Something strange is happening with Squidly.

He started out with all the best intentions.

• Level normally
• Explore Azeroth
• Soak up all the quests and instances

But I have just realized that this will never be.

Why so dear Squid?

Well there are lots of factors that mean I am hop, skip and jumping all sorts of content.

My Generous Predecessor

Let’s start with the obvious.

Gnomeaggedon has forsaken upgrades to equip the squid with the latest in Gnomish leveling technology.

Those heirloom items seem quite innocent at first. They allow you to complete the quests and explore Azeroth with ease.

They also allow you to skip 20% of the content you would endure at each level. Doesn’t seem like much up front, but it all adds up on the XP bar and subtracts from the quest log.

I was joking with my favorite tank of the moment that I was doing my 3 quests for the Hellfire Peninsula.

Tank asks: Why only 3 quests?

Squid replies: Well, currently it feels like I only need to do 3 quests and it’s time to change zones.

This is a slight exaggeration of course, but it’s not that far from the truth. I do a little research, identify the best items, then just cherry pick those quests or instances.

Sometimes I am forced to do prerequisite quests, but I am leaving a trail of unacknowledged quests behind me.

It probably doesn’t help that I have BiS items in 5 slots thanks to the heirlooms. That’s less time I need to spend anywhere.

End Game Instances and Raids

More to the point mid-game or old end game instances.

There was a time when you had to grind BRD for the experience and gear. Now you just hit 68, port to Outland and you have gear and experience(s) that leave the old world raids and instances in the dust.

Right now Squidly is staring level 64 in the eyes.

Time to prepare for the heroic Outland instances I think to myself…

Or not!

Once again, less than 12 months ago, I needed to consider my gear progression carefully. I wanted the best gear from quests and instances so I could tackle those heroics for badges to open the doors to Kara.

Now, I am focused on what I can pick up by 67 or 68 so I can jump on a boat and sail to Northrend.

Funny, as I was really looking forward to pitting my Shaman skills against the Outland heroic bosses… But now that I can sniff the sea, even from Outland, the yearning to set sail has struck.

Lack of Achievement

The Achievement frenzy that took hold of Gnomeaggedon’s soul just isn’t present in Squidly.

Oh yeah I still love it when they pop up and I’m not afraid to share them with you, but I don’t care about clearing the Azeroth instances, I’m not concerned about ticking off the heroic achievements in Outland.

I just can’t wait for the secret door before the Outland boss’ room that will take me away to lend my totems to the war against the Scourge.

Epic Mounts & Flying Mounts

Talk about skipping content.

Why fight your way to your destination when you can just ride real fast, or better yet fly to your end goal.

In fact I would happily compare the change in leveling speed to that you experience when you 1st upgrade to an epic land mount, or to an epic flying mount.

Necessary… No!
Faster… Hell yeah!

Too much Talent

I think one of the changes that makes it so much easier to skip content is the access to the whole talent tree.

I’m using talents that only became available to potential level 80′s and I have been since before I was 60.

I realized I was grinding out level 63 elites and level 65 quests with relative ease… Then I realized I hadn’t trained up new skills since I turned 60.

I was 3 levels behind in new skills and still slaughtering 5 mobs at a time!

Not only that, but due to Blizzards dual spec toolbar bug, I wasn’t even using max rank spells. For example, my Chain Lightning, bread-and-butter-Elemental-Shaman-bomb, was 2 levels behind what I could cast.

Did it matter?

Nope, all the points in my improved blow-the-face-off-the-enemy talents were making up for any forgotten ranks of spells.

Maybe Northrend will provide the challenge.

Maybe, just maybe, Northrend will be a little more interesting, a little bit more challenging on Squidly.

Gnomeaggedon one or two shot nearly everything on his trek through Northrend. He didn’t replace a piece of gear until around level 77.

Squidly on the other hand will be entering Northrend with gear up to level 63, maybe he will pick up a couple more items here or there, but he is going to walk off the boat with gear designed for mid-Outland, not starting Northrend.

Maybe the game really does start at the end

I have never been in this position before, but now I understand why everyone deserts Azeroth.

It’s not just that they are level 80 and working from Dalaran.

It’s that no matter how hard you try, Blizzard doesn’t want you in Azeroth (yet), they want you in the Fjords.

Make money running a WoWguild?

OK, completely off topic, but I was just reading this post (The Cost of Being a Goon) over at Outland Bound.

It’s worth a read if you jaw hasn’t dropped yet today!

Makes me want to start an exclusive guild…

Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!

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

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/01/skipping-old-end-game-content/

This promoted the thought about how much the grind has changed from Vanilla through to WoLK.

One thing that needs to be clearly stated is that WoW has always been, and will probably always will be a game whose foundations are farming grinding.

The quests, raids, PvP, roleplaying etc are just the icing on the cold boring concrete tasting foundation that is farming grinding.

Vanilla

Vanilla was a grind. Raiders raided only 4 night per week, but played harder hours the other 3 days grinding the mats they needed to raid in the first place.

Grinding wasn’t just a “reward” for raiders, you had to grind for everything. Believe it or not, epic land mounts were EPIC! or at least the grind to acquire the cash was.

Most people took out loans just to buy their normal mounts because the grind would be easier with the mount thus it would be easier to repay the loan than to struggle away on foot and save up.

The Vanilla Reputation Grind

Reputation Grinding was one of the hardest and most tedious parts of the game. If you think grinding rep with the Timbermaw is a chore now, imagine what it was like when you were fighting 40 other people for kills and drops rather than the current 3 or 4!

Why do you think they allowed reputation gains raid wide? The only way to get the rep “efficiently” was to bring 39 mates with you.

1 kill = 1 rep, unless they are gray.. Then you get none!

The Vanilla XP Grind

No RAF, no Heirlooms, no uber TBC gear. It was hard going. It was hard to be OP against the mobs, many of the quest mobs were Elites.

The reason people would “gratz” you every time you got a level, no matter how minor, was because you had earned it. You had ground day and night, squeezed every last XP out of a zone.

The leveling guides were 1-60 in 21 days played… Now they are 1-80 in 5 days played.

The Vanilla Mats Grind

Mats… I mentioned mats before, but you need to put it in context. In Vanilla you had to grind out the mats. Every piece of stone or herb required its own click. Hell, you even had to take an extra action to put it in your backpack!

Mounts were slow and land bound. The land was large and the mobs were larger. It was hard work!

When TBC came out, people largely abandoned mat gathering in Azeroth and the prices went through the roof. But that didn’t matter, you could grind up the price of the old world mats in an hour, or grind the mats in a day.

A friend of mine wouldn’t leave Azeroth until he had finished leveling blacksmithing… He ground for weeks. Then got to Outland and broke down and cried at all the lost time.

The Burning Crusade

There were dramatic improvements in TBC as far as grinding was concerned. Blizzard had heard our cries and received our blood and tear covered subscriptions, so things changed.

The TBC Reputation Grind

Grinding rep became so much easier. The quests were dripping rep, you had to fight your way through the rep in the instances… but it wasn’t all peaches and cream.

If you played the rep gain wrong (ie. Honor Hold) you would complete all the quests but then be starved of the rep you needed to enter the instances that would gain you more rep.

To grind Aldor/Scryer rep you just needed to hand in cloth… Mmm the same cloth you needed for the crafting grind… And you needed piles for both. Unfortunately your fiends couldn’t spare any, they needed it for rep, and the rep vendors wouldn’t give it back to tailors cheap.

The TBC XP Grind

Grinding XP became quite easy… Actually stupidly easy. I remember I needed to go back to Azeroth to grind some runecloth. The mobs would take 5 hits to kill and award me 30xp. In Outland I 2 shot the mobs and they would give me 400 xp.

Nearly everyone hit 70 before clearing the zones of their quests. Most people used the last 3 zones they had to clear, to bank roll their flying mounts, once the XP stopped and the bonus gold began.

The TBC Mats Grind

Farming Mats was less of a grind. Our birds took us anywhere we needed to be, quickly and directly. We could drop in on a node, pluck it and escape before the wandering mobs discovered us.

Even grinding motes was fun. I had a ball blasting spirits for their motes of mana. The only time it became problem was when you had to tag 3 at once so you could beat off the competition.

That said, the mats requirements were huge. Anyone that ground out the mats for Spellfire and Spellstrike will tell you that many raids, instances and quests were missed to get that set… But then everyone knows it was OP!

The TBC Daily Grind

Then Blizzard did the 1st of its dirty deeds…

It introduced dailies…

Lots of dailies. Netherwing, Ogri’la, Fishing, Cooking, Sunwell and more

Still, they were kind of fun. I can’t say I have ever done a Netherwing daily… I couldn’t afford the time, but they weren’t essential. They were additional income sources and epeen quests.

They were non-essential for the average raider and non raider alike.

The TBC Badge Grind

Then the grind started the downward spiral into the hell we see today.

They introduced badges and the opportunity to grind them from heroics and later raids.

Their intentions were pure, introduce a currency that allowed late comers to gear up and experience Kara and beyond.

But they slipped and added one drop too much of sinister sauce.

Now it was grind or be damned!

Linking of armoury is not a new invention in WoLK, although at least back in TBC you could just quote your spellpower.

Everyone wanted Mechanar for the quick badges, no one want Shadow Lab… Too bad if you needed to run Shadow Lab, the badges were easier picking elsewhere.

Wrath of the Lich King

The WoLK Reputation Grind

When WoLK hit the stores we eagerly awaited the grind free rep gains, especially the new tabards which granted us the ability to choose our instance rep of choice.

The quests showered us with rep and there were rep dailies galore!

Of course if you couldn’t do regular dailies you were in a bit of trouble.

If you couldn’t thrust Hodir’s spear you were stuffed.

If you mainly raided rather than instanced, you would go insane.

The Daily Grind

If you could do dailies, then you were set for the life of the expansion. Cooking dailies, Fishing dailies, Instance dailies, Heroic dailies, PvP dailies, Reputation dailies, not to mention all the other crafting dailies.

Dailies were the order of the day… Screw you if you didn’t play daily of course.

Blizzard did make it easier with at least one daily grind, you can now shove Hodir’s spear where it fits and just buy your way to exalted via the AH.

Of course you may have to do dailies just to get the gold…

But then they introduced another daily grind, the Argent Tournament. At least for a while there you could grind out the objectives for 2 or 3 dailies at the same time… But that was never going to last…

No sense in learning lessons from Vanilla or even TBC and reducing the grind…

Grinding Achievements

I haven’t even touched on grinding Achievements, which really came to the fore in WoLK, but they are definitely another grind, well they are if you set out to achieve them.

They are just another distracting grind to add to the list.

The WoLK Emblem Grind

Speaking of repeated mistakes, emblems are the new badges.

Admittedly you can earn them just about everywhere… I dare say you will earn them soon just for logging on… Well I hope so.

The problems that have repeated themselves are:

• Armory checks
• Widening gear gap

Armory checks really came to the fore near the end of TBC. People wanted badge runs and the only good badge run was a fast and trouble free badge run. Heroics or Kara, it didn’t matter, you better not need the badges if you want a group!

Things are no different in WoLK, unless you consider worse different.

Now you need Ulduar or ToC gear to do introductory instances. Now you need achievements for completely unnecessary things to be able to run.

Might as well ask:

LF1M, tank, must have Brew of the Month Achievement

for all it really matters.

Once again:

If you need it, forget it. If you don’t need it, I have a raid spot warming for you now.

Bizarrely, I believe that the reason the flood of emblems was introduced is the one thing that is failing.

The objective is to reduce the gear gap between Ulduar geared toons and new to 80 toons.

The ePeening geared get more geared, while the crafted epic’d unwashed get left behind.

On top of that, every heroic instance has now become a daily. You must run multiple dailies every day if you want to have any hope of keeping up.

Is it any wonder that I hear and read every day of people abandoning their mains to play their alts, and one of the main reasons is to escape the daily grind.

Screw Emblems, give us loot tables.

The kind a Mage can summon… That would ensure our raid spot!

No seriously instead of emblem runs, let the instance bosses drop better loot… The loot they have gained off all those overgeared fallen adventurers.

Let the heroics drop their normal loot, plus a random piece of Naxx10 loot.. The whole loot table RNG on a heroic boss.

Let the x10 instances drop the x25 loot in a similar fashion. Normal x10 loot + 1 piece of x25. The x25 raids dropping loot from the higher x10 raid.

There is just as much reason to run the instances and raids, but we also get that immense joy of the surprise drop… We get RNG loot followed by a RNG roll… Screw purchasing epic loot!

Rhii falls to Grinding.

I was expecting a bit of a rebuttal from Rhii about my pessimistic “grind” perspective. I was expecting to read how one man’s grind is another’s enjoyable farming session.

However part way through her post the grind crept in, finishing with her informing us how much more she is enjoying her Alt.

So, I guess, in defense of the farmers, grinding can be fun and when it is I would term it as farming.

Grinding could be more fun for everyone… We could all be farmers rather than jaded grinders.

Maybe it’s about stepping back and trying to change our own perspective, find the patches of farming amongst the sea of grind. Turn our scowl around and make it a smile.

Maybe it’s about finding alternatives to the grind and with the release of Cataclysm next year and it’s resultant upheaval, maybe now is the time to farm an Alt.

Gnomer and Out!

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

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/09/10/the-changing-face-of-grinding/

I’ve been thinking, maybe I should play more and think less, but I can’t so you are forced to delete my posts from your feedreader instead.

So, I am wondering why Blizzard doesn’t introduce scalability into the game. Sure in some cases this my mean a bit of balancing, but in these days of phasing, I wonder if it isn’t more possible than ever.

There are 3 areas (which pretty much covers everything). Mobs, Quests and Instances.

Mobs

I know grinding can be a bitch, but I suggest making it interesting. Notice how more often than not the mobs you are grinding are relatively low level and really quite boring to grind.

Two shots, next mob, two shots, next mob.

This also creates an unbalance in that low level toons are disadvantaged against higher level toons. A high level toon can round up the mobs and slaughter them before a low level toon can tag one.

Exploring Azeroth is kind of boring as a high level toon. You have no fear. I run over the mobs so they will aggro and die by Molten Armor.

What if, all mobs scaled to be a minimum of 5 levels below you. Why not let the mobs of Westfall have their high level cousins drop in for a visit?

Quests

How many old world quests do you have outstanding? Why not revitalize the old world and TBC by scaling the Quest level so it’s the same as the quest carrier?

Hogger the new target dummy

This thought is in part inspired by Saresa.

Remember Hogger? The bane of any newbie Alliance toon. There was a time where Hogger would make or break a toon. If you couldn’t take down Hogger, you rerolled Horde.

To this day the name Hogger instills a fear similar to watching another guy getting hit in the nads.

Willel points out that Hogger has now been nerfed down from needing a 40 man raid to a 10 man raid, but I say bring on Heroic mode!

Don’t let the Alliance come back at 80 and one-shot Hogger (in revenge), give Hogger a chance to test the toon no matter what level.

In increasing the Quest level, some other adjustments may be required, let me cover them in the next bit.

Instances

Yep, bring on 83+ Van Cleef!

Let instances scale (maybe optionally). Screw Ulduar, bring on Heroic Deadmines!

I know this concept has been discussed before, and it probably is too hard to balance the instance, but if they just apply a similar “buff” to the mobs as suggested above we would be 90% of the way there.

What about the loot?

Now as mentioned, some changes would be required. I would suggest appropriate rewards: cash, xp and of course loot.

Scalable loot!

Silly idea right… But then we already have a model for this… Heirloom items.

If I remember right, every leather wearer coverts the Blackened Defias armor…

not to mention the Red Defias Mask.

Now wouldn’t it be grand of that gear scaled so they you could be wearing it at level 80. A raid on Orgrimmar in Defias clothes – Hell Yeah!

Sure it wouldn’t be the best gear, but I dare say the formula they have for Heirloom items could be equally applied to other existing gear.

Let’s make Old World’s interesting

By making old content scalable we make the old world content worthwhile, to everyone, no matter what the toon level.

It would make the achievements: quest, exploration and instance real achievements. You either did it originally, or you achieved it against the odds at your current level.

Gnomer and Out!

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

http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/04/03/scaleable-or-fixed/

I am sure you have all had those moments, and I was reminded of of while writing my last kara post.

Like everyone, I have reservations about the RNG, but I must say, when the item finally drops, my body tingles with excitement, my jaw drops, I pull my headphones out of the PC jumping out of my chair in joy.

I feel sorry for that lucky bastard that got the Mongoose enchant on his 1st trip to Kara (ok, maybe not as sorry as I feel for those like me that never see it drop), because that crazy OMFG… it dropped feeling will be at least diluted, if not entirely absent.

The Sunfire drop for me was amazing, but I must admit I never expected it to drop – it’s in the league of the Mongoose formula – not expected. Therefore no disappointment when it doesn’t drop, and less excitement when it does drop.

Here’s a few examples of when something dropped for me that made my day, in some cases made my week.

Formula: Enchant Weapon – Major Spellpower, which drops from the Bash’ir Spell-Thief in Blade’s Edge Mountains. I was getting up at 5am to do some grinding on these guys for 10-30 minutes a day. I was getting up at this hour, because once my young son woke, he got all my attention. Crying baby, tends to wake sleeping Mum… and we can’t have that.

I had been doing this for nearly 2 weeks, dealing with the usual pew-pew-dead-ghost run issues. As I reached the end of my last ghost run, I hear my little boy crying – time to stop grinding. So I resurrect, and as I am turning away from the PC, I notice the loot sparkle. I am still moving towards the microwave to warm his milk as I think to myself “that sparkle wont be there when I get back”. So I hit loot and … OMFG.. It dropped! I didn’t stop talking about it for a week.

Formula: Enchant Bracer – Spellpower, which drops from Bloodmaul Geomancers in Blade’s Edge Mountains. Man this is a long grind – especially when you don’t have any Ogri’la reputation and everything is red to you. So long, that in the end I went and got the rep so I could become King and murder my subjects in peace.

If you haven’t done this grind, you may be unaware that there are 2 mobs you need to kill. The “rare” ones – Bloodmaul Geomancers – that drop the formula, and their all-too-common cousins, the Bloodmaul Skirmishers – which drop nothing… Why, well the share the same spawn point, and there seems to be a ratio of 90% Skirmishers to 10% Geomancers. You need to kill the Skirmishers to encourage the Geomancers to spawn.

This is the right thing to do.. kill all the Bloodmauls, unfortunately there are too many people that just swoop in and take the Geomancers – very very frustrating.

Anyway, I think I ground these guys for close to two months – killed hundreds of the big buggers… and no drop.

One night, when due for a Kara raid, I was stalling my mates.. “Just one more please…”. Next thing I know the summon dialogue appears… OK, I’ll kill on more then accept. Boom, Boom, Geomancer dead… OMFG… It dropped!

The last one I will talk about is the Brooch of Heightened Potential from Shadow Labyrinth. Now SL was giving us all sorts of problems. I think we spent about 2 months in there not getting far past Blackheart the Inciter. This bloody brooch never dropped, we were sharding stuff over and over because the loot list and RNG seemed stuck on the same loot.

Anyway, we take on Blackheart, and for the 1st time I survice the whole fight, and you know what’s coming… OMFG.. it dropped! The sword from Murmur was a pleasant bonus a little while later… but it just didn’t have the same build up.

What about you… Horror stories anyone?
What are your OMFG… It dropped! stories?

Gnomer and Out!

WoLK is approaching and our hard earned level 70 epics will soon be worth nothing bu the price of a shard, or small vendor change.

Arguments are erupting across the Blogsphere over “welfare epics”, whether PvE via badges or PvP via honor.

Is it worth running Kara week in week out, hitting every daily heroic to pickup the badges to buy the gear to run the raids that had the gear that isn’t as good as the gear you just bought with your badges?

Or, if you are like me and so many others, is it worth busting a gut (yeah Taurens get two) to get the badge gear so you can run the 10 man raids, or heroic instances (maybe saving 5 minutes and a wipe off the run)?

Is it worth the PvP vs. PvE rants about who deserves the gear, and if so what level of effort should be required to overuber the epeen?

I don’t know the answers I must admit (Much better at asking stupid questions than providing intelligent answers), but I must admit I feel like a rat (although some rats are bigger) on the proverbial Blizzard treadmill.

I want the gear, don’t get me wrong

I want the gear, don’t get me wrong. I am prepared to pore over spreadsheets and theory crafting forums for hours, but I don’t need the gear – theoretically I am already geared past my current (and most likely future) progression point.

In fact I wonder whether my efforts to do uber dps are becoming a constraint – am I out gearing our part-time tank? is being able to go all out for 30 seconds, then nick off to make a coffee while my aggro drops back below the tank, a limitation rather than an advantage?

I begin to wonder now, while others ponder preparations for WoLK (links below), whether I would be better off adopting a more casual attitude to go with my casual play times. Maybe spend 1-2 hours thinking about WoW outside of the game, rather than spending the rest of the week on it.

It occurred to me while reading about other’s WoLK preparations that (assuming it is released anywhere from Nov-Jan) I will be overseas, backpacking my Wife and Son around India. So even when I do return to WoW (and find the post-trip money to buy the expansion), I will potentially be 2 months behind my mates in gathering gear, reputation, levels, instances and raids.

What will my badge, honor and reputation gear grinding have amounted to then? Nothing!?!

I might as well spend the next few months grinding the Auction House

I might as well spend the next few months grinding the Auction House, so I can afford to buy myself a new set of gear every level, upgrade my enchanting and tailoring to level 450 (or whatever it is). buy my new (but for everyone else passe) mount(s).

I guess in reality, as long as I enjoy the methods for collecting the loot (or loot currency), I might as well keep on playing. Not for the loot, but for the experience – a less Loot-Whoring, more Fun-Whoring attitude.

How do you feel about this? If Blizzard released a new set of “T6″ equivalent gear tomorrow, for little more than the current badge cost – would you hardcore badge collect, or just make do until the 1st set of WoLK T7 gear comes to the market?

On a side note, does anyone know if the current badges + honor will have any value in WoLK? Would someone be better off hoarding badges for the release, or will Blizzard introduce a new loot currency. eg: platinum ice shards?

Tell me please..

• Time to relax, or rev up?
• Time to change forms to a squirrel, or though my not-considerable gnome weight (and wealth) about?

Gnomer and Out!

Other People preparing for WoLK (or not) (OK I haven’t read all these… didn’t realise there were so many until right now):

• Pink Pigtail Inn
• 35 Yards Out
• Cenarion Labs
• Hots n Dots
• Be Nameless : The Ant and the Grasshopper and Reroll for the end is at hand
• Digital Angels Online
• Resto 4 Life
• Awls Thicket
• Mama Druid
• For Teh Fite
• Draeneiaholic
• Azeroth Is Burning
• Destructive Reach
• Raid Hunter
• Naissa’s Rage
• Casual Addict
• LF3More
• Eye for An Eye
• Flameshock
• Too Many Annas
• For the Horde