WoW

Collecting Mounts (#352)

I’ve been trying to get to 500 mounts for the achievement, but it’s pretty slow going (let’s face it, I don’t work on it nearly as much as I could). This weekend I managed to grab a few, starting with mount number 532, the Domesticated Razorback. I was really close to exalted faction with Steamwheedle “preservation” Society, so I did a little bit of farming and then used my apex crystals to buy the mount (I had 61k, I think from my garrison over the years). It was a quick mount to pick up, even if it isn’t the best looking one out there.

Weekly Gold Making Wrap Up [Aug28-Sept4]

After life decided to toss me around a bit, I’m back in World of Warcraft – back to making gold, and just playing the game and enjoying myself. Last week was the first week I managed to get items back up for sale, and with a 2.5 million gold profit I’m pretty pleased. Today (Tuesday the 5th) is of course the drop of 10.1.7 and a scheduled 8h downtime is taking place, so I didn’t bother re-listing yet. I’ll either do it tonight once servers are back up, or I’ll catch it tomorrow morning. I tend to list my items for 24h at a time since I’m on daily, and it takes me approx. 1h to list everything across 20 NA servers.

I did also manage to get most of my crafting done for the week. I have four characters working on this, and my latest ‘main’ (an evoker) is my gathering character. I don’t spend a lot of time gathering, but every once in a while I enjoy it. I’m looking for small ways to challenge myself and to keep myself interested without feeling overwhelmed, and I think sticking to a solid main is part of that challenge. It has been years since I’ve settled down with a main, and something I’ve always envied about other players who somehow managed to stick with just one character that they love.

In any case, gold making continues to be the driving force behind my time in Warcraft. The cost of the token on NA has shot up over 320k per (at the time of this post) and yet I still managed to pick up a few and extend my game time. I’m planning on keeping both accounts active since I do sales on one and play on the other. I’ve been leveling up some alts (on the alliance side of things this time) and over all, it just feels good to be back in game. It’s almost fall, the weather should hopefully be cooling down soon, and there’s something to be said for just being able to relax with a comforting game that you know pretty well.

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

Time Flies..

Wow, it’s already almost September! I can hardly believe it. The past 10 days have been a complete blur. What have I been up to as far as gaming goes?

I’m taking a small break from WoW, mostly because there’s just not enough time in the day and out of all of the games I have available right now that’s the one I’m the least interested in. I’m sure I’ll wander back to it eventually, I always do.

FFXIV is still my main MMO this month, my bard is 86, and my husband has finally caught up to Endwalker, so we can play through it together. I’m quite excited about this.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – I’m still playing this (of course, aren’t we all) with two groups, one is my 4 person campaign (we just completed the ruins before the Goblin Village) and the other is a campaign I have ongoing with my husband. We’re in the Underdark in our campaign, and overall the game has just been an incredible amount of fun. I honestly can’t blather about it enough.

Idle Champions – yes, this idle game is still pretty high up my radar. The current season ends in 3 days, and there’s also an event that ends in 1 day. The event is Ahghariron’s Day, and while I’ve collected Lae’zel, Voronika, and Prudence, I still have a single variant that I can’t seem to defeat. I’m adamant about not spending any more than the cost of the season pass, but I really do also need to work on unlocking more Champions. The reason I can’t defeat this one is because 5/12 of my seats don’t have an alternate that I can use, and you can only use Champions who have an intelligence of over 13. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

That’s where I’m at so far in gaming, and I do also plan on going back through the month and filling in those Blaugust holes. I meant to be far more on top of things than I have been. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it goes.

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

Games – What’s Going on in August

Despite what the past week or so has shown, I DO tend to write about video games here, so let’s do a little update on that.

World of Warcraft – I’m “playing” but not really. I haven’t kept up with content or story, instead I do some pet battles and marketing bits. As much as I love World of Warcraft, and I do, the game is old and it shows. It’s comfortable, but there’s nothing innovative and I always get a little bored mid way through expansions. It happened with Shadowlands and I’m not exactly surprised that it’s happening in Dragonflight either. Don’t get me wrong, I think DF is an amazing expansion (compared to previous ones) and I’ve had a lot of fun, but it doesn’t seem to last.

Wurm Online / Wurm Unlimited – I’ve been cautious about playing much WO because I’m not exactly convinced that the ‘new’ CEO won’t completely change the game that I love and adore, so to scratch some of those WO itches I’ve been playing a bit of WU, where the Sklotopolis server is my home and I have a small deed there I’ve been working on. WO has done some great QoL changes over the years that I really wish WU would be able to pick up on, but the Sklotopolis server developers have done well given their restrictions. They can only do server side changes with the way things currently are.

FFXIV – My husband returned to this game sort of out of the blue, because two of his RL friends are playing. I decided why not, and my little bard is mid-way through Endwalker and level 86. Most of my time is still spent crafting and harvesting, but the game is lovely. I’d like to get more into housing (so far I only have an apartment) and I’m learning the markets. Having 40(60) sale slots has been an interesting restriction that I’ve been having fun working around/with.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – Like a lot of others, I picked it up just before release and then held off playing so that progression wouldn’t have to start over. I have a 4 person campaign with some friends, and a 2 person campaign with my husband. I’ve been having an absolute blast, and while I know there are some issues that hardcore D&D players take issue with, I’ve just been relaxing and enjoying the narrative. Combat did take some getting used to, but now that we’re no longer in the tutorial and we’ve been adventuring together for a bit, it’s much more fluid. I play a wood elf druid in my group campaign, and a human paladin with my husband. Probably one of my favourite games this year.

Cook Serve Delicious 3 – When I don’t want to be around people this is the game I head to. I enjoyed the previous two versions of the game, and the third one follows a pretty dark apocalyptical timeline that I wasn’t expecting, but still enjoy. I appreciate that they have a ‘chill’ mode, and it’s just been a great little game to escape to.

School (and thus homeschool) will be picking back up in September, and this time I’ll have my 7 year old son and my 5 year old daughter so spare time (and thus gaming time) will go down as I do lesson plans and all that other fun stuff. I’m also trying to dedicate a bit of free time to hobbies, so games that I can get into (and out of) quickly are usually the winners. Baldur’s Gate 3 is (right now) Tuesday / Friday nights for 2h, and everything else I just sort of rotate around. Hopefully I can continue to balance it all, but we shall see. Life doesn’t always listen to me when I ask things to go a certain way.

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

What Does it Mean to be a Goblin

I don’t play World of Warcraft the traditional way it was meant to be played. I don’t enjoy raids, I don’t do group content. I do like collecting pets, and other pet related activities – but what I REALLY like to do in World of Warcraft, is make gold. If you enjoy making gold the term ‘goblin’ is often used. It isn’t a mean comment, it just means you enjoy making gold. It doesn’t even necessarily mean you’re any good at it (although I am). Right now in WoW I have 50,000,000 gold in liquid form (that means actual gold, not stock). That’s over 14 years of game time if I were to convert it all to battlenet tokens right now. I’ve been paying with gold for anything digital that Blizzard releases for years now, and I do that with my gold making. Diablo digital deluxe? Gold. Hearthstone packs? Gold. 2 WoW subscriptions and all the expansions? Gold. It allows me a certain freedom and also lets me feel guilt-free if I decide to take a break unlike other games where I’m actively paying a monthly subscription with my credit card.

This amount of gold is practically nothing compared to some of the bigger goblins out there – but time IS money, and the more time you devote to your trade, the more gold you’re going to earn. Right now I spend less than one hour a day on goblin activities and I’ve been established for a number of years which is what makes all of this easier. It takes time and effort to get set up and to learn the market and figure out your role in it. Once you’re there, it gets easier.

I started getting into gold making in BFA when the auction house mount was on a vendor for 5 million. My husband was away at depot for 6 months, and I was home with a newborn baby. I used gold making to get me through the incredibly long and lonely days, and it just sort of took off from there. Prior to that I had zero gold making knowledge. I used to ask my husband for gold to help me be able to afford to craft. Needless to say I no longer have that problem, lol.

I personally like to use my gold for good. I like to gift things to friends and family, help out guilds, and I never forget what it was like NOT to have that extra gold. It’s supposed to be a fun game after all, so I would rather help people have fun and not have to stress about an in-game currency when real life makes us stress so much already. Along those same lines, I also don’t enjoy making gold in a method that would bring harm to others. I don’t bait on the auction house or try to talk people out of their money. It’s simply not needed. I WILL spend time sniping auctions, but if someone messages me and kindly requests an item back without instigating an argument, I tend to give it back. After all, mistakes can happen.

My gold making habits tend to carry over into other games, but WoW is the only one I’ve managed to create such an extensive system on. Unfortunately, when I’m bored with gold making it also usually means I’m bored of the game, and need a break. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you don’t make a lot of gold if you’re not playing the game.

Anyway, there’s an introduction into my role as a goblin, and a bit of an explanation. As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself!