Soloing Old WoW Content: A Newbies Guide.

If you know me in game, or have been reading my blog since I started talking about WoW, you probably know that I enjoy running old content. I especially love soloing older raids and dungeons. A big part of the reason I enjoyed WoW at first was the ability to go back and run old raids to get the gear and pets from them. As I've matured in WoW my focus has changed to other things, but I always try to run the old content whenever I get the chance. Hopefully this guide will help you get into running old content if you feel like that part of the game is something you will enjoy.

Why run old content?:

If you read my gold making newbies guide, you may remember that I touched on running old content as a way to make gold in WoW. It's not the best way to make money, but it is the most engaging in my mind. While running old content you can make money from vendoring soulbound loot, auctioning BoE loot and pets, and the actual gold drops from both trash mobs and bosses.

Gold isn't the only reason to run old content. If you like lore, raids and dungeons can expand on that and allow you to live parts of WoW's history. My personal favorite villain in the WoW lore is Illiden, followed closely by Ragnaros. I've soloed both of them, and each time it was a ton of fun.

But wait there's more. Depending on how old the raids are, they can be a challenge and if you like a challenge, they are extremely fun. Some fights are tough to solo for most classes, especially the ones that have constant damage, or a massive spike in damage. The hardest fight I ever had was when I first hit 90 and tried to solo Gruul the Dragonkiller. My gear was terrible (at that point I still had some green pieces), and I wiped 3 times. Eventually, I came up with a way to mitigate a lot of the damage by switching some talents and changing my hunter pet. I would never have had that experience if it wasn't for trying to solo something.

How to get started:

So my little talk there has convinced you to start running old content solo. But you have no idea where to start. This is where it gets a little tricky, as what you can and can't solo depends on your class. If you are a Blood spec Death Knight, you are going to have no trouble soloing most things. My personal choice of class, the Hunter, can solo a good amount of old content and even some current level normal dungeons, as we have a pet to tank a lot of the damage for us. The cloth wearing classes are going to find it the hardest (although I have it on good authority that a Disc Priest can solo a fair bit with their self heals).

Besides the class you choose, the gear you wear makes a huge difference to how easy old content becomes. The fight with Gruul I mentioned came down to how bad my gear was at the time, and now that I am around 530 average ilevel, that fight takes me all of 20 seconds. Where previously a full clear of Molten Core would take me around 30 mins, it now only takes me about 15 mins. Getting better gear also opens up content that you wouldn't have been able to solo before. I tried to solo a Mists of Pandaria normal dungeon around the same time that I soloed Gruul (feeling that now I had taken down a hard boss I could solo something current haha), and had my ass handed back to me in a paper bag. These days I can solo a couple of normals, and it wouldn't surprise me if someone with full normal or heroic gear could solo all of the dungeons that mists has to offer.

To begin with, I'd recommend soloing dungeons. Heroic dungeons in WotLK offered several mounts that you could solo for, and are a good starting point of difficulty. Every single level 90 character should be able to solo them with little to no difficulty at all. After that, have a look at Molten Core or Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ20) for something a little more difficult. As your gear gets better and better, start to take on more challenging raids and working toward more difficult things.

Speedrunning:

This is where I've started to find my most enjoyment from soloing old content: attempting to do it faster and faster as you go along. Installing all the Deadly Boss Mod packages gives you a record of your fastest time taking a boss down. This can give you a good benchmark of how much better you are getting at content as you get better gear, develop better strategies and learn the fights. You can simply record times for each boss, or if you are like me, run a stop watch from start to finish of an instance to see if you have gotten better overall.

And that is pretty much all there is to soloing old content. You can start to solo harder and harder content if you research the fights and work out just how to do what you need to do. As always folks, run old content and...

GAME ON!

Random Ramblings #10: Two wrongs and a right.

It's leveled up! The Random Ramblings has reached it's tenth edition. In this one, I'm wrong about something in Pokemon,  I'm right (hopefully) about WoD's boost to 90 price, and I'm wrong about some big robots falling from the sky.

As a small aside before I continue however, I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on my Gold Making post. I had well over 6500 views on that post alone in the two weeks it's been up and all of the people contacting me on Reddit, in game and on Facebook made me feel like I had helped a few people. I will definitely be continuing to post more newbie guides to WoW.

Without any further introduction, lets dive headfirst into this edition of the Random Ramblings.

Pokemon X and Y

I recently obtained a 2DS and a copy of Pokemon Y. If you've been reading the blog for a little while you know I am a huge Pokemon fanboy, and it is really my only handheld game obsession. X and Y have done a fantastic job of tapping into the group of players that started with Red and Blue all those years ago. How? Kanto starters. Being able to obtain all of the Kanto starters through one means or another makes this whole game a huge nostalgia trip for me.

The overworld gameplay has changed a whole bunch. Being able to move diagonally makes movement that much more interesting, and the roller skates as another movement type is also a great addition. As far as looks go, everything being rendered in 3D has only added to an already recognizable art style in the game. Where the game truly comes into its own however, is the battling.

I'm the first to admit, I was dubious about the mega evolutions that were added to the game. I really didn't see how it was going to add to the game, besides making some Pokemon look good. I'm also the first to admit, I was totally wrong. Mega evolutions add so much more in the way of tactics to the game. Being able to only mega evolve one Pokemon per battle, and then having that effect wear off if the Pokemon faints or is switched out means you need to use it at the right time to get maximum effect from it. The battle animations have completely changed, with all of the Pokemon being fully animated throughout the entire fight (think Pokemon Stadium style). Everything in the battles just feels better and more immersive.

All in all, I love Pokemon Y. It's just the right combination of old and new to make it an ideal Pokemon game for me. Here's to many more years of amazing Pokemon games.

Warlords of Draenor Leak

Now this isn't official, so take it with a pinch of salt. On Tuesday while the server maintenance was happening, people were able to log in for a few minutes and see the interface for character boosts. The following picture was posted on /r/wow and MMO Champion.

Obviously this is subject to change and by no means should be taken as the final price, but if the boost does go live at $60 I feel it's a good price. I'm a strong believer that pricing something so that people have to actually think about it is the best for a micro transaction in a game, especially for something like this. Pricing it around this does 2 things: 1: It stops people from just buying one of every class and killing the low level zones (something I mentioned in my Boosting to 90 post as being the only legitimate reason I could see boosts being bad), and 2: Still keeps it within range of everyone playing as an option.

The whole point of the level 90 boost is to give an option to skip leveling on a character if you needed to. But for it to be effective, it needs to be just that, an option. If every man and his alt is getting boosted, the low level zones suddenly become dead, dungeon finders are no longer an option for traditional leveling and WoW loses one of the best aspects: the story leading to max level. But if no one but those with the deepest RL pockets can afford to boost, it opens up a can of worms about imbalances (although how and why is never addressed by those people), Blizzard being greedy and general rage from the community. If it is $60 for a boost, then Blizzard has made a good choice in my opinion.

Giant Robots and Parkour: Titanfall

If I seem happy, I'm actually not. You see the Titanfall beta is over, and that means I have to wait until the middle of March to be able to play it again. That's like 3 and half weeks man. It's almost a month of waiting. I just don't know if I can make it.

I got into the beta 2 weeks ago, and despite my initial reservations, I really, really, really, really love Titanfall. Actually add a few more really's in there, and you might even come close to how I feel about it. My reservations about the game come from how I feel about the CoD style of multiplayer, and with the team behind Titanfall (Respawn) having a lot of the guys from Infinity Ward in it, I was worried that it would feel exactly the same as CoD.

To continue the theme of today's post, I was wrong. Titanfall is so much better than CoD. It retains the parts of CoD that make it brilliant (weapon customization, fast paced shooting), and adds jump jet assisted parkour and giant stompy mechs. The beta had 3 types of mech that you could play, but only one readily available in the Atlas mech shown in the picture above (the other two came from one use only cards that you unlock from gameplay).

The biggest issue with the game currently is the lack of Australian servers. All of the servers are done through Microsoft, and they currently have no data centers in Australia. This is being worked on, but if you do pick up the game before it is, expect to get anywhere between 100ms to 250ms ping. The netcode is rock solid however and with the exception of one or two games, I had no issues with it feeling as though I was lagging at all.

There really is no way to actually describe the feeling of playing Titanfall, as the only reference I have is playing Tribes or Brink. The fast paced movement that you can achieve in the game, combined with the feeling of power you get in a Titan add up to make Titanfall one of the best multiplayer experiences I have ever had. If you like FPS games, give Titanfall a go. You might be as happily surprised as I was.

As always,

GAME ON!

Making Gold in WoW - A Newbies Guide.

When I started playing World of Warcraft last year, I came from a long history of playing Eve Online. A massive part of Eve for me was the manufacturing and mining sides of Eve - I was the stereotypical "carebear" player in Eve. The parts of the game that I found most fun were things like playing the markets, mining space rocks and making large sums of ISK. WoW also has those aspects, albeit a little more involved than Eve's crafting system. However as a new player, I had no idea how to tap into WoW's auctions, crafting and loot systems to make gold in the game. As I have progressed in the game, certain things became apparent, and I am going to do my best to write them from the point of view of the newbie to the game. This list is not going to include every possible way to make money in the game, as that list would be impossibly long and very hard to judge per server. So let's jump into the world of gold making in WoW.

Disclaimer: The following list should be read as going from easiest to hardest all the way down. Please don't take it as the be all and end all of making gold. There are literally thousands of ways to make gold that people have found.

Sell on the Auction House:

The Auction House in WoW is a very powerful way to make gold, and any serious gold maker will spend more time standing in front of the auctioneers in the major cities than they do anywhere else in the game. But that doesn't mean that you have to spend every waking moment checking auctions to make money there. While leveling my first character I made a mistake by selling everything to NPC vendors, and as I realised later I could have made a fair bit more gold from selling green items and blue items, low level crafting mats and other items.

Don't be afraid to put low level green items up on the AH. People starting new characters will often buy green items for their characters to fill slots they don't have BoA heirloom items for. People leveling enchanting will also buy gear to disenchant, or even enchant, if they need something quickly. If you don't plan on leveling your professions right away, you could also sell cloth, cooking ingredients and reagents on the AH. Experiment with what sells on your realm, as results in certain items may vary. For example on my realm cloth is a sure seller, but ingredients are not. And the best part about all of this? Your character doesn't need to be at max level to take advantage of all of these things.

Run Old Instances:

If you don't like crafting, then the absolute best way to make gold on your own is running old raids and dungeons. Now while a max level character is not required to do this, having one that is max level and reasonably geared will make the entire process that much faster. I personally love to run AQ20 whenever I can as the effort required there is minimal, and the rewards from the grey and soulbound items can yield between 200 to 500 gold every run for around 10 mins of my time.

Another big advantage of running old raids and dungeons is the pet, mount and BoE (bind on equip) items you can get. The mounts are nice to have if they drop, and there are some really rare mounts out there that drop from raids. Both pets and BoE items should be sold in the AH (unless you want to keep them of course), to maximize profits. Again you will need to do some experimenting to see what sells on the AH and vendor everything else.

Carrying Others:

Probably the one I know the least about as far as making money off it, but I know of others who make money from carrying people through dungeons and arena PVP. While the dungeon one may not be as interesting with the LFG tool, you can still ask newbies in trade or local if they want to join you when you run old dungeons for a small fee. If you get the PVP bug, people will often pay to get carried through PVP, paying per win. A friend I have in game makes around 100 - 150 gold per win and will easily make 1500 gold in an evening of play.

Gathering Professions:

Now we get into the more involved part of making gold - anything involving professions requires a bit of an investment in time and gold to get started in. With gathering professions however, your gold investment is minimal, and you can sell most of what you gather straight away. The three gathering professions in WoW are Mining, Herbalism and Skinning. Introduced in Mists of Pandaria was the ability to level Mining and Herbalism in Pandaria. For example, you can mine Ghost Iron Ore nodes to get Ghost Iron Nuggets and then ten of these are combined to make a single complete ore. This has made it a lot easier to level both of these professions if you are already at level 90. Skinning is a little more annoying to get to max level as it requires you starting out by killing lower level mobs and skinning them. As your skill gets higher, so will the level of the mobs you need to kill to level it.

Making money from these professions is as easy as filling your bags with the items and selling them on the AH. Do not for any reason vendor these items, as you will make more money on the AH even on a day where prices are down. With mining, you may want to look at smelting the ore into bars, depending on the demand for bars on your server. Raw ores are used by Jewelcrafters, who form a large portion of those who are making large amounts of gold, so demand for raw ore may be higher for your realm depending on the population.

Crafting Professions:

When you become truly serious about making gold, crafting professions are a must. While I'm sure there are people who make gold without using the major crafting professions, at a certain point using those professions makes the whole process of making gold a lot easier. The different professions are as follows:

Jewelcrafting: In my opinion the most important crafting profession for making gold, Jewelcrafting involves making gems to be slotted in gear as well as trinkets, necks and weapons for people to use. Obtaining gems is done by prospecting raw ore, consuming 5 ore each time. The number of gems you get each time is random, but in my experience an average would be two. Combine Jewelcrafting with mining if you are playing around with one character and you will have a good way to make money easily.

Enchanting: Also a good one to use for making gold, enchanting does exactly what it says: you enchant gear to make it better. This can be done either by enchanting the item directly, or applying the enchant to a vellum (an item made with Inscription) to store or sell it. Enchanting is interesting for gold makers, as it allows us to perform something called the shuffle. I will go more into the shuffle later on in this post. The best part about enchanting is that it doesn't rely on any other professions to do what you need to do. Mats for enchanting are obtained by disenchanting gear of green quality or higher. The quality of the mats you obtain will vary depending on the quality and level of the gear. The biggest downside to enchanting is how hard it is to level. To gather the mats yourself will take a fair amount of time, and buying them off the AH becomes very expensive (at least in my experience). The investment here is well worth it when it comes to making gold.

Alchemy: Oh how I love Alchemy. I really wish I had taken Alchemy earlier in WoW. Best used to support your other professions, Alchemy is used to make potions, flasks and elixirs. These are used in both raiding and PVP, and as such are in constant demand from those who do not have a character who makes them. However its most powerful usage is the various Transmute spells you get with it. These abilities allow you to take a number of a common crafting item and make a rare crafting item with them. As an example, you can take ten Ghost Iron Bars and make one rare Trillium Bar. You can then take six Trillium Bars and make one Living Steel Bar. Alchemists make a lot of money by making these items that other professions need to craft their items. If you are going to be serious about gold making - and I mean with multiple characters, at least one should be an Alchemist, and any spare profession slot should be taken up with Alchemy.

Inscription: Do you love writing as much as I do? Then become a scribe today with Inscription! A really strange profession in my opinion, Inscription allows you to make a wide variety of things ranging from glyphs, Darkmoon Faire cards, vellums, weapons, buff scrolls, inscription enchants and Dust of Disappearance. Scribes will use the ability milling on herbs in much the same way a Jewelcrafter will use prospecting on ores to obtain the crafting mats used in the profession. Inscription shines whenever the Darkmoon Faire is on, as they can craft the Darkmoon cards that people will collect for reputation with Darkmoon Faire. I personally don't like inscription (kind of ironic considering how much I love to write), but I can see the appeal of being able to do so much with one profession.

Tailoring: Moving on to the more traditional crafters, Tailors make cloth armour, bags, and an item enhancement called spellthread. Bags are particularly important for making gold, as small to medium bags will be used for new alts, large bags for main characters and profession specific bags for crafters. Tailors can also make cloth armour for mages, warlocks and priests for both PVE and PVP situations. These may not sell on the AH as often on your realm, but advertising availability may net you a few sales face to face. Bags to me seem like the easiest bet to make money however.

Leatherworking: Much like Tailoring, Leatherworking allows you to make armour in both leather and mail, bags, a type of enchant called armour kits and a buffing item called a drum. The bags that can be made are almost all aimed at professions (mining, inscription and leatherworking to be specific). The big things are armours you can make to suit hunters, shamans, monks, rogues and druids as well as the awesome Drums of Rage item that gives you a bloodlust style buff. Combine with Skinning to make that character self contained and you are good to go.

Blacksmithing: The plate armour crafting profession, Blacksmiths can make really good gear (both armour and weapons) for those looking to get into raiding and need a gear boost. You may find your realm has really good sales of these items, or you may find it is dead for this sort of stuff. Also expect to find the demand for items waning as the current content gets older; when people are geared up they are no longer looking to buy that piece that never drops to fill a hole in their set. The beauty of Blacksmithing is the amount of gold you make per item. I've seen pieces go for 15,000 gold or more. If you are keen on being a smith, take mining to go along with it.

Engineering: Last but definitely not least, and my favorite profession, is Engineering. From a gold making point of view, Engineering is probably the hardest to make money with. That's not to say that you can't make money with it, you just have limited options when it comes to what you can sell vs what you can only use yourself. Engineers can make guns, scopes for those guns (they act like an enchant), pets and mounts, and some armour. They also make tinkers gears, which act like a gem that sockets into the cogwheel sockets found on the items they make. There are a couple of other items that sell well such as the Thermal Anvil (a forge and anvil all in one that you can place), the Mist Piercing Goggles for miners and herbalists out there and the 36 slot cooking bag "Advanced Refrigeration Unit". Honestly though, the draw for Engineering comes from all the cool stuff you can do, like having a glider/parachute, walking on water, firing rockets, using rocket boots and having some cool flying mounts. Take it on your main, and do money making on an alt. Trust me, you'll thank me for it.

If you want to make money on one character, my recommendation is take Mining and Jewelcrafting. Gems are always in need as people upgrade armour, gear alts or start playing. You can mine your own ore so there is no real outlay of gold going out, meaning you can sell gems for slightly cheaper than those who buy ore off of the AH and still make reasonable gold.

If you have the option of a couple of alts, take Mining and Herbalism on one alt, so you can gather on it. Then take Jewelcrafting and Enchanting together (I'll explain this later). Then Alchemy and Inscription or Tailoring depending on what you feel will sell better - I prefer Tailoring as Bags are a fantastic market. After that it's just a matter of taking one of the remaining professions and Alchemy until you are happy with what you have (either in number of characters, or money coming in).

The Shuffle:

The mysterious Shuffle I keep mentioning, is an advanced gold making technique that involves using Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to turn ore into more gold than you would have gotten from the ore on the AH. No seriously. There are also versions of this that use Alchemy to add even more profit by transmuting uncommon gems into rare gems.

The basic flow chart of the Shuffle starts with ore. In Mists of Pandaria, Ghost Iron Ore seems to be the best option, although Kyparite ore is a very good alternative. You would prospect that ore into gems. A portion of those gems are sold, either cut or uncut on the AH. Alongside that you craft the rest of the gems into jewellery that can be sold if they sell well (ie: better profit then what comes after). If they do not, then you disenchant them. These enchanting mats are then either sold, or used to make enchants that are then sold. It's pretty simple right?

The hardest part of the shuffle is obtaining enough ore to make it all worthwhile. Most people who do the Shuffle buy their ore of the AH from people who farm it. Some people take advantage of this by setting up a deal with one of the people doing this for a constant supply of ore at a set price per stack. Others (like myself) like farming the ore themselves, although they are rare and usually just starting out in gold making.

All that's left after this is to work out what market works best on your realm. If the market is flooded with Enchanting mats, then you may want to focus more on the Jewelcrafting side of the Shuffle. If your realm is swimming in gems, then the Enchanting side is best. You may find it more profitable to sell raw gems rather than cut them, or it might be better to sell the enchants than the mats for enchanting. Experimentation is key here to find exactly what works for you on your realm. Whatever you find works, stick with it, and take advantage of whatever markets seem to be best at the time. Be prepared for competition and to bail if the market for your items fails and prices get too low to still be profitable.

To truly be profitable in the Shuffle requires a sizable investment in time. Getting addons such as TradeSkillMaster (TSM), finding guides on how to set them up and working out what markets work best for you will take time. Don't be afraid to make this investment. It will pay off in the long run when you are swimming around in gold coins.

Conclusion:

There are so many more ways to make gold than the ones I have mentioned here, and finding a way to make gold is almost as fun as finding the best way to down a boss. The average WoW player won't attempt something as hardcore as the Shuffle when trying to make gold, but making gold from old raids and instances can in some cases be even more fun to do. If you really do get into gold making, find guides on the various addons that are at your disposal to help you make gold. It will pay off.

As always...

GAME ON!

Random Ramblings #9

And with the sound of raging nerds ringing in my ears, it's time to move on to the RANDOM RAMBLINGS! This time, I talk about Rust, Snow, and a follow up on the massive B-R battle in Eve.

Crouching Naked By A Campfire: Rust

A very good friend of mine bought me a copy of Rust on Steam (shout outs to Mule for the game - you're a legend dude and you know it), and so I've been trying it out for the past week. I was very lucky to be able to join some existing players to learn the basics and get kitted out in the game. The game play is very reminiscent of DayZ, with just a touch of Minecraft thrown in for good measure. Base building is fun, and the ability to raid bases adds a nice touch of non consensual PVP to the game.

The game is very distinctly alpha, with the devs confirming that they are only around 10% done with the entire game. If you do decide to buy the game be aware that you will have crashes, graphics glitches and general server issues. You will also need to be aware that everything could change in Rust overnight, with changes coming fast from the devs. I personally love Rust, and can't wait to see just where it goes. Expect more here as I feel it warrants me writing about it.

Screaming All The Way Down A Mountain: Snow

Some time ago, I bought the alpha for Snow. An open world skiing game it seems to be at about the same stage as Rust in development. I love snow (the element), and so it was logical for me to try a game all about it. I'll address the obvious question first. Yes they are adding snowboards. Moving on from that the game is fun to play, if very buggy right now. Finding your own line down a mountain, hitting jumps and doing tricks feels really engaging. There isn't much else to really write about at this stage, but I will be keeping a close eye on this one as more comes out about it.

The Battle Of B-R5RB

Dammit Eve. Why do you have to do this to me? Every time I kick the habit, something like this comes up and makes me want to play again.

Seriously though, CCP's flagship game has created some of the best player content ever in the past, and the Battle of B-R5RB (we really need a better name for it by now) is no exception. For a really in depth write up, Alizabeth over at The Mittani.com has written this fantastic article about the battle for anyone who has no idea what the game consists of.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, let me give you the cliff notes. While the mainstream media outlets that picked up on this story tried to make it sound like over $300,000 of real life money was lost, very little RL cash would have been tied up in those Titans. While we can give them a rough dollar value because we can convert PLEX to ISK (current exchange rate is sitting around 650m isk per PLEX at around $20 each), the giant groups of players in null security space make a lot of ISK through in game means.

The final losses as listed by CCP were an astounding 75 Titans down alongside 13 Supercarriers, 370 Dreadnoughts and 123 Carriers. That's the biggest losses ever in Eve. The Halloween war will continue in Eve, with all involved knowing that they brought some of the best content to the game in a long time. Congrats to all involved.

As always...

GAME ON!