Casual Crafting - For Profit

What follows is a series of guides to making a ‘reasonable’ amount of gold without using gathering professions (Mining/Herbalist/Skinning). The quickest way to make gold while levelling are still the gathering professions. It isn’t a guide to making thousands of gold a day, however when you do reach the end level content you should have a character with level 425-450 skills in a couple of crafting professions without having a huge hole in your gold. It is primarily aimed at the more time restricted player for whom the option of spending a couple of hours a day gathering isn’t really an option.
With recent changes to WoW, taking gathering professions to make gold as you level is no longer as time effective as it used to be. Using gathering professions if you are levelling through questing makes a lot of sense because it is something you can do without putting in too much extra time. However if you choose to level mainly through instances/battlegrounds you won’t be able to level those skills very quickly let alone gather enough ore/herbs to make an acceptable amount of gold.
For those that are looking to make thousands of gold a day they should check out these sites, but be warned they are largely aimed at L80 characters with level 450 professions;
http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/

Basic Principles
I have made around 900g a character on my level 35 characters without doing much farming of materials. At the moment I am doing an experiment on a high population realm using just Inscription, at level 12 I am making around 30-60g a day despite tough competition and spending around 30-45 minutes a day online overjust a couple of sessions. In order to do this you need to understand some basic principles behind the Auction House(AH).

Knowing the value of an item – I use Auctioneer, it is mainly useful in giving an idea of what the average selling price of an item should be. This is important when it comes to deciding what to craft and what to avoid. Simply put the cost of the materials to make the item should be less than the average selling price of the crafted item.
For Example, a leatherworker can make 3 Ruined Leather Scraps into Light Leather, if the average price on the AH of the scraps is 3 silver and the average selling price of Light Leather is 12 silver then you can make an extra 3 silver (less 5% charged by the AH) on each Ruined Leather Scrap. Not only this but if you buy the scraps on the AH for less than the average price you make a larger profit. While these are small amounts of money the principle should be applied to anything you craft.

Know what you can sell – It is no good making lots of items with a good profit margin if no one wants to buy them, I learned this the hard way. Make a few of an item and get a feel for how many you can sell over a week or so. I know I can sell 2-4 Strange Dust during each week day, and probably twice as many at the weekend.

Buy Low Sell High – Commonly known as flipping. Simply put buy any items that you know there is a demand for when they are sufficiently below the market price that you can make an acceptable profit. I buy all my materials below the market value; all you need is a little patience. Here is a good example on a high population realm I wanted to make golden pigments which needs particular herbs to make. For a whole week I noticed the price of these herbs was very high (2g each) however eventually I was able to buy several stacks for just 50s each.
If materials are overpriced sell materials – Don’t turn all your materials into crafted items straight away, if you sell 2-4 items you don’t need a lot sitting in your bank crafted. I have over a thousand herbs of various types (some of which I have no use for) in my bank. However if there is a rise in their value I can sell them for a nice profit.

Don’t flood the market – It’s better to sell 2-4 of 5 items than to list 20 of one item, you will sell more items and have less gold tied up in stock this way.

Invest in your business - While you can start from almost nothing and make money, it is better to have some gold to start with, this will allow you to buy mats when they are cheap as well flipping items that are underpriced. 200-250g is good but you can start with less. Bottom line is the more gold you start with the quicker your progress will be. To this end try levelling some gathering professions up to level 10-15 and you will soon have enough gold to start with. You can then drop the gathering professions and switch to crafting. If you are levelling mainly through the LFG tool (which my bank alts are doing), you will have to get to L15 first anyway.

Personally I have a couple of questing characters with gathering skills (for the bonuses they give) and bank alts that I level crafting professions on.

Next time I’ll look at Tailoring (up to level 150) including some items that have sold well for me.

PuGs - Don't be that Guy!

Since the launch of Patch 3.3 and the new LFG tool, instances (especially pre-TBC content) has seen a resurgence of interest. I was initially cautious about going back into the Pick up Group (PuG) environment. However I am delighted that despite being time-limited during the week I can do 2-3 instances a day. I am far from an uber player, but I make up for that by not being a liability. What follows is based on my experiences in low level instances (RFC to RFK) but should provide some guidance to all players that want to make their PuG experiences less stressful. At the very least it should help you avoid being ‘that’ guy in the PuG.

Be Prepared
Before you hit the LFG button it’s worth checking you are ready, on a most basic level it means having enough ammo if you are a hunter. On a recent Gnomeregan run my Hunter won a Bow which was an improvement over the gun he was using. Fortunately I always carry at least 1,000 ammo for my alternate weapon. What I didn’t realise until later was I actually only had 32 shots left for my gun! This was despite starting with over 1,600 rounds for my prime weapon. However this applies to all the classes, for example a Tank had to leave an instance to repair his armor And I’m guessing it wasn’t 100% when he joined!
I have a mental check-list that I go through before I hit the button;
• Repaired?
• At least 1 stack of drinks if I use mana
• Stack of bandages
• Stack of buff food
• Stack of mana/healing potions
• Elixirs
• Scrolls
• Consumable weapon buffs

This leads nicely to...

Bring your own Buffs
Healing and Mana potions are really cheap from the Auction House (AH) most of the time, there is no excuse not to have a few of these potions. Don’t be like the Mage who told everyone ‘why should I have mana potions?’, he was pretty indignant about it too.
Elixirs can be a bit more expensive, but it is worth finding a friendly Alchemist who will make you some if you provide the mats. Check out what elixirs are best for you at your current level and remember you can have a Guardian and Battle elixir active at the same time, they generally last for 30-60 minutes provided you don’t die.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Elixir
Certain food will increase your Stamina (Health) and Spirit (Mana regen) for 15 minutes so bring at least 4-6 of the best you can.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Well_Fed
There is also food that boosts your pet’s stats; it works on Warlock pets as well. However you need to be at least level 55 as far as I know.
Scrolls often stack with Elixirs and so it is worth considering bringing a couple, once again they are often quite cheap on the AH, but if not someone with inscription can make them for you.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Scroll

Sharpening Stones and Weightstones increase melee damage and are made by Blacksmiths.

Understand your Role
I use the standard User Interface (UI), however it does allow you to have different versions of the main bar. I have 3 versions usually, one of these is just for Instances. This is because rotations are different when you are in a group and it’s worth being able to mash keys as opposed to clicking on buttons. The main benefit is I can actually watch what is happening on my screen rather than focusing on my action bar. As a result I’ll notice that patrol (Pat) that has wandered along while everyone is focused on a fight, or I can see the healer has drawn aggro and can intervene before they die.
• Tank - you are not there to top the Damage Meters, you are there to take all the damage the mobs are doing and make sure they focus their attacks on you. As a result you have to be watching the other players portraits to see if they are getting aggro (especially the healer). Know all your getting aggro abilities and use them as often as possible, this allows the DPs in your group to use their most damaging spells/abilities. While DPS like to top the damage meter, you should be thinking total damage done minus damage done to others in my group. Check everyones mana before moving on to the next group of mobs, you’ll die less often that way.
• Healer – be intelligent with your heals, this means making efficient use of your mana not spamming your biggest heal from the first second of the fight. So adapt to the situation, it’s okay to not heal unless it’s needed. I’ve been healing on my Shaman so I won’t comment on the other healing classes. However I often stand around in fights doing very little, on the other hand on occasion I will be spamming heals like crazy. Learn to know at what point you should start healing, heal DPS when it is practical with special attention on Warlocks, they convert their health into mana.
• DPS – Damage meters are largely irrelevant until you start raiding, before that you main role is to do as much damage without pulling aggro as you can. Be aware of any aggro dumping spells you have and use them when you pull aggro. The main thing you have to do is ‘learn’ how much aggro your tank can hold and then DPS accordingly. As a result I change my rotation from group to group (I DPS on a Warlock, Hunter and Mage). That is the real challenge of DPS in instances. To be Honest you can probably get away with being carried in many groups without anyone worrying too much.
Don’t be ‘that’ guy;
• Like the Druid tank who didn’t have bear form and thought tanking involved standing behind a mob and hitting it with a slow 2 handed weapon. That is one way to get booted and ignored. Yes we booted a tank, they aren’t untouchable.
• Like the healer that was always out of mana half-way through every fight.
• Like the DPS that spams Go!Go!Go! And thinks that topping the damage meter = winning.

Use macros for quick party instructions
/p Patrol!
/p I have Aggro!
/p Out of Mana
/p Healer has Aggro!
Put them on an action bar and use when required, people will notice that you helped the group not wipe and that is always good!

Like Buses

You wait for ages for a blog post then TWO come along at once!

And there will be more. I still have many thoughts and feelings towards the 3.3 patch, and in particular the new LFG system, with its pros and its eye-popping cons. But I'll talk about that later. Right now, I want to talk about me. Me, me, me.

So on Saturday, my hunter Catrinna dinged 80 after what seemed like a lifetime. While the NuGen Horde guild has only been running since August this year, I have had Catrinna in some form or other pretty much since I started playing almost 2 years ago (Wow, I've wasted almost 2 years of my life). This was a very special moment for me. I'd like to thank everyone who supported me through this journey; Jesus, my cats, etc.

This one time, in Shattrath, the server reset while I was logged in and I didn't get logged out...

In other news, Christmas is coming in case you didn't know, and the hordies have (mostly) embraced the funtime Christmas tabard (and those who haven't can suck it - I hate Christmas as much as the next miserable cow, but you can't say that watching a Tauren run around brandishing a Christmas tree on their chests isn't funny).

Hordies in Icecrown

OK, so at some point in my altoholism, I forgot that I actually have a level 80 healing druid (and healing is about all I can do on it - cat Dee Pee Ess is just far too complimacated to get my head around, and tanking? LOOOOOL, no). So when Omg and Divad were asking about attempting a run through Icecrown Citadel, I leapt at the chance at being able to heal with people I know instead of the LFG "OMG NOOB HEALZ0R NOOOOOOB".

The group was made up of Divad (on Mor) tanking, me treeing it up, with Omgnametaken, Kharren and Paragus bringing up the rear with the pewpews.

The run went steadily for the most part. I think I died at some point. But then I tend to do that a lot anyway. Thank goodness for 3 druids with battle rezzes and innervates in their arsenal.

In the end, there wasn't enough Dee Pee Ess to escape from the Lich King and he kept reaching us by the third wall block [fail pics to follow], so we called it off as a bad job. Still, not a half bad attempt all around.

Afterwards, we had some fun with Arthas:




No hard feelings, eh, Arthy? We'll come back for you, eventually.

You just watch this space.

Once More into the Instance!

To Instance or not to instance that is the question? In the last couple of years I have noted the decline of the popularity in people doing instances. This is especially true of the original (and the Burning Crusade) content. Even finding people who want to run level appropriate content in Northrend is a task only for the patient. Based on what people actually run Blizzard would be forgiven for just creating new instances for the first couple of levels and end game. This is certainly a shame as well as being a cause of many a frustrating wipe-fest as people are simply unprepared for the mechanics that the instances in-between teach.

Now I have to confess that I haven’t run many instances in the last year. A couple of years ago I could join LFG for Wailing Caverns (WC) and have a group in 15-30 mins, often in 5-10 mins. Compare that with more recently where when eventually I got a group. Six times I tried to run WC and six times the group fell apart after the first encounter, not the first boss but the trash mobs! There was no drama just people insta-leaving leaving me into the all too familiar situation of being left with one other person discussing the difficulty in getting a group of people willing to take the time to learn this aspect of the game.

When I started playing WoW I learned the hard way how to defeat each of the instances and each time I learned a new aspect to successful instancing. Unfortunately the culture now is rush to end level and then think you are prepared for end level instances. This hasn’t been helped by Blizzard to be honest as they have made the need to instance increasing irrelevant. Whereas maybe 3% of players were able to raid before WotLK, I would guess that only a small percentage of players now run instances (other than RFC/DM, Hellfire Citadel, Utgarde Keep and L80 instances).

Some of the things that have made instanced content irrelevant;
• Quicker levelling 1-70 – why try to get better items in instances that you will discard quickly?
• Boosting – Welfare blues plz, just count the number of requests for boosts, enough for people to make a group and actually ‘earn’ those BoP items
• Heirloom Items - Alts no longer need to run instances provided you have a L80 and no need to teach people how to run instances successfully
• Instances are perceived as a chore to get through rather than a fun way to spend an hour or so

That said I have decided to venture back into instancing, even to the point of doing Pick-up Groups (PuGs). Even within a guild it is very difficult to make planned runs for ‘level appropriate’ content. To be honest I have done 90% of my instance runs with PuGs and have few bad experiences. Maybe this is because I enjoy running the content and see the item rewards as a bonus.

An improved LFG scheme is planned for patch 3.3 and this will probably be make or break for instances. Here is a breakdown of the new features;

I have taken this information from
http://projectlore.com/blog/patch-33-lfg-overhaul-detailed/
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p3/newdungeonsystem.xml

• Join as a group - if you have a few friends you can join together
• Cross-Realm Instances/Grouping – A big feature which should make getting a group for the less popular instances a lot easier, there are some concerns that people will take advantage to ‘ninja’ items
• Daily Random Dungeons – replaces the Daily Dungeon quest, instead there will be a Weekly Raid Quest. Also applies topre-The system even applies to pre- WotLK dungeons, handing out level appropriate rewards for levelling runs
• Repeat Random Dungeons – though the rewards for doing so will be less after the first successful run
• Choose Multiple Dungeons – more than the current 3?
• Vote Kick system – The loot option is fixed to the updated Need Before Greed option (and unalterable by any member) and players can vote to remove another party member from the group. It will take four votes in order to remove someone, however, so consider this newfound power carefully.
• Lovin’ the PUG Bonuses - Players who take part in groups with one or more members who have been matched with them randomly from within the dungeon system will receive extra rewards
• Need Before Greed Updated - class must be able to equip the item, pure melee will be unable to roll on spellpower items, and classes are limited to their dominant armor type, although if no one needs the normal roll procedure applies.
• Group Disenchanting – provided you have an enchanter in the group it just automates the process

The changes seem to have addressed most of my concerns about instances, but only time will tell if instancing will survive into Cataclysm

The Casual Altaholic – a different approach

There are many definitions of what a casual player in WoW is, over the last year this has become even more fragmented. Casual is even used in the same way as the word ‘noob’ is and according to some the root of all the ‘bad’ changes to the game. Am I a casual? I play around 25-30 hours in a week but often for less than 2 hours a session.

The urban dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=altaholic) defines an altaholic as; someone who cannot focus on just one character in an online game, usually known as their main. These people have many "alt"ernate characters.

Because of my ‘free-time’ schedule I often find myself online during the quieter times and so I’ve had to define different in-game goals for myself. When I moved to the NuGen Horde I set myself the goals of levelling a couple of classes I hadn’t really played much before (< level 20) a Paladin and a Shaman. I wanted to level them without dying too often and also to get the Loremaster and Seeker titles. In addition I wanted to make gold without farming. Both of these goals were new for me and ones that fit well with a casual approach. Not only that but pursuing the titles mentioned above actually helped with the, ‘trying not to die too often’ goal.

The suggested approach to the game is to level as quickly as possible to level 80, usually by using some kind of questhelper add on. However there are some quests that are very challenging depending on your class and level. Instead I decided to put my priority on completing as many quests as possible first. To do this I visited all the starting zones until the quests turned ‘grey’ on my main as a result as was probably a level or two higher than would normally be the case when I moved to the next higher level zones. I’m taking this to the next level on my alt by trying to do all the starting zone quests first, which means doing all quests that are grey first, obviously this means slower levelling which is fine because I’m not trying to get to level 80 quickly.

At the same time I have been ‘playing’ the Auction House with crafting low level items (Tailoring & Leatherworking skill level 150) without farming too many of that mats, but that is for another blogpost.

So how to increase my survival chances, well from the start I picked a class that had a reputation for being difficult to kill, the Paladin, by the time I reached L48 I had only died twice and both of those were due to forgetting to use an ability that would have restored all my health. However any character can improve their chances by taking full advantage of profession and food bonuses. Gear is also important, especially early on.
• Mining; gives a bonus to your health, especially important for classes with poor armor
• Herbalism; gives a free heal which is more useful for melee classes as a form of damage mitigation
• Food buffs; even at low levels you can get a +2 to +4 bonus to Stamina (i.e. +20 to +40 health)
• Gear; doesn’t need to be best in slot but initially try to max out armour and stamina so you have time to get away when outnumbered or attacked by high level mobs. Crafted low level items can serve you well early on.
• Avoiding indoor encounters; these have a much higher chance of getting you killed. For example Tiragarde Keep in Durotar is best avoided until you can handle 2-3 mobs at once.
• Buffing other players; if they get flagged for PvP so do you
• Groups; people in groups do strange (e.g. stupid) things especially when they are in a group, it’s another variable that you have no control over.
• Always be aware of what is around you; when I enter fight I constantly check my six (look behind me). Mobs have a nasty habit of re-spawning in blind spots
• Avoid overconfidence; remember mobs can have a run of good luck and it can coincide with you having a run of bad luck.

Only experience can tell you what quests to avoid, but either looking at a site like WoWhead http://www.wowhead.com/ or using the equivalent add on http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info7017-LightHeaded.html will help with this.

So back to my altaholicism, I have a main, 3 bank characters and one alt at the moment on Hellfire. It might seem like less than expected but I do expect to add another bank and 3 more alts in the coming weeks. My Shaman just hit level 15 and came close to dying a couple of times (once when I got too close to a mob +6 levels) swimming away and a minor healing potion helped me survive.

The route I’ve got planned for Cowherd (Shaman) is doing quests in Mulgore (which is pretty much completed), I moved on to Durotar and did all the grey and green quests there and have recently arrived in Tirisfal Glades only taking a detour to do the Call of Fire quest chain to get my fire totem at level 12-14 (did a couple of quests in the Barrens at the same time). Why am I doing grey and greens first? Mainly to maximise on the xp earned to be honest, though by the time I reach Eversong Woods I would imagine all the quests will be grey. From there I’ll probably move on to Ghostlands/Silverpine Forest/the Barrens which should take me into the 25-30 bracket.

Time is Money, Friend

So we've got a bit of a conversation striking up on our forum, as well as the buzz around the rest of the wow community at the mo, about these new vanity pets Blizzard have released, where you pay real money for a virtual item.

Surely we're only an epic handout and gold-buying feature away from totally throwing this game into the bin with all the other games that have sold out, right?

Well, no, not really.

Much in the same way that the achievement system was introduced, offering "non-combat rewards" for putting in the extra time/effort to certain things, the new bells and whistles that have appeared in the game (the character customisation, faction and race change options, and more recently the new Pet Store) provide the player with no benefit other than to their own gaming experience.

I, for example, am a total sucker for all things shiny. A good example is how at the minute I'm levelling Tailoring on Cattrina, my DK bank/mule character on Hellfire. Surely Tailoring is a crappy profession to have on a DK? You're right. So why am I doing it? Because I want to be able to make the Tuxedo and the Haliscan outfit. I've spent about 500g so far in levelling it alongside enchanting. Just so I can make myself a tux. True story.

This is just the kind of person I am, which is the really good thing about MMOs, especially one as versatile as World of Warcraft. If I want to spend eight hours repeatedly killing pirates to farm Mageweave cloth, to turn into a snazzy jacket to match my Diamon-Tipped cane and Battered Jungle Hat, then damn it, that's what I'll do! Same that if I want to spend WEEKS repeatedly powerhousing through Stratholme so get a fucking skeleton horse, then I will!

This is who I am in life. I see something I want, and I have to have it. I have a pile of shoes and clothes in my wardrobe that I saw because they looked pretty, only to find out that they don't fit. Do I return them? No. No, I keep them, look at them occasionally and admire their unattainable beauty.

And it's the same with WoW.

Let me put into perspective how much money I have spent on WoW since I started playing.

The average person who has played like I have since opening their account will have spent the following:

£10 Vanilla WoW (Prices may vary dependant on time of purchase)
£10 Burning Crusade (Prices may vary dependant on time of purchase)
£25 WotLK (Prices may vary dependant on time of purchase)
£200 Game Time (See Below)
TOTAL £245

Sound like a lot? Read on.

My Version

The game I ended up buying two copies of, the original name and then the battle chest as well. I don't remember exactly why; I think I wanted the guides that came in the battle chest. So take £10 for the game, add another £15 for the battle chest.

Running Total = £25

Subscription from January 2008 - November 2009 @ £8.99 per month, which I kept even over the summer of '08 when I wasn't really playing. Forgot I had it. That's £197.98. Let's go nuts and round that up to £200.

Running Total = £225

Add to that the second account I got when they introduced the recruit-a-friend concept and became interested in dual-boxing. I had to buy the game again, so let's say £10. I also had to buy the Keyclone software (well, didn't HAVE to, but it made it easier, and after all, I'm all about the easy) for another £10. That lasted about 3 months, with 1 month free, so add say £16 to that. I transferred one of my characters (40 warlock) from my old account to the new one, so that's another £15. I then closed this account.

Running Total = £276

I then got another second account for about another 2 months (with 1 free), which is where my Rasco & Disotto duo came about. So another game £10, plus I wanted to dual box two dranei, so stick the expansion in there, as well, another £10. Once I had a new level 60, I stopped that account, as well. So just say £9 there for subscription.

Running Total = £305

When WotLK was released (£25), and Riande and I rerolled on Darkspear, I transferred my belf hunter from Aggramar to Darkspear just so that I could roll a Death Knight. Add £15. I don't even like Death Knights! I also transferred my Draenei hunter (the other Catrinna) from Aggramar (£15).

Running Total = £360

I moved Disotto from the 2nd account back to the original account so I could keep her. £15. I recustomised a character I don't even use now, Maestermin, from a female to male Draenei. £15. I changed the name of my hunter from Catriná to Catrinaa (£15), later to Catrinna during the aforementioned server transfer to Darkspear (included in transfer). I moved Reggina (most of you won't even remember that character) to my other other account, before it exired. I don't remember why I moved her (£15).

Running Total = £420

When rolling out the NuGen Horde, I transferred level 30 Tauren Druid from Aggramar into Hellfire in order for us to have some gold to buy guild tabs straight away (£15). Since then, I've also transferred Disotto over to the Horde (£20).

Running Total = £455

Then there's the pets. I bought the BlizzCon virtual ticket, let's face it, just for the pet. £25. And, of course, I've bought the two new controversial pets from the Pet Store, totalling £20.

Running Total = £500

Nice even number to round up with there.

So, let's take off the original game prices (£45), and average it out over the 22 months I've been paying/playing, I'm paying about £20.68 a month to play this game. That's £11 more than your average player. If I was still smoking, I'd have spent about £1,650 within the same space of time on cigarettes (22 months on 10 a day, £2.50 for 10, which is how much they were once).

It's all relative.

Old Skool!

Check out the original banner I made for Ye Olde NuGen Site, waaaaaaaaaaay back in early October 2008. This does mean that at some point The NuGen have had their first birthday. And everyone missed it. Good job, guyths!


Old Skool!

\m/

Look Who I Found!

/Dodgy RP Mode On

Catrinna edged into the Ramparts. The smell of orc sweat and blood filled her nostrils. She quickly took out the guards at the bridge. They came too close to let any arrows fly; she hacked away at them with the heavy sword she carried on her back. Her lithe frame could hardly lift the thing, but it still had the same effect when she swung it into their faces.

Across the bridge, she spotted her reason for being there. Lumbering alongside one of the Bonechewer orcs was a very familiar-looking wolf.

I'd know that face of fur and fangs anywhere.

Uneasy on her feet with the huge sword weighing her down, the wolf's master heard her coming.

"Get her!" he roared, and the wolf bolted forwards, its cyan eyes gleaming with bloodlust.

Catrinna threw down a trap, catching the wolf as it leapt for her throat.

She took out her bow and sent arrows into some choice locations in the wolfmaster's torso.

The trap had started to give way by the time the body had hit the floor. The wolf, disoriented from the ice, stared up at her. She thought for a moment he might have known who she was. But in this new body, she couldn't have expected it. Ears pinned back, teeth bared, the wolf growled.


Amidst the angry snarls and snapping jaws, she cried out: "Bigwig, it's me! It's Catrinna!"

The snarls became low growls. She edged forwards, offering her hand. "Remember me?"

The wolf sniffed at the air around her, eyes still aglow. Ears pricking back up, the huge mound of fur at his rear wagged. He licked her fingers before falling in alongside her, ready and waiting for their next challenge.


/Dodgy RP Mode Off

So that was a very long way of saying I got a Bigwig for my blood elf hunter. I never did explain her, did I? Well, briefly, she was my first main character, originally Catriná on the Aggramar server. She was my first 70. She has been passed from Aggramar to Darkspear (transferred her over initially when WotLK hit, because back then you needed a character of at least level 55 on the server you wanted to roll a DK on, and I wanted to roll a DK), and now she's come over to Hellfire, because - let's face it - I love my hunters. I haven't used her yet, other than for the aforementioned Venomhide Ravasaur quest chain (of which I'm 17/20 on the baby teeth now, go me). She's waiting.

My week on the dark side

Hi Guildlings!

Well, I've had an interesting week. I said I'd be spending a hell of a lot of time on the horde side and it turns out I spent more time at work! However I did manage to sprinkle a bit of the Riande magic while I was there.

First off, I tried my hand at a shammy called Scrabblor. (For any Russel Howard fans, the name has meaning). And I managed to get up to lvl 13 - woohoo! I thought as a shammy I would be able at a higher lvl to heal and/or dps. But as I have found with the majority of my alts that they must all get better above lvl 20. I have tried a priest, a rogue, and a shammy and failed to get them above 20 so for those of you thinking about rolling another alt all I can suggest is struggling through the teens and then deciding after 20 whether or not to keep on going.

It seems Cat has had more success with this as all her alts seem to be in the thirties so I guess she can give a greater account of the pros and cons of different classes.

So for this week I shall back with my Alliance buddies and may even attempt to drag my druid Athenaide through that last half a lvl to 80. What then? Well, Vuhdu awaits as I've been too chicken to use it so far I can't imagine how utterly useless my healing ability will be.

Big gratz on Continues for pwning their way through Ulduar. It shows you what a 'casual' raiding guild can do with some pretty skilled members! For those of you that have dinged 80 and want to join in some end game content, send Aiv a whisper or a mail, as you'll most likely have to switch guilds and with lose the Alliance priviledges you have gained. (though there will be some good stuff in Continues to make up for it) I have, for my part, not been able to raid with the leet 80s for a while, this week being a hordie and before that being summoned to slavery which some also call a job :( Alas also why I haven't blogged or posted as much as recently.

Now with Zandathor/Holycrepe back to help Cat run the hordie side and get more leet peeps over there I'm returning to Riande and all my other alts in the hope I can raid a bit more and maybe even pick an alt I can stick with over here.

Any suggestions for classes I might try? I'm sure I will have attempted them at some point but stick a response in the forums about how uber leet your char is, and I'll give it a whirl.

For now, I bid you pip pip.

How Funky Is Your Chicken Now?

Not very. Hit 40, hit exalted with Undercity, and will never be seeing that thing again. Score.

A simple guide to recruiting new members. Click image for legible version.

Guide: How to Get the Venomhide Ravasaur Mount

A long time ago, back before I played WoW, there was a thing about this mount and the trainer Mor'vek in the game. Alliance players might know about the mount considered this one's equal, the Winterspring Frostsabre, which to get players used to need to do an obscene amount of farming to get their hands on. This has been nerfed (or is it buffed?) numerous times since its inception, making the grind slightly more bearable, and so they've been popping up here and there. With patch 3.2, Blizzard re-introduced Mor'vek in Un'Goro Crater, and his quest to let horde players get their grubby mitts on a Venomhide Ravasaur. Some people - mostly Alliance, I assume - have already complained that these quests do not compare to the grindfest they have to endure to get themselves their version of this mount. But if you think about it, the Frostsabre has been available since Vanilla WoW, so the hordies have been waiting quite a long time already!

Anyhoo, I started this quest chain on my hunter (Huh? I'll explain in another post...) three days ago. Just FYI, you can pick up this quest from level 48, but it's recommended mid 50's because of some of the high level places you need to go for the dailies.

1/ Travel to Un'goro and find Mor'vek, who gives you the quest Toxic Tolerance. The basic idea behind this story is that the Venomhides have...well...venomous hides. If you tried to ride one, the poison would sink through your skin and kill you! Gasp! So he says you have to go and get splashed by their poison 20 times to build up a resistance. Considering that venomhides are pretty rare spawns, that may seem unfair, but since in the PTR for 3.2 they were suggesting that you got splashed 2,000 times, it's doesn't seem so bad. So head out around the raptor areas looking for venomhides. Get splashed 20 times and go hand in for the next quest.
Hints: For high levels, you can't just stand there and take a beating and hope to get the 20 you need. You need to do damage to the raptor for it to poison you. For this reason, take off all your armour, and put on a very low damage weapon (I used my [Skinning Knife]), so you can give and take the most beats before it dies. Extra hint for hunters/warlocks: You obviously need to have more aggro than you pet to get poisoned, so if you're doing it at the right level, watch your health. Extra extra hint for hunters: If you're doing it as a high level hunter, the easiest way by far is to dismiss your pet, equip some kind of low level stabbing stick, poke the raptor a few times, then once it's almost dead, feign death. The mob will reset, allowing you to run back and poke it some more. And who says hunters don't get it easy?

2/ Mor'vek then gives you Venomhide Eggs, where basically you go to pick up your baby raptor, ready for raising as a fierce...mount. They're found around the same places you should have spotted the raptors. The eggs in question are light coloured, where the normal ones are purplish. So you bring him three. You get to keep one. I'm not sure what he's going to do with the other two, but anyway... (I like mine fried or poached.)

3/ Mor'vek gives you the quest The Grow Up So Fast, whereby you need to take care of your little bundle of scales and claws until it's big enough to become a mount. This consists of 20 days worth of dailies, given at random by the baby Venomhide (If you're a high level, it will not show the ! unless you turn on "Low Level Quests" from the minimap search, but of course you can still take the quest off it). For each quest to turn in, the raptor will give you one of its baby teeth. Ew.

4/ Each day, you will get given one of four possible dailies to trade in for one tooth:

Searing Roc Feathers - Your Ravasaur wants to decorate itself with tribal feathers. Go kill some birds and rip out the plumage so your little one can be happy!
TIP: There are Rocs all over Tanaris, but it's only the Searing Rocs found in the south that drop the feathers.

The others, Gorishi Grub, Hungry, Hungry Hatchling, and Poached,Scrambled or Raw? are all basically "Feed my Fat Face" quests, scattered in Tanaris, Un'goro and Sithilus. It's no wonder it grows into a full-sized beast in 20 days if it keeps eating like that!

5/ While I haven't got this far myself yet (only had 2 dailies, both the feathers one), after 20 days of toiling, you will have your 20 baby teeth, and you can go back to Mor'vek with a big smile to get your mount. Oh, you'll also need the following:

20 x Rugged Leather (for your saddle)
20 x Runecloth (for your saddle)
80g (because Mor'vek charges an extortionate amount to make you the saddle)

Et voila! A shiny new mount for joo! Don't forget you can pick this quest up from level 48 (though you may have issues getting poisoned without simultaneously getting squished), so pick it up while levelling and you'll have an awesome cool mount to shimmy off Outland with!

Here's the Venomhide as it looks to me on Day 2:
Awwwwwwwwwww.

Group Etiquette

(a.k.a. Why You Should Check Who Has Just Left the Group Before You Start Talking About the Person Who Has Just Left the Group)

So while questing my Paladin (that's right!) in the south of Ghostlands, I come across another Paladin (I'm going to call him Winkle...his name was something along that line) questing on what seemed to be the same thing. As hesitiant as I always am about interacting with other players (WoW is a social game, what?), I gave over a Blessing of Might which got a "ty", and then went on to group up and do some quests together.

Riveting as this was, after about a quest or two, I started to tire of the company. Not that anything was wrong with Winkle, he seemed perfectly fine. But there's only so much of WoW that I can take with other people before I want to just get back to being alone.

My problem has always been that I never know how to say "Right, it's been a good 30 minutes, we've had some laughs and some drama, but I'm going to go now, so BB", disbanding the group and completely abandoning said player.

But I'm deviating. Back to the story. So anyway, I'm still stuck with this guy, who's insistent on doing some more quests together. I'm trying to be irritating to put him off staying in the group, but it's not working. When who should I spot but Ultimatehunk also in the Ghostlands. So I think, huzzah! And invite him to the group. Now it's an awkward threesome. Winkle still isn't getting the hint. Long story short, eventually it comes down to a time where Winkle says he has to go. So all nicey nicey I say "bb" etc.

Then he leaves the group.

I then say to Hunky "Damn it! Oh well, at least now it's just the two of us."

Hunky should have laughed at this point. He didn't. At which point I realise that it was Hunky that left the group. To make it worse, instead of leaving the group, Winkle said "Oh dear" and I had to leave to get out of there.

So that was one of the more awkward moments in my WoW life, and that's also one way to leave a group!

Unusual Social Interaction

I'm just pottering along in Ghostlands questing when a whisper pops up at the bottom of my screen.

'Hi, great name. I am new to the horde.'

That's what it says. Terror fills my heart. There are two reasons for this.

1. Anyone who compliments a character with the name 'UltimateHunk' is a weirdo as far as I am concerned.
2. I can think of no response to this statement which will not provoke further conversation; It's not a question, so I can't just answer it and get on with my life - it's a statement which demands a response and also for me to ask a question, which will almost definitely lead to further awkward social interaction.

So, I try and be clever. I say,

'Thanks. I am new to this server.'

I haven't asked a question, showing that maybe I am indifferent to this persons chatter, but I have responded in a polite way.

'Oh great I have like 5 chars on alliance couple 80s are you new to wow?'

Oh god. Maybe it's just me, but I kind of hate this interaction. If I were to respond I will definitely have to have a proper conversation with this person. I don't want to do that. So I basically ignore this person from now on. I can't handle it.

But there is a problem. We are questing in the same zone. We are questing on the same quest chain. This is hell. We are running alongside each other ignoring each other, both knowing that I, Mr.Rudepants, have ignored her. And it lasts ages. Absolutely ages.

And the worst thing? Cat is there. Questing with me. Laughing in my face.

Eventually I relent and invite the person to join us. She doesn't want to.

So we go on questing next to each other until I curl up into a ball of embarrassment and eat my computer.

The rise of a babelicious ultra-priest.

It’s so difficult, being beautiful.

Women throw themselves at me constantly, urging me to fulfil their every twisted desire. Men weep tears of jealous rage as they pass me in the street, before committing bloody suicide as they realise that whenever they look in the mirror, they will never see my face beaming back.

What’s even more difficult is that I am a priest, sworn to celibacy, and that my parents decided to name me ‘UltimateHunk’.

Why would they name me ‘UltimateHunk’ and then send me to study the ways of the light? It seems like a perverse punishment for a crime I never committed.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep my vow of celibacy and I couldn’t follow the light. How could I keep something so beautiful from the women of this world? I may be a priest, but I’m no saint.

How Funky is Your Chicken?

Turns out, not very. While I do adore the chocobo hawkstriders, I may have been biased in the past, in that all my blood elf characters have been female, looking strangely elegant and graceful with it guddering and gittering about with some kind of poultry OCD. With a male blood elf (I've asked before, but if I find a male blood elf attractive, does that in fact make me bisexual?), they don't look quite so good.

It was for this reason that I tried my damnedest to get my reputation up with another faction (namely Undercity) in time for the mount, so that I could avoid this. Unfortuately, despite my best efforts, I only managed to get into 10,131/12,000 Honoured, shy 22,869 rep from Exalted.

I have now reached the point where I have to come to a decision. I have two characters ready to roll with (three if you count Jaego, but I won't mention him yet...), and I am trying to work out whether Maegan or Deakin will be my first choice when it comes to levelling.

Here's what I've come to work out so far:

• Meagan is a healer, therefore it'll be easier to get a place for her as either healer or DPS while levelling, and at 80, when that happens.
• Meagan has a cool mount, looks cool and sounds hilarious.
• Deakin has a poo mount and looks like a div riding it, but he looks so pretty and also sounds hilarious, for different reasons.
• I've never levelled a rogue beyond mid 30's.
• I've never levelled a priest.
• I would like to be able to pick locks.
• More people seem to be levelling priests than rogues in the guild.

Does that help me decide? No, not at all. But I will be thinking on it as time goes on, and failing all else, I'll alternate them, like a child with joint custody. So they're...my parents. Does that work?

What A Difference A Day Makes

So, in admist the small matter of the new World of Warcraft Expansion being announced, The NuGen began their adventure into Horde territory.

Eight WHOLE people online! No wai!

It was a fairly quiet night, no major drama. We welcomed some brand new NuGenites into our weird little world and everyone else just got on with levelling.

I myself pushed Maegan on through the early teen levels. Levelling a priest doesn't seem to be as difficult as some would have me believe. I am levelling Maegan (Undead) in the Ghostlands, which is Blood Elf "territory", but I don't care. With the exception of Deakin, who I'm doing a different experiment with, I will probably level all my lowbie characters through here.

So that was about it. The guild didn't fall flat on its face in the first 24 hours, we have a steady stream of levellers and full timers, and we're almost ready for our first instance!

OMG it's Elvis!

So I've changed my mind. Already. That's right. I've decided to remove the warlock from my list and instead go for a rogue. So I've made a beautiful male blood elf.

He's so dashing. Debonair.


And then he hearths. It's rather unattractive. Let's just look at this up-close.


Oh my God! Elvis lives!

Not even a remotely insightful post, admittedly, but Hell, it made me smile.

Anyhoo, everyone welcome Deakin, Queen King of the Rogues!

Back to the Horde, one more time?

I started playing WoW in January 2008, it was as a result of an email I got from a fellow Civ III player. After trialling on the US realms (I did not know there were EU realms) I signed up and picked the less numerous Horde. I rolled on the recommended PvE realm of Aerie Peak and picked the least popular class at the time, Druid. That was my first learning experience and it included joining a ‘good’ guild and even getting made an officer in it. Unfortunately I wanted to play with all the toys and as a result ended up with 4 level 40s and got left behind when everyone else was gearing up for raiding.

I re-rolled on another realm, this time my main was a Hunter. Joined another guild, but this one was a bit fragmented so I was soloing most of the time. Then came the NuGen Alliance, a chance to get in at the same level as others without feeling the pressure to race to end content. It was also an opportunity to see if the Alliance were as bad as players on the Horde said. I have still yet to encounter anything matching the Barrens chat to be honest. I still rolled alts, but never got too far behind. I got my first L80 with the NuGen Alliance. This time it was when I could play that got in the way of being able to join in as much as would have liked.
Wow has changed a lot in the year and a half I have been playing, finding groups for classic content is a major problem so when the chance to re-roll and try to recapture the fun of the classic group content I jumped at the chance.

I will be trying to keep my main (Holycrepe - Paladin) up with the rest of the group so I can do more groups, I will be around at least one evening during the week. In addition I have an alt Shaman, both of these are classes I have not levelled beyond 20 before so I will be learning as I go. In addition I have a little project to see if I can turn 10 Linen Cloth into 1,000g by playing the auction house. I hope to keep everyone updated on how that goes as the weeks roll by. My main will be going for the Loremaster title from the start so I will probably be doing a lot of low level zones at the start.
Those who know me (Zandathor on the Nugen Alliance) will know I am an early riser so you can catch me online between 4 and 6 most mornings. In addition I will probably be around 4-6 most evenings from September onwards.