How the Blizz Ruined Glyphmas

You heard it here first folks: you can still trade Blackfallow inks at the Ink Traders, at least that is what the Known In-Game Issues site says right now. Okay, you probably heard it elsewhere, but here I am writing about it now. What does this mean? Essentially, that the whole stocking up game that some of us have been doing for the pre-Mists patch has basically been for naught.

Well, not so quick. As it is, sure, there won't be the crazy low supply of herbs that makes glyphmas great, but there will at least be a lot of demand, which will still mean more glyphs sold, and higher prices most likely. That stock of glyphs/ink that you have? Well, it will almost certainly come in handy whenever they fix the issue(it is listed as a bug, although it may be intended. Who knows?), or in the first few weeks or so after Mists launches. All is not lost, but I can definitely understand the frustration that some of you must feel.

Myself, I am just glad that I didn't go all out and get like 20k ink stocked up. Only about 10k-ish on me :P I will be just going about business as usual, and keeping the inks stocked up for when Mists launches.

EDIT: I forgot to credit my source, @msherretz on twitter, aka Michael Sherretz, probably best known from the amazing Auction House Junkies Podcast. Sorry about that :P

Pre Pre-Patch Impatience(Plus Some Philosophy)

So, here I am, writing this post in one window, listening to my favorite Pandora station(based off of Two Steps From Hell), and playing the MoP beta on the other window. Man, the maintenance cannot be over soon enough. I mean, sure, I could be happy with the fact that I am experiencing the changes already, in addition to the new dungeons, raids, and a whole new continent. That's all true, but there is something hollow about it all, knowing that everything that I am putting into the beta experience will go away in less than a month from now, at most. Then I think: well, isn't that the case with my regular WoW experience?

Let's face it, although WoW has been going on a long time, and is likely to continue to plow on for years hence, there will come a time when either we get bored or just plain tired of the game, or the servers will go offline, for good. Either way, all the hours filled with frustration, elation, sweat or just boredom will, in the end, amount to nothing but memories, and even those will fade. What are we to say, then? Are we to conclude that this game is a waste, and we should get out while we are ahead?

This sort of existential crisis, realizing the finite-ness of things, then grappling with how to proceed, what meaning to discover or to add, what reasons to keep going, has long been a topic of philosophy. Of course, when they(the philosophers) talk about this they are referring to the finite nature of our lives, of the human species, of the universe itself, but I think we can bring this same process of thought, and perhaps their conclusions, to the game we love.

So, faced with the ultimate end of this in-game experience, what reason can we find to keep playing it? I won't pretend to know the answer to this question, but I have an answer that works for me, and it is the same answer that I apply to the same problem in context of my finite life. I believe that meaning, purpose are not derived from some final tally at the end, some final scorecard. Rather, I believe that we can find reason enough for what we do in the now, in the immediate experience of things. In other words, I am motivated to grind for the awesome Cloud Serpents because I will be able to ride them in the next expansion. There is no consideration of ultimate meanings here, no attempt to tally the final score. I will be content having the mount then, regardless of the fact that I will not be able to have it forever.

Meaning can simply be in a simple enjoyment of the present, of being content in the moment. It can also be in making a name for yourself, as it were, a memory that will go on further than the life of the game. This can be as simple as forming a close-knit group of friends in-game, who you play with in other games after WoW ends, or as complex as running a successful competitive raiding guild. Or, you can make your name blogging, as, obviously, I am attempting to do here, in addition to the hangouts.

This reminds me of Talia Joy Castellano, a very young girl who is dying of cancer. She knows that she is dying, that she will almost certainly never reach her 18th birthday, let alone her 15th. Yet, she does not despair, at least outwardly. She has become a whiz at makeup, and makes amazing YouTube videos. Facing the short time that she has left, instead of cashing out as it were, she has decided to make herself immortal, in a way. She is making sure she will live on in the people she inspires. Her courage alone in the face of her impending death(as a freaking 12 year old!) is enough to inspire myself to find meaning in my life, now, regardless of the length of it.

Now, obviously, the short lifespan of some pixels in a game is not comparable to the very short life of a courageous little girl, but I do think that there is a lesson that even us MMO gamers can learn from her. We can still find satisfaction in striving for those things that we want, even if we know that they will be short-lived. We can realize the very short time we have in this game and make the most of it, or even try to create connections, an identity that will transcend it, and will perhaps incarnate itself in other games. The eventual end of this game is not the end of the meaning, the fun that we can find in it.

Why I am Happy About Spirit of Harmony

The following may put me in the minority opinion among gold-makers, but that's fine. I am not your average gold-maker, if there is even an "average" to speak of. In other words, I am not the type of gold-maker that does it for the sake of it. I make gold in order to spend it on the things I need in order to progress in other areas of the game, namely raiding. Let's just say that I have seriously seen some people who are into gold-making who barely know how to spec, or what abilities to use on their toons, or how to play in general. This kinda saddens me, as I think if you are going to be making fictional currency in a game, you should at least be interested in playing it. Oh well, that is neither here nor there, and I have no reason why I am bringing it up right now, other than I just feel like venting.

Anyway, why am I happy about Spirit of Harmony? A few reasons, which I will put in a tidy bullet list:

• First, it will make certain items more scarce, namely Darkmoon Cards, Crafted Gear, things like that. Yes, I know that Darkmoon cards will also be able to be made with the Scroll of Wisdom, but that is limited to one scroll per day(which are also used for other things). Point is, because of the fact that Spirits will not be tradeable, and many people will not be paying other people for their spirits(if they even have the recipe needed in the first place, which will come into play with the recipes given by factions), there will almost definitely be less of these items flooding the AH, which of course means higher values for the ones YOU craft.
• Because the Spirits will no longer be tradeable, the prospect of just sitting in a city and camping the AH will no longer be really that viable, at least for certain markets. Of course it will still work for others, but that is beside the point. If you want Spirits, you will have to go out and get them in the world, or in dungeons. This makes me happy, because certain lazy, trade-spamming gold makers on my server will be at a clear disadvantage, because I will have more Spirits, more rep with the factions, etc. In other words, there will be a better gating system to certain markets: time and effort, not just how much gold you can throw at it. High gating is a good thing for those who put in the effort to get past them(like me).
• The design of spirits will help spread the wealth around somewhat. It will probably become somewhat common for people to ask to use the Spirits that other people have. Depending on the ease of getting Spirits, this may mean that they will have a high value. So, for people who are not that into the gold-making game but who love to grind rep with factions and get lots of Spirits, this can be a boon, and create a sort of symbiotic relationship between the strict gold-makers(who don't really play the game) and the people who DO play the game. More gold all-around is actually a good thing. It means more people to buy the other things you are selling.

In summary, I am happy about Spirit of Harmony because it will make certain things more scarce(and thus, more valuable), will spread gold around, and set gates to certain markets(or at least to how much can be produced in that market), which if you take the time to pass them, will reward you immensely. 

Another Reason You Should Start a Farm

So far, the only times I have mentioned the new farm we'll be getting, is in the context of cooking, and how to make that so much easier. Well, for those who don't plan on cooking, or will be more focused on making gold with their other professions, using and growing your farm will still be a good way to go. This is for one big reason: Songbell Seeds.

What are these, you ask? Well, simply put, when planted, and then harvested on the next day after 12AM server, each plant gives at least one Mote of Harmony. I say, "at least" because I have not tested this extensively, so for all I know(and will know through more research) it could give more. But even at 1 per plant, that means at Revered with the Tillers(when you can get 12 plots), you can get a guaranteed 10 motes, or in other words, 1 Spirit of harmony, per day, without having to go kill tons of enemies. This can be especially useful for those alts you don't want to spend a lot of time on, but just want to do, say, your inscription research daily on(which requires one Spirit of Harmony). In addition, they can be sold to an NPC at the main hub in Pandaria for many other things.

Since the Motes of Harmony are soulbound, it could be a real pain in-you-know-where to have to go out into the wild and kill mobs until you get your 10 motes, on every alt you wish to do it on. But with a little initial time investment, you can have the whole thing running practically on autopilot. My advice? Once you get your main to 90, make sure to take some time to get your alts there as well, and start running multiple farms. Free mats for only a little initial time investment, and practically none afterward.

EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that the inscription daily DOES NOT require a Spirit of Harmony. For some reason I thought it did. Either way, you will definitely still want a lot of them :P

My Thoughts on Shaman in Mists(so far!)

I have been playing a lot on the beta, and I gotta say, I am really liking where the Shaman is heading as a class. Granted, I have not tested enhance, as I really don't play much of that live. What I have done of ele and resto in questing, dailies and dungeons, has me very excited.
Specifically, here are a few things that have me excited, mostly from a resto perspective:

• No buff totems. I always thought that they felt clunky, and it was pretty annoying to have to refresh them if one got hit, or expired, or I went out of range, etc. I know some people enjoy it, as a sort of unique, shaman mini-game of sorts, but I just feel they are distracting.
• An abundance of cooldowns of many types(survival, utility, throughput). In live as a resto shammy, I have only a few real cooldowns: Spirit Link Totem, Mana Tide Totem, Spiritwalker's Grace(which I really mainly use for the haste, not the main benefit, being able to cast while moving), and Nature's Swiftness. Oh, and bloodlust/heroism, let's not forget that. In Mists, I will be getting ascendance form, which will basically be a green buff from ultraxion for 15 sec, Healing Tide Totem(my preferred talent on that tier), which will be a sit it and leave it strong group healing cd, and improved elementals--which can channel a buff on me which increases my healing(and in the case of the Earth Elemental, also prevents 20% damage taken). I will also be getting an aoe stun, either an aoe root, a single root, or a group movement impairment remover, and some great damage reduction cooldowns(probably going to take Astral Shift). In other words, I will be getting tons of utility and group healing from these abilities.
• Cool glyphs. Being able to remove the cooldown on Riptide(not sure if it's worth losing the initial heal over. Will probably be very strong near end of expansion, or even mandatory. In the beginning it may just not be feasible to take advantage of it, mana- wise). Chain heal getting range buff, with short cd kind of seems weak, and not a good trade-off. Will only really be used in 10m raiding, or be fight dependent otherwise. Being able to make your chain heal look watery is a plus too.
• Let's see, ghost wolf becoming instant across the board is amazing. For pvp, the talent which lets you relocate your totems will probably be amazing(beside that, that talent tier is totally boring).

I could probably think of other things to get excited about, but to be honest, I am way too caught up with the Curiosity landing, and I am slightly drunk from this amazing Vinho Verde wine(Gazela, check it out, seriously). Possibly later today I will get more into my UI stuff, or delve into more Mists Preparation! 

Preparing for Mists, Part Three: A Preface to Part One

So, in all that talk and crude maths about the new feast in Mists, I neglected to let you in on just how difficult it will be, at least in the very beginning, to level one's cooking up to a point where one can even purchase the main feast, let alone cook it. Just to illustrate, here is the total count, excluding 525-535, as it is very easily done:


535-551(you go to 551 because the next set of recipes give you 2 points each):
16x Giant Mantis Shrimp
16x Jade Lungfish
32x Juicycrunch Carrot
16x Raw Tiger Steak
16x Wildfowl Breast
16x Ginseng

550-575:
12x Raw Turtle Meat + 60x Juicycrunch Carrot
12x Emperor Salmon + 60x Scallions
12x Reef Octopus + 12x Wildfowl Breast
12x Jade Lungfish + 60x Striped Melon
24x Karasang Paddlefish
50x Witchberries + 50x Jade Squash

575-600:
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Giant Mantis Shrimp + 50x Raw Crocolisk Belly + 250x Red Blossom Leek
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Emperor Salmon + 50x Wildfowl Breast + 250x Jade Squash
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Reef Octopus + 50x Mushan Ribs + 250x Juicycrunch Carrot
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Redbelly Mandarin + 50x Raw Crab Meat + 250x White Turnip
5x Soy Sauce + 50x Karasang Paddlefish + 50x Raw Turtle Meat + 250x Mogu Pumpkin
5x Soy Sauce + 250x Green Cabbage + 250x Witchberries

Final Quest:
1x Black Pepper + 50 Pink Turnip
1x Rice Flour + 5x Tiger Gourami + 5x Raw Turtle Meat + 25x Scallions
1x Rice Flour + 5x Jewel Danio + 5x Raw Crab meat + 25x White Turnip
1x Black Pepper + 5x Emperor Salmon + 5x Raw Crocolisk Belly + 25x Mogu Pumpkin
1x Black Pepper + 5x Giant Mantis Shrimp + 5x Mushan ribs + 25x Green Cabbage
1x Rice Flour + 5x Redbelly Mandarin + 5x Raw Tiger Steak + 25x Red Blossom Leek

There are a couple big things to pay attention to here. First, and most importantly, is that you will need a total of at least 36 Ironpaw Tokens, the new cooking tokens which are used to buy the 100 Year Soy Sauce, Black Pepper, and Rice Flour. You only get about 6-7 of them in the beginning, with the introductory cooking quests, and then either can get them through the one(as of right now) daily, and through Bundles of Groceries, which you can only do once you get at least one Way to 600. The Bundles of Groceries take either 100 of a single vegetable, or 20 of a meat or fish to make, and only give you one token in return. Let's just say that it will be very counter-productive to use the meats and veggies that you need to cook with to buy tokens.

Second, christ, have you looked at just how much you will need!? Almost 300 of many kinds of veggies, and hundreds of fish and meats. If you are looking to get the best feasts for your raiding group in the beginning of your progression, the numbers speak for themselves. Simply, you will not be able to level your cooking alone, quickly, and keep your sanity.

Working together, though, it should be quite doable. Here is the plan I propose:

• First, make sure everyone in the guild(or at least the raiding group) deposits all of the cooking materials they get through questing into the guild bank, or some other central deposit.
• Second, make sure everyone in the guild(or, again, at least in the raiding group) starts a farm as early as they can(at 86), and plants what Jogu says to plant(because you will get more), then deposit all harvested crops to the guild bank.
• Third, designate a person in the guild to be the cook. This person will be boosted to get the feasts quickly. I have not yet been able to find out if the feasts are soulbound, but if they are, MAKE SURE the person you choose is able to attend all raids. Just saying, no use wasting the mats.
• Fourth, when people get to 90(leveling to max level should be the priority, of course, and it should take no more than a week to get to 90, if that. I have done it twice and it's not long), schedule times throughout the week to go fishing or farming meats as a guild. I know it isn't the most glamorous thing to do, but you want to progress, right? Gotta do what you gotta do. If every member participates, in, say, fishing, then each person only has to catch about 36 fish each, easily done in about an hour. Additionally, all of the fish can be caught in pools, which can be fished at level 1 skill, so there is no skill barrier, and thus, no excuse.
• Fifth, people will also have to give up their tokens, initially, to back the cook. I suggest taking all the tokens in the beginning(which should be about 60?) and turning them into mostly Soy Sauces, and 3 of Black Pepper and Rice Flour. They shouldn't have to give up any more of the tokens for a while, at least until the good feasts will have to be made.

Anyway, let me know in the comments what you think!

Preparing for Mists, Part One: Feasts

Before I get into the meat of this subject, I want to clarify something. You may have noticed that for being a blog which kind of has a gold-making feel and name, I have not written much about the subject. To be honest, part of the reason is because I have felt pretty hesitant to tread on already covered ground, just posting to put words out there and get page views. I want to be as original as I can. In this series that I am starting, Preparing for Mists, I hope to do just that.

How do I intend to be different than the rest(or many of the others) with this? Well, one thing I have noticed is that many of the gold-making bloggers focus on making gold in the game for its own sake, as its own end in a way. To many(not all, of course) of them, gold making is their endgame, their PVP. That's fine, to each their own and all that, but gold making is not my driving force in the World of Warcraft. Mine is raiding. As such, all gold-making that I do is primarily for the purpose of financing my raiding toons, and the guild that I am part of. Now, of course I love to splurge on a nice-looking mount to transmog set, but those are secondary concerns.

Anyway, I thought that I would take this perspective of mine, one of a dedicated raider in a raiding guild, and use that to inform the way that I write about gold-making. Here is my first attempt at that goal, a series on how to prepare yourself(and your guild) for raiding in Mists of Pandaria.

Another disclaimer: this series will not be specifically about making gold exclusively, rather, it will be about preparing for raiding in a way which will save gold. As the saying goes, "a penny saved is a penny earned".

And yes, I am really long-winded :P

If you have done any cooking on the Mists beta, or read about it, you will know that Blizzard is changing the way that buff food is handled. Cooking will have (insert number here) "Ways", or specializations, which focus on making food which benefits a particular stat, with the exception of the Way of the Brew. Each Way will also have its own feast, which gives everyone 250 extra in their primary stat, and a little extra to people who have the primary stat that is associated with that Way. For example, the Banquet of the Pot will benefit Mages more than they will Death Knights, as the Way of the Pot specialization is about intellect.

Additionally, each feast now comes in two sizes, 10 and 25, with a higher material cost to make the 25-person version. Also, feasts are produced in batches of five. As an aside, I originally thought that they were made singly, and when I took a look at what the mats were to make one of them(as I thought) I literally thought that Blizzard was playing some sort of joke. having those same mats produce five makes much more sense, although it is still going to be a higher cost than what we have been used to in Cataclysm. What are the mats, you ask?

Pandaren Banquet (serves 10)
1x 100 Year Soy Sauce
10x Jewel Danio
10x Raw Tiger Steak
50x Pink Turnip

Great Pandaren Banquet (serves 25)
1x 100 Year soy Sauce
20x Jewel Danio
20x Raw Tiger Steak
100x Pink Turnip

As you can see, the 25-person version is simply twice the material cost, save the Soy Sauce, which is purchased with an Ironpaw Token. An interesting thing about the mats here is that they are of four different types. I already mentioned the Soy Sauce. The Jewel Danio is a fish that, from what I can tell so far, is only fished in the level 90 zone(in pools and open water). The Raw Tiger Steaks are looted form tigers you kill, and the Pink Turnips can be looted from Yaungol that you kill, but seems to be much more reliably gained through farming, which I will get into in a bit.

Now, to prepare for your raid's feasting needs, you will have to consider a few variables. First and most obvious, is the raid size. This will set the base cost of mats per feast. Second, you want to determine the amount of feasts that you will need per week, which is a little more involved, but not too much. After these two steps, you will come out with a material requirement that you will have to fill every week. Let me walk you through the process, using my raiding group as an example.

First, my guild raids 10-mans. That part's easy enough.

Second, to determine the amount of feasts we will need per week, I can either spitball it(as in, just guess) and add a little more on top to be safe, or I can attempt at a more educated guess. Let's try the latter. First, I will want to figure out the amount of raiding time spent per week. For our guild, we do four hour sessions, three days a week, which means we raid for 12 hours a week. Now, given that we are not the most hardcore type of guild(although we are pretty good in my opinion), and factoring in that this calculation will be for the first few weeks of content, which means it will be new for us and we will be relatively undergeared for the content, I estimate that we will be wiping a lot. That said, because it will be so new for us, there will probably be some amount of time spent in-between pulls to figure out our strategy. In other words, we probably won't be wiping and running back in to pull in 2 minutes. I would put the in-between fight time at probably an average of 6-10 minutes. The fight time average I would put at about 4-5 minutes, because I am sure we will be wiping a bit on the first couple minutes of a fight, which will balance out the longer times.

Total time for pull+wipe+run back in, buff up and pull again = ~10-15 minutes. As I am a believer in preparing for more than you will need, I will go with the low part of the estimate, 10 minutes.

12 hours/10 minutes=72. As, in, at worst we will need about 72 feasts per week. Now, as I don't trust my estimation skills too much, I like to add a bit more, and so will go with 80 feasts per week needed. If we prepare for that, and end up needing less(or even far less) than it's not like the feasts will go wasted, and we can adjust our estimates accordingly.

Remembering that each feast recipe produced actually makes five, I determine that we will need to make 16 feasts. That comes to a material cost of:

16x 100 Year Soy Sauce
160x Jewel Danio
160x Raw Tiger Steak
800x Pink Turnip

Which, in my opinion, isn't really all that bad, if we make the acquiring of materials a team effort. The fishing and killing part of the equation is easy enough, but the part that I want to get into is the turnips. 800 Pink Turnips a week may seem like a high cost, but it actually shouldn't be too much if people pitch in. My idea is requiring every raid member to take the minimum of time to start their own farm, which takes less than a half hour to do, and require them to grow a certain amount of turnips per week. How many turnips, you ask?

Well, turnip plants, when planted and harvested, provide(from what I have seen in my limited experience, so correct me if I am wrong) 5-8 turnips per plant. If we multiply that number by 10(the number of raiders), we get 50-80, as in, if everyone plants one. This means that to get 800 turnips reliably(as in, only taking the low number, 50, into account), each raider on average will have to produce 16 plants worth of turnips. That means four days of planting for the people who only get 4 plots(the starting amount). Additionally, as you can start farming at level 86, so anyone with a current alt at 85 can take the tiny bit needed to level it to 86 to start farming if they don't want to have to plant turnips on their main. Either way, it is super easy to plant and harvest the turnips, they cost next to nothing for the seeds, and it takes just about the same amount of time as any other daily, so there is no excuse for not taking advantage of it.

Again, the gold that your guild does not have to spend on the hundreds of turnips necessary to produce feasts is gold that you effectively earned. Additionally, it will mean more turnips on the AH, which will mean lower prices for when you do need to buy some. In fact, and here's a trivia section for you, this idea of growing your own crops affecting the larger market has even been the focal point of a famous US Supreme Court decision, Wickard v. Filburn, which helped define the powers that Congress had under the commerce clause. What can I say, I am a politics nerd :P

I hope you actually made it though the long-winded post, and actually gleaned something informative and/or interesting from it(other than my overuse of parenthetical statements, or my irony at doing one now, or my obviousness for pointing out the irony, or the long-windedness of this parenthetical statement). Either way, you can expect another post in the same vein soon, although I haven't quite determined the topic yet. Thanks!