Weekend (20 May) - Book Two, The Song of Chord

Weekend (20 May) - Book Two, The Song of Chord

Yes, I've started writing the second book in the trilogy. But don't panic! It'll be awhile before I start posting anything, so writing buddies are off the hook for now. I should also be getting additional help from a more formalized writing group by then. The second book will start in the same timeframe that the first book ended. That decision was actually a tough one to make. The worlds of Spark and Chord were once twins to each other, but the devastation done to Spark by the Wizard Wars and the loss of Song utterly changed that world. Chord takes center stage in book two, and the difference between the two worlds will be dramatic. Dice's Troupe remains the center of the story, and their challenges will mount.

Patch 5.3 goes live today, 21 May. The biggest news (which probably only I didn't know about) is that the world of PvP is eliminating the stat called resilience from nearly all gear. Wow. Instead, everyone (pvp or not) get a base 65% resilience. On top of that, pvp gear now has a cap at ilevel 496. The stat Pvp Power is becoming the key stat over resilience.

The reason for all this is to make pvp more accessible to non-pvpers. A well geared player in pve gear can now compete in pvp given he gets 65% resilience and can acquire ilevel pve gear that beats the cap on pvp gear. Overall, pvp gear (weapons, mostly, I think) have more pvp power, which is supposed be to the difference maker. Additionally, it appears that some effort went into making pvp healers stronger by increasing the healing effect of pvp power. You pvpers out there will have to let me know how this works out and what you think about the changes.

On the pve side of things, Blizz has even enticed the Wild family. Leveling from 85-90 got a little easier by reducing the required experience needed by 33%. None of the level 85s (Wild, Philly, JB) have volunteered to try it yet, however.

On the baseball front the Padres have won three straight at home. They are looking suspiciously like a real team. Hard to fathom. They still sport a losing record, though, at 21-23, but hey, two more wins and . . .  let's not get ahead of ourselves. We were at the games on Saturday and Sunday and will be in the stands for the Tuesday/Wednesday games against the Cardinals. My uncle is a rabid Cardinals fan. We'll have some fun taunting each other about our teams. The Cardinals lead their division with a 28-16 record. But we beat'em last night, 4-2, against their super hot rookie pitcher.

Wednesday - A Happy Moment and Catch Up Baseball

PS –Check Judi’s blog for news about the new addition to our little cat colony.

http://tazzydbell.blogspot.com/

This is a catch up of the status of the Padres and the two simulation leagues. A Padres mini resurgence (13-6 in the last 19 games) has placed them about where they are predicted to be. The simulated pitching is better than what the Padres are currently putting on the mound, but the blame for that comes mostly from Clayton Richard, who is 0-4 with a truly awful 8.54 ERA (that's almost a run every inning!) while his simulations come closer to what he was predicted to be doing: (2-6, 4.72 ERA, Promise), (3-2, 2.51 ERA, Reality). 

I'm getting predictable performances from the offense. The bottom line is that the 2013 version of the Padres looks a bit depressingly like the 2012 Padres. The good news is that the Padres nemesis, the Los Angeles Dodgers, are playing even worse. The Padres recently passed them in the standings. The Padres are paying around $74 million for their players. The Dodgers are paying over $200 million. 

The status as of 28 Apr (in case you all forgot :P ).

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Comparison	W L GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W L GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	9 15 5.5	.244	85	4.39
Reality Results	11 13 4.5	.255	94	4.08
Promise Results	11 13 3.5	.233	101	3.65

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The status as of 15 May.

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Comparison	W L GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W L GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	18 21 4.5	.244	154	4.13
Reality Results	21 18 3.0	.245	157	3.67
Promise Results	17 22 7.5	.239	166	3.75

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Happy is feeling a little bad about an incident at the Auction House. Happy was engrossed in getting his daily work done when a another player named Sung whispered him. I have a bad cold and some of that misery likely spread to Happy. Almond was in game as well, although I'm not sure how coherent Happy was in talking about the exchange with Sung.

Happy doesn't get whispered to very much, but he likes to chat about his work ... endlessly, so most of those who do talk to Happy suddenly decide to log off for some reason. Sung opened the conversation saying that Happy was making him rich. Well, that's a line I hadn't heard before. The long and short of it was that Happy was selling a mat (greater planar essence, if you must know) at 10g and Sung was disenchanting it into three lesser planars that he was selling for 10g each, a 20g profit. Sung claimed to have made 500g off of Happy. That's 25 planars, which would normally take three days to sell. Happy made 250g from that little rush of business, while Sung made his 500g. Good for him. Everybody happy.

Of course, once he told me that, Happy checked on the lesser planars that Sung was selling and underbid him. Happy doesn't usually deal in lesser planars, because there isn't much demand, but hey, if there is profit to be made, he's in, for as long as this little mini-demand lasted. As for Sung, if he'd just kept quiet he'd still be able to sell the lessers for 10g each. He can't sell them for 5g now, and I predict the price will keep dropping. What he did for Happy was drive up the prices of greater planars and Happy did quite well selling 10g planars for as much as 17g and further eroding Sung's profits. The bottom line is that Happy made more than 500g off of Sung and other buyers caught in the price war. 

I wonder if Sung learned the lesson. Don't give your secrets to a competitor. Sung stopped talking and logged off ... for some reason.

Weekend (28 Apr) - All Manner of Things: Gold, the Novel, and of course Baseball

Weekend (28 Apr) - All Manner of Things: Gold, the Novel, and of course Baseball

Happy opened an interesting can of rocks over the weekend. He was frustrated that he could not get a good handle on Serpent's Eye, which is a jewel crafting mat. A single player has a near monopoly on it and Happy was considering doing a little skimming off the top. This mat is created by combining ten Sparkling Shards. Those shards can only be acquired by prospecting. Happy's head was already starting to hurt - but he smelled gold, and kept after it.

The Auction House had none for sale. Interesting. A tip on wowhead said that sometimes the shards were worth more than the eyes. Happy asked Philly to buy a stack of Ghost Iron Ore and prospect it to see what she got. She got two 100 gold valued gems (which was a rare find, so Happy didn't get his hopes up too high), and he got three sparkling shards. Happy posted them for sale at a very optimistic price just to see what the market would do.

Well, Philly's engagement as a jewel crafter got JB involved. Happy had all these gems Philly had acquired during her profession leveling that he didn't quite know what to do with. JB showed Happy how a golden lotus and a gem could make money. Happy has been selling golden lotus at what he figured was a pretty good price, but turning that golden lotus into a gem had the potential for even higher profit.

There was one major caveat, though. Prices over the weekend seemed pretty high, and one player in particular seemed to control much of the action. High end gems were available only in very small quantities or not at all, so the prices were way up there. If that is more the norm than the exception, Happy could have found a bonanza. Happy is keen enough about the idea that he made an unprecedented decision to upgrade one of his bags from a 20 slot frostweave bag to the newest general purpose bag, the 28 slot Royal Satchel. The bags are expensive and the process of learning to craft it is long. Wild can't make them. The going price is 4-5,000 gold. Happy figured he got a bargain at 3650g. He doesn't feel like buying any more, though.

Then there was a flood of news on the writing front as the leader of my writing group sent a number of invitations to writing events that are coming up in May. Those details will be posted on my JadedWalker site later in the week.

Finally, there was baseball. In the last report, the Padres had closed out an abysmal series with the Giants, losing all three games. The team had a 5-13 record, the worst start ever for the team, worse even that last season, which was the worst season ever then. The team broke their own record for failure.

Then the Milwaukee Brewers came to San Diego and the losing streak extended to six games. And finally broke when the Padres salvaged the last game of the three game series.

The team that had swept us in San Francisco was back, only this time it was on our own turf. We were there for two of the three games, and I have the Sunday afternoon game sunburn to prove it. The Padres swept the series in three exciting games and are on a four game winning streak!

The Padres will be on the road this week.

Real Games

22 Apr 7-1 Loss vs Brewers (Reality 4-2 Loss, Promise 9-3 Win)

23 Apr 6-3 Loss vs Brewers (Reality 4-2 Win, Promise 8-7 Win)

24 Apr 2-1 Win vs Brewers (Reality 3-1 Win, Promise 3-1 Loss)

25 Apr No game

26 Apr 2-1 Win vs Giants (Reality 10-5 Loss, Promise 3-1 Loss)

27 Apr 8-7 Win vs Giants (Reality 3-1 Loss, Promise 3-2 Loss)

28 Apr 6-4 Win vs Giants (Reality 4-3 Win, Promise 10-9 Loss)

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Comparison	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	9  15 5.5	.244	85	4.39
Reality Results	11  13 4.5	.255	94	4.08
Promise Results	11  13 3.5	.233	101	3.65

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Thursday (25 Apr) - Asleep at the House

Thursday (25 Apr) - Asleep at the House

Warning - Do not attempt to read the below without having heavily-caffeinated beverages handy and in large quantities. May cause intense sleepiness and suicidal thoughts. Final Warning: This is worse than the baseball talk.

When Happy finds himself napping on the Auction House floor, you know things are slow. There are few people in the world of Warcraft that would consider the Auction House entertaining, and Happy is one of them. Yet even he has had to admit that the latest batch of enchanting mats from the Pandaria expansion is the most boring and plain "bla" of all time.

Take five spirit dust and Wild can make a mysterious essence.
Take five mysterious essences and Wild can make an ethereal shard.
Take five ethereal shards and Wild can make a Sha crystal.

Spirit dust is very common and obtainable at 2g each or less. Happy always deals in the "less" when buying mats, but overall the margin is less than 50 silver (half a gold). Happy sets a base cost of a mysterious essence, therefore, at 10g (2g per spirit dust). So, the base prices are:

2g - Spirit Dust
10g - Mysterious Essence
50g - Ethereal Shard

Sha crystals are priced differently, because enchanters can only make one per day, which limits their availability and raises the base price. The posted prices vary depending on availability, from as low as 300g to up to 450g or even higher if the buyer is desperate. Prices change rapidly, though, so buying and selling sha crystals is a crapshoot.

What does all that mean? From a practical perspective, it means that the pricing of the three main mats is so consistently within a narrow range, there is almost no wiggle room for Happy to find any profit in buying and selling them.

Everything starts with spirit dust, and it is relatively easy to farm. So, if the dust price climbs to 3g or so, the farmers will pour more dust into the AH and the price comes back down. If the market is flooded, the price might go down as much as 50 silver, but the margin is still very thin.

Happy can make a profit all day long on Mysterious essence. Wild can make them endlessly at a cost of 10g each, and they typically sell in the 15-18g range. If they sell. The marketeers like Happy are all over this, and the bidding war to have your mats listed at the top is fierce. Happy is building up his stock of essence to be able to compete with the others. The problem with that is inevitably, prices wars will drive the price below what Happy needs to make a profit.

Price wars have already doomed ethereal shards as a money maker. As noted above, from a practical standpoint ethereal shard prices should hover around 50g. A couple of Happy's farmer competitors have driven the price down to around 43g now, and sellers above that price line don't get much business. Happy recently bought forty ethereal shards at 30g each when a frustrated player dumped them on the AH. Happy will make a profit on selling those, he hopes, at the current going price of 40g. Maybe. Happy predicts that the price will keep falling.

It is a bad sign to Happy that the newest enchanting mats are losing so much value so soon. The lower the price, the less profit. Another big factor is that the demand for those enchanting mats seems to be way down from previous expansions. I don't know why.

One part of the answer is to actually make stuff out of those mats. Happy has Wild making enchants, and that has helped. That's a different kind of competition, though, and even there the prices for those enchants keep falling, of course, as the price of the mats drop. That's good news to the folks who need those enchants, but bad news for the sellers.

Happy has branched out into selling more high end bags, which still have a pretty high margin of profit if Happy is careful to snap up the cloth Wild needs to make them cheaply. Happy has always sold Satchel of Cenarius bags because few can make them (it is a pain to get the recipe) and it is a great buy for those who can't afford the high price of the larger versions. Happy also sells the Bag of Jewels for a similar reason. Happy has only one competitor for the Satchel, and they have a gentleman's agreement to match prices. Happy is the only seller of the jewel bag. Both types of bags net Happy over 230g profit each. Happy only sells on average one of each bag a week, though, which is another reason why there are not more players selling them. Still, 460g a week profit is a tidy sum.

Happy recently began selling the general purpose, 20 slot Frostweave bag and the general purpose, 22 slot Embersilk Bag. The prices of these bags fluctuate quite a bit, but buyers tend to buy them when they need them and often pay a premium. There are a number of sellers, but only a couple who are really into it and post 5-10 bags at a time. The rest of us are the leechers. We wait to see what the big boy prices are and then we slightly undercut them. The big sellers don't seem to mind, as all of their bags eventually sell. Happy doesn't carry more than 2-4 bags at a time because that is all that Wild can make at the discount mat prices Happy can get. Frankly, most of Happy's profits lately have come from the bags, not enchanting mats. Both bags net 200g profit each at the upper price level, and Happy won't sell if a leecher discounts the price of bags too much. Happy even buys up their bags if they drop the price too much, although Happy gets less profit from that. There are always more buyers than bags, at the right price, if one is patient.

Nobody is going to feel sorry for the AH sellers. For Happy, though, he isn't concerned about the dwindling profit so much. He's concerned that the enchanting materials market on the AH has become boringly predictable and stale.

Happy is considering branching out further, into the gem and glyph markets, but that would be a lot of work. Happy is not really into working that hard - unless he can make it fun.

Weekend (21 Apr) - A Week at a Time

Weekend (21 Apr) - A Week at a Time

I've discovered that running two simulation leagues in tandem with the real thing takes a lot more time than I anticipated. So, instead of a game by game report each day, I'm going to collect a few games at a time and then provide the summary chart. Here are the results over the weekend, which are pretty dismal for the Padres.

Real Games

17 Apr 7-2 Win vs Dodgers (Reality 7-3 Loss, Promise 5-2 Win)

18 Apr Off

19 Apr 3-2 Loss vs Giants (Reality 4-3 Loss, Promise 5-2 Loss)

20 Apr 2-0 Loss vs Giants (Reality 8-0 Loss, Promise 6-1 Loss)

21 Apr 5-0 Loss vs Giants (Reality 5-4 Loss, Promise 6-1 Loss)

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Comparison	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Padres 2012	76 86 18.0	.247	651	4.01
Reality Autoplay	84 78 10.0	.243	667	3.69
Promise Autoplay	80 82 10.0	.249	688	3.81
2013 Season	W  L  GB	BA	Runs	ERA
Actual Results	5  13 8.0	.243	63	4.49
Reality Results	8  10 4.5	.260	75	4.27
Promise Results	9  9  1.5	.225	72	3.38

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Reality League Standings

AL East                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Tampa Bay TBA           14   5  .737 ----  

2012 Toronto TOA             11   8  .579  3.0

2012 New York (AL) NYA       11   8  .579  3.0

2012 Boston BOA              10   9  .526  4.0

2012 Baltimore BAA            6  12  .333  7.5

AL Central                  WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Detroit DEA             12   6  .667 ---- 

2012 Minnesota MNA            9   9  .500  3.0 

2012 Cleveland CLA            7  12  .368  5.5 

2012 Kansas City KCA          6  11  .353  5.5 

2012 Chicago (AL) CHA         6  13  .316  6.5 

AL West                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Seattle SEA             13   7  .650 ---- 

2012 Los Angeles(AL) LAA     10   8  .556  2.0 

2012 Texas TEA                9  10  .474  3.5 

2012 Oakland OAA              7  12  .368  5.5 

2012 Houston HOA              5  13  .278  7.0 

NL East                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Washington WAN          12   6  .667 ----  

2012 Atlanta ATN             11   7  .611  1.0  

2012 Philadelphia PHN        10   9  .526  2.5  

2012 New York (NL) NYN        9  10  .474  3.5  

2012 Miami MIN                7  12  .368  5.5  

NL Central                  WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 St. Louis SLN           12   7  .632 ---- 

2012 Pittsburgh PIN          11   8  .579  1.0 

2012 Milwaukee MLN           10   8  .556  1.5 

2012 Cincinnati CIN           7  12  .368  5.0 

2012 Chicago (NL) CHN         6  13  .316  6.0

NL West                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 San Francisco SFN       13   6  .684 ----  

2012 Los Angeles(NL) LAN     11   7  .611  1.5  

2012 Colorado CON            10   9  .526  3.0  

2012 San Diego SDN            8  10  .444  4.5

2012 Arizona ARN              6  12  .333  6.5

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Promise League Standings

AL East                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Toronto TOA             14   5  .737 ----

2012 New York (AL) NYA       12   7  .632  2.0

2012 Baltimore BAA            8  10  .444  5.5

2012 Tampa Bay TBA            8  11  .421  6.0

2012 Boston BOA               8  11  .421  6.0

AL Central                  WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Kansas City KCA         10   7  .588 ----  

2012 Detroit DEA             10   8  .556   .5

2012 Minnesota MNA            9   9  .500  1.5

2012 Cleveland CLA            7  12  .368  4.0

2012 Chicago (AL) CHA         5  14  .263  6.0

AL West                     WON LOST  PCT   GB 

2012 Los Angeles(AL) LAA     11   7  .611 ---- 

2012 Texas TEA               11   8  .579   .5

2012 Seattle SEA             10  10  .500  2.0

2012 Oakland OAA              8  11  .421  3.5

2012 Houston HOA              7  11  .389  4.0

NL East                     WON LOST  PCT   GB

2012 Philadelphia PHN        13   6  .684 ----

2012 Washington WAN          11   7  .611  1.5

2012 New York (NL) NYN       10   9  .526  3.0

2012 Atlanta ATN              9   9  .500  3.5

2012 Miami MIN                5  14  .263  8.0

NL Central                  WON LOST  PCT   GB

2012 Pittsburgh PIN          15   4  .789 ----

2012 Cincinnati CIN          11   8  .579  4.0 

2012 Milwaukee MLN            9   9  .500  5.5

2012 St. Louis SLN            7  12  .368  8.0

2012 Chicago (NL) CHN         6  13  .316  9.0

NL West                     WON LOST  PCT   GB

2012 San Francisco SFN       11   8  .579 ----

2012 Arizona ARN             10   8  .556   .5

2012 San Diego SDN            9   9  .500  1.5

2012 Colorado CON             8  11  .421  3.0

2012 Los Angeles(NL) LAN      7  11  .389  3.5