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Posts with tag vendors

Where's the badge vendor, and other IoQD questions

It is now day two of patch 2.4, and the madness is still well underway. The Isle of Quel'Denas is swarming with aggressive players (most of them seem to be mages for some reason) racing each other to the Wretched and the Sentries, not to mention people desperately seeking tanks, healers, and CC for MrT runs. (Alright, not many people are calling it MrT yet, but we're trying to make it happen.) And the Shattered Sun Offensive is progressing; my server is now 59% of the way through phase one.

What's all this about phases, you ask? Well, as people do the daily quests on IoQD, the Shattered Sun Offensive begins to retake the island building-by-building, in four phases. When that percentage progress (which you can see on your own server by talking to the NPCs who give the daily quests) goes up to 100%, we enter phase two, unlocking a trade supplies vendor and more quests. Repair vendors and the coveted badge vendors (and T4 -> PvP vendors) are not available until phase three, which Vaneras estimates should take a month or so to get to. This phase also brings ammo vendors, and still more quests.

And phase four will supply the island with a proper inn, complete with mailbox, and reagent vendors, as well as even more quests. So: there is no repair, ammo, or reagent vendor, no badge vendor, no inn, and no mailbox -- yet. If you want to hasten their coming, bring in any level 70 characters you might have and do the daily quests that are currently available. Oh, and the portal for that one quest is at 48,44 or so. I have now dealt with 95% of the questions I see in IoQD General (ah, memories of Hellfire Peninsula in the first week of BC).

Congestion relief on the TTR: more vendor locations


Vaneras over at the European forums has announced that some planned changes to the starting spawn locations on the Tournament Test Realm are in the works to address congestion issues. At the moment, the current spawn areas and vendors are located in each race's starting area, which is heavily populated upon character creation and log-in. The high density of players population cause heavy lag and much difficulty purchasing items from vendors. To address the situation, Vaneras reports that Blizzard is working on randomizing spawn locations (e.g. creating a Tauren won't necessarily start you off at Red Cloud Mesa) as well as adding new places for item vendors. The current list of vendor locations is as follows (subject to change):

1. Ammen Vale
2. North Shire
3. Coldridge Valley
4. Shadowglen
5. Goldshire
6. Sentinel Hill (Westfall)
7. Kharanos
8. Ironforge
9. Stormwind
10. Deathknell
11. Sunstrider Isle
12. Red Cloud Mesa
13. Valley of Trials

There are currently more Alliance vendor locations than there are Horde, but it's likely that more locations will be added in the future. So if you haven't visited the TTR yet, why don't you get the PTR client and try it out. Even if only to check out your toon dressed in phat lewtz.

Tournament Test Realm: The good, the bad, and the bovine


The Arena Tournament Test Realm (TTR) has been live for a few days now. It seems there have been some hiccups, which is to be expected during a stress test. Hortus has popped up in a few instances on the TTR forum to address some of the major concerns that players have brought up.

Lag is far and away the biggest issue on the TTR. Hortus indicated that one of the main functions of the TTR is measuring the best way to handle the massive number of contenders on the official tournament server. Blizzard currently has no plans for opening up any new TTRs to relive the stress. Logging into the server, I find the term "laggy" to be an understatement. Movement is dizzying, and players crowd around.

Continue reading Tournament Test Realm: The good, the bad, and the bovine

Boat vendors MIA

One of my favorite little additions in patch 2.3 was the boat/zeppelin vendors. Sure, there's a whole crew there, but after talking to them once to see what gossip they had, the vendors were the only ones I went back to. Since Blizzard refuses to take me up on my suggestion to allow fishing from moving boats, it gives me the one more thing to do while waiting for that zone-in screen, aside from chatting and making bandages. Being able to sell trash, stock up on reagents, and sometimes repair during this downtime is really nice.

Unfortunately, the boat vendors have been disabled in a hotfix to the live realms, for vague reasons. Nethaera clarifies that there are "propulsion issues" that necessitate the vendors being out for the time being, but that they'll be "back on duty" as soon as the issues are fixed. Possibly related is a note that the entire boat crew is gone on the 2.3.2 PTR, "for testing purposes." Hopefully the vendors will be back soon; until then, my boat rides will be (even more) boring.

New Arena vendors in place and selling their wares


As of this writing, the servers still haven't come back up yet, but apparently when they do, Drysc says we'll have more places to obtain all that Arena gear we're all lusting after. In addition to the Arena 52 vendor, there will be vendors outside the Nagrand and Blade's Edge arenas. And the Crimson Ring (did we ever determine if that was the group actually putting on the Arena fights?), if that is their name, will also have a vendor available in Gadgetzan.

Not exactly earthshaking news-- as busy as the vendors were when new stuff went on sale, I don't know that there was much traffic there when things slowed down-- but welcome news to Arena gear purchasers just the same.

Extended maintenance and new Arena Season 3 vendors


In case you haven't heard, Arena Season 3 starts tomorrow. Blizzard is taking down the servers at 2 AM PST and is scheduled to bring them back up again at noon. When the servers come up, Season 3 will begin, Season 1 gear will be available for honor purchase and there will be new Arena Vendors.

You will no longer need to travel to Area 52, pile into the little hut and speak to the Pinchwhistles in order to buy your Arena gear. As of the beginning of Season 3, you will be able to purchase your Arena gear outside of the Arenas in Nagrand and Blade's Edge and even in the old world town of Gadgetzan.

How many pieces of Season 3 gear have you saved up for? What do you have planned for the downtime? (Other than reading WoW Insider and Massively, of course.)

Inside the accounting files of NPCs

I've already said a few times that I'd love to see Blizzard's population figures, but a query (from an MVP, strangely enough) brings up another set of figures that I wouldn't mind a look at: NPC vendor sales numbers. Crepe wants to know how many items Griftah has sold (and how many hula dolls he sells post 2.3), but unfortunately, Nethaera deflects the question and leaves us with nothing. Additionally, I'd like to know how many heroic badges G'eras is going through on any given night-- maybe the fact that he's not selling many of his Heroic items is the reason why Blizzard is going to start dropping Badges in both Karazhan and Zul'Aman next week.

Blizzard has given us peeks at a few numbers behind the game, but they haven't updated that page since it went up (and with all the exceptions on those lists, it's not much help anyway). There is a whole new world of statistics to be had in Outland, and it'd be nice for Blizzard to let us at just a few of the most interesting ones.

Inventory management

Bags. We all got 'em, we all put stuff in 'em, but I'll bet that each and every one of us has a slightly different way of organizing and managing our inventories. Personally, I find that I'm a "less is more" kind of guy, probably because I get a bit overwhelmed with seemingly innumerable slots full of items both usable and junk-worthy. I like to make frequent trips to the Inn and sell off anything that I don't think I will use again or that I can't auction for a decent price. Seeing as I'm absolutely lousy at working the AH for any kind of profit, I vendor a LOT of things.

Back in the day, I used to try to keep my hearthstone and any important quest items in my last bag, along with a few food and drink items. This way, I could just open my backpack and say, "Oh look, stuff I looted that I need to vendor." Now that I'm 60 and raiding, I've found that my bag slots are taken up with different types of situational items - a few trinkets, my Nature Resist gear for AQ40, my Fire Resist gear for BWL, and a couple of different weapons for whether I'm standing back and need buffs, or in the mix and need to do damage. Popping open bags and trying to find what's what became a bit of a chore, and so I started looking for tools that'd help me manage my inventory.

Continue reading Inventory management


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