Monday Random Thoughts

- I used the new report feature for the first time this weekend.

- It does make things a lot easier being able to report for a specific thing instead of just reporting everything as spam.

- I reported someone for language.

- I am usually pretty easy going, language does not bother me.

- I've been known to go off sounding like a truck driver myself on more than one occasion.

- But sometimes enough is just enough and how the language is being used just adds up.

- Ever have one of those moments where enough is enough and you just want to yell shut the hell up?

- Yeah, it was like that.

- On one of my alt servers I actually feel that way with my guild sometimes.

- It is a social leveling guild.

- I don't so much mind the social part even if I am kind of the anti social type but some people make you wonder.

- How do these people even manage to get out of bed in the morning without breaking their necks?

- They ask questions about everything.

- Then ask the same question again after it has been answered.

- Then ask it a third time just for good measure.

- And the do this for everything, yes, everything.

- Where is the skinning trainer?  Ask a guard.

- Where is the mining trainer?  Ask a guard

- Where is the flight master?  Ask a guard.

- Where is...

- I swear I give up with them, I want to make a macro that says something like this.

- Wowhead.com is an amazing tool, people have been using it to find things, finish quests and answer questions for ages.  Maybe you should check it out.

- That is the teach a man to fish approach, answering them is the giving them a fish approach.

- I want to start teaching these people how to fish on their own.

- I don't get it, when I first started and had a question I used google and looked for the answer.

- Only if I still could not find it would I ask in guild.

- There are also people that drone on and on endlessly about everything in guild chat.

- They say what they are eating, when they are going bio, what they are doing in game, what they want to drop in the dungeon they are in, you name it.

- It makes me want to say, you are typing in the wrong screen, I think you meant to put that in your twitter or facebook.

- Twitter or facebook is where you are supposed to put mindless dribble like you are eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, not guild chat.

- Twitter or facebook is meant for useless updates about your life that no one wants to hear anyway.

- Even after a few people in the guild have told the people that do that, no one cares, they still do it.

- We have a few people in the guild that have put each other on ignore.

- Welcome to the world of social guilds.

- In my guild we would just kick the person if they did not grasp the concept that guild chat is not twitter.

- I noticed how odd the auction houses can be on different servers.

- On my main server borean leather sells like wildfire for big gold.

- On that server, the one with the social guild from hell, I would be losing money listing it.

- It makes sense to vendor the stuff on that server.

- I am not kidding.

- I am also not vendoring it.

- I am sure it has to rebound, but I wish I knew why it was like that.

- Another kicker on that server that I can often buy stuff off the market just to vendor it.

- I did that when I first started on that sever.

- Five silver buy outs for things I can vendor for 20 silver might not sound like much, but when you are first starting that is pretty awesome.

- One of the people in our guild is trying to learn to tank.

- He reminds me of one of the people in that other guild, where I just want to ignore him.

- He doesn't get it, he doesn't listen, he doesn't want to learn, he doesn't put in the effort.

- He is the reason the game is going down hill.

- He sees someone else do it easily and thinks that he should be able to as well.

- He shouldn't need gems, he shouldn't need enchants, he shouldn't need tank gear, he shouldn't need to grind to get better gear because 318 DPS pieces are fine for tanking DS.

- He, ladies and gentleman, is the reason the game is going down hill.

- I try to help but there is only so much I can do.

- I refuse to run with him any more.

- I am always willing to help, no matter what is required of me.

- But I live by the rule that I only help people that are willing to help themselves.

- He will end up raiding because with the 25% you can easily handle carrying a super sub par undergeared off tank for the very rare occasion they might be needed in DS.

- However, just because you can do content doesn't mean you should be doing content.

- The worst part is the game gives this person the idea they are a raider because they can do it.

- Stop doing that to people blizzard.

- Remove looking for raid.

- Stop making people that can't even tie their shoes think they are raiders.

- I can bang out keys on the piano, doesn't make me a pianist.

- Just because you can kill a few bosses, doesn't make you a raider.

- Funny part is, I was talking to a fellow long time raider yesterday and saying how I considered raiding the be the easiest part of the game, at least on the normal raid level.

- He disagreed.

- I could write a whole article on why I think raiding in the easiest part of the game and I just might some day.

- What it comes down to is that in a raid everything in predictable.

- With the rare exception of the random number generator screwing with you there are no surprises in a raid.

- Burn time is burn time for the DPS and the on use trinkets are even kind enough to line up with most fights as if they where designed for it, odd huh?

- Tanks use coolodwns at a a predetermined moment that happens to come exactly at the time their cooldown is off cooldown, talk about luck right.

- The big oh shit healing moment comes at the same time every time and always happens to be during a part of the fight where everyone is stacked up for better healing, isn't that just super peachy.

- Yeah, raiding is about as easy as easy gets, it is just the mechanics that take time to learn but the fights themselves are easy.

- The random number generator is hell.  The one true hard part of any raid.

- We all have had out random number generator hell.

- Al'Akir comes to mind.

- Remember that hell at first?

- Wipe, wipe, wipe, woohoo good RNG, kill.

- It was like that most weeks until we started to over gear it some and could brute force our way around the RNG sometimes.

- Outside of RNG however, raids are just a matter of learning the patterns for all roles.

- Once you learn them, it is super easy.

- That is also why I do not do heroics.

- More mechanics to learn to fight the same fight?

- No thanks, not interested.

- I could do it if I wanted to, just don't feel like learning more about a fight I can already beat with my eyes closed just to try and make it interesting again.

- I'll kill a boss just for the sake of killing it because I have nothing to do just for fun.

- Heroics are more work to learn to kill something you already killed.  No thanks, not fun.

- Oddly enough, if heroics where activated, I would consider them part of the fight and want to do them all.

- Like ulduar was.  FL could be activated to have four towers up, so I did it, just for fun.

- Same fight, just harder.  Now that was a fun heroic version.

- Heroic should be the same fight, just with more life, more damage, more everything, to make you press your ability to the max, it should not be about, lets learn yet another annoying mechanic.

- Have to love a couple of the DS heroic fights for as much as the place really sucks.

- Their heroic version is the same as their normal version, just with the more of something approach.

- More people with fading light, more bloods hitting, now that is good heroic design.

- Same exact fight, just with a little more to deal with.

- No added mechanics.

- Just wish they where activated and not switch to heroic like it is now.

- Mechanics are fun when they are new, they are challenging when learning them, they are annoying once you do them for the ten thousandth time.

- To all those people, myself included, that say raiding is easier now than ever before I have something to tell you.

- It is harder now than ever before, we just know everything they have to throw at us, so we adapt faster being we have done it before.

- Raiding has not become easier, we have become better.

- That is why people like that new tank suck so bad.

- With no raiding experience whatsoever even something as easy as dragon soul can be hard for them.

- You know, I think I need the new expansion to come out.

- I've always been grumpy, but when I start complaining about my own guilds you know things are getting bad.

- Maybe it is time to make another hunter.

- Have a great day.

The Daily Grind: What Dailies Will You Do?

When mists comes, and probably even before that when 5.0 lands, the daily quest cap is being removed.  With that in mind I've decided to go over the daily quest hubs I tend to frequent as I decide on which ones I might decide to do once I can do more than 25. 

Mind you, I've never been one to cap out my dailies.  Once in a while I would but for me dailies have always been something I did to get reputation, achievements, enchants, or other goodies.  Once I got what I needed I stopped doing them.

With new achievements for 5000 and 10000 dailies I will start doing some more of them when I've the time.  Which quest hubs will you want to make sure you add in, if and when you have the time?

The reoccurring daily hubs will always be first on my list, should I need something from them of course.  The darkmoon faire comes once a month with its 5 dailies.  I'll keep doing them to keep getting the tickets should they ever add more mounts or more pets or some other goodies I feel worth buying. 

The same goes for the holiday events that come once a year.  I might have finished them all up three years ago when I got my proto drake but that doesn't mean the game can not get me to do them.  As long as they keep adding new pets or new mounts each season I will keep doing the dailies to make sure I can buy them.

If there are no reoccurring events going on that I feel the need to do then we move to what would I do next?

Oddly enough, the criteria for which dailies I do next would be on the same basis as the desire to do the holiday ones.

When mists comes out the priority for dailies is obvious, I am going to do the new ones because the new ones will give me things I need for the new expansion such as reputation or gear or what have you.  However, that is going to pass pretty soon.  If mists ends up anything like cataclysm was with its tabard system I will be exalted with everyone in the game within a week.  I really hope they do not do that again, it really takes the air of of the game if you ask me.

What this is about however is when there is nothing I need from any dailies, in which order would I consider doing them just to work toward the 10000 dailies achievement.

So here are my top three daily hubs, in my opinion of course.

#1 Argent Tournament:

This should be number one on everyone's list in my opinion.  The agent tournament is win / win all the way around.  It also has something that I listed as my top priorities when picking which dailies I do.  It has something worth working toward.  Pets and even more important, pets you can sell.  I don't know about everyone else but for me the motivation to do anything is usually spurred on by the feeling you are getting something worthwhile out of it.

The only real down side to the argent tournament quests is the fact that they are not exactly close most of the time.  There will always be some on the other end of icecrown and you have that one floating quest that could even send you to storm peaks.  So there is a bit of travel involved but nothing that is too bad.  Just a mild annoyance at most.  The quests are done so quickly that the travel time seems like a non issue really.

#2 Sons of Hodir:

This one ranks number two for a few reasons.  One being its relative position when related to the #1 daily spot.  It is close to it and being we are already there it is a plus.  The key to these dailies however is the fact that they are all neatly packed together, they are usually very fast to do and they give you a chance to gather up some goodies that all seem to always sell well on the auction house.  You can get greens for disenchanting, books of glyph mastery, chunk o' mammoth, worm meat, chilled meat, relics of ulduar and so much more.  All this stuff still sells well on the market so it is a nice little bonus.

The only downside to the hodir quests is unlike the argent tournament where you are getting some tokens to turn in for some goodies which makes it feel more like you are earning something extra or special you get nothing from here outside of the loot you might gather and increasing your daily quests completed count.

#3 Isle of Quel'Danas:

If it where not because it is on the ass end of the world, for alliance at least, it might be a better daily hub in my opinion but the ease of doing these along with the fact they are nicely grouped together makes it a nice little quest hub.  I'd suggest taking the port from shattrath to get there but I am not sure that the flight there from the dark portal is any faster than flying to it directly.  No flying is another blah point to questing here but don't worry, doing all the dailies there will take all of a few minutes and you can get back to civilization soon enough after doing them.

One little bonus to doing these is you will get a scroll that returns you to shattrath which can come in handy if you are working on something there like reputation grinding, running SH or doing the daily fishing and cooking quests there as well.  It is a nice quick way to get there.

It is also good if you plan to do MT daily for the mount and pet that drop there.  Knock out the dailies while you are there and piggy back your tasks to get a few things done while in one area.  That is always an added bonus to a quest hub if there is something else in that hub's area you want to do.

Honorable mentions:

#1 Tol Barad:

They where brutal when the expansion first came out.  Those spawn rates inside where insane and I felt for some classes that where not hunters and capable of handling them like we were.  When we are 90 however they will be a breeze, heck as a geared level 85 they are now a breeze so they will really be a nice quick run when we are 90.  The outside quests are a nice little circle which means the questing is easier and that is a key for a good quest hub.  This one could very well move up to and even pass Isle of Quel'Danas when we are 90 if only because it is faster to get to and back from.

One bad part is, if your faction does not own tol barad you can only do half of the quests.  So once we hit 90 unless you plan on winning it by yourself if you don't own it your dailies will always be cut in half there.  Just think of the bright side however, I am sure the outside 6 will take no more than 10 minutes and you will never need to leave your main city really to do them, which might be something that makes them pretty popular for something to do to pass the time.

#2 Cooking and Fishing Dailies:

These did not make the list because how much of a hub are two quests in each city really and when you look at the shattrath, dalaran and pandara ones, some require you to go out so they are not quick and easy like the main city ones are by any means, but the city ones are a nice and quick way to get two dailies out of the way each day.

#3 Venture Bay:

They are nice and quick and basically all grouped up.  Once you know how to do them you can knock them all out in less than 10 minutes without a problem at all.  You will end up flagged for player vs player however which is a turn off to some people but to others it adds a little element of excitement.  There is nothing to get here except for an achievement if you have never done it and a few dailies down quickly.

I might not get over the 25 dailies per day anyway once the limit is removed but it is nice to have that option should I want to do some more.  Usually I just do not have that amount of free time in my day. 

I will most likely go over the 25 per day we used to have when the expansion first comes out because I will do all the new ones to max out reputation and getting quests, rewards and whatever else done but once again, like I said with all daily hubs, when I have everything I want from them I'll be all done with them and when I have free time I will most likely return to quest hubs I mentioned here because I like them and they are quick.  Unless of course mists gives us another great quest hub worth doing regularly.

If I had to give a reward for the worst daily hub ever it would go to...

#1 The Molten Front:

They are easy enough, and even somewhat fun the first few times through them but what kills the molten front dailies is that you are required to do certain ones before doing others.  It was no big deal while opening them up but it was kind of annoying near the end when all I wanted to do was the fire in the sky one to get that one last achievement and I needed to do all the others at the front and then the ones in the hole before I could get to that one.  That sort of daily opens daily thing is fine, if it opens it all the way, but when you need to reopen it every single day it gets annoying.  So molten front wins the award for worst daily hub ever.

Oddly enough, the main reason for it being the worst daily hub ever in cataclysm might make it a fantastic daily hub come mists when we one shot everything.  Being they are all nicely bunched up and they are already kind of quick as is, come level 90 and with level 90 gear they might end up being a super fast way to get some dailies under your belt while working your way toward 10000.  I just hope they do not make hubs like this again.  It was a horrible design in my opinion.

If you are going to be going for the 5000 and 10000 daily achievements which older dailies will be on your list of the best ones to do by your own criteria?

I try to judge based on time and reward.  Hence the argent tournament ranks number one for me, it is quick and still offers a good reward for the time spent doing it.

The Highs and Lows of Expansion Expectation

As the new expansion comes closer I am torn on how I feel about things.  I am exciting to get something new to do but at the same time I dread having to do all this stuff I feel I have to do.  That is a personal fault really.  I always feel as if I need to get everything done and I like to get it done as soon as possible, so that is my own problem.  That doesn't change the fact that I am torn about it however.

High: Quests to do and dailies to grind

For someone like myself who has basically done every quest in the game that I can find I love the idea of a whole slew of new quests to do.  It is something I look forward to.  It is something to do and being I like to quest it is something quality to do, for me at least.  I like content I can do at my own pace, fast or slow and quests are just that.  I always like checking out the new daily hubs too and even more so if they have something worth working my way toward. 

The new fishing pole and fishing raft along with other things make me look forward to it.  Every faction or hub that has quests I look at it as a task for me to complete.  Do this until I get the mount, or until I get the rare drop, or until I get the pet from doing this quest 10 times.  I love all that stuff because it feels like I am working toward something and I dig that.

Low: The feeling I need to do them

I'll do the quests because I want to but if a quest is not fun and ends up something I need to do to get an achievement, reputation, etc I dread having to do it.  It is like the molten front stuff.  The first few times it was fine, but once I was done with everything and even had the pet and was just waiting for that one last mob to spawn for the last achievement I needed, it got to the point I dreaded doing it.  I only did it because I felt I had to.  For me the feeling I have to do something takes away the fun of it.

With so many more dailies and an unlimited daily cap I feel I am setting myself up for a massive collection of annoyances like that all at once because I'll have the feeling I need to do them.  Quests are fun when you want to do them, the moment you feel like you need to do them they start to lose their fun.  I dread that I might end up feeling that way about a lot of the quest hubs and more so the unlimited dailies.

High: New Dungeons and Raids

I love that stuff, I really do.  It gives the true rpg experience to go out and kill the big baddie in some epic battle that takes all your wits and ability.  The concept alone is exciting, it is what rpgs are built on in my opinion.  I like having some new challenges once in a while and every game ever always has a last boss or a last level and for this game the raids and dungeons are where those battles are fought.

Low: Doing them with other people

If anything cataclysm has taught me that either I am getting less tolerant as I am getting older or people are getting worse at the game.  As much as I love the experience of new content I dread the experience of any content that I do with random people.  I know people will say wait for my guild to do them but as I already mentioned, I want to do things as soon as I can.  I am not going to wait for a group of the ideal four others so I can do the new dungeons, I am going to do them the second I hit 90 and that is usually the first one in my guild.  I don't think I would want to wait another 3 or 4 days for everyone else.  That is what the random system was created for, so people can play on their own schedule but I swear I can't deal with most of these people any more.  I am dreading it.

High: Lots of new achievements to get

Like any achievement whore I love this stuff.  There is just something about the ding and pop up of an achievement that I love to hear and see.  I've done all the achievements I can do solo, except fish up crafty.  Damn random number generator hates me.  The thing is, going for achievements gives me something to do.  In a strange sort of why they are like quests in their own sense.  Like the quest to fish up crafty.  I will keep doing that just like I would a quest until I finish the quest.  The achievement popping up in a version of quest completed.  I am looking forward to a whole slew of new achievements to go after.

Low: Some of them do not look fun

For the most part I find achievement hunting fun but there are some that are just not fun in any way.  One I am not looking forward to is the one to kill all the world bosses.  Do you know how hard it is to get a group on my server for anything?  My server can still not pug BWD normal.  I am not kidding.  You can't even get groups to kill the whale shark on my server so killing world bosses is out of the question.  Add to that the removal of have group and people will be less likely to join in on one of those just for fun. 

There are a lot of achievements it seems are going to be annoying but this one might be the worst of the worst for some servers, like mine.  I am not looking forward to it.  I like to do achievements because they are fun but having to get other people to do them is sometimes stressful. Hence the reason I have everything I can do solo and need a ton of PvP and a fair deal of raid achievements.  Because those require other people to do something as well.  I hate anything that requires other people to get me an achievement.

High: Pet Battles

Something new to do when there is down time could be nice.  Waiting in queue for a random, pet battle time, just like when I do archaeology.  That is if we can do pet battle while in queue otherwise that sucks.  Before raid time.  While waiting for someone that I am doing something with being I can no longer have group them too me, F you blizzard, I mean seriously, there is no need to remove that but back to the topic.  All those times when you have a little time to waste and do not feel like getting involved in doing anything else, its pet battle time.  While I am not really interested in it I do like the idea that there is something else for me to waste a little time with, and get achievements from doing it at the same time.

Low: Got to catch them all

There is a reason I do not have the time lost proto drake or any spirit beasts on any of my six 85 hunters.  I like to actually play the game and not spend my life standing in one spot waiting for something to spawn.  I play a lot but I do not have unlimited time like some people do that would allow me to just stand in one place for hours on end, or days on end in some cases.  To me, that is not playing, that is wasting time.  But then again, I guess being I can do pet battles while waiting it might not be too bad, depending on how it works of course. 

The thing is, I like to keep moving, to keep doing things, to actively play the game.  I am not looking forward to catching all these damn wild pets at all.  Now to get the achievements, because I roll that way, and get the pets, which I collect and have for a long time, I am basically forced into being one of those people.  The type that just stand around waiting forever.  Sorry, I don't get what they find fun about that but I guess if I want the things I am stuck being one of them.  I am not looking forward to this.  Not even in the slightest.

Give me a way to earn the pets like say kill 12 million mobs and it might take me forever to do it but I will do it and not gripe about it but tell me to stand in one spot waiting for something to spawn for 6 hours and then have to fight dozens of others for the chance to get it first and I only have one thing to say, screw that.  I can't see how anyone in their right mind, heck anyone in their wrong mind either, could find that fun.  It isn't, never has been, never will be.

Admittedly all my highs and lows are based on my own personality, game play traits and opinions based on past events.  I am the one that wants the achievements.  I am the one that wants to finish all the quests.  I am the one that wants to get all the pets.  I am the one that wants to raid and do dungeons whenever I feel like it and am not willing to wait for guild groups all the time.  It is all me, it is all my own personal feelings but that is what this is all about, my personal high and low expansion expectations.  It is also why those lows are lows to me, because it is about how I play the game.  They might not be your lows, your lows might be different based on how you play the game.  For all I know, you could be one of those people that likes to wait camping one spot for 100s of hours.  You scare me.

We all have things we feel we will need to do. 

What do you feel you will need to do based on your personalty and playing traits? 
Do you have mixed feelings about them as well like I do? 
Are you looking forward to and dreading it at the same time?

Tips and Tricks: Making Gold Without Professions

I am always being asked how to make money.  I've turned people in my guild from paupers to princes by teaching them how to turn over ore with jewelcrafting, alchemy and enchanting.  I've taught them the time investment only way of gathering to those without crafting professions.  I've helped a lot of people make money but some people just do not have professions so they can't do any of those things.

I know what you are going to say, how can someone not have professions.  Some people just don't level them.  While it makes no sense to some for others it is how they roll.  So for them, I am going to give a few tips on how they can make money with a little work and even without professions they can make a little gold to get by.

1) Daily Quests

Yes, it is as simple as that.  Quest.  Do dailies and you will make money.  Not only do the dailies give you gold for completing them but by doing the dailies you can also get drops.  You will always get cloth and greens but there is the rare chance to get some blue or even purple drops.  I know a few lucky people that hit the jackpot with drops at the beginning of the expansion and made a mini mint with purple drops.

Doing daily quests can bring nothing but good.  Even if the best thing you ever get is cloth, it sells well enough to make a little extra gold and cloth is one of those things that there is always a demand for and you don't need a profession to gather.

2) Loremaster Quests

Go get yourself loremaster.  The quests will be super simple for a max level character and you will not only get some sort of monetary reward for doing them even if it is low but you get items to sell as well.  Always pick the most expensive item and sell it.  Even if that is all you ever do you can easily make upwards of 30K, perhaps even more if you did not quest a lot while leveling.

Add to that all the things you will get while questing.  Boar meat, wool cloth, essence of air, anything that has an after market can be sold.  Some of these things sell for a lot.  Most meats on most servers, even the low level ones, can sell for 20 gold a stack to people power leveling their cooking.  So sell everything you get while going for your loremaster.  At the end you have an achievement not many have and a lot more gold.  Not all that bad for someone with no professions.

3) Cooking recipes

There are a few places where picking up cooking recipes and reselling can make you a nice little sum of cash.

Visit Vivianna (A) or Sheendra (H) in Feralas for a few recipes that people seem to like to buy.  Feralas is one of those areas that neither horde or alliance seem to visit all that much which means these cooking recipes get over looked.  Unless you have a few recipe sellers on your server you can make a good living on these. 

Some servers have people that buy and sell recipes to make money and they do it all the time.  There must be a reason right?  Yes there is and the reason is that you can make a fair deal of cash on them.  For things that will usually cost you less than 2 gold you can sell them for 30g-80g easily depending on server economy.

Another great place is in BC content.  People seem to want to get in and out of there so quick they forget that there are recipes to be had there and they sell nicely.  Visit Dopa, Sid and Mills alliance side and Gambarinka, Cookie and Grilka on horde side for some recipes.  Juno Dufrain sells to both sides with one very good money maker too.  Blackened Trout and Blackened Sporefish seems to sell the best of all of them, probably because those fish is always super cheap on the AH house so it makes it a great option for people leveling up cooking.  It also means they are willing to pay a fair deal for it being the fish is dirt cheap.  Don't get me wrong however, they all sell well.

Also, there are a few recipes that are only available to one side or the other.  Check the list here at wowwiki instead of me doing the work digging it up myself.  Buy these and sell them on the neutral auction house.  Depending on your server economy you could easily sell these for upwards of 200 gold each.  Even on bad servers 50 gold is not unheard of for them.

A bonus for alliance only mostly is the Vendor-Tron 1000 in Desolace.  He sells a nice selection of horde only recipes as well as one that can only be purchased from him on either side.  One bad thing is he has a limited stock of 1 each.  Good luck getting it and finding him.  He moves around all the time.

4) Argent Tournament & Other Pets

Okay, I could have put this under quests because of the need to do quests for the pets but it deserved its own area for what it does and what else it could teach you.

Doing three days worth of dailies, which at 85 is super easy and super fast, not only gets you a nice little sum of gold but enough champion seals to buy a pet.  You can then sell that pet on your side, usually between 1K-5K depending on server, so lets call it 3K average or you can sell it at a neutral auction house so the other side can get it and that could net you from 6K-15K depending on server, so lets call it 10K average.

Depending on where you sell it you could make yourself 3K or 10K every three days.  Not bad for someone with absolutely no professions don't you think?  With the new pet battles coming expect those numbers to be closer to 30K and 100K every three days, depending on how well that part of the game takes off. 

At the start, I can see the prices being slightly higher, so if you start collecting them now and sell them at the start of mists you could very well gold cap all 10 characters on one server in less than a day.  Screw not bad for someone with no professions, how about freaking awesome for someone with no professions.  Gold capping in one day with no professions?  Impossible they say.  I say collect AT pets and sell them when mists comes out and you will gold cap in day one with no professions.  Nice right?

Now lets take a note from the whole pet thing and see if you figured it out on your own.

Ready for a hint now?  Faction specific pets, things like owls for alliance and snakes for horde.  Buy them and sell them on a neutral auction house.  More so, sell them as soon as mists comes and instead of putting them on for 50g each you could be putting them on for 5000g each.  Okay, that might be wishful thinking but they will surely be a fair deal more than 50g.

5) Auction House Flipping.

Buy low and sell high.  Simple as that.

But is it really?  I've given that advice to a million people it seems and while all understood what I meant none of those people could figure out how to do it and what to do it with.  For the people that know, saying buy low and sell high is common sense.  For those that know how to do it it does not need explaining but for those that don't I might as well be speaking greek saying that.

I could, and might, make a post just explaining how to do it for those that don't understand it.  I will try to give some simple examples on how you do that, for the people that do not know better.

First is you need to watch your own market, not all servers are the same.  If I say buy cloth on weekends and sell on weekdays I would be wrong.  Your server might be different.

On my main server a stack of mageweave cloth goes for roughtly 4-6g per stack during the week but on weekends it could be upwards of 20-25g per stack while on another server I am on I can buy mageweave on the weekends at 7g a stack and during the week it goes for 50g a stack.  The same item, in the same quantities, two totally and completely different sales patterns.

That is the problem with giving people blanket advice on how to buy low and sell high.  You need to teach people to watch their own market first and teach them how to read it.  Buy low and sell high is a concept but how it is handled will be different on every server.

So seeing that information to do the buy low sell high thing what we would do, after looking at the trends, is on my main server I would buy for 4g during the week and sell for 20g on the weekends and on the other server I would buy for 7g on the weekends and sell for 50g during the week.

That is the concept of buy low and sell high.  Track the trends of popular items, things that are used often, like crafting materials, enchants, gems, flasks and the such.  Once you see the trend, bend it to work to your advantage.

On my server you can buy flask of the winds for around 80g all day long on the weekend and on tuesday nights it sells for 180g.  Even by thursday it is still selling for 120g.  That is flipping.  That is buy low and sell high.

A good trick to the buy low and sell high is to keep track of the game as well.  If you could buy out the AH of the top enchants and gems the week before a patch it released you can make a fortune.  Before 4.3 came out the chest enchant was selling for 150g, the week after, 2500g.  Before 4.3 came out red raw gems where selling for 75g, the week after, 600g.  That is an example of flipping.

There is also the new beauty of the flipping market, the darkmoon faire.  You can get the quest items for a song the week before the faire.  The three PvP items will usually always be 20g or less before the faire but the day the fair starts, 250-350g is the norm for them. 

You have to be quick however, because by the third day of the faire they are usually back to a more reasonable price and your profit margin drops.  The people that buy them that high do it to get the stuff done that first day, so you need to have yours listed that first day.  Even for someone with no professions you could easily make a nice sum of money just dealing in the PvP based quest items alone for darkmoon faire.  The others usually stay a little higher, but there is still money to be made with them, but the PvP ones will always be dirt cheap during the off weeks.  There you go, another case of flipping.

Well, that is all for now.  Have some fun and go make some money.  There will be a lot of things you will want to buy come mists.

8 Things I'd Like to See Updated

They are adding a great deal of new stuff for mists.  They have continuously added new stuff each expansion and will likely always be adding more.  Each time they add something new something old gets left in its previous space and either becomes forgotten about or becomes something that people need to research to find.  Like people that never played BC trying to find the vendors to turn the BC tokens in is always an adventure.

With each addition there is old stuff left behind and some of that old stuff is really in need of being updated.  I know some people will say why waste the resources to update outdated content and to that I say, because it makes the game more fluid over all and just because we know where to turn in the BC tokens doesn't mean someone that starts today will.  We, the ones that know, are not the only players.  So old content should be updated for better game flow and design.

With that in mind I have a little list of 8 things I would like to see updated in game.

1) Justice and Token Vendors.

The time has come to create catch all vendors.  With the new vendor search options being added they could go a step further with it and allow more search options.  Instead of just looking for hunter loot, you should be able to check for hunter loot from BC.  No more telling people they need to go to the caverns of time and into a raid for some tokens and to shat for others.  Just go to the vendor and it is there.

While some of us might remember first hand where to turn in some things others have never had to turn them in and have no clue where to go.  For them it could get frustrating trying to find where to turn these things in or where to go to spend their justice points for transmog gear.  Just simplify it.  Leave the original ones where they are but in the main city with the search enabled vendor you should be able to trade them in there as well.

2) Exodar and Silvermoon are not second class cities.

They might be considered BC content but guess what folks, they are main members of the factions.  I think it is about time they are treated as such.  Add cooking and fishing dailies to each city.  Have them connected to the rest of the world as they should be and not just after thoughts.

Just because they were added in an expansion does not mean that they should be thought of as only that expansions content.  As main members of the factions they should get some attention as if they where actually main members of the factions.

They wasted tons of development time on making flying in the old world yet they completely ignored both areas.  Why?  You did dozens of zones, four more would not have been that much of a problem would it?  They need to stop thinking of those areas as BC areas and start treating them as part of the main world.  As part of the updated old world.  They should not be looked at as BC content.  Updating them should have fit into the updating of the old world no matter what expansion they were added in.

3) SW and Org are all that matters.

They complain people do not get out in the world yet they make it so you have no choice but to make SW and Org your home cities.  The portals are only in SW and Org.  You can only get to TB from SW or Org.  Originally the fishing and cooking dailies were only in SW and Org and even now they are still not in the second class cities of Exodar and Silvermoon.  Valor vendors are only in SW and Org.  Justice vendors are only in SW and Org.  Deathchins chin is only in SW or Org.  You get the idea.

Hey blizzard, I have an interesting idea for you.  If you don't want people in only two cities how about giving them a reason to be in other cities.  At least make it so they do not feel penalized for making another city their home of choice.

Put the vendors in all cities, the portals in all cities, the dailies in all cities, you name it, if they make it, make it in all cities.  Give people a choice instead of herding people like cattle into one city on each side and than complaining that everyone is in one city on each side.  Don't you think it is about time to spread the world out some?

4) Ditch or Update the useless items.

Things such as warbear leather, wildvine and the like.  Sure, there are still a select few patterns that require these items but they are also usually rare drop patterns or patterns you need to go out of your way to get.  The streamlined fast as you can go new leveling speed means that you will usually never see the drops and quite likely will never get to the area that sells these patterns.

Either ditch the wasted crafting items like them or make the patterns that use them trainable by the trainer so these things actually hold some value again.  Most servers you are better off vendoring things like this because it would cost you more to list them at auction than you could get for them.

Admittedly the addition of transmog has made some of the things that need weird items like this popular again but the fact you can end up with so much of it without even trying, it is not enough to keep a demand for it.

Lets face it, at the speed people level now there will never be any reason to make that awesome caster chest that needs 6 wildvine for your level 40.  So why make stuff like that so hard to make?  The days where getting something like that meant it would last a while and it was worth it are long gone and the crafting materials and patterns that require them either need to be removed or updated to fit today's world.

5) Crafting Professions.

They need a new old world update too.  They adjusted the speed at which you level which means you out level professions way to quickly.  It is almost as if blizzard only wants people to go back and power level the crafting professions now.  They are no longer something that is supposed to level with you and in my opinion that takes away from the leveling experience, even more so for the new player.

Not even all that far back, before the redesign of the old world and faster leveling, your crafting professions could level up with you without any issues.  Since the changes it is completely 100% impossible for that to happen now unless you plan to spend a fair deal of time grinding grey, no experience, stuff.  Killing no experience animals for skins is horrible, even more so when you need to do it for 6 or 8 hours just to catch up.  At least with mining or herbalism you still get some experience when mining or picking no skill nodes.

People do not spend countless hours at single levels any more.  They level faster which means they skin fewer mobs, pick fewer herbs, mine fewer nodes and loot less cloth.  The crafting professions, as such, lag behind a lot.

The outdated content that was sped up to make leveling faster should also have their crafting professions sped up as well.  Instead of needed 6 iron bars, make it 2.  Instead of needing 12 heavy leather, make it 4.  Simple adjustments that would allow for players to level their crafting professions as they go.

For the experienced player like myself I either level with gathering professions or no professions and power level when I get to max but for the new player, not being able to level a profession as they go really takes away something from the game.  Crafting professions need to be updated.

6) Stop being stingy with the bag space.

The game keeps giving us goodies to collect.  Archaeology stuff, quest rewards, reputation stuff we can buy, fun food and elixirs, you name it and the game gives us things we can collect and then penalizes us for collecting all of it by not allowing us as much space as we need to keep it all.

Make the starting bag larger.  Add another bag slot or two to the line of bags.  Add anther row of 7 bag slots to our bank.  Make profession bags a separate thing so they do not count as taking one of our normal bag slots.  Make things stack higher.  Anything really.

The limited space concept in RPGs is as old as RPGs are but the time has come and past.  It makes sense when leveling.  It makes sense that getting more space should take some sort of effort like buying it or earning it or whatever.  It makes sense that you should not be given unlimited space instantly.  What makes no sense is that when you get to the end game and you start collecting things you can never have enough space to keep it all.

Take my shaman for example.  I have my resto gear, my enhancement gear, my PvP resto gear, my PvP enhancement gear, some fun gear items, some fun toy type items, my food for resto, my food for enhancment, my flasks and potions for resto, my flasks and potions for enhancement, my mining bag and blackmithing supplies and so much more.

Do you know how much space that leaves me?  None.  I have to keep my mining bag in my bank which makes things a pain when I am making stuff because I have to keep running back and forth.  When it comes time to do some crafting I trade one of my bags for that one and then go back and trade it back when I am done just because I have no space.

How exactly is having this bag space issue fun game play?  I think bags and bag space need a huge update.  Stop being stingy with the space.

7) Currency.

Make outdated currency go away.  Seriously.  When an expansion moves into the past so should the currencies that where meant for that expansion only.  You could collapse it like they are going to do with the cooking awards in mists.  So all of the dalaran awards and chef awards become the same thing and everything that you could buy with either you can now buy with the new collapsed version.  We get ironpaw ones now in mists and when the next expansion comes out the ironpaw ones will move down to the level the dalaran and chef ones will be on.  So they showed with that change that they can do something about the situation.  So why stop there?

Jewelcrafting tokens?  Mark of the world tree? Champion Seal? Spirit Shard?  What is being done with them?  Nice of them to do something with the cooking ones but what about everything else in game.  Are the Motes from deathwing going to clutter up our currency page for the rest of eternity once mists comes?

They need to make more effort to clean up the outdated currency when the content moves on.  I understand I still get champion seals from the argent tournament to get things from there, so it is not useless, but that is one case, and it is still not suitable for everything.

So they want you to work for the mounts and pets still but why does the gear still require you to have those to buy it?  Just make that reputation dependent.  It is not like anything you buy for your level 80 is going to last more than a few quests into cataclysm content.

Update it, update everything that has a currency tied to it that is now old content.  Even the champion seals which I still personally collect.  How about when something becomes outdated you give it a justice point price and let people earn it that way.  So you get rid of your old tokens that are no longer useable and now give a use to justice points which you end up swimming in anyway because for the most part they are useless at end game.

8) Flight Paths.

The days when you went from path to path and landed each time and needed to get back on and choose your next stop are long gone.  When they made it so paths connected it made sense that it still needed to pass by each and every fight path on the way because that is how it was coded.  So it made for some really odd trips sometimes because of that coding, but that is the way it was.

All this time and effort spent on redesigning the old world.  All these new flight paths added.  All the updates to the landscape meaning there was no longer a reason to make us fly a certain way as to not see an area that had no overhead design. All of that and they did not change how flights work?

You still need to go all around the world sometimes to get to a fight that you could have just gone directly across too.  Come on, are you seriously kidding me?  This company is capable of making this great game with so many different things we can do and all this complex coding and they still not not figure out that the shortest distance between two points is a direct line?  Update the flight paths already.

Not all updates to the game need to be huge to be good.  These would all be little changes but I think they would all be good for the game over all.  I'd like to see some of these changes personally but I won't exactly hold my breath for any of them.  Blizzard does not have a great track record with doing anything in game that people might like just because it sounds like a good idea.  If they can not spin it into making people think it is a groundbreaking awesome addition to the game they won't waste their time on it.

Monday Random Thoughts

- Another mount for me on another monday.

- It is only another crusade one so now I only have two left I need to get.

- I still like to do those dailies once in a while, I don't go crazy about it.

- I like that type of content, wish there were more of it.

- I can't think of any other daily hub I have done more than that one.

- With new achievements for 5000 and 10000 dailies I am going to need to start doing them more again.

- I usually do dailies until I am done with what I want from them.

- Be it exalted, a pet, a mount, whatever, once I am done, I stop doing them.

- Except for the one daily in uldum where you whack the pygmies. 

- I can't pass that one up without doing it.

- Any character I am on, I do it if I am passing through.

- So I have over 4K dailies done and that means I need 6K more for the achievement.

- Unless they plan to add dailies that are actually worth doing I am going to need to do a lot of dailies just for the sake of getting the achievements.

- At least they are removing the cap so on those weekends when I play and there is nothing to do (because there is no second raid lock out) I can do a ton of them.

- As usual however, the ones I need stuff from will come first.

- With new races being added sometimes when expansions come out you have to wonder how long before the ogres are horde.

- It is an absolute given that ogres will be horde, they have been closely connected with them for a long time.

- Same went for goblins, that is why when they were added you knew they would be horde.

- The question is, what race would be like that for alliance.

- I can not think of one race that is close to alliance like that.

- Goblins and orges have always helped horde.

- No races ever helped the alliance like them.

- I am guessing furblog would be the closest counter to orges even if they are not really as connected to alliance as orges are horde.

- So it is a full expansion later and the death knight equals bad player thing still seems to be.

- You could understand it in wrath but it is still happening.

- Not saying there are no good DKs, there are some amazing ones.

- What I am saying is that when it comes to classes that have the most bad players DKs own that title.

- There is usually a simple way to tell if a DK is bad or good without ever seeing them play.

- Ask them why they play one.  Simple.

- If they say they play one because it starts at 55 and/or is over powered for a while they are a bad player.

- If they say almost anything else they might be a good player.

- Being a hunter I am glad death knights are around.

- Before them I would say hunters owned the title class with the most bad players.

- I think that might have a lot to do with hunters being the default option you are given when you first open up the game.

- And the fact they are the easiest to level.

- The saying about hunters is so true.

- Easiest class to play, hardest class to master.

- That is a nice design if you ask me.

- Anyone can be effective to some extent because it does not need much to be decent.

- But if you want to take a step up, you really need skill.

- Even more so in PvP.

- You don't know anything about being a skilled player until you play PvP as a hunter.

- I ran into someone the other day that was decked out as a hunter, even had the bow, weapon and trinket which I was still missing.

- They did 23k on ultraxion.

- Sure, that is all that is needed with the 20% debuff and all but 23k?

- You are in all best in slot non heroic gear and can only do 23k?

- Even if you got fading light every single time you should still break 30.

- I can do between 35-39 missing the three most important pieces for DPS.

- That is the perfect example of easy to play and hard to master.

- They are easy enough a bad player can do enough to get the job done.

- But they require some sort of skill to get more out of them, a lot more.

- I can get a hell of a lot better myself, I am no where near great and I could pull 35k at worst.

- A more skilled hunter could probably pull another 2 or 3k out of my gear.

- There is no better example of easy to play and hard to master than something that simple.

- And for PvE I never really thought it was that pronounced.

- I always thought that comment was about PvP only.

- Nope.  It holds true for PvE as well.

- I think that guy should reroll a DK, it seems like that is where he belongs.

- You know another class I've seen a recent influx of bad players with?

- Paladin healers.

- It seems like wherever there is a flavor of the month over powered class there are bad players that follow.

- From the early going of this expansion it seemed paladins where the way to go and now it seems all the bad players have finally leveled their paladins.

- What took them so long?

- Oh yeah, they are bad players.

- I recall the early days of dungeons when people in PvP gear would fake their way in and people could complain.

- I always joked that paladin healers were the only healing class that could get away with it.

- I'd seen many random paladins in all PvP gear rock it in randoms.

- They where amazing.

- Seems like these bad players decided to roll with that.

- I have something I need to tell those bad players.

- Only good players can heal as a paladin in PvP gear.

- If you are playing a paladin healer just because it is over powered, you are probably not a good player.

- I think rule number one should be whatever class is over powered will usually have the worst players.

- So expect the worst players in the game come mists to be Monks, Hunters and Warlocks.

- Why is that Grumpy, you might ask.

- Monks because we know that blizzard is horrible with adding a new class and making it balanced, look at DKs, they are still not fixed to line up with all other classes.

- Hunters because of the hugely high skill cap required to play PvP as mentioned above and the low showing of them in arenas, they will attempt to adjust that and of course make mistakes.

- Hunters also because of how horrible hunters scale with gear.  As their history shows they start every single expansion leaps and bounds better than any other class and usually end the expansion needing a slew of buffs just to stay ahead of the tank, just like with cataclysm.

- I remember reading a joke early on with raiding in cataclysm when it was first released.  Take 2 tanks, any kind, 2 priest healers and 6 survival hunters and roll through content.

- So many people said the same thing at the start.

- At the end, with the way fights where designed and hunters horrible scaling, everyone was saying, leave the hunters home.

- Until survival got a huge buff to make them useful again, in one spec any way, the other two still are bottom of the pack.

- Warlocks because of the lack of warlocks playing in the game now.  They will give them some huge buffs.

- All those buffs added with some changes to how they work, means they will be over powered for quite some time.

- Those three are for PvE of course but all three will also be huge in PvP.  Mark my words.

- Also, check out tanks in PvP, all tanks.

- With the redesign of abilities it means that tanks will be able to do damage more freely and have cooldowns useable more often.

- Tanks are going to be really over powered in PvP as well.

- PvP is never fun at the beginning of an expansion, even if you are using the OP class.

- Losing all the time sucks just as much as winning all the time.

- At least for me, some people might like having a class with the I Win button.

- Looks at most mages as those people.  Most mages are people that like an I Win button.

- My I Win button on my mage is 3.

- I know, I am weird, most people use 1.

- It is also why I do not play my mage.  I find that style of play boring.

- I like healing because it is never the same.

- Who takes damage, outside of the tank, is always different, which means the fight is always different.

- But expect there to be fewer healers at the start, just like in cataclysm.

- They are messing with them again.

- When will blizzard get the idea, healing is fun when you can keep going, it is not fun when you have to watch your mana bar all the time.

- Design it that if I choose to heal the wrong people that people will die and it would be fun, it makes decisions matter and does not make watching a resource the most important thing.

- Do not design it that if I run out of mana people will die.  For a healer nothing means failure more than losing someone that could have been saved, if only you had mana.  That is not good design, at least not at the gearing up levels.

- They need to design things thinking about the starting point, not the ending point, that is their problem.

- Their healing model for cataclysm was fine, for raids.

- For a 329 healer with 329 players, some of which where not good, did not know fights, or where just inexperienced, the starting content was killer.

- They said, but it is designed around raiding.

- I say, read my last post and stop designing all content to be based around content for raiders that only count for a tiny portion of your players.

- Design it so a 329 healer can heal 329 players that are lesser skilled in the 329 starting dungeons.

- Then we will not have healers quitting like we did at the start of cataclysm because they felt they could not keep up.

- If people died because they made mistakes, they would try to get better.  When people died when they where doing everything perfect because they had no mana, they quit healing.

- I've said it before and I will say it again.  I doubt anyone at blizzard actually plays the game because they continuously make decisions that no one that plays the game would ever consider.

- They do a fair job, don't get me wrong, but they always seem to be a day late and a dollar short on everything.

- Like fixing the LFR loot system after they released it.

- Personally I thought it was fine, but the community abused it

- They should have known their own community.

- This is what they get from not playing the game themselves.

- Why not make something work correctly to start with?

- Oh wait, we are talking blizzard.  Can't use that logic.

- Why fix something before it comes out if we can fix it after people complain about it for 9 months.

- That is blizzards model.

- So tomorrow they will announce that August 7th is mists release date, my guess of course.

- And we will have 2 months left of this expansion.

- So what do you plan to do with that last two months?

- I plan to finally finish at least getting my best in slot normal stuff, if the crap ever drops.

- I swear the random part of the raids is horrible.  If something only drops 8 different items and 2 drop per run, what are the odds you will never see one item drop after 16 weeks, multiple characters, and countless alt runs.

- There is random and there is broken.  The loot system is broken, not random.

- Back on task, I plan on getting one more priest and two more hunters to max level.

- I plan on doing as many dailies as I have time for, even if it is only a few a day, to get a head start on my 10,000 dailies achievement.

- I plan on deciding on making one of my horde characters a horde achievement whore.

- It will be a hunter of course, what else would you expect from me.  Now to decided on which hunter.

- I have an orc, a troll and a tauren hunter.

- This is with the idea that with achievements being shared I might actually get what were previously horde only achievements on my alliance characters as well.

- Either way, it would be nice to have one achievement hunter on each side.  Some things can only be done on one side or the other.  Like the cooking and fishing things, reputations for certain factions, etc.

- Horde side has always been a just for fun side for me.  I have no serious characters on that side even if I do have almost as many horde chars as I do alliance ones.

- That is all I really have on my things to do list at the moment.

- I'd have more but being I won't do randoms or LFR because of the horrible player base, that leaves me with nothing to do.

- Except for wrath dailies.  Crusade to be exact.

- Amazing, I am doing the same dailies I did the end of the last expansion.  And less raiding, less dungeons, less being out in the world and basically less of everything in game.

- So much for cataclysm being the biggest expansion with more content than ever before.

- Here is to hoping mists gives us what cataclysm promised us.

- Cheers.

- Actually, I am expecting mists will.

- It would fit blizzards pattern.

- Release something, let people complain about it for a while, an entire expansion in this case, and fix it later.

- I would really be glad if they just fixed things right away.

- Blizzard is really using up all the good will I have.  Love for a game can only last so long.  Friendships in game, the ones that kept me from quitting during the zul disaster, can only fix so much.

- That is why blizzard is losing subs.

- While I might be grumpy, I am also stubborn.  I am sticking it out because I believe things will get better.

- 2M people were not as stubborn as me.

- Will unlimited dailies, 100s of them, friendships, pokeman and farmville in mists be enough to keep people interested?

- For me the thing that matters most are the dungeons and raids.  That other stuff is just stuff to pass the time.

- I want randoms that can be done even with bad players.

- I want raids that I can pug on weekends, which means I need two lock outs.

- If they can fix that I will be a less grumpy elf.

- If not, I might not be around to complain about the expansion after mists.

- Have a great day and get ready for the release date announcement.

Is Raid Content Really Compelling Content?

I've been looking around for exact numbers, even estimated numbers, but I can't find anything concrete so I'll have to work with what I can.  Looking at sites like guild ox and wow progress, if they are indeed accurate which I doubt, it would seem that around 700,000, estimated, characters have killed morchok on normal difficulty.  I'll take this number with a grain of salt because I can not be completely certain of its accuracy and I suggest you do so as well while reading this post.

Even more than not being certain of its accuracy is the issue that I find it amazingly hard to believe that only 700,000 people have defeated the easiest first boss of any raid ever in the history of warcraft.

If the 10.2M number of active subscribers is correct and only 700,000 characters have defeated the entry level boss this late after its release we have to believe that the true number of raiders is very small.

Remember, sites like guild ox and wow progress only count what is entered to it, which can skew the results.  They also only count characters, which can skew the results as well.  Just think of people like myself with at least a dozen 85s that have killed morchok or further on all of them.  My 12 characters that have done it are counted as 12 of that 700,000 and not one, which would be more accurate as all 12 of them are indeed just one person, me.  There are at least 15 people in my guild alone that have done DS with at least 5 characters.  I would say the average raider has at least 3 characters that have, or are capable of, defeating morchok. 

So that skews the results as well.  The 700,000 number is not accurate when looking for the actual number of subscribers that have downed at least the first boss.  Those 700,000 characters that have killed morchok should be divided by at least 3 to reflect people, otherwise known as subscribers, and not characters.  Possibly even divided by more, being there are people like me that have done it on way more than one character.  Then we have to consider all those people that have downed it in guilds not listed or people that are guildless.

So if we are looking for subscribers we need to lower that 700,000 number because of multiple characters being played by the same person and increase that number because of people that killed it that are not listed.  So for arguments sake, lets play pretend and say that lowering it for one and increasing it for the other makes it what it is, 700,000.

If, remember this number is pure speculation and probably not even close to accurate, 700,000 people, not characters, have killed morchok that means that out of a subscriber base of 10.2M people that under 7% of warcraft's player base has even killed the easiest boss in the last tier of raiding this expansion.

Lets get even more angled on that.  Less then 7% of subscribers in the game have killed the easiest entry boss ever in the history of the game even with a 20% reduction to the abilities of the boss.

That is an insanely low number.  At least to me it seems like it.

While I understand the numbers I fetched from guild ox very well are inaccurate, at the very least, they are accurate to the people that actually care about having downed the boss.  People that are in guilds that actually care most likely have looked up their guild on one of those sites which means their data is there.

So we could refigure this number a little by making a few more unqualified assumptions.  The 700,000 characters are characters from people that care, so lets divide that by our guesstimated third to cover most people having done it on at least three characters.  So that would mean around 230,000 subscribers.

Using that number makes it even more crazy when looking at it compared to the 10.2M subscribers.  That means a little over 2% of the subscriber base, the ones that actually cares about progression, have killed at least the first boss.

Are you F'N kidding me?  2% of the subscriber base actually care about raid content.  That is it?  They might be numbers based on inaccurate statistics because that was all I could find but I find that amazingly hard to believe.  Yet, has hard to believe as it is, it does seem to sound somewhat reasonable.

So I ask the question, is raid content really compelling content?

If only 2% of the people actually care enough to do it then the answer does not need to be said by any of us.  It is staring us right in the face.  No, raiding content is not compelling content.

Don't get me wrong, I love to raid.  The only time I have logged in on my main all week was to raid.  I will log in to raid new content, old content, any raid really.  I like to raid.  I guess that makes me part of the 2%.

So you have to look at why that is.  Why is raiding not compelling content?

I've got a few ideas on why that is and I'm going to share them.

1) Looking for raid:

If you will notice my numbers where based on the raid with a difficultly of at least normal.  I did not include looking for raid.  Even if we did include looking for raid I am left to believe that the number would not be much better.  About a month ago ghostcrawler made a post about how around 2.5M characters have at least the looking for raid achievement for killing deathwing.  He mentioned it as if it were some sort of triumph.  But he was playing the accounting game with those numbers.  Saying one number to make you think it means something else.

When he said 2.5M characters have completed it on at least LFR difficulty he wanted you, me and everyone else that read that to think that 25% of the player base has finished it.  Even 25% is not a lot when you think about it but that would be a completely false statement.  Just as I explained before 2.5M characters are not 2.5M players.  Each and every one of us has probably finished it on at least 2 characters.  Some weirdos like myself have completed it on at least 10.  Some others have done it on even more.  So 2.5M characters is no where even remotely close to 2.5M players.

So now that we see the LFR numbers in and of themselves are not all that impressive we need to add to that the fact that a great deal of people have completed it on the LFR difficulty and now have never even tried it on normal because they have already done it.  This could very well be another reason for the low, extremely low, numbers we see from the people actually raiding at even normal content level.  If anything, I am completely sure that is the reason there have been so few people having killed the easiest boss this tier on normal.

Removing the looking for raid option would make the normal raiding content more compelling.  If people wanted to see the raid they would actually have to do it.

2) 10 and 25 man lockouts.

This is probably the biggest reason why raiding content is not all that compelling and we are seeing less people doing it.  The way it was in wrath was you would run 10s (or 25s) with your guild on the week and 25s (or 10s) on the weekend in a pug.  Now, with only one lock out you always have to save yourself for your guild so you run less.

This also means that the better players on their better geared characters run with their guild and are done for the week.  In wrath the top guilds on the server would run their guild run on the weekdays and set up a pug on the weekends.  Those better players would then be able to carry some lesser players and teach them.  It allowed for more decent players in the mix which in turn made for better pugs with a higher chance of success and actually taught people how to play, which is the exact opposite of what looking for raid does.

Two lockouts also made people want to raid more because they could raid more.  If we where raiding 10 mans on Thursday and there was a Tuesday pug going on for a 25 I would, or could, jump in on it without effecting my guild run.  It made me want to play more because I could.

Not to mention if I know I was running on Thursday I had a reason to be on other days.  I would be on trying to get into a 25 because I was running the 10 later.  Now, I did not log on until Thursday because what was I going to do?  Nothing.  There was no reason for me to log on because I want to raid but there was nothing for me to raid.

10 and 25 man lockouts returning would make for more compelling raiding.

3) Difficulty:

I have absolutely zero complaints about the difficulty of dragon soul because there really wasn't much of any.  I think I wiped more to the ball bugging out those first few weeks before it was fixed than I have on all other fights in there combined.  Mind you, my guild is a decent guild but it is not as good as dragon soul made us look.  We looked like we could be a hard core group if we stepped it up with the speed we went through there.

So I do not think the difficulty is high at all but looking around at the people in the LFR and the 2% number that have actually killed morchok it sure has hell seems like the majority of the player base thinks that the difficulty is too high.

If they added another difficulty level, something like a LFR difficulty but one you can assemble and not a random version, it could be compelling content.

What can be done to make raiding compelling content?

If that 2% number is correct, raiding is not compelling content.
If that 7% number is correct, raiding is not compelling content.
Even if that bullshit 25% number ghostcrawler tried to throw at us when talking about the looking for raid being a success proves that raiding is not compelling content.

If only 25% of the player base even cares to do a certain amount of content then that content is just not compelling and as we know, by GC's own numbers that 25% counted characters, not players, so it is really much lower.

What do you think needs to be done to make raiding compelling content and get more people doing it?

Two lockouts per week?
10s and 25s being separate lockouts?
Allowing people to do it more than once a week but only be awarded loot once a week?
Normal and heroic being separate lockouts?
Adding a new easier difficulty for assembled groups?
Awarding more loot?

Something needs to be done because to answer my own posts question, no, raiding is not compelling content for a large majority of the player base.

What would you suggest?