Just take a look, it's in a book!

It is sad to see all the effort that the developers put into writing epic stories and questlines being ignored by players who are in such a rush to hit level cap.  I am one of those people who is usually obsessive about reading each of my quests, and yet even I sometimes succumb to the "click and follow the arrows" easy mode questing when I am in a hurry to level.

I sometimes quest with my husband, who is notoriously bad at reading anything in a quest log.  I can't count the number of times I've been leading him around doing quests, and then hear him say,

"This guy won't talk to me".

And then I ask "Well did you pick up the quest item on the table after we talked to the last NPC?"

"What quest item?"

"The quest item that the NPC said to pick up on the table right next to him.  We were standing RIGHT THERE."

(insert vague excuse for why he didn't read the quest log here)

(insert my annoyed sigh of exasperation here)

(insert wasted time traveling back to first NPC to redo the shit he forgot to do)

Last night, we were running around doing some quests on Kerra Isle.  One of those stupid "run back and forth between three different NPCs to deliver news" quests.  We deliver some news to the Chief of the Isle.  Then we run about 50 yards over to deliver some news to Queen Martah.  Then she sends us to deliver more news back to the Chief.  Hubby for some reason decides to read the quest log for probably the first time that evening and says "Where the heck is the Chief"? 

Actually I don't think he said "heck".  Probably something more colorful.

On the plus side, even though he doesn't read quests, he can kill the crap out of stuff really good so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Game migration

It's happened again.  Without fail, every time I achieve something major in the game I'm playing whether it be hitting level cap in LoTRo, EQ2, or getting my very first flying mount in Burning Crusade, my husband decides to switch games on me.  I should have known that once I got my violet proto-drake our days in Azeroth were numbered.  I worked for over a year to get that damn mount and now it won't even get ridden until Cataclysm comes out.  Such a waste.  Also going to waste - the 350,000g I've amassed that will rot on my WoW toons while I'm running around in Norrath in the Sundered Frontier.

Oh well, it will be there when we come back to WoW.  Which we will. 

Although EQ2 is a really fun game with a lot of things that WoW doesn't have (most importantly, detailed guild controls, guild housing and player housing), it lacks an intangible something.

In which I whine about goldsellers...

Over the past several months, the goldseller activity on my server (and other servers too, if reports on JMTC forums are accurate) has flourished, in particular on the auction house. There is a series of level 1 mules selling popular crafted items. The level 1 mules change their names every 5-7 days, but their goods are clearly being acquired from established level 80 accounts.

Here is a partial list of what they regularly sell:

Enchanting scrolls (including rare ones like mongoose, crusader, agility to weapon and 2H weapon, etc)
Epic leg armors
Epic crusader orb crafted items
Popular meta gems
Cut epic gems
Scribe-crafted off-hands
Snowfall ink
Vellums

The gold sellers are typically online 12-16 hours per day and undercut within minutes of anything you post. Although I have not personally witnessed it, I have talked to another player who has seen them making trades with a level 80 death knight from a guild called CDR.

In addition to the auction house activity, they also spam trade constantly, looking to buy primordial saronite, uncut epic gems and other items purchasable with badges. I whispered a goldseller asking the price, and although it was considerably lower than the going AH rate, it was high enough to tempt someone who is too lazy to do dailies.   1900 for primordial saronite, which normally goes for 2300.  150 for cardinal rubies, which normally goes for 180, etc.

The frustrating thing is whenever they spam trade, I always say in trade "Please report spam Tjfkk. He's a goldseller"  and for some reason, instead of being annoyed at the spamming gold seller, I get people flaming me instead.  I usually get a "Cool story, brah", a "WTF does report spam do to them", and a "I'm not listening to someone named Vahjj".

Yea, my auction mule is named Vahjj.  So sue me.

Axecop!

Although this isn't really related to gaming or godlessness, this web comic impressed me so much I just have to share.

AXECOP IS FREAKING AWESOME

Created and written by a 5 year old boy, and illustrated by his 29 year old (and quite talented) older brother, this comic is the most original, funniest thing I have seen in quite some time.  Reading about the adventures of Axecop and his sidekick Flute Cop (aka Dinosaur Soldier aka Avocado Soldier) takes me back to the days when I was younger and before video games killed my imagination.

Am I selling this at a loss?

If you run a small time auction operation, then you probably store all sorts of information in your head about the prices of mats versus crafted items, break even prices, etc.  When business starts expanding, it gets harder to keep all that information straight in your head.  Not to mention keeping track of price fluctuations every time there is a patch or other change in the economy.

One of the things I use to prevent selling at a loss is a spreadsheet that calculates costs for items that I commonly craft.  I input the going rate of raw mats and it calculates the total cost, and the AH price needed to break even assuming a 5% auction house fee.

Note: I always input the going rate for mats, even though some of the items are things that you might choose to farm or spend badges on.  Some people think of those materials as being "free" but they really aren't!  You invested your time to get those items, and you could sell those items individually without the risk of tying them up in a crafted product (which often has higher deposit fees). 

Take a look.  This is a very bare bones version, but you can customize it to fit your preferred craft and use it to make sure you never post for a loss again.  The price data that is currently displayed is what things go for on my server, horde side, but YMMV.

AH spreadsheet

One million gold!

This past year I've been spending more and more time playing the Auction House.  My major AH activity began when the inscriptions patch hit.  I had been stockpiling herbs for months and I was one of the first people to post glyphs the day of the patch.  I made several thousand gold that night alone.  It was so easy and addictive, I started refining my glyph making processes, learned how to use auctioneer and batch post, and started making tons of gold.

While on maternity leave last year, (after a short pregnancy-related WoW hiatus) I set a goal of hitting 100,000 gold.  It was surprisingly easy to do, especially since I didn't have to work and I was on a low pop server without very much competition.  When I finally hit six figures, I splurged on a Kirin Tor ring, Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, and motorcycle.  A few months later I hit gold cap.  I'm working towards 1 million gold now.

When you have this much gold, it changes the way you play.  I used to go farming for stuff when I needed it, but it is a far more effective use of my time to buy the items I need and spend the time working the AH instead.  Now I am back to working full time and have a baby to take care of so I have much less time to play around on the AH, but it is still more cost effective for me to let others do the farming and stick with what I do best, which is buying low and selling normal (Thanks Markco at JMTC).

I've had some major setbacks in reaching my 1 million goal.  Crafting 4 pieces of primordial saronite gear for my mage and priest cost about 50,000g, and then I loaned a bunch of gold to my hubby for his primordial saronite pieces.  In addition, there are a large number of level 1 gold-sellers that flood the market with cheap goods, usually farmed via teleport hacks or account hacks. They delete their level 1's and start new ones every 5-7 days or so to avoid detection by Blizzard.  I enjoy fierce competition as long as they are legitimate players, but it is becoming a lot harder to make a profit when I have to compete against gold sellers who are online 24/7 and are cheating or stealing to acquire their goods.  

Lay down that frost

Our guild was attempting 25 man Deathbringer Saurfang for the first time the other night.  After a couple wipes a guildie (who shall remain unnamed) attempted to give the raid some instruction on how to handle the blood beasts.

I was told to "lay down frost" and "slow the mobs". 

...I'm an arcane mage.   (And no, they were not getting me confused with a hunter.)

So I think I was being directed to either frost nova the mobs in place (which I cannot cast at range as an arcane).  Or maybe they meant for me to slow the mobs with blizzard (but an arcane mage doesn't have improved blizzard so that would be impossible.)

At any rate we downed DBS last night and I didn't have to "lay down" my frost to do it.  Woot.