Willow, play!

WoW: Maximise your levelling

2015-04-02T02:51:00.000-07:00

It's getting to that time again folks, where we've done all we can reasonably expect to do in the current expansion and we are getting that itch, that little niggling sensation, the yearning... We want a new alt. Or maybe you feel a need for gold? Levelling alts is a viable income for the non goblin. Anyway, with the new heirloom tab it's easier than ever to get a smooth, fast and fun levelling experience. But there's more to it than that, a lot more...

Addon
You will want a levelling addon, and my suggestion is wow-pro. It's free and awesome. It works with TomTom, so grab that as well. Wow pro has to be downloaded from the site above, it isn't on Curse. This is a little painful but nothing major, and the guides are very efficient in general.

Class
Pick your poison. But something with decent survivability and lots of AOE will be quickest and easiest. Warlock, balance druid, monk.

Talents
For ease of use, try to pick talents that are passive or that you know you are going to remember to use. Pick things that increase your survivability over dps, things will die plenty fast anyway.

Professions
You will want to stay clear of crafting professions while levelling and focus on things that yield more loot. So the obvious choices are Herbalism, Mining, Skinning. But you can also look into Tailoring (because you get more cloth drops from wrath and onwards) and Enchanting (because you can disenchant soulbound items instead of vendoring them).

On top of this, get Archaeology when it becomes available, because this is a nice source of xp at points.

Gear
You'll want appropriate heirlooms of course, so sort those out from the vendor in Ironforge (or your nearest horde equivalent) if you haven't already.

Make sure you upgrade the items before you create them, because otherwise your enchants (see below) will disappear when you do it later.

Make copies of the desired ones and equip them. But do read on, you should enchant your copies as well!

Enchants
Enchants are only for rings and necks nowadays, right? Wrong! There are tons of enchants for all other parts of your gear, it's just not current enchants and they only work for items with an item level lower than 600. So for levelling they're great!

Here's a list of the best enchants that work from level 1, by slot.

Boots

Major agility

Greater precision

Greater haste

Bracer

Greater agility

Super intellect

Superior dodge

Exceptional spirit

Greater stats

Enchant Bracer - Critical Strike

Chest

Glorious stats

Mighty spirit

Superior stamina

Super resilience

Enchant Chest - Exceptional Spirit

Gloves

Major agility

Super strength

Superior haste

Precision

Enchant Gloves - Superior Mastery

Enchant Gloves - Haste

Weapon

Greater agility

Elemental Force

2h Weapon

Mighty agility

Massacre

Shield

Major intellect

Off hand

Major intellect

Also look at the current enchants, many of them work on low level gear! The "Gift of ..." enchants work for neck, rings and cloaks (they scale to your level).

Elemental Force is probably your best bet all around...

Potions and food
Have a couple of healing and mana potions ready for emergencies.

Eat whatever gets you the most stamina at your level. See the below list for cooking inspiration:

List of foods that buffs you by level

As you go through the cataclysm zones you will want Potions of treasure finding, and when you move on to pandaria, look to get Potions of luck. These will maximise your treasure and thus your gold.

What do I do with all the loot?
Sell it, sell it, sell it.

All items that are green or better, all the enchanting materials, cloth, herbs, leather and ore, all the cooking ingredients. Sell them all on the auction house. All the rest you can vendor.

Pay special attention to gear, in fact if something looks shiny, look it up on the Undermine journal to see if it's popular for transmog, and if so sell it for lots of money!

What about spending money?
Buy your latest riding/flying at all times. Repair. Other than that, don't spend gold.

Activities to partake in
Follow your questing guide, but as you go along, make sure you pick any resources you find. When questing you should, if possible, be on green quests, they get you the most bang for your buck because they will be a lot faster and more hassle free to complete, meaning you will fly through the zones. If things turn grey, move on to the next zone, you aren't here to complete all the quests.

Also do every dungeon once, as soon as you can. Dungeons with quests yield the maximum experience per hour in the game.

If you are near an archaeology node, go dig. It yields very good experience for the time spent.
If you have some appropriately levelled battle pets for your current zone, do some pet battles, they also yield very good xp per hour.

Avoid battle grounds, they do not pay off as much as the other things listed here. Also avoid chain running dungeons, because if you lack quests in a dungeon it will not get you a lot of experience per hour.

How much will I make?
I actually don't know, because I've not yet completed a levelling in Warlords. But in wrath it gave me around 10k, in cata around 15k and in pandaria around 25k. I estimate this time around it will be more than that, maybe around 35-40k.

While this is nice, it's obviously not the most efficient way to make gold, for that you need the auction house in a big way. But if you are levelling anyway it's a nice income.

Final words

Levelling this way will be very very quick, especially since you have enchanted your heirlooms. Some zones you will only begin, and the dungeons will see you level up maybe twice.

It's great fun though, and it makes you feel like stuff is happening all the time with new talents, new zones and better stats. You can take on a lot of mobs with the gear you have, but dying will cost you time, so don't get overconfident.

Happy levelling!

NB: The alternative way to use this information is what I'm doing on Vidargavia (see picture above), and do every quest in every zone. You will play with gray mobs and gray quests, but you can take in the story without having to worry one bit about difficulty. This is the way to go for the completionist immersion player.

SWTOR f2p: Credit cap and accout wide unlocks

2015-03-31T01:11:00.000-07:00

Escrow is the enemy!

When I started playing swtor an old friend from wow became so happy that he gave me 300 k credits in a mail. At the time I was still f2p rather than preferred, so that was well over my credit limit. As I opened the mail it filled up my credits to the limit and put the rest in my escrow, effectively making it unavailable. My wife was supposed to have half the credits but as f2p I had no way of trading it to her.

A short time later I became preferred and traded her the credits, and as I did a mail was sent to me with my escrow money.

This all took place on a different server to my current project btw, and is part if another story that I may well write about some day. But for now, that's how I thought the escrow worked.

To my surprise it isn't.

Credits put in escrow are unattainable to you for all times unless you subscribe.

You have been warned. Now I shall tell you how to get around this.

Circumvention

There are several ways to get around this very annoying issue, but apart from buying things when you are close to or at the 350k limit, they all require a friend that you trust and in most cases a friend who subscribes.

The credit limit is 350k per character, and you can have six characters, meaning a total maximum of 2100000 credits can be held by one account per server. But as preferred you cannot send credits in the mail, so you can't mail the credits to yourself.

But you can trade them, so you can strike up trade with someone you trust and who is level 10 or above, hand them 350k, log off and on to your new character, then trade again and have your friend give you the credits back.

Or if you have two email addresses you can multibox it I suppose.

Of course, buy something for more than 350k you'll have to have access to someone who subscribes. Simply log on to your characters one by one, trade your credits to the subscriber and have them get the thing from the GTN and mail or trade it to you. In essence I suppose you could trade this way with the seller directly as well, but you'd have to trust them not to run off with your credits, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Another solution is to buy valuable goods for your credits, basically storing them in hard currency instead of in credits. This way you can have way more than your cap in actual value, releasing it as you need more credits. The drawback is that I have yet to find a suitable commodity, it has to have lasting and relatively stable value and demand. Also it still doesn't let you have more than the cap in credits, so buying is still a hassle best solved by a subscriber friend.

Account wide unlocks - prices

As one would suspect these credit caps determine what unlocks cost on the GTN. It's very rare to see unlocks for more than 2.1 million credits for instance. And a fair few of the character specific ones seem to go for around the 350k mark.

I've kept track of the prices for a few of the account wide unlocks now for a while, on two different servers, and here are some of my findings:

Things are a lot more pricey on the PvP server (where I play my Inquisitor and which I write about here) than on the pve server.

The cheapest account unlocks usually go for around 200k, and are cosmetic and not very interesting.

You should be able to get an inventory module for under 350k.

The prices vary wildly during the week and time of day, keep checking if you can't find what you want at the price you want.

A 10 slot GTN unlock is around 500k, as are quick bar unlocks and cargo hold expansion.

Be careful when you buy cargo hold expansion, don't buy the unlock, as you already have access to the cargo hold!

A third crew skill slot goes for around 750-900k.

What do I need? - Revisited

When I set out on this project I thought I would need more inventory and quick bars, possibly a third crew skill.

I will not need more quick bars, I already have four clogging up my screen and if any class requires more than four quick bars to play effectively, then that class is actually defect and I would probably wait to play it until it is fixed. Also, of course, I am not doing operations or anything like that, so I don't need to cram every single ounce of dps out of my character.

At the moment inventory isn't really an issue, but I expect it may become one, so I shall need one or more inventory modules. These can often be found rather cheaply on the GTN (under 350k) and with a bit of patience I will find them.

The way I see it now, the most important account wide unlock is a third crew skill, just because it will, in the end, allow you to have all the skills on one server thus being self sufficient. And because it adds gameplay in the form of crafting and exploring this part of swtor.

Crew skills is what makes you credits, so with more of them you can make more credits and buy more upgrades. It's also one of the dearest unlocks, so in order for me to buy it I will have to send credits to someone with an account from several different characters, have him buy it and send it to me and then use it.

Next after that I suppose it would be beneficial to be able to put more items on the GTN, so one of those unlocks is quite important.

Thirdly, I will need more bank space at some point, that has to be sorted also. The cargo hold unlocks do come relatively cheap at times so given patience I should get one.

I have also started to oogle the more decandent, visual upgrades, such as Unify colors and No helmet, just becuase they are quite cheap and I can buy them on a secondary character without too much problems. They are clearly not important, but still might be nice to have at some point.

Cartel coin options

Bioware has said that they are looking into making the mobile authenticator available to preferred players. The last that was heard of this however was not in this year (2014), so it is unsure when if at all it will be implemented. It would be rather nice though, as it would probably net you a sum of cartel coins each month you have it connected to your account. At the moment you get 100 coins, but you have to be a subscriber to use it.

Anyway, you can also get cartel coins for some achievements, as specified on Dulfy. As can be seen there you can potentially gain 860 coins this way, however a more realistic figure is around 600. Combine this with what you originally purchased to get preferred (at least 450 coins) and you have enough to get the third crew skill account wide unlock (which is 945 coins). This would be a good option actually, but it does mean you can buy nothing else for cartel coins, instead putting your first lot of credits towards an inventory module from the GTN, then following my guide above or making up your own mind on what's important.

The other way to go, if you have the ability to buy the crew skills unlock from the GTN, is to buy something with your coins that you cannot buy from the GTN. I have yet to see things like the Twilek unlock on the GTN, in fact I doubt it is possible to put one on there, and it seems popular with people (my wife wants it).

SWTOR: A guide to buying legacy items on the GTN

2015-03-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

Apart from buying cartel market items on the GTN you may also want some convenience and fluff in the form of Legacy items. How do you get them? What are the pitfalls? Is there a point to them? Read and find out my take on it.

As you level your character you also level your Legacy. Think of it as a server level, ie how much you've played on a specific server. As your legacy levels up, you can unlock legacy perks for your character, or in some cases for all your characters on the server. These range from nice (a field repair droid) to really really nice (more xp for class quests) and some almost necessary (Improved speeder piloting comes to mind).

There are a few ways to unlock these perks:

For credits on the legacy screen (Y)
For cartel coins on the same screen
For cartel coins but for the whole legacy
Buy legacy unlocks on the GTN

Legacy items bought on the GTN (or for cartel coins) will apply only to a specific server, but to all characters on that server. But watch out, as this is not always the best option...

Case in point: Improved speeder piloting 1 requires legacy level 2 and costs 40000 credits. To unlock this for all six characters on a server you'd have to spend 2400000 credits. On the GTN the legacy perk (which automatically unlocks this legacy perk for all characters on the server) goes for no less than 300000 credits.

The lesson is: It's most often cheaper to buy items outside of the GTN, if they are available.

Another thing to watch out for: Species unlocks are also legacy only, meaning they will only work on the server you buy them on. That shiny Twi'lek unlock you are pondering for 1 million credits may not be worth it after all...

Thirdly: There are legacy items in the sense that they apply to your legacy, and then there are legacy items in the sense that they apply to your character in the current legacy. So if we go back to the speeder piloting example, make sure you buy the unlock for your server, rather than the unlock for your character! The character specific unlocks can go for 90k or so, but again, just buying it in the legacy tab is 40k.

SWTOR f2p: Obsessive me, or datacrons in Swtor

2015-03-26T03:34:00.002-07:00

In this installment of SwTor:f2p I discuss datacrons. And reveal that I'm slightly obsessive about things like this...

I have to admit I am not a fan of Laura Croft games or any games wherein I go mad from missing jumps by half a pixel. And to begin with I wasn't too bothered about Datacrons in Swtor either. But lately, even since I found out that you get achievements for finding all of them on a planet, that has changed rather a lot.

Datacrons are tiny little shiny boxes that, when you click on them, either gives you a small stat increase, permanent I might add, or a crystal. Once you have enough crystals you can make your own datacron where you get to select the stat it increases. It's a shiny idea to be sure, but as I've found out they are also incredibly hard to get sometimes, especially for a guy like me with no apparent coordination in my body let alone fingers.

I spent a good hour trying to get the datacron in the imperial starter town in Tatooine. I was not amused. But then again, I didn't actually have to do it, and yet I couldn't resist... I've started looking up where they are one each planet, and reading the rather involved instructions on how to get to them.

I can recommend SwtorHub's guides for this, they have maps and everything!

I've also discovered that my laid back play style suits this sort of pursuit rather well. I can go to a low level planet, send off all my companions to do crew skills and roam about, picking up biochem, doing some missed quests if there are any and work my way to the datacrons. Actually I believe it pays rather nicely as well, the low level resources seems to sell for rather a lot on the GNT.

So far I've done Tatooine (as mentioned), Nar Shaddar and Balmora. I am actually going back to the starter planets soon as well, I wonder what the starters will make of me...

SWTOR f2p: Alderan

2015-03-25T12:08:00.002-07:00

What a beautiful planet! And what total sissies the populace are! I, the amoral sith, will eat them for lunch and have their land for coffee...

But yes, stunning architecture, lovely landscapes. It feel like an overgrown English garden combined with fairy tale buildings and fantasy creatures, just picture my surprise when I took a taxi, and it was this lovely lizard/fish-thing that was my designated vehicle.

The planet's aesthetic feels a lot like Naboo in the Phantom menace, with stunning greenery, droids and creatures in a lovely mix.

The quests on Alderan revolve around the empire trying to be subtle for once, and overtake the planet politically rather than by force. Or that was the state of affairs until I showed up. The political route isn't working for them, so they are soon willing to try alternatives, and I end up killing more people than I think I've done anywhere else in the game, Sand people excluded.

The quests do maintain the air of sophistication though, especially compared to Tatooine, so the dialogue revolves around politics rather than water, and the reasons for the slaughter is at least more civil, even if the end result is just as messy.

It's a good thing the landscape is nice to look at, because you will spend so much time on your speeder! This is not a small world, and the quest hubs are spread out a lot. And I mean a lot. Also, it's hard to find your way sometimes, because there are a lot of mountains dotted around, and most things of note are, of course, on the other side of them. But in the end it doesn't matter, I am in no rush with the game, instead I want it to last, because I suspect that end game is the weak point of Swtor.

I did encounter issues on Alderan, more specifically, I ran into some fights that I couldn't handle. I tried, honestly, every trick in my meager book, but no, it didn't work. So I had to break up, go back to the fleet, spend my commendations on upgrading and then run a few flashpoints to gain a level.

As a side note, my gear was allright, it was my poor companions that was lacking, and the solution to that is to buy orange gear for him also, and then spend commendations on top notch upgrades for said gear.

Once I came back I was surprised what this did for his lifespan, allowing me to reduce hit points a lot further before the enemy started to attack me.

I really don't mind this sort of thing, where the game presents a difficulty, but you have at your disposal several ways to overcome it, and once you do you can actually see the result. It was in fact a highlight of the planet.

Other highlights include the spectacular ancient meeting ground of the noble families of Alderan, the chance to do serious damage to the Organa family and the flooded throne room of the ruler of Alderan and the fight in there.

Alderan felt rather short because use there isn't a bonus section (at least not right afterwards). But that's actually not bad, it's nice to move on, and the end of chapter one for my class was at hand.

And what an ending! Honestly, I was gobsmacked! It has it all, an expected twist, an epic fight and an unexpected second twist... If they're all like that the game is epic!

Swtor f2p: Nar Shaddaa and beyond

2014-05-16T04:22:00.000-07:00

In this part of my swtor f2pc series I talk about levelling through the 20s.

Levels have flown by, as have planets. I really loved Nar Shaddaa and it turns out I'm really loving Tatooine as well. I'm now level 28, going on 29. It's gone really quick and the game is a lot of fun.

The only down side to it all is really that I don't see how I'm gonna be able to afford to buy the cartel unlocks I want from the auction house, as an extra quick bar for instance goes for 500k, well above my credit limit as f2p. The only thing I can think of is to have my friend create a character, send him the money that I will need to have stored on two different characters and have him buy it and mail it to me. A little complicated if say...

Money wise I'm also doing ok. I have a bit over 200k. When I get close to 300k ill mail it all to an alt and start saving again. The way I make money is trivial. I keep sending two of m companions out on crew skill missions an sell the produce on the ah.

Nar Shaddaa was a lovely planet. Colourful, ambient and with fun quests. I got to create my own cult! Good fun that.

In the end I only had the heroic missions left and I found it hard to find a group for them. I did find one at last and completed them without issue.

The ambience is what I bring with me from this planet, and the blade runner meets the fruty oaty bar commercial.

I followed this up with the new flashpoint, wherein we had to teach a couple of mandalorians a lesson. I really enjoyed the last fight, as it's one of the first in the game where you have to not just beat the guy. Instead there are four platforms with cannon turrets that you have to kill first and only then do you kill the boss. Simple but effective boss mechanics, I like it.

Tatooine started a bit oddly for me. I always remember the sand dunes and the sand people and jawas from the films, as we starte in an area that is more like Arizona, or more like where jabba the huts palace is in return of the Jedi. I can't exactly explain it, but the planet didn't take off for me until I reached the dunes. I'm fact, nothing makes me happier than mounting my speeder and rude across the dunes, heck, I don't even have to have a quest!

The quests in Tatooine are good though, you follow the tracks of an old civilization, the Infinite Empire, that predates the current republic and empire with thousands of years.

You get to fight sand people and jawas too in the end, and a crime syndicate. The bonus quest line focuses on the Mandalorians, who are neutral or strained allies with the empire, and your work to bring them in line, and although it did get a tad long winded towards the end, it was all in all a good story.

I finished Tatooine and saddled up for the exact opposite, Alderan, and the end of chapter 1.

Swtor f2p: no more running, I aim to miss behave.

2014-04-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

In this installment of my swtor:f2p I talk about my speeder, my speeder and my speeder. Oh and a little about the level progression in swtor and also a bit about aesthetics in said game.

There shall be no more running, that part of my life is over! Cause I got myself a speeder! It's really really ugly, but I couldn't care less. It'll take me places faster, that's all that will ever matter! Wohoo! I'm like a kid with a moped... Beware fellow swtor players!

Aestetics in Swtor

I've been meaning to talk a little of how the game looks, as in what style it has. The style is very important for a game like this, just look at WoW! They got this 70s retro rock album look going and they have really since warcraft II, and if they changed it we would never see it as WoW again. That's why they have taken years and years to update the character models - they may look rubbish, but they are a huge part of what we identify ourselves with when we log on. So the trick for them is to make them look the same, have the same aestetic value if you will, but be new.

Swtor has a huge aestetic legacy from the films. The things we find cool, years after we saw A new Hope, is the feeling of Tatooine, and by feeling I mean look and feel. The way we recall the houses looking, the Mos Eisley cantina, the dunes and all that. It's basically a form of branding, and if Swtor doesn't have the same branding, we won't buy into that it is Star Wars.

So things Swtor must get right then: Light sabers and the fighting with them, the sound and look of blasters, clothing (jedi, bounty hunter and storm trooper mainly), the planets we've seen in the films. And the rest, the new stuff that isn't in any of the films, that also has to tie in to the look and feel of what we already know.

This is why the empire is always black and red, because that is the color scheme of the emperors offices on the death star in Return of the Jedi. This is why the republic is brow/yellow, because that's the way they are depicted in the films. Although their ship interiors are mostly white in the films. But their clothes are brown...

Enter Nar Shaddaa. It's a world unknown to us if we have just seen the films. From the description before we go there, it is a lawless place. The look from the space ship is strikingly similar to Corusant, a whole planet completely covered in a gigantic mega city. It's controlled by the Hutts, and from the run in with Jabba the Hutt in the films, we know that they are lavish glutans with sadistic tendencies.

When I arrived in the space port the first thing that hit me was how Bladerunner it is. I fully expect Deckard to bump into me while going to the taxi, or chase a replicant past the huge and very funny Hutt statue in the square. But it is, in the end, a fantastic place. It ties the new stuff in with the old in a remarkable way and after ten fifteen minutes I am all engrossed in it feeling that old Star Wars feeling as I mow my way through the mobs to get the respect of the poor on the planet.

What they have done with Nar Shaddaa is to first get us a really healthy dose of actual Star Wars things, like light sabers and clothes and all the blackness of the Imperial fleet and Dromund Kaas, and the Naboo like Balmora views. They have fixated the look and feel very firmly into our minds - This is Star Wars. So by the time we come to this new place, well we already know that it's Star Wars, we've been told so for 22 levels. So now the developers can deviate from the norm without us loosing immersion. And it really works, at least for me.

As you probably guessed from reading this, I think they've done a stellar job in Swtor overall. I will say however, that some areas are a bit monotonous, maybe because you end up running around in the for far longer than you ever see them in the films. I think the Imperial aestetic is a typical example. It's so dark and imposing, and really quite horrible. But in the films you only see it quite briefly, or when you see it it is because there is something rather interesting going on that happen to be in that setting. You don't see it in the way you do in the game though, where you have to run backwards and forwards and see it from every possible angle before you leave for a new scene.

Level progression

Overall, as I've said repeatedly, there's more than enough xp to progress to the next planet in this game. But where is the next planet? Well the below table outlines it for you.

If you find yourself right on or just below the level recommendation I recommend doing a flashpoint or two, especially if you're f2p and hasn't got the best gear.

The bonus quests chains follow on from the end if the class quest on the given planet, the quests seems slightly less story heavy but the are still interesting and good. On Balmora they concern the war between republic and alliance in the aftermath of the players actions. And bugs. There are massive amounts of bugs.

Empire

Korriban / Hutta 1-10

Dromund Kaas 10-16

Balmorra 16-20

Balmorra Bonus Series 20-22

Nar Shadda 20-24

Tattooine 24-28

Tattooine Bonus 28-30

Alderaan 28-32

Nar Shadda Bonus Series 31-34

Taris 32-36

Taris Bonus Series 35-37

Quesh 36-37

Hoth 37-41

Alderaan Bonus Series 40-44

Belsavis 41-44

Voss 44-47

Voss Bonus Series 1 47-49

Voss Bonus Series 2 47-49

Voss Bonus Series 3 47-49

Hoth Bonus Series 47-49

Corellia 47-50

Belsavis Bonus 50

Ilum 50

Republic

Tython / Ord Mantell 1-10

Coruscant 10-16

Taris 16-20

Taris Bonus Series 20-22

Nar Shadda 20-24

Tattooine 24-28

Tattooine Bonus 28-30

Alderaan 28-32

Nar Shadda Bonus Series 31-34

Balmorra 32-36

Balmorra Bonus Series 1 35-37

Balmorra Bonus Series 2 36-38

Quesh 36-37

Hoth 37-41

Alderaan Bonus Series 40-44

Belsavis 41-44

Voss 44-47

Voss Bonus Series 1 47-49

Voss Bonus Series 2 47-49

Voss Bonus Series 3 47-49

Hoth Bonus Series 47-49

Corellia 47-50

Belsavis Bonus 50

Ilum 50

Swtor: The slow xp gain after 20, and how to battle it

2014-03-25T16:38:00.001-07:00

From level 20 and beyond Swtor players who doesn't pay a subscription get 25% less xp than subscribers. In this installment of the Swtor: f2p guide I discuss what that's like and some ways to combat it.

First off, it's not that bad yet. I dinged level 21 much sooner than I though, and 22 before I could say 21. And that was through normal good old fashioned questing. I did do the heroics with random groups, but more on that later. So it's not terrible, but what can you do to combat it?

The first thing you should know is that the xp boosts are finite for you. You get quite a lot of them reaching level 20 though, so if you saved them, use them when it seems like it's taking you forever, or when you are heading for somewhere where you need that extra level to not go mad.

Secondly, you can buy boosts, and other things, from the auction house. But they are costly so choose what you need carefully. If, for instance, you are planning some random flashpoints, there's no need to buy an xp boost. Instead buy an xp boost that only applies to flashpoints. The specialised boosts are just a few thousand credits normally whereas a generalized one is a lot more.

Some other things from the auction house may help you out, gear for instance. But the best way to handle your gear seems to be to get orange bits for as many slots as possible, then choose planetary commendations whenever you can, and use these to buy the highest level upgrades you can for this gear, just swapping out the old upgrades as you go along. You can, if you search for a while, find most item slots in orange on the auction house, and it shouldn't cos you more than 50k or so.

Now, for the above two tips to be viable you need to have credits. Fortunately, these seem rather easy to get a hold of by sending your companions out to gather materials in whatever profession you've opted for and selling what you find on the auction house. Also sell any items you don't need for yourself, especially orange ones. This would be my fourth tip then: keep up with your crew skills and sell stuff to finance your levelling.

There's two more tips: if in need of xp, runs some flashpoints, do some warzones, space battles or galactic Starfighter PvP. Simple enough. Combine with xp boosts as per above.

Lastly, join a guild to gain up to 10% xp boost. This, if I understand correctly, applies to all xp gained. I'm unsure how the size of the bonus is calculated but I'm assuming it's related to some guild level or other. As for me, I met a nice guy while doing heroics who invited me to his guild, and I am now the proud beneficiary of a 7% xp boost. It ain't bad, and it gives me the chance to find someone to run heroics with.

I currently am finishing up Balmora and am going to run the next instance before heading off to Nar Shaddaa. I'm level 25, so it should be no problem whatsoever, in theory :)

NB: it turns out that there also are events, like last weekend, where you get double xp for a couple of days. That will really boost you, so if you can play when those things are on, do so. I couldn't unfortunately participate much in last weekends event, real life and all that.

Quick look at healing in wow

2014-03-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

While I'm not currently playing wow, I am going to return closer to warlords of draenor, and I'm still reading about the game. Lately blizzard has been talking a bit about healing, and I thought I would too.

I'm not going to talk so much about the changes they are pondering, rather about how I wish healing worked in wow, and how to possibly achieve that.

In wow there are 6 (Druid, schaman, paladin, monk, holy priest and disc priest) healer specs. I want them to different, distinct and unique. At the same time I want them to all be viable healers so that you don't end up with a useless spec and have to go dps all the time.

Here are the distinctions as I see them (or as I wish they were):

Druids are hotwielding instacasters. For their heals to be effective the damage received must be significant but not leathal.

Schamans are totemtossing aoe healers. For their heals to be effective many players must take damage at the same time, but not too much.

Paladins are slow casting but have massive heals. For their heals to be effective, the target should be on very low health. They are the life savers.

Monks are close range healers who hit stuff as they heal. Their heals are best suited to handle moderate damage.

Holy priests are the most versatile healers who has a but of everything. They have a bg slow heal, an aoe heal, a hot, a shield etc.

Disc priests are preemptive healers who shield targets rather than heal them. Their heals shine when targets are at max health and take moderate damage.

As we can see from the above, having healers that are so different from each other will mean that it's very hard to design encounters that fit everyone. If the disc priest does his job, then the paladin never gets to shine. If the shamans heals work too well the Druids hot won't heal anything, and so on.

In pandaria the main healing issue was that disc priests bubble "stole" so much of the other healers heals, leading them to be overpowered. In previous expansions we've had similar issues with Druids hots. Basically the heal that heals first will do the healing. When characters have taken a lot I damage, this doesn't matter so much, and that's when things like a big crit paladin heal will shine.

So, there are some different ways to allow everyone to be included. More damage, without it being completely life threatening at all points, so that damage breaks through shields and hots and makes later heals also make a difference is a good idea.

But there also has to be raid damage for the shamans and Druids (and other potential raid healers) to deal with.

And who is to say what is too much or too little? It will depend a lot on the particular gearig ability and composition of a group. It is, basically, very hard for blizzard to design encounters that are always like this.

They key solving this then, is to make the heals useful even if they don't heal. So a heal that overheals due to a disc shield may add to that shields defense. A paladins massive heal that overheals could spread to other raid members that need healing. A shamans group heal could do damage if it overheals an so on and so forth.

Another suggestion in the same style is to glance at healers in other games, swtor is an example. Healers in swtor are quite capable dps as well, and that makes healing a lot more fun. Even if that pesky disc priest steals all your damage you can switch to dps. It's fun and makes sense.

My third suggestion is this: not every healer has to be good at every situation. If each class can handle each situation with their own tools, although maybe not optimally, and the encounters are varied enough so that no matter which class you are you will have an optimal encounter in every dungeon or raid, then that's good design. In raids healers will help each other through these encounters, and in dungeons there'll just be another mana break after a non optimal fight.

The suggested changes from blizzard in some ways are along the lines of the above. They want more damage that is not leathal so characters are not on max health so much, but at the same time they make different classes and specs more and more similar, exactly what I don't want. Read more about it here!

Swtor: Equipment, flashpoints and button bloat

2014-03-14T06:32:00.003-07:00

In this episode of my swtor f2p guide I will talk about the flashpoint Hammerfall, PvP and my current issue with having way too many abilities.

I shall get right to the blog topics, but first: I'm level 20!!!

For that reason I went ahead and looked at my character and thought about if I want to play her to max level, and yes, I like her, she's a keeper. But I also have other characters, especially a Jedi sage that I'm playing with my wife and a friend, an she's heading to 20 as well. And I'm really enjoying my other character'a stories and I reckon I'll play through them all. So instead of buying the £3 cartel coin pack that would've let me sort this particular character out, I opted to spend double, £6, and get extended inventory and an extra quick bar for all my characters ever, ie account wide.

Once I logged back in, the game told me I was preferred, and I got access to my bank, the ability to send in game mail etc. I also discovered that I got two extra action bars for free, not the quick bar type that you can hot key, but the utility ones, so I can have things like my self heal, hearthstone (but with a fancy swtor name) and such on those, thus freeing up a little space in my actual quick bars. This had made me not purchase my extra quick bar just yet, though I suspect I will on the end anyway.

But before all this happened I did four different things: I did the Hammerfall flashpoint in a random group, I did the Kuat drive yards Tactical flashpoint in a random group, I embarked on a space mission to protect some passenger shuttle, and I tried the new Galactic Starfighter space ship PvP. I have to say that it's one of the nicer things about swtor: there are a lot of very different things to do apart from enjoying the story lines.

Hammerfall is an old super weapon which sucks in asteroids and shoots them on to planets. It was build by the republic, but they changed their minds and decommissioned it, only they didn't, instead a neutral faction stole it and is now using it against other neutrals in the area. Our mission: destroy it!

Hammerfall has two things really going for it: it's very pretty and awe inspiring in places, especially when you run about in the cannon tube towards the end and asteroids keep shooting past you. It also had the nice touch that if one of your party possesses scavenging you can start a drill which makes a hole in a wall thus providing you with a nice short cut.

The bad thing about the place, and I suspect this will be a slight issue throughout the game really, is that every fight, even boss fights, are quite similar to each other. They have a cool style and is not exactly boring, but even a boss seems to be just a mob with a lot more hp than a normal mob. When you're used to the bells and whistles of wow it doesn't exactly excite.

My tactical flashpoint experience is rather confusing to be honest. Apparently everyone's stats gets buffed so that you don't have the traditional tank healer dps trinity, instead it seems to be just a big chaotic fighting exercise where no rules apply. I did perceive that we had objectives, but I can't say it was very tactical, in fact it was less so than a normal instance, just because there were no roles. Anyway, I didn't dislike the experience, I just didn't get it as such. I did run around and kill a lot of robots though.

The space mission, well, it's basically an old style arcade game where your ship automatically goes forward. You can turn with the wasd keys and fire with your left mouse button. In the one I did, I followed a passenger ship and enemy star ships came shooting past me chasing said ship. I shot them for a while and then I completed the mission. Quite good fun if you feel bored at some point, it's sort of like having a pacman game in wow or something :)

The Galactic Starfighter PvP, finally, is a new feature in swtor. It's PvP, but in ships. I think actually it is good fun, if you learn to do it properly, which I may end up doing at some point. But for now, of course, I just wanted to try it out.

You decide your throttle with w and s, but you decide direction and how much you "lean" (I am not a pilot, as you can see) with your mouse. You also fire with your mouse buttons, and have some abilities on the 1-4 keys.

The match I was in basically had the objective most kills in a set amount of time. We won, mainly because the guys who knew what they were doing took the fight to the other sides starting point, so whenever I died it took me ages to get back, that way I couldn't die so often :)

It seems you get points from doing these, which you can use to buy different ships and upgrades for them. I can see that becoming seriously addictive. Good stuff!

After these adventures I actually went to my next planet. It is, as you can see, a beautiful place, and I'm truly happy to escape the gloom of Dromund Kaas. The only issue I have is that I have way too many abilities, and no clear indication as to where, why and when I should use one rather than the other. It feels pretty much like wow in the tbc era, and I'm sure that at some point they will redesign the system to be more like present day wow.

Swtor: I got a ship! And a slight rant...

2014-03-05T12:59:00.006-08:00

In this, the fifth installment of my Swtor f2p guide, I talk about ships, level 20 and beyond and I embark on a slight rant!

It turns out I'm not Sith yet... There's this evil foreboding place on Dromund Kaas called the Dark Temple (not the Illidan one, that was more distinct black), and people who enter there go mad and get aggressive and stuff. And my Sith master sent me there to pick up a fragment of an artifact. Thanks a lot, master.

The whole sequence is very good though, there is a very unexpected turn of events for my class quest, and a lovely set of delusional workers who believe they are Sith, among other things.

So Dromund Kaas was longer than I expected, but I completed it and I have a ship! Squeeeee! Ship is cool, m'kay.

As far as Star Wars ambience goes, a ship is pretty much up there with a light saber, and it really reminds me of playing the pen and paper role playing version of Star Wars where we used to spend hours designing our ship and not very long playing the game really.

You can enter your ship and it has an interior, which is awesome. There's a captains chest which is not useable for f2p players, I'm guessing it will later be my bank, but for now it's just annoying.

And now, my rant: I've also discovered yet another very silly thing (the other silly things are no mail/trade and only one quickbar) with being f2p or preferred: you can't open in game tickets or post on the support forums. I discovered this when my wife suddenly couldn't log in to her character. We tried all sorts of tips before deciding to seek help from Bioware. And we can't, there is absolutely no help available. That's like jawdroppingly bad!

I know, f2p. We are basically playing the game without paying so what can we expect? But, as I said previously, EA makes more on f2p players than on subscribers. And if it wasn't for f2p players the subscribers would have felt pretty lonely in the game.

Also, from a business point of view it makes no sense. If they want us to subscribe the best way to do it is hardly to refuse support before you do. That's not very accommodating, and it doesn't make me want to buy their product. In fact, for me it's a deal breaker. If I pondered buying a subscription before I now know I will never do so. If the support is this bad when they are trying to show me the game (and reasonably will therefore show me the best it has to offer) then I can safely assume it will be even worse if I subscribed.

Bioware seems to live in a world where they are really actually a subscriber only game, they don't seem to want to be a f2p game. They're still dreaming of competing with wow, and even wow can't do that for a lot longer.

In essence they need to modernize their business model quick, embrace the fact that they are a f2p (and therefore in effect have a head start on wow), and start loving their f2p players a lot more. That way they can increase their player base and sell more cartel items thus making more money and become a really big and successful mmorpg. The other option is to slowly fade away...

Here's what I would suggest regarding the tickets: let us make tickets but place them in a lower priority queue. Maybe, if it seems efficient, even let us choose from a list of pre defined errors instead of typing. And of course there should be a f2p forum, both for support and for general discussion. It would benefit the game and thus the subscribers.

Rant over. I've gone back to the imperial fleet and am preparing to go on to my next world in search of more pieces of the artifact. But I leave behind a few group quests on Dromund Kaas, because I feel they will be a little hard to solo at the moment and I just can't bring myself to group up for them just yet. I'm level 17 at present, and I believe I will do the Hammerfall flashpoint in a pug before I proceed, just to get ahead a little xp wise and because it's quite a nice little instance, especially if we take the shortcut.

Swtor: Flashpoints, warzones and class guides

2014-03-02T04:30:00.002-08:00

This time we explore Flashpoints, Warzones and the continuing questing as f2p.

As f2p you have full access to the story lines, but you can also do Flashpoints (and get rewards for some of them) and Warzones. You will not be able to use any epic gear though, but there's blue gear and you get planetary commendations, xp, and social points.

So rather than having a difficult time in dromund kaas I decided to run the first flashpoint with a pug group before questing. I also decide to do the daily Pvp thing, which was to play two random matches.

The random flashpoint interface is just like the random dungeon finder in wow. And the instance run was about as social and inspiring as they are in wow: no one said anything for the entirety of the run.

But the story is good, quite star warsy with a defected imperial officer, stopping republic invasions and a Jedi vs Sith fight. There are story elements and dialogue in it, but people seem to get annoyed if you don't go through it super quickly.

There is a little bit much running around in it, for instance you have to run very far just to hand in the last quest, there's no reason why the quest giver couldn't move instead. All in all it feels a little old school but nice. If I ran it with friends I would have loved it, but in a pug it gets a little strange and conflicted.

It's good xp and nice gear though, I got two blues from my run.

The warzones... Well I died. A lot and fast. The first one was a four man, and the only objective was to kill the others. Needless to say I killed no one. The second one was more interesting, there was three cannons that we needed to control, if we controlled them they shot the opposing factions ship and their health went down. A little like AB in reverse with three points rather than five. It was good fun, and we almost won. Also I almost killed someone!

The Pvp experience made me want to figure out my class, and I've found a good resource for that:
swtorhub . At least the assassin guide is easy to follow, and touches on pve as dps and tank as well as Pvp.

Because of my flashpoint xp I found the subsequent questing fun and easy. I could focus on the story rather than on surviving, and I found out that my former slave turned Sith isn't all evil. She has decided to side with a group of Sith who are opposed to the emperor, and it's all very interesting, actually.

There are, so far, only two things with being f2p. Two annoyances. Inventory and crafting. Take a look at this screen shot:

This is how I find my inventory more often than not. It's not a huge deal, I just have to remember to sell stuff at every possible opportunity, which I don't always do. And my choice of profession is also hampered by this, because if I was gathering materials they would clog up my inventory even more.

I've decided to not even get a crew skill until I pay my £3, just for that reason. The fact of the matter is that once I get one, I can spend an hour lurking around the star fleet while sending my companion out to do quests to get materials and level the skill, so I won't have to run around in low level zones to do it. It should all be good.

Next time I shall finish off Dromund Kaas and see where the story takes me after that! It will be the first unexplored territory for me, I have previously been on Dromun Kaas with my Bounty hunter.

Swtor: leaving home

2014-02-28T13:01:00.001-08:00

Part 3 in my swtor:f2p series, wherein I leave the starter planet and reach Dromund Kaas.

We left our heroine at level 6, and she was faring well on her way to a true Sith. When I took up the questing again I had a look at my quests, and they were all orange or red. This can't be f2p related however, as the xp reduction doesn't hit until level 20. I suspect the quests would have been a little easier with better gear though.

I choose a few quests that seemed easier, and managed them by being careful. In the process I found other quests and objectives that I was able to complete. Soon the quests were green again, and I guess that's when I got cocky, cause i had my first death at level 8. As I called the medidroid another player did the same, and I tossed him an invite and we did the quest together without issue.

Swtor allegedly has over a million players and my server seems busy, which is nice. People so far are friendly and not giving me grief on account of my f2p status. I suspect that may change down the line. That being said, it seems EA now makes more money off people buying things in their store than on subscriptions, so f2p is on the rise, and will become more important for them as time goes by.

From level 9 to 10 I had a really hard time. I was on the last quests on the starter planet and I had no companion, nor a decent light saber. As soon as I got those things though (during the last story quest) it all got so much easier.

At that point I went back and soloed the two heroic group quests I had left in my inventory and got two blue items for my trouble! I was level 11 and ready to leave for my next big adventure...

First off, at level ten you have to choose specialisation. As I have a sage on the republic side, I wanted to try the double saber style, and became an Assassin. Very cool stuff. We will see how solo friendly it is however.

I discovered my new sneak ability, which is nice. I will have to try that out later on...

After that was all done I opened my complimentary backpack and equipped my new saber. I look so bad ass!

I am now ready to proceed to the next planet, unfortunately via the non instance route, as I am playing solo. If I had a companion I could opt to do my first instance here, or Flashpoint as it is called in SwTor terms. Flashpoints are available for f2p, and seems to be a very good way of gaining some gear quickly.

This first one is a two man, and thus comparable to Scenarios in WoW. Alas, no such luck, I'm on my own and so I will take the non violent route.

Swtor: meet the f2p goddess Lathel

2014-02-24T16:49:00.001-08:00

Part two in my swtor f2p series talk about choosing the right character, what it's like to create it and starting out.

Reiterating the project: Play SwToR for £3 and have a good time, all the while soloing through the game from start to max level and note down my progress, in the process giving you, gentle reader, a manual of sorts of how to play the game without spending your hard earned cash, thus keeping your mortgage payments timely and not having to play from a card board box in a street corner.

In this particular part, part two, I will describe the character creation and talk a little bit about what it's like to start out.

I choose, after having fiddled around with a few different characters a little, to do this guide with a Sith Inquisitor. There are other classes I have found very nice also, but they are elsewhere occupied, mostly when I play with my wife. My favourite so far is the Jedi Consular, a ranged healer dps type with a saber, and I love the saber, I just do. The Sith Inquisitor is the dark side equivalent, so I believe I will have fun with her.

Advice on character creation

There is really only one rule here, create something you will like to play. This is because you will not be penalised for choosing a class that is a healer och tank, as you are in for instance WoW. All classes can dps, it;s just a matter of how you want to do it.

The Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior are melee fighters, the Consular and Inquisitor are hybrid and can do well in melee or at range. The Bounty hunter / Trooper and Smuggler / Imperial Agent are mainly ranged classes using various blasters and bombs.

In the end, each class (apart from possibly the Agent) has nice stereotypes to build from in the movies, so it's really just a matter of who you want to be like. None of this will, to any large degree, affect you as a f2p player.

Starting the game, basic run through

Download the client from www.swtor.com, register, let it patch and grab a coffee or two while it does, then log on. You are immediately treated to an amazing intro video:

And then it is on to character creation. There are two game changing options: faction and class. I picked Republic and Jedi Knight. Once you pick your side, another video is shown:

Race, looks and the rest is purely cosmetic which I find liberating. As f2p your race options are very limited, but that's ok. I picked human, female and went out of my way to not make her stereotypical but still beautiful.

You can let the game randomise a name for you, or pick your own. My character is Lathel.

The game begins

Once you are done creating your character, you will see the classical introduction with the Star Wars logo and the floating text, adapted to your particular story. Then the camera zooms in on your ship as it flies in for landing on your starter world, you will be taken instantly to your first quest giver, so have a conversation with him or her, and you are off.

Here's a very short list of things to think about just at the beginning:

Try to do all quests and grind objectives as you go along, you will have less xp than subscribers, and doing quests is the quickest way to gain more.
Try to kill things as you go along even if you don't have a grind quest. Extra xp.
Take your time and explore. You will not move as fast as subscribers, so you might as well enjoy that. Also you get xp for reading lore and finding new places.
Use any equipment you find which is better in your main stat and / or endurance. You will need an edge because you cannot buy fancy equipment for your character.
If none of the quest rewards are good for you, choose a planetary commendation. These we will use to fill in gaps in equipment as we go along.

After my first session with my Sith lady I am level 6, and I shall give you an update about my game so far shortly.

Star Wars: The knights of the old republic free to play

2014-02-23T06:41:00.002-08:00

Swtor, as it's abbreviated, has lately taken my interest as I'm on a rather long WoW break. It's setting is of course in theory unbeatable (possibly with the exception if Lord of the Rings Online), and, as it turns out, it's also a beautiful and fairly playable game. So what's the game like then? Here's my take.

When you log in you get a recap of what you are currently up to...

It lends most if it's game play from World of Warcraft a la Wrath of the Lich King, with massive skill trees and lots and lots of abilities, and in that sense it really shows how much WoW had evolved since then. There are four classes on each side (Jedi and Sith), and some races to go with that as well. Each class has two sub classes that you pick at level ten.

What makes the classes unique (and better than classes in WoW in my opinion) is that they all can dps. So a tank is a dps tank, a healer is a dps healer and so on. There is no equivalent to this in WoW - you would have to spend one of you dual spec slots on a dps spec, which, let's face it, I don't want to do.

The big advantage of this anyway is that everyone can solo. And it leads to some very interesting play styles - my Jedi sage tosses rocks at people which stuns them, leaps in with her light saber and dpses then stuns them again and backs off to heal herself, for instance. The fact that you get companions as you level up is also helpful for soloing.

The quest style is also very much borrowed from WoW: kill ten of those, get that thing from there, deliver my stuff to that guy, explore that area there... It's not bad but not exceptional.

A storm trooper in the making! I'm republic though, so I'm a good guy.

There are two areas where the game shines however: Levelling story and athmospere.

It is truly like being right inside the Star Wars films when you look at it. The environments are brilliantly created to fit in with the setting if they are new, and very much like what is in the movies if they are taken from them. Running about in Coursant makes you feel as if senator Palpatine is going to walk past you in the street, or maybe Samuel L Jackson clad in robes is going to sit on a bench somewhere with his packed lunch. It's absolutely lovely in that respect.

The way the stories are told is also extremely well done. Each class had its own story to begin with, and it defines your character and class right from the start. And each quest (class or otherwise) is delivered with cutscenes where you choose dialog options, all spoken rather than written. Your choices will lead you down the dark or non dark path, as it should in a game about Jedi and Sith.

The game has three levels of play: Free to play, preferred and subscribed. To be honest being free to play is completely ok for levelling, if you can live with a few annoying little things, the main ones being:

Only 12 hotkeyed abilities(!) and only two action bars
Limited inventory space and no bank
No in game mail or trade (!)
Only one profession per character

I cannot belive you can't trade or have more hotkeys without paying, it's a very odd design desicion. They are the things that make the game very annoying to play at times, and the fact that they are there doesn't make me want to subscribe they make me want to stop playing. Anyway, there are a few other limitations as well, like slower xp gain, slower travel (as you won't get your run speed increase until level 15) and some bits like that, but to be honest they matter very little when you're levelling.

I don't need to see your identification.

The second state of play is Preferred, and to get that you have to spend £3 ($5) on buying the game store currency once. This is a rather good deal I recon, as preferred players get access to a bank, trade and an additional profession slot. The currency you get is enough to buy an additional hotkeyable action bar and some more inventory space, thus taking care of all the annoyances from f2p in one sweep. Of course, this is for one character only, so if you are feeling very cheap, make sure you know what you want to play before you buy your stuff. You can spend a little more (roughly 2.5 times more) to unlock the same things on all your characters ever.

Ok, so it's a good game for levelling. But I'm cheap, so I want to do it all for just £3. And I thought id try and compile my experiences into a guide of sorts on here. So this series of articles will start with me as f2p, purchasing my coin pack at level 20 and then follow me to max level. I will talk about the hard parts and the cool parts, and try to reveal what it's like to play the game for free and still have a blast(er)! Watch this space!

Update: Some useful links:

Cartel market calculator - make a shopping list and see how many coins you need.
MMO champions guide to f2p - quite nice with some tips on being f2p.
The fanatical swordsmans guide to the cartel market - Excellent page!
Constant warfares f2p guide - pretty much is doing what I'm doing here but maybe a bit more theoretical.
SwToRs list of features per account type - what is included in what from the official source.

The great glyphing experiment roundup and results

2013-06-02T03:28:00.001-07:00

So, we finished: starting money: 10k, one month of glyphing, end money: 214879g 6s 33b, making a profit of 2149% per month... Insane!

All I all I recon I spent about one hour per day milling and sometimes reposting. And my wife spent roughly the same time reposting and buying herbs. So around 60 hours spent meaning we made roughly 3500 gold per hour or 60 gold per minute. I reckon you could make perhaps 500 gold per hour (8 gold per minute) with other activities in wow such as farming herbs or very actively doing dailies or questing.

As a comparison I expect to make between 20 and 30 k on levelling a character to 90 which takes roughly the same time for me.

Now the bad: we did get burnt out towards the end and I don't see us glyphing any more any time soon. In fact I'm not even posting rubbish or anything at all at the moment. And while 60 hours doesn't sound like an awful lot it is not exactly fun. But the Pvp aspect of it has a strange attraction for me. We absolutely controlled the market for that month and ican imagine the other glyphers not selling anything at all really. And I can also imagine their relief when we suddenly dissapered :)

Don't worry little glyphers, we will be back at some point...

So the fact of the matter is that glyphing is still the most profitable way to make gold in wow (that I know of). But it isn't the most fun way to play, but then again it is a lot more fun (in my mind) than doing dailies or collecting oil (!) for some troll. As with most activities in wow (or any other game) you cannot expect it to be doable for ever, for me it is a sometime activity, something to complement levelling, exploring, fishing, raiding and so on.

We gave all of the gold and the remaining glyphs and mats to our contractor, Flea Circus guild leader Ari. Because what use is gold in wow? Well we have more than enough of it. If we see a mou we want or something like that we will just buy it. If lurch offers are beginning to look empty, we will just sell some more glyphs. But as a rule we do not pursue gold for its own sake, because it is so readily available.

Vidargavia the endless quester

2013-06-02T03:10:00.001-07:00

At level 79 and a half Vidargavia should be heading for the cataclysm, but he is not. He instead is stepping off the boat in howling fjord getting ready to face the Lich king and his minions.

So it turns out that you can get to level 66 in the old world so you have to face at least parts of Outlands to get on with your levelling, but in outlands you can pretty much reach level 80 thus allowing you to bypass all of Northrend.

Not that you would, or I wouldn't. Just slowly getting in to the story again: a small alliance force suddenly beset by "monsters" , who later turn out to be Vyrkul with a sad sad story of feelig abandoned and giving birth to the dwarfs. Taking in the beautiful stunning scenery. Remembering how I went here on Verath at the beginning of wrath and how full of eager players it was. This was world of Warcraft at its height and I don't think it'll ever reach te same level again. It had nothing to do with the game, it's undoubtedly more polished and better in almost every way now. It's about player engagement: we are jaded the game is not the only game anymore new styles of play have taken over and are changing our expectations: wow is still fun but its not catching our eyes as it once did.

But enough of that, this is about Vidargavia. His mission, Should you have forgotten, is to boldly do every quest in the game while levelling an not move on until its all done. Shadownoon valley and the end of outlands proved to be as epic as I remembered it, but also full of flying to and fro, and the quests were few and far between.

My favorite moment was to rescue the netherwing dragon from the orcs. Why? Because at level 79 I died twice from the ambushing archers before I figured out that I had to hide in the surrounding houses and finish off the main baddie in peace. That's the hallmark of a good fight, when its challenging almost ten levels later!

And Northrend is fantastic! I'm enjoying it so much it's scary. Ill imagine I won't when I get to places like ice crown where, if I remember correctly, things are less ambient and more tedious, but still.

I expect to hit level 85 in Northrend actually and ill probably be very close to 90 by the time I hit pandaria. And actually guys, this is the best way I know of to level, it's defenetly more fun than chaining dungeons. And if you set out to not do all quests but to keep to green quests, then it would without a doubt be quicker than any other form of levelling known to man Orc or beast.

Yes, I'm completely ignoring the buildup to killing off garrosh. But honestly, who wants to collect oil?! Oil!??!?!! Bad mojo blizzard. Don't give us endless tasks at this stage of the expansion. Give us new heroics and raids.

The glyph experiment: day 11

2013-03-15T12:43:00.001-07:00

As we pass the 75k earned mark I can only say one thing: I never actually realized how much we make from the glyphs! An average of over 7k a day is amazing in my mind. And for roughly 1 hours play time. You just can't beat that with dailies.

And it also shows how wow economy differs from normal economy. There is very few real life investments which would multiply your investment 8.5 times in less than two weeks.

The other thing that separates wow economy from real life is scalability. In real life you would earn more if you had more. So you might have a constant revenu of 5% per year meaning that if you invest 10k you'd have 10500 after the first year, 11025 the second and so on.

In wow you would have 10500 after the first year and 11000 the second. This is because you can't reinvest your revenue. Once you for all the worthwhile glyphs you can't make any more. And just because you put up ten of a glyph you won't sell more that if you put up two.

What you could do is reinvest in other markets but that takes a lot of research and time, and is also outside of the scope of this experiment.

In any event a stead stream of 7k a day isn't too bad after all...

The glyph experiment 3: update report

2013-03-08T00:53:00.001-08:00

We are currently at 30k! Not bad considering one of our biggest competitors decided to get back in the game two days ago, and the after patch rush had made not only the buyers but also the glyphers flock to the ah.

We also had a strange little visit from a nasty old friend who posts everything at 50g and below. But it was brief and we could exhale. See glyphs are very pricey, they cost almost nothing to produce so why sell them so deerly? Because its a lot of work. I wouldn't sell them if I didn't make a lot per glyph, simply put. So it's very easy to run me out of the market, just sell everything for under 50g!

What you will end up with though is a ton of milling because you will sell too many glyphs. So yes, you will make a lot of money, spend a bigger portion of it than you'd like to restock and then sit and press a button for far too long before having restocked.

And most glyphers arent like me, they won't quit, so you will still have to repost four times a day it more.

And once you worked yourself into the ground and stopped, ill just start posting with my 600g fallback again, selling not too many glyphs so as to not having to put a lot of extra work into milling, but getting lots of money per item sold instead, and all will settle down into its normal routine...

Unless the goblin as we say isn't quitting. In that case, well there's always jewel crafting:)

The glyphing experiment 2: some technicalities

2013-03-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

So how does one glyph? Well one takes around 10k and buys as much cheap herbs as one can get ones hands on, focusing on herbs that makes ink of dreams and ink of the sea but spreading it around a little. This can take days, especially if you have your mind set on a low price per ink. We have set our price at 8g, which is rather high, and that means that if we sell a glyph for under 24 gold we make a loss (three inks make a glyph).

After having bought the herbs, you go mill it all down and make ink out of it. You then get to decide what glyphs are best to make, and how many, and once you've done that its time to make them, post them to your bank alt and chuck them on to the auction house.

You are now in the most competitive pvp environment in wow.

While this all sounds very tedious there are systems addons and techniques to use, I'm sure they are well known to most at least in theory. That being said, this does take some time. Assuming you have a glypher set up who knows all the glyphs you need about 10k gold and 10 hours to get started, and then you need to spend about an hour each day you want to make some gold. Most of that time can be spent afk, but you still need to be around the computer.

The aids
First off, you need some way to mass post glyphs and decide prices. I recommend using an addon called Trade Skill Master, which lets you set up groups of items and have a common pricing strategy for them, create lists of things you need to buy (mats) and make (cause you're out of them) at any given point. We have ours set up to make new glyphs if they will give us a profit of 100g or more with current AH prices, and to suggest to us to make and post two of each glyph that meets that requirement. We undercut by one copper (we don't really want a price war, we are happy with status quo). TSM also lets you, with the click of a button, mail everything in a group to a specific character. So all herbs inks and pigments are automatically mailed to our glypher and all glyphs are automatically mailed to our banker. We have a fixed price on the ink for calculations, 8g per ink. This means that we normally make only glyphs that sell for 125g or more, but should the prices change we follow them down to 25g. We do end up with glyphs that don't post of couse, but they will post later on when the prices are higher again.

Secondly I recommend getting Postal, an addon that greatly improves your mail box by letting you Open All. If you have 800 mails you do not want to click on each and every one of them to open them!

How often should i repost?
Well that depends. I don't think you should repost madly often to be honest, because then it becomes a chore and you will stop glyphing after a short while (each major reposting takes around 30 minutes, 5-10 of which you actually have to sit and click on the same button over and over again). I think it greatly depends on your life, if you can pop on wow for half an hour a few times during the day and be alt tabbed while you scan, then do so. But it's fine too if you just repost once or twice a day. You can even set much lower prices than everyone else and let it all expire, posting once every 48 hours. But that will drive everyone else mad and it will have you spend more time every two days making glyphs milling etc. Optimally you know who the competition is, and repost when they've posted. I have sometimes reposted, only to come back two days later with 600+ glyphs expired and two sold. Other times I've done the same thing and had 25k waiting in my mail box (and the same 600+ glyphs expired of course).

In our case we have some time most days, so we repost perhaps twice per day. Most evenings we repost another two times, once when I sit down after work and once before I go to bed. If one of the bigger competitors log on while I'm doing something less important on my main character, I will go on and repost another time.

The week
The glyphing week lows are (on our server) Monday Tuesday and Friday during the day. The highlights are Wednesday and Friday evening through to Saturday evening. We speculate that this is because people spend time with their families and clean their houses on Fridays then they go raid and get some new gear, and then later in the evening they spend their money on the auction house to take care of their new gear (or dinged alts). This continues through Saturday and then on Sunday everyone has Sunday dinner and aren't playing too much. Come Monday people work, or level alts, this goes on until Wednesday when they start preparing for the weekends raids by spending more money on glyphs. But of course we don't know, we are just guessing.

The expansion and patches
As soon as new content is released sales go up. Probably because people return to the game and perhaps wants to explore the new content with a different character. It doesn't really matter if it's raid content or not, any new content (like patch 5.1, which introduced new dailies mostly) will do. Of course, this is even more true if there is a new character class or race (go pandas!).

By the way. After two days and 8k spent on glyphs we are back to 16.5k in our bag, meaning profit of about 12k per day so far. Not bad!

The glyph experiment 1

2013-03-03T15:15:00.001-08:00

A while ago it became evident that I would never have to worry about gold in wow anymore. The sole reason: glyphs.

So when my guildmaster suggested me and my spouse take 10k of the guild banks money and see what we could multiply it with in a month, we were all for it.

My prediction: we will be able to make it into 50k.

So far the following preparations have taken place: sent all glyphs on bank alt to spouses bank alt to not interfere with tsn. Sent all herbs inks and pigments from bank alt and bank alts guild to spouses alt for same reason. Put all bank alts money in bank. Transferred the 10k to bank alt.

We've also done a first buy, getting enough ink to make 154 glyphs for 2.5k, the posting value is about 35k, so that's a good start.

I've also made those glyphs and posted them so we are already up and running!

I will post regular updates on the project on here, with all manner of information that people would be interested in knowing. Do fire away, ask a glyphers anything!

Fishing report

2013-02-26T14:26:00.001-08:00

Just a quick installment regarding Nat Pagle and his rare fish. At the moment the drop rate is 1% per catch in pools or open water, there's one fish for sea waters, one for inland and one for sha touched waters.

In patch 5.2 the drop rate will double and each han in will give more rep.

I'm currently halfway through 'Pal' with him and have taken to trying to he
T the tree fishes around three times a week. So far it takes between half an hour and an hour each time, roughly the same or a little more than an average set of dailies (ie golden lotus or operation shieldwall). And I get tons of fish to finish off my rep with the individual tillers with.

Fun times :) FYI the only rep that matters in Pandaria is clearly Nat. He sells a fishing chair!!!

Meeting in real life

2013-02-17T14:01:00.001-08:00

A guild is traditionally a virtual construct (insert neuromancer music and cool quote here) of course, we band together online to kill pixels and chat. And while that chat may sometimes be deeply meaningful and even very important to us, it is normally easy to forget and disregard.

If you ever left a guild you probably don't hang with the old guild mates anymore. For instance.

But the flea circus @ Ghostlands eu is different! For two reasons. First of all we hang with old guildmates, even with people who are no longer playing. To be a flea is, if you want it to be, a life long relationship. Secondly, we actually meet in real life.

Last weekend me and my spouse (whom I met in the guild btw) went to London. There we met up with our guild master (Ariochlee, in good old Elric style) and a former guild master (Krisyz) who now plays very sparingly. We had a lovely time of course, spending an evening talking surprisingly little about wow and a lot about a lot of other things.

And last year those guys came down to us. And the year before that we had a big hootenanny in London where people actually came from Sweden Denmark and even remote Scotland to join in. And prior to that there were, allegedly, barbecues and other things going on (which was before my time).

So what's the point of all this? Well, it's actually to point out something that was said during the last visit: people think creating a successful guild is easy, that it does itself almost, just invite a bunch of people and you're set. But it isn't, most guilds fall apart after a very short time, even more after a year or so, and few make it past an expansion. So while the fleas have had their ups and downs we are by an large hugely successful as a guild. What's the secret?

I think it's many things, but first and foremost it is the people, ie we have a selection process and we've turned down quite a few applications over the years. But surprisingly few really, and those mainly because they were made by people deemed too immature for the guild or who never got back in touch with us again. The reason for this is that knowing about us isn't that easy. We have a post inthe blizzard Ghostlands forum, and we have our web page. But we don't accept applications ingame and we don't advertise in trade. We don't really need any more members, and the fact of the matter is that we will never need to advertise like that, because there is no set number of fleas that are required. In times when there's been very few of us we instead cooperate with like minded guilds around group activities like raids.

The selection process also goes into officer making. We have a fair few relaxed calm and steady officers, no hot brains. This may lead to few raid leaders among the officers but it also leads to little drama. And you certainly don't have to be an officer to be a raid leader!

Thirdly we have managed to have a balance between sexes both in the guild in general and among the officers, something I think is hard to underestimate.

So we have nice people in the guild, and while we've had drama it's never been really bad. But we are also working very hard not to be dogmatic as a guild. We appreciate that there are many ways to play the game and we actively quell any tendencies with our members to be elitistic dogmatic or to tell others how to play. This is one of the major roles as an officer in the guild really.

We do this mainly via example, and if that doesn't work via friendly banter. We would only tell people off as a third option normally, and to my knowledge only one person ever had been kicked from the guild. This isn't because anything goes but because if you stimulate good behaviour over a long period of time it will become the norm. Put in another way we have created an atmosphere which makes people nice. That is hard work but it's worth it!

Being a successful guild isn't easy but the challenge is not what you'd think it to be, the challenge is to not overdo it, to be calm, let people shape the guild and be themselves as long as it doesn't interfere with other members.

It's about being an extended family, an in the light of that it's not strange that we fleas want to meet up in real life as well as in game.

The tragic demise of Feng the Asmufred

2013-02-02T14:07:00.002-08:00

We finally got that blue annoyance down!!!

For the last two nights we have been progressively getting closer and closer, and now, well now we got it right. It turns out to be all about timing and not standing in stuff, I'm surprised we didn't get him down earlier really :) Oh, wait, I'm not...

The speed of the game

2013-01-31T05:41:00.001-08:00

Most people would, it seems, say that the game is too slow, i.e. the time between new content releases and new expansions is too great. I wholeheartedly disagree!

In fact the opposite is true in my mind, and here's why:

At the start of Pandaria the slate was clean, everyone started from scratch.
When the raids where unlocked (was it one or two weeks into the expansion?) I was level 87. I wasn't too concerned, I mean it wasn't like we were gonna go raiding instantly anyways.
Once I was 90 I started doing Golden Lotus and Tillers dailies. I did them perhaps once every three days, which isn't too often, but it's clearly often enough as at the same time there are tons of other activities to occupy oneself with (fishing, doing the rest of the zones, dungeons, auction house, professions, mount hunting, getting the alts up to speed, LFR etc).
When the next raid was released we started raiding on Mogu'Shan vaults. This is rather normal progression for us, so thats fine.
When the new dailies was released in 5.1 I was almost revered with Golden Lotus, had not started on Shadow-pan nor August Celestials. I had not kept up my anglers, had not even seen the first quests with the dragon guys, had not done the Lorewalkers nor was I exalted with the tillers. And yet, to keep up to speed with the gear I had to drop all of those activities to go do something completely different!
At about the same time the talk started about blizzard announcing the next expansion this year! My eyes are bulging at the very thought, Pandaria has just started!
And now, patch 5.2 is the hot topic. Well let me tell you, I'm currently honored with the offensive, which means I don't have a single piece of gear from them yet. We have just gotten one boss down in the first raid of the expansion and I am still not done with any of the factions apart from the Tillers because I have to spend all my time helping the alliance push back the orcs into the sea from whence they came.

I can see how this is going to end: I will be revered with everyone by the time the next expansion hits, none of my alts will be level 90 (well perhaps one of them will) and I will still run around in LFR gear from Mogu'Shan.

The main issue, what drives this on, is again hiding gear behind dailies. If they didn't do that I could happily proceed with Golden Lotus, take that in and enjoy it in my own time, and still have gear so that I could go raiding. But now I have to abandon the project half finished just to go rep grind with some other faction who's goals frankly are not really clear and who's story I haven't delved into yet.

Btw I haven't even finished Towlong steppes and the Klaxxi zones yet.

I have not had time.

So please, don't talk to me about how the game is "boring", or who "there's nothing to do". There's too much to do! And if you find that boring then perhaps you should play something else for a while.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel by the way, and it is the chance to get rep via farming that seems to be introduced in 5.2. With this in hand I could actually get rep with anyone while just farming, which probably will take my ratio of gaining rep from 3/7ths to at least 5/7ths as I am far more likely to want to sort the farm out than doing dailies any given day.