8 days since the last post. Given the posting frequency of a lot of my frequented blogs, I might as well have just stopped posting altogether. :)
The game is really starting to pick up for us on several areas. Rasaiel is 32 and I've reached 30 (we ended up doing some impromptu grinding on ogres in Duskwood trying to find an alchemy pattern, which never came about, but definitely helped my experience bar). I feel like I'm really coming into my own as a priest now. I've almost filled out my 24 actionbar slots (that are hotkey mapped, anyway) with all manner of skills, so I feel less like the patient "I have three heals" robot, and more like a standalone (albeit very empathic) caster. Most importantly of all:
I have Mind Control now.
*insert evil grin here*
I've never played a class nor an engineer that could mind control before, and ever since picking up that skill last night I've tried to MC any humanoid add that came into the picture. After a couple attempts taught me that the Bongos UI I was using still had the pet bar hidden, I started playing with innate skills of humanoid mobs (I've never been a murloc before...) and generally causing havoc in other critters' brains. It's the most fun I think I've had in this game. Pure chaotic-good bliss.
Other "I'm a big priest now" skills have been fear, which has been getting me in trouble since I picked it up some 20ish levels ago; Prayer of Healing, which finally lets me top off everyone at once (screw the mana efficiency, full speed ahead!), and shackle undead, which I mentioned last time. I still love having some manner of crowd control, I really never bothered with my druid's sleep spell until the later stages of the game our first time through (somewhere around the late 40's, I think I was schooled in the spell on a run through Maraudon). Learning to use them efficiently and effectively (since Rasaiel has the pet-dot/pet-tank and freeze traps, which we've been relying on for the majority of our leveling) is up on the top of my list of "things to do" during play.
Also up there has been "make money," which I've actually been very successful on compared to my previous experiences in WoW. I don't know if I've gotten lucky, if the game economy is just richer, or what, but I don't recall sitting on ~50 gold at level 30 before. Granted, we've had one or two blue drops that sold decently, but almost all that money went back into gathering skills/pet skills/bo skills/nunchuk skills...you get the idea (and the reference, I'm horrible). What's really set me up is the potion-making, more specifically the Swiftness Potion market. I understand almost all of these are going to PvP battlegrounds folks, and I've actually sent some freebies to my most frequent buyers (one character claims 75% of all my sales). Still, it's got me eyeing every briarthorn and mageroyal in sight, and my herbalism skill passed those nodes a looooooooong time ago (I've already picked up Artisan Herbalist).
Rasaiel has been equally guilty of "rolling in it", as her mining skill (which is up to Mithril nodes by now) has proven worth it's weight in...well, tin and copper. Stacks of both of those have been selling completely out for her, and she's not too far behind me in wallet contents. I don't think we'll be having a problem affording our initial mounts at level 40 at this rate.
I almost find that the auction house is a significant part of the fun of the game for me, actually. I check it every morning when I get up--partially as an attempt to wake up more before work, as it requires I interact with something and engage my brain past "shower on, soap go here, clothes where?--to see if there are any materials or recipes for sale below their "value threshold" for me. The materials (primarily swiftthistle) values are easy to calculate, since I know that at a set price, my potions will ALWAYS sell, so I look for any stacks that are an an acceptable distance below the potion sell value. (Acceptable distance, because making less than a net gold on the whole operation just isn't worth the time). Recipes are just a shot in the dark to find popular ones that are on sale for way below the "still worth it to buy" price. I.E. I buy it for 10 silver and sell it for several gold. The original vendor makes their money, and I spend little on a chance at a lot.
I've also been guilty of snooping for ridiculously-low priced bags. I've managed to pay only 2 gold for a netherweave bag due to a short auction. I feel like I'm eBay sniping. Thank god I never got into THAT.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Post the fourth, or "Pathos stops titling things this way"
Our quest continues, with the focus shifting out of Ashenvale for a while and homing in on Duskwood (as we thought it would be more "in the spirit" of the holiday). Handily enough, I've recently come into my "Shackle Undead" toy, so we have no end of aggro management between hunter dps, pet tanking/growling, and shackles. We can really clean up in the graveyards.
Not much else to report for the time being, though. We're sitting at 26 and 24 (I'm always the lower, as Rasaiel has time in her day to plink around the countryside at various critters while mining, all during my workday). We maintain a pretty steady 2.5 level difference, but given that I'm a dedicated healer (with random dps thrown in) my spells are guaranteed to land. Though I really need to start using "Fade" more often...
Not much else to report for the time being, though. We're sitting at 26 and 24 (I'm always the lower, as Rasaiel has time in her day to plink around the countryside at various critters while mining, all during my workday). We maintain a pretty steady 2.5 level difference, but given that I'm a dedicated healer (with random dps thrown in) my spells are guaranteed to land. Though I really need to start using "Fade" more often...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Post three; or "Land, Ho!"
Finally made it to the 20's and out of the x-myst isles, which were a bit of a let down overall in terms of greediness. Having previously played the first two Blood Elf starting zones, and walked away with a blue ring and blue weapon, (plus reputation rewards including blue back piece) the rewards for the major storyline quest of the Draenei felt a little...lacking. I would have thought that a fanfare reception of the "heroes of the Draenei" would come with something a little better than a couple rings our leader fished out of a gumball machine. Rasaiel is a jewel crafter and had both her and myself in better rings and amulets at level 20 than that quest could offer.
Well, at least we got saluted by an Elekk. *yay*
So last night saw our escape from the ridiculously red island (with quite a flashy story-driven quest to wrap it all up, I really hope more quests are like that in Outland as well) and a return to familiar territory, Ashenvale. For grins (and my final level 20 xp) we poked our heads into the Black Fathom Deeps entry cave and killed several elites, proving to ourselves that we can handle 2 same-level elites at a time. With my current skillset I feel well-equipped to heal a dungeon run, having tested this on a leather-wearing tank and her furry pet :) My only concern would be whether I had enough mana for longer-length fights, but I feel it's all a bit trivial anyway as I haven't seen enough people in the zone to ever have enough for a dungeon run. Unless I wanted to be the sole healer for a 4-hunter attack party...
On the general subject of "how the game plays for a lowbie," I wonder if the level 70 playerbase isn't taking some of the fun out of the game for any new players that might happen to wander into this giant machine of a game. Specifically, I've noticed the AH prices of fairly low level (10-14) items being set ridiculously high (in the 2-3 gold range), which I presume is priced for alts of level 70's with plenty of gold to burn. As Rasaiel and Pathos have no level 70 mains to fund their adventures, almost all gear upgrades have to come from quests or random world drops (or crafting, my cute little jewel crafter is awesome), as it's not very feasible to be spending 3g on a weapon you'll ultimately upgrade again in 2 days' time.
As other players and bloggers have done before me, I generally lament the state of old-world low level dungeon runs. I see posts (both offering and requesting) for 2-man dungeon runs with a level 40-60 and an appropriate-for-the-zone level character. This feels like such a bastardization of the enjoyment my wife and I used to have as we leveled through the game. Back in the day, I remember having two or three different groups queuing up for Deadmines and BFD, Stormwind was always abuzz with people looking for more Stockades members, and soda only cost 5 cents. Also, there wasn't any sound on the movies, they put the speech in separate frames they would flash you after any dialog happened.
I'm secretly hoping that we'll see more and more people per zone as we level higher, given that there's more of a time requirement at each subsequent level before you can move on. The peace and quiet is very helpful for gather and kill quests, but if we never see anyone else, nor run any dungeons with surprisingly decent players, it'll be hard to ever make any new friends in the world of Azeroth.
Well, at least we got saluted by an Elekk. *yay*
interruption: this conquest was halted for several days due to my PC deciding it didn't like to power up any more. A new processor and motherboard later, I'm now playing the game on a dual-core PC and can't manage to get the framerate to dip below 60 fps. This game is gorgeous.
So last night saw our escape from the ridiculously red island (with quite a flashy story-driven quest to wrap it all up, I really hope more quests are like that in Outland as well) and a return to familiar territory, Ashenvale. For grins (and my final level 20 xp) we poked our heads into the Black Fathom Deeps entry cave and killed several elites, proving to ourselves that we can handle 2 same-level elites at a time. With my current skillset I feel well-equipped to heal a dungeon run, having tested this on a leather-wearing tank and her furry pet :) My only concern would be whether I had enough mana for longer-length fights, but I feel it's all a bit trivial anyway as I haven't seen enough people in the zone to ever have enough for a dungeon run. Unless I wanted to be the sole healer for a 4-hunter attack party...
On the general subject of "how the game plays for a lowbie," I wonder if the level 70 playerbase isn't taking some of the fun out of the game for any new players that might happen to wander into this giant machine of a game. Specifically, I've noticed the AH prices of fairly low level (10-14) items being set ridiculously high (in the 2-3 gold range), which I presume is priced for alts of level 70's with plenty of gold to burn. As Rasaiel and Pathos have no level 70 mains to fund their adventures, almost all gear upgrades have to come from quests or random world drops (or crafting, my cute little jewel crafter is awesome), as it's not very feasible to be spending 3g on a weapon you'll ultimately upgrade again in 2 days' time.
As other players and bloggers have done before me, I generally lament the state of old-world low level dungeon runs. I see posts (both offering and requesting) for 2-man dungeon runs with a level 40-60 and an appropriate-for-the-zone level character. This feels like such a bastardization of the enjoyment my wife and I used to have as we leveled through the game. Back in the day, I remember having two or three different groups queuing up for Deadmines and BFD, Stormwind was always abuzz with people looking for more Stockades members, and soda only cost 5 cents. Also, there wasn't any sound on the movies, they put the speech in separate frames they would flash you after any dialog happened.
I'm secretly hoping that we'll see more and more people per zone as we level higher, given that there's more of a time requirement at each subsequent level before you can move on. The peace and quiet is very helpful for gather and kill quests, but if we never see anyone else, nor run any dungeons with surprisingly decent players, it'll be hard to ever make any new friends in the world of Azeroth.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Posting, the second; or "How I no longer work in Silvermoon"
RADICAL CHANGES! OMG!
I started this blog last week under a different name, as you'll note in the blog previous to this, because the original intent of my wife and I was to play some Blood Elves and generally check out the Horde. What we found, eventually, were two key points.
After a weekend of powerlevelling my BE priest to 20, hemming and hawing, and rerolling some Dranei characters, the current husband/wife pair is now sporting a 17 hunter and a 13 priest: Rasaiel and Pathos respectively. Which makes life ever-so-much easier, due to now having furry pocket-tanks at our disposal that work for fish. We have the triumvirate of MMO's in a 2-person band: tank/dps/healer (factored down into (DPS + tank)(Healer - 2x) with some rounding involved and a couple imaginary numbers divided by the square root of Pi ... but I haven't taken a math class since 2001, so that could all be completely off. Damn you algebra!!!)
Oh, also, I am bald, and lack any and all chin-tentacles. It just makes the rest of me look HUGE.
Up next: Pathos and Rasaiel level past 20 and venture out into the wider world of Azeroth, also known as "Get Us the Hell Off of This Island, It's Full of Aliens From Starship Troopers and They Ate My Last Moongraze Tenderloin"
I started this blog last week under a different name, as you'll note in the blog previous to this, because the original intent of my wife and I was to play some Blood Elves and generally check out the Horde. What we found, eventually, were two key points.
- The Horde suffers from crazy inflation, which means you have to sell items at inflated prices to be able to afford anything, and
- The Horde is full of zombies, orcs, trolls, cows, and generally can't be counted on for decent interior decorating tips.
After a weekend of powerlevelling my BE priest to 20, hemming and hawing, and rerolling some Dranei characters, the current husband/wife pair is now sporting a 17 hunter and a 13 priest: Rasaiel and Pathos respectively. Which makes life ever-so-much easier, due to now having furry pocket-tanks at our disposal that work for fish. We have the triumvirate of MMO's in a 2-person band: tank/dps/healer (factored down into (DPS + tank)(Healer - 2x) with some rounding involved and a couple imaginary numbers divided by the square root of Pi ... but I haven't taken a math class since 2001, so that could all be completely off. Damn you algebra!!!)
Oh, also, I am bald, and lack any and all chin-tentacles. It just makes the rest of me look HUGE.
Up next: Pathos and Rasaiel level past 20 and venture out into the wider world of Azeroth, also known as "Get Us the Hell Off of This Island, It's Full of Aliens From Starship Troopers and They Ate My Last Moongraze Tenderloin"
Posting, the first; or "Why, oh gods why, I'm on fire, why."
I love these blog thingies, you kids and your interweb-tubes are an amazing tool. No, I don't mean you're tools, and no, I'm not serious. Seriously. Not serious.
Wasn't that fun? Maybe I should start making sense.
I've been reading a lot of MMO blogs lately, more specifically some WoW blogs in the last couple of days, and my penchant for writing about things no one should really concern themselves with has led me to chronicle my own (and my wife's) trek through the lovely world of Azeroth and beyond. But first, a flashback to a happier time~
The year: 2006. The day: Valentine's Day. The salmon? A bit overdone, but still tasty. The bill? Yes, I'll take the bill now. No thank you, we don't want any dessert, just some coffee.
Where was I? Oh yes, my wife and I started playing the good ol' WoW as a jointly purchased valentine's day gift last year, rolling up a Night Elf Hunter (her) and Druid (me, but who else was left anyway?) and proceeding to churn through the 1-60 content in roughly 5 months. We made plenty of friends in the game, joined a guild or two, and eventually transitioned into the raiding endgame with a fairly energetic guild of 200. Then we (for lack of knowing any better) wrung the game dry of any enjoyment through the raid machine known as Molten Core, conquering Ragnaros and Onyxia and then allowing BWL to run amock with our entrails while we handed in money to repair armor. We left in October, before The Burning Crusade ever showed up.
Skip ahead to two weeks ago, when I, for lack of anything better to do at that particular moment, installed the BC client that was sneakily mailed to me in a DVD case from Blizzard with a note attached: "Dude, you want a hit? I'll give you a free 10 day, no holds barred trial...where you can actually trade, auction, and party (not like that weak original trial crap, that guy gets his stuff from a dumpster)." When the long-winded metaphor cleared, the wife and I were tooling around in Eversong Wood; I a paladin with longings for the priesthood, and she a fire-wielding beautiful pyromaniac that could set you ablaze at 500 yards. At least, it seems that way, the range on her fireballs appears to extend further than I can see sometimes.
"What mob? All I saw was you throwing molten pain off into the nether"
*Rattlecage Skeleton dies, you gain 47 experience points*
"...oh yea? Well...I get a free horse...later..."
So long story told, the short version (haha, you had to read this far to find it) is that I've got a level 20 Blood Elf Paladin, a level 8 BE Priest, and she has a 20 BE mage, and we're tackling the game again from the horde side. What follows will basically chronicle our adventures in a slightly sarcastic tone, with a lot of parenthetical (and pathetic...al) remarks to make me feel like I'm amusing. I'm sure some element of all this will turn out to be an analysis of the game in its current state, and I might use the term "the good old days" once or twice. What I'm really interested in is whether or not a pairing of mage and priest is at all viable as a levelling duo, seeing as how I've already played tank with my paladin in more than one occasion. Though it's still a trial to pull aggro away from the mobile flamethrower. My DPS is jealous.
Wasn't that fun? Maybe I should start making sense.
I've been reading a lot of MMO blogs lately, more specifically some WoW blogs in the last couple of days, and my penchant for writing about things no one should really concern themselves with has led me to chronicle my own (and my wife's) trek through the lovely world of Azeroth and beyond. But first, a flashback to a happier time~
The year: 2006. The day: Valentine's Day. The salmon? A bit overdone, but still tasty. The bill? Yes, I'll take the bill now. No thank you, we don't want any dessert, just some coffee.
Where was I? Oh yes, my wife and I started playing the good ol' WoW as a jointly purchased valentine's day gift last year, rolling up a Night Elf Hunter (her) and Druid (me, but who else was left anyway?) and proceeding to churn through the 1-60 content in roughly 5 months. We made plenty of friends in the game, joined a guild or two, and eventually transitioned into the raiding endgame with a fairly energetic guild of 200. Then we (for lack of knowing any better) wrung the game dry of any enjoyment through the raid machine known as Molten Core, conquering Ragnaros and Onyxia and then allowing BWL to run amock with our entrails while we handed in money to repair armor. We left in October, before The Burning Crusade ever showed up.
Skip ahead to two weeks ago, when I, for lack of anything better to do at that particular moment, installed the BC client that was sneakily mailed to me in a DVD case from Blizzard with a note attached: "Dude, you want a hit? I'll give you a free 10 day, no holds barred trial...where you can actually trade, auction, and party (not like that weak original trial crap, that guy gets his stuff from a dumpster)." When the long-winded metaphor cleared, the wife and I were tooling around in Eversong Wood; I a paladin with longings for the priesthood, and she a fire-wielding beautiful pyromaniac that could set you ablaze at 500 yards. At least, it seems that way, the range on her fireballs appears to extend further than I can see sometimes.
"What mob? All I saw was you throwing molten pain off into the nether"
*Rattlecage Skeleton dies, you gain 47 experience points*
"...oh yea? Well...I get a free horse...later..."
So long story told, the short version (haha, you had to read this far to find it) is that I've got a level 20 Blood Elf Paladin, a level 8 BE Priest, and she has a 20 BE mage, and we're tackling the game again from the horde side. What follows will basically chronicle our adventures in a slightly sarcastic tone, with a lot of parenthetical (and pathetic...al) remarks to make me feel like I'm amusing. I'm sure some element of all this will turn out to be an analysis of the game in its current state, and I might use the term "the good old days" once or twice. What I'm really interested in is whether or not a pairing of mage and priest is at all viable as a levelling duo, seeing as how I've already played tank with my paladin in more than one occasion. Though it's still a trial to pull aggro away from the mobile flamethrower. My DPS is jealous.
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