Dragon Mount – Wyrmrest Accord…continued!!

When Wrath of the Lich King came out, and I created my Death Knight (oh the millions of DK’s running all over the place) – and eventually took him to Northrend it was COOL.  I had waited, since I was working on my Hunter – SELKHET, so I was familiar with Borean Tundra. 

I saw a player on a Dragon mount, while I was working on Last Rites quest chain at Temple of En’kilah and when I saw another player mounted on a Dragon – and I don’t mean nether drake I got real curious.  I mean a cool dragon like the ones we rode at Coldarra.  Some players are ignorant and when they have something unique or first, they don’t like to share the information (once I saw a player on a rainbow colored mount in Shatt…we all asked about it, and she ignored – but we knew she was there because she dismounted – mounted flew around us – showing off, etc., – need to research that).  But the player I saw in Borean Tundra was real nice, and gladly shared the information regarding the dragon mount.  He said he had worked real hard and obtained it from Wyrmrest Accord Reputation.

I was familiar with this since I had just entered Dragonblight and did some quests at the Wyrmrest Temple.  Seeing those dragons killing each other, little did I know that was a Daily quest – to earn reputation.

The mount really is a drake, it is: 

Reins of the Red Drake
Binds when picked up
Unique
Requires Level 70
Requires Riding 300
Requires The Wyrmrest Accord - Exalted
Use:  Teaches you how to summon this mount. Can only be summoned in Outland or Northrend. This is a very fast mount.

Cool Death Knight named Seduce posed for me on her mount!  LOL She is looking MIGHTY PROUD!!!!

I wanted this mount on site.  1900g + Cold Weather Flight Training (1000g) – I was planning.

The way to get reputation is:

1. Dungeon Runs
2. Questing
3. Daily Quests

Dungeon Runs

My guild, as indicated in a prior posting is quite small – 5 people now.  But close and no standard guild drama.  The cost is I don’t get to go on runs thru a lot of the cool new dungeons when I am the only level 80 – but I am patient and will help my mates level and we can do things when we can.  Meanwhile, I have other friends I can run with.  But this option is for the most part out of the picture…/sigh

Questing

In progress.  Working on completing the achievement for Dragonblight.  Seems I missed quite a few of them since I am still trying to locate the quests I missed (only have 99/115 for DRAGONBLIGHT achievement).

Daily Quests (DAILIES)

The post Dragon Daily..THIS IS SO COOL!!! identified the only daily I knew of to earn reputation.  But there are two others, one you get when entering Coldarra and the latter becomes available at level 80.  Below lists all the dailies and my notes.

Daily Name	Notes
Drake Hunt	Hunting a drake and taking it to Coldarra. Is even more fun once you have a flying mount!!
Defending Wyrmrest Temple	As indicated in the other post, my favorite daily. Hunting evil dragons and killing them on the back of a cool dragon! DRAGON WARS!!!
Aces High!	This was the hardest of them for me to do - it was on the level of Reclamation! First you do the quest Aces High! Then it becomes a daily.  It took me over an hour to kill 5 dragons, must have died 10,000 times!!! I tried the advice at wowhead.com, and thottbot.com – but it turned out for me that the Thottbot advice plus my own combination of 2 STARBUCKS ESPRESSOS did the trick!! The Thottbot poster was quite helpful: DO NOT get aggro of more than one dragon, they can occasionally hit you for over 50% of your hp.  I have found that the best place to avoid such conflict is by kiting them higher in the sky than the rest of the dragons (not too high though, they will evade). When entering combat with these elites, make sure you already have the regen (ability #3)stacked on yourself 5X. While fighting the elites, get 5 combo points, then use the dot (ability #2), then use the big heal+hot (ability #4) for all 5 point combos after that until the dot needs to be reapplied.  Then stack on another 5 regen after each heal+hot or dot and you will not die. Watch out for the Arcane Surge (this is the attack that does over 50% of you hp's damage), it has a cast bar that charges it, then a cast bar while casting it.  If you can manage to have the Flame Shield (ability #5)up before or during the cast of it, then you will take little to no damage.  This is the only time you really need to use Flame Shield, so using it any other time is pretty useless. Do this, and the fights may take a bit of time, but you won't lose your dragon.  This leads to a daily, and today was my first time attempting it, feel free to correct me if you find a better strategy :) This was great advice, and there was a following post about the actual sequence - but I found that the combos and hammering with key 1 and key 2 did the trick. The Spell he warned about ARCANE SURGE - even with the shield I still took major Damage. But like a friend said, this is the type of daily that doing it over and over makes it easier. UPDATE: I was working on the daily version tonight – seemed I forgot what I learned in making the quest successful.  But I met a cool dude named SLAIN.  He rocked on this daily, and we grouped.  He took the aggro and all I did was spam the 1 and the 4.  Which is the Fire attack and the Major Heal based on Combo Points.  I learned that I was getting combo from him.  Afterwards we talked he said that basically he broke it down as: The way to do it is hit 3-five times on yourself before you grab the dragon (Rejuvenation – lasts 8 secs), then hit 1 – five times, then 5 – one time, then 3 – one time then repeat. He made it look easy.  I will wait till the maintenance day is over and try again!!

Each of these dailies earns 250 reputation for Wyrmrest Accord.  Doing all three will get me to Exalted in no time and BA-DA BING BABY!!!  New Mount!!!

 

Technorati Tags: Dailies,Wyrmrest Temple,Dragonblight,Wyrmrest Accord

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Dragon Daily..THIS IS SO COOL!!!

I listen to audio books, and currently I am listening to Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr.  Listening to Eragon flying and fighting on Saphirra is awesome and great, and my imagination gets going.  The movie does not do the book justice at all.

Anyway, WotLK has a Daily Quest in Dragonblight at the Wyrmrest Temple named Defending Wyrmrest Temple where you mount a dragon and do battle against other dragons.  It is by far my favorite daily!

Last night was not a good run, I lost TWO dragons.  That was a first for me, but when you are shot down…you sprout a parachute!

This quest is the only way I know to get Wyrmrest Accord reputation prior to level 80.  This document contains an excellent summary of the quests for this reputation.

Technorati Tags: Dailies,Wyrmrest Temple,Dragonblight,Wyrmrest Accord

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Some Favorite Videos

If you are a MAGE then you will definitely understand this video and why it is so funny….

But my wife and sister love the following two video's... one is from WoW and the second is from EverQuest II

The bottom two video’s are crack me up…I can really relate to the “JIMMY'” video, and the “Thrall’s Cribb” is wild!!

 

Stay tuned, more to come!!

Technorati Tags: WoW,Videos

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Gold Farming…YEAH!!!

[Reprint from my other site: dotNET JEff.spaces.live.com with an update]

Technorati Tags: WoW

In MMORPG's, like everything else – there is an economy. 

In WoW, it is based on Gold.  In EverQuest, it is Plat (short for Platinum).  They all have a system, and Second Life has LINDEN DOLLARS.  Second Life's economy (and WoW's) are entering the real world…(Determining Price in Second Life).

I am not talking small amounts either.  Lets take our basic mount.  A mount is similar to an animal or conveyance a player can ride to increase their movement.

Examples of riding mounts are:

1. Horse
2. Zhevra (basically a zebra)
3. Mist Saber (looks like a Saber-toothed Tiger)
4. Summoned Horse of the Warlock or Paladin
5. Talbuck (Animal with BIG Antlers)
6. Motorcycle

Examples of Flying Mounts:

1. Drake
2. Gryphon
3. Helicopter

So, now you have a basic idea of what a mount is. Why are they so coveted?  Well in EverQuest – the Karana's took quite a long time to cross on foot. You could almost make a pot of coffee. If on a riding mount, it went very fast – or if you had SOW (Spirit of Wolf or better) – a buff that made you run very very fast for an hour or more.

In WoW – the same applies. But flying is even better, especially doing some quests where you need an epic mount with great speed to avoid being shot down.

The following table outlines the basic riding mounts and flying mounts available by level and training.  I have not gone into the faction mounts or the PVP mounts also available:

Training	Detail
Level 30 (Apprentice)	Riding mount: 100 Gold. Not Bad
Level 60 Mount (Journeyman)	Level 60, also known as the PVP Mount. 600 Gold. Now these are cool mounts. You can get them for free, if you PVP, and the PVP store has certain ones available that normal riding trainers don’t offer. Oh, BTW, YOU MUST get lower level mount training before you can get a higher mount!!! The cost isn’t the mount – its the training. Of that 600GOLD…500 is for training (depending on your reputation…but I will not go there).
Level 70 Flying Mount	UBAH Cool, a Flying Mount. 900 GOLD (800 for training, 100 for mount), and only can be used in OUTLAND! Back in the old world, land mount!
Level 70 Artisan EPIC BABY	This one looks like a big blue dragon. Now, its not just cool because of looks, but see I didn't mention speed. The Level 30 mount has a movement increase of 60%, and the Level 60 mount is 100%. The Level 70 Flying Mount increases speed by 60% SWEET EPIC increases speed by up to 280%!!! and COST: 5000 GOLD

So, there is a breakdown of costs for mounts. Remember you need all the mount training – the subtypes.  No skipping.

I am not covering costs for Potions, Armor, and tons of other stuff - ingredients, etc., that are part of the game.  These costs have ballooned a lot also.

EPIC Mount: Violet Netherwing Drake

Now earning the money for this...lets say the Violet Netherwing Drake, for the typical working person, isn't easy. Blizzard put in these quests called "Daillies" - at level 70, where you can run to earn cash. A maximum of 25 daily quests, each garnering about 15-25 GOLD. But - depending on your class, many are not soloable. Quite a few are, but some require an EPIC - to avoid being shot down (or so I am told).

So, you might have 3 hours a night, not like some of my friends who play every day, all day...and wonder why I cant do the same!!! These online folks are in their 20's also!! I really do worry for retirement....

Anyway, I figure it would take several months to earn the cash, at level 70 if you could play 3 hours a night, doing at most 10 daillies (each quest does take some time).   Excluding – raiding, and any other activities (and raids are FUN!)

The shortcut to happiness, is your GOLD FARMERS. Those people who are hated the most for ruining the economy in all the games. It used to be limited to some people doing this activity in their free time, I met a kid who paid his college tuition doing farming for gold in virtual worlds. But now, its a cottage industry…

According to estimates, around 100,000 people in China are employed as gold farmers, as of December 2005. Chinese gold farmers typically work twelve hour shifts, and sometimes up to eighteen hour shifts. Wages depend heavily on location and the size of the gold-farming company. One gold-farming operation in Chongqing in central China with 23 gold farmers was reported to pay its employees the equivalent of about 120 U.S. dollars per month, while workers at a larger gold farm in Fuzhou earn the equivalent of about 250 U.S. dollars per month. The rising prevalence of gold farming has led to the creation of gold-farm brokerages.

This new industry is making the game no fun.  I think the following video captures many players sentiment on the matter.  It is a funny machinima video about it, called "Ni Hao" - a disparaging term about gold farmers.

Insulting, probably – accurate – well….

I mean, costs in the Auction House have skyrocketed for many reasons, and the only way most people can afford anything is to have some serious cash now.  Every high-level (a person at level 70) makes a twink (a low-level character, geared to the max in great gear) for fun, and now even a twink is costing a lot more.

I am one of the players that hate, loathe the farmers and I think ONCE in a great while I will use them.  So I am part of the problem.  SIGH!  There must be a lot of players like me, a lot of people are making a ton of cash.

.

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What Is It with all these CRAP QUESTS!!!

In Hellfire there is a quest “Shizz Work” to take an animal and when you kill a HellBoar – he will eat the remains afterwards you are to search thru the “leavings” for some keys. Leavings being another word for CRAP!!

At Honor Hold there is a quest “Fei Fei’s Treat” to give some dog named Fei Fei a bone and hope they will lead you to where they buried some item. It is of course a pile of crap…

In Nagrand, the quest “A Rare Bean”

You are ill-equipped to face the restless elements of Nagrand. Before you can help the Earthen Ring, you must help yourself.

To the west you will find dung heaps left behind by the wildlife of Nagrand. You must search the dung for the digested remnants of the Nagrand caracoli. From this bean I am able to make a tablet that will aid you in your battle against the restless forces of nature.

Return to me when you have collected no less than two fists worth of caracoli... Ogre sized fists.

– it reminded me of Kope Luwak Coffee Beans.

Finally Wrath of the Lich King is released and of course we get another crap quest in Grizzly Hills. This one is not a DIG thru it one, but go to the OUTHOUSE and CRAP a ring out your rear-end!!!

DOING YOUR DUTY

I think the names of the quest rewards are appropriate too..

Rancid Signet

Mildly Tarnished Ring

Fetid Loop

The sound is quite comical – but it made me wonder what was on these guys minds to have so many quests oriented around crap!!

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War of Words between Blizzard and Mythic…

Technorati Tags: Mythic Entertainment,Blizzard Entertainment,Warhammer vs WoW

According to www.gamesindustry.biz, a Game Networking site for the Gaming Industry – soon after WarHammer Online was released by Mythic Entertainment comments by Blizzard COO Paul Sams stated the following:

"We've certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we've seen some amount of reduction of use," he said in an exclusive interview published today.

"The good news is that we've seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving - they've already returned."

Sams said he was surprised that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had a rocky start in Europe, but server troubles and registration hiccups are part and parcel of the MMO business.

"It surprises me because Mythic is a very good company and it doesn't surprise me at the same time because it's really hard, what they're trying to do and what we've done," commented Sams.

"We respect those guys over there a lot and certainly wish them well to succeed but having registration troubles, having server troubles, these are things that come with the territory when you're talking about managing a game as big as World of Warcraft or Warhammer or anything like that. So, it's not a surprise because it is really difficult."

This was followed up in a later statement by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime during an investor conference call stating that

Speaking to investors during the Activision-Blizzard earnings conference call, Morhaime revealed that research done by the company on players leaving World of Warcraft indicated that they were returning in advance of the MMOs latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

"Even though the quarter was book-ended by competitors in the MMO space, the World of Warcraft subscriber base continued to grow," said Morhaime, according to Seeking Alpha.

"To date, 68 per cent of the players who listed Age of Conan as their reason for cancellation and 46 per cent of the players who listed Warhammer as their reason for cancellation have reactivated their subscriptions to World of Warcraft."

Mythic’s CEO Mark Jacob’s took issue with Sam’s comments

"One thing about MMOs is that people play multiple games," asserted Jacobs. "That's one of the reasons I was very surprised by Paul's comments. He knows that people may play WoW and they'll play WAR and maybe even a third game at the same time."

He added: "Any comment along the lines of 'well if they're in my game they're not playing in another game,' flies in the face of all research that's been done among MMO players… The idea that you only play one is really kind of silly."

I personally fall into the category outlined by Mr. Jacob’s and play both games.  So, WoW is quite wrong – at least with regard to me.  I find WAR to be unique and a stimulating change from the easy, experience of WoW.  WAR reminds me of the challenges that EverQuest used to present – whereas WoW is easy fun, not nearly as challenging but fun, and doesn't cause carpal tunnel!!

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Blizzard Maintenance Days….LAME

Technorati Tags: Maintenance Days,Blizzard,SOE,Warhammer,Downtime

I work in the computer industry, and it amazes me how all these game companies have the same outage period on the same day of the week for maintenance.  I started playing MMORPGs in EverQuest, and when Sony Online Entertainment bought Verdant (not sure this was for the better), we had regular maintenance on Tuesdays from 5:AM to 11:AM Pacific Time.

When I went to Star Wars Galaxies, they had the same schedule.  Now this should not be a big surprise since the hosting company was still SOE.  But when Blizzard introduced World of Warcraft, it amazed me they had the exact same schedule.

With regard to WarHammer Online, I have only noted one update of the servers but there may have been more.  That update did occur on a Tuesday but not at the same time. 

Since Blizzard introduced Wrath of the Lich King, the Maintenance period has increased.  Now it starts at 3:AM until 11:AM, with no explanation.  Blizzard is not very good when it comes to providing feedback to the customer.  I think they expect the customer to take it.  That is not a god position, since I know many people don’t have a lot of time for the game and value the time they can play.  One day their outage went into the evening hours, no explanation nothing.

What Happened to Blizzard “No-Downtime Goal”?

In December of 2006, a Blizzard Employee posted the following:

Since the game’s release, one of our most important service goals has been to reduce the amount of time realms are down for weekly realm maintenance.

The various hardware upgrades and retrofits we’ve done over the past year have put us in a position to begin testing the ability to go longer than a week between maintenance periods. In the upcoming weeks, we will be testing the effect of a live maintenance, where regular maintenance tasks are run during off-peak with realms live.

On Tuesday, December 26 there will be no scheduled downtime for weekly maintenance. We will perform all necessary maintenance tasks while the realms are live. We are anticipating the possibility that we may need to perform rolling restarts off-peak if we find that a realm restart is necessary; however the downtime for each realm would be less than 10 minutes if it was required.

I guess they missed the mark on this!

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I Do Love ICECROWN…

Technorati Tags: WoW,Lich King,Icecrown Citadel

The WotLK Release is really different from the Burning Crusade release.  There are so many “events” – starting at the creation of a Death Knight (Hero Class), and it continues through every zone in Northrend.

But, when I was sent to Icecrown – I really loved that.  It started with the simple quest giver in Dalaran, who sent me to see another Commander at the Flight Master area (similar to how they send you to Sholazar Basin).  But they put you on this rickety helicopter that then lands, on a flying ship.

THAT WAS COOL.  I mean this ship has a full crew, and adjacent to it is another ship with – only full of Horde. 

Spooncraft has the following post “As Promised; Spotlight on the Airships over Icecrown Glacier” – lots of pics and details on the Airships themselves.

The Black Gates of Icecrown Citadel remind me of Lord of the Rings and the Black Gate of Mordor

Black Gates of Icecrown Citadel	Black Gate of Mordor

Blizzard did an excellent job of capturing a dark evil place, full of power and foreboding that makes the player feel like they are there.  What is even better is that you don’t have to be part of an UBER (old EverQuest terminology) guild to go!  You can solo quite a bit of it.  This makes a big difference to me since I am the only lvl 79 in my guild of 5 LOL.  But that is a story for another day!

I dinged level 79 so fast, I slowed down – because I don’t want to hit level 80 and the fun to be over.  I mean, I recall what happened when I hit level 70 – I hate faction or reputation grinding, I like questing and leveling.  But it must come to an end.  The only thing I do now on my lvl 79 is the daily cooking quest and the daily Wyrmrest Dragon quest.  I do want that Dragon Mount!!

Back to Icecrown.  I am still exploring this area, I have only done maybe 20 quests here.  Getting used to flying to a gunship took a bit of time.  To my friends without a flying mount..you cannot go here unless you have it.  I mean there are mobs on ledges you cannot reach without a mount, in fact the first quest is to disable the Lich King’s Ocular [Quest: It’s All Fun and Games] – which is mounted atop the Citadel.  The use of the item [The Eyesore Blaster] states it can be used while mounted.

Icecrown has a lot.  I have only begun to explore it, but I did come across this video for a Horde quest which might give a visual indication of what is in this zone.

Enjoy!!

The video is for the Horde quest The Battle for Undercity.

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