Bags

Well it seems that the bag market is doing that dive downward again. Looks to have more people trying to bust into the market, or just random sellers. They are now selling for an amazing 5gold and something silver, sintead of the average for months at 8gold. No biggie, I am still the lowest with the most bags up for sale.

I feel sorry for Snee aka saggybaggy, since it looks like he is my only true competition and I am always putting more bags and lower then him.

I did make the mistake of not working on my bags and such, which made me have a huge stockpile to work through...66 bags yesterday and 76 bags today.

World of Warcraft

My opinions on World of Warcraft, the game itself. There is a lot of things I like and dislike about WoW. I miss my good old Ultima Online days, when I could go dungeon run or player kill and make gold either way. Where I could lose all my stuff and be back to a threat and pvp/pve in like 10minutes. Where the economy was more run about players then non-players.

I started WoW in the closed beta (Tauren Warrior named Galdar to around the mid twenties), which then I did a Tauren Warrior named Galdar in the open beta to about level 35 or 40. So once on the release I made a Tauren Warrior on a PvP server in my timezone; Deathwing (the only PvP server for Mountain Time). I played for about a year, till I moved since all my friends kind of stopped playing but one. He preferred Alliance, and the server Hellscream since his friend was in a top guild there from EQ. So then Kitha was born, my Human Priestess. It was a nice change of pace to see new zones, new quests and etc. It is weird to even play Tsuno now (moved to Mannoroth and now Velen), since he was my character before I really "knew" anything. So going to Tsuno is still a challenege and feels like he is in a hole dug by being a "newb". I logged on him the other day and his little 11gold, crappy gear, grappy band and bags...compared to Kitha's decent gold, decent gear and such.

Anyways, that being said I remember when PvP was all world content. Before the Honor System, before the old Honor system. Before battlegrounds...when THE battleground was Southshore and Tauren Mills. I will admit I miss those days, when it was not a "grind" or about rewards but about pure "conflict" or just because.

I think WoW is a PVE game with added aspects. I think it is trying to be too much...but with half-hazard tries. I disagree with PvP using the same spells that are used against PVE bosses with over 250k hp minimum. I really believe they added PvP onto a PVE game, and it really isn't working as it should. Some people like it...I really do not. They have added Arenas, added more BGs...added more marks and rewards. Just seems to be a lot of adding of "shiny" and new things to try and fix, or move the attention away from a somewhat broken aspect. Are they trying to work on it? I guess. I will admit I was impressed and excited about vehicles for PvP...which quickly faded after a few vehicle quests in Northrend. Which then my first time in Wintergrasp was my last...dissapointment. I will admit I played Season 1, 2 and some of 3 on my warrior and not priest. Which being a squishy sucks....never been one shotted so much, no wonder my monitor has taken some verbal abuse.

I have said my somewhat peace on greedy Goblin about the badge rewards beign changed...but the aspect of PVE raiding is about the same as it was in Molten Core to AQ. Really the hard stuff becomes obsolete, new stuff is then having to be added and the top guilds move on to bigger and better things. Are the bigger and better? New epics, better epics...better rewards but is the content really better? I raided MC in a good guild back in the day and one of my serious comment/observation regarding th Core Hounds was laughed at as a joke. Who seriously designed this shit? Who sat down and said we will have a pack, and they have to die in 3-5 seconds of each other it comes back to life. Which of course has become a staple of WoW now. I understand the simple tank and spank is not doing it for the mass majority. It gets old, so they come up with "new" encounters to circumvent this. Then why do we really have the classes? Look at the Twins in TBC. You had to have a caster tank...it is different and challenging I guess but not really something that was there for the original intention of "caster" classes. I have always felt thata fter BWL, enocunters seemed to have gotten hard script wise because some lack of imagination. I guess that is somewhat of a lie because it does take imagination to come up with some of these encounters, like an iceblock and standing behind it in Naxx, or Patches, or Grub. A lot of enoucnters seemed re-used and well...I just tink overly hard ont he script then it needs to be. I would like to see something but not entirely sure what yet, they made us classes to fit specific roles...not classes to fit specific encounters/scripts. I guess it is "skill" or something, but like I said I have no clue on what I really want to see or what a fix is.

Economy and trade skills in WoW I think are a big failure. Yeah Greedy goblin has pointed out a few times you can make gold...but that isn't what I am talking about. Gathering skills are really lacking and well boring/worthless. I say worthless because like Goblin has pointed out, it is about time to money ratio. I remember mining in UO and the better I was, the more I mined and the more smelted. I still have a hard time that my 450 miner gets the same as my 10 miner from the same node....which of course a change to this would lower and bring in more raw materials. Which of course should make crafted items easier to make, and more profitable. I think I would like to see a little more ability for crafters to make some gold...maybe some services. Like Leatherworkers repairing Leather, Blacksmithes for mail and plate and Tailores for cloth. Bascially more of economy then gold drops and gold sinks.

Gold update

A month or so ago I started playing on Kitha again, playing WoW in of itself again. Having Enchanting and Tailoring, I was doing Netherweave Bags before I left....which the first week back I admit I was dissapointed to see it cost more to make the bags then to sell them. Which of course seems to have been a fluke week?

I do read a few blogs on the economics of WoW and I would have to thank them both for great insight.

So I set out about a month ago to get started in my first niche, bag selling. Auctionhouse Antic (http://ahantics.blogspot.com/), helped show me a great option to a tool I use, and that is the snatch option in Auctioneer. So now I can snatch and buy bulk loads of materials compared to my one at a time that is provided in game.

After about a month I am now sitting on about 3.5k gold. Just buying netherweave cloth and bolts of netehrweave and selling Netherweave Bags. of oucrse about a week I now have some compition which thankfully they seem to have never read Greedy Goblin (http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/). He has great articles on undercutting, competion and getting the market control. I will admit I have not followed his advice, having to learn the hardway. For example, this morning I logged on and my competition had bags up for roughly 11gold (maybe 11.50gold). Well the price I have been making is around 7gold to 8gold. So of course I undercut him by 10% or 15%, and put mine for about 10gold. Which of course got me undercut by others and I learned my first lesson, which of course I already knew. I do not need to over extend my greed. Greedy Goblin makes money in the glyph industry by selling lower but more, and here I tried to "maximize" profit but ended up somewhat hanging myself. the reason I say somewhat, is I only had 20 bags or so out of 50 up for that price. I then proceded to put the rest up for my regular price of 7gold and 50silver when I relogged and saw my own bags were undercut. I am thankful this guy has not read or taken o heart the advice of Greedy Goblin, for the fact all week if I do not post he will then repost his bags or start his bag posting at 11-12gold...which I then log on later it seems and undercut him.

Friends and guilds

Yesterday I was talking with an old friend (Theriarina) from the first guild I was in on Hellscream, (Eternal Equinox). I have to say that I was in a great mood from having such a wonderful conversation about old times and players. She then proceeded to tell me about an eventual proposition between EE and Unfriendly for raiding, and I told her I left it. I really do hope the best for Unfriendly and EE, one was a home and another has a lot of people I call friends in it.

I have to say there is a handful of people in Unfriendly I absolutely care for and enjoy: Eliseo, Anati, Tom, John and Sara are the main ones that I know and the reason I joined up with them. Which I will do anything in game to help them along when they need it...and Tom's little Gnome Warrior will always be my priest's favorite tank to date.

I am at a place now, being older then when I was in EE....that drama and friction comes with any guild. Guilds change and so do the attitudes and instead of trying to change it, I can change me. I am not going to cause more fights and friction within the guild. I have said my peace that the above are real gems, most of the others I really do not know. I do believe that a joint effort from Unfriendly and Eternal Equinox will be an amazing thing that will get much content scene and done. Which I hope the very best for them both and will gladly help in anyway I can.

Puggyness

Last night just reinforced myself to why if you want things done you have to do them yourself. I logged on to do any type of dungeon for experience, since Gun'Drak gives me two bubbles and Utgarde Pinnacle gives me three-ish. My first group somehow melted down while my wife was watching my character and I was putting groceries away. I got a second group going and decided not to "take charge" since it is nice to just go with it sometimes. Never again unless I know the people. The tank was making rules mid run, was bossy and the run itself just had no energy for me.

I ended up going afk to eat and come back and see the Rogue that was with us making rude gestures at me and having me on ignore. It is funny how argueing with people can turn into friendships and such. Long story short I made a mistake following the tank's advice on shards, so I sent him an extra shard. He thought I bailed because of not winning a roll, for a dream shard which I have 19 now in my bank. I left the group afterwards because the dungeon was done and my hearthstone was on coold own, so it was a free teleport. Plus it was time to eat.

So one of the rules was roll on the shards till the end of the run, which okay I cans ee how that speeds up but I like to get it done with and not have it lingering. Second it was one roll and then the three highest got the goods, where normally instead of one chance you would get three chances to win. I wasn't going to argue, didn't have the drive too.

Utgarde Pinnacle

Slight progress was made last night, only logging on for one dungeon. I found a warrior tank in LFG for Utgarde Pinnacle, so that is where it started a tank and a priest. We soon found three DPS, with a couple of people leaving but we were on our way until I got a whisper from the tank. He was asking me about it being heroic or not, which I explained I found him in the regular LFG and not the heroic one and asked him what he wanted to do. Which he said he preferred Heroic and I said he could but he tanked it anyway... We did end up having me, almost all Disc and a Disc/Holy hybrid priest which was great to my surprise. I was expecting it to drag, but really didn't and it was nice to have a back up healer ons ome parts (even if he did die a few times) due to lag or my lack of skill.

As far Utgarde Pinnacle, I didn't get to spend as much time looking around as much as I would. It is the second dungeon I have done once before and didn't get any achievements for it. Which was fixed in this run. Mob wise I wasn't too impressed with the graphics, would like to look more at the background though. I did LOVE the music, which I believe is a highland type theme. I did catch myself a couple of times just listening to it and then running into walls. The king is by far the coolest room, just reminded me of the king in Two Towers sitting there all uninterested and then to life. Would have been nice to see a more of a monologue from him though with some LOTR jokes or references. I did get three upgrades: a cloak, helm and chest piece; which adding in the three bubbles of experience was a great run for the hour time. It was fast paced, sometimes a little too fast but that is what happens when the tank is over geared and the priest needs mana.

I played a warrior in the closed beta, open beta and most of my first two and a half years of WoW. I like to think this is what really makes a good healer or a good tank....knowing first hand the other role. I do have to admit that I am enjoying the healing even if I seem out of practice and sluggish at times; but I have recently been missing my warrior tank. the bond between a tank and a healer is something that is amazing. I am a bit partial to those I have ran with before, and will always heal for them if they let me. I think I need to make it a little more known how much I respect and enjoy those big (or small) balls of armor in my Priestly life.

Only 78

Current level: 78

I did not make much progress into leveling this weekend, which my personal goal was a gigantic failure in my own eyes. I had set my eyes and hopes up with reaching 79 as a minimum, but only got to four bubbles into 78. Which would not be as much dissapointment but the fact it was a three day weekend. I only did two runs this weekend, a Gun'drak and a Drak'Thron.

So my Drak'Thron run was with a good friend of mine, Landon (78 Protection Paladin). We then got three other DPS: DK, Warrior and a Rogue. For some strange reason my cable connection was hating me most of this weekend and especially during this run. I disconnected close to 11 times, and we manages to have no wipes. I am rather curious on the sucketh of our warrior. The first alarm came when he was using a two hander when specced with Titan's Fury. The run ends, and somehow the little disconnecting healer manages to only be 3% below the warrior for total damage.

When I did the math of the average of some quests when I was 72 or 73, I figured it would take me 100 quests to level. I do believe this to be the case now, since it seems to scale of quest experience reward to experience needed to level to factor about the same. So really doing 100 quests verse 10 dungeon runs.

Last night after much debate on the weekend events I finally left Unfriendly. I do have some really good friends in that guild, which I absolutely love. I feel it was easier for me to change then to have them all change, or try stand in the way it currently is flowing toward. I am but a rock, and instead of being in the middle of a river I can find the bank of the river with like rocks somewhere. So the future is open to Kitha, which I have had some offers but not sure on those offers. Maybe I will be a Healer for hire....I need the gold anyways.