WoW 5.0 - Mists of Pandaria

Enix wrote:

@ mateo: Paladins have a similar tank/heals/DPS utility. Plus they've got some good lore characters. And they're sexy. :P

I've stayed away from Pallys because I've played a warrior all through...so the thought of another plate grind isn't all that palatable. Still, I'll give it another shot.

Isn't there four classes that are 'tweeners? Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Monk all have options...although I guess there's no Shaman tanks.

Aristophan wrote:

I've been very impressed by Pandaria. I've also been on hiatus, and it was nice to come back to so many improvements. I hit 90 about a week ago (I also started a new toon), and there is a ton of content still to explore. Also, heroics are fun again.

Pandaria has been awesome. I dropped out right after Wrath, out of burnout. The cinematic for Pandaria got me interested again, and it's been awesome! It's really strange to hit the cap and have so much to do! Scenarios? Battlegrounds? Multiple dailies hubs? Dungeons? It's all been awesome content, and I haven't even gotten to raid yet! (Gear)

mateo wrote:

Isn't there four classes that are 'tweeners? Shaman, Druid, Paladin, and Monk all have options...although I guess there's no Shaman tanks.

My shaman's named Sherrman. That's as close as you'll get to shaman tanking.

I hear you about the plate grind. My main is a paladin (engineer), my first alt is a DK (smith/JC) and I'm thinking about rolling a warrior because I miss the arms warrior I left on my old server.

Needless to say I've mined enough rocks to pave over Azeroth and half of Pandaria.

Enix wrote:

I'm thinking about rolling a warrior because I miss the arms warrior I left on my old server.

Arms has changed a LOT. Dunno when the last time you played, but even now they;re doing MORE changes for the upcoming patch. None of them seem like really good changes either...

So, to start a topic here with a cold opening:

My wife got an idea into her head about how we can level more and a bit quicker. Ok, A LOT quicker. Lemme see if you guys are with me on this morally gray path.

To start, me and my wife have been leveling and dabbling with Alts like crazy since coming back to WoW. A couple different reasons for that, I guess. Not playing through a lot of the new content when the sundering happened after Cata. And also, because its so much easier to level and trying out leveling with different characters and all the new mechanics that have been introduced for all classes since we last played.

So, she came up with talking about Recruit A Friend. I dunno if everyone knows the deal, but basically you can link accts and get a summon to one another and TRIPLE XP bonus for EVERYTHING as long as you're together. This seems PERFECT for a husband and wife who are having tons of fun dabbling through all the characters and redone content. Also, "The Battle Chest" is on sale for $5 bucks right now!

So her plan is such that I make a new acct and she "recruits" me. Using my other email, but the same contact info, I get an invite to try WoW for 15 days. And then I buy the Battle Chest for $5 bucks so we can level fast to 80 on a couple chars. With this, she also gets a unique mount in her acct, that I really don't care about. And then, after 3 months and a couple of lvl 80s, she thought about transferring those characters to my main acct. Which I guess is possible, but Blizzard never came out and said they condone this.

Also I guess there is a system in the RAF that gives you the ability to "grant" free levels every so often? Not sure how that works...

TL;DR version: Refer A Friend bonus for me and wife leveling new acct and then transferring my toon to my main acct after 3 months and just using that Refer A Friend acct. as a Triple Xp booster and cool summoning trick. Is that a morally gray area, or is that cheating Blizzard and all other WoW players? Would love to know what anyone else thinks!

first off... it's a game. who cares as long as you're having fun.

second... you're not the first to have thought of or done this.

Yea, I just have an inner voice kinda saying "It's kinda skirting the edges of fair play, isn't it?" In the back of my mind. It's not a big deal. Just thought I'd bring up my thoughts about it.

It also intrigued me, because it almost feels like a "Freemium" model, or at least the edges of one. Where you can pay a little bit for an XP booster. I dunno, just thought it was worth a discussion. Wife is pretty much already on board to do it. Yay videogames?

By the way, you can send a RAF invite to yourself. You don't need to set up a new email/Bnet account. You're allowed eight WoW accounts under your one BNET account.

If she has level 40 character on her account, then when you and your wife reach 80, you grant 40 levels to it and she will have two level 80's. You a grantable level every 2 levels, so at 80 you get to grant 40 levels.

RAF is an awesome way to get some characters up to 80.

**Edit to make some corrections in how granting levels works.

What you and your wife are doing, Leo, is A-OK. Blizzard wants folks to get to 90 as quickly as they can and has created all sorts of shortcuts -- Recruit-A-Friend, bind-on-account gear that gives you experience, the guild XP bonus, Looking for Group dungeon feature, PvP that grants XP, etc.. Right about the time MoP came out, Blizzard even let returning players resurrect one toon at lvl 80.

If you're dying to see through the old content (there's a lot of it, and it's worth the trip, especially if you remember Azeroth pre-sundering), play the RAF toons through to 90 and level a second set to take it nice and reasonably slow through the old zones.

Most of what Blizzard does these days is geared toward level-capped players. They want new players to be able to play with their friends quickly instead of spending months slogging through Desolace, Hellfire Peninsula and Borean Tundra to catch up.

(Pro tip: If you're going to level as a pair, make sure each set of toons has one tank or one healer. Tank-DPS means instant queues for dungeons; healer-DPS means you'll never need any downtime for leveling. Double DPS is wonderful, but it slows down your queue times.)

Propagandalf wrote:

By the way, you can send a RAF invite to yourself. You don't need to set up a new email/Bnet account. You're allowed eight WoW accounts under your one BNET account.

Does this mean that you can mail BOAs to another WOW account under the same BNET account (and the same server)? I know at least some BOA items say "binds to BNET account", but I'm not sure if they all do or if that allows mailing to different WOW accounts.

As far as I know, Captain, heirlooms and the new BOA rare items are restricted to your server and your WoW account, not your Battle.net account. I don't think they're restricted to Alliance only or Horde only, but I've never tried to mail across factions.

They are restricted to your account and server. You can freely trade them back and forth among your horde and alliance characters, though.

I've got a really bad MMO itch recently and WoW seems to be one of the few out there I'd consider playing.

Is it feasible to get any decent play in without dedicating 30 hours a week?

ZaneRockfist wrote:

They are restricted to your account and server.

Yeah, I know, but what I was asking was, does "your account" mean WOW account or BNET account? I'm not in a position to try it yet, but the fact that at least some BOAs explicitly say "Binds to Battle.Net account" suggests the latter.

Edit: Ah, here it is on WowWiki: "As of patch 4.1, account-bound items can be mailed from characters attached to different World of Warcraft accounts if they are under the same Battle.net account and on the same realm."

Bear wrote:

I've got a really bad MMO itch recently and WoW seems to be one of the few out there I'd consider playing.

Is it feasible to get any decent play in without dedicating 30 hours a week?

I'd say yes. As with all MMOs, the more time you put in the more you can do; however, WoW has lots of options for that time. For example, the highest level of PVE currency is Valor points, and you can get them by questing, scenarios, dungeons, or raiding. I've been able get the 1000 point weekly cap for the last few weeks pretty easily, while spending a lot less time than 30 hours (and I'm not the most efficient player either).

Aristophan wrote:

I'd say yes. As with all MMOs, the more time you put in the more you can do; however, WoW has lots of options for that time. For example, the highest level of PVE currency is Valor points, and you can get them by questing, scenarios, dungeons, or raiding. I've been able get the 1000 point weekly cap for the last few weeks pretty easily, while spending a lot less time than 30 hours (and I'm not the most efficient player either).

Thanks Aristophan,

I was a pretty bad WoW junky years ago. When I look back on the "years" of playtime I wonder how I ever spent that much time playing a game. Grinding mats, daily quests, repeated runs...yuck. Not sure I ever would want to, or could go back to that type of gameplay.

Actually, when i look back at the time I spent playing WoW, I realize that the guild was as much a part of my enjoyment of the game as the actual game itself. I miss that social experience.

I'm also a former Wow junky. My wife was too - so much so that she vows never to play again. I do feel that I am currently playing less time, but getting more done. One of the factions you can build up quite literally nets you a farm, where not only can you grow food for recipes, but also mats for end game crafting and (with the next patch) reputation with other factions.

I'm on the GWJ guild on Blackhand, and while the guild channel can be pretty quiet at times, I have not had a single asshole experience.

@ Bear: The WoW grind still exists, but it's less grind-y somehow. In other words you don't have to grind out A, B, C and D (and some of X,Y and Z) just so you can run Naxx. No attunements, either. Just a pretty minimal gear requirement to let you do the next tier of whatever it is.

I'm not real serious about WoW -- I haven't stepped foot in a raid, for instance. But there's lots to see and do. Hit me (or someone else) for a Scroll of Rez if you want to give it another shot.

@ Captain: Thanks for tracking that down. I was under the mistaken impression that the account meant WoW, not Battle.net. Now if Blizzard would make it so I can mail heirlooms to some Horde toons on another server ...

Hey, does anyone have a scroll of resurrection? I'm seriously thinking about jumping back in, and the free character transfer(for my main), and a free mount(for whoever gives it to me) is mighty tempting....

cube wrote:

Hey, does anyone have a scroll of resurrection? I'm seriously thinking about jumping back in, and the free character transfer(for my main), and a free mount(for whoever gives it to me) is mighty tempting....

I'd be happy to send you one....PM me with your e-mail.

Bear wrote:

I've got a really bad MMO itch recently and WoW seems to be one of the few out there I'd consider playing.

Is it feasible to get any decent play in without dedicating 30 hours a week?

Bear, come back in, the water's nice and warm!

Couple of things have changed since you last tanked a raid.

1. Character progression is faster, and the skill tree has been streamlined for all classes.
2. There's still grind, but like Enix said, it's less of a grind. There's a lot to do at endgame, Battlegrounds, Scenarios, Dungeons, Raids, Dailies....lots of variety as you are gearing up.
3. Speaking of dailies....they are now rotating, so while there are a finite number, you don't know which ones they are, or which areas you'll get sent to. And there are multiple hubs now, so if you're burnt out on one area...go to the next one over and do those instead!
4. I can't express how GOOD Pandaria is.

I'm putting in only an hour, maybe two each night.

Aristophan wrote:

I'm on the GWJ guild on Blackhand, and while the guild channel can be pretty quiet at times, I have not had a single asshole experience.

Damn. I'll just have to try harder!

mateo wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I'm on the GWJ guild on Blackhand, and while the guild channel can be pretty quiet at times, I have not had a single asshole experience.

Damn. I'll just have to try harder!

You'll need to outsource if you want to come across as snarky Brother Mateo

Happy Patch 5.2 Day!

Patch notes here.

Looks like I banked all that Living Steel for nothing. The new engineering stuff (mount and 36-slot food bag) seems to have vanished at the last minute. Guess I'll see when I log in tonight.

I posted this in the most recent WoW topic, too, but figured it can't hurt to try twice. I'm going to dip a few toes back in after about four years... haven't played since Wrath. If anyone wants the goodies from a scroll of resurrection, please let me know.

I don't know why it took me this long to notice how much the Shado-Pan are based on the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones.

CaptainCrowbar wrote:

I don't know why it took me this long to notice how much the Shado-Pan are based on the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones.

The Black Company did it first, even though they were somewhat more mobile.

According to MMO Champion, "The team size has increased 40% and another 40% increase is planned, which will hopefully allow for a new content patch every month, a new raid tier every three to five months, and an annual expansion." Seems like Blizzard is really going to fight to keep WoW relevant going forward.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

According to MMO Champion, "The team size has increased 40% and another 40% increase is planned, which will hopefully allow for a new content patch every month, a new raid tier every three to five months, and an annual expansion." Seems like Blizzard is really going to fight to keep WoW relevant going forward.

They have to, since Titan is dead in the water (whatever it was), and the market has moved to F2P or MOBAs.

I think Blizzard can get it done. I've let my subscription lapse, but I'd probably come back for the right (read any) expansion.

I didn't hear that about Titan. What's the problem with it? That sucks, I was looking forward to finding out more about it.