Phase Two

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post (Vinds Comment does mention it though) about phasing is the, unfortunate, comedy value of the effect too.
A knock on effect of this same mechanic, is that you can't neccesarily see the same mobs / players that others (even in your team) can.

While in a Munqui group a few days ago, doing the "WANTED" elite quests in Dragonblight, one of our team was a step behind in the quest chains than the rest of us, but offered to help out anyway.
He could see the same elites that we could, but he could also see some other mobs that we had already completed the quest to rid the world of.
This meant that when we rode through a 'clear' area to reach the next boss, he was actually riding through the centre of a big group of undead. Which obviously started attacking him. To us it just appeared as if he was fighting thin-air. Besides a bit of healing, we couldn't help out, because we couldn't even see the mobs.

This seems to be an unfortunate, although sometimes funny, side effect of the phasing system.
But at the end of the day I still give the new effect a MASSIVE thumbs up.

Big Brother is Watching You

I've been reading Tobolds blog for a long time now, and usually his posts are all about WoW.
But recently, he posted something a little bit different, and I think it's well worth discussing.
If you haven't already seen it, read it here;

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2008/11/you-can-go-to-jail-for-lying-on.html

Phasers on Stun

"He's dead Jim, but not as we know it!"

As spoken by the venerable Dr McCoy (at least in the song). And with the new expansion, that was never true-er.

Phasing has to be the single greatest change in WotLK. But most people I've spoken to haven't even realised it was happening... exactly the way it should be.

For those of you out there who don't know, here's how it works;

Pre-WotLK, when you completed a quest, the world around you stayed the same. Even if you'd just killed the biggest bad-ass boss in a zone, 5 minutes later the same NPC will be standing there harking on about how this boss really has to go. And the Boss will be back where he always was, just as if all your efforts were in vain.

Post-WotLK, that same boss might stay dead. And the NPC would have thanked you, and probably moved on to go and whinge about something else, in some other location..... but only for you.

For you, the boss dissapears. For you, the NPC moves on. For you, the world has changed.
For everyone else, that hasn't done that same quest, it hasn't... the NPC is still there, the boss is alive, etc...

Anyone who has doen the DeathKnight starting area will have seen this in action, even if you didn't realise it. How else do you think Ebon Hold becomes a Haven for you, while still being a Scourge area for those rolling new characters?
You both use the same area, but you see different things, and you probably don't even see each other. You could be stood on top of a newborn level 55 DeathKnight, or even Arthas himself, and not know it.

I've noticed this more and more, but last night I saw an epic version of this in action:

A long, and nicely rewarded, quest chain in Dragonblight ended in a video cutscene (another new experience). In it, the Allies and Horde teamed up to fight Arthas, and everyone was wiped out by a rogue Forsaken who killed everyone. He tried to kill Arthas too, but that didn't work.
High Lord Bolvar died during this scene, and when it ended the whole area around me had changed. Bolvar was still dead, the Dragons that had purged the area were still there, and the whole place was on fire.... But it didn't stop there.

The Dragons then sent me off to see King Wrynn in StormWind, and he set me off on another epic journey, involving me travelling to Ogrimmar and Undercity, and kicking major ass there, with the help of the King Himself, and Jaina Proudmoore. An utterly brilliant storyline, well thought out, nicely done, and very out of the ordinary "kill ten X" type quests.
(The quest rewards were also excellent, as should be expected from a quest of that magnitude).
For me, the world has now changed, Arthas knows I'm coming, Bolvar is dead and I've gained the trust of the Dragons.

The entire quest chain tooko an hour or two to complete, but it's broken into lot's of smaller quests, so there's plenty of scope for completing others at the same time.

Anyone who hasn't done it yet, really should. It starts with a "Strange Device" that drops from a mob you kill, from a quest in Stars Rest. I was level 73 at the time, and had no problem with it.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give Blizz a standing ovation for this feature. It wasn't expected (at least by me), and has added massive potential to the game.

Rather than the next expansion needing an entire new continent, what if they just re-used the Old Azeroth areas? Some of those areas are beautifully designed, and it's a shame they are going to be more and more wasted.

Imagine:

Sargeras returns to Azeroth, and lays waste to the whole place. StormWind is burning? The DeadMines has now been taken over by Sargeras minions? The whole of the Old World zones have been taken over by lvl 81+ Mobs.
To you, the world is destroyed. And all this could happen at the same time as level 1 noobs are still begging "1g Plz!" and level 19's are doing their PvP thing in Goldshire.
Because, to them, things are the same as they always were. And if you want to prove it to yourself, you'd just have to roll a new toon, and go and take a look.

Surely this would speed up the time it takes to release a new expansion too? Which can only be a good thing.

The Show MUST Go On

In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't posted anything on my blog for the last few days. That's mainly because of real life getting in the way of my online time, but not in a bad way.

Things I've achieved in the past few days;

1) Spent some time with my Son
2) Spent some time with my Fiance
3) Cleaned my House
4) Put my Christmas Tree up (Yes, I know it's only November, but it's only 4 weeks away)
5) Cleaned my House again, after all the mess of putting the Christmas tree up.
6) Spent 30 minutes re-wiring the Christmas lights, so that they don't flash.
7) Watched the end of season 3 of Prison Break (I needed to catch up)
8) Spent another 30 minutes re-wiring the Christmas light, because they were still flashing.
9) Planned my budget for Christmas, and decided on the few remaining presents I have to buy.
10) Gave up on the Christmas lights... Yes... they are STILL flashing.

Suprisingly though, one thing I didn't do, was miss playing World of Warcraft. It's strange though, I usually do.
I did log on once, to finish off some input into a Boss Strategy addon, and to re-post some things on the AH, but that was it. I had a quick chat to Bolle, and a 'Hello' to a few guildies, and that was pretty much it.
I have a feeling that tonight will be a gaming night though, especially since I don't have to get up early in the morning, straight to a meeting at 10am, instead of crawling out of bed at 6am.. woo hoo!

So may aim for the night is to hit level 73, or maybe even 74, and to definitely not play on my DeathKnight.

Repeat after me: "I will not play on my DeathKnight and leave my main(s) to rot in level 70-80 limbo... I will not play my DeathKnight and leave my main(s) to rot... I will not play my DeathKnight... I will not play my DeathKnight for too long... dammit!"

Back to the grindstone

My playtime is 'probably' going to be much more limited over the next few days, simply because of real life commitments, but I'll no doubt manage to get a few hours in here and there.
But will it make any difference?

I reached level 71, with myHunter, on the day of release. And I was quite pleased with the levelling speed. However, 71-72 seemed to take me forever, probably almost twice what it took me to get from 70-71. Yet I'm now already a third of the way to 73.
I'm not complaining, and I think I've sussed what the problem was.

I was trying to complete all the quests in one area before moving on to the next. So I think I've finished all but a small handful of quests in the Howling Fjords. But the travelling time, and all the to'ing and fro'ing cost me alot of time.

I've now moved on to Dragonblight, and I'm picking up quests in batches again, and my XP bar is filling up nicely. In future, I think I'll skip to the next area as soon as the quests start to thin out.
Any quests that I miss out on I can either come back to do later or will catch them next time, probably when I level my DeathKnight.

I've noticed though, that most of my guildies are still no higher than level 71. (The vast majority are 'social' players and don't spend massive amounts of time online though).

So what do you think?
Is the levelling speed about right?

Nexus Point

Several Munquis decided to run the new Nexus instance last night.
I'd done most of Utgarde Keep a few days before, so was expecting more of the same Tank'n'Spank style play, boy was I suprised.
I loved style of the place, and the boss encounters were much more 'raid-style' then before, with a couple of them requiring a more tactical approach.

Grand Magus Telestra - Took us a few attempts at this one, it basically came down to a DPS race between how fast we could bring her down, and how many times she could throw us around the room, but my Pet came inhandy here, as for some reason, her magic tentacles ignored it, so it kept up some DPS while we were mostly useless. My hunter was the only man standing by the end of the fight.

Omorok the Tree Shaper - This was almost a straight Tank'n'Spank, but we realised too late that the shards of ice he sends out erupt causing quite high damage, and throwing you into the air. I realised when I saw it happen to my pet and the tank, but while I was typing the message for everyone to avoid it, it happened again, killing our healer (Knicks), and then everyone else. Luckily, I side-stepped it and popped my pets super-rez and spanked him into oblivion. Last man standing, again, and boss killed in 1 shot.

Anomalus - Despite Bronzes (our tank) assurance that this would be a straight Tank'n'Spank, it became obvious it wasn't, when he suddenly became immune after summoning a rift. Logic kicked in, and everyone recognized the Headless Horseman style, and switched all DPS to the rifts. Even so, it took it's toll, and only Bronze and Myself lived through it. 1 Shotted though.

Keristraza - Sounds like a Russian mobster, and is about as freindly as one. This took a few attempts, and mastering the 'hit and run' tactics was not easy. Particularly for the casters, where healing and moving does not go hand in hand. But after a few dry runs, we put her down, and for some reason Knicks (who had often been dead before the fights had gotten half way through) was still standing at the end, although she did die a few seconds later while celebrating, after forgetting to debuff herself. So, again, Hunters rule, And me and my pet sat patiently and waited for the rest of them to corpse run.

Honorable mention also goes out to Hedgerick, DM, and Banak (6 of us because Banak replaced DM mid-run).

I've got to say though, I loved the new tactical stlye of the dungeon. It felt much more like a mini Karazhan than just a higher level of Tank'n'Spank elites. And the learning curve was just right, we were on the verge of giving up on a couple of the bosses, when we finally downed them. That's the way it should be.

EDIT: If it sounds like I'm bragging about never dying in this run, I'm not. I also got my ass handed to me several times.

Fjord Focus

The expansion was released a few days ago, and I took the afternoon off work on the 13th to enjoy the opening day fun.
As my previous post said, I reached level 71 with my Hunter on the first night, but since then my play time has been more limited, due to real life activities.
I did manage to play for a little while, and rolled myself a DeathKnight (SmythKnight) to see what all the fuss is about.

I was very impressed, especially with the opening quests and the abilities. Coinceidentally, I managed to share most of the opening quests with Vindikator (a long-time Munqui, who had rolled a DeathKnight after transferring his main toon to another realm).

It did feel a little awkward at first, given that when you start at level 1 you slowly gain more and more spells, usually giving you time to master one before moving on to the next.
With a DeathKnight, at level 55, you don't really get that luxury, you get a handful of spells to start with, and within 2 levels, you've got a full actionbar, and more spells to spare. But I eventually got my head around it.

What helped, was realising that something wasn't right with my display.
I was struggling to work out why some runes were on cooldown sometimes, and not others. Turns out that Xperl (one of my Ui addons) was preventing me seeing the default blizzard rune bars. I couldn't manage to re-enable them either, but after a very small download, problem solved. And the system makes perfect sense.
So much so, that my level 58 UnHoly-DeathKnight managed to get up to 500DPS (albeit on multi mobs). Mastering the whole 'disease' thing was a breakthrough.
And the correct use of 'Pestilence' means that the potential for DPS with this spec is awesome.

Initially I'd said that the DeathKnight wasn't too overpowered, but if those abilities scale in the same way that other classes do, that's going to make for an immense amount of spell damage by the time the character hits level 70, let alone 80! (And the melee damage on top of that).

I'll probably shelve SmythKnight for now, and go back to levelling my Hunter (Smythy). Returning to the Fjords to finish off the last few quests before moving on to DragonBlight.
I need to catch up with Bolle (another Munqui), who has managed to reach the lofty heights of level 78 already.
I'm assuming he's currently playing while sat on a comode, and with a months supply of military ration packs next to his PC, because he can't have moved far from that screen for a while. :P

"Gz Bolle"

On a side note: I also maxed my Skinning skill and didn't get an achievement for it (although you do just for learning the next level from the trainer). But on the plus side the, new, added crit rating from mastering the profession will come in handy.

Lich Banner

Feel free to steal / edit this, made it up myself out of the official stuff, but it's been flipped and tweaked to fit the style of my blog.

Addiction Affliction

While reading my usual daily intake of World News I came across this article from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/11/addicted_to_warcraft.html#comment152

The BBC has been covering the launch of WotLK for the past few days, and their views about online gaming always seemed to be a bit one-sided to me. Particularly always raising the issue of addiction. And generally leaning very heavily towards the 'Games are Bad' side of the argument.

Usually, I just read these things, and scoff at the stupid arguments that people use to try and flame the game itself, and all gaming in general. But this time I decided to post a reply of my own (see the link).

Maybe we're just pioneers of the gaming nations. Because I'm pretty sure that everyone currently between the age of 5 and 25 won't share the same feelings. And it won't be long before the news agencies in general (not just the BBC) will be reporting on in-game events almost as often as real-world ones.

BBC HEADLINE NEWS: November 13th 2020
Darkspear(EU); StockMarket Crashes as Smyth undercuts every item on the AH.
Munqui Tribe leader says; "I love kids, but I couldn't eat another one just yet".
Age of Conan; Final player found locked in a broom closet, medics say he may never play again.
Warhammer; Agrees deal with Activision. World of Warhammer due out tomorrow.
GuildWars; "Honestly! We ARE an MMORPG", exec denies mis-leading advertising complaints.

Or maybe that's just my vision of the future?

Open up and say 'AH'

I've just read that there's not going to be any AH in Dalaran... Why not?

Since TBC, the whole Alliance vs Horde thing is a sort of side issue. We've all got bigger fish to fry.
Now we already have cross-faction Auction Houses courtesy of the Goblins. So why wouldn't those coniving little buggers get in on the action in Dalaran?
Surely, having a cross-faction AH in Dalaran would be ideal. It would open up the markets for all the lovely new Northrend drops, and would fit in fine with the neutral 'Sanctuary' theme of Dalaran.

Surely it would make more sense from Blizz's point of view too?
At the moment, they run at least 3 AH's per realm, and I'm not saying that takes up alot of server power, but why not just hand them all over to the goblins, and merge them into 1 cross-faction AH instead.
I'm sure that if the goblin AH's were located in capital cities, instead of the middle of nowhere, they'd get alot more use.
Anyone with sense wants to advertise their items to as many people as possible, so they'd always choose the cross-faction AH if it was just as conveniently located.

Alternatively, just give all the current AH's the option to also post to a Cross-Faction AH for an extra 'Goblin Tax' (maybe about 10% increase in deposit costs).

But put one in Dalaran, for gods sake.

FPS gets Fragged

If, like me, you're running WoW on a system that hasn't go the latest greatest graphics card, you've probably noticed a drop in performance with the new expansion, so here's a few tips to get it back up (at least a bit);

1 - Defrag your hardrive, you've just installed god knows how many GB worth of stuff, your files are going to be all over the place. This might not help much, but every bit counts.

2 - Turn down your graphics settings, particularly your viewing distance. This is one of the biggest ways to improve your performance, and it doesn't change the experience much. beware though, I've already found 1 or 2 quests that involve looking a long way into the distance, and are impossible on the lowest settings... shame on you Blizz.

3 - Check this: http://www.wowwiki.com/ExtShadowQuality apparently Blizz have brought in a new shadow system, which looks nice, but drops your FPS. I can't find anywhere what the new default settings are, but turn them off anyway.

4 - Disable any programs you have running in the background while you play. Particularly things like P2P programs, and Anti-Virus programs. Don't worry, you can turn them back on later.

5 - If the worst comes to the worst, lower your resolution. I play on 1400x900 (Widescreen), so I accept that my FPS will be a bit lower, dropping it to a lower setting would, usually, improve the performance quite alot.

6 - Disable any addons that aren't essential. They might only be small, but every one of them is doing something in the background. You don't have to get rid of them, in fact, if you download another addon (like ACP - Addon Control Panel) you can set profiles for your addons, and load / unload them as needed. Do you really need Omen or BigWigs when you're solo'ing?

7 - Run a scan for Spyware (Use Spybot S&D or something similar) to make sure there's nothing using your network connection, that shouldn't be.

8 - Check what runs in the background when you turn your PC on. To do this you can either use a 3rd party program, like the free one built into Spybot, or go to the start menu, and type 'msconfig', select the 'StartUp' tab and it will show you a list of what loads. Disable any that you don't need. The advantage of using a 3rd party program to do this, is that they usually give you a bit more info on what they programs do. Don't disable any needed ones, and if you find any problems just re-enable them.

9 - If you're using a laptop make sure you're not blocking any of the vents (particularly the ones underneath). Overheating causes a lot of problems for laptops. The same applies to desktop PC's but it doesn't happen as much.

10 - Reboot - Yeah it really is that simple, sometimes just re-booting your PC solves everything.

Edit: If you're a MAC user, don't start spouting about how much better thay are, just sit there and look smug.

Go Go Vicky-the-Viking!

It's here. WotLK has finally arrived, so how do I feel about it?

The Good:
* Graphics are a bit shinier - I like the new textures on the Vrykul, and prefer the old-style gothic, rather than Outland style Sci-Fi.
* There's 2 new starting areas - I wasn't sure about this at first, but now I think it's a great idea, it reduced the amount of people trying to finish the same quests all at once. Also, when I level my next character I'll use the other starting area, so it won't as much of a grind.
* DeathKnights - They look good, I've only got as far as creating one, rather than playing it fully, but I like the style.
* Trainers in Starting areas - Good idea, my skinning skill is now only a couple of points away from the new max, and my herbalism skill is well on the way too.
* Faster respawn times - I'm guessing this was intentional, but with hundreds of people all wanting the same mobs, this is a very good idea.
* Nice area design - The starting area was huge, so once you were out of the arrival area, you didn't feel like you were walking on top of everyone else.

The Bad:
* Graphics are a bit shinier - Yeah, they look nicer, but they strain the system just that little bit more, so I've had to reduce alot of my video settings. This had an extra problem, read on;
* Unexplained Quests - Some of the quest descriptions could do with a bit more detail, I'm not a lore freak, but I would like to know which area to hand in the Vrykul weapons that one quest asks for, instead of just telling me the name of the quest giver. And when being told to raise my hand at donkeys, I figured it out right away, but it wasn't explained the you have to 'emote' at them.
Also, one quest asks you to use a harpoon to destroy some buildings, no problem, I found the harpoons, but there's only 2 for the entire realm to use, and the quest takes around 5 minutes, so there were queues of people waiting to use them. And, when I finally got to use one, I couldn't figure out what to shoot with it, so after wasting another few minutes I realised that you can't even see the targets unless you turn your viewing distance up... Tut tut Blizz.
* No Auction House - I'm not sure if there'll be one in Dalaran, but it's a bit of an arse that I have to keep my HS set to Shatt, and catch a boat back everytime I want to go to Northrend.
* Glitched Mobs - Almost every mob of one type was glitched (Spores), there were about 30 spawned, but only 2 / 3 worked, so you had to wait for those ones to respawn several times to complete a quest.
* Chat Spam - This isn't Blizzards fault, but I've had to turn of general chat because of the amount of bullshit people are talking in general chat.


The above list looks like I hate alot of things about the new expansion, but I don't really. All the problems are more 'Annoyances' rather than reasons not to play. Overall I love the look and feel of the new stuff, and the first dungeon run 'Utgarde Keep' was a simple Tank-n-Spank run to break us into the dungeon content of Northrend.
I managed to make it to level 71 within a few hours, although some people had been playing since the midnight launch, and still hadn't managed that.. the slackers!
I also got a few nice quest rewards, and one or two drops, which have improved upon the greens that I had left over from Pre-WotLK, and improved my haste rating to the point where, when my Quick-Shots procs which is almost all the time, my shots take only 1 second to cast.
That's the minimum possible time. As soon as my shot is released, the global CD is up, and the next shot is ready to fire, so it maximises DPS.
It was all a little bit too easy, most mobs were level 71 or lower (I could probably just set my pet to aggro, and let it clear the place out) but as I logged off things were starting to get a little bit more challenging... but only a bit.
So, I'm looking forward to playing with more of the new stuff later tonight, after work. And will probably reach 72 by the end of it.
Although I'll probably have to spend an hour at the AH first though, working out how much to sell all my new drops for. Auctioneer will help, but it's not going to be very accurate for a while.

Give us a Lich

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. In a couple of hours I'll be off to pick up my pre-order of WotLK, and then straight home from work early, to install it, iron out all the addon bugs that will no doubt plague me, and then grind my way to 80, before re-rolling myself a DK..... Yay!
And I've already booked the time with my Mrs, so she knows I've got a big sign over my head for at least today,and probably the next few days.

We'll have to develop a sort of rudimentary language. She already thinks I'm talking gibberish if I ever mention 'Kara' 'Raiding' 'DPS' 'Pally' 'AFK' or a million other phrases from in-game.
Maybe we'll have to go with 1 grunt for 'Yes', 2 grunts for 'No';

Mrs: "Do you want something to eat love?"
Me: "Grunt"
Mrs: "How about a sandwich?"
Me: "Grunt"
Mrs: "Cheese and Tomato?"
Me: "Grunt!"
Mrs: "Or how about Tuna?"
Me: "Grunt Grunt"
Mrs: "Do you want onion on it then?"
Me: "Oh FFS just make the bloody sandwich!.. Oh, I mean... erm... GRUNT!"
Me: "And can you cut the crusts off... please"

DK, or Not-DK?

That is the question, but what is the answer?

I've spent all this time waiting expectantly for WotLK to arrive, and looking forward to playing in all of the new zones, and facing new challenges, that I've, honestly, alomst completely overlooked the new DeathKnight class.

Every time someone has asked me if I'm going to roll a DK, I said "Yes, but only to reserve the name I want as soon as possible". But having just looked at the new talent trees for them, I'm atually very intrigued. And now more confused.

My level 70 Pally is going to be a tank from now on rather than a healer, but with an offspec of healer - if the dual-spec'ing thing is true.
As a healer it's more a game of watching the Health bars, and clicking them at the right time, while missing the action in most fights. As a tank it's more interesting, but still just a case of watching for the cooldowns and pressing the right buttons as soon as they light up.

My level 70 Hunter is a DPS-Machine, all the way, and I don't see him ever becoming anything but.
Playing my Hunter is now mostly a case of Point->Click->Spam ScrollWheelDown->Win, with the occasional Spamming of the 'T' key for those longer fights or boss encounters, and the casting of 'Serpent Sting' if the mood takes me.

So I was considering rolling a Druid, just for something a little different, just to add a bit more variety in my play style.

But I really like the look of the new DeathKnight, particularly the 'UnHoly' tree (although the 'Blood' tree looks good too).
Unholy looks alot like a Warlock build, but one who can wade in and dish the melee DPS alongside a summoned creature.
I can completely see myself wandering around the world spreading chaos and disease, and raising the dead... albeit in a very benign 'Alliance-Freindly' non-evil, and of course Munqui'ish sort of way.

The only downside of doing that, of course, is that I'd have to start at level 55, meaning that I'd be wading through Outland again before I get to explore Northrend.

Hmm, too many choices... Damn you Blizzard!!!

I Believe I Can Fly - I Believe I Can Touch The Sky!

Who would have thought it?
Only a single day before the release of Wrath of the Lich King, I finally saved up enough to buy my Artisan Riding skill and a Swift Purple Gryphon.
So I'm now 5200 Gold lighter in the wallet, but very happy with my spend.
The feeling of achievement may be short-lived, but for now I'm more than happy with it.

Next goal - Get my ass to level 80 as soon as possible.

On a seperate note, blogger seems to be giving me some issues with background images.
Whenever I edit my layout the background image at the top (which should show a Lich King style banner) dissapears.
Anyone else noticed it missing, or is it just a cache problem for me?

Ever Expanding Circles

The Munqui Tribe has just expanded, ahead of the forthcoming expansion... no... I'm not drinking at work, again, but Brast and Piri are celebrating the arrival of a junior chimp of their own. Gratz to both of them, and to the little one too.

Also, Gratz to Bolle for becoming another year older... Just as in WoW things get harder as your level increases. (Probably until you reach a certain age, and you can't remember the last time you got hard).

"'M' 'O' 'O' 'N' that spells 'Distraction'"

Some of you may have noticed my online time has been a little shorter over the past few days, as in, nothing more than a few minutes.
Overtime at work, and visitors staying for the weekend are the primary culprits.

Don't get me wrong, our freinds (who are about to emigrate to Oz) are great, and I'd rarely turn my nose up at the extra cash from doing overtime, but it's been a long hard weekend, and I've rarely had the chance to even pick up my laptop, never mind invest time into my characters.

So I'm only 400g away from my Epic mount, my gathering skills are now maxed, and I know the ins and outs of being an uber PvE BM-Spec Hunter. But Arthas is near, and with only 2 more days (including today) until he arrives, should I grind those last few hundred G, and pay for my epic flier, or just bank the cash and power level myself to 80, where earning 5000g should be less of a grind, and more case of a couple of freinds and I devastating a few lvl 70 raids, to convert badges -> Epics -> Serious Cash, courtesy of the AH and my Pallys disenchanting abilities.

Imagine a group of level 80's thrashing their way through Kara, ZA, Maggy, Gruul etc etc... and you'll get the idea... loads of badges, plus epic drops, all of which are no use to us, but can be converted into glorious amounts of gold.

I often think Enchanting is overlooked as a way of making money, yet it's earned me quite a bit in its time.
I don't have many of the uber-enchants, and I don't sell my enchants, and I haven't even experimented with the scrolls side of things yet, but there's good money to be made at the higher levels.

For example: The zombie invasion thats arrived Pre-WotLK. With the runes they drop, you can buy epics, which you can't vendor, but you can DE, so for every 15 runes (which is easy to come by), I get a chance to win a Void Crystal, and even if I don't get one, I still come away with some expensive mats that I can sell on the AH.
The rare spawns that appear near the zombies are also garaunteed epic drops, which can either be vendored for about 10g, or DE'd for the same thing.
A couple of hours grinding those mobs, and on top of the trash drops, you can be on to some serious cash. Kachiing!

Keeping it in the family

It's all change in Munqui-Land, one of our longest serving officers is taking a break from the game for a while. Although I'm sure he'll be back in time for the release of WotLK, hurry back Bolle. And on top of that, the munquis are forever becoming more of a family affair:

Brast & Piri

Lewt & Tins

Bronze & Knicks

Babe & Lemming

Ebs & Freud

Vedd & Funk

Forty - Piri's Cousin

Jutvardur - Knicks Brother

Tomoy - My Brother (Soon to return, if he hasn't already)

MiniArn - Arns Mini-Me

Roisin - NOT Tins Sister

and

RetriDPS - Vinds Closest Freind

And tales of the Munqui-Exploits TM must be have spread, because, on top of that we have old freinds returning to the guild, and in some cases to the game, in anticipation of the new expansion. So welcome back Hedgerick, and the rest of you too.

Edit: It turns out Roisin is NOT Tins sister (unless there's something her father never told her about), so apologies to Roisin for demeaning her in such a way.

Flights of Fancy

My goals are being reached, my character is getting much more uber, my style of play is finally being perfected, it can only mean one thing... The Lich King is coming, and soon.

I've managed to get my Herbalism skill up to 375, which was much easier than i thought, once I stopped trying to follow these so called 'guides' from the net. In the end, it only took me about 4.5 hours to get from 203 to 375 skill, and my bank balance is now reaping the rewards.
I'm up to 4500g, and with more than 300g worth of items on the AH, it shouldn't be long before I'm soaring through the skies on an epic gryphon, at lightning speed.

Or will it?

My problem can be summued up in one word - WotLK
Ok, technically, that's 5 words, but you get the point.

Since I won't be able to fly in Northrend until level 77, buying an epic flyer now, seems like a waste. By the time I reach 77 I'd probably have earned a fortune anyway.
As far as I know, there's no speed boost from learning Epic riding, for ground mounts, which is a big shame. If there was, I'd have no problems handing over my hard earned gold, to be able to get around much quicker.

I'm babbling really... I'll amost definitely be buying an epic flyer, regardless of whether I end up using it or not.

Recyling

I'm not sure if anyone else feels the same way, but I really miss the old dungeons of Azeroth.
OL instances are fun, and the option to play them in Heroic mode obviously keeps them fresh for longer, but they just don't have the same atmosphere as places like the Deadmines.

And with the level cap being raised even further, and the speed of levelling new characters being constantly nerfed or even skipped, with the Death Knights, these places are going to get less and less use.
And it's such a shame. I spent many happy hours working my way through those mines, and was amazed the first time I saw the hughe pirate ship hidden inside the end area. And it wasn't easy.
Even if your group was slightly above the level requirements, they had to play it carefully or else they'd be making the long run back from the Sentinel Hill graveyard.

I suggest that Blizz should bring them back...
All they'd have to do is give them a 'Heroic' mode option, increase the level of the mobs, and make the bosses drop something nice. Rather than creating all new weapons / armour or using badges of justice, they could make them drop Old-World Tokens or something along those lines, that can be used to buy nice new toys.
Maybe nothing 'Useful', just stuff that's nice to have, like exotic mounts or armour dyes?
And it would open up the possibility of Heroic Dailies that use the old dungeons.
And imagine picking up a level 80 Heroic Daily in StormWind for you to kill an epic version of Bazil Thredd.
This would regenerate the old areas a bit, and, in theory, shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Also, I'm assuming Blizz might have already thought of this one, a 'Level 80 Heroic' mode should be brought in for all the OL dungeons too. Otherwise they'll just go the way of the DeadMines and never see life again.

...........Smyth Out............

Bling Ding

Mission successful... My quest not to play WoW for a day was pulled off perfectly (despite the date on the posts - That's just due to my unhealthy obssesion with playing when everyone else is in bed).

Also, I completed my uber-secret mission to ask my GF to marry me, another success!
So it's all good.

Weeding the garden

Today I intended to max out my herbalism skill, with the hope of making cash for my mount quicker than I currently am.
It sort of worked, and it sort of didn't. Following several of the guides on the net, which all said exactly the same thing, it took me ages just to find herbs that were within my level range.
Unfortunately it took me most of the day to figure out that they were just wrong, and had wasted alotof time.

Top Tip: Screw always trying to gather at the top end of your skill level, find the area 1 lvl below that, and gather twice / three-times as many greens and yellows, as well as the occasional orange and not only will you make more cash from all the extra pickings, but you'l level up more often than not.

Despite my intentions, I obviously got side-tracked as usual, and ended up doing some dungeon runs with the Munquis: Bolle, Komatai, Flowerz, Zuchi and Myself cleared non-heroic Old Hillsbrad, Black Morass and Shadow Labs, just for the fun, and for the sake of getting our heroic keys for future runs.

With a full team of Munquis the Caverns of Time instances were a breeze. They used to be quite difficult, but Munqui-Power won through and we spent most of the time in the instances waiting for the next bosses to appear / do their thing. As is now usual, I topped the dmg meter most of the time.. although Bolle out did me in the Shadow Labs. Kudos to him, tanking as a retadin.

But in Shadow Labs, things didn't go as smoothly. Firstly, flowerz had to leave, so we picked up a PUG healer 'DPSadin' (maybe the name was a bad sign). He seemed to be trying his best, but he just couldnt keep up with our speed of attacks.
With Flowerz we were literally jumping from one mob to the next with no breaks in combat, only 1 or 2 deaths overall, and those due to slight overaggro or a mis-timed shot. Speed was king in CoT, and we absolutely owned the place.
For anyone familiar with Black Morass, it's normal practice to clear the trash first, so Bolle dove in, aggro'd the entire instance (apart from medihv) and brought them back to us.
The dmg meter went wild, and after a couple of volleys from me, and a couple of consecrations from Bolle I'd done 5000DPS and he'd done 3500DPS (yeah 5k and 3k). True, it was only on trash, but it looked cool. :)

Secondly, in Shadow Labs, I screwed up twice... once mis-understanding an instruction and aggroing a boss early, and second time was a nooby mistake of my pet aggroing the boss un-intentionally.. apologies guys.
But apart from thos snags we still cleared the place no problem.

Handily, one of the mobs also dropped a blue helm that matches my Epic set, and has decent stats, so even though WotLK is only 11 days away, it's still nice to have.

Tomorrows mission: Try not to play WoW.