World of Warcraft

[Gwardinen]

I know, right? WoW? Does anyone even still play that?

 

Well, I'm looking to at least try to get back in for a while when the Warlords of Draenor expansion comes out in just over a month. To this end, I want to get either my level 80 druid (at the start of Cataclysm content) or my level 85 death knight (at the start of Mists of Pandaria content) up to level 90 in preparation. I'm in the EU region, which is probably a dealbreaker, but server may or may not be.

 

Ideally, it'd be cool to find either one dedicated Thumb to level with, or several like-minded Thumbs to all casually quest together. Is anyone else feeling the itch to go Adventurin' in Azeroth once more?

 

Alternatively, does anyone know how one finds cool people in MMOs to play with these days? I wouldn't even know where to start to discover a good guild to join.

[Twig]

Damnit I was going to do this but then UK.

[Roderick]

I would love to. Now all I need is a teleporter back to the years I actually had time to spend (and the desire to spend them). I mean, I LOVE World of Warcraft, but I just can't commit to spending those hours anymore. There may never be a moment again in my life where I would willingly do that. It's a sad thought.

[dibs]

I'll be back for the expansion Gwar. Got a monk to 90 back in Janurary when the weather was at its worst. Took me three bloody weeks.

 

Don't you get a free 90 with the expansion or something?

[Forbin]

I've been playing it again recently, and I think WoD is going to be a seriously fun expansion.  The pre-expansion patch has already hit, and you can tell they've been doing some house keeping. They seem to be making a serious effort to reduce scope creep and go back to their roots, both thematically and systematically.

 

And WoD does come with a free "level 90 Character boost", which can be used on existing or new characters.  It'll give you ilevel 483 gear which is above heroic dungeon tier gear, and a quick trip to the timeless isle should get your average gear high enough for the final raid without much work.  I think it's mainly meant for people rejoining/joining for the new expansion content, but it lets you experience the current expansion without having to grind up to level cap, or start fresh on a new server with people you know.

 

Anyways, the new LFG system makes it super easy to play cross realm, so we can definitely group up some time if you're interested add me on battlenet Forbin#1628.  I play on Mal'Ganis-US

[Codicier]

I help run a guild on the EU Magtheridon server and though atm most people are in hibernation untill WoD hits if Gwardinen, dibs or even Roderick want a home to do a bit of levelling and exploring in Outland I can try to help out.

& Yes as Forbin points out it's now a lot easier to play cross realm so even if you don't end up on a server that one of the rest of us on here If you pop me a message on here we can sort something out with blizzard id's

I would love to. Now all I need is a teleporter back to the years I actually had time to spend (and the desire to spend them). I mean, I LOVE World of Warcraft, but I just can't commit to spending those hours anymore. There may never be a moment again in my life where I would willingly do that. It's a sad thought.

The one thing I would say is that the amount of time you need to invest these days to get something good out of the game is far less than it used to be. I certainly think you now get a better experience for the time you put in than you used to, but the main problem I could see is that with a reduced time commitment you might not feel you are getting good value for your subscription

[dibs]

I'm ensconsed in Turalyon i'm afriad:) Got 4 90s now! Still undecided who i will make my main, but i think it is down to Brewmaster Monk or Reso Shammy.

[Drahnoel]

I took the plunge & resurrected my account for Warlords of Draenor. I play Alliance on Earthen Ring (mostly), but if there's an Idle Thumbs guild somewhere I'd be VERY interested in transferring...especially if it was Horde. I'm only Alliance because back in the Burning Crusade days my college roommate was a hardcore raider...and half-naked night elf mailbox dancer.

 

Let me know!

[Forbin]

There's not a huge need to transfer now that there's cross-realm LFG and inviting.  WoD launch has had a bunch of server issues, but the content so far seems amazing.  If you're interested at all I'd advise waiting a few days for the servers to regain their stability, then jumping in.

[Syd]

I play Alliance side on Wyrmrest Accord (US), and I've been playing WoW since late BC. I should probably be ashamed in myself for never taking a break longer than about a week from the game.

 

Despite the length of time I've been playing WoW, my list of social contacts is pretty tiny because I've always been horribly shy and terrible at reaching out to people outside of whatever guild I'm in at the time, but I'd definitely be open to buddying up with some Thumbs if any are willing.

 

I've always been weary of posting this sort of stuff out in the open, so just send me a PM and I'll gladly share my Battletag.

[Badfinger]

It's been a while since I did a world of warcraft, but everyone is talking really highly of WoD. Question: if we did battletags or whatever, are you able to group with people cross realm (on purpose, I know you can randomly) to do a dungeon or something?

[Gwardinen]

That's my understanding, yes. Sadly region barriers still apply, though, so no EU to NA crossovers.

[dibs]

And still no Horde/alliance crossover.

[Twig]

yeah but nobody plays dumb alliance anyway

[Badfinger]

So I've finally broken down, and I activated the 10 day trial on my main account. The thing that's dumb is I didn't buy Pandaria, so the furthest I got was Almost 86 from a 10 day trial I used for that. So, I have no characters at the previous level cap. I guess I still have the interesting journey through the 85-90 content, but the character I was interested in playing is Level 80.

 

This is just silly.

[osmosisch]

Me and my wife popped on the 10-day trial a couple of days ago. Our highest characters were in the middle of northrend. Yeah. It's been kind of amusing though because we're running a warrior/priest combo which means there is essentially zero risk of ever dying to anything ever. So far our record pull for a kill quest has been 15 mobs (couldn't find more).

 

On the bright side, Tradeskillmaster is even better these days so I'm making 5k/day off of very little effort just doing inscriptions. I forgot how entertaining the auction game is.

[Badfinger]

Well shoot. From lamenting that I wasn't ready to experience the expansion to hitting the limits of the trial in less than 2 days. Cool, thanks WoW. Now I want to buy you. :[

[Codicier]

Me and my wife popped on the 10-day trial a couple of days ago. Our highest characters were in the middle of northrend. Yeah. It's been kind of amusing though because we're running a warrior/priest combo which means there is essentially zero risk of ever dying to anything ever. So far our record pull for a kill quest has been 15 mobs (couldn't find more).

 

On the bright side, Tradeskillmaster is even better these days so I'm making 5k/day off of very little effort just doing inscriptions. I forgot how entertaining the auction game is.

 

I'm surprised that end of the economy is holding up as well as you say, as with everything else garrisons seem to have pretty much transformed the professions & the market that surrounds them. The Ore market got absolutley flooded so that 1-2 days into the expansion the new ore was going for near vendor price. The transmog market has also changed hugely as suddenly there's a glut of low lvl greens and blues.

 

Well shoot. From lamenting that I wasn't ready to experience the expansion to hitting the limits of the trial in less than 2 days. Cool, thanks WoW. Now I want to buy you. :[

 

The bad/good news is that the WoD experience is pretty much the best version of Warcraft's particular take on the model of the MMO they have ever produced.

Going 90-100 is pretty much seamless questing and exploring. They have also done a better (though still not perfect job) of making the end quests of a zone offer rewards which don't punish you as harshly for sticking around to finish a storyline just because you are 1-2 levels above. Also if you retain any affection for the Warcraft lore from the RTS's or the 1st 2 expansions your going to get a lot of fun little moments.

 

When you hit lvl 100 the content stays pretty nice, I'm quite fond of this particular set of dungeons, the lvl 100 questing zones while still grindy are nicely spread about the world and have a nice balance of mobs to mix up the combat, the new hoard mode "invasions" that are triggered by questing in those lvl 100 areas are nicely balanced for the gear they give, and the whole meta game of controlling your followers and sending them out from your garrisons on missions means you don't feel as pressured to log on.

[osmosisch]

I'm surprised that end of the economy is holding up as well as you say, as with everything else garrisons seem to have pretty much transformed the professions & the market that surrounds them. The Ore market got absolutley flooded so that 1-2 days into the expansion the new ore was going for near vendor price. The transmog market has also changed hugely as suddenly there's a glut of low lvl greens and blues.

I think it's a matter of me hitting the game at the point people mostly finished their main's runs through draenor and now everyone's leveling alts, which means glyphs are in demand. I have no idea what the garrisons do or whether they would obviate the demand for glyphs.

 

There's definitely not a glut of lower-level herbs, I hoovered most of those out of the AH to the point that their price is now at three times what it was when I started.

[Codicier]

I think it's a matter of me hitting the game at the point people mostly finished their main's runs through draenor and now everyone's leveling alts, which means glyphs are in demand. I have no idea what the garrisons do or whether they would obviate the demand for glyphs.

 

There's definitely not a glut of lower-level herbs, I hoovered most of those out of the AH to the point that their price is now at three times what it was when I started.

 

Basically garrisons offer you access to up to 3 other crafting professions & to all the gathering professions through buildings. Additionally unless i'm misunderstanding it you can level any profession from 0 in Draenor, with just its daily CD.

[osmosisch]

I think the situation where you need to invest a lot of resources into glyphing to get all the recipes might be what keeps everyone from getting into it then.

[Badfinger]

Basically garrisons offer you access to up to 3 other crafting professions & to all the gathering professions through buildings. Additionally unless i'm misunderstanding it you can level any profession from 0 in Draenor, with just its daily CD.

 

Oh wait, the small plots are allowing me to do OTHER professions?! This changes everything. The character I picked to play was a gatherer and I thought those wouldn't be useful to me.

 

Also I have like 7k gold somehow?! This is the most money I've ever had when I wasn't saving up for something. Is there some big purchase I should be making in this expansion? Epic flying isn't even worth it because there isn't any flying you can do in Draenor right?

[Codicier]

Oh wait, the small plots are allowing me to do OTHER professions?! This changes everything. The character I picked to play was a gatherer and I thought those wouldn't be useful to me.

 

Also I have like 7k gold somehow?! This is the most money I've ever had when I wasn't saving up for something. Is there some big purchase I should be making in this expansion? Epic flying isn't even worth it because there isn't any flying you can do in Draenor right?

 

The small plots are either crafting profession buildings, a storehouse which is kinda a utility building or a Salvage Yard. The Salvage yard is perhaps the most important since it allows you to get player items and extra upgrades for your followers. The typical set up is 2 profession building + a salvage yard. Though Altaholics will sometimes take the storehouse. The proffesion building dont offer you everything a proffesion does but do offer a good chunk of it.

 

As for gathering professions, i'm honestly unsure atm if they are worth keeping. The market seems slowly to be recovering after blizz hotfix nerfed the amount of mats people got from their gathering buildings. They do seem to be aware that this hasnt fully solved the problem so i expect to see steps in the next patch or two to sort it out.

 

Wowhead has done a extremely comprehensive guide you should check out. It does a nice job of breaking everything down into understandable chunks, as well as providing links to more focused guides to different aspects.

http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2694/garrison-building-basics

 

As for the gold sink, well that's garrisons. You get a few plans for free while you're levelling but you will spend several K gold on plans to upgrade buildings at max lvl if you want to kit the place out fully.  yes atm no flying in Draenor, rumour is that like the original netherwing stuff in TBC it will be tied to a quest in a future patch.

[TheLastBaron]

I would say gathering professions are still decent for making money probably, but only really if you want to have an alt for farming. All the draenor mats are super flooded, but since a lot of people have dropped gathering professions in favor of two crafting professions there aren't many people farming the older mats so on my server (Tichondrius which is I think the highest population NA server) all the old herbs and stuff are selling for a lot, more that draenor mats by far. That being said there isn't a lot of need for gold so unless you like to farm for fun it's probably not worth it. I have two crafting professions, but I've always done that anyways and used fishing as an income/gathering profession.

In my garrison I have a salvage yard and the two buildings for the professions I have so I can get more of the mats since it's all time based now. Having a building with a worker gives me more of the stuff (in my case leather and gems) than the daily cd so it's pretty nice.

[Badfinger]

Help I can't stop playing World of Warcraft.