WoW 5.4 -- Scaling Raids

Slacker1913 wrote:

All in all, I am having mixed feelings about the island - on the one hand it's really easy to gear alts now, on the other hand, it seems like the whole place was designed to be slow to get around (the long ramp spiraling the island, the "what the hell were they thinking" albatross taxi) and has some of the worst MoP timesinks like the horrible Shaohao reputation grind.

I hear ya. There's lots of stuff to do and a lot of achievements to be, ah, achieved. I'm with dhelor on the offsets ... I'll probably end up with a lot of offsets (or a lot of shards).

But ... there's no real progression - no level, no rep, no story - unless you're doing SoO. And I'm not. I'll spend plenty of time on the island and probably have fun doing it, but it feels a little static for some reason. I'm not sure I can explain it any better than that.

On the other (third?) hand, now's the time to play with some alts. I have several I've ignored. Now's the time to play 'em.

Holy crap I just got the mount from Huolon.

Dang. Grats!

Man, people definitely want that mount...
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/VBtnlev.jpg)

Logged in for a bit last night. Figured I'd go over to the Golden Pagoda and grab a few dailies to easy back into the game, and...what the hell happened here? One big black scar!

Guess it's been a while.

There's your explanation:

mateo wrote:

Logged in for a bit last night. Figured I'd go over to the Golden Pagoda and grab a few dailies to easy back into the game, and...what the hell happened here? One big black scar!

Guess it's been a while.

Slacker1913 wrote:

Garrosh is a dick. There's your explanation.

FTFY

mateo wrote:

Logged in for a bit last night. Figured I'd go over to the Golden Pagoda and grab a few dailies to easy back into the game, and...what the hell happened here? One big black scar!

If you want Golden Lotus rep (and you might be the only one who hasn't yet burned out on their dailies!) try the SW corner of the Vale where the Shado-Pan hang out. You can also kill things in that zone for rep. Plus you can run dailies and scenarios for bonus rep - make sure you click on the star by the rep name in your character screen.

That said, you no longer need rep to buy gear. Rep's only good for mounts (at exalted) and some recipes (tailoring, enchanting, leatherworking).

I resubscribed at my wife's request, but I have found absolutely nothing to keep me in this patch (and paying for my sub) other than the new LFR content in Siege of Org and slowly leveling my paladin towards 90 (at 56 now in Silithus, trying to catch up to my wife). If I'm not impressed with the content very soon, I'll unsub again until the inevitable expansion comes out.

Connected realms update (source)

Completed Connections
Aegwynn and Gurubashi
Anub’arak and Chromaggus/Garithos
Auchindoun and Laughing Skull
Balnazzar and Warsong
Black Dragonflight and Skullcrusher
Blackwing Lair and Detheroc/Dethecus
Blood Furnace and Mannaroth
Burning Blade and Onyxia
Chromaggus and Garithos
Dalvengyr and Dark Iron
Drak’Tharon and Firetree/Rivendare
Dunemaul, Maiev, Boulderfist and Bloodscalp
Hakkar and Aegwynn
Nesingwary and Vek’nilash
Rivendare and Firetree

Next Realm Connections (date tba)
Haomarush and Detheroc/Dethecus/Blackwing Lair
Stonemaul and Bloodscalp/Maiev/Boulderfist/Dunemaul
Tortheldrin and Frostmane
Winterhoof and Kilrogg
Gul’dan and Skullcrusher/Black Dragonflight
Lightning’s Blade and Burning Blade

... no Blackhand (yet?), and none of the other realms I have toons parked on (though I once rolled a toon on Anub’arak when it was new, but I got ganked almost right away and never went back).

Anyone on a connected realm? How's it going?

Enix wrote:

Connected realms update (source)

Completed Connections
Aegwynn and Gurubashi
Anub’arak and Chromaggus/Garithos
Auchindoun and Laughing Skull
Balnazzar and Warsong....

I've been wondering about this since I came back. What exactly is the status of Blackhand's population? I haven't really looked at the population stats but it feels like there are people around, not an overwhelming amount but it's not exactly vacant either. Leveling my Monk there's always a bunch of people out questing.

I'd love to see these the populations rise significantly but I'm not sure how many servers they'd have to merge together for that to happen. I think it's unlikely to ever recreate the feel of classic Ironforge but it would be nice to see Stormwind packed!

Blackhand seems good enough, I guess. According to this spreadsheet I found over at MMO last week, Blackhand is in the top 40 of server size (out of about 250 US servers). My bank alts generally live in IF, which seems busy (probably in large part because of the coalesced realms). At night there are 20-30 folks running around, which I haven't seen since BC. I have one bank alt in the dwarf area of SW, and he's generally by himself. AH generally has between 18K and 20K items, which seems healthy, too. Timeless Isle always seems busy when I'm there, which isn't often. Dino Island and Isle of Thunder are usually empty, mostly because everyone's on Timeless Isle.

My yardstick is my old server, Steamwheedle Cartel, which is coalesced with only 2-3 other RP realms. My bank alt is usually by himself in IF, and the AH has only about 8K items.

SWC ranks 175th overall and has less than half the total pop of Blackhand.

In other words, BH could be a lot worse. I really feel the emptiness over on SWC.

Enix wrote:

In other words, BH could be a lot worse. I really feel the emptiness over on SWC.

Switch BH with Echo Isles and SWC with Jaedenar, and that's my situation as well.

dhelor wrote:
Enix wrote:

In other words, BH could be a lot worse. I really feel the emptiness over on SWC.

Switch BH with Echo Isles and SWC with Jaedenar, and that's my situation as well.

Maybe you should put a realm transfer on your XMas list for Secret Stan? We could use some more actives in BHA!

dhelor wrote:
Enix wrote:

In other words, BH could be a lot worse. I really feel the emptiness over on SWC.

Switch BH with Echo Isles and SWC with Jaedenar, and that's my situation as well.

More realm connections.

Blackhand still isn't in the queue, but it looks like Echo Isles is. No date yet, though.

Enix wrote:
dhelor wrote:
Enix wrote:

In other words, BH could be a lot worse. I really feel the emptiness over on SWC.

Switch BH with Echo Isles and SWC with Jaedenar, and that's my situation as well.

More realm connections.

Blackhand still isn't in the queue, but it looks like Echo Isles is. No date yet, though.

Yeah, unfortunately the server they're connecting Echo Isles to is NOT the one I was hoping for (I have a few horde characters on Bladefist I've been wanting to send my HUGE AMOUNTS of heirlooms to). I is now a sad panda.

Yo, dhelor!

Patch 5.4.2 - Cross-Realm Account-Bound Mail

In the latest 5.4.2 PTR build, we are testing the new ability to mail account-bound items to other characters on your account that may be on different servers. Notably, this should allow you to move heirlooms between servers, in advance of our planned Warlords changes that will make them fully account-wide.

Sending this sort of mail should work like any cross-server communication: You send the item to "Playername-Servername" and it should otherwise work like regular mail. Note that you can only send account-bound items, and not other items or gold.

Example: I have a character, Thrall, on the Benedictus server. I want to send my heirloom mace to my alt, Durotan, on the Lycanthoth server. I'd log in as Thrall, and attach the mace to a mail addressed to "Durotan-Lycanthoth" and hit send.

We'd appreciate any feedback or bug reports on this new feature so that we can address any issues prior to the release of 5.4.2. But even without direct feedback, just logging into PTR and mailing account-bound items across servers should give us useful data to help confirm that the feature is working as intended. Thanks!

(source)

That lil' horde priest might get leveled after all.

Well, they just connected my realm with Draenor this week, and I have to say.... Draenor people are fricking obnoxious. I thought some of the people ON MY OWN server were bad, but these people I could do without. First time in ages I've been seriously tempted to shut off trade AND general chat.

On the bright side, I did manage to get pretty much all my characters through the Celestial boss on day one of the week, so... I guess there's that. Only one to get a piece was my monk though.

And as to the heirloom situation, they've actually mentioned that they're working on an Heirloom tab, so I'm not sure why they're going to the trouble of Cross-Realm BOA mailing...

dhelor wrote:

And as to the heirloom situation, they've actually mentioned that they're working on an Heirloom tab, so I'm not sure why they're going to the trouble of Cross-Realm BOA mailing...

Maybe so folks can get their alts to 90 now instead of waiting until 6.0?

I revived a warrior on my original server, and I realized I didn't have much in the way of BOAs. I got the guild rep gear and one piece off of DMF. It's not optimal, but it's good enough, and I zoomed from 65 to 84 pretty quickly by my standards.

I want to roll an undead priest on another server and I have zip zilch nada in the way of BOAs and no way to get any.

Once you've leveled with BOAs, leveling with just quest greens and dungeon blues is brutal.

I have a small group of flex raiders that run Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 server that seem pretty legit. Basically, it's a be geared, follow directions, and don't be awful at your class situation.

If people are interested, let me know. I have absolutely no role in leadership or organization so I can't promise anything.

Reaper81 wrote:

I have a small group of flex raiders that run Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 server that seem pretty legit. Basically, it's a be geared, follow directions, and don't be awful at your class situation.

If people are interested, let me know. I have absolutely no role in leadership or organization so I can't promise anything.

How late do they run?

Between 9 - 10.

And as to the heirloom situation, they've actually mentioned that they're working on an Heirloom tab, so I'm not sure why they're going to the trouble of Cross-Realm BOA mailing...

It's a band-aid fix to make things workable until the expansion drops in a year or so.

Enix wrote:

Once you've leveled with BOAs, leveling with just quest greens and dungeon blues is brutal.

Trust me I know, I've been levelling my hordies with nary a bronze colored item in sight. Even so, I've levelled so many time that I've carved a pretty good line through several zones, managed to get my druid from 40 to 50 in only to days - mostly so that he could level his inscription again, as I'd maxed it out. And it's maxed out again, thanks to my goblin rogues herbal contributions, so I have to get him to 65 now. XD

I guess if they can get the Cross-realm BoA mailing up well in advance of the 6.0 heirloom tab, I can forgive them, but I still think it's a bit of a waste of effort - effort that could be going towards getting 6.0 out that much faster really.

The BOA mailing feature might be a waste. Or they're making sure they have a Plan B in case the shared BOA tab thing promised for 6.0 doesn't work out. Or they're working on a way to share the blue and purple items you find in Pandaria or in archaeology. I can't imagine they'll have a tab for all of that, but maybe they will. The battle pet bank can hold 1K pets, I think.

Gentlemen, we have a problem.

May I present the guild Gamers with Jobs, on the Greymane Server. Level 18.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/guild/gr...

I randomly got into a LFR scenario with a member from this guild and did a spit-take.

Do they have any affiliation with our site? Are they even AWARE of our site? What is going on?

I think it's just a random occurrence. You know, if 1,000 monkeys have typewriters, one of them eventually will write like Hemingway.

I doubt that anyone in the guild has a job or is over age 14. Scanning the guild roster, I saw one Pokemon name and several other names that make sentences ("Iamadewfus").

Yikes.

Reminder for the flex run tonight at 7:00.

Reaper81 wrote:

I have a small group of flex raiders that run Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 server that seem pretty legit. Basically, it's a be geared, follow directions, and don't be awful at your class situation.

If people are interested, let me know. I have absolutely no role in leadership or organization so I can't promise anything.

Reap,

I'm looking for a flex group as I've hit the wall on a couple of my characters with LFR. I'll hit you up ingame. What toons are you running with?

Bear wrote:
Reaper81 wrote:

I have a small group of flex raiders that run Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 server that seem pretty legit. Basically, it's a be geared, follow directions, and don't be awful at your class situation.

If people are interested, let me know. I have absolutely no role in leadership or organization so I can't promise anything.

Reap,

I'm looking for a flex group as I've hit the wall on a couple of my characters with LFR. I'll hit you up ingame. What toons are you running with?

Shanker / Reap / Zyphos / Hexiled / Pillager