At this point, the thread that inspired today's breakfast topic is, itself, pretty old-school, but anyway, here's the question: What is the most obscure old-school thing you remember? The OP's contribution is when he looted a BoP axe in his first instance, thinking he could give it to a friend, but he is quickly trumped by the second poster: dwarf mages.
As for me, I have a pretty terrible memory, but I do dimly recollect taking tailoring on my first character, a Hunter, because I'd heard about shirts and they sounded cool. But that fits more in the "noob" category than "old-school" proper. Inner Fire raising attack power and not having charges? Throwing weapons that couldn't have their quantity refreshed? Reck bombs? Decursive? I haven't been playing since beta or anything, so none of this is too crazy. What's your favorite memory of WoW past?
Once upon a time, before Burning Crusade was released, my Alliance druid was hanging out in Felwood and a Krol Blade dropped. I was able to sell it on the AH on the first try for 700 gold, which in those days was a lot of in-game cash.
More recently, my Horde druid picked up an Eye of the Sea from the Fishing Quest reward. I sold it for 379 gold which was 21 gold less than my first asking price. Not as big of a haul as my first big sale, but still a welcome addition to my Epic Flight fund.
What is the most you have sold anything for on the Auction House? Was it your first asking price?
Last week on the podcast (which will be posted later today, and is pretty good, if I say so myself), Turpster informed us that he's gotten up to level 61 on his Shadow Priest that he started a while ago. His goal is to make it all the way to 70 by Wrath of the Lich King, which means he and I are in an informal race at this point -- my Hunter is currently 64 and I'm aiming to hit 70 by the expansion as well.
Unfortunately, we have no idea when the expansion will drop. If you're the optimistic type, yesterday's BlizzCon announcement might have hinted to you that the expansion will come out before the big event in Anaheim, which means we'll be in Northrend before October. I'm not so optimistic -- I'm still thinking we won't see Wrath until right before the holidays, and Blizzard being Blizzard, probably delayed until January again.
But either way, you've got at least a few months, so what are your major goals before the expansion hits? Going to level a character, get a certain Arena rating, or do every Heroic? Aiming to get your mount, still, or have a goal with your guild to finish Sunwell before all the new content shows up? What are you aiming to do before going to see Arthas?
New talents solidly won the poll last time around (and unfortunately, it one of the thing we haven't heard much about yet -- besides the Warlock hints, Blizzard hasn't said much about what classes will be able to do in the next ten levels), but surely the 10/25 man news (that we've been talking about all weekend) will get some more folks excited about the raids. And personally, I'm much more excited about siege engines than I was before Friday -- I previously thought it would only be a few quests in Lake Wintergrasp, but from what we heard, siege engines and multi-person mounts are going to become a big part of life all over Azeroth.
So how's your outlook on Wrath of the Lich King looking now? Are you still waiting to hear about those new talents, or did all that news on Friday pique your interest in something else? What are you most excited about for the next expansion?
I have mentioned before that I am a sucker for practical jokes. I fall for emote humor all the time. In EQ, I fell for the pickpocket joke. And the BG joke that is definitely a little mean has gotten me as well. So I am always happy to hear that I am not the only sucker around and tonight much of my guild fell for a little ninja loot humor.
Narayan is a Boomkin. So there is no way he should be looting the Seventh Ring of the Tirisfalen. Even if he were a Feral Druid, he still wouldn't need all of that shield stuff. But for a minute, most of the people in Tempest Keep seemed to forget that loot text is green and not orange. To say that the tank was a little miffed would be an understatement. But my guildies have a great sense of humor, so there will be no ensuing drama reported in Guildwatch.
Have you fallen for an emote practical joke? Or are you the emote joke perpetrator? What is your favorite /e humor?
Zzmorriss wrote in to say that he was offering in the Trade Channel to run people through his guild's cleared ZA instance in order to complete that quest. He charged 10 gold to join the raid and be guided to the place to get the item for Budd. He then charged another 10 gold a person to run them through again to do Budd's follow up quest. He made a total of 180 gold for 15 minutes of work and then ran through 6 or 7 more groups before the reset.
I've got something to celebrate -- not only is my birthday just around the corner (May 6th, cash and cake both accepted as presents), but my WoW-nniversary has just passed also. It was three years ago, in mid April of 2005, I think, that I bought World of Warcraft as a birthday present to myself, and I've been playing the game ever since. So in celebration of my third anniversary as a WoW player, let's ask a first-timer question today (courtesy of WI's own Elizabeth Wachowski): what did you think when you first played this game?
I started up as a Night Elf, and even though I'd played Dark Age of Camelotbefore, and read up completely on World of Warcraft, I was pretty overwhelmed. I was clueless, too -- I had no idea there was any world beyond Teldrassil. I didn't discover Stormwind or Ironforge until I was at least level 30. But I did like it -- Dark Age of Camelot's long, low-reward grind had left me jaded, and so when a green item dropped for me within a few minutes of rolling up my character, I knew I'd found a game with a reward system as good as Diablo II.
What did you first think of World of Warcraft? I can't imagine anyone hating the game completely (and staying around long enough to answer a discussion question here), but did you hate it for some reason? Did you love it from the start, or were there things that you missed until much later on? Did you start in beta and think it was unfinished, or did you start after Burning Crusade and wonder why it was so empty? What were your first impressions of WoW?
When we first heard about Figureprints, everybody seemed fairly keen to get one -- there were thousands of people trying to get in on the drawing, and lots of folks were more than willing to put down their $100 for a custom, real-life figure of their characters created directly from the in-game models.
But as the Dude (if censored) might say, new stuff has come to light. We've seen the first Figureprints off the press, and the quality, so far, hasn't been impressive, to say the least. We should note that Figureprints is replacing that figure in the gallery, but we'd like to know: has all of this new information changed your mind about Figureprints?
Are you still excited to get one, or have you changed your mind from originally liking the idea to not so thrilled about the actual product? Or, like Matthew Rossi, have you said "This aggression will not stand, man," from the beginning? OK, that's not really what he said (I just wanted to quote the Dude agaIn), but where are you at on Figureprints lately? Yea or nay?
My favorite beggar plea is when they ask for "spare" cash. Like there is the concept of extra change jingling in your pocket in-game. My usual answer to any beggar is "Of course not", but when I'm feeling verbose I'll give advice as to where a good place to quest is for his or her level.
The Spousal Unit has been known to happily say that he will give the beggar 10 gold. All the beggar has to do is meet him in front of the bank in 10 minutes. Then 9 minutes later, he logs off. The tenacious ones will actually add him to their Friends List and bug him the next time he's on. He is willing to string them along as long as they are willing to keep trying.
Just like Gold Sellers are only around because people are willing to buy, beggars only keep begging because people are willing to give them money.
Yesterday I asked why beggars beg. Today I want to know, do you give to beggars? If not, what do you say when you turn them down?
Lately, my bank alt has been encountering beggars in Orgrimmar. This confuses me because there has never been a better time to make money at any level. Sure, level 70s can do their Daily Quests and easily make 100 gold in less than an hour. But even lowbies can get in on the action.
If you can herb, Swiftthistle brings a nice price on the AH. Is mining your thing? Copper bars and low end gems are snapped up on the AH by people leveling up Jewelcrafting, Engineering and Blacksmithing. Do you just kill humanoids? Well then, Wool Cloth has always been profitable for bringing up First Aid, Tailoring and factions in the major cities.
Though, honestly, going out and questing for half an hour at any level will get you enough money to buy supplies and pay for repair bills. So I just don't get it. Isn't playing the game more interesting than standing around asking for other people's money?
I am really baffled here. Do you beg and if so, why? If not, why do you think people beg?
Zjo asks on the European Forums, as many have done before her, if there is any possibility of changing races. Her point is that with changes to racial abilities, the choice you made several levels ago may no longer be the one you would make today.
I can see both sides of this issue. On the one hand, it would be difficult to come up with an in-world, non-lore-breaking way to implement this change. Going to a barbershop to change your hair makes sense. Converting from Human to Gnome, does not.
On the other hand, the racial abilities changed without any thought to lore. So if Blizzard wants to make changes to balance the game, why not let players change their race if they don't like Blizzard's changes?
Personally, I don't think they should, but if they do, it should be one time only with a fee attached. But I like re-rolling. Alts are fun!
We've asked before if you would, but I'm asking today if you think you should be able to change your race rather than being forced to re-roll? And if so, how do you think it should be implemented? Do you think re-rolling is too much of a pain or part of the fun of the game?
What's your favorite time of the week to get some good WoW gaming in?
It used to be that I really enjoyed playing on the evenings weeknights -- I'd rush home from work to sign into Azeroth and enjoy the primtime evening crowds. Then, I started raiding, and I looked forward to raid nights every week -- usually Tuesday and Sunday. Nowadays, I'm mostly soloing my way through daily quests and new content, and strangely enough, I enjoy logging on early on weekend mornings. I start around 8am on Saturdays and Sundays, and then play through until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
Of course, those aren't the only times I play -- I like signing in whenever I have a chance, either to level up or run a group with a few friends. But I really enjoy playing on weekend mornings, with my coffee and maybe a DVD on in the background. What's your favorite time of the week to play?
Chilton meant that Blizzard has solid ties into the community, but should it worry us at all that those ties might be a little too close-knit? We already know that Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan has major ties to a guild in the game (he was actually hired by Blizzard from his Everquest raiding guild), and quest designer Alex "Furor" Afrasiabi also comes from a guild that is still active in World of Warcraft. In fact, we've already seen Blizzard get in trouble by their own admission for treating the devs' guilds differently -- is it right for them to keep their guild associations anonymous?
On the one hand, obviously it's much easier to keep the developers' ingame identities anonymous, otherwise they wouldn't be able to play the game at all without getting approached with questions and complaints every time they log on. But on the other hand, not only is there the potential for favoritism in terms of game design, but what if the PvP guild mentioned in the article was one that won an eSports or the Arena realm tournament? Is it right for Blizzard's developers to keep their guild associations anonymous?
As I was perusing the very first review of Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, I noted that the "collectibles" in that game are going to be pretty intriguing. While a lot of collectible items in games (say, all the packages in the previous GTA games, or the flags in Assassin's Creed) are fairly superfluous, I find that some (like the orbs in Crackdown and the billboards and jumps in Burnout Paradise) actually make the game more fun -- while traveling through the game world, you can keep an eye out for extra stuff to do and see.
World of Warcraft has never really jumped in on that idea, however. Obviously, there are plenty of collecting quests, but usually they're for killing mobs. And there are plenty of things to collect in the game -- noncombat pets, tabards, and mounts, and so on -- but none of them really give you a reward when you find a certain number of them, or give you bonuses based on how many you've picked up.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, hiding some fun, optional collectibles (and giving small rewards based on just finding them) in a world as lush as Azeroth would make exploring an already great environment better. But I'm sure some would see it as a cheap tactic to make people hunt for widgets. What do you think?
I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The Withered Bog Lords in northern Zangarmarsh were cake for my Hunter -- they weren't exactly gentle with my pet, but he was able to eat the damage, and I could have grinded right away on them all day. At the exact opposite end of the grinding scale, however, were those stupid Umbrafen Eels -- not only were they under water (always annoying), but they've got this on-hit electrical damage thing that just drove me nuts. I stayed to play with the Bog Lords for a long time, racking up the XP, but as soon as I was done with the Eels, I got out of the water and stayed out.
Fighting these two back to back got me thinking: what's the easiest/hardest mob to grind on? Some mobs (like the tigers in Stranglethorn or the bears/spiders in Ashenvale) are super easy to grind -- they have no special abilities, they're spaced out, and they go down fast. But others -- most gnolls, in my experience, and lots of casters -- are just annoying as all get out; they run around, pull others, heal up when they're almost dead, and give you lots of headaches while taking them down. Those are the mobs you don't sit around and grind on -- they're the ones you avoid completely after you've done whatever quest requires you to kill them.
What are your favorite or least favorite mobs to just grind on in the game?
At this point, the thread that inspired today's breakfast topic is, itself, pretty old-school, but anyway, here's the question: What is the most obscure old-school thing you remember? The OP's contribution is when he looted a BoP axe in his first instance, thinking he could give it to a friend, but he is quickly trumped by the second poster: dwarf mages.
Last week on 
Just a week and a half or so ago, we wanted to know what you were 
I've got something to celebrate -- not only is my birthday just around the corner (May 6th, cash and cake both accepted as presents), but my WoW-nniversary has just passed also. It was three years ago, in mid April of 2005, I think, that I bought World of Warcraft as a birthday present to myself, and I've been playing the game ever since. So in celebration of my third anniversary as a WoW player, let's ask a first-timer question today (courtesy of WI's own 
When 
What's your favorite time of the week to get some good WoW gaming in?
Tom "Kalgan" Chilton, in his interview 
As I was perusing 
I'm currently working through Zangarmarsh on my Hunter, and this weekend I spent a lot of time grinding two completely different kinds of mobs. The
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