Thursday, April 28, 2011

Could have predicted this, but not that...

Well huge stocks of mats and going through them like mad...  selling scrolls at high volume...  Enchants are selling well, as the new gear hits the streets, and epics are "worth" it...  Selling a few power torent the and new bracer chants, and peerless stas is doing really well... in the Maelstrom market...  then crit to cloak and bracers does really well and some mastery slot...   now that I have and am selling a few of the scroll that take MCs I am moving large volumes of gold...

Its fun and i like the simplicity of the enchants markets...

The things that got me here was, I suppose i could have predicted that the availablilty of heavenly shards will drop...  there really are not going to be any coming out of the the new heroics...  I have been buying them under 15G, and saw them spike to over 40 yesterday...  YEOWWW!!! could have seen that one coming...  Normal spikes in price have been to like 25 or so....

The one that really baffles me... Celestial essences... from 20-25G ea jumped to 45...  Now if prices hold ther for long, ZA will be all screwed up.. prolly time to reset some markets, buy out the scrolls that take more than 2 CEs to make and reset the prices to reflect the new mats cost... especially if I can get the scrolls at or below current mats cost...  bought out 4 scrolls last night that were listed 135-160G, with a mats cost to make them around 150....  relisted 3 of them for 250... 

Not really sure why CEs prices got ramped up, but wish I did know so I could decide to fully reset prices in ZA, or just wait out the storm...   I go through prolly 100+/day...  and i dont have stocks for to many more days..  1-3... maybe...

Any idea what is driving CE prices up on the server....

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The new "Troll Holes" and Temple rats

Yeah, the new 5 mans full of goodness.  4.1 is live and the troll instances are going to take some time..  raiding seemed to be a wash with disinterest in old stuff, and server/conection instability. 

So a quick knock over at Baradin Hold, and the break it up to head for a Random Troll dungeon (and not ZF or ST)  Overall impression, of ZA, great fun, and pretty long, with a full guild group and solid players...  good times for sure, challenges, and such.  Overall not anything too complex or difficult in there.  And we went in pretty blind face rolling the content and guessing at some things.  Sooooo, what is that silly temple rat for?

I know as I ran a round of cancel posts and such, i pulled in 17K out of the mailbox and was glad I had stockpiles of scrolls in the bank ready to post...  otherwise it was a raid night and the gold making was not the priority... 

It affects me, but not directly, but I am a bit surprised at what I did not see while going through my fellow bloggers posts...  what are the new vendor prices for the gems?  cut? and uncut?

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mallard Ducks and Maelstrom Crystals

Well it seems as I continue to explore the AH markets and things, my wife is educating me on Mallard Ducks nesting habits.  After one bolted out of the bushes in front of the house when comming out the front door, an investigation proved the suspicions that she was nesting.  So, there is a Mallard hen, that lives under my front window, and the front door is now off limits for the household members.  5 eggs yesterday, and she was back in the nest this morning... supposedly she lays about 12 before the incubation begins...  then there is another next 6 feet away for some sort of sparrow or something too..  Could be Noisy spring.

On Maelstrom crystals... I think it will be a high speed market as a lot of people burn the Pile of Honor and JP they have on MCs...  so an intial surge...  will settle out by next tuesday... but will then continue to trend down in prices as More and more gear gets DE'd from the new troll dungeons...  If people are not getting capped in raids or are wanting more VP, I think there will be a lot of MCs coming out of the new troll holes.  Initially, a good bit of the gear will be getting equiped to offsets and such, but after that there will be a steady supply of MCs since the new troll holes have a higher valor point return.  140 VP from the new ones and 70 VP from the old one to a weekly cap of 980/980 from heroics and 980/1250 weekly cap...  The question is where will the price of MCs settle out at?  I have already last night seen prices drop about 20-30%  as people try to unload their befor the patch... because w/ all the JP and HP stockpiles people are bound to have.. there will be a massive influx of MCs initially...

anyway, not sure what I should stockpile at for now... there will be a high demand too, initially for the chants as MC prices drop...  currently they are running about 1K on the AH, or at least last night they were...   last couple weeks the prices have been 1-1.2K and occasionally a bit higher...  I think they will end up being around 500...  at least on my server... but they could go as low as 200...  with the initial demand there will also be an initial supply...  gahh, the guessing... what about you, what do you think will happen to prices...

Monday, April 25, 2011

Chees graders, and Maelstrom Crystals

MMhhhmmmm... you gotta wonder about that title...

Really they are not connected at all except they are comments over the passing of my weekend... 

I got up to make breakfast Sat a.m. and was working the potatoes into ribbons for that and took off the tip of my right ring finger.... advice... go slower... 2 hours about 15 paper towels later and a little bit of tournaquit action with a rubberband, and it stopped.  But, man, it is still raw and sensitive.... bump... "YEOOWWWWWaaaaHHHHH"

So about maelstrom crystals..  I hit 84 and got the enchanter out to twilight highlands...
bought all the recipies, and crafted them all too...  already had the 3 bracer chants...

I kept trying to sell of maelstroms as the prices would yo yo, but really, I was able to unlod very few of the 130 i had.   Surprisingly though... 3 each of almost all of the 15 scrolls that use MCs... and they are about gone.  So yeah, entry into the MC chant scrolls market... about 40-50 MCs.... 15 for the formulas and then enough to craft each scroll once.... at a cost of 1-6 per scroll...   had not thought about it, but, yeah... its a steep buy in to that market... good, less competition...

Friday, April 22, 2011

at least one more before the weekend

At least one more post before the weekend...

Why is it that the guy on the bottom of the DPS meter always asks someone else to link it... http://www.curse.com/ retard, get your own... maybe it will help you suck less, or make you wonder why you suck so much and you will go find some information somewhere else to help you suck less...   SOMETHING>>> JUST SUCK LESSS...  that dungeon would have been so much faster if you had not been carried by tank and me...  because the other DPS sucks too...

Okay, I am an elitist jerk sometimes... and always an elitist...  Sometimes I want to make a macro set for and special bartender bar just for the macros.. standard macros for standard situations and lazy ignorant idiots... who will ask for a "recount" report, but not how to download it or if it will hurt their FPS or something...

Macro 1, respose to "link the meters please"
"Thank you for being interested in wanting to know how your performance is compared to the rest of the group.  Now take the next step and download your own meter, instead of not only being bad at DPS, but not caring enough to actually do something about it... http://www.curse.com/ search for recount"
Alternate response, "GRATS, YOU BEAT THE HEALER... I would be happy to link the meters, but my big head and elitist attitude are in the way and prevent me from pushing the button.  Not that I could anyway, because my sensitive side will not allow me to gloat and celebrate myself as I am on the top and you are on the bottom.. and by a long way... And lastly I can not because I am tired... so tired, too tired to link the meters after wearing myself out carrying you through this place."

Macro 2, Macro as the tank upon entry into the dungeon w/ LFD group:
"Normally people say, hi, bahh, I am here for my own reasons and we are together by chance.  You can count your blessing that I do not suck as a tank, and curse me that I am an eltitist.  If you or your arrows or fireballs or whatever are in front of me befor I pull, you suck and must think a tank is supposed to taunt and save your ass.. wrong... I take care of the healer.. you take care of yourself."
Alternate: "Hi... As a long time tank I have found that you, the DPS think that doing your job demands that you sabatage every effort I make to help this group out.. so know these things... I am an elitist and you can curse me later if I am a jerk...  If you thunderstorm, hurricane, frost nova, or otherwise do stupid shit that prevents messes with my mobs.. consider this notification you will not have any grace from me to save you from your own stupidity.."

Macro 3, in the dungeon and they are stupid...
"<---- tank sucks... I must... For you think you must pull for me.. but, the real confusion is that you seem to  think I need your help pulling, therefore I am bad,  but that I am good enought to taunt it off of you.  Your amazing in that thought...   I am that good, but, I am also this rude.. I will not pull and I will not taunt...  If you are good enought to start the trouble, I hope you are good enough to finish what you started.

Macro 4, explanation to others
"This may not be a raid, and it may not be that serious.  But I do try to help and show the new players we may be grouped with how it is supposed to work if they should ever find themselves in a more critical and serious dungeon.  Its just a low level instance, but you are in a group, so play with the group or drop group and come back and solo it."

have you ever just wanted to nerd rage on people that are just plain stupid... or have you ever done it... 

After a few years of playing at an elitist level in an elitist way, with an elitist attitude, even in the AH... I still have not forgoten my early days and my early trials and learning in the game... the above macros are just a few I could create..  but have not... I guess I just like to think of my darks side with a sense  of humor, and then lock it back up in the closet and not be so mean..   there have been times where i laid into someone though...  Never did get the point across that I know of, a few shut up, a few started being less rude and stupid, others well, just wanted to argue...

Best ever idiot...  Most anoying moment in game by another player?

Mine was in the twilight highlands PVP battlegrounds...  Its WSG  basically if you dont know.  the guy gets the flag, runs it halfway back.. runs to the edge of the map... by the water fall.. stops... turns to look at the field... waits... turns and jumps to his death... WITH THE FLAG.. and he did it more than once...

how 'bout you?

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Family visit, the next toon and low level tanks

Surely, my plans are slowed down a bit as family came into town and my normal times to play are diverted to activities with them.  As a pretty good distance separates me from my family, its good to get time with them and a precious event in my life to have them in town.

Anyway, It has put a damper on my leveling efforts to use some of the 130 maelstrom crystals...  can not sell them for profit it seems and the prices are sorta holding and sorta falling... I have the hunter half way to 83, so well on the way to open up the phased guy and put them to work on scroll... its just pixels and if they lose value.. w/e they will always have value, just maybe not as much as they did when I bought them... and its not like I have head hunting loan sharks coming after be to pay of the loan... >:-/

I have not decided what toon is going to 85 next after the hunter.. the engineer?  Though I am not a fan of farming the wild reaches of anywhere other than the climate controled chaos that is the Orgrimmar Valley of Wisdom, I dont mind.  Its almost like a comfort activity, it is the way I got to my first 5K and then quickly depleted that on epic flight.... and thats why the engineer... Primal Might...  I have the lions share of the market and there are some scalpers palying with the Primal elementes... like inflating prices by hundreds per...  Well, when i can go relax, and farm nagrand for primal air and keep my market in the AH and its worth.. OHHHH guessing 3K or more per hour... well I dont mind...  Plus he is a miner... so smelting for profits... then the pets and other things to market too...  not for sure really though.. time will tell,  He is a rogue and a blast to play with.. loved the last rogue, as combat, and loving this one as sub.  though I have DS now and go combat in instances... Why because I play a bit elitist and combat has blade flurry and that lets me beat tanks on DPS... thats fun...  I am not sure, but I think often when I start beating tanks on DPS.. they get "challenged" and seem to start pulling harder, or at least bigger AoE packs to try to beat me...

Honestly, working to beat tanks at low level.. is just that.. WORK..

Yellow post its of WISDOM, or pick your color

Yellow sticky pads... they are the disposable notebook and I have hundreds at my desk at work and my "desk" at home.  Big ones, little ones, orange, pink, and of course yellow.. 

They are covered with nuggets of Wisdom.  they are disposable and temporary, but I find I keep many of them for a while... they surround my monitor.. and they are stuck to the pages of the REAL note book.  I have dozens of used ones and often just make clean sweeps to dispose of them dozens at a time...  Notes for the market, reminders of restock, reminders to craft, reminders to increase or decrease the listing amounts in ZA... and subject IDEAS for this blog...   they are great short term resources, but at some point the wisdom is distilled and a lot of stuff is lost in the cleansing. So, I am putting up a post to update with ideas for future entries...

-Oportunity costs and a level 1 alt.
-Reloading addons... (still scared of this one)
-Low level gold makers
-GOBLIN vs. SHEEP!
-Time, time and time (to craft, the market, to wait)
-Update scrolls management post
-The EPIC CHASE!!!
-Leveling for fun
-Elitist Leveling for fun and profit


I hope to think I will update this post and I will create links in the post to the posts as applicable..

My updateable post it of wisdom... the distillery of fine thought.. at least i think so...

Friday, April 15, 2011

Benevolance, and helping the new guys

For Kammler's Korner blog fair.  It is a little off the wall, but I submit the following... :-)

Motivations to do something in my case are rarely ever narrow affairs.  Its a convoluted mess of thoughts and ideas that stack up to one cohesive and "instinctive" decision to do a thing.  You prolly dont want to read how I come to many of my conclusions, its a pretty round about journey going way off track and often for extended forays from the main thought... Much like this opening paragraph and hte opening title.

So how does that apply to the post.  Because I dont intend to reflect reasoning only the event that transpired to my current enterprise that is the guild "commitment".

Shortly before TotC came out, Ulduar was getting to farm content for the first few bosses, and I was called away from the mother land to service overseas in the military. 

I passed guild leadership the guy I felt best suited to maintain both the guild and values we shared.
about a month later I was on the armory and watched as the guild emptied out and members were in a newly created guild or in another raiding guild alltogether.

I had in my mind coined the majority or "wannabe raiders" to "revolving door raiders"  the join and leave guilds to check them out and see if the door opens into a loby with an escalator for them to get more gear and a step up...  before moving on to the next victim of their gameplay. 

I was tired of being the victim and the idea of this guild was born.
Over the next couple years I formulated the plans and in the end started the guild with its current 2 rules.

Some, maybe even most will never play the game as goblins.  But they will in most cases look to goblins with some form of respect.  Predictably with the level 15 maxe entry barrier I placed on the guild, it is filled with low level toons and new players abound.  A new guild, 6 bank tabs (10K), repairs turned on and a 10K deposit.  then another group of offerings for what many consider large sums of gold for leveling and participating in guild group events, I have created a culture of curious players that ask me how I have so much gold...

Many are quiet, and the guild is sort of anti social.  there are few binding threads to the structure of the group of players.  The guild has not matured or grown to the point that a direction has begun to form.  And its difficult to do many things due to the level disparity between the players.  All of those thing, and the guy ask me for gold, or one asked for a 15 Agi enchant... for some pair of green weapons of power.. I got no reply to the 1500gold estimate for cost of the enchants.  I have the same rules and policies for every guild member.  I will give you anything, that I will not give to anyone else.  No personal favors by way of giving away anything with a gold value. 

Advice is however free.   It is an epic project with a 1 year or greater maturity prospect.  But the oportunity to set and establish with players values that will change a large group in the community... There is a quiet peace to know that I open the doors to helping so many more players increase their gameplay and enjoyment in a whole new way.  I can not quatify or value the number I have impacted, or even how much so, but I know it has impact and I know that some appreciate the little help leveling with the gold rewards every 10 levels and other stuff... for me its benevolant, fun and it entertains me.   Isn't that what a game should do.

Maelstrom Flips and other things, like PVP in the VoW...

Sometimes you want to PVP and to that end you have choices, Arathi Basin is my first choice while leveling a toon.  The ignorance seems to abound in warsong gulch far more, and just irritates me to no end, its not fun and so I will take a longer que and go to AB in almost all cases. 

However I send much more time the Valley of Wisdom PVP venue.  I like to mess with markets for profits... Something like 70 Maelstroms in my banks/bags.  Yeah... it feels like a lot to me too, especially since the investment put me under 100K liquid, that however just motivates me to get it back over that mark, and go make more.  In addition to flipping the maelstrom crystals, the market analysis and things, and last weeks accident, I made myself a 1200 purchase threshold and 1300 sell threshold.. should be fun...  It feels risky... but the only risk REALLY is 4.1 causing an imediate and drastic drop in prices, and I expect to unload most of the crystals this weekend anyway.  For now I have reset the market from 1050-1250ish to about 1250+  this will I expect help me with my futture plans to enter the high end markets of enchants that will be available or already have and cant craft till I get my rod from the phased TH vendor...  Its all good unless there comes an influx of TONS of crystals that I did not predict...  Its risky and exciting... I like it. 

I have played at flipping volatiles over a weekend...  No idea if I made my money, or just broke even but that was fun... Probably the biggest reason I like the MCs is there is a viable exit strategy.  MCs for me, w/o the patters at the vendor,  some will to that. some will go to the new scrolls as I increase the inventory and scrolls I market regularly.  I can flip the crystals or just put em on scrolls or buy patterns.. which ever suits my fancy.  So lazy exit strategy is to just make scrolls and unload.  PVP strategy is to watch and influence markets to sell the raw crystals for 100G or more profits on the flip...   Its all goodness and fun

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Just for fun and profit, and its exciting

Last week I dropped over 40K into useless pixels... Big mistakes and AH PVP but in doing that and then putting my goblin trike in 3 wheel drive to make my way through the muddy spot I found myself in, I learned a new piece of the market... 

Maelstrom Crystals... I bought about 25 last week at 1050-1250 and sold them all for 1270 I think... 

This week I INTENTIONALLY dropped about 60K into crystals below 1200, to list at my target of 1300  The thoughts here is this is exciting.. dealing with volumes of mats that could crash in value (prolly not) and could net me a loss of ??,???.?? (prolly not) because even if I can not move them as raw mats My enchanter will hit Cata zones on the way to 84 and the phased retard he needs to become friendly with to acutally put the crystals onto velums... Not sure I am ready to buy up all the crystal receipes, but I may, knowing its will be at a loss when 4.1 hits.. but what do I have to lose.. just pixels...

I look at the potential loss from 2 directions... LOSS OF OPPORTUNITY to play with and learn markets now, and also jump into them an move as they shift after the new 5 mans hit the live servers.  AND LOSS OF GOLD to play that game...  This is one that I do for fun and profit... to practice and refine methods and market impact that I contribute to the economy...

Check the undermine journal for prices and such.  check back over the last week... I was able to make a ton of sales over the weekend.. Many serious raiders put crystals into the market I imagine after they raid farm content... thats on tues-thurs...  now the casuals come on and need thos chants on the weekend... timing... will it work for profits, fun and excitemtent 2 weeks in a row?  Would it work on your server and faction?
My server has 20-80 crystals up at various prices at nearly any given time... that alone is part of why this works for me...

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Managing the Scrolls Market, As in SOEs and inventory and replenishing...

How I manage the scrolls Market with enchanting...

I am refining this as I go and will likely need to change the methods bases on several variables.  Each I will address as I go through.. check back and see updates and as I add screenshots.

I play goblin style... everything I do in game is to make gold...  or spend as little gold as possible to peg my fun meter.  I.E. raiding... for example.. bringing flasks for the raid, saves time and makes the raid more productive...  more fun.. and IMO negligable cost in exchange for that experience.  When it comes to AH raiding to UG the raider's gear, gems and enchants I can not make.. its a huge time saver to just buy it and move on..   "TIME IS MONEY FRIEND" in and out in 2 minutes, rather than however long in trade to save what? prolly does not equate to 1500gold an hour I have for benchmarking my time...  example: I would by that thought have to save 350 gold for what takes me 15 minutes in trade to complete.  that is go atlas loot look up enchant, go to AH buy mats, go to mail box pick up mats, go to trade and compete there for an enchanters attention, no be a jerk and actually tip them well for their time and effort (I like to be that guy, that knows "time is money, friend and yours is valuable too")  all of that takes about 15 minutes on average...   that 15  minutes cost me 350gold.. did i save 350 in the same time?  maybe...  but I digress.. if your here reading you want to probably read on how I handle scrolls...  but the point of all that was/is,  I do everything to make gold, so I made an enchanter/LW Hunter, before he became the GM and founder of "commitment"  so he is attached to that guild bank.  Optimally the enchanter would be part of my gold empire guild bank for strorage reasons.  Also, the process I am using is built with limit you may have and is focused on the various levels of play you may be at in your enchanting bussiness...  I only recently hit the Cata chant market... So I built first a smaller and slower business on twink and leveling chants that sell pretty well acutally...  but no where near the volume in most cases, item for item as the ones from cata.

First off opportunity costs...  you gotta have big bags.. and big enchant bags for storage of them things, you can live with out this, but you will find limits to what you can do and store.  I find every toon I make soon has no less than 22 slot bags, so much so that I often roll the toon, log off and go to collect 5 of them, and mail em off with the starter kit before that toon does their first quest.  ATM the hunter has 4 22s, an LW and 3 chanter bags in the bank, and 2 22s and 2 chant mats for bags.  After one week of playing in the market with cata level chant, I am formulating a plan to have a 1000+ stokpile of hypnotics and slightly less on the celestial essances so this is still a work in progress...  I maintain hundreds of dream, infinite, illusion dust a bit of vision.  hundreds of cosmics, eternals, nethers, planars... this alone take huge volumes of storage...  In addition to these mats, there are a few pots and elixirs needed, essence of air, wildvine, aquamarine, essence of earth, volatile life, volatile earth, volatile air, primal air etc. that I keep around. 

First, decide as you set up each enchant in ZA that you will start out with how many to post... post 3 or post 2 or post 1 each...  I started with posting 2 each of anything I made and then I initially made 3 of each scroll...  the 3rd goes to the toons bank, into the bottom of the  bags (I use arkinventory, so any right click transfers go to the top)  Next step is to go post the scrolls based on your market analysis and in my case a healthy use of lil sparky's workshop numbers, but rarely blind trust in them, a few notes and the ZA setup.

At this point lets say we have 3 each of ten intial types of scrolls.  ZA is in this case set up for all 10 scrolls to post 2 with prices and threshold where we feel a good profit and volume can be met.  Next step.. go complete your first round of  posts, go to bank and deposit the remaining 1 each of the scrolls.

A day later, hours later.. We are in round 2, go to AH cancel, go to mail box collect go to AH post...  now we raid the AH for mats... and maybe complete a full scan (more on why to do this now later, but your here at AH).  go to mail collect and head to bank... 

This is an additional step to expand your market.  In my case it was as I was leveling both the toon and the enchanting profession, so this has been and will continue to be how I evaluate and move into new markets...
Now, hopefully you have a small sample of all your chant mats in you bags.  Open the chanter's window and click to filter have mats, or just scroll down.  Now we are looking with use of recent scan data, just collected above or anytime recently works well enough, at the crafter window for the yellow numbers in the left collumn of LSW...  if its profitable and not on our sell list.. POSSIBLY craft this for market trial...  if profits are like one gold on a 100gold investment... ehhh.. or 1 gold profit on 1 gold investment... ehhh, you make the call for each one.  So LSW says 150g Auction and 60g cost on one we do not currently maintain.  Make 3, rinse and repeat for a few more scrolls.  5 new scrolls, 3 each in bags...  Set up ZA based on notes and prices etc from LSW and other sources...  Go to AH and post..  Return to bank place the one each in the bank...

If you skipped the previous part and are not growing/expanding this is where you pick it back up...
Now, with the bank open and your scrolls all listed, you mouse over each one you have... I put all my new scrolls in the bottom of the bags.  Arkinventory for me tells me if I have auctions of the item.  First step is to look for scrolls with less than 2 active auctions...  Now, with that info I do 2 things.  if it is sold out I move it up cloer to the top of the bag... and I shift click it to the enchanter crafting window to craft more.

When you mouse over each of the scrolls in the bank if it does not say (bank 1, auctions 2) then it it must be time to craft more.. but I not only craft more to replace sold auctions, I move that scroll up closer to the top of the bag.  this allows me to identify high volume movers and crafting on a time crunch priorities.  As it gets closer to the top, I change it be a 3 per post auction, and a few are about to become 4 per post cycle auctions.  The ones at the top are my high volume markets... the first to replace and the most likely to sell.. volume is your money maker.  Now in the speed cancel post scenario.. you would cancel, collect, post, log...
You have and extra 2 minutes, you can cancel, collect, post, review and craft everything in the top row. and post again then log.  more time to play with, go further down from the top in your bank and make sure you have 2 each on every item in an auction.  Now you have even more time.. you can start to stockpile mats in your scrolls... like precrafting scrolls instead of stacking mats.. again start at the top as these are your most likely sellers that will need replacement sooner and show turnover sales sooner...
 Hope it all makes sense and says what I wanted it to say... or its helpful to you...

Monday, April 11, 2011

Growing tanks in WoW, tanking is hard... and your just a tool

Maybe I imagine that I could help change the course of the design in WOW via a blog and a small audience.



Don't really care, but it is nice to imagin it could happen.  Mainly, I blog, play and make lots of gold because they all amuse and entertain me at some level.

So... Why is there a tank shortage...
Dont get your feelings hurt, stop when you dont like reading this post...

---No compettion/No Glory (your just a tool)
Do the tanks ever link the meter for "damage taken" or "healing recieved"?  Who is normally first to get kudos for something.. either amazing dps to beat the enrage timer, or the interupter that got it done?  When do the tanks get aplauded...
---No training to do it, and is very subjective (others judge you how good a tool you are)  To level you kill things.  See my old post Building quests and encounters to train the player base for more on this...
---Mechanics are complex (you have to be the tool and the master craftsman) Sure, stack your stats, have the gear and you are now a shiny tool... You have to have them close, then maintain agro, not turn your back, use your cooldown, effectively pull and group and silence and interupt, handle casters with LOS, position the mobs for your group, your strat... you are the center hub for the merry-go-round...  the pivot, while it all spins around you everyone else (the dps) are having fun and your just the tool to keep it spinning.
---Stats are complex (the features and stats you need are not a single focus, but more of a balance) DPS, every spec has a clear priority... pretty much healers do to... sorta..  but tanks, there are to many if.. then... situations... more health, more mastery, more w/e... different for a rounded tank, a casual tank, a heroic mode tank etc... You can always have some measure of success w/ stam stacking... if you are not then a mana sponge.. so where is the balance?   different on every tank healer team...   DPS always want more stat X and if you can't get X, then get more Y, and if that fails get more Z...  tanks... not so much....
---You are a leader in a leader postion by puttin on your shield (going blood pres, or bear too)  People are often and frequently averse to leadership roles and responsibilities...   many reasons, IMO its just the way it is.  But it surely impacts the number of tanks because that is added stress to a game if you are looked to to be a leader and dont want to be.
---You are never taught in game how to tank... read the post linked above...  but basically, quest says "KILL wabbits..."  and you learn to kill,  but they are mean wabbits and hit back... you learn the need to be healed.. and then bandage, eat, or cast a spell.  When did you learn how it works to take less damage and make everyone possible hate you the most while doing the least amount of damage?  So you learn very much how to DPS, and you learn very much how to heal (neither one do you have to learn well... but you learn)  but never do you learn to take less damage and make more threat and position mobs and group them and... and... and...
---You are never taught in game how NOT to tank... you dont want to walk backwards... its slow... right.. well as a tank, not the case... did you learn this because of something in the game?  I guess getting dazed does to a point, but you dont know that you can not parry and block if the target is behind you... and the dozens of other tip and tricks..  when do you "PULL" the mobs to you and when do you "pull" via a charge t-clap.  When do you use silence, misdirect, tricks, LoS???  Your stuck to figure out these mechanics on your own, you are never taught them. that I recall.
---Gimicks and tricks and the just silly stuff you could get away with leveling do not work as the stakes are raised.  Bad tanks, while leveling can overpull, and make a million mistakes... they will frequently live and so will the DPS... because if they dont get or lose agro the dps can solo the one mob chasing them in most cases...  Very few dps can consistently solo a trash mob in heroics...

So.. to Blizzard, the need to grow tanks is not in the Call to arms...  It is in quest and acheivement developement that engages players to learn those mechanics... in bite sized morsels that can be repeated and redone...  A repeatable or daily vehicle quest... with timers and achievements for doing it right... 
-----Achievements for
--15 of 15 interupts on timed kill where you have to maintain your damage output or fail (and achieves for less than 15 too..)
--Correct dps rotation, vehicle has 3 buttons and priorities... you have to get it right to get the kill in time for achievements at times of super fast, fast, good, more practice, good start.  try again...
--Taking less damage, by holding agro and facing mobs to you (the vehicle has 95% dodge from the front, and 95% spell reflect from the front...)
ideas for days on how to do this, but a series of dailies anyone could go do, and get the achievement to show what kind of player they might really be, rather than the ilvl...


Even if this did not grow more tanks, it would grow smarter DPS that would begin to understand what tanks are doing, and be less of the forces working hard to undo everthing the tank is trying to do...

BIG mistakes and AH PVP

Ever made a 40K gold mistake....  what a sinking feeling... Probably less so in my situation when I have a few hundred thousand gold, but still...

So, I decided that with the upcoming patch, and lower costs for maelstroms crystals, the demand for the world drop barcers will go up.  So... 20K later.... I have all 3, and am wondering why I am missing about 5K... I was only expecting to spend about 15-16Kish...   Yeah the next day I realized I bought 2 of the strength formula... still trying to sell it...  

Now on to the Maelstrom crystal...   bought 25 of them bad boys.. plan to have a small stock and make 3 each of the scrolls... 1 for the bank 2 for the AH.. Thats the way I track my SOEs... I keep one in the bank, and then ArcInventory tells me on mouse over if I have auctions or not, no auctions... make more... :-)  It also gives me a way to sort them into categories... like the low volume sales are near the bottom, and the high volume sales are at the top...   i list 2 of everything i can keep made.... except the ones that make it to the top of the pile and there are some of them that I am making 3 each to list in the AH...

So, my little hunter burns the 15K by learning these recipies... now to burn another 20 something on the scrolls.. 3 each and 1050-1250 for the maelstroms...

"REQUIRES RUNED 'YOUR A DUMB IDIO AND CANT DO THIS' ENCHANTING ROD"

OOOOPS... I know have an inventory of 30K in crystals.. and burne 15K in enchanting paterns I can learn and not use...  BWAHHHHHHHH!!!!  the hunter was level 75 at the time.. he is now on his way to 84..  78 was the end of the weekend...


ON PVP... and not that BG stuff... now I have about 30K spent in crystals... well, I bought all the cheap ones... so just reset the market and make a few gold off that...  Yeah, it worked out, got all my money back and made some.. not sure just how much i made but probably 200+ each crystal.... so, I made 5Kish on that mistake.. paid for one of the formulas I can not use... YET!!!

That got me into some serious trial and error market PVP.. buy low sell high...  This is a fun game to a point.. because you will get undercut... my big games in the AH raid were volatile life and celestials.... both move in high volume and both are frequently listed in small stacks....  POSTAL for the win... buy out everything under a threshold and then relist at the threshold....   relist the lesser celestials as greater... etc... in the end I bought out another several hundred volatile lifes as I was under cut... relisting in 200 stacks.. they seemed to sell well that way... that post box convenience is paid for... i have paid for it many times.. time is money friend.

Lessons learn in the AH flip PVP games...   It can take a LOT of babysitting...  You need to have a good sense of where your high volume buyers tolerance and thresholds are...  Example: if you buy out all the volatile life from 2.5gold up to 10gold.. and then relist it all at 9.75... a lot of buyers will wait you out... regular AH scans and recent market data will help you determine in this situation that a better cap to shoot for would be 5.8Gold, and sell at 5.7... yeah, no idea how much I made at this, how many I bought or sold of of either the volatile life or the celestials.. but I had fun doing it...   As one of my buyers for the volatile life was listed in the AH window... "Ebaysale" I got a great chuckle, as he was my sucker this time.... :-)

Still it was a lot of fun, but eventually I had to back out... To go level the hunter/enchanter of course.  And thats another problem... camping on this level of serious AH raiding... Finding or making an exit strategy can be difficult... fortunatly I was listing 200 stacks and moving stuff that way as I was undercut.  Got them sold to a low level of stock and few under cutters and walked away, fortunately, by chance and not design, I was playing in the market at a time when buyers were more prevalent than sellers.

next post on stockpiles...

Friday, April 8, 2011

Building quests and encounters to train the player base

So over at   Foo's WoW musings they wrote on Better than tank bribery?

Sparked some ideas and what not... its not tank failures or healer failure, or dps failures....  Its game mechanics and just not knowing player base failure... Of course there are some that do know and dont care and are just baddies...

Quests have evolved and there are a lot of possibilities... 
For instance.. durring the first 10 level progress quests are less about the STORY of AZEROTH and more about the BIRTH of a HERO...  kill squirls? and colect ghost beries?  OR...

The agro training quest concept:  You are in a vehicle, for instance control an Abom if you in the undead area, or giant mechanical if you are in the Gnome starting area... race appropriate... now the quest requires that you use the "Bitch Slap" (maul, sunder, hammer ability equivalent) on enemies to keep them attacking your verhicle while they are killed by your "buddies" that will die if hit too many times by them.  You would also get the "kick in the face" ability to "taunt" and a "Fart in the room" AoE threat ability and lastly, you get the "tell the dumies what to do" ability that marks the target you choose with a skull... and all your minions and budies will attack that target.

Now agro as a DPS uses the same thing, but you have to target the one guy marked in one scenario, and then there is a no marks scenario where you learn how to use /assist or target of target frames to not pull agro and die...

Simple and fun quests that can be instanced and perfomed in a way to create scores and times for achievements...  

For healing you get a video out take of the user interface and how to determine the health and how to heal the targets. example... video begins... "The HERO's of Azeroth have teamed up to conquer the foes of the land an the ways of their live.  Some bend the wills of her enemys to hate themseles and they are the tanks..  Some play a part with magics to drain the life, souls and very existence of our enemys or simply beat them to death.  The healers ensure that as those other go forth the magics of the land and nature or the church and holy powers are directed into the injured and wounded to sway the balance of victory...  blah blah blah... how to see, read health bars and heal the group...

The point is.. these elments DO NOT EXIST in questing... All questing teaches you is how to DPS...

Fundamentally change the questing experience at point along the way to give you a buddy... there was a great quest in grizzly hills that did this. the guy says what do you want me to do.. Heal or damage... or something.. been a while.. but the point is you got a buddy and they were the counterpart to you party...

Intuitivly design the quest to point out what agro is, and you would have a winner...  with that quest teach people that you have "HIGH THREAT ABILITIES" and they are needed... and such... great... 

now, when I get to a new guy that says, "whats threat/agro" "why is tanking hard" or the fail tank in  PUG needs help you refer them to the "quest" and your swipe is like the "farts in the room ability... or your "sunder armor is like your "bitch slap" ablity and your taunt is like the "kick in the face" ability...

to up it a notch, you can not que in the dugeon finder till you have completed the series of quests...  or even make capitol cities themselves phased so that you have to complete the quests in order to see most of the NPCs...

Most often the problem is not that players are "bad", its that the players are new, ignorant, dont know, too embarassed to ask, to berated to care... and the other players are mean, assume they are retartds, jump in their ass, and otherwise act in manners totally contradictive to the MMO environment, but in a digital world there are not consequences for those actions. 

Hmm, its fun to try to be a dev/designer... :-)  happy bloggin guys.

COMPLETELY clear the Addon folder?

And the WTF folder, just start completly fresh.  I would think I may want to keep some of the settings for like bartender, grid, and a few others.... mysales and beancounter..

But sometimes the speed of things is just horrible and I quit using auctioneer because it would just lock down and quit running.

As I see it, it can not hurt to get some fresh install, but what I am not sure on, is would i really gettingthing for it, and would I hate myself in the days to come as I completely have to rebuild what has become a no kidding, ZERO default UI, and uses no packages... Every addon has been individually downloaded and settings applied for my tastes and personal ecpectations of that display function.

Any thoughts? no need? bad idea? great idea, but make sure to back up and save xxx..

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

On gold making

Well, I am definately not making a dent on the gold making really.  I think I am actually losing gold.  Not that I really care, because I am growing markets and stockpiling.  So much that I decided to gank 2 of the guilds bank tabs.  I bought all 6 tabs off the bat, and the guild is not using them, I keep tab one stocked with 10 slot bags for anyone to grab.  Maybe its not ethical, but I turned on guild repairs and put 1,000 in there for that purpose.  So, taking one tab for my enchanting business, and one for my LW business and enchanting... I am okay with that.  I was working only older twink and low end enchants markets, but lately I have in earnest begun to level with the hunter again.  Moving across Borean Tundra, a couple dungeons, lots of rested XP, and I have gone from 70 to 73,  At 75, I will be able to train enchanting and LW to new levels and figured  I should be prepared to do something with them both.  I just did not have the space in my bags and bank to level and run any sort of business with stockpiles of mats ready to go.  My answer to the scrolls of enchant tracking rather I need more has been to make one extra and keep it in the bank.  I mouse over each one with Arcinventory, and it tells me if I have auctions up.  I move the locations on them to track rather I want to make and keep more than 2, my default, up.  For instance I craft what looks to possibly be a profitable scroll.  I make 3, and put one in the bank on the "bottom row", set up ZA and post the other 2 next round.  Next time around I just go to the bank and if there is only one up for auction it gets moved off the bottom row and another gets crafted.  Maybe there is a smarter way to do this, as it will certainly take a lot more space as I continue to expand.  I just bought all dream shard receipes in Dalaran and will begin to play with those.  When I hit 75, I will have a much bigger inventory to manage this way.  But its working for now and Like I said, I have been building huge stockpiles of mats for longevity and intro to the market....  should be fun, and hopefully profitable.....

Two rules for the guild

The first rule is new member have to be level 15 or under.  That way, anyone that gets to max level has shown something already.

The second rule is the "Golden Rule"...   I can not make it more simple...

Still miffed at the ball a guy had to ask me for the 50 gold participation reward from the race.  "I was on..." and, "I participated"...  "for like 5 minutes"... "whatever, I don't care, I already have XXXX gold."

"No, you were not on" at start time there were exactly 3 guildees on,  Myself and the 2 participants.  They both made a toon that had the required special characters and was of the specified race, were in group with me for the duration, and crossed the finish line with a level one tauren in eversong woods...  

Just irked me and still does that he thinks he can try to get gold for nothing, and then lie and get gold for lying...  I was prepared for that sort of thing, I guess I was not.  Because the race was on Monday and here I still am stewing over the small stuff.  Not like they got the 50 gold anyway...    Just that some peoples idea of the GOLDEN RULE and mine are probably going to be different.  Lieing and misrepresenting yourself? Definately not in line with the golden rule.


The guild continues to grow in numbers and there is far more frequently someone else online besides myself...  still so many low level toons, gahhh, still stuck at level 1 guild.  Makes me consider that Gevlon has a great gold to guild xp leveling idea... cost him 225K, and they got the server first level 25 guild... thats sorta cool.  I think I may work in a reward system for that to amp it up... will still be hard for low level toons to contribute at a reasonable level, but contribute some more will, and I could afford 225K, or something similar.  time will tell where I go with that idea. 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Guild Events in Commitment

Hahhh, what a laugh...
So I hosted the first Guild event.  It was a level 1 foot race... with most of the details TBA. 
I had worked out most of the details to minimize cheating now and for future attempts to repeate the event.

In the end, there were 2 guildees on for the race and one said, "what's vent"... that was pretty much expected, people never read the rules or anything on the calendar or guild info...  ehhh, but then if you dont know what it is... either way, it was just really slow to type it out... the plan was to make a Tauren, and the name had to have "râ¢Ã¨" in the name...   well, ¢ did not take on the creation screen so deadrâcèr, and râcèrx were born and in the Tauren starting area... woot...  invite to guild invite to group....  preventing any grouping with friends for some speed boost...

Alright... from here to Eversong woods... at the gates of silvermoon...  so, it was going to be 2 zeplin rides, and use of the orb of translocation... I mentioned this to both racers, and then said go...

NOW I STARED AT THE SCREEN IN DISBELIEF BEFORE I STARTED LAUGHING....

Seemed simple enough... I expected the guys to head north, and follow both of them... but I was faced with opening my map to track them both and picking one to follow...  on headed east and the other south.  No idea what was going through their head.  Really at timing would have it, the zeplins choked the racer route to really only be a race off the zeplin in Tirisfal Glades and to the gates of Silvermoon City in eversong. 

It was far mor fun for me and I was able to give away 1500 gold.   It was fun.  The winner was Pandorum, the pally who is tanking on the way up and  has leveled 1-50 in about a week.   I have taken to leveling the hunter again with quests.  Its good guild xp this way, and he is at a level where its decent for the time and bordom of the grind...  I am however only on my second Horde toon in Northrend... So some is still fresh and new.  I leveled through Howling Fjord before, and this time I am in Borean turndra.  Also working out to go for the faction rep and pick up some of the recipie for more gold making oportunities... yep..
kinda dreading the kulak grind. no way to really speed it up...

Buildings... Mountains... Ecosystems...

Hmmm, this a random thoughts post, just airing out some ideas abou the community of WoW in all of its subtelties and variations.

WoW is the and will continue to be the game all others will be measured against.  No idea when it will be "toppled" but not any time soon.  They were there and fortuitously did the things at perfect timing with the culture that did not exist but was born out of the times they were in. 

WHAT!!! 

Okay.  Warcraft, Warcraft II, and Warcraft III.  Still great RTS games.  In their time, MMO and on-line games were in the first generation past MUDs.  (by my account, and for my argument anyway)  However they were console games for PCs.  I dont believe there is anywhere near the market for that type of game anymore.  And those games brought an enormous player base to the World of Warcraft.  and it grew...  Certain elements and foundations were developed from the begining and in the infancy of the MMO world.  They built on the philosophy of principles that it had to be right to release.  And by right they also had firm ideas that have been built upon for the engaging aspect of the game, the quests and such,  there are also the goals and the e-sports environment that were built upon and devleoped over time to current raiding and PVP environments. 

Now that said, the Building of WOW was on a firm foundation, at least now looking backwards it seems it was.  It has of its own accord and that of the push of the community grown to become a living mountain.. wide at the bottom, and cold, lonely, presitgous at the top.  Few can and will get there, and finding others who can, will and do commit their schedules to be there, make the elite... truely elite...  Paragon and other of that community made the world first kills months ago... when did you get yours?  have you?  I know I would like to just be a part of maybe a server first, but then, no, I am not willing to commit to that level of play for the hours and times to a group.  I prefer to be casual and dream about the top of the mountain when it comes to raiding. 

Why is that important...  and what does it have to do with the title...

The Mountain is an eco system.  WoW is fed by the gold sellers, the gold buyers, that casuals, the elitists, those that are more interested in the wardrobe than the quest, those more interested in the stats than the wardrobe accent, those who are loremaster by title, but are really just an achievement whore, and those that are really a "loremaster" and know all the lore of all the tribes, factions, races, leaders, key figures, etc. etc. etc.  The PVPers, the raiders, the farmers, the "insert nationality here" farmers, the crafters, AH elitists... they all play a part in the game..

Now step outside the game... the game is the building.. the initial, construction... built well and in a time that can not be replayed, on priciples that have found them ahead of other games repeatedly. 

Look at the Blogger community, the elitistjerks.com community, the wowhead.com, fansites, PVP, class, spec, theory crafting, fun, silly directed, random, and more... the rate my gear sites, the pimp my gear sites, the addon community, and on and on.. the guild communities, and their own websites...  

That is the mountain each one of the elements parts of ecosystems...   with out the whole unit and all its parts, their begins erosion... 

Blizzard needs gold farmers and gold sellers and gold botters...   They dont want them, but there is a symbiosis there...  they have acounts and pay to do some of their activities.  there is a portion of the community that exist because they can buy gold...  if they could not they would not be here. 

As long as it seems better at the top, and there is the dream among the community to get to the top... to be a part of a server first, or server top 10 guild or whatever your goals are... WoW will reign.  The elusiveness of the top spots that everyone wants and thinks they can get, or whatever e-peen they can attract attention to themselves with... keeps them around.  /2 chuck norris ... for example... a failed raider? that needs attention?  I would like to think it is sometimes. 

Blizzard is the only one that can kill WoW right now.  No other new game or title can do what they did, times have changes, the opportunities they build on with the original warcraft games do not exist like they did before.  no other new game or title can build the community like WOW...  how long did it take for addons to become what they are now...  a couple years really before they started to take off...

Monday, April 4, 2011

Regret at the end of a weekend?

Well, I was not able to get the Guild rep on the main via raiding to get all the way to honored, BUT I got to honored over the weekend. Still pretty jaded at the guild I rolled to be a part of.  I have completed almost every quest in Cata, (still need to talk to Bran somewhere in the dungeon to finish)  So my only reasonable option to geting guild rep is Cata Dailys.  the ones in TB are the best for it too, however at this point, I hate dailies... doing dailies just for guild rep... gahhh... but I made myself go do them a couple times...  Once last week, to make sure that This week I was within reach of honored.  A few boss kills and raiding for the week over, I still needed about 2 days of dailies, 24 dailies one day, and then just the TB dailys. and dingo, Guild honored...    That is expensive...

I mean have you looked at the cost of one each of everything available at the vendor when you are honored... ((O)).((O))  Yeah, about 15K...  I did not get one each of everything either.  Cauldron... yeah got that one... for the raider... then the rest... I did get one each of every heirloom cape and hat... and 2 each of the Agi and the Int capes...  so, 11 more heirlooms... I think before I had... 26???  All this is so I can play another toon on my wifes account without heirlooms...  because its on another account.  Rolled a tank, I figure getting more heirlooms for her that way will be easiest, and I enjoy playing a warrior tank.  now, I have my littl rogue pimped out, I have the not so little hunter, pimped out, the little caster druid is pimped, and the warlock too.   The only things I dont have enough of to go around is the trinkets.  Otherwise, every one of those toons has their own full set of heirlooms, decked out, weapons included, and I have a full set of plate in the Bank.  Why? not really sure, but it amuses me. and I enjoy leveling alts.

But Looking at my addons, and seing my weeks gold not  going up.   that hurts... and motivates... time to go do some more things to make more gold in more ways more gooderur, and fasterur.. 

Are you stockpiling pyrite ore?  Decided I can afford to, It will always have value, and right now, its getting pretty cheap.  I am buying under 3G each... or about 60/stack.. I figure, I could have unloaded the titanium I had the day the patch hit for more that I made prospecting it to gems.  My guess gems will start out at 300-500gold uncut, that makes a stack of ore worth 500G or so... By my guessing around, 4 32 slot bags of pyrite ore... thats 128 stacks at 60G (max) each = 7680, 128 sold at 500 =64,000, yeah, thats 56Kish for sitting on the ore and losing the storage I was not useing anyway....  Add another 800gold to cost if you want to, since that is what another 2 mamoth mining bags ate 400g each ran me...  kinda thinking... I may make more space and stockpile more ore...  those numbers are just rediculous...... I really dont think ore will ever really go below 3G each much either... not sure, but that seems like its pretty close to the floor prices you could vendor gems at... for a profit