Insane Update – 12

August 10th, 2010

It’s been almost 2 months since my last update?  Bah.  Time moves too fast sometimes.  Not that I have too much to report thats new.  It’s kind of entered a cycle.  We farm Dire Maul to get 50 Librams.  When that’s done we shift to the Plaguelands to get the mats there.  We do the libram turn ins.  We enter the pickpocketing phase.  Lorcalon the rouge pickpockets her rounds in LBRS.  While that’s going on Yoxal will be offering to buy pristine black diamonds in Orgrimar.  Lorcalon will mail the junk boxes to the group in Tarren Mill, they will turn in periodically.  Once Yoxal has accumulated 50 diamonds they shift back to doing Dire Maul.

Yoxal in the meantime is looking to buy either Darkmoom cards, or the mats to make them.  She’ll send the inscription mats to Mahayoxalraj who will handle them as she can.  The group goes to the Darkmoon Faire each month to do the turn ins.  Yoxal attempts to sell the trinkets, and handle the other masses of stuff that we get.

A couple of things to note this time, though.  The turn ins of the Darkmoon Decks was about half of what it had been in prior months.  Some of that was because cards were harder to come by.  Some was just luck, in the Chaos and Prisms decks were were lacking aces to get very many decks.  Some was that the mats for inscription were had to get at times.  Overall I’m getting the feeling that there’s more people attempting the achievement now.  There are a lot of trinkets on the AH now, and prices are down.  Prior to the faire we pretty much owned the market.

And overall, the Darkmoon one will be the longest one, I think.  The others are slow, but steady.  The Darkmoon pace seems to be getting set by factors that we can’t control.  But,that’s how it is.

We seem to have gotten more of the diamonds from just world drops, so I’m wondering if maybe the drop rates got adjusted in one of the patches.  It won’t make that much of a difference in what we get directly, but it might make more available on the market overall.  I want to keep getting as many of those as possible, I don’t think there’s be people playing in large numbers at level 60 for every.  So I’m thinking of having Yoxo sit out the Dire Maul runs with Yoxal trying to make buys in Orgrimmar.

Gold hasn’t been an issue, we’ve been stable with it, but with the glut of trinkets we might get pressure there before too long.  We can always start doing daily quest runs again, that nets about 800 gold a day, but takes about an hour.

We have a lot of Darkmoon cards, so if we get reasonable luck on buys and makes we should be in fairly good shape on that end.  The herb market is tending to be tighter so we have to keep an eye on the market and buy when we can.

I’ve been playing a little PvP.  The last AV weekend we spent playing it, and I’ve been getting in a little on Fridays and weekends too.  It’s a fun break, but it does take time too, so it’s a trade off.  The three new characters are all over 140,000 HK’s now, Nasal is over 200,000 and Yoxo is at 223,000, almost.  So, close to 850,000 for the group.  Not bad for any guild, I would think.

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Orgrimmar to Tarren Mill

July 3rd, 2010

Yesterday we were back in Orgrimmar for a little bit, we all took the opportunity to handle stuff while we were there, we don’t get into the cities too much these days.  I went and did what I needed to do and in fact I ran a story teller that I knew from my Crossroads days, we spent a little time going over some things, he gave me some information on a couple of mutual acquaintances that I’ve been trying to track down.  At any rate it was late afternoon before I got back to our quarters.  Yoxal, Pranista and Mahayoxalraj were there.  Mahayoxalraj greeted me with a strange look, otherwise they were quiet, except for Yoxal trying to suppress a giggle.

“Yoxal says that she’s handled Brokenoff” Pranista said in a steady tone.  I looked back at Yoxal, she was now chocking out a low snicker.

“Yoxal?” I asked her, trying not to sound aggressive.  If she felt any sense of fear or even annoyance she certainly wouldn’t say anything.  Otherwise she might.  If she wanted to.  She stopped the snicker, looked back square into my eyes, which is always a little eerie coming from her.

“He went bye bye” she said, making a waving motion with her hand, and using her high pitched, almost baby like tone.

“That’s all she’ll say” Mahayoxalraj said.  Yes, and it is all she will say too.  Until and unless she’s ready to say otherwise.  That’s the troll in her, I guess.  I’m not sure that I want to know, it’s a little scary from my point of view.  Not that I care about what happened to Brokenoff, good, bad or indifferent it just doesn’t have much significance in things.  But Yoxal.  It’s hard to express.

Later we were all together and heading back to Tarren Mill we explained to Yoxo and Tysk.  ”Blasted troll!” was Yoxo’s response.

“Do you really think she did something?” Mahayoxalraj asked.

“No doubt, she doesn’t kid around about that kind of thing” Nasal said.  ”Remember the whole Feebee thing?”  I couldn’t help but laugh at the mention, Nasal joined me, but Pranista and Mahayoxalraj shot us disgusted glances.

“Think of it though”, Yoxo said in a low tone.  ”Whenever we get into some sort of personal situation she’s going to come along and handle it for us?  Where the hell could that lead?”  We rode along in silence after that, but I asked myself that question.  Where would it lead?  Yes, it felt strange to have our merchant person dealing with confrontation situations for us, using some kind of powers and magic that none of us had access to, or understood.  But the Feebee thing at least turned out alright, it lifted a load from us.  And I have to admit that the thought of Brokenoff being dealt with isn’t unpleasant to me.

So, I guess I’ll will put word out to my contacts seeing if anyone has any word on his fate.  I know Yoxal’s sense of humor, so whatever happened to him would probably kill me by laughter.  On the other hand, in a real and practical sense he couldn’t end up worse then he already was.

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Just a Quick Note…

June 22nd, 2010

A quick note to myself, in the patch today, in addition to what I usually do with the two installations, copying the wow.exe, I also need to copy other files that weren’t in the first wow directory, namely wowError, msvcr80.dll, Micorsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest, Battle.net.dll, patch.txt and patch.html.  After that, it seems to work.  I can’t connect yet because the servers are down, so there may be more to come.

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Insane Update – 11

June 15th, 2010

Well, another month of real life intrusions, but that’s how it goes sometimes.  It’s been steady progress in this achievement area, not too much of note.  I was lower in deck turn ins for the Darkmoon Faire, that’s going to be a real grind no matter what, I think.  We did 25 decks this fair, as opposed to around 30 for the past two.  That’s not quite as bad as it sounds to me, for a couple of reasons.  First, our gold actually went up.  So that shows that we still have a lot of potential to spend more to get more in that area.  The trinkets are actually selling a little better then I expected, they have been steady.  I’ve been a little aggressive in pricing them, but not very.  I don’t think I’m going very far under cost with any of them, and well above cost on average.

The second reason I feel OK being down on the number of decks for the month is that we have a lot of cards left.  Meaning that complete decks will come faster over time.  So, we’re doing alright in that sense.

And, in addition, we got a lot of Nobles decks this time around.  I think eight of the 25 decks were Nobles, so that gives us eight Greatness Trinkets which have been going for around 4,500 gold each, so our cash return this month should be better then average.

I still think we are having an impact on the market overall with the quantities that we buy.  I’m trying to hold to target prices that I’ve set, but often times when me make big purchases we don’t see prices back at the target again for days.

The other areas are steady.  We’re back farming Dire Maul for the next turn in round there, looking for librams.  We’ve scaled back the pickpocketing for junk boxes while we are doing Dire Maul, but we still have been doing a little.  We can mill herbs while pickpocketing, so those work together.

Overall it’s a lot of grinding, but there is just enough of variety to make it not bad.  When we get saturated with one area, it’s time to switch to another.  Like we’ll soon have enough librams for this turn in round and we’ll switch to the Eastern Plague Lands for the stuff there.  Then there will be a stretch of pickpocketing, etc.

And yeah, I have the mentality that I can pull it off.  It’s not only that my mind doesn’t mind repetition, it actually wants it, it seeks it.  So that helps.  I should say too that while I’m doing this I’m generally listening to audio books, so I’m getting a ton of reading in.  I’ve been making my way through the Wheel of Time series,which is kind of a WoW like story line.  Right at the moment I’m into Stephen King’s “It”, which is a little different for me.  He’s a good story teller, so it’s been enjoyable so far.  The main criteria that I’m looking for in the books is length.  This current one is over 40 hours, so it fits.  The Count of Monte Cristo was over 50 hours, but, god, what a story.  But I digress.  That sounds like a decent area for a whole other post.

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Insane Update – 10

May 18th, 2010

It’s been a while, but real life does make itself heard from time to time, but that’s OK.  I’ve been working steadily on the Insane in the Membrane achievement, working mainly on Ravenholdt and Darkmoon Faire rep.

The Darkmoon stuff is going a little slower then I would have liked, I’m maybe playing it a little tight on costs.  This past Darkmoon Faire I did about 30 turn ins again, I would have liked it to be higher since the total number that we need is around 600.  But, prices for herbs, eternal life and cards themselves haven’t been too good.  Or at least most of the time.  If I wait I can still get herbs, for example, at 20 gold or under.  But by waiting I’m not getting as many.  I guess I kind of have to feel my way though it.  My feeling is that if I set my target price to 25, for example, I’ll be waiting about the same time to get the buys at 25.  I’m buying enough that I’m having an impact on the market.

The upside of this is that my gold has actually gone up, so I do have more buying power, so I can be more aggressive.  I’m also accumulating trinkets.  They sell, but slowly.  They aren’t selling at one per day, so at 30 per month they’ll build up, if I keep the price the same, at least.  I think I’m going to try dropping the price significantly on the 3 non-Greatness ones, at least.  That should have the impact of dropping the prices of the cards also, so it might actually help.  I appear to control the market in the level 80 trinkets, at the moment, at least.

On the Ravenholdt rep, we’re doing alright.  The pickpocketing is steady, we use a nice loop in LBRS, it takes time, but that’s fine.  I think we’re at about 20% of the way to exalted now, so that would be the equivalent of have done it fully for one character.  I can multi-task some, having one character milling and another buying, so the time gets full use.

Pristine Black Diamonds had disappeared from the AH, and they are the one thing that isn’t farmable to any real extent, so that’s a concern.  But I’ve started buying them in trade chat for 200 gold each, and that’s been a fairly steady stream.  And, they’ve suddenly started appearing the the AH, for more then I’ve been offering, so apparently there are still some out there.  At this point I intend to hold firm on the price, I’m not in any real hurry.

So, over all, not bad.  Ravenholdt, pickpocketing the junk boxes, won’t be bad.  It’s just a matter of time.  Darkmoon Faire will take time, I’ll need to play around with the economy and see how that works.  Shen’dralar isn’t bad either, the complicating factor there is the availability of the diamonds.  Still a way to go, some adaptations needed, but still a clear path.

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Deeper Talk

April 25th, 2010

I had a visit from a friend, recently, from way back, in the olden days.  We both learned a lot of the same stuff from the same masters, his path had since led him to go deeper into those learnings, mine was broader.  It was odd since he expressed an interest in World of Warcraft.  ”You play it.  Why?” he asked me.

“Mainly because it’s there” I said.  I was a little surprised that he’d be asking, I wasn’t sure of the response.

“Do you accomplish anything by playing it?”  That was a heck of a question, coming from him.  It wasn’t a casual “Then why?” type question, his talk carried deep meaning.  All the time.  I thought about it.  There are “accomplishments” in the game.  A large number of them.  My playing is at least partly oriented towards achieving some of the more difficult achievements.  But I know very clearly that none of that matters, not in the least.  The greatest person in the game, if one could be declared, leaves the game with exactly the same as the level one who quits after 2 minutes.  Nothing.  It is all illusion, a carefully built one, one step after another, but every bit of it is nothing.

And beyond that, it is a vehicle of ignorance for many of those involved.  I’m not saying that in a negative sense, although it has to sound that way.  Many pretend that their characters mean something, that there is some kind of significance in what they do in the game.  Like they are better at the game then some one else.  Better at an illusion.  Better at being ignorant.

It might sound bad, but in reality all is illusion.  So, it doesn’t matter if you play the game or not.  It’s all the same.  So, he asked me if I accomplish anything from playing the game.  There’s only one true answer.  ”Nothing” I say.  He smiles.

“Good.  I was worried.”  I think he really was.

“One of my characters is named ‘Samsarox, another Sangsarox.”  He laughed at that.  They are variations on Samsara and Sangsara, which are different names for “The Land of Ignorance.”  ”One is named Mahayoxalraj.”  He laughed harder at that.  I paused and said “It’s kind of the same thing we both accomplish from zazen.  Nothing.”  I still meditate regularly, but he’s probably doing zazen in some way shape or form for more time then I’m spending in the game.  He nods, smiles, and we both sit sipping on the tea that he’s brought.  A simple conversation about WoW, but one that I needed.

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The Social Thing

April 18th, 2010

No, I don’t socialize much in the game.  For one thing, my playing style doesn’t lend itself to being very social.  Much of our time is spent in battlegrounds, which aren’t places for chit chat.  Not if you’re doing it right.  And most of the people there are from other realms, so contact ends when the BG ends.  And, for obvious reasons we don’t use the looking for group type tools.  We are a group already.

And frankly, I’m older then most people in the game, thank goodness.  There’s just not that much interesting about almost everyone that I’ve run across in the game.  No, I don’t feel any need to be working together with a fourteen year old who is trying to act like some bizarre conception of an adult.  I’m not saying that everyone in the game is that way, but I feel no need to sort through the kiddies, or the genuine social misfits who are making a weird attempt to fit in within the context of the game.  There are plenty of good people in the game, but there are plenty of good people out of the game that are much easier to gauge.  I personally don’t feel like I’m missing a whole lot by not meeting new people in the game.

And there’s the darker side of things too.  There’s a whole category of people who exist who say “Gee, I would really like to be rude and obnoxious to people, but when I’ve tried it, they kick the crap out of me.”  The internet is a boon for those types, everyone knows what I mean.  There’s the 11 year old who’s trying to act 14, the 14 year old who’s trying to act like an obnoxious college kid, the college kid who sees himself as a hero in the game and thinks that it really means something.  Why would I want to bother wading through that mess in a game that I’m playing for fun?

So, why do I play a multi-player game then?  Simple.  I need live victims.  Or, more accurately, competition against live players.  Even poor living fighters have an advantage over the best computer generated bosses:  they can actually think.  They all learn, they adapt.  You never know for sure what they are going to do next.  In five and half years the bosses haven’t learned simple basics, like kill the healer first.

And, for me at least, a fight against another player is a different thing then a fight against the computer.  There’s just an element knowing that it’s a person and not computer code.  I play a fairly strong game of chess, and I’ve noticed that I actually play a better game against live players then I do against computers.  I think it’s that way in the game too.

So, no, I don’t need the social aspect.  I try to be polite, I’ll talk about multiboxing and that kind of thing.  But I have no need to try to impress anyone other then myself, I have no desire for anyone to view me or my group as anything more, or less, then characters in the game.

Then why do I write about it?  I like to write, that’s about it.  It helps to form my thinking.  Clearly I’m not writing to entertain or impress anyone!

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The Art of War

April 17th, 2010

I like AV because of the variety of strategies and tactics that can be applied.  You can play offense, you can defend, you can focus on a specific objective, or group of objectives.  You can charge, you can fight and fall back, then fight some more.  You can flank.  You can cut supply lines.  The types of battle type activities are much more varied and rich then any other battleground.

Multiboxing it makes it work fairly simply, having a group of five with an established command structure makes those types of activities possible.  Having a premade group does the same thing, of course, with certain advantages.  But, you have to have one.  You can get lucky in a PUG sometimes and find enough people to make doing a objective possible, but you can’t count on it.  Trying to do those kinds of things solo doesn’t work too well, more often then not.  So, multiboxing is  a good thing, if you like those types of battles.  It certainly often times has a more epic feel.

I like to think out strategies and try them out.  It often times separates me from much of the Horde force, but often times that’s the right thing to do.  Some of them work fairly well and and are still in our possible courses of action, others don’t, we’ve learned from them and discarded them.

There’s a fair amount written on what the good strategies are, and how to deploy them, I seek them out and read them.  One of my favorite references for AV isn’t about AV, or even WoW.  It’s it’s the Art of War, by Sun Tzu.  I find that it has amazing application to AV.  He was probably writing about a time when the weapons were comparable to what’s used in WoW, although without magic.  Many of his ideas are very good advice for fighting in AV, some of the best I can find.  Some of my favorite quotes:

All warfare is based on deception.

Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.

If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans.

Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

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Gorok

April 13th, 2010

I ran into Gorok yesterday.  We were at the Crossroads, I had some free time and decided to take a side trip down to Ratchet.  One of the merchants down there has some ancient texts on occasion.  It had been some time since I’ve checked with him.  I pick up a fair deal of my history knowledge from these types of random sources, but just as often I’ll pick up the makings of a decent story.  Merchants often will have some old text that’s written in some form that not many understand, so there isn’t much of a market value in it for them.  I have a decent range of translation abilities myself, however, so sometimes the item is useful to me.  And Yoxal is quite good at a surprising number of old scripts.  (Her abilities there are a whole different story, one that I don’t fully understand.)

Anyway, back to the point of the story.  I run into Gorok, a goblin, in Ratchet.  Our association goes way back to the time that I was living in the Crossroads full time.  Gorok is what I can best describe as a “wanderer”.  He goes everywhere seeming to do nothing in particular.  He doesn’t seem to be a trader, from what I can tell, I’ve never seen him buy or sell anything.  He doesn’t seem to have any allegiance of any sort, he talks about coming from Alliance cities while he’s in Orgrimmar.  He has in the past given me information on Alliance activities which turned out to be very true.  I’ve always been careful not to tell him too much about what we are up to, thinking his information flow might go both ways.

Now I should say that Goblins I like as a people, although I find them much more mysterious then most do, I think.  If you look at the surface they are very profit motivated, and that would  seem to account for almost all of their behavior, but I have a deep sense that that a lot more is going on.  I can never get to what it is, though.

So Gorok and I exchange greetings, he asks to walk with him, we walk to the south, staying by the water.  We talk small talk, what we’ve been doing, how others that we both know are, that kind of thing.  We reach a point well away from the village and he sits down and takes off his shoes.  I’ve come to recognize this as a sign that what he’s about to say stays between us, although he understands that my group knows what I do.  He sits looking at me, I nod in acknowledgement and sit next to him.

“You have all been getting the Alliance’s attention lately” he says calmly.

“We try” I answered, assuming he’s talking about AV and our activities there.  He looks at me like I don’t understand.

“The attention of a certain Alliance.”

“Oh” I said, making the connection to what he’s been talking about.  ”A madman, no doubt.  One who talks much better then he fights, although that describes many, I’m sure.”

“Yes, a madman” he said, looking out at the water.  ”But there’s more.”  He was quiet for a while, but I figured I didn’t need to ask “what more?”.  ”The Alliance leadership uses him to draw you all out.”

“Draw us out?” I ask, not really understanding.

“Mmph” he moaned.  ”I guess only seeing you in AV on your terms doesn’t always suit them.”  He looked up at me and grinned widely.  ”But there’s more.”  He waited again for a good solid minute.  ”The one you deal with is there to use the Alliance.  He’s being used by someone to use the Alliance who is trying to use him.”  He’s looking at me with the wide grin again.  He picked up a small rock and was now examining it in detail, still with the wide grin.

“I’m not sure I understand.”  Goblins often like to talk in cryptic terms, he may have said all he’s going to say and leave it to me to figure out the rest, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

He placed the rock back now, turned to look at me, without the grin.  ”The one who you’ve dealt with is from Twilight’s Hammer.”

“Twilight’s Hammer?  The cult?  I haven’t seen them since…”

“Yeah.  Nobody has.  But they are moving again. ”  The grin was now a frown.  ”I don’t know what they are up to.”  He paused, then continued.  ”They have set up a number of fairly high level guilds in the Alliance.  No one in the Alliance thinks twice about it because they have a lot of gold coming from somewhere.”  He paused again and then looked at me.  ”Humans aren’t the brightest bunch if there’s gold or power around” he said, with the big grin back.  The grin faded shortly and he continued.  ”The humans still have the fantasy of Lorderon coming back and I suspect that the Hammer heads are telling them they can make it happen.  You’ve already got one bunch of crazy humans in old Lorderon, they probably figure the more the merrier.   Anyway, your group is now somehow in the middle of the thing.  Thought you might like to know.  That’s all I know.”

I knew that when he said “That’s all I know” that he meant that was all he was going to tell, whether he knew more or not.  I wouldn’t get more information from that area from him, but other things he might talk about.  ”Twilight’s Hammer, they try to deal with the Old Gods.  Have they found something?”

“Don’t know.” he said quickly, put his shoe back on, stood up and started walking back towards the village.  I followed in silence, trying to sort out what he had just said.  The boat came in from Booty Bay, he said farewell and started running off towards it.  He stopped and turned back and said quickly “The Hammer.  You might ask the Shen’dralar or Ravenholdt, if they’ll talk to you.”  Then he was off onto the boat.

I talked this over with the others in the group, and it’s clear that there are three key pieces of information.  First, the Alliance is taking some kind of interest in us, personally.  Which makes a little sense, if they are planning future operations in hopes of resurrecting Lorderon.  As Nasal said “Who else has been a bigger thorn in their side then us?”  Our feeling is that we won’t have a real problem dealing with the Alliance targeting us.  They’ll be beating their heads against a wall.

The second piece of information is Twilight’s Hammer being on the move and dealing with the Alliance.  Twilight’s Hammer I know first hand has a massive research operation concerning the Old Gods.  If they’ve found something, like using an Old God power,  it could be a very dangerous situation.  If they are simply becoming part of the Alliance, that is dangerous, but not so bad.

The third piece of information is that the Shen’dralar and Ravenholdt might have information about, or some connection to Twilight’s Hammer.  Those are two of the factions that DR had asked us to undertake operations to assist, saying that they might need access to certain texts that they have for undeath research.  Now it seems like they might be somehow related to unfolding events, and we are there, so to speak.

There is on other odd thing.  When I was giving the account of the conversation to the others in the group, Pranista became silent at the point that I mention Twilight’s Hammer and has said little since, but has had a look of deep thought on her face.  She is a seer, and often times she’s this way when things are unfolding to her.  Time will tell, I guess.

—Tysk

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Laptop?

April 11th, 2010

I’ve been trying to talk myself into getting a laptop, the i7 core based ones look pretty nice.  One of the angles that I’ve been thinking about is using it in the game somehow.  Some multiboxers use multiple computers, so my thinking upfront was to use the laptop to put a couple of the characters on, reducing the load on the desktop machine.  The problem with that thinking is that the desktop is fine as it is now with type load.  Desktops, I build, so this one was built to be decent, even though it’s a couple of years old now.  And using two computers presents some hardware issues, while I’d be able to use the same keyboard and mouse, it would take some switching equipment with a little lag doing it, so it feels like I’ve be giving up more then I’d be gaining.

Of course the laptop would be capable of running WoW, multiboxing it, so it would give me some ability to do it “on the move” so to speak.  Multiboxing, though, while feasible, might be a little clunky, I’d have to be <alt><tabbing> to switch characters.  And, I really don’t have much demand away from the desktop, for WoW, at least.

So, I can’t come up with a real game angle to do it, but I might well do it anyway.  Although, for that money I could be building a new machine, and there would be a game angle involved it that…..

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