Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Jocelyn the Tank?

Jocelyn the Tank?

Well, not exactly. Jocy began her early life as a Holy spec paladin. She didn't know any better. So, when she was able, Jocy chose the Retribution spec as her secondary to improve her abilities and speed her advance. Jocy has been "Ret spec" since her boost to level 90. She's worked hard to get to level 91, but she still lagged behind Wild and Fist.

Skinnemuva, a long time friend with some expertise in being a paladin, suggested that leveling in Protection spec would speed her advance even further. Well, Jocy was not planning on using her Holy spec during leveling, so there was an opportunity to replace that spec with Protection to see how that worked. It took some maneuvering with the Paladin Trainer, but Jocy was able to shuffle her specs around and now has Protection as her primary spec with Retribution still her secondary. Jocy is losing a bit of time by making this switch, time which includes learning another spec, but now is the time to experiment. Jocy was 50% of the way to level 92 when she made the switch. Her average DPS in Ret spec was 2656 DPS.

After spending a couple of hours leveling with Jocy in Prot spec I have to agree that Jocy has become incredibly hard to even nick much less do any real damage against her. She crushes everything around her. She raised her DPS by a nice margin (3381 DPS), but its her ability to protect herself that is so impressive. Jocy reached level 92 and gained an i529 gear score.

Jocy has also outpaced Wild and Fist in one area. She is getting a lot more out of her Garrison and followers. She has four followers now she's keeping them all busy.


The maintenance was a real pain. I say that, knowing that it's actually pretty unusual for there to be any serious issues logging after maintenance. Not this time. For the past 45 minutes I've been trying to get to the Silvermoon realm with no success. Oddly, I did get to the Scryer's realm, where I still have three characters languishing in my short, now long abandoned effort on a role playing realm. Makeda is my top toon there, a mage at level 6. I also have a rogue with a name I'm holding on to - Ribsticker.Later in the evening I was finally able to log in. It was still not working at 100%, however, so around midnight I called it quits.

Monday, December 1, 2014

The Natives are Restless

The Natives are Restless

Leveling three characters at the same time is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought. The idea was that by giving leveling time to all three in sequence it would result in faster leveling overall, since the second and third time I did the quests the faster I should be able to complete them. That isn't working out so well.

The reason may be related to the changes in the game that eliminated a lot of the chain quests - ie, as each quest is finished a new quest is offered. Many players didn't like that and so there are fewer of such. I've been all over the map and still have scattered quests laying around and I still haven't gotten out of the starting zone. I hate leaving open quests in a zone - they should all be completed before I move on! The Blizzard gods also find it amusing to place the starting quest at one level of the terrain and then force me to climb mountains or into dark dungeons to complete them. Having coordinates don't mean much when you don't know if I should look up, down, or sidewise. Maybe I'm still kicking off the rust of not doing any leveling since Fist.

Anyway, Both Wild and Fist have made it to level 92, leaving Jocy still to get there. If I were leveling one toon, that toon would be at level 94 by now, or at least close to it, given that the later levels tend to get harder. I'm not giving up, though. I know from past experience that if I level one toon before starting another, those left behind probably won't be leveled any time soon. I'm going to stick to my plan.

Stat-wise (Level, gear, weapon):
Fist (Level 92, i526, with an i522/i532 pair of one-handers)
Wild (Level 92, i534,i630 staff)
Jocy (Level 91, i522, i630 one-hand sword, i494 shield)

I'm still learning the whole Garrison thing. I did learn more about the hostile Frostwall Goren camped outside Jocy's garrison. Apparently that's where the local mine is. Periodically one of my men will go over there and the Goren kills him. Periodically I go out and kill the Goren (sometimes there are more than one). I can't actually use the mine, and there's no mine outside either of the other Garrisons, so I'm still not quite sure what its all about.

Wild's Outpost has been upgraded to a Fort and has been completely redesigned.It's very disconcerting having everything moved around like that. The Frostwall Goren is here, too, and there is a quest available - if  Wild decides to go kill the Goren and see what it is. Wild did decide to take the Goren on. Wild won that fight and now has a working mine he can use. Have to let Jocy know about that, but she needs to get to level 92 first.

Jocy is going to get some extra time to get to level 92 and will get first crack at level 93. 

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

A Home Away From Home

A Home Away From Home

Garrisons are a new development found only in the world of Draenor. Garrisons have almost all of the same amenities as a large city, even when it's still in the building stage. I like Garrisons. Having a home away from home is so fundamental I wonder why it took so long to implement the idea. The concept is great. The execution of that concept - well, I'm still trying to figure that out.

Wild was the first of the family to build a Garrison. What struck Wild first wasn't what was in the garrison, it was what was missing. Was it an oversight that there is no access to either Wild's personal bank or the guild bank? More likely that was intentional, forcing Wild to have to return to a city when he needed access a bank. It's not that much of a burden, though. Wild still has his hearthstone, for an instant return to his selected city inn. Another nice feature is that Wild's garrison has its own hearthstone, so Wild can instantly return to his garrison at need. There is no access to an Auction House in the garrison, either, but I can understand that. Auction Houses have always been limited mostly to the larger cities.

Going beyond those basics, things start to get more complicated. Owners of a garrison have an opportunity to build more structures. In addition to that, garrison owners will begin to collect employees. They are called "followers" and I think they're the key to being a successful garrison tycoon. Creating anything requires supplies, and it's the followers that are sent out on missions to collect supplies and perform other functions, so that more "stuff" can be created.

Things then get truly murky. In an attempt to help us new property owners, a series of quests are available. Well, more than just available. Most of the garrison based quests Wild has come across so far are mandatory. If not completed, further progress is stymied. Getting past that, things open up a bit. Wild was able to build an Enchanting Studio using supplies and the architectural plans to build it. At this still early stage Wild has little choice what to build, because he doesn't have the building plans. Unfortunately, Wild doesn't really know how to go about using his Enchanting Studio beyond being able to disenchant things - which Wild, as an enchanter, can already do. I'm missing something here, I'm sure. Anyway, Wild has a follower that has completed his first mission. I'm not quite sure what he's doing now, though. It's pretty confusing.

Broadening things a bit, a lot of what garrisons offer involves professions, like Wild's enchanting profession and Fist's leather working profession. Building things that can aid in professions is one way to use a garrison, because they can replace/complement? professions Wild already has and add professions that Wild doesn't have. I haven't really seen it in practice, yet.

Finally, Garrisons seem to have several names. I've seen Town Hall, Outpost, and Fort so far. I think it depends on what building level has been reached - there are three levels, and each new level grants more building and access to more plans. Wild is already tinkering with that, but I'll leave that discussion for another post. Wild's friend Unbleached has even more experience, and I'll get her thoughts in the next post as well.

The leveling process continues for the triplets:
Wild's gear level is now i524, he is 60% of the way to level 92.
Jocy is i520 and is 9% toward level 92
Fist has only i516 gear but has gotten most of the game time, now 82% toward level 92.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

More Than Mashing Buttons

More Than Mashing Buttons

Wild failed to kill a level 92 elite mob last night. Until now all three of my levelers had conquered every quest and killed every mob without dying a single time. It wasn't just a fluke, either. Wild couldn't kill the elite mob, despite four dismal attempts. The elite is Grosh the Mighty, and he has a nasty stun that Wild simply could not figure out how to counteract. Wild only has Bash for an interrupt, on a 50 second cooldown. Grosh does its stun every 10-15 seconds, constantly stopping Wild's casts while Wild stands in flames waiting for the stun to wear off. I'm thinking Wild will have to drop into cat form and run away to heal before each stun. That's Wild's plan for the next attempt, anyway. Jocy and Fist are waiting in the wings to get their chance at the elite, too, but they are still a little behind Wild in the questing.

Speaking of leveling, Fist finally caught up and is now level 91, equal with Wild and Jocy. Jocy got a nice break at the Auction House. The i600+ gear on the Auction House was selling for outrageous prices  - as high as 100,000 gold for one piece of i663 gear! So I think someone goofed when they posted an i630 one-hand sword for 12,500 gold. That sword, a Starforged Saber,  is now in Jocy's scabbard. She even got hot new weapon enchant called Mark of the Shattered Hand. No one in the Wild family has ever owned a piece of gear above i553. She was almost embarrassed, though, to have to admit that the shield she bought to complement that beautiful blade was a mere green level i494 called Shield of the Merciless. Still, the blade/shield combo and other upgrades sent Jocy's i450 gear level all the way up to i520. Wild still holds the gear lead at i522, while Fist tries to catch up, going from i503 to i511. I know, ho hum for you raiding types, but pretty nice for the Triplets (that would be Wild, Jocy, and Fist for those of you not paying attention).

Auction House Bag Flood

On some Auction House news (ok, you can snooze now), Happy made some good decisions (mostly) to hold on to some of the pre-WoD enchanting materials. There was a rush to get those mats once WoD was released - pent up demand for players getting toons ready to go. Happy sold a LOT of stuff. Oddly, it was the pre-WoD high end mats that DIDN'T sell, mostly jewel crafting stuff like gems. I should have known better. Old gems become almost instantly worthless when new gems are introduced. There just isn't a market for them. Gems that Happy sold for 70-100g each now sell at under 10g each and still dropping - if there is anyone left still buying them. Happy is considering selling the gems to replace lost teeth. ;-)

Then there is the bag market. The gods of warcraft decided, for the first time ever, that there would not be a new, larger general purpose bag rolled out with WoD. The 26 and 28 slot bags that came with Pandaria were painfully difficult to craft and very expensive. They still are, even now, costly at up to 2,000g apiece. With so many items stacking to 200 (instead of just 20) the need for those large bags is close to nil. So, what does that mean? It means Happy has a window to sell the much cheaper 20 and 22 slot bags. The 20 slot Frostweave bag cost 120g to make prior to WoD. Oddly, when WoD dropped, so did the cost of frostweave cloth, and Happy bought thousands of them at the cutrate price. The bag sold for around 180g normally, Demand for them skyrocketed, though, and Happy is currently selling them for 248g and the price is still rising, even as the cost of frostweave cloth starts to rise to meet demand. Happy can't make enough of them, primarily due to a shortage of the infinite dust needed to make them. Happy is smiling all the way to the bank.

An even better deal (for Happy) is the 22 slot embersilk bag. It's relatively expensive to make at 338g, and it normally sold for for around 400g. A tidy profit, but not outrageous. Happy sells that bag for 648g each right now. Again, Happy can't make enough of them - in this case, both embersilk cloth and the needed hypnotic dust are rapidly rising in cost.

Happy will ride the bag wave as long as it lasts.


Friday, November 21, 2014

Wildshard Reunion With Meitha

Wildshard Reunion With Meitha

Wild stopped raiding with his raiding guild, Meitha, during the last days of the Cataclysm expansion. In a nutshell, the raids had become boring. Wild was burned out. The guild continued on without him. When the next expansion came out, Mists of Pandaria (MoP), Wild dutifully leveled from 85 to 90 and actually had fun doing it. However, the urge to raid never came to him. Wild stayed with the Meitha guild but never entered a dungeon or raid throughout MoP. The whole Wild clan went dormant with the exception of Happyface.

Warlords of Draenor (WoD) was different and interesting enough to give the game another try. As already reported, I have three level 90 toons who are leveling in WoD. Wild just made level 91 last night and was taking a break in Orgrimmar, when I saw a very familiar face, one I hadn't seen in quite some time.

"Bloodnuckle!" Wild gave him a mighty shout and a wave. Blood, or BK, among his several nicknames, waved back and asked, "How the hell are you doing, Wild!?" The veteran tank looked good, but he was only at level 88. BK had also taken a long break from the game and obviously had not even had the time to finish leveling in Pandaria, yet. We talked of old times and I even sent another old friend, Talatiana (Lady Tala, to us old cabal friends) a few tickles. We talked for a bit and it seems that there are several of the old guard back in the game to see if the new expansion is worth playing. Wild is making no promises about raiding, but I have to admit that if enough of Wild's old friends wanted to raid again, Wild would be tempted.

As for the triplet of 90s now leveling in Draenor, Wild and Jocy are now both at level 91. Fist should get there today sometime. I'm going to try that approach for awhile. I will level all three toons a level at a time. It will take a lot longer to get to level 100, of course, but I think I will level faster overall because I will be very familiar with the quests and such the second and third time I do them. It also ensures that I leave no one behind, like I've done before. Poor Jezzi and Philly are still at level 85. The once mysterious Tiphaine came out of the shadows a couple of expansions ago but got stalled at level 72. I held Jezzi and Philly back because I wanted to level Fist from level 1 to 90 and focused only on that. Then Wild, being the senior, got the chance to level from 85 to 90 after Fist was done. Jezzi and Philly have a long wait ahead of her. Tiphaine may never catch up.

Wild's propensity to get lost has not manifested itself yet, but I did balk at taking the flight to Ashron recently. It seemed a simple quest, but once I accepted it sent Wild to the over side of the world, it seemed to him. I still had many quests to do back at the Garrison area, so I just turned around and took the flight back again. Wild is a very linear thinker and doer. Ashron can wait. Meanwhile, Fist, still short of level 91, has improved her gear skill from ilevel 503 to i509 now.

Jocy has improved her retribution gear to i512. Her healing gear began at its very basic. As a "boosted" toon, she received a set of i483 healing gear, i485 overall. Maintaining at least two separate sets of gear has always been a necessary chore for any player who wanted to play multiple roles. With WoD, a truly nice change in gear stats has made that much less of a chore. Let me use Jocy as the example. Her primary stats are intelligence (for healing) and strength (for killing things). Before WoD that gear could only have one or the other stat, not both. Much (though not all) gear now carries both primary stats. Only one can be active at a time (based on the spec), but in many cases the same gear can be used for both specs. That change meant that Jocy's healing gear could be instantly upgraded simply by switching to healing spec and using the same gear she uses for retribution spec. Her healing gear jumped from i485 to i497.

I've touched lightly on Garrisons so far. It is a major addition to the game. More about that in the next post.



Thursday, November 20, 2014

Jocy Joins the War

Jocy Joins the War

Today Jocy took the plunge into Warlords of Draenor. Trained and outfitted as a Retribution Paladin, she sported the finest armor gear available from the Timeless Isles. Her overall ilevel was i503, not good enough for dungeons or raids, but - hopefully - adequate for banging heads with the new baddies she would be facing. She is one of three level 90 toons that will have a chance to level up to 100 in the new expansion.

Jocy toned up a bit with the target dummy in Orgrimmar, but that quickly got boring. The best way to beat the dust and - let's face it, fear - away is to get out there and start hacking things. Spell rotations and such go out the window and what becomes important is to stay alive. She hopped on her flying mount and dove into the portal that deposited her in the Blasted Lands. Already the war was in full swing. She was given some quick orders she barely heard and didn't pay attention to anyway. She picked on the biggest bad guy she could find, wondering if she would be soon pushing up daisies.

Jocy proved her mettle, killing her first mob in WoD.

When Jocy first joined the war she was told that it might be some time before there would be a break in the action. The battles raging back and forth took close to two hours. The pace finally slowed when the tide of battle took her beyond the Blasted Lands and into the world of Draenor in a land called Frostfire Ridge. It was here that Jocy helped build her own Barracks, named Jocelyn's Outpost. At the Barracks Jocy also learned how to assign her first follower, Olin something or other, and gave him a mission. She likes having her own minions doing her bidding.

At last she was safe. For now. Next: Jocy takes her first flight path from her Barracks to the town of Wor'Gol. She hears that there are ogres to kill there.

Jocy  is 85% of the way to level 91. Her modest DPS against level 90 creatures was 2467.

Seeing the success that Jocy had in her first encounters, grizzled Wildshard, also a level 90, followed in Jocy's footsteps. Wild got almost as far as Jocy, getting 79% of the way to level 91. Wild was a little better equipped than Jocy, sporting i516 gear, and did significantly better in DPS (dealing damage) with 4568 DPS on average. Moonkin form rocks - at least for now. Jocy hasn't yet upgraded her gear with the new stuff she collected, but Wild did. He added three new pieces of gear and raised his ilevel to i520.

The most interesting comparison between Jocy and Wild was probably against the elite monster Gronn (I think that was its name). Jocy needed some help from nearby players to kill the monster. Wild faced the beast alone, and took it down with only modest effort. Jocy is still learning how to be a paladin. Druid Wild has years of practice under his belt, so Jocy gets the benefit of the doubt.

There is one more level 90, the Monk Fist, and I'll have to get her going soon, too. At some point I'll have to focus on a single character, but right now it's fun just trying to get all three of them to level 91.

PS - Wild's friend Unbleached went from level 90 to 100 in a single 24 hour binge beginning at the opening bell of Warlords of Draenor. Now that takes perseverance and pure stubbornness.  Gratz for making level 100!




Sunday, November 16, 2014

The Rugged Road Home

The Rugged Road Home

Wildshard's adventures are nothing compared to the last four weeks of real life adventure for our real family. Our three week family round trip from California to Virginia and North Carolina and back again was both fun and exhausting. We returned on 14 November. Right before we left on the trip my computer failed. Dead. Kaput. Of course I had backups of important stuff. Now I'm trying to put everything else back together, stuff that I didn't think to backup that turned out to be more important than I thought. Email addresses, for one. So here is a shout out to my readers. Please comment on this post with your email address or send an email to me directly (charliewb@cox.net) so I can re-connect with ya'll.

Since you are reading this you know I've gotten the new computer up, but I'm a long way from being back to normal. World of Warcraft is up and running, including the latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor. However, all of the addons, displays, etc, are gone and I'm having to rebuild everything from memory. Happyface is back and running the Auction House, but the rest are still bare bones.

I'll be updating my other blogs as well. If you are interested in the progress of my novel please check out http://jadedwalker.blogspot.com. I should have an update soon.




Thursday, October 16, 2014

Jocelyne Earns an Iron Horde Title

Jocelyne Earns an Iron Horde Title

Jocy spent the night at the Wyvern’s Tail Inn in Orgrimmar’s Valley of Honor. Anxious to get the most out of her day she wolfed down a quick breakfast and headed off on her second trip to the Blasted Lands. This time she brought her arsenal of weapons and spells, ready to take on the Iron Horde at Nethergarde Castle. Jocy quickly found out the hard way that not all of her spells were working. She still had enough muscle to kill a few mobs and pick up some quests without dying.

Jocy waited impatiently while I did some research. I finally located the problem - Macros. Back before Jocy’s boost I must have tinkered with macro settings, or it might have been a transition issue with the new patch. However it happened, several spells that should have been set to attack things, were instead set to heal things. No wonder the spells failed to work. Just remember it’s been more than a year since anyone did any heavy combat (or even light combat, for that matter). My head still hurts from having to remember how to build and set macros.

Once she got the green light, Jocy was off to the Blasted Lands again. The basic storyline is that the Iron Horde has taken over Nethergarde Castle. From the small base camp, Jocy was sent to kill some named mobs and collect artifacts. One thing I like about the revised questing is that there is always an arrow available to point out the nearest quest. Another thing I like is that artifacts belonging to quests are outlined to make them easier to see. Smaller objects, though, tend to get lost even with the outlining, but it is still an improvement.

Jocy learned that the Dreadmaul ogres had allied with the Iron Horde, so she slaughtered a number of them for some more quests. The topper was to take on a big bad orc leader, Gar’mac. That fight pushed Jocy pretty hard. She actually had to maneuver when he went sword crazy and even had to cast a few heals on herself. All that did was to extend the inevitable, though. Jocy killed him.
That ended the quest thread. Jocy was directed to go to Warchief Voljin. Jocy got a slap on the back and a squeeze on the rear for her efforts. She was also given a new title: Jocelyne of the Iron Vanguard, and earned the achievement “The Iron Invasion.”

Ok, the title is nice, but Jocy also got some loot! But let me digress a short moment. One interesting thing about the stats squish is that it didn’t affect item levels. Jocy is geared mostly in Timeless Isle gear with an ilevel of i496. That didn’t change with the new patch. Her newly won gear included a necklace (i515), a cape (i515), a ring (i515), and a trinket (i520). Jocy won two companions as well. All in all a pretty nice haul. Jocy is now ilevel 503.

Note that this quest line is only for level 90 characters. It appears that Wild and Fist both are showing some interest in doing the quests as well. This particular quest line will only be available until the WoD expansion is launched.  Get it while you can.

For Stat Geeks. I wanted to get some basic DPS information down to see how well (or not) Jocy progresses.
Using the Target Dummy with only auto attacks, she logged an upper and average DPS of 61 and 66 respectively. Attacking the dummy with my flawed macro set up yielded 261 DPS average and 276 max.
Once Jocy started killing real mobs, even with some macro problems, she got up to an average 1346 DPS.
Finally, with her equipment pretty much straightened out and fighting real mobs, she raised that number to 1596 DPS.
I don’t know what are good or bad numbers because of the squish and my own lack of playing. Jocy’s plan is to be good enough to do the things she needs to do, and to continue improving.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Building a Level 90 Paladin From Scratch

Building a Level 90 Paladin From Scratch

Part One of building a paladin begins with young Jocy, a level 27 paladin who was all but forgotten in Silvermoon City. As a reward for signing up for the Warlords of Draenor (WoD) expansion, the gods of WoW allowed one player of any level to be “boosted” to max-level 90. The child tapped for that honor was Jocy. The boost also came with a free set of armor for her Holy (healing) spec. She got her Retribution gear (damage dealing) from the Timeless Isle, which Wild and Fist collected for her.

I took a snapshot of Jocy’s gear and specs not long after her boost for comparison in expectation of the next patch. Those results are at the bottom of the post.

Part Two of building a paladin began with the release on 14 October of the Iron Horde pre-patch. This patch is preparation for the coming release of WoD. The biggest change is the “great statistics squish.” I’ll get to the statistics comparison in a moment.

There are a great number of things that have to be done to turn a vanilla wrapped paladin into an effective combatant and healer. Glyphs had to be bought and installed. Enchantments also had to be purchased added to her gear sets. Addons to improve her abilities had to be set up. A long list of spells had to be re-learned, not to mention spells that changed or were deleted by the patch. Finally (I think this is the last thing), spell rotations were set up for combat and healing.  All of that has been completed.

Part Three of building a paladin puts all that hard work into practice. Even after all of the above, Jocy is far from being ready to enter a dungeon or raid. She needs to practice her spell rotations and get comfortable with them. That will be an ongoing task.

Feeling a little more confident, Jocy decided to take a peek in the Blasted Lands, where the invasion from Draenor is expected to emerge from the Portal there. I expected a crowd of players and was prepared to jump into a large battle. That is the kind of thing pre-patches generally have. My past favorite was the house to house battles in Orgrimmar. I was kind of disappointed that Jocy found only a small tent camp and a couple of quests to get her started. Things were very quiet. The quests required killing, but Jocy wasn’t ready for that just yet. Soon, though, after some work on the practice dummy, she’s going back to the Blasted Lands.

Comments on getting the patch installed: The first attempt failed utterly. The second attempt at loading the game went pretty well, though. There was one issue that resulted in having to do a computer reboot, but once that was done patch 6.0.2.19033 loaded without any problems. I’d have to say overall it was a pretty smooth transition. Another very pleasant surprise is that my more important addons all had up-to-date upgrades supporting the patch. The only addon that failed was Xperl, which I have been using practically since I first started playing. The author has abandoned it, it hasn’t been updated in a year, it isn’t stable, and its too complicated to fix. I can use the default setup that WoW provides for now. Eventually I’ll have to select and learn one of the other addons that provide similar features, particularly when/if I consider raiding.

I took a snapshot of Jocy’s gear and specs after the patch went live but before all of the gear upgrades she got. That should give a good comparison of the before and after statistics as a result of the squishing of stats. The stats look very vanilla WoW sized. I’m going to hunt down an old snapshot at some point and compare Wild’s vanilla stat set with what he has now. That should be interesting.

Pre-Patch Stats


Post Patch Stats
 And that’s a Wrap!

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Warlords of Draenor (WoD), Patch 6.02: The Iron Tide

The Missus is on a short trip to Palm Springs and has left me to fend for myself for a day. I have a long list of honey-dos to keep me out of trouble. Most of the work involves taking care of our cats, three of which need regular medications. But I do have time for an announcement: I am going to restart this blog again. Somewhat paradoxically, the first thing I’m going to talk about is why I’ll be playing WoW even less than usual for a few weeks, even though a new patch is coming out in just three days.

First of all, I am in the final stages of finishing my novel. Ok, so I’ve claimed to be “almost done” more than a couple of times. This time, it may even be true. Twenty-seven chapters are complete, and for the first time the chapters still to be finished (Chapters 28-32) are already mapped out, ready for me to fill in the details.
Complicating both WoW and the novel, our RV trip to the east coast to visit relatives is just around the corner. The RV is currently in the shop getting a thorough checkup. I’ll have the laptop so I can keep up with any WoW news when I have internet access. What I wasn’t expecting was the announcement of the pre-Warlords of Draenor patch was being released this coming Tuesday. I know the full WoD release is planned for November, but the pre-patch slipped up on me unawares.

I’m going to carve out some time to check out the patch next week. I have three max level 90 characters to choose from. I’ll be most comfortable trotting out the veteran Wildshard, but I can also pick from two other level 90 characters, the Monk Fist and the Paladin Jocy. I am constantly changing my mind about which to start with, but I spent my player “boost” on bumping Jocy from level 27 to level 90 and I really want to learn to play a paladin. Jocy is my choice, subject to change.

I haven’t been totally derelict regarding the incoming patch. I gleaned the information below from the patch notes.

The pre-WoD patch has finally been announced. Next week (14 Oct) the World of Warcraft will shift on its axis in preparation for the coming release.

There are a ton of changes in this patch. The new/old enemy are orcs coming from a parallel universe on Draenor, called the Iron Horde. The initial attack begins in the Blasted Lands, which I think most everyone will be able to participate in. Level 90 only players can gain access to Blackrock Spire and enter the 5 player dungeon, Upper Blackrock Spire. NOTE to Myself: Place Jocy in the Blasted Lands BEFORE the patch, to avoid the flood of players heading that way on Tuesday.

We are tramping over very old ground, as the Blasted Lands and Blackrock have been sacked and destroyed innumerable times since the original, vanilla game came out in 2004. The familiar ground should help players adjust to all of the game changes in the new patch as we learn and deal with them. And that is likely the point.

Wild and his family have chosen to stay away from groups and raids, at least for now. Those players who are looking to group up, however, will find many changes (hopefully improvements) to get players together to kill things.

Questing has gotten more options to improve that necessary aspect of the game. The Quest Tracker automatically lists quests in order of how close they are to you. Quests don’t take up bag space anymore, either.

There are so many changes in how bags are handled, and so many changes in where things can be stored, it will take my bank manager, Happy, some time to get that all sorted out. One thing Happy’s noticed, though, is bag sales remain high despite the incoming changes. The newest bag will have 30 slots. There are all-purpose bags with 26 and 28 slots in the game now, but they are so expensive most players stayed with the much cheaper 20 and 22 slot bags. I’m really interested to see how the 30 slot bag is crafted and what Wild (who is a tailor and plans to make those bags) needs to learn to do to make them. Wild won’t even have to level up from 90 to 100 to learn how to make them, either.

There is more help for those who always need more bag space, too. Many items that stack up to 20 now stack up to 200. Now Happy can store even more stuff that he already has too many of to sell. One thing Happy has learned over time, though - almost everything has a price, and a buyer. You just have to put the two together. Banks also get a new, special reagent bank tab, adding more storage. And crafter's will be able to use reagents from that tab from wherever the crafting takes place. No more having raiders leave a raid to go get materials to craft something important. It can be done on the spot.

The “squashing” of character stats also goes into place. Repeat after me - This is NOT A NERF. Supposedly everything is balanced out so that you are as good - or as bad - as you were before the patch. Many stats have been removed from the game completely to further simplify what had become runaway stats. These changes are going to affect Pandaria items as well, something that isn’t usually done. There are going to be some befuddled folks wondering who messed with their stats.

Reforging items is no longer possible. Good riddance. It was a pain to keep up with, and it was practically a forced requirement for raiders.

Resurrection spells have also undergone changes when grouped up. All available spells are placed in a pool. The availability of a spell is based on a timer with a cooldown. Players must still cast their own spell, so group leaders will likely have to make rules on when and who should cast them. The nice thing is that these spells can be charged up and reused, depending on the length of the encounter.

That is just a smattering of all the changes. I’ll have more to say next week, if I can get Jocy ready.

Friday, October 10, 2014

One Bag of Gold Too Many
Posted on July 10, 2014
One Bag of Gold Too Many

Note: This originally appeared on my J Walker Bell website. I am adding it here now that I am going to back to using this blog.

If you’ve found your way to this blog and aren’t sure what World of Warcraft (WoW) or Warlords of Draenor (WoD) is then you are at the right place!

Still here? Great! Welcome to the World of Warcraft, and the adventures of my main character in this world, Wildshard (aka “Wild”), and his extended family of adventurers.

The following is a VERY brief synopsis, just to set the table. WoW is an MMO (Massively Multi-player Online game) released in 2004. I started playing in 2005, and since that first release WoW has released four expansions: Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria. The latest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, was released to beta players on June 26th. I was fortunate to get an invitation to help beta test the new release, and I’ll have a lot more to say about that in later posts.

I’ve been playing the game for nine years now, long enough to see the ebb and flow not only of the game, but of my own playing as well. Right now my playing is at a low ebb, focused mostly on maintaining a presence in the game and collecting gold for use when I decide to become more active. I have close to two dozen characters, three of which are at the maximum level of 90 (which, in WoD, will rise to level 100).
My banking player is named Happy, a goblin who loves his job. Happy works the Auction House, the equivalent of the stock market in the real world. He’s good at his job (if only I could use him in the real stock market!). He is so good that this morning I discovered that the mysterious game lords have set an upper limit on just how much gold he is allowed to accumulate. Happy is not happy at the moment, fuming like a dragon who’s been told he can’t add any more treasure to his lair. Happy, by the way, rides a two headed dragon when conducting business. His dragon isn’t very happy, either.

The solution to Happy’s problem isn’t likely to make him feel better. Wild and his family is going to become more active again, taking on the new challenges coming with Warlords of Draenor. That will require spending gold, likely a lot of gold, and Happy’s problem goes away. Happy hates spending gold even more than loves making it, but he was somewhat mollified by the opportunity to work the Auction House with a new expansion full of fresh goods and eager buyers.

I am still considering just how active I will be in the beta testing and final release of WoD. The game can be truly immersing and a real pleasure to play. My level 90 players – Wild, Fist, and Jocey – are very rusty from disuse and it will take some practice to get back into the swing of things. On the other hand, if there are some readers interested in starting with a fresh character and learning the game from the ground up, this would be a good window to try the game. There are a couple of ways to play for free, at least for a few levels, and even supply a guide to help get started.


Monday, April 21, 2014

Wildshard's Adventures is Relocating

Hi,

I am busy creating a new website that will bring together several projects. This will likely be the last entry in this blog. The chronicling of Wildshard's adventures, and those of his extended family, will continue, just not here.

The new location can be found at:

Wildshard's Family Adventures under the category "Wildshard, My Warcraft Family"

The site is still under construction, so wear the appropriate armor when visiting. Thanks for all those who've participated over the years, and please join me at the new site!

Wildshard, aka Charlie

PS - I will continue to check in here for awhile, at least until I get the sign in set up at the new website. Drop me a comment here if there are any questions.

Friday, April 4, 2014

My Apologies to League of Legends

My Apologies to League of Legends

I've been having ongoing login issues with my primary game, World of Warcraft. I could make angry accusations at what I went through, but I've cooled down enough to let that all go now. While wrestling with that issue, I went looking for something else to play, and League of Legends (LoL) was recommended. League of Legends is a free game that is a lot of fun to play. I went so far as to get it installed (simple and easy) take the short "get to know the game" tutorial, and played a few tune up games against the computer. Unfortunately, real life intervened and my gaming time went down considerably for a time.

When I was able to spend a little more time on playing, the issues with the Warcraft login were finally (hopefully) resolved by switching from the standard Warcraft Launcher to the Battle.net launcher, which seems to avoid the login issues. That's the long way around of explaining why I'm not playing LoL.

Back to Warcraft, I checked into getting the pre-release upgrade from Mists of Pandaria to Warlords of Draenor (WoD). The WoD expansion won't be available until the end of the year, but buying the pre-release still allows me to "boost" one character up to the max 90 level. I have planned all along to boost Jocelyn, my young level 27 paladin, to level 90. Today I did just that. She got a new set of i483 gear, courtesy of the boost. She got Holy spec gear (for healing), which is what I wanted. Wild and JB had also been collecting gear on the Timeless Isle, and had six pieces of i496 gear available for Jocey. She chose Retribution (damage dealing) as her secondary spec and used the Timeless Isle gear to fill some of her retribution gear slots. Jocey had about 7,000 gold and spent most of it buying fill in pieces. Surprisingly, Jocey hasn't asked Happy for any gold. Yet. I thought that the gear for sale would be cheap, but knowing that boosted players are going to need additional gear has kept prices fairly high. The closer to the release of WoD, the higher the price will get for that gear. Jocey likely got a bargain by buying early.

Getting a boosted character was relatively easy. After paying the $50 (it's $60 for additional character boosts after the first one), a button appears on the character screen. You have to decide what your main spec is, and once that is done the change appears instantaneously. The character gets a full set of gear for the selected spec, and then there is the work of setting talents and buying the secondary spec from the trainer. I was really annoyed when Jocey seemed to have lost all of the items in her bags. She got a full set of embersilk bags, which was great, but they were empty! Not to worry - it took about a half hour, but Jocey got mail and all of her old gear and items in her bags were all returned to her. Note, though, that boosting a character under level 60 will wipe out all profession gains made. I planned on changing Jocey's professions anyway, so it was no big deal to me. At level 90 she should be able to grind through her professions pretty quickly.

All in all it was a pretty simple and painless transition. Now I just need to learn how to play a paladin again.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Wrestling with Warcraft

Wrestling with Warcraft

Blizzard makes my head hurt. On the one hand, they are feeding my obsession by announcing just yesterday (10 March) that I can pre-order the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor (WoD), even though it's not expected to be released until this fall. Why would anyone pre-order that early? Well, because of the "Boost to 90" opportunity. The idea is that when WoD is released each account would be able to boost one of their characters (even a newly made level 1) instantly to level 90. The boosted character would get a set of green i483 gear (a decent starter set), 150 gold, and a full set of 22 slot bags (worth about 2,000 gold). If the character is at least level 60, learned professions are boosted to max level 600 as well. What makes this intriguing is that the boost can be done NOW, instead of having to wait for WoD. I am very tempted to pre-order and boost my level 27 paladin, Jocey, to level 90 right away.

On the other hand, Blizzard is making me really angry. I've started having connection problems with WoW. For quite awhile now I've been experiencing random disconnects. If I were raiding I'd have been a lot more worried about that, but since I'm not doing anything that affects other players, the disconnects were only an annoyance, not a game breaker. I could immediately log back in, so no big deal.

Well, now I'm having a problem with the Warcraft Launcher hanging with a greyed out PLAY button. It started a week or so ago and has gotten progressively worse. Yesterday I spent more time with a hung screen than I spent in game. Last night I gave up after numerous attempts to login failed at the launcher. Note that the failure affects only Warcraft. All my other programs and Internet connections work just fine. Even so, I took the computer, modem, and router through all the trouble testing and they checked out fine.

I put in trouble tickets, of course. Blizzard "answers" them, sort of, and I sent copious data to them, but nothing they've suggested has worked. I'm on my fifth ticket now. The situation as it stands is that Blizzard is blaming my Internet carrier, Cox Cable, and Cox Cable is blaming Blizzard. What little coherent information I've been able to get is that there is a network hop somewhere in Los Angeles that is causing dropped service. Apparently, no one is responsible for it (or is willing to admit it). The Cox Cable guy I talked to (I was directed specifically to him because he is a network/server tech and personally deals with all Blizzard issues) said that about this time every year the same thing happens. Players complain on the forums, and Blizzard tells them to go complain to their Internet provider. When they do, Blizzard says, see, the Internet provider is getting complaints, so it must be their problem. Sure they are, because Blizzard passed the buck to them. But, note that the problem affects other Internet services, not just Cox.

In Blizzard's world this is just a little blip. One technician said exactly that. Millions of players can access the game just fine, so it's not their problem that I can't. Really, that's what she said.

This morning I was happy to see that the Launcher is working. I get a nice, live Launcher PLAY button. Of course, this is Tuesday and the game is down for maintenance. I fully expect that once the game is live again I'll be treated to a greyed out PLAY button again.

Why do I keep trying to play this game?

Saturday, February 8, 2014

The Big Dump

The release of the next expansion, Warlords of Draenor (WoD) is being predicted as somewhere between July and September. The trend has shown increasingly long beta releases of at least six months. So, there is still a very long wait for the actual release. However, the beta release could be very soon - this month, even, or, more likely, March.

The waiting game has started to have a rather dramatic affect on Happy's business. The last two weekend cycles have been chaotic. Many items were being dumped on the Auction House and bargain basement prices, as if the sellers suddenly realized their huge stocks were about to become worthless. The flood of goods began to subside in the second week, and prices rose . . .  and rose. Was there a buying frenzy now? No. Buyers stopped buying.

One would think that if no one was buying, then prices would go down. That wasn't the case. Items on the AH would expire, and someone would post a higher starting price on the item. Without buyers, though, the stock just sat there, with minimal reductions. It would expire again, and an even higher price would be posted. A good example are volatiles. Volatiles stack up to 200, and Happy had a whole 24 slot bag full of the five types. In the run up to the dump Happy sold a lot, and I mean a LOT of volatiles. The prices kept rising and Happy kept selling. Happy's problem now is that the prices are now sky high, and the buying has stopped. No one is posting new volatiles for sale, either, so Happy can't replenish his stock with discounted goods. The same thing is happening with most of the things that Happy sells.

Weird things start happening when the market does the unexpected. Happy sells various bags. High end bags don't sell in volume, but bring a pretty high profit for the cost. Happy knows exactly what price to pay for the mats (cloth and dust) required to make a bag for the price Happy wants the customer to pay. Those prices are pretty resistant to change, because of the comparatively low volume. Well, the price of cloth climbed with the other stuff on the AH and has stubbornly stayed there. Paradoxically, Happy's competitors have been significantly dropping the price of bags, even though their costs have to be rising. That doesn't make sense to me. If they think the old bags will become useless, I beg to differ. The price of last expansion's Frostweave bag (20 slots) sells for around 250g. The current expansion Embersilk bag (22 slots) run around 500g. The newest bag is a 26 slot bag that sells for 2500g. Imagine the cost of the next bag in WoD. Frostweave and Embersilk bags are still going to be good sellers. For now, Happy is waiting them out because the margin of profit has gotten pretty slim.

Predicting when the next release will come out is a dicey game. But, predicting when the player base decides that the current "stuff" is no longer valuable due to the coming next expansion is even more difficult to predict. This may just be a bubble that will burst. Or, it may be a sign of further upheaval as we all try to predict what will remain valuable and what has become trash that no one will buy anymore.

Happy may be wringing his hands over his profits, but he blows off steam flying around on his new mount, the Iron Skyreaver. The two-headed dragon is a sweet ride with a set of afterburners that light up when airborne. The dragon has a menacing roar and can do loops and rolls in the air. Truly cool. JB also took it out for some herb farming and had a blast.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

What Parental Controls?

What Parental Controls?

Blizzard Entertainment, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that I have a child. I know this because I discovered a few days ago that parental controls have been set on my account. I don't know what those controls are, of course, since they seem to think I'm the child. So far the only evidence of the controls (and how I even knew they were there) is that I tried to look at the in game shop. I received a warning that I was not allowed access to that feature.

I then played a circular game with Blizzard that started with me trying to figure out what had been done and how to undo it. The instructions eventually led me to submit a request to reset parental controls. So I sent the request. Which, not so promptly, but eventually, was returned as an error message. I submitted a trouble ticket two days ago.

Today I received a reply. Here is one of the funnier requirements. I am required to provide "A legible photocopy of the identification of the current registered Battle.net account user, displaying the full legal name, date of birth, and the ID's expiration date (if applicable). Acceptable forms of identification for the child are: Passport, Driver's License, State ID, Military ID (with the back photocopied), or Birth Certificate. School IDs are not accepted." Apparently I must validate that I have a child before I can turn off parental controls for the child I DON'T HAVE.

As I was working on this post, I checked in with Battlenet to see if there was an update on the the ticket. The first thing I saw, in large orange letters, was this: "Help! I can't use the in-game shop/Real-Money Auction House anymore!" Apparently, a "recent upgrade to the system" has disabled the in game shop. The explanation notice tried to assure me that it was actually a new feature that I should appreciate - the DEFAULT setting was to turn off access and invoke parental controls. This was all new to me and to everyone else, I assume. The Blizz guy who responded to my ticket must have been in the dark, too. He simply sent me an email telling me my issue was "resolved."

Ok, I got it now. They MEANT to shut down access because, hey, I might be a child. All I have to do now is go to the link where I first activated parental controls. Umm, excuse me, but I NEVER activated parental controls. You, Blizzard, activated them. No, I don't have that email you think I have. You'll send it to me. Go right ahead, but but that part of the circle I've already been around once and it ends in an error message.

Finally, I got this: "If you want to completely remove Parental Controls from your account and you are a legal adult in your country of residence, please contact us for assistance." You know where this is going. "Contact us" sent me right back to the support site. Where I started.

I am now going to try their new Call Back system, where I should get a real person to talk to. The feature was enabled a week ago. I'm sure its working fine. Stay tuned . . .

Well, that didn't take long. The Call Back feature is Offline.

You know, I'm pretty sure that if I had a kid, I'd know about it. Even better, he or she would know exactly how to get around this mess. Me, the parent, certainly doesn't have a clue. Obviously, Blizzard doesn't have a clue, either. They should hire my imaginary child.

There is some good news about all this - I can't access the in game shop, so I won't be tempted to buy anything. So there, Blizz. Oh, and I submitted another ticket.