Tuesday, May 22, 2007

WC PUG...LF....a clue.

A few nights ago I found myself playing Jolygreen with Shurshot tagging along for some pre-Stonetalon leather farming. I was helping in the killing while she did all the skinning, being the skinner. I see a call out for a group needing more to venture into Wailing Caverns. Now I LIKE WC. I think it is what all the dungeons at the lower levels should be.

Level Appropriate, between levels 19-23 a balanced group can have a cake walk.
Decent loot, Lots of greens and stackable grey for cash. Blues on most of the minibosses. Decent hunter/rogue loots.
Plenty of skinnable creatures, very good place for skinner.
Elite mobs, nice cash on the humanoids and excellent exp for level appropriate.
Winged structure, you get in and can go left or right depending on time constraints and what investment you are willing to give.
Quests, of a sort. A few kill quests and collections. The pinnacle being the druid awakening after killing all the bosses, very cool since it gives meaning to clearing the place.

Now I will admit to being confused the first few times I came here. It’s just like anything else. I cared about it enough to learn the layout. Hell I still get lost in BRD and I have run that place numerous times. (Though I have yet to kill Bael or the Emporer. Sad I know)

Anywho. I see the call for a group to go to WC so I ask the wife if she would be up to a quick run in there. We are at 21 at this point. Midrange for this place. (With a 3rd person, tank or healer, we could blast through it ourselves. Hell with pots and enough ammo we could take it duo, more on that later.) She agrees to go for it. I msg the guy recruiting and he sends out the invites, sorta. He can’t seem to get the spelling of Shurshot right. Takes him 5 times to figure it out. Then I had to explain how to do the /invite command. We happened to be right next to the caverns as we were killing the lions for skins. We sauntered on over.

The leader, who shall remain nameless, was just chilling near the summoning stone waiting for us. That’s cool we all are to assemble there before heading in. One of the group says he will be afk for 2 minutes….ok I guess. So wee cool our heels for a few minutes. Seeing as one other had not made I to the caverns it really was not a big deal waiting. After the minutes pass the afk’r rolls on in thanking us for waiting. There we are chillin at the entrance to the cavern…without the leader. He is still waiting at the stone. So we ask what’s up and he chats with fer a bit. He stays at the stone, for 5 more minutes.

Finally he runs over and we dive into the cave, at this point the afk’r states he hates WC cuz he can never find his way back after dying. Day yam. I am of course speaking to my wife since she is just across the room from me. She states she is not sure this group will be worth our time. I was thinking the same thing but willing to give it a try.

Group break down:

Level 25 warrior
Level 25 hunter
Level 23….er something unmemorable…
2 level 21 hunters. Me and the wife.

No healing but a butt load of dps. I feel we can do this. I ran SFK with 4 dps and 1 pally no problem. We would just need to burn things down fast without taking aggro from the tank. We get to the instance and I mention to the wife that she needs to tell them she is a skinner. She does, 2 others are as well. Skin rotation?….nope not even a discussion about it. Ended up being whoeverrememberedtodoit’s turn throughout the run.

We fight our way through to the central cavern before I realized something: the tank is pulling by either running at the mobs or throwing an axe. Oh boy we in for a long fight. The afk’r then yells out that we need to be prepared for a 2 hour instance here. 2 hours? Um…yeah sure if you take an hour nap. With the levels we had it would have lasted maybe 45-50 minutes. Even with out a healer. I also noticed that our level 25 hunter was not using his hunters mark with any frequency. It was me or the wife who kept the marks up on target, and some how I manage to out dps the hunter, without pulling aggro btw. I got this sinking feeling that this group didn’t know dick about playing their classes or the game. Newbs or noobs I don’t care it was that bad. At one point I had to explain what DPS meant! Yeah! Though since I was not the leader I kept my mouth shut on all the mistakes we encountered. Like the tanking of the raptors so close to the other raptors that the screams would pull the other groups. We cleared the entire upper ring before heading down into the water to choose which way to go.

We decided to go left since it was the shorter route. We roll through the crocs and kill Kresh (Fast for a turtle). As we head up the ramps with the snakes I decide I have had enough of this group and the wife has had all her energy sapped by the incompetence of this group. She put her char onto follow mine and I ran us out of the instance as fast as possible. We quit the party as soon as we left the portal. I did not say goodbye, tell them why, say thanks, or anything I usually do in situations such as these, they did not deserve any kind of warning or words of advice. Nothing can help those idiots except perhaps for them to uninstall WOW and crank out LOTR. Go over there and learn to play in a group before ever returning here.

I have had some awesome pugs where the actual value of the group was way more then the sum of the parts. Groups where we stuck together long after the quest or dungeon was over just to maintain the synergy we had found and help each other progress. Some have even joined my main guild.

How can you get to 25 without learning you basic class skills and how to group with other players? There are plenty of low level quests for all the races that need a group to finish. I see the folks I grouped with in WC going on to making a living hell for those needing a group for that ever important elite quest with the phat lewts all the way to what ever level they finally cap out on. I have their names burned into my mind so I will never group with them again. Hopefully they will get bored real quick and get out of the world.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Farming for leather and ore.

No real progress for the hunters. What time we spent playing together was in the Barrens killing things for Shurshot to skin. Got her some serious light leathers and a nice chunk of mediums. We plan on taking the fight to Stonetalon for some easy leveling an quests

Ravenkiller is poised to take on the harpies in Stonetalon, it will be a short fight. I'll prolly plant some trees there too.


I did make about 25g between my 2 characters. I also spent a little time on Gnome Mindkiller, mining thorium. Hell it goes for 20+ g a stack on Duskwood. I cranked out 2 stacks before the farmers really got started in my chosen area. They both sold within 2 hours.


The ore on valen seems to be on the rise as well as the enchanting mats. I havent had a chance to get a proper read on them yet though. It is a reality that copper is up to 50s median now , Tin is doing well, iron ok, mithril is 2x what it really should be so will prolly fall in a week or two. All the rest of the metals are just.....wierd.

Interesting note. Snow noticed that in our old Guild on our old server....just doesnt have the same atmosphere that it did pre-BC. Now everyone that can is gearing up for Kara and Heroics. It doesnt feel the same anymore. I never thought i would ever consider transfering Gnome Mindkiller, but if i were to pool all the money on my characters into Mindkiller he would have over 2500g. Money that would be easliy transfered using the neutral AHs. Something more to think about now.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Paladin Paladr's Preposterous Production

Tuesday last week I logged on and got a tell from our GM of Buttered Monkeys. Seems he needed some assistance with his pally’s level 22+ weapon quest. I logged onto Ravenkiller who BTW is halfway through 25, and met up with him at Ragefire Caverns. We blew through most of it till the final room with its honeycomb design. Multiple pulls almost did us in but we managed to win through to the end. We summoned the quest mob and kilt him ded. Blood was taken and we started the long haul to Black Fathom Deeps. I had not been in the area as yet so it was a long run for me. Got both FPs in the area so no big whoop.

We entered BFD, killed 3 mobs. On the 3rd mob the quest item dropped……F’n Yeah!

We leave the area just as anther guildy logs on. It’s our priest friend Nynave. “you wanna come run SFK to the stables for the GM?” Sure he says, and he’s already in UC. Don’t get no better then that. I ported to UC…no wait I was out of runes…..I Hearthed to TM and flew to UC. I met up with the priest at SFK’s stone and we summoned the GM.

We ploughed through to the stables. Only a few times were we in jeopardy due to some of the mobs having Anti magic shields. Pretty much made me have to melee. We get to the stables and the GM pulls the single mob guarding the box he needs. He used an AOE to grab aggro…unfortunately it pulled the horse he was next to, which pissed it and his buddies off. They attack and we are goin down. The priest keeps up the heals while we try to take down the guard. GM goes down and they turn on me. I manage to burn the guard down before I hightail it outta there. I’m talking assholes and elbows people. I was using every thing I had to keep them from catching me. I jumped down the entrance and zoned out…the priest wasn’t so lucky. I think they smooshed him. Survival…that what I do especially as a squishy. They ran back and rezzed inside. We approached the stables and see the horses peacefully glaring at us but they don’t attack. The GM gets his goods and we all go to meet up with him at Silvermoon for the forging of the blade.

I DC’d before I could get 2 steps inside SM. Thankfully they waited. I got to see the little blacksmith crank out a beautiful piece or the GM.
(Picture here)

After the forging the GM called it a night and I stuck around long enough to do some shopping and AH work on Ravenkiller and Jolygreen. Might have some decent cash waiting when I log on tonight.

*I really need to get me into the mode of adding pictures to some of these.

Questing for pets.

It turns out there is not a big demand for the white lion. So I give up on that for now. Maybe in a few months there will be a better market for it. As such I abandoned that quest so I don’t have to see it.

I logged on last weekend and helped the wife power level her Pally through a few quests using Ravenkiller for some Mage AOE goodness. We managed to push her to 16 from 13 or so before we decided to crank out a few quests with our hunters. We have made a bit of progress, little due to time available and stuff, but got them to 18 most recently.

We went to the Barrens at 16 for to get us some new pets. She picked up a purple raptor but then had to have a red one. So we hoofed it over into Durotar and she got herself a level 9 red raptor which she named Trogdar. After feeding him we started the quest chain that leads up to summoning Echeyakee. We burned through the quests pretty easily it also had the added benefit of helping the raptor become more loyal. He wasn’t getting any exp though but that would come soon. After I summoned the White lion he…..um…he ate me. My tame failed and I didn’t have the heart to kill him. I tried to tame again but didn’t have the life for a second try. I died and the wife ran so she wouldn’t aggro. I got back 2 seconds after he de-spawned. I was pissed. Lucky we were both on the quest. She summoned her Lion and I started to tame him while she kept the huntresses off of me.

4……3…..2…..1..WOOSH!! He is MINE!! I got him. I didn’t have a name for him then so he was cat for a day or so. We hearthed back to Tranq since neither of us were interested in Barrens questing. I do think we will go straight to Stonetalon when we leave the starting area.

We cranked out prolly 5-6 quests in Ghostlands while our pets leveled loyalty and hers gained actual levels. Her raptor got to 16 just as her, The Lion and I got to 18. No doubt her pet will catch up to us no problem. After some searching around I figured out a decent name for a cat of such blinding White and beauty. I was going to go with a few names that mean power or Fury:

Riddick
Furian
White Fury

The first one was not allowed for stupid reasons and the others are more titles then names.

I did some more digging and got some inspiration from my own name and came up with:

Aslan
Formerly Echeyakee of the Barrens
White Lion
Level 18 Cat
Growl, Claw, Bite
Natural Armor 3
Greater Stamina 3
Loyalty level 5 (soon to be 6)

This kitty is staying with me for awhile. My hunters tend to bond with their pets for life. I don’t think any of my hunters has ever had more then one pet for anything other then training purposes. I hope to play tonight with the wife’s character. Since her time has gotten more limited I may be able to devote more time to Ravenkiller.
Ravenkiller is starting to se some profit from Dis-enchanting items for the AH. Didn’t do too badly over the past few days. Jolygreen went with Tailoring for the bag making. Lucrative it is. He made 9 silk bags and they all sold made back all the money spent to make them plus a nice little profit. Now I just need to get him to 20 so he can learn the next level of the profession and can get points. Being able to make my own bags always seems to come in handy for the hunters with their limited bag space due to the ammo/quiver pouches taking up a whole slot. Maybe some day I can afford a HUGE quiver for those long grind sessions.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

A Simple Plan

I logged onto Ravenkiller monday night for a little while.

I wanted to see what would entail in the chain to get the white lion to appear. I started by teleporting to Oggrimmar. (love the teleport). I then headed down to Razor Hill. I found the orc that sends you into the Barrens and thus started the chain. I could have prolly started it from the Mulgore side since in seems to be a progression mechanic in the game. I took the walk to the border or Durotar and Barrens and talked the orc there who sent me to the NPC in the Crossroads that starts the chain to kill some of every type of mob in the Barrens. I cranked out the first 2 quests, the beaks(I can believe the 3% drop rate) and zebra hoofs(bout 25%drop rate), before loggin for the night. I picked up again this morning and went after the cat claws(these seemed to be 100% drop rate). After I cleared all the cats I went off to get a good look at the white tiger. Notes on the area he spawns in are true, the other prowlers spawn super fast after being killed. I must have killed the same cat 4 times in the time it took me to blow the horn and get a good long look at the Lion. He is B E A U T I F U L. I didn’t kill him….not yet. I may save him for sale or something. Hmmm I wonder if I could do that. Get money to spawn him for alliance hunters just for the purpose taming him. Gonna have to check that out later. Might be able to make some cash.*

*Update: I logged into Ravenkiller to restart the Lion kill quest then decided to check if the Alliance might provide a limited market for the animal. Granted I logged on pretty late so I was not expecting a great response.

I made a grunt character; a human warlock by the name of Vultar. Might even play him eventually. Great name. Any way I ran his ass to Stormwind the have access to the trade channel, created a /macro for the /2 channel only. I’ll add the general chat next time I log in. I actually got a response from a curious new hunter. I’m thinking I will charge 50s for the summon to start.

I may raise it to 1g but defiantly no higher. It’s not out of reach for level 16 players and a steal for anything higher then 20. I can always transfer the money easily later. I have been wanting to try something different for awhile. Now that I have small packets of time to devote to a weird project I’m gonna see if I can get this to work.

A Simple Plan…er sort of.

I will advertise in the alliance areas that I have Echeyakee ready to summon in the barrens.
Perspective hunters contact me.
Money is sent vial in game mail. *
Money confirmed. Meet up in the barrens to summon.
I will provide support until the taming is complete (Ie keep all mobs off of hunter taming.)
If need be I will re-summon until the taming is successful.
*If proof is asked for before the money is transferred, I will arrange meeting to show them the beast. I can always control who tames by the simple fact that attacking the beast will void the taming. I will have plenty of time to abandon the quest before I kill it to not get the quest completed.
If anything it will be a neat way to make money. If I see a bigger market I may devote time to this endeavor for a bit. Plus I can always raise the price if it looks like a higher demand develops.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

2 New Hunters For The Horde!!

After we moved the Monkeys to Velen we managed to dig up enough of us to start the guild…after many a days of making enough money to buy the charter. Through all this I was leveling Ravenkiller. Now I love the mage, but playing solo with him just wasn’t cutting it. I will still play him just not when the wife is around. He will make a good farmer someday. The wife couldn’t play as often due to being someone’s primary food source, so I out leveled her to the point she got bored “playing alone”. SO we decided to roll 2 new characters to run together….completly together…like joined at the hip together. So we debated and discussed the available class/race/side to play. We settled on:


DUH DUH DUUUUUN.

Blood Elf Hunters.

Yeah we went there. Belfs are the new Nelfs. We love the new starting area and since we have rolled at least 5 Belf characters across 4 servers, we knew we could blast up to 20 and catch up to the other Monkeys in level easily. We have a /played time of somewhere near 10 hours and are deep into level 14. We blast through all quests like it was melted butter. We only run from the elites in Ghostlands….until we are 18 or so. Then they will go down. We are also going to do almost the exact spec.

Mine:
Jolygreen /w Sprout (Elder Eversong Kitty)
BRK’s BM Spec

The wife’s
Shurshot /w Jellopudding (Elder Eversong Kitty)
BRK’s BM Spec

We most likely wont need to train the level 14 skills, or want to, until we hit level 16. Then we will head back to SM for the training. I have a feeling we will ding pretty quickly with the next few quests. It is cool when we turn in a quest and have dual ding animation. People stop and stare when it happens. Our cats are almost in sync as well though for some reason hers got to likin her faster then mine did me. Weird since we tamed them at the same time. Oh well. Our cats will get an upgraded skill and a new one once we hit 16 and can tame Ghostclaw Ravager in the Ghostland for Bite 3 and Claw 3. I think I might also make the trek to the barrens for the white lion there. It will involve a chain but after researchin it I have made up my mind. Echeyakee will be mine. Just need to convince the wife to tag along for the long ride to this ego pet. Maybe we can get her one too if she likes it…..