Joel's Scattered Thoughts

Notes on things that interest me

Posts Tagged alts

The disappearance of the bear

Oct 22

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Shifting Perspectives has a  fascinating look at The disappearance of the bear.  Allison Robert looks at 8 reasons why bears are the least popular tank class.  I’ve barely done any tanking on my druid as I’ve been more interested in leveling alts lately, but there are a lot of good points here.  I agree that the argument for playing as a druid of a different spec, particularly resto or boomkin is probably the biggest reason why we don’t see more bears.

I’m still planning to gear my druid up for tanking, but I think I’ll start looking more seriously into a resto spec.

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Losing Gear Progression in WoW

Oct 21

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Spinks has a post on Losing Gear Progression in WoW.  The part that interested me was when she says this about Ulduar: “There’s no benefit to going there either, you’d be better served for rewards in the newer easier instance.” This is something that really annoys me about WoW.

There are currently 13 heroic instances.  On my newly 80 alts it makes no sense to run any of those instances except for Trial of the Champion and maybe the daily.  I buy/craft/quest the gear I need to get up to acceptable levels, then run ToC as I have time.  If it’s a slow day, I might do the daily as well.  There may be an occasional upgrade from some of the other instances, but ToC is so much more bang for the buck that running anything else is mostly a waste.

What if when new patches bring new instances and new currencies, the old instances start dropping the new currencies as well?  The loot would still be better in the new instance but at least running the old instances would not be a complete waste of time.  It makes sad to see those old instances going to waste.  (I’m even sadder about not having heroic max level instances from BC and Classic, but that might be a little much to ask.)

Make running old instances rewarding!

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Blizzard loves and/or hates Alts.

Aug 30

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Kinless has a good post on  Blizzard loves and/or hates Alts. « Kinless Chronicles.  It does seem a little odd that with all the effort Blizzard has gone to to promote alts, they have refused thus far to provide any extra character slots.

I really enjoy playing my alts.  So far I only have four 80s, with a smattering of 70s and a mage I’ve been running low level dungeons on as part of a group.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I have seven or eight 80s by the time Cataclysm comes out.  At this point, my extra character is an alliance toon I use for cross-faction shopping, but I would prefer not to delete him.  One of these days I was also hoping to transfer and level my first character, a priest.  I would really  love to have at least one slot per class.

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Looting the Guild Bank

May 20

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

thief When I canceled my WoW subscription, I deliberately left people with access to the guild bank and a message to help themselves.  Wouldn’t you know it, two non-contributing players decided to clean it out.  Not take a reasonable amount and ride off into the sunset, but drain the bank dry of others’ contributions over a period of a week or two. 

REDACTED

In case you were wondering, it was a sting.  I was feeling nasty and paranoid and was curious to see how their ethics would hold up. 

I did give everyone access to the full contents of guild bank. I did tell the guild to help themselves to the contents of the guild bank. The blame is mine. By the letter of the law, they have done nothing wrong.

REDACTED

Conscience for sale: 2400 gold

By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:16)

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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Jame’s Leveling Guide: TourGuide style

Feb 19

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 2 Comments

guide As I level my squad of alts, I’ve used Jame’s Leveling Guides a lot.  They’re well written, clear, and I find following them boosts my enjoyment of the game. 

Jame has now integrated his leveling guides with the TourGuide addon.  This gives you access to the guides within WoW and provides extra features such as an automatic directional arrow to point you to the right coordinates.  Be sure to follow the complete installation instructions – I had trouble on some toons when I accidentally disabled Lightheaded. 

As is usually the case for guides, I would strongly recommend them for anyone leveling their second, third, fourth…nth toon.  For those leveling their first toon, I would suggest using the guides to help with any rough spots in leveling but I would also recommend wandering the world and not necessarily doing things in as efficient a way as possible. 

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8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself

Feb 10

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Matticus posted 8 Questions Your Guild Should Ask Itself.  Since his focus is on raiding, that’s where this quiz aims.  Here’s how I’d answer them for our guild alliance.

  1. Do you have a clearly defined identity? We are a raiding alliance.  We aim to allow people to raid even when they can’t commit to a regular schedule.
  2. Do you have a clearly defined schedule? We raid 2-3 times per week.  Raids are scheduled in advance and posted on the website.
  3. Do you actually FOLLOW that schedule? Yes.  First pull is at raid start time (or a little earlier).  If it isn’t within 15 minutes of raid start, the raid is cancelled.
  4. Do you have legitimate and fair looting system, with defined rules that are followed? We’re using roll – need for main spec, greed for offspec or alts.  We’re still working on some of the finer details, e.g.  what happens when you change mains/specs? 
  5. Do you have a plan for progression? Our main focus is 10 player progression.  So far our speed has kept pace with Blizzard’s release of new content.
  6. Do you have fun playing together? Yes, that is one of our reasons for existing.  When it’s not fun, stop playing.
  7. What is your vent environment like? Family friendly with some innuendo. 
  8. How are you with female players? About 1/3 to 1/2 of our players are female.  It’s not a novelty to have female players. 

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Naxxramas Strategy

Jan 27

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Too Many Alts has a fine writeup of Naxxramas Strategies. The part I really appreciate is that he talks about trash mobs. Most of the guides I’ve seen assume that trash is trivial, which is not always the case.

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Alts and the Raider: An Officer’s Perspective

Jan 13

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Sydera at World of Matticus discusses Alts and the Raider: An Officer’s Perspective.  We just went through some of this entering Naxx.  It hadn’t been a big deal before Wrath as we had Karazhan on farm by the time we started to bring in alts to do more than fill in temporarily in key roles.  

With Wrath, we’ve had an overfull raiding roster pretty much every raid night.  Deciding who can come and who can’t has been a major headache for me and has led to hard feeling a couple of times.  Some hadn’t decided on their spec and are willing to respec as needed which then leads to loot issues.  Does a paladin without a declared spec get to roll on DPS/Tank/Heal loot?  We ended up adding a new rule requiring raiders to declare a main toon and spec even if they are not playing that toon/spec at the moment.  Farm content is going to be more of a free-for-all, but we’re a ways from having anything on farm at this point. 

It’s naive of me, but I hadn’t even thought about this till someone brought it to my attention.  Probably one of the reasons I hadn’t thought about it is that the loot didn’t affect me directly.   I had blithely assumed the more alts, the merrier.  With more alts we could have multiple people for any given role and we could pull in different toons to give everyone a chance to play.  I missed considering the politics of loot distribution, especially in these early progression days when one piece of loot can make a big difference to someone’s raid viability. 

epiclewtz

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Death Knight Name

Nov 1

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

As Wrath approaches, I need to pick a good name for my death knight.  I have a lovely name picked out, but it has accents for every other letter.  Alternately I’ve taken the name of the Green Knight to match with my vaguely Arthurian naming scheme for my toons on this server.  My bank toons are named after politicians, so I’m surprised I have any money left. 

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PvE to PVP transfers

Sep 14

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Blizzard has opened up PvE to PvP transfers.  I think this is a decent idea.  I leveled my first characters on a PvP server thinking that it would add something to the game.  It didn’t for me.

I think the timing is key for this.  At this point the majority of the players who are leveling are playing alts.  A 70 who transfers over from a PvP server to gank lowbies is going to get owned.  I hope that new servers have six months or so before server transfers are allowed.

If you want a long take on this, see Lume the Mad’s PvE to PvP Server Transfers an Overdue Policy Change. 

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Who Will I Level to 80 First?

Sep 8

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

80 I have a lot of alts either at 70 or approaching it quickly – warrior, paladin, hunter, warlock, shaman, druid plus my retired alliance priest.  When the expansion comes out I’m going to have to choose which one(s) to level first and which will have to wait.

What will our static group do?  We originally rolled on Quel’dorei to play with three of our friends.  If they’re still interested in playing together as a group the characters we designate as our group characters will be used for group play.  Assuming my warrior stays as the tank for the group, I am willing to take six months to get to 80 on him if that what it takes for us to play together.  Ditto for any of my other toons if we decide to shuffle our roles around.

Jaimie and I have characters that we’ve leveled up in pairs (or mostly in pairs).  Our two hunters will probably level together (dual core hounds ftw!).  My paladin and her mage will probably level together (though paladin/shadow priest is tempting too).  Our warlock/shadow priest combo was made to play together.  That leave me with a druid and shaman to level on my own.  There’s always the possibility of mixing and matching the pairings.  If we don’t do that early on, we wind up with one of us running the other through quests the first toon has already completed.  It’s not nearly so fun that way. 

What do I want to do in Wrath?  I’ve healed endgame.  I’ve tanked endgame.  I’ve even DPSed endgame a bit.  I really don’t feel a pull to fill any particular role.  My preferred endgame role isn’t going to be a major factor in my decision.

My first toon to 80 will probably be the one that’s most fun to play.  Thus, I expect my hunter to be the first to hit 80 with my other toons trickling in over the next few weeks or months.  My next pick would probably my paladin if I end up playing in groups a lot from 70 to 80.  I’ll probably switch back and forth between my remaining toons and level them up more or less equally. 

(inspired by this Voodoo Ventures post)

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Done with Easy Leveling

Sep 7

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 2 Comments

brickwall My current crop of alts has hit 60ish.  Leveling-wise it feels like hitting a brick wall.  I’ve been happily puttering along picking up a level or two whenever I log in and suddenly it takes 2,3,4 gaming sessions to gain a level. 

I wonder why Blizzard put such a big jump in leveling time for levels after 60?  My guess would be that they want people to see all of Outlands.  This would match with their stated intent to speed up 60-70 leveling with Wrath.  With the release of Wrath Outland will be just another bump in the road rather than a key to endgame preparation.

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Why Endgame is Fun

Aug 28

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

finishline In my post on alts, I wrote that endgame is the end of fun.  This isn’t quite true.  As I level through the game, my focus is on leveling as quickly as I can.  Each ding gives me a thrill of accomplishment.  When I reach the level cap, that thrill is gone.  After a short time at max level, gear upgrades are fairly minimal -two steps forward and one step back. 

Why do I keep playing my max level characters?  I find that when I’m not getting a shiny new ability every couple of levels, I learn to use that abilities I have more skillfully.  Just on my warrior, I’ve learned to stance dance with grace, AOE tanking, using Shield Wall and Challenging Shout to keep the raid up, debuff maintenance, and how to DPS as a protection warrior.  All that and I still have plenty of room for improvement.  More skillful play isn’t as easy to quantify as a new level but it is satisfying.  It seems to me that endgame moves the focus from improving the character to improving the player.

However without the quantifiable improvement I start to get bored with endgame and I go start another alt.  I play each alt with more skill as I apply the lessons I’ve learned and having a new alt encourages me to better my skills.  As each alt hits endgame, they’re more prepared to play their role and I’m more aware of how they can be played well.  Skillfully playing the endgame is fun. 

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Incentive and Social Networks

Aug 27

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I was reading an article on how an economics experiment managed to get worked to pick a lot more strawberries.  The line that struck me was:

Again, workers prioritized money over social ties, abandoning groups of friends to ally themselves with the most productive co-workers who would accept them.

To me this sounds a lot like guild hopping in World of Warcraft. The desire for rewards or for proof that you excel at the game often trumps social networks.

I’ve found that this is one of the most frustrating things about being a raid leader.  Everyone has a cutoff point at which the new epics are not worth the social cost to obtain them.  For some people reaching endgame or raiding for 3 hours straight costs them too much time that they’d rather spend socializing outside the game.  Once some people reach a certain level of gearing they stop playing or greatly cut back on their play time or roll another alt.  Still others form social networks that are specifically aimed at beating the final boss or getting that legendary gear.  As each person reaches their cutoff point, they have broken ties with those whose cutoff point was earlier and they are breaking ties with those whose cutoff point is higher.  Trying to balance cutoff points for a group is tricky and leads to hurt feelings.

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Why So Many Alts?

Aug 25

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 2 Comments

crowd I had a guildie ask me over the weekend what I’m planning to do with my druid in the endgame.  My response was "Nothing."  I may do a couple of Karazhan runs with my alts if they get to 70 before Wrath comes out, but I really don’t plan to do endgame with them.  This seemed to strike him as very peculiar.

For me, endgame is the end of gaming.  In many ways it’s the end of fun.  It’s great to have a character that’s hit the level cap, but your character will no longer be picking up any interesting new abilities.   You’re done with achieving things on your own.  My max-level toons go fishing and run instances and that’s it.  I could do things such as killing six million Zaxxis or 25 dailies per toon per day or save up 214,748 Gold 36 Silver and 46 Copper.  Frankly those all strike me as rather dull activities. 

For fun, I start up another alt.  I try to level my alts as quickly as possible.  It’s not the journey so much as the feeling of accomplishment from hitting the next level.  I love it when I pick up a new ability at the trainer and I try to figure out how it can be useful to me.  There is a certain pleasure in knowing exactly where to go for quests. 

There is a thrill to tanking the latest boss in our raid progression.  I enjoy raid leading (most of the time).  Trying to top the DPS on my hunter is a challenge.  Destroying five player instances on my paladin is amusing.  Despite this, the most fun in WoW for me is leveling.

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Next Pre-Wrath Project

Aug 9

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I’ve figured out my next pre-Wrath project!  If my current alts all make it to 70 before Wrath of the Lich King comes out and I find myself getting bored with their day-to-day play, I could transfer over my undead priest, Dorane, and level her to 60.  This would leave her ready to play with Jaimie’s Death Knight.  This would get me a priest without having to slog through the low-level stuff again.  With the latest changes, she could even get her mount immediately.  Now I’m excited again!

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Daily Quest Guide – Minimum Time, Maximum Gold

Aug 8

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | 1 Comment

Despite not doing daily quests for gold in preparation for Wrath, I do foresee a major gold sink coming up.  My next wave of alts will all be hitting level 70 in a month (or two or three), which means 3 regular and 3 epic flying mounts.  That’s 3 x 1000 + 3 x 5000 or 18,000 gold.  My trickle of auction house earnings won’t cover that. It seems that I wind up barely breaking even when I try more aggressive auction house techniques, so I have no plans to step that up.

Enter daily quests.  Nezoia has a Daily Quest Guide – Minimum Time, Maximum Gold that looks pretty good.  She estimates 315 gold (includes selling drops) in 1 hour and 45 minutes.  I know that at least two of my level 70s have the Netherwing starter quest chain done.  I don’t have the Black Temple Medallion which will slow me down but it still looks quite doable. 

Three toons at 300g/day gives 20 days to earn epic mounts for my three alts.  I know it won’t be that fast because I don’t plan on starting dailies till my alts are close to or at level 70.  Then there’s the issue of finding time to do six hours of dailies for 20 days straight.  I suspect that I will do the Isle of Quel’Danas quests on my alts on an almost daily basis once they hit 70.  Those quests take about an hour to do and should get me about 120 gold per day for each toon.  I’m not sure how quickly you can get to exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive, but I’m guessing it will take about a month of dailies.  30 days x 120 gets me to 3,600 gold – enough for each alt to repay my other toons for the initial flying mount and to get a good start on saving up for their epic mounts.  If Wrath of the Lich King isn’t out by then, I’m not sure what I’ll do.  dailymap2

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Preparing for Wrath

Aug 7

Posted by Joel in General | 3 Comments

I’m not doing a heck of a lot of preparation for Wrath of the Lich King.  That being said, I am doing two things to prepare. 

prepare I’m buying cheap herbs so that my warlock can level inscription as quickly as possible.  Right now he’s one of my three miners, so it won’t be hard to drop mining for inscription.  It looks as though there will be a lot of neat abilities opened up with inscription, so I want to level that as quickly as possible. 

The other thing I’m doing is leveling alts.  I have a druid, shaman, and warlock around level 50.  I’d like to get them all to max level before the expansion – that’ll give me 6 toons to level to 80 (7 if I decide to level Flint).  If Wrath takes too long to come out, I’ll probably level another priest.  I’m hoping that Wrath will allow some kind of insta-leveling so that I can run a priest with Jaimie’s death knight.

One big thing that I’m not doing is stocking up on gold.  With 3 level 70s, I could theoretically be pulling in 600ish gold per day by doing daily quests.  I just don’t want to do dailies – at this point the only reward for doing them is gold.  If there were a way of doing 5-10 dailies for a badge of justice, I would do them, but as it stands it’s just not worth it.  I have  epic flying mounts on all three of my max-level characters, so what am I going to do with more gold?  I’m playing the auction house conservatively which takes me about 15 concentration-free minutes a day and makes me a decent trickle of gold.  For now, that’s enough.

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Progress on Leveling Alts

Aug 4

Posted by Joel in World Of Warcraft | No Comments

Regular runs have lost their luster lately so I’ve been leveling alts. Team dot-fear-win (my warlock and Jaimie’s shadow priest) is up to level 52 and tearing through the zones. My shaman is up to 47 and aiming for 50 so that he can get past 300 jewelcrafting. My druid is only at 46 – he fell behind my shaman because the shaman got into a ZF run. He’s likely to stay behind for a bit as I really want to get my shaman up to 50 fast. I’ve gotten fishing up to 283 on my paladin by doing the daily quests. My hunter is up around 200 fishing so she’s almost ready for the Nat Pagle quest. We’re still doing Karazhan and Zul’Aman raidwise – my paladin and my hunter haven’t been needed so I’m down to 2 nights a week.

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Games and the Kids

Jul 28

Posted by Joel in General | No Comments

Tor recently had a review of Microlite d20.  It looks like it could be fun.  I think the kids are old enough that they might enjoy a tabletop RPG, but I shudder at the thought of doing all the bookkeeping involved in regular d20.  I have considered D&D 4, but haven’t worked it into my budget yet (it’s behind that LCD monitor I’ve been meaning to get since March). 

diceI’m not sure where I would start.  I do have the last two years or so of Dungeon Magazine (amusingly enough my subscription expired with their last issue).  I bet if I dug through there I could find some adventures that would appeal to them.  If it goes well, I have the last two Adventure Paths for a more epic adventure. 

If it doesn’t work out yet, I can stick to regular card games for now.  The kids have a lot of fun playing Slap Jack – it’s simple and fast paced enough for all three.  We play the WoW card game sometimes , but it’s a bit too slow for the younger two. 

All three kids play World of Warcraft.  Pasqualle is the most serious player, but her highest level character is only about level 10.  Even makes many alts and we mock him for outfitting his hunter in an orange cloth dress. :)   Alec likes to make up new characters or go mess with his siblings’ characters.  They’ve all tried Lord of the Rings Online, but so far haven’t done too much with that.

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