Sometimes I miss thee, Britannia!

My last encounter with MMORPGs was Ultima Online, back in the day. Well, ’00/’01 anyway. There is no doubt that World of Warcraft is far more refined and a lot more addictive than UO was. Proper questlines and instanced dungeons have a huge impact on playability, as do a myriad of other differences.

But sometimes I find myself thinking: “Well, right about now, I could really use that cool feature from UO.”

Some examples include:

Player housing. Now, players allowed to build houses in an uncontrolled way as it happened in UO was just a bit shy of a complete disaster. But players being able to set up their own shops (granted, that was in a world where there was no Auction House), a Guild Hall, maybe even a castle. That meant something. I’m sure if Blizzard wanted, they would find a way. Right now they don’t want to, but I’m still hoping they’ll eventually include it. There’s so much potential for customisation, player creativity – and the Blizzard Store as well, make no mistake in that regard.

Ships and boats. The size of the world is a problem here. In Ultima Online, you could board you own ship and sail all around the world, explore strange uninhabited islands, find a friendly port and then sail back again. In Cataclysm, they’re bringing flying mounts to the Old World, so I have my fingers crossed that maybe ships are next.

Runes. That is, without a doubt, the feature I miss most. Runes or Runestones were initially calibrated to the caster’s location and you were able to teleport (or open a portal) back to that location from the rune. From anywhere, to anywhere. Runes of the most dangerous and hardest to get to parts of dungeons were highly sought after and went for absurd sums on player owned vendors. There were players that had a whole library of runes open to the public, and finally marking your rune with the last chamber of some dungeon was a huge personal achievement.

I know that Blizzard has very good reasons for not including those features, at least not yet. And I know that they might even be completely inappropriate for Azeroth or would wreak havoc on game balance.

Still…

Even if I just want to hear “Rule Britannia” upon entering the capital city – sometimes I miss UO.

WTF?

Yesterday WoW crashed on me. Actually, it froze the whole PC. That has happened before, and I suspect some heat issues on my GeForce – I’ll probably switch back to my open case setup I had before.

However, this time was a bit different: When I started WoW back up, I was greeted by the intro video. Which I have disabled. Then the screen was in 1024, while I play in 1680. At this point, I could already guess what would greet me when I logged in. Yep, all settings and keybindings were gone and a few addons welcomed me with their basic setup routine.

Fortunately, the keybindings were restored in a few minutes, as were video and sound preferences. Most addons still had their settings, and for ArkInventory (the one addon that did loose ALL customisation) I had a slightly aged backup that I made when I manually edited the lua file. All my Auctioneer ScanData is gone, though. The DataStore for Altoholic is still there, curiously enough.

All in all, about 45 minutes worth of setting everything up again. And making a proper backup of my WTF folder. Not quite the relaxing evening in Azeroth that I wanted.

Zone planning

You are a math-whiz? You like Operational Research? You have free time to devote to absolutely useless problems?

Yes?

Then this should keep you amused for some time:

Given eight (8) characters, who are all Alliance aligned, find a path through all Old World zones (except Horde Capitals and starting zones, obviously) without leaving a gap to grind in between. And with as few repetitions of zones and quests as possible. While minimising travel time when transitioning between zones, to keep a logical and organic flow going.

So far I’ve got three character paths mapped out up to the step “switch to Outland” and two more characters up to level 40. On one monitor I have an annotated map of Azeroth and a spreadsheet containing my character info, on the other the zones by level guide from the WoW-Wiki. It gets more complicated though, since not all neutral zones have quests for the whole level range for Alliance. Hillsbrad Foothills, for example, is officially a 20-30 zone, but Alliance quests start much higher than that. Others have quests, but not nearly enough to level out of the zone. And then there are the Barrens, which are nominally Horde territory, that I currently use to complement my leveling in Stonetalon Mountains, which in turn lacks the low level neutral quests that the Barrens have.

It’s a kind of mixture between Sudoku and the traveling salesman problem. I know that with 8 characters (and eventually 10 when Cataclysm hits and I hit level 55 for a Death Knight) there will be repetitions. But keeping them at a minimum is my goal, especially since I plan to keep my characters at roughly the same level throughout. If it wasn’t so specific, I think this problem would actually be a pretty cool task for a student of Computer Science to automate and calculate the best possible solution.

Oooh, shiny!

Blizzard just (well, yesterday) released the new Celestial Steed mount in their store.

Tobold has a pretty good analysis why this steed is an example of ‘good’ RMT, and personally I agree. It doesn’t give anyone an advantage, it scales with your in-game progress and it’s cosmetic in nature.

Anea bought one, and came out with the right message: “I like it because it is pretty. So there.”

I visited the store, and originally planned on buying the steed. However it looks a bit overkill on my level 20-30 toons, so I decided to go for the mini bots (yes, plural, one of them is EU exclusive, and I happen to be European) and maybe one of the plushies.

Shopping basket full, personal gaming budget maxed, perfect. Well, sort of. Despite the fact that Blizzard accepts PayPal and bank transfer for subscriptions, their store only accepts credit cards.

WHY, Blizzard, WHY?

I was ready to fork over 44 Euros for completely unneccessary fluff, don’t you WANT my money? If you can accept PayPal and others for subscriptions, it can’t be that hard to accept it in a general store, can it? Most of the people I know that play MMO’s don’t have a credit card. In fact, most people I know don’t have one, period. It’s just not that common in Germany.

If you are reading this, Blizzard, fix it! Accept PayPal like any other sensible online store! I’d be eternally grateful. Broke, but grateful. Also, amazed that you read this blog, but that is not the point.

A plethora of notes

In place of a longer post, I grouped several small ones together for today. As the title suggests, my hunter got the 25 pet achievement yesterday.

A rare streak

Over the last few days, I managed to bag quite a few rare mobs. Sadly, there is no achievement for this – I think there really should be! I’m currently keeping track via a Google spreadsheet, which rare mobs each of my alts killed.

• Takk the Leaper
• Prince Raze
• Commander Felstrom
• Sludginn

I got Takk, but his nest was nowhere to be found. Of course, the nest is why I really went to look for him, since the spawn times are approximately the same and I imagine that whoever takes the nest also kills Takk and vice versa. Oh well, it’s a short ride in the Barrens from Ratchet and there are a few herbs on the way to gather. Or ore nodes, when I switch to another alt.

At least Felstrom was worth a nice set of gauntlets for my paladin. And Sludginn was a pleasant surprise – his spawn is really hidden and out-of-the-way in the Wetlands. Well, still with a spectacular view on Menethil Harbour, but I doubt anybody would venture there by accident. I just noticed a mountain path while working on another quest and behold, there is this rare slime thing.

Curiosity killed the Elf

So I wanted to complete my exploration achievement for Ashenvale. I already had every zone except for a small pocket in the north-west. It went fine, no problems getting there. Then I see some rather large-ish creatures flying about. Well, I say, it’s a level 20-30 zone, I’m level 29, what’s the worst that can happen?

Then Phantim hit me for about 5000 damage.

Seriously, I think there could be more places like that. This rigid level structure for zones works well, but the occasional surprise and unpredictability could be pretty cool. A bit like Stitches coming to Darkshire, high-level mobs that wander from one high-level zone to the next, passing through and wreaking havoc in low-level zones in between.

I miss my boomstick

As a quest reward, my hunter got a new bow, which is an upgrade over her shotgun (crafted by my Gnome warlock). A while back I had switched from bow to gun, now I’m back to bow again. And I miss the gun already. Somehow, with a bow, I never really know when I’m shooting. The gun had a nice loud boom to it, kind of like a metronome. And jump-shooting looked way cooled than with a bow.

Fun fact

If you mis-time your jump from the top tier in Stormwind harbour, you can jump all the way down instead of just to the middle tier.

You are also quite dead upon landing.

Noblegarden debriefing

Noblegarden is over, as is my vacation. I had a lot more fun doing the world event dailies than I anticipated, I’m now actually looking forward to the next celebration. So how did I do on my self-imposed to-do list?

• FAIL: Solo the Deadmines
• FAIL: Get at least half my chars up to level 30
• CHECK: Get over ten companions on my two “nature boy / girl” chars
• CHECK: Buy a guild tab
• CHECK: Upgrade several of my self-made items

I tried soloing the Deadmines with my paladin instead of my hunter. Maybe that was a mistake. Nevertheless, at level 26, the first time I died was to Mr Smite. His stun attack is quite brutal on solo players – it took two tries to kite him far enough away from his weapon chest. By the time he was back with new weapons, I had recovered AND had time for a quick heal. The mobs on the ship weren’t a threat, but van Cleef himself still remains. His first summoning of adds I could deal with – basically ignoring them, his health was going down fast enough. But the second summon simply was too much. And by that time I once again had lost the race against the clock – trash mobs started respawning and my supply of potions and food was running low.

So he lives to die another day. I think level 28-30 is the most at which I’d try Deadmines, above that it becomes too easy. Already no mobs give XP and the loot isn’t an upgrade over my equipped gear any more. At levels 26-28 it is a nice challenge for soloists, and actually beyond what I’d call ‘casual’.

Project Thirty – almost. I managed to get my paladin up to 30, hunter to 27 and warlock to 25. In the end, there were simply other things I had to do on vacation than play WoW – most notably the first bike tours this season. So it is with only little regret that I ‘fail’ this. Maybe if I had decided to not try the Deadmines and continue questing instead. But the challenge was too tempting.

On a few brighter notes:

In addition to my engineer upgrading a few items, I was able to craft an entire new set of armour with my blacksmith, which was actually an upgrade to several items. The guild tab is there and already filling up with crafting mats for later use by different alts. And of course my hunter earned the Plenty Of Pets achievement.

Overall, three out of five isn’t too bad.

Next step: Complete leveling of all alts to level 30. The pace picks up considerably after level 25, and so far the quests have been a lot of fun. I’ve also mapped out my progression over different zones for most of my alts so I get as much content and as little repetition as possible. Let’s see if this plan holds up in the future.

Plenty o’ Pets!

Another checkmark in my Noble List: Plenty of pets!

It took my some 150 gold on the auction house, but my hunter now has a colourful selection of pets at her disposal. It also shows that even a casual solo player like me has more than enough gold to splurge now and again.

In order of my subjective coolness factor:

• Silver Dragonhawk Hatchling
• Cobra Hatchling
• Core Hound Pup – reward from authenticator
• Tickbird Hatchling
• Hawk Owl
• Blue Moth
• Red Moth
• Westfall Chicken – reward from Cluck!
• Great Horned Owl
• Silver Tabby Cat
• Brown Prairie Dog
• Snowshow Rabbit
• Spring Rabbit – drop from Noblegarden
• Crimson Snake
• Cornish Rex Cat
• Orange Tabby Cat
• Siamese Cat

In other news, I’ve now got three alts on 26, 26 and 25 respectively, so I’m still confident I can get all of them to thirty until Monday.

A short and strange journey

My paladin just finished his Test of Righteousness. What a strange journey. I can only hope that other class quests are just as fun and lead me to interesting places.

At first, it seemed a bit daunting, with QuestGuru giving the “dungeon” tag behind three of the four required steps. So I tackled them in a slightly different order. First stop was the ogre camp in Loch Modan, which gave me the chance to also complete a few other quests, mainly Chok’sul’s bounty. At level 25, the ogres don’t pose much of a threat and it is quite fun blazing through the camp. The Ore Shipment lies out in the open, no challenge there.

Then I ventured into the Deadmines. Having already been through most of it with my hunter, I knew what to expect. In the entrance area, I finished a few Westfall quests – where my paladin could get his holies going against the undead miners. In the Deadmines proper, everything went smoothly. Once a pull got out of hand, but after a frantic minute of scrambling for all available cooldowns I counted eight dead trash mobs including two elites. Hooray for mail armour. The first boss went down without much problem, although it was quite close in the end. Just before the second boss, the goblins with the Oak Lumber in question were found, and subsequently slain.

Feeling lucky, on I went into the Blackfathom Deeps. Or rather, the entrance, where a helpful Naga dropped the Kor Gem.

The last step was the most complicated one. I had to get to Shadowfang Keep in order to obtain Jordan’s Hammer. So I took a flight to Loch Modan, crossed the Arathi Highlands without dying, stopped at Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills and then dove into Silverpine Forest. Although technically Horde territory, I didn’t encounter a single hostile NPC. Until I set foot in the keep, that is. Shadowfang Keep starts out quite strong, with an assortment of all-elite trash mobs that took me down to critical levels before I adjusted. The hammer was also in the open, in a stable of Felsteeds. They are neutral, which is nice. And quite apologetically stampeded me into the ground as I hit Consecration to clear the single stable keeper.

Still – that crowning moment of facepalm was my only death on this quest. And I went from freshly dinged 25 to almost level 26, thanks to Shadowfang Keep mobs.

And my dwarf has a nice, shiny new hammer!

Revenge of the Ninja Bunnies

So I thought, nothing better to do, let’s try out some of this World Event stuff.

Being a noble bunny is a lot of work. Even in a remote place like Azurewatch, the egg search resembles something akin to a Quake deathmatch. Only with less shooting. That may be because everybody is polymorphed into bunnies, though. In a busy place like Goldshire, the mood changes to a World War One trench warfare. If you found an egg, stay there and pray you click faster than the other half-dozen bunnies around you.

That being said, it’s a huge amount of fun. I spent the last two hours in Azurewatch, collecting enough eggs to buy my hunter the unique pet (thus one more step for my Noble Tasks), only to have it drop from opening egg #87 anyway. Yay. That meant I could go for the Chocolate Lover achievement. And I got my Dress as a drop for the achievement as well. Or rather, my hunter did, to avoid any confusion about my dressing habits. I don’t know if I’ll do the Chocoholic achievement as well. That’s a lot of eggs to collect, but maybe I’ll do the Spring Fling later this week – there’s bound to be lots of bunny pets around by then.

One problem with World Events that I have is this: I’ve got too many alts. I started Noblegarden on my paladin that I was playing at the time, but when I noticed the unique pet I switched to my hunter. So now she’s got four event achievements already, but it’s really not the character I want to play right now. I’m mentally psyching up to have her tackle the Deadmines, not run around dressed in rabbit’s ears. No matter how good that looks.

Nevertheless, Noblegarden is shaping up to be the first World Event that I enjoy. My advice, if you haven’t started on it yet: Avoid Goldshire. The other three starting towns are much less crowded. Azurewatch so far seems the best choice. Find a route you’re comfortable with – a big circle just on the outside of the buildings – and stick to it! Don’t deviate, stick to the route, you’re much less likely to miss any eggs that way. And make sure you’ve got enough bag space, the eggs don’t stack. Turn on autoloot or use shift-rightclick on the eggs. Use the egg rush bonus.

And most importantly – it’s every bunny for themselves. In love, war and egg-search, there are no rules.

No bunnies were harmed in creating this post. Unless you count chocolate bunnies, but they’re pretty much resigned to having an average lifespan of 30 minutes in my presence anyway.

Noble tasks

Noblegarden has just started, and I am already on my way to complete my list. Even with the obligatory family outing today, I got some work done. And I’m not talking about the spring cleaning of my apartment – although I started that as well.

Guild Tab – check!

Sharing items, most importantly raw materials, between my alts has never been easier.

Upgrade Item – check!

Alright, this one was rather easy. My Gnome now sports the latest fashion in goggles she can craft. The tricky part was that I didn’t want to spend money on the auction house for the mats. Fortunately, I have a jewelcrafter that could prospect the ore for the necessary jewels.

The reminds me – whenever I come across a quest that requires a certain skill, I get a smile on my face. “If you don’t have this skill, find a fellow adventurer to help you.” I am my own guild. I have all skills. Not all of them as high I wish, but generally, if a quest requires something craftable or farmable, I can do it. Quite nice, I can tell you.

Get To 30 – in progress.

Well, so far I’ve got 26, 25 and 22. And a whole week ahead of me. Looking good.

Deadmines – not started.

I’m debating if I should try again now, at level 26 or if I should wait until 27. The thing is, I don’t see a reason to wait for an odd level. New skills and training always opens up on the even ones. On the other hand, combat is based on level difference, so it might make just enough an impact that I won’t need a third try…

Let’s see how it goes. So far I’m having quite a blast playing my paladin again, taunting Orcs and smashing them with a big hammer.