WoW Tipspace

Midsummer Fire Festival

2009-06-19T15:29:00.003-04:00

The Midsummer Fire Festival starts on Sunday. You can make some pretty good cash with this festival by visiting the bonfires all over the globe. Finding a bonfire of your own faction and speaking to the NPC will reward you with 5 Burning Blossom and 5g95 at level 70. (it's not known yet what it will be at 80) The Burning Blossoms are used as currency to buy stuff from the Midsummer quartermaster, like a pet or some fun clothes.

Finding a bonfire of the opposite faction and clicking it will reward 10 Burning Blossom and 11g99 at level 70. All opposing faction bonfires may be doused without pulling guards, providing you are sufficiently high level, making this a fast and easy way to get both blossoms and gold. Dousing another faction's bonfire will flag you for PVP combat. The bonfires of capital cities have separate quests and you cannot 'Honor the Flame' of your own faction's capitals.

As there are 32 Alliance Fires and 30 Horde Fires, you can get as Alliance 550g10 and 460 Blossoms, and as Horde 562g18 and 470 Blossoms, not counting quests or capital bonfires.

Outland:

Blade's Edge Mountains (41, 66)
Blade's Edge Mountains (49, 58)
Hellfire Peninsula (57, 42)
Hellfire Peninsula (62, 58)
Nagrand (49, 69)
Nagrand (50, 34)
Netherstorm (31, 62)
Netherstorm (32, 68)
Shadowmoon Valley (33, 30)
Shadowmoon Valley (39, 54)
Terrokar Forest (52, 42)
Terrokar Forest (54, 55)
Zangarmarsh (35, 51)
Zangarmarsh (68, 51)

Kalimdor:

Ashenvale (38,55)
Ashenvale (70, 69)
Azuremyst Isle (44, 52)
Bloodmyst Isle (55, 68)
Darkshore (36, 46)
Desolace (26, 70)
Desolace (66, 16)
Durotar (52, 47)
Dustwallow Marsh (33, 30)
Dustwallow Marsh (62, 40)
Feralas (28, 44)
Feralas (72, 47)
Mulgore (52, 60)
Orgrimmar (46, 38)
Silithus (46, 44)
Silithus (57, 35)
Stonetalon Mountains (50, 60)
Tanaris (50, 25 )
Tanaris (50, 29)
Teldrassil (55, 60)
Teldrassil (56, 92)
The Exodar (40,25) - The Crystal Hall
The Barrens (52, 27)
Thousand Needles (42, 53)
Thunder Bluff (21, 26)
Winterspring (60,35)
Winterspring (62, 35)

Eastern Kingdom:

Arathi Highlands (50, 44)
Arathi Highlands (74, 41)
Badlands (4, 46) ?
Blasted lands (58, 17)
Burning Steppes (61, 29)
Burning Steppes (80, 62)
Dun Morogh (46, 46)
Duskwood (73, 54)
Elwynn Forest (43, 63)
Eversong Woods (46, 50)
Ghostlands (46, 26)
Hillsbrad Foothills (58, 25)
Hillsbrad Foothills (50, 46)
Ironforge (63, 24) - Hall of Explorers
Lock Modan (32, 40)
Redridge (25, 60)
Silvermoon City (71, 42)
Silverpine Forest (49, 35)
Stormwind (37, 59)
Stranglethorn Vale (32, 75)
Stranglethorn Vale (33, 73)
Swamp of Sorrows (46, 47)
Tirisfal Glades (57, 52)
Undercity (gates)
Western Plaguelands (43, 82)
Westfall (56, 53)
Wetlands (13, 47)

Now, go get your free gold !

Laters,

Jade

WoW Twitter

2009-06-18T17:53:00.003-04:00

You might want to check out wowtwitter.com, if you are a fan of Twitter. Wowtwitter is exactly the same principle as Twitter, but it is done from your WoW characters name.....and you can register more than one character per account with them. So you can tweet from your Orc Shaman, and also tweet from your Night Elf Priest, using the same account.

Check it out at wowtwitter.com. You can find me there as Jadelynx. :)

For those of you that are real Twitter fanatics, you can have a sig made that shows your latest tweet, right in your sig. It makes an interesting siggie for forum posts or e mails.

Check it out at http://twitsig.com/

Have fun,

Jade

Lots of New Stuff Comin Down in WoW

2009-06-18T16:52:00.006-04:00

Well, there is a ton of new stuff coming down in WoW in Patch 3.2. Mounts will not be available at level 20......epic ground mounts at level 40.....and flying mounts at level 60. I have to admit to mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I am glad for my alts, it will make life easier. But, on the other hand, it kind of makes me mad. All the toons I have leveled that hoofed it till 40, rode slow till 60 and were ground bound till 70.....well it just doesn't seem quite fair. Too bad that Blizzard won't compensate us for all that extra annoyance. A thousand gold per toon would be acceptable. :p

The powers that be have seen fit to finally grace us with a portal to Outland in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, so at least we will not have to be traveling to the Blasted Lands to get to Shat anymore. No word on whether or not they will be level sensitive or not. We are also getting a new blimp that runs from from Orgrimmar to Thunderbluff. Good stuff for the newbies.

If you haven't done it yet, go to the Mountain Dew website and register to get your in game battle bot. All you have to do is sign up and the bot appears automatically in the mailbox of every toon you have, on every server, every account that is linked to your battle.net account. After you get it, you have to go back to the Dew site daily and get fuel so you can battle other peoples bots. It's pretty fun and free !

Speaking of Battle.net accounts, if you have not linked yours in yet, don't be afraid. I did it and I am no worse for the wear. If you have two accounts, all it does is give you a central log in when you fire up WoW....a drop down menu give you a choice of accounts and then there is a password that works for both. You can still log into both accounts at the same time to trade and enchant stuff, and so on. So if you have been putting it off, you no longer need to.

Ciao for now,

Jade

Gold for Honor or How to Make Money off Killing Your Enemies

2009-06-01T13:31:00.004-04:00

If you have already gotten all your PVP stuff and are still getting honor every day......what do you do with it ? Well, there is a vendor in the PVP shop in Stormwind that sells gems. You can trade in your honor for gems that are NOT soulbound.....so you can sell them.

Yep, it's amost like being a hitman. :P

Grins,

Jade

Want to Win Wintergrasp ? (for Alliance)

2009-06-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

I have found, that if you want to win Wintergrasp, even defending, then do it in the morning. The raids in the morning, like before 1 o'clock, are better organized and the people actually listen and follow orders. They actually work as a team.....a novel concept for the Alliance.

Not sure why this is.....maybe the Horde are not morning people. :) Maybe its because the kids are in school. I don't know why, but I tried it every morning last week and won every time.

Worth a shot, eh ?

Jade

Make Some Quick Gold with Leatherworking

2009-05-27T15:56:00.002-04:00

If you have a higher level leather worker, you can pick up some quick cash by turning Borean Leather into Heavy Borean Leather. Just go to the AH and compare the price of Borean Leather to Heavy Borean Leather. If you can buy 6 regular and convert and sell the heavy piece for more than you paid for the 6 regulars.....you have an instant gold generator. I do this about 3 times a week and make a good profit, each time.

More Later....

Jade

2009-05-27T15:51:00.002-04:00

New Patch Preview:

Patch 3.2: Call of the Crusade

The upcoming major content patch, Call of the Crusade, will bring a host of new features for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

The Argent Tournament Expands: With the help of Azeroth's heroes, the Argent Crusade will finish the Argent Coliseum just in time to call for all brave citizens to prepare for battle with the Lich King. New dailies, rewards, and more will be available at the Argent Tournament grounds to lure adventurers into the coliseum.
Crusaders' Coliseum: In order to prepare for a siege on Icecrown Citadel, players will be called by the Argent Crusade to test their mettle in the Coliseum. 5-player, 10-player, and 25-player challenges await inside.
New Battleground: Isle of Conquest, a new large-scale siege Battleground, will be open. The Horde and Alliance will battle head-to-head for control of strategic resources to lay siege to the keeps of their opponents.
New Arena Season: Season 7 will officially start, paving the way for all-new items and challenges.

Woo hoo ! A new battleground....lets just hope they have vehicles like at Wintergrasp !

New WoW Forum for Gold Making and Economic Discussions

2009-05-12T12:39:00.004-04:00

I ran across a new Forum that is only for discussions on how to make gold in World of Warcraft. It does not have a ton of posts yet, but what I read was pretty solid advice, so you may want to bookmark it and keep an eye on it.

Just My Two Copper Discussion Forum

Ciao for Now,

Jade

Free Leveling Guide - Horde and Alliance

2009-05-12T12:27:00.002-04:00

If you ever wanted a leveling guide to help you out and tell you exactly where to go, and what questing order to use to make more efficient use of your time, but you didn't want to pay the big bucks they want for them, this is your chance !

Ding80.com has both Horde and Alliance Leveling Guides that take you from 1 all the way to 80. There are step by step instructions on where to go, what to kill and what quests to do in what order. Simple to follow and free !

More later,

Jade

Odd and Hilarious.....Check this Out !

2009-04-24T16:57:00.003-04:00

OMG, you have just got to see this.....it is totally hilarious. (nothing to do with WOW, but hey, I wanted to share)

Lots of people with way too much time on their hands.....hehe.

http://tstbob.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-twenty-strange-my-little-customised.html

Cheers,

Jade

Patch 3.1 is Live on PTR

2009-02-27T12:03:00.003-05:00

If you are interested in all the new stuff coming out in patch 3.1, then skedaddle over to the Public Test Realm and see what it's all about. They are making some major changes, in addition to the dual specs. Lots of changes to the talent trees for virtually every class. If you want to check out the notes, here's the link:

Patch Notes 3.1

Many players will be smarting over the cost of the new Dual spec ability.......$1000 gold. If you have as many characters as I do, that cost is going to be pretty debilitating, even for someone like me ! If you a more detailed walk through of how the dual spec system is going to work, check out this link, it explains it very well.

Dual spec walk through

There are also going to be some really cool new mounts and vanity pets coming out soon (maybe in 3.1!) including an aquatic mount (you ride in water) and even a flying gnome head ! If you want a complete list of the new pets and mounts, the list is here:

New Mounts and Pets

That's all for today, see ya on the PTR !

Jade

New Game - Runes of Magic

2009-02-23T16:56:00.004-05:00

I have found another totally awesome MMORPG to play that is free ! (free to download and free to play) At last, a World of Warcraft quality game that has no monthly fees. Some might say the graphics are even better than WoW, especially since it has seamless zoning, across the entire game world. The character creation choices are certainly more varied.

The one really different thing about RoM is that a level 10 you can pick up another class. Yep, your characters can be two separate classes, and switch between the two. My main character is a Priest/Mage. Alas, they have to be leveled separately, but at least they share professions, so they don't have to be re-leveled.

I made a Squidoo lens that details the important aspects of Runes of Magic, if you want to look it over. Trust me, it has more detail on many things that the official website.

http://squidoo.com/runesofmagic

Hope you like,

Jade

Dual Talent Spec Q & A

2009-02-23T16:46:00.002-05:00

I got this off the WoW Community Site, I thought it was very interesting. Ghostcrawler is one of the developers of WoW. Check it out !

Talent Dual Spec Q&A with Ghostcrawler

With the next content patch, we will be introducing a number of additions and changes to the game. One new feature in the works is the ability to set up two separate sets of talents, or "dual spec". While the complete feature may not be immediately available in the Public Test Realms (PTR) and specifics are still liable to change, we wanted to go over some questions with Senior Game Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street to find out more.

Nethaera: What is dual speccing?
Ghostcrawler: Dual speccing is the ability to save two separate talent specs, glyphs, and action bars.

Nethaera: Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
Ghostcrawler: We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.

The new system makes this a much more logical process, saving on time and cost and allowing players to easily move from one aspect of the game to another.

Nethaera: Who will be able to use it?
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.

Nethaera: Why do players need to be max level in order to do this?
Ghostcrawler: We didn’t want to burden lower-level players with extra complexity as they’re working to level up and learn their class. But if the feature proves popular we might consider expanding it.

Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.

Nethaera: How do you switch between specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to switch between their talent specs by visiting any Lexicon of Power provided they’ve paid for the ability to have a secondary spec. Lexicons of Power will be available in major cities, and inscribers will also be able to create a new item that summons one. Anyone can purchase this item, but it requires a ritual of several players to summon it for use by the party. It’s similar to a repair bot in that it will exist in the world for a short duration. It’s important to keep in mind that you will not be able to switch specs while in combat or Arenas. While you won’t be able to switch your spec without the Lexicon, you will still be able to look at your secondary spec whenever you want to.

Nethaera: Will solo players have the ability to switch their specs outside of the cities or will they still need to visit a Lexicon of Power?
Ghostcrawler: Solo players will still need to go into the city to visit the Lexicon of Power to switch their talent spec or will need to get together with other players to summon one in.

Nethaera: Is the item that allows you to summon a Lexicon of Power reusable, or is it used up?
Ghostcrawler: We haven’t made a final decision on that yet, and will be evaluating how it works on the PTR.

Nethaera: Can I respec only one of my talent sets, or will I need to respec them both if I reset one?
Ghostcrawler: When you reset your talents, it will look at the spec you currently have in use as the talent set you want to change.

Nethaera: Will you be able to switch gear easily to match your spec?
Ghostcrawler: At the same time we implement dual specs, we will also be setting up a gear system. The feature is called “Gear Manager.” It can also be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically switch your gear when you change your talent spec, but it will allow for an easy gear change between them. The feature may not be fully functional immediately in the PTR, but we’ll have more information to share about it before too much longer.

Nethaera: What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?
Ghostcrawler: We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.

Nethaera: Will you be able to change your Glyphs as well?
Ghostcrawler: Glyphs will be tied to each talent spec so that if you switch between them, so too will the Glyphs. You’ll notice the UI will have changed a little bit so that the Glyph panes show up alongside the Talent panes now that they are associated.

Nethaera: What about hotbars? Will players be able to save them for the talent spec they’re running?
Ghostcrawler: Yes, you will be able to save hotbars and use them with your talent specs. It just saves your bars at the same time as it saves the glyphs and talents. If you want to switch to your other action bar, you will need to change specs.

Nethaera: Is there a way for players to choose their talents without them being saved? Currently, once you spend your talent point, it’s spent unless you pay the respec cost again.
Ghostcrawler: With the dual spec feature, we are going to allow players who respec to configure all their talents before they get saved. They will be able to allocate the points, then choose if they want to use that as their spec, rather than needing to carefully diagram out their talents ahead of time. This will allow players a little more freedom when deciding on the talents they want to pick and avoid costly mistakes.

Nethaera: Will players be confined to only setting up two specs?
Ghostcrawler: We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future.

Nethaera: When can players expect to try out dual specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to try out the dual spec system on the Public Test Realms when they are made available. This has been a pretty big project with a lot of people working toward making it a reality in the game. We’ll definitely be watching the feedback and looking for ways of making sure the system works the way we all envisioned it to.
________________________________________

I was pretty disappointed that dual specs will not be allowed till level 80. I feel that dual specs would be much more useful to those that are leveling, especially healers. I also wasn't impressed that hunters will have to manually respec their pet, each time they switch. However, I was very happy to see they are finally putting an "Outfitter" in the game. It's been way too long coming.

Laters :)

Jade

Leveling Herbalism Past 375

2008-12-02T12:25:00.004-05:00

If any of you have Herbalists, like I do, then I am sure you have run in to the problem that I have.......Northrend's herbs are few and far between, since everyone is trying to level their skill. At level 72, my herbalism was still a pitiful 381, because I rarely see any herbs to pick while questing.

One day I was doing the cooking daily in Netherstorm (pickin them berries !) and I saw a Netherbloom, so I zoomed down to pick it and lo and behold, I gained a skill point ! So I flew around some more....saw a dreaming glory....picked it and voila, another skill point ! I hit the jackpot, it seems, as herbalism can be leveled by picking upper level Outland herbs. Since then, I have been back to Netherstorm, as time allows, to pick more herbs and level my skill. Trust me, since the expansion there are not a lot of people in Outlands and the herbs are pretty plentiful. I am up to 425 and still getting points from Netherbloom and Nightmare Vine.

Happy Picking !

Jade

Glyph Slots

2008-12-02T12:21:00.002-05:00

I been wondering at what levels you get your glyph slots, so I looked it up. It goes something like this:

Level 1-14 - 0 Slots
Level 15-29 - 1 Major Slot, 1 Minor Slot
Level 30-49 - 2 Major Slots, 1 Minor Slot
Level 50-69 - 2 Major Slots, 2 Minor Slots
Level 70-79 - 2 Major Slots, 3 Minor Slots
Level 80 - 3 Major Slots, 3 Minor Slots

Just in case you wanted to know. :)

Jade

Gold and Wrath of the Lich King

2008-11-25T11:27:00.003-05:00

Well the Lich King expansion is here. In many ways, it is even better than I had expected....the quests are much more imaginative and fun, many of the mobs are new, the tuskarrs are really adorable, and so on. One thing I have noticed to my vast disappointment, is they have pretty much elimanated any new sources of making gold, without farming. None of the new vendors have recipes that you can resell in the AH, none of the vendors have items that are resellable, either. This is at least so far, I have not gotten past Dragonblight yet. The only thing I have found to resell is some toys in a shop across from the Alliance portals place in Dalaran....and since they are one use only and already sell for 42 silver, the profit margin is pretty low. From what I understand, even the first aid book is a drop that is BOP. The cool ghostly skull pet you can buy in the sewers is also BOP. It almost feels like Blizzard deliberately shut down any means of making gold by reselling items you find at vendors. I don't know about you, but I was very disappointed by that.

Jade

Death Knight Preparation

2008-11-06T13:19:00.004-05:00

There are a couple things you can collect now, for quest turn ins to gain easy XP for your Death Knight.....to help him level faster. First of all, there are the Argent Dawn turn ins in Eastern Plaguelands. To be able to get the quest, you will need to be friendly with Argent Dawn, so that means doing a few quests in EPL and WPL. When you hit Friendly, you can get these quests in Light's Hope Chapel to collect 30 each of the following:

Core of Elements
Crypt Fiend Parts
Bone Fragments
Savage Fronds
Dark Iron Scraps

Each turn in (first time only) is worth 9550 XP, so that is a cool 47750 XP that you can net from items you can farm up now, since they are not soul bound.

The second thing you can do is start collecting wool, silk, mageweave and runecloth. Each faction has cloth turn ins that give you XP and they are located in:

Two in Ironforge
Stormwind
Exodar
Darnassus

Two in Orgrimmar
Undercity
Silvermoon City
Thunder Bluff

The quests are located by the tailor trainers (usually) at NPC's called Cloth Quartermaster and the name of the quest is "A Donation of...." For each of the 5 turn ins you will need 3 stacks (60 pieces) of wool, 3 stacks of silk, 3 stacks of mageweave, and 3 stacks of Runecloth. Multiply that times the 5 turn in locations and you have 15 stacks of each type of cloth, 60 stacks total. Hope you have lots of inventory space ! You must turn in the three lower level cloths in order to get to runecloth. Your reward is 17650 XP for each turn in....a hefty amount for doing nothing but forking over cloth. 88250 total....definitely worth your while, and as an added bonus, you get rep with each of your faction's races !

Happy DKing !

Jade

Profession Info

2008-11-06T13:16:00.002-05:00

Just a short one today. I ran across this in my travels.....unfortunately it does not include Inscription, but it has a ton of info on power leveling professions.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=102789457&sid=1

More Later :)

Jade

Make a Ton of Gold With Vanity Pets

2008-11-03T13:07:00.004-05:00

Sorry for neglecting you all, but Hallow's End is always a very busy time for me. With 15 characters, trying to get all the things done on each of them is a 24/7 job. Alas, I still didn't get it all done. Anyway, I have got some really great news of a way to make tons of gold so easily you won't believe it.

There is an achievement that you can get, for obtaining 50 unique vanity (non combat) pets and the reward is an adorable skunk pet. Now I am sure you are aware there are some anal people that play WoW that will have to do every single one of these achievements and there are also some people that just have to have Stinker, the Skunk. Either way, it mean lots of gold in your pockets selling pets in the various Auction Houses.

There are several ways to accomplish this, but by far the most lucrative way is to transfer pets from the other faction. (Alliance to Horde and Horde to Alliance) People will pay a lot of money to obtain a pet that they normally do not have access to. My best advice to you is this: DON'T GET GREEDY !!! There are some people on the servers that I play on that are trying to sell these pets for 50 gold each..... how ludicrous is that ? Look upon these greedy individuals as those that end up just making you look more fair and reasonable. Sell these pets for a decent price....I never charge more than 10 gold each and most of them I sell for between 5 and 8 gold each. Don't try to gouge people for 20+ gold....all that does is make people resent you, and sometimes they will remember your name and refuse to buy anything from you, ever !

If you don't have any characters on the other side, or a means to trade (you need a friend or to have two accounts, you cannot buy your own auctions) then you can also sell pets in the neutral auction house.....you just will not be able to sell them for as much. I put up 36 pets in the Booty Bay AH for 5 gold each (everyone else was selling them for 10 gold to 50 gold) and I sold them all in less than 6 hours. That was around 150 gold, and that was just selling Horde pets, I didn't even try selling Alliance.

If you don't know where or what pets are available, you can always look them up online, but let me give you a list of the ones that I usually trade. This will not be a complete list, as I am doing it from memory. (how scary is that ?)

Horde

Snakes from Orgrimmar
Prairie dogs from Thunder Bluff
Cockroaches from Undercity
Dragonhawk Hatchlings from Fairbreeze Village

Alliance

Rabbits from Ambersill Ranch by Ironforge
Cats from crazy cat lady between Goldshire and Stormwind
Moths from Exodar
Owls from outside Darnassus

Neutral Locations
Parrots in Old Port Authority - Booty Bay
Anaconda Chicken - Racetrack in Shimmering Flats
Stormspire (Netherstorm) has an exotic pets dealer that has some reasonably priced pets and also some very expensive pets. I would stick to the cheap ones, the profit margin on a $40 gold wyrmling will not be much.

If you are an engineer, you can make mechanical squirrels for next to nothing and sell them for 5 to 10 gold or more. There are also mechanical chickens and frogs, but the mats are a bit more extensive. You could try advertising in trade chat as being able to make them if others supply the mats, for a fee.

There are other great gold making opportunities that come from achievements and I will be covering them in future posts.

Happy Gold Making !

Jade

Inscription

2008-10-23T11:17:00.006-04:00

Well, I have decided to jump on the bandwagon an make my mage an inscriptor (inscriptionator ?) hehe She is already a herbalist so that's convenient, as that is the gathering profession that goes with inscription. Like prospecting in Jewelcrafting, Inscription has a partner skill called Milling. The Inscriber "mills" stacks of 5 herbs into pigments. Pigments are used to create inks, which are one of the mats used to make Inscriptions.

Some of the things inscriptors make they can only use themselves. These include things like Scrolls of Recall, which are sort of like a back-up hearthstones. They can also make off hands, and shoulder improvements called Master's Inscriptions, such as Master's Inscription of the Storm which provides spell power and a boost to critical strike rating.

Armor and Weapon Vellums can prove an invaluable resource to Enchanters. These Inscriber-created items allow any Enchanter to affix enchantments to them, allowing the Enchanter to trade, mail, and sell the enchants. If you do not know any Inscriptors, the blank sheets can also be sold on the AH or traded.

Inscriptors can also make cards, which come in two varieties, Tarot and Darkmoon. Tarot cards, such as the Mysterious Tarot, allow you to create a random card in a set of five. Once you have assembled the Tarot deck, you can then travel to the Darkmoon Faire to turn them in for some green or blue quality armor and jewelry. Crafting Darkmoon Cards allows you to obtain the rarer cards from the original Darkmoon sets. With higher level Inscription, you can craft both Outlands-specific and Northrend-specific Darkmoon Cards. Both types of cards can be traded, mailed, or sold on the AH.

Lastly, Glyphs are where the Inscription profession really shines. These enhance both the spells and the abilities of anyone who uses them. There are both Major and Minor Glyphs, and they can be utilized by the classes for which they are specifically designed. Each adventurer can use multiple types of Glyphs and they can be replaced or upgraded at any time, but doing so destroys the original, like socketed gems. Your Glyphs can be found in the Glyphs tab of your Spellbook. Ultimately, this can be a constant money-maker for the Inscriber. You can also gain access to Inscriber-only glyphs via discoveries made through Northrend Inscription Research.

All in all, I think that inscription will be a money making profession, in the long run. However, it probably will not be right away, for anyone that is not able to level it to 375 right now, such as someone that has been saving herbs or has thousands of gold to waste buying them in the AH.

Which brings me to my final topic for the day. Since inscription is such a hot commodity, I am sure you all have noticed the prices of herbs in the AH. They are ridiculous !! So if you have any hanging around in your bank, now is the time to sell them !!! Or if you have a toon that is a herbalist.....now is the time to farm some ! You can get a lot of gold, even for stack of peacebloom and silverleaf, so even if you don't have a herbalist, make one and level them to 5 and pick up herbalism and farm some low level herbs, it is definitely worth your while !

That's my opinion and I am sticking to it ! hehe

Jade

Three Cool Add ons I Found

2008-10-18T13:32:00.005-04:00

Well, in my travels I have found a couple good add ons that I wanted to tell you about. But first ! I have to tell you about a really cool program that my friend Michael told me about that updates your add ons all by itself.....well, most of them. Some add ons are not supported by the program, but very few that I have found. It is called Wow Matrix and you can find it at wowmatrix.com. All you have to do it download it and it runs. No configuring, no complicated set up, you don't even have to tell it where your add ons are....it finds the folder itself. Now that is what I call service ! Simply click on the Update All button and off it goes, finding all the updates for your add ons and installing them for you. It even shows you what mods it cannot update for you, so you can do it manually. Why can't everything be this easy ?

The first mod I ran across was also recommended by Michael (affectionately known as the ModKing)and it is called WoW Instant Messanger. If you have been frustrated by trying to find your whispers in a sea of channel chats, or if you have been embarrassed by sending the wrong whisper to the wrong person ("I think you are so sexy" to your Guild Master, instead of your boyfriend)then this is definitely a mod you will want to have. It gives you your whispers in totally separate, movable boxes, so you can easily find them and respond to them. It also sounds a tone to let you know you have a new message. This mod also has no configuring, just toss it in your folder and it just works......always a plus in my book ! WIM is available on the Curse Gaming site.

The second mod I wanted to tell you about is called Auctionator. Now, this add on is no Auctioneer, but it does allow you to place auctions up quickly and easily. You simply hold down the alt key and click on the item in your bag. It will bring up a window (also can be brought up by clicking the Auctionator tab at the bottom of your screen) and it puts your item in a window and at the top shows the price that the mod recommends you sell it at, which is determined by the prices of like items that are in the AH right now. (you can tell it by how much you want to undercut your competition, in the options) It even lists the items that are up for auction, at that time, and the prices they are being sold for, noting which of them are yours and which are others. If you don't agree with their recommendations, then you can type in your own price for bid and buyout. It it pretty handy dandy, the only complaint I have is that it does not hold the prices that you post your auctions at from session to session. Such as, say you are selling Scorpid Surprise Recipes. If you type in your bid and buyout prices, it will hold that price if you want to sell more than one, but if you go to sell them the next day, you have to type in the price again. Ah well, nothing is perfect. Auctionator also does not have a database to suggest prices or a scanning function. It is more or less just a small price comparer for those of us that sell the same items consistantly, and need to know what the competition is selling them for that day. It's pretty handy, but I will still be looking for another AH add on to do what Auctioneer no longer does, simply or easily. Auctionator can be found on the Curse Gaming site.

Hope springs eternal :)

Jade

Patch Woes

2008-10-18T13:06:00.003-04:00

I have been playing WoW a long time and I have lived through many a patch, but this has got to be the worst one yet. All the sudden, the major add on groups that I use have decided they are not going to update......leaving me high and dry. The two most notably screwing me are Cosmos and Auctioneer.

Cosmos was a large package of mods that I have used practically since Thrall was in diapers. It did a large variety of things and was only one download, instead of having to update them all separately. When I read they were no longer going to update the package I was totally bumming. /sigh

But the most crushing for me, the AH Queen, was Norganna's decision not to update Auctioneer classic. When she came out with Auctioneer Advanced, a few years ago, I tried it and I found it to me WAY too complicated with WAY too many features that I find to be useless for my needs. It is hard to understand and even harder to use, so when she came back with Auctioneer Classic, I breathed a sigh of relief that I would have my easy to use, perfect AH companion mod back. Imagine my horror when I read on her site a few days ago that she is not going to update it for 3.0. I tried to take it like a trooper, and decided to give Auctioneer Advanced another go, thinking maybe she had simplified it in the intervening time. I was distressed to find, upon checking it out that it is just as horrible as ever as to being hard to understand, hard to use, and bogged down with a bunch of features that are either unintelligible, or useless to me. No more simple add on that just suggested a price, and held the prices you wanted to sell at. /sigh

I have found the current mod crisis to be worse that what we went through in Burning Crusade, by far. I keep updating the mods I still have with their replacements, that they say are fixed and working for 3.0, but I still am having tons of problems. My chat log is full of gibberish, and no chat shows up at all. Weird error messages with garbled warnings that make no sense. Mailbox mods that won't show up at all. And a mod that supposedly lets you move around your frames....that doesn't.

I am pretty much at my wits end about all this, so I am going to set it aside for a few days and hope that the programmers get their act together, and in the mean time, look for some new mods to replace the ones from Cosmos.

If any of you have some suggestions.....please let me know !

Jade

New Hunter Stuff

2008-10-14T13:45:00.004-04:00

I flat out stole this from Spugnort's newsletter, regarding hunters. But since I am giving him credit, I don't feel guilty. :)

So Many Cool Changes to Hunter/Pet in 3.0 - Ok, so with the release of 3.0, hunter's pets will now have one of three of their very own talent trees where hunters can distribute points to make their pets more viable in all different aspects of the game. With this we are also being given more stable slots, so now it's totally possible to have a pet for raiding, one for PvP and yet another spec'd for PvE! In addition to this, pets will "auto-level" when they are trained or taken from the stable to be within 5 levels of the hunter. Pet XP gained from their masters has been increased and the loyalty system has been discarded. Whew! It's good to be a beastmaster hunter!

I have a 70 Hunter, so I will be heading over to MMO-Champion to check out the new talent trees, both for her and for her pets. *Sigh* With 15 characters, I am gonna be staring at Talent trees for a very, very long time. On the bright side, we get free respecs and new talents ! Whooo hoo !

Another awesome thing coming with todays patch:

New Pets Tab in 3.0 - Players will have a nice new pets tab beginning with the release of 3.0 which provides a place for adventurers to keep all of their mounts and vanity pets so they don't each take up an inventory space. Basically you click on the pet in your inventory and it will teach you a spell to summon the relevant pet or mount. Pretty sweet, huh?

Ciao for now,

Jade

Hallow's End to Start on October 18th !

2008-10-14T13:35:00.001-04:00

Hallow's End starts on the 18th ! YAY !!! This is my favorite season on WoW ! I love the silly masks you get and the wands that you can use on other group members. I love crashing the Wickerman Festival outside UC, and defending Southshore against the rampaging stink bombs. But I think what I love most is the Headless Horseman quest in Scarlet Monestary......that has to be the single coolest holiday mob, ever ! You also get the chance at a permanent mount drop from the Headless Horseman, a cool flame footed horse, just like his ! This year I WILL GET IT !!! You will also be able to use the new Achievement system, coming in today's patch, to track your progress, simply by hitting the "Y" key.

To read the full story on all the awesome stuff that Hallow's End has to offer, check out the Community site at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/events/hallowsend/

More Later....

Jade

Warhammer - Yay or Nay

2008-10-06T15:21:00.007-04:00

Well, I have spent the last few weeks playing the new MMOG Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning. I have played alone, I have played with others, I have joined a guild and played with them. I have quested, done battlegrounds, and open RVR. (pvp) I have even done a bit of their crafting system. And the verdict is......(drumroll please)

Thumbs DOWN ! I am sorry to say, as much as I have tried I just cannot like Warhammer. Now I know what some of you are going to say....I am too wrapped up in WoW to give another game a chance, but that just isn't true. I play Perfect World and love it; look at all the Squidoo lenses I have on it. I have played Warhammer with a totally open mind. Through the fact that all the characters look like the bride of Frankenstein, I still played. Through the first week of hideous lag, I still played. Through the battlegrounds that are almost a carbon copy of the BG's in WoW (that I don't care for either) I still played. I played and played, trying to find the fun and value that some of my friends do. Unfortunately, playing more, instead of making me like it more, made me like it less. I just don't care for it....that's all.

It's hard to describe exactly what it is about it that I don't really care for. I think it is a mix of things. Without taking into account the 2 hours I spent on the phone, calling back 4 times, simply to be able to get into my account to put in billing information, which they insisted on having one week after starting to play the game, not 30 days. They locked me out until they got their credit card number. Their tech support people are ninnies that gave me the wrong information and caused me to have to call back again and again, languishing on hold for ages each time, listening to hold music that sounded like five 10 year olds with their feet caught in a meat grinder.

As for the game itself, my first complaint was the character creation. All the characters are ugly. Even the Elves and human women have faces that only a mother could love. The hair styles are pretty sad as well, but it's the faces that are just horrible.....they would look more at home on an animal with hooves and a mane and tail. You would think in three years, they could have done better. Another thing about the characters I didnt care for was the fact that some of them only come in male.....like the orcs, goblins and a few others. No women ? Are their children delivered by the stork ? I find it offensive they would make characters that are only available in the male sex. I also didn't care for the classes they chose. They are mixed up and not clear cut as to what exactly they are. Like the healer that has to beat on someone to get up the energy he needs to heal. ??? Does this make sense to you ? or the White Lion, that has a pet, but has no ranged attacks that do decent damage. They are expected to beat up mobs manually, right along side their pet. The Magus is another strange one. He spends all of his time riding around on a circular disc like some strange version of the Silver Surfer. The only difference is, he cannot get off the disc. Ever. I admit I may be guilty of comparing their classes to WoWs, but even if I didn't do that, I think I would find their classes to be poorly thought out and many of them difficult and not very fun to play. The only classes I found that were pretty fun to play are the Destruction's Sorceress and the Squig Herder. (male squig herder)

One of the overriding factors that I really didn't like about Warhammer was the character movement. At first I blamed it on the lag, but as the weeks went by, I noticed that while the freeze ups were growing less, the jerky character movement was not getting any better. The movement of the toons is not fluid. When they run, the leg movement is stilted and not realistic looking. This is the best they could do in a brand new, latest technology online game ? Perfect World is better and it is free to play, and made in Malaysia. WoW is better and it is almost 4 years old. Another really annoying thing I found is that you cannot run through most objects, like low hanging tree limbs, and the like, so you are constantly getting hung up on things and fighting to free yourself and go around them. It really is a pain.

I have to admit, the quests are pretty fun and imaginative. I had no complaint there, and I really liked how the area you need to go to for quests was outlined in read with a tooltip mouseover, on the big map. A method WoW would do well to adopt. I can't really say too much about the RVR (PVP) aspect of the game, as that is not really something that I enjoy too much. However, I was disappointed with the crafting system. They only have two crafting professions, Apothecary and Tailsman Making. No way to make armor or weapons. The gathering professions are scavenging, salvaging, butchering and cultivating. From what I understand you will need items from all gathering professions if you want to make things with the two crafting professions, so you better have alts in all professions or be prepared to buy what you need at the auction house.

All in all, Warhammer is not horrible.....I have certainly played worse (visions of Mabinogi dancing in my head) but it was not nearly as good as I expected it to be. From what I understand it is also going through some pretty serious faction imbalance problems on most servers, which I can understand because the Order classes are rather lame, and even uglier (if possible) than the Destruction Classes. It kind of surprised me though, because the Destruction faction is really evil, and do things like torturing Order's war lions and such. I would not think that would be so appealing, but I guess it must be, as the Destruction outnumbers the Order 3 to 1 on most servers. They have also already taken the Order Capital city of Altdorf and killed their King on at least one server, an event that Mystic did not expect to happen for a month or two. With this happening, a level cap of only 40, and no end game content to speak of, other than the taking of the other faction's keeps and capital city......I feel it will not be long before many people will find themselves bored with Warhammer Online.

The above statments about Warhammer are my opinion only, and one that I will say my friend Syrenidus, does not share. He loves Warhammer and has left WoW to play it. I just don't see what the appeal is, personally. *shrugs*

Ciao for Now,

Jade