Monthly Archives: December 2011

Merry Christmas everyone. I’ll be away until after New Year’s visiting family – see you all in 2012!

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First off, I’m going to admit straight away that this post is me whinging and whining. Some might think it’s a silly thing to be annoyed about, but I can’t help it.

I was really excited a few days ago when I saw that they were offering WoW and expansions for $5, $10 and $20. One of my little brothers has been saying he wants to start playing, and I have a friend who wants to come back to the game and needs Cataclysm. With Christmas coming up, this seemed perfect.

US Store Promo

I checked the EU store to see if there were similar offers. There weren’t. I figured that they might come later. Because another year I remember they had the offer both for EU and US with the same 5, 10, 15/20 charges only in Euros instead of dollars.

Today I got an e-mail saying that the EU Store had the games on sale. Imagine my chagrin though when I saw the prices.

EU Store Promo

To put this into perspective for those who may not fully know the Euro to US Dollars conversion rate, I’ve run these numbers quickly through a currency converter.

WoW Battle Chest
US: $5
EU: €9.99 = $13.35

Wrath of the Lich King
US: $10
EU: €24.99 = $33.40

Cataclysm
US: $20
EU: €24.99 = $33.40

The one that is most similar in price is Cataclysm, but that’s still more than 10 bucks more than in the US. The Battle Chest is more than double! The WotLK is three times the price!

I just don’t understand why the difference is so big. Especially considering that last time the prices were more or less equal on both sites. If I was to buy my brother the Battle Chest + Wrath it’d be almost $50 in the EU compared to $15 in the US. That’s not a small difference.

So yes, please excuse me for complaining, but this is something that really bothers me. Maybe because I have less money this holiday period than ever, but it also doesn’t seem very fair for the fans on the EU side to have to be paying so much more than those in the US.

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It’s been a week today since the 4.3 patch went live on EU realms, and I will admit that I’ve quite been enjoying myself. That being said, I haven’t even had time to visit the Darkmoon Faire or try the Looking for Raid feature.

So, what have I been doing?

I’ve been running the new Heroics over and over again. I got my Warlock Valor capped, and after that I spent a lot of time gearing up a couple of alts. My Death Knight now finally has the gear to try the LFR, and my Mage is one ilevel short. Hopefully in the next few days the Mage will finally get that final illusive ilevel.

I’ve also been prospecting a lot of stocked up ore in the hopes of finding Inferno Rubies to cut and make a nice profit. I know a lot of people who are a lot better at the AH game than I am (so, just about everyone) made a whole lot of money this past week. I made 50k, which is good for me. I’ve never made 50k in a single week before.

The New Heroics

As I was saying, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the new Heroics. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that for the most part it’s gone rather well. There’s no wiping for ages like there was in ZA/ZG in random groups. Sure, there might be a wipe here or there, but for the most part the runs are smooth.

A few things that are bothering me though when running these dungeons.

Arguing

Is it just me or are people more rude than usual? There seems to be an awful lot of name calling and being rude. There’s always been a lot of “you’re a noob, l2p” talk in dungeons, but these new ones seem to have brought about all of these people at once. Maybe it’s because everyone’s come out of hiding to do these new instances, I don’t know – but it gets tiring to listen to even if not directed at you.

I even had a dungeon where a friend and I queued up as dps, so we waited the required 15 minutes to get in. We got End Time and the first boss was Echo of Tyrande. While running between the moonlight patches the healer kept going outside of it and aggroing mobs. The tank didn’t bother taunting them and eventually the healer died.

The tank started whining that he was a bad healer and we shouldn’t even resurrect him. The healer whined that the tank was a bad tank for not taunting and should leave. They kept this going for a very long time. My friend and I, and a third dps just tried to tell them to leave it and keep going. But no, we stood there in front of Tyrande and did nothing.

Eventually my friend and I gave up and left the group, not having killed a single boss. We ended up spending another 15 minutes in a queue.

A lot of runs seem to have people squabbling about who’s a bad player, who’s not healing well enough or not tanking well enough. Am I the only one who just want to get the bosses dead and not spend my time arguing?

Free for All

I’ve talked about this before, and I realise it’s not going to change – but I get really annoyed when people need on every piece of loot they can use. If you’re queued as a dps, let the tank get the tank items first – if he doesn’t need them, they’re all yours. Same goes for tanks and healers, don’t need dps loot if the dps do!

My worst example of this was a tank who needed on tank gear, dps gear and healing gear. The worst part was that I was really hoping for some tank pieces for my DK’s off-spec. Now, I’ll never take something over the tank, but it turned out that the tank didn’t even need the tank pieces he needed on, because after winning it he stood there and disenchanted it in front of me!

I feel a bit bad about one instance where I’d have enough and I took a dps piece on my Holy Paladin. Admittedly, I still feel I was in the right at that point although I’m sure some might disagree with me. The dps shoulders dropped and both the tank and I needed them. Since they’re dps I figured they’re off-spec for both of us and we have equal rights to them. The tank disagreed because he felt he had really bad tank shoulders and wanted to use these for tanking.

When I won them he didn’t say anything, he just opened a trade window. I asked why, since I figured they were off-spec for both of us, and that’s when he said he wanted to use them for tanking. I told him that he really should get the tank shoulders (there’s a good pair from these same instances), but he said that “upgrade is an upgrade”. This is where I disagree. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t tank in dps shoulders. Not to mention that you can grab those as your “upgrade”, and then the tank ones will drop and you’ll replace them. While they’re actually a legitimate upgrade for my dps spec and I won’t be replacing them any time soon.

Let’s be fair, those dps shoulders may have had some more stamina, but not a single tanking stat. Please tanks, don’t tank wearing those shoulders.

(I’ll be honest though, had he been polite and asked for them I probably would have given them to him. Manners will get you a long way!)

The Winner of…

The Winner of the Most Wipes contest is definitely the Echo of Baine in End Time. I don’t know why, but this seems to be where I wipe the most. A lot of the people I meet in there don’t seem to know that they can pick up and toss the totem back at him for increased damage. It makes the fight so much easier when you do that. So much. Really.

Raiding

Our raiding is going a little so-so at the moment. We don’t have a stable raiding team because we unfortunately have people who are working nights a lot. Nothing much to do about if of course and they can’t help it, but it does make for some frustrating raid nights.

This reset is looking horrible to be fair. I suspect we will only get one raid night in, and even then we’re stretching it with people who don’t raid regularly and/or are social members. While I very much appreciate that everyone makes the effort and joins our raids even if they’re not a regular raid member, I just kind of wish we had a stable team. For progression it’s always best to have a somewhat stable team to go in and learn the fights.

We make do though, and we do alright. Even if this week progression might be slow with only one raid night. Hopefully we can make up for it next week.

My friend‘s guild got one boss further than we did this week. I didn’t get to join the raid on my Paladin since they had plenty of people after the reset. While I fully understand not getting a spot (because it’s my alt and their main members should have priority), I still missed not being there and seeing the bosses from the healing perspective. It’s something I’ve quite enjoyed these past two tiers of the game – seeing the fights from different perspectives.

On a final note… Night Elf Warlock just looks so wrong.

W.R.O.N.G.

How are you enjoying the patch so far?

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Hey guys!  I’ve been taking some time off from writing to get a handle on my physical health and touch base a bit more with the game I love to play so much.  So, in the time since I last wrote we have a new patch (4.3) and lots of posts and discussions regarding this.  Everything from Class Changes to complaints about the Darkmoon Fair. (seriously?)  I thought I’d share my first impressions.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that I stopped theory crafting or even looking too carefully at stats ages ago.  We raid progressively but believe skill and a good attitude will bring you further than that extra 3 points in xx stat you could squeeze out by reforging everything.  So I won’t be talking about how to play your priest (or lesser classes) better in that regard, just share some thoughts I’ve been having in the hopes there are like minds out there….somewhere.

Logging in
You may remember how excited I was about the annual pass.  I love testing beta’s and the chance to play Diablo III free of charge was very appealing.  When I logged in Wednesday afternoon, I checked my mail as usual and found a shiny new mount in there!  It was like any denominational, or non, made-up in-game holiday where gift giving and surprises are central!

From that point on, I was in a good mood, skipping and even /cheered.  That’s when my next surprise became apparent:  NEW GOBLIN CHEER ANIMATION! Oh yeah, I was one happy goblin!  I look like this tiny little very happy anime cheer leader.  Love it!  The raid did too btw, great tension dispersion tool.  You can’t help but giggle when out of the cauldron suddenly pops up a cheering goblin telling you things like “Awsome!”.

Transmorph
Around about the time my cheering was making even the critters question my sobriety, I ask a guard where I could find the Transmorph guy.  Found him, took a look at the interface then went to my bank to hunt up the gear I’d so carefully collected.  Here’s what I’ve chosen for my char: Kimzowy

• Helm: Cowl of the Avatar
• Shoulders: Mantle of the Avatar
• Back:  Ironstar’s Impenetrable Cover
• Chest: Robe of Power
• Weapon:  Staff of Metanoia (A model I fell in love with back in Vanilla and felt it worked ok though others might be prettier.)
• Coming Soon – Feet: Seer’s Boots
• Coming Soon – Hands: some white, red or black fingerless gloves.  still looking

For the moment, I’m going for a winter pixy look.  I’m happy with it.  I would love to do more with her outfits, but let’s face it; she’s a goblin and goblins are designed to pull off every look effortlessly but she sure is cute!

That’s all the time I’ve got for now.  As a reminder to myself, I wish to speak next time about our first weekend raiding (6/8 BABY!), shifting looting systems from T12 to T13 and the general feel of the new pve content.

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