Store Wars

On Wednesday afternoon (GMT) whilst tentatively rediscovering World of Warcraft I was surprised to read on WoW.com

Blizzard launches real money in-game pet store

Curiously I read further and with an uncharacteristic girly squeal of delight I had within minutes bought the Pandaren (kung fu) Monk. It seems,however, in my rush of desire to possess this excellent companion I had misunderstood the whole situation.

I was informed in an avalanche of tweets and comments that this was not the game I love offering me new avenues of joy but rather some evil plot by a corrupt money hungry company to exploit it's vast ignorant user base.

I paused for thought and the thought that quickly emerged was BOLLOCKS!

As with many recent 'controversies' regarding WoW a section of the community seem shocked when Blizzard acts like a business. How dare they try and make more money they cry don't they have enough! This just seems odd to me. Don't get me wrong I love getting free stuff however I am also smart enough to know this is not how things work.

The way I see it is if Blizzard wants to sell vanity items that do not effect the core game play then so be it. This caters to the players who perhaps do not always have the time to earn such items in game or those players cursed by RNGitis.

There is the argument that this is the top of a slippery slope. To be honest if Blizzard do ever sell game changing items for real money then that would be a whole different matter but the fact is that would be a bad business decision and the pet store was not.

Your comments and opinions as always are welcome meanwhile look at my kick arse panda below.

(A special thanks goes to @alachia for pointing out that a blog is not just for Christmas and also for giving her Pandaren to someone else and not keeping it for herself.)

Life and how to live it

Life they say is a funny old thing and I agree 100%.

I am writing this somewhat tardy post from the male surgical ward of a large mainland hospital. I have just had something green and white for dinner followed by something yellow for pudding. It all tasted pretty much the same. I am now waiting for something brown to drink which someone has laughingly named 'tea' evidently having never experienced the actual thing.

I, of course, should be home in Jeppy Manor multi boxing mages but it seems that the powers that be felt I was having way too good a time and decided to put a stop to that.

It is often said that you only miss what you have when it is gone. I found this particularly true of the ability to breathe.

The journey from a shortness of breath (something quite common with my heart condition) and me dropping to the floor like a tranquilised rhino was a relatively short one. Though for much nerd cred I did manage to bang out a couple of twitters and an email before the paramedics arrived. I am also told (my own recollection being somewhat fuzzy at this point) that whilst being manhandled into the back of the ambulance I gave wheezing instructions to my son regarding the care and feeding of my many alts.

I awoke 3 days later.

It seems that my lungs had got jealous of all the attention my heart has been getting lately and decided to play silly buggers. I was initially told both lungs had collapsed but it later turned out they had in fact flooded. I am sure many Latin words could more accurately describe the event but I have chosen to call it 'fucked up lungs'

The fact that I am now sat up writing this and not pushing up tulips is mainly a testament to the fine work of medical science and those dedicated to it. It is also partly due to me knowing this particular boss fight pretty well.

It is no exaggeration to say I have faced death on 4 occasions in as many years (if I make it to 5 there is talk of me winning a toaster oven). After each 'event' I take some time to reevaluate, count my blessings, and move on. What else should I do? Live my life in a bubble nervous at every change in temperature? or make the most of the life I have? No prizes for guessing which one I choose every time.

So where does this leave 62*80. Well it leaves it exactly where it has always been a goal I will continue to strive toward. Will I hit it by Christmas? Probably not but as they say life's a funny old thing.

Bye for now.

Woah Horsey!

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the forums Blizz chucks in a hand grenade...

I generally avoid patch notes, nerfs and buffs etc. Although in time all these things will effect my toons whilst levelling en mass they have little or no effect. This weeks announcement by Blizzard regarding mounts, however, had me using the expression normally reserved for road accidents or Oprah. I am sure the following is not news to anyone but it is worth a reprint.

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

• 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 20
• Cost: 4 gold
• Mount cost: 1 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding the60m to the riding trainer

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

• 100% land mount speed650
• Requires level 40
• Cost: 50 gold
• Mount cost: 10 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

• 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 60
• Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 50 gold
• Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

• 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
• Requires level 70
• Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 100 gold

So why dear reader should I give a flaming gnome for the above changes well it slaps the crap out of my scheduling and approach.

As I mentioned in a previous post I have a few days left of RAF between my 4th and 5th accounts. I have therefore been busily getting as many Horde pairs on Jubei'thos up to 31.99 (so that future chains they recruit can ding them to 60.99) as possible. My plan was then to take a break from RAF and push the level 60 Alliance teams and all DK teams though Outland and onto 80. This doesn't now appear to be the best course of action.

The question is should I begin another RAF and fill in all the remaining 60 slots and then once complete fly my way around Outland at 150% speed? Or suck it up and push teams through as things stand currently. I would love to say my mind is fully made up one way or another. I know I would love to have some 80 teams sooner rather than later but damn I love to fly!

Still while RAF is running the old world ding fest continues.

The good news for me is that everything will get a whole lot cheaper come 3.2.

Current maths for riding skills and mounts is

2790G for 60% mount 43400G for 100% 55800G for first flyer and a staggering 322400G for epic flight and 62000G for cold weather flying. Ouch this makes an eye watering total of 486390 Gold! This of course takes no account of free mounts for Warlocks and Paladins or any current discounts but still - ouch!

3.2 changes this to the still gut wrenching total of 422530 (but with even more faction discounts) and since 150% flight speed will be more than enough for every team but my main farmers the price drops to 106330. Still a chunk of change but far less likely to wake me up screaming in panic.

Regardless of all this I am stoked for the day that I can muster a 10 man flying squad to guard the roads of Outland and Northrend from opposing faction gankers and to scare the bejeebus out of unsuspecting travellers.

Your thoughts as always are most welcome.

Status Update

OK so this is not exactly hot of the press but once again I blame all that damn leveling and only having a rolling restart last Tuesday!

I had the great pleasure of once again appearing on Ctrl Alt WoW episode 118 and this time not just with the sublime Aprillian and the hunk Ashayo but the highly entertaining Glanthur (follow them all on Twitter). As always I enjoyed myself a whole heap and even managed to squeeze in a status update. I urge you to not just listen to this episode but also plan a spot for it in your listening schedule.

Another podcast that continues to tickle me in places others can't reach is Bind on Equip. I have to say I sometimes have to pause to recover from choking fits caused by too much laughter. A recent episode (28) had their Rock the Horde team amongst the gankage Although not recommended for those unappreciative of pure Anglo Saxon it is podcast gold. If you aren't listening to this week in and week out then words fail me.

I give particular mention to the BoE podcast because it is too their Horde PvP realm that my focus has been recently directed. Jubei'Thos is an Oceanic realm and the BoE Horde guild is called, I think appropriately Pants on Head. They are slowly but surely building up a fun guild of mainly DKs and if you are looking for a place to hang this is it. To join up /join BoE and ask for an invite you won't regret it.

I have been busily adding to the numbers of toons on their server the past few weeks and dinging away like a mad man.

This brings me to another decision my project toons will be mainly grouped on Jubei'Thos (Horde PvP) and Boulderfist (Alliance PvP). It was brought to my attention some weeks ago that I would be committing WoW financial suicide if I spread my toons too thinly across six realms. I will however still have a presence on the other servers planned just not an even split.

As you can also see these main servers are PvP and although this may add to the leveling woes payback will be a bitch for those who make my KoS list. 5 shamans can be quite destructive!

As always it goes without saying if Rawrcast isn't part of your weekly dose of podcast goodness you may need psychological help and if a WoWcast pops up you better grab that sucker too.

Some recent feedback has asked for more in depth breakdowns of the toons I am leveling. What I plan to do is, as they hit 60, add them to www.wow.com and also www.3darmory.com. In all honesty the climb from 1-60 is not where the action is but 60-80 should be more enjoyable to follow (I hope). When I start to get things set up I will let you all know.

Finally I have a question for you all. Although this project doesn't give me heaps of time to blog I am really enjoying it. I was therefore wondering if you would be up for me blogging more general WoW things and not just project stuff?

For example I had the great pleasure to be on WoWCast episode 44 with Alachia and had the further pleasure of interviewing Starman from the venerable WarCast and this is the kind of stuff I would like to blog about (go take a listen).

Anyhow that's more than enough from me for now. Bye till next time.

To Gank or not to Gank?

The past few weeks as I have feverishly tried to squeeze every level out of RAF I have been in the upper levels (40-60) on my Alliance PvP server Boulderfist. It seems however that somewhere along the line I installed the 'Gank Me Hard' mod. This addon appears to put a huge neon sign above my team which attracts (in this case) angry Horde from miles around!

Now I know I am on a PvP server and should expect to be fighting the opposite faction from time to time but this was turning into a gank buffet with my teams as the all you can kill. I swear at one point people were taking turns to slap the shit out of me. Well I guess all is fair in love and war.

What surprised me most, however, was not that it happened but the way it changed my attitude. I am pretty much a passive guy and had kind of set myself a line as to when I would attack the opposition and when I wouldn't. I did what I considered fair. This changed in the last few weeks! I have become what I just complained about above. When I see opposition I can kill I kill it pure and simple. Does this make me feel good. Well yes and no but to be honest more yes!

Will this be my last post complaining about being ganked - hell no! I can QQ like the best of 'em.

Never fear....

I is here. (name the movie for geek cred)

OK so where are we or more specifically where am I? In a nut shell 'leveling' would pretty much sum it up :)

As mentioned before I set up several 'test' accounts before commiting to the US realm move. This was mainly to test latency etc but even more importantly to hook up with some of the excellent people from the WoWCast channel on BINDpoint. As you can tell given 62*80 the tests went fine and the people on BINDpoint are still excellent,

I ended up with 5 linked accounts and as I added them slowly to the chain this means over the past few days and for a few days more RAF has been expiring at various link points. Now I'm the sort of bloke who hates to waste anything and when a deadline is thrown into the mix out comes the cape and outside underpants. My usual 8 hours a day playtime has jumped closer to 16 as I try to squeeze every level out of RAFs dieing embers.

Some of the multitude of 60s created will go on to join 62*80 but others will not it is a harsh world this world of warcraft.

When things settle down I will of course be back with more posts and who knows some of them may be worth reading.

It's all about you (and you)

I have found over the past few weeks that reactions to this project vary greatly.

They range from seeming hatred of me and the whole thing to total support for all I do. Unsurprisingly I like the latter way more then the former but the former certainly gave me pause for thought.

On the surface this project could easily be seen as a desperate attempt to get my head above the parapet and be a unique little snowflake in the meta sky. In all honesty that is certainly part of it (you didn't expect me to deny that did you?). However it is definitely not the only reason and far from the main one.

Desire

I partly see this project as satisfying my desire for goals and structure to the game I would play for 8 plus hours a day regardless of the 62*80. It therefore goes without saying I love playing WoW (pretty lucky considering) but it is as much about the community surrounding WoW as it is the game itself which keeps me playing.

Community

I honestly don't think WoW would be as popular if it hadn't encouraged and facilitated people getting together for the experience (Recent MMOs have failed to understand this and have made forming community harder not easier). This community is also quite unique in that it continues outside the game in various vibrant forms. These include the multitude of podcasts, blogs and forums.

Fishing for friends?

I therefore also see this project as a huge old net. I guess that requires some explanation!

Many of the people I have met through the game I have clicked with. Initially we share a common WoW language which makes conversation easier but even as I delve deeper I often find there are deeper roots of connection.

WoW is therefore very much the portal to like minded people for me.

What tends to happen is that the 'conversation' will then continue by other means. At the heart of this for me is the excellent BINDpoint and specifically the WoWCast channel. I pretty much consider this my virtual home (as proof of this recent downtime of the service had me roaming the meta streets like a lost soul). If this project can 'catch' more like minded people for me to interact with then it's working as intended.

So grab the lure. Of course if you say bad things about biscuits or tick the fucktard box you may get thrown back in the meta river!