AH game and all

For the last week or so I haven't been able to play as much as I would have wanted to. Real life takes priority and so it should always be. I've had enough time to check and run my AH mule, a chore from which I've taken much pleasure: it's a completely different battleground over there.

What I've noticed lately -amazingly- is the fact that Titanium and Titansteel have dropped in price considerably. No wonder really, as they are the 'old news': Primordial Saronite is the new Titansteel, so the MUDflation takes its toll. The same has happened to the crafted gear which used to be around 2k just a month ago. They are around the material prices currently, making the crafters very sad trolls everywhere. A little point I wrote about in the Nomadic Gamer last week, or at least a tangent to that post in a way. Everyone wants to be the hero so no one cares about the ones wanting to be the master crafter. Because everyone IS the master crafter already.

The flipside of this top heavy game is the fact that the lower and especially mid level crafting materials are constantly rising in price. There is a known threshold at the crafting materials around the last levels in Old Azeroth and around the last levels of Outlands. Clearly the reason to this is the fact that people are skipping those last areas so totally that the gathering of materials from those areas is forgotten.

The implications in levelling new crafting skill through AH becomes pretty pricey around the middle of the craft's levels. And that's the area the AH game is the most interesting to me.

I don't fancy the overcompeted glyph market, nor the Netherweave bag market. Sure, they are the fire and forget markets with possibility to create fast and fabulous wealth (and I'm not that fast and fabulous... nor bored). It's the snatching the few underpriced mats from the market and flipping them to more proper prices that makes me tick in a way. Sure, I craft some from time to time, but just to fill the holes I see in the AH listings, mainly for enchantments and bags, but that's just some extra.

Now, if someone would explain to me why people are still buying the vanity pets from AH, the pets which are sold in Dalaran? The vendor sells them for 40g a piece, but you can sell one in AH for anything from 70g to 120g.

What is your way of putting some extra cash into your character's pocket?

Setting group atmosphere

Atmosphere is a very important aspect when rating an activity. Even when a Pug results in numerous wipes but in the mean time you had fun with the people in there and the overall atmosphere was good, then chances are you still had a good time, despite of the wipes.

By now we all know the silent LFD-Pug runs. You enter, say hi (if at all) and continue with the run without further chit-chat. To be honest, with those kind of runs, I always try very hard to lighten the mood in the first seconds, but when the other 4 just stay silent then at some point I stop trying and turn into my own game again for the 20 minute lasting silent-treatment.

This, however, is an issue that is bound to have been up on several blogposts since the LFD-tool was introduced. No, what I want to talk about is a pretty specific element from general Pugs, which is the' starter instructions' which can be linked to my earlier post "To Tank or not to tank, thats the question"

As a healer during the leveling process, and later in my tank role I have been thinking about building a pretty simple macro which can either be aimed at one single character or the entire party chat. At some point I was triggered to write a blogpost about it when Garumoo gave us an insight in his macro for addressing tanks at the start of of Pug.

But my issue has always been, how will it affect group atmosphere when the first thing you say is "K, listen up; 1: You pull, you tank (and most likely die); 2:I determine the pace etc etc". When you bring it in a kind manner, people will just have a laugh at you, and for example when you are the tank, they will purposely start pulling things for you to 'catch'. If you start of with a harsh message, somewhat like I just gave as an example, people will see you as one of the elitist jerks.

Will the healer (if you are the tank) be more willing to do his best when you start barking orders. Will the tank be more likely to stay if at the first few seconds of entry, he gets told several 'orders' on how his behavior should be? I'm most certainly not amused when at the start I get told (what I already know and take into account) to stay in range of the healer, wait for his mana etc OR ELSE... then I'm not that eager to tank the instance anymore. I am aware of the fact that there are tons of jerk-tanks out there, but that doesnt instantly mean I'm one of them.

A solution would be to only do those messages when things turn sour. Tank chain-pulls the entire instance, trigger happy dps etc. But at that point the atmosphere is already pretty grim and when you start handing out tips the group is more likely to fall apart then give it another go.

A completely different point of view would be that pugs nowadays are very short and why would one even attempt to create any kind of atmosphere when you will most likely never see those players again. But think about it, for some players, doing pugs is the majority of their playtime. If we add all those 20 minute runs, how much would be left outside of the pug to create the atmosphere?

Eric on the Elder game actually made an excelent post about the size of the community compared to the anonymity of the players. When you reflect that post on the LFD pugs, you see a small group (meaning less anonymous) but with a playing/shared time of 20 minutes the effect of the small group is completely negated. So again, why would you bother?

Personally I caught myself several times being more focused on the guild chat than on the pug I was running. When chat in the guild is fun, and the party is as silent as an isolation cell then people will focus less on the party, and more on the guild. Not a good development if you ask me.

So what do you all say?

Just accept the silent treatment and just 'get what we came for'? Or do you actively try to create some atmosphere and just have some fun with other people in what has turned into a daily HC grind?

Random thought: Nerfing the more accessible

I've had a terrible weekend and it seems that the rest of the week becomes as terrible, too. You see, real life has dictated that I shall not play the game (except for the short stints of keeping my AH business running).

Nevertheless, I have read more than one comment and post over the blog-o-sphere about how the low level instances have been nerfed still to make them more acceptable. I don't get it: first Blizz makes the instances more accessible to the people by the introduction of the new and improved Looking for Dungeon tool, even granting the extra reward for completing a random one with random people. But to nerf the content, still?

Maraudon was a pain in the behind, I agree, and I posted about it way back when my main was at level 50. It has been 'broken' into four 'wings' or areas I hear. Wailing Caverns I wrote about earlier, too, and stated that it has been nerfed so hard that it didn't even bring a sweat on the sub par geared group of the 'proper level range' and Shadowfang Keep is a joke at the moment.

Why nerf the content they made more accessible to all? Are they really so anxious and eager to get everyone up to level cap and kill Arthas/Lich King before they unleash Cataclysm over the old levelling content?

Why have they taken the challenge off of the old instances?

WHY?!?

Best-in-Slot gear concept

The concept of BiS gear (or Best in Slot gear) is a common way to 'rate' drops and or gear. In the 'old days', during vanilla WoW I had the feeling that the BiS gear was almost always the Tier sets and raid boss drops (seen from a leveling point of view, I had just reached 56 when TBC hit). Now, next to the tier sets and raid boss drops, there are also the crafted items, the 'regular' emblem rewards and even the rare trash-mob drops. All in all its not that strange that a concept such as BiS was introduced.

But how important is the BiS gear statistic and how can one actually claim a single item to be the BiS item?

A gear set on any character is built around his class and his talent spec. The total 'package' of gear is balanced around the needs and requirements of the class and player. When you change one piece of gear, it is not uncommon that you will also have to change several other pieces of gear just to restore the balance and benefit the most from your new item. So how can you take one piece of gear out of the lot, and state that it is BiS? Did someone actually put together the ultimate total package of gear for a class/spec combination and according to that is calling each of those items the BiS items for optimal performance? Or is the BiS determined by looking at the individual items and rating them for its stats? (if anybody has more info on this, feel free to enlighten us poor sods) But are those ways of determining BiS gear of any use?

A general player will reach 80, begin to gear up and over time collect more and more items. In general its a dynamic process, where a player will look at the options, and decide on which parts to upgrade, and what parts need upgrading next. This means that when you get your hands on one of these 'mythical' BiS items you should be very happy because its the best gear for you...but is it?

When following the first reasoning (BiS determined on complete gear set) then your lacking a whole load of other items with which this item would be BiS (I haven't yet met a single player yet that just collects gear in the bank until he has a complete set and then starts wearing it). If your using the second method (BiS on individual stats) then how on earth are you going to manage your balance? I mean you already have a gear set, you replace one piece which is supposed to be BiS and all of a sudden your balance is way off (not even to mention that in one fight some stats have a higher importance).

Especially the second way is quite dangerous, for example when using Gear wishlist. For the gear wishlist you can either put together your own weighted stats, or use a general GearScore method. When using the second for Locks for example, items with Hit will always rank higher. But what if I'm already full on hit?

Now, this entire rant might sound I'm completely against the BiS concept, but I'm not. The concept is good, it gives an overall impression of the best items to go for out there. What I am against is the abuse of the term (as has happened to so many other terms). Players use the term BiS at their own convenience and do not look at the boundary conditions which are important when selecting gear.

In all kinds of chats (be it general, trade or guildchat) you hear people using the term. But how many actually know what they are saying? How many know how the BiS item they grabbed from some random website was determined?

When looking at it from a distance, it all comes down to the (in)famous GearScore again and the everlasting discussion regarding its use and abuse...

Three rode again

The nights like last one are too far and too apart: you see, the Three Stooges went together to mess things up and ... well, messy...

As it happens, my brother Förgelös (rogue, lv74) has very little time to devote to the game, so I and my other brother, Bishopgeorge (Shadow/disc priest), have overlevelled him already. Quite badly, as you can see. But that did slow down our bad humor, disgraceful dying and making fools of ourselves.

Due to the level difference it's quite possible for us to three man almost any of the normal pre-80 5 man instances. Due to the possible drops we settled for the Azjol Nerub and Ahn'Kahet. Well, part of the reason was also that in running heroics there is never time to look around and admire the scenery. Like Bishop so cleverly put it: "Random heroic runs are like you had a tunnel vision: faster, faster, where's the next mob". And in most cases you don't even get the time to really 'learn' the mobs.

So we did AN first. Cool runnings, time to see the scenery and show Förgelös the bosses and their specialities. I wonder why Blizzard has put so much effort in making the unreachable areas of this instance (the levels you see while dropping from Hadronox's lair down to the bottom) so extremely beautiful? Because I had seen the slow motion version (some paladin buffed me with the slow falling buff once), we took the priestly way of descending by levitation, and the brothers shared my thoughts: the sights are beautiful, the graphics outstandingly alien and compelling.

I as the tank didn't tell anything about the bosses except what the rogue dps should concentrate on. Too much information would have spoiled the fun in Anub already, let alone in the OK we hit next. By the way, this was the first time I used the 'right' exit from AN, which I was surprised to find out there?!

Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom was the mess it always is. I think the place is something in which the developers have wanted to recreate something similar as -say- Wailing Caverns, but in a bit more condensed format. The result? Messy, sprawling place with no red line. With loads of extremely intriguing details and places out there, where you cannot reach in any ways.

This was the third run I've had in OK where the moss boss was missing: Is it a bug or has that boss been removed? I'm inclined to believe that it's a bug, as the outline and figure of the boss was hovering over several of the blue bonfires around the instance, reminding that there has been such a creature. But the boss was nowhere to find.

Herald Volazj was the encounter I was referring to when I stated that I gave as little information as possible of the bosses: I remember my initial surprise when he cast the nightmare vision on me for the first time and the disgust of having to fight myself there, so I wanted Förgelös to experience the thing himself. And it was a shock: when I had downed my opponents I 'woke up' to see Förgelös running away from his counterparts at the rim of the room, obviously not noticing how weak they were!

The instances were fun to three man, and netted pretty decent gear for the newly dinged lv74 rogue. It gave us level capped, but instance overlevelled players the possibility to look around, learn and see the fights at a lot slower pace, making it easier later on to take the challenges on higher level.

Then again, the challenge in heroics is more to cope with the rest of the group than with the instance bosses themself. Sad, isn't it?