, druid, paladin, and hunter.  I have just recently, and with great headache, passed with my warlock. The spouse has not tried them yet and would not be aware of them if not for me mentioning that it was necessary for the legendary ring quest line.

I used LFR a fair amount at the end of MoP but not much right now. The spouse has joined me so as to see the story, but has never run one without me, I think.

I used the group-finder to get in some SoO raids to be able to get my legendary cloak quest completed and to get my Garrosh heirloom.  The spouse have never used it to my knowledge.

I have the legendary cloak on one character. Two or three others didn't finish in time (no bitterness there). I just finished the legendary ring quest on one character last night (a post on that coming soon?).  The spouse has zero cloaks and almost nothing started on the ring. I held off on completing the ring quest on this character because I knew that it was unlikely the spouse would see the story if i didn't.

I am maybe rank 2 or 3 in the brawler's guild?  Somewhere in that range. My spouse has had 2 fights I think?

I have completed a long strange trip and hated every minute of the mandatory PvP. I know the spouse was very, very close but I can't be sure if it is completed or not.

I got the Draenor looting achievement a while back.  Not as fast as Grumpy but still, a while ago.  The spouse got it a week or two ago.

I have all heirloom equipment except for pants (no guild with that achievement yet), the rings, the trinket from Darkmoon Faire PvP (or whatever it is), the fist weapons, and the new mythic dungeon heirlooms. Most everything goes up to at level 90 with a few things going to 100.  The spouse has the same gear (except the intellect plate heirlooms) but half or less go to 90.

Just taking those things, are we both casual players?  Just the spouse?  I wouldn't call myself hard-core by any means, but am I really a casual player?

Why does any of this matter?

I don't really care what category I fall into in terms of social status or rank or other nonesense, so it doesn't matter in that sense.  I'm pretty use to being outside the norm in many instances. What matters is that if I am typical, then Blizzard is not really addressing the desires of the bulk of its players.  And if my spouse is closer to the average, then Blizzard is really missing the mark.

Now a company like Blizzard has to have the statistics on players enough to know the characteristics of a typical player.  It's been 11 years so they have something going on right.  But as they keep pushing this raid-or-die mentality, as they keep pushing certain thing in game play, it feels to me that they don't really know or don't really care about those of us they keep leaving out.

Some time ago, over at Tome of the Ancient I put it this way:

"Whatever Blizzards idea of a player is, I feel I don’t fit it at all and I’d be curious to know if I’m really that odd or not.

And while previously I felt benignly ignored as a player on the best days, I’m starting to feel actively pushed out."*

That was back during the time of no-flying ill-will, when the alts-r-bad vibe was very strong.  Things have...well not improved but they've not gotten worse.  Given some of the things Fiannor writes about, I'm probably just  less focused on it now.  Whatever the case, I've just always wondered what do other people think fits the term "casual"?

* By the way, here's the apostrophe I misplaced.  ----> '

I guess it was a timelord. <----I have no idea what I was referencing when I wrote this.

Secondary note - this was actually written weeks ago, perhaps even in September or October.  It was actually intended more as a discussion of what it means to be casual.