Project Lore

I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but it looks like one of the greatest points of contention regarding the recently announced mount changes for 3.2 will continue to upset players of WoW. In comments both on my post here at Project Lore and on the official WoW forums, posters have begrudged the major price dips for mounts because they had to pay so much more when they bought their mounts. Some have gone so far as to suggest (or demand, in some cases) that Blizzard refund their in-game gold. Not surprisingly, blue poster Zarhym has responded to these requests in a couple of different places in the forums. After the complaints started rolling in Wednesday, he said:

"We have no plans of offering in-game gold refunds on item costs to compensate for this content change, as has always been our policy."

Later on,  in an individual thread asking for refunds, he expanded on that point:

"It's truly a great thing that online gaming has expanded to the point where a game can grow and evolve over time with new content. As a gaming company, we can look back with hind sight and make changes to update older content within the context of everything that has come since. Several times over this has led to price adjustments in a number of areas, and we do not reimburse items or money due to changes in content. There are simply too many variables and too many changes each content patch to attempt to compensate anyone who's been negatively affected by a change."

Now this doesn't seem like a hugely unexpected revelation. As he said, I can't think of any other time that Blizzard has made any overarching gold refunds for in-game price adjustments. I'm also not sure that anything has ever decreased in price across-the-board this drastically before, but I can't say for sure. But still, this has been a major point that has players up in arms, and it probably will continue to be controversial. I predict that all the hoopla will die down once patch 3.2 comes out (whenever that is - it may still be awhile), and people start getting cheap-ass mounts for their level 20 alts. Plus, all those other changes that also are planned for 3.2! Personally, I can't wait. One thing I'm still undecided on - what's the verdict for all of you who are on the verge of buying your mount? Do you wait for the patch, however long that may be? Or do you shovel out the cash so you can get the benefit of faster travel now? And if you do, will you QQ about it?

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Image via York Blog

I'm a creature of habits in the morning.  I have a well defined morning routine consisting of a PvA (Person versus Alarm) battle that I always lose, a shower, getting dressed and breakfast.  In all fairness the alarm does get its opener in every morning.  Like many of you, I manage to fit World of Warcraft into the slice of time before noon.  It's not always productive, sometimes I just have time to check the AH - go go gadget Auctioneer! - other times I manage to steamroll a handful of dailes before the workday beckons. You can imagine how flustered I get on maintenance days.  I mean how dare Blizzard mess up my morning routine.  I have half a mind to run into Blizzard's office and slap coffee cups out of each and everyone on of their hands until I am satisfied.  I digress though.  To avoid this week's frustration, I arranged my PvA skirmish about an hour earlier, allowing me to get some play time in before the servers had to turn their head to the left and cough.  Yesterday was one of those productive days. I logged in only 14 minutes before the server was set to go down.  Once that first strip of yellow popped up, I knew it was on.  I snagged the Champion quests for Stormwind - only 2 factions to go! - and mounted up for the day's Valiant challenge.  I quickly moved to the main tent, picked up the four Champion dailies and returned to my Exodarian mount for some more challenging jousts.  With under five minutes remaining I flew out to Sindragosa's Fall to lay waste to some Scourge.  As I went in for my first kill Blizzard's script politely notified me that I had 3:30 remaining.  Fifteen kills in 3:30 for a rogue who wants to loot and pickpocket applicable mobs.  "It'll be close," I thought as the first baby frost wyrm struggled to fly away before collapsing.  I tore through the mobs, dropping them faster than Manny Pacquiao. With 10 seconds remaining on the clock I dropped the last mob, went down on one knee to collect my rewards, and was logged off. I missed that last batch of loot.   With my luck it was a guaranteed epic item, but I am happy with what I accomplished in that short time frame.  In 15 minutes - add a minute to return and hand in the quests - Solidsamm completed four quests, earned himself circa 75 gold, scored a few Writ's, some Seals, and a round of reputation.  Not bad for the morning routine.  If the 2004 Solidsam (originally had one s) heard about 300 gold an hour he'd explode. Does WoW play a part in your morning?  Just the general AH/mail stuff or do you take it a bit further?

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The bloggers of ProjectLore may be critical of World of Warcraft from time to time, but we do it with a purpose.  The main reason behind our critiquing of WoW is to help our readers envision the way we see the game, and what we think is best for it.  Being paying supporters we, and you, are entitled to our opinions and aspirations.  It would be an added bonus if some of the topics we discussed ever did reach the designers at Blizzard, but we can't honestly expect them to keep track of everything.  This is one of those things that I wish would reach them, as I believe we could all agree that it would be beneficial to all kinds of players. Repair bills sucks.  It is a safe assumption that we all hate paying them, no matter how much sense they makes.  They are included in WoW - and many other MMORPGs - as a consistent and easy way to pull money out of the hands of players.  The fee is essentially a tax, if you are fighting monsters, then you must pay.  I have no issues in paying for consequential repairs to my gear, as stated, it only makes sense that they experience wear and tear.  But there is always a fabric, material or even brand that is known for its durability.  Take cast iron or stainless steal kitchenware, those things take a beating.  Mine go from boiling temperatures to chilling waters without more than a hiss.  Yet they keep on performing.  Why can't we have something like that in WoW, a material revered for its long-lasting durability?  Perhaps we could learn to be a craftsmen so skilled, that our weapon and armor can survive the harshest conditions? There are two intuitive ways to achieve this goal.  The first would be to follow the lead of the Jewelcrafting profession and allow a max level crafter a chance at creating a more durable item.  Should the random number generator fall in their favor, then the item would be imbued with all the craftsmen skill, giving it a slower rate of decay.  This implementation would be great, but requires special durability cases for these items at best, or a re-design of the entire system at worst.  A more likely and more beneficial solution would be a salve or potion that lowers all incoming wear and tear.  The item would cover all of our armor in a protective shield, saving us money on each piece, rather than a designated few.  Our second option removes the need for special cases, although a re-design of the durability system remains a possibility.  Let me be clear, I do not mean a high max durability, I mean for the items to not take damage at the same rate as our current gear. The reduction of our repair bills would be minute if the proc on crafting was selected.  A salve or potion would be of far greater use.  Just think about all those early training runs in raids, difficult heroics, and of course, shady PUGs that they would be applicable for.  In the end, you would be saving tons of gold, making the creation and use of the items quite beneficial.  Not to mention profitable for any profession that was able to craft it. The only adverse effects I foresee would be skyrocketing prices for the the needed materials and a shift in the weight of professions.  Neither of these concerns seem to worry Blizzard that much as evidenced by The Burning Crusade's Leatherworking crafted War Drums.  Heck, now that I think about it, if they are going to implement one of them, they might as well just do both.  It would help even out the profession changes.  What do you guys think?  Do you like money?

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This is known "in the biz" as the distract method.

One of the reasons I originally rolled a Rogue is because they can pickpocket.  I knew that you couldn't PP other playable characters (more on that later), but that little button suckered me into the class regardless.  For those of you who never rolled a rogue, the pickpocketing ability - especially with the new Pick pocket minor glyph - can be pretty handy. For starters, the D&D-inspired spell is usable on almost any mob, especially anything that was humanoid at one point in time.  Creatures, such as wolves, spiders, and the like, is the only mob class that cannot be pickpocketed.  Essentially, if it is a sentient being, and not a named mob, then the thief comes out in me.  The amount of applicable mobs means that thieving in Azeroth is, like the Internet, serious business. At the very least, every successful pickpocket will net the evildoer a handful of silver.  I say successful because you can "fail," which means the mob saw you before you got the dastardly deed done.  Or after, forcing you to kill him instead of sneaking away.  Had Blizzard implemented player housing, Solidsamm's humble abode would no doubt be filled of books, effigies and other junk.  Once he opened that closet door and became buried in a mountain of gray items and forced to live on his mother's preserves, he would think twice about his storage and let the vendors deal with it. It isn't all junk and silver though.  Pickpocketing is incredibly useful while you are leveling up, since it becomes an easy way to level your Lockpicking skill as well.  If you can pickpocket a mob, then you can also score yourself junkboxes.  Although they are highly unusual and likely clumsy items to steal, they allow us to skill up, and even drop some rogue-centric goodies such as poisons, potions and more vendor trash.   Then there is the item class that actually perked this whole discussion, food. I was chatting with my GM during my dailies this morning and found out that he was hard at work on acquiring his Everlasting Underspore Frond, an incredibly awesome item given out during the leveling period in TBC.  For me, the item was cast aside once I started needing far more than the 4500 HP it recovers.  Rather than sitting for 90 seconds to fill up, I just ate better food.  His reasoning?  He was sick of having to pay for food, something that I don't think my rogue has ever done.  By pickpocketing every mob that I come across, Solidsamm often ends up way ahead of his food consumption by the end of the day, and it isn't crappy food.  This stuff often fills me up well before the timer runs out.  It seems to have taken me 4+ years to realize just how awesome pickpocketing is, not that I ever doubted its usefulness. Here are two useful things you may not have realized about the ability:

• If you pickpocket a mob before you attack him, you can estimate how much money he will drop.  I discovered this during my Tyr's Hand farming days, an invaluable finding that allowed me to maximize my monetary income during those hard times.  Elite mobs drop 3-4 times the amount you pick from their soon to be empty pockets.  If you pick a small amount, then simply move on.  With the advent of dailies, this is far less useful.
• Screwing with other citizens is always fun.  Most players know this isn't possible, but it still gets some player's panties in a bunch.  Just run around your favorite city with the following macro:   /me pickpockets %t for 3g4s6c.

If you ever wonder why the rogue in your party is taking so long to sap a mob, now you know.  My fellow rogues, have you done your unfair share of looting lately?

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The daily cooking quest varies from day to day. You may have seen Dr. Dorkins recently complete one for Achivementology. However, achievements are not the only benefit of doing a cooking daily quest. One of the greatest draws of the daily cooking quests are the rewards of Northern Spices. All of the best food buffs come from items that are cooked using Northern Spices. And the cooking daily quest is the only way to get them! If you are doing any serious raiding where you are required to have consumables, it can get expensive. Buying potions, elixirs or flasks, and food can really add up quickly - especially if you are progressing through new content and are subject to dying or wiping. A typical cooking daily will get you between 2 and 6 Northern Spices depending on your luck. If you have extras, you can use Dalaran Cooking Awards to buy Northern Spices in stacks of 10. However, for many players this is not enough. Thus, a market is born for Northern Spices for players who either don't bother to do the cooking dailies or who need more than they can get themselves. Depending on your server, you can get different deals on these. The typical range is 2-6g. If you can get 4 spices a day from luck and 10 more from trading in a Dalaran Cooking Award, you are looking at getting a good 40 gold. Even if you aren't raiding, there is a good profit to be made in doing your cooking dailies. Any character of level 65 and up with a cooking skill of 375 can cash in, so start early and cash in. Stock up on Chilled Meats and Rhino Meat to prepare for whatever daily might come your way - Awilo Lon'gomba and Katherine Lee await your service!

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Big news on the content front, Content Patch 3.1 has hit the Public Test Realms and is now ready for testing.  This isn't entirely shocking, the PTR Character Copy went live on Friday so it was just a matter of time.  Unfortunately, if you didn't get the memo over the weekend then you are out of luck.  As of press time, you can no longer get in the Character Copy queue.  On the flip side, this is Blizzard, so they could open up additional slots at any moment. Once you manage to get on the queue, half the battle is won.  The wait time on the queue has dropped from a few weeks to a few days in the span of hours.  Fear not prospective testers of Ulduar, the controversial Dual Spec and all of those class changes, you should be tearing it up in v3.1 by the end of the week.  Players quicker on the draw than myself have already logged into the the PTR and given us some early information on the unnamed patch's changes. For starters, the poor toons out there better read up on our collection of gold generating posts.  As it stands now, the Dual Spec feature will cost level 80s 1000g to train, which should not be difficult to swing.  The big news of the PTR isn't these small kind of details in my opinion.  That would be reserved for the discovery of a previously unannounced feature, the Argent Tournament. The new world tournament will open up mounted combat to us and a whole lot more.  The super secret Argent Tournament - props to keeping the feature on lockdown this long - will unleash a new set of daily quests for the Argent Crusade, enabling players to score new items, titles, banners, tabards, pets, mounts, all new achievements and more.  Being a bit of a lore nut, I find the tournament a creative way to subtly hint to players that the Crusade is extending its reach into Icecrown , while becoming a powerful faction to the rest of the citizens of Azeroth.  This will make their move against Arthas more progressive - thus, realistic - than just having them pop-up next to the Citadel en masse. I have never been one to go nuts on the PTR.  For starters, I hate spoilers.  Past that, I tend to dislike having abilities or features, getting used to them, and then seeing them ripped away from my grasp when the patch goes live.  Perhaps SolidSamm will spend more time than normal, but I highly doubt it. Anyone lucky enough to get on the PTR already?  Like what you see?  Or, are you stuck waiting like most of us?  What are your thoughts on the new tournament?

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Solidsamm Working On His Sons of Hodir Rep

The Sons of Hodir is one of those factions that almost all end game players are in the process of grinding or have already tackled. If your goal in Wrath of the Lich King is to melt faces in end game raids, dominate heroics, or PvP your heart out at level 80, then your only option for a shoulder enchant is this faction of frost giants. Shoulder enchants are not the only reason to get moving on your Sons reputation though. Like other Wrath factions the group offers a wide range of purchasable items, including the multi-person Reins of the Grand Ice Mammoth. Oh, and for those of you struggling with your gold income, the daily quests offered by the Sons of Hodir will fill your coffers quickly and easily.

The faction has money, loot, lore and needed end game enchantments (the Honored version of the enchants are as good as the Exalted Aldor/Scryer enchants), so you may be wondering how to go about the task of grinding to exalted. First things first, you need to get to neutral with them before you can begin any dailies. To do this you must run a series of quest chains, a total of 26 quests, that ends with your character becoming neutral. The first chain starts at K3 in Storm Peaks with the quest They Took Our Men. If you are still leveling fear not, for the initial 16 quest chain is accessible to level 77 and higher.

After becoming fast friends with Lok'lira the Crone and her sisters at Brunnhildar Village, you will be tasked with finding yourself a mount to continue in the Hyldsmeet event. With harness in hand your are set to begin your second quest line. This series is half as long, only comprising of eight rather quick and easy goals and leads you to the mightily depressed Thorim. While performing your last task in the line for Thorim, Mending Fences, you will receive Slag Covered Metal. The shiny blue object will start your third and final chain, comprising of a pair of easy quests that will get you to Neutral with the Sons of Hodir (for all non-Humans).

Now you can begin your long, hard grind to Exalted. The rest of the way will mainly be completed through various daily quests that open up depending on your reputation level. Friendly offers us a total of five quests (although Wrath launched with four):

• Hodir's Tribute (recently added) – Something to do with all those Relics.
• Everfrost/Remember Everfrost! - These chips are hard to spot on the snowy grounds of Storm Peaks.
• Polishing the Helm – An easy collection quest.
• Blowing Hodir's Horn – An easy kill quest (party to make it even faster).
• Hot and Cold – Annoying collection quest due to the spawn rate of the hot metal and ability for other players to ninja loot it from you.

All of the above quests, with the exception of Everfrost turn-ins, net you 250 rep per completion. You need to first locate an Everfrost Chip before you can begin the quest, then the repeatable version opens up. Both quests reward you with some gold and 350 rep. Neither of the turn-ins are marked as daily, so you can turn them in as often as you please. After you work your way to Honored, two new dailies reveal themselves.

• Spy Hunter – A very easy kill quest.
• Thrusting Hodir's Spear – Vehicle-based quest that is quite awesome. Worth getting to Honored to partake in this daily.

Lucky for us, the reputation gains are bumped up on the Honored quests. You now receive 350 and 500 reputation respectively. We have one final quest added upon becoming Revered, Feeding Arngrim. Another collection quest, kinda, but a bit more interesting than Polishing the Helm. However, no rep bump here as it only rewards 350 rep. The good thing is that all of the quests are completable till Exalted, meaning by the time you hit Revered you can earn 2550 rep a day. That calculation assumes you only do the turn-ins once per day. Removing them from the equation, you can go from Revered to Exalted in 11 days.

This guide originally closed with a recap on the lore surrounding the Sons of Hodir and how you become friendly with them. I decided to remove it so I don't spoil anyone's fun. I will just say that the chains introduce you to a lot of Norse mythology, and that the plot continues after you open up the Sons of Hodir faction.

Personally, I think that Blizzard gave the Sons of Hodir the only shoulder enchants in the game for a reason.  The designers probably felt that a quest chain lasting some 40 quests (if you continue the story line) warrants a good amount of attention.  By giving the sought after enchants to them, they ensure that many players will go through more than half of the quests.  At that point I was very interested in where the plot was taking me lorewise and will continue on to its culmination.

How many of you have already completed the rep grind? Did you do it before or after the Relic quest was added. If before, how pissed were you over the extra time spent? Hopefully you didn't vendor all your Relics and made a killing by selling them off!

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Way back when I started here at ProjectLore.com I was all giddy over a new engineering pattern that showed up on the Wrath of the Lich King Beta. The Mechano-hog (Horde) or Mekineer's Chopper (Alliance) infatuated me with its ridiculous clunkiness , gnomish features and lifelong dream to be part of a biker gang.  We should also factor in the hilarious Predator reference that comes via the accompanying achievement, Get to the Choppa!

I had been waiting to get on this bike since Wrath launched, but its insanely steep price and my incredibly slow grind to level 80 have delayed me severely. I am underselling the price when I say steep though. The bike is on the Auction House for downright ludicrous prices, well over 10,000 gold the last few times I have checked.  I am not poor but in this economy I find it difficult to even spend virtual money.

Being an engie, Solidsamm has an alternate route, making it himself. This would require a crapload of money spent to level the profession (see link above), then a boatload of time spent getting the required materials. Lastly, a small purse full of money and time spent rep-grinding to pick up the pattern itself. All of this to ride around in a spiffy hog, that can't fly.  At the moment my time is better spent on other things, causing me to go with option three, the passenger's seat. Shotgun!

While participating in yesterday's Heroic Daily, I noticed my tank had pulled out his shiny new Hog, complete with PWN license plate. As I ran up to him to get a free ride click the green arrow, a party member dove in before me. Being the little knee biter that I am, I harassed the paladin until he got out of the sidecar and allowed me to navigate. After all, I did call shotgun.

To my surprise, Blizzard actually intended the person in the sidecar to navigate. Once belted in, I noticed a scroll of parchment placed in front of my character. On it was a map of Kalimdor. The map wouldn't help in Stratholme (Lordaeron is part of the Eastern Kingdoms) but I loved the small detail nonetheless. It is the little things Blizzard adds that make their titles more enjoyable.

Although we didn't succeed in completing the timed event (I blame Arthas and his snail pace), I did score some loot. Sadly, it was two new pairs of gloves, but they may both be used. Until I can get my hit rating up to something respectable, the Handwraps of Preserved History are my new gloves. Bile-Cured Gloves should make an appearance when I begin to approach the the hit cap. This is all assuming both pairs aren't replaced by then.

I would say that Solidsamm had quite a productive weekend. Scored a few pieces of new loot, got more than a dozen Emblems of Heroism, over twenty Stone Keeper's Shards, a good amount of reputation and his first ride in Wrath's version of the ROFLCopter.  He also got a sad reminder of his sister's lack of playtime. According to the returned mail he received from Solidsagart, I haven't paid much attention to her in 30 days!

The irony of the whole situation was that as I oogled that glorious chopper, my buddy went on to explain that he wanted my Mechanostrider...Anyone else manage to have a productive weekend in Azeroth?

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Sometimes I have to stop and think that I made the wrong choice as far as my professions go. Being a tank I have grown accustomed to always being out of gold due to massive repair bills, but if I had made the smart choice I would have picked a profession to help balance that out. I didn’t. I am an enchanter/engineer, so I have two crafting professions. This means I don’t gather up mats, I have to buy them to level my professions. So it is safe to say I have spent a fair bit of time trolling the auction house looking for good deals. With the expansion being so new, there are lots of spikes and valleys as the market settles on a price for these new materials, but there is one trend that holds true no matter what. You gatherers are making a killing selling your mats! Prices on some of the more sought after mats have been just mind blowing. I know prices vary highly from server to server. But I am guessing we are all seeing the same trends. Being an engineer I’ve had to buy up lots of cobalt, saronite, and titanium bars to level up high enough to craft my goggles. This was an expensive process for me. The prices were just sky high, early on I saw stacks of lower level bars going for hundreds of gold each. Prices for herbs and leather haven’t been particularly low themselves. I imagine that those that are supplying these mats are getting very wealthy from them. I have several gathering friends that have straight up told me they have more gold then they know what to do with. That sounds like a good problem to have? I am pretty jealous of you guys that have built in income everyday from smelting titansteel. I’m fully aware that enchanters don’t have it so bad, and that enchanting mats are fetching a small fortune as well. My priority was leveling enchanting with those mats. Perhaps now that I am at 450 I can start to get some money back there. As far as my engineering goes, I am looking for clouds and gathering eternals… but these income methods seem to pail in comparison to the true gathering professions. It’s clear that there is gold to be had in Northrend if you know how to do it. So how are you doing? Are you gathering up a small fortune? Or are you the one lining the gatherers pockets?

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So this is it, there is less than a week left until the new WoW expansion changes our whole world. Some of us may be fully prepared to head into Wrath of the Lich King, but I’m sure there are many, like myself, that still have lots of preparation to do. Personally, I have been utterly neglecting the preparations I need to make to be ready for WotLK. With our guild up and raiding again, my thoughts have been directed toward BT progression and not into cleaning out my bank… but we are reaching the point where I need to get things in line to make the boat ride to Northrend as comfortable as possible. First thing is first. I just started going through my overstuffed bank and started getting rid of all the mats and consumables that will be rendered completely obsolete next week. Being and enchanter and engineer I’ve got more dust and gizmos than I know what to do with. I’ll kill two birds with one stone by clearing up some space and getting some much needed funds to help smooth over the leveling process. That takes me to the next point. I’ll need gold. I know I will make some along the way, but leveling professions, learning to fly in the cold, and buy BoE epics is going to be expensive. The more funds I have the better, and right now my funds are dangerously low. Then I’m going to have to take a hard look at my quest log. It’s high time to finish up those last quests that have been rotting in my log for months… either that or drop them. All I know is that when I hit the Fjord, I will want as few quests sitting in there as possible. At last I will soon have to tweak my spec for leveling, make sure I know what gear will be best for the process and park my toon in front of the boat the night drops. It should be a fun process, and I need to make sure by toons are ready to start the next chapter in there digital lives!

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