A Little Cold Water

On the goblin subject of "time is money, friend", Tobold recently asked:

"Are you really trying to tell me that all the progress in the form of levels and gear you get in a MMORPG is a function of your *skill* in playing that game, acquired by many hours of training? Balderdash!"

I think we need to differentiate between you the player, and the character that you are playing. In RPGs (MMO or otherwise), it is the character whose skill increases as he or she spends time training. "Look! I have learnt a new spell, and can now cast frostbolts at my enemies. My skill in magic has increased." This says nothing about player skill. Their skill in magic is still zero. Players are roleplaying a character. The person that is making "progress in the form of levels and gear you get" is the character, not the player.

In this roleplay, it is quite easy to accept that time spent by our characters in practicing their skills actually improves those skills. It just so happens that the time the character is active is equal to the time the player is playing him. The same is not true concerning money. We do not so easily accept that our character's in-game wealth should depend on the player's expenditure.

I (the character) acquire items by in-game activities such as killing kobolds and taking their candles. Then one day I wake up and find the Eternal Staff of Uber-Pwnness in my mailbox. How did it get there? What is the in-game activity that explains its arrival? If there is none, if I get it simply because the player playing me bought it in real life, I have broken out of the play I am in, the actor is suddenly jerked back from the story to the stage. The same thing happens to me if it appears in your mailbox instead of mine (and I become aware of it, for instance by seeing it on your back).

Why do we play MMORPGs? Everybody has their own reasons, and I'm sure Tobold realizes that the fantasy of killing the Lich King (and not the reality of pressing keys in front of a screen) is a reason for many people. In other words, we play for the story, more than the gameplay. Of course the gameplay isn't unimportant, but RPGs in general and WoW in particular have such great stories. Without the stories, we are just killing ten rats to collect 10 XP.

Each time we are jerked out of Azeroth and put back into our living rooms, our enjoyment of the game diminishes. There are plenty of times this happens, and it seems to be getting more frequent recently: the dungeon-finder teleport, frost-emblems that magically appear in your purse as soon as a boss dies or a "heroic" is completed, greed steeds, pandaren monks, Mr. Chilly, and even the older battleground teleports (though at least I can sort of believe that I'm being teleported there by the battlemaster I spoke to earlier), trading card items, and the Zhevra mount and its replacement, the X-53. It's hard enough to ignore these immersion-breaking elements. I don't want to see an increase in them.

I understand that for many people, its a game of collecting (gear, bosskills, gold, achievements, reputation, titles, pets, mounts, recipes), and the acting is not so important, and I can understand that they may not be so perturbed as me, as long as the thing they collect is not impinged by a real-money transaction. However, once it does impinge, many (not all) collectors are also perturbed by it.

For instance, mount or pet collectors who want the whole collection must now go out and spend real money on top of their game fee for the new RMT pets and mounts. I see many players on blogs saying "yeah, so what? These items don't affect the game. They are cosmetic. Blizzard would never introduce RMT items that matter in-game". What they mean is "yeah, so what? These items don't affect my game." They don't matter in-game if your game is gear-collecting or bosskill-collecting or title-collecting. But they do matter in-game if your game is pet-collecting. To a pet collector, dismissing them as "cosmetic" has a hollow ring.

Anyway. In an MMORPG, it is not surprising that a character should improve his skills as time passes and he practices those skills and trains them. In WoW the time a character spends and the time a player spends on this is the same (not so in EVE, where characters may continue to train when the player is offline). However if we allow players to acquire items in-game simply through out-of-game RMT, that spoils some of the fun of many role-players and collectors - and we are all role-players to some extent: we are trying to kill monsters, not move pixels - and we are all collectors to some extent, even if what we are collecting is boss-kills.

Finally, to return to the original quote from Tobold, above, I doubt there are many people who think that WoW is mainly a game of player skill (though of course there are some who do not possess even the small modicum of situational awareness needed to GTFOOTF). Of course, some players are more skilful than others, but it is character skill that distinguishes a level 1 mage from a level 80 mage, not player skill. Player skill only matters when the characters are notionally equally skilled and geared.

Mr. Micawber's Transactions

Companion pets are great fun. What white witch doesn't love to have a black cat padding quietly behind her? Actually, I now have quite a collection of pets, and I accidentally discovered something worthwhile: pets are a tradable commodity!

Companion pets are an especially good source of gold for low-level players, who might have a few silver coins spare and can buy a beautiful black Bombay Cat from Donni Anthania, the cat lady just between Northwind Abbey and Stormwind City. You can then auction it in Stormwind for a good profit.

However, if you can get to the Blackwater Auction House in the goblin-held cities of Tanaris or Booty Bay, you can make a even more money there, because horde traders make the trip there to buy these alliance pets (pets that the vendor will only sell to alliance members). They can't get them any other way.

Other pets you can easily get at low levels are the Snowshoe Rabbits from the Amberstill ranch in Dun Morogh, and the owls of Darnassus. Any time you're passing, just pick up a few and sell them in an Auction House.

Also, if you happen to be visiting the Blackwater Auction House, you can often pick up horde pets. Those Golden Dragonhawk Hatchlings are especially pretty!

Have fun with these beautiful creatures!

Our Housekeeping

I hope it goes without saying that after you have killed the enemy, their mangled corpses should be subjected to the indignity of a strip-search while their blood still gushes hotly, and that you should loot everything you can carry.

What have you been doing with all that linen and woollen cloth that you've found on them? Chances are, you've been selling them to a vendor. Well, stop that, right now! There are at least two things you can do with them that are better than that.

Firstly, various professions can use these scraps of cloth. For instance, if you are a tailor, you already know that they can be turned into the most beautiful costumes; if you have the first aid profession, you can turn them into bandages.

Secondly, if you don't have a use for the cloth, sell it to an adventurer who does. Your fellow adventurers pay a lot more than vendors for it. But how do you sell it to somebody else? The Auction House is how. Go to the auction house, select an auctioneer, and search for the cloth you want to sell. You'll find loads of it, at various prices. Decide on the price you want to sell your cloth for (make sure the price you set is above the price a vendor would give you for it), and post it! If you select a low enough price, you'll find it will sell easily, and often within a few minutes. You'll get paid by a letter in your mailbox an hour after the sale.

And it's not just cloth that sells well. Every green item that you loot and that you can't use youself can be sold in the auction house. The secret here is that people will usually buy these item not to wear, but to disenchant into various magical powders, crystals, essences and so on, needed by enchanters. This gives even the lamest green item a value much higher than the vendor puts on it.

As well as green items, many white items also sell well at auction: consumables (like cloth) that are used in other professions or for quests. For instance those small eggs that you get from the birds in Westfall are worth quite a bit to chefs.

Also, while you're at the auction house, don't forget to buy some bags. You can get some from vendors. You can get bigger bags from tailors who sell their wares at the Auction House. Obviously, the bigger your bags, the more loot you can carry.

I don't want to turn this into a guide to using the auction house here; that's been done very well already in loads of places, including Just My Two Copper (http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/). I just want to draw your attention to its importance. Don't be poor. Sell your loot in the Auction House. At the very least, the AH is a great way to turn your unwanted loot into gold. The trading game can also be fun in its own right; I love trawling though the auctions looking for bargains that I can resell for profit later.

By the way, if you want to get the most out of the Auction House, you'll really want to get the AuctioneerAddon. This improves your pricing by tracking historical prices and letting you see when items are cheap or overpriced. If you never get any other World of Warcraft addon, get this one. And check out Marcko's guide to using it: http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/2009/02/22-steps-to-using-auctioneer-correctly.html

Boosting

The first time I went into the Deadmines instance, my first instance, it was awesome. My group and I were really challenged by the enemies we met there, and we felt we were heroes when we completed it and got out the other end with Edwin van Cleef's head. That was a real achievement. I was just 19. Level 19.

Some days later, I was duelling in Goldshire, when a level 50 player asked me and my protagonist to accompany her. She brought us to Westfall, to Moonbrook, and I realised we were going to go into the Deadmines. Just the three of us. At first, we had a hard time, since the mobs targetted me and my protagonist. We hadn't yet learned what a tank was, and so we didn't know to let the tank take the aggro first before we started attacking. Moreover, being lower level than our leader, our aggro radius was greater, and so as we travelled alongside our level 50 leader, mobs started attacking us. This made things tricky for the level 50. Eventually she suggested we hang back and let her get stuck into the mobs and really get their attention before we started attacking. This made for faster progress, but left me and my protagonist with little to do; by the time the level 50 hit the mobs twice, they were dead. We sort of became passengers. There was nothing heroic about it. Luckily, I'd already got my achievement.

The first time I went into the Stockades, when I was 24, it was in the company of a level 24 hunter who had invited a level 80 death knight along. It was a complete waste of time. The death knight went through the stockade like a hot knife through butter, and the hunter and I were reduced from fighters to cleaners. All we did was sweep up after the death knight. I take no pride in the Stockades "achievement". A failchievement, really! I can never get it properly now. I've never been back.

"Looking for boost in Stockades" is a common cry on the trade channel. Some low-level character is asking for a high-level character to accompany him to the Stockades and essentially get the achievement for him. There are several reasons why one might want to do this, but let me assure you, you never want to be boosted in a dungeon if you've not yet completed the dungeon for yourself. If you get a high-level character to do it for you (obviously with you in their company), you'll never be able to feel the pride of achieving something for yourself. Moreover, you've paid Blizzard for this content. Why would you additionally pay some level 80 character so that you can skip it and pretend you've done it? For that's what boosting means, even if the lower level character fires off a few spells, or swings his sword a bit as well.

There are legitimate reasons why you might want to be boosted:

• you've already met the challenge and done the dungeon with a level-appropriate group and completed the achievement, and now you just want to "farm" it for some particular piece of loot that you didn't get the first time round.
• you've completed the content in other alternative lives, and now you're just speed-levelling past content you already know well, in order to reach the end-game.
• you are a coward and are not fit to be honored by the heroes of Stormwind, but you want to hide your cowardice by appearing to have achieved a brave act.
• you are lazy and cannot be bothered doing your part for the alliance, but you want to hide your laziness by appearing to have achieved something for the alliance
• you are a show-off who wants people to admire you, but you're actually too lazy or too cowardly to actually achieve something admirable.

If you're a newbie like me, who loves killing the horde, I doubt you belong in any of these categories. Don't accept boosts. You'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Why would somebody offer boosts? Perhaps because a friend or guildmate has asked you to, and you want to help them (actually, I don't believe you are helping them if they are newbies like me). Perhaps because you're a show-off who would like a low-level character to think how great you are (possibly because you can't show off with your peers because you aren't their equal). Anyway, friends or guildmates won't be asking you for a boost over trade chat, so I assume if you're asking for or offering boosts in trade chat, that you belong to one of the "slacker" categories. As a matter of fact, I keep a note of people I see offering or soliciting boosts. I want to avoid grouping with either of them.

Teamwork

If your only experience of grouping has been fighting Hogger, you probably don't yet know much about fighting in a five-man group.

Team Roles

There are four roles, normally: tank, DPS, healer and leader. Whoever is leader is also one of tank, DPS and healer. The group leader should normally be the highest level member of the group, or the most experienced member. If you are nominally leader, but not the highest level or most experienced member, you should invite the veteran to be leader. If you don't you risk the group having two leaders or none!

It is the job of the group leader to make sure everybody knows what is expected of them (Tank, DPS or Healer). Team members should follow the team leader's directions.

• Leader: the leader's role is to assign combat targets, and make sure that the team is ready before giving the attack order.
  
• Tank: the tank's role is to draw and keep the enemy's aggression. He is not expected to dish out punishment to the enemy, but rather to take it. Normally, this means defensive stance, shield and lots of taunts and mocking blows to keep the enemy attacking the tank and not the DPS or healers
  
• DPS: DPS stands for "Damage per Second". The DPS's job is to do maximum damage to the enemy in the shortest possible time, while keeping their threat to a minimum, thus making the tanks job easier.
  
• Healer: mainly the healer must make sure the tank, who is taking all the beating, is not killed. Of course, sometimes, enemies will attack DPS or healers, so the healers must also keep an eye on the whole team!

Fighting

Before each fight, make sure you are buffed and have buffed all your teammates! Buffs are beneficial spells you can cast on yourself or your teammates, such as "Arcane Intellect", or "Mark of the Wild".

The group leader may assign targets to particular members. Otherwise, the usual target is whoever is beating on the Tank! Tanks should be in defensive stance, and should be aware that spells may attract mobs to squishy DPS spellcasters, and should make sure they maintain threat (for instance by taunting the mobs who are attacking DPS).

Don't pull prematurely. Wait until the leader gives the order before attacking. I would go so far as to say that the most common cause of wipes is attacking a target before the team is ready.

Don't run! If you're being beaten up and likely to die, call for help, but don't run. Running makes it harder for your healers to target you, and harder for your DPS and tank to target the enemy who is attacking you; and since the enemy can usually run as fast as you, you normally won't outrun them, anyway (and in a dungeon instance, they will never stop chasing you). Even worse, by running you may draw other enemies into the fight, and instead of just you dying, the whole team may be wiped. Even if you are definitely going to die, stand your ground. Better to take one for the team than to wipe the team.

Looting

I think it's best to stick to group loot. This gives everybody a chance to roll on valuable items, and because it isn't first-come first-served (like free-for-all) it doesn't encourage looting mid-fight. You can concentrate on the fight without worrying that a less-principled team member is busy robbing the bodies.

Normally, when you are given the chance to roll on a valuable item, it is polite to choose "Greed" or pass. If you really need an item, ask the group leader (in party-chat, not whisper) if you may roll need. Normally you should only roll need on items that you can use immediately (either you can equip yourself with the item, or learn to use the item). You should not roll need on an item because you have an alt that needs it, or because you want to disenchant it.

Don't loot while the fight is still going on. Sometimes it isn't obvious that a teammate is still in trouble because they're behind you. It would be a Bad Thing if you were looting while your teammate was being killed!

I enlarge my Circle of Acquaintance

What should you look for when choosing a guild? That depends on your motives. I have been in a number of guilds for different reasons, and I foresee that as I progress I may find reason to change guilds again.


First, you may choose not to join a guild. Many people find solo adventuring very satisfactory and feel no desire to join a club - for that´s all a guild is. There´s nothing you can´t accomplish as a solo adventurer. That said, there are many ways in which a guild can make things easier for you, which I´ll talk about below.


The first guild I joined, I joined for money. As simple as that. I had 5s54c in my pocket when I met a level 60 warrior who was yelling out that he would give 1g to anybody who would sign his guild charter. Let me tell you that was the easiest 1g I ever earned, and the most useful. By all means I advise you to take this offer yourself, if you're not yet in a guild. You need the money, he needs the signature. Both parties profit.


What's that all about, by the way? Why would a level 60 warrior be down in the market square in Stormwind offering gold to all and sundry to sign his charter. Surely he's more selective about who he wants in his guild? Surely the last person he wants in his guild is somebody who's just joining for the money? What's the catch? There is no catch. Or rather, the catch is, he doesn't want you in his guild - but the offer of 1g is genuine. The player who is offering money for your signature is not planning to steal anything from you (what have you got that might interest a level 60 warrior, after all). He's wanting to set up a 'banking' guild. This is a guild that will eventually only have 1 member, and that member will be his banker. Once the guild is up and running, it's probable that you and all the other signatories will be kicked out of the guild, 1g richer than when you joined it. What the guild master really wants is to be able to create a guild bank where he can store more items than he could store in his private bank account. Don't worry. Be happy. Take his 1g payment, leave when he finally has his guild up and running, and take the next guy's 1g. All parties will be happy.


Eventually you may want to join a proper guild. Maybe you just want to see what being in a guild is like. I encourage you to try a few before you settle down. Sow your wild oats. Different guilds have different flavours. Try a few out, and then decide what you like.


You'll see various advertisements in the trade and general channels from guilds who are looking for new members. These advertisements often contain a number of code words that will help you identify the kind of guild that's being advertised:


Guilds that advertise "we have our own tabard and bank tab" are generally new guilds - it's a big deal for them that they have their own tabard and bank tab because the guild master and officers have just spent a bucketload of money getting them. New guilds often die out. Try not to join a new guild until you have had experience of an established guild. I don't mean that you should never join a new guild. In fact, I think that eventually you should. Just not until you know what an experienced guild has to offer.


Guilds that use the words "progression" or "raiding" should be of no interest to you until you are level 80. You will certainly be of no interest to them.


Guilds that are "friendly" or "social" are certainly worth experiencing. Sometimes this is code for "not interested in joining the rat-race to level 80 and beyond. Just interested in having a good time, sharing some jokes, hanging out and having fun". There's nothing wrong with that, and it's worth trying out.


Guilds that are "levelling" guilds can be both friendly and social, but what their members have in common is this: they are very interested in joining the rat-race, and reaching level 80 and beyond. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's worth trying out. Very often, these are new guilds who have got beyond the "have tabard and bank tab" stage, but have no members at level 80 yet.


In my opinion, you should try out several guilds before choosing a long-term partner. You'll quickly realise what style suits you - social or levelling (of course most guilds are on a continuum between these two extremes). Once you are level 80, if you are considering raiding you'll perhaps look at the serious raiding/progression guilds. By then you won't need any advice from me.


Before joining a guild, I recommend you look at their member profile on the armoury. The EU armoury is at http://eu.wowarmory.com/ and the US armory is at http://www.wowarmory.com/


A levelling guild with less than 50 members will either die, or will require a lot of hard work from its members to get it up to a critical mass. On the other hand, a guild with more than 200 members might seem a bit impersonal. One of the most important things to know about guilds is that they're usually set up by a group of people who know each other well, perhaps having been together in other guilds, or perhaps grouping together often as they levelled up. Sometimes such a group can make you feel a little like an outsider. I left such a guild some time back, after a guild photo-shoot. The location chosen was the surface of the lake in Darnassus. If you couldn't walk on water? Too bad, noob. You weren't in the photo. I left the very next day.


I mentioned earlier that there are many ways in which a guild can make things easier for you. I´ve more or less covered these already: they can provide you with pals (for the crack), they can provide a ready-made pool of players around the same level as you with whom you can group and level and PvP, and after you´ve reached max level, it provides team-mates with which you can raid.



I also mentioned earlier that I think you should eventually join a new guild. Actually, the more I think about it, what I really mean is that I joined a new guild and liked it enough to want to stay. Why? Because in a new guild, you make a difference. You level up with the other new members of the guild, you get to know them, they get to know you. You make friends. Of course, this can happen in any guild, new or old. It can happen outside of a guild. All I can tell you is this. I like being in a new guild whose members are known to me. I wish it was a bigger guild, since we could more easily plan guild dungeons. I know that whatever happens to the guild (it's at the grow-or-die stage right now), I've enjoyed it.


If you ever want to start your own guild, I have one piece of advice: don't.
Just don't. It's a lot of work, and the rewards are uncertain (unless you're just creating a bank guild). Maybe it'll turn out like the guild you hoped for, maybe it won't. More than likely, there is already a guild out there that is a good match to what you want. It's probably a better match than the guild you build will eventually be! But if you insist in ignoring my advice, at least take Matticus' advice: http://www.worldofmatticus.com/guides/build-your-own-guild/


By the way, whatever guild you join, don't accept a boost. You'll regret it. More on boosting later.

I am Sent Away

There comes a time in the life of every child of Elwynn Forest when we have to spread our wings and fly away. Of course, we've all been to Stormwind already, and met the high-level Jenkins and heroes, and beggars and bankers; but really this is still home. No, usually our first trip abroad is to Westfall, and what a difference there is between Westfall and Stormwind. While Elwynn forest has a magical fantasy mediaeval touch to it, Westfall has a different
atmosphere: dustbowl America - a formerly rich but now rundown farming community, now almost derelict and overrun by weeds and other undesirables.

The story of Westfall is the story of that shadowy organization, the Defias Brotherhood, and it's a great story, though this isn't obvious when you first arrive. In fact the initial quests in Westfall are a little tedious - kill twenty of this, collect 8 of that - and the magic mechanical scarecrows, while they add to the not-in-Kansas atmosphere, do not fit into the world - no attempt is made to explain what they are, where they came from, how they came to life. They are just there, as out of place as a laser-gun-toting murloc. But never mind that, follow the yellow-brick road to Sentinel Hill and Gryan Stoutmantle. That's where the real story starts.

And it's also where you get to fly! When you were fighting the great Hogger, you noticed high-level characters passing overhead on flying steeds, and thought "wow, it must be wonderful to be able to fly! I'll bet you have to get to level 80 before you can do that"! When you get to Sentinel Hill, however, you discover you can join that elite group. You don't even have to own or train the mighty beasts that will soon be transporting you to Stormwind, for they are a taxi service. And what a great service! The journey from Stormwind to Sentinel Hill probably took you a week or two. The return journey, high above the scene of your recent epic deeds, takes a minute or two. I'll never get tired of flying!

Anyway, back to Gryan Stoutmantle. At first, the quests he gives you just feel like more of the same "Kill Ten Rats": kill 15 Defias trappers, kill 15 Defias smugglers, kill 15 defias pillagers and looters, and so on. But gradually, the story begins to come into focus with the Defias Brotherhood quests starting with a trip to Lakeshire to learn more about this shadowy organization.

This excellent slow-burning quest chain leads you, via Stormwind city, deep into the Deadmines in Moonbrook village, the first instance dungeon that most players, where you hunt down the leader of the Brotherhood, and then leads to the next instance, the Stockades in Stormwind, to interview his deputy, finally leading to the higher echelons of Stormwind society and your first audience with the King. Great stories like this are what make me want to play more. The stories, not the loot. Make more great stories like this, Blizzard, and you will be loved forever.