WoW 5.0 - Mists of Pandaria

ranalin wrote:
Crimeny wrote:

Maaaan. I'd hate to delay my exploration of Pandaland for that much longer. Not to mention I'd miss not having access to heirlooms and the 90K gold my main somehow had stocked up on during my post hiatus play. (And yes, even I was surprised I had that much.) I've also grown hugely attached to my Belf Pally.

I'm just considering my options, but is the Horde guild still around? My top issue is just being on a PVP server. I have no issue with playing in a dead guild. Hell, I'm doing so now. With LFD and LFR I can pretty much get all my grouping done anyway. Plus, I can bring over some heirlooms to mail to Alli alts if I decide to roll some later.

I thought you kept your gold and heirlooms on transfers? You just lose everything in your mailbox.

Correct.

ranalin wrote:

I thought you kept your gold and heirlooms on transfers? You just lose everything in your mailbox.

No, you do keep those. I'm just weighing my options since I don't want to pay for both server AND faction transfer. I'm just wondering if I were to transfer my Belf if I would be able to get into the dead Horde GWJ guild. I have no problem with being in a dead guild. And this gives me the opportunity to bring heirlooms with me if I decide to roll any alts.

My issue was just rerolling from scratch. I'd hate to leave so much behind.

Here's the GWJ Horde guild, Crimeny. Not much to it. It's only level 2, so there aren't any bonuses.

The good news: It looks like BadKen is the guild leader over there, and as far as I know he's subbed. So hit him up here before you make the move. Hell, maybe *you* can be GM over there. A boy can dream ...

There also appears to be a second Horde guild elsewhere. I have no idea what's up with this one.

@ ranalin: I think he means he plans to mail stuff to alts after he transfers. If you're 81 and up, you can take 50K in gold with you and whatever you can cram into your bags and bank.

I'm fine with the guild being level 2. The current guild I'm in is also at level 2 so it's a net gain/loss of zero.

I'll definitely hit BadKen up. I'd love to get away from the PVP CRZ nonsense.

Side note: In case anyone is curious about my profile.

Side side note: I looked up the name Crimeny on Blackhand and it's being occupied by a level 4 hunter. Grrr.

So I've been noodling around with professions. Some early impressions:

Mining: Find ore, dig ore. Same as always. However, there is a ton of ghost iron ore out there. There are even rich nodes in the first area you get to -- that's a new one. Problem is, you need to be 550 to mine them, and smelting doesn't level mining like it used to. But I cleared that hump and the rich nodes no longer mock me. Also, it doesn't seem that the nodes produce any gems. Definitely no motes or primals or volatiles.

Engineering: You need ore. Smelt it and start making stuff. So far I've made bombs and a scope. I'm short of the mats to make goggles that show more mining nodes. You need Spirit of Harmony for that. In a couple of hours being out in the world mining, questing and killing stuff, I have three motes, and you need 10 motes for one SoH. High-level recipes in all profs need SoH; there's your bottleneck.

Blacksmithing: You need more ore (see the pattern?) and some patterns. This morning, I cranked out some plate boots, bracers and belts today. Problem is, their stats are random. Some will be for DPSers, some will be for tanks and a few will be for healers. There appears to be no way to control the stats for the low-level recipes. Four stacks of Ghost Iron Bars gave me 20+ points and some useable tank gear, so it's good.

Jewelcrafting: See above (ore? check; random patterns? check). Prospecting produces more stuff these days.. I'm getting 2-4 gems instead of the 1-2 I got with Elementium Ore -- that's good. Plus you can get a Sparkling Shard. Ten of those combine into a Serpent's Eye, which is your JC-only gem in this expansion. I blew most of my ore on Blacksmithing and prospecting so I'm still at 550.

Alchemy: This was a weird one. I trained it in SW and picked up the recipes. Only problem: There are only two: a health pot and a health/mana pot. I got some green tea leaf and made a few healing pots. Guess what? That's how I learned more recipes. The choke point here is Golden Lotus (i.e. the Frost Lotus of Cata). Need some? Start herbing. GL was 1,200 gold on the AH this morning.

Cooking: You'll be awash in cooking mats soon enough. Problem is, you can't actually cook anything new until you push on toward the Pandaria cooking trainer. If you need food with stats, vendor food now has decent stats (+100 in secondary stat, like hit and crit).

First aid: I've looted about two stacks of cloth already. That's a nice change, as Cata was stingy on cloth. Same drill as usual here -- you make one bandage, then a better version of it.

Fishing: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz But I'll level it anyway.

Arch: There are digs in Jade Forest, but I haven't ventured out there yet.

Okay, only 4 hours in so far...and I already have a full complement of green gear for both specs (prot/fury) that rocketed my (insert stat here) to the stratosphere.

The plus side is I am now properly geared for Dragon Souls....oh, crap.

/sigh
Seems weird to not have a WoW xpac. I may cave.

A belated thank you, Mister Penguin.

I'm digging it. The leveling content in Mists *really* shows the lessons learned from Wrath and Cata. (These zones are more like the new Cata leveling zones rather than the endgame leveling zones, if that makes sense.)

And I'm really digging the story beats they're laying down. Feels like they actually got a couple of people to put words together who gave a crap about that sort of thing. At least in places.

I have to cop to sadness that we won't be raiding under the BHA tag this time around. At least not anytime soon. : /

Michael Zenke wrote:

A belated thank you, Mister Penguin.

I'm digging it. The leveling content in Mists *really* shows the lessons learned from Wrath and Cata. (These zones are more like the new Cata leveling zones rather than the endgame leveling zones, if that makes sense.)

And I'm really digging the story beats they're laying down. Feels like they actually got a couple of people to put words together who gave a crap about that sort of thing. At least in places.

I have to cop to sadness that we won't be raiding under the BHA tag this time around. At least not anytime soon. : /

What Hack said about the zones. There's a story. There's lots to do. There's decent voice acting. I'm really liking the leveling experience. I'm not sure I'll like it the third or fifth or seventh time I do it, but it's great at the moment.

One whine that's petty but here goes: Enough with the ore already! I've actually started to bypass a lot of the regular ghost iron ore nodes because I'm drowning in the stuff. I know it's a good problem to have because I just hit 550 on engineering right before I had to log off this morning, and I can get another 10+ pts and some great stuff without too much effort. I've just never had *too many* raw mats right off the bat. Weird.

Lastly, don't be so sure about the lack of raiding. A lot of the old folks are back, I think I can do regular runs this time around (and my paladin can cover any of the 3 spots if need be), and we've got some really good new folks in the fold. (I'm looking at you, Bifur, Serj, Mateo, Draug and Heat and others I can't connect by forum and game name). It might not be for a few weeks -- there's only one toon at 88 and five at 86 -- but we'll get there.

Good lord -- some optimist has hijacked my GWJ account. I promise I'll stop.

I'm heatus.

Enix wrote:

Here's the GWJ Horde guild, Crimeny. Not much to it. It's only level 2, so there aren't any bonuses.

The good news: It looks like BadKen is the guild leader over there, and as far as I know he's subbed. So hit him up here before you make the move. Hell, maybe *you* can be GM over there. A boy can dream ...

There also appears to be a second Horde guild elsewhere. I have no idea what's up with this one.

@ ranalin: I think he means he plans to mail stuff to alts after he transfers. If you're 81 and up, you can take 50K in gold with you and whatever you can cram into your bags and bank.

Pretty sure this info is buried in the Guild sticky, but the short version is thus: GWJ started on Blackhand, and at one point, migrated partially to Baelgun, IIRC. Alliance had a HUGE resurgence during Burning Crusade, and is the longest continously running GWJ guild out of every MMO out there; I expect this trend to continue. Anyway, the Horde stuff gets a resurgence every now and again, but dies off fairly quickly; there's just not enough interest to maintain it.

I fired up a Panda ... I hadn't really played with all of the lowbie areas when Cataclysm came out, the updates I'm running across from that expansion are entertaining enough that I'm back to enjoying leveling up.

If someone can pass on an invite to Hirokache if you happen to see me around, I'd appreciate it.

AD, hit us up in game tonight. Do the ol' /who GWJ trick and PST someone.

I'll be on Friday morning for a spell if you're not on tonight.

Welcome back!

Michael Zenke wrote:

I have to cop to sadness that we won't be raiding under the BHA tag this time around. At least not anytime soon. : /

What you talkin' 'bout Willis? We have enough to raid most nights.

Now, what we can raid on, that's a whole different discussion.

At least a GWJ wipe is entertaining.

Enix wrote:

Lastly, don't be so sure about the lack of raiding. A lot of the old folks are back, I think I can do regular runs this time around (and my paladin can cover any of the 3 spots if need be), and we've got some really good new folks in the fold. (I'm looking at you, Bifur, Serj, Mateo, Draug and Heat and others I can't connect by forum and game name). It might not be for a few weeks -- there's only one toon at 88 and five at 86 -- but we'll get there.

Well, I'm not EXACTLY new...I have been with GWJ forever, but I started WoW at Tactical Gamers, then came back to GWJ BHA when that sorta fell apart.

Then some good times, then GWJ Guild drama, then I lost interest in the game, unemployed...now I'm back.

I haven't been around as long as Reap, but almost....

BTW, while we're discussing roles....my warrior is dual specced prot/fury. I've been playing the DPS role mainly because my gear has always been better, and we have better main tanks. But my new and shiny greens have me ready to be a sheild bashing, sundering fool, so if you need a bad tank, or a decent OT, I can jump in!

http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/wo...

Sales of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion have been disappointing, according to investment bank Lazard Capital Markets. The fourth expansion for Blizzard Entertainment’s massively popular online game has sold between 600,000 and 700,000 copies at retail since its launch earlier this week, Lazard estimates.

Historically, each new World of Warcraft expansion has outsold its predecessors, Lazard said, but sales of Pandaria are down 60 percent from the previous expansion pack, Cataclysm, which has sold 3.3 million units since its launch in December 2010. While these figures don’t take digital market performance into account, Lazard analyst Atul Bagga believes Pandaria’s digital sales won’t make up for its poor retail performance.

It's probably not the whole story, but that's quite a tide change. Even so, a mere 6 or 7 hundred thousand isn't to be sniffed at for an almost 8 year old game.

Guys, you're killing me! I so wish I could join ya'll and bring over my Priest and Warlock (and heck, why not my Warrior and Rogue while I'm at it!). What do you do in the situation where your wife (or significant other) is still worried about the addiction loop of an MMO and is worried about you (or her) getting sucked back into the fold?

mateo wrote:

Well, I'm not EXACTLY new...

Sorry, Mate. I joined up when Cata came out. My institutional memory doesn't go back any farther than that. P.S.: I think you should go prot. I don't want to have to roll against you for gear.

Unrelated, and filed under the All Roads Lead Back to Blackhand:

I rolled Horde over on Stormrage to play with some friends (and to level a hordie -- there's 25 achievement points in it, for one thing). Seems that Blizzard is offering free character transfers from and to select realms. As it turns out, Stormrage is one of the source realms. Its destination: Trollbane, which, if you've been paying attention, is one of the realms Blackhand is paired with via CRZ.

@ Leo: Limit yourself to an hour (or two) a night and maybe only 2-3 nights a week. Whatever you think your wife can tolerate. You probably won't be raiding heroic whatever that way, but you'll be able to see and do a lot. And there's a ton to do.

Scratched wrote:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/27/wo...

Sales of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion have been disappointing, according to investment bank Lazard Capital Markets. The fourth expansion for Blizzard Entertainment’s massively popular online game has sold between 600,000 and 700,000 copies at retail since its launch earlier this week, Lazard estimates.

Historically, each new World of Warcraft expansion has outsold its predecessors, Lazard said, but sales of Pandaria are down 60 percent from the previous expansion pack, Cataclysm, which has sold 3.3 million units since its launch in December 2010. While these figures don’t take digital market performance into account, Lazard analyst Atul Bagga believes Pandaria’s digital sales won’t make up for its poor retail performance.

It's probably not the whole story, but that's quite a tide change. Even so, a mere 6 or 7 hundred thousand isn't to be sniffed at for an almost 8 year old game.

Interesting. I'd like to see how the digital numbers shake out. That's how I ordered it. Blizzard pimped the hell out of the digital download this time, and in this era of Steam and DLC, I figure I'm not alone.

That said, sure, I'd be very concerned about the long-term future of the game. WoW is half of BA's operating income?! That sure pays a lot of bills. Does BA have anything major and new in the pipeline? I can't believe the new Diablo helped a whole lot.

I'm not concerned for WoW. They knew that retail sales would be low. The digital sales will more than catch them up, judging from the complaints of queues across many servers across all regions.

If they really have 10m subscribers, then only 1/3 need to download it to make it worth while.

We may be looking a a slow downward spiral where WoW consolidates servers and goes F2P to keep getting one last dollar out of the 3m die hards.

Which is fine. We'll all still have WoW for a very long time.

Same here, I'm not concerned so long as Bliz manage their costs well as it contracts, even now WoW at a fraction of it's subscriber base is something to be proud of and envied by other companies. Who knows, with a smaller subscriber base it can give them new opportunities to try different things.

What Scratched said...

Just look at all of the features added to EQ after it was no longer the big dog in town. I am not saying that it was the best implementation of features, or that they hadn't been implemented in other games, but they added: monster play (including dungeons and story quests), hirelings, randomized dungeons, achievements, zone revamps, tasks, tribute system, cartography, armor dyes, item sockets/gems, etc.

For any of you guys who want a few bucks off, Amazon has 60 day timecards for $25.47

http://amzn.com/B00063BLG8

Really enjoying this expansion so far. I don't have the kind of playtime that I used to, so all of the stuff that was added looks like tons of content compared to previous launches. Took a break from questing to do pet battles and ended up just doing that for the rest of the session. For something that naysayers played off as 'just pokemon' or 'dumb' before launch, it's darn fun. There's enough depth and strategy involved that makes it a game in itself.

Seems like i was a bit too successful in my AH trading these last couple of days - today I got a mail from Blizzard informing me that my account has been closed due to "Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy".

Blizzard wrote:

This account was closed because one or more characters were identified exchanging, or contributing to the exchange of, in-game property (items or gold) for "real-world" currency. This exchange process negatively impacts the World of Warcraft game environment by detracting from the value of the in-game economy.

Now, I know I wasn't hacked or anything because I have an authenticator and I logged on mere minutes before receiving that mail without noticing any suspicious activity. And there sure as hell wasn't any gold trading going on, I was just mining my ass off, leveling professions on alts, and all in all quite enjoying the scenery of Pandaria before they so rudely interrupted me.

Petition it? I know another guy who got banned for that, dunno if they'll work with you any more than him. Sucks

I sent out a ticket, but I don't have high hopes that they will restore my access this weekend.
They should restore it eventually because I haven't done anything that violates their terms of service, it's just that their policy of banning based on slightest suspicion and then waiting to see if the person will complain is really, really pissing me off at this point. I hope they at least give me couple of days of free play because right now I have no access to a service I'm still paying.

Wow, that was faster than I expected. They revoked the ban and I'm back in.

So I was able to secure the name Crimeny over the weekend and my Pally is now leveling in a happy non-PVP world. If you see someone running around with the GWJ Horde tag, that's probably me.

Crimeny wrote:

So I was able to secure the name Crimeny over the weekend and my Pally is now leveling in a happy non-PVP world. If you see someone running around with the GWJ Horde tag, that's probably me.

I'll wave. Unless we're in a BG together. Then I'll make a special point of running over and giving you 10 honor points.

Unrelated: The Tushui Pandaren tabard (and I'm assuming its Horde counterpart) work in some old dungeons as well as the new ones. I ran H-UP this morning to pick up some mats for an alt (and take yet another shot at a mount I'll never get) and picked up a nice chunk of rep (1K+; I didn't keep track).

My trip through H-Sethekk Halls yielded exactly no rep, fwiw.

edit: damned double posts!

Now that MOP has been released, is that Scroll of Resurrection promotion still ongoing? I'd be interested in the "get a character to 80 instantly" part of if and haven't been subscribed this year at all.