Monday Random Thoughts

- As I figured last week my 99 is now 100.

- So that makes five level 100s now.

- I am not really pushing for any others, but they will come.

- Not saying I am not liking the leveling process.

- I like the quest flow over all.

- Do find talador a bit of a drag however.

- Just that I do not want to make more "work" for myself than I already have set up on a daily basis.

- This expansion, for someone with a lot of alts, will require a ton of time.

- With the big "if" being if you want to do everything with them.

- I need to learn how to not do everything with them.

- Or I will burn myself out on them.

- I already do not mine during the week, to cut down on wasted time.

- Can you imagine if I had 20 100s like I had 20 90s?

- I would log in and start doing my garrison and by the time I cycled through all my characters it would be time to log off.

- And that is if I could even finish all 20.

- So I don't see me wanting to level as many alts as I had in the past.

- It almost seems like a penalty for leveling.

- Congratulations, you have another level 100, now get to level your followers and gear them all up.

- Get to leveling your professions and the year and a day it will take to do that.

- Get to gathering materials and collecting the 60 of each resource it will take to do your daily cooldowns and work orders each and every day.

- Get to grinding for the sake of grinding.

- Don't get me wrong, I love grinding, but there seems to be some stuff missing.

- Like a way to level professions without having to save up weeks worth of materials to make stuff.

- What ever happened to crafted patterns that did not need "special" materials?

- That is the one thing that gets me.

- I would feel as if I have to log into all my characters daily, because I always keep my professions leveled.

- Having max professions matters to me.

- And you need to log in daily to do so if you want to get it done at a reasonable rate.

- Each profession needs some simple stuff to make to level it that just needs basic materials.

- At least in my opinion.

- If I do not want to spend forever making 640 gear it takes forever to get the materials for I should have another way to level professions.

- So it is daily cooldowns and the darkmoon faire for me to level professions on rarely played alts it seems.

- Unless I want to play them more often.

- But than they would not be rarely player alts would they?

- I do still want to level some additional hunters.

- Because I love soloing on hunters and the more hunters I have the more soloing I can do.

- But I can cross one thing off my soloing list.

- No more Onyxia farming needed for me.

- Got it to drop this weekend.

- I looted it and thought, this looks different, I thought I saw everything that dropped here before.

- I hovered over it and saw it was the mount and did not believe it.

- I was not happy or excited or even yelling woohoo like I should have.

- Just that one good YES.

- And then a sigh of relief to have finally got it after so many years.

- It was an "I really earned this" feeling more than anything else.

- Ever since they added shared mounts I was soloing it on multiple characters whenever I remembered to do so.

- Before that I was soloing it on my main as far back as I could remember.

- The last few months of the expansion I was doing it on at least 5 characters a week.

- I had started to solo it years ago, it has almost become habit.

- Looking to take a break?  Solo Onyxia.

- Want to do some mount farming?  Solo Onyxia.

- Feeling like I was having such bad luck lately I was due for a win?  Solo Onyxia.

- A few minutes before raid and nothing to do?  Solo Onyxia.

- It had become such a huge part of my game play life over the years I think I am going to miss doing it.

- Does that sound weird?

- I've done it so often, squeezed it in so many days, on so many characters.

- Not really having a reason to do it any longer is like losing an old friend who used to always be there for you.

- I got the mount, but now I wonder if maybe I would have been better off not getting it.

- Most other mount runs take time, this was quick and easy.

- Need more quick and easy mount runs to fill in the time, to take onyxia's place.

- Throne of the four winds could take its place.

- It is short, simple, and doable by many classes.

- More than onyxia was actually.

- I guess that will be my new onyxia.

- I did throne yesterday and two extremely odd things happened.

- I got the achievement for heroic throne, which I had from years ago.

- So how did I manage to get an achievement I already had the achievement for on that character from three years ago?

- Odd right?  I thought so too.

- And then the bosses dropped 125 gold each.

- Thought they scaled down gold?  Once more odd right?

- Want more odd stuff?

- I looked to see how close I was to 250 mounts.

- Says I have 246.

- But my mount guide says I have 257.

- So I have 11 that are not counting for some reason.

- The paladin mount, lock mount, DK mount, they all will not count on my hunter so that makes sense.

- But I do not have 11 class only mounts.

- I decided to see if I could get 4 more mounts.

- This was before I did onxyia.

- I went to halaa to get the two mounts from there, thanks to follower missions.

- It was under attack, so I needed to defend to get them.

- Had to wait for the vendor to respawn.

- We held the line but were slowly dying off, 12, 10, 8, 6 guards left.

- Respawn, respawn, I was mumbling at the screen, I did not want to make this trip for nothing.

- 4, 2, he respawned.

- I run over, open window, buy both mounts, watch him die a second later as we drop to 0 guards.

- Well, got what I wanted, let them have it now.

- Hell, maybe they were fighting so they could buy it themselves.

- And no way little old me was going to hold off 4 or 5 invaders anyway.

- Just happy I got my mounts and did not need to come back or win it all by myself.

- So I got somewhere safe, away from battle, and learned the two mounts.

- Should be up to 248 now right?

- Nope, those two mounts did not count apparently.

- Why did they not count?

- My total mounts moved to 259, but my character mounts is still 246.

- Even if I learned them on my main, it did not count them.

- Odd, very odd right?

- Onyxia's mount did count however.

- So now I am at 247 but really 260 mounts with the two new mounts that I just purchased not counting.

- I wonder why.

- Lots of achievement bugs.

- I have actually noticed a lot of achievements I already have popping up that I just got them.

- I think there are some serious bugs going on with achievements.

- I made a darkmoon trinket for my tank, my "craft" 50 epic items over item level 600 achievement did not count it as crafting it.

- It counts the pieces from the garrison missions I click on to craft.

- Why not that?

- So back to my new 100, it was my warrior.

- So I hit 100 and switched to protection spec and took gladiator stance.

- Did I ever leave any comment that made you think I would do any different?

- I always said, if I could DPS with my sword and board I would, and you are damn straight I did.

- I hit 100 a little into nagrand.

- I saved nagrand for last so I could get some of the tank type gear from the quests.

- The choosing spec option does not seem to work all the time from the quest rewards so I figured I would just wait until I was in protection, and had my bunker up in level, then quest in nagrand to get some starter tank gear.

- As soon as I hit 100, with all of a 584 item level, I went back to my garrison and upgraded to level 3 and started building my bunker.

- I figured, while waiting because I wanted a level 2 bunker before going back to questing for possible upgrades, I would give the proving grounds a try.

- It goes without saying I never played gladiator right?

- I knew all the abilities from having used them as a tank and there was only one ability that changed.

- I read that one ability, decided how I wanted to use it, and entered the proving grounds as a damage dealer.

- Once again I found the damage dealer proving grounds very underwhelming.

- Playing a spec I never played, so to speak, with way under the minimum 610 it scales down to, I got my silver without even coming close to missing any round.

- Yawn.

- I turned in the quest and my 610 weapon from the quest actually became a 640 epic weapon, and this was before my bunker was finished building, talk about luck.

- Next I figured I would try the tanking one.

- After doing it with my druid and knowing that the mistweaver that is there is possibly the worst healer ever in the history of healers, I was not expecting to finish it.

- Bronze was no problem, silver however was a different story.

- I ran into the same problem that I had with my druid.

- Well, not actually the same problem but same type of problem as in making it to the last round and wiping.

- On my druid the healer seemed to refuse to heal me, so to fix that bad healer issue I had to go full on defensive to get it done.

- I managed to get silver on the third try with my druid, if I remember correctly, after I adapted to her horrible style of healing.

- So this time around I figured I knew what to expect.

- I would play it really defensive on my warrior and should be fine.

- Nope, blizzard switched it up on me.

- She actually was healing me on occasion and honestly I did not need much healing on my warrior even at that low item level.

- If victory rush had worked on the mobs in there she actually would have never needed to heal me.

- My warrior, not sure if by design, just took WAY less damage than my druid did.

- So this should be no problem.

- Last round, fire guy pops up in the second part of the last wave and throws some fire puddles, which I let go, so I could tank stuff in it.

- Bad part was, one of the fire puddles was under the healers feet.

- Did the healer move?

- Of course not.

- Did the healer heal herself?

- Of course not.

- So I immediately said to myself, self, it is me vs her health now.

- I need to kill everything before she dies.

- Needless to say, that did not happen.

- Take two.

- This time I will interrupt the fire guy.

- Must have been too slow on the interrupt however.

- He got off one fire puddle and can you guess where it landed?

- Yeap, right under her feet.

- So me against her health timer again.

- I can do it this time, just two mobs up.

- WTH is she doing, she is healing me, I am at full health woman, stop healing me and kill kill kill.

- Now that you are supposed to be DPSing you are healing me?

- If you are going to heal someone heal yourself because you are standing in fire you buffoon.

- One mob left, execute range, one more shot and this is done, she dies.

- Damn you woman, you are the worst healer in the history of healers.

- Take three.

- Switched some talents around, changed two key binds, now I will get this.

- The druid had to deal with no heals and needed to go full on defensive.

- The warrior seemed to get a different RNG and he has to deal with a healer that stands in bad.

- How I beat the druid was to handle it as if there was no healer and I had to take care of myself.

- How I handled it on my warrior was as if all spells were instant death spells.

- I would not let anything cast anything.

- And I did just that.

- Not even one fire puddle came out and it was a breeze.

- Do you think the warrior and druid challenges are different or just luck of the draw?

- I never was in danger of dying on my warrior where my druid was near death all the time.

- The healer stood in bad for my warrior when on my druid there was never any bad near her.

- RNG or are the challenges tuned different for different classes?

- Honestly, would love to know.

- Still upset it took me until the third try to do it as tank, for the second time.

- Even at 26 item levels lower than the minimum with zero tanking gear, I should have one shot it.

- And would have one shot it, if only she side stepped, or healed herself.

- Once again I have to say it, she is the worst healer in the history of all healers.

- Speaking of healing, I got a healing trinket on my shaman from a dungeon, while in DPS spec of course.

- Add that to a 615 healing trinket from a follower mission, and now I had two pieces with spirit on it.

- Three pieces actually, being that one dungeon was also the one I needed to get the 640 ring, which I took with spirit of course.

- Now I was ready to give the healing proving grounds a try.

- I did not expect much, I figured I would need more spirit.

- A guild mate told me that bronze was actually harder than silver.

- I laughed because, you know, how is that even possible.

- Then I did bronze, finished it was zero mana, as in not even a sliver of mana left when it ended.

- Holy crap he was right, bronze was rough.

- If I can barely do bronze there is no way in hell I am going to do silver.

- But he did say silver was easier.

- What the hell, I am here, let me try.

- They were right, silver is easier on your mana than bronze was.

- I ended the fight with a third of my mana bar left and no one was ever in danger of dying.

- That was a lot easier than I had expected.

- Why is bronze harder than silver?

- Was it because the idea was planted in my mind and subconsciously I reacted thinking that and made it so?

- Or is bronze healing actually harder on your mana than silver is?

- So far it seems the tank challenge is the only one I could not one shot.

- Still have other tanks to level, one of these days I will get it.

- My hunter is now past 650 item level thanks to some exceptional luck.

- Yes, I said I had luck.

- Not only did onyxia bless me with her mount dropping but my rogue managed to loot the lucky double sided coin from a salvage container.

- In case you did not know that is the best in slot non mythic trinket for a hunter.

- So needless to say that I sent it over to my hunter and equipped it instantly.

- I now only have 2 slots with non epic gear in them.

- Legs and one ring slot.

- I must say that I have been doing okay this expansion thus far.

- Hope I did not just jinx myself back to my normal no luck sort of luck by saying that.

- I macroed the double sided coin into rapid fire and I am loving it so far.

- Awesome that they have the same cooldown and it just so happens that the best time to use the trinket is during rapid fire.

- So it works out perfectly for me.

- A new character entered draenor for me.

- And I am currently wondering if I even want to worry about doing their professions.

- It means more material needed to keep it going, and it just does not seem worth it any longer.

- If it were not for the sorcerous elements I could get from it I would not bother with them any more.

- I do want to start leveling another character on one of my solo servers.

- Just to see the garrison from a solo perspective.

- I think garrisons are better from that angle.

- Trying to do everything for a bunch of characters and all professions just seems like too much.

- A few guild mates decided to try the gold bags you can buy with the profession secrets books.

- They have been getting 1 or 2 gold inside each one.

- So lets see, use a few materials to make one secret and trade it for 1 or 2 gold?

- Seems like a loss to me.

- So my advice, once you have all the patterns you need, stop doing the secrets daily.

- Not worth wasting the materials.

- They would be better spent on work orders.

- Or sold on the AH for that matter.

- Even 5 blackiron ore is worth more than 1 gold.

- And that is saying a lot, because ore is basically worthless.

- They need to increase the gold in those baggies to be between 15 and 30 gold to be worthwhile.

- And even at that, it would only be worthwhile if you get the higher end of it.

- But it would be like gambling, and lots of people dig that stuff.

- I am not a gambler but I love the big crates of salvage.

- And that feels like gambling.

- At least I have got two 665 items thus far, and one was awesome for my hunter.

- So over all, I would say I won.

- It was worth pushing 5 level 3 salvage yards and working to get as many crates as I could.

- But all that means is I won this time, a guild mate has opened more crates than I, triple the amount easily, and he has never gotten any.

- Guess I had good luck with them.

- Me, with luck, its the seventh sign.

- Have a great day.

Dear Blizzard Garrison Developers

Dear Blizzard Garrison Developers,

Let me take a moment to introduce myself.  I am the commander of the free armies from Azeroth on Draenor.  I have saved the world from destruction, I have fought kings, old gods, and threats of all sizes.  I have all the faction leader's ears and their highest respect.  I am privy to knowledge directly from leadership that no one else could know because I have earned the utmost level of trust.  Whenever there is anything that needs to be done I am the first person that is sought out to solve the problem.

I have outposts in every area of Draenor and lead all the wonderful men and women that defend them and they all trust my choices and follow my commands, without question.  I have hundreds of followers that left their lives behind just to be with me and they would go out on my command on what could possibly be a mission they will never return from, never even once questioning my orders.  I am respected, honorable, and skilled as both a fighter and a leader.

I have fought countless battles, retrieved precious artifacts, collected badges of honor from completing tasks no one else could, and traveled from one end of the world to the next building a legend like none have ever imagined possible all while receiving accolades every step of the way.  I've friends, confidants and informants all over the place and the most powerful beings in the world either fear me, or come to me for assistance.

I am a legend.  I am a leader.  I am the last hope for our world and I have never let the people of our world down.

So I ask, with the greatest respect, please, by the light of Elune, why can you not teach my followers to mine and herb on my garrison for me?  A person of my stature should not be tied down by such petty tasks, I've got an army to lead and a world to save.  I believe I am busy enough.

Thank you for your time,
The Grumpy Elf

One Month Down, Eleven To Go?

We sit at the one month point of the warlords expansion and it is time to play around with a little bit of speculation.  However I do not believe there is any speculation needed.  I am completely willing to go out on a limb here and make a prediction, but I do so without any risk of being wrong because it is an extremely strong limb.  The next expansion will not be out in 11 months.

Blizzard has promised that this expansion will only last one year.  That is not going to happen.  The way the staggered raid releases are set up I can see maybe, just maybe, the next expansion coming as early as one year after the release of the second starting raid.  But no way in hell one year after the release of warlords.  Nope, not going to happen, never.

I personally think I would like to see this expansion gone as soon as possible.  I'm not exactly happy with the feeling I am playing on a live beta, even if I am enjoying the game right now.  I would not object in any way to only having 11 months left to it.  Sure, if it goes by that quick I will never be able to complete mythic as I did with siege as I am a casual raider with friends that are just not up to that level of play, but that does not bother me.  As long as I finish normal (now called heroic) like I have been doing, or coming close to, for the years since I started raiding, I will be more than happy.

That is one reason I do not see them sticking to a faster release schedule.  There are more players like me than there are players above me, in terms of progression.  And there are much more under me.  So they will not, or should not, cater to the ones above me and they most definitely should cater to those below me.  While it does not matter to me if I do mythic, as I consider that bonus content for when I am bored and not actually part of the main game, to some people having the time to get into mythic and finish it is very important and with a sped up release schedule it will basically lock out the vast majority of the player base that wishes to see mythic but just can't do it on a short schedule.

Another one of the reasons I do not see that happening is blizzards track record.  They are dreadful with releasing timely content.  I know they are trying to get better at it.  At the beginning of mists it looked like they finally nailed it.  Mists probably had the best first year in terms of content patches released in the history of the game.  There was nothing not to like about it, unless you disliked having so much content.  There was just a lot to offer and they offered it all.  For a moment it really seemed blizzard would be living by their word and making faster releases.  It did not turn out that way when we sat in the same raid for 14 months.  Hey, I did not mind, it took me 9 months to finish heroic (now mythic) and I am happy to have had that chance.  But I would still say it went on too long.

Add all that to the fact that warlords is effectively still in beta.  Yes, I know it has been released, but blizzard has been releasing a flurry of changes left and right of recent.  All changes that should have been made on beta.  Changes to professions, the same ones I wrote about here being in an unfinished state on beta, changes to achievements, and changes to other things.  All of which should have been adjusted on beta.  As it turns out, it is being adjusted on beta, a live beta.

So adding that all together.  Blizzard not wanting to cut the raid season really short, because it wants people like me to have my 9 months at the end of the expansion to get a mythic kill, their track record of being really dreadful with timely content releases, and the fact that even if warlords has been released it is still not a finish product, we will absolutely, one hundred percent certain, not be seeing a new expansion in 11 months as promised.

So now that we got that out of the way and it is no longer a discussion, the expansion will last longer than one year, it is time for the real question, how long would you like to see this expansion last?

I know that the expansion still has that new car smell for a great deal of people, and everyone knows we all like something more when it is new, so I am expecting some people will over estimate how much they are enjoying the expansion because of that.  My opinion however is going to be more based on the what I believe would be best for the game and not the fact I am enjoying myself at the moment.

After the next raid is released, blackrock foundray, in January, I would like to see the expansion follow the mists design.  Meaning I would like to see a content patch three months later in April followed by the last raid, as there are only supposed to be two this expansion, three months after that in July.

I personally believe that a 6 month cycle to raids is fair enough that it gives the people that want to push the top level of raiding enough time to finish it, the people that do it for something to do the time to dabble in it, and everyone else the time to finish up the top difficulty they are capable of clearing.

I also believe that the last raid of the expansion should last a little longer, nine months in my opinion seems to be fine.  No more of this 14 month stuff please.  But I also believe that just because the last raid came out doesn't mean that it should mark the end of content for the expansion.  So after the last raid is released in July I think it would be nice to see some sort of catch up island, like the timeless island, released three months after that, meaning in October.

That would leave us with 6 months of no content while we prepare for the new expansion which should, in my opinion, come in April of 2016.

If it worked out to be that pattern I would be very happy, but for blizzard, my opinion on what I believe would be a good release schedule still seems like a very ambitious endeavor and I do not believe they would be capable of keeping up with the schedule that I laid out.  So don't expect that to happen.  But I would be very happy to be proved wrong by blizzard and glad to eat my words if they can make it happen.

So what do you think this expansion should play out to be?  If they keep to only 2 raid tiers do you think my design would be nice or maybe you think we will get a third tier, or 14 months in one raid again.  Let me know.

Do You Like Change?

When this expansion was first announced we all knew we would be in for a fair deal of changes.  The stat squish meaning different numbers, ability pruning meaning less abilities, stats like hit, expertise, dodge and parry being removed, stats like multistrike, versatility, and tertiary being added, there were a lot of changes happening and the ones I mentioned were only the tip of the iceburg.

Some people hated it, some people welcomed it, most people had a "lets wait and see" feeling about it.  But that is a lot of change to throw down our throats at one time.  There is no doubt about that.  Even if you were the type of person that was open and welcoming to change you would be willing to say it was going to be a lot to take in.

As people got to experience things they noticed a lot of other changes.  Changes in professions were huge and sweeping.  Changes in what we have to do at level 100 where huge as the focus switched.  Changes to the end game raiding system from flex for all except for a single sized max difficulty.  No matter where you went or where you looked there was something about the game that changed and did not change just a little, did not update like what we knew from change in previous expansions, it was full on change, everywhere.

Some people look at it, in part, as warcraft reborn and I guess you could think of it that way.  We had fewer stats, fewer abilities, smaller numbers and craftable items that only needed a skill level of 1 to make.  Almost as if we really were starting over.  That is a pretty big change.

Personally I will be the first to admit I am not a huge fan of change, even more so change that I do not personally feel needed.  But that of course is based on personal opinion.  I would have been fine with larger numbers, I liked that I was only able to craft things with my professions because I put in the work to level them, and I sure as hell would love to have scatter shot back.

However I would also like to believe I am somewhat reasonable when I believe there is reason to be so.  While I would have been fine with larger numbers I can surely see why the game needed a squish.  Things like that.  So even if I am against change normally I am open to it when I feel it is being done for the greater good.

It was easy, even when they were unwelcome, to accept the changes that were going on with the game because they were all on beta.  We had advanced knowledge of them.  They were all part of a game that wasn't yet out.  It was a large chunk of information to take in, sure, but it was one big book of changes we had to read.

But now that warlords is out we are still seeing changes left and right.  Seemingly more each week.  Some within reason, some that leave you scratching your head.  And no I am not talking about balancing the classes, but some of those changes too might have you wondering what blizzard is thinking, but that is another story.

Someone posted a comment here last week I believe it was that I must say I agree with 100%.  They said that we are effectively playing an open beta.  Warlords was released in a beta state and blizzard is using the full force of ten million players to beta test it.

He / She made that comment well before this recent influx of changes and I agreed with them then.  Now, after a series of changes seemingly daily, I believe it more strongly.  We really are playing an open beta.

Even if I am the type that generally dislikes changes I was able to accept them before the game was released but this recent influx of changes almost every day to what is supposed to be a basically finished release and things I think did not need changing is really starting to get to me.  No, not bothering me in the sense that I would quit or rage or what have you about it.  But bother me to the point of, "if it is not broke don't fix it".  It is getting frustrating to keep seeing a live game changed in ways that are rather hard to understand.  What is even more frustrating is the fact that all these things they are changing should have been changed on beta.

Funny part is, if they were changed on beta it would have not bothered me at all, not even in the slightest.   But once you have a game go live you expect that game to be what that game is.  If I have been farming talbuk meat for potions, or stockpiling it, it is wrong for it to be removed from the materials needed for the potions.  If they wanted it changed it should have been changed on the beta.  Mind you, I was not stockpiling, just asking, if I were, it is wrong for blizzard to make changes just for the sake of making changes on a live game.

I can accept some changes, mostly with a game in development because that is when changes are supposed to be happening.  But I am really starting to get tired of blizzard changing a live game for absolutely no reason what so ever.

Was the fact people actually needed to go out in the world and fish and kill animals for fish and meat really such a huge game breaking issue that they needed those items to be removed from things?  I would think blizzard would be more open to the idea, in this extremely content light expansion, of having something that made people want to go out in the world.  Farming fish and meat would serve that purpose wouldn't it?

In the end, when myself, and I am sure hundreds or maybe even thousands of others, mentioned on beta "shouldn't alchemy use more herbs and not meat and fish and ore" they should have done something about it then.  Not now.  Now it is live and there is no reason to change it.  People have notice what they need and they will go get it if they want it.  As I said, and if this gets them out in the world playing instead of sitting in their garrison, isn't that a good thing?

Changing it in beta I could accept, changing it now is change for changes sake.

So do I like all these changes coming down the pipes almost daily?

I Can't Believe I Am Saying This

With some apprehension I decided to give the LFR a try on release day.  I always have since they were added to the game.  It was not always about gear, but sometimes it was, it was more about I like to experience everything there is to do in the game more so anything with such ease of access as the LFR.  So worst case, I wanted to do the LFR at least once.

After so many first day experiences with bosses that blizzard really screwed up with because they thought a random group of people that just wanted to blow through content for some quick loot, valor, or entertainment, would be capable of working as a coordinated group ended up in complete failure I was, understandably, not expecting day one of warlords first LFR to be anything better than painful.

After snagging about 8 people from guild we queued up and got into a fresh run and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by how easy things were.  For the first time ever since the release of LFR in the last patch of cataclysm was it really something one could call a quick way to have some fun and get some loot in sightseer mode.

The healers that were with the group said that there was almost no healing needed.  Not that being they were over geared for it that it was easy to heal.  No, they said there was no healing needed.  Even due to mechanics and people failing horribly at them, they were still so easy to heal it was as if they were not really healing at all.

We, of course, had our LFR jerkwads.  It would not be LFR without them.  But instead of being like so many fights before this release where one troll pulling something they were not supposed to would wipe the group, it did nothing of the sort.  Even a damage dealer it seems could easily tank the trash, at least that is what the healers told me.

Trash packs took longer than bosses.  Trash packs seemed more dangerous than bosses.  As a matter of fact one of the people in the group, after we downed butcher and I reminded everyone to loot, said, "that was a boss".  The bosses seemed like nothing more than glorified trash, with less mechanics than trash has, and I loved it.

The entire run, and I might be exaggerating on the high end because I did not actually time it, might have taken 20 minutes.  Most likely it took less.  All three bosses were ninja pulled by some moron but because there were no wipes, no deaths, no problems, it really did not make much of a difference.  Blizzard finally realized that in LFR we need moron protection.  That easy fights are good.  Even more so in a setting like that, the type of setting that inspires your standard jerk to step it up a notch and see if he can be an even bigger troll than normal.

I had absolutely no intention of bringing in alts to LFR this expansion.  I hated the fact that it would still be the only way to gear alts on a steady basis.  But after this experience I am second guessing myself.

I am thinking I can bring in my healers, that have no healing gear at all, and it should be fine because of the lack of healing needed, and get them some gear for healing as well as the quick queue to boot.  The fact I have no spirit gear should not matter being the fights are light on damage and short on length.

I even began to entertain the thought that I might actually tank this.  We had no guild tanks with us that I could ask but from what I saw it did not seem as if the two tanks were even talking, although I know it could have been kept to whispers.  They just went at it and I guess whoever had aggro tanked.  Could this be one of the things I have been asking for since the first half of dragon soul was released?  That all fights in LFR are designed for one tank.  Oh please say it is.  I might actually tank the LFR than.

I know this is opening day.  I know the better players are there.  Lets face it, the worst damage dealer in my group was doing 16K and you know damn well that will not be the normal case in the LFR.  So I am aware I had, by LFR standards, the best group ever in the history of the LFR.  But it gave me hope.  It was really sightseer mode with this group, so when we see groups where 6K and 8K is the norm instead of 16K and 18K being the norm, maybe it will still be easy, and if it is, LFR is a winner all around.

If we did not just over power it, and it really was as simple as it seemed to be with that group, I would say blizzard finally hit the nail on the head with the difficulty level of the LFR.  If this one experience I had yesterday will end up being the representative group for LFR than I can't help but have faith that there might be a future in the game for it.  Or more so for me doing it on alts.  Because the cesspool of hate and bile and mechanics that could wipe people that it could sometimes be before really made me lose faith in the players and the designers of the game.  But this smooth first day run is helping restore that faith.  Lets just hope it stays this easy all the way throughout the expansion.  If it done, I would be very happy.

But as wonderful as it was, and yes I did love it, it still leaves me with one question.

Shouldn't heroic dungeons offer higher level gear than LFR?  It is the harder content after all.

What Would You Like to See Later for Garrisons?

We will work on the assumption that there will only be one more raid tier here, as that is what we are expecting to happen.  I am also going to try to keep this from turning into a wish list sort of thing at first.  I will post what I think we will see and then I will get into the pipe dreams of what I would love to see, as in wishful thinking.

I am going to basically try to predict the direction they will take with garrisons first.

Level 4 Garrison:

We will be allowed to level our garrison to level four.  It will not get any bigger, just allow us to build bigger and it will also open one additional small slot for us to play with that is already sitting there unused, as many have noticed.  With upgrading to a level four garrison, which I can see costing around 5000 garrison resources and 5000 gold, we will be able to upgrade our buildings to level 4.

Unlike the level 3 patterns that needed an achievement to unlock them the level 4 patterns will be attainable from the blueprint vendor next to your architect table in your garrison as soon as you upgrade to level 4.  The cost would be 1500 gold for the blueprints of all level 4 buildings.  You will also be able to get two new books intended to be traded in for two level 4 blueprints from doing the quests in tanaan jungle and they will be traded in at the same place you traded the other books in.

Each level 4 building will add new bonuses to them, of course, and level 4 profession building (if you do not have the profession) will allow you to craft new starter gear close to that current raids item level that will be upgraded just like the previous ones.  People who have the profession will be able to buy the patterns just as they purchased the previous patterns.

The new small slot will be capable of holding any small building you wish.  You can go with another crafting station or you can go with a storehouse or salvage yard if you did not already have one.  The choice is up to you.

Each new building will come along with new quests, such as opening another portal in the mage tower, getting a new mount quest line in the stables, etc.

There will also be a legendary follower that comes along with the achievement for upgrading all buildings, including the standard ones like mine, fishing shack, pet menagerie, and garden, to level 4.  A second legendary follower will be awarded with the completion of the legendary ring quest line.

This is what I can see happening in the future with garrisons, at least what I believe we can reasonably expect to see.  Nothing I mentioned is crazy to expect or really out of line with how blizzard has done stuff in the past.  So I would say it is all possible.  Except maybe the legendary follower for upgrading all buildings to level 4, but I can see the legendary follower for finishing the legendary line.  It would be one of the familiars.

Now, for what I would want to happen, but I know won't happen.

I would like all crafting materials made in the buildings you have to become BoA and not soulbound.  So I can have multiple engineering buildings sending all their gear springs to my engineer.  Multiple tailoring buildings sending their hexweave to my tailor, etc.  I would really love to see this happen, but I honestly do not expect blizzard to be this generous to us. 

It would be too over powered for people with many alts and might make others feel as if they "have to" level alts to run buildings, and we know that after last expansions "mandatory" heaven that blizzard is making every attempt they can to shy away from anything too easily labeled mandatory.  Doesn't change the fact that I would love to see that happen.

I would also like to see the ability to change slot size.  If I wanted three large buildings and only two small ones that would be one hell of an option to have.  Once again, I do not see blizzard doing anything like that, but it sure would be cool.  Not because blizzard would not want to, but because the size of the plots are kind of written in stone there and as such there really isn't much play room that could allow us to switch sizes.

What would you like to see in the garrison of our future, both reasonable, and wishful thinking?

Blizzard: Mixed Signals or Without a Clue?

Just days after blizzard hit the level three salvage yard so hard with the nerf bat it has actually caused some people to quit the game, one I personally know of, because they did not like the idea that people were gearing up their followers so quickly they now have nerfed the achievement [Got My Mind on My Draenor Money] by lowering the requirement from 10,000 gold looted to 2500 gold looted.

I find this to be a very confusing set of messages.  They screwed over every player with a level three salvage yard because they did not want them gearing too quickly but the lower the gold looting achievement so people can get it quicker?

Lets face it, if anyone actually played the game they are easily closing in on the 10,000 looted already.  I am not even the most active person and I most likely would have hit the 10,000 looted number this weekend as I am currently sitting a little over 9,000.  Of course my progress on this achievement was pushed along because I have a lot of alts, but that does not change the fact that looting 10,000 gold on draenor is trivial at best in terms of difficulty.

All people needed to do was actually play the game.  If you looted all the treasures on draenor for the treasure finder achievements, and garrison resources, which happens to be my main reason for doing it, you will loot around 2000 gold just from that. 

Add that to the fact every lock box you open, that gold counts toward it.  Every dungeon boss you do, that gold counts toward it.  Every end dungeon baggie you open, that gold counts for it.  Every invasion baggie you get, that gold counts for it.  Every jewel crafting daily bag you open, that gold counts toward it.  Every raid boss you loot, that gold counts toward it.  When LFR comes out even more people will be looting more gold because those gold baggies count too. 

You see where I am going here.  One dungeon alone, with luck of the baggie at the end, could net you upwards of 200 gold, 100 if you have very bad luck.  And that is just one of many things you can do to loot gold.  This game is oozing ways to get you gold, if you just go out and get it.

Basically, if you play the game, even with one character, you will get the draenor money achievement because everything you loot will count toward it.  As long as you are actually playing and not standing around in your garrison letting your brain rot while reading trade chat. 

Doing dungeons, invasions, raiding, opening lock boxes, picking up random items around the world, gold is just all over the place.  The only reason I am as close as I am already is because I have four 100s already, soon to be five.  I am sure there are hundreds if not thousands that already have the achievement because they are more active than I.

In all due fairness, if I did any dungeons on my alts, or even one a day on my main, I would have had the achievement a week ago, or even earlier.  I just have not been active on any of them other than my main and that is why I do not have it yet.

So I find it perplexing that blizzard nerfs the level three salvage yard because they do not want people gearing followers too quickly and then nerf the draenor money achievement so people can get is quicker.

Is this a case of blizzard sending mixed messages or being completely clueless with their own design?

It is like they can not make up their mind on what they want people to do.  Do they want players to be able to get things done faster, as the change to draenor money makes it seem, or do they want to slow people down to a crawl, like the change to the level three salvage yard makes it seem.

If anything I was closer to the draenor money achievement than I was to having all my followers geared.  Yet the easier to get part, draenor money, they make even easier and the harder to do thing, gearing up all your followers, they slow down.  It really seems as if blizzard doesn't have a clue.

But maybe they do...

You see, there is something both changes do have in common.  Something, that from a game designer perspective is even more confusing because isn't it a game designers wish to have people play their game?

Both changes make people have to play less.

The change to the salvage yard means people do not need to log in as often to spam the lower level missions.  They can effectively log in twice a day and just send their people out on the longer missions.  So the change to the salvage yard could very well mean people play less.

The change to the draenor money achievement down to 2,500 gold looted, which my main had by day two of release just from collecting all the treasures and doing all the quests along with the starting 5 dungeons needed for the legendary quest line, also means it inspires people to play less.

What game designer in the right mind makes changes to their game that would require people to play less?

Does blizzard remember rule number one of what made this game a success?  The carrot on the end of the stick.  Keeping us chasing after something.  Keeping us playing.  Keeping us logging in.  That is what makes people keep coming back, keep playing and more importantly, keep paying.

So why is blizzard actively pushing people away?

Do they not want us to play?

That that is one hell of a mixed message.  A game that doesn't want us to play it.