I Am a Crate-A-Holic

Before the expansion even came out I was making suggestions to people on which buildings to have in their garrison and one of those suggestions was to make sure you got the salvage yard in your garrison as soon as possible.  And then further to get it upgraded to level three.  It was solid advice then and it is solid advice now.  But something happened, something that I am not actually surprised about, I now find myself addicted to opening those big crates of salvage.

When blizzard changed it so level 90 - 94 missions no longer dropped big crates I was upset, as were many others.  We were purposely keeping a few low level followers on our team so we would have lots of low level quests which were short.  Short quests are good for when you are going to be online for any extended period of time because you can do more missions which in turn meant more chances for big crates.

Big crates not only got you follower upgrade items which could be used to gear up your followers so your followers in turn could get better missions and do better at them but those crates could also contain world drops.  665 world drops to be more precise.  Who would not want some 665 bind on equip world drops really?  I bet you would be hard pressed to find anyone that would say, nah, I don't want them.

But that is not all.  Those crates had a lot of grey items that were worth some gold, not the standard few silver type of greys either, 5 and 10 gold greys.  They also had some classic items that you do not see around very often and for people that are into transmog that has been a little slice of heaven.  And if you are lucky enough like me you have also run across a few pieces of gear that have otherwise been removed from the game.  It makes me wonder, how far does this go, what type of removed from the game gear can I find in there.

Even when I open a crate that has complete junk, meaning nothing decent for trasnmog, no follower upgrades, no crafting materials and no 665 items, I am still happy to open it.  Sure I might not be all that happy that I did not get something good but even a crate filled with junk can be a good crate.

One of my characters has made over 3K while sitting in the garrison the last three weeks.  She has not stepped outside of it at all.  I just do missions and pop back from time to time to refresh them.  That means she is making 1000 a week just opening salvage crates and selling the junk I get from it, from 48 gold greens to 7 gold greys.  If it is not something I think I can sell, which it usually isn't, and it is not something I can use, which it usually isn't, it is just vendor trash.  And at the rate of 1000 a week on an alt that does not even leave the garrison, it is pretty good vendor trash.

So while I am not getting nearly as many big crates of salvage as I could if it were not for the change from blizzard I am still doing quite well with it.  It has become more about me getting them than what it is in them.  Opening them is like gambling, getting them when doing 95 - 99 missions is like gambling.  You never know when you will get them and then never know what you will get in them.  It is kind of addictive trying to get more and then to open more hoping for that huge surprise when you get something you needed or wanted.

The first thing I do when I log in is cycle through all my characters to collect my crates and then send all the followers back out on missions to try and get me even more crates.  I then open them all with the excitement of a gambling addict watching a horse race and screaming "go 7, go 7, go 7" as their horse is pulling close after the last turn.  They know having a ticket does not mean winning, but the excitement of watching the race sometimes is enough and then the exuberance of victory or the anguish of defeat makes them just want to try again.

If you win, you want to win again.  If you lose, you want to try again so you can win.  The big crates of salvage really work on that hook and that is what keeps you coming back for more.  You just want to win.

I am not a gambler but I can't help but feeling like one each time I open a crate.  It is like buying a scratch off lottery ticket.  You know you can scratch off hundreds of them and win nothing, but it is knowing that you could win something that keeps you buying them.

The crates are taking over my life.  Bouncing from character to character to get as many missions done as possible so I have as many chances to win as possible is making it hard for me to actually progress in doing anything else because "if I join a pug on my druid that means there will be 2 hours I can not cycle through my characters to send them out on more missions".

I am addicted to getting the crates and opening the crates.  It is an addiction that is keeping me from doing other things I know I should be doing. 

Some might say that is why blizzard limited how often people could get them, they were trying to save us from ourselves, but I feel it is quite the opposite.  Now that I get crates less often it has become even more important I keep those missions running to drive my addiction.  If crates flowed fast and furious and I could get a bunch quick and easy whenever I wanted them to feed my crate addiction and get my fix.  I might not feel so pressed to get every single one I can, like I am now that they are limited, to some extent.

I got hooked in such a simple way and very early on.  The first day I got my salvage yard up to level three and turned in my missions and I heard that, what has become glorious, thunk when the box went into my bags.  I collected a few boxes from a few quests and ran over to my salvage yard with the excitement of a young boy on christmas morning looking to see what santa has got him, and I opened up the boxes like unwrapping presents.

That first day I got myself a 665 bind on equip item.  Sure my hunter could not use it, but I was hooked instantly.  I saw what could come from it and from that point on I was an addict. Nothing could change it now.  Running to the mission table hoping to hear that wonderful thunk of a big box of salvage landing in my bags and then running to the salvage yard is what keeps me logging in.  That has been all this expansion has been about.

I got achievements, factions to exalted, leveled followers, bodyguards, killed raid bosses, world bosses, got loot from them too even, I have done so much, yet the only thing that matters to me when I log in are my missions and if I got some big crates of salvage.

It is no longer about getting something good, it is about getting the box and opening it.  That act alone is a reward in a way, feeding my addiction.  I think I need help.  Is there a crate-a-holics anonymous in game?  Because if there is, I really should join.  I need a crate intervention.  I need crate rehab.  I need it because all I can think about is how many crates my characters have gotten me while I was writing this.