Hits and misses for Valentines (yawp)

What a bewildering and confusing weekend.

First of all, a market report: my alliance toons on my main server are sitting on 151.671g, which is more or less spot on +30k to the one I had last week. All this from some enchants, glyphs and Obsidium shuffle. What is interesting is the development of Obsidium Ore stack prices: I've been purchasing them at average price of 72g per stack over the week (even for 57g at one point), but now the stack price is over 100g. This makes the shuffle a bit more challenging, but not a shabby income in any case. To add some insult to this injury, I haven't been utilizing the shuffle to the fullest: I still have almost all rare gems in my AH, so if the bad comes worse, I can still sell them either raw, cut or even transmute them to Shadowspirit Diamonds and sell them on nice profit this way.

As 4.0.6 introduced the new meta recipes, the gem market has gone wild and the raw uncommon gems have sold at very interesting prices. Most probably due to the alchemists transmuting everything to Shadowspirit Diamonds, which - naturally - have lost a good chunk of their price due to increased supply.

The other hit I had was when I travelled to Dalaran with my alchemist/jeweller to obtain my first (and with that price the only) Ring of Kirin Tor (Ouch! 7k gone in the wind!). As I was just about to leave and in fact had started my hearthstone, I noticed that the Kaluak Fishing Derby just started. While I have never taken part of any of the Fishing Events in the game, I decided to pop in and see what comes. So I swooped down from Dalaran, headed to the river and started fishing from the schools of fish. I was on my third school, after I had cast about twelve times, when I got the price fish. As the winned hadn't been announced, I flew up and...

I won the Derby! On my first ever try I came, saw and won!

Beginners luck, I just didn't even realize the meaning of the achievement. I just picked the nice account bound levelling ring and was just hearthing out when the first congratulations came from a druid who just missed returning the fish by few seconds. As I got back to Stormwind, I got two whispers: one asking what was my fishing skill (it was 318+20 from the fishing rod) and where I had gotten the fish. The other one was a lengthy discussion with a druid who had been hunting for the achievement for a long time and still couldn't understand how I had won. When I finally got him realize that it wasn't the skill (he had all the best fishing gear, capped fishing and even all fishing enchants on plus the lure!), he thanked me twice and off we went. It was at this point that it really dawned on me: friggen A, I had won the Fishing Derby!

The PUG runs of the weekend were all from the lousy side. With my druid at level 64 the few instances I ran were all in Coilfang and the tanks were from all over the scale. One DK who really didn't know what he was doing, running around in Frost Presence and claiming to be a tank. Another - again DK - who was otherwise performing great, but running ahead of the group and not paying attention whether the healer was around or not - he learned the lesson after the second time HE died and the rest of the group stayed alive. And a tankadin, who worked like a thought: thoughtful, checked - silently - that everything was ok and pulled the mobs in orderly fashion. The rest were something not worth mentioning, strong silent groups with no social interaction.

The social stuff got the final draw of the week from a lv72 DK who whispered to my DK who was just purchasing the auction house dry of Obsidium Ore. He started very directly, asking what was my DPS and rotation for my Unholy spec. After I answered, he continued that where I had gotten the rotation from. After I answered... no further contact. No thanks, no okies, no nothing.

No manners.

Which leads to Gnomore. I had a blast, even though he didn't break the magical level 20 yet. Explored the Redridge Valley area and found out that the game definitely is bugging me with all the rares when I cannot kill them.

Anyhow, today being the Valentines Day, I present you the Valentines Greetings ala Blizzard.

For those not too shy, the next one without the censoring speech bubble...

And finally, the last one from the behind, to make the point even clearer.

Happy Valentines to you all admiring Blizzards way of appreciating good taste and common decency!
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EVEning post

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that I have given my finger to the devil and ran the EVE trial. Now the 14 day trial is a joke, and you really cannot say whether EVE is a hen, rooster or an egg, so I've taken the 30 day trial available in the dark recesses of Internet space (too bad, it seems that the site has just been taken off...)

Never the less, within the first 14 days trial I learned a lot of the newbie killer ganker griefer etc. game which should break the nerve of any sensible people there not wanting to kill or pvp at all.

I don't like pvp in the original sense of fighting against another player. Really, I hate it mainly because I'm so darn bad at it. But in honesty's sake, you cannot say that EVE is a PvP game at all. It's a ship versus ship, and the one with a ship that's better fitted for PvP will win. Most likely in the firs few seconds to begin with.

I was lucky (?) enough to be asked to join a rookie (newbie in the game) corporation (guild) within the first few days: I had only a couple of starter missions under me, I had just started to get the hang of the game and I was 'ordered' to fly over to another part of the world. Exciting and adventurous!

Now, to gain the first few million ISK's (gold) in the game aren't too hard to come by: just by completing the rookie missions (quests), you'll be netting some couple of million ISK's and few nice - and later on handy - starter ships. But by joining a carebear corporation you can be netting some 12-25 million ISKs a mission, as they will be most likely running level 4 mission to which you have absolutely no chance of getting before arduous grinding on the lower level missions.

So when the 14 days was over I was sitting on about 25 million ISK's with six reasonably fitted ships and a character with about 700k skillpoints. On the skill side the toon was a real rookie, just barely able to do anything really, but what really helped was the rookie corporation (Rookies Academy) which helped us newcomers to learn the basics, some neat features you won't find on your own (or understand they are even there before someone tells you about them!) and given us a base to run those missions in a team.

I deleted the toon after being scammed in the local market (Auction house): I tried to transfer my money to the 30 days account by putting up a trade of one scrap metal at an obscene high price, and somehow someone posted exactly the same priced item while I was changing toons... Result was, that I bought obscenely expensive piece of scrap metal and lost the money. 

Boo-hoo.

Now the 30 days toon is about 9 days old now, and it has been in a war for the last 4-5 days. Here comes my point why Tobold's assertation about the PvP was very much wrong: Rookies Academy consists mostly of rookies whose characters (accounts) are around 2-20 days old, and the oldest couple of characters are about 1-2 years. The aggressor consists of 11 war hardened pilots whose accounts are anything between 2-4 years old. Guess what?

The Rookies kicked their butt for over a day, killing four ships within one day at a local station. The aggressor killed our ships whenever they could reach us, but when there were enough Rookies around the scales were tipped. 

Want to know why?

Because the 50 odd rookies work as a team, full of spirit and knowledge that it will hurt the aggressors pride to lose even one ship to the less than month old rookies in their light frigates and missile boats!

What I love in EVE the most is the voice chat. The integrated voice chat beats that of WoW day in day out anytime, and rivals Ventrilo and TS (that I remember of) easily. I would be so bold to say it surpasses them. So the 50 odd pilots are on the same Fleet (raid) channel, giving hints, guidance and information about the war going on, rejoicing over the victories and successes as well as sharing the pain of someone getting podded (killed after their ship is blown to smithereens).

The beginning of the 30 days with the war and concentrated effort of the Rookies Academy has shown to me that the MMO's should be more about the social team work (which is imperative for success in the harsh EVE kind of environment unless you are a veteran pilot knowing the nooks and crannies) and co-operative effort.

I think I might activate this account after the trial is over.

PS. I still do play WoW though. One of my last weekend's highlights was a few hours run with my RP-toon, Rurvi, who finally got that cursed Arra'chea down and got the blessing of High Chief. This run, however, reminded me how WoW is a Massive Single Player game in the core, with the Multi-Player being so much optional now a days. Think about it: you get the quest to Ragefire Chasm in Thunderbluff at level 10, but you can use the dungeon finder from lv15 on?! And Ragefire Chasm is in Orgrimmar, beyond the Barrens, where your toon will almost certainly be beaten to pulp at least once if you are not extremely lucky or careful. Oh, yes, and there were only 1 character in Mulgore during the whole time.

That being my Rurvi. Talk about MMO...

March of the Gnomes

New beginnings and new experiences.

SAN-EU had an event for the forthcoming Gnomeregan rally: we had a group of gnomes spreading the news across the Alliance capitals. Needless to say, we marched from IF to SW in perfect order (ehem?) and gnomishly perfect formation (a mess is a formation, right?). The event had everything in it: laughter and tears, great comedy and parody, as well as excitement and fantastic death.(Pictorials here and here)

We had great fun. In fact, I mentioned after the event that it might have been the most fun I have ever had in the game. Sure, downing a boss is fun for the first time, but it's not the same kind of fun: its the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction of a job well done. This event was all fun and games, no hidden agenda, no GS requirements, no achievement pressure. 

Just fun. Go along and play a gnome. 

It also showed me something shocking about the player base of a RP server (yea, yea, a gross generalisation): there are distinct racial tensions and - one might say - racism in the game. As we entered Stormwind in our amazement, merriness and cheerful need for beer, we encountered a guard of Stormwind (played one, that is), who stated that we should leave the city because we're... not welcome in there!

Come again?

As the event progressed, the leader of the player driven guard stated the same. That we were causing trouble and unrest, and we should leave as the human population was getting nervous. Nervous! How about the gnomes who had lost their home in Gnomeregan?!

It became clear that the human population of the Stormwind were gnomists (gnome-haters). In real, this is no roleplaying in here.

You see, when we went to Darnassus, the Darnassian Guard didn't throw the gnome party out of the city even after they had had a swimming (and bubble fart bath) competition in the Moonwell... Strangely tolerant people those night elves.

Onwards, for Gnomeregan!

On the other hand, I ran a PUG or two with my lv76 priest. Or tried to run, because neither of the runs finished. The same happened with my DK, now lv72. The PUG started fine, but the run didn't finish as people just quit after the first wipe.

It seems that the PUGs are becoming more and more failpugs (or PIGs as we in SAN named them) the further down the expansion we go. The people in the PUGs showed all the signs of speed levelled toons who have no idea of how to play the toon, what skills or talents they have and/or how they fit into a group. I would guess that the heroic PUGs at the level cap are getting more and more facerolled because people who are running them for their alts are pulling the whole weight of the group. And at the same time the PUG raids are devising more and more restraining requirements in the lines of "GS 5.3k and achievement on all is a must" to make it even harder for the newly dinged players to even try their wings in the raids.

One could say that there is much Cataclysm could fix. But as it hits shelves sometime in the Autumn, all this content is completely voided and the Lich King himself will be chuckling while people just fly past his Citadel.

"Fools!"