Gaming

6th Annual Friendalong

Today is the 2nd last day of a player run event on the Pristine server called a ‘Friendalong’ it’s an impalong with games, arena fights, and of course working on skills and improving tools and items for other players. The last impalong event I went to was the Deliverance one, and this one is quite a bit different. One of the games I really thought was fun, called slap slap. Two players will strip down, turn on auto fight, and be handed some sort of fish. Then they have to dual each other, and the host will pick a body part (kept secret). First person who slaps them with the fish on that body part wins. It was cute and fun, I’d never heard of it before.

Some of the events are frustrating for me, including the main one to find tickets each day. They’re out in the bay, and you’re allowed to submit one a day to the grand prize drawing. The problem is I tend to stick close to the sermon area for folks, and I can’t see very well even with settings adjusted. I stayed all 5 days at the impalong, but only had 2 tickets for the grand prize that other people donated to me since I didn’t find any on my own. I spent about 2h looking, but eventually wandered back to the sermon area. I’ve had these ticket type events before, and my preference is the one from the Deliverance impalong where they hid riddles all over the deed on signs. You would send in your answers to an player and they’d go over their logs at the end to see how many you answered correctly, then you earned a ticket for each correct answer. I thought that was a fair way of doing it so players still interacted but didn’t have to leave the event area.

I also absolutely loved a game called find the cheese that was at the Deliverance event. I wrote about it, it was so creative and fun. I found the events at this impalong a bit lack luster and repetitive. The hosts were briefly around but then had to tend to real life – which is also why I think impalongs are best served in shorter bursts, 3 days is about max. This event is running for 6 days, with the same 6 events scheduled for each day.

There was a dragon slaying but I didn’t make it for that event, I did participate in horse racing but only the 1st place winner received anything. Lawn darts was a lot of fun to watch, but I didn’t want to risk dying. I do wish there was a bit more creativity to the events, how about a fashion show where people vote for the winners, or something involving treasure maps. I know impalongs take a LOT of time, effort, and coordination and I appreciate all the efforts that are made but I felt a bit let down.

That being said, I DID have a good time. I love visiting with everyone, but I know one of the hosts is dealing with a family medical emergency, and I’m not sure what happened to Sidereal, they insisted they’d be there but they’ve been gone for 10 days now and I’m concerned. I hope everything is OK.

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

TSM and Dragonflight – Is it Worth It?

Let’s face it, updates that break our favourite addons suck, and we all hope that the developers of these mods are able to roll with those changes and get everything working again in a timely manor. Tradeskillmaster has undergone some massive changes in the past few years thanks to gold making changes on World of Warcraft’s end, and some of those changes I’m a fan of while others not so much.

The staff is dedicated and passionate (as are the goblins who use it) and the updates do come, but TSM updates in DF have been lacking (IMO). Unfortunately some things that I personally want to make use of (restocking SL with crafters marks) remain broken after 6 months. We all know that as goblins the whole point is to get in before the masses get in, and TSM has fallen well behind in function for anything relating to this.

4.13 has released and cross-realm trading was enabled only to have Blizzard pull the plug on that one temporarily while they look into server stability. This single feature is amazing for anyone who works on multiple realms, it not only tracks gold but also your craft components. There have also been some changes to professions (inspiration function has been added!) which you can read all about on their blog post linked above.

At the start of Dragonflight and for the months following I actually stopped using TSM and instead relied heavily on auctionator and craftsim. TSM wasn’t taking into account the DF specific specials like multicraft, inspiration, etc. Craftsim is a much better addon for these things. Queuing anything into the TSM craft queue was creating an unplayable game with lag and stuttering. I am happy to say that this looks to be mostly resolved, so long as I keep the queue under control. Instead of doing multiple groups at once, I tend to just focus on one section, so for example I’ll restock blacksmithing – > current content, in one go, and then after I’m done I’ll clear the queue and do blacksmithing -> old content.

I have yet to find another addon that offers everything TSM does despite the issues I have with the latest renditions. I continue to use it exclusively to post auctions, restock crafted goods, and check my gold & supplies across multiple servers. For ease I use a profile created by BilisOnyxia for his patreon’s, and then I’ve customized and adjusted it for my server specific needs (transmog) – I use a different profile that I’ve built for pet sales which I do cross realm. In Shadowlands I used a combination of profiles from Penguin & Manthieus.

Is TSM worth it?

It depends on what you’re doing. I think if you’re well versed in using it there’s still potential, especially in posting things like gear / transmog – but when it comes to professions (specifically DF professions) and crafting – other addons like Craftsim really do a much better job. If you’re restocking SL speed gear or anything that uses crafters marks, then TSM won’t be of any use to you (at the time of this post in any case).

Have a favourite addon that makes your gold making easier? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Weekly Wrap-Up [July 9-July15]

Well, it was an interesting week to say the least. Some key points! Wednesday 10.1.5 hit, and cross realm trading was enabled. Sadly, it created some server instability because of all the phasing we all do from one realm to the next, so they disable it a day later. It has not been turned back on yet. I did manage to complete a few trades and move some things around that I wanted to move, but now I’m back to a waiting pattern in that regard. It’s not a huge deal, after all we barely had it live for one day, but I know a lot of people are really looking forward to that change, whether they’re buyers or sellers.

Sales for the week held strong, with last Sunday being far beyond what I expected – I imagine people were stocking up. There was talk in the WoW Economy discord about taking advantage of the new Naxx items, most notably righteous orbs, but I decided to go the opposite route and sold before the event went live to those who were stockpiling for after. The price of orbs dropped from 600g to 300g and have risen slightly since then to around 400g. I wasn’t interested in playing the long game for this item when there are bigger fish out there, so I let mine go.

I did start unlocking the secrets to old scholomance and old Naxxramas – I’m not sure if I’m actually going to sell anything / recipes / components, but I do want to be able to unlock them for myself, and if gold happens to come from that, all the better. It’s slow and annoying with lots of RNG in there, so if you’re also working on that, just hang in there.

One thing to note, there was a LOT of confusion about whether or not we’d be able to MAIL across server – you cannot. This was never implied or hinted at. Normally when Blizzard makes these changes their language is clear – for example when they told us we’d be able to mail cross faction on the same realm, and when they told us we could trade certain items in dungeons. Their announcement was for trades, and that means you do need either a 2nd account or a friend to help if you’re looking to trade with yourself. The intention of this change is NOT to benefit gold making goblins – it is a QoL change for regular players who are spread across multiple realms from their friends. This allows them the opportunity to help out their friend with gold or items without feeling the barrier of the server. You do also have to be same faction (as far as I am aware).

That isn’t to say it won’t change in the future, but you have to remember that World of Warcraft is an OLD game, and the code wasn’t meant to allow any of this stuff. Managing to change it and adjust it in a way that does allow for cross realm trading is a BIG DEAL and of course there are going to be unseen issues with it since it’s old and was never intended. Let’s give them our support through these growing pains, and keep our fingers and toes crossed that they get it sorted (soon).

With this update also came a region wide update to TSM – but I’m saving that for its own post in the near future.

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

Some Interesting Changes Coming

Oh my. This week we saw some patch notes that got the whole goblin community talking. It didn’t come as a complete surprise, what with the changes to the auction house (region wide commodity) but I’m not sure if anyone was expecting exactly this.

A few things I think it’s important to note. This specifically calls out trading and NOT mailing items. People immediately thought they’d be able to mail items and gold cross realm, but I don’t think that is the case, at least not yet. For now I believe this is limited to exactly the wording that was used – trades.

That means you’ll need a 2nd account, or a good friend, or someone you trust to help you with the transaction if you want to trade items / gold.

Overall, I think this change is a very good thing for players in general. That means if you can’t find what you need at a good price on your current server, you can go buy it some place else. On the downside, this does not exactly bode well for gold making goblins – or does it? Sure, you’ll technically have “more” competition because if you’re not the cheapest in the region someone will find a player who is – but how many casual gamers are actually going to take that sort of effort? Instead, you could be the goblin who is providing items on a server that is lacking. You could watch the region wide prices, and go buy the items you think will be in demand on your server. That could be transmog to low population servers, or even BOE gear.

Maybe you could even start up a business where you’re paid a finders fee for procuring rare / difficult to obtain items for players by browsing through the entire region. I think that creativity is key to the success of this change for gold making goblins, and I think in general the change is good for the average player. Simply playing the game rewards a LOT of gold these days between world quests, weekly quests, and a few AH sales in between. Throw in some alts, and I think it’s probably easier to make gold than it has been in a long time (since maybe the days of garrisons and gold printing machines, in fact).

In any case, no matter your thought, this is a change that is coming, and it’s much better to be aware and prepared than caught off guard. I personally feel that a region wide auction house is the next logical move, but perhaps the servers wouldn’t be able to handle such a huge change, so they decided on this smaller one instead. Thoughts? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Magranon Site – Day 3

Well, by now I thought the holy site would have expired, the wiki mentions it lasts “around” 14 days, I believe it spawned on June 2nd so we’re now on day 13 – the corruption and power of the site does continue to reduce, but it’s difficult to tell if it’s because of players or time. I’m trying to get as many fragments as I can before it vanishes in an attempt at completing a few more archaeology combines. So far I’ve gotten 10 items, I would say maybe three are ‘useful’ and the others are quite random. I’ll need a separate storage for these fragments, I’m unsure if they can be combined with regular items and retain their bonuses.

While three of my characters sit at the fissure on Xanadu, Blesse back at my main deed has been working with the animals, creating a few more hitching posts, and placing enchanted grass. Moumix hasn’t been around that much, but he has been working on some leather gear for the horses and helping with enchanted grass. I intend on sticking around at the Xanadu fissure for as long as possible to complete as many archaeology pieces as possible, then when I get back to my deed on Independence, I have some plans in the works. Or at least some ideas of plans. We’ll just have to see.

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

Nomadic Gamer