2012

Never Gone For Long #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

stargrace October 6, 2012 0Comment

I know, I know. It’s been almost a WEEK since I’ve written anything! Does that mean I haven’t been gaming? Nope, of course not! I just have not been in the mood to write about my gaming sessions, and so I took a little mini vacation / holiday from updating MmoQuests. As always I am back, and with stories to tell.

My priest has been slowly gaining gear (and ilevels) in order to participate in the LFRaid encounters that are going live tomorrow (Tuesday, October 9th as I write this). Right now I’m sitting at ilevel 465, and you need 460 to be able to queue. Getting there was quite easy. Heroic mode gear is (mostly) ilevel 463, although WHY on earth a heroic dungeon that requires ilevel 450 to enter it gives quests that only reward ilevel 440, I have no idea. I suppose it helps balance out some of your old gear, but honestly the quests should be rewarding gear equal to the zone.

Anyhow.

Combine those dungeons with some player-crafted bits (a robe, gloves, and off-hand that I crafted myself) as well as the trinket from Brewfest and archaeology, and I was set.

While I’m talking about it, let me mention how much I SEVERELY dislike having a cap of 1,000 valor a week with a hard cap of 3,000 valor. I also dislike how dungeons have been set back to the ‘old’ way – which is to say you get 60 valor the first time you do a dungeon for that day, and then 30 valor every run after. It used to be 60 valor the first 7 times (ie: a week) and then 30 after that. So people who couldn’t log in every day but could spend one day a week playing could get all of their valor and not have to worry about missing a day.

Not only does valor have these limits, but in order to purchase valor gear you’re going to need faction. That means doing daily quests, and each day you don’t log in and do the 2912392328 dailies that are waiting for you is one day further away from your gear you are. I’ve been working on faction with the Tillers, Anglers, and Golden Lotus – the others can wait.

I played a monk for a bit, but nothing heavy. I think she’s sitting at level 17 now. The guild managed to earn 600 in every craft and that unlocked heirloom pants for our members (all 4 of us). I was quite pleased, even if I am broke now because most of the crafts were ones that I handle on my alts. Worth it? Yes, it sure was. I love those heirloom pieces.

Speaking of the guild, we’ve managed to some how climb our way to level 15, and part way through. I couldn’t be more pleased. I know that experience comes MUCH faster since some nerfs, but for the past year or so I had zero hopes of us ever reaching beyond level 5 (which we sat at for a good year). It’s nice to know that with the change, smaller guilds are able to provide at least some of the perks (the others that come from guild raids etc are still well beyond our grasp).

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! Also a happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canucks, I hope your turkey is as delicious as mine was!

How Does Your Garden Grow #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

stargrace October 1, 2012 0Comment

It took me almost a week, but my priest is level 90 (finally). I found leveling MUCH slower than previous expansions, although others I’ve spoken to have said that they found the experience quite quick. I felt that 87 was the ‘hell level’ and the last 50% before 90. It took me almost 2 hours to get the last 20% I needed.

Once I dinged I was in for a surprise. A map covered in blue ! because there are so many daily quests to complete. With the removal of the traditional ‘wear a tabard in a dungeon and get xp’ method of gaining faction we’re now expected to complete dailies. There are dailies for everything, some of the more popular factions you’ll want to work up are the Golden Lotus (lots of gear and neat recipes), the Cloud Serpents (very neat mounts), and of course, the Tillers.

Tiller faction is quite different from regular faction. First of all, you get to garden, which is really neat and fun. It works almost exactly like Wizard101. You have plots that require tilling, and you plant seeds. Once they’re in the ground you’ll probably get a random event like the need to weed, spray bug spray, or kill vermin. Leave the seeds to grow for 24 RL hours, and when you return you’ll be able to harvest the plant. I’ve been growing carrots (pictured above) to use for my cooking. In fact I’m at 595 cooking right now, tomorrow I should finally reach 600. You start out with 4 harvest plots and as you work up faction you’ll gain more plots. An NPC came by to weed a portion of my garden today to reveal another 4 plots, and I can now plant 8 different plants a day. I believe the max is 16.

You’ll occasionally harvest a ‘gift’ item to give to an NPC, or you’ll find one while you complete your daily quests. These can be turned in for a bit of faction with a particular person. As you earn faction with them they become more friendly with you and you’ll get some more rewards and you’ll open up more quests. It’s quite interesting and I can’t help but think that if WoW simply gave us all our own personal homes along with this garden method, players would be incredibly happy. Well, some of us in any case.

I also managed to get my archaeology to 600. It went a lot faster than I had expected, especially once I could fly. A lot of areas where archaeology opened up were phased portions of zones, and there were no mobs around. Needless to say, I’m having a blast in MOP so far. There’s a LOT to do, and if you’re not much for dungeons or raids you can always try a smaller 3-person scenario. There are neat rewards for each as well as achievements. Between dailies, gardening, crafting, dungeons (regular and heroic), scenarios, pet battles, and then all of the other little tid-bit things that capture my attention, I can see that my alts may be taking a back seat for a bit. I have 4 other level 85 characters that I’d like to level up some time (if for no other reason than to allow them to access the panda city) and I haven’t really felt an urge to.

What do you think of the latest WoW expansion so far? Let me know in comments!

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Ding, 88 #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

stargrace September 29, 2012 0Comment

A few days into the WoW expansion now, and my priest is level 88. Leveling is MUCH slower than I’ve found it to be in previous expansions. I’m undecided if this is good or bad. Because content is quite streamlined it may be considered bad if you’ve got a lot of alts to level up. It’s also a bit annoying if you are a crafter because you can’t reach the main city until you hit level 87 and do a quest. You need that city to purchase crafting recipes. I always dislike these types of lock outs to crafter content.

Speaking of crafting it is MUCH easier to level the ‘main’ professions this time around. Sure, there is the level 87 for recipes restriction which is frustrating, but crafting itself is far easier. No volatiles to collect, being the major reason. Only requiring one bind on pickup item to purchase a single recipe that will take you from 575 to 600. I’ve reached 600 in both tailoring and enchanting with relative ease, and then also reached 600 in first aid (yes, I’m a completionist remember). I’ve still got the harder crafts to go (cooking and archaeology  plus all of my alts, but it’s not too bad so far.

You also can’t fly in the new zones until you reach level 90 and purchase the skill (2500 gold). It makes adventuring take longer and forces players to explore. The stories have been really interesting but I find that as I make my way through certain zones the quests go from being really neat and awesome to more of the same ‘kill X creature for Y NPC’ variety.

I will say that this expansion certainly rewards you with a lot of vanity clicky items! I have punching bags, spittoons, paint guns, and all sorts of other non purpose items that are now sitting in my bags waiting to be pulled out in the middle of a raid to distract players. That’s what they’re for, right?

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Girl and Her Fish #WoW #WorldOfWarcraft

stargrace September 26, 2012 0Comment

I had big plans for when MoP released yesterday, but alas I ended up catching a nasty flu bug instead and spent most of my day sleeping in some sort of flu medication enhanced sleep. I did manage to get a bit of time in-game though, and I had a blast.

Of course I created a panda monk. I learned a few things. First of all, the ‘red’ pandas (female only) get tails. There’s a lot of debate over this because red pandas are more like raccoon’s than pandas – which is apparent by their very raccoon-like tail. That doesn’t bug me, I like the tail so of course that’s what I created. There were also a lot of complaints about how you can’t join a guild until you’re done because you don’t pick a faction. That means no guild bonuses. You are also unable to send / receive any mail (there are no mailboxes in the starter zone) until you pick a faction. More complaints ensued because that means you can’t mail yourself the lovely heirloom gear you’ve been collecting until after you leave (around level 11-12).

If you were not a fan of the wargen or goblin starter areas because of the length of time they took to complete, you should be pleasantly surprised at the length that the panda zone takes. I didn’t feel that it was too long, although it was a bit annoying because spawns have been sped up to accommodate the influx of players and that meant for a lot of me trying to out run giant gangs of creatures. No deaths, but some very close calls.

Once my panda was out of the starter (no spoilers here!) I decided to switch back to my ‘main’ priest, and start leveling her through the Jade Forest. The zone was incredibly packed with players, most of them standing with their giant mounts RIGHT on the NPC that I needed. I really enjoyed working my way through the quests so far. The stories are interesting, and the quests a lot of fun. If you’ve gotten to meet Sully and ‘Socks’ you will know what I mean. The attention to detail has been really nice and while there are a lot of ‘kill X mob and bring me back Y item’ quests there are also a lot of pure interesting and good fun moments throughout. The cut scenes are well done and I’m enjoying taking my time and listening to the story.

I also started working on my crafting a bit. In fact that was the very first thing I did when I logged in, train each of my professions so that when I did start crafting again I didn’t forget and get held back by the old skill cap. My bank is quickly filling up with food items because I forgot to clear out the old food items I had stored up. Whewps. Tailoring and enchanting are first on my list – cloth is plentiful, to say the least. I’ve been disenchanting all of the items I come across to gain enchanting materials, and have started stocking the guild bank up with enchanting scrolls.

I also spent some time doing pet battles – not many, yet. After all I have a LONG time to work through this content and I’m not in any rush. I started out with a snail companion and added a baby dragon to the mix, and have done a few battles, collected a few animals and added them to my personal collection. I think the difficulty of the fights has been tweaked slightly, as I found my second battle much more difficult than I did in beta. Still, no pets have died (yet) and it was cute.

The game certainly isn’t for everyone and I’ve heard a lot of negativity over things lately but I’m having fun and I’m not ashamed of it. There’s no reason why I can’t enjoy more than one game at a time, and I’m content having a variety to play. Each game scratches a different ‘itch’ and playing through new (to me) content is always exciting. The most important thing is (and always has been) having FUN while you play these games. WHAT the game is doesn’t matter.

As always, happy gaming!