Friendly Neighborhood Druid - About gold farming, addons and all things feral!

World of Warcraft Patch 4.3.2

2012-02-01T12:01:00.000+01:00

The World of Warcraft Client Patch 4.3.2 is out. Some minor balance changes to the classes as usual, as well as some raid nerfs. A new feature now allows you to sign up with your RealID friends using the the Raid Finder, and Blizzard have stated that they eventually will implement this into the upcoming BattleTag system as well.

World of Warcraft Patch 4.3.2

Classes: General

Vengeance is no longer triggered by receiving damage from other players.

Druids

The Tier 13 Balance Druid 4-piece bonus now also increases the damage of Starsurge by 10%, in addition to its current effect.

Hunters

Aspect of the Hawk now grants roughly 35% more attack power.
Deterrence now also reduces damage taken by 30% while active.
Black Arrow now ticks every 2 seconds for 20 seconds, as opposed to every 3 seconds for 15 seconds. The total damage dealt by the ability is unchanged.
Lock and Load no longer benefits Arcane Shot, nor is it consumed by Arcane Shot.

Mages

Fireball damage has been reduced by roughly 6%.
Pyroblast damage has been reduced by roughly 6%.

Paladins

Holy Radiance now costs 40% of base mana, up from 35%.

Priests

Mass Dispel should again prefer dispelling targets that have magic effects that can be dispelled.

Rogues

Adrenaline Rush no longer triggers a global cooldown.

Dungeons & Raids

You can now form same-faction raids with Real ID friends, allowing you to enter Raid Finder in groups larger than 5, run older normal or heroic raids, or participate in Battlegrounds. You will not yet be able to run normal or heroic Dragon Soul with cross-realm raids of Real ID friends.
Several typo fixes and clarified descriptions have been added to the Dungeon Journal entries for Dragon Soul.
Players can no longer win multiple copies of the same item on a single Raid Finder boss kill. For example, a player who chooses Need on two set piece tokens or two weapons and wins the first, will not be eligible for the second on that particular boss.
Baradin Hold
- The roaming Eyes of Occu'thar have been replaced by hateful creatures who serve Alizabal.
Dragon Soul
- Warmaster Blackhorn
  - The visual warning for Twilight Elites' Blade Rush should be easier to see.

Items

Vial of Shadows damage (Lightning Strike) has been reduced to approximately one-third of previous damage. However, it will now trigger approximately 3 times as often. This is intended to keep overall DPS the same while reducing burst damage, especially in PvP.

Not much that I as a non-raider find very interesting in this minor patch. The one thing that stands out to me is the Vengeance change. With received player damage no longer granting tank specs extra attack power, I expect to see a fall inn survivability for especially Blood Death Knights and Feral Druids in PvP. Which is a good thing, because the amount of beating these two can take (and I'm speaking as one here) is just too high. I wonder if this will affect the completely over the top self healing Blood Death Knights can achieve when fighting opponents in melee range?

Another interesting new feature is the optimized launcher.

Every now and then (usually related to patches or expansions) the Blizzard Launcher will now attempt to optimize your game folder to save space. The game folder usually have a ton of outdated cache files lying around, and this change could potentially free up tens of gigabytes from your harddrive.

With the 4.3.2 patch we’ll be testing some new file optimization tech. As you may be aware, with previous major expansion patches (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.) we’ve carried out a time-consuming process to reorganize the game files currently installed on your hard drive to integrate all previous patch files, essentially ‘cleaning up’ what’s on your computer and reducing the full installation size. This process used to require an amount of free hard drive space double that of the entire installation size to complete, which is why we’ve reserved them for large expansion-sized patches.

The new tech we’re testing with the 4.3.2 PTR will process these cleanups with no additional hard drive space required beyond what the patch is adding. Because of that you may see them appear more frequently with patches.

While the cleanup is occurring you’ll see a specific message on the launcher informing you the process is currently taking place. If you encounter any issues with the new process please be sure to visit our support site at http://www.battle.net/support/

Lunar Festival Lamps AKA Easy Gold!

2012-01-30T06:30:00.001+01:00

The Alliance version of the new Lunar Festival lamp

This year's Lunar Festival has started in the World of Warcraft, and it's the same as last year. Newbies flying around to meet and greet elders, fireworks being fired off in the cities, and druids from Moonglade everywhere. That is, it is almost the same as last year. This year we got a pet!

The new vanity pet is shaped as a paper lamp, and is purchasable for 50x Coin of Ancestry from Valadar Starsong on the pavillion in Moonglade.

Now I wouldn't normally mention a thing like this. Even though I'm an avid pet collector, this isn't something I consider noteworthy. So why do I mention it? Because the pets are BoE, and there are different versions for each faction. Which of course means you can sell them cross faction for a pretty nice amount of gold.

I have seen some pretty wild numbers over the last few days, but the going rate seems to be somewhere in the 10000g area, which leaves you with something like 7-8000g after the neutral and greedy goblins have skimmed their cut off the top. Which still is a pretty good profit, especially if you have over a 100 coins lying around on several characters from previous years like me!

It is of course possible to acquire both lamps, no matter your faction. That's kind of the whole point of this. Lunar Lantern for the Alliance, and Festival Lantern for the Horde. Goldpaw is the proud owner of both, and has even sold 2 lamps for the total profit of 16000g so far!

Now get out there and sell some paper lamps!

SOPA strike, my afterthoughts

2012-01-19T02:00:00.000+01:00

By now most you should have noticed there was a strike today. A strike against SOPA/PIPA and what these acts will mean for the Internet as we know it.

Have you ever read the book 1984 by George Orwell? If you haven't, you should. The book is a frightening warning against what can happen if a goverment is given too much power, and too great a control over people's personal lives, thoughts, and free will. SOPA/PIPA is to me a good step down the road which eventually leads to 1984. Complete totalitarianism. And that's just not a world I ever want to live in.

But of course this makes me think. Why do the government officials feel it's necessary with such extreme acts? Is the act of online piracy really this bad? Has it finally gotten to the point where we either strike down unrelentlessly on the entire Internet in order for our old ways to survive? Maybe it has.

To me this situation is two-sided. On one hand I agree that piracy has gotten out of control. It's become the common thing to do. We steal. We see something we want, and we take it. Simple as that. "Everybody else does it", right? On the other hand I accept that piracy is here to stay, no matter how much I dislike it. It's wrong, but it's here. So maybe what we need is to find a way to make people NOT choose piracy?

There are two ways we can go from here. We can allow acts like SOPA and PIPA go through. We can give up our liberty, and give in to the power hungry governments hiding their agenda to control the true and free public information stream behind their motives of copyright protection. We can hand away our power of choice, and allow everything we see, do and experience to be censored. We can hold on to the old ways with a manic grip, producing Chinese conditions throughout the entire world. We can certainly do this.

Or we can accept once and for all that we live in a new day and age, and that a new way of thinking is required.

The digital age has long since begun. When we started recording music, it became possible to illegally copy it. When we got modems it became possible to share information. We used this to steal. Everybody remember the original Napster. Today the Internet is enormous. 2 billion estimated Internet users. Can you say "woah!"...? What is being suggested with SOPA/PIPA is basically to conquer a society of 2 billion people, for the sole purpose of protecting the copyrights of some large USA based companies. It's absurd, and nobody with their mind in the right place can deny it. If we are to do what benefits the majority, then SOPA/PIPA is NOT it.

But then what can we do? Are we to let the music-, movie- and software industry die because the public thinks it's ok to steal? That certainly isn't the answer to our problems. So I'm thinking that maybe we're approaching the problem from the wrong angle, maybe we are asking the wrong questions. Maybe the question we should be asking isn't "how can we stop people from illegally downloading stuff", but rather "how can we make people want to pay for something".

Spotify and Netflix has figured it out. The way to go in this day and age isn't to cling to the old ways of costly products locked away in dusty cabinets, but rather give away the products for free, and then survive by presenting subscription services. And of course advertisements.

What are we willing to pay for? Services. How can the industry make money? By offering services.

Thanks for listening!

Lars

Test Your Strength monthly quest done in 25 minutes!

2012-01-01T16:12:00.000+01:00

The new and improved Darkmoon Faire has finally arrived, and along with it a ton of new and exciting quests! Except for one. Yes, I am referring to Test Your Strength.

A simple quest in theory, but maybe not that much for the very casual amongst us. I am of course talking about people like me. I can easily go a week without getting 250 kills. You see, I don't Raid. I don't do Heroic Dungeons for the time being. And I hardly do any dailies at all. So getting kills for me means to go out there and farm. And I just hate farming...

But DON'T PANIC! There is a way to get all the kills in around 25 minutes (that's one kill every 6th second if you wondered), and it'll even give you around 400g to show for it if you're an enchanter!

What to do?
Get your arse to Northrend! It seems like not a lot of people are aware of this, but every mob at as low as level 80 still rewards experience points to a level 85 character, and counts toward the completion of this quest. So naturally I chose the spot with the biggest spawnrate of mobs in the entire game, which happens to be in Icecrown. Or Aldur'thar: The Desolation Gate to be more precise. It's the spot with the 3 cauldrons.

As they spawn so fast, there is no point in killing them one by one. Gather up a 5-10 of them and AoE them down. They only have about 10k health each, and hardly do any noticable damage at all to a level 85 character. Loot after each group is down. Then do your usual thing of vendoring garbage, selling cloth at the Auction House, and disenchant green items!

I personally got gold drops, junk and vendor items worth 92g, 80x Frostweave Cloth worth 190g at the AH, and 5 green items that disenchanted into 5x Greater Cosmic Essences and 11x Infinite Dust. A total of 455g for 25 minutes of work. Not great farming, but hey, we were there for the quest, the rest was just an added bonus!

The profit of this place as a farm spot averages out to about 1100g/hour.

Making gold during the Feast Of Winter Veil

2011-12-12T00:00:00.000+01:00

The Feast of Winter Veil this year starts at Thursday December 15th 2011 and lasts to Monday January 2nd 2012. This is a good season for gold making, as it includes several crafted items, as well as a very high demand for items that are easily farmed yet sell for a LOT!

Making gold by farming and/or stockpiling
The main money maker here is Small Egg. It is needed for both the achievement The Winter Veil Gourmet as well as the quests Treats for Greatfather Winter (Alliance) or Treats for Great-father Winter (Horde). Small Egg is dropped by any birds or moonkin in the world, but are easiest farmed outside Silvermoon City in Eversong Woods for the Horde, or at Silvermyst Isle southwest of Azuremyst Isle for the Alliance. The moonkins in the Hinterlands is another easy source for both factions, but depending on whether you're on a PvE or PvP realm you might want to stick to your own faction's zones.

Last year I earned thousands of gold on Small Egg alone. Yes. Thousands. They key as always is to use the AH to your advantage, which means following certain rules. I posted some of the eggs one by one, and some in stacks of 5. Those are what people need, and those are what we provide. I got everything from 5-40g per egg, which is quite insane when you think about it. And of course you should never post too many at once. You're not the only one on the server, and spamming the market only forces the prices and your profit down. The trick is to always sell too little, to keep people coming back for more, paying whatever is needed!

Skinners can also make some extra gold by farming Rugged Leather and selling it in stacks of 4 at the Auction House. It is reagent for Winter Boots created by Leatherworkers, and needed for the achievement 'Tis the Season. I recommend Winterspring for farming Rugged Leather, as described in my guide here.

You can also get some profit by stockpiling and selling Bolt of Woolen Cloth and Bolt of Runecloth, but the time required to obtain these materials doesn't - in my eyes - justify the meager profit. You should however save up what you get from normal questing though, and not sell it until Winter Veil begins!

Making gold with Cooking(1)
Some people are lazy, quiet a few in fact. When they get the quest Treats for Greatfather Winter (or the Horde counterpart), they immediately rush to the Auction House to buy what they need. In this case that is 5x Gingerbread Cookie and 1x Ice Cold Milk. You can make Gingerbread Cookie with a cooking skill of 1, and Recipe: Gingerbread Cookie is available from your local Smokeywood Pastures vendor. These vendors appear during the Feast of Winterveil and can be found in the major cities.

Even the Ice Cold Milk is a money maker, as it can be bought from tons of vendors for 1 silver 25 copper. And yet people still buy it for several gold at the Auction House during this season! Gotta love lazy people, eh?

Making gold with Tailoring(250)
Red Winter Clothes or Green Winter Clothes are needed for the achievement 'Tis the Season, as well as being cool collector items. They sell pretty well, and require 4x Bolt of Runecloth, 1x Bolt of Woolen Cloth as well as some thread and dye you can buy from your Tailoring supplies vendor. The recipies can be bought from your local Smokeywood Pastures vendor, and are all BoP.

Making gold with Leatherworking(285)
Leatherworkers can create Winter Boots, which are required for the achievement 'Tis the Season, as well as being a cool collector item. They require 1x Copper Bar, 1x Bolt of Woolen Cloth, 4x Rugged Leather as well as some thread available from any Leatherworking- or Tailoring supplies vendor. The recipe is bought from your Smokeywood Pastures vendor, as you probably guessed.

And that concludes it from me today. These are my main tricks for the Feast of Winter Veil. They require very little time, very little gold, and can make you hundreds or thousands of gold richer!

Merry Christmas!

Week 41: Skinning - Summary of Updates

2011-10-17T23:21:00.001+02:00

Week 41 is over, and it's time for a summary of the major updates! This week skinning was on the slightly changed agenda. And even though it wasn't completely finished during the week, it got a very good start.

I changed the way my skinner module works, from the old large database style to a more intuitive API-style. The change - along with the major changes to the gUI™ core libraries with the 1.9/2.0 releases - means that not only can I skin the Blizzard UI from within gUI™, but it is now possible for external addons to skin objects using the new gUI™ skinner API. The brand new gUI™ - Postal Skin and gUI™ - Recount Skin are good examples of that. They were the first, but there will be many many more. Quartz, Outfitter, Skada and Deadly Boss Mods are amongst the addons I have planned to release skins for in the near future.

Amongst the skinned Blizzard UI modules so far we have the talents & glyph frames, the mail frame, the merchant interface, the taxi/flightframe, battleground scores, the world map, the raid interface, the keybinding frame, friends and guild frames, the character frame, and a ton of minor ones. And this is only the beginning, as I will continue until every single part of the default UI is skinned in that good old gUI™ style! Stay tuned for more skinning later this week, as well as a huge update to the chat setup and auto configuration features!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FROM CURSE
The gUI™ custom user interface is a project in constant development. It requires a considerable amount of time and effort to develop and maintain, all done freely and without pay. If you like this or any other of my projects, please consider donating.

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gUI™ - Recount Skin Released

2011-10-14T16:11:00.000+02:00

Yes, you did read it correctly. You can now have Recount skinned to match gUI™!

First of all you need to have the absolutely most recent version of gUI™ installed, which means v1.9.237+, so head over to Curse and get it. Then you need Recount, of course. And here comes the part you might not like or understand: You need to download this skin as a separate addon.

So why didn't I simply include this as a part of the UI instead? Recount is so common, right?

Well, that is correct. But DBM is also very common. And Quartz. And Skada. And Omen. And Big Wigz. And Auctioneer... See what I'm getting at here? It has to stop somewhere. So to make a long story a bit shorter, I have simply decided that when I skin other people's addons, I do it with a separate addon. Having that said, I intend to release skins to all the above mentioned addons in the upcoming weeks. So sooner or later you'll have the entire UI in the good old gUI™ style!

But why am I still talking? And why are you still reading?

Download the brand new gUI™ - Recount Skin!

Earn 4000g/hour with Jewelcrafting + Enchanting

2011-10-13T19:05:00.001+02:00

Do you wish to make some gold with Jewelcrafting and Enchanting, but feel that existing guides are way too extensive and too addon-dependent? Then don't panic my fellow gold farmers, because I will give you the answers!

After months of testing and experimenting, I have boiled down my strategy for these 2 professions to a very simple plan. It is reminiscent of the plans presented by other gold bloggers, but mine is simply... simpler! At least in terms of research and decision making needed. It's brainless, actually.

I'll tell you what to buy, what to craft, what to sell, and how much to sell it for. But since prices often vary from server to server, not to mention from day to day, you might be interested in this guide on how to better utilize the Auction House and maximize your profits.

1. Buy Materials
I usually buy 2 types of materials, and I always buy them at the AH. No farming. Ever.

Obsidium Ore
Elementium Ore

My pain threshold when it comes to the price is roughly 25g each stack. I usually don't buy anything above that, though I could probably go all the way up to 35g or even 45g and still have a very good profit. I buy between 1000g and 2000g worth of ores each day.

2. Prospect

This part sucks. Now you have to prospect literally thousands of ores. This part I recommend doing while watching a movie, and definitely using a macro! Just make WoW windowed, and have your video player set to be "Always on Top" while still having WoW focused. Then you can relax and just click your prospecting macro while watching a movie or something. You won't even notice the time passing!

Be sure that all your stacks are of sizes dividable by 5, otherwise the macro will bug out sooner or later.

And here's my macro, for those that are interested:

#showtooltip
/cast Prospecting
/use Obsidium Ore
/use Elementium Ore

3. Craft items and disenchant them
Now that you've got all your uncut gems, it's time to do something useful with them. I'll make this extremely simple for you. Remember to buy in a solid supply of Jeweler's Settings for this part, as we won't be cutting any gems, we will instead use them to create rings and necklaces for the soul purpose of disenchanting them.

Carnelian -> Carnelian Spikes -> Disenchant
Alicite -> Alicite Pendant -> Disenchant
Hessonite -> Hessonite Band -> Disenchant
Jasper -> Jasper Ring -> Disenchant - can be sold uncut in stacks of 3 when it's the daily
Nightstone -> Nightstone Choker -> Disenchant - can be sold uncut in stacks of 3 when it's the daily

I disenchant regardless of whether the items created are of blue or green quality. And regardless of their stats as well. At this point in the current WoW expansion pack, epics are basically thrown at you. Good blues created by Jewelcrafting simply aren't good anymore, and the average price you'll get for them is very low. Not worth the hassle in my eyes. Better to do this fast. The disenchanting takes enough time as it is, no need to add to that by forcing ourselves to value each item individually.

4. Create some scrolls of enchants
I create mainly 3 scrolls, but only 2 of them are made with Cataclysm materials . This is another one of those things where other gold farmers strongly disagree with me, as they tend to create a LOT more items than this.

Enchant Chest - Mighty Stats (2x Lesser Celestial Essence) - sells for 60-150g
Enchant Boots - Earthen Vitality (2x Hypnotic Dust) - sells for 10-50g

I try to not overdue it, 10 of each will do it on a daily basis. Sometimes even less. These are good sellers, and they sell fast, but posting too many at once will backfire. I put my auctions at only 12 hours, as they sell fast, are produced fast, and long auctions will only get you undercut constantly.

5. Sell your remaining Enchanter materials
Time to sell all you got from disenchanting items earlier. And you got a LOT! Remember to turn lessers into greaters. I put my enchanter materials up for 24 hours at the AH. Any remaining lessers or incomplete stacks I simply save for the next day.

Heavenly Shard -> sell one by one, 60-90g per shard
Greater Celestial Essence -> sell in stacks of 10, 35-45g per essence
Hypnotic Dust -> sell in stacks of 20, 1-2g per dust

6. Cut and sell remaining Gems
You still got quite a few gems left, of both green and blue quality. And of most gem colors. Here is what I do with them:

Nightstone -> On my realms these can go for 10-20g each if it's the daily, sold in stacks of 3.
Jasper -> On my realm the AH is flooded with these, so I have stopped selling them. But depending on your realms prices, you might want to sell them in stacks of 3.
Zephyrite -> Sell at the AH in stacks of 3, for 3-10g per gem on days when it's the daily. Or cut any random gem and vendor them.

Inferno Ruby -> Bold Inferno Ruby, Brilliant Inferno Ruby, Delicate Inferno Ruby
Ember Topaz -> Reckless Ember Topaz, Adept Ember Topaz
Demonseye -> Purified Demonseye, Shifting Demonseye, Glinting Demonseye

I sell all my cut blue gems at the AH, with 12 hour duration auctions. Pricing differs, and can go from 25g to 150g. Red colored gems usually go in the 60-90g area. If none are available when I post mine, I put the price at 150g per gem. Red colored gems sell for this price, the others might not. But at least it will help setting the bar higher, and help increase the profit once people start undercutting each other.

Dream Emerald -> Vendor
Amberjewel -> AH or vendor
Ocean Sapphire -> AH or vendor

Craft the gems into any random gem of that color if vendoring them. The profit for rare (blue quality) gems isn't much, just a mere 55s per gem. But it's a few gold. Or a profit increase of 17% if you like, from 3.2g to 3.75g. And this one comes for "free". If you do this on a daily basis, it starts adding up. When it comes to uncommon (green quality) gems though, it's a whole different matter. These sell for 50s each uncut, and 75s cut. That's a 50% increase!

And that's about it. Just do this, and sit back and enjoy the ridiculous profits!

I'm getting between 2000g and 4000g every day, from hardly an hour's worth of work. And that is pure profit, with the cost of the materials deducted! It's not unusual to have up to 6000g waiting in my mailbox when I log on.

Can't complain about that!

Week 39: Panels - Summary of Updates

2011-10-06T15:02:00.000+02:00

Goldpaw says "Hi"

This is roughly overdue, but considering it's me we're talking about, I'm right at schedule!

Week 39 had the panel module as its focus. Which is a bit tricky, because the panels are a bit more embedded in the UI than you might think. In fact everything you can see uses my panel library in one way or another. So what exactly did I update, with the panel module being so hard to define? Well, a little of everything. With focus on the User Interface. Which means how you interact with the game.

I added some new commands to the bag module, as well as a menu for it in the panel module:

I got fed up with the Gem crap, where 20 crafted Gems would take up 20 bags slots, instead of 1

I skinned several UI elements, in a better and simpler way codewise than my previous skinning methods:

I'm exceptionally mediocre in PvP! That makes me feel special! Hm.

Yeah, that about covers it. Not much, but something. Since everything is always under development, this is just the beginning. Having settings easily available without the need to open large configuration windows is always a priority for me. And this was a good start. I dislike traditional ways of doing things, simply because those ways were created by retards, in a time of retards, for a gang of retards. Big option menus have their purpose, but there are better and simpler ways to do things, and I think integrating the options into the modules themselves is a part of that. If you want to change the bag settings, you should be able to do that from the bags. Not being forced into finding and understanding some large menu in some remote place after a million clicks to get there.

The "panel" module is to most of you the two small panels under the chat windows in the bottom left and right corners. To me it is not. To me the panel module is just another way of saying "the UI". Everything you see with my fancy borders use the panel library. Absolutely everything.

If you haven't already, you should start checking the tooltips on the panels (the bottom ones), as well as check if there's any new right-click menus there. Most panel plugins have gotten some right-click menus, and more are to come. A lot of options will be available from them in the future.

That about covers this weeks updates so far. Check in later this week, or sometime next week, for the updates on the chat module. I won't reveal what it will be, but I can drop you a fairly big hint; automatic setup.

BOTTOMS UP!

Week 38: Bags - Summary of Updates

2011-09-27T16:21:00.001+02:00

Though a little bit overdue, here comes the promised summary of week 38's gUI™ updates. The module in focus was the bag module.

New shiny icons

New custom icons

I finally got around to getting rid of the ugly re-used Blizzard graphics. I am of course talking about the red and clunky close button. I replaced it with a simple outlined "X". Furthermore I created a new icon for the brand new restacking feature, as well as an icon for the bag bar.

New tooltips
Several new and descriptive tooltips were added to various parts of the bag module. It should now be a lot clearer as to what actually happens when you click on things. You might notice that the close button for the main container has a different tooltip than the close button of the other categories.

New chat commands
A few new commands were added. You can visit the gUI™ page for a full list of the available chat commands.

/compressbags - Toggles compression of the empty slots to one row
/restack resume - Resumes a restack operation if for some reason stuck. Only added as a fail-safe

Restack feature

Restacking is finally easy! With the click of a simple button you can restack all the contents in your bags to save space. This feature currently works for the bank and the bags. I might add Guild Bank support, but haven't fully decided yet. There are however a few features I still have on my ToDo-list, which you should expect to see crammed in there with the regular updates in the upcoming weeks. I'm talking about:

Automatic restacking of crafted items when they're created (like Gems and Glyphs)
Relocation of items that fit in profession bags into the said bags, if there is room

Before restacking

After restacking

gUI™ now compatible with Russian (ruRU) game clients!

2011-09-27T13:49:00.000+02:00

Yes, you read it correctly. I finally fixed the issues with all the question marks, finally making gUI™ compatible with Russian clients again! Wohoo!

DOWNLOAD!

I had to download a Russian language pack for it, plus a couple of hundred megabytes of Russian voice data through the Blizzard downloader. And when I finally started up, I noticed that I had to actually create a character on a Russian server, since those were the only ones I were allowed to log into with a Russian client. I didn't know that! And what more, it turns out you can't actually use Latin letters in Russian character names! Or if you can, I probably must have chosen already existing names all the time. To my defense it's not like I understood any of the error messages I was getting.

So I wanted my own character name, and used Google Translate to figure out what Goldpaw was in Russian. Knowing Google Translate, the result was probably horrific! But my intention with today's adventure was to make the Russian users happy, so if my Russian character name can bring a smile to their faces, then the mission was a success! So what do you think, is Золотолапу a complete failure, or does it sound cool?

Anyway, here is some proof of my adventure, which also shows the fabulous unitframe font I chose in all its glory:

I wonder what that guy is whispering to me. Probably something dirty. Can't possibly be a Guild Invite.

gUI™ v1.9 (v2.0 Preview) Update Schedule

2011-09-24T17:53:00.000+02:00

The development for gUI™ v2.0 is well under way. I'm sitting on new and experimental modules that I'm not ready to share with the public yet, as well as updated old modules which are ready, or almost ready for release.

Over the upcoming weeks I will be dedicating time to updating various modules in gUI™. What exactly I will update will vary. Some modules will get a complete overhaul, and basically be v2.0-ready. Some will merely receive new localization, or some shinier graphics. And some will receive updates to be more user friendly, with more descriptive tooltips and easier ways to configure them. Easy setup is a big part of the v2.0 overhaul, and you can count on every module getting its turn on that.

Week 38: Bags
Week 39: Panels
Week 41: ~~Skinning~~
Week 42-44: Setup Wizards
Week 45-52: Auras
Updated October 25th 2011. Subject to change without notice.

The remaining few days of this week you can expect to see some more updates to the bag module! You can expect a summary of each week's updates posted at the end of each week.

Can you see something new?

gUI™ on YouTube

2011-09-22T20:51:00.002+02:00

So, are you looking for a nice UI for World of Warcraft, came across mine, saw the screenshots, but still wonder how it actually looks in action? Well look no further, because guess what I came agross when Googling myself?

That's right! Some complete stranger has made a tiny 47 second long video of the UI and posted it on YouTube! Wohoo! The video is from March, so strictly speaking not 100% up to date. But it's close enough. It was cool to see it, and I decided to share it here with all of you.

I can't say for sure what resolution he's running WoW in, but I would estimate it to be 1440x900.

How to improve your framerate and latency

2011-09-20T18:45:00.000+02:00

Are you having a high latency or low framerate that severely affects your response time and overall performance as a gamer? Then you're not the only one.

Contrary to popular beliefs, there are very many people who are gaming on old computers and far from optimal setups. For the longest time I thought that extremely low framerate and very bad latency was something I simply had to live with. And to a certain degree I was right. I can't afford the hardware to have really good graphics. What I can afford though, is the time it takes to set up my computer to be optimized for gaming, and make sure the games I play are configured for maximum performance rather than the shiniest graphics.

So let's get to it!

How to reduce latency

First of all, you need to GET OFF ANY WIRELESS CONNECTION! Wireless sucks, and that's all there is to it. It will never allow for the same response time or bandwidth as a wired connection. You love your WiFi router and think cables are old fashioned? Well... you gotta choose between being hip or having the optimal gaming setup at this one.

Secondly you need to make sure your computer's network settings are optimized for gaming as well. The following only works for certain operating systems, but has been tested and confirmed to work on them:

Windows 7
Windows Vista (SP1 or higher)
Windows XP (SP3)

You can do it the short way and install Leatrix Latency Fix. I've been using it for years, and it truly does reduce my in-game latency to an acceptable minimum. Even with slow and bad connections I'm usually resting at a more or less stable latency of 30-90ms with this installed.

If you don't want to install Leatrix Latency Fix, or if it for some reason doesn't work for you, you can do the following to achieve the same effect:

From a command prompt (usually in All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt) run “regedit”
Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces
Browse the items under interfaces until you find one that has an IPAddress entry matching the network interface you want to affect (typically LAN IP addresses start with 192.168 or 10.0); note that if your IP address is automatically assigned by a DHCP server you may need to look for a matching DhcpIPAddress instead of IPAddress
Right-click on the interface and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, name it “TcpAckFrequency”
Right-click the new TcpAckFrequency value and select Modify, enter “1″ (Hexadecimal radio button should be selected)
Right-click on the interface and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value, name it “TCPNoDelay” (note that TCP is all uppercase this time – that’s intentional)
Right-click the new TCPNoDelay value and select Modify, enter “1″ (Hexadecimal radio button should be selected)
Verify that both TcpAckFrequency and TCPNoDelay now show up in the adapter’s property list with types REG_DWORD and values 0×00000001
Exit regedit and reboot (reboot is necessary for the changes to take effect!)
Play a game and enjoy your new low ping

Source: http://lifeandcode.net/2009/05/reduce-game-network-latency-in-windows-7-or-vista/

Remember to restart your Windows computer after applying any of these methods. Windows is a bitch that way. You have to restart for everything and for nothing. Constantly.

How to increase framerate

Framerate is life. There can be no doubt about it. The more fluid the motions are, the lower your response time gets, and the better you are able to play. Low or laggy framerate can also affect your latency in a bad way, as the time it takes for the computer to send responses to the servers go up when the framerate goes down. So it is in your interest to always have as good a framerate as you can get.

There are several ways to improve your framerate, and not all are related to your graphic card as you might had expected. That is a big factor though, so I'll start with that.

Optimize your graphic settings
Yes, it sucks to have ugly graphics, but this is the point where you have to choose between good screenshots and good gameplay. It is possible to make up for bad performance in PvE by good personal skills, since every encounter pretty much is scripted and predictable. But in PvP you're just completely screwed without proper performance and response time. So the shiny graphics simply have to go!

I'll only mention those settings I find to be the most important from the World of Warcraft graphic options here, and briefly explain how they affect the overall performance.

Display Mode
Set this to Fullscreen. For all systems this produce a higher framerate and lower response time, since the operating system simply gives World of Warcraft a higher priority.

Multisampling
This one isn't as obvious as you might think, as many graphic cards have a very good innate support for it, meaning you can have a good level of multisampling without really affecting your fps. I however, can not. Anything above 1x, and everything slows down. You'll have to experiment with this one, as it's not a clear cut case.

View Distance
This is one of the biggest fps factors there is. Older computers may have as little as only 2GB of internal memory, and that is really way too little to properly run World of Warcraft. This setting digs into the memory more than anything else, as it is directly related to how many objects the game keeps in the memory at once. If you have too little ram, the hard drive must be more frequently used, and this slows down the whole game. I have it set to Fair, as Low just makes it unplayable in Battlegrounds.

Environment Detail, Ground Clutter - These affect fps as well, but to a lesser degree than View Distance. I do however recommend putting them lower than what the game recommends if you're having fps issues.

Shadow Quality
Put it at Low or Fair. My computer slows noticeably down when set to anything higher than Low.

Liquid Detail
As low as you need to go. This too is a very GPU-heavy setting. I hate not having the new shiny and transparent water, but it just affects the overall performance too much to ignore.

Sunshafts
If you're still having issues after all the above have been adjust, then disable this one. I can't even activate it. Too old computer.

Particle Density
Believe it or not, but spell detail is a HUGE performance factor in group combat, meaning large raids and PvP. Experiment with lowering this one.

Projected Textures
This can really boost your group performance when being turned off, but it comes at a price. You know all the big colored circles you see on the ground from spells? Well, turning this off disables them, and you only get some weak and almost invisible coloring instead. If your group starts screaming for you to get out of stuff you can't even see, then this setting is the sinner. I have it on in raids and dungeons, and off in PvP.

Triple Buffering (Advanced Settings)
Turn this crap OFF!

Reduce Input Lag (Advanced Settings)
Turn this OFF! Yeah, the client might respond faster when you click something, but your framerate just drops to nothing! If your input lags, this setting is NOT the solution. This is just a really crappy band aid.

Disable other programs
Running other programs in the background can really mess up your gaming performance. We all like to have WoW running in windowed mode with Winamp playing while browsing the web with Firefox or Chrome, right? And these programs don't use much resources so it's not a problem, is it? You should all know the answer to this by now.

Memory is a precious thing, and it directly affects performance and framerate. You need to conserve it as best as you can. You see, WoW - and other programs - start to use the pagefile and the harddrive long before you're actually out of memory. So when your computer reports having 500MB free, you probably have too little ram memory installed. Because your harddrive is already running overtime, and your performance is far worse than it should be. Let's fix that!

Close down your browser, even Firefox which is famous for its low memory usage is a real memory hog. Close your e-mail application if you're using such a thing. Close any PDFs if you have any open. And last but not least, close down Winamp or any other media player you might have running.

....what did he say?

Close down any media player you might have running, including but not limited to Winamp. They really assault your computers memory and performance. Believe it or not. I can't PvP with Winamp running. Luckily there are many other ways to listen to music. I would have gone crazy playing WoW in complete silence.

This is one of those things you notice the most in large scale group PvP. The more players are visible, the more objects World of Warcraft has to keep in memory at once. If I were to choose only 3 things to change, it would be to disable Winamp, lower my View Distance and run the game Fullscreen. If you have 4-6GB or more of ram, these things have far less impact on your performance.

Well, that concludes my little guide. I hope you find it helpful, and that it helps to improve your performance as a gamer the same way it has helped me!

Cheers!

Goldpaw

Farming Spotlight: 2200g/hour Molten Core

2011-09-19T15:02:00.000+02:00

So you're not in a Guild pro enough to kill Ragnaros? Well, fret not! There's more of him you know...

Today I ventured back into the first raid instance in the game, the good old Molten Core. My goal was to work on my Hydraxian Waterlords reputation, as well as maybe get some of the remaining pieces of my Cenarion Raiment. With patch 4.3 and transmogrification coming ever closer, I feel it's only fitting to have a good set of proper garments to choose from!

I went for a simple boss run, where the goal was to kill only the bosses, and the few trash mobs it was simpler to go through than around. I started at 12:35 CEST, and even though I managed to nerf my DPS by obtaining the 15 minute Ancient Dread debuff I still managed to finish the run at 13:15 CEST, roughly 40 minutes after I started.

Even if you got all the loot and reputation you could ever want from Molten Core, this is not a bad way to spend 40 minutes a week. It's fast and easy gold, and can be easily soloed by pretty much every level 85 character in any gear of rare quality or higher.

There is some RNG involved when it comes to the drops, but I get rare recipies more often than not. I don't think I've ever walked away with less than a 1000g in my pockets. And you could always farm the trash mobs for tons of greenies to disenchant, and chances of BoE epics. I, however, chose to do a (close to) pure boss run.

What I got:
Sulfuron Ingot 500g
Recipe: Major Rejuvenation Potion 300g
Lava Core (x2) 5g
Fiery Core (x2) 7g
Large Brilliant Shard (x2) 40g
Greater Eternal Essence (x3) 90g
Illusion Dust (x4) 40g
Essence of Fire (x19) 11g
Essence of Earth (x7) 6g
Core of Earth (x8) 2g
Elemental Fire (x22) 1g
Heart of Fire (x15) 3g
Star Ruby 2g
Aquamarine 9g
Gold drops from bosses and mobs: 347g
Vendored epics: 104g

Time spend: 40 minutes
Total profit: 1467g

2200g per hour

And 1050 rep with the Hydraxian Waterlords, which actually brought me to Exalted, after only 6 years!

And behold, some nice new leggins too!

5 simple tips to maximize your profit at the Auction House

2011-09-12T16:39:00.000+02:00

In my farming posts I often tell you to "sell it at the Auction House", but never really mention HOW! Well, here you have it! The Auction House strategies of the friendly neighborhood druid!

The Auction House is more than a just a fancy vendor. There are ways to make good money there, and ways to not. A lot of the time when visiting the AH, I see people practically wasting their money, throwing it out of the window. This is more often than not due to them being impatient, and also that they think of the AH like a vendor. When the AH in fact is an interface allowing you to communicate with several customers at once.

If you wish to make good money at the AH, you need to think like a customer. What do you want, what do you need, and what do you usually buy yourself? I have broken it down to some simple rules, that usually give you the highest profit:

Timing
Smart stacking
The right amount
Correct duration
The right price

Timing

This truly is everything. A while back I sold Greater Eternal Essences for 195g each. Which is quite a bit above their usual average value. I was there when people wanted it and the Auction House was almost empty. I profited.

You need to check the Auction House daily for the items you usually traffic in.

If you, like me, buy ores and herbs at the AH, make sure you buy it when it is cheap! When ores are close to 20g a stack or lower, I really buy in a good supply. When the ores are at 30g or higher, I simply don't buy them. Which is most of the time. The result is that I get super cheap ores and much higher profit than if I had been buying a minor supply on a daily basis. With good timing also comes the need for good bank space. You'll be needing several private guild banks as well as full character banks on all your alts in order to truly profit from the Auction House.

Same goes for items you sell. If the AH us especially full of an item, and prices are pushed really down, then you simply don't sell! You sit on your mats and products for weeks if needed. Patience is a virtue, and a quite valuable one at that!

Smart Stacking

When you sell an item, you should always make sure you have the smartest possible stack size.

When it comes to enchanter mats, you might be better off selling full stacks, especially if it's lower level mats, as they are often bought by leveling enchanters. If it's cut gems, one by one is the obvious choice. If it's uncut, it all depends on whether it's something that will be bought by leveling Jewelcrafters, or Jewelcrafters doing their daily quest. You'll have to think about what you post, and who will be buying it.

The Right Amount

So you heard that Jewelcrafting is the number one money maker. You went out and bought 2000 ores, prospected them all, and now you have like 35 Delicate Inferno Rubies finished cut and want to sell them. So you post all 35 at the Auction House. Right?

WROOOONG!!

You should NEVER under any circumstance post more than 3 or 4. You will always without exception be undercut if your gems remain at the AH for more than a few hours. Only post what you expect will sell fairly fast. Spamming the AH will only make your auctions devaluate themselves, meaning nobody will buy them because somebody undercut you, and that prices will keep dropping because all the morons are undercutting each other with gross amounts of gems.

Don't be a moron. Don't mindlessly undercut because you were dumb enough to spam the AH in the first place! Be smart! Less is more, even here.

The Right Duration

So you got your stack sizes fixed, you got your amount ready, now all you need to do is to put the auctions up at 48h and wait, right? Once again, wrong!

If you expect something to sell fast, you put it at 12h. This usually includes cloth, gems, food and everything that truly can be considered "consumer products".

If you came across a valuable recipe or very rare BoE epic, 48h might be the right duration, since these are things not bought by very many, and not very frequently. If your BoE epic is one of those that there at any given time is 10-20 of at the Auction House on the other hand, you don't want it any longer than 12h. After all, everything has a deposit, and more often than not that deposit is a complete waste.

The Right Price
In danger of sounding like a cheesy game show or bad commercial, I'll say it anyway; If the price isn't right, you won't sell anything!

First of all you should have some addon that can track the average prices on your server for whatever products you are trafficking in. Secondly it is important to consider all of the above tips when posting, and a bit more than that too. You simply don't post if the AH is totally flooded with an item, unless it is a consumer product like cloth or food which sells as fast as you can create it, of course. If you do choose to post however, you must be careful not to brainlessly undercut the competition. If there are 100 listings of cloth, and the 2 cheapest are WAY cheaper than the rest, you don't undercut those 2, you undercut the other 98 auctions. Depending on their price of course.

If an item sells faster than people put it up at the AH, then you can safely overprice yourself. You'll sell the item anyway. You'll have to consider every auction, and not simply click the "post" button. The market changes, and you need to watch it.

This concludes my little lesson for today. These simple tips are always valid, and will always help you get the most out of the Auction House.

Cheers!

Farming Spotlight: 3100g/hour Karazhan Trash

2011-09-10T03:00:00.000+02:00

Following in the steps of the mythical Chinese gold farmers, as well as other gold bloggers, I decided to empty my bags and travel into Karazhan to fill them with riches!

Even though the bosses all are worth 50g or so each, counting disenchanted materials and all, I am NOT killing any of them. Because the true wealth in Karazhan lies in the trash mobs, and more specifically the guests!

I cleared the trash in The Banquet Hall, and The Grand Ballroom both downstairs and upstairs. And I did it in 3 pulls. I used corners to simplify the pulls and get all the ranged mobs to come to me. I managed to do 5 full guest clears in the 60 minutes I spend farming.

This is what I got:
Large Prismatic Shard (x8) 116g

Greater Planar Essence (x22) 473g

Arcane Dust (x116) 249g

Netherweave Cloth (x483) 94g

Soul Essence (x145) 48g

Seven of Storms 66g

Six of Blessings 66g

Eight of Blessings 295g

Design: Deadly Noble Topaz 100g

Design: Subtle Dawnstone 100g

Schematic: Power Amplification Goggles 890g

Band of Impenetrable Defenses 200g

Gold drops and vendor trash 427g

3124g per hour

As per usual, these prices are from my realm, and only what you can get selling the mats raw to a vendor or at the Auction House. I recommend turning the cloth into bags, and if there's a market for it, create scrolls of enchants with the enchanter materials.

The really nice thing about this kind of farming, is that you can reset it pretty much forever. As long as you don't kill a boss, you have a perpetual gold making machine at your personal disposal! And who could ask for more?

Enjoy!

Farming Spotlight: 2800g/hour Auchindoun HC

2011-09-09T15:00:00.000+02:00

Looking for some fast gold and a good source of Burning Crusade enchanter materials? Then Auchindoun in the middle of the Bone Wastes in Terokkar Forest in Outland is the place to be! It is split into the 4 separate instances known as the Shadow Labyrinth, the Mana Tombs, Sethekk Halls and Auchenai Crypts. The Heroic level 70 versions of them have some pretty nice loot.

I recommend skipping as much trash mobs as possible. Not because the trash mobs aren't profitable, they have a rather nice droprate of green items, especially in Mana Tombs. But with that exception, the bosses are where the true gold and enchanter mats lie.

Without truly rushing anything, and without being overly careful with the movement through the instances, it's still fairly easy to complete all the bosses in all 4 instances in less than 45 minutes. I personally used 41 minutes today, but decided to round it up to 45 to count the time it takes to disenchant everything.

Here's what I got:

Large Prismatic Shard (x25) 387g

Greater Planar Essence (x8) 220g

Arcane Dust (x44) 94g

Netherweave Cloth (x153) 29g

Recipe: Destruction Potion 1100g

Ethereum Prison Key (x2) 196g (from Mana Tombs)

Fel Armament (x3) 20g

Mark of Sargeras (x44) 8g

Mote of Shadow (x7) 4g

Total profit: 2114g

Total time spend: 45 minutes

2818g per hour

As usual, this is only by selling the materials raw at the Auction House, which I never recommend doing unless there is high demand for certain materials and extremely high profit from selling them. This is a decision you'll have to make from day to day, and a lot of bank space and very good patience is needed if you intend to earn some REAL gold.

45 minutes worth of Auchindoun

Farming Spotlight: 2400g/hour UBRS

2011-09-07T23:03:00.000+02:00

Were you one of the enchanters that during The Burning Crusade got rich solo farming Baron Rivendare in Stratholme? Are you looking for an instance that now after the Cataclysm can provide the same amount of enchanter materials for those twink enchants?

Well look no further! Upper Blackrock Spire is the place you want to be!

Today I brought my beloved Goldpaw back to Vanilla. I worked on her reputation with the Hydraxian Waterlords and the Brood of Nozdormu, but most of all, I went into Upper Blackrock Spire to farm materials for those good old Vanilla WoW twink enchants!

I usually farm for 1 full hour in any place I try out, or whenever I farm at all actually. And this was of course no exception. I intentionally skipped most of the trash mobs. They don't drop much of interest, and their droprate for green items are too low to justify the time spend killing them. The bosses however, now that's a whole different matter! By skipping most of the trash, and going directly for all the bosses (including the smith and the Beast), I was able to complete each run in 10-11 minutes. After 57 minutes I found myself outside of UBRS, having successfully filled my bags and completed 5 full runs. I even had a few minutes to disenchant before the hour was up. And was it worth it? Well, you can decide for yourself. This is what I got, along with their relevant Auction House values:

Large Brilliant Shard (x45) 1800g

Greater Eternal Essence (x8) 280g

Illusion Dust (x12) 130g

Runecloth (x314) 111g

Star Ruby (x2) 5g

Plans: Arcanite Champion 530g

2449g per hour

And that's assuming you sell the materials raw, and not even counting the profitable formula! You can make far more by creating scrolls of enchants with the materials, unless of course some of the materials are completely sold out at the AH and you can make some extra gold by overpricing yours!

Some of these prices may vary from server to server. They change almost on a daily basis on my own server too. The trick is to know when to post and when to not. You can always make a good sale, as long as you are patient, and don't mind waiting. And also, never post too many of an item! You're forcing your own prices down if you do. Use your brain!

Anyway, that concludes today's lesson!

57 minutes worth of UBRS

Create vanilla enchanter mats with Jewelcrafting and Enchanting

2011-09-04T16:24:00.000+02:00

Had any luck selling and gathering level 60 enchanter mats lately? If not, here is a small tip for the Jewelcrafters with access to free disenchanting that can provide you with a few of those highly profitable low level enchanter mats which are so popular for heirloom enchants.

What you're going to do is quite simple. You're going to craft some of these:

Sapphire Pendant of Winter Night
Binds when equipped
+14 Intellect
Requires Level 51
Item Level 56

Materials needed per necklace:
1x Blue Sapphire
1x Essence of Undeath
1x Thorium Setting (crafted with 1x Thorium Bar with Jewelcrafting)

Each necklace has a chance to disenchant into:
Large Brilliant Shards 2.5%
Greater Eternal Essences 22.5%
Illusion Dusts 75%

Remember to not maniacally undercut when posting these things at the AH. I'm still selling my Greater Eternal Essences for 100g+, even though some desperate morons are trying to sell theirs for 15-50g. If the AH is spammed, you simply sit on your materials for a few more days. Any gold farmer with self respect should have enough bank space to handle that.

Now get your arse to the Auction House and start crafting!

Good luck!

High profit with Greater Eternal Essence

2011-08-30T23:14:00.006+02:00

Today I will tell you to get out there and farm this:

Greater Eternal Essence

I did some runs of the good old Sunken Temple today, which turns out isn't the good old Sunken Temple at all. It's just a large hall with some corridors and a ton of bosses served on a platter. The instance can be cleared in 12 minutes including the time to exit, reset and re-enter. It gives a major amount of Rugged Leather if you're a skinner, as well as tons of blue BoPs that are best to vendor, and a ton of green BoEs that can be disenchanted into Greater Eternal Essence and Lesser Eternal Essence.

Upon visiting my local Auction House to sell my loot, this was what awaited me:

* the addon in the screenshot is AuctionLite, available from Curse

The lowest prices were around 196g buyout per essence. You may or may not be able to sell everything at this price, but with enchanter mats having such a low deposit at the Auction House, I would say there is no risk involved in trying! You should also check out the prices of Lesser Eternal Essence on your server. It might be profitable to purchase them and repost them converted into their greater counterpart. Or vice versa.

UPDATE: Today I logged on to see that ALL my essences had sold. Even with the deposit and the AH cut, my profit were 185g per essence. And I had a lot of essences!

All green items of level 51-59 (equip requirement) has a chance of being disenchanted to these essences. This does not include items that drop in the Outlands, only in the old world.

Good luck!

Farming Spotlight: 900g/hour Winterspring

2011-08-29T23:57:00.004+02:00

In this series I will focus on various farming spots, both indoors and outdoors, with and without the use of professions.

As market prices for some low level items can skyrocket one day, and be given away almost for free the next day, there is no point in calculating any average or rely on those market prices. So in this series I will simply report what I get, and what I earn, and nothing but that. Then it's up to you to interpret that information as you like. You should check your local Auction House to see what kind of prices the items go for on your server.

So let's get to it!

Today I decided to bring my trusted green geared and black bearded dwarven Death Knight Aleman to Winterspring, in the area surrounding Frostsaber Rock. He is a Skinner and a Herbalist, and today he'll be farming Frostsabers, and picking any flowers he may find on his way. I chose this character mainly because nothing beats this class for this kind of outdoor farming. For any farming, actually. Because let's face it; they're so easy to play that it's embarrassing.

To get to Winterspring I took the Stormwind portal to Mount Hyjal, and took the nearest gryphin to Everlook. And from there I simply flew up to Frostsaber Rock and started farming. I mainly farmed in the area marked here:

The farming is straight forward, and very braindead. No special strategies are needed for movement. The mobs are evenly spaced, and on a good spawn timer. They are so close that no real use of mount is needed, yet too apart away for any gathering and AoE to be effective. You walk from one to the next, and take them down one by one in other words.

When it comes to Herbalism profits, I picked up the herbs that crossed my path, but due to leather being far more profitable in this area, and the Frostsabers so evenly spaced and frequently spawning, I never went out of my way for any herb. If the choice was between the next Frostsaber and a herb, I always chose the Frostsaber.

The downtime was very low, and I can imagine any character level 60 or higher being able to farm consistently here. The mobs are from level 51 to 53.

Loot after 60 minutes:
54 bag slots used (can be emptied in Starfall Village, or Everlook which also has a mailbox)

Small Brilliant Shard 47s
Dream Dust (x5) 4.33g
Icecap (x54) 48.87g
Mountain Silversage (x28) 26.6g
Rugged Leather (x128) 633.66g
Thick Leather (x121) 175.43g
Various vendor junk 22.47g
And one piece of Hammer of the Northern Wind, lol! 175g

Totals by profession:
Skinning: 809.09g
Herbalism: 75.47g
Enchanting: 4.8g
Junk/Vendor: 22.47g

Total Gold/Hour: 911.83g (1086.83g with the surprise epic)

UPDATE: Today, 24 hours later, the Auction House is complete void of Rugged Leather. It is now my belief that I easily could have doubled my profit.

Burn Victims daily quest done easily!

2011-08-27T14:40:00.003+02:00

You know you hate this quest, but still you keep doing it. It's there, right in the middle of all your other daily quests, and it just feels like you would be wasting time if you didn't do it. Even though you probably spend more time on it than on any other daily quest you have. I am of course talking about Burn Victims.

Well, good news everybody! I know a way to do this in a matter of minutes, maybe even seconds! It doesn't matter how packed the area is with other players. It doesn't matter that your computer sucks, your framerate is 14, and your latency is skyhigh. Because with this simple tactic you really won't be chasing anything at all, nor will you be competing with anybody. Unless somebody is doing the same as you of course. But even then this tactic is a winner, because it removes the need for running, and speeds up the whole quest, which again leads to less people doing it at once. It's a win/win thing.

I've been doing this since the first day this quest became available, and I have yet to see somebody else do it. I was sure pretty much everybody would have discovered this by now, and some have, but it appears that the majority of players still run around chasing mobs, always being beaten to them. So this still works!

Well, let's get to it!

First of all you NEED to have friendly nameplates visible. You might have a keybind for this, but in case you don't, you can easily activate them from the game settings as seen here:

Now that you got that sorted, it's time to head down into the madness. You should also have your Enchanted Salve (which is provided by the questgiver) bound to a hotkey for the duration of this quest. Because you need to spamclick it later.

What you should do now, is to find yourself a spot with plenty of Hyjal Defenders, where the spawnrate of both mobs and friendly NPCs is fairly high. Then you position yourself in the middle of that group, and simply wait. You should know that the normal defenders do NOT turn into wounded ones. The wounded ones are separate spawns, with their own spawn timers, unrelated to the normal defenders. So zoom your camera out a little, and watch out for that magic word "Wounded".

And here comes the magic...

What I discovered was that when a Wounded Hyjal Defender spawns, it will appear standing up, with full health for a second or so before it actually drops down, lose its health and becomes healable. And this is when you move in. Once you see a full health Wounded Hyjal Defender appear, target it, and spamclick your hotkey like there was no tomorrow! You can do this with your mouse of course, but I personally always found it easier to spamclick a key rather than a mouse button:

After a very short while that might feel like hours when your heat is racing, the Wounded Hyjal Defender will fall down on the ground, and its health will drop. At this point you'll notice that you've lost your target, and you'll probably panic. And when you finally re-target it, you won't be able to use your Enchanted Salve on it anymore. But do not fret! Because you have already won!

Notice your castbar moving? That's right! The instant before the NPC falls down and becomes healable, there's a short window of time where the NPC actually is healable. So your heal will begin before your target is cleared. And once your heal is done, you simply move back to the center of the spawnpoint, and start waiting for another full health Wounded Hyjal Defender to appear!

Unless somebody else is doing the exact same thing as you, in the exact same spot as you, this tactic will get you your quest done in almost no time at all!

Enjoy!

Goldpaw

Still Life

2011-08-25T23:57:00.003+02:00

So I was sort of encouraged to give my readers a sign of life. To let you all know I still breathe. Well, here I am. And I still breathe. Despite my great efforts, nobody has turned me into a vampire yet. But what have I been up to? Where am I? What is happening with GUIS-gUI™ v2.0?

And am I still tall, dark and handsome?

So please tell... what have you been up to?
Well, there have been some major changes in my life the last year or so. That's not exactly a secret. I went through a rather painful relationship, with an even more painful break up. Not that much to her, but that much to me. For her I was just another guy that was exciting for a while. While I on the other hand was looking forward to growing old together with her. Fair to say it didn't work out as intended. Lesson learned? Nah. I'll probably do it all again with some other chick that just MUST be the right, a few years down the line. Because in the end the experience is always worth it. For good or for bad. For better or for worse. 'Till death do us apart... our they find something better.

So naturally it took quite some time to pull myself together after that. I am not a very big romantic. Not in the slightest. But I truly do think that love fucking hurts! But everything ends. At a certain point you simply get over it. And once you're done groveling in the sand, once you're done cursing the sun, moon and stars, then you get up. And you keep moving forward. Only when you accept losing everything, only when you accept having hit rock bottom, only then can you stop clinging to the ground, and rise once more. Nobody is born strong, you get strong by being beaten to the ground so many times that it feels like home down there.

So have your life settled down, you got a home and job again?
I am not a nostalgic man. Those who know me know this. Once I let go, I never look back. Several years have passed since I let most of my worldly possessions go. I now own nothing more than I can carry on my back. I have no home of my own. I only have places I sleep. I have no income. I have nothing I truly can call my own. And I've never felt better! Why? Because I have myself. I have a heart and a mind like few others. I don't need dusty photographs to remind me of who I am. I have litterally burned away everything that wasn't needed. I even wiped most of the movies and mp3's on my harddrive once I was at it. I don't want to live my life carrying skeletons in my bags. Not even virtual skeletons in my virtual bags. Unless they'd be wearing top hats, dancing, and giving flowers to children. Because that would just scare the Hell out of me!

There is much to live for in this world. To me every day is a miracle. Every sight, every sound, every taste and feeling is amazing. I should be dead a hundred times over, and yet I'm still here. I can't waste another moment NOT being everything I can be! We can live the life we choose, and when we choose it. But we have to make that choice. We have to change from the very core of our beings. We have to put away all the bullshit, man (or woman) up and stand for what we truly believe in. We have to shout our true wishes and desires to the sky. We have to chase our dreams, and be strong enough to never back down. We have to be all this, and be it all the time. Not just when it's convenient. And that's actually a bit hard. But this life is too damn short to live it any other way than the way we truly wish. So what I'm getting at is that I've changed my priorites quite a bit over the last couple of years. And in a few months time everybody will know just how much I've changed them. And it'll be amazing.

So where is GUIS-gUI™ v2.0? Make sense, man!
It's still in the works. But no ETA will be given ever again. I'll throw out some minor updates whenever a patch breaks it, though. I'll keep it's head above the water. I still log into WoW from time to time, and this is after all the only addon I use. It's sort of my boat in the sea of social chaos we call World of Warcraft. I wouldn't want to cross that sea without my boat. Because I'm not a very good swimmer. But I am tall, dark and handsome.

See you all in Azeroth!

Goldpaw

Answers to some user questions!

2011-07-09T18:08:00.000+02:00

I was going to reply to Aspergeek in the comment section of the previous post, but as my reply grew in size I figured I might as well make a new blog post out of it. More people than those that read the comments might be interested in this. So here goes:

What's up with the ugly red close-buttons in the bags?
The bag module does re-use the wow button graphics. I'll create a custom more square-like icon for the final release. Sometimes you have to hover over the buttons once or twice before it works, so it's not working as intended. It was something I put in before I added the category dropdown menu. I still want the close-buttons, but I want it to match the UI.

Why is only like half of the default WoW windows skinned now?
The skinner module, which is what skins the standard wow windows, is NOT included in the 1.9 version. I'm rewriting it so that the user can manually select skinning for each single window. Full control! :) But that also meant I had to redo everything from scratch. I'm reinventing fire again... I tend to do that a lot.

OMG! You killed /install! You bastard!
/install isn't there. But the only things "install" truly would do these days is to position the chat windows. I might add a minor update just to add that functionality in a few days. Trying to manually position the windows with your mouse is just a pain... The new /install I'm working out a concept for works in a step-by-step manner with popup question boxes and selections, where you'll get asked things like "add the loot chat window?", "activate skinning of default WoW elements?" etc.

At the start of /install you will still get the option to do EVERYTHING automatically, only position the chat, or do the step-by-step install. This is a lot of work for something that the user probably will only do once in a lifetime, but I feel the UI deserves it. It will also serve as a good introduction to the UI itself.

Because after all, even though I might seem dead to the world at times, I am indeed not. I will stay here until WoW is no more, and I'll update my UI to the end. I've gotten a taste for Lua coding now, as well as the process of design in itself. I simply struggle a bit in RL right now (no job, no income, no home... plus I haven't had sex since August.)

..and yet I won't abandon WoW or anything I consider good in life! ;)

And the trolls here and in our forums are few and far apart. And they usually get shown the door by all the great people in our community very fast.

When I first released the UI I had to answer every question myself, now the community has reached the size and point where they post code updates and solve problems on its own. Amazing. I never imagined that would happen, but it is great to see it nonetheless! :)

FONTS! They suck!! >:(
Somebody will be unhappy no matter what fonts I choose, so I have decided to go mostly with functionality over design in most cases. I still haven't decided on all the fonts for the finished version, except a few: BigNoodleTitling, the probably most used square font in the free world WILL remain as the unitframe font. It's visually not my favorite, but let's face it; designwise it suits the square look of the UI very well. And it's also very narrow, meaning the names takes less space. And it's very easy to read.

For the panels and maybe WoW windows, I am trying to find a more info-looking font. It doesn't have to be cool or extremely readable, as it will mostly be for numbers and single words.

For the chat, I am thinking about a few fonts. The problem is it has to meet a few demands. First, I need it to have all the weird characters like é. ø, ä, æ, å and so on. It needs to cover all the EU letters. It would rock it if it could cover cyrillic too, to let our Russian users get the same font as the rest of us, but since the latin letters represent the biggest userbase - not to mention me - it has the highest priority.

Then the font has to look good in sizes from 12 to 18. More or less. Then it has to look good both with and without outline. A lot of fonts fall on this. And last but not least, it must be easy to read and clear all down to 12px. That one is hard to meet. Droid Sans was my favorite until I saw it with an outline. Eeew. But I might use it still for the chat, I haven't decided yet.

Oh, REALLY last but not least; License. It must be legally licensed (for free) to use with commercial products. "Free for personal use" isn't "free". So a lot of really great fonts fail in that aspect. I could probably "get away" with using commercial fonts. A lot of addons do. But I HAVE to think from a legal perspective. I don't want some bad design decision from me in this UI to bite me 10 years down the line with a lawsuit of 1000000 euros or something. That would just suck.

That covers the answers for now.

If you have a question you can't find an answer to anywhere, and I'm not replying in the forums (which happens a lot these days), and you simply NEED the answer, don't be afraid to email me. I do reply to relevant questions by mail. If you don't get an answer, though, please do not spam me. That will NOT get my attention at all, only a shortcut to my spam folder.

My mail address is listed in the .toc file of the addon, amongst other things. It's not secret, but for many reasons (which are all called crawlers and Internet bots) I won't actually write it here... ;)

Well, that's it for now. I'll try to write more blog posts about my thoughts and progress in the future. I do understand how frustrating it is to simply not know what's going on at all. Just be prepared that I'll probably never directly answer questions regarding progress. I'll most likely reply with design philosophy or discuss my thoughts on concepts regarding the UI.

See you all in Azeroth!

Goldpaw