DDO: The Path of Least Resistance
My time lately has been split between slowly leveling my character in Dungeons and Dragons Online, a new alt I started on a different server on WoW and spending some time playing a game I am not allowed to talk about yet.
I have found it interesting as to how game design decision can affect player behavior. Everyone knows that if a player can avoid something on the way to their goal, they generally will. In Dungeons and Dragons Online you do not receive experience for killing enemies. Experience only comes from completing quests.
Now when most people think of quests nowadays, they think of the "kill ten rats" style of questing. All quests in DDO are essentially mini-instances. Some can be as short as 5 minutes, some have taken me over an hour solo. Many of these quests have scripted elements or special tasks you need to accomplish within the instance. Occasionally the quests will have optional "Kill n enemies" tasks but not always and generally the amount of xp is not worth the amount of time spent accomplishing the objective. What this boils down to is that in many quests, you can complete the entire adventure without killing a single enemy.
A few days ago, I was running a crypt adventure Delera's Tomb adventure module with some guildmates. While there was heavy fighting in some sections of the quests, in other sections the party leader would just tell us to keep running past everything. Unlike in World of Warcraft, in DDO's instances enemies will not follow you for the entire instance.
All in all, it just feels incredibly cheap. I have never been a fan of speed running instances.
With the dungeon finder in WoW and the introduction of daily instance rewards, speed running has greatly risen in popularity. They just want to get to the final boss, get their frost badges, and get out. While this is somewhat of an annoyance, there is still reason to go fight other bosses since other bosses still drop loot that can be disenchanted or used by fresh 80s.
"Bosses" in DDO instances drop not loot. In fact, there is no real loot comes from enemies in the instances but instead from the quest completion. The experience rewards for killing the optional objective enemies in the instances are minimal. It is a very low experience to time ratio. You get far more experience in far less time by just rushing to the end and rerunning the quest instead of doing all the option objectives.
Example: A fully completed quest (all optional objectives completed) may give 8000 experience and take an hour to do. Just rushing to the final enemy may only give 5000 experience but will only take 20 minutes.
It is an unfortunate result of a design choice, but I never see any reason in doing anything but rushing to end of each instance. It is sad though, because every instance is unique and most are very interesting. One thing developers have to always remember is that if players can skip something, they will skip something. Instead of just accepting that, give them a meaningful reason not to skip content.
Unintended Consequences of Cataclysm Raid Changes: Tank Shortages
I do not really have much to say about the Cataclysm leaks right now. Yes, they look awesome. Yes, I am excited. I am just hoping I can get into beta again to try this stuff out myself.
I was thinking further on the 10/25 man changes coming with Cataclysm and wondering if it might bring any unintended consequences. Currently, the main thing I worry about is the tank shortage in game and I think this change could actually make that worse.
Death Knights were introduced to the game because there was a tank shortage throughout Burning Crusade. Well, it did not do much to help and, at least on my server, there continues to be tank shortage. I cannot count the days I see people advertising in trade chat that they just need a tank or two to finish filling their group. I think that with only being able to raid 10 or 25 each week, the problem will become worse.
It is my personal belief that tanks will more likely choose to run 10 man raids instead of 25 man raids. 10 man raids have less chance of failure. The problem rises when you see that 10 man raids suck up tanks at a greater percentage than 25 mans.
A 10 man raid usually consists of 2 tanks, 5-6 DPS, and 2-3 healers.
A 25 man raid usually consists of 3 tanks, 15-16 DPS, 6-7 healers.
In a 10 man raid, tanks make up 20% of the raid, DPS make up 50-60% and healers make up 20-30%.
In a 25man raid, tanks make up 12% of the raid 60-64% and healers make up 24-28%.
When you use the 10 man percentages to scale the numbers to 25man, you would have 5 tanks, 13-15 DPS, and 5-7 healers.
So you can see that 10 man raids use a higher percentage of tanks, a lower percentages of DPS and about an equal percentage of healers. If a large percentage of players decide to just focus on 10 man raids in Cataclysm, tanks will be used up faster and DPS will have a harder time finding a group because less are needed for the raids. On the other hand, if people focused only on 25man raids (which I doubt will happen) there would not be so much of a drain on tanks and it would be easier for DPS to find a raid slot.
It will be interesting to see how this ends up playing out with the Cataclysm launch. Will more people have to roll tanks or will more people currently playing Warriors/Death Knights/Paladins be forced into a tanking role? No matter what happens, tanks will remain a rare commodity.
Cataclysm Raid Shakedown and Predictions
I have finally finished thinking about the Cataclysm raid changes. I tend to take a little extra time to think about these things so that I can form a more level headed opinion. If I reacted to most Blizzard changes day one, then I would probably just be shouting expletives and doom-saying all the time.
Well, with Cataclysm raiding you can either raid the 10 or the 25man version every week. Not both. And, both of them will give the same quality loot.
Spinks thinks this will be the end of 25man raiding. She has some good points with it too. On a group level, 10 mans are far more easy for players. They are easier to organize and there are less people to screw things up. If you do a 10 and 25man in a week, chances are your 10 man will have more success. 25mans are also harder on the logistical level. More people = more chances of someone not showing up. Rohan also agrees in the logistical challenges of 25mans and believes that getting rid of them might help stop guild leaders and officers from burning out.
My outlook is "25 or bust". I prefer large raids. In vanilla WoW, I preferred 40mans to 20mans. In Burning Crusade, I preferred the 25mans to the 10mans and that carried over to WotLK. For this expansion, the amount of 10mans I have done is marginal compared to 25mans. I did not care to run the same raid twice a week so I did not. 25man raids were always the guild activity and then 10 man raids were the small group activity within the guilds I was in.
My prediction for Cataclysm is that the raiding player-base will be split up into three groups:
- 25man progression raiders
- 10man progression raiders
- 10man casual raiders
25mans will not die, but they will become the less popular choice. 25mans will be the last bastion of the hardcore. I doubt there will be anyone doing 25mans except for the hardcore. It will be too much of a risk to PUG it. Right now, if you pug a 25man ICC and the raid fails a few bosses in, you can still pull some loot out of 10man ICC. It will not be worth the risk of PUG failure come Cataclysm
Smaller guilds will raid 10mans for progression. They will have the same gear as 25man raiders so that will help their sense of pride. 10man progression will be taken more seriously.
Everyone else will most likely retreat to just raiding 10mans. 25mans will not be worth the risk or the effort to PUG. Casual guilds and unguilded players will have a lot easier time getting a 10man going than a 25man so I doubt there will be any casual guilds or PUGs running 25s.
In the end, I believe that 10mans will be the mainstream hardcore and casual players and 25s will be for the hardcore fringe. They will not die, but I think only the players that are willing to go through the headaches will be willing to take the extra risk for a 25man. With the way the game has been trending, less and less people see WoW as "worth the headaches" anymore.
For me? I will always be a 25man raider. I prefer the large group and epic feel that it provides. I just do not feel right in 10mans.
The Exclusivity Problem: Healer Plate Armor – A Statistical Analysis
There are many sweeping changes coming with Cataclysm. Huge revamps of current systems and streamlining of others. One of the biggest changes coming is the complete overhaul of stats on gear. Stats like spellpower, defense, armor penetration, and attack power are all going away.
With all these changes, there is still one huge itemization problem: healer plate armor.
At least 50% of bosses in Icecrown Citadel have at least one piece of healer plate armor on their loot tables. This armor is only able to be used by one talent spec of one class.
About a month ago, Ghostcrawler gave a break down of gear itemization plans for Cataclysm:
DPS cloth: Int, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (mage, warlock, Shadow priest)
Healing cloth: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Holy and Disc priest)Melee leather: Agi, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (rogue, Feral druid)
Spellpower leather: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Balance druid)Physical mail: Agi, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (hunter, Enhancement shaman)
Spellpower mail: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Resto, Elemental shaman)DPS Plate: Str, Sta, Hit, Haste, Crit, Mastery, Expertise (Fury, Arms, Retribution, dps DKs)
Tanking plate: Str, Sta, Hit, Armor, Dodge, Block, Parry, Mastery, Expertise (Prot, Prot and tanking DKs)
Healing plate: Int, Sta, Spirit, Haste, Crit, Mastery (Holy paladins)
As you can see, every type of armor has at least two talent trees that will want that piece except for healing plate since paladins are the only ones that can use plate. The problem with this listing is that it just lists the people who primarily use that armor type. For example: currently, druids will often use cloth and paladins will often use mail. With the stat and mechanic changes, you can see all of the healing classes will be looking for the same stats.
A better breakdown of the gear would be:
DPS cloth: Priest, Mage, Warlock, Resto and Balance Druid, Resto and Elemental Shaman, Holy Paladin
Healing cloth: Priest, Mage, Warlock, Resto and Balance Druid, Resto and Elemental Shaman, Holy PaladinMelee leather: Rogue, Feral Druid, Hunter, Enhancement Shaman
Spellpower leather: Resto and Balance druid, Resto and Elemental Shaman, Holy PaladinPhysical mail: Hunter, Enhancement Shaman
Spellpower mail: Resto and Elemental Shaman, Holy PaladinDPS Plate: Fury and Arms Warriors, Retribution Paladins, Frost and Unholy Death Knights
Tanking plate: Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins, Blood Death Knights
Healing plate: Holy Paladins
You can clearly see the problem with this. Every armor piece has a huge pool of classes and talent specs to benefit except for healing plate. In the above listing, I listed every talent spec that would even consider using the armor. It may not be best in slot for certain classes, but it still might be beneficial.
For example, if you had an elemental shaman in an ilvl 200 piece of spellpower mail and an ilvl 277 piece of healing cloth drops, it would undeniably be an upgrade even if it is not a perfect upgrade. If there is a paladin in an ilvl 200 piece of healer plate and an ilvl 277 piece of dps cloth drops, it would still be an upgrade even thought it would have hit instead of the spirit they need. These are extreme cases, but they still outline what could happen.
This gear distribution can be even more clearly seen when you apply population percentages.
The following data is a population analysis done for Patch 3.3 and is current as of 21 January 2010.
Based on that data, you get the following:
DPS cloth: 44.1%
Healing cloth: 44.1%Melee leather: 21.6%
Spellpower leather: 18%Physical mail: 10.2%
Spellpower mail: 10.6%DPS Plate: 19.6%
Tanking plate: 14.8%
Healing plate: 4.2%
As you can see, healing plate is at the bottom with 4.2% of population whereas the next lowest is 10.2% on physical mail. Healing plate relies on there being holy paladins in the raid. No holy paladins = no use for the item. Every other item has multiple classes. If there are no enhancement shamans one night, you still have the three talent specs of hunters that still use physical mail.
What should be done about this?
One solution is just to remove healing plate from the game and make holy paladins just use spellpower mail. I do not think this is a good solution because plate armor is an iconic part of the paladin class. Personally, I never minded wearing mail but the roleplayers would never stand for it.
Another solution is to revamp holy paladins so they get all their stats from tanking or DPS plate. It could be the lowest tier talent in the holy tree that converts DPS or tanking stats into healing stats. This could work but I think it would be far too much work.
I think the best solution is to still create healer plate but do not put it on the loot tables. Instead, make holy paladins roll on spellpower mail and then take it to a vendor that converts it to plate. Things like this were done back with the Sunwell Plateau. You could take common drops to a vendor and with a Sunmote convert them to an item for another talent spec.
While in the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively minor issue but if they are going to be revamping and streamlining so many things with Cataclysm, it seems like this would be an easy addition to the pile.
Thoughts on Paladin Changes
I know, I know. I have been lazy. It is finally time to write up my thoughts on the paladin changes.
New Paladin Spells
Blinding Shield (level 81): Causes damage and blinds all nearby targets. This effect might end up only damaging those facing the paladin’s shield, in a manner similar to Eadric the Pure's ability Radiance in Trial of the Champion. The Holy tree will have a talent to increase the damage and critical strike chance, while the Protection tree will have a talent to make this spell instant cast. 2-second base cast time. Requires a shield.
Healing Hands (level 83): Healing Hands is a new healing spell. The paladin radiates heals from him or herself, almost like a Healing Stream Totem. It has a short range, but a long enough duration that the paladin can cast other heals while Healing Hands remains active. 15-second cooldown. 6-second duration.
Guardian of Ancient Kings (level 85): Summons a temporary guardian that looks like a winged creature of light armed with a sword. The visual is similar to that of the Resurrection spell used by the paladin in Warcraft III. The guardian has a different effect depending on the talent spec of the paladin. For Holy paladins, the guardian heals the most wounded ally in the area. For Protection paladins, the guardian absorbs some incoming damage. For Retribution paladins, it damages an enemy, similar to the death knight Gargoyle or the Nibelung staff. 3-minute cooldown. 30-second duration (this might vary depending on which guardian appears).
I really really like all three of these abilities. I do not like being a retribution paladin, I love being holy. The problem is that as a holy paladin solo PvE is still an incredible chore. I always have a full ret set sitting in my bags just for if I need to go do something in solo PvE. I do not like the play style of retribution.
Blinding Light sounds like a neat AOE damage ability that will help while doing dailies or leveling. O wonder if Blinding Light will break on periodic damage like Consecrate. That could really reduce the usefulness.Healing Hands FINALLY gives us the ability to AOE heal. I am suspecting that holy paladins are going to be pushed to stand with melee in most fights as it seems that is the place where they can do the most good. Guardian of Ancient Kings seems like an awesome 'fun' ability. I love that the affect changes based on the talent spec so it will be forever useful.
Changes to Abilities and Mechanics
* Crusader Strike will be a core ability for all paladins, gained at level 1. We think the paladin leveling experience is hurt by not having an instant attack. Retribution will be getting a new talent in its place that either modifies Crusader Strike or replaces it completely.
* Cleanse is being rebalanced to work with the new dispel system. It will dispel defensive magic (debuffs on friendly targets), diseases, and poisons.
* Blessing of Might will provide the benefit of Wisdom as well. If you have two paladins in your group, one will do Kings on everyone and the other will do Might on everyone. There should be much less need, and ideally no need, to provide specific buffs to specific classes.
* Holy Shock will be a core healing spell available to all paladins.
I had suspected that Crusader Strike would become baseline. I think it is a much needed change that will make leveling more fun for the lower levels and easier for holy paladins. Merging might and wisdom is a fantastic change. Now, they just need to merge kings and sanctuary and make blessings go raid-wide.
New Talents and Talent Changes
* We want to ease off the defensive capabilities of Retribution and Holy paladins slightly. We think the powerful paladin defenses have been one of the things holding Retribution paladins back, especially in Arenas. One change we’re considering is lowering Divine Shield’s duration by a couple of seconds. Having said that, Retribution does pretty well in Battlegrounds, and Battlegrounds will be a much bigger focus in Cataclysm since they can provide the best PvP rewards. Furthermore, the healing environment of Cataclysm is going to be different such that a paladin may not be able to fully heal themselves during the duration of Divine Shield to begin with, so this may not be a problem.
* We feel Retribution paladins need one more mechanic which involves some risk of the player pushing the wrong button, making the rotation a bit less forgiving. In addition, we want to add to this spec more PvP utility. Right now the successes of the Retribution paladin in PvP seem to be reduced to either doing decent burst damage, or just being good at staying alive.
* We want to increase the duration of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes and keep the limit to one target. The intention is that the paladin can use it on their main healing target. That said, we would like to improve the Holy paladin toolbox and niche so that they don’t feel quite like the obvious choice for tank healing while perceived as a weak group healer.
* We want to add to the Holy tree a nice big heal to correspond with Greater Heal. Flash of Light remains the expensive, fast heal and Holy Light is the go-to heal that has average efficiency and throughput. Beacon of Light will be changed to work with Flash of Light. We like the ability, but want paladins to use it intelligently and not be constantly healing for twice as much.
* Holy paladins will use spirit as their mana regeneration stat.
* Protection paladins need a different rotation between single-target and multi-target tanking. Likewise, we're looking to add the necessity to use an additional cooldown in each rotation.
* Holy Shield will no longer have charges. It will be designed to improve block chance while active, and will continue to provide a small amount of damage and threat.
If these changes go through, it could mean the death of bubble hearthing. That would be a sad day. I often think, however, that the paladin bubble is something that should be done away with. It is simply too powerful. I wonder what utility abilities paladins would have if they had never received bubble.
I like the extension of Sacred Shield to 30 minutes. It gets rid of some of the busy work with maintaining it. Any good holy paladin would always keep it up on at least one tank anyway so this just reduces their work a tiny amount.
The mention of a 'big heal' is interesting. It will be nice to cast something other than Holy Light 100% of the time. The move to spirit is okay with me, but I just wish they would get rid of spellpower plate or have there an ability to change spellpower mail into spellpower plate. Right now, spellpower plate is an armor only usable by one talent spec of 1 class. 3.3% of people can use it. It is a waste to have it take up a loot slot on bosses. I would love for holy paladins to just roll on resto shaman plate and then go pay 5g to upgrade it to plate.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Holy
* Healing
* Meditation
* Critical Healing EffectMeditation: This is the spirit-to-mana conversion that the priest, druid, and shaman healers also share.
Critical Healing Effect: When the paladin gets a crit on a heal, it will heal for more.
Protection
* Damage Reduction
* Vengeance
* Block AmountVengeance: This is the damage-received-to-attack-power conversion that all tanks share.
Block Amount: We want to keep the kit of the paladin as a tank who blocks a lot. So by contrast, the warrior tank will sometimes get critical blocks, but the paladin will absorb more damage with normal blocks.
Retribution
* Melee Damage
* Melee Critical Damage
* Holy DamageHoly Damage: Any attack that does Holy damage will have its damage increased.
All of this seems pretty standard and what was expected for the bonuses.
All in all, I really love the paladin changes. I know many players were upset or underwhelmed with their class changes but I love these ones. The only other class changes that made me envious were the mage changes. Between them getting fire orbs, bloodlust (Time Warp) and smoke walls, being a mage sounds like a wicked good time. I already have a level 1 undead mage with the name Riffraff saved for when I get bored in the future.
It does amaze me though how people can get so bent out of shape and furious over these changes. It will be interesting to see how many of the previewed abilities still exist when Cataclysm eventually launches. The Camouflage ability hunters are getting and the Heroic Leap ability warriors are getting were both in the Wrath of the Lich King beta (although they worked differently). I am sure Blizzard has a list of abilities for each class that they can sub in for backups if any of the ones previewed do not pan out.
As beta can be a tumultuous time, it is important to remember that none of these changes are set in stone. Until Cataclysm launches, you must always remember that the only constant is change.
Get Over It
It is just a flying horse. If you do not want one, do not buy it. If you do want one, spend the money to buy it.
It is not like Blizzard is keeping a section of the game from you. You have 50+ other mounts and you never use majority of them.
Get over it.
Solving the Problem of Group Quests
I like group quests. No, I love group quests. I think properly implemented group quests can give a great sense of immersion. The problem is, so few group quests are properly implemented.
I was thinking back to Lord of the Rings Online. I love the game world, but the amount of group quests was wholly depressing. It was not because there were not enough but instead too many and mostly were poorly implemented. On the other side of the coin, when Blizzard revamped some of the leveling in World of Warcraft (I think it was around patch 2.2), they removed practically all group quests from the vanilla world.
Generally, the three main problems I have seen with group quests are:
- Flow
- Enemy Saturation
- Population Density
Flow
A group quest should be a culminating event. In Lord of the Rings Online there would be multiple times when the quest flow would be Solo->Solo->Group->Solo->Solo->Group. This can create massive roadblocks for the player. If you are doing the questline with some random PUG players and a tank or healer leave half way through the quest chain, it becomes a lot harder to fill that spot.
Proper flow would hopefully go something more like Solo->Solo->Solo->Solo->Group->Group or Solo->Solo->Solo->Solo->Solo->Group. All the group quests should be at the end of the quest chain so that everyone can get up to that point together. Furthermore, I think group quests should only be the final quest in the chain. Having multiple group quests in a row can be tiresome and still create player roadblocks.
Enemy Saturation
Dol Dinen (at least how it was when I used to play) in Lord of the Rings Online is a terrible way to design an area. The area is filled with literally hundreds of enemies and all of the enemies are elite. You need to have a full group to even venture into the area. If one person gets separated, they will die and you will have to clear the way to their body to resurrect them because they will not be able to run back to you due to respawns behind you.
Areas filled with elite enemies should only be in instances where you by design will be with a full group at all times. I do not believe that any area in the open world of an MMO should be filled with elites. The best solution would be to have the area filled with normal enemies and then just have the "big bad" of the area be elite to coincide with the group quest to kill them. This way, it helps the players fill powerful themselves by being able to solo the generic trash but still make the big bad seem a powerful foe.
Population Density
This might be the biggest problem with group quests. When new content or a new expansion comes out, it is usually simple to get a group together for quests as thousands of people will be doing the content. Six months later or even years later, it is much different. When leveling in the time after the initial rush of people, most players will just skip the group quests. It is just too much work to try to find a group for it. If there is a quest reward they really want or need, they will just get a high level person to run them through the quest.
There are multiple ways you can handle this. You could just not put any group quests into the game, but I think that is a poor solution and can easily be thrown out. You could, after six to twelve months turn all the group quests into solo quests. I do not like that solution since it generally ruins the "epicness" of the quest. The third option, and my personal favorite, is to give companions.
I am not a fan of full time NPC companions. I do not want everyone having a full party of companions all day every day and forever only running around in a group of companions. Instead, a few months after a new game's release players should be given something like a "companion summoning horn" or something of that nature. When used, it would summon companions to fill out your party. The caveat is that they would only last for ten minutes and the horn would be on a one hour cooldown.
With this solution, players can still get the epic feel of the group quest even when the main mass of players has moved on to the level cap. If it had been implemented in World of Warcraft, it could have initially been usable only from levels 1-60. Six months after the Burning Crusade expansion came out, they could extend the item to work from 1-70. Six months after Wrath of the Lich King's launch, the could once more extend it to work from 1-80. People in the initial rush would be forced to group with each other, but new players to the game after the rush or even alts of players would still be able to accomplish group quests without sacrificing the integrity of the quest.
Like I said in the beginning, I think group quests are a fun and immersive part of MMORPGs, I just think the implementation needs tweaking so everyone can do them.
Nostalgia Shattered
If there is one thing playing these new alts in WoW has done, it is make me want Cataclysm more. I do not play alts often so I often forget how mind-numbing the old content can be. I think fondly back of leveling when I first started playing WoW and since the game was so new and fresh, everything seemed awesome. With each expansion, the questing content has gotten better and better.
Going back and playing the old content really makes me excited for when it is all destroyed. I am glad Blizzard optimized questing with each expansion. So many quests are so spread out with little to no reward. It takes me more time to run to the quest giver to get the quest than it actually takes to do the quest. Having to run from zone to zone just to talk to one person for a single quest is terrible design.
We hit level 23 last night and I was working on my "Call of Water" quest for my shaman. In this quest, you go from Thunderbluff or Orgrimmar to the central Barrens to the southern Barrens to Tarren Mill in the Eastern Kingdoms and back to the southern Barrens in Kalimdor and then to Ashenvale and back to the southern Barrens and then to Silverpine Forest in the Eastern Kingdoms and back to the southern Barrens and lastly back to the central Barrens. This is all for the ability to drop the water totem, a central skill of the class.
Having to take an hour and transition continents five times for one quest is terrible design, especially for a low level quest. I can understand having option epic questlines like this at the level caps. There are many leftover epic quests at 60 and 70 as well as some great ones at 80, but having a quest like this for an essential class ability at level 20 is ludicrous. I am glad they moved mounts to level 20 or else it would have been unbearable. I am hoping Cataclysm rewrites this quest to something along the lines of "go collect water from each Oasis in the Barrens, okay here is your totem". That is something more along the line of what a quest for that level should be.
One thing I have noticed, however, is that while the questing is incredibly boring and monotonous, it is still on par or better than most quests in any other triple-A MMO release recently. Burning Crusade did some great things with quests and Wrath of the Lich King just continued that to make questing more fun and enjoyable. I hope that the changes Cataclysm brings are sweeping and hit all these sore low level areas.
Bring on the beta already!
New Beginnings
I have never been a fan of alts. They always seemed like such a waste of time for me. Whenever I would get the urge to create an alt, I would always think how I would much rather spend that time either doing more to enhance my main character or spending time in another game for some variety. In the past, I created alts when I needed something from them. For example, I created a warlock alt when Rynala started playing so that we could level together. We leveled from 1-70 together so she could be ready for Wrath of the Lich King. When the expansion came out, I leveled from 70-80 with her on my paladin. To this day, that warlock is still level 70.
Well, this week her and I both created new alts. This is her first real alt ever. She wanted to be able to try something different. Being a hunter, the new Dungeon Finder tool always took a while to pair her up into groups. She would see how I would get 1 minute queues when I played and did random dungeons, but when she played it would take 15 minutes. She wanted to create a new character to try something different.
So as of this week her and I are leveling new characters together. She is leveling a feral druid and I am leveling a shaman. At 80, she will use the druid to tank and I will use the shaman to heal (yes, I use my paladin to heal too - I just don't like DPSing). In the past, I have always burned out on alts at low levels because I have done the 1-70 content so many times now. But, things are always better when experiencing it with others and I am really enjoying leveling with Rynala. I can understand why people form "leveling groups" with friends.
My Auction House Addiction
I had quit playing World of Warcraft for the most part around April of last year. I had been heavily raiding and my guild was working on 25man Yogg-Saron in Ulduar. We were probably the 2nd or 3rd guild for Horde on our server. Though that is not saying much because Bleeding Hollow, while populated, is still a back water server. The #1 guild on our server was only about #500 in the US and they had the top players so that the drop off between them and all other guilds was quite significant.
I just could not taking committing to raiding so much each week. Between 25mans and 10mans and working on getting the raiding achievements, I burned out. After four years of heavy raiding, I burned out hard. I am honestly surprised I lasted that long. I had taken a couple month long breaks in the past, but I always jumped head first back into raiding. I never closed my WoW subscription since I liked to occasionally pop on and talk to people and see if anything interesting was going on, but I never really played much. When patch 3.2 was released, I did the dailies for the coliseum so that I could get the Crusader title, but then I stopped playing again. In my time off, I explored many games. I went back to LotRO and I played Wizard 101, Aion, as well as spending a little time in some single player games.
World of Warcraft's patch 3.3 changed everything for me. It hooked me hard. I absolutely love the three new 5mans and have had a blast with the dungeon finder. I still have not formally returned to raiding. I have done the Coliseum once in 25man and once in 10man, the same goes for Onyxia. I still have not even stepped foot in the Icecrown Citadel raid. One thing that caught my eye like never before has been the Auction House.
I have never been good at making money in WoW. In vanilla WoW, I had my epic mount but I never really had more than a couple hundred gold at a time. I remember having 500g and staying at that for a while made me quite proud. In Burning Crusade, I bought epic flying for 5000g as well as paid 4000g for a Sunwell engineering goggles recipe. Other than that, I stayed around 1000g most the time. In WotLK, I have most of the time just hovered around 1500g. I did get addicted to dailies for one month and made the 13000g+ needed to make the motorcycle mount, but after that I burned out on dailies and never went above 1500g again. When I came back in patch 3.3, I had about 5g to my name. I have no idea what I ever did with all my gold, but it was gone.
When returning with patch 3.3, I decided to give the Auction House a shot. In my 5 years of playing WoW, I had never put a major focus on the auction house but now, I finally get it. I got up to about 500g from using the dungeon finder and used that as my base capital. Between ammo, enchanting mats, and enchanting scrolls, I was up to 4000g in about a week and a half. I then realized I had a level 70 warlock alt that I could be utilizing. The warlock was at 375 herbalism but nothing else. I spent 4500g (I had to borrow 500g from Rynala) and power leveled my warlock to 450 in Alchemy. I sold the potions, flasks, and gems that I had made while leveling alchemy as well as continuing in my other markets and was back to 5000g within a week.
In under one month of the patch, I had essentially made 10k gold (though the 4.5k was spent on alchemy) and it did not take nearly the work that the relentless daily farming did. By the time Christmas rolled around, I had 15k between both characters. Visiting family in early January stopped me from being able to log on to WoW and when I came back, I put a bit of time into Darksiders and Mass Effect 2. I spent a bit of time playing with the auction house, but it was not my focus.
As of this post, I have 25k gold between my two characters. I know it is not a lot since so many people are at the gold cap nowadays, but this amount makes me proud. It is more money than I have ever had at one time and though the economy in game has slowed down after the post patch rush died out, I still have a steady cash flow coming in every day.
My loftiest goal would be to reach the gold cap by Cataclysm, but I do not think that will happen. Even if I just reach 50k or even 100k gold, I will be happy. I am tempted to start buying things that I could never afford before like one of the Dalaran rings or one of the 3-person mammoths.
I know the real money is in Jewelcrafting and Inscription, but I do not have the patience for either of those. I have seen people like Gevlon or Tobold using inscription and listing thousands of glyphs a day. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. As for now, I am happy with the business I have and I am addicted to getting more gold.