Gratuitous naked Dwarf... proof I'm not racist

You kill a mob… cloth

You kill a boss… cloth

You loot a chest… cloth

You kill a player… a few sliver and a kick up the arse.

The Emperor’s new clothes

This is what I don’t understand, why is it, that that cloth wearing fool of a Warlock that tried to take down the widdly-biddy-fireball-throwing Gnome Mage, can’t spare me some cloth?

I’m more than happy to tear off their epic robe, cloak or undies and stuff that in my backpack.

In fact one would assume that it would be some sort of enchanted cloth, but I would settle for normal cloth.

I would even settle for singed cloth scraps – if I could turn them into a whole piece of cloth.

Which brings me to my 1st tangent (of I don’t know how many, maybe the last, but who will know until any of us reach the end of the post?)

Why can we pick up leather scraps AND why can a Leatherworker then convert these into a whole piece of leather, yet a tailor can’t do the same with cloth?

What, a tailor doesn’t know how to sew scraps together?

You kidding me?

That’s what my Mother-in-Law did for years in India to survive.  She would go house to house collecting people’s unwanted cloth scraps, sew them together and sell whatever she could make.

She could do this in the real world, yet my 525 tailor can only work with complete piece of cloth.

I know this is a fantasy game, but I think that’s just a step too far removed from reality!

The track I am now back on…

Anyway, the thing that really really bugs me is that PvP is not a money earner.

Yes, yes I realise if you are raiding you need to get some gold from somewhere to pay for your repairs.

And yes I am aware you get some gold thrown at you for winning a BG, but there is a disconnect when it comes to picking stuff up.

If you enjoy PvE, you may well raid and will most likely do instances and quests – all of these have drops that can add to the bank balance or crafting bank.

If you PvP and prefer that to a night (or 7 nights) or instancing etc… well you better find some more time on top of your passion to grind out some profession mats.

PvP zones with benefits

There are two zones that I can think of where gathering was allowed during PvP: Wintergrasp and Tol Barad.

You used to be able to fish in Alterac Valley, maybe do other things as well… but then back in those days, battles went for 3 days, so you probably needed some recreation activities.

Even Wintergrasp and Tol Barad don’t have NPCs during battle time, so you can’t be looting extra items off them while the battle rages.

So, you are kind of screwed unless you want to “work overtime” when not defending for the Alliance or Horde.

If they bring it, let me loot it.

I’m not talking about high drop rates, but even if I had a stack of cloth at the end of a night of BGs, I would be spared a grinding session (plus the travel etc involved).

Why not have level and class specific drops off player characters, you know, some plate (uncomfortable), leather (ohhh kinky), or frilly cloth (not that I’d wear something like that) undies to pick up?

• Metal bars and Earth “shards” off plate wearers.
• Leather “scraps” and Nature/Shadow “shards” off leather wearers.
• Cloth “scraps” and Water/Air/Fire “shards” off cloth wearing casters (plus the odd BoE Epic off Warlocks, just to make sure they are focused down!)

Is it really too much to ask?

Gnomer and Out!

PS: May the fourth be with you! (assuming you are reading this in my yesterday)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2011/05/05/just-the-occasional-scrap-of-cloth-please/

I feel sorry for Gnomes, Draenei, Taurens and Blood elf.  Primarily Gnomes of course!

Why?
They have a racial bonus taken up with something completely useless… profession racial bonuses.

Let’s take a look.

• Gnome
  * Engineering Specialist : 15 point skill bonus to Engineering (note, this also raises the cap by 15 at each level of Engineering).
• Draenei
  * Gemcutting : 5 point skill bonus to Jewelcrafting (note, this also raises the cap by 5 at each level of jewelcrafting).
• Tauren
  * Cultivation : 15 point skill bonus to Herbalism (note, this also raises the cap by 15 at each level of herbalism).
• Blood elf
  * Arcane Affinity : 10 point skill bonus to Enchanting (note, this also raises the cap by 10 at each level of enchanting).

Yes yes, I hear you Forsaken, Trolls, Orcs, Night elves, Humans and Dwarves screaming out:

If you don’t want +5 to 15 to your skills, then we will take it!

Well, I am of a good mind to just give it to you… actually, you are welcome to my Gnome Engineering skill, cause it’s worth diddly squat to me!

My problem with the professional racial bonuses is three fold…

1. It helps you naught – leveling
2. It helps you naught – capped
3. It helps you naught – in itself

It helps you naught – leveling

It means you get to max your profession out faster…

I hear you say…

Who you kidding buddy?

What the 1st 5-15 points in a skill are difficult?  Correct me if I am wrong, but for those first 5-15 points you could run 2 sticks together and level up… doesn’t matter what the profession is.

You think it’s hard to pick some peacebloom, or DE some level 5 green items?

Yeah but you get to the next level of the profession faster!

Hunh?  Didn’t you just read what I said…

So you out-level your current gathering zone faster… ohh that’s great… no wonder Blizzard have put all sort of performance enhancing levels gimmicks in the game.  Otherwise how are you going to be high enough to grab the next lot of mats?
Fundamentally, I think you got two tradespeople together, one with the racial bonus andone without, there would be little or no difference in who reaches level cap first.  Hell I would even put my money on the one without the bonus if they need to get the mats.

It helps you naught – capped

Yeah but when you hit the profession cap, you can be 5-15 points ahead of the next Man, Dwarf or Orc.

There are only two instances in which I know that it is beneficial being beyond the skill cap of a profession.

1. Skinning… well it did matter back in Vanilla WoW, if you wanted to skin the The Beast?  you needed Finkle’s Skinner…
2. Fishing… If you want to fish in 20% of the waters of Azeroth, your better have some performance enhancing gear, whether it’s a fishing rod, bait or bobber.  If you don’t have it, you may as well have not equipped your fishing rod.

In fact what do you know what… neither of those professions have a racial bonus… Nope, you get some extra gear or enhancement to allow you to do what you spent hours/days/weeks leveling your toon to accomplish.

It helps you naught – in itself

I remember when I was a Tauren Druid, running about the wilds… I would seem peacebloom (or other low level herb) here and there.. Occasionally (I have short term memory problems… umm where was I?) I would stop to pick it… but I wasn’t a herbalist… so the bonus was USELESS!  Well, more useless than I have already explained anyway…
If this isn’t the 1st of my posts that you have read, you know that I have a major issue with Gnome Engineering Racial.  I am happy that we get it, I am just unhappy it isn’t worth the pixels expended to put it in my spell book.

Can We Fix It?  Yes We Can!

I think, quite simply that Us Gnomes have an affinity for all things mechanical, therefore, while we may not have chosen Engineering as a long term profession to follow, our natural aptitude should afford us the use of engineering only items.
Let me put it this way.

The Average Man on the Street

Some people, with no mechanical skills can drive a car…. Hell, anyone with eyesight and use of some of their limbs can drive a car.  I seem to vaguely remember a movie where a blind guy even drove a car with a sighted guy giving directions from the passenger seat.

Yeah so.. anyone can ride a mechostrider… fair enough…

The Average Gnome on the Street
Some people, while not investing in a Mechanic’s apprenticeship, can still work out common probelms with a car.  They can drive the car, change the tyres, check the oil.. maybe even tune the car if need be.

This is where I see the average, non-Engineer Gnome.  Smarter (well, more knowledgeable) than the average mechanostrider rider.

I strongly believe that Gnomes should be able to drive all things engineering based…  In particular of course, I am talking about them flying mechanical engineering mounts.  I think Blizzard should change the requirements on them to “Requires Engineering”, without any specific level of engineering… or “Requires XXX Engineering, or Gnome Racial”

Larisa should at the very least be able to oil her favorite Strider so it doesn’t squeak like a matrimonial bed on a honeymoon.

The Guy with the but crack on the street

Some people actually do the whole mechanic’s apprenticeship.  If they want to they can build the car from the ground up… and then, if they want to… sell them to people that can drive them (Gnomes!)
Spread the Racial Love…

I think those herb grazing Taurens should also get some sort of natural benefit out of their affinity for keeping their noses in the grass… I don’t know.. allow them the herbalist buff… of if they have herbalism, give it a bit of a kick.

Draenei should get a bonus to have a proc that gives them additional gems, or better gems.
Non-jewelcrafting Draenei should be able to use otherwise BoP gems supplied by a professional gemcutter.

Blood elves can just get stuffed….  Ohh OK, as much as it pains me to offer a Blood Elf anything, give the enchanters soemthing anything… even if it is just limited to my upcoming suggestion…

Non-Enchanting Blood elves should be able to get their rings enchanted (I am going to keep this polite OK…)

Give those most attuned to a profession, something to show for it.

So…

• A Gnome Engineer is 15 points better than a non-Gnome.
• A Tauren herbalist is 15 points better than a non-Tauren.
• A Draenei jeweler is 5 points better than a non-Draenei.
• A Blood Elf Enchanter is 10 points better than a non-Blood Elf

So where are the 465 Engineering and Herbalist items?  Where are the 455 jewelcrafting items?  Where are the 460 Enchanting formulas?

Come on… where are they?

If you need 550 to fish in some areas, and you need 300+ skinning to skin a special beast, surely having higher than average professional skill should benefit you in the way of additional “patterns” or plucking?

You see, that way we could have a bit of rare “crafting” gear or mats in the marketplace that has nothing to do with RNG’s, but all to do with intelligent Race selection… Make that decision at the very 1st screen matter in some way other than a bit of extra reputation, or escape abilities.  Make it worthwhile choosing a professional racial over a combat racial

But above all… Make it possible for me to ride a bloody flying engineering mount, without me having to give up my Enchanting or Tailoring, because let’s face it, I am more skilled in Engineering than a huge percentage of the population (considering only 5% are Gnomes… and I have no idea about professions… but who would choose Engineering otherwise )

More Wanted Meme

Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, Say no more…

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/03/19/drawing-the-short-straw-racial-bonuses/

…and I say:

Don’t come the raw prawn with me mate!

Maybe I have just eaten a batch of Bad Clams, but I am very, very sick of dailies.

Don’t nerf ‘em!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to nerf Dailies.  Generally I think they are a great idea, and most likely the majority of WoW players benefit from them.

Unfortunately I am not in the Majority.
If we take the definitions of Hardcore & Casual I have seen thrown around lately:

• Hardcore: You play more than me.
• Casual: You play less than me.

Then you are probably all Hardcore, most of you would be unbelievably hardcore…

Get a Life folks!

I doubt there are many casuals around though by my definition… ohh maybe those that haven’t logged in for the last 12 months can average their time out and tell me they are casual… maybe…

OK, to be fair, I do play about 6 hours per week on average, which may be more than some people.  My problem with dailies is that I play 4-6 hours in a block.  One day, and one day only (under threat of divorce).

So while others do dailies, I do weeklies.

It can’t be that bad Gnomer, surely you get them done regularly…

OK, let me ask you a question…
How many days a week do you log in and do dailies (or did you when it was advantageous to you if you now have all the recipes you want)?

Guess how many dailies I have managed to achieve since the Achievement system was introduced… 6+ months ago…  Go on guess… ahh don’t worry about it, let me show you instead.

You know the achievement to do a daily every day for 5 days…. Guess how far I have ever made it into that one…  Once again, I will show you…

My issue with dailies are the “rewards” associated with them.

• Reputation increases – Do the dailies or don’t increase your rep.
• Marks of Honor/UberGear etc. – Do the heroics/daily instances to build up enough marks to buy your way into a raid. (OK, I know that Heroics are not dailies… but to build up the marks, you need to be running multiple instances per week)
• Tradeskill recipes – Do the dailies or starve, or shelve your profession.
• Discoveries – Do your craft, a limited number of times per week, and pray that the RNG gods are on your side and hand you a new recipe.

I know some people are screaming out for tradeskill dailies… at least that way there is a guaranteed manner of gaining new recipes…

I feel for you, so feel for me

OldSkool Skill

In TBC, before the Daily Invasion began, to get cash you either needed a spare zone or two up your sleeve (and that well would eventually run dry), or you needed to have some knack with the Auction House (with or without tradeskills as support).

Luckily for me, I had both.  AH nous and enough incomplete quests to keep the Gnomeregan Exiles in food and clothing for the next couple of expansions.

Dailies were introduced, or ramped up, which was great for everyone.  While you didn’t have to do them, if you did, you would have a regular source of income plus the occasional side benefit, whether rep or other reward.  I liked them, and occasionally participated in them.  Who is going to look a few honor points, or heroic tokens in the mouth?

Thing is, these dailies didn’t adversely effect my gameplay.

I could do dailies, if I wanted, or ignore them, if I didn’t.

Generally I didn’t.  My normal Friday playnight went something like this:
[Gnomeaggedon has come online]
[Mate to Gnome] Summon incomming…
[You have entered x Instance]
[Gnome to Mates] Thanks for the run guys, gotta go, busy day tomorrow…
[Gnomeaggedon has gone offline]

Not much room in there for extra curricular activities like dailies… but then it really didn’t matter.  I have never gone higher than Honored with SSO… but then, it never stopped me progressing my skills.

Anything I NEEDED could be sourced from the wilds through drops, or regular cash transactions with vendors.

WoLK, has gone Daily Crazy.

Now if there is something you want, let alone need, you “must” log on every day… well more than once per week anyway.  In theory with 6 hours per week playtime, I could log on 6 times for 1 hour.  Sure I wouldn’t get anything other than the dailies done, and sure network connectivity from the Divorce Courts is average… but hey I could level my cooking etc.

Suggested solutions.

Replace/augment dailies with tradeskill quests.
You know I love a meaningful tradeskill quest!  In many ways they are much more fun than the average kill x number of y mob.  Killing Dig Rats for the hell of it would have been frustrating.  Killing them in the quest for (an otherwise worthless) Dig Rat Stew recipe made it fun.

If instead of having to do 3 dailies I had to do 3 quests (fundamentally taking the same amount of time and effort… probably more) to get a new recipe, I would be happier than a Gnome snacking on a cupcake!

In this scenario I would:

1. Get the opportunity to complete multiple quests/end goals in 1 session. Sure possibly all of them, but that means that I have consumed the equivalent amount of time as the dailies, but at my leisure.
2. Get to progress my tradeskills in a timely, not lengthy manner.  Will I really bother with cooking if I can’t get the recipes to level it for another 12 months?
3. Have a hell of a lot more fun than just gathering 4 mushrooms and 2 chilled meats!

Introduce more RNGs
I know, I felt the shiver going down your back from here, but…
Instances
As much as the random and very unlikley drops in TBC for tradeskill receipes caused much anguish, they also had some side benefits.

1. They were a reason to rerun instances all of their own.  I ran shattered Halls sooo many times with people, not so much for heroic badges, but for the tailoring drop.
   Did you need them?  No, they were BoE items, so as long as you knew someone with the recipe you could get it crafted, but it was still worth the run, just on the off chance.
2. The OMFG! moments, when the recipes drop.
   Tell me, what is more exciting… Doing 3 (of the same old) dailies to get the tokens for a recipe, or clicking the dead boss only to see that long dreamed of recipe flash up.

Hell, increase the drop chance if you want Bliz, just give us some reason to be excited about killing a boss other than rapidly outdated gear.

On a related note, tie the seafood recipes to fishing drops.  Thus if you are mad enough to participate in the mind numbing profession of fishing, at least you will get an additional, useful reward.  I might even go fishing for the odd raw prawn recipe!

World Drops
Random World drops… mmm maybe not,well not without a reasonable RNG% and a wide range of drop mobs.  But, in a similar fashion to farming instances, the joy of finally seeing the recipe appear in a loot bag still brings tears to my eyes.
Once again, it doesn’t need to be easy (or any easier than TBC), but that 0.1% chance may mean 1st kill, or 1500th kill.  The thrill is in seeing the receipe in the bag.  At that point, it doesn’t matter how many kills it took, it just matters that you are working towards completing the set.

Let the vendor make some money.
Maybe buying from the vendor makes (or made) life too easy to level professions.  But how about you introduce a expensive range of vendor recipes that make it possible, if difficult, to hit max skill.

Difficult by:

1. Make the recipes relatively expensive.  After reading a post by Wowgrrl, I decided I would drop by and buy myself a skull to go with my wraith.  My 1st reaction at the 40g price tag was “Hey, that’s a bit pricey”.  My 2nd was “Who am I kidding… 40g is 8 quests”.  So make it a 100g per recipe… If you don’t want to quest/RNG your way to the top, then buy your way there.
2. Make the recipe ingredients complex and pricey.  Yep, throw recipes that require 2-3 mats (always a pain) to the vendor.  Make the mats BoE and farmable (or creatable).

Now we have a situation where if you have the cash, you can buy the recipes and the mats to level your profession.  If you have the time you can farm the mats, if you don’t, then you are creating a secondary economy for the other farmers and crafters.

I am also going to blow a pile of cash on these much more readily than on Haris Pilton’s handbag.

Give me the love Blizzard, Second That Emotion!

Let me enjoy my blocks of playtime as much as others enjoy their blocks of dailies.

Once again, I repeat, don’t remove the dailies.  I know some people are reliant on these for cash, so don’t remove them and you might as well leave the profession purchase options there as well, because some people will prefer to do the same old same old to skill up.  I will even permit you to throw in a few recipes that can only be purchased via daily “tokens”, expensive recipes, like the honor or badge gear…

I don’t mind if I never get them, or only get the occasional 12 months down the track.  It will be like prioritizing gear upgrades.  Do I want the spell damage food or the +hit food? … let me decide!

Anyway.. enough QQ’ing from this short (QQ), green haired (QQ), time limited (QQ), Gnome (Yay!), Mage (QQ).

Gnomer and Out!

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/03/06/dailies-are-the-raw-prawn/

Probably 3 to 4 days a week, while doing household chores, I do a scan of the AH, the let Auctioneer’s bottom scanner call out to me (where ever I am in the house) when it finds a potential bargain.

Even though I have a fair grasp in the AH, I still have a lot to learn.  My cash on hand is rarely more than 5,000, with potential 5,000 of sales in my bags or on the AH.  Unfortunately I spend it as fast, if not faster than I pull it in (Mind you… what is the point of having more if it isn’t being used.. maybe 5,000 is the right balancing point).

Anyway, I will discuss mods & techniques in other posts, for now I want to point you to some resources I use.

Starting with the Auctioneer (Advanced) Resources.
Norganna’s forums.
A source of how to, why is it broken, new release information and gems of wisdom on making a pile of gold every dragon would be envious of.
Auctioneer Documentation Wiki  - Note the Auctioneer Advanced stuff is still a bit sketchy, but it is still a work in progress.. still the best place to start. Includes how to install, backup and get started.
Forums: Categories  or all Discussions  – follow the threads and profit.

Download Site.
Yep, get it from the source, first time, every time.  other mod upgrade sites (or utilities) are updated occasionally.  The Auctioneer site gives you the latest (preview version) of if you are more game and prepared to be bleeding edge (with all the inherent risks) get the developer version.

A quick note.
If you are upgrading, remember to
1) backup your saved variables. 

2) Delete your old Auctioneer mod before installing (reduces the likelihood of later errors)
This excerpt from the above link.

Delete old folders
Once you have found your AddOns folder, select and delete the following folders. We will be re-extracting them from the newly downloaded zip file from step 1

For Auctioneer Advanced and Auctioneer Classic versions you will have some or all these folders.
!Swatter, Auc-Advanced, Auc-Filter-Basic, Auc-ScanData, Auc-Stat-Purchased, Auc-Stat-Simple, Auc-Stat-StdDev, Auc-Filter-Outlier, Auc-Match-Undercut, Auc-Stat-WOWEcon, Auc-Util-Appraiser, Auc-Util-AskPrice, Auc-Util-CompactUI, Auc-Util-PriceLevel, Auc-Util-ScanButton, Auc-Util-ScanFinish, Auc-Util-ScanProgress, Auc-Util-VendMarkup,SlideBar, Babylonian, DebugLib, Configator, Auctioneer, BeanCounter, BtmScan, Enchantrix, Enchantrix-Barker, EnhTooltip, Informant, Stubby.

Jiras
Auctioneer’s method of tracking bugs and enhancements.
- If you find a bug, or think of an enhancement, float it on the forums until one of the Devs suggest you make a Jira.
- If you see something you like in the Jiras, vote for it!  This will increase the likelihood of it appearing in future releases.

WoW Economist

A new one I recently discovered.  Lots of interesting discussion on what works and where future profit potential exists – Including a risk rating!

Og’s Ledger
Og may have dropped off this mortal coil?  But this is a great source of information of turning your 1st 20silver into 1,000 gold using Auctioneer (primarily Classic, but the concepts are the same)

Unofficial Word of Warcraft Forums.

Guides

Professions Forums:

I love these forums in general, but there are a few mammoth posts on making cash.  Some pure AH, some a mix of AH & crafting.

Elitist Jerks: The Art of Making Gold thread

Another long one, filled with gems.

Enough for now… time to go make some money…

Gnomer and Out!