World of Warcraft Archives - Page 63 of 108

Gold Token Currencies

March 3, 2015 by Belghast

Obligatory WoW Selfie

With the launch of patch 6.1 I have to admit I was mildly frustrated that I had not managed to get the selfie camera to appear on my main character. Instead it showed up in the garrison list of my hunter, so it took me a few days to notice. Even then the default form of the camera is not a toy yet until you receive the follow up garrison mission to upgrade it. Now that I finally have it sitting in my toy box… I guess I have to do the obligatory picture. Now I have seen so many of these now that I decided not to tweet it, but nonetheless I think its cute and charming. I am surprised by just how little control over facial expressions you have, so I guess to get the picture you want to take would involve an extreme amount of patience. This makes the folks who have posted essentially little story vignettes using the camera all the more impressive.

I know that Blizzard has caught hell from a certain brand of player over this patch not having any “tangible” content. I for one am plenty happy with the results, namely because we got the content that goes with this patch ahead of time. Traditionally Blackrock Foundry would have been delayed until a patch rather than put in ahead of time and unlocked at a specific time. Do we really want to fault Blizzard for being proactive? While it might be stupid, little features like the selfie cam, twitter integration, heirloom system and color blind system breathe life in the game for a lot of players. While the raiders and pvpers tend to be very vocal groups, they don’t represent the “average” player. I would imagine that the average player runs LFR and is happy to be doing so, and things like the garrison and heirloom systems really add to their enjoyment. What I see is a blizzard that is trying really hard not to fuck up the gains they got with Warlords, and a very jaded community that is almost happy to see them fail. The rabble over this patch is precisely why we can’t get nice things.

Gold Token Currencies

Some time ago Blizzard teased the introduction of a monthly subscription token currency that can be purchased and sold to other players for in game gold. At the time I dubbed this “BLEX” since it seemed to be based on the Eve Online Plex concept. Some time has passed and I think many of us had simply forgotten about this until yesterday when an official blog post appeared talking about the “WoW Token”. Firstly I disapprove of the boring name, and I also disapprove of it being wow specific… but both of those are beside the point. It seems like we are now going to be getting the chance to purchase a subscription token and then sell that token on the open market. Unfortunately many of us are questioning just how open said market will be given that the FAQ states that systems will be setting the price of the currency not the players. That honestly concerns me a bit, because it makes me think that Blizzard will be trying to manipulate both sides of this equation.

I’ve played several other game that had something similar to the WoW Token, and in all cases played the game at the moment they introduced it. Generally speaking for the first month it is a buyers market, with a bunch of players trying to play “catch up” and purchase in game currency for real world money. Then things shift a bit, and the value of the currency goes up significantly, as the ready supply of folks jumping on the RMT bandwagon slow to a trickle. Ultimately the amount of a token needs to match the value proposal given by third party gold sellers. Based on some quick googling it looks like $15 gets you around 20k to 30k gold. So in order to stem the tide of third party gold selling Blizzard has to make sure that the token currency is worth at least that much, essentially that it is easier to use official systems than to risk the danger of unofficial ones.

The positive effect is if this works, the gold selling and gold hacking are in essence going to be a thing of the past. In the games that have had these token systems, there is still gold selling but nowhere near the levels that existed before hand. Essentially having a legitimate system drives the price down so much that it is simply not profitable for anyone to bother with. Unfortunately from the standpoint of players hoping to play for free… this is more than likely going to be out of reach. The price of a monthly token seems to rise with inflation, meaning that as it becomes easier to get money in game… it also starts costing you more of it to purchase your token. I feel like only the most dedicated of players with the most free time, or the best auction house schemes will ever be able to actually play World of Warcraft for free. In any case… I still think this is largely a positive move.

Final Boss Music

Last night I experienced a bit of a baptism by fire, as it seems that my raid group in Final Fantasy XIV skipped turn 8 and went straight into turn 9 the week I was out sick. The awesome thing is that it seems like they made serious progress that first night of attempts, and last night in spite of me having to play catch up and seeming to stand in the wrong place at the wrong time… we made forward momentum. This is the epic boss fight at the end of the second coil of bahamut, and just like turn 5, this one seems to be a guild killer. I know groups who have been working on learning this one for over six months. Knowing this I have to admit I went into the fight with a bit of a mental block about just how difficult it might be. Turns out just like everything else in Final Fantasy XIV… it is a rather predictable pattern that just requires lots of precision and execution.

Most of the wipes were absolutely due to me doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. However as the night drug on I started to grasp the dance and we all got considerably more precise at doing it. We actually managed to make it to the final phase which is no small accomplishment. Unfortunately unlike turn 5, the final phase here really does seem to be the hardest. That said we do seem to finally have a firm grasp on the “meteor” and “golem” phases and we were pretty much executing those flawlessly. Now we just need to get back in there and start working on that final phase. I am hoping within four nights of attempts we will have killed us a turn nine and be able to official move on to “current” content. I love my Final Fantasy XIV raid group and Free Company, for keeping me engaged for roughly seven months now… which admittedly is somewhat of a record.

MooCowadin

March 2, 2015 by Belghast

Bel Folks Stuff 5 – Evening with Qelric

We are going to put on our timey wimey stuff hats and pretend that this show is being released during the month of February, as it was originally intended. When I record a Bel Folks Stuff I tend to give the victim as much time as possible. So I approached Qelric back in January to talk about this show… and she every so graciously accepted. The problem is that life happened in the time between, with her getting an absolutely horrible case of chicken pox towards the beginning of the month, and me dealing this this insane bronchitis mess towards the end. The result is we recorded the “February” episode in March… and that I supposed is just fine so long as it came out in any form.

Qelric is quite literally one of the only youtubers I watch with any regularity because she brings to her craft a style that you don’t generally see on youtube any more. She presents extremely content dense videos in a news like format, making them far easier for me to digest without the rambling exposition. If you are not familiar with your videos, I highly suggest you check them out. On top of this however Q is just a downright interesting person, and we have interacted for what feels like years. I had a delightful afternoon/evening sitting down to record this episode. Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed and we had a mammoth hour and a half long show. The awesome thing is… even after the mic stopped recording we wound up talking for another thirty or forty minutes. I love it when the conversation is natural and flowing. Hopefully you will all enjoy this as much as I did recording it.

[download the podcast]

Moocowadin

Yesterday was a surprisingly busy day, with dealing with the publishing of two different podcasts and a normal blog post. As a result especially while waiting for Qelric to get online, I wanted to play something but did not want to get too terribly engaging. With the introduction of the Heirloom system and the 6.1 patch, it has greatly increased my desire to alt. My number one frustration while trying to level a character is trying to make sure I have level equivalent gear. I realize that gear is never as important as I seem to make it, but I like to have at least as good of a weapon as possible while pushing through the levels. Now previously I had some heirlooms, but I had to choose which character would get to use them. Even with the ability to send them cross realm, it became a mess trying to track who had what and I was constantly afraid I would end up losing heirlooms in the mail… because I have done this before. The new system however is pretty much ideal for me, since I can generate copies of heirlooms on any and all characters.

When The Scryers server merged with Argent Dawn I set about creating eleven place holder horde characters, since I did not know how the actual merger would work. It makes me extremely happy that I can have 11 Alliance characters on Argent Dawn and 11 Horde characters on The Scryers… and use them to play with my AD Horde friends. I have always been one of those players that tried to span the faction divide whenever I could and through various community efforts I developed just as many bonds on the red side as the blue. I always feel like a louse however for never really spending much time leveling a character on the “other” side. As a result I started working on Belgrace my Moocowadin yesterday while waiting for Qelric and while recording the podcast. As of this morning I am now level 18 and starting the Ratchet area. It is insane just how fast the levels come when you are completely kitted out in heirlooms. The only slot that I do not have is the ring, and I am simply not a good enough fisherman to get that.

A Confidence Boost

Over the last few weeks since the launch of the Final Fantasy XIV 2.5 patch I have greatly tapered off the amount of time I am spending in World of Warcraft. It has become a Tuesday/Thursday experience for me largely which means simply showing up in time to raid. Now granted I am logging in periodically throughout the week to run garrison missions but in the grand scheme of things that takes ten minutes or so at a time, and I am really not online that long. I’ve felt kinda horrible because one of my long time friends has been slowing improving her ilevel gear wise on her priest. Every so often she would give me an update and yesterday she told me she had hit ilvl 626. I knew the answer before I asked it, but I asked her if she had managed to do any LFR yet? As I suspected she said no, that she was wary of raiding… and didn’t think she was ready for it. I hopped on Lodin my hunter, that could still use gear from Highmaul LFR and offered to queue with her for moral support.

Finni had raided before during the early days of World of Warcraft, and as such the bulk of her experience dated from the 40 man era. So when she thinks “raid” she equates it to super serious business. Fortunately and unfortunately at times… Looking for Raid is anything but serious business. Within what felt like fifteen minutes of queuing we were through the first section, and she got a much needed confidence boost… and thankfully a little bit of gear. I remember the first time I queued for Looking for Raid upon coming back during Pandaria. I was scared as hell because the concept of a raid for me too was “serious business” time. Thankfully we have this wonderful system that allows players without the time to dedicate to at least be able to get in and see the fights in one form or another. She ended up walking with a few upgrades, and I did as well… and can now queue Blackrock Foundry on my hunter. I think we both benefited from yesterday equally, because it seems like she won’t be quite so frightened of the LFR queue.

#WoW #Paladin #BelFolkStuff

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Fun With Trains

February 27, 2015 by Belghast

Bel’s Blog Bonanza – February 27, 2015

For those not familiar with it, I write a bi-weekly column on MMOGames.com and they made the huge mistake of letting me name it myself. As such I gave it the completely bombastic title of “Bel’s Blog Bonanza” and every other week I give a run down to the best of my ability of the current hot topics circulating through the gaming blogosphere. This week I talk about the echo effects of the rather brutal interview of Peter Molyneux by Rock, Paper, Shotgun. This had many responses out in the community, and I picked a few of the ones I felt represented the various feelings the best. Additionally the Crowfall Kickstarter has been huge on the blogging front with an absolutely overwhelming number of posts contemplating what everything means thusfar.

This week has also been huge as far as game patches went with the two remaining subscription juggernauts of Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft both releasing a significant patch on Tuesday. From the Final Fantasy XIV side from we had a large number of posts talking about their experiences with the Manderville Golden Saucer and related items that came into the game this week. On the World of Warcraft front we had quite a few reactions to the various features that were put in with the first patch of the expansion. While the viewpoints of FFXIV 2.51 seemed overwhelmingly positive, the reactions from the World of Warcraft players were a little bit more mixed… which I assume is what you would expect from having a much more mature community. The honeymoon was over long ago and now folks are viewing the game through less than rose colored lenses. In any case check out the post and let me know what you think of the column.

Fun With Trains

Last night I finally started to feel like I was getting back into the swing of things. Yesterday as a whole I felt considerably better than I had since last Thursday. With it being a raid night, and we had cleared all of the encounters we had worked on during my medicated stupor on Tuesday… this meant that last night was entirely a learning night. Some people get depressed at the concept of constant wiping, but for me it feels cool because we are getting to try new things. Last night we set our sights on Operator Thogar, which for those who are unfamiliar with Blackrock is the “Train Boss”. His room is essentially a train depot with four different tracks. At various points during the fight a train will come barreling through the room and if you are on the wrong track at the wrong time… it will flat out one shot you. For me as a bit of an abomination as Gladiator DPS… it will take me down very close to death but not actually kill me.

As you move through the encounter some trains will simply buzz through, and others will stop and drop off adds. Among the types that drop adds there are ones filled with simply mindless trash mobs, and others filled with what we have termed “specialists”. It is these specialist trains that cause the problems and quite simply last night we were not getting them down fast enough… while at the same time dodging trains. It seemed like melee had the dance down pretty well, which is generally the case since melee is used to constantly moving. We just need our ranged and healers to get used to the rhythm of the fight to be able to time when they can cast and when they have to be moving. Basically we died constantly at this same point… where we have a pack of specialists and we did not get them down with enough time to move to the far edges of the room and split up. I feel like this is a critical juncture and once we nail that we will have the encounter.

Killing the Flamebender

Generally speaking if we do not make serious progress on our first few attempts, it is almost better to switch targets and let folks digest the mechanics for a week. When we come back the following week there is absolutely a marked improvement. Since this is the case with our raid, our leader called the halt on the Orc Trainmaster and we went back to working on Flamebender Ka’graz. If you remember we actually made some solid progress on her awhile back getting her down into the 30% range if I am remembering correct, so I knew going into the night that more than likely this was going to be a fight we could fine tune and get through. Once again this is a fight with a lot of moving parts. Players have to avoid lines of fire that get drawn on the floor as she targets a ranged dps and attacks them. This means the melee spend most of their time shifting around trying to keep from standing in these.

The crucial part of the fight seems to be dealing with the two lava wolf spawns. This was the point at which we spent the most effort improving last night. We shifted around trying several different combinations and finally landing on actively calling which target which group of players should be attacking. Like I said last time these work like Corehounds and if they are not brought down at the same time… they both re-ignite. The other big thing we tweaked was where the group collapsed, attempting to do so in the center of the room rather up within melee range of where the boss is tanked by default. I think the combination of both of these was what actually allowed us to get through that second flame puppy phase with essentially a full compliment of players. From there it was just repetition of the things we were already good at doing… and when the third dog phase happened we were able to ignore them and finish off the last 3% of the boss. As is rare for us we actually managed to get everyone to stand still long enough to take a kill shot.

Hards for Cards

February 26, 2015 by Belghast

Feeling Mostly Human

I guess for better or worse the second day of medication trick worked again. Round about the time I took my fourth dose of prednisone I started feeling more or less human again. Today I am feeling significantly better, but I am going to try not to push myself terribly hard. The goal will be to simply take things slow and do what I can. I got out long enough to go to the grocery store yesterday, as my wife suggested I get some vitamin C in me… and simply walking around long enough to gather up a few items damned near killed me. So here is hoping I can successfully navigate my way to work and back home again.

I want to take a moment real quick to thank all the folks who have been constantly checking on me. I log in each morning to a barrage of “feeling any better yet?” and I have to say it makes me feel really damned lucky to have some awesome friends. This has legitimately been the worst I have felt in a really long time. Largely I have kept people in the loop so they don’t expect miracles from me during this period of time. I missed the raid on Monday completely, and barely made Tuesdays. Time will tell if I make it through today with enough energy to be able to make the one tonight. Largely I figure there is nothing I do in any of them that could not be missed for a week if I absolutely had to. Mostly right now I am dreading going back to work after being away for a day and a half. But I will struggle through with at least a feigned smile.

Hards for Cards

We have decided to copyright the term “Hards for Cards” because while it sounds a little rude… it accurately describes what we largely did last night. There are many ways to earn triple triad cards. The two primary ways revolve around either repeatedly dueling NPCs hoping to get lucky, or repeatedly running dungeon and raid content… also hoping to get lucky. I have to say though, given the two options I would far rather run the dungeons and raids, because at least then I am also gaining tomestones. I started off solo queuing for Trial Roulette, giving me a random assortment of whatever trials that folks seemed to be running. For the most part all of the primal trials have a chance of dropping their Triple Triad card equivalent. Before long we had a small team of us running Trials, and towards the end of the evening a full eight man. Through all of the content I ran last night I managed to get the Ultros/Typhon card and the Good King Moggle Mog card… which are both far better cards than anything I had managed to earn through an NPC Triple Triad duel.

The other big accomplishment last night was through through an influx of tomestones from all the random trials… I was able to purchase the 110 weapon for my last 50. Granted I have a slew of classes that I have yet to level to 50, but as of now I have 110 weapons for WAR, BRD, DRG, WHM and as of last night PLD. This also means that since all of my gear is currently WAR/PLD that both of my tanks are sitting at ilevel 116 which makes me pretty pleased. I am not sure how much action my paladin is going to actually get however, since I have a definite preference towards the warrior style of tanking… but I would like to at least bring it out of mothballs now and then for duty roulette. I really need to psyche myself up to tank more for the duty finder. The community is pretty great most of the time, and there is really nothing but my own anxiety keeping me from doing it. I just greatly prefer tanking for friends… and last night I tanked several instances and really enjoyed myself. I just need to push myself to do it more with strangers, considering I would definitely not mind the constant gil bonus for queuing as a tank.

The Little Things

I have essentially bankrupted myself in World of Warcraft purchasing all of the heirloom items that I had access to, but had yet to pick up. The majority can be purchased in the museum in Ironforge, however a handful can still only be purchased on the guild vendor. Thankfully these have all had their cost lowered to the 500g for the level 60 step. In the course of picking up the last few items I noticed a doodad for sale on the vendor that I had not seen before. The item was called “Garrison Guild Banners” and did precisely what the name said. I think this is probably a testament to just how few heroics I actually ran in this expansion given that apparently you get one from an achievement earned by completing all of the heroic dungeons. I am guessing it is upper blackrock spire that I never actually completed. The item was cheap, 100g but man has it added a lot of enjoyment to my garrison.

Another little thing I can check off my list is that I finally have the level 2 Menagerie unlocked. I was never one of those people that really had much issue with the fact that the Pet Menagerie was essentially a dead spot in my Garrison. I simply never had leveled a pet to 25, and as a result was not able to participate in the quest used to unlock the Menagerie in the first place. I always felt kind of bad that as much as I like mini-pets… that I had not really spent much time playing WoW Pokemon. However with the 6.1 patch they introduced a simple quest that allows you to earn an Ultimate Battle-Training Stone… which in essence boosts one pet from level whatever to level 25 the current cap. This is available to every level 100 character you have with a tier 3 Garrison, so I managed to build a team of three level 25 pets shortly after logging in on Tuesday.

I did no research at all, and instead went with three of my favorite pets… which is a fact that I am sure will make my life more difficult. I went with the Terrible Turnip largely because its special ability should make the capture of pets more easy… which is the main reason why I wanted a level 25 pet in the first place. After that I chose to level my next two favorite pets… Mini Thor from the Starcraft II Collectors edition, and Murkalot which was a Blizzcon bonus item. Currently the team makes me happy… but I doubt I will be wrecking much face anytime soon. If nothing else they should allow me to power level additional 25s with greater ease. With my heirlooms, and my new pet army… I am poised to start working on my Horde alts. So that is likely going to be one of my many downtime activities in the near future. In the meantime… keep being awesome readers, and I will see you all tomorrow!

#FFXIV #WoW #TripleTriad