Well, I’ve kinda put the 39 twinks (and subsequently their respective guides) on hold for a little bit in favor of trying out the new Recruit-A-Friend promotion. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know that I’m a fan of multiboxing. I decided to up my game from 2 accounts to 3. I referred myself and figured I’d give it a try on the trial before upgrading. 20 minutes later I was level 8 without enough gold to buy my skills, and I decided to give boosting a try. The shamatwins made their way to Ragefire Chasm, and my rogue joined up with them there. Since I lack any AOE worth mentioning, I decided to just run them through the first bit with the troggs, then reset. When I hit the instance cap, I’d just take a break. Well, 25 minutes /played later and they were 14, so I ran them over to Shadowfang Keep. Ended up getting about a level and a half per 15 minute run, a level every 10 minutes is pretty decent. At this point I figured I’d go ahead and upgrade.

At level 20, I ran them up to SM, and this is where I really started to appreciate just how much faster boosting is with Recruit-A-Friend. I’m used to getting a level every 3 runs in the 20’s, and every 4-5 runs in the 30’s. RAF is netting me a level per run. I got them to 35 last night with a grand total of 12 hours /played and all shaman quests done. I’m sure there are plenty of people who have done it faster, but here’s the thing… I’ve got a short attention span. I’ll leave my toons sitting there while I go play with my rabbits, chat with my roommate, go for a walk with my girlfriend, etc. If I just locked into it, I’d probably be able to shave a few hours off. Kudos to Blizzard for giving new players and multiboxers alike an opportunity for much faster leveling, this is all kinds of awesome. I’m thinking I might have to roll up a couple of mages Alliance-side and try Zygor’s guide out with triple XP… I’m betting it’d be ridiculously quick.

- Stray

My 39 Shaman twink is almost done, and my guide will be following accordingly.  It’s going to cover gearsets and enchants for the full enhancement warrior-in-leather types, elemental / hybrid enhancement, and resto.  Personally I’m leaning towards gearing for elemental and speccing enhancement for survivability and spell damage from AP, and it looks like the INT = AP talent in WOTLK is going to cater to that playstyle quite well.  So far, slapping on a shield and an even mix of spell damage and enhancement gear has been giving me crazy survivability and versatility.  Most BGs I’m in I’ve been about 3rd on damage and first or 2nd on healing, and that’s with me actually doing my job instead of being a midfield tard.  I’m looking very forward to finishing this toon off and owning up the BG.

Some of you may have noticed that my sidebar has been replaced with a static ad for Zygor’s In-Game Leveling Guide.  If you’ve been a long time reader of this blog, you know that I’ve briefly touched on some of the other guides out there, specifically Joana’s 1-70 Horde Guide and Brian Kopp’s 1-70 Alliance Guide.  I’ve since deleted those two from my hard drive, as Zygor’s guide is both more convenient and more reasonable for all classes and specs.  I feel like the path is a lot more sensible as well.  The guide is slick, accurate, and tracks your progress as you go.  It features a modified version of the Cartographer mod, so you don’t have to constantly alt-tab into WoWhead to figure out where the hell to go for a certain quest, which is a welcome feature.  You can look for a full review some time over the next couple of weeks, as well as a comparison to Joana’s guide, Brian’s guide, and the team iDemise guide.

For those of you who don’t want to wait to hear the general sentiment of the review, I’ll say this much;  Zygor’s In-Game Leveling Guide is very easily the best leveling guide I have used, and is more than worth the price of admission.  If you have already leveled a character to 70 and just want the most efficient and fast path possible, pick it up.  It’s easily the best WoW-related investment I have made.

- Stray

Hey guys, just a quick update today. I’ll be posting guides for 29 paladins, 39 shamans, and 39 hunters in the next couple of weeks, since my pally and shammy are 99% complete now and I have the gear for my hunter in the bank. It’s funny, WoW has so much stuff to do, so many options, and yet the only thing I really find fun anymore is twinking. Despite what all the haters say, it’s probably the one aspect of the game where it feels like player skill still has more than just a passing influence. Everyone has access to the same level of gear, and there’s a hard cap on it. People play for fun and personal improvement, rather than the gear grind carrot. Every time I head into a battleground other than AV on my 70 rogue, it’s the same story. There’s always at least one AFKer, at least one person who says “Just let them win, we’re only here for the marks anyway” and the usual collection of people who just don’t care. They’ll either zerg the flag mindlessly in EotS, leave the farm undefended in AB, or ignore the enemy flag carrier to kill a random hunter in WSG… You can tell that people are just there because it’s their only method of progression.

This is why twink BGs are awesome. No one really has to be there. It’s purely optional, there is zero progression for twinks that have been there a while, and everyone is just there to have some fun and compete. Everyone generally seems to have a better attitude, with the exception of the non-twinks who come in there after 15 hours of leveling and think that they’re going to be able to compete with someone who’s dumped a thousand gold and a good bit more time and effort into their toon. Yeah, I know it sucks that you get one shotted by rogues. My level 70 rogue has practically no chance against a warrior in full S3 gear, but you don’t hear me complaining when I get owned by a well-timed mace stun. Gear gaps are part of the game, and twink gear is a lot easier to acquire than endgame gear. Stop complaining and join the fun!

- Stray

The PVE dungeon panel just ended at WWI, and it looks like the game is getting even more casual… It’s nice to see that Blizzard knows who is keeping their pocketbooks nice and fat. Skimming over the MMO Champion notes, it looks like there are some very nice changes incoming for players on a time budget, as well as some accommodations for players who are a little on the noob side.

Heroic dungeons are being made slightly easier, and devs will not be creating encounters that require specific classes, although presumably there will still be standard archetype requirements. Quests and dungeons will be more intimately tied together, which will be a nice change from TBC not really giving you any motivation to step foot in an instance other than to break up the grind. Looks like some of the RP might be coming back into MMORPG. For people who like to play the game in smaller slices, or have no say in the matter, you’ll be pleased to know that they’ve stated that they think a lot of TBC dungeons were too long, so most WOTLK dungeons will take under an hour to complete. Attunements for Heroic dungeons are also being removed.

For those of you who hate rep grinding as much as I do, feel free to join me in thanking Blizz for the new “Champion” system, which will allow you to wear the tabard of a faction so that you can gain rep with that group whenever you complete a task for another faction. The specifics haven’t been clarified yet, but considering my Rogue has crap rep with pretty much everyone and the only one I’m working on is SSO, I think it would be quite nice to be able to earn a little bit of Skyguard or Cenarion Expedition rep on the side.

Gear competition is going to go up a bit, but to ensure that everyone gets a shot at something, the token system is going to be more widely implemented this expansion. In short, it looks like the devs really want players to experience as much of the content as they can this time around, and are providing plenty of motivation to explore the new Northrend instances. The Stratholme instance in Caverns of Time also sounds cool as hell, utilizing the original voice acting from WC3, and it is fully scripted as well.  Let’s hope the PVP panel is this good!

- Stray

Well, it looks like the notes for 2.4.3 are up, and the test realm should follow suit shortly. Not a lot of controversial changes this time around, although some of them are definitely interesting. Couple of positives, couple of negatives, and a whole bunch of I-don’t-cares. Let’s get to it.

“Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.”

Interesting choice for a change, sort of an indirect nerf to dispel protection talents. Not a lot to say about this one really, I’d definitely consider it a positive since it aids in removing RNG from the PVP equation, and any change that does that without hurting other parts of the game is fine by me.

“Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.”

Absolutely brilliant change. The 30-40 range is the first period where having a mount would make a huge difference in leveling speed. The reduction in cost is nice, and it’s cool that the classes that get armor upgrades at 40 will actually have ten levels to earn some cash to shell out on plate or mail instead of worrying about the prohibitive 100g mount cost.

“Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet’s Growl.”

If I understand this change correctly, this blows. Hunters were already pretty much pigeonholed into leveling as BM spec, but Marksman was at least viable due to Trueshot Aura blowing their RAP up enough to give Growl the boost it needed to keep aggro off of them while they pew-pewed away. Now there’s no point leveling as Marks spec unless you want to instance your way 1-70. Stupid change, can’t even fathom why this was necessary.

“Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.”

Finally. As a rogue without access to PVE gear, this change is nothing but beautiful to me. Now rogues are going to have to choose between blowing people up fast and living long enough to finish the job on outlast teams. As much as I think that Resilience was a band-aid fix made to correct an inherently flawed system put forth by short-sighted developers (and there goes my shot at ever working for Blizzard…) it IS the primary PVP stat, and there is absolutely no reason why one class, even my own, should be immune to the effects of neglecting it in favor of offensive stats. If you want to have a “get out of being trained free” card, you’re gonna have to make some sacrifices.

As far as MLG, all of the news on it was definitely interesting. Impressive that a hunter team got second place, grats to Cherez and co. I have to say, I found the information on the players far more entertaining than the competition itself. Serennia looks far different than I would have imagined, though his conduct was pretty much exactly what I expected. I was actually quite surprised that a good few of the players that I’ve seen pictures of have not fit the “stereotypical pro gamer” look. Neilyo, Glorin, Kollektiv, Celex, Sodah, Lycra, they all look like guys who would be cool to go have a beer with. It’s nice to see a few people in professional gaming who have some semblance of social skills and self-confidence.

To be fair, for most people there, it was probably their first time on camera, and it just happened to be at a stressful, competitive event with a very decent sum of money and their professional gaming careers on the table, so I’ll cut them some slack for that. In any case though, the event seemed like it spawned more real-world drama than anything else, and as someone who can’t really take any of this stuff seriously, it was great for lulz. Props to all the players that attended, and thanks for the entertainment. I’m looking forward to the next one.

- Stray

As I type this, WoW is patching on my new Sony Vaio laptop, and despite how intent I was on staying in EQ2, circumstances have forced me to hit the cancel button there and come back to Azeroth. Unfortunately, my laptop budget was too restrictive to allow for a dedicated video card, and as of June 23rd, it will be the only computer I have regular access to. EQ2’s system requirements call for hardware transform and lighting, and though my onboard video card has the capacity for it, the drivers for Vista haven’t yet been released through Sony and the generic version tells me that I need to obtain it through my computer’s wonderful manufacturer. Awesome, thanks bunches for keeping your drivers up to date, Sony.

Given that I can only really work about 10-12 hours a day before I need a sanity recharge, I need some sort of distraction. WoW is basically the MMO equivalent of the fat girl in a low cut top at the bar, there are far better choices, most are better looking, some have better personalities, but at the end of the night you know damn well that she’s a sure thing, and it’s mildly more appealing than the alternative of nothing at all. Sadly, much like going hoggin’, it has a high probability of ending in tears, but that’s never really stopped me before.

In the spirit of a fresh start, I’m going to be rolling a new toon on a new-to-me realm, and I will be following a leveling guide that was sent to me for review. I’ll probably chronicle it as I go along, mostly just for the lulz. Right now I’m thinking I’ll do a lock or a druid on a PVP server. I’ve heard good things about the WotLK talents for both classes, and I think I’ll check them both out before I make my final decision. It looks like I’ll have something to do on my main too, with arena season 4 around the corner and Season 2 gear moving to honor. The season 2 rogue set is my second favorite set in the game (next to Bloodfang) for Undead, so I’m pretty pumped to grab that. I’ll see you all back in Azeroth.

- Stray

One of the features that I have been particularly looking forward to in the Rise of Kunark expansion is the new starting area of Timorous Deep. Neutral races and Sarnaks can begin their adventures in TD, however you will be limited to the evil classes if you choose to start there. So how do you get to Timorous Deep with your other toons? Good characters and the other evil races can make their way there quite easily by taking the carpet to Sinking Sands and then taking it again straight to TD. Fae will have a bit more work ahead of them, I believe, as the route I’ve heard they have to take involves running through Butcherblock Mountains and catching a Griffin over.

I couldn’t really be bothered with doing that on my first main character, so I decided to start a Kerra Bruiser. Given that I usually go by the name “Stray” on my main, it just happened to be a good fit. Stray began his adventures on Chrykori Beach, and was immediately tasked with slaughtering some of the local wildlife. I must say, as an admitted altoholic, I have played through the starting quests in every zone, and the EQ2 dev team just gets better and better with each subsequent release. The starting islands were sort of mediocre, Kelethin was a huge jump in quality and was what drew me to the game in the first place, and Darklight Woods was brilliantly straightforward while still keeping the quests interesting, but Timorous Deep blows them all out of the water in my opinion. The storyline is great, the quests are intuitive, there are some neat little surprises if you look for them, and the rewards are great. Without giving anything away, the opening storyline so far has sent me through 6 quest hubs, each one taking me closer and closer to the heart of the conflict and allowing me to right some of the wrongs inflicted upon the Sarnaks by some of their most hated enemies. The variety has been quite impressive, too. At level 16, I have already done pretty much every type of quest that I’ve ever encountered in an MMO. I have to say that this is pretty much my favorite starting area ever, in any MMO that I’ve played so far (which accounts for every pay-to-play MMO out there and a good number of free ones). It really is a shame that they don’t offer this starting area in the trial, I think it would really help them rope in subscriptions.

Of course, there is always some bad with the good. Fortunately, the negative of Timorous Deep is one that makes a marginal impact on your gameplay experience. The worst part about Timorous Deep is most definitely Gorowyn, the Sarnak city. Much like Timorous Deep is the best starting area experience I’ve had in any MMO, Gorowyn is the worst racial city experience I’ve had. The layout is terrible and counterintuitive, and that includes both the terrain and the NPCs. The graphics in the main area are pretty cool, but the outlying caverns seem fairly uninspired and actually remind me a LOT of EQ1. Thankfully, you only have to briefly pass through there a couple of times to complete quests and then you’re free to “betray” to Neriak or Freeport, both of which are far easier to navigate. Consider Gorowyn to be a tiny rowboat of Suck on the vast ocean of Awesome that is Timorous Deep. If the rest of RoK is anywhere near this enjoyable, I can’t wait to hit 70 and make my way back to Kunark. Kudos to the EQ2 dev team on a job very well done.

- Stray

Download Everquest 2: Rise of Kunark from Direct2Drive Now!

One of the most daunting things I’ve found about starting over in a new MMO is the lack of direction as far as acquiring in-game money. If you’re not a packrat or analytical type, it can be difficult to decide what to fill your tiny initial bag space with in order to start generating some income. In an ideal world, there would be some sort of guide to help you figure out what to auction off and what to vendor, right? Well, I’m going to make the world a little more ideal for you. First, let’s hit on some basic principles of MMO money-making.

• Create an alt for auctioning. I created a Ratonga warlock, started him out on the Outpost of the Overlord, and ran to the boat to Freeport. I prefer to use the broker in South Freeport since it’s right by a mailbox and crafting tables in case I decide to also turn this character into a crafting toon.
• Take the first few silver you earn on your main and send it to your broker alt to buy a box or bag. Upgrade this as you have money, since it limits how much you can sell at one time. I started with a 6-slotter and was very strict in prioritizing what I was selling, but now that I have a 28-slot it’s much easier.
• Research your prices. Being lazy about selling will just end in tears, and you’ll kick yourself when you realize that the shiny you sold for 10 silver regularly goes for 45 gold.
• Loot everything, in the worst case it’s a couple of copper at the vendor.

With that covered, let’s get to the EQ2-specific stuff. You’re going to want to pick up pretty much anything you can loot, initially. Pay particular attention to the little golden shinies on the ground. These are collectibles for a special variety of quest. If you bring up your quest journal, you’ll see that there is a tab for these collection quests. You can drag and drop collectibles here to add them to your collection, and you can turn in full sets at Collector NPCs in the major cities for items, adventure xp, and achievement xp. For now though, you want to sell the rarer ones. Always check the price of any shinies you find on the broker before adding them to your collection. If they sell for upwards of 4g, it’s worth putting off completing the collection in favor of getting the cash. Leveling is fast enough early on, and you’ll get the achievement xp either way. If it’s cheap, just add it to your collection and sell any doubles you get. Also, don’t neglect harvesting. On most servers, roots and leaded loam sell very decently, for more than enough to warrant the broker box space. The rare harvesting drops also sell fairly well, for the most part.

As far as drops, any treasured or better attuneable items can be sold for transmute fodder (similar to WoW enchanting items) and Adept I spells for other classes will usually fetch a few gold or more each. If you plan on crafting, you may want to hang on to the “Advanced _________, Volume X” until you can use them. They actually do come in quite handy for leveling your crafting skills. If something has the flavor text “Precious something or other treasure” it is vendor trash.

If you follow this guide, you’ll probably have your 2 plat horse by level 30. I’ve played for about 10 hours since I opened my account, and I’m already up to 60 gold. Good luck, and have fun!

- Stray

Well, I’ve mentioned in my past couple of posts that I’ve mostly been playing Rock Band lately. Of course, a console rhythm game certainly can’t fill the MMO gap, so I recently re-subscribed to Everquest 2, a game which I already have played and loved, but I cancelled my sub for it because I was playing WoW too much to warrant the cost. Coming from WoW, EQ2 is a breath of fresh air. The classes are more varied, the world is more lush, and the PVE actually requires thought. The community is also quite a bit more mature, helpful, and friendly than the WoW community, although I must say as a disclaimer that I have seen many, many awesome people in the WoW community and the vast majority of comments I’ve received through this site have been positive and constructive. The major difference is that the trolls run the show on the WoW forums, whereas on the EQ2 forums, they get slapped down rather than celebrated.

Anyway, when I first played, I had a few characters over level 10, a Half-Elf Necromancer, Iksar Bruiser, High Elf Warden, Dark Elf Fury (I like pointy ears, don’t hate). I found that each class offered a much more distinct playstyle than WoW classes, even at low level play, and each forced me to take a different approach to similar situations. My Warden (think druid heals with enhancement shaman dps) was easily able to take on 2-3 even con mobs with no issue due to HoTs, roots, reasonable melee ability, and decent nukes. My Bruiser (no real WoW equivalent, avoidance tank with moderate melee DPS, stuns, knockbacks, and Feign Death) could handle much tougher single mobs, even heroic mobs (the EQ2 equivalent of elites) with good timing on my stuns, knockdowns, and self-heal due to my ability to frontload DPS and gain a significant health advantage from the start of the fight. My Necro (pretty much a WoW warlock without nukes, but with better dots and pets) could solo inidividual mobs that he had no business even touching due to his high DPS, root, and pet. Heroics were nothing to him. Get more than 2 mobs of any level on him though, and he went down fast.

I’ve started over on a new server this time, and I’m playing a Mystic (again, no WoW equivalent, wards against damage, debuffs, and melees for damage) and an Inquisitor (everything that WoW Ret Pallies should be, a battle cleric that hits hard and aids his group by doing so). Both of those guys are going to have combat experience (xp gained from killing mobs) locked after level 10 so I can get the most out of the game with them. I’ve also got a level 16 Bruiser that’s not xp-locking so that I can twink out my 2 slow-leveling toons. I decided to start fresh with a new account since it costs the same either way, and this way I get the free month of play. SOE’s strategy with expansions involves them packaging every previous content release with whatever the current expansion is. Buying the new EQ2: Rise of Kunark expansion nets you EQ2 Classic, the Kingdom of Sky, Desert of Flames, Echoes of Faydwer, and of course Rise of Kunark expansions, and the three mini-expansions referred to as “adventure packs”, as well as 30 days of free gameplay. It’s a ton of content for $40. The only issues I have with EQ2 are the lack of PVP outside of PVP servers, and the fact that they only give you limited character slots.

The thing that has amazed me most about it the game is that I literally have more quests than I can do before I outlevel them. There are so many quests in the game that if you leave combat XP on, you’d need to level two characters to 80 in order to see every zone at the appropriate level. Second place for amazement factor is the tradeskilling. Tradeskilling in EQ2 is an intricate mini-game that ramps up in complexity as you progress through the levels. I’ve seen people who are level 30 adventurers, but level 80 crafters because they enjoy the crafting side of things to the point that leveling is kind of just something that they do when they’re bored or need some cash to buy a rare crafting component. Coming from the tradeskilling in WoW, it’s a pretty shocking change, but definitely a welcome one. I’ll be posting a mini-review of the new starting area, Timorous Deep, included in the RoK expansion, as well as a quick guide for making some start-up gold as a noob in case some of you decide to follow me over to the world of Norrath.

- Stray

Download Everquest 2: Rise of Kunark from Direct2Drive Now!

14-day EQ2 Trial

I could go on for pages about the numerous things that have pushed me away from the game, but what it comes down to in the end is that my love of WoW has simply dwindled. I will continue doing the two things that I still enjoy doing, twinking and finding creative ways to make gold, and I will update this blog when I feel I have something worth saying, but regular updates right now would only consist of my frustrations with the direction the devs are taking the game in. I will most likely end up using this site as more of a personal gaming blog, so those of you who play games other than WoW will have something else to look forward to.

On that note, I mentioned in my last post that I picked up an Xbox 360 and Rock Band, and I’m now drumming on hard, with the first few songs completed on expert mode. I’m stuck at the most common sticking point for hard drummers, Vasoline by Stone Temple Pilots, and I think at this point my main problem is that I’m looking to legitimately play it, as simply passing the song by exploiting game mechanics isn’t enough for me. I’m sure a couple of runs in practice mode will give me a solid enough feel for it that I’ll be able to take it on decently. I’m also one of the scores of people that realized after playing drums on Rock Band that, well, playing drums is REALLY fun. I’ve played guitar for eight years now, and I am really wishing that I had taken up drums instead, so I’ll be remedying that situation shortly. I’m planning on picking up a Roland TD-3 in the near future, and the bonus is that with a little bit of garage engineering, I can use it as a replacement for the decidedly cheap and fragile Rock Band kit. Any non-drumming musicians out there who have ever tried to start a band know how few drummers there are out there, so any game that helps to address that issue is a game worth buying. Who knows, maybe your best friend who’s never picked up an instrument in his life is the next Keith Moon…

Anyway, just to make sure I’m being absolutely clear on this, the podcast series is effectively cancelled until further notice. I MAY end up doing it at some point, or not. I was on the path to completing it fairly easily, and I will most likely do a writeup on common items that are easy to make gold off of on the AH, but for now, I simply have no drive or desire to do it. I still strongly suggest listening to my primer, as it will give you a leg up on about 80% of the game’s population as far as AH transactions, and it is only 4 minutes long. Again, my apologies for not following through on my promise, but I don’t want to turn a video game into a second job. After all, at the end of the day this is CASUAL-wow.com, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

- Stray