WE ARE BACK!
There is yet some work to do on the computer, but as of this morning the World of Warcraft is back in the game. Tiphaine is still in charge. Chaitee has her Auction House back in order and Dominos has straightened out the ordering of the layouts for Chaitee, Sista, and Keya.
Blizzard made a play to reactivate the Wild Family too, on the secondary account, but that costs real money and no one took the bait. The rest of Tiphaine's family is standing by for their moment to start work again.
So far so good.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Friday, April 21, 2017
Sword-n-Board
Sword-n-Board
Keya and Sista are bored of world quests and endless farming. There's enough gold in Chaitee's pocket to give those two some time off.
Plus, the Auction House in one of it's funks and there is little action on that front.
Enter Rakta. Between leveling bugs, Jewel crafting, and Alchemy, she's a mess of broken quests and profession dead ends. She has seven total quests to her name, only three of which have any bearing on her situation.
Determined to be productive, Rakta has been catching up on her Skyhold Order Hall quests. Rakta got off to a rocky start on Wednesday morning. She had just finished turning in her Order Hall quest. She went to the Skyhold drop, selected Dalaran, and jumped. She's done this several times and it's always a thrill, seeing herself flying down to Dalaran like a burning missile.
This time, however, the Gods of WoW burped or something and Rakta did not land at Dalaran. Rakta was unceremoniously dropped a long way down to Azsuna's Timeworn Strand in level 110 PvP territory. May I remind folks that Rakta is level 101. Amazingly she survived the fall.
Her luck held. She wasn't in any immediate danger. She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers and used her hearthstone to return to Dalaran. Rakta hopes that the rest of her day doesn't turn out like her start did.
Rakta's problems didn't end there, though. She needs ore to work on her jewel crafting, which she can't do herself, because she's not a miner. The decision to pair jewel crafting with Alchemy "seemed" like a good choice back in Dalaran when it was made, but it's a really poor decision considering Rakta's need.
There's no way Rakta is going to give up 700 alchemy profession points to start farming rocks at level 1. So she turned to Java, who IS learning Mining and is already at 737 toward max 800. The two will share time. Java gathers rocks and sends them to Rakta, who can then work on her jewel crafting. It works to Java's advantage as well. Along with breaking rocks she did a little questing (ok, a lot of questing), and advanced to level 104.
Daily Gold Tally: 651,212 gold
Keya and Sista are bored of world quests and endless farming. There's enough gold in Chaitee's pocket to give those two some time off.
Plus, the Auction House in one of it's funks and there is little action on that front.
Enter Rakta. Between leveling bugs, Jewel crafting, and Alchemy, she's a mess of broken quests and profession dead ends. She has seven total quests to her name, only three of which have any bearing on her situation.
Determined to be productive, Rakta has been catching up on her Skyhold Order Hall quests. Rakta got off to a rocky start on Wednesday morning. She had just finished turning in her Order Hall quest. She went to the Skyhold drop, selected Dalaran, and jumped. She's done this several times and it's always a thrill, seeing herself flying down to Dalaran like a burning missile.
This time, however, the Gods of WoW burped or something and Rakta did not land at Dalaran. Rakta was unceremoniously dropped a long way down to Azsuna's Timeworn Strand in level 110 PvP territory. May I remind folks that Rakta is level 101. Amazingly she survived the fall.
Her luck held. She wasn't in any immediate danger. She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers and used her hearthstone to return to Dalaran. Rakta hopes that the rest of her day doesn't turn out like her start did.
Rakta's problems didn't end there, though. She needs ore to work on her jewel crafting, which she can't do herself, because she's not a miner. The decision to pair jewel crafting with Alchemy "seemed" like a good choice back in Dalaran when it was made, but it's a really poor decision considering Rakta's need.
There's no way Rakta is going to give up 700 alchemy profession points to start farming rocks at level 1. So she turned to Java, who IS learning Mining and is already at 737 toward max 800. The two will share time. Java gathers rocks and sends them to Rakta, who can then work on her jewel crafting. It works to Java's advantage as well. Along with breaking rocks she did a little questing (ok, a lot of questing), and advanced to level 104.
Daily Gold Tally: 651,212 gold
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
A Little Baseball
A Little Baseball
The San Diego Padres played one of their worst games in memory at home last night against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The final score was 11-2, but it was much worse than just the score. Not only did the Diamondbacks get 11 runs, they left ten more men on the bases. Think how much worse it would have been had those 10 men scored. There was one inning the Padres pitcher loaded the bases. The pitcher then threw four straight balls, walking in the runner. The Diamondbacks also hit a grand slam. The Padres committed FOUR errors. I doubt there is another team in the majors with that many errors in the same game.
None of that was most the embarrassing sight. The Padres have a player named Bethancourt. He is listed as the backup catcher, but he has also been used as a pinch hitter AND as a pitcher. No one else in baseball has such a player, and there are reasons for not doing such things. The Padres manager, Green, say it shows versatility. Most everyone else says it just means he's bad at three things instead of one. Find your strength and stick with it, I say. But I'm not the manager.
Tonight in the late innings Bethancourt was sent to the plate to pinch hit. He grounded out. And then he went to the mound and pitched - not well, but he was in good company. THEN they moved him to second base. I'm sorry to say I was at the ball park and saw the whole miserable thing. Few did. Attendance at the 43,000 seat stadium had an announced crowd of about 19,000.
The San Diego Padres played one of their worst games in memory at home last night against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The final score was 11-2, but it was much worse than just the score. Not only did the Diamondbacks get 11 runs, they left ten more men on the bases. Think how much worse it would have been had those 10 men scored. There was one inning the Padres pitcher loaded the bases. The pitcher then threw four straight balls, walking in the runner. The Diamondbacks also hit a grand slam. The Padres committed FOUR errors. I doubt there is another team in the majors with that many errors in the same game.
None of that was most the embarrassing sight. The Padres have a player named Bethancourt. He is listed as the backup catcher, but he has also been used as a pinch hitter AND as a pitcher. No one else in baseball has such a player, and there are reasons for not doing such things. The Padres manager, Green, say it shows versatility. Most everyone else says it just means he's bad at three things instead of one. Find your strength and stick with it, I say. But I'm not the manager.
Tonight in the late innings Bethancourt was sent to the plate to pinch hit. He grounded out. And then he went to the mound and pitched - not well, but he was in good company. THEN they moved him to second base. I'm sorry to say I was at the ball park and saw the whole miserable thing. Few did. Attendance at the 43,000 seat stadium had an announced crowd of about 19,000.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Correcting the Record
Correcting the Record
It's maintenance morning this Tuesday and maintenance is actually being performed. Most of the time the maintenance is already over by 7am or so. This one is planned 'til 11am. We'll see.
I was leafing through some of the posts and noted an error in the reporting. I though it might be interesting to see how many of my "facts" turned out to be wrong.
"Order Hall Killing." In this post Keya was attacked in her Order Hall as a test of Keya's progress. That's what I thought happened. Wrong. What really happened, I learned later, is that the Order Hall itself had been attacked by a Legion elite. The result was the same, dead elite, but now it makes more sense.
"Rakta Gets Smarter." Rakta doesn't get much time to work, but she did manage to finish the tasks required to earn the Alchemy Profession. She expected to be able to learn at least the basics in potions, flasks, etc before being blocked by a dungeon run. Wrong. Rakta can only complete the first seven quests before being blocked by a dungeon requirement: "Eye of Aszhara: Put a Cork in It." At that level Rakta can't even craft the simplest legion level flask.
"Getting Bloody." What is the name of the new island in Warcraft? I thought it was called "The Broken Shores." No. Technically, it's called "Broken Shore" and it's the new zone released in Patch 7.2. Wait, isn't it called the "Broken Isles?" No, "Broken Isles" is a NEW island off the coast of Broken Shore, called Broken Isles. Get it? Zero points for originality. Maybe in the next patch we'll get a new zone called "Gilligans Island."
"Chasing Jewels." I've listed this one not because Rakta has reached a block with her Jewelcrafting quests yet, but because I distrust the process she's forced to follow. She has, in good faith, mapped out a total of 12 quests to get to her goal of learning lock picking. I don't think Rakta will be allowed to reach that goal. You watch.
Well, that takes me up to the end of February. In a couple more months I'm sure to find more errors to giggle or groan over.
It's maintenance morning this Tuesday and maintenance is actually being performed. Most of the time the maintenance is already over by 7am or so. This one is planned 'til 11am. We'll see.
I was leafing through some of the posts and noted an error in the reporting. I though it might be interesting to see how many of my "facts" turned out to be wrong.
"Order Hall Killing." In this post Keya was attacked in her Order Hall as a test of Keya's progress. That's what I thought happened. Wrong. What really happened, I learned later, is that the Order Hall itself had been attacked by a Legion elite. The result was the same, dead elite, but now it makes more sense.
"Rakta Gets Smarter." Rakta doesn't get much time to work, but she did manage to finish the tasks required to earn the Alchemy Profession. She expected to be able to learn at least the basics in potions, flasks, etc before being blocked by a dungeon run. Wrong. Rakta can only complete the first seven quests before being blocked by a dungeon requirement: "Eye of Aszhara: Put a Cork in It." At that level Rakta can't even craft the simplest legion level flask.
"Getting Bloody." What is the name of the new island in Warcraft? I thought it was called "The Broken Shores." No. Technically, it's called "Broken Shore" and it's the new zone released in Patch 7.2. Wait, isn't it called the "Broken Isles?" No, "Broken Isles" is a NEW island off the coast of Broken Shore, called Broken Isles. Get it? Zero points for originality. Maybe in the next patch we'll get a new zone called "Gilligans Island."
"Chasing Jewels." I've listed this one not because Rakta has reached a block with her Jewelcrafting quests yet, but because I distrust the process she's forced to follow. She has, in good faith, mapped out a total of 12 quests to get to her goal of learning lock picking. I don't think Rakta will be allowed to reach that goal. You watch.
Well, that takes me up to the end of February. In a couple more months I'm sure to find more errors to giggle or groan over.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Playing Catch-up
Playing Catch-up
This post covers a lot of ground, from craziness on the AH, a little surprise PvP, to helping a friend find her lost cat. It covers several days. Try to keep up. :-)
To Begin: Chaitee, Sista, and Keya all took deep breathers, knowing that for many this period will be light because of Easter. Much of Keya's stomping grounds had little to offer.
Then there was the morning that the World of Warcraft was simply not available. After the initial grumbling, the family opted for a lazy afternoon without the wars and the sleepy Auction House. Plenty of time later, when things should again start ramping up for the new week.
In the "Too Crazy Even for Chaitee" category, which is being carried over from earlier in the week, Chaitee has had to tread lightly, wondering what is wrong with buyers and sellers? Actual items for sale like enchants and bags are hardly selling at all. Sellers are playing the game of dropping prices by one silver at a time, just barely underselling the next guy. Why bother, the buyers are on to this and aren't taking the bait. Mat farming is a bit more stable, but Chaitee doesn't know if that will last.
Chaitee is treading lightly, unsure of what the week is going to turn into. It really does look like Sista will spend most of her time her time farming.
What is most amazing to Chaitee is silkweave cloth. This cloth has been a very stable product, reliably selling at 4g apiece, the bag crafted for 360g, and sold for around 500g. That model was blown to bits over the past few days. Silkweave sellers flooded the market with prices as low as 2g. Bags could be crafted for 180g, half the usual cost. The hopeful news is that the AH price for silkweave bags has stayed pretty close to 500g. That assumes someone buys them.
The "cheap" bags, frostweave bags, are doing good business, but that's because sellers are low balling the price (around 240g, while Chaitee is selling at 289g). Chaitee has not been able to force up the price, the chintz's.
As Chaitee was leaving, Keya turned up and just rolled her eyes watching Chaitee go by mumbling to herself.
Keya was a busy girl. Friday night Keya finally decided to invade Stormheim and get a slew of quests out of the way. I think she counted 14 quests completed. She was a bit surprised, pleasantly for a change, when some of those quests granted nice amounts of AP. With the help of a couple of forays into the Broken Shores, she was able to get the 24,000 AP required to add a new rank to her weapon.
It'll take 34,600 AP to get to the next rank. That's a big one, though, called Metamorphosis. It upgrades her Pain talent and turns her into a Demon for a period of time. She has just under 7,000 AP toward that 34,600. Most of the winnings are around 950 AP, so Keya is counting hers by world quest winnings. Using that barometer, Keya needs to complete 28 more world quests to get to the next rank.
That is proving more difficult than Keya expected. After a slew of successes, the number of world quests has dwindled substantially. Those still available offer gear upgrades (Keya has outgrown most of the gear upgrades), order resources (which don't include AP), and building resources, which also exclude AP. She's over 13k now, but that still leaves 21k to go.
Keya reluctantly called it a night, hoping that another day things would bring better success on Sunday. Bunnies beware.
Sunday Morning about 7:15am. Wow won't let me login. Blizzard's fault or is my computer once again acting up. I tried to access the Blizzard forums and that, too, is not responding. Still suspicious of my own computer, I found a site that monitors Battle.net. It's definitely down. By late morning, though, Warcraft was up and running.
Keya has been very lucky entering PvP areas to complete world quests. Twice she's been successful, avoiding confrontation. That luck ended in Aszuna in the well known PvP area there. It was deserted when she arrived, and Keya was getting some good mob killing done. A horde player saw Keya working the mobs and attacked her. Keya never really even saw who killed her. With her strong defense, there must have been more than one. She died quickly. Keya was there for the farming, so after rezzing she left the Pvpers to their game.
Still, she managed to sneak out with 235 AP before they caught up with her.
The Cat Caper. Baba is wonderful cat of a good friend of ours. Our friend was going on vacation for a week and we were going to take care of him while she was gone. Baba slipped out of the house the day before our friend had to leave, and did not come home. What could have been a real trajedy was fortunately cut short when two days later Baba was found in the nearby park by a girl scout group that has an office there. We are picking him up today and will take care of him until our friend gets back.
Okay, I think everything is up to date now. Further updates should be a lot shorter.
This post covers a lot of ground, from craziness on the AH, a little surprise PvP, to helping a friend find her lost cat. It covers several days. Try to keep up. :-)
To Begin: Chaitee, Sista, and Keya all took deep breathers, knowing that for many this period will be light because of Easter. Much of Keya's stomping grounds had little to offer.
Then there was the morning that the World of Warcraft was simply not available. After the initial grumbling, the family opted for a lazy afternoon without the wars and the sleepy Auction House. Plenty of time later, when things should again start ramping up for the new week.
In the "Too Crazy Even for Chaitee" category, which is being carried over from earlier in the week, Chaitee has had to tread lightly, wondering what is wrong with buyers and sellers? Actual items for sale like enchants and bags are hardly selling at all. Sellers are playing the game of dropping prices by one silver at a time, just barely underselling the next guy. Why bother, the buyers are on to this and aren't taking the bait. Mat farming is a bit more stable, but Chaitee doesn't know if that will last.
Chaitee is treading lightly, unsure of what the week is going to turn into. It really does look like Sista will spend most of her time her time farming.
What is most amazing to Chaitee is silkweave cloth. This cloth has been a very stable product, reliably selling at 4g apiece, the bag crafted for 360g, and sold for around 500g. That model was blown to bits over the past few days. Silkweave sellers flooded the market with prices as low as 2g. Bags could be crafted for 180g, half the usual cost. The hopeful news is that the AH price for silkweave bags has stayed pretty close to 500g. That assumes someone buys them.
The "cheap" bags, frostweave bags, are doing good business, but that's because sellers are low balling the price (around 240g, while Chaitee is selling at 289g). Chaitee has not been able to force up the price, the chintz's.
As Chaitee was leaving, Keya turned up and just rolled her eyes watching Chaitee go by mumbling to herself.
Keya was a busy girl. Friday night Keya finally decided to invade Stormheim and get a slew of quests out of the way. I think she counted 14 quests completed. She was a bit surprised, pleasantly for a change, when some of those quests granted nice amounts of AP. With the help of a couple of forays into the Broken Shores, she was able to get the 24,000 AP required to add a new rank to her weapon.
It'll take 34,600 AP to get to the next rank. That's a big one, though, called Metamorphosis. It upgrades her Pain talent and turns her into a Demon for a period of time. She has just under 7,000 AP toward that 34,600. Most of the winnings are around 950 AP, so Keya is counting hers by world quest winnings. Using that barometer, Keya needs to complete 28 more world quests to get to the next rank.
That is proving more difficult than Keya expected. After a slew of successes, the number of world quests has dwindled substantially. Those still available offer gear upgrades (Keya has outgrown most of the gear upgrades), order resources (which don't include AP), and building resources, which also exclude AP. She's over 13k now, but that still leaves 21k to go.
Keya reluctantly called it a night, hoping that another day things would bring better success on Sunday. Bunnies beware.
Sunday Morning about 7:15am. Wow won't let me login. Blizzard's fault or is my computer once again acting up. I tried to access the Blizzard forums and that, too, is not responding. Still suspicious of my own computer, I found a site that monitors Battle.net. It's definitely down. By late morning, though, Warcraft was up and running.
Keya has been very lucky entering PvP areas to complete world quests. Twice she's been successful, avoiding confrontation. That luck ended in Aszuna in the well known PvP area there. It was deserted when she arrived, and Keya was getting some good mob killing done. A horde player saw Keya working the mobs and attacked her. Keya never really even saw who killed her. With her strong defense, there must have been more than one. She died quickly. Keya was there for the farming, so after rezzing she left the Pvpers to their game.
Still, she managed to sneak out with 235 AP before they caught up with her.
The Cat Caper. Baba is wonderful cat of a good friend of ours. Our friend was going on vacation for a week and we were going to take care of him while she was gone. Baba slipped out of the house the day before our friend had to leave, and did not come home. What could have been a real trajedy was fortunately cut short when two days later Baba was found in the nearby park by a girl scout group that has an office there. We are picking him up today and will take care of him until our friend gets back.
Okay, I think everything is up to date now. Further updates should be a lot shorter.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Crash!
Crash!
I've mentioned this before, but it deserves saying again - I hate my new computer. I've only had it a couple of weeks. I can't really blame the computer for today's problems, but I will anyway.
Yesterday Warcraft started locking up. It would load to the character screen, but when loading into the game it would get about two-thirds of the way and just hang.
I did the usual steps: remove addons, reset the Cache, Interface, and WTF folders (that wipes out all the history so that everything will have to be set up all over again). Still couldn't load.
I opened a chat window with a Blizz tech. I won't bore everyone with the details, but he tinkered around for almost an hour and decided the problem was with the video drivers. In the systems settings the graphics bar can be set at different levels, 1-7. My system was set at 7, considered the best setting. The tech turned it down to one. Surprise, but it worked. I was able to login. That was not the fix, though.
Based on that information, the tech determined that the video drivers were out of date - by four months. That didn't sound too bad, and the PC was new, but . . . Okay. I reluctantly installed the new drivers (I have had lots of terrible things happen when updating drivers).
Thankfully this time everything went fine with the drivers. The new driver graphics bar was set at its max of 6.
It now appears to be back up and running. I hope. I've opened Chaitee, Sista, and Keya to make sure those three can get in game.
And now I will spend the rest of the evening getting all my addons and configurations back where they are supposed to be, instead of playing. This part always sucks.
I was planning to take a break when I got word from the missus that our roof is leaking. That wasn't the kind of break I was expecting. DO NOT SAY "When it rains it pours!"
I've mentioned this before, but it deserves saying again - I hate my new computer. I've only had it a couple of weeks. I can't really blame the computer for today's problems, but I will anyway.
Yesterday Warcraft started locking up. It would load to the character screen, but when loading into the game it would get about two-thirds of the way and just hang.
I did the usual steps: remove addons, reset the Cache, Interface, and WTF folders (that wipes out all the history so that everything will have to be set up all over again). Still couldn't load.
I opened a chat window with a Blizz tech. I won't bore everyone with the details, but he tinkered around for almost an hour and decided the problem was with the video drivers. In the systems settings the graphics bar can be set at different levels, 1-7. My system was set at 7, considered the best setting. The tech turned it down to one. Surprise, but it worked. I was able to login. That was not the fix, though.
Based on that information, the tech determined that the video drivers were out of date - by four months. That didn't sound too bad, and the PC was new, but . . . Okay. I reluctantly installed the new drivers (I have had lots of terrible things happen when updating drivers).
Thankfully this time everything went fine with the drivers. The new driver graphics bar was set at its max of 6.
It now appears to be back up and running. I hope. I've opened Chaitee, Sista, and Keya to make sure those three can get in game.
And now I will spend the rest of the evening getting all my addons and configurations back where they are supposed to be, instead of playing. This part always sucks.
I was planning to take a break when I got word from the missus that our roof is leaking. That wasn't the kind of break I was expecting. DO NOT SAY "When it rains it pours!"
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Order Hall Killing
Order Hall Killing
I am a simple man. Present me with quests, great. Add a cool looking weapon. Upgrade it with this stuff called artifact power (AP). Pretend that Order Halls are just more complicated versions of the Draenor variety (it's a thousand ways worse). I was really into the Draenor champions and all that, though the in game reality meant just having a champion at your side that often caused more trouble than they helped.
When I sent Keya to her order Hall, however, the whole thing becomes mostly incomprehensible. Most of the stuff there I have no clue what they do or how and when to use them. Sure, Keya sends out missions. I know that I should be arming my champions, too, but it just doesn't interest me. As long as I get campaigns that get Keya AP I'm happy.
The Research angle doesn't make much sense. I dump order resources into it somewhat randomly without any real understanding of what is the right amount, the right type, the best options, etc.
What got me going this morning is that while fooling around in there I triggered an attack from an elite. That was a surprise! Pictures below. I assumed I set off some kind of test. Like most of Keya's pitched battles, it took time, but Keya killed it. Keya earned Soul Flame of Alacrity and Soul Flame of Insight, which can used in the Broken Isles. Looks like helpful stuff, but I was completely ignorant of the beast in there.
I made an attempt on the web to try and figure out what Keya's progress is in this whole order hall, AP, champions, etc. At what stage is Keya at? I found no way to determine that, nor what the next steps should be.
Keya will continue to cast about for information and continue to do what can be done. The only firm footing Keya has is her warblade and the AP she needs to complete it. Beyond that . . . Keya can only wonder what she's missing.
I am a simple man. Present me with quests, great. Add a cool looking weapon. Upgrade it with this stuff called artifact power (AP). Pretend that Order Halls are just more complicated versions of the Draenor variety (it's a thousand ways worse). I was really into the Draenor champions and all that, though the in game reality meant just having a champion at your side that often caused more trouble than they helped.
When I sent Keya to her order Hall, however, the whole thing becomes mostly incomprehensible. Most of the stuff there I have no clue what they do or how and when to use them. Sure, Keya sends out missions. I know that I should be arming my champions, too, but it just doesn't interest me. As long as I get campaigns that get Keya AP I'm happy.
The Research angle doesn't make much sense. I dump order resources into it somewhat randomly without any real understanding of what is the right amount, the right type, the best options, etc.
What got me going this morning is that while fooling around in there I triggered an attack from an elite. That was a surprise! Pictures below. I assumed I set off some kind of test. Like most of Keya's pitched battles, it took time, but Keya killed it. Keya earned Soul Flame of Alacrity and Soul Flame of Insight, which can used in the Broken Isles. Looks like helpful stuff, but I was completely ignorant of the beast in there.
I made an attempt on the web to try and figure out what Keya's progress is in this whole order hall, AP, champions, etc. At what stage is Keya at? I found no way to determine that, nor what the next steps should be.
Keya will continue to cast about for information and continue to do what can be done. The only firm footing Keya has is her warblade and the AP she needs to complete it. Beyond that . . . Keya can only wonder what she's missing.
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| Keya Killed This Elite in her Order Hall |
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